#not in the least because much of it is artifice

[actiaslunaris]

[boneskullravenriver]

I got this YouTube video recommended to me about "dead franchises" and the thumbnail had a bunch of different stills of characters from movies from the early 2010s, including city of bones and im just sitting here like... The book fandom is alive. Just because it didn't become the giant international powerhouse of a movie franchise that Harry Potter became doesn't mean that the franchise is dead, it's just in a format you personally dismiss because it's not clickbait worthy lol.

[theboost]

Truly cannot buy any read of true detective where rust and marty genuinely like each other in 1995. Buddies in 2002? sure. Exploring each other’s prostates in 2012? Why not. But in 1995? No way.

[alltherelicsofalifelonglived]

alright having mostly played thru rain world (havent finished gourmand bc i'm not emotionally ready to be a slugpup parent, havent finished hunter and saint yet bc i suck at this game) im going to weigh in on the slugcat fur argument. i think they all have fur, however, i think its constantly way too humid on account of the daily torrential downpours for it to ever be fur-like in appearance, and is instead has more of a gel-like feel to it. like if the structure of the fur and whatever skin oils are produced reacted with water/humidity to form an insulating coat. saint, however, doesn't get the daily downpours and humidity is much lower, so it's fur is fluffed, which helps insulate against the cold. basically all of them are wet cats all the time, except saint bc climate change.

[variksel]

these go HARDDDDD!!! i personally like 2 think it goes:

francis - rogue / low level ranger subclass (wayfarer origin)

kelsey - wizard / now warlock subclass (scribe or sage origin feat)

blake - low level artificer / high fighter subclass (soldier origin)

trudy - paladin / cleric subclass (acolyte or guard origin)

tony - bard / high rogue subclass (charlatan origin)

My peachyville headcanon on what each character’s DnD class might be:

Francis- Rouge

Kelsey- Monk

Blake- Fighter

Trudy- Cleric

Tony- Bard

Feel free to add your ideas on what each character’s class could be

[marauroon]

hellooooo! hope ur doing well :)

could i request a james fic where they are kind of the golden couple in school and everybody either envies them or wants to be like them because they just seem so affectionate when they are with each other and entertaining to be around and not so much of an annoying couple despite the fact they'd probably seem like they would be but when they are alone they are really quiet with their affection and they have quiet love for each other, showing their love with helping each other make pastries or one of them lying their head in the others lap while they read and it's all kind of shocking when the marauders find them quietly reading or something because they seem so hyper and fun but in reality are soo quiet-cuddly. thank you!

── . ☀︎ 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁. (𝗷.𝗽𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿)

you and james love each other loudly. even when there’s nobody else around to see it.

james potter x fem!reader 1.7k fluff masterlist.

AN | the lover boy of all lover boys

You’re used to the stares by now. They start the second you and James step into the corridor, your fingers laced with his like it’s the most natural thing in the world—which, for the two of you, it is.

The stares don’t faze you. They’re always there, the curious glances, wistful smiles, outright envy. You’re the golden couple. The couple. The one that first years whisper about and teachers look at with a kind of nostalgic longing, like maybe they once had what you do and let it slip away.

James Potter at your side, head thrown back in a loud laugh at something daft you just said, is an image burned into half the school’s mind.

You’re not trying to be enviable, honest. It’s just that loving James feels like a loud, bright thing sometimes. Like a firework. He talks too much when he’s around you, makes ridiculous jokes, and doesn't stop grinning. And you’re no better. You talk about him like he hung the stars in the sky—and to be fair, he may as well have.

“You want to know the secret?” you said once to Marlene, when she caught you smiling like an idiot after James kissed your cheek before Transfiguration. “He actually did hang the stars. Or at least, he’d try if I asked him to,”

Marlene rolled her eyes and muttered something like “disgusting”, but she was smiling when she said it.

James carries your books. Always has. Sometimes in his arms, most of the time levitating them just behind you with a casual flick of his wand like it’s second nature. You used to insist on carrying your own things until he said, “But why would you? I want to,” And you melted. That’s how he gets you—he always means it.

It’s always you and him in the Great Hall. James sits so close your knees knock under the table and he steals food from your plate like it’s a basic human right. You’re the kind of couple that never runs out of things to say. Half the time your friends have to tell you both to shut it during dinner. But they don’t really mind. You’re entertaining.

Together, you’re a show—but not a performance. That’s the difference. There’s no artifice. The handholding and the giggling, the way James lifts you into his arms to carry you across the muddy courtyard when it’s raining—none of it’s for anyone else. He just doesn’t want your shoes getting ruined, and he’s strong enough to do something about it.

When you laughed as he twirled you like it was a ballroom and not the entrance steps to the castle, people didn’t roll their eyes. They sighed. Because Merlin, wouldn’t it be nice to be loved like that?

But the thing that really makes you both the “blueprint”, as Sirius once so dramatically called it, is what nobody sees.

Or at least, what they’re not supposed to see.

—

You’re in the Gryffindor common room, curled in your usual corner, and the fire is soft and crackling, casting gold across James’s face. His head is in your lap, his glasses pushed up into his hair. You’re reading. He’s reading. Well, trying to. His eyes flutter closed every few minutes but he insists he’s not tired.

“You’re blinking like a cat,” you whisper, brushing a curl off his forehead.

“M’not,” he mutters, though the slur in his voice betrays him.

You smile, soft and fond, and go back to your book. His breathing evens out moments later.

You know you should wake him, but he looks so peaceful. So quiet. Nobody at school really knows this version of James—the boy who presses kisses to your temple in silence when you’re working on essays, who reads over your shoulder and murmurs corrections without teasing. Who rubs his thumb against the back of your hand absentmindedly, like he needs the contact just to think straight.

When you help him draft his Potions theory or he stays up with you past midnight working on Arithmancy, that’s love too. Not the flashy kind. Not the kind that gets you looks in the corridor or earns you snide comments from Sirius (“For Merlin’s sake, take a breath between sentences, you two,”).

No, this kind is deeper.

It’s in the gentle way James whispers, “You’re brilliant, you know,” when you manage to explain something he’s been struggling with for days.

It’s in the way you always keep a spare quill for him because he never remembers, and the way he always keeps your favourite chocolate in his satchel, just in case you’ve had a rough morning.

There’s something sacred about that kind of love. Quiet. Undemanding. Steady.

