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intheshadowofwar · 1 year ago

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25 June 2023

Consigned to the Deep

Gallipoli 25 June 2023

The battleships that made up Admiral John de Robeck’s fleet on the 18th of March 1915 weren’t really the apex of the British and French navies. Apart from the ultra-modern Queen Elizabeth, a ‘super-dreadnought’ with fifteen inch guns, and the battlecruiser Inflexible, the fleet was a bit like entering a fleet of VW Beetles into a V8 Supercars race at Bathurst. These old battlewagons - ‘pre-dreadnoughts,’ as they predated the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought which was faster, hardier and better armed then all that came before her - were elderly, almost geriatric in naval terms. The French Bouvet dated back to 1893.

Nevertheless, even old battleships can make a considerable impression when one has eighteen of them, and on that March day, de Robeck hoped to utilise his apparently superior firepower to blast the Turkish forts covering the ‘Narrows,’ while civilian ships swept the mines blocking his path. Once through the Dardanelles, he would be into the Sea of Mamara, with only the German-crewed battlecruiser Yavuz, formerly Goeben, between his fleet and the Bosphorous. They would place Constantinople under the guns and force the surrender of the Ottoman Empire.

It is this day that the Turkish people commemorate - not the 25th of April. Here, the Ottoman defenders in the forts and on the howitzers covering the Narrows stared down the might of the most powerful navies in the world and held them off. Precious battleships were badly damaged, as was Inflexible. Bouvet hit a mine and was lost with all but seventy-five of her crew. HMS Ocean, moving to assist, was struck by shellfire and further mines and had to be abandoned, as was HMS Irrestable. Far from an easy victory, the Naval Battle of the Dardanelles had become an expensive setback.

In truth, the British were breaking a key rule of naval warfare, one set down by Lord Nelson himself - ‘a ship’s a fool to fight a fort.’ You do not send your ship to fight a gunnery duel with fortifications - that is what your marines are for. Like everything else about this squalid campaign, the effort of the 18th of March was doomed. This does not invalidate the bravery of the Turks, nor does it denigrate their performance, particularly in quickly moving artillery to protect it from naval gunfire. It’s simply another example of the almost criminally haphazard planning of the operation.

This was a very longwinded way to tell you that I crossed the Narrows today, isn’t it?

The town of Canakkale sits on the Asian side of the Dardanelles - the Gallipoli Peninsula is on the European side, on that little bit of Turkey that borders Greece and Bulgaria. (This was actually important during the war - the entry of Bulgaria into the war on Germany’s side in October 1915 was one of the last nails in the coffin of the Gallipoli campaign, and troops were now sent to join the even more idiotic campaign at Salonika in Greece.) To get there from Gallipoli, one has to cross via car ferry, which gives excellent views of the landscape around the Narrows. If you listen carefully as you look at the preserved forts, you can hear Nelson rolling in his grave.

We reached the Asian side of the Dardanelles around 9.30 and drove a little way out of town to the (alleged) site of Troy. (I say ‘alleged’ of course because we don’t really know if this is actually, or if Troy actually existed. My theory is that Homer conflated a number of towns and conflicts into ‘Troy’ and ‘the Trojan War.’ Or he might have just been wrong - Homers aren’t known for being smart.) My verdict on the site? Well, there’s bricks. There’s holes. There’s bricks in holes. There was definitely a city here once, but most of what we can say about it is educated guesswork. So I looked at these bricks, I said ‘yep,’ and then I went to the cafe and had an ice cream. That was my adventure in Troy - my Troy Story, if you will.

(I’ve always preferred Woodyseus to Oddyseus anyway.)

We returned to Cannakkale and were unleashed upon the town for a few hours, so naturally I found a naval museum. This is based around an old fort that dates from the reign of Mehmet the Conquerer - the fifteenth century sultan who captured Constantinople and destroyed the last remnant of the Eastern Roman Empire. The grounds now serve as a staging post for an eclectic mix of naval and land artillery, mines, torpedoes and even the skeleton of a First World War German U-Boat, recovered from the deep. There’s also a fibreglass replica of the minesweeper Nusret, but quite alarmingly I couldn’t find it. I sincerely hope the museum remembered to tie it up, or it might be halfway to Malta by now.

Inside the keep is a Turkish museum about the Gallipoli campaign. It isn’t terribly modest, and I noted a few errors (a diorama of W Beach seems to be mislabelled as V Beach), but it didn’t strike me as too odd to see a museum in which ‘we’ are the bad guys. If one changed the word ‘martyred’ for ‘sacrified,’ and the word ‘Turkish’ for ‘Anzac,’ this could be a wing in an Australian museum. There was also a little more music than a comparable museum in Australia - at least for now, the last thing we want to do is give the AWM ideas. (I remember the First World War gallery having this sad song playing over the exit for a while - it was meant to be evocative, but all it really evoked was the sensation of having your eardrums blasted out any time you dared to go near the 1918 section. It was the equivalent of having Brendan Nelson smash you over the head with a shovel while screaming at you to feel ‘proud but sad.’)

We headed back to Gallipoli at around 4pm. I rested for a while. Maddi did not, as she and our professor reconnitered Rhododendron Ridge to test it’s viability for a group walk. We had meant to do Walker’s Ridge, but erosion in that area has become so great that it barely exists anymore, and walking it in any numbers would have been impossible. Rhododendron, the path the New Zealanders walked to Chunuk Bair, was the alternative, and the scout party found it workable. Maddi’s reward was to go right back to Chunuk Bair, join the group, and do it all again.

Our professor, I must add, is about sixty-seven years old. He has the energy of someone a tenth of his age. This leads to the absurd image of a mild-mannered bespectacled man with grey hair leaping and bounding over the most precarious ground ahead of a whole group of exhausted, sweaty twenty-somethings who can’t navigate a small bump in the track without slowing to a crawl. He would be standing on the narrowest, wildest part of the trail, motioning us forward as if we were strolling the Strand, and I’d be fifty meters back contemplating calling for a surgeon to saw off both my legs.

The walk, arduous though it was, was absolutely stunning, with amazing views of Monash Valley, the Nek, and out towards both Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay. It’s littered with the detritus of the campaign - we found a button from an Australian soldier’s tunic and a rum bottle buried in the ground. Both of these we left. Our professor is of the opinion that the relics found at Gallipoli should stay where they were found. I’m personally conflicted. I think some of this should be preserved so that they don’t simply rust away, but I’m also aware that - as Bean himself said - the whole of Gallipoli is one massive grave, and perhaps taking them to a museum could be considered grave-robbing. I suppose it depends on your morals.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention our scout here - Lance-Corporal Nigel, who journeyed with us all the way from Chunuk Bair to the sea.

We ended at the Embankment Cemetary, returned to the bus, and headed back to base. My feet hurt and I think I’ll be picking brambles out of my socks for days (even accounting for my wearing of cargo pants), but I’m very glad I did the walk. I think ordeal is often a part of visiting battlefields - if they could fight here, the least we can do is shed a little sweat. But my body yearns for a soft bed, and I can no longer deny it, so we’ll leave this for tonight here.

#first world war #trojan war #troy #gallipoli #study tour #cannakkale

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biglisbonnews · 2 years ago

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Why Fashion People Are Wearing Belts in the Most Chaotic Way Possible Belts worn as barely-there tops and makeshift corsets are the latest subversive fashion trend to hit both the fashion mainstream. Typically used for functionality, the leather belt strap is now being experimented with in a provocative, post-ironic way.When Miu Miu debuted their viral schoolgirl uniform sets with major midriff, part of the novelty lied with their belted crop tops. Haphazard belts and zippers were a major focal point at Louis Vuitton's Spring 2023 show, whether they were worn like braless corsets or styled around bare waists à la Carrie Bradshaw. And Diesel's unforgettable belt-mini skirt sparked online debate when a TikToker went viral for being unable to sit in the skirt.Related | Louis Vuitton's Models Wore Belts Cinched Around Their Bare Waists Indeed, it seems belts are being strapped in every which direction, except to hold up a pair of pants.For the CFDA Awards, Briana Andalore styled Richie Shazam in a high-waisted Luar maxi skirt with a singular leather belt buckle strap as a bra top. "I love everything Luar does, but the top that came with the look just wasn't scandalous enough," Andalore tells PAPER, adding that she took inspiration form '80s power suits. "It gives a no fucks attitude and you can find so many amazing vintage belts. I love Western scorpion ones.”Singer-songwriter Rina Sawayama has also sported belts as tops for several occasions and magazine spreads. “I love how it creates a sense of innovation from a product that on its own could be boring but by using them in a different way we can create a whole different garment," says Sawayama's stylist Jordan Kelsey. Kelsey notes the influence of the '90s on how belts are being styled, “whether they were low-rider hip belts of '90s Blumarine, grungier and punk styles of Vivienne Westwood or '90s Alaïa waist belts." See on Instagram Emerging designers are also experimenting with belts in their designs. EMEERREE created the Gabardine Corset Mini Dress which features a simple statement belt over the chest. Their creative director, Aaron Moreno, says that they are in a moment where "consuming sustainably is important, so we are seeing people experiment with clothing and accessories.” For Hodakova’s debut Spring 2023 collection, the show featured entire sets and dresses made out of layered leather buckle belts. The Swedish designer specializes in a Buckle Belt Baguette Bag that continues to be sold out. “Belts are the perfect combination between out-dated and trendy, sexy and goofy, practical and uncomfortable, just like bras," says Ellen Hodakova Larsson of the strappy accessory.Designer Tianjia Hu, who's influenced by S&M culture, makes specialty leather jackets out of belt buckles with straps. Hu says that she likes challenging the rules of fashion. “Leather is a very sexy material,” she says, noting that leather belts and gloves "are kind of metaphor for sexuality and fetish.” The trend is especially prevalent within the DIY communities on Fashion TikTok. Content creator Myra Magdalen, 25, has a cult following for how she styles everything from old television sets to baby heads on her body. Recently, Magdalen posted herself layered in an outfit entirely made out of side-release buckle straps. “When I was putting together this look I was going for something sort of in the cyberpunk grunge aesthetic especially in regards to the buckles,” she explains. “Belts are easy to find at thrift and second-hand stores and they are adjustable so they make for a great and easy accessory to style in new ways.” See on Instagram Belts were created for functionality during the Bronze Age, specifically for military and utilitarian purposes. Now in the 21st century, the belt is shifting into post-ironic fashion. “The cool thing about fashion is that it’s often in a tug of war with itself between being functional and being art," says Magdalen. "And I think styling belts in a way that completely negates that original purpose and just for the sake of art and self expression is kind of a brilliant example of that.”Content creator Jaquelyn James, also known as @portal.grl, also experiments with leather belts, turning them into layered and braless corsets. “My inspiration for layering belts in unconventional styling comes from working with limited resources,” she says. "For me, it’s [about] how I can take this basic belt from Zara and turn it into something no one could be wearing.” See on Instagram As a creator, James shares the pressure that comes with being ahead of trends. “There is an underlying pressure that comes with being creative, especially in the fashion space, to always be wearing something new, never repeating the same outfit. When you have four belts, five pairs of jeans and 10 t-shirts, you have to turn the belts into a corset, the jeans into a skirt, the shirts into a dress. Innovation is the only way I could live with myself in the URL."Whether a belt is styled as a bra or a braless corset, the haphazard, eccentric styling trend quickly serves sex appeal without looking further than a Goodwill bin. https://www.papermag.com/belt-fashion-trend-2659336023.html

#Belts #Maria Poggi #PAPER

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 2 years ago

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Forbidden Lessons XI

Masterlist

Back to work. Happy Monday.

Warnings: noncon, age gap, abuse of power, coercion. Y'all know I do it dark and spicy. You have warnings, use them.

Thots, comments, screaming, and feedback are welcome and highly encouraged. Thank you! Please reblog if you can.

Time drifts like the snow outside. Slow and without order. You can't keep track, late for class for the first time in your college career.

You stumble in ten minutes after the hour, keeping your head down as Professor Barnes hardly breaks stride.

His sonorous voice carries around the large space, an explanation of technical advances in tanks during the Second World War. He makes even the most tedious interest. He has experience, he assures often, gesturing comically to his pinned sleeve against his left shoulder. He is unbothered by the lost limb, at least that's how he plays it.

You squirm in your chair, forgetting to open your notebook until the half-hour mark, then doodling rather than scribing on the lined sheets. Your mind keeps wandering, eyes glazing over with another wave of self-pitying tears.

You look down at the haphazard doodle. It's unmistakable despite the amateur imperfections; it's Professor Laufeyson and his imperious stare. You scribble it out and put your pen flat, making an effort to focus on the figure at the front. He flips to a new slide, a contrast of armour of a Sherman and a Tiger.

You hide your frown behind your fist, leaning on your elbow. You can't help peek around. Students sit in pairs and trios, you're certain you're the only lone body among those shambling bodies. Months and all you've done is fuck everything up.

Dumb, foolish! Laufeyson may have hoodwinked you but you let him. He's right, you're not a child. You're an adult and you let him do what he did. You went up to that hotel…

You give a start as a grumble rolls through the rows. Students stand slowly, yawning and tucking away laptops, tablets, and phones. You stay seated, waiting for the rush to thin before you rise.

You turn your back to the front as you close up your notebook and slip it into your knapsack. Like a zombie, you snap the flap shut and hook it over your shoulder. You watch your boots as you walk the slight curve of the row and stop short as someone waits at the end.

Professor Barnes gives a smile, or what he can manage through his chiseled and steady expression. You meet his bright eyes before looking away. You remember that first class when Laufeyson approached you, how pleading and pathetic he made himself seem.

"I wanted to make sure you were okay," Barnes says, "yesterday, you–"

"Like I said, I messed up an assignment," you lie towards the floor.

He hums doubtfully, "alright, well, I only wanted to do my due diligence. I know it's late in the semester and academic anxiety is a very real thing. You have my office hours but uh…" he reaches into his pocket, flipping open his wallet in his hand, sliding out a card with just his thumb as he turns it towards you, "student support services. They might be a bit busy but there's a helpline chat."

"Professor," you say, ashamed. Was it so obvious that you're a mess? That you're weak? "Thank you."

You reAch to take the card from atop his open wallet and he swiftly snaps it shut and tucks it away.

"You were late. You're never late," he comments.

"I'm sorry, professor," you read the card waiting for him to move.

"No, it's fine, I just… you see why I'm concerned, right?"

"Sure," you shrug, "um, can I go?"

"Oh, sh…oot, sorry," he steps back and down a step as he pivots, "wasn't tryna block you in."

"It's okay," you eke out as you pass him cautiously.

"You gonna use that?" He asks as you put the card in your jacket pocket.

"I'll try," you answer noncommittally, "thanks."

"No problem," he says wistfully, "you'll get through it. Whatever it is. You know, it's just school."

You nod and give a half-hearted wave over your shoulder as you descend the aisle. Will you get through it? How can you? Everything feels so gray and you don't think there's any colour left in you.

💚

You miss Laufeyson's class. Skip it, truly. You can't bring yourself to go, to face him again. You'll get the review from the course site and save your courage, what little you have, for the exam.

The three-hour block you should be spending in his lecture hall, you wile away restlessly. Pacing, thinking, crying. He never cared for you so why do you feel this way? Get over it.

You're not entirely dumb. You know that sex isn't love. He never said love, did he?

You throw up your lunch, the most you've eaten in the last two weeks. You can't go on like this.

Your stomach is sour and empty. You check the time. Class is over, it's late. You need food, you haven't even gone to the grocery.

You grab your coat and slip into your heavy boots. Your phone jitters, an unusual event. It's your mother. Her singular call of the semester.

You don't answer. You know what she'll ask; how's school? You can't tell her it's miserable. Not that she'd care. She likely has something to brag about after all the niceties.

You huff as you lock your door behind you and shove your jingling keys in your small satchel. The stairs have you dizzy from turning down the flights, the frigid air outside adding to your disorienting. You breathe out a cloud of warm air, watching it puff before you.

You turn down the lane but nearly fall on the patch of ice as a figure stands on the other side of the light pole. You're dreaming, you have to be. A walking nightmare in Professor Laufeyson.

"There you are," he greets flatly.

"Professor–"

"What did you tell him?"

"Tell who?" You blink.

"Don't play stupid with me, girl. You didn't attend my class then I receive a visit from one James Barnes, a most unusual presence in my lecture hall."

"I didn't… I didn't tell him anything."

"He seems overly concerned with you," he accuses.

"I swear, I haven't told anyone… I don't have anyone to tell."

"Best keep it that way," he points his slender finger down at you, "do you understand me? I could have you expelled for spreading slander."

"I wouldnt– but you–"

"I haven't any care what you do, with him or otherwise, but you leave my name out of it. I have a reputation unlike some stupid slut like you."

You sputter and bluster as the cold air nips your nose, "please leave me alone," you sniffle.

"Gladly," he snorts and checks his watch, "I do have a rather important appointment pending, she would hate to be kept waiting."

You seal your lips and stare at him, waiting. He marches past you, knocking you gruffly with his arm. You stand still, not daring to look back before heading off in the opposite direction.

You'll have to speak with Professor Barnes. To end it. You need it to be over. You need to forget.

You need to eat.

#dark loki #loki #dark!loki #loki x reader #bucky barnes #forbidden lessons #professor!loki #professor!bucky #drabble #dark drabble #dark!drabble #ask drabble #series #mcu #marvel

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goodbyenorthernlights · 2 years ago

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some thoughts on white magic

From what I’ve gathered, Slayers, particularly the original light novel continuity, has had a somewhat haphazard approach to worldbuilding, with a fair share of making-things-up-as-you-go and retconning. This isn’t really a big deal imo, but it has led to some confusing bits. In particular, I’m thinking about “white magic.”

So in the Slayers continuity, white magic refers to spells that heal, protect, and can exorcize evil spirits. It is considered distinct from shamanistic magic (which is basically your standard elemental magic) and black magic, which is destructive and curse magic.

Now, magic in this setting works by calling upon the power of outside sources. Shamanistic magic calls upon the powers of vaguely defined forces of nature, whereas black magic calls upon the powers of the mazoku. From this, one can reasonably assume that white magic calls upon the powers of the gods, or shinzoku, the beings that are the mazoku’s antithesis.

This is not the case; it is holy magic that calls upon the shinzoku. Furthermore, holy magic is unusable in the part of the world Lina and company’s story takes place in, due to the events of the Koma War.

So what the hell is white magic? According to Hajime Kanzaka, the author of the light novels, it’s just another branch of shamanistic magic. This tends to throw some people off because in canon it’s still treated as something separate from shamanistic magic. So here’s my personal take on the relationship between holy magic and white magic.

First, I imagine that, in-universe, the classification of white magic is still a source of confusion. White magic is mostly known for healing spells but also for things like exorcism, and I think there are a lot of arguments at the Sorcerer’s Guild about if this white magic spell or that white magic spell should actually be classified as astral magic or water magic or this or that, and that there may be some people in favor of eliminating white magic as a classification entirely.

