#magic within squad

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

book 7 part 9 thoughts!!

***THIS POST CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR BOOK 7 PART 9 OF THE MAIN STORY!!*** Please note: this is NOT meant to be a summary or a translation; these are only my initial thoughts on the events that roughly unfold. There may be details overlooked or misunderstood in this post, so PLEASE do not use this as a translation.

Kind of a short update this time! It spans parts 140 to 157.

As a reminder, only Vil is following Yuu and co. into the next dream. This is because traveling around with too many people may cause a bug in Idia’s dream hacking and/or it may make it easier for Malleus to notice them.

They land in Kalim’s dream!! There is a segment where Vil freaks out about falling and we get to see his cute squeaky-voiced vulnerable side again. (Yes, the others tease him about it 😂)

They use DREAM FORM CHANGE to swap between dorm uniform (for combat) and school uniform (for general interactions within the dream).

And this new location is…

HUH WHATm/s tHIS?????

It seems like the Scalding Sands, but we’ve never seen this before.

OOP THEre’S THE BOY

Those colors look really good on him!! But the hat looks like it’s floating or sitting on just the scalp… It feels like maybe it should be further down on his head. (Sorry about the weird screenshot chsvskwguejsk)

Kalim doesn’t seem to recognize our squad, nor NRC. He says that he goes to Qasr Sultanate Academy (guess that’s where the name of his new uniform comes from). It is founded on the generous spirit of the Oasis’s Master (the Sultan). The school was established 2 years ago by his rich ass father, since this area did not have a magic school prior to that. THIS IS NEPOTISM AT ITS FINEST, FOLKS

***Note: "qasr" -> castle or palace, "sultanate" -> a place governed by a sultan!***

Idia reasons that Kalim might be this way to avoid the tragedies that play out at NRC. The dream is sheltering him…

Everyone is dying of heat, so Kalim uses his UM to give them cool drinking water. He also has some servants (no Jamil) bring the roof over to them to help them cool off???

BUT THEN jAMIL PULLS UP AnD

iT’S SO WEIRD, WhY’ShE SO PERKY AnD KIRAKIRA…………………… ……. …… …. … . ……. .. . … …. . . . HE;S SMILING TOO MUCH, IT;S SUS...... THIS iS wROng (Side note, those colors are also nice on him!)

Dream!Jamil explains that he was hired by Kalim’s father but that their families never cared about their different statuses. In this dream, they basically grew up as real childhood friends and always talk honestly with each other.

The group reminds Kalim that Jamil isn’t REALLY like this. Vil especially lays into him, roasting Jamil’s character and going into how untrustworthy he is, etc.

Jamil tries to keep Kalim in the dream by using Snake Whisper. Eventually Kalim has his breakthrough, which is where the Groovy for his new card comes from. He realizes that he believed in a false yet convenient Jamil, he cannot face him anymore.

WAHHHHH look at him 😭 He’s leaking like a faucet… but he’s also trying so hard to wipe away his tears, to be strong and stand on his own to fight against the fake Jamil! Let’s give him a round of applause, folks 👏

(This also means that there is potentially a pattern being established with these new limited main story cards; the Groovies will probably be the character crying as they have their realization that this world is a fake one. Does that mean… Crying J word next time??????? Maybe??? Or nah??? 😭 GOD PLEASE NO MY HEART WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO HANDLE IT—)

Vil tells Kalim that he also did something embarrassing in his own dream so it’s fine. Kalim callously laughs when he hears about Vil bossing Neige around, then quickly apologies because he realizes he was supposed to deny how bad it is.

Kalim joins the party!! He says it feels weird because usually Jamil is the one to wake HIM up.

They hop into Jamil’s dream!! They appear to have landed in a Silk City bazaar. Ortho takes headcount of them like they’re students on a casual field trip, lol

Kalim enjoyed the jump but Vil seems to be having a hard time keeping up. Ortho and Silver will stay with Vil while the rest of them look for Jamil.

Yuu and co. fuck around in the market a little, getting coconut juice (well, Kalim buys 10 at once) and whatever. Guys… now is seriously NOT the time.

While giving them juice, the vendor suddenly becomes hostile towards Kalim and demands payment instead of letting him put it on his family’s tab.

OMG?????? Apparently in Jamil’s dream, the Al-Asims are broke and scam free stuff from the vendors 😭 WHILE JAMIL IS RICH AF

The vendor is calling the POLICE

Silver comes running to save the day!! He says he will pay for his friends and we avoid being hauled off to jail ✨

We continue our search for Jamil, deciding to trek to Kalim’s home in Silk City since that’s where the Vipers live irl. INSTEAD THEY FIND THIS DESOLATE PLACE (reusing the dried up oasis background)

A bystander explains that the Asim familt’s business failed so they had to give up their house. It got moved and repainted black and red… AND NOW JAMIL’S THE MASTER 💀

A guard comes to chase them off and recognizes Kalim as a servant. Turns out, the Vipers bought the old Asim home and employed them as servants to help them out.

… I saw this coming from a mile away, but the cringe of seeing it for myself is too much to bear…

LMAO????? Now we get a rhythmic/twistune of Yuu and co. marching in a parade with Jamil at the head of it.

WhAT YHE FUCK iS ThiS InTERIOR DESIGN, THAT’S LITERLLY A STatUE OF jAfAR DoING THE GOLFING SWING

Jamil is not enrolled in NRC; he is also enrolled in a new magic school called Jahir Sahar College (?).

***Note: "jahir" -> jewels, "sahar"/"sehri" -> wizard or magic!***

Jamil scolds Kaim for wearing a uniform of the wrong color and “corrects” it for him. Kalim casually says thank you but Jamil tells him it is, “JAMIL-SAMA, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!” He reminds Kalim that the Asims owe the Vipers a debt so large that they cannot hope to repay it in their lifetime, so be sure to be useful to him.

… Bro is power tripping so hard 😭

Jamil becomes suspicious of us but Vil plays it off like we’re students come to research the Scalding Sands for a Film Club activity. He allows us to stay but backhanded comments that we look dumb so we won’t pose a threat.

Jamil then offers to give us a tour SiNCE HE’S THE STUDENT COUNCiL PRESIDENT (Rollo called he wants his title back). I’m guessing this is the case instead of him being dorm leader so Jamil is the ONLY top dog around.

Oh yeah!! Minor thing, magic carpet comes in at some point. Its its colors are closer to that of the magic carpet in the Aladdin film.

He orders Kalim to prepare a feast; Kalim provides water with Oasis Maker and grabs food from the kitchen—all of Jamil’s favorites! But no matter how eager to please he is, Jamil tells him off and makes remarks about how useless Kalim is 😔

xbshgejwgsowkw Yuu and co. are like “WOW, Jamil’s imagination is so strong so it’s going to be hard to wake him up!!” It’s okay, you can say he’s delusional/j

Jamil wavers a little because Kalim begins talking about their childhood memories. It’s stirring up his own recollections, and I think the dream’s interpretation of these evens is clashing with the reality that Kalim shares.

Blah blah blah

Dream!Kalim arrives to kiss Jamil’s ass :v aaand Jamil descends into the darkness…

What we see is a potential future in which Jamil succeeded in book 4; Azul and the Scarabia mobs are under his hypnotic influence… Kalim is gone… and Jamil plans to use the dirt Azul has collected to blackmail the other dorm leaders and take them down. (This lends credence to the idea of him being student council president in his dream because he wants to be the ONLY one in charge.)

LMAO????? Jamil shit talks the dorm leaders 💀 Like saying that no one likes Riddle anyway, how Leona is probably another lazy nepo baby, etc.

AnD THEN AfTER THE DoRM LEADERS HE’s PlANNING ON GOInG AfTER CROWlEY’S iRRESPONSibLE aSS 😭 Jamil has his sights set on ruling over the entire school…

AyO??????????

I THINK KALIM PUNCHED JAMIL AnD THEYmRE fISTFIGHTING?????? PLEASE, THIS IS PATHETIC

They shout about the things they hate the most about each other. Jamil hates Kalim’s optimism, Kalim finally FINALLY declares that he hates how two-faced Jamil is. It’s so intense even the hypnotized students are stunned????

Sebek wants to pummel Jamil too but Silver holds him back. His reasoning??? Sometimes people get emotionally charged and it’s better for them to let those out through their fists instead of their words.

I cannot believe that Silver Vanrouge in our lord 2024 really went, “No, no. Let them cook :)” 🤡

Kalim starts laughing because this is a unique experience to him?? Apparently he and Jamil never fought for real in the 17 years they knew each other. Jamil agrees and says if he neat Kalim up “irl” it would cause problems for everyone… and he realizes his wording and begins questioning the dream world because of that.

He finally wakes up! xbsnbsjwkwkwvdk Kalim is so excited his live 2D model is bouncing on the screen!

The goop returns and drags Jamil to a familiar scene where he OBs and then squares off against his Phantom, similar to what happened with Idia and Vil. Jamil calls his OB self pathetic and always looking for someone to blame. He now sees that view as narrow-minded and limiting.

His Phantom tries to goad him by likening their situation to being genies trapped in a dark and small space, existing to be used their entire lives and not being allowed the freedom they wish for. Admittedly, Jamil has pretty cool lines, saying he doesn’t like the Phantom forcing its own wishes on him. He’s reclaiming his freedom by renouncing the idea of pitying himself. He doesn’t plan to spend his whole life inside that lamp and his wallowing, he is going to make his own wishes come true—not 3 or 10 or 100, but every single one.

(Cue insane Jamil laughter here)

He of course gains the upper hand and rises victorious. Jamil tells Dream!Kalim that he is so polite and subservient it’s disgusting, then he uses Snake Whisper to send him away.

Jamil says there’s no point in changing roles or positions because ultimately the power to decide what happens is his and his alone. He also says he is not interested in power or freedom granted to him by someone else… He will take what he wants on his own! (Not sure why he’s announcing this when no one asked, but pop off I guess 😂 Vil gave a similar speech when he was facing his own demons, but shorter and I don’t think Idia just mumbled to himself before getting back in contact with Ortho.)

Meeting back up with Yuu and co., Jamil is added to the party! (Kalim tries to glomp him in a hug but Jamil expertly dodges ‘xbssvzjav$c(/?/)

Okay, so Vil is staying behind because he doesn’t feel well and doesn’t want to hold the group back. Kalim also stays behind because he’s still covered in bruises and such from fist fighting Jamil. This will probably be another pattern that occurs moving forward; only the OB boy moves on with the group.

Next time… Octavinelle’s dreams and maybe J word crying card 👀!

I think by this time, we already know what to expect in terms of general events. Going into a dream, experiencing it for a short time, learning shocking news about the circumstances, character uses UM, character learns the truth, character cries and fights the dream (who is trying to keep them there), character joins party. If it’s an OB boy, then they will get more screen time and a dedicated segment to fighting their Phantom and then giving a speech about their character development before joining us. Then only the OB boy will dream hop with the Yuu, Grim, Silver, Sebek, Idia, and Ortho while the boys stay behind with the projected selves Ortho creates. Rinse and repeat the formula, and you can probably easily predict what’s coming in future updates.

In terms of this update, I gotta say that I’m impressed Kalim finally followed through on the promise of decking Jamil… a promise he made all the way back in book 4!! While he doesn’t do it with any malicious intent, I think it’s a large stride going forward in having Kalim assert himself and acknowledge the faults that Jamil very obviously has.

As for Jamil... I think it’s becoming pretty obvious what they’re going for in those OB boy scenes; clearly, they mean to have it be like he is speaking to his “other half” in the mirror, a reflection of himself. In this way, each boy confronts the worst aspects of them and comes to terms with it. It’s meant to represent their character growth from when they first appeared in the main story. I’m just… not sure if I like how it’s been handled overall; I do like everyone’s speeches so far (they are good; Jamil’s especially slays with all the thematically appropriate allusions to genies and wish-granting), but I’m less enthusiastic about the context under which these speeches are given. I will most likely make a separate post going into detail about this, but I figured I’d at least lay my general thoughts out here first.

ahbfbyoqwv8yfqwv8q The highlight of this update this time was just seeing how unhinged Jamil's desires are when given no limitations. It's such a shockingly large role reversal to stick himself in the head honcho seat with zero opposition AND force Kalim into being humbled. When the tables turn on him, Jamil is so quick to being a ruthless and cold master 💦 HE'S FR THE TYPE OF GUY THAT ISNT JUST SATISFIED SUCCEEDING, HE ALSO NEEDS YOU TO FAIL The more of these dreams we see, the more we get the sense that Malleus's idea of happiness is VERY shallow. This was something already verbalized by Idia last update, but I feel it needs repeating because of how difficult to resolve Kalim and Jamil's relationship is. The way his solutions are so... absolute (Kalim and Jamil being besties and/or a complete role reversal) reminds me of the points I often hear from fans who say, "Kalim could free Jamil! Kalim should talk to his dad!" There's good intentions behind it, but it ultimately misses the forest for the trees (that being the complicated social nuances surrounding their families). It's an out-of-body experience seeing that viewpoint displayed via Malleus's magic, but it also feels cathartic to see it being dispelled as being nothing close to reality.

Those are all my thoughts for now!! Really looking forward to the next installment :)) and its potential for... crying J word... Though who knows, maybe it’s just for light trio only and I’m delulu—

[misscammiedawn]

Thinking about We Know The Devil and Heaven Will Be Mine today. A duology. WKTD the tells the story of accepting you're queer, framed as a horror story of 3 repressed teenagers at a christian summer camp fighting off their inherent queerness and HWBM tells the story of how one accepts their place in society after embracing their queerness.

WKTD uses magical girl tropes in a fairly grounded Midwestern teen experience.

Magical girl stories often involve the struggle of the forces of Good and Evil. Purity and Impurity. Corruption often being a core theme of any girl squad facing down the nightmarish forces. This can be seen from Madoka's approach to the concept which is often referred to as a deconstruction. The Pink Opaque from I Saw The TV Glow overtly uses these themes in the exact same allegory as WKTD with the evil forces attempting to suppress the queerness of the protagonists.

HWBM uses mech anime tropes in an allegorical wonderland where the setting fades away to have the audience engage with the ideas at play rather than the lore. Mech anime often uses the giant robot duels as a method of visualizing ideological struggles. Too often in these shows beam sabers will cross as the pilots yell at one another to embrace ideas of how the concepts of war and prejudice can be battled out of existence.

In HWBM the "war" in play is humans versus space... or more accurately humans versus those who are not of Earth. Versus those who are alien. Versus those who are not human.

The dominant culture versus queer culture.

WKTD frames its tropes via the dating sim mechanics popular within its visual novel medium. But rather than choosing which of the 3 girls the player wishes to romance you must choose which of the 3 you wish to exclude. The idea being to scapegoat one's struggle with queerness by attacking outward, blaming the other, by shaming others into the closet to keep yourself in there.

Lashing outward to prevent reflecting inward.

The only good ending of the game is to accept a polycule dynamic where everyone is seen, accepted and embraced for who they are unconditionally. God's love, in this world, is conditional and one must always be excluded. The devil has room for three.

There is no room in normal society for a polycule. It is inherently queer. The dominant culture is binary and there's no version of a polycule where only a 0 and a 1 are represented. The binary is incompatible.

I recently told a friend that the duology tells the journey of a thousand miles and how it begins with a single step. WKTD is the story of that first and all too important step acceptance.

HWBM is the story of what comes after acceptance. After that first step.

It tells the story of the thousand mile journey.

The ideologies at play are the concepts of assimilation, activism and separationism. In the allegory Earth/Humanity represents the dominant "straight" society and the three characters represent each of these ideologies. Assimilation is to return to Earth, to integrate into the dominant culture and lose some of the inherent joy and "otherness" that being queer brings. It's no coincidence that the character representing this path is a trans woman who is known for defecting from her faction and crossing over to every other side while repeating the mantra "I've never betrayed anyone in my life", it is a coincidence however that her faction's war efforts are lead in part by God's Strongest Chaser herself (as far as I'm aware the Halimede Twitter Account is not affiliated with the game, but I find it funny that the assimilation path is represented by someone who a character whose gimmick account argues "t4t is incest"). It is a life of peace. But it is a life of compromise. Of giving up humanity's dream of the stars. To be grounded and tethered to Earth forever.

The Activism Path represents the idea of staying in Earth's orbit but never surrendering even an ounce of the queer identity for the sake of acceptance. Forcing the dominant culture to argue with us on our terms. Accept us on our terms. It is a life of constant battle but in that battle we will save those on Earth, invite them into the stars, embrace them with acceptance and love. Let them join us or remain where they are. This is a life of constant war, knowing that until all are loved and accepted, no one is and so we continue fighting. Letting people change sides. Nothing changes but maybe it's better that way.

Separation is the idea of abandoning Earth entirely. To become so incompatible with the dominant culture that we are no longer "human" to those who remain tethered. We are unapproachable. Separate. Unique. Other. Queer above anything else and incapable of creating a rational dialogue with the dominant culture. It is picking up your toys and walking away. Going far enough away from the culture war that it will never be able to reach you.

The author of the Halimede account once wrote, while in character, that this is the saddest ending of them all because it's unsustainable and that it does not address the inherent intersectional fighting between communities, allowing wars to simply break out further away from our blue marble in the distant stars. It is a life of abandoning war without embracing peace. To live separate in bubbles apart.

The ending of the game forces you to pick. There is no existing outside of these options. Maybe one day we'll find other ways to be but within the view of this game they are all we have. Embrace Earth, declare war on Earth or abandon Earth.

