#the emotional torture of rogue like

[x-mensirens]

"Habe keine Angst."

[crows-of-buckets]

One thing I really wish about crow rook, would them just refusing to admit that their training was basically torture.

In casual conversation dropping about how viago broke their hand once during training, and how much of a bitch it was to heal, but immediately defending it because they've never forgotten to keep their hands protected in a fight.

Or maybe they do know it was torture. Maybe they know it was abuse and not something that should have been done to a child, but if they think about that they would have to reconstruct the idea of Viago in their mind. Viago the man who saved them, the man who trained them, the man who also tortured them. I think an internal struggle of 'but that torture kept me alive. I'm only breathing because of my lessons paid in my own blood' would have done so much for the crows

And maybe they see it reflected in Lucanis's stories. And hearing about Caterina and Lucanis, they can't reason it away with sentimentally. Maybe they try to. Lucanis survived a year of torture. Was that because of Caterina? Or because of Lucanis's own spirit?

Idk, I think crow rook could have been an interesting story about the crows. Because in other back stories, it makes sense that the crows would try to boast about freedom and how they defend their city. Make themselves look good to their new allies. But crow rook would have known about the blood underneath, and the bruises and the welts and the cuts. And maybe they can't forgive Viago - maybe they can. Maybe they have to, because if they don't then they lose their only family. Maybe they know Viago only wanted them to survive. Maybe they don't know if that makes it better or worse.

Sorry forever mourning that the crows aren't actually morally gray it could have been such a neat story about their internal abuse and how the system itself works. The only previous crow companion we had talks about how bad his torture was; a blood bath, a survival of the fittest. When asked about their training, crow rook can reply 'it was torture'. I wish there was some idk depth to it? It's implied that house de Riva does training differently from house arianai, which makes sense as clearly that did NOT work out for house arianai. However rook was personally trained by Viago (from what I understand. Talking to Heir at the casino reveals that rook never trained with her, and also received the best training they could. Probably training from the talon himself). That couldn't have been easy training.

Yet even through all that, it's clear Viago does care about them! Any other crow would be dead if they went rogue on a job like rook did, yet Viago only sends them away.

I don't remember where I was going with this but. I think Rook de Riva should be allowed some complicated emotions about their training and viago. As a treat

[midnighthazee]

Greenridge ABO Series

Series Masterlist Masterlist

Characters:

I just kinda made things up for them/their personalities. Sorry if it's weird or cringe. Also.... sorry to be another "Alpha I.N." story as well but I like the idea lol

Omega Y/N L/N

- Bought at a young age by the Nyko pack. 

- Abused by them (mostly the alpha) and forced submission (almost died from a sub drop once).

- Lived with them for nearly ten years.

- Convinced you that the neighboring packs are worse than he is....they would kill her just for being on their property unwelcomed.

GREENRIDGE PACK

Alpha Chan

Leader of the Greenridge Pack

Amber eyes, black hair

True Alpha known to be ruthless

Rumour is he killed his older brother to be Alpha (did not, was there when he was murdered and got blamed)

Protective of his own 

Secretly a softie for those he holds dear - barely sleeps worrying over his pack

Doesn’t do well with disobedience/defiance

Usually with Jisung or Seungmin during his ruts

Alpha Minho

Second to Chan

Menace

Brown hair, dark eyes

Doesn’t open up to people easily

Refuses to submit to anyone but Chan

Helps guide Jeongin and teach him how to control his Alpha urges

House chef

Favors Jisung to help with his rut

Gets aggressive leading up to and during his ruts if he doesn’t get what he wants

Beta Changbin

Head Beta

Dark hair, dark eyes

Keeps the other Betas in check

In charge of training to keep everyone in shape and fight ready

Also does interrogation with Minho and tortures if needed

Intimidating but softie

Gets babyish and pouty leading up to his rut (and during)

Pouts and begs for Hyunjin to help with his rut (eventually Hyunjin reluctantly caves)

Beta Hyunjin

Quiet, keeps to himself

Best tracker and hunter

Black hair, dark eyes

Tech savvy and good at reading people

Becomes clingy and touchy leading up to and on his rut, slightly aggressive during it. Very jealous

Prefers Felix or Changbin during his ruts

Beta Jisung

Loud and boisterous

Brown hair, dark eyes

Impulsive and acts without thinking a lot

Has the messiest room

Gets aggressive leading up to his ruts and Only minho gets thru to him.

Prefers Minho during his ruts

Beta Felix

Sweet and kind

Blonde hair, blue eyes

VERY Sensitive to emotions

Trusts too easily

Usually helps Minho with cooking

Training to be pack medic with Doc Quinn

Prefers Minho or Seungmin during ruts (likes it rough)

Very emotional leading up to and during his ruts and exhausts himself worrying about everything.

Beta Seungmin

Laid back and even tempered. Takes awhile to get a rise out of him.

Light hair, dark eyes

Reads often and likes photography

Leading up to his rut, his tolerance is shorter and he gets lazier. 

Usually gets help from Minho or Felix with his rut

Alpha Jeongin

Newly presented alpha

Was thought to be a beta originally

Dark eyes, dark hair with highlights

Eager to learn from Minho

Does well with just the boys - only an occasional loss of temper

Still training and practice with Omegas, pheromone control, and urges

Gets antsy and quick tempered leading up to and during ruts

Usually has Chan or hyunjin help him

They are all mates with each other so yeah LOL

I'm VERY OT8 for SKZ but I do have a bias....hopefully I don't make it obvious :)

Doctor Quinn

Pack medic

Also helps with a few other ally packs but priority is Greenridge

35 years old

Been tending to injured since she was 15

Rogue Beta

NYKO PACK

Alpha Lewis

Leader of the Nyko Pack

Has 2 little brothers in the pack: Hayes and Milo

Pack also contains 4 other betas and 3 omegas (including y/n)

Used y/n for his own needs and couldn’t care less about her 

Keeps her locked in the basement until he’s ready to use her.

Ruthless and feared by most the neighboring packs. No one dares to cross him

Took over 2 neighboring packs and expanded his territory, gaining their numbers as well

Alpha Hayes

Little brother of Lewis

Alpha in training

Older than Milo by 1 year

Beta Milo

Little brother of Hayes and Lewis

With Hayes always doing the alpha’s bidding

Other Betas:

Samuel

Triston

Frankie

Mallory

Omegas:

Y/n

Asher

Harper

[clarencethemouse]

Bleeding Light (pt. 1)

Nightcrawler x reader

because I'm feral and no one can stop me :)

This has been festering rotting in my brain for a week. This reads like a whole story (and a long one, because I have a lot of thoughts), but my brain spouts better as bullets. So it's bullets. But as a story. Enjoy :))

(also I totally may write out a proper story later. But you get the lore right now)

the Pining.

let it be known that it was mutual. And it was mutual for a Long Time

You were already with someone else when you two met. With his never-ending charm, wit, and kindness, it didn't take long for you to hit it off as good friends.

this soon became a close friendship, often closer emotionally than you were with your partner. You were a mutant, unbeknownst to your partner (out of shame). You trusted them, and they respected mutants, but by the time you gained the courage to tell them, you felt it was too late to risk losing their trust over such a crucial lie. So you maintained this front, masterfully, for over a year

with Kurt, you didn't feel the need to hide. He understood. With him, you could bond and relate life stories in ways you could never with your long-term partner.

it was soon that you began to realize your feelings for Kurt were stretching farther than any other friendship before. And that you liked Kurt more than you ever loved your partner

this tore you up, and you became wracked with guilt. You didn't know how to end it with your partner, though you knew it had to be done. You still loved and cherished the person you spent the last year with, but it wasn't fair to them

over the last several months you two had planned a future together. It was a critical time of your life to gain independence, move out of home, and start your own journeys of life. For so long, you wanted to start this new life with them. It wasn't so simple as breaking up. Their, and your, near future was built upon the assumption that you would marry, as you did love them.

but not as much as you liked Kurt.

Your choice was made when you finally sat down with them and revealed your mutation. One thin cut was made on your hand. Light poured from the skin, igniting both of your faces in shock and fear. As the white blood trickled down your palm, your partner demanded why. Why could you keep this from them? Why did you withhold such an important part of you for so long?

when you could provide no answer they deserved, they walked out.

with your future with them obliterated, you had nowhere to turn. Nowhere to go to escape the psychological torture (and emotional abuse) of your parents' failed marriage. When you turned to Kurt for a deep shoulder to cry on, he provided an answer. An answer he knew would be best for you, and cursed himself that he was more excited about what it could mean for him. The X-Mansion

it only took mere days before you packed everything of value and were stationed at the mansion. It didn't take long for Kurt to convince the professor to let you stay, at least for as long as it took you to get on your feet on your own (and he wanted you to stay because... reasons).

you were more than happy to suggest doing your part as a teacher for the school

settling into the flow of the school, and life so close to people just like you, was a struggle eased by Kurt. He was the new kid before, and just as he had Rogue, you had him.

soon you built your own social circle and support group of friends, fitting perfectly into the puzzle that is the X-Men family. Soon, you were able to grieve your lost love and move on with the world you were always meant for.

...it did not take long for everyone to notice the brighter smiles you offered Kurt. The glances you sent him after making your witty, slightly dirty comments. How he was the first person you sat with during movie night, resting your head on his shoulder as you both grew tired. How you distracted yourself during end-of-the-day classes, searching for him in the hall through the window in your classroom door. How he was the only one you didn't hide the blinding paper cuts and golden scraped knees from.

and it did not take long for everyone to notice the way his tail whipped more excitedly the instant you entered the room. The way he recalled you explaining your day so enthusiastically as if you were the brightest, most wise creature to grace the planet. The way he was always the first to appear by your side after a more gruesome training session, examining every inch of your visible body more thoroughly than Beast. The way when he would let you down after a piggyback ride, his smile faltered ever so slightly to stop touching you.

so Rogue and Gambit formed a plan. Because that's what good friends do

she worked on whittling you down to admit it to yourself. He was happy to encourage Kurt to take more forward action with you. Jubilee soon joined in the plan, and soon there was a whole network of friends conspiring to get you two together because GOD WE ALL SEE IT. THE STUDENTS SEE IT. THE PIGEONS SEE IT. CHARLES AND JEAN HAVE TO SEE IT IN YOUR MINDS EVERY DAMN DAY. GET A ROOM.

and it works

Rogue got it out of you quickly. She was able to help you sort out your feelings and stop feeling so guilty about the past. You did what had to be done, and you never would have been truly happy with your old partner living a life of lies. But you can't lie to Kurt. He knew you deeper than anyone without even trying, and you wished to God he could know you a little better.

it took a month before Gambit was finally able to convince Kurt that you were struggling just the same. Because as much as the man flirted, teased, and worked himself into our attention by any means possible, he could not shake the dreaded pit feeling that you were still someone else's. You were still just out of his reach, and he would never know the feeling of your beautiful lips; your hands beyond high fives and thumb wrestling matches. Never have the honor to show the world everything he wished he could have with you

Kurt met you on the mansion roof. You were minding your business; reading a book and playing with light over the shadows. You didn't want to come inside. And if you were on the roof, that's where Kurt was gonna make himself comfortable. He would hang by the cell tower by just his tail if it meant you would talk to him. Anything if it meant he could tell you the truth.

it started with you looking over at him in a moment of silence, when you truly had no inclination to think he was there with any ulterior motive. Just one thought on the tip of your tongue

"You're so beautiful."

kurt.exe has stopped working

neither of you left the roof. The night wrapped with your head on his chest and his hand in your hair, him wondering where the absolute Hell it all went wrong.

you did wake up around 2 a.m. Sitting up abruptly at the surprise of your position, you were met with Kurt's golden eyes already awake and on you. No one beyond you two knows what happened on the roof that night, but your relationship changed. No more hiding.

when you returned to your lives the next morning, the others didn't need to be told that the mission was successful. Your smiles and bright eyes shared the whole story

[qm-vox]

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

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

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

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

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

Without further ado, let us begin with...

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

We begin the obligatory text wall.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm not fucking bitter, you are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That said, let's actually talk about Cleric.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which brings us, at long last, to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Pratchett quotes will continue until morale improves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Playing With The Big Boys Now - Cleric Aesthetics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm not bitter, you're bitter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The People In The Important Pajamas - "Cleric" NPCs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, without further ado, may I present:

The Chosen Many - Sample Clerics

Our sample Clerics will be formatted as follows:

[NAME]

Species Domain Cleric [Background]

General pitch of their concept & plot hooks

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

Matthias Winters

Human Death Cleric [Guild Artisan]

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

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

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

Elrissa Morrowmoon

Drow War Cleric [Soldier]

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

She was answered.

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

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

Gemma Rivergard

Half-Elf Forge Cleric [Noble]

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

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

…Surely not?

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

Neela Wagonborn

Halfling Trickery Cleric [Haunted One]

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

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

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

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

Fila Firetouched

High Elf Tempest Cleric [Entertainer]

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

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

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

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

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

Nattie Kells

Human Order Cleric [Hermit]

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

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

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

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

Dagill Tapper

Shield Dwarf Knowledge Cleric [Background]

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

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

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

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

St. Nokta Kinslayer

Goblin Life Cleric [Outlander]

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

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

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

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

Jelka Threebones

Orc Grave Cleric [Acolyte]

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

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

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

Kellard Frosthalt

Rock Gnome Nature Cleric [Folk Hero]

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

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

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

Dolly Bookchild

Half-Drow Peace Cleric [Investigator]

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

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

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

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

Jonas Cobbler

Aasimar Light Cleric [Urchin]

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

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

...Lathander.

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

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

Freddie Wright

Human Twilight Cleric [Criminal]

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

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

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

[the-amazing-digital-guardians-au]

The Amazing Digital Circus: Guardian AU

My TADC AU is now up and running! I will be making a poster, character cards, general art, and possibly comics based around the storyline. Here’s the information!:

Description:

Caine is the ringmaster and ruler of The Amazing Digital Circus, but there are some things that even he can’t control. NPCs go rogue all the time, often acting out and trying to genuinely hurt the circus members as they go on adventures. Because of this, Caine has always appointed two circus members he deems the most worthy to protect him and others from danger. They have been different over the years (mainly due to abstractions), but currently Jax and Ragatha are his Guardians. The two of them are more privileged than the regular circus members: they are allowed to wield weapons, swear, indulge in vices, and the like as long as they do so in private, do their jobs well, and don’t disrupt the "family-friendly" atmosphere of the circus. Caine trusts them…or so he says. And to make matters worse, it looks like NPCs are forming an uprising to overthrow Caine, led by none other than a revived Gummigoo! Travel through the colorful world of TADC, but covered in a grimy layer of violence, corruption, and deception.

Who will the story focus on:

Caine

Abel

Pomni 

Jax

Ragatha

Kinger and Queenie

Princess Loo, Gummigoo, and other/more NPCs as the canon Digital Circus web series progresses

Genre:

Religious and psychological horror

Comedy

Action

Philosophical(?)

Content Warning - Anything produced for this AU may have any of the following elements:

Religious themes

Implied/referenced torture 

Blood (No gore, but this may change in the future)

Mental health issues 

War themes

Gambling

Alcohol and Drugs

Foul Language

This AU is recommended for ages 16+. The creator of this blog is 18.

…Wait, there’s more?!

FAQ:

Can I make fanart?

Yes, fanart is encouraged and always appreciated! Just make sure to credit me as the creator when needed. Do not use my creations if you are hateful/racist/sexist/anti-LGBTQ or just problematic in any other way. I don’t want what I make to be associated with these things. As for NSFW stuff…I would prefer if you didn’t. (Okay, well…now that I think about it, sure, go ahead, go crazy. But please don’t send it to me, I don’t really wanna see it. And tag it appropriately! Be mindful of others!) Ocs are allowed!! Ships (Canon x Canon, Canon x OC, OC x OC, whatever) are allowed! Tag me in anything as long as it’s SFW. Seriously, do whatever you want!

What are the religious themes?

Christianity. I am a Christian myself, but I also really enjoy religious horror and researching different religions. Does Pomni represent Jesus in this story? Not really. But, I will be using themes/images of Christianity (like angels, for example) to enhance the horror. I also like studying Japanese and Chinese mythological figures, purely out of interest. I will never try to push my beliefs onto the audience in any way. People can believe in whatever they want!

Are there any ships?

Bunnydoll (Jax x Ragatha) is the main ship. It is mostly implied/referenced and nothing overly romantic happens. The story focuses on their emotional bond since they are both Caine’s guardians. If you don’t like the ship, please don’t be rude to people who do. And if you do like the ship, don’t be rude to people who don’t! There’s enough hate on the internet already. Just be mindful that we all like different things, and have fun!

How will the story be told?

Through comics, probably. It’s easier for me to write things in a document (as a script) and then draw, so it will take time. I will also make art on the side that may or may not have canon information or events. It depends.

What inspired you?

The 70s (lots of yellow, orange and brown colors), Skinnamarink, religious horror, vintage Las Vegas, vintage snacks, and other random stuff. I have specific inspirations for different characters. But my inspiration to even start this project is definitely @/burrotello and The Amazing Digital Fight Club AU. It’s awesome!

Can I ask questions about characters, the story, etc?

Yes, but if it’s an answer I don’t want to reveal yet…well, we’ll see what happens. Sometimes, I will make drawings where a character reacts or responds!

[rei-ismyname]

Logan tried to murder Chuck. What then?

After the sun set on Krakoa and the dust settled, Charles Xavier surrendered himself to 'human authorities.' He was being transported to his super prison built by Reed Snitchards and Tony Nark when...

Logan came to kill him in a very unsubtle way. Surely those guards died or at minimum suffered serious permanent injuries. What little we get of his motivation is an objection to Chuck's time as Sentinel X - killing a bunch of humans. Logan Behavior, basically. Certainly hypocrisy.

Pretty stylish entrance though, The Shining style. He's just about to gut him after Chuck declines explaining himself or speaking at all. Keep in mind resurrection Protocols just phased into another dimension - Logan is aiming to kill Xavier permanently (comic book permanent obviously) here despite the fact he's going to prison for life. He'd actually be subverting punitive state justice here.

I hardly need to say that this is pretty extreme for Logan. He's killed countless people, but for the last few decades he's worshipped the ground Charles walks on. After AvX, when Chuck committed suicide by Phoenix, Logan appointed himself the custodian of 'the dream' and ran the school (though he renamed it after Jean because he's a creepy and petty man.) Cyclops is often held up as Chuck's heir, but I think Logan is just as much. (Though Jean and Storm beat them both out and surpass him.) Maybe this is a hypocritical broken pedestal moment.

Magneto objects, freezing him in place and proclaiming 'no more martyrs.'

Did you know 9/10 failed murderers say 'cripes?'

Then he yeets him out of the prison and levitates it so he can't get back in. Mags and Chuck have a chat and we see nothing of Logan until Wolverine #1.

These people all need therapy. Emotional intelligence so low.

That murderous unilateral motivation seems to have cooled - 'Charles doin' what he did' is third on his list of things that took their toll. Not to minimise his pain, but everyone else has experienced those things too. Many had it worse. Scott, for example, was tortured for six months with his eyes sewn shut and a broken back (which... healed somehow.) If someone else was doing this he'd call them out at best, more likely he'd tell them to get over it. This is #Logan Behavior, though it's weird he doesn't mention Daken's death.

Brief aside - was he truly needed in the pack? I can't see what use a throng of wolves would have for a naked guy with opposite sleep patterns, very different dietary requirements, and the inability to breed with them. His presence got them killed. He was tolerated at best, more likely an imposition. Kevin Costner motherfucker.

I'm 99% sure this is next chronologically. Scott says Logan was 'in the area so he asked him to investigate' - 'the area' being Santo Marco, a fictional South American country that Magneto briefly conquered in 1963. The X-Men answered his distress call.

No mention of Chuck here, and he greets Scott warmly. No thank you though. They patch him up back at the Factory. Looks like he does have use for X-Men.

Wolverine can absolutely give up. It's his thing.

From 'I never should have left the woods' this has to be after Wolverine #1, but before Uncanny X-Men #1-4, because that takes place over a few days and the phone call between Rogue and Scott implies so. We only get the end of this conversation, but it's very safe to assume it was a soft recruitment offer and assumption of a family relationship. No mention of Chuck here either. He claims he's done, citing Krakoa as a loss. It is a loss, but it also bought back the 16 million Genoshan dead and established a mutant paradise in a heaven dimension - one he could have gone to.

Also, Logan didn't build shit. He had nothing to do with Genosha, in fact he opposed and obstructed it. He bailed on Utopia and the narrative kept genocidal threats away from the school. He had little to do with building Krakoa itself and while he went on the missions he was asked to, he remained a skeptic the entire time. He didn't trust the island and lived on the moon in a polycule. Anyway, he tells Scott not to come looking for him. I promise you he wouldn't say that to Jean.

Sure, stay in the woods, idiot. Get more wolves killed.

She's right, they're not strategists.

Looks like he's fine hanging out with Rogue and Gambit. Rogue seemed fine with joining Cyclops and co, but doesn't argue at all when Logan (who is hours away from leaving and has no intention of staying) shoots it down for... reasons? They were X-Men enough when they rescued him from Santo Marco, ingrate.

