#he tries all the samples and talks to the people giving them out

[bewilderedbunny]

I bet dilf!Steve loves Costco. One of his favorite foods in the world is their chicken bake. The first time he tries it, he says, "Woah boy. This is dangerous!"

[nonuggetshere]

So they didn't become void, they were "born" that way

In FaaF there are different species and kinds of higher beings (still a MASSIVE work in progress tbh, trying to figure out how these cunts work, but for now I'm thinking they're extremely rare species with far greater abilities and lifespans than a normal bug's that have a chance to ascend to true godhood (but even if they don't ascend that doesn't stop mortals from worshipping them as they're already very god-like from a normal bug's perspective)), "pale beings" being one of these kinds/mutations.

Well, there was also a different kind once, "void beings", but they all went extinct a very long time ago by the beginning of the story. Shade Lord was one, and last, of them and it lost its life in a fight with Radiance - the same fight that drove her to make her permanent residence in the dream realm out of her new-found fear of death (which backfired spectacularly ngl). Its body was buried in the Abyss, where it broke apart and decayed, or decayed as much as a non-living thing can, before it was unearthed many ages later by the pale wyrm.

Not much is known about them since they've been gone for so long, and the vessels are the only void beings remaining, but since they're not "pure" void beings it'd be foolish of anyone to assume that the ancient extinct species behaved the same way as these ones do. But they were generally greatly feared thanks to the void's freaky, dangerous properties, which partly lead to their extinction as some of the other higher beings purposefully attacked and killed them whenever they stumbled across one out of fear. Now the only thing remaining of them are the rare void sources, where their former bodies still refuse to fully die.

Shade Lord does get accidentally resurrected in the story bc of all the tomfoolery happening with its body before almost immediately getting killed again by Ghost who inherits its title and reign. Don't ask me how that works, haven't figured that out yet. Magic god shit or something idk LMAO

[kaivenom]

Hi, I was wondering, since it is the holiday winter season, if you could do something kinda similar to the Halloween one I requested, but it's the One Piece Guys (Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, Sabo, Ace, Law, and Kidd) X Reader, in like short stories but it's them and reader doing romantic Christmas/Winter activities together?

Christmas drabbles

A/N: since this was my first year with the blog, i didn't think of doing specials for halloween and christmas like kinktober and fluffmas, things like that. So thanks to the people that requested it and i hope that for the next year i organize myself to have that events ready. And Merry Christmas!!!!

Masterlist

Luffy

Snowball fight

You asked for Nami's help and she "unintentionally" diverted the ship's course to get to a winter island.

When you all got there, Luffy was inmediatly heading to a playground full of snow, guiding you with his hand.

You both spent all afternoon doing snowball fights with the crew and building weird looking snowmen.

At the end, all the crew reunited to take dinner at some tabern of the village and Luffy whispered on your hear.

"I know that you talked to Nami to get here, i always wanted to have a snowy day, thanks... i love you." you couldn't believe that he knew and was able to wait all day to say it to you.

Zoro

Drinking outside.

You thought that he would want to stay inside the ship or on the deck.

But when you all got to a village with a christmas market and a lot of stands full of food, drinks, crafts and a lot of ambient an people, you were surprised to see that he took you by the arm and dragged you to the place.

Seeing all the liquor stands made you thought that he only wanted to get drunk but for every sip he took, he passed you another.

And then you went to try the free samples of food, and then he paid for two hot cocoas and took you again by the arm to take a walk.

You both sat at a bench and saw the people walk while you finished the liquor chocolate.

"I know that we went to almost every stant that had alcohol but if you want to go to an especific one, you can say it."

And then you saw a big wheel and even that he didn't quite like heights, he kept his word and you even took pictures.

Sanji

Since he is the cook of the ship, all his day resumed on cooking christmas dinner.

So, since he can't get out of the kitchen to be with you, you went to the kitchen to be with him.

He was a little stressed cause it's a special night but you managed to help a little, even if it was just peeling potatoes.

You played music and sang together while moving around, even a couple of times swinging together like you were dancing.

The dinner was a succss, obviously and everyone staying eating until midnight, then everyone headed to their quarters.

You helped him clean the dishes and you thought that you both would head to bed and sleep but.

"Mon amour, you've been my ray of hope all day and i couldn't give you the attention you deserved... now i am fully yours and we can go take a walk."

If the ship is near to an island, you would go take a walk to there if not, then he would do some hot cocoa and you both would sit on the deck.

Trafalgar Law

Kissing under a mistletoe.

All day, the crew tried to make you both kiss.

Law was evading this the best he could but you were oblivious to that plan.

One particular moment, you were about to exit a room and he was about to enter, so you both crashed and suddently a small mistletoe appeared above your heads.

Thanks to Shachi and a fishing rod.

You laughed and kissed his cheek, but he was so nervous that he turned his head and you both ended up kissing on the lips.

He dissapeared and you were really sad, until before the dinner he appeared with a small box of your favourite chocolate, flowers and a letter.

"Im sorry, i really like you but i didn't plan on our first kiss to be like that."

When you looked at him again, you saw that he was holding a mistletoe above both of your heads and a small smile.

Eustass Kidd

Giving gifts.

Eustass wasn't the type to give gou anything, like at all.

And you thought that for christmas he at least would have a little detail with you, but he wasn't showing any signs of that, even talking to Killer that the tradition of giving gifts was stupid.

You were starting to feel hurt cause you already bought something to him.

When dinner was finishing you decided to give him yours, at least to make him feel bad about his behaviour.

He just simply said "thanks".

Your heart cracked and you felt like crying.

You thought about not sleeping on the room that night but you didn't have the guts, you felt stupid.

Kid didn't went to bed with you at the moment and by the time he did, you were already sleep. You thought that probably he went partying with the boys but you didn't have the humour.

When you woke up, you saw a lot of gifts all over the room. You decided to nudge him.

"What?! I thought you would be happy that i get you all the crap that you were saying all the year."

"This are all the things i said i wanted ... in the year?!" he nodded, "you idiot, i thought you weren't going to do nothing... i was really sad and felt like shit."

"Woman, how could i not give you anything? it's christmas! i wanted to make it special... and thanks for YOUR gift, i really like it."

Ace

Binge watching and celebrating with the crew.

You all had stopped by on an island that had a sky station so he was living the dream.

In a very reckless way, so, soon enough he broke his leg and had to stay inside of the room.

He was sad and grumpy cause he didn't like to feel like an invalid and tried to escape a couple of times.

You managed to convince everyone to give him a surprise and make the dinner on your room.

It was fun and noisy and all of you didnt care.

He was happy and didn't try to escape for the whole night.

Then everyone left to give you some "privacy".

"Hey babe, i realized that maybe staying inside is not as bad as i thought, we can finally catch up with all the movies we didn't see."

He smiled showing you all the DVDs while catching the den den mushi to order even more food.

Sabo

Just resting.

It was christmas but legionaries never sleep, or relax, or celebrate...

So you were working on a new plan, even when Dragon sent you to your quarters.

So, when Sabo came back from an special mission just to surprise you on holidays and found out that you were working... he made a plan.

He set everything on the room to make a romantic christmas night, some themed movies and made all the shoping groceries.

And then he appeared behind you, you were so tired that you thought he was a ghost.

So he took the chair and dragged you closer to him.

"My beautiful and worker girlfriend, Dragon sent you to the room."

"But, i thought you wouldn't be here so i didn't have a reason to celebrate."

"I love you so much." he blushed and kissed you, and then take you on bridal style to the room.

[fatuismooches]

A compilation of a few notes in no particular order written by two odd scholars found by the Traveler on their journey throughout Sumeru. Some of the words have been crossed out or lost to time, making them illegible.

Forgotten Note (found in the desert inside a huge Ruin Golem)

[A page torn from someone's notebook that seems to be hastily written and forgotten.]

... I can't believe what I've just witnessed. We spent DAYS traveling out here to the desert because Zandik wanted to tinker with that huge robot for ages. Me too of course, but that's not the point. Here he was just a few moments ago, brimming with excitement at being able to pilot it. It was cute...

... And then not even a minute later, he was hunched over, clutching his stomach and mouth. I was initially concerned, but he merely waved me off and began writing at the speed of light, still holding back the urge to throw up. And that's when I realized this fool was ███-███...

... Zandik was going to give it one more go but I quickly stopped him. I wasn't about to have him getting sicker than he already was. Tried to fight me on it but he was dizzy enough to take himself out. He's currently grumbling at me in the corner, but he'll get over it...

... Silly man, he let me put his head on my lap while he rested. Good thing I packed some light snacks... but note to self: for the foreseeable future, don't let Zandik into any kind of transportation. Hopefully, he'll outgrow it one day though...

—

Zandik's Note (found on the edge of Sumeru near Fontaine)

[A short note containing idle thoughts - the lack of importance may have caused it to be discarded.]

... There is an area in the desert that provides a clear and close view of the neighboring nation, Fontaine. [Name] insisted on showing me it as we happened to be close by...

... I'm not particularly interested in that land, but there are some things that may be worth looking into. [Name], however, wants to get academic leave to do some research there - more truthfully, they want to try out the macarons. How typical of them...

I suppose it's not the worst idea. They are an excellent partner, plus the extra ███ would be useful for my ███ research, and I'd make sure those people would never know...

... Regardless, there's no rush. Perhaps one day we can go...

—

[Name]'s Observation Log - Page 34-35 (found in the rainforest inside a tree hollow)

[A page torn from an observation log wedged deep inside a tree, preserving a little bit of its contents - it seems the writer wanted to hide it.]

... Day 1 of my first expedition with Zandik. Of course, every course comes with a dreaded group project but I am happy to be paired with him. Zandik, however, not so much. He's barely spoken to me the whole time. Well, he barely speaks to anyone in general, guess that's part of the reason other students refer to him as ███ ███. But I literally live with him, don't I deserve some special privilege?...

... Day 2 of my first expedition with Zandik. I looked a bit at his notes last night so I could start drafting the research report, but then he snatched them away when he noticed. He's extra grumpy at me now. I wonder what kind of things he writes about...

... Day 3 of my first expedition with Zandik. We've gotten a lot of stuff done but he seems far more interested in ███ than looking at plants. There's this one ruin in the distance he keeps eyeing. I bet if I wasn't here, he'd be there. If I present him with a ███ ███ of each type, would he finally talk to me? Hmm, that'd be hard to hide from the sages though...

... Day 4 of my first expedition with Zandik. I lied and said there was a better spot to get samples and brought him to that ruin. Long story short and after a lot of annoyed Zandik later, we made it in. When the killing machines awakened, it seemed he had a bright idea and had begun instructing me to hit them in a very precise way. Well, he certainly knows how to use someone efficiently... After all of that, all of a sudden he had found his voice and began shooting off orders to fetch this tool or that textbook and so on. Never got a thank you but he compensated with some loud, excited mumbles...

... Day 5 of my first expedition with Zandik. Thanks to Zandik actually doing his share of the work, we finished the fieldwork quickly. I showed him what I had so far and he seemed pleasantly surprised, although his expression was still flat. As we worked, he wasn't as talkative as he was yesterday, but the silence wasn't awkward like before. Well, as long as I get paired with Zandik, I think I'll survive this semester, and it'll be a bonus if he warms up to me. Speaking of warming up to me, Zandik wants to come back to the ruin we went to yesterday - with me too!!!!! It'll be our little secret that no one will find out. I think I got on his good side a bit, he looks cute when he's smiling. His teeth are even sharper up close.....

—

Nearly Torn Note (found inside an ancient book in the House of Daena)

[A small paper that has nearly been ripped in half, but some of the words are still cohesive.]

... I ███ them. Why are they here? I told them I did not need help, nor was I interested in assisting them. But they're here anyway. Of course they are. When are they not? Is there ever a moment when they're not constantly chirping in my ear? No, of course not. I'm ███ to live with them after all...

... With their ███ smell wafting through the dorm after a shower, or the scent of their cooking that they specially make ███ ███...

... Their stupid voice is prattling away right now, and I ███ how I do ███ find it irritating. My mind seems to automatically ███ ███ anything their ███ mouth says...

... I found their touch repulsive, but now I ███ for them to...

... There is something wrong with ███...

[At the bottom lays a tiny doodle of someone, presumably the person who occupied Zandik's mind, and has been intensely scratched off.]

—

Collaborative Note (found in an old camp near the woods)

[An abandoned note that appears to be written by two people. The top half is messily written and smudged thanks to the large amount of ink spills and blots. The second half is neater but the writer seems to have given up.]

... My ███ is a ███. Thanks to ███ help, we were able to acquire numerous ███ to help with the ███ ███. Were it not for them, there could have been a great ███ in my ███...

--------------------------

...Alright, that's it. Zandik is banned from writing notes now. I'm drawing the line. I bought five pens with us, and he has broken four of them so far. It's barely been a few hours! I still don't know how he does it- okay well now he's tapping me impatiently to write down his thoughts. Best get on it before he breaks this one and starts using ███ as ink...

...After a series of ███ were conducted, it has been concluded that it may be ███ for a ███ ███ to be ███-███. Wait... all the ink is on my hand now! And it smudged more!! Ugh!!!...

... I'm going to start forcing him to wear gloves... he's getting his inked hands all over me... at least we can shower ███!...

—

Paimon and the Traveler reviewed the notes they found contemplatingly - it was definitely not all of them, considering how hidden many of them were - but they found themselves oddly intrigued by the multitude of notes left by these two characters. Paimon was more interested in the love story part.

"You know, Paimon's not too sure... she's getting some mixed vibes from Zandik here... he seems kind of a big meanie to [Name] to be honest!" The Traveler watched in amusement as Paimon got grumpy on your behalf.

