#guy who gets put in a dungeon and non stop complains and talks off the guards ears every night ( Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[lanshappycorner]

His name is Jin and he was born in a wet cardboard box all alone

[chelsfic]

Leftovers - Part 7 - Nandor the Relentless x Reader Fanfic

Previous parts: Masterlist

A/N: Well...this was unexpected. I wasn’t planning to go in this direction quite YET, but the characters had minds of their own...

Summary: While planning for the upcoming biannual orgy, the reader gets a lesson in seduction from Laszlo and Nandor finally surrenders to his desire.

Warnings: Smut, Female reader, Blood drinking, First time, Loss of Virginity

---

Nadja’s voice echoes through the house as she rushes into the library clutching a letter in her hands.

“Laszlo! Nandor! Colin Robinson! House meeting!”

Guillermo trails after her carrying the rest of the mail. Bills, a grocery circular, and a stack of computer parts catalogs addressed to Colin. He drops the pile on an end table and takes an unobtrusive position by the doorway as the other housemates start to file in with varying expressions of annoyance, curiosity and boredom.

You’re the last one to arrive, traipsing into the room looking vastly under dressed, as always, compared to the old world vampires in their elegant finery. Even Colin and Guillermo keep it business casual. You, on the other hand, are dressed in a pair of neon pink capri leggings and the USA Men’s Basketball jersey you stole from Nandor. The jersey falls down to your knees and the wide arm holes reveal the sports bra you’re wearing underneath. When Nandor first caught you wearing it a couple weeks ago he’d groused at you about disrespecting his belongings. But then he found himself strangely pleased with how his garment dwarfed your smaller frame. He rather liked the idea of his human wearing his shirt. So, he stopped complaining.

You give him a cheeky grin and flounce the bottom of the shirt around your thighs saucily as you flop down beside him. It’s been just about a month since the rave and since things between you and Nandor...advanced. You’ve started secretly thinking of him as your vampire boyfriend. You spend more nights in his coffin than you do in your own bed and you’ve both enjoyed the closeness that comes with sleeping in an enclosed box. 

You’ve continued to touch, kiss, and explore each other physically. Your progress has been slow, though you’ve gone further and experienced more with Nandor than you ever have with anyone else. But he is being downright mulish about taking the next logical step. On the one hand it’s comforting to have a more experienced partner who is so willing to go slowly. On the other hand...you’re horny. And you can’t tell if he’s being considerate and cautious or if he’s being selfish and wanting the best of both worlds: sexy times and virgin blood.

You sit so that your leg brushes against his and take his hand, twining your fingers together happily. You probably look like a preteen with her first boyfriend but you don’t really care. 

Colin Robinson grins and his eyes flash blue as he drones, “PDA! Get a room, you guys.”

Nandor hisses angrily and you roll your eyes. You spot Guillermo standing rigidly by the door and wave him over, patting the cushion on your other side.

“Memo! Come sit down for the meeting,” you invite.

Guillermo’s eyes flick to his master automatically and Nandor proclaims, “Vampires--non-familiars only, Guillermo!”

“What!?” you exclaim, slapping his arm. “Stop being mean to Guillermo!”

“Mean!?” Nandor scoffs. “I’m not mean to Guillermo! I saved him from being executed by the Vampiric Council last year, didn’t I?”

Guillermo nods, “Yes, master...although I did save you as well--”

“And I let you have the human giving thanks holiday off, didn’t I?” he interrupts.

“That was...three years ago…” Guillermo mumbles.

Nandor is gearing up for a full on hissy fit but Nadja interrupts, “Enough! Gizmo, go and sit with the human, you know Nandor is going to surrender to her eventually and I have news to announce!”

You smile in triumph and Guillermo reluctantly slinks forward to sit on your other side, eyeing his master over your head with a worried look.

“That’s strike one, Guillermo,” Nandor grumbles irritably, as Nadja takes over.

“I didn’t want to tell you until I had their answer,” Nadja smiles beatifically and folds her hands over her heart, “but I petitioned the vampire orgy committee and they’ve decided to give us a second chance to host the biannual orgy! I explained that my husband had been unnaturally deranged by some putrid blood--”

“Don’t you mean, betrayed by my wife?” Laszlo interjects.

“--and so we’re hosting it this weekend!” Nadja finishes, ignoring her idiot husband.

“Wonderful!” Nandor cries, dropping your hand and standing up to pace the room. “We’ll need to begin preparations at once. Guillermo, I’m giving Nadja permission to boss you around. It needs to be perfect this time!”

“Thank you, Nandor,” Nadja trills, obviously euphoric with plan-making already. “This time we’ll chain the virgins up, so there’s no chance for the cheeky buggers to spoil our fun…”

“Excellent idea, darling!” Laszlo praises, eager to show his support and avoid sleeping in one of the basement coffins tonight.

Nandor nods, “Yes, good suggestion, Nadja. Guillermo, you’ll bring the chains up from the basement...”

Nandor continues rattling off orders and you listen with increasing bafflement and alarm. He’s clearly giddy as he lists the “supplies” they’ll need.

“The sex net, obviously… the swing… assorted dildos… we should get a few Devil’s butt plugs, shouldn’t we? Those were popular at Marcus’s orgy last year…”

You turn, wide-eyed, to Guillermo and find him looking resigned and pulling a notebook from his back pocket to write this down.

Laszlo, Nadja and even Colin Robinson join in the discussion and they don’t seem likely to lose momentum any time soon. 

Finally, you clear your throat and speak up, “Um...I’m sorry. So...you--all of you--go to...sex parties? Like, where you...have sex all--all together?”

God, could you sound more virginy? You direct the question to everyone in the room but your eyes focus on Nandor. He looks away with an uncomfortable grimace.

Nadja tuts and puts a hand to her forehead as she croons, “Oh my sweet, baby virgin! I have forgotten how stupid and innocent you are. Do you not know what an orgy is? It is like a dark, bacchanalia of the flesh… a joining of bodies into one, throbbing mass of pleasure. And it is a great honor to host it! Vampires from all over New York will attend.”

“But…” what you really want to do is talk to Nandor in private. Your mind is racing with half-formed concerns, but mainly you’re hoping your new vampire boyfriend isn’t planning to have casual sex with a dozen strangers after spending the last month refusing to deflower you because he’d rather preserve the taste of your blood than deepen your...well, what you’d thought of as your relationship.

But you can’t give a voice to these worries even if the idea of Nandor with someone else stabs at your heart. You don’t want to be the needy virgin. The silly little girl who thinks a 758-year-old vampire is interested in “going steady.” Are you being unreasonable? Are you being unrealistic? Are you being insensitive to vampire culture? All at once you feel tears stinging your eyes and you blink rapidly to clear them before anyone notices. 

“I know what you’re worrying about, my warrior,” Nadja breaks through your thoughts. “But you’ll be perfectly safe during the orgy. Look!”

She poofs into a cloud of vapor, reappearing a few seconds later holding a pair of matching plain white t-shirts with the words “Do Not Eat” printed on them. 

“One for you and one for Gizmo!” she exclaims with a proud smile as if this solves everything.

---

“So…” you start and then trail off, not really knowing what you want to say.

You’re up in the attic with Nadja and Laszlo, helping them sort through boxes with labels like “Sex Dungeon,” “In Case of Orgy,” and “Emergency Dildos.”

Laszlo uncovers something wedged behind the StairMaster and exults, “My darling! Do you remember this…?”

It looks like a dildo circa the Renaissance period, smooth and hand-carved with a leather harness attached. Laszlo throws his head back and his hands twitch excitedly at his sides as Nadja stalks up to him with a seductive smirk.

“Of course, I do, my naughty boy. And if you are good and don’t ruin this orgy with your moods then maybe we’ll have ourselves a nice little time with it…” her voice goes high-pitched and squeaky as she grabs the phallus out of Laszlo’s hands and strokes it along his jaw, bringing it up to his lips and squealing as he opens his mouth to run his tongue lewdly over the shiny, smooth wood.

“O-okay, I’m just going to give you guys some privacy…” you stand and start to make your way over to the stairs.

Nadja drops the dildo and calls after you, “Wait, mortal! You had something you wanted to ask?”

You stop in your tracks, turning back to the couple and taking a breath to steady yourself. You have to talk to someone about this.

“Yeah, it’s...well, Nandor and I haven’t had sex yet--”

“We can tell that very well, my yummy friend,” Laszlo cuts in and Nadja slaps his arm.

“Go on, little horny infant,” Nadja says encouragingly.

“--but we’ve done other stuff,” you continue, “and I...I have feelings for him. But the thing is, I’m not as comfortable as you all seem to be about...sharing…”

“Ahh!” Laszlo murmurs with an arch look. “And you don’t want a load of randy vampires diddling your man.”

“Right,” you confirm, heat spreading over your face under their scrutiny. “But he seems so excited and I...I still don’t really know if he feels the same way that I do…”

“Hmm, yes this is very tricky,” Nadja muses. “Of course...there are some vampire couples who attend and only pay attention to each other…”

“Bloody boring, if you ask me…”

“Shut up, Laszlo!” Nadja hisses. “Can’t you see our human needs us?”

“Alright, alright!” he says irritably. He turns in a small circle, rubbing his chin abstractly before snapping his fingers and pointing to you in excitement, “I’ve got it! It sounds to me like what you really need is a little help in seducing our warrior friend. Once you’ve done the dirty deed you can enslave him to your feminine wiles just like my darling Nadja did to me.”

