#magical-religious quandaries

[betterbooksandthings]

The Phoenix King by Aparna Verma

The Phoenix King by Aparna Verma is the perfect slice of sci-fi/ fantasy for anyone longing to sink their teeth into a world filled with political intrigue and magical-religious quandaries. Here, the right to rule comes from the Phoenix who gifts her rulers with the ability to handle flames, but the burden of flames comes with a price. Elena Aadya Ravence is a princess coming into her power as the next ruler on the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday. With rebels threatening the peace in the streets and armies encroaching on their borders, Elena is determined to do anything she can to secure the throne, from an engagement to the commander of a small private army to backdoor political maneuvering to attempting to control the flames that define her family’s right to rule. Her father, Leo Malhari Ravence is preparing his kingdom for his daughter’s rule and he is willing to do anything to control his kingdom and ensure her safety. Finally, Yassen Knight is an ex-assassin who joins the princess’s guard and gives up his old organizations secrets in exchange for a pardon that could give him the free life he longs for. It will be up to the princess, king, and assassin to ensure peace in freedom in the kingdom if they don’t succumb to the very things they are desperately trying to control.

I am going to be honest when I say this is an excellent book with a complex magic system and a well-thought-out religious/ governmental system. The politics behind the political unrest is clear and each character has a clear point of view that fleshes out the world. All that being said, my personal tastes tend to lean a bit funnier and romantic. I don’t need every other line to be a joke, but I tend to enjoy having at least one character that breaks some of the dramatic tension. I also went into the book believing that the romance subplot was going to be a bit bigger than it was. This book had a whisper of a romantic subplot at the end with some mild yearning sprinkled in. Given the ending, I imagine Book Two will cover the impact of the romantic subplot introduced in Book One. That is all to say this is not a particularly funny or romantic book and that is completely fine. Sci-fi fantasy books with heavy political intrigue and complex magic systems are in demand and I think a slow-paced book like this one is perfect for those readers.

Thank you Orbit Books for providing me with an arc for an honest review in anticipation of the release of The Phoenix King by Aparna Verma set to come out August 31, 2021.

[lesbiansforboromir]

Alright, I saw too many posts about DA4 and the pressure valve on dragon age opinions burst so I'm breaking my silence about mage discourse.

One day someone at bioware, can't remember who, made the worst possible PR decision and openly declared mages as an allegory for mental illness. It has all been downhill from there. Quite literally I could not be less interested in treating mages and mental illness as even tangentally related. Within the canon of DA, mages are people who literally have demons speaking to them, can literally become possessed by demons, and who are literally dangerous in extremely real and unavoidable ways even without the demon stuff. Lobotomies not only exist, but also work, the 'tranquil' are no longer plagued by the demons, nor do they have the powers of fireball anymore. It's like they called the 1300's and asked a witch hunter to write this.

And I am absolutely certain this framing is extremely cathartic for some people to relate too. Themactically speaking, turning all the dials up on a social issue for a fantasy world will always resonate with many of the victims of that issue. There is something impactful about taking all the insane stereotypes society has created around your lived experience, deciding they're real in an imaginary world and then playing out scenarios where you deal with them. God only knows gay people love vampires and werewolves.

But in that case it also has to be understood that others will not like it, or find it cathartic at all. The sticking point for me is probably the fact that mages are immensely powerful, something I find so egregiously unrelatable that any possible power fantasy it might be tempting me into just evaporates. And then of course there is Tevinter, which if we're following the allegorical logic is a state ruled by the mentally ill whom have 'embraced their demons' and so are now ruling an empire built on the enslavement of the 'pure' and 'untainted undemonic' population. Which I feel like, if we're weighing the mage narrative on the merit of it's being a cathartic themactic framing, is stretching the concept quite thin.

So I've always experienced mage based narratives as entirely seperate from their irl allegories at least emotionally, even if cognitively I do understand the parallels. And when you look at it like that, so sorry, it actually is a grey moral issue. If there were people in real life who could, without any additional equipment or technology, just create a fire/lightning storm from thin air, that on it's own would be a problem society would have to grapple with solving. You could not just let people with such power live under the same rules as everyone else. Like Wynne as a child nearly burned a barn down and scarred another child. These are not hypothetical issues within the canon.

And somewhat unrelated side tangent but I've seen people say, without an ounce of irony, 'magic doesn't kill people, people kill people' as an argument against the need for magic control. Which is just a fascinating framing all by itself, given the only difference between guns and DA magic is that one is an external tool and the other is built into select people. AND given that witholding gun licenses from the so called 'mentally disturbed' is an often advocated for policy... it's just kind of ironic is all!

Anyway the POINT is this is kind of frustrating to me because technically the mages COULD be a fun little play pretend thought morality experiment. This IS a difficult problem to solve, DA rightly engages with the fact that any institution created to control a subsection of people will create an environment of horrific abuse and dehumanisation. And that is only doubled with the introduction of religious control. When presented neutrally this is a 'do you sacrifice the few for the sake of the many' quandary with a lot of interesting caviates. IS it for the sake of the many? Would the actual number of people harmed by mages really exceed the number of mages themselves? Are we not just sacrificing the peace and freedom of many people for a hypothetical? But IS it a hypothetical since the slaver empire ruled by mages exists? But the hypothetical in the other direction isn't a hypothetical either, since the mage rebellion also exists and arguably did greater harm than free mages might have otherwise! But is that true? What about all the years worth of people in history hypothetically saved from harm by the strict control over mages? Isn't pushing for a more ethical circle a better plan than total abolishion? But is an ethical circle even possible given the cultural position mages hold? But in that case are free mages really going to be able to lead peaceful lives anyway? Doesn't the circle also protect them? But that is a situation the circle created and enforced right? Or is it? Since, once again, Demons definitely exist and mages have become possessed by them for centuries, and other mages have used their powers to dominate and abuse others in the past!

Theoretically, two people with exactly the same humanitarian purposes could argue the opposite ends of this debate in good faith, which is a fantasy. Because in the real world no one is born with a body inherrently able to cause more harm than the majority of other bodies. In fact, the opposite is true, people are born with more vulnerable bodies than the majority and are oppressed for it, their vulnerability taken advantage of by the dominant states in order to further those state's agendas in some way or other. Oppression does not have a 'good reason' to exist that originates from the oppressed class, those supposed reasons are fabricated after the fact to justify oppression in the minds of the general populace whom hold themselves to moral standards that a State does not. So, inherrently, the mages in DA are a fantasy idea and should be thought of as such.

But, amongst many DA fans, this is not the case. We've all seen people argue without irony that NOT taking a moral stance on the side of the mages and against the circles reflects badly upon your actual IRL moral compass. And it's not just that you cannot be pro-templar, even being neutral about it or finding the pro-mage characters or the mage narrative uninteresting is treated as an immoral action. People will ask things like 'who would even side with Meredith?' or 'does anyone even save the templars in DAI?' as if the choices you make narratively in a game have to be a moral judgement! Which we all know is nothing new in terms of fandom discourse, but within the mage/templar discussion it is so pervasive and so volatile that it makes it worth noting.

And like, obviously 'people get too serious about fiction on the internet' is such a non-issue that it's barely worth talking about. But I do find it interesting nonetheless as it's been a major part of my experience of being in the DA fandom, which now spans longer than a decade of my life (screams).

People have told me that I shouldn't treat this narrative theme as debatable because they relate to mage struggles as an autistic. And at the time I was pretty young and didn't really have a response to that other than a vague but powerful sense of discomfort. Nowadays, when I'm pretty sure I'm also autistic, I realise I was made deeply uncomfortable by the idea that there was anything relatable for me within the mage narrative. I do not have magic powers and I can't blow people up with my mind, I can't even get out of bed most days. Most people feel like mages to me just for being able to work a job or take care of themselves without help. And narratives of oppression that surround people with inherrent powers that far exceed anyone else just do not resonate! Which ultimately is just a reinforcement of the concept that the way people engage with fiction is not equivalent to actual real social issues, and really should not be treated as such.

[venushorned]

In the last year and a half, Gossamer had seen many strange things indeed. Abyssal creatures of all shapes and sizes, undead illithid, beholders so ancient they fancied themselves gods—but nothing quite like him. When the being—entity?—man?—turned to appraise her with a skeletal visage, she didn’t startle, exactly, but she felt her heart hammer a little harder for a few moments. Unsettling, perhaps. But not threatening. 

“I’m glad to hear that. I’ve been well, thank you—and no, no trouble.” She laughed softly, reaching up to worry at her lower lip with her thumb and index finger. “Your name was Connor, is that right?”

It struck her as rather odd to call someone so extraordinary by a name that she knew to be rather mundane by surface standards, but most skeletons had mundane names, she supposed. You just didn’t often carry on polite conversation with them.

“If it isn’t too much trouble, I have a bit of a… quandary to which I’d prefer an arcane solution over a religious one.” Everyone kept telling her to talk to Declan, or at least to seek out another cleric if she was so inclined, but she didn’t want help from the gods—perhaps the Raven Queen least of all.

“How familiar are you with magic that concerns souls?”

"Gossamer."

Her name is repeated back to her, in exactly her voice, except it was from exactly those few weeks ago. A name he made an effort to memorize. And clearly he did--he carried a figurative fragment of her within him.

Turning on their heel, the undead sees her again, and yes--he does remember her. Now not just by voice, but by appearance. He recalls his first impression of her, of how she was such a beautiful color, and how her eyes were quite captivating. He remembers how she carried herself, too.

The Blackstaff Academy was quite pleasant to work with, all things considered. Magic casters, especially the wizards, were far kinder and open minded to the notion of a skeleton with an alien inside of it wandering around its halls. They welcomed Connor among their ranks quite openly after garnering a decent reputation and a good word from Laerel Silverhand, funnily enough.

"Yes. I remember you. I remember you quite clearly." Connor speaks, tilting their head in such a way to indicate curiosity. For a brief second, his 'eyes' flicker, red pinpricks appearing within his sockets.

"It's been some time. I hope you are okay. Hopefully you haven't gotten into too much trouble since we last spoke?"

So far, nothing about her appears to have changed. But that's only on the exterior. At least she still had her skin. That was a win, right? He'd like to think so.

"What can I do for you?"

[avelera]

Spoilers for "Thor Love and Thunder" but regarding Gorr's choice...

... to bring his own daughter back to life instead of, say, healing Jane I can't imagine of version of him doing so that would be in character?

Jane is enough of a god that when she dies, she disperses into golden light. For Gorr's final wish to be to give Thor, a god, his lover's health back by curing her disease or even (ignoring Thor) to give a godly woman her health back as his final act (when the option to save his own child is possible), would be an utter betrayal of everything he has stood for.

