#i just kinda like the idea of cultists worshipping something

[apomaro-mellow]

go ahead and take the 1st draft of my “steve being sacrificed to demon!eddie thing”. it’s unfinished and im goin in a totally new direction with the next draft but i did like parts of this. this one has more of a cult feel.

The party was going on as usual. Steve had been to many of them before. The earliest he remembered was being five and led around by his mother’s hand, then eventually being handed off to a nanny for the rest of the evening. It was always some sort of parade. As a young child, he was the cute baby version of his father. Something for the women to coo at.

Around 11 he was a growing lad who was expected to cause a little trouble. Then at 14 he was a young man with a promising future. 

Growing up, there was one part he was always dreading. The point where people tried to set him up with their daughters, or granddaughters, or nieces. He heard pieces of such transactions all the time. ‘Oh you must meet my daughter.’ ‘You know Celia is about your age...’ ‘So have you got a girlfriend?’

Steve caught glimpses of the older boys either politely rebuffing or ending up engaged with someone. This was a very insular crowd, he knew that. Still, he hoped he’d have something resembling a choice when the time came.

And yet, as he got older, no one rushed to introduce him to anyone. It confused him to no end. He had no trouble attracting girls at school and all of his parents’ friends thought he was charming. He came from good stock. Why did no one want him to marry his daughter?

He tried not to feel so offended by it. But it was just so bizarre. 

But back to tonight. It was going like it always did. Steve spent most of it by his parents’ sides, only occasionally going off on his own. He made nice conversation, had a drink or two, despite being nineteen, and kept the Harrington name good and golden.

As the hour got late though, it got to the point where most of the men split off to have cigars. Steve was usually excused at this point but this time his father put a hand on his shoulder and led him to the next room. He took part in more conversation about his prospects (not going to school but who needed to when he was planning on succeeding his father) and drank some brandy.

“Steve, it’s time we discussed your future”, his father said, letting out a puff of cigar smoke.

“What about it...exactly?”, Steve asked.

“That sometimes we must defer to a higher power.”

“....Right...”

“Steven”, one of the other men started. “You ever take one for the team?”

“Yeah, plenty of times. But what are you guys talking about what’s going on?”, Steve asked.

“Come with me, son.”

Steve got up and followed his father. The other men came along down the stairs into the basement of the clubhouse. But then it went deeper.

“History is filled with ambitious figures, Steve. People who did whatever it took to reach their goals. Tonight it’s up to you to take us even higher.”

“Up to me? What do you want me to do?”

They came to the bottom of the stairs. His mother was already waiting, along with the other women. There was a large stone slab with restraints on it and Steve felt his stomach drop at the implication. But he didn’t want to believe it. It was too crazy.

“Mom, Dad...what are we doing here?”

“The higher power we worship will give us fortune beyond what we could dream of”, his father said. “But everything has its price.”

Before Steve could utter another question, he felt hands on him, gripping and pushing him towards the slab. He struggled and screamed for both of his parents. For some kind of explanation. For something that made sense. But he could feel his sanity slipping as they got him on the altar and tied his limbs down.

Lawrence, 50, with an unconvincing hairpiece stood over him. Steve never liked Lawrence. He always looked at him weird and his touches lingered like he was inspecting a piece of meat.

He was doing it now, trailing a hand up his tied up arm.

“I can’t thank you enough for your sacrifice, Steven. And your parents for bringing up such good stock. I have no doubt he will be pleased with you.”

“I don’t know what the fuck is going on but there’s no way you’re going to kill me for-for what? More money?”

His mother came into view, her expression mournful and Steve wanted to vomit.

“Steve, my love, we won’t be killing you. We could never do that. We just need a bit of your blood. After that....well after that....”

“Our lord will do what he wants with you. And with their lot I can only imagine he will want to devour your soul”, his father finished.

“So you are killing me.”

“We won’t be dealing the killing blow”, his father said. “And who is to say you won’t survive?”

Steve took a deep breath through his nose. This was insane. But it seemed like they at least didn’t plan to put a stake through his heart. He’d lose a bit of blood, they’d probably chant, and then when their demon lord didn’t show up, he could get a shower and then maybe disown his parents.

That didn’t make this situation any less shitty though.

Then someone ripped open his jacket and shirt, exposing his chest. Both of his parents were given knives. The knowledge that they didn’t intend to kill him quell that instinctual fear. Steve had always been a good kid. But sometimes good wasn’t enough. Sometimes he wondered if his parents regretted having him. So his current view wasn’t helping at all in that regard.

They both cut a slit right in the center of his palms and he hissed. They then took his blood and drew a symbol on his stomach. 

There was indeed chanting but between the alcohol, his bleeding hands, and the general delirium, Steve couldn’t make it out. God, he just wanted this to be over. He just wanted normal parents who didn’t sacrifice their own son to the devil.  He wanted a lot of things but it seemed like life would disappoint him one last time.

“Whoa! You’ve got a real party going on here”, a voice said, coming down the stairs.

“Who the hell are you?”, one of the chanters demanded.

Steve craned his neck to see....some guy. It was just some guy, in a black tank top and ripped jeans.

“Who? Me?”, he came to the bottom of the steps and looked around. “Was I not summoned? I thought I heard my name.”

“Someone get this fool out of here!”

“Oh, I see what the issue is. I’m not in the proper attire. My bad.” He took a few more steps forward, right into the range of the men who had advanced on him. Then flames erupted from his body, burning them in an instant. When the fire dissipated, Steve let out a gasp and started to actually pull against his restraints.

This was real! Fuck this was real! A real demon with horns and claws and fangs and shit-were those wings?! He had to get out of here, even if that meant ripping his hands and feet off to escape.

Turned out that was the wrong move. In seconds, the demon crossed the room on all fours and climbed atop the slab to hover over Steve.

“My lord”, Steve’s father said in an impressively even tone. “We offer you our greatest sacrifice-” He was cut off with a deep growl, one that Steve felt in his bones, being this close.

“You...haven’t...sacrificed....anything.” The demon turned its gaze to Steve, lying under him. “But you still have so much to give.” He touched a clawed hand to Steve’s stomach where the bloody symbol was. “Will you give it to me?”

Steve let out a breath. He was going to die. He was going to die and what did he have to show for it? Actually....what did he have to show for it if he lived tonight? Maybe it would be painless, this soul sucking. He just wanted to be done.

“Just take it”, Steve said. “Take whatever you want.”

The demon laughed darkly. “I always do.”

[girlwholovesturtles]

So I've seen a few posts at this point suggesting the theory that Arthur's lighter might have something to do with the Black Stone Arthur and John are being sent to find by Kayne. Well I have some additional thoughts to add to the idea.

I think it's a really solid theory. Kayne can't see the stone and he always seems to forget about the lighter. And at this point Arthur has pointed out that Kayne has forgotten the lighter at least twice I believe. They also keep making it a point that Arthur just kinda randomly remembers it in his pocket. It just feels like that really want us to remember that the lighter is there, without saying out right that it's important beyond being a source of fire and light.

Personally, I think maybe the lighter might even have the stone inside of it. Like maybe it's just really small? Or maybe it just has a fragment of the stone inside of it? The lighter did, after all, belong to Roland Cummings, who found himself in the Dreamlands and is now apparently in the Dark World. Roland could have found the stone and hid it because he knew it was an object of power.

And the stone might also be the reason that Arthur is able to handle being a host for John/Yellow. Like, Kayne keeps wracking his brain about what makes Arthur special but what if there isn't actually anything special about him specifically? What if it's just the result of his exposure to the stone? Maybe that's way Larson was dying after only a few days of being a host to Yellow, even though Arthur survived literally both of them for roughly five or six months at this point.

More than that, does anyone else think Arthur heals really fast? Like, I know some of his healing is due to magical forces protecting him and part of it is the magic of story telling. But the man is riddled with scars, from wounds that seem to heal impossibly fast. Like, Arthur set his own broken legs only for them to immediately heal. It's implied that Kayne healed them but why would he? He clearly found his struggles funny. And being gored by the monster in the mines? Yeah, John patched him up but some thread from his jacket and some fishing hooks wouldn't have fixed him up that fast. He was running and squeezing through tight spaces in no time at all. By the time that got to New York the wound was entirely forgotten about.

This is all to say, I think the stone is protecting Arthur to some degree. I don't think it could keep him from dying but I think is helps him heal faster and might even give him a bit of luck. I did point out a while ago but Arthur does seem to be one lucky son of bitch given that he keeps taking near fatal wounds but seems to live through each one. He's covered in scars but not one injury has stuck yet.

And I think that's all because he's carrying the stone with him and literally no one knows. Maybe it's even something divine in nature? The cultist used the Grey Stone to get what they wanted but what if in a way that's how the lighter works too? "This too shall pass." They constantly quote the line, like a mantra that they entrust their blind faith into. Almost certainly something an object of power would latch onto and use almost as a form of worship and reverence.

[autumnmobile12]

Felt like sharing some speculation today:

All right, so we know My Hero Academia has the something of the same premise as X-Men in the sense that select a group of humans were suddenly born with powers, the whole 'evolution leaps forward’ deal.

We see in My Hero how the First Generation of people with Quirks, especially the ones who appeared non-human or semi non-human, were originally ostracized like the mutants of X-Men are, but then more people were born with powers and then more people had powers until it became a widespread phenomenon and ‘normal’ people became the minority and society had to restructure itself to accommodate the new normal.

But have you read The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black?

The plot is a 19th century doctor who theorizes that mythical creatures like the minotaur, harpies, sirens, and the like all existed millions of years ago but slowly interbred with humanity and eventually died out altogether.  So he believed that when someone was born with extra fingers, limbs, a tail or otherwise didn’t have the typical human shape, it wasn’t so much a mistake in genetic coding as it was the extremely recessive genetics of those ancient creatures trying to reoccur in the modern day.

...

Definitely an interesting premise, so now I’m wondering if the My Hero world has a cult, conspiracy theorists, or even some scientists/historians that have similar views regarding mythology.

If this whole Quirk thing happened back in the Stone Age where no one had the benefit of science or awareness of DNA, anyone born with an otherworldly power would have been worshipped as a deity. Or the ones born with a non-human appearance would have been reviled as monsters.

So following the idea of The Resurrectionist, maybe the sudden appearance of superpowers did lead people to take a closer look at the old myths and consider the stories of the gods/goddesses of old were originally stories of people with 'Quirks' who rose to power.  Humans with meta-powers ruled the world for a few centuries, then those powers inexplicably died off. For a variety of reasons or maybe unknown reasons, humanity lost that history but remembered the old stories and chalked them up to just myth until the powers that made it possible began to reappear full force several millennia later.

Some myths began as historical events but in being handed down hundreds of generations, the multiple tellings and retellings exaggerated them into the realm of impossibility.

Lightning/electricity powers:  Zeus, Thor, Hinon

Fire powers:  Hephaistos, Surtr, Hestia, the phoenix

Foresight:  Any seer, prophet, or oracle that appears in any myth ever

Ice powers:  Yuki-onna, Skadi, Morana

Water powers:  Poseidon, Chalchiuhtlicue, Anuket, Tlaloc

Plant-related Quirks:  Demeter

Gigantification Quirks: Giants, titans, nephilim

Ryukyu:  Is a dragon.  ‘nuff said.

All Might:  Herakles

Tokoyami having a bird head but otherwise appearing human is pretty reminiscent of the old Egyptian gods.

Hawks:  Any winged creature; take your pick.  Personally, the one that comes to mind for me is Hermes.  He only had wings on his sandals, sure, but the trickster archetype resonates.

Tsuyu: Naiads, nymphs, rusalki, any kind of water fae

Momo: Sedna (created sea life from her finger bones), Ukemochi no Kami (produces food from her own body)

Best Jeanist: This one's a bit of a reach, but the fabric thread thing coupled with the long, spider-like limbs kinda brings to mind the story of Arachne the weaver.

We do get a nod to Ancient Greek mythology with the prison Tartarus.  What better place to lock away beings with god-like powers than the prison of the Titans itself?

Obviously an incomplete list, but you see my point.

Personally, I'm leaning toward cultist ideology with this one as I find it hard to believe every civilization would have forgotten about a previous appearance of Quirks. But civilizations die off, civilizations are overrun by others and their histories are suppressed, maybe this hypothetical 'previous Quirk phenomenon' wasn't as widespread as the current one and so fewer people were affected and therefore fewer people were alive to verify the truth of facts, maybe this hypothetical time was from an age of oral history and nothing was documented properly, so not impossible just really, really improbable.

Still, I love mythology and I find it an interesting headcanon to think about.

[sentience-if]

Sooo are we allowed to know if Big Freak's relationship with the Religious is positive or negative?

Because Ira thinks the God Beneath is connected to the angels and demons. And yeah, maybe. Something did "highjack" an angel to go feral on Io afterall, but the angels also seem to follow the priests'/priestesses' commands and follow them around. So I'd assume Big Freak is working with the Religious in some way.

But then, if the cultists do worship Big Freak, why are they destroying the Religious' wards and trying to kill the Most Holy? Is it like a "kill the false prophet and non believers" thing? Or do the Religious kinda just have Big Freak "held captive", so the cultists are trying to free them? Also, another thing on Big Freak not liking them is that Big Freak wouldn't like Klaus and he works for the Religious.

I don't believe that the Religious aren't aware of Big Freak's existence since magic is believed to be an invention of the Church, but Io is also able to use it and they're of course connected to the Big Freak. Plus Klaus reacts when he hears Io say their name and has a general idea of what happened to Io when they're honest about their amnesia, so he must know something about Big Freak even if he doesn't directly know about them.

This is all incoherent, but just know that rn I think the Religious are a bunch of power hungry bastards who have been using Big Freak to do magic or learned it from them and are using it to control everything. 🐀🍳

all such good questions, some of which will be addressed in Ch 4. You'll get to ask about it, with all very different answers :^)

[fenriraa]

Astorvember [Cult]

Day 13

Well, I kinda forgot to plan this one out, so I'm just gonna drop some stuff from my AU story/whatever I have about the cult.

I'll say though, I don't think anyone is the leader, just a bunch of seers who want to see the world end and have weekly cult meetings.

I made a character chart:

Yes, they're in order from the cutscene, I had rewatched that fucking scene so many times to connect who's voice was whoever was standing where. And to see where Astor was at. I have heard more things than I needed to. Here's a list if anyone's interested:

"reveal unto us the future" -Erebus

"ooh how divine" -Devola

"yes, lord ganon!" -Lucien

"cast all to darkness" -Haz(a)el

"destruction to Hyrule!" -Caius (also died first)

tried to destroy the Harbinger, Valor

I realize Astor and Valor's names sound kind of similar, but the name Valor seemed kinda fitting for him, so I went with it. Lucien's name meaning gets brought up at some point (it means light, which is very ironic). Hazael sometimes gets called Hazel.

I think the cult itself isn't really new. They knew what they were doing, but I believe they started to rely on the Harbinger a little too much when it comes to seeing the future, because none of them saw that shit happening, and I believe Ganon would hide things from them. But, that aside, they're very into the idea of the world being in ruins. Destruction everywhere. Previous cultists, that are no longer there, left some information, notes, tools, etc, and was passed on to new members.

Some non-seer villagers sometimes go to them for some divination readings (?) without realizing that they worship Ganon. There might be some traditional events in Deya for seers (that have nothing to do with Ganon) that some of them attend.

For this AU I'm working on, they all still live after being maliced. Either they simply survive or Ganon brings them back. I'm still deciding if I should also go with this different-ish storyline where something from the far, far future comes back in this timeline and specifically haunts Astor and tries to attack the Harbinger. But regardless of which one I go with, I'm wanting to make it where they all bring Hyrule to ruins and Astor gets what he wants in the end, taking over Hyrule. Or... I could just make everyone suffer and make Astor have to fight the malice forms of his fellow now-dead cultists Ganon devoured towards the end just after he starts to care about them ^_^

Astor doesn't really care for the others at first, but later on he starts to tolerate them more and more. Still kinda of an ass though.

I would like to dump some of whatever this is here (not in order):

I was very excited when I remembered about the motorcycle chase idea lmao.