Neither should struggle to imagine a community 'run' by Scott Summers. Logan has been living with him for at least 3 years and he wasn't everywhere when Logan and Jean were banging. Rogue was on a Krakoan X-Men team with Scott and he and Jean prepped new leaders and stepped back. They all considered themselves Krakoan and Scott 'lived to serve.' How does it end this way? The Chuck question answers itself, though Logan doesn't say 'I wish Magneto didn't stop me killing him' or something. Scott? Uhhh, you took this misanthrope's grumbling as gospel. Go to Alaska and say hi! Or maybe he'll call you. Kate? Uhm, she just told you. She broke in Fall of X, you know this.

Interestingly, Logan uses the term 'fill Chuck's chair.' I thought he was quitting the parts that don't work? 'Why do you even want to?' should be self explanatory. Rogue receives a phone call after this from Scott, and she says he's 'the last person she wants to speak to.' Maybe Logan is right and he shouldn't be around people. He infected Rogue with Scott haterism very quickly.

The Outliers show up and less than a day later he leaves, heading for the nearest forest. Even the swamp hag that guts him thinks he's a whining bitch. Logan is aware that Rogue's group are planning a prison break, that children are being hunted, though it doesn't stop him leaving.

Put all this together and it paints a very human portrait of a traumatized person pushing everyone away, albeit in the most immature way possible. This is what Magneto referred to when he said Logan Behavior, and he's right. If I was talking about a real life person it'd be unforgivably callous, but I'm not. I wrote this piece to interrogate his continuity from Krakoa to FTA, and I was expecting it to make less sense to be honest. As I said, this is textbook trauma response. It portrays that well, but the whiplash of Logan going from 'murder Chuck no matter the collateral damage' to 'Chuck did bad things but Cyclops is worse - don't be friends with him, Rogue' is severe and unsatisfying.

Uncanny #700 was one of the last things written for Krakoa, so it's likely that information wasn't available for FTA writers. Except Logan and Kate had both sworn they'd kill Chuck with plenty of notice, so I don't think that deserves a pass. Is anyone surprised by this? Maybe I should just write a post that says 'From The Ashes doesn't care about smooth continuity and has clumsily broken up these teams by fiat. Just ask Havok, Polaris, Angel, Storm, Omega Red, Jubilee and Shogo, etc etc. Also, it's pretty fucking mid' and pin it on my Tumblr.

That's no fun though. Even when it sucks, when it's safe and nostalgic, when everything you loved has been swept away and replaced with cardboard cutouts, when it's 'fine I guess', and even when it's great; the play's the thing. I love the X-Men and fans have as much ownership of the story as anyone. Not entitlement, just the right to be a part of the narrative, close to the characters. I find it fun and if I ever don't I'll stop (or spend a few years covering Krakoa). I hope you do too. Importantly, you should be critical of the things you love in good faith. As for Marvel the capitalist entity - all bets are off. Fuck em. They do it for the money, we do it for the love.

[baldurs-writers-3]

This week, we have fics focusing on Tav! Check under the cut for eight fics that explore custom Tavs as they navigate the challenges of BG3. And as always, comment and kudos if you like them!

staeve multiverse by Deerna (30082,Not Rated) Warnings: Check individual fics for rating and content notes Pairings: Astarion/Halsin/Tav

This is a relatively large collection of fics surrounding Staeve, the drow rogue made by Velnna

Reccer says: Staeve is a super fun tav, and there are so many fun fics exploring his dynamic with his partners.

Be Worth Something by Masterangst12 (4445,Not Rated) Warnings: None Pairings: Astarion/Tav

Tav (named Axel) gives Astarion a present, a thoughtful gesture and Astarion sucks it up and returns the kindness by learning to comfort someone else for once.

Reccer says: I love how everyone picked up on the signs of Axel's self-worth issues, and I love Astarion's response to them even more

Under the Sussur Tree by spacesunderstairs (73724,Mature) Warnings: None Pairings: Astarion/Tav

Halinae (a reclusive drow bard) wakes up on a mindflayer ship and must find her way out.

Reccer says: I really like Halinae as a character, and enjoy seeing her interact with the various companions.

tomorrow (and tomorrow, and tomorrow) by maximumentropy (51352,Mature) Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Rape/Non-Con (though the non-con is not super explicit, if that helps), Self harm Pairings: Astarion/Halsin/Tav

Astarion is newly freed from Cazador, and Morrow is newly freed from their own abusive master. And Halsin? Halsin is the only one who knows the three of them are soulmates.

Reccer says: I really like Morrow as a character, and the way these three play off each other and grow together. Just very lovely all around

Fidelity by narla_hotep (102674,Mature) Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Body Horror Pairings: The Emperor/Tav

Fidelius was a thrall; a mind flayer's loyal servant who obeyed his master's every whim. But everything changed when the nautiloid descended. Now with his master missing and presumed dead, Del is free for the first time in decades... And he has absolutely no idea what to do with it.

Reccer says: The premise is executed so well, and the descriptions are wonderfully visceral.

Weight of The Crown by Nikolai_237 (2613,General) Warnings: None Pairings: Karlach/Tav

A young Archfey warlock attempts to become familiar with a mysterious power bestowed to him.

Reccer says: I really enjoy the feywild imagery, and Rivera is just a joy to read

And two fics each for:

Oathbreaker by Mellybaggins (186136,Explicit) Warnings: Dead dove content, major character death, rape, torture, religious trauma, gaslighting/emotional manipulation Pairings: Tav/Astarion, Tav/Halsin, Tav/OC

The fic follows Morwen, an oathbreaker paladin Tav through the events of the game, but also during her rich backstory as told through recovered suppressed memories.

Reccer #1 says: It seems to start as just another Tav fic but really takes off after Raphael messes with her and the suppressed traumatic memories start to resurface. Reccer #2 says: Morwen is such an interesting Tav, and I love fics that really dig into the divide between good vs evil, especially in such a dark way.

Until I Met You by onlymine139 (50846,Explicit) Warnings: None Pairings: Halsin/Tav

A slow burn that focuses on developing the relationship between Tav and Halsin during the events of BG3.

Reccer #1 says: It helps to fill in some of the gaps in the in game romance with Halsin as well as develop some cute friendships with the other companions. Heavy on Tav's (Tav'ahria) backstory as well, who was also present for the unleashing of the shadow curse. Reccer #2 says: I really enjoy the sweet back and forth between Tav and Halsin, and their companions' sometimes disastrous matchmaking attempts.

The above fanfic recommendations were pulled from our community for this weekly event. Have any questions about what this is? Check out the FAQ!

Next week, we’ll be back with Humorous Fics!

[cocostyles]

My tears ricochet — Sasuke Uchiha

pairing: Sasuke Uchiha x fem reader!

word count: 3k

summary: You have to live with the fact that Sasuke left the village.

warnings; angst, english is not my first language.

note: I have a love-hate relationship with Sasuke, but here’s another story, I hope you like it. Remember to check out the other stories I’ve uploaded. Thank you for the support you’ve given me!

The air was cold that night when Sasuke Uchiha left the village. To many, it was merely the act of a young man seeking power. But to you, it meant something else: the breaking of a bond you had sworn to protect.

Months had passed since his departure, but you still felt the void. At night, you remembered the days when you were just children, his gaze filled with sadness but also with hope. You used to sit next to him in the training field, offering moments of peace just with your presence, always ensuring he knew he wasn’t alone.

"Pain doesn’t define you, Sasuke," you had told him once. "You can use it to become stronger, but don’t let it consume you."

Those words felt so hollow now. He had forgotten them, or maybe he had never truly heard them.

The first time you saw him after he left was at the Valley of the End when Naruto pursued him to bring him back. You arrived late, too late. You found him standing there, his gaze cold as steel, looking at Naruto with detachment, at the boy who had been his best friend and now lay unconscious on the ground from Sasuke’s attacks.

The Valley of the End was wrapped in an unsettling and torturous silence; the battle was over, and Sasuke Uchiha stood before you. His eyes were cold and resolute, as if the boy who once shared his secrets, fears, and dreams no longer existed. To you, he wasn’t just another rogue ninja who had abandoned Konoha; he was the person you had given your heart to.

And now, you stood here, facing each other as enemies.

"Sasuke," you called, your voice broken with emotion.

He turned slowly toward you, his dark gaze locking onto yours. There was something strange in his expression, a mix of surprise and something you couldn’t quite decipher—a flicker of recognition that quickly faded.

"You shouldn’t be here," he said coldly.

You took a step forward, your eyes fighting against tears threatening to fall. "I can’t let you go down this path. Not like this."

"Do you really think you can stop me?" he asked, his tone full of mockery.

Swallowing hard, your heart pounded against your chest so fiercely that you felt even he could hear it. "I’m not here to fight you, Sasuke. I’m here because I care about you. Because I know there’s still good in you."

"You have no right to stop me," he replied. "This is what I need to do. You wouldn’t understand."

"Wouldn’t understand?" your voice cracked. "Sasuke, I’ve been with you from the beginning. I’ve seen how pain consumes you. But this… this isn’t justice. This is self-destruction."

He clenched his fists, his gaze hardening. "I don’t care what you think. This is for my clan. For my family."

"You once said I was your family too," you whispered.

For a moment, something seemed to shift in his expression. A spark of doubt. But it was fleeting.

"What we had doesn’t matter anymore," he said finally. "I can’t afford to be weak. I can’t afford to love you."

Those words hit you like a kunai to the chest. "Weak? Is that what you think I am to you?"

He admitted, almost in a whisper, "You’re the only thing that makes me hesitate."

Taking another step toward him, ignoring the distance he tried to maintain between you, you said, "Then don’t go, Sasuke. Stay and fight with me. Not against me."

He closed his eyes, as if your words tortured him. "I can’t."

Before you could respond, Sasuke raised his hand and stopped you with his Sharingan. In an instant, you felt immobilized, a tear rolling down your cheek.

"I’m sorry," was the last thing you heard before he disappeared into the distance.

When you regained control of your body, you fell to your knees on the hard ground, though you didn’t feel any physical pain. Your chest burned with a mix of rage and despair. You knew you had tried everything, that you had given everything. But even then, it hadn’t been enough to save him.

Returning to Konoha after that encounter felt like carrying an unbearable weight. Your brother Kakashi tried to comfort you, but even he knew there were no words to heal the wound Sasuke had left behind. Every day, you wondered if there was more you could have done, something that might have prevented his departure.

You had shared moments no one else knew, words that only made sense between the two of you.

The last time you had seen him before his departure, Sasuke was sitting on the same bench where he used to train with his team, the same place where you kissed for the first time. His face was a mask of indifference, but you knew that facade all too well.

"Sasuke, you can’t keep going like this, fighting Naruto, fighting all of us. We’re not your enemies," you told him as you sat down beside him.

"You have no idea what I need," he replied, not looking at you.

"Yes, I do," you insisted, reaching for his hand, though he pulled away. "I know you’re hurting, that you think the only way to find peace is through vengeance. But it won’t bring back what you lost."

He finally looked at you, and in his eyes, you saw something that made you shudder—a mix of despair and determination. "I can’t stay here. I can’t be weak."

"You’re choosing to destroy everything good you have. You realize that, don’t you?" Your voice broke as you spoke.

"What I have isn’t enough," he said, his final words before walking away, leaving you alone under the moonlight.

You didn’t go after him, nor did you tell anyone he had left. You gave him time to follow his path. That’s what he wanted, and there was nothing you could do to stop it.

In the days that followed, you avoided everyone, even Kakashi. You couldn’t stand the questions or the pitying looks your friends gave you. Your nights were spent sitting on that same bench, remembering his laughter, his fleeting smile, and the promises that had never been fulfilled.

Your tears couldn’t bring him back, yet they kept falling, echoing inside you as a painful reminder of what you had lost.

But deep down, you knew Sasuke still remembered you. You weren’t deluding yourself; you truly felt he thought of you, even if he chose the path of darkness. And that, though painful, was enough to keep a small spark of hope alive within you—a hope that one day he would find his way back.

Because even if your tears fell into the void, your love for him continued to shine like a beacon, waiting for the moment you could see him again.

Time had done nothing but deepen the wounds left by Sasuke’s departure. Years had passed since that night, and though you tried to move on by dating other boys, his absence remained a shadow that never left you.

You had spent all this time silently praying that he would return to Konoha safe and sound, that he would understand the path he had chosen wasn’t the only one. But every piece of news about his dark deeds, every encounter he had with Naruto or Sakura, felt like a dagger plunging deeper into your chest. You knew Sasuke was further away than ever—not just physically, but emotionally.

And now, you saw him again, standing before his former teammates in a desolate field, the pale moonlight bathing them all. Sasuke had changed. His presence was colder, more imposing, and... darker. There was no trace left of the boy he had been. His gaze, filled with more hatred and determination than ever before, left no doubt: he was ready to destroy everything he once loved.

You wondered if you were on that list.

Naruto, stubborn as always, was the first to leap into action. His voice was filled with emotion. "Sasuke! It doesn’t have to be this way! Come back with us!"

But Sasuke didn’t reply. With his Sharingan activated, he moved with lethal precision, countering Naruto’s attacks with almost cruel ease. Sakura, seeing that Naruto stood no chance, tried to intervene, hoping her words could stop him, but Sasuke didn’t even glance at her.

The tension in the air was unbearable. Naruto and Sasuke exchanged brutal attacks, both driven by uncontrollable emotions, seemingly ready to kill each other. Sasuke was determined to fulfill his mission, but Naruto, as stubborn as ever, wouldn’t let his friend cross that line without a fight.

You watched from a distance, allowed on the mission only if you didn’t interfere. Your heart was torn between fear and despair. You knew you couldn’t stand aside for much longer. Even if Kakashi would scold you later, Sasuke was lost—but something in his eyes still screamed for help.

“Sasuke!” you finally shouted, trying to approach as chakra explosions lit up the battlefield.

For a moment, he froze. His gaze locked onto you, and something in his eyes changed. He seemed confused, even surprised. He hadn’t sensed your chakra and didn’t realize you’d been there all along.

“What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here,” he asked, his tone cold but with a flicker of something he couldn’t identify.

Naruto turned toward you. “Y/N! Stay back! It’s too dangerous!”

But you deliberately ignored the warning, driven by an impulse you couldn’t control. If anyone could reach Sasuke, if anyone could break through the hatred surrounding him, it was you.

In the heat of battle, Sasuke unleashed a Chidori aimed at Naruto. The sound of crackling chakra filled the air, and Naruto barely had time to dodge. The force of the attack created a shockwave that knocked you off balance as you tried to get closer to them.

“Watch out!” Naruto shouted, but it was too late.

Sasuke adjusted his attack, and in the chaos of the moment, he didn’t see you in its path.

The Chidori struck you squarely in the side, and you let out a cry of pain. Everything seemed to stop in that instant—Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura froze, watching as you fell to the ground.

Sasuke slowly lowered his hand, his eyes wide as he realized what he’d done.

“No…” he murmured, taking a step toward you. “This wasn’t meant for you… you weren’t supposed to be here.”

Naruto rushed to your side, ignoring Sasuke completely. He knelt beside you, pressing against the wound to stop the bleeding. “Stay with me, Y/N! Don’t you dare close your eyes!”

You looked at Sasuke, your lips trembling and your eyes filled with tears. Despite the pain, you gave a weak smile. “Sasuke… this wasn’t how I planned to stop you.”

Sasuke took a step back, his breathing quickening as he looked at his trembling hands. “This… this isn’t what I wanted.”

Naruto raised his voice, furious. “Look at what you’ve done! Is this what you want, Sasuke? To destroy everything and everyone who ever mattered to you? The one person who loves you and still believes in you!”

Sakura ran over with a medical kit, her hands shaking as she tried to stabilize you. “Hang on, please. We’ll get you to the hospital, but you need to stay awake.”

You, however, kept your eyes on Sasuke. You knew what he was thinking. “It’s not… your fault,” you whispered, barely audible.

For a moment, he seemed to waver. His hands trembled slightly, and his gaze softened. But then something within him hardened again, as though an invisible barrier shielded him from his emotions.

Sasuke clenched his fists, his face a mixture of anger and guilt. “I… can’t stay here.”

And with those words, he vanished in a swirl of leaves, leaving the others to deal with the chaos he had caused.

When you woke up, you were in the hospital. The room was silent except for the faint beeping of the monitor tracking your vital signs. Naruto sat by your bed, his head in his hands.

“Naruto,” you said weakly.

He quickly lifted his head, his eyes red from crying. “You’re awake! You have no idea how worried we were.”

You tried to smile, but the pain stopped you. “What about Sasuke?”

Naruto looked down, clenching his fists. “He’s gone. Again. But this time…” His voice cracked. “This time, he almost killed you.”

“It wasn’t intentional,” you whispered.

“That doesn’t matter!” Naruto shouted, standing up. “He hurt you, left you like this, and you still defend him. Wake up, Y/N! We can’t keep fooling ourselves, thinking he’ll come back!”

You closed your eyes, tears streaming down your cheeks. “I know he didn’t mean to. I saw his face, Naruto. He’s not entirely gone. There’s still something left of him inside.”

Naruto sighed, sitting back down. “And what if he never changes? What if this is who he is now?”

“Then I’ll keep believing,” you said firmly, even though your voice was barely audible. “Because someone has to. And if no one else will, I will.”

The days that followed your recovery were a whirlwind of emotions. The physical pain from the wound Sasuke had inflicted on you was nothing compared to the emotional weight you carried. Despite everything, you couldn’t hate him. You couldn’t stop loving the person he had been and, even more so, the person you still believed he could be.

Naruto and Sakura tried to protect you and offer comfort, as if doing so could erase the damage Sasuke had caused, but you knew they couldn’t fully understand what you felt. Naruto was determined to bring him back, but his approach was that of a friend willing to fight him if necessary. Sakura, on her part, seemed torn between rage and sadness.

But to you, Sasuke was not just a target or a lost companion. He was someone you had shared your dreams, your fears, and your love with. And even though the Sasuke you knew seemed to have vanished, that little spark you had seen in his eyes during the battle was enough to fuel your foolish hope.

One night, while resting in the hospital, you received a visit. Kakashi entered the room with a serious expression, though his eyes showed a warmth rarely seen in him.

“How do you feel, monster?” he asked, approaching your bed.

“Better,” you replied, though you knew your brother could see through your façade.

Kakashi sighed and sat in a chair next to you. “I found this on the battlefield after Sasuke left.” He pulled out a small folded piece of paper and placed it in your hand.

You carefully opened it, your heart beating fast. You recognized Sasuke’s handwriting immediately.

I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention to hurt you. But I can’t stop. I can’t return yet.

Tears began to run down your face as you read those words. It was little, barely a trace of regret, but to you, it meant everything. It was proof that there was still some humanity in him, something fighting against the darkness consuming him.

Kakashi silently watched you, giving you the space you needed while softly caressing your hair. Finally, when you felt ready, you spoke:

“Thank you for bringing it to me. I know you’d rather have hidden it and made me forget.”

“I knew it would mean something to you,” he said softly. “I’ve understood that I can’t stop you no matter how much I want to. I won’t deny I want him to come back, but I love you too much to see you suffer again. You also need to take care of yourself. You can’t save him if you lose yourself in the process.”

You simply nodded, though you knew it would be easier said than done.

As the days passed, your determination grew. You decided you would not give up on Sasuke just yet, but you wouldn’t remain defenseless either. If there was something you could do, it was to strengthen yourself, to prepare for the day you would meet him again. If necessary, you would fight.

Naruto, though initially reluctant, began to train alongside you as in the old days, helping you regain your strength after the injury. Sakura also joined, teaching you basic medical techniques so that you could take care of yourself on the battlefield. It was as if they both understood that you needed to be ready for anything.

Every night, you looked at the piece of paper Kakashi had given you, its words etched in your heart. You didn’t know when you would see Sasuke again, but you knew you would. And when that moment came, you would be ready.

Weeks later, during a mission with Naruto and Sakura, you found him. You had been tracking him for weeks. He was standing in a clearing in the forest, his figure wrapped in his black cloak with red clouds. His dark hair fell over his eyes, and his expression was as cold as always.

���I told you to stop following me,” he said, not turning toward them.

Naruto moved forward, ready to confront him, but you stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Let me talk to him,” you asked softly.

Naruto hesitated, but finally nodded, trusting you, stepping back as you moved forward.

“Sasuke,” you said as you approached him. “I’m not here to stop you. I just want to understand.”

He finally turned to look at you, and on his face was something different, something you hadn’t seen in a long time.

“There’s nothing to understand, Y/N,” he responded, though his voice lacked the usual harshness.

“Yes, there is,” you insisted, taking another step closer. “I know there’s still something in you, something real, that’s fighting against this darkness. I saw it the last time.”

Sasuke stared at you, taking the time to see the details of your face that had changed since he last saw you as children. His face was a mask of conflicting emotions. Finally, he sighed and said, “This doesn’t change anything. You can’t keep doing this, risking yourself for someone like me.”

“You know I will,” you said with a playful tone he hadn’t heard in a long time and had imagined in his nights. “Because I still believe in you. And I always will.”

