#like these aren't even all the moments there's many more

[crescenthistory]

It's Nice To Have A Friend

Pairing: Remus Lupin x Reader

Synopsis: Remus' childhood best friend is the only person he is comfortable showing unrestrained affection towards – until he one day gets in his own head about it.

Words: 14.4k

Warnings/tags: there are some suggestive remarks, brief references to "shagging" and implied underage drinking, but i would classify it as safe for minors! fem!reader, use of y/n, childhood best friends to lovers (thus you grew up in wales and use welsh terms, but you aren't said to be welsh), you are in ravenclaw (only for one plot point, not personality), platonic physical affection, romantic physical affection, kissing, "it was revealed to me in a dream" trope, some miscommunication trope, deep yearning, remus' pov (meaning loads of self-loathing and overthinking), panic attack-ish, remus cursing like a sailor and joking about jumping, kind of shy/reserved!remus, some angst, happy ending ofc, background jilypad

Note: phew this was intense but sosososo much fun to write. it is very much a fluffy fic tho, don't be worried<3 i fucking love this story/dynamic so much

It is an ill-kept secret that Remus John Lupin struggles with romantic public displays of affection.

It was something his best friends had teased him relentlessly for since the first time he was given a Valentine Day’s card in year two by a boy that he didn’t even have a crush on mind you, and became a stuttering, spluttering mess. He could still hear James and Sirius’ barks of laughter the second that Hufflepuff was out of view and could still feel the bench shake from when Peter fell off it, clutching his stomach. Remus had been sure his cheeks would be permanently dyed red from the shame.

His one friend who did not betray him in such a manner was his oldest, namely you. Remus’ sweetheart, as Sirius called you, his childhood best friend from back home who he broke the statute of secrecy for when he was too young to realise what that meant, but who thankfully turned out to be a witch too. Something you both wept tears of joy for, as you did not have to be separated when he went off to Hogwarts.

On that horrid day, you only pinched his darkening cheeks and laughed quietly – still teasing, but in a way that felt more like admiring and less like humiliating. He faintly remembers scrunching his nose at you in response, a look you immediately mirrored before you went to hide him in the crook of your neck and gave the others a faux scolding for “embarrassing poor Rem when he is wholly capable of doing so himself”. 

His makeshift pack of friends kept that routine up for the rest of his school years, consisting of James and Sirius poking constant fun, Peter enjoying it all a tad bit too much, and you “protecting” him while laughing all the same. His affliction only worsened throughout his time at Hogwarts, but if one of his afflictions were to be the butt of a joke, he supposed he was grateful it was this one.

In moments like these, it was a tad bit difficult to keep that sentiment up, though.

“You should have seen the look on his face, doll!” Sirius made out through a laugh as the group made their way back from Hogsmeade. 

He was recounting Remus’ dance on the Three Broomsticks dancefloor with one slightly-more-rowdy-than-normal Emmeline Vance who all but dragged him out there despite his quiet sputters. You had been off on some endless errands that Remus had passionately attempted to join you for before Sirius all but bolted him to the bench because “you owe me a round, you mangy wolf”.

“I believe I have seen it many a time, Siri,” you laughed out, yelping slightly when Remus pinched your side from where he had his arm around you. “Hey!” you scolded him half-heartedly, point diminished by your grin.

“Cheeky minx, don’t side with the devil!” Remus conspired with you through a stage-whisper while glaring at Sirius, whose laughter only doubled in intensity.

“You can’t ask me to lie for you, del,” you replied in the same tone of voice, leaning up to kiss his cheek as if to apologise for your treachery. An apology that was wholly accepted as Remus tugged you closer into his side and allowed for the laughter around him to continue with a sigh.

Because therein lies the one exception – Remus Lupin was pathetically incapable of public displays of affection, unless they were with you.

His problem with these displayals was the insinuation behind them and the attention that was brought to him because of it. If Emmeline dances with him, leaving a scandalously little amount of room between them, he knows what she wants from him and everyone else does, too. If his current romantic partner kisses him in the hallway, it is a glimpse into something that otherwise occurs behind closed doors, a reveal of his private life that he does not enjoy. He wants that part hidden, and embarrassment flares through him like a rocket at the thought that others bear witness to it – and then the flames are stoked when they notice that he knows and has enough dignity to be embarrassed, which just fuels an eternal evil cycle.

You, however – your wonderful self he has known all his life, you who refused to ever leave his side despite his lycanthropy and subsequent grumpy, isolationist persona, you who are his absolute better half and light of his life – there was no reason that affection should be hidden. There was nothing secretive nor fragile in your relationship, it was the purest thing he had ever had the pleasure of having.

There was nothing insinuative or blasphemous about it, there was nothing to be held against him. He would hold you, hug you, even kiss your shoulder, cheek and forehead, because he and all else around knew that it meant nothing more. It was nothing out of the norm, nothing for others to point out and bring attention to. There was no glance into something hidden away, there was no line being overstepped. It was just two best friends, aware and proud of how much they meant to one another.

So Remus never had any hesitations about leaning into your touch, about seeking yours out, about lips identifying exposed skin and staying there for a moment or two. It was something he began doing before he truly knew what embarrassment entailed, it was muscle memory as much as instinct these days.

And if others did not understand it fully, that was an issue Remus for once felt no confinement to public opinion on. If people made assumptions or threw glances, it held no importance to him. Even his Marauders, Sirius especially, raised their eyebrows at your proximity when you all first met, but they understood the routine of it all quickly. That these two first years before them were a package deal in every form of the word. It was quickly accepted within your little pack, albeit fondly commented on every now and again. James had Sirius in that same unrestrained way, bodies strewn across each other at any given opportunity, so why couldn’t Remus have you? Why wouldn’t he?

Never mind that Sirius was officially brought into James and Lily's relationship at the end of last term.

“Well, James would hug anything that moved and seemed like it might need it.” Sirius had argued one night many years ago, not needing to add the and I need it.

“And isn’t that lovely for Prongs,” Remus had drawled in return. “But I need a few years to get there, and Y/N happened to be more strategic than you lot.”

“By knowing you first?”

“Precisely. Also, she’s lovelier than you.” 

It had earned him a snort and a pillow to the face, but it was accepted without further questioning. With the exceptions only occurring in a drunken babble here and there from Sirius, alone in their dorm after a party. Remus is quite certain he couldn’t string together a coherent sentence if his life depended on it in those states, and so he never took it to heart.

Remus revelled in having something of his own, someone only he understood on that level, and his heart always warmed when he thought about how lucky he was that that someone was you.

He subconsciously pulled you even closer at that thought, content and comfortable to do so whether that be around his marauders or in front of the whole Great Hall; there was nothing more to it to be embarrassed of. It was just you; just Y/N and Remus. Like always.

“You occluding yourself away from your menace of a dorm mate?” you whispered to him then, and he angled his chin down slightly with a smile to find you looking at him curiously.

“Oh, yeah,” Remus agreed with a solemn nod. “Must prepare for being locked up in a room with him all night. It’s tedious work, you know?”

“Most certainly.” You attempted to match his faux severity, but a giggle escaped you nonetheless – a beautiful one that Remus decided to mentally save for the night, should Sirius become unbearable.

Speaking of; “I take great offence to that,” Sirius proclaimed from the few strides ahead he was, pointing his finger in Remus’ direction without turning around. “Dog-like hearing, Moony, don’t think you can get away with badmouthing me here!”

“Dog-like he says,” Remus whispered to you, earning him an indignant “oi!” as Sirius finally turned around.

“Gorgeous, would you tell your worse half to knock it off?”

“I sure will,” you declared, turning your body more towards Sirius in Remus’ grasp. “Siri, sweetheart, would you knock it off?”

Within the second, Sirius’ offended expression transformed into one of giddiness. “Awe, princess, you think of me as your other half?”

“Worse half, Pads,” James interjected, looking over his shoulder bemusedly.

“Do keep up,” Remus added with a half-hearted glare.

“Irrelevant!” Sirius threw his hands up and spun around in celebration. “I have won the title of her other half, you can get lost Moons.”

Remus used his arm around your shoulders to angle you back away from Sirius. “I think not. I’ve been keeping this friendship for so long, she’ll need a lawyer to get rid of me,” he stated matter-of-factly, looking down at you at the last bit. “Capiche?” He tilted his head at you.

You hummed through a poorly-withheld smile, as if you were considering it. “Sure thing, cariad. Meet with our lawyers tomorrow after lunch?”

Remus gasped as you ripped out of his grasp and stuck your tongue out at him. Flashbacks of your younger days chasing each other down dirt roads came to his mind and widened his grin as he saw you back away from him, eyes trained on his expression. 

“Minx,” he breathed out through a laugh just before you sat off running away from him; Remus hot on your heels, laughter escaping him freely. Sirius began running with you, though he was slowed as he twirled around and hollered, surely waking the entirety of the mountaintops surrounding the castle.

James had been minding his own business for once as he engaged in quiet conversation with Lily and Pandora, but his eyes twinkled as he eyed his three running friends, exchanging a knowing look with the redhead.

“Young love,” Pandora sighed dreamily, though James could never be certain if she was looking at the loud, carefree forms before them or at something entirely different.

Remus saw you stopped running while still some dozens of metres away from the castle, still facing away from him, but arms opening to accommodate for the impending crash of his body against yours. It does something funny to his heart to think about, but he just lets it widen his smile as he did exactly as expected – let his arms loop around your waist and twirl you around as he caught up to you. 

Your out-of-breath giggles permeated into his ears as his face was tucked in between your neck and shoulder as he slowed down, laughter calming in his own chest.

“Caught you,” he whispered through his own breathlessness. “Happy now?”

You turned in his grasp, squeezing at his shoulders both to show affection and seemingly to steady yourself as your chest still heaved; Remus held you tighter to help you in the latter endeavour. “Shook off Sirius for a bit, so yeah, I am. As should you be.”

He dropped his head laughing at that, glancing behind him through his hair to see Sirius bent over, hands on his knees as James had already caught up to him and was patting his back in sympathy. Any other time of the month, Remus would likely have been right there with him, but this was a good week and you always seemed to be able to find some semblance of energy within him, even if he thought he had none.

“I take back my calling you minx, then.” He looked at you with a smile. “That was strategic.”

“Are you saying minxes can’t be strategic, Loopy?” You raised your eyebrows at him teasingly, pulling slightly out of his grasp to breathe better.

“I’m saying– don’t call me Loopy.”

Your smile became almost taunting at that, and Remus knew his comment likely only worsened the likelihood of you using that nickname now. “I just remembered how I used to call you that the other day actually,” you mused, putting on an innocent smile. “I don’t remember why I stopped, I just forgot about it. I think it might be time for a renaissance.” 

“I think I’m too out of breath for you to say things like that. I can’t chase you any further, but that deserves to be chased.”

You shoved lightly at his shoulder at that. “You’re getting too old, you’re no fun.”

“I’m super fun. Textbook definition,” Remus harrumphed, gleaning when you rolled your eyes through a burst of laughter.

“No one who references textbook definitions is fun, Moons!” James called from where the group was catching up to you two, finally within earshot. 

Sirius was practically draped across James’ shoulder, breath still coming heavy. He pointed yet another accusatory finger, this time at you. “You’ll be the death of me, dollface. Merlin’s tits.”

“Don’t blame me for your own inadequacy, gorgeous,” you quipped back. It made Remus rather proud, especially when Sirius groaned dramatically in response.

“Time to get some beauty sleep then, yeah?” James coaxed, giving Sirius’ cheek a peck as he continued effortlessly dragging him in through the entrance of the castle.

Lily hummed in agreement, poking one of her boyfriends in the side. “Yeah, Sirius seems to need it.”

“You think I’m so sexy, Red, don’t lie to yourself,” Sirius mumbled, petulantly remaining worn out over James’ shoulders.

Remus smiled at his friends, hand reaching out behind him blindly, knowing you’d find it. Surely enough, your fingers intertwined with his own and gave him a little tug to hasten his gait down the hallways.

Moving up the staircases with surprisingly little trouble, the group finally found themselves outside the portrait of the Fat Lady, ready to split up with you and Pandora heading to Ravenclaw and the rest clambering inside. 

You made your goodbyes, quick hugs and kisses on cheeks with Lily and James and a kiss to the hand from Sirius who had decided to lay down dramatically on the floor. When you turned to Remus at last, just a tad bit away from the others, he enveloped you in a warm hug, breathing you in as he settled his chin on your shoulder.

“Let me walk you?” he asked, already knowing you would say no.

“Nice try Loopy, but I’d rather you go inside to the warmth and head to bed,” you murmured into his neck. “Thank you, though.”

You always said no. He always asked, anyway. Sometimes, if he was feeling particularly protective or otherwise missed you too much, he’d go with you anyway. Today he decided to respect your wishes.

“Tell me again why you had to be an independent person and get sorted into your own house?” he grumbled against you, smiling when he felt your chest rumbling beneath him. That same smile softened when your grip on him grew just the slightest bit tighter.

“Something tells me you’ll survive.” 

He tightened his hold on you in turn, one arm around your waist and the other stabilising your neck, before he spun your body around twice, twirling along the hallway. He relished in the laughter that escaped you and ensured to stamp a proper kiss to your hair before he released you back down to the floor.

“Sleep well, dove.”

“Goodnight, cariad,” you said through a soft smile, giving him and the others a small wave before turning around to where Pandora was waiting, grabbing her hand as you two all but skipped down the hallway together.

With his eyes still glued on your disappearing form, Remus nearly yelped as James’ hands came up to settle roughly on his shoulders – albeit somewhat careful of his joints – steering him through the now-opened portrait, who was rambling on with complaints about students taking up the space in front of her for too long.

“Funny that,” James started. 

Remus gave him a puzzled look. “What, Prongs?”

“Just that you danced with one Ravenclaw at the Three Broomsticks for two minutes and gained the colour and conversational skills of a tomato; but when you twirl and kiss this Ravenclaw, all you’re left with is that goofy grin of yours.” James’ comment seemed off-handed, said over his shoulder as they walked through the empty common room.

“First of all, it’s Y/N we’re talking about and not some Ravenclaw,” he started, confusion laced in his voice. In the meantime, James and Sirius kissed Lily goodbye, the latter giving her bum a light tap as she moved up the stairs to the girls’ dorms. “Secondly, it’s Y/N. She’s my best friend, and one of yours, mind you. What’s there to go all tomato for?”

“Some would argue, there is never any reason to go all tomato,” Sirius taunted, ducking the smack Remus aimed towards him.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” James laughed, literally waving it off. “Just pointing out the parallel. Ironic, innit?”

“Don’t see why it would be,” Remus grumbled petulantly in return. Sirius reached up to ruffle his hair somewhat roughly before entering their dorm, where Peter was already waiting for them, tucked into bed.

“What’re we laughing about tonight, fellas?” he questioned without looking up from the magazine he was reading through. Remus was fairly certain he had seen Mary reading through that very same magazine last week.

“Oh just at Remus’ peculiarities with birds.” Sirius felt emboldened with his comment from where he was crouched behind his bed – ample distance to protect him from Remus, he surely gathered.

“So, nothing new? Nice.” Peter returned his attention to the magazine it never really left.

“Yeah, don’t worry Pete – your friends are just as big arseholes as on any other day.” Remus bent down to pat the boy on the shoulder before moving over to his own bed, between Peter and Sirius’. 

“Hey, I don’t mean to be an arsehole,” James complained with almost a full pout across his lips within a second of Remus’ comment. “We’re just having a bit of fun psychoanalysing you, s’all.”

“Which, of course, is a generally accepted polite thing to do.” Remus nodded as if he was gravely understanding, only flipping James off when the other boy didn’t catch his sarcasm.

“No, Remmy, what would be rude is to point out how you are desperately–” Sirius began with taunting mirth plastered all over his face, but he was cut off as James all but jumped on him to cover his mouth. 

The black haired boy looked up at his boyfriend first with some offence and then a look Remus didn’t want to witness.

“How about we leave poor Moony alone for the night, huh baby?” James questioned, moving his hand away from Sirius’ mouth as the other boy nodded almost dumbly, still staring up at him.

“Who’s turning red now?” Remus whispered to himself as he looked through his trunk for his pyjamas. He barely had the reflexes to catch the pillow Sirius hurled at him, tossing it back with a loud laugh that was quickly reciprocated by his best mates.

As if a miracle had been awarded them by some forgiving gods, the boys’ dorm room quieted down fairly quickly after that. Sirius and James settled in Sirius’ bed for the night, barely fitting themselves onto the mattress that was almost too small for one boy, let alone two. Once in each other’s arms, however, it was an easy thing to drift off. Peter was asleep before the other three had even brushed their teeth.

Remus was the only one tossing. Not unusual, but he couldn’t really understand why that was tonight. 

His sleep cycle often closely followed the moon’s, and he was almost two weeks away from the full moon, a perfectly decent time for falling and staying asleep. Tonight, though, his body was once more fighting him. He kept replaying the night, the conversations, the interactions, trying to pin his unrest on something. He supposed that dance with Vance had been unexpected and the adrenaline spike of all the attention following it might still linger and make sleep evade him. 

Despite what his dismay for public romantic displays might indicate, Remus was no prude. As a matter of fact, just as Sirius had before he was locked down, Remus was no stranger to making his rounds at the occasional common room party. Rarer was it that he shagged anyone back home, as he spent most of his time with you, but it had happened here and there too. Vance and him had even spent a night together once at a quidditch afterparty, but he had no significant interest in her apart from a mutually understood night of fun. He never really did, even when his partners were great in all capacities. It just didn’t seem that romance was an object for Remus – and good riddance, if the struggles of dealing with it so far was any sign.

Perhaps that was it then, dancing with Vance had rehashed something for him. Though the idea didn’t settle well in his bones, Remus also knew that he would never settle if he didn’t give his mind an excuse for his sudden restlessness.

After checking the time with a hefty sigh, he decided to throw in the towel and took a small sip of a sleeping draught potion he had at the ready in his bedside table at all times. If sleep would not come to him, he would hunt it down damn it. His friends’ playful mockery and a dance he didn’t even want to partake in would not cause him any more torment.

As Remus slipped into the land of dreams, he may come to regret that sentiment, if but a bit.

There are warm bodies pressed uncomfortably close to him – the warmest of which has her arms around his neck, one hand scraping through his hair. It should feel good, Remus enjoys when his hair is played with, but this feels sharp enough to draw blood. Emmeline’s laugh is all he can make out over the chatter and stomping around him, but it feels wrong, scratchy like a record player. Her fingers on him are cold, unlike anything else in the room.

It is spinning. The room, that is. Remus is unfocused, as if he had been shooting vodka and not butterbeer earlier. He can’t quite make out any of his friends, or anyone really, Emmeline’s features bleeding out into the background.

For some reason his heart is pounding the way it does before his transformation. Everything feels painfully wrong and he is aware of every inch of his body where Emmeline is touching him.

She is still laughing and Remus is sure it would make his ears bleed, which only confuses him further because Emmeline is truly a nice girl. Just not one he wants to feel flush against himself at the moment.

He reaches a hand up to touch his ear – realising only now that his arms are hanging limply by his sides, the only static thing in the otherwise spinning room – and when he retracts his hand to look at it, his fingers are coated with blood.

His breathing grows ragged as he feels the blood running down the side of his neck. He has half a mind to tell Emmeline, to shout for help. He doesn’t. Nothing comes out when he tries to open his mouth, all control of his body ripped from his grasp.

With no warning he realises the wetness on his neck is not blood, but someone’s open mouth smearing kisses down it with reckless abandon. His stomach ties in knots and he wants to push Emmeline off of him, still to no avail.

Her grip on him tightens painfully, and Remus swears he feels a bone break. He would know.

The flurry behind her has just become a swirl of colours and sounds to him and Remus feels himself drowning in a moment he desperately wants away from. He shuts his eyes hard, taking deep breaths, trying to calm himself.

He feels a warmth in his chest, starkly different from the heat around him, that slowly, like thawing ice, begins to spread throughout him. He hums the melody you sang to him during his first ever panic attack, the sweet one that always lulls him to sleep, and the warmth spreads faster.

With his eyes still screwed shut, Remus begins to regain the feeling in his legs first, noticing them swaying back and forth to some calmer, unknown rhythm.

The feeling in his hand returns too, and it’s clasped around someone else's. Theirs is also warm, light and fits much better in his, though he’s not quite sure what he’s comparing it to.

The front of his body is warmer than the back as he’s pressed up against someone, swaying with them in a slow dance that would never have worked in the middle of Three Broomsticks. It flows with his soul.

At last, Remus can hear again, as if coming up from water. He hears that it was not him humming, but rather a soft figure tucked under his chin, humming the vibrations of the melody against the side of his neck.

When he tightens his arms instinctively, he does not need to open his eyes to know it is you.

He does anyway, looking down at you, standing in his arms, swaying together in an empty Gryffindor common room. There is a lazy smile on your lips as you look up at him, cheek against his chest, eyes twinkling like the starlight.

Remus feels right. Remus feels good. His thoughts are honey, sweet but slow, coating over any coherent reactions he might have to standing here with you like this. He escaped and he is with you and all is right once more.

Have you danced like this before? Did it feel like this then?

You seem unpuzzled, relaxed. The warmth settles in Remus for good.

“Hey handsome,” you whispered, as if you were sharing a secret with him before angling your face more up towards his.

Remus is not in charge of his body when his neck dips down and lets his lips meet yours halfway, casual and expectantly, a habit as much as a wish. You taste like yourself. You smell like yourself. Remus is surrounded by you, cornered by your smile against his lips.

You pull back all too quickly, furrowing your brows at him. Dream-Remus has no hesitation of removing the hand from around your back to thumb at the furrow, brushing away any negative thoughts from you. He kisses the spot between your eyebrows.

Everything is right.

When his eyes meet yours again, the concerned look in them has not changed. You reach a tentative hand up to his cheek, thumb swiping over his cheekbone as you hold him with what he irrevocably knows to be love. 

“It’s time to wake up, cariad,” you said with a small sad smile.

The last thing Remus remembers is the feeling of the floor disappearing beneath him.

Remus sat up with a gasp, and for a rare moment in time he was speechless.

He was not a stranger to invasive, questionable or downright spiritual dreams, a side effect of both his connection with the moon and the tons of potions he has taken over the years. Usually, he is present in his dreams and acts as his own little commentator during and after them, narrating what happens and what he thinks of it.

It was not uncommon for him to think “I think I will remember this one” as the final thought in a dream. Or when he wakes up in tears, his first thought was often “that was a bit dramatic of you, calm down”.

Now, he had nothing. Now, he was speechless.

Worse yet, usually when he wakes up with a jolt, it is in the middle of the night – but now, as his senses began to trickle back in, he could hear the commotion around him that only could mean the boys are at various stages in the process of getting ready.

Remus Lupin had just had a life-altering, earth-shattering dream, and James Fleamont Potter was repeatedly knocking his knee into his nightstand as he jumped around while tying his shoes on, instead of sitting down to do it like a normal person would.

He thought James was saying something, and maybe even to Remus specifically, but he could still hear the blood rushing through his head. Beneath that again, he could hear your humming. 

With a groan, Remus let himself topple over from his sitting position to land face-first into his duvet.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. What the fuck?

“Oi!” Remus finally heard, as what felt like a rolled up pair of socks hit his head. “What in Godrick’s name has gotten into you, mate? You good?” It was Sirius voice calling, seemingly from across the room.

Remus just groaned in reply. His eyes were wide open as he stared directly into his sheets, feeling both freezing cold and like his brain was slowed by a fever.

“You okay, Moons?” Peter’s voice came gentler from beside him. Remus thought his hand might be hovering near him, as if he was considering consolingly patting him but was unsure if he should.

Another groan.

“Okay, what about this: groan once if this is Moony mooning over something and twice if you’re in actual crisis,” James suggested, not unkindly.

A singular groan, though it sure did feel like two.

“Groan once if you’re a prick and twice if you’re insufferable,” Sirius felt the need to comment.

Instead of making any further sounds, Remus wrangled his arm from beneath the blanket to show Sirius how he felt about him in the moment with a gesture.

“Fantastic!” James exclaimed. “You have class in 35 minutes, Moons, and breakfast now, so best get a move on.” Remus heard the telltale sound of James leaving – as in, James’ heavy footsteps moving across the floor and Sirius scrambling like a dog to follow after him. At the complete lack of sounds in the rooms after that, he assumed Peter moused after them as well.

At last Remus sat up with a sigh and stared emptily in front of him, mind moving too fast for him to catch a thought but too slow for him to properly process anything.

What does this mean? 

Except Remus could no longer deny that he knew what it meant. That the instant your humming caressed his ears, he knew what it meant. That his subconsciousness wanted to replace a girl who saw him as a romantic prospect in a place Remus felt queasy in with you in a place he considered home. That is no coincidence.

And that when you kissed him–

Except you did not kiss him. Remus shook his head at that, as if the thoughts could just tumble out of his ears. You did not kiss him and he did not kiss you. Because this was a dream, it was not real and Remus must just be really, really unwell.

He felt unwell, but not in the way he was trying to convince himself.

Taking one deep breath, Remus looked to the awning of their little dormitory and shot out a silent prayer for any higher power to listen.

Put me back together, I cannot fall apart like this.

Bury this back down deep, I cannot feel like this.

It was going to be a long day.

─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───

By the time Remus had made it to the entryway to the Great Hall, feeling frazzled and less put together than he had an excuse to, he saw his group of friends making their way out.

“Rem!” It was you who caught sight of him first, and immediately beelined towards him, the others following closely behind, wearing varying degrees of concern and confusion as they looked him up and down.

Your face was by far the most concerned, as you immediately brought your left hand up to cup his cheek. “Are you alright, cariad?”

For the first time in your almost two decades of friendship, Remus was painfully aware of your physical proximity.

He always knew, of course, but it never really registered with him – it was completely natural. Right now, nothing about him felt natural. You stood flush with him and he felt you against him like a fire, skin singeing beneath his clothes. Your eyes seemed so big looking into his that he could get lost in them, his only internal monologue being a dreamy sigh and a long string of curse words at the absolute madhouse chaos that his mind was becoming. As he looked at you, it was like he could see his version of you from his dream as well, how you looked at him with so much love and admiration, how your lips inched closer to his.

“Mate?” Remus realised then, that he had been staring at you for far too long, not answering your question, to the point where James had to try to catch his attention.

“I– uh,” Remus sputtered, eyes flickering wildly all over your face, panic rising in his chest as he realised he could not think clearly with you so close.

He took a step back without thinking, just barely out of your grasp but still close, and shook his head. “Sorry, yeah, no, yes, I just feel a bit… off today.”

The furrow between your brows deepend, and once more his mind flashed back to his dream. His hand twitched. It seemed like you weren’t even aware of it when you took a step closer, to be back by his side, reaching your wrist up to place it on his forehead to feel his temperature. “You’re feeling poorly?” you whispered so quietly and so lovingly Remus thought he might faint.

Was it always like this? It was always like this. Why was he freaking out about it then? He was freaking out. What the fuck was wrong with him?

With horror, Remus realised that a slight blush was creeping up his neck, and he fought hell to keep it down as he cleared his throat. “Just a little, uh, dove, it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Do you want to go lay down?” You began what he knew would be a string of suggestions for things to do to make him feel better, and he could not stand watching you be so concerned when he was lying to you.

Almost like a flinch, he pulled back out of your arms – properly this time, taking several strides backwards away from the group. It barely registered with him that James and Sirius were looking at him with some confused amusement while Lily looked sympathetic.

“I, erm, will be fine, yeah? Nothing to worry about.” Without properly looking, he reached an arm out to grab Peter by the shoulder and all but manhandled him to his side. “Peter and I have Herbology now, but uh, I’ll catch you later?”

Remus hated how everything he said sounded like a question, like he was running a lie by you for you to confirm if it was believable. Remus hated that he couldn’t tear his gaze away from your face for more than a few seconds and most of all he hated that he was spiraling under the weight of your gaze in turn. A horrible combination.

“Take care, Rem,” you whispered as he all but ran away from you, hauling Peter along.

You stood looking after him for a moment, only turning your head when you felt Lily’s reassuring hand on your shoulder to find a small smile on her face.

“What in the buggering hell was that?” Sirius questioned, looking mostly at you for an answer.

“I don’t know,” you said, honestly. Had you known, you might still not have told him, though, if you thought Remus wouldn’t want you to. “I usually always know about his moods before they come, but this has me stumped,” you murmured, mostly to yourself.

“He woke up weirdly,” James mused, rubbing his hand across his chin. “I guess we’ll just see where the day goes, yeah?”

The four of you nodded at each other, but you still gnawed on your lip in concern, glancing over your shoulder to where he disappeared. 

Whatever it was, you hoped he would come talk with you about it when he was ready.

─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───

Remus only had one hour to compose himself during Herbology before he had Charms with you. Sharing most of his classes with you was something he had always considered a blessing, and while that sentiment would likely never fade, it was also causing him some distress as he almost toppled the work desk with his jittering.

Peter didn’t question him, but Remus’ obvious nerves were apparently contagious for the anxious boy who jittered right along with him, casting him the occasional glance.

Letting his elbows fall heavily on the desk, Remus put his head in his hands and ignored the instructions Professor Sprout was walking them through – he would let Peter pick up the slack for once and then subsequently accept the lower marks. Right now, Remus had to think and get his shit together.

He breathed his way through some panic exercises and pictured you in his mind. It almost brought a smile to his lips in an instant and for the first time, he let the realisation of how irrevocably wrecked for you he was.

Has it always been like this? Why have I never put this into words before? How can I revert back?

In that moment, Remus decided two things. Firstly, there was no possibility of you returning his feelings nor would he ever expect you to. It was true that you accepted and loved him in a way he never could quite believe himself deserving of, but that in itself is testament that it couldn’t be any more. What you gave him was already too much, it would be unthinkable for you to harbour even deeper feelings for him.

Second, and most importantly, he could not lose you. Remus has made many mistakes in his time, but he could not live with himself if he lost you. It would be too much. Because regardless of the fact that he now knew he was– that he now knew what he knew, the friendship between you was the most important thing. It was Remus and Y/N, right?

He could not be weird and sputtering, he could not make you uncomfortable. Meaning, he could not withdraw from you despite his instinct to run and hide. Shame burned within him at the thought that even if he could withdraw he didn’t know if he could fight his want not to. You were muscle memory.

Remus opened his eyes and slowly dragged his palms down his face in resolution. He would have to act as if nothing was wrong, and he would have to lie through his bloody teeth to explain away whatever bodily reactions he has.

If he starts stammering, he will have to shut up and lie that he is tired. If he becomes an embarrassing shade of auburn, he will have to cough and lie that he might be coming down with a fever. If he shakes, it is because of lack of sleep. If he, Merlin forbids, cries, he will have to claim he must be coming down with some odd moonsickness. You will surely follow him to Madam Pomfrey and maybe it will be easier when you’re alone.

Or maybe it will be worse.

No matter which it was, Remus would have to soldier it, for your sake. You did not deserve his imposing infatuation, but you also did not deserve to lose what you thought to be a loyal friend.

When him and Peter packed up the barely-used desk and mumbled a goodbye to a disapproving Sprout in the door, Remus made it his mission to focus on his breathing again as he almost ran down the hallways to where your friend group always met up outside the Charms classroom.

Be normal, be normal, be normal.

Your eyes found him the second he rounded the final corner, almost as if you had been watching it, waiting for him. A beautiful smile lit up on your face as soon as you saw him, albeit a bit dampened by the worry in your eyes – he simultaneously wanted desperately to soothe you while also berating himself for it being there. His fault.

“Hey dovey.” He forced his words to be casual, his smile to be measured as he strode up beside you. 

This is where he is supposed to drag you into a sideways hug, squeezing your hips while dropping a kiss on the top of your head, causing Sirius to make some quip about “you were literally just gone an hour. He stood beside you perhaps a beat too long before he began to do so with shaking hands, and he felt your burning look as you studied him. Remus made it all the way up to where he would kiss your head before he chickened out due to the tornado screaming in his stomach.

“Hi, Rem,” you all but whispered, your words just for him. You opened your mouth to say more, but he was afraid of what it would be.

“Waited long?” he asked to distract you from it.

“Nah,” you said and leaned further into his side. “But I’m glad you’re here now. How’re you feeling?”

At that, he saw Peter, Sirius, James and Lily – who had been stuck in their own little world – look up and try to hear what he has to say. Remus crumbled under their watchful gazes, knowing they knew him well enough to pick apart his every little reaction. He cleared his throat.

“I don’t really know,” he settled for. “My head’s murky, didn’t sleep well.”

You made a soft cooing sound and started rubbing circles on the side of his hip from where your arms were circled around him. It knocked a wave of dizziness into him that made him want to take a step back to lean against the cold stone wall behind you. In replacement he settled for holding onto you tighter; it only made it worse.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go lay down? Merlin knows we won’t be missing out on anything with the way Flitwick rambles away any sense he might have.”