I don't know exactly how I ended up doing all this for some nameless characters with copy-paste and bald models that get killed off in a minute or less, but oh well.

[jesuscrab]

Death Stranding 2 thoughts and "analisis"

Written from school becuse im cool like that. Bitch.

(this is not gonna be formated at all so sorry if reading this will be confusing lol)

First of, something i don't see anyone mention: Louise repatriate?

After (presumenbly) beign shot by an unkown soldier, we see in a flash of red light a bb appearing in a pod - and they have angel wings, just like the baby shown previously had on her (cute) outfit

And this baby is safely confirmed as lou, as she has that emborided in her thingy too

(i would put a screenshot here but i cant get a good capture for it - sorry)

Now, the elephan in the room - fragile has lost her scars? That's really weird. There is not enough information to say why is that, but i think it's notable to note that it's implied timefall has stopped after sam "defeated" amelie, as we see normal rain falling down in the ending. Or maybe that was timefall and that's why sam's hair is gray like that... but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I think hideo will just pull some deus ex machina out of his ass that fixes timefall's effects. One i came up with myself was the idea of new reverse timefall, which reverses time - seems random but so does her younger body. I just hope it's gonna be explained in some capacity.

One common theory is that it's not actually fragile and it's older lou - that's dumb and im not gonna dwell into that. Moving on...

Cultists!

I fucking love cultists in video games. Not sure why? The vibes just click for me, i love a lot of weird video game shit. Im presuming that they are tied to higgs, since the ones we see on the end look vaugley the same with the red motife, but i guess i could be wrong.

Focus on them seems interesting, since DS never much focused on terrorists. Sure, higgs was a major antagonist which was a looming threat but the homo demens AS A GROUP was just cannon fodder and we dont even really see what they... do? What is their agenda, why they did they join higgs, what do they want, exacly? I really hope this focus in the trailer means that they are gonna be a bigger part of the story. The very idea of mules and demens where so cool and i loved fighting them.

But back to the cultists themselves. They seem to worship amelie, same with higgs. he has amelie hair with a mask of her face, the group has a thingy with her visage on it.

So, after learning of exticnion enteties higgs gathers some pepole to start a group to bring on the apocalyplse as some sort of death cult. But that doesnt make much sense, does it?

In the diary of higgs after his exile he seems pretty sad and remoursfull, understanding he was simply played by amelie to fuel her needs, thiking of himself as a stupid man blinded by a stupid goal. Doesnt sound like someone planning revenge to me.

So i dont think this is higgs - at least not entirely. Kojima loves his body doubles, repeated actors and scenarios to fuck with your expecations. I don't have any theories about that, but i do think it's probablly not fully him. Becuse lets be honest, how would he escape from that beach in the first place?

Now my favourite part to think about - fragile and her crew. And their cool as fuck ship.

It's a submarine. It comes from the tar, which is stated to be infittly deep and it has a sea monster logo on it. This is so fcking cool! I hope it's gonna be like the aac in mgsv, where you can have a mobile base to plan out your operations and fast travel around the map. We did have that kinda with the private rooms, but i feel they where a bit lacking. A mother-base type ship in death stranding where you can go around, talk to characters and maybe do some side mission stuff.... im smiling at the very thoughts, and i hope this is what kojima is going for with this. That would be so fucking cool!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and maybe the whale dream added in the directors cut was supposed to tease this - underwater exploration. Shits cool as fuck.

Drawbridge.

"both stick and rope, to protect and connect. together, for tommorow"

This ties to the common belief that ds2 will focus more on action and combat. its not stick vs rope anymore, it's both of them together, working as tools in an union. could tie with the tagline at the end - world has been connected now by bridges, so now they have to "protect it". changing the uca into a dystopia, maybe? would be boring.

One thing i have yet to see mentioned about the logo is that it looks like an umbrella, which is an obvious fragile connection.

Oh hey sam appears here too - not much to say about him other then he is way older then he should be, but we have simple in-universe phenomana which can cause this so. not much to talk about here imo. cool he's back - where the fuck is deadman tho...

"It wasn't the UCA that made the final decision. It was APAC. A private corporation." obvusly related to one of the logos kojima teased.

I can't think of any decision the uca has made - only thing that comes to mind is the bb project, but idk, doesnt fit to me. The logo looks like a compas, which could tie into the submarine/ship shown earlier. "automated public assistance" is such mgs speak, it doesnt make sense and doesnt mean anything, what is public assistance? Like, security? Could make sense with the drawbrige thing about using protection and stick + ropes. Automated... like robots? Like the technology uca uses? It's all so vauge and not giving much anything, but the fact it's inlcuded in the picture teaser AND the trailer must mean its someting very important to the story of the game. Can't glean much else...

And that's the trailer! I think i gave my thoughts on everything in the teaser that came to mind. But now, let's hear some... baseless speculation, yippe!!!

I think kojima will be pulling a mgs2 and sam is not gonna be the main character. Well, he may be, but i think we will be playing as someone else too. Sam is older, his story is kinda finished at this point. Addition to elle manning who was fthe first person teased for the project who we have yet to appear in the actual trailer BUT was present at the VGA. With her placement on the poster pepole speculate she's gonna be older lou - its possible.

(look at her heart brithmark, appearing right in the middle of ellies name!)

But i think it very much just be that kojima was saving all norman reedus promotion for later to give a bigger suprise. But even if it's not lou i bet we're gonna play as her. Could be cool!

There where many speculation how higgs is back, i touched upon one earlier, but i liked the theory i saw about him possesing amelie. Would explain the different hair, outfit, the mask... higgs somehow got control over her and her powers and uses them for his benefit. We have so little info it's as plasubale as any other theory you can come up with.

Lou transforms into some tentacle thing, and we saw before that bts can appear as sea monsters and are ocean themed - is she becoming a bt? We kinda saw her die... kinda, becuse she's back in the pod. Eh.

I could speak about a ton of things now since i am a weirdo who has lots of thoughts, but the main thing i wanna say is higgs's new getup looks organic. Look at his odradek, it looks more like a tentacle then a robot arm- it's weird, it's lumpy, it moves very naturally... is he mutating or something? Is it the same thing that's happening to lou? Maybe beach exposare causes some effects to the body...

And that's it i guess! I could probablly say much, much more BUT this post is going on waaaaaay too long and i think i already tocuhed on all the main thoughts i wanted to addres, and the rest would be just me looking at all the extremly little details and saying "oh hey that's there. it probablly means something" and i think that type of writing would be too borning!

AND ALSO I SPENT THREE LESSONS WRITING THIS AND I HAVE A THINGY TO WRTIE FOR SCHOOL NOW LOL.

Anywya feel free to write your thoughts in the notes, i will gladdly read yalls speculation! i love reading that shit! you guys are amazing!

STRANDHEADS ROLL OUT!

[not-a-snowman]

Listen I need to know what you're doing with Azathoth so that I can submitted to the Council (my friends who enjoy the Mythos but hate HPL) for evaluation (We all enjoy hearing new takes on the Mythos)

Firstly, thank you for the ask! Admittedly I’ve not a done a ton with them, I just have a lot of thoughts and am a bit sad that my opinions apparently aren’t commonly shared.

I just think that it’s deeply fascinating to me Azathoth is a figure of worship for the outer gods despite being an absolute moron. No complex scheme or grand design, just a surprisingly simple (if horrifyingly powerful) being. And I’m kind of obsessed with the implications of that.

Something about gods with grand schemes and designs and incomprehensible minds bending the knee in the face of simple, unyielding power. It cannot be reasoned with, it cannot be stopped, a different form of incomprehensible terror. So in the face of an unbeatable enemy, an ambivalent universe, the gods are left only to fawn and pray. Given the context of the mythos, I think there’s an odd symmetry to be found in there. As above so below right?

And looking at Azathoth themself, I think they’re simultaneously very funny and compelling in a way. They can’t see, aren’t very bright, and are just kinda floating in space in the center of the universe while listening to some rather nice music and whatever god is trying to gain favor from them.

If anyone isn’t comprehending what’s going on in this universe it’s Azathoth. Like, has anyone filled them in on whatever the hell’s going on? It seems like most of their creations are less a result of active intent and more a product of their dreams, so they maybe don’t even know about that. And what are their cultists even doing, this guy doesn’t have some grand design they’re literally just vibing.

Also something in the fact that they seem to be able to enter the dreams of others, so if they have any idea what the universe looks like it’s because they’ve seen it through minds of someone else. 

Unrelated: they like music. I don’t know why this sticks out to me, maybe it’s because of the focus on how the horrors interact with the arts is a running theme, maybe it’s because it’s just nice.

[aikoiya]

Wednesday OC - Johnny Anderson

I have an idea for a character. His name's Johnny Anderson & he's a werewolf who was orphaned as a baby when his parents attacked a village in the south & were killed by the residents.

Having great empathy for him, the Pastor of the town & his wife adopted him & raised him as a good, honest, forthright, down-to-earth, & kind boy who worships God & often helped out at the local farms.

The town just accepts Johnny as one of their own aside from 1 or 2 assholes & zealots.

Thing is, his parents don't try to lie to him about how he came to be with them, but they also don't tell him about it until he asks them directly.

The first time he asked, they thought he was too young for the whole story, so they sorta Disneyed it up a bit.

Once he's old enough & he asks again, his parents tell him about how, at the time, something had been getting into the farms' livestock & killing cattle. So, they try to catch whatever it is. The owner of the most recently targeted farm wasn't expecting to find a pair of werewolves there. Pastor Jim Anderson himself had heard the ruckus & went to investigate, but when he got there with several other residents, the deed was done. The old farmer, Buck Holiday, was shaking with a babe in his arms & a man & woman dead at his feet.

When asked, the farmer said that he'd tried to talk them down & even offered them a place to stay, but apparently, they didn't trust him & attacked.

Buck said he didn't want to do it, but he defended himself.

The Pastor admits that no one was there to witness the altercation so they can't be sure what really happened, but that the farmer was known to be an honest man, so he trusted him.

Jim Anderson says that he & his wife, Carol, had never been able to have children of their own for one reason or another. So, when Johnny needed to be looked after, he admittedly hesitated, then offered his home.

It all just fell into place after that.

They don't mind that Johnny is an 'outcast' & don't try to separate him from those aspects of himself, but do require him to learn control & to not wolf out near travelers as they don't always know how outsiders will react.

The reason why Johnny is sent to Nevermore isn't so much that he's an outcast. More so, it's because his parents want him to learn about the werewolf side of himself from other werewolves.

At the same time, because of the freedom he experienced at home, he uses him wolflike qualities much more freely than even the other students of Nevermore. Often using them casually to interact with the world around him as though it were totally natural for him. Things like leaping high to get something. Using his nose to track his friends when he's looking for them. Using his claws to cut things instead of scissors or knives.

As such, he's often lectured for it.

Wednesday immediately believes him to be a product of brainwashing & thinks that the pastor & his wife were lying to him. That they're using him to protect themselves & their little town & even, for a time, believes that he might be the culprit behind everything. As, to her, Christians are nothing but cultists & religious fanatics & even tells him this directly, to which he's honestly kinda hurt by her words & decides not to interact much with her if that's how she honestly feels. His parents always said that you can't change someone else, someone can only change themselves & only if they want to change. That was the point of Christians living their lives as good people & examples of God's word rather than directly trying to change people, as it's their actions that register with people & shows them that they aren't rotten or obsessive. Show a person & preach the gospel when they are ready to listen, then it's much easier for their minds to change, but only if they're willing to change.

At that moment, Wednesday was entirely unwilling to listen to anything he said.

Many times the pale girl insinuates that his parents would've had her mother killed for being a witch. To which Johnny clarifies that, to his family, a witch is someone who has sold their soul to the devil & does his bidding by committing horrible acts against God & man such as human sacrifice, cannibalism, & pedophilia to name a few. He then asks her if that describes her mother.

Wednesday is silent, to which Johnny says that "So long as you are not an agent of Satan & do not commit such atrocities, do not act directly against God, or attack my family, then I will not have many true problems with you. Literally, the only people out there that I truly hate & refuse to interact with are those who intentionally align themselves with Satan & commit the crimes I just listed unapologetically & refuse to change or become better."

Johnny & his friends hunt back home, so when he reacts to blood or gore, it's due to concern for others rather than fear or disgust.

I can't remember if the silver allergy is a real thing in Wednesday, but if it is, then Johnny is largely unaffected by it because he's a Christian who's given himself to God & been baptized. Might get a bit of an itch, but other than that; nothing. The reasoning behind this is because the reason that silver works on some monsters is because it's a symbol of purity, so by being saved, he no longer has to deal with that.

Wolfsbane is still a problem for him, though as it doesn't affect werewolves on the basis of purity, but of poison.

Not really interested in fencing, so he signs up for archery instead. He's very new at it because he's more familiar with guns, but he finds that he likes it. Finds it almost meditative & helps him with his focus.

Plays the electric violin. Can play classical, but prefers folksy or fiddle.

An incredible tracker with great detective talent.

Likes riddles, puzzles, & ciphers. Loves mystery novels.

Is thinking about becoming a policeman &, eventually, a detective. So, even though he's not very good at it yet, he's studying criminology & criminal psychology to help him along the way.

It'd be interesting if when confronted by Crackstone, none of the magic the man uses works on him. When the undead rat demands to know why, calling it sorcery, Johnny quoth the Bible by saying that "So says the sorcerer. It doesn't work because no weapon that is fashioned against me shall prosper, & I shall confute every tongue that rises against me in judgment. Isaiah 54:17. God protects me because I love him."

This sets Crackstone off, calling him a liar & a heathen. Saying that an outsider cannot be a follower of God. Johnny replies by once again quoting the Bible. "'I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first & also to the Greek.' Romans 1:16. Or, 'there is no difference between Jew & Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all & richly blesses all who call on him.' Romans 10:12. If that isn't current enough for you, then how about, 'there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male & female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.' Galatians 3:28. It matters not that I am werewolf just as it matters not if one is born Christian, Jew, Greek, Gentile, black, or white. I call upon Him & have been saved by His Son, therefore I am His & under His great protection. Or, do you intend to speak blasphemously by insinuating that the Lord speaks lies? If so, then you are no Christian & no true believer of His."

Crackstone despises Johnny on a bone-deep level because everything he says is true. Thus, proving Crackstone for what he truly is: a hypocrite.

Johnny then uses the time until Wednesday gets there telling Crackstone that he's a hypocrite who uses his religion to harm those he feels are inferior to him as they battle (which is an entirely melee-based fight because the man's magic does not work on the boy). Either, as it goes on, fear becomes more evident in Crackstone's visage as the truth begins to strike home for him. He returned to Earth not by God's hand, but by witchcraft, the Devil's power.

Or, Crackstone finally gives up the charade & admits that Johnny was right, that he never truly believed in God or his word. It was just a convenient tool that allowed him to control those around him & put those outsiders in their place.

Of course, Crackstone is still taken out the way he was in the show, but now Wednesday has a less bigoted view of at least Johnny.

Random Stuff Masterlist

[sambvcks]

of first, second, third, fourth meetings, e.m. x reader

pairing: eddie munson x fem! reader

summary: The first time we met we hated each other. You didn’t hate me, I hated you. And the second time we met, you didn’t remember me. I did too, I remembered you. The third time we met, we became friends. We were friends for a long time. And then we weren’t. And then we fell in love. – When Harry Met Sally.

warnings: cursing (like a lot), holding not-so lifelong grudges, mention of stage fright, head-cannoning that eddie was kinda a jerk before he was given a proper thump in the head, so divergent from the actual events of season 4 it’s scary, celebration of Christmas (exchanging of gifts).

word count: 5.1k (HUH???)

author’s note: AKA Eddie Munson + RomCom tropes = Perfection. Eddie deserves to be happy. Season 4? Never heard of her. (no fix it fics in this house, we actively pretend it didnt happen)

[ read on ao3 | masterlist | inbox ]

first meeting.

Looking back, it’s so silly to remember the things that seemed so important to the freshman version of yourself. One week, it was some science project that escaped your mind the second it was turned it. The next, it would be the new shoes your mom bought you – off brand and noticeably so. The other girls had real Converse, why did you have to settle for the Payless knockoffs? One particular week, it was talent show try outs.

