#the element dragons are a different story since those are like. embodiments of their elements themselves and not seperate entities

[penofwildfire]

Biggest change I'd make to Ninjago were I to rewrite it would be having the dragons be real characters from the beginning. Not necessarily having them speak human language or anything but definitely making it clear that they're people, not just pets and modes of transportation. Obviously I get why they didn't do this is canon but I think it'd be fun to give the og 4 dragons some real personality.

[jhuzen]

the woes of a god [gn/m.reader]

definitely not my comeback piece. just got inspired randomly in the middle of so many things that i have been doing. i deeply apologize ;; 🙇‍♂️. this is just… a really long story that builds on the premise of the last story i posted TvT.

𖦹 big on genshin lore again, with a few interpretations of my own to fill in the gaps and insert the reader, creator reader but not sagau (again like the last story), focuses on post primordial one vs sovereigns, primordial one and second throne war, archon war, and post-cataclysm. features all six archons by their goetic names (the tsaritsa is conveniently not around), neuvillette, mentions of old seven and apep, this leans on a what if scenario, of reader coming down to teyvat before the archon war, reader is a little brutal but that’s okay ;;

The sky has never looked more fake.

Your eyes squint at the light that the world you have crafted bathed in. You had seen the horrific sights that lie beyond the peaceful blue that the skies projected before you.

Though it did little to bother any other living creature that now dwelled on your magnum opus. Your gaze drifts to the new beings, molded with striking differences from one another, their characteristics bound by the land that they were born on.

The day you had awoken was a painful ordeal to go through. The wounds that lodged within your very body is terrifyingly painful. And the very world that you had created and anchored into your body was the only culprit.

For a time, your masterpiece, Teyvat, felt like a malignant tumor that only propagated within your soul, corroding every piece of your self until you are no more. How ironic was it that your most cherished creation among all the other worlds became the very thing that causes you physical harm.

You had slumbered for a long time since then, and had dutifully descended. Your sleep was not only attributed to the pain during its descent, but also to mourn the painful passing of your beloved sovereigns. Your eyes cannot endure the fate they suffered through, and to this day, the guilt tramples over whatever sense of elation that you feel, washed over with the feelings of intense shame.

Their creator was you alone. No one else.

And when an alien being came to hunt them down for a war that lasted decades, you were nowhere to be found.

You were certain that Nibelung knew your gaze was casted on them, that he understood you were stepping away as a form of test, a way to see if he, as well as your seven sovereigns could withstand such a small conundrum such as a foreign descender.

The thought sickens you physically — you could only wonder if you putting your loving faith on them to be your champions in this war was a devastating mistake of yours that they paid for with their lives and dignity. Your mind could barely comprehend the kind of desperation that Nibelung must have felt for him to dive into the deepest depths and use a knowledge not of this world that Teyvat, and to an extent — your body, until now, struggles to recover from.

A sigh escapes your lips.

It was a gnawing ache, like those celestial larvae that crawl into your body, having a grand feast on it.

The day you descended, you had called on the elements that embodied this very world, seeking answers for what had happened when you were in such a deep sleep, entirely clueless of the events, with only a body that aches from the physical wounds it sustained to guide you to the clues about Old Teyvat’s demise and the embarking of its new age.

You had learned that day, that after the devastating defeat of your dragons, it imparted a new life. And now, humans walked the very ground you had crafted for dragons to walk on initially. You have also learned that the tiny vishaps have retreated deep into Teyvat, living under the hopeless depths, making do and surviving in such a decrepit environment.

Coming in contact with them was nothing more than a world full of hurt when you came to the realization that even the vishaps are terrified of your light. It had shattered a piece of you, and have only grieved with nothing but shame and regret.

And even when you left, the despairing echoes of your cries remained beneath as the vishaps’ lullabies as well as the tears that created a pool for them to bathe in.

Your cries that soothed the vishaps became a haunting legend in a certain civilization that had collapsed and fell through the depths. Children cowered at the stories told about the harrowing echoes, and the scholars of that very civilization had recorded your voice as a mere phenomenon, a tale for the insane, a story for bedtime to frighten unruly children.

Much after the grieving that you had succumbed to, you had learned the stinging pain that pierced through your body that keeps persisting to this day was the work of these pillars — you have come to know them as its divine nails, made to heal the lands of Teyvat from the parasitic effects that the forbidden knowledge inflicted when it was used during the wars.

Quite frankly, it did little to heal your body as you feel the way it seems to lodge within your very core, destroying and corrupting pieces of your soul.

Your first journey since your awakening was nothing short of enlightening. You had learned much about the turn of events. Your dragons have suffered enough, with the few alive ones like the Dragon of Verdure incredibly spiteful of the new race that came about.

And you were not clueless about the sharp tone Apep had taken when she first talked to you after your disappearance during the war between it and the seven sovereigns. You understood the bitterness and sheer betrayal that she had felt, knowing that all this would have been prevented had you only decided to lend a hand.

You left Apep’s abode with little pity for yourself and more remorse for not being a proper artisan to your creation.

But as you watched a civilization grow among the vast sands, you also cannot help but disagree with the unsavory words that Apep had described the new life.

Yes, they were small.

But you understood that humanity is not insignificant.

Gods have always fascinated you.

You understood that to some degree, you too, are a god. You understood that way before Teyvat became a project of yours. Your previous creations that were successfully inhabited with the creatures you had given life to worshiped you, and your descent on your visits were always welcomed with celebrations of endless grandeur.

Things were no different once the sovereigns had come to realize that you were the source of their life and the very world they live in right now. And you had also been crowned as Teyvat’s primordial deity.

However, the age of humanity had given birth to two differing types. There were the normal humans — mortal, average in strength, and so easily swayed by their desires and fears alike.

And then there were the immortals. You had come to realize that immortals came in all forms. Some had originally been creatures of the myth, others were mere elemental manifestations, spirits, or humans that were lucky enough to be ordained and strong enough to defy all the odds that an average human can only do.

There were also gods who took the shape of creatures — sea monsters, newer dragons that were striking descendants of the ancient ones.

You understood then, that even immortals, much like mortals, answered to the authority that reigned supreme in your world, someone who is not you.

Glancing up at the sky, your gaze immediately drifts to that floating piece of land, meant to hold the thrones of those revered by the new worldly life.

And just as you were finally understanding the existence of gods lesser than you, the one above who has stolen your very presence of authority declared an all-out brawl across Teyvat, deeming your very masterpiece its playground for needless bloodshed and barbaric warfare.

It declared seven thrones for seven remaining gods that would triumph above all.

And nothing could prepare you for the prize of winning one.

It was an unforgettable feeling — the way your blood ran cold as it presented seven ornaments in unique shapes, each containing a very familiar power that you have cultivated and given yourself.

The prize was the authority of your defeated sovereigns.

Mockery. You thought it was mockery. You thought whatever resides up there knows you were lurking, relearning Teyvat after your forced slumber for survival, and decided to taunt your everlasting grief over your creations by using the very dignity of each dragon sovereign that you had entrusted those authorities to.

And now, it taunts you in such a needlessly cruel way, by desecrating your world once more through an all out war between the very gods they have also created.

It was a jarring era. You took part in aiding the defenseless mortals, taking whoever in the tiny nooks all over the world. You had brought several mortals in your sanctuary in times of desperation while gods have staked their claim by surviving battle after battle.

Tactics were employed by different gods, differing in styles. Some had bargained for it, some willingly gave their throne to a god they deem fit, others who are weaker opted to team up with those that can trample over others, some had forcibly taken what was rightfully theirs, and some had willingly shut themselves off, cowering away in hopes of being left alone so they may protect their people in peace.

You had learned by then that even gods… can succumb to their desires and fears.

It had been long since the great war among gods had concluded.

However you can still feel the bittersweet sensation that pulsed through your veins as you watched all seven take their seats, claim their divine thrones, and hold the vessels for the power stolen from your elemental dragon sovereigns.

You would remember them as they staked their claim over their regions.

Barbatos, Morax, Baal, Rukkhadevata, Egeria, Xbalanque, and previous Tsaritsa.

You recall them well enough — considering that they have managed to unearth the truth of Teyvat’s existence. They came to you, offering themselves for you to indulge at the cost of recognition.

The original seven, eager as they were to meet you, were promptly shut down with a smile on your lips.

“You are not mine to claim, as my blood does not flow through any of yours’ veins.”

Suffering became an easy friend of yours.

You had gone through so much already, and your body as well as Teyvat have yet to heal and recuperate from the effects of the many wars that transpired on this world.

And here comes another one.

However, this time, someone had played the role of Icarus, and had flown way too close to a certain parasite.

It dawned on you as the familiar stinging pain seeped though your very core, breaking you once more little by little, its persistence unmistaken when you first felt it when the very first war erupted in this world.

Someone had unearthed Nibelung’s discovery of the forbidden knowledge and decided to use it.

You remember it vividly — yet another huge devastation that came to Teyvat. However, the catastrophe was marginally bigger compared to the horrid Archon war. And with the discomfort of bearing through that disgustingly painful experience, you had plunged into yet another slumber.

By the time you had awoken, you realized how deeply affected each and everyone was. Many comrades have died, some were affected, and you had come to find out that even the archons had to make some incredibly difficult sacrifices that dealt equally devastating blows to their very being.

You had little to say.

However, you have much to do.

Perhaps it was your guilty conscience that pushed you into this long journey. However, you were not guilty of being asleep while the fallen nation had wreaked havoc with their circumstances. Your guilt lied within the fact that you had never gotten to console your dragon sovereigns when they were defeated by it.

Most of them were dead, others were sealed and unable to reincarnate.

And so this was your way of making it up to them, albeit… with the archons, those who remained, and those who are now stepping up into their new responsibilities as a member of the newly established seven.

You had first visited the cold region of Snezhnaya, paying a visit to their new Cryo Archon, who has been planning something else entirely. She had willingly entertained you, despite the slight edge and tension within her. However you understood that you were limiting her desire to continue on with her plans, and so you were quick to disappear from that very nation.

Barbatos has always held you in a high regard the moment his eyes were opened to your existence. The heavenly principles call you the slumbering sloth, deeming your forced slumber and inactivity to act against the horrors Teyvat has gone through a mistake on your part as a creator.

But he deems it as a slander, and he quietly protests at the image imposed so heavily on him. He adored the freedom you had granted — giving free will to the creatures that now live on your domain, and it was that freedom that had continued to flourish within him, spurring on a belief that he had cultivated since the moment he received his gnosis.

In that tiny piece of divinity, he felt you. Quietly lurking across the lands of Teyvat, minding your own affairs without intent of reconnecting with others.

And when he and his fellow archons sought you for answers, you had little to say. Shutting them down with an indifferent gaze — no, Venti hardly calls it indifferent, the mask sure was indifferent, but there is a sense of agony that seems to seep out from that very mask.

Barbatos sleeps for eons not to gather his bearings, but to feel closer to you.

And now here he finds you in the waking world, gaze overlooking Mondstadt — currently rebuilding the life that was devastated by the cataclysm alone. His wings tuck behind him, respectful as he was as he bowed to you.

“They have it handled, Your Benevolence,” he regards you with a carefree grin on his lips, “…Humans are strong. And that freedom I’ve given them will flourish.”

“You seem so sure of it,” you respond without missing a beat.

“…They are still ignorant of you, and they do not realize that the freedom I embody is how I carry your will,” his voice comes out in a quiet purr, a reverent tone that held nothing but unadulterated adoration and devotion.

Your gaze seems too far — looking at the horizon and Barbatos wants to see what your eyes can see in this world. What perspective you have, what you think of the new Teyvat and what you think of him, carrying out your principles through his own beliefs.

“…Let us hope it is not a mistake,” you mumble, your fingers gently caressing those pristine white wings of his, and Barbatos relishes in the feeling.

He held back a wince as he felt a sharp sting from when you plucked a feather from his wing.

Barbatos had one thing to say.

“If it is your will, then it shall be done.”

You had doubts with that. You had your will — and it was done. And where did that lead you? Facing a god bearing the face of a creature that now replaced your creations.

You sucked in a sharp breath before smiling, a shallow gesture as you tucked in Barbatos’ pure white feather behind your ear.

“Mm… it shall be done,” you repeat, and a gentle breeze brushes past you. A tiny whisper and a loving kiss from the archon himself.

You accept it with a quiet hum.

Morax had more questions than the blatant adoration that Barbatos held for you. He first came to you apprehensive and tense, but you knew that he understood that he had to be around in order to get the answers he desired. He came to you with the arrogance and bravado befitting of a god.

How pathetic was it that he looked more like a god than you will ever be. But when he did, you were in a fit of deep sorrow when the heavenly principles made a mockery of your sovereigns and had given it to these new gods that prevailed mostly through bloodshed and sheer force.

He questioned your methods, Morax understood so little about your motives, about your life, about your method of creation. However arrogant and mighty as he was, he held deep respect for you still, you were the creator of the dragons that inspired him to mold his likeness into the same sort when he presented his Exuvia during his descent in Liyue.

And yet you still managed to devastate him as you first rejected him along with the first seven. Unlike Barbatos who saw agony, Morax felt the indignant resentment that enveloped your divine being, and it rubbed him the wrong way.

Morax was quick to straighten himself up, and was eager to wisen himself.

Right, he was taught to understand others.

Your legacy was infamous for losing against the heavenly principles’ divine intervention, that your sordid draconic creations were no match for the primordial one and its shades. That your era was replaced within a battle that only lasted for a few decades. And as you sat at the edge of the tall mountains that he had shaped, gracefully indulging in the tea ways away from Chenyu Vale, he could only bask in your divinity as he stood behind you, keeping a watchful gaze of your very being.

You still had that alluring glimmer that he saw when he first came to you.

An uneasy feeling grasps onto his very being. Perhaps it was the lingering trauma of being rejected by you initially that even served his cautious display now.

“…You’ve done well,” you murmur quietly. A simple, quiet praise, and Morax’s knees nearly buckled at the sheer weight. Of all the times he had been on the battlefield, none could outweigh the suffocating feeling that you suddenly imparted to him.

He feels the weight of expectations while your gaze swept over Liyue’s entirety. And Morax invites it wholeheartedly. His body gives into the sudden pressure that weighed him down, prompting him to go down on one knee, head bowed with a reverent expression.

Morax adores you so much.

“I have taken great inspiration from your creations, Your Benevolence. I have crafted them with you in mind, with how you may envision my nation to its way to prosperity.” His voice sounds like a whisper compared to your melodious echo. “It pleases me greatly to be praised by you.”

Your eyes flit to the countless mountains that were not there before. No doubt they have been shaped with the aid of Morax’s newfound authority over the land with his won authority over Geo.

“As an artisan, I must say, you have truly outdone yourself,” you quietly muse, resting the teacup between your thighs. “You have the talent, I would be remiss to not take you in and teach you few of my personal techniques.”

Morax’s breath hitched, his lips tremble, making his way towards you, half-crawling like a pest that now will surely refuse to leave your side. He had done well in his mind — redeemed himself from the foolish arrogance he once had that might have caused your blatant rejection of his being at first. But now, you were willing to let him learn from you, and that was a step far bigger than any god could have ever made.

“…Please,” he mumbled, his fingers digging into the dirt as desperation floods his mind wave after wave. “Please… please, Your Benevolence. Impart your knowledge to me. I will forever be grateful.”

Nothing could prepare him from your quiet laughter, amused by his devotion.

He is quiet, sucking in a sharp breath as he heaved a quiet sigh of sheer pleasure and relief. A genuine desire blossoms through his chest, flourishing and spreading like an illness that cannot be remedied with something remotely as simple as a handful of ground up adeptal herbs.

It took you one look to understand… that you ought not to shatter his genuine bliss. That you ought to not tell him you merely laughed in memory of the dragon who once possessed the authority that now Morax holds.

Beelzebul has always been off with you. She did not know how to feel. Adoration and the imminent desire to devote her life to you was not the first thing she had felt. Perhaps her twin sister did, Baal always did have a sense of innate fanaticism that even as her identical twin, Beelzebul could not understand.

Though she understood that when she saw Baal so utterly heartbroken after speaking so highly of you that she felt enraged. Her sister had rightfully earned her throne in the heavens, to receive that Electro Gnosis, it was hers to have with no room for argument. She had won the favor of the higher power, so why… pray tell… have you rejected someone as strong as her?

She thought you were blind to the notion of strength. She thought you were a fool — to not have seen the grace of power that Baal, that Makoto, had in her hands. For you to refuse the adoration her twin sister felt was nothing short of an insult to Beelzebul. And for a long time, she had intent to make you recognize Baal.

And then the catastrophe comes and long gone were her desires to turn your gaze towards her sister.

Traumatized, Beelzebul had little to say as she lamented over Baal’s death on that horrid war. The war that combed through Teyvat, claiming the lives of not only powerless and helpless mortals but gods like Baal fell.

On that one moment, Beelzebul casted aside her resentment, and begged for you to see just what her sister was willing to do to protect your creation. To witness the pain Baal had to go through despite her inability to curry your favor.

How ironic was it, that now, overcome with immense grief and desire to achieve the eternity Beelzebul wanted for her people, that you decided to come.

The puppet hung still, lifeless and incomplete from the waist down. Beelzebul stood by, and an odd sentiment of understanding for Baal’s fascination and love for you washes over her, as if Beelzebul was programmed to love you in an instant. Her watchful gaze never left you as you walked around, analysing the puppet Beelzebul was in the middle of creating.

Your gaze — one that Baal had longed to have — was directed at Beelzebul now.

“Your desire to reach eternity… is this puppet the answer?” You ask, “Free from erosion, everlasting puppet, made to run your territory to a perfected pace.”

Beelzebul’s footsteps echo as she closed the distance between you and her inch by inch. She becomes minutely aware of your divinity. It was like no other. It provokes the inner sanctums of Beelzebul’s physical being.

Beelzebul wants to cry.

And she wants you to hold her.

You took note of how she stepped back, before responding to you, regarding you respectfully, “…Yes, Your Benevolence.” Her eyes flit to the features of the puppet. He is hardly molded to her likeness, but it shows, beautiful and everlasting. “An eternity does not succumb to the rotting scent of gradual decay. He is a mere prototype, a test of what shall be my true creation.”

“Pity that is,” you quietly murmur. “He would have been a precious one,” you gently cupped his cheeks around your hands.

Beelzebul watched with confusion and interest as your lips press against the puppet’s forehead.

“Blessed be thy path. Return to me and you will be recognized.”

You walked towards her, the ends of your robes fluttering behind you. Her breath hitches at the feeling of your hand over her sternum, “…And may you return to me, should your pursuit come into a halt.”

It felt like a challenge, but Beelzebul does not miss her desire for it to be a mere comfort from a god who is clearly far greater than she will ever be. Undeterred, Beelzebul turns to the puppet and resigns herself into yet another long period of endless work.

There will be eternity. And at the heart of that very eternity will solely be you and her.

Buer knew the day she was born that she had huge shoes to fill in. Her predecessor was a great one, and their domain altogether was far bigger than one could imagine. Sumeru had a tall order and young little Buer had to fulfill it all on her own.

She was born into succeeding Rukkhadevata’s greatest feats, already pushed into the limelight to take over and take action over the nation that her predecessor had managed to cultivate with her compassion and wisdom. Buer was intimidated, she had enough sense to admit and accept such a fact. Buer admired her predecessor, and will continue to do so, loving her endlessly and singing praises about the hard work that Rukkhadevata had put into establishing the rule of Sumeru.

Hence, Buer finds it so difficult to find her footing. Everything she does feels so little in comparison to her predecessor’s achievements, and it was not long before a part of that adoration turns into a quiet hum of deep insecurity, seeding into Buer’s heart that forced her into a never ending cycle of pressure and admiration.

“You have so much on your mind, little one.”

Her mind clears, and she stares up into you. You — the one adored by many, and one that Buer was certain Rukkhadevata had also adored and held in such a high pedestal and rightfully so. Buer wonders how you are able to withstand the crushing weight of pressure that you probably feel on your shoulders as you carried the very fate of this world that was secured and anchored well into your body.

“Your predecessor was the same,” you continue while your fingers slowly cross strands of her hair over the other, neatly plaided. “I watched her scramble around, trying to clean up the messes that her fellow god kings have caused. I watched her get smaller and smaller, sacrificing every part of herself into clearing out catastrophes one after the other.”

Buer agrees without a word. Perhaps not even a god like you is immune to just how truly amazing the original Dendro Archon was as you sang her praises.

“The world is ill, little Buer,” you mention as you gracefully tied her hair to the side. “And when Teyvat is ill, I too suffer the same painful fate.”

No person could understand the paradoxical nature of the feelings that slowly invited itself into Buer’s heart.

She feels light from your encouragement and yet feels utterly crushed at the weight of expectations that you have placed on her, whether or not it was your intention.

Buer feels smothered by it all, and it feels so damning, so terribly incapacitating that it pains her. But Buer loves you. You came to guide her like a parent would to a child when Rukkhadevata had given her the stage to guide a region far bigger than any other archon’s claim.

“I know, Your Benevolence…” she quietly murmured.

Buer’s eyes opened, and the green tint of this prison she was in knocks her out of her daydream. Her palm presses flat against the barrier. A wave of loneliness comes over her being, and it hurts. It had only been a year or two since you came and since her capture, but she had never felt so alone in a solitary prison that Rukkhadevata once used for her own benefit now being used against her own successor.

Where are you? Are you coming back? Are you sending a champion to rescue her? How long will she stay here? A century? Five? A millennium?

Buer prays to you. She asks for an answer. An answer that you alone can possess.

The God of Wisdom seeks your knowledge in desperation, hoping you do not turn a blind eye.

From her prison of isolation, Buer could only hear the last words you have said to her;

“Happy birthday, Little Buer…”

Focalors much like the others in the same state as her had rightfully succeeded the throne of the original archons that now perished in that catastrophic event. Focalors was a mere oceanid, following after Egeria’s will as the late Hydro Archon was led into a battle that she would no longer return from. And now, Egeria’s corpse lays within the deserts of Sumeru, where the late Dendro Archon had buried and cultivated her corpse into a tree that will always be a good distance away from the very nation Egeria ruled over.

Focalors feels injustice against her predecessor now that she has shouldered the prophetic curse that the heavenly principles have decided to rule against Egeria for her sin. Her sin. Focalors’ eyebrows furrowed — was it so bad that the late archon created life? That she had desired to create humans the same way that it had done. She recalled the day Egeria was blessed with the wisdom of your existence.

A sole artisan, you, had created this world. And another one came to give birth to a new realm inhabited by humans. You were not their creator, but from your inaction, it was clear you had accepted, or at the very least tolerated humanity that now thrives on the world you have created. Egeria holds a different opinion compared to the other archons. She thought it was fair that you had rejected them initially, in a way it was your justice to refuse associating yourself with the creatures that replaced your original creations.

Hypocrites, the one that they answer to are all hypocrites.

And the feelings further exacerbate as she feels your hand press against her back. Her shoulders squared as you danced with her, a faint melody from your quiet hum was the only rhythmic guide to this romantic tango of two lonely gods.

There is a sense of longing that stews within the waters of Teyvat, Egeria once told Focalors upon receiving the Hydro Gnosis. And now that she is in close proximity with you, the feeling was overwhelmingly palpable. Her chest hurts as it tightened with every step she took, following after your flawless footwork.

This was a tragedy in the making and Focalors was eagerly participating in it.

“Does it hurt?” She asks you, adoring the serenity etched into your face as a defaulted expression. “To have your name sullied by the injustice inflicted by the winners? That no human speaks your name and sings your praises?”

You flawlessly spin her away until she comes back in your grasp, “I am in agony,” you admit with a haunting smile, mirthless and still so beautiful, “Even more as I am reliving him through you.”

The pace picks up and Focalors hurries, having little time to catch her breath as she feels an unsettling pull wash over her. There was a desire to please you, as if your request cannot be denied outright. Maybe it was the world asking her to do your bidding, or maybe Egeria had programmed this into her very core when she was created as a mere Oceanid familiar.

Before she was even aware, the humming comes to a close and Focalors was bowing like you to an audience of nothing but the endless sea and the creatures that lurked beneath it.

You tilt your head to the side, “I hope I have relayed my feelings well enough to you.” You smile at her and Focalors’ grip on your hand tightens significantly.