This is where Remus would laugh heartily at your obvious disdain for the professor that he never truly understood. Instead, his mind zeroed in on one word you said.

We. We, we, we, we.

Circe’s tits, did he want to take you up on that.

He swallowed, acutely aware that you must have heard the sound when stood so close to him, though you didn’t give away any reaction. To buy himself a moment to collect his thoughts, Remus finally dared tilt his chin downwards to kiss the top of your head. It might have been too slow, too tentative, but his heart was beating so fast the rest of his body felt too slowed down in comparison. He hoped you thought the kiss was a thank you for caring and not the nervous stall it was. He hoped he wouldn’t be eternally damned for breathing in the scent of you.

“I’m quite alright, dove,” he murmured instead, furiously avoiding the surely questioning gazes of his other friends. “Thank you, though.”

You grumbled some but didn’t push him on it. He silently thanked you for that, too.

His throat was too parched to partake in the silent banter amongst his friends as you walked into Charms, too focused on where your bodies brushed as you walked, too deafened by the sound of your laughter.

You sat down in your regular spots, you and Remus side by side in the front, with Sirius and James behind you and Lily and Mary to your right. This was normal, this was alright. Flitwick droned on about the theoretics and debates around the charms you learned last lesson, it went in one ear and out the other.

Absentmindedly, you had grabbed Remus’ hand lightly between yours and were tracing soothing circles along his wrist and palm. You meant so well, and this would have cured likely any other ailment Remus struggled with, but right now there were fireworks going off in his head.

Taking advantage of the notice Dumbledore had given all of his professors to not call Remus out on sleeping in class, he folded his arms and laid his head down on them, carefully not to take his hand away from you. If he could shield his face, he could probably talk himself down before class ended.

In the solitude of his arms, he could picture it was just the two of you, sitting in the treehouse you built between your houses as children. If he focused enough, he could smell the apples that grew around him and feel the rough wood beneath his stomach. There, your hand would still be in his, maybe even your cheek on his chest, and it would be alright. It would all be alright because it was just you, and Remus could play dumb and he would never have to realise his feelings and fuck himself over.

It almost worked. Until he was interrupted.

“Psst! L/N?” The whisper was laced with a laughter Remus knew too well and did not care for.

You clearly ignored it – Remus could practically see the eye roll you surely threw his way – but that wasn’t enough to stop his theatrics.

“L/N!” Barty called once more from a couple seats behind you to your right, voice threatening to alert Flitwick to your inattention. “What’s wrong with your dog?”

“What?” you whispered back in equal parts confusion and irritation.

“Your puppy, Lupin,” Barty said, as if it was obvious. Unfortunately, Remus could picture his eye roll too, though his stomach was turning for a wholly different reason. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Remus is quite alright, Junior,” you hissed back, hand tightening on Remus’ at the same time as he loosened it. “And don’t call him a dog.”

Remus slowly lifted his head from his arms and took back his hands to wipe harshly at his face, still not looking towards Junior who barked a low laugh.

“Follows you around like one. Wouldn’t surprise me if you had some invisible leash going on–” Barty quipped, cutting himself off before you could respond and turning to Evan Rosier sitting beside him. “Oooooh, an invisible leash is a marvellous idea, Rosie.”

It was clear you had lost his attention, but Remus’ face still burned painfully as he shifted in his seat. With a harrumphing sound, you turned to look at him. He didn’t meet your eye, couldn’t.

“Ignore him.” Remus always marvelled at how you manage to convey your frustration and care at the same time.

He just hummed in the affirmative, still wiping a bit harshly at his face. If he treated it harshly enough, could he blame his violent flush on it?

“Cariad,” you mumbled, gently taking his hands away from his face, clearly spotting his efforts.

He saw your furrowed eyebrows looking at him, and that was the end of what he could take for the lesson. As you opened your mouth, surely to inquire about how he is, like the beautifully kind person he knows you to be, he pushed his chair backwards.

“I think I should probably listen to you and go lay down, dove,” he murmured, avoiding your gaze. Before you could shoot in and say you would come with him, he continued. “Can you please take notes for me in Transfiguration after this?” 

An indirect rejection, a plea for isolation. He didn’t look at your face as he gathered his things, waiting for you to respond instead.

“Sure, if that’s what you want,” you said carefully.

What I want is you.

“Yes, please.” Taking a deep breath, he leaned forward and pressed a parting goodbye kiss to your cheek, tradition. “Thank you, love.”

Then he was sneaking his way out around the desks, barely catching a murmured voice he knew to be Sirius’, likely leaning forward to ask you about him. His lips singed.

─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───

Remus hid away in his room for two hours, actually being truthful and trying to get a nap in. The dorm room felt serendipitous, being swept up in rare silence and a grace of darkness as he trickled in and out of consciousness. If he dreamed more of you, he would not admit it.

Any semblance of reprieve he might have chased down was ripped away from him by the creaking of the door and the wall of sound that followed his three favourite boys who always got on his last three nerves.

“Oi, Moons!” Sirius exclaimed, far too cheerily. “You know the rules!”

Remus propped his head up on his elbow from where he was sprawled on his stomach, looking blearily at the three figures as they situated themselves within the dorm. “The rule to not wake a sleeping sod? Yes, I’m the only one who knows that rule it seems.”

Sirius took off his sweater as he discarded his uniform and used it to swat at Remus. “Nope! No wallowing on your own. Sharing is caring.”

“‘M not wallowing,” Remus grumbled as he let his head fall back into his pillow.

Letting his guard down was undoubtedly a mistake because the second Sirius was out of sight, he had the audacity to jump into Remus’ bed, nearly flinging him off from the impact. Both Sirius and James were laughing boisterously as Sirius collapsed on top of Remus and ruffled his hair when he tried to shove him off. “Not anymore, no, we won’t let you.” 

Remus hated that he loved them.

“Precisely,” James added as he pointed at Remus from where he was changing into his non-uniform clothes as well. “So either speak your mind or perk up, buttercup.”

Remus groaned but let Sirius drag him up into a sitting position. “Can a poor lycanthrope not have one off day without you lot getting your knickers in a twist?” Despite his best efforts, there was no ire in his voice.

“Nope!” James said, popping the p. “Not on our watch.”

“Life is simply miserable without our Moony,” Sirius said, clutching his chest as if he was ailing. “And do you have any idea how weird it is to see your sweetheart without you by her side? It’s like watching a cut up picture.”

All humour that had been creeping into Remus’ expression was washed away in and instant as he swallowed harshly, suddenly averting his gaze from Sirius. Instead, James caught it, who looked at him with big eyes behind his glasses, cocking his head to the side. He looked far too much like the stag he is, before his mouth opened in a small gasp. “Oh,” he whispered softly.

Remus’ heart was beating painfully hard at the look of realisation that crossed his face, turning back to Sirius who had a similar knowing, almost pitying look in his eyes. No, no, no, no.

“I’ll be fine, you, erm, won’t have to live without me much longer,” Remus tried to volley back, just a few seconds too late, tongue feeling heavy at being found out.

If his best mates could see through him that quickly, then you probably already had. He had half a mind to take you up to the Astronomy Tower like old times, so he could apologise and then jump off as an act of redemption.

Sirius gave his shoulder a rough squeeze, shaking him a little as if he knew what was going through his mind. “Fantastic. Then you’ll join us for our free periods, yeah? And the party later tonight?”

Still somewhat sputtering, Remus’ eyes widened to an extent he was sure was comedic. “The pa– the party?”

James smiled at him. “Yeah, Moons. Gryffindor half-term party? That we have talked about all week?”

“Merlin, maybe Pomfrey needs to go easy on the potions she gives you,” Sirius teased, getting up to finish changing.

“Or she could give me more,” Remus whispered hopefully, earning him a round of chuckles. 

“You’ll be fine, Rem,” James said, with an undertone Remus did not care for. “If you’re still feeling… off throughout the day and night, you can always snuggle up with a book and ignore us hooligans.” Then, almost as if he was testing the waters. “I’m sure Y/N would love to join you.”

Remus didn’t deign any of that with a response, but he suddenly thought he should get out of his bed so his face didn’t seem so red in contrast with the white sheets.

“I have some essays to knock out, so yeah, I’ll join you to study,” Remus relented. He opened his own trunk to get changed, but decided to half-ass it and just take off his tie and replace his uniform wool with one of his own patterned jumpers.

“And for the party later!” Sirius corrected, ensuring Remus didn’t think he could back out.

“Sure, sure.” He ruffled his own hair so it was Remus-messy and not Sirius-messed-up-my-hair-messy. “Let’s just go.”

─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───

Considering the extent to which he could fuck this up for himself, Remus reckoned he had been doing fairly good keeping his shit together throughout the day.

If he mentally cursed more than normal, contemplated the murder of each one of his friends including himself and generally couldn’t breathe, well, that was merely part of it.

The whole lot had shacked up in the library for the triple free periods you had back to back on Fridays. While you doted concernedly over him for the first thirty minutes, you eased up once you seemed to decide that this wasn’t Remus shoving down some lycanthropy-struggles and avoiding support and help. 

As always, the two of you sat in the love seat, your legs sprawled over his lap as you read through your textbooks in the oddest positions. This was usually something he might chide you for – “your neck will hurt if you hang over the edge like that, love” – but today he buried his face into his textbooks with all his might to not seem like he was aware of your body. He was, of course, you burned over his skin and lit up his heart, and Circe’s tits was he the stupidest sod in the whole castle.

Nonetheless, he made it through all three hours, engaging in comforting banter and low laughs with his best mates. When you teamed up with him to mess with Sirius, he at least knew that you weren’t upset with him in any way, even though he was being a lunatic today, even though he most definitely would have deserved it.

What Remus knew would be his breaking point was the Gryffindor party.

It was a laid back event, a party thrown for all of Gryffindor, though it was mostly the upper years who were encouraged to attend. They arranged it halfway through every term to celebrate making it through and engaging with each other. Meaning, most people didn’t get shitfaced but there was some good bubbling energy maintained throughout the whole night.

You and Remus had a tradition for how you dealt with parties – just as you had a tradition for pretty much everything, he had come to notice. Gods, he lov– Stop it.

Neither one of you were necessarily fond of large crowds, but you both were incredibly loyal and fond of your friends and wanted to spend time with them. Thus, you attended the parties, but you always did so together. The more uncomfortable you got, the closer you would get to each other, and if one ever needed a break, they would tap the other three times and they would make up an excuse to usher them out of there.

It had never felt so unnerving to be so known.

Throughout the whole party he had been jittery, head rushing with thoughts. He desperately tried not to take in your outfit and then he desperately tried not to read into it when you seemed disappointed he didn’t compliment you for it like he usually did. Why did he have to be such a sweet best friend normally? Remus can’t keep up with himself.

It did not help him in the slightest that others around the party seemed to focus on your outfit much more openly than he could dare. It made him gravitate even closer to you, tighten his hand on his hip, momentarily rest his chin on the top of your head – and then his actions made him want to kick himself. Possessiveness was the last thing he could be engaging with when he was already betraying you in such a manner. 

Leave it to Remus to fuck up something beautiful.

To say you didn’t seem to notice that he was troubled would be taking it too far, but at least you didn’t seem to notice why. You kept him close to your side and would at random points stroke his back soothingly. He wondered if you just thought he was uncomfortable with the party.

You were chatting with Pandora by the drinks table when Barty and Evan strolled up to you both with cheshire cat grins.

“There he is, back on his leash,” Junior said through a menacing laugh, ignoring Evan’s slight elbow to his side. “Feeling better, darling?”

“What brings you to the lions' den, Junior?” Remus asked carefully to divert the topic.

“Well. Y/N’s going so Pandora’s going so Evan’s going, and thus–” he did a small flourishing spin “– I’m going.”

“You’re impossible,” Evan murmured, while Pandora just smiled happily. 

“Is he feeling better, then?” Barty asked once more, this time looking at you.

“No, actually,” you said with a small smile Remus knew not to be genuine. “He is absolutely devastated you’re not in the Slytherin common room right now. He had big plans for you there, you know.”

Remus tried to choke down his laugh as Barty looked torn between glee and irritation. Somehow he made both work. “Sorry to soil your plans then, Lupin. Better luck next time.”

Then he stalked off in almost a hurry and Remus couldn’t help but hope he was going to Slytherin to check if you were telling the truth. 

He looked down at where you were standing beside him and squeezed your shoulder lightly. “You really are a minx,” he whispered conspiratorially.

That turned out to be his undoing. You turned your head to the side to look up at him with mirth playing around in your enamouring eyes, a soft tilt to the corner of your mouth. And your face was oh so painfully close to his.

Remus became acutely aware that he could easily lean in and catch your smile with his. That the air he was breathing had been close to you in some of the only ways he had not yet. That he must look like your boyfriend when you’re standing essentially pressed up against each other like this.

That he most certainly has been looking at your lips for far too long.

When he flicks his gaze back up, he sees a slight furrow between your brows again as you seem to take in his reaction, and suddenly he goes from having butterflies in his stomach to needing to throw them all up. He took a sudden staggering step backwards, almost crashing into James who was engaging in some animated discussion with Marlene.

“I, uh,” Remus said and dear Godrick he was stammering. “I’ll get us some drinks and we can sit down, yeah?” He didn’t wait for you to respond, instead spinning his back to you and hoping you pick up conversation with Pandora again.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Don’t be a bloody arse.

He hoped he had steadied himself enough by the time he plopped down in his favourite grandfather chair near the fire. He placed both of your drinks on the table in front of him, vowing to touch his as minimally as possible to make sure he keeps whatever wits he has left with him.

A dumb smile takes over his face as his breathing quickens when he sees you make your way over to the seating area, after having listened to his desperate silent plea and finished your conversation with Pandora. Pushing his luck, he shoots another silent prayer that it will be smooth sailing from here, which is apparently promptly ignored as you happily sit down in his lap.

Fuck.

This, he reminds himself, is also normal for the two of you. Especially at parties, especially if you have reason to believe he is unsteady in any sense of the word, which he most certainly has given you plenty of reason to believe. 

You give him some form of greeting he can’t quite catch and isn’t sure if he reciprocated as you settle down, putting majority of your weight on his right thigh as you lean your body sideways against his. One of your arms snuck around his shoulders, fingers winding up playing with the hair at the nape of his neck, while the other is stabilising yourself on his knee. Majority of your close friends had followed your lead by sitting down in the small gathering, chattering amongst themselves. He was half-aware that you were rambling on about something to him, something he probably really wanted to listen to, but it felt like his head was underwater.

Unsure of what else to do, he lowered his face into your shoulder and took deep breaths there.

You seemed wholly unbothered, fingers continuing in his hair as your soothing voice carried him through what he feared might become a panic attack. He was almost there, when the cocoon you two had in your chair was burst by the presence of your other friends.

“You alright there, Moons? You’re not going to go all vampire on poor Y/N?” Sirius’ tone was lighthearted and teasing, but Remus felt as if he might actually die.

“Oh, he’s quite alright,” you answered for him with a smile before he could embarrass himself, immediately switching over to engage in conversation with the friends sitting closest to you. Your hand on his knee squeezed reassuringly.

Fuck, how could he not love you?

He loved you.

Remus almost had to fight crying as he hid in the crook of his neck, overwhelmed by his own emotions and the surely watchful gazes of those around him – the latter of which was why he couldn’t. 

With a deep breath he let his desire win for just one second and pressed a soft kiss to your shoulder before emerging from his hiding place. He shifted you carefully to be more comfortable, so that your back was against him and he could rest his head on the shoulder he just kissed.

He did fairly good, partaking in conversation, engaging with the others, albeit more quietly and less than usual. He laughed and he smiled and you were so soft against him, as if you had melted. Remus was in heaven while being tortured.

Marlene wolf whistled quietly from where she was sat on the floor, eyeing Remus with mirth. Though he still did not know why, he was already turning red, the tips of his ears burning.

“Hi, Remmy.” He heard the soft voice say beside him and he turned his head to see Emmeline giving him a somewhat sly smile. “The dance floor’s picking up. Want to go for another round?”

Remus’ stomach churned. Emmeline was such a sweet girl and he never could say no to her, the only thing that felt worse than the embarrassment from his friends’ teasing was the thought of embarrassing her – though Remus was sure even thinking like that made him into an even bigger arse.

Sirius and James had told him multiple times that he could say no. As had you, reminding him how important it was to have boundaries, even while you were sitting practically on top of him at the time. He just could never bring himself to.

Yet his mouth seemed to move on its own accord before he could think, arms tightening around you. “No, not tonight Emmeline, sorry. Knock yourself out, though.” He tried to give her a warm smile, but his movements seemed to be outside of his control at the moment, breath sucked from his lungs.

He realised with a sting that he should have given her more credit all along when she beams back at him. “No worries, enjoy your night!” she cheered before twirling towards the dance floor herself.

Remus let out a shaky breath and turned to his friends who were almost staring him down. James’ mouth was even open in shock, which he thought was a bit dramatic.

“Hold on, what just happened?” Sirius guffawed. “Has our little Moony learned to say no?”

Remus flushed even further. “Shut up, Pads.”

“Don’t think I will,” his mate replied with a wolfish grin turning to look to the others for support. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

“What’s inspired this change in you?” Mary asked thoughtfully, propping her head into her hands as if she was settling in for a lengthy response.

All eyes were back on Remus and he felt like the mask he had been clinging to all day was crumbling. The nerves that shot through him like lightning now was not his usual humiliation from being in a charged spotlight – no, this was fear. Genuine fear that if he didn’t get his head screwed back on within two seconds, he might say something too revealing, or his face would do it without him having to open his mouth. That his fiery ears would somehow spell out I am in love with my very best friend and I realised it too late and am making it everybody else’s problem. He had no idea what to do.

In his time of despair, with Mary’s big eyes staring up at him, Marlene and Lily already snickering between them and Sirius raising an expecting brow, his instincts knew of only one way out.

His finger on your hip lifted. Tap, tap, tap.

Almost as if a switch had gone off, you made a soft gasp and turned to look at him in his lap. “Gods, Rem, speaking of Emmeline, I totally forgot our gift for Sirius in my dorm room in Ravenclaw!” you exclaimed, putting your all into the act. Your excuse seemed to be a good one as Sirius’ head immediately picked up, not unlike that of a dog’s if you said the word ‘treat’ around them. “We have to go get it before the party’s over.”

You elegantly hopped up and out of his lap, dragging him behind him with a grip on his elbow. Remus stumbled and scrambled behind you, tossing a sorry don’t know what that’s about look to the others over his shoulder. He barely caught sight of what he could only classify as a knowing exchange of smiles between James and Lily.

Before he could truly process your rescue mission, he was standing outside in the cool hallway breathing heavily, portrait closed behind him. 

Before him, you stood with your hands on your hips, scanning his face thoroughly, making him almost cower beneath your gaze. You seemed to make up your mind about something as you took his hand once more and walked with him down the hall in silence, rounding the corners until you reached one of the deep windowsills, the kind the two of you would always sit in and read. 

You jumped to lift yourself into it and once you were sat with one hand on each side of your body, you levelled him with a look.

“Okay, spill,” you said, directly but not unkindly. “What is going on with you?”

Remus did not think this through. He needed help and so he called upon you for it like he always does, not thinking to consider that that might very well make this worse for him.

“It’s…” he began, picking at straws in his mind for an excuse. “It’s nothing, dove. Really.” 

“When’s my birthday?” you asked then, to his surprise. He furrowed his brows at you and told you the date. You smiled a bit smugly. “Exactly. So you know I wasn’t born yesterday.”

He genuinely laughed at that, even if it was at his expense. He let his body do as it wished and took a small step closer to you. Not enough for your bodies to touch, but enough to feel like he was in your space. Safe, even in his panic.

“Remus,” you said softly, painfully gently. You rarely used his first name, and now when you did, it was laced with an undertone he couldn’t stomach. It was beginning to sound a bit like hurt. “What is going on with you? Why… why are you acting this way towards me?”

Because you are the one thing I have never had to question and now I’m questioning everything. Because I’m a bloody prick who has one dream and ruins his life over it. Because my mind is running a mile a minute and your lips feel like magnets and I swear I am losing control in a way I only do during full moons.

“I don’t know what to do,” he ended up whimpering quietly, cowardly.

You looked around the hallway as if the answer would be written on any of the walls and moved your arms slightly to gesture around you. “About what? I can’t help you unless I know what it is, cariad.”

He scrunched his face for a moment, looking away from you. “Can we not do this? It’s nothing you can fix, dove.”

You seemed to grow even more confused at that, almost frustrated. “Why not?” He realised then that the two of you had always helped each other through everything. Being locked out must hurt. He wanted to kick himself, but he didn't know what else to do. “What’s wrong, Remus, please I just–”

Remus is besieged by the power of someone much more reckless, driven by desire to alleviate you of your confusion and him of his pain.

He cut you off with a kiss.

He took a large stride forward to slot himself in between your thighs, eliminating the space between you within a second, bringing both hands up to cup the sides of your face and bring it towards him. His eyes were shut tightly, furrow in his brows as his lips all but smashed against yours in a kiss that felt sacrificially sacred. Your lips are just as soft as in his dream, as is the small gasp that escapes you as you tense in his grasp.

Remus has never felt better and he has never felt worse.

The kiss lasts for about 10 seconds before he pulls away in even more of a flurry. His hands lost their grip on you first, hovering over your cheeks briefly, as if considering going back in before thinking better of it. He still had you captured in the kiss, hanging on to it for as long as he could deign himself, knowing it was his last opportunity to do so, all the while kicking himself over it.

Backing away, he put double the distance between you. He felt drunk, stumbling slightly as he all but scrambled away, a stinging sensation behind his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, I don't know why I did that. I didn’t mean to,” he breathed out, reeling at his own impulsivity. “That,” he said through a shaking voice as he looked anywhere but your face, “is my problem, and Y/N, I am so, so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

For the shortest second, he lets his eyes flicker quickly over your face before rushing back to stare at a statue on the wall beside you. Your face was blank, eyes wide. Your fingers were barely touching the lips he had just enclosed in his own.

You must be disgusted. You must be horrified. You must feel violated and Remus wanted nothing more than to disappear from the face of the earth and rid you of this undying problem.

He was every bit the beast you had tried to convince him he wasn’t.

“Why…” you began, voice but a whisper, before you trailed off.

Remus had to shut his eyes at that, tilting his head slightly to the side. If he breathed through his nose, he might not cry. He was sitting before the highest court he knew, and you were about to ask him to explain himself.

“Why are you sorry?”

The words floored him a little, enough to make his eyes snap open and land back on your face. You looked deeply concerned, brows tilted upwards as you seemed to take his face in. “Remus,” you whispered now that you finally had his eyes on you. “Why are you sorry?”

He shook his head in confusion, feeling every bit like the boy he was. “I shouldn’t have done that.” It was all he could get out through his hoarse voice. He also had no idea how to answer that question in a satisfactory way.

You took in a short sharp breath and then lowered yourself onto the ground to stand before him. With your hands held out in front of you, almost as if you were ready to lunge out and catch him if he was to run – an idea that was becoming increasingly enticing to him – you took a small step towards him. “Why?” There was a growing spark in your eye, dimmed only by your worried frown.

“Y/N.” He didn’t know what else to say, eyes trained on you.

“Cariad,” you replied in the same tone, and a tear slipped down his left cheek. You took another measured step towards him, enough to reach out for him if you wanted to – but of course, you wouldn’t want to, not anymore. “It’s alright.”

He felt dizzy at the lack of the scolding or disgust he had braced himself for, realising how stupid he was for even fearing that from you. No, you would reject him sweetly and kindly, and his heart would never be mended from it. That felt worse, somehow.

“It’s not,” he whispered. “Please don’t say it is.”

You smiled ruefully and took another small step towards him. He could feel the warmth eminating from you. Tentatively, you reached up a hand to wipe at the tear still sitting on his left cheek. He held his breath and fought the urge to lean into your touch, but when you pressed your palm more firmly against his cheek, he couldn’t anymore. A soft sigh escaped him and he let his eyes fall shut as your touch supported him. “It is, my sweet boy,” you whispered with an urgency that almost convinced him. “Remus, can you answer me honestly?”

His body tensed once more as his eyes fluttered open to find yours, reverent. Most parts of him were still screaming at him to run away, to shut up, to do anything but this. His heart seemed to be in charge for the moment, though, and he nodded slowly. Trusting you with his world even as he felt like a traitor in yours.

“All this, today… has it been because you have realised you’re… in love with me?” You seemed to be piecing it together as you said the words out loud, eyes carefully searching his face for his reaction.

Another tear slipped down his cheek, and you quickly caught it with your other thumb, both hands now cradling his face. “I’m so sorry,” he said once more.

“You’re not allowed to be,” you whispered, giving him a half-smile, almost as if you were indulging him in a secret of yours. “Please answer the question?”

It was now or never. “Yes.”

To his utter surprise and deep-seated confusion, the smile on your face grew genuine, settling into the one he always searched for. He almost opened his mouth to question it before he was cut off.

No words can describe the sensations that bloomed in his chest, the butterflies that flitted in his stomach, when you used your hands on his face as leverage to pull him towards you for another kiss.

You kissed him. You kissed him. You were kissing.

His mind was threatening to take off like a rocket and captiulate, but his hands had never been more steady as they circled around your waist, splaying out over the small of your back as he dragged you closer. You sighed against him, smile still evident over your lips, and Remus dared – like the bastard he was – to mirror it. 

You were warm against him, but wholly different than you had been in his dream. This felt distinctly real. And just as right.

When you pulled away, your hands had migrated to the back of his neck and you kept your forehead leaned against his. “Good,” you murmured with your eyes still closed. “Because the feeling is mutual.”

He almost reared his head away from you, but managed to only pull back a few centimetres to stare at you in awe. Remus opened his mouth, but no words came out; he could find none intelligent enough to verbalise how utterly gobsmacked he felt.

You seemed to understand him just as well, going by your breathy laugh. There was still that spark in your eye, now shining brightly in the absence of your worry. Had the worry been for him?

“I know I don’t say this enough, but you really are quite an idiot, aren’t you?” you laughed and he slowly felt his heart start beating again.

“Spent too much time with Sirius and James, clearly,” he muttered, half expecting the joke to land flat and you to remember how disgusting he was. Instead, your laugh intensified and you leaned your body further against his. It emboldened him to ask, “What do you mean the feeling is mutual, dove?”

You let your arms glide further up, crossing behind his neck and over his shoulder, bringing him impossibly closer. “Remus John Lupin,” you whispered sincerely. “I am madly in love with you. Romantically. Genuinely. Any thoughts you have that explain that away are false and you mustn't listen to them. I thought you knew by now that I’m always right.”

Even as the grin involuntarily established itself on his face, his eyes were shining with unshed tears. He looked at your face, truly studied it, and he could feel his mind ever so slowly calm down. “You are.”

“What am I?” You were testing him, and he allowed it wholeheartedly.

“Right,” he confirmed. Albeit a bit more hesitantly, he knew better than not to add, “and… in love with me?”

“Two points to Gryffindor.” You reached up to give his lips a soft peck. It felt so natural, like it was already habit for you. He desperately wanted it to be.

“I’m sorry, I’m still reeling from this, dovey,” he confessed, trying to process everything.

There had never been any judgement to be found in your face. “Which parts are you struggling with the most?” 

Your eyes were full of understanding, your face scrunched up in concentration. Remus indulged himself in an old habit by reaching up with one hand to thumb the furrows away. It made you smile just like he wanted it to, and gave him a minute to think. “I don’t understand how I didn’t get it before now. I don’t understand how or why you put up with me. I don’t understand how to keep all these feelings inside such a small heart.”

Your hands were stroking his back carefully as you considered his words. “Well, firstly I would argue your heart isn’t small at all, though I get what you mean. You’re not meant to keep all the feelings inside, you know? That’s when you get all sputtery and jittery and start avoiding your best friends.” You gave him a pointed look and he almost shied under your glance. “Sharing them before you bubble over is always a good thing. We’ll work on it together. As for why I put up with you; I don’t. There’s nothing to put up with, I just enjoy you like we always have.”

Your eyes had trailed off into the distance as you thought, but you brought them back to him with a small smile as you added the final part. “I don’t know what did make you realise, so I can’t help you much there. All I can say is, sometimes we don’t see what is right in front of us.”

Remus nodded along to your words, feeling peace spreading within in that manner only you could inspire in him. He truly was an idiot, wasn’t he? “How long have you known?” he asked then, curiously.

“About you or me?”

“Both?” His smile was becoming closer to his standard sheepish one, and you seemed to preen at the sight.

You bobbed your head side to side as you considered. “It’s hard to pinpoint an exact date – it wasn’t an overnight discovery you know?” Remus did in fact not know nor relate. “But I realised we were in love, not either one’s feelings. It just sat calmly within me.”

“You mean you didn’t freak out to the extent where all students and professors alike were worried about you?”

He grinned at the small giggle that drew from you as you decidedly said, “No. Definitely not.” You studied him for a minute more. “I think I realised about five months ago, but I didn’t feel any real need to rush anything. It felt less like being given a to-do list and more like being revealed the plot twist in a movie before it happens, if you understand? The two best friends get together in the end, don’t tell anyone.”

He ducked his head at that. While he could not relate, your explanation and experience was so wholeheartedly you that it endeared him to no end. “Does that mean we should just ignore it for five more months or…?” His grin turned cheeky as you lightly swatted his shoulder.

“Nah,” you chuckled. “I reckon we’ve waited long enough, yeah?”

He sighed with a smile. “Yeah.”

You both leaned forward at the same time, as if to seal the deal with a kiss. Remus could feel it like electricity in the tips of his fingers, and he understood what you meant about knowing. Now that he was no longer in a constant state of panic, he felt incredibly calm about the whole ordeal.

Or maybe that’s just how he feels around you.

“Should I ask you formally to be my girlfriend, or are we just skipping straight to marriage?” he whispered against your lips.

Remus felt almost wolfish when you barked a loud laugh, throwing your head back and tightening your hold on him instinctively. “I think girlfriend’s enough for now, yeah cariad?”

“If you insist.” He kissed you through his grin, realising that this was all he wanted to do now.

Like he had so many times before, he tightened his arms around your waist and twirled you around in a few circles, legs flying out behind you. Except this time, your giggles were not hidden in his neck but pressed against his lips, and he tried to capture as many kisses as possible while he spun you.

When you landed with a breathless giggle, he kept one arm firmly around your waist as the two of you slowly made your way back to the Gryffindor common room. He wondered if maybe he could grab some blankets and bring you up to the Astronomy Tower so you could be alone without his friends’ meddling. Yet, he wanted to see them as well, ready to volley back any quips about “took you long enough” and “I fucking called it”. Plus, you argued that you should prove that he was in fact alive and sane.

When he walked the halls back to the Gryffindor common room with your body against his, everything felt right. When you entered together, and everyone read what had happened written clearly across your faces, resorting to their usual hoots and hollers, arguably louder than ever before, it never stopped feeling right. 

Remus being Remus, flushed deeply and averted his gaze, as he would continue doing under any uncalled for attention – but your arms squeezing him around the middle brought him right back down and your kiss to his shoulder soothed the burn of their gazes.

“What’s my gift then?” Sirius later asked salaciously as he eyed you two up and down where you cuddled together right back in the same chair, as if nothing changed. Maybe nothing really did.

You grinned widely and cleared your throat. “I honourably present to you,” you said and opened your arms towards Remus with a flourish. “A Moony who is no longer mooning.”

The little group erupted in even more cheers, celebrating the massive feat of taming their brooding boy. Remus couldn’t help but laugh along, even at his own expense. His cheeks were red but it was equally due to the exertion of laughing as it was a tinge of embarrassment. When he hid his face into the crook of your neck again, he didn’t feel nearly as guilty when he pressed a few kisses to the bare skin he found there – even less so when you melted against him with a sigh.

It felt as if a permanent smile had been sown onto his face where he sat, more content than he believed he had been while inside this castle.

Despite Remus Lupin’s disdain for public displays of affection, he had held you publicly many times before this. They all paled in comparison to the feeling of you in his arms now. 

It had always been significant to him in its casualty, just as you have always been significant to him long before he had the mind to put the feeling into words. He will always treasure every moment of your existence in his orbit. Yet the way you melted into his skin now, growing roots in each one of his aching bones – no, nothing could compare to it.

Yes, Remus Lupin ailed from public displays of affection. But you were his cure.

[godjustkys]

THEME: it's just hate sex with dean..

CHARACTER: male reader x dean winchester

NOTE: as promised, dean winchester one shot. also!! requests are open.

WARNING: breeding kink,, clothed sex,, dirty talk,, degradation,, slight dacryphilia,, hair pulling,, short and not proof-read :(

“..hhhfuck—” dean breathed out lowly, grasping onto the table's edge for dear life. his back was arched slightly, forehead pressed against the wooden surface itself.

dean was bent over a table, and you were fucking him from behind. your hands holding his hips firmly, thrusting in and out at a steady pace. sure, it was stable, but it wasn't fast enough for dean. he wanted you to be rougher. “Don't be a bitch, dean.” you cooed gently, pushing one hand up dean's spine, the action more sensual than anything. “let me hear you.” in response, the other just gritted his teeth, letting out a small frustrated groan. how could he let this happen? he hated you, he hated every single bone of your body.