By refusing to continue fighting Gorr but instead deciding to spend his possibly final moments with Jane, Thor reminded Gorr of what really matters in life. He moved the needle from vengeance over the death of his daughter to reminding Gorr that with all the power of the universe at his disposal, he could instead remove the need for his own vengeance. But in my opinion, it would be hugely unrealistic for Gorr's revelation in that moment to move the needle all the way from vengeance to helping his enemy, another feckless god, at the expense of his own child.

The rules of how Eternity works as far as the limitations of the wish are vague. In theory, Gorr could have wished that nothing bad has ever happened ever or that he and Jane would both be cured and his daughter brought back. But even phrasing it like that I think reveals an implied limitation: there is no "and" possible. You get one (1) wish. He can't cure himself and bring back his daughter, he can't cure Jane and bring back his daughter.

I think Gorr makes the only choice that a loving parent can realistically make. In the absence of an "and" being possible in the wish, he wishes for his child's life at the expense of his own and certainly at the expense of his recent enemy's life.

In my opinion, by making the choice to save his daughter, Gorr does a correct thing. Maybe not the "right" thing because it's a moral quandary of an impossible situation that can only come up because this is a magical sci-fi story. (How many people does he save? How many people can he save? It doesn't matter because a magical wish to bring people back to life doesn't actually exist in the real world.)

Gorr isn't a good guy. We have no indication he was what we call a "hero" even before his daughter died. Our few in-text hints indicate he was a religious fanatic who only had doubts once his daughter died of privation in the desert and then he met his idiot god. There's nothing that occurs in his journey or after it to indicate he would ever make a selfless choice with that wish. Granted, it's hard to know the details of his personality because everything he does with the god-slaying sword is of dubious motivation since it's heavily implied he's mostly just a vessel for its will the entire film. Thor being able to push the needle from "vengeance" to "save your daughter with the wish" encapsulates the entire arc of morality we've seen from Gorr, there's no indication his moral compass has anything beyond those two directions.

From an in-text philosophical angle too, assuming the wish could only be for one thing to change, one person to be healed or brought back to life, IMO saving a child who died far too young, who died a refugee in the desert, is a worthy use of the wish. And it's the only one I can realistically see Gorr making. Assuming he'd go all the way to forgiving and saving his godly enemies is just a bridge too far. It would, IMO, show the hand of the author more than anything else. It would appease the audience who loves Jane but at the expense of the internal consistency of the character. It would be so obviously about saving Jane instead of doing what the character we've seen to that point would do. For Jane's salvation to be the outcome, presumably, we'd need Thor to have made the wish instead, which would only raise a hundred questions of why he didn't bring back everyone he's lost, or why only Jane. The Pandora's Box of questions of "why Thor made that wish" would be endless, whereas with Gorr's limited screen time there is no question, there's only one choice he could make.

From a Doylist angle too, to briefly switch gears, Natalie Portman was done with the MCU. She's been done for years but came back to make one film and do justice to her character who has been poorly written in every other iteration. She got an epic, memorable exit. I'm entirely at peace with it, personally, as a storyteller myself. And as a storyteller, there's just no way to expand the possibilities of the Eternity wish without inviting a thousand more in-universe questions of how best to use it. Heck, people are still scrapping about the Avengers undoing Thanos's snap and if they did the right thing by bringing everyone back but not, say, winding back the clock so it never happened or bringing back their non-snapped dead loved ones as well.

The minute you introduce universe-altering powers that can overcome death, you're playing with fire as a creator, a fire that risks undermining all the sacrifices and deaths in your story up to that point. Giving Gorr the wish, making it clear Gorr had only one possible wish he could make once he turns from vengeance but doesn't turn all the way towards global altruism or Christ-like forgiveness of his recent enemies, you allow the magic of the plot device to exist without undermining everything else.

I completely understand people who are sad about Jane. She's built up as a wonderful person in this film. She could do so much good as The Mighty Thor. That's important because we should feel the tragedy of her death. That's just good storytelling. But I personally would have let out a gasp of outrage in the theater if Gorr had picked her over his own daughter, for all the reasons listed above. Natalie Portman was never coming back for another film. There's a slim chance that any director besides Taika would have remembered to include her character in future iterations, much less done her any justice if we're going by the treatment of other MCU love interests. She was never going to headline her own franchise nor would the actress have wanted to. From a Watsonian and Doylist perspective, this was an excellent exit for her. It was dignified, emotional, memorable, and magical. To have spent the wish on her instead of an innocent child would have cheapened the entire narrative. At least, that's my take.

[angeltuesday]

Stories that I have been and still am utterly obsessed with

An in posterity list of all the fics that have caused me to read on buses, not study and take extra long walks to think about.

The Life and Times by Jewels5 - The one the only. Opened the flood gates. A religious experience and the first fan fiction I ever read. Theres just something magical about it.

And the Wolves All Cry by monroeslittle - All i can say is I started this at night during dissertation season, read it on the bus to the library and for hours at the library, then gave up before even opening my dis and went home to keep reading.

The Bet by @smileyjily  - j'adore. so so many great themes, games and side characters. Marlene’s articles have a spacial place in my brain.

An Unhealthy Fixation With Aurors by Oynnej - An A* plot and the most badass Lily Iv come across.

What Are You Doing To Me? by @tiffanytoms - Had me in a chokehold. Would cheek updates daily. Perfect ratio of smut, angst, mystery and fluff.

Stay Here Tonight by monroeslittle - Every single thing Monroeslittle writes in insanely good. Muggle Lily and wizard James au

Sunshine in My Eyes by monroeslittle - Same applies. James and Lily are childhood friends. Another Lily being incredibly badass story.

Love and Other Tragedies by Fancyeyes - Fantastic plot, strong Lily and one of the best oc’s ever created.

All Over Again by Lili Evans dotcom - Cant really remember but there was an epic twist and if something makes me cry it makes the list.

We Used to be Friends by baguette2016 - I love Jily and Veronica Mars is my favourite TV show. 

Among Her Least Favorite People by NajwaBarlaam - The first half of this just did something to me (I love pain apparently) I didn’t love where the second half went and maybe thats why I obsessively thought of other ways it could have gone.

Runaway Love by WhtChoc - I think I had just read one too many sweet canon stories and this was a shock to the system that rocked me. Very different from the usual Jily. Less a Jily story more just a story

If We Never Meet Again by thequibblah - I was in a fanfic slump and thought that maybe I had just read everything I was going to like when I stumbled across this and read it until it got light.

One shots/drabels 

Filthy by knapsackparachute - I want more. Smut with moral quandary?...

Vindicated by @missgryffin - I Want MORE. A* plot and second chance jily.

the stones that slow your feet by @argyledpenguin aka Monroselittle -  If its not already clear I am in love with everything she writes.

Let's do something you're not supposed to by Oynnej - all of Oynnej’s stuff in quickly fun.

Tempestuous by Jasu - Cant super put my finger on it but I read it then forgot the name and then spent an hour trying to find it so it must have had a something something to it.

WIP’s 

Secret Keeper by missgryffin - Im currently obsessed with, the one im checking up on compulsively and waking up to read when the notifications comes in late at night.

and all the pieces fall by - @downn-in-flames Had to google synonyms for obsessed: hounded, tormented, consumed and bedevilled.

These Cruel Delights by @chiechie97 - I grew up in fashion and its fun to see a world I know + the chemistry is hot.

Come What May by @cesays - More synonyms beguiled and bewitched. A Moulin Rouge au

Controlled Addiction by @hogwartslivy - Love the concept, imagery and drama.

to love, softly by @theesteemedladydebourgh - Only two chapters but Im hooked

Eternal Summer by missgryffin - So fun to see a Hogwarts fic where they are actually a couple and not just the build up.

Tiny Miracles by Chiechie97 - Love me a surprise baby

Stories from other ships that are too good not to include 

The Fallout by Everythursday- No words, one of my favourite things ever written, ever! I could go on for days about how brilliant it is but I but also couldn’t t because id cry. I didn’t ship dramione before reading it and I still don’t really but I ship everythursday’s version INTENSELY.

Have Heart, My Dear by monroeslittle - Hunger Games au

I dreamed you a sin (and a lie) by monroeslittle - The 100 mafia au with undercover Bellamy and Clark

Love is Not a Whisper (or a weakness) by monroeslittle - The 100 au

[nobloodneeded]

Dragon Age: Ah, here you see the dilemma. Do you side with the templars, defenders of humanit--

Me: Do you mean the oppressive regime that imprisons and arbitrarily lobotomizes humans and elves who are born with a quirk; this duty based solely on an interpretation of a religion?

Dragon Age: -- vigilant, strong, incorruptible --

Me: Every single one of them is drug-fear-and/or-hate-addled and are quick to turn to genocide, claim superiority by divine right, and many are incredibly abusive and it is sanctioned. 

Dragon Age: Or, like...the mages. Who have the potential to be really evil! (Never mind their systemic abuse)

Me: Doesn't anyone have that potential? Don't you think the system itself, as has been systematically proven, causes the most turnaround of abominations? Who wouldn't turn to dark arts to free themselves of a prison system they were born into by no fault of sin or corruption, but by virtue of existence? The story of mages is allegorical to the plight of POC and queer people. I have sympathy for the ones true abominations hurt, but... this is not as big a moral quandary as you think it is. Mage equality, mage rights. Changing the infrastructure of religious oppression to secular education would probably see the end of most abominations and blood magic used for nefarious purposes. You really think I'm going to support the corrupt church and ITS COPS?

Dragon Age: ...do you want to see Cullen again?

Me: ...give...us...Anders...back...

