#thank you for a bit of context of what's going on

[ink-and-dagger]

Hi Legacy, thank you for your comment and for your compliment about my writing. Unfortunately, Tumblr wouldn’t let me leave this response to your comment under the fic, so I am having to add it onto your reblog. Something I really, genuinely, did not want to have to do.

I hear what you are saying, and am in full agreement with you - tags play a vital role in reader protection, and there’s nothing more frustrating (and in some cases dangerous) than people misusing them.

However, a few words now in my own defence.

I am not new here. I have been writing and posting Silco fics since Arcane first aired back in 2021. It seems more likely in this case that you are new if not to the Arcane fandom then to my blog/writing specifically - so allow me to provide a bit of context which may help, because I don’t believe this case is as cut-and-dry as you believe it to be. I began posting my multi-chapter Silco x Reader fic Drink With Me in January 2022, and updated regularly until its completion in July of that same year. I was extremely lucky in that my story gained a lot of traction and interaction within the fandom throughout that time. People became extremely invested in the Reader character, and would ask me all sorts of questions about her. That’s how Astrid was born. She became a point of reference outside the fic for those who wanted someone to visualise, whilst the fic itself remained strictly a Reader Insert. In the few years since this story wrapped up, my followers have remained invested in the ‘Drink With Me’ universe (again, I’m incredibly lucky and thankful for this), and to this day I receive tons of requests for bonus content set within this universe that I try to fulfil whenever I can. Despite these ficlets being connected to a main multi-chapter fic, most of them can easily be read as a standalone and do not require the context or any prior knowledge of the main fic to make sense. Additionally, as I did with the main fic, they are always written in 2nd person, the character is never referred to by name, and I never use any physical descriptors beyond anatomical ones during smut. If you were to take away any and all tags and look purely at the text alone, it reads as a traditional reader insert, which is why I tag it as such. I include the ‘Astrid’ and ‘OC’ tags for those people who are familiar with the DWM fic and universe and who specifically follow me for this reason, so that they know in their minds that the ficlet relates to the world/timeline of Drink With Me in some way shape or form. I think the point I’m trying to make is that those who are familiar with me and my work will see the ‘Astrid/OC’ tag and go “Ah cool it’s this universe”. Whereas for everyone else I add the ‘can be read as gen!reader insert’ note at the top so that they can go “Ah cool, let me just ignore that character tag then” and happily read it as a general reader insert fic perfectly fine. I hope that makes a bit more sense as to why I tag this way, why I’ve always tagged this way, and why I will continue to tag this way for my Drink With Me adjacent works. If I ever were to write something in 1st or 3rd person or that described the MC in a very specific way, then I would of course not tag that as a reader fic.

Now, so long as we’re here discussing fandom etiquette, I’d like to politely point out that adding your grievance onto the reblog of a specific fic is not a ‘gentle reminder’ - it’s a full-frontal attack on the author who wrote that fic. It would have been far better for you to create your own, separate post addressing the fandom as a whole, or to send me a quiet, private comment/DM on the side.

As I’ve already said, I empathise with your point of view, and I hope you are able to empathise with mine. If the way I choose to tag my work bothers you, then please feel free to block my account so that I don’t show up whilst you are searching for content. At the end of the day we are all individual humans - you cannot expect everyone to interpret/measure/categorise everything in the same way you would, and it’s imperative to take some measure of responsibility for cultivating your own online space, instead of relying on others to do it for you.

What if Astrid find a pic of young Silco by accident hehhehehehhehehehehhe

Snapshot

A Drink With Me ficlet

870 words || Established relationship || Silco x Astrid (but can be read as gen f!reader) || SFW but suggestive || MDNI

“Oh my Gods.”

“What?”

“Oh. My Gods.”

Time has stripped the photograph between your fingers of its glossy sheen and has left the edges blunt and frayed, but you would recognise those features anywhere; no less sharp nor striking through the faded sepia.

“This is you.”

It had slipped from between two ledgers as you’d perused Silco’s bookshelves – an activity more to entertain your idle hands than a genuine search for reading material. The image itself is simple and candid: A young man, seemingly oblivious to the fact his portrait is being taken, sat at a familiar bar, with eyes downcast toward a spread of papers.

That same man looks up at you now from a very similar spread of papers. “What is?”

“This.” You drift over to his desk and perch on its edge, all the while unable to tear your gaze from the photo in your hands. The pitch dark hair swept back into a low bun. The familiar strays – the same ones that even now will always be the first to escape any styling under the combing of agitated fingers – falling forward into his face, only far longer and thicker than you’re used to. His skin, unblemished and smooth, save for the chronic furrow between his brows – etched there long before time and tragedy ravaged the rest.

Silco hums absently; an indication that he acknowledges your discovery but finds little interest in it. You can imagine the man in the photograph making the exact same noise, were someone to distract him from his paperwork for a reason he deemed benign. You flip the photo over. No date.

“How old are you here?”

Silco exhales through his nose, places his pen down with a pointed clack, and extends his hand wordlessly toward you.

“Hah! Do you think I’m wet behind the ears?” you hold the photograph out of his reach, “You can tell just fine from over there thank you very much.”

He cuts you a scathing glance, before leaning forward in his chair with a foreboding creak to peer more closely at the image. His scarred lips purse slightly in thought.

“Mid–late twenties. I can’t say for certain.”

“You were hot.”

“Were?”

“Were and are,” you coo, reclining backwards over the desk into his space, one elbow pitched on his paperwork to hold your weight whilst you flap the photograph in front of his face, “Can I keep this?”

“For what reason?”

“Dirty ones.”

“Hardly necessary,” Silco says, the very corner of his mouth creasing upwards as he catches your wrist to halt your photo-flapping, “You have access to the real thing.”

“True, true, and you can be sure I’ll continue taking advantage of that.” You grin, shoving your captured, photo-wielding arm a little closer to him in emphasis, “But right now I’m talking about some alone time with this guy.”

Silco scoffs under his breath and releases your wrist. You twist onto your front, weight propped on both elbows as you admire the photograph in your grip. You trace a finger down the slender throat of the man in the photo, over the generous wedge of chest exposed by his open crimson collar.

“D’you think he’d notice me? If I came into that bar?”

“Oh I’m certain he would.”

“Yeah?” You lift your gaze from the man in the photo to the one before you – as equally breathtaking. More so. You catch your lower lip between your teeth. “What line would he use?”

Silco hums, low and thoughtful, leaning forward in his chair, closing in on your space. He picks up his abandoned pen, briefly twirling the implement until it’s poised between his elegant fingers like a cigarette. Nib safely facing his own palm.

“After downing the dregs of his drink for courage... he would have approached you.”

With sensual tenderness, he brushes the barrel of his pen along your cheek, warmed metal against warmer skin. Catching at the curve of your jawline, and tracing over your pulse in a way that makes it fumble a beat.

“Cast his gaze over each of your pretty, pretty features. One by one,” he murmurs, slowly drawing the end of the pen down your jugular, down the slope of your collar bone, to leisurely trail through the cut of your cleavage. The corner of your mouth hooks up. The warmth low in your belly coils a little tighter.

“He would have leaned in close,” Silco whispers, demonstrating just so, “Close enough that you’d almost taste the whiskey on his breath.”

Blunt metal drags a purposeful line up your throat, and your lips part softly as he tilts your face toward his with the barrel of his pen flat and firm beneath your chin.

“And asked you – very nicely – to stop leaning on his paperwork.”

You press your tongue against the inside of your cheek while Silco’s dual eyes sizzle with smug mirth. It’d be unthinkable, really – to forfeit either one for the sake of a matching pair.

You straighten and push off his desk, hips swaying as you saunter over to the bedroom with the photograph in hand.

“Well,” you say, pausing in the threshold and turning to him with a smirk, “If you need us, you know where we’ll be.”

[genericpuff]

Do you have any entry level recommendations for someone looking to learn a bit more about Greek mythology? I’d love to read up on it but I’m not sure how to find reputable sources and avoid Americanisation.

I mean, at the risk of sounding crass, you're likely going to run into Americanization no matter what you do because America itself was built on many cultures, especially that of Greek philosophy and storytelling.

Buuut if you mean you wanna read some actual Greek myth content that AREN'T modern American spins on classic tales, Emily Wilson is a popular choice for many people dipping their toes into translated mythology as her translations are both simplistic and concise in their language choices as well as fun in their structure to read both internally and orally (iirc her translations are done in iambic pentameter which is very familiar to anyone who's ever read Shakespeare). I've been working through her translation of The Odyssey, it's been pretty enjoyable :)

I've also heard great things about both Lattimore and Fitzgerald, the latter of whom I will be reading next after I finish Wilson's translation. That said, I haven't read either of their works yet, so take my recommendation of them with grains of salt! (I hope you enjoy them though if you check 'em out! If you beat me to it, let me know how they went!)

OH also, I know it's sorta the opposite of what you're likely looking for as it's VERY influenced by modern contexts, but thanks to another anon I recently got into Destripando la Historia which is a super fun animated Youtube series that retells the stories of various different gods from different mythologies. If you're into stuff of the goofy anime variety, you might enjoy them, it's a Spanish series but you can turn on captions to read the translations! It's super beginner-friendly, it covers a lot of different stories and myths without getting into so much detail that it's overwhelming (but gives you a good kickoff point to start with!) and the songs and animations slap, Afrodita is one of my favorites haha

Overall the biggest advice I can give you if you're trying to avoid fanfiction-y / "Americanized" retellings is just to cross-reference. If you find a retelling you really like but aren't completely sure of its legitimacy as a functional retelling, keep reading, watching, and learning more. It's a skill like any other, and the more you read, the more you'll be able to pick out what's a legitimate retelling from studied scholars vs. what's fanfiction that you don't need to take too accurately or seriously LMAO

And honestly, nothing wrong with the fanfiction stuff! Mythology, in its very nature, changes over time, it's an inevitability and many of the myths we still draw from today are often derivative in and of themselves from even older versions that pre-existed them (see: Ovid).

it's okay if your introduction to Greek myth is through derivative fanfic, stuff like Disney's Hercules and even Lore Olympus ARE fun to consume for a lot of people and make for a good entry point into learning more about the myths!

What's frustrating - and what I tend to criticize the most here - is when the fanfiction gets advertised / sold as legitimate retellings; when the fanfiction grossly misrepresents the actual mythology and yet tries to claim it as legitimate anyways which results in fanbases that are running around with completely false information claiming it as fact. If you can give the team behind Hercules credit for one thing, their rendition may not be completely accurate, BUT the folks who made it never bragged about how much smarter they were than other people about Greek myth or call themselves "folklorists" when they didn't even have any formal education/training/etc. in it cough like another creator we know cough 💀 If we want to make a comparison between LO and a Disney film in terms of how it grossly misrepresents the themes and cultural contexts of the original stories it was drawing from... Disney's Pocahontas does exactly that 💅

So if you want to avoid any "grossly" Americanized versions of Greek myth that are borderline disrespectful to the stories they're drawing from... yeah, that's usually a pretty indicative red flag LMAO

But outside of those very specific scenarios, just have fun with it, there really is no "right or wrong" way to engage with the mythology if you're simply just wanting to learn more, the beauty of it being mythology is that it's very diverse in its mediums and thus you don't have to be restricted to learning about it exclusively through academic translations or lectures. Of course, there are cultural intersections with these myths that shouldn't be ignored, we always have to treat it with care when engaging with it so that we aren't overwriting another culture's traditions or beliefs - but if you're simply wanting to learn about and entertain yourself with some amazing stories that have quite literally stood the test of time, do so however you see fit :)

[glitter-stained]

Jason Todd Meta: My opinion on the csa headcanon

Does Jason's behaviour suggest he was a victim of csa?

There is very little, in terms of clinical signs, that’s going to point to csa specifically, because most symptoms, for psychiatric disorders, aren’t specific to one disorder or cause. One thing that’s usually a good hint would be children making very sexual statements/references/jokes/behaviours that are very inappropriate in context (a good example of this would be Roman Roy from Succession); night terrors are bed wettings amongst children/teenagers over a certain age. But that is absolutely not necessary: many, if not most victims of csa don’t display these specific signs, and a twelve years old that suffers from night terrors is not necessarily a victim of csa. The one thing that tells you for sure, in a person with trauma, that they have been a victim of csa, is that they’re telling you they have been a victim of csa. I’m insisting on that part because there’s a whole bunch of therapists (cough cough psychanalysts) that will tell you confidently that your psychiatric symptoms stem from a childhood sexual trauma (cherry on top of the shit cake if it’s incestuous) that you didn’t know about because you’ve repressed it. I repeat, that’s bullshit. If you meet a clinician who tells you that, RUN. So, a warning: this is probably the least “psychological analysis” of my “Jason psychological analysis posts”, because Jason’s symptoms do not allow us to conclude formally for or against a history of sexual abuse. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do some meta, make sure we're on the same page with what's analyzed here, some textual analysis, discuss what the csa headcanon does and does not imply in terms of his behaviour. I think it’s a good idea to start with it so we know where we’re standing with our analysis, regardless of the fact it’s maybe not the most interesting in terms of psychopathology and neuropsychology.