“you- fuck like a virgin.” dean mumbled out, his tone bitter. “this your first time? you experimenting, huh?” he quipped, lifting his head up and turning it to the side, looking at you out of the corner of his eye. You let out an amused scoff in response, suddenly pushing your hips forward, the action harsh and quick. it made dean stumble, knees buckling for a moment, his grip on the edge tightening. he turned his head away immediately clenching his jaw.

“don't try to taunt me, dean. you're the one taking my cock like a damn slut right now. i can feel you clenching around me,” you spoke, leaning forward, your chest just above his back. “shh-shut the fuck up, you son of a bitch—” dean responded with a strained voice, his face twitching in annoyance. or maybe from the fact that he was holding back so many sounds. he pretended like he didn't like what you said, but god, he only got harder. his abdomen tensed too. fuck. “listen to yourself right now..” you muttered, your lips right next to his ear. “the little gasps? yeah, you love this,” your tone took a more confident edge.

dean hadn't even realized that he was gasping, letting out soft breaths that soon evolved to pants. “Mmhhm—” he let out an agitated groan that turned into a humourless chuckle. “you- keep telling yourself that-” he choked out. “oh, I don't need to. you think I would've been able to get you into this position if you didn't want it? aren't you a big, strong hunter?” you teased, moving one hand to the back of his neck. soon enough, you gripped his hair, pulling his head back. “so, tell me,” you urged him, pressing a kiss to his throat. “tell me how much you want this. how much you want my cock, how good you feel right now.”

dean kept quiet, his breathing laboured and heavy. his eyes fluttered shut as you continued kissing his throat, eyebrows stitched together. “go to hell.” he spoke as he tried to squirm out of your grip. “no, no dean,” you pressed gentle kisses against his skin again, making your way from his throat to the nape of his neck, letting go of his messy hair. “not what i asked for,” the moment you said the word 'asked' you thrusted in deeper, as if enunciating your point, making dean squirm even more. “but I'll let it slide.” you breathed out, eyes boring into the back of his head.

“shhh..shit. fuck fuck fuck-” dean groaned out, his eyes screwed shut. “you're a bastard-” he said before letting out a mewl, of all things. you let out a small chuckle, letting your pace increase - you couldn't torture dean for long, you were starting to feel bad with all his jittery squirming. “mhm? what else?” you inquired softly, so innocently, as if you weren't pounding him from the back. dean could take this, of course he could. But then, both of your hands moved back to dean's hips, grip firm, as you pulled him against you. essentially, making his ass meet your pelvis.

“hhn!” he gritted out, his fingers curling up around the edge of the table. “d- don't you manhandle me.” he protested weakly, his thighs tensing and hips stuttering. “that's not manhandling, dean. d'you want me to, though?” you asked gently, keeping your pace steady. of course, no response from the man under you. he'd be lying through his teeth if he said he wasn't curious as to what manhandling felt like, but he didn't have it in him to ask for that. let alone from you, someone he loathed. he's chastising himself for even letting this happen. his pride - wounded.

as dean continued his silent treatment of sorts, you decided for him. why the fuck not? gotta have some fun in a way, right? you pulled out, only momentarily, as you flipped dean over to his back with ease, earning a small, barely even audible yelp from the hunter. you pushed your way back in with slight resistance, dean's abdomen tensing as you did, his hands scrambling to grasp at something. well shit, his hands couldn't reach the table's edge anymore. and reaching for the edge above him would be uncomfortable. you noted his actions, realising immediately that he didn't want to touch you.

“damn, not even gonna put your hands on me?” you asked with a slightly offended tone, shifting on your feet to find a better, more comfortable angle. “c'mon..” you groaned out, one hand gripping dean's still clothed thigh, the other moving up to grip his jaw. “you want to, right? fuck your ego, dean. just do it.” you urged, your face so close to his. his vision was slightly unfocused, his toes curling just a bit. the thought was so tempting. his mind was starting to get lost in the pleasure you were providing, his skin tingling under your touch. “ain't happening.” he managed weakly, his face a.. a scowl? seriously?

“what a bitch,” you muttered in disbelief. “i've already got you where I wanted to, what's the point of giving me attitude, hm?” you pressed, the sound of your (unbuckled) belt buckle getting progressively louder due to your thrusts getting deeper. the slick sound of your cock going in and out of dean's hole progressing in volume, too. dean almost bit his tongue while trying to contain his noises. he wasn't going to give it to you. “baby, you've gotta be more compliant than that..” you cooed gently, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips that dean didn't return. he wanted to. fuck you were so hot. soft groans escaped his throat, his lips pressed to a thin line as his hands gripped at literally nothing.

“how 'bout we make a deal, hm?” you suggested suddenly, your thrusts slowing down but not stopping. that grabbed dean's interest. “you stop holding back.. and I won't mention this, ever again.” he shot you a skeptical look. you? not talking about this? what a joke. “i promise.” you added, your tone almost pleading. “i just gotta know how good I make you feel. that's enough for me.” you breathed out, thumb rubbing soothing circles into the skin of his thigh. “i'll kill you- if- if you don't keep that stupid promise.” dean threatened, albeit with a shaky voice. he was far too easy to deal with.

finally, after what seemed an eternity, one of dean's hands found their way to your shoulder, the other reaching to hold onto your waist - or more so your shirt. due to his newfound compliance, you could give it your all without him trying to hold back. you pushed your cock all the way in, because you hadn't yet. safe to say that the man you were currently fucking the living daylight out of didn't know you weren't bottoming out. “Ah!- motherfuckerrrr-- mmhh—” he whimpered out in a broken voice, his hand moving from your shoulder to the side of your neck. his face was scrunched up, eyes shut tightly.

what heavenly sounds. you let a smile creep up onto your face as you kissed him, passionately, this time dean reciprocating the kiss even if he was a bit late. he let out deep grunts every time you thrusted in, your mouth just devouring the damned sounds. you didn't waste a second, pushing your tongue into his mouth and swirling it against his. dean's breath stuttered, almost feeling overwhelmed, his thighs aching beyond belief. when you pulled away from the kiss to catch your breath, dean spoke up. “are you fucking trying to suck out my soul?” he seethed, panting heavily.

“somethin' like that, yeah.” you breathed out, your eyes locked onto his neck as your hand that was on his jaw just ran over his torso. eventually, it ended up at the hem of his shirt. you simply pushed the shirt up to his collarbone, dean's facial expression shifting to a more confused one. the moment your mouth landed on his nipple, he forced himself to hold in a girlish shriek. he wasn't used to his nipples being played with. both of the latter's hands gripped at your hair, in an attempt to ground himself but also pull you away if needed. “wh- what the fuck, man?” dean got out, his voice strained, maybe a pitch higher.

the sensation of you sucking on his nipple and pounding into him ruthlessly made him let out continuous moans, his voice breaking more with each other. eventually, he let out a sob, his fingers tightening in your hair, the stinging pain making you groan against dean's skin. you could feel his thighs trembling against your pelvis. you didn't stop though, as dean made no protest. but what you took notice of was his whiny moan of your name. it made your gaze shift to his face. god, it made you wish you had a camera just to take a photo and hang it on your wall. his eyes welled up with tears, just barely, his mouth agape, drool on the corners of his lips, all pretty, just for you. you trailed up kisses from his chest to his face, the action more gentle than you anticipated but oh well. “fuck, you're such a slut.” you mumbled against his cheek, your eyes closed as you got lost on the bliss that were dean's sounds, his hopeless squirming and trembling. “takin' me so well, like you were made for this.” you continued. “were you?” you inquired, your tone too sweet compared to your words.

a fucking whimper was what you got in response, his hips shamelessly rocking against yours, as if seeking friction. he wasn't getting enough? “you tryna get off, huh?” you leaned back up, gazing down at him. “ugh, I wanna breed you.” you rasped out, too lost in your own fantasies. “just imagine it, me filling you up, to the brim. with my cum. mine.” dean's face contorted an almost concerned facial expression. the worst thing was was that he didn't even hate what you said, he wasn't against it. he might've actually liked it. he pulled you down as his hands remained in your hair, still, his mouth latching onto your neck as he sucked hickeys onto your skin. you hummed out a sound in response, twitching inside dean. he only continued making sounds against your skin. he seemed desperate to have some sense of control.

dean kept his head buried into your shoulder, as the numerous and various moans, whines and whimpers escaped his lips. he was trying so hard to catch his breath, his thighs tensing around your waist. “who knew such a deep voiced hunter would make such girlish moans?” you teased mindlessly, your only focus now to just breed the fuck outta him. it was at this point that dean didn't even bother responding, frantically holding you close, his hands trembling. oh god you were too much. not that he'd admit that. the more you continued thrusting into him, the more he cried out. yes, cried. sure, tears weren't rolling down his face, but they were there, you knew they were. you could recognise it, the way his voice got high pitched and so eager.

eventually, the overwhelming heat that was pooling in your lower stomach was getting even stronger, and you were close. not even warning dean, you gave harsh thrusts, the other's body twitching helplessly in response as he gasped. you came inside with a groan, your hands holding dean's waist so severel that it might've even left bruises. dean let out a sharp hiss before it turned into a mewl, once again, and he couldn't help but get even more turned on by the liquid that was inside of him. he came, untouched, his arms wrapping around your shoulders as his blunt nails dug into your shirt. he was sweating, his head lowered.

“this ain't 'nough.” you mumbled weakly, starting to move again. goddamn it, dean was in for a night.

[lucy90712]

Heyyyy ♡♡♡♡♡♡

Could I request a headcanon on the boys ( whoever you want) giving reader the orincess treatment?

Gavi: 

- He has always treated you like you'll disappear if he doesn't give you the best which of course he should do regardless but he always goes above and beyond because he wants you to feel like he's treating you like a princess at all times

- He does everything to make sure he's the best boyfriend you've ever had and hopefully good enough to be your last he's very good at it too he never takes you for granted and always makes sure he makes time for you especially when he knows you need him most

- You are his passenger princess 

- Once he had his license you were the first person he took out in his car he came straight from doing his test to your place to pick you up and take you somewhere he doesn't even have anywhere to go but he just drives around 

- Now that he can drive he won't have you driving him or yourself anywhere if he can help it he drives you to your classes and to see your friends purely because he loves driving you places as he gets to listen to you sing along to whatever playlist he plays in the car and he can hold your hand or have his hand on your thigh which he really enjoys as he loves to savour little moments like that 

- He absolutely loves late night drives and he will always bring you along with him as he drives to somewhere that he can park the car and you guys can just enjoy the scenery and he can just stare at you as you look better than the view to him anyway 

Pedri: 

- He was raised to always respect women and as soon as he got his first girlfriend his parents made sure he knew how to treat her even though he was young and that has only been drilled into him more as he's got older so he has always been a gentleman and treated women well 

- Because of this he has never given you anything but the best although he never thinks of it that way he's just treating you like he was raised to do but for you it feels so amazing to be almost worshipped by him as all your last boyfriends have done the bare minimum at most 

- Pedri always likes to make sure you are doing well as when you get stressed or overwhelmed you aren't yourself and he loves the not stressed you so he tries his best to make sure you never get to that point and you are always smiling as he loves your smile 

- When you have a busy week Pedri will get come over to your place every night and cook dinner for you or at least attempt to as he wants to know that you have at least one proper meal each day when you have a lot going on he will also take over some of your chores as he knows you hate living in a messy place and it will just stress you out more 

- You are always so thankful for what he does for you but he never accepts anything in return because he knows that you will do the same for him when he is schedule gets busy and you have many times

- When you live together none of this will change Pedri cares so much about you that he never wants to see you suffer when he help so even if he has a match that takes up most of his day he will still check in on you as he thinks that's the only right way to treat you 

Jude: 

- Jude treats you like a queen at all times because he knows that he should treat his girlfriend that way and because if he didn't his parents would kill him they have always taught him to be caring and treat others well especially friends and girlfriends 

- He always thinks that you deserve the world as you deal with so much like him not being around much, the constant media attention and all the negative comments on social media which he knows gets to you even though you say it doesn't 

- Obviously he can't change his schedule or what people say so instead he tries to make it up to you in any way possible which often involves spoiling you which he is lucky enough to be able to afford to get you anything you could possibly want 

- You are always telling him not to get you things but he does it anyway as he knows that you don't like to spend your money on unnecessary things for yourself so he does it instead because what's the point of earning the amount of money he does if he can't use it to spoil you 

- When you move to Madrid to live with him he gets you a brand new car as you can drive but you've only ever had old half broken cars so he gets you your dream car which you say is so that you won’t embarrass him if you drive him to training but really he just wants you to have the best 

- He also uses all his breaks to take you to the places you've always wanted to go he has a list of places you've said you want to visit so when he has some time off he picks somewhere off the list and books the plane tickets he loves doing this as he loves nothing more then seeing the smile on your face when you are exploring 

Joao: 

- Joao knows how to treat a woman right and he’s been in long term relationships so he’s pretty good at it but after his last relationship he blames himself for not being a good enough boyfriend  to her and not doing enough so he’s determined to not make the same mistake again 

- You always try and tell him that he wasn’t the reason his last relationship ended and that he’s more than good enough for you but still he insists on treating you like you are the only girl left on earth which obviously you love as he makes you feel so special 

- One of the many things that makes Joao a great boyfriend is that he knows you better than you know yourself at times he can pick up on when you are stressed and can help you before you have a breakdown and he just seems to always know how you are feeling without you telling him 

- To him being a good partner and treating you like a princess involves being attentive to your emotional wellbeing as well as your physical wellbeing because he’s been through hard time with no one to support him and he’s determined not to let that happen to you so whenever something bad happens he will be the one to be by your side and let you cry or listen to your feelings 

- Your relationship is very equal so all of your problems are his and vice versa that way you both always have someone to lean on when you need support as he didn’t have that in his last relationship which ultimately led to some of the downfall 

- Joao wants nothing more than to be the best partner he can be for you as he knows you deserve the best so even if at times he doesn’t think he’s enough he always tries his best and that’s what attracted you to him in the first place as all you care about is the fact that he’s trying as that’s all you can really ask for 

[hestzhyen]

Analysis: Hakuri & Abusive Backstories

Hello dear void. Hakuri is a character that is near and dear to my heart so I wanted to yap about him and why his story is so important to me on a deeply personal level.

This is a LONG yapfest- the Tumblr Edit Post UI is hitching and lagging while I try to type this little notice there's so much word vomit in here. I honestly don't expect anyone to read it all the way through. I just wrote this to figure out why I was so goddamn attached to a fictional character and decided to jettison it into the ambivalent embrace of the internet. I spent too many hours on this to just delete it all once I found my answers, so... if you wanna strap in, go ahead. But maybe make sure you've got a decent chunk of free time and high tolerance for extremely subjective interpretations first.

*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*

DISCLAIMER: This is purely my opinion- I can't speak for anyone's experience but my own.

First, this isn't a trauma dump. Not for me at least. I'll be talking about what Hakuri endured and how it shaped his character in relatable ways thanks to the quality of the writing. But there won't be anything discussed outside of what happens in Kagurabachi canon, so rest assured on that front.

Second, please don't assume I had a terrible life because I latched on to a character that was literally tortured for years! Even though the major themes resonated with me and many of my thoughts were eerily similar to Hakuri's, nothing I experienced rose to such an extreme level. Like, I genuinely deserved the one time I was hit for being a shitty over-dramatic teenager so it doesn't even come close lmao. Fictional characters don't have to be 1:1 mirrors in terms of type or severity of trauma to be helpful self-reflection tools is all.

Third, I started writing this around chapter 53 and it's being posted as of chapter 58. If it ages poorly, well, I'm not saying I'm smart just because I yap a lot.

Without further ado... prepare for an expansion of massive proportions under the cut.

*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*

All too often we see shounen characters have an abusive sob story background to give them a sympathetic hook and a reason to start from zero. There's little to say about them other than they go from zero to hero for the good vibes and catharsis. They begin their story as a victim first and foremost, and there are little or no lingering effects from trauma once they have their moment of triumph. In the "good" cases they're healed and whole. In the "bad" cases they have negatively warped personalities for the rest of the story. There's not much in between the two extremes.

Portraying the abuse characters endure in such a shallow way is not the best way to write about it, from my point of view. Writing it as something that can be overcome with strength of will alone is harmful. So is writing the victim as a permanently damaged, defective person. Instead, we need more characters like Hakuri that are shaped but not wholly defined by their abuse, and aren't completely healed by putting the manifestation of their torment in the dirt.

Hakuri is the first character the [abusive past] attribute that actually worked as a hook for me. This is largely due to two key writing decisions: not centering Hakuri's entire narrative around overcoming the abuse he suffered, and carefully depicting how trauma influences his actions. It's necessary to read between the lines of what he says and does to see how much he hasn't said about himself- what he won't admit or recognize, despite how core it is to his character.

Chapters 19-23, Meeting and Getting to Know Sazanami Hakuri

Mantis imagery for courage!

The very first things we learn about Hakuri are as follows:

1) He pushes through hardship with sheer force of will 2) He lost his whole family and has probably been on his own for a while 3) #1 is a lie

I've brought it up before, but food symbolism is all over the place in Kagurabachi- it's often a short-hand for comfort and connection. So Hakuri spilling that metaphor out of his mouth right after telling us he's able to "push through" is a sign that he actually isn't coping with his situation that well. His thoughts about himself and his actual status don't match up. But it's ridiculous imagery that puts us off and pushes us towards thinking he's kind of pathetic rather than making us feel sorry for him. And the rest of his introduction, while accurate to his character, buries the lede on how much he's suffering.

As for his backstory: he was disowned, yes. He says his family will kill him if they see him, yes. But it reads more like Hakuri was punished for being a moral black sheep after he himself framed being disowned as punishment for "being weak" and "getting in the way of business". There's no hint of foul play on his family's part other than being low-life criminals to be fought as the arc villains. So he's primed for some sadness but probably nothing on Char's level. The only hints we have towards something serious until the chapter 24 reveal are not exactly obvious:

-He has a fatalistic mindset and thinks it's natural for him to be overpowered and kicked around because he's weak. (Could just be typical zero-to-hero shounen character things.)

-He's generally unafraid and highly tolerant of pain. He gives no shits about his condition after being kicked around by the Yakuza, smears the blood from his nose while casually talking to Chihiro, and willingly takes a strong hit and is able to yell encouragement to Chihiro while lying bloody on the floor. (Doesn't really stand out in a series as violent as Kagurabachi; this is kind of the bare minimum for being involved in the plot if you aren't a child to be protected.)

-Perhaps the only big tell-tale sign: we zoom in on his trembling fist when describing his older siblings as "strong and scary" in chapter 23. (Could be inferred as fearing for his life since he also says they'd kill him on sight in the same chapter.)

Hakuri's not written like a typical abuse victim in this intro. We don't get commentary from other characters about how much pain Hakuri seems to be in- they comment on how weak and dopey he appears instead. Nor do we get shots of him looking sad, flinching away from touch, or being hesitant to connect with other people. He's actually kind of unhinged with how passionate and eager he is to join forces with Chihiro. He's intense and ridiculous and gets used like a wholesome gag character more than anything else.

So there's not much to suspect here. Hakuri's got more to reveal to us but there are no signs of what we should brace ourselves for. Then the nightmare starts.

Chs. 24-26, The First Glimpse

This page goes from 0 to 100 REAL quick.

Well, shit.

Behold the understated reveal of Hakuri's status as a victim of abuse. The revelation at the bottom of the page only to see his suicide attempt on the page turn is an extremely effective "oh shit- OH SHIT-" two-hit combo that arrests the reader's attention, and I really wish that it was the most memorable part of the chapter for more people. Because holy hell, this recontextualizes everything we know about Hakuri. He's still a passionate, silly, and slightly insane guy, but damn he actually suffered more than he let on.

To find out like this is unusual, isn't it? Char's situation wasn't shown right away either, but meeting her as a scruffy orphan clued us in that she was going to have a tough past from the start. Hakuri, by comparison, gave us very few obvious hints about it. It's like he doesn't want to be seen that way. He openly admits to being "weak" and "useless" but his own pain? The suffering he endured? He's totally fine pushing past it all (lies).

But we're not even close to done yet.

Note how Hakuri's focused on Soya's hands...

Hakuri's first instinct being to jump to his death says a lot. Unlike standing up for the little girl or jumping in to save Chihiro, this is a purely reactionary response. There's no room to think back to Chihiro's bravery for inspiration as those memories overwhelm him. He's terrified. So he jumps and trembles in fear as Soya tries to talk him into coming back to relive his nightmares.

We laughed at the soda spilling out of his mouth and his expressions after he got hit in the face by Hiyuki, but this is deadly serious. Hakuri isn't okay at all. He's actually in very bad condition and the way he thinks about Soya says so much.

The panel explaining Soya's expression of "love" on the page above is important, but it's not emphasized in the same way as what's happening in the present. It feels like an unpleasant detour into Hakuri's inner thoughts for extra context while the main focus is on him and Soya in the moment. Hakuri doesn't even describe what happened to him directly- he says "punching and kicking" like it could be anything from hazing to broken bones, but the backdrop lets us know that it's probably closer to the latter. It gives the impression that Hakuri (understandably) doesn't want to think about this at all.

He also frames Soya's aggression towards him as an expression of "sincere" affection. That's preposterous and heart-breaking to most people- violence isn't love. Even most victims will acknowledge that... to a point. Violence hurts, it's unwanted, but it's still a valid expression of emotion to be acknowledged. It's something they earn or deserve. The rational people are correctly screaming NO IT'S NOT! And most victims would agree again... to a point. Somehow they're the exception to that mindset. Other people don't deserve it, but they do.

So despite it all, Hakuri is still able to be brave for Hinao's sake. He's not going to let Soya hurt anyone else if he can help it, even if it means putting himself back in harm's way. This adds an interesting layer to his character. He's laden with trauma, but he's still able to show courage for others. He thinks he's weak and won't prevent whatever abuse comes his way, but he will put himself at risk to stop others from experiencing the same or worse.

Why is he so devoted to protecting other people at his own expense? Sadly, it's not uncommon for victims to advocate harder for other people than they do for themselves. It also has something to do with the merchandise woman that was mentioned this chapter, but that reasoning won't be revealed for a while yet.

"This pathetic wretch was born a Sazanami, but he can't even do sorcery. He's useless. Worse, he's a hindrance. His life is worthless."

There's another thrill of panic when Kyora summons Hakuri to use his life as a bargaining chip. Hakuri's at his most pathetic here- he's on the ground, helpless under Kyora's foot, not even trying to resist or escape. None of the fire we saw when he saved the little girl, took that hit for Chihiro, or defended Hinao is present. Hakuri can't be brave for himself. He's quite literally trampled by what passes for the Sazanami version of "love" and "basic human decency". It doesn't need to be spelled out any clearer than this: Hakuri's woes come from his family, especially his father. The Sazanamis are fucked up even when it comes to how they treat their own flesh and blood. They're rotten from the head down.

It's obvious then why Chihiro's words and actions affect Hakuri so much. Hakuri thinks he has no value whatsoever- his father says as much, and he falls for Shiba's bluff implying the same. Only Chihiro steps in to directly repudiate Kyora's toxicity and say yes, Hakuri does have value. So much, in fact, that he's willing to trade the precious memento of his father (and the majority of his strength) to prove it. So they're able to leave, but not without Hakuri encumbering himself with a huge amount of guilt for how things went down.

The face of someone ready to spiral down and out.

It's telling that reassurances don't do much to help Hakuri feel better. Shiba tries to help by offering generic comfort (ice cream) and Chihiro tells him it's alright, but it's not until Hakuri hears that he's still needed that he's able to bring himself out of the mire of self-hate.

Of course it's extra effective for Hakuri because he was considered totally useless, but this is very relatable even for folks who weren't told they had no value on a daily basis. Offers of comfort only make the self-hate worse for some people who think they're utterly worthless. Even simple gestures like Shiba's twist the knife and reinforce the idea that the person doesn't deserve any kindness whatsoever. It just piles on the guilt. But being given something to do -especially if it's believably framed as something only they're capable of doing- feels incredible. They might have some value after all, even if only for this one thing.

It's something that I really appreciate the author doing since it's a touch that didn't need to be added. Hakuri could have just found a bit of solace in Shiba and Chihiro's words, which would have given more time for other things to be addressed in the chapter. But it's important to show that Hakuri struggles with accepting kindness because he took his father's words to heart. His feelings of worthlessness and uselessness are essential to who he is.

After this we see him at Chihiro's beck and call, prioritizing his requests over everything- relaxing with Char and Hinao, even his own comfort with another ice cream/food metaphor. It's framed as something silly and dog-like for the laughs, which once again encourages us to downplay the severity of this issue for him. None of the other characters ever directly point this out either. It's one of those informed traits that influences Hakuri's actions without any acknowledgment from himself or others, but just like the soda spilling out of his mouth, we're invited to treat it as a gag.

From here, the focus shifts entirely to building tension for the raid on the Rakuzaichi. Hakuri's circumstances are put on the back-burner to simmer for 5 weeks in real time until he confronts Soya in chapter 30.

Chs. 30 & 32-34, The Soya Rematch (what Chihiro and Shiba know):

Hakuri puts his fear of Soya aside to bait him out to help the mission. Chihiro and Shiba gave him a job to do, so he'll see it through no matter what. Unfortunately things don't go as planned and he ends up all alone with his biggest tormentor.

I'll have more to say about Soya himself in his own section with Kyora later, but it's very clear what his role as Chief Bully is, narratively speaking:

In a lot of ways, Soya is more object than actual character. He's our almost cartoonishly evil device to represent everything that's been repressing Hakuri. He's the demon in his head telling him he's useless, pathetic, weak, and so on. So Hakuri trying to square up to Soya is also him facing off against the things he's internalized that hold him back.

Hakuri's struggle against Soya before he awakens seems very hopeful and standard shounen. He's fighting the internal battle at the same time as the external, telling his brother to "shut up" while his mind races to figure out what he should do now that the situation went belly-up. He could keep playing the victim and take Shiba up on his offer to help since he can't reach Chihiro, or he could play dead and wait for it all to be over... or he could try believing in himself. Because Chihiro saw something in him and even if he can't bring himself to think he's strong and capable, he can at least have faith in Chihiro's words that they would end the Rakuzaichi together.

This time it works and he's able to shove Soya close enough to the tree wall so that Chihiro can give us a great visual metaphor to show us what just happened to Hakuri:

Chihiro is the one who broke Hakuri's mental barrier for him. He couldn't do it himself, but someone he admired believing in him in return made all the difference. Hakuri just needed a little support to start coming into his own.

He stays behind to handle the rest of the fight on his own while Chihiro goes ahead to meet up with Shiba- he can do this himself now that he's awakened thanks to their help. Very wholesome, extremely shounen. But there are deliberate writing choices which make it obvious that there's more going on beyond the surface that winning this fight won't fix or even fully address.

In Chapter 32, Hakuri tells Chihiro and Shiba a slightly condensed version of his experience as an uncomfortable reminder for the reader. Oh, right, Hakuri was abused- at least that explains why he survived a Flame Bone punch to the face. Anyway, let's move on to ditching John Hishaku and kicking Soya's ass.

The framing is so interesting to me. Chapter 32 uses preexisting panels that are cropped and presented slightly differently compared to how they originally appeared: Ch. 24

Ch. 32

Full page for reference.

When Hakuri recounts a version of the abuse flashbacks, they're not merely downsized to fit. They're cropped to downplay the gang-ups and are smaller in size compared to the rest of his story, almost as if he doesn't think it's that big of a deal compared to being unable to keep up with his siblings. We don't even see his own words describing what happened despite him talking freely about everything else. Instead, the abuse sequence is treated like the panel where he describes Soya's "love"- Hakuri talking to Chihiro and Shiba about his suffering is an unpleasant aside to give context rather than the main event.

Seriously. The dialogue of him explaining why his family gave up on him over the reused backdrop of the Sazanami estate is given more time than him being hit and kicked. Chihiro and Shiba get the "it wasn't so bad" version of events compared to what Hakuri remembers experiencing, and we're invited to treat what's normally the foundation of a character's entire existence as a convenient explanation for why he's so goddamn sturdy.

Neither of them noticeably react to his story too. We got a bit from Shiba in the car in Chapter 26 when he realized Hakuri was probably stewing in self-hatred, but we've never seen any of Chihiro's thoughts or reactions since he was disgusted by Kyora using Hakuri as a bargaining chip. He does reassure Hakuri that they'll be there to help him, but isn't it strange we don't see Chihiro's reaction to this information at all? We see little panels of his concerned faces all the time for less than what Hakuri talked about here:

Chihiro cares a hell of a lot, and he's very attentive to boot.

Obviously we don't see Chihiro and Shiba's reactions because they aren't important. This isn't about Hakuri's abuse- we already knew about it. The focus is on Hakuri's awakening and his faith in Chihiro, not the past.

This is a victim's mindset manifesting as clever visual storytelling, in my opinion. Of course it's not that bad when he has to talk about it; he invited it by being weak and not living up to standards. It wasn't a big deal though. There's more important stuff to do right now anyway. And the story moves on as if to agree with him- we go right back to our regularly scheduled action scenes interspersed with some flashbacks to contextualize other characters, namely Tenri and the Sazanamis before Hakuri was rejected.

That's right, Hakuri once again dodges abusive past cliches by being doted on and cared for before he was found lacking. He knew what it was to be loved, even if the Sazanami version is manipulative to the point of being abusive all by itself. There's more to say about this under Kyora's section but no wonder Hakuri's so fixated on being useful- he wants that affection and sense of belonging back more than anything. It's fucked up, but it's all he knows. So Hakuri was abused twice over: emotionally and physically. Damn. He turned out pretty alright despite it all, huh? Wonder how that happened...

Well, it's time to move on now so he can ascend and overcome it all. He's gotta yell "Isou!" and prove himself, and the next two chapters seem to be putting him on course to do just that, albeit with some difficulty. Can't make a character's awakening too easy or it won't feel earned. He's got some serious trauma to overcome thanks to his family's bullshit.

Then chapter 35 hits and we get the nightmare fuel.

Ch. 35, The Real Backstory (what Ice Lady knew):

Chapter 35 is that long-awaited full-chapter delve into Hakuri's painful past with the mysterious woman, and boy does it have some unsettling revelations.

Ice Lady's tragedy is framed as the important driving force for Hakuri as we know him- she broke him free from his family's grip and motivated him to seek help to end their evil ways. She's the entire reason we meet him in Chapter 19. Everything Hakuri is doing this arc ties back to how badly he fucked up with her, setting the stage for him to become the savior he tried to be when we met him. Oh yeah, we got more Hakuri abuse lore. Can you believe that WSJ let the author get away with showing someone slitting their throat in front of a kid?! And make it at least partially his fault? Jesus Christ. Now it's truly time for him to come into his own, though- oh man that cliffhanger at the end of the chapter...! Wait, what do you mean there was more to his suffering besides the situation with Ice Lady?

I was being a bit facetious there but the point stands. We didn't get a tear-jerker reveal chapter dedicated solely to Hakuri's pain and suffering at long last just to make us feel bad for him and nothing else. Instead, we got a full-blown tragedy caused by the Sazanami cycle of abuse. The nightmare of Ice Lady killing herself in front of Hakuri overshadowed the reveal that damn, Hakuri actually had it super rough. Because yeah, that was unexpectedly brutal even compared to Chihiro being baited with Char's severed leg last arc. It really drove home just how fucked up the situation with the Sazanami family was and how it affected everyone that got tangled up in their bullshit.

So the presentation of what he endured is once again subdued even though the panels showcasing the tools took up half the page. Soya breaking Hakuri's finger was called "bullying" (いじめ[ijime], not 虐待 [gyakutai, abuse]). A single flash back frame off to the side seems small compared to the emphasis on Hakuri telling Ice Lady (and us) that it's "not that bad" because Soya keeps losing the tools and going back to using his fists (the terror in Hakuri's expression in that panel is completely at odds with how calm is explanation is, though). It's also not unreasonable to presume that the jump rope, peeler, and wrench were shown for the audience's benefit to clue us in that Hakuri's holding back again, much like the panel describing Soya's "love" in chapter 24. He's always saying the bare minimum and trying not to think of the rest- he buries that shit deep.

But he has to if he wants to keep going. There's no way he can sit down and process all of this right now:

Hakuri: "It's normal for my brother to break my bones and worse before he loses the tools. He usually only hits me anyway, so it's not like this happens all the time."

Woman betrayed by the man she loved to be sold at an auction as merchandise to the boy overseeing her captivity: "That's messed up!"

"This is as close as I can get to being cherished by the people who are supposed to care for and support me."

He even misses the point when he finally does open up:

"You're the one who's trapped in a cage."