Choose.

I admit. Since the pandemic and coming out as trans, I've favored Saturn's ideology more than others. Completely giving up on "humanity" and only working within circles of those whose acceptance of queer culture is baked in. I fought so hard to accept who I was and "know the devil", so to speak, that I pulled back and withdrew.

Both games have a lot of themes about the demons ones must face within queer culture and outside of it. The way we hurt ourselves, hurt our allies and how the world outside societal, structural and individual will force us to compromise, to cut away parts of ourselves.

These games are masterpieces.

I wish I found them earlier in my life. I want everyone able to read these words to find them now.

[dystopyx-blog]

Hi hi hun! Hope I’m not bugging you but I’d love to hear your opinion on the yandere Twst boys and who is willing to share darling/me/Yuu. I see so much sentiment about yanderes never sharing/teaming up but I just don’t get it. Some characters have such tight friendships, or fill what the other lacks, that I see them working together so well! Like sure you could divide them by dorm, kinda obvious, but then there are other less thought of team ups that could be fun. I’ve seen on here what’s dubbed as the number 2 squad (Leona, Jamil, and Vil) and I think that could be a relatively healthy (maybe a little competitive) team up. Others that come to mind, Jack and Vil, music club, and the four house husbands (Trey, Ruggie, Jamil, and Jade). Like teaming up means darling always has SOMEONE watching them. One may be better at comforting/calming darling, while another is more sly and can manipulate them better. There’s just so many fun combos you could play with! I’d love to hear what you think!

Remember to take care of yourself. Drink water, eat a snack, and stretch! Have a great day! 😊

Ty for the lovely ask, darl’ 🥺

Okay! Let's start with the team ups within each house!

HEARTSLABYUL

Ace and Deuce -- obviously. They're your first friends in the school (aside from Grim, but he doesn't count), the only people they hang out with aside from you is each other. They bicker, but they also understand that it's more advantageous for them to work together. Ace still teases Deuce and I think both of them still Daydream of getting you to themselves, but you've taught them the magic of teamwork and, unfortunately, you taught them well.

Riddle and Trey -- Childhood friends. Like with what we know of their story, I feel that Trey in particular would be willing to share with Riddle. And they're pretty well balanced as a yandere team. With them there is no cut "good cop/bad cop." Yes, Riddle is strict, but he's also so very baby, yknow? With his raging mommy issues, I imagine he's the type who would love to be coddled by his darling. Trey is that older brother type, so of course he knows when and how to put his foot down, but he's also so so so sweet and gentle. Riddle is definitely more likely to dole out punishments, though.

Cater -- he doesn't need to teamup to have the power of numbers on his side.

All 5 -- Riddle doesn't just watch over you, but also the others lol. He creates a schedule and rules for the members of this yandere team to follow so they can work as a well oiled machine to care for and share you. Ace is the most likely to see you even when its not his scheduled time. Deuce is a suck up who always tries to earn your favor, VERY easy to manipulate and get favors from. Trey is very sweet, but incredibly difficult to manipulate. Cater is a schemer who would probably plan an escape with you to keep you to himself. And as I already said, Riddle is the one who keeps everyone in check.

SAVANNACLAW

Ruggie and Leona -- again, a fairly obvious one. Ruggie already works under Leona for table scraps, of course he'll work with him for you. Leona acts top dog in the relationship, and gets first dibs with you, but what that really means is that any time you're not with Leona, Ruggie is making up for lost time. Like in the Heartslabyul team up, Riddle makes sure to schedule breaks/alone time for you. You don't get that here, you are always with one of them. Your "alone time" is when Leona sleeps.

All 3 -- basically just Leona and Ruggie throwing Jack a bone (heheh). In this one you can technically get some sort of alone time, cuz if you talk it over with Jack, he'd be willing to give up some of his time with you to make sure you can rest up.

OCTAVINELLE

Octotrio -- or as I prefer, the seafood polycule. I already did a whole separate post just talking about them lol, but you got twins and childhood besties and they're also business partners, like these boys know how to work together and share.

SCARABIA

HA fuckin unlikely. Even if Jamil does have the patience to share a darling with Kalim, I just -- like I'd feel too bad to write it. Like let him have this one thing, I am not going to make Jamil share his darling with Kalim, ESPECIALLY because darling would probably cozy up to Kalim more because delusional sunshine yanderes are the easiest to manipulate.

POMEFIORE

Rook and Vil -- these two barely even need to verbally communicate, when it comes to their darling they are on the same wavelength, which makes them a formidable team up. Like they got systems in place that just happen naturally, no need to discuss. For example, if you run away, Rook hunts you, Vil punishes you. They just work.

ALL 3 -- Vil lets Epel join in so long as he behaves. Epel would be the easiest to manipulate, but Vil keeps the both of you in check. Despite Epel's negative feelings towards Vil, Vil and Rook can turn Epel on you just as you turn Epel on them. Epel isn't completely stupid, if he finds out you're taking advantage of him, it will not be pretty or cute.

IGNIHYDE

Ortho would definitely platonically help out. You make his big brother so happy, and you make the perfect older sister for him!!

DIASOMNIA

Silver and Sebek -- calm n loud. Basically their relationship with Malleus but transferred into yanderes + darling.

A part of me can see Lilia teaming up with Silver but I don't like thinking about it for too long

All 4 -- The situation in the Diasomnia group is basically understood as you are with Malleus, but you are allowed to also see the other 3. Like the other three are side pieces. Malleus is sharing with his boys. You gotta share with your boys.

MIX N MATCH

The Freshies -- Ace, Deuce, Jack, Epel, Sebek -- freshies gotta look out for each other, right? And that's what they're doing. Looking out for you.

The Discord Mods -- Azul and Idia. If Idia were to team up with any one person, I think it'd be Azul. Like in Azul's lab wear vignette, Azul was the only one Idia felt comfortable enough to ask for help from. I can imagine them scheming together in their club teehee.

The Overblotters -- they all realized they share one thing in common... no, not overblot, you! They all share you! They swear that you are their cure, the only thing to keep them stable. So you kinda have to stay with them, for safety reasons.

The House Wardens -- it's the overblotters but switch out Jamil with Kalim. And it makes all the difference, having the sunshine boy involved, istg. The housewardens deserve something nice, right? That something being you ofc.

The vice house wardens -- including Ruggie. A lot of them are very tired and just want quiet darling time, and the ones that aren't tired make darling feel tired enough to be quiet for quiet darling time.

Leona and Rook -- Leona did not consent to this, but there's not much he can do. Especially since Rook is happy not only to do most of the physical labor involved in caring for a darling, but also to stand by as Leona gets Darling time. It's weird and uncomfortable for everyone involved.

The light music club -- they spend most of their club time talking about you tbh. Also please don't listen to closely to any lyrics of the songs they write...

Basketball boys -- imagine going to their practice to support Ace. Ace brags to them about how close he is with you. But then now when Floyd isn't in the mood to ball, he'll chat it up with you. One day Floyd just asks "you what if we took them." And then they do.

These are just the basics, but I'd be happy to go into more detail on a group/pairing if asked to!

[mymarifae]

every time someone says "an should have been vbs's leader" or "saki should have been leo/need's leader" i want to . slam my head through concrete. oh you missed the point so bad

1. the "leader" thing is kind of really fucking insignificant outside of where each group's story begins and promo materials. it doesn't mean one character is the "main character" of the group. project sekai doesn't HAVE a main character in the first place it's not that kind of story. each individual character is equally important to not only their group's story but the over-arching story of the whole game

2. leo/need's story begins with ichika because she is ultimately the one that brings them all back together. not saki. it is ichika's determination and frankly stubbornness that gets through to shiho and honami. like, saki was literally ready to give up on reconnecting with honami! (out of love and respect for her choices but like) if she was the focus leo/need would have been honami-less!! but ichika refuses to let it go. much like she refused to let go of their friendships throughout all of middle school.

when the story begins, we see ichika burnt out and hopeless. but that's only after years of trying and trying and trying and trying again to reconnect with shiho and later honami. this fandom does not understand ichika's character well . she's not meek and she doesn't back down easily she's not some like... fumbling "girlflop" she's incredibly driven and strong-willed. she lost some of that due to depression and isolation but as of leo/need's most recent arc ender she has pretty much regained her fiery spirit. she's leo/need's lead singer and MC for a reason

3. vivid bad squad's story opens with kohane because she's the only one who hasn't grown up/partially grown up on vivid street. if an or akito had been the "leader" we would have lost the magic of getting to know vivid street and its people and unique culture. it's all average every day life for them, but kohane is experiencing it all for the first time. it's only through her eyes that the audience can understand just how very special vivid street is

4. one more thing: you could say that the "leaders" represent the themes of each group and the general direction of their story arcs. vivid bad squad, among several other things, is all about improvement and growth and overcoming challenges and creating something new and finding a place to call home within a community. who better to represent that but the socially anxious newbie who never felt like she belongs anywhere and would never do anything with her life?

leo/need is about love and the ability to endure all hardships and preserve that love . it's about having a heart big enough to hope for the impossible and the willpower to make it reality. ichika, in all her hard-headed stubborn painfully persistent glory, is perfect for that.

similarly, mafuyu isn't nightcord's leader because nightcord is ultimately about healing. hope. finding a way to make life worth living again. these aren't paths he would have chosen on his own. he gave up on himself a long time ago. as did ena and mizuki, in their own ways. the best person to represent hope is the one who refuses to give up on anyone and stubbornly believes she can save them all

wonderlands x showtime is about moving forward to a brighter future and not letting the past keep you shackled in place. it's also about having lofty dreams and the selfishness to pursue those dreams. both of these things are why emu Isn't wxs's leader; she lacks that selfishness (i'm not using this word in a negative sense btw; i think being selfish can be a good thing. and sometimes being selfless is a bad one) tsukasa (and rui) has, and she often clings to the past.

and as far as more more jump and all their own themes of hope and never giving up go, of course their leader has to be minori. she brought three disillusioned, jaded ex-idols hope and reignited their passion! she's the walking embodiment of hope itself

[ventique18]

Book 7, Chapter 7, Episode 101:

So the DiaRamshackle squad landed in Ignihyde, where they meet the completely aware Idia. They had thought they got out of a dream into the "real world", but it turns out they're just outside of Lilia's dream but still within Malleus' magical domain expansion-- which is Idia's "dream" now. Proof of this is because Sebek's still wearing his armor.

At this point in time, apparently they haven't really conversed with Idia yet. Sebek barely remembers that Idia's the Ignihyde housewarden LOL.

Sebek: "... That's right! I knew I've seen that face before. You're Ignihyde's housewarden! Back at the entrance ceremony, you attended in some sort of board-like thing. This might be the first time I've seen you in proper form."

Sebek: "I am from Diasomnia, First Year, Class D, Seat 33, Sebek Zigvolt!!" WHY IS HE SO ENTHUSIASTIC LMAO

Sebek: "This dopey man right here is Silver. Second Year, from the same dormitory!!" (DOPEY DSJKNDAS HE'S BASICALLY SAYING HE LOOKS HIGH LMAO)

Idia: "Are Malleus and co.'s ears still fine from being blasted by this boombox everyday at close-range..."

Silver: "Everyone, on alert! Idia-senpai, Grim, prefect, get behind me and Sebek!"

AND SO SUDDENLY THEY'RE GETTING ATTACKED??

Idia: "Wuh?! What's this all of a sudden?! Ow, ow! I'm getting crushed between hard muscles and hard armor!"

IDIA????? IS THIS THE RIGHT TIME AND PLACE TO BE COMMENTING ON MUSCLES OMFG LMAO

So the "darkness" have come for Idia because they sensed that someone needs to be lulled back to sleep lol.

Grim: "Malleus might pop up again to say "You're awake?"..!"

Sebek: "The "darkness" are fine, though I do not know if we can win against Lord Malleus without Sir Lilia..."

"No, we are ready!"

Sebek: "Whether it be the darkness, or Lord Malleus... We will definitely strike back!!!"

Idia: "Uogh... Wai-- too close... Can't... breathe..!"

HE'S LITERALLY SHAKING BACK AND FORTH HELP

AND THEN SUDDENLY SOMEONE SPEAKS!

???: "About Malleus and the dark shadows... You don't need to worry about them for a while. I think he's spending considerable "resources" trying to get Lilia Vanrouge back to sleep."

Ortho: "Hehe, sorry for making you worry."

Apparently, Ortho's appearing in monitor mode for now because trying to appear as his usual form in Idia's dreams causes some serious errors.

Ortho: "Anyway... Everyone, brother's face is already turning blue from asphyxiation. Can you let him go now?"

So the two let go of him and Idia let's in a HUGE GASP FOR AIR

Idia: "ohh I almost descended to the underworld... Tha-thanks for the save, Ortho..."

So anyway, Sebek starts questioning the two what they mean by Malleus using up resources to put Lilia to sleep. Ortho starts the explanation by recounting events. That during Lilia's farewell party, Malleus put everyone to sleep-- no, froze time and space itself. But Ortho in particular managed to escape from the island through communications satellite. Everyone was shocked because Ortho could do something like that?! Ortho just laughs and says his "peculiarity" was helpful, because while he's not a mage and therefore cannot have a unique magic, he can transmit his "soul" through radio waves.

Sebek: "Loathe as I am to admit... but human advancement in machinery is amazing."

Silver chimes in and praises that Ortho's uniqueness is something they can never attain no matter how hard they train. Ortho moves on, explaining that he went to STYX headquarters and there, they hatched the plan for Ortho to infiltrate Sage Island in order to analyze Malleus' unique magic, Fae of Maleficence.

[wielderofmysteries]

A Vorthos Defense of Lukka

Sorry this response turned into a small essay (~1400 words) that doesn't really answer your question, but my Hot Take™ is that I don't think Lukka needs to be fixed.

I believe the problem doesn't lie in Lukka himself, but in the way both the narrative and the fandom treated him extremely unfairly. I'm not asking anyone to like Lukka. Personally, I don't even think anything about him is particularly likable. But I think as a character he deserves a lot more respect than he gets, and I'm tired of seeing other people hate on him without actually engaging with his story or understanding what his character is about.

Here's the thing: Lukka is basically the homeless veteran of planeswalkers.

He started his story in Sundered Bond (Ikoria ebook by Django Wexler) already successful in his military career, engaged to be married to Jirina, and having General Kudro's favor. He was a model citizen and his life was great. One day, a flying-hyper-murder-tiger killed Lukka's entire squad and people discovered Lukka was a monster Bonder because the tiger spared him. The rumors got to General Kudro, whose decision upon hearing Lukka might be a bonder was to have Lukka immediately executed.

Lukka didn't betray Drannith. Drannith betrayed Lukka.

Lukka escaped his execution and was rescued in the wilderness by Vivien, who traveled with him to the Ozolith, where a mysterious evil voice caused Lukka to unlock the full power of his monster bonding abilities. Through it all, Lukka still tried to hang onto his old life. His allegiance hadn't changed. At first, Lukka wanted to use the monsters he controlled to fight for Drannith, not against it. Lukka was convinced that the offer of a loyal monster army would be enough for the city to take him back, but he was no longer welcome in Drannith.

Lukka became increasingly unstable and spiraled into insanity because he had his life unexpectedly, completely ruined and wanted nothing more than to return home to his old life, but that wasn't possible because he now belonged to a class of people who were extremely stigmatized in Drannith's society. He had become an undesirable. Once the city's shining star, he was now the lowest of the low. He lost his loyalty and turned against the city when he realized Drannith didn't care about people, Drannith cared about keeping people in their places.

In Sundered Bond, Lukka loses literally everything. He loses his job. He loses all his friends. He loses his fiance. He loses his home. Everything. He even loses the cat. This all happens to him within like, a week.

Lukka experiences the same hostility in his second appearance, Strixhaven. At this point, he's still a new planeswalker, and he's been planeswalking blindly trying to find civilization again. He arrives on Arcavios thirsty and starving and tired and injured. When he finally finds a town, he visits an inn and asks only for food. But they don't give him any food! They won't allow him to wash up or to rest! This is a man who has nothing and has done nothing, and the townspeople are suspicious of Lukka and want to call the Dragonsguard –Strixhaven's magical cops– on him because he committed the crime of... existing near them while visibly having basic needs that are unmet.

=========

"Looking for something, stranger?" said the innkeeper, a round man with a head of robust curls.

"A hot meal," said Lukka. The innkeeper hesitated as though about to say something, then nodded and moved toward the kitchen.

"Haven't seen clothes like that before," came a voice behind Lukka. "You're not from around here, I imagine."

He turned. A tall man in the same rough clothing as the rest of the townsfolk had stood up from his table and was walking over.

[…]

He heard the man suck his teeth. The innkeeper still hadn't returned from the kitchen. Lukka was starting to doubt he ever would.

"Okay, Oriq, I think I've heard enough. We don't take kindly to meddlers in this town, or those who seek to disturb the peace. If we were a proper city, we'd get the closest, least busy Dragonsguard to sort you out. But we're just a small farming village—so we've learned to deal with strangers ourselves."

[Episode 2: Lessons - Adana Washington]

=========

Fans like to point at Lukka and make "ACAB" ("All Cops Are Bastards") jokes about him, but they don't understand that he's explicitly an anti-cop character. Lukka was formerly a cop, but he quit and fully turned his back on the entire concept of policing when he realized that the reason cops exist is not to protect people, but to rid society of undesirables like him.