“Good idea, Laszlo! Then you can attend the orgy together and if anyone tries to tempt him away you will do the whip on them!” Nadja declares with delight.

You’re not sure if she’s misusing roller derby lingo or actually suggesting that you use a whip on your rivals. Probably both…

“But he won’t have sex with me because he’s obsessed with my stupid blood…” you whine, plopping down on one of the boxes with an exasperated sigh. 

“Trust me, human. With our help, Nandor won’t know how to resist!” Laszlo assures you with a self-satisfied grin. “Nadja, darling, get the projector!”

“Oh, no, Laszlo...she’s just a poor human girl. Don’t subject her to your boring pornos…”

---

By the time you come down from the attic you’re pretty sure the image of Laszlo’s orgasm face is permanently burned into your brain. And you’re not exactly sure how “Vampire Tricked in Steamroom” is supposed to help you with your conundrum, but Laszlo’s proud enthusiasm is adorable. Nadja’s words as you walk down the stairs are a little more helpful.

“Nandor is just thinking too much with his fangs and not enough with his penis. Use your natural talents--” she glances meaningfully at your chest, “--to make him realize his mistake.”

You’re not sure you have it in you to play the seductress like Nadja does. Still, your footsteps automatically take you in the direction of Nandor’s room. When you walk into the crypt you find him bent over a long roll of paper on the floor with a paintbrush in his hand and glitter stuck all over his head. He holds his work up to show you with a proud grin.

It’s a banner with large, bright, sparkly letters spelling out, “Welcome Orgy Guests!”

“What do you think?” he asks shyly. “Too much glitter?”

You blink and bite back a laugh at the sight of your fearsome boyfriend with his hair and beard covered in glitter. He’s smiling at you, revealing the wicked gleam of his fangs and you’re suddenly overcome with the desire to kiss him until you’re covered in glitter too. You stride forward, gingerly taking the banner from his hands and setting it back down on the floor.

“Just the right amount of glitter,” you assure him and then you hop up, wrapping your arms around his neck and trusting that he’ll catch you with his strong arms. His beard is scratchy against your face as you claim his mouth with yours, kissing and nipping his lips with a needy growl. Okay, wow--maybe Laszlo’s cheesy movie instruction has some merit?

“I knew it,” Nandor smirks. “You like the glitter, don’t you? Like Twilight!”

“Shut up, Nandor,” you laugh, stroking your fingers through his thick hair and angling his head so you can kiss along the edge of his jaw. You playfully drag your teeth against his neck and his whole body shudders in response. 

Curious, you do it again and this time he moans low in his throat and gasps out your name. Your lips curl into a mischievous smile and you bite down sharply, not hard enough to break the skin but enough to bruise if he didn’t have supernatural healing.

“Gah! Human…” Nandor pants, walking you over to the luxuriously upholstered couch set against the wall and dropping down with you in his lap. His voice breaks as he begs, “Harder.”

You draw back, locking your eyes with his for a moment, your breath coming quick as you feel the stir of his hardening length beneath you. His eyes are nearly black with desire and he digs his fingers into your hips in encouragement and repeats himself, “Harder, my mortal.”

You bend forward, brushing your lips gently along the crook of his neck like always does before he feeds from you. You bring your hands to his collar and loosen the ruff of his shirt, pulling it aside and cradling his head as you sink down to bite. You’re tentative at first, somehow afraid of hurting him, but he growls in impatience and swats your butt with his open hand to spur you along. You increase the pressure, feeling his skin give beneath the blunt edges of your teeth and the cool, coppery taste of his thick blood spreading over your lips and tongue. You swallow it, lapping at his neck eagerly as he squirms beneath you and mewls in pleasured surrender. 

When you finally pull away, your mouth and chin are painted an obscene red and Nandor goes wild at the sight. He grabs the back of your neck and pulls you into a rough kiss, arching his hips upward so he can grind against you.

“Now, I get to taste you,” He whispers against your lips, shifting out from beneath you and kneeling on the floor between your legs.

“It’s not--” you’re out of breath and your head is spinning. “It’s too soon, baby”

He purrs at your use of the pet name and slides his hands up the outsides of your thighs, catching the waistband of your leggings and dragging them down your legs along with your underwear.

“There’s more than one way to taste you, my human,” he explains, pressing his palms to the insides of your knees and pushing your legs further apart. He drags his beard along the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, scenting you with a pleased sigh. He scoops you up in his hands, pulling you closer to the edge of the couch and finally lowering his face between your legs. His breath is cool against your heated flesh and then he’s dragging his tongue along your slit in one long stroke that ends on your needy, throbbing clitoris. 

“Oh my go--”

Nandor rears back, hissing, and you rush an apology, “Sorry, sorry, sorry! I forgot.”

“Be careful with that shit!” he grouses but then he’s dipping his head back down and attacking you with his mouth. 

He’s gentle and thorough and--you think--very good at this. A few times you feel the sharp edge of a fang just brush against your most sensitive skin and you start to flinch away but he shushes you and strokes his fingers along your thighs to settle your nerves. His lips and tongue move against your clitoris in perfect, rolling motions that have you melting under his attention. You let your hands fall down to rest in his glitter-specked hair and stroke your fingers along his temples as he laves and sucks. When the mounting tension in your core grows to be too much you roll your hips up, grinding yourself into his face and twisting your fingers in his hair as you cry out. 

Nandor climbs back onto the couch and settles beside you, watching with a pleased smile as you tremble and gasp through the aftershocks. He’s lazily palming himself through his trousers when you finally turn to him and press the full length of your body into his, capturing his lips for a kiss that tastes of mingled blood and arousal--both your essences combined. 

“I’m ready…” you whisper, sliding your hands beneath his loosened collar and along his shoulders. “If you can possibly stand my blood tasting all ordinary and non-virgin flavored…”

You emphasize the last statement by edging your leg between his and grinding your thigh against his fervent erection. Nandor groans loudly and it sounds like a surrender. 

“Yes…” he pants. “My human...yes. I’ll make you mine. But...but--” he growls in frustration “--wait a moment!”

He hops up, leaving you half naked and bemused on the couch as he darts around the room, locking the door, positioning a fur rug on the floor next to an ornate candelabra, and finally opening a drawer and removing a folded piece of paper.

He comes back to you, kneeling at your feet and handing you the sheet of paper. He watches with a gleam in his eyes as you open it.

Inside he’s written in glitter pen:

“Happy Deflowering!

Love,

Nandor the Relentless”

And there’s a drawing of you laying on a fur rug with an artfully modest sheet draped over your nude body and Nandor floating in the air above you, his cape flying out behind him and his fangs bared. Well...now you know he hasn’t been planning to keep you a virgin for all eternity...

You bark out a laugh and press the drawing to your heart as you look up at him and gush, “I love it, Nandor!”

His lips part in a light smile and he presses forward, taking your face in his hands and catching you with his intense eyes.

“I wanted it to be--” he frowns uncomfortably as he forms the word “--nice...for you, human. Perhaps we had a rocking start…”

“You mean with you kidnapping me, drinking my blood and treating me like a human snack pack?” you deadpan, but you dart in to peck his lips to show you’re only teasing.

“Yes, that,” he continues and his fingers are tracing light patterns through the hair at your temples. “But I...I do care about you, my mortal. For more than just your delicious blood…”

Finally hearing him say the words out loud starts your eyes misting and you set the drawing down on the couch beside you, reaching forward to take him in your arms and kiss his beautiful, stupid, warrior lips. 

Nandor is remarkably quick at removing his layers of clothing. By the time you’ve shed your stolen jersey and squirmed your way out of the sports bra, he’s completely naked. Vampire speed. He kneels on the fur rug before you, his pale skin reflecting the golden light of the candles, glowing with second-hand warmth. You forget to be bashful about your own nudity as you drink him in. Dark hair covers his chest and trails down his stomach into the dark nest around his proudly straining erection. 

His own dark eyes drop to linger on the lines of your body as he reaches out and draws you closer, laying you down on the plush rug and perching beside you. You draw your hands up under your chin automatically, but he takes them and draws your arms down to your sides, baring your body for his hungry gaze.

“You are more breathtaking than the Euphrates running red with the blood of my enemies,” he murmurs, brushing his fingertips over the peaks of your breasts and smiling as your nipples pebble under his touch. 

You smile and shake your head, gazing up at this gorgeous man and feeling, for once, entirely worthy and beautiful in someone else’s eyes. You joined roller derby hoping to gain some body-positivity, some confidence--which you have. But still, you’ve never before felt so attractive and powerful. Nandor bends down to kiss you, running one hand along the line of your neck and letting the other roam over your belly and down between your thighs. He strokes through your still wet slit, spreading your slick and rolling your clit between his fingers until you’re mewling into his lips. 

“You know…” Nandor murmurs, pushing your legs apart and shifting to seat himself between them, “there’s more than one reason they call me relentless, little human.”

The sound that falls from your lips is half-gasp and half-moan. He slides the head of his cock through your folds, coating himself in your arousal before finally--finally--pressing forward at your entrance. Even after a month of pining and yearning for this you still tense up at the final moment and Nandor kneads his hands into your hips with a soft coo, “Relax yourself, my mortal…”

He leans down to press a rough-stubbled kiss along the edge of your jaw as he finally slips inside of you and you feel, for the first time, the impossible and wonderful sensation of being filled by your lover as he gradually pushes deeper. For several seconds the pressure of him inside of you is all you can think about and it’s overwhelming. You bury your face into the crook of his neck, digging your teeth into the already healed skin.