This part is the hardest for me to write about, honestly. Again: I was never tortured or anything, much less hit. But this chapter is the one that made me take a good, hard look at what I went through and connect some dots. Hakuri's mindset, the things he says, the way he phrases things- that's someone who doesn't want to acknowledge that they're in a bad situation that's not their fault.

Hakuri will talk about his own worthlessness and all his defects that "invite" the abuse, but he won't acknowledge that he doesn't deserve what's happening to him at all. He's not the kind of shounen character who understands that his situation sucks and uses it as fuel to become better. Instead, he's stuck in that oh-so-relatable spiral of self-deprecating negativity that keeps victims trapped.

It's easier for Hakuri to think he deserved it for his own failings. This wouldn't be happening if he hadn't earned it somehow. He's in this situation because he's weak and any "love" is better than none at all. Then it's reinforced by the genuine helplessness and vulnerability of being too isolated to escape or know better, compacting down into dense layers of denial and self-hate that act as defensive armour against emotions that are too difficult to face. Like anger or the desire for something better. Like hope. Those are only felt on behalf of others, not himself.

At any rate, it's a bit distressing that so many people forget that Hakuri's actually a hell of a lot more complex than he was hinted to be before this chapter. He's not an innocent in all this like Char was, which is incredibly smart and realistic writing from the author. Hakuri was also an abuser himself. An accidental one, but doesn't matter when you talk to someone the way he did to Ice Lady. He didn't swing the knife but he did kill her with the same mentality that was crushing him down on the inside.

He doesn't use his suffering as an excuse for anything he does, good or bad. Not even in the sense of wanting to save others- that's all about Ice Lady and his family's terrible legacy. What happened to him isn't worth mentioning or acting on. Yet another distressingly accurate facet of a victim's mentality, unfortunately.

But this must be it. This chapter was a depressing surprise but surely there's nothing left to reveal. We had his big moment of sadness so it's only going up from here. Hakuri's going to overcome everything and it'll all be okay! Back to standard shounen powerups!

Chs. 36-43, Putting the Past to Rest (things only Hakuri knows):

Oh.

In chapter 36, the storehouse reveal somewhat overshadows all the instruments of abuse Hakuri unwittingly stored inside it. There are a lot of people who completely forgot about the objects in there during the hype of the moment, and I never get tired of seeing "WTF?!" posts and comments from folks doing re-reads of the arc. It's so easy to overlook the rope and sticks and all the other tools when you're cheering hard for Hakuri to finally, finally overcome his tragic past by putting Soya down. Worst Big Bro is gonna pay and Hakuri's ascension will be complete! ... Wait, was that a goddamn chair?

There's also a point made of Soya's defeat not being a resounding victory.

Still framing Soya's abuse as love, but it's got a bitter feel to it this time.

Hakuri is the one who gives Chihiro strength in the moment despite everything he's just been through.

We're cheering when he awakens and pressurizes Soya's guts, but then these panels remind us that there's nothing to celebrate from Hakuri's perspective. He doesn't savor finally overcoming Soya as his abuser or the manifestation of everything that's messed up about his family. There's no immediate sense that things will be okay from now on either. To Hakuri, this isn't a personal victory. It's just something that needed to be done for Ice Lady and all the victims of the Rakuzaichi.

This is a sort of capstone to Hakuri's backstory. The second-to-last new thing we learn about him is that the abuse was still somehow worse than we thought. He really, truly buries the lede when it comes to what he suffered and the writing is in cahoots with him on it. He won't even take the time to smile or feel a little relief- he's not ready for that yet. Instead he just walks past Tenri's mutilated corpse to pull Chihiro along to get the job done.

If this was a different series we might get a little more catharsis- even just the barest hint that Hakuri's gonna be just fine from now on. But this is Kagurabachi and the author fucking gets it so there's still a little more to unpack before Hakuri can have an opportunity to begin the healing process.

In chapter 37, the pain of Kyora looking away was framed as just as important to Hakuri as the fond memories of when he was loved and wanted:

"... I still wanted you to praise me, Father."

The very last thing we learn about Hakuri is that he wanted his father's love despite it all.

Hakuri ended the torment from Soya- he'll never have to worry about his skin being peeled off or getting beaten with a pipe ever again. But the cycle that caused it- and the complex feelings for the people who hurt him- aren't so easily dealt with. It's not so simple as being hurt and flipping a switch to stop feeling affection for the perpetrator. So Hakuri acknowledges that he still wanted his father's praise in spite of the years of torment the man knowingly enabled.

In the end, Kyora grants Hakuri's secret wish and acknowledges him at the very last as the chaos fades away so that they're the only thing in each other's view. He really, truly won it all. He doesn't rejoice in victory, though. Once more there's no triumph for Hakuri to celebrate. Killing his father was just another thing that had to be done so that there would never be another Ice Lady.

It's hard to say what exactly Hakuri's feeling about Kyora's death since it's yet another thing we haven't seen him talk about- and may never. It's not too much of a stretch to think he's got a complex mix of sadness, relief, and guilt going on, though. At least the moment when their eyes met was intensely cathartic after all the times Kyora deliberately looked away. But Hakuri's still not okay yet.

It's not like life suddenly gets better when the abuser is gone for good in some cases. Hakuri's still struggling in the immediate aftermath of seeing his father die at last. It's a relief that there won't be any more pain caused by the Sazanami clan -and Kyora in particular- but it still fucking hurts to lose someone so important to you. It's also frightening to suddenly be thrust into the unknown without a guide of any kind.

Fortunately for him, Hakuri is able to find new purpose with Chihiro. He gets to walk away from his family and stay with the people who believed in him. This is another thing that I can't praise the author enough for. It's far, far too common for writers to frame victims reforming their abusers as some kind of ultimate victory.

No, no, no!

The most charitable way to explain this is that the survivor is so saintly that they'll even reach out to the ones who hurt them to help them become better people. But that is such utter bullshit I don't even have the words to express myself properly. It's terrible messaging for survivors. They don't have any obligation whatsoever to help the people who hurt them. They don't even have to keep tabs on how the abusers are doing in a general sense. They get to fucking leave and find happiness with people who treat them well. That is the true ideal.

Hakuri being given a clear out to leave is where the rest of the catharsis in his story comes from. He doesn't have to stay and fix things even though he absolutely could as the first person since the clan's founder to have both Isou and the storehouse powers. Kyoura and Soya are gone- he could have stepped in to make the clan right their wrongs and atone as a family. But there's not even a hint of guilt tripping from the author about Hakuri's decision to follow Chihiro. It's framed as the best possible thing for him to do, in fact.

If he stayed, he'd never work on the other issues around self-worth that he's burying so deep inside. Switching from villainy to good deeds won't resolve the issues with the clan's mindset about being living tools for a greater cause either. Not to mention the fact that there's nothing his siblings can offer him even if they treat him like a king for the rest of his life- the damage was already done long ago. There's nothing left for him there except more misery and stagnation. He needs to go with Chihiro, his new north star, to learn how to heal.

But lest this outcome be too heartwarming, Hakuri's still not directly facing everything that he went through. Hakuri phrases working alongside Chihiro as "proving the value that [Chihiro] saw in him", not "starting over" or "making the world a better place together" or even "paying Chihiro back" by helping him on his mission. He's still trying to be useful in the service of someone else like a tool.

Hakuri's bruises are already fading; or at least they were until I had to edit this part in light of the events of chapter 56 onward. But the mental scars of the abuse are still guiding his actions and thought processes even if he doesn't acknowledge it. And that's where we come back to the torture implements still hidden in his warehouse.

Hakuri's not home free despite us collectively sighing in relief that he got his Happily Ever After, subdued as it was. He needs to face what he's been avoiding and burying so that he's not endangering Chihiro's plan and the people around him by throwing himself in danger just to be even the slightest bit useful.

Oftentimes, trauma is an invisible scar that needs to be worked around for the rest of someone's life- hence why he's still got those physical manifestations stored deep inside where only he can see and grant access. Hakuri's only just started out on the path to redemption and recovery. He needs to start addressing the guilt over Ice Lady and learn some tough lessons about self-worth before he can even begin to look further inside to those Visual Metaphor Tools.

After that, if the author's interested in continuing this part of Hakuri's character, is exposing them and what they mean to someone who can help Hakuri get rid of them. Whether that's Chihiro, Shiba, or someone else doesn't really matter. Hakuri's got a long road ahead dealing with the lingering after-effects, unlike so many of his fictional fellow survivors. He's still very much in need of a lot of support from his new found family- now more so than ever after what happened in chapter 58.

Soya and Kyora

There's something to be said about the writing for the primary abusers, too. The Rakuzaichi arc was well-received in large part to Kyora being an incredible villain and Soya being... Soya.

Soya

And the "Worst Big Brother" Award goes to...

Soya serves two primary purposes in the narrative: to contrast Hakuri's character, and be the manifestation of everything that was wrong with the clan.

Soya and Hakuri share similar looks, hand gestures, and extreme expressions but they couldn't be more different. Soya has the inverse of Hakuri's character framing: he's shown to be competent and strong, and almost everyone in-universe acknowledges him as such-we're even told he's smarter than Kyora. But he's actually quite the pathetic loser due to his freakish obsession with his "weak" little brother.

More obviously, Soya is the rotten core of the family. He's obsessive over Hakuri to an extremely alarming degree- he even refuses his duties as the next clan head and a member of the elite Tou to find and stay with Hakuri. Kyoura tells him to "stop fixating on that failure" but Soya's having none of it, he just can't let go of his "endearing" weakling of a little brother. Bullying Hakuri is what he lives for and he does it all in the name of purest love. Just like the clan lives for the Rakuzaichi and are devoted to it mind, body, and soul. They're both extremely toxic and Soya's the guy who gets to represent the deleterious effects of cleaving to abusive mentalities on individual members.

Soya's fists and words to Hakuri are the blatant messaging about what the Sazanami mindset did to him. He had that mental block preventing him from using his sorcery because he was constantly being told he was weak and useless. It was literally beaten into him as a form of love, but not all abusive mentalities need to be reinforced with violence. Soya was just there to make the point too obvious to be missed.

Hakuri's final words to Soya say it all. Soya throws a tantrum over Hakuri refusing to lay down and take the abuse any more and screams "Why won't you go down?! Why won't you die?!" Hakuri simply responds that it's because Soya "always loved [him]" and deals the final blow. He was able to recognize the strengths his family gave him through Soya's "love" but he's not grateful in the slightest (and he shouldn't be). He's simply ready to sever all ties and move on with tearing it all down now. Hakuri was finally able to accept that he didn't want or need that kind of love in his life any more.

Kyora

And the "Worst Dad" Award goes to...

Obviously, Kyoura is the key to this whole mess. He's the one who instilled his children with corrupt values, enabled Hakuri's abuse, and generally Fucked Up Big Time when it came to loving his kids properly. But he thought he was doing the right thing because what's what he went through. He was both abuser and victim himself, just like Hakuri.

This is the key part of abusive backstories that are so often missed. Abuse doesn't always come from deadbeat caretakers that hate the innocent little kid. That scenario is actually way too over represented in fiction, honestly. Abuse isn't always constant malice- it can start later in life. It can even be born from love. Ultimately, it's all too often the unintended consequence of a family haunted by the specter of the cycle. And Kyora is the perfect summary of how and why it echoes through generations.

Hakuri was loved and wanted for at least half of his life. His family might not be wholesome or have healthy attitudes about affection, but he wasn't born hated and mistreated just for existing. He was cared for to the best of his dad's ability just like Tenri and his other siblings.

Even when Hakuri failed to live up to expectations, Kyora didn't just write him off and turn him loose. He kept Hakuri around for years feeding and clothing him and let him try to do what he could. Kyora simply couldn't justify protecting him or showing love since the family ideals were so warped around being able to serve the clan's tradition. He wasn't "allowed" to love a failure, no matter how much he wanted to.

Kyoura struggled about his feelings for his "worthless son" in the flashback we saw through Tenri's PoV- he wanted Hakuri to succeed. He acted like Hakuri forced his hand to punish and marginalize him for failing too hard, not out of ill-will. And during the raid itself he was actually "bent out of shape because he used Hakuri's life as a bargaining chip", according to Enji. It wasn't even until Hakuri showed up to break into the storehouse that Kyora truly cast everything away to prioritize the Rakuzaichi. He really did love Hakuri in his own way.

Kyora was a shitty dad and person, don't get me wrong. No one should put family tradition over their child's well-being and he more than earned his death just by being a human trafficker. But it's clear that Kyora wasn't written to be a shallow, irredeemable monster of a person- he didn't exist in the story just to be a villain and to make us feel bad for Hakuri. He's a tragic character in his own right.

He couldn't even understand why his wife's final words about the auction ruining their lives was replaying in his head near his final moments. The what-if scenario of his happy family sitting down to eat dinner in an apartment somewhere showed his longing for something that he could have had, if not for the goddamn auction. If not for the abuse that made him into the person he chose to be until the very end.

It's why Hakuri getting to walk away is such a poignant end to the Rakuzaichi arc. He's the one who gets to break the cycle on his own terms, and that's the true end of the Sazanami dynasty. The auction hall doesn't collapse until he decides to stand tall and follow a new path. Whatever Hakuri's siblings do with the Sazanami legacy isn't his concern any more- he's free.

What About Char?

Char's story was also well told! It's the earliest evidence that the author actually gets it when it comes to depicting abuse victims. She's reticent despite her desperation, unable to open up even when Shiba and Chihiro tell her she needs to or they'll send her to an orphanage. Eventually Chihiro wins her trust through his altruism and she comes to believe in him. She and us are the only ones who know exactly what happened with her mom, but it's not important for the rest of the cast to be in on it. She's safe and happy now and that's enough.

Even though Char's arc ended close to that overly-simplistic "everything is k now" scenario that I hate, there's one key difference that sets it apart to let us know that no, she's not truly okay yet.

Char's still got some attachment issues, which makes perfect sense. She lost her mom in a traumatic way so of course she's happily surprised that Chihiro came back to her. Char's on the path to healing- she's able to thrive thanks to Team Goldfish's care- but her abusive past still shapes who she is in small ways like this.

I doubt we'll see more development of her beyond checking in now and then. She's too young to be consistently involved in the heavy themes of Kagurabachi's story, much less the fights. But it's good to know that the author includes little details like this so we don't assume Char's 100% fine now. He understands that trauma doesn't just vanish when the victim's safe in their Happily Ever After scenario. That's why he made sure we knew that she's going to be okay in the long-run.

Ch. 26, right after Chihiro trades Enten for Hakuri

But Hakuri's not there himself yet.

Food as a metaphor for comfort, security, and/or connection is constant in this series. It's very obvious symbolism to let the author convey a bit more context in the scene than dialogue alone can. So when Hakuri rejects food here, he's rejecting reassurance from Shiba. Meanwhile Char's already comfortable enough to accept it. Good for her, truly!

Hakuri's situation wasn't necessarily worse than hers, but it was a lot more complex. So even though he's safe now, he's not really able to pursue his happiness yet. All those tools he keeps locked up inside, the mindset of being one himself- they're still issues for him to work through. But there's hope for him too.

The author went out of his way to show us that Hakuri's also on the path to healing here. The last time Hakuri shared food with someone, he was forcing his abusive ideology on Ice Lady. She started finishing the meals and truly internalizing the hopelessness of her situation. He fucked up the food as comfort/connection metaphor bad with her.

Yet in Chapter 47, we see Hakuri sharing some snacks with Chihiro on the train. Sharing food isn't connected to the situation at hand or the information dump it's serving as backdrop for, so it's definitely a deliberate choice on the author's part to depict this instead of literally anything else. It was shown to let us know that Hakuri's on his way to his own Happily Ever After.

He's able to connect to Chihiro and not worry about the repercussions. This is a huge step for his character and speaks volumes about the level of trust between them; this is the first time Chihiro's willingly accepted food from someone else too. Hakuri's not only still reaching out to other people, he's still able to provide warmth to others despite it all.

What's Next?

I'm not going to pretend that I can predict what Hakuri's story will look like from here on out. He'll have a hard time for as long as he's slated to get development though- Kagurabachi takes the adage "suffering builds character" very seriously. We're only 58 chapters in as of finally posting this so it's best to strap in and expect a lot more pain.

That said, I feel like Hakuri's self-sacrificing mindset is going to be addressed first. As of chapter 55, he's set up to fail and cause problems by throwing himself into danger despite not being fully healed or rested. The root of this issue would likely be his atoning savior mindset. Hakuri needs to protect and save others very badly after what happened to Ice Lady. He also loathes the idea of others making sacrifices for his sake. So he's willing to throw his life away even when it would be better for his allies if he stayed out of the fighting.

There's also a good reason we met the Makizumi clan in the arc immediately after the Rakuzaichi fell- Hakuri needs to start dismantling the "tool" mindset that was drilled into him. He's only switched his fervor from serving the Rakuzaichi to serving/saving others. This is extremely toxic when combined with his guilt over Ice Lady and drives him to go to extremes to do good, to the point where he's ignoring everyone trying to get him to rest and heal for the sake of the mission if nothing else.

In essence, I believe we are going to finally address the lie of his introduction- that he can keep pushing through hardship with sheer force of will. Because that is not how overcoming trauma actually works.

After that, only the author and his editor know exactly where things will go. But I hope that no matter what happens, Hakuri's lingering trauma is exposed and dealt with. It's informing all of his actions, positive or negative, whether he wants to acknowledge it or not. I have faith that this author can tackle this subject compassionately and realistically- he's already done it twice with Char and the Rakuzaichi arc.

So that's that. If you read all this... thanks. Take care, and choose kindness for yourself for today.

[dadrielle]

I am going to treat this as being in good faith even though I know you have copy pasted this same response on multiple posts.

It's fair enough to see this post and roll your eyes about it. I am being a sarcastic lil bitch about implications that really aren't meant to be there! Liam absolutely didn't mean to do this as an "Orym doesn't trust them" or "Orym doesn't respect their boundaries" thing, and I know that. And I know no one in game is gonna read it that way, either. I didn't tag this Orym specifically because I was picking at a small thing irritably and I fully acknowledge that.

But! There are 3 things I want to say to this on a more serious note.

First, I think we must acknowledge that the implications of listening in on one's friends over listening in on one's enemies are quite different. People have different reactions to different applications of Observant because the social stakes and boundaries are situational. It means something much different to punch an enemy combatant in the face than it does to do the same to your best friend, you know? And Orym is not omnipotent; he does not just automatically know everything that happens, despite how we all joke that he can see god with his high perception. When he chooses to listen in should matter, as should the implications. That's actually my main issue with this whole thing, but I'll get to that in a moment.

Second, I would just like to say while I'm sure you believe it's true I and others critical of Orym don't talk about any of Orym's actual flaws, the fact of the matter is there are many fans who do most of our character discussion privately with our friends instead of tumblr or god, even worse, twitter. And my Orym feelings aren't identical to every other person who is critical of him. As I said in the initial tags for this, I don't think this was the worst thing in the world, it just bugged me! That was just an emotional response, and those often pass. There are lots of moments in stories where my initial reaction is a strong negative emotion, because I am feeling the feelings of the moment, but then I love the full picture it creates. Imogen and Laudna's "did we break up" phase is a great example of that, especially Laudna's ongoing insistence that she was a dead end. It hurt to watch! It made me sad! But it really enriched the narrative! My actual, continuing issues with this Orym moment have nothing to do with Imodna, or the meanings of this moment in particular. It's just another expression of something I've been grousing about among friends for ages. I actually WISH it was Orym being fucked up, that it was something that would come up again later, something he might get push back on. I wish the implication that he feels the need to monitor Imogen and Laudna, that he isn't thinking about how they might feel about it, was a flaw that would be explored with the other characters. Instead it was just kinda there and I imagine no one else will ever have a reaction to it one way or another.

And that leads to the final thing: my biggest issue with Orym listening in is that it DOESN'T matter. It feels like at some point, Liam stopped having Orym engage with other characters and the narrative as actively. It's started to feel very repetitive, and I am deeply frustrated with it. I know he is a reserved, PTSD-laden soldier who uses his hard line morality and sense of duty to hold himself together, who refuses to tell his friends how he feels because he doesn't want to be a burden. I know this! And I think it makes for an interesting character and I want to love Orym as much as I used to. But this is an interactive game, an ongoing narrative, and after a certain point, choosing to have your scenes be solo and keeping your character from changing any of their stances starts to feel like refusing to give other people room to react and challenge your character, and refusing to engage with how others' narratives have changed. What Imogen expressed about not running in this episode isn't a revelation. She has, at this point, been saying some variation of it for about half the campaign. And he has told her he is proud, before. It was nice, then! But listening in to their conversation here and feeling proud in isolation didn't add anything new to the narrative. It could have, if it was a conversation, if he had talked to Imogen directly. But instead it feels so empty to me. Disconnected. It even sort of re-framed the moment as if it was about Imogen Finally Choosing To Not Run, instead of being about Laudna trying to reaffirm a future that keeps slipping from their grasp, one she only just started to believe in again on the precipice of Imogen possibly sacrificing herself for the world. It makes it seem like Orym has barely moved on from the solstice, like he hasn't registered how Imogen's narrative has developed since then.

There are so many things I would love to see from Orym that require acknowledging that things have changed. I wanted him to talk to Dorian instead of chasing after Dorian's dad to say he should be proud of Dorian, especially since Dorian had already had his big cathartic conversation. I wanted him to ask why Dorian has come to hate the gods so much, to ask him why it wasn't just the Spider Queen he was mad at. I wanted him to talk to Fearne about the fact that people outside the party have treated her with the same anti-Ruidusborn suspicion as Imogen, particularly in light of their conversation about taking Imogen out pre-solstice. I wanted him to actually internalize that he was wrong about there being nothing beautiful in Exandria before the gods, and to talk to Ashton about it in a way that starts with him actively listening to Ashton instead of just repeating the same arguments, even if he came out the other side still disagreeing. I wanted him to realize that there hasn't been any danger of Imogen running and that the core of her struggle now is with the fact that she's being asked to sacrifice herself. I wanted him to talk to someone about his guilt over killing Zathuda. I wanted him to acknowledge the hardness he put on when he tossed the locket on Bor'dor's corpse and declared this was war and what that hardness did to him. I wanted him to work on his flaws and talk to people! But instead, he listened and reacted in isolation. The fact that his reaction to Fearne asking him if he was ok as late as episode 95 was just "then why ask? You know the answer" instead of opening up is narratively a problem for me. The few times he has opened up a little have been wonderful but he's still holding most of it to the chest. So many emotional Orym scenes are people talking to him about his emotions and him not responding. We're in too deep, man! "If not now, when?" doesn't just apply to kissing Dorian, you know? He is running out of time to open up.

So. Do I still think listening in on that moment was sucky of him, even beyond the hyperbole? Sure. I think generally purposefully eavesdropping on something like that is sucky. It's a small kind of sucky, though. A blip. Because this is a story, the big sucky thing is that it didn't mean anything for any other character and felt just narratively disconnected. And I find that so frustrating because there are so many potentially meaty, interesting things possible in Orym's story, and I desperately want that richer narrative for him and for Dorian and for all of them.

You might not agree and that's fine. To paraphrase Orym's own words, every one of us forms our own interpretations with the lenses or prisms we see life through. Of course I'm gonna get more het up when this ongoing, general Orym frustration touches on something Imogen or Laudna related - they're my favorites! Of course that influences how I see things. I know they aren't everyone's favorites, so something like this moment won't be a domino-kick on tangentially related, piling frustrations for everyone. But it is for me. I'm not really trying to convince anyone I'm right, here, just to explain why I feel this way about it.

Sure would be fucked up if Imogen and Laudna, until only recently, had every single one of their private moments observed against their will, and then their friend decided to observe possibly their last private moment against their will, huh? :)

[hyog-blog]

Fangs of Fortune (ep. 01 + ep. 02)

Okay, I managed to successfully not spoil any of the show's details (apart from it being stunningly beautiful), so I'm going in fully unprepared :D Already sensing a lot of drama brewing - the plot is twisting from the very beginning of the show! Even before we were properly introduced to all the main characters.

But first things first - why is everything so pretty? The people, the scenes, the visual effects, the rain falling down, the floating clothes, the makeup, those huge tears running down Zhuo Yichen's pretty face, the shots, the angles, the backgrounds, the music playing in the back.

It's just wow, the aesthetics is off-charts, delivering in each and every scene. I'm digging the desaturated bluish color palette with cyan/teal shadows, it's so moody and kind of hints at a not-so-happy story with torment and whatnot (I probably won't be able to prepare myself for what's about to come, so I won't even try XD)

Also, the visuals have a dream-like quality to them (and I'm guessing that's a thing? That's definitely a thing). All the details are crispy-clear until they aren't, and there's a very pleasant trippy feeling in the movement of the shots/camera/special fx, etc. It's very peculiar and incredibly immersive at the same time. As a viewer, you get a feeling that you're inside the show, the sets, and whatever demonic witchery is going on in the scene.

Next, Hou Minghou delivers his role like he was born for it. Regal, demonic, deceptive, sensual, sexual, humorous, cunning, gentle, caring, hurting, vicious... This man has had each and every type of emotion in the course of just 2 episodes and we still have no idea where's the real him (it's like you want to believe he's doing what he's doing out of the kindness of his demonic heart, but the history is telling otherwise). And I can already sense that the promise our boy Zhuo Yichen made to him will come and bite everyone in their pretty asses somewhere along the line (it's, like, already palpable).

Everyone has gotten deliciously stabby with our dashing demon Zhao Yuanzhou right from the first episode. Is this the show's love language? XD Because I'm sensing it is)) I have to admit it's kind of kinky. Even more than just a little. And if that's the M/M/F love triangle we're going for, then I'm all up for it :D

Oh, and all those funny moments? Going from dark to darkly humorous is just adding to the trippiness. I'm loving all of it so far - it's mysterious, incredibly intriguing, and all the characters are so delicious that I had to pause the scenes many times to grab those screenshots because of how amazing everything looks. And a lot of things are kind of... suggestive.

The show is so moody and visually stunning that I don't even have the words to describe it yet. Will need to watch more episodes to form some kind of opinion apart from 'wooooow' XD Also, it's hotter than heat itself and there are all kinds of delicious vibes going on. Other than that - so, so pretty! And fantasy-like in the best possible, albeit a little nightmarish way.

[qm-vox]

Man Who Talk To God Have Difficult Life - Playing Clerics In D&D

(St. Nokta Kinslayer, whom you'll meet further down in the article. Art by the esteemed @druid-for-hire who quite frankly cannot be thanked enough!)

Guess who's back motherfuckers. When they ask how I died, tell them, still angry. After the paladin article I asked around about classes to cover "next" and got a lot of requests; rogue, warlock, sorcerer, so of course I have elected to be a good friend by losing my will to live for months on end and then doing none of those. Let's talk Clerics, shall we? I'll not lie to you, this is going to be an angrier article than the paladin one, in no small part because it's inevitably going to go into contentious ideas like alignment, fantasy religion, and others that the player base has been knife fighting about since mammoths still walked the Earth. There are going to be moments when I look y'all in the eyes and say with my metaphorical human mouth that the problem is you Doing It Wrong, and I can only ask that you hear me out. Not to assign you homework about my fuckin' cleric article or anything, but the one I previously did about The Many may be helpful here as well. There's going to be a bit of a focus on D&D 5e here, and I'll be frank about that: most people are playing 5e these days, and as I'll be arguing further down, Pathfinder's take on Clerics and more broadly on faith are a worthless poison that actively worsens the world.

This article's title is drawn from Small Gods by the esteemed Sir Professor Terry Pratchett. As always, credit goes to Afroakuma for teaching me a great deal of the examples I'm going to give, though citing specific sources are going to be difficult as many of the books in question have been out of print for decades and I am neither an academic nor a machine.

Now for the obligatory Content Warnings. We're looking at discussion of fantasy religion & comparisons to real-world religion, violence, discussions of atrocities such as torture, desecration of the dead, and destruction of culture, as well as traumatic deaths/backstories for the sample clerics at the end. As mentioned above, there is also going to be some alignment discourse. You have been warned; do as thou wilt.

Without further ado, let us begin with...

O Mighty Smiter - Clerics Through D&D's History

We begin the obligatory text wall.

Clerics have been here since the beginning. They were around back when "Elf" was a class, and while their history is complex it has, eternally, been colored by the bit where Cleric has an inherent identity problem. In many ways it is, as a class, too broad, so wide-open that getting something coherent out of it is an exercise in frustration or even futility. It'll be easier to talk about what Clerics aren't than what they are, and oh boy, will I. A brief note here: while Druid is going to come up in the context of 1e and 2e, and again a bit later when I start talking about priests (yeah, that's a separate conversation, we're gonna get there), this article is not otherwise dedicated to Druid. I'm gonna need a significant amount of whiskey for both me and my priestess before we god damn go there.

AD&D 1e and 2e: Deus Vult - Do the world a favor if you ever pass near Gary Gygax's grave: piss on it. Ol' Gary G rooted Cleric in his classic blend of obsession with medieval ideas and piss-poor research, invoking many myths about priests of the Crusades and applying them as a one-size-fits-all vision of war-clergy of Every God. He would personally run into problems with this in his own writing before he got out of the game, and rather quickly at that, as he tried to write faiths whose imagery and ideals did not fit the Crusader Priest ideal, but since he was, and I cannot stress this enough, a hack with all the morals and emotional intelligence of mustard gas, he never quite solved those problems for himself. I'll hop off my screed now, I just want this said up front, especially since it's the fundamental evil that chases Cleric to this day.

The O.G. Cleric was described as a melee combatant that took a close second-place to Fighter in that arena, with proficiency in heavy armor and a variety of useful weapons, though they were forbidden from using "edged weapons that spill blood" (there's those Crusader myths). Random fun fact, the very first incarnation of Cleric only had spells up to 7th level, but the level tables for their class went up to level 29 or so, and man, ain't that just wild. As your Cleric gained levels they also became more highly placed in the church of their god, eventually hitting High Priest and just kinda sitting there as they leveled up. Interesting note here: Clerics couldn't be Neutral (that is, not Lawful, Chaotic, Good, or Evil) back in the day, and instead anyone wanting to run a Neutral Cleric had to take a subclass you might have heard of by the name of Druid, which in turn eventually had to face other Druids in SINGLE COMBAT in order to level up past a certain point. Why? I don't know. Summon Gygax's ghost and ask him between rounds of spiritual torture. This original version of Cleric had Turn Undead, a feature that's been attached to almost all Clerics by some name or another in all of their incarnations, and boy, Turn Undead used to be fucking wild. Roll a dice, consult a table based on your result and your level, and end up Turning or Destroying a number of very specific kinds of undead. AD&D 2e would put "undead gods" on this list starting at 13th level or so, and let me tell you: this came up in published material more often than you might think. Last but not least, like most characters back in 1e and 2e, Clerics eventually got to run a building full of people. At first the Cleric attracted about 20-200 "fanatics" who would work for free and help them build a shrine (no word on how TF you feed and water these fanatics) but eventually was given the right to build a proper castle-temple and produce 1 silver per month per resident via "trade, taxes, tariffs". Ladies and gentlemen, D&D.

Aside from the aforementioned alterations to Turn Undead, AD&D 2e introduced a concept known as Spheres to Cleric casting. Now, stop me if you've heard this before: each god gave access to 1 or more Spheres, which were specific lists of spells that their Clerics had access to (fun fact, Paladin casting was "as Cleric of 9 levels lower", but only with access to specific Spheres). So if you worshiped, say, Lathander, you had access to Healing, Sun, Divination, and IIRC a couple of others, and that's it, that's the whole ticket. Now, you may remember Kits from the Paladin article, and Clerics did have some of that action, but more than that they had "specialty priests", a sort of even-more-hardcore version of this whole proto-Domain deal; a Specialty Priest had different class features in comparison to normal Cleric, and access to different or more Spheres, both of which were determined by their god. Each Specialty Priest was, in its way, its own separate subclass of Cleric and if you published a god back in the day you had to get one of these installed. Were they all good? No. Fuck no. God no. Are you kidding me? But they were often very distinctive.

This doesn't get talked about a lot, at least not until we hit Pathfinder, but Clerics have had codes of conduct like Paladins for as long as they've existed, sort of atomized across their various gods. The rules around these have always been vague, and rarely culturally enforced in the player communities, but they did and do exist. A cleric of Kelemvor raising a zombie has done a bit of a blasphemy; raising a ghoul or vampire probably entails divine retribution, a reduction in character level, or even the loss of their powers. Oh, and other gods are probably trying to court you since clearly you're looking for new management and a trained cleric is a resourced that's hard to pass up.

