#if i had to say one thing it would be that like.....king tealeaf being the only one of the nein we didn't get to see yet 7 years later is a

[dent-de-leon]

What's something that happened in Mighty Nien, or any campaign, that just absolutely upsets you? That whenever ya watch it, ya just get so mad? I mean, other than what happened to Molly, cuz I already know how strong yer feelings are on that

askasfkdgdf oh boy...I think Molly hit me especially hard because I was watching live from the first episode, and it really felt like this gutting loss that came out of nowhere just when his story was getting started, and I'm still not able to watch the whole episode.

Kinda really dreading that I'll have to see that happen to Molly again in the animated series :( (and as a side effect of Molly, I think that's why I like...don't feel as attached to the c3 characters. I don't even have anything I ship for it. Just easier to not get my hopes up again if it makes me that sad, that sort of thing.)

As for other things hm......I feel like there are some things that upset me or that I don't really care for for personal reasons, but I know they're my own personal feelings and not necessarily a reflection of the plot points themselves. I try not to dwell on them and just focus on the stuff I'm excited about :')

[fruitzbat]

5 and 7 for the fic ask

5: How many wips do you have?  What fandoms/pairings are they for?

I'm prone to fixating on one character and wanting to put them in A Situation, so I often find myself writing stuff about one canon character (or comparatively few of them) and a litany of original ones.

I've got two AO3 accounts, one for my more present work and another for my archived stuff that I might revisit later. My current WIP on my main acct (fruitzbat) would be my post-canon CR fic, The Devil & The Details ("Devilverse") which is all about Kingsley Tealeaf and his ascent to the throne of Darktow.

In it, I ship him with an original character (they have a tag on here, which is "kilogram hours"; I refer to their relationship using the call name of either kilogram or stormleaf, kilogram more frequently when posting/tagging stuff because it's a little less obvious that I am Being Cringe but I think the latter is the more official one) -- there's some Fjorester, too, that I'm pretty proud of, but the central point of the story is about Kingsley and him learning how to navigate relationships outside of the Nein, so that relationship is the main one.

(there's also king of glass, my fic about molly and yasha...mostly molly, if I'm being real with myself, but yasha is also important; I realized after posting the first chapter that the plot I had in mind hinged on molly being a very different person, so maybe I'll revisit that when I'm sufficiently satisfied with devilverse)

The other WIP would be Aegis, which was my historical hetalia fic series that I've been writing on-and-off since 2016 on my alt acct and has been on hiatus since 2021 or so. It's centered around my passion, which is the history of the Mediterranean, chiefly Italy's islands -- starting with the annexation of Malta into the British Empire and slated to end with the conclusion of WWII. Basically the subject of the fourth and final installment (Min jistenna jithenna) is the subject of my current doctoral research, and I realized once I started doing work that wasn't casual that like nearly EVERYTHING I wrote was bullshit in a way that I couldn't condone, so I wouldn't be comfortable revisiting it unless I was going to do a page one rewrite of that entire fourth fic.

Saying that, Aegis is nearly "done" while being the exact same length as my current WIP, which is not yet even halfway finished. So it might not be that much work comparatively -- it just feels daunting as hell, and as a period historian I think I owe it the diligence.

In Aegis, I multishipped out the wazoo, but the action chiefly focused on Frying Pangle, SpAus, and Romano/Sicily (an original character). I have a bit of a thing for ships that feel like they are divorced (or are divorced) that I think REALLY comes through in that series, lol.

7: Post a snippet from a wip.

WOOGH okay I posted a snippet from Aegis earlier so I think it's only fair I do a devilverse one here. Some descriptive writing that I really love from the first book:

The waters that girded Bosa and Scoria Benatar���s keep in Mount Arcade were consistently blitzed with some sort of turbulence, some kind of interlocking system of whirlpools, merrow traps, that meant there was only one consistently safe passage towards it: the channel between the islands of Seri and Edda, one that sailors called the Hag’s Fingers.