"... But he does seem to lighten up sometimes. Maybe he's not as bad as we think. Guess we can't piece together their relationships just from some notes, eh?"

"Well, Paimon thinks they seemed like a cute couple, well, minus for some things. Mostly, um... Zandik's oddness which you can't really excuse but I guess it's okay because they're long dead! Still, [Name] sure had strange taste in men..."

[luveline]

grumpy!joel and sunshine!reader? like he is very gruff and short with people until his girl comes around and tess is like wow are you soft now?

tysm for ur request! disclaimer: I am not an expert in tlou I just think Joel is very fit and also scary ♥︎ tess and joel are roommates here (and also no hate on tess at all I tried to make her a realist rather than a pessimist but she may sound a little jaded) idk lol pls enjoy! fem!reader 

Joel's asleep when you come around. Tess is stirring her drink, small spoon bouncing against the sides of her mug with a metallic tap-tap-tap as your familiar knock raps the door. She doesn't bother yelling, just opens the door to let you in. 

"Hello," you say, though you wince when you spot Joel dozing on the couch. You drop your voice to a whisper. "Nice shiner, Tess." 

"Thanks." She steps aside to give you free reign, rolling her eyes when you toe off your shoes. 

You're not right in the head, in Tess' opinion. You're too soft for this life, and your continued survival feels like luck and nothing more. You know how she feels about you, and you know what she thinks: that to be vulnerable is to kill yourself. You don't feel the same. 

Joel's flat on his back. You push him against the cushions of the couch to make room, perching at his hip with a small sigh. He couldn't have been with Tess when she got hurt, his face clean of contusions. No speckled bruising, no scabbing cuts. 

You place your hand over the solid plane of his stomach and lean forward just a touch. You could kiss him. 

"Joel," you murmur, hand sliding to his waist. His jeans are rough under your palm. "Wake up. I have good news." 

He never wakes gently. His eyes scrunch, his lips tug down into a scowl. When he sees you, it takes a good long second for his agitation to fade into a more neutral expression. 

"Hey," you say, smiling. 

He doesn't smile back. "Where have you been?" he asks succinctly, voice rough with the lingering dregs of sleep. 

"Why should I tell you?"

He almost pushes you off of the couch as he sits up and swings his legs to the side. His shoes touch the floor, and of course he sleeps with his shoes on, he's ready for everything.

"Don't play games." 

You hum in delight at his dark tone and stand up before he can grab you, shivering at the feeling of his fingertips scratching your thighs. You backtrack through the room for your bag thrown haphazardly by the door. You pick it up, excited and scared at once, and scrabble to procure your promised 'good news'. 

"I wasn't far." 

"Your definition of far isn't one I trust," he says. 

"She's a big girl, Joel," Tess says, sipping her drink. She winces at the taste but isn't deterred. "She can take care of herself." 

And if you can't, who cares? You shouldn't be anybody else's problem, and to your credit you aren't. You take care of yourself. You take care of Joel, too, whenever you can, which is why you've brought him the book you found. 

"Here, handsome," you say, holding it out with little ceremony. 

Joel stands up to take it. He stares at the cover in silence. 

"It's a shame they can't include a snippet on every page," you lament. "Like when they used to put perfume samples straight on the paper. I don't know what half of those songs sound like. Which is weird, right? The biggest Billboard hits and I can't remember them." 

"And this is for…" 

"Your codes. Your radio codes?" Your beaming smile starts to shutter. Maybe it isn't useful after all.

Joel knows better than to ask what you want for it. You never ask for anything, ever. You give and you give and at first he'd thought you were stupid, just plain dumb. Generosity is a myth and everybody has their motives. He'd been suspicious of your angle, rejecting you, talking down on you, practically spitting at you to get lost. And you'd listened, for the most part, but then he'd see you in line after shifts for cards, around dark corners talking to dirty FEDRA officers, and you'd always impossibly feel his gaze and pin him with a smile. You've eroded his reluctance over time, and now you're here, sprightly and pretty in his too-big apartment filling every inch with light. 

He reaches across the gap and takes your hand. He squeezes, savouring the warmth of your smaller hand. You have delicate fingers compared to his, and they look smaller still enveloped in his grasp. 

"I'll make you something to eat," he says. 

You nod once, a pop of movement. "Thank you." 

You're not the one who should be saying it but you're the only one who's willing to. Thank you has become synonymous with I owe you. 

Tess lets her gaze flick between your two bodies, clearly startled. Joel drops your hand and it's too late, far too late, she's already gearing up to make fun. 

"Is this how it's gonna be now?" she asks. 

Joel huffs quietly. Tess talks with a brittle kind of love, the familiarity of knowing someone for a long time softening what would otherwise be ridicule. She thinks, without malice, that you and Joel are a bad idea.  

"Hasn't it been like this for a while?" you ask, turning to face her, your usual sunshine attitude worsened by Joel's affection. 

"You're fucking up my guy." 

"Don't get stiffed so often and you won't need a bodyguard," you say lightly. 

Joel snorts, tossing your catalogue of songs on the counter. He doesn't know if they have anything worth eating here, but he's gonna damn well try and find something. 

"You're soft," Tess says to Joel, quick and quipping as she dumps what's left of her drink into the sink. "I'm going out." 

Not much changes when she goes. You come to stand beside him at the counter, your elbow brushing his arm. He doesn't move away. 

Joel doesn't understand why you stick around. Doesn't know what it is that makes you so sweet on him. The first time you met, outside the old meat market on the edge of curfew, he'd been standing watch as Tess made a deal. You'd slunk up on him from the right, and said, "You look unhappy," with your usual softness. 

He'd turned to you in wonder. Wonder in the very worst sense of the word; what could possibly possess you to approach him? Agitation struck like the powdery head of a match against its box, fuck off on the tip of his tongue, and you'd said, "You ever hear that Bill Withers song? 'Ain't no sunshine without rain?'" 

He'd thought you were a wannabe member of the resistance, and that fuck off had rolled right out of his mouth with ease. Your smile hardly wavered. 

"It's 'when she's gone,'" he says now.

You look up at him, he looks down at you. His thick brows relax, and his brown eyes calm. It suits him, and you'd tell him, but you're confused. 

"Huh?" 

"That Bill Withers song. It's 'ain't no sunshine when she's gone,'" he corrects you, the you from the past. He's trying to tell you something without saying it out loud. 

"Oh," you say. Your eyelashes kiss in the corners as you smile. "Right. What am I thinking of?" 

"How should I know?" He doesn't sound mad, smiling at you very briefly.

"I don't know, I thought you knew everything." 

That's not true. He can't know everything, because he doesn't have a clue in the world what he did to deserve meeting you. 

—

please forgive any inaccuracies, I only played the game a little when I was much younger, and so this was made of my watching the first episode twice and some help from people / the wiki!! it's just for fun lol so I hope you enjoyed <3<3<3

[punkshort]

All Yours

Summary: Tommy and Maria want to meet a group from another community to establish a trading relationship. One man comes onto you a little too strong, sparking a reaction from Joel.

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!reader, established relationship, set in the TWWW universe but can be read stand alone, no use of Y/N.

Warnings: jealousy/possessive behavior, smut (18+ MDNI), unprotected sex, fingering, language, mild violence/blood, vague allusions to SA (nothing graphic)

Word count: 6.8K

March 2006

"So, what exactly do we need to bring with us?" Carrie asked, leaning over your shoulder as you spread out your notes in front of you on the desk.

"Maria said she wanted to have an idea of our production numbers for each season, so we know what we can spare for trades."

A couple months ago on patrol, Tommy and Joel came across a smaller community deep in the mountains. After watching them carefully for a few weeks, and a very lively discussion during a town hall meeting, it was agreed that they would approach the community in an attempt to strike up a trading relationship.

Satisfied that you had all the documentation you needed, you stuffed the notebooks into your pack, along with a few samples of medicinal herbs as a good faith gift.

You both slid on your coats, hats, and gloves as you made your way to the stables, the early spring morning still very brisk. The sun was just beginning to peek over the trees as you approached the small group waiting outside the barn. You scanned the group of five quickly before your eyes settled on Joel, who had been talking to Eugene about something that made him appear tense until he saw you approach, and his face relaxed.

"All set?" Joel asked you, taking your rolled up sleeping bag and attaching it to the back of the saddle, next to his own.

"I think so," you replied while giving Eugene a smile and wave in greeting.

"Shouldn't be too long of a trip, dear. We'll be back tomorrow, late afternoon," Eugene told you as he mounted his horse.

Tommy had chosen a neutral place in between both settlements to discuss trades: an abandoned ski lodge. When you heard of the location, you were grateful you wouldn't have to sleep on the muddy forest floor.

Joel hopped up on the back of the horse and reached his arm down to help you climb up behind him. You wrapped your arms around his stomach and gave him a small squeeze with your arms.

"You didn't have to come, you know," Joel murmured over his shoulder as he followed behind Jake and Carrie's horse, exiting through the gate.

"Yeah, but what would I do while you were gone? Probably just waste away," you joked, making yourself chuckle.

"I'm serious," he said. "Could be dangerous. We don't know these people yet."

"It'll be fine, Joel," you tried to assure him. "I'll just explain my production numbers, Carrie will discuss the medicinal stuff, and we will just hang back while you guys figure out the rest."

Joel huffed and rolled his shoulders.

"Just don't like you outside Jackson too much. Like knowin' that you're safe," he said, directing your horse around a fallen tree.

"I know. But I want to help. Maria is excited. She said this could be really good for the town, and I want to do my part."

He grunted, effectively ending the conversation.

Joel had always felt this intense need to protect you. Since outbreak day, his one and only goal was to keep you safe. There had been a few close calls in your journey before Jackson, ones that affected him deeply and stirred up frequent panic attacks from shouldering the guilt and blame. When you found Jackson, he was finally able to relax, seeing you safe and happy. He still struggled with his own trauma from past events, some days worse than others. And taking you outside the walls of Jackson was steadily careening him towards having one of those bad days.

You reached the ski lodge before the other group, much to Joel's relief. It was the first time you've seen him look pleased all day. The place was enormous. You noticed it appeared to be able to host weddings or conferences in the off-season as you walked by three huge ballrooms and a kitchen before you finally reached the main lounge. Couches, sofa chairs, and tables with chairs were scattered around the two-story room. The walls were mostly windows, allowing visitors to admire the beautiful mountains surrounding the building.

The room was built around a big fireplace in the center, which Tommy and Jake immediately began to inspect.

"Maybe we should get some wood. We're early, we got time to kill," Tommy mused aloud. Joel's head swiveled around the two-story lounge while he gripped his rifle, looking up at the balconies above to make sure you were truly alone.

Tommy slid his backpack off and rummaged around until he found a hatchet in its leather carrying case.

"C'mon, Joel. Before we lose daylight," Tommy said, giving Joel pause. His eyes flicked over to you sitting at a table talking to Carrie while you unloaded the food, no doubt planning what to make for the group for dinner.

"Can you take Eugene?" Joel asked him quietly, so the rest of the group wouldn't overhear. Tommy raised an eyebrow at his brother before answering.

"Joel. I'm not gonna ask an old man to trek into the forest and help me haul wood up all those steps."

"Jake, then," Joel tried, his eyes traveling back to you. Tommy sighed and put a hand on Joel's shoulder.

"It'll be 30 minutes, at most," Tommy assured him. "She's a big girl, she'll be alright. Y'know she can defend herself, probably better than most."

"Yeah, but what if the other group comes when we're gone?" Joel asked, furrowing his brow and shifting his weight.

"We've met them before, Joel. You've met them before. What's the problem?" Tommy asked, growing impatient. Joel sighed and reluctantly slung his rifle over his shoulder.

"Alright, let's be quick," Joel huffed.

Joel made his way over to you as Tommy let the group know his plan to collect some firewood. Joel gave you a quick kiss and squeezed your bicep gently.

"I'll be right back, sweetheart," he murmured.

"Be careful," you told him with a small smile. His gaze lingered on you for a moment, his mouth opening and closing anxiously, unsure how to vocalize his concerns.

"Joel! Let's get a move on," Tommy called out as he made his way back down the hallway that led to the entrance.

"Sooner you leave, the sooner you'll be back," you told him, giving his chest a small shove. He nodded and turned on his heel to follow Tommy down the hall.

You and Carrie were opening some canned goods and rifling through the kitchen when you heard the front doors of the lodge swing open. At first, you thought Joel and Tommy had managed to cut up firewood in less than fifteen minutes, but then you heard strange voices, and you knew it must have been the new community arriving. You dusted your palms on the sides of your jeans and glanced at Carrie.

"Guess we should join the others," you told her, trying to keep your voice steady. You didn't want to worry Joel, but the prospect of meeting new people in a strange place did make you a little nervous. You didn't have the best track record with people since the outbreak.

As the two of you made your way back into the lounge, you subconsciously rested your hand on the butt of your handgun. You entered the room just as the group was entering from the other end. You examined them carefully as you made your way over to Maria. They had brought five men with them. Two of which were older and had grey beards, one was bald while the other had messy curls. The other three were younger. One seemed particularly young, younger than you. He was skinny and his eyes darted around nervously. You got the impression he was asked to join as an extra body and a last resort.

The last two men were likely in their thirties and seemed to be the muscle of the group. One of the men had darker hair that was shaved close to his head and a rigid jaw. You vaguely wondered if he had past military or police training.

Your eyes finally landed on the last man, only to discover he had already clocked you from across the room. He had dirty blonde, slicked back hair with piercing blue eyes and was surprisingly clean shaven. You noticed most of the men in Jackson didn't bother to shave their beards unless it was particularly hot out, so it struck you as strange. Maybe you had been staring because when you met in the middle of the room, the blonde man's eyes never left your face.