No version of Cleric has ever particularly had a strong identity, but this original version may have been the closest to having one...because it's bad. To the credit of 1e and 2e, the eventual installation of Nonweapon Proficiencies, later to become the Skills system, did let them be competent as actual like, priests? Cleric got access to the stuff needed to actually minister as a spiritual leader with some extra socked away to practice sacred arts related to their god (ex. bookbinding for a cleric of Denier) and maybe even some god damn hobbies too. But outside of the ever-more-niche & esoteric arena of specialty priests, themselves presented as particular fanatics, agents, or chosen ones, every cleric was a Crusader, and every god's clergy were war-priests. And that's weird, right? And so now we must move on to the demon that never dies.

D&D 3.5: The Word Of My God Is 'Begone' - Quick question, have you ever wanted to roleplay someone perceptive but otherwise deeply stupid and utterly incompetent to move unsupervised through human society, who is, nonetheless, OMNIPOTENT? Welcome to the 3.5 Cleric, one of THE casters of all time in the absolute Caster Supremacy Edition. I hope you came ready to hear casual mentions of mechanics that would make a Victorian occultist cry. If you go looking at the class page for Cleric you might notice there's both jack and shit there, and for my readers who got into D&D at 5e the following might be a bit of a shock: Cleric was one of the strongest classes in 3.5.

In terms of the actual mechanics related to Cleric in 3.5, Turn or Rebuke Undead and spontaneous casting were some of the big ones. Well, "big" ones; Turn Undead qua Turn Undead was actually kind of shit and would often just not actually like...turn...the undead, but the charges of Turn Undead a Cleric kept around could be used for many other options that permitted alternate spending, notably here to include Divine Metamagic. These alternate spends were better than using Turn Undead for its actual intended purpose more or less always, and Divine Metamagic (DMM) in particular was an unholy monstrosity that underlied a lot of Cleric's power later in 3.5's run, letting them customize their prepared spells on the fly without having to use up higher-level spell slots. Now, I really cannot stress this enough: Cleric was one of the most powerful classes in core alone, without adding any supplements. DMM and similar options made Cleric even stronger but they were very much gilding the lily, to be frank. "Hey Vox why are you saying this," you would not believe the number of ignorant pricks who made a literal moral crusade out of going to "core only" in 3.5 claiming it made for a better balanced game. The good version of 3.5 has never existed, destroy anyone who claims otherwise.

Where was I - spontaneous casting, yes. Now, Clerics were still prepared casters, they had X spell slots every day at very specific levels and had to pick specific spells to fill them. That is, if you want to cast create water more than once in a given day, you need to memorize create water more than once that day. However, Clerics could convert a spell of any level to either cure wounds or inflict wounds of the same level, depending on the alignment of the Cleric (Good Clerics Turn Undead and cure wounds, Evil Clerics Rebuke Undead and inflict wounds, and Neutral Clerics not otherwise restricted by their god get to pick one for their entire career). This gave 3.5 Cleric a lot of flexibility, very valuable flexibility in a game environment where casting a heal mid-combat was basically always the wrong move, but out-of-combat healing was still an invaluable resource. RIP to Evil Clerics though, inflict sucked ass.

Lastly, we have domains. Now, if you check through the domain list on the SRD you may notice that they are rather less defining than the 5e Domains, granting a single power apiece and a list of spells you get access to. Most gods in 3.5 granted access to 3+ Domains, and their Clerics got to pick 2; together, these are the "kind" of Cleric you are, the aspects of your god that you kinda embody which then shape your power. Clerics got special extra spell slots solely for Domain spells in addition to their usual progression, and could memorize these Domain spells in normal slots as well. 3.5's list of Domains was deep and wide to the point of self-parody, and the power that gave a player to customize their Cleric's aesthetic and mechanics could be immense. Sure, many Domains were much weaker than others (Magic Domain is bonkers and that asshole is in core) but ultimately every Domain is stapled to Cleric, and since Clerics don't learn spells, only memorize them, there's a floor as to how weak you can possibly be.

So, what are your restrictions on Cleric? Not many. Non-War Domain Clerics had a sort of mid list of weapon options, sure, but if you're not casting you're playing wrong already so who gives a shit. Heavy armor and full access to shields meant a lot of build flexibility as far as that goes, so no problems here. The biggest thing is that a Cleric needed to be, and remain, within one alignment "step" of their god, plus or minus any other specific restrictions. That is, a Cleric of Liira, who is Chaotic Good, must be Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, or Chaotic Neutral; becoming Lawful Good, True Neutral, Chaotic Evil, etc would result in losing all Cleric powers and being unable to take Cleric levels until they fixed their shit or found a new god. Strictly speaking, these Clerics could/would still Fall a la paladins if they sufficiently blasphemed against or angered their god, but in practice this sort of thing was just...not common.

This is the section where I would talk about other divine classes in 3.X but honestly they were all so god damn weird and specific that no comparison really could be made. Shugenja, for instance, just isn't cognate to Cleric. The closest thing is the Healer class, no points for guessing what their deal is, but the thing with Healer is they have more in common with paladin, so like. Cleric or bust baby, welcome to fucktown.

Which brings us back to what Cleric was like narratively, the answer to which is: confused. The thing is...Clerics have always, likely will always, want high Wisdom, which makes them perceptive, good at detecting lies, weirdly talented at handling animals, competent to navigate the wilderness, and also I just described a Disney Princess. The trouble is, nearly everything else is strictly secondary. Every caster wants and needs Constitution in 3.X so they can make those Concentration checks and also, you know, not die, so okay, you're perceptive and you can hold your liquor, but after that nothing else matters. On the one hand, this makes for a great deal of versatility in terms of your ability scores, but on the other hand Cleric had 2+Int skill points per level on the most dog shit skill list in the game so being a very smart Cleric rarely bought you anything. Higher Charisma could be cool, but hey, see that skill list? It's still shit, and if you aren't also buying Intelligence you quite literally can't afford to keep up the social skill tax. A true war-priest wants Dexterity so they can act before their enemies and command the battlefield but that's more or less all you buy out of Dexterity on Cleric so congratulations, you're an almighty quickdraw and also illiterate. "What about Strength," what about it.

I really cannot overstate the paralyzing nature of that skill list, because priests - which 3.5 wanted Clerics to be, which it thinks they are - need more of them than most people think. A proper spiritual leader needs to buy up Insight, Knowledge (Religion), Knowledge (Local), Knowledge (Nobility), and Persuasion at a minimum, and they sure do also want Intimidate and Perception. You get two of those. Two. Just two. If you buy up Intelligence after you eat your vegetables like a good player, you maybe get to buy four of those. And that's it, that's all you fucking get. Clerics are not competent to be priests, which is going to be true of them going forward from this edition on. Now, I'm painting with a relatively broad brush here, and there's definitely religions on Earth these days which did, or still do, separate out roles that might reasonably be called a priest & Cleric vs. those roles that are community leaders and interpreters of doctrine and law, but there's a shocking amount of "here's my vision of what priests are and do" that Cleric wants to be, and isn't, because of this whole fucking deal.

But while 3.5 was extremely blind to the bit where Clerics just were not what it thinks priests are any more, it was very much not blind to the terror and power of their spellcasting. A high-level cleric, in the narrative of any given setting, is a terrifying force - an army unto themselves, a one-woman political bloc whose existence is an implicit threat of violence on a civilizational scale. I didn't spill all that ink about the power and mechanics of Cleric up there for nothing; 3.5 was very interested in how those mechanics could manifest within the narrative, how they are inextricably bound to said narrative. Hell, in Expedition to Undermountain alone the backstory of the dungeon includes one non-relevant sect of Clerics who was, in-universe, trying to game the spell slot system, alongside another unrelated sect that the PCs trip over by accident and fight inside their half-constructed fortress of partially undead bone which they control via Rebuke Undead.

Lemme say that again just for emphasis: there's an adventure where an accidental encounter is a long siege through a half-animated evil fortress that can be controlled through pure divinity, which was invented because its builders, in-universe, were trying to optimize their power and create an advantage they could control but their enemies couldn't. And this is just my favorite example, it's hardly the only one. Even the fucking novels got in on this sort of thing. We all joke about how wizards have no rights, because they don't, but watch a Cleric hit level 7 or so and you'll realize quickly that they are becoming something to which mortal laws are more like polite suggestions. Nor is this necessarily solely the sign of greater favor and thus potentially restriction from their god; indeed, a Cleric has to bring things to the table themself, narratively speaking! Divine spellcasting is a real skillset that you get better at with practice and experience, and part of the reason higher level Clerics get so much attention from other gods - aside from the obvious "this person can solo an army and still go home in a mood to have sex with their wife" angle - is that a skilled Cleric is a rare resource worth stealing.

Overall, 3.5's vision of Cleric is perhaps the one that suffers most from Cleric's identity-draining lack of specificity. Its Clerics were powerful, but they were also largely all the same; they could change their spells every day, but that only really meant that your list of spells doesn't really matter beyond personal preference. Domains offered some customization, but they didn't go far enough, and indeed if they were to go far enough the all-consuming might of Cleric would only be even more flagrant. So let's return to the most honest edition of D&D, shall we?

D&D 4e: Healer Calls The Shots - There are a lot of reasons that D&D 4e was born dead, and a big one is that classes with healing abilities were labeled 'leaders'. This seems absurd these days, especially if you're into esports at all; the support player being the team leader has become accepted strategy in a variety of games, in no small part because one simply cannot win without them, and yet at the time the D&D fanbase - still in an awkward transitional period of nerd masculinity that I don't have the time or the PhD to write about - rebelled against this concept with fountaining violence. The "girlfriend classes", leaders? Absurd. Preposterous. Clearly Sir Dipshit the Fighter with no mental stats or applicable skills is the leader.

I'm not fucking bitter, you are.

So what was Cleric's deal, exactly? Cleric qua Cleric was a Leader, as mentioned before, that could primarily be built either as a scrappy melee type or a more hard-support implement caster. "What's an implement caster?" glad you asked; back in 4e you had to hold a casting implement to cast your spells, something like a rod, staff, wand, holy symbol, your mother's haunted skull, whatever, and these had specific mechanical effects that altered your abilities. Some classes, like Cleric, could also or instead use a weapon as their implement, but in practical terms the strict wealth-by-level guidelines meant you got one or the other and would build your stats accordingly. Keep this in your back pocket for later, it's going to come up again. Also for your back pocket for later: these implements were, well, implemented as part of 4e's item progression, and the expectation was that you would spend your available resources (in this case, gold/phantom gold, collectively Wealth By Level) on better implements that would make your abilities work more work-y. Limited wealth meant that while in theory you could have both a magic weapon and a magical implement, in practical terms you get one or the other 'cause there's other shit you gotta buy.

What Clerics did with these implements was sell healing and healing accessories. While 4e introduced the concept of Radiant damage (used there as especially good against fiends, undead, and other forces of evil) and Clerics did indeed have access to some of that as well as buff abilities, their main thing was being the ranged healer par excellence, able to heal or cause healing far in excess of their peers in the role such as Warlord. Here, then, we return to the throughline of the divine healer which stretches all the way back to fucking BECMI, and which modern audiences may recognize more readily as the JRPG archetype of the White Mage - itself rooted in BECMI again! This hobby is an ouroboros, I say, with love.

Joining Cleric here are a selection of other classes with divine powers who take on a similar conceptual space. I talked a bit about Invoker during the Paladin article so I'm not gonna go over them again (this shit is long enough as it is), so we're gonna talk about Warpriest and Runepriest.

Introduced in the Essentials line, Warpriest was - like most Essentials classes - a simplified take on Cleric meant to be more accessible to new players. It shifted just about everything towards Wisdom in terms of writing one's character. Warpriests were these tanky all-around characters who gave up some of Cleric's team support for better attacks, and notably did not select powers on level-up, but rather got a progression based on their Domain. Readers familiar with D&D 5e might see some similarities here.

Runepriest, on the other hand, was a weird freak of a Defender whose thing was projecting offensive or defensive Auras that they could amplify with their support abilities and swap out every time they attacked. Their primary stat was Strength, drawing on a similar idea to the later revised 5e Barbarian or, perhaps more familiar to y'all, Beast incantations in Elden Ring. Very much not simplified, Runepriest offered some initial build diversity but didn't get a lot of support as the gameline continued, ironically ending up as very limited despite seeming intentions of breadth.

Narratively, these classes were somewhere in the range of 'village preacher with a hidden badass streak' to 'war missionary' to 'literal thug for the literal god of literal fascism'. 4e here stands out for being the first edition to acknowledge that a Cleric is not really a priest as such, and is much more like...a chosen one, a conception that very much fit well into 4e's idea that adventurers are inherently freaks who do things no sane person would ever consider. If you're thinking, "gee that sounds odd, why wouldn't there be like Clerics just existing inside cities", I point you at works like Dungeon Meshi who advance this same idea. Fundamentally, the skills one uses to break into ancient tombs full of undead are not skills you develop while working as a spiritual leader or a bureaucrat or even as a military officer. Adventuring is not a career you get into because your life is going well.

Of course, as mentioned, D&D 4e was born dead, so now we need to talk about the demon that ate its corpse and was, for a time, the unquestioned king of the TTRPG space by dint of its treachery and malice.

Pathfinder: Deus Vult Part II: World Holy War - Keep Pathfinder in your back pocket next to casting implements, they're gonna star in the religion section later as I express a fundamental anger that borders on inhuman rage. You have no earthly idea just how much I'm cutting out of this section alone considering that like many, I was there for Pathfinder during the beta and thus got in on the ground floor of a great deal of incompetence, malice, cruelty, outright betrayal, unexamined double-think, and egotistical bullshit.

That said, let's actually talk about Cleric.

In terms of Cleric qua Cleric, you may be noticing that the table there looks a lot like 3.5's Cleric, and indeed in many ways they're pretty similar. The biggest immediate difference is the addition of Channel Energy, which lets a Cleric become a healing bomb (or harm undead bomb, or vice versa) a certain number of times per day linked to their Charisma modifier. This is in addition to spontaneous casting, so it's a strict addition; further, it being a 30-foot burst means a channeled heal might actually be worth your Standard Action at some point in your career. It won't be, but it might. Additionally, Pathfinder Clerics are proficient in the Favored Weapon of their god by default (more on this later), which - by contrast - was often much harder to access in 3.5.

Like D&D 3.5, Pathfinder has a dizzying array of Domains to go with a default setting packed full of gods (more on this in the religion section later), ranging from things as broad as 'all magic ever' to things as embarrassingly specific as 'ambushes as laid by kobolds specifically'. Seriously, look at this list, it's absurd. And while by sheer numbers and specificity it's roughly equivalent with 3.5, I'm not about to claim 3.5 has the high road here, Clerics in Pathfinder get more abilities from their Domains and thus your choice of Domain and/or Subdomain is far more important to your Cleric than it ever was in PF's parent game.

Indeed, option paralysis is going to be the name of the game here. Clerics in Pathfinder, in addition to Domain and Subdomain and their choice of god, also get to pick out variants on the Channeling ability that I talked about and, like all Pathfinder classes, have access to a dizzying array of Archetypes. These Archetypes in turn range in scope and concept from variations on how one has trained as a Cleric (such as Crusader, keep that name in mind for later) to like, race essentialism as class features such as Fiendish Vessel. Sit on that statement for a bit. Really internalize it.

Now, while the rules for Pathfinder give provisions for older versions of Clerics such as Clerics of ideals, Planar Clerics, etc, in practice Pathfinder is very much married to its one-and-only setting, Golarion, and to its particular vision of Clerics as the dedicated priests of a single god. This is a difficult vision to accomplish, as they still aren't competent to be priests, but it's also one that adds another layer of information a player has to juggle, as Golarion makes a much bigger and yet somehow much smaller deal about Clerics falling and losing their powers; each of its gods has a published code of conduct, Obediences you can perform for mechanical benefits, and sometimes even exclusive spells. I said I was gonna cut my beefs with Paizo out of this section but I really cannot resist just one: this is from the creators who made their first bones by arguing that mechanical bloat was the cardinal sin of 3.5 and advertised a return to the purity of Core. It would be funny if it weren't so fucking infuriating. If you can't hack it as a Cleric of your god, you lose your powers until you either start hacking it, or find a new god that agrees better with your current behavior, and those gods are very much in the market to hire.

In addition to Clerics as the hypothetical main priests (both as PCs and NPCs), Pathfinder introduces Inquisitors, Oracles, and Warpriests and we're gonna have to talk about all of them so I hope you weren't doing anything else with your day. Let's start with Inquisitors. Meant to be to Cleric what Ranger is to druid, Inquisitor is a wildly revealing take on how Paizo thinks about religion and ethics. To wit:

"Grim and determined, the inquisitor roots out enemies of the faith, using trickery and guile when righteousness and purity is not enough. Although inquisitors are dedicated to a deity, they are above many of the normal rules and conventions of the church. They answer to their deity and their own sense of justice alone, and are willing to take extreme measures to meet their goals. Role: Inquisitors tend to move from place to place, chasing down enemies and researching emerging threats. As a result, they often travel with others, if for no other reason than to mask their presence. Inquisitors work with members of their faith whenever possible, but even such allies are not above suspicion."

James Jacobs would like to tell you, with a straight face, that this is a normal and expected way to engage with religion, to think about religion, and that Inquisitors as presented here can be of any alignment and serve any god, all of whom will keep them around on purpose. In a related story, James Jacobs is a sniveling wretch. In another related story, the aesthetics and proficiencies of Inquisitor are very much like, the Hugh Jackman Van Helsing. I do not say this as an insult to either Inquisitor or to Mister Van Helsing, his aesthetics slap, but do keep that in mind for what I'm gonna say later.

Mechanically, Inquisitor drops a lot of control and damage, gleefully sacrificing most of the support a Cleric offers in favor of singling out particular targets and persecuting them to death. They also get a surprising amount of out-of-combat utility, adding their Wisdom modifier to Knowledge checks to identify "monsters" ("hey what's a monster" good FUCKING question), gaining bonuses to tracking like a Ranger, and adding a FAT bonus to Sense Motive (this becomes Insight in 5e) & Intimidate checks. Their combat style is a mix of hard control spells and self-buffs to damage so they can sandpaper their enemies to death; very functional, but also very much a particular vision of a holy warrior. And lest we leave this unsaid, Inquisitor spells were very much concerned with rooting out "heresy", heterodoxy, and punishing "sinners" within their own faiths, which is a wild-ass statement when you remember, again, that they can follow any god. You wanna tell me the god of revolutions runs secret police whose job it is to murder heretics? You wanna tell me that, James Jacobs? That's what you're telling me? Fucksake. Adding to this is that while Inquisitors can take Domains, they more commonly take bespoke Inquisitions that, well, make them better at being the secret police. You know how the god of the harvest runs the Grain Gestapo and they're the good guys somehow? Like that.

This, however, is where I drop the other shoe. Look at Inquisitor's skill list. Look at their skills per level. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? They're competent to serve as spiritual leaders, indeed, infinitely more competent to do so than either Cleric or Warpriest are or ever will be. The rest of their abilities make that idea just a little bit absurd, but if you don't mind every local village priest being an apprentice serial killer on their off hours Inquisitor is the only divine class that can do the job. The only one. There are no others. The next-closest candidates are fucking Bard and Rogue.

Which brings us to Warpriest, I think. I will not mince words here: Warpriest fucking sucks. Pitched as one of the many so-called "hybrid classes", Warpriest's parent classes are Fighter and Cleric, and it really got the worst end of both. Cleric is cracked enough that even with 6th level casting Warpriest evens out to doing fine, but my fucking god. Warpriests get some minor buffs to their weapons and armor, allowing them to customize those items and granting a phantom buff to the budget they can assign to them, as well as access to Blessings, their particular spin on Domains. These are good ways to extend their spellcasting but are, essentially, equivalent to a secondary pool of spells and buffs; likewise, their Fervor ability is a pool of healing/harming in theory, but in practice you burn Fervor to self-buff as a Swift action (Bonus Action for you 5e folks) or you're doing it wrong. The problem here is that Warpriest is just...worse Cleric. The phantom buffs to their weapons and armor, as well as their pool of bonus Combat feats, do not make up for the bit where they swing less accurately, less often, than an equal level Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, etc. You're casting or you're failing, and if you're already a hard caster, you're a Cleric - and Clerics, y'know, are already war-priests.

Oracle is the weird one out of this list. A spontaneous and Charisma-based divine caster, Oracle stands out for having a more limited list of spells that they get to use more often, and for having flexibility with their use of Metamagic feats the way a Sorcerer does. "What if I don't want to use Metamagic feats," I'm afraid you'll need to go fuck yourself, this is what you're doing. Oracle was an instant smash-hit with the player base of Pathfinder for its strong aesthetics and customization; where most Clerics are essentially the same with minor differences, every Oracle is, in some way, different. In particular, each Oracle has a Curse which makes them like, literally & textually disabled in some way but also grants them power, ranging from "you're just deaf, that's it that's the curse" to "you've been infested by an alien hive-mind from literal space, good luck fucker", and also pursues a Mystery that gives them themed abilities and further customizes their spell list. Unfortunately this is still a Paizo class; in terms of the actual mechanics, most Curses are essentially meaningless, with a rare few either being so bad that they're unpickable or so good that you kinda have to justify why you didn't take them (Deafened is the latter, incidentally) and most just being nothingburgers that matter not at all.

Now, notable here before I talk about Mysteries is that Oracle, like Cleric, is living that 3/4th base attack bonus life and can natively wear up to medium armor. Unlike Cleric they are not natively proficient with their god's Favored Weapon but otherwise they're fronting as a gish (spellblade for you youngbloods, a character that mixes magic and melee). The thing is, while that 3/4 attack bonus is great for spells that make attack rolls - here Oracle is handily beating contenders like Wizard or Sorcerer in terms of accuracy - they are, you know, ninth-level casters. The correct move for your turn is "I cast a spell". There are not exceptions to this. In an extremely related story, most Mysteries are full of not-spell things to do with the actions you would normally use to cast spells, and while some of them - such as the endless parade of ways to boost your Armor Class - replace certain spells, essentially saving you a slot, many of them are just kinda...weak blasts or control abilities that don't meaningfully compete with, again, "I cast a spell". And like, the flip side of your choice of Mystery often not mattering is that you're free to pick something that seems thematic to you, but riddle me this: if you never use the abilities you pick up, does it matter that you have them?

There's some obvious winners in Mysteries, as there always is. Lore and Time are cracked as hell, and you can get away with something like Metal that has mostly passive abilities, but here we need to talk a bit about the theme and flavor of Oracle. Paizo sold the class on the idea of mysterious connections to the divine, a sort of divine mirror to their Witch class whose associations with the otherworldly are potentially unknown to them and move them without their consent. They then immediately abandoned this faster than my father abandoned me; every published Oracle is the Oracle of one god in particular, Mysteries are associated with gods the way Domains are, and this means that in all ways Oracle is a Cleric who can get laid. I am, perhaps, disproportionately angry about this, both on a professional level (lying to your readers is a bit of a dick move) and on a personal one (I wanted the Oracle they sold and did not receive it). And that's...a bit of a let-down, right? Paladins are already god-locked in Pathfinder too, so at this point Oracle, while having strong imagery, is not meaningfully different from its peers in a way that you can really latch onto. I dunno. It's a waste, y'know?

Overall, Paizo's vision of its divine classes is not able to be separated from its vision of religion as a zero-sum holy war in which everyone is desperate for converts, no one trusts anyone else, and rooting out one's own flock for heretics and heterodoxy is considered normal and morally acceptable behavior. Paizo deadass thinks the Spanish Inquisition are the good guys, if not literally, then in spirit, and that is, not to put too fine a point on it, disgusting. Mechanical innovations are present here, but to be frank the signal-to-noise ratio is awful, and it's very much not worth the effort to pillage their work for the few good ideas that have managed to survive.

Which brings us, at long last, to:

D&D 5e: The Power of God And Anime On My Side - I apologize for nothing and I will do this again.

So, right here up front, before I talk about anything else, anything else at all, Fifth Edition Clerics are, for the first time, both not priests and not trying to be priests. To quote Pages 56-57 of the 2014 Player's Handbook: "Not every acolyte or officiant at a temple or shrine is a cleric. Some priests are called to a simple life of temple service, carrying out their gods' will through prayer and sacrifice, not by magic and strength of arms. In some cities, preisthood amounts to a political office, viewed as a stepping stone to higher positions of authority and involving no communion with a god at all. True clerics are rare in most hierarchies.

When a cleric takes up an adventuring life, it is usually because his or her god demands it. Pursuing the goals of the gods often involves braving dangers beyond the walls of civilization, smiting evil or seeking holy relics in ancient tombs. Many clerics are also expected to protect their deities' worshippers, which can mean fighting rampaging orcs, negotiating peace between warring nations, or sealing a portal that would allow a demon prince to enter the world.

Most adventuring clerics maintain some connection to established temples and orders of their faiths. A temple might ask for a cleric's aid, or a high priest might be in a position to demand it."

Merciful fucking Illmater, we made it y'all. Not that the player base, by and large, has noticed; many people continue to play clerics as priests, to think of all clerics as priests and spiritual leaders, and to expect them to be such. And they are not priests. As I've argued already they've never been priests, but 5e does have a firm vision of Clerics - they're shonen protagonists. The chosen many, as it were, and that vision is clearer and more thematic than Cleric has been since mammoths still walked the Earth. Y'all are doing this wrong. Please stop.

Anyway, mechanics! The more things change, the more they stay the same; Cleric still has a dog shit skill list, they're still a mid-armored all-rounder with anti-undead features, they're still pretty good at resisting mind control. The Optimal Cleric(tm) is rocking high Wis and Dex so they can act first and get off their powerful control spells, which in turn implies light armor in an unusual first for D&D, but I'll be real with you: Cleric has one of the best spell lists in the game, as long as your Wisdom is high you can do whatever you want and never be punished for it. Notable here in comparison to previous editions are the flexibility of the Cleric's spell slots in 5e - you can cast any spell you have prepared out of your slots rather than locking 1 spell to 1 slot - and Ritual Casting, a feature most people associate with Wizards but which is very, very much available to Cleric and gives them similar out-of-combat utility. Turn Undead and Destroy Undead return, both more functional than they've been in decades, and are now linked to rests of any kind and also used to charge Domain features. "What about Divine Intervention -" what the fuck about it.

Which brings us to Domains. And the thing about Domains is there's still a lot of them in the context of 5e; the Player's Handbook alone published seven of them, and just about every player-oriented book after that had 1-2 more, sometimes as many as three. Cleric is feasting, and while most of the food is decidedly mid it still doesn't matter because it is, again, stapled to Cleric. Like I could wax poetic, at some considerable length, about why Domains like War, Trickery, or Grave are bad options, but y'know, the thing is, they're still fucking Clerics, they'd be doing fine with no Domain at all. I'm not gonna go into a massive breakdown of the pros and cons of any given Domain, but in general you'll have the most harmonious time with Domains that don't expect you to be spending your actions doing things that aren't casting spells. War, for instance, is gonna be a let-down because it really wants you to be making weapon attacks and you do not have the tools to make that remotely worth it; conversely, Grave also sucks, but it mostly fills in actions that your spells can't or won't, so you'll have a much smoother time playing Grave. For those wondering, the hands-down winners of the Domain list are Knowledge, Life, Light, and Tempest, though an extremely dishonorable shout-out goes to Order as a control & utility pick that is completely unaware of its own existence as a cosmic fucking horror story. See the sample Clerics below for that shit.

Now, remember when I told you to keep implements in your back pocket? 5e also has them, but they're introduced a bit...unevenly. Magical items do exist that do what magic implements used to do, namely, boost your spell DCs and spell attack modifiers - the caster equivalent of a magical weapon - but not many were ever published, and the ones that were are mainly for arcane casters. Fans of Critical Role may be recognizing items like the Spire of Conflux or the Hand Cone of Clarity as taking this role (and indeed quite a bit of Mercer's world and mechanics draws influence from D&D 4e), while players of Baldur's Gate 3 are pointing at the screen and naming some of their favorite caster-focused shields, gloves, and helmets right now. Any of these are a pretty neat way to engage on this idea as long as you keep things under control (you don't wanna exceed a total of like, +3/+3 here), but you as the DM, or you and your DM if you're a player, can and will be making this shit up yourself for your Cleric.

So, what's 5e's vision of Clerics, narratively? Well...see, the thing is, the text I quoted above is mainly it. D&D 5e is remarkably lore-light on the player-facing end, instead investing a lot of its lore writing in wild reworks of various cultures such as drow or gnolls, which I will not comment on because I do need to end this article at some point and I'm still in the fucking context section. There's a soft sympathy towards the position that 5e's Clerics, as they level, are holier Clerics, rather than more skilled Clerics (again, see above), but even that is a very tepidly held position, one which in novel writing and related media is far from consistent or primary. That said, I couldn't walk out of this section with a straight face if I didn't talk about the WILD fucking Domain assignments 5e makes for its gods, which in some cases is an artifact of many more specific Domains no longer existing, but in other cases appears to be the product of some of the most ignorant Protestant bullshit you can possibly imagine when thinking of the gods in question. Again, see the existence and flavor of the Order Domain as an example here, but like, in what fucking universe is Helm associated with the Light Domain? Since when was Wee Jas a Grave Domain kinda goddess? Not to hype this up twice in two paragraphs, but you will notice when we get there that I have chosen to ignore this whole affair for many of the upcoming sample Clerics and when I do there'll be some discussion about it. I do these things to myself and I really wish I didn't but this is who I am as a person now.

Going to the Land Of Context is like going to the Underworld, it takes you three days no matter how fast you travel. But at long last we have arrived, and we can conduct the actual fucking article. May Oghma pity me, for I myself will not.

Gotta Go, The People In The Important Pajamas Are Mad - Clerics At Your Table

Before I say anything else, that headline is not my original line but I cannot for the LIFE of me remember what early aughts webcomic it's from. I am likely misquoting it but if anyone on this hellsite recognizes it and can point me back to it for a proper credit I will be quite grateful & also get the citation in.

The following section is meant to help you in fleshing out a Cleric concept to play or even to use as an NPC. While some of this advice is edition-agnostic and indeed when we get to the religion section we're gonna return to some Takes Through The Editions and I will be very sad and also angry, a great deal of it will be slanted towards 5e because, let's face it, that's what people are playing. Make of this what you will. Also covered here will be same-paging (again), Clerics & alignment, and common pitfalls of playing Clerics (and suggestions of how to avoid them). So, without further ado:

Same Paging - In Which I Blow The Meta Joke About This Being In Any Class Article I Do Early Like A Damn Fool

Same-paging is the practice of talking to your group in a way that helps set mutual expectations, and it’s something every RPG group should strive to do regardless of the system they’re playing in. You’ve probably done this to an extent before, as part of being pitched a game (”We’re going to do a dungeon crawl through the deadly halls of Undermountain”), during character creation, and the like. If this opener to the section sounds familiar, it's because I copy-pasted it from my last class article and there's nothing you can do to stop me. In the specific case of Cleric, the elephant in the room you need to explicitly talk about and not just assume shit about is the sort of relationship you're looking to develop between your character and their god(s) and, y'know, any themes or ideas about spirituality that you explicitly would like to see included or, conversely, very much need to not see included. We're gonna get into it more in the religion section later but man it truly does fucking blow chunks if you're looking to have, say, a serious exploration of your character's faith and its relationship to society, but the rest of your group is on some Reddit Atheist shit, right? Hell, it's not even pleasant if you unexpectedly end up doing the inverse. In addition to this, if you're looking to explore ethical or doctrinal dilemmas (i.e. if you're really into the idea of playing a Cleric of Eldath as a dedicated pacifist, or dig into the conflicts that might arise between the Orders of Denier who preserve knowledge vs. some kinda magical infohazard), this is the time to say it and chew it over with your group. And again, as long as everyone's having fun and not hurting someone else any way you play it is fine - a kick-in-the-door style campaign is a perfectly fun campaign to have. The point is to set expectations up front, not to like, ensure that the group is playing in the one ordained way to play. Which is bold words considering how many times in this article up to this point I've deadass accused people of playing wrong, but I do mean it. I contain multitudes.

One Day, A Tortoise Will Learn To Fly - Making Your Cleric

The Pratchett quotes will continue until morale improves.

Once you and your group have communicated your expectations to each other, it’s finally time to start sketching out your concept! There are many ways to do this, though the two primary schools are mechanics-first and narrative-first. That is to say, opening up with something like "Using the Knowledge Domain to pick up proficiencies on the fly sounds fun to me," works out great, as does opening up with something like, "My Cleric learned her ex-wife was literally a goddess about three weeks ago and is having a wild one about it." However, this article is about to be long enough already without me trying to write a mechanical guide to 5e Cleric, let alone any other Cleric, so we're gonna focus on the narrative approach. If you need a mechanical guide, I promise you that the player base of whatever edition you're into has made several and that the author of each one has some kind of passionate beef with the authors of all of the others. Consider the following questions for your Cleric:

Why Did You Become A Cleric? To be a Cleric is to be of the chosen many; inherently, you're gonna be a bit weird. That weirdness may be because of the conflict between your perceived social station vs. who you are as a person (to wit, people might expect a Cleric of Oghma in the Forgotten Realms to be a stuffy scholar and be surprised when he shows up to strongman competitions or turns out to be one of the Sword Coast's most prolific authors of erotica), but in all honesty odds are much higher that you're a freak. Incredible divine power doesn't erase the bit where adventuring is not a career one takes up because one's life is going well. That said, just because you're a chosen one doesn't mean you didn't also get to choose. Did your Cleric pursue Clerichood for some reason, and if so, why seek that power? If they didn't seek it out on purpose, how do they feel about this change in their relationship to divinity and the burgeoning power within them? This is where you can get both characterization and plot hooks; a Cleric forged when she swore herself to the Red Knight in a desperate attempt to defend her farm from bandits is a very different beast from one who sought power and station from Bahamut so they could enact reforms in their society. Look for connections to the game world and reasons to care about it.

