#goodness is a choice not something innate and its your actions that count

[spectre-writes]

Fic rec for trigunfanficappreciation week because I don't think I've seen anyone else raving about it?

No Name on the Bullet by @yellowocaballero is probably one of my fave trigun fics, top quality role swap au with fantastic characterization. It manages to somehow be exciting, funny, and full of depth, more people need to check it out.

Summary:

Miracle on Gunsmoke! When the beloved angel Vash the Stampede visits the poor and downtrodden, hope follows in his wake. His mission may save humanity or destroy it, but only one thing is certain: that he's the most obnoxious brother of all time.

Meanwhile, travelling physician Millions Knives just wants to atone for his past by saving lives and taking care of his brother once and for all. Life would be a lot easier if he could just kill off the female reporters and bratty priest dragging him around, but apparently murder was bad or something. It's going to be a long road to July.

[whump-a-la-mode]

Would you continue the villain nausea whumpee? To show how he is after he is removed from the chair? Do they set him free since he won’t be violent anymore ?

I loved the idea of Villain being set free, and ran with it a bit! I hope you enjoy! Thank you so much for the ask!!

This is a continuation from here, and, once again, the story below is below a read-more to prevent any accidental viewing of content that could trigger emetophobia very badly. I would hate for anyone to see it as they scroll past.

However, this time, the first scene is shown, as it contains no potentially triggering content.

CW//Emetophobia, graphic description of vomit, self-hatred, medical malpractice, low self esteem, hatred of former friends, Stockholm syndrome, whumpee liking whumper, minor eye whump mention, nausea

The auditorium crackled with the feedback of a thousand microphones, shoved towards the stage, frequencies battling and screeching against one another in chaotic choir. From a mass of bodies, of cameras and clattering boom mics, the wire spheres emerged in their dozens, all pointed centrally.

All pointed at the stage, and the podium that lived upon it, glistening in freshly-polished hardwood and media attention.

Behind the platform stood a figure, as equally basking in fame, and equally as glimmering. Upon their face, perfect white teeth glowed as freshly-fallen snow, pressed together in a wide grin.

In Hero’s eyes, it was pride that shone. The pride that came with accomplishment, with recognition, with glory, with perfect hair and thousand-dollar suits and the attention of the world, all upon their face. Their words.

“Thank you, everyone, for being here.” With a greeting alone, the world tucked back in hushed quiet. “Now, we will have plenty of time for questions later, but I wanted to start off with what has surely found itself on every headline this morning.”

A pause. The expected clamor erupted from the horde of media, incoherent shouting and stomping. A rioting crowd.

“Now, now.” It was a practiced ritual, between lion and tamer. “I will be taking all of your questions at the end, but let an old guy speak a little, first.”

Laughter queued.

“Well, then. I’m sure you’ve all seen the headlines-- you guys especially, you wrote them! But, for everyone at home, yes, the rumors are true. A villain is now loose in the city.”

A practiced gasp.

“And it’s a good thing! You see, for years, now, our in-house villainous psychology research has been working on a technique that they have dubbed Reaction-Based Morality Rehabilitation. Now, I’ll let you in on a little secret.”

The hero leaned forward, hand cupping the microphone, playful smile clear upon their face.

“They gave me this paper, and it was like, 100 pages long. And I didn’t know half the words in it.” They backed up, smile remaining. “But, trust me when I say, those guys in R&D? They’re amazing. They know exactly what they’re doing, even if I don’t.

But, I won’t leave you hanging. I do understand the just of the procedure, even if I’m not so sure on the jargon.

It’s a very simple solution to a very complicated problem. I am a firm believer in the fact that people are not born as villains. We are all born as heroes. Some of us, through unfortunate means, however, turn rotten. Through this technique, however, me and Organization believe to have found a way to separate the villain from the person inside.

By using innovative methods of therapy, our psychologists are able to help villains reject their evil ways, all the way at the center of their neurology! We have heard many concerns about the possibility of relapses, of a villain turning sides upon their release. Yet, with this technique, changing sides is not a conscious choice. It is as much a thought process as it is a carefully embedded instinct.

Of course.” They straightened momentarily. “That does not mean we are simply allowing once of those who have harmed you return to our beautiful city unsupervised. We ensure you, multiple surveillance methods have been put in place. This is only a trial run.

We at Organization wish to think each and every one for your cooperation and participating in the beta test of this revolutionary new technique. If this run receives positive results, you can all think of villainy as a thing of the past!”

From the crowd emerged a cheer. A cheer for glory, for fame, for progress!

For the destruction of a foe.

For unquestioned success. A villain defeated!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Villain’s fingers brushed over the top of the kitchen’s oak-stained counter, kicking up enough dust to suffocate, even as their tightly pursed lips protected them from such.

This was a house.

Their fatigued, half-haunted gaze turned to move over the surrounding interior. The kitchen was fully-featured, oak accented with shimmering, mottled granite. Not that anyone had bothered to clean in the place. Beyond the room and its attached dining area, a step lower, a carpeted area was positioned, furnished in felt couches and a television.

But this was not a home.

With a scratching nail to their neck, the villain moved forward numbly, to the base of the stairs and up them. Beneath their skin, the tracking chip was an awful feeling. Buried just deep beneath that it could not be seen, yet shallow to the point that its presence was unyielding and unignorable. A constant itch, embedded between twitching folds of muscle.

Maybe they could take it out. Maybe with the right kitchen utensil-

Halfway up the stairs, they dropped, keeled over themself with sickly pea soup filling in the space behind their eyes. In an instant, their mind retreated desperately from the thought, or any semblance of it, even as their stomach heaved with the residual ghost of it.

The tracking chip was fine and they didn’t care about it and they wanted it to stay there forever because it wasn’t coming out.

Legs now taking on an appearance that ever so slightly more resembled gelatin, the villain leaned upon the railing, ascending with a considerable additional difficulty up the stairs. In the very brief tour they had been given, their bedroom had been identified as the dark spruce door at the hall’s end.

Moving to it was a struggle on its own, insides still twitching and squelching with the remnants of acute nausea. Yet, their agony was only internal. They made it, and, all the way, kept their mind empty. Thoughts clear.

Not thinking of anything that could make them fall.

The bedroom was a bedroom. A dust-coated vanity. A small attached restroom. A nightstand. A bed.

At the very least, the quilts had some color to them.

Struggling in an attempt not to clutch their own stomach-- an action that they had learned, time and time again, only made the organ flip-- Villain shuffled to the piece of furniture that had been designed for use when they slept. Dust coughed from beneath the covers as they lifted them, crawling under.

Laying down helped, at least in some slight way that may or may not have been a placebo. It meant they could close their eyes. Make unwise thoughts that much less likely to happen.

For a moment, Villain succeeded in blackness. A blank mind. A world unmarred by the horrible jolts within their brain, the firings of neurons, the innate jostling of their frontal cortex.

Yet, it only lasted a moment.

With a jerk, they curled to a fetal position, legs bent and tucked beneath arms. Their body struggled as though weeping, though they had long ago learned not to cry. It was terribly difficult to produce tears, after all, when the metal drew their eyes to unbroken wakefulness.

This was a nightmare. They were certain of it.

That had been their first thought, of course, when the news of their liberation had been shared with them-- after it had been shared with the wider public. Things did not reach their cell very quickly. They had believed it to be a dream, for there was no other possible explanation.

Villains did not deserve freedom. They knew that. Violent little scumbags.

When they had been driven to the house, that was when the orinique connotations in their mind had flipped-- when dream turned to nightmare.

It was their home. Such had been stated clearly, so many times. Upon a thousand channels of media syndication. They had been given the keys, had stared at them for an agonizing moment. Watched them dangle between their fingers.

Hero had practically had to shove them through the doors, and even so, their attempts at escape ceased only after the fourth time they had been reprimanded for them.

Somewhere, something mechanical twitched. Moved. Buzzed. One of the cameras. They knew they were here, obvious, blocky, black eyes. At the very least, they provided some semblance of comfort.

Of home.

Of safety.

Oh, how desperately Villain wanted to go home. Everything had made so much sense there! Was so fantastically, wonderfully simple! If they were placed in their cell, they stayed in their cell. If offered food, they ate. When seated in their chair, they watched.

It was so easy. So invariable. Strict and stringently controlled, as the life of any vile beast who called themself a villain should be. Not a chance they could make a mistake, that they could do anything wrong. Only the slightest opportunities for their mind to slip, their thoughts to wander, to go somewhere bad.

Somewhere that would send them to their hands and knees, heaving and retching.

Food came often, with how difficult it was to keep it down. They’d counted once. Certainly the chefs must have become tired after preparing thirteens meals in a single day. Yet, in the end, they had only managed to fully digest one.

Especially since that was only the day on which they had counted-- it certainly wasn’t notable.

Now, there were no chefs. No cells. No chairs. No screens to watch. Order was gone, and chaos reigned.

Terrible, bloody chaos.

The house was far too large. So many times, Villain had begged for a schedule. For orders. For what they were meant to do-- when to get up, when to go to sleep, what to do inbetween.

Yet, the answers always came the same: A shrug, and four terrible words. “Whatever you want to.”

That which they wanted was not that which should be carried out! They were a villain! A terrible, retched thing! A monster! A devil! Their thoughts deserved no attention, their wants deserved only the click of the IV.

The sickness.

Somehow, despite the inherent maleficence that it most certainly carried with it, an idea manged to work its way through the folds of their brain. A thought. A plan.

A good one. One that did not incite their stomach to heaving.

Certainly, if they laid here, in this bed, then their freedom could not lead to the harm of anyone else. The world would remain safe, regardless of their liberty. And, when the cameras at last noticed, the heroes would be forced to return. To bring them back to the cell and the chair. To return them to where they belonged.

It was perfect-- though that wasn’t to say that anything they created could possibly be good.

Thus, they put the plan into action. Beneath the chains that were covers, upon the chair that was a bed, Villain waited.

Their plan worked for perhaps an hour.

An hour. Then the door was kicked in. This time, that which seized their chest had nothing to do with nausea, nothing to do with conditioning. Everything to do with terror.

Even their wildest dreams, their most optimistic ambitions, did not expect that the heroes would have come so soon. If they had, they would have knocked.

They curled tighter into their fetal position, fingers gripping skin until both turned white. Desperation and willpower, even together, could not stop their mind from tracking the noises as they moved through the house. Through the kitchen. The living room. Up the stairs. To the hallway outside.

Certainly, they would have noticed the lack of dust on the bedroom’s doorknob.

Perhaps it was a member of the public, come to take their righteous revenge. Such would certainly be deserved. Or, perhaps, a wayward hero, disliking the arrangement that had been made. Having decided to take the matter to their own hands. They deserved that, as well.

But, when the voice came, Villain knew that their hopes were as far as could be from the truth.

“Villain?”

Blank mind. Don’t think. Blank mind. Don’t think. Blank mind don’t think.

Beneath the blanket, they twitched.

“Oh, thank goodness.” Footsteps dashed to the bedside. Hands upon them. There was such a wholehearted relief to the voice, an unimaginable burden relieved.

Yet, such was impossible, as villains did not have hearts.

“We were so worried, so, so worried. You have no idea! Come on, come on.”

A hand, to the top of the blanket.

“There’s about a thousand cameras in here, buddy, so we need to get going. Everyone at base has been so nervous, all day. Ever since we heard... My car’s just outside, we need to go, quick.”

Villain’s only solace was torn away.

“Buddy? What’s wrong?” The voice was practically a whisper. “It’s me. It’s-

Supervillain.”

A blank mind, filled with thoughts.

The initial strike of nausea was enough to make them wail, even as they had no ability to. They hardly remembered getting to their hands and knees, hardly remembered as they began to heave. No. They registered only the horrid, green-and-brown mess that exploded upon the pale white bedspread.

Again, again, a thousand exhausting times, the heaving struck them, until chunky vomit was spilling off the side of the bed, ruining the antique carpeting. It only ceased to spill when their insides were well and truly empty.

That was when they were picked up.

It was a caring, warm hold, tucking them close to the chest of a vile demon. Yet, they had not the slightest ounce of energy to resist. Any muscles not exhausted by fatigue went back to work, heaving and coughing, even as nothing more emerged.

“I’m sorry.” With a broken voice, Supervillain spoke. “I’m so, so sorry. Let’s go back to base, okay? Everything’s going to be okay, I promise, I promise, buddy.”

No.

With evil like this in the world, nothing was even going to be okay again.

[bloodycassian]

Enemies and Allies - Reader + Night court. the concept:

enemies forced together in alliance to save their courts. Politics, tension, "Once we're done here I will be the one to kill you." slow burn reader x an Illyrian? Not sure who yet

Part 1 of a possibly reoccurring fic.