You don’t say it, but she feels it. She has the authority of the everlasting waters — your tears, your agony, your pain. And it drowns her further and further until it suffocates her and dissolves her being, much like the dreaded prophecy she was tasked to solve by her predecessor.

Give it back. Give him back.

He was never gone. Focalors had not met him, but she knew of his existence. She knows what you want.

Focalors was blessed with great intelligence, and knew how to kill two birds with one stone. She had thought about it. She could solve the prophecy and fulfill your wish.

Focalors was a romantic as much as she had a flair for the dramatic. She loved humanity above all but perhaps her love for you exceeds that even just for a generous millimeter.

A quiet sigh escapes her lips.

“Applaud me for my performance once it ends, Your Benevolence.” She requested in a quiet voice, and she pities herself for feeling immense satisfaction from a mere wordless nod from you.

For you, who had accepted the humanity that Focalors loves, the archon would do the same. She would accept your selfish wish and make it come true, indulge in your quiet favor, be the one you will forever love and adore even in her death.

Haborym has heard of the tales of the great one. How the very world was shaped by your divine hands, like a sculptor carving out the features of your next masterpiece. But that was only after the First Pyro Archon had gained control over the Pyro Gnosis roughly a thousand and five hundred years ago, one that uncovered the existence of a will greater than the ones that ruled over them from above.

However, most of the people of Natlan remain blissfully unaware of one of the many secrets that the lineage of Pyro Archons have known by their succession to the heavenly throne.

They were unaware of Xbalanque’s great failure in gaining your favor. The failure of the first Pyro Archon that assumed the throne. And the next archons in line that failed after it.

It was much like the pilgrimage, once an archon, not only are they tasked to care for Natlan’s delicate situation against the Abyss, their people, but also they must try again to gain your favor. It was like a tradition, an obligation even — passed down from one archon to another, seeing how they can succeed in what Xbalanque, as great as he was, completely failed at.

Perhaps you were exasperated by the constant badgering for the Pyro Archons that came before Haborym, because somehow, before she could even get to you, you had appeared before her during the havoc that Khaenri’ah’s incident has wreaked upon your lands. You came to her while she finished wringing out every bit of life of any Rifthound that threatened the lives of her people.

She had exerted much of her energy, and though she had enough energy still for more confrontations along with the revered heroes of Natlan, you had come to aid her even for a second. She felt your cooling touch that soothed any aches that rooted deep within her from the abyssal creature’s devastating attacks. She is mostly certain that any normal person would crumble into dust if they even were swiped at by one measly claw of these things.

Regardless, that was the first time you and her had met. Haborym barely registered the truth in your identity before you swiftly disappeared.

And now confusion only grows more evident in her core as she watched you, sat atop the tallest valleys in Natlan’s many plateaus. You sat, cross-legged as you watched the nation slowly recover from its terribly huge loss. You seemed lax, for someone having witnessed the lands of your creation nearly succumb to the abyss. But you were hardly fazed, with your face resting on the palm of your hand.

“…I must extend my apologies.” You finally spoke, breaking the silence.

Haborym feels a sense of camaraderie, and oddly enough, it prompts her to sit beside you. Her fellow archons — whether within Natlan or among the other nations — have always placed you on such a high pedestal. However perhaps it was because Haborym was a human before she was… well, Haborym.

But the humanity that dwelled within her thrives and connects with what she can perceive as a small island of humanity within the seas of your divinity. It was small, but it was irrational, loving, and resentful, all emotions hardly any gods, much less a higher being like you should never be bothered with.

Haborym takes a deep breath before nodding, “I accept your apology.”

She thinks she’s doing better than the preceding Pyro Archons when she heard your laughter. Somehow, Teyvat grew a little brighter upon that single moment.

“I believe I have a hand in the failure of Natlan. The reason why your nation has suffered far more devastating blows was because of the weak constitution of the leylines,” you explained, and it was not news to her. It had been the consistent problem that hung over the heads of the previous Pyro Archons, and now hers.

Haborym nods. She doesn’t ask the question of why, and patiently waits for what else you have to say.

“I am certain you don’t need any explanation, however… I created this place without factoring in the possibility of your kind’s creation. Had I known, your lands would not have been the backdoor for the darkness that threatens to consume the lives of your people.”

You smiled a little, throwing a glance at Haborym, “…You must understand, I am a creator in belief that all good things must become bad… and all bad things must become good. I believe in the equilibrium of the worlds — that all must learn the essence of balance. It is why Teyvat is my masterpiece, because it encapsulates my belief.”

“Creation must face destruction, and destruction must birth creation. That is the essence of my samsara.”

Your words felt like a hint, and Haborym’s eyes dart towards the heart of Natlan, where the Sacred Flame burns bright and hot.

And Haborym was taught from a young age that a true god’s wisdom is never something to overlook.

You had to applaud the collective effort of everyone in Teyvat. Five hundred years later and it keeps thriving from the devastating cataclysm. And now you have met a fitting champion to wield your will. Though they only wished to see their sibling.

The Heavenly Principles finally did something right in setting the stage as your challenger.

Your gaze drifts from the piece of land in the unreachable parts of the sky, down to the tea that you were wonderfully having with the bearer of your tears.

Focalors was right — her performance was unbearably long, however intensely impressive. You had honored her sacrifice with a permanent seat in the dining table of your private sanctuary nestled within the dark seas of Teyvat, where only the seats were personally crafted by you and were only enough to fit the humongous forms of the dragons that once ruled over your world.

She, among the other divinities that were not of your creation, was the first to earn your respect and genuine love.

“Is the tea to your liking?”

You still find yourself looking up on instinct just to meet the sharp gaze of the Hydro Sovereign, only to look back down to see a human being as his incarnation. Though his piercing gaze was certainly not lost on you.

“Hot enough,” you mumbled, “Bitter enough,” you added, recalling the tastes of one divine puppet that found his way back to you through your golden champion and little Buer’s rehabilitation.

Neuvillette quietly basked in the grace of your being. You had not changed one bit. He had recalled your presence when you first met him within the little tunnel on the side of Palais Mermonia during his break, and after Focalors’ final act, he was consumed with memories of you when you first descended in Teyvat.

As the bearer of your tears, he was your sole confidant, something even his fellow sovereigns envied him for all those years ago.

“…I have many questions,” he prompted the conversation, refusing this first meet to be mere session of stewing in silence and basking in each other’s presence. It was clear how dear he was to you, but his memories that eluded him suddenly came crashing down certainly gave him a terrifying and confusing time.

You had nowhere to be, and the traveler was busy with their affairs and many other adventures.

“We have all the time now,” you chuckle, watching the tiny whirlpool in your tea after stirring in a pinch of sugar. “After all, reunions are meant to be focused on reconciling with one another, like two old friends who have lost touch for… thousands of years perhaps.”

“Though I understand my… old life… was subjected into being your confidant for eons to come, I must exercise my impartiality to you.”

You laughed, amused at Neuvillette’s words. Though you respect him as a friend, nodding along. A creation could never judge a creator — it is what many among your fellow artisans have believed. But you have seen when worlds have rallied against their creator, and some have managed to kill theirs for justice or desperation.

You once walked the world of a now deceased colleague, who created a world filled with oppression, where the waters do not flow, and the pantheon of that very world have sought to fight the very god that created them in the first place.

Cruel as it was, you relished in bathing in that artisan’s never ending tears, flowing from their closed eyes as their decapitated head became the new mountain that births fresh water to their creation.

Nevertheless, for hours, you were subjected into endless questions, interrogated from left to right by the Hydro Sovereign that wanted answers more than anything. You had the key and had willingly opened the chest to him, absolving him of the troubles that might have weighed down on him once he received the Hydro Authority that was rightfully his when Focalors killed herself before his eyes.

The questioning only boils down to two questions left. Significant enough for Neuvillette to base his new opinion of you.

However you only had one proper answer for one of them.

“…Do you detest the Heavenly Father for his actions against the new order?”

You had thought long and hard about it. You wandered Teyvat for years to understand what you felt about it.

And you had the proper answer for it.

“Nibelung did what he had to do,” your eyes glazed over, and Neuvillette follows your gaze. Before he could think you were being disingenuous, you focused your attention back to him, gazing firmly into his eyes. “I had thought I felt injustice and resentment for his… foolish actions.”

You picked up the teacup, savoring the bitterness that the liquid offered.

“However I came to realize that he was desperate enough to seek the forbidden knowledge. Only then was I consumed with guilt. I mourned him and you and your brethren. Apep despised me when I visited her in the desert of Sumeru.” You recounted with a quiet hum. “I know not of what happened to the others, but I understand that my inaction may have forced his hand.”

“I feel guilt and I will prostrate myself as an apology before you if you so wish,” you offered.

Neuvillette thinks it was a coincidence when he felt the same. Him and his fellow sovereigns could have defended the world you had generously gifted them before. But a terrifying thought comes to his mind that perhaps his role as the Hydro Sovereign had him tethered to you even in his own emotions.

It was his new crisis — whether or not he truly feels guilt or if he merely shares it with how well connected he is to you.

“Please do not subject yourself in such a disgrace. You are my creator.”

“And my creations have been neglected until their death,” you countered with ease and Neuvillette doesn’t know if it was his programmed reverence that stops him from contesting you or that he also feels that your words ring true.

You stood up from your seat, walking over to him, and he basks in your presence yet again, nearly losing himself like how Fontainians before he had forgiven them dissolved within the Primordial Sea.

You pulled him in a gentle embrace, his stiff posture leaning awkwardly against your midsection as he sat still.

Neuvillette could hardly pull himself together. Your affection feels forced, an obligation that had to be done to console him, and further puzzles him if you shared his emotions or if you truly felt bad for the guilt that he claims he feels.

“…Then, if it is guilt that you feel. Do you resent humanity for flourishing in a world that does not have an allowance for their existence?”

That one, you had no answer for.

Humanity is so beautiful, but you had come to learn that you were merely tolerating them.

Neuvillette feels himself stiffen as your warm body grows cold in this one-sided embrace.

He may be the one responsible for judging the archons and the heavenly principles that had done you wrong.

But he was never the one to call the shots when judging the fate of this world.

After all, an artist can orphan their work once displeased.

Neuvillette just got you back. And he is certain that though the archons were tied within the Heavenly Principles, they desired your presence more than the ones they were expected to answer to.

You had graced him with a subtle kiss on his forehead, loving and forgiving.

“Focalors had you convinced that humanity was worth it,” you mutter, “So it must be true that they have something to offer.”

He looks up to see a small smile on your face.

Empty. Haunting. Grim.

“…If one dead god can convince you, how many do you think would it take to convince me?”

And just like the sky, your benevolence has never looked more fake.

[semi-imaginary-place]

dragon age veilguard live thoughts

varric better not die in the intro. Where is the inquisitor? Why is solas' ritual happening in minrathous and not skyhold where the sky was held back.

wow they are confirming fan theories in the first few hours including my own. that the Evanuris are connected to the blight and the black city in the fade. titans hiveminded dwarves and stone magic vs sky magic. Enchantment! i had sooo many elvhenan hypotheses. I am conflicted about the evanuris being proven evil in a series so dedicated to "both sides"ing EVERYTHING even when they shouldn't, like the mages are way more right than the templars. to be fair the blight has always been a morally black element to the series so by definitively connecting the evanuris to the blight they are painted as the villains. we'll see if that stays true or whether their morality is complicated later.

the crows are just the mafia or maybe the mexican cartel. absolutely brutal and violent and constantly murdering, torturing, or trafficking people. but also a major power system in the region and removing them leaves a power vacuum and more violence as small gangs war to fill in the space. oh and now they're nationalists hmm?

ah lucanis. dark brooding and tormented by demons (literal). ventori incubating demons in people. i won't say it i won't say it. also just noticed neve has a sick ass carved gold snake for a foot.

Having the ventori and evanuris be allied feels like the boring option. Just the 2 most blatantly rvil factions. Would be more interesting jf they hated each other because the venatori were racist or something.

would have expected the fade expert to be with the veil jumpers or those veil nuts in inquisition instead of a necomancer. i guess emmrich does both? or i mean there's no one probably more knowledgeable than solas. Gameplay wise this was probably to distinguish from bellara but it's janky and feels like emmeich was shoved into the role of fade expert.

It's been like 20? 30? Years since origins. Dog is dead! He was already not young in inquisition and even if mabari are long lived that's impossibly long for a dog. Really instead of d52 or whatever the year i think it would have been more interesting if the game took place 5 or 6 years ago. Solas makes a more interesting antagonist and having this during the antaam invasion is more interesting.

Hawk would have been useless anyways but this is perfect for the hero of ferelden more than the inquisitor. The blight, the blighted dragons, the wardens. But there was never meant to be a dragon age series, origins was meant as a stand alone. And as a stand alone close book story it fits pretty well that the warden dies. But as a series especially how relevant veilguard and origins are its glaring that they havent shown up. But of course they cant. World states.

Wow orlean conservatives would rather have the venatori than anything else. Guess they hate poor people and elves more than magic. They'd probably jump at the chance to have slaves. Looking at the foreign fascists thinking her they have the right idea.

The solas murals! Cole!!! My head is spinning. I'm a little worried about the implications. The fade is formed from perceptions of the world, the emotions of people, and thus so are spirits. That elves are descended from lyrium embodied spirits might be implying they were indirectly formed from other races. This combined with the dwarves being of the titans makes me worried as different race origins can be a slippery slope. That said this could be the begining of an "each race has it's own true creation myth". The other thing possible is that the two sides of the veil feed into each other and the evanuris making bodies happened before the veil and disparity. Who is to say the spirits weren't first. You can see the writers are favoring dalish elf origins. Also solas is the writers special little egg. His romance has so much unique content it's rather unfair really i would have rather he be unromanceable but oooh lore content. Fem dalish inqs eating so well. And while I love lore I do miss origins and it's presentation style where there was a more equal lore spread. Although part of that could be location. Orlais and ferelden are very chantry while the North with rivain, tevinter, and arlathan are less andraste focused

wow solas and mythal had history history. and that explains where she is in this game. he killed mythal/flemeth to restore his power after inquisition. the writers nerfed well of sorrows.

kieran should be like 20 right? imagine if he was a companion. the inclusions of taash and emmrich (as much as I love them) into the plot is super rough. like these two were bought on after the attacks on minrathus and treviso. but we don't go and hunt down those dragons at all. emmrich might be my favorite companion but his reasons for being here are the thinnest. Morrigan's like 50 now right, hilarious how she looks and sounds exactly the same as she did at 18. to be fair origins morrigan looked and sounded 35, but she did act like a moody teenager.

Rather than a pocket spirit all I was looking from Mythal was some advice on how to stop elgarnan and gilhinain

the old god dragons were always enslaved high dragons of the evanuris that they could puppet around. eh i don't like this idea overall. this does explain why the darkspawn seek them call to them between the evanuris using the blight and the blight being the corrupted and severed malicious dreams of the titans. but it goes against that plurality spirit present in dragon age origins where multiple different myths/belief systems are plausible. haven't heard about andraste in a hot second but maybe that's because we're in the north. where as veilguard is giving single definitive answers. so definitive this sort of feels like the finale for dragon age stories which I would be fine with. This would be a good ending point for the series, focus on new projects. like remember how origins was all about killing one archdemon, well now we have 2 to deal with a continent wide super blight and the gods who were puppeting them all along. this also in a way makes the dragons less cool. before dragons were specifically associated with mythal and not the pantheon as a whole and that fit well as mythal was the matriarchal mother figure and dragons are female that was the whole thing with the associated animals, halla raven wolf. making the archdemons slaves of the evanuris takes away dragons as gods in their own right, again the plurality thing. and why have dragons if they aren't going to be cool. like imagine the old gods were like nature spirits (given the strong elemental affiliation like ice lighting fire dragons), and a neutral party to the evanuris shenanaigans originally. but they were deemed a threat and sealed and now that the evanuris have become corrupted the darkspawn seek them out to turn them. like that's only 1cm off of canon but it's cooler. Or maybe the old gods existed before the evanuris just like the titans and it's a greek titans olympus situation where the dragons were too powerful to kill so the evanuris had to seal them. And it's only after they gained the power of the blight that they had an edge over the old gods but by then they were at war with the titans and then solas went against them. Well in general I have mixed feelings about the evanuris being revealed to be super evil. I'd much rather they were gray like solas just a darker shade. or maybe more emphasis given on before they were blighted. Like that they dalish myths were kinda true they just didn't paint the full picture vs. canon where the dalish are mostly wrong (which is actually pretty interesting for the dalish but not for the evanuris)

Weisshaupt time. Uuuhh doesnt davrin die if he kills the archdemon, the whole thing about needing a grey warden to trap the soul. If the archdemons are evanuris thralls then whose soul was mythal/flemeth trying to yoink into morrigan's baby? And just what was she trying to do with it.

i need to introduce emmrich to buddhist philosophy. I went and watched Emmrich's romance on Youtube and it got me thinking. First, ahem, "BOONNEE!" Wow even as a skeleton in a coffin rook is wild. His questline is mainly about his "whining about his mortality" as Hezenkoss says. "The sound of the Gion shōja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sōla flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline." Bro could use some buddhist existentialism and anika. He just worries about it so much and he's my favorite of the companions. Even if he becomes a lich that probably wouldn't be an eternity. Nevarra isn't eternal and neither will be the necropolis whether that's 100 or 100,000 years. And assuming real world science applies the sun is going out in a few billion years and heat death of the universe atoms will eventually decohere into a soup of uniformity. Although maybe he'll have it figured out by then. Thinking about persona 3 whose main repeated motif and theme is memento mori.

Spite is not very spiteful

Taash is great and all but hello?? Their mom??? She's so immigrant mother it's perfect. Extremely hardworking tough love tries to take care of her kid but also doesn't quite get it. The main thing im disappointed with taash's story is that you are forced to choose between rivain and qunari culture in a story that is otherwise about defying boundaries and binaries. I get that it's a formula and all the companions get a 2 fork choice but it's just thematically inconsistent for taash. (Griffons to forest or wardens, harding normal or titan, emmrich lich or manfred, neve kingpin or detective agency). So much outrage at taash being nonbinary wow we do live in the transphobia age. Like tassh's story is a very direct and straightforward queer narrative so I can understand why people might find it too in your face. I was rewatching all of dragon age and dragon age was always like this. people didn't nearly have this many problems with krem and his transness is just as direct as taash's like there's several dialogue options with him and bull asking what his deal is and each time the game reaffirms krem is a real man. So dragon age hasn't changed it's that games have somehow gotten even worse. Dorian's story was in large part about the stigma of being openly gay and the pain of his father trying to change him with blood magic conversion therapy. Also marveris is right there if you want in the background transness or even rook. A story with multiple trans characters presenting different aspects of the trans experience from questioning and defining identity to just living it, love to see it. People need to get over themselves, your life experiences are not universal, people different from you exist and their stories are justcas worthy of being told.

Wow companions actually die. This is stressful.  I'm willing to sacrifice davrin but not assan.

I'm disappointed wolf solas isn't fluffy. He barely looks like a wolf more like a dog with mange. They should have leaned into the shadow wolf thing. Also i cant be the only one who finds elgarnan boring. I wish there was an option to let solas merge the fade nf the physical world. Veilguard geels like a finale anyways might as well do something irrevokable. Like the origins of the blight have been revealed and dealt with. we've traveled the continent. The extinction of the griffins has come to light. Solved the secrets if arlathan. It all tied back to the evanuris. Mythal. I do like we get the option to just beat him up or trick the god of trickery i feel like he's admire that. Convincing him is good too since he's been twisted from his original purpose wisdom to pride. Why didn't solas part the veil at skyhold it's weak there and that is where the fade was held back.

Overall great game I had a fun time watching. There is a weirdly high amount of hate, people talk about this game like it's the worst thing ever and really none of it was bad. I liked origins more but but this is still good. But Origins cant really be beat one of the best games of all time. it's not a bad game people are hating way out of proportion, I'd put it on da2's level. Not as good as origins but still pretty good despite the (different) flaws. Both are good games but have more flaws and less highs that dai and dao. I like all of Dragon Age it's like asking me what flavor of ice cream I hate I love them all.

Inquisition though has the best characters love the cast and character writing even if i despise some of them (vivienne, sera). Given how solas is a major character now in 2 games his romance should have been for all genders. I mean it's already elf locked it, did they really need to gender lock one the most important characters in the series and pretty important characterization and lore. Yeah i get that they wanted solas to be a problematic straight guy but he's too important to be straight. 

Of Veilguard my favorite character is emmrich, devs commited to the bone. I expected harding to be my fav but liked harding better in inquisition and i cant figure out why. Imagine if emmeich joined the inquisition, in veilguard he talks about wanting to adventure and really inquisition in some ways is more appropriate what with the rifts dragging spirits out and demoning them, that would motivate him. I wonder if solas would like or hate him. Vivienne would continue her trend of not liking any other mage besides herself. Dorian would get to see his foreign exchange professor. Cole would help. Cassandra doesn't even like nevarra and hates the dead stuff. Would bull adopt manfred? Sera would hate emmrich he's like all her least favorite companions combined. 

Outside of emmeich and assan I didn't feel all that strongly about any of the characters, maybe because i was sometime half listening while doing other stuff. Loved bellara and neve's friendship

[raeynbowboi]

Building an Embodiment of the Fairytale Princess (2.0)

This is nothing new. I’ve done this build before, which I’ll link right [here]. The post did really well, and people seemed to love the concept. However, since then, Mythic Odysseys of Theros and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything have both come out, bringing with them not only new subclasses, but new features, spells, mechanics, and elements that I couldn’t take into consideration the first time around. So, I decided that rather than just adding a tag on post like I did before, I’d just remake the build with the new features being taken into consideration. Like before, the focus of the build is to create an embodiment of the generic fairytale princess and not any one particular character. So without further ado, let’s get into it.

Like before, we’ll be choosing Variant Human for our race of choice. We’ll channel Sleeping Beauty to be gifted by the fey with blessings of Beauty, Grace, and Song for +1 CHA, +1 DEX, and Performance proficiency. We also get a bonus feat, and thanks to Tasha’s, we can now take Fey Blessed for +1 CHA. However, if she doesn’t cast with Charisma, then substitute those CHA bonuses with Wisdom instead.

The generic fairytale princess is a maid of purest heart, so we’re Lawful Good. But for your more rebellious princesses, Neutral Good or Chaotic Good are also valid.

Background is obviously Noble for proficiency with History and Persuasion.

CLASSES & SUBCLASSES

BARD

This one seems pretty obvious. Bards love to sing and dance, like your stereotypical princess. Because Charisma is their top stat, and they have expertise, it can make them great negotiators, and allow them to excel in dialogue interactions.

GLAMOUR

This college is very fitting for a fairytale princess, as it is focused on making oneself as beautiful and charming as the Fairest of Them All.

LORE 

Lore bards share information, whether they tell stories, recite plays, share philosophy, or spread juicy gossip, the Lore Bard gets more magical secrets, and added expertise to make your princess an even bigger Mary Sue. In actual medieval history, princesses often learned to play instruments and sing, recite prayers or poems, or tell stories to visiting guests, and it was considered a part of her education and duty to do so.

CLERIC

While not every princess is a devout religious girl, their stories tend to be set in the medieval period when a good princess would have been expected to be chaste and pious. So on that front, worshiping a good deity would be befitting of such a character.

LIFE

The fairytale princess raises up those they care about, and nothing is more supportive and helpful than keeping your friends on their feet. The Life Cleric turns your princess into a kind soul who weeps for her friends and patches them up after the battle, turning your princess into a useful ally against the wicked witches and dangerous dragons.

LIGHT

Not all Fairytale Princesses are passive or support players. Those who lean toward Light are the princesses who stand as the Big Good of their story and battle the forces of Darkness with the power of the Light. Of the three Cleric options that fit the archetype, this is the best option for being a powerhouse in combat.

PEACE

Don’t get me wrong, I still hate this domain for wearing the skin of the Love Domain we were supposed to get, and you can absolutely still play it that way. How this domain went from Love to Togetherness to Pacifism is beyond me, but it’s a fairly strong subclass. The classic princess archetype is supposed to be gentle and kind, fitting for one who worships a god of mercy and forgiveness. It’s a value often toted as the strongest characterization of the early Disney princesses.