"Neil, Dean, great to see you again," Maria greeted the two older men with a handshake. You could tell immediately they were kind by the way they smiled and spoke, which helped ease your nerves a bit. However, the blonde man had yet to stop staring at you, and it was becoming unnerving. You felt Carrie shift next to you and you wondered if she noticed it, too.

Maria introduced you and Carrie to Neil and Dean, since Jake and Eugene were already acquainted with them. When you shook their hands and looked into their eyes, your nerves settled a little more.

"And I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met," Maria said to the other three with a smile.

"Oh, where are my manners," Neil, the balding one, said. "This is Lucas, Sam, and Carter." Neil pointed to each of them respectively. Sam was the young, skinny boy, Lucas was the military type, and Carter the blonde.

You looked each of them in the eye and gave them a tight smile. Carter gave you a sly smirk and you instantly looked away, focusing your attention on Maria. She invited the group to sit at a larger table in the lounge, and you all traipsed over to find a seat. You didn't think it was a coincidence that Carter sat directly across from you, and when you exchanged quick looks with Carrie, you could tell she noticed, too.

"So," Maria said, folding her hands on top of the table. "Tommy and Joel are just out getting firewood, but they should be back soon. We can get started, I don't want to keep you unnecessarily."

"Sure thing," Dean said, reaching into his bag to pull out some notebooks.

"Why don't we start with the girls? They can go over our medicine and vegetable harvest numbers, and then Eugene can discuss livestock," Maria said, looking at you expectantly. You took a breath and reached across the table to grab your worn notebook.

You began by showing the men your production numbers from the past year for vegetables, all of them nodding along and taking notes except for Carter, who was blatantly trying to get a look down your shirt when you leaned over. You had enough and shot him a frown in the hopes of embarrassing him, but a wide grin just spread across this face instead.

You were wrapping up and about to pass your notebook along to Carrie to review the medicinal herbs when Carter finally spoke for the first time.

"That's all?" he said, the deepness of his voice surprising you. You looked at him and blinked.

"What do you mean?" you asked, your fingers still pressed onto the open pages of your notebook.

"Vegetables and fruit? I'm sure you got something else you can trade, sugar," he said, his eyes quickly scanning your body up and down.

You paused for a moment, wondering if you were just paranoid or if he was really suggesting what you thought he was suggesting. Your gaze flicked back to Maria, who seemed to pick up on the same thought you had, and she stiffened in her chair.

"Carter," Neil said lowly, his tone a warning. Your left hand remained on the notebook, but your right hand fell to your side, fingers tapping the butt of your gun.

After a heavy silence that seemed to last an eternity, Carter's face split into a toothy smile as he laughed heartily.

"Come on now, I'm just kidding. Relax, girly," he said to you, but you did anything but relax. In an attempt to not ruin the potential trading relationship with this community, you pushed the notebook to Carrie and leaned back in your chair, choosing to let his comments go.

Carrie nervously and quickly went through the numbers on the herbs while you kept your eyes trained on her, ignoring the heat of Carter's gaze.

Carrie was just finishing up when you heard the front doors swing open once again, and relief flooded through you when you heard Tommy and Joel walking up the hallway.

They entered the room with armfuls of wood, which they deposited next to the fireplace in order to shake hands with Dean and Neil. They were then introduced to the rest of the group with firm nods of their heads before pulling up chairs of their own. Maria was catching Tommy up on what he missed when Joel sat down next to you. You turned in your chair and put your hand on top of his with a squeeze. He gave you a quick smile and leaned forward to listen to Maria, oblivious to the way Carter was studying you two. Carrie met your gaze, and her eyes widened a fraction, trying to silently convey the thought you were also having: what the fuck?

Before Eugene could begin talking about the livestock numbers, you stood up and tugged on Carrie's arm in the process, also making her stand.

"We're gonna go back to the kitchen, get some food ready," you announced, and Maria nodded, her eyes briefly looking at Joel before falling back on you. Joel was looking up and watching you curiously. You gave him a tight smile before hurrying back to the kitchen with Carrie. It was then that he finally noticed Carter's gaze, which was firmly fixed on your retreating form, not even trying to hide the way he stared at your ass as you left the room. Joel cleared his throat roughly, drawing Carter's attention off you and onto him. He gave Joel a light huff and turned his attention back to Maria.

"That was fucking awkward," Carrie said with a disbelieving laugh once you were safe inside the kitchen.

"Okay, so it wasn't just me?" you asked, your hands on your hips. She shook her head.

"Oh, hell no. Even Jake noticed it. Joel's gonna fucking kill him if he pulls that shit again," Carrie said, and you groaned, getting back to prepping various dishes for dinner.

Dinner went smoother. Carter mostly kept his eyes to himself, the tension from the room had dissipated, and the group had begun laughing and trading stories. It appeared while you and Carrie were making dinner that a trading agreement had taken place. Tommy had brought a bottle of whiskey along and was passing it around to celebrate while you and Carrie helped clean up. You were picking up a stack of plates at the end of the table when you heard a voice behind you.

"How 'bout dessert, sugar?" Carter whispered in your ear, making you nearly drop the stack of plates in your hands. You whipped around but he had already taken a few quick steps back, creating a healthy distance from you so as not to draw the attention of others.

"Excuse me?" you said, your heart hammering in your chest. He held up his hands in mock surrender with a smirk.

You so badly wanted to tell him off, stand your ground and make it known you weren't just brought along to feed people and clean up after them, that you were doing it to help your friends, your community. But you recalled how excited Maria was about this relationship, and looking at her now, you could see she was relieved that she could provide more goods to the town with this new prospect. So, you gave Carter the benefit of the doubt.

"There might be canned fruit or something," you muttered, trying to find Carrie so you could walk back to the kitchen together, but Carter reached out and snatched your elbow, this time drawing a scowl to your face.

"I was thinkin' 'bout somethin' else," he said, and you could now tell he had been drinking by the slur in his words and the heaviness in his eyes. You swallowed roughly and glanced around the room, scanning for Joel. He was talking with Dean and Tommy near the fire, his back to you.

"Don't gotta be nervous. It's a compliment," Carter told you, picking up on your anxious body language.

"I'm with him," you said curtly, nodding your chin in Joel's direction. "Even if I wasn't, I'm not interested."

His eyes slowly dragged across the room and landed on Joel before swinging his head back to you, giving you a shrug.

"Huh," was all he said in response, still looking at you hungrily. Over Carter's shoulder, you saw Joel shift, his eyes instantly landing on you. In your periphery, you saw his body tense and he began to make his way across the room. Your eyes flicked to his and he stopped in his tracks, waiting for you to direct him. You gave him a subtle but firm shake of your head. His jaw clenched but he stayed where he was, his eyes jumping from you to Carter.

You turned and marched towards the kitchen, your pulse racing so fast you felt lightheaded.

You all settled in for the night, rolling out sleeping bags and claiming couches. The new group ended up having too much to drink and decided to leave in the morning. You were fixing up your sleeping bag next to Joel's while he stared at Carter flopping down on a couch from across the vast room. You weren't thrilled with the idea of having to stay the night in the same place, but you were comforted by the fact that you were next to Joel and your friends.

"I don't like the way he looks at you," Joel said bluntly as you unzipped your sleeping bag.

"I don't either," you told him, and his eyes finally dragged from Carter to look at you, the surprise evident on his face. He had fully expected you to insist he was overreacting, but the fact you agreed with him put him on edge even more.

"Let's just get through the night and get back home," you said, tucking yourself into your sleeping bag.

"You ain't leavin' my sight til then," he said gruffly, then followed your lead, zipping his bag up partially so he could still press his upper body against yours while you slept.

And although you agreed, not wanting to leave his sight, you found your bladder was too full shortly after everyone had fallen asleep. You looked over your shoulder at Joel. He was sound asleep and snoring softly against the back of your neck, his arms wrapped around your waist loosely. You thought about waking him up but decided against it. He looked so peaceful, and you knew you would be quick.

Before standing up, you glanced around the room. The rest of the group seemed fast asleep, and the bathrooms were only a few feet away from where you slept. You sighed and slowly unraveled yourself from Joel's grasp. He grunted and readjusted, moving to sleep on his back, but remained out cold.

The ladies restroom had three stalls and two sinks. You went as fast as you could, eager to get back to the warmth of the lounge and Joel's embrace. It was dark, but it was a full moon, so you didn't bother to bring a flashlight with you.

You swung the bathroom door open to exit into the short hallway when you smacked into a wall of muscle, causing you to stumble backwards in alarm.

"Wha-" you began to say, but a strong hand clamped over your mouth, stifling your words and pushing you backwards into the room, your back slamming hard against the wall.

You couldn't see who it was, but you knew it wasn't Joel based on touch and scent alone. And when you heard his voice, it just confirmed your suspicions.

"Finally gotcha alone, sweetness," Carter muttered into your ear, pinning you against the wall. You struggled against him, but he was too strong, and you were having a hard time seeing in the dark. Your heart was pounding in your chest, blood rushing in your ears as the panic set in. Not again, please, not again.

He brought his face in front of yours and you could smell his sour breath, stale whiskey invading your nostrils as you mumbled against his palm.

"Really happy we met today," he said quietly. "Your town's got some real pretty women. Maybe we can come to some kind of arrangement. I can get you things, for a price..." he trailed off as his other hand skirted down your side. You squeezed your eyes shut and brought your knee up as hard as you could, praying in the dark that you could hit your target. A loud groan that bubbled up from his throat let you know you were successful. His hand slipped from your mouth slightly as he doubled over, clutching his crotch with the hand that was just on your body moments ago.

"Joel-!" you began to shout, but his hand quickly covered your mouth again, this time with more pressure, bringing tears to your eyes.

"Shut the fuck up," he muttered angrily, bringing his other hand up to your neck. "Quit bein' such a tease, you been starin' at me all night."

You shook your head as much as you could with your mouth still held prisoner by his palm. You brought your hands up to claw at his hand pressing on your throat, your vision going spotty.

Suddenly, the pressure was gone, allowing air to flow freely again. You gasped and coughed, leaning forward as your fingers gently touched the sore skin on your neck. You quickly stood back up, swinging your head around in the darkness, trying to see where he went.

"Get your fuckin' hands off her," you heard Joel growl, along with the unmistakable sound of knuckles thudding wetly against soft, damaged flesh. You could hear their boots squeaking on the tile as the scuffle continued and you blinked rapidly, trying to make your eyes adjust so you could reach the door and go get help.

The fight must have been louder than you realized because the bathroom door swung open, flooding the room in light from Maria's lantern, with Neil, Dean and Tommy right behind her. You pressed yourself flat against the wall as you tried to not get caught in the fight between the two men, who you could now see were swinging on each other wildly, spinning around the small room, slamming each other into the stalls, and grabbing at each other's shirts, trying to get the upper hand and pull the other down. Joel's fist came in contact with Carter's nose so loudly, you heard the crack of bone and winced. Carter stumbled backwards with a pained cry, crashing into you and causing you to fall to the floor.

You felt a burning in your wrist when you landed as you frantically scrambled between him and the floor, desperately trying to get out of the way. Joel saw his opportunity when Carter fell, clutching his nose. He snatched him up and off you by his collar and hauled him across the room with a grunt. Joel grabbed Carter by the hair and yanked him back, so his face was angled up to the ceiling. Carter looked at Joel manically, desperately squirming on his knees and clawing at Joel's wrists to try to loosen his grip when he realized Joel was about to slam his face into the porcelain sink.

Tommy pushed his way into the room and broke up the two men before Joel had a chance to crush his skull. Carter sat crumpled on the floor, blood pouring from his nose and mouth. He attempted to stand but slipped on his own blood, making him fall back to the floor.

"Alright, Joel, enough," Tommy muttered, his hands pressed firmly on Joel's shoulders, pushing him back against the wall. Joel panted for breath through clenched teeth, his eyes wild as his gaze jumped from Carter to Tommy. As if he suddenly came to his senses and remembered you were still in the room, he pushed Tommy off him and made a beeline towards you, hunched over in the corner of the room.

"You alright, sweetheart? Lemme look at you, c'mon," he said gently as he crouched down, hooking a finger under your chin and pulling it up. You let out a shaky breath as your eyes roamed his face. He had a few cuts under his eye and a bruise forming on his jaw, but apart from his knuckles, he appeared unscathed. His breath caught in his throat when he saw the fear in your eyes, then his gaze dropped to your throat where dark, circular bruises were forming from where Carter pressed his fingertips into your delicate skin. You could see the shift behind his eyes turn from concern to rage, and you reached out to grip his arm tightly before he could start another fight.

"Stay," you whispered, your lip trembling. He sighed and pulled you into his arms, holding you tightly against his chest. You inhaled his scent, a mix of sweat, blood and tree sap, and you felt your pulse slow down a fraction.

"Get him the fuck outta here," Joel growled over his shoulder. At some point, Lucas must have joined the crowd because he entered the room to help Carter up from the floor, allowing him to lean on his shoulder as he ushered him out of the room and down the hall.

"I'll go get Carrie, she can look you both over, patch you up," Maria said, but you stopped her.

"Can I just have a minute?" you whimpered softly, your voice not quite right. Maria nodded and waved Tommy out of the room, closing the door behind them, leaving you and Joel in the quiet, moonlit bathroom.

He leaned back to look at you again, his thumb tracing gently over your cheek. You didn't realize you were crying silent tears until he leaned forward to kiss them away, then let his forehead rest against your own.

"What happened?" he finally asked, his eyes closed with his forehead still pressed against you.

"I had to pee, he cornered me in here, it was dark," you squeaked out. Your head was pounding, and you felt exhausted but there was no way you would be able to fall asleep now.

"Did he touch you?" Joel asked nervously, afraid of the answer. You shook your head quickly, and a sigh of relief slipped past his lips.