“Does it hurt?” he asks, and there’s a distinctly vampiric edge of lustful curiosity that accompanies his concern. He’s rolling his hips against you in a slow, steady rhythm. 

“Mmhmm,” you murmur without removing your teeth from his neck. 

He slips a hand between your bodies and finds the hardened bud of your nipple with his fingers, rolling and stroking it as he continues rocking into you with deeper and deeper thrusts.

“Not for much longer,” he promises with a teasing pinch to your nipple.

His pace increases as the pain gradually ebbs into a delicious, burning ache that builds and builds. You throw back your head, keening each time he buries himself inside you. Nandor’s mouth falls open and he dips his head to run his lips over the throbbing pulse of your throat, feeling the rush of your hot blood beneath the surface and losing the steady control of his movements as he frantically ruts into you. 

“Mine, mine, mine,” he cries, wrenching his mouth away from your neck and instead slamming his lips to yours with an anguished moan as he goes rigid, pushing deeper inside of you as his release tears through him. He jerks his hips several more times, reaching between you to put his fingers on you and coax you towards your own peak as he softens inside of you.

He finally slips out of you, collapsing onto the rug at your side with a heavy groan. He hugs you to his chest, tucking your head beneath his chin and humming in pleasure. His skin is almost warm with your borrowed body heat, but where you are covered in a fine sheen of human sweat, he is as smooth and unaffected as ever.

Your muscles shake with involuntary tremors and he strokes his hands down your back comfortingly.

“Shut your eyes,” his voice is a low rumble that you can feel where your head rests against his chest. “Rest, my love.”

The word sends a warm rush around your heart and you smile, burying your face into his lovely chest hair. 

All your insecurities about the upcoming orgy are forgotten as your limbs grow heavy with exhaustion. You’re just starting to drift to sleep under the steady feel of his hands smoothing over your back when a sudden thought pops into your head.

“Nandor!” you poke your head up to meet his eyes. “Am I going to turn into a vampire?!”

He furrows his brow as he asks, “Why would you think that, human?”

“Well...I drank your blood…” you explain, relaxing back into his chest now that it seems you’re not on the brink of transitioning into an unholy creature of the night without warning.

Nandor laughs, “I would have to drink your blood first...almost all of it. And then feed you my blood. No, my human, you won’t become a vampire...not yet.”

You nod your head absently, letting your eyes drift shut without fully absorbing his last words.

---

A/N: ?????????

Tags:

@festering-queen​ @kandomeresbitch​ @strangestdiary​ @glitterportrait​ @scuzmunkie​ @redwoodshadows​

[itsomgitsgreenblogging]

Labor of Love Chapter 2: A Critical Role Shadowgast Fanfic

Well, I was utterly floored by the amount of love I got on the first chapter of the fic, and so I felt that I had enough ideas and time to continue it. Seriously, thank you to everyone who supported chapter one, and here’s hoping you continue to enjoy this fic! Considering I’m still in a quarantine, I have plenty of time on my hands lol. 

I took inspiration from the food section of the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, so let me just say, thank you so very much Essek server for helping me! You guys are, as always, the best. 

Read on AO3

Read Ch 1 on Tumblr

Preview: 

Each cupcake looked like a treasure chest, decorated and drizzled and shiny. Each cupcake was almost too much of a display to consider blemishing. From the candied lemons on the Radler to the swirl of the tamarind-vanilla frosting to even the glisten of the drizzle. It all screamed a level of care and attention that Essek didn't exactly feel deserving of. All of this came from Caleb’s mind, he knew it. But what a wonderful, beautiful place that mind must have been. It made him yearn, impossibly, faithfully for something that he didn’t even have the words for. He hadn’t thought he was empty before, but now he felt downright cavernous.  

"Well, what's got you in a mood? Your resting bitch face is worse than usual,” Lythir noted, taking a sip from his mimosa. Essek set down his own drink and gave him a look. “That’s not making it any better.” 

“I don’t have a resting bitch face,” Essek noted very pleasantly as he flipped through the menu. The place was in the trendy upscale shopping district of Rosohna, promising gourmet modern-Xhorhassian cuisine served on shiny white plates and all deconstructed to the highest fashion. It was a bit pretentious, even for Essek. For example, why did all the drinks have to be in mason jars? But he hadn’t picked the place that had been Lythir. Though, Essek was sure he was going to have to be the one to foot the bill. 

Lythir was looking back at him expectantly. He was an old acquaintance of Essek’s, who worked at one of the premier newspapers in Rosohna. There were plenty of reasons that Essek prefered other people’s company over Lythir. He tended to be dour, self-important, and pretty annoying in general. Essek didn’t like most people, and he especially disliked people who felt they had something to prove. One’s business should remain their own. But Lythir had always done good work for the cultural office, and always gave Essek the head’s up when something big was happening. So, at the very least, Essek owed him to hear him out no matter how absolutely obnoxious he was being. 

“Well, you are a resting bitch so…” 

“I didn’t invite me out to brunch, that was you. This is your fault, so you don’t get to complain about me. If you want someone to complain about me to, you should have invited your husband,” Essek said shortly. Essek would have preferred Lythir’s husband to be there anyways. He was a stylish, soft-spoken individual who was the head of a non-profit that helped place refugees in housing and set them up with job assistance. Essek actually enjoyed his conversation, as opposed to Lythir. But it was what it was. 

“Oh get that stick out of your ass, Theylss. I invited you here for a reason...well, that and getting drunk.” 

“I suppose my company is not enough,” Essek sighed dramatically. 

“Oh, please. As if you don’t purposefully make yourself the least friendly person to interact with on a daily basis on purpose.” 

“We both know that’s not true. You hold that distinct honor.” 

“Oh shut up,” Lythir said, his expression pinching. “You always have to be so clever.”

“Are we ready to order?” the waitress asked, walking over to them slowly, as if the ground itself was triggered with traps like some ancient dungeon. 

“I’ll have the Eggs Uthodurn,” Essek ordered, closing the menu and sliding it to her. He smiled his best smile at her, the one he often put on to comfort interns trembling at the sound of his boss’s heels...before they realized it was him they needed to watch for. She looked relieved. 

“On a bagel or Uthodurnian muffin?” 

“The muffin please.” 

“Salad or home fries?” 

“Salad.” 

“And for you sir?” the waitress asked Lythir. 

“Full Xhorhassian Breakfast,” Lythir said lazily, not even bothering to look at her. “Bagel and eggs scrambled.” 

“Thank you,” Essek said to the waitress who smiled and hurried away. Essek turned his gaze back to Lythir, keeping his expression decorated as naturally as he could. "So what was it that you wanted to speak to me about?" 

"Though in theory we have moved away from the 12 Den Form of Government, we all know that it still exists," Lythir said, taking out his little notebook. "Your little brother is about to find himself in some hot water if he doesn't cool his current investigation. I know he thinks he’s some hot shot ye old Taskhand, but we all know that it’s the case." 

"Of course he is," Essek snorted as he rested his chin on his palm as he continued to look towards Lythir. "What did he do this time?" 

"Investigated a high ranking member of Den Beltune for corruption," Lythir said, opening his notebook. "Bribery and intimidation, the usual. Oh but a dash of insider trading is the scary thing, isn’t it?"

"Verin can never leave well enough alone," Essek sighed deeply, taking a long drink from his cocktail. It was so unwieldy to drink a bellini from a mason jar, but he was making due regardless. "It's part of his nature." 

"So are you going to stop him or what?"

"I'll do what needs to be done for all of our sakes." 

"That's cold," Lythir noted with a chuckle and a shake of his head. 

"Perhaps," Essek said tiredly. "Was that the only reason you dragged me out here in your quest to protect the realm, Lythir?  

"That, and I love the pissed off look you give every time you have to say Verin's name." 

"Truly, your company is a Luxon's blessing." 

The rest of brunch was a lackluster affair…mostly due to Lythir's subpar company. Essek couldn’t even eat three bites without feeling queasy. No, it wasn’t that he was suddenly concerned about his brother. He couldn’t care less about that. It was more the feeling that all of this was going to become a migraine if he didn’t get out in front of it.  Essek sighed as he climbed into his car, shooting a text to his mother. She was home, apparently going to the Temple to worship later. Lovely, but better to do this sooner rather than later. He gritted his teeth, pulled out from the curb, and drove towards the Theylss family home. 

The townhouse was in the Firmaments, the most upscale district in Rosohna. When Essek pulled next to the curb, and was immediately met with a housekeeper before he could ring the doorbell. Essek gave him his jacket and was led into the living room where his denmother was waiting. The whole house itself was styled classically. Heavy curtains, arches,  marble statues, Vermelock purple woods and wallpapers, luxurious tapestries and paintings of Theylss members since...well...since his mother had first put a name to her fame. She was laying back on the chaise lounge, with a mug of something in her hands. 

“Am I interrupting something?” Essek asked dryly, noting his mother’s general state of undress. She was wearing a silk robe, and lingerie that was lacy and very revealing. He resisted the urge to turn around and stare at the wall. He was an adult, but still, even the slightest inclination of his mother’s sex life was enough to make him want to gouge his own eyes out with a spoon. 

“Oh please, don’t be dramatic. It’s the morning,” Dierta Theylss said with a sigh as she sat up, looking oh so pleased with herself. 

“It’s half-past twelve.” 