DRUID

My first time building the fairytale princess, I ignored Druid as an option because the wildshaping didn’t really make sense for a fairytale princess, but a lot of the Bardic Magical Secrets were used to steal Druid spells. However, thanks to the optional rules from Tasha’s, Druids can now use their Wildshape to summon fey that take on the shapes of animals instead of turning into the animals themselves, which makes Druid far more viable, as summoning animals is very in-character for a fairytale princess.

DREAMS 

The Circle of Dreams has heavy Fey associations with references to the Summer Court ruled by Titania. It also is strongly focused on healing, and has a very Fairy Tale flavor to it. It’s an especially great option if you want to invoke Sleeping Beauty, as you can cloak your party while you sleep and send messages to people through your dreams.

SHEPHERD

The fairytale princess is strongly associated with animal buddies, and nothing makes better use of that than the Shepherd Druid, which focuses on amassing an army of critters. What’s more, the Unicorn Totem is very fitting, not only because Unicorns only approach maidens with pure hearts, but Shepherds of the Unicorn Totem get empowered healing.

SORCERER

The sorcerer is born with a spark of something special in them, and a lot of fantasy royalty have magical powers that other people in their world lack.

DIVINE SOUL

The princess doesn’t literally have to be the descendant of the gods, as the original name for the subclass was more about being favored by the gods. Still, if you want to lean into the idea of the princess as the Big Good against the Big Bad, then having her be born with the spark of the gods inside her makes for a neat characterization.

WILD MAGIC 

With the new Sorcerer Shards as I’ve come to call them, we were introduced to the Feywild Shard, which was heavily geared toward Wild Magic Sorcerers, which seems to be WoTC’s way of saying that Wild Magic Sorcerers are the fey-linked sorcerous origin, so I’m including it because of our fey connection. 

WARLOCK

This is the only class where there’s exactly one good option, but it’s one that works surprisingly well.

ARCHFEY 

As a Warlock with a Pact of the Chain, your fairytale princess can choose to Find Familiar any cute little animal companion, or a Sprite to be your Fairy Godmother. Or rather, you can sign a pact with your Fairy Godmother, and use your Chain Pact to summon one of her emissaries to help you. The Archfey patron themselves can act as your Fairygodther, granting you and your party boons and aid where they need it.

WARLOCK INVOCATIONS

Agonizing Blast Armor of Shadows Beast Speech Eldritch Mind Eldritch Sight Gift of the Ever-Living Ones Shroud of Shadow Voice of the Chain Master

CHARISMA vs WISDOM

The big split in how you build your princess falls down the line between these two camps. The wise princess works better as a Druid/Cleric, while a charming princess is more of a Bardlock. For me personally, as much as the Cleruid fits the fairytale princess, the stereotype of the princess is usually that she is gullible, naïve, and overly trusting. Insight is a wisdom check, and something the classic princess archetype is usually bad at. Granted, Animal Handling is also Wisdom, but the Bard’s expertise can overrule a low Wisdom score. Think of it like a clash between Princess Zelda from the Legend of Zelda vs Princess Peach from Mario. Princess Zelda is wise and is much more focused on leadership and protecting her kingdom. Peach is more about the pretty dresses and having servants help her. They’re two very different camps on the princess archetype. Ultimately, which one you choose will depend on the type of princess you wish to invoke. The Classic Damsel or the Wise Matriarch.

SIDEKICKS

A new feature added in Tasha’s, sidekicks are secondary characters that can help the party and are basically simplified character builds with fewer bells and whistles. There are three main camps:

Expert. Experts are clever and knowledgeable, be they minstrels, librarians, pickpockets, merchants, or assassins. They can pick proficiency with DEX, INT, or CHA saving throws, and can be proficient or an expert with any five skills of your choice, and humanoids also gain proficiency with light armor, simple weapons, and two tools of your choice.

Spellcaster. Trained in the secrets of the Arcane, be they a priest, a fortuneteller, or a magical creature. They can choose proficiency with INT, WIS, or CHA checks, and can be proficient in Arcana, History, Insight, Investigation, Medicine, Performance, Persuasion, or Religion. They choose a roll to determine their spell list: Mage (Wizard), Healer (Cleric, Druid) or Prodigy (Bard, Warlock). The sidekick has access to the spell list of the classes their role aligns with, as well as casting with that stat.

Warrior. trained fighters, be they a soldier, a city guard, a trained animal, or a hired sword. They can pick proficiency with STR, DEX, or CON saving throws, and their skill options are Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Athletics, Intimidation, Nature, Perception, and Survival. Warriors can pick a fighting style: either Offensive to add +2 to attack and damage rolls, or Defender to impose disadvantage on hitting creatures other than them while within 5 feet of the princess.

Generic Princess Sidekicks

Humanoid Guard Warrior (bodyguard) Humanoid Commoner Expert (handmaiden, governess, etc.) Humanoid Magewright Spellcaster (court mage, or advisor) Any Beast-type Warrior (animal companion)

Fairytale Inspired Sidekicks

Seven Dwarves - Dwarf Warrior Fairy Godmother - Sprite or Pixie Spellcaster Prince Charming - Humanoid Noble Warrior Wicked Witch - Barovian Witch Spellcaster Beast - Gnoll, Jackalwere, Orc, or Troglodyte Warrior Puss in Boots - Awakened Cat or Tabaxi Warrior The Frog Prince - Awakened Frog or Grung Warrior Three Little Pigs - Awakened Pig Expert, Spellcaster, & Warrior Big Bad Wolf - Wolf Warrior or Awakened Wolf Expert Robin Hood - Redbrand Ruffian or Bandit Expert Djinn of the Lamp - Dust, Ice, or Magma Mephit Spellcaster Pinocchio - Giant Stone Statue Warrior White Rabbit - Awakened Rabbit Expert Cheshire Cat - Awakened Cat Expert or Spellcaster

There is no actual limit to the number of sidekicks your character can have, so in theory, your fairytale princess could have an entire posse of talking animals hanging out and helping her.

Skills, Spells, and Features

As a Variant Human, we got Performance proficiency alongside our Fey Touched feat, and as a Noble, we have proficiency with Persuasion and History. For everything else, we’re just looking to be a standard Fairytale Princess. So we should look to be proficient with: Animal Handling, Arcana, Religion, Nature, or Medicine.

BASIC FAIRIES

Dancing Lights Faerie Fire Healing Spirits Spirit Guardians Summon Fey Conjure Woodland Beings Conjure Fey

BASIC PRINCESS THINGS

Animal Friendship Command Heroism Speak With Animals Animal Messenger Calm Emotions Find Steed Warding Bond Zone of Truth Conjure Animals Mord’s Magnificent Mansion

SNOW WHITE

Armor of Agathys Mirror Image Beacon of Hope Aura of Purity Heroes’ Feast

CINDERELLA

Fabricate Creation True Polymorph Wish

SLEEPING BEAUTY

Sleep Phantasmal Killer Dream Wall of Thorns Dream of the Blue Veil

THE LITTLE MERMAID

Charm Person Shatter Suggestion Tidal Wave Compulsion Control Water Dominate Person Maelstrom Control Weather Tsunami Storm of Vengeance

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Charm Monster Unseen Servant Tiny Servant Animate Objects Awaken Hold Monster Summon Fiend

Last time I built the fairytale princess, I gave her exactly 1 build. 18 levels of glamour bard and 2 levels of Archfey Warlock. But recently I’ve begun to instead put more stock in leaving builds open, showing instead the options that a player has to choose from. So, for this update, I’m not pushing for a specific build. I’ve laid out the appropriate spells, and the types of princesses that a player can strive to emulate with their spell lists. Consider this more of a guide to help you decide how you want to play your fairytale princess.

[genshin-impact-updates]

Developer Insight #4: Character Stories (I) - "Vigilant Yaksha" Xiao (Part I)

Greetings, Travelers!

It's been almost five whole months since Genshin Impact went live, and the time seems to have flown by! We do hope you're all enjoying a smooth journey through Teyvat. Since the game's release, we have received a great deal of feedback and suggestions from Travelers and we've systematically recorded each one for the developers. We deeply appreciate all the time, energy, and passion everyone puts in to these suggestions.

In the midst of this, many of you have expressed an interest in learning more about how some of Genshin Impact's characters are created. As it happens, one character who has received an especially high amount of attention is Xiao, who has now entered the live game with the release of Version 1.3, "All That Glitters." So, for this issue, we've invited colleagues from the Creative Concept & Writing, Concept Art, and Animation departments to explain a bit about the thought process behind everyone's favorite Vigilant Yaksha.

1. The Vigilant Yaksha Is Born: A Character Woven From Cultural Symbolism

Hello everyone, my name is Zhongyuan from the Creative Concept & Writing department of miHoYo.

The first part of the process when designing characters for Genshin Impact is to pin down who the character is at their core. In this step, we need to establish the features that set this character apart from other characters. Besides ensuring that this character will make a strong impression on people, these features are used to evaluate what this character's position in the world of Genshin Impact will be. Characters are not just lumps of rock that we can place anywhere we want in the environment; they are autonomous individuals, each one with a complex set of past, present, and future interactions with the world of Teyvat. Their core features, then, represent their initial points of contact with the world. They are the guiding principles behind all the character's actions and how they live their life.

Xiao was one of the first Liyue characters we came up with. He began with our colleague CiCi's proposal for a young warrior character, which everyone involved in the character evaluation process approved of. The Art team envisaged him as a young man of great beauty, while colleagues in Creative Concept & Writing hoped to position him as a beautiful adeptus. Both sides were on the same page, and thus Xiao became our very first character planned with the identity of "mighty and illuminated adeptus."

Although this is somewhat tangential, I'd like to take a moment here to give a little more detail on the adepti in the Genshin Impact universe, given that so many players have expressed an interest in this topic. The adepti are based on the idea of demigod-like "immortals" (仙人 xianren) in Daoism, and are referred to by the honorific title "sanyan wuxian" (三眼五显), literally "three eyes and five manifestations" (but localized in English as "mighty and illuminated"). The adepti are classed as non-human, based on the notion that "All who have nine orifices can achieve immortality through self-discipline," a line uttered by the "Monkey King" Sun Wukong in the Ming-dynasty novel Journey to the West. This means that animals are also capable of achieving adeptus status. However, humans have a higher purpose than adepti in the world of Teyvat, so for this reason, only those of non-human status can be referred to as "adepti" in Liyue. The "three eyes" part of the adepti's title refers to the "third eye" possessed by those with the ability to manipulate elemental energy, which for humans takes the form of a Vision. For adepti such as Cloud Retainer and Mountain Shaper, the human understanding is that they must have an "inner eye" that serves the same purpose as a Vision. Xiao, however, typically appears in a human form, so he dutifully wears a Vision to comply with the expected norm.

After the character's fundamentals are established, the next step is to design their Constellation and refine their cultural background.

Outside of Genshin Impact, the term "sanyan wuxian" can be traced back to ancient Chinese texts and also appears in supernatural fiction from the Late Imperial period (c. 1368–1911 CE). In both cases, it typically describes the Daoist deity Huaguang Tianwang (华光天王, "Heavenly King of Radiant Light"), also known as Ma Lingguan (马灵官, "Numinous Official Ma"). Huaguang Tianwang is a well-known guardian deity, who appears in the Ming-dynasty novel Journey to the South, in which he has an altercation with Sun Wukong. Research into folk culture also shows there is precedent to connect deities known as Wuxian (五显, "Five manifestations" or "Five Named Xian") with a group of malevolent deities known as Wutong (五通, "Five Powers" or "Five Named Tong"), which includes the one-legged, people-eating, mountain-dwelling demons known as Shanxiao (山魈, "mountain demon").

So, at the most hidden but fundamental level of this character's core, we decided on the name Xiao (魈) and the identity of a guardian-adeptus. The name Xiao is used to hide his past, but also embodies this character at the innermost part of his soul. It is the starting point for all further character development and cultural embellishments.

Another dimension of Xiao's design was that he wields an Anemo Vision and has a fleet-footed and agile combat style that includes the unique ability to propel himself through the air. To stay true to this, we decided to design his Constellation and skills around the idea of the yaksha in Buddhism. This meant we were conflating ideas from different sources; nevertheless, the yaksha had become a well-established figure in Chinese folk legends by at least the end of the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE). The yaksha element ended up being a crucial part of Xiao's design that really helped us flesh him out in terms of his image.

The two archetypal stories of "guardian yaksha" and "numinous official's redemption" both involve a malevolent spirit on a path towards goodness, which was consistent with the general direction of Xiao's character core. Furthermore, his physical agility matched very well with another term for yaksha in Chinese, "Swift and nimble spirit" (捷疾鬼 jieji gui). Through further development of the yaksha concept, we arrived at the decision that the other fundamental aspect of Xiao's identity would be his role as a guardian yaksha in service of a monarch, or in this case, an archon.

One detail is particularly worth mentioning here. There is a well-known group of guardian yakshas in some Buddhist denominations known as the Twelve Heavenly Generals. All but one of them correspond to different animals in the Chinese zodiac, while Mekhila, who would otherwise correspond to the rooster, is instead associated with a bird deity, the golden-winged Garuda, a figure from various Indian religions. The story goes that this golden-winged bird deity was a fearsome predator who ate only evil dragons, until one day the dragon poison he had consumed became too much for him to bear, and he burned to death, leaving only a crystal heart behind. This story seemed to resonate with aspects of Xiao's character. Furthermore, the Chinese name Jinchi Peng Wang Niao (金翅鹏王鸟, "Golden Winged Great Peng") embodies a history of evolution — it represents a convergence between Garuda and the Peng, a Chinese mythological bird, showing that some adaptation occurred in the process of his adoption into Chinese religion. After much consideration, we decided to use the Golden Winged Great Peng as the basis for Xiao's Constellation. In English, Xiao's Constellation has been localized as "Alatus Nemeseos," in reference to the bird deity and Xiao's role as the nemesis of evil.

Finally, we conducted an overall review of Xiao's character profile. During this process, we noticed that Xiao's origins were very complex: Some aspects of his identity were based on folk legends while others drew on religious stories. From mountain demon, to Daoist deity, to guardian yaksha, to mythological bird, this was a uniquely rich character formed from the convergence and refashioning of many ideas in one place. More importantly, all these elements were consistent with each other at the narrative layer, creating a strong and cohesive impression of who this character is and adding clear, nuanced substance to his story. This degree of complexity gave Xiao just the depth and appeal that we were hoping for with this character: we hoped to create something entirely new through the convergence and fusion of various cultural elements, and we hope that the end result, Xiao, possesses the power, aesthetic value, and maturity to become a true cultural icon.

The next step was shaping the character's personality and behavior.

After close consultation with Concept Art colleagues, Creative Concept & Writing further fine-tuned the details of this character's content. To pick one example, we all felt that the distinctive image of a young warrior was an important one that we wanted to keep. This begged the question: if Xiao is a warrior, who or what is he waging war against? We quickly got to thinking about a war between the gods. (See section 2 of this article for how Concept Art developed the mask design based on this idea.) One of the basic rules of the Genshin Impact world is that gods cannot be completely destroyed — even if a god's physical form is destroyed, its will and power live on. The remnants and the wrath of the defeated god will remain in the world, waiting for opportunities to cause chaos. To keep Liyue safe from this threat, somebody has to go and keep them at bay.

The decision to release Xiao at Lantern Rite was to tie in with the Chinese custom of driving away evil spirits at the new year, since Xiao's role in Liyue is that of a protector in precisely this capacity.

During festivals, people offer up incense and pray to the adepti for their protection.

But they do not pray to Xiao.

For Xiao is no lucky star that promises fame and fortune — he is a demon-hunting yaksha.

After the lantern lights of Liyue have faded, the thankless battle to protect the city goes on unseen. It is an endless battle, and there can be no victor.

The Traveler's first impression of Xiao is most likely to be of a silent and brooding individual, a courageous and competent fighter, and someone who harbors great suffering. This suffering comes from within Xiao himself. One aspect is that the years of intense, never-ending battle against the remnants of defeated gods have led to him resigning himself to the fact that fighting is all he is good at. The other aspect is that the remnants have a negative effect on him, while the constant killing places a karmic burden on him, causing him mental and spiritual anguish.

This inner suffering is present in the design of his skills: when Xiao uses "Bane of All Evil," he dons his mask, which continually enhances his combat abilities but also continually drains his health. This demonstrates the great suffering he must endure as a consequence of using this power.

After the Traveler has spent some time with Xiao, perhaps they can sense that deep down, Xiao has a gentler side. Xiao is by no means a cruel and callous individual, he is simply reticent to show his emotions to others.

Xiao always keeps his distance from the hustle and bustle of human society. This is not because he doesn't care about humanity, but is due to his role as a protector. He must wage war against dark forces out of sight of humans, and endure a suffering that is incomprehensible to them. Despite this, he does not despise humanity. Humans are the foundation of his millennia-old contract with Rex Lapis, and the reason he silently fights to protect every living soul in Liyue.

The player's first offer to Xiao is to go to the Lantern Rite together to experience the atmosphere. Xiao instinctively refuses requests of this nature— not because he dislikes the idea, but out of avoidance. For Xiao, who has lived for millennia, the human world is a brilliant but fleeting flash of light; a wisp of cloud floating by; a firework on the horizon. And as the one tasked with defending this flurry of activity, he is like a caged beast circling the fire of a stove: fearful, but also full of curiosity. Having watched from a distance for so long, he would not know how to join in with the crowd even if he tried.

The lanterns rise up into the night sky, as if to shine along with the stars. Xiao watches this beautiful sight alone from a mountaintop, and just like anyone else, he senses the sentiment behind them, and he understands that the reason people craft these beautiful things is to remember those who fought alongside him in the past. As one who lived through the events of the past and remembers it all, he is, of course, able to appreciate the well-wishes that the lanterns represent. He understands kindness and gratitude, but doesn't know how to interact with ordinary people, nor does he know what his place is among all the excitement and noise. This lonely state of existence is the source of his melancholy. It has caused time to stand still, leading to him still having a very young mentality even to this day.

During the main Liyue questline, Xiao came to the Traveler's rescue in their moment of peril. In Version 1.3 "All That Glitters," we invite Travelers once again to experience a story that provides a glimpse into Xiao's seldom-shown gentle nature, as well as the trust, hidden deep within his heart, that he places in you.

2. A Young Adeptus: Detail-Based Design

Hello everyone, this is D and SS from the Genshin Impact Art team. We worked on the concept art for Xiao.

After the initial brief, we produced a first draft of Xiao's design based on the young warrior concept. As you can see, Xiao's expression in this version is far from the stern one he wears today. He has a gentler temperament and he is smiling. In this sense, he captures a more traditional notion of what a Daoist immortal (or in Genshin Impact terms, an adeptus) might look like. After more discussion with Creative Concept & Writing colleagues and taking more of his back story into account, we decided on the green version.

Xiao is an adeptus who protects Liyue, and in the course of his long battle against the remnants of defeated gods all over Liyue, he has become poisoned by their nefarious energy. Based on this background, Xiao's upper body uses white and green, which represent the adepti and correlate to his Anemo Vision. For his lower body, we used darker colors to represent the dark, malevolent power that exists inside him.

Based on these same principles, we gave him dark hair with highlights, and also created some interplay between light and dark in his attack animations. The darkness represents the destructive power of fierce battle, while the fragments and orbs of light that he gives off come from the fact that he is an adeptus.

Xiao may have the appearance of a young man, but his true age is something over two thousand years.

Fortunately, people do not tend to underestimate him on the basis of his appearance — one only needs to spend a short time with Xiao to recognize that he is not someone to be trifled with.

Xiao is a man of few words. He is highly dangerous, and has the most piercing gaze you've ever seen.

Given Xiao's true age and his identity as an adeptus, we decided to give him some jade jewelry to bring a sense of longevity and mystery. Accordingly, his legs, wrists, and shoulders feature decorative jade as well as various other objects bearing simple motifs. Meanwhile, to match his young appearance with striking good looks, we tailored his clothing (especially on the upper body) using a more modern design, displaying his vibrancy and agility.

On the one hand, Xiao is an immortal adeptus, while on the other hand, he is a young warrior. This is a great variance in image, and it posed a significant challenge for us from an art perspective. Traditionally, an immortal is imagined as a scholarly figure dressed in long, flowing robes with wide sleeves, who is fairly reserved in the movements of their hands and feet. But Xiao, as a master of the dance-like art of polearm combat and a fleet-footed yaksha, required clothing that offers both protection and freedom of movement. Furthermore, we also knew that there were strict limits on any flowing parts of his outfit due to the risk of clipping they would create after 3D modeling.

So we made Xiao's garments close-fitting and short-sleeved, put some light gauntlets on his wrists, and added some religious paraphernalia such as a censer and a vajra. Meanwhile, his streamers and the breechcloths around his waist are decorated with a cloud motif to add a sense of antiquity. In this way, we achieved a union between practicality and ethereality.

"Bane of All Evil" — the four words that sum up what Xiao has experienced over the past millennia, according to Liyue's rulers who know the truth about him.

In the design of Xiao's mask, we referenced aspects of the masks traditionally used in exorcism rituals as part of Nuo (傩) folk religion.

The main colors used in these masks are black, blue, and gold, the eyes are bright but not flamboyant, and in general the masks look solemn but also mysterious. The sinister-looking bulging eyes, fangs, and horns instill fear in the viewer. The eye in the center of the forehead represents omniscience and the flame motifs make it all the more imposing, the intent being to cause all onlookers to cower in fear.

Xiao's release coincides with the ancient festival of Lantern Rite. We would like to use this historic occasion as a chance to send our best wishes to everyone — here's to deliverance from the ills that plague the real world as well as those that face us in the world of Teyvat. To fans of Xiao reading this, we hope you feel that learning a little about the design ethos gave you the chance to better understand and connect with this character.

(Continued in Part 2)

[afoolandathief]

Writing bucket list

Tagged by @drippingmoon for this one!

Rules: list WIPs you would like to finish in your lifetime; optionally, reasons that are holding you off them and how far you want to get them (published vs posted, etc.)

I'm going to leave Something Wicked off this since I am actively working on it (trying, at least), as well as Those Horrid, Horrid Things, which I took a break from but am working on again.

Yonder/Untitled giants WIP: So about six months ago my brain spat out a concept involving giants, witches and floating cities, and then I just sort of kept expanding on it.

The concept: A giant thinks he's stumbled into a fairy tale when he finds a princess locked in a tower. But Thera, a witch seeking revenge, is no princess. And a journey to the giants' city in the sky reveals it's no utopia.

Why I'm holding off: I told myself I would outline this story first before writing the first draft, but then I went and wrote the first chapter anyway (part 1 and part 2). Because Logi Leifsen is baby.

How far I want to get: I'd like to eventually finish the first draft, at least. I'm not sure about publishing, just given that I'm not certain how many would be interested in this concept.

Lilly and the Demons/Sinblings: Back in like February I took a writing prompt about a demon stealing adopting a baby and wrote a short story. But the story's cliffhanger and just how endeared I became to the characters left me wanting to write a sequel.

The concept: Lilly has never had the most traditional family. But they've had a good life being raised by seven demonic siblings embodying the cardinal sins. But they take off after an angel reveals some truths about Lilly's past and future, and the sinblings have to travel to Hell and back to find their kid.

Why I'm holding off: I mean, just lack of time to do it, I guess. Also, sequels are never as good as the original, right?

How far I want to get: I'd just like to publish this as a short story on Tumblr, let anyone who liked the original story see what happened to Lilly and the sinblings.

Untitled Fae WIP: When I was in high school, I wrote several short passages about different Fae creatures ( a púca, a dragon, and a sprite) with the idea of introducing these characters in a story I never wrote.

The concept: An aimless 17-year-old in Upstate New York decides to trade places with a Fae prince, only to discover this now means they are on a quest with some other magical folk to slay a dragon in northern New Jersey.

Why I'm holding off: Pfft, I don't know, man. I stopped writing anything for a while after high school. Now it just comes down to deciding to start it when I have so much other stuff going on.

How far I want to get: I guess I'd put it on the same status as Something Wicked (like, if I ever wrote it, I'd like to see it published, but I don't want to jinx myself).