=========

"These dragons," Lukka said, his voice a growl. "Those Dragonsguard. They've held power over these people for too long. They've made them fearful of every shadow, every unfamiliar face. What happens when it's not just the Oriq they're hunting down—when it's anyone who practices magic in a way they don't like?"

[Episode 3: Extracurriculars - Adana Washington]

=========

I know what many of you will say: "How can Lukka have such a based take when he's such a terrible person?" It's true– he is not a good person. He's an asshole and he's harmed / killed innocent people and animals. But he's been both a cop and a homeless man, and he knows that cops are far more dangerous. You don't need to be a "good" person to deserve food and shelter. It's cops who promote the idea that you can deny the basic rights of the people you think are "bad".

So on Arcavios, he's again forced out of civilization and back into the wilderness. His suffering seriously never ends. The way he was treated, it's no wonder he accepted when the Oriq kidnapped him and asked him to help attack Strixhaven. Why should he give a damn about society if they don't care about him? If their society is so fearful of others that they are unwilling to practice compassion, unwilling to provide for people's most basic needs even when they haven't done anything wrong, then doing wrong doesn't matter. They will share his pain. He will watch it all burn to the ground.

Lukka is an example of what happens when someone's basic humanity is repeatedly denied to the point that they can no longer feel anything but anger.

This line from the story Survival of the Fittest, by Roy Graham, expresses it perfectly:

=========

He had been a cruel man by the end, a villain in so many ways. But perhaps in his position, there was no way to become anything else."

=========

Lukka reaches out for stability and support and never truly finds it. He's a character who keeps getting punished over and over for having bad things happen *to* him, not because he *does* bad things. Most of the bad stuff he actually does is in response to others treating him like shit for no reason.

Despite everything, Vivien still cared for Lukka and wanted to help him get back on his feet. She thought Lukka's military expertise would be useful to the strike team against New Phyrexia, and she encouraged him to join. They both saw it as an opportunity for Lukka to regain some of his dignity and protect his home once more. How does the narrative reward him for his effort? By corrupting him, humiliating him, and having him be put down like an animal by the only person who showed him any compassion through all this.

What could Lukka have become if he survived to be rehabilitated? I guess we'll never know.

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no hope for a character who mistreats animals. Most fans will never ever get past that, and there's a part of me that honestly believes Lukka just got phyrexianized and killed off because the Magic narrative team realized they couldn't salvage his reputation and didn't know what to do with him. The fandom's overwhelming negative response to Lukka had irreparably damaged him as a character.

As my bespoke friend @xantchaslegacy said, "The only meaningful difference about Lukka and Gideon's cop-to-planeswalker journey is that the narrative let Gideon live long enough for other people to make him a better person. And Lukka got shanked before it could happen."

Again, I don't need people to like Lukka. I just want people to understand. I wish people were more willing to actually engage with the story and see the value in characters they dislike. There's no reason Lukka should've been treated like a punching bag the way he was. He was trapped in a cycle of being dunked on by the story and then dunked on by the fans, again and again. And people continue to push an understanding of Lukka that is just false.

The fandom reacted to Lukka the same way the strangers on Arcavios did: He'll never get a second chance because they wouldn't even give him a first chance.

[areyoudoingthis]

you're genuinely missing out if you don't read stede as having a funky superpower that protects him from the horrors of the world when he's being true to himself and deserts him when he tries to emulate the idea of a man the world wants to impose on him.

he defeats the badmintons without trying because they're bullies and they're just plain wrong all the time. they attack everything that makes stede lovely: his tender heart, his love of soft things, his beautiful body. they mock him and they hurt him and they die for it practically without stede having to lift a finger. the narrative avenges him.

he bewitches ed body and soul without realizing he's doing it, just by being himself, because he's funny and sweet and he gets ed's love for the bit and he's the first person who's happy to join in on his silly games. also because he's kind and generous and an absolute bitch, and because he makes ed feel safe to let down his armor around him, which is the thing ed wants most in the world. and so ed rescues him from the firing squad, because stede's unwittingly earned his devotion.

he turns the crew's opinions about him around in a few weeks by telling them bedtime stories and doing the voices for them without shame, like they're his kids. he comes up with fun activities for them, encourages them to talk about their feelings and offers to share his books with them (not his clothes tho. he's silly and oblivious and a spoiled only child after all). so by the time the british show up they've started thinking maybe things are better this way, maybe stede's showed them a better way of living (olu knew all along because he's soft and smart too), and they rally to defend him.

he defeats a much more skilled and experienced swordsman by thinking on his feet and being whimsical, throws izzy off his game by smacking him in the ass with his sword instead of stabbing him because he knows he can't win, so he comes up with a tactic that has the most chances of success for him in the moment.

he rescues the crew from zheng's ship by knowing about chamomile (sure, jan) and being the congenial towel guy. he rescues the crew and everyone else again from ricky and his goons by making them play dress up, and it works!!!! (minus that one exception, you know). he has the situation under control with ned's gang within minutes just by listening and paying attention to the way they feel about him and his treatment of them. he knows exactly what to say to turn them around, compliments hellkat maggie so deliciously because he's a charming bastard at all times.

but he's lost the magical protection of his whimsical stedeness by turning against himself by the time he's picking a fight with zheng. he's spinning with unresolved trauma and heartbroken and probably exhausted and hangover by the time she tries to poach olu, jim and archie, and then she insults ed (not cool, girl), so he lashes out. he's not defending or protecting anyone this time, not his crew nor ed nor himself. zheng isn't a bully or a villain, she hasn't attacked anyone, only accidentally hurt his feelings. he's lost sigh of the goal that's driven him since the beginning of season 1. there's no ed by his side and he isn't running towards him, he's not working to make a nice, safe world for the people he loves either.

he felt attacked by low the previous night for not measuring up to the ideal of a man and a pirate that's constantly being dangled in front of him, and he triggered his most painful memories by killing him the way he did and then refused to deal with them, chose to overcompensate and throw himself wholly into pursuing that ideal instead. and this is the price he has to pay: his crew wants to leave with zheng and she humiliates him in public and kicks his ass (very cool, girl). every trick he tries to pull fails, like a wizard that's been cut off from his magic.

it's not until he's reorganized his priorities the next morning and he's back to being stede that things turn around for him (but not until he's near ed again, zheng still has to rescue him from the two british soldiers he tries to ambush). and even then he's not a perfect fighter, can fend for himself but needs help to pull his sword out of that one guy so he can run towards ed. and it's so important that he needs help and that he gets it. it's been stede against the world his whole life, and now he finally has allies and friends and a lover who will support him and fight for him.

[vm-haunts]

Crossover Headcanons: Worldbuilding Edition

A collection of DPxDC headcanons from myself and various posts, in no particular order.

Green stuff

Dionesium is, or is one of the main decay byproduct of, ectoplasm. It is the defining element in Lazarus water.

Lazarus water is a naturally occurring compound that amplifies certain effects of ectoplasm. Concentration of ectoplasm in the waters is surprisingly low despite the appearance.

College trio as the Doctor Three. Who lead the study on dionesium in Gotham University at some point.

Talons created by the Court of Owls are a special type of liminals, and communicates within themselves via a dialect of ghost speak.

Realms stuff

Infinite realms, or pockets within it, had been observed and accessed before, by different civilizations under numerous different names.

The Kryptonians used the realms as a means of banishment, which they called the phantom zone.

GIW stuff

GIW is operating under All Purpose Enforcement Squad (APES), headquarters in mount Rushmore.

Anti-ecto Acts is a set of old laws dating back to civil war era, only brought back into practice in recent years.

Liminals have significantly higher chance of activating metagene. May or may not be causing the metagene mutation in the first place.

Anti-ecto Acts might be intentionally exploited as a backdoor to meta protection acts.

Ring stuff

Pariah Dark's ring of rage turned into the phantom ring after Danny officially claimed it. It enhances all emotions of the owner equally.

Danny lost his ring at some point and it became known to the lanterns as the phantom ring.

In the hands of realm ghosts the phantom ring glows green regardless of the emotion it is enhancing, as ghosts are beings of pure will. Otherwise it is black with a faint white glow. (Can't believe this one matches up, I love lore stitching)

Balance stuff

Danny bears both Life Force and Death Force in equal amounts. His only way to accessing them is channelling a mixture of the two to power his ghost wail.

Ghost Wail infused with both acts like a simple sonic attack. But if powdered only by death force it's functionally the same thing as Void Wind, which 'negates the power and immortality of the gods. Enabling it to shut down any form of arcana used against it'.

Dark Danny only process death force as he no longer have a human side for balance. His death infused wail could be how he destroyed the world without much interference from magic users.

Danny's Wail can be infused with only life force instead, which would eviscerate ghosts. Possibly only possible when he is in human form.

Glitchy stuff (not really DC related)

Dark Danny's attack on Clockwork's tower created some pretty severe glitchs in time (ha) across all of the living realms.

As the clocktower take damage some universes collapsed together, and some timelines became contradictory and paradoxical (typical comic reboot am I right?😅)

After Dan finally calmed down he becomes the ultimate errand boy for clockwork. Showing up an fixing things he broke under the guidance of the ghost of Time.

Stranger stuff

Dan got sentenced to Life (literal) in an alternate ending of glitch in time, which capped his destruction and eventually calmed him off.

Reformed Dan is doing social services as penance, in the DC multiverse he goes by the alias of Phantom Stranger.

[heliads]

I would like to request a one-shot where the female reader is a paramedic and Jack from Now You See Me has a crush on her and keeps doing things that result in minor injuries in the hopes that she will be the one to patch him up

i will love now you see me (and dave franco) until the day that i die

masterlist

If you were going to thank the Four Horsemen for anything, you’d owe them a great deal just for getting you out of yet another boring workplace training. Other people across the world can love the magicians for the money they scatter across their performances, or the thrill of getting into one of their exclusive shows, or just to appreciate someone getting one up on the FBI. There are many reasons to be a fan of the Horsemen, and yours has to be the most mundane.

In your defense, you’ve been hideously overworked for what must be years at this point, and at least this is one afternoon you can relax. You knew what you were signing up for when you decided to become a paramedic, but that doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate a bit of down time when it comes to you.

The marvelous performances of the Four Horsemen don’t usually involve a whole lot of injury, but ever since one of the original shows ended with an FBI agent getting tackled by fifteen people under deep hypnosis, it was determined that having a few paramedics around couldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Usually, the shows are in lavish places across the planet, but this time, they announced that they’d be putting on a display right in your city.

You were excited when you first heard the news, much like anyone else. Even if all tickets sold out within a few minutes, just the thought that the world famous magicians would be so close to you was thrilling. There could be magic right in front of your nose and you wouldn’t even know it unless they snapped their fingers. Maybe they’d cross your path without you realizing it. Maybe they’d even stay next door to your home.

Your schedule was filled during their performance, so you knew there wasn’t a chance that you’d actually get to see a second of their show. There will always be YouTube videos, someone uploading a grainy video from the nosebleeds of whatever venue hall the Horsemen have decided to occupy, but it wouldn’t be the same as being there in person.

You’d assumed you’d be distracting yourself from thoughts of whatever exquisite show was going on down the street with some lovely mandatory trainings. Unless your squad was called upon for an accident, you’d have to content yourself with lackluster meetings and the like. 

That was the case until you got the call that you’d actually be at the event hall. In a professional capacity, of course, but still, it was closer than you thought possible. The city had decided that it would be a good thing to have a few medical professionals on hand just in case something happened. There had been a handful of faintings and a small stampede at the last show, so you can understand why you and a few of your coworkers were called out here.

Most of you will be staying outside near your ambulance, parked just out of view. One or two paramedics are stationed inside, but you’re all going within the venue now just to get a feel for how the place is set up. Odds are nothing major happens, but it’s still fun to peer around and imagine what might be going on later that day.

The show won’t start for another hour or so, but the Horsemen are still kind enough to greet you and point out the major entrances and exits. You aren’t allowed to look around too closely, of course; half the fun of the magic is that no one knows it, not even the medical staff, but you can guess at the areas they’re keeping from you and what that might entail.

In all honesty, you’re kind of distracted from peering too closely behind various curtains by one of the Horsemen. Although you’ve never been to one of their shows before, that didn’t stop you from picking out a favorite:  Jack Wilder, the cutest, or so you tell your friends between bouts of laughter and over drinks.

And, by all twists of fate, he seems most interested in you. He stutters twice over his one-syllable first name, and tries both to shake your hand and hold it, too. He got distracted when you smiled at him, you think, but that didn’t stop the rest of the Horsemen from shooting each other knowing glances, especially when Jack insisted that you be one of the paramedics to stay inside the venue. Just in case, you know.

The rest of the Horsemen file away to their dressing rooms or wherever they go to practice their tricks one last time, but Jack sticks around a little longer. The other paramedic staying in the venue with you opts to scout out the surrounding hallways, but you take the seat Jack offers you and he sits down too, grinning like he’s the audience and you’re the main attraction.

“Don’t you have to go back with the rest and rehearse your show?” You ask, teasing him lightly.

Jack shakes his head a little too quickly. “No, no, I’m good. Always good. Besides, if I did that, how would I get to know you?”

You laugh. “I suppose that’s a good point. Do you flirt with all of the paramedics you meet at your shows or just me?”

“Only the prettiest ones,” Jack grins, “although you’ve blown any competition out of the water, I can assure you that.”

You can feel your cheeks heating up when he says it, and you look away quickly to regain your composure. “That’s nice of you to say.”

You can still see the ghost of Jack’s smile out of the corner of your eye, blinking in your mind like you’ve stared too long at the sun. “I only speak the truth, of course.”

He looks like he has plenty more to say, but Daniel Atlas appears at the corner of the stage, looking irritable and tapping the watch at his wrist. “We need you, Jack. Quit flirting and help us, will you?”

Jack groans. “Always such a control freak. I hate to leave you alone like this.”

You swat him lightly on the shoulder. “I’ll survive somehow. Go handle Daniel.”

Jack grins again, but he’s still looking disappointed. “Can I talk to you after the show, at least?”

You make a face. “I don’t know. We’ll probably handle any injuries, if there are any, then head back pretty quickly.”

Jack’s brow furrows, thinking something through. “Alright. Okay. That makes sense. I’ll be sorry to miss you, though.”

You smile up at him. “It was nice to meet you, Jack.”

“Nice to meet you too,” he says in a rush, standing up quickly when Daniel shouts for him again.

You let yourself sit there for a moment or two longer, giddy over the undivided attention of one of the prettier boys you’ve had the pleasure of meeting, then head back out of the performance hall to go find your other paramedic. They’re a friend of yours, have been for a while, and so they greet you with a raised eyebrow and a question about if you’ve managed to secure a second date with your little magician for later that night.

You roll your eyes, but inside your heart can’t help but do a slow loop in your chest. He’s certainly charming, the Horseman, you only hope that his affections were genuine and not him trying to set up a trick for later that evening.

You’re able to peek through a window to see most of the show, which is as stunning as all the critics claim. You head back to the ambulance once the performance, tending to a few minor injuries like people forgetting insulin or getting their hand stuck in a door on the way out. You’re assuming it’ll be another ordinary day until you look up and see Jack standing in front of you again.

He grimaces at you, embarrassed. “Managed to slice myself open a little during the show. Would you mind patching me up, Doc?”

You reach for some bandages behind you with a grin. “Too cocky with our tricks, were we?”

Jack nods, feigning sadness. “My pride may never recover. Can I get a kiss while you’re here? You know, to help with the healing process?”

You arch a brow. “I don’t think that kissing an open wound would be all that sanitary. I can’t recommend it.”

“What about here instead?” Jack asks, tapping his cheek. 

You laugh at the hopeful expression on his face, then, in a rush of adrenaline you expect just as little as Jack, lean forward and do as told. The look in his eyes could trick any girl into falling for him, and if you hadn’t already had an inkling of feelings for him, perhaps you have a little more now than before.

He’s pulled away soon enough, but you don’t think you’ll ever forget that day. It’s certainly a memory you’ll treasure for a while. All’s well that ends well, though, and you’re in the ambulance driving back soon enough, staring out at the road zipping by you like you’ll be able to sight him again if you just look hard enough, just want him enough.

You don’t know how long the Horsemen will be staying in town, if they haven’t already left, yet one week later, the news starts blaring headlines about how the magicians’ next show will be here again. Here, in your city. In your reach. It seems impossible– they don’t repeat locations without a good reason, but yet so it is.

You insist a little quickly on being a part of the paramedic team to cover the new venue, even though the times don’t quite line up on your schedule. A few days’ time finds you waiting by the ambulance after the second show of the by now very famous Horsemen, looking around with too much foolish hope. 

You’re about to give up on the idea that you’d ever see Jack again– who were you kidding, after all, thinking that he’d be interested in you more than a passing crush on a pretty face– and then there he is, heading quickly down the stairs, walking directly towards you.

He holds up his hand, and you can make out a small dash of blood before he’s excitedly telling you about how he managed to cut himself again, can you believe that, and how are you anyway? Jack didn’t see you in the venue, only two other paramedics, and he was starting to think that you weren’t coming until he looked out and saw you.

You listen to his delighted wave of words, then speak once you’re able to. “This is a pretty small wound, Wilder. I’m assuming you would be able to patch it up by yourself.”

Jack’s face falls. “Shoot, you’re right. Wait, I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

You laugh when he turns to run, grabbing his hand so he can’t leave. “Are you going to go back inside so you can make a worse wound? That’s absurd, you know that.”

Jack’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly, caught in the act. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. No magician would ever fake an injury.”