In real life, after all, the taxonomy of natural things like animals, plants, planets, etc. often turns complicated and vague if you look into it. For instance, the term “vegetable” is not actually a real botanical classification.

There is, however, a cultural perception of white magic as being separate from normal shamanistic magic and the reason for this is because white magic was originally developed specifically as a replacement for holy magic.

Recall the earlier mention of the Koma War: During the war, Shabranigdu’s subordinates specifically went around desecrating the temples of Aqualord Ragradia and killing her priests, as well as isolating the region within an impassible magic barrier. Once Aqualord Ragradia was killed holy magic became impossible to use and very few practitioners of that magic- particularly among humans- and records of that magic would have survived. Not to mention it’s a plot point that, even 1,000 years later, the mazoku Xellos is still going around destroying records of magical knowledge from that time period.

Prior to this destruction the tradition of holy magic likely served a very important cultural purpose both spiritually and practically and its loss would have been a serious wound to the people of the peninsula. There are a lot of ways people respond to a major loss like that and in my headcanon white magic was basically developed as an attempt to rebuild those lost practices and traditions, starting from the framework of what people remembered about holy magic and searching for an alternate power source for their healing and exorcism spells.

Of course, since it’s been a thousand years since the original Koma War, white magic has inevitably evolved from its original role as a specific replacement for holy magic. There are white magic spells that don’t cleanly map onto holy magic spells and there are holy spells that were basically lost forever without a white magic equivalent ever being developed. The average layperson is probably only vaguely-aware-at-most of the difference and connection between holy and white magic.

Still, the cultural perception of white magic as being of the gods has remained, along with it being commonly practiced by devotees of Cepheid and Ragradia. Technically white magic is neutral in nature but in society as a whole it serves the same function as holy magic and the associations that have become built into it (as well as the usual motivations of the priestly casters) are enough to make white magic repulsive to mazoku- creatures easily influenced and defined by thoughts- even if it’s not strictly antithetical to them the way holy magic is and was.

tl;dr “white magic” is holy magic in terms of how it’s perceived but technically shamanistic magic in terms of where it draws power from.

#headcanons #slayers

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daswarschonkaputt · 2 years ago

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are you still taking requests for dvd commentary of a fic scene? could you do apias chapter 19, the opening scene with jiraiya, oro and the sandaime?

oh yeah, ofc sure!!

[quickly takes off my kinnporsche hat and puts on my naruto one]

under the cut so i don't bore people with my rambling, haha.

Orochimaru’s lip curls as he props himself up languidly on one of Sensei’s couches. “Welcome home Jiraiya,” he says, voice smooth and mocking. “Done with your penance already?”

So, like, this first line was one of the very first things I had written for this chapter. In fact, this entire first scene had been sitting in my drafts since before I wrote chapter 18. I rewrote the entire scene, like, five times before I finished the chapter, getting all my ducks in a row.

This is actually referencing something that we'll find out a bit more about later on. I have in-depth plans regarding what the sannin got up to during the war, and how everything ended up fracturing. (Basically, Jiraiya was involved in something a little fucked up during the war, that he sort of blames himself for. There were originally going to be way more references to this throughout the chapter, but they got cut for flow reasons.)

The job of this scene is to establish the byplay between Jiraiya, Orochimaru and the Sandaime, and sort of set-up the state of their relationship. (Which comes back again at the end of the chapter.)

“I’d gathered,” Orochimaru says flatly. “We’re one person short for a Team Hiruzen reunion.” [...] Sensei reacts with the same nonchalance that he’s always carried when faced with Orochimaru’s spite. “That is, in fact, the issue,” he says.

So here we have a cornerstone of the Orochimaru and Sandaime dynamic: Orochimaru snipes, and the Sandaime doesn't react at all. There was actually a line from earlier in the scene that got cut that might explain this better -- Jiraiya says, "The only way to survive Orochimaru's brutal words is to hide the fact that he's ever managed to draw blood at all." Or something to that tune. Essentially, this is a powerplay from Hiruzen -- Orochimaru can't do much more than say mean things, because Hiruzen is Hokage, and so Hiruzen is just pretending that those mean things don't effect him at all.

Sensei taps his pipe against the edge of his desk, flecks of smouldering ash falling down onto the floor. His movements are measured, slow and relaxed. A powerplay, of sorts – he knows he can afford to make you wait.

This is one of my favourite lines in the chapter, lol. It's so fun to write this scene from Jiraiya's POV as opposed to Orochimaru, because Jiraiya is very neutral about all the ways the Sandaime uses to display his power and subtly keep them in line, but you just know that internally, Orochimaru is fucking fuming.

It's an impression that matched with what he read of her sealing style – concise, elegant, and subtly brilliant. Never a wasted stroke. Compared with Jiraiya’s haphazard scrawling, the difference was stark.

So, this bit here is referring to Mito, and her sealing style. It exists to establish that Jiraiya did not learn his sealing technique from Mito -- he's mostly self-taught -- and establish this idea that your sealing technique reflects your personality. (In a following chapter, we get to have Jiraiya's perspective on Minato's sealing technique, so we've got to lay the groundwork here.)

The other bit of groundwork laid here is the idea that Mito didn't have all that much interest in Jiraiya's fuuinjutsu. This hasn't been revealed yet, because it turns out the scene I'm thinking of is at the start of ch 21 not 20, but whatever. I do what I want. On the topic of Minato, someone says, "Look, Minato I get. He’s not your average floater genin. Heck, Mito-sensei even sort of likes him." Mito-sensei likes Minato, and she likes how Minato writes seals -- there's a reason Minato was there when she had her stroke.

On the outside, it’s a simple request. From their view within, Jiraiya knows it’s anything but. “I…” he starts. “There are some contacts, I could lean on, who might have some ideas. She won’t have left Fire Country, not with the price on her head after the war. And, well, with her habits, there should be some sort of trail I can follow.” He inhales. “When do you want me to leave?” Orochimaru says nothing. They both know it has to be him.

So, obviously, this is referencing the complicated relationship between Orochimaru and Tsunade, that we get a bit more context for later on in the chapter:

Anyone else would probably believe him. But Jiraiya had been there, the day they put Nawaki to rest. He’d been there when Orochimaru had put his head on the floor, and begged Tsunade for forgiveness. He’d been the one to pick Orochimaru up off the floor when Tsunade slapped him so hard his left eye swelled shut.

Tsunade and Orochimaru have a grudge between them that Orochimaru acknowledges was his fault (lowkey a huge deal given Orochimaru's... everything), involves Nawaki (Tsunade's dead little brother), and is so awful that Tsunade slapped him when he tried to apologise. Oh, and it has something to do with why Orochimaru doesn't want to be a jounin-sensei. Hmm. Wonder what could be going on there. Truly, a mystery for the ages.

Sensei takes in another deep inhale from his pipe. “That,” he says, “is where things get a little complicated.”

So, this is the last line of the scene, and things deliberately cut off there so that I didn't have to explain all the wild political scheming going on. We obviously get one puzzle piece for this with Jiraiya and Orochimaru at the bar:

Orochimaru doesn’t do anything as plebian as flinch. He pours himself another cup of sake. “Jounin-sensei get to pick their teams. I presume Sensei is extending you the same courtesy?” “Yeah,” Jiraiya says.

And then another bit at the end of the chapter:

“We are not broke – yet. On the second matter, I have been very reliably informed that the daimyo will not support another war,” Sensei says calmly.

But there's a lot more going on than just that. One of the things about Sarutobi Hiruzen, and writing him in this fic, is that he has schemes within schemes. You see this very much this chapter -- he lets Jiraiya and Orochimaru in on something, and then lets Jiraiya in on another, later, secretly. The way I write Hiruzen is as a dyed-in-the-wool politician. He's clever and he's scheming. Jiraiya, at least, is convinced of his sensei's benevolence beneath that -- he still has faith. Orochimaru is somewhat more disillusioned.

Some more general things to with this scene:

We start the chapter off in Jiraiya's POV, because it's important that the readers get a feel for what he's like, how his brain works, before we see Megumi's POV on him next chapter -- and as such, can choose how much of what she sees to believe.

I wanted Jiraiya to feel like a plausible spymaster, without making him cold and manipulative. He's genial, and friendly, and he gets on with people and even builds genuine relationships with them -- but he's also got a head for secrets, and he ferrets them out with relative ease.

Orochimaru is the kind of person who would orchestrate a six-month long seduction of someone to get access to an office to steal a file. Jiraiya is the kind of person who'd just have a mate who could slip it to him. Friends in every city, essentially.

So, like, one of the things this chapter is how much are the characters saying? What aren't they saying and why? Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Hiruzen all wear masks for different purposes. Jiraiya's interesting, because what he hides first and foremost is his intelligence. You see it a little, at the end of the chapter -- the mask comes off. Jiraiya lays his cards on the table for his teacher.

Basically, when you chose that scene for the commentary, my brain went, huh. yeah. okay. i see why.

There's a lot going on with Jiraiya this chapter. But, in the interests of not spoiling the entire arc, I'm trying to be as general as possible here. Let's just say there was a lot of set-up here.

#asked and answered #i don't know how helpful this is going to be lol #so much of the stuff that goes unsaid in this scene goes unsaid bc of spoilers #this arc is kind of a transition arc where minato starts to become more circumspect on like #an international and political level #in the uchiha azusa arc you see minato find out shit abt clan politics and then immediately go #''okay. time to put this in a box and not touch it.''#i'm very excited for minato and jiraiya to like. become mentor and student.#very much a case of unstoppable social skills meets immovable social awkwardness #forgot to add fic tags whoops #fic: apias

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the-busy-ghost · 2 years ago

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How Not to Get Stripped Screws Out of a Door - A Diary Entry

I have no DIY experience beyond painting a wall (yes, just 1 wall) last year. I’m also a coward who left her walls white in the new house, but thought I could compensate by dressing up my doors a little bit. A nice easy project, involving a straightforward switch of door handles, some paint, and maybe a nice coat hook if I’m feeling ambitious. Barely even DIY.

Unfortunately the screws on one of the old, tarnished door handles were stripped and after just a few minutes working with a flathead screwdriver they were mashed up beyond all recognition. After several hours last night- during which I inadvertently locked myself in the room and had to yell out of the window to ask a neighbour to let me out but that’s another story- I managed to get two of the screws out, but the other two just weren’t budging.

Yes, I tried the rubber band trick. Yes, I tried different screwdrivers. Yes, I tried prayer. None of this worked. The last thing the internet suggested was getting the screws out with pliers, however with the backplate still on I had no access to them.

The Interwebs suggested using a rotary cutter to cut through the metal. Sod that, I thought. I’m not purchasing a rotary cutter for one task and for it then to spend the rest of its life languishing in a cupboard. Also me, Human Disaster, alone in the house with a sharp, whirring blade? Doesn’t sound like a recipe for success.

I couldn’t just say “Screw this”, reattach the door handle, and give it up as a lost cause. I’d already used paint samples on the door, so it would look stupid if I gave up now. So, having messaged both brothers (sound and trainee lighting engineers respectively) and a friend who knows more about DIY, and receiving no better suggestions, I thought “Power drills can cut through metal right?”

Now, a word of warning...

This could either be exactly the right course of action, which lots of other people have done before me and isn’t anything new or worth bragging about. Or it could be exactly the wrong course of action, in which I ruin my drill and narrowly avoid ending up in Casualty. I am not qualified to know the difference. So, even though this post is probably only of interest to me, I will hope that no internet strangers who find it yell at me because I was genuinely at my wit’s end and had no other way of sorting this. I’m very much aware that using a blunt or the wrong tool for a purpose can be more dangerous than using a sharp one, so maybe I should have just got the rotary cutter, but I’m spending too much money on this as it is. I’m not even sure that I used the right drill bits. The chances of me using those particular bits at any point in the future are very slim, so I wasn’t so worried about destroying them, but there is every possibility that there are quicker and easier ways to do this, I don’t know enough about drills to be sure, I just went at it hammer and tongs and eventually got results.

So the power drill arrived two days early, and this seemed like a Good Omen. Correspondingly, at 5 o’clock on the dot, I shut my work laptop and beetled off to the other end of the house, With Purpose.

Anyway, here’s how not to remove stripped screws from a door. Just for posterity.

Step 1 - Destroy the screwheads beyond repair by trying in vain to get them out with a manual screwdriver for up to 48 hours. Almost end up a skeleton in the attic due to stupidity. Scratch up door.

Step 2 - Acquire Heavy Artillery

Step 3 - Approach door with massive amounts of unearned confidence, preferably to the tune of the Imperial March from Star Wars

(Make sure door is properly propped open and stable. Safety first folks. And an excuse to use the doorstop shaped like a dodo that I have been trying to find an opportunity to use ever since moving in).

Step 4 - Start out with a simple plan of action

Step 5 - Abandon plan

Step 6 - Struggle

Step 7 - After three hours of haphazard, untutored, maverick drilling you should be able to loosen the backplate and, with judicious use of a hammer and some Expert Wiggling, you should be able to wrestle the backplate off the screws without damaging the door more than necessary.

Step 8 - Victorious Exultation and Gloating

(And you can STAY off you ungodly son of a hitch)

(I don’t know what you two are laughing about, just you wait until I purchase a pair of pliers)

Step 9 - Have a nice cup of tea to celebrate wasting your entire evening by pointlessly destroying your door handles

Step 10- Bonus End Credits Scene. Probably ruining my drill in the process, I attached it to the screws as if they were drill bits, threw the whole thing into reverse (carefully) and they popped out, without the need for pliers

Since most of the scratches on the door were from my initial attempts with the manual screwdriver I have to say I’m pretty pleased with this outcome. There was probably a much quicker way to do this, rather than absent-mindedly drilling for three hours, probably with the wrong attachment, but we got there in the end. I also cannot stress enough to anyone who bothered to read this that you should NOT follow my lead, I do not want to be responsible for sending anyone to the hospital, the NHS is already overworked enough. I know this whole post is probably clogging up everyone’s dashboard and I probably annoyed the hell out of my neighbours in my three and a half hours of drilling and hammering, and I’ve probably damaged a brand new drill to boot (and my hands and arms are so sore, especially my right thumb which is already fucked up from that time I fell down some steps in Conwy, so this was a terrible idea). But hey at least now I no longer have a door handle.

Time for tea.

#Earth & Stone #This is probably the most dull tumblr post I have ever made which is saying something given my usual content #Don't judge me this is Huge #housekeeping #A riveting tale #A screwball comedy #Insert puns here #Personal

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hiraeth-wayfarer · 4 years ago

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Hiraeth Creature #1178 - Fio-Vasipa

“The whims and reasoning of the Fae folk are hard to grasp for both outsiders and even for themselves. Their innate control over reality is second nature to them and whatever strange powers they can exude, they will with barely a thought as to how or why. A group of Fae who use these surreal powers to great effect are the Fio-Vasipa, often seen racing through the twilight skies and disappearing as quickly as they came. Fio-Vasipa are unshackled beings, free to go where they please— this extends beyond just bounds of air and water, but also space and time. With a single quick cut of their scythe-like arms, they can create a sliver of a portal to send them anywhere and everywhere, be it in their home realm or outside of it. Fio-Vasipa can’t choose where they go, but they are driven explorers, often observing different planes of existence from high altitudes. Fio-Vasipa portals are usable only by them unless they invite another being in with them, so their world-hopping leaves little room for interference by those with ill-intent. Fio-Vasipa only wish to observe and enjoy the locals they visit, often fleeing if their presence causes too much of a stir.

The Fio-Vasipa are very distinct caste of Fae— while any Fae could technically take on a similar form, they wouldn’t be able to wield their teleportation power, having to create a facsimile on their own. If a Fae wishes to become part of the Fio-Vasipa proper, they need to visit the nest of the retired Fae Lord known as the Sovereign Pilgrim. They are a great slithering being, able to conceal their winding form perfectly to hide away wherever they please. The roost they live upon where the Fio-Vasipa call home is a strange series of mountains, littered with artefacts and furniture and even haphazard bits of housing from many different places and eras. They meet in this vast aerie to hypothesize, philosophize, and simply enjoy conversation, sharing stories of the strange adventures they’ve been on. The Pilgrim is one of the few beings said to be able to travel through the waves of time in a tangible fashion, not restricted to soothsaying visions. It was a power they delighted in during their youth, but once they realized the implications of what this power could mean in more ambitious hands, they stepped down from doing so. Fae have to prove their worth to the Pilgrim if they wish to be blessed with the power to travel the realms on a whim, and if any word gets back to the Pilgrim of their chosen performing ill-deeds, they are promptly eaten. The Pilgrim has never shared their power of time-travel, but is said to bless visitors with good intentions visions of the past if they so desire. The Pilgrim and their followers have no wish to do business with other war-mongering lords, showing more reverence for children and those with mundane wants. The Sovereign Pilgrim is said to be dear friends with an enigmatic entity known as “The Grand Whisper”, another being whose primary goal is the seeking and sharing of knowledge. While the Whisper is believed to have much more clandestine schemes, the Pilgrim prefers dealing with straight-forward answers and humble honesty.”

#hiraeth #fantasy #fantasy creature #fantasy world #world building #Fae Realm

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mybg3notebook · 3 years ago

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Lore: Well-known Characters in Faerûn

Here I'm going to explain some interesting characters worth knowing in detail that some groups in the fandom keep saying are Gale's true identity.

Disclaimer Game Version: All these analyses were written up to the game version v4.1.104.3536 (Early access). As long as new content is added, and as long as I have free time for that, I will try to keep updating this information. Written in June 2021.

Additional disclaimers about meta-knowledge and interpretations in this (post)while disclaimers about Context and the popularisation and misuses of professional words in "Context, persuasion, and manipulation".

Azuth

He is the Patron of Wizards, his personal preference is toward wizardry rather than sorcery, and his philosophy fits better with the studious life of a wizard than the more haphazard practices of a sorcerer. Wizards invoke Azuth when they scribe scrolls, inscribe magic circles, attempt to memorise spells, and even when they cast spells. Often this acknowledgement comes in the form of silently forming Azuth's holy symbol, pointing the index finger of the left hand to the sky.For many wizards, the gesture is so commonplace in their lives that it becomes an unconscious habit. Azuth is represented at such sites as a hooded and bearded figure with his left hand held high, finger pointed up. Sometimes he is represented by merely the hand.

When he was a mortal, he was a wizard who showed prowess with spells and magical lore that attracted Mystryl’s attention, and after completing several quests to prove his worth, she named him Magister (old title in 1e and 2e, different to Chosen, related to a more bureaucratic role of Magic). With the new title, he taught magic to many people across Faerûn.

