#it would be cool if rapier liked birds

[cloudstongue]

we need these more often guys i swear not all cats hate birds or eat them some of them actually fw birds LOOKING AT YOU @desklamper…/j

[comfy-whumpee]

The First Bird 2

Continued from yesterday’s piece. CN: BBU, religion.

@neuro-whump​​, @rosesareviolentlyread​​, @whumper-in-training​, @mylifeisonthebookshelf​, @pumpkin-spice-whump​, @whumpsday​, @firewheeesky​, @why-not-ask-me-a-better-question​

-

Together in the garden, Avis weeded the flowerbed and Paris lay on the grass, listening to her talk. Avis told them about her childhood, lingering over fun and bright anecdotes and skipping the unhappy times. Paris was obviously fascinated, and two windows had opened to listen, she was pretty sure. It was nice, in some way, to only talk about the shenanigans at school and the silly games she had made up, and not the absence of her parents or their insistence on hiring staff instead of meeting her needs.

 "I made this little bird box at school, just by gluing together wood, but I was so proud of it. I painted it green so it wouldn't stand out and be a good hiding spot for them, and I filled it with all the softest flower petals I could find, and seeds to eat and some twigs. I asked for it to be put in the tree by my window. I must have watched that thing for hours at a time. In the end, a squirrel came and stole everything I'd put in it. I was furious."

 "I like green," Paris volunteered, looking at the grass. It was almost at eye level and they moved a finger through it as if studying how it parted around them.

 "Me too. I like blue better though." Avis took the lead-in and pivoted to a new story. "When I was thirteen I declared war on pink. It was silly of me, but a lot of people that I didn't like liked pink, so I decided it was my enemy. I had a pink bedroom before then but I got everything thrown out and replaced with blue things, which was treated like the opposite of pink in a lot of places. I realised eventually that it was silly to pretend I didn't like something just because of other people."

 Paris hummed politely.

 "I had a teacher back then who did Maths, but everyone knew he should have been teaching PE - that's sports. He used to do push-ups to show off. We thought it was cool at the time, but I remember him going to the office after a while and being told to stop. I think they didn't like him showing off to a bunch of kids to feel cool."

 Paris didn't reply for a moment longer. Then they sat up and looked her way. "Nobody talks to me like you."

Some rescues Avis had met used honesty like a rapier, thrusting to try and connect. Some used it like a club, to wield their lives in challenge. Paris seemed to have a goddamn sniper rifle. Shot to the heart, every time.

 "Is that a good thing or a bad thing, how I talk?"

 "Good. You're nice to listen to."

 "I'm glad. If you want me to stop talking, you can tell me."

 "Mm."

 "And if you want to talk instead, you can too."

 Paris lifted their hand free of the grass. There were faint muddy stains on their fingers. Avis was pretty sure they had never had mud stains before, judging by the way they were staring in awe. It was almost joyous to be there while Paris discovered all of these tiny things, and loved each of them.

 "I would just talk about Sir," they said.

 "You can if you want. I don't mind." She knew the others would, but screw the others. Avis was only here to help, not to make things worse.

 Paris put their hand back on the soil. Then they lay down, iridescent in the sun. "Sir is a photographer. He makes nature photos a lot. He has an unparalleled eye for beauty in all its forms." They were audibly quoting something. "And I was - that."

 A photographer buying his own model. If only that had been all.

 "I went to lots of places," Paris added distantly. "Some of them were on the plane. I had to be beautiful in all the places we went to. He had a book for them all that he said he would make a real book.

 "I think I would get dizzy," Avis said honestly.

 Paris lifted their hands again, turning them in the butter-yellow light of the afternoon sun. "I didn't get dizzy. He made a book about me before. Paris is the most beautiful man in the world, and the heart of fashion, and now the most irresistible model working today. That's what Sir said."

 Of course. Because any compliment to Paris must have really been a compliment to himself. Avis knew that kind of man. She shifted their focus. "What did it feel like, being in a book?"

 Paris dropped their hand, eyes closing. "I was beautiful. I had lots of outfits and I was always outside. I liked making the book in Paris."

 For a minute, Avis simply trowelled at the soil, digging down to the roots of a stubborn weed. Then she offered, "I like being outside too."

 "Sir said I shouldn't be in the sun too much. He said it would make my skin age."

 "Not if you're careful not to spend too long," Avis assured them. Their looks were still a priority, it seemed. Was that for safety's sake as well?

 "It's okay. I have a skincare routine."

 Avis made a noise of understanding, and after a moment, branched into a story about dropped pennies in the rain

 -

 When Avis went back into the kitchen, Dinah was washing up at the sink overlooking the garden. She stepped aside to give Avis space to access the side sink for handwashing. As Avis lathered her fingers, Dinah said in her usual soft voice, "Is it, it warm today?"

 Dinah always spoke as though she was desperate to go unheard. Avis moved slightly to look at her, then back again, while she worked the suds between her joints. "It is in my book. But where I live is pretty cold, so you might not agree with me."

 "Oh, okay." She looked out of the window at the garden. She didn't seem too pleased.

 Avis rinsed and stepped back, picking up a kitchen towel to dry her hands. A minute passed.

 "Does Paris, does, does Paris touch you?" Dinah asked anxiously.

 Avis tried to show no reaction as she picked up a bowl from the drying rack. "No."

 Dinah looked at the soap water around her hands. She picked up a pot lid and ran the brush around it. "They, they touched me. When I talked to them."

 What was she meant to say to that without assumptions? "Hmm."

 Another minute or two passed. Dinah scrubbed in slow circles, making the metal lid sing faintly. When she spoke again, it was quietly enough that Avis had to strain to hear. "It was scary."

 Avis took a slow breath. She'd said these words so many times it felt meaningless, but to Dinah, maybe it would matter. "I'm sorry that happened to you. They shouldn't have scared you."

 "Ray says they can't help it. He says Romantics always do that. And Bryony says what they said in training. Romantics don't, um, they're not like the rest of us." She turned worried eyes to Avis. "My Mistress had one, though. He was, he was nice to me."

 Avis waited for whatever she was building up to. She dried bowl after bowl.

 "I don't, don't - don't want to be mean. To, to Paris. But I c-can't tell if they…if they want to. Touch. Me." By the time she finished her face was burning, and she covered it with her elbow, shoulders hunching in shame.

 "That's alright," Avis said softly. She was being asked for advice. "You shouldn't have to watch out for that. If Paris does things that make you uncomfortable, it's okay to try and keep yourself safe from that. It doesn't mean they're a bad person."

 Unless Avis was a worse judge of character than anyone had ever pointed out to her, she was confident she could promise that much, at least.

 The phrasing seemed to resonate with Dinah, who nodded firmly. "They're not, not a bad person. But they - they use people to feel safe. Ray said that we should pity them, not hate them."

 "Does that help?"

 "It does. Thank you, thank you, Avis."

 Avis smiled and stepped away. As she left the kitchen and stepped out into the sun again, she felt the beams breaking across her frown. Love the sinner, hate the sin? She'd heard that before. What was it about Romantics?

 Paris was still lying in the sun, eyes closed. Avis crouched and nudged them gently on the shoulder. "Hey, Paris. It's not a good idea to fall asleep in the sun."

 They opened their eyes. They didn't look like they'd been sleeping, but it was hard to tell with how their gaze never focused on one thing.

 "Hey," Avis repeated, more softly. "Sorry for disturbing you. If you want to lie out here for longer you need to get sunblock on."

 Paris blinked muzzily. "I had a parasol."

 Instinctively, Avis knew they didn't mean in the shelter. "In an hour or two, the house will cast a shadow on the garden if you still want to be outside. Or we can get the windows in your room open. There are lots of options."

 "Okay." They sat up. Without looking, they ran a hand over their hair and perfectly realigned it to tumble gracefully over their shoulders. "I would like to open the windows."

 "Sounds like a plan."

 -

 Avis was sitting in the living room half-watching American TV and writing notes when she heard the conversation. It was Dinah, the young and nervous rescue who she had guessed was newest to the shelter. She had knocked on Ray's bedroom door, and of course, he had opened it to her.

 "Pastor Ray?" she asked. She always addressed him this way, and sometimes Avis swore she heard the girl say Master instead. Ray told her not to worry about titles, but she did it anyway.

 "What can I do for you?" he asked her, when she didn't volunteer her reason for visiting.

 “Um…" Avis could picture her shifting from foot to foot. "I was, I was thinking about what you said about your prayer for us. About um, about sin. That we are all, we all sin, and we have to - we have sins from people before us."

 "That's right," Ray confirmed gently. "Does that bother you? It doesn't make you bad, let me make that clear."

 "No, I - I was thinking…" Pause, shift, shift. "What if, if before I was – me. Before I was a pet. What if that person sinned? Would it still be, um, be me?"

 Avis steered clear of the religious stuff, her own marginally Protestant upbringing well removed from Ray's faith. But she couldn't deny she was curious about the question too. She inched closer to the doorway to listen.

 Ray took a moment. He started carefully. "That was a very brave thing to ask me about, Dinah. Thank you for letting me know your worries. I want to remind you again that you are not bad. When I talk about doing right by the Lord, that's not to do with being a pet. That's to do with who you are inside, and you're more than that."

 Avis smiled. She hoped Dinah took that in, even just a little. She was still staying in the box, even though the box was gone.

 "The sins we have are from people who came before us, like you said. The first man and woman sinned, and that act is something we all carry. That's why we have to work to be virtuous. And again, I said virtuous, not good. I say that because I want you to remember it's different. It's about the teachings of Jesus that you've been learning."

 "I remember," Dinah said quietly.

 "I'm glad. Jesus loves every one of us. He is looking out for us and wishes us the best. Even when you felt alone and scared, He was with you. He was with the person who came before you, as well, though maybe she didn't know he was. Her sins are no different from anyone else's. You may have the same immortal soul, but you can still strive for virtue and by God's grace you will succeed."

 There was another pause as Dinah considered this, but she asked tentatively, "So I can still go to Heaven?"

 "Anyone can, by turning their life around."

 Hell was the ultimate punishment, Avis supposed, even without having been in a living one. She wondered if Dinah was more interested in escaping that than actually following the Bible.

 "I'm glad. Thank you, Pastor Ray." She did sound relieved.

 "God never gives us more than we can handle," Ray reminded her, one of his favourite sayings. "You are stronger than you know.

 She sounded warmer, this time. "Thank you. I'll go leave you be now."

 His voice warmed too, fond of all his rescues. "Pray tonight if you still need guidance. But you're working hard, Dinah. I see that, and so does He."

 The great Handler in the sky, Avis thought cynically. But Dinah was happy. She thanked Ray again, and went back upstairs. Doors closed again, and the house was silent.

[talenlee]

Feinting Couch

Ah, the age of adventure, of conquest, of nobility and of duels. Yes, the time when if someone defied you, you pulled off your glove and you threw it to the ground and demanded she meet you on the battlefield with god as your witnesses. Sublimated homosexuality and swords with reach, raucous adventure and getting out of town just ahead of the local law, it’s a question not about who did it first, but who did it best.

And the best… needs an audience.

En Garde!

Feinting Couch (prototype name) is a game (prototype) that has finally cracked a nut for me in design of representing an auction game where you’re not trying for first place, you’re trying for second. Players each play reckless duelists prone to partying hard and causing incidents all across different courts of what’s probably going to look like France, choosing each turn just how stupid they’re going to be in any given court.

Each round, players place face-down cards symbolising how their particular duelist has caused a fuss in each of a number of political courts. When everyone’s placed cards in each of the courts, players flip up their cards and see who is the most famous, the most renowned, the most rambunctious duelist in town… and then that person is immediately kicked out of town for making a fuss. If there are ties? All of you, get out, we don’t need you causing your sublimated homosexuality as metaphorised through swordplay here! Go do that in the wilds, on the highway, under the dewy rain!

Each player who remains in court, having managed to have a lot of fun but not so much fun that they ‘re the literal worst, gets to win that court. You play through three rounds of three courts, or until one player has four courts. Winner of the game is the player with the most points from their court cards, and that’s kind of the whole game.

This game has been stuck in my head for a while now because it has had a big problem with its fiction ever since it started. The first idea was that you’re all the heads of expeditions sending out Indiana Jones style explorers, going to temples, but the nature of the deadly temples meant that the first person to get to any given temple was immediately going to fucking die, and therefore, it was the second place winner of the auction who got anywhere.

Problem: Dudes raiding temples for treasures is, as themes, both very common and easily racist. It still painted the exercise of ‘go to an ancient ruin and steal stuff’ as the thing players want to do, and while it was very funny to imagine players hitting the wall and getting smooshed when they went to these places, it still was about playing interlopers stealing stuff. Throwing that theme way, I wanted to conceive of a lot of different alternative themes.

The second-place theme, ironically, was players playing bugs that wanted to make noise so they could attract mates. The noisiest bug every round gets eaten by a bird, the next noisiest is the one who attracts a mate. Kinda a fun idea, but also, do I really wanna make a game about ‘oh this is the one about bugs fucking,’ especially when a cartoony take on that would inevitably, wind up with a lot of high-femme bug art, and I dunno, it feels like a great way to be heteronormative and weirdo at the same time.

The game that I want to make now is a game about cool duelists getting into trouble and fleeing towns that are on fire. I don’t actually know that much about this period of history. I don’t know much about actual duelists. I don’t even know that much about setting towns on fire. It’s really a thing I didn’t get enough practice on when I was a kid, it’s a real shame.

I feel like this is one of those times where what I’m referring to needs pre-loading and I’m not well equipped to do it. Do you know who Juliet D’aubigny is? Do you know who Centurii-chan is? Do you know what ‘Rapier Girls’ are as a genre? Do you know someone who gets extremely hot and bothered about queers in ruffled shirts with side shaves and possibly drinking wine in an impossibly bisexual way? What about that one picture of Anne Hathaway crossdressing for a Shakespeare play? If I say ‘sexy anime Guybrush Threepwood’ have I lost you?

That’s kind of the spot aesthetically I want to land.

I have no idea how to explain it except to find someone who’s already familiar with it and say, ‘yea, that.’ If you’re reading this on tumblr and think you know someone whose art would be a fit, tell me about them so I can at the very least talk to them about what this game should look like and maybe get the right formal language about it.

The game’s form is a single deck of standard-sized playing cards in a standard tuck box deck. A standard deck of cards is 54 cards, and doesn’t tend to have a rulebook in it, but you know, sometimes. It’d be a typical mid-sized Invincible Ink game at that size, which is a good form factor for our normal needs to sell games.

This 54 cards creates a constraint on the design, and that constraint at the moment is the question of how many players can this game support?

The game loop runs:

Players play cards from their hands to each of three of courts in a blind auction. You can play multiple cards to a court, but everyone can see that you did that and everyone can see who has already bit.

The cards are revealed, those bidding cards are discarded, and players draw another set of cards to do another round of bidding.

This means the deck of cards needs to have enough cards for multiple players to engage in this loop in an interesting way that gives you strategic choices. If you all start with the same cards in each hand, then the choices become more about memorisation of patterns, rather than about bluffing with a dynamically shifting experience. Therefore, players need to have more cards available to them, for a ‘deck’ than they have in any given turn of play.

Since I want players to have unpredictable hands, that still nonetheless reward some attention paid to what players are already paying then, I want to make sure that the player’s hand size does not neatly divide into the deck size. So, if a player has 3 cards in hand, their remaining deck needs to be 4, 5, or 7 cards. If a player has 4 cards in hand, their remaining deck needs to be 5 or 7 – every card the player has will get put into their hand, but never entirely predictably.

Like, let’s say that the deck is 6 cards, and the player starts with 4 drawn. That means their first turn, entirely unpredictable, but their second turn, you know what half of it is, if you memorised those numbers. The next turn, they discard those cards, and you know half their hand again, and then you get a fresh set. This seems to reward a lot of memorisation.

We also need some cards for courts – players are going to be bidding on three at a time, after all – which means that courts need to similarly be represented in some volume.

And again, how many players can this game support?

What I want is for each player’s deck to be equal and symmetrical. Therefore, of ‘player cards,’ each player adds an extra multiple. Heads-up duel game? 54 cards could be split clean down the middle, two 27s. Bit unwieldy, not necessary, but still an option.

I asked my mastodon what a tuckbox of the type felt like to them, how many players they expected, and most people seemed to be okay with the game being for 2-4 or 2-5 players. Well, if the courts and the players occupy the same space, that means the game could be expressed as 54/6, and that’s nine cards. Nine cards is a great number for hands of four. It runs like this:

First turn, four cards, five in deck. No known information.

Second turn, four cards in hand, four in discard, one in deck. Almost complete information, but crucially not actually complete.

Third turn, four cards in hand, five in deck, and only one card in hand known. At this point the loop resets.