You never liked dealing with other courts, but Rhysand and Tamlin were possibly the two worst high lords to deal with. Helion would have been up there too if he wasn't so damn charming. And Beron didn't even count, considering he was your uncle. He was annoying automatically. And a damned fool for not showing up to the funeral. Tamlin was a brute shoved into power much too early. You could tell just from the way he carried himself. No nobility, no grace. Just the brutal beast that lurked under his skin. The way he didn't bother leaving any flowers along the coast line was further proof of his childish ways.   Rhysand was the polar opposite. The epitome of arrogance, grace, poise and political power. All words and strategy, enough to make you double take every time he opened his mouth. Constantly on the lookout for hidden meaning or loopholes in his word choice. He made your heart race with stress.  His spymaster and general though, were like two neutral, yet menacing gargoyles on either side of him. They were unsettling, especially with the shadows that crept over the spy. You tried not to stare at those curling around his shoulders, or the dull siphons that laid on each of their hands. Or the wings.  The wings would have been the worst part if there weren't other winged generals at the funeral. Peregryns guarded their high lord, one at each side much like Rhysand. Only they radiated sunshine, and light and goodness. Still terrifyingly deadly, though. Their polished armor and ceremonial scepters glinting from the overcast skies.  "A funeral should be a celebration... of the life that was. Please, join us." Tarquin said, voice thick. His mate's lip quivered. The ocean crashed against the sand, scooping up the flowers left to honor his son. Your heart squeezed at the tone change in his voice. The way he struggled to hold himself together for his court.  Vivienne turned from the crowd, and Tarquin followed. Her dark hair moved like water over her thin frame. They held each other for a long moment while the Summer court guards ushered guests to the large open beach house. You hesitated, looking out towards the ocean as it roiled. The dark water churned, seagulls overhead made no sound as they passed.  "Its been a long time, Autumn." The sultry voice was enough to make your skin crawl. He had kept the nickname since he'd met you. And in the two hundred years since. He did not forget such a remarkable introduction. Especially of someone who had your kind of power in an opposing court.  His eyes flashed with amusement when you turned, plastering on a charming smile. "I would have preferred longer, but the Cauldron works in strange ways sometimes." You retorted, and began walking away from him, grinding your teeth when he followed with ease.  He laughed and nodded. "Indeed it does, with the passing of Tarquin's only child." the not question was leading, looking to see if you knew anything of the murder. Anger spread though you at the subtle accusation. You couldnt let it show.  You had to keep your calm. Or he would surely suspect something of you. You could practically see the accusation scene play out when Night court invaded Autumn on Summer's behalf. Claiming that Autumn had killed the boy. "A parent should never outlive their own child." You said mournfully. You knew from experience how it ruined families after such a loss.  When you snuck a glance at his face, you could have swore you saw pain there. A longing that you didnt understand coming from him. It almost made you feel bad for him. You jolted yourself, forcing your mind to focus upon on your steps in the sand.  He paused for just a second before opening the bungalow door for you, inviting you to the wake. All courts dressed in mute tones of their colors, not one dared to raise their voice above the hushed murmurs. Rhysand gave a nod to his two generals in the corner, standing like statues. "I'll be seeing you then, Autumn." His eyes met yours and you swore you saw something linger there.  Before you could tell him to knock it off with the nickname, he was weaving his way across the room to the two Illyrians. Stopping every so often to give grim smiles to the families of Summer Court. His actions seemed genuine in nature. You dared not reach out a mental hand to him though, knowing you might not return with it intact.  + "And what of Night court?" Beron's slurred words were familiar. The old man had been wasting away in his own filth for years. After the Lady of Autumn disappeared, he had nothing left to keep him in line. His sons - Eris namely- made the important decisions in the court, but he still acted as ruler. The figurehead for important events and nothing more.  He had also become obsessed with the innate abilities of all the other high lords. Constantly comparing his own lingering power with the others. In two hundred years, his body had seemed to begin to wither. Directly after your birth, some said. And cursed you for their ruler's demise. After the shame of being one of the few courts to refuse to help win the war, Beron had given up completely. Still power hungry, but no longer driven.  "Night court seems to be fine. Not shaken by the murders." You surmised as best you could after your short interaction with the High Lord.  "Was it's high Lady there?" He asked with a grunt of a laugh. He was always undermining the role, laughing whenever you mentioned seeing the lady of Night. "She was not. I believe she was taking care of the babe, as the two generals were there." He shook his head, his gray hair falling in his face. "As a female should." You fought not to cringe or bite back at him. Even if he was your uncle, Beron would be a fantastic target if there was, in fact a murderer loose in Prythian. You shooed the tratirous thought away.  "Tarquin and Vivienne send their regards." You said, hoping he would allow you to take your leave. You glanced around to the cavernous space that encapsulated the dark throne room. The banners on the wall seemed lacking in color. Years of dust likely growing on them. The cracked stone floor showed its age as well, moss growing in the corners. He refused to let anyone touch up the dim room after his wife had gone.  Echoing steps sounded behind you. You turned on your heel calmly, but gripped your sword. Ready to defend your High Lord if needed.  Your mouth fell open at the sight of The Morrigan striding down the long hall. Eris on her heels behind her. She was a beacon of light among the dull ancient stone walls. Eris had a wicked grin on, eyes locked on his father.  +  "The Queens have been killed." She announced, no wavering in her tone. Your stomach hit the floor. Beron said nothing, didnt show any reaction in the slightest. As if he already knew. "And they sent you so I could be assured the court of Nightmares isnt lying?"  "They sent me because I saw to their end personally." Eris even glanced at her with the tone she used. She leveled a look at Beron.  He waved a hand, as if the Night court commander hadn't just announced that the biggest enemies to Prythian were dead."Cut off the head of the snake and more appear." He coughed after the shrug, his breathing labored. Eris hid a pained look that you knew all too well. The denial of his father's life coming to an end in front of him. You could have balked at him for the outright insult but kept your mouth shut. "High Lord.." you began, wanting to consult him on the weight of the situation. He glared at you, that familiar piercing stare that told you to stop whatever you were doing. As a child, that stare was enough to make you behave. You didn't dare think of what more than a stare Eris had to go through during his childhood.  Eris' jaw clenched before he began "Father, the Queens no longer pose a threat. This would be the perfect op-"  "Enough, boy!" Beron's voice echoed in the hall. Your cousin's face went red with shame. Fear settled in your stomach. If Beron  had no plan for moving forces to the continent to stablaise, there would be a power struggle. Even you knew that. "You assume I dont have a plan. We can discuss this when there are no wandering eyes or ears present." His tone was softer, but still laced with that High Lord's authority.  Mor's eyes could have killed them if she had the ability.  She snorted, and turned on a heel to leave. Her footsteps echoing in the long hall. "The Night Court's whore, going back to where she belongs." Beron mused to himself. She stopped dead in her tracks. Eris' face went pale when she turned. Your palms went sweaty at her eyes, like two daggers looking at him. She held up a hand. Light flashed, and suddenly there was a razor thin spear flying through the air.  You ran at The Morrigan before you knew what you were doing. Your hands were a flurry of movement as you tried to keep her down. Eris just watched, unable to move as he watched death race for his father.  A wet splatter, and Beron's chest was punctured by that golden spear. His mouth leaked blood, his eyes closing. Eris was rooted to the spot. Your body locked up, and Mor shoved you off of her with a grunt. She wasnt trying to win the fight, she could have obliterated you in a second if she was. You felt like you weren't in your body. She stood, wiping the blood from her face. You didnt remember hitting her that hard. Your mouth was dry, mind buzzing. Mor waved her hand again and the spear was gone.  "Have all the power you want, Eris. Our deal has been struck. Send your forces to Rask by next week." She scowled at the body on the throne. The male you had just wished death upon. The reality of it made everything fuzzy. Eris was still pale, his eyes not looking away from his father. "We will see you there." He said, voice weak. Distant.  You could only faintly hear Mor Winnow away. The roaring in your head was overwhelming. Your uncle dead on his throne. A hysterical laugh bubbled from Eris' chest. Only one, before you could catch his gaze and see the silent tears streaming down his cheeks. + "You killed the Queens and my father without consulting me first. I hardly think our deal was struck." Eris had been strange after his father's funeral. But for the first time since, you saw a glimpse of the old him. On the move to Rask, he had been that hollow shell he seemed like. Btu as soon as he laid eyes on Morrigan waiting at that tent, he seemed to put on more of a show.  Inside the tent seemed too small. It was enormous, but with everyone inside it was too hot. Too cramped. The sun beating down did not help. The two Illyrians in the corner leering at you and Eris was not helping either. "A deal's a deal young Lord. I suggest you choose your words more carefully next time." Rhys winked. You crossed your arms over your chest, trying to hold back your tone. "You murdered him. I am being blamed for not guarding him well enough." Your reputation in the court had fallen.  Several Royal court members had been rumoured of your position inside the court, if you should be banished because of the death. None of them knew what actually happened. You and Eris had agreed on a believable story though, whoever had murdered Tarquin's son also reached Beron the night of the funeral. "I did not murder him. My lovely cousin however, did." Rhys drawled with a cat-like grin. It made you see red. Azriel grinned behind him. Those creepy shadows of his seemed more transparent in the sun. Mor glanced to you, her eyes not betraying anything she felt of the kill. You were hoping she would show some remorse for the death. Heat roiled in your stomach at the lack of care.  "Dont act so upset, Autumn." Rhys waved a hand, and you felt those clawd mental hands whisk across your shields. You snarled at him, reaching for your sword. You knew you couldnt win, even on your best of days. That didnt stop you though. Eris placed a hand on your arm. The two Illyrians had their siphon shields glowing in front of their high lord instantly. Rhys laughed calmly despite the tension in the room.  "You did give Mor quite the cut however, and burn it seems. Call it revenge." He folded his hand on the desk, wiping away dirt that wasnt there. Azriel's siphons burned brighter. His wings tightened behind his back. Mor still showed nothing, only looking from her cousin to Eris. Tense, her shoulders and posture radiated the worry. The tension of the room. Eris' jaw locked. He pulled you, willing you to let it go. You weren't proud of the fight with Mor. You wanted Beron to have at least died in an honorable way. But in the recent years with him hardly leaving his seat at the throne or his room at the castle, it made the chance of him seeing battle again nearly impossible.  "Maybe I should have done more." You muttered, sheathing your sword. The shadowsinger stepped forward, chest pushed out. His lips pulled back in a snarl, "Do not-" He began, voice a low threatening growl. "Azriel." Rhys said calmly, voice like honey. You grinned at the Shadowed one.  Rhys sighed and waved his tattooed hand in the air. Wine glasses appeared on the table he sat at. "Let's begin the real discussion at hand." He said calmly, pouring a glass. You glanced to Eris. He hesitated, but strode forward, taking a glass and downing it. + Eris was nearly drunk by the time you helped him out of the tent. After the long hours of dribble and stale conversation about diving resources, you couldnt blame him for having a few extra glasses of wine. He tripped on the rug going out. You caught him, but noticed shadows lingering around his torso.  "Get. Off."  You hissed, Not looking back. The shadows lingered for just a moment, then skittered away. You heard something like a sigh come from one of them as you led your cousin to his tent.

[yolkyeomie]

Trade Off of Gifts | Bang Chan

summary — no one knows the world of an artists as well as you do, at least that’s what you thought until he decided to show up one day

word count — 1.7k words

pairing — chan x gender neutral!reader

genre — fluff, artist!reader with a tiny hint of musician!chan (even tho he’s already a musician???)

disclaimer — just something tiny for all your fast and short topher needs !!

Being someone who is artistically gifted has its perks, leaving you to be more creatively thoughtful than most of the people around you.

The world and its people was one big incomplete painting to you, splashes of colors being splattered into its surface as you began to maneuver through it. You were the artist who determined what colors were allowed to stay and what colors no longer fit the narrative you were trying to create. It was a tiresome and even lonely job when you had to pick up a brush and bring a new color into your final masterpiece, but it was a rather exciting process nonetheless.

Different colors meant different things and different shades indicated different tones. Sometimes they’d change meanings and sometimes they’d stay the same, it always depended on how you felt that day. You could never explain exactly what everything meant to you, thinking of it as some innate feelings you were born with.

You never bothered trying to help outsiders comprehend what you meant either, as it was easier to keep it to yourself instead of giving your thoughts and feelings for the world to see.

But then somehow, you were stumbled upon by someone who shared the same views as you. Someone who saw the world in a rather similar artistic and dreamy light as you did, and they weren’t even an artist who puts pen to paper.

“That’s a nice drawing,” the stranger told you, hovering over your shoulder like a hawk to its prey. You scrambled to your feet almost immediately, pressing your art to your chest in a defensive manner. You didn’t like it when people hovered over you while you were drawing, entranced in this magical world of fantasy and possibility when you doodled on whatever surface you.

Usually, people would interrupt you when you weren’t finished, commenting on how odd everything seemed and how empty your art looked.

But then it clicked in your head, the stranger didn’t make any sort of ignorant comment on it. He simply said it was nice.

“Thank you,” you managed to say, your eyes darting down to the sketch you had created.

It wasn’t anything special, a half-done headshot of one of your friends from memory. It didn’t really look like any of your friends at the time either, there wasn’t enough detail on the features for it to be recognizable of who it was. “I mean, it’s not really done or anything so it’s not the best I’ve ever created but—“

“Really?” He questioned, his eyes widening to show off the little twinkling stars in his eyes and his mouth gaping open at your response. You couldn’t help but chuckle at his expression, nodding your head as an answer. “You’re a really good artist, you know that? Not many of my friends can even pick up a pencil if we really wanted to, but I guess that’s not really a compliment. Is portraits the only thing you draw?”

You lifted an eyebrow as he spoke, cautiously eying him and the choice of his words. He definitely wasn’t new to the whole artist thing, there was no way he was that knowledgeable on what artists liked to hear and what they didn’t like to hear and wasn’t an artist himself.

He even called you an artist instead of a “drawer”! If that wasn’t a dead giveaway of the fact that you were in the presence of an artistically gifted person then you don’t know what was.

“Not always,” you answered him, shrugging your shoulders as you tried to come up with a decent answer. “It really depends on my mood, but I like drawing portraits of people more than anything. It gives me an excuse to look at others without seeming… creepy? You know?”

“Oh…,” he nodded, a smile donning his face as he looked up at you. “So you’re a people watcher?”

“Not exactly,” you corrected him, “I just enjoy looking at people’s faces. You know, to catch every little detail that makes them unique to themselves. Everyone’s got something about them that’s different from everyone else and drawing lets me capture their uniqueness in a form that can be treasured forever.”

“That just sounds like an over-exaggeration of people watching,” the boy insisted, a laugh escaping his lips when he caught your frustrated glare digging daggers into his skull. “I’m kidding I promise! I completely understand what you mean. So who were you drawing just now then?”

Your expression immediately falls into a grimace, hesitantly peering towards your unfinished work to your friend. “Ah… this?” You ask him, trying to stall time from explaining your latest creation to him.

Through when you looked up to the boy he only nodded at your question and gave you the brightest smile he could. “It’s… it’s a drawing of a friend. He didn’t ask me to make this or anything, but I was just using him to practice faces.”

“You’re only practicing?” the boy gasped, scooting closer to you to steal another peek of your sketch from before. “That’s crazy, I would have thought you were working on an actual project and trying to get to the final piece!”

“You flatter me too much,” you joked, giving your sketch a half-smile. You appreciated the compliments he was showering you with, but there was no way you were actually living up to those expectations in your head. Being artistically gifted had its perks yet also had its more major downfalls: creating unattainable standards for yourself that you constantly set yourself up for failure was one of them. “I still have a long way to go before I can get anywhere near where I want to be.”

“I think where you are now is a great place, you should help yourself to the compliments when you get them. You deserve them,” he commented, a wide grin stretching across his face. Watching his lips turn into a smile made you so do the same, the atmosphere around him too addicting to go to waste. “Plus, I can tell you like it when people praise you.”

“Shut up, you ruined the moment,” you hissed, jumping to your feet to shove him out of your range of sight. The boy giggled at your reaction as he forced himself to stay put, not moving a singular inch no matter how hard you pushed him. “Leave! I don’t want you around me anymore, you ruined the moment!”

The boy thought about your words for a moment, as if he was trying to determine whether or not he wanted to leave you alone. “How about this,” he offered, spinning on his heel to face you. It caught you off guard for a moment, stumbling back on your feet as he shined that same smile from earlier on to you. “I’ll leave you alone now, but you have to let me come back and talk to you about your art more.”

You snorted, “I don’t even know you, why would I do that?”