—

One afternoon, you and James are in the library, an unlikely occurrence if someone doesn’t know you properly. You’re sitting next to each other, your foot pressed against his shin under the table. There’s an open Charms text in front of you and a notebook filled with both your scrawls. He’s trying to come up with a mnemonic to remember a particularly finicky spell.

“Alright,” he says, tapping his wand against his chin. “Swinemuzzle Ensnare… Memory Eraser… Wormwood. That’s SEW. Sew what?”

“Sew a—” you pause, blinking. “I don’t know, a hat? A memory-hiding hat?”

James grins. “Ridiculous. I love it,”

You both laugh quietly, shoulders shaking, your laughter muffled by the thick library air.

And that’s exactly when the Marauders walk in.

They were probably looking for something—Remus’s notes, a textbook Peter lost, or maybe they just wanted to cause mischief in a new location. But what they find is the two of you hunched over a notebook, James’s hand lightly covering yours where it rests on the page, your eyes scanning lines of text, completely silent.

Sirius rolls his eyes fondly. “Gross, they’re revising together,”

Remus shushes him before Madam Pince can.

You look up, startled by their entrance. James blinks at them like he’s just woken from a nap.

“Oh. Hey, lads,”

Sirius stares at you like he’s seen a hippogriff do ballet.

“Why are you revising?”

James smirks, stretching. “What, you thought I was illiterate?”

“Honestly, sometimes, yeah,”

You snort and close the book. James sits back in his chair, the image of a smug, secretly cuddly boyfriend caught in the act.

Remus, ever the perceptive one, tilts his head. “So… She promised to shag you later if you actually focused?”

“Something like that,” you say, letting your fingers trail down James’s arm, not an ounce of embarrassment in your tone.

It’s not even true, but there’s no use in denying it.

Later, Sirius calls it “your secret language”.

“You two talk loud enough for the whole bloody castle, but then you’ve got this weird telepathy thing when you’re alone,”

James doesn’t even argue. Just nudges your knee with his.

You don’t think it’s weird. You think it’s love. Real love. Not just noise and theatrics, though you’ve got plenty of those. It’s in the silence. The comfort. The way you fit into each other’s lives so neatly it feels like you must have been built from the same material.

—

That night, you’re asleep before he is. Half passed out on one of the sofas in the common room by the time he returns from Quidditch practice, hair damp and messy, cheeks pink from the cold.

He finds you curled under a blanket with a book half-open in your hands.

“Hey,” he whispers, brushing your forehead.

You open your eyes sleepily. “Hi,”

James sits beside you on the couch, nudging your legs until you make space for him to lie down. You shift and let him rest his head against your chest, your fingers already finding his curls.

He exhales, long and slow, like the world has been holding its breath until now.

“Love you,” he murmurs.

You smile, bending low to kiss his forehead. “Love you more.”

And no one’s around to see it. No one to whisper about the golden couple or how perfect you look together. It’s quiet. And that’s when it feels the most real.

[deconstructthesoup]

All right, quick rundown of our new PCs:

-While Maxwell seems to be continuing Murph's D20 trend of playing doofuses (only broken by Riz in JY because, well, he was reprising his very first D20 character), it looks like he might actually be our first balance between Murph's two different types of PCs---he's a reasonable, level-headed, intelligent guy who also happens to be a bit of a clueless rich boy. Also, to my knowledge, Maxwell may be our first instance of D20 having a PC whose class itself is homebrew---not just a homebrew subclass, like Pinnochio being a Destiny warlock or Gorgug being a Barbificer... barbarian/artificer, but full-on playing a homebrew class. To that, I say hell fucking yeah.

-Olethra is, of course, continuing Ally's trend of playing the most blatantly queer character at the table, and this time, their PC is a starry-eyed transfemme with a deep sense of wanderlust. I was, sadly, wrong about her being an Armorer artificer---at least, for now, and if I had to guess, I'd say that the mech suit is so she's not at a disadvantage as the only level two character in a party of level sixes---but honestly, I'm really curious to see how Olethra's gonna level up. I don't think we've ever gotten a straight martial character from Ally before, and if Olethra doesn't take some artificer levels (or becomes an Arcane Trickster), she might be their first. (Liam doesn't count, rangers are half-casters.)

-Daisuke appears to already be beating out Lapin and Ricky for the title of "hottest Zac character," and after that incredible introduction... oh, boy, do I fucking agree. It's so fun to see Zac play a genuinely smart and crafty character, which is honestly more common than most people think---Gorgug eventually found his smarts and confidence, Lapin was... Lapin, Skip was very intelligent and just needed time to get used to being in a human body, and Pib was obviously a little scheming stinker. Seriously, though, Daisuke is a delight, I love that he's a Gunslinger, and I think we all need to appreciate the poetry of the comedy sniper actually playing a sniper. Who is also an old divorced outlaw who kills people who try to mess with his ex-step-granddaughter.

-Marya Junkova, the woman of my dreams. Once again, Emily has created a character who I will become unreasonably obsessed with, and I am not just saying that because she's spooky (my favorite D&D character asethetic) and an artificer (my favorite D&D class). I love her accent, I love her look, I love the idea of her being a happy-go-lucky adventurer who has been turned sad and cynical by trauma, and I am so fucking excited to see the lore behind the crow-thing she's gonna kill. Also, I'm all in favor of the headcanon of her being undead... mainly because my current character is also a steampunk-heavy, spooky, undead artificer with a gun and weird pets. They have a mechanical heart.

-If it weren't for Iga Lisowski, Van would be a completely different direction for Siobhan, but I am so stoked to see her play an IDGAF old woman with a sweet, supportive husband again. She's a badass, she's a bicon, and I really wanna know how she lost that arm. Not much to say about Van as of right now, I'm excited to learn more, and I can't wait for Siobhan to repeatedly wreck everyone's ears with that whistle.

-And last but not least, we have a beautiful return to the Kingston Brown vibes with Monty, who doesn't really appear to have that "chaotic entitled" energy that Lou found so appealing after playing Squak, though of course there's something to be said about him playing a famous author again. I love seeing Monty be all warm and paternal and supportive, I love how he really encapsulates the energy of your archetypical nature caster, and I love how there's a little bit of chaos wound into this big, comforting soul. Though... that being said, I do hope he's got a decent subclass under his belt. If you're not playing a Gloomstalker or doing an insane multiclass build like Siobhan did with Rosamund, rangers can be tricky.

[chillinglikeashilling]

I'm only on episode 8 of Jentry Chau vs The Underworld but I've been thinking about the parallels and contrasts between Jentry, Michael and Kit.