Okay, that means nine cards is our player count. That’s great, and now I get to throw in my next little tweak to the math of this game: Your cards are not valued 1-9. Your cards are valued -2 to 7. If you bid two cards on a Court, you’re not necessarily bidding up to a high number, you might be trying to sack out a value down to something lower.

(Oh and I think if bids for a court don’t break 0, then the court is incensed and nobody gets nothing from it so the -2 and -1 cards aren’t just inherently the best bids for things.)

Does the game need this structure of 9 player cards for 5 players and 9 court cards? Nooo it could also work out smoothly, mathematically if players had 6 cards and and then the game could handle 8 players and 6 courts, but that feels like burning space. Most groups with eight players are going to play something even looser, where physical proximity isn’t as important, like Werewolf or Resistance or Secret Hitler or something.

There, tha’ts a description of a game prototype. Now I just gotta make the thing, and that means finding artists who do this exact very specfic genre of trashy queer duelists. The fantasy is that I somehow get this blog post in front of Centurii-chan and she likes the idea enough to let me license a bunch of her art of Rapier-chan and the like. Understand even in my fantasy, I’m still paying for things, because I respect workers.

Diary out!

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[monsterbananatv]

Things from Lockwood and co because I can part 4:

Episode 7

“Oh, Jesus. Look at the smile on him”

George being left out again

Flo telling Lucy to be careful cause there is a lot worse then ghosts

The other agent trying to help them

The barrels…

Lockwood, back again with his death wish

The scene in the warehouse. Damn the emotions in there…

“Nothing good comes from letting people in. Everything ends and everyone leaves.”

Georgie

The horrid buzzing noise

Those poor children

Oh no Lockwood!

Lockwood grabbing Lucy’s hand as they run away

The agents helping them in exchange for his life

Lockwood’s panic attack

Lucy taking charge and pulling Lockwood around

“What did he die for?” “It’s because they’re bastards.” “It’s because I am”

The whole scene where Lucy’s trying to snap Lockwood out of it. He’s holding onto her for dear life but he’s also holding her so gently too

Flo being the only one who sees something is wrong with George

George drawing his rapier on Flo, and the birds snapping him out of it

The fight with the Golden Blade

What does he know???

The fact that Winkman already knew the guy was an agent, so it wasn’t Lockwood’s fault

Get him Lucy!

Its like a bad game of football they’re playing tossing the bone glass around

The fact that pink socks wearing Lockwood is wearing blue socks. We all know whose colour blue is…

Them jumping off the roof into the Thames

Flo inviting George to go bird watching

George calling out to her to say that he wants to do it

Lockwood and Lucy crawling out of the water and you think they might have a moment, but Lucy just shoves Lockwood away (on beat with the song I might add) and storms off

George being mesmerized by the mirror and not giving it to DEPRAC

Episode 8

Lucy being mad at Lockwood because his suicidal tendencies put all of them in danger again

The scene where she’s yelling at him and he just stands there

The scene of both of them after, Lucy looking at the necklace and Lockwood getting dressed. I like that because Lucy looks at the necklace but doesn’t put it on because she’s mad at Lockwood, but she doesn’t throw it away either, and instead of putting on comfy clothes, we see Lockwood putting on his regular get up, his armour, because he’s not sure how Lucy’s gonna react to him

Lockwood apologizing

“I just wanted to say, don’t give up on us. Please. Or what I really should say is don’t give up on me”

“To be honest the bottom of the Thames used to be a far more appealing place to be. And really no one would have cared, but now…”

Now he has something, someone to live for. People who care (I’m fine I’m fine totally fine)

The two of them finally realizing that something is wrong with George and finding all the spirals

George feeling left out by being left behind to do the dorky stuff

Joplin weirding me out

The skull calling Lockwood and Lucy a happy couple

Lucy and Lockwood both blaming themselves for what’s happening

Both doing anything they can to save George, even if it means going in with some measly salt bombs

“but if anything’s worth dying for…” (George. George is worth dying for)

Them realizing how wrapped up they were in each other that they didn’t stop to help George

Kipps is losing his talent

Joplin basically kidnapping Kipps

“You couldn’t resist. Nor could he. Who knows what he might see. Mummy and daddy maybe” SKULL WHAT DO YOU KNOW

“I need you to be the right amount of reckless”

“Let’s draw our swords and kick in the doors like we’re cool and really know what we’re doing”

Lockwood and Lucy working with Kipps crew

“Just reckless enough, okay”

“What’s the secret weapon?” “She is”

Lockwood complimenting Kipps crew

“And I’m Anthony bloody Lockwood”

“This isn’t a park, it’s a graveyard” “Then let’s bury them.”

The fight between them and the relic-men

George figuring out that Joplin isn’t what she seems and what she’s planning to do

The fact that Joplin was gonna use George to look in the mirror

The knife being the twin to the one in Carvers back

Personal space Joplin, jeez

“That bastard had a plan” “A suicidal one” “That tends to be a feature of all my best plans”

“To save my friends… and Kipps”

Oh George… (My heart… they care about you George, I swear. They need you)

“You’re not a third wheel or an oddball or whatever it is that you think you are. You’re the best of us”

“We are not losing you Georgie” He’s their family. Hers and Lockwoods (I’m fine. Totally fine)

Lucy sacrificing herself to save George

The golden blade. WHO IS HE. WHAT DOES HE KNOW.

Pfffft the blade pulling out a gun (this is just so funny to me)

(Twice I’ve shouted at the screen when he pulled out a gun “you don’t bring a gun to a knife fight!”)

“And whatever happens, this wasn’t your fault” She doesn’t George to blame himself like she blames herself for what happened to Norrie and the others

Lucy using the skull to look in the mirror instead of herself

The images before Lucy passed out. One of them was Lockwood… why?

The glass being a trap. A trap for what????

George breaking the mirror (Go my boy!)

The mirror vaporizing Joplin and the ghosts trapped in it finally being set free

“I’m sorry about everything Luce” “So am I”

Get him Lockwood

“Fought off a load of thugs, fell down a catafalque hole, battles a bunch of ghosts. You know usual sort of thing. Oh, and I got shot”

The way they both run to Lockwood to support him, because he’s not dying on their watch

“You’re not done. Don’t say that. This is t how you die. “How do you know? “Because we won’t let you”

How gently Lucy is holding Lockwood on the way back up

Kipps being a wonderful optimist and great bringer of encouraging speeches (/s)

“Just reckless enough”

Lockwood not holding Kipps to the bet because it was the right thing to do

Both of them supporting Lockwood as they walk away (Family <3)

“Ugh this is so touchy feely”

I was right to not trust Penelope

Lucy saying she thinks she’s starting to heal now

Just them as a family getting food and living life :)

“I was wrong about George. He didn’t hate my guts. He actually turned out to be a bit of a hero”

“Lockwood almost died a thousand times but I think he’s decided he’s better off alive” (My heart)

“Cause it’s incredibly rare. Both of you are”

Lockwood and Lucy’s smiles when they look at each other

Lockwood opening up

Lucy shoving a donut in George’s mouth to shut him up

Lockwood wanting to show them what’s in the room

“No more secrets”

THE MOST VILE CLIFFHANGER EVER

I needed a season 2 a week ago

Please Netflix

[astraleras]

Well. It's 12:30 might make a post that's been simmering in my head for.... a hot minute

FFXIV x Guilty Gear AU, anyone? :3c

Currently I don't know how to plot this as its me just kicking my feet and giggling making designs for characters and fitting them into the world OK! Let us start with our party (Might not even be in the Seventh Astral/Umbral era!!)

I dont have much ANY tangible sketches for Sol but he's going to be a Xaela subspecies Au'Ra (Draconic features and that hourglass shape? Very Sol.) adventurer, who wields a Gunblade (making him a Gunbreaker!) He's not too far off Guilty Gear canon, most likely to be protagonist since references to the sun hahahah :) (Maybe Order Sol having the role that Ardbert had??!?!?!!?!?!)

Ky is an Ishgardian Elezen for sure, it just, works. And he fits being a Red Mage SOOOOO much (Lightning magic, cool sword/rapier and the acrobatics) The design below isn't set in stone it's just a maybe place holder, looks nice tho!!

Justice/Aria is also here. She is girlbossing so hard, I think she'll swap to Sage or maybe stay as a Paladin after her whole Justice alias is known since she can do that. Raen Au'Ra this time, so cool. I think Asuka might do his gay magic and muck up Arias memories (or not) Also design below woooo!!!

Axl, I am pushing the cat boy Axl agenda making him a Mi'qote, Seeker of the Sun since of course he is. BUT. He's a Reaper!!! His Voidsent is named Megumi hehehehe (Im so mean and cruel to him sorry Axl :() Also I-No is there too, she is a Miqo as well, but a Bard (They have the guitar from that one crossover, I think) look at how bad I am at drawing witch hats haha

Dizzy!! She's a mix between a Xaela and Raen Au'Ra!! Ponytail for the hair this time, she looks nice in a ponytail :) She fits being a SCH so, she be Scholaring woohoo!! The clothing is so badly drawn and just a place holder but you get the gist

This. This Venom design is so slay, he's a Viera AND a Dragoon, how homosexual of him!! I think the Assassin's guild would be up in Ishgard since maybe Slayer is Ishgardian, I don't know!! But look at this design, I'm so proud of my creativity (Should Robo-Ky be a dragon? Hmm....)

Asuka. Hyur, Midlander (since he's mid, KIDDING!!) Though, I might make him a Mi'qote later if I feel like it. He is a Summoner, he be summoning. That's it, it's an Asuka.

Raven :) there is no bird races in FFXIV. A pity. So, he's a Padjal, their cool and live for a while and I have a few Vieras already so ja. Black Mage since he is EVIL not really, just is good as magic and big ol robes, so swag.

Zato. Probably just going to make him a Hyur (Maybe Garlean???) since he is boring (affectionate) and he is a Dark Knight!!! I already have like two Reapers so yeah. Also big chunky armour, finally he isn't slutty lol.

THATS ALL THE PICS I GOT!!! HERES A LIST OF EACH CHARACTERS RACE AND JOB

Sin- Au'Ra/Elezen . Dragoon

Ramlethal - Mi'qote . Dark Knight

Elphelt - Viera . Machinist

Leo - Hrothgar . Paladin

Testament - Au'Ra . Reaper

Happy Chaos - Au'Ra . Machinist

May - Lalafell (From somewhere in Doma) . Warrior

Chipp - Mi'qote (Limsa, says he's from Kugane) . Ninja

Millia - Viera . Dancer

Johnny - Hyur . Samurai

Anji - Hyur (Doman) . Dancer

Jam - Hyur . Monk

Baiken - Hyur (Doman) . Samurai

Potemkin - Roegydn . Monk

Bridget - Viera . Astrologian

Nagoriyuki - Roegydn (somewhere from Othard, Gosetsu did it lol) . Samurai

A.B.A - Hyur . Warrior

Bedman - Lalafell . Summoner

Slayer - Elezen . Monk

Giovanna - Mi'qote . Monk

Goldlewis - Hyur (Highlander) . Warrior

Faust - Elezen . White Mage

Answer - Viera . Ninja

Yaaaay :)

[thessalian]

Faerun!Alisaie vs Prologue (Again)

((Yep. I decided to do it. Why not?))

Aboard a Nautiloid, being leapt upon by a githyanki

Lae'zel: Abomination! This is your end!

Alisaie: Okay, I have bird. Sort of. You have ... frog, I think. So long as neither of us has squid features anywhere, we're probably okay!

Merciful thought-sharing spasm stops that in its tracks

Lae'zel: Ah. I see. Survival is paramount now. We will--

Alisaie: Yeah, yeah, I know, to the helm; Us over here's been on about it.

Lae'zel: So long as that ... thing fights for us, it is well. Now, we must remove these imps and--

Alisaie: *shoots an imp directly through the head with a crossbow*

Lae'zel: ..............................wut.

Alisaie: 'We' must trust me to know how to defend myself, okay?

Lae'zel: That was not what--

Alisaie: Later, okay? Incoming imps!

Lae'zel: At least I get to kill something...

A few dead imps later...

Lae'zel: Please explain to me why you are searching the corpses. And looking disappointed.

Alisaie: I'm working on the assumption that we're going to survive this mess, so we're going to end up somewhere that we need things. Like food. And healing. Which usually costs coin. Also I am looking for-- aha! *holds up rapier* Perfect!

Lae'zel: To explain my ... disbelief earlier. I saw the lute upon your back, and reasoned that you were a bard. Yet beyond your wings, I saw no magic employed--

Alisaie: Well, unless you want an accidental Thunderwave to the back, I need something that'll let me fight something that's directly in my face.

Lae'zel: Can you even use one of those?

Alisaie: Well, there's bards ... and then there's bards.

Lae'zel: ...I will remind myself that so long as you can fight, I have no need for you to make sense.

Room with a screaming cleric, and Alisaie looting the place some more

Lae'zel: You will constantly make me retract any and all statements. We need to go to the helm. This diversion is pointless!

Alisaie: I am not leaving someone stuck in one of those pods. They're stuffy, they're freaky, and they smell disgusting. *searches a side room*

Lae'zel: That is hardly a priority--

Alisaie: Also, we need all the help we can get in this fight to get control of the ship. *comes back in carrying a rune and assorted spare change*

Lae'zel: ...Granted, but--

Alisaie: And unless you want me to bust open that pod and fly off with its hopefully less grumpy occupant, leaving you on this doomed ship o' squid, you just go right ahead and keep pissing me off. *inserts rune into socket* ...blgh.

Lae'zel: ...What? Are you ceremorphosing?!?

Alisaie: No; just this thing needs to be yelled at by the tadpole in my brain in order to work, so-- There we go.

Shadowheart: *falling out of the pod* ...Thank you. ......You keep dangerous company.

Lae'zel; Alisaie: Which one?

Mind-Sharing Thing: *happens*

Lae'zel; Alisaie: Oh.

Shadowheart: Let me come with you. As long as you're dangerous to our captors, you're good to have around regardless.

Lae'zel: ...Must we?

Alisaie: Yes now shut up. Alisaie, by the way.

Shadowheart: Shadowheart. Just a moment-- *rummages in pod; retrieves Important Doohickey* Ah. There we go.

Alisaie: Cool. Great. Let's go. I can kind of feel Lae'zel's frustration in my brain and it itches.

Lae'zel: Tchk.

Alisaie: That is the best disgusted noise I have ever heard and I am adding it to my repertoire as of right this second.

Lae'zel: Must you?

Alisaie: You're too busy being frustrated with me to be freaking out about your situation, right? And please note I only said that because you'll be too frustrated about being read so relatively easily to think too much about the rest of it.

Lae'zel: ...............

Shadowheart: *snrk*

At the helm, in the middle of a devil / illithid fight:

Lae'zel: And you're sure you would not rather I take command?

Alisaie: I'll give you one instruction you'll like. Go forth and kill shit.

Shadowheart: What are you going to do?

Alisaie: *takes wing; lands relatively close to the helm long enough to shoot an imp in the face*

More Hell-Beasties: *materialise in her way*

Shadowheart: oshit-- *dashes; Shield of Faith*

Alisaie: *Thunderwaves the hellbeasties*

Shadowheart: Oh. ...Right. Bard.

Alisaie: *reaches the transponder* Well, this is gonna put me off squid for life... *connects stuff*

Dragon: OHAI.

Alisaie: LAE'ZEL!!! IS THIS YOURS?!?

Lae'zel: *while stabbing a hellboar* Hardly! I have not yet earned the hon--oh.

Dragon: *breathes fire right in Alisaie's face*

Nautiloid: **POIT**

Alisaie: *slams into a wall next to an illithid*

Illithid: *looks at her*

Alisaie: .........Fuck this shit; I'm out.

Little Niggling Voice At The Back Of Her Head: but i'm supposed to rescue you--

Alisaie: *side-eyes illithid so hard* If that's you? Tentacles are not a facial care regimen and I can take care of myself! *flies out of hole in hull ... and is beaned in the head by falling debris*

Little Niggling Voice: there we go...

Rest of Cutscene: *works as intended, but needed to be slightly altered because of winged Tav*

[theadventuresofgarlandodra]

The Adventures of Garl and Odra Manyboots- Heatwaves and Zombies

Prev.

“Gaaaarlll… it’s fucking hot ooouuuut…”

Garl groaned softly but made no attempt to move from his place under the tree or to even open his eyes. Odra rolled across the ground and finally came to a stop in front of the gargoyle.

“How is it so hot? It’s not even midday yet. And I’m gonna burn to death.”

“It’s a heat wave, Odra,” Garl said, trying to be patient with the cranky child that was his companion. “We’re taking the day off from getting to the Underdark because of it, calm the fuck down and stop moving so much. Movement brings up your body heat. You’re not helping yourself.”

“Everything makes you hotter though!” Odra complained, throwing her arms up in the air. “Drinking booze makes you hotter, dancing makes you hotter, the only thing that cools you down is snow, ice, or a lake! And we have none of those!”