Azuth came into conflict with a minor southern deity: Savras the All-Seeing. Both were powerful spellcasters and Mystryl favoured both. They began a battle that lasted several years, using agents, magic traps, and personal spell-battles. Azuth managed to defeat the young deity and imprison him. With this victory Azuth ascended to godhood, became Mystryl's lover, and pledged to serve her.

During the Spellplague, Azuth fell to the Hells and Asmodeus consumed his divine spark to achieve godhood. It was thought that this had destroyed Azuth, but instead he ended up inhabiting Asmodeus' body together. Most of the time Asmodeus had control over the dormant Azuth. In 1486, Azuth managed to have a Cormyrian war wizard as a Chosen, and began to struggle with Asmodeus for dominion over their shared body. As a consequence, the hierarchy of the Nine Hells is jeopardized due to the unbalanced Asmodeus. After a while, The Chosen of Azuth sacrifices his life to be a vessel for the god and let him escape from the Hells. After the Second Sundering, Azuth returned to the faerunian pantheon.

Where is he in 1492?

Now, he has returned to the Faerunian pantheon, and considering Ao's ban, he can't be walking around Faerûn.

Can Gale be Azuth? I certainly can't see it. Azuth has been trapped in the Hells for most of Gale's life, returning to the pantheon recently. And we can't forget Ao's ban of direct contact: no god can have direct contact with mortals anymore, with the strange exception of Mystra (see the post about "Mystra and her Chosen ones" for more details). Besides, if Gale were to be Azuth's avatar, we are usually talking about characters over lvl 40.

The only link we can agree with Gale is that Azuth also has storm motif concepts in his design. Gale tends to explain with his pointing finger extended, but as it's said in the lore books, this is basically an unconscious common body language in most wizards. I cannot see any resemblance to make us infer “Gale is Azuth”.

What we can see by reading Azuth's story is why the Hells are so convoluted at this point. The blood war is unbalanced, since powerful figures such as Asmodeus had been having weak periods of leadership due to the inner fight with Azuth in his own body. For this detail alone, it is so important to give context to BG3 I considered worthy to mention.

Sources: 3e : Magic of Faerûn 5e: Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, Novels: Fire in the Blood. The devil you Know

Myrkul

Myrkul had a cold, malignant intelligence, and spoke in a high whisper. He was always alert, never slept, and was never surprised. He was never known to lose his temper or be anything other than coldly amused when a mortal succeeded in avoiding his directives or chosen fates. His influence in Faerûn was imposed through fear, and he was a master of making mortals terrified of him through his words and deeds. He was the one deity that almost all human mortals could picture clearly.

As a mortal, Myrkul's full name and title is said to have been Myrkul Bey al-Kursi. He was a powerful adventuring necromancer who travelled with Bane and Bhaal in order to acquire divinity for themselves. In -375 DR, they slayed one of the Seven Lost Gods, gaining a bit of divine power. Using it to go further, they embarked to Jergal's realm with the intention to slay him as well.

However, Jergal—tired of his godhood—freely agreed to hand over his dominion of the underworld. As the three could not decide who among them would sit upon the throne of the dead, they left the decision to chance with a game. More details and stories of several deaths and coming backs can be briefly read in the wiki. It makes no sense to add them here since they provide nothing interesting related to Gale.

Most of Myrkul's “recent” story can be seen/read in the game Neverwinter Nights 2, the Mask of the Betrayer. The game explains how Myrkul created the Wall of the Faithless (non existent anymore in 5e and nobody knows how it was destroyed) where the souls of the faithless or those abandoned by their gods got stuck in eternal pain. The main goal of the Wall was to use all that energy to feed Myrkul. The main character of Neverwinter 2 can visit the agonising God in the Astral Plane and kill him or leave him in a slow death.

Myrkul, with Bane and Bhaal, tried to seize the Tablets of Fate from the overgod Ao and use them to rule over Faerûn and its gods. They failed and were slain during the Time of Troubles. Since then, a variety of contingency plans they had in place allowed them to be reborn afterwards.

A small group of followers across Faerûn kept Myrkul's worshipping alive despite the dire events of the Spellplague and the Second Sundering. In the 1400’s, he is considered to have returned with the three dead in a quasi-deity condition.

While the Sundering forced the other gods to withdraw their direct influence from the mortal world, the Dead Three remained behind in mortal form as quasi-divine beings. While their power has diminished, they remain a formidable trio and play a malevolent role in influencing events on Faerûn.

Where is he in 1492?

He is clearly somewhere in Faerûn, with Bhaal and Bane most probably (we have strong leads to assume that the Absolute is them, getting as many worshippers as they can to recover their deity status, since now they are only quasi-deities)

Can Gale be Myrkul? I honestly can't see anything that we can use to link him to Myrkul without making it look like an absurdity. The easiest argument to revoke that nonsense is that Gale clearly is not a quasi-deity.

A quasi-deity is immune to every attempt to tamper with their mind (which would nullify the tadpole effect, and would make Gale immune to any tadpole intrusion, which is not the case as we saw in the post of "The Tadpole"). A quasi-deity is also immune to sap its vitality, or to force it into a different form. It has a strong defence against magic and a limited defence against heat. Weapons not enchanted with magic of an epic scope could not hurt a quasi-deity without problems. These defences against magic, heat, and non-magical physical attacks grew stronger as a deity rose in rank. It is crystal clear that none of this applies to Gale, the squishy wizard of the group.

This comparison is nonsense, especially if we think that some people supported it because “Gale's robes have clasps in the shape of triangles”, which was considered an incomplete symbol of Myrkul. So... I really won't waste time in this comparison. I just did it because I wanted to offer a summary to compare Myrkul (the three dead more precisely) with The Absolute. This idea is very strong when we think that in 5e DM book is explaining that a quasi-deity can recover their godhood condition if they amassed a sufficiently high number of followers (which is what The Absolute is doing). But this should be done in another post related to the Absolute.

Source: 2e: Faith and pantheon, 5e: Descent to Avernus, Dungeon Master's guide

Karsus

Karsus was born in Netheril in -696 DR. He was able to cast his first spell at the age of two, and by the age of twenty-two created his own floating city. He also founded a magic school encouraging radical thinking to keep pushing magical discoveries. A seer warned Karsus that soon Mystryl would face the greatest challenge of her divine life, so worried about the consequences of this, Karsus created his spell Karsus' Avatar with the objective to protect the Netheril civilization. This spell would steal the power of a deity and transfer it to him, giving him divine power to protect his people from Mystryl's challenge and destroy the magical aberrations that had been attacking Netheril (phaerimms) for years. He was very aware that the feat could cost him his life, but he accepted it as a worthy sacrifice to protect his people as well as remain in the History as an iconic figure.

In -339 DR, Karsus chose Mystryl, the goddess of magic, as his target, feeling that she was the most powerful deity and the most appropriate choice for his purposes. However, this was a mistake. The responsibilities of the deity of magic are to regulate the flow of magic to and from all beings, spells, and magic items in the world. Unable to fulfil Mystryl's function with the Weave, Karsus causes a surge of magic and violent fluctuations.

In an attempt to save the Weave, Mystryl sacrificed herself to block Karsus's access to the Weave, causing all magic to cease for several minutes. The flying cities of Netheril (fuelled by magic) fell to the ground. The severing of the link also killed Karsus, who turned into stone and fell to the ground, seeing his entire civilisation being destroyed because of his actions. This is known as Karsus's Folly.

The stone form of Karsus eventually landed in a part of the High Forest, now called the Dire Wood. Karsus was never accepted as a petitioner by any god, nor did he go to the Fugue Plane when he died. Instead, his soul was bound to the Material Plane. Those with experience in pact magic could call up his vestige, where he appeared as a giant blood-red boulder, like the one found in the High Forest where his petrified form landed. Blood burbles up from the top of the stone, trickling down the side facing the summoner, pooling at the base. Karsus granted the summoner a boost in magical ability, though he also imparted some of the arrogance he was renowned for.

Where is he in 1492?

Even in death, Karsus' undying spirit persists in the chaotic magic of the Dire Wood. His essence is ensnared in a single point of time by the magic of the lich Wulgreth, and it manifests in three separate pieces. Each manifestation contains one portion of Karsus' tripartite spirit. It is believed that Karsus cannot depart from the Realms until his sundered spirit is reforged into one.

Karsus' mortal body survives as a tall butte of red stone embedded in the ground and eroded by the elements. This manifestation radiates heavy magic (read the post about the "Orb" for more details)

Karsus' gigantic, ever bleeding heart beats within the butte itself. This manifestation is essentially powerless, but it cannot be destroyed. Karsus' heart continuously radiates an enchantment similar to the sadness effect produced by the 4th level wizard spell Emotion.

The final third piece is inside an animated golem created by Wulgreth. This manifestation bleeds an ever-flowing stream of blood like liquid which mingles with the Heartblood River, giving it its characteristic colour.

So, can Gale be Karsus? Hardly. Karsus' spirit is not even complete. One could ask if Gale is a part of Karsus? I don't see it either: each of these parts are stuck in the different stones across the Dire Wood, and since it was a lich who made the binding I see little reason to suspect how a piece of Karsus' spirit stuck in the middle of the continent reached a baby in Waterdeep.

Sources: 2e: Magic of Faerun, Powers and Pantheons 3e: Lords of Darkness

Elminster

Elminster was born in 212 DR, son of a prince of Athalantar. His parents were killed by mages and at the age of 12 he became a brigand and thief. With a friend thief, Elminster committed many acts of thievery together and lived life fully, creating the gang the Velvet Hands after a number of adventures.

Elminster tried to desecrate a temple of Mystra as a gesture of vengeance for the goddess having not defended his parents when they were killed by mages. Mystra appeared before him, and despite Elminster's defiance, she offered him the power to take revenge for his dead parents. Elminster accepted, and Mystra turned him into a woman to see “the world with female eyes” and to strengthen his bond with magic before being a proper Chosen. This transformation also helped Elminster to pass unnoticed among his enemies. He spent a long time learning magic in this shape, taught by Mystra's avatar in disguise. When her disguise was uncovered, she and Elminster slept together and she offered him to become her Chosen. By that time, Elminster accepted any command from the Goddess, his defiance was completely gone.

In 241DR he travelled to the city of Cormanthor and continued his magical studies.

Somewhere around the mid–7th century DR, Elminster entered a tomb and became trapped there in stasis for roughly a century. He emerged from the dusty tomb in 759 DR. By that time Magic was unreliable (Mystra was possessing Elué's body to conceive her daughters). The god Azuth told him that he couldn't rely on Mystra or magic for aid. Soon he had to learn how to survive without magic. He later underwent further magical training under the tutelage of a wicked sorceress who sought to tempt him away from Mystra's path. During a fake ritual for Bane, she revealed herself to be the goddess Mystra herself, once again testing him.

In 767 DR, Elminster became a foster parent to three other of Mystra's Chosen: Laeral Silverhand, Storm Silverhand, and Dove Falconhand.

In 851 DR, Elminster mentored the newly-appointed Chosen of Mystra, Sammaster, in how to use his new powers.

During the Harpstar Wars in 1222 DR, Elminster defeated the Zulkir of Necromancy, Szass Tam, and earned himself (and the Harpers) the enmity of Thay.

In 1358 DR, just before the Time of Troubles, Mystra gained some foreknowledge and backed up her power into Midnight, the human wizard, so it would not be lost. During this time, Elminster, like most wizards who received his power from Mystra/the Weave, was left powerless once more.

In 1371 DR, the new Mystra stripped away many of Elminster's memories of her former incarnation's secrets. By the end of that year, he was called to Blackstaff Tower to discuss the phaerimm attack. The whole event ended up being related to a planificated attack from the Shadovars. Since shadovar were living shadow magic, and silver fire was raw magic, the collision between the two tore at the fabric of reality, creating a rift to the Nine Hells. Elminster realized that the only way to close the portal before legions of devils spilled forth into Toril was to close it from the other side. He did it, being trapped on the other side and at the expense of much of his magical strength.

Once in Hell, he was abducted and enslaved by an outcast archdevil known as Nergal, who wished to discover the secret of Mystra's silver fire. Elminster was subject to brutal tortures, surviving only because of his exceptional endurance and ability to heal himself with silver fire. Mystra tried to save him herself, but ended up sending several Chosen ones instead. Only The Simbul was successful in his rescue.

In 1373 DR, Elminster discovered a daughter he had never known, conceived against his will with a dragon thanks to Mystra's intervention.

Following the death of Mystra in 1385 DR and the collapse of the Weave during the Spellplague, Elminster was stripped of many of his abilities as one of the Chosen, though he still aged as slowly as he had for the previous millennium and was still quite powerful magically. However, every use of his magic drove him insane. When this happened, only Storm was able to bring his mind back, giving off her own essence to soothe Elminster's mind. Despite these setbacks, Elminster and Storm continued with their campaign to save Faerûn, battling evil and fixing the Weave where they could.

In 1479 DR, Elminster sought to gain access to artifacts known to contain the spirits of the Nine—objects powerful enough to permanently restore the Simbul's sanity.

During one of his excursions for these artefacts, Elminster's body was destroyed by Manshoon, who had secretly been peeling away the Old Mage's contingency spells over several years. However, Manshoon departed before he realized that Elminster had survived his body's destruction in a near-undead state. With the agreement of Amarune and the aid of Storm, Elminster's essence was placed in Amarune's body with the aid of a spell the ex-Chosen had discovered in a cache once belonging to Azuth. Later, thanks to the sacrifice of the Simbul, he regained his former body again and ruined for good Manshoon's claim to the throne of Suzail.

In 1487 DR, Elminster (with the help of the Srinshee, Alustriel, and Laeral Silverhand) stopped Shar as well as Larloch from becoming the new deity of magic. He killed Telamont Tanthul and let Thultanthar fall upon Myth Drannor. Along the way, Mystra was completely restored.

In 1491 DR, Elminster returned to the city of Waterdeep, aiding the newly appointed Open Lord of Waterdeep, Laeral Silverhand, to uncover the culprits behind a string of murders of Masked Lords.

Sincerely, there is a lot of content left outside this summary because Elminster’s material is a lot. A LOT.

Where is he in 1492?

The last time we know about Elminster’s whereabouts is during the book Dead Masks, a year before BG3. He has been working in Mystra’s name in Waterdeep when Hidden Lords have been assassinated. It’s very hard to conceive Gale as Elminster in disguise. Elminster has a different personality and a very obvious pattern of speech, sounding more like a mixture of a scholar and a farmer, and using expressions like Nay, aye, and so on. Elminster being abandoned by Mystra is also a strange concept because if there is something very clear from all the material we can read about his adventures is that Mystra loves him with a particular and exceptional love. He was the only Chosen that, when he was being tortured in the Hells, she attempted to save him by herself, risking her life (obviously, then she changed her mind and sent several Chosen ones that died in the process).

Also, if Gale were Elminster, he should sustain a spell of disguise constantly (many people know Elminster, an old man of white hair and beard), which is also very unlikely for a lvl1 wizard to do.

Source: 3e: Elminster: The Making of a Mage. The Temptation of Elminster. Dead Masks

Sammaster

He was born in 800 DR, probably in Sembia, the Dalelands, or the North. At age of 17, fascinated by the theory of the Arts and how magic works, Sammaster became a follower of Mystra. He was a gaunt man of poor health, full of eccentricities: he never remained in one place for too long, he skipped his meals and sleep in favour of learning, and it's suspected to have fathered a countless number of children.

Before being 40 y/o he acquired the skills of an archmage and he discovered, rediscovered, or improved numerous spells in the advanced theory of magic known as "metamagic". All this discovery of knowledge and magic (so favoured by Mystra as we can see in the post about "Mystra and her Chosen ones") granted him the attention of the Goddess, who appeared before him.

At his 50 y/o Sammaster saw his most fervent dream appear before his very eyes. He was both awestruck and smitten with passion as he fell to his knees and wept upon Mystra’s feet. Raising him to meet her gaze, Mystra responded to his unspoken question and swept him into her embrace. They spent a tenday together, and at the end of that period, Mystra asked him if he thought he was worthy and strong enough to carry a part of her divine power within him. Despite not knowing what she meant, Sammaster accepted anyway, becoming the first Chosen after she conceived her seven daughters. Mystra explained that she had chosen him for his development in metamagic but also because she had foreseen the death of an already Chosen one (Syluné) whose place she wanted immediately filled with Sammaster.

Sammaster was ordered to be in contact with Elminster to learn more about his new condition of Chosen. Sammaster and Elminster developed a tense situation mostly because Sammaster's obsessive love for the Goddess deepened while Elminster kept reminding him that her only consort was Azuth.

Dejected for the truth that he would never have a personal long-lasting relationship with Mystra, Sammaster focused on understanding the powers of the Chosen and the mysteries of the Lady in himself and in Toril. However, a seed of resentment started to grow.

In 855 Sammaster found a Zhentarin slave caravan resting in a camp. In it, he found three large cage carts full of peasants taken from the farmlands in the surrounding area. Enraged, Sammaster attacked the Zhentarin using his spells and Silver Fire, but in the process he killed many innocents he wanted to save. His mind snapped that day. Despite trying to convince himself that the Zhentarins were to blame, this episode was—without any doubt—the seminal event that irrevocably turned Sammaster down the path to madness and, eventually, evil.

Years later he started to develop his interest in necromancy in an attempt to return those innocents he had killed, trying to find a way to revive the dead. During this time his interest was focused on the undead, and forged relationships with some liches. How did Mystra allow this? At that time, Mystra was a much more neutral deity. Her primary interest was the use and development of magic; she cared little about how it was used or by whom. As long as Sammaster continued to advance the theories of magic and push forward its frontiers for all mortals, Mystra turned a blind eye to his necromancy interests.

In 861 DR Sammaster met Alustriel, Chosen of Mystra, and fell in love with her. His unbalanced mind seemed to finally find some peace and stability, but his obsession —at first focused on Mystra—now turned upon Alustriel, wanting to master her, to make her entirely his, and to make her world revolve around him. Disturbed with Sammaster's necromancy research and his increasing need for control over her, Alustriel broke up with him.

Afterwards, while deepening in his experiments with necromancy, Sammaster befriended Algashon Nathaire, a priest of Bane who had formerly been a mage. In the unstable Sammaster, Algashon saw the chance to create a formidable tyrant. Bane must also have seen the chance to rob one of his most powerful enemy’s Chosen of his last vestiges of sanity and perhaps his powers or even his life.

Presented as a friend, Algashon manipulated Sammaster into thinking that all his failures and problems were the fault of that uncaring goddess and her equally inconsiderate servants, her so-called "Chosen". Sammaster resisted this subtle indoctrination at first, only to be painfully reminded of the events at the slavers' camp (the Zhents' fault, of course), his uneasy relationship with Elminster, his failure to win the love of Mystra (Azuth's fault and Elminster's for pointing it out so hard-heartedly), and his failure to win Alustriel (her fault and that of her Goddess). As time went on, Sammaster argued against these superficial, easy excuses less and less, and Algashon's lies wove their way deeper into the unhappy and unstable mage's mind. The next step of Algashon was to steal the secrets of the power of the Chosen. To do that, he encouraged Sammaster to use his Chosen power at every opportunity.

