#the moral of the story is that all three of them are a fuckin mess

[contemplativepancakes]

Following the Thread Transcript

AKA all the "canon" there is of Aiden. Google doc to save for easy reference is here. Providing this is entirely selfish of me, please use it and write some lambden <3

EXT. SUPERVISOR’S BUILDING

GERALT approaches a GUARD standing outside of a door.

GUARD: Don’t like folk wandering around here.

GERALT: Oh yeah? Well, got a beast you need someone to get rid of? I’m here about the notice.

GUARD: Ah, supervisor Lund posted it. Yeah, a beast haunts the outskirts, murdering folk. Got ‘em scared to leave their homes after dark.

GERALT: I’d like to talk to this supervisor.

GUARD: Too bad he don’t receive petitioners.

GERALT: So what’s he do, exactly?

GUARD: Delivery relief on behalf of the city council—flour and groats for the paupers. Meaning, he don’t do it personally. He’s got men for that. He, himself, he, uh. (GESTURES BROADLY)

GERALT: Supervises.

GUARD: Exactly!

GERALT: I aim to hunt down this monster.

GUARD: Best hurry, then. Some other bloke’s already after it.

GERALT: Who took the contract?

GUARD: Didn’t see the man. Was just told some brave fool’d turned up.

GERALT: When’d you find the last victim?

GUARD: Just last night. Hubert, a beggar, but a decent man. I’d let him sleep in the shed from time to time—that one, on the right. Eustace hasn’t come for the corpse yet. It’s lying in there, where I found it.

GERALT: Any eyewitnesses to these attacks?

GUARD: No, just the bodies. Beast appears only at night, chooses isolated victims.

GERALT: Thanks. So long.

Geralt goes to the shed and examines it, finding a puddle of blood that’s not human, and Hubert’s body, which is drained of blood. There’s ekimmara tracks in the shed that Geralt follows along the river’s edge, until they disappear at a dock. Geralt swims across the river and finds the tracks again, leading him to another building. Geralt notes that’s there’s rat corpses outside that have been drained of blood.

INT. DARK HOUSE

There’s the sounds of combat upstairs, blade clashing, an ekimmara screeching, and a whoosh from aard. Geralt rushes up the stairs to see LAMBERT fighting the monster. They kill it together.

GERALT: Greetings, Lambert.

LAMBERT: Damn, it’s good to see you, Wolf.

GERALT: Decide to do some hunting in Novigrad? Far as I remember, you never liked this city.

LAMBERT: Still don’t. Thing is, got a certain matter to take care of.

GERALT: What have you been up to? Any luck on the path?

LAMBERT: A lot, in fact. Quite the takings in Lan Exeter. Was asked to hunt down a giant, who turned out to be a forest troll and some bandits.

GERALT: Bandits?

LAMBERT: (SHRUGS) Came as a package with the troll.

GERALT: The matter you mentioned, anything I can help with?

LAMBERT: Hmm. Maybe. But we’ll talk about that later. Got our reward to collect. I’m kinda in a hurry. Let’s say you’ve earned half, what the hell.

EXT. SUPERVISOR’S BUILDING

Geralt and Lambert approach the guard from earlier.

GUARD: So?

LAMBERT: What do you think? We did what we had to do. Time to pay up.

GUARD: Wait here, I’ll go see the supervisor, get your reward.

LAMBERT: Do that ourselves. No reason you should leave your post.

Geralt gives Lambert a sideways glance.

GUARD: Hmm, can’t argue with that logic. Go on in.

EXT SUPERVISOR’S BUILDING, COURTYARD

Lambert and Geralt approach SUPERVISOR LUND in an outdoor space. There’s three guards milling around.

LAMBERT: We dealt with the monster at the docks. Here for our reward.

LUND: Witchers? Since when do you travel in pairs?

LAMBERT: Lots of dangers for a lone witcher. Bandits, for example.

LUND: I’d advise you to change your tone.

LAMBERT: Where’s Jad Karadin? Talk!

GERALT: Who?

LAMBERT: Trust me, Geralt. This is important. There’s something I gotta know.

LUND: I do not know any Karadin. Take your coin for the before and bugger off before I lose my temper!

LAMBERT: (YELLING) Where’s Jad Karadin? Asking you for the last time!

LUND: Guards, to the dungeon with them!

Lund runs out of the courtyard, and Lambert chases after him, leaving Geralt to fight the three guards.

INT. SUPERVISOR’S BUILDING

Geralt walks inside to find Lund cowering from Lambert.

LAMBERT: This guy’s more trouble than the ekimmara.

LUND: Karadin’s disappeared. I swear! The others, too! I only know of Vienne.

LAMBERT: What about Vienne?

LUND: She drinks at the Seven Cats. There day and night.

LAMBERT: See? You can be helpful.

Lambert unsheathes his sword and stabs Lund in the gut while Geralt watches. Lund collapses to the floor. Lambert turns to look at Geralt in challenge.

GERALT: That was murder. Was that really necessary?

LAMBERT: Yes.

Geralt shakes his head.

LAMBERT (cont.): More guardsmen’ll show soon. Let’s go. Meet me at the Seven Cats. Tell you everything there.

GERALT: The tavern Vienne frequents?

LAMBERT: Yeah. See you later.

EXT. SEVEN CATS INN

Lambert is leaning against a rock when Geralt approaches him.

GERALT: All right. High time you explained some things. Why’d you kill Lund? What’s this all about?

LAMBERT: Want the short version or the long one?

GERALT: Lemme hear the whole thing.

LAMBERT: Had a friend. Aiden was his name.

GERALT: You? Had a friend?

LAMBERT: Oh, hi-fuckin’-larious. I met him soon after I'd accepted a contract to lift the curse from the Ogre of Ellander. Aiden had been hired to kill it. He was a witcher from the school of the cat.

GERALT: Far as I remember, the ogre was killed in the end.

LAMBERT: Yeah, after it gutted my employer, we really didn’t have a choice. I cut a deal with Aiden. We joined forces, split the reward for killing the ogre between us. After that, we worked together a lot. Hands down the best man I’d ever met. I mean, I like you, you know that. Still, no comparison.

GERALT: What happened to him?

LAMBERT: Some time ago, Aiden took on a contract to lift a curse off a duke’s daughter. It was a political mess from the start. Then there was the hatred for the school of the cat to deal with.

GERALT: They worked hard to deserve that hate. Basically hired assassins.

LAMBERT: (SNAPS) Aiden wasn’t like that. (PAUSES, LOOKS AWAY) Anyway, some of the duke’s courtier’s had designs. Weren’t all keen on the curse being lifted from the duke’s first born. So, a band of trained assassins ambushed Aiden, murdered him. Our dear supervisor was one of them.

GERALT: And Jad Karadin?

LAMBERT: The assassins’ leader. And the one to deal the mortal blow.

GERALT: Sorry about your friend.

LAMBERT: Don’t need your sympathy, just your help. (PUSHES OFF ROCK HE WAS LEANING ON TO STRAIGHTEN) We have to talk to Vienne. Must’ve had enough to drink by now. Let’s go.