"Not like that. Just my throat and he covered my mouth," you told him, wrapping your arms around his neck, trying to get closer. He leaned back against the tile wall and pulled you onto his lap, your face pressed against the side of his neck.

"Shoulda woke me up," he murmured into your hair.

"I know, I'm sorry," you whispered, letting your hands fall from behind his neck to rest gently on his chest.

"Don't be sorry," he replied, his body tense. "Shouldn't have to be this way in the first place."

You pulled your head back and cupped his cheek with your good hand, gently stroking the bruise forming on his jaw. Overcome with a swell of affection, you leaned in and pressed your mouth against his, tugging his lower lip between yours. He moaned softly and opened his mouth, his tongue dipping past your lips until it found its mate, licking into your mouth until he pulled a small whine from your throat.

He broke the kiss and leaned his head back against the wall, his fingers carefully wiping away the last of your tears.

"Thank you," you whispered, and he shook his head.

"Don't gotta thank me," he replied, then sighed as he pushed himself into a standing position. He reached an arm down to help you up off the floor, and that's when you remembered your wrist. You whimpered and yanked it out of his grasp, standing up on your own and rolling your wrist around to test it for damage.

Joel tenderly took your hand in his and turned it around, inspecting it for swelling.

"It's too dark in here, let's go find Carrie, she can take a look at it," he told you, leading you out of the bathroom and back into the lounge.

Carrie sat you both down on a loveseat with her med kit. She tested your wrist and determined it was just a sprain, so she wrapped it up tightly for you before moving to Joel. She was sanitizing the cuts on his knuckles as you both watched Tommy and Maria having a quiet conversation with Dean and Neil across the room. You were trying to tell by their body language what was being said, but it was impossible. Finally, the group broke up and headed back to their respective people.

Joel stood up defensively when Tommy and Maria approached, giving Carrie a quick 'thanks' under his breath. She sat down next to you, eyes wide as she rubbed your back, asking gently if you were okay and if you needed anything. You shook your head and gave her a small smile, then turned so you could listen to what Maria had to say.

"Relax, Joel, it's alright," Maria said, putting a hand out to him. "You don't need to explain. Dean said there's been an incident or two like this back in their town. It was all 'he said, she said', so they couldn't do anything about it."

"So they brought that fucker here?" Joel seethed, clenching his fist.

"They're gonna take care of it when they get back," Tommy assured him. "Won't be a problem in the future. Trades are still on. Kept him around 'cause he's a good shot."

"Christ," Joel mumbled, rubbing his hand over his beard and turning away. Maria kneeled down in front of you and took your hand in hers.

"You okay?" she asked softly, and you nodded. She examined your face closely until she was satisfied that you were being honest, and stood back up.

"They're leaving, obviously," Maria said, gesturing behind her to the group packing up. Carter laid on a couch with his arm draped over his face, clearly in pain.

"Why don't we try to get some sleep so we can get the hell outta here early?" Eugene said from a sofa chair next to you. You all mumbled in agreement, but waited until the other group left, Neil and Dean giving Tommy and Maria a quick handshake before venturing out into the darkness.

Tommy threw a couple more logs on the fire before he settled back into his sleeping bag next to Maria. Silence descended upon the room, but you still struggled to fall back asleep. Adrenaline was still coursing through your veins from the encounter as you tossed and turned in your sleeping bag.

"What's wrong? You hurtin'?" Joel murmured next to you, clearly on the verge of sleep. You sighed and shook your head, even though his eyes were closed.

"No," you whispered, letting out a quiet groan as you repositioned yourself yet again. Joel's eyes popped open at the sound and turned his head to look at you curiously.

"Can't sleep, too wound up," you whispered again. Joel chuckled and you scowled at him.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothin', just thought of somethin', made me laugh," he said, his eyes sliding back closed but the smile still on his face. You poked him in the ribs, and he jumped, eyes snapping back open.

"Tell me," you said, and he sighed.

"I was gonna make a joke, tell you 'I know what'll tire you out', but it seemed like the wrong time," he explained, closing his eyes once again and turning his head back.

You considered it for a moment before responding.

"Okay."

His breathing stopped and his eyes snapped open. He turned his face to the side again, raising his eyebrows at you.

"What?" he asked quietly. You shrugged and smirked.

"I said, 'okay'," you replied just as quietly. His eyes darkened as they flicked down to your lips, then back up again.

"Kitchen," was all he said, his tone deep and voice strained. You slithered out of your sleeping bag and jumped to your feet, trying your best to be quiet and not sprint into the kitchen. You pushed the door open and entered the nearly pitch-black room, noting the only window was a small circle at the top of the door, allowing an orange light from the fire to be the only light in the room. You chewed your nail nervously as you waited for him to join you, pacing around in a small circle, trying to relieve the ache that was growing between your legs.

The door swung open, and you whipped around right as Joel wrapped his arms around you, his mouth latching onto your neck. His beard tickled your skin as he made a trail of kisses all across your throat. It wasn't until he made it to the other side that you realized he had been kissing the bruises left there. You let out a soft moan and tipped your head back, your fingers digging into his arms.

"If we do this, gotta be fast and quiet," he whispered against your mouth before his tongue dove past your lips to tangle with your own.

"Mhmm," you hummed as you reached down to unbutton your jeans. He walked you backwards until you felt the cold stainless steel of the counter behind you. You hopped up to sit on top and bent your head so you could suck on his Adam's apple before you made your way down to his collarbone, which was just peeking out from the top of his shirt.

Joel pulled your jeans the rest of the way off and slid his hands up both your legs before stopping on your hips, squeezing before giving them a quick tug forward. You almost yelped but you covered your mouth at the last minute. Joel gave you a look of warning before he lined you up with the edge of the counter, his fingers sliding underneath the edge of your panties and yanking them off.

He ran his knuckle up and down your slit before his eyes shot up to lock on yours.

"Shit," he whispered, leaning forward to whisper filth into your ear while he inserted a thick finger inside you, followed closely by a second.

"What a good girl, all ready for me," he told you quietly. "How long you been like this, hm?"

"Since you broke his nose," you whispered heavily, spreading your legs wider for him. He paused a moment, clearly not expecting that answer. You squirmed a bit when his fingers stayed still for too long, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah? That turn you on?" he asked you, and you felt his breath quicken against your neck.

"Yeah," you said quietly, sighing when his fingers expertly found that spot inside you.

"Fuck. Dirty girl," he muttered, earning a gasp from you when he quickly removed his fingers in favor of undoing his belt and shoving his jeans down his thighs. "You liked when I beat that fucker for putting his hands on what's mine?"

You didn't have a chance to answer him because he quickly slid his cock inside you, making you gasp again and slap a hand over your mouth, but you nodded enthusiastically, squeezing your eyes shut.

"So warm," Joel muttered to himself, tipping his head back as he rolled his hips into you slowly, your legs squeezing around his waist. His hands hooked under your knees at his side, his head rolling forward lazily as he watched his cock disappearing inside of you, each time emerging slicker than before.

You began rocking your hips up to meet his in a desperate attempt to increase the pace. He noticed, and given the location and lack of time, chose to give you what you wanted. He snapped his hips harder, grunting quietly each time he bottomed out inside you. You bit down on the fleshy part of your hand, trying to stifle your whines as he pushed you higher and higher towards your orgasm.

He slid his hand from your knee and down your thigh to rest flat on your lower stomach, his thumb brushing against your clit and pulling an audible moan from your mouth. Joel stopped his movements to give you a stern look. He leaned down so his chest was nearly flush with yours, his mouth hovering over your ear.

"Gotta stay quiet, sweetheart. You know I love those sounds but we gotta be careful," he whispered. "Can you do that for me?" You nodded and covered your mouth with your palm again.

He hummed his approval and began rocking his hips into you, his thumb finding your clit and pressing small, firm circles. Your eyes rolled as the pressure built in your lower abdomen. Joel leaned back up so he was standing once again, watching your body jostle up and down underneath him as he fucked into you harder. He felt your walls clench around him and watched as your head tipped back against the stainless steel, your hand still firmly planted over your mouth.

"Tell me you're mine," he said lowly. Your head tilted back down so you could meet his gaze. You removed your hand from your mouth, little gasps escaping from your mouth with each thrust.

"I'm yours, Joel," you said as quietly as you could.

"Again," he said, teeth clenched. Heat creeped up his neck as his orgasm steadily approached, but he held it back until he could hear you respond.

"Y-yours. I'm yours, Joel. Fuck. No one else, only you. Only ever y-you. Shit, I'm close," you whined, clamping your hand over your mouth again to muffle your orgasm.

And then it hit you like a freight train. Your eyes squeezed shut and your body tensed, your cunt fluttered around his cock as the waves washed over you, soft whimpers and moans getting lost in your palm.

"That's my girl," Joel mumbled, pounding into you harder now, desperate to join you. "All mine, huh? This mine?" he asked you, grabbing a handful of your ass and giving it a shake. You nodded and whispered a yes, your hand falling to your side.

"That's right. How 'bout this sweet little pussy? This mine, too?"

"Yes," you whined a little louder than you intended. You opened your eyes and watched him as his gaze traveled up your body, locking eyes with you. You saw a bead of sweat trickle down from his temple as his hips stuttered against you. His hand that was once placed over your stomach slowly traveled up your body, resting over your sternum, right over your pounding heart.

"And this?" he asked, softer now, eyes wide and pleading. You nodded and covered his hand with yours.

"Yes, Joel. All yours." You told him firmly, and with that, he pulled his hips back, groaning quietly as he came all over your stomach, his hot spend dripping down your sides and leaving small, pearly white dots on the countertop.

His eyes lingered on your stomach a moment before he reached down to pull his pants back up. He cleaned you up with a rag he had grabbed before following you into the kitchen, and helped you sit up, being mindful of your sore wrist.

You slid down from the counter and felt around with your foot until you found your discarded clothes. After dressing yourself, you turned around to pull Joel down into a messy, lazy kiss. He leaned back to look at you in the semi-darkness, his hands resting on your waist.

"I'm yours, too, y'know," he said softly. You smiled up at him and ran a finger gently over the bruise blooming on his cheek.

"I know," you whispered, planting a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth.

He pushed the door open a crack to make sure no one was awake before opening it all the way and leading you back to your sleeping bags.

"That did the trick, thank you," you murmured to him, yawning as your eyes closed, burying your face in your sleeping bag. His arms wrapped around you from behind and he kissed the back of your neck.

"Anytime, sweetheart," he said, his voice muffled by your hair as he held you tightly against his chest.

Tag List: @chiogarza, @sparklejumpropequeen-777, @shotgun-shelby @partyofone3413 @nana90azevedo @ninaminaromina

[evelynpr]

Might be a hot take as a bkdk and tgck truther here, but I find izuocha endlessly fascinating, beautiful, but also tearfully tragic.

I see their love for each other as something representative of their innocence and naivety when they only knew so little about who they were, and what was to come.

I think the main barrier of their relationship is that its rooted in how they see each other very idealistically, specifically that they're attached to the image of their Best Heroic Selves, and not the deeply selfish, destructive, freaky, and egotistical parts of them. To each other, they need to keep fulfilling that image or else that same person they looked up to would almost die in front of them, and that would be too cruel. Although that hero is still there, that same person they looked up to is not the same now because of...well...everything.

Izuku had barely even talked to girls when he first met her. She was Izuku's first ever real friend (Sorry Kats, everyone and him knows he was terrible), so he saved her in that entrance exam even if it was so dangerous. She gave a new meaning to his derogatory nickname just by being a friend that believed in him. After that, she saved him several more times (Blackwhip and Megaphone are the biggest samples iirc). It makes perfect sense that she is Deku's hero.

Ochako hardly knew what it meant to be a hero when she first got into UA. Just by reaching out to some kid tripping, she made a new friend who would then save her in that exam, then save him again in return. This boy then became someone who was always working so hard to save everyone in trouble, and she realized she wanted to be just like him too. "I want to save people"

But...Deku changes. The weight of One for All is on his shoulders and he needs someone to carry this burden with him. He continues to want to save other people at the expense of himself, still not letting his true selfishness and ego ever show- and it only grows more and more unbearable.

Then...Ochako fell in love with Himiko. Truly, relentlessly, selfishly and devotedly in love with a girl who then dies giving her blood to her- the greatest expression of love Himiko could ever give.

Not that they can't love each other because of this happening (and...so many other things oh god), I'm honestly not sure how to explain it- But them ending up together after losing that innocence and naivety? After Ochako will forever grieve the girl who showed her love in its most beautiful and ugly form? After Izuku changed so fundamentally as a person that the butterflies of a nice girl talking to you doesn't exist anymore? After that simple image of being a hero and being in love has completely changed for them both?

Even so, I believe they still love each other. There is no label I know of that can properly describe them though. They are each other's image of being a hero when it comes to saving people. Aside from Shoto, no one else can grasp the grief of the person you tried to save dying in your hands. They would no doubt try to cope with these losses together, and just try to get better together...but so much has changed. They've changed. The world changed. What are they now? Who are they now?

"What happened...to us?"

[sixeyescurseuser]

Thinking about figure skater Gojo who tirelessly trains to qualify and compete at the next Olympic Games.

Gojo is such a legend in the skating world, very well known for his jaw-dropping, difficult performances, handsome looks, and charming personality! He was built for the spotlight.

Naturally, he has many global fans, fan accounts, and ordinary people who follow his career.

People who meet Gojo in-person after having only seen him on tv are shocked at how tall he is, yet manages to skate so well. All those triple and quad axels? And the amount of grace and power he skates with is insane considering his build. 

Once, an interviewer asks Gojo what other skaters he admires? Gojo talks about a few current big names, then sneaks in a mention of, “Oh, Suguru is also in my list , hehe.”