Rather than risking their pawn's life (yet) by attempting to strip the silver fire from Sammaster outright, Bane and Algashon decided to try and arrange to steal another Chosen's silver fire: given her past with Sammaster, Algashon chose Alturiel. This way Sammster fought Alturiel, aiming silver fire against her. Losing the battle against a maniacal Sammaster, Alustriel called for help from Laeral Silverhand and Khelben Arunsun. The three of them won the combat against Sammaster.

Azuth presented himself on Mystra's behalf and removed Sammaster's Chosen condition. When the other Chosen left the place, Algashon helped Sammaster, affixing the immortality of the Chosen ones in his body despite having lost his powers. While he could be destroyed, Sammaster continued to remain ageless and to heal from wounds very quickly. However, as a side-effect of this spell, Sammaster lost his last vestige of sanity and morality that may have remained in his clouded mind.

In 887 DR Sammaster retranslated old texts of a prophecy, highlighting the importance of undead dragons and creating soon afterward his own Cult. In his insanity, he kept doing more necromancy research focused on turning dragons into draconlich to follow this prophecy. His first success in turning a dragon (Shargrailar) into an undead made his cult famous. In this way, Sammaster earned a powerful weapon with which threatened many across Faerun and obtained an enormous amount of money. Even the rich nobles paid tribute when the Cult threatened to send Shargrailar to burn their farmlands and villages to ash. Sammaster did not think to oppress the peasants for their coppers, but the noble powerful ones.

In 960 DR, his cult finally adopted the name ��Cult of the Dragon”, even though “Cult of the Dracolich” could be more appropriate, even though Shargrailar still looked like a normal dragon. By that time the cult increased too much for Sammaster and Algoshon to control, so Sammaster wrote all his wisdom in a book called Tome of the Dragon that would turn into the core of the cult, helping them to spread Sammaster's ideas beyond their limitations.

The popularity of the cult was not missed by several groups. The Harpers tried to destroy it, but they failed. The Zhentarims are also against Sammaster's cult since their activities are limited with the constant threat of the Dragon Shargrailar. More groups were added to the cult's list of foes, but Sammaster ignored them or sent them a dragon to destroy them. Not merely mad now, Sammaster was becoming drunk with a level of power he had not felt since before he had been stripped of his powers as one of the Chosen. Algashor suggested that he keep a low profile in order to protect the cult, but his advice was ignored.

In 916 DR, The Harpers developed a plan to eliminate Sammaster and weaken the cult itself. The battle was brutal and Sammaster seemed to win by the end of it, commanding an army of undead and experimental creatures. Sammaster would have won had not Lathander sent a battle avatar, enraged by the undead abominations that Sammaster created. After an intense battle, Lathander incinerated Sammaster. However, Sammaster had planned ahead: he had sent his mind to a phylactery before being killed.

With the phylactery and a special book of the Tome of the Dragon, a loyal cultist called Zotulla had been ordered by Sammaster to create a new cell of the cult in the Northwest. However, Zotulla failed and died at the hands of an orc war party who discarded the phylactery and the book. Both items were lost for more than 300 years, until a shaman may have deciphered the instructions in the book and raised Sammaster as a lich.

In 1282 Sammaster rose as a lich and began to gather the remnants of his cult once more. Harpers and some countries began to plan to defend themselves from this danger again. In 1285 a group of adventuring paladins known as the Company of Twelve supported by the Harpers, attacked the lich and killed him at a great cost. However, neither the phylactery nor the book were found. The possibility for him to return is high.

In 1373DR Sammaster completed the transformation of the Dracorage Mythal. This was a Mythal created by elves around -25.000DR which had a maddening effect on dragons, making them lose their minds for several tendays. This effect used to be linked to the appearance of the comet King-Killer Star in the sky. When Sammaster transformed this mythal by binding his phylactery to it, its maddening effect was no longer constrained by the appearance of the comet but linked instead to his own life force. Only Dracoliches remained unaffected by Sammaster’s endless, ever-intensifying Dracorage effect. This fact forced wyrms to join his Cult and accept to be transformed into dracoliches or suffer permanent madness. By manipulating this effect, Sammaster tried to retake control over his Cult. However, a group of adventurers destroyed the mythal—thus Sammaster’s phylactery—and put an end to this effect.

Where is he in 1492?

So, is Gale Sammaster? Lore-wise, to destroy a lich for good you need to destroy their phylactery. This has been done in 1373DR, therefore, I hardly see any potential for Sammaster to raise again. And here is where any possible argument ends.

What Sammaster's story shows us is that Mystra's sudden abandonment is not uncommon once she gave them their Chosen powers. In the report of the Harpers that narrate Sammaster's life in the book Cult of the dragon (2e), there are some comments pointing out how Mystra, despite noticing Sammaster's madness, allowed him to follow his dark path. One may speculate that maybe Mystra uses the obsession that she may cause in some of her Chosen ones, in order to make them eager to explore beyond their limits so she can acquire knowledge or control of new magic.

Certainly, what Sammaster and Gale share in common is how they were favoured by Mystra, had a affair with her, and soon afterwards she stopped “whispering” in their ears. Their condition as Chosen had been kept intact, but their madness in one case, or their devotion in the other, made them go too far. Sammaster ended up being a toy of a priest of Bane, while Gale simply made the mistake of thinking himself capable of controlling an unknown magic to impress Mystra in order to have once more her attention on him. More than this is walking on the headcanon terrain since the game in EA can't provide more information.

Source book: Cult of the dragon (2e), Dragons of Faerun (3.5e)

Conclusion

The truth is that Gale is Kirby. He doesn't only eat artefacts but also Faerûn iconic characters as well (joke done by a reddit user)

In my personal interpretation, I hardly see Gale as the incarnation of anyone. First, it would be very, very lazy writing. Characters such as Sammaster, Elminster, or Azuth tend to be NPCs. We found some of them in games such as previous Baldur’s Gate games or Neverwinter nights.

But the main and strongest argument against secretly being any of these characters is that he is an origin character. All companions are potential players in their origins. Anyone who played DOS2 AND played an origin character would understand this: there is no plot twist of that magnitude in their personal backstories that would erase completely the essence and the personality of the character. All that sensitive information is previously stated.

All what we need to know about the origin char is basically said in the BG3 webpage. Those descriptions are the same ones found in the game, which changed after EA was released in Astarion’s and Gale’s case, showing—in my opinion—that Larian changed them a bit at the last stage of development. These descriptions spoil every secret that the characters have. This doesn’t mean their more complex background should not be part of a plot twist later in the game, but it would not have the impact of erasing completely the RPG characters you were playing for a while.

Every companion has a secret spoiled in their descriptions: Astarion, his vampire condition; Shadowheart, her Shar faith and he mission; Wyll, Mizora; Lae’zel, the tadpole (not for the group, but for her people); Gale, the “orb”. All these secrets are informed beforehand to the player for them to pick an Origin if they want to play it and make it their own. As companions, we learn these secrets early (act 1). This happens in act 1 of DOS2 too.

A player choosing an origin has to be informed of the character’s secrets and motivations at the moment they pick it. Otherwise, it would ruin their RPG experience, making the player unaware of their own character’s true nature. This doesn’t mean that deepening their backgrounds would not make us discover information we don’t know. My point is, it won't remove the character’s persona turning him into a character very well known in lore.

Gale, so far, seems to be a pretty fair standard wizard who had a young obsession over Mystra (quite common in terms of lore for those who stand before her), which brought him troubles and made him prone to mistakes (as, once more, we know it tends to happen in lore). The justification why he was Chosen is also clear from a lore point of view: we have a context post-Spellplague that made Gale's skills more than useful for Mystra. In my opinion, there is nothing else abysmally suspicious beyond these points, and if there are more secrets, it seems fair to think that not even Gale is aware of them.

This post was written in June2021. → For more Gale: Analysis Series Index

#gale of waterdeep #bg3 meta #bg3 early access #bg3 gale #azuth #myrkul #karsus #elminster #sammaster #lore #chosen of mystra #FR lore

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avelera · 4 years ago

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I think my final weird historical ramble of the day As Brought to You By my research for Lights Out/Old Guard Nicky/Joe fic into the Crusades is how seeing Europeans as like a colonizing force during the Crusades or the Crusades as a “Clash of Civilizations”, East vs. West, Muslims vs. Christians, etc etc, the way many people view it in the US and indeed the way I was initially taught to view that conflict, is wrong because apparently it gives way too much credit for how haphazard, pathetic, and primitive the Europeans actually were.*

I mean, far from being some unstoppable European war machine of CONQUEST and EMPIRE, these hapless European, barely-more-than-barbarian-tribes, forces basically stumbled into establishing a Latin Christian presence in the Levant mostly because of internal political strife on the part of the defending Fatimid Caliphate + the Fatimid’s conflicts with the Seljuk Turks (both Muslims and often conflated by Westerners - basically, the players were Latin Christians and Byzantine Greek Christians, who were often infighting, Seljuk Turkish Muslims and Arabic Fatimid Caliphate Muslims, who were originally fighting but then later once the Europeans arrived were sometimes allied but also each of them respectively were sometimes allied with the Latin Christians once those forces got their feet under them and began to operate as just another political force in the region and ANYWAY THE POINT IS, this whole thing was a MESS and not a clash of two monoliths AT ALL at least not for the first HUNDRED YEARS of the conflict).*

(*according to several lectures I have listened to, please do not consider this comprehensive knowledge, it’s a product of around 100 hours of research, not a PhD)

The thing is, the Europeans didn’t set out to “conquer” the Middle East when they answered Pope Clement II’s call to “liberate” Jerusalem (which was more of a favor that Clement was doing for the Emperor of Constantinople anyway and it backfired for that Emperor in so, so many ways). The Casus Belli really was just to “liberate” the Holy City from the “pagans” (no mentions of Islam as a faith that they were fighting but, interestingly, the Latin Christians, at least the Italians, may not have even really seen Islam as a separate faith as such in fact some may have seen it as a heretical Christian sect which is kind of wild but also, like, a little closer to the reality in that both faiths are Abrahamic as compared to incorrect interpretations that it’s just an entirely “pagan” religion??). So the Christian forces were mustered, it seems for the most part, by Clement inspiring them based on the incredibly devout faith of the Europeans who stepped up for the call, NOT as much by inspiring in them the the hopes of gaining money or territory, except for by a few minor princes who figured out that there was an opportunity to gain territory only AFTER they were there. So, to characterize this conflict as financially motivated on the part of the European Crusaders is to ascribe modern motives to an ancient, truly religiously-motivated conflict.

Now, financially, fortunes WERE made in a very cynical way as a result of this conflict, but it was the CHURCH milking the Crusaders, not the Church expecting to gain any wealth from the Holy Land. They became a de facto bank lending money to Crusaders could buy equipment and horses in exchange for loaning or selling their lands and livestock to the Church (I’m sure Jesus would have LOVED that!) BUT the Crusaders all did so at a HUGE disadvantage because, uh, supply/demand kicked in because there was a TON of land suddenly up for sale and EVERYONE needed a horse (or 3) and weapons and armor and food so you see where this is going the Church made BANK and the Crusaders went BANKRUPT for this cause that they were pretty much doing JUST out of a desire to save their SOULS, NOT out of hope of plunder!

So they eventually get to the Holy Land, probably like 50% of the *knights* who set out to fight there die along the way, let’s not even get INTO the Peasants Crusade or the camp followers/civilians who tagged along. And really, the plan was to kick out the “pagans” from Jerusalem, in theory hand the territory back over to the Byzantine Christians in Constantinople and just... go home. Then a bunch of stuff happened and they stayed.

BUT to go back to my original point, acting like it wasn’t a total haphazard mess that led to the conquest of Jerusalem, let alone holding it, that the Europeans had any idea what they were doing, that they were anything more than just ANOTHER band of smelly barbarians rolling through, setting up some short-lived fortresses and then fucking off again once any kind of serious local resistance gets organized, is to give the Europeans WAY too much credit. They’re not the sophisticated war machines of modern era Imperial Britain or France, these are barely more than Frankish clans and German feudal lords along with a bunch of whackadoodle Christian believers, getting tricked more or less by their religious leaders to go maraud to a random place on the other side of the world, bankrupting and/or killing way more than half of these hapless guys, for reasons that were largely baffling to the more sophisticated governments currently “in power” (for a certain value of “power” given internal divisions in the Fatimid Caliphate).

TL;DR The Europeans were basically a barbarian hoard, who lacked the manpower to do more than cling to the edges of the coast for barely a century before being driven off again. If this was the Romans and the Gauls we’d consider this occupation a footnote, if not for the long-term ramifications that we continue to suffer from this event, but more from the PERCEPTION of this event more than the material reality of it, for the last 1,000 years.

And anyway, as an Ancient Rome/Greece nerd primarily, this has been an interesting thing to learn!

#tog meta #the old guard #kaysanova #tog fic #history #actual historians please be gentle this is as much me trying to put my 101 thoughts in order

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famouskittychild · 3 years ago

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Cheeky Mandos - ...and we're off

(Sorry I had a terrible writer’s block in the past 6-ish weeks - I went from reading fanfiction and being inspired by other’s visions to “I’ll never be able to write anything like these and I’m useless” in a single day :( I’m getting back into the groove finally, so I’m hoping to post more soon.)

There will be 18+ content (in the coming chapters soon) so if you are a minor, please don't read further.

Also the characters will be quite open and relaxed about things like gender, attraction, sexual activities, relationships etc, so if you prefer your Din (and their partner) possessive and/or monogamous , this won’t be a good read for you!

***

This pairing is Din Djarin x gn reader / tall reader. I’m short (and cis and woman). There’s so many short (and female) reader stuff out there, I wanted to write for people on the other end of the “why is your height not normal” / "definitely female" spectrum. If I make mistakes or you have advice, or ideas you'd like to see, please tell me!

Word count: 4267

Summary: You’re an armourer and some shiny guy just showed up.

First full piece/chapter/course! In which people seem to catch things. Thoughts? Viruses? Dropped facts? Who knows!?? Also contains a dilettante’s attempt at space electronics and some barely-canon-reminiscent Mando world-building. Still no spiciness sorry, marinating is a long process :P

Rating: T for some mentions of heavier topics.

CW: Mentions of mandalorian history, playing somewhat loose with canon lore (as in, my SW knowledge is patchy. sorry.)

Author’s note: I tried to find more info but it seems like the mandalorian alphabet doesn’t have names for the individual letters so I used aurebesh (also I liked the little Dorn(e) meta in there). And sorry for the bad puns. They’ll keep coming.

Prologue

One - ...and we're off

***

You aren’t worried about taking a stranger on board, you’ve done that plenty of times before. You hope he’s willing to put in the effort himself, too, just as he promised at the assembly.

The stranger leaves behind his ship, saying a friend will come to pick it up together with whoever might want to join the cause. You spot him from the cockpit as he walks over with a repulsor pallet in tow. He stops for a moment when your droids surge past him, busy at their pre-flight tasks, before moving on towards the ramp.

All his baggage is a satchel at his hip and a small bag on his shoulder, and two large crates of weaponry. You put him up in the spare cabin, the one that had been Sal’ee’s, your former apprentice, before she went on to be a journeyman. He stands in the middle of the room, staring at the two cots on opposite sides of the room, the lockers, the fresher in the corner.

“All mine? Where will you sleep?”

You don’t understand the surprise in his voice.

“Over there” you show him, pointing at the cabin opposite from his. It’s much more lived in, some of the blankets and trinkets and pillows visible through it’s open door. “There’s a third cabin that I mostly use for storage but has more fold-up bunks in case I need to transport more people. That’s rare though.”

“Ohh.” He nods, then turns to look around his room again. “Okay. I thought all of these rooms were cargo space.”

You smile, and quickly think through your to-do list. You’ll have to rearrange your schedule somewhat but it’s not that big of a bother.

“Come on, I’ll show you around the ship.” Before he gets lost in its cavernous interiors, you might add - but you don’t. If his reaction to a separate cabin and his current ship - an old ARC170 - is any indication, he must be used to very cramped quarters.

***

Your trusty Brick, a beat-up YV 929, is armed to the teeth and ugly, just as you like it. The ship is a scavenged one, gutted from most of its original factory issue armaments, engines, and even wiring. It was perfect for your former master when she found it at a scrap heap: she wanted to rebuild it herself, deliberately piecemeal; panels sourced form here, engines from there, concealments added. She modified the inner workings of the engines so that the power lines could be redirected to a concealed forge.

That forge is your pride and the main reason you haven’t settled at a permanent place yourself. When your master retired from travelling, the ship passed to you, and you continued her mission of offering your knowledge and expertise to those of your people who otherwise had no access to an armourer.

…

The next standard month is spent with adjusting, both for yourself after getting used travelling alone again since Sal’ee left, and for the stranger who found himself a passenger on someone else’s ship. Apparently he used to live a very similar life to yours, with the exception that he was a hunter not a craftsman.

You travel together, share meals, research the places you are directed to. He joins in the effort that is maintaining the ship. Still - he is very taciturn at the beginning, keeping his words to the bare minimum. The first few days it feels as if you are still on your own aside of your droids. By the middle of the month, he progresses from short answers, through sharing information, to willingly starting to tell stories; but you know that chatting will never be his defining feature.

His armour seems to fill the spaces of the Brick’s corridors. You feel as if it’s not him who has the presence, but that set of glinting, perfectly made handwork of an armourer you already admire. Some of the pieces were sourced elsewhere, you can tell by the different shapes and designs; they seem haphazard and mismatched compared to the rest. Most of the set is the work of a single person. On those, there’s not a single uneven line, a broken curve, an edge at the wrong place. The angle of the panes of the metal, the ridges, the simplicity and elegance of them all - you have to hold yourself back from touching them, to admire them. You would give a lot to hold those pieces in your hand, to study them, to analyse them with your eyes and hands and with your tools.

You’re a master, yes. But so much knowledge was lost. So many masters gone, with their knowledge and their workshops. Apprentices became heads of Forges in the absence of the more skilled. The survivors still to this day have to piece together half-remembered lessons and forgotten details, experiment with techniques that were known before but the methods got lost as decades of civil war and occupation and murder kept eroding your heritage.

Sometimes a set of armour comes along that is just made in a way you never had an opportunity to learn. Often the person who forged them is long gone. Not the stranger’s armourer though. As far you can tell, she’s alive. Or at least was, when he last saw her. Not too long ago; though your usual method for guessing forging dates is mostly useless as it is based on the condition of the suit’s paintwork. Which he doesn’t have, so you can only guess from the small amount of scratches. You try to ask once, but whilst he’s forthcoming with general stories, he doesn’t go into details.

