#i just gotta destroy their little trinket first

[lenorethequietbookkeeper]

The derelict institute in the middle of the woods inspired a strange sense of calm for the two travellers. Pretty much all of Pythonel's old architecture fell into similar states of disrepair by this point. Both the exterior and interior were so familiar, so in their element, it helped slightly dispel the tension of their circumstances.

Jeagar's attention went to the architecture of the building instead of Jane and Jasper's little spat. Being so old, he recognized not only when it was built, but its original intended purpose. Many such faulty hospitals were built just before human society in his world collapsed. It caused his mind to wander back to older times. The elder was not bringing any of this up, but perhaps better circumstances would encourage him to speak about the topic later.

Even John relaxed for a moment. Enough to where he let his eyes browse the room for any loose knickknacks. He made sure to keep his hands behind his back, in order to hide the obsessive tapping of his fingers. Of course, the half-rotten corpse knew better than to act on his instincts right now. It was just old habits acting up, that was all.

Their attention immediately snapped to Jane when she directly addressed them. The evident contrast between her and Jasper's behavior was so jarring, it was hard to believe the two were related. They gave their names and politely declined her offer. It was doubtful they had anything that would satisfy Jeagar's putrid tastes or John's inhuman tolerance.

Before they could address the perturbed Jasper, their heads turned in surprise to their new host. Whatever intrigue she inspired in Jeagar was immediately replaced by annoyance. At first directed towards her stupid quips, but then- wait, did she just take his arm?! He almost didn't register what Juniper had done before she was- holy shit, this little cunt was taking it with her?! Oh no, no way in hell would he let this stand! Jeagar immediately pursued the snow-woman, no doubt unintentionally giving Juniper exactly what she wanted.

"Oh shit shit shit-," John muttered to himself while following them inside.

The lab stopped the cadavers in their tracks. Almost every device in this space, down to the smallest LED lights, was far ahead of any technology they had back home. The towering CPU Juniper commanded put Jeagar's own work to shame. It also forced a truly terrifying scenario into his mind. Now that he knew it was possible, anyone could come to his world. Anyone with this sort of technology could come to his world. Something more bitter and vile than himself could arrive and destroy everything he worked to build.

If anything in the cosmos could set the skeleton off, it was primal fear and someone stealing his arm.

"You listen here," he suddenly snarled at Juniper, obviously starting up one of his most passionately vitriolic tyrades yet. "I-!!"

BLAST!!

And just as the mother of all needlessly angry meltdowns was about to be born, an eruption of icy magic aborted it. Jeagar was frozen in a massive chunk of ice, immobile and unable to speak, but still perfectly conscious if the movement of his eyes was anything to go by.

John walked in front of his associate, looking to the floor. He silently mouthed an apology to the skeleton before looking up at Jupiter.

"Heheh, uh...sorry about that. Jeagar here gets a bit panicky sometimes. And sometimes that doesn't let him, how should I put this?" he paused to think for a moment. "Think properly." Being spoken for only further angered Jeagar, his brow furrowing in frustration.

"Oh, and for the record, we aren't technically stranded, but well, he didn't know that," John continued while motioning to Jasper, clearly not wanting to further embarrass the boy. "It's not his fault though. We haven't exactly been...openly communicating- anyway, it's more that we accidentally riled up the head of the house with our... inconspicuous activity."

Jasper found himself shifting around in his seat as Jeagar went on and on, the prospect of what their world held filled his video-game mottled brain with creatures and things that went bump in the night. 

He really was trying his best not to interrupt, for John's sake. Manners weren’t his forte. 

As Jeagar explained who and what they were he raised his brows. It was intriguing how much they all had in common. In a way the same thing that happened to them happened to his parents. Otherwise, Jasper wasn’t a lord or anything but he fancied himself important, almost as important as Jeagar did apparently. 

Cough cough

“A greater lung capacity.”

Cough cough

He mumbled into his palm, only to twist his hand in a circular motion as if to insist he go on.

Jasper had no reason to disbelieve him considering he had access to the tech to find Jasper's universe but he was still inclined to out of spite, rolling his coals rather obviously as his guest finally got to the point. 

Resting his head on his hand Jasper went silent for an uncomfortably long few seconds, not moving his eyes off of Jeagar. 

“So what you’re saying is, you two have whole kingdoms full of citizens. You had no idea where you were gonna end up or what you’d do once you were here but you came anyway.”

Sitting up he slapped his hands onto his lap and took in a deep breath, the look on Jeagars face irritating him more than he already was, even if he wasn’t being outwardly hostile like before. 

“I understand I lied to you. Ok? Can we get over it? Please? I’m gonna get a lot of shit for what I’m doing to help you. If you want to leave you can but I can’t help you with that alone.” 

His sentence started out as bitter as he felt inside but slowly softened. Something inside of him almost wanted them to stay, his world was supernatural but he never ventured far within it. These two were older than he could comprehend and he felt he could learn a lot if they would let him. 

Jasper didn’t just want to make it up to them, honestly he didn’t give a shit if Jeagar really was gonna piss his pants over being misled…or maybe he did, he really couldn’t tell. With his mother around he never really had to deal with anyone actually being mad at him before. 

The facts were whether they stayed or went Jasper had the chance to be a part of something so fucking cool and they could even learn things that would benefit them back home.

“I have to make a phone call.” 

He said meekly, his cheeks hot as he turned away from them. 

“No no James I-”

Jasper didn’t put his phone on speaker but even if you were sitting on the bed you could hear the person on the other end screaming at him. 

“It’s just one portal I promise, come on I never ask for anything.” 

He would cringe away from the phone every so often, even turning back to look at his guest with an awkward smile once or twice.

“You have demons, what am I supposed to do? Carry them across an ocean?” 

Jasper huffed and finally raised his voice a little to the person on the phone. “If you don’t help me I’m gonna tell Mom what you did with her clown juicer.”

So suddenly that it made Jasper drop his phone, a portal, most likely of demonic origin, appeared on the wall. It revealed another snowy landscape but a much more accessible one. Large trees stretching out as far as the eyes could see. 

Pleasantly surprised Jasper turned to Jeagar and John. 

“I know the way from here, we can talk on the way.”

@lenorethequietbookkeeper

[haphazardlyannotated]

Prompt: Consider a vindictive Pearl who guilt trips and trolls the diamonds at every opportunity. She goes on long rants, saying all the things she wishes she could have said in Era 1. She may not be able to stab the diamonds like she wants, but she's gotta avenge Pink (and herself) somehow.

Pearl had spent the first three thousand years of her existence hearing the other Diamonds berate Pink.

The way she ran her colony, how she talked to "lesser" gems, even when she dared to talk- it seemed like there was no aspect of Pink her fellow Diamonds couldn't strenuously disapprove of.

Pearl remembered countless times Pink's shoulders had slumped, her bright eyes dimmed with just a few sharp words, until Rose stood in front of Pearl, telling her that Blue and Yellow had never cared about her with a conviction that wasn't even resigned anymore.

The memories had been burned into Pearl's mind with helpless fury for millenia.

So honestly, when Blue and Yellow Diamond showed up on Earth, nearly killed Steven AGAIN, and then had the audacity to talk about Pink like they hadn't made her life a living hell for as long as Pearl had known her, and when Blue Diamond then grimaced at the moss Rose had once painstakingly tended to and loudly wondered what Pink could have possibly seen in this planet- well, Pearl couldn't be blamed for indulging in just the tiniest crumb of revenge.

"Well, she liked food, for one thing," Pearl said with the perfect, bland smile of a good, subservient pearl. She caught Amethyst's eye and was met with such complete understanding that by all rights they should have formed Opal on the spot. "I'm sure Amethyst will be happy to prepare some for you," Pearl continued, watching Amethyst struggle to contain a giant grin. "She's an expert in human nourishments."

Amethyst's creation was a precarious tower of everything in their fridge, some of it still in the packaging, liberally seasoned with engine oil.

Blue and Yellow Diamond, regretably, ended up deciding they didn't want to connect with Pink's past that badly, but the sheer vindictive delight Pearl felt at their expressions when Amethyst presented her masterwork to them (and then proceeded to swallow it whole when it became clear the Diamonds weren't going to) lasted her the whole day.

_

Pearl had intended for it to be a one off.

It should have been a one off, especially considering how badly they all needed the Diamond's goodwill to have any hope of healing their corrupted friends.

Unfortunately, Pearl had not anticipated how much being a pearl on Homeworld again would grate.

She hadn't been prepared for how angry it would make her to be once again looked at like a mindless possession, a trinket to adorn an owner.

She'd fought for her freedom in the war for hundreds of years, and thousands more in her own mind. She refused to be pushed back into the mold of what Homeworld thought a pearl should be.

She knew better than to make a grand gesture. Not now. Not when the fate of countless gems depended on it.

But she could keep her posture loose where she was expected to stand like a statue, could speak up unprompted, walk in front of ‚her owner‘ rather than behind him.

Most gems probably wouldn’t even notice, let alone know what a rebellion these little gestures were. But they mattered to Pearl, and when Blue and Yellow Pearl’s eyes flickered to her when they shouldn’t (because stars forbid a pearl showed curiosity for anything other than her owner’s amusement!) Pearl knew they at least had noticed.

Watch me, Pearl told them with every time she raised her voice like that, moved her feet just so. I am a pearl and they hold no power over me. They tried to destroy us, but we’re still here and free. You can be, too. They can’t stop us.

Homeworld would never own Pearl again, and if she had anything to say about it, it wouldn’t keep owning anyone else for long either.

_

When it was all over, the Diamonds approached Pearl on the beach in front of the temple.

They tried to seem casual. They failed utterly.

„Hello… Pearl,“ White Diamond greeted her, with an expression like treating Pearl like a person was the most perplexing task she’d ever put her mind to.

Pearl tilted her head a fraction to indicate she was listening. She had no inclination to play the accomodating servant. If White Diamond wanted something from her, she would have to figure out how to ask herself.

In the end it was Blue Diamond who spoke up.

„We know that we failed Pink,“ she began, an admission so utterly unexpected it briefly gave Pearl the sensation of being in the wrong form. „We would like to do better with Steven.“

That too was unexpected. The Diamonds Rose and Pearl had run away from would never have considered even the possibility that they could be flawed, let alone need to do better.

Rose, Pearl thought. Look at this. We changed them. Your son changed them.

Out loud she only said

„That’s nice.“

Yellow Diamond cleared her throat impatiently.

„We were hoping you would have some insights,“ she said.

Once again, Pearl felt like the ground had been pulled away beneath her feet.

If someone, even Garnet, had told her a year ago that the Diamonds would stand in front of her, admitting that what they’d done to Rose had been wrong, asking Pearl for advice - she would have thought it absurd.

The Diamonds she’d known would have sooner shattered their entire courts than admit their own faults. The fact that they were willing to put all of this, everything they had spent millenia trying to embody away for the sake of Rose’s memory and Steven’s future…

Rose had been wrong, too, Pearl realised. The other Diamonds had loved her. They’d done it badly, without ever truly seeing her, but they’d loved her all the same.

And now they wanted to learn to do it right.

Maybe Pearl could forgive them one day. Maybe.

Not today though.

„Well, for one thing,“ Pearl said, „I think Steven enjoys not being locked in an empty room for years on end.“

[skinnylove584]

I finally got around to watching the 2023 Little Mermaid. Here are my thoughts that nobody asked for...

What I liked:

- Under the Sea and Kiss the Girl were the absolute best parts of the movie.

- Ariel helping Max swim was adorable

- The whole shipwreck sequence was phenomenal

- I thought the CGI ultimately was beautiful the under the sea shots were mostly stunning

- The castle is exactly how I envisioned it

- The addition of Eric's trinket room was a lovely addition and added depth

- Plot hole and context filled (Ursula's relation to Ariel, her voice, etc.)

-Halle did an excellent job not only with her singing but with her facial expressions and playing naive

- Jodi Benson's cameo

What I disliked:

- Scuttlebutt, I'm sorry that was awful and felt super out of place

- Eric's solo song, this had nothing to do with the actors vocal capabilities and everything to do with how poorly the lyrics flowed. It could have been such a great addition.

-King Triton's anger when he destroyed everything lacked true feeling overall he was too stone cold

- THE COSTUMES! Most of them looked so cheap and poorly made. I would have loved to have seen more dresses on Ariel as well as a nicer scarf for her hair.

- The hat tbh it just reminded me of a fedora and it took me out of it. (Though I do note Eric's affection to the hat because of Ariel was sweet)

- Putting Ariel back in the ratty dress instead of the silver one BIG mistake HUGE

- While I overall liked Vanessa, her actress fell victim to a poorly made dress and poorly styled hair

- This is just nit picking but the ever so slight tweaks to the music weren't my favorite it was the most tiny changes that threw me. I guess I'm just used to the original. Doesn't mean they were bad just wasn't what I hoped for.

- While I could appreciate the full circle moment of Ariel steering the ship like Eric, I gotta say I missed him killing Ursula. Ariel is brave and adventurous in her own right I didn't feel like Eric killing Ursula in the original took away from that BUT I could still appreciate it in this version.

-Tbh Ursla was kinda meh in this and I found her scenes kinda disorienting. Her CGI monster at the end was also very meh BUT the crazy water and chaos were not.

Overall I thought it was a good movie not bad not great. Out of all the live action remakes not my favorite but not the worst. To be honest, when Disney first started putting out live actions with Cinderella and Maleficent, they set the bar high. Even films like Pirates of the Caribbean were absolutely stunning. So when they announced this I expected the same attention to detail and I didn't feel like it delivered. I'd like to see these live action movies meet the same standards of quality as Pirates of the Caribbean. It just felt cheap which is a harsh word but that's what I can best describe it. I will say periodically through the movie they hit the target but as soon as they would hit it they would lose it. I was constantly being pulled in and out of the fantasy of it.

I give it a 6/10 a good movie glad I watched it but probably won't watch it again.

[tedturneriscrazy]

🎶Knock, Knock, Knockin' On Hooty's Door🎵

I wonder if anything will happen in this episode.🙂

(I say as if I didn't watch the episode twice before going to bed and writing this post)

I don't think I'll ever not be amused by the way Hooty just...does things with his face

Seems like he found a thesaurus at some point

Okay so it's canonically spelled "Hootsifer," good to know

Also, this is really all we get of Lilith, huh?

His little hoot/coo at Lilith's letter❤❤❤

To borrow a meme format: If I had a nickel for every time Alex Hirsch was involved in a show where one of the characters was experiencing pubescent voice cracks, I'd have two nickels, which isn't very much but it's weird that it happened twice

Eda's face🤣

As much as this bit is played for laughs, Eda's clearly still shaken by what happened last episode

Jeez, Luz, priorities /j

Pictured: Hooty

The way King talks about being pelleted implies this is something Hooty does on the regular

Hooty's plan to help King is literally a Buzzfeed quiz? Okay then

Betcha never expected lore from Hooty, eh?

"DO NOT INTERRUPT"

Officially a "type of worm"

The dance being a grievous insult wasn't exactly from nowhere, but still funny nonetheless

WE DON'T TALK ABOUT THE FUCKING COCCOON

Tiny Nose playing Switch definitely seems to be drawing from Dana's real life experiences

Wait, Hooty and Tiny Nose are friends?

Well shit, turns out she could use magic this whole time. Guess her going Super Saiyan wasn't just the power glyph.

I am extremely skeptical of your medical credentials, TN

I have so many questions about the methodology they used for the blood test(s)

I think Hooty may have misinterpreted what King was looking for

I'm still amazed at how King has had, and continues to have, moments in the show with some of the greatest emotional weight

Ooh, sound powers!

"IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A CRUMBLE!!!"

It just occurred to me that that segment consisted mostly of Alex Hirsch talking to himself

Hello not-at-all obvious setup

Today I learned that Hooty is the baker of the house. Maybe he'd critique Amity's fairy pie.

Aaaaand there's the sleep inducing

Oh shit

In hindsight the Owl Beast being part of a dream sequence is rather obvious

Wow, Eda, tell us how you really feel about the Owl Beast

Oh we're just gonna ride aboard the Trauma Express today, huh?

Oh, I guess Lilith did make an appearance, after all

Damn, Gwen, not even looking

Oh shit dad issues

Sandy Cohen?! (To anyone who gets that reference, hi. How are your 30s treating you?)

Well, I know who Peter Gallagher voices now, anyway

Oh dear...

(Also, bright flashing lights triggering the curse? There's an epilepsy allegory in here somwhere)

Blood and eye injury? Gotta stretch that Y7 rating

Now we have some context for that look on Eda's face when Lilith mentioned their dad: good old fashioned guilt!

I desparately want to make a "Dude, you're getting a Dell!" joke, but I'm better than that

New memory! Raine!

Oh no...

I get the feeling I'll hate this part, too

They were exes!😢 Guess the fandom called that one

The reasoning for them being exes is understandable, all too real, and goddamn heartbreaking

That said, the fact they never stopped loving each other����😢😭

I do hope we can see Raine again under less...traumatic circumstances. Maybe that wedding that was mentioned?

Oh shit, are we getting into the Owl Beast's memories?!?! What a tweest!

Bet nobody expected Cloaked Moonface to show up in the frickin Hooty episode

(Also, holy shit I briefly forgot this was the Hooty episode)

Who is this mysterious cloaked figure? And why are they so tall and long?

So the curse was a sealed beast this whole time. Damn.

And it was just picked up as beach junk to sell as a trinket. So much for it being connected to Belos. (Not that people will stop trying to do so)

Who had "experiencing sympathy for the Owl Beast" on their Bingo cards for this episode? Yeah, me neither.

And here we have the necessary Eda coming to terms with her curse segment. More accurately, Eda and the curse coming to terms with each other.

Goddamnit why does it have to be cute

"It's like sandpaper" IT'S LIKE A CAT I FUCKING CAN'T

Insert Steamed Hams reference here to kill the mood

New transformation!

Oh no she's hot!

No, Hooty, you made it surprisingly much, much better!

She might have a problem pushing people away and holding onto guilt, but Eda always knows that she looks damn good

Oh right, Luz having girl problems. Fuck, so much is happening in this episode!

"Cotton-candy-haired Goddess" LUZ! 🤣

Attuned to other people's emotions = being a fucking creeper

Oh Luz, what happened to you back home?

Also, 99.999% certain Amity would love your cheesiness

That's...rather morbid, Hooty

So much lore development, including the fact the Owl House has a basement

Classic inanimate object silhouette fakeout gag. Subversion in 3...2...1...

There it is!

I can't imagine being pelleted is a fun experience.

Honestly I have so many questions about how Hooty got Amity there in the first place, but I'm not so sure I actually want to know the answers to any of them...