INT. SEVEN CATS INN

Geralt and Lambert approach VIENNE, a lithe elvish woman wearing a deep cut purple blouse with her dark hair in a braid. She has a drinking glass in front of her where she sits alone at a table.

GERALT: Vienne?

VIENNE: What do you want?

LAMBERT: We wanna see Jad Karadin.

VIENNE: (LAUGHS) Now why would I help you?

GERALT: It’s really important to my friend here.

VIENNE: And what will I get out of it?

LAMBERT: Pay for your beer, for starters. Then we’ll see how valuable your information is.

VIENNE: (CONSIDERS, TAKES DRINK) I was part of Karadin’s band, but… When was that? I don’t know where to find him; I’ve fallen out with the lot.

Geralt sits at her table.

VIENNE (cont.): Besides, he’s no longer chummy with his old mates. Word around town is he’s changed.

Lambert sits down, also, now.

GERALT: Karadin’s changed? What do you mean?

VIENNE: He’s dropped all his old connections, stopped taking on petty killings. He’s hidden himself away in some hole. Must be planning something big.

GERALT: Who else was in Karadin’s band?

VIENNE: Aside from me? Selyse, Hammond, and Lund. But they’ve scattered all over the world. Selyse went to Tretogor, Hammond to Skellige, and Lund—

LAMBERT: Lund’s dead.

VIENNE: (CACKLES) Finally met his match. Well, you’ve only Hammond or Selyse to talk to, then.

GERALT: What about you? What’s your story?

VIENNE: Scoia'tael was decimated, so I joined Karadin. They never treated me as an equal. No. I could hit a sparrow from a hundred paces, but I was never good enough for Karadin. He always preferred that cunt Selyse…

LAMBERT: You have a hand in the murder of the witcher Aiden?

VIENNE: Perhaps. I don’t remember.

GERALT: We need information about Hammond.

VIENNE: Karadin’s right hand man, once. When the band broke up, he went back to Faroe whence he had come. He’s a pirate, now. Even the jarls treat him with respect.

GERALT: This Selyse, where can we find her?

VIENNE: She’s done well for herself. Runs a brothel in tretogor, the kind rich men frequent. Whores suck information out of them, then she sells it.

LAMBERT: Name of this brothel?

VIENNE: The Black Lily. Selyse always did have horrible taste.

GERALT: (TO LAMBERT) Satisfied?

Geralt and Lambert both stand.

LAMBERT: She doesn’t know anything. We need to talk to Hammond and Selyse.

VIENNE: Don’t go looking for Karadin. If he senses you nipping at his heels, he’ll kill you without batting an eye.

LAMBERT: We’ll see. As for you…

OPTION ONE

GERALT: No, Lambert.

LAMBERT: Right, better to leave her like this.

VIENNE: What about my coin?

Geralt and Lambert exit the inn.

VIENNE (cont.): Arseholes.

OPTION TWO

GERALT: Do whatever you think is right, Lambert. Not here to preach morals.

VIENNE: (LAUGHS) “Do what you think is right?” Only one thing worse than cold blooded murder—hypocrisy. Informers, racists, snitches!

VAREN: Vienne, bloody hell. What is it?

VIENNE: They’ve come for me, Varen! I told you someone would, sooner or later!

VAREN: (IN ELDER) Don’t be afraid.

GERALT: Shit.

A fight breaks out in the inn and ends with Vienne dead.

EXT. SEVEN CATS INN—NIGHT

LAMBERT: You’ve gotta help me, Geralt. Best thing will be to split up. You sail to Skellige, try to squeeze something out of Hammond. I’ll go to Tretegor and try to get something out of Selyse.

GERALT: Lambert, let’s talk about this.

LAMBERT: Let’s not. This is one of those situations, serious situations, where you don’t ask unnecessary questions and just help your friend.

GERALT: Where’ll we meet once I’m back?

LAMBERT: At the Nowhere Inn.

GERALT: All right, I’m off. Good luck.

They both nod to each other, and the scene fades to black as Lambert walks away.

EXT. PIRATE’S SETTLEMENT, SKELLIGE

Geralt approaches two men standing guard outside of the settlement he’d been pointed to in order to find Hammond.

GUARD: Whaddya want?

GERALT: I’m looking for Hammond.

GUARD: What for?

GERALT: Business.

GUARD: He prays at the chapel on the hill this time of day. If it’s slaves you’re looking to buy, you’ll have to wait ‘til he’s done.

GERALT: He’s praying? Wouldn’t have thought him a god fearing man.

GUARD: Hmm. Yet it’s not something that would surprise any man who knows him.

GUARD TWO: Another snoop! You know the drill!

A fight breaks out with all of the pirates. After Geralt defeats them, he travels across the island.

EXT. HAMMOND’S SHRINE

Geralt walks into the shrine, and it’s an outdoor space with wide, curved beams driven into the ground that create a circle. Hammond is in the middle of the area in front of a pile of weaponry and shields. Hammond is shirtless and wearing a green tartan kilt with a wide leather belt. His hair is in a ponytail, and a leather strap encircles his left bicep. There’s a brown arm guard on the same arm, and there’s a gold band wrapped around his right bicep. There’s a large war hammer strapped to his back.

HAMMOND: Gods of the sea, I’ve never begrudge ye no gifts. Grant me another victory, so I can make an offering of me loot. (STANDS AND NOTICES GERALT) Fuck, what now?

GERALT: Heard you were in Karadin’s band.

HAMMOND: Fuckin’ say what you want. C’mon, spit it out, you arse lickin’ bastard!

GERALT: I’m looking for Jad Karadin.

HAMMOND: And just who the hell’re you?

GERALT: A friend of a friend. I’m looking for Karasin, thought maybe we could make some sort of deal.

HAMMOND: What, our business rubbing some Novigrad pricks the wrong way? Ploughin’ guild! (TO HIS GUARDS) Come on, what are you waiting for? Kill the fucker!

A fight breaks out and Geralt kills Hammond and his three guards. After, Geralt searches Hammond’s body and retrieves a letter on elegant stationary.

Hammond,

Thought I made it clear during our last face to face talk. I don’t want to keep in touch and I especially don’t want to do any business with you. I’ve no doubt the enterprise you proposed would be profitable. Nevertheless, to speak colloquially, count me out.

There are plenty of other potential buyers in Novigrad: goldsmiths, jewelers, and merchants dealing in luxury goods, for starters.

I don’t want to get involved.

Whatever you decide, I will wish you well in it. Treat this letter as our final farewell.

Karadin

INT. NOWHERE INN

Geralt approaches Lambert. Lambert is sitting at a table scattered with gwent cards and with a tankard in front of him.

LAMBERT: What the hell took you?

GERALT: Pretty likely Karadin lives in Novigrad. And he never severed ties with Hammond. They’re actually in business together.

LAMBERT: Mm. Learned something, too. He trades in, uh, live goods on the sly. Owns a ship called the Pearl of the Coast. Runs between here and Skellige. Changed his name, too, to Roland Treugger, who officially is a respected Novigrad trader and philanthropist. Has a residence in Gildorf.