“Not even to talk to a paramedic they like?” You ask, the picture of innocence.

Jack chuckles. “Well, maybe in those circumstances. I feel like it’s understandable, though. I don’t want to distract you from your work, you know, but I do want to see you. A lot, actually.”

You haven’t let go of his hand yet, you realize, but you find that you don’t really want to. “Alright,” you tell him, “How about something else? I’m free for dinner tomorrow night if that works with you.”

Jack’s eyes light up, fireworks in rowan wood. “That’s perfect, actually. I’d love that.”

Someone appears behind him– Henley, fresh from their show. “Are you two finally going out? Good, he insisted on switching the location of our second performance to be here again because he couldn’t ask the first time.”

Jack turns around, expression dawning with horror. “You said you weren’t going to do something like this. You said.”

Henley just grins. “I couldn’t resist.”

“I’m just glad you moved the second show,” you smile, “I was worried we wouldn’t be able to talk again.”

“We’re going to talk a lot,” Jack promises, “I just need Henley to apologize for interrupting.”

“Not a chance,” she says gleefully, much to Jack’s dismay.

They’ve been lingering for a while now, so you’re not surprised when Henley starts to head away again. Jack looks between her and you again, knowing that it’s time to go.

“Text me,” he pleads, “we’ll set this up, alright?”

You watch him go, and it takes a few minutes before you realize that you don’t have Jack’s number. When you reach in your pocket for your phone, though, you notice a playing card stuck to the back of the case. It’s the Queen of Hearts, and there’s a number scrawled hastily on the surface. 

You laugh to yourself. Falling in love with a Horseman certainly won’t be boring, but who would want that? You have Jack. The best trick was winning him, and you’ve come up with the best hand. Nothing could make you happier.

requested by @thornyrose463, i hope you enjoy!

now you see me tag list: empty for now!

[petchic101]

DA Qunlat

I separated all of Dragon Age's known Qunlat into Nouns, idioms ect

Nouns

Titles/Types of people

Arigena: One of the Triumvirate; female, leader of the workers. She is responsible for ensuring her people's physical needs are met and public health.

Arishok: One of the Triumvirate; male, leader of the army. He is responsible for defending his people and expanding Qunari territory. The Arishok is sometimes mistaken for a king by outsiders.

Arvaarad: "One who holds back evil;" a Qunari who watches over the saarebas (Qunari mages) and hunts Tal-Vashoth.

Ashaad: "Scout.’

Ashkaari: "One who seeks," or "one who thinks;" scientists, philosophers, or those who have found enlightenment. Ashkaari Koslun uses this title.

Athlok:Laborer. The mind, the earth.

Aqun-Athlok: One who is "born as one gender but lives like another."

Bas: Literally, "thing;" foreign to the Qun; purposeless. Often used as a neutral term to describe non-Qunari people, in the same manner as "foreigner" or "stranger". Also used after a weapon name to denote it is intended for mages. (Example: Saartoh-Bas Kos Katoh)

Basalit-an: A non-Qunari worthy of respect.

Basra: Rude term for non-Qunari people.

Basra Vashedan: Used to refer to non-Qunari ideas, and sometimes, people; "foreigner trash."

Bas-taar: Keeper of bas. A role within the Antaam.

Basvaarad: Literally, a keeper for a mage who is a "bas." This usually refers to templars, but not necessarily; Hawke was considered a basvaraad "worthy of following" by a Qunari saarebas. Essentially, a non-Qunari who assumes the role of an arvaarad.

Ben-Hassrath:"Heart of the many," part of the priesthood who serve as spies, reeducators, and the defenders of Qunari unity. They are the enforcers of the Qun's law, and infamously severe to those who transgress against it.

Beresaad: Literally means "those who reach ahead." The vanguard of the antaam, sent abroad to interact with the outside world. Though they are soldiers first and foremost, they also function as the Qunari's diplomats, surveyors, foreign trade administrators, and investigate foreign lands and cultures on the Arishok's behalf.

Besrathari: A recruiter and trainer of the Ben-Hassrath.

Hissrad:"Keeper of Illusions;" liar. Iron Bull's name/title while he was stationed in Seheron.

Imekari: Child.

Imesaar-bas: Used to describe a child that was tempted and corrupted by demons.

Isskari:A title/rank in the Ben-Hassrath; Duties include the retrieval of magical artifacts.

Kaaras: Navigator.

Kabethari: "Simple person." Term used for those living in recently conquered lands and captives who haven't yet been indoctrinated into the Qun.

Kadan: Literally, "where the heart lies;" friend. An all-purpose word for a "person one cares about," including colleagues, friends and loved ones. Also means "the center of the chest."

Karasaad: Mid-rank infantry soldier. In Dragon Age II – a melee Qunari warrior.

Karashok: Infantry private. One appears in Sten's dream, the latter states the former was decapitated by darkspawn. In Dragon Age II - a melee Qunari warrior. In Trespasser - a foot soldier.

Karasten: Infantry commander; corporal.

Karataam: An infantry platoon. Ketojan was separated from his during the events of "Shepherding Wolves."

Katari: "One who brings death."

Kathaban: Leader of the Qunari naval forces; the admiral.

Kith: A small military unit, comparable to a squad or company.

Kithshok: Leaders of the Qunari army of Seheron; a general; They also are in charge of negotiating trade between the Qunari and foreign traders at ports.

Kossith: The name for the Qunari before the founding of the Qun.

Qunari: People of the Qun. A religious description, not race specific.

Qunoran vehl: A mentor, one who is an example to others. A Qunari can only be declared "Qunoran vehl" by the Arishok, and only after their death.

Rasaan: "Emissary," or "chosen heir;'" the Ariqun's successor, and as such, acts as their representative abroad. Also serves as the spiritual adviser to the Arishok, and accompanies him on expeditions.

Saarbrak: A role within the Ben-Hassrath.

Saarebas: "Dangerous thing;" the Qunari word and title for their mages. A "bas saarebas" denotes a non-Qunari mage.

Saarath: A title/rank among the Saarebas.

Sataari: "First guy on the ground." A type of shock trooper in the Beresaad.

Salasari: Triumvirate.

Sataareth: Literally "that which upholds;" an enforcer, defender, or foundation.

Salit: Meaning unknown; a prominent rank within the Ben-Hassrath.

Shokrakar: Rebel.

Sten: Infantry platoon commander.

Taam-kasari: "The one with the battleaxe." A type of shock trooper in the Beresaad.

Taarbas: A title/rank of Qunari, apparently clerical in nature; duties include cataloging inventory, and locating the weapons of Qunari fallen.

Taardathras: A title/rank of Qunari; duties include animal husbandry. Current examples are female and raise/extract venom from dragons.

Taarlok: A title/rank of Qunari.

Tal-Vashoth: "True Grey Ones." Former members of the Qunari who have departed or been exiled from their people and home. Many are violent rebels and turn against the Qunari, and are a menace in the north where they raid human and Qunari settlements alike. Others simply want to live their own life.

Tamassran: "Those who speak." A priestess who is charged with educating the young, interviewing captives, and assigning Qunari their roles within society. Exclusively a role for women.

Vasaad: A title/rank of Qunari.

Vashoth: "Grey Ones;" those of the qunari race that were born outside the Qun. It also refers to those who have rejected the Qun but not turned against it. The term tends to be used interchangeably with Tal-Vashoth, but the Vashoth are not rebels.

Vidathiss: A rank within the priesthood; a re-educator for captured and conquered peoples.

Viddasala: "One who converts purpose." A high-ranking member of the Ben-Hassrath. Leader of the "Dangerous Purpose" branch of the Ben-Hassrath triumvirate, which handles the conversion of foreigners, the reeducation of Qunari dissidents, and the collection and quarantine of magic.

Viddathari: A convert to the Qun.

Viddath-bas: Person turned into a mindless laborer with qamek.

Nature

Aban:The sea.confirmation needed

Asaara: Wind.

Asaaranda: Thunderstorm.

Athlok: Laborer. The mind, the earth.

Issala: Dust.

Kasaanda: "Sundew;" a carnivorous plant.

Kos: "A type of energy associated with nature;" refers to nature damage from a mage's staff.

Meraad: Tide.

Sataa: The world.

Tic: Cold; refers to cold damage from a mage's staff.

Vat: Fire; refers to fire damage from a mage's staff.

Animal

Asaarash: A special breed of horses from Rivain that are used by the Antaam.

Ataashi: Dragon; literally "glorious one(s)", "great thing".

Dathras: Cattle; a root word for many qunlat animal names.

Dathrasi: A type of animal. Used as a derogatory term against indulgent individuals, comparable to the pig. The Arishok calls all the nobles in the viscount's throne room this before Hawke enters the hall.

Qalaba: A type of cow that the Qunari breed known for its stupidity.

Body/Self

Antaam: Literally "body;" a name for the Qunari army. Also means "cuirass."

Asala: Soul.

Athlok: Laborer. The mind, the earth.

Defransdim: Male genitals.

Concept

Anaan: Victory

Aqun: Balance.

Ataash: Glory.

Basra Vashedan: Used to refer to non-Qunari ideas, and sometimes, people; "foreigner trash."

Herah: Time.

Hissera: Hope.

Hissra: "Illusion"; Also used to refer to deities.

Issqun: Mastery.

Kata: The end, death.

Kost: Peace.

Qun: The central philosophy of the Qunari peoples.

Shok: "War" or "struggle."

Weapons/Equipment

Adaar: A ship-mounted cannon; literally "fire thrower." Also means "Weapon" as Iron Bull puts it while talking about his name to a Qunari Inquisitor

Antaam: Literally "body;" a name for the Qunari army. Also means "cuirass."

Aquaam: Glove or light vambrace.

Asabas: Light or reinforced hat.

Asalaa:  Helmet.

Baqoun: Meaning unknown; used to assault Minrathous's walls during the Storm Age. Based on context, it's most likely a type of cannon or projectile siege weapon.

Beres-taar:  Shield.

Gaatlok: A black, non-magical explosive powder unique to the Qunari. It's not as powerful as magic, but can be used by anyone. There is no literal translation, the word derives from "death," "earth," and "glory."

Mertam: Light boot.

Nehrappan: Belt.

Notas: Gauntlet or vambrace.

Saartoh-bas: Mage's staff. Additional adjectives indicate the type of damage it deals. (Example: Saartoh-Bas Tic Eva deals cold.)

Saartoh Nehrappan: A leather-wrapped rod attached to a harness. In modern parlance: "a strap on."

Sataam: Boot or greave.

Taam-kas: Greataxe, or battle axe.

Taar: Prefix used to describe heavy armor. Derived from the word for "death".

Taaras: Light mail or doublet.

Qamek: Substance used by the reeducators to turn those who refuse to convert into mindless laborers, functionally lobotomizing those subjected to it. It's automatically used on captured mages, who are viewed as being beyond salvation. In Dragon Age: Those Who Speak, it resembles a flaming orb.

Saar-qamek: Poison that causes madness.

Valo-kas: Greatsword.

Vitaar: "Poison Armor." A warpaint used by the Qunari that is toxic to other races and has a metal-like quality once applied to the skin.

Places

Darvaarad: A location under the supervision of the Ben-Hassrath that quarantines magical artifacts.

Uukluk: Mentioned by Sten when arriving at Soldier's Peak, where upon he is unimpressed with what he considers drab and a castle like every other. "This is where the Wardens trained and lived? I imagined it would be like a tiered uukluk, with battle rings and many levels."

Viddathlok: A temple of healing and recovery; Ben-Hassrath also take unruly captives here for re-education.

Other

Asala-taar: "Soul sickness;" a Qunari combat ailment that seems analogous to a combat stress reaction, or even post-traumatic stress disorder. It is an epidemic in Seheron, where statistically two soldiers contract it for every one casualty. Sufferers are usually removed from combat and reassigned among the priesthood and workers.

Maraas: "Nothing" or "alone."

Maraas-Lok: A kind of strong Qunari alcohol; possibly also the verb "to drink."

Mashev: Either the name for a kind of gruel or a command to eat

Ralshokra: Said to be a military challenge where the higher ranks are fought for and defended to the death. The term originated in Orlais during the Storm Age, first used in a popular children's story intended to demonize the invading qunari race. In reality, the Qunari have never engaged in this barbaric practice.

Taamsala: Amulet. By itself, used to describe a generic amulet, but usually succeeded by a designation of skill level such as "eva," "iss," or "katoh."

Vashedan: Crap (literally "refuse" or "trash."); A common profanity.

Adjective

Eva: "Basic," or "beginner." Used after an item name to denote it is intended for neophyte users, or is of cheap quality. (Example: Valo-Kas Eva)

Gatt:. Meaning unknown, a nickname given by Iron Bull to a Ben-Hassrath agent. The terms derives from gaatlok, and refers to his temper.

Iss: "Experienced." Used after an item name to denote it is intended for veteran users, or is of moderate quality. (Example: Valo-Kas Iss)

Katoh:  "Ending" or "achievement." Used after an item name to denote it is intended for master users, or is of masterwork quality. (Example: Valo-Kas Katoh). The Iron Bull uses this as a "watchword" (safeword) when romancing the Inquisitor.

Maraas: "Nothing" or "alone."

Raas: "Nothing;" used as a hyphenated adjective. (Example: Imekari-raas would mean "Child Nothing.")

Saam: Something;" used as a hyphenated adjective. (Example: Imekari-saam would mean "Child Something.")

Saar: "Dangerous." Most commonly associated with saarebas. Also used as a prefix to describe light or cloth armor.

Taashath: Calm.

Tal: "True," see Tal-Vashoth.

Vashedan: Crap (literally "refuse" or "trash."); A common profanity.

Verb

Ash: "To seek."

Astaarit: (It) "rises."

Ebost: "Return" in "Return to dust!" Can also be translated as "You all are."

Issqun: Mastery.

Itwasit: (It) "Falls."

Maraas-Lok: A kind of strong Qunari alcohol; possibly also the verb "to drink."

Sata-kas: Maul.

Tallis: "To solve."

Pre/Suffix

Aad: Translation unknown; used as a suffix in many Qunari military ranks.

Ari: Exact meaning unknown; used as a prefix to denote singular or leadership, and as a suffix to denote a group.

Kas: Suffix denoting a weapon intended for melee. (Example: Valo-Kas Eva). Derived from the word for "soldier."

Nehraa: "For," as in "For the Qunari!"

Ect

Ebadim: "They all are."

Ebasaam: "We all are."

Esaam: "Can be found in" or "exists in the location of."

Itwa-adim: "They all fall."

Itwa-ost:"You all fall."

Itwasaam: "We all fall."

Rethadim: "They all protect."

Rethost: "You all protect."

Rethsaam: "We all protect."

Say: With.

Idioms

Asit tal-eb: "The way things are meant to be." or "It is to be." A driving principle of the Qunari philosophy.

Ataash varin kata: "In the end lies glory."

Ataas shokra: "Glorious struggle". used as a greeting by a Tal-Vashoth leader to Tallis.

Ebasit: "It is."

Ebasit kata itwa-ost.: "It is ended. You all have fallen."

Ebatot tal-eb noms. Asit hera iss-nal tal-eb. As-eb vashe-qalab!: We were told there would be cake. Midweek was when it was to be. This is akin to qalaba excrement! (More colloquially: "This is bullshit!")

Ebost: "Return" in "Return to dust!" Can also be translated as "You all are."

Hass ebala-varaad nehraa: "For those I watch, of which I am one."

Maraas imekari: "A child bleating without meaning."

Maraas kata: "Nothing is ended."

Meravas katara: A combination of "so shall it be" and "(you) die."

Meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun.: The tide rises, the tide falls, the sea is unchanged.

Na'thek: Meaning unknown but based on context possibly "As you wish."

Noms daar vat:Said by an Antivan Crow pretending to be Qunari. She loosely translates it as "The sweet bread is burning."

Panahedan: "Goodbye." Literally, "take refuge in safety."

Shanedan: Literally, "I'll hear you." A respectful greeting.

Shanedan, pashaara. Ebost antir vantaam vasheb-sa karatoh: I hear you. Enough. You're tired of the excrement your superior has been giving you. (More colloquially: "Give it a rest, why don't you?")

Shok ebasit hissra. Meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun. Maraas shokra. Anaan esaam Qun: "Struggle is an illusion. The tide rises, the tide falls, but the sea is changeless. There is nothing to struggle against. Victory is in the Qun." Extract from the Qun from Qunari Prayers for the Dead. Sten can be overheard reciting these lines while caged in Lothering.

Taarsidath-an halsaam: "I will bring myself sexual pleasure later, while thinking about this with great respect."

Vashedan: Crap (literally "refuse" or "trash."); A common profanity.

Commands/Threats

Ashkost kata!: You are seeking death!

Ashkost say hissra!: Seek peace with your gods!

Ebost: "Return" in "Return to dust!" Can also be translated as "You all are."

Ebost Asala, Tal Vashoth!: likely an insult or threat. Roughly means "Your soul is dust, Tal Vashoth!"

Ebost issala!: Return to dust!

Fazha thrin: Meaning unknown but based on context possibly "Leave us."

Katara: (You) die, as in "Die, thing!"

Katara, bas!: Die, thing!

Mashev: Either the name for a kind of gruel or a command to eat

Parshaara: "Enough."

Sten, shok basra vashedan taam!: Said by an Antivan Crow pretending to be Qunari. Possibly a call to arms.

Teth a: A call for attention, or warning.

Vinek kathas: An order to attack or kill. Another possible meaning is "Seize them."