Cue much panicking

Wow, I'm really getting some Into the Bunker flashbacks

Oh this is gonna be amazing isn't it

I commend Luz for not actually dropping dead of embarrassment

Seriously, how can Hooty set all this up so fast yet not hold a pen?!?!?!

Poor Luz, she thinks this is destroying her chances

Meanwhile Amity is just "Oh, Titan, is this actually happening?!"

The way she's fixing her hair!❤

Goddamnit Luz let this play out, she's so clearly into this!

"Again?!" Okay who do I have to kill?

Luz is luzing it

Nooooooo....

JUST TALK FOR FUCK'S SAKE (aka how like 95% of issues in literally any plot could be solved)

Noooo Amity's so heartbroken right now💔

This isn't what either of them wanted!

To be fair, Hooty, Luz had a part in this too. Not that she can be blamed entirely. Poor thing clearly had some awful experiences back home...

Now Hooty is McFucking losing it

Why did I think he was gonna say "Looks like I'm gonna have to JUMP!" I think I've watched too much Homestar Runner (jk there's no such thing)

Those pulsating organs are still gross

Eda swooping in to save her son (No, really, he actually is now)

I'll say things get weird when Hooty gets upset!

Yes, King! Save them with your voice powers!

Damn that is some romantic lighting, and Luz is enjoying the eye candy (cotton candy, if you will)

Luz's reaction to Harpy!Eda is the family-friendly summation of how the fandom has reacted.

Hooty really just tearing up the landscape in remorse

Mother-daughter moment about love life!

I appreciate not just Eda's encouragement but her actually asking Luz what she wanted

God, Eda is best mom

Also, OH FUCK IS THIS HAPPENING?!

OH SHIT

THESE ADORABLY AWKWARD NERDS❤💜💙

"I'm not as cool as you think" could be interpreted as self-deprecating, but here it seems...oddly reassuring?

The way Luz eloquently says how she wants Amity in her future...beautiful❤

Luz making some good faces

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

YOU CUTE DORKS I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

THERE IT IS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

LOOK HOW HAPPY SHE IS

WE WERE LOSING OUR SHIT OVER A PECK ON THE CHEEK THREE WEEKS AGO AND NOW LOOK WHERE WE ARE HOLY FUCK

Awkwardness is still there, but that's to be expected

BET Y'ALL DIDN'T EXPECT THAT TRAILER SHOT TO BE IN THE HOOTY EPISODE HUH

THE WAY LUZ RUBS AMITY'S HAND😭😭😭😭😭

(And yeah, it's gonna still be scary, but only because it promises to be so wonderful)

Let's give it up for Hootsifer, goddamn!

Let'a also appreciate just how fucking funny it is that Lumity becomes official in the Hooty episode

Fus ro WEH!

Hooty actually saying "Luz's new GF" out loud...

In just about any other show the love interests getting together would be a climax/culmination of the entire plot. Here? It's actually used to advance the plot, and that is brilliant!

Dana Terrace and the crew really just knocking it out of the park again and again, huh

"They're adorable, and deserve all the happiness!" Well said, Hootsifer. Well said.

Probably for the best they had Hooty promise that. As much as what happened/progressed, there was a lot of property damage.

OH SHIT ONCE AGAIN

King's dad/relative! And he's voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson!

GODDAMNIT HOOTY

Wow. Just...wow. This episode.

King has voice powers! Harpy!Eda! Lumity are girlfriends for real!!!!

How do you pack so much into a single episode?! And so expertly?!

I had my suspicions before, but this confirms it: The Owl House is the greatest show of all time.

And we have two episodes left until the hiatus! And 11 episodes in the season after that! What are we in for?!?!?!

I, for one, can't wait to find out!

[inkribbon796]

What We Do Best

Summary: A day where Jim, and Jim-like chaos reigns.

A/N: For the Jims birthday. There will be an egregious use of the word Jim. I’m sorry.

The Jims were simple Jims who loved but three things: being Jim, reporting the news, and chaos.

Some Jims were better at being Jim’s than others, which were just the facts.

Today, two of the best Jims were looking for the best news story, so they tailed Anti. A demon who had killed five different Jim’s trying to find the Jim that had split Lunky from King, but seemed to have gotten his most recent bloodlust for Jim hunting out of his system.

Today he was walking around a part of downtown Egoton, where he was in the wrong territory as usual, with Lunky and Mini. Lunky was in their 3D form and was supposed to be with Anti for “knife-appreciation” practice, Mini was not. The smaller android was nervous about being with Anti, but Lunky had made the older glitch demon promise not to hurt the android, or make him glitch up.

Anti chuckled, but he and Lunky swore on it. So Mini calmed down a little bit, but was still incredibly nervous.

The Jim’s followed Anti, sower of Jim-like chaos, for their next big story.

“Alright kids,” Anti smiled as they walked up to an outdoor café where there was a man in a pig mask over the top half of his face, with long braided pink hair. Several crows were hanging around the area. When the man saw Anti he trashed his drink and walked over to them. “This guy’s great.”

“Hey Anti, could we make this quick?” The masked man asked with an almost deadpan tone, a slight excited lilt to his voice. “I gotta go to my little sister’s dance recital and I gotta make sure I get a good seat so she can see me in the crowd.”

“Sure, sure,” Anti shrugged as he walked over. “Yer[1] usual?”

“Yeah,” he smiled before noticing Mini and Lunky. “What’s with the kids?”

“Ehh, I borrowed ‘em fer the day,”[2] Anti shrugged, ruffling Lunky’s hair. “My nephew got his soul split so I’m taking his spawnlin’[3] on a demon buildin’[4] field trip.”

The man in the pig mask knelt down to get a better look at Mini who ducked behind Lunky. The spawnling looked at Mini with a frown before glaring at the masked man and hissed at him.

“Is that a Google bot?” The masked man asked, his tone stiff. He slowly tracked his head up to look at Anti.

Mini had a minor spark of anxiety, his facial recognition couldn’t track the man or his mood very well.

“I am a Bing Mark 2 Extension,” Mini answered.

“A Bing, huh? Name’s Techno, kid, big fan of your old man’s work,” The masked man smiled, he promptly stood up and looked at Anti, “You got what I need, I got what you need.”

Anti smiled as his hand glitched and a large bag dripping with black gunk appeared in his hand. “Oooh yeah, big guy.”

Techno looked into the bag and gave a giddy chuckle, pulling out a skull, “Ohhh, yeah this is the good stuff.”

“Told you I can get fresher stuff than the last fooker, right? Anti grinned. “So yeh[5] got my shite[6]?”

Techno took out a small box out of his pocket and underhanded it to Anti. “Have fun, tell the world you got this from the Blade.”

Then Techno turned to look at the Jims who were not trying to stay hidden at all and were just recording everything they were doing.

“Hey Jims, want something?” The masked man called out, taking out an orb swirling with cyan and rot-green gas. Techno underhanded it to RJ, who thankfully caught it.

“We like Pig-Jim, he loves to make chaos,” RJ commented in excitement. Then he saw Lunky and gasped, “It’s the Squirrel Prince!”

Lunky let out an excited screech, still unable to summon one of his five knives he’d started getting from Anti and his uncles and aunt. Much to King’s relief because he kept them locked up at home.

At that moment, Mini got a message from Google, “Are you with Anti right now?”

“Yes.” Mini responded.

“Get away from him before he destroys your processors,” Google ordered in texts. “I’ll take care of him.”

“Uhhh, Mr. Anti, dude?” Mini asked.

“Ne’er, e’er call me that again,”[7] Anti demanded, acting like Mini had just insulted him. “It’s just Anti.”

“Oh, okay,” Mini corrected. “Anti, the main Google unit is coming to pick me up because I shouldn’t be with you.”

Techno and Anti looked at each other.

“How about no,” Techno decided.

“I know, Google’s such a buzz kill,” Anti tapped Lunky twice on the shoulder and the spawnling switched to 2D to climb up on his shoulders, and Anti began pushing Mini away. “Come on, let’s go ta yer other dads, they’re the fun ones.”[8]

“Anti!” Google shouted from some speaker somewhere. “Get your hands off that extension!”

Techno got in front of the camera as Anti grabbed Mini and Lunky and raced away. Google charged out of an electrical box and began chasing Anti.

“Glitch! Give me that extension!” Google demanded in an angry fury. The camera barely caught sight of the android racing behind Techno and heard his furious demand.

“Down with the cops!” Techno shouted over Google’s own demands. He took a vial and slammed it on the ground, smoke filling the air and obscuring vision. The anarchist was gone when the smoke cleared and what was in frame was Anti trying to play keep with an android and a demon spawnling as Google was trying to get Mini back into his drive so he could take him away from Anti.

So the Jims were left with an already loud and chaotic scene in front of them, and the orb in RJ’s hand.

RJ blinked and then tossed the orb onto the ground. The instant it hit the ground the orb burst open to look like a cage holding a cyan and rot-green energy and expanded ten times its size. There was a dull groan before a shambling, rotting corpse was spat out.

Lunky let out a confused screech, Anti made an excited cheer.

“Zombies!” Anti took out a set of knives.

Then a second one was spat out. And then a third. And a fourth.

Google made an angry hum, he and Mini immediately making notes on population growth. “The only thing worse than humans, are ones I have to kill twice.”

Mini sent warnings to Bing. Jackie already promised to race over with as many heroes as they could. All in all it only took ten minutes to get the zombie cage destroyed and anyone they’d bitten back to normal. By then fifty zombies had been created by the box and Logan immediately seized the object and any footage of it to determine how it was made.

Lunky and Mini were returned to the base.

The heroes found that the object was made and constructed from magic, from a gang the heroes had found magical trails from before.

Logan had been forced to concede defeat and that his expertise was ill-equipped to handle and handed the object over to Marvin and Roman for research.

Meanwhile the Jims were given a box in the dead of night with various cursed and enchanted trinkets insides. Objects that were meant to cause all sorts of trouble.

A gift the Jims very much enjoyed.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Post N/A: Yes there will be more SMP members in the fic, I’m still getting caught up but that’s okay because I still have to choose what canon I’m going to choose like I had to do with the Egos, Septics, and Egos. Techno was just the easiest to include first.

Heads up: next week is going to be a long fic. Currently it sits at 13 chapters long. Do you guys want me to dump it all at once, or over two days, or do you want one half this week and the next half next week? Either way there will be a different fic with the next half of Friday’s fic if they come out the same day.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Accessibility Translations

1. Your

2. Ehh, I borrowed them for the day

3. spawnling

4. building

5. you

6. shit

7. Never, ever call me that again,

8. Come on, let’s go to your other dads, they’re the fun ones.

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 16: No Not Like That

Aw, been a while since I wrote one of these! Anyway: we run into some dickheads and try to solve things the not-murder way for once. 

On the road outside Bad Herzfeld, the trolls slowly begin to peel off and go their separate ways. Dr. Kjeller and his new bodyguard Kjell are the last to leave the main road, stopping to say goodbye to the small contingent of humanoids.

“Welp, dis trolls’ moot has certainly been an experience,” Dr. Kjeller sagely intones. “I would not say a success. The two of us are going to tour around and tell all the trolls we can find to stay away. I believe a trolls’ moot is not uncalled for, but we must look for a different place. Ideally one not full of weird fungus people. And, please, if there is anything I can do to help you….well, I guess you’d have to find me first.” He tips his travelin’ hat and departs. Gral tips his mask in return. He’s getting the hang of these Valdian customs!

It seems like the Orcish outriders have already left to report back to Duke Shieldeater, so it’s just us, the Fairgolds, and the beleaguered innkeeper and his daughter. What do we do with the civilians? I mean, we’re headed to Mornheim, and even if we’re gonna fix the water it seems kinda rude to drop someone off in Zombie Town. Flynn offers to introduce Aaron to his innkeeper uncle back in Holzog, to see if he can get a job there.

Flynn and Fiona are gonna stick with us to Mornheim. “Look, you had all the fun up there in Bad Herzfeld; I’m not gonna let the four of you get all the glory. You’re gonna do a big ritual and save the whole town? I gotta see this.”

We spend a couple uneventful days hiking back to Three Oaks Junction, where we’ll split up with Aaron and Rebecca. The DM tries to waylay us with a destroyed bridge over a fast-moving river, but we have a Ring of Jumping and a magical alligator. We’re fine. We roll some bad perception checks on watch and our rations get stolen by Curse Raccoons.

ANYWAY. As we get back onto the major roads, Gral is the first to notice something odd: there’s no carts coming from the direction of Three Oaks. Sure, it’s late evening, but last time we were here there was still a heavy buzz of activity through the busy trade stop. We approach extra-cautiously, making sure the civilians are in the protected center of the group.

The town comes into view, and it’s immediately obvious something has changed. A hasty palisade wall has been constructed around the town, and a banner has been hung over the gate, white with a red insignia of a bloody chain.

Shoshana groans. “AAUUUUGH, are you fuckin’ kidding me?!”

“Um, did the town always look like that?” Rebecca asks hesitantly.

Valeria shakes her head. “Not last week, it didn’t!”

Gral pulls the duo aside and gives them the Cliffs Notes: “We’re about to run into the Penitents. Talk about Rack as much as you can and hide behind Valeria. I hate dealing with these folks, but it looks like they put this place on lockdown, and we gotta make sure y’all are safe.”

Outside the gate, there’s a uniformed Penitent Knight keeping watch over a group of citizens who are digging graves. The gate itself seems to be manned by standard town militiamen, being supervised by another Penitent. Valeria casts a quick eye over the scene with Detect Magic, but finds nothing amiss. As she approaches (we’re wisely letting the paladin lead), a guardsman shouts “Halt!”

She stops at a polite distance. “Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service,” she announces formally. “What’s going on here?”

“By order of the town council, all who seek admittance to the town must submit to examination for heretical artifacts or influences,” the guardsman recites, scriptedly. The Penitent behind him nods in approval.

She meets his eye with an intimidating draconic stare. “We have artifacts we need to bring to the Cursebreaker Knights. Perhaps we can check them at the door and pick them up later?”

“Uhhh,” the guy says, his script clearly not having prepared him for that. “…maybe you should talk to the Inquisitor. He’s gonna want to speak to you about these ‘artifacts.’”

He has us wait a minute, and we take a quick mental inventory. We’ve got an evil skeleton tapestry, spooky lutestrings, the Eyegis, and one (1) entire Shoshana.

A group of six Penitents arrive and escort us stiffly into the town. The place is crowded as all get out; it looks like a lot of travelers have been stuck here way longer than they anticipated. There’s only two properly empty spaces: one’s some sort of enormous construction site, and the other is the area where the circus tent was; it seems nobody’s been brave enough to move into the spot or even clean up the ashy, crumbling remains.

There’s a rather unusual cart sitting among the crowded caravan parking, immediately familiar from the two reptilian beasts of burden hitched next to it. There’s a bit of a staredown happening; two Penitents are remaining remarkably steadfast in the face of two enormous, glowering tattooed figures. We can’t pop over to say hi; our escort is hustling us along and we’re not sure that knowing us would do Lucinius any favors.

Valeria’s about vibrating out of her skin, indignant at all these unfairly-detained innocents, and looks about a second away from drawing her sword and opening up a can o’ Righteousness. But no time for that; we’re being ushered inside the sheriff’s office.

The small-town hoosegow is cramped; there’s been makeshift cages built all along one wall, seemingly as some kind of holding cells, all of them full. Shoshana appraises the prisoners out of the corner of her eye. They all seem to have slight Curse mutations, but so vaguely that it could just be garden-variety weirdness. Sure, that guy could be a werewolf, but he might just be a real hairy dude. That lady looks sallow and corpselike, but not more so than any garden-variety resident of Mornheim.

Shoshana, her clawed hands shoved deep in her pockets, is strung tense as a lutestring. Valeria’s still managing to feign chilly politeness, but both of them are half a breath away from fight or flight.

Gral’s not looking at the prisoners. He’s too busy looking at the guard. There’s two burly Penitents at the door, which is unsurprising, but Gral could swear he’s seen the one on the left before.

He’s pretty sure we killed that guy back at the roadhouse.

The guard doesn’t seem to recognize us at all, but he’s pretty badly scarred, exactly in the way someone might be if they took a hit from a drow soldier’s greatsword.

We’re pulled out of our wary observations by a familiar, unwelcome voice. “Ah. Kyr Argent, wasn’t it?”

“It is,” Valeria allows frostily, as the Inquisitor glides into the room.

“It is good to see you again – in a manner of speaking,” he says, chuckling at his own joke as he gestures to his blindfolded eyes. “Yes, from the descriptions of the heroes who defeated the heretical circus, I suspected I might have the pleasure of working with you once again. What brings you to Three Oaks Junction?”

“Oh, we’re just passing through. Y’know, like travelers do,” she answers, her polite smile showing just a little too much fang.

“Yes, of course. As you can see, this town has become very useful in our war against the Curse.”

“Is it, now.”

“After the incident with the circus, the town council was afraid. Many of them had attended the performance, after all. They were worried that there might be some…aftereffects. Fortunately, my people were nearby, and they summoned me immediately to examine the town for signs of the Curse’s corruption. As we were here, it became clear what an asset this town is – just as the heretics used it to corrupt many at once, we can use it to root out those heretics who hide among us.

“On our first day here, we found one who bore the mark of the curse. I examined him myself. Foul lycanthropy. He was, of course, executed. Now, none pass through this place without our inspection, and we have found many others. You may have seen some of them outside, awaiting a more thorough examination. My work has kept me too busy to give each case the attention it truly deserves.

“The town council has been very accommodating. I have written to my fellows, and we are working on converting and expanding their humble chapel into a true bastion of Rack’s justice, where the divine light of the gods may lay bare the evil that hides among us, that walks the roads of this land spreading its poison.”

Gral mutters, aside, “Don’t think anyone’s walkin’ these roads now…”

The Inquisitor claps his hands briskly. “Now. I understand you are in possession of some artifacts, objects that you are transporting on behalf of the Cursebreaker Knights. I fear for our brothers amongst the Cursebreakers; their mission is noble but they meddle with powers they do not understand. There are things in this wood it is better not to trifle with. Bring the items to me, and I will inspect them. Those I deem acceptable may remain in your protection, but anything too dangerous must be destroyed. Should the Cursebreakers fall to corruption, we would lose some of our greatest assets in this war. Help me protect the Cursebreakers, Kyr Argent. Show me what you are transporting for them.”

Valeria nearly decks him then and there, but a quiet brush of shoulders reminds her of the trembling sorceress behind her. Not here, not now, not when we’re surrounded. If they get an excuse to get aggressive, Shoshana’s sunk.