For a moment, time seemed to stand still, and both of you returned to being those innocent children who found refuge in each other. Sasuke didn’t say anything, but his expression spoke for him. There was pain, regret, and perhaps a spark of hope.

Without saying another word, Sasuke turned and began to walk away, his figure disappearing among the trees. But this time, you didn’t feel defeated. You knew you had planted a seed in his heart, one that might someday grow.

And as you watched him disappear, you made a silent promise:

No matter how long it takes, I won’t let you lose yourself completely.

Sasuke would return home, with her.

[naomikozura]

Playing With Fire: Chapter 12

Jason Todd (Red Hood) x Fem!Reader (Criminal)

Trope: Enemies to Lovers, Forbidden Romance

Warnings: Strong language, use of weapons, use of guns, explosives, bombs, terror on civilians, kidnapping, abuse, physical abuse, torture, bodily harm, emotional turmoil, trauma, blood, wounds (lmk if I missed any!)

WC: 14.7K

Summary: With the plan in play, there is an ominous cast that lays over Gotham, causing chaos in the city. In the midst of it all, there is something lurking deeper below the surface, something that might end up forcing a decision that could cost you your life. As the city burns, the question remains: Is the sacrifice worth it or is it just another game you're forced to play?

Series Masterlist

Chapter 11 || Chapter 13

The sound of sirens filled the air as the bat signal lit up the night sky in a yellow glow, the chaos breaking out through downtown Gotham. First responders were on sight almost immediately, Commissioner Gordon on edge from the so called ‘random’ attack on one of Gotham City’s banks. The fire spread across the ground as it caught onto the leaking gasoline from the crushed semi-truck that was sitting deep into the bank’s broken brick wall. The murmurs from the people of Gotham and the screams sounded like a horror movie, the night setting itself up as the greatest terrorist attack that the city had seen in a while. 

You felt your heart pounding in your chest, your ears ringing as you tried to catch your breath. After seeing the series of bombs going off and Joker sending his signal, then Batman putting himself at the scene, you raced downtown as fast as you could. You watched from one of the nearby buildings, watching from the pair of binoculars you had on hand as you watched Batman move through the chaos, getting some of the civilians out of the way from getting hurt. You needed to find an opening, anything to help get you closer or even find Sionis’ men to get an overview of the situation. 

You narrowed your eyes as you watched as Joker fired off the gun in his hand into the air, the sound of screams ripping through the air as people ran to get cover. Contemplation tugged at your gut before you brushed the second thoughts from your mind and moved towards the streets. Your legs pushed themselves off the sides of the buildings, moving through the night as you landed on the roofs of the buildings below in order to reach the streets. You were a block away from the scene, needing to find an in without Joker knowing you were in range. You pulled out the radio you had on hand, twisting the dial to match the static from the channel that they were on comms in. The static sounded out as blurred voices filtered in, the sound of one of Sionis’ men growled out in defiance at Joker’s words. 

“This wasn’t part of the plan, clown!”, the men growled, your brows furrowing as you wondered what Joker could have done to get put into the position of Sionis’ men going against him. You ran through the streets, getting closer as you pulled out the infrared goggles from your belt, scanning towards the semi-truck where Joker was perched, noticing the movement inside the truck. 

Your radio went off again, watching as the movements in the truck were more erratic and forceful. Did Joker put Sionis’ men inside the truck?! They were supposed to be his support throughout this entire damn thing, why the hell would he put them at risk knowing he wouldn’t get a payout if he went against Sionis? Then again, Joker was unpredictable, unstable, something like this wouldn’t be so far out of line for him. In the end, he didn’t care about payment or getting freedom, he cared more about terrorizing Gotham and fighting Batman than he did about money. 

You felt a tug at your gut. 

Joker was going rogue. 

Deep down you knew that was his plan all along but him actually going through with it was another problem in and of itself. You forced yourself to ignore the evidence in front of you and moved through the street to get closer. The sound of gunshots rang out again as you watched Joker’s men shoot through the field of people, gunning some of the civilians down as you threw yourself onto the ground, your hands behind your head as you tried to stay as flat as possible on the ground. The dust lifted, making your eyes open slowly to avoid getting it in your line of vision. You watched as the men stayed with their guns aimed into the crowd, your head lifting slowly before the sound of another bomb went off in the background, causing your body to lie flat on the ground again.

What the hell?!

Debris fell everywhere, your lungs fighting for air as you held your breath, praying that the smoke would settle before you raised to your feet, trying to get out of their line of vision. If you were spotted, you were dead. Joker placed you back at Sionis Industries for a reason, or did he know you would eventually go against him and put yourself at the scene for a piece of the action? Were you so predictable that he would have planned for this? Or did he just completely create a random plan of attack so you were forced to come out to the field on Sionis’ behalf? 

The smoke grew thick, the sound of laughter filling the air as silent screams followed right after, single gunshots ringing out. They were killing people caught in the smoke. You needed to move, your vision hazy from the debris and smoke as you covered your mouth and tried to navigate through the clouds of haze. 

A low growl made you turn in confusion, the blinding headlights of a black SUV coming towards you made you react almost a split second too late, your body launching to the other side of the street as you watched the black vehicles drive in swerved motions towards the bank. The doors slid open, revealing more of Joker’s men, their faces spread wide with a macabre smile, no doubt from the laughing gas he forced them to inhale like he did for all his victims. You needed to leave, you needed to find another open point to get more intel, to get information to Jason on the situation as quickly as possible. 

Your body moved carefully, trying to find one of the alleys in order to get to the other side of the chaos. A strong grip on your arm made you recoil instinctively, your body going into overdrive as you pulled away and swung your leg around in precision and power, making contact with the figure that had just grabbed you. You managed to create distance, the cloud of smoke acting as a cover for them as you saw the smoke patterns shift slightly from their movement. Almost like on command, your body reacted to the movement behind you, pushing yourself back and swinging another kick to the figure before it disappeared again. 

You moved with instinct, your hits landing with power, your mind trying to fill in the gaps of the space as you tried to navigate blindly through your current situation. Just as you twisted your body backwards, you felt a foot sweep under your legs, causing you to fall backwards onto the pavement. The pain shot up your body as you felt the body move on top of you, a gloved hand covering your nose and mouth as you forcefully struggled against them. You pushed your body towards the figure, your legs trying to make its way between the two of you to create space but failed due to the strength of the person above you. 

Your heart was pounding from the fear coursing through you, had Joker’s men found you? Would they force you to take in the laughing gas and make you a shell of a person? The thoughts ran through your mind before you heard a clicking noise and felt snap around your head, your jaw clenching before you sucked in a breath, clean air filling your lungs as your eyes snapped open. 

Your eyes widened, your heart stopping for a split second as your mind tried to register the position you were in. 

“Get up. Let’s move!”, his voice was a deep growl, the hollow stare in his eyes making you overwhelmed as he helped you to your feet. 

What… the… hell?!

Your body followed behind him, trying to get out of the cloud of smoke as you found an opening to reach one of the roofs. His back was turned, you could easily slip away. Your leg snapped around, kicking him on the side of the head, making him dazed as you reached the ladder of the building, climbing up as he turned towards you. You heard his curse under his breath as you continued up the ladder, reaching the rood as you breathed in through the mask that was around your nose and mouth. 

Why the hell would the fucking Batman be helping you right now?!

You turned to run towards one of the other buildings, your body freezing as you made contact with those hollow eyes again, the cowl hiding any expression that would be present on his face. You moved quickly, trying to land a punch as he blocked it immediately. He got bigger with every step he took towards you, adrenaline coursing through your body as you threw another punch, another kick, another anything to keep the distance but he managed to keep up with every hit you aimed his way. He was calculative, smart, fast, and strong. You knew you were no match for him. You could barely keep up with Jason, how were you going to keep up with the man who trained him? 

Your split second of distraction was all he needed to sweep your legs out from under you a second time and pin you down as his face invaded your personal space, his proximity making you uncomfortable. You were breathing heavily, your heart pounding. This was the first time you’d ever seen the Batman up close and personal, the first time you’d ever seen him in person at all actually. 

“You’re Black Mask’s assassin.”, he said in his deep, unemotional tone. Not a question, just stating the facts. 

“I’m not that motherfucker’s anything.”, you spit back like a caged animal. 

“What is his game?”, he pinned you down harder, your breath slowly disappearing as you grunted under his hold. 

“L-like I would tell you.”, you spit out. You knew who he was under the mask, but there’s no way he knew who you were. “I don’t give intel to the enemy.”

“But you do.”, he forced. “You work under Black Mask yet you’ve been leaking information to the Red Hood.”

Your eyes narrowed at him saying the truth so casually, your body relaxing as you felt his pressure release slightly. 

“He has been orchestrating hits on all of the crime lords in Gotham. The one person who has the biggest territory is the one calling the hit for him, got the Joker out of Arkham, and you….”, he paused as his voice got deeper. “Have been leaking information to the very person he’s been after for months.”

Your jaw clenched as you struggled against him, the pressure back on your neck. 

“Stop moving.”, the annoyance evident in his voice. “I’m a detective, you really think I don’t know what you’re up to? You truly believe you have a good cover? I figured it out the moment your name came up in my files, don’t be so naive to think Black Mask hasn’t figured it out yet either.”

“Sionis doesn’t know shit!”, you spit. “You don’t know a damn thing about me or what I’m doing. So go back to playing hero and let me finish my job here!”

“Your job? You mean killing Black Mask or helping Jason kill Joker?’

Your blood ran cold. Your eyes widened at the sound of Jason’s name slipping from his mouth. 

“I know what the two of you are planning and I’m telling you now, it’s pointless.”, he released the pressure on you as he stood back, your body still on the ground in shock. You moved your body, sitting upright as you stared at him with conflict. “Killing Joker won’t save Jason. It’ll ruin him.”

“Is that what you told yourself when you let him die? When Joker beat him to an inch of his life and you did nothing for him?!”, for someone so smart, Batman was clueless. Did he not understand the meaning of vengeance? Of getting rid of the essence of pure evil? “I don’t care what it takes, Joker dies tonight. Even if it means I have to keep you away from him as long as possible for Jason to get the closure he needs.”

You quickly slipped away and for whatever reason, he didn’t follow, adrenaline coursing through you as you tried to get to a better vantage point. The air was thick with smoke and tension, the chaos swirling around you. You needed to focus. 

You made your way down into the alley, another explosion sounding out as you watched Batman land himself in the field, your mind racing to try and stay out of his way and place the tracker on Joker somehow. You heard the onslaught of gunshots fill the air, the sound of laughs haunting your ears as you tried to navigate the best you could.

The haze blurred your vision, your senses heightened as you tried to focus through the smoke. The dim alleyway erupted with chaos as you heard a snapping noise behind you, turning around in time to move away as one of Joker’s goons lunged at you, his twisted grin illuminated by the flickering alley light. Your heart was pounding in your chest, adrenaline coursing through your veins as you dodged another one of his wild swings with the crowbar in his hand. Your body twisted, lunging to the other side of the goon to make him swing around and take hold of the mask you had on, causing it to rip off your face and onto the ground behind you. Laughing gas filled the air, panic filling your veins as you felt your head get dizzy, the sickeningly sweet scent of the gas starting to flood your senses.

The goon laughed maniacally, enjoying the obvious madness that flooded his body, his grin spread so wide his skin seemed like it was about to rip apart from how elongated it was. You shifted your stance, moving as he walked towards you and made another swing with the crowbar in his hand, ducking under the swing of the metal, reacting with a quick jab to his ribs causing the goon to stagger backward. Your reaction quick as you reached for the mask on the ground, quickly securing it around your head as you take in deep breaths, letting your lungs fill with the filtered air. 

“Oh you’re fun.”, the laughter filled your ears, 

“Where’s Joker?!”, you spit out, trying to keep your voice steady despite the small amount of gas having clouded your thoughts. Your fist swinging around and punching him in the mouth, his body stumbling backward as he raised his head to look at you in a twisted, bloodied smile. 

“Why would I tell you?”, he cackled, wiping a smear of blood from his lip. “All he wants is the Batman and his little sidekick.”

You narrowed your eyes, moving as he took another swing towards you, his arm swinging carelessly and without accuracy. You feigned left and landed another solid uppercut, the goon falling down to the ground as you sucked in a breath from the mask, letting the clean air fill your lungs. 

“I’ll ask one last time, where is Joker?!”, you grit your teeth but the man’s wide smile and the craziness in his eyes already let you know you wouldn’t get the answers you wanted. The sound of laughter filled the air, more of Joker’s men were wandering close by. You pushed the goon onto the ground, swinging your leg back and landing a blow that knocked him out before hearing the clanking of metal and the cocking of a gun behind you. You turned your head slightly, seeing the group of lunatics behind you, each one sporting their individual weapons with macabre smiles stretched across their faces. 

You narrowed your eyes, waiting for the first tell of wanting to aim their hits at you, your body finally turning fully towards them as you watched the one with the gun aim at you. The sound of the bullet firing out of the barrel of the gun sounded out as your instincts kicked into full gear and flexed your body around for the bullet to miss, your legs pushing you forward as you swiftly snapped the man’s head upward, kicking him backward and making the gun fall out of his hands. One of the other men has a baseball bat with barbed wire wrapped around it, swinging it towards you as you jumped out of the way, letting your body roll on the ground as you tried to gain footing. The sound of the metal crowbar clanking on the metal trash can and scraping the floor sounded behind you, your heart pounding in your chest as you lunged forward, landing a solid punch to his jaw, watching as he stumbled backwards. 

You watched with careful eyes as you heard another gunshot ring out, your body falling to the ground from the force, a ringing in your ear as you grabbed the side of your face. 

Fuck. 

The bullet grazed your fucking ear, the blood dripping down the side of your face and your body still on the ground. You need to get rid of these men, now. 

Pure annoyance, anger, and raw emotion flooded your veins as you pushed yourself into overdrive, all reason leaving your body as you looked at the metal on the ground. 

Grabbing the crowbar that was on the ground, you swung it around, letting the curve of the metal impale into the side of the goon's head, his smile filling with blood as you narrowed your eyes in disgust and anger. His smile never faltered but those were just the effects of Joker’s laughing gas. The blood choked him up as you turned the crowbar further before pulling it out and turning your body swiftly, dodging the other goon with the baseball bat and swinging a leg around to kick him in the head, you arm throwing the crowbar on the ground at the same time as the goon’s body fell so his face would impale straight into the curved metal. It went through his eyes, right in the middle of his brows as the squelch of the blood sounded out slightly, the choking of pain ringing out as you walked towards the last man, grabbing the gun on your waist and shooting him with a single bullet. 

Fucking nuisances. 

Lifting your arm, trying to check the last ping that radiated off of Joker, the irritation eating at you as you snapped to focus. A small ringing drawing you to turn around.

Holy fuck. 

You watched as the first goon twitched, his hand pressed down on a device and a flashing red slowly illuminated under his clothes, the ticking slowly getting louder and the lights flashing faster.

God Dammit!

You shoved your gun back into the back of your waist band, running out of the alley as the final ticks sounded out, feeling the heat and force of the bomb shoved you forward and slammed you into the ground for the hundredth time tonight. The smoke bellowed through the night, the flames catching on the bodies of the other men laying limp in the alley. Tonight was getting more and more on your nerves as you forced yourself to your feet, walking away from the growing fire as you checked your comms again. 

There was no signal, but you needed to get into the camera system if you wanted to find Joker. 

Quickly, you logged into the camera system you had downloaded from Sionis’s security server, watching the stream from different screens. All the screens showed different parts of downtown Gotham, some filled with the chaos from the bank robbery and the bombs, others filled with cars racing out of downtown and others speeding to reach the chaos. Your eyes skimmed each screen for a sign, anything to show where Joker was but nothing showed. 

You narrowed your eyes, your brows furrowed as you stared at one of the screens. 

It showed the center of the city, smoke coming off one of the cars, but something felt… off. 

The smoke filled the screen, but something… there was something wrong. 

Your eyes focused on the corner of the screen, watching the movement of the saturation of dark smoke, a small snippet sending off a trigger inside of you. 

Fuck….

Fuck!

Your head snapped up, looking around as you felt the dread sink into your bones. How could you be so blind, how did you miss the absolute obvious that was happening right in front of you?!

The security camera facing the bank was set on a fucking loop, the video output was prerecorded and uploaded into the system to keep anyone from knowing where the hell Joker was. 

Dammit, dammit, dammit!

You felt your heart drop into your chest, your blood running cold at the realization before running away from where you stood, trying to get higher ground to look at the chaos on the ground. The second you reached a building that got you above the scene enough, you climbed up the ladder and made your way to the roof, looking down and realizing Joker was nowhere in sight. Only his men below as they continued to bring out the chaos of the city. 

There was no way you were given a false lead… right? 

You had gone over the plan countless times with Sionis and Joker, there were no openings, no way for there to be any mishaps in the entire plan. So how the hell did everything go in a completely different direction so fast?

Your mind scattered as you tried to reach the last location of Joker’s tracker, marking the location to a secluded neighborhood by the waterfront. It was abandoned but still had buildings surrounding the nearby area. Jason’s tracker was checked two miles away from Joker’s. 

The fact that their trackers checked in the same radius meant Joker had planned to lure Jason somewhere away from downtown. It was confusing, especially since Joker wanted to get Batman’s attention in order to lure out Jason, so why did Batman show up here and not to Joker’s secondary location?

Batman was likely stuck in the fray by the bank, especially considering how many people were caught in the mess thanks to Joker’s men. He’d be distracted a while longer and you were not going to stick around to get caught up in the mess. You needed to find Joker. More importantly, you needed to find Jason. 

You ran through the city, letting your legs push you until they felt like they were about to fall off, trying to reach where you had your backup motorcycle stashed in a hidden section of the alley. You were glad you always prepared for every job meticulously, always stashing a bike in a nearby area just in case of an emergency. 

Once you finally reached the alley, you dropped down from the building and reached your bike, tearing the tarp off of it and swinging your leg around and turning it on, revving the engine,  hearing the tires screech against the asphalt as you sped to the location you had marked on your tracker. 

There was a weight on your chest as you moved through the city, the wind hitting your face and cooling your skin as you felt the overwhelming dread fill in the pit of your stomach. There were a number of different scenarios that ran through your head, your heart pounding in your chest. 

There was an ominous presence that hung in the air that left you on edge but there was a part of you that knew there was no time to waste in finding the last location of where Joker was. You would bring the mad man down if you needed to, hell you would kill him just to give Jason the closure he needed, even if the fucker Batman didn’t understand the gravity of it all. 

The wind whipped around you as you maneuvered your bike around the streets and into the outskirts to the abandoned section by the waterfront. Every second that ticked by felt like an hour, and every breath you sucked in felt like fire. Your anxiety was eating at you as you sped faster through the streets, each minute stretched and elongated into a painfully long stretch of time. The buildings were slowly getting sparse, the wind getting colder as you neared the waterfront and the temperature suddenly dropping as your blood ran cold. You knew, deep down you just… you knew. 

You felt anger at yourself for being so careless, disparity at trying to reach the building in time, dread at what you could end up finding if you didn’t get there in time. Everything would fall apart, your world would come to a stop, and you would never get out of this. If tonight turned into an absolute disaster, nothing could ever go back to normal. 

The moment you saw the abandoned warehouse, you snapped the break on your bike, letting the tires come to an immediate stop as you removed your helmet. The building had men just on the outside, but you couldn't waste time on them, you had to find another in that didn’t involve outing you to every person walking the perimeter. Eyes scanned the entire building, noticing an opening at the room on the opposite side, perhaps it would lead you right where you needed to be in order to find Joker. 

The wind wrapped around you as you moved strategically through the few surrounding buildings and cargo that were around the warehouse, using your flexibility to jump over and around some of the boxes that were stacked on the perimeter in order to stay out of sight. Staying out of the men’s eyeline would help you get inside faster, but another part of you worried there might be an alarm system in place to prevent you from ever reaching the inside. Your muscles were pushed to their limit, but you couldn’t stop, you quickly pushed yourself towards the other end of one of the corners of the building, slowly reaching the back side and hiding your body from the guard that walked past. You narrowed your eyes as you looked up at the roof, waiting for the right moment to slip past and make it inside without being caught. 

Three seconds passed, the guard turned the corner, and your opening became apparent. You quickly used your strength to push yourself onto the roof, having your grappling hook help you climb the rest of the way up as you let your body lay flat on the roof so as to not get spotted. 

Army crawling to the top, you took a deep breath as you peered through the window, your infrared goggles cutting through the shadows inside the warehouse. The cold night air nipped at your skin, trying to stay focused at the task at hand. The heat signatures of two guards stood out in the dim light, stationed near the far end of the warehouse, by the large steel doors. The sound of distant machinery echoed, but it didn't hide the low murmur of their conversation.

They weren’t moving much, likely positioned for a shift, still never moving. You adjusted your position, carefully shifting to avoid the creaky sections of the roof. Every step counted. You didn't have time to waste.

You needed a plan.

You didn’t have a single clue how to go into this, but you didn’t have time to spare thinking about it. 