Battle Cries

Anaan esaam Qun!: Victory in the Qun!

Ataash Qunari!: Glory to the Qunari!

Nehraa Beresaad! For the vanguard!

Nehraa kadan!: For my brothers!

Nehraa Koslun!: For the sake of the prophet!

Nehraa Qun!: For the Qun!

Specific Sentences

Arishokost. Maraas shokra. Anaan esaam Qun: "Peace, Arishok. There's nothing to struggle against. Victory is in the Qun." Spoken by Fenris upon Hawke's first meeting with the Arishok.

Arishokost ebra sala. Seerkata tost eb na shoh: The Arishok will see to it. That, or everyone dies.

Asit zabuk-toh maraas eblok. Kappan maraas tal-eb: It's because of the priests' hats that I never go to the temples. It has to be fur caps or nothing.

Bas ebadim qalaba, ebsaam asit tal-eb: These foreigners are cattle. Our way is better and inevitable.

Bazvaarad? Ebasit vash-issra sataa: Foreigners controlling mages? This place is a fecal illusion.

Defransdim vasebra nehraa issala shok: I'm now struggling with discomfort among my small friends. (In response to the assault by the previously mentioned foot?)

Ebadim astaar, Qunari itwa-toh. Asit tal-eb: They will rise, and the Qunari will cause them to fall. That's how it will be.

Ebadim beresaad hissra-toh ataash. Vashedan katoh-qalaba: Those beresaad think they are so special. Foolish glory animals.

Ebadim vashedan Tal-Vashoth, ebra-hissal eva-lok defransdim: Those excremental Tal-Vashoth can go do something explicit with my intimate friends. (Philliam surmises that tone of phrase indicates this means genitals.)

Ebasit Ben-Hassrath maraas-toh, tal-eb iss mer-toh ari-van: The Ben-Hassrath will make you disappear if you don't shut up.

Ebra Karasaad vashetoh saar-qalaba kata: The soldier above me has excrement for tactics and will die like a cow.

Ebsaam ver-toh kata, ir-vah vashtoh notas-taar: We're going to lose people in combat if we don't get better gloves than this excrement.

Kadanshok defransdim vashedan!: You will struggle with your wounded intimate friends! (Seems dockside in nature. More colloquially, "I shall use my foot to assault you in the genitals.")

Sataareth kadan hass-toh issala ebasit: It is my purpose to do what I must for those I consider important.

Var-toh katashok, ebadim maraas issala toh: They will struggle, and we will turn them into nothing.

[koneko-pi]

You spoil me rotten koneko

What if Fuegoleon x wife s/o telling him she's pregnant? Just all kinds of headcannons about how he is during the pregnancy and labour and how he is after with the baby? Imagine Fuego having a soft and pudgy little daughter😭(ft. Disgusted but happy nozel at how mushy Fuego is being)

I'm still getting used to the whole head cannon concept! I think this came out as a weird inbetween of headcannon and fanfic but i hope you like it nonetheless!

Female S/O x Fuegoleon

Innocent headcannons

900+ word count

Telling Fuegoleon was fun. The most fun you have probably had in a long time. He was really good about surprises, and smart enough that you could actually play little tricks for him to think about, and watching the look on his face as he figured it out made it just as much fun for you as it had been for him.

A while back, when you two had first gotten married, you had bought two small lion stuffed toys. You weren't a child of course but they had your heart immediately when you saw them in that store window, so you snatched them up and brought them to your husband. You joked about how one was you and the other was him, a lion and lioness pair. He appreciated the gesture and gift of course and ever since the two toys had sat neatly and tidy on the guest couch within his office.

Now almost a full year later you were skipping excitedly down the hall of the Crimson lions base to get to his office, a small paper bag gripped tightly in your hands.

You'd greet a few of the squad mates who greeted you back, some jokingly calling you their Crimson Lion Queen.

Inside the office Fuegoleon would be surprised about your visit. You'd quickly close the door so the others wouldn't eavesdrop, and he happily greeted you with a kiss on the cheek.

"What brings you here, my love?" He would ask you. While he did adore your visits there was also the understanding this was work time and he had his image to uphold as a strict captain.

"I'm just bringing this here!" You held the bag up, and he in turn would raise an eyebrow in confusion. "I was too excited to wait for you to come home. Besides, it belongs here!" You spun around. He would hear the sounds of the bag as you pulled something out, made your way to his couch and put something down.

He joined you and saw you had added a smaller lion toy to the pair that had already made their home in the corner of the sofa.

"A third one?" He asked curiously.

"That's right!" You nodded confidently. "It felt appropriate."

He continued to look confused. "But why would we need a third one?" Was it Leopold, who else could it be? After all there was you, him and the third was-

It suddenly dawned on him. His eyes went wide and your grin grew wider too as you watched him. He had figured it out. His head whipped to face you and the excitement brimming from your body was all the answer he needed. He snatched you up so fast and all the mages in the base could hear your excited laughter.

-

Your first pregnancy was not easy. And Fuegoleon went above and beyond to take care of you. His squad was understanding and helped fill the void that was created by his more regular absences now.

You found yourself weaker and more tired. Your body would ache all over and for most of it you found yourself bed ridden. But it wasn't as bad as it could have been, Fuegoleon stayed with you as much as he could. Leaving for work later on days he went in, and coming back as soon as he could. He would use his magic arm to alleviate the sore muscles of your back, feet or cramping in your stomach. His gentle heat was such a blessing.

He would eat his meals with you in the room, and even do his paperwork in bed. And while it wasn't ideal you still appreciated the hard work he did trying to stay with you. Just his presence alone was a blessing, as not all nobles would bother to go this far for their spouses.

And contradictory to other nobles again once the Little bundle of joy came into the world Fuegoleon spent all the time he could with her. He didn't hire a nanny or anything like it, he wanted to spend time with you and his daughter.

The nights were rough, the little girl screaming at the top of her lungs early in the morning, but that was not something that would deter Fuegoleon. The ever dutiful husband would take care of her issues, even if it meant sitting up for hours at a time in the middle of the night so that she would calm down. Sometimes it was ONLY with him she would finally fall back asleep, as the heat he naturally generated gently lulled her into a drowsy and safe space.

He would lay with her on the bed, play with her and talk to her about his day or all the great things she could have someday, as he would give her whatever she wanted. Within reason of course. Tell her to be careful of Mereoleona but Leopold was ok. Little baby would kick her feet with happy giggles, not understanding a word Fuegoleon was saying but be excited nonetheless and it brought the biggest smile to his face.

He was not the kind of man to bring her to work, but that did not stop friends, family and squad mates from stopping by to congratulate you and see your baby girl.

Nozel would even visit, on account that Fuegoleon would talk often about the little girl he had just had and loved to spoil. Watching Fuegoleon pace around the room, bouncing his baby and talking nonsense to her to make her giggle was a whole new side that Nozel never wanted to see.

Fuegoleon would insist Nozel should hold her but, for his own reasons, Nozel declined. Settling for just watching his friend be soft with the happy little lion cub in his arms. And then mildly disgusted watching the prideful and manly captain being so gushy with the baby. Is this what parenthood is like?

[nemo-in-wonderland]

🍃 ASRA SILVERBOUGH | CIRCLE OF DREAMS DRUID | HALF-DROW ELF🍂

Name: Asra Silverbough

Nickname: Rara, Spiderling, little Owlbear (by her father)

Title: The Sentinel of the Sylvan Glade

Alias: None

Age: 199 Years Old (She was born in 1294 DR-Year of the Deep Moon )

Birthplace: High Forest, in Dark Maiden's Leap, the shrine consacrated to Eilistraee. Her mother prayed for the Goddess’ protection while birthing the Asra, and it was granted. Hometown: Emerald Grove, Sword Coast, Western Heartlands

Current Residence: After spending most of her life in the Emerald Grove with her father, she returned to the High Forest, her father's family's home, and joined the Druids of Tall Trees

Alignment: Neutral Good

Race: Elf (Drow/Wood Elf)

Class: Ranger/Druid - Circle of Dreams

Profession/job: During her formative years spent at the Emerald Grove, she was an Druid Initiate under her father's guidance, working with him in trying to preserve the Balance of Nature. However, she founds that curing ailments and working with medical herbs was not her vocation, and she would rather spend her days up in the trees, flying branch to branch while scouting the areas around the Grove. Eventually, she picked up the role of Sentinel for the Grove, and lead a small squad of Rangers to protect the Grove and its inhabitants. Visual particular traits: Due to having inherited her mother's and father's height, Asra is considered extremely tall for an elf, especially one of Drow descent. Her own physical constitution also favours her father's, making Asra stands out among her peers. Scent: White Moss and Oak Resin. Occasionally, especially when wearing her shawl, she is surrounded by an intense scent of Oud that can lingers for hours. She has no idea how that is possible, but she suspects the shawl the scent is magically weaved within the fabric of the shawl, considering its arcane properties.

Colours/symbols associated with: The Colours of the Forest during Autumn; The Owl that flies silently in the night; the Stag that protect the Forest and all that lives within it. Languages: Common, Elven, Wild Elvish, Druidic, Undercommon Accent?: Asra’s Elvish has a distinct “High Forest” tune to it (irl it would be similar to Scottish), and it would carry over even when she speaks the Common Language. Tropes they embody: “Action Girl”, “Amazonian Beauty”, “Badass Adorable”, “Be Careful What You Wish For”, “Big Sister Instinct”, “Determinator”, “Daddy’s Girl”, “Death Glare”, “Determinator”, “Fish out of Water”, “Hot-Blooded”,“Former Teen Rebel”, “Friends To All Living Things”, “Hidden Depths”,“Long-Range Fighter", “Made Of Iron”, “My God What Have I Done?”,”Parental Abandonment”, “Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl”, “Statuesque Stunner” “Strong Family Resemblance”, “Stronger Than They Look”,” It Runs In The Family”, “Tranquil Fury”, “Odd Friendship”, “Weakness Turns Her On”,

Personality: Determinate, Curious, Kind, Boisterous, Funny, Overprotective, Resilient, Resourceful, Intuitive, Brave, Loyal, Honest, Empathetic, Determined, Confident, Strong-Willed, Protective, Compassionate, Caring, Independent, Fearless, Vengenful, Short-Tempered, Impulsive, Rebellious, Hot-Headed, Proud, Stubborn, Overconfident.

Detailed Backstory: Asra was the biological daughter of Halsin Silverbough. The story surrounding her birth was complicated, and much like the relationship between her parents, it was shrouded in a silence that Halsin was rarely -if at all - willing to break. This constant secrecy amplified the emptiness left by her mother, and it would become, later in life, a void for Asra to fill with the knowledge as to why she was left behind. However, despite this, she had a childhood of relative happiness and carefree ease, surrounded as she was by the love and affection that the rest of the Silverbough Clan was willing to provide to the their youngest. Her early years were spent listening to the Elders’ stories and her father’s own teaching on Druidic knowledge, which continued well into her teen years. But while she enjoyed listening, Asra was an active elf with an even more active mind, and she enjoyed experiencing life way more than just learning from books or midnight stories.

So, whenever she could, she would sneak away from Grandma Silverbough to stay with her father and take care of the ailing animals under his care or, when that was not possible, she would climb high up the trees of the High Forest and spend time observing the owls that slept up in the higher branches. For reason she could never explain, she enjoyed being as close to the sky as possible, something that would later influence into choosing the Owl as animal to shape-shift into. Oftentimes, she would go so far up in the branches that her father Halsin could not retrieve her and it would fall on Quirora Evenfall, the Head Sentinel of the Rangers of High Forest to retrieve her and bring her back safe and sound in her father’s arms.

Quirora was fond of Asra and her persistency, and she actually liked the child’s spunky personality and her stubbornness in wanting to learn as much as she could; so, when, as a teen, she would start following her and rangers during their round of surveillance around the High Forest borders, she would allow Asra to follow by, on the condition that she was to be as silent as a flying owl - a task that would prove a challenge for Asra, considering her curious personality and her never-ending need to question everything, but a challenge she would tackle with patience and effort.

The rangers took some convincing in having an untrained half-drow following them around, but would eventually change their mind and actually find entertainment in dusting off ancient elven knowledge to pass down to the young girl, such as scouting, how to visualize potential dangers, following trails, how to trap a fey being and stop them from teleporting etc. Quirora and her squad were also the reason why Asra became set on learning how to use bow and arrows and would later become her weapons of choice.

Thriving under the care and devotion that her father, Quirora and the Rangers put into her upbringing, Asra would prove to be a brilliant young elf, with keen eyes that noticed everything and a boisterous and commanding personality- she would often take the lead while playing with other elves, and if an injustice were to occur, she was not afraid to brawl even with older kids to defend her friends.

But even as a teenager first and then as a young adult, Asra was restless, as in body so in spirit and with constant thoughts of her missing mother always in the back of her mind, something she often vented about with Quirora, when her father would not open up to her. Quirora would actually take Asra’s troubles to heart, because she could see how much this was weighting on her young soul, and being a follower of Sehanine Moonbow, the Elven Goddess of Dream, she spoke with Halsin about this and the possibility of at least ease Asra’s inquietude through dreamscaping.

Halsin was aware of the turmoil in his daughter’s heart, just as he was aware of how dangerous would it be for them both if Asra was ever to get close to the truth, and that weighted on his shoulders: on one side, he wanted for Asra to find closure; on the other, he didn’t want her to see put in harm’s way.

Eventually, he would agree with Quirora to initiate her to the ways of Sehanine.

So, it was finally under Quirora’s guidance that Asra discovered the ability of dreaming granted by Elven Goddess to her followers and how, through dreaming, there was the possibility of unveiling and discovering much that was hidden to the conscious eyes.

Asra put all her efforts into learning how to sleep and dreamscape, following the path of the Circle of the Dreams as a Druid, and started travelling through worlds guided by the pulsing necklace around her neck - one of the two mementos left behind by her mother- finally excited at the prospect of finding some answers to all the questions that were crowding her mind day and night.

What she didn’t realize when she decided to follow the path of the Circle of Dreams and therefore accepting, she made herself vulnerable to the Feywild influence and its inhabitants, for better or worse, and that inexperience in looking and manipulating others’ dreams had a great cost. Infact, while s

he actually managed to met her dearest friends through her dreams - Hiraeth of the Seelie Court - she also inadvertently caught the attention of another powerful being while roaming through his dreams, a being that would become both a fear and another obsession of hers: The Stag King

Most Treasured Possession: Asra is not one to keep material belonging in high regards; however, she has three items that are immensely dear to her: the magical shawl her father had used for her ever since she was a baby, a shawl that seemed to protect her against the sun and provide her with warmth whenever she needs, and that never seemed to tear and wear, despite being over 200 years old; a shards of never melting ice that she keeps tied around her neck, and that seems to emit a strange feeble pulsing sound; and lastly, a dagger in cold iron that Hiraeth gave her to protect herself against the Stag King, if the need were ever to rise.

Sexual and/or romantic situation: Much like her father, Asra is polyamorous, following her heart as nature’s intended. However, after the events of Elturel and the arrival of the tieflings refugees at the Emerald Grove, Boisterous Asra found a kindred soul in Rolan, whom she cares about dearly, despite the constant bickering and his ego being bigger than anything she had ever experienced. However, ever since she started exploring the Dreamscape, in hope to find her mother there, she had been haunted by the Stag King, who seemed to have a keen interest in her. If that interest is reciprocated by Asra, even she is not entirely sure.

Favourite place in Faerûn: Her most favourite place is most certainly the High Forest, where she spent her entire childhood, surrounded by her father’s family. Ever since only her and Halsin were all that remained of their family, she makes a point to try, at least once a year, to travel to Grandfather Tree and give them her respects. She missed them a lot, but she bears it for her father’s sake. Other than that, she enjoys being in the woodlands, surrounded by trees, but she never disdain spending time with Hiraeth in the Dreamscape, the only place where they can actually meet and catch up with what they have been doing. What makes them happiest: Sitting by the campfire at night and listening to her father’s old stories about High Forest and the time their family lived there. She particularly loves to listen to her father’s childhood stories, and about all the time he got himself in trouble for not listening to their elders (something she would jokingly use against him when he admonishes her for not listening to his advices). The few times that her father would open up about her mother and give her some crumbs of information about her were also moments of rare happiness she held dear within her heart. What makes them angriest: Discrimination of any kind. Seeing how she would be a victim of it due to her Drow heritage, she was absolutely furious in the way the Emerald Grove Druids were acting with the Tieflings Refugees from Elturiel, to the point that it came to a physical fight between herself and Kagha. She had to restrain herself when she suggested to kill Arabella for stealing the Idol of Silvanus, but she never came closer to breaking someone’s face like she did in that moment. When her father Halsin banished her from the Grove, she felt a triumphant spite she hadn’t felt in years. What makes them laugh: Who, rather than what. But the one that makes her laugh the most is Azriel and her flamboyant way of always narrating her adventures and her sentimental woes. Asra cannot help but laughing at all the hilarious - and embarassing - situations her parents and siblings put her through.