The Witch of Ironwood: Technically something I was actively working on until recently. It was intended to be backstory for "Those Horrid, Horrid Things," but the tone was far too different to be included. I posted the first ~500 words here, if interested.

The concept: Basically, how Angrboda met the Norse trickster god Loki before they were a god. It's self-indulgent, strange and squicky and meant only for my eyes.

Why I'm holding off: I generally work on this when I don't feel inspired to work on anything else. It's enjoyable to write and there are no consequences to what I write in it, so it helps get me re-inspired to work on other projects.

How far I want to get: I'd like to eventually finish what will likely be the length of a short novella, look it over and edit it slightly, and then keep it in my Google drive to look at whenever I want. No one else gets to read it.

A couple other concepts I'm going to quickly list:

The Friendly Visitors: More vampires are gangsters concept. Everyone has an animal code name and exhibits related traits and they are trafficking blood and booze in the 1920s. Need to retool some elements and actually build more of a plot, but I did write a first chapter, as I do.

Untitled Greek myth WIP/The Nine: A team of monsters from Greek mythology are tasked with kidnapping the nine muses but discover they are very young deities who are very annoying. An early concept exists with just Medusa and Charybdis but if I ever return to it I want to add more monsters and Icarus.

Untitled zombie-seeking-revenge-on-her-murderer story: If I ever decide to expand on this short story.

Open tag on this one, but also, if you'd like, tagging @artbyeloquent, @faelanvance, and @author-a-holmes.

[ravnicaforgoblins]

Ravnica for Goblins

Goals

Ravnica is a big city. Ravnica is the Big City. The biggest, craziest, strangest, wildest, most awe-inspiring city ever built. It yields to no one, not even the Living Guildpact. They have power, yes, and their words carry with them the most powerful magic on this plane; but only within the written laws that have been in place for thousands of years. Ravnica is not a sandbox for Jace to mold to his will; it is a living, breathing organism that Jace is charged with looking after. Not to keep bullying the Mind Mage, but he has a pretty poor track record of doing a job that effectively boils down to “stay in one place and read books”.

At its core, Ravnica will always do what Ravnica has done for millennia. Mainly claw and scratch for any advantage in the ten-way Tug-Of-War that has been raging since the Guilds first found the end of a rope. The game never ends and never will. Temporary alliances can cause certain Guilds to pull together against other Guilds for a time, but the game always goes back to every Guild making snarky comments about the others eventually. In desperate situations against seemingly all-powerful new threats, the Guilds can put aside their differences to pull together for a time, but always with the understanding that once the threat is over they will all take their places again and resume where they left off. This can be frustrating for players used to or even enthralled by the idea of becoming the Savior(s) of the World.

Ravnica is not something that can be fixed because it doesn’t need to be. Barely-constrained chaos is and will always be the natural order of things. The Azorius Senate will come up with new laws. The Boros Legion will fight. House Dimir will poke its head into other people’s business. The Izzet League will invent. The Gruul Clans will resist. The Golgari Swarm will farm. The Simic Combine will experiment. The Orzhov Syndicate will scheme. The Selesnya Conclave will grow. The Cult of Rakdos will party. Your characters are never going to change any of these things, and that’s all right. Your goals should never be to change this world into something besides what it already is. Doing so would take away the fun of this crazy world.

So let’s talk about what kind of goals you, your characters, and your campaign should shoot for.

Short-Term Goals

If you’re just doing a Ravnica One Shot, or even if you just don’t know how much people are going to able to commit, Ravnica is full to the brim with possibilities. Literally, you can just draw Ravnica-themed MTG cards into a hand and piece together a story from whatever you get.

In these circumstances, your goals can be fairly short-term. Find someone/something, retrieve someone/something, stop someone/something, fight someone/something, do it, have a drink & celebrate. Your character goals can be as simple as just doing their jobs (Azorius maintaining order, Dimir finding information, Selesnya preserving life, Gruul rebelling against authority, Rakdos having a good time, etc). If you want something more personal, finding a connection between each of the party’s Guilds and the target is not only easy but fun to write.

The thing that makes Ravnica such a fun campaign atmosphere is the same thing that can make it frustrating; constant conflict. Any two Guilds can have a thousand reasons not to like each other, or, alternatively, a thousand reasons to work together. It can be differing Guild lifestyles, differences in opinion, shared interests, shared passions, old debts, past favors, or just trust/distrust in an individual. No two Guilds are required to get along, but at the same time, no two Guilds are required to hate each other. If your party has an Azorius Lawmage and a Rakdos Blood Witch, they can be at each other’s throats or they can be old friends who took different paths somewhere down the line. Your Guild is a choice, not a fate. Jace the Mind Mage was raised by Gruul. To this day, he still wears their tattoos.

*Be warned, once you’ve realized the unlimited possibilities this affords your character, you’re gonna want more.

Mid-Range Goals

If your group wants to commit to a longer stay in Ravnica, then it’s time to really flesh out your character and where they stand. It may even be necessary to retcon your characters into another Guild at this point, or begin a storyline to switch over. Anything can be fun short-term, but if you’re determined to go 6-12 levels in a Guild, you’ll want to be sure they are a good fit with your character. All ten of Ravnica’s Guilds come from Magic The Gathering’s 5-color wheel, coinciding with each possible two-color combination, meaning each Guild has common ground with others, but also important distinctions.

The Azorius, Boros, and Orzhov all have law & order as a central theme, but very different interpretations for it. The Azorius Senate write laws and prioritize order, whereas the Boros Legion enforce the laws but prioritize justice. The Orzhov Syndicate value neither and work to subvert each to their own ends.

Both the Simic Combine and Izzet League are built around creativity and invention. However, the Simic are much more rooted in biological (aka, walking, breathing) science, such as the Krasis iconic to their Guild. The Izzet are much more theoretical in their experimenting, endlessly curious to try something to see what will happen. They like playing with elements and physics. Simic experiments are long-term commitments, Izzet are spontaneous bursts of inspiration.

The Gruul, Golgari, Simic, and Selesnya Guilds all have a foundation in the natural world. Their interpretations of such are where the differences come out. Selesnyans build their lives around nurturing and revitalizing nature, while the Combine seeks to improve upon it. The Golgari apply the natural order to everything, including themselves, becoming a walking (possibly shambling) depiction of the plant life cycle in action. Life & death intertwined in an almost infinite cycle. And the Gruul Clans, while once the caretakers and preservers of Ravnica’s natural environments, have over time had those duties diverted from them into the Simic and Selesnya Guilds, leaving them to ferociously preserve the few untamed wilds Ravnica has left after 10,000 years of urbanization and to oppose any attempted encroachment on it from ambitious developers.

The Cult of Rakdos and Gruul Clans are both chaotic, violent, and revel in opposing authority. The Gruul do it out of anger and fairly justified resentment towards the city while the Cult does it literally for shits & giggles. Strangely enough, the savage rock-smashers can have more complexity to them than the daredevil street artists.

House Dimir and the Orzhov Syndicate both thrive on their dealings outside the law and under the table. Strangely enough, while both claim it’s just business, only House Dimir really stick by that code. They are the true embodiment of Neutral Evil, willing to stealing from anyone (including their own Guild members) for the right price. The Orzhov Syndicate, on the other hand, will exploit any loophole they can devise to avoid doing anything they don’t want. While the Dimir know to never be found near the scene of a crime, the Orzhov’s preferred method is to negotiate, lawyer, or bribe their way out of any & all consequences, and call themselves innocent. They are the literal worst.

Orzhov, Golgari, Rakdos, and Dimir all offer assassination services. The distinction comes from whether you want to send a message, erase an undesirable, make a spectacle, or never get caught; respectively.

For new players still learning about Ravnica, a distinct adventure focusing on each Guild is a great way to get comfortable with the setting. It helps how distinctive each Guild is from all the others; your players will quickly learn the differences between a Selesnyan Healer, a Simic Healer, and a Golgari Healer (Hint: one’s organic, one’s bioengineering, and one’s necromancy). By the time you’ve hit all ten, you should have a good foundation for the state of the city worked out for the campaign. Keeping all ten Guilds in line is an adventure all its own, just ask Jace Beleren. There’s always something going on.

Alternatively, you can aim for stopping plans originating from a single Guild. This city has a group for everyone, no matter how strange their beliefs, and the winds of change stop for no one, so taking down one problem is extremely unlikely to stop the higher purpose. There will always be another, bigger, problem. Bring in a spy, his handler steps in. Stop the handler, the cell leader gets involved. Defeat the cell leader, a cleaner gets called. Expose the cleaner, Assassins riding Nazgul descend upon thee. Kill that, and you become a problem for the entire organization.

The BBEG for a mid-range campaign can include a Guildmaster. Depending on which Guildmaster that is, the amount of preparation that will be required to triumph can range from “a shit ton” to “a fucking deus ex machina”. Regardless of Challenge Rating, they are going to be hard. If you think Zegana, Prime Speaker is going to battle without her personal entourage of gigantic Krasis, you are dead in the water. If you think Lazav the Multifarious will be a pushover once he has nowhere left to hide, you are falling right into his trap. If you think you can beat Borborygmos, Mightiest of the Mighty, by flying out of his range and chucking spells at his low AC, there’s a rock with your name on it. If you think Trostani, Chorus of the Conclave, are just a trio of singing tree-worshippers, they live inside the biggest sentient tree in existence.

If you think Niv-Mizzet is just a Dragon or Rakdos is just a Demon; you deserve the humiliating death they bestow you. Honestly, you want to do everything you can do avoid fighting those two if your campaign isn’t planning on going all the way. They are both top-tier monsters; manipulative, intelligent, durable, moody, and terrifyingly powerful. Even worse, they’re smug and masters of gloating. Beating a smug bastard feels awesome, but getting wrecked by them SUCKS.

Long-Haul Goals

If your party is determined to see a full campaign through start to finish, the stakes get bigger. To maintain conflict and challenge all the way to level 20, the threats reflect the amount of power you will be wielding. The Big Bads you are facing will be attempting to upset the chaotic status quo that has existed in Ravnica since its creation. If the Living Guildpact is around, someone is probably trying or has succeeded in killing/replacing them. If the Living Guildpact isn’t around, war has likely broken out in the streets. One Guild may be making a vie for power that will finally give them a conclusive edge over the other Guilds in the endless tug-of-war. Two or more Guilds may be pushing to eradicate several other Guilds whose antics and constant interference has been getting in their way for too long. Or an outside invading force may be materializing on Ravnica’s doorstep with the goal of either subjugating or erasing Ravnica itself. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and that’s not fine. Anything strong enough to challenge a planet-sized city of ten armies on their home turf is going to be, by necessity, seriously nasty.

The Living Guildpact makes for a good MacGuffin. It’s something supremely powerful but also complex enough to develop over a long period of time. They are the most powerful being on Ravnica, but becoming the LG is not as simple as poisoning Jace Beleren’s tea and taking unlimited power from his corpse. Going by the lore, losing one Guildpact will likely necessitate another Maze Run to choose the next. If you want to homebrew another method of transferring the power to an usurper, other problems present themselves. A rogue LG means nothing if the other Guilds refuse to comply. The power of the LG comes directly from Ravnica’s laws. They do not make the laws, they are the force that makes specific laws unbreakable. The process of putting new laws into effect requires the compliance of a recognized representative from every single Guild. Any would-be LG will need powerful influence within each of the other Guilds to make any creative changes to the Guildpact. They can’t just grab a Tom, Dick, or Sue from every Guild and make them say “you’re the Guildpact, Big Bad”. You’re looking for lieutenants powerful enough to be problematic on their own.

If your Big Bad is one or more Guilds going rogue, something will need to happen to upset the stalemate that’s existed among the Guilds for 10,000 years. If the angels of the Boros Legion could just kill Rakdos the Defiler, they would have done it 10,000 years ago, believe me. But not only have they failed to kill the Demon Lord of Riots, they have signed into an agreement with him & his in the name of actual peace. Some Guilds may be more inclined towards Big Bad behavior than others, but every Guild has the capacity to be the Big Bad.

A Big Bad Azorius will basically look like the Roman Empire.

A Big Bad Boros will basically be the Rapture. And/or the Crusades.

A Big Bad Dimir will look like 1984.

A Big Bad Golgari is a zombie apocalypse, plus Medusa.

A Big Bad Gruul is a Mad Max Thunderdome post-apocalypse.

A Big Bad Izzet is whatever Niv-Mizzet has been plotting towards for the last 16,768 years. Think The Matrix, but instead of machines, a Giant Ancient Dragon Wizard.

A Big Bad Orzhov is basically the Spanish Inquisition.

A Big Bad Rakdos is Rakdos actually acting like a Demon Lord.

A Big Bad Selesnya is the armies of the Elves & Ents from Lord of the Rings, and you’re the orcs at Saruman’s tower.

A Big Bad Simic is literally Godzilla.

Taking on something of this scale is going to require your character(s) to draw on every relationship they’ve built within every Guild. Whatever personal goals you might have started with are likely resolved; now you fight for Ravnica’s survival. You are fighting to restore this pain-in-the-ass city of constant conflict to the same barely-functioning status quo it started with. Because by now, you’ve kinda grown attached to it. The thing that makes Ravnica so good at drawing new players in is the fantastic variety of philosophies, lifestyles, and personalities that make up the city. It’s confusing to start, yes, but once you’ve been around long enough, a sort of natural order starts to become apparent. You stop seeing any Guild as good or evil and start seeing them as just different paths for people to take. As crazy as it might seem sometimes, the city works. It may not be perfect, but it will never be boring.

[adamarks]

What’s with the scarf: yet another snowbaz meta

aka the long-awaited and much-anticipated knight/dragon dichotomy meta. 

Wanna know that the fuck was up with that scene where simon caught baz’s scarf? Welcome, you’ve found your new home. Let’s go.

Guess who’s back. Back again.

It’s me, bitch. Now here with their 5th goddamn essay on these goddamn books. Somebody stop me I’m a fiend. 

For this one i really do suggest you read my simon is a dragon meta, but if you don’t have time just look at this tweet. 

Now that we have that out of the way. Let’s get started. 

Point One: The Knight

I know what you’re saying, “what? I thought this was about the goddamn scarf? What’s this shit about knights stop.” I tricked you, fucker. The scarf isn’t until the end. (You save the best for last.) 

Simon Snow is the knight in shining armor of the world of mages. He’s given a sword and pointed in a direction and off he marches. He’s the secret weapon. He’s the bomb. He’s the one that came to save us. He’s the one that came to end us all. The poetry of Carry On is that he was the dragon he was meant to slay, and he gave up his “knighthood” (powers) to defeat himself. 

It’s true that Simon gave up his powers, but did he give up his knighthood? In title and in practice, yes, but he still acts the part. Let’s investigate the defining feature of knights: The Code of Chivalry.

To quote this website that words it perfectly: 

“ A Code of Chivalry was documented in an epic poem called 'The Song of Roland'. [...]   Roland was a loyal defender of his liege Lord Charlemagne and his code of conduct became understood as a code of chivalry.”

From The Song of Roland came a listing of chivalrous traits that all knights should strive to have. They are as follows:

To fear God and maintain His Church

To serve the liege lord in valour and faith

To protect the weak and defenceless

To give succour to widows and orphans

To refrain from the wanton giving of offence

To live by honour and for glory

To despise pecuniary reward

To fight for the welfare of all

To obey those placed in authority

To guard the honour of fellow knights

To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit

To keep faith

At all times to speak the truth

To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun

To respect the honour of women

Never to refuse a challenge from an equal

Never to turn the back upon a foe

This is Simon to such a T that it’s a little bit alarming. Wayward Son is Simon’s struggle to reintroduce himself into civilian life after being a “boy soldier” since he was eleven. He’s a knight whose sword has been taken, armor melted down, and purpose rescinded. 

A knight can’t be a knight when the king’s been killed. Who, then, does he serve? Who, then, does he protect?

Simon has lost his purpose, his meaning. He has these traits that he doesn’t know how to funnel into something else. He’s a chess piece that’s utterly worthless. 

Not only does he feel purposeless, but he also hates an entire side of himself. and that leads us to our next point:

Point Two: The Dragon

Simon Snow was the villain of his own story.

He was his own dragon to his own knight. His own worst enemy. The main conflict of this story is a man vs. himself type. Simon hates an entire part of himself. He doesn’t just hate it, he vehemently denies its existence. 

“I’m not a DRAGON!” (Wayward Son, Chapter 35)

Of course, if you’ve read my wings meta you’ll know that not only is this him denying part of himself, but also his sexuality. And his love for Baz. But Rainbow writes layers upon layers into this delicious parfait, and Simon’s dragon-ness isn’t limited to being his sexuality. This is literature, after all. 

The knight needs to accept the dragon. Simon needs to accept the person that his trauma has turned him into. If you’ve been through any major trauma, you’ll know that you’re different afterwards. You’re still you. All of the most important parts are there- you did make it out alive- but you’re a little bit different. 

You’re more careful. You’re more anxious. You guard your heart just a little more fiercely. You don’t want to let people in quite so easily anymore. 

What is a dragon’s purpose in a narrative? To protect. To guard. To keep out. To keep in. 

The dragon is those behaviors that we learned to protect ourselves in those times of hurt, and while, yes, we need to unlearn some of those behaviors, certain ones may never leave. Once you figure out how to read micro-expressions on an abuser, you can’t just unlearn how to read a face like a book. The issue is figuring out how to manage those habits. How to keep them from hurting others that aren’t going to hurt us. How to... train... our dragons... (I’m sorry it’s my favorite movie.)

So, the dragon is simon’s shadow self and the knight is his light self, yes? Yes. But! Let’s put a magnifying glass up to these two concepts. 

If a dragon’s narrative purpose is to guard, protect, keep out/in, and be defeated, then what’s a knight’s narrative purpose? A knight’s purpose is to guard, protect, save, and defeat. 

These two concepts aren’t wildly different, they’re two sides of the same coin. Simon needs to stop seeing these two sides of him as enemies and instead recognize that they’re good and bad in equal measures. The dragon questions potential dangers; the knight helps all out of the goodness of his heart. The knight obeys blindly; the dragon knows to obey himself first. The knight is selfless in all things; the dragon is selfish and greedy. There are pros and cons to both archetypes. 

But fire and steel? The monster and the hero? How do you reconcile these two concepts? How do they fit into one person?

Well, the answer surprised me too. 

Point Three: Tarot?

I know, I know. Stick with me. I’ll explain. 

In every tarot deck there are the major arcana (unimportant for this meta) and, just like in a regular playing card deck, four suits. Each suit has a king, queen, knight, and page (also like a regular card deck). Each suit relates to an element: pentacles = earth, swords = air, wands = fire, and cups = water. 

We’re going to be looking at the knight of wands. 

He is a knight of fire and passion and spark. He is headstrong, impulsive, and reckless. This card is Simon in his entirety. To drive home my point, let me quote from the guidebook to The Enchanted Tarot by Amy Zerner & Monte Farber:

“The dark [Knight] of Wands rides into view upon his great, plumed charger, carrying a fire-tipped wand. Behind him the gray, dusky clouds swirl like smoke, against which his figure glows like red embers. His journey is carrying him into the unknown but he is a pioneer and filled with energy and excitement. He likes to take risks. An active, unpredictable and competitive disposition drives him forward. He radiates a very masculine energy, full of creativity and passion. His youth, however, sometimes impels him to be quarrelsome or overbearing if he feels his authority and leadership are in question. Somewhat self-centered, he is likely to think he knows a good deal more than he does...”

The knight of wands embodies both that regal nature of a knight and fiery passion of a dragon. Simon needs to stop thinking that these two sides of him are incompatible or that one is lesser. Simon is Simon and he is worthy to be called a knight, even with all of his dragon parts. 

Point Four: Courtly Love 

or maybe not so courtly?

Courtly love was a concept in the knight’s code of chivalry where a knight would pick a fair maiden from a higher status and dedicate all of his great deeds to her honor. Because the catholic church had a tight grip on everyone’s balls, though, this love was not sexualized. Well... it wasn’t supposed to be but we all know how that shit works. 

Agatha was supposed to be the “endgame.” She was Simon’s courtly love. His fair maiden to which he dedicated all of his noble deeds. 

But Agatha didn’t want to be a fair maiden anymore. 

And Simon didn’t love her. 

And then there was Baz’s hankie. 

In most Courtly Love relationships, there was a token bestowed upon the knight by the lady as a symbol of gratitude and affection. This token was, most often, a kerchief. 

I think we alllll remember that goddamn handkerchief. I remember that handkerchief. That handkerchief haunts my dreams.

Simon keeps that goddamn handkerchief in his drawer after he takes it from Agatha. He doesn’t even give it back. He so desperately wants to have this token of Baz’s love. His approval. His friendship. He wants something of Baz’s because he feels like he can’t have Baz himself. Baz is his real unreachable maiden. Baz is the one Simon doesn’t feel like he’s good enough for.

But more importantly, this brings us to the most important point of this meta:

Point Five: The Scarf

“The Mustang sounds like a bat on its way out of hell. And Simon is its getaway driver. Fourth gear on a gravel road, his blue eyes narrowed to slits. My mother’s scarf catches the wind and slips off my head. Snow whips out his hand to rescue it. He glances over at me, for just a second, holding it like a banner.”  (Wayward Son, Chapter 25)

I know I literally screamed the first time i read that. Simon is a knight saving his lady’s favor. 

But it’s not just that the scarf is a favor. Simon always gives it back. You don’t return a lady’s favor. 

“‘Oh, hey,’ he says like he’s just remembered something. He leans back to reach in his pocket, and takes out a wad of blue silk. 

‘That’s my mother’s scarf!’ I reach for it.

He opens his hand. The scarf threads through his fingers as I pull it away. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I forgot it was in my pocket.’

‘I thought I left it in the hotel room.’

‘You did.’

I fold the scarf, gently. Snow watches for a moment, then looks away.”

(Wayward Son, Prologue)

Now, @theflyingpeach (hi bri) pointed out to me that the scarf probably represents Baz’s humanity, what with it being his mother’s and him leaving it at the hotel. And yeah she’s right you can read it as that. (and it’s quite compelling) But that’s another meta for another day.

Today we’re on that good knight shit.

That scarf is Simon’s heart. 

Baz says he always travels with it. He gently uses it to protect himself against the wind. Simon thinks he’s gorgeous when he wears it. Baz keeps thinking he’s lost it...

but he hasn’t. 

He’ll never lose it, as long as Simon’s around.

Go back up and read those excerpts and tell me you don’t want to burst into tears. 

Simon keeps returning his heart to Baz. “I’m broken. I’m bruised,” Simon whispers. “I’m a knight with no sword. I’m a dragon with no hoard. I only have this one last thing to protect, but instead I give it to you. I’d give it to you again, and again, and again. It’s yours forever. Even though I think you don’t want it, it’s yours until you explicitly tell me to take it back. My love is yours for however long you want it, Baz.” 

The handkerchief in Carry On also translates into being Simon’s heart. 

“I go to the drawer where the handkerchief is shoved in with my wand and a few other things, then I wave it in his face. ‘This one.’

Baz pulls the fabric out of my hand, and I pull it back because I don’t want him to have it. I don’t want him to have anything right now.” (Carry On, Chapter 50)

Simon wasn’t ready to give Baz his heart yet in Carry On, but it was still Baz’s. It still had his family crest embroidered right into the material. Simon’s heart has always been Baz’s and Baz’s alone. It’s just that now, he freely gives it. He freely returns it. 

“I’m yours, Baz. I’m yours.”

A knight could not go against his code and cross that barrier to be with his lady. 

But a dragon is selfish. A dragon can ask for what it wants.

And all Simon wants is Baz.

And Baz is just waiting for him to ask.

Thank you for reading yet again! I dedicate this to bri because without her the scarf thing would’ve never dawned on me. Also she kept bitching at me to write this. 