“It’s morning somewhere, and I had a very good night, and I’m in my own house,” she said, taking the reserve of almond liqueur and pouring at least a double shot into her coffee. “I’m allowed to be dressed however I wish. 

“I beg of you, don’t tell me how your night was. I really, really don’t want to know.” 

“Essek, please, I thought when you became an adult we would be able to talk candidly about things. You hurt your mother’s feelings.” 

It was just then that Dierta’s current husband walked down the stairs. It was hard to keep track...but Essek was sure this was the fourth one in his lifetime. A handsome half-orc man...who of course was younger than Essek technically though he was somewhere in his forties. Essek couldn’t remember his name. Garrall? Gurak? Something like that maybe? He gave Essek a slow, awkward wave before grabbing coffee and then booking it back upstairs to avoid the oncoming storm. Good, Essek thought. He might actually like this new stepfather of his...though he was pretty sure that they had been married for at least two years. Did that count? Oh, whatever. He at least wasn’t as dense as the last one who had always smelled of mothballs and couldn’t keep from blathering about his stocks in Whitestone residuum. 

“I didn’t come here for a social visit, Mother,” Essek noted, taking the glass that was offered to him by the servant before sitting in the empty loveseat. He settled it down, not touching it. No use in getting too comfortable, after all, these conversations tended to be short and fraught with danger. He needed all his faculties working for this.  

“Of that I’m perfectly aware, you don’t do social visits. I can only assume that you did something and you need your mother’s help to clean up your mess,” she said, taking a drink. She motioned and the servant raced to refresh her cup. She took another lazy sip, gazing at him from over the rim as she did. There was something lurking there that always put him on edge, but it was more prominent now. 

“Not my mess,” Essek corrected, intertwining his fingers and resting them on his knee. “Verin’s mess. Verin’s mess that always ends up being my mess somehow.” 

“You mean Verin’s little pet project? His corruption investigation?” Dierta asked, tracing the rim of her mug with a manicured finger. “Oh yes, I’ve heard about it.” 

“And you haven’t done anything about it?” Essek asked, leaning back and crossing his legs. “What’s your plan then?” 

“Whatever could I do to dissuade him? You, on the other hand, may have more luck than I did.” 

“No,” Essek said angrily, the realization striking him quickly with the force of a hard slap. “No, this is not something you are going to pass off to me. I am only here out of respect to you, I’m not here to play your errand boy.” 

“Essek, you and I both know that things go better when you just listen to me,” Dierta said, her face hardening and Essek could nearly see her assume the ancient, feared, and coveted role of denmother right there. You are my son, and you will abide by me is what she didn’t say. It was the threat that was inherent in her tone. She was his denmother, even though in theory they had long since abandoned the practice. In fact, she was still one of the most powerful people in Rosohna. As soon as she had dawned the role like a heavy mantle it was gone and replaced with something cloyingly sweet. “You are my favored son for a reason. Now, listen to your mother. I have a plan.” 

“I don’t want to hear it,” Essek said, standing up out of his seat. “You can just speak to Verin directly. I’m not playing this game of yours anymore, this is exactly the reason why I moved out of this godsforsaken house.”

“You know he doesn’t listen to me once he’s got an idea in his head.”

“He doesn’t listen to me either. In fact, he hates me so whatever plan you have concocted in that brain of yours isn’t going to work. This was obviously just a waste of my time,” Essek told her shortly, yanking his jacket from the coat hanger. The servant looked pissed, and Essek leveled a glare that had him scurrying backwards. 

“Essek, tell me, what happened between you and Verin anyways?” she asked idly, as if it had nothing to do with her. Essek bristled even further if that was even possible under the circumstances, and felt his mouth twist further into a deep grimace.

“Can’t you tell?” Essek asked her with a sour grin. “It’s because I’m too much like you.”  

“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” Dierta huffed impatiently, but Essek was already out the door and to his car. He slammed his door shut, punched in his brother’s number and sped off from the curb towards his house. Essek almost immediately hit both traffic and Verin’s voicemail. Almost at his wit’s end, he tapped the wheel impatiently. 

“Verin,” Essek said shortly, glaring heatedly at his phone. “Don’t be an idiot. Be smarter than whatever you are up to, because it’s not just your ass on the line here and I will not help you.” 

Essek cut the line and stared at the traffic ahead of him. He continued to sit there, stewing on his distaste for everything for a bit before he just got tired of that and his attention wandered. He cast a look towards his messenger bag...the one he had gotten into the habit of keeping in his car just in case. It was looking up at him judgmentally…. as if saying he was weak and sentimental. He didn't need to go to the bakery, to soak in its atmosphere like it was a warm bath at the end of a particularly stressful day. He could read his books and answer Messages at home. But nothing about driving back to his empty cold apartment seemed appealing at that moment. 

He was a weak selfish creature, after all. And so he turned left...to the Xhorhaus Bakery. 

The bakery itself was buzzing with the usual amount of activity, on account of it being the afternoon. There were two lines, one for the regular register and the displays of sweets. At the other, Fjord and Caduceus (as he had learned from his previous trips) were making crepes and waffle cones for children to place their ice-cream. In front of them, trays of toppings like fruits, square jellies, jewel-colored syrups and jams and whipped creams, different flavored tapioca balls, a rainbow of sprinkles, and homemade candies and crushed cookies. Essek got up to the register and noticed immediately that Caleb wasn't there (not to his disappointment, he was not disappointed, it was foolish to be so and the last thing that Essek was, was foolish). Veth was also nowhere to be seen. He was met with Jester who smiled happily at him, as if there were no one in the world she would rather see. It helped lessen the sting of definitely not disappointment greatly. 

"Hi Essek!" Jester greeted, meeting his gaze before a grin curled over his lips. "Caleb's in the back right now."

"I didn't need to know that," Essek said with a sigh. 

"Sure you didn't. But in the meantime we do have Widogast's Wall of Infamy," Jester said, pointing to the aforementioned sign. On it were recommendations of the different pastries and food available that day. Essek swept them with his gaze, memorizing the neat scrawl that had to be Caleb's handwriting. It was beautiful, well practiced, the show of an educated hand. Just another thing to obsess about that he didn’t need to, Essek thought annoyed at his own obviousness. 

"I'll do one tall black coffee and...uh...whatever the daily triple threat is." 

"Oh my gosh, cupcakes!" Jester said excitedly, tail moving back and forth with her eagerness as Jester accepted Essek's payment. "They definitely won't let you down, Essek. You are gonna love them. I'll have Beau bring everything over in a sec!"

Essek sat himself in his usual corner seat and began setting himself up for work. His tome-pad angled up, and his books for after settled in a neat pile. Leylas Kryn got about twenty or more serious business requests every day, and Essek knew from experience which ones were worth going over with her and which ones weren't. He still attempted to be kind and courteous however, besides, who knew if certain products would take off? Always good to leave the door open for later. Having more ammo to arm himself with was never a bad thing. 

"Here you go, black coffee and daily triple threat," Beau said, settling down the tray with a thump that made Essek jump. She began to speak with all the enthusiasm of a secretary at the Department of Magical Artifacts. "Our specials today are our Wildemount Drinks cupcake collection. First cupcake on the left is a Queen's Water cupcake, a honey cake with a guava filling and a tamarind-vanilla buttercream. Second cupcake is a Radler cupcake, a vanilla-beer cake filled with a lemon curd and topped with a tangy lemon cream cheese frosting. Final cupcake is a Yunfaalyu--yes I know I totally butchered the pronunciation--decadent chocolate cake with a current jam filling, vanilla frosting and a plum liqueur drizzle. Each cupcake is enchanted to give you a different sensation." 

Each cupcake looked like a treasure chest, decorated and drizzled and shiny. Each cupcake was almost too much of a display to consider blemishing. From the candied lemons on the Radler to the swirl of the tamarind-vanilla frosting to even the glisten of the drizzle. It all screamed a level of care and attention that Essek didn't exactly feel deserving of. All of this came from Caleb’s mind, he knew it. But what a wonderful, beautiful place that mind must have been. It made him yearn, impossibly, faithfully for something that he didn’t even have the words for. He hadn’t thought he was empty before, but now he felt downright cavernous. 

"I probably can't eat all of these by myself," Essek said guiltily. "I didn't realize they were so big." 

"You look like you could use it," Beauregard noted, leaning against the table. Her muscles flexed with the effort."You're like a fucking stick." 

"Why, thank you," Essek said sarcastically before giving her another look. "You don't strike me as the bakery type." 

"I'm not, I'm a member of the Cobalt Soul," Beauregard said with a shrug, naming the international organization of monks. In the time of war they had been covert operatives and general badasses. Now they served as a peace-keeping and rebuilding operation for people in almost every country in Wildemount...though supposedly they were still general badasses. "Caleb's my friend, and this is my side gig. Self-defense instructor and part time librarian doesn't pay a whole lot." 

"I see," Essek said, blinking. He didn’t really understand why she would be under-selling her job, but, it wasn’t his business and he didn’t care enough to dig into the specifics. Information was important, but too much was a burden to saddle yourself with.  

"Plus, you need at least two strong people to carry wedding cakes. Me and Yasha tend to do that," she explained, flexing her arm to show off her bicep. 

"I'm sorry, wedding cakes?" Essek asked curiously. 

"Oh, right, I keep forgetting it's a Dwendalian thing. During the reception of a wedding in the Empire, you have a cake. Not just any cake, it can be...like...up to six tiers or more," Beau aided her visual by miming stacking. "And they are decorated, with sugar flowers and other things. I mean, it's all gross and sentimental but they are beautiful. You cut the cake together at the wedding, feed each other and the party starts. Asshole couples might smush it in each other's faces but, like, that's real old fashioned and also a horrible tradition." 