A couple of disclaimers:

I only talk about the comics I want to talk about. This is for two reasons, which are that 1) I do what I want and if I don’t like/don’t find something interesting, I’m not gonna waste time on it; and 2) I’ve been reading comics for a couple of months only, and there are, like, a lot of them. If there are comics you wanna see analysed under that lense, feel free to suggest them! I might not want to, but it also could be that I haven’t read them yet. Additionally, I'm not interested in questioning the morality of Jason's actions here. Ethics are fun, and I like talking about them sometimes, and morality sometimes has a place in talks about demonization but largely speaking this isn't the space for that. I separate talk about morality and psychology stuff as much as I can for a reason, so if you are looking here for excuses for his behaviour or arguments as to why he is a bad person, you're in the wrong place. Moral judgement is irrelevant here for the most part.

On the events of Red Hood: Lost Days:

Jason has, at some point in the comics, been a victim of csa. When Talia kisses Jason before pushing him off a cliff right after he got out of the Lazarus Pit, and when she initiates sex with him in Lost Days, that’s not consent!! That’s a grown woman taking advantage of a traumatized teenager who is, on top of that, deeply indebted to her. That’s a predatory act, with a steep power imbalance, it’s sexual assault, and on top of that there’s an element of suggested pseudo-incest. That decision was retconned, and thank god, because it was a brutal assassination of Talia’s character based on a good bit of racism, and also because the way it was portrayed doesn’t make it clear that Jason is a victim in a situation rather than that super annoying trope of “teenage guy gets to bang a hot MILF and hahaha lucky him”, writing a male character in a situation of SA without acknowledging it as SA or taking it seriously is one of the tropes I hate most, it reinforces stigmatisation and isolates victims. For all of these reasons, I’m not gonna include that element in my analysis, but it’s important to note that if you do include those scenes in your conception of it, then Jason is undeniably a victim of csa and everything discussed about it applies to him.

What if it were a lie?

I’ve said it before (and I’ll say it again), I deeply, violently hate headcanons/tropes where a character lies about being a victim of csa (whether it’s for manipulation, personal gain, any reason really I don’t care). It’s rare as fuck in real life, however it’s a common trope that feeds into fear of being wrongfully accused that causes push-back and increases social stigmatization. CSA is a painful thing associated with intense feelings of shame and already a deep fear of not being believed. Imagine making a considerable effort to seek help after something terrible happened/is happening to you, and you have to brave your fear of not being believed on top of that, and once you’ve made all that effort you get rejected and villainized because it’s just easier for the person you’re reaching out to not to believe it. So I’m awfully weary of this type of headcanon, and I think a general rule of thumb is “if your interpretation of what the character is saying is that he’s talking about how he was abused, especially if he’s talking about sexual assault, then it happened.” If you don’t like that, if you don’t feel like that’s good representation, then you can question the story, think it should be retconned, or rethink your interpretation of what the character says if it’s ambiguous, but hcing that the character lied about his assault is not a hypothesis we’re going to accept here no matter what. So we can start by scratching that one out: Jason never lies about being a victim of csa, or wilfully hints at it even though that’s untrue, at any point.

Two other ideas I’ve seen floating around that I think are worth mentioning:

No, just because Jason lived in the streets as a kid doesn’t mean the only way he survived was through underage prostitution. I genuinely don’t understand that idea, yes being a street kid makes you extremely vulnerable, yes it makes the risk of resolving to underage prostitution to survive higher but it’s absolutely not a fatality. That idea is, quite frankly, weird. Do you automatically assume if a real life person tells you they were in the streets for some time at a kid that they are a victim of csa? Also, I've seen the idea go around that because some people have a strong reading/hc of Jason as bi (which I have no problem with I love bi Jason), that would be an argument in favour of the csa hc. Please don’t do that. There’s no link between queer sexual orientations and childhood sexual abuse, that’s a harmful myth that we should work to deconstruct or, at the very least, not continue to vehiculate.

Another important thing to keep in mind: childhood sexual abuse =/= childhood sexual trauma.

Now, a traumagenic situation is a situation that might induce trauma (so development of, acute stress disorder, ptsd, cptsd, derealization, any traumatic pathology really). These situations exist on a continuum of probability to be traumatized by this situation. For example, a flood, a car accident, witnessing a murder and being sexually assaulted are all traumagenic situations, but the probability of developing trauma from them are very different. It hinges on personal, situational, social, and environmental risk factors (that have nothing to do with being weak, anybody can develop trauma). A definition for traumagenic situations can be found in the diagnostic criteria for ptsd in the dsm-5:

A. “Exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence in one (or more) of the following ways:

1. Directly experiencing the traumatic event(s).

2. Witnessing, in person, the event(s) as it occurred to others.

3. Learning that the traumatic event(s) occurred to a close family member or close friend. In cases of actual or threatened death of a family member or friend, the event(s) must have been violent or accidental.

4. Experiencing repeated or extreme exposure to aversive details of the traumatic event(s) (e.g., first responders collecting human remains; police officers repeatedly exposed to details of child abuse). Note: Criterion A4 does not apply to exposure through electronic media, television, movies, or pictures, unless this exposure is work related.”

Note that the this last criteria has been added from the DSM-5 in order to explain cases of PTSD observed in at-risk jobs like cops exposed to repeated detailed child abuse, first responders collecting human remains, or, crucially, vigilantes repeatedly exposed to brutal crimes. This means that Jason, when he works on the Dumpster Slasher case, when he is horrified to find Gloria in the immediate aftermath of her rape (and later finds her dead body, because witnessing the consequences of these traumatic events is also an important component of that second-hand trauma), is being exposed to a very traumagenic situation. As I said before, that doesn’t necessarily mean you will experience trauma (thank fuck for that), but there are factors that influence that. SA related situations has an already pretty high probability of inducing trauma. On top of that, age is a big factor in that: the younger you are, the less resources, emotional regulation, development and coping mechanisms to face the traumagenic event you have (though there is such a thing as “too young to have PTSD" -when your memory is simply not developed enough for the memory to traumatize you because you will not remember the event.) At fifteen, with his memory fully developed but his brain going through so much changes because of teenagehood and his past history, Jason would be at risk. On top of that, you’re more at risk to get traumatized if you’re already stressed out when the event happens, so Jason’s mental state at this point in his robin run is also a risk factor. All to say, it’s very plausible for Jason to have sexual trauma without being a victim of sexual abuse in relation to canon events. Besides, in headcanon territory when it comes to Jason’s childhood before Robin, there are so many ways to be exposed to sexual violence : witnessing/finding his mother being a victim (considering the position of extreme vulnerability Catherine was in), witnessing assault in the streets, being the victim of attempted SA and escaping, watching street kids get picked up and later find their bodies/being told by other kids, as a cautionary tale, in excruciating detail, testimonies of their own assault… Or for example, if we’re thinking about Arkham Knight, being constantly threatened with SA, it being hinted and joked about and hanging over him like a sword of Damocles is something I could see Joker and other inmates do that could definitely induce sexual trauma even if it doesn’t happen ; what matters most, in trauma, is that the fear is real. Mechanically, when we’re looking at the way trauma works even on a biological level, the overwhelming fear is at the core of the pathology. (This is also why you can develop PTSD after a psychotic episode.) Like, my point isn’t that one of these things happened to Jason, or that he has to have sexual trauma from the events of the Diplomat’s Son or anything -mostly just that this is a possibility, something very serious that happens and an important nuance that I never see in discussions on the csa headcanon, and while it’s not exactly what the debate is about, I think it’s something important to ponder.

Do you consider the csa hc to be canon?

So, there are a lot of Jason stories, and I’m very pro “not take in account what is said in comics you dislike in your conception of canon” because if I did that absolutely no bat character would be readable, I have to believe that no character is defined by their worst writers. And boy, does Jason have a lot of bad writing… On top of the personal retcons, there are also the canon retcons: like Battle for The Cowl is retconned… Unless someone decides to reinject/revamp it into the narrative (please don’t please don’t it’s irrecuperable let it lay with the Flying Todds where it belongs). So, let’s see. There are three writers/arcs that imply/mention the csa hc: Starlin’s writing of Jason’s post-crisis Robin Run (canon though some stuff in it seems to have been retconned), Winick’s writing in Green Arrow: Seeing Red (canon as far as I know), and Battle for the Cowl (retconned). It’s worth noting that one of those are considered to be foundational works for Jason’s character (Jason’s post crisis Robin Run and Starlin’s part in it), and another was written by Winick, who wrote the other two foundational Jason stories: Under The Red Hood and Red Hood: Lost Days. On a personal level, I’m very mitigated about what I like and accept about it. I base my whole love and characterization of Jason about his post-crisis Robin Run, I love that little guy so much, Starlin’s take on Jason’s Robin Run is absolutely canon to me (which does not mean I like Starlin as a writer, thank you very much). On the other hand of the spectrum, the only reason Battle for the Cowl isn’t my least favourite comic ever is because The Killing Joke exists, absolutely not canon, get this thing away from me. And then in the middle, my feelings on Seeing Red (on the entirety of Winick’s Jason really) vary depending on the day, because I do like a revenge story that challenges the status quo with tropes of “bad victim” and it sets up Jason as a character based on love rather than morals which I adore, but there are also some elements of psychophobia in the writing that I (who approach stories through the filter of psychopathology first and foremost) can’t just look past, and also the way it intertwines with classist stereotypes. So do I consider Seeing Red to be canon? In good faith, yes, but whether I’ll accept it as such really depends on the day. In terms of the csa headcanon: it’s heavily hinted in BTFC but not outright said, it’s there as a undercurrent in Starlin’s run because of his intention (to make Jason die of AIDS). And then we have Seeing Red. Basically Jason lists elements about Mia’s life, including her past with underage prostitution (so, just to be very clear, csa), and says they’re very similar, having both lived on the streets, and understand having to do bad things when it’s necessary. This is not the same as saying “I was a victim of csa”, and what he’s saying could be interpreted differently (we know that he was stealing tires, and “only what he needs to survive”, so he could have been referencing small-time theft.) So, it could be a reference to something else, I totally understand why some people want to interpret differently. It just… Feels like such a weird and weak argument to be equating boosting tires to underage prostitution, to me it’s very ooc (in comparison to UTH Jason), and it would feel like weak writing from someone like Winick. Aka it’s not technically canon, and you don’t have to accept it as such(I understand the mentality of "I'm rejecting this interpretation because it feels like demonization of csa victims" perfectly), but personally I think it takes a lot from Jason’s character in Seeing Red and from this story in general.

[snotty-zombie]

Rageous-tober part 4 (final)!!!

Day 27: Crossover (2 parts)

Day 31: Halloween

More under cut >xP

totally disregard all the writing if you dont care lmaooo this is just me word vomiting about my ocs and thought process when doing this haha i just thought id give some context cuz i always forget you guys know literally nothing about my characters

Day 27: Crossover! So this is a two parter, part 1 is Gumlee x Ritzneer obvvvvvviously because I’m basic I can’t help but compare them and a lot of others can’t help it either from what I’ve seen I had an insane stroke of genius calling Veneer ‘Prince Gumdrop’ and I don’t think I’ll ever reach those heights again

Part 2 of the crossover is MLP CROSSOVER!! Including unicorn ‘Colt Ritz’ which I am quite proud I must say considering I hadn’t drawn a pony in like- 10 years AS WELL AS Pegasus ‘Boogie Bomb’ which I am ALSO quite proud of, he has very big wings and is covered in little green spots (which mimic the spotty design he has on his shaved scalp as a Rageon) he looks a bit like a donkey but I think that’s just because of his little facial hair bits and massive pointy ears I gave him hmmmm Also, siren Velvet and Veneer!! I can’t remember the exact lore of the sirens since I haven’t seen the film in a real long time but I got some help from my friend who is a big MLP fan and she filled me in on the lore etc, as well as inspiration from another artist on here who also did a VV x MLP crossover, I reposted their amazing art on my other blog so def go check it out. Anyway, VV are sirens and disguise themselves as alicorns (but also hide their flanks as they have no cutie marks)

Day 31: Halloween!!! 🎃 👻 💀 🦇 🐈‍⬛ Last one!! This one took foreveerrrrr and again, I just had to try to outdo myself with the amount of bs happening on screen at once I tried to include all my main fav ocs, as well as the twins and KR all going door to door in a massive trick or treating horde

I called this the 'soft launch' of my Velvet and Veneer fan parents, Dr Velocity (mum) and Dr Voltage (dad), they're in matching Frankenstein and Frankenstein's wife costumes :3. They mean well of course as any parent does but their good intentions can get lost in translation (harsh punishments and struggling/refusing to understand their bizarre children). I will definitely give them their spotlight when I eventually get around to redesigning them (slightly) and writing out some information about them to share with you guys because I like them a lot :P

-Theres Glow Worm getting her costume repaired by Rhinestone after she ripped it doing multiple cartwheels in a row -Velvet and Veneer trading their sweets that they collected (you'd think they were discussing border placement or something, they take it so seriously) -Veneer and TV Girl finally getting along after telling their lame boyfriends to stop fighting with each other -And a zombie Boogie sketch I refused to finish whoops

SO YEAH THATS ALL I DID FOR RAGEOUS-TOBER, finally posting it to tumblr half way through November. be sure to check out the creators account, jobiesayscheese 😻😻😻 thanks for checking my art out, and if you read all of my stupid ramblings ily sm and thank you for hearing me out

I also did in fact win a raffle for Rageous-tober not to flex but yes to flex (totally wasn’t rigged cuz tf)

Part 1! Part 2! Part 3! Part 4!