It was said by many that the channel was the realm of a coven of sea hags; as a result, even though it was the safest way, it was not uncommon for crews to keep their wits painfully about them for the entire passage. Song upon song existed of pretty young cabin boys on ships passing the Fingers, swept away by a hag in the dead of night – made to suffer for their offending beauty.

It was known that the two islands had once been connected with an isthmus, and their joining was made weak with high sea caves. When a falling god in the Calamity had knocked the two islands apart, the only thing that was left was standing columns that had once been the walls of great caverns. Eroded, over time, into outstretched, withered digits that pocked the shallow water. Like so much else in this region, all that seemed to remain of their prior glorious existence was splinters of stories, words, an unrelenting echo of you should have seen it back then.

In the early morning, the mist crept upwards from the blue-greenish depths, crawled with its slimy fingers up the singular pillars of broken, limpet-caped stone it so meticulously hid throughout the channel to watch the Mollymauk do its best to dodge its way through. Once they passed it – with Melora’s sweet breath and blessing at their sails, unscathed – the Mollymauk would nose into the open mouth of the Bosa Gulf.

Each pole of stone that they narrowly scraped past made Kingsley wonder when the mist would empty out into that bottomless expanse of green water. He looked over at Felaun, leaning next to him – peeling his breakfast with a pocket knife. They felt the mist rattle uneasily in their lungs as they breathed in, out, let it fly back to where it draped across the world around them in flimsy ribbons of moisture.

FANFICTION ASK MEME

[night-filled-mountain]

“If souls can grow from but a piece...”

I feel like this quote from Matt is key to Lucien’s/Mollymauk’s/Kingsley’s whole development, and honestly, I’m kicking myself for not being preemptively clued in to the Kingsley reveal as soon as Matt said it.

Molly started out as only a piece of a soul. A fragment, sans memories. But not entirely sans memories, not for long. Even the Molly who was new to the carnival wasn’t equivalent to a newborn baby. Think of all the things that quickly came back to him: how to walk and talk, eat and drink, clean and dress himself, and carry out plenty of other basic physical processes...not to mention thousands, maybe millions, of words and concepts that he understood without knowing how or why.

It wasn’t his memory he lost, per se. It was his self-concept. It was all the memories specifically tied to Lucien: what he had seen, what he had done, who he had known. And it’s not because those memories were gone. It’s because Mollymauk actively repressed them. He admitted to the M9 that he got “flashes,” he had dreams, but he pushed them away, rejected them as having nothing to do with him. That was a choice he made. He was a piece of a soul, and he chose to grow into something new, rather than making any attempt to dig for all the other “pieces” buried within himself and reunite them into a coherent whole.

He was like a magical seed that holds a genetic memory of how to grow into a daisy, but somehow manages to repress it, learn new possibilities from the diverse garden that surrounds it, and grow into a zebra orchid instead.

Lucien was there as an option. Lucien was a concept he could have re-built around himself. He chose to burn it down and build something new.

And was it entirely new? Of course not. Molly spoke with Lucien’s accent (vaguely 😉). He had Lucien’s arrogance, his flair for the dramatic, his instinct for reaching out to people and traveling in groups and seeking daring new experiences. Molly wasn’t Lucien, but he could have been. I firmly believe that if he had leaned into those memories, if he had sought those answers, if his adventuring goal had been to become who he used to be, he could have succeeded. But he didn’t.

Because the defining feature of Mollymauk Tealeaf, the trait that most set him apart from Lucien and allowed him to become his own person, was the desire to do just that. To self-invent.

And he didn’t do it only once. Think of how quickly he adapted after the carnival broke up; how quick he was to latch onto the Mighty Nein and re-invent himself as a devoted member of their party, transferring all the affection and protective tendencies he’d previously devoted to his fellow carnies. Think of the various false backstories he made up for the M9, the elaborate lies he told about his family and background (and Taliesin has made it clear that he intended to do much more of this, as he didn’t expect Molly’s actual past to catch up with him so soon). Think of the lies he told and the cons he pulled while he was with the carnival...most memorably, the one he told Beau about two nights before he died, when he convinced a whole town that he was a king. (Did Kingsley remember this when he chose his new name, or did he remember the royal/godly sensations of Lucien’s ascension as he absorbed the Somnovem? We may never know.)