He nodded in understanding, considering your comment before holding his hand out for you to shake. “Okay then, hi! I’m Bang Chan and I want you to let me come back another day and talk to you about your art. Does this make up for the lack of acquaintanceship?”

“Hi, I’m Y/N,” you humor him, shaking his hand before sliding out a slightly impolite question from your lips, “Is Bang Chan asking to hang around me because he wants me to give him a free drawing? If so I’m sorry but I’m not confident enough in my skills to even make you anything if I wanted to. There’s a reason I’m practicing here you know.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he clarified, slumping back onto the ground and laying back with a content smile. “I don’t want free art, I just want to hear you talk about your art. Maybe people watch with you from time to time.”

“I’m not a people watcher.”

“Sorry,” Chan nodded, “maybe not-people-watch with you then.”

You went silent for a moment, looking down at the sketch in your hands and glancing back towards the boy. “So that’s all? You just want to… hang out with me while I draw? No strings attached? You’re not going to ask me to draw you for free in the future or make fun of my unfinished work at all?”

He nodded in response and pointed a finger at your head. “The mind of an artist is a very interesting place to explore because not every artist has the same thought process when it comes to their creations. I want to see how we differ from each other.”

“So you’re an artist as well?” You question, your eyes widening as you slowly began to realize what he had said.

“Wouldn’t exactly say an artist,” Chan laughed, downplaying his statement as much as possible. “More of a… musician? I guess? I make songs, but that’s nothing compared to being someone who puts a pencil to paper.”

So your hunch was correct, Chan was artistically gifted! Of course, it wasn’t exactly in the way you had thought before but the mere fact that he was like you made much more sense now. “A musician is still an artist,” you tell him, “just because you’re not creating art in that sense doesn’t mean you aren’t an artist. Art comes in many different forms you know, you can’t limit it to one medium.”

“Well my form of art isn’t very… how do I say this, it isn’t—“

“—You’re embarrassed.” You finished. As expected the boy came up with as many excuses as possible, trying to drill the false act into your head but utterly failing. All you could do was laugh as you spoke, “don’t worry! It’s normal to be closed off about the things you create, I’m embarrassed to show off my art to people all of the time.”

Chan nodded, nervously fidgeting with his hair as he tried to play off his flustered actions. “I guess that’s one thing we have in common right?”

“Make that two things,” you corrected him. He turned to you with a confused glint in his eyes as you held up two fingers and grinned at him as you explained, “we’re both artists and we’re embarrassed to show people our creations. Oh the woes of being artistically gifted, am I right?”

He nodded in agreement, a cheeky smile appearing on his face once again as he repeated, “oh the woes of being artistically gifted.”

[bigskydreaming]

PS to earlier post: I am a survivor and I absolutely consider myself a survivor, but that isn’t actually mutually exclusive with being a victim. I also consider myself to have been a victim of the things I survived, and I feel absolutely NO shame about it, because I refuse to feel shame for the choices OTHER people make and how they honestly affect me. 

So I will continue to reference me having been a victim when and where that’s relevant to a point that I’m making, and I will continue to feel no shame in doing so, nor will I concede that its me being a martyr or playing at one or trying to milk sympathy or pity or anything other than the actual stated point of whatever it is that I’m stating. (I’m not a subtle person. Its not really hard to find the actual stated point of any post I make. I usually put it in all caps and frame it with words like “Just to be clear, this is my actual point here).

Just to be clear, this is my actual point here:

Personally, I consider things like guilt and pity and the like to be among the most useless emotions we have, at least in terms of how they usually end up being used. Other people feeling pity for me or feeling guilty for something generally has never done shit for me. I honestly do not give a single fuck if they are emotions I evoke, thus they are NEVER the emotions I am trying to evoke with posts about my experiences as a survivor.

I post what I post because people like to talk a big game about caring about other people while doing things that showcase the exact opposite of care, and much like in everything else I post about, I call bullshit when I see bullshit. I talk about how I personally am affected by the choices others make in fandom and how this has to do with my experiences as a survivor, because MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES AND FEELINGS are the only ones I can reliably attest to. So I have zero problem using them as Exhibit A for How Other People Affect Survivors In Fandom when a) I am a survivor in fandom, and b) I am affected in the way I am describing.

When my stated point is ALWAYS to make people face up to their own impact on others and acknowledge how the ‘we all live in a society’ aspect of us all living in a society means THEY CAN NOT AVOID OR ABSOLVE THEMSELVES OF HAVING AN IMPACT ON OTHERS VIA THEIR ACTIONS AND CHOICES WHENEVER ITS CONVENIENT FOR THEM....

There is literally NO other alternative means of me expressing this than by.....using myself and my feelings and experiences as my basis for WHY I THINK THIS NEEDS EXPRESSING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

And if your reaction to me doing this tends to be you spinning this to yourself or with your friends as me looking for sympathy or pity, me trying to play the martyr or the victim, or me doing anything other than exactly what I am stating here in no uncertain terms.......pro-tip.....that says far more about you than it does about me.

I know what me saying and doing the things I say and do, like....says about me. LOL. I know where I stand. People can frame it otherwise all they want, it doesn’t do shit to change my reasons or me standing by my reasons and my actions and choices.

But you guys saying and doing the things you do in response to me? Are YOU sure it says ‘oh yeah, this guy is just playing the martyr’ like you claim? Or is it maybe you’re so pathologically afraid of confronting your own culpability in....affecting others in the way they are directly and in no uncertain terms saying YOU ARE AFFECTING THEM.....

Because the only two options that gives you, if you were to ACTUALLY face up to the honest possibility someone like me is telling the truth here.....

Are to a) consider changing something about your behavior and choices that are affecting others like me in this way, or b) refuse to change anything about your behavior and choices that are affecting others like me in this way, and feel bad/guilty/ashamed that you know you’re affecting others negatively and you’ve decided to keep doing it anyway.

And goddamn, but doesn’t that just scare the SHIT out of some of you, who want to pat yourselves on the back about being a good person without putting any effort whatsoever into like....being a decent person?

“OMG, I have to like WORK at being a good person? I can’t just like....innately be BORN a good person and that’s that, or I can’t just say “oh I’m a bad person and I can’t change that” and let that count as an excuse?”

Nah, there be EFFORT lying ahead in those uncharted waters, huh? And you didn’t ask for EFFORT to make an appearance in your escapism, did you? Even if that’s the only way to help other people keep....y’know....trauma and retraumatization out of THEIR escapism, the escapism they have every bit as much of a right to seek as you do.

Its MUCH easier to just pretend the person saying the things you don’t want to hear about the things you don’t want to face is just like....self-righteous and playing-acting at moral virtuousness by saying these things. 

Instead of, as he’s stated over and over again.....just being legitimately hurt and not afraid to express that as there is ZERO SHAME IN A SURVIVOR FEELING HURT BY THE PROXIMITY TO THE KINDS OF THINGS/ATTITUDES THAT HURT HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Nah, that CAN’T be true, that can’t be a thing. You don’t actually do anything that impacts him and others negatively. He’s just making it all up to feign a sense of moral superiority for....Reasons. 

You’re fine. Everything is fine. Society is fine.

He and anyone else saying similar things are the only problem. They’re the only reason they HAVE a problem in the first place if its even there at all.

Thus, you don’t need to do anything ever, and life can continue as usual with no adjustments needing to be made, huh?

Gosh. Isn’t it super convenient that everything worked out so neatly for you there?

It really is nifty when life just hands you the solution to problems other people raise, all gift-wrapped with the galaxy-brain penned note on the top saying “LOL there’s no problem that needs solving if you just don’t ever admit there’s a problem that needs solving, wink wink.”

Isn’t it? 

[closetededgy]

Bards 5e Spellcasting

Now this is a rather big topic and I have a lot of opinions here, in my last post I ranted about the social issues surrounding bards in a party, as well as addressing the seduce the dragon bard stereotype, and by addressing I mean dousing it in alchemists fire and throwing it into the dumpster where it belongs. I’m sorry that I will be comparing the bard to a lot of spellcasters here, but never the Druid, this is because I know literally nothing about the Druid and I think I have never even attempted to read the Druid class, nothing against druids I’ve just never been in the situation to research them. I need to do that actually.

Onto spellcasting we’ll start with the mechanics first and then move into the lore, and then I’ll talk about my pet peeves about bardic spell casting.

the bards spell list, unlike the cleric or wizard, but very much like the warlock and sorcerer, the bard is incapable of preparing their spell list, rather they know a certain amount of spells, and when they level up they can change out one of these spells if they wish. This means your spell choices are incredibly permanent, which is very difficult when you have so many good utility spells like comprehend languages, feather fall, and more, at your disposal. You have a fair amount of spell slots (looking at you warlocks) and an average amount of available and known spells (looking enviously at you sorcerers). Now here’s where it gets wierd. Now 5e did a good job with making spell lists feel good. Like a clerics spell list reflects devotion to a god very well, the wizards reflects years of dedicated and organised study, the warlocks reflects disorganised and unrelated eldritch secrets randomly flitting through your mind (one minute you’re thinking about comprehend languages, the next it’s misty step.) the sorcerer does well to represent raw nearly uncontrollable power, and the bard does well to represent a jack of all trades, an individual who has spent their life picking up tricks to make their life, and the lives of those around them, better. Day to day spells like mending and prestidigitation. However the known spells list is a little underwhelming to me. Specifically preparation. In my opinion bards should prepare spells like wizards, here is my reasoning.

Bards are not sorcerers, they are not warlocks, you know the meme that wizards spent their whole life studying magic only to end up in a group of people that cheated to get theirs, the 2 people with magic sugar daddies, the spoiled rich kid that inherited it, the guy with the “natural talent” the natural talent guy is meant to be the bard in this meme “I just talk really well” is used to describe their magic. That’s innacurate spend literally 2 minutes reading the description of bards in the players handbook “requires hard study” is a direct quote. They didn’t just randomly discover this power, they knew of its existence because they could feel the power in music and words and performance, and they spent years trying to capture that power, to enhance it, within their own work. They’re power isn’t some do a little improv tune and do magic, they’re power is in doing masterworks of art, and the magic coming from this mastery, as such bards should prepare their spells just as a bard might prepare their performance, they aren’t ready to sing or play every performance they know on cue. They have to get into the right state of mind, make sure they have the right tools and understanding. As it stands their known spell list is a retexture of sorcerers when they should be a retexture of wizards, or one all their own like warlocks. (Maybe you can prepare a theme like the way a wizard chooses a school the bard could say “I’m preparing a drama, and that includes some of their damaging spells, maybe some resurrection spells and such, or “I’m prepping comedy” and get charms and illusions and stuff like that. Just a thought if you ever wanted to make a home brew bard class.) but this is the accurate mechanics and lore of the bard even if the mechanics don’t seem to match the lore.

Spellcasting, here’s...a wierd set of things. Bards can perform rituals somehow, I don’t know why and I don’t know how but technically they can, even though their power is meant to come from mastery of performance they can somehow perform ritual so uhhhhhhhh yeah whatever we’re gonna gloss right over that and onto the next wierd part about bardic Spellcasting, now you might not know this but spellcasters don’t need Spellcasting foci, it’s not well detailed in the players handbook but basically a spell foci replaces material costs for spells when the material cost has no monetary value. Now the bardic Spellcasting feature specifies that bards may use instruments as Spellcasting foci, which means technically they don’t have to, which brings me to my question how the hell do they perform magic without a focus, they don’t have arcane or eldritch knowledge they can’t just know that they need mistletoe for something, their magic isn’t about physical things (I have this pet peeve about sorcerers too, they have the same wierd phrasing) and also is a voice not an instrument? Because In the lore for bard you demonstrated a bard doing magic by humming. Also does that mean all bard spells have verbal components regardless of the spell and thus any feature that supposedly negates the requirement for verbal components on bard Spellcasting is negated by bard Spellcasting and does that also mean all spells performed with an instrument other than your voice require a somatic component regardless of what the spell specifies or if you have say war caster which says you can perform the somatic component while using a shield, but if the somatic component isn’t a hand gesture but rather an interact action with an instrument that wouldn’t make sense but also why would a bard need to perform an arcane hand gesture to perform a spell when the way they do the spell is already their voice, and you wanna know the lore rich deep answer? Yes. The bard has to do magic just like every other class despite doing magic in a completely different way because mystra, the goddess of magic, said so after mystra, the goddess of magic, died for the ten thousandth time. So basically just don’t treat their Spellcasting any different from anyone elses according to the official rules because that’s just how It Works™️

That’s it that’s bardic Spellcasting, an incredibly disappointing conclusion to the interesting possibilities and questions that trying to cast magic with music brings to the table. Also don’t even talk to me about multiclass spellcasting it’s a fucking mess. And by a fucking mess I mean it works exactly the same which is dumb and stupid and wastes the perfect oppurtunity to give spellcasters fun and distinct Spellcasting styles the same way they have fun and distinct spells. You wanna know something else disappointing? Tieflings have innate spells right? You would think, surely that means they don’t have to do the arcane knowledge stuff wizards do to cast those spells right? Surely it’s almost like Breathing to them right? Surely if they were to learn magic they would be able to incorporate their innate magic to the learned magic so they wouldn’t have to actually learn hellish rebuke as a warlock when they already know hellish rebuke? Well guess what, you’re wrong on all counts, innate Spellcasting still requires the correct hand motions and words, they just know them innately, and they cannot use spell slots to cast them despite the fact that they are casted in the same way so if you’re a tiefling warlock and want to cast more than one hellish rebuke a day have fun wasting one of your known spells on it I know this isn’t bard related but it drives me crazy

Next step talks about the confusion surrounding charming magics

[willofhounds]

Bound to you ch1

A/N this is one of my crazy ideas. Please note this is the Bourne novels not the movies. It is also combined with the soulmate prompt from Tumblr. Will be Gellert/Newt dont like dont read.

Thank you for to @silverynight and @reina1505 for helping me with this fic. It is going to be a fun one to do.

Also the way POV's are written will change back and forth depending on the personality that is in control. I also have changed the date of when the CIA was founded to the earlier 1900s instead of 1947.

Newt's POV

His hands shook at the sight in front of him. The air cracked with his angry magical energy. Burning flesh scent filled the air. Its acidic scent burned his throat. Yet he did not move away or tear his eyes from the sight.

Burned corpses surrounded the barely of age wizard. Newt had only been in the war effort for three months. The entire time he had worked with and loved the dragons. Unlike the humans they didn't judge him.

The eldest dragon took to him as if he was her own. She didnt mind his presence or that he was curious about their behaviors. Every day he would spend his time with the dragons.

The first time his fellow soldiers found them in the pen they about had a heart attack. It wasn't until they saw how at ease the dragons were with him. They wanted him to teach them how to handle the dragons.