You scanned for another way inside. There were no clear ventilation shafts nearby, and the guards at the ground floor seemed to cover the main entrance. A quick glance to the opposite end of the roof revealed a small skylight, slightly open. It wasn’t much, maybe even too small but it was an opening, and it was your best shot.

You reached down to your utility belt, grabbing a small collapsed chisel, the soft clang of the chisel on your belt was barely audible over the hum of distant engines. Carefully, you slid the flat end into the gap of the skylight, prying it open just enough to slip through. Your heart raced as you prepared to drop inside, but then a sound stopped you, the sound of distant footsteps echoing from below.

The guards were moving.

You crouched lower, holding your breath. Your mind raced. If you could time this right, you might slip past them completely undetected. But if you made the wrong move… it could all come crashing down.

The footsteps came closer, and you felt the tension rise in your muscles. Your body was already coiled, ready to spring. Every instinct told you to wait, to listen, to be patient. You couldn't let them find you now.

The sound of their boots on the metal floor grew louder. The guards were heading in your direction.

You took a deep breath and waited.

The footsteps grew louder, closer. The sound of the guards' boots striking the cold, concrete floor reverberated through the warehouse. Your breath caught in your throat, and the cold air bit at your exposed skin. You remained frozen, heart pounding in your chest. It felt like the entire warehouse was holding its breath, the tension thick in the air.

The guards were getting closer….closer than you'd anticipated. A part of you wanted to push forward, but another part screamed at you to wait. One wrong move, and you’d blow this whole thing. You couldn’t afford that. Not now, not when you were so close.

Your fingers clenched around the edge of the roof, your muscles taut as you held your position, eyes fixed on the dim interior below. The sound of clanging metal and chains echoed from the other side of the room, punctuating the silence in an almost rhythmic, deliberate way. It sent a chill down your spine. You didn’t need to hear it again to know what it was, the unmistakable sound of something…. or someone being restrained.

A cold sense of dread tightened in your chest. 

Jason… Jason, it has to be him. 

The thought made your pulse spike. This was no coincidence. The Joker's twisted games were always about power, control and he never hesitated to use people as pawns. It was a gut-wrenching realization, but the sound of chains rattling made it clear. They were holding someone in here. 

Someone who wasn’t just a victim, but a target.

You swallowed hard, forcing the anxiety down. 

You could do this. 

You had to.

The guards were getting closer, their voices drifting up in low, murmured conversation, unintelligible, but enough to remind you that time was slipping away. You couldn’t stay up here much longer. The window was your only way in. The adrenaline surging through you was almost nauseating, but it was a fire you couldn't ignore. 

The seconds dragged on, stretching into what felt like an eternity, until finally, the guards turned the corner, walking past the edge of the building, disappearing from view. You didn’t wait for another moment. 

With a burst of speed, you pushed the skylight open just wide enough to squeeze through, dropping silently onto the dusty floor of the warehouse below. The moment your feet hit the ground, you crouched low, eyes scanning the shadows for movement. You took another slow breath, each inhale filling your lungs with the metallic taste of urgency.

There, in the dim light at the far end of the room, you could see a figure. Faintly, through the cracks in the shadows, you saw the silhouette of someone chained to a chair. Their body was slumped, but there was something about their posture, the way they were positioned, that made your stomach tighten further.

It was him. It has to be him.

Your feet moved before your brain had time to catch up, the distance between you seeming to stretch longer with every step. But there was no turning back. You couldn’t stop now. The heavy, rattling sound of chains grew louder, more frantic as you drew closer.

"Jason," you whispered, barely able to hear your own voice above the pounding of your heartbeat.

You were almost there. So close. But as you neared the corner of the room, a sudden motion to your left caught your eye. You felt the weight of a bull ram into you as your body was thrown to the ground in a violent push. Before you could react, they were on you, grabbing your arms and pinning you down with brutal force. One shoved their arm into your throat, cutting your airway off and causing you to choke from the force. Your body thrashed, your legs trying to pull up to push against one of the men’s chest to create some sort of distance. 

How the hell did they find you?!

“G-get.. Off of m-me..”, you choked as you clenched your teeth. Your eyes filled with desperation, anger, dread, all of it swirled into a mix of emotion as you felt them grab your body with aggressiveness forcing you to your feet. The men didn’t even give you a chance to speak, breathe, barely had time to think. You heard the faint sound of maniacal laughter, the sound sending chills down your spine. The men forced your body to the ground, holding your arms back and one of them reaching down and ripping your utility belt off, throwing it across the room as it landed on the other side, now lost in the mix of boxes and broken debris. You fought against the goon that held you back, but when he hit the back of your head with his elbow, your body slowed down, your thoughts jumbled. 

“Motherfuckers..”, you felt as they grabbed your arms behind your back, their legs creating pressure on each of your legs so you couldn’t move. The sound of metal scraping and clanking on metal rang out, haunting the room as it got louder, slow laughter ringing out to fill the ominous silence. 

The air felt thick, almost like it was suffocating you, the laughter echoing around you got louder, a wave of dread crawling under your skin. Your heart pounded louder in your ears, drowning out everything else. The men behind you pressed down harder, their strength forcing you still as you tried to struggle against them. The sound of footsteps approached, each one causing your heart to skip a beat and pound faster in your chest. The cruel silence and haunting sounds were enough to let you know it was him. 

Joker. 

The son of a bitch. 

Your head lifted up as he appeared out of the shadows, that wicked, twisted smile pulling on his lips made him look even more psychotic than he already was. His eyes were filled with humor, brimmed with excitement and instability, wild and manic as they locked onto yours, seething with amusement. 

“Oh, nice of you to join us.”, his voice filled with a taunting tone. He walked up where his men held you down, circling you like a predator. “You really are the best. Oh, Penguin should be proud to have you work for him.”, His gaze flicked to the men holding you down, their tight grip only fueling his amusement.

You grit your teeth in pain, the pull of the men making it almost unbearable but you couldn’t show weakness, not when you knew he would get pleasure from it.

“Joker!”, your voice was low, almost a growl. “You son of a bitch! Why did you go against Black Mask’s plan?”

Joker’s grin only stretched. “I didn’t go against anything.”, he stretched a hand towards you, grabbing your face with force to look at him. “I was following my orders.”

“This wasn’t what we planned!”, you spat at him, lunging forward. “Sionis will kill you.”

His laugh filled the air again, your eyes flickering to the room the men pulled you away from. “You… you don’t even know.”, his face got closer to yours, his grip getting stronger. 

“You think you know anything?” he sneered. “If you had taken even a moment to step back, you would see…. This was all part of our plan.”, His laugh was low and dark, echoing in the small room as the pressure on your jaw intensified.

“Our?”, you questioned. 

“Black Mask doesn’t control me. But we did agree on a mutual plan, I do whatever the hell I want and have my fun, the little Red bird’s head ends up mounted to his office wall, Batman is distracted long enough for Gotham to burn and you..”, he laughed as he leaned in closer, his voice lowering to a sickening whisper, "You are just the final touch. The piece I didn’t even know I needed."

“What are you talking about?”

“We planned this. Mask and I, we made our own plan, and you? You were never really part of the equation. You were just... well, you were just another useless pawn." His eyes gleamed with manic delight. "The perfect piece in a game you don't even realize you’re playing."

Your blood ran cold in realization. 

“You.. sent me on a false lead.”, you whispered, “It was all....”

“A distraction. To keep you out of the way, keep the Bat’s busy, all while we send false leads to our little boy blunder. It was too easy, almost laughable.”, his smile stretched wider as he stood, walking away from you as he laughed. “The best part was it took you so much longer to figure it out than I thought!” He chuckled to himself, clearly enjoying the sight of you piecing everything together, the cruel irony of it all sinking deeper into your bones.

Your mind raced, the weight of the situation sinking in with terrifying clarity. 

They hadn’t just manipulated you, they had carefully planned everything so meticulously to make sure you were too far gone into the false plan to see what was really happening until it was too late.

He turned back to you, his expression sharp with manic delight. “You know, it’s almost poetic. You think you’re protecting him, but in reality, you’ve just handed him right to us.”

You watched as he walked towards the room on the other side, his foot pushing the door open as you saw the body you’d noticed earlier. You watched as Joker pushed the chair over, your heart lurching in your chest. 

Jason…

His dark hair was sticking to his forehead, a dark bruise forming on his jaw, his grunts echoing in the air as you felt the pressure grow in your chest. You watched as Joker kneeled down next to him, his hand reaching Jason’s face as he forced him to meet his gaze. Jason’s eyes opened, his mask ripped almost completely, meeting Joker’s gaze before his gaze flickered over to you, his eyes glossing over in a silent emotion that dug a knife into your chest. Your eyes filled with fear, your heart pounding in your chest as you watched Joker smile widely in Jason’s face. 

“Isn’t this nice? We get to meet again,” Joker’s voice was thick with sick amusement, his fingers digging into Jason’s bruised jaw as he forced his head back. His grin stretched unnaturally wide, a twisted smile that sent a shiver down your spine. “Hello, Boy Blunder.”

Jason’s body tensed slightly, almost unnoticed had it not been for the sound of his chains clattering together. His muscles were strained, it was obvious from where you were being held back, no doubt Joker noticed it too. The sound of Joker’s maniacal chuckle drove you mad, his grip tightening on Jason’s jaw for a moment before releasing, letting his head drop down on the hard floor with a sickening thud. 

You flinched slightly, your chest tightening and your gut churning, the desperation of wanting to reach Jason and let him free clawing at your chest but the tight grip of the men behind you brought you back to your cruel reality. 

Joker stood, walking across the room and shifting through a small metal cage with factory equipment and broken metals, the sound echoing. You flexed your muscles, the grip of the men tightening around you, almost as though they knew something obvious that you didn’t. 

The air grew thick with tension, your arms flexing as you felt the men’s grip tighten on you. A sense of dread filled your senses as you heard Jason’s subtle groans of pain, the chains clinking together in a haunting way that left you fearing for the worst. 

“Let’s play a game.”, Joker laughed, a slow cruel smile forming on his lips as he brought himself closer to Jason’s face. Jason’s hair covered his eyes, the burning hate showing as he narrowed his gaze into a killer stare. Joker’s head whipped around towards you, your face neutral but he could sense your distress from miles away. 

“The rules are easy,”, you watched as Joker stood, walking over to the wall on the other side of the room, lifting up one of the crowbars, letting it drop to the floor and dragging it as he walked towards you. “I get 5 swings. You make it through all 5, I’ll let Boy Blunder go.”

Five swings… That’s it…

You clenched your jaw, trying to not let the desperation claw up your throat. 

“I’m not here to play your games!”, you growled. “Let us go!”

The sound of Joker slamming the crowbar against the metal wall caused the ringing to echo through the warehouse, an ominous sound vibrating through your bones as your anger consumed you. He walked towards you, kneeling down as his men tightened their grip, almost to make sure you wouldn’t lunge at the son of a bitch. 

“We’re playing a game.”, his voice strict even through the cackle of his laughter. “I’ll say it again… Five swings”, he repeated as he held up his hand to show five. “You make it through all five… I let your little Red Riding Hood go.”

Your breathing cut short, it was erratic, slow but choppy. Your anxiety was crawling up your neck as you held his wicked gaze. His eyes filled with humor. The contemplation weighing in your head, your eyes ripping away from Joker’s to look over at Jason on the ground, his eyes narrowed, his breathing deep as he tried to tell you with his expression to say no. To refuse Joker’s game. 

Your position… it gave no room for no. Joker would kill the both of you. 

Five swings…. Five swings and he lets Jason go. 

You could take five swings. 

You turned your gaze back to Joker, his eyebrow raising, waiting for your answer. 

“Okay… Five swings.”, you bit out. “Five swings, you let him go.”

“Good, let’s have fun.”, his maniacal laugh rang out as the chill ran down your spine. 

Joker rose to his feet, his hand gripping onto the crowbar before swinging it in his hand before letting it drag on the floor. The scraping of the metal on the concrete made your ears itch, making your skin crawl. 

“You know what my favorite part of this game is?”, his voice had a hint of something sinister in it, your mind mentally preparing for the swing of the metal bar. He walked around the room, grabbing the back of Jason’s chair, lifting it before using all his force and throwing Jason across the room, landing on his back and his head hitting the concrete, only a few feet in front of you. “My favorite part is getting two little love birds together, and making the other watch. It makes this more…. Interesting. More fun!”

“S..son of..a b..bitch.”, Your ears peaked at the sound of Jason’s voice. He had been quiet this entire time, your guess was from whatever beating Joker’s men gave him in order to drag him to this abandoned building. 

“Ah, so he speaks. Take a good look, Hoodie.”, Joker kicked over the chair, letting him fall sideways and his green eyes meeting yours. “Enjoy the show.”, Joker whispered with a devilish and wicked tone. 

Joker’s gaze locked on yours, a maniacal look in his eye as he lifted the crowbar, the grip on the men tightened and your heart pounding in your chest at his erratic movements. 

“Five, little girl.”, his lips smiling wide and ripping across his face as you flinched slightly at him approaching you, the lift of his arms as he raised the crowbar above his head made you slam your eyes shut, waiting for the explosion of pain to fill your body. 

A kaleidoscope of emotions and recoil filling your body as you prepared for the absolute worst. Your heart pounded in your chest, the silence and dread making your anxiety rise above what felt like normal levels. 

Would you have a heart attack? 

Would your own heart stopping kill you before Joker had a chance?

The elongated silence, the lack of visceral pain made you wonder if he’d already made you black out, were you even conscious? 

The guttural sound of a pain filled groan ripped you out of your thoughts. 

You opened your eyes, your heart dropping in your chest as you watched Joker swing the crowbar down on Jason’s gut, his recoil of pain sounding out in the form of a choked and silent yell. You lurched forward, your voice ripping up out of your throat but before you could say a word, Joker swung around, aiming the crowbar at your head before stopping right before it connected to your temple. 

Your eyes wide as you met the insanity in his eyes and the wickedness in his humorous smile.

“Five swings.”, he reminded you. “Five swings. You say anything… he doesn’t leave.”

Five swings…. He didn’t mean it for you… 

Five swings at Jason. 

The panic set into your bones at the realization. He just wanted another excuse to beat Jason with a crowbar again just like he did the night he killed him. 

The cold feeling of the crowbar under your chin made you uneasy. 

“One down. Let’s see if you last four more.”, he turned, swinging the crowbar like a baseball bat before kicking the chair over again, the weight of Jason making him fall to his side and facing you. His eyes opened, holding nothing but resolve in them. 

He was willing to take the hits for you. 

If it meant the two of you getting out, he was going to relive the entirety of his trauma to get you out. The cry in your throat wanted to come out, but when you opened your mouth to speak, his glare came out like knives being thrown at you and a gun to your head. 

A simple glare. 

Shut. Up.  

The pressure built behind your eyes, the helplessness clawing at you as you watched the crowbar meet Jason’s ribs with an unforgivable force. The connection of metal to bone was sickening, almost feeling the pain in your own body from the heaviness of Joker’s hand. Your body fought against the men that held you back like two built machines, your muscles straining as you tried to pry yourself out of their grip. You needed to reach him, trying to kick your legs out from underneath you to get some leverage but to no avail. Their grip felt suffocating, the desperation building inside of you and gnawing at you. You felt your throat burn from the forced down scream that you couldn’t voice. 

You wanted… No, needed to help him. 

This was your fault. 

If you had realized sooner you were being misled, that Sionis and Joker were only trying to get you out of the way to get to him. They played you for a fool, slowly making you believe in an elaborate plan that had all been a false lead. 

They knew. There was no direct confirmation of you being tied back to Red Hood, but deep down they knew. They wouldn’t have sent you on a false lead if they didn’t. 

Sionis had been suspicious for too long and Joker had to have noticed something deeper in your reaction to finding out he’d killed Jason five years ago. You knew there was something in the way you hesitated to leave that tipped him off, a flicker of something that gave him all the answers he needed to confirm Sionis’ suspicions. 

A simple hesitation gave them the winning piece they needed to catch the Red Hood, and now he was paying for your stupid mistake. 

The entire time you believed you had all your bases covered, you underestimated them. You believed you had all the cards in your favor when the entire time they knew the hand you were keeping so close to your chest. The guilt ate at you as you felt your heart drop into your stomach, the sight in front of you ripping you out of your thoughts. 

Joker laughed as he placed the crowbar next to Jason’s head, moving it slightly like a golfer ready to tee off. 

The swing of Joker’s hand backwards, and the momentum he was building, it led to the visceral and primal scream to rip out of your throat. 

“NO!”, you lunged forward, your voice raw and broken as you screamed. Your eyes were wide, fighting against the men as you watched Joker about to bring down the force on Jason’s temple. It would knock him out, give him a concussion, or kill him. “It was me!’ you screamed. 

The silence echoed in the room, everything freezing and the air thick with tension as the weight of your confession hung in the air. Jason’s eyes moved to look over at you, his groans of pain silent as he tried to even out his breathing and fight the pain. Joker turned to look at you, his gaze filled with interest. 

“It was me!’, you repeated. “Take me instead!”

Joker’s lips curled into a smile as he dropped the crowbar to the ground. “Why should I take you over him?”

Your eyes filled with anxiety, looking over at Jason’s eyes as they burned with shock and desperation. He couldn’t let you do this. You were not about to let these bastards kill you.  

“Y/n… no..”, the mumbled voice that came from Jason’s wounded body was forced, but you couldn’t keep quiet. His face twisted in pain, his breathing heavy but there was something else in his eyes, something darker. 

Fear. 

And yet, you played your final card. 

I’m sorry.

“You want me. I’m the one who’s been letting him go. I’m the one who has been feeding him information about Sionis’s jobs, I helped him escape when Sionis hired me to kill him. It’s all been me. You get me out of the way, then you get a fair shot at taking down the Red Hood.”, the words burned your lips, but it was the only thing you could say to save him. “Torture me, kill me instead, I don’t care. Take my life in exchange for his. It's a fair trade. you kill me, you kill the Red Hood. Dead man walking. He'll suffer the consequences by knowing he can’t stop you from killing me.” 

“Y/n.. no..”, Jason’s jaw clenched, the pain subsiding as he tried to make you take back your confession. 

Joker’s expression gave away his decision, his grin spreading further on his face. “Oh, this is rich.”, he laughed darkly. “You think playing hero is going to save him?” he stepped closer to you, his eyes looking between you and Jason. 

“Once Sionis knows it's been me, he’ll stop at nothing to make sure he can make back everything he’s lost. He’s been suspicious of me for months, he will torture me and after that, it’ll be easier to get to him.” you stressed the last word as your lifted your chin and pointed towards Jason. 

His eyes bore into you, full of pain, disbelief, and something you couldn’t quite understand. It was all too much for him, and you could see it in the way his face contorted in anguish. He struggled harder against the shackles, the chains rattling violently. 

Jason’s expression darkened, his voice strained. “D..don’t listen.. To her.”, he forced. “Black Mask wants.. Me.” 

You could tell he was pissed, but you needed to do this. You were scared. Scared Joker might get to him again, scared to lose him, scared he'd be forced to relive the very thing that traumatized him the first time you lost him. You were terrified of the possibility of losing him more than anything that Joker or Sionis could ever do to you.

You would welcome hell with open arms if it meant Jason could stay safe and alive.

"Y/n... d..don't you... fucking.. d.dare..", he choked out.

You ignored him, your eyes locked on Joker. “I know Sionis. I know nothing gets to him more than losing money. I’m the reason he’s lost millions. He’ll keep me alive and torture me to an inch of my life. I’ve seen him do it to men that have done less to do him wrong.” 

"I s..swear to g..god.. Y/n..", Jason's eyes filled with anger.

“Won’t it be better if he tortures the poor bird to an inch of his life?”, Joker contemplated, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes but you could tell he would rather have more fun making Red Hood helpless, desperate, squirming under the cruel reality of you being tortured. The idea of torment make him laugh darkly, a hunger for more chaos and psychological torture. 

“Red will have to live with the fact that he can’t do a thing to save me. You want your reunion? You want the torture? You want to get back at him and at Batman? You take me and you’ll see the Red Hood at his worst.” you spit out.

"Y/n!", his voice was authoritative through the pain, almost making you hesitate.

“You see an erratic, emotional, helpless man. He’ll do whatever it takes to try and help me and that is what makes him weak. Pathetic. Broken.”, you said with finality.

You noticed the slight flinch from Jason, the words burned on your tongue, especially calling him broken. It was one of his biggest insecurities, and you hated yourself for using it against him but you told yourself it was for his benefit. 

“I like the way you think.”, a sick glimmer of satisfaction flicked in Joker’s eyes. “You’re playing with fire, sweetheart,” he said, his tone low, almost admiring. “But I do love watching someone burn because of their own self destruction.”

He took a step closer, his grin widening, eyes dancing with dark amusement. “Let’s see how long you can keep that spark alive before it consumes you.”

Joker looked up at his men, “Take her.”

“N..No!”, Jason’s voice strained, his body struggling against his chains, Joker turning to him and kicking the side of his jaw, making Jason’s head snap to the side and knocking him unconscious. 

“Stop!”, you struggled as the men forced you to your feet. “Leave him alone!”