You had been rehearsing your song day and night, much to your mom’s chagrin. Her overnight shifts only afforded a preciously small window for sleep, something you tried your very best to not disturb (you still did). You had even laid out your best outfit – a hand me down blouse and tweed skirt that you had tailored to fit a little shorter than your mom approved of.

The line of acts auditioning was slowly dwindling, leaving you and a gaggle of boys that looked like they had walked straight off of a Metallica poster to exist solely as every parent’s worst nightmare. They were each absentmindedly fiddling with their instruments, fine tuning and flipping drumsticks as they awaited their turn, contrasting heavily with your noticeably panicked state.

“Do you mind? I think you’re gonna leave a dent in the floor with all your pacing.” Grumbled their leader.

Eddie Munson.

Easily recognizable with his growing hair and the spattering of patches of bands you had never heard of across his jean vest. He was loud. Loud enough that even newly christened Hawkins High School freshmen like you knew his reputation and, more importantly, knew to avoid him if you had a good head on your shoulders. Which you liked to think you did.

Still, who were you to judge, with your barely elevated trailer park aesthetic, homemade lunches, and hair you cut yourself? Benefit of the doubt, you decided. Maybe Eddie Munson wasn’t the devil-worshipping cultist he had garnered the reputation of. Maybe he was just misunderstood, an outcast but a good guy.

“Sorry.” You mumbled, steadying yourself against a wall and hoping beyond hope that he would leave it at that. You could still feel his eyes, though, skirt across your fidgeting form.

“Nervous?”

As if it wasn’t obvious. Your nails had been chewed to the nub and the skirt you had altered was starting to fray at the edge from your constant fiddling with it.

“No need to be, the people running this thing have no idea what real music sounds like. We’ve tried every year, still no takers.” He gestured back to his group of misfits, who only seemed half interested in the conversation. “But you seem top 40. Let me guess…Madonna? Will they let you sing ‘Like a Virgin’ at a school talent show? We’re playing ‘Rainbow in the Dark’. Ever heard of it?”

This drew the attention of the other boys, who cackled like he had told some life-changing joke.

“I-I-” You tried, but Eddie was quicker.

“Jesus, if you’re this nervous before the audition, imagine you up there! Stage lights on you, no one there to save you. You’d just-” His hands wrapped around his own neck, tongue sticking out and eyes rolling back as he pretended to struggle for breath.

Oh, no. Eddie Munson wasn’t a misunderstood good guy. He was an asshole.

Before you could come up with some half-assed retort, the gym door was swinging open. The person ahead of you, Tammy Thompson, was walking out with her head held high. No doubt the teachers they had roped into running the talent show this year had given some sort of standing ovation and maybe even got down on their knees in praise. If they were feeling particularly frisky. Your name was called and you were ushered in so quickly your head spun.

“Good luck.” A teasing voice followed behind you.

You totally choked. Haunted by Eddie fucking Munson and the echoes of his band’s laughter, you were barely able to get two lines out without the air hitching in your lungs. The tears came next as you high tailed out of there without an explanation.

Munson and his friends were still loitering around, awaiting their turn. You wondered, briefly, if they were forced to the end of the auditions in hopes that they would just give up and spare everyone the trouble. You marched past them, eyes stinging and lip quivering as you spat out a single “fuck you” in their general direction.

When the list of acts was pinned to the bulletin board the next morning, you weren’t too surprised to not see your name amongst the ranks.

You did feel a little more than satisfied when Corroded Coffin wasn’t, either.

Within a week, the whole ordeal was forgotten with the announcement of a five page English paper on foreshadowing in Romeo and Juliet. Eddie Munson and his band of freaks were out of your mind, too. High school was funny like that.

second meeting.

Taking up an after-school job on top of your weekend babysitting/tutoring duties was a no brainer. The bills on your kitchen table continued to pile up and your mom’s hours kept getting cut shorter and shorter. She hadn’t explicitly asked you, but as soon as you turned sixteen you applied at the music store on Main Street without debate.

The owner, a lonely old man named Bill, had made plenty of conversation with you whenever you went in to rifle through the discount record section in the past. You had a pension for finding the diamond in the rough, the no name artists that were subjected to the back of the crates, something Bill respected about you. Even with zero experience, he happily hired you on the spot.

So, after band practice you would work a quick five-hour shift and zoom home to pour over homework until you made a half-assed midnight dinner before your mom had to leave for her night shift.

It wasn’t all bad. The bags accumulating under your eyes were minimized when Bill sold you his old, beat-up Volkswagen for a week’s pay. Way under value – even for the gas guzzling, unreliable hunk of junk, but Bill was something like the grandfather you never had. At least, you were the granddaughter he never had.

You were independent, no matter now little sleep you really got. And you got to chat all day about your one true love – music. You weren’t all top 40. You assisted old ladies in picking out records for their grandkids, helped couples looking for a copy of their favorite song, introduced new artists to unlikely fans.

Then, on an ordinary Tuesday, in he came.

Eddie Munson.

His car was almost as loud and worthy of the junkyard as yours was, so it was difficult to miss his impending arrival.

You hadn’t really thought about him since Freshman year, two years prior, willing yourself to forget one of your most embarrassing memories. It seemed it was just as easy for Eddie to forget, as he paraded in with an easy smile and a casual greeting. He perused the shelves for a few minutes, oblivious to the bubbling rage in your gut, which manifested as the harshest glare you could manage.

“Hey, uh-” He glanced down at your name badge, “Sorry to bother. You guys got the new Metallica yet? This is, like, the fourth place I’ve been to.”

His smile was almost charming. He was certainly easier to look at now, even with his still unruly hair and fading jean vest. So similar to that day three years ago that you almost felt fourteen again, shrinking under his unwavering stare. It was something you refused to admit even to yourself, how he never shrunk under pressure. He took the absolute vitriol spewed at him daily and dished it back just as easily. He had grown into his gangly limbs, jaw more defined and the hint of a tattoo peeking from under the collar of his shirt. If you hadn’t sworn to hate his living guts until the day one of you was put six feet under, you might even call him attractive.

But you weren’t fourteen anymore, and you certainly weren’t letting him get the last laugh this time.

“Sure, follow me.”

“Sweet. While I have you, any recommendations?”

“Broadening your horizons, Munson?”

He seems startled that you know him, as if he wasn’t solely responsible for a week’s worth of tear-stained fits of rest. If anything, he looked a little nervous that you did know him. Like you would turn on your heel and kick the troublemaker out. No Metallica, no service.

“Uh, sort of.” His head tilted as he followed closely behind your determined steps, craning for another glance at your face. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“I go to Hawkins. How’s your second senior year treating you, by the way?”

Okay, maybe that was a low blow. But he started it, right? Either way, he seemed unphased by the question.

“Ah. It’s, uh, riveting. Really getting the most out of Mr. William’s Chem class the second time around. Might take it again just for the fun of it.”

You almost laugh, but you won’t give him the satisfaction.

“Here.” You pull the new Metallica from its display, the only copy available. “And my recommendation.” You hand over Rio’s Holy Diver, an album you were sure he had listened to backwards if the hand-stitched t-shirt adorning the back of his vest was any indicator. “It’s all great, but my personal favorite is ‘Rainbow in the Dark’. Ever heard of it?”

You watched, satisfied, as the wires in his brain began to piece this interaction together, firing faster than maybe they ever had before. His jaw fell, eyebrows shooting up beyond his shaggy bangs.

“I do know you! You’re-”

“The girl whose dreams of musical stardom you dashed in a single day. Finally, he remembers!”

“Jesus, it’s been, what? Two years?”

“Try three.” You snatched the cassette back, placing it delicately back on the shelf.

“Wow. You’ve, uh, changed a bit.”

Your nails, once a pristine Ballerina Slipper Pink were now a chipped charcoal black. The blouse and tailored skirt he had seen you in before was now replaced by a slightly too big ‘Bill’s Music’ t-shirt and jagged black jeans. You had found a bit of grunge and, if Eddie was pressed on the matter, he would admit that it looks good on you.

“Yeah, well. Someone stole away my dreams of fame, so I’ve fallen into a life of crime and rock and roll.” You maneuvered back to the register, hoping to end this interaction as quickly as it had started. If you were quick enough, Eddie Munson would be gone in a cloud of exhaust smoke from his shitty van in the next five minutes.

“I need to tell you, I still feel like an asshole about that.”

Oh. Oh shit. In all your fantasies about finally getting back at Eddie Munson – slashing his tires, stealing that stupid tin lunchbox he always carried around with him, maybe framing him for some crime – never did it include him actually feeling guilty. You had built him up in your mind as some soul-less villain, preying on the misfortunate.

“I talk a big game, but I still think about you running out crying. There’s no excuse, I’m just a natural dick, I guess.” He seemed almost shy, now. Haunted, even. Fingers fiddling with the edge of his coveted cassette. “I’m sorry.”

What were you to do? You could really stretch it out, let him feel that sinking gut feeling of guilt that would maybe match that fear you had felt on that stage three years ago. You could demand a public apology; he had no trouble making a fool out of himself if his lunchtime outburst were any indicator. But your mom had always taught you to be the bigger person.

“No big deal.” Sometimes you hated your mom and how her voice always rings in your head. “Already forgotten.”

His cassette was purchased, but not without him apologizing around another fifty times. He did disappear in a cloud of exhaust, his van puttering down the street and the faint tones of Metallica blasting through his window. His scent lingered, though, cheap cologne and cigarettes. You hated to think that you didn’t really mind it.

third meeting.

It was a little embarrassing, honestly. Cozying up to a group of freshman boys you had saved the world with was not on your senior year bucket list. Yet, you found yourself huddled around a corner table in the cafeteria, trying to map out the ins and outs of high school life to them.

Really, Robin was to blame. Robin - your talkative junior year Italian 3 desk mate - and your inexplicable hobby of linguistics which afforded you a basic understanding of the Russian alphabet were the two main culprits to this turn in your social life. Which then had you bunkered down in the Scoops Ahoy backroom attempting to translate a shady recording with Robin, Dustin, and Steve Harrington of all people.

And, sure, maybe the curly haired little weirdo had endeared you somehow. And you somehow found yourself promising Steve to watch over the kid after summer. Driving him around was the worst part – the gas alone was cleaning out a healthy chunk of your weekly paycheck. But his taste in music? You’d smother him before you allowed another Broadway soundtrack to crackle through your car speakers.

You remember the looks you got when you maneuvered the cafeteria as Dustin, Mike, and Lucas waved you over, the open mouth stares as the kids poured out of your Volkswagen on the first day back from Summer break. But fighting a Russian army and some multi-legged creature from another world created an unexplainable bond between the most unlikely of people and, honestly, would you even speak to any of these people after walking the stage at graduation anyway?

In return for your vast high school knowledge – which teachers to avoid, which bathrooms went unmonitored, which days they really needed to pack a lunch - the kids gave you a crash course on all things D&D, filling lunch periods with shitty cafeteria food and outlandish ideas for your blossoming character. They crafted an intricate narrative worthy of their high esteem for their sudden older-sister figure, picturing an elf, ethereal and full of curiosity and kindness.

You just wanted to smash things, but the boys promised the game went well beyond simple violence.

Then, a voice from a table over.

Eddie Munson.

He’d clocked the boys on the first day of school, looking lost and out of place in the hoard of cliques occupying each table. Then, you ushered them over like Galadriel to the lost, broken Fellowship and offered little pieces of yourself, of kindness and zero judgement. He was impressed, allowing you to seep into the recesses of his mind ever since he saw you rip off the sign some junior varsity football player stuck to Dustin’s back that said, ‘KICK THE FREAK!’. He watched, amazed, as you balled up the paper and chucked it in the general direction of laughter, hitting some linebacker square in the face.

Gone was the tear-stained girl running from the gym.

Recently, Eddie had found solace under gym bleachers during lunch, discussing upcoming band rehearsals and Hellfire Club meetings. But a weekend hangover actually had him craving the sorry excuse for cardboard that the school district called pizza, so they’d made the trek into the jungle of a cafeteria.

And there you were. Prettier than he remembered, but he was a stupid boy these past few years and anything beyond bootleg copies of Dio records and plans for upcoming campaigns did not have space in his mind. He’d scooped Henderson out of the bunch, much to your displeasure, and ushered your group over to his table with the promise of adventure beyond their wildest dreams.

The boys were easy. They were eager for any type of structure, particularly from an experienced Dungeon Master who seemed to have an ego of steel and a tongue of venom. You, with your faded t-shirts and your ‘Dungeons and Dragons for Beginners’ book loaned out from Mike’s vast collection felt like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. When Dustin noticed the distinct tension between his two new leaders, he voiced concern.

“We just go way back. Don’t worry. We’ll play nice.” You offered as explanation, seated as far away from Eddie as the small table could manage.

You kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Daily, you wondered when the teasing quips or the taunts would pick up. After all, Eddie was always eager to voice any amount of displeasure. Often, it was other students or teachers who didn’t know how to do their job. Sometimes it was as simple as the sun shining too bright or his bangs not falling the way he favored. But never you. He never had a single negative word to send your way.

Instead, he was patient. He started teaching you the ins and outs of D&D, offering pointers and directions for your character to take. He told you which weapons were worth your time and even gave insight into upcoming battles he had planned, offering you the slightest edge.

Before long, you were hanging out without the kids – which seemed like an impossible task because at least one of them seemed to always be trailing behind one of you. But when you had a late-night shift at Bill’s or Eddie just felt like bugging you (a near daily occurrence), there he was. He helped stock shelves even though that was your main job description, he played his favorite songs over the store loudspeakers, much to the displeasure of the customers, and he was so fucking nice it was driving you up the wall.

“Hey, just so you know, I got my Tuesday night shift switched for Thursday. In case you felt like dropping in again and driving even more customers away.”

Eddie was stationed at the classical section, flipping through records to laugh at the artists’ powdered wigs and cherub cheeks.

“Oh yeah? Got a hot date?”

Your silence spoke wonders.

“Dear lord. Who?” He demanded. You shrugged, not ready for this conversation. “C’mon, don’t be embarrassed. If it makes you feel any better, nobody is good enough for my best friend.”

A term he had adopted when you first let him use your employee discount and had stuck since. Dustin pretended not to be jealous – and a little curious – the first time Eddie had said it in front of the whole group without a single note of sarcasm.

“So, you might as well just tell me.” He wasn’t really paying attention, deft fingers still flicking through a crate of records. You were perched on the register counter, watching the clock at the seconds ticked by endlessly. Sunday night shifts were rough in a town like Hawkins, where everyone was too tired after a hot church service to spend any of their hard-earned money.

“His name is Jake.”

“Ugh. I hate him already.”

“You only know his name!”

“That’s enough. Imagine being named Jake. Depressing.” Eddie finished one crate and moved on to the next. “Sounds like he sells insurance and cheats on his wife.”

“Jesus. It’s one date. A free, hot meal, at worst.”

“That’s what prostitutes say, babe.”

He was always like this. Argumentative and honestly a little annoying. But he was somehow your favorite person in the world because of and despite those things. Maybe you were those things too, and you flew to each other like moths to a flame. Kindred spirits, of sorts. You didn’t have a retort, so you resorted to throwing a coin at him from the Take-A-Penny, which he easily dodged.

“Fine. But when it turns out he’s trying to get you to join his cult, just say-”

“Sorry, I’m already in Eddie Munson’s?”

“Ha ha. Anyways, word of advice? Don’t do that thing you do.”

“Thing? I have a thing?”

“Oh yeah.” Eddie abandoned his crate, hoisting himself onto the counter next to you. His thigh pressed to yours, his hair brushing your shoulder as he silently offered his hand over. You fiddled with his rings, slipping one from his pointer and shoving it onto your thumb. “Your ordering thing. I find it so adorable and endearing but any normal person would probably just put you out of your misery.”

“Sorry if I like things a certain way.”

“Don’t apologize, babe. I like that about you. But it might not be first-date material, y’know?”