Two months it took but each of squad could handle a dragon each. When it came to the female elder only Newt was allowed near her. She trusted him in a way that she trusted no others.

Newt had only left camp for a few hours on a scouting mission. When he returned Ministry wizards were trying to scavenge scales from the dead bodies of his dragons. His fellow dragoniers were being held at wand point. Counting Newt there were only five of them and they were viciously outnumbered by the Ministry.

There wasn't even half a second for him to consider the consequences of his actions. He began a barrage of heavy explosive spells. They were sent with deadly accuracy.

Only one Ministry official was able to get a shield up in time. With the shield he was still sent back several feet. The others were thrown from across the camp unmoving as they landed.

Despite Newt never finishing his formal schooling he could duel with the best. Most people remember him as the strange man with the creatures. Only Professor Dumbledore knew that he had the innate talent for dueling. Under his guidance it was flourished.

In his fourth year Newt mastered the Patronus charm. It's corporeal form was that of a wolf. The surprise on Dumbledore's face would have been hilarious if anyone else had seen it. For Newt it was refreshing and made the boy smile. A rare thing seen by any other than his creatures.

Dueling practice had become tea time afterwards. Newt slowly became more comfortable with the older man.

It was on accident one day that during a duel that a cutting curse hit his robe over his right wrist. This revealed his soulmate mark. Newt wasn't ashamed of his mark; more confused by it. He recognized it from the the book Tales if Beatle and Bard.

At the time his parents had been thrilled. The Scammander family was neutral to dark as a whole. Theseus was on the lighter side of neutral by choice. Newt had been on the darker side of if. Like his parents he didn't care about whether it was dark or light. They taught him that it was all intention.

Dumbledore had gone paler than the ghosts. Immediately he warned Newt to never let anyone see it. That his soulmate was a dangerous man.

Newt took the advice as that, advice. He wasn't one of his classmates who went looking for his soulmate. All he wanted was to look after creatures.

When his parents died in his fourth year Dumbledore had been there for him. A friend where the rest of the world looked down upon him. Well him and Leta.

Leta Lestrange a Slytherin in his year was the only friend his age. She was unsure about him at first. Given that he felt the same about anyone he met then they made a good match to be friends. Outcasts no matter where they went.

Then he had been expelled because he stuck up for her. His only friend his age. It was only later did he find out that she didnt do the same for him. Not that it would have changed anything.

So with a year left to his schooling he was sent home. He was given a suitcase with an undetectable extension charm on it. Dumbledore gave it to him so that he could help creatures. Before he left he took the bowtruckles hiding in the Forbidden Forest with him. They had been tormented by students for long enough.

That's how he ended up on the war front. If he had not been expelled he would not have been eligible to join the army. Following Theseus's lead against his older brother's wishes he had joined. Newt never expected for this to happen.

His attention was brought back to the duel as a sickly yellow curse came at him. A quick wordless shield and it was blocked. Much like himself this man had no qualms about using dark spells.

The Ministry officials that had been blown off their feet were slowly getting up. They had wary looks in their eyes. It seemed they didn't want to try to their luck again.

They went to and from each using powerful spells. Newt could feel his magical reserves deplenishing. If this kept up he would be beaten.

As if sensing his thoughts the man man blocked another curse but did not return in kind. Both stood staring at each other.

The dark haired man began in a low rumble that echoed around them, "I did not know what was going to be done here today. I was only told of some new recruits for an operation I am putting together. It was one of wo things I came for today. The other was to find a Newton Fido Artemis Scammander. If I had known then I would have stopped them."

Newt didn't lower his wand but he was listening. There wasn't an ounce of deception in the other's voice. As far as he could tell the man was telling the truth.

Newt snapped back watching the man's wand for any indication of an attack, "I'm Newt Scammander. What do you want?"

The man replied with an honest look of regret, "I am Lieutenant Colonel David Abboyt from MACUSA's CIA branch. Two months ago one of my platoons went missing. An English platoon with Second Lieutenant Theseus Scammander went to rescue them two weeks ago. Information received suggests that they were captured and killed along with the original platoon. You have my sincerest condolences Corporal Scamander."

It was as if winter had set in three months early. Snow could have been falling with how cold he became.

Thee was dead? The only family he had left in the world was gone? His world was turned on itself. Without Theseus he was all alone in the world.

He was without kith or kin any longer. What was he supposed to do now?

For the first time in his life he felt truly lost. This wasn't even something he felt when he was expelled. Theseus had been there for him and helped. Now even he was gone.

The feeling of loss was quickly replaced by another feeling he was unfamiliar with; rage. If his anger had been a flame before it was a wildfire now. Never before had he felt the need to kill someone. Normally a gentle soul he felt no qualms about finding and killing those who killed his brother.

The members of his platoon began to move away. They wanted no part of the conversation that would ensue. Newt trusted them to take care of the bodies. Just like him they were attached to their dragons. A connection in them had died that night.

Then the word he had overlooked for his name hit him. He questioned, "What operation?"

Abbott's blue eyes sparked with interest. He replied, "You have the magical skill for it but would you be willing to learn to fight like muggle. Not just shooting a gun but hand to hand."

He paused eyeing Newt up and down. The younger man refused to say anything. He would not look weak. Not when he stood around the bodies of his precious dragons.

Abbott continued, "The operation will be known as Medusa. It is made up of the worst kinds of criminals. It will be men from all countries and origins. Training will be given. There would be a few such as yourself who aren't but not many. Remember they wont be your friends. If they get the chance they will kill you. This is not an official operation however. I am in control of it but if you speak to anyone outside of the group I'll deny it. If you get captured there will be no rescue. From the moment you are assigned a team you are apart of it. There will be no going back until the war is over."

There was no hesitation or requiring time to think about it, "If it means going after those that killed my brother then so be it."

Even if he had to become a monster.

[lichlairs]

Checkout our new post over at https://lichlair.com/daily-monster-56-demogorgon

Daily Monster #56: Demogorgon

Today we’re talking about one of the most iconic monsters in Dungeons and Dragons. Not only that, but with the recent interest in this particular creature after Stranger things, I think it’s safe to say that at least a few newbies have found the hobby through it. Without further ado, let us discuss…

The Demogorgon

The basics

Alright, here we go, this one might just take a little longer than usual so let’s just get right into it.

Like our Tiamat article from a couple of months back, Demogorgon is definitely not the kind of monster you want to just throw at your party willy-nilly. Even just looking at the numbers for the stat block triggers my fight or flight instinct. We’re looking a solid +2 DEX for this monster’s lowest stat, granted, considering Demogorgon is a size Huge I would still think this is pretty great. Demogorgon’s WIS and INT are both more than acceptable at +3 and +5 respectively, but chances are that if you end up fighting this thing, you’ll want to watch out for its +7 CHA, +8, and +9 STR. That’s right, this thing has a 29 in strength.

Not only is this thing incredibly tough with an AC of 22 and a giant hit point pool of 28d12+224, but it also has some crazy saves and resistances! I’m talking about +10 DEX, +11 WIS, +15 CHA, and +16 CON to saving throws. Actual bananas… but even if you do manage to hit this thing, you still have to worry about overcoming Demogorgon’s resistance to Cold, Fire, and Lightning as well as its immunity to Poison and non-magical weapon attacks. And of you’re hopping to put this bad boy under some negative condition like charmed or frightened, you might want to think again because this chaotic demon has a handful of condition immunities as well. At this point sneaking your wait out might sound like the best choice but even that is unlikely considering Demogorgon’s Perception of +19, Truesight of up to 120ft range, and passive perception of 29.

Although communicating with this demon should be an easy task thanks to its telepathy of up to 120ft rage and its ability to speak all (and I do mean all) languages, I don’t recommend lying to the Prince of Demons; +11 to Insight might not sound like much after some of the other numbers we’ve discussed, but it’s still plenty.

Demogorgon gets an Innate Spellcasting ability that uses his CHA and has a crazy save DC 23. Using this feature he gains access to the following spells:

At will: detect magic, major image. 3/day each: dispel magic, fear, telekinesis. 1/day each: feeblemind, project image.

If you thought we were done listing all the ways in which today’s monster is a tough one to chew then you’re wrong; not only does he have a Magic Resistance that gives him advantage on saves, but thanks to its Two Heads, he also just gains advantage to save from pretty much every other condition that wasn’t in his list of resistances already.

Now that we’re done listing its features and attributes, it’s finally time to discuss some of the weapons at Demogorgon’s disposal. As a creature of legendary proportions Demogorgon has a multiattack and both Legendary resistances (3/day) and Legendary actions to compliment its array of attacks.

While under normal circumstances a Tentacle attack might not sound all that scary, getting hit by Demogorgon’s tentacles means having to make a save against hit point reductions. This basically means that it won’t matter how many clerics you have in your party because no healing can recover damage taken from these attacks.

Next we have Demogorgon’s infamous Gaze attack; any creature can choose to succeed on the save imposed at the cost of not being able to look at our demon until its next turn. Those who choose to hold his gaze must make a DC 23 CON save or suffer one of the following three effects:

Beguiling Gaze: on a failed save the target is stunned until the start of Demogorgon’s next turn or until the demon breaks eye contact.

Hypnotic Gaze: on a failed save the target is charmed until Demogorgon’s next turn, making it so that our demon can dictate their very action and move. Note that this cannot be use in conjunction with the Maddening Gaze legendary action.

Insanity Gaze: on a failed save the target suffers the effects of the Confusion spell, minus getting to make a saving throw, of course.

Today’s monster can take two legendary actions each round of combat. The first of our two options is a pretty simple Tail attack that does some pretty good damage but nothing else to boot. The second one, however, allows us to use Demogorgon’s Gaze an extra time per round as long as we only choose between Beguiling and Insanity.

All in all, this huge fiend definitely packs a punch. It’ no wonder he’s nicknamed the Prince of Demons. For those of you following along, today’s monster is considered a CR 26 creature of chaotic evil alignment.

The lore

Historically speaking, although there is some debate about it, the word “Demogorgon” is mostly accepted to have been the product of miscopying ancient documents. While this initial misunderstanding of Greek equaled our Demon Lord to a primal god, Christian writers slowly turned the word to represent a demon in hell.

In terms of our favorite pastime, Demogorgon first appeared in the world of Dungeons and Dragons back in 1976 when it was introduced along with Orcus as part of the Eldritch Wizardry supplement. This is one of those monsters that have been a staple of the game for as long as there has been a game.

Today’s monster goes by many nicknames: Prince of Demons, Sibilant Beast, Master of the Spiraling Depths. Demogorgon reigns over the Gawping Maw deep within the Abyss (88th layer to be specific) where it has built itself a massive castle, Abysm, with two spiraling towers shaped like snakes, one for each head.

Speaking of heads, one of the most important features about the Demogorgon’s appearance is its two very large simian like heads, each of which has a name and a distinct personality. The first head, Aameul, is the more charismatic and deceptive of them, always making plans and trying to find ways to separate itself from its tin head, Hethradiah, who represents primal savagery and destruction rather than cunning. The rest of Demogorgon’s body can be described as a combination of scales and fur, with broad shoulders and two tentacles instead of hands.

Even though the word “scientist” might not be the first thing you think about when you see depictions of this creature, Demogorgon does in fact have a bit of a hobby in creating twisted creatures. As if being an 18ft tall mutated simian with two heads wasn’t enough, he can count on the creatures he has created such as retrievers, ettins, and death knights= as well as a steady supply of hezrou and other nefarious beings that he keeps under his command.

Although his cult isn’t as numerous or common as that of other demons and evil entities, the Sibilant Beast can count on the support beings like the kuo-toa, troglodytes, and even human beings. In fact, it’s not entirely uncommon for warlocks to seek pacts with Demogorgon.

There is a lot more I could cover for today’s monster, but for the sake of not having article end up being longer than the Wikipedia page, I believe I’ll leave it at that.

The execution

Oh boy, this is a big one. I definitely wouldn’t recommend throwing this at your players until they’re near max level or have some sort of godly support to back them up. This is the sort of BBEG you leave for the end of the campaign, that’s for sure.

So, okay, let’s get a couple of things situated before we being. The first of these is the fact that, unlike other evil entities, Demogorgon is unable to planeshift, which means that, if you really really want your party of adventurers to fight him you’ll have to make them go to him and, as fun as raiding Abysm sounds, I think I’d pass, personally.

The second thing we need to know is that while he cannot be summoned into the material plane, extremely powerful individuals who worship him might have the ability to summon an aspect of him, which is actually where we get our statblock from.

The way I see it those are our two real options on how to push for an encounter with this monster. I think a way to even the battle field a bit more and give your party a little more of a chance to survive this encounter would be to have Demogorgon be focused on a different goal while the party assaults him. Perhaps now that an aspect of him has been released into the Material Plane he’s on his way to destroy Waterdeep or something. This would leave your party with a couple of rounds to unleash their worst on our Demon Lord before it finally turns to deal with the annoying flies buzzing around it.

An interesting idea for this combat would be to have the first half of it focus on minimizing Demogorgon’s damage, and surviving the effects of his presence in the Material Plane before decides that getting rid of our pesky adventurers is the best call. On top of having stuff like flying giant boulders that are being tossed about by our Demon and the expected chaos of it barging into a city, you could also decide to spice things up by having a few of its faithful servants show up.

One of the things that I enjoy the most about combat both as a player and as a DM is to have choices. Would the players decide to deal with the chaos around the city and save innocent lives? Or would they focus on trying to dispatch our Demon Lord back into the Abyss?

Aaaand that’s it for today. If you enjoyed this article and want to see other similar content, don’t forget to visit our social media so we can let you know when we post new articles. We put up new content every day of the week!

[hockeylvr59]

Please Don’t Judge Me (Part 2) || Auston Matthews

Requested: [ ] yes [x] no

Authors Note: It’s been long awaited I know. But I’m pretty happy with the way this turned out. Let me know if you want a part three at some point (I’m sure you probably will after reading this), and any suggestions you have.

Rough Timeline/Review: Concert occurred late Sept. Y/N and Auston slept together for the first time in mid-Oct. Y/N tells Auston about the pregnancy the beginning of March (at 6 weeks along). 

Warnings: angst, lots of angst

Word Count: 1744

The moment you arrived home after Auston drove away, your focus and energies switched to the baby growing inside of you. After all, you weren’t lying when you told him that you weren’t expecting anything; you could and would do this on your own even if it scared the crap out of you. While you hadn’t necessarily had any bad habits prior to getting pregnant, the knowledge that you were expecting did cause you to improve your diet by eating more fruits and vegetables and cutting back on your sugar intake. You also made the effort to take advantage of the gym in your apartment complex, not pushing yourself but wanting to make sure that the pregnancy went as smoothly as possible.