“He’ll live. Just gotta make sure he can’t follow us.”, his smile was wide as he motioned for the men to take you outside. You struggled as you felt your feet drag, forcing yourself to get your footing. “Let’s go.”, Joker motioned as the men followed behind him and leaving behind an unconscious Jason, forcing you forward so you couldn’t turn back and look at him. 

You let the men drag you outside, swallowing a silent cry as you forced back the burning in your eyes. The look in his eyes made your stomach churn. Anger, desperation, something deeper filled his eyes but you knew that there was no turning back. 

The guards opened the door to a black van outside, the tightness of their grip burning your arms as you let them throw you into the back of the van. The cold of the metal handcuffs bit into your wrists as they locked them behind your back so you couldn’t get out of the vehicle. As they slammed the door shut, the van roared to life, the engine vibrating through the floor as it made its way in the opposite direction from the warehouse and towards the city.

You rested your head back, letting a tear fall down your face as the city lights casted an illuminated glow on your skin, the weight of the situation pressing on your chest. You knew Gotham was burning down, Batman probably distracted with the false plan as Jason laid unconscious in the warehouse. Your eyes burned as you wondered what Joker would do, what Sionis would do to make you pay for all the money he’d lost. The city loomed ahead, every passing second made the dread in your chest deepen, but you steeled yourself for what was to come.

This wasn’t just about surviving. 

This was about saving Jason. 

Even if it costs you everything.

The sound of the van coming to a halt and the engine being turned off brought you out of your silent trance. You opened your eyes as you felt the slam of the front doors of the van close, the sudden movements making the van shake slightly before you turned towards the door next to you and watched the men open the door and grabbed your arms, unlocking the cuffs before dragging your body out of the van with brute force. Your legs wobbled before regaining balance and letting the men lead you towards the building, the silence making your nerves reach an all time high. 

Joker walked towards you and the men, meeting your gaze before he turned without saying a word, a rarity for the mad man but in that moment you appreciated his silence. It gave you another moment to bask in your reality and accept the consequences to your decision. The men dragged you with them as they followed the clown, your body numb as you let them lead you without any resistance. 

The eerie silence made your skin fill with goosebumps, but you approached the familiar building, a secret location Sionis had to deal with his…. Problem clients. The other vans outside gave away that the bastard was already here, a fact that made you mentally prepare for the absolute worst. As the men pushed you forward, you let yourself bask in the silence before dealing with whatever the hell Sionis was about to unleash on you.

You followed behind Joker as he navigated through the halls filled with different guards, turning a few times before reaching an elevator. Joker pressed the fourth button and the hum and slight movement indicated your movement upwards before finally stopping at the fourth floor where Sionis kept his main room. You turned down another hall before reaching the door that was guarded by two of Sionis’ men. Joker smiled up at them, laughing as the men questioned where the Red Hood was, the question answered with a simple, “I have something far better than the Red Hood.”

The men looked over at you with a straight face, your eyes meeting theirs before they stepped aside, letting the four of you pass before speaking. “The boss will be here soon.” they spoke flatly as they shut the doors again, the slam echoing throughout the building and vibrating through your body.

The room was loft style, the entrance at the top and the wide seating area just by the stairs. It was huge, big enough for meetings but also enough space for people to sit and enjoy the show while he beat the life out of the people who crossed the line with him. Everything was open, the railing providing small division between the walkway of the door and the lower area of the room. There were a few couches, dim lighting and a small desk off in the corner, the smell of gunpowder and alcohol filling your nostrils as you looked around, your gut turning with anxiety and a slit of fear. 

Minutes that felt like hours were cut short as the door opened again, the slow pace of expensive dress shoes echoed out and Sionis’ deep voice ordering his bodyguards left a chill running down your spine. God, he was going to lose his shit when he sees you. 

You watched as he walked towards his desk, completely ignoring you standing in between Joker’s men as he fixed the sleeves to his suit, waving off his men before finally addressing the clown. 

“Where is he?”, his tone was laced with annoyance, an anger you knew he was ready to unleash. The silent laughter of Joker only seemed to piss him off more. “Where is the red headed son of a bitch, clown?!”, he slammed his fist down on his desk, before walking to Joker and meeting him face to face.

“I suggest you cut the shit and answer me, your else your shit eating grinning face is gonna be mounted up there.”, his voice was deep, threatening and murderous. 

“I have something far better than the Red Hood for you.”

“What the fuck could possibly be better than the motherfucker making me lose millions?!”, Sionis snarled as he gripped tightly on Joker’s collar, lifting him off his feet slightly and choking him before the slight of Joker’s hand pointed behind him. 

Almost like on cue, Sionis’ gaze met yours, his hand loosening on Joker and shoving him to the side before a laugh ripped out of his throat. You’d never seen Sionis laugh so maniacally before, so uncontrolled. 

“You brought me this useless little bitch?”, his use of the word cut deep, but nothing you couldn’t handle. It was nothing compared to the beating he was about to bring upon you. “She isn’t worth my millions you useless motherfucker!”, Sionis snapped around, landing a supercharged punch to Joker’s jaw that made him go tumbling to the floor. 

Joker’s lip busted and a bruise already starting to form where he was hit, but he had no room for recovery as Sionis pulled his leg back, kicking him in the gut with such force it would leave a nasty mark. “Tell me, do you think I paid to bail you out of Arkham, got you the men you needed, the ammunition and guns for you to bring me, her?!”, another kick to the gut, and another to the back of his head. You recoiled at the violence Sionis was unleashing. You had seen several of his…. Fits while working with him the past few months but something about this… it was inhuman. 

“Wait, wait! Let me explain”, Joker laughed as he held his hands up, giving himself a second to catch his breath. “I think you’re gonna enjoy this.”

Sionis grabbed him by the back of his collar, pulling Joker to his feet before snarling in his face. “I am not in the mood for your fucking games.”

“This isn’t a game, this…. Let’s just say, I think you’ll love this far more than getting the Red Hood.”, Joker laughed as he motioned to his men, then pushing you forward and forcing you in front of Sionis. 

He turned to look at you, your eyes empty as you met his violent gaze. 

“Go on, sweetheart. Tell him our little secret.”, Joker egged on. 

You stayed silent, Sionis moving closer towards you, his face practically a breath away from yours. You held his gaze as the tension built up, wanting to break, your heart begging you to look away and yet you never did. 

“Well, Y/n.”, Sionis spoke. “Speak.”

Your eyes looked over at Joker before meeting Sionis again, his hand suddenly making its way to your throat and wrapping around your neck. “I won’t repeat myself again.”, he whispered murderously. “Speak”. 

The finality in his tone showed he was serious, your jaw clenching before you opened your mouth to speak. “I..”, you paused, your mouth suddenly dry and your heart pounding. Your pause made Sionis tighten his grip even more. 

“You what?”, his gaze bore into you like a dagger, the sensation making you want to squirm under his locked gaze. 

“Go on, tell him!”, Joker encouraged with his own sick and twisted enthusiasm.

“I..”, you let yourself harden again. “I’m the mole.”

Sionis’ gaze darkened, his hand tightening, almost like he was trying to force your words out. 

“I’m the mole.”, you repeated. “I’m the one who’s been feeding the Red Hood information on your operations, I’ve been letting him go after every assignment Penguin has given me on your behalf. I..”, your voice choked, your airway getting blocked off by Sionis’ grip tightening. “I… I have been secretly meeting with him for the past three months, feeding him information, giving him inside looks at your meetings, and planning every way to burn….you.. d-down.”, your voice cut off by the pressure, your eyes holding resolve. 

You felt his grip loosen, Sionis’ gaze still bloodied as he slowly let go of your throat, turning away from you almost as if thinking. Your heart pounding inside of your chest, ready to explode from the fear but you tried to calm down slightly. You didn’t let yourself relax, you couldn’t, not when you knew exactly the kind of man he was. 

A moment passed, then two… then the feeling of burning white pain exploded across your face, the force and momentum knowing you sideways as you choked on your spit, the breaking of your breathing not leaving room for any oxygen to flow into your lungs. You were hunched over, trying to stand upright but couldn’t when you felt another hit land on the other side of your jaw, completely knocking you to the ground, your head hitting the corner of the table that was a few feet away from you. 

“This entire time, I thought you were rejecting me out of disgust, out of pride… Now I see, you just prefer bottom of the barrel, bastard scum like yourself.”, Sionis spoke out. “Well, this might be better than I thought. All the time I suspected you I was right.”

You turned your body slightly to meet his eye line, but when his leg swung back in full force and connected with your gut, you choked on your words again. Another kick on your back, another stomping down on your shoulder, a cry of pain slipping past your lips as you felt his hand grab your hair, tangling in it as he forced your head up to look him in the eye as he crouched down next to you. 

“I knew about your little fraternizing with the bastard, in fact, you made it far too obvious.”, Sionis lips cracked into a wicked smile. His other hand grabbing your face and bringing it close to his, “What a shame. You could have had it all, Y/n.”, his mouth came close to yours and for a second you believed he’d force you to kiss him but he didn’t. He pulled back and met your gaze. “You were so wrapped up in the bastard you didn’t even notice….every one of your missions, every inside job, every scrap of information that ever left from the inside to the out, I have been keeping track of all of it.”. He smirked. “And you.. Well, you never even realized I had tabs on you.”

I had tabs on you. 

“I knew your little boy would find the first one and that was it. The first was just a distraction, a test to see if he really did have a soft spot for our little errand girl.”, his words sank into your bones in cruel realization. “When he did, that was all I needed to confirm there was something deeper happening. You didn’t think I would only keep one tracker on you? I found the fucker’s body dumped on our side of the border, but luckily for me, I think ahead and cover all my bases.”

You stared at him as you heaved, your scalp hurting from the tightness of his hold, eyes filled with a burning hatred towards him that always lingered inside of you. 

“You don’t even know”, he smirked. “Penguin fell into it easily too but… anything to keep my money where it belongs. In my pockets.” 

Sionis’ grip loosened, letting your head fall as you slowly met his gaze in a blur of anger, his hand flexing almost to stretch it out from the tightness he held you with. “You think you did a good job hiding your relationship with the Red Hood? Do you truly believe it would be your little secret forever?”, his voice was laced with a mocking tone, a sting inside of you at the mention of Jason. He was still calling him the Red Hood. It meant either Joker hadn’t told him who he truly was or Sionis didn’t care. In the end, it was all about killing and putting an end to his rampage and Sionis’ loss of money. 

“I don’t owe you anything.”, you bit out through the pain, “I told you… since the beginning. I work for Penguin, not you.”

Sionis only hummed, “That might be true. Luckily, I had someone who did work for me and owed me every little detail when it came to whatever the hell you were up to with the son of a bitch.”

You felt another wave of pain at the sudden grip Sionis had when he tightened his hand around your face. His eyes held a humor to them, like there was a card he was waiting to play. 

“Obsessive much? It’s a bad look for you, Sionis.”, you retaliated. 

“No, but someone else played their role well.”, he smirked, each word deliberate, the tension thickening with each syllable. “You definitely played the role well, but Calvi knew your reputation, so he was well prepared for whatever you had in mind to seduce him”

The words hit you like a punch to the gut. Calvi… he knew?

He knew. 

The entire time you thought you held the winning piece, outsmarting everyone in Sionis’ circle, he was already two steps ahead, he’d prepared further ahead than you thought. 

He’d already called checkmate. 

Calvi… The son of a bitch… 

Sionis’ eyes glared into yours, his smug demeanor only intensifying as he continued. “I knew you were suspicious from the first few times the Red Hood escaped. So I started planting information, and found an informant who was willing to be on my payroll.”

Your heart raced as the dread crept into your chest. 

“Calvi did a seamless job. Feeding Penguin information about a potential client, paying Calvi to get in on the Red Hood, him waiting for you at the Sapphire because I knew Penguin would send you to seduce him. All of it leading you right into the spotlight proving my suspicion. You were so blinded by Penguin’s job order, the Red Hood’s… interest when he caught you at Calvi’s club that you didn’t even notice the tabs he had on you 24/7.”

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. The words sinking into your bones and each revelation sent a chill down your spine. 

“Did you really believe he was so naive that he wouldn’t play the part?”, Sionis asked. “Calvi told me about Red’s outburst at his club, his demanding and authoritative request to Calvi to send you home. Calvi letting you go off with the Gala guests in order to slip away with Marcos, leaving you completely vulnerable to the eyes we had planted around the museum.”

It all made sense then, his instant interest in you at Sapphire, his invites to his home when he barely knew you, his invite to the Gala when he had no reason to take you, his willingness to let you leave with Jason at the Gala, his quick transition to security with Penguin… You believed his interest was because you held the upper hand but the entire time he knew you were there for him. The entire time he was the double agent. He played the part of working with the Red Hood, switching sides to working with Penguin, all of it while slipping information back to Sionis. 

“Calvi did well. He managed to make Penguin fall for his interest in his security, managed to get intel on the Red Hood’s operations on the Black Market and what stock he had for his raids, and… managed to make you believe you had him wrapped around your little finger.”, A laugh escaped Sionis’ lips. 

A wave of nausea washed over you as the truth sank in. Calvi played you, manipulating everything you believed, all of it while working for Sionis and slipping him the information he needed to prove your disloyalty to Penguin. 

“What a shame, really.”, Sionis eyes filled with humor as he smirked and his hand loosened on your face. “You were always known as the smartest woman in the underground, an informant and the best at hacking systems, yet you didn’t notice the trap you were walking straight into.”

Your blood ran cold as the truth hit you. 

“Now, we initiated a false plan, leading you into the city, Batman being busy with Joker’s men running around burning buildings, causing chaos, all while we leaked information to the Red Hood in order to send him to a secluded location just long enough for Joker to get Red Hood caught and inebriated.”

“Fuck you.”, you pushed forward, trying to lunge at him before he slammed you to the ground, your cheek pressed on the luxury rug that was stained with your blood from the first hit that he landed on you. 

“Don’t try and get smart.” He stood to his feet, walking over to his desk and opening a drawer, and picking something up as he looked over at Joker. “Make sure to stay close. I need you to clean up after I’m finished.”

Your heart dropped at his emphasis on cleaning up his mess. You saw a glimmer of metal, your anxiety seeping into your bones when you realized he had brass knuckles on. God, what was he going to do to you?

Joker smiled and only let out a loud laugh, moving back up the set of stairs that led towards the main entrance of the room, his guards following behind him as they left you alone with Sionis. 

“You think Joker has a bad reputation?”, Sionis’ voice was low, dangerously calm. “Compared to me, he’s a fucking joke.”

Sionis stood still for a moment, clicking his tongue before walking towards you slowly. Almost like he could smell the fear and desperation coming from you, he took his time psychologically torturing you. His steps echoed slightly, your body kicking into overdrive, your fight or flight screaming for you to use whatever strength you had left to try to leave. He watched as you rose to your feet, your balance off kilter and a smirk spreading across his face as he met your gaze with humor.

“What a shame. You have such a pretty face, too bad it won’t stay that way long.”, he pulled his sleeves back, slipping on the second brass knuckle. “Let’s see if the bastard Hood still likes you with missing teeth and a busted face.”

With pure, raw power, Sionis slammed you against the wall, the force knocking the oxygen from your lungs, his force making it hard to even gasp for air. His hand wrapped around your throat, making you choke for air and your vision blurring from the constriction. Your heart raced, the panic rising as he tightened his grip, the pressure not rising as your eyes filled with tears. You tried to hold his gaze, forcing yourself not to break. You’d be damned before you let him see you weak. Deep down you knew he wouldn’t stop. 

He never stopped. 

Sionis didn’t ever let his victims leave alive. He enjoyed the torture too much. 

He finally released his grip, letting your body collapse to the ground as you struggled to catch your breath, coughing and clutching your throat as you tried to breathe until it didn’t feel like your lungs were on fire. Sionis leaned down, his face inches from yours as he pulled you to your feet again with a rough pull of your arm, a loud hiss escaping your lips. 

“Don’t pass out on me, Y/n.”, he smiled wickedly. “I’m still not done with you.”

You felt another hit land on your cheek, your mouth filling with the metallic taste of blood as you heaved, your mouth burning. The pain was unbearable. You tried to let the pain subside but Sionis didn’t give you the peace. His brass knuckle connected with your stomach, then followed with a hard slam of his knee on the other side of your body. You bent over, the blood spitting out of your mouth as you tried to shove him off you, but your handcuffs didn’t leave room for mobility. 

You tried to keep yourself upright, your body burning and your legs shaking as you tried to regain balance but Sionis kicked in your leg, your body falling to the ground and his leg pulling back and meeting your ribs at full force. You coughed violently, the taste of blood thicker now, making it harder to breathe. 

“You really are pathetic.”, his voice dripping with disdain. “What does the bastard see in such a pathetic, weak, worthless nobody?”, he kneeled down, your gaze meeting his as your body laid on the ground, his hand tangling in your hair and bringing your face to meet him. 

You struggled against him, spitting at him with your blood, the instant disgust filling his face as he delivered another punch to your jaw. 

“You little bitch.”, he spit as you sucked in another gasp of air, the breaths coming in short and painful gasps. “Let’s kick it up a notch since you want to act out.”

His fist connected with the side of your head, the room suddenly spinning and your mind racing, the pain burning as you tried to focus. He slammed his other fist to the side of your jaw and as you tripped over yourself from the impact, he delivered another hit on your ribs. The blow made it feel like something had cracked inside your body, making your ribs explode into a kaleidoscope of pain. Your body convulsed with the impact, the pain reverberating through your chest and down to your limbs, leaving you begging for a second without his brutal hand. 

“Isn’t this fun? Breaking your bones and making you lose blood to make up for the millions you cost me?”, a subtle chuckle escaped him. “I think this… this is a lot better than dealing with the Hood.”

The taste of blood filled your mouth again as you coughed, trying to push through the pain, trying to rise to your feet without falling over. You couldn’t give in, not yet, but even through your resolve every breath you took felt like fire, the pain burning through your body like a wildfire. Shakily, your blurred gaze looked at him, the subtle sound of your choking escaping your lips.

“That’s it.”, Sionis smirked at your bleeding body. “Keep fighting. It’ll make you more fun to break”

And that’s all he wanted. You could see it in his eyes, he wanted to break you, tear you apart and remind you exactly where you belong. At the bottom of the food chain. Someone that would only serve their purpose to meet his own selfish needs. Someone who deserved nothing and was worth nothing. That was all you’d ever be, all he’d rip you apart to be, and in the end you’d return back to where you started. At the bottom. 

The kick to your shoulder toppled you over, leaving you struggling to breathe from the angle. Sionis let out a silent laugh before slamming his foot down hard on your shoulder, crushing it against the floor as a stifled cry left your lips, the pain shooting through you like a live wire. 

You closed your eyes against the overwhelming pain, your body trembling slightly but you refused to let the burning tears behind your eyes fall. You couldn’t show weakness. You would not give him the satisfaction of seeing you weak, especially after months of not letting him break you. Today would not be that day. 

“I can’t wait to see you beg.”, he landed another grueling kick to the back of your head, your disorientation worsening. He was reaching his end game. Every second of agony you soaked in, he was getting closer to his goal of pushing you to your absolute limit. “If only you could see how it would all end. It would have been satisfying to watch your reaction to the building going up in smoke”

Your heart seemed to stop, each word slicing through your already maimed body, leaving more anxiety crawling through you. He noticed your reaction, his next words laced with venom and ready to kill.

“You didn’t really think that just because you’re here that I would let the son of a bitch go, did you?”, his eyes filled with a cruel delight. “That warehouse, it was covered floor to ceiling with different bombs.”

Your blood ran cold, the full weight of his words crashing down on you, leaving you feeling numb. You didn’t realize it before, but everything you thought you knew was being swept out from under you and the pieces to Sionis’ grand plan were finally falling into place. The truth hit you like a bullet train at full speed. Sionis only soaked in your reaction, savoring the moment as he tortured you more with the truth.

“Joker didn’t plan for a confession out of you.”, he continued, his voice low and filled with cruelty. “But, I knew deep down that if the odds worked in our favor, we needed to prepare. I knew that you’d eventually show up and when you did…. Well, it couldn’t have worked more in our favor”

Your pulse was deafening in your ears, the sound of your heartbeat pounding in your chest that it drowned out the world around you. You couldn’t breathe due to your broken ribs, your head spinning from the hits he took to your temple. No doubt you had a concussion. 

“Planting the bombs was easy, it was getting you to show up that was up to chance. I wanted to kill two birds, one stone.”, Sionis kneeled down next to you. “You showed up, confirmed suspicion just like I predicted.”

The plan they had. 

It never would have given room for you to save Jason. 

It was a setup from the beginning. 

Way before Joker came into the picture. 

Sionis hadn’t been two steps ahead. No. He was miles ahead of you. 

Sionis leaned closer, watching as the last shred of hope in your eyes began to fade away, the fire that lit you up with the strength to go against him was slowly being extinguished by him. “Now, I keep you here and have my fun, and the Red Hood?”, he picked up your face in between his thumb and index finger, forcing you to look into his cruel eyes. “The Red Hood is finished.”