"That's...surprisingly tender," Essek said, unable to visualize what something like that would feel like. The idea of feeding another person, it had to be intimate. It was a way that food became another vehicle for affection. It was surprising to hear about such a tradition from the Empire, the salt-of-the-Earth and cold-barbed-wire fence country that it was. Then again, people were people no matter where they came from. Being in love was a universal thing...not that Essek had any experience with it. "It's lovely." 

"Yeah, well, don't get your panties in a knot about it. We don't do many wedding cakes here, but Empire immigrants like us, and those people marrying immigrants, are starting to come in asking for them. Caleb and Veth are in a consultation  about a wedding cake now for a couple. Why? Are you in the market for one?" Beauregard asked, her expression searching. 

"Oh no, no," Essek said with a desperate shake of his head. He didn't know how much of this conversation would get back to Caleb, and that idea was mortifying enough. He didn’t need Caleb also thinking he wasn’t available...not that it mattered at all. "Definitely not." 

"Well then," Beauregard said shortly. "Good luck with the cupcakes." 

She trudged off, leaving Essek to it. It was in that moment, sitting there in the busy bakery bereft of an audience to perform for, that he finally felt himself decompress. He almost had to check his ears to make sure steam wasn't coming out. Life didn't look so bad, with a cup of coffee and cupcakes sitting in front of you. There was something about the visceral comfort of it all that made the knot in his chest that was forever tight just loosen just a little. Essek took a sip of his coffee before reaching to pick which cupcake he was willing to try first. It was all so tempting, even though Essek still swore to himself that he didn’t like sweets. 

Essek cut the first cupcake, the Queen’s Water cupcake so he could get a bite of frosting, filling, and cake all at once. The cake itself was tender and almost melted in the mouth was delicately sweet with the honey and warmed with spices, countered by the intensely flavorful guava, and the sour-sweet punch of the tamarind-vanilla frosting. Immediately as he tasted it… he was enveloped by the flavor dancing on his tongue, with his next breath in he was filled with the sensation of warm sand against his fingertips, a cool breeze and the glittering sapphire waves of the Menagerie Coast around his knees. As soon as it was there, it dissolved like seafoam the moment he finished the bite. 

Essek did not hesitate before his next bite, the Yunfaalyu cupcake. Yunfaalyu was a popular traditional Xhorhassian drink, something Essek had grown up drinking on special occasions and on the holidays. It was traditionally a plum liquor served frigid-cold over ice and topped with currants. Every family had their own method of serving it and most families were a little obsessed with it. Plums were considered the Queen of Fruit in Xhorhas for a reason, and the drink was considered a delicacy by all rights. Essek had enjoyed plums soaked in it, eaten Yunfaalyu poured over shaved ice on hot summer nights. He had never had it in a baked good before, and was now wondering how he had spent his whole life without it. Chocolate was a relatively new import from Tal’dorei, fashionable as drinks served as powder stirred in hot milk with spices. In a cupcake it was a revelation in the way it melted sweet and bitter all at the same time. The currant jam was tart, smoothed over by the creaminess of the frosting. It was the plum liquor that transported him this time. The tingling on his tongue when he breathed, he was surprised to see his breath not swirl white. A cold Xhorhassian winter night, a scarf wrapped around his neck, snowflakes brushing his cheeks and his eyelashes, and the warmth of a crackling hearth. Again it was gone within the space of a breath.  

The final cupcake, the Radler, awaited for him. He took his next bite, now expecting it to be bone-shatteringly good. The cake was so flavorful, light and yet had a deep earthy quality. It was counteracted by the sharp-sour-sweet lemon curd, and the tang of the cream-cheese frosting. It’s sharpness eased into something sweet and citrus and almost addictive as he couldn’t stop himself from taking another bite. Immediately, he realized that this was the taste of summer, like long grasses and dandelions brushing his fingertips and the hum of insects in his ears. He could feel the heat of the sun, something so unfamiliar and yet unmistakable, like golden comfort being settled upon his shoulders. It was like stepping into a warm bath...and yet more ethereal and it somehow soaked in deeper. It reached right down to the core of his heart, where almost nothing penetrated. This was a gift to someone who could never feel the sun as anything but pain. 

He sniffed and bit back something that felt suspiciously like tears but definitely were not. But whatever scratchy feeling he had at the back of his throat had nothing to do with stupid, soft, gentle wizards who used their magic to let some poor drow fool feel sunlight. Essek was broken out of his revelry by the feeling of the cat, Frumpkin jumping up into his lap. 

“Oh!” Essek greeted, looking at the wide yellow eyes that looked up at him curiously. For a moment he could have sworn they flashed blue, but then they settled back into a warm gentle yellow. Essek tentatively placed his fingers under Frumpkin’s chin, and watched as Frumpkin actively leaned into Essek’s scratching. His fur was soft to the touch, unlike most animals he had pet before. His purring caught him off guard, because he had certainly read of cats purring he hadn’t realized you could feel it. It was a delightful little sensation as Frumpkin settled on his lap for a nap. Essek probably should have been more concerned about the state of his pants...cat fur would probably show up on them. But he didn’t find that he cared. 

Essek sat for a bit, finished the Radler cupcake and his coffee. He thought about ordering another coffee, but as soon as he did he noticed that Caleb had appeared from the back and didn’t think he was strong enough to speak to him. Just tasting what he had created was enough for his poor heart for one day. Caleb looked at the person ordering warmly, welcoming, and it made his heart fluttered in his chest. That was enough to make clear to Essek that he had definitely made the correct decision. 

You will just have to continue to be my private daydream. My sweet and soft when everything is terrible. The shot straight to my heart, my never-ever-might-have-been. And I'll just have to be content with my lot, that I've known just the tiniest sliver of your heart that you've served to me on a silver platter. Essek thought idly as he tapped the next image on his tome-pad. No use in being greedy. This is just enough to make me not so miserable as I was two hours ago. 

"Here, something you might like," Caleb's voice startled Essek out of his daydreams immediately. Essek looked to see Caleb settling a cup of coffee of some sort in front of him, having appeared out of the haze of Essek’s thoughts and back into Essek’s reality. 

"I didn't order anything," Essek said, voice devoid of any normal emotion and instead sounding like he was slowly being tortured for information somewhere in an Empire bunker like in one of the old movies. 

"It's on the house," Caleb said as Essek reached for his wallet. The cat in his lap perked up, delicately maneuvered across the table ladened with the fruits of Caleb’s labor, before settling on Caleb's lap. It left Essek feeling strangely bereft and cold. Caleb was holding his own cup, and looked a bit concerned. "Were they not to your liking?"

Caleb motioned to the two partially eaten cupcakes remaining. Only the Radler, the sunshine cupcake, had been completely devoured. 

"Oh, no! No," Essek denied quickly. "They were all delicious. It's just...one was quite enough to fill me up." 

In actuality he probably should have eaten more. He hadn't eaten breakfast, and taken maybe three bites of his brunch. It was strange though, where most food settled in his stomach like lead...it was different here. Everything he ate here had an intensity of flavor that Essek wasn't used to. It had to be the magic, but...he didn't really care. More than anything, he wanted to let the taste of that last bite of that Radler cupcake linger as long as possible. 

"If I must confide...the Radler is my personal favorite from that batch of recipes," Caleb said, sounding relieved while sipping out of his own cup. Essek looked at the mug Caleb had placed in front of him. Noticing his look, Caleb motioned towards it more firmly. “I hope you enjoy that.” 

Essek took it and took a sip. It was a flat white, the strong taste of the espresso and the smooth mouthfeel of the milk. There wasn’t any sugar in the cup...after all the sweets Essek doubted he would be able to take that. He sighed deeply, fingers curled around the mug itself as the warm radiated into his fingertips. Almost immediately Essek realized what he was doing and forced himself back into his own mind. Caleb was looking at him expectantly. 

“Tell me something,” Essek said, feeling rather brave in spite of himself. It wasn’t a smooth segway but at least he was talking in an even and normal tone. “When you bake the magic in...how do you compensate for the components? I mean...I hope you aren’t putting fleece into your cupcakes.” 

“Ah, you so caught the major image,” Caleb said, sounding delighted. 

“I’m sorry, is that a trade secret?”

“Oh no, no. I’m just not used to people so interested in the how, they are more interested in the results,” Caleb said, waving his hand as if to dismiss his worries. “We draw the essence of the spell out and soak it into the water we use to mix each batter.”

“Truly...it’s fascinating how you are utilizing magic for different purposes,” Essek noted, settling his hand on his notebook. “How did you come to this conclusion, this bakery, if you don’t mind me asking? You are a very talented wizard, and this is a rather...well unorthodox profession for a wizard.” 

Caleb paused for a moment, considering the question as he scratched under Frumpkin’s chin. The cat meowed lazily, caught in the middle of a pur. Caleb smiled at it, before picking up his cup once again. 