Of course, morning sickness occasionally got in the way of your best efforts, but you took it in stride because it meant that your baby was healthy and continuing to grow and develop. Miscarriage had always been one of your biggest fears, the statistic that one in four women will have one looming over you. So, you decided to keep your pregnancy a secret, at least until you reached the end of the first trimester. Granted you couldn’t control whether Auston told anyone but based on his reaction, it certainly didn’t seem like he planned on it.

That milestone appeared before you knew it, and since it was almost Easter you headed back home for a short trip to break the news to your family. Your parents were certainly distressed about the fact that the father wasn’t in the picture (you didn’t tell them it was Auston because that would only bring more stigma to the situation) but after calming down were overjoyed at the thought of being grandparents. Your sisters had taken the news much better from the start and were just excited to be Aunts.

Laying in your childhood bed that night you couldn’t help but cry because you were certain that Auston’s family would be equally thrilled about the baby. It wasn’t your place to say anything if he hadn’t though and so your baby was going to grow up only knowing half of its blood relatives. That fact killed you just a little because you’d grown up knowing four of your great-grandparents, as well as both sets of grandparents, and family was everything to you. Auston had been radio silent since you’d told him about the baby though and so at this point, you’d given up hope to him coming around and wanting to be part of it all.

Upon your return to Toronto, it was hard not to think about Auston. The Leafs were in the middle of a playoff run, having made it through the first round. With his face plastered across the city even more than normal and your pregnancy hormones at an all-time high, it wasn’t uncommon for you to duck into a bathroom stall to cry. You kept telling yourself that you could do this but the more your stomach blossomed, the more alone you felt.

It was the middle of the second round of the playoffs that your secret finally slipped. You were now roughly 14 weeks along and what had previously just looked like added weight now officially looked like a baby bump. Stephanie had insisted during your last regular lunch that you come to game 4 with her and after some persuasion, you reluctantly agreed with the stipulation that she’d bring you a jersey to wear. She’d been confused when you added that it could be anyone but Auston, but thankfully dropped the subject without any prying questions.

You’d met Steph at the arena where she’d handed you an away Marner jersey, a contrast to her own home version. After changing in a bathroom stall, adding the jersey over the tight tank that definitely showed off your bump thereby hiding it easily, you’d walked with Stephanie through the arena and up to the family (wags) box. It was a flurry of activity, a welcome relief because it took most of the attention away from you. No one here knew that you’d had an affair with Auston, you were just Steph’s friend and that was certainly for the best.

The game was exciting, to say the least, though fighting back the emotions that were certainly hormone caused was a test of willpower and when you slipped away repeatedly to the bathroom you were certain Steph was starting to suspect something was going on. The Leafs won to tie the series and though she hadn’t mentioned it before (if she had you certainly would have protested) you found yourself being dragged down to wait and congratulate the boys outside of the locker room. The last thing you wanted was to run into Auston and you were grateful that it was well known that he was usually one of the last out of the locker room.

Hoping that Mitch would come out first and you could congratulate him and then leave you kept your mouth shut. Mitch was indeed one of the first to leave the locker room and after watching him kiss Steph as she wrapped her arms around him in a joyous hug (that ache in your chest had to be heartburn and not jealously right?) you found yourself pulled into a hug by the goofy leaf as well.

“Congratulations, that was a great game.” You told him as you pulled back. “I really should get going though, I have an early work meeting.” Though Steph eyeballed you and it was clear that she was really getting suspicious, she didn’t make any remarks until you started to tug the jersey off to return it, momentarily forgetting just how obvious your bump was.

The moment you reached to hand it to her, your eyes followed her gaze and you froze before quickly tugging your jacket around your body in an attempt to hide your stomach.

“You’re pregnant??” She whispered, her tone expressing hurt that you hadn’t told her when it was clear that you’d known for a while. Hearing the word ‘pregnant’ drew Mitch’s attention and his gaze dropped to your now half covered bump before looking between his girlfriend and you confused.

“Yes…” You murmured softly, your anxiety raising the longer you stood in the hallway knowing it was only a matter of time before Auston appeared. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but I wanted to get through the first trimester before I broke the news. Please, can we talk about it later?” You pleaded softly, glancing toward the locker room door before looking back at her.

Before Steph could respond, the sound of the door opening again filled your ears and the part of you that had become attuned to Auston, both through sleeping with him as well as carrying his baby, immediately jumped to action as it sensed his presence. “Please Steph...I really have to go.”

The moment delay was a moment too long and suddenly Auston was clapping Mitch on the shoulder before greeting Steph. Her lack of acknowledgment was what drew his attention to you and when your eyes met his gaze you immediately felt the tears flood forward. With fight or flight instincts kicking in, your body automatically chose the latter option and the jersey in your hand fell to the floor as you turned on your heel and ran down the hall, seeking the relief of the chilled spring Toronto air.

As the door clanged off the wall behind you, you turned toward the wall outside of the building and pressed a palm against it, sobs racking through you as you vainly tried to catch your breath. Gently, you rubbed your thumb over your stomach hoping that the connection with your child will help relax you because you know that this kind of stress is not good for the baby.

“Y/N…” You hear from behind you as you slowly return to breathing normally, though tears are still streaming down your cheeks. You hadn’t heard the door open again, but the voice repeating your name was one you were innately familiar with. Resolving yourself to being cordial with the father of your child but not to let him see his effect on you any longer, you reached up to wipe the tears from your eyes before turning to face him.

“Auston… You responded, tugging your jacket closer to you, though your hand remained pressed to your bump protectively.

“You...you look good…” He mumbled, taking a step closer to you as you felt his gaze take you in from top to bottom. When his eyes centered on your hand, you swallowed hard, again letting your thumb stroke back and forth in a soothing motion.

“Thanks…” The air between you was stifling and awkward and it was taking every ounce of willpower to remain in control of your emotions. “I need to go Auston...great game tonight.” You finally stated before looking left and right beyond him to figure out where you’d ended up and once you had some sense of location, you turned and started walking away.

“Y/N! Wait!” Auston called out and unconsciously you stopped, his hand brushing over your wrist to hold you in place lightly. “Y/N….I’m sorry.” He murmured. “Shit...I’m so sorry.”

“The word sorry doesn’t hold much weight Auston.” You replied, your patience growing thin. “You made your choice when you drove away and the word sorry isn’t going to change the fact that I’ve been battling morning sickness and fatigue by myself. That I had to tell my parents that I’m pregnant but that the father isn’t in the picture. That seeing your face around this city kills me because I don’t know how I’m supposed to explain to my son or daughter someday that their father was too scared to man up and take responsibility for his actions.” Your outburst caused your jacket to fly open, revealing the skin-tight nature of your tank and the bump previously hidden and immediately Auston noticed.

“You’re showing…” He breathed almost inaudibly, slight awe tinging his voice. His hand reached out to touch you and immediately you pulled away.

“No Auston. No. We’re not doing this. When you have something better to say then ‘I’m sorry.’ You know where to find me.”

This time it was your turn to walk away and when he didn’t attempt to follow you it was clear that absolutely nothing had changed.

[rylie-barton]

⌜   CIS FEMALE, SHE / HER   |   the hearse by matt maeson, gryffindor, infp   ⌟    ⏤   meet RYLIE NATALIA BARTON ; a TWENTY TWO year old who kind of resembles WILLA HOLLAND, don’t you think? she originally hailed from NEW YORK CITY where she lived with her parents, CLINT BARTON & NATASHA ROMANOFF (   MARVEL   ), but word is that she’s been making strides to rejoin shield and finish her law degree this past year. she’s always been pretty AUDACIOUS & COMPASSIONATE, but has gotten way more CODEPENDENT & PRIDEFUL since she woke up. maybe her ability of WEAPON PROFICIENCY and power of INNATE COMBAT can help in taking down the dome. you can check out her stat page HERE& her pinterest board HERE.

i was a woman who thought only of dead things                                        ( all the time ). i couldn’t HELP it.

part one of two : the backstory.    (   trigger warnings for talk of death, drug / alcohol abuse.

born on july 21st, 1996, to clint barton & barbara morse. the youngest of three children, lewis and callum were five and nine respectively at the time of her birth. 

her mother and brothers died in a house fire when she was just three months old ; the files concerning the accident are blacked out and encrypted, and the story given to rylie amounts to ‘your mother went missing in action.’ 

understandably, she’s always wanted to know more ; unfortunately, she’s never had the means in which to find anything out.

raised by clint. really loved, but vaguely overprotected. ‘aunt nat’ was in her life from minute one, essentially, a shoulder for clint to lean on and a motherly presence that rylie found she craved. in time, they got married. it never felt anything but natural.

she was raised alongside the rest of the next gen ; troy banner, dan rogers, calder thorson & phoebe stark. they were and remain the closest thing to siblings that rylie has ever had, and as the youngest, she got to annoy them endlessly and still be assured that whatever may have happened down the line, they would always have her back.

as a little girl, rylie’s dreams amounted to little more than being the prima balllerina of her company. if she couldn’t be that, she would have settled for being an award winning pianist. she was a remarkably ordinary little girl, the only thing completely out of the norm about her being the fact that her father had her trained from the time she could walk to use a weapon, and her stepmother had her taught well how to fight. 

her time in school was... tough, to put it mildly. she was homeschooled at certain points, and moved around a lot for others. kids could be cruel, and rylie’s self esteem was never destined to be that good. 

rylie’s lift changing can be pinpointed as the moment that shield enlisted her, along with the rest of the next gen. she was just a LITTLE KID - playing dress up in between recitals, saving the world before she’d ever really even lived in it. they were kids trained for war. how could any of them have ever been well adjusted?

she dropped out of ballet. she stopped attending her piano lessons. the only thing that mattered was working with her team. how stupid she feels, now, to have been so caught up in trying to be an adult that she forgot to have a childhood.

her friends meant EVERYTHING to her. 

she started attending the same school as phoebe because the other girl made a strong case to clint for rylie, so she wouldn’t have to go through another year of torment. she didn’t just LOVE her. she wanted to be her. to compare to the beautiful and intelligent and utterly flawless phoebe stark was something that she always knew would be impossible, but tried to do, anyway.

troy was her BIG BROTHER. he still is. when she was scared of storms, he would stay awake and hold her through the night to help her through. they teased one another mercilessly, but at the end of the day, they always knew just how much they loved one another - it was all in good spirit, and at points, it was what both of them needed. 

daniel, the voice of reason - not just for rylie, but for everyone. she always looked up to him, both as a leader and as a friend. he made good calls. he tried to do right by everyone. it wasn’t easy to do - and looking back, rylie hates how it all rested on his shoulders when he was just a KID - but he did it anyway.

and calder...- she’s always loved him, even when it was difficult. back then, it wasn’t. he was always a stoic, but how much he loved them all was evident. he was her training partner and best friend, always present, even when he didn’t know what to say, or do. 

the five of them were like some kind of mismatched breakfast club, but no one in the world understood what it was like to grow up with heroes for parents as well as they did.

and then PHOEBE died. rylie was sixteen years old. the rest of them weren’t much older. loki attacked avengers tower while their parents were away on a mission, and she tried to protect calder ; it wasn’t anybody’s fault except loki’s that she fell that day, but they all shouldered the guilt regardless. rylie never was the same. 

in the months after, rylie tried to numb the pain, the responsibility. she couldn’t sleep, so she took pills that were meant to help. when they didn’t, she took more. the subsequent overdose was swept under the carpet, the choice to send her to wda alongside the rest of the guys their way of trying to bring some life back to her, after. it was phoebe’s dream they were living, after all. maybe being there with them would help.

believe it or not : it DIDN’T. walt disney academy was living under the threat of the darkness at the time, and rylie was one of many students who fell victim. while on a mission with shield in late 2014, she was shot ; it was a horrible event that weakened rylie more than just in her resolve, and months later, the darkness took hold. under its influence, she hurt people that she didn’t know, and she hurt one’s that she did, too. her freedom was temporary, she and many other students were taken over once more, and troy saved the day by drawing out the good ; but enough had been enough. 

rylie turned to alcohol. the rest was history. she drank to sleep. she drank to get herself through the day. she drank when she was happy, when she was achingly sad, when she was just trying to feel something. she would go on weekend benders that bled into the weeknights when the littlest inconvenience happened, and drunk, she made some truly horrible decisions with some truly terrible people. she kept hurting the people she loved. she kept ruining her relationships. it became a cycle, wash and repeat.

whatever she might have had with emmett wicks, a rock she leant on during the early darkness saga, was gone as quick as it came. rylie got too involved too quick with alexander kaligaris, with disastrous results. we know how unhealthy that particular relationship turned out. 

shield suspended her from active duty in early 2017. she was over the legal limit to drive and still thought she could go on a mission for them, and she could have gotten her whole team killed. she didn’t, but it didn’t matter. they were right to do what they did, but rylie took it personally ; she lashed out. she made bad choices. she had lost the ONLY thing she really had left. her father wanted to pull her from school to try and help, and she point blank refused. it caused a rift between them, for understandable reasons. without her dad, without her family, without many of her friends - rylie just got worse. 

in the summer of ‘17, the school suffered from an earthquake during prom. rylie took a hard fall, and the resulting head trauma damaged her eardrum. it wasn’t her father coming back to support her during the subsequent operation to try and fix it that gave rylie a wake up call. it was her pregnancy, discovered a few weeks later ; rylie always loved, and alex always left. one mistake from the two of them caused a bigger one that spooked her. rylie made the choice to have an abortion. she took control of her own life, for once, instead of allowing it spin even more out of control - and she started attending alcoholics anonymous, almost immediately after. 

part two of two : what u missed on glee.

rylie has been sober for 21 months and counting. it’s as hard for me to believe it as it is for you all, i’m sure ; but she’s been doing BETTER. she’s been back training, brushing up on some old skills that she let get rusty. she’s healthy, too, the sallow look to her skin that everyone got accustomed to long gone. to say it was easy for her, or that she didn’t have moments of doubts, would be... totally incorrect. she’s just been fighting through.

she was one more bad month away from flunking out of her law degree, the last time y’all saw her ; but she’s picked up in the past year, really knuckling down to try and catch up, for one, and do better, for another. she’s still worried that she’s going to have to do an extra year, to finish, but she’s dedicated to doing so if she’s GOTTA. 

her relationship with her father? fixed. clint has always put rylie above all else, and never would have even required the apologies she gave, really. likewise with the relationship she has with natasha. both of them forgive her for her weakness, though it’s unlikely that rylie ever will. we love on ( 1 ) girl with a guilt complex.

the one thing that ISN’T fixed is her hearing, at least not 100%. she has a loss of fifty nine db in her right ear, and that’s probably never going to change. it makes her and her father even more alike, though i’m sure clint would have rathered the similarities not be so much. 

as of right now, she’s prepping for a hearing with the board of directors at shield on whether she should be reinstated as an active agent. she’s passed all of the physicals, and she’s been in therapy for about as long as she’s been sober, working through her issues. she’s still got miles to go, but they’re certainly optimistic. rylie moved past feeling hard done by a long time ago, and now she just... wants to be a part of the agency, again, in a way where she can actually be of help. 