Garl sighed and pressed his hands to his temples. The heat was giving him a headache. “Odra. Are you naked?” he asked a question he already knew an answer to.

“Yeah, why?”

“Nevermind. Is that why Sylvia and Dullahan are nowhere to be heard?”

“Dullahan’s making an acid weapon out of his own stomach bile and… I don’t know where Sylvia is.” Odra scratched her ear. “What else did you expect me to do? It’s so hot out here a tiefling would be sweating his balls off. A fucking tiefling.”

“At least put something on your lower half. Not everyone’s used to seeing you run around in your birthday suit.” Garl was past the point of caring- he’d seen his little companion butt naked so many times he’d been pretty desensitized to it.

Odra whined before she rolled herself across the ground where her pile of clothes was. She did put her leggings back on, but even that was miserable. “I’m gonna die,” she declared before looking over at Garl and their special delivery. “So… how’s your friend?”

This finally got Garl to open his eyes. He looked over at the cart that was carrying the gargoyle’s body.

“He’s dead, Odra. Nothing’s changed from the last time you’ve asked, so why do you keep asking?”

“… It’s just weird.” Odra walked up to the cart, looking the statuesque creature up and down while being sure not to touch. “When everything else dies, it disappears. I mean, after swelling and bubbling and rotting, but it disappears.”

“That’s what makes us different from everything else.” Garl wiped the forming condensation off his face. “Ulgth. Even I’m sweating. How the fuck am I sweating?”

“The air’s super sticky. And you’re a fucking rock. You’re making me regret putting pants back on.” Odra flopped back on the ground and rolled back to Garl. “I’m glad I’ll disappear when I’m dead. I don’t like… just the idea of being here forever. It weirds me out.”

Garl hummed softly before he closed his eyes again. Odra wouldn’t understand. Goblins had such a blip of a lifespan. Even their elderly were barely fifty years before they croaked. Gargoyles were, in a quite literal sense, forever. Even when their souls were gone, they left behind their shells to forever watch over their ancestral dens.

This one would be returned back to its resting place soon.

“… Uh, Garl?”

“Yeah?”

“Something’s not right.”

Garl’s eyes popped open and he reached for his blade. “How not right?” he asked.

“Birds.” Odra’s ears twitched as she inched towards her rapier where it laid next to her discarded clothing. “They stopped singing.”

Good. Perfect.

“Odra, fall back to the grass if you have an opening. I have to stay with him.”

Odra didn’t question him, but she didn’t have much time to. She barely scooped up her rapier when the first zombie stumbled out of the woods.

Fuck.

“GARL!” Odra skittered backwards, keeping her rapier at the ready as the rotting creature hissed and spat at the goblin. “I need my daggers!”

“In the cart! Fall back! And plug your ears!”

Garl took a deep breath before he threw his head back and roared. He didn’t care to bring so much attention to himself, but he needed to get the others back here, and fast- more zombies were coming out of the undergrowth, and not all of them were human. That big one with the loosely hanging jaw was a fucking ogre.

Odra dived into the cart before emerging with her daggers, flipping them around in her fingers. “I hope they heard that!” she fired back before throwing herself into the fray.

Garl looked up at the undead ogre that was now shambling towards him.

“… Same.”

Garl charged forward with another ear shattering roar and swung his blade at the ogre. Thankfully the hit connected- zombies weren’t great at dodging. However, it didn’t seem to mind that its guts were now starting to drip down to its knees, and Garl grimaced as he saw it raise its morningstar.

Garl ducked under the blow, but the weapon instead crashed into a tree. The tree cracked down the middle and teetered for a second before it tipped to the side and fell… right towards Odra.

“ODRA! MOVE!”

The goblin dodge rolled out of the way of the tree, but unfortunately right into the path of another zombie’s whack. She yelped as it punched the back of her head, sending her sprawling on the ground.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckfuckfuck-

Garl couldn’t have been more thankful when a shadowy beast came crashing out of the trees and bodyslammed the ogre, getting its attention off of Garl. While the ogre turned to deal with the new threat, Garl bolted over to where Odra was getting her bearings.

“Odra! You all right?”

Odra hummed before stumbling to her feet, rubbing the back of her head. “You’ve hit me harder,” she joked before she slipped both of her daggers out of her belt. “Keep their attention. They’ll never see me coming, hehe!”

A bottle of a nasty yellowish liquid soared through the air and shattered in front of a few of the other undead. One made the mistake of stepping in it and immediately it started to melt. By the time it reached the other side of the puddle it was little more than arms, shoulders, and head.

“Well, this is a lot of dead bodies.”

Dullahan strode out of the trees and tossed another bottle of that vile looking concoction between his hands. Garl grimaced as he caught a whiff from the puddle. “That’s your vomit, isn’t it?”

“Garl, the things I know about how to weaponize hair would make you stay up at night.”

As if to demonstrate this, one of the zombies ambled closer to Dullahan, swiping at the madman. Dullahan took a step back and Garl watched as the hair rose on the human’s arms before it grew and shot out to stab the zombie through the head. The zombie twitched before it dropped to the ground, back to being dead.

“… Oh. Well, that’s actually new. Interesting.”

“Are you fucking kidding me!?” Garl snapped.

Dullahan shrugged before he sidestepped another zombie coming to eat his face. “Well, as much as I’d like to continue this experiment, it’d be appreciated if someone took care of that one…”

“MINE!”

Odra flung herself out of the bushes and onto the zombie’s back, stabbing both of her daggers into its skull. Blood and brain flew through the air as Odra cackled, obviously having completely forgotten about the heat of the day. Nothing made a rogue happier than pulling off multiple sneak attacks, which considering zombies had just about as much awareness as you’d expect, she was getting a lot of those.

The ogre zombie finally toppled over as the shadowy creature bit its head off. Sylvia walked out of the trees. “Oh gods, it smells,” she gagged, reaching up to cover her nose.

Garl dodged another zombie’s pitiful grab for him before he slashed the corpse down the spine. “Where did they even come from?” he said.

“Who the fuck knows, and who the fuck cares- GAH! GET OFF!”

Sylvia shoved a zombie back but not before its rotting fingers tore open her cheek. She hissed in pain as she covered the bloody wound. Without another word, she just barked an order at her summon while lifting her crossbow up to fire.

The bolt stunned it for a second, enough for the summon to get its claws into it. Sylvia spat out any of the blood that dripped into her mouth before easing back into the shadows, her eyes positively glowing with rage.

How were there still more of these sons of bitches out here-

Garl felt something in the air change and he knew to hit the ground before the lighting hit.

The drow mages dropped from the shadows as the zombies twitched and writhed. Now everything smelt like Dullahan’s shitty acid potions, rotting flesh, and burning flesh.

At least once they stopped twitching they were all dead. One of the drow, likely the one in charge, took off her helmet to reveal a nifty pair of goggles that likely shielded her eyes from the daylight. She snapped something in Elvish, her lip curling at the sight of the party.

Garl shook the blood off his blade as he glowered at the sorceress. “Speak Common, for the love of-”

Dullahan cleared his throat and raised his hand to cut Garl off. Then he responded in perfect Elvish to the drow sorceress, dropping to one knee and bowing his head.

This clearly got the right impression from her, as a smile crossed her lips and she patted the human on the head. They had a brief conversation before Dullahan was allowed to rise.

“We’re good. She knows a shortcut into the Underdark, she just thought we might have something to do with the zombies that have been apparently harassing their entrances. We can bring the dead guy too.”

Garl took a deep breath, counted to ten, and said, “I hate him. I really do.”

Sylvia snorted as she pressed a handkerchief against her scratched cheek. “Join the club,” she grumbled before she followed after him.

“You okay, Garl?”

Odra dropped down on Garl’s shoulders and Garl managed a smile before he grabbed the cart and pulled it as they joined the others. “Just fine. How’s your head?”

“I got a thick skull, I shook it off. And Dullahan gave me a potion that I’m pretty sure had a few of his fingernails floating around in it judging by the texture. Very. Sharp. And metallic.”

That was something about that that made Garl shudder. “I hope he lets Sahsi give him manicures sometimes. That’s fucking disgusting.” Dirty fingernails. No thank you.

Funny, he’d wanted to actually bring the hexblood with them, but she wasn’t in her room when he went to recruit her. Pity. He’d prefer her sissy healing potions that smelled like rose petals over whatever gods forsaken crap Dullahan pulled off or out of himself to make his concoctions.

They would’ve missed this entrance to the Underdark if they hadn’t had a drow guard. The leader woman murmured some secret words at a stone and it just rolled out of the way, revealing a dark tunnel that seemed to go on forever. At the sight of it, Odra sighed with relief.

“At least it’ll be cooler down there!”

Next

[teejaystumbles]

Hob lifts his head and, ignoring the throb in his head from the blow, sits up.

There's a tall man in a black robe standing in the corner of the room. His head looks like a weird horrible bird, with giant eyes like an insect that glow in a dark red light. Shadows spread from where he stands and Hob shuffles back on the bed as far as the chain will let him. The head of the man seems to be made of some shining material. Is it a helmet?

Burgess has lifted his cane and shouts: "Begone, demon! You have no power here! This is my house -"

"Be silent."

A deep, angry voice booms like a bell underwater, filling the room and stopping Burgess in his tracks. Hob shivers violently. It can't be.

The being raises a hand and almost casually grabs Burgess by the throat.

"I would have you know...that if I were not forbidden from killing mortals... you, Roderick Burgess... would be dead."

Every word is spoken slowly, carefully, to make the man understand their truth. Hob knows that voice, even distorted by the helmet. He grips the bedding tightly and realises he has been holding his breath. He takes a shuddering gasp of air and the stranger twitches as if coming out of a trance. He releases Burgess, who stumbles back with a cough. His wild eyes fly to Hob and he quickly unsheathes the rapier from his cane and has it at Hob's throat again in a second. Hob is grudgingly impressed, he didn't think the man could move this fast. But the shadows are darkening and while Burgess screams at him they are filling the room more and more.

"This is your doing, isn't it? You can't scare me with this! Send your spirit whence it came or I'll run you through!"

Hob smiles.

"I have no power over him. I told you. I know nothing. And you can run me through, but I'll rise again. And you won't."

He sees the rage and panic flicker in Burgess' eyes and steels himself for the blade pushing through his throat, feels its tip pierce his skin, but the expected pain doesn't come. There's a glittering cloud of sand enveloping his captor and the rapier clatters to the floor. Burgess follows and falls ungracefully onto the carpet. His eyes are empty and he twitches wildly, panicked breaths escaping him.

Hob looks at him for a second before quickly staring at the being filling the whole room with liquid darkness and flickers of otherworldly flames from its robes.

Hob swallows heavily, his pulse is off the charts, he knows. He opens his mouth and manages to say, voice still shaking:

"Hello, old stranger."

Finally the giant shadow takes off its helmet and steps towards Hob's bed as a familiar man in a long black coat.

"Hello, Hob."

His voice is rough and cracking, his eyes are rimmed in red. He looks tired and Hob frowns in concern.

"You look rough. Everything alright?" Hob asks softly. His stranger's eyes widen and he steps even closer, putting one knee on the bed. Slowly he leans over Hob and touches his fingers to his throat. They come away bloody and his stranger visibly swallows.

"You... would think about me... before your own well-being...Hob? After all you've had to endure?"

His other hand comes up to touch the cheek Burgess' cane has struck and Hob feels like his brain isn't working anymore. Both cool hands of his stranger are against his skin and he feels completely overwhelmed. He swallows and chokes against the tears threatening to well up.

"I always worry about you." he whispers. Then he manages: "I don't want to be a burden, but... could you please...get me out of here?"

His stranger's eyes burn with the light of stars and his words are a vow, unbreakable.

"I will. Get you away from here. Hob."

His gaze falls on the shackle around Hob's right ankle and Hob thinks if his look alone could melt it it would. Instead his stranger touches it delicately and the iron turns to sand, releasing Hob's leg. He sighs. "Thank you."

His stranger only nods and then gently grabs Hob by the shoulders and draws him into an embrace. Hob gasps and flails for a second before putting his arms around the narrow back of his friend and sinking into him. His heart is beating faster and he hides his face in his stranger's shoulder, embarrassed. He smells of rain and a bit of the sea, of eiderdown and warmth. It makes Hob inexplicably tired. His stranger's voice is soft like a lullaby.

"Sleep, Hob. I will take you home. Sleep...my friend."

Hob sleeps.

1889 drabble

Continuing from this post

~ Time goes by faster after that. Burgess grants him a few days to get his bearings and strength back.

Hob gets a room - with barred windows, but with a bed, a bath and food and drink. He takes full advantage of everything Burgess offers, if only to make him think him a grateful fool. Better the man thinks his will broken, Hob muses. It will make playing him a lot easier. And so he puts on a meak demeanor and shows respect, as if he's afraid to go back to the cellar. He is, but not as much as he lets Burgess believe - or so he tells himself. The first nights in a bed in over a month have him dreaming repeatedly about Burgess with a dozen arms, every one carrying a knife, coming for him from all sides, cutting out parts of him, labeling them after careful inspection while he chokes on his blood. Every night he jolts awake with a scream and lies awake for the rest of the night, terrified.

~

"My Lord. Don't you think it is time to check on..."

"Lucienne." he warns, but she huffs and continues brusquely: "With all due respect, sir, I believe whatever it is your... acquaintance and you have argued about, you will not like the fact that his dreams are-"

"ENOUGH!" Thunder rolls through the throne room as the Dream Lord rises to a fearsome height to tower over his librarian.

"Must I forbid you from touching his books? Or will you stop speaking about this like I ordered you?" Dream seethes. Lucienne stares back at him in defiance. She clutches a book to her chest. He grabs at it.

"Give that to me. You will not talk about him to me again, have I made myself clear?"

She releases the book and Dream pulls it from her hands and throws it behind himself onto the steps of his throne.

"Yes, my lord." Lucienne grits her teeth and stalks out without his leave. He lets her go.

The book has fallen open on its latest page onto the steps and Dream gives it a dark look, contemplating setting it on fire. Destroying a dreamer's book would be equal to erasing part of their memory, though, and so he holds himself back. Despite himself he steps closer to the book and a few words catch his eye.

be safe

Dream frowns and finally picks up the linen-bound tome and reads the latest dream thoughts of Hob Gadling.

I can endure. I can endure anything as long as you are safe. Please be safe. I don't care if you'll never see me as more than a peasant, but I can't bear to think of what they'd do to you if they catch you.

I'm running. I've been running towards you all my life. Is it still far? How much farther must I go? Where are you? If I stop he'll catch me. If I stop he'll cut me open. I don't know what to tell him. I've told him all I know, all I've learned over the centuries, but I haven't told him about you. He wants to know more. He wants to cut the secret out of me. The knifes are everywhere, they reflect in his eyes when he asks me how I am not dead yet, again, again, and I say I don't know. I am running. If I reach you, will he catch you, too? Don't let me reach you then. Don't let him catch you. I can endure.

Dream's hand shakes and he almost drops the book. He grabs it tightly and flicks back through the pages quickly. Dream after dream, nightmares really, have Hob running and falling, terror and pain spilling from his words. And interspersed with them, again and again, are pleas addressed to Dream (he knows, even without his name), but not for his help, no, but for his safety, to not fall into the same trap as Hob.

You can be hurt, or captured.

Dream has sunk to the stairs while reading and the light in the throne room has gone dim and reddish. He closes the book with a thud and stares at the golden thread stitched across its cover.

Robert Gadling - Dream Journal 1889-present

Dream presses his lips into a tight line and puts the book into his coat. Then he rises and steps towards a small side door, opening it to the library (he is impatient and so the library is right behind this door at this moment). His librarian is nowhere to be seen but he speaks into the library anyway, knowing she will hear it.

"Lucienne. I..." he searches for words but can't bring himself to voice an apology. "I acknowledge that your concern towards a certain dreamer seems justified. I will attend to the matter in the waking world. Please send Jessamy if there is any urgent business."

He doesn't wait for an answer and steps back into his throne room. He pulls out his pouch and pours sand into the air to form a portal.

I can endure. Please be safe.

He pulls on his helmet and steps through the portal with clenched fists.

[genderkoolaid]

omg i really love your transmasc retellings of Beauty and The Beast!! silglskglks can you do Cinderella some other time? if you have the spoons?? hehehe

this is actually very fortuitous b/c I actually had a post talking about transmasc Cinderella a while ago!! I’ve thought about writing a short story about this actually, so I am quite prepared.

So Cinderella, despite being ostensibly a wealthy woman, is constantly dressed in rags and dirty. Her sisters take to femininity freely and gladly, but she is always a failure at it. They view her as ugly and pitiful. Her life is dominated by her female relatives who exert total control over her body and her actions; like many transmascs, she’s resigned to the role of silent, disgusting servant, kept with the rats. Even her name isn’t her own, it was something cruelly forced upon her by her abusive family. 

