#i like amulet. very few complaints. i just think this is funny

[yeahprobablyh]

i am SO glad to see people redesign leon with red hair .. like .. why would you name your anthro fox man leon REDBEARD and NOT give his human design a RED BEARD ⁉️⁉️⁉️😭 most obvious design choice ever

i think we as a fandom have just. collectively stricken Brunette Leon from canon. he's like the homestuck epilogues. or the live action ATLA adaptation directed by n night shyalaman. neither of which exist, by the way

[five-rivers]

DP/HP twin fic chapter 1

This would be the first chapter of that DP/HP twin fic...  I need a name for it before I post it elsewhere...  I can’t think of a name... help...  @ladylynse I blame you for this entirely.  It’s 3k and they haven’t even met yet.  What am I doing.

.

Here’s the thing.  Danny had encountered wizards before.  And witches.  Multiple times.  

He was not a fan.  

Burning, or other forms of murder, hadn’t ever crossed his mind as a solution to them, even when Freakshow decided to derail his life yet again.  Still. There were only so many times you could stumble upon members of a certain group zapping people with bargain-bin neuralyzers and leaving hours’ worth of uncertain memories in their wake before you got sort of fed up.  

Memory erasure was great in fiction.  Not so much in real life.  

Danny got it.  He’d erased a couple of memories himself.  Well, a lot of memories, depending on how one took the Reality Gauntlet incident.  But as far as motivations went, ‘trying not to be dissected by the government’ was a lot different from ‘we can’t be bothered to be discreet about our sporting events and we think it’s funny that our venue managed to attract ghost hunters when these magicless fools have never seen a real ghost in their lives so we’re going to mess with them.’  

Yeah.  Danny was still annoyed about that.  Also, about their reactions to him when he crossed an invisible line that was apparently supposed to repulse ‘no-majs.’  

That was before getting into Desiree, one of the few witches to become a proper ghost.  According to her, witches and wizards had a different system, and it was rare for magic users to enter the Infinite Realms.  Dora’s dragon amulet had also been enchanted prior to her death, although that could have been a ghost’s work, and Dora had never shared where it had come from.  

Anyway, the point was that Danny knew about magic as an entity separate from ghost powers and at least a small subset of the living beings that relied upon it.  

So, when the woman who dressed like she was living a century ago and smelled of magic walked up to his house, he’d braced himself for a fight.  He wasn’t going to let his parents be ‘obliviated’ again.  They were oblivious enough as it was!

But.  No. She’d come in, no wand in sight (although Danny still wasn’t entirely sure those were necessary) and sat down on the couch, hands primly folded, ignoring all of the… rather questionable features of the Fenton living room.  

To add to the weirdness, his parents had been expecting her.  They knew her by name.  They wanted Danny to be in the room to meet her.  

“Edna,” Jack said, with a strained smile.  “How have you been?”

“Well enough,” said Edna, her eyes flicking to where Danny stood in the kitchen door, watching. “And this must be young Deneb Alased, correct?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, frowning.  There weren’t a whole lot of people who knew his legal name, let alone his middle name.  So, who was this?  “I am.” He looked at his parents, willing them to clear up whatever this was.  

Both of their faces were sour, but they were trying to hide it.  Maddie was doing better than Jack.  

“This is Edna,” said Maddie.  “Why don’t you come and sit down, Danny?”  She patted the back of Jack’s favorite recliner.

Danny noticed how Edna’s mouth twitched down at his nickname. His fingers curled, ghost energy buzzing under his skin just barely kept from his eyes.  He didn’t like this.  

“It’s alright,” said Edna, smiling kindly.  “This must be very confusing for you.  I would be concerned myself, under these circumstances. What I’m about to tell you may be difficult to process, however.”

“We’d like to start it off, actually,” said Maddie. “When you called this morning—” She broke off, making a face.  “We were told this wouldn’t happen.”

“Yes, well,” said Edna.  She shrugged.  “Purebloods. What can you do?  Evidently—Well.  You should have your say, first.”