We busy ourselves with pulling out Weird Yet Harmless artifacts. What kind of random space trinkets did we find, again? Clem shows them the Eldritch Cookbook, and we take a gamble by letting them look at the Pale King’s tapestry, which is a bit large and hard to hide.

“Very well. I will examine these,” the Inquisitor says smoothly, his tone giving no insight into whether he knows we have far more blasphemous things to hide. “Gunter! Find them lodging within the town. Once I have examined these items for corruption, I must confirm that none of you have been corrupted by their presence.”

Valeria smiles tightly. “I’m certain they are corrupted, but not corrupting.”

“With all due respect, Kyr, I have made a study of corruption. Now, because of your…esteemed position,” he says, gesturing toward her rose-emblazoned armor, “you are no doubt on a mission of some considerable importance. I will endeavor to expedite your case as much as I can.”

“Oh, there’s no need to give us special treatment. All the travelers here need to get through,” she responds pointedly.

The Inquisitor’s serene, condescending expression does not change. “You may go,” he dismisses. “I am very busy. As I’m sure you know, the work of good in times of evil is ceaseless.”

Valeria bows to the exact millimeter that politeness requires, and no further. He’s blind, and doesn’t notice.

As we’re ushered back out, Shoshana tries to catch the eye of one of the caged prisoners. They mostly just look scared, not evil, and there’s no sign they recognize she’s also corrupted.

Clem, meanwhile, takes the opportunity to scrutinize the weirdly familiar guy at the door. He looks perfectly healthy, except for all the scars. She elbows Valeria, who confirms with her Divine Sense that this is just a normal dude, not an undead. He’s either one hundred percent living, or whatever nonsense that brought him back from murder is specifically cloaked in a way that would fool a paladin’s senses.

Our escort shows us to a place to set up camp. There are several inns in town, but all of them are fairly occupied at moment. We’re pretty sure that a Knight of the Rose, hero who slew the dread circus, could pre-empt a less fancy guest, but we’re all chill with camping as long as we get to hit up a food truck or something.

We meet back up with our friends. The Fairgolds, who are pretty familiar with Three Oaks, are pretty shaken by the drastic changes. Aaron and Rebecca, meanwhile, are shocked. “Is this what the rest of the woods is like?!” Aaron asks. “I knew things were bad out here, but I assumed once we got out of Bad Herzfeld…”

“Different places have different issues,” Gral explains kindly. “Some are the kind you’re already familiar with. And apparently some places are afflicted with Penitent Knights.”

“Even before that, there was an undead curse which afflicted this place-“

“-Which we DEALT WITH just fine-“ Valeria interjects grumpily.

“-and Holzog’s safe now, but it had its own weird issues we had to deal with too. The Curse is everywhere; you can’t really get around it without clear-cutting the forest,” Shoshana admits.

We get the lay of the land. Commerce has slowed, but not stopped. The Penitents are searching everyone going through here. If they find nothing, they let you go. Most of the crowd is just people waiting for their turn to get checked. We see a few times, though - if something about you pings them as weird, they take you away.

Basically, we are in line at the TSA.

Guess we’ll take a walk.

We skirt warily around a Penitent street preacher who’s shouting something about justice, and casting out evil, and how Rack appreciates your sacrifice in these trying times.

“Sacrifice is a WILLING thing,” grumbles Valeria.

We walk around and do some casual recon. Much of the town is still a perpetual campsite/bazaar, but near the more permanent municipal buildings, several work crews are busy with construction, which the locals tell us is supposed to be some kind of temple. Quite a few rough tents with Penitent insignias are pitched by that area. The town militia is out in force, and it’s much bigger than when we passed through last week. Maybe half of the people running around on patrol are actually trained fighters; most of the new recruits barely even look like weekend warriors. Every patrol, without exception, is being supervised by at least one Penitent.

People are scared, mostly. Nobody around seems happy with the Penitents, but a lot of the people around have reluctantly agreed that Something Had To Be Done about threats like the circus, and there weren’t any other available options. No one’s enthusiastic they’re there, but neither are they vocally critical. Then again, we worry, maybe anyone who’s been speaking out or causing trouble has, uh, disappeared.

We make our way back to our own wagon. If we’re gonna go Get In Trouble, like adventurers do, it’s probably time to part ways with our civilian friends. We pool 40 gold for Aaron and Rebecca (Clem contributing nothing because giving money is WAY too personal; Shoshana giving extra because she’s projecting really hard onto them) and Aaron’s eyes go wide. Oh, right, most people don’t make adventurer amounts of cash? It’ll be enough to get them safely set up in Holzog, with money to spare. They leave to set up their own travel plans, stuttering awkward thanks.

Flynn, meanwhile, grins. “Don’t think you’re getting rid of us that easily. You guys are terrible liars, I know you’re plotting something.”

We admit we don’t actually have a plan, but Valeria is adamant that This Nonsense Cannot Stand.

Let’s go recruit some allies, maybe? Gral wanders within Message range of Lucinius’ wagon, which is very clearly cordoned off and under guard. Bjorn and Ingborg are still there, but there’s no sign of the dragonborn.

“Heyy it’s us, what’s going on? Over.”

“Hello. We cannot leave. The Professor was taken. They wished to search the cart. He explained what he has and what he has found, that he is carrying important research. He would not allow them to confiscate his research, and he went to speak to the one in charge. That was three days ago; we have not seen him since. It is our duty to protect the man, but we have not seen a way to fulfil that duty without getting ourselves killed.”

We promise to keep them posted, and ask them to sit tight so when we make our move, it’ll be coordinated.

Next, Gral and Shoshana go down to the local pub to see if we can find anyone that’s particularly malcontented with the Penitents. We assume religious zealots are not much for hanging around bars. They don’t seem to be much into worldly pleasures, coughzombiecough.

Nobody’s talking too much shit until they get a couple of drinks in them but we do find some people griping, mostly merchants passing through. Pierre the Demish furrier, who we met back at the Holzog roadhouse, has turned up again; apparently the Penitents seized a good deal of his stock. And he’s been reduced to drinking BEER. He has OPINIONS about that. (It does not stop him drinking lots of it; he has to drown his sorrows at being denied worthy alcohol.)

Gral tries to butter him up a bit by letting him ramble about Demish wine. “When you drink a bottle of Demish wine, you taste centuries of tradition in that vineyard! You taste the earth itself, the hands of the farmers. It is sweet and it stings and it is good. What is this? Barley? Hops? HOPS? Hop is a verb, hop is not an object. Hop is for bunnies. The bunnies may eat the hops, and then I will cook the bunnies,” he mumbles into his unsatisfactory beer.

Gral fumbles for sommelier expertise. “I come from a smaller river village; wine tastes different farm to farm. It’s not just about the plants, but the social experience.”

“It is the same for us, yes? A region’s wine is its SPIRIT. You go to the border of the goblin swamps, and the wine there tastes like fire and blood, like the steel of the chevaliers that defend it.”  Go to Petit le Fere, it tastes like long summer nights. Go to Marsène, the wine tastes like – have you ever been in love, Monsieur Orc?”

“Uh, n-no?”

It tastes like the first time you and your lover locked eyes and laughed together. That was my favorite wine. This? This tastes like mud with pretensions of alcohol.”

“It’s not the steel of the chevaliers, but it’s the taste of hardworking people. And if the penitents have their way, there won’t be a town here anymore.”

Gral butters the guy up enough to find out a few basic details: there’s about two dozen proper knights, but they’ve got local militia and volunteers to swell their numbers. A lot of people are very keen to get on good terms with the new bosses, whether it’s because they’re afraid of the Penitents or afraid of the things out in the woods that the Penitents have promised to fight.

“I was here to get a blood-red deer pelt with wolf’s teeth,” the trader complains. “I know a chevalier who would pay dearly to have it worked into his armor. And now it has been taken away!  For my ‘protection,’ apparently. I had to surrender the rest of my stock to avoid being thrown in those cages.”

Everybody in the tavern seems to be on good behavior – sure, there’s folks displeased with the Penitents, but nobody’s gonna do anything about it; if you look like you might be up to something, you’re gonna get dragged off. And Pierre’s been keeping a low profile ever since he saw that blue dragonborn get dragged down into the basement of the sheriff’s office.

Shoshana, meanwhile, slides over to a tough-looking lady at the end of the bar in militia-style leather armor. “Hey, you look like you’d know the system here. We just got in to town; how long before they search our cart and let us go?”

“A couple days; we got a huge backlog,” the woman, who’s introduced herself as Vanessa, tells her. “Depends on how much they suspect you. Some people, they like to leave ‘em here for a while, to watch ‘em for anything suspicious.”

“You say that like you’re not involved? You’re dressed like you’re with the militia.”

“Technically I am. Second-in-command, or I was, before all this. Not sure who is now. Hell, I was the one making noise at Sheriff Wilbur about getting more muscle after that circus thing. If you folks hadn’t shown up, I dunno what would have happened.”

“So you all get bossed around by the Penitents now?”

“Look, half the kids in the militia right now barely know which end of a spear is up. The Penitents agreed to supplement what we had.”

“…yyyyyeah, it kinda feels like they’re calling the shots, though?”

She sighs. “Yeah. Look, I had the idea that we needed to beef up, bring in experienced vets. I was hoping to get mercs or something, and then they showed up and filled the role. They made some kinda deal with the town council, y’know, they’d provide extra security in exchange for being given jurisdiction over anybody found to be corrupt. Sounded fine to us at the time. See, we didn’t make the connection that if they were with the militia, they’d be the ones making the call who all’s corrupt or not.”

“How many people have been deemed, uh, ‘corrupt’?” Shoshana asks.

“More than I’d like, but not enough to get everyone all up in arms. Everybody’s pretty sure that most people will be fine. Hell, most people probably will be. When someone goes to trial, they take ‘em to the sheriff’s office. That Inquisitor guy looks at ya, says a few magic words, and most of ‘em he lets go. A few get taken to the cages for a further exam. I dunno what that means – don’t know anybody who’s been let go after that. A couple of times he just made a motion and bam, those knights beat the poor bastard to death on the spot and burned all their belongings.”

Vanessa doesn’t look too thrilled about that, so Shoshana decides it’s time to confide a little. “Even with the entire town vouching for me that I helped with the Circus, I’m worried I’m a target.”

“Well, I don’t mean to say anything, but I saw y’all leaving the sheriff’s office. You’re gonna get called in; you’re exactly the type. Even before all those stories about burning down circus tent with your magic powers.” She stares into her beer. “They’ve gotta be crazy. There’s plenty of crazy in the forest for them to deal with, why the hell are they in my town?!”

The problem is, the Town Council, which is what passes for a governing body in Three Oaks, have signed off on the whole deal. “The council’s just three people – the sheriff, Burgermeister Menner, and Remick – he’s the guy who keeps the shrine up and running. They all agreed to have the Penitents come in, but we haven’t seen much of any of them except the Sheriff since.”

Shoshana files that info away for later. “You said the sheriff’s still out and about?”

“He’s – look. Wilbur’s never been the most enthusiastic about bein’ sheriff. We served together, way back, in the house guard of the von Kempt family. Even back then he got the job because he’d been a sergeant. The guy was always happiest taking orders, rather than giving them. And hell, most of the sheriff job was just keeping things running today same as yesterday. But he got pretty spooked by the circus thing. That kinda shit’s scarier than your ordinary pack of wolves or bandits. I tried to get him to do something, but he seems comfortable with penitents calling the shots. He trusts they’re the experts and know what’s best here.”

The Burgermeister’s been pretty busy with this whole thing, apparently, and Remick hasn’t really left his little shrine. The Penitents don’t use that one – they’re more into big prayer ceremonies and dramatically flogging themselves in the street, and they’re starting construction on their own grand temple. Something about “showing faith by constructing a worthy house of worship,” and all that.

Vanessa’s grumbling about the heavy restrictions on the gates into town and the perimeter patrols, so Shoshana strategizes. “Have you had problems with people hopping the fence?”

“I mean, normally, no? Town regulations say go through the gates, but we’ve always had teenagers hopping the wall, or people with business outside who don’t feel like walking all the way to gate – never a real problem, until this whole nonsense. I’m not on patrol anymore, but as far as I can tell people are too scared to try in case they get caught. Probably a good way to get declared a potential heretic.”

Apparently the wall isn’t super well maintained; there’s plenty of places a few charming scamps could get in or out if they’re willing to scramble a little. It’s a trade stop, not a fortress.

We don’t get too much more info around town, and decide to investigate the town council in the morning. We take watch overnight, but nothing happens.

In the morning, we split up to cover more ground; Clem and Gral head to the Burgermeister’s, while Valeria and Shoshana try to hit up the local chief cleric.

Clem and Gral arrive at the biggest house in town. There’s a Penitent standing guard outside the door. They skulk around nonchalantly to the back to properly recon. There’s no Penitents watching the back, so Gral slinks up to a window to peer inside. It’s pretty normal; there’s a woman baking bread. Clem points out that we’ll definitely look like the bad guys if we break into an occupied home, so…the polite approach it is.

“The Burgermeister is not feeling well and cannot see visitors,” the knight at the gate intones.

“We’re here on urgent business,” Gral improvises. “We are the adventurers who defeated the circus; we wish to talk to him about the restoration efforts.” He rolls a properly bardic persuasion check, but it’s still like talking to a brick wall.

However, the door opens behind the stoic guard. “Who is it?” An elegant middle-aged woman peers out at us. “Wait, don’t I recognize you?”

“Yes, we assisted in deposing the circus!” Gral replies warmly. “Gral Omokk’du; I serve Duke Shieldeater.”

“Clementine Haxan,” Clem offers laconically.

“Ah, yes. Please do come in. You left town so quickly, my husband and I weren’t able to properly thank you!”

“We had urgent business elsewhere,” Gral admits, the picture of good manners. “I suppose that’s how life is.”

They make pleasantries with the woman, Meredith, who falls easily into the role of gracious host.

“We had concerns to bring up with the Burgermeister, but what’s this I hear about him being unwell?”

“Yes, he’s been bedridden the last week. A bit of the flu; he’s getting to that age. Mostly it’s just the fatigue, really.”

Clem tuts. “I’m a bit of a medic myself. The flu can be very serious when someone is in advanced years. I could potentially give a clearer diagnosis, maybe alleviate some of his pain?”

Meredith visibly brightens. “I was thinking about sending for a doctor anyway; please come on up, I’ll see if he’s ready to take visitors.”

The Burgermeister has CORONAVIRUS and we’re in QUARANTINE.

She leads them upstairs. “Dear? Aldrich? Remember those people who helped with the circus? One’s a doctor!” She listens for a moment. “You’re tired? You’ve been tired for a week. No, that’s not normal. It’s normal to get a doctor!” She turns back to the two visitors. “He’s being silly, come on up.”

“I don’t need a doctor, just rest!” we hear a harrumphing voice complain.

He is lying in bed in his pajamas. Ah, this is the burger kingdom! No, it’s my burger meistdom

“Hello sir, I’m Clementine Haxan. This is my nurse, Gral Omokk’du.”

“An orcish nurse?” the Burgermeister

“I’m not as experienced as Miss Haxan, but I served as a medic during the Ascension War,” Gral seamlessly bullshits.

“Look I’ve just picked up a bit of a bug and I need rest;” he grumps. “It’ll go away after a bit and I’ll resume my duties.”

“That may very well be true, but gods forbid it’s serious,” Clem says in her best Bedside Manner Voice. “It’ll be good to have it looked it.”

“Ugh, poke and prod me, do what you have to,” he reluctantly concedes.

Clem makes a medicine check with Dr. Wendell’s assistance. The man’s not entirely healthy - his cholesterol is a bit high maybe - but he’s hardly an invalid. He genuinely seems to have some kind of cold or flu, but it’s very mild at this point. There’s no way he should still be bedbound. Maybe it’s just Clem’s standards as an army doctor, but if a soldier came up to her with these symptoms asking to be let off duty the prescription would be “stop wasting my time and go dig latrines.”

Gral insights the guy. He’s not lying; he honestly believes he needs rest. But the way he keeps repeating the word “rest” feels a bit weird. The vibe isn’t “this person feels sick and fatigued,” it’s “this person has an insistent conviction that He Needs Rest.”

“Rest” isn’t a Prisoner buzzword, but Gral’s seen bards cast Suggestion before, and that seems to line up a little too well. Unfortunately, he can’t just Dispel Magic the darn thing; it’s too artful and subtle for that.

Gral decides to fish for a bit more info. “Before we leave you to your rest, how long have you had this flu?”

“About a week? The Inquisitor comes by every morning to update me on the town’s situation. Though I must rest and cannot attend to my duties, a town’s Burgermeister still must keep up with the times!”

“When did you first come into contact with him alone?”

“Oh, I insisted on a meeting when he first came into town a week ago.”

Interesting. The Burgermeister falls ill just in time so that the only information he gets about the town comes from the Inquisitor himself.

Wife doesn’t go out much, armed guard outside

Did he update you on the cage and the executions?

Have been capturing some neer do wells that seek to do harm to town, held for further questioning, some eliminated to protect town like common bandits or beasts.

Saw people in cages! How would you describe them, Clem.

Clem: didn’t strike me as especially dangerous folk

“Well, neither did that ringleader! He only seemed as eccentric as any other traveling performer!”

“Sure,” Gral argues, “but that’s when he had time to prepare his lies and his magic. These scared people in cages wouldn’t be able to hide if they tried. Honestly, the worst I saw was an excessive amount of body hair.”

“Fine, fine, I will inspect these prisoners personally as soon as I feel better, which should be any day now!”

“With all due respect, you fell ill right after this Inquisitor started talking to you. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Miss Haxan says you’re fine-“

“No I’m not! I need rest!” the Burgermeister interjects heatedly.

“We saved the town, and we’ve had trouble with Penitents before. I believe he has a spell on you. Please, let me try to remove it.”

“I’ve no time for your insane ravings, orc. The Inquisitor is a man of faith! Now leave me to my rest. Dr. Haxan, I appreciate your diagnosis, but I tire easily these days. Have my wife show you out.”

Gral knows the effect of Suggestion is only about 8 hours, but it’s subtle mental manipulation; it lasts. If the Inquisitor is coming by every morning, that’s the perfect opportunity to refresh the charm.

The two of them head out, Clem politely prescribing a short calisthenic routine for the man and, oh, he’s on the mend but just in caaaase he’s contagious the Inquisitor probably shouldn’t visit for a few days?

His wife agrees that sounds reasonable, but it probably won’t stop the guy. They say their gracious goodbyes.

Meanwhile, Shoshana and Valeria are headin’ to church. It’s a tiny thing; there are naves for the three gods we expect, but it doesn’t have the traditional empty throne of Oberok and we’d be surprised if it had a proper hidden shrine for the trickster god Guile. There’s a few people around, and luckily no Penitents posted outside.