 Check out the mirror meta and food meta while you’re at it.

time for the tagging peeps

@singerofsimplesongs @carryonsimoncarryonbaz @krisrix @pastel-pink-death @lowcalcalzones @godmcfuckindammit @fight-surrender @simonsnoww @rareandbeautifulthing @neck-mole @basic-banshee (i know you’re not super into these but you had an anon about it) @birdybabybird @whitefire17draws @teaandinanity @watfordwallflower @carrybits @slaying-fictional-dragons 

[sasorikigai]

Can I get more Fujin centered HCs in general if you have any? Perhaps, some extended details about the relationships with his older bro? :v

Tell me what you want me to write a headcanon (or more headcanons) about! Let me know what part of my Muse interests you. || @sonxflight || accepting 

The Elder Gods were the ruling deities and creators of the universe, only being overshadowed by entities such as the Titans or the One Being. Unlike Titans, whose powers are linked to the governing laws of reality, such as time, the Elder Gods' powers are more related to physical concepts such as life/death and the elements, such as fire, water, wind, earth, etc. Whereas other Gods only have jurisdiction over a single realm and typically represent an element, the Elder Gods are more ethereal and have power in all realms in the universe. The natural born Elder Gods have blue-gray skin and a humanoid appearance. In their purest form, the Elder Gods resembles the Mortal Kombat Dragon logo.

The exact extent of their powers remains unclear, but they do not appear to be as omnipotent as they seemed in the early games in the series, as they are capable of being defeated nonetheless. Regardless, they remain the most powerful class of beings outside of the Titans, with only the most exceptional of mortals or lesser gods even hoping to challenge them (like Scorpion with Raiden in MKX comics). 

Technically speaking, Shinnok is one of the highest-ranking gods of all time, but he still often gets beaten down by lesser gods and even mortals like Johnny Cage. Obviously, it seems as though one's divine status does not immediately equate to combat prowess (contrary to one's assumptions). But it also appears that there's a reason for this minor quirk in the Mortal Kombat series' logic. Not only does it explain all the non-canon matches that happen when one player picks a human and another picks a deity, but it lets NetherRealm build up the Mortal Kombat lore and involve more characters in the stories of their games. After all, there is actually a set hierarchy of gods that the games don't always flesh out.

Raiden and Fujin are presumably the lowest of the low when it comes to fully-divine entities, and to express this, NetherRealm started referring to them as demigods in MK11. However, this is strictly to denote hierarchy. It has nothing to do with them being half-god and half-human, as the tradition use of the would would convey.

Another key aspect of the MK pantheon to understand is that each level of the hierarchy comes with specific responsibilities. Obviously, the One Being is busy embodying all of existence at once, while Titans tend to embody the most abstract forces that exist in the universe. Kronika, for example, embodies time. Meanwhile, Elder Gods are about lesser qualities, such as life and death. Finally, the demigods always embody base natural forces, such as thunder or wind. 

Here are character descriptions for both Raiden and Fujin;

Immortal God of Thunder, Protector of Earthrealm. Raiden has saved Earthrealm time and again by rallying the bravest and strongest warriors of the day to defend it. After centuries of kombat and bloodshed, he fears unintended consequences for humanity, and himself.

The God of Wind, Fujin serves the Elder Gods alongside his brother, Raiden, as Protectors of Earthrealm. Affable and lighthearted, he’s adept at inspiring peoples’ innate capacity for goodness and heroism to conquer forces of hatred and tyranny. Fujin believes Earthrealm’s best days are still to come, and he fights to ensure that bright future.

For my portrayal of Fujin, Raiden and Fujin did not ascend from their mortal status; just as Cetrion and Shinnok were ‘birthed’ from Kronika’s being, not giving ‘birth’ like the mortals would, but merely creating them out of the Titan’s need, both Raiden and Fujin were ‘created’ by the Elder Gods, to serve at the Pantheon, to serve the humanity at large. Despite their own trials and tribulations, even with their immortality, they face such relatable vices, as Raiden does with his own darkness, as he would take no qualms of risking his being to be consumed by the forces of evil in order to get the work done. Fujin would NOT ever blame Raiden for it, because it’s the consequence that they both are risking. 

Even when Fujin suffers severe exsanguination via impalement and near-death because Raiden had been corrupted by Kamidogu, Fujin would never hold against his brother, for he’s witnessed multitudes of times how humankind could subjugate easily into darkness and vices, and make them blind. 

Ever since Fujin’s creation, the Storm Brothers have been strenuously training at the Sky Temple, keeping in check with their elemental capabilities and up-keeping the Jinsei Chamber. They frequently train the Earthrealm warriors, not limited to White Lotus, as they both get hands-on with both Shirai Ryu and Lin Kuei, specifically both (as Raiden’s intro suggests, and Fujin’s friendship with Hanzo). 

While Fujin is a natural when it comes to the emotions of others, his own feelings can be a bit different. It’s challenging for him to really processing his own feelings a lot of the time, since he is so used to tending to the needs of others. When it comes to his inner emotions, the Wind God can feel rather uneasy about really processing these feelings. It can make him nervous when he has to dive into his own emotions and try to understand himself better in this way. Raiden, despite the inhibited essence of his own emotions, is one whom Fujin will rely on with no qualms whatsoever. They are so natural and can also use the emotions of others to deflect from focusing on their own feelings. Because of their roles as Protectors of Earthrealm, they can become so caught up in caring for those around them, and so actually tending to their own feelings can be challenging and confusing. 

Being used to caring for others causes Fujin to feel stressed when someone wants him to focus inward, unless he is intimately closed and linked with such in trust and devotion. This is foreign to him most of the time, and can feel selfish as well. When it comes to really diving into his own feelings, Fujin can feel like this is selfish and will try to avoid it as much as possible. For him, it is more comfortable to tend to others and so he can be deeply hesitant when it comes to his inner emotions. It can be confusing for him sometimes when he is forced into self-reflection, since this is new territory for him (but people like Raiden, - because of their close proximity and eons of time spent with one another - Jax Briggs and Hanzo Hasashi definitely help him to contemplate his own emotions, without feeling too guilty). 

When it comes to being able to empathize with others, Fujin finds this rather natural and easy. He has a strong sense of the emotions of others, and are easily capable of putting himself into their shoes. He wants to be able to connect with people and understand them, and he enjoys getting closer to people he cares for and likes. When it comes to empathy, Fujin often has this in abundance, sometimes it can actually be overwhelming for them. He gets a strong sense of the emotions of others, and when people are upset, Fujin has a hard time just ignoring this. He is extremely perceptive when it comes to Raiden’s status - not only through the physical and tangible abnormalities - but his mental stability as well. They both know when each other is unhappy and want to do whatever they can to help them. 

Fujin doesn’t like feeling discord or tension and so he spends a lot of time trying to create peace and make others happy. For him, it is hard to just ignore when he can tell someone is upset, no matter the circumstances. This sense of empathy can be difficult at times, since not everyone wants him to be aware of their feelings and struggles.

[imagitory]

D-Views: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Bonjour, mes amies! Welcome, bienvenue, to another installment of D-Views, my written review series for films produced or inspired by the Walt Disney company! For more reviews for films like Enchanted, Star Wars Episode III, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, feel free to consult my “Disney reviews” tag, and please, if you enjoy this review or any of the others, please consider liking and reblogging! I look forward to writing more of these in the future for films like Wreck-It Ralph and Halloweentown, as well as Non-Disney films like Charlotte’s Web.

I recently put out a poll suggesting three Disney Renaissance films for possible review subjects, and although The Little Mermaid won that poll, this film ended up not far behind. (Thank you, @schifty-al and @mygeekcorner for your votes!) It’s one of my personal favorite Disney films of all time...The Hunchback of Notre Dame!

Victor Hugo’s classic novel Notre Dame du Paris, called The Hunchback of Notre Dame in English, seems like a very odd inspiration for a Disney animated family film, and that’s because...yeah, it is! When the Disney animators first brought Hunchback to the table, they were less inspired by the original Hugo novel glamorizing the architecture of Notre Dame cathedral, and more inspired by a graphic novel adaptation of the story, which was likewise much more influenced by the 1939 Hollywood film adaptation. Because of the historical context that 1939 adaptation was made in (premiering at Cannes during the rise of the Third Reich), themes of social justice were added to a story that originally was about how the “edifice” can outlast the flaws and sins of mankind. The “social justice” element is something that Hugo interestingly put more in his follow-up to Notre Dame du Paris, the epic brick book Les Miserables, but has since been similarly tied in the public consciousness to The Hunchback of Notre Dame, despite not existing in the original book.

The project was already an odd choice for Disney to take on thanks to the darkness of the book, but the political themes also were unique for a Disney picture as well. It clearly was a more “adult” endeavor, even though thanks to the success of previous projects like Aladdin and The Lion King, there were studio mandates demanding more comic relief, and even the marketing team was reluctant to advertise Hunchback as anything other than a family film. Rather than showing the artistry and darker scenes, the marketing almost entirely focused on the Feast of Fools and the gargoyles, highlighting the “Ugly Duckling” aspect added to the story and downplaying the more adult themes. In the end, it’s likely thanks to those poor marketing choices and the inconsistent tone of the picture that this movie failed to find its audience on first run. It only earned $21 million worldwide, compared to Pocahontas’s $29 million and The Little Mermaid’s $84 million, with mixed critical and audience reaction. Although it was nominated for an Academy Award for its music and won several others, it was noticeably less successful than other installments in the Disney Renaissance, and even now, Disney often doesn’t give Hunchback that much attention. Like Quasimodo, the film has been sort of locked up in its own tower...but now, today, I aim to bring The Hunchback of Notre Dame out of the shadows and give it the appreciation it deserves.

Our film begins in complete darkness, accompanied by resounding church bells and the amazing vocalizations of the English Opera Company, and from the very beginning, I’m just enveloped by the embrace of Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz’s unbelievable score. Choral music in general has always been something special in my family. My mum and dad were in choirs a lot of their lives: they even first met when they joined the San Diego Master Chorale in the 80′s. Choral music remains one of my mother’s greatest loves and passions, and when I saw Hunchback, it made the choral music my parents loved so much, which focused around a faith I hadn’t been raised with and didn’t believe in, that bit more accessible to me as a child. Mum, who studied Latin in college, went on to teach me about all of the chants and phrases Menken and Schwartz added to each song so that I could more appropriately sing along. It remains one of those Disney soundtracks that cemented our close bond, and I’ll always treasure being able to see the La Jolla Playhouse production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame with my mum and getting to hear the amazing choir and instruments live.

The Bells of Notre Dame, as an opening number, cannot be matched in how it introduces us all to the story, characters, themes, and tone of the piece. In just a few minutes, the music and lyrics perfectly showcases our setting, the theme of what makes a man, the atmosphere of fear and injustice, our villain, and our hero. Menken and Schwartz previously worked together on Pocahontas, but Hunchback in my opinion easily outstrips their previous collaboration. The use of church bells of all sizes to convey the solemnity, mystery, and grandeur of the cathedral at the center of the proceedings, and the clever use of Latin phrases -- it’s just unbelievable! As one example, in the sequence where Frollo (a judge in this version, as opposed to the Archdeacon) chases Quasimodo’s mother up to the stairs of Notre Dame and she pounds on the door, crying for help, the choir sings “Quantus tremor est futurus quando Judex est venturus,” which means, “What trembling is to be when the Judge comes.” And sure enough, the line comes to a horrible, horrified halt when Judge Frollo snatches the woman’s child away and throws her to the ground.

After one of the most epic musical introductions in a Disney film, we meet our sweet, gentle hero, Quasimodo, voiced by Tom Hulce, who is just such a ray of sunshine. Although I loved hearing Michael Arden as Quasimodo on stage, Tom Hulce will always be my Quasimodo. When I was a teenager, I went through a horrible “hating the world” phase where I only ever saw pain and suffering and felt not only powerless to make anything better, but worthless as well. During that time, I turned my back on a lot of the things that had brought me joy, feeling almost unable to enjoy them anymore. One of the very few exceptions, however, was this movie and especially the character of Quasimodo. When I was at my darkest points, Quasimodo never failed to bring me some light, not because he was particularly funny, but because for all of the misery in his circumstances, he never faltered in being gentle, creative, and kind. Looking back on how I’d been, I wish I’d had just a shred of Quasimodo’s grace back then. I wish I hadn’t allowed myself to fall into despair and resentment. Since I can’t go back, however, I keep Quasimodo in my mind sometimes whenever I’m going through something difficult. He’s kind of become a guardian angel of sorts to me, reminding me that my life is a precious gift and I shouldn’t take anything for granted. And really, I couldn’t do that if not for Tom Hulce and Quasimodo’s supervising animator, James Baxter. I truly am grateful to both of them for giving me a character that even now can be a symbol of everything I wish I could be.

Unfortunately along with Quasimodo, we also meet the gargoyles, Hugo, Victor, and Laverne. As a kid, I actually liked the gargoyles all right, but as an adult...yeah, they really break the mood. Badly. The worst offender is easily Hugo, which is a shame because I like Jason Alexander as a performer, but he just goes way too over-the-top-obnoxious. It would admittedly not be as bad if it were clear that the gargoyles were all in Quasimodo’s head, but Djali sees Hugo come to life at one point and they later help Quasimodo fight off the guards. I greatly prefer the way the gargoyles are handled in the stage production, where all of the saintly statues have their own voices that nonetheless reflect what Quasimodo is thinking and when Quasimodo hits his lowest point before Esmeralda’s execution, he forcefully banishes them out of his head.

Even though the comic relief is handled poorly, I certainly cannot say the same for the villain. Judge Claude Frollo is easily one of the most evil villains in Disney history. Tony Jay’s vocal performance is just chillingly resonant, commanding your attention and making you subconsciously shrink in on yourself whenever he speaks. It makes for a despicable, cold, cruel man -- the antithesis of a father, the true embodiment of a monster. Frollo is often compared to Mother Gothel from Tangled in how they both lie to, control, and emotionally abuse their charges (Quasimodo and Rapunzel, respectively), but I personally find Frollo so much worse than Gothel, because he not only cuts Quasimodo off from everyone, but he indoctrinates a gentle, kind soul like Quasimodo in his racism and intolerance against those different from him -- including Quasimodo’s own people, the Romani. Mother Gothel hoards Rapunzel away like a dragon hoarding treasure -- Frollo treats Quasimodo like a burden, beating into him that no one else would want him and that Frollo was such a “good man” to take him in. It’s just vile.

And now we come to my single favorite Disney song of all time -- Quasimodo’s aria, Out There. From the time I was little, this song spoke to me like few others did. Growing up, I was an only child with a huge imagination surrounded almost entirely by adults and who had a lot of difficulty relating to kids my age. I often liked being on my own, but it didn’t change how I often felt different and detached from the people around me, and as I got older, that feeling only increased. I moved a lot in my childhood, making it difficult for me to plant roots, and I rarely followed trends or popular norms, so I constantly stayed in the fringes of the crowd, enviously looking on at those who could fit in more easily than I could. I always tried to hide my insecurities, but they were still there, and when those insecurities took hold, I would often imagine the world being a place where I could be myself, just like Quasi does. Quasimodo’s longing to be “part of them” and lamentation of people being “heedless of the gift it is to be them” has always resonated with me, and even though it’s hard for me to sing Out There without shifting octaves, my heart swells every time I hear it.

The Captain of the Guard, Phoebus, is easily the biggest liberty that Hunchback adaptations have made with the original novel. The book version of Phoebus was more like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast than how he’s portrayed here, but I frankly have no complaints. Kevin Kline is wonderfully dry and witty in the role -- he’s more than a match for Esmeralda, being brave, noble, and sarcastic with seemingly no prejudice for those different from him. And then yeah, as for Esmeralda herself...as Phoebus says later, “what a woman!” Esmeralda was one of my very favorite Disney heroines as a kid, and she still is. The character of Esmeralda is often rather saint-like in her incarnations, but here we see both the “angelic” and “demonic” sides of her -- she’s fiery, but kind; rebellious, yet noble; anti-authority, but patient; distrustful, yet loyal. In the musical adaptation, when Esmeralda is first revealed, we hear Frollo, Phoebus, and Quasimodo sing this about her --

Frollo: She dances like the Devil!

Phoebus: She dances like an angel --

Quasimodo: An angel!

Phoebus: -- but with such fire!

Frollo: Such fire!

All Three: Who is she?

This is Esmeralda’s characterization and her relationship to the three male main characters in a nutshell. Quasimodo only sees the best of Esmeralda; Frollo only sees the worst of her; and Phoebus sees her for everything she is...as a person. And this is why she ultimately chooses Phoebus, unlike in the book where she solely chooses Phoebus because of his looks.

When we reach the Palace of Justice, I’m reminded that I have yet to accent how absolutely stunning every single background is in this movie. Yes, the animation overall is wonderful, whether in the character animation or otherwise, but there are few Disney films that have more atmospheric and beautiful backgrounds than this. It serves to give the movie such a wonderful depth and makes the setting feel that much richer and deeper. Admittedly one weaker aspect of the animation is the now-slightly-outdated CG background characters. They were made by taking a handful of templates and then mixing up their clothes and colors, so as to multiply them ad infinitum and make the crowds of Paris look bigger and more colorful. Even with that, though, you do sort of have to look carefully at the background crowds to notice, as there are lots of hand-drawn characters sprinkled in in front of those CG models that help obscure their repetition and awkwardness. Those CG crowds also make the city of Paris look appropriately overcrowded and huge, so I’m glad that they used the technology even if it was still so in-progress at the time.

Even though Topsy Turvy starts off so fun and festive, however, it soon devolves into a terrible riot where Quasimodo is bound and tormented by the crowd. I admit, the transition is a little abrupt, but it still works for me, as people can be so easily swept away by mob mentality and those in power -- namely, Frollo’s guards -- sometimes flaunt their authority by putting down others. Fortunately Esmeralda is there to save Quasimodo and give Frollo a much-deserved verbal smackdown. The following scene, though, is another example of the mismatched tone, stretching out Esmeralda’s escape with a lot of comic “hijinks” that don’t really add anything to the film and kind of serve as a big time waster, especially after it abruptly cuts off and turns much more solemn and sad as Frollo silently confronts Quasimodo and Quasi returns to Notre Dame in shame.

Hunchback’s focus on religion is, in my opinion, one of the things that made producing an adaptation of Hugo’s novel such a bold decision. I’m not a religious person at all (Agnostic and proud), but it was still really meaningful to me to see both the good and bad associated with religion, represented by the Archdeacon and Frollo respectively. Frollo, along with Pharaoh Seti from The Prince of Egypt, taught me as a kid that evil is not always self-aware and, more importantly, how much more dangerous evil is when it garbs itself in godliness and righteousness. That’s a valuable lesson, regardless of your religious faith. God Help the Outcasts may invoke God’s name, but it could just as easily be a prayer to the world, or even just to you as an individual. The Christian faith preaches that we are made in God’s image...so when Esmeralda asks God to help her people, maybe she’s in truth asking you to try to be the loving God they need.

Something unique about Hunchback is the wonderful friendship that develops between Esmeralda and Quasimodo. From the time I was very little, I made friends with both boys and girls, so it was so wonderfully refreshing to see a story where a girl and a boy became such close friends and supported each other so much. Yes, admittedly, Quasimodo is romantically interested in Esmeralda, but when he sees how much she loves Phoebus, he both accepts their relationship and treasures Esmeralda’s friendship all the same. He doesn’t wallow in bitterness upon Esmeralda not choosing him; he loves her all the same as the first real friend he’s ever had. Esmeralda truly loves Quasimodo and treasures their friendship too -- her choosing Phoebus romantically is never framed as her teasing Quasimodo or leading him on; she simply loves Phoebus and Quasimodo in different ways. And that I find so unbelievably cool. I also like that in Esmeralda’s and Quasimodo’s conversation on the roof, there are some strains of the deleted song Someday in the instrumental accompanying the scene -- you can hear a R&B variation of Someday in the film’s credits, but originally it was meant to replace the more religious God Help the Outcasts, only for God Help the Outcasts to be chosen over it. I agree with the filmmakers’ decision, but I still like Someday too. Quasimodo’s helping Esmeralda and Djali escape Notre Dame by climbing down the towers also beautifully foreshadows Quasimodo’s dexterity in climbing down to save Esmeralda at the end of the film.

Quasimodo and Frollo are both enthralled with Esmeralda, but as mentioned previously, they each only see the angelic and demonic sides of her, which is best encapsulated by the dual numbers Heaven’s Light and Hellfire. Heaven’s Light is appropriately sweet and pure, but I can’t beat around the bush here: Hellfire steals the show, not just from Heaven’s Light but from all other villain songs in Disney history. The song starts with a choral chant praying for forgiveness, which then segways into Frollo’s demented, mad raving about his lust, fear, and hatred for Esmeralda. The words are almost terrifying in their level of conviction and paranoia, which then devolves into vindictive, destructive mania, framed by the mournful echoes for “mercy” from the choir.

Right after Hellfire, we get one of my favorite instrumentals on the soundtrack called Paris Burning. The choir’s bustling, dramatic cries trimmed by the tense strings and horns of the orchestra just evokes fear and horror as Frollo terrorizes Paris. Then Phoebus finally takes a stand, refusing to set fire to the miller’s house and then, after Frollo does it himself, leaping in to save the family from the flames. In the musical, this whole sequence is accompanied by the amazing musical number Esmeralda (which honestly, every fan of this movie should listen to, it’s really worth it), but the film handles it unbelievably well with only a short scene and an instrumental that sears the final “Kyrie Eleison” into the audience’s ears like a fire brand.

Sadly, after this amazing, epic sequence, we once again are subjected to tonal whiplash when we return to the bell tower and the gargoyles decide to sing Quasimodo a song to cheer him up. Although I maintain Hunchback has one of the best soundtracks ever recorded, what stops it from being flawless is this song. A Guy Like You is not an inherently bad song on its own, but when combined with the rest of the soundtrack, its melody, tone, and out-of-place pop cultural references are just ridiculously jarring. It’s like we’ve been transported into a completely different movie, one less inspired by a classic French novel and a critically acclaimed film about social justice and one more inspired by Disney hits of the day like Aladdin and later projects like Hercules. As sad as it is, it’s kind of a relief when it’s over and we’re brought back down to earth by Esmeralda carrying a close-to-death Phoebus into Quasimodo’s tower.

Frollo’s arrival after Quasimodo agrees to hide Phoebus is excellent in its suspense. We can sense Frollo’s suspicion, and all the while, we’re so worried for Phoebus hiding under the very table he and Quasimodo are sitting at. Then Frollo, who we’ve only ever seen as cold, conniving, and controlled, bursts into a rage the kind of which we’ve never seen before, and for a second, he’s a demon himself. After his rage is spent, he sets his cruelest, most terrible trap yet: using Quasimodo’s feelings for Esmeralda so that he can capture her and the rest of the Romani. And at first, Quasimodo almost doesn’t take the bait, thanks to a short-lived pang of self-pity. At first he’s bitter about his heart being broken and considers not helping Esmeralda, as there’d seemingly be no “reward” in him doing so...but the feeling is quelled in seconds by the memory of Esmeralda and how much her friendship means to him. Quasimodo’s selflessness and goodness wins out in its struggle with his more selfish instincts...and this, in the end, is what makes Quasimodo a hero in my eyes.

All right, I guess with our entrance into the Court of Miracles, I should address the elephant in the room. I’ve called Esmeralda’s people “the Romani” in this review, but throughout the entire film, the term is substituted for the admittedly-period-appropriate slur “Gypsy.” I knew nothing about the Romani culture when I first saw this film and I profess no intimate knowledge of it now, but even with that, I have to acknowledge that this movie doesn’t always showcase the Romani in the best light. Although Quasimodo’s parents, Esmeralda, and (to a degree) Clopin are given relative sympathy, the sequence in the Court of Miracles doesn’t do much to endear them to the audience. These victims of persecution are not really given the focus they deserve: we never learn much about their culture or about why they’re persecuted, and we don’t really get to see how they live their lives as ordinary people. To someone who doesn’t know anything about the Romani, I don’t think this film would be the best introduction to their culture and heritage.