The interviewer chuckles alongside him, yet can’t help but ask, “Suguru…who?”

Later, Geto Suguru nearly spits out his water while watching the interview posted on Youtube. He doesn’t hesitate to text his boyfriend.

Geto: “Why do you keep bringing me up? I literally just skated in high school 😭”

Gojo sends back an old video of Geto’s skating routine from a regional competition: ❤️❤️

Geto: “WHY DO YOU STILL HAVE THIS?”

Gojo: “heyyy >:(“

Gojo: “It makes me happy 🥰 I loved watching you”

***

Growing up, Gojo and Geto skated at the same club.  But while Gojo continued skating as his professional career after, Geto dropped skating in order to focus on his academics in college.

Gojo often reminisces on the long practices they had where they would watch each other run through their routines and give each other feedback, when they would mess around and throw the craziest combinations just for shits and giggles.

He didn’t realize their time together on the rink would be so short in the long run, but they began dating when they were only sixteen, and have been going strong together since.

Gojo is still lucky to have Suguru to come home to after his long days at the rink.  

After college, Geto went on to become a marine biologist, where he does a lot of work in ocean wildlife conservation. He’s either on a boat collecting data for research or in the lab analyzing his sample results. 

Gojo is not only busy training in Japan, but he also frequently travels to train in different countries. Gojo receives lots of updates from Suguru in the form of selfies and blurry photos with ocean wildlife or results from the lab.

Suguru in the lab with his ppe (personal protection equipment). Suguru wearing his wet suit while investigating algae farms. Suguru smiling while holding a crab.  

Gojo makes the last one his lock screen. Suguru just looks so cute with his hair pulled back, and when Gojo holds his finger down on the live photo, he can hear Suguru’s voice talking in baby to the crab.

(Geto’s wallpaper is a selfie of them when they were teens.)

Geto gets super excited telling Gojo about his new findings, taking the time to explain different facts and technical terms. Gojo eagerly nods along on the phone and asks questions, commenting, “No way! The algae increased nearly double the amount with your XXX solution? That’s amazing!”

***

Gojo loves what he does, but it’s always a relief to come back home and find his comfort place in Suguru’s arms. 

Nothing beats taking a shower and raiding Suguru’s closet after, cooking dinner with his boyfriend, and then cuddles on the couch.

The first thing they see when they turn on the tv is a sports reporter announcing Gojo Satoru's third national championship title, and what it means for the road to the Olympics.

“Oh wow, this guy is on a roll. He should train for the Olympics or something,” Geto says.

Gojo simply buries face in Suguru’s neck and snickers: “Or something.”

***

Once, while getting ready to sleep one night, Gojo whispers in Geto’s: “Remember that one time you ripped your pants during the Junior Grand Prix?”

Geto doesn’t react at first.

Then, without warning, he tries to smother his boyfriend with his pillow.

***

One of the best memories is when Geto surprised Gojo by showing up in-person to one of the abroad competitions. 

In the middle of his post-win interview, still in his competition suit, makeup dewey and hair fluffy, Gojo suddenly spots a familiar face behind one of the paparazzi. 

Gojo is literally mid-answer when he locks in and SPRINTS to get his boyfriend in his arms.

“Suguru!!” Gojo shouts. He’s already leaping and oh, Suguru’s arms readily catch him. 

Geto laughs with his whole chest, squeezing tightly around Gojo’s middle.

“Hello, darling.”

Gojo has to finish the interview but he’s so bubbly now because teehee Suguru is right there and watching proudly. 

Gojo needs him in his bed immediately.

After the interview, Geto explains he got his lab assistants to cover their project for the next week so he could fly out and visit Gojo in Australia!

Gojo happily drags Geto back to his hotel room,  giggling and babbling about the plans they could have for the next week. The couple excitedly discuss outings to art and performance events, to the beach, even the zoo - which Geto is ecstatic for. 

Upon entering the hotel room, Geto quickly drops his luggage off in the corner. Gojo is still yapping when Geto suddenly walks him backwards to the bed. 

The back of Gojo’s knees hit the edge and he falls back with an “oof!”

Geto smoothly crawls on top to lay his whole body weight on his boyfriend’s. 

Gojo chuckles. He combs through Suguru’s hair and continues his talking, knowing Suguru is tired from traveling and this will help them both relax.

Gojo gradually runs out of things to say, and the soft breaths against his neck tell him yep, he unfortunately needs to poke his boyfriend awake so they can both shower and freshen up before bed.

Gojo pats Geto’s lower back. “Suguru, wakey wakey.”

No response.

Pat pat on the lower back again, then smoothing his hands up to pat the upper-back.

“Babyyy, wake up. We need to shower. And eat.”

Geto offers a protesting grunt, then nuzzles against Gojo’s neck.

This leaves Gojo no choice.

He sneaks a hand down to pinch Geto’s ass.

“Ouch- hey what the fuck?”

Gojo yelps when he feels Suguru pinch his nipple in retaliation, then rolls off Gojo’s body to head toward the bathroom.

Five minutes later, the couple shower together while casually recapping the results of the skating event.

“Any feedback for me today?” Gojo asks. Geto hums, more focused on massaging the shampoo into Gojo’s hair. He applies the perfect amount of pressure that makes Gojo moan in appreciation.

“The only feedback I have is that you look amazing out there, Satoru. All the hard work you put into training clearly pays off. I am so so proud of you,” Geto says, dropping a kiss to Gojo’s nape.

Gojo preens, and completely surrenders himself to his boyfriend's tender touches.

[notafraidofredyellowandblue]

Flake (from about 0:04) reading for Drecksack evening 2024-10-18

Topic "His better half" which Flake first mentions is his wife, who everyone who knows them will say is definitely his better half, but then moves on to the actual subject of the reading: his keyboard ❤️

While doing so, he mentions a couple of nice side-notes (like Flake always does) like the disadvantages of playing with Rammstein

like wanting a little painkiller at the dentist only to be laughed at '....but you play with *Rammstein*!"

or people charging him to pay double for stuff because Bild wrote how many millions Rammstein earn, without mentioning the costs they have

or his place getting burgled because the tourdates are published so everyone knows when he's away (but his place is a bit of a mess anyway so he still doesn't know if something went missing)

has a little dig at guitarists who give their guitars a women's name, Flake names his keyboard just what it says on the label. Keyboards and samplers all have nice long names like Ensoniq EPS 16 Plus, not like guitars which are just called 'Gibson' or something.

When Flake got a real keyboard that he could take along to concerts, his dad got him an old violincase, a straight box, which fitted the keyboard perfectly. For concerts further away it also had room for a toothbrush and some underpants. After Flake got a new keyboard that was a little bit bigger, it still fitted the case, but there wasn't room for underpants anymore.

(After 20 minutes and turning another page he says "such a long text...who writes something like that" 😄)

His band (and himself) got a bit tired of the keyboard and got the idea of getting a sampler, with which you can take random noises and play them with the keys, at 0:30 he mimickes how a sampler works 😊

Flake loves music because it just exists in a moment, then it's gone, there's nothing left. Just air being moved in specific waves (at abt 0h32 he mimickes this) which create sound, it's there when you play it, and then it's gone, and evrything is back to how it was, but different because the music changed things. Just like a concert, it's there in that moment, but after that it's over and that's it, everything back to normal. Just like life..

The Ensoniq sampler was very complicated and you had to think of a whole lot of things to use it, and even had to take care to remove the bits you didn't use, because storage space on the device was very limited, for storage you needed floppy-disks (Flake says he sounds like opa before the worldwar talking about it)

At one show (0h36) Flake wanted to play his solo with a broken down micstand, but then the sampler didn't play any samples anymore...when he tried the old trick of turning the sampler of and on, it didn't even do that. At Rammstein Flake's sampler starts the sequencss at which the whole band takes direction to start songs, so when the sampler broke down, the others just stood there and waited (Flake chuckles mischievously at the memory) 😊 after that he got an external harddrive, and a UPS (in case electricity failed) and had to schlepp more and more stuff to shows, but nobody really noticed because by that time the guitarists had started to a (gear) competiton (bringing ever more stuff)

As there came more songs and Flake wanted to have them all on one sampler to avoid having to changes storage in between, he ran out of keys to put the samples on and often shifted an octave to different keys, until no key actually matched the right note anymore... at this point the band 'with soft pressure' to move with the timds and made him start using a keyboard device linked to an Apple notebook, and Flake was amazed how much music he could now play with the one keyboard. He had to redo all his samples, get used to playing this all new, and what was worst...because all the others in the band used a similar system and actually did understand it, they all felt they could help invent new samples and keyboardmusic, some even better than his own.

With all these electronics, when a loud bang happened on stage or a huge pyro or light went on, sometimes the computer froze and had to be elaborately restarted which took it's time. Maybe that's the reason why you can see Flake dancing or walking around on stage so often.

In the end all the electronics failed too often, and the Ensoniq got too old (like Flake himself he says) so he bought a Nordstage organ, two of them, both having the same sounds on it so he can choose which to use. Problem with that one is that everyone has it, you see it everywhere, like a Volkswagen Passat car, everyone has it, it works, but you'd rather have something different.

(0:43) Imagine saying that about your better half, Flake realises he is a lot better off with his wife 🌺

(couldn't help doing a little 'take'...i miss his podcasts)

[snowblossomreads]

Day 11 - Out of Reach

Pairings: Lionel Shabandar x Fem!Reader

Summary: In where [Y/n] crushes on her boss who may or may not have similar feelings (spoilers he does)

Tag(s)/Warning(s): boss/secretary thing, pining, 'collecting' people, unhm not too much other stuff really, Lionel getting angy for a moment, worrying about job loss, that's it?

A/N: AYEE it's our boi Lionel 🦁🦁🦁 !!! I have not really written for him before lol so much sorry if it's out of character i'm trying here bhaha!

Crushing on your boss, was one of the most cliche things someone could ever do. Yet here [Y/n] was doing that exact thing, in hopes that maybe, it would all end up like a romantic Christmas BBC special. You know the one, where the protagonist is in love with their boss who, is very much out of reach? But it turns out the boss has been crushing too. Yeah, those.

Only, she didn't think Santa liked her that much. Granted, she stopped believing in him when she saw her mum sneaking presents under the tree when she was ten, but she also wasn’t a big believer in Christmas miracles. It’d be nice though. Because boooy, the list of things she would do for Lionel Shabandar to like her as much as she liked him was looong. 

And some of them were very much not child-friendly.

Hey, it wasn't her fault he was so handsome, suave, and also, so, so demanding of everyone he worked with. A lot of the people who worked for him found that he was a bit of an asshole, but her? Nah. She just saw a man who knew what he wanted, and did what he needed, to make sure he got it. And boy did watching him deal with some of his clients get her hot and bothered, when he would lay waste to them with facts and data until the other person had no other choice than to acquiesce to him, or go back to the drawing board. 

Lionel wasn't a fool, and he certainly didn't have time to suffer with fools or day dreamers. No, he had a business to run and a world to dominate with his media might. 

But speaking of day dreamers.  

"Day-dreaming again [Y/n]?"

The low rumble of his sonorous voice right by her ear, caused her to jolt in her seat as she hadn't even realized he had come over to her. Startled by him suddenly appearing right by her side, and giving her a look of amusement, she couldn't help the flood of embarrassment that ran through her veins, and showed on her face as she tried to play it off. Shuffling up some paper to make it look like she hadn't been zoning out, she smiled at him in hopes he would ignore her zoning out.

He of course, wasn't fooled by that. 

"I don't believe I pay you to just sit pretty and day dream about doing work," he continued, straightening to his full height and crossing his arms against his chest. "Though I do so enjoy looking at you as much as I do my Monet's. Much more interesting than silly paperwork. Though I guess it is a good problem to have. Paperwork that is."

Oh, also how could she forget how much of a flirt he was. Was it really her fault that she was crushing on him whenever he would say something like that to her? 

"I'm so sorry Lionel!" [Y/n] apologized profusely, looking at him bashfully. "It won't happen again! I was just looking at the winter gala information and the themes for the night," she lied hoping to save her skin. 

"Hmm really?"

"Yep, just wanted to make sure we had everything we needed before I went to talk to Earl about getting some potential sample art pieces for the gala."

There was a grimace on his face when she said that, and she noticed it would appear whenever they talked about his curator. She didn't know why, but he seemed to not really liked the man which was so very strange. He did hire him after all. 

"Then why do you only have the lunch menu of the Savoy's grill and memos from print media on your desk?"

She looked down and those were exactly the things on her desk. Well, would you look at that.

"I-I uhm…I got hungry?" 

If he fired her for that, he would very much be in the right for it as she watched him close his eyes, his lips going into a thin line before he let out air through his nose. 

She was about to lose her job wasn't she? So long any chance of her getting to date him. As if there were any in the first place.

"It is about time isn't it," Lionel spoke as he opened his eyes, and glanced down at his watch, and back to [Y/n] who was trying to not gawk at him.

What.

"But before that, I need you to find Earl." Another grimace. "And do indeed tell him about the samples, I rather have this done sooner than later so we can fix any mess ups that happen."

"Don't have any faith in him do you?"

"Barely," he groused, annoyance clear on his features as he rolled his eyes. "I'm not sure why I even keep him on, the quality of his work has been declining for a while now and as you know, I have no time to suffer fools. Especially with the growth that’s happening with the company."

She did. Which made her cheer knowing she wasn't a fool, at least because she was still here.

"Well everyone has their slumps sometimes Lionel," [Y/n] responded, actually dragging up the memos and notes from the board members with their requests and preferences for the gala. "Maybe he's just having one right now? He did help with curating the spring gala this year, and there were a lot of compliments from the board and others, so maybe he's rebounding?"