Valeria, of course, stops at the Rack shrine for a short prayer, still getting used to how odd it is to see him depicted as human instead of dragonborn. We notice a few little notes – the Lethe shrine’s sponsored by the local blacksmith. You too can have a sword or hammer just like these, in our showroom down the lane!

A few folks are doing their daily prayers and making offerings. They’re all locals and travelers; there’s not a single Penitent in sight, which is pretty odd. There’s no services right now, so we head over to the old man who’s cleaning up candle drippings under one of the offerings. Valeria introduces herself, at your service as per usual.

“Ah, Kyr Argent! I remember you, from that blond man’s story about the circus! Keeper Remick, at your service. How may I aid you?”

Valeria asks him how, as a keeper of the faith, he feels about the Penitents.

“Well, in these times, faith is very important. And they certainly have plenty of that. And that’s a good thing, isn’t it? As a paladin, I’m sure you agree.”

“Faith is one thing, but I can’t say I’m pleased with what they’ve misguidedly done here,” Valeria sniffs.

“As I see it, they’re keeping the town safe. The Inquisitor explained it to me. It’s the will of the gods! Desperate times call for desperate measures, and, well, times are pretty desperate when you can’t even trust a circus! With your mind, that is. With your wallet, Guile walks with them, doesn’t he? Anyhow. These Penitent fellows, they seem extreme, but is there any other option?”

“There must be,” Valeria declares. “They’re detaining people at a crossroads, that’s the work of oppression.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far – see, the Inquisitor explained it to me. He is an experienced scholar of the faith, with a keen – not eye, I guess. A keen sense for the corruption that lurks in the hearts of men. I am, to be honest, just a glorified janitor!”

“I’m certain you’re more than that,” Valeria objects.

“Oh, there’s no need for that. It’s a role I’ve found fulfilling, keeping this place and these people.”

“Well, it seems like they’re brushing past this place in search of something new.”

“Yes, heh. I believe the intent is to make this town a bastion of faith. I’m sure that my little spot here will still remain in use, but more glorification to the gods is good, right?”

We botch an insight check and don’t get a real good sense of him. There isn’t the sense that he’s lying about anything – our impression is he believes it’s not his place to stand in the Penitents’ way; they must know better than him. He’s an old man who’s done a noble job, but he doesn’t think he’s cut out for determining who is or isn’t a danger to the town.

We try another tack: “I understand you’re on the town council?”

“I am. Don’t know why, really. We used to have a proper cleric, decades ago. When he died, I was closest thing to a replacement we had! As the keeper of town’s faith, I hold one of the three seats. Burgermeister Menner does most of running the town, but for the big things he calls in myself and the sheriff and we all take a vote.”

“Then you must have been a big part of bringing the Penitents in?”

“Well, Sheriff Wilbur’s the one who brought their offer to us. I did vote in favor, yes. The Inquisitor showed up personally with his people and described the whole arrangement he had in mind. The Penitents would reinforce and train our militia, and those guilty of corruption would be remanded into their custody for justice. It all seemed very reasonable; sheriff Wilbur does his best but clearly he and his deputies aren’t enough on their own, not against this sort of curse. Burgermeister Menner fell ill shortly afterwards, and I’ve been very busy here doing what I can to keep up folks’ faith.”

Shoshana butts in. “Have you actually been out to see the Penitents work?”

“Yes, once. It disturbed me, but I understand it couldn’t be avoided. The Inquisitor suggested it might be best to avoid seeing such things that upset me so.”

“But if it upsets you – wouldn’t you be the one with authority to change things?!” Valeria demands, failing a persuasion check.

“Oh, voting on anything like that has to wait until the Burgermeister feels better.”

“Can’t council members do anything on their own?”

“Like I said, we’d have to convene to vote…”

“Sure, for the big things,” Shoshana argues, “But the sheriff and Burgermeister have their own duties, don’t you have your own authority as well?”

“I - I suppose I could call clerics from other towns to take a look?”

Valeria puts a gauntleted hand on his shoulder and sparkles at him with all her charismatic piety. “You’re not just the keeper of the shrine, you’re the keeper of this town’s faith. I know you can make a difference.”

The dice land in her favor. “Yes!” the old man declares. “I will-I will do something. What is it I should do? I’m new to this. I’ve held this seat for 20 years but, well, doing something is new. Mostly council meetings are that the Burgermeister says I’d like to increase the tolls, I say the gods probably won’t argue, the sheriff says it won’t cause a riot, and then he does it. I am not suited for a crisis.”

“Well, what kinds of things do you normally do?”

“Er, sometimes I have to sit in on a trial and make sure the prisoner has an advocate?”

OH YOU’RE A PRISONER ADVOCATE, HUH. WELL BOY DO WE HAVE SOME PRISONERS FOR YOU.

“Why, don’t the Penitents do that as clerics of Rack?”

We politely do not laugh in his face. No, no they do not.

“Oh, then I must go at once!”

We’re gonna reconvene with the rest of the party, and then will see the gods’ justice done! After lunch!

The four of us, plus the Fairgolds, meet up. Flynn reports that there have been no changes; the Penitents let all carts through but seized some items, mostly books. We swap info about the Burgermeister and Keeper Remick. The town leadership is hardly good in a crisis, but the Penitents have definitely been separating and keeping them down on purpose.

The first step is to bring in Keeper Remick as our prisoner advocate for those folks being held in the basement. The old man puffs himself up with as much importance as he can, aided by all of us backing him up looking tough. “AHEM,” he announces to the nonplussed Penitent guard, “as a member the of town council and keeper of town’s faith, let me speak with your prisoners!”

Silence.

“Can I speak to your manager? I mean leader!”

The Penitent shakes his head.

“Now listen here young man, what seat do you hold on the town council?!”

The Penitent finally speaks. “I have been instructed to-“

“To work WITH the town council,” Remick retorts, showing a surprising amount of backbone. “No matter how much experience you all may have, it is my solemn duty to speak with the town’s prisoners! Allow ,e to do my duty or I will be forced to write a sternly worded letter! APOLOGIZING FOR FORCING OUR WAY PAST YOU!”

The Inquisitor glides up behind his guard, listening to Remick’s speech. “Very well,” he intones in his eerily calm voice, “You may…enter.”

We are brought down to basement. It’s a set of maybe 6 cells, more suited to being a drunk tank than any long-term holding cell. In one cell we spot the distinctive scales of a blue dragonborn, and as our footsteps clank on the stone, an equally distinctive voice begins to shout indignantly.

“You brutes, I demand you return my research materials to me! I was in the middle of some important work when- oh, you aren’t the warden. My goodness! Kyr Argent! I must say, it’s rather good to see a familiar face.” Oh, hi, Lucinius.

The cells are overcrowded – there must be 20 prisoners across 6 cells. Lucinius and everyone else crammed in with him look pretty beaten up. They all look completely normal; the ones with visible mutations have been imprisoned where people can see. These are the prisoners they wouldn’t be able to get away with holding publicly.

Lucinius has clearly got a rant building up. “I explained to them many times that I am a professor from Golden Academy, and they refused to listen! They said my studies are ‘heretical’ and my magics ‘invoke the name of the tyrant god’ – yes, obviously, they were written during the Aquilian empire, they said ‘Oberok’ every other word! It’s not a dirty word! Anyhow. Are you here to let us out?”

“We’re here to be advocates!”

“Oh, we’ve had advocates!” Lucinius huffs. “The Inquisitor is the prosecution, while one of those fanatic knights serves as our ‘advocate.’ It’s quite far from ideal; their position as advocate is that we ought to confess, if we understand the gravity of our crimes. And then they hit us a bit.”

“I’m unfamiliar with the customs of this land,” Gral allows, “but that doesn’t exactly sound like proper advocacy.”

“Well, I certainly don’t know how things are done in this country! I’ve never been accused of a cr- well, I have been accused of many crimes,” Lucinius admits. “I find it’s best never to assume about local customs. That got me into a LOT of trouble with the goblins. Did you know they have a ‘trial by fire?’ I misunderstood it, they just light a big fire to keep the courtroom warm while the trial goes all night. I went to great lengths to cast Protection from Energy! And of course it turns out casting spells as a prisoner is double illegal…”

“Double illegal?”

“Yes, it means they bring in twice as many judges.”

As he rants, the sight of innocent prisoners in miserable conditions seems to be a pretty strong argument. Remick’s fully on board with booting the Penitents out as soon as he can convene the town council.

Gral’s going to make a show of it. Loudly, he declares, “This is a violation of these citizens’ basic rights! We’ll need a full meeting of the town council before any Penitent activities continue!”

The Inquisitor hmms. “That’s…certainly something the Burgermeister could order. But nobody may leave if they have not been inspected. If we cannot continue our inspections, the town would shut down entirely.”

“The lockdown would only start once the Burgermeister declares it, which hasn’t happened yet,” Valeria interjects testily.

We’re politely and pointedly escorted out.

Lucinius shouts after us, “Don’t be long! Tell my bodyguards these people are not allowed into the cart without a warrant signed by someone of noble rank, or at least with a judicial position! Also, contact the embassy! They can’t do this to me, I have tenure-!”

The session closes as we discuss how the hell we’re going to get a Proper Council Meeting with the sheriff out “receiving instruction” from the Penitents and the Burgermeister convinced he’s indisposed. And we’ve got to get at least two of the three to vote the intruders out. That’s not gonna happen without them feeling like they have some way to protect the town from the Curse.

We fondly reminisce that our previous campaign’s party would definitely have started murdering people by now.

[sablesides-writing-corner]

Psst.. The Little Mermaid And Romas?

Roman was a singer, he knew that much, but at heart he was an anthropologist, and that took precedence over concerts any day. This particular evening Roman had decided was as good a time as any to explore the abandoned ship wreck east of the kingdom with his brother.

"There might be sharks! Or a giant squid!" Remus said.

"You're a giant squid," Roman said, nudging him to the side.

"I now! That's why I hope we meet one!" Remus said, spinning ina circle and spreading out his tentacles. Roman rolled his eyes and flicked his tail.

"Come on, we've got a ship to explore," Roman said, shooting through a hole that used to be a window. Remus followed, only for his lower half to get stuck. Roman yanked him the rest of the way through and went on his way exploring.

They had amassed a large summary of items before the rude intrusion of a very large and hungry shark, retreating to the surface in their escape.

"That was close," said Roman.

Remus shook his hair out "Yeah! And it was awesome!" he responded enthusiastically.

"We should check with Patton to see what these are," said Roman.

Patton, a stout man with the wings of a bird, was Roman's only ticket to information about the surface. Thought he wasnt exactly very good at it.

"And this one looks like a dinglehopper!" holding up what, to anyone who knew even the most basic details of human culture, was clearly a fork.

"What's it for?" Roman said, leaning his head on his arms.

"The humans use it to brush their hair!" Patton said, demonstrating on his own.

"Woah," Roman said, Remus merely laughed.

"Well we've gotta get going before dad notices we're missing," Roman said.

"Well come back soon!" Patton said, watching the duo disappear beneath the waves.

"The surface! Of all the places to skip out on a concert for! The surface!" King Romulus was fuming, so much in fact that there were bubbles forming near his head.

"It was only to see Patton! We didnt go near any ships!" Roman tried to explain, but the situation only seemed to worsen.

"That's it, I've had enough of you two and this surface-world nonsense. Virgil! Watch them." a short purple-haired merman swam out from behind the throne.

"Of course, sire-" he said, swimming between the twins. The trio left the throne room, Remus annoyed, and Roman angry and dismayed.

They were distracted momentarily by the appearance of brightly colored flashes of light above the water. Before Remus and Virgil could stop him, Roman was charging towards the source of the light. A large, elaborately designed boat.

"Roman you get back here! Dont even think about going near that boat!" Virgil called. But Roman was already climbing up to an opening at the side of the ship.

The ship was completely full of humans, dancing, singing, and causing general amounts of party related ruckus. But what really caught the young merman's eye was a the man at the center of it all, tall, muscular, with brown hair and eyes. What looked to be a labrador was dancing at his heels, until it noticed Roman's face peaking through the ship. Before he could duck, his face was covered in dog slobber.

"Hey! Hey! Easy girl- easy," the man brought away the dog, and seemed to stall a bit as he examined Roman's face. He was about to open his mouth to speak when a voice called for a man named Thomas, at which he promptly retreated. Roman took the opportunity to retreat back into the water.

"Roman that was stupid! You couldve been killed!" said Virgil.

"Oh but you shouldve seen him! He was so tall and handsome and he looked like he could hoist me into the air with one arm!" Roman said, holding his hands to his heart.

"Oh dont tell us you fell in love with a human!" Remus said, grinning cheekily.

Roman was about to defend himself, when lightning stuck behind them. He whipped around only to see the ship which held his beloved going down in flames. He raced under the water and thrashed around looking for him. He finally located his knight in shining armor and dashed to his side, heaving with all the strength he could muster to get to the surface. He stayed by Thomas'side until he noticed the prince's eyes begin to flutter. The song he'd been singing faltered, and he darted back into the water before he could be noticed. He watched as a taller man with a scar across his face approached his prince, draping a cloak over his shoulders and guiding him to a castle. Roman retreated back into the water, where Remus and Virgil awaited him.

"Of all the ignorant stupid boar-headed things you couldvw done! Why in all of Atlantis would you go after him!" Virgil said.

"Hes in love Virgil let him make stupid decisions if he wants," Remus said, cackling. Roman merely glared at him.

He and Remus finally lost the distressed merman in Roman's favorite hideout, the grotto. Within it was a statue of Roman's prince, a prize won after the storm.

"Sooooo- tell me about him- does he look like he'd taste good cooked over a volcano?" Remus laughed.

"Oh be quiet!" Roman snapped. He went on about the love of his life for several hours before the atmosphere seemed to change.

"A human?" Roman's spine seemed to go rigid.

"H-Hello- father-" he said. Remus' eyes widened. Roman hid behind the statue.

"My own son, in love with a human?" King Romulus' voice seemed to echo, causing different trinkets to fall to the bottom of the cove. There was a flash of light, and Roman's treasures were destroyed. All that was left of the rampage was the face of the statue. Roman stared at his father, shock, fear, and sadness evident on his face. Before his own brother could call out for him he'd left the cove, much to far away to hear their pleas.

He'd been crying against the rocks for who knew how long, when he heard voices.

"Poor thing,"

"Broken heart, he must feel horrible,"

Roman looked up, two mereels were circling above him.

"What do you want?" he said, wiping his face off.

"Oh you poor child, we only want to help you!" said the first.

"And we know just what you need, and just who can do it," said the second. The two held their hands out, Roman hesitated, before reaching his own out.

He was taken to what seemed like the rotting carcass of a whale.

"In here, in here, she wont bite," said the eels.

"Who've you brought me now?" said a gentle voice. Roman swam further into the home, to be met with a woman in front of a mirror, blue and purple hair framing her face.

"A prince!"

"Prince Roman!"

The eels chattered on, the woman turned around. She was small, she looked kind.

"Hestia, a pleasure to meet you," she said.

"Now it's my understanding that you're in love with a human yes?" Hestia smiled, the once white lines across her body shifting to an odd shade of pinkish-red.

"Yes but- I havent got any way to pay-" Hestia held a finger to his lips to shut him up.

"Oh the payment wont be much, a token really! All I want from you is. . . your voice," she said, smiling.

"My voice?" Roman replied.

"Only for a little, my brother Remy hasnt one of his own, you'll only have to go three days without it, that is if you get a kiss from your prince before sunset on the third," the lines shifted to a gold color. Roman was barely focussing on that, to busy thinking of the kiss.

"Alright- my voice- I'll do it," Roman said.

Hestia grinned, "Good, Remy! come here darling!" she called. A younger merman with sunglasses and brown hair swam out of the back, twisting a necklace in his hands.

"Now, as for you, sing," Hestia said, pointing at Roman. He did as told, felt something rise in his throat, and then he couldnt breath. He couldn't see or hear, he felt like he was dying. He heard laughter, female laughter. Someone dragged him to the surface, and he let out a sharp inhale.

"Roman! Roman! Stay with me!" Remus said, shaking Roman's head from side to side.

Roman coughed and tried to respond, but nothing came out.

"You signed away your voice you idiot!" Virgil said, as though this wasn't immediately obvious to everyone on the beach. Remus was about to interject when they heard a voice, Thomas' voice. Virgil quickly spun a piece of cloth around Roman's body, and he and Remus fled into the ocean.

"I mean he acts like I'm a child! It's not my fault the ship-" Thomas paused upon noticing Roman, who smiled at him delightedly.

"Well hello there, and who might you be?" Thomas said, helping Roman out of the water. He stumbled a bit and fell forward into Thomas' arms.

He tried to respond, but to no avail, Thomas seemed concerned by this.

"Are you alright? Can you not speak?" Thomas said. Roman nodded, the smile he got in return was enough to make his heart melt.

"Well, let's get you warmed up then, off to the castle we go," Thomas said.

It was a cozy affair his first night at the castle, warm by the fire with Thomas telling him stories. He seemed entranced by how the firelight danced in Roman's eyes.

The next day Thomas took him out into the town, he wished he couldve laughed at all of Thomas' jokes. Late that night they sat in a boat,music playing from all sides, familiar faces popping up every now and again

Roman had barely noticed Thomas' face close to his own until they were thrown out of the boat by a mysterious force.

The third day was by far the worst. Roman had awoken to find Thomas gone, to marry a man he said had saved him from death.Roman had watched as the ship sailed off, until three voices piped up.

"Roman! Roman it's the sea witch's brother! Hes stealing your man!" Remus said. Virgil and Patton nodded along side him. It took a fair bit of planning time before they could reach the boat, but by the time the trick had been realized, Roman felt something in himself change. He felt, again, like he was dying.

"Poor princey, no kisses for you hm?" Hestia's voice came from the water, she rose out of it, a familiar weapon in her hands.

"You like it? It's a birthday present from your father," she said, laughing so loud the ship trembled.

"What do you want from him!" Thomas yelled, dragging Roman closer to himself.

"Dont you talk to me like that! I'm going to rule all seven seas! And the likes of you wont stop me!" Hestia growled, bringing the trident down between the ship, causing it to begin to sink. Lifeboats crashed into the water, Roman fled under as well, attempting to reach the sea witch. He thought he'd snuck past her when he was pinned to the sea floor by the trident, a whirlpool beginning to form.