Our climax is accompanied by the best instrumental track in the film, Sanctuary! Whenever I hear this piece, I have to stay completely silent, drinking in every single line and note, so as to properly absorb its brilliance. The track has accompanied a lot of my writing in the past: it’s always helped me when I was writing a powerful, emotional climax, whether through the emotion it wrought from me or just from wanting to write a new scene to the music. This entire sequence, from a musical, writing, animation, and character point of view, is I think what made Disney decide to make this film in the first place. The pacing -- the character animation of Quasimodo tearing down the pillars -- the drawn backgrounds of Notre Dame -- the camera whirling over the never-ending crowd’s heads and up onto the cathedral as Quasimodo hoists Esmeralda over his head -- this is the heart of why the movie was made and what the entire film was building up to. This resistance against injustice and the protection of our sacred, historical institutions from hatred and cruelty is what Hunchback is and should be all about. Occasionally this battle scene is inter-spliced with comic bits that once again aren’t really necessary and kind of stick out (Laverne’s Wizard of Oz reference and Hugo’s impression of a fighter plane in particular are out of place), but it doesn’t ruin anything for me. Fortunately as the climax grows darker with the arrival of Frollo and the transition from Sanctuary! into And He Shall Smite the Wicked, the gargoyles take a backseat, and we get focus where we should’ve always had it: on Quasimodo, Esmeralda, and Frollo. Thanks to his love for his friend Esmeralda and the realization of his own self-worth, Quasimodo finally stands up to Frollo and breaks free of his poisonous influence once and for all. This line of Quasi’s has always stuck with me --

“All my life you’ve taught me the world is a dark, cruel place...but now I see the only thing dark and cruel about it is people like you!”

Even now this line is just so powerful. There was a point where all I saw of the world was its cruelties and injustices...but like Quasimodo, I’ve come to see that those cruelties are not inherent to the world or even to mankind as a whole. Humans are capable of both great evil and great good, but as long as the evil people of the world are allowed to seize control and exert their toxic influence over everyone else, the world and mankind overall will never become better. Like Quasimodo, we must stand against those who’ve embraced cruelty and hatred over acceptance and love. We must protect the brighter parts of the world that evil so wishes to snuff out. It’s a moral I think has only become more relevant and important over time.

Unlike in the book and musical, Esmeralda survives, and as much as I’ve heard people try to argue Esmeralda living is not true to the spirit of the original novel, I think it really suits the story being told and really feels just for both characters. Quasimodo deserved happiness; Esmeralda deserved happiness; and most importantly, this all the more highlights how different Quasimodo is from Frollo. Frollo says to Esmeralda, “Choose me or the fire” -- basically, if he can’t have her, he doesn’t want anyone else to...but Quasimodo doesn’t think that way. He cherishes Esmeralda and her friendship without any caveats or conditions: therefore him losing Esmeralda, whether to Phoebus or to death, doesn’t prompt him to commit suicide like he did in the novel. It’s not only a more uplifting ending, but I think a lesson in the selflessness of love, even if it’s just platonic love. And because Esmeralda loves Quasimodo just as much as a friend, she leads him out into the sun, where he finds even more of the love he deserves from the city he wished so much to belong in. Quasimodo doesn’t get the girl, but that was never what he wanted in the first place: it was merely to be accepted as he was.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame was one of the most formative films of my childhood, right up there with Beauty and the Beast, The Prince of Egypt, and Anastasia, and it remains my second favorite Disney animated film of all time. With time, I’ve seen more and more of its flaws, but those flaws don’t ruin what in the end is one of the most daring, revolutionary projects Disney Animation has ever tackled. Its artistry, from the backgrounds to the character animation, is exceptional; all of its major human characters are multi-faceted, complex, and real; its themes are eternally relevant and powerful; and its score and nearly all of its songs are just through the stratosphere in their quality. Hunchback, along with Beauty and the Beast, made me fall in love with France from afar as a child, a love affair that has only become more and more intense through the years, and Quasimodo and Esmeralda even now are so close to my heart. I wish so much to be as kind and gentle as Quasimodo and as brave and noble as Esmeralda, and I can only hope that at some point, if I ever visit Disneyland Paris, I might finally meet them. The Hunchback of Notre Dame may not have gotten the appreciation it deserved when it first came to theaters, but I’ll always be happy to hear Disney fans remembering it as fondly as I do. Who knows? Maybe someday, the world will be wiser and will give this film its time in the sun at long last.

[kog0ruhn]

A Layman’s Guide to My Stupid Clan Lore (Which is Still Very Long and Stupid)

So, because of the fact that I realize I talk about the history of my clan’s conflicts and I… haven’t finished writing the actual arcs so I know it makes no sense, I decided to pull an Elder Scrolls and do a Pocket Guide to Irthskaar so that anyone who wants to know what I’m talking about can read it and have it make sense. I know it’s probably just two people (me included), but what the hell, you know? This helps me keep my mind straight, too.

(Haven’s memory problems and need to write everything down is based solely on how bad my fibrofog is, after all.)

Anyway~

A Pocket Guide to Irthskaar

Irthskaar is a canyon that is technically part of the Greatwyrm’s Breach, located to the northwest of the Pillar of the World. It’s equal parts fissure caused by the impact of Shade remnants hitting the earth, eroded further by a river that flows through the area. It’s verdant around the banks of the river and more arid the farther you stray from it, but despite being a rather nice place for dragon clans to live (easily defensible since there’s only one way in/out on foot, with fresh water and vegetation to boot), it’s been mostly uninhabited. Until The Abandoned took hold there, the most traffic it saw since the Second Age were the occasional Snapper troop who’d set up camp temporarily and transient Beast Clans. Neither population tended to last long since many believe the land is cursed.

And it is. Oh man, you better believe it’s cursed. It’s a canyon partially caused by the Shade slamming into the ground so hard that it left a dent big enough for fifteen clans to live. Anyone with a nose for magic can smell the devilry that’s coating that place like a spiritual mucus.

Anyway, because of the fact it’s been mostly uninhabited, most of the structures within Irthskaar are of Second Age make. There’s ruins and statues, ancient altars, and even an entire city (called Omen) that have been repurposed by The Abandoned after they took up residence. Since The Abandoned has moved in, surrounding clans and Beast Clans have started to take renewed interest in the area and keep slipping closer and closer. Traders actually come through nowadays and allied Serthis, Harpy, and Longneck tribes have permanent to semi-permanent residences in and around the canyon.

The Abandoned

The Abandoned is actually called The Alliance of Those Who Were Abandoned, a dramatic name that was meant as an inside joke by the founders. Then, they couldn’t think of a better one. It’s a confederation of clans who, for some reason or another, wound up in Irthskaar and was originally founded by a trio of clans: Clan Elsewhere, The Wolves, and the now-defunct Council of Kain (a.k.a., The Council). Other tribes and clans ended up there by happenstance or because they had existing alliances with clans that were in the area, and soon Irthskaar had a healthy population of dragons. The leaders of these clans formed a council known as The Fifteen (as the original incarnation of The Abandoned had fifteen clans), and while the number of dragons who are a part of The Fifteen has dwindled to twelve, the name has stuck in honor of those who have fallen.

The different clans of the current alliance are Clan Elsewhere (former Plague dragons who are the economic and political powerhouse of The Abandoned), The Outlanders (a gathering of oddball outcasts and innovators who are the second most wealthy clan in The Abandoned), The Sixth House (a collection of powerful and ancient sorcerers), The Lorekeepers (a clan of librarians, historians, and writers), The Coalition of Magicks (a scholarly council of Arcane mages), The Keepers of the Sigil (a clan formed of survivors of previous calamities), The Graveborn (raiders-turned-protectors), Revelations (also raiders, and one-time enemies of The Abandoned), Umbra Ruinam (a coven of necromancers), and The Wolves (the “police force” and standing army of The Abandoned). There’s also Saija, a lone Gaoler who has forced her way into The Fifteen despite being unaffliated with any clan.

Previous clans (destroyed or defunct) include The Council (who originally owned the land in Irthskaar), The Infected (Plague cultists who moved north due to a family emergency), The Followers of the Pillar (a clan of pacifists and philanthropists), The Shards (essentially doomsday preppers), Clan Carnate (a small clan of roaming oddballs), The Twisted Scales (a tribe of displaced dragons), One-Clan-Under-Moon-and-Star (loyalists to a repeatedly reincarnated warlord), Shelcoof (a bunch of Lightning dragons who were long-time allies of Clan Elsewhere), Goetia (doomsday preppers with occult knowledge), and the Myrian Six (a tiny clan of Shade-hunting dragons who wound up in Irthskaar for obvious reasons). Some of these evolved into new groups, some left voluntarily, and others were destroyed during conflicts, with previous members now integrated into new clans.

And Now for a Segue Before I Get Into The Flauros Incident

I know I talk a lot about The Flauros Incident, but to really understand The Incident, you need to understand these five jerks:

Lich is a rogue necromancer living in the Scarred Wasteland, who works with his assistant, Falx, to figure out ways to create life out of nothing. The closest they’ve got is using concentrated Shade energy that’s dormant within the land to mimic lifeforms that already exist. They call these creatures “demons,” and summoning them usually requires a sacrifice of some kind, though they’ve figured out how to “bud” more demons from existing ones by borrowing energy. Lich has amassed quite an army, and Falx sacrificed one of his previous mates, and they show no signs of stopping. Uh, nor do they really realize how much trouble their pet project is causing.

Lich is just very isolated, one-track minded, and only really cares about things if they affect his research adversely. Falx is probably aware in some capacity, but he’s also an evil bastard who doesn’t care.

Now, remember how I said that summoning a “demon” requires a sacrifice? That’s where you get the ugly, bloody guy in the middle row. That’s Bifrons, the only dragon to ever survive one of Lich’s procedures. He was abducted and had part of the ceremony performed on him, but managed to get away before anything could be completed. It had a devastating effect on his physical body (which you can tell by looking at him), but a worse one on his soul. You see, the ritual was never finished, but it was finished enough that he wound up cursed with a half-complete “demon” bound to him.

That demon is Flauros. She used to look like a Guardian, but she’s unstable and changes pretty frequently. She’s a bit harder to control because she still has some primordial will in her, and the bindings on her were never completed; she can technically be stolen by any sorcerer who is clever enough to make a spell strong enough to bind her. She can think and reason and behave autonomously once given orders which is, well, unheard of for the bulk of her kind, and her more troublesome powers haven’t been cut off to make her more pliable. She is capable of doing some really messed-up things. She’s the physical embodiment of a demonic poltergeist you see in those horrifying “based on a true story” horror movies.

And at the very bottom, we have Hashakgik. Hashakgik (a.k.a. Dahaka) is a dragon who’s learned to use primordial, non-elemental magic to make himself a being of many faces, names, and allegiances. He has an extensive criminal record, has left a trail of destruction in his wake, has changed his form a dozen times, and is incredibly hard to get rid of. He’s a power-hungry and extremely dangerous cockroach in a dragon’s body who could probably crush you with his mind. Nobody in The Abandoned knew this when he showed up.

And that’s a good lead-up into The Incident itself.

The Flauros Incident

So, we know Bifrons wound up with Flauros bound to him because Lich couldn’t do his job right. What happened after that? Well, he also wound up with a handful of hirelings and followers who he brought on with the sole purpose of containing and eventually dispersing Flauros. This entourage began to be known as Goetia.

Goetia wound up in Irthskaar at the suggestion of Azimuth, one of Bifrons’ hirelings, who said the latent magic in the area could lend itself to their goal. Bifrons joined The Fifteen, Flauros was kept contained in their lair, and things went pretty okay for a while. The problem is that this was all a part of a plan on behalf of Azimuth and Hashakgik, who were old friends who hatched a plan to make themselves as powerful as possible to take over as much of Irthskaar as they possibly could. You see, Hashakgik was already in Irthskaar because of a clan he joined to lay low (The Infected), and he knew enough about magic to tell the canyon was special. It was holding some crazy power, but he needed a way to secure the territory for himself so he could figure out a way to tap into it.

Enter Azimuth, who originally came into service of Goetia honestly but then became convinced that Flauros would be a pretty easy, subversive way to achieve this goal. She and Hashakgik developed some spells to “steal” Flauros from Bifrons and tether her to something new (an amulet, which seemed like a no-brainer option; they could swap it back and forth to take control of her as need be), and then used her to start picking off or otherwise incapacitating powerful dragons in the alliance one by one. It worked well until they tried to target Snap, leader of Clan Elsewhere and Bad Bitch You Shouldn’t Mess With™, who immediately figured out that Flauros was responsible and set about retaliating by declaring an emergency, electing herself warleader, reorganizing the clans into an army, and then turning the whole goddamn thing on Flauros and anyone who decided to follow her.

Pictured above: a dragon you don’t wanna fuck with. (Thanks, doki!)

Azimuth panicked. What began as sneaky assassinations and corruption turned into her wildly throwing Flauros at anything that posed a threat, even exposing herself as a mastermind when she felt cornered. For a while, things went her way--she destroyed a couple of clans, killed a lot of dragons, and even swayed followers to her side with promises of power and safety--but it all changed when one of her subordinates decided to trick the majority of the Coalition of Magicks into raising an Emperor, citing it would be the only thing powerful enough to fight Flauros. The follower in question, Baphomet, justified it by saying she was pretty sure she figured out magical bindings that would allow her to control it.

Yeah, no. She didn’t have a goddamn clue what she was doing.

So now, Azimuth and her enemies had to contend with something worse than Flauros making short work of both sides of the conflict, after which Hashakgik decided that enough was enough. He wrenched control of Flauros back from Azimuth, basically cut her off from doing anything else, and then decided he’d go down swinging. He amassed an army of demons like Flauros, having figured out how to create them, took his army of defectors, and marched right on Snap’s war camp with the intention of killing everything in sight.

Between the battle, the Emperor, and then their battling again, the loss of life was insane. Right when things seemed to be ending in Hashakgik’s favor, though, Azimuth found herself dead and Hashakgik found himself sans Flauros. Shriek--leader of The Outlanders--had spent the whole squabble doing her own research, consulting the right people, and following leads behind everyone’s back, and nobody really noticed because nobody ever took her seriously. She figured out the amulet controlled Flauros and just… stole it while Hashakgik wasn’t paying attention. The Abandoned won the fight because a loud, obnoxious Spiral swiped a necklace and used said necklace to steal a demon. To say Hashakgik was surprised when his own weapon was turned on him by a dragon he barely knew existed would be an understatement.

Pictured above: The face of somebody who shouldn’t have won.

It ended in a fight between Flauros and Hashakgik, and the clash of their magics turned the treacherous Mirror into stone.

The Abandoned now use him as a decoration for the entrance to the canyon.

The Aftermath

Recovering from that kind of excitement is hard. Clans were destroyed, survivors were adopted into new clans, and they had to find ways to circumvent the loss of some very valuable and resourceful dragons in the alliance. Thankfully, some of this was taken care of by the introduction of Sitael, a wealthy traveling merchant with an eye for business and a heart of gold. He came seeking new customers, stuck around to bring in supplies, and became a permanent resident of Clan Elsewhere when he realized his expertise could bring in the gold and resources necessary to rebuild. He’s attracted quite a lot of money, donates a fair chunk of change to the other clans, and makes sure there’s always necessities around for anyone who needs it. His network is borderline insane, too, so if you want it, Sitael can get it.

He’s a good Pearlcatcher, Brent!

In time, things began to fall into place. A lot of dragons rendered homeless by The Incident joined The Wolves so they could protect their home, and the Keepers of the Sigil was formed by the displaced patriarch of another clan with the sole purpose of defending against the dark arts (Remus Lupin would be proud). Others stepped up their game to provide services and resources where others had fallen. New dragons filtered in who took the place of those who had died.

One huge point of contention that remained, though, was that Flauros was still around.

You see, Hashakgik and Azimuth may have been responsible for the whole sordid affair, but Flauros was their face and not every dragon really understood that blaming her was akin to blaming the gun instead of the shooter. Even those who did understand were wary of it happening again. Shriek’s decision to not hand over the amulet and let the Coalition of Magicks figure out a way to destroy Flauros caused quite a few waves, and left a bad taste in the mouths of just about everyone.

This would only come to a head when Elder showed up.

Who is Elder?

Elder is an asshole.

But Why is He An Asshole?

Well, he’s Hashakgik’s mentor, for one. And if you took Lich and Hashakgik and threw in a massive god complex, you’d get the four-meter-long package of destruction and chaos that was (is?) Elder. The only thing he cares about is power, his magical practices have made him so distant from dragonkind that he barely registers the dragons around him as people, and he is absolutely ruthless when it comes to getting his way. He’s small, but he’s strong and he’s smart and he’s utterly cold blooded, and he could, would, and will crush you underfoot if you stand between him and something he feels he deserves.

And if you think the fact he’s a teeny, tiny Spiral will save you, you are dead wrong. And also probably just dead.

The Elder Conflict

Elder wasn’t stupid. In the wake of The Flauros Incident, he waited and bided his time and watched from a distance, knowing The Abandoned would eventually show a weak spot. You see, he was aware from his doomed protege that there was dark and powerful magic in those hills, and that the only thing standing between him and that power was a bunch of broken clans. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes as Hashakgik, though. Charging headlong into a fight under the wrong conditions with the wrong tools was suicide.

He did try to bolster his initially poor numbers by forcing the clan, Revelations, into subservience, though. A clan of raiders, he kidnapped the daughter of the ruling pair and held her ransom, with the payment requested being as many dead inhabitants of Irthskaar as they could drag back. They were cannon fodder that he never expected to return, though they proved strangely effective. Not only were they good at destroying Sitael’s trade caravans, mopping the floor with stragglers, and even occasionally carrying out raids inside the canyon, they had the unintentional side-effect of inciting new and exciting forms of panic. Revelations, you see, is run by a pair of renegade Gaolers and has been even before the Seekers were reinstated and Gaolers resurfaced.

Fresh from The Flauros Incident, The Abandoned became convinced that Revelations was controlled by monsters. Monsters like Flauros. They didn’t have a clue what a Gaoler was. Obviously, those things were demons.

This started a massive political upheaval within The Fifteen. While the general public started blaming Flauros and, by extension, Shriek for the raids, Snap was hard at work making a case for the exile of the entirety of The Outlanders for their continued support of their leader and her pet demon. The Outlanders’ reputation worsened as dragons began to go missing, including members of The Fifteen, leaving no trace behind as to where they went. This had to be the work of Shriek, Flauros, and those creatures that kept raiding their lands, obviously.

And so The Outlanders were exiled. It was fairly unanimous when faced with the evidence Snap accumulated, with her essay of grievances carrying more weight than Shriek screeching she didn’t do anything wrong. Oddly enough, Snap’s mate sided with The Outlanders and went with them as they left, leaving a pretty sizable rift in Clan Elsewhere who--if you don’t remember--is the most powerful and influential clan in the alliance.

Oh, look. Elder found his opening.

Political instability is a hell of a thing. With The Outlanders gone, Flauros out of the way, and Clan Elsewhere reeling, the attacks began in earnest. Snap had her hands full trying to repel the incoming invasion, while Shriek and her clan were oblivious outside of the canyon. The only reason they even discovered that their old home was under attack is because they found the “missing” dragons whose disappearance she was blamed for. Turns out that they had an inkling of an idea that something bad was on the horizon, Snap wouldn’t listen because she’s too stuck in her ways, and they decided to take matters into their own hands. One of them, Kain, even know about Elder from previous scuffles and was pretty sure that he’d be sniffing around Irthskaar after finding out his old pupil had killed himself trying to tap into some good ol’ primordial Shade energy.

So, Shriek decided to help them. She put Flauros to use in subverting everything Elder tried to do, and even tried to make amends with The Abandoned to get them to back the “resistance” and allow her clan back into Irthskaar. Snap turned up her nose each and every time (mostly out of stubbornness because, let’s face it, Snap is very flawed), but eventually had to cave when The Outlanders, fresh from being attacked, came back uninvited and Elder figured, “Hey, everyone’s harried into the same hole in the ground now. Let’s just end this already.”

Elder--utilizing his necromancer slave, Mortanius--launched a full-scale attack on the barely prepared alliance, using swathes of undead, Revelations, and his own loyalists to lay waste to everything in his path. Things were going his way until Flauros entered the scene, Coalition of Magicks mages figured out how to undo his slave bindings on Mortanius (who, understandably, took the opportunity to scram, leaving his necromantic creations frenzied, directionless, and doing as much damage to Elder as The Abandoned), and the leader of Revelations took an opening mid-battle to turn on his daughter’s kidnappers. Even then, Elder almost held his own, stopped only by Shriek and Flauros as he tried to escape into a cave for cover.

They, uh, brought the cave down on him. They’re pretty sure he’s still alive, somehow, but it will be a long, long time before he figures out how to get out. If he ever does, the Keepers of the Sigil have moved their lair right outside, so they’ll be waiting for him. It will not end pretty.

So What is The Abandoned Up to Now?

Rebuilding. Again. 

The good thing is that Elder’s onslaught didn’t do as much damage as Flauros did, so it’s been a bit easier to return to normalcy. The worst of it has been political restructuring such as the addition of new clans (Revelations, for one; Mortanius returned with his clan as well, hoping to seek sanctuary), the reinstating of Shriek into The Fifteen and The Outlanders into the alliance, rethinking policies and procedures, renegotiating trade deals, and redistributing power since Snap has this nasty habit of assuming direct control of things as soon as danger rears its ugly head. It kind of defeats the purpose of having a democratic council at all if the same dragon just overrides everyone consistently.

Oddly enough, Flauros is now regarded as a hero as well. It’s hard to argue with the fact that her swooping in out of nowhere and handing Elder’s ass to him is probably the only reason The Abandoned still exists, so they’ll give credit where credit is due. This mostly just means they stop talking about dispersing her, though.

Most everyone still doesn’t want to actually interact with her.

And why would you? I mean, she’s scary af.

[twitchesandstitches]

Disney Growth AU

One of my holdovers from my old blog was what I called the Disney Growth AU, and I’m bringing it back! Mostly for the odd snippet or story post here or that, and partly as a component in some of my other AUs, since those mentions might not make a whole lot of sense without this AU’s particulars.

And also since it would fill a bit silly reposting older stories or edits of them without giving everyone the background of this AU, and anything i happen to think of. No sense posting stories and just throwing you into it blind, even if you’re familiar with it. It would just feel strange!

The Disney Growth AU is a combination of all the various disney properties (or at least the ones that fit into the Disney animated canon, with the various cartoons as having a more nebulous connection but are present), centering largely around the Disney heroines and major lady characters of their respective franchises and sub-series, with a focus on magically induced transformations and a particular emphasis on hyper curves (gigantic boobs, hips and butt, with variance for individual body types and personality-appropriate looks, and with more monster-y/human divergent form styles) and giantess.

In that later case, the princesses and other heroines are absolutely massive, with none of the usual limits i typically have in my usual AUs or giantess scenarios for the sake of tiny/giant interaction; they are a mile high at minimum when not deliberately suppressing their powers, and when they’re fully powered up, the giant Disney girls can be as big as entire planets, if not solar systems… and even larger than that, with their proportions scaling up to match.

Of note, this AU is broadly split into two continuities of a kind; one where this AU is its own thing and its relation to other fic ideas isn’t important, and one where it is a sub-set of Crossthicc as an important aspect of the multiverse, and the distinction has to do with which aspect I’m playing up.

Both versions heavily emphasize magic, and the basic premise is the same: the heroines, or princesses (whether they are actually royalty or not, such as in the case of Mulan or Moana; the title is a catch-all for ‘important heroine’ as a consequence of their actions) are living embodiments of raw magic, both conduits for the stuff of the soul and transformation, and generating it in the same way that stars create elements and light. This causes them to transform over time, growing bigger and curvier, and eventually take on more individual, inhuman alterations to reflect their raw power and coolness.

Their villains are, of course, around and up to No Good, and in between slice of life shenanigans, pranks, and attempts to simply live their lives while also being benign giant goddesses, they might thwart the plans of their equally gigantic villainesses and foes, who have transformed to become Big and Thicc too, and seek to impose absolute dominance over all existence.

In the former case where its a standalone AU, the setting is more mundane… as much as they CAN be, in the context. They live on a single version of Earth, with a different history to justify how a Powhatan diplomat, ancient Chinese war icon, Germanic fairy tale, and outright mythical figures can all exist at the same time. Effectively, they have been given a Kingdom Hearts style lighter and softer treatment, with ancient countries still existing in the modern day and altering history in subtle ways for this all to make some kind of internal sense. (For instance, modern America may not exist; instead you have the original countries of the First Nations expanded and industrialized and existing as a broad union similar to modern America,) Something similar applies to outright fictional countries or landmasses, with the world altered so that their likely geographic locations makes some kind of sense. Agrabah, for example, is a bit of a tricky case.