This would be too long if I tried to do all three so this is just my thoughts on Jentry and Kit

Spoilers below for episodes 1-8

It's so interesting to me because at first the show seems to tell us that Jentry and Kit parallel each other - both have been keeping a secret for most of their lives, both of them hurt people/caused damage because of their 'nature' (Jentry's powers are not 'naturally' hers but she's had them so long it doesn't really matter), both of them just want to be understood as more than a demon.

But as soon as we learn that Kit is a face painting demon those parallels start to break down.

Kit has intentionally killed people before, people who he lied to. He's been lying to Jentry from the moment they met purely for his own benefit and, importantly, to Jentry's detriment. He showed up under a guise that would allow him to get close to Jentry, with the explicit plan of falsely earning her trust and killing her.

Part of the reason Jentry liked Kit to begin with is that he didn't have all these preconceptions about 'the demon girl'. It's a similar reason she's able to get close to Stella quickly.

Kit was just a completely normal boy who was new in town, and who just happened to like all the same stuff she does. He had no connection to the fire, so she didn't feel like she was always actively lying to him. She felt normal around him.

Except then she finds out that he does know, in fact he's known about her powers since before she met him. Everything he has initially presented to her about himself is a lie, one intentionally created to appeal to her.

I think this is part of the reason, apart from the obvious, that Jentry is so uncomfortable when he's making the Jentry skin. She becomes intimately aware of how much work went into the artifice of 'human Kit'.

I also think this is why despite his generally good intentions, Kit is misguided in his attempts to court Jentry.

Kit wants to go back to the place where they were both open to a romantic relationship but Jentry can't get back to that place because it wasn't real for her.

He's not a normal boy, he probably doesn't like as many of the same things as she thought he did (if he likes any of it), and also he's a hundred year old demon who's killed hundreds of people.

I don't think Kit is lying when he says that his feelings for Jentry were real, but of course they were. He had the benefit of knowing the truth the entire time, he can trust what Jentry has presented to him because it lines up with what he knows. Jentry does not have any of that reassurance when it comes to him.

Everything Jentry learns about him now is like getting to know an entirely new person. Of course she doesn't like him the same way as before.

It is a tragedy for Kit. Having to lie to get close to people is heartbreaking not least because those people cannot actually like or be close to the real you, that version of you is a stranger to them. A stranger who has been lying to their face.

It's not his fault he's a skin painter, but the truth of the matter is by that sheer fact he was never what Jentry was looking for in the first place.

[princeanon]

To anyone who’s finding it really hard to read the Fantasy High webtoon without being upset about the changes made, here’s a headcanon that has helped me accept the changes and I think could really help a lot of you:

(Keep in mind I’ve only read the first three chapters)

In the canon universe, the webtoon is a comic series that the Bad Kids decide to make sometime post-canon to recount their adventures in a fun and somewhat fictionalized way. (Think of it like mythology, changing their stories to become more linear and easier to tell across generations.)

This would explain a lot of the changes made that I’ve seen upsetting people:

D&D (and real life) is great because even though plot is important, it’s just enough to leave a lot of room for a bunch of different main characters to share the spotlight. Comics aren’t (especially webtoon comics that you only read a bit at a time), so even though all of the characters can have their moments, there has to be one character that is focused on more to really drive the plot.

The Bad Kids recognize this, and since they refuse to use a different medium (a movie is a lot of work for six kids; they already have a podcast; longer, non-illustrated books would be bad for Ragh and frankly, not nearly as cool), they all eventually come to a consensus that at least for freshman year, their little angel and licensed PI Riz Gukgak should be the lead, since he can justifiably drive the plot. In real life, it doesn’t make sense to have one lead since none of them knew about the big scheme to begin with, but in retrospect it works.

Of course, Fabian’s not gonna be as charming to start out because he recognizes that he was kind of a jerk for a bit before joining the squad and especially before single-handedly killing toxic masculinity.

Of course, Fig is gonna be the last Bad Kids introduced because that’s how she’d want it to go. It’s so much more badass to be mysterious for a few chapters and then show up in a blaze of glory!!

Of course, Riz is gonna look ever so slightly cooler than he actually was as a freshman, because that’s how he viewed himself and the others don’t have the heart to tell him “no you were actually really awkward and un-cool and you have to look that way for the comic”

Of course, Adaine isn’t going to emphasize her argument with her parents from the first day of school, because why would she? Her parents suck, and the less screen time they get, the less power they have over her life now. Aelwyn too, as much as she loves her sister, she wasn’t really part of the grand scheme, so it wouldn’t make sense to establish her as a villain immediately.

Of course, Gorgug is going to make his introduction of him raging. His difficulty coping with his rage was a really big part of his journey throughout freshman year. His title card is who he really is though, with cool artificer themes, even though he doesn’t know it yet.

And of course, Kristen is gonna wear a corn-themed outfit because that’s a visual representation of how she felt early on the year, and especially how brainwashed she was by the church. You’re telling me Kristen Chilis Applebees isn’t going to look at a comic book version of herself in freshman year, think about all the time she spent justifying Coach Daybreak’s actions and her parents actions and her actions, and how deeply that trauma goes for her and her siblings, and how much her story would mean to someone going through the same thing as her, and say “now dress her up like corn”????

Point is, the webtoon is an adaptation of a pre-existing world in the same way any “non-fiction” media is an adaptation of the real world. Real life isn’t linear, D&D isn’t linear, but written media (especially webtoon comics) are. It’s not gonna be a perfect replica of the original because that doesn’t make for a good comic. If it helps to view the webtoon as an in-canon adaptation of their story written by the Bad Kids, then that’s great! If it doesn’t, and you still can’t enjoy the comic, then don’t read it.

Just don’t take this gift from Dropout away from those of us who love (or want to love) it. And especially don’t hate on the writers, artists, or anyone in Dimension 20 for making minor changes in order to fit the new media.

(It’d be like hating on the Bad Kids for telling their story in a new way.)

[wheneverfeasible]

🧠🪱Wriggly Wednesday🪱🧠

Thanks for the tag @stervrucht!

So I was literally just thinking about Sugar Daddy Steddie with rockstar Eddie, coincidentally enough…

🔞🔞🔞🔞🔞

Okay so get this. Eddie Munson is some fucking metal legend. Corroded Coffin made it big, right? Right out of high school some scout saw them playing and swooped them up immediately, and before you knew it they were household names. Even people who don’t listen to metal know who they are.