Danny gave Edna another suspicious glance.  Maybe all wizards weren’t bad.  Maybe Freakshow was an outlier and sports fans just sucked in general.

Yeah, honestly, that tracked.  (Cough, Vlad, cough, Dash, cough.)

He sat down.  “Okay,” he said.  “Way to be ominous.  What’s going on?”

“Well, Danno,” said Jack.  He laughed nervously.

“You’re adopted,” said Maddie, bluntly.

Danny blinked.  “Wait, what?” he said.  “Adopted?  But I look just like you guys!”

Jack’s nervous chuckles continued.  “We are related to your birth parents…  not closely, but…  Yes.”

“Oh my gosh,” said Danny, feeling several layers of personal identity float away from him.  He’d always blamed his weirdness on genetics and family history.  Especially the ghost stuff.  Then again, his name, which definitely did not match with his parents’ or sister’s, probably should have tipped him off.  “You’re serious?”

“I’m afraid so, Danny,” said Jack, kneeling by the chair and patting his knee.  “But don’t worry!  You’ll always be a Fenton, no matter what!”

Danny nodded, swallowing back emotion.  “And Jazz?  Is she…?”

“She’s adopted, too.  At about the same time as you, in fact,” said Maddie.  “So am I and Alicia.  It’s a long story.”

“Okay,” said Danny, determined to get that story at some point.  “Why is she here, then?”

“I was involved in your adoption,” she explained, “and certain members of your birth family want to get back in contact with you.”  

Ancients, that was sure a thing to hit a guy with right after the ‘you’re adopted’ revelation.  

Hold up.  He was forgetting something.  This was a witch.  How did that play into this?  Because it had to.  Witches and wizards, as far as Danny could tell, tended to isolate themselves from the rest of humanity.  

He decided he did not like the probable trajectory of this conversation.  

“Why?” he asked, because he wasn’t going to say he knew about magic until and unless someone else cracked first.  

“Yes,” said Maddie.  “Why?  Why now? We were under the impression that they would never contact us.”

“Evidently,” said Edna, “Deneb’s birth mother was not properly informed of the decision to put him up for adoption.”

Okay.  Yeah. That was a lead-in to his biological parents being magical because he couldn’t think of a single modern western country where that would fly.  

“So, what?  I was kidnapped at birth or something?” asked Danny.

“Not exactly,” said Edna, wincing.  “It was your birth father who filed the paperwork.”

“And she’s only now wondering where Danny is?” asked Maddie, a little shrilly.  Her stress from before was now spilling over into anger so sharp Danny could taste it like a knife on his tongue.  “Did she somehow manage to forget giving birth?”

“No,” said Edna.  “Which brings us to the other matter.  One of the other matters.  The one who first sent the request for your adoption information was actually your twin brother.”

A third monumental revelation.  Wonderful.  What next?

“We, of course, contacted his parents, and discovered the irregularity regarding your birth mother’s consent.  Hence my presence here today.”  She opened her bag and removed a small glass tube, about twice the length of Danny’s palm and the same diameter as a quarter.   “There was also the issue regarding how young you were when you were put up for adoption.  Generally, our agency deals with the placement of children aged from five to eleven.”  She held the tube out to Danny.  “Could you hold this, please?”

“Do you really need to do this?” asked Jack.  

“Due to all the irregularities involved, yes,” said Edna. “Our organization charter unfortunately requires it.  If the mother was not consulted, as is required, the reasoning is that other required things are not as certain.”

“Hold up,” said Danny, hands tightening around the ends of the armrests.  “These people—” Who were most probably wizards, and wasn’t that a thing to get his head around, “—they’re not trying to get custody of me again, are they? After giving me away?”

“No,” said Maddie.  “We won’t let that happen.”

“We’re not going to give him back to people who were going to abandon him just because—!”  Dad broke off.  “Uh. Because.”

Smooth.  

“You know,” said Danny, deciding to cut off… whatever this was. “Even if this ‘test’ is, like…” He trailed off.  “Whatever result you want it to be.  I don’t know.  I’m still going to find out whatever it is you’re dancing around anyway.  Because I’m not going to forget this conversation.”