[xlittlelionhamiltonx]

The Heart’s Affliction

Happy Birthday, @prodigyofprinxetoncollege / @whatisitlikeinyourfunnylilbrains !!!!

They corral them all up in this classroom silence, low murmurs and the occasional hushed chiding breaking up the sentence of monotony that their individual afflictions have apparently earned them. They wallow in their labels as though they are comfort blankets that swaddle them gently and keep them safe. No one here is any different from the other. They’ve all been fucked over, fucked up, or just plain fucked by someone they once loved, and while the guilty parties are, for the most part, likely running free, these poor bastards pay for the cost of someone else’s sins every single day.

Yes, they are pathetic. Rejects of a society they could never fit into. Nothing like Alexander. Nothing like Aaron. No... they are another story, altogether. They could change the world, if only the world would allow it. But the world is afraid. Society is afraid. They claim to save their lives by taking them away. Alexander has too much to accomplish to be trapped in this prison.

He’s counting seconds, now. They took away the clock. They took away the loud “tick-tock” of the old, practical decoration. What they don’t know, however, is that Alex has his own, internal clock. It ticks away constantly, eating down the minutes and hours and days until he is a free man again. He misses not a count. Death or liberation are all that he lives for. That... and Aaron Burr.

Who is outside. He is separated from Alex, as he has been so often in the past following a stint of “bad behavior.” Only, this time, Aaron is not alone. He is with the man whom Alex blames for his imprisonment, and, if Alex knows Aaron at all, the other man is apologizing to the one who put him here. It makes him ill, but there is little he can do.

Aaron is probably asking for forgiveness for a crime he never committed. He is probably blaming himself and begging this other man to take him back. And, God, Alex hopes the man refuses. God, he hopes Aaron comes back to him.

“Alexander? Please stop breaking the crayons. You aren’t the only one who wants to use them.” Alex pauses, his hands slowing to a stop as he hesitantly considers the broken bits of wax between his fingers. They don’t allow him any pencils or pens. They don’t trust him not to jam them directly into his ugly blue veins.

“Fuck off.” He glances up toward where the clock once was, annoyed when he is reminded of its corroded absence.

“How long until visiting hours are over?”

“Five minutes.” The woman sighs, clearly exasperated both by Alexander’s innate hostility, as well as his remarkable and alarming preoccupation with time. In fact, he had been one of the deciding factors in the choice to do away with the generic and tarnished timepiece that once hung, encaged, upon the tiled wall.

“Think you can manage to refrain from acts of delinquency until then?”

Alex snaps another crayon in two - no one uses Mango Tango all that much, anyway - expression chillingly neutral as he stares back up at the nurse.

“Have it your way. Don’t think I won’t be mentioning this to the doctor.” She shakes her head, dark curls swaying to and fro from the action, before stepping away to look after one of the other numerous crazies locked up in their glorified cage.

“Aaron’s a big boy. He can handle himself.”

“Did I fucking ask you, Jim?” He doesn’t bother looking up from where his gaze has fallen, dark eyes focused on the pale light of the late afternoon, clawing hideously at the dull silver grates that mar the view of the outside world.

“Hm... that’s right. Pedophiles like you probably don’t like being reminded that their victim isn’t really a kid.”

“I’m not fucking with you today, Jimmy. Take a seat.” No. What would Aaron say? Be patient, Alexander. Let it go.

“Of course you aren’t. I’m a legal adult.” Goddammit. Alex finally looks over at that man with his shit-eating grin, and he immediately regrets it.

“Shut your fucking mouth.” He and Jim got along most days. What was it the guy had? Dissociative identity disorder? Hell, maybe this wasn’t even the real Jim he was talking to. Did that mean that the rules didn’t apply? That this wasn’t someone Aaron considered a friend?

“I mean...” And now Jim - or whichever personality this is - is close. Too close. Leaning down and speaking into Alex’s ear like he’s done it a million times before. If that alone weren’t enough to set Alex off, what he says certainly is.

“...how hard did your daddy have to fuck you to leave you this fucking broken?”

None of Aaron’s warnings work this time. The phantom words fade and die, crashing forgotten to the ground alongside the discarded bits of colored wax that fall when Alex rises, chair toppling over as his too-pale outstretched fingers find Jim’s throat. He pushes him hard into the nearest wall, previously dull eyes now bright with a storm of emotion, heart pounding in his ears when he pushes words through gritted teeth.

“I told you to shut your fucking mouth.” Fingers squeeze harder, he gains a slight thrill of satisfaction from the panicked look in Jim’s eyes.

“Fucking asshole.” Just as he hears the faint sound of the doors buzzing in the distance - the visitors are being directed out of the building - he feels strong hands gripping his arms... another set upon his torso...

The orderlies are pulling him off of Jim, and though he resists, a sharp kick to one of his pressure-points earns the other man his freedom. Alex turns, instead, to fight the men that now hold him. His sharp tongue is dulled by undiluted rage, utterances of annoyance and protest amounting to little more than angry grunts.

It doesn’t take long until he feels the familiar bite of a needle, some drug administered by some nimble nurse, and he is falling limp, his last thoughts, naturally, of Aaron, before he falls into his chemically-induced stupor.

Three days. They don’t allow him clocks or windows or even wake-up-calls, but Alexander is certain it has been three days since he has been locked away. Three days since he has last touched Aaron’s pleasantly warm body, or heard his delicate and alluring voice.

They drag him out of the dim room. They speak to him. They instruct him. What they say, he isn’t quite sure. Partially because he doesn’t give a shit, but mostly due to the way the drugs they’ve pumped into him have slowed his mind. It feels like a harsh high, like being helplessly, terrifyingly inebriated, and even as Alex wants to fight the hands supporting him, even as he longs for the strength to run, he is focused upon Aaron. He is terrified that Aaron has left him.

He is praying that he did.

Somehow, he makes it to his bed. Did they leave him here? He isn’t sure. But the door is opening, and then there is the silence of hesitation, the soft sounds of the doorknob twisting, the only noise permeating the still air. One of Aaron’s nervous little ticks.

“Hey...” Alex hates how tired he sounds, loathes how difficult it is just to push himself upright, to blink his heavy lids until he manages to focus on the timid man in the doorframe.

“Hey... it’s okay. C’mere.” He takes a deep breath, as though the stuffy hospital air can cleanse him of the unnatural substances that they pumped into his veins. He is about to say Aaron’s name, lips soft as he gathers the breath needed to speak, when the younger practically rushes him, closing the distance quickly, but keeping a minimal space between them, hesitant as always.

“How’d it go?” Alex whispers the question, head low as he struggles against the fatigue they’ve forced upon him in a quest for compliance.

“What?” Aaron sounds confused, and, more alarmingly, frightened, and Alex attempts a smile, shaking his head and reaching out to tug lightly at the hem of Aaron’s hospital-issued top.

“John.” His voice is even fainter, fingers shaking as they twist carefully into the pale fabric.

“Oh... oh.” Aaron makes a sound that might be akin to laughter, but he is always so quiet and careful, and Alex can never be entirely certain.

“Fine.”

“Just fine?” There might be a trace of bitterness in Alex’s tone, but he’s looking up at Aaron with pleading eyes, fingers holding tight onto the shirt as though it is his lifeline. And, in all honesty, it just might be.

“He doesn’t want you to run away with him? Adopt babies with him? Did you tell him you were sorry? You don’t need to be sorry, Aaron. He should be sorry.”

“Alexander...” Aaron’s voice is so soft... so gentle. Alex immediately regrets his words, but he only grips onto Aaron’s shirt harder, willing him to stay.

“He thinks... he hopes that we can work things out. Once I’m recovered, of course.”

Fuck. Right. Of course he does. Aaron is a fucking God among men, and anyone would be insane to let him go. Crazier than anyone in this fucked up circus.

“Recovered...” Alex repeats that word. He hates that word. He hates that Aaron believes he’s sick. That he’s diseased... or worse - that he is a disease. That is what society tells him, and that is what he believes. And Alexander will stop at nothing to prove otherwise.

“You aren’t sick, Aaron.” He tugs a little on the fabric. Not enough to pull Aaron forward, but enough to keep him near.

“This world is sick. You, Aaron, are the fucking remedy. You are what everyone should be. Good. Pure. True.” He twists his fingers a little more with every word, but really, he’s just focused on sitting upright - focused on breathing until it doesn't feel like a chore.

“Alex...” Aaron makes that sound again, something like laughter, before bowing his head, shoulders slightly slumped when he shakes his head gently.

“Hey...” Alex is whispering again, bowing his own head and searching for Aaron’s gorgeous eyes, needing that connection more than he needs air.

“I think he’s right.” He swallows down hard, nodding when Aaron looks up at him, confused and curious.

“Maybe you should work things out. I mean... I think you’ll get out of here soon... but me...” No... Alex was going to be there for much longer. He couldn’t seem to curb his thirst for violence, however hard he tried, and that was going to keep him the hospital’s little pet project for far longer than he cared to admit.

“I thought you’d be gone...” The words slip out before he can stop them, and Alex finally loosens his grip. He hates himself for needing another person this badly, but, goddammit, he needs Aaron. He needs him more than the meds or the doctors or the fucking therapy. Aaron is the only reason he gives a single fuck about living right now, and he doesn’t know what will happen if he loses him to someone else.

“But I’m not.” Alex’s empty hand has hardly reached his lap before Aaron’s fingers are reaching for it, threading through his own loosely, with a tenderness that matches that lovely voice of his.

“I’m here.” Alex looks up, meets Aaron’s eyes, and immediately feels more confident - more complete.

“And I’m sleepy.” This time, the laugh is evident, Aaron’s eyes bright and smile shy as he pushes a little closer into Alex’s space.

“I haven’t slept much... felt too empty in here...” He’s looking down bashfully, and Alex wants to pull him close and kiss him. Instead, he squeezes the hand he now holds, and he pushes himself back onto his own bed, giving Aaron a gentle tug forward.

“Every space is full when you’re in it, Aaron. C’mere.” He tugs again and Aaron comes willingly, finding his place at Alex’s side with far less care than usual, clearly longing for the connection they’d been deprived of for so long.

“No more fighting, okay?” Aaron’s voice is already muffled as he buries his face into Alex’s chest, but the words are clear, and they hurt, but only as much as it hurts for Alex to deliver the lie that follows.

“No more fighting.” He pushes a careful kiss to the top of Aaron’s head and he pulls him closer, and he knows, as sure as he knows that he will fight again tomorrow, that this, whatever it is between them, will end in disaster. And, most importantly, he knows that he really doesn’t fucking care. He would trade a lifetime of sanity for a moment of this crazy, fucked up, unshakeable love. Every time. Without a second thought.

[quartusbellum-blog]

SARA for the role of REGULUS BLACK using the faceclaim NICOLE MAINES. 

I am very excited about your portrayal of this character! Not only have you given life to the plots hinted at in the skeleton, but you’ve threaded new layers of meaning into Regulus’ story. I can’t wait to see them explored on the dash! 

ooc details

Name: Sara

Age: im a fandom grandparent

Pronouns: they/them

Activity Level: I’m around every day and enjoy making a mess of things in game

Other: No triggers though my character might end up triggering others. I’ll make sure to tag.

Acknowledgement: I acknowledge that the themes of this game may include triggering elements. I also acknowledge that my character may be harmed, coerced, or even killed (with player’s consent) during paras/events or may cause harm to or kill others during paras/events. Yep here4themess

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general ic details

Name: Regulus Arcturus Black

Age: 19 | January 23rd

Ships: Regulus is rather aromantic in manner so a romantic is unlikely. Even still, I’d be happy to try any ships, any nonromantic ships etc.  Warning: please read the whole app prior to seeking a ship with Regulus given that any sort of romantic/nonromantic/sexual ship might contain triggering experiences.

TBH my dream ships are probably more found family/family oriented… polyamorous with an asexual asshole who is a little skew?

Gender/Pronouns: publicly Regulus is still he/him but there will be a blending and fucking up of pronouns as Regulus explores and comprehends her gender (likely ultimate ending but nonbinary is also possible). This is different then how i sometimes write trans characters because in this game one aspect of her narrative will be the concept of growing up and understanding she can be who she wants to be. Even if Regulus knew from a young age (which not all trans people do), Regulus would have innately rejected the idea because of the pride his mother has(d) in having the two heirs at a cost. This became even more pressing when Sirius left his role as heir and it landed to Regulus–suddenly Regulus’ choices shrank even more. Its only in death that she has started to comprehend that there are choices now.

So pronouns will be flying ALL THE WAYS but mostly reflecting how the character is presenting EXTERNALLY to others. FC will remain static but may not be used all the time due to the lack of stable presentation.

For this app He/Him were used exclusively as up until perhaps the past year Regulus presented exclusively as he/him.

Headcanon for transitioning Attisgalli Corrective Draught.

Face Claim: please provide two face claim options.

Nicole Maines

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bio questions

Please note, while this game is “canon” up until the start of the Wizarding War it does not stay canon and it’s quite divergent at the start of the game.

biography:

The Black Family is too old of a family line not to have gotten… muddled (never muddied) in the past. It shows on the family tree in little notations (a dark red swirl like an ink blot on their shoulder for vampire) or in burn-marks where a person used to be (for scum of the earth traitor). Sometimes, Regulus’ mother sniffed when explaining this, certain family members couldn’t do what needed to be done.

A little pruning never hurt anyone–not any more then a little cultivating did.

Regulus and Sirius Black might have been half brothers but that was simply the most prudent action their parents could take to make absolutely certain the bloodline continued. Sure, children that shared both parents blood would have been ideal but with Druella only providing girls and Orion not providing any… Walburga Black was always very good at problem solving. Perhaps the only problem she failed to solve was her eldest son Sirius–or maybe she almost fixed it with Regulus.

If Sirius Black was loud and brash and bright–Regulus was the opposite. He was a late talker and when he did start talking it was almost always a last mumbled as a last resort. It wasn’t that Regulus wasn’t intelligent but that he struggled to organize his thoughts and provide them to others–something that continued through childhood, through Hogwarts, and beyond. He preferred chess and finding patterns within potions, charms, and even Quidditch to social obligations.