You huffed in annoyance but didn’t disagree.

“And if he’s a douche, I’ll plant some pot in his locker and get him expelled or something.”

-

Jake was a total douche.

He was nice, sure. At first. Held open doors, pulled out your chair. All the stuff you had seen in movies Robin made you rent to broaden your horizons. When the time for conversation came, though, it felt…off. There wasn’t that easy back and forth, the endearments and nicknames. It was fumbling for topics and finally settling on extra curriculars.

You’d sat through twenty minutes of him chattering on and on about the basketball team and something called man-defense, but he scoffed at the very mention of Dungeons and Dragons.

“Like that Munson guy? My dad said only Satanists play that shit.”

You politely excused yourself to the bathroom and bolted out of the staff exit before he could get another word out.

And when you appeared at Eddie’s front door, dressed up and visibly annoyed, he didn’t even make a comment. You knew the told you so was sitting on the tip of his tongue, so desperate to make an appearance it was nearly painful for him to hold it back. He just ushered you in, mixtape quickly slotted into his speaker system, and Dio’s ‘Rainbow in the Dark’ sounding off as the soundtrack to Eddie’s quiet comfort.

It was almost as if the date hadn’t happened in the first place, that you both knew you would end up here.

“Any deals tonight?” You asked, so accustomed to the knocks that would interrupt your quiet nights in. Eddie would disappear for no longer than a few minutes, leaving you to twiddle your thumbs on his bed until his return.

“Nah. Wanted to keep my schedule wide open for you.” He was sorting through his most recent supply, acting as if that wasn’t the nicest thing anyone had ever done for you.

You had years filled of missed holidays, forgotten birthdays. You didn’t blame your mom for her horrible boss or her proclivity to ignore the calendar. To think Eddie had pushed aside any other plans for when you would come running had something bubbling in your chest.

Eddie knew you would come. You knew you would end up there, like some sort of escape method. An escape back to Eddie Munson.

If only Freshman you could see you now.

fourth meeting.

Christmas was a notoriously solitary holiday for you. Luckily, this year’s holiday season had been filled to the brim with gifts for the kids on Christmas Eve and a little party at Steve’s place so the ‘adults’ could exchange gifts and just be relaxed for a bit – free from high school and work and otherworldly monsters.

Eddie had become such a fixture to your life, so easily attached to you that Steve didn’t even bat an eye when he ushered you both into the living room, eagerly accepting Eddie’s version of a Christmas present (a few joints to hand around). Even Nancy, with her big college plans and life scheduled down to the minute, let loose a bit and took a few overeager puffs followed by long bouts of coughing.

Steve and Robin pitched in for a new set of headphones for you, Nancy eagerly watched you unwrap some ungodly floral wrapping paper to unveil a cassette of some UK indie band she swore up and down you would love, something Jonathan had introduced her to.

You had been saving up for the past few months to get gifts deserving of each of your friends. You had spent endless hours obsessing over JC Penny mailers and gossip magazines that swore they knew the secret to buying the perfect gift during slow shifts at Bill’s.

Robin got a new pair of Converse and a pack of Sharpies so she could doodle to her hearts content. Steve got a new Walkman, since he had leant his old one to Dustin who swore up and down that he had returned it. You had even taken the time to get it engraved – Property of Steve Harrington, not Dustin! Nancy got a new journal for all her editorial notes, though you had filled the first page with a few polaroid’s of the group together.

As Steve, Robin, and Nancy got to work on properly defacing Robin’s new shoes, you felt a little nudge on your foot.

Eddie Munson.

Looking sheepish and nodding towards Steve’s kitchen. You followed behind him, hand patting at your back pocket to make sure his gift was properly secured. At least the other three had the decency to pretend to not be interested in whatever was developing.

“So I, uh, thought a lot about what to get you.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything, Eds.”

He rolled his eyes – his default facial expression when it came to you - and fished in his pocket for a second. A chain clinked as it dangled from his hand, offering it up for judgement.

“A guitar pick?”

“Not just any guitar pick, babe.” His fingers worked to unhook the latch. “Believe it or not, this is the very guitar pick I used when Corroded Coffin auditioned for that bogus talent show.” He latched the necklace around your neck as delicately as he could, hands lingering as he watched it fall to your collarbone. “The day we first met. The best day of my life.” He finally pulled away; eyes still glued to his guitar pick on your neck. “Y’know, besides the whole making you cry thing.”

“Eds, you absolute sap.”

“Yeah, yeah. Shut up about it.” He stepped back, and it felt like it was the first breath of air you had taken since walking into the kitchen. “Would’ve given you something worth more, like my soul or something. But you know that thing is long gone.”

“Well, my gifts no better.” You promised, fishing in your own pocket. “Here.”

His eyes scanned over the tickets you offered up.

“No way.”

“Yeah, they’re playing in Fort Wayne next month. We’ll probably die from altitude sickness from how high our seats are.” You shrugged. “But they’ll probably play ‘Rainbow in the Dark’, right?”

Eddie Munson, with his loudmouth and unwavering ability to find any situation hilarious was struggling to form a single coherent thought here. The way you looked with his pick around your neck certainly wasn’t helping either. His vision felt hazy, his ears were ringing in and all he could see was you. You, with your stupid optimism and endless music trivia. You, his best friend.

Was it normal to think about shoving your tongue down your best friend’s throat?

Eddie thought back to the last campaign you had barely concluded before Winter break. You and Dustin carried the party, right down to the wire. You were beaten up, barely ten hit points left between the two of you. Eddie had heavily pushed for a retreat. Orcus was one of the most powerful foes the party had faced to date and the odds were slim. Retreat, he had advised them. Retreat and live to fight another day.

Eddie didn’t think he could live another day without being able to kiss you.

No more retreating.

His hands were back around your neck, fingers curling into the newly placed chain. He didn’t even have time to steady himself before his lips were on yours. Aching, needy, desperate for something beyond best friends. Your tickets fluttered to the floor.

You returned in kind, hands gripping at the lapels of his stupid denim vest, the band patches scattered across the material much more familiar to you, now. Your back was pushed into Steve’s granite countertop painfully. You curled even further into Eddie, mouth eagerly opening for him as one hand traveled down your sternum, side, before settling at your waist.

A finger hooked into a loop in your jeans, pulling your hips flush to his.

You stepped on his sneakers in your eagerness to get closer, as close as you possibly could. He didn’t mind, hand weaving into your hair to tilt your head back, desperate both for a breath of air and a better view of his guitar pick disappearing beneath your blouse.

“How long?” You asked, wondering how many of those solitary nights camped on his bed, how many of those closing shifts spent thumbing through Beethoven’s classics, how many late-night campaigns could have been substituted for more of this.

“The whole time, I think.” He answered, nose nuzzling into the expanse of your neck. “You?”

“The same. I think.”

A boisterous laugh from the next room over burst your little bubble.

You were in Steve Harrington’s kitchen. It was Christmas night. Eddie Munson was sucking a hickey on the column of your throat like he’d drop dead if he didn’t accomplish his mission.

“I love you.” He pulled back, those doe-eyes finding yours. “You know that, right?”

There had been a time where the very thought of Eddie Munson brought tears to your eyes, memories of that botched audition had you seriously considering dabbling in witchcraft and fashioning a voodoo doll in his likeness. Now, it all felt so warm. Like his mixtape that was surely worn down to the bone with how often you flipped that thing, or his bedsheets tangled in your legs as you spent summer evenings watching him strum his acoustic guitar – the only one his uncle would tolerate at that late hour.

“I know. I love you too.”

It felt like meeting him all over again. This was not the Eddie that had made you cry outside the high school gym. You weren’t the girl who put your name on that audition sign-up sheet. You were just two strangers – deeply, desperately, foolishly destined to love each other until your last breath.

What a perfect introduction.

[weaselle]

Ant Cthulhu

Tumblr ate my story! Goodbye to. just. so many thousands of notes. This was one of my first stories that people on tumblr liked. So I’m making it a new post, so that people can find it. Plus, of all the thousands who read the first one or two installments, not nearly as many discovered that I had written a third and final installment that ends the story, so here is a chance at that. 

The story was inspired by a pair of observations on Tumblr, where users probablybadrpgideas and 20thcenturyvole said, respectively 

“if Cthulhu can be summoned by humans who are so far beneath it, why can’t humans be summoned by ants? The answer is they should be.” and “Well if a bunch of ants formed a circle in my house I’d certainly notice, try to figure out where they’d all come from, and possibly wreak destruction there.“

It gets just a little dark, but any story named for Cthulhu surely must have some death and destruction, right?

ANT CTHULHU

That’s why knowing and correctly pronouncing the true name is so important to the ritual. Imagine how impossible it would be to not go take a look if the circle of ants started chanting your name. And they’re like, you can’t leave because we drew a line made of tiny crystals - now you have to do us a favor. And you’re like, let’s just see where this goes “yup, you got me… what’s the favor?” and usually the favor is like, “kill this one ant for us” or “give me a pile of sugar” and you’re like… okay? and you do, because why not, it isn’t hard for you and boy is this going to be a fucking story to tell, these fucking ants chanting your name and wanting a spoonful of sugar or whatever. And SOMEtimes you get asked for things you can’t really do, one of them, she’s like, “I love this ant but she won’t pay any attention to me, make me important to her” and you’re like… um? how? So you just kill every ant in the colony except the two of them, ta-da! problem solved! and the first ant is like *horrified whisper* “what have I done” …. _____________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile another colony of ants invades your house, and evidently that last ant has gotten some of them to join her in a circle and taught them the ritual because you’re coming out of the bathroom one day and you hear the ants singing your name. Sure enough it’s that ant, but she’s dark and fucked up now, and she’s like, “kill the queen. I will rule this colony” and you’re like, sure, I guess I kinda owe her, and you do it. And she manages to become queen, and they worship you. Which is cool, you’re not, you know, very important in the human world, but to these ants you’re practically all-powerful.

Your beloved Naya doesn’t understand your fascination with the ants at all, but you easily train her to leave them alone. She’s such a good dog. The ants are horrified that you command such a beast.

You begin to realize can’t be just, doing everything a bunch of ants tell you to all the time. When would you watch Netflx? So you tend to only show up for super important ants; you teach them some extra words and when hear them you go see what’s up. Usually. Also though, you’ll show up to just your name, if you’re bored and you hear it. And, sometimes some of the ants are like, tell us more human names, and you’re kind of jealous of the idea of some other human diluting your private godhood, so you refuse. Your roommate Greg is like, yo, that’s fucking awesome, I want ant worshipers! But whenever he approaches any, they run away, because it turns out that the illusion of control from the named summoning is what makes them feel safe around you. That’s great, because Greg is a dick who never does the dishes, and one day you decide to teach Greg a lesson. So you show up at the colony, and you’re like, “yo, witch queen, did you think there would be no price for all these things? Your colony must do something for me, go to the Room of the Housemate, I will meet you there.” And you go sit on the couch and play Overwatch for a while. You’re like, right there, you can clearly see the ants all marching along the wall to Greg’s room, but to them you’re not even there, you’re so far away they can’t see you. It takes them, like, an ant week to make the journey. They have to figure out ways to get over and around things. Some of them drown, or get stepped on by the dog, or whatever. You win a game, you lose a game, you look over, and they’re trying to get through some cobwebs… looks like they’re mostly going to live, you keep playing, you look over, okay they’re all in there, and you stand up and walk over and by the time they’ve chanted your name once, you’re there. “right, hold on” and you look around and you see a twelve-pack of Greg’s precious fucking soda, that he keeps in his room and refuses to ever share, even though it’s a communal food household and you share your hot chocolate with him all the time. So you gather the ants unto you, and you poke a little hole in each of the sodas and you leave the room to the sound of the ants rejoicing. Greg will suspect of course, but he’ll never be able to prove the ants didn’t chew holes in the plastic and steal his stupid drinks.

He actually tries to blame it on Naya. What a prick. You insist with wide eyes that the ants must have found it somehow — maybe he shouldn’t leave soda pop laying around his room. But later, while you’re at work, Greg destroys most of the colony in a rage, and you come home to find the witch queen gasping her last. “The Dew of the Mountain, which you had us steal, was cursed - and so I lay my curse on you” she manages, and then she dies. Well first of all, you don’t really believe in curses, but last month you didn’t believe ants could know your name, so that’s unsettling. And second of all, you feel kind of bad. You know, not SUPER bad, cause she’s like, an ant. But still. And most importantly, third of all, Greg must pay. Like some kind of movie villain, you pet your loving Naya and say out loud “Oh yes, and pay he will.”

But Greg has done more than kill a bunch of the colony. As you wait for eggs and pupae to replenish the ant population, you discover he has found some ants that didn’t go on the Mountain Dew raid, and he’s spared them, told them his name.

He’s made himself a good sized cult in YOUR fucking ant queendom. Greg has started locking his door. So now you NEED the ants. Once again you direct the ants loyal to you to journey to Greg’s room. You meet them at the door. A locked door means nothing to the ants, they don’t even know there is a door, and can barely perceive the difference between it being open and shut - either passing the threshold on the floor regardless, or being on its surface no matter the position. But you need them to get inside. You’re going to put itching powder in his underwear drawer and leave a raw fish under his bed. So you instruct the leading party of ants how to go into the Cave of Keyhole, and position the Magic Megaliths inside just right to enable the opening of the Great Door and allow you to pass into the Realm of Housemate. Crouched by the door, you can hear when your ants are met by a party of Greg Cultists, who insist that if the Great Door is opened, the colony will be doomed. There is fighting. Your ants prevail, the lock tumblers are moved into place, and you swing the door open… To find Greg! In his room all along! It’s a trap! His cultists attack you! I mean, they can’t do much real harm, but it kind of hurts and it’s super annoying. You order your ants to attack him, and they do, but he storms over and pours bleach down the colony entrance.