Silence.  

The witch twitched slightly towards where Danny knew her wand was hidden.  

Screw it.  “And I’m not going to let you erase my memory.  You people do get how messed up that is, right?”

Danny was treated to the sound and sight of three jaws dropping open.  

“How do you-?” started Maddie.  

“You remember when we went to that camp because people thought it was haunted?  But you didn’t find anything?  Well, they managed to get both of you that time, but not me.  And I know you’re one of them, so I’m betting that whatever this is, it has to do with magic.”  He paused. “It was some weird magic sporting event, apparently.”

“The-?  You went to the Quidditch World Cup?” asked Edna.

“What?  No!” protested Maddie.  “That was in Britain, wasn’t it?  We were just in the next state.”  She scowled. “I’m going to write a letter of complaint.  Even if we’re living without magic, we’re not no-majs.  We’re squibs.  They had no right to obliviate us.”

“Okay,” said Danny.  “Yeah.  You’ve lost me.  Squibs?”

No one seemed willing to answer the question.  

“If you’d just take this,” said Edna, holding out the tube a little desperately.  “It will be much easier to explain all at once.”

Danny looked up at his parents.  Jack looked at Maddie.  Maddie drummed her fingers on the back of his chair.  

“It’ll be fine,” said Maddie, “probably.”

“Fine,” said Danny.  He took the tube.  Almost at once, it started glowing green.  

“Oh,” said Edna, frowning and leaning closer.  “It usually isn’t—”

The tube exploded, embedding several small glass shards in Danny’s hands.  

“Ow,” said Danny.  

“Oh,” said Edna again, evidently not registering the small splinter of glass in her cheek.  “Well. Whoever your birth father hired to test your magic as an infant obviously got it wrong.  Congratulations, Mr. Fenton.  You’re a wizard.”

“My hand is bleeding.”

“Yes,” agreed Edna.  “It isn’t supposed to explode, you see.”

.

Once Danny got cleaned up, which involved a lot of glaring at Edna from Maddie and Jack, they adjourned to the kitchen, which was free of random glass shards.  

“The adoption organization I work for,” said Edna, “places squibs—people born to magical parents who do not have magic themselves—with families of squibs.  Assuming the child’s birth parents do want to give up their child over something like not having magic.”  Her nose wrinkled.  “The common wisdom is that it is easier for such children to grow up in an environment that is not explicitly magical.  In any case, it is my personal belief that anyone who would give up a child over something like that isn’t going to be the best of parents.”

“Alright,” said Danny, “so… all of us are squibs.”

“Except you, apparently,” said Edna.  “It’s hard to tell whether or not someone as young as you were when you were given up will be magical or not.  Which is why we usually only deal with older children.  I don’t suppose you’ve noticed anything odd happening around yourself?  Or unusual abilities?”

Danny stared at her flatly for several long moments.  His entire life could be classified as ‘odd,’ and most of it he wasn’t about to share with Edna.  Or his parents, as much as he loved them.

But, on the other hand, he now had a great excuse for at least some of his weirdness.  His parents wouldn’t think ghost if they could think wizard first.

“Like, define ‘odd,’” said Danny.  Despite his earlier encounters with wizards, he had no idea what was normal for them.  Other than memory wiping.  Which he could not do and wouldn’t have demonstrated anyway.  

Okay.  If was actually a wizard, and Edna’s doohickey wasn’t just reacting to his ghostliness, he probably could learn how to do the memory thing, but he didn’t know now, so the distinction was meaningless.  

(Maybe being a wizard or a squib or whatever was why he wasn’t just.  Dead.)

(Yeah, he didn’t want to think about that.)

“Just…  Being in one place, and then a different place.  Surviving something you shouldn’t have been able to unscathed.  Things moving by themselves or changing color or size. Temperature changes.  Something you want very badly happening, even if it is impossible or extremely unlikely.”

“Okay,” said Danny.  “Yeah.”

“To which one?” asked Jack, concerned.  “I haven’t noticed anything like that except what the ghosts do.”