It’s a common theme with him. He talks about people and planets and events, and leaves out a lot - and you don’t even notice it first. Only when you try to glean information about his armour do you realize how well he fuzzes over those facts and nuances. It’s only up to the peculiarities of Basic and its use of gendered pronouns that you know his Armourer is a woman, or at least he considers them so. He doesn’t even tells you his own name, and when you ask your Elder in one of your communications, she tells you he didn’t gave it to them either. You keep introducing him as a friend, and that is the end of it for a while.

***

The visits to this first few coverts with him are… interesting. You can see him fidgeting from the corner of your eye. He always follows half a step behind and off to a side, as if not wanting to be in your way. He keeps quiet and doesn’t mix much, and around small children and droids, he is positively withdrawn. He only comes alive when he talks about his mission.

You had learned early on during your apprenticeship that keeping the helmet on is a safe bet when meeting with unfamiliar mandalorians. That led to later getting in contact with his type of believers too, despite their notorious secrecy even from the rest of the People. When you tell the stranger about that, he immediately showers you with questions, but you can’t give an answer to most of them. You never met with anyone from his particular covert, or heard of it. No name, no description seems familiar. It’s painful to watch his shoulders slump after daring to hope.

During the course of the month spent travelling, he gradually comes to be more social. He starts to stand and walk beside you. He doesn’t withdraw to the background anymore; he can actually be quite chatty if approached the right way. Droids still make him stop, though he warms up to kids in his own way. He’s good with them, at least in your opinion, though you know some would still call him aloof and distant. He isn’t a cuddler, nor does he crouch down to ask cutesy questions. He juts sits nearby them, and in that way of children having a good sense about adults, they know he’s trustworthy. They go up to him to chatter, to hand him a toy to hold, to ask him to fix a latch on their boots; than they go back to play.

He teaches you too, inadvertently at first during everyday conversations and later by his own volition, about his Way. About his Creed. It keeps throwing you off how much it differs from most that you had met before. Not even meeting briefly with people who followed the same Way as him could prepare you for the details that he does share. The degree of strictness, the loyalty, the barest bones Old Tradition beliefs and their willingness to follow them is very rare amongst the People as far as you can tell. Their devotion earns your respect.

At other times, your jaw hangs open and you can’t believe you are talking to an adult roughly around the same age as yourself, who by his own admission had spent three decades living as a follower of the Creed - not knowing about things children are thought through plays and songtime. His ignorance is so staggering, your admiration towards his unknown Armourer wavers. How could she keep so many things hidden from them? Why not talk about your own history? Your greats? Your artefacts?

About the many other who would call them vod’e, siblings?

You are an armourer, a craftsman, a person who makes a living by making things with your hand. You’re not a leader, or a scholar, or someone who decides what to tell your people. You do have a status within the community, but that is a status of service. From what the stranger says, their Armourer was a leader in every aspect: elder and lorekeeper and moral guide and more. All in one. It is something you can see developing from the old songs and histories amongst groups who take tradition more literally.

You are good at observing people, even at copying their habits to make them feel more comfortable with you, but less good at determining their underlying motives. The reason you think of him as “the stranger” even after travelling with him is because it’s so hard to figure out what drives him. There’s a melancholy to him that overrides the more typical mandalorian fight-readiness or aggression. You see how he gazes off to the distance sometimes, turning his head to the side and freezing. How he keeps to himself when he can. But you can’t tell why. Grief? Regrets? Determination to change? Planning something greater and being preoccupied with that?

He doesn’t pick fights to test you. He spars with you when you invite him to, he helps when you ask, and often even without it. He’s polite and considerate; he keeps conversation to practicalities and interesting stories, and doesn’t bother you with anecdotes or insistent questions about trivialities or your private life. He even does the dishes.

He’s deadly boring in his reliableness.

You are used to being on your toes around people all the time. When you meet a new group, it’s all unknown people. With ones you had already visited, the problem is having to remember them. They remember you of course, the ‘wandering armourer’; and surely you remember them too.

What is worse, when people stay the same but you don’t remember them, or when they change and you just can’t place them?

He becomes a good excuse after you’ve been to several coverts together. It’s interesting to notice how your dynamics change even further once you two get into a comfortable routine. You start to retreat to your forge and tools, and let him take all the attention. And he doesn’t just talk about his mission anymore, or lets little ones play around him whilst he’s quiet. He converses with people about news, about their children, about weaponry. You have more time to focus on your work.

Sometimes, people ask you what do you think of his mission. You tell them that you will follow what your clan decides, and that’s mostly true. It is something people don’t often debate, at least.

He quickly becomes a part of your everyday life. You are content with your usually solitary travels. You know that your family, your clan and your friends wait for you at home. They message you and you can find the time that suits you to message back. You don’t miss the constant hubbub of the covert most of the time. But now that you have someone that is not a droid, someone who is your equal in every aspect, on board again, it’s not even lonely anymore.

***

“So what’s up with you and droids?” you ask one day, after you got back from a covert and are safely in hyperspace to the next destination. You tinker with your astromech’s navigational systems. Poor 2-T keeps bumping into walls and crates. Again.

The stranger looks at you and your droid, than over at Mouse who for a change isn’t zooming around at foot level.

“Bad memories.”

“Gunk sat on you?” You tease. You hope it’s just something silly and not him having some sort of snobbish organics-are-better philosophy. He is quiet, and you focus on your work. He’ll talk if he wants to, that much you know already about him.

Inside the body of your astromech, a rivet from stars knows where is stuck between two circuit boards and blocks the access to a short-circuited piece of wire.

“Kriff. Toots, this will take a while, sweetie. Can’t access that kriffing panel.” He chirps back something and you read the translation on the small display. “No, it’s not that. My hand can’t fit in that small space. Let me find those pliers… should be in that other drawer somewhere.”

You search in the chest of tools, and despite your usually good organization, you can’t find them amongst the droids’ tools where their place is.

“Let me help.” The stranger’s voice beside you makes you jump. He can be awfully quiet. “Sorry. I think I might’ve put them back into the wrong drawer. I used them the other day when I fine-tuned that scope.”

He points at another drawer, where you keep your fine electronics stuff. No wonder he mixed them up. He stands beside Tootee a bit awkwardly until you find the tool.

“Here! No problem by the way. “ You turn back to him and to the droid, than have an idea. “Do you mind a bit more help? You can say no if you don’t want to work with the droid, I’ll understand.”

He doesn’t object yet, so you go back to 2-T and show the stranger the area you’re working on. You see him lean closer in your peripheral vision.

“That’s where I need to get that burned piece of wire out and install a new one, but first, I need to get that rivet out of the way.” You point at the root of the problem, than explain your plan, pointing out each part in turn. ”If you could hold those using this, than I could get here, remove this, with that tool, than have to get those bundles out of the way too, so than that wire there could come out. Easy.”

You look up at him, and his helmet is way closer than you expected. You can almost see your reflection in that black visor as it stares back at you for a second, and you almost apologize again, when the stranger starts to speak.

“Just have to hold the wires to the casing, or pull them like…” he moves his hand in the air, showing what he means.

“Hold them to that panel, there, with the pliers, so I have room to access the rest.”

He thinks for a moment, than he starts to tug one of his gloves off.

“You don’t need to take that off, just hold the pliers” you tell him, but he shakes his head.

“No, I can fit my hand in there, I’m pretty sure. If not we can try it with the tool.”

You realize that this is the first time you see his skin. Than it occurs to you that he might very well misunderstand this whole situation. You just asked him to hang his hand inches from yours in an enclosed space; inside a droid nonetheless, just after you basically told him you noticed he has a problem with them. It would be so easy to get caught up in there, to touch his hand, and hush it up as coincidence. Especially now that he took his glove off as well. He might even think that it was a careful plan of yours: have an area to work with were your slightly larger hands don’t fit but his might.

Your fingertips already tingle from knowing you can’t make mistakes. Which means you’ll probably do. He reaches between the panels and gets to the part where you got stuck. He wiggles his fingers a bit and scrapes around.

“Ha, found some wires. Are these the ones you need out of the way?”

You peer down into the quagmire of electronics, trying to find the best angle to see everything.

“Yes, those are the ones. Just hold them like that.” You try to focus on what you are doing, but after those earlier thoughts, your hands are jittery. You somehow manage to remove the obstructing rivet, than find the burned out part and replace it without accident, the stranger patiently holding things out of your way. You direct him here and there, occasionally stumbling as it’s a lot of instructions, or at least a lot of “could you please” and “thank you”. It gets particularly awkward when you stumble over the lack of name spectacularly.

“Could you pull those the other way, so they aren't that taut, please? Thank you, you. I mean thank you.”

“Din. Din Djarin.” Your head snaps up while the rest of your body freezes. “I should have told you my name sooner, but I’m so used to not telling it… and it just became more awkward to bring it up as time passed. I apologize.”

You close your mouth that of course was hanging open in surprise, than shake your head.

“I thought at first that I missed it when you said it so I was ashamed that I didn’t remember.” That did happen before, and it was one of your greatest worries about meeting new people. “I actually asked my elder. Sent her a comm. So when she told me you went nameless, I didn’t wanted to demand it.”

He doesn't answer right away. His voice is softer when he speaks a bit later.

“Thank you. For being considerate.”

You smile and try to wave it off. Which results in your hand slipping and pawing at his, still motionless and stuck in the inside of the astromech.

“Oh shucks, I’m sorry… didn’t meant to.” You withdraw your hand quickly, and start to look for your tools to cover your mistake.

He doesn’t seem bothered, luckily. You calm down, reminding yourself not to behave like you drank one too many glasses of your cousin Ree’s home-made tihaar, and finish the repair.

“You can let those go now, I’ll finish from here. Thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome, any time.”

He sits back on a nearby crate and watches you work for a while, ignoring Mouse zooming around the room. You’re surprised a bit: you didn't expected him to stick around. And than he starts to ask about 2-T. How long you had him, is he temperamental, can you install a vocoder on astromechs, and why not. His tone is somewhat cautious, his voice stiff, like someone asking about a dangerous predator. You remember how you asked him about his distance with droids, but don’t want to push that question. He already told you his name today.

…

By the time you finish with the rest of the repairs, clean Tootee up and tidy around your workplace, interrupted by having to leave hyperspace and land at a spaceport, it’s the middle of the night in local time. You planned to have a nap and search out the local covert just before dawn.

You go to the galley to have a bite before turning in, and the stranger - Din, you remember, although his last name is less clear - is cleaning up some dishes. There’s another bowl in the middle of the small table, covered by a plate.

“That’s for you, if you’d like to have it. Used up the last of that spice mix we got” he tells you as you enter. You sit down and stretch your legs out one side. As you take the plate off from the steaming bowl, you think about how nice it is to find warm food on the table and not having to cook your own all the time.

“Thank you.” You pull the bowl close and take the spoon that he put beside it. You swirl the soup - it looks very good: clear broth with lots of veggies and other fillers in it - and gather your thoughts. “So ummm… I want to ask something before it gets awkward again.“

He finishes piling the bowls and cups and sits down on the seat opposite. You blurt the question out before you might change your mind.

“What was your name again? Din, that was clear, but the rest… sorry but it sounded something like “jarring”?”

He chuckles, and it’s a clear sound even with a vocoder, no snort or sigh to distort it.

“It’s Djarin. Dorn-jenth-aurek-resh-isk-nern. Djarin.” You nod, a bit embarrassed, and he continues. “Don’t worry, you aren't the first to ask. Probably not the last either.”

“Thanks for being patient. I’m not the best with names, to be honest.”

He tilts his head.

“Is that why you are always so focused when someone introduces themselves? I can ask them to repeat their names for me too if you want to, than both of us can try to remember them.”

You blink at him.

“That’d be…” Unnecessary, and don’t bother, and it’s not your job, you think - but stop yourself. That would actually help. No shame in accepting it. ”That would be nice. Thanks.” You are good at a few things, like making things with your own two hands. Not gaping when something surprises you, or remembering faces or names, any names, not just people? Nah.

You tuck into your soup, and the two of you sit in companionable silence. You wander if Djarin sits there because he wants to, or if he’s waiting for more questions from you. You asked a lot from him during the last few hours, and he was really kind with all his help and telling you his name and not being bothered when you misremembered it.

You are halfway done with your meal when he stirs. He leans forward with his lower arms on the table, and takes a deep breath. You wonder what his question will be - you commit to answer whatever it might be. He deserves that after today.

“So you asked earlier about me and… droids, right?”

Your hand with the spoon stops in the air. You weren’t expecting this question, at all.

“Yes…” You want to say he didn’t have to answer. But you already told him that. You’re sure he remembers that too - since he brought the topic up again. “Yes, I did.”

He shuffles on his seat a bit, and looks out to the side like he sometimes does. You lower your spoon and eat, letting him gather his thoughts.

“When I was a kid… I don’t know how old you were then, but during the war. The Clone wars.” You nod, understanding what he’s getting at, and he continues. “We were… the place I lived came under attack. Some separatist battle droids. Mandalorians saved me.”

You swallow your soup. That was the shortest possible description of someone having their entire life and probably everyone they knew ripped away from them and finding a new way of life for the decades to come.

“I’m sorry” you say, because really, what else is there to say. He nods, and gazes off again. Than he shrugs his shoulders, as if he wants to shake the weight of the past from them.

He gets up, and walks around the table on his way out. He stops beside you for a moment and hesitates, and you almost turn towards him to ask what he needs when you feel him squeeze your shoulder. Than he straightens and steps away.

It’s warm where he squeezed it, and you remember how long ago it was that someone touched you.

You need to talk to your friends asap, and hug at least some of them. He turns back from the door.

“Get some sleep before dawn, all right? Have to be sharp to remember all those new names.” You don’t see him wink but you’d bet he does behind his visor. You scrunch your nose at him and pout before smiling, and he dips out of the galley.

Your hand is still hovering in the air, holding the spoon, while you listen to his footsteps getting more distant as he walks down the corridor to his cabin.

It’s just your luck that you don’t need your wits the next place. It’s only two people with the same, simple name and you met both of them before.

#din djarin x reader #din djarin x tall reader #din djarin x gn!reader #post season 2 #mandalorian oc #armourer oc #cheeky mandos #my writing

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concussed-to-pieces · 4 years ago

Text

The Mettle Of A Man; Part Sixteen

Fandom: Fallout (4)

Pairing: Eventual Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor

Rating: Holy shit M.

AN: A very special shoutout to @anonymouscosmos for all of their encouragement and support! You are a god among insects. I’d also like to thank the discord chat for enduring my nonsense, as ever. Enjoy!

Part One: ArcJet

Part Two: The Prydwen

Part Three: Orders

Part Four: Finding Brandis

Part Five: Weston Water And Oberland

Part Six: Meeting Preston And Matthew

Part Seven: Radstag And Radstorm

Part Eight: The Return To Sanctuary Hills

Part Nine: Domestic Ruminations

Part Ten: Institutionalized

Part Eleven: Two Weeks, Three Days

Part Twelve: Haylen’s Warning And The Glowing Sea

Part Thirteen: Under Fire

Part Fourteen: Dichotomy

Part Fifteen: The Litany Trial

[!TRIGGER WARNING!: This installment contains graphic depictions of gore and detailed descriptions of previous abuse. Stay safe!]

Her head had been blown open, or at least it felt that way. The explosion was so close to her face that her helmet had just peeled off like it was made out of shrapnel-laden papier-mâché.

Sergeant Shaun 'Lucky' Cathan was flat on his back hardly a foot away from her, pinned under the weight of the debris that was slowly crushing his armor.

She couldn't move. Her arms and legs wouldn't respond. That blow to the head had been nearly fatal. She was trapped on her stomach, inches from him.

"Backhand-" Cathan choked, his voice wet. His gauntlet fumbled for her own, large metal fingers gripping her hand. "End of the line for me, eh Handy?"

She gurgled something, trying to talk. One eye still worked. Barely. It felt like it was full of glass every time she forced herself to blink. It was too dark to see much anyway, even if she squinted. Her head throbbed with the beat of her heart.

"Save--your strength, Vega." Cathan instructed.

She wasn't sure what strength he was even talking about. Her armor felt like it had collapsed down on her spine. "Sir-" Vega managed to say. "S'been an honor-"

"Don't give me that-- shit , Vega." Cathan chuckled. "I was just another dog of war. You'll get out of this. Go back to that man of yours, have a few kids, live your life." He coughed, wheezing, "my time is up, Handy."

"No, no I'm-" Backhand tried to pull him closer, tried to get upright. Pain jolted down her back and legs and she halted, trembling. "I c-can't leave you here, Sarge." She groaned, knowing deep down that it was futile but refusing to give up .

Cathan's grip tightened briefly. "It's alright, Handy." Her CO murmured. "It's alright. Make sure Tabitha has me buried on American soil. Or chuck my ashes in the harbor, yeah? Piss off all those Cambridge fucks." He chuckled.

Backhand nodded as best as she could, the tears stinging painfully against the flayed skin of her face. "I will. Promise."

The rubble overhead creaked and groaned, dust falling down on top of them. "Won't be long now." Cathan mused faintly, "Not long at all…"

…

Danse struggled to sit up and roll Vega onto her back. His own injuries faded to the background of his mind as she laid unresponsive, blood slowly pooling in the dirt beneath her left side. Her mouth opened and closed in a spasm; her eyes had rolled back in her skull and her fingers twitched erratically.

Have to hold pressure. Stop the bleeding. Danse numbly pressed his shaking hands down on her side just below her ribs, his body suddenly awash in a cold sweat as he realized just how much blood she was losing. He could almost hear Haylen rambling about the arteries, internal bleeding, penetrating damage, Worwick and Brach and Dawes and Keane and Danse felt like he was going to be sick.

"H... Haylen! " He yelled desperately. It was the only thing he could think to do.

Then, against all odds, startling the everliving daylights out of him, Vega sat up . " Oh , you fuckin' asshole! " She hollered at Maxson around Danse's body while the paladin scrambled to attempt to stem the flow of fresh blood that her motion sent spurting out. "You really fuckin' shot me?! You're the worst kind of dick! "

Danse was flabbergasted. Her state was clearly compromised, how was she even conscious-

"Fuck!" Vega growled in pain, dropping her forehead to rest on Danse's chest. "Oh fuck, fuck fuck you, you told me Danse was fuckin' dead, you liar! You expect me to just stand by and let you kill him in front of me?!" She continued to rant at Maxson, her voice muffled somewhat by Danse's shirt. "You dumb fuckin' prick, you stupid fuckin' dipshit motherfuck son of a cockass! This ain't exactly my first time gettin' fuckin' shot, you fuckin' fuck!"

Danse realized that Arthur hadn't said a damn thing, possibly just as bewildered and awestruck by Elizabeth's impressive grasp of blue-streaked vernacular as he himself was.