GERALT: Anything on Selyse?

LAMBERT: Hmm. Well, didn’t have you there to stand up for her.

GERALT: All right, let’s pay Karadin a visit.

EXT. KARADIN’S HOUSE

Lambert and Geralt stand in a stone alleyway, looking at several guards.

LAMBERT: Think I know how to get in. Got a plan.

GERALT: If your plan doesn’t include dealing with an escort of guardsmen, best revise it.

The guards approach Lambert and Geralt.

GERALT (cont.): Calm, now. Let them start it.

GUARD: You’re expected. Come in.

Lambert and Geralt share a glance, and the scene fades to black.

EXT. KARADIN’S BACKYARD

There’s a child in a blue smock, who points at Lambert and Geralt and runs to Karadin. Karadin has yellow slitted eyes, dressed nicely, and there’s a sword at his hip.

KARADIN: Make yourselves at home.

GERALT: (TO LAMBERT) He’s a witcher.

KARADIN: Very true. Let me introduce my wife, Laetitia, and my two little tots. (GESTURES TO A WOMAN AND TWO CHILDREN SITTING IN THE GRASS) You know who I am, and I’ve heard of you. You’ve been asking questions about me. That always draws my attention.

GERALT: What school’d you come out of?

KARADIN: That of the cat. So few of us left.

Lambert sneers.

GERALT: Witchers can’t have children.

KARADIN: But they can have wards. Or take in a woman along with her children, embrace them as their own.

GERALT: I could understand a witcher becoming a hired assassin, but a merchant?

KARADIN: Why ever not? Not one among us doesn’t dream of changing our life. I simply did not stop at dreaming. They say no witcher has ever died in his bed. I aim to be the first.

LAMBERT: Remains to be seen.

GERALT: My friend needs to talk to you.

KARADIN: (TO GUARDS) Lads, take the children and Laetitia and leave us. Our guests wish to speak with me.

His family leaves.

KARADIN (cont.): I’m all ears.

LAMBERT: Talk to him, Geralt. If I do, first word he says to me, I’ll lose it and throttle the fucker.

GERALT: Nice place you got.

KARADIN: As it turned out, I’ve a flair for enterprise. Now I’ve coin enough to provide my family with the finer things in life.

LAMBERT: With some left over for philanthropy.

KARADIN: Miss Marabella’s institute does not scorn small donations. Neither does the city's Widow and Orphan Relief Fund, amongst others.

GERALT: Your wife know who you were?

KARADIN: We are thoroughly honest with each other, harbor no secrets. She prays for me each day. You know what? I think it’s working.

LAMBERT: Fucking hell.

GERALT: Relax, Lambert.

KARADIN: I confessed all just before we pledged to marry one another. Began a new life that day, with a clean slate.

GERALT: Remember Aiden? A witcher. Murdered in Ellander. Guessing the killers were paid well.

KARADIN: I remember him as I remember all the others—with the deepest regret. Yet Aiden was different, in a way. Contrary to rumor, we did not set out to kill him. We were forcced to, when he attacked us.

GERALT: What’s your version of this story?

KARADIN: Aiden had accepted a contract to lift a curse from the duke’s daughter. He took the coin, bungled the job, then left once the girl passed on.

LAMBERT: You lie!

KARADIN: We were not to kill him. We were debt collectors. He’d spent the coin already, so we demanded his swords. When he refused, tempers flared. Vienne, positioned as sniper, lost her nerve, hit Aiden square in the eye.

Lambert looks down. Geralt glances over at him.

KARADIN (cont.): Later, she devised her own version of the story. To silence her guilt, I expect.

GERALT: I’ve heard enough.

KARADIN: What now?

OPTION ONE

GERALT: You’ve changed. You have.

KARADIN: Forgiveness. It’s my sole aim now.

LAMBERT: You’re buying this bullshit? Bastard’s lying his ass off!

OPTION TWO

GERALT: You know what, Karadin? Your remorse—it’s feigned. Completely dishonest. You put on a good show, but I just don’t believe you.

LAMBERT: Don’t even know why we bothered with this chat. We came here to kill you.

OPTION THREE

GERALT: Maybe you’ve changed, maybe not. To me and Lambert, it doesn’t matter.

LAMBERT: You killed Aiden. Fuck your new life. I don’t believe in giving second chances.

OPTION ONE

GERALT: Do what you want, Lambert. Your friend, your vengeance.

LAMBERT: Been waiting a long time for this.

KARADIN: (UNSHEATHES SWORD) And I don’t aim to die.

A fight breaks out, ending in Karadin dead.

LAMBERT: Thanks for your help, Geralt.

GERALT: You’re welcome.

LAMBERT: Wanna talk about it?

GERALT: No.

LAMBERT: See you later. Some day.

GERALT: So long, Lambert.

OPTION TWO

GERALT: Leave him. Let’s go.

LAMBERT: What? Are you fuckin’ nuts?

GERALT: Lambert, this is one of those situations where you have to realize you’re pissed as hell, rein it in, and trust your cool headed friend. Let’s go.

LAMBERT: For fuck’s sake, Geralt. Don’t know that I’ll be able to forgive you.

GERALT: I said let’s go. You can always come back.

Lambert storms off.

KARADIN: Thank you.

Geralt sighs and walks away.

EXT. KARADIN’S HOUSE

LAMBERT: Explain yourself.

GERALT: Don’t intend to. Just felt Karadin didn’t deserve to be murdered in cold blood. If you feel otherwise, you can always go back. Without me.

LAMBERT: I feel like beating the shit out of you. See you later. Some day.

GERALT: So long, Lambert.

[ener-chi]

TL;DR suffering and change, and astral mishaps

There’s been a bit of turmoil in my household lately. This weekend, we are supposed to drive over the mountains to visit my sister and her bf for a couple of days, since they aren’t coming up for Christmas. Well... Monday I was feeling kind of ill, and Tuesday I found out that my bff’s father was running a fever and having flu symptoms. It could just be the flu, or it could be The Other Thing. 

This led to a couple of days of panic from my family. Suddenly, our weekend plans were on hold, and potentially our Christmas plans as well. Everyone was getting worked up and emotional, and I while I was picking up a little bit of their emotions, I just kind of sat through it all, watching.

There is so much suffering caused by change. More specifically, we are averse to change - we hate it - and have attachments to the familiar. Aversion to discomfort and inconvenience, attachment to comfort. How much of our stress and worry is related to change in something in our lives? Change of job, change of career, change of relationships; everything is change.

But the reality of it is... Change is the nature of the Universe; everything changes. Trying to fight against it is pointless - trying to control things is pointless. Life is a stream, and it is better to float along with it, rather than trying to swim against the current; you’ll tire yourself out, and still end up going down the stream. 

Anyways... I ended up testing negative for Covid (got my results incredibly fast) and things should be okay. But it was an interesting experience, for sure.