“Um,” said Danny.  “This?”  He put his hand down on the table, intending to leave an icy handprint.  That should be acceptable, right?  If temperature changes were normal…

His nerves got the best of him.  He knew he was nervous showing even one of his powers around his parents.  He overcompensated.  

The table was covered with frost.  

“Oops?” said Danny.  

All the blood had left Edna’s face.  Jack and Maddie didn’t look much better.  

“Dear lord,” said Edna.  “You can do that at will?”

“Yes,” said Danny, holding his hand close to his chest. “More or less.”

“Danny,” said Jack, “why didn’t you tell us?”

“I thought you’d think it was a ghost thing.  You kind of shoot first and ask questions later about ghost things.”

“Oh my god,” said Edna.  “Never mind that.  You can do wandless magic and you’re fourteen?”

“Fifteen,” said Danny, “but, yeah.  I guess.”

Evidently, this wasn’t normal.  

Also, his comment about shooting first hurt his parents’ feelings.  Go figure. Not like they weren’t keeping a massive secret.  

.

“So,” said Danny, once the other discussions had been shelved for the time being, “I have a brother?  I think a brother was, at some point, mentioned.”

“Yes,” said Edna.  “A twin brother.  He wants to meet you.  Along with your biological mother.”

“And if I don’t want to?” asked Danny.  “If I don’t want to have anything to do with them?”

“I don’t even know,” said Edna.  “I can’t believe you slipped under the national detection spell. There’s going to be so much paperwork involved in this.  International paperwork.”

“Huh?”

“You were born in Britain,” said Edna, as if this were a minor detail.  

Yeah.  Like his sense of self needed any further pummeling.  

“But it isn’t our fault everything is so messed up,” said Danny.  He maybe had some curiosity about his twin brother, but if there was any risk he’d be taken away…

“I understand,” said Edna, “but nothing like this has come up before, as far as we know.”  She sighed. “If it makes you feel better, I will use any influence I have in the matter to recommend that you retain custody of Deneb.  In the meantime…  Do you want to, uh, open communications with any members of your biological family?”

“I don’t know,” said Danny.  “Can I think about it?”

.

Relations in the Malfoy household had been strained ever since Draco’s investigation of his family tree (unrelated to the return of the Dark Lord and how blood purity was now much, much more important) had revealed that his twin brother had not, in fact, died at birth.  

And by strained, Draco meant that his parents had taken to living on opposite sides of the manor, interacting only when there were visitors.  Visitors such as his father’s Death Eater friends, members of society, and various government officials.  All of whom were more alike, and had greater overlap, than even Draco had initially suspected.  

This left Draco walking on eggshells between the two of them and wishing for Hogwarts to start again.  Anything he did to please one had to be entirely out of sight of the other, or else they began to fight again.  Truthfully, Draco was more on his mother’s side, all things considered, but his father was the one with the friends, and Draco couldn’t stay home under his mother’s wings for all his life.  Like his dragon namesake, he had to fly.  

Which he would most certainly do.  Soon.  No, he wasn’t hiding from his parents in his room.  That would be ridiculous.  They knew where his room was.  They could find him if they wanted to, and neither of them was anywhere near him.  He knew.  He’d checked.

This made the inarticulate shriek of rage he overheard from his mother all the more concerning.  

It was enough to make him emerge – cautiously! – from his self-imposed exile.  

He was curious.  And stupid.  It got him into enough trouble at school, why not at home?

Also, he really needed to know.  For his own safety.  Tiptoeing around whatever disaster just happened would be impossible if he didn’t know what it was.  

Instead, he tiptoed after his mother.  

His mother, who was angry enough that sparks were coming off the end of her tightly gripped wand.  Green sparks.  

Draco had never actually seen the killing curse in action, but his mother’s face screamed murder all on its own, no magic required, despite the fact that Draco was only catching glimpses of it as she strode towards his father’s half of the house.  

This was going to be bad.  Terrible.  Possibly the kind of event that saw one of his parents in Azkaban and the other in little, tiny pieces all around the smoking room.  