How Did You Learn? There's some obvious things to answer here - your Cleric learned how to wear up to Medium armor, the proper use of shields, and basic combat techniques - but the more interesting question to dig into is your spells. D&D has actually had many different schools of thought here, some of them co-existing or competing with each other. D&D 5e, as mentioned above, breaks on the idea that a higher-level Cleric is a holier Cleric, and that their casting is an almost intuitive process of seeking intercession or requesting miracles in advance in case they need them. Many people play their Clerics this way, but here I will once again climb atop my mountain of old-ass lore and offer an alternative: divine spellcasting as a skill you actually have to learn and practice. In this school of thought, a higher level Cleric is a more practiced and powerful Cleric, and is intrinsically attractive to "rival" deities not simply because they are a great champion of their own but because they are a potent resource. For those in the audience wondering how this makes any fucking sense, I will point out, gently, that this idea is actually still prevalent in Japanese media and its White Mage archetypes, as well as in popular videogames like Elden Ring. These Clerics learn spells from somewhere, and the "somewhere" has a broad variety of answers; they unlock the secrets of their rites through cryptotheology, they experience divine revelation, their god teaches them personally, they're mentored by more experienced Clerics. Indeed, Ms. Jester Lavorre of Critical Role fame engages on her divine casting in this mode, often expressing that the Traveler has been telling her about new spells or teaching them to her personally, and while this is set up as something suspicious about the Traveler in her story it's actually a quite storied idea of Being A Cleric with deep roots in many D&D settings. Regardless of your choice here, though, consider this next question:

How Do You Relate To Your Power? This is another arena with a lot of unquestioned ideas that do not necessarily like, relate to how Clerics have been historically or even what they could be if we took only 5e as gospel. In most cases, people take a very Protestant slant to their Cleric; their spells and powers are divine gifts which can and should be revoked at the whim of their god, who is in turn a being of higher morality who intrinsically knows better. And like, I'ma get into this in the religion section here in a bit, but this is a wild idea when you actually look at the gods in question, let alone when you remember that to be a Cleric is to build a relationship with one's deity. Pious service as thought of by Christians is a way to relate to your deity, sure, and there's even some hanging around that are into it (Torm, f'rinstance), but like, Waukeen would find such a relationship distasteful, would say to such a cleric, "Girl, you're selling yourself short." So put some real thought into this, and you may come to surprising answers for your Cleric. Do they see their divine power as bringing forth the holiness intrinsic to the world? As an outflowing of their own passions and obsessions? Could your Cleric read as a grim cynic to others because they view their spells as not fundamentally different from arcane magic, and caution sternly that power is power regardless of source? Are they gifts from the world of wonder and horror, which anyone could use if they knew the right way of seeing? Your Cleric's abilities are not like a second layer on top of their personality, they're part and parcel of who they are as a person; give it consideration.

What Are Your Values? Hear me out; this seems like an obvious question, something every character should ask, but here I'm going to introduce an argument that I'll elaborate on later - gods in D&D are, essentially, worldviews. And while the worldview embodied by your Cleric's god(s) is obviously the one most important to them - they did become a wholeass Cleric about it - D&D has some specific-ass gods. A Cleric of like, Azuth (god of spells, patron of wizards) is not getting a party line about a whole lot of basic ethics and kinda has to figure that shit out for himself. So ask yourself not just who your Cleric believes in, but what, and how this might relate to their faith or grow from who they are as a person. A Cleric who is the fourth child of a noble house (kicked out to a life of adventure because they ain't inheriting shit) may well have opinions about noblesse oblige, politics, and power that have absolutely nothing to do with their chosen god; likewise, D&D has a rich tradition of Clerics of fairly evil gods such as Auril, Loviatar, or Umberlee who are out here selling the wonders those dark powers have on offer because they genuinely believe in helping people or, you know, have Standards, the thing professionals are supposed to have. A frontier Cleric may well have opinions, for better or worse (traditionally worse, D&D has a long history of being friendly to empire) about the colonial project they're a part of, or a Cleric up from the Underdark might be spending her free time in academic knife fights defending the beauty and splendor of her home's ecology. Your Cleric is a real person in a real reality, not an extension of her god; that's the kind of thing that gives a person some fucking opinions, no?

What's Your Relationship To Your God(s) Like? And in a related story, this point! Unless something really odd is going on, your Cleric is not a divine being free from mortal needs or the burdens of history; it therefore follows that she is not about to be a perfect incarnation of her god(s) ideals. That's, y'know, the neat bonus you get for having an afterlife. Let's leave alone for a moment that there is a pretty strong possibility that your Cleric is so uneducated and/or fucking stupid that they don't know the textual dogma of their own faith (though please, do not forget this, it's one of the funniest things about Cleric); the ideals of that faith, and of their god in particular, are something they are probably growing into. This really should not be a controversial take, not after Critical Role blew the fuck up with the likes of Caduceus Clay and his spiritual journey in the name of the Wildmother, but you might be surprised. It is, genuinely, okay if your Cleric is kinda bad at following their god(s) in some ways! Maybe even many ways! A dwarf Cleric who's out adventuring instead of at home using their magic to help their clan is already failing at least one major ideal of the dwarven pantheon, for instance. Clerics and even priests of Sune Firehair (goddess of art and beauty, a chaotic and capricious foe of evil whose mantle is the splendor of the living world) have a partly-deserved reputation as shallow hedonists who reify existing beauty standards; the entire faith of Lathander has a serial inquisition problem that they haven't stopped having an ongoing civil war about since the fucking Dawn Cataclysm. So how does your Cleric see the divine ideals to which they are meant to aspire? Is their deity their teacher and guide? A stern master to be obeyed? A distant and dazzling figure almost disconnected from matters of dogma in the Cleric's mind? Their literal actual lover? There can be many answers here, and while I don't want to downplay the delicious angst of a well-done "I'm a bad worshipper of my god and I'm guilty about it" arc...well, the signal-to-noise ratio there is real bad, let's say. More on this in a later section.

Hobbies? Pick some. I really should not have to be saying this and honestly it's a dependent consideration with the whole 'what are your values' thing but if I see one more Cleric whose entire life and job is religious service with no interests outside of it I'm going to drop the moon on Europe and whatever happens will happen. Fucksake, this isn't even a 'many D&D players are culturally Christian' thing, this is just lazy writing and historical illiteracy. Did you think all those monasteries and temples in like, Redwall and such making beer or growing crops was just the authors having a fuckin' laugh? Come on.

Playing With The Big Boys Now - Cleric Aesthetics

You may be remembering this section as where the Paladin article talked a bit about refluffing. This is...sort of like that. As one of D&D's full casters, Cleric is deep in its particular idiosyncrasies, and using the Cleric kit to make a non-Cleric thing, while possible, is still going to have a...a particular shape, let's call it. If, for instance, your setting doesn't have any separation of arcane and divine magic & "clerics" are just a different school of magical study, you're probably fine. If you're trying to do a fully technological setting where "spells" are high-tech gadgets, you're gonna run into a bigger set of problems much faster. All of that said, though, there's still quite a bit to talk about in terms of bringing out unique flavor for your Cleric, some of which are habits that the 5e player base has already rushed ahead to hold up as good practice and others which are rarely thought explicitly about. I do hope you came ready to learn about obscure TTRPG audience drama that has never wholly died out. Let's start with the easy one first, shall we?

Spell Aesthetics - I'll not lie to you, I should probably be angrier about this topic but the convoluted history of the player base's relationship to "what do your spells look like?" is too fascinating for me to really build up the fury it deserves. There has been, indeed, in some senses still is a shockingly vitriolic argument within D&D circles about whether or not all spells of the same name look the same, and while I am vastly simplifying the two perspectives generally break down into "they need to look the same so that they are identifiable for balance reasons" vs. "having your own personal brand is sick as hell". The latter has traditionally won by default in terms of the overall body of D&D's work, especially in the spaces defined by the novel-writing, though the influence of CRPGs like Neverwinter Nights who break on the side of spells looking the same for everyone (for obvious reasons) shouldn't be downplayed. D&D 3.5 had a Feat for this that makes your spells a little harder for people to recognize via the Spellcraft skill but mostly just gives you absolute reign to customize the look of your casting; Pathfinder, by contrast, doesn't want you customizing jack shit (and indeed late in its run also edited Silent Spell and Still Spell so that your casting of spells is still detectable to the naked eye, cowards that they are). That said, and to the surprise of absolutely fucking nobody, I break very strongly on the side of "having your own personal brand is sick as hell", as do many of the major works of modern 5e, here to very much include Critical Role but also many other actual plays such as Dice Shame or Planet Arcana.

So, what goes into deciding what your spells are like? First things first, the mechanics; an aesthetic that doesn't do what the spell does, or have the components the spell uses, is right out. It's one thing if your group handwaves certain ideas for ease of play or because they don't interest y'all (see here the common practice of replacing expensive material components with just subtracting the gold from your sheet when you cast), but like, your guiding bolt fires Something that requires an attack roll, it deals Radiant damage, and it causes some kind of light that clings to an opponent. Verbal components, mechanically, must be spoken in a clear voice. Somatic components...exist. To be perfectly honest no one has had a clear idea of what Somatic components are ever aside from a vague idea that they require your hands (this is mechanically explicit in 4e & 5e) and even then there's exceptions, dishonorable shout-out to the scene in War of the Spider Queen where a wizard casts with his fucking feet. Notable here is that casters in 3.5 through 5e can replace non-expensive material components with a focus/implement/character feat, such as a staff, orb, wand, crystal, or in the case of Clerics, their holy symbol; these implements are touched, invoked, involved in the somatic components, or otherwise pretty obvious. The next bit of this is gonna be all about selecting your own aesthetics but I do want to reiterate first something I have said before and will continue saying over and over and over and over and over and over and over again: in any conflict between the narrative and the mechanics, the mechanics win by default. This is because they are the tools with which you actually engage with the game world. When your Cleric of Umberlee casts flame strike, there is some manner of dealing Fire damage involved. Maybe it's boiling sea water, maybe you hit a motherfucker with an underwater volcano, maybe you just go "the classic burning column of fire is fine", but you can't bitch slap people with that spell and then say it's actually the cold ocean depths. Alright? Alright.

So when you're looking at "what do my spells look like" there's three places I like to interrogate. The first and most obvious is, what's the deal with my god? This can be a pretty broad thing to look at; gods are worldviews, and those can be interpreted very differently. Not to return to a super famous example here or anything, but when your friend and mine Caduceus Clay (Critical Role) has spiritual guardians that look like swarms of beetles and manifests his damage spells as aspects of decay, another Cleric of the Wildmother may well lean into vines and trees, or their guiding bolt might appear as hurling a whole-ass rhino at your face that then explodes into light. Here, then, we roll into the second question: what domain is your Cleric? This is the aspect of your god or your faith that you're the closest to, which is dearest to your heart, and will therefore manifest in the act of spellcasting - which in turn is derived from your relationship with the divine. A War Domain Cleric of say, Eilistraee, may well emphasize the martial prowess of that goddess in their spells, manifesting spiritual armor, blades of moonlight, mighty shields, numinous warriors, while a Twilight Domain Cleric of the same goddess is gonna be all in on the moon and stars, the sky at night, crescents, and the like.

Lastly there's the physical action of spellcasting to consider, and here I would like to hasten to point something out. While it is common practice to simply use one's holy symbol as a divine focus, it is not required. Many faiths on Earth have holy symbols or something cognate to them, but there are also many that do not, and for those looking to explore a faith in a D&D god which doesn't practice that sorta thing Clerics are, like all casters, perfectly empowered to use a Component Pouch and cast spells in a more formal, ritualistic fashion than the typical image of calling out to one's god and seemingly producing a miracle without actually casting a spell (but more on this in a bit). Is your Cleric a student of divine magic, going through carefully-practiced forms? Are they intuiting their way through spellcasting, a razor's width away from being something like a Sorcerer? An almost saintly figure, whose spells appear for all the world as miracles (and if they are how do you square that with the dumb plans the average adventuring party engages with)? Do they speak their spells in a booming voice, announcing the presence of the divine? Are the rites they chant almost business-like, a concession to the needs of the casting but perhaps not seen as properly holy or reverent? What language are you casting in? Give it some thought.

Turn Undead & Other Features - Surprise bitches, there's old-ass lore about this too. While all Clerics can Turn Undead no matter how little sense it makes (look my in my lich eyes: what the fuck does Azuth care about undead?) and this is for Doylist reasons of legacy design, how they've gone about doing so and why have multiple interpretations. Way back in AD&D 2e this was something you were encouraged to think about and design for your cleric (see: The Complete Cleric's Handbook & The Complete Paladin's Handbook), both in terms of the physical action and what the power looks like. The classic wave-of-radiating-force look, displayed in Baldur's Gate 3 and used extensively in Critical Role, is indeed an old one with a lot of pedigree, associated with Clerics of sun deities such as Pelor or Lathander, but also with militant deities like the Red Knight, Bahamut, or even Wee Jas (it might seem weird that the goddess of necromancy is out here sponsoring Turn Undead but for the Ruby Lady specifically it's less 'begone, unnatural horrors' and more 'behold, my eviction notice'). Going with this has traditionally been some kind of plainly-spoken invocation or prayer; 'disperse and dispel', 'back to dust', 'return to sleep', that sorta thing.

However, this is far from the only possible look or interpretation. Indeed, popular these days is simply lifting one's holy symbol and calling upon one's god, which I have some objections to - it's not appropriate for every god, and it's also just kinda unoriginal - but is perfectly serviceable. Turn Undead as a sort of spell, with obscure incantations or formal rites for gods like Azuth (here making one's Turn Undead similar to dispel magic rather than any intrinsic divine abhorrence) could fit your Cleric, as could Turn Undead as a power move where you assert your god's greater authority over the undying (excellent for many non-nature Evil-aligned gods, and hilarious for gods like Loviatar). Likewise, Turning or destroying the undead can and should be flavored by your god and Domain; a Cleric of Chauntea that Turns Undead may well terrify them with the reminder of the grave, the bounty of the earth that will grow from their stolen bones, while a Cleric of Mystra simply unbinds the magic that holds them together (and, again, the eternally hilarious Clerics of Loviatar manifest the power of their goddess to beat the shit out of the undead). One move might even be to say your Cleric of a god who doesn't give a shit about the undead is actually drawing on another god from their pantheon who does; the aforementioned Cleric of Azuth is actually invoking his vassal, Velsharoon, who has authority over necromancy.

When it comes to one's Domain powers, you kinda live and die by your brand here. Every Tempest Cleric in 5e is gonna have the exact same fucking power list, so if you're not making your Tempest Cleric of Umberlee different from a Tempest Cleric of Gruumsh what the fuck are you even doing. While the way your god interprets these themes is obviously important - your character chose to follow them for a reason, after all - perhaps more important is the way your Cleric relates to them. A Chaotic Neutral Cleric of Umberlee who has a love of the terrible beauty of the sea conjures storms of sublime awe, like something out of a Gothic novel, while a more traditional Chaotic Evil one may well lean on storms as instruments of vengeance and punishment, sharing in her goddess's petty malice. When your War Domain Cleric takes that attack as a bonus action, is he seizing a moment, or drawing on berserk rage? What kind of Light or Life do you have? The opportunities are here y'all, seize 'em.

Radiant and Necrotic Damage - These are relatively young as far as D&D goes, and while they have bones in with earlier kinds of damage they're actually a bit thematically confused. Just to give you an idea here, Radiant damage is dealt by guiding bolt, the Light Domain power, ACTUAL FUCKING LASER RIFLES, and also flame strike. It has replaced instances of "this damage derives from pure divine power and cannot be resisted", Positive Energy damage, and also just fire damage for some fuckass reason. So when your Cleric is dealing Radiant damage, something all Clerics do, what is it? Nearly any of the above is a potential option, though I'll admit that I'm a sucker for the Positive Energy damage where you give living beings super-cancer that devours them in moments and/or unbind and dispel undead. Complicating this is that in the 5e paradigm, Radiant and Necrotic damage are both associated heavily with divine classes, and have nearly equal claim to holy power.

Which brings us to Necrotic damage, which is dealt by inflict wounds, as well as spells like blight, and also associated with Evil Clerics via spiritual guardians and similar spells. This one is derived from Negative Energy damage historically - that is, pure entropic power, not just death but "stop", "cease", "still", "silence" - but this is not always the case, and it very definitely has been used in 5e to represent things like blood drain, soul drain, pure unholy power, and also flaying someone alive. Similar considerations to Radiant damage apply, but they apply especially when you're out here casting Necrotic blasts when you, say, worship a nature or life god. What exactly are you doing? Why is it you're doing it that way? How is this, too, a miracle?

I May Have Started Worshiping Umberlee Because The Priestesses Are Hot - Clerics & Alignment

So here's the thing. As I mentioned above in the 69 page long context section, Clerics have had Falling mechanics for awhile, even if they have been consistently downplayed or ignored in comparison to Paladin. There's also been a very long time in which Clerics were required to be close to their god(s) in alignment, and there's something to be said there; how can one build up a deep and intimate relationship with a divinity that you have nothing in common with? But there are many groups that don't want to fuck with alignment (I'm gonna do that alignment article one of these days and on that day I will die), settings where alignment and worship are less connected (see: Eberron), and of course in 5e these ideas are no longer formally connected in that fashion, with alignment requirements being removed. Hell, books like Xanathar's Guide to Everything and Tasha's Cauldron of Everything introduce some wild-ass ideas on the random fucking tables like "your Cleric has an ongoing relationship with an imp she doesn't fuckin' like". That seems pretty functional, so, why am I talking about it? Glad you asked: I'm an ancient-ass lich and a bit of an alignment apologist, and also this is my article and I'll infodump about alignment bullshit if I want to.

Now to make a proper run at this I'd really need to actually do that alignment article, so I'm gonna ask you instead to journey with me to an imaginary land where everyone is engaging on alignment in good faith and understands two foundational principles that the modern zeitgeist has kinda left behind; the first being that alignments are broad categories that describe beliefs which have things in common, and the second being that any given one of the nine alignments has room for many, many variations on those beliefs. Not to put like too fine a point on it but just as one f'rinstance there are no less than three different Outer Planes you can point to and say "this is Lawful Good" and each and every one of those three separate dimensions of Lawful Goodness contains its own internal array of differing beliefs and expressions of what it means to be Lawful Good. And in that sense, your Cleric's god is going to be a worldview that is included in their alignment, but is not necessarily, often, or even ever a generative force for that alignment. Evenhanded Tyr is not a fount of Lawful Goodness from which mortal beings drink to become more holy; he has a worldview, beliefs, and dogmas which one can describe as being Lawful Good, and he/his church seeks to teach them. Likewise Umberlee, the famous Bitch Queen, is not Chaotic Evil in the sense of 'overthrow all governments' but in the sense that the sea recognizes no master, is sovereign in itself, and will not be denied; that she is friendlier to Chaotic worshipers comes down to a sort of mutual comfort and expectation. A Chaotic person might not like that her goddess is a divinely infamous bitch, but she like, gets it, y'know?

So when it comes to your Cleric and alignment, there's an easy ask: what is it about their faith that attracted them to it, and in what ways are they aligned with that faith & in what ways are they lacking, opposed, or still have things to learn? The gods of D&D are stranger and wilder things than people give them credit for, to be sure, but the thing is that being a perfect embodiment of your god(s)'s worldview is one of those neat bonuses you get for being a dead person, not something people generally pull off while yet living. And, not to leave this bit on the table, not all or even most of those conflicts are necessarily what one might call a dealbreaker. It can be something as simple and doesn't-need-to-be-solved as like, a follower of Azuth spending time running for political office (a Lawful/Lawful disconnect; Azuth doesn't really give much of a shit about mortal law), something profoundly wrong but understandable (a follower of Oghma who passionately hates certain kinds of literature or poetry; Oghma is the god of all language and written art), or even really major which can form the core of an arc where either the character or god has to give (Shadowheart in Baldur's Gate 3 goes through this, but for the one person on Earth who hasn't played yet a different example might be a worshiper of Bahamut who ended up joining the colonial invasion of Chult, directly angering his god because he has failed to understand some fundamental fucking lessons here).

All of this is a lot of words to re-argue a previous point; your Cleric is not a sovereign being, capable of acting without reference to the real reality or by pure ideal alone. They have baggage, they have community, they have or had a family, they have beliefs shaped by being a real thing in a real reality. Look at the ways these aligned beliefs both touch and conflict with their church, their god, or both, and you will find a bounty of characterization and plot hooks. Keep in mind as well that the gods of D&D are fallible beings; they are students of their own ideals as much as they are teachers of such, and there are, indeed, perfectly usable hooks to be found there as well. Your Cleric is not a saint or a savior, usually; they are a student and teacher of divinity who seeks to understand it, and going on that journey together with one's god is something that has been lost in the current paradigm of the D&D audience being friendly to fucking Reddit atheism.

Call It A Girlfriend Class One More Time Motherfucker - Common Cleric Pitfalls

I'm not bitter, you're bitter.

D&D is a snake devouring itself, and like many such ongoing communities and fandoms it therefore has a lot of cultural baggage which is, how do you say, completely disconnected from objective fucking reality. This section covers some common pitfalls people walk into when making and playing Clerics. If some of these end up sounding like personal callouts...dunno what to tell you. Examine your shit.

Healbot.exe - Yeah we're starting off with the big one. Look me in my eyes. Look me directly in my fucking lich eyes. Clerics are not healers. No one in D&D is a primary healer. There have been exactly two effective primary healers in all of D&D history; the first is the Vitalist, a Psionic class published by Dreamscarred Press as part of a third-party supplement for Pathfinder 1e, and the second is Life Domain Cleric in 5e. That's it. End of list in all of history. "But what about -" no. I promise you, whatever you're thinking of is not a primary healer in the fashion you think it is. This is an ancient misconception, rooting all the way back to when only divine-type classes could heal (Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger), but even back in that day healing was valued more highly than its actual effectiveness; the archetype of a videogame healer, someone like Mercy in Overwatch who can turn the tide by keeping vital people alive long enough to make big plays, that has never been part of D&D - at least not before players have access to the spell heal, which radically flips the math by itself. Much like the question of alignment, I do not have the page space or the fucking game theory degree to give this topic the attention it truly deserves, but the very short version is that PC hit points are very low, damage is quite high, and healing doesn't solve either of those problems. When you burn your action, Bahamut fucking forbid your one spell per round, on a heal what you have done is a few things: failed to advance the combat towards a conclusion, failed to meaningfully mitigate damage, burned a spell slot that could have done one of those first two, and quite possibly put yourself out of tactical position. There are cases where a heal is the right call - the spell heal as mentioned already, or in 5e getting someone to stop making Death Saves - but in general if your options are healing or doing literally anything else, pick literally anything else. Am I coming at this very strongly? Yes, but the thing is that the perception of Clerics as being "healbots", expected to memorize primarily healing spells and cast the same, has been an equally ancient and infamous perceived drawback to playing Clerics; indeed, there was a time when tables would offer incentives to someone for playing the Cleric because "someone has to be the healer" and nobody wanted to be. Does that sound like a fun experience to you? Is that the future you want to keep having? No? Good, STOP FUCKING HEALING.

Now, I said I don't have the game theory degree to unpack this, and I don't, but that was aggro as hell so I do owe a bit of an explanation. Healing being bad in D&D comes down to a few incentives, some of which I just mentioned above, but there's another big one - the only hit point that matters is your last one. Your PC, and indeed NPCs/monsters, are just as effective at 1 hit point as they are at 100 as they are at one thousand as they are at one million. Meanwhile, especially in 5e towards which this article has a significant bias, average NPC/monster damage is more than double that of an on-level heal until, again, heal; therefore, a cure wounds or healing word for someone who isn't unconscious has, at best, bought them half a turn of being alive, and given that the real swing is much larger than actual average damage the odds that you get that half a turn - pathetic in and of itself - are not in your favor. Your party does not need to be healthy, only alive; this, then, is why you only start healing once they stop being alive. Area-of-effect heals like mass cure wounds change this math a bit especially in response to area-of-effect damage which is typically lower than single-target damage, but here I will finally hold to my repeated statements that I lack the education to unpack this; if a mathematician wants to compare a devil's fireball to mass cure wounds in the notes here, please, be my guest, genuinely.

Zealotry - Welcome to the Cleric version of "stop making your paladin a cop", which readers may remember from the Paladin article. Here I need to cut a fine line; the average D&D player likely has a pretty strong idea of a particular kind of person when I say "zealot", and that kind of person is the scum of the Earth. And, indeed, while masterful roleplaying and acting might make running a fanatical missionary interesting for your play group, this is a common failure mode and I do not fucking encourage it unless you're really sure that you are, in fact, the god-king of Big Dick Mountain. However, this mode of like, the Baptist preacher is a very narrow and specific kind of zealotry and passionate belief, and I am here to make the argument that a good Cleric is, indeed, a zealot on some level, at least in part because odds are good that you, person reading this article, are yourself a zealot on some topic or other! The esteemed Kendrick Lamar, for instance, is a zealot of hip-hop. I am a zealot of old D&D lore. Ed Greenwood, praise fucking be, is a zealot of anthropological worldbuilding. To be a Cleric, one of the chosen many, is to have a deep and passionate connection to the ideals of your god; it is to care about those ideals, and to learn them further, to be a student and teacher of them, to be a disciple and practitioner of them, and that indeed is a kind of zealotry that has nothing to do with trying to convert people or oppress them (usually). Kill the part of you/your Cleric that cringes; if you're running a Cleric of like, Sune Firehair, right, pour in your passionate opinions about art and beauty and love. Go on rants about proper trade and taxes when you're running a Cleric of Waukeen. Get fuckin' homoerotic about the ocean with your Cleric of Umberlee. When your Cleric is moved to share their wisdom with others, look for ways in which these lessons are relevant to their lives, and commit to the fuckin' bit. These are the things which are, definitionally, most important to your Cleric, closest to their heart. By all means, act like it, yeah?

Slapfights And Other Bad Ideas - Way back in 1e, D&D described Cleric as a secondary weapon-user, competent to fight in melee but lesser than Warrior-group classes. This is a lie. This has always been a lie. 5e furthers this lie with the Divine Strike class feature, but the thing is that while you are not technically doing nothing by making a weapon attack you really are not doing much and should be looking into doing literally anything else; if you're not casting, you're doing it wrong. There are going to be levels in which Divine Strike edges out a Cantrip, but ultimately you are not a weapon user and should not be acting like one. Going further here, the sanctioned action for Cleric is to bump your Wisdom as fast and hard as you can, because it controls all the Cleric things you do. Here I again return to my statement that in any fight between mechanics and narrative, the mechanics win by default because they are how you engage with the game world. Once you eat your vegetables, then you can go off doing wild shit like taking strange Feats. If you need to see this in action, look no further than the oft-cited Ms. Jester Lavorre of Critical Role fame (Campaign 2, The Mighty Nein).

St. Dipshit the Illiterate - Man I hope you're ready for a third version of this joke when the inevitable Druid article happens. Like with the Paladin article, this isn't so much a pitfall as it is a for-your-consideration; Intelligence has long been a real easy dump for Clerics, and that's gonna shape how they move through the world. While D&D 5.5 (the 2024 releases) went some distance here by giving Clerics the ability to add Wisdom to their information-style checks, for every other Cleric you have someone who is very attuned and attentive to the living world (high Perception, Insight, and Survival), but very bad at formal learning, academic study, and the like. Does your Cleric compensate for this by seeking aid when they need that kind of intellectual rigor? Taking more time (that is, making more rolls) so they can correct for their own shortcomings? Do they embrace the intuitive knowledge they can gain via their Wisdom-based skills rather than attempting to record or examine? Of course, I should not leave this on the table either; as of 5e, Charisma is also an extremely easy an attractive dump stat, and since CLERICS ARE NOT PRIESTS exploring a low-Charisma Cleric who can only really show her troth through works rather than words could be quite interesting, should you be inclined.

The People In The Important Pajamas - "Cleric" NPCs

Again, if anyone can track that webcomic down my life is yours.

You may remember this section from the paladin article and be wondering what the scare quotes are about. Following through with my argument that Clerics aren't priests, some of the potential NPC roles I'm about to outline aren't Clerics, strictly speaking, but would have been Clerics back in 2e (when they could be priests) or 3.PF (when everyone was in fucking denial). Our first entry is going to cover a concept that you could pillage for worldbuilding purposes, and then the rest are potential Cleric roles. Ready set GO!

Adepts (Revenge Of The Old Lore) - Introduced by this name back in D&D 3.0 and rarely used by Dungeon Masters or, if we're being honest, the game writers, Adepts were an NPC-only class back when PCs and NPCs were built using similar rules. Sorta like a Cleric, and sorta like a Druid, and sorta like a Wizard, but absolutely dog shit at all three of them, an Adept is the spellcaster who is worse than other spellcasters at everything; that is, they're meant to suck shit, but can be competent to, say, buy a remove curse from, to manufacture magical potions, to help enchant divine-type magical items, and the like. Notably, being an Adept means you're not part of the chosen many - this was the class associated with people who put in the work to learn divine magic the hard way, or who for one reason or another could not commune with their god in a manner that might be more associated with a Cleric. As little use as it saw, this is a concept that could use some bringing forward - many, many D&D settings, here to include Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, and Eberron, blithely assume that these services are on offer, and indeed that in a big enough city you might even be able to buy raise dead or stronger magic. You know who sells that but isn't qualified to be the kind of freak an adventurer is? Adepts!

Retiree - Of course, sometimes Clerics do survive being adventurers, often "intact" for a given value of that (having regeneration in-house saves you a fortune on prosthetic limbs). This kind of Cleric-as-NPC are going to be famous figures, perhaps thrust into positions of spiritual or communal responsibility they might not be equal to; after all, Clerics aren't priests. Make an NPC a lot like a Cleric, turn them middle-aged or old, call it a day. Someone like this may have taught a PC Cleric, especially if they caught said PC early on and intervened to try and ensure this youngblood doesn't die screaming between learning the difference between "my god is with me" and "I'm invulnerable."

Rival - As a PC Cleric gets more powerful and starts, you know, slaying fucking dragons and shit, the strength of their legend may well give their word weight on dogma, doctrine, and ethics. Someone more happy with the status quo of their faith, or someone with a differing vision, these can be great Cleric NPCs, rife with potential for social conflict and always able to be tapped for an epic caster-on-caster showdown. Your goal here is to make someone who could be a player character, they just aren't; bring in passionate ideals, think through their reasons for supporting the vision of faith they do, and, oh yeah, don't forget the weird pile of magic items endemic to all adventurers.

Cackling Villain - Did you know Clerics have been either the best or second-best necromancers in D&D for nearly every edition? They're third-place in 5e, behind Necromancer Wizards and Oathbreaker Paladins, a first-time event for them, but quite literally every Cleric of 5th level or higher can wake up in the morning, decide to raise an army of the dead, and then do that. They can just do that! Even outside of strict necromancy Clerics have that combination of zeal, competence, perceptiveness, and, let us not forget, terrifying magic that can make them excellent setpiece villains or even non-villainous antagonists. Your party thinks a wizard is behind this bullshit? They're gonna wish it was a wizard.

Religion In D&D Part 1 - Context Part II: Revenge Of The Context

Do I need to break this up into two headlines? Strictly, no. However, this thing is already a fucking doorstopper, I might as well give a place where people can pause.

So remember, eighty years ago, way back at the top of the article, when I said this was going to be an angrier article than the last one? Despite writing that warning myself I have, during the course of this, been shocked at how salty and aggressive I've gotten about things thus far, and this is coming from someone who knows he has anger issues in the first place. I genuinely did not realize the depths of passionate opinions I have on offer about Cleric. However, that warning was for these next two sections, as I'm very, acutely aware of my beef here, my deep well of bitterness, and my years of confused rage that have become a kind of formless hate for the way the discussion on fantasy religion across the genre, but especially in D&D, has been discussed. Y'all got a lifelong atheist out here about to tell you that you're being harsh and reductive about religion as like, a concept, and to make matters worse the behavior of the D&D audience in general has been such that I am now in a position where I need to do apologetics for known genocide enthusiast Gary fucking Gygax. Do you have the slightest idea how little that pleases me?