His Fairy Godmother appears and gives him the appearance of his dreams through transformation. I’m picturing a dope baby blue outfit with gold and rapier at his side, because y’know. Homoerotic swordfighting is a must when it comes to princes. It could be argued this transition changes his physical appearance and not just his clothes, and this is why the prince could not recognize him through sight alone. He transitions when nobody else is home, wearing clothes that his family would never let him wear, in order to sneak away to a ball and dance with a prince (a future… king?). It’s a night where he is finally free of her abusive family and is able to express himself however she wants. He doesn’t even have to tell the prince the name she was forced to use.

But then it’s midnight, and she has to get home– the need to get back in the closet before your family can notice is a struggle many closeted trans people can relate to. She has to run away and leaves behind the classic shoe.

I’ve imagined the shoe-putting-on scene, reworked for a transmasc Cinderella, to function like this: The prince is looking for a man, but the shoe is too small for every man he finds. When he comes to Cinderella’s house, her stepmother tells him there are no men in the house, but invites him in anyways so her daughters can flirt with him.

And while he’s there, he sees Cinderella. And even without the magic he recognizes the man he met. And he speaks to him in private and gives him the shoe, and allows him to choose to put it on and prove he is the man he’s been trying to find.

And then they go get get gaymarried (knighting ceremony) and birds still pluck out the eyes of the stepsisters. Because what’s a trans fairytale without a little grim(m) violence towards transphobes, hmm?

Specifically in the short story I mentioned, I’ve played around with the idea of using Cinderella to emphasize the experience of being too masculine to be a girl, and not being allowed to partake in activities that cis women would. The stepmother encouraging her daughters to be independent and educated, for example, but banning those things for Cinderella. Or, Cinderella being told not to cut her hair because it’s “her one good (feminine) feature.” Also, Cinderella sneaking into her father’s room to “clean” and trying on his suits in private. I think there’s also something to be said, when transmasculinizing Disney stories, for how many princesses have dead mothers, and the idea that trans men transition because they didn’t have a proper ~female~ influence. 

I just think transmascs deserve a story where a trans man gets to escape his abusive mother and sisters and get to magically transition and get a cool sword and a cool romance and be happy and safe, y’know?

[pregablin]

Would you consider drawing a Jazzy/blusey D&D creation Bard owl(let)? (So anthro owl, has arms, legs) He playes the Saxophone,He's a sassy bird who plays the smoothest jazz. Wears fancy bards clothes (think the feathered hats, ect) and carries a rapier a long with his Sax. Hes black/white with intense green eyes, and he dresses very brightly. His name is Felix Songbeak:) thanks for considering! He is a African barred owl type:)

I started free sketch project so i could try and learn not to overwork my sketches and do them fast, but i ended up overworking like hell. I just really like this character description. Its far from a sketch but also far from a finished drawing. So this is where i stop working on it, hope u like it :) (i wanted to add midsummer flower vibes like a midsummer spiritual bard that comes with "lovesongs") (hope someone else feels inspired to continue or do more art of this character, its a really cool idea)

[lala-ladybug]

Healing Hands: Chapter 5

Can you say ~trauma~?

Jasonette Sword Art Online AU

Read here on AO3

Tag list: @iloontjeboontje

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Chapter 5: Yes, Dick? You’re looking particularly dickish today

After so much commotion, the silence as they sat made Marinette’s ears ring. She and her Order were gathered in the spacious living room of Chloe’s house. After checking to make sure it was empty, she and the other miraculous holders had reassured their civilian classmates and sent them off to bed. They’d spent the better part of the day getting out of the overcrowded town. Thank Kwami they hadn’t still been travelling after the sun went down, but the noises from the woods still kept them all awake. Kagami had dug out a teapot from the kitchen cabinets and brewed several mugs for those who had needed one. No one was hungry.

Marinette’s hands shook slightly as she sipped her tea. That was another blessing, that Chloe’s VIP pass included a partially stocked kitchen to begin with. They would explore the rest of the house tomorrow, but for now, while the others rested.... They needed to talk.

She set her cup down with a sound that was amplified in the heavy quiet, then took a deep breath. “Okay....” The words felt strange in her mouth. She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “Can anyone sense their Kwami?”

She looked around at the blank faces of her friends as they all tried to reach for their respective powers. Chloe’s lip trembled, but her eyes were dry. Luka and Kagami’s jaws clenched, and Adrien frowned as he shook his head.

“None of us can, then,” Luka stated evenly, finally voicing what she’d been afraid of.

Marinette bit her lip. Kagami placed her cup of tea down forcefully. “What are we going to do.” It wasn’t a question so much as a statement.

Marinette rubbed her eyes. Kwami, what could they do? They should count themselves lucky they weren’t dead yet. She could only imagine her Maman and Papa’s panic, but they hadn’t tried to pull her out, so she hadn’t....

They could still die though, if what the Game Master had said was true. If their HP dropped to zero, they would die. There was no Second Chance or Lucky Charm this time. But they were still likely among the best trained people in the game. Her mind was made up.

“We fight.” She finally said with all the confidence she could muster. “There are thousands of civilians stuck in here with us, so we need to fight for them. We need to beat the level bosses in order to advance, right?” The question was rhetorical, but Chloe nodded and Kagami blinked in affirmation all the same.

“Good,” Marinette stood up. “We will be the ones to fight these bosses. So they don’t have to. Think about it, even without our Kwami, we still have an edge on everyone else here. The faster we beat the game, the faster they can go home.”

“And us too!” Adrien jumped up with a smile. “And us too,” Marinette echoed.

Luka drained his tea and stood next. “So it’s settled then,” he put a hand on her shoulder, steady as ever.

“Indeed,” Kagami rose beside them.

Chloe stared up at them, eyes wide. “You really think we can do this?” She asked in a small voice.

Marinette looked her in the eye and said, “I know we can.” The blonde released a small sigh and stood as well. A gleam of determination entered her eye as she said, “Okay. Let’s go save everyone from this ridiculous game.”

* * *

Jason, Jaime, Cassie, and Zatanna returned to the center of town. It was nearly deserted now, the murky twilight creating pockets of shadows around the square, perfect for hiding lurking figures. But it was nothing Jason couldn’t handle. In fact, with his current mood, he damn well dared them to try.

They’d spent hours hacking away at the wild boars, Jaime even joining in as his allergies permitted him. The four had gained a few player levels and a decent amount of money and loot. But damn if it wasn’t tiring as hell.

His crossbow was much more taxing than using guns, and it used different muscles in his shoulders and arms than he was accustomed to working. He could tell the others were similarly weighed down by exhaustion. Cassie’s whip demanded an endurance she wasn’t used to without her super strength, Jaime’s throws of a handaxe grew increasingly shorter the longer they fought, and Zatanna wasn’t used to fighting with physical weapons at all. It took everything they had left to drag themselves back into town.

One of the shadows a few feet away swam with sudden movement. Jason equipped his crossbow, arms shaking with the effort of just holding it. Damnit, now was not a good time, but he’d still fight these bastards with everything he had.

He relaxed when he saw it was Dick and the rest of Team Alpha approaching. Putting his weapon away, Jason crossed his arms and planted his feet firmly. Dick better have gotten them those fucking beds for the night.

“We’re just waiting on Beta,” Dick said in a low voice. “Then we can go to the inn and regroup.” The others could regroup. Jason would be heading right to sleep. He stalked over to the brick wall Bart sat slumped against and leaned his shoulder against it. The cool roughness grounded him and kept his eyes open.

He distantly heard Zatanna telling Dick that they had made out okay in the west. Unnecessary talking when there were other players listening nearby. He swallowed against the urge to forcibly silence them that was rising in his blood. It sang with the persistent thrum of battle, unshakable as it was insistent. He closed his eyes and counted his breaths. One. Breathe out and picture a color. Blue. Breathe in. Two. Out. Yellow. In. Three. Out. Green.

He’d barely reached ten by the time Tim led his group back to join them. The song in his blood stilled for now, he pushed off of the wall and followed as Dick and Wally guided them to the inn. He hardly registered his surroundings as they entered and divvied up the rooms. He, Dick, Tim, and Wally were in one room, the girls in another, and the other boys in a third. The place seemed clean enough as he cast his tired eyes around the tavern.

They climbed the stairs to their rooms and settled in each. Dick and Tim sat on their beds talking about going to the other boys’ room-- the largest of the three-- to discuss strategy. Jason hardly heard them as his head hit the pillow and he fell asleep.

* * *

The warmth of the early morning sun on her face woke Marinette up. She stretched and yawned, wincing at her soreness. Sometimes this game was a little too realistic. In the bed beside hers, Chloe grumbled something about the girls’ room having no curtains over the window and rolled over.

Marinette gave a strained smile at that. She quietly dressed and descended the ladder from their small loft to where the rest of the girls were still sleeping, and tip-toed out to the hall.

Down the stairs was the kitchen, empty save for a softly steaming tea kettle that meant Kagami and Luka would soon be joining her. She prepared dough to make fresh croissants as she had every couple of days for the past few weeks since they’d been trapped in the game.

The thought briefly gave her pause, that they’d already been here for close to a month, but she shook it off and formed the croissants onto the baking tray. She slid them into the oven just as Kagami and Luka trailed in from the garden. They’d been harvesting the already-ripe blueberries, and laid a heaping basket of them on the countertop.

Chloe’s VIP pass had saved their lives and then some. It came with a comfortably sized house that included a full kitchen, sitting area, storage room, balcony, two massive bedrooms with enough room to house all twelve of them, a garden ready to be planted in, and stables already stocked with several horses. It really was luxurious, and if they weren’t trapped in the game, she would have found it much more enjoyable.

The property also included a small pond that had proved to give a refreshing swim after training sessions, a well, and a few acres of woods. The latter was where they did most of their monster-training. Marinette had already reached a player level of 10 just by fighting the various denizens of their backyard. The rest of the new Order wasn’t far behind her, ranging from levels 7 to 10 between the four of them.

“Good morning, Marihime,” Kagami inclined her head respectfully, then poured the tea into three waiting mugs. Luka thanked her and shot Marinette a quick smile as way of greeting.

She nodded back and stirred a generous helping of sugar into her mug. The three sipped their tea while they waited for the croissants to bake. Once they were finished and cooling, Marinette and the others donned cloaks to protect against the morning chill and started their brisk morning walk into town.

The dirt path wound down to the base of the hill where several more paths for other player houses split off the main track that they now set on. The lush grass on either side was covered in a slight blanket of mist from the evaporating morning dew. Birds chirped high above, darting between the sparse trees. The walk took about a half hour, and their tea was nearly finished by the time they arrived at the outskirts of the city.

Kagami polished off her mug and placed it back in her inventory, then rested her hand warily on the hilt of her rapier as they began encountering more people. Their destination, a news stand, was thankfully not too close to the center of town. The less people they encountered, the better.

“Get your daily paper here! New news every day! Two copper pieces for a paper, one gold for a yearly subscription.” Marinette veered towards the NPC shouting her wares.

“Hi, one paper please,” she said breathlessly, and slid two copper pieces onto the counter.

“Here you go!” The vendor, an ample woman of thirty, took the coins and handed Marinette a folded newspaper with a smile. “You know, you’re one of my best customers. I’ll give you a deal,” she winked, “how about fifty silver for a yearly subscription!”

“Oh, that’s very kind of you miss, but I’m afraid we won’t be staying quite that long,” Marinette replied. At least, she hoped not.

“Very well dear, have a lovely day!” The NPC thankfully seemed unbothered, and went back to shouting her prices to the general population.

Luka and Kagami moved from their posts of casually guarding Marinette while she dealt with the woman manning the stall. The three set off back the way they’d come, ready for another day of training and exploring the first level.

Marinette unfolded the newspaper and skimmed the headlines while they walked, trusting her companions to keep an eye out for her. However, they weren’t expecting her to stop dead in her tracks. It took a moment for them to turn around and backtrack to where she stood staring intently at the paper in her hands.

“Holy Kwami....” She said, and read the article title again. “‘Exploration team finds boss dungeon entrance!’” She read aloud.

Luka moved to peer over her shoulder and read it alongside her. “You know what this means?” He asked with a small smile.

Kagami put her hand on Marinette’s shoulder. “We are on the path to ending this.”

* * *

Jason woke up to an empty house. It had only been a few weeks since the start of the game, and his idiot brothers were out in the village. Again. He groaned at the motion of swinging his legs off the bed to sit up. Training to get used to the in-game movements was getting old.

He stood and rubbed the back of his neck, loosening some of the stiffness that seemed to have soaked into his bones. He went downstairs to the spacious kitchen to get some fruits for breakfast. With twelve people to make money and collect resources, the team had made quick work of purchasing a large house to use as a base.

Grabbing a few apples for the road, Jason traced the now-familiar path to find Dick and a few of the others in a communal amphitheater. Bart and Wally were handing out flyers near the entrances, chatting people up and trying to convince them to come listen to where Dick and Tim were speaking below.

Jason took a seat next to Artemis, near the back. “At it again?” He asked her, crunching into his apple.

She was leaning forward to prop her elbows on her knees, her chin resting in cupped hands. “Yup,” she said, popping the “p.” She sighed and sat up. “All week, and we’ve only got a handful of recruits.”

“We’re all in this together after all,” Dick was saying loudly. “So join us to help end this game! I have a plan to train recruits for taking on the first level boss.”

Jason yawned. Same old fuckin’ stupid plan. There’s just no way to make risking your life sound enticing. “The others still out hunting?” He nudged Artemis’s knee with his own.

She nodded in affirmation, looking similarly discouraged and bored. He got up and started to leave, deciding to make himself useful and join the rest of the team in fighting.

“Jason!” A shout made him stop. He looked to the sky and muttered to himself about patience, then turned to face his brother. “Yes, Dick? You’re looking particularly dickish today.”

Dick crossed his arms. “Haha, very funny. If you’re not busy, I could really use you here spreading the word.”

“Look, people just don’t want to go up against something they’ve never faced before. Hell, half these dumbasses haven’t even been in a real fight before.” He shook his head. “This is a waste of time. I’m going to fight some monsters so that I can level up and be ready for when we inevitably face the big bad without these posers.”

Dick narrowed his eyes at that. “Now hold on a minute, we have no idea what we’re going up against here. We need a bigger group before we’re ready to go up against the boss. More than half of us aren’t up to par with our special moves out of the picture, and we’re still trying to figure out the gameplay.” He held his hands out placatingly. “An exploration group just found the probable location of the boss dungeon, so that’s half the battle already. We just need to wait for more recruits and a more solid plan.”

“So how long are we supposed to wait, Dick?” Jason asked incredulously. “A week? A month? A year? How many people are going to die while we ‘figure out’ how to do something we already damn well know how to do.” He poked an accusatory finger at Dick’s chest. “We’ve been training for weeks already, we can handle this.”

“I hear you Jay, but we have no idea what kind of a threat this is going to be. We need to take our time and--”

“What you need is a fucking backbone. We’re the best hope that thousands of people have at surviving! I say we train some more and then fight the damn thing ourselves, recruits or no.” He couldn’t believe Dick. Saving people was supposed to be his schtick, not Jason’s. “Hundreds of people have already died, in case you forgot, and this is only the first fucking level. Time is a luxury we do not have.”

Dick looked ready to retort when a young boy came up to him and tapped him on the elbow. “Excuse me, mister? I’m interested in recruitment!”

Jason took advantage of the distraction and stalked off towards the center of town. What a... well, Mr. and Mrs. Grayson picked a damn good name.

If Dick wanted to know what they were up against, then fine. He’d go find out for him.

[lacharcutiere]

𝖄𝖔𝖚’𝖑𝖑 𝕭𝖊 𝕸𝖞 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖘𝖙 𝕸𝖆𝖙𝖊 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝕴’𝖑𝖑 𝕭𝖊 𝖄𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝕭𝖗𝖔

ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰɪʀꜱᴛ; ᴏɴᴇ ᴛʜᴏᴜꜱᴀɴᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛᴡᴏ ʜᴜɴᴅʀᴇᴅ ᴡᴏʀᴅꜱ. ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ

prose inspired by the dick, charles. this is kind of historically accurate ?? and also on a lot of crack. also SIDE NOTE LMAO the AMOUNT OF RESEARCH i did for this fgdhjjsd because i wanted all the language and clothing and stuff to be pretty historically accurate (fun fact, first known use of “fuck” was in the 15th century !! language is incredible). this has been sitting in my google drive forever bc i cant figure out how to end it but i've been wanting to post it for forever so i think i'm just gonna do it as a series and have it go on for as long as i can think of more shenanigans

𝕿𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔥𝔞𝔡 𝔭𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔡 𝔞 𝔤𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔱 𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔩 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔦𝔪𝔢 with not a grain of sand nor a smattering of fresh bird droppings in sight, and the young men aboard the ship had begun to grow weary. Yet their captain and his first mate did not despair; perhaps—ironically—the last semblance of sanity which remained aboard that godforsaken vessel.