Tears burned in your eyes, begging to spill over as your anxiety clawed at your neck. It was over. Everything you did, all the months of working with Jason for this moment. It was all for nothing. 

You were never meant to save Jason. 

Not ever. 

You laid there motionless, letting your body succumb to the soreness, each breath a struggle, each second of consciousness a curse. The pain flooded your body, but you couldn’t process it. You felt everything but nothing all at once. No doubt the head injury was a concussion. If you passed out, you weren’t waking up but even fighting through the tiredness, you couldn’t stay awake much longer. 

Sionis spoke but your mind was too hazy to make anything out. His hand gripping your face barely made you flinch. You didn’t have it in you anymore. Darkness called you like a lullaby, inviting you to let go, to stop fighting, to meet Jason on the other side of this life, to succumb to the overwhelming weight of your suffering. 

The silence seemed so comfortable, so inviting. 

You felt like floating, leaving whatever was left here, the pain of your past, the agony of your present, and the reality of your future. You couldn’t grasp the reality of your existence anymore, couldn’t live with yourself for failing the one person you’d wanted to succeed so desperately for. All of it had ended with you here. 

Broken. Bloodied. Weak.

It was all too much. 

This life had everything taken from you. 

Your childhood.

Your first love.

Your sanity.

Your humanity….

Jason…

His name echoed in the hollow spaces of your mind, his face so vivid before it slowly started to fade, everything lost in the haziness of your consciousness. Thinking of him in your last moments…. It seemed all too perfect. Poetic. 

You felt Sionis drop your face from his hands, your body toppling to the ground like a rag doll as your blood stained the luxury rug beneath you, nothing translating to your brain anymore. You felt the blood drip down from the top of your scalp down to your lips, the metallic taste having no effect due to how much blood was already in your mouth. 

The world around you was muffled, Sionis’ words distorted, his face blurry. You couldn’t even breathe. Didn’t try to. Didn’t want to. Everything was over. Gone. There was nothing left except the raw, aching void inside of you. 

You could feel your heart slowing but also felt it desperately fighting the urge to stop, but it was tired. You couldn’t even remember what it felt like to fight to stay alive anymore. 

The world spun, the room blurring into darkness as your failure crushed the breath out of your lungs. The only thing you hoped was that Jason could forgive you. Your heart shattering, the guilt swallowing you whole at the failure you’d been. The disappointment you’d always feared had been revived. 

A single tear fell down your cheek, mixing with the blood that stained your face as the grief overwhelmed you. Everything was slipping away. Your final silent words left unheard as you let go of the final shred of consciousness you had left. 

I’m sorry, Jason….

Sionis stood, his laughter echoing in the room like the coldest of knives. This was his solace, this was him winning the game of torturing you. All the months that he wanted to break you, rip you apart, force those walls to crumble like Jericho, he’d finally called it. 

“In the end,” he spit out, savoring the victory of this torturous game. “I always win.”

And then, with nothing left to hold on to, the darkness consumed you.

A/N

Hey guys! Welcome back! I think this might be my longest chapter to date for this series and it was so hard to write because there is so much to cover and making sure all the scenes and details hit just right. Thank you so much for your continued support and patience with this series. I know I made a post several months ago about when PWF would return but there were a LOT of unexpected life events that prevented me from writing and it all became very overwhelming. But this series will continue and be wrapping up in the next month or so, and will NOT have a posting schedule so it will be updated as I finish chapters. Again, thank you so much for the support and can't wait to hear from you guys!

xoxo

[physalian]

Transformers Prime Appreciation Post

You know what. You know what?? This show has featured in so much of my writing advice, it deserves its own “This show is amazing and has amazing writing and shit you can learn from it to be a better writer” post. It’s streamable on Netflix at the time of this post. I own it on DVD. I have all three seasons on actual, physical discs that I bought new for my DVD collection. That’s how much I love this show.

What is TFP? TFP aired on The Hub network, the joint venture between Hasbro and Discovery Channel that died after MLP ended, I think. We lost cable before that happened. TFP was probably single-handedly sustained by MLP money for a while, like the rest of HBO on GOT.

This show came out when I entered high school and I have extremely vivid memories of some of the constant previews they showed of the season 1 finale 3-parter, to the point where whenever I watch the scenes that were in those teasers, I still get a physical reaction from being bludgeoned over the head with those lines of dialogue.

I used to scroll ahead in the TV guide as far as the scheduled programming allowed, just to catch snippets of what episodes were slated to air within the next month. This show was the shit.

But it was too expensive and its budget got eaten by Friendship is Magic. The bronies ruin everything I guess.

It’s 3 seasons (technically 2.5 since 3 was only greenlit for half its episode count) of near-perfection and a tv-movie. There are a few weak episodes, sure, and one absolute dud of a clipshow episode, but there are no awful episodes. There ain’t no “Great Divide” for this show.

Why you should watch it:

1. A “kids” show that absolutely takes itself seriously

One of the Autobots dies 5 minutes into the series and it’s the inciting incident for the entire story. He gets blown up, taken prisoner, and then stabbed through his chest by a Decepticon’s fist without warning. He then gets brought back as a zombie, killed again, infects his partner with the zombie juice when she’s trying to save him, and dies for good.

Two main characters get straight-up murdered, long-running characters whose deaths have lofty consequences for the narrative. There’s betrayals, double-agents, robot torture, robots getting eaten alive by scraplets, gaslighting of an amnesiac, near-murders of POWs, near-murders of fan-favorites who get so hurt, their recovery spans 4 whole episodes, attempted child murder, terrorism, and mad science.

But there is also some heavy emotional shit. The surviving partner of the zombie is damaged by his loss for the entire show because she can’t properly manage her grief. There’s characters going on suicide missions to avenge their dead/dying friends, getting beat to shit while a child watches helplessly on the sidelines screaming at them to get up and run through tears. There’s war flashbacks to dead friends and comrades and the terror and fallout of being eons-old soldiers.

There’s quiet moments, too, about grief and loss and living with disability and disfigurement from battlefield wounds. There’s the machinations of a tragic villain, openly and explicitly abused in front of his whole team and who keeps crawling back and groveling at his master’s feet and his internal identity crisis over who he is, if he’s not with his abuser. There’s the fallout of an extremely divisive trolley problem where a normally calm and collected character loses their shit with grief over the decision that was made. There’s the quiet rumblings of dissent and rebellion in the ranks and all the backstabbing that follows.

And there’s clever moments. Rogues and rebels orchestrating complex and interwoven plots to further their agendas. A POW who no one would ever expect to be captured absolutely trouncing their captives and laughing all the while while they free themselves. Characters who always have a backup plan to force others into awful predicaments.

The first episode after the 5-episode mini-movie that opens the show features an A-plot about school science projects, and a B-plot about waking a loyal ‘Con from stasis and trying to convince him to bow down to the ‘Cons’ temp leader, Starscream, while Megatron is elsewhere. It does not end well for him. The very next episode features robots getting eaten alive by alien metal termites.

2. Depth of Character

Beyond the actual plot, the villains might be more compelling characters than the heroes across many arcs and episodes. You’ve got five main autobots for most of the show that generally fit the 5-man band:

Optimus: Leader

Ratchet: Smart Guy

Bulkhead: Tough Guy

Arcee: Lancer

Bumblebee: Heart

Also guest starring the Alien Robot Cowboy Samurai known as Wheeljack, he’s amazing.

These characters have some really rich episodes and arcs, and moments where they have to put their own values, wants, and agendas aside for the greater good or the problem at hand. They feel like real people, for lack of a better word. They laugh, they cry, they rage, they grieve, and since the show is one long storyline, what happens seemingly inconsequentially in season 1 will come back to haunt them in season 3.

But then you have the villains, an extremely dysfunctional team of “every man for himself, we’re all not here because we like each other, but because we hate the Autobots,” and I can tell from the fanfic that the ‘Cons are the much more popular characters to write about.

Megatron: The fascist narcissist warlord

Starscream: His scheming SIC both too smart and too dumb for his own good

Soundwave: The utterly badass TIC comms chief who never loses and is insanely, fiercely loyal to the cause

KnockOut: The absolutely gay-as-fuck cosmedic surgeon/chief of medical voiced by Daran Norris, who’s only design requirement was to make him a sexy sportscar, and they ended up with a cherry red Aston Martin. One of his first lines in the show is "*whistle* Sweet rims” at Optimus in truck mode.

Breakdown: KO’s himbo, canon* boyfriend with some of the best, cringey puns

Airachnid: Arcee’s arch nemesis, the only other female transformer, a “love to loathe her” type

And others down the line for both teams.

*Canon insofar as a kids show on a kids network allows a la “we’ve given you as much subtext as we can, do the rest”.

KO is technically my favorite but it’s a tossup between many and that is a feat, especially when they’re the villains. They are all extremely compelling characters.

3. The Story

With some exceptions, episodes don’t happen in isolation. Most of season 1 is a bit random with a foggy throughline, but season 2 is utterly amazing, sans that one clipshow the producers probably insisted on.

Season 2 is the show’s finest hour and without spoiling anything: The end of season 1 sees this database that had been in the ‘Cons possession suddenly now with the means to decode and decrypt whatever’s locked behind it. The database contains coordinates on Earth of a myriad of confiscated weapons, ancient relics, and the like and the entire season is one big fetch quest with both sides racing and beating the shit out of each other to decode coordinates and retrieve the relics before the other side.

The macguffins are pretty cool in their own right (alien mustard gas, a giant Final Fantasy sword, an alien nuke, a phase-shifter) but it’s the intensity of the story and the action and drama that happens around the various quests that is so amazing.

At one point, the show takes four episodes to tackle a fetch quest across four separate relics that involves the entire cast on both sides and the two rogues all gunning for their targets at the same time, ending with one character critically injured that grinds the whole plot to a stop.

The show is one long story, as I mentioned, where something that happens in episode 2 shows up again as critically important in episode 40 and that’s a heck of an achievement on the writers’ part, making it all feel like it was planned that way from the start, even though it wasn’t.

Season 3 is… lesser, mostly because it has half as many episodes because the show was canceled. However, the writers knew about the cancellation early enough to still deliver a satisfying story, and wrap up loose ends with a tv-movie that is also pretty good.

Episode-to-episode there’s definitely a mixed bag of what kind of tone you’ll get. It’s still a kids show and there are human characters so there are some lesser episodes with the humans’ lives as the focus and the Autobots running support. Then you’ll have small-screen perfection, but like I said, there’s never a single episode of story (not clipshow) that I skip upon rewatch, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. The second “clipshow” episode is far and gone above the first, told through the eyes of a character as they’re on trial, only their scenes through the story, as they await judgment that might see them executed.

4. The Production Value

The majority of the animation budget rightfully went to the transformers themselves, which left the environments and the human characters a little rough around the edges. But you came for alien robots and before I got this show on DVD, I streamed crap quality episodes online. Once I saw these characters in full HD color, for the first time since it aired on TV, I was blown away. The reflections are, bar none, the best part. Which seems like a strange hill to die on but these are shiny metal giants. There’s some shots where you can see the reactions of other characters reflected hazily in the chest plates of the speaking character, and this is kids animated TV.

Some episodes do stand out, possibly because they changed studios, but some do have some off-kilter coloring or shadows, but you wouldn’t notice if you’re not like me and have picked some scenes apart frame by frame.

The music, also, is amazing. It’s grand and epic and far and gone from the 80s synthesizers, with a few choir tracks thrown in. The foley and sound design can get a little gratuitous with the metal-on-metal squeals, but none of it ever feels out of place.

I bought the directors’ commentary without knowing it for seasons 1 and 3 and they talked about having all the digital screens in the backgrounds of both bases constantly moving and showing data, not just static, blank images, and it really ups the feel of the quality and care put into the show when there’s always something cool to look at in every frame.

There are also some money shots. At one point there’s a fight that demands Optimus and Megatron join forces and with zero dialogue between them, only choreography in the span of about 25 seconds of animation shows you that these two really were old friends, old allies, old confidants. Their moves are mirrored, back to back, showing that Megatron clearly taught Optimus how to fight and this shot, the one at the top of the post, is too good to not spoil.

5. The Writing

Beyond the overall arcs, I mentioned in my “How to make your writing less stiff” post that the dialogue in this show is stellar. Due to animation budgets, they didn’t have the means to fully render a huge variety of environments, and that includes anything on Cybertron. So, when necessary, outside of when characters actually go to Cybertron later in the show, they use some beautiful matte paintings and voiceover narration by Ratchet, absolutely dumping exposition on the audience in spectacular fashion.

I have the director’s commentary. I know Ratchet’s monologues were a thing of beauty. They also had the cast all recording their dialogue at once, standing in a big U for more natural line deliveries.

The actual writing though, from the different ways the characters speak to the lore, the backstories, how the show can be a horror trip one minute and a kids’ science fair the next, showed incredible variety and flexibility in the writers’ room.

Optimus’ lines remain my favorite because they’re just that juicy, but then you have characters like Starscream, a perpetual schemer who loves to hear himself talk, pontificating whenever he can about his plans and how much he hates Megatron and how self-important he is. Or other righteous characters who use Big Words like Optimus that don’t feel out of place against somebody like KnockOut who says stuff like “I like the way I look in steel-belted radials” or Wheeljack who clearly learned English from watching Clint Eastwood movies.

Or, a later character, Shockwave, the most “robotic” of the robots and very poncy and scientific with the way he talks and interprets the world, with most of his lines including whether or not a character’s choices were “logical”.

This show is fantastic at creating tension out of mundanity and keeping you on the edge of your seat for nail-biting action scenes. You feel the anguish and the grief with the characters. Their rage and elation and devastation.

Some faults, because I love this show and I can recognize them

The human characters are… well, teenagers. Miko is pretty divisive, you’ve got the camp of “wah she’s a girl and she’s annoying” and just people who don’t find them as compelling. Which, fair. Their animation is a bit gummy and sometimes they disappear for entire episodes and their human world arcs are kind of abandoned. They’re not the best, but this isn’t about humans, it’s about transformers.

Due to probably time constraints with the show being canceled, some transformers’ arcs also felt abandoned or not given their due time to shine (of which fanfic has made painfully clear and rectified). It’s a very tight plot, but there are some dangling loose ends.

Sometimes it is incredibly in-your-face that this is a show meant to sell toys, particularly in season 3 with the whole uh, “we must become beast hunters” and the soft rebrand.

There exists a subplot of C-list villains, human militants who want to dissect cybertronian biology and make weapons. While some of their episodes are absolute bangers, you can tell the writers were getting sick of them before they’re finally written out of the show.

And a few awkward lines here and there.

Other cool shit if nothing else has convinced you

No love triangle or romantic subplot for the two female robots and one of the female humans. You can read one of Arcee’s relationships as romantic or platonic, but she is far beyond just “the girl” of the group, she’s a badass. The other romantic subplot is between a mom who’s deadbeat ex-husband is inexplicably missing, and a pot-bellied Army vet, and it’s really sweet and healthy.

(I think) incredible representation of characters with disability, in Bumblebee’s various war scars and his mutism.

The Gays. I swear there’s a page in the art book (of which I am desperate to find a copy of) for KnockOut and the caption of his art legit says something like “we made him too sexy, oops”.

So. Many. Puns. Puns that know they’re awful and relish in it. Dad jokes, too.

Ratchet losing his mind over how human children can get “twisted limbs and metal burn” if they do a dangerous thing before realizing the latter does not apply. Ratchet losing his mind in general. Just all of the cranky medic. Jeffrey Combs can make a phone book entertaining.

One of the last times we’ll probably get Peter Cullen and Frank Welker together doing Optimus and Megatron, the OGs. And also, one tiny moment where Frank has to say “treasure” and he still flubs it just like he does for Fred in Scooby Doo.

Consistency between character injuries. If Optimus’ sword breaks in a battle, whenever he summons it before he can have time to fix it, it’s still broken in ensuing shots.

An episode of zombies infecting the Decepticons’ ship and Starscream and KnockOut accidentally admitting they love each other while cowering in terror, while also calling back to a different pair of characters they did not witness saying the exact same lines.

Optimus transforming, ramming Megatron in the chest in truck mode, booting him off a cliff, and using his tires to melt rubber in Megatron’s face once they land because he is pissed.

All of Starscream’s immensely satisfying comeuppance for situations he gets himself into.

Using the murder termites for good in a rather horrifying death of a random goon.

Megatron’s hate boner for Optimus that clearly shows how badly these two don’t actually want to kill each other, despite having a million chances to do so, because like Batman and the Joker, “you and I are destined to do this for eternity,” and killing one would leave the other alone, after eons of fighting.

The gorgeous matte paintings.

—

Somebody on here once drew KnockOut with Autobot blue eyes and I have not been able to find that post since. If anyone sees it, please send it to me, it was gorgeous.

Now go watch this show. You can do it in a weekend.

[sanjoongie]

𝔻𝕒𝕪 𝕋𝕖𝕟: ℍ𝕒𝕥𝕖 𝕊𝕖𝕩

🥀Pairing: Kang Yeosang x Reader (f)

🥀Genre: Smut

🥀Rating: 18+, Minors Do not Interact

🥀Au: ninja au, anime au, Naruto au, historical au

🥀Trope: enemies to lovers

🥀Summary: when you claim that Yeosang was a man of no emotions and Yeosang demanded you prove yourself right, a passionate and hot sex session follows

🥀Kinks: hate sex, rough sex, degradation kink, fingering (f), mean dom! yeosang, mean sub! reader, breast/nipple play, strength kink, creampie

🥀Word Count: 1,693

🥀author's note: thanks to @mejuii for helping my gears begin to turn. Apologies for any terms you don't understand, I pulled directly the anime and this was completely self indulgent

🥀Day Nine: Long Distance Sex/ Praise 🥀Mini Masterlist 🥀Day Eleven: Somnophilia

Your ancestors would, in fact, be rolling in their graves if they knew whose fingers were deep inside of you. Your hips rolled into the hand that was giving you pleasure, but he wasn’t going to just let you take from him without giving back.

“What’s this?” Yeosang purred into the shell of your ear. “I thought you said there was no way that you could possibly get pleasure from anything I ever did to you?”

“Fuck off, Yeosang,” You snarled weakly, hips still bucking into his movements.

“Kinda pitiful, really?” Yeosang continued to torture you with his words. “A Senju letting an Uchiha fuck her with his fingers. We should be fighting instead of fucking.”

A jolt went through your nerves. It tightened your nipples immediately and made your lower half flood even more than it already was.

“Who’s fucking?” You argued, “You’re incapable of anything other than throwing barbed insults and using those damn eyes of yours.”

Yeosang hummed mockingly in agreement. “Right, how could a passionless man possibly fuck?”

You had been sent by the Hogage herself to infiltrate the Akatsuki. What you hadn't been aware of was that Yeosang, who had gone rogue when his elder sister had died by his own hands, had joined up with the merry band of shit disturbers. You had been sent here to figure out exactly what their grand plan was. You most definitely were not sent here to fuck the enemy, let alone an enemy that was generations in the making. 

All you had to do was keep your mouth shut, but you were so sick and tired of Yeosang's damn emotionless face. You had watched him fight, watched others die, and he never showed a single drop of emotion. You, however, had cried when the first Jinchuriki had died for the Akatsuki’s grand plans. Yeosang had accused you of having a weakness.

“Shouldn’t you have ripped your heart out a long time ago, great granddaughter of Hashirama?” Yeosang had mocked you then. 

“Oh, go find someone else to spar with Yeosang, I'm tired of you,” You had attempted to dismiss him.

What you hadn't known was that your explosions of emotions were what Yeosang looked forward to the most. He was so devoid of feeling anything for such a long time that you were refreshing, despite all his provoking. 

Yeosang quirked an eyebrow at you, making direct eye contact, the most you had ever seen that beautiful face move. “Tire of me? I haven’t heard that one before. Normally, everyone is begging me to show them something.”

You laughed mirthlessly. “Like that would ever happen. I don’t think you would know emotion if it hit you on the head.” That’s when you pushed it. “In fact, I doubt anyone could get a rise out of you, including your cock.”

Yeosang cocked his head at you, face still blank. “Don’t think I know how to use the sword on my body?”

“Tch.” You sneered. “I highly doubt you could please someone, let alone be passionate.”

A shiver went from the top of your head down to the tips of your toes as Yeosang smirked. You should have been terrified. Instead, you were turned on. “Do you want to test that out, brat?”

You took a step forward that brought you nose to nose with the enemy of your ancestors. “I’d relish proving you wrong.”

And then the rough sex that followed was like nothing you had ever experienced. You both ripped your robes in order to grope at each other’s chest. Yeosang pushed your breasts together while massaging them while you flicked your thumbs over his nipples, looking for him to break. 

You wrestled and fought for the upper hand, to be the more dominant one, but Yeosang was simply a smidgeon stronger than you. He pinned you against his chest, an arm against your collarbones, and he began to play with your body even more. It wasn’t until those skilled fingers found your wet folds that you heard a low chuckle in your ear. 

“Are you having fun, little one? You’re so wet I would think you were eager to be beneath me.”

You were so shocked by the sound of his laugh but didn’t fight him when he released your upper body and instead pulled one of your legs up so he could have easier access to your aching puss. 