[dulcieseptimus]

okay, harrow the ninth thoughts incoming. 

i’ve said it 10,000 different ways already to any one who will listen but. I love harrow SO MUCH. i love gideon, too (and didn’t realize how much i missed her until she finally popped back up nine months late with starbucks to yell at me for not lifting weights), but harrow has wormed her way into a special place in my heart like no character has before. I won’t bore any one with stories about my bouts with teenage psychosis but watching harrow, alone, struggling with her hallucinations and suicide ideation and GRIEF that she doesn’t even understand where it comes from...the parts of this book that made me cry the hardest were for her. I love her like the daughter I’ll never have. she is poor little meow meow defined. I really enjoyed the dungeon trawler puzzles of gtn, but harrow the ninth finally gave me what I wanted from this series!! the in depth magical theory! THE DREAM HOPPING!!! religious references! moral quandaries! dyke drama! I loved the perspective changes and a look into all these alternate realities, and that we finally got a better look at some of the other schools of necromancy also I LOVE that this book gave us the opportunity to really get to know some of the b cast. it really highlighted the tragedy of the first book. like, abigail pent...what a waste!!!!!!!! I have lots of ortus thoughts but I think that’ll get its own post i also have LOTS of dulcie and cytherea thoughts, again (another post is being drafted as we speak), and i was so pleasantly surprised we finally got to meet the real dulcinea. she is so much more delightful and weird and spiteful and yet her and cytherea are so much alike and they’ll never know it!!! god i love her. manic pixie nightmare girl. this time i was more along for the ride than trying to figure out what the hell was going on behind the scenes, but i am proud of myself for figuring out pretty early one what was going on with cytherea and gideon-original-flavor. although by the time we got to THAT reveal i had totally forgotten about it because so much shit had happened!!! i also figured that the body was A.L. pretty early on because, well, who else could hold that much power over a necromancer than their cavalier? still lots of mystery there especially now that harrow has ? taken her place ? not to mention all the comments from mercy and augustine calling her a monster and terrifying speaking of them--loved the lyctors, loved how perfectly awful they were. as before, my only complaint is I really, really, really, really hate all the meme references. sorry. i think they were fine in places but especially during the last half the book it just completely brought me out of serious scenes. it really does come across less as a natural part of character speech and more like the book is scared of being ‘too serious.’ like there are other genuinely comedic scenes (john trying to give harrow the Talk, for one) that you don’t have to add an internet meme reference to get a laugh out of the audience. that being said. wow. what a fun, exciting, soul rending piece of sci-fi literature that at its heart is really about death and grief and the indomitable tenacity of the human spirit.

I still don’t know how I feel about the ending but I’m withholding judgment until I can read Nona (which yes, is already preordered lol). now I still have to read through the BOE brief and Judith’s letters, and then the short story about Pal and Camilla’s teenage hijinks. I’m debating whether or not to read the sneak peak for Nona but I think I’d rather wait until I can read it all at once.

[thusspoketrish]

Words Are Very Unnecessary

TW: Dark fic; Angst; mental illness; mention of past suicide attempt; implied self-harm; scarring; psychiatric ward; unethical medical practices/harm; inappropriate patient/doctor/staff interactions; shifting tenses

Created for the prompt Pretend for @drarrymicrofic

Title taken from Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence

3.3K words. This is something that I may consider coming back to expand on in the future. READ ON AO3.

A heartwarming thank you to @starlitsilvereyes for the thorough beta!

When Healer Robins announces that Harry will not be carrying out his final rotation at St Mungo’s, he’s shocked. He’s done everything he can within the last few months to prove himself capable: he’s completed his clinical rotations with commendations, he’s saved lives, he’s brought coffee and donuts in from his favourite bakery in Diagon every Friday, and he’s even played nice with the first-year Trainee Healers. But as Healer Robins announces his fate, Harry not only feels the bottom of his stomach fall—he can practically feel the smug smile burning a hole into the back of his head from his colleague, competitor, and overall pain in his arse, Blaise Zabini.

“I’m sorry Harry, but Blaise has already proven quite successful with some of the patients in Janus Thickey. I’m afraid that if we remove him, many of the patients will respond negatively to the change,” Healer Robins says, aiming a warm smile at Zabini.

“And you have a muggle vehicle, that James Bond-looking thing, am I right, Harry?” Zabini asks.

Harry turns to face him. He hates to admit it, but Zabini looks attractive in the lime green robes—but everything about him is stylish, with his broad shoulders, his fancy clothing under his robes, his stylish haircut. Too stylish for a Healer, Harry thinks glumly, staring down at his beat-up trainers he’s had for three years now. Harry grimaces as the other man smiles widely at him. He’d wager his entire Gringotts vault that Zabini has charmed a tooth to twinkle when he smiles like that.

“Yeah, why?” Harry grunts. He doesn’t want to show just how disappointed he is over missing out on the Thickey Ward, but he’s never been that great at compartmentalising his feelings.

“You’ll need one where you’re going,” Healer Robins says.

--------

As soon as Harry pulled his sleek black ’52 Jaguar XK-120 (a result of his quarter-life crisis earlier in the year) into the driveway of St Peter’s Asylum, the 16th century estate sends a chill up his spine. He exits his car and ambles around the property for a while, wanting to gain a better sense of his new work environment. There’s a 25-mile-long anti-Apparition ward surrounding the property and no Floo Network connection. Everything about the property felt duplicitous. The beautiful large bay windows were covered excessively with sharp, pointy metal bars, stained-glass depicting religious iconography were covered in grime and spiderwebs. The columned archway framing the front entrance has cracks in them and are covered in rotting foliage. Behind the estate is a crematorium where ominous black smoke currently poured from the vents, spilling upward into the grey sky. He should have known then that something was amiss.

After a confusing meeting with Head Healer Madison, a quick introduction to the nurses and orderlies, Harry is shown to his small, gloomy office. Settled in, when he finally glanced through the files of his new patients, he nearly spilled his coffee on the pile.

He did not expect to see Draco Malfoy on his rota.

He can recall the last time he saw Malfoy, right after the trials, when Harry’s testimony wasn’t enough to save him completely from time in Azkaban, but anything after? He can’t. He does not recall exactly how much time Malfoy served—had it been three years or four? Did he receive early release or was that his father? How had Harry simply put Malfoy out of his mind after everything they had both been through? How had Zabini not warned him Malfoy would be in a psychiatric ward? Did he even know?

All these questions left a sour taste in Harry’s mouth. He had asked Healer Madison to give Malfoy’s file to a different Healer due to the conflict of interest, but there were no other Healers that would take Malfoy, and so Harry was left with a quandary: either help Malfoy or they’ll send him back to Azkaban, untreated, to serve out the rest of his sentence.

Malfoy’s file was as depressing as Harry imagined it to be.

Malfoy was considered a permanent resident on the ward, but the history is muddled as to why he’s been labelled permanent if his psychiatric care was part of his early release requirements from Azkaban. The threadbare treatment plan had no end goals or date to reintegrate Malfoy into Magical society. The file simply read of an attempted suicide in Azkaban, manic depression, and tendencies towards excessive violence to not just himself but those around him when angered—this was one of the reasons Healers refused him care. He had apparently injured the last three, one almost fatally. He’s been kept heavily medicated, but lately has been refusing treatment. The nurses have been providing the necessary potions intravenously.

Malfoy also hasn’t uttered a single word to anyone—not staff or other patients—for over two years.

From the gossip that the nurses regularly indulged in, Harry was able to learn that Malfoy befriended a young Scottish man named Ziggy and an elderly woman named Lottie that was also considered mute and antisocial. Ziggy had died exactly over two years ago under mysterious conditions and his body was sent to the crematorium instead of autopsied by the local Medical Examiner. When Harry had brought this oversight to Healer Madison, he had been scolded and suspended for three days for viewing files not assigned to him. She threatened to send him back to St. Mungos if he continued to work on the files that have been sealed by the Chief Healer, which would result in him failing his final rotation.

This, of course, further fuelled Harry’s interests.

-------

Harry began to watch Draco’s condition much more closely.

The other man still wouldn’t utter a word to Harry, and sometimes he wondered if Draco even recognised who he was sitting in front of, his eyes unfocused, body slumped in his chair with his bandaged arms wrapped around his body, his long blond hair falling to his shoulders in messy clumps.

Harry began to discover bruises around Draco’s wrists when they’d meet for sessions. When they began to appear around Draco’s neck, and finally, his left eye, Harry calmly enquired about it, and this sent Draco into a silent, violent frenzy. Draco had shoved most of the contents on Harry’s desk to the floor, thrown books at the walls, and ripped one of his bandages free to viciously dig his nails up and down his arm. Harry had to call a CODE RED as he scrambled to unlock his wand from the warded drawer of his desk to Stupefy Draco before he reopened all his wounds. It was the first time Harry had seen any kind of real reaction from the other man and quite frankly, it scared the hell out of him. He had watched helplessly as the orderlies rushed in to gather Draco’s limp body from the floor.

Later that day, he approached Healer Madison.

“I’d like the evaluation forms for any other medical treatments Mr Malfoy is having here,” Harry had demanded. She had popped her gum in Harry’s face before rolling her eyes at his request.

“Those records are private, Potter. For the Chief Healer’s eyes only,” she had said.

“Well, I need the evaluation forms as well. I should be aware of any changes in treatment methods, considering Malfoy is one of my patients.”

Healer Madison patted Harry on the shoulder. “Relax, Potter. No need to be such a bloody worry-wort. Code reds happen all the time here. You’ll soon come to realise how we do things at St Peter’s.”

-------

Harry left the hospital at 5pm every day. Like clockwork, when he’s just about to get into his car, he’ll look up to the third-floor window of the recreation room where he’ll catch Draco staring down at him through the slats of the bars. Each time, the monster in Harry’s chest that’s begun to grow with Harry’s concern and affection for Draco, roared to life. He knew it would be just a matter of time before Draco ended up dead if Harry did not figure out what’s going on in this hospital.

--------

On a particularly cold, grey day in October, one month into Harry’s rotation at St Peter’s, Harry enters the third-floor recreation room. All of Harry’s patients have been improving greatly, Draco in particular. Intravenous treatment ended a week ago as he’s now more cooperative in taking his medication by mouth. His self-harming had eased somewhat, but there were still bad days that Harry monitored closely. Draco interacts with staff and his friend Lottie again, sitting next to her to watch the Muggle telly or just holding her wrinkled hand as they both stare out the window. His grey gaze seemed stronger, more focused, determined, even. It made Harry happy to see a sliver of the person he once knew shining through, and he hoped it would just be a matter of time before Draco speaks, so Harry can help him.

Harry glances around the room. Soft music is playing from off the telly. There's plenty of places to sit, but he opts to walk over to the window where Draco is sitting and playing chess by himself. The man’s wrists are bandaged again, no doubt from picking at his scars. Harry can see a patch of blood through the gauze and wonders why none of the nurses have been around to replace them. He wishes he had his wand (which is locked in his office for safety reasons) so he can replace the bandage himself.

“Draco,” Harry starts warmly. “How are you doing today?”

Draco looks up from the board and Harry gasps. There’s another brutal black eye around his left eye, and the top of his lip is split. Harry reaches out, his fingers lightly touching Draco’s lips before grazing along his jaw. Draco remains very, very still under Harry’s touch, his lips parting slightly as his chest heaves. When Harry remembers himself, he snatches his hand back as if he’s been burned.

“Who did this to you?” Harry hisses.

For a moment, Draco’s eyes turn incredibly bright as he exhales a phlegmy breath before his gaze shutters. Harry sits on the opposite side of the board, staring down at it as Draco takes one trembling hand to move his black bishop to E5. Harry sighs.