“When we all first came here...things were difficult,” Caleb explained, looking into his cup. Today his hair was back in a loose low ponytail, that drew Essek’s eyes to the nap of his neck. Was there no part of him that wasn’t ridiculously attractive? “We were all just scraping by. If you can believe it, we all met in an inn on the way to the border and we just decided to stick it out together. Some of us...weren’t lucky enough to make it. When we got here, things were hard but better. Back then, though I loved magic it reminded me of a lot of terrible things in my life, not to get too personal about it. Veth asked me to think of something I loved that I could do. And I could only think about magic, finding a way to do magic in a way that would make me and everyone I had come to care about happy. My mother had always loved cooking and baking, and doing so reminded me of her. So, I just thought one day, to the Nine Hells with it. Combine them both and see what I get. I’ve been so lucky in a lot of ways, but the fact it all worked out is at the top of the list.” 

“We are lucky to have you,” Essek said, hoping that sentiment didn’t sound too contrived. 

“I’m not sure what the neighbors thought of us at first,” Caleb chuckled, deep from his belly, and the sound nearly sent a flush to the tips of his ears. Of course Essek had watched Empire programming once in a while. His mother thought television was gauche at the best of times, but Essek had found ways to sneak entertainment out from under her. Say what you would about the Empire, their television at least was far more entertaining then the how-many-different-channels-do-you-need-to-praise-the-Luxon slop you got in the Dynasty. He had read some interesting articles about how it was all a bread-and-circuses strategy by the Empire to lull their citizens into complacency, which was all fine and good and evil, but with hunky human men daring to brave the unknown in scripted series about adventurers? It went down easy and made very good entertainment. The voices of those old fashioned stars had always been deep timber that Essek guessed was natural to humans. He hadn’t realized how attractive it could be...until this particular human male was sitting in front of him. 

“I think you’ll find that a lot of people’s lives have improved with you here,” Essek said, settling his mug down primly and with his best aristocratic sniff. “I think you’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“Ja, I just might,” Caleb said, raising the mug to his mouth. His blue eyes sparkled mirthfully, like the dream of that summer day baked into a single cupcake.  

---------

“Stop being evil for like, ten minutes and seriously consider the proposal,” Professor Waccoh demanded of him. Essek looked up from his phone to look at her and met her glare. 

“I did consider it. It was stupid and so I stopped considering it,” Essek said, completely deadpanned. “If that’s being evil, then consider me the evilest man alive.” 

“Kryn wanted something to show the majesty of our nation! Our technological advances are something we should be proud of. If you showed approval she'd consider it.” 

“Nothing about giant machines that move through the streets makes any sense.” 

“They would have purpose and make sense, you are just thinking too small.”

“I am not helping you bring that in front of Leylas Kryn. You go ahead, but it does not have my stamp of approval,” Essek told her. 

"Cheapskate," Professor Waccoh accused. 

"Bite me,” Essek said as pleasant as could be. 

“I wouldn’t want to poison myself.” 

“They are ready in there,” the secretary said, poking her head out of the meeting room. Essek put on his professional face and then walked through the door. 

The discussion at hand was the 10th Anniversary of Peace, the date that marked the beginning of what people were calling the golden age of Xhorhas. It was rather pretentious if Essek thought about it, but it wasn’t his job to judge. Really, it was his job to be there and take down notes and to know what his boss liked or didn’t like based on her subtle facial expressions. Essek had always been good at that, having been trained from the days in Den Theylss with his mother breathing down his neck to always know what it took to be on someone’s good side. By the end of the meeting, Essek had whittled the list of suggestions down to three before Leylas Kryn adjourned the meeting for a break.  

Essek stood by the juice machine, deciding what healthy-concoction-monstrosity he wanted to put into the temple of his body as Quana Kryn saddled up next to him, taking a sip from her own cup. Golden eyes searched his face before a smile pulled at her mouth. Quana Kryn had always been the more approachable of the two, but it didn’t make her any less intimidating as she nearly towered over Essek. Today she wore suspenders with her suit, and certainly enough of the office staff had swooned over it to make someone force her to put on a jacket. Leylas could be considerate like that.  

"Tell me, what did you think of Waccoh's little idea there?" Quana asked congenially. It startled Essek, only because they didn’t really talk too often. Obviously he worked closely with Leylas and he was often the butt of passing jokes, but Quana just drifted in and out of his purview the way most people did. There was obviously something she wanted, and he would just have to figure out what it was on the fly. 

"The good professor has amazing ideas, but unfortunately the follow through is a bit lacking," Essek said simply. 

"Cheeky," Quana scoffed, before pinching the bridge of her nose. She took in a deep steadying breath. "I'm not getting enough sleep. This Vow Renewal is driving me crazy."

"Ah, well, that's the price of love I suppose," Essek said, sipping his green juice and trying not to cringe. It tasted like barley and cucumbers, but not in a pleasant way. There was something sharp and metallic in the back of his throat making it difficult to swallow. 

"I, of course, love my wife more than anything. And of course, Vow Renewals are how we show that in the Temple. But if I have to talk to another person about the flowers or what dress Leylas will be wearing, I will dust off my sword," Quana sighed, leaning against the wall in a way that was so practiced and easy that Essek was jealous. "It makes it all the worse that it’s going to be televised. I don’t know what we are going to do for the reception. Tell me, Essek...I’m just realizing this, that I haven’t the slightest clue about you. Do you have a girlfriend?” 

“I don’t,” Essek said.

“A boyfriend? Partner?” 

“No, I have no significant other,” Essek said before casting a suspicious eye towards her. “Why?”

“I was just wondering if you had any ideas. I know that’s not what you do, but I know that’s what you do.” 

Essek thought for a moment, before throwing his cup away. The contents splattered on the trash bag as he did so with little regard. 

“Have you heard about wedding cakes?” Essek asked curiously. 

“No, what is that?” 

“An Empire tradition that’s becoming popular amongst the people,” Essek explained, pulling out his tome-pad as he searched up a familiar name. “I figure if the strength of our nation is how we actively welcome people into our country, this might be a good opportunity to demonstrate that.” 

“And I suppose you have a recommendation for me to pass to the Misses?” 

“Always,” Essek said with a smile.

[askjeeveshypno-blog]

What I know about consent violations from having seen a lot of them

Crossposted to Fetlife. 

*TLDR: This stuff is complicated, memories and stories are often flawed, and outside of a few sharp lines there is no consensus on what IS a consent violation to say nothing of what is the correct punishment for one. *

Hi, I’m AskJeeves.  I’m a “community leader” but please don’t blame my communities for what I’m about to say.  I literally ran this past nobody but my wife so the responsibility for my words would be entirely mine and indeed, it’s possible some folks I work with running organizations will be unhappy with me for my directness here.  FWIW, I also have never been the head consent person in any organization.  I’m just a board member of three different kink groups who has also been in the community for a really long time.

But anyway, in various kink positions of responsibility in hypnokink, regular kink and a kinky arts organization, I’ve seen quite a few complaints.  And here are some general impressions.   I’ve messed with some details for privacy but kept the spirit of the complaints intact.

1. Most of the scene likes to gossip and the drama around consent violations is pretty sweet gossip.  The chain of secrecy is almost never intact.  I’m good at keeping secrets.  When I hear about a consent complaint, I treat it as confidential and don’t talk about it.  But people who know I’m in a position to know VERY FREQUENTLY talk to me.   This puts me in this wacky position of “A complained about B, and everyone seems to know that.  A is talking about it and B is talking about it, and people want to talk to me about it, but I don’t 100 percent know WHAT A and B are saying and if one of them is leaving a detail or two out on purpose and I reveal it, I’ve seriously breached my responsibilities,” so I do a lot of smiling and nodding about consent complaints.  Also, “B and I are at the same party and B is recounting a romanticized version of what they did that leaves out a lot of facts and if I’m quiet it looks like I agree but I’m really not in a position to speak up,” which also sucks, but they way.

2. The vast majority of complaints we get are in gray areas, and it’s almost impossible to nail down what a “consent violation” actually is outside of what’s actually illegal or specific enough to be spelled out in rules we already had:

a. A guy wrote about kink stuff on his public facebook on the regular.  Somebody who was mad at him got drunk and posted something on the same facebook page about how much he sucked for not coming to her play party.  Said guy got drunk person banned from a dungeon for “outing her” in a place he’d already outed himself.  

b. I’m pretty judgy about JK Rowling retweeting TERFS, but should a con punish someone for retweeting a post that outs somebody?  

c. If someone steals someone else’s money without permission, is that a consent violation?  

d. If C and D make plans to play, and then C loses interest but never actually says “actually, I changed my mind,” and just puts off or ghosts D, how many times can D follow up, in what ways and getting what responses, without it becoming harassment?    (Soft nos are VERY complicated from a “trying to enforce consent rules” perspective.  In this situation,  C almost always says that D is ignoring a “no” and D almost always says that C seems really busy so D thought D would keep trying and they were eager to do the play C had earlier said they wanted.)

e. If E made a promise to follow a bunch of rules set by a group, and then broke one of them, and F, a member of the other group, complains to a my group that E consented to follow the rules and broke them and the complain to MY group, which has different rules, is that violating the first group’s consent?

f. Hypno-specifically, what counts as non-negotiated use of persuasive language and where?

g. The above complexities quadruple for trying to ban someone from an event or organization for something they did online.  Does this happen in rare circumstances?  Yes.  But the bar is quite high.  

h. Some of y’all who are black and white thinkers or just very decisive will feel like you can go down this list going “Yes, no, yes, yes, no” but suffice to say, even if one of these seems straightforward to you, it hasn’t to me in the past, perhaps because of further details I’ve left out for brevity or something I changed to make the situations less specific..