"Now you get to see what it felt like to be me! Disgraced, a shame to my family! Left for dead in the relentless waves of the ocean!" Hestia snarled. Roman felt static on all sides, and then nothing at all. A large object had fallen in front of him, Hestia, dead. Her brother backing away from the body, holding up what looked to be a broken down shipwreck. Roman popped his head above the water, Thomas was smiling at him.

It took nearly half a day to explain what had happened to King Romulus, and longer still to get him to calm down about Roman and Thomas' idea for marriage. But eventually, he conceded, and Roman was allowed to happily marry his prince charming, and live peacefully with him in their castle by the ocean.

[casimania]

YOU KNOW ITS GOTTA BE THE OT3 FOR THE ASK GAME 😍

Yessss! Domestic ship meme for Chloe/Dan/Lucifer below!

who reaches out to new neighbors: Unexpectedly… Maze! She keeps tabs on who comes and goes even better than Lucifer and is even faster than him at going for a snoop, it was her job to watch his back for a long time after all, ansd she watches out for Trixie too now (does the same for Linda and Charlie). The neighbors are probably confused and concerned like “is the scary lady part of the family??”. Chloe then makes Lucifer, Dan and Trixie come with her do a normal greeting-the-neighbors thing. But because Lucifer is Lucifer it turns out in another interrogation without the neighbors noticing (Maze is good at figuring out if they’re shady but Lucifer finds all the juicy, dirty little secrets). Chloe and Dan have to steer him away.

who remembers to buy healthy food: Since Dan started working on the abs he’s been keeping an eyes on his food more carefully and trying a healthier eating pattern too, except he tends to forget a lot when it’s time to restock. Chloe is better at remembering the list they make in time and following it so Dan writes down the stuff and Chloe reminds everyone when it actually has to be bought. Lucifer just wants to order whatever they need. But they want for Trixie to grow up doing normal stuff like groceries runs. They probably regret it when Lucifer turns out to be just a very tall Trixie and they just try shoving whatever they fancy inside the cart and it’s a constant battle (but he’s also easily disarmed by like, hand holding. Chloe reaches over and grabs his hand and he just spends the whole time looking down in wonder at their hands and looking up at Chloe with a big grin. Dan pushes the cart with Trixie balances either in front of it or between it and Dan and occasionally getting him to speed down an aisle). He does win them over some times they’re all ran to the ground by a case and the idea of crawling out of the house is physically painful.

who remembers to buy junk food: Lucifer, Trixie and Dan have the biggest sweet tooth ever (Lucifer has varied tastes while Trixie inherited Dan’s more focused tastes except it’s chocolate cakes instead of puddings, they sometimes vary but those things reappear frequently) and Lucifer and Trixie like junk food in general so no one ever forgets about restocking it. This time Lucifer definitely orders it (especially the pudding, between all the stealing it runs out fast at the precinct).

who fixes the oven when it breaks: Dan is that Dad™who insists on trying to fix things himself to teach Trixie to be self-reliable except sometimes it’s stuff he doesn’t actually know how to fix so he googles it or asks around and it’s a hit or miss. He either patches it up until the next break or fuckign destroys the thing (with familiar things he’s better). Also I like to think it’s a Dan thing in general, like “I can do this myself!!” except sometimes he overestimates and it ends up with a “oh no. oh fuck” (he gets steadily better at accepting help). Chloe is like, “Baby please just call a professional, they exist for a reason, you can teach Trixie how to fix a shelf or something” and she’s got 4 numbers ready from the start. Lucifer is a “throw the whole thing away” guy because he uses it as an excuse to renovate and add something new. But he lets Dan huff around because it’s amusing (and seeing Dan get to work reminds him he’s seen a few pornos starting like that, so another thing to add to his fantasies fodder) but he’s also curious about any parent-daughter interaction. So the whole thing takes a turn for the wholesome seeing Dan trying to explain stuff to Trixie (he still fantasizes about sweaty Dan in a tanktop grunting and wiggling his ass in the air to check inside the oven later).

who waters the plants/feeds their pet(s): Their lives don’t really match up with a pet but they’ve got plants and Chloe is their lifeline. She goes away for a fun Tribe thing and tells everyone to water the plants. They all forget. The day she’s scheduled to come back they panic, “Can’t we just put a lot of water all at once??”, cue Trixie accidentally making a few vases overflows and Chloe comes back to them frantically mopping the floor (it gets funnier the smaller number of plants they have).

who wakes up earlier: Lucifer can’t not sleep but he can get by on minimal sleep, so he often wakes up and lays in bed blissed out enjoying snuggling with his loves. Wake up as in up and leaves the house, it’s Dan. He either hits the gym or the beach for surfing most mornings before work so he’s up real early. Chloe and Lucifer roll around and go back cuddling.

who makes the bed: Lucifer always neatly tucks it in before leaving the house if he’s the last one to go (very fussy devil, he likes making messes but he also likes having everything restored to tidyness after). Chloe is more of the ‘just haphazardly pull the covers up’ before leaving type (mostly to set  somewhat of a good example for Trixie). Dan barely bothers and is the one that always forgets when it’s actually time to change the covers.

who makes the coffee: Lucifer is the one cooking most times so he also makes breakfast and has always coffee ready for Dan and Chloe when they wake up. He’s neutral on it but he starts drinking it regularly because he enjoys when they’re all standing against the counter and Chloe and Dan have these sleepy expressions with half lidded eyes but they sip on the coffee and smile or hum happily against the mug (it’s small cozy moments like these that make him feel all fluttery and content inside, the Devil likes to be painfully domestic). He knows exactly how they take their coffee but he’s also real good at figuring out what else they’d like so he’s always making them trying fancy new stuff for fun and he basically always hits the mark).

who burns breakfast: Chloe and Dan try to make something extremely elaborated for Lucifer because he’s always cooking for them but they have it in over their heads (and are trying to be quick and silent) and end up burning something while. When Lucifer smells burning stuff he comes barrelling into the kitchen ready for a fight and Trixie trails after him. He’s like, very touched. But then either stirs them away so he can whip up himself the thing they botched, or they still sit him down and feed him waffles or pancakes or something else they know how to do with thier eyes closed. Lucifer loves the idea of preparing stuff for them and surprising them with new things, but also just kicking back, eating whatever they set in front of him and licking syrup off his fingers while one of them stands nearby and absentmindedly runs a hand back and forth through his hair and down his neck… is very nice. He probably falls asleep like that at least once. He doesn’t faceplant in a waffle just because he’s seeking out the hand even in his sleep and doesn’t slump forward too much. It reminds Dan and Chloe of Trixie when she was very little.

how do they let each other know they’re leaving the house: Dan bellows everyone’s names and then “I’M LEAVING! BYE!” from the door loud enough to wake the dead. Answers vary gretly depending on the hour he does it (from loving responses from around the house to threats of physical violence if he tries breaking the sound barrier one more time at the ass crack of dawn if he leves early). Chloe pokes her head in whichever room they are and “Guys I’m going!”. Lucifer forget to say anything sometimes but never leaves without a kiss or some nuzzling.

how do they greet each other when one of them gets home: Dan bellows (again) “I’M HOME” as soon as he opens the door. Chloe just says “Hi!” at a normal volume once she’s fully inside. Lucifer barges in screaming “DeeeTeEECtiIIVeeeES” until he finds some of them to kiss. It’s a Thing for him apparently, goodbye kiss and welcome home kiss.

who brings home little gifts like flowers/chocolates more often: Lucifer is always getting Dana and Chloe little trinkets and gifts. He started out with more extravagant stuff but they managed to get him to tone it down a little. They vary from sweet or funny to “I know this must be a sex toy but what the hell is it supposed to be exactly??”.

who picks the movie for movie night: They wrote down a ton of movies and put them in a bowl to avoid bicker over it for an entire hour. If Trixie partecipates they let her choose something age appropriate she likes.

their favorite kind of movie to watch: Dan and Lucifer love action flicks (the bloodier and full of ridiculous explosions, one-liners and half naked people the better). Lucifer gets into cheesy romcoms with Chloe (it becomes a shared guilty pleasure, they look for the very outrageous ones). Trixie becomes a sci-fi buff growing up.

who first suggests a pillow fort: Oh man Dan and Trxie are all over it (personal hc that is was sometimes Dan always liked but in his family he got at a certain age where they decided he was too old for it, so they didn’t make them with him and he was embarassed to do one by himself and get caught, so he’s the most enthusiastic next to Trixie and never makes her feel like it’s a thing just for little kids). And angels nesting is a thing in every fandom with angels so it reminds Lucifer a lot of a nest so he gets a little weird about it at first because it reminds him of his sibligns and the Silver City, but gets very into it after a while (which later brings him to feel a little dristessed when they bring the whole thing down, which leads to them helping him build an actual nest).

who builds the pillow fort: In the Decker-Espinoza family Trixie gives directions and Dan and Chloe are the certified builders. With Lucifer thrown in the mix he goes for the aesthetics and so the first color coordinated pillow forts are born, he adds some flair.

who tries to distract the other during the movie: Lucifer with Trixie present = constant running commentary and continuous “pet me” requests (he loves his cuddles but if they get distracted and stop he prods at them until someone starts petting hair or running their hands over his back again, like excuse me! attend to me!). Lucifer without Trixie = naughty wandering hands (he’s very good at multitasking and will try to offer commentary of a movie in the middle of giving oral).

who falls asleep first: When she has a case Chloe is always very keyed up so she drops as soon as she hit the pillow. Lucifer makes an effort to wait for Dan to also fall asleep. He likes knowing they’re all safe and comfortable dozing off near him, and likes falling asleep to the sound of that deep breathing of the dead to the world sleeping.

who is big spoon/little spoon: Lucifer absolutely craves the shit out of being in the middle, something about having someone on his back and front makes him feel incredibly safe and loved and makes sleeping so much easier. Chloe and Dan are very versatile on that front so they swap a lot between being big and little spoon when it’s comfortable to be all squished together.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

The camping trip was WONDERFUL!

We went to this place called Wisteria. Lots of hippie vibes, paganism, generally arms wide open to alternate paths. Found a furry, befriended another enby, let my pagan flag fly high for once!

Friday night was mostly spent building a campfire and then sitting around it talking. It got down into the 30′s that night, but Mom and I brought a ton of warm clothes and blankets, and we slept in her car (with the seats down) instead of the tent. I think the ground would’ve been more comfortable, honestly, but the car was probably warmer than a tent would’ve been.

Is it really any wonder that Samhain was my favorite day? I actually.... met somebody? That I liked interacting with?? We went on a hike, visited a shrine, talked a surprising amount. 

I played a game called Unstable Unicorns with them, which is basically Yugioh with more whimsy. (And different win conditions, since there are no life points, and you all play from the same deck instead of customizing your own. But they even call moving cards from your field to the graveyard discard pile “destroying” them! And even though it was my first time playing, I definitely called on the same strategies I use in Yugioh and wound up winning that one. it helped that I had a Super Neigh that stopped the chick riiight before me from winning, so that may have been luck. but still! I won a game I’ve never played before!)

Wound up visiting the Faery Shrine (twice actually), the first time I left an offering and thanked them for letting us into their home, you know.

And then there was teeeeeny tiny gathering around a fire that night, like the entire camp site was practically deserted, but I think all ~seven~ of us showed up for that. Someone brought a telescope and we looked up at the moon. Called out to lost loved ones, because, you know, Samhain.

The second time at the fairy shrine was way more sightseeing-y, guided on a hike by the BnB hostess (who runs her own business and does a form of individual conservation called “agro-forestry”, I believe? It really intrigued me). noticing all the little trinkets people had left. The host called it an “interactive art exhibit”, and I think I’d like to do a little interaction myself next time I go. (Because I do definitely plan on coming back, maybe for one of their festival events once it’s safe to do that again.)

Most of the daylight was in the 50′s there, which is perfect for me! Of course, when I came home, it was to find hail, snow, and powerful winds everywhere. Gotta love Cleveland weather. /s So I spent the night cold-proofing my room, trying to get a heater to work that refuses to turn on, so I had to dig out a spare heat lamp for the doves, and slept with several sweaters and blankets, so I only just had time to update now. Oops.

But I am home safe, and the weekend was absolutely phenomenal. I’m really looking forward to going back to that place someday, when things are in full swing, maybe learning more about the community there, because the place had a really laid-back and accepting vibe that you really don’t find much, especially in Rural Freaking Ohio.

[yourplayersaidwhat]

Holy Crap, that worked!?

So my brother was running a long-term Palladium Fantasy campaign and we were deep in to it. A little backstory, before our current trek, my Wolfen Paladin Rangus had been gifted a strange jewel on a chain and our party had no idea what it was for. Fast forward to the present and we had just barely escaped from a temple as it collapsed around us. To get to our next destination we needed to travel through a fire swamp in jungle. My brother rolls for our first random encounter; a red dragon.

Dragon: You must pay tribute to cross my lands. What do you offer!?

Rangus (Me): *in a fit of desperation and lack of ideas, holds up the jewel* Be gone foul beast! (Or something to that effect)

Dragon: *nostrils flare and eyes widen* You will give that to me now, mortal!

Sorcerer (ooc): Dude he really wants it! We can’t just give it to him, it’s gotta be powerful!

Priest (ooc): Yeah don’t do it. We can take him!

Me: *knowing we’re really banged up and have no way of winning* …how about a trade instead of a tribute? We’ll give this to you without a fight on exchange for a ride across your lands.

Everyone else (ooc): No! What’re you doing!?

Brother (GM): Alright. Make a persuasion roll.

Me: *Nat 20*

GM: *laughs* Alright, the dragon reluctantly agrees.

So I effectively saved us almost a week’s worth of travel and near certain death in the swamps. On the way there the priest managed to patch us up a bit too. I knew I had to try to get that jewel back. After we land, everyone else starts to walk away while Rangus just stands there.

Me: I have another offer, dragon!

Everyone else ooc: WTF! YOU’RE GONNA GET US KILLED! STFU!

Dragon: You test my patience, mortal…

Me: I want that jewel back. And in exchange I can offer you something far more powerful than that paltry trinket.

A little more backstory, the temple we just collapsed? It housed the Water of Life.

GM: Okay…make another persuasion roll with a -10 for trying to fuck with a dragon.

Everyone else ooc: We’re all gonna die!

Me: *gulp, roll…….Nat 20*

I then proceeded to give the dragon the exact location of the temple, what guards it, and how to defeat the trials (except for the last one that collapsed the temple). The dragon calmly gave us the jewel and took off into the sky, laughing like a madman. I left out the part about the temple being completely and utterly destroyed. Shortly after we discovered the jewel was a piece of the Castlerake, which we needed to defeat the BBEG. We managed to teleport out of there once we found out. So there’s now a long running joke amongst our group that there’s now a VERY angry red dragon flying around the Yin Sloth Jungles who really wants us dead.

[thedragonlover]

10 for 10 for 10

It’s a game where you answer ten questions, create your own ten questions, and then tag ten people. It sounded fun!

I was tagged by @sleeeeepytea ! Thank you, lovely!

1; what’s your favourite kind of aesthetic? Hmm that’s tough! I swing between a lot of them with my moods. But if I had to choose one, and I had to look up a list of aesthetics for this because I’m so casual about this but, I’d go with Cloudcore. The sky has always been inspiring for me. I’ve written songs, poems, stories because I looked up and just couldn’t contain myself. A lot of my camera roll is probably clouds. (But I just saw the word Dracopunk hmmm)

2; do you have an irrational fear? if so, what of? Bees. And wasps and such, just, buzzing flying insects. I’ve never been stung, not once. But something about them terrifies me. They look cool in pictures though! And I wouldn’t advocate destroying any beehives, they’re important for the environment! Just, please keep them away from me. QwQ

3; who’s your favourite animal crossing villager? (if you don’t know animal crossing, just share your fave animal/s) You gotta make me CHOOSE?! Uhhh. Flurry, Tangy, Bob, Sherb, or Beau. That’s as much as I can narrow it down. I remember my first AC game’s villagers fondly tho, I’d probably invite some of them to my ACNH island.

4; how long has it been since you’ve received a gift? Not terribly long ago, I don’t think. A friend gave me an extra pin with my P5R preorder today, if that counts. Before that, my roommate brought me food from our favorite restaurant on it’s last day before permanent closing. And some regulars got me a gift card because they like me. I’m truly blessed by the people I know TwT

5; what colour would you describe yourself as? Just one color? Aaaaaa I guess silver? It’s a pretty chill color, but can look flashy in certain lights. Fits perfectly under moonlight. Playful like silver bells, interested in food like silver plates, bad to mess with like silver daggers. Easygoing with most other colors. I was going to say gray initially, but dragons deserve more sparkle!

6; do you have plans for the future or do you prefer to let things just play out? I’m not terribly good at long-term plans, but I’ve been working on being more organized at least in the short-term or mid-ground. My FEH planner helps! Also spontaneity takes too much energy, I need to plan my Do Things days and my Do Nothing days in advance.

7; favourite crystal/gemstone? Tiger’s eye, hands-down! I’ve always liked it, I carry one around in my pocket nowadays. The shimmering golds and browns, and how they’re layered! And if you believe in metaphysical stuff, it’s supposed to help with courage. No wonder child me loved it.

8; what’s one book/poem/line that has stuck with you/made an impact on you? To get cheesy, something my little brother said when I saw him last October. I have the exact wording on my phone but, it was along the lines of “the only one stopping you is yourself.” It has the same vibe to it as Kamina’s motivational speeches in Gurren Lagann. Which are also great and inspired young me.

9; do you have any piercings? if so, where? if not, do you want any? I have one in each earlobe, and that’s it. Tbh while I’m happy to use them now, I didn’t get them voluntarily. No parent should force it upon their child.

10; how many gaming consoles do you have? I have about five, I think? Six if you count computer. Wait, eight, if we also include my handhelds.

Now to make my own questions. Hmm.

1. What’s your favorite drink to make on a bad day?

2. What game/book are you really looking forward to the release date of?

3. Do you do preorders or no?

4. Has a game/book/etc has made you react out loud, loudly, while playing it?

5. What made you create a tumblr account?

6. If you made your personality into a candle, what would it smell like?

7. What makes you like a favorite character, in whichever recent fandom you’re in? (don’t worry about choosing the MOST favorite, just one you want to talk about)

8. What’s something you don’t like about fandoms?

9. What’s the story behind a trinket, toy, etc. in your room?

10. If you were a Pokemon, what type would you be? (If you never played, pick a Persona skill type or arcana, a Hogwarts house, an element from Avatar, or similar thing)

As for tagging! (You don’t have to do these if you don’t want to.)

@cumprinc @washedupfae @themerpenguin @pkwheezing @aihi8 @with-bells-upon @vannyxan @sunflowerkittycrafts @theninjamouse @loraliah or anyone else who feels like answering some questions!