So let's start this off right. A lot of folks operate on incomplete, incorrect, or just plain nonexistent ideas of what faith has, historically, looked like in various D&D settings, so I'ma play the hits here and then we're gonna get into the next section where I make some suggestions. Alright? Alright.

Greyhawk: Weirdly Coherent - Commonly and incorrectly hailed as the first D&D setting (rest in peace Blackmoor & Dave Arneson), Greyhawk (known in-universe as Oerth) was written primarily by Gary Gygax, though shaped heavily by his home games and the players thereof. Now, I'm not gonna veer into a hit piece on Gygax (and even if I wanted to better ones already exist), but notable in the context of his writing on fantasy religion is that Gary Gygax was a fanboy for the Crusades, but also a massive (and half-educated, poorly researched) fanboy for ancient Celtic legend. Some of the oddities for this strange mix have already been mentioned, such as how the original Cleric is based on Crusader priests and the modern Cleric is still feeling that influence, but this - alongside growing up very culturally Christian in, you know, the United States of America - was also very much influential on how Gygax would come to write his fantasy faiths and also run up on his own limits with the same.

Faith in Greyhawk is polytheism as brought to you by someone who almost sort of understands the idea of polytheism. Genuinely, Gygax made a good run at this and kinda tripped over his own shoelaces at the end...well, his own shoelaces and his unrelenting race essentialism, thanks for the racial pantheons buddy. Greyhawk is home to many faiths, which worship and/or fear and/or oppose multiple gods (for example, Erythnul is associated with the so-called New Faith of the Flaeness but is more of a demonic figure of evil than a god you are, socially, expected to 'worship'). For your average person, the buck stops here. While an individual god may have greater prominence in a given region for political, social, or mythological reasons (for example, the relative prominence of Boccob the Uncaring in the Free City of Greyhawk in no small part due to the influence of the legendary Cleric known as Riggby) and therefore have a grand temple or dedicated cults in their name, this isn't the norm everywhere. When the Church of St. Cuthbert of the Cudgel installs a building in your frontier village they're here on a mission, it's weird, and you should be worried. On a normal day, your average lay member performs acts of worship as part of their day-to-day life, calling upon the god(s) who are relevant to their endeavors to give thanks, to ask for blessings, to honor them, or to plead mercy. Clerics, in turn, while socially conflated with the more specific cults are often pantheistic Clerics, drawing upon many gods as representatives of the overall faith. Dogmas are typically a little light on details when it comes to the afterlife, in part because the idea of an unearthly reward for one's faith is often seen as a little distasteful, and in part because going to the afterlife of a particular god is actually pretty rare on Greyhawk. Your average person is drawn to the Outer Plane that most aligns with their worldview, and goes on their spiritual journey in the hereafter without reference to a particular god.

Which is where we get to the weird shoelace tripping, because you only get an afterlife related to your faith if you've developed an intimate and intense relationship with one god in particular. When this relationship has become a defining, perhaps the defining part of your life (whether or not you're a divine caster), then you go to that god's afterlife when you die. The typical case here is someone with a deep passion for work that falls under the purview of a god, such as a master thief ending up with Olidammara, or a mountain man passing into the dominion of Elhonna. Clerics, though rarer, are prime candidates for this sort of afterlife, but also like...the fuck were you on, Gygax? Admittedly not all faiths in the real world particularly concern themselves with the hereafter or claim to have answers about what it might be like or what it entails, and in that sense Gygax's Planar afterlives as soft mysteries and a sort of default state aren't entirely out there - it's the strange dash of monotheism at the end that gets me. And, not to leave this unsaid, Gygax is not a particularly good fantasy anthropologist, so sometimes he just. Wrote shit. That he perhaps should not have written if he wanted to retain the chunk of his dignity that he lost by publishing it. I'd say to do a shot every time he writes something weird about women as gods or women in faith but you'd get through one book and be dead already.

Forgotten Realms: The Original Sin - Ed Greenwood you are this hobby's cool grandpa and also mine and I'm so sorry that I need to put you on fucking blast here. I can only hope that you've heard all this already; it's been being bitched about for twenty years, after all.

Statistically the first D&D setting that you personally have encountered, the Forgotten Realms (the continent of Faerun on the planet Toril, in-universe) was originally written by Ed Greenwood and has been contributed to by a list of other authors entirely too long for me to cite without dying of starvation at this keyboard. Most commonly known for its gonzo locations, intricate worldbuilding, and being absolutely riddled with famous high-level NPCs engaged in high-level bullshit with one another and the world at large (a status encouraged by the staggering array of novels and videogames set in it), the Forgotten Realms is also infamous in the audience for requiring that people worship a god that is their closest and most favored god and to be true to that god or face punishment in the afterlife. Those who are False to their faith face an eternity of civil service in the City of the Dead, while the Faithless end up mortared into the Wall of the Faithless to suffer until eventually becoming one with the Fugue Plane. It's very easy to point the finger at Ed Greenwood's Catholic faith when it comes to these worldbuilding elements, and while I'm certain that has something to do with the state of affairs I need you to take a walk with me.

The Forgotten Realms is a land of miracles and wonders. It is lousy with gods; indeed, if you ever go look up a full list (do NOT fucking use the FR Wiki) you may well spit your drink at the screen. Faerun is home to gods native to the world, interlopers from other Primes, gods from human cultures that ended up here when their faithful were kidnapped across the Planes (here to include gods from Ireland, Egypt, and Finland, raise your hand if this sentence is how you learned that there are gods native to Finland), alien horrors from beyond the stars, Planar luminaries, ascended mortals, and more. These gods gather into pantheons, though to be frank that relationship is often quite uh, feudal, or familial. Trying to claim the gods of someone else's pantheon don't exist or are lesser than your own god on Faerun is a real fast ticket to getting your ass beat by said gods while your own gently asks what you've learned from this experience. Among other things, though, this means that "converting" within your own faith basically isn't conversion; if you grew up in a family of Chauntea worshipers and you get real into Mielikki this event, socially, is fucking nothing, it's a non-event. It might be a different story if you turned around and started worshiping Mystra, but even then that question is very much mediated by one's culture and geography; converting even far outside one's current or native faith is a non-event in, say, Waterdeep, but it might be a little more surprising in Neverwinter.

Here's the thing: the Forgotten Realms does not experience a separation of "religious life" from "normal life". This is gonna be a hard idea for my American readers in particular to grasp, but while Jane Average Realmswoman has a single patron deity and she is trying to emulate that god's example as much as possible, it is perfectly normal for her to pray to other gods, ask for their favor, and interact with their worshipers, and this is in no small part because they are inescapably bound with Jane's everyday life. The local cults of Azuth and/or Mystra bankroll the parchment makers who print the novels Jane reads (because parchment is required for scrolls, and both churches are also in heavy on magical industries), the fishermen who catch the food she buys offer fearful worship to Umberlee who is both their provider and their destroyer, the faithful of Sylvanus, Chauntea, or Eldath maintain the city parks and fight tooth and nail to keep them wild. When she feels lost in her life and needs guidance, the temples of Selune are open at all hours of the day and night and are the closest thing the Realm has seen to A. therapists and B. benevolent therapists. The weird BDSM club she goes to every now and again opens every party with a hymn to Loviatar. The Temple of Illmater doesn't run a fucking bake sale once a month vaguely for poor people in general, they go forth amongst the downtrodden and help them every god damn day, offering food and potable water, healing, healing again, healing a third time it's a bit of a theme, a listening ear, and campaigning for their interests in the political arena. Jane herself is a worshiper of, oh, let's say Deneir, she runs a bookstore and dedicates herself to the Goddess of Libraries; she goes to the temple of Deneir for copies of their holy texts to give away to those who ask, to verify rare tomes or donate them for the public good, and for those rites which are held in the temple, but when she went and got married a few years back she and her wife were joined in the temple of Sune Firehair, goddess of love. These gods and the organizations they run have been part of Jane's community since that community was founded, and each advances something in the living world that they see as holy and worth having; they are entwined, active, earnest. You've gotta be chill about people worshiping another god or being part of another faith entirely or your social life is going to just fucking explode.

This, then, is the full and glorious flower of Ed Greenwood's zealous dedication to anthropological worldbuilding, and unfortunately it has been sorta softly hidden and scraped under by years of corporate writing. Back in AD&D 2e, the books Faiths & Avatars and Powers & Pantheons went in deep on this subject, digging on all levels into how these religions practice and their role in everyday life, but from 3.0 onward this theme has seen less importance alongside a plethora of other writers who did not understand the vision, not that I'm looking at any RA SALVATORE YOU FUCKING HACK in particular. The end result is that the average player for 20+ years has been introduced to the part of faith in the Forgotten Realms that is deeply weird monolatry, and has reacted to that vision, but been denied the full view of a strange but very functional polytheism whose bones are still in the setting. That vision of strange monolatry is also one that other settings have been copying for a dog's age, here to include our next subject, Pathfinder. Strap in, I am going to say a lot of things and none of them are kind.

Golarion: World Holy War - Originally written by James Jacobs and contributed to by a plethora of freelancers and internal staff members at Paizo, Golarion is a shallow theme park of a setting characterized by incuriosity, disinterest in the human condition, incompetent homages to other, better settings, and thoughtless, distinctly American sympathy for empire. Like with many things James Jacobs claims to love but refuses to understand, Golarion's model of divinity is very much based on what people think the Forgotten Realms model is, and even in the context of that already-corrupt shadow, Golarion's is much worse. Much of the worldbuilding around divinity and cosmology is utilitarian; for instance, Mr. Jacobs is on record stating that gods on Golarion empower Clerics and other champions because direct miraculous intervention would set off a chain of mutually assured destruction that would leave no mortal life behind. Other bits are clearly more personal; as a key for-instance here, gods on Golarion are generative forces for alignment. That is, a god defines what it is to be, say, Lawful Good or Chaotic Neutral, and to defy a god is to have your alignment changed (see: Wrath of the Righteous). It is for this reason that the churches of Golarion concern themselves to an extreme extent with orthodoxy ("right thought", contrast orthopraxy, "right action"). Sharp-eyed readers may be recalling that I talked about paladins in Golarion being expected to root out heresy; this situation is also why every god on Golarion supposedly maintains Inquisitors, as seen prior in this article. Further, these literal thought police deploy spells like castigate which punish and humiliate victims, primarily those of one's own faith, into confessing their "sins", which, while we're right here, how did the literal god damn Catholic remember that not every faith has sins or engages with the idea of sin and James Jacobs fucking couldn't pull that shit off?

Churches on Golarion do not have broad faiths that include multiple gods. Any given god may have divine friends, allies, or slaves, but ultimately the churches they run all have missionary work & attempted conversion in common. There was a good chunk of time in which Sarenrae, goddess of redemption, was running a fucking slave empire into swordpoint conversions, and only as of Pathfinder 2e has that been being fixed at all, in no small part because, again, James Jacobs does not understand the things he claims to love and dug his heels in when readers told him to his fucking face that this was a bad look. Likewise, these churches are separated from "normal" life quite a bit, being a place where one walks to in order to get one's worship on before returning to the rest of one's life, a particularly Protestant model of worship reproduced so thoughtlessly that I'm shocked Mr. Jacobs didn't achieve a state of no-mind and escape Samsara. Sometimes they sponsor religious organizations such as knightly orders or wizard colleges but these are exceptions, not the rule, and even then "oh hey the Hellknights are coming to town" isn't exactly a day to day kind of fuckin' event, is it? Mechanics like Obediences attempt to walk this back, but the thing about requiring you to spend resources to get mechanical benefits from worshiping your god is that you've turned around and made this a strange thing. Praying and honoring, say, Shelyn every day is no longer something you just do, it's something weird freaks do and they get divine power from doing it. There is no escaping the blade of the ludonarrative; mechanics win all conflicts because they influence the actual game world.

Now, while I sincerely hope my complete contempt for James Jacobs has come across here, I do have an obligation to be evenhanded. Pathfinder 2e has walked some of this back, but the root problems remain. The second edition of Golarion has, for example, removed Alignment entirely, which certainly solves one problem, but it also replaced castigate with crisis of faith, a Cleric spell designed to kill other Clerics by making them doubt their gods. Likewise, Pathfinder 2e has been mum on certain cosmological revelations from late in Pathfinder 1e, one of which being the idea that only one god will survive the end of the universe and they get to be the supreme god of the next one, which is given as the motivation for them being so far up on the nuts of getting converts. This idea is, to me, completely repulsive, but it's also just such a revealing take on what Paizo thinks gods are and what they think of faith. And unfortunately, the broad zeitgeist of the current D&D audience is very sympathetic to that idea, which brings us to:

Religion In D&D Part 2 - I Cannot Believe I Of All Fucking People Have To Tell You To Stop Being Such A Cynic

Man the little icon on the scroll bar is gettin' real fuckin' small at this point. This will be the last major set of arguments for the article; following this section will be one sample Cleric for every Domain published in 5.0 (5.5, released in 2024, is a bit young for me to bother just yet), so just stay with me here y'all. It's been a long, angry, bitter journey, and yet there is this final hill to die on.

So, what's this broad zeitgeist I was just talking about? To be frank, it's a combination of thoughtless American Protestantism and some r/atheism bullshit. As the audience for D&D has gotten more left-leaning and queer, in no small part due to the wild successes of shows like Critical Role and Dimension 20 (and WotC's weak, half-done, and yet unambiguously open support for including queer players, players of color, and others traditionally gated out of D&D), there has been a...conflation, shall we call it, of the fictional religions in various D&D settings with, not to put too fine a point on it, real-world Evangelicals and others who perpetuate harm in the name of faith. And, y'know, I get it. I'm a whole-ass bi dude from the edge of the Bible Belt, I used to get fuckin' jumped every other day or so, I lived in Kansas for six mother fucking years, I get it. But uh, remember when I said I'm a bit of a zealot for the old lore? Remember my consistent theme in articles of not liking it when things with great potential are left on the table because there is an Approved Way to view them? Yeah. So. Let's talk. We're gonna lay out some arguments and some suggestions.

Everything Old Is New Again - "But Vox," the strawman who teleported into this sentence is saying, "you yourself have said that the stuff you're into is old! Surely there needs to be an accounting for the changes in play culture, let alone real-world culture?" And like yeah, sure, but here's the thing: edgy-ass immature atheism (I say, as an edgy atheist) is also old as hell in D&D. Like, old-old. Late-game AD&D 1e old. Older-than-me old. Now, D&D's first serious and nuanced internal conversation about the nature of divinity and its role in mortal lives was part of Planescape, whose bones remain in all modern settings to this day (even Exandria, primarily written by Matthew "I Am In Every Videogame, Yes, Even That One" Mercer), but like a lot of settings it was very...inconsistently brought forward during 3.X, leading to the loss of a lot of its strangeness, its philosophy, and even its earnest willingness to simply be cringe but free. Though this was by no means confined to Planescape, as many writers of D&D novels were extremely willing to question the utility, motives, or even divinity of the gods - here to include Paul Kidd (author of the novelizations for White Plume Mountain, Descent Into The Depths Of The Earth, and Queen of the Demonweb Pits), who I usually claim as my gold standard for D&D novelizations but whose attitude here is, quite frankly, embarrassing in its confident thoughtlessness and cynicism. The ideas that gods are super-predators, that they are a class of abusers, that they are false idols, that they cannot claim divinity because they are limited/can be killed, these ideas are, statistically, likely to be older than you are. Better writers than you have been fumbling this since before you learned how to read.

Jesus Christ Is An Outlier And Should Not Be Counted - So here's the thing. The idea that a god needs to be a transcendent being, with attributes that render them sovereign from the living world, removed from time and supreme in all senses? That's just Christianity. If you go talk to like, a rabbi, an imam, if you can have a frank conversation with a Hellenic pagan or a Zoroastrian or a follower of Voudoun, they'll offer quite different perspectives, often a number of different ones from within their own faiths. There are more conceptions of what it is to be divine, to be a god and to worship gods, than there are cultures that have believed in gods, and to be frank the best advice I have for you here is to go outside and touch grass. Then, take some of the grass with you and have some fascinating & frank conversations with anyone who is not Christian. Even Gary Gygax, fanboy of the literal fucking Crusades, tried to handle his shit here and got more than nowhere in terms of success. When you insist that the gods of D&D need to be like the god of Christianity, you are both limiting yourself creatively and engaging on a great deal of art in bad faith, bringing with you your own baggage which you are failing to question. These conversations are gonna be difficult! You're going to feel ignorant; you may try the patience of the people you're seeking to learn from. But to learn is an unalloyed good, and here I am speaking of far more than the hypothetical benefit it's going to bring to your Cleric in your happy elfgame time.

The Lord Is God Of Both Good And Evil - Surprise bitches it's a second alignment section. First tings first, I want to repeat again that gods in D&D are not generative forces of virtue; rather, they are worldviews. This changes if you're playing Pathfinder, but if you are playing Pathfinder, stop immediately. And this argument can seem like I'm splitting hairs, but it changes the game quite a bit; a lot of players and readers wonder why, say, Liira isn't out here trying to solve all of the world's problems, but that is not Liira's fucking job, y'know? Her job is to be the goddess of joy, the pure light and laughter of seeing the world of wonder, to be god of delights and surprises, and it's not exactly fair to ask her to be something else. If your character is a Liiran and you have some concerns about, I dunno, the homelessness problem in Waterdeep, that's on you to work towards.

Broadly, though, there is a problem in the fanbase that was laid out excellently in The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, written by the esteemed Ursula K. Le Guin; people find it very easy to assume that if something is described as good, as benevolent, as truly kind and compassionate and full of wonder, there has to be some kind of catch. There is a hidden evil, there is a dark cost, there is an ulterior motive. And like, look, the gods of D&D are fallible beings, they make mistakes, but the thing is that when D&D tells you a god is Good, it like...means it. Does the writing always bear this up? No. The writing is often friendly to things that are in fact bad. But even figures like Bahamut or Tyr, infamous for their associations with fantasy cops, they're trying to be the gods of like, Sam Vimes, not the gods of police brutality. Likewise gods are not the primary drivers of the battle between good and evil - they are prosecuting their worldviews, and those worldviews relate to a Prime Material Plane that is of both wonder and horror, that is full of the creations of many gods and even many mortals. It is the law of the living world that wasps lay their eggs in living things, but so too is it the law that the land is bountiful, that a shocking number of alien beings would love you to pet them, that the sunrise after a storm is uncommonly beautiful and glorious.

As far as evil gods go, let me link my article there again so I can expand on it. Broadly, evil gods in D&D can be thought of as part of two camps; Greenwoodian evil, and Dickensonian evil (shout-out to my close friend and priestess - don't question it - the Celt for this framework). Greenwoodian evils are parts of nature, unrelentingly bound to the living world, who are gods over things that are terrible but necessary. Talona (goddess of plagues), Umberlee (goddess of the sea), Auril (goddess of winter), Loviatar (goddess of suffering), these are Greenwoodian evils, and if you're noticing that most of these are women, well, Ed Greenwood seems constitutionally incapable of writing a woman who is not, at worst, both glorious and terrible, and this is a compliment. Now, Greenwood has gods that don't fit this conception - look no further than Bane, god of tyranny - but the great joke at the expense of these gods is that they are not, contrary to their own belief, sovereign from the living world, they are not above it, removed from it. They are, instead, bent, defeated, broken, and beaten down until they service the natural order, and each time they attempt to shatter the cage the world of wonder has woven around them they lose some part of themselves in the process.

Now, Dickensonian evil is named for the works of Seth Dickenson, which concerns itself with the Sword Logic, the logic of empire. The argument it makes is that reliance on others makes you vulnerable, and only through becoming a sovereign being can you be safe and complete; the ideal being, in the conception of Dickensonian evil, interacts with others not at all, or, if it must, interacts with them only to consume them for resources. Bane is a Dickensonian evil, as are Bhaal, Myrkul, Gruumsh, Hextor, and the like, and the thing about the Sword Logic is that it is persuasive, powerful, and wrong. However, while it is ultimately self-defeating, the harm done to real people in the meantime is an incalculable tragedy, and thus it needs to be opposed at all times. As edgy bastards say constantly: you can't let God do all the work. This style of evil appeals to people who are, themselves, cruel, ruthless, and inclined towards consumption, but it also appeals to people who are hurt, who have been betrayed, whom the world has let down, and in that sense there is quite a lot to explore here. The ordinary person does not give in to the logic of empire without cause.

For gods of both good and of evil, the question at the root of it all is this: why do people willingly worship them? What worldview is on offer, and why are you sympathetic to that worldview? What would it mean to change, adopt, or oppose that worldview? If you take nothing else from this section, take that and ponder it.

Death Is For The Dead - Going with the above, holy fucking hell y'all the cosmology is not as important as you think it is. There is a vast emphasis placed by the player base upon the afterlife, one which sometimes bleed into the writing (in Starfinder, published by Paizo, "choosing your own afterlife" is seen as the ultimate expression of religious freedom) but you know what most people know about the afterlife? Nothing useful! Jane Average Realmswoman knows that she will in some way be with her goddess when she's dead and that it'll probably be pretty cool and that's about it, and as far as these things go Jane is correct. People tend to react with shock and horror when they learn for the first time that the usual spiritual journey someone goes on in the afterlife will end with them becoming one with the Plane and/or god they're associated with, and to an extent I have some sympathy for this. Lifelong atheist, remember, the idea of "losing myself" to become part of something greater sounds terrifying...but is that what's fucking happening? If one is to experience an afterlife, that is, a form of life, one must be able to change. There is no escape from eventually changing so much that you would be unrecognizable as the living person you once were, and for those who want to try we have undeath on offer (except we don't, undead also experience those sorts of changes and as a result there is truly no escape from being a real thing in the real reality). And in this cynicism for the afterlife people miss the forest for the trees. When you end up, say, in the divine realm of Oghma and are filing books in his infinite library, Oghma isn't using your soul for slave labor here. You're a newly dead person who needs time to acclimate to not having the needs of the living, and moreover you're a newly dead person whose greatest, most ardent passion was language, poetry, prose, nonfiction, the glory of writing in all its flower, and now you have unlimited access to such, an endless opportunity to truly understand and grow closer to this thing that was so important to you. I'm not saying not to involve cosmological themes or to not take adventures to divine realms, don't mistake me, but...maybe try to open your mind to the idea that this thing which is supposed to be good and natural is, in fact, good and natural.

Gods & You - This is more or less re-stating some arguments from above, but put some thought into the churches and faiths your character has a relationship with. Are they part of a broader faith? Is such a faith big where they live, and what does that mean for them? What sorts of interactions and opinions, right or wrong, do they have with the local religions and why? It doesn't have to be anything huge, but the faithful are, again, inescapable. People's lives in these settings are religious, and that faith infuses their day-to-day; so too does it infuse your character's. And while I'm right here, having beef with those faiths and/or the gods behind them? Legit. Not just legit, but on the table to be consummated; there is a long and strong tradition in D&D of killing gods with your own two hands, and while gods can be hard to keep dead (look at Bane), killing them always means something. Maybe you can take their place and try your hand at being a better god than they were. Maybe you're just trying to stop their evil schemes. Maybe they slept with your mom and you take some exception to this. Whatever it is, these sorts of conflicts both have bones in with real-world religion and a storied history in D&D itself, and they shouldn't be considered outside the scope of your ambition if you really wanna go for it.

Y'all, it's been a journey. If you've made it this far thank you for reading, and as always I remain open to feedback and criticism. Please don't let the incredible length of this piece or my unrelenting, undying fucking rage intimidate you; I wouldn't be making articles like this if I wasn't trying to have a legitimate dialogue with my audience, y'know? Now, I have one last bit for you. In an effort to be helpful, to fucking flex with my writing, and as a little treat, the following section will present some example Clerics. All but one (Matthias Winters) are from the Forgotten Realms. If you make the egregious mistake of looking up the Forgotten Realms wiki, it will tell you that Matthias's god is an aspect of Velsharoon; this is incorrect, and the first person to try to tell me otherwise will be turned into a bowl of spaghetti and served up at a high school dance. This is the one thing I will be entertaining no arguments about. That said, please feel free to take these characters as inspiration, mine them for ideas, or even just to play them yourself if you're inclined to indulge my staggering arrogance in such a fashion.

One last note; you will notice that I have often disregarded the Domains associated with various gods in the books. This is in no small part because WotC did those assignments with incredible, mind-blowing fucking incompetence, and also because a great deal of their former Domains or Spheres no longer have adequate representation. I have chosen to ignore them on purpose and with malice aforethought.

Now, without further ado, may I present:

The Chosen Many - Sample Clerics

Our sample Clerics will be formatted as follows:

[NAME]

Species Domain Cleric [Background]

General pitch of their concept & plot hooks

Personality Traits: [HERE] / Ideals: [HERE] / Bonds: [HERE] / Flaws: [HERE]

Matthias Winters

Human Death Cleric [Guild Artisan]

Mattie was only an apprentice when the monsters came to his village, ravening things set loose by an unwise summoner. People he knew died, until the Shrouded Lady came and destroyed the beasts with a dark and divine grace he had never before encountered. This Lady did not ask for money, and she did not ask for favors, but of the proud and simple people of the village she did ask two things: to let others know that they had a friend in the lich-god Mellifleur, Friend of Heroes, and for Matthias's services as her apprentice. Both were granted, with many tearful goodbyes and promises to write, which have been, it must be said, kept. It's a strange life, working as a Cleric to the Lord of the Last Shroud. Matthias isn't terribly educated, no, but he's no fool: he knows his god is evil, far more vile and underhanded than Matthias himself would ever want to be. And yet, "Friend of Heroes" seems to be no empty title. Matthias is sent on odd errands all across the land, all of them ominous and to some nebulous good. Go here, says the Shrouded Lady, and warn the town that a drow raid is coming; go there, and deliver these potions to the Moonstone Four, who will have need of them. Matthias has guarded caravans, healed the sick, slain the wicked, and placed far more magical items into chests within crumbling ruins than he ever thought plausible. During less pressing times, his work as a smith still sees use, crafting items of unusual make and odd, threatening beauty for more powerful spellcasters to enchant. One day, the Shrouded Lady has promised, his training will be advanced enough to create his own.

Mellifleur is evil. Matthias knows this. But does it matter so much, if Matthias is still helping? Does the promise of lichdom for himself really matter, if he can do more right by the world with all that time? He thinks about this, between hammer strokes, and he has no answer yet.

Personality Traits: "I tend to work when I need to think." & "I ask people what they think of death." & "I eat big and hearty; quality is a distant consideration." / Ideals: "If you've helped others, the method shouldn't matter [Neutral]." & "Professionals have standards [Lawful]." / Bonds: "I might uh, be in love with the Shrouded Lady." & "I seek a lost artifact of Mellifleur that can divine the plots of other evil gods." / Flaws: "When I don't know what to do, I take the first order I'm given that sounds right." & "There is no kill like overkill."

Elrissa Morrowmoon

Drow War Cleric [Soldier]

Born on the surface as the first generation of her family to be so born, Elrissa was raised in a community devoted to Eilistraee, actively involved in shepherding escapees from Lolth's dominions. She grew up idolizing the warrior-priests of her goddess, their grace and confidence, their surety, but never felt that for herself; big for a drow, hell, big even in comparison to a human, she despaired at ever achieving her dreams of becoming one of Eilistraee's paladins, even as she trained every day with gritted teeth and tearful eyes. When her community was found and raided in an attempt to capture the escapees as sacrifices to Lolth, Elrissa lost her father, and the very next night she stormed into the sacred grove and screamed her demand for vengeance up to her goddess.

She was answered.

In a sick way, Elrissa feels sometimes it might have been better if she wasn't. Now she's a holy warrior, now she knows she has the favor of her goddess and none can deny it, but she's still the plodding, clonking, clanging thing she was before, hunting the faithful of Lolth in her plate armor like an army of pots and pans. She lacks subtlety; she lacks grace. But while Elrissa is still in some ways the little girl who was never good enough in her own eyes, watch her change when the innocent are threatened, or when the priests of the Spider Queen are within striking distance. She does not leave survivors. She will not heed surrenders. She is coming, in a tide of moonlight and hateful sorrow, until no brick stands atop another.

Personality Traits: "I am very earnest and forthright." & "I get easily distracted by nature." & "I maintain my own equipment; no one else gets to." / Ideals: "People get better when they're offered love and support [Good]." & "For drow to have a future, Lolth must die [Neutral]." / Bonds: "I will find the ones who killed my father and repay them in kind." & "Sacred groves, even those of other gods, are worthy of my protection." / Flaws: "My hatred of Lolth can blind me to practical realities." & "Alcohol isn't a problem, it's a solution."

Gemma Rivergard

Half-Elf Forge Cleric [Noble]

Gemma acquired her vocation the way she gets most things: she bought it. As the fourth child of the noble Rivergards, who make their money in trade, her life was always a bit of a loose end. On a dare, she walked into a temple of Waukeen, laid out a spread of gems and gold and art pieces from the family vault, and announced her intention to purchase the exalted station of Cleric. She was as surprised as everyone else when the Goddess of Coins agreed.

Gemma is still a bit of a loose end. Waukeen blessed her with the power to make the goods her family merely trades, and much more besides, but lacking a specific holy mission she's taken to traveling, and it's broadened her horizons. One walk down a poorly maintained road might lead to a quest to cull the monsters threatening it, or politics with a greedy lord who has forgotten the value of commerce. She's set predatory contracts to rights, fought to the death against slaver rings, and purchased a truly concerning amount of amateur art from various goblins. And yet while she's happy with her growth as a person, Gemma still feels like she's lacking a purpose. Surely she can't purchase that.

…Surely not?

Personality Traits: "Is this some kind of peasant joke I'm too rich to understand?" & "You not understanding if I'm joking kinda is the joke." & "That really updated my journal." / Ideals: "To broaden one's horizons is to improve oneself [Good]." & "Every man has his price. That's not always a bad thing [Neutral]." / Bonds: "I haven't left my family! I'm still looking out for them." & "I still keep up with the goblin artists I've bought paintings from. I'm kinda their patron." / Flaws: "You bet I can't? Hold my beer." & "I forget sometimes that my experiences aren't universal."

Neela Wagonborn

Halfling Trickery Cleric [Haunted One]

So, here's the thing. This isn't Neela. Neela is not here at the moment, and you can't leave a message. Neela, you see, was captured by a Thayan looking to build a better Mirror of Opposition, and the wizard's experiment spit out Aleen, the Lawful Evil reflection of the original Neela, who had spent her life to date as a Cleric of Liira, Goddess of Joy. The mirror's enchantment, normally used to compel the summoned copy to kill the original, did not do this to Aleen, who was swiftly captured herself, brutally experimented upon, and then turned loose with the promise that her "creator" would be watching.

She's been hiding for all her life is worth, posing as Neela and playing a nerve-shredding game of balancing distance from Neela's loved ones with staying close enough to not arouse suspicion. Who knows if she'd survive getting killed in this Faerun, which is so unlike the one she knows? Praise be to the gods both above and below, though, Aleen here has an excuse: she's been receiving revelations from Liira, which are guiding her on a quest whose objective is unclear to her, but which has enabled her to become more powerful as a Cleric. If she's tricked the Lady of Illusions…well, that speaks well of her odds, right?

Liira has not been tricked. This journey of self-discovery into the world of beauty and wonder is about to be the funniest prank the Lady of Mists has pulled in fucking centuries.

Personality Traits: "The road calls! Immediately!" & "I remember those who wrong me." & "I have a weakness for musicians." / Ideals: "A deal is a deal [Lawful]." & "Everyone else is looking out for themselves first. Why should I be better? [Evil]." / Bonds: "That Thayan needs to die. Screaming." & "No one can find out who I am. No one." / Flaws: "I'm a good liar, but not as good as I think I am." & "My cruel streak can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

Fila Firetouched

High Elf Tempest Cleric [Entertainer]

Descended from a long line of Waterdhavian elves, Fila broke with family tradition by converting to the worship of Sune Firehair, goddess of beauty and patron of the arts. During their more youthful years they lived down to the stereotypes of the many lay members, producing a frankly embarrassing catalogue of love poetry, ex-lovers, and amateur paintings, but after the loss of their sibling to a sea storm their art took a rather more gloomy and Gothic direction. Storms and landscapes featured heavily, and with their newfound focus Fila was praised as an artist to watch, with a keen eye for the sublime. Their parents and community did their best to support Fila, but they were determined to process their grief in their own way, seeking to capture the "true heart of the storm", which they feared, hated, and also loved.

It was atop a hill in the Dessarin Valley, during a savage spring storm, that Fila was struck by lightning while trying to paint. They died in an instant of eternal agony, but it was not to be their end. Rather than claim Fila's soul, Sune Firehair offered them the chance to return, to continue their art and seek out others whose beauty was hidden by the cruelties of the world. Fila accepted, and returned to a body branded by the storm and crackling with divine power.