In this case, all the princesses are modern women, but have existed in many incarnations throughout history as great peacekeepers, champions of justice, mighty warriors, and paragons of virtue to teach others. In relatively recent times, their actions ensured a massive burst of magic that permanently brought raw, wild and Good magic back to the world, imbuing them all with it and making them living generators of it, awakening new power and making them into new goddesses, with great stature to match. Apart from now being potentially planet-sized and warping local space via their raw power just to fit into the world - packing mountain mass into a very small area - their lives are still mundane, and much of their time is spent adjusting to their new power and finding things to do with it.

Something similar would apply with the villains, most obviously Maleficent and a cadre of other villainesses following her; while not as powerful as the heroines, they are nonetheless massive and powerful goddesses… just not on the same level as the heroines, but they have the benefit of a massive horde of spooky monsters and less imposing foes that are mighty in their collective dangerous-ness.

Periodically, Marvel characters may make appearances (especially the more cosmic ones, such as Thor); assume this is a meeting of the multiverse kind of deal, with the other Earth perhaps being merged into the Disney one and the superheroes making do, with the new supervillains coming into conflict with the villains. Alternatively; emphasizing the Awesome of the heroine and supporting characters to serve roughly the same purpose as having legit superheroes here. For instance, consider Maui as being a Thor analogue by emphasizing his myth-appropriate raw strength and heroic deeds. Guy pulls up oceans during fishing trips!

(That said, the Marvel Growth AU from my old blog is now its entirely own thing, combined with some ideas I have for a DC one as well, as well as BNHA/My Hero Academia, as a cohesive general superhero setting. The tone of Disney Growth AU is more mundane slice of life that just so happens to take place for giant hero ladies dealing with their newfound powers, and just a hint of epic fantasy.)

Generally speaking, i will probably tag fics and thoughts specifically meant for this AU as JUST ‘disney growth AU’, for the sake of simplicity, without additional specifications.

The other version of this AU is explicitly intended to work with Crossthicc, and relies on the multiverse aspect and incorporates more obvious elements from the different versions of the characters in question. In this version, the princesses are explicitly goddesses; not just powerful heroines made mighty, but actual goddesses, and have been for some time.

They are, in-universe, widely worshiped across the multiverse under many different names and culturally relevant touchstones, but when one person pays homage to a raven-haired personification of Good Governance, and another gives their love to a goddess of orphans and adoption, it is still Snow White they worship. Consequently, they are enormously powerful and have a lot of potential domains under their influence, and mostly dwell upon a vast plane of magic that dwells beyond the material realm. This huge coterminous plane is effectively an elemental plane of magic, perhaps the metaphysical engine that keeps the World Tree of the mortal universes going, supporting that delicate soap bubble that is so easy to pop… and constantly on guard from the dreadful things trying to do just that.

It is possible that even this realm is but a reflection of their true divine power, a somewhat accessible an diminished echo of their full nature, but it's so mighty that they cannot properly exist in the mundane plane without wrecking it, instead manifesting as avatars. Depends on the need of the scenario, honestly.

The MILF fleet of crossthicc comes across these goddesses during their travels, earning their favor and interest, and a few of them send mortal avatars to stay with the fleet and experience the mortal universe, far weaker than their true selves but still shockingly powerful, and members of the God Squad that is a club of benign deities that for whatever reason are endorsing the MILF fleet.

Their home planea is much more mythic in tone, with an explicitly magitech vibe; imagine epic D&D style fantasy in an infinite universe of soaring mountains and mighty landscapes, with magically empowered technology serving the role of more mundane technological advances, and magic being absolutely universal. Take your grandest high fantasy ideas, ramp them up a 100 times, and mash them into the tropes of nobility and honor being actual forces of nature, and you have the basic approach! Here, mighty heroes fight grand monsters… and usually it's the goddesses doing this, the mightiest beings in all the cosmos, and fighting manifestations of entropy and cosmic non-existence. Their villains here are embodiments of forces like that, perhaps linked to the mysterious monsters the mortal plane is plagued with.

In this realm, mighty brave warriors ride on fearsome dragons to confront demon kings, mountains get up and walk to wrestle with one another, and the geography of the plane can shift at a moment’s notice when the currents of magic are strong enough. IT is in fact a source of magic, and does not conform to mundane notions of space-time. The plane is infinite, continuing forever, with ever more wild landscapes dissolving into chaotic potential and randomized impossibility as you get from civilization: mountains made of teeth, seas turning into boiling oil and crystalize laughter… and it gets weirder from there.

The goddess-heroines are so powerful that they stabilize this realm with their mere existence, growing more powerful and drinking deeply of the magic they generate and are empowered by, growing stronger still, and in doing so, they also reinforce the mortal realms, which is given life by this plane in some fashion. But the universes of mortals have been badly wounded, and the same applies to the princess’ realms too, and horrors pour out from them, and they must constantly quell those in hope of helping to bring peace, in some fashion, to all realms.

It is also important to note that given the different scale, they are far larger than in my usual giant lady fare; since space is more of a polite suggestion, this causes few problems, and they aren’t just planet sized. They are often universe-sized, if not even bigger, though they can adjust local space to fit them if they please, and even if they don’t, their presence causes no damage if they don’t wish it; their steps could reduce worlds to powder, but not a single living thing will be bothered by them stepping down.

(It is also possible that this realm is a primordial birthplace of souls, or an afterlife; people who perish come here, and after they work through their remaining problems, they pass on to another afterlife and perhaps later reincarnation. IT is the fate of evil beings to be reduced to food for the princesses, becoming monsters to be slain that reflect their evil hearts… or both. Some few mortal villains retain their willpower and become meances the princesses strive to defeat, and these are the villains of Disney canon that otherwise don’t fit the motif for the villainesses. Something similar might apply for the heroes and prince-types, but in terms of heroic spirits or great priests/followers of the goddesses in life. They came to love their goddesses so much, they remain by their sides forevermore. The goddesses themselves, or their bodies, may also constitute an afterlife as well.)

One more note; while this applies to the more mundane AU too, it's more prevalent here: the princesses here aren’t just based on their Disney interpretation but have elements from their other fictional interpretations too. Those who are public domain fairy tail characters, such as Snow White, have attributes from those stories as well as their many different stories incorporated in some fashion. Those who are historical figures will have attributes from real life applied more freely; for instance, in both AUs, Pocahontas is more like her real life analogue (apart from being the same age she is in the movie), down to that not being her actual name. There may also be liberal Fables (the comic series) invoked here, because i just plain like that series.

However, this AU is still intended to be mostly epic fantasy and high adventure, and should have a more or less light tone; thus, exceptionally dark or grim elements (such as those rooted in what may be the Grimm storyteller’s potential issues with women) will be ignored outright, reinterpreted, or applied in-universe as faulty propaganda.

There may also be a lot of mythological elements brought in. For example, the Seven Dwarves of Snow White are her adoptive fathers, in a sense, and are mostly Norse mythology style dwarves (and possibly svartalfar/dark elves, depending on whim), with their disney names, Doc and Sleepy and such, as pet names Snow had for them. For instance, Brok and Sindri are definitely there; Grumpy and Doc, respectively.

Effectively, in whichever AU, all the Disney cartoons are canon, with the ones more akin to Disney’s fairy tale vibes being more closely tied. More gray areas will be subject to weirdness; for instance, the series of Kim Possible might either be as more or less mundane figures in the magical plane of the goddesses, or as characters from a universe of superheroes who happen to have a connection to an appropriate goddess.

[starlightcurse-blog]

So I finally got time to make this post I’ve been wanting to make for a long while. This is a complete list of spirits I am bonded with and work with on an almost daily basis. this is long so ill post it all below the cut, just to save room on the dash of people who might not want to read this.

I also want to start this off by saying I like to differentiate three types of spirits. Really, two but I’ll entertain three. the main two would be living spirits and dead spirits, and I’ll say the third category would be divine spirits but I consider divine spirits to also be living spirits. Now what does this mean? Well, what I consider dead spirits are spirits of the deceased, those who have passed on and are wandering the earth or ones that have moved on to the afterlife. What I consider living spirits would be divine entities like gods, angels, demons, things of that nature, and other living spirits would be faeries, mythical creatures, or just other creatures in the spirit or astral realm, that were not incarnated on this physical realm or just have never had a physical form.

Midnight: She is a Goddess of Spirits, she refers to herself as the ‘Queen of Spirits’. She is the first one of these that I meet and bonded with. She is highly intelligent, but somewhat impersonal. She is blunt, but she gives good advice. She also connects me to the spirit realm and helps act as my guide. When I can contact her, she gives me a vision of what she looks like. Tall, ghostly pale skin, black eyes, and then lots of gray. She speaks to me through visions.

Lunar: She is a goddess of light and shadow, sunlight and moonlight, the sun and the moon, basically that whole duality of light and dark in the literal sense. Her alignment is basically lawful neutral. She says she is associated with wolves, owls, lions, and eagles. She is actually very gentle and nice, and has a motherly vibe. When I get visions of her, I see blonde hair, a long white flowing dress, and colors of black white. She speaks to me through mental images, which I consider different from visions because a vision for me is like a gif, whereas Lunar flashes pictures and words in my mind. She helps me connect with other deities.

Bloodwyraine: This will be long and detail and dark because I know the most about her. She is probably the second one of these spirits I met and the rest I don’t remember the order. I think after her it was Lunar or Esmerlda, then Rion or Peaches. She also has a very tragic back story. She is an angel, and she used to be the Keeper of the Sands of Time, she was also associated with storms, knowledge, time, and magic. She was sent to Earth on a mission, met this human Zara, fell in love with her and they somehow conceived a little girl Sarah. When her brothers and sisters showed up to tell her it was time for her to come home, she declined and told them how she had a family to protect now. They understood and left, but shortly after she was demanded to return to Heaven and she declined again, this time she also invoked God’s wrath(She calls him simply Yahweh, and in a very dead tone..). She left her house one day to get herbs and when she came back her family was gone and there was a feather on her door step. She went to Heaven and demanded her family back, of course they asked her to stay in return ad she told them to basically fuck themselves. They killed her wife Zara, turned her daughter into marble and smashed her. This sent Bloodwyraine in a fit of rage and she doesn’t remember much. She remembered sitting in a forest back on Earth, and being covered in blood and having no halo. She used to look like the embodiment of purity, short white hair, 18 big and small soft white wings, five blue eyes, and that’s all of her form she could show me. When she left that forest that night, she had three silver eyes, three black wings, long black hair and nails, and her skin looked greyish. She says she mutilated herself because she couldn’t His brand. She changed her name to Rosemary and went into hiding, and wandered the Earth as a medicine woman that would go from village to village curing people using her knowledge of magic and herbs. She decided to stop hiding and now goes by her old name. We have a very strong bond, and arrangement, I give her energy when she needs any from me and she provides me with tips on magic. Despite all that has happened to her, and the fact that she wants nothing to do with Yahweh or his... “minions”, she’s very sweet and soft spoken. She stays with me because she sees something in me, I don’t know what that is though. She actually shared all this with me in one very vivid dream and when I woke up from it I saw her sitting on my bed, two wings out and one folded behind her she looked very sad and nodded and I started crying and we held each other all night. I believe my bond with her is so strong and vivid because she has spent so much time here on Earth. I don’t spend a lot of time with her in one go though because if gives me migraines. She also helps me keep myself balanced and cleansed.

Esmerlda(Not a typo, seriously. I thought she meant Esmerelda but nope.): This is one feisty girl. She is a princess of some sort, I don’t know her parentage, and she certainly doesn’t act like one, but she does claim to be a princess. She is kind of full of herself though lol. She’s very carefree and friendly. She claims that she could transform her tail into two legs, i think it was either through cutting open her tail or by eating the heart/lungs of sailors after luring them into the water. She liked to use her legs to climb onto ships with her “girlfriends”(I don’t know if this was a band of female friends or female lovers or both), and play pirate. She also claims she was the basis for Ariel because they both had red hair and blue/green tails but I don’t believe that for. a. second. Esme can just be.. a little cocky. But we love her here. She likes to sit here with me and gossip, she is a pretty physical spirit, in that she likes to come to me and sit with me whenever I’m doing something, this also makes her the easiest for me to contact since I don’t have to use my energy to channel or astral visit her. I do not know if she used to be alive or not so I don’t know how to classify her. She is also in a very cute relationship with another spirit, Tiana. She helps me out with elemental magic and identifying other spiritual creatures.

Peaches- I have mentioned this cool cat before. She is very secretive, and doesn’t actually speak. She communicates to me through visions and mental images. She used to appear to me in a very strange form that had a small head and arms/legs, but a large round body. She now appears to me in the form of a short, fast, black as night humanoid form. She has ears, eyes, and a face like a cat. She has whiskers, I think, and a nose like a cat, I think, and she has small sharp teeth. She also has features of gold on her, like tattoos, in her eyes, and such. She doesn’t really give me complete answers, and when I asked when/where she’s from she shows me flashes of a sunset or sunrise, a plain of dead grasses or wheat, and some old stone building city. I know she had a tribe of beings just like her. I can’t tell if she hails from England/Ireland/Scotland/Wales or maybe Northern Africa, specifically Egypt. I have a suspicion she is the goddess Bast in disguise, but I don’t push her on that because its not my business or she would be straight forward with me about it. She helps me out with element magic, and anything that relates to ancient times.

Rion- He is, for now, the only male spirit I know. He is the spiritual incarnation of a thunder storm, and looks like a tornado in humanoid form, if that makes sense. He told me that his mother was a tornado and his father was a hurricane. He talks very softly in my head, because his real voice is deafening thunder. I believe he has a little sister that is a lightning bolt. There isn’t much to tell about him, I mostly only see him when it storms or is just cloudy out. I suppose you could classify him as a slyph, or ventus, but I don’t really know. It’s weird. I met him when I was alone one day at my old job and a storm knocked the power out. He is very sweet, and he does help me influence the weather when he’s around. He also can sometimes stop the rain for me when i need to run outside for something. He does like to talk about nature spirits with me.

Tiana- She is a lovely young lady. She was born and grew up in somewhere near modern day Estonia, but then moved somewhere near present day Hungary or Austria. It’s hard to say, since she hails from the 15th-16th century. She was surprisingly educated, and when she was a servant girl for either a type of Duke or Viscount, she overheard the Master of the house talking about a problem he was dealing with she spoke up, and he when he realised she was intelligent he quickly made her a form of nobility, even though she was just a peasant girl. She doesn’t have the best memory now, but she believes he married her, and shortly after there was an accident with food or maybe she was wounded and died from infection. She’s very quiet and soft spoken, and she’s not angry or remorseful in terms of her death, she knows it was an accident, but she decided to roam the Earth to watch mankind evolve. She’s very nice and friendly. She doesn’t help me perform my magic but she does like to watch. She is so gay for Esme.

and last but not least, my mother. Well, not my actual mother but yeah. 

Taliyana. She’s not helpful at all. But she takes care of me when I’m too tired to do things for myself. Mostly basic stuff, like showering, eating, driving home at night. She also takes care of me if I’m too stressed out or too emotionally drained. She lives within me, as in she has permission to just control my body at her will. She mostly just sleeps all day. She is a dragon, specifically a type of Wyrm. She has black iridescent scales, with purple skin and emerald eyes. She has two arms, legs, and wings but they’re very small and mostly just stay curled into her body so she can slither around like a snake. She also has highly venomous fangs, or so she claims. We communicate mostly through telepathy, or just in my mind really. 

[sindumpster]

What made you think up Jake? Plus how did you put together his personality?

I can’t think of a single moment since I’ve had various iterations of Jake since I was 10 or so. But back then he was probably based off of character tropes and archetypes that I liked seeing in cartoons and fantasy novels, but never having it quite melded the way I wanted. So I went the whole DIY approach and decided to make my own cartoon characters. Either that or he came from a fandom OC for some embarrassing book about certain animals before making him several types of fantasy critter until I finally made him a dragon. That or he was part of my shapeshifter obsession. And maybe throw in some classic Star Trek or reboot Doctor Who obsession with him too, although it’s really subtle now.

And uh…also his personality went through tons of reboots and drafts just like his appearance (I even made a series of drawing based on all his “looks” and corresponding personalities). But in the early days I wanted him to be the wacky and ever-grumpy counterpart to my straight man sorta self insert Joseph (altho not a self insert anymore), since I was really obsessed with comedic duos and wanted one in a modern fantasy context since I didn’t really see anything like that at the time, but I wanted it super bad. Like actually had dreams about making a fantasy sitcom as a teen? And then kinda got into character hell to the point I was gonna write a cheesy modern fantasy book, although the book then got really feelsy and gritty–but because I was in writing and development hell all through high school I started solidifying my characters more and Jake became really complex personality-wise. Another thing that helped was roleplaying with a friend (who was also working on a book so…crossovers happened) so that I could experiment with different things and see what worked and what didn’t. And also having friends that would ask me questions about my characters and throwing them into hypothetical situations really helped me figure out all that stuff, and then learning how to do it with myself and also just daydreaming random scenes in my head. Also later being pointed out to me that Jake is uncanny similar to a spoiled cat.

That aside, nowadays I mostly base his personality and reactions to things from his backstory. Like I slowly figured out and wove his backstory together based upon the personality I had built for him from my story, sorta like reverse-engineering based upon what I had set in stone. And then once I knew his backstory and where he came from and all his psychological issues and cultural beliefs and where his personality traits came from and how they developed–it more or less provided me with a cohesive framework where I can easily know how and why he reacts to things the way he does. Which is EXTREMELY HELPFUL since he can be a bit of a wild card at times and contradicts himself a lot and even I would sometimes screw up his reactions. But also wanted him to be full of those contradictions and problems since that’s what people are like, and I like flawed realistic characters despite him being a dragon and all pff

Although it also gets more convoluted too cuz original Jake was TOO COMPLICATED so I broke him into two characters: Jake and Kurt, and that helped simplify and focus both sides of him into more manageable characters. Jake being the half that pursued vore straight away, and that became an aspect of his character too.

So yeah I kinda don’t recommend following that example because Jake comes from the beginnings of my character-making and embodies all of my mistakes as well. Nowadays I make characters based off of core elements/traits or thinking something like “I want a character that interacts with X character in X way”. But more or less starting with simple elements like “I want a character that’s nice and sweet but kinda naive and simple”. Like throwing in some attributes and flaws from the get go, or a funny contradiction. And then just playing with them, throwing in random stuff to their character, or playing the “what if” game with yourself until you feel kinda solid with them, then reverse engineer a backstory to explain those traits. That’s more or less my process nowadays and how I would work with Jake now if he was a new OC.

Anyways sorry this is a long and convoluted answer (took me several tries to write it), but it’s actually a pretty complex question given how I’m not entirely sure what inspired or kickstarted me to create him, developing him was a years-long process that’s still continuing, and the obsession with him was kinda a lucky accident rather than intentional lol. Like I just stumbled on a flawed character aesthetic that was kinda good and stuck with it?? And he worked really good for vore and trash I wanted to write on the side XD

[dicecast]

D&D Cosmology (Homebrew)

   There are three realities, each of which is sub divided by 3, which in turn is sub divided by 3, because the multiverse loves that number...a lot.  Native of Planes other than the Material Plane are called Outsiders, who are defined by A) Being made of the essence of a plane B) Lacking free will C) being able to be summoned

Objective Morality: The fundamentals of the world

The objective world cannot be altered by circumstance or larger reality, these are absolutes in an otherwise fluid world.  It includes

The Outer Planes: These are the objective afterlives, based upon your morality, 9 major ones in total.  The rulers and desitiens of the realms are called Exemplars and they personify a certain morality.  Demons are always Chaotic and Evil, Archons are always Lawful and Good, Aeons are always True Neutral etc.  The Outer Planes are largely defined by The Blood War, the largest war in history between the Lawful Evil Devils, and the Chaotic Evil Demons.  Evil is far more powerful than good and could wipe out good in an instance if they ever unified...but they don’t. The Outer Planes are further divided but that is too nuanced to get into now.  Archons, Demons, Daemons, Devils, Raksha, Ashura, Asuras, Daevas, Devas, Angels, Celestials, Fiends, and Qlippoth are all examples of Exemplars

The Inner Planes: These are the elemental planes, which make up the fundamentals of reality itself, these elements define magic, alchemy, physics, everything.  The locals here are called Elementals, and they embody their concepts.  The world is divided by into 5 sets of 4 elementals combos, with void at the center making 21.  Earth, Water, Air, and Fire is one system.  Positive (healing), Negative (Decay), Light, Dark is another.  Time, Space, Ooze (Life), Ash (Death) is another system.  Void is the center of all, supposedly there was another system (Quintessence) but it was killed.  Fire Elementals, Void Elementals, Wood Elementals, Ash Elementals are all examples of elementals, not that clever.  Supposedly their is an Oblivion plane here but that doesn’t exist, I swear.  

The Middle Planes, these are rotating planes which move around the Material Plane like planets, they embody various concepts that mortals are obsessed with, like Dreams, Madness, War, Weather etc.  The Natives are known as Others

Subjective reality: Will Power and personality

This realm is define by personality and the inner psyche of mortals themselves.  Weird fellows.  

The Far Sphere , The Hedge, The Fae Realms: The Fae are strange mysterious entities who are tied to unhealthy patterns of human behavior, each type of Fae embodies an unhealthy coping mechanism.  Each of the 9 Courts is subdivided into Seelie and Unseelie versions, unseelie Fae are actively malicious and cruel while Seelie fae are….also actively malicious and cruel but wear a smiley face.  

The Near Sphere, A’lam Al-jinn: The “Hidden Realm” this is the domain of the Jinn, who are generally pretty cool, they act like more extreme versions of mortal intellectual thought.  There are 16 realms each based on a different terrain (Swamp Jinn, City Jinn, Rural Jinn, Tundra Jinn, Ocean Jinn, Mountain Jinn, Cave Jinn etc) none of which are necessarily good or evil.  It depends on the Jinn

The Spirit World: The realm of the spirits keep the multiverse running, but are changing, altering, and shifting creatures.  They are subdivided into 5 types, Transformation Spirits (Dragon Age), Preservation (Chinese Mythology), Evolution (Native American) , Destruction (Central Asian Spirits) and Creation (African).  Spirits are alien but but there is always a method to their madness.  The Wheel of Reincarnation is located here.  

Conceptual Reality

Reality is what we perceive it to be, existence by consensus.  It also seems the most repetitive of the worlds, with the same themes repeating themselves over and over again (Thanks Jung)

The Divine Tree: This massive spiritual tree is the realms of the Gods, and their Servitor...well servants.  Mortals can avoid going to the afterlife if they worship a god, and may dwell with their god or Gods for millennia, but even gods die and the soul will find their way to the next realm eventually.  Some argue that the tree isn’t actually a real tree, but a metaphor for some greater conceptual entity that we can’t understand, oh sweet lord Kabbalistic theology is so esoteric I can’t even.  Supposedly there are two other types of gods that exist, the 13 Elder Gods which embody Taboos and are locked away, and The Old Ones who seem to embody primordial fears and senses, but that isn’t true.  

The Color Wheel: Supposedly the 12 great colors have some sort of raw power that governs the world, but that is just dumb.

The Great Houses: Supposedly there are 4/4 types of entities that embody base assumptions, but really who would be dumb enough to believe that, I mean seriously now.

Relative Reality

Doesn’t exist, that would be fucking stupid, everybody knows relative reality isn’t real, it would ruin the whole 3 theme we have going for us, god why are people so fucking stupid…..but if it did existed

The Realm of the Primordials: Haven’t come up with a name for it yet, the Primordials were the co creators of Gods, but after a great conflict called “The Dawn War” they were overthrown and killed, with their realm neglected and abandoned now

The Realm of the Titans: The Titans used to rule over the Gods, but the gods rebelled and replaced them, the 13 Elder Gods

The Realms of the Dead: Ok, these ones we definitely know exist, but it totally isn’t relative I swear, that would just be stupid.  Reapers, Shinigami, Psychopomps aren’t relative, what are you talking about?