And look, Steve Harrington? Metal is so not his scene. That much is obvious with his striped polos and overly large noise cancelling headphones, but he’s there in the crowd, front row, with a pack of teenagers scampering about. Obviously not his own, but he’s watching them, a glorified babysitter. He looks kind of bitchy, but the occasional fond smile settles over his lips as he takes in the lot who are having the time of their lives.

They all have backstage passes and are there for Dustin’s birthday because Corroded Coffin is his all-time favorite band and he’s always wanted to meet the guy he idol worships. They go backstage, meet the band, and it’s great. Fantastic even. The band is a lot more down to earth than Steve had been expecting, and there’s no naked ladies or drugs in obvious places, so he decides maybe they aren’t too terrible.

Except the frontman keeps hitting on Steve.

At first it was startling, because Steve isn’t some cheap whore (no hate to actual cheap whores, Steve is 100% sex work positive, but he’s there as a babysitter), but Eddie doesn’t spend the whole time hitting on Steve. He actually spends the majority of it talking to Dustin and the others, and he gives way more free shit to the teens than was agreed upon with the backstage passes, and he and the rest of the band sign anything and everything the teens want.

(Eddie also offers to sign Steve’s tits, which gets him a flat glare.)

And that should be it when they leave. Except Eddie slips Steve his number. For when he’s not acting a babysitter.

And that’s the thing. When Steve isn’t in babysitter mode? Fuck. Eddie Munson could get it.

Steve might not be a whore, but he is a bit of a slut. And Eddie had been far more charming that he let it be revealed, not least of which being because of how he handled Dustin and the others, especially sweet El. He’d absolutely beamed when she called his outfit “bitchin’” and there was no artifice there.

Now, Steve wasn’t some groupie, but…he wasn’t opposed to hooking up with a hot rockstar in a band he couldn’t really care about if it got him some good dick.

And good dick he gets. But first, Eddie actually takes him out, taking him out to a really nice and fancy restaurant, despite Steve not dressing for the occasion expecting this to be a hit-it-and-quit-it situation, but Eddie pays off the staff to look the other way. After all, Eddie’s not really dressed all that appropriately either.

Then Eddie takes him for an honest-to-god moonlit carriage ride around the park, complete with flowers and cheesy romantic music. Steve would like to say he was unaffected, but it really did it for him. He was a romantic sap but he was used to being the one always having to be the giver, never the receiver. It was…nice. And sweet, because god, Eddie Munson was secretly a sweetheart when you got him alone.

And then, after the sweet and romantic date, the two of them have the most disrespectful sex of Steve’s life.

He can’t get enough of it.

He knows what this is, however. He knows someone like Eddie Munson probably does this every tour, picking up some random person and wining and dining them and then teaching them things that would make the Kama Sutra blush.

Except, when he sneaks out Eddie’s room in the hotel penthouse in the morning, bruised and rumpled in all the right ways, the rest of the band lounging in the sitting room are as surprised to see him as he is to see them. Because, it turns out, apparently Eddie doesn’t do this. At least not to the extent he showed Steve.

No one was ever asked to stay until morning, at least.

But Steve has to go home, and he thinks that’s it. But then Eddie comes out and asks for a second date when he tries to leave. Offers more backstage passes to the next show for the kids, and Steve is hesitant to say yes, and that’s when Eddie hits him with another surprise.

Eddie says that he doesn’t care that Steve is a babysitter or a nanny or whatever, he isn’t doing this out of pity over Steve’s financial issues, which he accompanies with a slight tug at the worn and slightly frayed edges of Steve’s polo. He says that he just wants to treat Steve right because Steve deserves it. That he wants to buy him pretty things and shower him with whatever he wants. Wants to keep having the sweetest dates with the most disrespectful sex with him.

And Steve…well. Steve is stumped.

Sure, he’s wearing old clothes, but he thought he was just having a dick appointment. And yeah, he was a babysitter, but the teens were actually weirdly his friends despite the age differences, not to mention many were the younger siblings of his other, more age appropriate friends. And yeah, Steve had blushed when Eddie mentioned going to a fancy restaurant and said he didn’t have the money for it, but that’s because he left his wallet behind because, as previously stated, he’d thought this was just a dick appointment.

But you see, Steve Harrington was the CEO of a major international corporation that had been in the Harrington family for generations who, once Steve took the helm from his father, had also recently begun work in far more charitable organizations and activities. His company was, in fact, one of the major donors that supported the arena in which Corroded Coffin had just played in last night. The company’s logo, a small crown with the company’s initials, was printed on all the tickets and on the backstage passes.

How else would Steve have been able to afford over half a dozen of them if he was living on just a babysitter’s salary.

Yet, here was Eddie, offering to be his…sugar daddy?

Steve would have laughed, was tempted to even, but Eddie looked so genuine and earnest and like truly all he wanted was to spend more time with Steve.

And really. Steve was so used to having to be the one to provide luxuries for his dates, to be the one in charge, to always have to give give give. Maybe, just maybe, he could play along with Eddie’s utter misunderstanding and take just a little bit. He’d pay Eddie back when the rockstar got bored of him and moved on, so really, what was the harm?

So yeah, Steve just smiles and says Okay, Daddy, and accepts the goddamn gifts Eddie had apparently already bought for him even before their date, and he lets himself have his fun.

After all, it’s not like it’s gonna turn into anything long lasting, right? Nothing serious, right? And there’s absolutely no way that they could ever fall in love…

…right?

Aaaaand yeah. Other things that I envision could pop up in the story:

Robin is his best friend and works for him with international clients due to being polylingual. She discovers what is going on and calls him a dingus. She also wants all the gossip.

Dustin finds a diamond studded collar in his bedroom that says “Babygirl” and asks if Steve is getting a dog. He was looking for something to wear to impress a date and Steve forgot Eddie’s latest gift was still on his bed.

Steve is in full sugar baby mode when they accidentally run into one of Steve’s business associates and/or they are at one of the venue locations Steve secretly owns and he’s trying desperately to hide anything that might have his name or face on it.

In the end, Steve starts buying Eddie expensive gifts too which freaks Eddie out because he doesn’t want Steve to waste what little money he has on him. Or so he thinks.

Some big angsty misunderstandings and the truth finally being revealed. It ends with them agreeing to spoil each other, but only Steve gets to be called “Babygirl” and Eddie remains “Daddy”. Everyone is sick of how in love they are.