“That’s simply the adrenaline talking,” You argued. You had to bite hard into your lips to keep the moan that was attempting to escape your lips in. “Like I could ever get pleasure from something you did to me.”

Except now, that was exactly what was happening. And you were starting to think that Yeosang was enjoying himself. 

“Does it make you wet at the thought that I’ll impale you in the middle of this forest where anyone could stumble upon us? Hmmm, little brat? Want someone to watch while your mortal enemy fucks you into an orgasm?” Yeosang teased and tempted you.

A whine was building in the back of your throat and the plea for him to fuck you was on the tip of your tongue. But your pride was burning your throat. 

“You have to say it,” Yeosang whispered into the skin along your neck. “I could bring you to the peak of your pleasure and stop. Again and again. In fact, I could torture you with my Tsukuyomi in that very way, and only a moment would pass.”

“Make no mistake,” You panted, your body still rolling into his hand as his fingers squealched and fucked your pussy. “I hate you.”

“And yet.” Yeosang was hanging off your words. He just needed you to give him the go-ahead, and he would show you exactly how you affect his emotions and his passion. 

“Fuck me, Yeosang,” You asked lowly, “Make me feel something for you that isn’t hatred.”

Yeosang moaned. “Gladly.”

With both of his hands cupping just under your knees, Yeosang held you aloft and lowered you down on his straining cock. You whimpered as he fought his way inside of you, thrusting into your wet cunt, making room in your soft walls for his cock. Each inch pushed inside was torture because it felt so good but you wanted the whole of him inside of you; you needed to be fucked until you screamed from your orgasm.

Each whimper that you let out as Yeosang fucked you was a gift to the Uchiha. For someone who had suppressed quite a lot in his life, sex was the one time he could let loose. The way you trembled for him, begged for him, whined for him was reawakening parts of him that he thought had long died. But what he wanted the most was for you to say his name with passion. He wanted to hear your name drip like honey from your lips instead of like poison.

“Does it feel that good, being fucked by your mortal enemy, brat?” Yeosang poked at you. “Does my cock give you that much pleasure that you have no more words to throw at me like a kunai?”

Your head lolled back, pleasure making you a willing ragdoll for Yeosang to fuck. You had never felt this way with any man. It was like with each stroke of Yeosang inside of you, he was looking for you to be pleased rather than himself. It was as if he wasn’t taking from you but giving. 

“How is it so good?” You rasped hoarsely, your moans already making your throat dry. “I’ve never felt such pleasure before?!”

“There’s a reason they beg me to never leave,” Yeosang admitted tonelessly, “After one taste of me, you’ll be ruined for everyone else. On that, I can swear.”

You believed him because no cock had ever felt as good as the one sheathed between your legs did now. “Wanna cum,” You whimpered, mind solely on your growing orgasm.

“Already? You’re a greedy brat,” Yeosang mocked you. “You’re an easy lay.”

“I’m--hnnnn-not--ah, ah, ah--just--fuck, shit, Yeosang! Yeosang, just like that,” You whined, the build up of your orgasm ushered by the way that Yeosang fucked up into your pussy like a well oiled machine. 

“Say my name like that again,” Yeosang demanded.

“Yeosang! Yeosang! Yeosang!”

He came inside of you with a quiet grunt, buried deep inside of you. He unloaded into you, an amount that filled you to the brim and then spilled out. You felt as his cum dripped out of you and onto the ground of the forest. 

With the final thrust, so deep inside of you that you felt his tip nudging your womb, you came. You screamed his name, stars lighting up behind your eyelids as you were gifted with such an intense orgasm that you were happy that Yeosang was holding you aloft.

Yeosang let go of one leg, then another, a hand on your waist to make sure you didn’t collapse. “Let me fuck you like that again, brat. I promise you I can show you a lot more.”

Wooyoung’s hyena laughter shattered the illusion that Yeosang had created just as he released you. “He’s right, you know. Men and women beg for him to show them something other than his cool, pretty face.”

Yeosang had indeed used his Tsukuyomi, the power of his eyes to trap you in a moment in your own mind, and had fucked you there the minute you had met his eyes. The illusion, the mind power, was so powerful that it felt exactly like reality. 

Your face burned with embarrassment. Your undergarments were simply flooded from the pleasure your mind had thought you had received. Your clothes were not ripped either. Wooyoung’s laughter died, and he peered at you and then Yeosang with curiosity. 

“You two should just fuck already, the sexual tension is palpable,” Wooyoung observed, albeit a second too late.

You screamed in anger, triggering a tree to grow, capturing Wooyoung by the collar and leaving him hanging, not quite understanding what exactly he had said. And Yeosang, the immovable statue of the Akatsuki, laughed at his best friend and partner, unable to contain any glee at the moment.

🥀Day Nine: Long Distance Sex/ Praise 🥀Mini Masterlist 🥀Day Eleven: Somnophilia

[never-stranger]

Title: Glory Burnished Bronze — Chapter One

Pairing: Loki x fem!reader (reader has wings)

Summary: After a mishap in a great battle, you are condemned as a traitor to Asgard, Vanaheim, and your own country. Centuries have passed of your incarceration in your kingdom, your magic suppressed by wards, your wings gone, but the magic falters and brings forth your freedom.

Your freedom is a catalyst for nothing but calamity.

The younger prince has a penchant for calamity.

Tags & Warnings: (For this chapter) Slow burn, Violence, Torture, Blood (for general tags, check it out on Ao3)

Forenote: This is gonna be a loooong one. big

Word Count: 3K+

────୨ৎ────

Asgard’s might is not one to be slighted. The Nine Realms cower before its shadow and their rulers immediately seek the Allfather’s rule for his judgement. Now the council surrounds you in dead silence within the walls of a bleak hall that is barely lit with torches. Metal-clad feet collide with the back of your legs, urging you to kneel. The chains rattle as you land. Your muscles are still sore from the throes of battle, but you dare not make a sound, refusing to grant them the pleasure.

Had you been taken here blindfolded, you wouldn’t be able to guess this place was in the Golden City. It was more run-down than its dungeons, much like it was reserved specifically to condemn the worst of criminals.

You train your eyes on Odin before you. He is dressed in his armour with his fingers wrapped around Gungnir. On one side is his wife who fails to stifle her emotions; the sorrow seeps through her eyes and her lips quiver slightly. Sentiment was one, cruelly stupid thing. She was not your friend, perhaps she was even less of an acquaintance than anyone else in the room.

On the other side are his sons. Thor’s gaze is downcast. He’d known you by name and title, but seeing the face of the crimes proved heavier than he’d anticipated, much more when it was the face of a woman about his age. This is why he could never be king, his younger brother next to him seethes.

Unlike the golden prince, he stares sharply. His face is inclined so he looks down at you as he stands on the platform with his family. He condemns you to scrutiny. He’d heard of your crimes and thought you no more than a fool, the magic in your veins was misplaced and could have gone to someone far more capable like himself. In his eyes you were a brutish warrior without foresight; how you were assigned to command a legion of enchanters was beyond him. Sending you to your death would be like rooting out weed plaguing Yggdrasil.

Even so, he swallows a swell in his throat when his father rejects the axe in favour of sentencing you to a lifetime of imprisonment.

“I believe The Swan will be best kept with us, Your Majesty,” a voice interjects. The voice you recognise comes from Rognvir, Fjaerheim’s spokesman speaking on behalf of its king. Glaring up at him, you see the flame in his silver eyes, burning of sorrow and anger. His greying hair threatens to catch fire, the crevices of his skin bury any semblance of empathy he has left. In his eyes, you were a traitor, a rogue warrior drunk on power that led to his son's untimely death on the battlefield. He tells himself it isn’t selfishness and he speaks purely out of concern for his country; that the power you wielded was deadly and could only bring forth more catastrophe.

“Do you suggest that Asgard falters in the task of keeping her bound?” The Allfather challenges.

“I dare not claim such a thing, my lord. But King Anundr reckons there is no greater punishment for treason than to be bound by one’s own people.”

When the One-Eyed King remains silent, the spokesman prods, “With all due respect, Your Majesty,” Rognvir bows his head, a fist to his chest. “The capital of Vanaheim will be keeping the Aether in its vaults, Asgard has also collected its trophies. Consider this act a consolidation of our loyalty to your throne.”

“We are to trust that she remains tethered to the lands of Fjaerheim? Under the rule of her own people?”

“It is under our rule that she abused her power, something we do not take kindly. I myself, shall ensure the full extent of her punishment,” says the Fjaervakt bitterly.

The prince counts four heartbeats before his father nods.

Irony was lost on everyone else. Every man and every woman in the hall had blood on their hands, insurmountable lives taken by wielded blades, yet you… you were guilty.

The voice he had only once heard spoken soft and tenderly now screams and hollers, pleading for death. The thrashing of chains overcomes the sound of Gungnir striking the ground twice, signifying Odin’s ratification of his decision. Your wings spread out in distress, a last-ditch effort your body makes to shield you, it makes the guards behind you stumble.

The raven prince does not hear his father’s second command, so when a blade is brandished he thinks you’d been sentenced to death after all. But when it lands, it elicits a blood-curdling scream as the winged flesh falls on the floor. The action earns an echo of gasps, but the sound of blood rushing in your ears drowns them out.

Freedom was torn from you twice. No, it slips like liquid from your fingers, blood cascading down your skin to paint a grim picture. It clings to the dirt on your body, to your hair. The stench invades your nose; it’s taunting you. You’ve lost, you’ve lost.

Your forehead touches the ground as you suppress your sobs, but you do not have the luxury of time as you are dragged back to your feet. Darkness surrounds your sight until you can only focus on one man. Your prosecutor is the last man you see before the doors close. You curse him, you curse everyone who stood by and watched.

Gone are the days you’d led them to glory and countless victories. Forsaken by your own people; where once they’d bow in greeting, now they seemed satisfied to see you on your knees before them. It leaves a bitter taste on your tongue. These rats, how they’d scour to appease.

Fjaerheim was a disparaged state. For millennia on end, the Fjaervakt would throw themselves upon the Allfather’s feet, offering their greatest accomplishments to the god. With all of Asgard’s pretentiousness and grandeur, they’ve had to fight tooth and nail to prove themselves worthy of alliances and recognition. Such is true for the warriors of Fjaerheim for the most part. The enchanters, like you, were at least a little more reserved. Enchanters, witches, magic users alike had always been criticised for being arrogant in nature, but is it truly so arrogant to refrain from toiling every fleeting shred of praise?

It burns. You can’t quite tell what, but it does. Perhaps it’s everywhere on your body. All that’s left of your identity are the stubs on your shoulder blades that were once wings. With a hoarse throat and dehydration, no voice comes out as you’re dragged.

Loki looks down at himself and checks for blood. He wants to scrub off all the grime he had accumulated from this room alone, more so when he catches a glimpse of his mother whose eyes are filled with pity that should make him scowl. But her eyes only remind him of an afternoon from decades ago, years before war threatened to set loose.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” the raven prince scolds. His demeanour is as juvenile as any young man, a hand on his hip, his hair disordered in the wind. “This is a private sanctuary for my serpents.” His words are punctuated by the hissed agreements of the snakes. Some crawl on the ground, the others are wrapped around tree branches, but one of them seems content to be coiled around your arm.

“What, are these your chambers as well then?” You snap.

He clenches his fists to your amusement. “Leave before I call the guards.”

“I somehow doubt you’ll need them to cast me out, Odinson,” you address the snake on your arm more so than him as you lift it close to your face to look in its eyes, stroking the scales gently. “Besides, I could ask them to bring me to Frigga and she’ll tell them she had let me drop by.”

“These little things… all bark and no bite.” You dare a glance at him. He looks at you contemplatively. Why in the Nine Realms would his mother let a bird into a snake enclosure? Let alone his very own!

He takes a few steps in your direction, making sure to crush leaves in its wake. “You are its prey, had you been smaller they all would have clambered for a taste.”

“Had I been a bird, I wouldn’t even be here to have this conversation,” you say dryly. “I would have better things to do apart from all the politics and these pretentious… royal engagements.”

Kølldottir. Daughter of Køll, he remembered. Though he’d never cared for your given name until now. Perhaps his mother would be inclined to tell him

They called you a swan. But it makes him wonder. You held no grace of one… did you even have wings? Though he knew the Fjaervakt could hide their wings, you still seemed to be awfully… ordinary.

You crouch closer to the ground, softly cooing at the wicked little thing. He watches as it loosens from you, making a line towards him. He almost laughs at how obedient such a creature known for its stubbornness was.

The snake nuzzles his boots, akin to a feline’s gesture of affection. He picks it up as delicately as how you settled it down. His mouth opens to question you, but he looks up to see the sanctuary empty, no hint of a presence apart from the hissing of snakes.

The next time he’d seen you, he was an ambassador visiting your kingdom. You knelt before the throne, a blade being graced softly on your shoulders. You were being anointed as the next Cardinal Enchanter.

“Brother,”

Silence.

“They wait for us at the victory banquet.”

Serpents plague your dreams. Though a mere fragment of your imagination, the hissing seems too thrum in your eardrums. The ruthless predator strikes a bird, and in another moment that bird is you. It’s coiling around your frail form, stealing the breath from your lungs.

You hear a call, pleading, calling out your name.

You search for it. There is no longer a snake as you soar over the battlefield. Wings stumble, but something else keeps you steady. You can feel it wrapping around your throat, warring with your mind, heart, and soul. The skies above are obscured, perhaps it was of your doing. But with the dark magic crawling into your eyes, clawing at your vision, it’s hard to see.

The magic drenches your fingertips, tainted black, the veins on your forearms, closing into your pulse points, darkening and threatening to consume you whole

You hear it again, it’s closer, but fainter.

“Father?”

When you wake on the cold stone, you take a breath as though you had just drowned. All you see are the same ecru bricked walls, the same dark, eerie marble floors and the torches that keep the temperature bearable at most. The cell was spacious and high, as though to mock your freedom to walk, but not to fly. There were runes inlaid on the ground, carved in a circular motion. They are the ones holding you tethered here. You had no chains, but you could feel the weight of the wards casted on your shoulders. They fatigue you and stifle your magic all the same.

There is no telling of the time, you were underground with no windows or gaps to peek through. They had granted you the luxury of books, half of the cell was a large bookshelf but to compare the quantity with the lifetime you would live here… No, you had finished the books before a decade had passed.

Once, you had laughed to yourself remembering Rognvir’s words about ensuring your full punishment. You had assumed it would be a lifetime of physical torture. But no. This. This was your punishment. An inescapable feeling of languor, the incessant boredom as life moves on without you, depriving you of meals. You felt the hunger, the starvation, but it did not kill you as you wish it would have.

But even this feat did not last long as one night Rognvir entered your cage. He’d grown frail and older. The greys of his hair spread into his skin, his eyes are dull and he holds a cane. With him was an enchanter, whose face was obscured from your view.

The old man moves closer to your shelves, examining the titles available as though to distract himself while the enchanter positions themself. You deserved this, yes. No one could come to rescue you, but he needed to be sure. His son died a quick, albeit painful death. Many of the souls sent to Valhalla were also on your hands. It was in his hands to make sure you died slowly.

And if you dared to break free, you would know it was a greater mistake.

When the enchanter speaks, their voice is distorted, but the words are clear and clawing at your heart.

O, sacred fates heed me

Carry these words to the tree

By the laws that bind the ancient realms

By the wrath of the gods be sound

For no hand to lift you from the ground

May your touch bring forth flames

For fire shall be your bane

Bound by the wrath of Hel

Till the flames seethe and yearn

You could have sworn you’d seen the face of your hexer. At least, the teary eyes and the apology on their tongue.

A fire that shifts, should the heart discern

The curse shall linger to who you hold dear

When hearts entwine shall it disappear

You would pass the centuries in a cycle of slumber and wake. You’d grown tired of reading the same titles, of pacing the same grounds. Sleep merely felt like the blink of an eye as you lay unmoving on the ground. Numb. Your eyes would open, then close again. But without a clock, you were oblivious to how much time would have passed. You could only feel it by how sore your body has grown, perhaps how your hair had grown to reach your feet.

Slumber takes you in full. You do not dream, nor hear the faint crackling of torches.

You do not hear the seal groaning above.

But you feel the rain cascading down your skin.

The Raven was not in high spirits.

Even less as he had just returned from subduing an illegal operation in the north, only to return home with his presence being requested immediately before the Allfather. No hero’s welcome, perhaps a sliver of it in the form of a salute from awaiting soldiers. He gives them a nod as he dismounts his horse, his party of enchanters follow suit. Only to be followed by the Allmother’s servant, Mendel, hastily making his way to the prince to blabber all the way into the palace.

“...There are a myriad of preparations to be made in the upcoming months, my lord, plenty of which the Queen has requested your assistance with. The Annual Arcane Tournament, too, is within the fortnight–”

“First, I am welcomed with a request from the King. Now you nag me all the way to him with matters that are of no concern at the moment. Do you mean to tell me the King wishes to talk of these fatuous preparations on the throne? By fate, I hope it won’t be a waste of time as you are making it sound like.” The prince halts in his tracks to give the servant a pointed glare as he speaks. Mendel feels the frostbite nip his skin, the prince’s icy glare freezing him into place before quickly melting as the forest’s winter peeled his gaze away to will his feet further into the corridors.

“First things first, Mendel. I shall attend to my mother later. What urgency requires my presence upon the throne room this early noon?” Though weary, he has returned to his princely demeanour. The events of the earlier morning slowly fade into the depths of his mind. But they linger nonetheless, in his mind and in the droplets of blood on his leathers.

The prince and all his wonders, thinks. Kingly duties were primarily only of Thor’s concern as the heir, it seems this concern exceeds beyond.

The pair stops before the grand doors as the prince awaits his answer.

“A messenger from Vanaheim, my lord.”

Before Loki could voice his contempt, the grand doors swing open, and a herald announces his arrival. The lingering echo rings in his ears. It makes him wince.

He scurries into the room, leaving Mendel behind. He does not see the servant bowing as the doors close.

Upon reaching the foot of the stairs to the platform the thrones lay upon, Loki heaps a small show of reverence himself, bowing to his hips, a fist to his heart before making his way to his mother’s side. Mother and son exchange fond gazes before awaiting their special guest.

They do not wait for long.

“The messenger Bernhard of Vanaheim!” Bellows the herald.

Bernhard was of lesser stature, as most of the Vanir were compared to the Aesir. He scampers into the throne room, unfashionably urgent. His hair was unkempt, ginger splayed all over his face, eyebrows furrowed into an expression of distress. His skin was darker, too, evidence of Vanaheim’s closest star warming its lands. He had barely made it to the foot of the platform before he fell to his knees. Both of them. As opposed to the tradition being only one. The momentum from when he ran inside makes him glide half an inch onto the carpet.

“What concerns of Vanaheim requires Asgard’s counsel, Bernhard? Speak,” commands Odin, ever the king he is.

“Fjaerheim is in a state of unrest. Their magic has dwindled, though we know not why.” Bernhard’s voice trembles. He’d heard of the king’s wrath in tales and did not wish to witness it for himself. What he’d just stated was merely the tip of the iceberg.

The king has moved in his seat. If intrigue was a scent, he’d reek of it. “Continue.”

“The capital of Vanaheim has lost the Aether.”

The brothers look at each other, the atmosphere hardens and a bead of sweat drops on the ground. But the messenger continues.

“The former Cardinal Enchanter of Fjaerheim–” he clears his throat. “The last who wielded the Aether has been set free.”

The Wraith.

The Lady of the Swans.

Odin grasps Gungnir tightly, the messenger prepares himself for a strike that does not come. Perhaps the Allfather wasn’t as merciless as he’d been told.

“Fjaerheim has granted her freedom?” The irritability leaks from Odin’s voice. They’d sworn full sentence five hundred years ago, surely they would have known better than to rescind loyalty now.

“N-no, sire. At least not from what we have been told. The weakening of Fjaerheim’s magic is to blame. The spells that kept her tethered faltered with its people. But the council suspects that the Fjaervakt are keeping something from us, perhaps they seek to reap more of their sovereignty from the capital of Vanaheim, they say.”

“Does the council surmise a connection between these events?”

“As we presume the prisoner has no means of escaping or retrieving the Aether without wings, nor magic, it’s quite hard to tell, sire. Unless she has someone from the outside, which too isn’t completely out of the question.”

The Wraith , yes. A handful remained loyal to you despite your sentence, and some still lived at present. Even Loki could remember their faces, how they were somehow frozen into contortion expressing indefinite derisiveness whenever they stepped foot into the Golden Palace. They scorned the King, but never enough to raise an impression.

The idea was on the tip of his tongue, but Thor beat him to it– “Then we shall find her. Before she makes allies, we’ll be sure to have her,” He turns to his brother, “you and I, and our men. We’d make a formidable search party.”

Loki rolls his eyes, his hands tighten behind him as he clears his throat. “With your permission, father?”

The hopeful look in Bernhard’s eyes does not escape the sights of the king and his youngest son. In hindsight the idea seemed rash, but would there be anyone else so willing to take the quest?