Spontaneity, adaptability, and constant re-invention of himself was the heart of Molly’s character. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Mollymauk Tealeaf, left to his own devices, would not eventually have gotten bored once again, decided the M9 no longer needed him (or waited until after they fought their last big battle and went their separate ways), gone to sea, changed his name to Kingsley, and become a pirate.

If souls can grow from but a piece. That’s the entire premise of Mollymauk Tealeaf, and it’s the entire premise of Kingsley Tealeaf, too. And I think Kingsley tacitly acknowledged that when he finally read Beau’s book, gave it all some thought, and named his ship the Mollymauk.

Kingsley is a soul that grew from the exact same seed as Molly. Is it a new soul, a different soul, shaped by new experiences? Yes. In the sense that Jester is a different soul from Genevieve. Caleb is a different soul from Bren. Veth is a different soul from Nott, and also from the Veth who had never been Nott. Captain Fjord Tusktooth is a different soul from the bullied and insecure orphan Fjord Stone. Expositor Beauregard is a different soul from Beauregard Lionett, fuck-up daughter who was meant to be a son, heir to a dynasty she never wanted. Yasha Nydoorin is a different soul from the Orphanmaker, and Caduceus Clay might be the only member of the Mighty Nein to stick to a single name with no complications, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been transformed.

The only thing that sets Molly’s transformation into Kingsley apart from his teammates’ journeys is the memories. And the memories are there, if he ever wants them. And if he never does? If he says I can start fresh whenever I want, and my past does not define me?

Well, that’s the most Mollymauk move of all.

[drinkingdeadpeopletea]

OK, here's a question for when you wanna kill some time in quarantine: For each D&D class, who is your fave character of that class in any D&D actual play?

oh INCREDIBLE question. and VERY needed. let’s do this. in alphabetical order. under a cut because fun fact there are fourteen D&D classes and i’m incapable of just saying my opinions without explaining them.

Artificer: For a second I thought I’d have to put Taryon Darrington despite not actually being up to those Vox Machina episodes yet, but then I remembered–my sweet boy! Gorgug Thistlespring! brilliantly pulling off a late-game multiclass that feels in-character, develops a side of him that had been coming out throughout the whole season, and is clutch in those last couple episodes. and got us the Hangman back! stan artificer gorgug and gorgug in general. 

Barbarian: honestly, it feels like a little early to be making proclamations like this since it’s only been 3 episodes, but King Amethar of House Rocks is up there. an old solider who loves his troublemaker daughters and misses his sisters and hates being in charge? who’s going to need to learn who he can trust and what it really means to be king? yeah…….plus i like storm herald. 

Bard: Figueroth Faeth-the-Insatiable, baby!!! power of MUSIC power of REBELLION power of FRIENDSHIP power of BISEXUALITY power of LOVE and that is how you play a BARD!!!!

Blood Hunter: i only know one blood hunter so Mollymauk Tealeaf wins by default. i think it’s how he’d want to win. 

Cleric: there are so many clerics who i love so much, but….Kingston Brown from Uptown beats them all. the quiet leadership, the devotion, the love for other people. the responsibility and the taking of responsibility. the self-sacrifice, not in grand gestures but in little things every single day. don’t get me started or we’ll be here for hours. 

Druid: Moonshine Cybin!!!! the druid by which I measure all other druids. the character by which i measure all other characters. again we’ll be here for hours if I get started talking about Moonshine but anyway things that don’t belong find a way of belonging when she’s around......

Fighter: this made me realize what a varied class fighter is. Like, Percy de Rolo and Theobold Gumbar and Fabian Seacaster are all fighters. that said, my favorite is the most beautifully basic fighter of them all, Hardwon Surefoot, who I would not have expected to be my favorite based solely on character descriptions but who rolled up in Episode 1 drinking in the sound of the fiddle and caring deeply about the Green Teens no matter how much he tried to hide it and i was in love. The Tender Emotional Bullshit Of One Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz--

Monk: brief shout-out to loml sofie bikes, but it has to be Beauregard. I loved Beau from the second she stumbled into episode one as a rebellious, impulsive, self-described asshole and immediately started flirting with the first big strong woman she saw, and I have only loved her more and more the more she has grown and changed and developed. marisha ray KNOWS what she is DOING and it is a pleasure to watch her work. i love beau so much. 