Lucius, for his part, looked paralyzed where he stood, and Draco briefly entertained the notion that Narcissa had managed to cast petrificus totalis on him without moving her wand or speaking the words.

Narcissa planted herself firmly in front of Lucius and glared up at him, seething, her breath making sucking noises as it passed through her teeth.  

She punched Lucius in the face.  The man toppled, clutching his nose.  Narcissa kicked him.

It was a good thing that the Malfoys had no neighbors, because what Narcissa screamed next likely could have been heard for at least a mile.

“He wasn’t even a squib, you lying bastard!”

[kalinara]

It does occur to me that episode 5 of the Witcher is possibly my favorite in terms of interpersonal dynamics.  Specifically for Yennefer and Geralt.

It’s always tricky when we’re dealing with a limited series, with one episode per short story (and not even the full episode, really), to establish strong relationships of the sort that tie the narrative together.  This is especially the case for Yen and Geralt, since its their relationship and its push and pull that’s so very important in the novels and the games.  (Even if you go the other romantic path, it’s still incredibly significant.)

But overall, I think that episode 5 (and episode 6 after that) do a surprisingly good job with the set up.

A lot of the relationship dynamic between Yennefer and Geralt is set up with what came before.  I joked about how the juxtaposition of Geralt’s interest at Calanthe’s torture threat and Yen’s “I *inflict* pain” are the show’s unsubtle way of showing how compatible they are.  But honestly, it’s kind of true.  If you look at the relationships set up at the very beginning: Geralt and Renfri, Yennefer and Istredd, we start to see how the two can fit together.  Yennefer doesn’t play at being anything other than she is.  Geralt (with one exception) doesn’t judge her ambition or lust for power.

I think for people looking for a conventional romance, episode five might seem more than a little lacking.  But Yennefer and Geralt aren’t really a conventional romance.  They’re a kinky romance.  Their initial give and take is more about the exchange of power than it is sweet words and candlelight.

The moment they meet, in the middle of the orgy, the power dynamics are already visibly in play.  He’s out of armor, disarmed, asking for help and bringing apple juice of all things.  She’s gowned and masked, domme chic, lounging in what might as well be a throne.  She’s standing above him as they meet and slowly descends as they speak.  She sets the terms, he accepts.

Then there’s the bath.  He’s naked, in plain sight, while she stalks around him appreciatively.  She lowers herself into the bath, but only after making him turn his back.  She shifts the mirror so he can’t see.  He doesn’t seem to mind that at all.

It gets really interesting though when he mocks her transformation: what was her flaw?  A clubbed foot?  Split ends?  That’s the moment that Yennefer freezes up.  And I don’t think it’s because she was offended.  I think it has to do with the way Yennefer sees her transformation.  Because Yennefer’s transformation was never really about fixing her physical flaws.  If you recall the beginning of episode 3, Yennefer’s big complaint was that she had no idea what her idealized self would look like.  She tells Istredd that he’s lucky: Ban Ard boys don’t have to go through the transformation at all.  She’s not ashamed of her disfigurements, nor should she be.  They may have made her a target for village bullies, but in Aretuza, they’ve never held her back.

Istredd accuses her of being angry that she missed her chance to be beautiful, but there’s no real indication that Yennefer was even thinking about that when she missed the ceremony.  She was still focused on the damage her ancestry reveal had done to her ambition.  She does choose to undergo the transformation, but as a weapon and a means for the power she wants.  It’s a mask, the same as she was wearing in the orgy.

What Geralt did in that moment was say “I see that you’re wearing a mask, and I don’t really care what you’re hiding.”  And that is where things shift. 

She immediately drops the idea of him prostituting himself for his friend’s life (something that he finds obviously disappointing.  Clearly he was enjoying the power exchange too) and goes for a more overt means of getting him out of the way.  But the sexual chemistry is still there and unspoken, and she can’t completely drop the domme act: see, for example, the way she dresses him.