The plate armor is still taking some getting used to, as are the odd glances and awkward greetings from the church, but the storm, oh, the storm…

It feels like an old friend now, beautiful and terrible. It's all too happy to help with Fila's work.

Personality Traits: "Hold a moment, I need to sketch this for later." & "There is a party person in me that comes out sometimes." & "The amateur poetry will continue until morale improves." / Ideals: "The world is good, the world is beautiful, the world is worth fighting for [Good]." & "If you don't challenge norms and expectations, people will never examine them [Chaotic]." / Bonds: "I don't always get on with my family, but I'd still do anything for them." & "I haven't forgotten any of my ex-lovers; they can ask a lot more of me than I care to admit." / Flaws: "My resurrection was a miracle, but sometimes when people say my scars are a curse it still feels like they're right." & "I may be a little too excited about my newfound powers of violence."

Nattie Kells

Human Order Cleric [Hermit]

Nattie's family likes to say she was born morose; a depressed and somber child, she never quite got on with the people of her river town, and made few friends, not even during her wild years of late adolescence when she carved her way through every interested lass available only to seemingly lose her passion. Oh, yes, people tried to help, but the things they found meaning in just didn't quite resonate with Nattie, and she dabbled with this church and that career and suchlike before, inevitably, dropping them in favor of her only seemingly eternal passion: reading. Eventually she scraped some money together to go traveling, looking for anything that could speak to her, and she found a long-abandoned shrine to Jergal, the Last Scribe, assistant to Kelemvor and Lord of the End of Everything. It wasn't meaning, not exactly, but the idea that all would be ash one day, that meaning was not required, it had a comfort to it.

She was 23 when Jergal came to her in her dreams and requested her services, which would necessitate a return to lands where other people dwelled. Nattie awoke to find a pile of equipment near her, along with a holy symbol, and she set off, learning the ways of divine magic in her dreams as she made the long and pointless trek back to "civilization". Now, as the Quill of the Last Scribe, Nattie enacts what she thinks of as fate. A charm spell here, a nudge there, and things happen; a man meets his future husband by taking a road he would have walked past, a goblin scout is devoured by an owlbear he would have avoided, a horse spooks and kills its rider. Nattie has hurt people. She has saved people. She tells herself it doesn't matter, but beneath the layers of lassitude and nameless sorrow there is an uncertainty. What is she becoming?

This, too, is Jergal's design. Nattie is determined to live in misery, but the Last Scribe can wait for her to realize better. He can always wait.

Personality Traits: "Ugh. People." & "Primary sources motherfuckers! Write some! Keep them safe!" & "Nobody talk about the kind of person I am around furry animals. I mean it." / Ideals: "It means something, that you were here, and that you were alive [Good]." & "People return to dust eventually. It doesn't matter if they return to dust faster [Evil]." / Bonds: "My lonely home in the shrine is sacred to me." & "The bookstore I used to go to as a child was nearly going out of business, but as long as I keep spending adventuring money there it will never die." / Flaws: "I don't really have any bad feelings about people dying. People die all the time. They're very good at it." & "I wish I felt more blessed by the attention of my god, but he's such an aggravating little bitch. Why's he gotta be so annoying?"

Dagill Tapper

Shield Dwarf Knowledge Cleric [Background]

The son of miners, Dagill quickly proved to have a keen interest in learning, if little talent for academia. For much of his youth he found employment running books for the clan's mines, until - on the advice of the local priests of Moradin - he was sent to Neverwinter to be educated in magic, as the gift was in him and his home had little resources to explore it. Wizardry did not work out for Dagill, despite his passion for the Art, but that passion saw him into the worship of Azuth, God of Spells, and eventually he was chosen as a Cleric.

Dagill's interests lie in the recording and advancement of magical knowledge, and his new faith keeps him busy. Between expeditions to recover lost knowledge and study traditions of spellcraft, he assists in scribing scrolls and seeks out potential mages in under-served populations. Though his clan doesn't approve of his conversion, he's still a dwarf's dwarf, with a deep love for the gods of his people, who returns home often and pays his dues in gold, labor, and knowledge for the good of his people. They'll come around eventually. They must.

Undiscussed with most is Dagill's dearest ambition: to find one of the lost scrolls penned by the very gods, and cast it with his own hands. What else could bring him closer to his new god?

Personality Traits: "Have you heard the good word about how great wizards are today?" & "Despite it all, I'm still a dwarf's dwarf in a lot of ways." & "I make a big deal out of Azuth. All the time! People should appreciate him more!" / Ideals: "The advancement of the Art is meant to help people [Good]." & "We have obligations to truth, and to history [Lawful]." / Bonds: "I still send money to my clan, and I should visit again soon. I might have an arranged marriage coming up." & "The wizard who tried to teach me is a good woman; I need to repay her kindness." / Flaws: "I have a bit of an inferiority complex about wizards." & "I am easily distracted by puzzles and riddles."

St. Nokta Kinslayer

Goblin Life Cleric [Outlander]

Honesty can change a life, you know. Nokta's warband came up against a pack of tall-folk adventurers, as goblin warbands sometimes do. She was a soldier, then, seemingly destined to be smeared beneath a mercenary boot, but when she was captured the adventurers said: talk, and we will let you live. She talked, of course she talked, Maglubiyet teaches survival at all costs, but her fellows found out, and intended to kill her along with the adventurers during an ambush.

The tall-folk fought like demons to save Nokta, because they had said she would live, and they meant it. Despite their best efforts she died, to an arrow in the throat, only to wake with the battle still raging, brought back to life by diamond and spell and the tall-folk shaman in his metal armor. Three times did Nokta die, and three times was she brought back, only to watch the tall-folk shaman take a blade to the heart. Gripped by something she couldn't name, Nokta raced over, and took his diamonds, and tried to speak his spell, fervently calling out for his strange tall-folk god to spare him.

Nokta was answered in the name of Illmater, the Lord on the Rack, god of mercy and of self-sacrifice, and has served him since. For dying and returning, her new church calls her Saint, but her people call her Kinslayer, and the Traitor Shaman, and more besides. There will be no peace, and though Nokta knows her suffering reduces that of the world, this cannot continue. If the Fire-Eyed God wants her head, there can only be one recourse: break his priests until the cost of war sickens Maglubiyet , and he accepts peace. Saint Nokta is unafraid, and she is unmerciful.

Personality Traits: "What, tall-folk - uh, I mean, yes, my child?" & "I don't hate vegetables, I love meat." & "The Tall God says His blessings are for all. For some reason." / Ideals: "Peace for peace, wrath for wrath [Neutral]." & "I don't understand the compassion I was shown, but I do treasure it [Good]." / Bonds: "The adventurers who fought for me have my service for the asking." & "I'll drop everything to fight the servants of the Fire-Eyed God." / Flaws: "I don't know what this 'love' is, and 'trust' is also still pretty difficult for me." & "My fears drive me to violence far more often than the Tall God likes."

Jelka Threebones

Orc Grave Cleric [Acolyte]

Jelka came to live amongst the Sky Pony tribe of the Uthgardt as a young adult, one of several political hostages exchanged between her own tribe and the Sky Pony as part of a peace agreement; with both in the shadow of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows, wise leaders on both sides sought to cool traditional conflicts between them in favor of looking to the greater threat to their mutual north, and Jelka was selected for her cool head, proud bearing, and great foresight for such a young orc. The story might have ended there, if the Cult of the Dragon hadn't moved into the area looking to pillage the spirit mounds and burial grounds of both tribes' warriors to secure a supply of corpses for their necromancies. Outraged at this desecration and disrespect, Jelka called upon Gruumsh and Tempus in the name of both her peoples for the power to revenge herself upon the defilers, and her prayers were answered.

Today, Jelka continues her campaign of revenge in the name of Gruumsh, hunting down those who raise the dead, defile graves, and bend the minds of warriors. Her list of enemies is long and only growing longer, and she is keenly aware that she is not yet mighty enough to face down the likes of dracoliches or, say, the entire sovereign nation of Thay. But she will be. She must be. Wrongs have been done, and she wades into battle chanting the litany of them in an endless roll of accusation and reprisal, screaming hateful hymns alongside her chosen allies. Her new mission has made for strange bedfellows, but for all her outward fury Jelka remains the curious and level-headed young orc she was when she was selected all those years ago. Perhaps there are other enemies she might make peace with, to gain the satisfaction of her almighty vengeance.

Personality Traits: "Raise a cup with me! We should celebrate!" & "I'm very curious about new cultures, sometimes to the point of being annoying." & "I love a good story." / Ideals: "The world will hit you hard. If you don't take revenge, all you'll get is hit again [Evil]." & "If you don't have the guts, you don't deserve the glory [Chaotic]." / Bonds: "My word of alliance, once given, is absolute." & "I have siblings in my first tribe who should be adults soon. If they need my help, they have it." / Flaws: "I never forget a sleight." & "I pick fights I can't win sometimes."

Kellard Frosthalt

Rock Gnome Nature Cleric [Folk Hero]

Kell should have been a druid. He knows it, his clan knows it, druids know it, there's even odds that mushrooms in Menzobarrenzen know it, but he's always had a deep phobia of shape-shifting, so for a long while he was content to study nature…academically. Sure, his papers were trite, but the man published and that's not nothing. When he was hired to catalog finds for an expedition into Netherese ruins, the team found an ancient shrine to the goddess now known as Chauntea, and beset by undead guardians. Unwilling to let the sacred place be defiled, Kell took up arms for the first time, and found himself blessed with power.

Now Kell spends his time in lost places, seeking revelation and tending to the needs of rural communities. His new position is intimidating. More than many other followers of the Lady of Waving Grain, he understands that his goddess is an ancient and persistent foe of evil. Only…can something better truly be grown from her foes? Is Kell ready?

Personality Traits: "I love nature! Let me tell you about this parasitic wasp!" & "I know it doesn't fit my station, but I just, I need to be dressed sharp, okay?" & "I tell jokes with a completely straight face." / Ideals: "There are no pointless things; all things of the world have a treasured place in it [Good]." & "Generosity is the highest virtue [Good]." / Bonds: "Fuck Netheril, fuck the Netherese, burn their ruins and salt the ashes." & "After that first fight in the ruins, a peasant family took me in. I owe them my life." / Flaws: "I have a deep and abiding phobia of having my body changed against my will." & "I never, ever, ever, shut the fuck up."

Dolly Bookchild

Half-Drow Peace Cleric [Investigator]

Most half elves lose their human parent first, but as the child of two adventurers Dolly wasn't exactly surprised when her drow mother bit the big one doing battle with a demon accidentally released from an ancient binding. Seeking to understand her loss, Dolly started spending time in the sacred libraries of Deneir, and eventually converted after falling in love with learning. Academia isn't exactly her strong suit, but Dolly has a lot of practical knowledge that isn't often written down in an accessible fashion. Her new church was proud to fund the publishing of Dolly's Practical Survival Guide.

Still, a new love of learning isn't closure, and Dolly yearned to be an adventurer like her parents. After her second book went off to the printers, she stayed up in vigil to ask Deneir for a cleric's power, vowing to use it to find and advance knowledge, and to protect the ignorant. Her wish was granted, and now she bears the peace of the library wherever she goes. Every day is a lovely day for learning.

Hopefully one of these lovely days Dolly will figure out that the demon isn't done with just her mother.

Personality Traits: "It's a beautiful day to learn something new, isn't it?" & "Ah, the great outdoors!" & "I skip when I'm happy. No really. No, really." / Ideals: "Knowledge belongs to everyone [Lawful]." & "Extend grace to the ignorant; they truly do not know better [Good]." / Bonds: "Dad's getting on in years. I need to make sure he isn't worrying about me when he passes." & "I still return to my temple pretty often; it feels more like home than home does." / Flaws: "Sometimes I forget that my fun adventures can have deadly consequences." & "I'm from the big city where my heritage isn't a big deal, so it's surprising every fucking time that it's a big deal elsewhere."

Jonas Cobbler

Aasimar Light Cleric [Urchin]

So here's the thing. Jonas had a bit of an odd childhood. Raised by a then-single mother who is a devout follower of Lathander, Jonas was maybe six, seven years old when he mentioned in his prayers that he's a boy and asked for some help being a boy because he knew Mommy worked very hard and didn't have a lot of money. His first direct experience with divinity was his god's gentle voice in his mind saying: yes, my child, your new dawn is upon you. He had some explaining to do the next morning, and his mother was happy for him and seemingly cross with Lathander, for some reason?

It wasn't until Jonas was about seventeen that he got answers to that particular mystery; he came home to find his mother, her partner, and a golden-haired stranger waiting up for him. His mother introduced the stranger as Jonas's father...

...Lathander.

Maybe running away from home in a bit of a panic was the wrong move, but uh. Jonas has at least one parent looking out for him now, right? It'll be fine. It'll be fine. It's all gonna be fine.

Personality Traits: "I am extremely food-motivated." & "Let me teach you my secret handshake!" & "Uh, I've got, a spell for this, uh - fuck - uh, in the name of the new dawn uh -" / Ideals: "You don't need a reason to help people [Good]." & "The best time to be a better person was yesterday. The second-best time is now [Good]." / Bonds: "My old friends mostly went off to real careers, but we still stay in touch." & "There's a hidden place in the old neighborhood that I take care of." / Flaws: "I cannot walk into church any more without thinking, holy shit this guy slept with my mom." & "I am embarassingly weak to a pretty face."

Freddie Wright

Human Twilight Cleric [Criminal]

Hailing from a family of Selunite wererats in Yartar, Freddie used to have a fairly exciting life spying on Zhentarim operations, right up until she blundered into a cell of Sharrans in the sewers. They pushed her into a portal to see what would happen, but not before somehow stripping her of her lycantheropy to ensure she would suffer and die. Freddie arrived in Undermountain with nothing but her faith, and in her time of need the Moonmaiden answered. Against all odds, Freddie survived, scrounging up equipment, learning the traps, and eventually staggering out of the Well into the Yawning Portal Inn. She still has nightmares, but Freddie is grateful every day that she's alive to have them.

Now the former wererat stalks the Sharrans up and down the Sword Coast, seeking the return of what was taken. She hates her heavy armor and despises being caged in one body, but despite her snappish ways she takes her duty as a guide very seriously. That's part of the problem, actually. The dead of the Underhalls haunt Freddie and beg her intercession so that they might move on, and with every ghost laid to rest her prey gets further away. But what's a girl to do, ignore them? No. Freddie has faith. This righteous path must, will, make her whole again.

Personality Traits: "Time is money, hurry it up." & "Sometimes I overcomplicate things because I'm biased against direct solutions." & "Hey that reminds me of something that happened in my family -" / Ideals: "If you give people what they need to grow, they become their best selves [Good]." & "No one else can walk your path for you [Chaotic]." / Bonds: "Yartar is still my favorite city, and I stop by to do good by it when I can." & "The dead of the Underhalls that follow me have none other to speak for them." / Flaws: "Do you have any idea how much this stupid monkey body pisses me off?" & "I've got a vengeful streak that is not uh, approved Selunite behavior."

[showsandstuff]

Am I the only one who is disappointed with Caitvi in season two? When I watched the first season I had the biggest caitvi brain rot because they actually gave me SUCH a fun dynamic with them. Buddy cop Caitvi was hilarious, I loved that so so much!

And season 2 started of strong imo but then it rushed through everything. I loved the scene in the cell, obviously, but it was misplaced. Your sister is about to kill herself girl what are you doing this is not the time!! And other than romantic and sexual tension there wasn't all that much left of their previous dynamic aside from the brief scene in episode six...

Idk, I think I'm just annoyed. Usually when I see a non canon gay ship get more traction than the Canon lesbian couple, I just assume it's misogyny or lesbophobia, and move on with my life. But I can't even do that here because Caitvi was WAY more popular in season 1 (as they should).

Jayvik isn't getting somewhat more popular in season 2 because people don't like lesbians, but because their arcs are connected so strongly to each other. (Also I'm not saying that Jayvik is now more popular than Caitvi, but it's like a graph where the super high stocks caitvi are still even while Jayvik is skyrocketing rn)

Wanna know why Jayvik wasn't all that popular in season 1? Because (after act 1) their arcs were mostly separate, safe for a couple of moments. Viktor worked on his body and Jayce was doing politics.

Caitlyn and Vis arcs intertwined more, they actually did shit together and it was beautiful, funny, romantic, EVERYTHING!

Also a fun opposites attract buddy cop dynamic is also just more fun than men who do science together (in my personal opinion)

Now let's look at Caitlyn and Vis relationship in season two.

It starts of strong. I momentarily thought that Caitlyn was uncharacteristically mean to Vi when she refused to become an enforcer, but she apologized for it later and I recognized the fact that Caitlyn was grieving. Then once we get to episode two and three I could already feel their relationship being a bit more odd. The kiss (though I cheered) didn't feel right. I felt like something was missing, and that was their chemistry from season one. Also I feel like we glossed over too many decisions that Caitlyn made, and I think Vi should've put a stop to it sooner. But overall I was okay with them in act 1.

Then we had a timeskip and the two were fully separated. Act 2 literally started with Caitlyn in bed with another woman, like we can see they're not together anymore. Caitlyn has obviously changed, there is not much of the sweet cupcake left that we had come to love in season 1, and Vi is boxing and getting drunk.

Then they meet and like... Vi calls Cait cupcake, and Cait switches sides IMMEDIATELY? GIRL WTF?!

I get that Caitlyn wasn't entirely on Ambessas side the entire time, but I had hoped for more drama first. So you're telling me the very next interaction the two have after their heart wrenching falling out is them making up again? Come on.

Then we had act 3 and overall it was better I think but the timing of their hot scene in the cell was just odd, like what about your sister about to kill herself? I was very happy and hyped in the moment but then I realized how rushed this was. Why? Why make em fuck right here? And in the final act, the two weren't together because again, their arcs were not as connected. And that's actually pretty cool to have a couple who do their own things! But it doesn't help their relationship when they, in turn, aren't given enough time to develop as a pair!

I feel like season 1 did this incredible job of setting these characters up, showing us why they work so well together and why they would fall for one another. And season 2 gave us pay off for it but with very little set up, which was needed because of how Cait changed throughout the season. I don't mention Vi here because she did not change. She had her drunk boxing phase, which we got nothing but a montage off, but everything else is basically season 1 Vi aside from very few things here and there. Like her becoming an enforcer wasn't a character change for Vi, her finally letting go of powder and calling her sister Jinx, wasn't a big character moment for Vi, they were pay off for a set up we didn't get enough of.

SO TO GET TO MY POINT:

S2 was rushed. We should've AT LEAST gotten 3 seasons, like minimum, because there was a whole lot of plot and very little moments in between for characterization. Especially for Caitlyn and Vi and their relationship to each other.

I still generally prefer Caitvi to Jayvik, but only because of season 1. Season 2 gave me the two things I wanted most (a sexy scene and a kiss) but forgot to give me the things that made me fall in love with this ship in the first place.

Which was the hilarious buddy cop dynamic of rich girl cop Cait, and broke butch prisoner Vi.

[intothemertensverse]

Thanks for tagging me! :)

How many works do you have on AO3?

118

What's your total AO3 word count?

1,507,734

Your top 5 stories by kudos:

Gustave Daae's Daughter

Pilgrim Soul

The Nanny

A Love There Is No Cure For

The World's More Full of Weeping Than You Can Understand

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I eventually respond to comments because I love reading the comments and would like to talk with my readers but I am also very socially awkward and shy with not great time management skills, so there's often a delay :')

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Eggs and Toast. It's the only phic of mine so far to take place *after* the canon Events of LND. Echo In This whisper was also pretty angsty

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

I feel like they (almost) all end up pretty happy tbh! Maybe Tread Softly was slightly happier than most

Do you write crossovers?

The closest thing to a crossover I'll probably write is Like a Wheel, Like a Wind, which is a PotO au set in the Stephen King multiverse. Other than that, I mostly do AU mashup versions as opposed to actual crossovers (ie Evita au where Christine *is* Evita, not an au where Evita and Christine both exist)

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

hmmmm :') fun fact: ffn does Not remove comments from fics, regardless of what the comment says :0 I received direct hate and even some personal accusations over my portrayal of an ace Erik, which was super interesting because the person in question then proceeded to continue to read and subscribe to my other stories lmao. I also got some bigoted comments over ace headcanons in more private settings as well, even from "allies". Someone got very flustered over the singular gay Erik I wrote once. Gustave Daae's Daughter got some upset comments because it was... a lil darker than what I normally write. Someone had an absolute fit over Christine's choices in Pilgrim Soul in a way that was slightly funny looking back at it ^^; That said, I've also received so many touching and wonderful comments that remind me why I write <3

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

this is a constant source of disagreement between me and my beta reader ahaha I would say "no" and she would. point to the many Scenes :''') I do have occasional explicit moments in my stories, but I don't consider it smut necessarily as the Scenes aren't the main focal point, and the explicitness of them is usually to (try to) convey something other than eroticism. If the thing I'm trying to convey (awkwardness, vulnerability, shame, desire, angst, being conflicted, etc) would be showcased well by an explicit moment, I'll include it to an extent. Otherwise, no

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of, though I'm sure with all the AI scraping etc it's gone... somewhere

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, several! I get why some don't like it, but I love seeing my stuff in other languages and as long as someone asks first and links back to me I think it's really cool!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not exactly! But Rat au and Gremlin au were both originally made in close collaboration with/big inspiration from Ms_Myth, in fact she even wrote a rat au prequel! I've written a few things based off of prompts others have come up with, too, and those phics are typically gifted to the person on ao3

What's your all-time favourite ship?

Erik and Christine

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

I would like to think I will finish them all, one day :') I do have a few aus I've shelved for various reasons tho

What are your writing strengths?

Angst lol.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I misspell "Christine" twelve different ways and at this point I can't tell the difference ;-; Pacing can also be a struggle

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

LotR or Star Wars, but both are so expansive and I'm afraid if I get started in them I won't finish my poto wips... So maybe one day, idk. A ship I'd like to write is Erik/Carlotta lol

What's your favourite fic that you've written?

This is so hard to choose lol omg. I'm currently really enjoying my hotel au, which is only an unpublished wip at the moment except for this. But as far as finished/published stuff, I'm going to have go with Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Fanfiction Author Interview Game

Thank you @brendadaaedestler for the tag!

How many works do you have on AO3?

30 as it stands!

What's your total AO3 word count?

591,986

Your top 5 stories by kudos:

Sticky Notes and Serendipity // collab with @brendadaaedestler // Erik/Christine long-fic // 224 kudos

Say You'll Share With Me // oneshot collection, mostly Erik/Christine // 143 kudos

Our Little Home // oneshot // Erik/Christine // 139 kudos

Starting Fresh // twoshot // Erik/Christine // 99 kudos

my heart is home when my hand is in yours // oneshot collection, collab with @brendadaaedestler // mostly Erik/Christine // 83 kudos

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I always do! I love seeing readers interacting with my fics and sharing what they enjoyed about them, and I always want to show my appreciation for those comments. The only reason I wouldn't is if I missed it somehow or if my frequent co-author has beaten me to the punch and replied already.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

It's probably Sleep So Long Awaited, which is a play on the end of LND where Erik dies instead of Christine. It's sad, it's got sad Gustave, a moment of peace between Erik and Raoul, and...well, Erik dies. It's not a happy story.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

I would definitely say Sticky Notes and Serendipity! The epilogue hasn't gone up yet, but it's super fluffy and sweet, and the entire fic just came to such a happy, wonderful ending. You'll see what I mean on Saturday 😉

Do you write crossovers?

I don't, no. I might write fics inspired by another piece of media, but I wouldn't think I would ever write a proper crossover.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not direct hate? I once received some criticism that was DM'd to me that was definitely not asked for and unnecessary, so that sucked. It was really a big blow to me, and I considered taking down that fic after receiving that comment because it made me super insecure about the entire format of the fic. It came from a person who had been very supportive of my stories for a long time, which made it even worse. Thankfully, my best friend convinced me not to take the fic down, and my critic has now been exposed for not being a good person, so it all worked out in the end.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I don't write it and I won't be writing it.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yep, I have had my fics scraped and posted on other websites at least twice, either by bots or by another user.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have not! Someone offered to translate Like Father, Like Son, but my coauthor on that story was not keen on the idea. It's something I would have to consider because I think I would worry too much about my style and plans for the story being lost in translation and I wouldn't be able to really tell. I wouldn't totally write it off, though!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Ohhhh yes! Like Father, Like Son was my first collaboration, and I write probably about half of my fics these days with my best friend @brendadaaedestler. We have something in the works for NaNoWriMo as we speak!

What's your all-time favourite ship?

Definitely Erik/Christine, I love writing with them and reading about them so very much.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

It's not one that I don't think I will ever finish, but I think it will be a while before No Need For Goodbyes ever gets finished. I would love to go back to it, but I've been away from that cast of characters for so long that it can be hard to slip back in. My coauthor also no longer has the time to work on it with me, and it is a very time-consuming project, so I'm not sure when I will get back to it.

What are your writing strengths?

I think that dialogue is definitely my strength. It comes very easily to me and it's something that I always enjoy getting to write.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Getting lost in the dialogue! Sometimes I get so caught up in what the characters are saying and the emotions that they're expressing that the writing can get dialogue-heavy. I always have to make a conscious effort to include scene descriptions, settings, and descriptions of the character's bodies and expressions.

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

This is an interesting question that I honestly don't think about a ton lol? I've always been pretty content writing Phantom fic and don't really have the inspiration to jump into other fandoms. Shipwise, I've only written sporadic Meg/Erik fic and only a long time ago, so that one could be fun to explore. There is angst there.

What's your favourite fic that you've written?

It was Like Father, Like Son for the longest time because it was my first Phantom of the Opera fic, my first long fic, I loved the characters, etc. I'm still super proud of that story, but I think Sticky Notes and Serendipity takes the cake. It's my first true multi-chapter fic since LFLS, and I can just see how much my style has changed, how much my writing has improved, and it makes me feel really good about myself. I am in love with the versions of the characters that we wrote, and getting to work so much with Erik's anxiety and making it feel so authentic was a crowning achievement for me. Also, seeing all of the love for the story that Chloe and I have written together makes me feel so amazing. Sticky Notes is my favourite for so many reasons.

Tagging: @starlitexpress @intothemertensverse @sloanedestler @ablatheringblatherskite @shinyfire-0 @paperandsong @jennyfair7 and anyone else who wants to play!

[sukugo]

[waterlinkedgirl]

Musical Touken Ranbu: Michinooku ~ Hitotsu Hachisu (Michinooku ~ A Single Lotus)

Here we go! Only a few days after the archive release and toumyu's ninth anniversary (congratulations!)

Michioku, or Michihasu, is a myu I have many conflicting feelings about, both positive and negative. However, I do believe that with the right amount of care in the next Mika-related story myu, the negative can still be cleared. Plus, I'm glad about a lot of things being re-established. The writer does need to step up her game a little on the plot-writing side of things, as well as the understanding-and-respecting-past-myu side of things, but as long as she does, this can still be given a proper place within what was already established.

Keep in mind that these are only the subtitle files, timed and tled to the DMM senshuuraku and the bluray respectively. The archive version will have a talk at the start, so the starting times of the subs will have to be delayed accordingly.

You can find the subtitles and my TL notes document here!

[ivalice-tifalucis]

With the release of From The Rehearsal Room - Tokyo to Ramin's youtube I finally, finally, continue and finish this side project I'm doing.

Initially, I used AI to mastered it because the first version I got from bilibili were not in good quality but I wasn't satisfied and I found the much better quality. But with Ramin uploaded it to youtube, I re did all the mastering just with audacity for both Part 1 and Part 2. The Part 2 is still from the better version I found from bilibili, by the way.

What you need to do is just download the file and put it on your music player. The metadata is all completed as if it's whole legit album. Enjoy, guys!!

And I'm being weird so all the lyrics that are put there are from my listening although I still use what I found online but I still listened and compared. They made few ad-libs and changes and I notice because for the songs that I wasn't familiar, the lyric that I found online and what they sang was slightly different. Perhaps they sing the newer version of the lyrics or mistakes? Even each Sheytoons songs they sing one in both parts differ from the ones I found online.

Another sample from my favorite:

Source and Credits Part 1 | Part 2 (Ramin's upload) Album cover Photos

Vocal & Guitar: Ramin Karimloo, Hadley Fraser Piano: Ryohei Mori

[4thegadiesandlentlemen]

BANGER POST AGAIN !!!

I both hate and love the ambiguity. Because I'm tryna think back to Bjorn (who lived an incredibly short life omg) but the difference is he was brain dead and couldn't fight back. The retired characters aren't. So he must've found a way to keep them steady??

And omg??? How he'd feel WHEN he dies??? I didn't even think of that. But that is honestly such a good point.

Now everything past this point I'm just assuming things again

Wayne loves life and I believe it's because of the free will he gets. Death would mean the end to all that possibility and fun shit to do. He seems like the kinda person to make his own meaning to life than find one (to me, at least). I don't think he'd think about his mortality too much cause he just lives in the moment. He doesn't think about the future or past, he just goes through time as it is. Wanna add on more to this but my brain's overheating.

First death was blunt. No torture, no build up, no nothing. He was led out and just bled??? He also said help me even though he was in THAT state.

I'm spewing shit here but maybe he was begging cam to save him. (And I think he might've asked Robin to help? I forgot so I won't talk about it until I reset☹️) I believe Wayne knows Cameron is Wayne is a pussy when it comes to confrontation so when Cam dies from an allergic reaction he caused, I doubt Wayne called for help with the possibility of Cam snitching. Then Cameron just comes back lol and they're back to pranks. Clearly he wants to live. He has a little hope that Cam would bring him back. And he does?? In short, the death was just that so Wayne had faith he'd be resurrected.

Second death, he does an oopsie and talks to justin. Then we see him help captive looking half dead and talking about how there's more people. Hear me out, what if Justin saw the retired cast get made into clones? I mean not literally. I don't think the captives would be kept in the same room as the one Justin would be experimenting in. He might've either seen how they struggled or possibly heard something (which also feels unlikely yk Justin might get soundproof walls or like uhh tranquilized them? (Sedated? Chloroform? Put them under anesthesia?What's the word?) idk I have too many thoughts on this).

The way Wayne looks is awful I can't even lie. No one can tell me he wasn't stressed out of his mind. But he's just been kept there? He either died by a bullet or by becoming Justin. But those deaths wouldn't just be quick. They had build up. And he might've lost hope and it didn't matter which way he got out of the situation, he just wanted to get out. So when he dies, he'd feel relief. But I'm still clinging onto the idea he doesn't want to lose his life so I'd think he'd so conflicted.

Then he's just brought back by the guy who saved him the first time. The same guy who killed him. Just brought back to suffer. Bitchy husk as a man I hope you don't come back. ( If he does I'm actually gonna be so pissed even though I love him mwah. Let him rest! )

I hate that I'm so invested in this.

AAAAAAAAA JUSTIN CASE UPDATE??? WHAT THE FUCK WHY DID HE JUST POST RHE SPOILERS TO THE NEXT INSTALLEMENT OF THE STROY RIGHT THERE INSREA DOF BEING LIKE YEAH IM DOING IT IM KILLING CAM RN FUCK ME (ron intended)

anywayssssss

nathaniel is dead, not very skibidi sigma of him at all but i’m not too surprised, cam’s been trying to get rid of ol’ nathan for a WHILE (besides, look at his last name. it was inevitable)

cam added a mary sue self insert oc that’s basically a god into the cgcu who’s summoned by racism and sexual jokes. damn.

i get the ending and it’s alright, but also seems anticlimactic. like cam shows up and tells justin “dude you’re a fictional made up character on the internet you’re already immortal 💀” and justin’s like “oh fr then ig i’ll stop” which isn’t that satisfying at all. i don’t like that ending the discord’s ending (ask me for an invite link if ur interested in the server, we’re all very cool) is much better since yk. it has actual character development.

personally? i don’t like this ending much and i am unsatisfied. it might be better if he actually posts it but i still don’t like it much. if only…….i finished the goddamn animation……..ughhh

also……….max? whipping it out? right there? cam you better film this part or else /hj

[secret--history]

the whole 'there are not very many Great Causes worth fighting for these days' from Julian scanned as WAY more out of touch than the moon landing thing for me the first time i read tsh

[airenyah]

today i ended up telling my tandem partner half of the plot of bad buddy oops

[unproduciblesmackdown]

interestingly the only mention i can find of a monastery loquarium is (rendered "loquorium") in "the california padres and their mission" by charles francis saunders and joseph smeaton chase, a book in the public domain:

The Mission relics at Santa Inés are many and interesting. Besides those used in the present-day church services, and the beautiful old vestments that are in the sacristy, there is a considerable collection arranged for interested visitors in an interior room of the convento — a room formerly used as the loquorium, where daily, after dinner and after supper, the friars were at liberty to come to rest for an hour from their laboring and praying, and relax in human chat.

the next paragraph also mentions this room now housing relics "patiently got together from all sorts of places," including "from the earth of the surrounding fields as the plough turns it up"