[qm-vox]

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

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

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

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

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

Without further ado, let us begin with...

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

We begin the obligatory text wall.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm not fucking bitter, you are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That said, let's actually talk about Cleric.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which brings us, at long last, to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Pratchett quotes will continue until morale improves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Playing With The Big Boys Now - Cleric Aesthetics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm not bitter, you're bitter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The People In The Important Pajamas - "Cleric" NPCs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, without further ado, may I present:

The Chosen Many - Sample Clerics

Our sample Clerics will be formatted as follows:

[NAME]

Species Domain Cleric [Background]

General pitch of their concept & plot hooks

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

Matthias Winters

Human Death Cleric [Guild Artisan]

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

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

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

Elrissa Morrowmoon

Drow War Cleric [Soldier]

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

She was answered.

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

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

Gemma Rivergard

Half-Elf Forge Cleric [Noble]

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

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

…Surely not?

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

Neela Wagonborn

Halfling Trickery Cleric [Haunted One]

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

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

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

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

Fila Firetouched

High Elf Tempest Cleric [Entertainer]

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

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

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

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

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

Nattie Kells

Human Order Cleric [Hermit]

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

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

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

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

Dagill Tapper

Shield Dwarf Knowledge Cleric [Background]

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

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

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

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

St. Nokta Kinslayer

Goblin Life Cleric [Outlander]

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

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

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

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

Jelka Threebones

Orc Grave Cleric [Acolyte]

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

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

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

Kellard Frosthalt

Rock Gnome Nature Cleric [Folk Hero]

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

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

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

Dolly Bookchild

Half-Drow Peace Cleric [Investigator]

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

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

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

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

Jonas Cobbler

Aasimar Light Cleric [Urchin]

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

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

...Lathander.

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

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

Freddie Wright

Human Twilight Cleric [Criminal]

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

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

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

[kisakis-boyfriend]

Okay, here's my request for the halloween event!

First thing: I forgot to ask about the polyship, so I wondering it's possible to request with Makoto & Akihiko. If not, then can I just get Makoto?

(Note: I'm writing the context with Makoto & Akihiko as a polyship, so ignore Akihiko if polyship is not possible)

(Also: NSFW)

Context: Reader is a member of SEES and the crew is visiting Tartarus on Halloween, which makes it more dangerous than usual. The party (which has Reader, Makoto, and Akihiko, plus anyone else (Up to you, if you want)) is separated on a floor with Fuuka unable to locate and hear them. The reader finds Makoto and Akihiko fighting a powerful shadow, only for them to become inflicted with Charm before they could defeat the shadow. Reader managed to defeat the shadow only to find the two still under the Charm status and looking at Reader with hunger... What happens next is up to you.

Thank you! Hope this is alright with you!

🎃

Author's Note: You've activated my trap card! AkiMako/Mina is one of my favorite p3 ships. 🥰 Reader ended up being a bit of a switch rather than fully dom, I hope that's alright 😵‍💫 This was super fun to brainstorm for and write! The focus kept shifting more towards Akihiko no matter what, I tried to keep Makoto included but I'm sorry if that's not quite what you wanted. ;( I hope you enjoy it anyways~

Pairings: Makoto x Akihiko x male reader

Warnings: Male!reader, switch/top!reader, switch/bottom!characters, everyone is 18+ & a virgin, reader is a bit of a closeted pervert, mild dubcon, riding, facesitting, oral sex

The moon hangs heavily in the sky, not quite full, but close. A small sliver remains dark — the promise of an upcoming hardship once that section is also lit.

Your leader gathered the group earlier tonight, arranging a plan to infiltrate Tartarus and hone your skills further in preparation for these final few shadows you're guaranteed to clash with.

Certain teammates weren't available — which left the candidates for tonight's mission as: Makoto (your leader), Akihiko, Junpei, and yourself. Fuuka is, of course, your trusty navigator. Mitsuru is also on standby, just in case something happens.

Everything was going smoothly at first, until you came across a floor that was slightly warped. Your teammates began to complain of a headache, but before any of you could even say "let's find a teleporter" — or before Fuuka could warn you of the incoming danger — you all fainted.

None of you even considered that Tartarus, the dark hour, or the shadows would behave differently tonight. Apparently, the holiday where the veil between worlds is thinner does affect Tartarus, and now you were all going to pay the price for venturing in so willy nilly.

The first thing you perceive is a terrible pounding in your head—like someone is hitting your brain with several hammers—followed by the hard surface underneath you. Your eyes feel far too heavy to open, and a faint ringing invades your ears as you regain consciousness. There's an ache in your limbs that wasn't there earlier, but nothing appears broken or outwardly injured—save for a few bruises.

Sitting up hurts. Whatever transported you here wasn't gentle and you can really feel it. The familiar presence of your friends is no longer with you, and you panic, finding yourself all alone in a completely different area.

“Hey, Fuuka? Come in, Fuuka! …Shit!” no response.

Ok, don't panic. Surely there's just something jamming our communication. They're probably still here somewhere, I just have to look around.

Luckily, your weapon wasn't stolen. You pick it up and keep it at the ready — god only knows what's lurking around here, waiting for you to let your guard down so that it can pounce.

There are stairs not too far from where you wake up, and they lead to a floor with a similar structure. Another flight up, and it's the same. You gather that, from your knowledge of previous blocks, these are the floors right before you encounter a gatekeeper. No enemies in sight, just a straight path up.

Which means, the next floor should be… !!!

—

“You want a piece of me?! Then, come get some!” someone shouts in the distance. A deep male voice, quite feisty, too.

—

That all too familiar voice catches your attention, and you rush up the stairs without hesitation. Your guess is correct; on the next floor, your friend, Akihiko is fighting what appears to be a gatekeeper. Your leader is fighting by his side, but Junpei is nowhere to be seen. Before you can locate him though, you'll need to defeat this thing. Eliminating any immediate danger before you can get your bearings and conduct a search and rescue is a priority.

They manage a couple strong hits to the shadow, but that doesn't seem to do much more than provoke the damn thing. After a successful attack from Makoto, the shadow winds up to unleash a counter attack that hits both of your teammates, knocking them both down and stunning them in the process.

While your teammates are capable all on their own, you can't stuff down the protective itch scratching at your brain. Seeing your friends in a vulnerable position triggers your theurgy — and before you can even think, you slam a cartridge into your evoker and point it at your head. Pulling the trigger to unleash an attack so devastating, it turns that shadow into dust instantaneously.

“Whew… hah, take that, asshole! Mess with my friends again… *huff* I dare you!” you manage between heavy breaths. Wow, ok…may have overdone it a bit there… you say in your head before turning towards your friends, giving them a quick once-over to see if they're injured.

“Hey, leader, how ya feeling?”

He hesitates for a minute. Finally speaking, “Fine, now that you're here~” you definitely notice a change in his tone, but you chalk it up to disorientation after being teleported to a strange floor like you were. It's not until Akihiko speaks up that you really clock something strange happening…

“I'm so happy to see you, y/n~” your white haired companion says in a sing-song way.

……… yeeeaahh no. Akihiko does not talk like that- something's definitely fishy here.

You squint at your friends, glancing back and forth between them. “Are you guys sure you're feeling alright? You're acting a little funny…”

As you eyeball them, they both begin stepping forward, with strange looks on their faces. It's unclear what their intentions are, but something about the way they move is… unnerving. Maybe not threatening, it's just unlike the way they normally move.

Your voice betrays you, trembling as you also take a step back while they close in on you. “This isn't very funny. What are you doing?” You try to keep both guys within your peripherals, eyes flicking back and forth between them as you try to figure out what's happening. It doesn't help that your feet also betray you, and you fall flat on your ass.

Akihiko drops to his knees in front of you, crawling towards you with a strange hunger swirling in his gray eyes. He slots right between your legs, leaning ever closer until his breath tickles your face. “Sanada-senpai…?” any further questioning gets cut off as your teammate steals your first kiss—unexpectedly so.

Tartarus is not exactly the ideal place for an impromptu kissing session… especially not from one of your friends whom you were convinced had eyes for someone else, but it seems like Akihiko isn't thinking about any of that. Actually, you don't have a clue what's going on in his head. Why on Earth is he suddenly smooching you?! Now's not the time for this!

“Mmph- wait wait wait, Junpei's still– !!!” you whine as your teammate holds you here by the small of your back, stealing kiss after kiss while you remain helpless to his attack. There's the faintest taste of blood on his lips, but otherwise he actually tastes… really nice. His lips only leave yours for brief moments, allowing for quick breaths before he continues this strange, uncharacteristic display of affection.

When Akihiko finally pulls back, he leaves your head spinning, not too dissimilar to how you felt before you fainted earlier. Before your senior can lean back in, you gasp, “Why… did you do that?”

His only response is a chuckle as he tilts his head, aiming for your jawline next. Hot, wet lips trail along your skin, jumbling your thoughts further.

Impatiently waiting his turn, your leader circles behind you, kneeling down as well and experimentally touching you. He starts off rubbing your shoulder, almost in a comforting manner, then growing bolder when you don't shrug him off, sliding his warm hands under your shirt.

Makoto's lips eagerly make contact with the back of your neck, and you gasp at the sudden feeling. With both of your friends groping and incessantly kissing you like this, it's not hard to lose yourself — getting caught up in the raw, carnal emotions and sensations.

Your chest has felt tight this whole time, and your stomach feels much the same, and somewhere a little lower… there's an unbearable heat building up, and it's starting to drive you crazy.

“Please… I get it if you're happy to see me, but, senp–mMmMPH–!” Akihiko's lips crash into yours once again, cutting you off unceremoniously. Something you said must have triggered this reaction—earning grunt and groan from your teammate as he takes you by the wrist and guides your hand in between his legs.

“D'you feel that… mmf! Look at what you're doing to me, y/n~~” your palm presses against the large bulge in Akihiko's pants. It's firm, and you swear that it…throbs…within your grasp. Your friend can't help himself as he humps your hand, moaning so close to your face while you simply stare in curiosity.

The hot and heavy breaths on your shoulder indicate that your leader is excited by this display too—panting hard as he shuffles around. You catch the sound of fabric rustling and assume that he's begun to touch himself as well. Just imagining the sight of Makoto with his hand down his pants, touching his hardened cock… and all of this is, presumably, because of you. For whatever reason they seem to be enamored by you — captivated, even. And, you do have to admit… this is all making you very excited too. What's the harm in giving in? What's the worst that could happen?

“So stiff… tell me what you want, Sanada-san.” you prompt, palming him more aggressively now. Akihiko stutters, tipping his head back as he groans “You! I want you~! Wan' you to… ruin me~❤️”

Behind you���still jerking himself with no shame—Makoto whimpers against your ear, sloppily fucking his fist until everything down there is wet and messy. God, it's an adorable image to think about. Watching your reliable leader whimper and whine, all while his pants become stained with his lust. You can even hear how wet he's become, just from sitting next to you and watching you touch Akihiko.

Your fingers graze his soft cheek and Makoto gasps, chasing your touch. “How about you, leader? You want the same thing, don't you?” His bangs bounce as he vigorously nods his head, boring into your soul with those pretty blue eyes.

“I hate how easily you've roped me into this… but I don't think any of us can just up and quit now–” you grumble, “We're in way too deep…”

Now that you're more on-board with whatever's happening, it's easy for you to take control—by pushing Akihiko onto the ground and pinning him by his hands. “Aah~ Y/nnn, please~” he whines, spreading his legs open obscenely. You've never seen Akihiko blush this much—or at all! His cheeks are almost the same shade as his vest.

You press a finger to his lips, then drag your digit down his chest all the way to his belt. “Shh, shh, don't get ahead of yourself, senpai. D'you really want me to stick it in so soon?”

The way your senior's eyes flutter and roll back has your own stomach fluttering like crazy. He licks his lips before answering “Yeess~ I'm so ready for you~” and moaning so sweetly. This is so unlike the tough yet socially awkward guy you're used to, but it is kinda hot, in a way.

“I'm sure you are, but I'm not gonna hurt you. Let's just take these off first–” you counter. Your fingers easily undo Akihiko's belt and remove it enough for him to pull his pants off, per your instructions. As he does that, you turn your attention over to S.E.E.S' most trusted leader—whose eyes shift between Akihiko's dick and your face rapidly.

“I feel like you've been rather neglected this whole time, so you come over here as well—I'll take care of you.” Makoto silently makes his way next to Akihiko, laying on his back and allowing you to remove his bottom clothing without a fuss. He gulps, and his mouth has never felt drier as he gazes at you through heavy eyelids while your hand lingers on his hip.