“You can tell me, Draco. I…I want to help you. I know there’s something terrible happening in this hospital, and I know someone is hurting you. Please, Draco—”

Draco abruptly stands from his seat, startling Harry. Draco doesn’t pay him any notice as he stretches his long, rail-thin body before strolling up to the nurse’s station. He taps on the glass divider several times before Nurse Mathilde slides the panel open.

“What is it, Mr Malfoy?”

Draco mimes smoking a cigarette.

Nurse Mathilde purses her lips. “The Chief Healer has given you permission to smoke again, but not until 5pm and especially not without an orderly present. You’ll have to wait until then. No exceptions!” she snaps before slamming the panel shut.

Draco doesn’t come back to his board game, nor does he glance over at Harry.

Harry watches as he instead sits next to his friend Lottie who is staring at the only plant in the recreational room. He lifts her wrinkled hand and entwines it with his own before settling in to watch the plant with her.

---------

At approximately 5pm Harry exits the asylum, briefcase in one hand and car keys in the other. When he passes by one of the gnarled oak trees, he notices Draco leaning against it, blowing tendrils of smoke from his cigarette. Harry slows down to watch him.

Draco’s hip is cocked out, his hospital shirt bunched up slightly, exposing a sliver of pale flesh and a titillating v-line that disappears in his thin cotton hospital pyjamas. He’s properly beautiful—all long lines and sharp edges carved in delicate, alabaster marble. Harry has noticed just how clearer Draco’s eyes are now, how the grey is piercing, brimming with cleverness and an intelligence that reminds Harry of the boy he knew in Hogwarts.

Harry’s suddenly startled out of his reverence when he glances around and notices that Draco is currently unattended.

Harry decides to approach him.

“Draco. Are you out here by yourself? Where is your attending orderly?”

“He was recovering from the blowjob I gave him before I did this—” Draco says, his voice thick and raspy. Harry is so shocked to hear the familiar drawl that he stumbles forward, his eyes widening, realises too late that Draco has lunged towards him, left hand raised high to strike Harry on the side of his head with a large, jagged rock.

When Harry comes to, it’s with a sharp groan and with the sound of a string of complex Latin filling his ears. He grits his teeth as a burning sensation wraps around his wrist. He realises that he’s frozen on the ground by a particularly thorough Petrificus Totalus. Despite his throbbing head, he focuses enough to catch Draco at his side, hissing as a thin, red bracelet appears on his left wrist, the bandages now gone. Harry hasn’t seen his left arm exposed before, and he cries out as he takes in the horrific scarring over the Dark Mark, as if someone had tried to peel the Mark off with a scalpel and failed to dig deep enough. There were healed and freshly scabbed cuts from his wrist to his elbow on both arms.

Draco appears above Harry then. “Oh, good. You’re awake.”

There are streaks of dirt across Draco’s face, his hands, and under his nails.

“Please, Draco, whatever it is…don’t…don’t…”

Draco snorts. “What, don’t hurt you? Don’t kill you? Why would I harm the person I’m currently Bonded to?” Draco asks, lifting Harry’s wrist to his face. The red bracelet there matches Draco’s.

Panic seizes Harry immediately. Had he not been completely immobile, he sure he’d be shuddering. “What the hell is going on?” Harry asks, his voice shaking.

Draco drops his wrist and instead lifts a thick, taped together manila folder covered in dirt. “You’re helping me get the fuck out of here, Potter.” A smile breaks across Draco’s face then, making him look both incredibly beautiful and deranged. “It was as if you breathed life back into me, the day you walked through the doors of St Peter’s. I knew then that I had to hold on just a bit longer because surely it was a sign that my initial hard work wasn’t done in vain. You see this file here? I used to sneak out documents I’d gather from Madison, the Chief Healer, and the nurses proving the abuse. Some of the orderlies will let you do whatever you want if you can…provide the right services…and they would often leave me alone long enough for a smoke. I would hide the files here, Potter. But after Z-Z-iggy—” Draco’s excitable tone falters, a veil of sadness falling so quickly over his face Harry experiences a sense of whiplash. “They killed my friend, Potter. They treated Ziggy well before, even let him play Bowie when things weren’t so bad. They killed him during the experiments…”

“What experiments?” Harry asks, shocked.

Draco’s expression shifts once again to happiness. “I knew you wouldn’t be involved in something so gruesome.” He holds up his scarred arm. “On the Dark Mark and Purebloods who have come from Dark families. They’re trying to figure out how Dark Magic is entwined in a person’s DNA and…I don’t know…undo it.”

Harry’s eyes widens, mind beginning to race. “What?”

If the Healers here were literally using human flesh and blood to somehow recreate or understand the links between DNA and inherent Dark Magic, who knows what kind of torture and body modification they’re causing their subjects.

Draco eyes become manic. “You have to help me. You have to get me out of here in the next five minutes. My outdoor time is only half an hour and the orderly is currently passed out—”

“—Draco,” Harry whispers, interrupting Draco’s spiral. “How many others are there…how many other victims?”

“I don’t know, I swear. I just knew Ziggy personally but there would always be screams, so much screaming, so many voices…” Draco says, closing his eyes and swaying on the spot. He mutters softly, incoherently, to himself for a few moments before he opens his eyes, so grey, intense and bright. Harry is overwhelmed with shock, horror, and above all, disgust. Disgusted that the people he’s been working alongside for a month now, the people who have vowed first to do no harm, have been torturing their patients, vulnerable patients.

“Draco, I want to help you, okay? I will help you. You just have to undo the Petrificus Totalus. We’ll get in the car and just drive. I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”

Draco holds up Harry’s wand, points it at Harry’s face. “If you betray me, Potter, you’ll regret it. We’ll get in that fancy car of yours and you’ll drive until I say stop. If you do anything to prevent me from getting these files to the right people…if you try to get help from the Aurors or let your friends know what’s going on, I’ll off myself. And this bond here, this bond will take you with me. I’m the only one that knows the counter, and once we get to my final destination, I’ll release you. So, don’t you dare fucking try me.”

Harry bites back a gasp.

Despite his very real fear, Harry’s desire to help Draco outweighs it. He nods.

“Okay, whatever you want. I’ll do it.”

Draco’s face, dark with suspicion, slowly starts to slide towards something lighter. He bares his teeth. “I hold onto the wand. You’re not allowed to touch me, period, or else I might get the wrong idea that you’re trying to get your wand back, and I don’t want to have to hurt you, or worse, hurt myself.”

“Yes, okay.”

With a wave of Harry’s wand, Draco undoes the spell. Harry sits up slowly, so as not to alarm Draco, who has quickly scrambled to his feet, the dirty file hugged to his chest, wand still trained on Harry. Harry follows after him, head throbbing and legs unsteady.

Draco casts a healing charm his way before strengthening a Disillusionment Charm around them.

Feeling much steadier, Harry exhales. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry I hit you in the first place. I had no other means to incapacitate you.”

“You could have just told me what was going on.”

Draco shrugs. “I had to make sure you were trustworthy. And honestly, I’ve wanted to knock you out for years, so this very much fulfilled a boyhood dream of mine,” Draco says, his lips tugging upward. Harry pauses to look at him. The monster in his chest is awake, thrashing about as affection and desire feeds it.

Harry knows he’s fucked.

They make their way towards Harry’s car after checking on the unconscious orderly. Once settled in, Harry starts the car and drives, past the gates of the asylum and onto the stretch of empty country road. He glances at Draco, not at all shocked to see the tears that are streaming down his battered face.

“Where to?” Harry asks softly.

Draco continues to stare out ahead of him as he answers, “the only safehouse I know. A house on Spinner’s End, Cokeworth.”

Harry draws in a sharp breath.

[bestworstcase]

u mentioned zhan tiri has slipped a bit of herself into the world but is there an omniscient view she has on everyone to watch them throughout their journey or can she only infiltrate dreams/appear when summoned by mention of name or ritual?

so like. Most Gods (not zhan tiri) don’t. like, they’re not sitting around in the sublime realm watching things play out on the mortal plane - this is discussed a bit in the next chapter but the unknowableness kind of works both ways, people are just as alien and incomprehensible to gods as the reverse. the average god is aware of things within their sphere and in communication to varying degrees with the psyches of their followers, meaning a god might be aware of, say, a war in the sense that all of their acolytes are crying out to them in anguish but “war” and also “suffering” and “death” are all strange abstract concepts; even a literal god of war would not understand the physical reality of what a war is, only the marks it leaves in the souls of people touched by it and the ripples that creates within the god’s sphere. they are, as a collective, drawn to the profane realm but it is also fundamentally not something they can understand or even perceive in the way that we, as humans, think of perception.

zhan tiri was like this up until she ate ri ni’n and supplanted her as the cosmic bridge, which transformed her into this hybrid entity - so she exists on both planes simultaneously and has like an actual. physical body. (it’s a vast amorphous blob of Stuff the size of a galaxy but when she wants to appear on earth she just rips a chunk off and sculpts it into the shape she wants and goes to town, which is the kind of thing you can do when you’re a god.) and that comes with ✨sensations!✨ so in addition to perceiving the spiritual landscape the way all gods do zhan tiri can also see and hear and smell and feel and taste, and have emotions, and other fun mortal things like bogging herself down in ethical quandaries for centuries!

(she has never been able to consume enough alcohol to actually get herself drunk but this has NOT stopped her from trying, because she thinks it seems fun. dumpster fire god.)

anyway,

right now she’s stuck in the dark country, which in the most succinct terms is the Nothing where Everything Else isn’t. it’s a void. a negative space. from her perspective it is effectively a sensory deprivation tank that she has been stuck in for seventeen hundred years. sirin’s efforts in benighted 14 opened a teeny tiny hole for zhan tiri to peek through, and sugracha’s ritual in benighted 27 widened it to a crack and gave her a little more wiggle room. the appearances she’s made so far as a raven/marten/rotting shadow creature are kind of analogous to being stuck in a room and peeking through the keyhole or shoving your fingers under the door; it’s uncomfortable, frustrating, you can’t get anything done, and you can only get so far before the smallness of the gap stops you from going further. in benighted she was trapped within a radius of a couple dozen miles from janus point; in moonless air she’s anchored to cassandra, within a range of about fifty miles.

she is. not having a good time.

but! within that range she can appear wherever she wants both as just. pure magic (which humans experience as hallucinatory or dreamlike phenomenon) or a physical piece of herself (with a big raven being the upper limit in size because, again: fingers under the door). what kind of sensory information she gleans from these excursions depends on the form she takes—when she’s “looking” at things with magic what she “sees” is the spiritual landscape, and vice versa. it’s like a looking with eyes vs looking with hands sort of thing.

even when she’s free she’s also def not OMNISCIENT in any sense, but she does have the God Thing of always knowing when her name has been invoked and because she likes attention she (pre-imprisonment) was NOTORIOUS for showing up if you said her name. (tangentially this is also why religious cultures tend to have a lot of epithets and euphemisms for their gods; eg getting cathay’s attention when you’re not actually asking her for something can be, uh, dangerous, but saying “the bone hound” or “the desert beneath” is safe because you’re not, like, ‘paging’ her.)