In other news... I visited the astral today, and as I was leaving, I felt myself getting tugged back into the astral. I decided to go with it. I found myself in this like little cavern. There was a pedestal with a book on it, and light was shining from the ceiling onto this book. There was some figure reading the book; they noticed me, and then stepped back and gestured me towards it. Cautiously, I moved forward to inspect the book.

As I began to look at it, I felt a sharp pain as I was stabbed in the back, and I immediately flew back and pinned the figure to the wall. They tried to stab me again, but I didn’t let them. I held them to the wall, stunned, and banished them, saying “Leave this place now, and never return.” They disappeared. 

I took a moment to catch my breath. That was unexpected. I was about to leave, but I decided that I wanted to take another peek at the book; my curiosity was piqued. This proved to be a mistake. 

You know anglerfish? And how they have a bioluminescent light that’s attached to their head, to attract unsuspecting fish before completely swallowing them? Yeahppp well. I looked at the book for a couple of moments. I couldn’t discern anything from it, and then suddenly the book and the room transformed, and suddenly I was trying to be swallowed by some gigantic creature. 

I kind of armored up - BUT I didn’t put on my enchanted charms before going to the astral, so they were lacking power and energy. I tried to fight it for a bit, but quickly realized that this was going to be a losing battle. They were tough, and I didn’t have my full armor... I panicked for a moment, but formed a game plan. I ended up like... freezing them in this giant stasis-web, and then doing a big banishment, before fuckin running for my life.

Soo I haven’t heard from my spirit guides in a while. I have three that I work with currently; but they’ve gone silent. I call out to them, but it’s just radio silence on the other end. I haven’t been bothered by it, really. Sometimes spirits need their space, and sometimes your guides will do it to let you experience some stuff on your own, to grow.

Well, I saw one of my guides today, after the fight. I stumbled back into my astral keep, kind of a mess. Gentle Giant appeared, and started tending to my wounds. He extracted some nasty parasitic gunk - and then pulled out this fucking superrr longgg parasite, and got rid of it. Then he healed and sewed me up. The healing session took quite a while. Then he chastised me for not wearing my charms lol

I think that the big nasties were attracted to me because of all the negative energy and stress that has been around me recently. That, plus the fact that I am a big source of energy - probably made me a beacon, a bright light attracting moths. 

Anyways. Moral of the story is make sure that you have all of your protections, and to be careful. That reminds me - I have a new bracelet that I need to enchant.

Anyways, that’s it for now. I hope that everyone has a wonderful night!

Blessings!

[skulljar]

WHY MAERI NAMING HERSELF THE SURVIVOR IS VERY COOL

Okay I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I don’t know if it’s meant to be this deep or if I’m just Reading Into It but here’s why I love Maeri choosing her name to be the Survivor:

(I’m putting it under a cut because it got kinda long hehe)  

1: How it relates to the Forces

Surviving is like, a near perfect intersection of nature and war.

So Maeri’s mama, Kai, got her power from the Beast gods, i.e kids of Telliah, the Force of Nature. And Torva, her dad, is the kid of Rayl the Force of War. The idea of survival carries connotations of a struggle, of a fight. It makes you think of like, lions killing zebras. You understand why the zebra runs away, but you also understand why that lion has to chow down, y’know?

Listen, I’m not terribly great at metaphors, but I think survival is a pretty obvious interaction between nature and war. And again, I dunno if Kat put a bunch of thought into this, but having Maeri choose a name that relates to both her mother’s and father’s Force? That’s pretty neat!

Especially with Maeri being the first god to be the descendant of two Forces. Like, it makes me wonder what would have happened is she had chosen a name that only related to one Force. Or even neither. Like, would the Forces have allowed that? Would naming herself have even worked? I think that Kat said she never really had a second choice for Maeri’s name, but still! Cool stuff to think about!

2: How it relates to her parents

Torva:

The dynamic between Torva the Conqueror and Maeri naming herself the Survivor? Simply delicious.

So Torva can’t not be the Conqueror, right? Like he has to be. And I think that he doesn’t seem to like it is just so interesting. When he is talking with Maeri on the wall of Ilfra he says: ‘It’s always been a game. One that I have been tasked with playing the villain in again and again...I’m forced to play this game, just as you are.’ And isn’t that like, just the dynamic between Maeri and Torva broken down?

Torva is tasked to conquer the world over and over again because it’s simply in his nature. But Maeri chose a name which directly opposes that sentiment. She gives herself the role which so far has prevented Torva from achieving his goals and thereby she makes it so that unless one of them is killed, they are stuck in this cycle of destruction and rebirth.

How many times has Avelis been ended by Torva? Three times? And people always come back. Maeri says it herself ‘We survive and we will always survive because that is what it is to be mortal.’ As a consequence of creating a new god who ideologically is a mortal, Torva unwittingly created the embodiment of both his failure and his objective.

Think of it like this: people can survive without a conqueror but Torva cannot fulfill his purpose without people to subjugate. When talking with Maeri he says: ‘I will not be free of this burden… to conquer and destroy until all of these pathetic mortals are under my control or dead.’ But I don’t think that's true.

I mean, even if Torva was to conquer Avelis, leaving people to survive would ultimately lead to rebellions and revolutions and what not because that's just what people do when they’re under a dictator. On the other hand, if Torva kills all mortals, what is left to conquer? The other gods? I know he’s on a mission to kill the Forces, but what happens to him after that? That’s where he gets his power, after all.

So, hypothetically, even if he managed to conquer all mortals, all gods, the Forces and, hell, lets just throw in the those mysterious sleeping giants for good measure, I think he still wouldn’t feel fulfilled because he constantly wants more. He’s Torva the Conqueror, not Torva the Satisfied Tyrant.

Kai:

Kai was (is?) the goddess of Sacrifice. She was sacrificed as a child to Fenrir. She sacrificed her daughters to keep herself alive. But due to her barter with Torva she chooses to do what she named herself to do and sacrifices herself for the life of her child (however messed up her motivations might have been.) I probably have some more things to say about how interesting it is that Kai is simultaneously the one sacrificing and the sacrificed. As in, how nebulous her title really is, but I wanna talk about Maeri. I mean, from birth she was quite literally the survivor, right?

I want to think about Maeri’s relationship with sacrifice and how that feeds into her as the Survivor. Throughout the story, Maeri is consistently shown to be self sacrificing. As soon as Estra fell she discharged the Guardian’s from their duty to her, despite her own fear and self interest. The amount of times she has refused to heal herself in favour of her friends?? Is insane?? Maeri constantly does everything in her power to make the people around her survive, even at the end of Arc 5, she sacrifices herself to take out Torva.

I don’t really think this needs to be spelled out, but Maeri’s title as the Survivor is less about her ensuring her own personal survival and more about her deep desire to make sure everyone around her will continue on. I mean, the choice of naming herself is, in a way, a self sacrificing action. By giving herself a name, Maeri sacrifices her humanity, which is ironic given the reasoning for the name she chooses.

And like, once again I don’t know if Kat put this much thought into it, but Maeri’s relationship with sacrifice and survival is Very interesting when you think about her parentage and Kai’s relationship with survival.