A forced whine pulls your attention back to Akihiko, who you can tell is trying with all his might not to touch himself as he awaits your next action.

The sight before you is a lot to take in; two of your closest friends, in the nude and lying on their backs in the middle of Tartarus, desperately staring at you with eyes completely overtaken by lust. Their cocks stand stiff, shining with the sinful layers of precum from being toyed with earlier. And, in a desperate attempt to get you to do literally anything, Akihiko grabs his ass and spreads his cheeks apart, offering up his untouched hole for you alone. “Please, y/n…”

While you are still a virgin (for a few more moments, at least) you've definitely browsed through plenty of porn — probably more than Junpei alone, maybe even more than all of your male friends combined… you have a decent idea of what to do, and a few dirty ideas of how to make your submissive friends even more embarrassed and excited~

“Alright, alright– I'm gonna use my fingers first though, ok? No protests.” you said firmly. Akihiko grumbled, but made no move to take control, relinquishing it all to you.

You wrap one hand around each of their dicks, respectively, making sure to gather precum moreso on your fingers than the rest of your hands, and pump their cocks a little. They're so fucking wet, precum is all over the inside of their underwear and now it's dribbled onto the front of their pants…and your stroking is only making a bigger mess.

Once you feel like you have enough on your fingers, you instruct them to “Open up~” Makoto understands the assignment immediately, parting his lips wide and accepting your sticky fingers so obediently. Akihiko, on the other hand, has the wrong idea, and spreads his hole more, thinking that you were going for that area already. He splutters when salty fingers push down on his tongue, filling his senses with his own lewd fluids.

The precum and saliva mix together quickly, graciously coating your fingers—much to your liking—and you finally pull them out and begin the main prep here. As your wet fingers enter Makoto for the first time, he keens, tightening up; “Hey, it's alright, you're ok. Take a breath, Makoto.” you push inside as he relaxes, and the realization of what you're doing hits you with a spark of electricity.

While your leader adjusts to the new intrusion, you set your sights on your other teammate as he lay there, panting, staring at you expectantly. “Ready?” a firm nod as Akihiko grasps the flesh of his own cheeks and spreads them once more is all the confirmation you need, rubbing the rim of his hole before your finger slides on in. You're only using one finger to start with, lest you accidentally hurt one of them. But it's not long until you can go up to two digits, scissoring their cute, puffy holes for the very first time.

The usually silent Makoto has higher pitched, breathy moans. They echo off of the twisted walls of Tartarus — creating sweet, sweet music to your ears. And over on the other side, Akihiko's grunts mix with eager growls and occasional moaning, honestly what you'd expect from him.

Their voices fill your ears, putting you in a trance as you mindlessly finger their asses like in the videos you watch online. But, the monotony of your movements made Akihiko bored—impatient. He hungered for more than what you were giving him.

Fed up with your slow pace, the white haired male grabs your wrist, snapping you out of the trance and making you panic slightly. “What's wrong, senpai?! I'm not going too fast, am I?”

In his eyes, you catch a dangerous glint, before your world gets tipped over. “Not fast enough…” your senior mumbles, sitting up in a flash and pushing you over so that you now lay flat on your back, staring up at a sweaty, crazed teammate. His hands make quick work of your belt, yanking your pants open and freeing your cock as fast as humanly possible. As he watches your stiff cock bob and drool with precum, his eyes glaze over, gasping like a kid in a candy shop.

“Waitwaitwait–!! Don't! I haven't– you haven't done this yet… it might still hurt!” your pleas fall on deaf ears as you watch in slow motion as Akihiko lines up your cock with his ass and pops the head in. Both of your eyes widen, and it would be a lie to say that this didn't feel amazing, just from your tip penetrating your friend's ass. “Senpai… fff-shiiit~ Ah–!”

The dizzying sensation returns, more intense than it has been so far, blurring all vision and judgement as your entire length fills up your friend's ass — from tip to base, your dick is squeezed tightly by Akihiko's hot walls.

“Oh yeah, that's it! Right there, y/n~ This is what I needed from you!!” your teammate exclaims, throwing his head back as he rides you with enough force to bruise your pelvis. His ass slams down repeatedly, only stopping to grind down and clench around your cock.

Feeling neglected and equally as hungry as his teammate, Makoto sits up and pouts. “Mmm, y/nnn… it's empty… without you…” his hips move without rhythm, chasing the phantom of pleasure left from having your fingers pulled out of him too soon. “N-need you… haah~”

Though you're out of breath, and struggling to focus on anything with Akihiko's tight hole sucking you in, you manage to get out, “C'mere… oOH~ Sit on me.” Brief images of pretty men and women sitting on another person's face as they get eaten out pop up in your mind, reliving the nights spent watching strangers' tongues lap at someone's ass or cunt in all kinds of ways. It's unclear what possessed you to suggest this, but that's what comes out of your mouth regardless. As your leader gives you an inquisitive look, you repeat, “Sit on my face, Makoto, I wanna… taste you.”

“Aah… like this…?” he murmurs, placing his knees on both sides of your head. With your patience now dwindling by the second, you wrap your hands around Makoto's thighs and make him sit on your face. His hole is right at your mouth, and you instantly begin to lick it, acting so lewd compared to your regular day-to-day self that your leader blushes even deeper.

“It's… too good–!! Ah! Y/n~” Makoto moans, grinding against your mouth selfishly. His voice goes up an octave when you dip your tongue inside — squeezing his thighs for dear life as adrenaline kicks in even more. All of these lewd acts have fired you up to the point where you just want to stay here all day, humming as you eat out one friend, and thrust your hips into another.

Speaking of– Akihiko hasn't even slowed down once while you've been taking care of your leader. And you finally feel the effect of that as your core tightens, and your thrusts become erratic. Akihiko matches that enthusiasm, bouncing with all of his strength until you're whining into Makoto's hole and creaming Akihiko's.

“Unf–! Fuuuu– mm, that's… what I needed~” your senpai grunts. His cock leaks onto your stomach, but he's yet to cum–

On top of you, Makoto's cock leaks all over your shirt—it aches for something more… In a fit of boldness, he pulls himself from your grasp just enough to scoot backwards and slide his dick into your open mouth. The action surprises you, but your head is so dizzy that you don't make any fuss over it.

Now, with his cock working further into your throat, Makoto hunches forward, cursing at the newfound sensation. Between seeing all of that happen, the obscene sounds coming from both his leader and you, and the hard cock still buried in his guts—Akihiko yearns for another round. Wasting no time in finding a steady pace, he rides you like a cowboy would a mechanical bull; gyrating his hips to bring himself (and you, by proxy) every ounce of pleasure available.

Both of the men on top of you are so caught up in their own agendas that they don't realize how much they've been gradually leaning forward, closer and closer to each other until their faces are right there next to each other.

They make eye contact, and it's Akihiko who moves first — he smirks at his leader, then puts a firm hand on the back of his neck to pull him into a kiss. A whole new feeling of lust takes over as Makoto fucks your mouth while Akihiko dominates his with his tongue. Feeling himself close to his release, Akihiko uses his free hand to masturbate his cock. It's sloppy and messy as his precum smears all across his glove—but clearly he does not care about that right now. His only goal is pleasure; a satisfying release after all of this intense fun.

You're still recovering from your orgasm when you feel your teammate's ass tighten around your dick, and seconds later he's shooting cum that hits yourself and your leader. His hips stutter wildly, and his breath is ragged and short as he savors the feeling of ecstasy shooting through his veins.

All of the excitement tips Makoto over the edge as well, and his load goes right down your throat, the surprise of which causes you to arch your back and buck your hips into Akihiko. When he eventually pulls out (and allows you to breathe!!) his body immediately slumps, accidentally resting his head on Akihiko's shoulder as he, too, trembles from the aftershocks.

Several minutes pass—so you assume—and your head begins to clear up. It's now that you take in the mess you've all made… there's cum all over your clothing, sweat and other bodily fluids clinging to your face, not to mention that your legs have fallen asleep after so much riding! The heavy presence on your chest and the one on your pelvis are noticeable now that you've calmed down too.

Still sitting on top of you, Akihiko's tired eyes flutter open and, judging by the intense look in them—the hearts taking up the space where his pupils once were—you fear that this isn't over yet…

[spelled-like-pajamas]

Something I don't think I've ever seen someone talk about with TF2 (though there probably is someone) is a small detail in the Expiration Date video (which came out in June of 2014, for context that's important later). For context, here's the clip in question:

Did you catch something small? When Scout stands up and says he'll do the date without Spy's help, Spy does something he rarely ever does, something absolutely tiny, but that speaks volumes.

He smiles. A genuine, non-snarky smile.

If you were to watch this when it first came out, and notice this detail, I'd not make any sense, really. Why would he be smiling, when Scout is arguing with him, telling him that he's wrong, basically saying he just wasted his supposed final hours on this world teaching him something he's not going to use?

But then, in January of 2017, nearly 2 and half years later, and (okay spoilers but this has been around for like more than 7, nearly 8 years since posting) it is all but directly shouted from the heavens that Spy is Scout's father. And all of a sudden, this small detail, Spy's smile, takes on a whole new meaning.

As Scout's father, Spy is proud of him.

Even though for what has been presumed to be the finals days of their life, even though Spy has taken ever opportunity to belittle him, to tell him he is a failure and this won't work, that he won't get Pauling (which he probably won't regardless since she is, much like the Spy-Scout relationship, pretty much confirmed to be a lesbian), Scout stands up to him. He stands his ground for something he wants to at least try to do.

And Spy smiles because he is proud of his son for learning one of the best lessons he could ever teach him: stand up for yourself when you believe in something and really want it. He never got to teach him so many things with how he never got to be involved in his raising because of his job, but over the course of 3 days they have, he gets to teach him so much, and leaves him with the most important advice without even saying it.

And it helps to explain a good bit more. It explains why the only reason he interrupts isn't to talk back or put him in his place, but remind him that he's got a date to get to, and his smile only fades when Scout just flat out insults him, like he ruined their father-son bonding moment. It explains why he's so attentive, watching him attempt to start the date, and why when he seems him next, instead of telling him something snarky or rude, or telling him to fight better, he reminds him there is someone he needs to make an apology to, and try to give him the space to take care of that admits the chaos.

Spy can't show it, but he is proud of his son.

Anywho, happy 100th post (took me long enough). Hope to be more active on here, and post more things, and maybe even show off some cool things I make. But to everyone who has been a part of this, from the voice overs on YouTube that first intrigued me to check this place out, to the few but wonderful mutuals I'm so lucky to have, to every weird and amazing person that makes this site somewhere we can call home, I thank you!

okay, bye!

[azaharinflames]

I just want to get over this. Like why am I still so sad about that how many weeks later? But I am. And I also want to hold out hope but maybe it’s better to quit because the not knowing for sure and just being sad all the time is a lot.

Hi, @phillystrega! Thanks for your ask <3

Listen, I fully get it. Real talk here, I spent a solid week with constant anxiety after 806 - granted, it wasn't just because of 911, it was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back after a lot of shit had happened in the world and my personal life, so.

At the end of the day, 911 was supposed to be our comfort show. And I think, having something like this happen, seeing everything that has happened before, has made it so it stopped being that, and that's bound to hurt.

Your feelings are normal. It was more than a couple we liked breaking up - in context, sure, but also in what meant right after. I said it right after - it truly felt like they responded to the love we tried to send into the world with hate, and they responded to hate from that side of the fandom with love.

It wasn't entirely like that. But at the time it very much felt like that. And it's normal to still be dealing with feelings surrounding that.

Here is my advice (feel free to not take it if it's shit lol):

Focus on life in the fandom if it's fun for you. The BuckTommy fandom truly helped me process my feelings and channel them toward something more positive. Talk to people, be creative, see everyone's art and posts... it truly is healing.

Block anything that threatens your peace of mind. That being accounts, hashtags, or even keywords, so you don't find it in your dash.

Go back to your comfort shows if you have any, or try to find a new one if you feel you need to latch onto a new one. I'm here if you want suggestions. No joke, binge-watching Modern Family made me feel incredibly better.

If you have a hobby, dedicate some time to it. Or try a new one if you want. I had to embroid a tote bag for one of my best friend's birthday and honestly, it truly helped. So much so I want to do some embroidery as Christmas ornaments - we'll see how that works lmao (I sound 60 when I'm mid-twenties, dear God).

All of this will slowly take you out of this mentality, mostly because you will focus on other things. I realized I was focusing too much on how all of this was making me feel - and as much as it's healthy to face our feelings and know where they come from, we don't want to fall into a cycle, or drown in them.

After all of this, with a bit more perspective, maybe it's easier to make the decision of either continue, or move on. You can also stay in the fandom and enjoy it with no expectations, maybe check every once in a while how canon is doing. And if at some point you decide it's worth checking again, you can do it. And if you decide to fully move on, that will also be okay. Overall - protect your peace.

This was very long, but I truly hope it helped you, even if it was a little.

My inbox is always open to rant, vent, or discuss (911 or whatever you want).