Prone to being misunderstood when he did attempt to make friends (he wasn’t threatening that girl, he was warning her so she wouldn’t be hurt), Regulus over values any and all friends or family he has. As such, any disowning, death, or friendship breakup has been taken incredibly personally. Its no excuse, and Regulus knows that now more then ever, but the need for connection and purpose helped drive his passion for Voldemort. Regulus believed in what Voldemort was fighting, becoming a Death Eater would provide a structure that Regulus knew he would need outside of Hogwarts while learning how to manage the Black family vaults and investments, and there was a social aspect, too.

For all that Regulus was good at strategy and understanding how seemingly fragmented pieces of information fit together: he was too slow to understand what Voldemort’s real goals were and what they ultimately meant for his family (and the wizarding world, but his family, of course, was paramount). Regulus Black never woke up one day and started believing muggleborns were ‘okay’ or that his innate belief system was wrong. He woke up one day and realized that the few people he cared about were in danger in a way they did not, could not, understand.

The vampire blood was easy to get, although he hardly thought it would work. He had long since been in the habit of visiting Narcissa and feeding the prisoner James Potter. Adding a fail safe into James’ layers of memory charms was not easy but necessary. Most likely, even with the blood, even with over a month of planning, Regulus was certain he was going to die.

Which he did. It just didn’t stick.

It’s been almost a year since then and Regulus isn’t sure if it was the potion, the vampire blood, the way he died, or if he’s finally just turning into his mother’s child in ways he never wanted to–but Regulus Black can’t seem to get a grip on his emotions, or his tongue, the way he used to. In some ways, though, its a relief–like finally being able to peel off an ill-fitting skin for something new.

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my character is:

Please Provide the Following

A Belief that is Wrong

Please Describe a Belief your character has that is wrong. It can be something we, as players, know is wrong (ex. prejudice against werewolves ).  Alternatively: How is your character lying to themselves (and how is is it shown externally).

Regulus has always had something about organization and if he thinks about it too much even he would have to acknowledge that it’s a lie. But Regulus generally doesn’t pay that much attention to the reality surrounding these habits, only the relief it brings him. His clothes are always pressed–even in his closet of a space with the Radical Alliance. The robes are cleaned, and charmed pressed, and hunt up in a very specific order. His bed is exactly one inch from the left wall. The trunk he keeps things in is under the bed and must not touch any of the posts or the wall. He keeps things perfectly separated inside the trunk. He counted the flur de lis on the carpet between his and Sirius’ bedrooms over and over and over again as a child. He can tell anyone how many panes of glass are in the windows at Hogwarts and even differentiate between wings of the castle. These habits (because, of course, that’s all they are, all they will ever be) didn’t start out so all encompassing but as Regulus grew up, as life became more complicated, choices too limited, finding ways to control it (even illogical ones) seemed to be the only answer.

If things are clean enough. If things are the right number. If he stops counting at the right moment, if he taps the right pattern : everything will be fine. There’s arithmancy in everything, he tells himself, because life has always been more bearable when he believes it to be true.

Job

Is Regulus Black Doing Anything? He isn’t sure, really. Certainly he doesn’t have a job–he’s never worked a traditional job a day in his life! He’s no longer a Death Eater. Can he continue to look after his family’s finances if he is, in a sense, dead?

Does he want to be alive? –Regulus wonders this sometimes, believing it not to be any sort of suicidal ideation but a simple, obvious question. Should he be alive? The answer is no.

Does he want to be–he doesn’t know.

As far as anyone knows (particularly Remus but also Marcus and Narcissa), Regulus Black has no job and is doing nothing but trying to pour his scrambled eggs of brain and impulse control back into some semblance of viability. Underneath that, Regulus Black is trying to pour his scrambled eggs of brain and impulse control back into some semblance of viability…and remember just what his next steps were supposed to be regarding the horcrux.

ooc questions

Writing Sample:

He’s at the stairs. Not the grand stars at the front of the house that fork and twist along the side of the foyer–but the back stairs. Servants stairs his mother would hiss if she saw them except none of their family have ever employed household staff.

House elves are bad enough, his mother says in his ear and Regulus jerks, expecting to feel her breath on his cheek but–nothing. Its nothing.

“I’ve food for the prisoner.” He says but its pointless because no one is listening. No one has been listening since Peter Pettigrew. Since Dumbledore. Since James. It is a mistake but they haven’t realized it yet.

He’s stood too long, frozen above the narrow staircase with a silver tray. Someone will see you–the thought hisses through his mind and Regulus knows, suddenly, with a clarity he’s been lacking: its not real. It’s not a part of this. A dream? The idea s fleeting and wilts under a brush of light as the curtains behind him are pulled open.

“Then go ahead, darling.” Narcissa says.  

The memory jerks, skitters, speeds up.

“I’ve food for the prisoner.” He says. “I’ve food for–”

Regulus is down stairs and the food is gone, shoved to the side. The lip of the tray is pressed into his ankle but Regulus ignores it because–James.

“Listen to me,” Regulus is saying. It’s strange, like none of this is real because he can’t feel any of it. The words fall from his mouth because where is his tongue? His wand is tight in his left hand, the swirls carved into its handle cutting into his palm. He should smell blood, he thinks.  

There’s nothing, though. The room is bleary with weak autumn light from a small window about ten feet above them. There’s a bed but James isn’t allowed to use it. He’s on the floor. Regulus is on the floor. No, he’s straddling James–James can’t move during this or else–or else.

James tenses under him and Regulus grabs a fist full of James’ fraying robes. “This is serious.” The robes are too tattered to bruise when Regulus’ jerks them. He can’t strangle James (and wouldn’t even if it would be a mercy)

“Why should I?” James, the fucker–it had been a month and he still had that smirk except there’s blood at the corner and this time (not the first time) Regulus can feel his stomach growl at the sight of it.

“It’s important.” Regulus has his wand pressed at James’ temple and his mouth brushes James’ cheek when he leans in to whisper. “You’ll thank me later.”

Regulus Black has never been good at mind magic.

When Regulus wakes up, he tastes salt water and bile.

Exploration:

Please share three things you’d like to explore. This could be a character changing sides, darker themes, or basic fiction tropes.

Family Lines: I think this game provides a particularly interesting set of circumstances regarding possible family lines. First there’s Narcissa and her condition–how did that happen? Possibly Regulus, trying to manage his life post cave and fucking up again ( or maybe it was a blessing?) I like to headcanon that maybe Alphard was a vampire and thats where the blood came from (open to other options). Speaking of, how has Walburga doing? And then there’s, of course, Sirius and all the brother’s baggage which is made even more complicated as (if this set up is accepted) Regulus sort of used Sirius’ best friend as a last will and testament–not that James remembers it yet. Last, … does Regulus even count as a live anymore and if not who has inherited ?

A Family Curse: The Black family has never exactly been known for its cool head and steady hands but Regulus, for all his somewhat muffled anxieties, has mostly stood out as awkward but not particularly memorable. In fact, it’s safe to say without his last name (and grades) Regulus probably wouldn’t have gotten much notice at all. That has largely changed now, although Regulus has trouble pin pointing why and how. There are a lot of factors, many of which no one else knows, and Regulus should care about that. He should be highly concerned–but those concerns evaporate before he can even generate a game plan to consider addressing it. Most seem to assume that its just Regulus taking after his mother. TLDR I’m interested in seeing what information he drops (likely not entirely clearly) without thinking it through and how the changes in demeanor and method impact both those who grew up with Regulus Black and those who didn’t. Don’t worry about wangst, I’m much more interested in throwing weird or intense tings at others then have Regulus mope.

Choices mixed in with all of that, Regulus has found himself well and truly on his own about making choices for the first time in his life. Sure, Remus might have ideas on what he should do, and Sirius, and Marcus, and Narcissa—but all of them have different goals, different expectations of what Regulus could do and in the end, Regulus doesn’t have to do anything. At the onset the only thing he does know is that he must do something about the horcrux…but how? When, where, and why? I want to see how different interactions with various characters might influence those choices and how Regulus handles managing his own reigns ow for better or for worse.

Gender: its so easy to boil gender and trans experience into one narrative but so often things are far…messier then that. Regulus is a character who hasn’t felt the ability to think overly hard (or pursue if he has thought of it) alternatives to gender even if the Wix Community at large is accepting (people turn into frogs, after all). This game provides a unique chance to explore gender through the lense of a character who is learning and failing and not overly confident (or overly feminine) but genuine in that (at least) if nothing else. Also, does being a vampire effect Attisgalli Corrective Draught?

Extras:

Anything else you’d like to provide?

[kaihoku]

V2   TALENT – May, 2000

Note: *currently busy being pleasantly surprised by how decent an album ND actually is (my first TK album and the first Japanese music CD I've purchased in a long while) but managed to find some time for this*

"When you're able to convey things to others simply with whatever talent you've got within...it's got to be the greatest thing ever."

~*~

Shingo's talent in illustration is nothing short of amazing. Imagine seeing something once, filtering it through your own senses, and then being able to simply recreate by hand what you’ve processed. If it were me...say if there’s a woman right in front of me, I’d be able to just plainly reproduce what I see in sketch form. But if asked to dig deeper and reproduce whatever essence I may see in her, I’d stare dumbly and likely end up submitting subpar work.

The basis of artistic expression lies in an individual’s innate sense of intuition, I think. I count myself as fortunate to be afforded countless opportunities to work with people who have it, from stylists to artists. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been wowed by their sense of color coordination. Their innate sense is often in full display based on their individual instinctive choices. As someone who wasn’t born gifted with it, when I see it--which is often--it never ceases to amaze me.

Architects, scriptwriters, songwriters, it‘s hard not to both admire and envy these people who are able to create something out of nothing, regardless of whether or not I enjoy their work. What I do is totally different.  By the time I come in, there’s already a script written and music scored. I’m not particularly savvy when it comes to baseball and its terminology but if I were to liken the two, it’s like being in the position of the 3rd or 4th batter, where everything’s already set up for them to score. It’s totally different from being the top batter. Don’t get me wrong, making changes to something that already exists, whether it be tweaking it, omitting certain things from it, or adding things to it, is something I like doing a lot, so in my own way, I do absolutely enjoy being assigned the batting position I usually am.

If a person is able to enjoy what they do, it usually means they’re good at it, or so it’s often said. So I think what I’m doing is something I'm cut out to do.  But if asked whether or not I’d be able to do what I do on my own, I know very well that the answer is no.

If I have to name a talent I can call my own, I’d say it’s probably my ability to reproduce actions that I’ve seen others do like a sort of recording.  For example, before going to surf, I’d first study pro surfer videos. Then when I go into the water, I’d recount what I saw, like, “I think this was how he got on a wave,” or “I think I remember seeing him lean like this,” and reproduce what I recall. When I had to attempt to do high jump for a show, something that I had zero experience in, I went looking for specialists to show me what they do right before my very eyes. I usually have very little issue with copying what I saw, although that doesn’t mean I’m able to replicate the results of the actual athlete.

Fortunately, every one of the SMAP members is also able to do this. If there is choreography for a new song, everyone would be able to commit it to memory if given about an hour and a half. But each member also has his own field of specialty so the skill an individual member uses to reproduce what they have learned may differ. The angle from which an individual chooses to focus on when learning is down to the individual’s own intuition. Committing what I see to memory and replicating what’s stored in my head is what I find works for me most of the time. I guess you could say it’s how I’ve been able to survive thus far. Even when I’m memorizing lines from a script, as long as I have the flow of a story visualized within my head when I’m reading the script, the lines will just easily fall into place within as well.  There are also times where I simply memorize the page itself and recall that way, like, “The phrase in the third line is "special." If this skill had been more useful back when I was a student, I’d had have an easier time of it during exams.

There's also the kind of talent which one cultivates the more experience they gain. Like, if what a person is lacking in talent for can somehow be replaced with will and physical power, they'd choose not to give in to compromise and instead use their grit to get there. Even so, despite having given their all to get to a certain level, there are times where it just isn’t enough.

Still, it’s hard to not admire the ability to create things from scratch. I may not have it now, but somehow, some way, I'm working towards getting there. By putting all my effort into doing the things I can, I'm quietly hoping that it would all accumulate and grow into something that would enable me to create things on my own, even if only a little. I want to be able to someday create something simply based on something that comes from within myself. I don’t know yet whether it will be in the form of film or music or something else altogether, though.

-harumi-

[hermitthrush]

Social Roles as a Guide to Conduct

Epictetus

"The Discourses" (c.108 AD) | Robert Dobbin translation, Book II.

Hermit Thoughts: Idealized social roles as guides to proper human conduct, i.e. consider how a perfect parent/child/sibling would act and strive towards that standard; how deviating from proper conduct - for reasons of fear, malice, or profit - does greater harm to us than material deprivation or physical pain because it is a spiritual injury we inflict against ourselves.

Who are you? In the first place, a human being, which is to say, a being possessed of no greater faculty than free choice, with all your other faculties subordinate to it, choice itself being unconfined and independent. Next, consider the gift of reason: it sets you apart from wild animals; it sets you apart from sheep. By virtue of these two faculties you are a member of the universe with full citizen rights; you were born not to serve but to govern, because you understand the divine order and its patterns.

Now, what does the title 'citizen' mean? In this role, a person never acts in his own interest or thinks of himself alone, but, like a hand or foot that had sense and realized its place in the natural order, all its actions and desires aim at nothing except contributing to the common good. Therefore, philosophers rightly say, 'If a good person knew that sickness, death, or disability lay in the future, he would actually invite them, because he realizes that this is part of the universal plan and that the universe has precedence over a constituent, and the city over any one citizen. But since we don't know the future, we're justified in sticking to things that are preferable by nature, because this, after all, is our instinct from birth.'

Next, remember that you are somebody's son. What does this social role mean? It means regarding everything of your as belonging to your father as well, always letting him have his way, never trying to hurt him with your words or actions, or griping about him behind his back. Defer to him at every opportunity, and in the same spirit cooperate with him as best you can.

Next, know that you are a brother. This role also calls for deference, respect, and civility. Never get into family fights over material things; give them up willingly, and your moral standing will increase in proportion. Make a gift of your box seat in the theatre, or a bit of food, if that's at stake, and see the gratitude you get in return - how much greater it is than the sacrifice.

Finally, reflect on the other social roles you play. If you are a council member, consider what a council member should do. If you are young, what does being young mean; if you are old, what does age imply; if you are a father, what does fatherhood entail? Each of our titles, when reflected upon, suggest the acts appropriate to it.

If you go off and yell at your brother, my reaction is to say, 'You've forgotten who you are and what you stand for.' I mean, if you were a metalworker who fumbled with his tools, you would have lost touch with the metalworker you once were. If you forget what it means to be a brother and become your brother's enemy, don't think you've made a trivial exchange. If you are transformed from a decent, social human being into some mean, snarling, dangerous beast, is there no loss involved? Or do you have to lose money before you feel penalized? Is losing money the only loss that counts with us?