Was The Wraith as vulnerable as they say? Or are they merely imploring for action to be taken. Either way, his sons were capable, he knew that far. Should they find her, you, you’d be returned to Asgard to where you rightfully belonged. Fjaerheim took you as a prize, a cruel symbol of loyalty to the Golden Kingdom. But they’d failed.

The thought lingers, but he keeps it at bay. Your power, the Aether. No one else had wielded it for so long before losing their minds or deteriorating physically. With that kind of power how, had you stood for so long? And with that kind of power within an arm’s reach from him…

“Very well. The princes of Asgard shall lead a search party to seek out the prisoner. Thor shall take five of his best men, and Loki shall take five of his best enchanters–”

“I’ll fare perfectly fine with just two.”

“...Two of his best enchanters, and Vanaheim and Fjaerheim can provide as much as they deem fit for this venture.” The Allfather moves in his seat, leaning forward. “However, I duly suggest to simmer down any animosity between the two nations for the time this shall take place. Asgard and Vanaheim are powerful, but only the Fjaervakt can be certain of their own lands.”

“Of course, sire.”

“Then it is settled.” Two thuds of a spear resound.

Bernhard rises from his knees and graces the family with one last bow.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Afternote: Just reuploading progress from my Ao3!!! what are your favourite Loki headcanons? I really like the idea that he has a snake sanctuary somewhere. Also that he transforms into a snake when he doesn’t feel like talking to people lolll

[eyelambspider]

Picture You || Farah Ahmed Karim

⤷ summary : "do you picture me like i picture you? am i in the frame from your point of view? do you feel the same?" - Chappell Roan ♡

┊pairing : farah x fem!reader, alex keller ┊content warning : angst, one sided love, unreciprocated feelings, slightly suggestive, mentions of alcohol/smoking, heartbreak ┊word count : 1.1 k ┊a/n : i will also rewrite for a male!reader, but first thought was a fxf fic :)

Ten years had gone by in a flash. Each year, each day dancing across your vision like the most blissful death.

Something did die today.

Something buried deep down and protected by a cage of bone and sinew.

What-... god what you wouldn't do to rip out the beating mass to stop the pain it caused.

It beat like a broken drum against your throat as you laid witness to the suspicions you had-come true-carried out between two lovers in the dark of night,

Alone on the roof, always unable to sleep, you glanced down at the image below of him and her.

Farah and Alex, pressed against the crumbling brick wall in the tangles of a warzone, stealing away a moment to pretend the horrors around them ceased to exist. Indulging in a bubble of human comfort and touch.

Lips tangled together in a feverish dance, sucking in soft puffs of air in between while his lips trailed a shaky line down her jaw until his teeth found the smooth expanse of her brown skin.

No bombs could compare to the crushing feeling of watching her bare her neck to his heated kisses. No torture more exquisite in its pain as she exposed the column of her throat to his eager mouth. A soft, hitched sound spilled from her lips that crackled like napalm.

Farah's eyes fluttered closed as she allowed herself to indulge in something she could never truly have... And it broke your heart into a million pieces to watch.

To not be the one in his place. To not be the one from who her pleasure derived on, depended on.

A white hot coil of barbed wire constricted your throat, choking back a flood of emotion and baseless longing. A searing heat crept up over your body in a way you'd never known. Intense and heavy on your shoulders, the weight of the world suddenly feeling suffocating, bringing forth a wave of glassy tears to blind you from the vision of them entangled together.

Every fleeting moment of her, every image of that beautiful woman conjured up in an instant just to hurt you more.

Her smile, the genuine one that had her lips curling and eyes crinkling with warmth. Her voice, a comfort. Her presence like a lifeline.

Now the truth laid bare before you, blatant and unaltered as Alex's hands gripped her waist. She could never be yours, and it fizzed like a brand against the base of your throat as you watched on in silence.

Farah's soft sigh kissed your ears, ringing out like you'd always imagined it...

Every night, when the resistance would sleep and take shifts watching... In the dead of night, like this one, you would finally allow the image of her appear in your minds eye.

Her big brown eyes simmering with the same desire for you, flickering over your brows, eyes, nose and lips. Your fingers brushing over the ridge of her beautiful nose and cheekbones, a worshipper of this goddess on earth, molding her skin with your fingertips. Burning each ridge and caress into your soul with her in your arms. Laying chest to chest, face to face, lips hovering over each others in a butterflies kiss. Basking in each other like real people did.

If god had given you the chance, you would kiss her like the world was going to end. With a passion deeper than the oceans you would cross for her.

For her.

There was nothing in this world you wouldn't do for Farah. If she asked it, it was hers.

A rogue tear slipped from your eye with a silent plop, still watching as her half-gloved hands tangled in the back of Alex's hair, urging him closer. Drinking in his affections like it was the sweetest wine on her tongue.

Amongst a decade of pining, of stealing away memories with her you treasured and kept close to your heart like starfall, you remembered the night she danced with you.

Where she almost looked at you like that: With the same unbridled heat.

That night was foggy like a dream, one you replayed every time she caught your eye. The resistance was celebrating-for what reason you could hardly recall. Drinks and smoke filled the room of cracked walls, golden light filtering out from the windows as men and women danced and laughed like it was the last.

Farah hardly celebrated, not until it was really over, and you had known she would be sitting right there: outside in the cold, half of a cigarette dangling from her lips.

She turned her head as you appeared next to her and smiled, her eyes crinkling softly at the corners.

You had convinced her to dance. Out here in the cold moonless night, with nothing but the hushed remnants of music cascading from inside where the real party happened.

She wasn't one for dancing, but she still took your outstretched hand anyway, flicking her cigarette into the dirt and smothering the ash beneath the toe of her boot.

Your hands would never forget the way they held her. Sliding across her waist, her rough hand in yours, the image of her smiling eyes and pretty teeth seared into your soul.

Nothing else mattered that night. Not the name of the song playing wistfully in the background, not the reason the resistance was celebrating. Only the way the warm light danced across her skin.

For a night, not just her sister in arms, but a woman who asked her to dance.

And even the war seemed far away with her pressed so closely to you, her rare laugh filling the air as you showed her how to spin in your arms and come back into your embrace.

Over and over like a broken record, the image of her eyes swam across your blurred vision.

This night was like the one back then, cold and moonless.

And instead of her in your arms, she was in Alex's. Her eyes filled with reverence and a passion that would make even god envious of the man Alex Keller.

Another hot tear slid down your cheek, pain bubbling up in your throat until it was choking and hot.

You had to force the shell of your former self to turn away from the sight. Quietly slipping away as Farah's fingertips dug into his shirt and pulled him closer.

She deserved to be happy, whether it cost you your heart or not.

Farah would still always have the pieces of what remained in her hands.

[chaotic-orphan]

Whumpuary No.7

Unfair fight // Insomnia // “no one is coming”

This was a long one, hoi boi🫡 but she’s done…

“Hero…” Second in command said softly. Hero didn’t reply. She just kept walking after their team across the rocky terrain to the shelter that Navigator spotted a few kilometres back. “Hero.”

“What?” Hero asked. There was nothing sharp about the question. She didn’t snap. She didn’t sigh or demand an answer. It was empty. A sound that carried no meaning behind it. She was tired. She was beyond tired. She just wanted… she just…

“We’ll get them back.” Second told her. Hero didn’t reply. She just kept going. That’s all she could do. Keep walking. Keep breathing. Keep going until they somehow managed to rescue Vigilante from Supervillain.

Nobody that Supervillain took had ever been seen again, nevermind… nevermind— she buried that thought under a hatch in her mind and padlocked it down. Getting emotional wouldn’t get Vigilante back after all… no… she just put one foot in front of the other. It was easy. It was quiet. It was…

She was…

Leader, Navigator and Medic had dropped their packs and started setting up a camp, rolling out their bedding on the smooth rock. Rogue and Youngest were already gone, to fetch some wood for a fire no doubt when Hero and Second arrived.

Hero disengaged from the group and went to the cliff edge outside the shelter and settled her back against the rock of the cave. She heard the usual routine happening behind her, without her.

Then he appeared like an apparition in front of her. Translucent but full formed, a shadow of Villain with his self-satisfied smirk and gleaming eyes. Hero didn’t say anything as he approached her.

“Hello darling. You’re looking worn, drained.” Hero looked through him, literally, as he crouched down and pressed a phantom hand to Hero’s cheek. She wished she couldn’t feel it. She knew he was able to not let her feel it, but he was a sadistic fucker. “My my, have you been sleeping, pet? Your bags have bags,” he noted, pulling down her eyelid.

Hero batted his hand away, but her hand went straight through his projection and she huffed out a breath and looked away as Villain laughed.

“You know damn well why I’m not sleeping.”

Villain released her and sat in front of her instead. He tilted his handsome head to the side. “Is it Vigilante, hmm? The guilt of knowing you could have saved them but didn’t.”

“Fuck off.”

“Oh shush. You know how much I enjoy our little chats, Hero,” he said, waving her insult away. “Besides,” his eyes sharpened. “We both know what else I could spend my time doing if you don’t feel like talk—“”

Hero lurched forward a hand out that went through Villain’s visage. “No! No! I— I wanna talk.”

Villain grabbed Hero’s hand and brought it to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. His eyes danced with a gleeful satisfaction. “So desperate, Hero. So needy. But don’t worry. I’ll stay with you. We can talk all night long.”

Hero wanted to punch him. She wanted to cry and scream and wrap her hands around his throat because she didn’t know how much longer she could take this. The taunting, the teasing, every night, once the sun set, Villain would appear to her and force her to chat with him through the night so she couldn’t sleep. The first few days it was fine. She could catch an hour before and after Villain appeared, and she was fine. But they were travelling for two weeks now, and Hero had had to start sleeping by day to the annoyance of their teammates.

The worst part was she couldn’t even tell them about Villain, or Villain promised he’d make Vigilante pay and let Hero see all of the torture for herself.

How many times had she debated telling her team? How many times has she wanted to scream about it to somebody, anybody, but Villain somehow sensed that too after the fourth day.

He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back after she challenged him. “Maybe Vigilante’s life isn’t enough of a threat, hmm? You know… Youngest in your team seems quite—”

“No!” Hero screamed, struggling against a ghost.

Villain leaned down, craning Hero’s neck all the way back but she didn’t drop eye contact with him as he hissed: “then behave.”

Dinner came and went. Hero denied any food. She felt too sick to eat. Almost woozy from the insomnia, and when she did eat it was like she was pumped of adrenaline that only led her to crashing later.

“Hero… you should really eat. You’ll turn into skin and bones if you don’t,” Villain chided with a smile.

When it came time to sleep, Hero said she’d take first watch. Leader came out and stood above her. “Hero, no.”

“Oooh,” Villain cooed from behind Hero, twirling a lock of her hair around his finger. “Your boss is so forceful Hero. But tell him you insist.”

Hero shivered as the phantom hand settled on the nape of her neck. “I- I insist,” she said quietly.

Medic came out after Leader.

“Hero, get inside. We need to cover a lot of ground tomorrow and we can’t have you dozing off when the sun comes up again! We’re losing time to save Vigilante.”

“Don’t you think I know that?!” Hero cried, hands flying to her hair and pulling. “I— I want to save Vigilante more than anything.”

“She’s right you know,” Villain purred, standing behind Medic. He started whispering in Medic’s ear, loud enough for Hero to hear. “She wants to save poor Vigilante more than her circadian rhythms demand.”

“Please!” Hero cried. “I— I- I need to stay awake.”

Villain’s violet eyes flashed at Hero over Medic’s shoulder. “That’s right. Good girl. You tell them.”

Hero swallowed hard. Leader frowned and looked over his shoulder to where Hero stared, almost as if in a trance. Medic found his gaze, erudite eyes coloured with concern.

Leader looked back at Hero.

“Alright.” Leader said. Hero relaxed, breathing out a sigh of relief that seemed to be the only thing holding her up. She swayed as the world spun around her and would have fallen if not for Leader catching her halfway to the ground.

“Please,” Hero said with a breath, not entirely sure she didn’t blackout for a second. “Please, trust me,” she pleaded.

Leader nodded and sat her back against the rock. “I trust you, Hero. I know losing Vigilante has been hard on you, but there’s some leftover food and you will eat some of it if you won’t sleep, do you understand?”

“I—” Hero protested. Leader spoke over her.

“Or I’ll have Rogue take watch and ask Medic to force—”

“Okay! Okay!” Hero rushed out, panic seizing her heart. Leader smiled and tucked her hair out of her face.

“Good. I’ll grab you a plate. And you will eat it all, Hero.”

Hero nodded stiffly. “Okay.”

The two disappeared back into the cave. Hero could hear Medic berating Leader as they retreated but she didn’t really care about what they said anyways. Villain walked back in front of her and plopped himself down in front of her. His eyes alight with a dangerous amusement.

“You’re so good at taking orders, Hero.” Villain purred. “So pliant and malleable like this,” he said. He propped his elbow on his knee and his head in his hand. “Oh, if only I thought of taking Vigilante sooner. Maybe the heroes wouldn’t have given us as much trouble when you’re distraught and sleep deprived.”

Hero didn’t answer. A hot tear dripped from her eye onto her cheek. Maybe that was answer enough. She was going mad, she knew. Villain was driving her mad, making her seem crazy, torturing her for his own cruel enjoyment.

“Oh Darling,” Villain cooed as Hero started to cry silently, her shoulders shaking up and down and letting out silent sobs that sounded only like gasps of breath. He moved towards her and pulled Hero into his arms, his legs on the outside of hers as he pushed her head into his shoulder. She didn’t move. “Darling, shush. Crying will waste so much of your energy.”

Hero continued to cry. “Oh you poor sweet angel. There, there. I know it’s hard,” he said, patting Hero’s back. “I know, pet. But you’re just so stubborn, hmm? This can all be over if you like.”

Hero stiffened in Villain’s arms. “W-what?” She asked wetly, mucus clogging her words.

Villain pulled Hero back and smiled down a kind smile at her, but his horrible eyes betrayed him. “Darling, have you had enough?”

Hero nodded. Villain softened. “Words, doll.”

“Y-yes,” Hero sniffed. Then she jumped a little and shook her head. “But— but I don’t! I don’t want you to hurt Vigilante, please!”

Villain crushed her into his chest again. “Oh I know you don’t. I know you’d do anything for them, wouldn’t you?”

Hero nodded against Villain’s chest. “Words,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I know, darling. So how about we make a deal?”

Hero pulled back a little and stared into the monsters violet eyes. “A- a deal?”

It was a bad idea. Even in her state she knew it was a bad idea, but what else could she do?

“Yes,” Villain said, phantom fingers wiping away Hero’s tears. “A deal. A trade. You for Vigilante.”

All warmth drained from Hero’s body. She didn’t recoil or so much as flinch, she just stared at Villain who sat drinking in every minuscule muscle twitch across her face.

“What?”

“I asked Supervillain already. He said he was fine with the trade, and would put you under my care just like Vigilante is. But I wouldn’t torture you, sweet thing. We would chat, and be like this,” he said, as he tucked a piece of Hero’s hair behind her ear. “Together. In person. You won’t have to worry about a thing. I’ll release Vigilante and you won’t have that guilt plaguing your mind either.”

Hero’s mouth went incredibly dry, like she was inhaling glass. “Will— will you l-let me… will—” Hero fretted, “I- I need to sleep.”

“As soon as you’re in my arms, darling, my real arms I’ll let you sleep, hmm? Would you like that?”

Hero nodded. Her cries turned into a sudden sob she couldn’t catch. “Pl-please… please. I- I would. Ple—”

“Shush, shush, shush. Just tell me where you are, and I’ll do the rest.”

This time, Hero recoiled. “N.. no. You can’t— my team is… my team is here and—”

“Okay,” Villain mused. “Then pick a spot you know, where you can slip away and I’ll come pick you up.”

“And let Vigilante go?” Hero asked, hope colouring every word. Villain shook his head. Hero deflated.

“Once I have you we can talk about Vigilante’s release. I don’t want any nasty surprises in case you try to ambush me with your team.”

God, Hero didn’t even think of that… she was drained. Wholly and completely, her body on autopilot and her mind switched off.

“Okay…” Hero murmured. “Okay… I can meet you by the ruins to the old church in the black valley.”

Villain nodded. “I think I know that area. Okay. I’ll be waiting.”

Hero stiffened. “I- I won’t be able to go until they’re asleep.”

Villain chuckled. A warm, hearty sound. “I know, sweet thing. It will just take me some time to get there so I’ll trust you and leave you to find your way.”

Hero sat out of Villain’s embrace, pulling her sleeve over her hand and wiping her cheeks. “O-okay.”

When Hero arrived at the old church a car was waiting for her. A silhouette of a figure she knew too well was waiting, perched against the passenger side door. Hero froze in place.

Oh god.

Oh god.

What was she doing?

This man had… he had tortured her psychologically over the last two weeks, playing dirty, fighting unfairly, depriving her of sleep just so he could pull something as horrid as this… something she would never have agreed to if she was of sound mind.

And… oh god. She hadn’t gotten used to the cold feel of his fingers and hands on her, everytime he touched her it was like a zap of electricity, or an icy shock to her system that made her gasp but seeing Villain in person now…

He looked very much real.

Strong too. Stronger than he appeared when he projected himself to her mind and even then he could overpower her.

“You know,” his velvet voice called over the short distance between them. It sounded smoother in person, like melted chocolate in her ears. Warm and soothing. Not the voice of a villain. “In your state, I could always catch you if you tried to run.”

Hero couldn’t move. Her body wouldn’t let her step closer. A cold hand settled on the small of her back and pushed her forward. “There you go, that’s a good girl. Do you still have your bow?”

Hero swallowed. Nodded. “Words, darling,” he purred. Hero trembled.

“Y-yes.”

She was so close now. She could make out some of the features on his face, his long hooked nose, his deep set eyes and his dark hair that fell a little over his eyes she could feel more than see were focused only on her.

“Good. I will need to take that off you for now, but if you behave I will give it back so you can train. Keep your skills up. Would you like that?”

Hero didn’t answer.

Five steps.

Four steps.

Three steps.

Two.

Her heart screamed at her to run, to flee, pumping adrenaline through her body to get her to escape.

But it was too late. Villain put his hand on her cheek. It was warm. Hero couldn’t suppress the flinch.

“Oh you are just an angel, aren’t you?” He whispered. Hero didn’t answer. His eyes went to the road Hero came from. She had the good sense to go around the church so he wouldn’t know which direction her team was. That wasn’t part of the deal. “And any teammates follow you?”

Hero began to shake her head, but stopped, looked at him. Words. “N-no… it’s just me… no— no one else is coming.”

Villain’s smile cut into his face, exposing his white teeth. “Excellent, Hero.”

He took her quiver and bow from her shoulders and opened the door for her to the passenger seat. Hero climbed in. Villain shut the door and walked to the boot, throwing her weapons into the trunk before he climbed into the driver’s seat and shut the door.

He pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Hero bristled. “I… I won’t be any trouble, I swear,” she pleaded. “Please, I just… I just want to sleep.”

Villain smiled sympathetically at her. “I know, Hero. I just need to make sure you don’t get any ideas of escape while we drive back to base. Surely you understand?”

Hero’s bottom lip trembled. She bit it to stop from crying and nodded. Her eyelids threatened to drown her if she didn’t close her eyes soon. “Good girl. I’ll just cuff one hand, okay?”

Hero nodded again. Once she was secured and he was sure she couldn’t go anywhere, he nodded and started the engine. When they pulled off, out of the ruins and onto the main road he said: “okay, little Hero. You’ve been so good for me. And good behaviour gets rewarded.”

Hero’s eyes widened. “I can sleep now?”

“Yes darling,” Villain said with a smile in his voice. Hero settled back into her seat, resting her head against the soft, leather headrest.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Villain smiled into the darkness. “My pleasure.”

Hero was asleep before she heard the words, for the first time in two weeks, her mind, blissfully, switched off.

[jaal-ama-daravv]

The man that is Heinrix van Calox

Alright we need to talk about this man because a) i can't stop thinking about him, and b) i don't want to.

Heinrix has this deep, tormented past. He has been tortured multiple times (to extremes), he has struggled for god knows how long to form any sense of security or emotional attachment due to the nature of his job, and he was mutilated then tormented by his colleagues for his appearance (when I saw this in game I was induced with rage in my bones). In saying that it is no wonder he is so afront about his appearance and candor.

This man is a huge ass SOFTY to the core, he's touch starved, love starved, word starved, and probably just starved. He chooses you over his duty if he trusts you wholeheartedly and I can't put into words just how lonely he must be. To find love in such a universe, and its so fucking obvious this man is down as bad as von valancius is and i love it.

I also headcanon the fact that Heinrix will of seen my commisar rogue trader's posters and heard of her feats and had a huge crush ( like a celebrity crush, 'oh ill never meet them') then bam, starstruck. I live for it.

also you will have to pry my opinion that they tried to have heirs at some point after the conclusion of rogue trader from my dead body

thanks for coming to my heinrix ted talk

note: i initially went into this game being like ha ha, ill just romance heinrix till I meet marazhai because damn, and then, well, here we are. heinrix forever, I love pixels