Paladin: Beverly Toegold V. like, the “joke” description of Bev is “a very good boy” but like....[SPOILERS] this kid got thrown off a tower, watched his dad almost get executed, watched his home get destroyed, has been mind controlled multiple times, has almost died multiple times, saved his dad, killed his dad, watched his friends die in front of him, accidentally helped kill his own god, had to see his boyfriend dead in front of him and then watch him get kidnapped, and he is still good. he is still trying every moment to do the right thing. “what an honor. what an injustice.” 

Ranger: oh, no contest with this one, it’s Vex’ahlia. best and most underrated member of Vox Machina, lady of Whitestone, champion of the Dawnfather, glue that held Vox Machina together, good-aligned always, light of my life, queen of my heart,

Rogue: Riz!!! Gukgak!!!!!! a lawful good rogue, baby. i love detectives and i love kids who are trying so so so hard at everything all the time and i love protective characters and i love intelligent characters and i just love riz, okay? 

Sorcerer: I think it’s Pete the Plug, actually! I was high-key skeptical about Pete in the early episodes, because he really was slinging extreme power around like it was nothing, and also selling drugs to teenagers, two things which now that I type it out seem very connected. but watching his growth and development over the season, watching his relationships with Nod and Kingston and the rest of the Dream Team and the way they changed him…..yeah. Pete is very very good. 

Warlock: FJORD. i have loved this texblade from episode 1 and i love how far he has come and how many hidden depths there are to him and how he is flawed but still good and protective and loves his friends so much and is low-key holding the M9 together even if none of them realize it and. listen. i love Fjord so much. 

Wizard: and last but not least, my baby girl Adaine Abernant, who has come SO far over the past two seasons while also remaining exactly who she is. who has learned to channel her rage, how to extend forgiveness but also exact brutal revenge, how to be the Everyone Oracle. “maybe there’s hope for us yet,” indeed. (also I did seriously consider putting Alanis for this one even though she is....not a pc.....which should say something about how much i Love Her)

[romijuli]

Tales from Gadorn, part one

So my boyfriend DMed yesterday, and while it was originally conceived as a one-off first-time-DMing-IRL thing, he left it open to becoming a proper campaign. We loved it. We’re making plans to play more next Saturday. It was a lot of fun and I wanted to write a summary of each of our sessions down because I’m really intrigued by the lore he’s setting up!

(Joke) warning for Wynn looking death in the face, again, which is illegal actually

Our story takes place in the country of Gadorn, a monarchy whose current king wanted nothing to do with kingship, but who is the last of his line and is kinda obligated to do the job. Advising him are five noble houses who each want the position of right hand to the king: the halfling House Tealeaf, the high elven House Liadon, the goliath House Zandar, a dwarf house and a half-orc house (the latter two do not yet have their names revealed to us, though our characters would know them. Unless you’re Jewel I guess).

But our story doesn’t begin with them, not really. OUR story begins in the town of Port Rojas (Rohas?), in a bar known as The Iron Rose, to be specific. This early in the morning, the only faces to be seen in the bar are the bartender, the hired entertainment tonight—a tabaxi rogue named Jewel of the Wind (a randomly generated name, truly amazing)—and a hungover human bloodhunter named Witcher Belmont, who never left from his previous drinking binge.

As the bartender discusses a recent string of banditry with the two, a pink-haired halfling enters, with regal robes and (apparently) no knowledge on where she is. Introducing herself as Anfisa Tealeaf, and rather upfront about her status as nobility, she questions the bartender on the robberies and whether or not the Tealeaves (who don’t live in Port Rojas, mind) were hit by the robberies. Finally, a high elven sorceress—Ennala Liadon—enters.