As the world burned, Kai sacrificed the lives of the gods who raised her in order to ensure the continued existence of the mortals in her care. In that same vein, she chose to sacrifice her own daughters, instead of other people’s children, to make sure she could reincarnate. Now, here’s the thing, Kai has established that she willing to make sacrifices of people close to her for ‘the greater good’ or whatever, so why did she chose to barter with Torva?

Her reincarnating into her daughters could be argued to be something righteous—taking on the burden of sacrifice in order to keep Estra afloat—but it could just as easily be simply interpreted as her sacrificing her daughters to prolong her own life.

I don’t exactly remember if Kai knew she was makin’ a baby with Torva and willingly gave birth to Maeri (Although I’m pretty sure she did?? Correct me if I’m wrong though!!) But if she did, she chose to die despite knowing that Estra would be unlikely to survive without her. So Kai knowingly allowed her daughter to survive (thereby sacrificing herself) at the detriment of the people she swore to protect in order to what?? Possibly get rid of Torva?? Have some good old godly fun?? Was she just tired of the responsibility? Again, I can’t exactly remember Kai’s motivations, so if I’m forgetting something please, please let me know.

What I’m trying to get at is: Kai is SO morally ambiguous, holy heck. So far she has been shown to always be prepared to sacrifice the people she cares for as a means to an end. And I think that that stems directly from her childhood of being a literal human sacrifice so that her village would prosper.

So basically: Kai is willing to sacrifice others for survival, while Maeri nearly always sacrifices herself for others survival.

TL;DR

Torva the Conqueror makes a baby with Kai the Sacrifice and he expects to get a kid that won’t oppose him?? What a fuckin’ knobhead lmao.

[ruthlesslistener]

B, H, T, U?

B - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.

-You got me into Grimm/Herrah and now that pairing has been lurking in the back of my mind ever since because holy S H I T they would vibe so well. Both of them are scary powerful creatures with tiny little demon children that they love dearly and Herrah already has experience with, er, handling gods, so she’d adapt pretty quickly to Grimm’s antics, I think. Plus the idea of PK somehow hearing that his one ‘living’ child got adopted by the clown vulture because he hooked up with Herrah the Beast is HILARIOUS

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

-Oh jeez. I’d say that books, games, and anime are my current best sources rn?? In that order, too. Books are the easiest to justify having and I’m a super quick reader, I tend to watch game playthroughs before ever getting them and youtube is easy to watch on breaks, and then anime is usually broken up into manageable chunks. TV is inconvenient even when I’m allowed to watch it, movies are too long, and I don’t think I’ve ever watched any western animated shows that I actually really liked, so those are out of my books (granted, I’ve barely watched any at all, so bear that in mind)

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

-YES and it is that Hollow is a sweetheart, Grimm is Good actually (y’all just assume gods of death are naturally evil), Herrah was a great mom in the time that she had, PK and WL were never intentionally cruel, just Out Of It and desperate, and Lurien was actually important to the city in some way shape or form (bc why the fuck else would he have a tower?? To paint??? Unless ‘Watcher’ always was a duty of sorts and he inherited it, but I feel like we’d have heard about his predecessors in the lore somewhere, at least via statues or something) 

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

-Ough time to use ones other than Hollow Knight for once

The Silmarillion: Maedhros. Hands down Maedhros. Dude’s a classic example of ‘the road to hell was paved with good intentions’, and his story man,,,his story fucks me UP. He’s so goddamned tragic and it’s so devestating to see someone who was such a good person and princeling turn into a desperate mess forced to run a young mother off of a cliff because of an oath his father made him take in a moment of anger and grief. Falls from grace are amazing, but fuck, they h u r t

Bloodborne: Lady Maria. Not only is she really fuckin hot, she’s also a terrifying, capable fighter with a strong sense of morality and guilt at her war crimes, which is even sexier than her killing you with her flaming blood magic. Pair that with her being one of the first hunters, having a tragic failed redemption arc, and being essentially a vampire on top of it all, and whooo boy no one else in Bloodborne takes the cake. Her fight gave me legit goosebumps and is my favorite in the game with how much it feels like an honorable dance between two hunters; I just wish that we could have given her a kinder release than another death. Like knowing that she didn’t have to guard the clocktower from us and her failing in protecting the Orphan of Kos allowed the Nightmare to finally find peace, letting her fade away knowing that the damage she unknowingly brought to so many hunters was finally being undone.

Wings of Fire: Darkstalker. Tossup between him and Winter, really, but I think Darkstalker won out bc more people dislike him than they do with Winter. I think Darkstalker was a really interesting, fascinating character whose fall into becoming an antagonist primarily swung about due to him stubbornly refusing to get better coping mechanisms. He was an exceptionally powerful kid placed in a bad home who got no help until it was too late, and I really feel for him on that one. I do wish he got the chance to redeem himself with all the messy feelings and bitterness that came along with it, and I do think that people blew his crimes out of proportion (which. He did awful shit like mind-controlling but before it all went to hell, he was being used as a war weapon, so what do you expect), but he was also a delightfully intelligent dragon and I feel like he could have actually been a good king, if he was never trained to see total control over people as the only way to get things done

[siriuslyshewrote]

Wrong - F.S - Part Three

Please like/reblog if you enjoy x

Series Masterlist

A/N: Okay and we’re back in the present in the timeline! Hope ya enjoy!

December 19th, 1925

“He saw my daughter with a Shelby. A fucking Blinder!”

You chew your lip, trying to think of some god damn way to dig yourself out of this mess.

“How can you trust anything he says! He’s a drunk, ain’t he!”

“Don’t you dare speak about your brother like that. At least he has morals, and isn’t running around like some low life!”

“Morals? Morals?” You snap. “You’d rather a drunk as a son rather than a happy daughter who’s with someone who loves her!”

You realise what you say as soon as it leaves your mouth , and you’d do anything to grab those words out of thin air and stuff them back in your head.

“Love? What do you know of love? Fanciful romance from those bloody trash books ya read?”

Tears start to drip down your face.

“I know love more than you and mum do. I’m not with Finn because of convenience-“

Your fathers face began to turn purple with anger, and the vein in his head became prominent.

“So it’s Finn, eh? The boy whose filled your head with all these daft ideas. I expect you think he loves you too?” Your mother’s voice interjected - calmer than your Da’s, less frightening, but angry nonetheless.

“He does. He treats me well, Ma, can’t ya understand?”

“You think a Shelby is going to love you, Y/N? Or does he just want your body?” She had a vindictive look in her eyes.

“How dare you.” You spat at her, pushing back your chair harshly, making to leave.

“You’re not to leave this house.” Your Da’s voice was quieter now as he stared into his cup. “Not without me or your mother. You’re not seeing this Finn boy again. If I see him within a mile of this house, I’ll kill ‘im regardless of his last name.”

“How are you going to stop me.” You snapped.

“You’ll do as I say, Y/N. I’m your fuckin’ dad, and if you can’t respect that, if you want a no good hooligan over us, then there’s the door. But don’t expect it to be open when you come crawlin’ back.”