"Paladin Brandis, if I may…?" Haylen's voice was almost inaudible over Backhand's continued snarling. Danse jerked his attention away from Elizabeth, trying to blink the sweat out of his eyes in order to determine the field scribe's location.

"Scribe, get the hell back behind the line!" Maxson barked.

Heavy footfalls heralded the arrival of Rhys and Haylen, the knight using his power armor like a shield to protect the scribe as if they were out in the field. Haylen was suddenly there , on her knees in the gravel next to Danse and Elizabeth. The paladin's eyes were now blinded with tears of gratitude and he huffed out a breath. "Danse, I'll get to you in a second." Haylen said softly, patting his hand. "Let me have her, okay?"

"Haylen, I…" the large man didn't know what to say, his words failing him. He clutched pitifully at the scribe's hands, sure that he was gripping too tight.

"I've got her, Danse. It's okay." Scribe Haylen soothed.

"Yeah Danse, s'okay." Backhand said blearily, "s'Haylen, she's great. We love Haylen." Her head lolled back like it was too heavy for her to hold up. "Haylen made sure I got to eat and stuff."

" What? " Danse rasped.

"The tactics Elder Maxson used during her incarceration…" Haylen trailed off, grimacing and then continuing in an undertone, "I made sure Rhys smuggled in something for her when he brought Brandis' meals."

"Vega, Jesus Christ, I'm so sorry." Danse apologized needlessly, resting his forehead against Elizabeth's as he supported her neck. "I didn't think anything would happen to you. I...I didn't think in general, I guess." He admitted.

Vega smiled . "Hey, I'd say whatever shit I went through was a pretty decent tradeoff for finding out that you didn't bite it after all." She slurred. "Missed you."

" Christ , Vega." Danse muttered in dismay, fighting to untie her hands. Haylen took over after a moment, the scribe's fingers infinitely more steady than his own.

"I need a Stim and a bloodpack!" Haylen announced after examining Vega's abdomen, looking up worriedly.

Not a soul moved. The only sound was the noise of Maxson wriggling in the grip of the armored knight who finally had him secured. "Listen to the scribe!" Brandis shouted to the mute crowd. "You have a sister bleeding in front of you and you would be still and silent? Where are the brave, compassionate soldiers I once knew? Knights! Scribes! Are you not Brotherhood?"

Two aspirants finally elbowed their way through the throng, making a wide berth around Maxson. One of them bore a large canvas bag. "Good, good work. Drop it here." Haylen instructed, unrolling her field kit. "Can I get a scribe with steady hands and another knight for the opposite side?" She called.

A knight thundered past Maxson, the man throwing Danse of all people a haphazard salute before he took up his post at the other end of the group. Maxson practically seethed with rage. "Knight, how dare you salute that--that thing! "

"That thing is still Paladin Danse of the Brotherhood of Steel, Maxson." Brandis growled. "He won the trial fair and square."

"I will not allow it to live!" Maxson shrieked hysterically, struggling against the iron hold of the knight bear-hugging him. "I don't care how many of you I have to take down, Danse dies today! "

"Maxson!" Brandis chided. "Do you even hear yourself? You sound insane! Think about what you're saying before you do something you'll regret!"

"Not before he dies! "

"Which would you rather be known as, Maxson? The abuser or the synth fucker?" Maxson froze at the sound of Danse's voice. The burly paladin shot the elder a bloodied sneer, his head tilted to the side at an almost arrogant angle. "After all, you got fucked by a synth." What the hell was he saying? Danse felt unhinged , words flippant, his tired limbs barely cooperating as he forced himself up on his knees and then to his feet. "You let a synth fuck you, Arthur."

" Abomination -"

"You ordered a synth to fuck you." Danse reminded him, voice grating as his words came faster. "Demanded it to fuck you. Abused it. Threatened it with a certain death mission if it didn't. Then gave it that mission anyway." Danse rubbed at some crusted blood beneath his blackened right eye, grimacing. "Does it make it better if you didn't know I was a synth? Because then , you have to justify the reality that you molested a soldier in a compromised emotional state utilizing your privileged position of authority. Can you accept that , Maxson?"

"You...Maxson, is this true?" Brandis asked incredulously.

"That thing is clearly lying!" Maxson scoffed, looking around at the spellbound crowd like he expected everyone to agree with him. "Dammit, I am the elder -"

"Did you hope that I would die out here, Arthur? Or did you assume that I would come crawling back to the Capital Wasteland after my inevitable failure in the Commonwealth?" Danse cut him off bitterly. "Did you think I would be easier to break once I had lost everything , Maxson?"

"He always fights with Danse!" A tiny squire chimed in. Danse hadn't realised that Maxson had Ingram summon the damn children to watch their trial. "We heard them fight!"

"Silence, brat! " Maxson screamed, his face purpling with fury. "I am the elder of this chapter, last of the Maxson line, and I will be given the respect I deserve! "

"Cade's records can verify my story!" Danse shouted hoarsely for everyone to hear, his shoulders heaving with emotion. "Every time we engaged, I did not escape unscathed. Nearly every injury was documented. The dates will align with high-stress situations, and I'll stake my life on there being a long stretch of shit mood during the absence of your preferred punching bag, Elder! "

" Liar! "

"Abuser!" Danse yelled in reply, "murderer! You killed Cutler, through your biased orders! You killed Knight Astlin, Scribe Farris, Knight Varham! You killed my brothers and sisters!" Danse's fists clenched tight enough to ache. "And for what, Arthur? For a synth? Or for a man that had no interest in you? Either way, I refuse to accept their blood on my hands, Maxson!"

" You killed them and you know it!" Maxson shrieked, kicking his legs desperately. "All you had to do was obey me, Danse! Was your pride worth their lives?"

"There was once a time in my life where I would have done damn near anything you asked of me." His anger petering out, all Danse felt now was weary and bruised. "I loved the Brotherhood, Maxson. I still do. But the path we have taken under your leadership is heinous."

"Don't you dare to lecture me about devotion, you mechanical mockery! " Maxson retorted.

"This body may be synthetic, but my heart and mind…" Danse paused, saluting once more. " Those belong to the Brotherhood, Maxson. To my brothers and sisters in arms. Nothing can change that. Not even the knowledge of my true identity."

"That's what you think!" Arthur flailed in the knight's grip, trying in vain to escape. No doubt so he could pitch himself at the paladin one final time.

"Elder Maxson, through your words and through your deeds, I deem you unfit to lead our chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel at this point in time." Brandis announced abruptly. "As the senior ranking officer, I, Paladin Brandis, will function as the interim elder until we receive proper instructions from our superiors." He removed his helmet, staring down at Arthur sternly.

The young man was quite the pitiful sight, bedraggled from trying to beat Danse within an inch of his life as well as from his struggling afterwards. He still looked mad enough to kill, those blue eyes almost crackling with pent-up fury. "You planned this, didn't you?!" His paranoia on full display, Maxson made no attempt to maintain any sort of composure. "Just how many synths have infiltrated our chapter? Well Brandis?! "

"Arthur, that's enough ." The senior paladin said in reply, his tone measured. "Don't make an even bigger fool of yourself. Bow out while you still have some dignity." He sighed. "Perhaps the stress of this campaign has been too heavy of a burden to bear for you. I sympathize, but I cannot permit you to carry on in this manner, Maxson." Brandis raised his eyes, scanning the crowd. "Cade! Knight-Captain Cade, please see to Maxson. He is obviously unwell."

…

Vega flickered in and out of consciousness. The weeks of abuse culminating in this final (though inadvertent) attempt to end her seemed to have nearly been successful. She only barely remembered Haylen treating her wound, mumbling out an apology to the younger woman for leaning so much weight on her. She caught snippets of Danse and Maxson shouting at each other, bits of the trauma that Danse had endured coming tumbling out and making Vega wish that she wasn't half-dead so she could at least flip Maxson off.

" Rest , Vega ." Haylen had ordered. " You need rest ."

And really, who was Backhand to refuse?

When next she opened her eyes, she was greeted by a canvas ceiling overhead. Vega squinted a little at the brightness of it. How long have I been out for?

"Welcome back, General." That familiar voice snapped her out of her staring contest with the tent above her and she rolled her head to the side, unable to help her smile at the sight of Danse. Still a little bruised and banged-up, but alive .

Tears streaked down her cheeks and Backhand wished that she could have stopped them, sniffling loudly and covering her face.

"General Vega, there's no need for that." The paladin chided her softly. Something bumped against her knuckles and she realized after a second that Danse was attempting to give her glasses back.

Vega accepted the glasses mutely, grabbed Danse's hand and used his arm as leverage to pull herself up off the cot.

"Wait, Elizabeth you-" The paladin began to protest, rising to his feet to stop her. Her legs nearly gave out but Danse managed to steady her, one large hand splayed on the small of her back. "You shouldn't be upright yet, Vega." He scolded.

I missed you. I thought you were dead. The words tangled up in her mouth and instead Backhand mumbled, "I thought I missed you." Danse's brows furrowed in confusion and she hurried to correct herself, "I mean--I...I thought you were dead!"

"I needed some time to regroup. Straighten my head out. Heal." The paladin explained quietly. "The O'Brians nursed me back to health."

"What happened , though?"

"What happened to you , Vega?" Danse asked instead, gripping her elbows carefully to keep her upright.

Backhand shrugged weakly. "Maxson thought I knew you were a synth."

" I didn't even know I was a synth." Danse huffed, thick eyebrows raising once again. "How on earth would you have known?"

"Maybe he was going on a witch hunt, trying to get me to confess even though I wasn't guilty of anything." She closed her eyes as she mumbled, "I missed you."

"I thought of you every day." Danse replied bluntly. Her head shot up and she stared at him, watching as a flush crept up his neck. "I er, I...I am not good at these sorts of things," he admitted. "But it's true. I thought of you and...and of your son. Of the life you should have had. When Preston tracked me down, we realized that something must have gone wrong. So I...came back."

Oh . She hated the disappointed pit that yawned open in her stomach. She should have known that he wasn't thinking of her in the same way that she had thought of him.

Backhand rested her forehead on his chest, willing her tears to abate. "We need to get them out of the Institute." She said thickly. "All of them. Anyone that will come, Danse."

"I think you and I should speak to Pal-- Elder Brandis. He has expressed interest in working with the Minutemen." Danse sighed heavily, then continued, "I cannot recommend that we work exclusively with the Brotherhood. There are years of prejudice that have been beaten into these men and women. The allowance of my presence is a show of good faith, but I don't know if I trust the rank and file to storm the Institute without turning it into a massacre." He gave her a wry smile. "I cannot blame them. Even knowing what I am now, it's going to take me some time to remove my knee-jerk reaction."

"There's always something else to do." She wasn't trying to complain , but God she was tired .

His facial hair brushed against her forehead, scraping the skin lightly. "I know. What was it you said in the Glowing Sea? 'A run ashore'?" He queried while giving her forearms a gentle squeeze, as if to comfort her.

"I thought you were dead." She hadn't meant to say it again, watching his eyes go dark and kicking herself for bringing it back up.

"I suppose I was, for a time." Danse murmured, his expression troubled.

"I... please don't do that to me again." Vega begged. Her hands fisted in his fatigues, wrinkling the worn fabric. "This is going to sound really dumb and really selfish, but please . Don't."

"When you thought I was dead, did you..." Danse hesitated. "I mean, did you really miss me? I'm not even...well, I'm not a..." He cast his eyes around, narrowing them like he was physically searching for the word he wanted to use. "Human." He finally managed to say, the admission obviously paining him. "I'm a freak of nature, Vega. A perversion of science and an example of where mankind has gone wrong--"

"Danse." Backhand cupped his jaw, her palms smoothing over the bristle of his stubble as she coaxed him to look at her. "No offense, but you cannot be this stupid."

"What do you mean?" The paladin asked, his confusion endearingly evident. "I'm not...how am I being…?"

Backhand blinked. Maybe he could be that stupid. "You're probably the most human person I've ever met, Danse. The way you care about your squadron, the way you've helped me...look, I wasn't upset about you being a synth, I was upset about you being dead ."

"Oh." Danse breathed. "Really? You... really? Me being a synth wasn't…?" His words kept faltering, uncertainty shining through with every hitch.

" You , Danse. I cried about you being gone ."

"Elizabeth…"

"So don't you dare scare me like that ever again, got it?" Backhand leaned forward, boldly pressing a soft kiss to his cheek.

"I--yes. Understood, Knight. Uh, General." Danse stammered, his fingers absently touching the spot she had kissed. "W-We should...go speak to Elder Brandis. If you believe you can walk a short distance? I know better than to ask you to stay put and be patient."

"Permit me the usage of your arm to keep me upright and yes, we can absolutely go."

...

Please don't do that to me again .

She had missed him, she said. She had mourned him, even. Cried over him. Danse's head was spinning.

How could that even be possible? How could she...he was a machine .

No time left to consider such weighty problems, unfortunately, as he found that far too soon the two of them were approaching what had formerly been Maxson's quarters and now served as Brandis' war room.

"Ad Victoriam, Paladin Danse and General Vega!" Elder Brandis greeted them warmly with a loose salute, gesturing around the war table afterwards. "Kells, Cade, Ingram, Quinlan, Doctor Li, I trust you all need no introductions?"

The briefing was, as they usually were, tedious. Nothing brief about it, if he was being brutally honest. Vega held her ground though, which was all he really needed.

"You boys aren't tyrants or fuckin' warlords. Not while I have any sort of say in the matter." She said sharply. "If you want Minutemen support, we are working as a team and the Minutemen have uninhibited access to all information as it is gathered. That means we'll need Quinlan's full cooperation." She held up a hand, staving off Quinlan's outburst. " Only in regards to the Institute. We don't want your super-secret Spec Ops sealed Brotherhood case files, so don't get those boxers in a bunch." Cade snorted and Proctor Quinlan looked absolutely scandalized, even as he grudgingly nodded.

"Now, General, this is all well and good but what does the Brotherhood get out of this bargain?" Kells asked pointedly. "As far as I can see, we're the integral piece in this plan."

"' As far as you can see ' is an apt phrase, Lancer-Captain Kells." Backhand's tone was cool. This was General Vega for certain, the woman who had whipped the Minutemen back into shape. "Because what you can't see are the rest of my operations. The Minutemen aren't the only force I have at my disposal, just the most obvious." She leaned in a little, her eyes cold as ice behind the lenses of her glasses. "Do you really want to test me on my home turf, Kells? After everything that's happened?"

"Not testing you, General Vega." The lancer-captain clarified, "simply identifying what seems to be an imbalance in the negotiations."

"I got you Doctor Li." Vega retorted. "Without her, your Liberty Prime would still be a pile of junk. I've gotten your scribes tons of information to sift through, I've done everything the former elder asked of me."

"Lancer-Captain Kells, if I might also interject?" Danse asked hesitantly, cringing on the inside as everyone turned to look at him like they had forgotten he was even there. Kells inclined his head after a moment. "Sir, we cannot be so quick to discredit our position. Due to our aerial location, we will be within the perfect striking distance to any sort of localized, above-ground assault."

"I am more than aware of our position, Paladin . But that does not negate the fact that we have a much larger stake in this than anyone else-"

"Larger than the locals who have been getting body-snatched for years?" Vega cut him off. "Let's not forget that myself and your new elder were starved and tortured for weeks , while the rest of you sat around and twiddled your thumbs out of fear and respect." She spat. "Don't fuckin' come to me with your scale-tipping bullshit . It took a synth to make you all sack up, and I don't intend to let you forget that." The woman straightened up, looking grim. "I'm not giving you anything else. You can either work with us, or you can keep pitching yourself against the Institute until they've all slipped away and you're left with nothing but an empty facility and unanswered questions."

"She's right." Doctor Li affirmed tersely. "They won't just wait around to be pummeled. This isn't the Enclave. The board of directors will do everything in their power to avoid you and waste your resources at the same time."

"We cannot afford to entrench ourselves in a drawn-out assault, Kells." Brandis reasoned. "When we strike, we have to do it decisively. Give it everything we've got and cut off the head."

Kells nodded, seeming satisfied. "Understood, Elder Brandis. I meant no disrespect, General Vega."

"None taken. I'm still recovering from getting the shit kicked out of me, so my manners aren't up to par quite yet." Vega rested her elbows on the table, steepled fingers tapping her chin. "I won't take anything from you that you're unable to give, Lancer-Captain Kells. If I can avoid using the BoS altogether, I will." She murmured, tilting her head. "I need to get in touch with some people before I can offer anything concrete, but once Lieutenant Garvey knows I'm alive I'm sure the rest will learn fast. We'll rally and plan accordingly."

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Ingram asked eagerly. "C'mon Vega, let's head to the comm deck and get things squared away!"

"Excellent plan. You two are dismissed." Brandis agreed, making a shooing gesture at the two women. Once they had departed, he turned his attention to Cade. "Do you have faith in our medical capabilities, Knight-Captain?"

Cade nodded. "We had been planning to attack them head on anyways, Brandis. If we're truly going in a little less 'shock and awe', we may actually tip more towards over-prepared."

"I'm not certain how useful their teleporter will be to us once we get inside. I'm sure they'll lock it down with great expedience. However there is another possible egress." Quinlan spread the old blueprint out on the war table, fingers indicating a small service tunnel. "Now, if their measurements are accurate, power armored troops will not fit in this tunnel. But unarmored individuals most certainly will. This includes any…" he hesitated, like he was preparing himself to say it, "... refugees , or non-hostile denizens."

Quinlan referring to synths as anything but had Danse's head spinning. Vega was an absolute marvel .

"It will be heavily guarded." Doctor Li warned. "They like to pretend that there's only one way in or out. Their precious molecular relay ."

"Danse, I think you ought to take point when it comes to securing this tunnel." Kells remarked, making the paladin straighten up. "We won't be able to gauge our level of involvement until we have a full muster from Vega, but I'd like a senior-ranked soldier in the mix. And I know how much you enjoy being boots on the ground." The older man offered Danse a thin smile.

Danse was so moved he needed to take a moment, finally choking out a ' yes sir ' with his hand over his heart. That Kells, even after all the years of growing to despise synths, would trust him with such a task-!

Perhaps they did stand a chance, after all.

Part Seventeen

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collegeburnoutsuperstar · 4 years ago

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2021 Book Recommendations

Way back in March 2020, at the very start of quarantine I did a little quarantine-read book rec list. We are now in 2021 and we are still in quarantine, so here’s an updated book rec post to help you through a socially distanced winter break and holiday season.

Non-Fiction:

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name | Audre Lorde | Adult | Memoir | LGBTQ | Zami provides a detailed look into Lorde’s life growing up in the 30s, 40s, and 50s as a young, poor, lesbian, black woman. Discussion focuses primarily on racism, poverty, and sexuality. | Trigger/Content Warnings: rape, suicide\suicide attempts, death, racism, abortion, mentions of cancer, mentions of abuse, sex.