3. If you’ve been banned or whatever, threatening to bring in a lawyer never helps you.  Kink organizations are private.  We mostly have our own lawyers and know very well how incredibly legal it is to exclude someone from a private organization for a good reason, a bad reason or no reason at all unless it’s a discriminatory reason.  Proving “discrimination” is very difficult, proving “defamation” is too.   Suing a kink organization for not letting you in requires money up front that almost none of us have, so it’s an empty threat anyway unless the person making the threat is independently wealthy.  I write this under the assumption that if you ARE independently wealthy and are willing to sue us into the ground if you don’t get what you want, these words won’t stop us anyway.

a. Suffice to say that when you threaten to sue it indicates to me as a person in a position of responsibility is that “bringing in a lawyer to make threats” is something you’re willing to do when you don’t get what you want, and if my organization continues to deal with you, this will almost certainly happen again.  So why would we want you in our private organization?  Do you really provide so much benefit to the organization that this constant threat is worth it to us?

b. Caveat: If someone has sexually assaulted you, by all means, call the cops or a lawyer if you feel comfortable doing so.  I’m not at all saying that legal mechanisms have no place in kink when directed at the person who hurt you. But as fair as organizations are concerned threatening to sue, or coy letters about how you might threaten to sue if you don’t get your way, are counterproductive and have a strong whiff of bullshit, which is never a good thing if you’re trying to convince us you’re not lying about anything else.

4. Long relationships that end in one or both parties accusing one another of consent violations the moment they break up are a nightmare to deal with on the consent side.   Because abuse REALLY DOES happen in long term relationships.  But there are many ways  of being a shitty partner that are consent violations.  People who have just broken up last week can almost never tell the difference.  

5. People who talk about consent ALL THE TIME have a bad habit of setting their own rules about it in ways that benefit their own bullshit.  Such people are often so excited to talk about other people’s consent violations that they make a big deal without having investigated or otherwise gotten the full story.  So people who make a big public deal about rumors of other people’s problems have raised a red flag about themselves.  This is completely irrelevant if they never have a consent complaint raised about them.  But if they do, the red flag is there.  A red flag doesn’t decide anything, but people are going to notice it.

6. I get that Jeff Mach got paid.  Just about nobody else in kink does and if you’re looking to get paid, running a con is a terrible way to do it.  We’re volunteers throwing parties/events for the community. We want people to be safe but we also hang out at our own parties/cons and we don’t want to hang with jerks.  Nobody gets banned for being a jerk alone, but if you’ve yelled at us, been an asshole when you dumped our friend, been accused of minor things many times before, or otherwise caused a lot of problems, that’s not going to help you get what you want. Again, if I personally think you’re a jerk but no one ever complains about you, that’s fine.  Some of you ARE jerks and I demonstrably haven’t.  But if you’ve got what feels like a long history of being difficult or causing problems, that’s a strike against you.  My kid brother has a long history of cussing out cops and has been told he has the worst driving record in the county where we live. Most of the judges and cops in our county have met him and he was unpleasant every time.   If you think every new time he’s a defendant there is a clean slate and none of that prior stuff matters, you’ve been sold of a vision of our justice system, and possibly humanity, that doesn’t exist.  We are trying to be fair but it would be weird to expect a bunch of volunteer kinksters to be less susceptible to their own perceptions.

7. Rumors people have heard about bad behavior, complaints from unverifiable and likely fake scene names, or a friend making a complaint on behalf of an anonymous friend are simply impossible to investigate or do anything about.

8. Two years ago, a group of people got together to lie about an innocent person assaulting someone.  They were people the consent folks at the event liked and trusted.  And then the truth came out.  It is never impossible that this is happening.  And it ruined what seemed like a pretty solid kink organization.   There are mitigating factors here and there but the bones of it are an organization people put thousands of dollars and untold hours into that brought a lot of people joy was ruined, because like eight people didn’t get what they want on something incredibly minor and broke the consent system, and the con, on purpose.  Again, the consent folks didn’t handle things optimally either, but when eight people are willing to tell the same lie it’s tough to imagine that ending well for them, their victim or the organization.  Consent organizers never want that to happen to us, but it’s unrealistic not to accept that it could.  

This stuff is complicated.   And again, I’m only writing on behalf of myself.  But these kinds of issues are what folks who seriously work on consent face.   I'm happy to talk about them.  But if you think you have an iron-clad, one-size-fits-all solution, you probably don't?

[megatentious]

Megami Tensei where u at??

When you are down in the dumps about your favorite video game franchise and the future of a series that is special for you, sometimes you end up seeking it out in places that are … unexpected. I’m going to talk about how, over the last couple years, I ended up seeing three different flavors of Megami Tensei in three different games, and maybe by the end of this we can all end up feeling like it’s okay to move on with our lives. Just keep telling yourself that your favorite games are not your identity and it’s not that serious bruh but also tell yourself that it is therapeutic to collect many paragraphs of thoughts you have had about this to write at length about in your blog.

First up is a game that many many people have noticed is very Megaten and that is the Digimon RPG, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth. There was no reason at all for this to be as good of a game as it is. I have no special affinity for the cartoon show. I do not like the Devil Survivor character designer even a little bit. I do not find grinding and monster collecting for the sake of monster collecting entertaining. But from the very first trailer something seemed compelling, and as good word of mouth spread I decided this was going to be a game I needed to play.

Again, everyone has already commented on how Megaten this game feels, and for me the closest specific analogue is actually Raidou Kuzunoha. From the first extended trailer I noticed the jazzy main theme, the detective agency conceit, the visible partner monsters appearing in a Tokyo with bold camera angle choices, and felt a weird familiarity. Digimon also function very plainly as Megami Tensei demons in multiple ways, not only mechanically but also through their story roles. And the somewhat arcane stat manipulation needed for high-end Digivolving scratches the exact same itch as high-end Megaten fusion from previous SMT iterations, which is both a dangerous (100 hours of playtime good lord) and wonderful (100 hours of playtime good lord!) itch to scratch.

You need to put up with some annoying characters and prattling dialogue, but unlike other games there is no pretense here which absolutely helps. Also, re-interpreting traditional Japanese folklore through the lens of the Digimon world is something that never stopped being fascinating for me even amidst a sub-par localization, and as someone with low familiarity with the cartoon, the Digimon designs themselves were alternately hilariously bizarre, bafflingly stupid, and straight up awesome. They even have their own Lucifer! 

By the time you get to the second half of the story where the game completely changes and becomes about alliances and faction-building and what happens to a city facing apocalypse, when you take in the incredible atmosphere in Odaiba all buoyed by a soundtrack that has no right to be as good as it is, you start to feel optimistic about how Megaten influence can live on even outside of the series itself.

Next up is an entry from another series that is occasionally compared to SMT, but this one in particular feels like it was only played by two or three people at all when it was miraculously released earlier in 2019 for the Nintendo 3DS. I’m talking about Yokai Watch 3. Arriving close to three years after its initial Japanese release to utterly resounding indifference, this game’s hook is that you get to play in “America,” but as you can tell from the quotes around America this is actually much more complicated than it seems in a way that specifically draws comparison to my beloved Revelations: Persona. You see, the very Japanese Yokai Watch series city location of Sakura New Town, Japon, was localized here for us as Springdale, Springdale back in the first game. This decision has led to many wonderful incongruities moving forward that are honestly identical to those in the Lunarvale of Revelations: Persona. Gotta love these small American towns with Shinto temples in em!

With Yokai Watch 3’s plot focusing on the family moving to actual America though, and the cross-cultural hijinks that are meant to ensue, things quickly get even weirder and more strained. Protagonist Nate Adams complains about the difficulty of understanding southern accents while slurping down sukiyaki. Shopkeepers with tempura-based hairstyles serve traditional Japanese dishes in the quaint American township of St. Peanutsburg. Huge timezone differences between America and “America” are introduced. And all of this is refracted through the even more convoluted localization prism of this game about two versions of America being scripted by the British, leading to children aspiring to be “basketballers” and restaurants having “oriental” atmosphere.

I’m barely scratching the surface of the dissertation-worthy unpacking needed for all of this, and it’s difficult to describe just how deeply weird the vibe can get in this game. In just the first twenty minutes of Yokai Watch 3, you have 1) a purely nutso anime opening featuring scary demonic folklore-based yokai, robots, and cat mascots 2) Mulder and Scully very seriously discussing mysterious “Y Files” 3) a rhythm game where your very American family devours an enormous amount of sukiyaki 4) the same very American (or in the game’s terms, “Springdalian”) family leaving their home to move to the state? country? of “BBQ” and 5) suddenly you are an otaku girl going to a figure shop in “Sparkopolis.” This is just as delirious as it sounds.

Revelations Persona’s uncanny America atmosphere may be one of a kind, but Yokai Watch 3’s frequently insane scenarios can sometimes recall a similar sort of lunacy that leads you to end up fighting a giant mechanical rat while a song with the track name “Child Abuse” plays, or chatting up a populace of mole-covered rainbow afro’d citizens in a locked down mall. At one point after returning from one of Yokai Watch 3’s various alternate dream worlds (very Persona!) my game was even afflicted with a commonly reported glitch that caused the environmental textures to not load, leading to a flat polygon world and some authentic PSX Lunarvale vibes. Throw in all the folktales and mythology involved in the yokai themselves and straight up demon fusion in a cathedral and suddenly you’ll end up experiencing more Megaten than you’d ever expect to see in an RPG targeted to young children.