"The spring gala?" He huffed in exasperation at that memory, and she couldn't help but feel a rant coming on. "You mean after you had to intervene after seeing him show up with a collection of expressionism paintings rather than surrealism after he mixed up which storage room he went into?"

That had been a whole debacle, and she’d never seen Lionel turn that red with anger. The heat had practically radiated off of him as he glared at poor Earl who was bumbling his apologies while [Y/n] tried to calm Lionel. 

"If it wasn't for you it would have been a  bloody disaster!" 

Eh, he did have a point. But she liked Earl pretty well, and he seemed mostly competent. Mostly competent, was well below Lionel's standards though.

"I'll take the compliment, but I'll make sure I'm clear with Earl this time about what we need," she smiled, garnering a similar look from him that made her stomach feel all funny.

He had a very nice smile. 

"Good, other than your daydreaming," he started, causing her to want to squirm in embarrassment, "you've clearly been a better hire than my previous assistant," Lionel mused as his features softened, his eyes watching her intently making  her to feel a bit shy under his gaze. "I'm not one for silly praise, your compensation should be enough for that." 

It was. Quite generous actually. 

"But I do hope you stay on for as long as possible, I do quite like seeing you every day, and appreciate how thorough your work is."

If her face wasn't on fire from earlier when he had shown up next to her suddenly, it sure was now. Something else was on fire as well. Leave it up to her to turn his praise into something more. 

"Thank you Lionel, I hope I can keep satisfying you with my work."

"Oh, I'm sure you will." He replied, flashing a smirk at her that many a woman before had fallen for, and she was not ashamed to be another on the list. "Now," he cleared his throat, "before you talk to Earl, I think lunch is waiting for us. That is if you care to join me today?"

"Yes please!"

"Get. Out." 

He was hot and fuming, but his words were as chilly as the London air this time of the year. Actually, they may have been colder. 

Add the way she had never seen someone run from his office like this, and she had seen some people powerwalk out the door mind you, and she knew they were in a shitty place.

Six weeks until the gala and the ball had been dropped and bad. Earl was out, and they were left with a steaming pile of turd, Lionel's words not hers. But it was very much what it was. 

"Lionel I've called, Andrew, Catherine, James and Holly but all of them are either booked with work or out of the country and won't be able to make it."

"What about Martin?"

"I left a message with Mr. Zaidenweber's assistant, but she said he had just started work with another client and won't be able to fit it into his schedule with such short notice."

"Bloody damn!" He hissed, slamming his hand on the desk, causing some of the items on it to shake and fall. One of the victims, was a little globe that rolled off it and onto the floor as it made its way towards where [Y/n] was standing. "I should have fired him months ago!" He spat, as he leaned over his desk to look at the samples that were left , and it seemed to make him even more furious as he swiped them onto the floor with force. The sound of the pages crinkling filled the air with a ‘woosh’ as he did that.

"And now I'm going to look like an absolute fool to these people because of that little prat!" 

Grabbing the little globe that rolled towards her before it tapped the sole of her shoe, she brought it back to his desk, sitting it down before backing away. She could feel the fury radiating off of him, and rightfully so, considering all the important people who were supposed to be coming to talk business. 

While she wasn't extremely savvy in all of that, only knowing bits and bobs from what Lionel told her, and a bit of research she had to do when clients were coming. She knew appearances were everything, and taking into account what people liked and didn't like was important. 

And Earl had mucked up terribly it seemed, after mishearing what she had said, even though she had sent him memo after memo with what was needed. In a way, it made her feel like it was her fault even logically it wasn't. Still, though, he had entrusted her with that task, and from where she was at right now she felt like a great big failure.

"I'm so sorry Lionel!" She blurted out, her head dropping to look at the floor, hoping to avoid his anger and also to avoid him seeing how her eyes began to gloss.  

A familiar pang in her chest attempted to crawl up her throat, and she tried to keep it down as she had no intention of crying in front of him.

There was a beat of silence before he answered, and when he did, his voice was filled with utter confusion because what was she talking about? 

"I'm sorry?" A look of bewilderment appeared on his face that she couldn't see, and with the tone of his voice going up from his norm, it made her want to hide. "What are you going on about [Y/n]? I don't pay you to curate art though at this point I may have to!" 

"It's just, I-I was the one who said Earl would be fine doing it," she explained shakily as she fidgeted with her fingers. "Even during lunch that one time. I tried to convince you of it…and now he's gone and botched it! I know the board is going to have something to say if things don't go right. And it's not gone right…just because I couldn't keep my mouth shut." 

The room was quiet for a moment before the sound of his shoes tapping against the floor echoed around the space as he approached her. With each step, she felt her heart drop further into her stomach. All that joking around about losing her job, but this time, she might really lose it. 

Head still bowed, even when she felt him standing in front of her, she was jolted when she felt a hand wrap around her forearm, and a finger lifting her head up to look at him.

His lips were drawn into a frown, but the look in his eyes was devoid of anger. Especially now, when he saw her eyes that were rimmed red, which caused a look of concern to etch itself onto his face

"[Y/n] once again you have things arse backwards," Lionel huffed, but gently. "I hired you to run around and make sure the others have their orders, not, to do their work! Not only that, I can assure you I have no intention of blaming anyone for the decisions I make. And it was my decision to let him continue on. So enough of that, I don't enjoy your tears being wasted on something silly like this." 

"B-But I-."

"[Y/n]." His voice was stern, and she quickly shut her mouth not one to back talk him. That seemed to placate him considering the pleased smile on his face before a thoughtful one took over.

"Good. Mow that we are on the same page, I need to make a call, I think I may have a solution. But well, we will see," he explained as he removed his finger from under her chin, which caused disappointment to rise in her chest. Though the one on her arm stayed and she wasn't in a hurry to move it. 

She was hopeless wasn't she?

"Why don't you go and have lunch while I make a call, darling."

Darling? 

That was a first. But she wasn't gonna complain about it either as he didn't even seem phased by what he had said. 

For a moment, she wondered if he had even realized what had come out of his mouth. But he gave no hint of whether or not he did, and she could only do so much to hold back the grin that wanted to break through..

"Sure! Should I bring you back your usual?"

"Yes, that will be fine."

Giving him a smile, they stood in the same spot for a moment, his hand still on her arm as they gazed at one another before [Y/n] made the first move.

"W-well I'll be back and hopefully to some good news," she rambled, as she stepped back from his hold, which caused him to let go of her.  

Already she missed his touch, but they had things to do, his was probably more important by hey so was eating. 

Watching her go on her way, Lionel bit his bottom lip as she left all while he lingered in the middle of the room. His thoughts filled with a plan that he was sure to work, but also with thoughts of [Y/n]. 

His sweet, caring, brilliant, hard working assistant, who was also extremely alluring, so much so he would be remiss to compare her to the paintings he had. Oh no, she was much more stunning than those paintings. 

And like the collector he was, he wanted to collect her. Maybe even have her in his permanent collection…

The only problem was he couldn't tell if she was as interested in him as he was her. But with the way she let him touch her, and how she seemed to hold back when he called her that little pet name, maybe there was a chance. 

A smirk graced his lips at the thought of having her all for himself, but it would have to wait, because he had a gala that needed curating for, and no curator. And that just would not do.

So, he made his way to his desk and took his seat behind it. His back facing the glass window that showed a busy plaza in the middle of London as he picked up his desk phone and dialed a familiar number.

It rang a few times before the receiver was picked up on the other end, and a much to happy sounding voice came through the phone almost shouting.

"Li! What a surprise! You never call me at work without an appointment! And right before lunch too. Everything alright?"

"Quite alright, yes, but Sinclair, I need a favor." 

A/N: What's next? Who knows : D ( I do hehe)

[theamityelf]

Hajime and Izuru being separate people and both liking Makoto is so choice.

Like, maybe Hope's Peak just used samples of Hajime's cells to make Izuru, separately from Hajime. Hajime doesn't know what they did with those samples until a guy who looks almost exactly like him shows up on campus one day, apparently talented in every way.

Hajime is mad, and lowkey devastated, that the program he signed up for that was supposed to give him a talent just made another version of him to be talented.

Makoto finds out about the Kamukura Project and the fact that Hajime signed up for something like that, and they have to deal with that. What do you mean you signed up to let them experiment on you? You mean they could have actually turned you into that guy? Hajime, genuinely, are you okay? They need to talk. Hajime needs to open up.

Maybe, for drama, Izuru has all of Hajime's memories in addition to all his own talents. It genuinely seems like he's just Better Hajime, to anyone who values talent over humanity. Hajime has to deal so directly with his beliefs about his own value. He has to look at this guy who is almost literally him-but-with-talent, and he has to be able to say "I still deserve to exist as I am."

Also, obligatory "Izuru cuts his hair and tries to take Hajime's place".

[qm-vox]

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

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

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

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

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

Without further ado, let us begin with...

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

We begin the obligatory text wall.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm not fucking bitter, you are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That said, let's actually talk about Cleric.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which brings us, at long last, to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Pratchett quotes will continue until morale improves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Playing With The Big Boys Now - Cleric Aesthetics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm not bitter, you're bitter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The People In The Important Pajamas - "Cleric" NPCs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, without further ado, may I present:

The Chosen Many - Sample Clerics

Our sample Clerics will be formatted as follows:

[NAME]

Species Domain Cleric [Background]

General pitch of their concept & plot hooks

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

Matthias Winters

Human Death Cleric [Guild Artisan]

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

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

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

Elrissa Morrowmoon

Drow War Cleric [Soldier]

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

She was answered.

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

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

Gemma Rivergard

Half-Elf Forge Cleric [Noble]

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

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

…Surely not?

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

Neela Wagonborn

Halfling Trickery Cleric [Haunted One]

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

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

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

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

Fila Firetouched

High Elf Tempest Cleric [Entertainer]

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

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

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

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

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

Nattie Kells

Human Order Cleric [Hermit]

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

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

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

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

Dagill Tapper

Shield Dwarf Knowledge Cleric [Background]

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

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

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

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

St. Nokta Kinslayer

Goblin Life Cleric [Outlander]

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

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

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

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

Jelka Threebones

Orc Grave Cleric [Acolyte]

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

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

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

Kellard Frosthalt

Rock Gnome Nature Cleric [Folk Hero]

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

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

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

Dolly Bookchild

Half-Drow Peace Cleric [Investigator]

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

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

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

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

Jonas Cobbler

Aasimar Light Cleric [Urchin]

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

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

...Lathander.

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

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

Freddie Wright

Human Twilight Cleric [Criminal]

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

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

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

[halloween4life]

Sanders Sides Animal headcanons because I'm bored

I've been having a lot of thoughts about how Janus and Patton canonically have like, animal traits/feature. While Virgil and Remus only really have animals they're associated with as opposed to canon traits (as far as I'm aware/remember). And how Logan and Roman have no animal associations (again as far as I'm aware/remember). So I'm making headcanons for them organized from most to least 'canon' (in terms of the characters)

(also these are all with the intent of the sides being "humans with animal traits" as opposed to them like, animorphing)

Patton

Can jump the highest out of all the sides it's actually kinda scary

He can turn his legs into frog legs to jump even higher like my guy you do NOT need to be doing all that

He will eat bugs and he hates that fact about himself. One time while cooking dinner there was a fly in the room and he just, grabbed it and ate it without a second thought. He then proceeded to completely give up on life for the next 5 hours.

Virgil tried to bond with him over this and it only made things worse for both of them I think.

On a lighter note I think he makes ribbits and chirping sounds when he's happy or excited

but he will start croaking when he's in any kind of distress

He does have spots on his body, mostly on his back

Janus

I dont care what anyone says this I'm giving this man a rattlesnake tail

The tail isn't always visible like his scales, it's something he retract so he doesn't have to constantly deal with it. Honestly most of his traits that aren't his scales he can chose whether to present them or not

Definitely venomous but he doesn't really know why it does. (Logan was studying the sides' animal features and once he found out bout this, asked for a sample of his venom and proceeded to down it like a shot for research purposes. Neither of them had a good time that day)

Anyway his venom is basically an anesthetic, it will knock you out. (or in Logan's case make you horribly sick for the next 3 hours) (these headcanons were thought of before the latest incorrect quotes video I'm just that good)

Remus

He gives me blue ring octopus vibes

His body is definitely covered in ring patterns, generally they're kinda faded and look like old scares but he can make them more prominent and colorful

Also venomous, I think it would be a paralytic because something something sleep paralysis

Only has 6 tentacles 😔

His tentacles protrude from his back in basically the same way/places as Janus' arms

He can and will fit through any gap imaginable because no bones. He once forced his way through the gap under Virgil's door and he(Virgil) still has nightmares about it

he can regenerate his tentacles, this is often a result of his chopping them off for sushi jokes

Virgil

I feel like he's kinda a tarantula but I'm scared of spiders so I'm not very picky about the specifics

He also only has 6 spider legs (arms?)