[gameofdrarry]

Wizards Hearts Recs: 12 Grimmauld Place Setting

Wizards Hearts was a four-month-long Drarry reading fest. Players were given a playing deck of 52 tropes, and were asked to find 52 different fics to read and comment on to fill their decks. To prevent the same few fics from being read, fics were restricted to only being used for the game three times before being considered ineligible for further points. The tropes and submissions list can be found here.

Check out the masterlist of fics for this trope below the cut!

📜 Colliding By Design by Asterie Rated:  Explicit Words:  21491 Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Interior Decorating, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Witch Weekly, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Auror Harry Potter, Interior Designer Draco Malfoy, Hipster Wizarding London Summary:  Draco Malfoy has used his time under house arrest to launch a promising career in interior design, and Harry Potter has inherited a magical house in desperate need of renovation. It’s an age-old story, brought to you with a little “help” from Witch Weekly Magazine. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Only Ash Remains by Saulaie, shilo1364 Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  66870 Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-Hogwarts, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Slow Burn, Depression, Disability, invisible disibilities, Healing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, Grimmauld Place, Malfoy Family, Malfoy Family Feels, POV Harry Potter, Community: harrydracobang, Harry/Draco Big Bang 2018 Summary:  One year after Harry defeated Voldemort at the Battle of Hogwarts, he still has no idea what to do with his life. He’s been living at No. 12 Grimmauld Place with Hermione and Ron, but they’ve spent the past few months on an extended stay in Australia to try and restore Hermione’s parents’ memories. Alone, he feels set adrift. Everyone else is focused on enjoying their summer before Hogwarts reopens (after a one year rebuilding period), but without Ron and Hermione, Harry doesn’t know if he can go back. Everything changes when the Malfoys dramatically re-enter his life, and together they learn to live again. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 keep it down by warmfoothills Rated:  Explicit Words:  13657 Tags: Living Together, Housemates, omg they were roommates etc, Grimmauld Place, switching POVs, between the boys and ginny also gets a couple of interludes because we love her!, backyard quidditch, Yoga, Masturbation, references to draco/others, including blaise, not so accidental aural voyeurism, not so accidental aural exhbitionism, Clothes Stealing, shampoo borrowing, wall sharing, rugby and denial (harry), snobbery and slobbery regarding food (draco), Massage, a long hot summer, bit of breathplay, one small linny reference, it’s porn but i make you read 10k of faffing about first, an EXCESSIVE amount of parentheses, harry’s an idiot, draco’s only slightly less of an idiot Summary:  Malfoy’s an inconsiderately loud roommate and Harry’s over it. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 almost heaven by M0stlyVoid Rated:  Explicit Words:  12432 Tags: Sentient Magical House, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Malfoy Manor, House magic, Magical Theory (Harry Potter), Wizarding Culture (Harry Potter), Sex Magic, Rituals, Happy Birthday Tacky!!, Minor Character Death Summary:  Draco’s father dies. Harry’s house has a tantrum. When it turns out the two are related, Harry has to decide how far he’s willing to go to set his home to rights. And when Malfoy ends up looking like that, Harry finds he’s willing to go a lot farther than he ever thought he would. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 I could be wrong, I could be ready by harryromper Rated:  Mature Words:  57343 Tags: Post-Hogwarts, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-Second War with Voldemort, POV Alternating, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Pining, Romance, Gringotts Wizarding Bank, wizarding houses, House magic, Magic, Families of Choice, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Wizarding Traditions (Harry Potter), Magical Theory, Brooklyn, Roller Coasters, Socks, Quidditch Player Ginny Weasley, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Minor Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley, Minor Hannah Abbott/Neville Longbottom, Professor Neville Longbottom, Curse Breaker Bill Weasley, Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, Godric's Hollow, Hogwarts, Grimmauld Place, H/D Erised 2018, Community: hd_erised, Lovers to Friends Summary:  At first Harry wonders if they’ve managed to destroy his vaults and are trying to tell him in the most oblique way possible. But when he turns the page he realises they’ve found a vault. A vault in the name of Lily and James Potter. The parchment trembles a little in Harry’s hand. He takes another gulp of wine. Harry Potter left Britain after the war and didn’t look back. Ten years later, when Gringotts discovers a vault containing his parents’ belongings—including their badly spell-damaged wedding rings—he’s forced to face up to friends and family who’ve grown in ways he could never imagine, a wizarding London rebuilt beyond his expectations, and the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s the entirely unforeseen problem of Draco Malfoy. Featuring pureblood wizarding traditions, ancestral magic, open mic nights, marriage equality, a diner in Brooklyn, and the return of Fleamont Potter. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Modern Love by tackytiger Rated:  Explicit Words:  61322 Tags: Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World, Slow Burn, Oblivious Harry Potter, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, idiots to lovers, Politics, Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter), Songfic, Friendship, Found Family, Mentions of Cancer, References to Illness, Chemotherapy, references to canonical child abuse, references to canonical deaths, References to Depression, Drunkenness, Sad Harry Potter, Church Services, Hymns, Atheism, Kissing in Church, Religious Discussion, Light Angst, Boxing & Fisticuffs, Minor Injuries, Blood and Injury, Gay vicar, Original Character(s), Original Character Illness, Magical Theory (Harry Potter), Scars, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Minor Draco Malfoy/ Sexy Tall Vicar, Draco Kisses Someone Briefly That's All I Promise, Magic/Muggle Relations, Jealousy, Family Drama Summary:  Harry Potter, of all people, knows that life isn’t always fair. And no one gets to be happy all of the time. But surely there’s something more—something better—than a rubbish Ministry job, and a lonely old house, and that feeling that everyone out there is doing a better job of living than Harry is. And it really doesn’t seem fair that Draco Malfoy is back in Harry’s life, all of a sudden, and even though he’s wandless, and living with Muggles, and making his mother cry with his lifestyle choices, he’s happy. So what's he doing right, that Harry isn’t? Because things don’t really change, do they? And if Harry can’t be happy, he’ll settle for a good night’s sleep, some posh antiques, and the opportunity to find out what Malfoy has been up to for all these years. And that’s what starts it all. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 In Every Universe by skeptique Rated:  Mature Words:  27179 Tags: Dubious Consent, More Detailed Warning in End Notes, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-Hogwarts, Post-War, Several Dracos Malfoy, depiction of mental health issues, Depiction of Anxiety Attacks, Brief Mentions of Drowning (in a dream), Mystery, Multiverse, Parallel Universe, Canon Content Warnings Apply, Moral and Ethical Quandaries Abound, Implied Drug Use, alcohol use, Smoking, Biracial Harry Potter, Black Hermione Granger, Minor Character Death, A Very Light Sprinkling of Smut Summary:  They sent Professor Harry Potter to search for Unspeakable Draco Malfoy. Draco has stolen a Firebird, an experimental magical device from the Department of Mysteries that lets you enter parallel universes as yourself. As Harry traverses from universe to universe, he begins to think Draco might be the one searching for him. A story about whether knowing what's possible makes it possible. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Haunt the corner of my eye by harryromper Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  23358 Tags: Post-Hogwarts, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Mystery And Angst With A Happy Ending, Auror Harry Potter, Student Draco Malfoy, Healer Luna Lovegood, Wizarding Politics (Harry Potter), Number Twelve Grimmauld Place Summary:  Harry’s life is very much on track. After a successful career as an Auror, he’s set to become the youngest ever Minister for Magic. But strange things are starting to happen at Grimmauld Place. Items he doesn’t recognise are appearing left and right, and somehow he never feels quite alone. There’s only one thing Harry knows for sure: it has something to do with Draco Malfoy. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Portrait of a Marriage by glitteringvoid Rated:  Mature Words:  130626 Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Marriage of Convenience, Marriage Proposal, Domestic Fluff, Developing Relationship, Relationship Discussions, Enemies to Friends to Something More, Lack of Communication, Self-Discovery, Self-Esteem Issues, Consent Issues, Internalized Acephobia, Ferrets, Bickering, Asexual Draco Malfoy, Touch-Averse Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter Can't Cook, Slow Burn Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy & Pansy Parkinson Friendship, Harry Potter & Ron Weasley Friendship, Minor Hermione Granger/Pansy Parkinson/Ron Weasley, Post-Hogwarts, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, H/D Sex Fair 2020, Dubious Consent Summary:  Harry didn't want to marry Malfoy, he really didn't, but he also does want this house and Malfoy looked so smug and well - now they are married, and the house still doesn't like him, and Malfoy only looks more smug. Draco didn't want to marry Potter, he really didn't, but he also does want this house and he never seems to be capable of escaping Potter anyway, so if he is already doomed to being married off he might as well decide for himself what he is worth, sign the papers and ignore everything wrong with that plan until physically no longer possible. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Litany by thistle_verse Rated:  Mature Words:  7170 Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-Hogwarts, Pandemics, Quarantine, Isolation, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Wizard's Chess (Harry Potter), Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Touch-Starved, Drinking, Draco Malfoy in Azkaban, Ghosts, Guilt, Lists, H/D Erised 2020 Summary:  With the wizarding world on lockdown due to a magic-draining pandemic, Harry is stuck in Grimmauld Place, bored and alone—until the ghost of Draco Malfoy shows up to haunt him. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Cleaning Up The Mess by Samunderthelights Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  3469 Tags: Drarropoly: Founders Edition - A Drarry Game/Fest, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Falling In Love, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, 12 Grimmauld Place Summary:  Harry has been hiding away at 12 Grimmauld Place, trying his best to clean up the place. He has fallen into a quiet and boring routine. But when Draco shows up at his door one day, asking for his wand back, that quiet and boring routine of his is about to be broken. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 The Grimmauld Christmas Curse by crimsonheadache, inspired_being, kitty_collab (kitty_fic), Ladderofyears, Vaysh Rated:  General Words:  2323 Tags: Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Christmas Tree, Christmas Decorations, Aunt Walburga (portrait), Curse Breaker Draco Malfoy, Meme Insert Summary:  "I'm telling you, Hermione, the house is out to get me." Harry poured two cups of tea and passed one across the kitchen table. "Don't be ridiculous, Harry, it is not out to get you." Or is it? ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Distractions by pottergerms Rated:  Explicit Words:  2239 Tags: Grimmauld Place Summary:  Kingsley was not his friend. He was not a paperboy. And Harry Potter was definitely not the hottest thing alive. ❤️ Read on AO3

[prokopetz]

Random Dungeons & Dragons (and other fantasy tabletop RPG) resource #137: reasons why the party can’t buy the thing -- roll 1d20 or choose:

Local regulations require anyone who wishes to buy or sell the item or service in question to obtain the personal approval of a particular political or religious leader. How’s your schmoozing?