[svtskneecaps]

Darling, We’ve Got Time : Part 15

Vernon and Seungkwan’s little group of time state deserters has been leading Seungcheol’s team of time agents on a Tom-and-Jerry chase through the timestream for what may have been the entirety of their career–different setting, same result–but the tides are starting to shift. Things aren’t adding up to the time agents, and all the deserters can hope is to sow enough seeds for them to finally put the pieces together.

(Seventeen Time Travel AU; no reader)

< Prev | First | Masterlist

and uhh yea so this is it?? the part at the bottom was gonna be another part but then i looked at how long it really was and like yeah, it doesn’t need that

finding appropriate gifs is hard and it’s 1 am : a series. this is what you get.

By the time Seungcheol realized something was wrong, he’d already tripped into the clearing. The brilliant flash of the time bombs blinded him, and when he blinked the spots from his vision they were surrounded.

Chwe Hansol stepped forward, out of the circle of deserters. “Please just listen,” he said, holding out his hands to show that they were empty. “It’s something we’ve been wanting to say for a long time, but we never got a chance.”

He tightened his grip on his blaster, despite being horrendously outnumbered. “I don’t listen to traitors.”

Joshua touched his arm. “Maybe we should,” he said.

He glanced to the side and there was something unreadable in his eyes, but he looked earnest.

Seungcheol didn’t lower his gun, but he relaxed his stance ever so slightly. “Fine.”

“Did the time state ever tell you why we deserted?” Chwe Hansol asked.

“They didn’t need to,” he said. “Everybody knows you just wanted to go joyriding through time, screwing everything up.”

“You can’t screw up time,” Boo Seungkwan said, stepping forward, his blaster falling to his side. “And we tried, at first, but after we spent two months trying just for Franz Ferdinand’s assassin ran into him outside a sandwich shop, we realized you just can’t change things.”

“Yeah right,” Seungcheol scoffed. “Why would the time state exist?”

“Control,” Wen Junhui said. “Time travel is limited to people affiliated with them, so they have a monopoly on it. A trip through time costs a fortune, ever notice?”

His grip slackened on the gun, but he retightened it just as quickly. “So, what, you think they were lying to me?”

“No,” Seungkwan said. “We know they lied to us.”

“They were wiping our memory the whole time we were there,” Hansol said. “Every moment we spent together that started to be something more, they’d just erase. And we--” he gestured to himself and Seungkwan-- “weren’t going to let that stand. And-- we tried to tell you guys but it was just so absurd, nobody listened. So we ran.”

Seungkwan took his hand. “And they erased us,” he said. “It took a month, by our timeline, for someone else to catch on.”

“I kept losing time.” Jeonghan stepped forward, and the look in his eyes was one of deep pain (the same look he had every time Seungcheol saw him; the one that sparked an inexplicable urge to destroy whatever caused him heartbreak). “Time with you, Seungcheol, you and Joshua; I’d check my messages, and I’d see conversations I didn’t remember, and pictures I didn’t remember taking. And I brought it up and neither of you seemed to have noticed anything like that, so I just-- I took a shot in the dark and I asked Vernon and Seungkwan about it.”

“Why didn’t you tell us, then?” Seungcheol demanded. “If you loved us so much they supposedly erased it, why wouldn’t you tell us?”

“I tried,” Jeonghan said, “but you’d already caught me with them and refused to listen, and I couldn’t go back, so I just left with them.”

“I always wondered why it was so easy for us to find them,” Jihoon said quietly.

“They’d leave their location on when they made posts,” Mingyu said. “I always thought they were just incompetent, but they wanted us to chase them.”

“At Woodstock,” Soonyoung said, and his voice shook, “Seungkwan knew it was the post that lead us to them. And--” he swung around to face Wonwoo-- “they erased him, didn’t they? When I came in after my checkup that one time, and you kept claiming Minghao was my favorite-- they erased it, didn’t they?”

Wonwoo nodded once, short.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” Jeonghan said softly, snapping Seungcheol’s attention forward. “But please, please just give us a chance. We could-- we could go try to stop the sinking of the Titanic again, if you need proof of the time thing, or-- try to stop JFK’s assassination or something. Or we could just-- look at little things, there’s this fireworks show they do in this spot in Ohio that’s really worth seeing; nothing drastically time line altering could happen, or we could-- watch Shrek 21. Just--” Seungcheol’s heart stuttered at the look on his face, so desperate and so heartfelt and afraid and hopeful-- “please stay with us. For a trip, or two. Just give-- give us a chance.”

He could hear the unspoken me loud and clear.

Joshua took his hand, looked in his eyes, and he could see the resolve. Joshua had already decided to stay, with or without Seungcheol.

“You knew about this, didn’t you?” he asked, on a hunch.

“I didn’t think you’d listen,” Joshua said softly.

He was right. Seungcheol didn’t think he would have. But. . .

“I want to try,” he said. “I can’t-- it sounds crazy. But I want to try.”

Jeonghan’s face splits open with the first genuine smile Seungcheol can remember on his face, and Joshua grins so big and so relieved, and his heart leaps with emotion from a time he can’t remember, and he’s struck with the urge to pull the both of them into his arms. And he does, and he feels more whole than he has in a while.

He made the right choice; in that moment he was sure of it.

And then a shot rang out. As if in slow motion, Seungcheol saw the bright flash of light from the blaster concealed in the bushes, and before he knows it he’s shoving Jeonghan and Joshua (his boys) to the ground, and he takes the plasma bolt in the chest, knocking him backwards with a grunt.

“Seungcheol!”

“It’s fine, I always wear my vest,” he huffed, rushing to get them behind him (knowing Joshua always forgot his). “You’ve got a handheld, yeah? We gotta go.”

The thunder of time travel echoed through the clearing, and Jeonghan sprang to his feet, pulling the two of them up with him as he spun his watch dial again. He flashed them a grin. “Ever wonder what the chase is like from our side?”

“Sometimes,” Joshua admitted.

“Well today’s your lucky day.” Jeonghan readied his watch. “Hope you’re good at running!”

He pressed the button as gunfire rang out, and they hit the ground running, tearing across the clearing hand in hand.

“Should’ve deserted years ago,” Seungcheol said. “I’m great at running.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jeonghan raised an eyebrow. “Remember Venice in eighteen ninety--”

“OH NOT YOU TOO!”

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

They never get their memories back, but it’s okay. They make new memories.

Because they explore the sixties, and the small town fireworks display, and they go on a cruise and they visit the premiers of every Marvel movie right after each other so Jihoon could have the experience and Jun could put Vernon and Seungkwan on blast before they convinced the newcomers that something had happened in Budapest.

And they tell their story in all kinds of ways to any reporter who would listen, in the time periods after the time state was created, and eventually it does something. Time travel avenues open up, and the time state is dissolved. Certain zones remain restricted access for historians only, but it isn’t just the rich travelling anymore.

The memory erasing devices become used like the men in black, to give grieving people their closure--one last conversation, or date night, or moment--and then erase the memory, or to be able to scrub mishaps from the historical zones (even though time can fix itself, these new agencies agree that they shouldn’t test the limits on such a large scale).

The group bounces around, tracking down the last cells of time agents who haven’t heard of the impending dissolution of the time state and convincing them to desert (together, they do a very good job of it).

Nothing’s perfect, but it’s getting there, and at the very least they hotwired the time ship for souvenirs and living space, and the huge ship doesn’t feel so empty with all of them and their little trinkets filling it.

(Vernon managed to corrupt Seungcheol to the slang side within two hours, and Jeonghan never forgave him for it)

[cruellae]

Sephiroth Week, Day 7

Last day! This was so much fun~ thank you to the organizers and all the other awesome people who participated.

Each of my Sephiroth Week entries are fragments of a love story told in 7 parts. As such, it’s a good idea to read all of them in order. You can find them [here on AO3].

Day 1 - Innocence

Day 2 - Wish

Day 3 - Fate

Day 4 - Haunted (Free Day)

Day 5 - Shapeshifter

Day 6 - Darkness

Day 7 - Remake

Cloud hesitates just inside the doorway to his kitchen, startled and wary. 

There is a gift sitting on his kitchen table. It’s small and rectangular, wrapped in white paper and tied with a black ribbon. 

He wonders how whoever it was got into his house, and why they left the gift instead of giving it in person. He wonders if it’s a trap, and if he should really open it. 

But eventually his curiosity wins out, and he approaches the package.

As soon as he touches the ribbon he can feel its magical potency. It’s a rare sort of trinket, the type he’s only seen twice before. Enchanted with a protective magic, it will keep him from being poisoned, petrified, or hit with any other nasty status effect. 

He ties it around his wrist in case the box itself is designed to inflict any such thing. Just in case. 

The box is made of simple polished rosewood, and inside…

His breath catches. They’re so beautiful. Three orbs of rare materia, with the shine that tells him they’re completely mastered. 

There’s no note, and nothing at all that might identify the sender. 

He wonders and worries about it--who could it be and what do they want--but that doesn’t stop him from using the materia. 

#

The next gift comes almost a month later, and he pauses in his doorway, taking in the sight of the large sword sitting on his kitchen table. 

He approaches the sword, his mouth slightly open. Even without touching it he can tell it’s the finest he’s ever laid eyes on. When he picks it up, the balance is perfect, like it was made for him. 

He wishes he knew who was behind it and where it came from. It’s a little weird for a sword to just appear in his apartment, but that doesn’t stop him from using it. 

Yuffie calls it the Ultima Weapon. ”Because it’s so ultimate, Cloud!” 

It’s as good a name as any for the best blade he’s ever wielded. 

# 

The third gift is almost certainly a trap. 

It’s a key, sitting on the table, gleaming silver in the light. Beside it is a map leading to somewhere in the hills just beyond Kalm. 

Weird.

But Cloud follows the trail anyway. 

It leads him off the beaten path and down a dirt road towards a corral where a young man is guiding a chocobo through the dust, clucking softly. 

The man hops the fence between them as Cloud slows his bike and looks him up and down appraisingly. “You gotta be Cloud Strife or my name’s not Chocobo Billy,” he says. 

Cloud nods cautiously. “That’s me.” 

“Howdy.” Billy holds out his hand for Cloud to shake. “Welcome home, sir.” 

Cloud stares at him in stunned silence as Billy explains that this ranch is a gift from a mysterious benefactor. “It’s yours, free and clear,” Billy says. “I’m here to help ya out, gettin it started, keepin it runnin.” 

“Uh-huh…” Cloud says. This is going to take a while to process. 

He would think Sephiroth is behind all of this, but Sephiroth is dead, gone for good this time. He has the Masamune to prove it, hidden away in his storage closet for the last year. It’s buried under a lot of junk because he doesn’t like to look at it. It makes him feel a lot of things he’d really rather ignore. 

Billy won’t say one word about who bought the ranch or hired him. Cloud gives up trying. 

He keeps the ranch, though. 

#

AVALANCHE is celebrating. President Shinra is dead, assassinated in his own office, and while Barret is upset that he didn’t get to do it himself, the entire team is in pretty high spirits. 

They all get drunk and Cloud, slightly tipsy, leaves them to it. He wants to be home at his ranch, with his chocobos and the quiet he’s gotten used to. After spending time there, Midgar seems loud and dirty, crammed with people. 

But for tonight, he’ll settle for crashing at his apartment in Sector 6. 

He steps through the door and freezes, staring at the gift that has been left on his table. 

Golden cufflinks, stamped with the Shinra logo and splattered with blood. 

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who they belonged to.

He runs into the next room and yanks open the door to the storage closet, jerking aside the junk piled in there and letting it carelessly fall to the floor. 

It’s gone. The Masamune is gone. 

He stares for a long time into the empty space the sword used to occupy, his fists clenched. 

“You bastard,” he whispers. 

#

Rufus Shinra is never unguarded. Since his father’s untimely death, he has spent every moment--sleeping and waking--accompanied by at least three Second Class SOLDIERs and one First Class. 

Sephiroth intends to destroy Shinra as thoroughly as he can, but he would prefer not to slay any of his old comrades. Therefore, Rufus’s assassination must be done strategically and thoughtfully. 

He’s perched on the barrel of Junon cannon, watching the festivities below as Rufus gives a bombastic speech to the assembled crowd, accompanied by utterly terrible brass band music. SOLDIERs and Shinra infantry march in formation, while two First Class SOLDIERs stand just behind Rufus, scanning the crowd for threats. Another is flanking the crowd, keeping watch on who comes and goes. 

None of them have spotted Sephiroth, hidden in shadow above them. But they could, if they knew where to look. The encounter with Jenova restored Sephiroth fully, so that Cloud is no longer the only one who can see him.

With his focus on the scene below, the ridiculous music blaring in his ears, he doesn’t notice the man approaching him until it’s almost too late. He whirls, the Masamune flashing in the golden glow of late afternoon as it comes to rest gently against Cloud Strife’s throat. 

Immediately, he lowers his weapon, his eyes lingering on the face he has missed so dearly. Of course he has been watching Cloud from a distance ever since they parted ways, but it’s different to see him up close, and to be seen in return. 

“I figured you’d be following Rufus,” Cloud says. 

“Shinra is a many-headed beast,” Sephiroth says. “I am only one man. It stands to reason that I will take them out one by one.” 

“You should work with us,” Cloud says. “AVALANCHE, I mean. We’d get more done together.” 

Sephiroth nods. “It would be my pleasure.” 

Cloud studies him, brows drawn together in unhappiness. It makes Sephiroth realize he has never apologized for his moment of weakness--a moment which almost meant Cloud’s death. 

“Jenova was…” He hesitates, wondering how he can possibly explain it. “All of my life, I wished to know what I was and where I came from. To have...a mother. She didn’t control my mind, Cloud. She simply offered me her love. I don’t believe that you should forgive me for what I did in Nibelheim or what I did in the Northern Crater. But know that I deeply regret it.” 

“And leaving me?” Cloud asks, his voice oddly rough. “Are you gonna apologize for that?”

Sephiroth studies him, puzzled. He left for Cloud’s sake, and severed the connection between them because he thought it would be what Cloud wanted. Who could possibly want to be tied to the monstrous spawn of Jenova, a man whose heart held so much hate and anger? Cloud had given himself to Sephiroth because he thought it would stop Sephiroth from doing Jenova’s bidding. It had nothing to do with love or his own desires. 

By leaving, Sephiroth released him from that fool’s bargain. He thought Cloud would be relieved, and maybe even grateful. But instead he looks devastated, like he’s been deeply betrayed. Like Sephiroth has the power to wound him. 

“Gods, this is so fuckin stupid,” Cloud says, running a hand through his hair in agitation. “I...I don’t even know what to say. What’s with the gifts, if you don’t give a fuck about me?” 

“Of course I care about you,” Sephiroth says. How could Cloud doubt it? 

“Then why?” Cloud asks. “I...Shiva, I’ve been such a fuckin idiot. Thinking of you all the time. Missing you like nothing else. And you’ve just been avoiding me.” 

The thought that Cloud might have missed him, that Cloud had been desperate for his presence, makes Sephiroth’s heart ache in his chest. 

“I thought you’d be glad to be rid of me,” he explains. “That you’d be happy you didn’t have to keep your promise.” 

Cloud steps closer, watching him with eyes the blue of the sky over the mountains. “I guess it’s a little much to promise to be yours forever when we’re just starting. How about you ask me on a date?” 

Sephiroth isn’t sure how to respond. He feels like his meager capacity for emotion is overflowing with elation and desire and anxiety. It would be so easy to fuck this up. But if he can do it right...there is the promise of so much more. 

“Your next gift was going to be a very useful piece of armor stolen from Shinra’s secret research lab,” Sephiroth says. “I have it on good authority it’s on the crashed remains of the Gelnika, which happens to be full of very dangerous monsters.” 

Cloud gives him a hint of a smile. “Are you asking me to go monster hunting with you?” 

“Will you?” Sephiroth asks, and holds his breath until Cloud answers him with a kiss. 

#

It may only be their second real date--a fancy restaurant in Midgar where Cloud squinted at the menu and complained about the lack of chicken sticks--but Cloud lets Sephiroth come home with him, to the apartment where Sephiroth has been leaving gifts for the past year. The materia he mastered himself, fighting monsters near Mideel. The sword was a greater challenge--he had to slay one of the WEAPONs released when Shinra attempted to tap the lifestream in Northern Crater. The chocobo ranch took some time to arrange, but when he lingered in the trees near the corrals and watched Cloud riding the birds, he knew it was worth it. 

Now, lying on his back beside Cloud and staring up into the darkness, it’s hard not to be stunned by the sheer good fortune he’s been granted. 

“Stay tonight,” Cloud says, curling up against his side. “Please?” 

“Of course,” Sephiroth says, pressing a kiss to Cloud’s forehead. He reaches for the blankets on the floor beside him, which he had thoughtlessly thrown aside somewhere in between passionate kisses. 

His hand catches on supple leather, inky black in the darkness. He sits up to examine it. “This is my coat,” he says, bemused. 

“Yeah.” Cloud clears his throat and looks away sheepishly. “I guess I sometimes slept with it. Just cause. I kinda missed you.” 

Startled by the admission and the depth of Cloud’s feelings, Sephiroth is quiet for a moment, feeling the familiar texture of the leather beneath his fingers. 

Is this what it’s like to have someone who loves me?

It feels good, warm and sweet with an unexpected depth to it. But also frightening, because he’s not sure he knows how to return it. “I’m not good for you, Cloud,” he says. 

Cloud snorts, sitting up and pressing himself against Sephiroth’s back. “You think I don’t know that? I know who you are. I haven’t forgotten anything.”

“Yet you’re still here.” 

“Yeah. Cause I love you.” Cloud tugs Sephiroth back down onto the bed. “C’mon, it’s getting cold.” 

Sephiroth pulls a blanket over them both. Cloud snuggles against him, his breathing evening out and his limbs relaxing into sleep. 

Sephiroth lays awake, holding both hope and fear in his heart. 

[ckret2]

OOOH! Okay I'll be more specific :D I mainly struggle with my writing style and how I want to describe things- I usually make my fics up as I go b/c I usually hesitate to write an outline b/c i usually don't get a solid idea how I want it to go i guess?? how do you usually plan out your rodorah fics too btw?

And here's the second half of the question!!

I shared my outlining process for longfics, but for short fics I usually don't outline either. What I do do is decide what one specific thing I want my fic to do, and then I write toward that. In this one my goal was “split off from canon exactly one second before Ghidorah commits the act that sets him on the path that dooms him—killing Mothra—and do it in a way that allows Rodorah to happen.” In this one my goal was “holy shit i decided my two main characters don’t speak the same language, how the fuck am i going to get them to actually communicate with each other?” In this one my goal was “uhhhhhhhhhhh get ghidorah to not leave earth,” with a side of “remember that basically all kaiju conflicts are resolved by physical altercations rather than arguments so have them actually fight from time to time!” and a dessert of “Rodan deserves to win some fights, I want to write him winning some fights.”