He went by the name of Kuroo, the captain, and cut a rather striking figure: he neglected to wear a coat, even in the cool winds of the open seas, instead donning a wine-red doublet over his shirt (Cold is but the absence of warmth, he oft said, and thus I never feel it), and his feathered velveteen beret was perpetually askew, hair mussed underneath it.

His first mate was called Bokuto, a strong, broad-shouldered young man without the demeanor to match. Instead, he was soft; kind-hearted and simple-minded, slow to anger and slow to wit.

‘Twas but another uneventful day at sea, or so they assumed upon waking that morning. At approximately half past eleven Kuroo was lazing in the chart room and neglecting his duties when he heard a commotion outside. It was then that the door swung open, and Ushijima stood just past the swollen wooden frame.

“Land, Captain.”

With great vigor, Kuroo rose from his seat and rushed past him, out to the main deck, where there was great joyful unrest among his boys: there had passed such a long time without the luxury of solid ground that they were approaching the point of forgetting anything but the rhythmic sway of water beneath their feet.

And so Kuroo took to the helm, and saw Bokuto in the crow’s nest, about to come tumbling down from it for he was imbued with such overwhelming excitement.

And Kuroo spoke: “My brethren,” he addressed them, “we are soon to arrive.”

To which Oikawa, whose presence provided the boys the luxury of a resident apprentice physician, responded, “We are aware, Cap’n.”

And Kuroo said, “Quiet, wilt thou! Speak not back to your captain.” He was met with compliance to his request, but it was accompanied with a miffed roll of the eyes.

“At times like these,” Kuroo continued, “I feel compelled to deliver an address.” He ignored the remarks which Oikawa and Terushina made under their breath. “And so I say: it is evident that though ye and I, brothers, possess no significance to the unfolding of the stars above us or the torrents of these storms which we have so solidly endured, we are great.

“Alas!” said Terushima under his breath as Kuroo continued.

“And we shall spread word of this greatness of ours to the peoples of this land which we have discovered most recently!”

“Aye!” came the echoing cheers of the crew.

There was a squawk of a gull above the crow’s nest, then, and it landed itself at the top of the mast and shat, narrowly avoiding the first mate’s head.

“Methinks it’d be best to come down from here, Cap’n,” called Bokuto.

“Come down, then; and thou needn’t tell me, my brother. Do whatever it is, that which suits thee best,” Kuroo shouted back.

“Aye,” said Bokuto, and he let himself down.

—

A short time later, they reached the land: the boys were nearly tripping over their own feet as they disembarked, praising the heavens for the gift of dry land.

It was now a strange feeling, though, Daichi lamented, to stand on ground which did not sway with the currents and the tides.

But they were so glad! They rejoiced and fell at nature’s feet and kissed the sand beneath them—a decision they soon came to regret, seeing that the grains took advantage of the openness of their mouths and eyes and settled themselves there.

A small number of them—Ushijima and Kita and Daichi—were more sensible, refraining from such imprudent displays of gratitude, and watched as the others swiftly jumped back to their feet, spitting sand and wailing at the sting of it in their eyes. And such humor settled itself upon the three, so as to tug a little at the corners of their lips; even the captain had made a fool of himself and so they laughed.

But Kuroo was, for the most part, unfazed, and he picked himself up from the ground and said, “Bleh! Fucking sand, it gets everywhere,” and he dusted it from his breeches.

Then, with a dramatic flourish, he unsheathed his sword—a fine rapier with its hilt plated in gold—and he pointed it to the sky. “Onward, my brothers!” he said, and, experiencing some difficulty, he sheathed it again as the last of the boys got to their feet.

Bokuto was at his side: “To where, Kuroo?”

Kuroo’s response came in the form of a blank stare. “Onward, I said.”

“Aye, Kuroo, to where? Does thou not see the vastness of this land we’ve come ashore to?”

“‘Tis land,” said Kuroo, and after a moment’s pause, announced, “We go inland.”

“There’s nowhere else to go, now, is there?” came Oikawa’s voice.

And turning to him, Kuroo spoke through gritted teeth, “It was not to thee whom I was speaking,” under his breath, adding, “Damned pseudo-intellectual.”

“Might I remind thee that I am the physician of this ship?”

“Have more respect for thy captain, cheap whore. Furthermore, thou art but a physician’s apprentice, if thou wish to be so called.”

Rightly offended and wrongly prideful, Oikawa turned, pretending not to have heard him, and Kuroo was utterly unbothered by this. He righted himself then, and turned his back to the sea. “On we go, lads!”

And they went.

—

But there was little of interest on this isle where they landed; it was only sand and softer earth further inland, and grass and a selection of trees (which, Daichi noted, were astonishingly similar to those of the land from whence they came). There were few birds.

Thusly, after having spent a day there, they were once again on their way.

They remained near the coast of this isle for some time, though, seeing as it was rather large and therefore they had been unable to traverse much of its terrain on foot, and desiring to know whether more interesting findings were to be found further down.

And there were! After sailing another day, they came across a port, and there Kuroo ordered the ship to be docked. The men at the harbor required a fee which he could not pay in currency, he offered them instead recompense in the form of the apprentice physician.

Though Oikawa was at first vehemently opposed to this, he was soon somewhat placated by the first mate’s vow that they would return later to recover him.

So they went on into the town that they had found; a city crawling with life and fowl. It was evening, and they were in need of a place to stay. But they had little money on their persons, and thus they were in need of finding some beforehand.

[tigerkirby215]

5e Qiyana, Empress of the Elements build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Aley Ghallan. Made for Riot Games.)

So it turns out I was wrong about Evelynn: there is another champion who doesn’t have “the” in the title! Leave it to Qiyana to be special. Anyways: after making this post my brain decided to hype fixate on a potential Qiyana build and then... oops. It suddenly got made. Truth be told I still haven’t got a goddamn clue how Qiyana works in-game.

GOALS

Not my fault; they should have bowed - Qiyana’s an assassin which of course means we need assassin damage.

Let us throw rocks at them and laugh - The Empress of the Elements needs elements to control! Earth, Wind, Fire, and Air!

Why are you in my space? - Riot sort of just... decided Qiyana should have two dashes in her kit? I guess?

RACE

Qiyana is clearly human but the Ixtali have some innate magic to them, so for control over the primal magic of (area with trees) go for a Half-Elf for Fey Ancestry to resist charms and sleeping.

But we won’t just be going for any Half-Elf. You know me I use Dragonmarks way too much, but it works since the Dragonmarked houses are above the rest. We’ll be going for a Mark of Storm to control both the oceans and the river! As a Mark of Storm Half-Elf your Charisma increases by 2 (as per usual) and your Dexterity increases by 1. You have Windwright’s Intuition to add a d4 to any Acrobatics checks you may make (as well as Navigator’s Tools which is slightly less important), and the Storm’s Boon to resist Lightning damage. "I see you have mastered the element of wind."

Of course what we’re mainly here for is Headwinds for a bit of elemental manipulation! You can cast Gust at will, and at third level you can cast Gust of Wind once per Long Rest as a very shitty version of your ultimate! You can also learn a language of your choice and Primordial would let you speak to the earth; it’s up to you to make sure it listens!

IF DRAGONMARKS AREN’T AN OPTION: Both Drow Half-Elf and Wood Half-Elf work very well for Qiyana. Drow gives you more spells while Wood makes it easier for you to hide. You’d also get more ASIs by going for a regular Half Elf (as opposed to a Dragonmarked race) so put the +1 you’d get into Strength.

ABILITY SCORES

15; DEXTERITY - Qiyana is a master of acrobatics, doing flips and kicks as she so desires.

14; CHARISMA - A ruler is meant to be attractive... and imposing.

13; STRENGTH - That ring you carry is heavy. Also it’s a multiclassing requirement.

12; CONSTITUTION - Qiyana is squishy in League but that doesn’t mean she has to be squishy for this build.

10; INTELLIGENCE - You must know your legacy in order to rule, and while your magic is a natural gift it’s good to know your way around Arcana.

8; WISDOM - So what if you have a hot head? You can shape the river to cool yourself off!

BACKGROUND

And here you were thinking I’d use Noble... Not many know of the Ixtali people, so you’re more of a Far Traveler than anything else. You get proficiency with skills but they don’t really fit you to be honest, so take Arcana and Nature proficiency to know your natural magic. You also gain proficiency with a musical instrument or gaming set of your choice (pick your fancy) and a language of your choice (also pick your fancy!)

But most importantly you know that you have All Eyes on You. Everyone knows you’re from the great land of Ixtal, and some will offer you service to know of the history of your great land. Won’t they be excited to know they’ll be joining your kingdom too?

(Artwork by Jennifer Wuestling. Made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - ROGUE 1

You are an assassin, and an empress needs as many skills as she can get. Take proficiency in Acrobatics (obviously) and the three big Charisma skills: Deception, Persuasion, and Intimidation. You could get Performance instead for some TRUE DAMAGE, but trust me when I say Performance barely ever comes up in standard D&D. You also get Expertise in two skills: Nature and Arcana are kinda your thing, so...

As an empress you know just the right way to word your phrases to sound like Thieves’ Cant, and can understand any roguish discussion of those trying to overtake your throne. But of course as an assassin you’re expected to build lethality and Sneak Attack, doing an extra d6 to any enemy who mispositioned. 

LEVEL 2 - ROGUE 2

Second level Rogues get their Cunning Action, allowing you to have the Audacity to Dash, Disengage, or Hide as a Bonus Action. It’s really nice when I can recreate League of Legends dashes as just... the Dash action.

LEVEL 3 - ROGUE 3

Third level Rogues get to choose their Roguish Archetype and Swashbucklers can move from enemy to enemy with ease and taunt them all the while. As a Swashbuckler you get two features but it’s more like three features: Fancy Footwork lets you dash away from a foe you’ve just hit without taking opportunity attacks.

Rakish Audacity meanwhile lets you Sneak Attack anyone who doesn’t have bodyguards, and has the added benefit of letting you add your Charisma to initiative rolls! "Some wait their turn, and some take what they deserve." Speaking of Sneak Attack: your Sneak Attack also increases to 2d6, and you also get Gust of Wind from your race now!

LEVEL 4 - ROGUE 4

4th level Rogues get an Ability Score Improvement: Dexterity kind of controls... everything that you do at the moment? So a +2 increase to DEX will go a long way.

(Artwork by eollynart on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 5 - PALADIN 1

Did you swear an oath to Ixtal? Well it doesn’t matter. As a Paladin you have a Divine Sense to know the lay of the land: if there are any Celestials, Fiends, Fey, or Undead walking through your river or if the land is Consecrated or Desecrated. The ability does have a limited number of uses and a limited range however, so be mindful.

You can also heal yourself (or others, I guess) with a Corrupting Potion thanks to Lay on Hands. You can even cure Poisons or Diseases with 5 health points, because no one is assassinating this empress!

LEVEL 6 - PALADIN 2

Second level Paladins get to choose their Fighting Style: while it may not be the most effective you need to control the elements, and Blessed Warrior will give you some more minor control over the world around you. Thaumaturgy is the main one we’re here for because we can’t get Prestidigitation, and while it’s perhaps not the most in-character Guidance is still always useful to have, if only to use it on yourself.

Now would also be a good chance to talk about your Ring Blade ohmlatl: I actually think opting for Two Weapon Fighting with Qiyana works quite well to recreate her weapon! I’d opt for two Scimitars but Shortswords obviously work well too. Alternatively a Rapier and Shield would still let you Sneak Attack while also letting you block attacks.

Of course you don’t just get cantrips: you get actual Spellcasting! You can prepare a number of spells equal to your Charisma modifier plus half your Paladin level (rounded down.) Divine Favor will let you use your passive to get more damage and Thunderous Smite will let you knock a foe down as if stunning them with an icy blade.

Other than that? Command suits you well but there are few other spells we really need. I’d recommend you ignore all of that and concentrate on Divine Smite, turning magic into raw damage with your blade! "I command you to die!"

LEVEL 7 - PALADIN 3

The magic of Ixtal is ancient and to bend it to your will look no further than the Oath of the Ancients. You learn both Ensnaring Strike and Speak with Animals as Oath Spells (one of which is far more in-character than the other, but hey the birds can bow to you too), and you get two Channel Divinity options:

Nature’s Wrath will let you ensnare a creature within 10 feet of you. (It’s supposed to be flavored as vines but I’d reflavor it as ice from the river.) They can make a Strength or Dexterity saving throw or get free, but if they fail they will be restrained until they break out. Yeah there’s no max duration on this! Yes they can repeat the save each turn but the point still stands!

Turn the Faithless meanwhile is your standard turning effect, only this affects Feys and Fiends. The jungle natives know to bow to you, and usurpers shall be made to bow!

LEVEL 8 - PALADIN 4

4th level means another Ability Score Improvement but I don’t think we’ve hidden in the grass enough. The Shadow Touched feat will let you increase your Charisma by 1 and will also give you the Invisibility spell for when you need it. You can also learn a first level Illusion or Necromancy spell like Disguise Self to change up your wardrobe as necessary. You can cast both these spells once per Long Rest without using a spell slot, but can then use your spell slots to cast them some more.

Speaking of spells you can prepare more of them. But again: not much I really want. I’d recommend waiting for...

LEVEL 9 - PALADIN 5

5th level Paladins get an Extra Attack, allowing you to attack twice in one turn for more chances to Sneak Attack, Smite, or both!

Additionally you get a lot of good stuff at this level! You can learn Misty Step and Moonbeam as Oath Spells to recreate Flash and what we’ll call your ultimate for the sake of this build. You can also prepare Branding Smite for more Elemental Wrath and uhhhh... oops that’s kinda all I want. I mean Lesser Restoration is nice in a pinch. Truthfully it’s 3rd level where the true Qiyana spells come in.

(Artist unknown. Artwork made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 10 - PALADIN 6

6th level Paladins can evade any danger with their natural beauty. Aura of Protection grants a saving throw boost equal to your Charisma modifier to yourself and anyone within 10 feet of you, so their empress can lead and put those who oppose her in the dirt.

LEVEL 11 - PALADIN 7

Oh did you think a bonus to saving throws wasn’t enough? Well as an Ancients Paladin you get Aura of Warding as well, giving yourself (and your allies) resistance to magic! This means that if you succeed on a saving throw against a spell you’ll take a quarter damage total (half of a half), and even if you (somehow) fail you’ll still only take half damage! "You are right to fear my greatness."

LEVEL 12 - PALADIN 8

8th level means another Ability Score Improvement: cap off that uneven Charisma score as well as your uneven Strength, because a +2 modifier is nice even if you aren’t really using it.

LEVEL 13 - PALADIN 9

9th level Paladins can cast third level spells which means oh boy: I get to tell you all the spells you should prepare to be in-character for Qiyana that you’re never going to be able to cast with your limited spell slots! Regardless Ancients Paladins get Plant Growth and Protection from Energy added to their spell list, to manipulate the elements to their liking. But with four other spells to prepare what should we take?

Elemental Weapon is the “yeah duh” spell, letting you invoke Elemental Wrath and really get value out of your passive. (It also makes your weapon a +1 which is helpful.)

Spirit Shroud is like Elemental Weapon but objectively better except for the fact that it doesn’t deal elemental damage. (Well it can deal Cold damage.) But instead of a d4 extra damage you’ll do a d8, and you can also slow those near you!

And again: I don’t really want any other spells. Almost like Qiyana is an AD champ masquerading as a spellcaster. You are allowed to take Cure Wounds you know? Just saying.

(Artwork by Mavoly on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 14 - ROGUE 5

Hey aren’t you an assassin? Shouldn’t we be concentrating on like, assassin stuff? 5th level Rogues get Uncanny Dodge, letting you spend your reaction to halve the damage of an attack against you. This would affect attack rolls from spells like Shocking Grasp, meaning it would stack with Aura of Warding, but you can’t Uncanny Dodge a spell to only take an eighth of the damage.

Oh and your Sneak Attack (finally!) increases to 3d6.

LEVEL 15 - ROGUE 6

6th level Rogues get Expertise in two more skills. By this point you should probably be at peak performance with Acrobatics. After that pick your poison for one of your Charisma skills if you want to deal in public relations, subterfuge, or pop music.

LEVEL 16 - ROGUE 7

Are saving throws still (somehow) getting you down? Well Evasion just makes it so you take 0 damage if you succeed on a Dexterity saving throw, and only half damage on a failure! It’s probably worth mentioning that you currently have a +13 DEX save. To put this into perspective Tiamat’s breath weapon is a DC 27 DEX save; meaning that you have a 30% chance to take zero damage from an attack from Tiamat.

Oh and your Sneak Attack increases to 4d6, so you can then destroy Tiamat with a Supreme Display of Talent.