Jewel begins playing his flute with every intention of annoying Witcher, who attempts to leave before running smack dab into a pretty elf. She introduces herself as the owner’s wife (and later in full as Ruby Rosered) and asks Witcher if her wife has returned. Upon receiving a negative response, she tells the assembled travelers that her wife, darling Riswynn, went off in search of finding the bandit encampment and had not returned. Most folks who challenged these bandits didn’t live to tell the tale, so Ruby was naturally concerned.

The travelers, for various reasons, agreed to search for her, and made the thirty-mile journey to the encampment. Upon reaching their destination, they discovered a clearing littered with dead bodies, three regular gnolls (read as: living), and a tied-up body in the center being harassed (?) by what Witcher later identified as a vampire.

The stranger left and the travelers engaged the gnolls in combat; while I would like to say the travelers easily came out on top, Jewel almost died by critical hit and, upon restoration, somehow managed to kill a gnoll in such a manner that Anfisa’s robes wound up soaked with blood (a theme that seems to haunt my halfling characters).

With the threat negated, Anfisa healed the heavily-wounded (but still alive) body in the center, who saw her blood-soaked noble robes and promptly freaked the fuck out. Ennala immediately prestidigitated the robes clean and Anfisa got to work on calming the poor dwarf down.

She explained herself to be Riswynn Ironfist, Ruby’s wife and co-owner of the Iron Rose. Upon hearing that she had been on a few adventures before, Witcher interrogated her: how many had she killed (she really tried not to kill anyone), why did she go off to the bandit encampment on her own (no one else would and she wanted to help)...He finished by telling her to stay in Port Rojas with her wife and the bar.

The travelers and Wynn returned to The Iron Rose, long past Jewel’s entertainment slot, and Ruby offered them anything they’d like, as well as a free room for the night, as payment for bringing Wynn back safely. The travelers accepted food and beverage, as well as fifty GP that had been placed wordlessly alongside said food and beverage, and the night likely would have ended normally had Jewel not brought up the letter he had found on one of the dead bodies (because of course he looted the corpses).

The letter, stamped with the seal of House Zandar, read as follows: “The Count’s plans are taking effect. Diriin falls at solstice.”

Ennala, knowing that her hometown was in danger and worrying despite not being home for 100 years, opted to journey to Diriin in the morning. The other three agreed to go as well, gladly taking Ruby’s offer of free rooms and sleeping well (?) before the journey ahead of them.

[dent-de-leon]

Hey Leo, do you think if Gustav found out about Molly/Kingsley being reborn versions of Lucien, who was murdered, he'd suddenly become terrified of Tealeaves?

Not because of anything they've actually done, but because if one reborn murdered soul found him once..... who's to say that more won't follow?

And who's to say they won't have a more personal score to settle with him?

Oh, that's interesting! I feel like Molly's fondness for his circus family still bleeds into Kingsley, still affects him once he starts getting those memories back. I think Gustav will always mean something to him, even if he might not want to admit it at first. And on Gustav's end, I think he had enough love for Molly--and guilt over his death--that he would happily take in any incarnation of Tealeaf.

The only one that would have anything against Gustav is Lucien, I think. And...I don't really think he would even find him too threatening, because he was willing to risk taking Molly in in the first place.

I would not at all be surprised if Gustav knew the Tavelles, or at least had heard of them. They're both from Shadycreek, and there are only so many people in the Run who are entertainers and showmen. A family of purple tieflings that would sing and dance and put on little plays? I feel like that's something that's hard not to notice, and I can imagine Gustav seeing their caravan pass by from time to time.

And given that they all got caught up in a bargain with a hag from the Savalirwoods, that this little family of tiefling performers ended up all dying, their caravan set on fire--the horror of the fact that they resurrected their own son as an undead puppet before that...I feel like Gustav had to have at least heard stories of this bard-like tiefling family that all died horribly--or just vanished--right there in Shadycreek.