Local regulations require anyone who wishes to buy or sell the item or service in question to obtain permission from a particular bureaucratic institution and adhere to a complicated and onerous set of rules; the punishment for flouting them is severe.

A powerful regional organisation (guild, cult, mercantile concern, etc.) wields an absolute monopoly over the item or service in question. Dealing with them may be risky, or -- particularly for lawful or good parties -- pose sticky ethical quandaries.

The item or service in question can’t legally be provided to the party in particular, and anyone who does so will face considerable censure. What obscure law or taboo have they run afoul of?

The item or service in question is entirely prohibited by a local bylaw, religious taboo, or regional curse, forcing merchants and providers underground. There’s probably a story there.

The item or service in question is entirely prohibited by recent edict of the local ruler, and merchants and providers who deal in it have found themselves newly outlawed. There’s definitely a story there!

The merchant or provider lives somewhere extraordinarily inconvenient and keeps odd hours. Making the purchase may be easy enough, but being in a position to make it will be a challenge.

The merchant or provider is itinerant and travels a circuit of several communities. Maybe the locals know their next destination?

The merchant or provider will only deal with members of a particular guild, cult, or social club. Can the party get a member to act as a go-between, or will they need to obtain (or fake) membership themselves?

The merchant or provider requires an introduction or letter of reference from an existing customer before they’ll deal with the party. Who are their existing customers? Good question!

The merchant or provider refuses to accept gold, and wants a particular item or service in exchange. What are they after?

The merchant or provider hates the party’s guts for some unspecified reason, and refuses to deal with them. Persuasion or intimidation may be in order, but push it too far and the authorities will end up involved.

The entire local supply has been stolen by monsters or bandits (for goods) or the local provider(s) have been kidnapped by the same (for services). If the party wants to buy, a rescue mission is in order.

The entire local supply has been confiscated by the ruler (for goods) or the local provider(s) have been conscripted (for services). As above, but with more awkward explanations if the party gets caught.

A wealthy private individual bought up the entire local supply (for goods) or hired the local provider(s) for a long-term project (for services) shortly before the party arrived. Will they be willing to share?

A band of rival adventurers bought up the entire local supply (for goods) or hired the local provider(s) for a long-term project (for services) shortly before the party arrived. Are they after the same goal?

The item or service in question is readily available, but the merchant or provider proves to be a skilled con artist, confused ghost or mischievous fae. Can the party catch them in the act, or will they be obliged to give chase to get their money back once the deception comes to light?

The item or service in question is readily available, but the items carry strange magical quirks (for goods) or the provider is a magic-user with eccentric new ideas they’re just itching to put into practice (for services). Is it worth the hassle?

The local community obtains the item or service in question in an unconventional and typically magical fashion; for example, a party in need of weapons finds that the village has no weaponsmith, but in the foothills outside of town lies a grove where swords grow on trees, guarded by an ill-tempered but sleepy manticore.

The merchant or provider is powerful monster, who deals in strange coin. How did this arrangement come to pass?

The preceding entries are arranged into subtables so you can target specific types of inconveniences with suitable rolls, as follows:

Legal barrier: roll 1d6

Annoying or inconvenient provider: roll 1d6+6

Someone else has it: roll 1d4+12

The weird stuff: roll 1d4+16

[starting-today-you-are-a-writer]

WICKED SAINTS

1.5 stars out of 5 stars

 Summary: Kalyazin and Tranavia have been at war for untold decades, owning to a religious/magical feud where one side claims the other heretics and the other side invaded them for…power? A young woman, Nadya, blessed with powers by the gods flees when her monastery is destroyed by the warrior prince of a nation she is at war with. Running, she bumps into a mysterious blood mage, Malachiasz, and together the two of them plot to end the war between their countries.

 Overall:

 When I first opened the book, it seemed promising. Different viewpoints, an interesting magic system, the main character fleeing everything she had ever known to begin an adventure in the wider world.

 Except the book promised a fearsome cleric, an in depth look at monsters and a prince. And it only delivered on one of those things. Perhaps I was expecting the monsters or villains to be in the vain of Vicious (by VE Schwab) or even ala Forest of a Thousand Lanterns (by Juile C Dao) where characters with understandable motivations but dark ambitions and flaws ultimately struggle with their monstrosity and lose.

 Alas, this book did not even deal with any struggling of monstrosity, or even deal with the concept of monsters outside of “looks like a literal monster” and “betrays people.” But didn’t even examine whether or not “looking like a monster” was necessary or sufficient to be one.

 Not to mention, the cleric wasn’t fearsome, her actions felt contrived and very few characters in the entire novel actually had any clear motivations. The book felt very much like things happened because they were supposed to, instead of because that’s what the characters wanted or would have done. Not to mention the main romance was nonsensical. Sure, there’s enemies-to-lovers. This was not it. It was more like enemy lovers, except not one reason was ever give as to why this guy was appealing, and nothing about him was ever shown, only sometimes told, if that. Nadya felt drawn to her love interest Malachaisz, but not for any reason. Overall the book started strong but fell flat, and felt contrived and unable to hold my suspension of disbelief for even minor events.

Dislikes

Nadya and the Love Interest (Malachiasz)

I could write an essay on the problems here but the basic problem is that Nadya has no motivations, reasoning or rationalization for anything let alone for her attraction to her love interest Malachaisz. She meets him, decides she wants to kill him for being an evil blood mage, but then decides she doesn’t. She had already killed several Tranavian soldiers by this point, many weren’t evil blood mages and none of which brutally betrays her.

 Does she perhaps look at Malachiasz like many a lovelorn hero and think “what measure is a man or a demon? Can I really strike down someone who has not wronged me? Can I lift my blade and execute someone who may be innocent? And how to I think of innocence? He has fled from Tranavia, from a life of evil, is that enough? Is it enough to forsake his country for its evils if he does not embrace the gods? Would he change if only he knew the gods? Do Tranavians even have the chance to know them? With mercy could he change?” Nope! Not only are none of these things thought of, now only are no rationalizations provided for her feelings, but she does not even consider any of those points when she thinks of him or evil. She doesn’t consider his past and how he might have been tortured or not like the ability to use his powers. She doesn’t consider that all heretics are not evil. She doesn’t consider that people can be redeemed. No. Not once does she spend even one second trying to figure out a reason why she doesn’t want to kill him even though she has killed before. She ignores all those things, insists that he is evil and a blood mage and …. doesn’t want to kill him. For some reason.

 Does she even think “wow, with his pretty eyes, and his kindness towards me and his banging body, maybe, I mean, the monastery was very chaste but….”  Does she think this and let her romantic heart speak for her? No. And she doesn’t think this because 1) nothing in his description seems attractive or like she is supposed to find it attractive 2) he is not kind to her. He is not nice to her. He is just mean to her (thought not cruel) 3) the times that seem like they might have sexual tension are always tied up inextricably in violence. But there is no OTHER aspect to him that might seem attractive to her EXCEPT the threat of violence. What I mean by this is she occasionally reflects that he looks sad, or is sad, but there’s no real textual evidence. In the same what that just saying a character is sad when they are laughing, and running about, glib, and seem happy, does not make them sad. So all other aspects of his character ring false EXCEPT that he is violent or has the potential to be. So her only reason to be attracted to him is…that he is violent? Gross.

 Now, likely he was supposed to have other, likeable qualities. But he does not. This is a problem with the characters themselves. Their character traits are often told instead of shown. His actions are almost always glib and argumentative and he really doesn’t take any other actions that that. He does not even rescue a lost dog from the rain as a token gesture of god will. And Nadya despite claiming that he might be lost, does really extrapolate or explain or provide any evidence or think about that. For instance, she could try to Sherlock Holmes his situation and realize he must be sad. But she does not do this. She seems to regurgitate these things like she has another magical power of empathy and can actually read people’s emotions in their heart instead of on sad expressions or through actions, but she does not ever give evidence for her thoughts, opinions or rationalizations for anything.

 In short, their relationship reads like the worst kind of Insta Lova/compulsory heteronormativity, even thought I know this was not the intention of the author. However, Nadya seemed to fall for him just because he is THERE and every time she says anything about him, it seems completely unbelievable, because there’s no textual evidence for it, and ever time she says that she likes him or doesn’t want to kill him it’s just WHHHHHHHHHHHY? Is it “Half of her wanted to kill him, but he was still a person… [insert moral quandary here]” NOPE, we don’t get that. It’s just “half of her wanted to kill him, but half of her didn’t. What were they having for dinner again?” but WHY didn’t she want to kill him? Personal goals and motivations are not things that you withhold form the reader to be clever, they are basic components of characterization.

 This lack of interior reasoning goes beyond just her relationship to this character. Even her plans and actions seem to change without reason. She had a plan. She meets Malachiasz and immediately agrees with his plan to kill the king of her rival country. But why? Does she think it will work? Does she spend one second considering the merit of the plan? Does she try to think of another plan? Does she ask him to elaborate on this? NO. She does whatever Malachiasz says. She sacrifices principles of herself, she does X and Y and Z and there never really feels like a reason for 90% of it. She’s surprised when she gets betrayed, but since she had not reason to trust anyone (she did not posit a reason in her internal monologue for trusting them, let alone have this be supported by the actual actions the characters take!), it falls flat. Her reactions and failure fall flat, because it’s never clear why she has to be doing what she’s doing, what’s at stake if she’s not doing that, why she couldn’t do something better, or why she thinks it’ll work.

 It really was a slog to get through her sections sometimes because there very few scenes where I cared about the stakes because the series of events themselves felt arbitrary.

 Minor Characters and Otherness

The minor characters and plain, forgettable, have no real character or personality traits and clearly serve as props to make whatever point, or facilitate whatever outcome, is supposed to happen at any scene. This becomes very transparent. The characters from the desert country Akola are constantly referred to as Akolans instead of their names even when their race has no point in the scene, and they only exist to like the main Love Interest Malachaisz, but no reason is give as to why they like him, what they want, or their goals or agency. So not only are they flat props to make the Love Interest related and sympathetic, they are also heavily Othered. Not to mention another minor character, Ana, is presented as a Strawman who’s only purpose is to dislike the Love Interest for No Reason so that he seems more relatable and agreeable in comparison. Again, do these characters have motivations? Thoughts? Goals? Personality? No.