-

Hostage tag: @derythcorvinus

No pressure tags: @scoops-aboy86 @endlessmusings1801 @viviseawrites @steddieassheg0es @stevesbipanic (if you’ve previously been tagged, just ignore me!)

[jamiepaige]

Constant Companions Closeup #11: MACHINE LOVE

(also on bandcamp and spotify!)

Welcome back to the Constant Companions Closeups - a series of in-depth dives into the songs off of my latest album, Constant Companions! Yesterday was the title track, My Darling, My Companion, which means today is the final track on the album - a song about the truths that lay in hiding within artifice, and a computer falling in love - Machine Love!

Before we get started on this particularly long closeup - I'll be doing a follow-up post after this one, answering various miscellaneous questions I've gotten over the course of writing these! If you've got anything you wanna hear more from me about, album-related or otherwise, feel free to reply to this post or send me an ask! It may very well end up part of the bonus closeup :~)

---

Let's circle back to the very first track, Dyad.

In that track's closeup, I mentioned the main sonic touchstones of this release relative to my previous ones being guitars and vocal synths. The whole guitar rock thing I think I've gone into detail enough about, what with all the inspirations I've rattled off in other posts, but there likely is still a burning question for some long-time listeners.

Why vocal synths? Why am I not singing on like half of this album? I thought you were a singer, Jamie Paige, so what is this Hatsune Miku robot Vocaloid crap?

Truth be told, the Vocaloid scene and community has always been a massive source of inspiration for me. So much of my favorite music ever, music that inspires me or touches my heart or makes me go apeshit, has been sung by synthesized vocalists in a language I don't even speak. I grew up with it, and it's grown up with me - music just as intricate, mind-boggling, twisted, fun, and ridiculously creative is being put out every single day by vocal synth producers, and nowadays it's coming from English speaking musicians in droves!

Before this year began, I'd made at least one major contribution to the culture, but in spite of my genuine adoration of everything vocal synth related, I felt like I was just looking in from the other side. Caught between worlds, existing outside of any communities, simply gesturing vaguely towards what I wanted to do.

But I wanted more! I wanted to make the same kinds of things that stirred my heart and made me want to write! I wanted to sing with those same voices! I wanted it to be true - to be like you!

---

I won't lie to you and tell you Kasane Teto has always been my favorite vocal synth. That title used to go to GUMI, and in general, I wasn't particularly attached to any UTAU voicebanks as a younger vocal synth fan. (Nowadays, I genuinely open up OpenUTAU just as much as SynthV because I've fallen deeply in love with Adachi Rei, but that's a story for my next album.) Obviously, I knew of Teto, and found her presence in things like Triple Baka delightful, but for the most part, she was mostly something of an oddity, a wayward piece of vocal synth history that had her Fans like any other.

However, there was one Teto song I've been inexplicably attached to since the moment I first heard it - Song of the Eared Robot, by nwp8861. I was introduced via this particular cover, which I love, but I quickly gravitated to the original. Something about the warbly, childish nature of her very first voicebank, the ambitiously orchestrated and unabashedly digital instrumental, the lyrics referencing fundamental frequencies and Markov chains and compiling code all just spoke to me!

That song stuck with me, laying in a part of my heart that had been collecting dust, all the way to April of 2023.

Now, yes, Teto wasn't always my favorite, and I had other vocal synths I was attached to, but I don't live under a rock, and I still understood how monumental the announcement of Kasane Teto's Synth V voicebank was - to the point that I interrupted a call full of FFXIV-playing friends who knew barely anything about vocal synths and gave them an impromptu TED talk because I was so excited.

(An excerpt of a summary of that night's events, written the morning after. i was up my own ass a little bit but in my defense Kasane Teto had just been announced for Synthesizer V)

I was watching, in real time, a dream made manifest. It's literally one of the Bits with Teto! That she'd be a Vocaloid one day too! And here she was, on the fan favorite engine, sounding genuinely fucking incredible. Especially in hindsight, it's such a beautiful and perfect twist of fate for her.

I saw myself in her. A weird little outcast, explosively reborn and thrust straight into a community's open arms with love. I wanted it to be true - To be like that, too.

It didn't fully hit until later, hearing another cover of a song I'd almost forgotten.

Machine Love, my love letter to the entire world of unbridled creativity and artistry surrounding vocal synths filtered through one sentimental little song, was fully written by the start of May, maybe 4 days after I had gotten my hands on Teto SV and long before a certain compilation album was even a glint in my eye.

If you haven't heard DAEMON/DOLL yet, you really, really, really should go listen to it - yes, I mastered this album, many of my friends and collaborators are featured, and I have two entire songs on it, but I genuinely mean it when I say I believe it's some of the best fucking music that's come out this year in general. In many respects, it also feels like a companion (hah) to Constant Companions.

I had finished writing Machine Love by this point, but it was working on this album in its entirety - discovering artists like Anh Duy, Eggtan, and beat_shobon through it, and hearing everyone in top form making this twin-drilled chimera fucker sing her heart out - that not only made me confident in my decision to go down this artistic path, but that made me fall completely in love with Kasane Teto. And honestly, how could I not? She feels like a microcosm of everything that makes vocal synths so special, this community of creatives all leaving their marks and touchstones along the trail of a great big shared folk mythos. Yeah, maybe the folk hero we're all collectively mythologizing is an anime girl, but yknow maybe Odysseus could take some branding cues from hatsune miku idfk

Basically, even if he says he wants to kill me, I owe fucking everything to rice for inviting me to work on DAEMON/DOLL.

---

On that note, my vision for Machine Love's MV was pretty clear from the beginning.

the actual factual setup for the above shot, which was done entirely in-camera with my laptop, a tv, and two video files manually synced using VLC

The fundamental idea was always there - live-action shots of animation playing back on various screens, edited together to feel somewhat seamless. However, I really struggled with what exactly was going to be on said screens for a while; Big commissions were very far out of my budget, but I knew this song needed something grandiose.

Ultimately, what I arrived at was exactly the kind of scrappy, DIY bullshit it was always meant to be.

I asked my Twitter mutuals for help. And spent a couple months in Final Cut Pro and Apple Motion hell turning all the Teto art I got into a bunch of tiny little mini MVs, some of them parodying real vocal synth MVs, some of simply just evocative of vocal synth MVs, all of them painstakingly edited by yours truly and filmed with the help of some friends over the next couple months across two states and many more cities just to be painstakingly edited and synced up again by yours truly.

THE NEXT MV I DO WILL BE SMALLER IN SCOPE

---

And with that, I believe that's the album!