Biggest secret: Despite her father strongly advising not to look for her mother, due to how dangerous that would be for both of them, Asra has been secretly trying to look for her ever since she decided to partake in the teachings of the Circles of Dreams. One night, while scouring the Dreamscape during a particularly deep meditation, she bumped into something she never bumped before, and felt something against her soul, like the soft brushing of a pristine heron’s feather, but before she could investigate it any further, she got spooked by an apparition of hellfire and the strong smell of brimstones. It made her wake up scared out of her wits, to the point that Halsin as well had to intervene to calm her down and help her anchor her thoughts. What she saw would keep her away from the Dreamscape for sometimes, and this caused for Stag King to become irritated and prompted him to seek her out in the Material Plane - adding to Asra's troubles. However, stubborn as she was and despite the scare, the fact that she found finally *something* prompted Asra to strengthened her resolve to find her mother. Obsession: Asra is not entirely different from either her parents, and when she sets her mind on something, she will see it through, no matter what. Two thoughts are ever present in her mind, never leaving her alone: finding out why the Stag King seems so keen on wanting her attention, and finding her mother. Asra loves her father Halsin dearly, but she knows that his reluctancy in talking about her mother and the strange letter that she left when she abandoned them hide way more than what it’s written in between those words.

*rubs hands together*

SO.

I AM FINALLY DONE WITH ASRA'S PROFILE, AND OMG I SUPER INTRIGUED BY IT ALL TBH. I have kinda reconnected something from what I wrote a few months back, because I actually managed to make it work as I wanted, timeline-wise (and Jacob's existence was kinda the reason I was able to retcon and have Asra's story evolve this way).👀👀👀

I am starting to interwoven all my OCs' stories, in one way or the other, and dearest Asra here is fascinating me with how connected she is to the others👀👀👀.

Well, I hope you will like this and the infographics I did for her!!

Now I am working on Hiraeth's one, and hopefully they will be ready soon!

--Nemo

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template by @arcandoria; abridged profile template by @lairofsentinel)

[angstywaifu]

The Lost Sister - Part 37

Synopsis: Xaden is known as an only child due to his sister who 'died' during the Rebellion. Little do they know she didn't die and has been so close this entire time.

Garrick Tavis x OC (Ophelia Riorson)

The Lost Sister Masterlist | Masterlist

Home. Or close enough to it. I can’t help but get emotional at the sight of the Cliffs of Dralor that surround Tyrrendor. That surround home. It’s the closest I’ve been in five years.

You ok little one? Mealladh asks, concern evident in her tone.

Just feels weird to be here. To be so close to home.

As we cross the border where the wards end I feel a strong tug in my chest, my right hand reaching out to grasp onto Mealladh. As I look around it looks like none of the others are affected the same as I am. But I can tell by the look on Violet’s face she felt it to.

The magic feels different here. Stronger.

It is. Magic is wilder, more unpredictable out here. Mealladh informs me as we bank towards Athebyne.

I nod in agreement, feeling the wild and unpredictable nature of the magic within me. But I also felt stronger, like I could do more. Something I was probably going to find out depending what awaited us at Athebyne. Just after lunch the dragons descend towards a lake close to the outpost to by order of our dragons. We needed to rest and gather ourselves before heading out to the outpost. The surface of the lake ripples as all elven dragons land along the shore of lake. If I wasn’t so nervous about what could be awaiting us, I would have stopped and taken in the beauty of the clearing we had landed in. I note I’m not the only one nervous and on edge, even the dragons not seeming to like where we are.

”We’re twenty minutes out from Athebyne, so hydrate! We have no idea what kind of scenario is waiting for us.” Xaden calls out as I slide off Mealladh.

Instead of joining Liam and Violet, the only other first years in this squad, I make my way over to Garrick and Xaden who have separated from the rest of us. Their attention shifting to me as I approach, both going quiet.

”I think we’re past the point of keeping secrets.” I tell them as I stand between them, Garrick nodding in agreement. “My money is on Dain being the reason we’re here.”

Xaden cocks an eyebrow at me. “Jumping right into the allegations today.”

”Well if someone hadn’t told their situationship about Athebyne we wouldn’t be in this mess.” I retort, my turn to cock an eyebrow at him.

Garrick freezes, before snapping his head towards Xaden. “You did what?” His voice raising ever so slightly.

Xaden pays him no attention as he stares at me wide eyed. “How do you know about that?” He demands, stepping forward.

”Violet. I reached out to her in the Rotunda.”

Garrick’s head snaps to me, both his and Xaden’s eyes darkening with anger. “You did what?” Garrick’s question now directed at me, his jaw clenching tightly.

I cross my arms over my chest, not letting these two intimidate me despite the size difference between me and them. ”I reached out to her and spoke in her mind. Because I’m pretty sure that’s why the Colonel has sent you here.”

Xaden shakes his head at me. “Trust me, she didn’t tell anyone about that.”

“She didn’t. Or have you forgotten what Dain can do?”

Xadens face reveals nothing, but I feel the shift in his emotions. The nervousness seeping in. “He hasn’t been anywhere near her since then. Hasn’t touche-“

“Do you know that for certain?” I ask, cutting him off. “Because even with you assigning Liam to her, I can guarantee you don’t have eyes on her all day. And with the way he was almost pleading for her to stay behind, he knows something.”

“Shit.” Garrick mutters while shaking his head.

“Yeah. Shit. And poor thing probably has no idea what’s happened. Has no idea the guy she calls her best friend has sent us all off to die potentially.” I say as I nod towards Violet.

Xaden turns his gaze to Violet who also turns to meet his gaze as if drawn by a magnet. She definitely had no idea what Dain had potentially done. Reading her thoughts and reporting what he found to his dad. She’d be devastated if she found out she was why we were sent here.

“So whatever is at Athebyne is something we’re not meant to survive.” Garrick states gruffly as Xaden turns back to us.

He shakes his head slowly, shoulders slumping slightly. “Probably not. But I’ll be damned if we don’t walk away from this.” He says before turning on his heel and walking over to Violet, leaving Garrick and I alone.

“You ok?” He asks after a few moments, grabbing one of my hands in his. His thumb tracing lightly along the back of my hand.

“Yeah.” I say with a sigh as I turn my gaze back to him. “Just feels so weird to pretty much be home, and my magic just feels…. Different. Stronger. But I’m ok all things considered.”

He offers me a tight lipped smile, the only sign he’s worried about what’s ahead. “It does take some getting use to. Both of those things.”

“Have you been home since it happened?”

He nods. “Only a few times, but not for very long.”

I slowly nod my head, turning my gaze to the ground. One day I would get back. One day I’d go home. See what had changed, what was still the same. See if the courtyard I imagined to ground myself was still as I remembered.

”You’ll get to go back one day Ophelia. I’ll make sure of it. We will get through this. Whatever is at Athebyne waiting for us, we can handle it.”

”But what if we can’t?” I ask as I look into his hazel eyes. “All these dragons are on edge. They know something bad is waiting. They can sense it. Hell so can I. But I don’t know what. I can’t pinpoint it.”

Garrick steps forward, grasping my face between his hands as he looks down at me. I can see how worried he is. He can’t deny it. He knows I can sense it. But there’s a look of determination in them. A look that tells me he will do anything he can to make sure we all walk out of this alive.

”We are going to be fine. This squad is filled with the best riders in that Quadrant. We have the best signets on our side. You can use yours without holding back. We have got this Ophelia. Trust me.”

Garrick angles my head, leaning down to pull me into a kiss. Our lips almost touching when I sense it. I push Garrick back as I reach out, sensing them before I see them. I step away from Garrick as I scan the tree line behind us. We should be the only riders out this far. Least from the Quadrant.

”Ophelia, what's wrong?” Garrick’s voice slightly panicked as he steps in front of me.

And that’s when I see them over Garrick’s shoulder, just about the tree line. Flying right for where Xaden has taken Violet. Violet who does not know about our allegiance with them.

”Gryphon riders.” I say as I look wide eyed at Garrick.

Garrick’s head snaps to where I’m looking, muttering under his breath before he takes off running towards where Violet and Xaden went. I take off after him, having to put in twice the effort to keep up due to his longer legs.

”What’s going on?” Bodhi calls out as Garrick rushes past.

I slow down to a jog, pointing to the sky where the last of the Gryphon rider is landing. “We have some visitors it seems.”

Bodhi goes pale as he sees what I’m pointing out, quickly moving to follow Garrick and I. And by the sound behind me I know some of the others have joined us. We may know who they are but Violet doesn’t. And with how Garrick and Bodhi are reacting they aren’t meant to be here. We burst into the clearing as Xaden hauls Violet against his chest, stopping her from unleashing her signet on the Gryphon riders. She fights back, trying to push off him. Her eyes wide with panic, not understanding what’s going on. Tairn lands next to her with a loud thud, the ground shaking with the force.

”Holy shit, that one is huge.” A women calls out as they all retreat a few steps.

I watch as Xaden pleads with Violet, most likely to trust him before passing her into Liam’s arms. But I can see in her face she wants to do anything but that right now. In her mind the enemy is right there. The enemy she’s been taught to hate her entire life. And right now she’s the only one moving to try fight them.

”You’re fucking early.” He snarls as he turns to the Gryphon riders.

I turn my attention to them, and it’s then I realise I recognise them. I don’t remember their names, but they are faces I had seen before.

”What happened to meeting tomorrow? We don’t have a full shipment.” Xaden says as his voice turns calm and even.

The womens eyes skim over us all before turning back to Xaden. “The shipment isn’t the issue.” Her voice grim as she focuses back on Xaden.

”So you we’re waiting nearby to chat on the off chance that we’d fly by a full day early?” Xaden asks, and I don’t have to see his face to know he’s cocked an eyebrow at them. He is not pleased at all.

”We were patrolling from Draithus yesterday, it’s about an hour southeast from here-”

”I know where Draithus is,” Xaden retorts as he cuts her off.

”Never know, you Navarrians act like nothing exists beyond your borders,” A male flier snarls. “I don’t know why we’re bothering to warn them.”

”Warn us?” I ask, stepping forward to join them.

The female turns her attention to me, some recogntion in her eyes as I join Xaden and Garrick. ”We lost a village in the vicinity to a horde of venin two days ago. They decimated everything.”

Did she just say what I think she did? Venin?

When we’re you going to tell me about the Venin part of your little rebellion? I snarl in Xaden’s head.

When you we’re ready to know. He snaps back.

Well it might be a little late for that. I say before severing the connection.

”Venin never come this far west.” Imogen says from behind me.

”Until now,” She replies before turning back to Xaden. “They were unmistakably venin and had one of their-”

”Don’t say anything else.” Xaden Interrupts as he holds up a hand. “You know that none of us can know the details or we put everything at risk. All it takes is one of us to be interrogated.”

He’s right. Though I know he’s not referring to actual interrogation. I’m sure any of the riders standing here with us wouldn’t let anything slip regardless of what they put us through. But there’s one thing only I can withstand. I’m the only one here that could know details and be safe. Every other rider is an open book if Dain gets his hands on them. Every detail would be available to him.

”Details or not, it looks like the horde is heading north,” the male says. “Straight toward our trading post on the border across from your garrison at Athebyne. Are you armed?”

”We’re armed.” Xaden confirms.

The way the male smiles at us unsettles me. “Then our job here is done. You’ve been warned. Now we have to go defend our people. As it is this side trip only gives us about an hour to reach them in time.”

Something in the air changes, Xaden becoming rigid before he looks over his shoulder at Violet. There’s something about the emotions of the male flier in front of me that I can’t quite put my finger on. Almost as if he’s up to something, and the way Xaden is acting tells me he feels the change to. But how the hell would Xaden know that?

”If you think you’ll ever convince a Sorrengail to risk their neck for anyone outside their own borders, then you’re a fool.” The man says with a sneer before leaning to the side to get a better look at Violet. “I wonder what you’re king would be willing to pay in order to get back the daughter or his most illustrious general. I’m willing to be your ransom would be worth enough weaponry to defend all of Draithus for a decade.”

Instantly everything changes. The riders behind us all move to attack, Tairn snarling at the flier as lightning flashes across the sky above us. Instantly shadows race from the trees surrounding us, stopping just before the fliers who all take a cautious step back. Gasps sound from around me as I reach out to everyone in the clearing, and instead of one Tairn behind us there are multiple all stalking from the tree line. Earning me a pointed stare from Xaden.

That’s a little dramatic don’t you think? Mealladh muses in a teasing tone.

Maybe, but they need to know to not fuck with us.

I think they got the point.

”You take a step toward that Sorrengail and you’ll be dead before you can even shift your weight. She’s not up for discussion.” His voice dropping to a low and lethal tone, that seems to get this point across.

”We’ll be there with the rest of our drift. Just signal if you can get away from the disbelievers.” The women says before turning and leaving, the man close behind her as they take off and leave us alone.

@riorgail @going-through-shit @fw-gt @bbkissme99 @xceafh @leptitlu @came-to-laugh-but-cried @onthewaytotimbuktu @daardyrnitta @lovemesomevesey @mxtokko @krowiathemythologynerd @callsign-blue @1islessthan3books @side-angel @wolfbc97 @just-an-ace-elf

[pigeonwhumps]

Battle

Taglist: @painful-pooch @i-eat-worlds @a-funeral-romance @rainydaywhump

Angstpril: alt prompt 1: troubled mind

Inspired by these two prompts by @hurtmyfavsthanks and an anon ask she received. I saw the more recent one and just wrote this straight up within a couple of hours, unable to resist it.

1k

CWs: living weapon, outcast whumpee, magical whumpee, low self-esteem, betrayal kinda, mentions of battle and casualties, mentioned past discrimination

Whumpee doesn't remember much of the battle.

It went by in a haze. They remember red, people falling, screams, unsure which side they were on. They remember the glee, the euphoria, of using their magic. The high of it all.

Now they're starting to come down from that high, and they can see the fear in people's eyes. The injuries, the casualties. Vaguely, they wonder who caused them. Was it them again?

Hands cup their face, gentle, calloused. The only ones that will ever touch them anymore.

Caretaker's.

"Hey. Look at me, now. Not the camp. Me." Whumpee looks up hesitantly, into their loving, warm eyes. One day they'll change. One day... one day they'll harden. Fear, hatred. From all the people they've hurt, on all sides. One day it'll be too much. They're afraid of the day they'll see that, of what will happen then.

But it hasn't happened yet.

Caretaker wipes their cheek softly. "It's okay. Come on, rest. Lay your head down. You're done for today. Close your eyes and rest."

Whumpee crawls into Caretaker's lap. They vaguely register being carried, head being lifted until it meets Caretaker's neck. Whumpee nuzzles into it.

"Shh. You did so well. You're doing so well, Whumpee. I'm proud of you."

Whumpee doesn't want to be. They want to grow flowers. But this is what their magic likes, this is what their king likes, this is what makes Caretaker say those words of praise in just that voice, so they can't stop.

(They ignore the small voice in their head that says that they have no idea what Caretaker's reaction to flowers would be. This is exhilarating, even if they feel an ever-growing bubble of shame at the endless, ruthless violence.)

Caretaker runs a hand through their hair, combing out the knots from the day's work, using a little water to clean the worst of the blood. Whumpee has been through this so many times that they know what to expect without even a glance. He won't hurt them with those eyes. They know his expression, his feelings, and they curl their arms and legs closer around him.

He's so warm.

"S'okay buddy. I'm here."

"Hmm."

Whumpee closes their eyes. It's so... so... they don't think they can sleep yet but they find themself drifting on the exhaustion the magical high always brings.

_

The next morning is... the next morning. As it always is with a new squad, it is very different to the first one.

And as it always is, Whumpee feels a sharp stab of hurt.

The soldiers know who they are, what they are. Have done since the very beginning .They've worked with Whumpee on the preparations, the journey here, for weeks. They know them. Sat around the campfire, shared meals, joked and talked and laughed. They'd been wished good luck yesterday morning, hair ruffled, smiles and reassurances in abundance. Soldier had even fixed their horse's saddle after the straps started to break. Now...

Now, they won't come within arms length of them. Soldier ladles out breakfast to the rest, leaving an empty bowl several feet from Whumpee, not looking them in the eye as he leaves them to fetch their own. He flinches along with several others as they approach the campfire, more whose hands jerk towards their swords. As if they're going to attack. As if they're so out of control that they'd attack their own side on purpose.

They reluctantly let go of Caretaker's hand so he can fetch their breakfast and the healing potion alone. At least he looks them in the eye. At least he sits with them, and talks, and touches them. Helps convince them to take the potion, even though it's bitter and rancid and no-one will improve it for the likes of them, and they won't need it once the adrenaline and euphoria of tomorrow's battle kicks in.

The kindness is only for now. It will change, sooner or later.

Nobody helps the pair of them take down their tent, or pack their saddlebags, and the Sergeant looks about to stop Whumpee from replacing the emergency set of daggers they carry in their boots at all times. A gift from Caretaker.

It's like they have the plague. Or the Devil's Touch, as their old villagers used to say.

They're pretty much alone in the clearing now, the rest of the squad staying as far away as they can without letting Whumpee out of their sight. Just in case they explode or something.

Without a word, Whumpee settles down on the ground beside the smoldering fire, Caretaker sitting on the log behind them. It's a sharply cold morning, dew dampening their breeches, but their leather armour keeps them surprisingly warm.

Caretaker braids their hair quickly and simply, just enough to keep it out of their face. Battlefields aren't the place for complicated hairstyles. Which is a shame, because Caretaker takes pride in that skill, and Whumpee delights in being allowed to display the results.

Whumpee dries their face with the cloth Caretaker hands them wordlessly. They need to get it together. It's not like it's the end of the world or anything. They try to summon the ease by which they sometimes prepare, the eagerness instead of dread that comes with a lot of battles.

It doesn't come. Today is a day for dread, then, and there's nothing they can do about it but pray for a miracle. And a break in the hatred and fear, the violence with which everyone rejects them.