Tears flowed down your cheeks, faster now.

You’d told a Finn this a million times, over the past few months. You were just like him. Your family loyalty ran deep, deeper than your pure adoration for him.

You nodded, briefly, turned to walk up the stairs almost robotically.

Just as you reached the entrance to your room, you saw your brother, standing in the doorway of his own, a cigarette hanging from his lips, an almost vindictive smile on his face.

“How could you.” You spat, sobs beginning to wrack your body, feeling the nausea you’d been experiencing for weeks start to creep back, as you slammed the door behind you, and promptly threw up into the basin on the dresser.

————————————————————

The second time you met Finn Shelby, it was, yet again, a pure coincidence, three weeks after wards.

You were relaxing by the Cut, eyes puffy and red from another argument with your family - one which George has started, and you’d been dragged into, as was the norm, when you heard footsteps from behind you.

A boy - one you recognised from that day outside the Garrison was kicking the fallen autumn leaves that hadn’t quite decomposed yet, angrily, his jaw tight, and it was only when you coughed slightly that he noticed you.

“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t know anyone was-“ He started, adorably shy, for who he was , at least.

“S’alright. Thought I had a great hiding place, I guess not.” You grinned slightly, tentatively.

He shrugged, turning to walk away.

“Don’t let me drive ya away. You look like you need a break as much as I do.” You said quietly - quiet enough that he could ignore you, pretend he didn’t hear, if he wanted to, but could also accept if he was inclined to.

“I... Alright.”

He sat a few feet away, knees not quite tucked under his chin, but almost, staring into the idly moving water. You let him have a few minutes of silence, before you tried to speak.

“So, what’s up? I dunno about you, but I only come here to get away from people.”

“I could be meeting someone here, for all ya know.” A ghost of a grin flickered on his face.

“I doubt it. You’d tell me to leave.”

“And you would?”

“Course I would. You’re a fucking Blinder boy, aren’t ya. I don’t know about you, but I quite fancy keeping my eyes. Been told they’re pretty, ya know?” You grinned, a teasing tone in your voice.

He snorted loudly.

“You know, you’re one of the first people outside of my family that aren’t piss terrified of me.”

“Oh c’mon, look at those freckles. You wouldn’t harm a fly, let alone me.” You laughed, scooching closer to him.

“You seem pretty confident in that. Like you haven’t heard the stories of what I’ve done. What my brothers have done.”

You shrugged. “Stories are just that, sometimes. And if not ... well, I don’t have to believe it. I can live in my own little dream world, can’t I?”

He smiled. “Your dreamworld sounds like a nice place.”

“It is. You should visit, sometime.” You grinned sleepily, staring at the clouds.

Tag List :

@ephemeralmendes @miss-mystic-falls-forbes

[floosies]

Series: La Munenca del Barrio

Warnings: NSFW, Blood, violence, smut, strong language, and drug use

Rocio Cruz lives in a Brooklyn block best known for its vibrant and ignored community. What she always ignored though was the underground scene in the borough, the evils that lay in it and its people. That all comes to an end when she’s introduced to those things she ignored.

Chapter 8: Coronao Now

Series Masterlist

It’d been over a month since the incident, Rocio’s face was better now but she’d gained a  small cut by her right eyebrow. Steve swore he liked it though, he said it made her look tough. With her now living at both his homes, she’d became more subjected to meeting people in the crime world. One of which was a nice girl who’d worked for Steve for years. She’d began teaching Rocio how to shoot, when they spent time together. It was a nice way to let out pent up anger and learning a skill she’d never think of having. On one of the shooting lessons, Nat gifted Rocio a kimber classic carry elite, to say that she was shocked was an understatement, “thank’s Nat, it’s pretty.” She admired the gun for a moment before Nat broke her out of the trance, “better hide it away well, remember Steve has no idea about this Careful with it too, it’s got the safety on but it’s still loaded.” She nodded carefully placing in it her purse. 

Another person who Rocio had the ‘pleasure’ to get to know better was Bucky. Turns out he was more than just snorting snow. He was the business guy, as he explained one night at dinner, “see Steve is mostly morals and muscle. Me though, I’m the guy with the wits.” Rubio just rolled his eyes at the comments his brother was saying. Anyways, that led to a bargain scheme. Bucky made a good ‘business deal’ in California with some new kid who was supposed to be taking over his uncle.

Long story short, he wanted Steve to go with him as a back up in case the deal got dicey. Apparently, the kid was known to be both a playboy and an asshole, so it was better not to take a risk. Of course, the fucking trial was in a week. However, Barnes made it a big deal that they would only be on the west coast for the weekend. Rubio being Rubio though, he was not going to leave his munenca alone in Brooklyn while her mom might still wanna take another swing at her.

So now Rocio was packing for warmer weather. She wasn’t even concerned about the whole thing. Her mind was drifting to her siblings who she’d seen a couple of times now through this whole thing. They knew about their dad coming home soon, and they were excited. Marco even smiled at the idea which made Rocio feel better. Her fear about him hating the world wasn’t going to be entirely true. It did break her heart a bit when he admitted to seeing what their mom did to her. 

She didn’t notice that her eyes were beginning to swell up with tears. She didn’t even notice Steve coming into the room, “que tienes munenca?” His voice was gentle, as he pulled her body into a tight hug. Trying as best to compose herself she shook her head, “nothing. estoy bien. I was just umm...thinking about my siblings and the whole trial thing again.” She responded, he nodded. “Listen, this is probably a good thing then. Us going away for a bit, it’ll be a mini vacation.” His reasoning was solid for the most part. He wished he could do more like guarantee her that everything was gonna be solved but hell even his own victories came at some expense.

They met Barnes on the jet. The thing about him that was interesting to Rocio was that he was dating Nat. It was interesting because she was Russian, so they were just known as that around where she grew up, los rusos. People were terrified of them because they got the messy work done. Knowing him now, she realized he was actually very nice. It was odd but it kept her mind busy instead of thinking about the fact that she was on a flying death machine.

It was around three in the afternoon when they got to the beach house in California. Exploring around the grounds they finally reached their room, “listen guys there’s gonna be a party we’ve gotta attend tonight.” Bucky saw Steve’s eye roll, “i’ll make it up to ya pal, it’s just a little welcoming party it’ll be fine.” It was not a little welcoming party. It was a mansion party that led to a private beach. 

Steve’s grip around Rocio’s waist got tighter, “I don’t want you to go too far from me munenca.” The place was like a fuckin night club, they were led to a table by on the second floor of the mansion. There Bucky and some kid waited for the pair, “guys this Tim, he’s the ‘investor’ for the business deal here. His uncle owns the state practically,” the whole time he was talking the guy’s eyes were practically undressing Rocio. She rolled her eyes, to most of these guys she was practically a toy. 