In the fic after next—the one I’ve already written but not posted yet—my goal was first “when Rodan visited Mothra I had a hard time explaining in his & Ghidorah’s combined twelve vocabulary words where he was going, I need a quicker/easier way to have Rodan explain to Ghidorah where he’s going when he makes a day trip away from Isla de Mara” and then it was “Rodan should make a map. A globe. Rodan’s gonna make a globe. out of lava.” and then it was “it’d be a great way to show Ghidorah’s psychology and the way he looks down on species he doesn’t perceive as ‘machine maker’ species—including looking down on his own species—for him to be like ‘oh that’s cute Rodan’s making a ball’ and then be like ‘holy shit holy fuck he made an accurate world globe that’s amazing i am not smart enough to be hanging out with this guy.’” And by that point, I had a whole-ass fic, because it has the process of Rodan making this object and cutting back and forth with Ghidorah’s perspective as he first wildly underrates Rodan’s project and then wildly overrates Rodan’s project. And all that started because I was annoyed a dozen fics ago over trying to write Rodan explaining his travel plans.

But aside from those goals—goals which, sometimes, are very small—I often don’t start a fic knowing where I’m gonna go with it or everything precisely that’s going to happen.

And so the other things that guide my fics as I’m writing them—to ensure I don’t accidentally spin myself off sideways into a plot where the Mexican Navy declares war on Ghidorah and we totally forget about Rodan or a plot where aliens invade the Earth and then I don’t know how to continue and stop writing—is a handful of long-term goals. I’m not going to list all of them, because some of them would be big spoilers for eventual plot points, but among them are obvious things like “eventually Rodan is going to fully return Ghidorah’s feelings,” and “SOMEDAY Rodan’s gotta find out that Ghidorah was trying to destroy the planet,” and “I’d like Ghidorah to casually visit another planet to get Rodan presents, while Monarch flips its shit because this dude just brought back rocks from Venus and it only took him a couple of weeks”—things like that.

So as I’m writing, even if I’ve got no idea how or why I’m going to write those things, they’re in the back of my head. I know to not, like, have Ghidorah do things that Rodan absolutely can’t stand, because that’ll get in the way of Rodan falling for him—instead I should fic by fic be giving Rodan more things to like about Ghidorah. And then when I see a small opportunity for Ghidorah to do something little that would impress Rodan, I take it.

I don’t know when the hell Rodan’s gonna find out Ghidorah was trying to destroy the planet, and I’ve got a half dozen fuzzy ideas for what the consequences of that event could be but haven’t settled on one yet—but even though I don’t know when I’m gonna do it, I’m always very conscious of the fact that Rodan doesn’t know yet, and I’m especially conscious of that during his interactions with Mothra—because like I don’t want the conversation to get tilted in a direction where she’ll end up just casually mentioning it to him, because that’s NOT a casual discovery, that’s a revelation that deserves to be the climax of a scene because it’s got the potential to shake up or even destroy Rodan & Ghidorah’s relationship depending on how they navigate things after that.

I don’t know when Ghidorah’s going to visit another planet yet, but I know that for that to make sense, he’s got to be in a position where he feels like getting Rodan gifts—which means a) he’s got to find out that earthlings are into giving each other physical items as markers of affection/courtship, and b) he’s got to develop to a position where he feels more free to express his affections toward Rodan in ways other than quick headbutts or cuddles he immediately gets embarrassed about, and c) he’s got to feel secure enough in his relationship with Rodan that he won’t think it’ll crash down if he leaves for a couple weeks, and d) San’s got to feel securely anchored enough to his new home on Earth that he won’t be afraid that making a short space trip will drive the other two heads to go “actually, yknow what, now that we’re already out here, screw Earth, let’s move on to the next solar system and never come back,” and e) Ni’s got to be on board enough with this relationship that he won’t grumble and grouse about making a big damn elaborate trip just to grab some trinkets for their bird. Those are a bunch of tinier goals that I can work into fics one by one.

One of my goals is for Gigan to show up on Earth eventually, ya know, for the drama of it all. I don’t know when or how, but it means when I wrote the one fic I’ve written from his perspective, I knew to set it up so that it would make logical sense from that fic when he eventually pops up on Earth.

So that’s a way to write fics, especially short fics, and especially a series of short fics, without an outline. Think of it like a connect-the-dots picture. You might have one or two vague or distant goals—say, "I want these two characters to get married eventually”—and that’s one dot in the distance you’re trying to reach, and so you’re vaguely thinking about how to reach that dot and you go, “well, it’ll be hard for them to get married because they’re in enemy factions,” and now you’ve got a new dot to stick a little closer than the distant one, “one character switches sides,” and now you’re like “but why would that character switch sides?” and now you’ve got a dot a little closer that’s like “this character decides they hate their current faction,” and that scene might be ten fics away, but right now you’re writing fic #1 and decide while writing this character have an argument with their commanding officer that the officer should slap them, and that plants the first seed for their decision to switch sides. How do you get from the slap to switching sides? You don’t know! But now you’re sorta pointed in that direction. And maybe when you’ve written enough fics and added enough dots and connected a few lines, when you get to the “this character hates their current faction” dot you realize that they’re in a position where they can run into the woods between the two enemy factions in order to cry for a while and they could run into the character you want them to marry and hey, now they can have a heart-to-heart, and this pushes them further in the direction you want—you didn’t plan it originally, but because you’ve got that Get Married goal in the distance, you know vaguely which direction to steer even if you aren’t sure which roads you’re gonna take.

It helps to have a “solid idea” of what you want to happen in a story, but tbh you don’t need a whole fleshed-out solid plotline. You only need one goal, and then you aim toward it.

[pellicano-sanguino]

The Long Carmilla Post 2 - Return of the Long Post about the Queen of Lesbian Vampires

When Tumblr tightened its policy about censoring nudity, they targeted a long post I'd made about Carmilla, since I showed photos of Ingrid Pitt and Yutte Stensgaard with their bare breasts in it. I have now censored the post, edited it and added a little. Carmilla is my favourite vampire of all time, and I have a long history with her different incarnations, so I wanted to bring the Long Carmilla Post back.

When I first posted the Long Carmilla Post, I had just seen the movie made by the Carmilla webseries folks. The sudden fame of the webseries surprised me. I can't help but think, that there must be a lot of new Carmilla fans, who instantly think of Natasha Negovanlis when they hear that name. If this series had been around when I was a teen, damn, would I have loved it! I would have been obsessed with it. But it was not, and I can't really become as obsessed with it now as the new fans do. Because when I hear the name Carmilla, several different faces appear in my imagination. I have already been obsessed with Carmilla from a rather young age, and while I love the webseries and this movie, for me it's just one of Carmilla's newer incarnations, not her default form.

I don't want to sound like a hipster (”I liked Carmilla before the webseries made her cool!”), I just thought that as a lesbian vampire lover I should make a post about my favourite vampire, and the history I have with the character.

There are some images of blood under the cut.

When I was younger, there really wasn't any lesbian litterature around (well, there probably was but I didn't know what books to search). I had a habit of switching genders in the books I read, making everyone female so I could get the girl romances I craved for, but this always felt forced and not ”real.” I read lots of vampire stories, because I've always loved that genre, but it was very much dominated by stories of male vampires. When I read Dracula, it had a short introduction speech that talked about the history of modern vampire stories, and it mentioned Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla.

Tracking the novella down was a bit hard, considering that back then I didn't have internet and so could only read books that I found in the library and bookstores. Fortunately the translation of Carmilla was included in one horror anthology that our library had. I managed to get my hands on it, and this cover illustration was the first ”face” of Carmilla that I knew.

I can't really put a finger on why I became so obsessed with this story. It's not that great of a novella. A very basic old-timey vampire story about a monster who threatens the life of the protagonist, who is saved when the monster's true nature is revealed, after which it is hunted down and destroyed. And the lesbian subtext is very, very subtle. There was just something very mysterious and fascinating about Carmilla. She is still among the few vampires who actually frighten me. Though Le Fanu's story isn't very scary by modern standards, Laura's nightmare scenes somehow got under my skin. There's something very creepy in the way vampires in older stories used to steal blood from their victims while they were sleeping. The idea, that there exists a predator who instead of straight up attacking its prey, approaces it by a cover of flawless mimicry, is horrifying. You are being slowly eaten alive and you're not even aware of it happening, or that it's your charming friend doing it to you.

I started having dreams about Carmilla. The first ones were nightmares, but even if they were scary, they didn't make me anxious, just excited. I was scared of Carmilla, but I wanted to see her, I wanted to hear her voice. It was as if I had fallen under her spell, much like Laura, but unlike Laura, I was aware of her true nature. I knew what she wanted, I knew that in my dreams, her kisses would lead to bites. But to a young lesbian who loved vampire stories, those kisses were worth losing a few drops of blood in the dream kingdom. She was one of ”my people.” She was not a genderswapped male hero, she was ”real.” She genuinely loved women and blood, and I loved her.

Halloween isn't really celebrated where I live, but one October a friend of mine decided that she'd hold a Halloween party (which became a yearly tradition for us for many years to come). She invited a group of her friends to watch horror movies at her house, and everyone should wear a costume. There was no competition what I would go as. I had a light blue dress that I decorated with blood stains, and over it I wore a dark gray cape, on which I had painted purple flower patterns to make it resemble the coat Carmilla wears on the cover illustration. It must be almost twenty years old, but I still have that cape.

Little Pellicano as Carmilla. I think I must have been 13 or 14 when this party was held.

Then I saw my first Carmilla movie. A Hammer film called Vampire Lovers.

This is a very silly movie. Very cheesy. But young Pellicano loved it. I can still quote many of the scenes from memory. The movie follows LeFanu's novella rather loosely, but I think it's one of the most faithful adaptations. It included the basic ”plot” that Carmilla uses to get close to her victims, has the nightmares (including Carmilla's monstrous cat form), keeps the plot point that she must form her new names anagrammically and makes her killer be a man who lost his daughter to the vampire. So far I think it's the only movie version that includes the scene where Carmilla sees the funeral procession of a girl she killed and loses it completely. I've always found that scene interesting, many claim that her fit of anxiety is caused by hearing the chanting (being unholy creature who's weak to christian things) but I think it's more than that. Either she has horrifying flashbacks to her own funerals (waking to vampirism and having to claw her way out of her own grave, that would scar me for sure) or she is genuinely sorry for killing the girl and terrified of having to face the truth that her love will always end in death.

I want to interpret Carmilla as a vampire who really loves her victims, not as playthings but as real lovers. But she wasn't a reluctant vampire either, she embraced the monstrous side of herself. It was natural to her, and so it was inevitable that the women she loved would eventually die. Maybe she preferred to ignore this knowledge in the daytime, and when she was forced to see what her night time activities had resulted in, the fit of anxiety happened.

A bit off topic, but one scene from the novella that I've never seen make it into a movie, is when a wandering salesman offers his dentistry services to Carmilla, offering to file down her fangs, which sends Carmilla into a fit of rage. I don't know, I always thought that scene pretty funny. Poor guy, offering to de-fang a vampire and getting a HOW DARE YOU rant in response.

So, the next ”face” of Carmilla was obviously Ingrid Pitt. While this movie wasn't particularly explicit (all the sex happens off screen), the lesbian subtext was much less subtle, which pleased young Pellicano. And then there was the infamous bathing scene (would show pics, but gotta censor for Tumblr. You can easily find them by image googling.).

When I was younger, I suffered from being underweight for a long time (had always been a small girl). Seeing Ingrid Pitt's figure motivated me to try to gain weight. She was so beautifully soft and curved, not just her chest, but her shoulders and legs and everything just looked so smooth and nice, while I had thin, pointy, stick-like limbs with sharp edges and none of that lovely roundness. I know teens should not look at celebrities and actresses as body models, but I think having Ingrid Pitt's shape as body goal was healthy for me. I never reached that goal, of course, but I did eventually reach normal weight limits (50kg, the weight needed for blood donors).

That friend of mine, who hosted Halloween parties, watched the movie with me and knew that I was obsessed with Carmilla. One day she got me a fake gold necklace with a red plastic gem on it, shaped like a blood drop. I don't know where she got this trinket from, but it was similar to the pendant Carmilla wears in the movie, and even if it was just cheap junk, I treasured it. And totally wore it during the next Halloween party, going as Carmilla like I always did. I've lost the gold chain, but I still have the gem.

Also still have the VHS. I don't know why I've kept it, I have no VHS player anymore.

Before I move on from Ingrid Pitt, I’d like to mention a pet peeve of mine. Ingrid Pitt has done two vampire roles (three if Elisabeth Bathory from Countess Dracula is counted). The more famous role is obviously Carmilla, it’s probably her most famous role ever, period. Her other vampire role is Carla Lynde from House that Dripped Blood. Now, the thing that annoys me is that article writers tend to always mix these two up. Whenever they write something about Carmilla or female vampires in general, they always mention Ingrid Pitt’s role as Carmilla in Vampire Lovers, but they always use the same damn stupid promo photo that is from House that Dripped Blood. That’s lazy research! Do they just image google “Ingrid Pitt vampire” and fail to check if the photo they use is actually from the movie they’re talking about?! The roles don’t even look identical, Carmilla’s a brunette while Carla Lynde is blonde, Vampire Lovers is set in 1800s, House that Dripped Blood is set in 20th century. The worst one was when the museum in my home city had a vampire themed exhibition and even they used the wrong photo for Vampire Lovers. If a museum can’t get their facts straight, that’s just sad.

Here is an example of my pet peeve in action, an article about vampire movies, using the wrong fucking photo for Vampire Lovers. And yes, I know why they like using this particular photo (”höhöhöö boobs, I’m so mature”). But that just makes me more angry when they do it.

Hammer made a sequel to Vampire Lovers called Lust for a Vampire. It was...  disappointing. It introduced a male love interest for Carmilla, which in my opinion was complete bullshit. If you want to make a story about a female vampire who falls in love with a human boy, by all means make it, but don't call it Carmilla, call it something else. That being said, there were a good amount of lesbian action going on as well (this time Carmilla plotted her way into an all girls' school...) and if there's one thing Hammer rarely fails at delivering, it's the bucketloads of unconvincing bright red fake blood. I skipped the icky het sex, but always enjoyed this scene:

Yeah, Yutte Stensgaard was the third ”face” of Carmilla. When I think of that name, this blood-covered, sleepy-looking vampire maiden is among the images that instantly pop into my mind.

The third Carmilla movie I saw was titled just Carmilla and starred Meg Tilly.

This was clearly a cheaper (maybe made for TV) adaptation. Meg Tilly didn't leave as big an impression as Ingrid Pitt and Yutte Stensgaard did. But I do remember one line from the movie clearly. When Marie (the southerner ”Laura” of this version) asks about Carmilla's past, Carmilla brushes it aside by saying ”That was another lifetime. I'm much happier now.” I adopted this phrase into use. Whenever people are unknowingly asking about a painful thing from my past that I don't want to talk about, I will say it to let them know that nothing good comes from digging old wounds that have already scarred. That was another lifetime. I'm much happier now.

I do remember that Meg Tilly's Carmilla was the movie with the ”awkward floaty blood drinking pose.”

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't look comfortable. Or functional.

Then the big day came – my family got a computer that could access internet. It was an awful piece of junk that could barely be used for writing emails and visiting messageboards. It wouldn't play videos, loading images took forever and big pictures often made it freeze. However, I had access to the internet now. The first word I ever googled was obviously ”carmilla.” Among the sites I found back then, was one about a German play, starring a woman called Ulrike Schneidewind.

The site had big, beautiful promo photos of the play. They took forever to load, but I returned to watch them often. There was something captivating in Ulrike Schneidewind's look for Carmilla. I'm not usually a fan of vampires with the white face+red lipstick+loads of mascara-look, but hers was beautiful, like a painting, like a creature that really wasn't human.

I don’t know if they used fake blood in the actual play or if it was only for these promo photos, but it looks incredibly pretty and surprisingly convincing.

I have no idea what this demon looking thing is supposed to be - Carmilla’s monstrous cat form maybe?

Ulrike Schneidewind became the next ”face” of Carmilla, even though I have never seen her act. All I've seen are these promo photos of the play (I have heard her speak. There's a couple minutes long news clip on Youtube about a vampire lifestyler event she attended). Supposedly there exists a VHS of the Carmilla play they performed on a Romanian tour, but they must have only made a handful of those, since I've never seen it on sale anywhere. I check the German eBay every now and then in faint hopes of finding a copy but I've come to accept that I'll probably never see this show. But still, Ulrike Schneidewind's look left an impression on my mind.

Around those times I started to draw comics in which my self-insert character shared a house with six vampire roommates (Carmilla, who owned the house, Brunhilda from Wake Not the Dead, Teresa from Last Lords of Gardonal, Ruthven, Dracula and Francis Varney) and an OC named Charity (Brunhilda's donor and girlfriend). I mostly pulled the designs for my vampires out of thin air, really (well, Dracula was as he was descrided in the novel, with fuzzy moustache and bushy eyebrows) but Carmilla's design was based on Ulrike Schneidewind's look, with blue veins shining through the white skin and lots of dark makeup and black hair.

Sad part is that it's been over ten years and my drawing skills have not improved at all. This is not ”art” this is doodles. But drawing these was super fun back then, so I shouldn't feel ashamed of them now, I think.

Besides these comics, I wrote some fanfics too. But I'm very glad I never put those anywhere public, because damn, they are embarrassing to read now. It's because my fanfics were actually serious business, full of drama and sturm und drang, and they turned out rather cheesy. Also full of, ahem, erotic content written by someone who had no personal experience on the subject yet. The comics on the other hand were just made for shits and giggles, and I think they've survived the test of time better (by which I mean, that I have actually shown my comics to other people, because occasionally I think I made a fun one, while I've never shown my fics to anyone and have already burned the worst ones.).

When the wonderland of internet was opened to me, I gained access to all the books in the world. I was no longer restricted by what our library and book stores had, I could buy stuff that wasn't published here. So obviously I got a copy of Kyle Marffin's Carmilla sequel. It's not a very good book. Quite silly, childish and badly written (men really shouldn't write about lesbians, they know nothing about them and enjoying an erotic scene becomes rather hard when you imagine some gross het dude writing it while drooling on his keyboard). But it was the first time I read a rather explicit lesbian sex scene, and that got me very excited, because finally all the subtext was thrown to garbage. Here it was, black on white, proof that Carmilla was into girls, not just their blood but their bodies as well. My late discovery of lesbian erotica may seem weird now, when anyone can gain access to mountains of lesbian smut in the internet, but back when I lived with my parents I never dared to look up smut on the home computer, in fear that they'd find out. Until I moved out, my only access to lesbian erotica was books, and Carmilla's Return was the first one I got.