They can't help thinking, though, that the amount of damage they've done, it's no wonder people want them locked away. They are a weapon, after all.

Yes. Definitely one of the bad days.

Caretaker's their handler. They try not to think about it but it's true. He's the only one who might see it, might offer them a brief reprieve. So they summon up all their courage.

"Please..."

Caretaker finishes the braid and kisses their temple. "I'm so sorry, Whumpee. I really am. But you need to do this. We need to do this. The kingdom needs you."

Whumpee nods. They don't blame Caretaker, not really. They need to win this war. And Whumpee needs to use their magic.

But gods do they wish they could stop.

[severus-snaps]

'Mudblood' and Muggle-borns

back again with some late-to-the-party observations that I want to talk about (ah, the perils of becoming obsessed with snape in 2024)

So, I think by now that most people are aware of this tweet and/or the idea that it wasn't just Muggle-borns, but half-bloods as well, who were called 'Mudbloods' by blood supremacists:

And I don't know about anyone else, but I took this with a grain of salt because JKR is known to... make statements sometimes, some more realistic within her own canon than others.

I know that some people (on Quora especially, but probably elsewhere) outright claim that JKR said this to make Snape's use of 'Mudblood' in SWM 'more acceptable' or less bad or something because the term applied to him, too, and not just Muggle-borns - and literally until today, I thought the same. Now don't get me wrong, I love Snape and will usually jump at any chance to make his backstory and characterisation more complicated and sympathetic. I felt almost that JK was sort of... backtracking, because in the series we only see people use 'Mudblood' against Muggle-borns, with Hermione and Draco the most frequently seen Muggle-born and blood supremacist (respectively) in the series.

So I've rounded up a few examples where Mudblood is arguably used against people who are not Muggle-born.

We're first introduced to the term "Mudblood" in CoS:

The smug look on Malfoy’s face flickered. “No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood,” he spat.

Ron describes the term shortly afterwards as follows:

"Mudblood's a really foul name for someone who is Muggle-born — you know, non-magic parents"

And that is how we see Draco use it most often, to refer to Muggle-borns (most notably Hermione). But it has been used on others who are probably not Muggleborn.

Exhibit A: Bob Ogden

Over to Potter-Search I go, searching 'Mudblood' - only to find someone called Bob Ogden. Now, having not read the later books in quite some time I had no idea initially who Bob Ogden was, so I head over to the wiki page. For those of you like me who haven't read the later books in a while, Ogden appeared in one of Dumbledore and Harry's trips into the Pensieve:

Bob Ogden (fl. 1925) was a British wizard who worked in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, a department of the Ministry of Magic, and led the Magical Law Enforcement Squad in the 1920s. As part of his duties, he once visited the Gaunt Shack, as the Department believed that Morfin Gaunt had not only performed magic in front of a Muggle but also accosted that Muggle, Tom Riddle Snr, and performed a dark charm on him.

Marvolo Gaunt, Morfin's father, asks him this:

“Are you pure-blood?” [Gaunt] asked, suddenly aggressive. “That’s neither here nor there,” said Ogden coldly, and Harry felt his respect for Ogden rise. Apparently Gaunt felt rather differently. He squinted into Ogden’s face and muttered, in what was clearly supposed to be an offensive tone, “Now I come to think about it, I’ve seen noses like yours down in the village.” “I don’t doubt it, if your son’s been let loose on them,” said Ogden.

Harry I think interprets this interaction as a Pureblood/Half-Blood Ogden rejecting Pureblood/blood supremacist ideology. Personally, I'm more inclined to think he's being cagey because he has definite Muggle ancestry, but we just don't know. I suppose it doesn't really matter. And then:

“So!” said Gaunt triumphantly, as though he had just proved a complicated point beyond all possible dispute. “Don’t you go talking to us as if we’re dirt on your shoes! Generations of purebloods, wizards all — more than you can say, I don’t doubt!” ... “Mr. Gaunt,” said Ogden doggedly, “I am afraid that neither your ancestors nor mine have anything to do with the matter in hand. I am here because of Morfin, Morfin and the Muggle he accosted late last night.

And finally:

“And you think we’re scum, do you?” screamed Gaunt, advancing on Ogden now, with a dirty yellow-nailed finger pointing at his chest. “Scum who’ll come running when the Ministry tells ’em to? Do you know who you’re talking to, you filthy little Mudblood, do you?” “I was under the impression that I was speaking to Mr. Gaunt,” said Ogden, looking wary, but standing his ground.

On the Wiki page, under Ogden's blood status, I find this interesting note:

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 10 (The House of Gaunt) Ogden is shown wearing "the strange assortment of clothes so often chosen by inexperienced wizards trying to look like Muggles," which indicates that he was not Muggle-born, as a Muggle-born would have at least some experience with putting together a Muggle outfit.

The outfit in question was described as a "frock coat and spats over a striped one-piece bathing costume". I know shit all about clothes, so I had to google a frock coat, and here's some examples (conveniently also featuring spats on the feet in the first image); and also a one-piece bathing suit (vintage, since it was the 1920s and I'm assuming a men's):

[Images from Lily Absinthe, State Library of Victoria and vintag.es]

What a look. Deliberate in its farcicality. So... no, even the most out-of-touch Muggleborn in the 1920s probably wouldn't put that together in combination, because even assuming he was like 100 or something (seeing as he died at some stage before the events of HBP), I don't think a Muggleborn with two Muggle parents could've been that out of the loop on Muggle clothing to confuse swimwear for casual daywear.

Ogden is, obviously then, of magical enough heritage not to have any idea how to dress like a Muggle. And yet here he was, in my 'Mudblood' search. Admittedly, that might only be a generation or so removed; Tonks is also clearly clueless:

“Very clean, aren’t they, these Muggles?” said the witch called Tonks, who was looking around the kitchen with great interest. “My dad’s Muggle-born and he’s a right old slob. I suppose it varies, just like with wizards?”

Marvolo's comment about Ogden's nose also can be taken several ways; a jab/joke about the pus nose curse that Ogden's just had put on him by Morfin, or a real, thinly veiled accusation of Ogden having Muggle heritage (possibly the same as those in the surrounding villages). For his own safety, if Ogden was indeed Pureblood, he probably should've said so (for all the good it might have done him).

At any rate, Ogden obviously, whatever his family history, is 'wizard' enough to not know how to blend with Muggles - he's definitely not Muggleborn himself. If he did have Muggle heritage, which makes him a dubiously-named half-blood (dubious in that "half-blood" more or less refers to anyone who isn't 'Pureblood' or 'Muggleborn' rather than indicating a half-and-half split), it's likely to have been a grandparent or something, if not further removed (do we see Tonks struggle to wear Muggle clothes? I can't remember. I vaguely remember McGonagall wearing a Muggle dress, and she's supposed to be half-blood - but she's not described as looking odd for what she's wearing but I got more of the impression that Harry found it odd to see her out of the ususal robes she wears at Hogwarts).

Anyway, the real point of it is that it doesn't matter how magical Ogden is, because he is marked out as not Muggle-born by his clothes, and yet he still gets called a Mudblood. Gaunt wasn't necessarily suggesting Ogden's parents hadn't been a witch and a wizard, but that overall he had a bit more Muggle in him than a wizard should have (which, according to Gaunt, is none).

It's worth noting that the Gaunts were a family "noted for a vein of instability", possibly as a result of consistently marrying their cousins, so perhaps only their view on 'Mudblood' is anyone who isn't a Pureblood. And, of course, they are the proud, cousin-marrying descendents of Salazar Slytherin, who "started all this pure-blood stuff", and so were likely especially zealous about who 'counted' as Pure:

"They [Hogwarts founders] built this castle together, far from prying Muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution." (Binns, CoS) "Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. He disliked taking students of Muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy." (Binns, CoS)

Said Slytherin, "We'll teach just those Whose ancestry is purest." (Sorting Hat, OotP)

In any case, this is the strongest example of a dedicated blood supremacist calling someone with any suspected (real or otherwise) Muggle heritage a Mudblood.

Exhibit B: Walburga Black

Walburga Black was Sirius Black's mother, a proud pureblood supremacist, and she thought that Voldemort had the 'right idea' about things. Her portrait at Grimmauld Place calls the inhabitants of her house "filth" "creatures of dirt*", "scum", "stains of dishonour", and "mudbloods".

"MUDBLOODS! SCUM! CREATURES OF DIRT*!" “Filth! Scum! By-products of dirt and vileness! Half-breeds, mutants, freaks, begone from this place! How dare you befoul the house of my fathers — ” "Mudbloods, filth, stains of dishonor, taint of shame on the house of my fathers!"

* Creatures of dirt is apparently another word/turn of phrase for Mudblood, according to the wiki.

Obviously the portrait is screaming and overexcited, and not especially prone to nuance, but it does seem to be calling multiple people in the house Mudbloods - when, in theory, only Hermione would fit that description. Walburga is also capable of distinguishing between different people and offering specific insults, such as to Sirius:

“Yoooou!” she howled, her eyes popping at the sight of the man. “Blood traitor, abomination, shame of my flesh!”

Andromeda Tonks (nee Black) was blasted off of the Black family tapestry by Walburga for marrying a Muggleborn:

[Sirius] pointed to another small round burn mark between two names, Bellatrix and Narcissa. “Andromeda’s sisters are still here because they made lovely, respectable pure-blood marriages, but Andromeda married a Muggle-born, Ted Tonks, so — ” Sirius mimed blasting the tapestry with a wand and laughed sourly.

I expect having an actual Muggle in the family (aka an actual half-and-half Half-Blood) would've been seen as just as bad, if not worse, than marrying a Muggleborn to dedicated blood purists.

But in any case, with an Order primarily made up of Pureblood blood traitors (e.g. Weasleys, Sirius, Moody) and Half-Bloods (generally consisting of at least two magical parents like Harry, Tonks, and Dumbledore), and one Muggleborn (Hermione), Walburga just calls them all Mudbloods.

I'm also curious, as Hagrid wasn't there at 12 Grimmauld Place and a werewolf isn't technically a half-breed (but is sometimes conceptualised as such e.g. by Umbridge and her ilk), whether Walburga calls half-bloods "half-breeds", or whether she was yelling more generally at Lupin. Perhaps Muggles are "a different creature" in her eyes. We know that this line of thinking isn't uncommon:

"We’ve all got to listen to [whichever DE was in charge of Muggle Studies in DH] explain how Muggles are like animals, stupid and dirty..." (Neville, DH)

Exhibit C: Penelope Clearwater

Examples start to get a bit more sparse and interpretive from here on out.

In Chamber of Secrets, Voldemort describes the people petrified as Mudbloods:

“Haven’t you guessed yet, Harry Potter?” said Riddle softly. “Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib’s cat.”

The "four Mudbloods" in question were:

Colin Creevy

Justin Finch-Fletchley (with Nearly-Headless Nick as collatoral damage)

Hermione Granger, and

Penelope Clearwater

But we're not certain that they're all Muggleborn. In CoS, Justin is confirmed; he was headed to Eton and was waiting for Harry (the supposed Heir of Slytherin) to attack him in CoS for being Muggleborn. Colin is confirmed; "I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad’s a milkman...", and Hermione is obvious.

And then there's Penelope. Unlike the other confirmed Muggle-borns, we don't hear much about her, apart from the fact that she's Percy's girlfriend and probably likes Quidditch; but Hermione uses her as her 'cover' when the Trio gets caught by Snatchers in Deathly Hallows:

“Penelope Clearwater,” said Hermione. She sounded terrified, but convincing. “What’s your blood status?” “Half-blood,” said Hermione.

And the note about it on the Wiki says:

However, it is possible that the fourth Muggle-born in addition to Colin, Hermione, and Justin (who are all definitively identified as Muggle-borns at some point) was Nearly-Headless Nick, and that Penelope was simply petrified because she was with Hermione when she encountered the Basilisk. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 23 (Malfoy Manor), Hermione posed as Penelope when under interrogation by Snatchers, and claimed to be half-blood. Although, Hermione may have only lied about Penelope's blood status because mentioning she's Muggle-born would have possibly made things worse.

To me it seems unlikely that Voldemort would set the Basilisk on a ghost. It also seems unlikely that, after Harry has offered up "Vernon Dudley" as his name (more on that in a moment), and Ron has called himself first Stan Shunpike and then Barney Weasley, that Hermione would choose someone who she knew wasn't going to be a safe bet. Snatchers are "gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up Muggle-borns and blood traitors", so why offer a name that's likely to be on their list of Muggle-borns? It's also possible that it was just the first name she thought of, then lied about the blood status; but given that Hermione and Penelope would have woken up in the hospital wing together at the end of the events of CoS, it may well have come up in discussion.

And then there's this:

“You checked their names on the list yet, Scabior?” he roared. “Yeah. There’s no Vernon Dudley on ’ere, Greyback.”

So, the list is being checked by the Snatchers to see if the 'disguised' Trio are "wanted" - aka if they are Muggleborns/blood traitors/truants. I doubt they even checked Ron's name since the Weasleys are well-known blood traitors, but they picked up on Vernon Dudley not being a real name, and their list certainly seems to include Muggleborns, since they say they've captured a "Mudblood (presumably Dean Thomas), a runaway goblin, and three truants (the Trio)". Yet they don't mention Penelope.

So, Penelope was not on their list, and if it hadn't been for the Snatchers recognising Hermione in the paper, they might have gotten away with it. Maybe Penelope was Muggleborn and "presented herself for interrogation", which is something that Ron mentions Hermione hasn't done earlier in the book, and therefore that's why Penelope wasn't on the list - or that Penelope is not Muggleborn, but Half-Blood, and she got called a Mudblood in CoS anyway.

(Yes, JK probably forgot - but I'm sticking in-universe).

Exhibit D: The Muggle-Born Registration Commission

“Will the old hag [Umbridge] be interrogating Mudbloods all day, does anyone know?”

Shortly followed by:

“No, no, I’m half-blood, I’m half-blood, I tell you! My father was a wizard, he was, look him up, Arkie Alderton, he’s a well-known broomstick designer, look him up, I tell you — get your hands off me, get your hands off—” “This is your final warning,” said Umbridge’s soft voice, magically magnified so that it sounded clearly over the man’s desperate screams. “If you struggle, you will be subjected to the Dementor’s Kiss.” The man’s screams subsided, but dry sobs echoed through the corridor. “Take him away,” said Umbridge. Two dementors appeared in the doorway of the courtroom, their rotting, scabbed hands clutching the upper arms of a wizard who appeared to be fainting. They glided away down the corridor with him, and the darkness they trailed behind them swallowed him from sight.

So, the Muggle-Born Registration Commission was supposed to be rounding up, interrogating and imprisoning Muggle-borns, but arguably was also rounding up (and referring to) possible half-bloods, too. The same possibly happened to Dean Thomas, a half-blood (according to his official page) mistaken for a Muggle-born, as he had no record of his wizard father.

“Muggle-born, eh?” asked the first man. “Not sure,” said Dean. “My dad left my mum when I was a kid. I’ve got no proof he was a wizard, though.”

Summary of Exhibits

So, we've seen half-blood-or-more Bob Ogden and potentially half-blood Penelope Clearwater be referred to as Mudbloods by Gaunts/Voldemort. We've seen an entire house of people of different magical heritage between them, all collectively called Mudbloods by Walburga Black. And we've seen some random Ministry witch call a whole collection of (assumed but not confirmed) Muggle-born wizards and witches Mudbloods.

I think what we can gather from this is that the distinction between half-blood and Muggle-born hardly matters to some blood supremacists. If you're a Pureblood supremacist, anyone who isn't Pure is, obviously, impure. Arguably, "Mudblood" wasn't always strictly about being Muggleborn; it's about 'impure' heritage. The stronger examples (Bob Ogden, Walburga Black) are older examples; Voldemort and Walburga's generation (born ~1920s) and even before (Marvolo's generation had an even more ambiguous use). I think it's safe to say that the meaning of the word may have evolved or tightened by the time Harry is in school to primarily refer to Muggleborns, but obviously that's a matter of opinion;

Silent Half-Bloods in the Hierarchy of Pureblood Supremacy

Wizarding society is sort of divided into Pureblood, Half-blood, Muggle-borns, Muggles, and... Squibs, somewhere.

Obviously, in an ideal pureblood society, Purebloods are at the top:

[Sirius' parents] "thought Voldemort had the right idea, they were all for the purification of the Wizarding race, getting rid of Muggle-borns and having purebloods in charge." (Sirius, OotP) "For years [Regulus] talked of the Dark Lord, who was going to bring the wizards out of hiding to rule the Muggles and the Muggle-borns..." (Kreacher, DH)

Setting aside the knowledge for a moment that Voldemort was half-blood, and instead perceiving him as the Pureblood he pretended to be, this is what he touted, and this is what his Pureblood followers from the "ancient and noble" families like the Malfoys and the Blacks aspired to.

So indisputably, here excluding for brevity's sake the complexities of intelligent nonhumans/magical beings and 'half-breeds' (being its own meta that's probably been written somewhere), Muggles are at the bottom of a blood supremacist's list. Muggles and Muggle-borns are seen as a threat to Wizarding society, and as (potentially dangerous) outsiders. We can see it in the explanation given (quoted somewhere way, way above) about Salazar Slytherin's reasonings; it started with mistrust, as Muggles in the early days were persecuting wizards.

This mistrust (and disgust) obviously was kept alive and well in Tom/Voldemort/blood supremacists: "I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch?" (Voldemort, CoS).