There's a reason it ends with Machine Love, and not with the title track. I do think that in some respects My Darling, My Companion would have made a better closer, but that song only really resolves one of the thematic strands running through the album.

There isn't really a definitive answer to the specific question "Baby, do you know what you wanna hear?", but it evokes a theme running through the entire album - wanting something, knowing that you want something, and simply needing to find the courage to do it or say it or be it. My Darling, My Companion is in many ways a declaration of intent, an acceptance of what needs to happen, but Machine Love, to me, is that action being done. The words being said!

And now, if I may give this a somewhat selfish tint - with the explosive response my works from this album have gotten, my contributions to things like DAEMON/DOLL and Flavor Foley, the collaborations I've done and that I still have in the pipeline, the friends I've made and the community I've found a spot for myself in, and the newfound voices that I can lay my heart bare with -

Well, shit, I know what I wanna hear, and I've gotten to hear it. I'm a vocaloP. It's real!

Thank you all so goddamn much for reading and listening. I'll see you back here either tomorrow or Monday for the bonus AMA post thing!! Make art and be gay, motherfuckers.

❤️💚

[rats-on-ice]

In the s2 qna Sophia mentions that Dani would be a rogue if she wasn’t an artificer, and I was thinking the other day about how Artificer Dani distinctly *Does Not* multiclass into rogue, but I do think if the campaign started with Rogue Dani, she would have eventually learned of her passion for mechanics and multi classed into artificer. Idk just interesting to me. Any time Dani is put in an environment where she can do more than survive, she creates. This really is the best timeline for Dani, she’s full artificer. None of that was born of necessity (like being a rogue would be). She did it because it’s what she loves to do.

I think that’s probably a contributing factor as to why I like her so much. She’s very relatable to me as a creative person. We see her become grumpy and out of sorts when crazy/ traumatic life circumstances interfere with her ability to engage with her creative passion. Dani isn’t Dani without her enthusiasm for mechanics. Or she at least isn’t a Healthy and/or Happy Dani. It’s a core part of who she is.

[kelocitta]

You're not glossing over the suffering and trauma the Scavengers have been put through at the hands of Artificer or having them all be ok with it just because they felt sorry about it like so many AUs like to do right?

Who said anything about them feeling sorry about it 🤔Artificer has a lot of issues but if they were justified is not one of them they're grade A hater

On a more serious note: It depends. I don't like the 'genocidal maniac' style of characterization so they're pretty far from that, so if you consider anything less than that sympathetic you're not gonna find it here. They have a brain and a goal so their destruction is/was a little more targeted and less of a wildfire. They harm a lot of people in the process, and they don't particularly have any qualms with that ('Sometimes you get caught in the crossfire, get over it or punch back' mindset) but they aren't a killer for fun or a sadist or anything like that. As for what others think of them... What they did was still pretty awful, but I imagine its not something a lot of people know about. Or at least don't know that Artificer specifically did it. Not exactly something they're advertising and they also pretty much live in a toxic swamp away from the people who would be most suspicious.

[mrs-dot-kennedy]

One last night - Henry Winter x Reader

summary. It’s the end. The final night of your doomed love. You are in his bedroom, laying with him. Henry won’t ask you to stay -he won’t be the cause of your ruin. He loves you too much to do it. Inspired by the song “All I ask” by Adele.

pairing. henry winter x reader

warnings. angst

It is the end, though neither of you say it aloud. You lie in the half-light of his bedroom, the ceiling high above you like the interior of a cathedral, and Henry is beside you, statuesque and golden in the pallor of dusk. The air smells of old books, bergamot, rain -faint and clean, a little sad.

The sheets are linen, ironed to perfection, though crumpled now. You trace the seam down his wrist with your finger, memorizing him. You imagine the quiet undoing of everything -his shirts in your drawer, the pressed cuffs at breakfast, the glint of spectacles thrown on your desk in a moment of irritated affection -and you can’t bear it.

Henry, in contrast, is calm. Still. He has always been composed in the face of emotional disaster. Always the eye of the storm, never the thunderclap.

“If this is all I get,” you say, your voice barely audible, “will you at least pretend to want me?”

He turns his face to yours. His expression doesn’t change. “You know I want you,” he says. “That was never the problem.”

You want to laugh, to cry. You want to reach into his chest and press your hands to his heart, to feel the mechanism of love, the betrayal of it. You know you’ll remember him like this -quiet, devastating, like the final passage of a book you wish you hadn’t finished.

His mouth brushes your collarbone. Not quite a kiss. An apology, perhaps.

“This doesn’t have to be it,” you whisper.

But it does. You know it. He knows it. You are both too intelligent, too cold in the wrong ways. The fault lines were always there, beneath the antique polish of Latin and late-night lectures, hidden in the silences between quotes from Euripides and passages in Herodotus. It was never going to last. It was too exquisite. Too doomed.

Still, tonight is yours.

“Then,” you say. “Don’t talk about tomorrow. Just tonight. Just… lie to me, if you have to.”

Henry’s eyes narrow, not unkindly, as if studying you the way he studies epics, peeling meaning from syntax. “I never lie to you,” he says.

You reach for him anyway. You are shameless with grief. “Then tell me it means something. Tell me you’ll miss me.”

His hand, always so precise, cups your jaw. “I’ll miss you,” he says, and for once it sounds like truth. Not artifice. Not theatre. Not Henry Winter’s immaculate illusion of sincerity.

You kiss him then -not because it fixes anything, but because there is nothing else left to do. It is not passion; it is mourning. You memorize the curve of his back, the shadows beneath his shoulder blades, the taste of him like ink and brandy.

Later, when he sleeps, you lie awake and watch the moon carve silver lines across the hardwood floor. You think of the Iliad. Of beautiful things destroyed. Of cities that burn with too much brilliance to survive.

You don’t cry. You’ve done all the crying you’ll allow yourself. You simply press your cheek to his chest and listen.

And for now, that is enough.

You know you will leave tomorrow. That’s why tonight feels like this -thick and suspended, beautiful the way frost flowers are beautiful on the edge of a windowpane: intricate, glimmering, and vanishing by morning.

Henry hasn’t asked you to stay. Not in the way that matters.

He has never begged, never wept, never clung. He does not plead. He persuades. And yet you suspect there are rooms inside him that even he cannot unlock, and that perhaps if he were to try -really try- he might weep too, and it would be ruinous.