Take care <3

[timesnewreader]

Huh, huh okay. Bro my brain is so fuzzy after reading that that I am struggling to come up with a coherent thought. And that is one of the highest compliments I could ever give🙏 That was so FUCKING HOT MINT!!! Shouta PUSSY EATER Aizawa I SWEAR TO GOD!!!!!!! What a munch what a mench got damn.

There’s so much to be said about how beautiful your prose are and the bit at the beginning about reader’s mother and childhood give so much context to her life. It adds a layer to the melancholy that surrounds her and helps us understand her relationship with Touya even more. I also think it’s genuinely beautiful to see her start to get comfortable with the idea of letting herself be happy. Like she doesn’t have to feel guilty for just enjoying life and enjoying this new found connection. I’m glad that she’s giving in to her desires!! And that she’s with someone who will help her to do so with care and attention!! And pussy eating!! God she deserves it so much. IT’S SO TELLING AND SO EVIL THAT SHE’S NEVER BEEN EATEN OUT BEFORE WTF TOUYA YPU BITCH!?!! I’m manifesting for her, let that man go down for hours, he would fucking love it😭😭😩😫😭

And then I must say, as per usual, your smut is so FUCKING INCREDIBLE. As I said previously, I was in a daze as I started writing this, and I want to ravish that man so bad but I can only assume he’s not gonna allow that for quite some time!!! YOUR HONOR I WANT HIM SO FUCKING BAD AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! He makes me insane, you make me insane for writing him so well, and this whole series makes me insane because it’s so fucking good.👏👏

Thank you so much for the excellent chapter, and for sharing your writing with us!! This series has me so fucking invested!!🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️💜💜

Inevitable Things : chapter eleven

aizawa x reader fic

cw: aizawa x reader, cisfem reader, office AU, no quirks. CONSULT AO3 FOR FULL TAGGED CONTENT WARNINGS

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Your mom used to tell you that love was a choice that she made every day. She woke up and chose to love your father, chose to put in the effort that a relationship needed, chose to stay by his side through the good and the bad. It was a point of pride to endure at all, a smile slapped on her face. She told you that until he left one night, bags in hand and another woman’s name on his lips. 

After that, love was no longer a choice. It was nights of tears and screaming matches, begging and pleading, obligatory phone calls and visitations out of state. Love was no longer a choice, but a shackle, something that you say at the end of a conversation because you must. Love is a pain you bear because you are human, and someone must hold these feelings you have.

Your mother still wants your father to call her. 

You wait for Touya to come home.

It haunts you all morning, as you twiddle away time before the convention floor opens again. You end up calling your boss with an update, only to chat with him over coffee. His niece is over again - she screams hi into the receiver- and his sister says hello as well. You try to end the call there, but he stays on, asking questions about who you’ve seen and how they've been. The conversation drags, but neither of you seem to mind.

“You aren’t watching Shouta.” It’s an observation, posed as a question. He’s speaking better today- you aren’t sure why. Death ebbs and flows.

“He asked me not to.” The truth feels right at this moment. It doesn’t betray anything changing between you two; Toshinori is probably aware of the tense air between you too. Now, it’s just tense in a different way, a way that makes your toes curl to think about.

“Don’t take it personally,” he says, “Shouta is a very private man.”

More so than you know, Yagi, you think. Aizawa is very different behind closed doors, behind that wall he’s so carefully crafted. You fear you’ve only cracked one layer of him only to uncover a different veneer.

At the end of the call with Toshinori, you let slip a little “Love you.” and he laughs, surprisingly boisterous for his frail lungs. 

“I didn’t mean it,” you try to say.

“It’s okay,” he says once he catches his breath. “I understand.”

 You don’t.

The rest of the morning is spent in your room, pouring over your emails. Technically, the company is on crunch time; your newer model hits the market within two months and panic has set across the office. Everything is ready, technically, but also nothing is; every day is a new little fire, begging to be put out. Being away on a friday was actually a gift, you realize now that you’re scrolling through what you’ve missed. Your inbox is filled with random issues and scheduled meetings for the upcoming weeks. Your DMs are alight with notifications too-- these, less urgent. 

Izuku Midoriya -> are you alive? or did Mr. Aizawa murder you?

Oh, if only he knew how quickly things change.

we're both alive and well somehow <-

Another message comes through, this one in a different tab.

Hizashi Yamada -> I see you online!

Trying to sneak some work in before I get out of bed. <-

Hizashi Yamada -> Send me your room number.

He arrives in less than five minutes. As usual, Hizashi is put together in a respectfully ostentatious way. His all black outfit might be velvet because of how it eats the light, equally matte and shiny all at once. It’s the type of clothing you wish you could pull off-- or afford --but he wears it so easily, with a confidence you could never have. No, you could never so gracefully enter a room and throw off a jacket like some supermodel.

“How was the presentation?” he asks as he flops into bed beside you. It's a different feeling than being next to Aizawa; he’s perched like a girl gossiping during a slumber party, hair tosselled on your silk pillow. You close your laptop and carefully place it aside. There’s no way you’ll be working with Hizashi around.  That was probably his plan all along.

“I didn’t go-- you didn’t go either?” You playfully shove him.  “You're a bad friend!”

“I woke up late.” He shrugs, feigning sympathy with a content smirk. “And had other things to do this morning, if you catch my drift.”

He throws in an unnecessary wink. Your cringe is a reflex- you don’t really mind hearing about Hizashi’s conquests, but it does make you think about last night again. All you did was kiss, but your skin prickles as if you did more, as if you want more. 

And maybe you do. You’ve been tossing the idea around all morning, trying to figure out exactly what you want, not only from the man, but from yourself, but every time you think about it too hard, the image of Touya flashes in your mind, and your thoughts are tumbling once again.

You think of your mother. It used to be your worst fear to become her, but each day that passes, you see more of her in your eyes, in the thinness in  your skin.

“You okay, babygirl?”

He points directly at the space between your eyes, where you’ll one day have the same worried creases your mother has.. “You’ve got a face on your face.”

You try to wipe away whatever he’s seeing, but it clearly doesn’t work. Hizashi looks at you harder, expression especially soft. 

“Oh, yeah, I’m just-” you shrug. Is there a word for what you're feeling? Ennui? Horror? Somewhere in between? “Shaking off a weird feeling.”

“Weird feeling-” Hizashi throws you a wink. “I think we call it a hangover.”

“I’m not hungover--”

Before you can protest, your friend gasps, so violently that you nearly jump out of your skin. He backs up, hand over his heart and jaw dropped to the floor. “Oh my god. Oh my goooooooodddd.”

“What? What? Am I dying?”

“Your neck!” Now he points to you with a fully straight arm, like he’s accusing you of being a witch. You slap a hand over the spot instinctively. “Hello, that’s a hickey!”

Oh. Oh no. You had been too distracted this morning to notice, but apparently Aizawa’s lips have left a mark on you. Heat flushes across your face; a hickey? Who do you think you are? Kaminari? You’ve had a secret for less than 24 hours and it’s already threatening to come out.

“You got laid last night? With who? Where? When? Tell me everything!” Hizashi pushes down in the mattress to bounce himself, jimmying you up and down in the process.

“Well, uh--” You can’t even begin to make something up. The irrational fears start to take over- what if he figures out exactly who’s mouth left that mark? Hizashi’s a whore-- he might know some sort of mouth forensics or something! Or, you don’t know, maybe you still smell like Aizawa, even 

“You dirty dog, is that why you didn’t see Aizawa’s thing?” Your stomach somehow sinks lower. “Because you and Tensei fucked?”

Tensei?

“Tensei?”

“Oh my god, you totally did. You’re all flustered!”

You had completely forgotten the man even existed. Beautiful Tensei Iida, the ‘sexy’ doctor Hizashi wanted you to have… it’s funny how things never work out the way you think they will.

“It wasn’t Tensei!” You scooch away. “And it’s not a hickey!” 

Hizashi sees through that lie. He crawls on his hands and knees after you. “You gotta tell me, please-”

Crap. He’s not going to let this go. Sex and all that comes with it is Hizashi’s catnip; once he’s gotten a taste of it, he’s deranged. 

Telling the truth certainly isn’t an option. You and Aizawa? The absolute nuclear fallout that would hit the office if that came out would be catastrophic. Hizashi can’t keep his mouth shut, so even hinting at what happened last night could be the end of whatever weird thing you and Shouta have, killing it before you can even name what it is. 

And being so close to launch? It could potentially hinder Aizawa’s image--

And your and Touya’s relationship.

“It was someone I met at the restaurant after you left-” Not completely a lie. “We just-- kissed, I guess. I didn’t want to, you know, do more.”

Hizashi kicks his feet in excitement. His shoes are on your bed- gross.

“Good for you, setting boundaries!” he says. “That’s growth!”

He goofs around for just a moment longer before settling.

“Why do you look so sad about it?” He’s quick to say.  “Did they do something?”

“No! No, it was nice, but-” you start. The truth feels heavy, yet silly at the same time. You know the reaction you’re about it get, and yet you say it anyway-  “I don't know, I started to think about Touya this morning and-”

Hizashi’s face falls so hard that you swear you can hear it. His hatred of Touya has never been a secret, but before Touya made his disappearing act, he at least kept his comments to a minimum. With no Touya, there’s no limit to Hizashi’s public loathing.

“I love you. So much.” He takes your hand in his. He’s still on his knees, hunched over you awkwardly, those damn shoes still on the bed. “But thought you were over this shitbag.”

You want to protest. He’s not a shitbag, he’s just having a hard time. He’s not a bad guy, the drugs just make him that way. He’s a good boy underneath all of the troubles, you know it’s true.

But you’ve run out of excuses years ago. All you can say is the truth: “I think I still love him.” 

Compassion contorts your friend’s face. “Oh, girl. Girl. You don’t.”

“Hizashi-” You try to slide away, but he doesn’t let you. 

“He treated you like garbage for years. Years!” The blonde squeezes your hand. “And he wasn’t loyal, he wasn’t safe, he wasn’t kind or sober or-” 

“It's not like he abused me or something.” You say it so quickly that it feels tinny on your lips. Both of you go quiet for a second and Hizashi throws his hands up in surrender. He ducks his head low, not in defeat, but in a humble act, like a dog that’s pushed it’s boundaries a bit too far.  With a sigh, he sits back on his knees, allowing there to be space between you.

“I didn't say that,” he says carefully.  “It doesn't have to be abuse, that doesn't mean it's healthy.”  

There’s a hesitation, then he reaches out his hand again. You don’t take it, but he keeps it there, in the air, waiting for you.

“I just care about you. I know ‘muri and I get a bit too pushy and wild sometimes, but it’s because we want you to have fun for once. We-- we want you to be with someone that makes you feel good-- who thinks you’re the best thing in the world,” Hizashi says. “We want you to get what you deserve and Touya isn’t that.”

A different type of warm runs over you- a watery one, one that stings at your eyes. You aren’t sure where the well of emotion has come from, but it’s there, bubbling just under the surface. You try to sniffle without giving yourself away. 

“Would it be so bad to let yourself move on and try something new?” Hizashi smiles.  “Let yourself have a little fun for once?”

Reluctantly, you take his hand. He squeezes and coos, pulling your hand into an awkward faux-hug, right about his heart.

 “Let yourself have fun, let yourself live.”

“I’m gonna try to try.”

--

The convention itself goes smoothly. More people ask about Yagi, but the word seems to be spreading: he’s not here. He’ll never be here. The air is bittersweet, but Hizashi always recovers it for you. He keeps the conversation flowing back to work and the bed, with much more ease than you’ll ever have.

The only time you see Aizawa  is when he’s in your periphery. He’s in the corner, caught in some conversation with people whose names you’ve already forgotten. Tensei’s by his side, basking in the probable praise, while Aizawa just nods along. The presentation must have gone well, you gather from the attention they’re both getting. That’s both good and bad; the work deserves credit, but Aizawa…

What a heavy secret to carry. What a prominent shame. He didn’t want you to see, but he was okay with all of these strangers ogling him like a science experiment. 

Does that make you more important than those strangers? Or less?

You try to look for an opening to leave, but one never seems to come.

Only once do you catch him staring back at you, his expression too far away to be read. The thump of your heart steps out of rhythm for a moment before you get yourself together.

“I see you eyeing up Tensei,” Hizashi teases. “Are you sure he isn’t your mystery man?”

You deny it, but Hizashi is unconvinced.

----

The three of you finally reunite over dinner. This time, Hizashi swears he will stay the whole time.

This time, you don’t want him to.

You’ve settled into a different booth than you were in last night. Again, the chip basket is empty before Aizawa can arrive. He’s always running late for these things, either through lack of effort or lack or lack of time management. If he didn’t have a presentation tomorrow, you’d be annoyed, but you decide to give the man a break.

Though, you do wonder if you’ll be allowed to see this one. You’ll have to go, right? It’s about your company.

“I still can’t believe you managed to pick up Tensei with Aizawa right there.”  Hizashi leans back into the booth.

“It wasn’t Tensei,” you insist. “And he was distracted.”

“By what?”

You aren’t a quick liar. 

“Some girl.” Or a good one. “They went off together.”

You know you’ve fucked up by the look on Hizashi’s face. He sits up, staring at you from over his glasses with a slack jawed amazement.