Last up is an all-time classic that actually predates Shin Megami Tensei entirely, making it temporally impossible for any influence to show up, which muddles the entire concept of this essay but please roll with it you guys this is just how I feel. I’m talking about the seminal Phantasy Star, for the Master System, which I played through M2’s loving, impeccable SEGA AGES port on Switch. This game, which was released in 1987, is simply incredible. Right off the bat you’ve got genius-level programming from Yu Suzuki himself, which allowed for the first person dungeons to scroll so smoothly that posting a snippet of directly captured footage from the game can still lead to semi-viral tweets. It’s these extremely cool boldly colored first person dungeons, along with the expansive feeling of the several worlds you visit that led me to feel some of the spirit of Megami Tensei 2 specifically in this game.

“oops i accidentally phantasy starred for four hours” is how I put it playing through this game for the first time, and it’s a given that a non-fantasy setting RPG where you can talk to the monsters would be appealing to me. Phantasy Star as a series was in fact deliberately conceptualized as a rebellion against the many fantasy RPGs of the time, and the developers have talked about this in a way that is practically identical to early staff interviews about the goals for Megami Tensei. Director and gaming luminary Rieko Kodama has remarked that the choice of a female protagonist was also considered rebellious, even though it felt like a natural choice for her on a personal level.

Megami Tensei 2 is the game that builds the structure for Shin Megami Tensei as we know it today, moving away from Megami Tensei 1’s single full-game dungeon format to a world map with numerous discrete dungeons and eventually, paths to alternate worlds. Phantasy Star shares this exact design format, which still feels so expansive and impressive to this day. It’s a treat to get to experience a game like this over 30 years after its release on current hardware and still feel such an impact, and all of you need to go out and buy buy buy this game, seriously give M2 your money.

I’ve taken it as a given that everyone shares my perspective on where Shin Megami Tensei is at these days as a series, and it’s obviously never a good look to come across as an over-dramatic scolding bitter old who has retreated into pure irrelevance. But by documenting all of these observations down for myself, I can at least feel better about finding bits and pieces of various Megaten strains in the games of today. The lesson learned is that even if you feel your favorite franchise has lost its way, you may be able to find parts of it in the places you least expect.

[thesundanceghost]

We Could Be Heroes

@stancy-week

Day 3: Gold/Brave 

Notes: the original title of this was “i dont fucking know how to play dungeons & dragons, don’t judge me” so... yeah.  Also yes, this whole thing is sort of a giant Freaks & Geeks reference.

Mike wouldn’t stop glaring at him.

Steve had stared down his friends, his parents, even a goddamn monster at one point, but for some reason, being stared down by his girlfriend’s twelve-year-old kid brother was one of the most unnerving experiences of his life.

“Are you sure about this?” Steve muttered under his breath to Nancy as the boys bickered amongst themselves.

“Mike said he was okay with it, so he is.  It’ll be fun, I promise.” Nancy’s voice was calm and reassuring.  “Do it for me?”

He raised his eyebrows at her, but she just sent that small, bright-eyed smile back at him, and it didn’t take long before he gave in.  It wasn’t like he really had a choice-- he’d do anything for her.  He knew that by now.

“If Mike’s cool with it, than so am I,” he agreed.  She grinned at him, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips before dragging him over to the table and sitting him down.

The boys quieted down and looked at him, as if expecting him to suddenly yell “just kidding!” but he didn’t.

Instead he leaned forward.  “Alright, Dungeons & Dragons.  Let’s do this.”

**

“You can’t be a ninja, that’s not a thing,” Lucas argued.  Steve flopped back in his chair dramatically.

“It should be,” he complained.  Will and Dustin cracked smiles at that, but Mike still looked annoyed.  Steve reprimanded himself internally and sat up straighter, looking at the boy.

“What do you think I should be, Mike?  Since you’re Dungeon Master or whatever.” He kept his voice light and genuine, hoping Mike would respond positively to it.

Mike looked caught off guard at the question.  He frowned, looking down and shrugging.  “I don’t know,” he muttered.  Steve felt slightly disappointed at that, but Will spoke up after a second.

“How about a Fighter?  You’d be good at that,” Will said confidently.  Lucas shrugged in agreement beside him, and Dustin nodded as well.  He figured they knew what they were talking about, so he shrugged.

“Sounds good to me,” he agreed.

“Okay, so you’re a human fighter, and you already rolled for your ability scores, so now you just need a name,” Dustin explained.  “So Steve the…”

He faded off, waiting for Steve to fill in the blank, but Steve just frowned.

“Does it have to be Steve?  Can’t it be like, Carlos or some shit?” Steve asked, frowning at the board.  Nancy chuckled from behind him, but the boys looked unimpressed.

“If you’re gonna play with us, you have to use our rules.  We keep our own names,” Mike said firmly, leaving no room for debate.

Steve sighed, turning the little dude over in his hand.  “Fine.  I’ll be… Steve the Superhero.”

“That’s stupid,” Mike shot back.

“Steve the Strong?” he tried, but they frowned.

“You have a really low strength score, that would be kinda weird,” Lucas explained, raising his eyebrows.  

Nancy laughed and kissed Steve on the cheek.  “Steve the Savior, how about that?”

He looked at her with a smile.  He wanted to kiss her for that, but Mike was already making a disgusted face, and he really didn’t want to push his luck.

“Are you going to play, or just throw heart eyes at my sister all night?” Mike asked, making the other boys laugh.  Nancy threw her brother a look, but Steve did feel a bit bad, so he turned back to the board.

“You sure you don’t want to play, Nancy?” Dustin asked as Nancy pulled up a chair to sit behind Steve.

Nancy shook her head with a smile, resting her head on Steve’s shoulder so she could see the table.  “Nah, I’ll just help Steve figure it out.  He’s gonna need help.”

Steve shot her an offended look at that, chuckling when she raised her eyebrows in response.  “Alright, so how does this start?”

Mike gave a long suffering sigh, but still leaned forward and began to explain the rules to the game and the goals of the campaign.

******

Even after listening to all the rules, Steve really didn’t know what he was doing.  This game was way more complicated than he thought it would be, and several times he found himself wondering what the hell had happened in his life to lead him to play a fantasy board game with four pre-teen boys on a Friday night.  He remembered all the times when he was younger that he’d made fun of kids for playing this.  He’d always thought it was so pathetic to be so desperate to escape reality like this.

But now, as the game went on, he finally felt like he got it.  He finally figured out why people enjoyed getting to be someone they couldn’t be in reality.  He thought of all the mistakes he’d made in his own life, all the cowardly things he’d done, things that “Steve the Savior” would never do.  It was like a fresh start, and Steve understood why four nerdy middle schoolers who he knew had their fair share of bullies would want something like that.

When Steve the Savior killed his first monster, he found himself cheering with the other boys and Nancy.  As they waited for him to make the next move, he couldn’t help but shake his head.

“Sort of a different feeling when you’ve already fought one in real life, huh?” he asked Nancy quietly, who nodded in response, looking thoughtful but still amused.

The boys warmed up to Steve slowly.  Nancy helped a lot, keeping him focused and cracking lighthearted jokes to lighten the tension anytime things felt weird.  And after a while, Steve found himself enjoying the night.

At one point, Nancy stood in for the non-playable princess, putting on a long blond wig and gold crown for fun.  When Steve the Savior had to rescue her from a monster, he stood up and swept her off her feet, jogging around the basement while the boys cracked up in the background.  Nancy demanded he put her down, but she also kissed his cheek and called him her “brave, brave, knight.”  As ridiculous as it was, Steve kind of liked that title.

By 10:00, the game was nearing an end, and Steve was feeling fantastic.  Nancy had gone upstairs about half an hour earlier to spend time with her mom, and Steve had been nervous at first about being there without her, but it had gone great.  Mike seemed too lost in the game to remember that him and Steve weren’t friends, which honestly worked for Steve.

“The dragon lashes out with his tail again, but Steve the Savior dodges out of the way just in time, and the dragon falls to the pits of the canyon, roaring out in agony.” Mike recites the words dramatically.  The boys let out a loud cheer at the news, and Steve throws a fist in the air in victory.  “He helps Dustin the Destroyer out of his trap, and they make their way to the party, victorious.”

The boys jump up, high-fiving and hugging happily as Steve grins widely at them all.  After a moment, the cheers died down, and Mike stands up, his face going neutral.

“Well,” Mike started, his face carefully blank as he looked around at all of them.  His gaze landed on Steve, who felt immediately nervous again.  Mike grins at last.  “Congratulations Steve, you just finished your first D&D campaign.”

“Hell yeah!” Steve exclaimed, and the other boys clapped, grinning over at him.  He stood up and bowed dramatically, making them laugh again.

“That was awesome,” Lucas spoke up, a huge grin on his face.

“Yeah, it was.” Steve answered back, feeling strangely sincere.  He took a deep breath, looking down at the game board fondly.  “I’m gonna go grab another soda, you guys want anything?  Dustin, Will?”

He looked around at all of them individually, but they all shook their heads.  Steve bounded up the stairs, eager to tell Nancy how well it had gone.  He was halfway through the door when he heard the boys talking, and he paused slightly to listen.

“He’s cool,” Dustin remarked, his voice quiet enough to imply that he was trying to whisper, but he wasn’t succeeding.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Mike responded back, and Steve couldn’t help but grin.

Mission complete.

Notes: hopefully at least some of that made sense.  Also, fun fact, apparently a ninja class was added in 1985, so, Steve can be a ninja soon enough.  Shoutout to @beep-beep-trashmouth for the inspiration!