 Worldbuilding

In the beginning I felt the world building was fairly good. Each country has distinct language and naming conventions. The differences between the countries respective magic systems seemed intriguing. But as the story went on, not much is learned about Kalyazin other than what was learned in the first few chapters, and only a scattered detail or two is learned about Tranavia. What do they eat in Tranavain? How do they dress? Fine silk? Heavy furs with flower patterns? What are their values outside of blood magic?

The author continuous repeats that Kalyazin is based on fantasy Russia and Tranavia on fantasy Poland but in the novel there feels like no real effort to elaborate and expects the reader to fill in world building with real world Russian or Polish culture. Perhaps that wasn’t her intention, but it comes across that way when no real details about the culture are give outside the very one note religious differences.

 Religion

Speaking of the religious differences, this was something else I thought was interesting at first but quickly disappointed me. The religion conflicts starts off with Kalyazins claiming that magic should come from the gods and that using blood to fuel magic (like the Tranavians do) is heresy and terrible. However, the main character Nadya, never explores this beyond using it as a talking point. Why would it be considered terrible? Because accessing magic is holy and to do so without it being holy is bad? There is something said about how Tranavia is also bad for rejecting the gods, but what really bothered me was that the main character never really thinks deeply about these things. She never examines what she thinks is bad, or what her thoughts are on the war and the gods. She only repeats what she had been told and makes it clear she is doing so, providing no real analysis on her own. For all that she is claimed to be empathetic she does not actually empathize and consider the other position.

 It’s fine for characters not to know something, but if you’re a cleric, you would think you’d spend some time contemplating the morality of what you are doing. Moreover, as the novel progresses Nadya comes into more and more contact with blood magic, but her analysis of the situation never changes, she never stops to think “is it possible for someone to use blood magic if they aren’t evil?” or “is it truly doing evil if you aren’t aware that it’s evil?” Instead, it seems her views seem to shift but there’s no corresponding rationalization or thought as to why. Rather than Character Development it feels more like her Character just slips into something else. This is a recurrent problem with Nadya, but it was something that bothered me on a larger scale. Lip service is paid to characters having different viewpoints on this issue but nothing is ever developed from it.

 Notes on Confusion

A lot of people had complained (I think) that they found the ending confusing, to which the author said that something things were supposed to be confusing. In general I agree that books don’t have to answer every question raised. The magic system didn’t have to be completely explained.

 However the end was confusing in that the prose was literally unclear. The blocking and actions taken by the characters were unclear. It wasn’t “Wait! But I never learned why this happened! How does the magic work! Why would he betray them!” unclear. It was “Wait, is he still in the scene? When it says he “flies up” is he leaving this location or hanging around near the ceiling? What does this sentence mean?” confusing. It was difficult to follow the sequence of events without multiple rereading of lines, and even then it was unclear as to why the characters were taking certain actions. Not in a “why does the character not betray X” sort of way but more in the “wait, what is he trying to do? Is he trying to kill X? What does he think killing X will accomplish? Why did he even come back here? Does this benefit him? What does he think will happen?” the problem is that, when you don’t understand the characters goals/thoughts, it’s hard to know if they are succeeding or failing at them, so the conflict wanes immediately.

 Likes

Serefin

Unlike possibly every other character, Serefin had clear motivations, goals, and things at stake. His life was at stake if he didn’t figure out what going on. His goal was to figure out what his father was doing, and to thwart it and live. Boom. A dynamic character. Throw in interpersonal conflict with him being traumatized from a war but now being forced to act in court and you have someone who actually has stakes in most scenes he’s in, who’s actions are logically derived from what he wants, and who makes progress towards his goal. A good character, a likeable character. One who can be funny, but with flaws.

 Magic System

The idea of two different magic system did seem interesting to me. I’ve always liked the idea that there were different ways to use magic and of course there was room to have rife interplay of how magic actually worked, how people accessed it, what that meant, etc etc

[travelswithmyart]

Sometimes when you visit iconic places you have an other-worldly experience.  Visiting the temples of Angkor in Cambodia gave me that spine-tingling goosebump-inducing feeling.

Deep in the jungles of northern Cambodia, spread out over four hundred square kilometres, is the vast Buddhist temple complex Angkor Wat.

I remember reading about the ruins of Angkor Wat but I had no idea how truly spectacular they would be. I also didn’t realise how huge complex was and it comes as no surprise that in Khymer Angkor Wat roughly translates as “City of Temples”.

Believed to be the largest religious monument in the world, Angkor is not just one building, but scores of temples. Initially dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu, the temple gradually transformed to Buddhist.

History of Angkor Wat

The Khmer empire was the largest continuous empire of South East Asia. It ran from 802 CE when King Jayavarman II declared himself chakravartin (or “king of kings”) and ended with the fall of the empire  in the 15th century.  Angkor was was the former capital of the Khmer Empire.

The temple complex was built in the first half of the 12th century by Emperor Suryavarman II. He built the temple city to symbolize the strength of the Khmer Empire. Initially built as a Hindu temple, dedicated to Vishnu, it later became a Buddhist temple.

After the empire ended the jungle swallowed Angkor and for 400 years the temples remained hidden.

The ruins were rediscovered in 1850 by French missionary Father Charles-Emile Bouillevaux, who published an account of his two days at Angkor Wat

In 1992 Angkor Wat was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Now in the 21st century Angkor finds itself in a Catch 22 situation. Conservationists and architects working at the site are in a quandary as to how to deal with the trees covering the temples.  These hauntingly aesthetic ruins, covered in trees, may be magical for the tourists but are a nightmare for the people working to preserve the ruins of Angkor. The roots of the trees split walls and crush intricate carvings but simultaneously are also holding the carvings and larger stones together; remove the trees and the buildings are likely to collapse.

What to see at Angkor Wat 

Angkor Wat Central Complex – This consists of three storeys, each made of laterite, which enclose a square surrounded by interlinked passages. Along the walls more than 3000 enchanting apsaras (heavenly nymphs) carved into the walls. The Gallery of a Thousand Buddhas was used to house hundreds of Buddha images before the war, but many of these were removed or stolen, leaving just the handful we see today. Make sure you don’t miss the opportunity to see Angkor Wat at sunrise.

Angkor Wat at sunrise

South Gate – This is the most famous gate of the temple complex, probably because it is situated on the only road between Angkor Wat and the Bayon.

The Bayon in Angkor Thom – The Bayon is a Buddhist shrine with 216 smiling, serene faces carved onto its gigantic towers. The faces are the 54 towers of the temple’s upper level – each with a face facing north, south, east and west high above the canopy of the jungle.

The face of Angkor at the Bayon in Cambodia

Ta Prohm – Ta Prohm is arguably the most atmospheric ruin at Angkor. Fig, banyan and kapok trees spread their gigantic roots over the crumbling towers and ancient walls. It is almost as if the trees are strangling the carvings beneath. The appeal of Ta Prohm is that, unlike the other monuments of Angkor, it has been left been swallowed by the jungle; it looks very much the way most of the monuments of Angkor appeared when European explorers first stumbled upon them.

Trees covering Ta Prohm at Angkor Wat

Preah Khan – Preah Khan is one of the larger temple complexes within the historic park. Its appeal is that similar to Ta Prohm in that it still largely unrestored with trees eerily growing over ruined arches and doorways.

The problem with tourists 

Although my experience of Angkor was magical, there was one frustrating thing which did happen during my three-day visit.

One of the problems about visiting famous places around the world is that there are always lots of people visiting too… and before you say it, yes I’m a tourist who is complaining about tourists.

While wandering around the atmospheric ruins of the Bayon I was imagining what it must have been like discovering the ruins for the first time. But as I got into my intrepid discoverer mode a tall and stocky man from the USA appeared and started a conversation with me. He finished his somewhat one-way dialogue with the line: “The thing about Angkor is it just get’s better and better.”  In that moment the balloon had been burst and the moment gone.

Admittedly if this had happened once I could have still found another secluded spot and fired up my imagination. But call it a coincidence, I prefer to call it sod’s law, but wherever I went over those three days on the vast temple complex at Angkor, he would also appear and every time would smile, shake his head in a totally overwhelmed way and say the line, ‘Wow, it just get’s better and better’.

I think there needs to be a rule in tourism about saying inane comments to other people just to be polite or avoid an awkward silence. When I am visiting an amazing-place-that-I-will-never-get-another-chance-to-visit-ever, I don’t need to make polite chit chat, I just want to have a moment of mindfulness. Whenever I now see any of the Angkor ruins, there is a little voice in the back of my mind which says: ‘wow, they just get better and better.’

A selection of my photographs from Angkor Wat

Trees covering Ta Prohm at Angkor Wat

Some of the many Apsara bas reliefs at Angkor Wat

The trees growing up out of the ruins at Ta Prohm in Angkor

The South Gate at Angkor

Angkor Wat at sunrise

Trees covering Ta Prohm at Angkor Wat

The South Gate at Angkor

  A selection of sketches from Angkor 

Sketch of Angkor Wat in from my Cambodian sketchbook

Kids at Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Sketch of two boys hanging around the temples in Angkor Wat from my Cambodian sketchbook

Sketch of a man at Angkor from from my Cambodian sketchbook

Apsara from the walls of Angkor Wat from my Cambodian sketchbook

Kids hanging around the temples at Angkor from my Cambodian sketchbook

Page from my Cambodia sketchbook.

Ali sat on the steps of Angkor Wat in Cambodia

Awe-inspired at Angkor in Cambodia Sometimes when you visit iconic places you have an other-worldly experience.  Visiting the temples of Angkor in Cambodia gave me that spine-tingling goosebump-inducing feeling.

[shsenhaji]

📚 The Justice of Kings - Book Review

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4671832498

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Adult fantasy, magic, crime, justice, mystery, political and religious manoeuvring, empires.

Thank you to Orbit Books for the opportunity to read this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan, the first book in the Empire of the Wolf trilogy, is a thought-provoking and breathtaking fantasy debut. It balances a well-wrought world with politics, ethics, and questions of justice and order. I really enjoyed all the elements — the murder mystery, the magic tied to the justice system, the framing of the story, the characters, the political and religious intrigue — and I loved the questions and quandaries the characters had to face.

First of all, I was surprised when I realized that our main character, Sir Konrad Vonvalt, is not in fact the narrator. Instead, the book takes on the form of a memoir narrated by his clerk, Helena, weaving a story of an empire in the early throes of collapse. I do love stories told in hindsight, and it was fun to pick up on hints of future events. While it took me aback at first, I ended up loving the framing device: having Helena as the narrator both ensures that there is an important female character, given the other two main ones in the beginning are Sir Vonvalt and Dubine Bressinger, but it also provides an outsider perspective on the main character as he is forced to grapple with the erosion of the justice system he so strongly believes in.