So then we get mind control and an almost execution.  I don’t necessarily think Yen was trying to kill him there.  She probably assumed he’d escape before execution (I doubt she had any idea that the one guard really wanted to “play” with a Witcher.  And how fitting is it that we get those sexualized taunts in an episode that’s all kinky power exchange.).  Or that Jaskier would wish them both away.  Though Yen is also pretty focused on her own desires, so I’m not sure that she that she’d have felt that badly if he had died there.

But then he comes to save her.  And that’s where things get really interesting.  He offers her his wish, she can have whatever she actually wants if she just takes it.  But she refuses.  Her desire for a fertility cure has never really been about having a child.  It’s about being denied something she wants.  It doesn’t mean anything if someone else gives it to her.  And I think she especially doesn’t want HIM to be the one to give it to her.  Yennefer will always be dominant, damnit.

Then Geralt makes his wish.  We don’t know what his exact wording was, but I think we know Geralt well enough to know that whatever wish he made wouldn’t have involved Yennefer falling in love with him.  He’s as emphatic about choice as she is, in his own way.

But at that point their relationship has shifted again.  Yennefer realizes, at least subconsciously, that this is a man who has seen her at her most power hungry.  He saw her in the center of maelstrom screaming that she wanted everything.  Istredd may have loved her before she was beautiful, but he found her lust for power revolting.  Tissaia ridicules it.  But Geralt, who saw her at her worst, experienced her at her worst, doesn’t mind it.

In fact, he trusts her enough to fall asleep in her presence.  That’s got to be intoxicating for someone like Yen.

Geralt’s side of things is also interesting.  (And requires a bit of future knowledge to analyze.)  I think there are a few elements at work here: first, his desire to save self-destructive women is clearly what gets him back into that building after she puts him under mind control.  But I don’t think that’s the point where he truly became enthralled.

I think it was seeing Yennefer at her worst actually: it was seeing her power-lust and her ambition.  It was seeing how much she WANTS.

Because that’s the thing that stands out about season 1 Geralt: except maybe at the very beginning, he doesn’t seem to WANT much of anything.

Of course, he demands coin for service.  But he shies away from any kind of more substantial reward.  Especially if it feels like it’s undeserved.  The whole reason he got a Child Surprise is because he didn’t want a reward at all.  Duny had persisted and Geralt just said “fuck it, give me the next goat you have.”  Geralt’s a dumbass who doesn’t appreciate destiny’s sense of humor.  But he still tries like hell to refuse that gift.

He doesn’t seem to have much by way of long term physical possessions, besides that amulet.  He has Roach...possibly, assuming Roach isn’t a sequence of horses under the same name.  But with the way he talks to her, it’s clear that Roach (Roaches?) is a being to him, not a possession.

Geralt doesn’t seem to care about personal comfort.  He rejects gifts.  And the only thing we ever see him buy for himself is a night’s companionship with a sex worker.

And I think that’s not meant to be a positive thing.  It’s like Geralt says in episode 6, when Yennefer asks him if he ever wanted anything else besides being a Witcher.  And he says that if he had, it was too long ago to remember.

That’s heartwrenching in its own right.  Kaer Morhen did such a number on him that he literally can’t imagine anything other than being a Witcher.

But it’s also even more heartwrenching after episode 8, when we do get to see a Geralt who IS young enough to want something.  And we see at least some of what happened to him to change that.

And it’s sad-funny too, because early on Yennefer doesn’t believe that he went looking for a djinn just to get a good night’s sleep.  But I think we’ve seen enough of Geralt to believe just that.  That’s how broken he is, the closest thing he has to a “want” is sleep.

And then he meets Yennefer.  Who is indeed magnificent.  And she wants EVERYTHING.  She’s everything he doesn’t know how to be.

And when she refuses to accept his wish for herself, she forces him to make a wish.  And in that second, he does want.  He wants HER.  Not her love or companionship, obviously, or she’d never have been able to storm away from him in episode 6, but he still didn’t want to lose her.  

It’s not a healthy relationship by any means.  Not yet anyway.  (Maybe Jaskier can give them a pamphlet about safe BDSM practices and teach them about safewords?)  It’s not a traditionally romantic relationship at all.  But I find it absolutely compelling.

And hot.  I own my kinks.