Tim cut him off eventually, “thank you very much for that introduction but I think your friends here are very bored.” He went to shake Steve’s hand, “Steve Rogers, a very well known name around here and you must be Rocio Cruz, your dad’s name is legend, loyalty is hard to come by today.” He said kissing the back of her hand. He wasn’t ugly or anything but she knew Steve would be mad as hell now. Tim’s eyes were still wandering on her, “if you need anything let my men know, there are drinks going around too. Please, enjoy yourselves and welcome to California.” He left after that, Steve looked over at his girl, annoyance and jealousy very clearly on his face.

From where they sat, they had a good view of the dance floor downstairs. That’s when she recognized a familiar face, it was Wanda. The two had met briefly once before. Her husband Vis, was both an informant and consultant for Steve. The two made eye contact, Rocio waved for her to come upstairs. They hugged as soon as they were next to each other, “what are you doing here?” She asked Rocio, “business trip.” Wanda nodded, “hey Steve, could I take her for a bit?” He looked over at her, she had those big doll eyes, sighing he agreed.

He watched from upstairs as they started dancing to some fast paced song. Bucky had a cigar now, another thank you gift from Tim, “wanna go have some fun downstairs?” Steve shrugged, “why not.”  It’d been such a long time since Rocio had been to a club or even danced, she was thankful for Wanda in this moment. It was hot on the dance floor but drinks were being given and pretty soon the alcohol was making her forget the sweat that was forming on her body. She felt hands on her waist turning her head around she saw Steve, “you’re a tease munenca, mejor nos vamos?” She giggled continuing to dance, her hips now grinding against him. Wanda winked at her, as she danced with Bucky. Another quirk, two words. Open. Relationships. Sure the two had significant others but that didn’t matter. Steve wasn’t like that at all though, and Rocio was relieved for that.

Who would’ve thought that boring Steve would be a good dancer but he was. It was getting intense and the hazy look of lust was in their eyes. “Wanda could you come with me to the bathroom?” She looked at Steve then, “we can leave after.” He nodded his eyes still fully blown, he kissed her before she headed off. The girls were giggling messes as they went to the restroom, “so you’re gonna get with Barnes tonight?” She asked her as they fixed themselves up a bit. “Maybe, why not. He looks good tonight,” Rocio shook her head, “traviesa.” They walked back out, and what a coincidence, Tim was just about to enter when they exited.

His smug smile made her annoyed, “ladies. Would either of you like to play in a little snow?” Wanda answered before Rocio could, “no we’re actually heading out.” He nodded, “in that case, could I talk to Cruz for a moment?” She looked over at Rocio who looked confused, “about?” He still had that stupid smile on his face, “nothing bad, I promise.” It was better not to piss him off, she assumed, “Wanda wait here?” The girl nodded as the two walked off a bit out of hearing range from where she was waiting.

She waited for him to speak, “so Rogers calls you munenca? That’s a doll right?” What a bunch of bullshit, “is that why you pulled me aside? So you could try to hit on me?” Maybe it was the liquor but she was not in the mood, she started to walk away. His hand gripped her wrist, “I wanted to say that with everything going on, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to have a back up plan. Trust me that old man won’t be there forever. That old money is nothing compared for what I have here. Also, if I wanted to I already would’ve fucked you.” The only thing that could be heard was the sound of the slap she gave him. “You’re disgusting.” She started walking away, “trust me you’ll be begging me soon.” She rolled her eyes still walking, “tu no entiendes? Fuck you.” Wanda could see the anger basically giving off on her.

The car ride was quiet, Bucky didn’t care though he was still trying to get his night’s worth. Steve was about to ask her what happened when she said quietly, “en la casa.” So he waited til they got to the house. The deviants left quickly to Barnes’ room while Rocio and Steve stayed downstairs for a bit. He heard the whole story, she was concerned with how calm he was until he stood up from his seat, “I’m going to kill him.” She shot up, “remember Bucky has business with him.” He looked at her, “munenca you’re right but he’s still going to die. I’m still going to kill him,” his voice was so calm. So much for a getaway

[pastelgrungewrecker]

Infamy

I’m a young lover’s rage- Gonna need a spark to ignite- I’m On Fire!

If anyone asked her why they broke up, she would shrug and say simply, “We just didn’t fit anymore.”

Because the truth made her teeth grind together, made her heart break. When Magnus stood in their living room, wincing at the swearing from Perceptor and the frigid glare from Whirl, she realized that everything was about to get worse.

She and Derby had been a strange couple; she thought he loved her. She revelled in it, in kisses to her cheek and firm hugs around a body she always thought was too much a product of her Wrecker childhood.

‘Wreckers care for their own’, she had told herself, wondering why her siblings would slide out of the room when he would show up, wondering why his smile seemed a little too sincere when he’d see them vanish from their orbit.

It crashed down not long before the attack that took her legs.

It was Quickdraw texting her desperately for an emergency pickup, and it was her pushing her first car almost too hard to get to the school’s sports field. It was tearing out to the grass to see Derby laughing and Quickdraw curled up in a heap of messy angles and broken angelwings and Chrona under a football quarterback’s arm.

It was her seeing red and bulling people down left and right with fists swinging until Derby’s face went the color of spoiled milk. 

“How long, QD.”

“Every-y day-”

It was her blacking out both of Derby’s eyes, it was Mimi snarling that it was over.

“I can’t believe you’re the same kind of embarassment as your fucking DAD.”

She gathered her fearful larks to her side and spirited him away and home- face like a stormcloud and heart in two.

Her hands white-knuckled on the wheel- flexing as though she had claws and fangs like the beast Drift once had been. A sign flickers in the side of her vision, and Quickdraw jumps when the car turns. Chrona cheers at the promise of milkshakes.

They came home with ice cream, they came home with Star Wars bandaids on Quickdraw’s cheek. 

And then it happened. It was a flurry of hospitals and the lark was a shrike with his clarion call and his vicious edges and she was in a hospital bed, staring at the flat spots on the sheets where her feet should be.

“We’ll find them” becomes “We found them” becomes “Quickdraw’s in trouble.”

She lets the monster in her chest out, Magnus watches in horror when she straps an empty pistol back to her thigh as Quickdraw is loaded into an ambulance while Whirl stares at nothing and mourns with no sound.

“We’ll find them.”

“You better.”

So when she comes home and sees Magnus furious and silent and wincing at the rage he witnesses, her stomach ties itself in a knot.

“Mimosa, I have some questions about the attacks on your family. Including the incident last week.”

“The b-and-e? Why me, you know my side of things.”

“As you know, the ones who... acted against your family were apprehended. Well, the ones we could catch.”, he said with his carefully measured words. He nods for her to take a seat, and Perceptor and Whirl are suddenly on either side.

“I found it suspicious that they were able to coordinate these actions so.. easily. Considering none of them had previous connections to any of you- concrete ones. Until today.”

“...Okay.”

“Tell me about Derby.”

“...My ex-boyfriend? Well... I uh. I broke up with him because I found out he was the one picking on my sibs- I just... I showed up when QD texted for help and kind of.. went mental.”

“And afterwards?”

“He showed up a few times, kept following me to stuff until I finally threatened to give him another black eye and feed him his own teeth. Prick. I found out later that I was one of like... six? Girls he was ‘dating’ anyway so no big loss. It still hurt though. I guess the reason he was dating me was because I was the token Wrecker Kid and that made me popular with some of the sports losers at school.”