I also really enjoyed the way the author made use of time. As I mentioned in my review of The City of Dusk, I find that fantasy struggles with the concept of time and history, and often fails spectacularly. Here, the Empire of the Wolf is only about 50 years old — which at first I thought was too little for an empire that has drastically subjugated and changed its people (at least on the surface) and that is meant to be ending as the trilogy progresses — but Swan is able to create the perfect balance. This is a rapidly-expanding empire, old enough for Vonvalt, Bressinger, and Helena to have grown up under its shadow, old enough too have propagated its religion and justice system, old enough to be firmly established, but also young enough that there is still dissent and instability that can easily be exploited.

Another facet of the book I found very clever, and which added a lot of interest and depth to the story, were the little quotes at the beginning of each chapter. Most of them were from the Sovan Criminal Code, while the others were attributed to certain people, and each quote not only enriched the worldbuilding but also provided a taste of the chapter’s contents. The first chapter, “The Witch of Rill,” begins with “Beware the idiot, the zealot, and the tyrant; each clothes himself in the armour of ignorance.” Not only does it encompass the themes of that chapter, but it is also a broader treatise on the novel’s themes.

One of the only gripes I had was Helena’s backstory, which didn’t feel very realistic for me at first. We learn that she came from an impoverished background, and that her time with Vonvalt has made her soft and changed her perspective. Yet at the beginning of the book, at least, I simply didn’t believe that — it felt like telling rather than showing. Her inner narration wasn’t matching up with the backstory she was telling us.

However, apart from that, I enjoyed The Justice of Kings tremendously. The ending was perfect, both providing some closure for the events of the novel, but also setting up future conflicts and providing a somewhat chilling premonition. I cannot wait to see what further adventures await us in the next book.

[otakween]

I'm Standing on a Million Lives - Volume 2

I feel like vol. 1 was clunky as hell and full of cliches. This volume wasn't much better, but there was at least an attempt to take the story in a direction that felt unique. Sometimes I wish they just made this a JRPG instead though. (Wait, are there any isekai JRPGs?)

Ch. 5

-In this chapter we get some Hakozaki perspective and she muses about how she hates men and wants to be stronger. I am glad we're getting more character development, but I was rolling my eyes when she was like "it's not fair, Yotsuya's such a perfect specimen and I'm so frail." So sick of being told how amazing these bland, incel MCs are -sigh-

-Plot point 2 is that the gang saves a group of travelers being attacked by monsters and then realized they saved a bunch of criminals on their way to execution. We get some fantasy religious persecution thrown in for some spicy world building. It seems like there's a big focus on ethical quandaries in this series.

-We learn that Yotsuya's "cellular metabolism" magic allows him to heal minor wounds. Neat little mix of science and magic there.

Ch. 6

-More world building and some strategizing. I honestly rather the characters talk about figuring out the "game" rather than talking about their dumb backstories or having harem shenanigans, so this was refreshing.

-I guess we just don't know at this point, but I'm kind of confused about how real the current reality they're in right now is. Is it a simulation? Parallel universe? The future? The answer will really impact how douchey I find MC who keeps not caring about the NPCs safety.

-It was interesting to hear both sides of the persecuted and persecutor's views on deities vs. royalty. Also appreciated the real world parallels the characters made which helped me understand the situation. Some of this seems decently well thought out.

-The dungeon they get trapped in at the end of the chapter gave me Legend of Zelda dungeon vibes.

Ch. 7

-More world building (the chapter is interrupted halfway by what looks like 2 pages out of a DnD manual) and strategizing. This chapter was pretty decent.

-The idea that the characters stats transfer to the real world feels really arbitrary to me. Like, why would just the stats transfer if not other things? (Items, costumes, etc.) Seems like they just put that in there for some extra, contrived conflict

-The constantly changing POVs felt normal when it was just character-to-character, but in this chapter they abruptly threw in a 3rd person narrator and that just felt sooo clumsy. That's gotta break some law of writing.

-Rolled my eyes at all the "look at how strong/badass Yotsuya is" bits. Especially the author's constant need to be like "the girls need a MAN, because they can't measure up to his MANLY strength."

-They finally explained the costuming thing! Again, I would have liked that explanation sooner. This author really doesn't know how to naturally include exposition.

-Shindo making a sexy face and saying "Yotsuya-kun <3" felt really out of place at the end there...really not sure where that came from

Ch. 8

-Okay, I feel like the author has really hit their stride with the strategizing and world building. This feels pretty different from vol. 1 now which was more action and character heavy. One thing that troubles me is that the pacing is pretty slow, which makes me wonder where all this will be going in the next 8+ volumes. (Well technically it's not done publishing so maybe it'll just be hella long lol)

-Other than Yuka, it feels kind of inconsistent whether or not the girls are in love with Yotsuya. I feel like it's implied by default because "anime," but it would be way more interesting if everything was kept platonic :/

[noblecrumpet-dorkvision]

Dungeon Crafting: Mechanic-Driven Design

image credit: tooth-w

Something that all DMs can learn from is video game level design. One aspect of this is called mechanic-driven design, which is shaping the environment to be a challenge for the main character’s abilities or the game’s mechanics. Mario can jump, so he has platforms and enemies that can be jumped on and question-blocks to jump up and hit. His jumping mechanic defines his environment and lets the players overcome the environment.

The best way I can think of to post about this for a dungeon master to use is in list form. This way, a DM that is making a dungeon can look through what aspects their PC group is composed of and make a sort of checklist of ways to challenge them! Be advised that this is merely a jumping-off point, so just checking off one challenge per player may challenge each player, but it also may not. Maybe that social interaction meant for the bard gets killed by the bloodthirsty barbarian instead. Having multiple challenges for each player will make the dungeon more fun for everyone, eventually.

Another note, players will eventually overcome almost any obstacle you give them, given enough time and resources and persistence. Don’t be afraid to give them a challenge that they might not be the best suited for, mechanically. Maybe add a locked treasure chest despite the PCs not having any characters with thieves tools or sleight of hand to unlock it. They will find a way to open it, and that is part of the fun!

Anyway, the list:

Mechanically Favorable Challenges For…

Barbarians:

big boss monsters (lots of HP, AC and sustained damage)

traps (avoided by Danger Sense)

athletics checks (high STR score)

monsters with attacks needing CON saves (high CON save)

Bards:

opportunities to rest in the dungeon (Song of Rest)

roleplaying encounters (high CHA score)

acrobatics checks (high DEX score)

group efforts like big encounters (Bardic Inspiration)

Clerics:

deities/religious symbols to identify (religion proficiency)

undead to fight (Channel Divinity: Turn Undead)

monsters that apply condition debuffs (Restoration spells)

moral quandary/test (to test loyalty to alignment/deity)

monsters with attacks needing WIS saves (high WIS save)

Druids:

animals/plants to identify (nature proficiency)

outdoor area (to get best of out spells)

hard to reach areas (to make use of Wild Shape)

roleplaying encounter with animals/plants/fey

monsters with attacks needing WIS saves (high WIS save)

Fighters:

big boss monsters (lots of AC, Action Surge, and sustained damage)

lots of monsters (several attacks per round)

athletics checks (high STR score)

monsters with attacks needing CON saves (high CON save)

tactical environments (more interesting fights)

Monks:

lots of monsters (several attacks per round)

athletics/acrobatics checks (high DEX and STR scores)

tall ledges (to use Slow Fall)

stealth encounters (high DEX score and often stealth prof.)

moral quandary/test (usually strict about alignment)

Paladins:

evil monsters (to detect)

big boss monsters (high burst damage from Smite)

moral quandary/test (paladin’s code)

someone to protect (paladin’s code)

deities/religious symbols to identify (religion proficiency)

overland travel or outdoor areas (to use mount)

Rangers:

long range encounters (archery style)

lots of monsters (dual wielding style, attack with companion)

big monsters (colossus slayer, flank with companion)

animals/plants to identify (nature proficiency)

favored enemies to track (survival proficiency)

outdoor areas (for companion, spells, and long-range)

Rogues:

traps (to disarm or avoid)

locks to pick

acrobatics checks (high DEX score)

monsters with attacks requiring DEX save (high DEX save)

single targets (to ambush and burst down)

places to hide (while in midst of combat)

stealth encounters (stealth proficiency)

Sorcerers:

lots of monsters (plenty of area of effect spells)

ranged encounters (to snipe with spells)

dragons (if draconic power origin)

spell-based traps, arcane things to identify (arcana proficiency)

scrolls (to temporarily expand limited spell list)

tense situations (to use sorcery points for quickened spells)

opportunities to use Fly spell

Warlocks:

fiends/fey/aberrations (depending on power origin)

big boss monsters (to burst down with eldritch blasts)

spell-based traps, arcane things to identify (arcana proficiency)

scrolls (to temporarily expand VERY limited spell list)

hard to reach areas or spy missions (if Pact of the Chain)

consistent challenges for their chosen spells

Wizards:

spell-based traps, arcane things to identify (arcana proficiency)

spellbooks and scrolls to loot (to add to spellbook)

opportunities to use Fly spell

unique challenges to be overcome (versatile spell list)

challenges that relate to their specialized school of magic, fight fire with fire

lots of monsters (plenty of area of effect spells)

big dumb monsters (for spells requiring WIS saves)

Characters with strong alignments:

moral quandary/test (to test how they adhere to that alignment)

Dwarves:

stonework to identify (Stonecunning)

Goblins, Orcs, or Giants (dwarves war with such factions)

Elves:

wandering nocturnal monsters (elves don’t sleep)

nature checks (elves often have an affinity for such things)

fey (elves have fey ancestry and will appreciate the encounter)

Halfings:

crawlspaces (that only they can fit into)

fear effects (they are resistant to fear)

other halflings (they are a community-driven race)

Gnomes:

crawlspaces (that only they can fit into)

INT/WIS/CHA saving throws (they have adv. against mind-affecting spells)

stealth encounters (tinker gnomes can use trinkets to distract)

Half-Orcs:

smaller, weaker NPCs (intimidation proficiency)

racial tension (often outcasts amongst both humans and orcs)

racial ambassador (roleplay between humans and orcs)

Half-Elves:

racial tension (often outcasts amongst both humans and elves)

racial ambassador (roleplay between humans and elves)

Dragonborn:

monsters that use energy damage (to complement their resistance to certain energy types)

dragons (to roleplay with)

racial tension (their scarcity and monstrous appearance can create obstacles)

Tieflings:

racial tension (their scarcity and fiendish origin can create obstacles)

fiends (to roleplay with)

monsters that use fire damage (to complement their innate resistance)

Basically, know your players. Know what spells they have at their disposal, which items they have, and whether they took any feats. Then you can tailor your levels to challenge each player and make each player feel special.