“You're lying.” He sits up even more. “You're lying straight to my face right now.”

Fear thrums you so hard that your stomach almost revolts on impact. 

“I’ve never seen Shouta pick up a stranger, ever.” Hizashi throws his hands up in the air for effect. “Never, ever. Not even in college! ”

Looking back, you should have said he was struck by lightning. That would have been more believable. From what you remember, Aizawa doesn’t date very often - or at all. You can’t remember if he’s ever brought someone to a work event or even mentioned a partner.  (Which makes you feel equally bad and… special. Are you an exception to his rule? Are you different? 

…Or, more likely, he’s just a private guy. But you can pretend.)

“Well, uh, I dunno what to say.” You still haven’t come up with a better lie. “Ask him yourself.”

“I will!”

Good. That gives you time to text Shouta and warn him about that shit storm he’s about to enter. The two of you can come up with a lie that makes sense and won’t send Hizashi screaming. Suddenly, you’re grateful that Aizawa can’t show up on time for-

“Again with the chips?”

Fuck!!

As if summoned, Aizawa is behind you, shrugging off his jacket. He’s in the same suit as he was earlier, but a lot more disheveled after making it through the day. The social interaction really took it out of him; no wonder he’s so quiet at the office. You pat the seat next to you and he practically slumps into it.

“Please tell me you aren’t escaping again tonight,” he says to Hizashi.

“Oh, no, I’m not going anywhere, trust me.” That smile sets the whole table on guard. “I have too many questions.”

“If you had questions, you should have shown up to the talk,” Aizawa says. “Which went well, by the way. Thank you for asking.”

“You didn’t give me a chance to ask, asshole.”

“Should have been the first words out of your mouth.”

“Well, sorry, Mr. Sensitive. I didn’t think I needed to stroke your ego today! Should I start singing your praises now, or after we verbally jack you off for a bit?”

“We are in public, Mic, stop talking about jacking off.”

“How was your presentation, oh smart one?”

“It was--”  Aizawa stops himself mid sentence, brow furrowed as he turns directly towards you. “You’re being quiet.”

“Me?” you point to yourself as if you don’t know the answer. The accusation makes your heart race- or maybe it’s those sharp eyes, boring down into you. 

“Why are you being quiet?” he says with an accusatory glare. “What did you do?”

Hizashi erupts into a giggle and the attention is finally turned away from you. 

“I heard that you went home with someone-”

Aizawa’s gaze snaps to you.  It takes effort to press your lips down and keep a neutral expression; anxiety is trilling inside you, high and frail and wild, like a little flute in a marching band finale. The man tilts his head just a bit, eyes sharp and questioning, clearly trying to interrogate you while completely silent.

“Where did you hear that, Yamada?” Aizawa’s tone isn’t flat now. No, it’s pressed, stressed; he thinks you’ve told him everything. You try to gesture with just your eyes -- three normal blinks and wide eyes, like a makeshift morse code. This obviously fails.

“Little miss girl here-” Hizashi waggles his eyebrows and Aizawa’s pupils dilate with fear-  “told you you went home with a stranger from the restaurant.” 

Realization hits Aizawa’s expression, then, relaxation. His whole body turns to you with a belabored sigh. “You little snitch.”  

The smile you’ve been trying to fight erupts across your face.  You burst into a nervous giggle, one that you have to silence with your own hand. This is a dangerous line you’re walking; Hizashi isn’t a stupid guy- he’s going to figure out something’s wrong if either of you slip up.

“It’s true?” Hizashi gasps. “What? You? You?”

“Is it really so weird that I had sex with someone?” Aizawa says.  “You do it all the time.”

“You aren’t a hook up guy!” Hizashi peers from over his glasses.  “You’re a ‘third date and a bottle of wine’ guy!”

“When have I ever had a bottle of wine?”

“Okay, ‘third date and an air of desperation.’ How's that?”

Aizawa  wrinkles his nose and bares his teeth, barking out a canned laugh. “Ha. Ha. Ha. Fuck off.” 

The shorter man sits back in his seat and uses his drink to gesture to you. “Why don’t you harass Miss Hickey over there instead?”

The attention shifts to you for only a moment before Hizashi waves you away with the back of his hand. He shifts forward on to his elbows, directly towards his friend..“She just made out with a guy, I don’t care about that-”

“-Hey!” you object. As if Aizawa isn’t the reason you’re bruised in the first place! The dark haired man is purposefully looking down his nose at you, expression taut. 

“Sorry, but I need every nitty gritty detail of Shouta’s night ASAP. “ Hizashi grinds you back on track.

The two of them have been friends since college, you remember. You’d never really been able to see the connection before; they’re both so different that they almost seem like they’d never mesh, but today they are huddled together like boys, mirroring each other’s movements. You wonder if there were lots of nights like these, gossiping over girls and wild nights.

Did Hizashi know him before the car accident?

“I’ll tell you later, Mic,” Aizawa says.  “After she’s gone.”

It’d be best to stay quiet, but you can’t bring yourself to be purposefully excluded.

“You don’t want to get dirty in front of me, huh?” you tease. Besides, you’d like to see what he comes up with. “I can handle it.”

He doesn’t take the bait. “I’m not a sharer.”

You turn away with a little shrug. “Hm.”

Aizawa almost doesn’t respond. The gears turn behind his eyes, slowly grinding away at his patience until he grits out a little: “What?” 

His knee bumps into yours under the table. It’s fleeting, but there. 

“I was just thinking-” you start. “Maybe you’re a bit of a coward.”

“Coward?” he replies.

“Afraid to gossip-” 

It’s Aizawa’s turn to huff. “Gentlemen don’t gossip.”

“Since when are you a gentleman?” Hizashi barks out a laugh.

With another exhale, Aizawa closes his eyes. A moment, then another passes, before he opens them again, one brow raised. It’s the same expression a teacher would give to the class after too much clownery. No wonder the interns are terrified of the man, you’d be scared too if you weren’t so excited to see where this is going. 

“You really want me to tell you what I did last night?” He’s deadpan. “Really?”

Both of you nod. 

“Fine.” He throws his hands up in defeat.  “I met this woman at the bar. Bought her a cocktail-”

“What kind of cocktail?” you interject.

“What?” Aizawa stares at you, lip curled in frustration. You’re making lying harder and you know that, but excitement is driving you forward. The risk doesn’t outweigh the reward quite yet. “I don’t know- something sweet.”

“Hm.”

“Margarita. The spicy kind. She tasted like it all night.”

Aizawa is alarmingly good at lying. He does it with a straight face, minus the telltale curl of his lip, but Hizashi doesn’t seem to notice. He’s too busy sitting on the edge of his seat. You’re still trying to reconcile all of the versions of him inside your head: the work version, the ‘lover’ you met, and this lackadaisical liar. 

“Keep going.” Hizashi urges.

“Then we went back to her room. Didn’t even make it to the bed.”

The way he lays down each word is slow, meticulous, purposeful; the narrative he builds is crafted especially for you, but you aren’t quite sure of his goal. 

“ Is that enough detail?”

“Boo-” Hizashi’s fanning the flame now too. “Not the fade to black storytelling!”

Aizawa ducks in close, resting on his forearms as he talks. His gaze flicks between you and Hizashi, but lingers much longer on you, flickering down to your lips every now and again. His timbre drops lower, gritty, rolling as he whispers. 

“We went back to her room-”

You’re watching his mouth a bit too intensely. 

“- I got on my hands and knees-”

He enunciates it slowly, so neither of you miss a moment. A shiver goes up your spine. There’s a weight to his breath, a genuine enjoyment. Would he get on his knees for you?

“And I  begged to eat her out.” 

He’s proud of it. Oh, he would get down for you. He’d plead for the privilege. His leg brushes against yours again, this time with pressure and purpose, and your skin crawls with excitement. It’s just a story. You know it’s not true. 

But the glint in his eye says that he wishes it wasn’t.

“And?” your voice shakes a bit. That’s his goal, isn’t it? To get you riled up? To make you regret forcing him into this situation?

Aizawa rubs the spot where his jaw connects with a slow, purposeful circle, like he’s trying to rub out a kinked muscle. It’s borderline boastful. “And that’s how I spent the night.”

Hizashi tips his head back and laughs so loudly that the table next to you stares. “Good for you!”

“Good for her,” Aizawa replies.

Hizashi rolls his eyes. “I almost forgot you’re a munch. It’s been so long since you’ve gotten any, so-”

“Watch it, Hizashi.”

You regret the question before you ask it. “Uh, what’s a munch?”

Both of them look at you.

“Well, it’s clearly not Touya,” Hizashi mumbles, and you shoot him a glare. 

“It’s a slang term for someone who really enjoys…” Aizawa trails off, cocking his head expectantly. 

“Eating pussy,” Hizashi finishes for him. 

Another thrill of excitement goes up your spine. Enjoys it? Is that even possible? The idea has you woozy. 

“Yeah, that’s totally not Touya,” you manage to say.

Hizashi makes another comment, but you can’t force yourself to focus on that. No, not when your heart is beating like this. It’s just words, a fake story, but there’s a silent promise to it as well. You wonder what would have happened last night if you said yes. Would he have spent the night between your legs, eating simply for your pleasure?

Want trembles in your hands as you pretend to check your phone. Is it pathetic? To be worked up over a silly little story, made up to cover your tracks? The waiter comes, you all order. Aizawa’s knee pumps against yours- once accidentally, once on purpose. You hope he doesn’t notice how you’re squirming in your seat, trying to ignore the way your body is craving pressure and attention. You think, maybe, if you move right, you could get the seam of your pants to hit just right-

What are you doing? This is pathetic. 

“I’m going to go to the bathroom.” You don’t wait for a response. Pushing up from the table, you turn down the back of the restaurant. The signs lead you into a little back hallway, tucked by the kitchen, where the lighting is respectfully dim. You have to wait a moment because the door is locked, but you don’t mind. It gives you time to mull over everything.

Maybe Hizashi is right; maybe it’s okay to try something new. It’s been years since you’ve felt this alive with someone, this excited to get something more. With Touya, sex became more of an obligation. Maybe it could be different with someone else. Maybe it could be something fun, something-

A hand catches you by the back of your shirt, not hard enough to yank you backwards, but firm enough to stop you in your tracks.  A gasp squeaks out of you as you stagger back into the chest of the man behind you. You crank around to see- only to relax when you realize it’s just Aizawa.

“You scared me,” you mumble out a lament. 

“You little sneak.” With a thumb, he tilts your chin up, so far that you’re looking back at him. His other fingers press ever so nicely into the length of your neck, drawing you back into his chest. There’s nothing constricting your breath, but suddenly your lungs are empty, breathless, and your parted lips pull nothing in. Aizawa’s dark eyes are narrowed, boring straight down into yours.

Oh, he’s pissed. 

And, for the first time, that excites you.

“You like making me sweat, don’t you?” His free hand is looped around your waist, holding you much tighter than the other. “Almost getting us caught-- You make me so mad sometimes.” 

The kitchen is full of mumbled orders and the clang of dishware. It echoes through the dark hall you’ve trapped yourselves in, you aren’t alone, no matter how badly you wish it to be true.  

“Thought you liked me,” you whisper.

You swear there’s a subtle dilation to his eyes, involuntary. Real. “I do.”

He leans over and dots a simple kiss on to your forehead, right where your hair meets skin. It’s simple, soft, but, god, it sets everything inside you into this wet, wobbly, needy heat, something soft and harsh all at once.

“Even when you piss me off.” The hand around your neck twitches playfully, with no real constriction. 

It’s cliche, you think, how you just sort of watch each other, breathless, patient. Neither of you tries to make a move, locked together. He smells good. Not like anything you can name, just… good.  It’s the same good you feel in your chest and an equal good to how your hands feel when you reach backwards and grab his hips. 

“I’m starting to think you like making me mad.”

“Shouta-” you say his name because he likes it, because it makes him lean in closer to you-

The bathroom door flies open and you both pull away like you’ve touched a hot stove. The woman who exists definitely knows something’s up; she rolls her eyes and sends a text on her phone as she passes. The two of you share a look; you, relieved, Aizawa amused. It’s as if you're sixteen again, with this fluttering feeling in your stomach you can’t quite swallow down. It’s too bright to be anxiety.

Aizawa steps back a bit with a nod. Oh, right, the bathroom. You don’t actually have to go, but it would be silly to not go in now. Maybe you can just try to go-

You look back at your Aizawa.

Or maybe.

Or maybe you can have some fun.

With uncharacteristic confidence, you hook a finger under a button of his shirt and tug. Aizawa’s face goes bright with realization. He falls into following as you guide him forward into the bathroom, step by awkward step, backwards until the door opens against your weight. Aizawa glances around before the door closes after him, making sure to remain unspotted, then turns to you with a wicked, narrowed, glowering look. 

The bathroom is simple, but nice. The lighting is sharp and bright, the floor is white and clean. A decorative table is wedged into the corner, topped with extra towels and real flowers in water. Your brain can’t process more than that- not with a dark haired man wrapped around your finger. He has the forethought to lock the door behind him.