He lights a cigarette with his usual quiet precision and rests it between his fingers like it’s a relic from another century. The smoke rises like a ghost, and you watch the ash lengthen, waiting for it to fall.

"Are you scared?" you ask.

His eyes flick to yours, cold fire. That amused, intolerant look he reserves for foolish questions, for questions asked by people who do not read Greek. "Of what?"

“Of being alone.”

There is a pause. And then: “No.”

You should have known. He is a man who reads Homer and sympathizes with Achilles. He believes in noble loneliness, in the grandeur of doomed intellect, in dignity over desperation. You are like that. Or you used to think you were. Now, you're unsure.

“I am,” you say.

“I know,” he replies. And not cruelly. But as fact.

The silence between you lengthens. It is not comfortable, not anymore. It is terrible in its intimacy. Like standing at the edge of a cliff and pretending the sea below is calm when it is roaring with undertow.

You lie back on his bed and stare at the ceiling. His room is quiet, but never silent. Somewhere, under the wood and plaster and thick drapes, you hear the bones of the old house creaking. The rustle of leaves. A radiator sighing.

You used to love this place. Its moodiness, its gravity. It had the feel of someplace out of time. Somewhere Byron might have slept, where a young Rilke might have wandered in, soaked and starving, reciting lines under his breath. Now it feels too full, too sharp with memory.

You stare at the ceiling, scowling. “Will you remember this?” you ask.

You hear the rustle of movement -Henry stretching out beside you, the soft weight of him shifting the mattress. Then, without touching you: “Yes.”

“Even if I go?”

“Especially if you go.”

That surprises you. You turn to look at him.

Henry looks tired. The kind of tired that doesn’t show in the body, but in the eyes. In the weariness behind the glasses, in the subtle slackening of his jaw.

You want to tell him that you love him. That if he asked -just once, properly- you’d stay.

You don’t. Because you already know: He won’t. He can’t. That’s the cruelty of Henry Winter. Not that he doesn’t feel. But that he feels in ways that don’t permit mercy.

“I hate this,” you whisper.

He doesn’t reply.

“I hate that I’m going to leave and you’re going to stay and everything will go on like none of it mattered.”

Still nothing. You shift toward him, frustrated. “Say something.”

Henry blinks slowly, exhales. “I would rather have had you for a moment,” he says, “than never at all.”

You want to scream. You want to shatter a glass, strike him, kiss him, beg. You do none of those things. Instead, you laugh. Quiet and bitter.

“You sound like you’re writing a letter to a widow.”

His mouth quirks -just a little. “Perhaps I am.”

You sit up. The bedsheet falling off your body. You are cold, but you make no move to cover yourself. You want him to see you like this -raw, unprotected, real.

"Tell me," you say, "was any of it real for you? Or was I just a convenience? Something to fill the hours between Dante and Caesar?"

Henry props himself up on one elbow. The lamp paints warm shadows on his pale skin. He looks at you the way he looks at a passage of Catullus -like he is parsing it for the second time, hunting for something he missed the first.

“Don’t be vulgar,” he says. “You were never a convenience. You were-”

“What?”

He pauses. A long moment.

“Necessary.” He says.

And it nearly breaks you.

Because Henry is not a man who says things he doesn’t mean. You don’t think he even knows how.

And yet.

“Then why won’t you ask me to stay?”

He looks away. Down. His voice, when it comes, is low.

“Because I won’t make you choose between your life and me.”

“You are my life.”

He closes his eyes. “Then I won’t be responsible for destroying it.”

You feel suddenly, irrationally furious. “You already have.”

The silence that follows is loud. Throbbing. An organ note that never fades.

You fall back onto the pillow and turn your face from him. The room feels colder. The window’s been left open a crack, and you can hear the wind threading through the ivy.

Henry doesn’t touch you. Doesn’t reach out to take your hand. You both lie still, facing opposite directions, and it feels like a thousand miles between you.

You want to ask: Will you miss me tomorrow? When I’m not here to press coffee into your hand at 7:30, to quote the Metamorphoses with sleepy irreverence, to pretend I’m not listening while you translate obscure Latin at your desk?

Will you look at your bed and remember my shoulder in the moonlight?

But you don’t ask. You don’t want to hear the answer. Because either it will ruin you, or it won’t be enough.

Outside, it starts to rain. Thin at first, then harder. It drums the window like someone knocking to be let in.

You wonder if this is what Cassandra felt -knowing what’s coming, being powerless to stop it, and screaming into a silence no one believes in.

You curl into yourself, trying to memorize the feel of this -the smell of his sheets, the texture of his voice when he’s just woken up, the phantom ache behind your ribs when he looks at you like you’re something fragile that he must love quietly, so as not to damage.

Henry speaks. His voice is gentler now. Threadbare. Like something coming undone.

“I did love you, you know.”

It is the first time he has said it out loud.

You close your eyes. “Then say it again.”

“I love you.”

You press your fist to your mouth.

“Say it like it’s the last time.” Because you have a feeling it will be the last time.

Henry turns toward you. You feel the shift of air, the warmth of his body, the sharp, beautiful weight of his gaze.

“I love you.”

And it sounds like the truth.

Like the one truth in a world built on fragments and secrets.

You turn to face him, and for a moment -just one- you pretend it’s not ending.

There’s a world where this night is infinite. Where the sky never turns pale, and the birds never start their insufferable morning songs, and the plane you’re meant to take tomorrow never arrives. There’s a world where you don’t have to choose between dignity and desire. In that world, Henry loves you in the way you want to be loved -openly, destructively, without the cold logic of restraint.

But that is not this world.

This world is quiet. It is final.

You kiss him again -not with fire, but reverence. You kiss him like a eulogy. Like a prayer.

He moves beneath you with the same still grace as always. You remember the first time -how he’d looked at you with curiosity more than hunger, as if you were something to be solved. Now, there is no mystery. Only familiarity.

You fit. That’s the cruelest part. You fit so well.

His fingers thread into your hair, slow and deliberate. You think of Orpheus turning back, of Eurydice vanishing into the dark. Of the moment love becomes a myth the second you look directly at it.

“Stay until dawn,” he says into your skin.

You nod, not trusting your voice.

Because you know this is the most you’ll get from him. And it will have to be enough.

You don’t know how long you lie like that -pressed against him, your faces inches apart, his breath slowing with yours, steady as a metronome. Time is irrelevant. Time is cruel.

You do not sleep.

By the time the light begins to change -the deep navy of pre-dawn blooming into pale grey- you are already dressing. Quietly, deliberately. As if performing a ritual.