And then he sees this purple tiefling wandering around the Savalirwoods over a decade later, "Empty" and alone and looking so terribly haunted...? I do wonder if Gustav recognized him in that moment, saw this soft, heartbroken tiefling and remembered some of the horror stories about the Tavelles.

Of course, I could just be reading too much into it. But, whether Gustav had ever heard of Lucien before or if he had no idea where Molly came from, the comic still portrays him as taking a dangerous risk in letting this stranger into their camp. Accepting him at once and offering him shelter. He just didn't have the heart to turn Molly away, and I think that would hold true for any incarnation of Tealeaf he ever met. "What are we, if not a home for broken things?"

I also think to this day he still regrets Molly's death, and if he ever found out that that shard of his soul lived on, then...I think he'd want to find him again, try to reach out and check in. He was the closest thing Molly ever had to a parent, and then he dies so young, so tragically--and Gustav could do nothing to stop it. For him, Molly is, “A brief star burning very bright, but twice as short...It's a shame. He was a good one.” Another one of his regrets. And if he could reunite with him in this new life, try to make amends in some way--I'm sure he'd want that.

Given Gustav's philosophy of taking in "broken" souls--while the rest of the camp chide him for taking too many risks because of how soft he is--I can definitely see him welcoming Kingsley back with open arms. King also mentioned wanting to retrace his steps with Nein, to "go and visit and learn." Beau even asks Molly, "Don’t you want to see Gustav now that you’ve paid off his debt?” during that final Cognouza fight, and it definitely has an effect on him. I can see Kingsley wanting to reunite with him and the other circus folk sometime in the future, once he feels ready to face the past.

I think the only thing Gustav would ever have to fear is...the possibility that Tealeaf finds out he was willingly giving victims to Kylre, entirely complicit in it. I think it would've broken Molly's heart to see that the closest thing to a parental figure he ever had--one of the kind circus folk who gave him a home and shaped his core morals--was leading others to their deaths behind his back. (And the parallels to his parents bringing victims to a hag and Gustav's deal with a demon is just...chilling--)

"Things came back quick, and the circus helped--they were good people. They did a lot for me, and joy can fill an awful lot in a person's life...I stayed with that circus for two years. I know how people treat each other, it's important." Gustav even gave Molly his name.

I don't know that Mollymauk would've been able to forgive that kind of betrayal--especially since he was only alive for two brief--mostly happy--years, and the whole concept of betrayal is something he's never really personally experienced. Especially if Lestera died as a result of Kylre feeding on her. Which, isn't explicitly stated or anything in the comic, but...we know he was eating older folk, and Lestera seemed perfectly fine and healthy before dropping dead suddenly right before Molly was meant to meet her.

And from the way Taliesin looks so hurt when he starts to realize that Kylre has been eating people who came to the circus? The way he just stops and goes, "Oh...Oh no..." I do wonder if a part of that was him realizing that...maybe that's what happened to Lestera. After all, we know he was feeding on Toya too. The fact that we get a panel of the rest of the circus folk mourning Lestera at her funeral--with the exception of Gustav--also seems like a deliberate choice. We never get to see his face. I wouldn't be surprised if her death was something else he was wracked with guilt over, another reason he wanted to stay in that cell.

And given how Kingsley started asking about, "a beautiful woman in a red coat" as soon as he woke up, seemed so disappointed when he couldn't find her...I think once he realizes Lestera is gone, that's still going to really hurt. And if he finds out it was someone he used to be close to that caused her death? I could see that causing some bad blood between them.

Either way, I think it would still be good for them to meet. To have that closure--and perhaps a part of Gustav also wants to confess everything to someone from the circus, admit what was really going on after it's haunted him all this time. I don't know that Tealeaf would forgive him, or whether he'd feel too distanced from it all, but. I think it's still a conversation that would heal them both to finally have.

I think Gustav would be so moved and relieved to see Tealeaf alive again for the first time, overjoyed at the chance for a reunion. Either that, or...I wonder if he looks at this lost soul he couldn't save, who was so full of joy and life, fiercely loyal and protective--with so much love to give, so compassionate--and. I wonder if a part of him sees King as a ghost come back to haunt him for all he's done--