If you lost the capacity to read, or play music, you would think it was a disaster, but you think nothing of losing the capacity to be honest, decent, and civilized. Yet those other misfortunes come from some outside cause, while these are your own fault. Moreover, it is neither honourable to have those other abilities nor dishonourable to lose them, whereas it is dishonourable to lose these capacities and a misfortune for which we have only ourselves to blame... An adulterer does away with a just, decent, and honourable human being - the good neighbour and citizen he might have been. A sorehead incurs one kind of loss, a coward another - but no one is bad without loss or penalty of some kind.

Now, if you look for their penalty in terms of money, you might find them all safe and scot-free; they could even be helped and rewarded for their offense, if they gain by it financially. But, if money is your only standard, then consider that, by your lights, someone who loses their nose does not suffer any harm.

'Yes they do, they're maimed physically.'

But what if they are deprived just of the sense of smell - in other words, isn't there an associated psychic faculty, which is good to have and a misfortune to lose?

'What do you mean by "psychic faculty"?'

Aren't we born with a sense of fairness?

'We are.'

If you destroy it, is there no harm, is nothing sacrificed, don't we lose something dear? Don't we have an innate sense of honour, a sense of benevolence, a sense of kindness and compassion? Well, if someone willingly parts with these sensibilities, do you suppose they go unpunished and unhurt?

'Well, does that mean that if someone wrongs me I shouldn't hurt them in return?' First of all, look at what wrong-doing is and remember what you have heard about it from philosophers. Because if 'good' as well as 'bad' really relate to our choices, then consider whether your position does not amount to saying something like, 'Well, since that guy hurt himself with the injustice he did me, shouldn't I wrong him in order to hurt myself in retaliation?'

So why don't we actually picture it to ourselves this way? Instead, we see injury only where physical or financial loss is incurred, whereas if the loss stems from our own choices, then we don't suspect any harm has been done. After all, we don't get a headache after an error in judgement or an act of injustice; we don't get eye trouble or stomach ache, we don't lose property. And for us those are the only things that matter. As to whether our character will remain loyal and honest, or become false and depraved, we don't care about that in the least - except insofar as it comes up for examination in school; the result being that our debating skills improve at the cost of our character.

[plurdledgabbleblotchits]

Excerpt:

“But who honestly thinks that a violent, mentally ill person would be deterred by knowing that everyone in the room was packing heat?

In truth, by arming ourselves, deterrence is really not what we’re expecting, is it?

It’s certainly not what Rep. Harper had in mind. He doesn’t think a violent person will change his mind before he shoots. He and those like him want a roomful of armed theater patrons so that when the shooting commences, someone will spring into action, draw his pistol and take out the shooter before he can kill more people.

In fact, as many law enforcement officers will tell you, it rarely works that way and it might get you and others killed.

Now, if you’re not the type to take life lessons from the Bible, consider another authority — a retired Chicago police officer, Michael B. Black, writing on July 25 in the New York Times.

Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas, recently suggested that if this incident [in Aurora] had occurred in his state, where many citizens carry concealed weapons, the crazed shooter could have been quickly terminated. I wonder if the congressman considered the confusion and terror that occurs in a real-life firefight? . . .

I’ve faced people with guns many times and arrested violent, armed offenders for such crimes as robbery and homicide. Although my gun often left its holster on those occasions, I am grateful that I never had to shoot anyone. I never lost sight of the responsibility of carrying a weapon. Despite what many people think, it’s not something to be taken lightly. . . .

The last shooting incident I was involved in happened at 3 in the morning on Dec. 26, 2010, my last Christmas before I retired. We responded to a report of two men arguing, one threatening to shoot the other. My radio blared, “Shots fired! Man with a gun.” When I reached one man, running in the darkness between two houses, he had already been shot by another officer. When the officer had ordered the man to stop and identify himself, the man had pointed a pistol at him. The officer ducked behind his car door and fired half the bullets in his Glock 21 before finally hitting the offender once in the left buttock. We eventually found the shooter’s silver semiautomatic deep in a snowdrift.

The suddenness and confusion of that moment points out the folly of the politician’s belief that an armed civilian could have easily taken out James Holmes. Imagine the scene: speakers blasting, larger-than-life heroes and villains on the screen, and suddenly real gunshots, a man in a gas mask firing one of three weapons — a shotgun, handgun and rifle, with extended magazines for extra ammo capacity — into the panicking crowd. Even a highly trained, armed police officer would have been caught off guard. Try adding a bunch of untrained, armed civilians into the mix — this type of intervention could have made things much worse.

In the same edition of the Times was another column, this by Andrew Jensen, a former Army infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After years of training and war, I’m left wondering: can you ever really protect people you care about?

As a veteran, should I register for a concealed-carry license and always be armed? Even then, would I, as a trained rifleman, really be able to shoot a single person through a cloud of tear gas in a movie theater full of people screaming and running? What if I started shooting and there was another person with a gun in the crowd? . . .

The reality, of course, is that we wouldn’t have tackled the shooters. Shooters aren’t tackled until their clips are empty, and by then it’s too late.

Serving in a combat zone means constant vigilance against unseen enemies. It means wearing heavy body armor, no matter what the weather is doing. It means taking weapons with you when you eat or use the restroom. It means, quite literally, never putting them down. The common argument made by gun-rights advocates is that they “don’t want to be in a one-way firefight,” which argues for not restricting the sale of things like semiautomatic weapons, high-capacity magazines and tear-gas grenades. Their contention is that the only real way to stop dedicated shooters is for there to be plenty of other shooters around.

Those who truly believe that need to be carrying a gun right now, wherever they are. They need to keep it closer than I kept my weapon in Iraq. In Iraq my fellow soldiers’ lives were on the line. Soldiers’ lives are important — but our families’ safety is even more precious.

Those who truly believe that anyone should be able to buy semiautomatic weapons will need a gun at soccer practice, at church, at “Batman” movies. That’s the only logical choice. And civilian life will feel almost like being in Iraq.”

...

“That’s what happens when you run with a firearm to a scene of bloody havoc. In the chaos and pressure of the moment, you can shoot the wrong person. Or, by drawing your weapon, you can become the wrong person—a hero mistaken for a second gunman by another would-be hero with a gun. Bang, you’re dead. Or worse, bang bang bang bang bang: a firefight among several armed, confused, and innocent people in a crowd. It happens even among trained soldiers. Among civilians, the risk is that much greater. “ 

...

“When someone proposes arming American citizens to the point that our cities begin to resemble the wild West, I believe we can count on the good sense of the average American.

Christian or not, most people aren’t about to pack a Glock everywhere they go. And they don’t like the idea of their fellow diners or moviegoers packing heat.

It’s not because they don’t think we have that right; it’s because we instinctively know that life doesn’t unfold like some Saturday night police drama or a scene from “Gunsmoke.”

Most of us know we wouldn’t — and couldn’t — react to a violent situation like some action movie hero. (Most real-life cops can’t, either.) We know we don’t have the experience or the reflexes necessary to do what is necessary in a difficult situation.

At the end of the day, it’s not our religious beliefs that will keep us from making a bad situation worse; it’s our innate common sense and self-awareness.

Deep inside, we know we’re not Bruce Willis in “Die Hard.” On our very best day, we know we’d be lucky to be Jimmy Stewart in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” And, as everyone knows who has watched that movie, Jimmy Stewart didn’t shoot Valance. John Wayne did.

As much as we admire John Wayne, deep down we are a nation of Jimmy Stewarts.”

[lichlairs]

Checkout our new post over at https://lichlair.com/daily-monster-46-leshen-witcher-week

Daily Monster #46: Leshen (Witcher Week)

This has got to be hands down my favorite monster for the Witcher series… Not only is it fun to fight and has compelling lore behind it, but it also gives me the creeps. I think these alone are great reasons why the Leshen deserves a place in our home campaigns, so let’s take a closer look at today’s monster:

The Leshen

The basics

As you hopefully learned from our first Witcher inspired Daily Monster, we’re going to be using Regerem’s Book of Beautiful Horrors for the Leshen’s stats.

This awesome book presents us with not one, but three different stat Leshen stat blocks depending on your needs and the level of your party. Similarly to the Drowner article, the plan is to go over all of them, so you might want to click that link and take a look at the numbers yourself.

To start things off, the standard Leshen has a STR of +7 which, if you’ve played the games you know that to be pretty accurate. Even outside of the video games your best bet is going to be relying on its slow speed (-1 DEX) unless you want to end up half dead in seconds like this guy:

Even the standard version of this creature has some insane saves and pluses to its skills, not to mention their wide list of immunities and their super high passive perception of 18. With fire being their only vulnerability, a trigger-happy Fireball casting wizard sounds pretty good about now. You know, if they can get pass the Leshen’s Magic Resistance.

Today’s monster also gets a few spells thanks to their Innate Spellcasting, though some are certainly more useful than others (looking at you Speak with Plants). Considering how there will most likely be a small swarm of animals to aid your boss Leshen in combat, I think it could be fun to use the Polymorph spell on a couple of them and make them that much lethal. Likewise, Insect Plague is bound to add even more mayhem to the already chaotic battlefield.

Just like in the video game, if you decide to run this creature you’ll have access to its Root Strike (Recharge 5-6) and a small army of forest minions though the Leshen’s Call Primal Beast action (2/day), but what really sets this encounter apart is the Leshen’s Totem Stride, which basically allows it to teleport from totem to totem at the cost of 10ft of movement.

No more hiding in the back, squishy casters.

As mentioned before, the book offers us two other variants; the first one being a Black Root, which is basically a corrupted version of the Leshen. The main changes for this variant is a switch from Wisdom to Charisma (probably because they’re really spooky), a couple of changes in resistances and vulnerabilities, and a different spell list. While the Black Root won’t be able to summon creatures at will or make roots attack their foes, they gain access to Life Drain (Recharge 5-6) and are basically indestructible thanks to their Rejuvenation feature. Your party’s only hope lies on them having done some research on how to permanently get rid of these creatures.

Last but not least, the third and final version of this creature is its Ancient form. Apparently being a very old tree trunk means your hit points increase almost by a third of the max and so does pretty much everything else. Thankfully for your party, the Ancient Leshen’s DEX is still at a -1 so at least there’s hope of running away.

Other than getting the pay to play version of the features a standard Leshen gets, the Ancient variant gets access to a couple more fun spells like Eternalness and Storm of Vengeance.

Oh yeah, and Legendary Actions.

The lore

Can I just say? It’s really refreshing to look up the lore of a creature and actually be able to find tons of information on it rather than just write bad jokes about wooden donkeys and giant crabs. Step up your lore game, WotC!

To common folk in the Witcherverse, Leshens are often venerated almost as Gods. Many consider them to be Nature’s way of protecting itself (the name Leshen comes from the Slavic word for forest). Witchers, however, are aware of their status as monsters, Relicts to be exact.

Leshens can only be found in the most primal and deepest of forests where some of them have lived for hundreds and thousands of years undisturbed by mankind. They have incredibly strong bonds with the land and its natural beast inhabitants, going as far as being able to call upon them for combat situations.

Although there are still Ancient Leshens that live undisturbed in forest areas that haven’t seen and travelers in eons, there are some others who almost preside over small villages on the outskirts of their territory. This, of course, can be a double edge sword, since despite rejuvenating the local wildlife for hunters and foragers alike, Leshens can still wreak havoc on the nearby populations if their territory isn’t treated with respect.

On a similar note, expect for these very rare occasions in which villagers are able to strike some sort of pact with the ancient woodland beings, Leshens tend to be extremely territorial and aggressive. Those who venture into the deepest part of forest might just come across dead bodies that have been impaled by massive roots, their face still contorted in terror as a warning for future trespassers.

For those unfortunate enough to find themselves in the Leshen’s lair, they’ll often find monuments, totems really, that have been erected throughout the area. In the video game, the only way to truly kill a Leshen involves destroying its totems first. In the Book of Beautiful Horrors, however, they are used as means teleportation. But truly it’s up to which version you want to use for your encounter.

While the only thing separating the standard version of that creature and the ancient one is age, Black Roots are a little different. The one way to make a Black Root is for a Hag to steal a child and trap them inside a tree trunk within a Leshen’s territory. Once the child dies, the tree grows and turns black in color, becoming the point of respawn for the now corrupted Leshen. Once this has been done, the forest in the Leshen’s territory starts to corrupt as well, animals turn sickly and infected, plants blighted.

The execution

At this point I think it’s pretty clear that the Leshen most definitely has all the markings of a great boss for your party to fight. Even if you choose the standard version of the creature you still have a powerful creature able to summon minions at will to keep the battle going for a respectable amount of time.

Now, how are we getting our party of intrepid heroes into trouble this time? As far as forests are concerned, adventuring groups go near them frequently enough but I feel like there should be something stronger to motivate our heroes to tread Leshen territory. Maybe they hear rumors about a magical weapon that is imbued with the power of nature itself, or perhaps a local group of halfling boy scouts go missing and our heroes must rescue them, up to you really. Whichever choice you end up making, we should probably talk about the Leshen’s lair.

If you end up pitting your party against a Black Root I’d definitely recommend having the fight take place near the blackened tree so you could maybe hint at it being the key for destroying the corrupted Leshen. If, on the other hand, you’re hoping to have them fight a regular Leshen or even an Ancient one (I hope your party has life insurance), they definitely come with a preferred terrain; i.e. the area near their totems. Let’s take a look at what the Book of Beautiful Horrors has to say about this:

Other than a few interesting regional effects including stronger beasts in the area, and being able to control the weather, our Leshen is also able to use its totems as means of scrying similar to the arcane eye spell, expect limited to six miles around its lair. In terms of combat, there’s a small list of lair actions that we can take advantage of:

Roots and plants burst out of the ground, grappling and lashing at creatures. The area within 60 feet around the Leshen becomes difficult terrain until initiative count 20 on the next round. Huge or larger creatures are not affected.

The Leshen and allied creatures within 60 feet of it heal 4d8 hit points.

A green mist fill the lair. All creatures within 60 feet of the Leshen must succeed on a DC 18 Constitution saving throw, taking 13 (4d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

One of the most important things to keep in mind with running this encounter is the idea of using the environment to keep the player characters away from the Leshen and distracted fighting what’s around them. As a Dungeon Master you are free to use tree roots and vines, and crows and wolves, or whatever it takes to make this encounter a memorable one.

Oh, how time flies! We’re already halfway through Witcher Week! How are you guys enjoying it so far? We’d love to hear about your favorite article and what you hope will be the last Witcher inspired Daily Monster for the week. Make sure to follow us on our social media so you won’t miss out on any of our content. We post new articles every day of the week.