It’s the end of their world. Now you and Greg are at war, and you both understand the unspoken rules to your fight. You can’t do things directly to each other, why, that would be assault. But anything you can get your ants to do is fine, because “she told the ants to do it to me” isn’t going to get very far with any authority figures that get involved. Later, nursing your anger, you confer with your few remaining ants and stare moodily at your new prize, the ant farm that came in the mail. It will take time to integrate them- your ants have to get access to the new ants’ scent marker chemicals and go undercover. Meanwhile, you’ve got a laptop schematic to go over with your high priestess. It’s finals week, and if you time it right, he’ll lose everything. … You look down into the summoning ritual. The current high priestess, Zé, is an ant of great influence and personality - you quite like her, inso far as a human can be friends with an ant that worships them. You thought the new queen would become the next high priestess, but according to Zé the queens don’t like to come out of the colony after they shed their wings. Plus they are very busy laying eggs and supervising the care of their ant larvae. Zé says it’s a better deal for you, this way your high priestess can have the time and energy to really serve your interests, and wield an authority among the colony that is purely yours - no conflict of interest, and no baby making duties. It’s really just what’s best for both you and the colony queen to have her as high priestess, she informs you, making you laugh at her flattery-wrapped ambition. There’s no laughing this evening though. It’s serious business on the docket tonight. “O wise and ancient entity of power, you grace us with your presence!” and for formality’s sake, she intones the additional ritual greeting from their holy books “You Look Fantastic, Have You Done Something New With Your Hair?” Ants don’t really understand hair. You respond as you have become accustomed “Thank You, Yes.” It’s just easier. They mean well. Mystic greeting complete, Zé and the rest of the dark clergy move straight to business. Several 10s of them line up in formation, creating a diagram of the apartment complex. You had to coach them into how to make it, as far as they are concerned it’s a complex sigil that conveys knowledge to you - for creatures that traverse the building in long journeys along the pipes in the walls and in the spaces between the lower ceiling and upper floor, it looks nothing like the apartment complex as they know it. Zé claims to understand it, but secretly you suspect she’s just mostly cementing her authority among the clergy. She has, usefully, memorized which parts of the sigil correspond with what parts of the building, and that’s good enough for your purposes. “O mighty being, we have done as instructed. Our scouts had to search wide for them, but we have left the corpses of many termites in all the locations you specified, every night this week. “Very good,” you assure them, “and the Greggorites?” “Our spies among them have learned of their next attack. We should be able to influence their timing somewhat.” “Good. And..” your eyes narrow, “the other thing?” “Ah, yes.” Zé’s antennae wave and dip in that way you know means she is uncomfortable. “to the best of our ability to find out, the… Antifreeze initiative was entirely conceived of by the Demon Lord Greg.” “Just Greg,” you tell Zé with bitter hatred as tears threaten to spill down your cheeks. “Greg is not a lord, just a fucking prick who’s going to get what’s coming to him. I swear by all of creation he will.” “Is there…” Zé trailed off and tried again. “O Deity of my heart, far be it from me to question Your Exaltedness, but help your poor servant to understand… your plans have become, ah, they seem perhaps, I am sure I am wrong, but they seem, overly audacious? Your recent change in demeanor has made some of us nervous - not me! - but some of the less devout among my sistren, have become… concerned.” Your fists clench. “I don’t expect you to get it. I’m pretty certain none of you could possibly understand.” Your voice breaks. You clench your teeth. You won’t, you won’t cry in front of your ant worshipers. You lean down and say in the strangled half whisper that is the only way you can force the words past the lump in your throat, “He killed my dog, Zé…” The ants flee the sound of your terrible wailing. The great Finals Erasure had worked to more devastating effect than you had anticipated, and things had… escalated. Then Greg proved himself to be less human than the ants , who themselves had turned out to be such surprising little beings. So. The orders for the heinous deed did in fact come from him. Now, there are things that have to be done. You call the ants back out of hiding and get to work. In the end, it was easier than you thought it would be. You talk to all the neighbors, without Greg. You hide the relevant pieces of mail. You have the scuba gear and the stuff from the sex shop shipped to a friend’s house. You ensure your spies among the Greggorites have escape plans, though Zé assures you they are ready to sacrifice themselves to the cause. “I’m not that kind of Deity,” you tell her. The night before, your ants slip a double dose of tylenol p.m. into Greg’s milkshake. You almost laugh; all your efforts to make sure there is only soup to make for dinner, and he comes home with Burger King. He sleeps so soundly that he never comes close to waking the whole time you are attaching the padded bondage equipment to his limbs and hiding with him in the closet. The walk through by the company inspectors that morning is a tense moment, but as you suspect, they don’t open the closets. After they leave to do their work outside, you finish your work inside, tying Greg to his bed. By the time he starts to wake up, you are sitting in a chair in the doorway to his bedroom, with your mask on. The air is beginning to thicken and discolor. Greg coughs around his ball gag and opens his eyes. You feel curiously calm and empty. “Hi, Greg.” Your voice is muffled, “You like my dive mask?” Greg makes an angry questioning noise, spread eagled to the full extension of his limbs. “Oh, yeah, that must be uncomfortable. Can’t give you enough slack to jerk against the ropes, though, or you might leave tell-tale bruises through the padding.” More angry noises, coughing. “Hhhmm? Oh, did I forget to tell you? It’s termite day, Greg, they’ve tented the house. That’s Sulfuryl Fluoride you’re breathing. You’ll cough for a bit, you’ll throw up, and your heart will stop.” He’s thrashing around as much as the ropes will allow, which isn’t a lot. He’s pretty energetic about it, though; maybe he can’t hear you over his efforts. “You shouldn’t have meddled around with godhood, it didn’t suit you. Power compromised your judgement. You definitely shouldn’t have fucking killed my dog, Greg” You’re suddenly filled with rage. You need to know he hears you. You stride over to the bed and grab him by the throat. Not too hard, you try to remember through your anger, no bruises. The grip is enough to make Greg stop thrashing and look at you with wide wide eyes. “YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE FUCKING KILLED NAYA YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! WHY? WHY? HOW COULD YOU!? SHE NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU!” Just as suddenly, your anger is gone. You feel tired. You look down at him and shake your head.”Time to die, Greg.” You cross the room and sit back down in your chair in the doorway. Watching him die isn’t easy, but it’s not as hard as watching Naya suffer through acute kidney failure. Afterwards, you take off all the bondage gear, throw it in a duffel bag. You leave through the back, rolling out from under the fumigation tent against the back fence, and packing the scuba gear into the duffel before you climb into the neighbors yard. A month later, you’re moving from town to town. The colony has become so large you’re going to need a bigger truck full of clay for them to live in. Maybe an old Uhaul. The ants bring you a newspaper. They bring you everything now, food, money, information. Word of how you value the life of each individual ant has spread through the colony, and reports brought back from the apartment by scouts confirming your status as a godslayer has …elevated… their worship of you. You open the newspaper to find Greg’s death has made the papers. No suspicion of foul play despite the exterminator company lawyers insisting on an autopsy. Tylenol p.m. in his system accounted for his presence in the building, it was decided, and the failure of the inspectors to notice Greg in bed during their walk through was settled out of court, paid off by their insurance. The ants bring you a conga line of grapes, peeling them for you while you stare off into space. A small line of ants brings the peels back to the colony larder. You’re going to have to teach them how to disable cameras - the leaked security footage of hundred dollar bills slipping themselves out under the bank doors has caused a bit of a stir on some parts of the internet… you eat another grape, and count your money. As usual you put half of it in an envelope, uncapping a sharpie to write “From Naya” on it. The ants will slip it under the door of the local animal shelter for you tonight. END

_____________________________________________________________________

so, looking back, I feel I should tell you that when I wrote the final chapter of this I had just become homeless and had to leave my dog in a better home than I could provide. It’s cool, we still see each other a lot these days, I was just real sad about it and it effected what I wrote. Anyway, that’s the Ant Cthulhu story

[whumpster-fire]

Having several thoughts about how gnolls are really cool as a basic concept but hot damn D&D 5e’s lore for them is absolute garbage, and... seriously, Tieflings are in the fucking Player’s Handbook now but gnolls are just Too Demonic For Players? Does someone at WotC like, have something against hyenas or something?

So I’m posting my fanmade gnoll rework concepts that I’ve had for years and I’m finally accepting I’m never gonna fucking use.

Just

Fucking

Base it off actual hyenas as a starting point. Think about what hyenas are actually like compared to other predators.

For ability scores, A lot of the playable gnoll races I’ve seen give them high strength or dexterity, which is kind of a weird one because I don’t think hyenas are particularly dexterous, not compared to other predators like cats. They’re pursuit predators with relatively good endurance, they have really good immune systems that make them effective scavengers, and they’re pretty darn hard to kill. Gnolls’ biggest physical stat bonus should be Constitution, absolutely no question, with strength next. For mental stats... hyenas are really smart by animal standards, and good at cooperative problem solving in particular. Being bad at any particular mental stat in D&D/Pathfinder doesn’t really fit with that, but if the system requires a stat penalty for balance reasons Charisma is probably the best one to put it in to represent the cultural and body language barriers between gnolls and... well, non-furry humanoids.

7′ tall, 300 lb gnolls is kind of bizarre since spotted hyenas are pretty close in weight to humans. Wikipedia lists 198 lb as about the heaviest weight for them. My headcanon for this is that gnolls are supposed to be human-sized-ish, but the clans a heroic adventuring party is most likely to get in a fight with are, y’know, the ones that are basically demon cults, and have a significant number of 7′ tall monstrosities as a result of interbreeding with demons.

Spotted hyenas are matriarchal and females are bigger and stronger than the males. This shouldn’t be reflected in RPG stats other than a difference in the height and weight stats basically get ignored unless someone needs to carry an unconscious character or something, for the same reason that ability scores ignore sexual dimorphism for every other race in the game and... does any culture in D&D canonically have strong gender roles by default besides the Drow?

Having a super-short lifespan is technically not “unrealistic” for an animal-based race, but it’s... just really player unfriendly, especially when half the party’s probably playing elves and dwarves that live like 300 years.

Other traits: Give ‘em low-light vision, disease resistance (not poison: disease specifically). Gnolls have powerful jaws and should have a natural bite attack, but like... most of the time natural weapons on a humanoid shouldn’t actually be very useful in armed combat because... yes it can do serious damage, but so can a fucking spear, and you can run someone through from a lot farther away than you can bite them, and not have to expose yourself to someone driving a fucking knife through your chin while you’re trying to rip their arm off. If you give gnolls any other gimmicky combat ability, it should be based on teamwork or survivability / making it a miserable process for someone to attack you.

I’m kinda ehhhh on gnoll subraces, other than maybe giving demonblood gnolls their own stats.

Okay so for gnoll culture... first of all we have to figure out how to handle Yeenoghu, and there’s two ways of handling this that I like.

Option 1: Yeenoghu is actually just the gnoll war goddess, but is believed to be a demon lord by most other cultures based on rumors spread by people at war with gnolls, and... like, literal demonization your enemies’ gods is a common phenomenon throughout history IRL. This is best for a low-magic campaign where the gods don’t get involved enough to correct these misconceptions.

Option 2: Gnolls are a cautionary tale of what happens when demon cults aren’t stopped early. Gnolls actually have/had their own patron deities, but they’re now powerless to protect their people from Yeenoghu’s followers, and they’ve overrun a significant portion of the species. Not so much through conversion as through conquest as subjugation and extermination, except now they’ve reached such a critical mass and become so much of a threat to other cultures that it’s turning them against the surviving non-cultist clans, and some of them are starting to convert by “choice” because they see it as the only way of surviving that’s left.

With this one, I really like the idea that Yeenoghu is actually female and the widely known lore gets her gender wrong due to a translation error / misinformation / because of very human gender stereotypes causing people to assume that female demon lords are all the sneaky, subtle, corrupting/tempting types and that a demon lord of sheer brutality and destruction would obviously be male. This misconception persists because Yeenoghu’s followers are too busy eating people to discuss pronouns.

The other really important factor driving gnoll culture to evolve in certain ways is that gnolls are obligate carnivores. Their diet needs to be mostly meat, whether living or dead, and in a medieval-tech society, unless it’s really high magic I don’t think a sedentary gnoll community would be able to produce enough food to support themselves. However this doesn’t require gnolls to be hunter-gatherers / survive by raiding.

Seriously guys. Nomadic pastoralist gnolls. Or at least transhumance. Gnoll shepherds, using domesticated hyenas as herding animals. Or if you’re doing a Western AU... consider, and I’m just saying consider this as an option: Gnolls in cowboy hats.

However, in warfare this also creates the darker side of even non-demon-worshiping gnolls. They’re predators, and biologically adapted to be scavengers, and in any premodern setting an army marches on its stomach. It is way harder for gnolls to keep a fighting force supplied, especially if the enemy is burning their own fields and any livestock they can’t take with them. Why would they pass up free meat? Even if they have a taboo against cannibalism unlike real hyenas, do humans really count as cannibalism for a gnoll? Not eating enemy corpses would be a huge handicap for them.

This, of course, tends to make most other cultures hate gnolls if they’ve fought them in recent memory, and resort to tactics like poisoning livestock or corpses, or infecting them with contagious diseases (disease resistant doesn’t mean disease immune, IRL spotted hyenas can still catch diseases like rinderpest). Unfortunately in gnoll culture that is considered a war crime.

Seriously though, hyenas are cool, gnolls are a really cool concept if you actually make them basically anthropomorphic hyenas, IDK if I have to eat my “Not A Furry” card over this.

[dare-to-dm]

(CultAnon) Oh, the cult’s... kinda incompetent, to be honest. I’m planning to wring a little humor out of the fact this isn’t some well-organized mega-religion so much as a small country church who just HAPPENED to get a dark tome a few generations back and decided worshipping the Old Ones was nifty. They’re not really intending to HURT the party, but they think the kid’s their messiah so they KINDA need him back... The party doesn’t need to feel powerless, just aware they ARE being pursued.

  I feel like I’m not explaining this well... the kid’s mom hired the party to transport him to a safe place, but they have to cut through the swamp to do it. The cult wants the kid back, and their town is on the border of the swamp, so they know the territory and can move faster than the party. The party has to keep the kid out of their hands while being pursued through the swamp, without getting lost or falling into any of the other dangers of the area.

What I’m having trouble with is figuring out HOW to make it clear to the party that they ARE being pursued —that the cult catching up is a constant threat— WITHOUT having them be attacked. The cult might be bumbling, but there are far more of them than there are adventurers (plus, like I said, low level,) so if they manage to corner the party, it’s clear they WILL be able to take the kid back. I just don’t have any idea how to give that sense of being FOLLOWED by someone CATCHING UP.

Ah, I see.  That is a different thing entirely from what I was imagining.

It sounds like you should probably make a skill challenge out of this. 

Here’s a great video with advice on running skill challenges in D&D, and it even includes some examples of making a chase sequence into a skill challenge.

Basically a Skill Challenge is a way to model high stakes events that aren’t combat encounters. The idea is that every player participates by making skill checks that are relevant to the situation, and they achieve victory by amassing a certain number of successes before hitting a threshold for failure.  So like, for a tough challenge you might say “You need 6 total successes to beat this challenge, but if you get three failures before that, the cultists catch up to you and are able to take the kid”.

You can prepare for a skill challenge by thinking of some logical checks for players to make and setting appropriate DCs for those checks.  But also be prepared to come up with DCs on the top of your head if players come up with creative ways to use their skills.  You also want to think of some roadblocks to throw at your players for them to react to.

They can be a lot of fun!  It’s what I would do if I was trying to run something like this.

[eveningcatcher]

Main six + courtiers playing D&D part 1

"Alright, now that everyone's here," you said as you were looking over your papers, "Let's get started, shall we?"

"Wait, wait," Vulgora said, swinging their character sheet in the air, "How did you calculate any of these things? Why the fuck is here +5" she pointed at their intimidation stat, then moved her finger to the persuasion stat, "And here it's +3?"

"It's because you've added your proficiency bonus there," Nadia explained as she stirred her coffee.

"Proficiency?" they asked, frowning.

"That coloured dot," Julian said.

"Ohh, ohhhh, that makes sense now," they put the paper down and took the large gulp of their beer, recklessly spilling it over the white sheet of paper.

Valerius moves his chair away from the pontifex, as well as his character sheets, "So, I can leave in three hours, right?"

Read the whole chapter here

"Why would you want to leave so soon?" you asked them, pouring them a glass of wine.

"Because there is no fulfilment in wasting time with filling these sheets and sitting idly, spending the precious time in useless chatter about non-existing worlds and their non-existing characters going into non-existing journeys," quaestor added as they pulled a chair in between Volta and Vulgora, "If your heart yearns for such journeys and adventures then why don't you go on and experience them on your own?"

"I see you've done some research," Portia adds as she put a huge tray of food next to the procurator, "Ilya remember when we used to play D&D?"

Julian gave his sister a wide grin, "Oh, I remember when you started yelling at me whenever I would be a DM."

"Well that's because you would never let me do anything I wanted to," she put a cup of tea next to the praetor, "Careful, it's still hot."

"So how long do we play this game?" Vlastomil asked, "I need to take care of my dear Wriggler. Oh, how sad she was when I left," he frowned, quickly wiping a single dear, "She must be worried sick, wriggling around, eating her sorrows away..."

"Oh, I can completely understand her, yes I can," Volta rose her head from her food, giving the praetor an understanding look, "I always eat when I'm stressed and anxious."

"You always eat, though," Asra commented before facing Julian, "Did I fill this right?" they asked him.

"Hm, let me see," he took the papers, along with the player's handbook. He would list through the pages, not bothering to check the book content, only stopping when he needed to check the papers.

"Here," he pointed at the skills, "You can check another stat you want."

"Oh, thanks," they took the pencil and checked insight, adding the proficiency bonus.

"So, shall we begin then?" you asked as you raised DM's screen.

"Why do you have that?!? Where is mine?!?"

"Yeah, I want some too!" Lucio demanded.

"But I am the DM, players can't have this."

"Can we just begin already?" Muriel said something for the first time, "I just want to leave."

"Alright, fine. I hope you've all made yourselves comfortable because we won't take a break for a while."

"Oh, that's no good, no, that is terrible," tiny procurator said as she was chewing her food, spilling some of it out, "What about the food? We're almost out!"