Henry sits up, his shoulders bare, the sheet pooling around his waist. He doesn’t say anything, just watches you with a look you’ve only seen on him once before, when at dinner Julian read the closing lines of The Bacchae and no one spoke for a full minute afterward.

You tie your coat at the waist. The buttons slip through their holes like pebbles falling into water.

“I won’t look back,” you say.

“I wouldn’t ask you to.”

He walks you to the door. The hall beyond is dark. Cold.

You reach for the knob. You hesitate.

And then you do something reckless. You look at him -really look- and let it show. All of it. The grief, the longing, the ruin he’s made of you.

And you ask, quietly: “If I stayed, would it change anything?”

A long pause.

“No,” he says. “But I would be glad.”

You nod. There’s nothing else to say.

You step out into the hall and close the door behind you.

You don’t look back.

———————————————————————————————

The flight is a blur of clouds and faces and the ache behind your eyes that won’t quite become tears. You press your forehead to the window and feel the cold glass against your skin.

You think about what Henry said -about having you, even briefly, being worth it.

And you wonder if it’s true.

———————————————————————————————

Later -weeks, maybe months- you return to Hampden. Not to see him, not exactly. Just to walk. To remember.

The campus is still the same: all marble and melancholy, like a poem written in a dead language.

You pass the orchard. The library hall where he once quoted Horace like it was a confession.

And you find yourself outside his building. The Lyceum. You don’t mean to. It’s like muscle memory. Your feet betray you.

You don’t go in.

But for a moment, standing there, you close your eyes and remember his voice.

I love you.

You carry it with you.

You always will.

[cloudmancy]

drew a few different outfit variations for my fhsona! (inspired by @emiuli)

regular outfit: quarter zip, jeans, backpack filled with all manner of devices. paw shaped badidas

artificer workshop student supervisor: high-res vest, safety shoes (keep those toes protected!), lanyard with keys to pretty much every room and storage space in aguefort

adventuring outfit: ancestral armour passed down through the family that he's worn ONCE maybe because he does not like adventuring. at aguefort to ARTIFICE and do ENGINEERING... forced to do at least 2 adventure credits to graduate

soccer uniform: bloodrush's way less popular cousin :( he's got 11 dex but they let just anybody onto the team tbh most students forget that aguefort has a team

[utilitycaster]

You've mentioned a few times about Matt making this the Moon Plot Campaign and the cast not realizing it was the Moon Plot Campaign and how the characters aren't necessarily the best for a Moon Plot Campaign and I'm just curious: if you could pick what type of character build the cast played to best fit a Moon Plot how might that look?

Oh man I think I've answered this before but I will always answer it again because my answer is evolving.

The first two things are just general advice:

In retrospect I think Matt should have treated this campaign as sort of a semi-module format. If you will be playing a module (eg: Curse of Strahd, Call of the Netherdeep, etc), your DM should tell you this and essentially say "you can have your own character struggles - in fact you should - but they should be largely internal/things that can be addressed without you going on an extended quest." For example, you can (and should) play a character in Curse of Strahd who is struggling with self-esteem, or religious faith, or cowardice; but you can't have a character who, to address these things, must confront their father, because they're going to be in Barovia and he's not going to be there. I recommend checking out the rivals in Call of the Netherdeep, because their throughlines are great examples - they' develop and engage with the story, but it's very much driven by the plot of the story and not a delving into their backstory. So essentially, have simpler backstories or backstories that inherently tie into the quest, and let the players come up with that by giving them the most spoiler free outline. I think Matt tried to do all that tying up himself, and at times it made things a little too pat; or those characters who had elements that couldn't be woven in as gracefully (Chetney and the Gorgynei; Laudna with Delilah; some of Ashton's stuff) got very brief arcs so we could get back to the main moon plot.

Do not dump intelligence. DO NOT DUMP INTELLIGENCE. Have at least one PC in your party who is not just intelligent but like, educated. Percy, Beau, and Caleb all fit this. Chetney's pretty smart but not terribly educated so he's great at investigation but he's not going to do very well on religion checks. This party should have had a fucking wizard or artificer or cobalt soul monk or knowledge cleric, but also every party should unless you're going full murder hobo. I think it's valid to be into actual play (or d&d itself) for the character moments and the romance but you know what makes that possible? FIGURING OUT WHAT'S FUCKING HAPPENING INSTEAD OF DICKING AROUND CLUELESSLY. My one true house rule for myself as a DM is that one person in the party has to have high intelligence (or like, be a bard or rogue with decent intelligence but expertise/jack of all trades in everything). Play a high int character for the sake of your DM, PLEASE.

On a more specific note:

would have been good to have more Marquesian characters, but also someone from the Empire would have added a significant dimension. I do love Chetney, and I think Travis is the player who pivoted fastest to fit better within this campaign and has a good understanding of what it could have been with a bit more commitment, but yeah I think if Matt had told them a bit more of what was going on he'd have made like, a more serious werewolf member of the Gorgynei who had noticed lycanthropes becoming susceptible to Ruidus and decided to investigate, for example.

I think having more divinely aligned characters would have just made for much more fun interactions. The issue with the god debates wasn't that they were having them, for all I think that anyone who wants to kill the gods is a fucking idiot. It was that none of them knew jack shit about what they were talking about so it turned into an unending Emperor's Nose discussion. Having either someone who was actually trained (a la Braius, who is a welcome addition for this reason, among others) or again just. a person with religion proficiency and a decent INT score would have made it an actual compelling argument of different perspectives, and not a bunch of idiots yelling out nonsense.

It honestly wouldn't have looked much different. In fact, I think you could have kept the bottom table mostly as is with just tiny alterations, and done the following:

Make Chetney a Marquesian member of the Gorgynei with a mission tied to investigating what's going on with Ruidus. He could still be a weird woodworker.

Entirely rework Laudna's premise. You could have kept her creepy and undead, even, but get rid of Delilah and make her a wizard instead. Make her tied to the Grim Verity or an archaeologist who got kicked off the Tishtan site. You could even keep her aligned with Imogen although I'd have made it a more recent meet up of her being on the run and having gone through Gelvaan in trying to avoid the Grey Assassins

I like what happened with FCG ultimately but I think a different subclass would have still helped; make them a knowledge cleric and more intelligent.

Make Imogen and Ashton much more aware of the Apex War and Otohan's history from the get go. Also give Laura a heads up that her character's going to be super central and she will be in the hot seat for much of the campaign.