Redefining Realness | Janet Mock | Adult | Memoir | LGBTQ | “This powerful memoir follows Mock’s quest for identity, from an early, unwavering conviction about her gender to a turbulent adolescence in Honolulu that saw her transitioning during the tender years of high school, self-medicating with hormones at fifteen, and flying across the world alone for sex reassignment surgery at just eighteen. With unflinching honesty, Mock uses her own experiences to impart vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of trans youth and brave girls like herself” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: underage prostitution, transphobia, bullying.

An Autobiography | Angela Y. Davis | Adult | Memoir | A story of racism, discrimination, imprisonment, and Communism; “the author, a political activist, reflects upon the people and incidents that have influenced her life and commitment to global liberation of the oppressed” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: racism, murder, violence, police brutality.

Before Night Falls | Reinaldo Arenas | Adult | Memoir | LGBTQ | “Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas describes his poverty-stricken childhood in rural Cuba, his adolescence as a rebel fighting for Fidel Castro, and his life in revolutionary Cuba as a homosexual. Very quickly, the Castro government suppressed his writing and persecuted him for his homosexuality until he was final imprisoned” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: underage sexual experiences with other minors, statutory rape, bestiality, incest, graphic descriptions of sex, suicide attempts, mentions of suicide, mentions of AIDs, homophobia.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Maya Angelou | Adult | “Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local ‘powhitetrash’. At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age-- and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Year later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned” (Goodreads).

Notes of a Native Son | James Baldwin | Adult | Essay Collection | “Written during the 1940s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black life and black thought at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era. Writing as an artist, activist, and social critic, Baldwin probes the complex condition of being black in America. With a keen eye, he examines everything from the significance of the protest novel to the motives and circumstances of the many black expatriates of the time” (Amazon).

Contemporary Fiction:

Alex in Wonderland | Simon James Green | Young Adult | Romance | LGBTQ | “ In the town of Newsands, painfully shy Alex is abandoned by his two best friends for the summer. But he unexpectedly lands a part-time job at Wonderland, a run-down amusement arcade on the seafront, where he gets to know the other teen misfits who work there. Alex starts to come out of his shell, and even starts to develop feelings for co-worker Ben... who, as Alex's bad luck would have it, has a girlfriend. Then as debtors close in on Wonderland and mysterious, threatening notes start to appear, Alex and his new friends take it on themselves to save their declining employer. But, like everything in Wonderland, nothing is quite what it seems” (Goodreads).

Red, White & Royal Blue | Casey McQuiston | New Adult | Romance | LGBTQ | First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz, son of United States President Ellen Claremont, finds himself back in the public eye after a confrontation with his nemesis, His Royal Highness Prince Henry, at a royal wedding. The only way to save American/British relations from crumbling: Create a fake friendship between Alex and Henry. But what happens when this fake friendship becomes something more? How will these two young men go down in history?

Fifty Shames of Earl Gray | Fanny Merkin | Adult | Parody/Humor | Very Heterosexual | “ Young, arrogant, tycoon Earl Grey seduces the naïve coed Anna Steal with his overpowering good looks and staggering amounts of money, but will she be able to get past his fifty shames, including shopping at Walmart on Saturdays, bondage with handcuffs, and his love of BDSM (Bards, Dragons, Sorcery, and Magick)? Or will his dark secrets and constant smirking drive her over the edge?” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: the is a parody of Fifty Shades of Grey...

Historical Fiction:

Water Music | T. Coraghessan Boyle | Adult | Adventure | “Set in the late eighteenth century, Water Music follows the wild adventures of Ned Rise, thief and whoremaster, and Mungo Park, a Scottish explorer, through London’s seamy gutters and Scotland’s scenic highlands to their grand meeting in the heart of darkest Africa. There they join forces and wend their hilarious way to the source of the Niger” (Goodreads).

The Island of the Day Before | Umberto Eco | Adult | Italian Literature | “After a violent storm in the South Pacific in the year 1643, Roberto della Griva finds himself shipwrecked-on a ship. Swept from the Amaryllis, he has managed to pull himself aboard the Daphne, anchored in the bay of a beautiful island. The ship is fully provisioned, he discovers, but the crew is missing. As Roberto explores the different cabinets in the hold, he remembers chapters from his youth: Ferrante, his imaginary evil brother; the siege of Casale, that meaningless chess move in the Thirty Years' War in which he lost his father and his illusions; and the lessons given him on Reasons of State, fencing, the writing of love letters, and blasphemy. In this fascinating, lyrical tale, Umberto Eco tells of a young dreamer searching for love and meaning; and of a most amazing old Jesuit who, with his clocks and maps, has plumbed the secrets of longitudes, the four moons of Jupiter, and the Flood” (Goodreads).

Brethren [Raised by Wolves series 1] | W. A. Hoffman | Adult | Adventure/Buccaneers | LGBTQ | “John Williams, the Viscount of Marsdale, libertine, duelist, dilettante, haphazard philanthropist and philosopher, is asked by his estranged father to start a plantation in Jamaica in 1667. He doesn’t realize that he is going to the right island for the wrong reasons until he meets buccaneers and learns he has for more in common with the wild Brethren of the Coast than he does with the nobility of Christendom. Still, he questions joining them and leaving his title and the plantation behind until her meets Gaston the Ghoul, a mysterious French buccaneer who is purportedly mad. He quickly decides that the freedom of buccaneer life [...] [is] better than anything he could ever inherit” (Goodreads). Trigger/Content Warnings: violence, mentions of rape, mentions of death, mentions of torture, mentions of abuse, mentions of incest, slavery, discussions of mental illness at a time when it is not really understood, descriptions of sex, alcohol use.

Captive Prince [The Captive Prince Trilogy 1] | C. S. Pacat | Adult | Historical-inspired Fiction | LGBTQ [more in later books] | Prince Damianos of Akielos finds himself captured and stripped of his true identity when someone close to the Prince makes a move for the throne. Part of the plot: ship the captured Prince to the enemy nation of Vere as a pleasure slave. In Vere, Damianos takes on a new identity, or else he would immediately be put to death by his new master, the Prince of Vere. Damianos quickly discovers that his capture and enslavement is not just an isolated incident, but is in fact part of a much larger plot that will drastically change the futures of both Akielos and Vere. | Trigger/Content Warnings: violence, torture, slavery/pleasure slaves [partially set within a culture that uses slaves], death, pedophilia, mentions of rape, descriptions of sex, suicide [in the second book]. DISCLAIMER: This trilogy has an enemies-to-lovers subplot, but it is in no way romanticizing slavery, rape, or violence. The romance subplot does not start until the characters undergo massive amounts of character growth and development.

11/22/63 | Stephen King | Adult | Time Travel | Thriller | Jake Epping, a thirty-five year old high school teacher English teacher and GED teacher from Maine embarks on a world-changing mission after a trip to the storeroom of his friend Al’s diner. Within the storeroom, Al has been hiding a secret, a secret that is objectively better than anything else that could’ve been hidden in a diner storeroom. Al has a portal to 1958. The mission: try to stop the Kennedy Assassination. Just remember, the current timeline may just be the best one. | Trigger/Content Warnings: death, violence, racism, domestic abuse, political assassination.

Adult Science Fiction & Fantasy:

The Rage of Dragons | Evan Winter | High Fantasy | “The Omehi people have been fighting an unwinnable fight for almost two hundred years. Their society has been billt around war and only war. The lucky ones are born gifted. One in every two thousand women has the power to call down dragons. One in every hundred men is able to magically transform himself into a bigger, stronger, faster killing machine. Everyone else is fodder, destined to fight and die in the endless war. Young, gift-less Tau knows all this, but he has a plan of escape. He is going to get himself injured, get out early, and settle down to marriage, children, and land. Only, he doesn’t get the chance. Those closest to him are brutally murdered and his grief swiftly turns to anger. Fixated on revenge, Tau dedicates himself to an unthinkable path. He’ll become the greatest swordsman to ever live, a man willing to die a hundred thousand times for the chance to kill the three who betrayed him” (Goodreads).

The Binding | Bridget Collins | Historical Fantasy | LGBTQ | While suffering from a mysterious illness, Emmett Farmer is sent away from his family to apprentice at a bookbinder’s workshop. But Emmett has been taught to hate books his whole life, they are dangerous and shameful. But under the instruction of the book binder, Emmett learns the secrets that books hold and uncovers a past that he didn’t even know he had. | Trigger/Content Warnings: homophobia, death, suicide, allusions to rape.

The House in the Cerulean Sea | T.J. Klune | Suitable for all ages | Urban Fantasy | LGBTQ | Don’t you wish you were here? Forty year old Linus Baker lives a lonesome, drear life. For seventeen years, Mr. Baker has worked as a case worker at the Department In Charge Of Magical Youth where he monitors the treatment of magical children in government-sanctioned orphanages. In a break from his usual routine, Mr. Baker is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management and is assigned a highly classified and possibly dangerous case. He is sent to the Marsyas Island Orphanage where he meets the six dangerous children; a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, a green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist, along with their caretaker Arthur Parnassus. At the the end of his stay, Mr. Baker must make a decision: Should he follow the rules, or protect a family?

Wolfsong [The Green Creak Series 1] | T.J. Klune | Paranormal/Shifter Romance | LGBTQ | “Ox was twelve when his daddy taught him a very valuable lesson. He said that Ox wasn’t worth anything and people would never understand him. Then he left. Ox was sixteen when he met a boy on the road, the boy who talked and talked and talked. Ox found out later the boy hadn’t spoken in almost two years before that day, and that the boy belonged to a family who had moved into the house at the end of the lane. Ox was seventeen when he found out they boy’s secret, and it painted the world around him in colors of red and orange and violet, of Alpha and Beta and Omega. Ox was twenty-three when murder can to town and tore a hole in his head and heart. The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his bloodred eyes, leaving Ox behind to pick up the pieces. It’s been three years since that fateful day-- and the boy is back. Except now he’s a man, and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: violence, death, age-gap romance.

The City of Dreaming Books | Walter Moers | German Fantasy | Absurd Fantasy | “Optimus Yarnspinner, a young writer, inherits from his beloved godfather an unpublished short story by an unknown author. His search for the author’s identity takes him to Bookholm-- the so-called City of Dreaming Books. On entering its streets, our hero feels as if he opened the door of a gigantic second-hand bookshop. His nostrils are assailed by clouds of book dust, the stimulating sent of ancient leather, and the tang of printer’s ink. Soon, though, Yarnspinner falls into the clutches of the city’s evil genius, Pfistomel Smyke, who treacherously maroons him in the labyrinthine catacombs underneath the city, where reading books can be genuinely dangerous” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: death, largely takes place in underground tunnels, illustrations can be unsettling.

Bored of the Rings: A Parody of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings | The Harvard Lampoon, Henry N. Beard, Douglas C. Kenney | NOT AT ALL FOR CHILDREN | Parody/Humor | Adventure | “A quest, a war, a ring that would be grounds for calling any wedding off, a king without a kingdom, and a little, furry ‘hero’ named Frito, ready-- or maybe just forced by the wizard Goodgulf-- to undertake the one mission which can save Lower Middle Earth from enslavement by the evil Sorhed. Luscious Elfmaidens, a roller-skating dragon, ugly plants that can soul-kiss the unwary to death-- these are just some of the ingredients in the wildest, wackiest, most irreverent excursion into fantasy realms that anyone has ever dared to undertake” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: drug/alcohol use.

Dune | Frank Herbert | Science Fiction/Science Fantasy | “Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the ‘spice’ melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for. When house Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: death, drug use.

The Magicians [The Magicians Trilogy 1] | Lev Grossman | Urban/Portal Fantasy | “Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery. He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: drug/alcohol abuse, depression, death, rape [in book 2].

Mo Dao Zu Shi | Mo Xiang Tong Xiu | Wuxia/Chinese Fantasy | LGBTQ | “As the grandmaster who founded demonic cultivation, Wei WuXian roamed the world in his wanton ways, hated by millions for the chaos he created. In the end, he was backstabbed by his dearest shidi and killed by powerful clans that combined to overpower him. He incarnates into the body of a lunatic who was abandoned by his clan and is later, unwillingly, taken away by a famous cultivator among the sects-- Lan WanJi, his archenemy. This marks the start of a thrilling yet hilarious journey of attacking monsters, solving mysteries, and raising children[...] Along the way, Wei WuXian slowly realizes that Lan WanJi, a seemingly haughty and indifferent poker-face, holds more feelings for Wei WuXian than he is letting on” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: suicide, death, murder, violence, incest, rape (I think), abuse, abusive families.

The Eye of the World [The Wheel of Time series 1] | Robert Jordan | Epic Fantasy | Adventure | “The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time. The Wheel of Time Turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. When The Two-Rivers is attacked by Trollocs-- a savage tribe of half-men, half-beasts-- five villagers flee that night into a world they barely imagined, with new dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: death, violence.

The Lies of Locke Lamora [Gentleman Bastard Series 1] | Scott Lynch | Heist Fantasy | “An Orphan’s life is harsh-- and often short-- in the mysterious island city of Camorr. But young Locke Lamora dodges death and slavery, becoming a thief under the tutelage of a gifted con artist. As leader of the band of light-fingered brothers known as the Gentleman Bastards, Locke is soon infamous, fooling even the underworld’s most feared ruler. But in the shadows lurks someone still more ambitious and deadly. Faced with a bloody coup that threatens to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the enemy at his own brutal game-- or die trying” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: death, violence, torture.

The Name of the Wind [The Kingkiller Chronicle 1] | Patrick Rothfuss | Epic Fantasy | “My name is Kvothe. I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths my moonlight that others fear to speak of during the day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me” (The Name of the Wind). | Trigger/Content Warnings: death, violence, abuse, book three still doesn’t have a release date.

Trick [Foolish Kingdoms 1] | Natalia Jaster | Fantasy Romance | LGBTQ | “There is only one rule amongst his kind: A jester doesn’t lie. In the Kingdom of Spring, Poet is renowned. He’s young and pretty, a lover of men and women, he performs for the court, kisses like a scoundrel, and mocks with a silver tongue. Yet allow him this: It’s only the most cunning, most manipulative soul who can play the fool. For Poet guards a secret. One the Crown would shackle him for. One that he’ll risk everything to protect. Alas, it will take more than clever words to deceive Princess Briar. Convinced that he’s juggling lies as well as verse, this righteous nuisance of a girl is determined to expose him. But not all falsehoods are fiendish. Poet’s secret is delicate, binding the jester to the princess in an unlikely alliance, and kindling a breathless attraction, as alluring as it is forbidden” (Goodreads).

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? | Philip K. Dick | Science Fiction | “It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill. Somewhere among the hordes of humans out there, lurked several rogue androids. Deckard’s assignment-- find them and then ‘retire’ them. Trouble was, the androids all looked exactly like humans, and they didn’t want to be found out” (Goodreads).

Young Adult Science-Fiction & Fantasy:

Cemetery Boys | Aiden Thomas | Urban Fantasy | Romance | LGBTQ | “Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can't get rid of him. When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his true gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free. However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school's resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He's determined to find out what happened and tie off some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: transphobia, dead-naming.

In Other Lands | Sarah Rees Brennan | Urban/Portal Fantasy | LGBTQ | “The Borderlands aren’t like anywhere else. Don’t try to smuggle a phone or any other piece of technology over the wall that marks the Border—unless you enjoy a fireworks display in your backpack. (Ballpoint pens are okay.) There are elves, harpies, and—best of all as far as Elliot is concerned—mermaids. Elliot? Who’s Elliot? Elliot is thirteen years old. He’s smart and just a tiny bit obnoxious. Sometimes more than a tiny bit. When his class goes on a field trip and he can see a wall that no one else can see, he is given the chance to go to school in the Borderlands. It turns out that on the other side of the wall, classes involve a lot more weaponry and fitness training and fewer mermaids than he expected. On the other hand, there’s Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle, an elven warrior who is more beautiful than anyone Elliot has ever seen, and then there’s her human friend Luke: sunny, blond, and annoyingly likeable. There are lots of interesting books. There’s even the chance Elliot might be able to change the world” (Goodreads).

The Fascinators | Andrew Eliopulos | Urban Fantasy | LGBTQ | “Living in a small town where magic is frowned upon, Sam needs his friends James and Delia—and their time together in their school's magic club—to see him through to graduation. But as soon as senior year starts, little cracks in their group begin to show. Sam may or may not be in love with James. Delia is growing more frustrated with their amateur magic club. And James reveals that he got mixed up with some sketchy magickers over the summer, putting a target on all their backs. With so many fault lines threatening to derail his hopes for the year, Sam is forced to face the fact that the very love of magic that brought his group together is now tearing them apart—and there are some problems that no amount of magic can fix” (Goodreads).

Things Not Seen | Andrew Clements | Science Fiction | Realistic Fiction | “Bobby Philips is an average fifteen-year-old boy. Until the morning he wakes up and can’t see himself in the mirror. Not blind, not dreaming. Bobby is just plain invisible. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to Bobby’s new condition; even his dad the physicist can’t figure it out. For Bobby that means no school, no friends, no life. He’s a missing person. Then he meets Alicia. She’s blind, and Bobby can’t resist talking to her, trusting her. But people are starting to wonder where Bobby is. Bobby knows that his invisibility could have dangerous consequences for his family and that time is running out. He has to find out how to be seen again before it’s too late” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: Car accident.

Howl’s Moving Castle [Howl’s Moving Castle series 1] | Diana Wynne Jones | Fantasy | Portal Fantasy | Adventure | “Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl’s castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there’s far more to Howl --and herself-- than first meets the eye” (Goodreads).

Castle in the Air [Howl’s Moving Castle series 2] | Diana Wynne Jones | Fantasy | Adventure | “In which a humble young carpet merchant wins, then loses, the princess of his dreams. Far to the south of the land of Ingary, in the Sultanates of Rashpuht, there lived in the city of Zanzib a young and not very prosperous carpet dealer named Abdullah who loved to spend his time daydreaming. He was content with his life and his daydreams until, one day, a stranger sold him a magic carpet. That very night, the carpet flew him to an enchanted garden. There, he met and fell in love with the beauteous princess Flower-in-the-Night, only to have her snatched away, right under his very nose, by a wicked djinn. With only his magic carpet and his wits to help him, Abdullah sets off to rescue his princess” (Goodreads).

A Wizard of Earthsea [Earthsea Cycle 1] | Ursula K. Le Guin | Fantasy | “Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth. Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death’s threshold to restore the balance” (Goodreads).

Middle-Grade/Children’s Fiction:

Island of the Aunts | Eva Ibbotson | Middle-Grade | Fantasy | Adventure | “When the kindly old aunts decide that they need help caring for creatures who live on their hidden island, they know that adults can’t be trusted. What they need are a few special children who can keep a secret-- a secret as big as a magical island. And what better way to get children who can keep really big secrets, than to kidnap them! (After all, some children just plain need to be kidnapped.)” (Goodreads).