"Don't worry dear," Nadia said, as she was taking one of her rings out, cleaning the emerald with her sleeve, "Food will be brought over the time, so let's just begin already."

"Alright, alright, let's begin now," you said as you gathered magic in your hands, letting it poof and cover the top of the table, "The story begins in a small tavern on the northern side of the human village-"

"Let's smash their skulls and claim all of their things!" Vulgora said as they smashed their fist on the table, moving the mist away.

"I mean, you could do that," you said, putting your finger on your lips as you gave their idea a bit more thought. Once you've come up with the satisfying idea, you started to control the mist, folding it to your liking, until the mist turned into an inside of a tavern, with all of their characters sitting on one table, some of them drinking, others talking(more like arguing) and others playing a game of cards.

Amongst them, there is one certain Dragonborn who can't seem to calm down. They stand up, walking over the table, then announcing their idea loudly enough for the other PC's to hear:

"Let's kill everyone in this stupid village!" the Dragonborn said.

"I don't know, I kinda like it here," Julian's PC said as they took another glass of beer.

"Oh, I love this magic smoke!" he said as he grabbed a handful of popcorn, munching on it as he tried not to spill it.

"I'll try my best to make it as realistic as possible," you said, as you stopped motioning with your hands once you were sure the magic will last, "But anyway, any other thoughts on Vulgora's idea?"

"Absolutely no." Nadia and her character said in unision.

"I have to agree with the countess," Valerius said as he went through his character sheets, "The guards will kill us all."

"No they won't," Vulgora responded sharply, "There are so many of us, we will kill them all!"

"We are all first level, so I doubt it," Portia said, taking the tray of food and setting it in front of hungry Volta.

"Wait, there are levels here," praetor asked, his head buried in the player's handbook, not understanding anything.

"Yes, twenty of them, apparently," Valdemar added calmly, clearly bored; "Um, is that supposed to happen?" Muriel asked as they pointed towards a figure walking towards their PC's.

With a sly grin, you started to tell them your story. Altering your voice to what you believe a tall, middle-aged sorcerer would sound like.

Everyone looked at each other as if they thought that the other knew what was going on. Once they realised that this is most likely something about your story, they looked at the fog and listened to the old sorcerer.

"So... you must be the adventurers who want to," he quickly took a glance at the other people in the tavern, leaning towards the table the group was sitting in, and, with a low voice, said, "Kill the gods?"

"I, uh," Muriel stuttered, not knowing how to react, however, Asra started talking, moving the attention to them and, with a sly grin, said "Yes, you got the right people."

"Oh, ho, so it is indeed you," he chuckled, "What an... interesting bunch you are... reminds me of the last adventurers who have tried to do what you long for..." he smiled, "Ohh, those were the times, yes indeed they were."

"Tell us more about them," Portia insisted.

"Ohh, they were, you know, quite the colourful bunch," he said, "Though not as big as you are. Just a small group of three, a human, tiefling and a..." he stopped talking for a moment, taking the time to run their bony hands through the beard, "A, hmm, was she a pureblood, or a human too... I can't quite recall," he shrugged it off with a simple gesture of hands, "It doesn't matter. The important, and a quite interesting part, is that they were all wronged by the world and-"

"Oh, please make it quick, I don't care about them!" Vulgora's PC said.

"I use my cantrip prestidigitation to muffle out their complains," Asra said.

"Okay, you succeeded," you said, through a giggle as you muted Vulgora's endless number of complaints.

"," Vulgora tried to say something, but no words could be heard from their lips. However, this couldn't stop them, so they signed to Asra a few words, probably the only ones they knew how to sign: I'll crush you, wizard boy!

"Sorry about that my good sir," Nadia's PC turned on her chair, calling a taverner, "Could you please bring us some ginger ale for this gentleman?"

The sorcerer chuckled, satisfied with the free drink and continued, "Well then, where was I again, ah yes," he stroke his long beard as he recalled the lore, "Those three were, quite a chaotic bunch to say the least. They all hated this society, but they didn't blame the government, no no, they blamed the gods who have created this world. So anyway, what is the reason behind your decision?" he leaned to Muriel's druid, "Is it power, glory and praise? No, you don't look like the type who desires such things..." he muttered, leaning towards the evil Tiefling, "What about you, oh I think I know!" he nodded with satisfaction, "You seek the answers, young one, don't you? Or maybe it's the curiosity; what would the world be like with no god? Oh, ho, ho..." he sat back to his chair, just in time as he was handed the beverage and took a huge gulp, choking on it. With a few loud coughs, he calmed down and continued, "Well then, I must warn you, everyone who tried to kill a God has met the same fate, so I truly hope that your reason is worth it."

"Of course it is!" Lucio exclaimed, happy that the attention finally focused on him, "If we kill Gods, then everyone would be forced to become an atheist, and the only person that they could worship would be me!"

Everyone took a moment of silence to think through his preposterous statement. Julian and Portia tried to muffle their laugh, while Vugora, who finally got the ability to talk again stayed silent.

"Well, I mean," the old man started, "I guess it's not that bad. There wouldn't be any cultist attacks anymore..." he stayed silent after that statement as he, slowly this time, took a sip of the drink. Once he had drunk it all, he stood up, "Well, thank you, my children, for the drink, in return, I offer you the map to three of twelve artefacts that you'll need to kill a god."

"Wait, what are we supposed to do after we got them?" Volta asked as she chewed on a sandwich with excitement in her eyes. She was certainly enjoying this a lot more than she had expected to.

In response, the sorcerer chuckled, but this time, there was something odd in his voice, "Oh, please, only two people have gotten all three of the artefacts," after that bold statement, he seemed to have realised that he might have sounded a bit too dark, so he changed the tone, giving the group a warm smile, "But I'm sure that you could get them. Oh, ho, ho, after all, there is eleven of you, I'm sure some of you could be lucky enough."

With that, he dropped them a scroll and slowly walked towards the exit. "So," you said, "What will you do with the scroll?"

"Read it, obviously," Valerius responded, trying to sound as though he was bored.

"Alright. Nadia, you have opened the scroll, however, you can't understand anything it's written. However, you Valdemar seem to understand it. It's written in Infernal."

"Very well, then," they extended a hand to Nadia, "Give me the scroll."

"Um," she looked at you, as you gathered fog in your hands, forming a scroll with some unreadable words to her, but, when she handed it to Valdemar, they seemed to be able to read it. They didn't read it aloud, instead, they simply rolled their eyes.

"Come on, read it already!" Valstomil demanded.

"Very well then," they started reading a scroll, with a dull voice"Hot elf moms in your area are looking for a good time. No need for a pouch, they just want your big-"

"WRONG SCROLL, WRONG SCROLL!!!" the sorcerer rushed into the tavern, snatching the scroll, replacing it with a lot older one, a bit ripped at the side.

Everyone, excluding some burst into laughter. Portia's face has gotten so red that Julian laughed even louder, pointing at her, even though he didn't look any better. Asra tried to hold in the laugh, knowing that this is not the joke they should laugh at, while Muriel innocently asked Volta what was the big thing elf moms wanted. Neither one of them knew the answer, so they asked Vulgora, who gladly responded with: "Elves want the di-" they stopped as soon as they saw the Countess' disapproving look.

"I swear if this one is also a 'wrong scroll' I'm leaving," Valerius said.

"Alright, alright," you said, a bit disappointed that not everyone enjoyed the joke as much as you did, "Here you go, Julian" you handed him another scroll.

He took it and, with a bit of scepticism, started reading in a dramatic voice, accenting a random word that he found interesting: "The first artefact is Abaddon's dagger. It lies untouched in the Saint Milu's church, slowly rusting away, waiting for its owner to return, or perhaps, for another champion worthy of them..." he stopped for a moment, taking a deep breath and asked in a normal tone: "So, how was that?"

"Perfect Ilyushka!" Portia said with a smile, "You can read the scrolls from now on!" she shifted her gaze to you, "So, how are we supposed to find that dagger?"

"I don't know," you sulked into your seat, "You're supposed to think of an idea," you slowly straightened your posture, "But, if you get stuck, I guess I will help you out."

"Shouldn't we go ask some people about that church?" Volta asked as she bit on cherry cheesecake.

"That seems to be the best option," Nadia concluded, "Then, let's go, shall we?"

Before they left, Julian took a d20 and said with a smirk, "I roll sleight of hand check to see if I can steal some money from that dude drinking beer," he pointed at some random guy sitting next to the exit.

"Alright," you said, "Go on."

He put the dice in between his hands, pretending to pray and rolled it. The dice hit Volta's plate, to which she flinched, and then finally, the dice stopped. It rolled on 16.

"Yeah, you succeeded," you started as you grabbed some popcorn, "You took a little pouch, containing 2gp."

"I walk to the gentleman and inform him that his pouch has been stolen by this terrible man," Valerius said with a sly grin as he sipped his wine.

"Dude NO!" Julian shouted.

Before you could determine the outcome you turned to see if Valerius is still sure about his decision, to which he simply nodded. Amused by the way this is going so far, you said: "Well, you've told the man about the stolen money," you shifted your hands up, moulding the fog to your imagination, then continued talking in a masculine voice, "That rascal! Thank you, my man, at least some of this youth is still polite," the man stood up, walked to Julian, slapped him right across the face and took the old pouch from his hands, "How disrespectful, did your mother teach you that?!?!"

Asra giggled like a highschooler while Muriel looked amused as he listened to Volta commenting about how, if he were to steal her food, she would have given him more than just a slap.

"Roll a d20 to see how bad the imprint looks," you took the d20 that still laid next to Volta's plate to Julian. This time, he didn't do anything fancy, instead, he just rolled it expecting to get some low number.

"Natural twenty," you snorted, hiding your face in your hands from laughter, "Oh my god," you felt your face getting redder and redder from the lack of oxygen, "Yeah, that will defenetely leave a mark," you shifted the fog towards Julian's face, imprinting a red handprint across his left cheek.

"You look like a fucking idiot!" Vulgora laughed their ass off, pointing at Julian's face.

"Serves you right for doing such a crime!" Vlastomil added, along with Volta who just nodded in approval, too busy with eating to respond.

"Was it really necessary for you to be a snitch, consul?" Nadia asked, "After all, I believe that the point of the game is to do anything you want."

Valerius, in response, gave an ironic smile, lowering his head as if he were to bow, "But countess, I am simply acting according to my," he raised his sheet, "Alignment."

"Can we beat our teammates?" Portia asked.

"Why not," you smiled, still thinking about Julain's scar.

"Okay, so, consul," Portia turned to Valerius, "If you decide to be a snitch again, " she put her hand on Asra's shoulder, "We will beat you up!"

"Just take all of his possessions and give it to the poor if he likes helping so much," Muriel commented as he peeled lemon as if it were an orange.

"Muriel," Portia walked to him and gave him the tightest hug she could, "You're a genius! MC, give him 50gp for such a brilliant idea!"

"Sorry, but I can't," you shifted in your seat as you arranged some of the papers, "But I can continue with the story!"

"Finally, I was getting bored," Valdemar said, "When can I summon the dead?"

"When you reach the third level, I believe," you gave them a quick response and then continued talking about the campaign, "So anyway, you leave the tavern with Julian. who is still dazed by the slap-"

"You'll make this a permanent scar, won't you?" he asked as he pointed at his face.

"Of course I will. So, you left the tavern and noticed a bleeding beggar on the side, what do you do?"

"Valerius, this is your chance!" Asra said mockingly.

"Can we help them?" Volta asked, looking at the fog, "She looks like she hasn't been eating for days!"

"They're bleeding and you're caring about that," Lucio turned to Volta, then to others, "Why should we do anything? MC is probably just messing with us."

"Like with that scroll!" Vlastomil agreed.

"Do they have anything valuable that we could take?" Valdemar asked.

"Oh, I'm glad you're finally getting the hang of roleplaying, quaestor, but no, they don't have anything useful."

"Hm," the quaestor was silent for a moment, then they responded with a gleam of delight in their eyes, "I need components for my spells, no?" they didn't give you the time to respond, "While she may not have any valuables, she still has bones, doesn't she?"

"Valdemar no!" Nadia said.

"Why not, after all, the point of the game is to do anything you want, isn't it?" Valerius, said, still a bit salty.

"Shut up, all of you!" Portia said as she slammed her hands on the table, which made you flinch, "At this point, she'll bleed to death! Julian do something!"

"Why me?"

"Because you have Cure wounds! Use it to heal her!"

"But then I'll spend my slot."

"BuT tHeN I'lL sPeNd mY sLoT," she said as she mimicked him, "I don't care, do it, or else I'll give you a matching scar on the other cheek!"

"Fine... I use my spell on the beggar."

"Okay, you succeeded, the beggar is not bleeding, what now?" you asked.

"I give her some of my food rations," Volta said.

"Alright," you changed the fog to show a healed beggar with some food in front of her, "You've helped her, congrats, but she doesn't say anything, instead, she just stares at you."

"Let's just keep going," Asra said, "We've done enough."

"I agree, let's go for that dagger!"

"But we don't know where it is," Vlastomil said.

"Let's just snoop around then," Portia said with a smile.

"You're in a town," you pointed at the fog which showed their PC's walking around the village, "What now?"

"We ask the NPC's if they know where that church is," Asra said as his PC walked to one woman, "Excuse me, do you know where..." he stopped for a moment to think, " Saint Milu is?"

"Why I do," she said, "But, are you sure you want to go? It's very dangerous."

"Of course we do!" Vulgora added, "Nothing is too dangerous, you're just making a fuss over nothing!"

"Well, if you're so confident, then if you do go there and return alive, I'll tell my dad and he'll reward you."

"Um...sure?" Asra said, a bit reluctant.

"But I need proof that you were there!"

"Sure, what do you want?"

"How am I supposed to know that?" she pouted, "I've never gone there myself. I told you it's too dangerous, remember?"

"Alright, alright, we'll bring you a battle trophy, just tell us where to go, goddammit!" Vulgora said, clearly losing their patience.

"Alright, alright, sheesh," she said, "Just go north from the city's shop. It's the last house in the village, just straight forward," she extended her hand in front of herself, "You can't miss it!"

"Thank you," Julian said, "By the way, has anyone ever told you you look dazzling?"

"Why thank you, " she smiled, "Too bad I can't say the same for your face," she giggled and went her way.

"OH MY GOD!!!" Portia snorted, unable to sustain the laughter.

"You'll keep doing this to me, won't you?" Julian asked defeated.

You nodded and continued., with the narration: "You've walked to the small shop. Do you want to stop by to buy some things?"

All of them agreed and went inside.

"Oh, travellers, I haven't seen any of them in a while. Greetings, greetings, how may I help you," he turned to Vlastomil and Valdemar's PC, to which he immediately shouted, shaking in fear, "Oh GOD, please, please don't kill me! I don't have any valuables, nor do I have much money, plus I'm not tasty, see?" he pointed at himself, "I'm only skin and bone! I barely have anything to feed my son with, please, please spare me!"

"Um, sir," Nadia said, "We are not here to kill you... we just want to buy something."

"You do?" the man straightened himself, grasping at Nadia's hands with tears of joy, "Oh thank you, thank you! I thought this was going to be the last day of my life! Please, ask for anything that you need!"

"Do you have healer's kit?" Volta asked.

"Why I certainly do, my dear," the shopkeeper responded, "That'll be 7gp."

"But isn't the price for that 5gp?" Portia asked.

"It is," the shopkeeper said, "However, I had to buy this in the town and to go all the way to here. Plus I'm also the only shopkeeper in all of the nearby villages."

"Could you give us a special price," Julian asked, "After all we are the adventurers, so we'll surely buy many things!"

"Are you buying the healer's kit for him, dear?" he asked Volta, "I doubt that will be enough to help him," before Julian could protest about the rude comment again, the shopkeeper clapped his hands and said, "But I sure know what could help you!" he bowed down and took a little bottle, "Mommy's kiss!"

"Mommy's kiss?"

"Yes, mommy's kiss is a powerful cream that can clear your skin from any acne, blackheads and, most importantly, scars! Suitable for any race and any skin type! My son loves it!"

"If that's the only thing that will remove this scar, then sure. How much for Mommy's kiss?"