LEVEL 17 - ROGUE 8

8th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement: Dexterity still controls our AC and attack rolls (along with many other things) and it still isn’t maxed, so capping it off at 20 would be a good idea. "Jaw-dropping, I know."

(Artwork by LittleKumaArt on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 18 - PALADIN 10

Rounding this build off with a final few levels in Paladin: level 10 Paladins get Aura of Courage, because if you’ve lasted long enough to hit level 18 why would you be afraid of anything? "So basic."

LEVEL 19 - PALADIN 11

11th level Paladins get Improved Divine Smite, letting them add a d8 Radiant damage to any hit with your weapon (not just hits with Divine Smite, despite the name.)

But I’m going to be honest: what I really wanted was the extra third level spell slot. Not that an extra d8 every attack isn’t good though! Show off that Royal Privilege!

LEVEL 20 - PALADIN 12

12th level Paladins get our final Ability Score Improvement: cap off your Charisma for a +5 Aura of Protection, and also more spells to prepare. "If talent were an element, perhaps I could throw some at them."

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Smash these idiots, won't you? - It may be a surprise to you but Rogues and Paladins are both very good at doing damage. 4d6 of Sneak Attack damage is never a bad thing, and that d8 from Improved Divine Smite helps too. And if they’re still standing then a regular Divine Smite will quickly force them to bow. What’s really nice is that unlike other Rogues you are practically guaranteed the Royal Privilege of Sneak Attacking your foes!

I would say “watch and learn,” but unfortunately you cannot learn this - Having a few spells in your back pocket never hurt anyone, and even your weakest spells pack quite a punch. Divine Favor stacks up over a long combat, and Ensnaring Strike can set an enemy up for failure.

Some people are just born better - I swear this happens whenever I make either a Rogue or a Paladin but it turns out that Rogue and Paladin are both extremely good at resisting damage. Evasion combined with Aura of Protection is huge but the biggest factor that makes this build so crazy is Aura of Warding. Ancients Paladin is one of the best Paladins in the game specifically because you take half damage from magic. Add this all onto a Rogue who can dash as a Bonus Action every turn, essentially got the Mobile feat for free, and has 135 health? You can be everywhere at once and you foes can’t do anything about it.

CONS

It is exhausting to crush you so much - While all your spells are amazing they’re also very limited. 3 spell slots for your best tricks means that you won’t pull them off too often. It also means that your Smiting abilities are a little limited overall.

That was no crushing; that was merely a squeeze - Multiclassing does give you a taste of everything but it also means that you miss out on the best of both worlds. Your sneak attack could be higher, and you didn’t get any of the particularly powerful Paladin features. 

I'm extremely good... at everything - Well except for one thing: Wisdom. While Aura of Protection helps you somewhat with Wisdom saves +4 means nothing against higher tier spells. And of course a -1 to Perception and Insight never helped anyone.

But your greatness far overshadows your flaws. Show them that greatness and let the nature around you help magnify your magnificence. It is your right to conquer above all, and subject those beneath you for the glory of Ixaocan. Don’t let silly things like “sisters” or “birthright” or “hard CC” stop you. Go fight that 1v5 and prove how great you are!

(Artwork by Jessica “OwleyCat” Oyhenart. Made for Riot Games.)

[mevekagvain]

Chapter 121 - I hope none of the birds affected by the sleeping gas died from falling from a height, especially if they fell on concrete. I don't think the gas itself would affect the birds but it also very well might since they can't handle as much due to being much smaller animals or from not being able to handle the chemicals used.

Chapter 122 - Shark's expressions are so hideous 🤢

- At least Raizel knows how to be nice by sharing food lmao. Frankenstein beaming like a proud father of a 2-year-old who's doing that is definitely not praxis though.

Chapter 124 - Shark being astounded that nobles care about innocents is amusing. I suppose that aside from the Elders, the Union members think nobles consider other species to be inferior or like cockroaches or toys.

- Although I do find Frankenstein plotting to teach Seira cooking so she can cook for Raizel when he can't extremely funny, I do also find it somewhat disturbing. He's essentially making a teen girl do child labour. Yes she and Regis are imposing on him and I do think they should be doing some manner of chores, but making her cook lavish meals? I also know she's doing it willingly but it still makes me cringe since something being one's choice doesn't negate it being bad. And yes technically she's 'of age' since she's 217, whatever that means since she's still obviously a teen compared to Raizel who actually is an adult going to school with children (which is a whole other can of worms), but aside from her position as clan leader she's very obviously not viewed as an adult by most.

Chapter 125 - On one hand I'd love to get a front row seat to the internal drama within the DA-5 lile M-21 but otoh I don't want to die a painful death or get beaten up.

- So like obviously Seira knows that Raizel and Frankenstein aren't ordinary humans unlike Regis but it is hilarious to think she just told the truth to two men she thinks are frail innocent humans.

Chapter 127 - You'd really think that the Union would be investing more into memory altering drugs but nah. The only ones they have will also fuck your brain up. Really not a good idea when most of your agents/experiments obviously have been administered aforementioned drugs. If it was only used sparingly on civilians I'd get it but it's quite widespread so...

Chapter 128 - As much as Frankenstein complains about the mess the kids make, he enjoys having them over as much as Raizel does. Soft hearted bastard.

Chapter 130 - The girls bandaging M-21 up even as Regis fights has them being smarter than like 90% of other characters in media. They're the real reason he didn't hit the dust immediately smh.

Chapter 132 - I still think the coming of age ceremony has a 50% chance of actually being them ingesting drugs that are the equivalent of stat boosting items in games but also ya know, real world drugs that fuck you up. The other 50% is just them getting much stronger after they turn 200 because their bodies are just like that and it truly is purely ceremonial and a fun tradition like children's day or girl's day or birthdays rather than something that actually affects them.

- Lol Kranz, Regis won't be leaving a corpse if he dies. Purebloods are just special like that. Can you imagine if they did see a pureblood dying? They'd regret killing them so bad.

Chapter 133 - Raizel commanding Frankenstein to stop his experiments is definitely something, like bro maybe he was figuring out electrolysis, not like you know what he was doing. Plus it's not like Frankenstein listened completely. Man has a lab under his house and it wasn't built after Raizel woke. I guess he only stopped modification experiements on others and only did checkups on himself but didn't stop experimenting for other stuff like idk, better fertiliser.

- Kinda amazing Takeo didn't get stabbed in the heart.

Chapter 137 - I know it's just because Gejutel likely explained the lord's powers to him but the idea that Regis knows what a blood field is because Raskreia does demonstrations to entertain little kids is making me giggle.

Chapter 140 - So the Union only came upon Frankenstein's research 540 years ago... that's only 40 years before Raskreia became lord. Interesting.

- Ah yes... the classic joke of Tao not teaching Takeo korean properly. It's also very amusing envisioning Tao teaching the DA-5 members korean.

- ARIS ARIS ARIS. God she looks adorbs. Also I love her referring to DA-5 as 'my children' and 'my babies'. Aris >>> all other scientists. Amd hi Yuri :)

Chapter 141 - Yuri listening to Aris insulting Crombel repeatedly,,, he probably enjoys every aspect of it from knowing she's not aware he's his underling to being able to hear someone insult Crombel.

- Once again union members don't know jack shit. They think werewolves are extinct while Maduke and Lunark are literally Elders 😭🤡😭

- Werewolves having a small population never made sense to me even with the whole thing about them not having mind control and thus keeping away from humans secretly since even civilians are stronger than humans on average but like why tf would wolves have such a low reproduction rate? And that's why I hc that 90% of them are just homosexual.

Chapter 142 - D doesn't consume your lifeforce bro. That's just the drugs causing heavy strain on the body, etc etc. The rest of your explanation was fine but talking about lifeforce or vitality makes no sense.

- We all know Yuri's smart but the fact that he tries to get Frankenstein as a subject by scouting him first is very clever. It's believable too since Frankenstein is supposed to be quite handsome.

Chapter 144 - Well we don't know of Crombel microchips his Assassination Squad but Aris canonically microchips her experiments 🤣

Chapter 147 - Okay but this panel... she's hot. I'd let her dissect me <3

- If this was some other media I'd talk about the symbolism of the attack looking like a rapier and go on for a paragraph but this is Noblesse so it's obviously just a coincidence lmao.

- "A living robot" so like... a cyborg.

Chapter 148 - Yuri getting pissed at being attacked and retaliating but pretending it was him being loyal to Aris... Love it. Also he must be really confused as to who tf Frankenstein is since as one of Crombel's most important lackeys he'd definitely know about such a powerful experiment under him if they existed and thus unlike Aris knows that he's not been sent by Crombel.

Chapter 149 - Yup def confused, especially when he realises Frankenstein's power is like Crombel's.

Chapter 150 - Girlboss,,, also it's been years and I'm still wondering... why is her outfit like that? Neon genesis evangelion girlboss does have a ring to it though.

- Ah yes, Taivra time.

Chapter 151 - Okay yeah I feel so bad for Takeo but also Aris is so good at manipulating him and and and iwi. The fact that she can cry on command though... impressive.

- "From the beginning you were an only child. That's why I got you to experiment on." Okay cool time to ignore that again for my own amusement of having all of noblesse's named modified human women be related to Takeo.

- Okay I'm obsessed with strawberry milk myself but strawberries do not taste anywhere near that good. Not even the sweet ones.

Chapter 153 - Yeah no I don't agree that Takeo losing his will to live is an insult to your comrades M-21. You could have said all that in a gentler way. Just because Takeo was luckier than you experiment wise doesn't mean you get to be so rude.

Chapter 154 - M-21 misleading Tao and Takeo to thinking he's being experimented on and then turning around to laugh at them when they find out it's just ramyeon... mood.

- I really do wonder what 12th Elder's military medals are for.

Sidenotes - Hammer being smart <3 I honestly didn't remember that part of him and I'm glad he's not given purely negative traits. He's the only reason Shark lived past 2 chapters tbh.

- Truly, D is one of the worst letters of the alphabet to have named the drugs DA-5 uses. The other bad choice would be P. On the opposite end of the spectrum, T would have been a great choice for the irony. Not that it matters since the inspiration for the drug from name to physical transformation is obviously 🍆

- Nobles being so nonchalant about murder is kinda fucked up like yeah they suck but you can't just kill them??? Lukedonia my beloved your justice system sucks. I do hc they can't just do this in Lukedonia though or to other nobles even if outside of Lukedonia, it's just that the jurisdiction of nobles doesn't apply outside of Lukedonia and they do on some level think of themselves as a superior species so they're fine with just... killing people.

- Aris obsessing over handsome men as experiments and treating them like toys but ignoring women altogether? Not experimenting on women? Gaslight gatekeep girlboss,,, a feministe of our own,,, perhaps even a... lesbienne. But yeah I just love how she acts and I love her and how she interacts with Yuri. And yeah he's cool too.

- Tbh aside from how short the skirts are and the white blazers, the Ye Ran uniform really reminds me of my own school's uniform. The colours are exactly the same. We just didn't have blazers since it was a forever summer tropical country, only jumpers for if it got too cold in the air conditioned rooms. And for some people who grow up in tropical countries... 25°C can be too cold.

[nanoland]

am writing hellblazer fic asfdfsfff

title: The Cave

fandom: Hellblazer

characters: John Constantine, Chas Chandler, the First of the Fallen

blurb: John gets lost in a cave. 

warnings: Depression, covid19, demons getting themselves Extremely murdered. 

0 

It was when the death toll had crested 100,000 that he’d snapped and made his way to Number 10 Downing Street with murder in his eyes and a briefcase full of every cursed artefact he owned.

“What are you gonna do, eh?” bellowed Chas, who’d been following behind him in his cab for the last half mile. He’d already tried to physically drag John into it and had received a bite on the hand for his trouble. “Chuck ‘em through the windows? That’s bulletproof glass, John! Fuck’s sake! Be reasonable!”

“Stop sodding shouting!” John shouted over his shoulder, wiping rain off his face. “You’ll spread sodding germs!”

“John, I already had it. Four months ago, remember?”

“You can have it more than once! Christ, does nobody in this city read the papers but me?”

It was fair to say that John wasn’t at his best. In his defence, he’d spent the last year sitting inside his tiny, poorly-ventilated, roach-ridden flat, vividly imagining what a respiratory virus would do to lungs that had suffered over forty years of heavy smoking, two run-ins with cancer, and the actual devil sticking his actual great big grubby clawed hand in ‘em. No fucking thank you.

Chas sighed heavily and climbed out of the cab again, slamming the door as he did. He splashed through a dozen puddles before coming to stand in John’s path, arms folded. “Listen, Conjob. I love you. Even when you’re a complete prick, which is most of the time. And I know you can do amazing things. But mate, hear me out; you cannot assassinate the British Prime Minister.”

“Someone bloody has to!” John Constantine, greatest wizard of his age, screamed at the top of his wretched, ragged, Satan-besmirched lungs.

Eventually, Chas managed to calm him down and get him home for a cup of tea.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” John grunted as his socks dried in front of the heater and the rational parts of his mind re-exerted themselves.

“S’alright.”

“How’s the bite?”

“Didn’t pierce the skin. John, you need a break. A holiday. You need to get out of town for a few weeks. Go breathe fresh country air, do some weird mystical shit with a goat, whatever it is that sorts your head out these days. But you can’t carry on like this, mate. I haven’t seen you this miserable in years.”

He handed John one of Renee’s strawberry-patterned towels. Dragging it across his face, John grunted, “Holiday? At a time like this?”

“Why not? Makes as much sense as any other time.”

“What if you come down with it again? Or Geraldine? Or Renee?”

“John,” said Chas, gently, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You already tried to cure me with magic. It didn’t work. At all. Just wasted a lot of chicken blood and Renee’s best spoons. Get this in your skull: there’s nothing you can do. Alright? I know you hate that, but it’s the truth.”

John swallowed thickly. “Yeah. Yeah. Alright.”

So he went home to his tiny flat, stuffed fresh socks and his toothbrush into a backpack, booby-trapped his front door, and fled London in the dead of night, feeling like one of those gits in Boccaccio’s Decameron.

0

“It’s called glamping.”

“Some new wizardy stuff, I’m guessing?”

Chas’s voice over the phone was distracted, like he was half-watching the telly. John was relieved; he’d wanted to hear another human speak but wasn’t feeling up to a proper conversation demanding his usual levels of sparkling charisma and staggering wit. Not right now. Not without weed, and he’d not thought to bring any.

Nestling deeper into his teak folding chair and drawing a thick woven blanket up over his knees, John said, “Nah. Not buggering about with any of that old guff until I’m back in town. Promised myself.”

“Right.”

“Don’t sound so sceptical, you git. I’ve done it before.”

“Mm-hmm. What’s your record? The longest you’ve ever gone without doing anything mystical and creepy?”

“‘Bout… hmm. Three days.”

“You’re coming up on the tail end of that right about now.”

“I know. Chas, on my word, I am going to make it to Sunday without so much as sniffing around a graveyard or wanking off a werewolf. I am on holiday.”

“Alright, alright, if you say so. Good for you, mate. So what’s this ‘glamping’ business, then?”

“It’s camping. But posh. I’m sitting up here atop a hill in Yorkshire with a tent the size of a cathedral and me chic woodburning stove and me box of white wine and feeling like the yuppiest old cunt who ever drew breath.”

“Sounds horrible.”

“It does, doesn’t it? That’s why I chose it over a nice comfy bed and breakfast. Figured I’d wake up with a cow shitting on my head and could use that as an excuse to come home early. Actually, though… it’s alright. Quiet. There’s a river at the bottom of the hill where these giggling honeymooners like to have a morning bonk but it’s far enough away that I can’t hear them unless they’re really having fun. And the weather’s been alright. It’s all surprisingly decent.”

“And you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“Yep.”

“Hmph. I should have come with you. You get all weird and introspective when you’re left alone for more than a couple days.”

“I’m not alone. There’re birds. Squirrels. A few ghosts hanging out by the toilets.”

“John.”

“Ain’t gonna talk to ‘em! Mind you, one did give me a wink when I was zipping up. How’s everything back home?”

“Er – look, I won’t lie, it’s shit. It’s all shit. But it’s not any more shit than it was when you left three days ago. Not any worse, not any better, yeah?”

“Right.”

(Stupid to be disappointed. Stupid that a part of him had secretly believed that as soon as he abandoned the sinking ship that was London, things would miraculously get better for everyone, even as another part of him, on the opposite side of his brain, had been convinced – maybe even hoped – that the moment he was gone, the entire city would descend into screaming anarchy, at which he could point and laugh from a safe distance.)

“Listen, John, I’ve gotta go. Renee needs groceries. Be careful, please?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Don’t fuck about with any occult bollocks. Don’t go foraging for brain-melting mushrooms. Don’t do anything. Just stay in your tent and read your dirty books, yeah?”

“Heard and understood, Mum.”

“Bastard.”

“Love you.”

“Yeah, you too.”