Ruby Holler | Sharon Creech | Middle-Grade | Realistic Fiction | Adventure | “Brother and sister Dallas and Florida are the ‘trouble twins.’ In their short thirteen years, they’ve passed through countless foster homes, only to return to their dreary orphanage, Boxton Creek Home. Run by the Trepids, a greedy and strict couple, Boxton Creek seems impossible to escape. When Mr. Trepid informs the twins that they’ll be helping old Tiller and Sairy Morey go on separate adventures, Dallas and Florida are suspicious. As the twins adjust to the natural beauty of the outdoors, help the Tillers prepare for their adventures, and foil a robbery, their ultimate search for freedom leads them home to Ruby Holler” (Goodreads).

The Westing Game | Ellen Raskin | Middle-Grade | Realistic Fiction | Mystery | “A bizarre chain of events begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of Samuel W. Westing’s will. And though no one knows why the eccentric, game-loving millionaire has chosen a virtual stranger --and a possible murderer-- to inherit his vast fortune, one thing’s for sure: Sam Westing may be dead... but that won’t stop him for playing one last game!” (Goodreads).

Midnight for Charlie Bone [The Children of the Red King series 1] | Jenny Nimmo | Middle-Grade | Urban Fantasy | “Charlie Bone has a special gift-- he can hear people in photographs talking! The fabulous powers of the Red King were passed down through his descendants, after turning up quite unexpectedly, in someone who had no idea where they came from. This is what happened to Charlie Bone, and to some of the children he met behind the grim, gray walls of Bloor’s Academy. His scheming aunts decide to send him to Bloor’s Academy, a school for geniuses where he uses his gifts to discover the truth despite all the dangers that lie ahead” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: abusive family situations (mental and emotional), bullying, some parts can be creepy/spooky.

The Maze of Bones [The 39 Clues series 1 ] | Rick Riordan (the series is written by several different authors) | Middle-Grade | Mystery | Adventure | Action | “When their beloved aunt --matriarch of the world’s most powerful family-- dies, orphaned siblings Amy and Dan Cahill compete with less honorable Cahill descendants in a race around the world to find cryptic clues to a mysterious fortune” (Goodreads). Trigger/Content Warnings: Death, house fire, dead parents, abusive family.

The Doll People | Ann M. Martin | Middle-Grade | Fantasy | Adventure | “Annabelle Doll is 8 years old --and has been for over 100 years. Nothing much has changed in the dollhouse during that time, except for the fact that 45 years ago, Annabelle’s Auntie Sarah disappeared from the dollhouse without a trace. After all this time, restless Annabelle is becoming more and more curious about her aunt’s fate. And when she discovers Auntie Sarah’s old diary, she becomes positively driven. Her cautious family tries to discourage her, but Annabelle won’t be stopped, even though she risks Permanent Doll State, in which she could turn into a regular, nonliving doll. And when the ‘Real Pink Plastic’ Funcraft family moves in next door, the Doll family’s world is turned upside down --in more ways than one!” (Goodreads). | Content Waring: It’s living dolls, this is off-putting to many people.

Bud, Not Buddy | Christopher Paul Curtis | Middle-Grade | Historical Fiction | Realistic Fiction | “It’s 1936, in Flint Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud’s got a few things going for him: He has his own suitcase full of special things. He’s the author of Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. His momma never told him who his father was, but she left a clue: flyers advertising Herman E. Calloway and his famous band, the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!! Bud’s got an idea that those flyers will lead him to his father. Once he decides to hit the road and find this mystery man, nothing can stop him --not hunger, not fear, not vampires, not even Herman E. Calloway himself” (Goodreads).

The Thief Lord | Cornelia Funke | Middle-Grade | Fantasy | Adventure | Mystery | “Two orphaned children are on the run, hiding among the crumbling canals and misty alleyways of the city of Venice. Befriended by a gang of street children and their mysterious leader, the Thief Lord, they shelter in an old, disused cinema. On their trail is a bungling detective, obsessed with disguises and the health of his pet tortoises. But a greater threat to the boys’ new-found freedom is something from a forgotten past --a beautiful magical treasure with the power to spin time itself” (Goodreads).

Igraine the Brave | Cornelia Funke | Middle-Grade | Fantasy | Adventure | “Igraine dreams of being a famous knight like her great-grandfather, but castle life is boring. Until the nephew of the baroness-next-door plans to capture the castle for their singing spell books. At the moment of the siege, her parents mistakenly turn themselves into pigs. Aided by a Gentle Giant and a sorrowful Knight, Igraine must by brave, and save the day --and the books” (Goodreads).

Valley of the Dinosaurs [Magic Tree House series 1] | Mary Pope Osborne | Children’s Literature | Science Fiction (time travel) | “Eight-year-old Jack and his little sister, Annie, are playing in the woods during their summer holiday, when they find a mysterious tree house full of books. But these are no ordinary books... And this is no ordinary tree house... Jack and Annie get more than they had bargained for when Jack opens a book about dinosaurs and wishes he could see them for real. They end up in prehistoric times with Pteranodons, Triceratops and a huge Tyrannosaurus Rex! How will they get home again? The race is on!” (Goodreads).

Frindle | Andrew Clements | Middle-Grade | Realistic Fiction | “Is Nick Allen a troublemaker? He really just likes to liven things up at school --and he’s always had plenty of great ideas. When Nick learns some interesting information about how words are created, suddenly he’s got the inspiration for his best plan ever...the frindle. Who says a pen has to be called a pen? Why not call it a frindle? Things begin innocently enough as Nick gets his friends to use the new word. Then other people in town start saying frindle. Soon the school is in an uproar, and Nick has become a local hero. His teacher wants Nick to put an end to all this nonsense, but the funny this is frindle doesn’t belong to Nick anymore. The new word is spreading across the country, and there’s nothing Nick can do to stop it” (Goodreads).

Knights of the Kitchen Table [Time Warp Trio series 1] | Jon Scieszka | Children’s Literature | Fantasy | Time Travel | “Magician Uncle Joe’s birthday present entitle ‘The Book’ swirls green mist and grants pal Fred’s wish to ‘see knights and all that stuff for real’, sending Sir Joe the Magnificent, Sir Fred the Awesome, and Sir Same the Unusual to King Arthur’s castle opposing the Black Knight, grossly smelly giant Bleob, and fire-breathing leather-winged iron-clawed green dragon Smaug. Fred plays tag and wields a baseball bat. Sam cleverly politicks. Joseph, Arthur tricks with cards. But Merlin has ‘The Book’ to get home” (Goodreads).

Over Sea, Under Stone [The Dark Is Rising series 1] | Susan Cooper | Middle-Grade | Fantasy | Arthurian Inspired | “On holiday in Cornwall, the three Drew children discover an ancient map in the attic of the house that they are staying in. They know immediately that it is special. It is even more than that --the key to finding a grail, a source of power to fight the forces of evil known as the Dark. And in searching for it themselves, the Drews put their very lives in peril” (Goodreads).

Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery [Bunnicula series 1] | Deborah Howe | Children’s Literature | Fantasy | Mystery | “BEWARE THE HARE! Is he or isn’t he a vampire? Before it’s too late, Harold the dog and Chester the cat must find out the truth about the newest pet in the Monroe household: a suspicious-looking bunny with unusual habits...and fangs!” (Goodreads).

Howliday Inn [Bunnicula series 2] | James Howe | Children’s Literature | Fantasy | Mystery | “Not a great place to visit, and you wouldn’t want to live there. The Monroes have gone on vacation, leaving Harold and Chester at Chateau Bow-Wow --not exactly a four-star hotel. On the animals’ very first night there, the silence is pierced by a peculiar wake-up call --an unearthly howl that makes Chester observe that the place should be called Howliday Inn. But the mysterious cries in the night (Chester is convinced there are werewolves afoot) are just the beginning of the frightening goings-on. Soon animals start disappearing, and there are whispers of murder. Is checkout time at Chateau Bow-Wow going to come earlier than Harold and Chester anticipated?” (Goodreads).

Peter Pan | J.M. Barrie | Children’s Literature | Fantasy | Adventure | “The mischievous boy who refuses to grow up, lands in the Darling’s proper middle-class home to look for his shadow. He befriends Wendy, John and Michael and teaches them to fly (with a little help from fairy dust). He and Tinker Bell whisk them off to Never-land where they encounter the Red Indians [Native Never-landers], the Little Lost Boys, pirates and the dastardly Captain Hook” (Goodreads). | Content Warnings: use of the terms “Red Indians” and “Indians” (and probably other racist terms, I can’t remember though).

Owl Moon | Jane Yolen | Picture Book | Realistic Fiction | “Late one winter night a little girl and her father go owling. The trees stand still as statues and the world is silent as a dream. Whoo-whoo-whoo, the father calls to the mysterious nighttime bird. But there is no answer. Wordlessly the two companions walk along, for when you go owling you don’t need words. You don’t need anything but hope. Sometimes there isn’t an owl, but sometimes there is” (Goodreads).

Kiana’s Iditarod | Shelley Gill | Picture Book | Fiction | Educational | “Kiana is no ordinary dog. Born and bred to race, she leads her team of huskies on a journey unlike any other. The Iditarod --known traditionally as Alaska’s ‘Last Great Race’-- spans 1,049 icy miles from Anchorage to Nome. From the treacherous terrain to the bitter, blowing winds, the trail is full of obstacles Kiana and her team must overcome in order to reach the finish line. Along the way, they encounter pacts of wild wolves, a mighty moose, and other dog-sled teams fighting for first place. Can Kiana summon the strength of her team and lead them to victory? Author Shelley Gill brings her firsthand experience as the fifth woman to complete the Iditarod race to this crackling adventure story” (Amazon).

#bookblr #books recs #book recommendations #covid-19 #self quarantine #social distancing #quarantine and read #reading #fantasy #lgbt books #memoirs

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noobsomeexagerjunk · 4 years ago

Text

we wake with the intent to find enlightenment

Eret was what any sensible Minecraft server would call a "player of games," descending from the first slayers of the Dragon that dreamed hard enough to achieve the highest level. He was the epitome of what the voices whispered in their little poem.

Well, he was supposed to be.

In a sudden new development of powers, Eret converses and looks back on conversations to finally figure himself out, to finally wake up.

(read on AO3)

chapter 1: and all those sparkles in my eyes still remain

When you talk with enough people, you are forced to think.

When you think hard enough, you are forced to change.

Eret did not mean to trim away (or make disappear, based on his witness) all the leaves from the trees in his castle garden with a flick of his hand, but he just did.

He neared one bald trunk and touched the branches. It was odd how clean the cut was.

He reckoned that something about his person changed that caused the phenomenon to happen.

That kind of change had not happened since he was still growing up when he was as young as the few children on the server, most of whom he loved fervently.

The first time he knew he was different from the other children, human or otherwise, was the white of his eyes, which were aglow perpetually and unnatural enough to make people, who didn’t have the family eyes, unnerved around him. At some point, people began to flee at the sight of him.

Perhaps it’s the legend that one relative of his that he had made for himself— yeah, that’s right.

That said relative had remarkable power and chose to make himself a nightmare amongst servers, which was a feat no one in his immediate family, with their own powers, chose to do. None of them had that kind of audacity.

Neither did he, who then just decided to chop down the naked trees, planting new ones in their place.

The mystery of the kin who had Eret’s blood could make monsters, villains, but also heroes, leaders, gods even! They’re the epitome of dreaming, of what man should be in the sandboxes that Minecraft offered. Eret, by blood, descended from those who lived fully through uncovering the hidden truths from that so-called poem, the poem a server would whisper to those who, when the dragon of that server’s End is slain, actually save the End in question.

Eret’s power gave him a particular knowledge when he first stepped into the Dream SMP, a knowledge that framed him as an alien god trapped in the fragile clay that was the average Dream SMP mortal. It’s knowledge of the End but knowing the art of respect (and in that knowledge, not breaking the rules concerning its restriction).

Despite all that, Eret was left still trying to figure whatever the fuck he was. She was? They were?

Eret was, as far as he knew, something .

Wilbur said he was a traitor.

Dream said he was a king.

Everyone else said he was a puppet.

He made himself a historian.

He was something. Some...things?

Eret knew that he and he alone dictated his identity. He did not know whether he was happy with what he gathered, with what he made, with what he was.

Blinking back into reality, Eret dropped his enchanted netherite axe, leaves now restored. He hadn’t even begun cutting down the trunks!

“Okay, this is getting weird,” He remarked, picking up his axe and placing it back in his inventory.

He then walked back into the quarters of his castle, heading into that hidden boudoir where he did his more private and intimate matters concerning his person.

Armor off, then after some consideration, robe off as well.

In his regality and decoration, Eret always felt most like himself wearing gray shirts and blue jeans. It was bland, (as one drunk Wilbur Soot once whispered to him playfully, during one of those nights before everything went wrong,) but it was comfortable.

The mirror of the boudoir was massive, reaching the room’s high ceilings, making Eret’s figure so small from within the room’s walls.

Eret picked up his crown from off his head and took a good look at it. The marks of enchantment on the golden material resembled blood splatter, the pretty, intricately-carved jewels covered in beautifully contrasting impurities.

Now, the SMP’s other known leaders, or at least those most fascinated by its powers? They were intriguing to Eret, many of them possessing skills he wished he himself had. In their crafts and games, it was odd how Eret never could hold his own against them.

Eret’s craft was a museum. Unlike symphonies, it had the right to remain forever unfinished. It depended on housing so many stories—there were too many stories left unsalvageable.

Eret’s game was the game of Jacks. As bad as he was at the game, it was the game he can’t help but choose to play. The ball is bouncy just as his crown is heavy, the bones in hands as little as the friends he actually had.

The (let’s be real here,) crown of thorns—the Crown which was currently in Eret’s possession—both allured and terrified, like a bomb waiting to be used, waiting to blow up.

Bombs made Eret remember a conversation with Tubbo and Captain Puffy on a visit to Snowchester.

“Independent?” Eret picked up the Declaration of Independence on the podium, reading the haphazard handwriting of the founder of Snowchester.

“Have you come to contest it, your majesty?” Tubbo approached from behind him with a snarking tone; pulling with him on a lead was a bay horse that Puffy was riding on.

“Well, no, as nothing of any harm is,” The nukes, ”um, well-“

“Yes, we are peaceful, aren’t we?” Tubbo maintained his tone.

“Besides the nukes, Tubbo?” Puffy interjected.

“It’s a deterrent!” The teen repeated, “Like I said earlier, Eret. I’ve got them decommissioned and we don’t want any trouble.”

“Yeah, I can see how you’d come to that kind of protection,” Eret remembered Doomsday, “though I would request—actually no, recommend you communicate with me if you are going to use them at any point.”

“For what?”

“The help would be needed. You never know.” Eret was reminded of an equally alien red. Tubbo had mentioned seeing some growths on his land during their earlier conversation.

“I never do know, don’t I?”

Eret chuckled lightly, “Well, Tub-”

Tubbo suddenly smacked the ewe off the horse, much to her dismay.

“Tubbo! That hurt!”

“Thank you for getting off my horse,” Tubbo said, absurdly and frankly.

“Are you alright, Puffy?” Eret quickly went to pick her up, only for Puffy to be standing when he was at a reasonable distance from her.

“I’m good, I’m good.”

Puffy was quite a character. Her request of resignation was something he happily allowed, as her disillusionment with the server certainly coincided with his. He made no public spectacle of it (though to be fair, he never made a spectacle of his knight table, to begin with,) but had a meal with Puffy for it.

This was the price of an unannounced excursion. You leave for a month to make sense of all the chaos you’ve had to endure healthily only to come back to an even worse Dream SMP.

You have come back negligent. Wasn’t the break supposed to make you a better ruler?

Eret remembered welcoming Puffy when she first arrived, disheveled and a bit of a klutz, though nonetheless friendly.

Of course, who wouldn’t be a mess joining the Greater SMP, most especially after a historical act of political terrorism?

Eret quickly repressed the thought of Wilbur, though the dead fellow’s charisma seemed to leak out of Puffy’s excitability. She acted much like him, much like he was before Eret had hurt him: quick to founding family, being a shoulder to cry on, quick to burn when necessary, being a paragon of hope against tyranny and towards peace.

Captain Puffy had long wooly locks, brown and highlighted with a prismatic shade of white. She hid her eyes behind glasses like his, enigmatic like himself, surely? This ewe walked into the server with a friendly, warm wool onesie of many colors, reflected in her horns and hooves.

Eret’s shock was reasonable when she came to their little arranged meal together in a brand new costume.

She looked so much like Wilbur, as attractive as him, even. This was the man who had the ambition to fight tyranny through a division Eret thought at the time as dangerous.

The reminder can no longer be avoided.

In some way, Eret felt he was correct about the effect of L’Manburg, of it being a further cause of division in a server that didn’t need to create factions but to simply negotiate with words—to coexist and be passive and not be so Goddamn stubborn.

Dream and Wilbur, in their disagreements, agreed they were both unbelievably stubborn. Too mortal, too measly, two mere men...Eret found it awful how they fashioned themselves as immovable objects. He, for one, belonged to a race of men far more powerful than that of the two, and yet they had the audacity! What are simple server owners and the children of angels to dreamers? To the descendants of those who had taken the universe’s whims to heart? To the same brood that begotten the nightmare known as Herobrine?

Eret was something, but that something was not Herobrine, that’s for sure.

Wilbur could only handle so much. L’Manburg could only handle so much.

The stains of betrayal still prod and cry at Eret before his very eyes.

Nevermind. Eret wasn’t as sure, now that he thought harder about it.

He huffed to himself. He was being fickle.

Captain Puffy was quite fickle. She bent and broke like him, if her resignation as a knight was of any indication. She mothers a god but is so ever mortal and yet is so humble. People and happiness mattered to her, and that was why Eret loved her.

The tricorn hat and the long coat, worn out by what seemed to be the waters of storms instead of the fires of war, were an ashen color, black like obsidian, and were punctuated with gold pads, embroidery, and buttons.

She wore glasses like his, in that through certain angles, semi-hid eyes of enchanted prismarine. As we know, Eret’s glasses hid a blinding, mythical pair of whites.

“That’s quite the look there,” Eret remarked at the sight of her, almost tempted to blush.

“Yeah,” Puffy failed to hide her hesitance, “I, um, thought I needed a wardrobe change.”

“You didn’t have to dress up for this, you know?”

“I know, I know,” Puffy put a lock behind her ear, “This is just—how do I put this? Um, a necessity.”

He was about to jokingly question whether she was going to war, but then stopped himself in realization.

“I see. Come,” He gestured to her to follow him towards the table and food he set up before her arrival.

#dream smp #dream smp fanfiction #we wake with the intent to find enlightenment #eret #captainpuffy #tubbo #wilbur soot #/roleplay

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