Rant time: I might also add, that annoyingly enough I had been encountering explicit het sex scenes in books, movies and TV years before. And while I never intentionally searched naughty stuff on the net, I had bumped into het porn there accidentally as well. I wonder if heteros understand how freaking frustrating this kind of thing was. Their smut was all over the place, in every book, every film and all around the net, pretty much rubbed to my face, while MY stuff was so obscure I didn't even know where to look for it. And then they had the nerve to claim that we are ”flaunting it” and ”making it all about ourselves” whenever there was a gay sidecharacter somewhere. Grr. Grrr. Rant over.

I bumped into some incarnations of Carmilla later too, but none left an impression on my mind like these early ones did. The worst Carmilla I ever saw was the main villain in Lesbian Vampire Killers. That movie is easily the worst vampire movie I have ever seen (maybe even the worst movie I've seen, period), it's an ”erotic horror comedy” that is neither sexy, scary or funny. It is nice that when they were thinking of a character to star in a movie about lesbian vampires, they chose Carmilla. But the movie is such utter garbage, I'd rather they'd left my favourite vampire out of it. Save your money and sanity -  don't watch this movie. It's bad.

I feel like a lot of time people want to take Carmilla's name and make a whole new character with it (like Reimi Urara's character in Vampire Succession, who is named Carmilla but isn't even a vampire at all). These ”Carmilla in name only” kind of characters don't count, and frankly speaking I'm not that fond of them. I guess it is nice that people want to pay respect to the legendary vampire by naming a character after her, but my opinion still is that if you don't want to tell the story of a lesbian vampire, call your character something else. If you take away either of Carmilla's two passions; that of women or that of blood, the character loses her trademark characteristics and stops being ”real.” You don't make a Godzilla movie where the king of the monsters isn't allowed to have his trademark atomic breath, and you don't make a Carmilla who doesn't love women and blood.

Now that I have said that, you probably guess my opinion about the (*spoilers*) ending of the webseries's third season. Yeah, I wasn't a fan of humanizing Carmilla. So, I went to see the movie with rather low expectations, and was pleasantly surprised. This movie is more Carmilla than all of the webseries's seasons together.

But let's speak about the webseries first. I was very positively surprised by it. One day I ended up googling Carmilla again (was probably looking for fanfics) and discovered this little gem. It had very little to do with Le Fanu's original, but what it decided to change was so good that I didn't care. And it had still lots of little nods to the novella. Carmilla's anagrammical names, the nightmares, they freaking included Laura's governesses De Lafontaine and Perrodon (I would totally watch a spin-off that just follows the adventures of Laf and Perry) and there's even a scene where Carmilla is watching over sleeping Laura, looking a bit similar to a famous illustration of the novella. Also, the theme song ”Love will have it's sacrifices”, is a direct quote, from a scene where Carmilla is describing to Laura the night when the curse of vampirism was passed on to her (of course, she doesn't out right say it, but the reader knows what she's talking about).

”--- I was all but assassinated in my bed, wounded here," she touched her breast, "and never was the same since."

"Were you near dying?"

"Yes, very--a cruel love--strange love, that would have taken my life. Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood.---”

I'm not going to say the webseries doesn't have its flaws, a little lazy writing here and there, plot holes and inconsistent characters occasionally (I feel sorry for Danny. She just can't win.). But it was incredibly entertaining, it made me laugh and it made me care about what happens to everyone. And like probably a lot of the fans, I adored the fact that they didn't dance around the lesbian thing. When Laura understands that Carmilla's advances weren't blood-related, her reaction isn't any dumb ”But we're both girls, how can this be?!” Whoever understood to make Laura gay too was a genius. When she gets all flattered and blushing after learning that a beautiful girl finds her attractive, it's such a relatable feeling. It's the lesbian romance I so wanted as a teen! Not stories of a predatory lesbian seducing dumb clueless het girls to the dark side, but girls experiencing all the usual things female leads in romantic stories do, only with another girl as their love interest.

The first season of the webseries is my favourite. The second was pretty good, too. Third, in my opinion, a bit unnecessary (here I think you could see the writing starting to slip). Then came the movie.

They could have completely abandoned the vampire theme and proceeded with the heroes' further adventures. But they didn't and thank goodness for it. They return to draw inspiration from the original source; the novella. We have nightmares, and I admit they actually made me uneasy, reminding me of that creepy feel Laura's dream scenes gave me in the novella. The image of Carmilla laying down in a coffin filled with blood is also from the story. There's a scene where Carmilla is forced to reveal her vampiric nature, and it really reminds me of the scene where it happens in the book.  

And they freaking quote it, probably being the first adaptation ever to use straight quotes from the book. ”Die together so they can live together”-speech isn't quite right word-to-word, I think, but still, it's an identifiable quote. I used to be able to quote the ”You are mine, you shall be mine”-speech in English, Swedish and German, but have now forgotten most versions (yeah, I read Carmilla in several languages when I was younger. I was freaking obsessed with the story). I still think it's the most memorable quote from the novella. Also, the book-reading scene with ”Girls are caterpillars who undergo several larval stages before becoming butterflies”-speech is also from the novella. I think the only famous quote missing in this movie is the ”I've never been in love and never shall unless it should be with you”-speech.

As a fan of the ”old” Carmilla I adore how they pay homage to the origin respectfully, while still making their very own story. Again, teenaged Pellicano would have been all over this stuff. But I had to make my lesbian vampire stories from other versions, and while those also have their flaws, I adore them just as much. I am just happy that Carmilla lives on, not forgotten and left in the shadow of the countless more famous male vampires (seriously, where the fuck are all the female vampires? Ones that are actually main characters in their story and pass the freaking vampiric Bechdel test?)

Carmilla lives on, indeed. She has made a new comeback in Netflix's Castlevania series. I watched the first season and liked it quite a bit. It was a bit too gorey for my personal taste, but that wasn’t a dealbreaker. I liked the art style and was interested to see where they take the story. When I heard rumours that the second season would have a character named Carmilla, my reaction was pretty much “Carmilla is part of the Castlevania franchise?! Why did no one tell me this before?!”

Of course I’m always eager to see new adaptations of my favourite vampire. So, I did some research to know which games she appears in, made some popcorn and sat down to watch some Let’s Play videos (I’m not a gamer and don’t own game consoles so the only way I get to experience videogames is through Let’s Plays in Youtube.). But I ended up rather disappointed. Carmilla in the Castlevania games is cartoonishly silly at best, downright insulting to the original at worst.

So, after seeing how poorly the games treated my favourite vampire, I looked forward to the second season of the Netflix series with mixed feelings. I was hopeful, thinking that they can't go anywhere but up from here. And I was pleasantly surprised. The character design made her a bit silly looking with eeeevil face and her body language is very femme fatale-ish (I don’t really see the appeal of the femme fatale trope, but then again, it’s usually written for male audience), but they didn't put her in an ugly, revealing costume and the camera focused on her face instead of her breasts.

It's disappointing that she isn't a lesbian in this one (she makes one joke that hints she might be into girls too, but because Dracula's war council is mostly one big sausage fest, we don't see her interact with other females much).

I am so, so happy that the makers of the show understood that Carmilla is not some boot-licking notice-me-senpai Dracula fangirl (an aspect of her I loathed in the games). The only reasons for a lesbian vampire to ally with a male one are if they have a common goal (such as defending themselves against vampire hunters) or if she has no other choice. Netflix Carmilla is the latter. Dracula is a powerful, dangerous monster, who is also very much insane and therefore unpredictable. When he summons Carmilla to join his senseless crusade against humankind, Carmilla can't afford to refuse and take the chance of the mad vampire king killing her for disobedience and making a warning example of her. She has to go to war she herself deems pointless (well, Godbrand had a point in his ”If vampires kill all the humans, what will the vampires eat?”-speech.). So she begins to plot to prevent the genocide (she actually wants humankind to keep existing as opposed to wiping them from the face of the Earth, remind me again why she is the one every fan hates while they love Dracula the Kill All Humans-madman? Oh right, she assaults one of the male fan favourite characters on screen and is therefore deemed much more evil than Dracula who slaughters countless innocent humans offscreen without mercy. Got it.).

I love that she uses cunning instead of seduction when putting her plot to gain freedom from Dracula's servitude in action. Admittedly, some of the scenes where she's manipulating Hector seem a bit seductive-ish, but are still nothing compared to the ”Oh great master let me lick the blood off your sword!”-bullshit from the games. Also, was I the only one who could see right through her mindgames? Every time she complimented some man, I was shaking my head ”Lady, even blind Reetta can see that you are full of shit.” So it really surprised me when Hector fell for it. How do you fall for such an obvious trap?

I like that Carmilla's reasons for her schemes are reasonable and based on common sense and war strategy rather than just being evil for the sake of being evil. That being said, the scene where she beats Hector felt unnecessary, the man was tied up and would have gone with her even without getting his ass handed to him, because he's a prisoner and has no choice. I understand that it's an important scene symbolically, tying back to the scene where the animal-loving Hector compares vampires to cats, to which Isaac points out that cats play cruelly with their prey. It's a turning point for Hector, who abandoned humanity and tried to find a new family among monsters only to realize that they are, well, monsters. What did you expect voting for Leopards Eating Peoples' Faces Party would bring to you? Anyway, I understand that the scene is important to the plot and character growth, but I can't help but feel that making Carmilla assault a fan favourite character so brutally was the writers way of making sure the audience hates her. I have a feeling that they want to be sure the audience hates her, because they have something disgusting in mind for her for the third season.

I already talked about this in my ”If you have to kill female vampires on screen, please don't make it look like a rape”-post. I am worried what they are going to do with Carmilla. She's obviously going to get killed, but I hope they allow her to go down with dignity. Lords of Shadows 2 already gave us a really disgusting, rapey killing scene (I’ve only seen one killing scene with an even clearer “lesbianism can be cured by rape”-theme, in Lesbian Vampire Killers where Carmilla is impaled by a dick-shaped sword), we do not need another. I don't want Hector or Isaac or Dracula impaling her body slowly and looking downward at her in disgust as she painfully dies. Yes, Dracula will be coming back, it's Castlevania after all. I'm also worried of the possibility that instead of killing her, they make Dracula force her back into his servitude, which would also be super gross.

I am happy that the character of Carmilla lives on, that new fans get to experience her with these new incarnations, but whenever a new Carmilla surfaces, I am also a bit worried at how they are going to handle her character this time. I will have to wait and see how the third season of Castlevania ends, until then it is useless to speculate.

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All you had to do was Stay (Episode 30)

Graduation day, a day I thought would never arrive, I am finally done with Buckingham High, I cleared out my locker, handed my textbooks back to the office and have my cape and gown ready, I am so excited.

Tess and I arrive at school at 11, I take my seat next to Cassie, the best part about seating being done in alphabetical order is that Goth comes just before Green. Tess takes her place on stage next to Declan, her final duty as School Captain is to run the ceremony alongside Mr Landgaarb.

We do a practice run of the ceremony before the parents and special guests arrive.

"They are going to drag this out aunt they?" Cassie complains and I nod, I just want to get my diploma and drink champagne and dance around my basement with my friends.

The ceremony begins at 1pm, we've been sitting in the school hall for hours and everyones restless so when Tess finally steps up to the microphone to commence we all cheer.

"I like to welcome our parents and guests and congratulate my fellow classmates on completing not only the hardest year of our lives, so far, but also 13 years of schooling. The memories that we've made here will stay with us forever and no matter where you are going next year you will always have a part of Buckingham with you. On behalf of Declan and myself we want to say that we have been honoured to be your school captains and we would like to thank Mr Landgaarb and all our teachers for all their guidance and support this year." Tess announces to the crowd and we all cheer again.

Mr Landgaarb approaches the microphone and begins handing out our diplomas, Declan is first, followed by Tess and then the rest of the class in alphabetical order. When it comes to my turn to accept my diploma Mr Landgaarb smiles warmly at me

"Congratulations Miss Green" he says, shaking my hand, Tess breaks protocol to run up and hug me, to share this moment together.

After the ceremony we find all set out to find our parents and guests. I spot Mum and Don, standing at the back of the room talking to Imogen, I'm surprised to see her here. I approach them and Mum pulls Tess and I in for a hug together.

"Im so proud of my babies" She cries.

Don is next to grab us and tell us that he is proud and happy, I've never seen Don cry before today. We move down the line to Imogen, who looks as beautiful as ever.

"Congratulations Zoey and Tess" She says hugging us

"Thank you" I reply, "Is Angus here?" I ask her and she points behind me, he was filming the ceremony and Tess and I with our parents. He runs up to us, wraps me up in his arms, picks me up and spins me.

"You're free Princess, congratulations" He exclaims, that big, bright smile on his face but his face drops when he sees Mr Landgaarb coming over to us, "Fuck" he whispers to me.

"Congratulations again Zoey" Mr Landgaarb says

"Thank you" I reply through gritted teeth, I hate this guy.

"Angus I wanted to come over and clear the air, after Tuesday evening. Zoey was right, I was out of line with how I spoke to you, it's been 5 years and you've grown into a good man. I also want to apologise to you for destroying your education, it's not excuse but my son was a drug addict who is now serving a life sentence in a foreign prison for attempting to smuggle drugs, when I caught you with drugs I took the anger I have for my son out on you. You were a bright student and could have gone far" Mr Landgaarb explains

"Thank you for the apology but it doesn't really change what happened, what I lost" Angus says coldly

"Which is why I have an offer for you. I looked over your records, saw what subjects you took and have spoken to our teachers here, I want to give you back your year, it would mean you would have to start year 12 again but I want to get you your high school certificate and you could go to university" Mr Landgaarb offers him

"I'll be 23 sitting in a classroom with 17 and 18 year olds?" Angus asks

"No, you can do your subjects at home, at your own pace, we will be on hand to provide you with as much tutoring and support you need to get you up to speed and your girlfriend here would be happy to help too" He says, pointing to me, I'm about to correct him when Angus jumps in

"I accept your offer" Angus says, shaking Landgaarb's hand.

"I'm having a small graduation party at my house, would you come to it?" I invite Angus one Landgaarb has left us

"Of course sweetie, as long as you don't mind a high schooler coming along to your party" He laughs

"Oh yeah, we don't hang out with high school kids" I tease him

"I can't believe I'm going to put myself through all that stress again" He sighs

"At least this time you know whats coming, you know the material, you've read all the books on the reading list and you can have my notes. Plus I'll help you through, so will the others and we can go to university together" I tell him, I'm so happy he gets a second chance.

"I owe you so much Zoey, if you hadn't defended me then this would never of happened. Thank you" He hugs me tightly

Angus and I walk to his car which he parked in the school parking lot and he hands me the his keys.

"You're driving home" He announces to me

"I can't drive your car. What if I crash it?" I panic

"I'm insured and you won't crash. Just remember though, I love my car so you've gotta treat her right, take it slow, ease yourself into it" He reminds me

"You love her more than me?" I ask him

"She never left me" He teases.

I drive slowly out of the car park, making sure I'm cautious and head out of Forgotten Hollow.

"I could get used to driving this" I tell him as we come into Willow Creek, I'm staying just under 60km

"You can go faster if you want, it's 70 along this road" He tells me and I put my foot down slightly on the accelerator, bringing it up to 67, "You're doing good Zo" He praises me.

"I told you I could drive" I remind him

"Yeah but you also told me you felt nervous driving outside of Brindleton Bay so I'm a little surprised with how calm you are" He exclaims

"I couldn't drive to San Myshuno during the day, I'd have a panic attack with the amount of traffic and all the lane changes" I tell him

"Zoey there was a time, not too long ago, when you couldn't even talk to me without having a panic attack and now you're telling off school principals, you're not that shy, timid girl I first met, you've pushed yourself outside of your own comfort zone and I love seeing it" He says, placing a hand on my knee

"And I credit a lot of that too you Angus, you brought me out of my shell, you made me feel special" I look over at him and smile

"Eyes on the road Zoey" He panics slightly

My basement has been transformed with balloons and streamers, theres food everywhere and Don is mixing drinks at the bar. Tess, Cassie, Sam and Declan are already here.

"I just messaged Steph, she said her and Annabelle will be here soon" Tess says running up to me

"I drove Angus' car" I blurt out to her, it's a big, exciting achievement for me and I want to tell everyone

"You let her drive it? Her?" Tess yells at Angus

"She earned it, she got me a second chance at completing Year 12" Angus boasts

"What? That's awesome news" Tess says hugging Angus and then me, "Let's drink and dance", she grabs my hand and leads me to where Cassie, Sam and Declan are dancing, Angus goes to the bar and gets us drinks and talk to Don, I look over and see them laughing together, my mother walks up to Angus and hugs him warmly, I didn't even know him when I started the year and now he is so intertwined into my life, even when we didn't talk he was still in my life through Tess, Cassie and Declan.

I leave my group to join Angus, I hear the end of their conversation as I approach, something about Christmas is being discussed.

"It's only October and you're already planning Christmas?" I ask them and they exchange looks

"Zoey you know me, always making plans" Angus laughs

"Can I borrow you for a moment, I have something for you" I ask him, he hands me a drink and follows me upstairs, to my bedroom, I realise this is the first time he's been in here too.

"I love your mural, did Tess paint that?" He marvels at the beautiful beach scene.

"She did, she's pretty good. Did you ever get her to paint one in your office?" I enquire

"Yep, I'll show it to you tomorrow afternoon, she did an amazing job and now I have something beautiful to look at every day" He tells me and I hand him his copy of 'Seduction by the Sea'

"Sorry, I've had this sitting here since July, I thought about mailing it back to you but I didn't want to let it go, it reminded me of you" I say

"You didn't finish it?" He exclaims

"I tried to, I love the story but after we broke up I couldn't read about the captain without thinking of you, so I would sleep with it beside me every night" I tell him

"Keep it Zo, finish it" He urges, putting it back down on my bedside table, "I like your room, it's very Zoey"

"I don't even know what that means Angus" I laugh

"You've got this giant movie collection which is almost matched by your book collection, you have posters of horses and little shinny trinkets, it's cute like you" He smiles at me

"You like cute, I remember" I smile back at him

"I like you" He exclaims, stroking my cheek

"We should probably get back to the party" I suggest because I know his flirting won't go anywhere and I'll just end up sad that it will never be what I want it to be.