John dropped his phone onto the grass and stared up at the sky. A herd of thin grey clouds drifted past. Off in the distance, he could just make out the shape of a barn – or was it a church? Either way, there were sheep next to it.

A squirrel scurried down a nearby tree trunk and then up another one.

Yawning, he scratched his chin. (Getting scruffy. Hadn’t shaved in two days now.)

“Should prob’ly do some reading,” he mumbled to no one.

A few minutes passed.

He dangled his head back behind his seat and sang quietly: “First produced my pistol… then produced my rapier… said ‘stand and deliver’, for he were a bold deceiver… mush a-ring dum-a do dum-a da…”

Heaving a sigh, he stood up and walked around his tent to dispel pins and needles, then went inside to read his book.

“I am not bored,” he muttered fiercely, staring down at pages that might as well have been blank.

“Oh, but you are, John.”

England’s greatest wizard jumped up, wielding his novel as though it were a club, and dealt a devastating blow to empty air while screaming something along the lines of, “Raargh die die die!”

Then he waited for a moment to see if the voice returned. Tried to determine whether he could sense anything. Nope. Admittedly, that didn’t mean much these days. Lots of beasties and bastards out there had learned how to hide from him.

“Either I’m hallucinating or someone’s pissing me about,” he concluded, placing his hands on his hips. “Chas, mate, I’m sure you would agree that either constitutes a fine reason to leave this fucking tent.”

And leave he did. 

0

He went caving.

The BBC had published an article a couple years back calling the UK’s cave systems its ‘last true wilderness’. He and Chas had had a good long laugh over that, Chas suggesting that John take the caver quoted on an expedition to Faerie or maybe direct him toward any of the two hundred portals to Hell between Plymouth and the Orkney Islands.

But the article had stuck with him. Perhaps it was the obvious love the caver had for his hobby, the clean and simple joy he got out of crawling around in dark, damp holes. John was always drawn to people like that, and not just because it sounded smutty.

(Imagine if he’d loved something clean and simple; gotten into bird-watching or carpentry instead of magic. Would have saved him a lot of hassle.)

Idly, one evening, he’d poked around on the internet – now that, that really was the last true wilderness – until he’d found a map listing all the cave systems in the UK, along with a guide to which were popular, which were dangerous, which were good for a family holiday, and yes (inevitably), which had been the scenes of grisly accidents.

(Wikipedia said that historically there’d been only 136 fatalities ‘associated with recreational caving’ in the UK and that, statistically, it wasn’t a particularly dangerous hobby. Hadn’t stopped him from having vivid dreams about bodies wedged in tiny tunnels miles below ground, cooling and rotting and bloating, except how could they bloat when there simply wasn’t enough room, what happened when…

Anyway, Chas had eventually rescued him from his maudlin musings and dragged him to the pub.)

And while his memory was a messy old thing, especially these days, that just happened to be the sort of useless information that tended to hang around in his head for years, like the words to every song in Sweeney Todd or the rituals required for an exorcism spell that didn’t actually work, doing nothing but taking up space.

There was a cave only a few miles from the campsite.

When he arrived, he beheld a clumsily painted sign nailed to an oak tree next to the entrance:

CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC UNTIL SPRING

NO TRESPASSERS

HAZARDOUS! ENTER AT OWN RISK

He lingered at the cave’s mouth. Though it was big enough for him to stand up in, it made for an unassuming sight. Squirrels played in the old oak with three sets of lovers’ initials carved into it that stood at its left and the pathway leading up to it was strewn with weeds and wildflowers.

“Am I really this stupid?” he pondered aloud, before correcting himself: “Am I really this bored?”

After five minutes’ internal debate, he decided that yes, he was.

He took a step towards the narrow crevice, before stopping himself. No. This was ridiculous. What was he thinking? Shaking his head, he turned and walked away.

Three hours later he was back, now with a good pair of leather boots (stolen from an arsehole in a nearby village), a Power Rangers backpack (given to him by a kid in exchange for a cigarette and some magic tricks), a cheap flashlight, two cans of lager, and a packet of crisps (paid for with the last of his cash).

“Off we go, then,” he said, and marched into the dark. 

0

Like a well-fed leopard on a low-hanging branch, the First of the Fallen lounged across his throne of vertebrae, long black hair dribbling off his broad shoulders and pooling on the ground. Though he was wide awake, his eyes were closed. This, combined with the corpses of three supplicants dangling from nearby steel hooks, would hopefully discourage anyone from bothering him for the next few hours.

“My liege?”

Shit.

He kept still. Said nothing. Perhaps they would go away.

“Um… my liege, I’m terribly, monumentally sorry to disturb you, but…”

With a wave of his claw, the messenger exploded into red mist.

When, ten minutes later, a second messenger summoned up the courage to approach him, he realized that it must be very serious indeed.

“You have five seconds,” he said cordially, holding them up by the neck.

“Con… constantine!” they croaked.

Brightening, the First set them down. “Indeed? What’s the little bastard up to this time, eh?”

“Nothing, my liege. He’s dead.”

A few minutes later, a fourth corpse hung from a hook and the throne of Hell was empty. 

0

To the First of the Fallen, caves were still a novelty.

Confined spaces, in general, were still a novelty.

At 13.6 billion years, he was only slightly younger than the universe. While solid planets had come into existence around the same time, he’d not actually visited one until the emergence of homo sapiens and his subsequent quarrel and falling-out with God – a mere 300,000 years ago.

Cast from Heaven, naked and freezing cold, he’d stumbled into a rocky cranny by the shoreline and wedged himself between its slimy walls. That was his earliest memory of ever being ‘indoors’. No surprise, then, that he avoided such places when he could. He had built no castles in Hell; his throne sat atop a mountain beneath an endless red-gold sky.

But right now, it wasn’t the cave that had his attention, dark and chilly and, yes, slimy as it was.

“Stupid turd,” he grumbled, glowering at the corpse. “Ow!”

He’d bumped his head on the cave ceiling again. It was too low for the average human to stand upright, much less an eight-foot primordial being.

Constantine stared at him, blue eyes blank and glassy. His body was unmarred save for the dent in the left side of his scalp, which had stopped leaking some time ago. As far as the First could tell, his nemesis had simply tripped and fallen onto an unfortunately positioned, unfortunately sharp rock.

The First spat on his tie and snarled, “Pathetic! What the fuck are you even doing here, eh? And – God’s hairy bollocks, when did you last bathe?”

His soul was still dangling off him, like drool from a dog’s mouth. Heaven, obviously, had no interest in him and the First hadn’t yet authorised his admission into Hell.

Because he wasn’t ready, dammit.

He’d not been expecting to welcome John home for at least another thirty years.

“Always have to make it difficult, don’t you?”

When he reached down to take hold of the soul – such a grubby, tattered thing – it bit, blazing gold for a sliver of an instant before he snatched his hand back. Stuck his index finger in his mouth until the sting abated. Fumed.

He tried again, grasping it firmly, as one might a snake. It thrashed. He gave it a disciplinary shake before opening Constantine’s mouth with a claw and forcing it down his gullet.

Coming back to life was never enjoyable. Constantine spasmed and gurgled, legs and arms contorting as pink foam gathered at his lips. The First, bored, sat down beside him, reclining against the cave wall with one knee crooked. Surveyed their surroundings. The ground was – oh dear – littered with crisp crumbs, an empty foil packet, two cans, and dozens of cigarette butts. How foul.

“Disaster in your wake, as ever,” he commented, tutting.

Constantine groaned, eyelashes fluttering.

Belatedly realizing that he wouldn’t be able to see in this subterranean gloom, and very much wanting to afflict him with the identity of his saviour, the First snapped his fingers. A dozen lit candles appeared across the cavern, hovering ghost-like in mid-air.

“Urgh… fffu… whu… oh, Christ Almighty.”

Watching him sit up, the First assumed a lordly expression, tilting his head. “And what do you have to say for yourself?”

Unhealthily pale skin and facial muscles stretched and twisted to an indeterminable end.

Then John Constantine set his jaw.

Growled: “I’m on holiday, you bellend.”

And passed out. 

0

He awoke to the smell of slightly burnt waffles.

Better than burnt flesh, which was what he’d anticipated after His Infernal Bloody Majesty had popped in for a fag and a chat. Certainly better than sulphur.

“For you,” the First of the Fallen purred.

A white plate – averagely-sized but rendered absurdly dainty by the dimensions of the clawed fingers holding it – was set down in front of him.

He frowned at its golden-brown contents. “The catch?”

“No catch. I was peckish. I imagine you are, too.”

“Come on. Not in the mood. Did you piss on ‘em? Did you mix a baby’s blood into the batter?”

“Honestly, John.”

Scratching his chin, he reviewed the facts. Still in the same sodding cave, albeit far better illuminated than the last time he’d been conscious. Alive, but with that unmistakable stiffness that he’d come to associate with having recently been dead. Cold. Irritable.

Hungry.

His archenemy’s smug smile was almost enough to make him spit the first bite back out. Instinct borne from months of extreme poverty forced him to swallow instead.

“Tastes like shit,” he remarked, wiping his lips. “But I suppose you usually have minions to prepare food for you. Where’s the syrup?”

A regal sigh, before a bottle appeared beside the plate. He emptied a third of it and spent the next few minutes in delicious, sticky silence.

There were, as ever, consequences to allowing the First of the Fallen centre stage. The moment the big smelly git realised that John really wasn’t in the mood for banter, he waved a hand and conjured up a thin hardback with Into the Underworld: The Amateur’s Guide to Caving in Britain on the front.

As John rolled his eyes and stuffed another waffle into his mouth, the First cleared his throat and read: “‘According to the National Speleological Society, the minimum number of people required to safely embark on a recreational caving expedition is four – at least one of whom should have prior caving experience.’ Did you know that, John?”

John chewed sullenly.

“I did. I’d wager that most people do. At least, I’d wager that most people know that going caving in groups smaller than two – going caving alone – is wildly inadvisable. Caves are dangerous, John.”

Where were his cigarettes? Had the bastard nicked them?

“And… let’s see – ah! Here we are. ‘There is a great deal of commercial equipment available to a first-time caver, some of which is necessary, some of which is not. Two items, however, that are absolutely non-negotiable are a helmet and a helmet-mounted light.’ Do you have either of those, John?”

“Do I criticise your fucking hobbies?” he exploded, knowing better, knowing it would only encourage him. Sugary crumbs flew everywhere.

“You do, in fact. Often. And quite understandably. My favourite hobby is murdering your friends, after all.”

John threw the plate at his head. 

0 

He’d had a good sense of direction even before he’d learned how to see psychic residue coating streets and walls, left behind by previous travellers. Always scurrying around in places no kid should; subways, sewers, dirty basements, any haunted house his greedy little eye fell upon.

When he’d reached sixteen, burgeoning schizophrenia had muddled him up now and then. Occasionally, it’d even left him standing in streets he didn’t recognise with no earthly idea how he’d got there. PTSD had compounded the problem.

Even so, at fifty plus, he didn’t make a habit of getting lost. Meds, practice, and years of experience meant that he could walk from Chas’s house to Saint Paul’s with a blindfold on.

Long story short: This was embarrassing.

“I’m fairly sure we’re going in circles. That stalactite is very familiar.”

And he certainly wasn’t fucking helping.

(The floating candles, following them like ducklings, were. John’s torch had broken when he’d tripped. Still, he didn’t need the First of the Fallen for light. Could conjure it up himself, no bother. It just made sense to avail himself of a primordial being’s infinite magical resources before dipping into his own, far more limited stockpile.)

“Do you know the way out?” John asked, not breaking his stride.

“I do.”

“Will you tell me where it is?”

“I will not.”

“Then shut up.”

In his defence, John hadn’t thought the cave was big enough to get lost in. It hadn’t looked it from the outside.

But he’d wandered, then crawled, down at least a mile of twisting, increasingly narrow tunnels before getting himself killed. He’d kept meaning to stop; said to himself five times, ‘Okay, Conjob, this is getting stupid, let’s trot our arse back to civilisation’. Then he would notice another crevice wide enough for him to squeeze into.

“Curious place for a holiday,” the First of the Fallen commented after bravely keeping his tongue still for an unprecedented five minutes.

“Curious times we’re living in, innit?”

He hummed in agreement. “Are you really not here for any particular reason? Not – I don’t know – trying to find a missing child abducted by the fae? Searching for a wicked spirit who’s been cursing the local shepherds? Treasure-hunting, perhaps?”

“No.”

“You’re just here.”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“I told you. I’m on holiday. Taking a nice long break.”

“John. We’ve known one another for some time. I am familiar with the ways in which you ‘take a break’. You either go to the pub or you go to several pubs. Attempting to reconnect with nature is hardly your style.”

“Being oblivious to current events – especially shit ones – is hardly your style. Been too busy shaving your chunky arse to pick up a newspaper lately?”

“Print is dying. Besides, you try managing an entire dimension. See how much spare time it leaves you. Honestly, I’m run off my feet most days.”

“So quit.”

“Don’t be silly. What else would I do?”

“I dunno. Could be a camgirl. You’ve got the legs for it.”

“Stop trying to change the subject. Why aren’t you at home?”

John stopped walking and spun to face him. “There’s a plague, you gormless, oblivious prick. I can’t go to the pub. I can’t meet up with me mates. I can’t visit people’s homes to perform exorcisms. I can’t do anything but sit indoors, on my own, for months on end, just watching everything get worse, and that… and that’s not an option. Not for me. I crack too easy. So I got out. Before I killed someone. Now, for the last time, shut up and let me concentrate.”

He bent down to tug off his shoes and socks.

Telepathic magic tended to work best when you were naked. But sod that. Not with the First of the Fuckheads watching. Waffles or no waffles, he did not deserve a treat.

“Oh, is this what we’re doing now? Marvellous! I do love watching your quaint party tricks,” he oozed with a mocking round of applause as John dropped to his knees.

Ignore him.

Taking a deep breath, John let his awareness expand.

It was hard, with the First standing right there. His presence was staggeringly heavy, weighing on the ley lines like an iron ball on a lace hammock. And so alien; elements found nowhere on Earth, bones and muscles formed before Earth had been a glint in God’s eye.

John sneered into the darkness. Piss on that. On him. This was child’s play. Buggered as his brain might be, John Constantine wasn’t going to falter at the sound, scent, or sensation of a mean-spirited old cosmic relic.

Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.

Seven years ago, three people came this way. A family. A woman; her sister; her daughter. They were having fun. The sisters had done this before; the daughter had been begging to come along for years. Afterwards, they were going for pizza. It was a good day.

Two years ago, four people came this way. All friends from work. Well – ‘friends’. One was the company CEO, the other three wanted promotions. Everyone but the boss was miserable. One was arachnophobic.

Eight months ago, a… sheep? Yeah. A sheep. Barely more than a lamb. It was lost. There was a storm and it came down here looking for shelter. Went too deep. By the time the shepherd found it, it was half-starved.

“John? What are you-…”

Ignore him.

Ten years ago, another family. Fifty years ago, a frightened child running from a monstrous father. And others – a hundred others – a thousand. The cave had a rich and storied history. Almost against his will and entirely against his better judgement, John followed its threads through the rock layers, chasing faded ghosts, brushing up against magic so ancient it had fossilised.

“John!”

Ignore him. Ignore him. Ignore-

His head was ringing. His blood was on fire.

Fuck, I’ve gone too far, too bloody deep, fuck, oh fuck.

“Constantine! Heed me!”

His eyes snapped open.

“Ah,” he said.

“Precisely,” said the First of the Fallen, who was holding him up by his coat collar like a jizz rag in need of a bin.

The cave had changed.

It was brighter, thanks to a small, well-constructed fire in its centre.

The walls were covered in paintings. Deer. Hogs. Great red and brown bulls.

A woman sat in the corner, wrapped in furs, adding detail to what might have been a fox. She didn’t seem to have noticed them.

“Did you mean to do that?” the First of the Fallen queried. 

0

“In thirty thousand years, a monk will come down here and find them. He’ll be horrified, believing that they’re the work of… well, me. So he’ll leave and return with water in buckets and scrubbing brushes. As he lies on his deathbed, he will be firmly under the impression that this great good deed will grant him entrance into Paradise.”

The First of the Fallen paused for effect, then added, “Alas, he will be mistaken.”

Without looking away from her work, the woman spoke several words in a language miles removed from any contemporary tongue John had ever heard.

“The young lady says she doesn’t mind spirits wandering her caves, but requests that we don’t chatter while she’s trying to concentrate.”

Crouching next to freshly-etched cow and her calf, feeling uncharacteristically dazzled, John said, “Ask her if I can take a picture. Ask her!”

“Homo neanderthalensis, John. She won’t have the faintest idea what you mean.”

Rolling his eyes, he fished his phone out of his trenchcoat pocket and waved it at her. When she deliberately ignored him, he shrugged and took the shot.