The Material Plane

Where all of the realms come together, the Material Plane is mostly made up of mortals, animals, Dragons, Giants, Mormons, Plants, Beasts, Undead, and Sylvans, the latter being personifications of the Material Planes and tend to be guardians of nature.  Most Mortals are either created by gods for a purpose (Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins, Halflings, Gnomes, Bugbears) or were created by the “Seven Creator Races” strange entities who made a lot of animal themed entities.  Humans are a weird exception, they seem to just be animals who evolved to sentience which is why most other races see them as inferior.  Dragons were the very first mortals and the world exists for them, and Giants are the caretakers of the Material Plane (they don’t do a very good job).  There are 25 “ISlands of Time” which are special Material Plane PLanets created to embody a specific theme, but all of them are slowly merging

Sigil: The Single greatest city EVAR, it is the center of the multiverse and it is where the entire world mixes into one.  Governed by the 16 hilariously ineffective factions, this city is the most important and least competent entity in the world

The Transitive Realms

These realms are more places of travel than true realms, you use these to get around

The Astral Plane: A giant silvery ocean of existence, mortals and souls travel around this realm which connects the entire multiverse, but it is so vast that it is very hard to get around

The Ethereal Plane: The first place souls go to before they travel to the Realms of the Dead, this is like an alternative version of the Material Plane, a ghostly creepy realm.  

The Plane of Shadows: Made up of what we can’t quite see, this realm is a strange alternative version of the Material Plane that is shadowy, gloomy, obsessed with card games, and seems to be based on the Road Not Taken

The Plane of Mirrors: This realm is one of twisted altered possibilities, strangely enough  it is NOT an alternative of the Material Plane for some reason.  

Other Realms

For some reasons, not everything fits into this neat happy theme...but there time will come

Mundus: The home of strange entities called the Daedra, Eetra, and Aedra, these simultaneously alien but also deeply human entities claim to belong to an alternative morality that no longer exists

Faerie and the Shadowfell.  These two realms are where Fairies and Hags come from respectively, Fairies live off positive emotions, while Hags live off negative, but don’t mistake that for morality.  

Taterus: Supposedly a race of entities attempted to overthrow the Gods themselves, and were imprisoned, but they could come back at any point

Malfeas: Once Upon a Time, the Material Plane had special entities who guided and controlled it, called Protogenoi.  However due to some sort of accident (Gods did it) most of them were overthrown, with only Gia left.  The remaining Protogenoi were locked away inside the bowls of their leader and have since transformed into creatures known as Yozi, twisted world ending abominations of what they should have been.  Scholars have noticed how repetitive mythology seems to be, and are fairly certain reality itself is taking the piss.  

The Underworld: Some of those Protogenoi were actually killed rather than imprisoned, but because they are tied to the universe itself, they cannot die.  So their corpses created this terrifying realm where souls cannot rest, most Undead come from here

The Wyrld: The very edge of reality itself, this is a land were stories become real and the world itself shifts to accommodate the rules of drama.  Ruled by the Raksha.  

The Lying Darkness: wait...what?

The Far Realm: Seriously WTF, this alien eldritch realm is basically another multiverse entirely, and its very existence breaks ours and visa versa.  The creatures there are totally alien and likely as scared of us as we are of them.  

The Netherworld (Not sure about the name: This is the alternative afterlife of some alien mortals who don’t quite fit in, like Mind Flayers or Beholders.  Thing Purgatory from Supernatural

Eden: Once Fate existed and it was located here , but now lays in ruins.  

Zen-Mu: The realm of the 4 Houses.  Or possible the home of the primordials

Yu-Shan: THe home of the Celestial Bureaucracy, it is the home of the other 4 houses.  

The Dark Tapestry: I don’t know what that is?

The Deep Below: Before there was existence, there was water, and those waters exist outside the multiverse itself

Outsiders

Outsiders are the native creatures of the planse and they might resemble mortals in many way.  They have personalities, they think, they can even form relationships and have FEELINGS.  But they aren’t like mortals in one critical way, they lack Free Will.  Mortals can change their mind, have character arcs, and discover new perspectives, Outsiders cannot, they embody their plane.  So a Devil embodies Lawful Evil, they can’t not be Lawful and Evil personified.  A devil might save a person’s life or give money to charity but they cannot do so for its own sake, and a Devil will never act in a chaotic manner, Devils don’t spontaneously do things, everything they do is according to some lawful system.  Similarly, a Water Elemental is all about water, they can have a personality and goals, but it all comes back to water in the end.  

Summoning outsiders

There are three different ways an outsider can come to the Mortal World.  

Called Creatures: This is what happens with your basic “Summon monster” spell, a spiritual projection of the creature shows up, does some stuff, and then leaves after a set amount of time.  Short of incredibly powerful magics, Called creatures cannot be permanently hurt, they just go back home when killed or when their time runs out

Summoned: This is basically calling a creature but on a permanent basis, a spiritual projection of the being arrives on the plane and walks around doing stuff, it’s basically like they are here in the flesh.  Summon creatures when ‘killed’ don’t actually die, they just go home to their own realm, and are unable to be summoned again for 100 years.  Sounds great, except that summoned creatures are extremely susceptible to certain spells which can instantly banish them.  Against a summoned creature, with the right spells, you can basically instantly send them back to their home domain, no problem.  

Arrived Creature:  They are here, in the flesh, totally here.  This means no weaknesses, and much much more powerful than their reduced Summon form.  This is very rare, normally you need a special ritual to fully bring an outsider to the Material plane or a very powerful being to drag them here.  This makes them more powerful but if they die, they die for good.  Sometimes they can arrive via portals, which can be very scary if a whole lot of them arrive at once.  

Last Notes

Outsiders usually can’t come to the Material Plane without Permission and in large numbers, there are billions of them and they could easily conquer the Material Plane if they had half a chance.  But sometimes portals do open int oa new world, and that leads to a Planar Wars, the worse wars.

Oh wait, no, one last thing, the BLood War.  The Largest War in all time is between the Demons and the Devils.  Lawful Evil, vs. Chaotic Evil, this war is larger than any other conflict in history and threatens to destroy the multiverse some day.  If these two sides unified for even a day, they would take over the entire world.  

[its-a-lark-blog]

Autism and Nugenics

Alright. Now for a topic that means a lot to me. I didn't edit this, nor did I proofread it, because I want it to be as honest a stream of thought as I can muster. I want it to be as-is. I know it'll be an effort to get through but... please, don't knee jerk. I implore you to just walk away and come back to it, where I inevitably take this may not be where you expect.

The warnings of Elon Musk of AI ring hollow to me when I consider that it wasn't so long ago that white men were obsessed with eugenics; That hasn't changed. The target has, not the thinking.

Eugenics was all about breeding out undesirable traits and ensuring that the traits of 'lesser ethnicities' wouldn't impair the purity of the bloodline, it's what the Third Reich built upon for the atrocities it committed in the holocaust, it was thinking that allowed Hitler to justify his heinous misdeeds, and even to think of himself as the greater good.

Conversely, of late I've bore witness to Internet denizens making a good, college try at humanising Hitler. They remind us to not forget that this 'supposed monster' was a man.

This is a very Alt-Right perspective, of course. I think that any reasonable person would understand why it's necessary that we absolutely don't humanise Hitler. Hands up if you know. Anyone? Anyone? Alright, humanising a monster enables the creation of more monsters.

I mean, consider that if you're telling people that you eventually won't be remembered as a soulless monster centuries after your death? It creates this comfort zone, it normalises the behaviours and actions of monsters past -- monsters like Hitler, Stalin, and the company they kept. And contemporary monsters who're so similar to them in thought -- if not action -- that it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

And that's why we must always remember them as monsters. It's important to remember that something can occupy a human shape, have white skin, and be one of the most cancerous, evil, destructive creatures to have ever walked this planet. All too often humans -- neurotypicals especially -- compartmentalise 'evil' as 'not like us.' This can go as far as the ludicrous, such as using fantasy creatures to embody evil, but it manifests also in much more dangerous ways.

Such as believing only black people can be evil, because they're black.

Okay, I'm going to take the train down a different rail for now into Segue Valley, I promise it'll all make sense in the end. In The Elder Scrolls Online, a video game, I was intrigued by how the factions actually handled the 'evil' they were dealing with. And oh my, it was fascinating. I could write an entire dissertation on this because everything about the creation of this sometimes wonderful, sometimes typical game is telling.

There are three factions: The Pact, the Covenant, and the Dominion.

The Pact and the Covenant are equally as guilty of demonising 'that which isn't like us' as the only existant source of evil; I feel that this writing is very appealing to neurotypicals who tend to filter everything through us vs. them thinking, as confounding, vexing, and utterly disappointing as that invariably is. It's wearisome, really. I'm tired of it, I'll say that!

The Pact and the Covenant are reminiscent of how groups like the Alt-Right see the world -- Groups who're clearly less actualised people, less independent thinkers who want sociopaths to handle all of that for them. They'd rather have an icon tell them how to think or feel; It's the same reason people buy Apple phones. They want someone to tell them what to think, how to feel; All it takes is for a charismatic sociopath to step boldly into that void.

Do note the drop in Apple's popularity since the loss of Steve Jobs, yes?

Anyway, you'll notice there's a third faction I haven't spoken of: The Dominion. They're an interesting bunch, they are. They barely take notice of the other factions because that's just war, and war has never been the most compelling narrative concept. Falling back on such a staid concept which has so much baggage and weight to it feels creatively bankrupt.

So the Dominion doesn't do that because they don't want to engage in this us vs. them problem. Instead, the Dominion focuses on 'us' with the pertinent, erudite realisation that there are problems amongst 'us' and that we're not a homogeneous hivemind, that even within the perceived melange of 'us' there are many different opinions and ideologies. If I had to put it bluntly, the plot of the Dominion is about a fantasy Alt-Right.

And it's so cathartic to punch Nazi elves in the face.

I can't even... I mean, it's just really cathartic. Usually I'm witness to fantasy compartmentalising 'evil' as 'not like us,' which I mentioned prior, which often means having dragons to slay. Couldn't have a wise and kind draig instead of dragons, nooo, that simply isn't done. One has to compartmentalise 'evil' as 'them,' don't you know, because neurotypicals are the only audience. Well, the Dominion plotline isn't that. And it's bloody cathartic.

There's even a fantasy concentration camp where the Nazi elves are trying to break and brainwash their enemies into seeing themselves as innately inferior. You get to punch THOSE Nazi elves in the face, too.

Quoth Savage Dragon: Always punch a Nazi.

Always. ALWAYS.

Since Nazi isn't a person, or a place, it's a CONCEPT. This is something that I'll see neurotypicals trip over time and time again; It's why we have neo-Nazis and the Alt-Right to contend with, now. Nazism ins't indicative of Germany, or any place, or any point in history; It's where the ideology was born, yes, but note what it is -- an ideology. It could exist at any point or time, and it still does exist in the minds of every Alt-Right person.

A Nazi doesn't have to be white, or male, or anything you might assume is baggage to the ideology -- a Nazi is simply a person who took 'us vs. them' too far and became a monster, either through acts of atrocity or the desire to commit them.

In the case of the Alt-Right? The desire is crossing over into reality, I'd recommend a little light reading via Google as to how murder and terror crimes committed by the Alt-Right and other, similar, far-right groups are rising all the time.

Charlottesville was the tip of a nasty ice berg.

Some people saw it coming; I mean, white supremacists have always been around and The Elder Scrolls Online was already in development before the rise of the Alt-Right. Except the Dominion has an Alt-Right story -- because both the Veiled Heritance in The Elder Scrolls Online and the Alt-Right in this reality we call home are based on Nazi ideology.

And you should always punch a Nazi.

Throughout history we have had names for people who've embraced being a monster by taking 'us vs. them' too far, and that's coalesced into Nazi as the quintessence of these very unfortunate people, people who've sold their humanity to follow the most petty of ideals.

It's why people have started taking to calling the Alt-Right Nazis, that's just what they are. See a Nazi, say Nazi! Because it's a bloody Nazi. Nazi notions, though, can be found in all walks of life and can often be used to identify the sorts of people who should be avoided, who shouldn't ever have any power at all. I'm actually glad that The Elder Scrolls Online recognises that, I just wish reality would follow suit.

In reality we should be punching more Nazis, both figuratively and literally. As it's not okay to be a monster.

Neurotypicals have gotten so good at compartmentalising the concepts of evil that when asked to 'visualise evil' most of them would think of dragons or devils rather than a creature like Hitler, and that's tremendously troubling. There was this fridge horror element to it for me, at least, where the realisation compounded itself, more and more, that these woefully deluded people occupy the same reality that I do.

I don't see dragons or devils in my reality; I do see Hitler, the Alt-Right, and people who take 'us vs. them' thinking far too far. They're the monsters I see, they don't have scaly hides, they're humans, just like the one I imagine is reading this. If anyone does.

It's this compartmentalising of evil that allows for the most bizarre constructs to be built, too. I mean, fantasy racism is one of hte most fascinating topics for me because it's so illustrative of this problem that neurotypicals have -- that they can't escape from. I'm going to cite another game, now, before we leave Segue Valley.

Guild Wars.

In the original Guild Wars, the players were propagandised by the perspective of a group of humans called the Ascalonians to see the charr as evil. Whereas in reality the Ascalonians were more like Nazi Germany, just depicted as idyllic and good from the perspective of the player within the game.

It was an unintentional social expeirment, I think, but one of the most truly, genuinely profound and important ones I've witnessed in a long time.

I wholeheartedly invite psych researchers to look into this. Please do! It's enlightening and terrifying.

Anyway -- It was revealed that Ascalon was literally Nazi Germany, committing genocide against a race that couldn't really fight back (since the humans had superior firepower in the form of their gods, as an abstract of contemporary nations with more advanced technology than others). It's an accepted truth that the Ascalonians were slaughtering the women, children, and innocents of this race simply because their ruling body believed these 'creatures' to be nothing more than animals.

Animals who could be cleared out to make space for the humans.

The 'animals,' the charr, were sent into disarray and due to this chaos a very negative faction within the charr who'd been a joke up until this point took power. Sound familiar?

They enslaved the rest of the charr with the power of yet another god they'd allied with and used that god's power to nuke the Ascalonian peoples. This was depicted from the Ascalonian perspective as 'evil monsters who rained devastation down upon us and stole our home.'

Actually, the charr were just reclaiming their ancestral homes and burial grounds; Where they roamed for billions of years before the Ascalonians even turned up on the scene.

The charr eventually freed themselves from the enslavement of the aforementioned malevolent faction and cast them out; They did what they could to make reparations with the Ascalonians, being the first of the two to reach out and try to make peace -- according to the lore.

So, let's recap...

Ascalonians -- Genocidal Maniacs:

Slaughtered most of an indigineous species;

Stole lands from an indigineous species using whatever underhanded tactics they could;

Propagandised their people into believing that the creatures they were slaughtering were naturally evil despite plenty of evidence to the contrary;

Used the retaliation of the charr to further propagandise them and play the victim.

Charr -- Unfortunate Natives:

They were culled almost to the point of extinction;

They had their lands stolen;

They were enslaved by a faction of their own kind;

They rose up against their enslavers and cast them out;

They tried to make peace with the Ascalonians.

Essentially, the charr are a fantasy allegory of some of the troubles Native Americans were faced with when their lands were invaded by European colonists. The charr had more agency, obviously, but there are still a number of rather obvious parallels there.

Now, a sane person would realise that the Ascalonians had a spotty history that they daren't repeat, that the charr were the victims of all that the Ascalonians set in motion. Right? Weeeell...

A sane person would.

However, there were plenty of people who were angry to have their conditioning questioned. They talked about the charr in the same way that Alt-Right people talk about black people; They mocked, derided, and depicted those who played charr as lesser human beings. It even went far enough that some well known charr players received death threats.

And this is fascinating to me.

What is intriguing to me is that where The Elder Scrolls Online makes it clear that the concept of supremacy is the enemy rather than the people who hold those beliefs, and thus that position is adopted by the players? With Guild Wars, those who played as Ascalonians actively hate the charr; There were so many unironic rants about why the charr should all die it frankly made my head spin.

I don't want to say this but it keeps coming up that neurotypicals always appear to be bad at abstracts -- they blame the person rather than the concept. The irony that I am blaming neurotypicals rather than concepts isn't lost on me, yet the truth is is that I can't ignore the science. The patterns of neurotypical behaviour depict overly literal thinking.

It's why it's so easy to convince neurotypicals to hate a 'them.'

I've mentioned before that humanity should see itself as having three enemies:

Supremacy – Where any person believes themselves to be better than another; Enforced Suffering – Where any person is forced to experience torture and anguish against their will; Institutionalised Uselessness – Where the world is designed in such a way that some people are never allowed to offer their worth.

And this should be all of humanity, regardless of one's gender, ethnicity, minority, or any other factor. We should all be united against these three particularly cancerous, surreptitiously creeping evils.

Which finally brings me to my point. The train is now entering a tunnel out of Segue Valley.

Eugenics hasn't gone away -- the target has changed. For whatever reason, neurotypicals love eugenics because they can't separate themselves from the overly literal position of 'us vs. them.' Again, I realise the irony of this. It's painfully obvious, I promise you, but it's akin to Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance.

You see, the Paradox of Tolerance says that the nature of tolerance is that we should be tolerant of all people, all ideas, and all concepts; This is the very definition of tolerance. And yet, if we were to enact this, we would then be tolerant of intolerance as well.

In this scenario, intolerance would quickly overwhelm tolerance; As tolerance tolerates intolerance, but intolerance doesn't tolerate tolerance. I know... I know, try to stay with me, here. It makes my head spin too, even though it's completely logical and it makes a good amount of sense.

So you can't be tolerant of intolerance. You specifically have to be intolerant of intolerance for tolerance to survive. Therefore, being intolerant specifically of intolerance is necessary for the survival of tolerance.

I hated having to type that. I'm sorry. I hope you understand.

The same is true of neurotypicals, however; I see that there appears to be a genetic basis that compels a neurotypical mind into 'us vs. them' thinking. I want there to be a study about this as I'm 99 per cent certain I'm correct. I'm not 100 per cent certain as there are no facts, only probabilities backed up by evidence and proof.

Though through my life experiences I'm as sure as I can be; Every neurotypical I've met has this problem. Does this mean that autistic people don't. No, oh dear me, no. We absolutely do. The difference is, though, that we have total awareness of this factor as a problematic element of our own minds. Whereas despite my best efforts, no matter how hard I've genuinely tried, I cannot share this awareness with neurotypicals. I can't. I've tried.

I've tried to explain it in the simplest terms; I've tried to explain it in the most complex terms; I've tried to have an autistic person with better social skills than my own explain it to neurotypicals...

They can't grasp it. I don't know why. Honestly, I'd even go so far as to say that if you're able to grasp this as a problem, to see it within yourself as others as an issue that needs to be dealt with? You're probably not neurotypical.

And that's the thing. I see it in myself. They can't accept that this is a part of their own minds; They believe themselves to be immune to this 'us vs. them' thinking, especially in its more extreme form. They'll then turn around and say something so racist it makes me feel ill.

Eugenics can't go away because of the way neurotypicals are wired. And here's where it gets...

Okay, here's where you might want to stop reading, really. I mean, this terrifies me. It's interesting, yet at the same time it reads like the plot of a dystopian horror novel. It's the world we live in but there is that dissonance there. How can it be so bad? Eugeniscs is here, and the target is now people who aren't neurodiverse.

Cure autism, they say. And cure other forms of neurodiversity which aren't harmful to the person or those around them; In fact, to the contrary, autism seems to create a degree of affective empathy for other people that the neurotypical mind lacks. We know that to be scientifically true, so why would we want to elminate empathy? Isn't empathy a good thing?

Why would you want to remove the people who're aware that 'us vs. them' are a problem, as a concept, rather than seeing a literal 'them' as the problem?

Ask that question.

I ask that question, and I feel scared. I feel scared for autistic children with bad neurotypical parents who blame their kids for their problems rather than recognising their own ineptitude and applying for training on raising an autistic kid, or giving up their kid to a foster home who could raise them better.

I feel scared for vulnerable autistic people who're stuck in institutions like the Judge Rotenberg Centre (which still hasn't been shut down, and I would very much like for you to Google that). I feel scared for autistic people who're bullied by those without autism into wanting their autism cured.

I'm scared of neurotypicals who want to 'cure' us; Because we're not 'us,' are we? We're 'them.' And that's a real problem for neurotypicals, isn't it? We're just a homogeneous mass of 'them' that needs to be cured. A compartmentalised evil.

I think the last, great war will be between people who don't want to be 'cured' and the people who want to 'cure' them, the people who'd have access to CRISPR-cas9 bombs to rewrite their enemies on the fly, who'd be able to holographically edit memories.

And yes, we can do both of those things, now. Hop on over to Google and research them. It's why I'm so scared of neurotypicals.

In the end, the only ones left standing will be those who don't want to be 'cured,' or those who want to 'cure.' I hate that this is the only future available to us, frankly. I can't believe there's another path because neurotypicals won't ever speak up for autistic people, they just see us as 'them' and it's better if all neurodiverse people are 'cured' (killed or reformatted to be exactly like neurotypicals) because that removes the 'them.'

Welcome to the era of nugenics, its clarion call is 'cure autism.'

A little melodramatic, but the point had to be made, yes. Has this helped anyone? Have I finally managed to explain to neurotypicals why 'us vs. them' is the problem, not 'them?' Is this the explanation that finally works? That I don't want to believe this Universality of neurotypicals is why I keep trying, yet I'm scared that this is precisely why we'll 'lose.'

We want to try and see neurotypicals as 'us,' neurotypicals don't extend that kindness our way. Ever. I'd like to be wrong.

Also, I'm going to call it: The Aldmeri Dominion lead writer at Zenimax Online Studios is as neurodiverse AF.

Wrapping this up? Perhaps I'm wrong, there might be another reason for the divide between people who believe the problem is 'them,' and people who believe the problem is 'us vs. them' other than the neurodiverse and neurotypicals. There might be another brain issue responsible for it. From where I sit, though, after all of my life experiences and now dealing with this new torrent of 'cure autism?' I think I'm right.

I don't want to be. I fight the idea of being right about this but neurotypicals seem intent to cram it down my throat.

So, indeed, welcome to the era of nugenics where neurotypicals cry 'cure autism.'

I wish it were different. I want it to be different.

I want it to be different because I don't think anyone has to be evil. I'd rather get to a point where we don't need the icons of those who adopted evil ideologies to remind us of what a monster looks like. And again, it's not the person -- I do fully understand that and I've written paragraphs explaining that, but we have to recognise that adopting an evil ideology invariably results in a monster.

What evil is shouldn't be compartmentalised into 'them.' Evil can be anyone of us, them, or anyone else who adopts a truly sick ideology, one that adopts any of the three sources of pain. I'll recount those here as I can't stress them enough.

Supremacy – Where any person believes themselves to be better than another;

Enforced Suffering – Where any person is forced to experience torture and anguish against their will;

Institutionalised Uselessness – Where the world is designed in such a way that some people are never allowed to offer their worth.

This is what we have to fight. It's not a person, with a face. it's bad ideas. Bad ideas that can make those who have them remarkably evil.

Curing autism trips over all three of those.

Supremacy -- The belief that neurotypicals are the default state, innately superior to neurodiverse people in every way, so curing autism is the correct response;

Enforced Suffering -- Eradicating a person's identity via a 'cure,' which we've seen before with 'treatments' like ECT and ICT, which had no result other than to destroy lives;

Institutionalised Uselessness -- The belief that because a neurodiverse person thinks differently and has impaired social skills, they have nothing to offer to the world, to any venture or business, and thus should be 'cured' for their own good.

Why do you not understand this, no matter how much we try to explain? We're not 'them,' we're 'you.' We're all humans, we're all made of star stuff. Yes, certainly, we're all individuals but if we're all sapient, feeling creatures who mean no harm to any other, shoudln't we be equal?

Don't 'help' autistic people by 'curing' them. Help autistic people by trying to understand how they're different. I know it isn't comfortable, or easy, but that leads to the best end result for all of us. Sadly, I don't see that one being the future of humanity as i don't have that much faith...

Fool that I am, though, I want to hope.

The reality is likely going to eventually be autistic people being rounded up into 'care hospitals' to be 'cured' by force, sure to be eventually remembered as the new holocaust. Not soon enough to stop it from actually happening, though... And I'm terrified of that.