They ALSO come out of his back in the same way as Remus and Janus' limbs

Can climb walls

CAN produce webs, but the come out of his fingers (sorry Remus), and they're a very light purple and kinda shimmery

He has sharp teeth, sorry I take no criticism

He does actually have fangs and chelicerae but he tries not to present those as much as it's definitely kinda freaky

Also willing to eat bugs 😔

oh oh oh he has stripes on his arms (horizontal)

HE HAS MULTIPLE EYES

Logan

He's definitely a bird

I know a lot of people make him either a crow or raven (which I totally understand), but I feel like he would be an owl, specifically a barn owl but that may just be the Mexican in me talking

Because of that, this man is dead silent when he moves, and has accidently given everyone heart attacks on multiple occasions

His wings are massive like you would not believe

I don't think he particularly cares for his wings much (i.e. grooming and preening), both because it's a really long and tedious process but also he kinda doesn't see the value in having animal traits, because of this he also doesn't really present his traits as much

He does grow feathers on different parts of his body, most notably on his chest/neck area, he's very self conscious about it

he can fully black out his eyes but it's not actually black it's just a really dark blue

Not really an animal traits hc, but Logan has absolutely gone to each of the sides like "I would like to study you 👁👁"

He does sometimes have very odd body language vecause of this, like he just kinda moves around weird (honestly just watch a video with a barn owl moving around and you'll see what I mean

OH he can turn his head around 270°, usually he uses this to scare the shit out of one of the sides if they are standing behind him

Roman

I'm gonna need yall to hear me out on this one but I feel like if Roman was gonna be associated with any animal it would be a deer

I'm specifically thinking a white tailed deer (not initially conceived as a Bambi reference)

He has bright red antlers and loooves presenting them once their freshly shed (fun fact deers shed their antlers)

That being said, he is actually super self conscious when he's shedding the velvet of his antlers (if you are squeamish about blood don't look it up) because it is 'gross and scary.' For a while Remus was the only one who knew about this.

He has a deer tail sorry I take no criticism

The fastest runner of the sides

he really enjoys just running around, like bro is actually the frolicer

He actually has a very faint darker patch of skin running up from the tip of his nose to his whole forehead (it sounds weird to explain in words but yall are just gonna have to trust me on this)

He has light spots on his back like how baby white tailed deer do

[halsinsnaturepocket]

WIP Wednesday - Help me decide where to go with my Fic

Help me make a decision on the direction of my fic Yearning for a Taste I'm going to post what I have so far under the cut. Consider it a teaser, or a chapter 1 with a cliffhanger. (This is a bit that might make it into my longifc, but I'm playing around with it as a oneshot with a generic femme Tav because I think its hot and can go in a few different directions and I'd like to explore those directions.) Think of it as a choose-your-own-adventure fic and the final piece will be posted on Ao3 reblogging for sample size / commenting&tagging with suggestions is always encouraged :3 MINORS DNI

Summary:

After one night in the shadow-cursed lands, Halsin is in his tent minding his own business reading a book when he hears Tav allowing Astarion to feed on her but it becomes….more.

Halsin hears the whole thing and is trying to be Normal about it, but the poor elf has been pent up for so long and is trying to focus on lifting the curse...but alas, he has needs.  CW: Voyerism, dirty talk, Astarion feeding on Tav

Halsin was lying in his tent, using a bedroll to prop himself up as he read one of the books Tav had managed to find during her travels. A book on mindflayer anatomy - a fascinating read, bringing him further insights into the threat they were facing. His attention was so focused he almost didn’t hear the sounds of two people meeting up near his tent. Unfortunately for him, his hearing was rather keen, and the secluded clearing he had settled in blocked out most of the noises from camp, but not the sounds of anyone in the clearing.

“Gods you're such a little freak,” he heard one voice purr. “You're so good to me, sitting in my lap, letting me feed on you.” The praise was followed by the sound of lips smacking against skin followed by a soft moan – he recognized those voices. 

“Did you want more, darling?” Astarion’s voice was silken, lined with hazy lust. “Or did you just want to be my little snack for the evening?”

“You’re sure you saw Halsin go towards the north of camp?” She heard her whisper.  That was most definitely Tav, her soft voice was very distinctive. There was nobody else that voice could belong to.

“Almost positive, my dear. There’s no light on in his tent either, he’s probably off meditating or whatever it is he gets up to.”

They were quiet for a moment. It was true, he had wandered to the north of camp earlier in the evening, but while everyone was enjoying a meal by the fire, he had returned to his tent, rather exhausted from trying desperately to commune with whatever living things he could find in the shadow-blighted village that surrounded them. There wasn’t much, and his efforts had expended quite a bit of his magic. 

“NNnnf…Don't stop…” Her voice was barely a whisper, a near-silent plea. 

Halsin squirmed uncomfortably in his tent. Of all the people to have a liaison behind his tent…it had to be these two. From the sounds of it, Astarion was drinking from her neck, his hands likely snaking beneath her clothes, pleasuring her…

Halsin was desperately trying not to listen in. He had been pent up for so long, and the two of them had tried a few times to bed him; it had taken everything in him not to give in. He was glad they sought company with each other, but did it need to be right outside of his tent? There was a pause in their sounds, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Hopefully they were through. Hopefully he would just bite her and be done with it. 

His hopes were futile as he heard a soft gasp escape from Tav. “Astarion–gods that feels so good.” 

“Breathe a bit deeper for me darling - that's it.” He heard Astarion coax. “Good girl, that's my good little treat. You're so nice and wet for me…” 

Halsin turned on his side, his back towards their sounds as he tried desperately to focus on the words swimming around the page of his book, trying to ignore the sound of the two of them, but it proved…difficult. Her stifled moans were stirring emotions he had been trying to suppress for far too long. Both Tav and Astarion had long since held his attention - maybe it was just the kindred feeling of being around two other elves, or maybe it was more…He didn't want to think about it. He had to stay focused on his goals, the shadowcurse lurked right outside the edge of their camp. He couldn't entertain such frivolous thoughts of companionship —

A loud moan interrupted his thoughts. 

“Bite me again, Astarion.” 

“With pleasure.” He heard him murmur, followed by the sound of Tav hissing from the sting of being bit, followed by another soft moan. 

“Gods you taste so sweet when you're on the edge…cum for me darling. Cum while I drain you dry.”

Halsin froze, recalling the sensation of Astarion’s fangs when he sunk into his flesh. He had allowed the spawn to feed on him once or twice when Tav was too exhausted. It was an intimate experience, to say the least. Silvanus forgive him, but it must feel amazing at the precipice of pleasure, to be on the edge of pure ecstasy and feel yourself shaking with the cold chill of life being drained—fuck. He turned his attention back to his book. "Many curious scholars have noted the illithid's disdain for arcane magic, yet do not understand the reasons behind it. In traditional illithid circles--" Yes, quite interesting, to find that illithids were weak to magic. He had noted the tadpole he studied had reacted to arcane magic when used on it. He had read this same sentence at least 4 times now.

“Oh gods, fuck, Astarion!” He heard Tav cry. They weren't even trying to be quiet anymore. 

He couldn’t avoid it any longer. The familiar sensation of arousal gripped at his senses as he felt his heartbeat quicken and his trousers grow tighter. If they kept this up for much longer he’d have to find a way to relieve the tension himself.

“Shhh… my love you'll wake up the whole camp at this rate,” he said, a twinge of teasing laced with lust spilled from his voice. 

Halsin had always wondered what sounds Tav would make…he'd heard her laugh, cry…her sneeze even. He savored the sound of her moving, of humming to herself. Her battlecry, her happiness…they were all so beautiful. But the sounds of her ecstasy…he didn't realize they could sound so sweet. 

“Don't make me gag you darling.” He heard her moans become muffled, as though a hand had come to cover her mouth…likely exactly what was happening. 

Halsin gritted his teeth, picturing the image of Tav tied up his vines, a thin cloth gagging her. And then the thought of her entwined in the pale elf, one hand over her mouth while the other was plunging himself into her sopping wet cunt while a trickle of blood from his fangs runs down her neck… He couldn't help himself. A groan escaped from him. He stifled himself, a worried hand covering his mouth, trying not to let the longing into the sound that dared escape his throat.

The sounds stopped. Utter silence. The silent eeriness from the shadowlands was not helping. 

“Shit–Astarion you said he wandered off to the north of camp, is Halsin IN HIS TENT?”  He heard Tav whisper angrily. They had heard him. Hopefully…this would pass, and it would never be brought up again. 

“I–ugh, I don't know, Tav, I thought I saw him leave his tent. What's it matter anyway?…I'm sure he’s enjoying the show. If he was so inclined he could join if he wants. Though, perhaps he’s deep in a trance.”

“Gods…damned it Astarion—” She moaned loudly. 

‘Should I stop?” He asked. 

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 莲花楼/Mysterious Lotus Casebook

Mysterious Lotus Casebook is a 2023 drama about a beautiful twunk who just wants to die of his chronic illness in peace, except that neither the dumbass purebred dog of a man who has decided they're best friends now nor the jock begging him for a rematch are going to let him go without a fight (in the latter's case, literally).

Also they ride around in a magical bamboopunk RV.

I have referred to it elsewhere as "the CW presents: Nirvana in Fire," and I stand by that assessment. (I orginally called it Tiger Beat Nirvana in Fire, before realizing that Kids These Days will not get that reference. Shout out to the other elder millennials in the audience!)

There's been a lot of English-speaking fandom buzz about this show, to the point where if you're in these circles, I'm sure you've heard about it before. I know I had by the time I started watching -- which left me largely unprepared for the actual viewing experience, because the parts of the show that fans talk about are not a representative sample of the show itself.

This drama can be a good time. It's fun to watch. It has some hilarious beats and also some emotional moments. It spent its not-huge budget very smartly, and as such is generally quite lovely to look at. As my League of Nobleman rec will attest, I appreciate raw materials, and this is a show that has some fascinating raw materials.

(Or some materials that need to get rawed, take your pick.) (Also, it's not my fault they didn't do a dramatically lit Fang Duobing shot so I could round out the trio here.)

You'll find some people out there who've gone real hard for this show, doing some deep analyses and getting really emotional over it. I don't want my gentle ribbing to give the impression that those silly fans are delusionally talking like the show's a five-star restaurant when it's really just a fast food joint. Not so! There's a reason it's captivated a whole lot of people! And in case you might be one of those, allow me to give you five reasons you should consider watching it.

1. This bitch

The main character, Li Lianhua/Li Xiangyi is probably 50% of the show's appeal all by himself. He's fascinating. He's gender. He's fashion. He's been afflicted with a substance we called "bitch poison" the whole time we were watching. He has many emotions. He cries a lot. He coughs up blood every other episode. Cheng Yi is putting his whole lianhuassy into this performance, and it shows.

I made the Nirvana in Fire comparison earlier, and I stand by it for a lot of reasons, but the truth is that he's actually much more Opposite Day Mei Changsu: Li Lianhua wants all this stuff to fuck off and leave him alone forever. He is not seeking vengeance, nor does he particularly want to Do Schemes, but Circumstances keep dragging him back into the thick of all this nonsense he thought he left behind when he (mostly) died ten years ago.

The thing is, he used to be a real dick back when he was a kid. And I mean a real dick. He was a dick to his chronically insecure adoptive older brother. He was a dick to his girlfriend with the personality of wet tissue paper. He was a dick to the handsome loser who liked his girlfriend. He was a dick to his followers. He was basically just a cocky little shithead who thought he was the best at everything -- and he actually was the best at everything, which just made it worse.

Li Xiangyi used to think everything (especially himself) was sooooo important, and now that life has massively kicked his ass, Li Lianhua had come around to the position that nothing is actually that important, so let's just all chill and grow vegetables. He doesn't want a rematch. He doesn't want to retake his rightful place as the head of anything. He just wants to pay his respects to the dead before he joins them.

Now will everybody please just stop moving into his house.

2. goof-ass jianghu nonsense (affectionate)

As I mentioned earlier, everything I'd seen about the show on Tumblr had still left me absolutely unprepared for what a silly ride it is. Because it's silly. Hoo boy, is it silly. My wife dubbed it "lace front Phoenix Wright," just to give you a metric for how silly we're talking. Ace Detective Fang Duobing never cross-examined a parrot, but I feel he came close.

This show has some serious goof-ass jianghu nonsense -- you know, the sort of stuff that's impossible and ridiculous, except everybody’s going to treat it like it's just a normal part of existence. Here's a short and certainly inexhaustive list:

mind-controlling bugs

other bugs that control the mind-controlling bugs

ex-conjoined twins

a grown-ass man who can compress himself into bitchy third-grader

grave-robbing societies with secret brag language

so much nonconsensual qi-blocking performed by poking people in the boobs, that can't be safe, everybody wear thicker shirts

magical crossdressing powers

a bad guy who looks like this

a princess who can get abducted and sex-trafficked and, like, nobody really notices? huh.

healing childhood paralysis by the power of believing in yourself

a ... hallucination pit? what was that, anyway?

so. many. mechanisms.

the equivalent of the "he's only mostly dead" business from the Princess Bride

a gradually lethal bookshelf

the strange amnesia everyone suffers from where a dude can cover maybe 30% of his face and render himself immediately unrecognizable to long-time friends and associates

The thing is: I think this goof-ass jianghu nonsense is a legitimate selling point. I found it so fun. I turned off my need for show elements to obey little things like the laws of physics, and I had a good time. It can be a very funny drama, in part because it knows how silly a lot of its shit is, and it chooses to go full speed ahead with a sincere heart. If you are down for some shounen absurdity, you are in for a treat.

However:

2.2. goof-ass jianghu nonsense (derogatory)

I'm granting myself a sub-point here, because this is an important qualifier for the previous point.

I'm going to assume, based on what I've seen from fan responses, that many of the people who really like this show actually don't like the goof-ass jianghu nonsense. They are here for the BL vibes (after all, there are three cute boys who alll have some intense emotions about one another), and therefore downplay all the parts that aren't that. I want to make it clear that this is not a bad thing to do. There are many, many properties where I myself fixate on a single element and toss the rest into the sea. No judgment here.

However, since this is a post written to convine you to watch something, I want to make it clear what you're going to get if you dive in. If you're one of those people who skips scenes and/or entire episodes when your ship of choice isn't onscreen, you're probably going to be doing that a lot here. (I mean, I can't imagine doing this, but Tumblr has taught me that fandom is a rich tapestry.) The bones are good, but the connective tissue can be questionable.