"Well, this is a rare cream that can remove any skin imperfection, but for you, my fine gentleman, I'll lower the price to 200 gp!"

"Two hundred gold pieces for that tiny bottle!?!"

"Well, it is Mommy's kiss, after all."

"Sorry, but I'll have to pass."

"But I'll take the healer's kit," Volta said.

"And I'll take five arrows," Portia said.

"Why does the Great axe cost 30gp?!?" Lucio asked.

"But I only have 10!!!" Vulgora said, "How can we get the money?!?"

"Well, if you go to the Saint Milu, you'll get some money," you said.

"Ughh, fine..."

"Excuse me, sir," Valdemar leaned to the shopkeeper who nervously sweated, "Do you, by any chance, sell bones of the humanoids?"

"Eek!" the shopkeeper said.

"Okay, so, Valdemar, the shopkeeper is terrified of you," you started, "Because of that, you have an advantage on rolling intimidation check. So if you want to force them to give you something, feel free to try."

"Oh, how fun," Valdemar's eyes glowed with joy, "Are there any scrolls here?"

"I, I do have some scrolls," he said, visibly shaking.

"I'll take the one with the inflict wounds spell," they said.

You threw two d20 at them, "Roll them, the AC is 15."

They rolled the dice, where one dice landed on 4 while the other one on 14.

"Is your intimidation at least +1?"

They took a glance at the skills table and gave you a toothy grin.

"You got the scroll, however, the shopkeeper told you to get out or else he'll call the guards."

"Too bad. Looks like you're not going to get Mommy's kiss, Ilyushka!"

"Fear not, we're going to find you Mommy's kiss in some other shop," Lucio said, laughing mid-sentence.

"So, because Muriel has a keen mind feat, he leads all of you north."

"You go Muri!" Portia cheered.

"...Thanks."

Read the whole chapter here

[stagekiller]

 Jerome’s Cult.

cult; noun, often attributive

1 : a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious

2a : great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work b : the object of such devotion c : a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion          

3: a system of religious beliefs and ritual also

4 : formal religious veneration

5 : a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator

    PART ONE:  COMING TOGETHER — CREATION

Jerome’s Cult started out as a band of miscreants that were inspired by Jerome’s endeavors during his MANIAX era. On Gotham’s Season 2 we see viewers mimicking Jerome’s trademark cackling and committing mindless acts of violence after his example. In this post, I will attempt to fill the plot gaps on the Gotham show and explain how my version of Jerome’s Cult came to be.

   It’s fairly obvious that a few dozen ( potentially mentally ill ) citizens would not be enough to create an entire cult. What is more, the very nature of Jerome’s ideology focuses on hedonism, individualism and selfishness (take what you want, kill who you want) so it’s absurd to think that it could lead to building a group. A group requires something to tie them together.

   Later on the show we are introduced to Jeri and her nightclub, Celestial Garden. When Bruce visits her for information on Matches Malone, the club is crowded with punks, criminals and plenty of people in clown makeup. Jeri herself is wearing (Harley Quinn inspired may I note) clown makeup. There’s a slide show of Jerome’s endeavors playing in the background.

   At the time, Jerome was dead. Jeri becomes the main perpetrator and ‘enhancer’ in a way, of his ideology. I imagine the process resembles what I’m doing right now; taking something, a lead ( in my case, canon references, in her case, footage of Jerome professing his ideology ) and enhancing it to suit your worldview. I’m not saying Jeri necessarily supported Jerome’s legacy because she believed in it. Maybe she just wanted a trademark for her club. Maybe she wanted to bring more people in. She was most likely already drawing her clientele from a pool of Gotham’s underbelly ( she runs a brothel after all ) so it’s very likely she wanted to appeal to this crowd and Jerome’s anarchistic, hedonistic nihilism suited that purpose.

   In every society there are always people who are misfits, mistreated, misunderstood. Such ideology often appeals to these crowds, because it gives them a purpose and a motivation. It creates a group where they can belong (think of how Fish Mooney inspired ‘the Freaks’ aka Indial Hill experiments by treating them like they were ‘a family’). That was the BONDING GLUE Jerome’s Cult needed to exist. And Jeri provided the space for them to come together and discover what they had in common.

  PART TWO : OBLIGATORY (BUT PERFUNCTORY) DWIGHT MENTION

   I’m gonna try to put my personal feelings on this man aside and talk about him for a bit.

   Dwight is somewhat of a prototype for the kind of crowd Jerome’s Cult attracts. By which I mean, you guessed it, incels. People looking for a purpose, a meaning, a group to be part of. People looking for someone to rely on, a leader, someone to be inspired by. What Dwight did was take idea Jeri had molded and convert it into an obsessive kind of worshiping over Jerome’s pretty face instead.

  Jerome becomes the idea. The Idea IS Jerome.

   Hence the obsession with resurrecting him. Let’s be honest, a part of that was probably Dwight’s own desire to bask in some of clownman’s glory and steal it for himself. To become The Guy who Resurrected The Prophet. What a slimy dude.

  PART THREE: CHRISTMAS MORNING — FROM CHRIST’S POV

  So now we’ve reached the timeline point where clownman wakes up, looking snatched (literally cause his face been snatched) and Dr. Thompkins kindly lets him know that he has a fanclub equipped with actual clubs. Imagine hearing that, after your supposedly clairvoyant dad told you that you’d leave a legacy of death and madness. And you came back to life. And you actually have a legacy. All I’m saying is that this kinda thing GETS to someone, you know? Especially if their ego was moon-sized before.

   Of course Jerome doesn’t individually care about any of his cultists. But they’re HIS cultists. And he wants to keep the party going, so, he takes to giving them speeches and art shows and creating a myth around his name to keep them engaged. What started out as a group of punks in clown paint now converts to an actual criminal organization.

  There’s smuggling, heists, drug rings, profiting from prostitution etc etc Essentially, cultists became his thugs. They start to produce their own weapons (laughing gas, toxins etc) and claim their own turf, with Jeri’s nightclub continuing to be the central gathering point. Even though there’s no hierarchy, prominent names and figures start to arise. A set of behavioral rules develops (i.e. never interrupt Jerome’s speeches). And we come full circle, from individuals, to groups, to what the cult came to be.

    Follow up post on the inner workings, rituals etc is in the works, ‘cause this one got REALLY long :”D

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Troy’s Crystal Necklaces are IMPORTANT AND IDK HOW and other insane ramblings

No matter what happens from here on out, I think those crystals are important and I GOTTA know what they’re for! At the very least, they’re important to me. So cool... So glowy... *o* I want one...

So there are a couple possibilities for what they could be used for and my main guess is Stealing/Storing/Transferring Siren powers (Yes, I know, that’s probably Tyrene’s power, but, hey, humor me! I think it’d be an interesting twist to something we already know.)

Troy being able to steal siren powers and possibly keep them in the glowy crystals around his neck? Hell yeah! How? I have no fuckin’ clue!

Since his tattoos are red they could be derived from the crystals and, if this is the case, he is probably the one who stole Lilith’s tattoos during the trailer and possibly transfers them to Tyrene. (I’ll get more into this later as to why I don’t think he kept them) I lowkey kinda think they’re like raw seraph crystals or smth bc male siren goes against all the lore (maybe he’s like a seraph himself or some bullshit? yaknow, red vs blue... or he just used the crystals to steal a siren’s tattoos and put them on himself...) unless he’s actually trans which I'm afraid they wouldn’t have the balls to do. but oh mama if he is, that representation will be like nothing we’ve ever seen

Troy having gotten Siren powers from his sister Tyrene stealing them and giving them to him? I mean,,, yeah that’s probably what happened but GLOWY MAGIC CRYSTALS THE ERIDIANS DIDN’T LIKE BECAUSE SERAPHS COULD THEN STEAL THEIR POWERS AND USE THEM AGAINST THEM IN WAR (THAT IS [APPARENTLY] COMING)??? Now that’s some good reintegration shit mhmmmm. The Eridium buffeth and the Seraph taketh away.

Also, a siren being able to steal another siren’s powers seems kinda counterintuitive. Her power is useless unless she meets other sirens (THERE ARE 6 IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE - despite what the games want us to believe, that’s pretty fuckin’ rare!) and what is it even used for? All the other sirens we’ve met have very powerful, combat-oriented skills (even w/ Angel, while I’m still not sure what her power was exactly tbh. technological integration? (Phaseshift-ing of the bits???) that’s p powerful with Eridian tech I'm sure). If the Sirens were created by Eridians, they were probably made to be on the same side. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it make a lot more sense for something that didn’t want the Sirens around to have the power to steal theirs and redistribute them to their own forces?

Consider:

and

I mean, after all, “their return is to be feared” and Seraph crystals only started appearing after the opening of the second vault on Pandora (which could be triggering the return of the Seraphs... thus causing them to want to plunder vaults/kill Sirens? who knows lol). Also, the cultists leaving Pandora and heading to Promethea could very well be bringing back Seraph crystals. Shit, the guy you sell the crystals to in order to get some seriously powerful gear could have been shipping them off to Promethea. 

My only problem is they’re pink, not red, but it might be a product of activating them/”storing” the siren powers in them/some weird bullshit. I know raw eridium is a shade or two darker than processed Eridium, so it could possibly be some bullshit like “raw seraph crystals are redder while processed seraph crystals are pink” or something.

Actually, now that I think about it, the only way to get Seraph crystals is through Seraph Guardians. Disregarding the Dragons bc its a DnD Campaign, the Seraph Guardians are all hopped up on whatever the seraph crystals did to them. Maybe the crystals are drained of their power once we kill the Seraph Guardians and that is why they are that shade of pink. Maybe when they’re charged up they’re a more saturated red color. I mean, Hyperius is able to grow to the size of a skyscraper and Gee can absorb elemental damage so 👀

This is all a huge reach, but I’m having fun, so let’s continue.

Now there is this tidbit from the Battleborn Easter Egg: “VISIT PROMET[H]EA CHILDREN OF THE VAULT. WE ARE NOT ON PANDORA ANYMORE. TANNIS IS NOT WHAT SHE SEEMS. DO NOT OPEN THE VAULTS”. Ignoring the Tannis bit, I’m very curious why they don’t want the vaults open. Maybe it would bring about the return of the Eridians and they don’t want that? I mean... technically the Watcher is already back after opening only 2 vaults (Pandora1 and Elpis). Which is a whole nother thing that I could totally get into if the twins (either of them) are actually stealing people’s Siren powers lmao, be it with just the magic crystals or their own magic alien powers. The war the Watcher mentions could 100% be against the Calypso twins. I can’t help but wonder if it should be something bigger though lmao... sounded so ominous... 

Now of the theory that Tyrene is the one who can steal powers and gave Lilith’s to Troy: Totally possible. Boring, but possible. There is that screenshot of her holding a really glowing lookin’ orb (AND THE INSIDE IS GLOWING REDDISH: THE SAME COLOR AS TROY’S CRYSTALS OHHHHH-) which is probably someone’s Siren powers. My only way to dispute this is to say she also doesn’t have any facial tattoos like Lilith does, (Angel doesn’t have facial tattoos either) though Maya and Steele did have tattoos on their faces, and Troy totally does have a unique facial tattoo that wouldn’t match up with Lilith’s at all (I mention this because it could hint that she is the one to get the powers transferred onto her, not the other way around). Also, immediately after the scene with the image below, there is a shot of an area being absolutely BLITZED by fireballs and Lilith is usually associated with fire (Firehawk).

I do think this snapshot happens right after they steal Lilith's powers. Tyrene looks so smug like “oh, let’s see what this baby can DO”. So either she just got Lilith’s powers, or she’s about to shove her glowing ball into her brother and idk which is worse lol

Now, I mentioned before that Troy has facial tattoos, which don’t match up with Lilith’s tattoos at all. You would think transferring the powers would transfer over the same tattoos. But Alas, to disprove this part of the theory, Tyrene actually has a unique set of tattoos as well, as far as I can tell. 

Her tattoos. I can’t tell if Troy’s are similar or not because of her jacket, but you can catch a glimpse of them here! (At least, I think those are his tattoos. His arm is kinda a weird gray color...  🤔 🤔 🤔 🤔 Maybe the transference did an ouch of some kind)

AFAIK neither of these match Lilith’s.

Also, fun fact! Tyrene is the only Siren we’ve seen to not show off her chest tattoos. IDK if its a Siren thing or if they just want to show off their cleavage or what, but unlike the others, her clothes are not revealing whatsoever (in fact, she seals up her neck and stuff? Is weird). Troy, on the other hand, looks like he went on a shopping spree with Macklemore and V from DMC5. He’s also showing a fair bit of abdomen lol (Have you seen his ab tattoo that says Calypso? Neat). Interestingly enough, his red tattoos don’t seem to go down the left side of his abdomen like Siren tattoos do (easily seen on Lilith), nor his chest, and although they could be hidden by his jacket, I don’t think that’s the case. 

Also, I kinda wanna go on a tangent here and talk about his face? At first, I thought he had maybe gotten some Glasgow scars, but if you look up where his sideburns are, that is way too clean and almost mechanical to be scarring (plus, its super symmetrical, he has one right down the middle of his chin as well- which interestingly enough is not visible on his bust in the Mask of Mayhem... then again neither are Tyrene’s scars. Worship at its finest). My first thought after that was that he peeled someone’s face off and stapled it to his own 😅 I mean! He works with psychos, right? It’s not too far fetched? right? (tbh the placement of the metal bits (cheekbones, cheeks, one on his chin) gives me a huge Jack vibe, so maybe it's just his homage to the man, the myth, the legend)

Maybe the tattoos are fake/implanted technology in order to keep the cult in check and the crystals are there to keep them powered/working. Maybe he had to get a face stapled back on after whatever took his arm ripped his face off too. Who knowwwws. Maybe he had to have head implants for his arm to work (if its a prosthetic like Rhys’s, it could just be a huge exoskeleton arm) and being on Promethea (Pandora for a while before they left as per the easter egg I guess), they probably don’t have the greatest medical expertise, unlike Hyperion. Also, the crystals could totally just be a power source for his arm. That’d be super badass, just rip it off his neck and shove it into that ring looking area and power up. I’ll be honest, we’re throwing theories at the wall here to see what sticks!

But back on the topic of Power Stealing! For either one having the power of transferring (be it magic crystals or magic alien space superpowers), they could already have taken another siren’s power and are just adding onto it. Could be the reason Troy has 2 crystals (one for lilith, one for another siren), could be the reason both their tattoos are different from all the sirens we’ve seen so far. 

Personally, I like the theory that they stole the new little girl character’s siren powers and we’re going to help her and Maya get them back. Somewhere in the process, Lilith probably loses her powers to them. It would explain why he has two crystals instead of just one. Maya probably knows all this smart shit about who the twins are and what their cult is and has a plan but needs our help getting to the twins. 

I also just came up with this now, but I like the idea that the little girl is either actually working with the Calypso twins or being manipulated by them in order to get Maya and Lilith to show up on Promethea. Think about it. They need/want to collect Siren powers, right? What better way to do so than to jerk at the heartstrings of two super powerful sirens with a huge connection to their own powers by sending a little girl out who “got hers stolen by some big bad cult leaders”. In the Mask of Mayhem trailer, we see the little girl a few times. At one point, in the top right, right next to Troy and Tyrene, we see an unfamiliar smoll character who looks like this (below) and has the beginnings of what I think are growing wings at her back (meaning Siren) although her left arm is covered, which might mean she probably doesn’t have tattoos. Yet.

Maybe she was promised her own powers if she lured the two Sirens to the Calypso twins. I was going to use her earrings and gages to see if they were the same character but the girl below just so happened to be conveniently wearing a pair of headphones lol. Maybe its just coincidence. I do think their hair is different, the statue has a bun/ponytail, but that could be solved by her chopping it off with that huge knife or keeping it in a bun and keeping her hood up. Maybe the two characters are twins themselves and one joined the cult and the other wants to help her leave. Who knowwwwwsssss

I don’t trust her lies.