But it's also an element of exclusionary attitude; Muggle-borns have grown up outside of magical culture, which we can see reflected in the first interaction between Draco and Harry in PS:

“But they were our kind, weren’t they?” “They were a witch and wizard, if that’s what you mean.” “I really don’t think they should let the other sort in, do you? They’re just not the same, they’ve never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What’s your surname, anyway?”

It'll come as a surprise to literally nobody that the problem as blood supremacists see it is that Muggles, and by extension Muggle-borns, as well as being outsiders, are viewed as dirty/disgusting, and common. In CoS, post slug-heaving, Ron describes "Mudblood" as meaning:

"Dirty blood, see. Common blood".

We see these descriptors a lot in the series. Gaunt describes Merope as a "dirty Squib", "disgusting little Squib" and a "filthy little blood traitor" (and she's a Pureblood witch, albeit struggling with her powers); and in CoS of course Voldemort calls his father "a foul, common Muggle". We also see throughout the books "Mudblood filth", and "filthy little Mudblood" in particular reference to Muggle-borns such as Hermione and Lily (and to Bob Ogden).

[Side note: I have seen some arguments that say 'filthy' is sometimes used in the series instead of the word 'fucking', e.g. "that fucking Mudblood" - but obviously it's a kid's series, so the word was replaced. I think it could work in terms of this replacement in some contexts, but I'm not sure that was the purpose. Filthy just means disgustingly dirty, and has an interesting extra context from the etymology I just found out:

filthy (adj.) late 12c., fulthe, "corrupt, sinful," from filth + -y (2). Meaning "physically unclean, dirty, noisome" is from late 14c. Meaning "morally dirty, obscene" is from 1530s.

You can get a sense of a more 'moral' objection in the later books, e.g. Neville discussing their Muggle Studies during the events of DH:

We’ve all got to listen to her explain how Muggles are like animals, stupid and dirty, and how they drove wizards into hiding by being vicious toward them, and how the natural order is being reestablished.

And especially this, from Voldemort:

"Not content with corrupting and polluting the minds of Wizarding children, last week Professor Burbage wrote an impassioned defense of Mudbloods in the Daily Prophet. Wizards, she says, must accept these thieves of their knowledge and magic. The dwindling of the purebloods is, says Professor Burbage, a most desirable circumstance. … She would have us all mate with Muggles …"

I feel like there's a few points to be made about this quote.

First, obviously Voldemort has the DEs convinced that he's also Pureblood; he's the Heir of Slytherin after all, the Dark Lord, greatest wizard of all time, etc. Even Harry telling Bellatrix that Voldemort was half-blood at the end of OotP hasn't made a difference. (And why would it? Question or defy him and he'll kill your whole family and make you watch, probably).

Second, we can see also in the Muggle-Born Registration Commission chapter, where Umbridge asks Mary Cattermole where she stole her wand from, that Muggle-borns are accused of somehow... stealing magic?

"Nevertheless, unless you can prove that you have at least one close Wizarding relative, you are now deemed to have obtained your magical power illegally and must suffer the punishment."

Anyway, I think there's another point here, one I can't quite reach with my brain. The quote starts with viewing ostensibly only Muggleborns as the issue; as the thieves of knowledge. But Voldemort's point ends up with the disparaging of half-bloods (as they're the wizarding 'type' to arise from Muggle-Magical Mating™️). That's nothing to do with Muggle-borns at all.

But we hear next to nothing about half-bloods, despite their having Muggle and/or Muggle-born heritage; the same heritage described so often as dirty, disgusting, and filthy. We hear more outrage about blood traitors, Pureblood families who sympathise with Muggles or Muggle-borns: "blood traitors are as bad as the Mudbloods", "Blood traitor is next to Mudblood in my book", and wizards/witches who are tolerant of Muggles are called "Muggle-lovers". (I hesitate even to say that 'Muggle-tolerant wizards' like, support, or even accept Muggles - because even Muggle 'tolerant' wizards (e.g. like Hagrid and the Weasleys), the Order and the like, the allies to the "champion of commoners, of Mudbloods and Muggles, Albus Dumbledore", also look down on Muggles to an extent, but I digress again).

The only disparaging references I could find to half-bloods were Bellatrix to Harry:

"You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your half-blood’s tongue, you dare -" " — He stands there — filthy half-blood —"

And one about Mundungus:

“That mangy old half-blood has been stealing Black heirlooms?” said Phineas Nigellus, incensed.

In the few examples we see, they're subject to the same dehumanising, dirty/disgusting and animal comparisons as "Mudbloods" and Squibs.

But there are few examples. The lack of attention paid to half-bloods is probably, in part because of the dwindling population of Purebloods:

"Most wizards these days are half-blood anyway. If we hadn’t married Muggles we’d’ve died out." (Ron, CoS) “If you’re only going to let your sons and daughters marry purebloods your choice is very limited, there are hardly any of us left.” (Sirius, OotP)

Half-bloods are accepted purely by necessity, because unlike Muggle-borns they do have magical lineage to draw on, and because there aren't enough Purebloods left. It's for the same reason that blood traitors are allowed to keep on being traitors but aren't punished to the same degree as Muggle-borns, per this note from the wiki:

"They don’t want to spill too much pure blood, so they’ll torture us a bit if we’re mouthy but they won’t actually kill us.” Given this statement, as well as the fact that the Weasleys were only in direct danger after Ron Weasley's help of Harry Potter was revealed to the Death Eaters, it seems that they were hesitant to kill blood traitors unless they were very rebellious.

Half-bloods sort of escape the Pureblood rhetoric entirely, between these reasons and being the most common type of witch or wizard. The term “half-blood” is ambiguous, and practically meaningless, after all; it refers to anyone with one Muggle parent (like Seamus Finnegan; Severus Snape), or anyone with one Muggle-born parent (like Harry, Tonks), and (I'm not sure if we learn this in the books, but) it also applies if you have a Muggle or Muggle-born grandparent, and presumably any recent traceable Muggle or Muggle-born lineage.

While half-bloods do have 'impure' Muggle ancestry, they are often viewed through the lens of their magical parentage, which can sometimes afford them a degree of acceptance or a different (almost nonexistant) level of scrutiny. In the hierarchy of blood purity, they are less offensive to purists compared to Muggle-borns, but not as esteemed as pure-bloods.

Sort of absent but for different reasons are Squibs. In broad terms, Squibs are generally more likely to be straight up ignored or disregarded, in contrast to the outright hatred and contempt directed toward Muggleborns and Muggles - the issue is a relation to non-magical Muggles, rather than magical skill itself. Because Squibs have magical ancestry, perhaps they fare slightly 'better' within this belief system. Of course, I expect it's all interrelated and decidedly more nuanced (as are all systems of prejudice/oppression), but as I say - in broad terms. Filch liked to help Umbridge, after all - like so many others in wizarding society (and wider, real-life society), his acceptance was conditional, and arguably based on either pity or what he could bring to the table.

In a similar way, being half-blood is only 'advantageous' when magical heritage can be proven and played upon - like Voldemort; like Umbridge:

“That’s — that’s pretty, Dolores,” she said, pointing at the pendant gleaming in the ruffled folds of Umbridge’s blouse. “What?” snapped Umbridge, glancing down. “Oh yes — an old family heirloom,” she said, patting the locket lying on her large bosom. “The S stands for Selwyn. … I am related to the Selwyns. … Indeed, there are few pure-blood families to whom I am not related...”

"It was Umbridge's lie that brought the blood surging into Harry's brain and obliterated his sense of caution; that [Slytherin's/Voldemort's] locket she had taken as a bribe from a petty criminal [Mundungus] was being used to bolster her own pure-blood credentials."

... and even like some Death Eaters probably do:

"The Death Eaters can’t all be pure-blood, there aren’t enough pure-blood wizards left," said Hermione stubbornly. "I expect most of them are half-bloods pretending to be pure." "I got this one," [Neville] indicated another slash to his face, "for asking [Carrow] how much Muggle blood she and her brother have got."

... and unlike the son of Arkie Alderton, the well-known broomstick designer, who got carted away by Dementors. Purebloods could and would just as easily turn on half-bloods.

"First they came for the Socialists…" as the poem goes. Muggles and Muggle-borns will be the first witches and wizards targeted, face the worst discrimination, but half-bloods too are only safe so long as they can prove themselves as 'magical enough', dedicated enough, or useful enough; and they'll never be magical enough for the likes of true believers.

Severus Snape: Mudblood?

I don't think it's a stretch, then, to say that some Purebloods did use the term "Mudblood" for people other than Muggle-borns. Unlike most of the half-bloods we see in the series, with two magical parents, Snape was actually the son of Tobias Snape, a Muggle, with a clearly Muggle name that sets him apart from the well-known and interconnected Pureblood families. As a student, and sometimes as an adult, Snape to some extent 'fit' the stereotypes of Muggles in that he would be perceived as common, dirty, and disgusting; throughout the series he's described as "greasy", with "yellow, uneven teeth"; he hails from Cokeworth, likely from a two-up-two-down house, described as though set in a Northern industrial area; he is scrawny, skinny, as a child wears mismatched clothes, and is likely neglected and grew up in poverty. (Contrast with Purebloods Sirius, who is regularly described as handsome, James, who had the "indefinable air of having been well cared for and even adored that Snape so conspicuously lacked", and the Malfoy family, who are also regularly described as being attractive).

If we use Draco as a benchmark for Slytherin Pureblood behaviour, then imagine how much worse Snape would be received; he's poorer than a Weasley, more Muggle than Harry Potter (and absolutely not the chosen one), and at least half as Muggle as Hermione. It's questionable whether Eileen Prince/Snape was herself even a Pureblood; whilst I was traversing for all the quotes here, Hermione talks about reading through Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy, that "lists the pure-blood families that are now extinct in the male line" - which, if Prince was a Pureblood name, might have crept up in passing conversation since Hermione seemed to struggle to find anything out about the HBP in the previous book.

During a war in which Voldemort rose to power, with an identifiably Muggle name and not one of the vastly interconnected and still-powerful Pureblood families, Snape would be noticed for being different. He was about a year apart from Regulus after all, who had a whole collage on his wall of Voldemort's press cuttings, favoured son of enthusiastic blood supremacist Walburga Black - so I find it hard to believe that Slytherins were... fully accepting.

In CoS, when a basilisk was going around attempting to kill Muggle-borns on behalf of the Heir of Slytherin, the Slytherin common room password was pureblood. I feel like there's a whole point there, but it's nearly 4am here, so I can't brain it right now. (But like... did Snape set the passwords? Did the entrance do it magically?? Did a Head Boy/Prefect do it?? Either way, there's a strong sense of pureblood supremacy communicated in that password that's only strengthened by the timing, echoing the Heir's agenda). In any case, it speaks to the entrenched nature of pure-blood ideology of Slytherin as a house.

"my parents, with their pure-blood mania, convinced that to be a Black made you practically royal . . . my idiot brother, soft enough to believe them" (Sirius, OotP) "as far as [Marvolo] was concerned, having pure blood made you practically royal" (Harry, DH)

The Purebloods of Slytherin house in any generation - who considered themselves "practically royal" in their superiority - would surely ridicule a self-styled, half-blood Prince.

[redesigningxmen]

REDESIGNING MAGIK

Welcome to Limbo! Our group chose Illyana Rasputina, the marvelous Magik for this round! Introduced as the younger sister of Colossus, Magik joined the 80s New Mutants team as a young teen and has since flourished into an A-Lister in her own right. She's been a member of the Phoenix Five, Cyclops' renegade X-Men squad, the Krakoan New Mutants, and the 2022 X-Men team.

She has several inspiration points for artists and redesigners to pull from. She's most well-known for her all-black 2012 look but has also sported demonic and fantasy influences as someone connected to the hellish Limbo and her malevolent alter ego, the Darkchylde.

See what our enthusiastic and talented team of artists did this round, and make sure to follow them on social media for more fantastic art!

(The handles presented after artists names are their Twitter handles, but many use the same name on other platforms!)

Léa Dupic | @/kimodraw

"I went full speed ahead into medieval land and dressed Illyana in a full metal shiny armour, putting emphasis on her sword bearing arm with a biiiig spiky shoulder pad. Gave her a punk lesbian haircut while keeping her iconic bangs, because I think she should be allowed to be more of a punk lesbian. And I couldn't resist adding a touch of demon form with the horns. She's gloomy she's menacing she's spiky and shiny she's the girl of my dreams."

Giovanni Saroldi | @/RaulGiova 

"Just like matter, let’s give ‘Yana three states! Solid, liquid, gas? Kinda, not quite! From angelic to demonic, with her main form being the in-between totality of herself, where she can draw whichever power she needs.

It’s geometric, it’s chic, it’s retro-futuristic Terry Moore with the Horns of Galaxy The Prettiest Star meets Ludmilla from Bartok mid-transformation."

John Caden | @/johncaden64 

"I've always felt the Bachalo design was great, but could get very male-gazey.  I tried to make it more comfortable, while also keeping the same goth feel.  I do feel she needs to just go all-in goth, so let's shave her head, get some thick black mascara and commit to the bit! "

John Marsh | @/pastelrake

"What if Illyana had been a Russian figure skater?"

Joe Pryde | @/joeprydecosplay

"My inspiration for this design came from the idea of “what if Magik was an elder emo” complete with Kristen Stewart fem mullet, high waist buckled tights, and sleeveless crop top hoodie. I also wanted to pay homage to previous designs."

Haydn | @/ThatsSoHaydn 

"I had but one simple thought: What if the Soul Sword was a rapier? And thus fencing Magik was born. I wanted the geometric shapes of the dark bodysuit to contrast with the curves of the golden armor, whilst still adding a little magic and mystery with her cloak and mask. "

Dale Yaddow | @/DaleYaddow

Version 1 "The Savage Magik". Having been stripped of her magical knowledge, Illyana Rasputin hunts down various enchanted artifacts to replace what she's lost. Becoming desperate she seems to be willing to steal and sometimes kill to get these talismans. Among these are the Soul Dagger of Pixie, the medallion of Daimon Hellstrom, Holy bands from "Heven" and a cursed skull from an alternate version of Lockheed.

Version 2 "Mistress Magik" This is an older more seductive Magik that's been corrupted by the influence of Selene and embraced her sensuality, opening up a whole new avenue of mystical arts that she hadn't dared explore before. She now uses her SoulSword to capture the essences of her foes and much like Selene feeds on them keeping her young and vital.

Version 3 "Magik, Queen of Hell" Many questioned the logic of Magik giving Limbo to Madelyne Prior but the end game has been revealed. Illyana allowed Madelyne to tether her magic to Limbo, knowing eventually "Maddie" would get greedy and begin bringing more power to that dimension. With a carefully hidden clause in the Limbo transference spell Magik takes back Limbo and all the power within it and successfully overthrows all the Hell Lords, unifying the many dreaded dimensions under one fearsome rule, hers.

Anthony Ruiz | @/thwwipstickers

"Almost as soon as Magik was decided on for this design challenges I had two ideas strike me simultaneously ... The first of those ideas was the image of Illyana as a 90's Riot(ish) on the cover of a Magazine. I wanted to give her an edgy grungy vibe but still pay homage to her Demonic nature.

Shortly after Finishing my first Design I just knew I had to make my second idea come to life.

What if Illyana was an Anime Mech Pilot and Wore a Plugsuit... thats it... thats the idea. I really wanted to strike the Balance between Anime Plugsuit but still being noticeably Magik and X-men.

I kept the Bright yellow Color scheme with hints of black and red and chose to interpret her Armored arm into a Mechanized oversize cybernetic arm that helps fuel her Plasma Powered Soul sword that springs forth from her Gauntlet."

Isaiah Cox | @/isaiahbeenlost

"When designing my Magik look, I wanted to expand on ideas I had when drawing her a couple years ago by keeping her look sleek, yet scary stylish! So, I referenced a lot of Castlevania and Yoshiaki Kawajiri designs to get that cool anime look for her down! I plucked some fashion inspirations for the costume from places like: Mugler, Alexander McQueen, LaQuan Smith, JRPG rogues and medieval accessories! And for her new soul sword, I decided to give her an Odachi because since she already lived her Cloud Strife fantasy starting from the Bendis-era, I thought it was time for her to live her Sephiroth moment with this giant Japanese sword!"

David J Hughes | @/0ddeity

"I think with Magik I started out pretty traditional for her. Then I got to thinking our Russian Queen deserves a Mugler-esque fit. I wanted to go down the knight or warrior route, but then I thought ‘What If’ this was an AU Illyana raised by Patch and she got all of Logan’s training rather than Kitty and Jubilee, or, alongside them. So, bham, Oni-demon menpo mask and samurai elements on top of the Mugler flair."

Fleshmonk | @/fleshmonk

"Went through a bunch of design iterations, but settled on this cool plasticky vinyl plugsuit like version of Magik. I gave her a bob to mature her a bit and to move her towards a new silhouette."

Joshua Bruckner | @/joshingtonbear

"I took a bit from Magik's more armored designs, which I've always liked the most, and her goth jock aesthetic, and blended them. I rejected the Bachalo booty shorts in favor of a skirt, which gives her a bit of a 'cheerleader from hell' look."

Seye Sanyaolu | @/seye_art

"My intention for this redesign was Magik in a very dystopian future and so I imagined a 3/4 darkchylde Illyana that is in control of her self and powers (although almost lost it). In this future, most of the X-Men are gone and Illyana keeps a worn and frayed X-jacket on for the nostalgia :’)"