The main thing I wish I'd known before starting is that the mysteries are not the selling point. They are the celery that gets the cute boy peanut butter to your mouth. You, the viewer, absolutely cannot solve them; you're never given enough context or information to keep up with the detective lads, much less get ahead of them. Everyone does everything in the most convoluted way possible, to the point of comic absurdity. Finding out whodunnit is rarely that satisfying, because too often the culprit is Jianghu Steve, You Know, That Guy Over There With The Superpower The Characters All Know About But You'd Never Heard Of Before Thirty Seconds Ago.

The goof-ass jianghu nonsense feels like the place where the show I see fans talking about least lines up with the show that actually exists. And I think that's a shame, because I think the show that actually exists is actually a good time! It's just, you know ... silly.

3. Whenever Di Feisheng's not onscreen, all the other characters should be asking, 'Where's Di Feisheng?

This drama gets sold like it's the adventures of three guys together. (Hell, I kind of did it myself in the intro.) This is not the case. This is the tale of two guys who do most of the plot stuff near one another, and their occasional third, Di Feisheng.

This is a 40-episode series and I swear this guy's onscreen for maybe 15% of the time -- and for half of that, he's just off doing his own thing anyway. He disappears entirely for huge chunks of the series, which is a crime, because he is my absolute favorite.

He is the rare grumpy himbo. He doesn't just have resting bitchface, he has bitchface for all occasions. He somehow has bitchface even during the rare moments he actually smiles. He's got a whole traumatic backstory, but the traumatic backstory is not the reason for the bitchface. He's Just Like That.

(Important to note that the actor himself only slightly has a resting bitchface. Xiao Shunyao can look normal and indeed quite pleasant. He has simply leaned into it real hard for this grouch.)

The one -- one -- reason I can accept his being gone for so ding-dang much of the show is how often he re-emerges with perfect, hilarious timing. Thank goodness the show realizes how much comedic potential his character has, because his unexpected entrances are some of the best laugh-out-loud moments of the series. If the show had taken Di Feisheng as seriously as Di Feisheng takes himself, he would have been unbearable. As it is, he's an unmitigated delight.

While you losers were being heterosexual, he studied the blade.

He makes the perfect foil for both Fang Duobing, who's the human equivalent of a puppy trying to gnaw an elephant to death, and Li Lianhua, who just wants to be excused from this narrative. Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing are basically two dogs fighting over their favorite toy, and their favorite toy is Li Lianhua, who really wishes he weren't. Some of the most compelling and fun moments of the series are when these three losers are all together.

And these three losers are barely all together.

This show is Not Danmei. It's so Not Danmei that I had a tremendously difficult time while making this post finding either official images or screencaps with even two of them in frame at the same time, much less all three. It is, however, a Danmei Starter Kit. I mean, the tag on AO3 has, at present, 742 works in it (283 in English). That's just since July! There are years-old c-drama shows that have a fraction of that fan output! And I'm willing to bet a big reason why is how little the very intense boys with ridiculously compelling interpersonal dynamics actually interact onscreen.

But, I hear you asking, why would less of what the fans want equal more fan goo? Well, friends, that's exactly what the fan goo is for: filling in the blanks. And this here show has a lot of blanks. Look, I've made a very scientific diagram (that many people seem to agree with) about how this all works:

The Hump of Compelling Mediocrity is the place where the amount of stuff worth thinking about far outpaces what the show actually contains of said stuff textually. It is the ideal location for imagination adventures.

Di Feisheng and Li Lianhua's relationship in particular lives right in the middle of that hump, what with the huge gaps in their backstory and all. They are a pair made entirely of unanswered questions. What the hell is going on there? What's their whole history, beyond the big fight? Why are they like this about one another? The show refuses to say. Whatever you imagine, you're correct. Now go tell AO3 about it.

interlude: God's perfect dipshit

I feel like I'm engaging in Fang Duobing erasure in the rest of this post, since he's not at the tip of any of the points I'm making, so I'm going to add a picture of him here, because I love him and want to pinch his perfect little cheeks.

You know what I am shocked by? How the MLC/DMBJ reincarnation fics apparently have not taken hold yet. I give it another two months.

4. IT HAS A DOG

FOX SPIRIT, MY SWEET BABY

'You mean the dog gets a whole selling point to himself' yes the dog gets a whole selling point to himself, because he is a very good dog and a very good boy (and his actor is a very good girl)

Apparently he has a whole backstory in the novel that never gets included in the drama, including an explanation of why he's named "Fox Spirit," if you feel like going and reading up on that.

Sadly, Fox Spirit is in the show even less than Di Feisheng is, and that is a crime, because he could have solved all these silly human mysteries in thirty minutes flat, Wishbone-style.

Dogs are so good.

5. One bad, bad girl

Do you like an unhinged villainess? Someone who's been sucking down Crazy Juice since beat one? Because oh boy, this show's got one of those for you.

Jiao Liqiao wants two things: to rule the world, and to make Di Feisheng her pretty little housewife. And whomst among us does not understand these two impulses?

She's not even the Big Bad! She's mostly just Di Feisheng's personal nightmare. She is the type of woman for whom the phrase "he's just not that into you" was coined. You've got everyone around her telling her, honey, I don't even think I've ever seen him look at a pair of breasts, while she's already planned their whole wedding menu and reserved the venue.

She has spent the last ten years of Di Feisheng's extended vacation making sure she's the one who's actually in charge, functioning as the point person for all the other evil schemes going on. Instead of handing over the reins upon her himbo boss' return, she's just going to keep doing what she's good at. As long as he keeps doing exactly what she wants him to do, she's gonna let him do it. If he gets out of line, well, there's always Plan B (the B stands for Breaking all of his tendons and making the world's surliest RealDoll).

I love the fact that she's so obviously evil, and he can't see it. To a certain point, it's not his fault -- everyone who serves under him is pretty obviously evil, so that doesn't make her special. But she's real evil even above and beyond that, and his dumb ass can't stop thinking about Li Lianhua long enough to notice any of the hundred or so knives she's aimed right at his back. He's so uninterested in her constant advances that he doesn't register how wanting to fuck someone and wanting to overthrow someone are not mutually exclusive desires.

(Was I bothered throughout most of the series by how her lipstick should be a little more crimson and a little less coral? Yes, but I'm not going to hold it against her. She's busy doing evil stuff. She'll get over to the nearest Jianghu Sephora and restock one of these days.)

While the show occasionally sidelines or straight-up forgets about a lot of its supporting characters for several episodes at a time, it never forgets to check in on what Jiao Liqiao's up to. Claws out, hair done, she is at all times a constant glorious, scenery-chewing menace with excellent taste in terrible men. Absolute legend.

Bonus: These two sluts

They don't get to be a full point because they're not nearly in the show enough, but just look at them. This is peak male character design. Slutty undone hair and slutty bare forearms, be still my bisexual heart.

Going to give it a try?

iQiyi's got you exclusively, baby.

Have I sounded a little defensive in this rec? Yeah, probably. It's just that I know there's a big and pretty intense fandom out there for this already, and I feel like a jerk coming in and being like "sure, it's fun!" when people are posting about how it made them cry for weeks. I want to be clear that that's not a bad reaction to have, while at the same time also being clear that that's not the reaction I had.

I might not even have written this rec, had I not been nudged to -- not because I don't think it's worth watching (I clearly do!), but because I don't know how much help it needs from the likes of me. There are plenty of other evangelists out there that'll give much more enthusiastic recommendations (like this one).

But the truth is that not every show has to be a heartbreaking work of staggering genius to everyone. I watched the show, and I liked it, and I had a normal time.

I also think there's something to the way I watched it, which was: one episode per day, schedule permitting, such that it took nearly two months for me to finish it. (And before you think I singled MLC out for this, this is actually how I watch most c-dramas.) I bet binging it is a way different experience, one where what rises more readily to the top is the tragic throughline of Li Lianhua's whole deal. If you're inclined to skip things not immediately germane to your points of interest, this is definitely the show to take at a solid run.

I actually paused in the middle of making this rec and made the one for the Blood of Youth, because the two invite comparisons: jianghu tales with chronically ill protagonists, some imperial bullshit going on, pretty boys with swords being weird about one another. Mysterious Lotus Casebook did not grab me as hard as the Blood of Youth, because MLC went for a more understated take on all its nonsense, instead of shooting completely over the top, which is how I prefer my nonsense (as the record will show). If you take your silliness with a subtler flavor, this could be the perfect thing for you.

Maybe you'll wind up being one of those people who gets their whole insides totally ripped out by this drama! But even if you don't, you're probably going to have a good time watching it anyway. And really, what more can you ask for from a show than that?

Peace, nerds.

[literallyjustanerd]

Clone Wars Hospital AU Headcanons

Forgive me my shameless indulgence, but years of working in a hospital has given me Thoughts™ so just for some stupid fun: Welcome to the GHR: the Grand Hospital of the Republic! Where the Jedi are doctors, the clones are nurses, and the padawans are interns

501st battalion: Paediatrics

212th battalion: Maternity

104th battalion: Gen-Med

327th battalion: Orthopedics

Corrie Guard: Emergency Department

Headcanons below:

Paediatrics: Ward 501, Paediatrician Dr Anakin Skywalker

The ward is split on loving or hating Anakin, there's no in between

He's great with the kids though, the patients love him

Rex is the unit manager who has more experience than Anakin despite Anakin “outranking” him

Has to gently steer Anakin back on track and wearily remind him not to make orders just to spite other doctors

Constant happy music playing in the ward, everyone has fun accessories and brightly coloured scrubs

Fives and Echo are the most senior nurses and also the worst influences

Together they can cannulate a kid without them even noticing but also they're the ones shit-talking the annoying/unhelpful parents in the nurses' station five minutes later

If the kids are extra good, Jesse lets them colour in his tattoo

Dogma and Tup are the new grads - Tup is great with the kids, gentle and always gets them smiling, Dogma makes them cry no matter how hard he tries

Kix is NICU-trained and somehow still remembers every single piece of anatomy and physiology from training. Unparallelled medication knowledge. He’s the one all the student nurses want to be paired with

Ahsoka is on her paediatric rotation under Anakin's instruction

She's the intern the nurses give their feedback and requests to when they don't want to talk to Anakin, because they know Anakin will listen to Ahsoka over them

Maternity: Ward 212, Obstetrician Dr Obi-Wan Kenobi

Obi-Wan works closely with Anakin, refers most of his clients there for their child’s care

Anakin did rotations with him in training, Obi-Wan sometimes forgets that he's now a fully registered doctor and will still try to instruct/encourage him

Obi-Wan has borrowed Ahsoka for days in clinic or in the birthing unit, during which time the nurses will spend their entire shift trying to convince her to come to their unit instead

Obi-Wan is beloved by the nurses because he actually asks them for their input, unlike SOME doctors who just give orders (Anakin)

Did you catch him talking to the unit manager after handover this morning?? Hardcore flirting at 7:05am?? Cody was definitely into it

Cody is one of the most involved unit managers - he’s on the floor with the other nurses most days, always staying overtime and pulling double shifts to help keep things running smoothly

Waxer and Boil are considered bad luck charms - whenever they’re rostered on the same shift, things will always go to shit

God forbid either of them mentions it being “nice” or “quiet” on any given day - that just guarantees that three minutes later they’ll have five labouring people come in actively pushing 

The two of them once delivered a baby in the parking lot outside because the mother didn’t make it in time - the parents still bring Numa in to visit sometimes

Their nurses have the best stories, sometimes even more gory than ED

General Medical: Ward 104, Physician Dr Plo Koon

Has Dr Plo been here forever?? Nobody at the hospital can remember a time he didn't work here

The best doctor, agreed by all nurses and patients

Keeps offering free check-ups to the nurses on the ward

Brings snacks for the nurses' station

Wolffe is the scariest unit manager there is - grads and students are terrified of him

The unit is the most efficient in the hospital because of it

God help the pathologist who loses a sample from them. He will not hesitate to riskman you

*Over the PA* “Visiting hours finish at 1900. It is now 1902. Get the fuck out.”

Emergency Department: Corrie Guard, lawless wasteland

Boost, Comet and Sinker knew him in training and are immune to his glare, they use this power to constantly fuck with him

Caffeinated to the point of medical concern

Lectures drunk uni students about the dangers of alcohol before finishing night shift at 0730 and going home to drink wine straight from the bottle

If Fox has to triage one more belligerent idiot demanding immediate attention for a stubbed toe he's going to come through the plastic window and throw hands

Take the turkey sandwich and shut the fuck up

Constant arguments with the ward over whether or not the patients are stable enough for ward transfer

Just take the fucking patient Wolffe, they've got enough to deal with down here, they're bed blocked and there's a line out the door

Orthopedics: Ward 327, Orthopedic surgeon Dr Aayla Secura

They all started in sports science

The most jacked nurses

Group gym sessions before or after shifts

I don't care if you're tired. You're getting out of that bed whether you want to or not. Use it or lose it. Mobilise, bitch.

They’re the ones who keep stealing the bladder scanner from gen med but won’t admit to it

If you witnessed the incident between Dr Secura and the unit manager Bly at the last Christmas party, no you didn't

Bonus:

The Bad Batch are agency nurses, they go where they're needed and everyone hates them because they make more on the hour for it

Weird mish-mash of different skills and background knowledge

Will go eat dinner in their car instead of in the break room with the other nurses

Tech will not stop correcting people on the wards he’s put on, he is not popular for this despite mostly being right

“You can’t nurse-initiate that drug.”

“That phone order is invalid. We need to call the doctor for another.”

“The patient’s blood pressure is 135/82. This is technically outside normal parameters.”

Crosshair openly shit talks the other nurses with his patients because he knows he won’t be there tomorrow to catch the fallout