“What are you doing-?” he grumbles wickedly, ducking down to catch you in a kiss, but you don’t let him make contact. You dip away, drawing him further and further in, until you’re backed against the little decorative table. With his weight, he shifts you back until your ass is seated properly on that wiggly table, one hand back to brace yourself. Finally, he traps you, stubble rough against your cheek, lips soft against yours.

“I thought we were going slow,” he says into your lips. You don’t respond-- you can’t. Your breath is stolen from your lungs, the need to breathe replaced with the need for him, the need for touch-

You hook a leg over his waist and his hand flies to it, folding it higher, pulling it tighter. 

“Oh, you can’t help it, can you?” he mumbles. “One little story about eating pussy has you desperate for it, huh?”

“Y-you-” You hate that you can’t dirty talk smoothly like he can.

“Yeah?” He’s almost condescending. “Yeah? What does my girl want?”

Embarrassment floods your cheeks with heat. Aizawa waits for it, hovering above you. Oh, he won’t give it to you until you really ask, will he? You have to physically brace yourself to say it.

“Will you kiss it?” you ask, much meeker than intended. 

“Kiss ‘it’?” You expect him to keep picking at you, but instead his hands are busy unbuttoning your pants, guiding them down. “Do you mean-”

His lips find your hickey and the spot aches under the connection. “Here?”

Creeping lower, he hunches over your chest. This time, he pecks at the hem of your shirt. “Here?”

Down he goes, on to his knees. This kiss lands in your stomach, right where the tightness of want sits-

“Here?”

“Shouta-” You’re mad and annoyed and you’d frankly settle for him kissing you anywhere at this point-

Hands slip your pants down past your knees. When the air hits your skin, you suddenly realize just how wet you are, how it’s bled through your panties and smeared across your thigh. Before you can process anything, his mouth is over your clothed cunt, wide mouthed and kissing. The drag of his tongue is a lot, even though the fabric; the contact has your spine flexing all on its own.

“Here?”

“There, there,” You’re clinging on to handfuls of his hair already. “Right there.”

But Aizawa doesn’t kiss you again. 

“In a public bathroom?” He’s watching you from the floor. Your leg is looped over his back. He’s surprisingly wide and thick under you; your legs have to spread so far to fit him. God, your body is plaint enough that it just gives to his pushing hands and demands.

 “You like it nasty.”

You can’t bring yourself to respond. Your brain is fried with a deadly combination of horny and embarrassed. Is this really what you want? 

“No, you don’t like it dirty, do you?” It feels like he’s reading your mind, hands kneading your thighs with a growing hunger. He plants a kiss where your legs meets your underwear and your cunt pulses in response. “My girl just needs it so bad, doesn’t she?”

Teeth sink into your inner thigh and you kick in response: another fucking hickey. The thing that got you into this mess-

“That’s right, my girl.” He’s talking to himself now, mumbling just under his breath. A finger loops under your panties, the same way your finger looped under his button, and there’s no time to feel shame before he exposes your pussy.  “You went home with me.” 

You expect him to go straight for your clit, to devour you with the fucking need that’s been building between you all goddamn night-

But, instead, he touches his lips to the crest of your mons and breathes. It’s hot, molten, pours down you like molten lava. It’s the faintest, tickling touch, but it’s enough, it’s more than enough. A moan rips out of you, so unexpected that you jump at your own voice. 

Usually, when you have sex, you’re worried about the small things. Whether or not you’ve shaved, whether you look thin enough or pretty enough, but now, the only thing you can think about is being touched, needing touch, desiring touch.

And the time.

“We-” He hasn’t even started and you’re quivering for it. “We gotta hurry before Mic-”

“I promised you-” Aizawa says, firmly. “That we’d go slow.”

Finally, gloriously, you feel the hot press of his tongue, dragging up through your excitement. Every inch he takes is painstakingly slow until he hits the nub of your clit. That contact is fast, fleeting, but it still sends you keening and gasping. Every important muscle inside you is bunched and coiled, filled with enough potential energy to set the whole fucking restaurant on fire. You’re going to cum. You’re going to cum from practically nothing.

The vase of flowers on the table is overturned. You don’t even remember knocking it over. Water pools under your ass and everything is wet, from you, to the mess, to his drool across your inner thigh. His mouth closed over you the same way someone would eat a peach, sucking with this absurdly lewd sound as if he’s afraid to let any of your excitement escape. His jaw moves slow - just like he fucking promised- and doesn’t miss an inch of skin as he closes his mouth, lips coming closed around your clit. The pressure feels heavenly against the already puffy parts of your pussy and your hands clasp his dark locks tighter. You aren’t sure if you’re trying to pull him away or pull him closer; your body is just reacting, like neurons are firing all on their own.

Fingers clamp around your thighs. Aizawa is groaning, voice so low it vibrates against you, as if he’s the one receiving it, not you. Enjoys eating pussy… the memory rings through your skull. Fuck, what an understatement; he eats pussy like he needs it to live. His eyes are lidded heavy with pleasure. Every lick and suck and touch along the tapestry of your cunt is wet and wild, but aggravatingly skilled. The heat of his mouth against your clit - firm, but not hard- is enough to steal your breath away.

Then, he pulls away, and your pleasure begins to unravel-- unfairly fast. You hadn’t realized how close to the precipice you had been until you started falling away. The feeling is disastrous. 

He speaks with a heady exhale, warm and not nearly enough. “You taste-”

“Shut up,” Now you’re definitely pulling his face back towards you this time. “Shut up, shut up, shut up-”

He silences himself with your cunt. 

This time, there’s no savoring. His lips and tongue are on your clit, sucking in mouthfuls of your folds, bouncing against the involuntary roll of your hips. Everything inside you is hot and sticky, thick like honey. You’re saying something, maybe, but it’s all high pitched and garbled. The rub from Aizawa's stubble sends a chill up your spine and the hot and cold inside you melts into something smooth-

You can feel your orgasm coming long before it hits, everything inside you pulling high and tight, like the ocean rolling before a wave. The crest hasn't hit, but it's going to come, you're going to cum-

And then you look down, and Aizawa's staring back at you, with those dark, hooded eyes, and you unravel. It’s not my other orgasms you've had: a full body feeling, like the flush to warmth you get when alcohol hits your stomach. It rolls, through you, away from you, against you- in every fucking direction until every ounce of tension is smoothed from your muscles. Boneless had always sounded silly, but now you understand exactly what it means; you slump back and try to catch your breath.

Aizawa’s movements slow, but never stop. He runs the flat face of his tongue against you until you gather the energy you shove him back. For a split second, a string of your cum ties between you and his mouth.

“Shit,” you breathe. Your surroundings feel more tangible suddenly. The sink drips, the walls echo the restaurant’s soft muzak, Aizawa’s cheeks glimmer with your wetness: it’s all suddenly real.

“I cannot believe-” He wipes his face on his sleeve.

“Shit,” you repeat. That was insane. You were insane! Your friend is waiting at the table, probably wondering what happened to you two-

“-that you let me do that. You came so--”

“Shit.” This is exactly what you needed. “I’ve never-”

Aizawa sits back on his knees with a stiff grunt. “Don’t tell me you’ve never orgasmed before.”

“No! I’ve totally-” You awkwardly shimmy up your pants and instantly regret it. It’s wet. It’s cold. “No one’s ever gone down on me before.”

Aizawa gives you the slowest, longest blink you’ve ever seen. Then, he shakes his head and stands up, brushing his pants off. You debate asking if his leg hurts, but decide against it. “How do you continuously say things that make me want to go insane?” 

He huffs about it, but you’re starting to unravel the strings of affection he weaves into his sentences. You shrug, biting back your smile.

“I’m just special, I guess.”

Eyes closed, he gives you a nod, tempering himself.

“Go back to the table before we’re caught.”

Fuck-- that’s right. You two have been gone for long enough that it's starting to get suspicious. Besides, there’s going to be a line outside the door if you don’t get moving soon- if there isn’t a line already. You quickly check your outfit and adjust your hair in the mirror; your skin looks brighter than usual. The power of an orgasm, you guess.

“Don’t  you want me to…?” You give a little jerk off motion and Aizawa rolls his eyes at the behavior-- as if he didn’t just eat your pussy in a fucking bathroom.

“I don’t want you to do anything to me,” he insists. He helps you off of the table with a hand, then ushers you towards the locked door. “I want to lay you down and eat you out until your brain factory resets like a cheap Macbook.”

He’s already done that, but okay, you could be down for more-

“But we are in a bathroom.” He gestures around him.  “In a restaurant.”

You add: “With Hizashi waiting.”

“With Mic waiting. He’s smart- he’ll figure us out if we aren’t careful,” he agrees. “Now, get out there and cover me.”

Suddenly, Aizawa leans over and kisses you. It’s not deep, but you can taste your musk on his lips and that makes your spine thrill with excitement.  It’s illicit in a way that makes you feel young and happy and, and, and-

And all those weird, indescribable highs you get when your brain is drowned in dopamine and oxytocin. For a fleeting moment, you reach out and grab his hands, holding on for only a squeeze.

“Your room tonight?” you ask when he pulls away. Your head is still racing, head still swimming-

He grimaces. “Yours has better pillows.”

“I brought them from home.” He was in your bed last night, in your pussy moments ago, but the fact he knows your pillow feels so strangely intimate. “I like silk pillowcases.”

The expression in his face softens, just at the crowed corner of his eyes. “Of course you do.” He jerks his chin towards the door.  “Get going.”

“Sho-”

“Get.”

And you walk out with wobbly knees.

[closedspeciesteahouse]

(succubuns) (trigger warning:CP) I don't know if the blogs reflect a significant portion of the community, but an area of contention was the owner Luca's artstyle; people complained how their art has become increasingly more immature looking. Regardless, their patreon was taken down specifically for distributing CP. Looks from the emails that patreon had a month long investigation and overlooked the account in its entirety. Official announcement vvv https://succubuns.com/news/133.patreon-down An anon who reported it vvv https://www.tumblr.com/succubunsvent/742176017621336064/hi-email-anon-here-again-reporting-in-on-the?source=share Bit of context, same anon asked the site domain about employment clarification, turns out succubuns was violating labor laws and it got their site shut down a bit. Succubuns mods have called the shut downs "griefing" attempts; not all too sure why when it's easy just to explain their error as misunderstanding what qualifies as legal "employment". That email https://www.tumblr.com/succubunsvent/740977667917135873/740972072741879808-is-absolutely-yves-or-luca-or It's a trainwreck, but it's hard to look away. I've never been in the species and can't say anything of the owners' intentions, but from the succubun site I can say the official artstyle is troublesome.

☕️

[deathsmallcaps]

I need advice.

I’m a white intern working in a mostly white southern(ish) high school. Students of Color number at under 2%, perhaps even lower. It’s a very white, rural community - I grew up in a fairly mixed, suburban northern community, and part of my family is Black.

Several of my white students say rude things to my Students of Color. I’ve told them to knock it off *as appropriately as I can* but I’m probably one of the few adults that actively discourage that behavior.

I don’t want to let this shit fly under the radar, but I also know that if an adult of authority *who will only be here for a couple more weeks* interferes, and then doesn’t stick around, it could make things worse. Additionally, I know these kids are probably very very very used to this ‘system’ and that making a short-term change could be more harmful than helpful.

I asked one of my senior students after a very racist incident *where she was laughing along with the perpetrator but I told him to stop anyway* that I can move him, or her, so she could be more comfortable (admin either does nothing or slaps wrists, especially for seniors). She said it was fine and that he was always like that.

I must emphasize, I think they were bantering (they talk so much I think they consider each other friends?), but it was also wayyy fucking out of line, especially in a school setting. And the guy says so much out of line shit I’m surprised he isn’t rocking a full set of dentures to replace the teeth he ought to have lost by now.

Another student took me up on my offer to move people, but I ended up moving him, which sucks because he was the victim in this situation. Unfortunately, I have to keep his aggressors in their spots, as they are highly rowdy in all the ways and require a lot more supervision than he did. And the class is really full. These were also all freshmen, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that affected the victim’s reaction.

So I’d really appreciate advice as to whether I should let it be, or continue as is, or step it up even more, from People of Color in largely white, especially rural, communities. Like any advice from current or previous educators, especially Educators of Color would be appreciated, but specifically southern/rural ones would be wonderful. I’m going to talk to my family members about it, but they’ve lived in more Northern settings their entire lives and they may have less … applicable (?) experience to the situation.

Again, I’m an intern, I’m going to only be there until winter break 2024, and I don’t want to fuck things up for these kids in the long run with my northern ally ‘sensibilities’. Thank you!

[mixtapedoh]

actually you can go with seungmo + winter falls too. i think he's more of a winter falls girlie than lino. actually anything with winter falls 😭🙏

you knew what you were doing when you paired seungmo with my favorite skz ballad,,,,,,, your support and your mind will never go underappreciated in this house ♡♡♡♡♡

ᴀɢᴀɪɴ, ᴛʜᴇ ꜱɴᴏᴡ ꜰᴀʟʟꜱ (ᴡᴇ ꜰᴀʟʟ ᴀᴘᴀʀᴛ)

☄. *. ⋆

pairing: kim seungmin x reader (not endgame) genre: angst, reminiscing word count: ~1k warnings: heartbreak, mentions of blood (metaphor and imagery), all thoughts no plot (sometimes fanfiction is about VIBES and VERSE, not cohesive story telling), gratuitous sneaking in and bastardization of song lyrics

olive's notes: you know know i had to go full tumblr for the title of this fic. song lyric titles (with something in parenthesis) how i love you, how i have missed you, how you changed the very synaptic pathways in my brain ♡. nothing will ever be as influential as you ♡.

consider my mini writing event ?