Also, one more thing, during the scene with Lilith on the floor, when they’re locking arms, Troy pulls away first, while Tyrene slowly retracts her hand like she’s unsure of what to do. Not the greatest of proofs indeed, but something to think about. Perhaps he’s just impatient to try out his new powers. Maybe he’s done this before and knows what he’s doing. She could just be annoyed and is giving him a death glare behind that fabulous collar. We may never know. There are plenty of ways to read into it.

Of course, Tyrene seems like to big boss type out of the whole thing anyway, so its more than likely she is the one that has the power to take and transfer Siren powers. She is the one in the Mask of Mayhem with the wings, and I find it interesting that they made it a point to have Troy’s left arm (the arm Sirens have their tattoos on!!) to be “under construction” during the video. It’s very likely the reason is because he gets his tattoos through his sister during the game. If that’s the case, well fuckin’ played Gearbox. Foreshadowing 100.

Shit, idk, maybe it's all just some weird shit that happens when your twin is a Siren. You get like... negative siren powers. it would explain his Shadow the Hedgehog color scheme smh. She stole all the blue pigment from him in the womb so he’s just red in the places her tattoos are lmao

Maybe his crystals are just Promethea’s version of Eridium, after all, the Vault key here seems to be producing a shitton of red light. be weird tho, since eridium didnt exist until we opened the vault so... maybe tannis just grabbed one of them siren-power-holding-crystals you just brought her after beating the shit out of an emo biker fuck and shoved in the vault key and prayed it would work while t-posing to assert dominance

who knowwwwwsss 

[twitchesandstitches]

Three Tides Turning

Odina was, perhaps against her preference, an expert on magical things of all kinds. Academic knowledge, with a lot of firsthand experience, and the joke was that she had approximate knowledge of pretty much any magical thing.

She was very surprised to have Toast, of all people, asking her advice; she was pretty certain the little robot hated her guts, and would in fact have been happy to SEE her guts spread all over the wall. It wasn’t personal, he simply hated every single human to ever exist. It was a democratic sort of loathing, an almost genteel hatred that ignored cred and origin and country and deeds, all in favor of resenting the great teeming mass of humanity and proclaiming them all equally guilty of being absolute bastards.

She’d never asked why he hated her species so much. She had her suspicions. The magic that powered him was fueled by his own hatred and anger, but the special kind that came from pain. Emotion magic had its own flavors, and he reeked of suffering, and in his impassioned rants she heard the echoes of absolute despair so painful the only sensible response was to make it into kindling. He had suffered, and given the reputation of humanity among its mechanical offspring, and the optic that had been torn out of his head, she could guess what KIND of suffering he had endured.

Even at his most sociable and miserably lonely, when he had no choice but to seek out company that might include humans, he tended to avoid her. So seeking her advice out was, well, a really big damn deal!

Toast hunched over on a small overturned table, a little red robot apparently designed for a quadrupedal stance. Here and now he looked a lot like a mechanical dinosaur, but one that was oddly cute. He was just so… small, and compact. His wiry tail lashed around, and his boxy head tilted around, his single remaining eye blinking as he twisted his head around to see her.

Both his arms articulated as he tried to explain himself. One arm was slender and ended in a kind of paw. The other was a massive taloned gauntlet, larger than he was, the obscene mass built around an elemental fire core that fueled his various powers. It made him a truly fearsome heavy hitter, but it also severely hobbled him, and only now did she appreciate just how awkward he moved with it; his claws alone were a painful sight, when all his other movements were fluid, if so jittery you could expect he was impatient to finish moving and making little gestures.

“It’s… it’s my friend,” he managed, and pointed, and some of the things he had been telling her clicked. Ah, she thought in the back of her head.

Looming behind them was a monstrously huge figure, apparently the size of a house, draped in a tent crudely worked into a rough cloak. Atop it was a feral head, snout poking out of a projecting head but still obscured by a massive set of puffy lips.

God, it was so big. No, she was so big. Femininity radiated from it, like the psychic tide you couldn’t help but hammer you with pleasant vibes and sudden surges of hormones, and the desire to… do things. Animal things, rutting and breeding and delighting in the most basest of pleasures...

Odina’s absorbing powers sucked away the worst of it, so that she was a whirlpool of negated essence right there. Her total lack of interest in sex of any kind also provided a defense. The great mother-monster noticed this somehow, and turned to see them. A massive pair of breasts, big enough for Odina to fit inside them, shifted behind the cloak, and were so large they dominated the heft of even this hulking frame.

An aberrant hand, or perhaps a paw, raised its two webbed fingers. Claws longer than Odina’s arm wiggled playfully at her. “Sup, hun,” she rumbled, her voice deep, resonant, like an echo of the primordial sea.

Odina waved back nonchalantly. “Hey, terrifying monster lady.”

The eldritch monster mother - Tiashar was her chosen name, according to Toast, who had made himself an expert on her - chuckled at that. It was hard to make out details with that big cloak she wore; Odina could make out a massive mane of hair, or perhaps feathers, growing down her neck and shoulders and expanding outwards into a huge floor-dragging cloud several times larger even than she was. Some bits of it had become little tentacles, or tongued mouths. There were eyes, many of them, beneath it, but were quite invisible behind the long bangs. She did see a hint of multiple floppy ears, tweaking vaguely in response to stimuli no mortal senses were capable of perceiving.

Most of the exposed body was deep black. The shade differed; upon her face and the smoother parts of her skin, it was the color of ancient tar. On the patches of scales, a blue-black like the deepest parts of the sea. The armored plates on her shoulders, forearms, or the enormous tube that was her tail? It seemed to be even darker than all that, oily and rich. And oh yes, there were patches of other colors here and there; the gills lining her neck and sides were the same magenta as her mane, her huge lips and various other parts were a brilliant green… and in fact green seemed to be a secondary color, as if to offset her other shades.

Pebbly scales, slabs of chitin, features of ten thousand different phylums all mashed together in a strangely ideal form with her, and she suspected that was the key to understanding her. So many things that didn’t seem to belong, but with her, they did.

Presently, she seemed content to now ignore Odina and laid down, cooing at the dirt. Apparently whispering to the bacteria.

“...I’m worried about her, “ Toast said, his smaller hand rubbing its claws against a single digit of his big hand, his normally grouchy expression winding up into something forlorn and distressed. “She’s being so… so weird lately!”

“Weird by what metric.” Odina indicated her vaguely. “This is the same lady who spent half a month living in an attic, eating our garbage cans and screaming at mega-possums.”

It was amazing how Toast instantly shifted into hostility; he flared up, flames exploding around him, and a fireball appeared in his hand. “You talkin’ shit about her!?” he snarled, embers flying from his mouth like spittle.

Odina let herself instinctively eat the magic he was throwing off, but if he noticed his flames dying, he didn’t notice. They just flared up again, and her butt expanded, shelf rising over her waist and her skirt creaking in protest at it slid up, her hips expanding sideways. ‘Do NOT push him,’, she reminded herself, he absolutely would try to kill her instantly if he felt even slightly irritated, regardless of needing her help or not.

It didn’t come easily to her to play nice, but she would do her best. “I’m not making fun. I’m just saying, she’s kinda weird. Like the rest of us?”

He grunted, depowering. The local magical quotient went down, though her backside scale remained embiggened. “Yeah, okay.”

“So what do you MEAN, she’s acting weird?”

“I don’t know. The other day, she’s all calm and serene, hanging around with the men and women that wanna be around her all the time. Y’know, she feeds ‘em, gives ‘em baths in her milk and stuff, sometimes they feed themselves to her and she pops ‘em out as monstery versions of their old selves, but mostly they just… adore her?” He shook his head. “I don’t know, its weird. It's like… she needs it?”

“Sounds like they’re worshiping her,” Odina said vaguely, an idea coming to mind.

“Seems legit.” he tweaked his fingers, popping them off and chewing on them anxiously. “Then the next few weeks, they do none of tat, they just hang out with her and we go exploring? Fighting monsters together? The other folks, they fuse together and stuff, its like its a big adventure party? And it's fine, but then, just a few nights ago, she got hungry. Really hungry.” he looked uncomfortable. “And horny. Like, even more than usual.”

“Sounds like a lot of effort,” Odina said, who regarded all things sexual as an alien endeavor way more trouble than it was worth.

“She just wanted nothing but sex, twenty-four/seven, for almost a solid week! With all of them! And then they let her gobble them up, and now…” he gestured at her. Odina noticed her belly was very ripe, round and projecting outwards. A gravid, super-pregnant belly, with both the offspring sired with them, and the cultist’s reborn souls. “She just did nothing but eat continuously, barely speaking a word. I tried to talk to her and she looked at me like… like she couldn’t remember how.”

He paused.

“She kissed me.” He hugged himself, looking faintly lost, like he couldn’t quite understand how anyone would want to do that to him. “She couldn’t talk anymore, but she was happy to see me.”

“She’s talking now.”

“Yeah, I mean, she’s back on her regular mindset, where she’s being a chill mom and stuff but… shit. She keeps going through these phases and! And! And I’m really freaked out, is something wrong with her, is she sick, is she going to go away and ascend or something!?”

He shook Odina by the neckline desperately. “I can’t deal with that, okay!? How do I help her!?”

She gently but firmly pushed his claws off. “Calm down, she’s okay. She’s just trying to balance herself out. It’s part of what she is, okay?”

Toast stared at her. “Part of… what she is? What, a chimera monster girl?”

“No. You… do know she’s something else altogether? One of those things that…” she gestured vaguely. “Come from Outside?”

He stared blankly.

“The far realms?”

His optic blinked, slowly. “Nuh uh.”

“The parts of the multiverse that exist outside the set that has anything at all to do with mortals or our understanding of reality?”

“I’m drawing a zero here.”

“...The mad things that were here before the gods?”

“Still nothing.”

“...Okay, she’s an eldritch abomination that decided to be like a mortal, okay!?”

He nodded. “Ohh, right. Like that. Got it.”

“...You really get it?”

“Honestly, no.” He shrugged. “Could not give a shit, to be honest.”

She sighed. “It’s like this. Creatures like her tend to develop certain traits in common, because they’re forming minds like ours, but they’re still working in a totally different way. They’re not exactly elder beasts, they’re a little bit like gods, but they’re something a bit in between. And SHE is learning her way around that. Every day, and sometimes backsliding or losing her sense of what she is.”

Toast seemed to understand that, at least. He nodded.

Odina sighed. “Right, okay. So, if she’s like the other sorts of things I’ve heard about, she’s basically formed a mental state made out of three different parts that influence her in different ways.”

“What does this have to do with her being weird?”

“Because these are giving her contradictory urges, and she has no impulse control! She IS her desires!” Odina snapped her fingers, producing a little magical sign that said ‘get it??’. “Firstly, what you probably think is her ‘regular self’ is really just the parts of her mind she’s forced to think like a mortal.” A troubling idea came to her. “Or… what she thinks mortals are like. But she’s so different that even that is just guessing games, and she’s forced her brain into patterns completely unnatural to her, and it's always shifting around and trying to become something else. Because change is what she DOES.”

Toast looked baffled.

Odina tried again. “Look at it like this. When she’s worked out some kind of balance between her natures here, this side of her is the one that probably wins out and makes a happy medium. She wants to please herself and please other people, in moderation; it comes off to us as weird and constantly hungry, but that’s just what happens when godly hungers get curbed. That’s still moderate, by HER standards. The kind of things she doesn’t really get, like abstract causes, and long term stuff; she’s able to deal with those things more easy. She’s able to think more like you can.”

“Okay, I get THAT, at least.” Toast scratched his metal ears sheepishly.

“Now, you probably noticed her gathering people to her. That’s just a function of what she is; she’s a sort of proto-god. Gods want to be worshiped and admired; she needs a cult, and it's her nature to build them. So that's the bit of her that’s the most divine coming out. Probably also why she goes off and fights monsters; she probably sees it as protecting her people.” She paused, thoughtfully. “Or maybe she’s just getting into the ‘guardian kaiju’ vibe. She does have the look.” Another pause. “And getting people to breed with her might also be a god thing; she’s probably compelled to do it, as a function of what she is.”

“And you said something about a beast, earlier?”

“Right, her third nature. That’s the part of her that’s… well, monstrous and ravenous. A beast, nothing but hunger and desire. Not that its bad or evil!” she said hurriedly, noticing Toast’s temper starting to rise on Tiashar’s behalf. “Just… she’s already impulsive, but that part of her is literally nothing but instant gratification and satiating herself! Like…the bit of her that wants to be pleasured and satisfied all the time, that wants to be constnatly gestating monsters and having sex whenever she’s not eating? And then eating them right afterwards, and turning their souls into MORE things to gestate so they can stay with her forever in new bodies. ITs the part of her that runs on instinct and animal hunger, forever.”

He nodded, in a dour sort of way. “Okay, I think I get it. So…” he tried to process it all. “She acts weird because she’s got a whole bunch of competing drives and urges, some of them at odds with each other, constantly changing how she thinks and feels?”

Odina shrugged. “Her actual feelings are probably pretty, uh, consistent. The way she responds to them and acts on them does change, depending on which way her brain is working. Like if she likes someone and she’s pure beast, she probably wants to just jump on them and rut until the sun goes down, and them nuzzle them for a full month. And when she goes full god, she wants to shower them with blessings and love. And if she balances it out and can think properly? Then she just wants a friend, or maybe a tiny spouse. As long as she can hold onto that scale.”

He looked uneasy. “God… and she has to live like that…?”

“I don’t think it bothers her,” Odina said, not sure if she was actually trying to reassure him, or herself. “It’s just the way she sees the world and prioritizes stuff changes. She probably doesn’t really notice her perspective shifting. It’s just part of what she is. The tide turns, because that’s what it does; same thing with her.”

Toast looked troubled. “But..”

“Most eldritch entities, the ones that are making an honest effort to really understand us, wind up something similar. Plenty of them strike up a balance. The trick is them holding onto it.”

Toast wiggled. “So… Mama Tiashar…?”

She noticed, but didn’t say anything about it, his use of the honorific.

A small slip of the tongue, but a big, big deal for someone so miserably spiteful and suspicious of the whole world.

“Nothing’s wrong with her,” Odina said. “Her nature is just to change to different extremes. Sometimes she’ll be wild and ravenous. Sometimes she’ll be weird and think like an old goddess. And sometimes, more often than not, she’ll be like a regular weird mortal thingy. Just depends on the way her tides are turning.”

He whimpered. “But I want her to be happy.”

Odina looked at him, with something she didn’t dare admit might be pity.

It was a hard thing, to find out what love was at this point in his life, and to be afraid to know it.

There was a heavy stomping noise nearby.

Tiashar had stood up and slowly approached. Her massive tail lashed around, her enormous thighs slapped together as she approached, and slowly she leaned down, her head looming over Toast’s body. Her mouth opened, and she whispered softly.

“Toast, buddy,” she said, the words sounding distant and carefully picked. “Something bothering you?”

He shivered, and suddenly hugged her lip. One arm too skinny not to just sink in and instantly vanish, the other a huge and awkward club that started to fall on its own weight. “I’m just worried about you,” he whimpered.

She giggled, and gave him a soft kiss, pulling him right off the ground. She stood up, to her full height, and with another smooching pop, deposited him neatly into her cleavage, where he immediately snuggled up. “Aww, you’re a sweetie, little buddy. Don’t you worry. Mama Tiashar has herself figured out.” She gave her gravid belly a hug. “Be chill, my little dude, and don’t beat yourself up over it.”

“Can’t,” he said shortly. “I just worry a lot about you…”

She chuckled. “I don’t worry about nothin’, and I’m totally chillaxed forever. Try it some time, sweetie. It’s fun.”

She nodded at Odina. “Later, short stuff.”

Odina waved vaguely at her, trying not to instantly butt-bloat up to the size of a building just from being in her presence. “Later.”

Tiashar skipped off, her gargantuan butt jiggling like literally all the gelatin there ever wars, her tail even smacking it possibly by accident, as she cooed gently to the still fretting Toast.

And Odina thought about the tides turning, and how they were fortunate to have wound up with an eldritch horror that seemed perpetually stuck on the ‘be a sweetheart’ side of things, regardless of her current flavor of impulses.