The flash won her attention. She stood – revealing a faded seashell necklace and a long, curving scar across her left thigh – and approached them, limping slightly. John held out the phone to show her the picture and, after a resoundingly unimpressed inspection, she uttered a terse sentence.

“She’s unsure why the sickly-looking spirit thinks shrinking her beasts in any way improves them,” said the First of the Fallen.

The woman raised her head (hard to tell how old she was; younger than him, definitely) and looked John in the eye, squinting. Another few sentences followed, some of which sounded like questions.

Sarcastic questions, unless he was mistaken.

“She asks if you shrink them because large beasts frighten you. She speculates that, if the only beasts you can bear to approach are scrawny ones, it’s no wonder that you yourself are such a measly creature. She says that she too was scared of bulls when she was a child, but that her mother taught her not to be. She wonders why your mother failed you in this regard. Should I tell her your mother died in childbirth, John?”

“Stick your head up your own arse and choke. But ask her name first.”

Tossing back his thick black hair, he scoffed. “Why? What does it matter? She’s a primitive, doomed creature and she’s not even really here. This is just one of the cave’s memories.”

“Christ – are you jealous I’m talking to her more than I’m talking to you? Because that’s fucking inane. This is a one-in-a-lifetime type deal. I’ve never spoken to a legit bloody Neanderthal. I speak to you all the blasted time, more’s the pity.”

Yellow eyes narrowed. “Maybe I’ll kill her.”

John laughed. “You said it, squire; she’s a memory. You can’t kill her. She’s long dead. Now shut up.”

He wasn’t able to learn her name. Still, via pantomime and pointing, he eventually managed to convey his desire to find a way out of the cave – or so, at least, it seemed.

She took a bundle of sticks from beside her fire, lit them, and walked towards the nearest inky-black tunnel.

“See?” he said to the First of the Fallen as they followed her. “Politeness. All it takes.”

“Don’t act like you have any real idea what’s going on. She could be leading you straight into a trap. You’re aware, I’m sure, that archaeologists generally agree Neanderthals practised cannibalism? Ten muscular relatives might be waiting right around the corner with clubs and a cooking pot.”

“For fuck’s sake – I have literally stood and watched you slouching on that colossally pathetic bone throne of yours and nibbling the edge of someone’s pelvis like it was a turkey drumstick. Loathsome bloody hypocrite.”

“That doesn’t remotely count as cannibalism, John. That was a human pelvis. I’m not a human. I’m the prototype. A species of one. Which, I suppose, means it’s technically impossible for me to commit cannibalism. Hmm. What an interesting philosophical notion.”

Walking a short way ahead, bare feet soundless against the rock, their new self-appointed guide said something.

“What was that?” John whispered.

“‘If you must burden my ears by bickering like children, you could at least do it in a language I can understand’. Then she called us a rude word.”

Then the First of the Fallen spoke several sentences in his usual bored, drawling cadence and, to John’s surprise, she laughed.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” the First of the Fallen said, innocently.

“I’m serious, bastard. What’re you saying to her?”

“Nothing important, John, really.”

More than once after that, he caught her glancing back at them and snickering. 

0

The artist and the twisting stone galleries through which she led them – it couldn’t possibly have all been hers; the monk had destroyed the work of generations – were insufficient to keep John’s mind from straying back to important matters.

“Hey. Ponce. What’ve you done with my cigarettes?”

The First of the Fallen had plucked them from his trenchcoat pocket while he was unconscious. When it came to his sorcerer, he’d learned, you always wanted a bargaining chip to hand.

“We’re in the company of one whose lungs are as yet unsullied by the Industrial Revolution, Constantine. Are you really planning on exposing her to second-hand smoke?”

It was a prospect John, it seemed, hadn’t even considered. Obviously angry with himself for that (oh John), he snapped, “No! I was – it’s – look, she can’t get lung cancer, can she? She’s dead. Doesn’t matter what she breathes in now.”

Smothering a smile, the First of the Fallen said, “Oh? So the fact that she won’t actually perish upon inhaling your fumes is all that matters, is it? Never mind her comfort or dignity, I suppose; as long as you don’t have to clean up another corpse.”

Nostrils flared. Fists clenched. Blue eyes gleamed with something hotter and even more violent than divine wrath.

“Like you give a shit about her,” John growled.

So much in this miserable world reminds me of Heaven. The grass. The sky. The beauty. You alone remind me of the time before Heaven; that bizarre, unpredictable time when there were no rules, no beauty, only feelings, only sudden bursts of light, fierce and erratic, cutting through the void.

“Or anyone,” John continued, gathering steam. Nicotine withdrawal, the First of the Fallen suspected, was kicking in. “Remind me, what was that you said the day we met? ‘To be mortal is to be stupid, proud, conceited – and ultimately pathetic’. You showed your hand, idiot; you loathe us all. Ergo, any taunts that depend on you concealing that are a total bust. Forget about the ciggies. If they’ve been anywhere near you, I don’t want ‘em.”

For years, the First of the Fallen had secretly hoped John had forgotten his, in hindsight, ill-considered words.

(He’d meant every one of them, but at the time he’d been trying to come off as a Gentleman Devil, the quintessential Man of Wealth and Taste, affable and urbane, not a bitter, angry old monster.)

Should have known better. John was so foolishly protective when it came to humanity as an abstract concept, even while his attitude towards actual humans tended to be far more variable. He’d probably been furiously gnawing on that phrase – ‘ultimately pathetic’ – like a dog with a bone for thirty years.

Thirty years.

Was that really all the time they’d known one another? John Constantine, his Constantine, He Who Was Most Hated… a mere thirty year acquaintance?

“What’re you laughing at?”

“Heh. Nothing, John. Reminiscing, that’s all.”

“About what? Poor old Brendan?”

Brendan, Brendan. Who -? Oh yes. John’s friend. The one who’d sold his soul. The catalyst, in fact, for their meeting. Pity the bastard was in Heaven; he’d have liked to thank him.

“You see these?” said the artist, holding up her torch to illuminate a painted wolf pack. “My grandfather did these.”

“What’s she saying?” John demanded.

As the First of the Fallen translated, he gazed dispassionately at her.

The first time he’d encountered a human, they’d looked much the same. Small. Unremarkable. Clad in skins and hardened from a life exposed to this planet’s weather (he personally hated weather and had made sure there was no such thing in Hell).

Mind you, the ones he’d run into while naked and terrified and still injured from being swatted down to Earth like some insect had been much less hospitable. They hadn’t known what he was; only that he was wrong. When he’d tried to approach their campfire, they’d thrown stones at him. Slaying them all hadn’t even occurred to him. Father had said that they were precious and at that stage, he’d still given a toss about His rules. Instead, he’d slunk away.

Catching food wasn’t a problem. He was faster than any buck or bird. It was loneliness, not hunger, that drove him to try again, and again, and again. In time, they grew used to him. Even showed him kindness. They had an extraordinary capacity for that. (For all that it was so often conditional and withdrawn the moment one became too strange or too frightening.)

But he’d never grown used to them. They were, at heart, creatures of community. And he simply wasn’t. He was a species of one. The prototype. He’d always been alone but for God’s company, and adjusting to life as a member of a tribe had proved impossible. Their norms, their traditions, their complicated etiquette – it had all bewildered him, then intimidated him, then irritated him. That, combined with his ageless body and supernatural strength, had driven an inevitable wedge between them, and he’d returned to the wilderness to wander alone.

He considered telling John that story.

(Why not? He’d told him everything else and the idea that his nemesis might have an incomplete view of him was, for some reason, concerning.)

Then he considered John’s likely reaction. The curled lip. The scornful snort. “What, you looking for pity? ‘Boo-hoo, my rotten childhood turned me into a git’? Hah! Jog on, squire.”

No. John’s hatred was a hard-won prize. John’s contempt was to be avoided at all costs.

“You realise most people aren’t allowed down here,” the artist said, glancing his way. She was shorter than John, who himself was slightly shorter than the average man; her eyes were level with the First’s navel. “Only elders and those who’ve earned the right. There are grave penalties awaiting any who sneak in.”

“Really?” he replied, interested only in John’s furrowed brow and silent, aggravated attempts to work out what they were saying.

“Yes. Because this place is important. Sacred. When I was young, I spent years dreaming of being allowed to venture this deep. I don’t know the ways of spirits – but I’ll not pretend it doesn’t rankle that you spend more time studying your sickly friend than your surroundings.”

“You’re still young. Compared to me, everyone is.”

“He doesn’t even seem to like you very much. Why are you travelling with him?”

“I don’t know. Why do urine and semen come out the same hole?”

“‘It’s none of your business’ would have sufficed. Are you always this rude? Is that why the sickly one doesn’t like you?”  

“No. No, he dislikes me for other reasons.”

“Well, well, well. Hullo,” came John’s voice, and they both realised that he’d stopped walking.

Turning, the First of the Fallen spied his nemesis standing with his hands in his pockets, studying a man dressed like a thirteenth-century peasant.

“Eh? Where did he come from?” the woman asked.

In quavering tones, the peasant said, “Are you angels?”

The First of the Fallen laughed. “John! He’s asking if-…”

“Just because I can’t speak Neanderthal doesn’t mean I don’t know sodding Middle English. Give me an ounce of credit. I’m only a cocking wizard, after all,” John snapped, before addressing the new arrival: “No. Just travellers.”

The peasant’s shoulders slumped. “Oh. I thought maybe God had sent me angels. I’ve been requesting them for several days.”

John shuddered. “Bad idea. Trust me. You don’t want to mess around with that lot.”

“But I need guidance. Protection.”

“From what?”

Eyes wide, the peasant took his hand and clutched it. “My friend, can’t you see? I am being pursued.”

“By who?”

“By demons.”

(to be continued) 

[personnages]

FIVE AESTHETICS TAG

EMOTIONS  /  FEELINGS

joy.  --  it is the small things that make your heart sing. snowfall in winter on your fingertips, the stars glittering above, the first green buds of spring. the sound of a kanklės and the laughter of those you love. no matter where you go, you try to breathe these things in.

loneliness.  --  an only child, then a girl with no mother, then a princess without a father. you must stand apart from all the courtiers, so you have always had few friends. it may ease into solitude over time, but it never really goes away.

faith.  --  the goddesses have chosen you, and you must play your part without flinching. din, nayru, farore, hylia: they are more than what your mortal brain can comprehend, and that surrender is comforting. nothing is dark to them. this story has been told before. that is also a comfort.

courage.  --  to give into despair is always useless. hope lets you go on; courage lets you fight against the darkness. you will learn to stare into the fear and let it stare back.

guilt.  --  what you do is never enough. every victory is missing something. you will atone for your decisions for a lifetime. it still will not be enough. 

COLORS

mauve.  --  softer than regal purple, but evocative of the same thing. what your mother often wore.

cream.  --  easier to bear than pure white. the courtiers still see hylia’s blood running through you, but for you, it is a choice you have made for yourself.

green.  --  your favorite color. the signs of spring, the life in summer. 

gold.  --  circlet, pauldrons, gorget: the symbols of your station. it is woven into your ceremonial apron, the wings of hylia rising, the triforce shining.

grey.  --  a serene winter morning, peaceful and quiet, your favorite season. the color of your eyes.

SCENTS

lavender.  --  you have always scented your rooms with sprigs of lavender. it is pressed between your clothes in your wardrobe and chests, it is in the water when you bathe. it’s something that’s yours.

frost.  --  hyrule castle is cold, as all castles are. though the rooms are warmly lit, it clings to your hair and form in the corridors, that sharpness of cool air.

tea.  --  your tea of choice comes from near kakariko. it is warming and smokey, layered through with bergamot. you have a cup in the morning, a pot over the course of the afternoon, and another pot if you anticipate a busy evening. (the kitchens have grown used to sending up the second pot regularly.)

vanilla.  --  your mother used to wear this scent in her hair. the loss has faded into memory, but you wear it in yours now to honor her.

greenery.  --  when you have the time, you like to walk in the castle gardens. (if those times are fewer than you like... that is another part of your duty.)

CLOTHING

hair jewelry.  --  long brown hair, pulled partially back with a comb and a circlet set into it. two long sections are wrapped and taped with ribbon in front, while in the back it is let to hang until it is gathered at the bottom with a thick braid and a metal hair ornament, tied off with more ribbon. 

long skirts.  --  stopping at just above your toes.

white boots for formal occasions; brown boots or leather slippers for every day. 

white gloves.  --  stopping just above your elbow. the embroidery is fine and is almost entirely your handiwork; you learned how to embroider at age seven. two of the pairs are your mother’s. one was your grandmother’s. the oldest pair, which you rarely wear due to its age, was your great-grandmother’s.

earrings.  --  you have a piercing in each earlobe and another piercing in each ear, right below the tips of your ears. 

OBJECTS

harp.  --  your kanklės has a sweet tone and its soundboard is beautifully carved. you play it in private, sometimes when you can’t sleep, sometimes simply when you want to take a break and lose yourself in music. sometimes you play it when you are frustrated and let your worries melt away, for a moment.

books.  --  you know the castle library very, very, very well. 

sword.  --  the sword of state you carry on formal occasions is beautiful, but it is also functional. you’ve been training with rapiers like it since you were a little girl.

paperwork.  --  there is always paperwork. every day, there are reports to be read, figures to look at, messages to receive. if your desk was ever clear, it would, frankly, be suspicious.

saddle.  --  on tarann, your horse, there is always the temptation to run free and wild, as far away as you can go, but you always resist. yours is a sidesaddle, but you can go as fast as your stallion’s hooves can take you on it. it is embossed with designs of flowers and birds.

VICES  /  BAD HABITS

stubbornness.  --  when you have truly decided on something, it is near impossible to change your mind or sway you from your course.

reticence.  --  you have developed a habit of keeping to yourself, but it keeps you aloof, which can be useful when people are constantly trying to curry your favor. even in the face of sincere offers of friendship, however, it takes time and patience for you to let your walls down. and even then, there is still a deep, hidden part of yourself that you keep locked shut.

self-sacrificing.  --  there are several roles that you must play, wrapped up in a sense of duty that blots out all else. whatever hyrule demands, you give. whatever the goddesses decided to take, you would hand it to them without a second thought. you as a person are second to your duty as ruler and as the goddesses’ chosen; if the price is your life, you will give it. (and you did.)

workaholic.  --  “a king’s job is never done,” your father said once, and you took it to heart. it is your duty to hyrule, to serve them as best you can, and there are always demands. you regularly work late nights, and most of your socializing is left for formal court events. your work is your life: there is little else.

compartmentalization.  --  if you let yourself feel your stresses, your personal anxieties, your grief, your loneliness, you would implode. so each feeling must be packed away, to be dealt with in later and in private, if at all, so that you can continue to serve hyrule as it needs you to. it can make you seem emotionless, but it is better than the alternative.

BODY LANGUAGE

a hand held up to your mouth to cover your wide smiles or, in extreme cases, your laughter. you are well practiced at hiding these feelings, but sometimes they inch through despite yourself.

straight posture, no matter whether you are sitting or standing. “princesses do not slouch,” your mother used to say, before smiling and bending over to kiss the air above your head, her kiss meeting your hair when you’d sit up straight. 

an analytical gaze, your grey eyes studying those speaking to you. (your expression is naturally somewhat severe, but you have worked hard to soften it to neutral, vague pleasantness when working.) it is a habit picked up from your father, of doing a study and then monitoring further reactions. it reminds the speakers that you are paying close attention, as well, and that they should think before they speak. 

a set jaw and slightly dropped chin when you are particularly angry. your eyes blaze, even if you say nothing. there is steel in you, and sometimes the veil lifts to reveal it. older courtiers can remember that same look on king uralph’s face, when hyrule was threatened.

deep breaths, taken in and out through the nose when you feel the need to calm yourself. it gives you a space to best form what you want to say, and grounds you for a moment.

AESTHETICS

guards standing at attention, their gazes purposefully aimed at the middle distance so they do not stare at you.

donning a heavy cloak, pulling the hood low against the screeching in the tower hallway and the sticky cold rising through the air in dark patches. you sleep uneasily that night.

coolness lapping against feet when you step into the spring. the light is blinding but when you blink, it has softened into its own plane of existence, and you are not alone. the light shimmers through your veins with a tickle.

long brown hair, falling free in a river down your back, past your hips, before it is gathered up again.

the cold traces your face as you step out onto the castle ramparts, blanketed as they are with snow. the winter clouds do not hide the stars completely, and you look up even as the flakes fall onto your cheeks and eyelashes, melting as you blink.

tagged by: @pcachlovc (thank you!! <3)

tagging: @glimpseofwonder (Eiluned), @spiritmaiden / @loruleheiress (either one! or both!), @walkingshcdow (Finnegan), @heartlosttravelers​ (Sharon), @fitzhrbrt, @somnium-led, @sunlilted (Zamir), @kcmorebi​, and whoever else that would like to~ This is very long, though, so no pressure or obligation if you don’t want to do it!!