It wasn't the weather that made you think of him.

No, because that would be all too cliche — tidy and neat — something easy to anticipate and, perhaps, simple to avoid.

In a way, you could blame it on the snow: the soft, fluffy flakes too carefree to be cold, spinning on the barely there wind, a graceful pirouette to a gentle, almost forgotten landing. It was beautiful — the first snowfall of the year — and because it's arrival was so benign (unexpected and mild, creeping into the edges of the day until it's whispered chill tickled your skin and it's gossamer flakes were delicately kissing your head), you had no warning against the flood of memory it would bring in it's wake.

It was the couple on the end of the street that reminded you, though, if we're to be fair to the elements and truthful in the story we tell.

Two figures at the furthest distance from your current standing, hand in hand, startled as they walked out of a shop and into sudden snowfall. The leftmost of the two, seemingly more ecstatic than their loving counterpart, stuck out their tongue, angling their head skyward, and after a moment, laughed in delight, or some approximation of it. They turned to their partner, kissed them on either cheek, and then took off their jacket to place around the other's shoulders. Perhaps there was an exchange of half-hearted argument, but the moment ended with the two of them walking off, one double-braced against the building cold, the other habitually turning their palms to the clemency of snow — as though the moment was pure and this weather something to be held.

Snowflakes fell of your cheeks. If you were to be asked, they were to be blamed for any wetness, there.

Memories come in waves, and they are a vengeful and needy sea: demanding to be realized, sure in the devastation they bear. But how long is it before an experience crystalizes into memory? What is the minimum amount of time that needs to occur before that passage is significant and longing for someone can turn into missing them?

You weren't quite sure if it could be called missing him: this gnawing, guilty feeling accompanying your thoughts of Seungmin.

Once, the two of you had been friends so close, no one could talk about either of you without mentioning the other. His footsteps always following yours, your voice a necessary addition to any of his statements. So close your names spilled into the other, so present there was a space carved in the both of you for the other to reside in. Side by side or in tandem, there were always two.

And there were two, that night, when your warmth was carbonated with a fizz of intimacy and bubbles of desperation. You confessed to the secret of loving him and he worshiped that attachment with his lips. Again and again, a mantra that intensified to the fervency of song.

I love you, love you, love you.

And how many times did you say that before the sentiment set to rot, and the permanence of that phrase became something of the past?

I loved you, loved you, loved you.

Again, snow fell on your cheeks, pulling you just far enough out of your mired thoughts, to remind you to finish your walk to that lonesome, quiet destination called home.

You had Seungmin for longer than you held him, and the feeling of his voice in your mind was more resonant that the touch of his lips on yours. Evocative, cohesive, tenacious — something you couldn't yet unstick from the crevices of your thoughts.

Seungmin beside you, Seungmin whispering into the shell of your ear, Seungmin placing his love in the spot where your neck met your shoulders, the crook of your grin, the place above your heart.

But the wind blew, the novelty faded, the movie ended and you were stuck in the credits where words became meaningless and effort was forgotten in the aftermath of spectacle.

The ease corroded, the bitterness spilled, past tense slipped into the habit of your speech until all the tenderness between you was finished and gone by.

I loved you, and it wasn't his words or yours, but something set on the table for the both of you to consume. A sentiment on which you both engorged and drank dry.

Everything had changed, and yet you were somehow still the same. Seungmin had been so clearly and undoubtedly part of you — you carved out his place inside you alongside him! You hollowed out a space for him, and he for you — and yet with the absence of him, should there not have been something desperate and bloody for you to fix? You had searched and pleaded and clawed at the edges of you to find that void so you might set it to rights, but it evaded you, still.

I loved you.

Perhaps it had already healed over.

Perhaps it had never been.

But still, that unfound cavity ached in you. It was filled with the sound of his voice, and the phrases in his diary he'd let you read and you held to committed memory — it was shaped like the palm of his hand when it cradled you, and it contorted to the essence of his grin.

Would it have been different, had you never said anything all that time ago, and instead chose to keep those feelings in a bottle, only to be uncorked should Seungmin, himself, had fallen first and told you so? Maybe you could have kept that bottle of spirits in the most hidden parts of you, and, on nights when your yearning sharpened to the point of a knife, drank from them — an alcohol of illusion — just enough to get by? Maybe he would have found the bottle, and smashed it to ruin, or maybe he would have loosen it and get the both of you drunk off your own delight.

You would have liked it, perhaps, had he been the one to fall.

Maybe then he would stare at the innocence of snowfall and mix the feeling of it's melt with salty tears.

(ʇɹɐdɐ llɐɟ ǝʍ) sllɐɟ ʍous ǝɥʇ 'uıɐɓ∀

☄. *. ⋆

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[thegirlwondcr]

"You have their numbers?" When she said it out loud, it felt like a dumb question to ask. Of course, he would have their numbers. Bruce probably had Superman's number in his phone, what difference was this? Emma only nodded at Dick's decision to message him directly. Thank god. She had no clue how she was going to be able to sum up everything in one message. Hey Bruce, Dick showed up bleeding out and with a concussion. Don't worry, I don't think he is dying. That is what her message to Bruce probably would have been.

Emma did light up a bit the moment she could find something to connect with Dick. "He's only made those once so far since I've been here, but they are so good." There's only been a handful of things Emma hasn't liked that Alfred has made. She did try to eat it to be polite, but it seemed like she did not have a great poker face with it as Bruce almost always knew when she didn't like a certain dish.

"It must've been cool to travel all the time." It was always hard to tell when someone did want to talk about their parents, and she grew up around orphans. She did smile when he confirmed how hard the adjustment could be, but she knew how different his situation was compared to hers.

"Well like, technically I first met Batman." She knew Jason's story was similar in some ways but she knew better than to bring him up. "He caught me stealing--well I guess robbing a place. I wasn't doing it alone!" As if that would help build some sort of defense, but she also did not want to immediately lose Dick's trust in her. "They all bailed when Batman got there, I was determined to leave with something but...it's not easy fighting Batman. Not that he actually fought me, more of I threw punches at him and he caught them." She explained before realizing additional context as to why she did it would probably help more than anything.

"This woman that ran--or I guess now used to-- the girl's home I stayed in offered us all these cool things from our parents. Like jewelry, photos, books--all sorts of stuff. What was most valuable was she had information on them: names, addresses, phone numbers, what they looked liked--everything. You couldn't get that for free, so you had to run 'errands' for her." It all made complete sense to her, and so did everyone else she grew up around her felt the same. It reminded her of some older feelings she had for Bruce, that resentment she felt for losing something she was so close to achieving. "But I'm here now, and don't know my parents." She did not hide the bitterness at all in her voice then.

Dick thanks Emma as he takes the medicine and the water from her. He shakes two pills from the bottle, turns them over in his hand to examine them for a moment before he puts them into his mouth and swallows. Dick balanced the medicine bottle on the arm of the chair and opens the water. He hadn't realized how thirsty he was. He takes a long drink, but doesn't chug it— doesn't want to risk feeling more nausea than he already has.

"I was texting Wonder Girl and the Flash," He offers, picking up on her curiosity. He's already pulling out his work phone again as he speaks. "I'll message him, don't worry about it." Best to get it out of the way, and it's not fair to make Emma the intermediary. Dick would talk to Bruce when he gets home, but might as well let him know what he's coming home to— although he's probably pieced together the basics from the alerts he would've gotten. Met Robin-in-training. Arrived injured and she delivered excellent first aid. Bite wound to arm, concussion. Got stitched up no problem! Walked through xray protocols. Stressful for her, though, you should bring pizza after patrol.

"Yeah, seafood wasn't something I had a lot of experience with before Alfred's crab stuffed mushrooms," He tries think back to the time before his parents were murdered. It was minuscule now, only eight years of his life. Alfred had recommended writing down his memories soon after Dick had moved in, and he's so glad he did. He had reread those pages, an old composition notebook full of childish scrawl. It's the only reason he has a memory to share. He bites the inside of his cheek before he speaks. Emma is still very much a stranger, but she was part of the fold. He had to trust her with his identity, would probably have to trust her in the field someday. Sharing one memory shouldn't be too much to bear.

"One time, when I was with the circus, we were…somewhere on the coast. North of here because it was before we got to Gotham, someone had pulled a bunch of clams from whatever water we were near. Just right out of the water, which blew my mind as a kid." He rolls the bottle of water between his palms, but stops almost as soon as he starts because of the noise. "The adjustment was really fucking hard," He says, takes another drink. "How did you end up meeting Bruce?"

[goldentigerfestival]

seeing some of y'all talking about/have talked to some of y'all who have said to me how y'all feel like the dub forced (western especially) masculinity into Yuri, and

yeah.

I left that out of the actual posts themselves because it felt too opinionated for the actual posts (even though you know it's my blog I can do what I want, but I don't want people discrediting me over shit like that), but yeah.

it feels a lot to me like they wanted Yuri to be some cool masculine edgy dude instead of a silly, playful, dorky, emotional, caring man. as if his silliness and emotional side is something to shy away from and isn't "cool enough" for a main character.

it's sad to me because he's such a different person between versions - enough that if I'm interacting with someone who only knows dub Yuri, it genuinely just doesn't feel like we're even talking about the same character sometimes. I want to be talking about the same character, but since some people only know the dub, they only know what the dub made him out to be.

I've seen a variety of things - art, writing, memes, whatever - where there are times I'm genuinely able to be like... that's such a dub Yuri specific thing. like, the way he gets portrayed is something I'm able to look at and be like "that's literally something only dub Yuri would say/do". it's not the fault of people who don't know the original context, but that's why it frustrates me so much - because that's all some people can know contextually (listening to the audio alone gives you a pretty clear indication of how much tone isn't the same between versions, but obviously some people will still be missing context), and the dub changed the experience (and went out of its way to do so) completely for those people. again - not the fault of the people who played the game. it's the fault of the people who were in charge of context/tone and took advantage of that and changed things and made him literally behave differently (because there's... take what's in front of you and translate that, and then there's going out of your way to change what's right there so the context/behavior is no longer the same).

it especially shows to me in interactions with Flynn between the western and JP fandom. the way Yuri behaves interacting with him in fan created media is sometimes vastly different from my experience between both fandoms. again, it's not people's faults who don't know Yuri's original personality, but it is the dub's fault for portraying him that way.

for me it's heartbreaking to see how dub Yuri treats Flynn and how the dub itself narratively treats Flynn. I love the relationship they have in JP and I love them both as characters in JP. like I've said, sometimes I want to punch dub Yuri for the shit he says and the way he behaves. I've never felt that way about Yuri in his original context. I've felt worse for dub Flynn than JP Flynn because I feel like JP Flynn is better cared for by the narrative/characters, but god, poor dub Flynn??? jesus.

the thing is, this comes from a place of strong love for Yuri (and Flynn!) so I hate that they changed things. I always stand by media in its original, purest form, no matter where in the world that media came from. localization absolutely should fix things caused by language barriers and tweak oddly sounding things - sometimes there's no choice! but it's not there to create a newly existing piece of media. it's not there to create a new character plastered on the face of an existing character or to fulfill the loc team's opinion of what that character should be.

it can be difficult - usually impossible - for me to be experiencing JP exclusive content and trying to imagine dub Yuri in those situations (think like, the drama CDs or Rays' content). I know I'm not the only person who feels this way and is extremely bothered by it.

obviously I'm not the be all end all - I'm one person with feelings and opinions, but I just feel very strongly about this kind of thing and I want to share how wonderful of a character Yuri is in his original form. a lot of the clips I posted I posted because I love his silly or caring attitude. I could blab to you about him forever. so, I hope more people will give this man a chance and experience him the way I know him.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

costume design, set mockup, and rehearsal photos from this guide to the show that's like really thorough in providing Context like, mini articles about the creators of the original movie, musical, and movie musical, about other versions of productions, the history, quotes of other commentary, interview quotes, context of other / preexisting genres like b movies, faustian stories, "what if a plant was weird" stories, glossary of terms (such as references that may generally be less obscure if you were in the '60s, e.g.), suggested further reading....haven't read it top to bottom but i think it's fantastic, link to the pdf as post source

[autoraton]

I saw in one of your recent posts you just played obra dinn! It’s one of my favorite games ever. Which chapter did you enjoy most ?

FELLOW OBRA DINN ENJOYER!! Hello!

It’s very quickly become one of my favourite games too, but man is it hard to narrow it down to one chapter.

I have to say Soldiers of the Sea or The Doom - they got carnage, crab men, and a million things going on at once. also ‘the frenchman’ gets mentioned and sends me on a wild goose chase for the entire rest of my playthrough