“Mhm. Do you remember his phone number, by any chance?”

“Yeah, I kept it saved and marked in my phone- in case he tried to call me with another sob story, I’d know to ignore the call.”

Magnus pulled out a slim datapad- one for reports, Mimi remembered them well.

“We pulled the communications history of the ones we have in custody. Does this number look familiar.”

“...Why were they texting him?!”

“He was messaging them, Mimi. He was the one who told them everything. Where you walked, what you did, where you lived. He sold you out- he’s at the station as we speak. He claims he ‘didn’t mean’ for it to go this far- he just wanted to ‘remind you to respect him’.”

“Because he’s the spawn of the biggest disappointment since-”

“PERCEPTOR.”

Perceptor fell silent, seething.

“...We are doing everything we can, Mimi. I’m here to inquire if you’d rather we take out a protective order. A restraining order, basically- but this way if anything happens and you defend yourself you’ll be legally protected if you have to defend yourself.”

“... Do it.”, she said quietly, “Do everything, anything, I’ll sign whatever you need me to sign, I... I can’t believe this is all my fault.”

Magnus sighed, and Whirl descended on her like a butcherbird on their nestlings.

“Froggy- Froggy, no, don’t you even think for a fuckin’ minute this is any kind of on you. It was that little SHIT’S decision to escalate this high school drama; just like his fuckin’ dad, okay? This isn’t on you.”

Mimi shrugged the words and affectionate touches off, rising from the couch with a creak of prosthetic legs, “Just. Do what you have to do, mister Magnus. You know best.”

All three watched her wrap her arms around her midsection and skitter away from them, a shy sparrow, and wounded dove, and all three felt their hearts chip at the corner.

She sobbed in her room, alone. Stuffing a towel under the door like when she was young and scared and hollowed out by years of cold silence and she bawled into a pillow. Her fault, her fault, all her fault- she led evil home and it took root before she could cut it off. And now, now look at what’s been done.

She didn’t know how long she laid in the silence, tears leaking out as her fingertips tapped over the line where plasteel met body, until she heard shouting from outside.

Shakily, spent from crying, she rose from her bed and pushed her curtains aside.

“...Mister Blurr?”, she muttered to herself, seeing the old racer with his hands up at the door. She watched as he stepped back once, twice, three times and stumbled over a crack in the concrete walk and saw that Perceptor was following him with-

“Dammit DAD!”

Outside, Perceptor’s teeth were bared and the revolver in his hand far too steady.

“Percy- man, c’mon, I understand this is a mess but they’re just kids-!”

“MY SON’S EYES WERE TAKEN, AND MY DAUGHTER LOST HER FUCKING LEGS!”

“It got out of hand, I get that, we can settle this between us we don’t need all this legality-”

Click.

The gun cocked, and Perceptor’s finger was on the trigger and Blurr watched as he counted down the seconds to exhale before Mimi snatched Perceptor’s free hand.

“Dad, wait, hold on- we don’t need another incident, okay? Stand down, you gotta stand down.”

“And why SHOULD I-”

“Because you told me you never shoot a soldier who’s surrendering- and I think he’s pretty much flying a white flag. Never aim without intent to kill, remember? He’s not worth the moral crisis.”

A beat of silence, and Perceptor sighs, “Blurr. You are incredibly lucky that my daughter is both brilliant and sensible. However.”

Mimi accepted the relic of a weapon with confusion, holding with both hands when she heard Perceptor’s knuckles crack in sequence.

“Beating your face in? Is technically self defense.”

“DRIFT, PAPACEPTOR’S GONE FERAL, HELP!”

“I know honey!”, was Drift’s cheerful answer from inside, watching from the front window with the kids crowded gleefully around him. Mimi rolled her eyes, turning instead to Perceptor to try and convince him otherwise but it was too late- he flung himself at Blurr and she flinched at every too-meaty thud of a fist colliding with a magazine-model bone structure. She shook her head, walking back inside to return the weapon to the safe in the bedroom and sit on the bed- hugging artificial knees and berating herself quietly.

“The illusion of control is a hell of an illusion, kiddo.”

She looked up to see Drift in the doorway. She buried her face again, the sounds of the fistfight in the front yard petering out as Perceptor’s swearing echoed up and down the block.

He sat next to her.

“This isn’t your fault, Mimi. You have to understand- Derby was the one who made the decision to escalate things.”

“But... But Dri-Dri, I’m the BIG SISTER. I’m supposed to protect everyone, that’s my JOB, it’s my DUTY!”

“And we’re your parents, we’re supposed to protect you too- that doesn’t mean we failed, or that we fucked up. It means someone outside of our control took actions that no one had any reason to suspect.”

“.... But Wreckers care for their own, and I DIDN’T.”

“Yes you did.”, said Drift quietly, hearing a small chorus of cheers as the front door slammed shut- Perceptor kicking it closed no doubt, his temper had always taken a while to burn out- “You did everything you could, and someone blindsided you.”

“They wouldn’t have blindsided you. Or Papaceptor. Or Birdy.”

“We don’t have scars for the aesthetic, y’know.”

She went to retaliate for a moment, before closing her mouth.

“I understand this is... well, it’s more than a lot, really. Finding out someone you cared about deeply has betrayed you hurts. Finding out that the initial betrayal went way beyond what you thought is even worse.”

“I just... I don’t...”

“What?”

Her eyes welled up, “I don’t feel safe- I don’t feel like I’m s-safe to be around anymore. What if it happens again, Blurr has big money behind him what if... What if Derby just gets a slap on the wrist and everything gets even worse!”

Her tears came back, fear and worry and paranoia and all manner of things she’d been able to quash with sheer force of will. Drift said nothing, simply holding her to his side until Perceptor stomped down the hall and pushed the door open from where it had eased closed- bad hinges be damned.

“Mimosa- oh goodness.”

Drift watched, amused at how quickly the fire in Perceptor’s good eye went out at the sight of Mimi’s tear-mussed face. His arms fell away and she reached out in a wordless plea for Perceptor.

“I-I-I’m SCARED!”

Perceptor’s expression lost every sharp edge, and he reached out to flick off the light switch. Drift jolted at sudden evening-dimness, moving to the foot of the bed as Perceptor clambered onto it and dropped onto his back- propped up by almost too many pillows, and he pulled off the patch covering his lost eye.

“C’mere Froggy.”

She crawled to him, burying her face against a ragged chest and centering her ear over the left side as her arm went over Perceptor’s waist. He hugged her shoulders, petting over her hair and shushing her softly.

Her crying was muffled, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

Drift tilted his head, and Perceptor smiled weakly, “...After... After G9, for a long time, she couldn’t sleep without listening to me breathe. Listening to my heartbeat. When she gets anxious, or scared, or very very upset... it helps.”

Drift nodded, and moved slowly- sitting on Mimi’s other side and carefully situating himself with his back against the headboard. Nails gently dragged through her hair, like soothing a lost kitten, and she shivered and sniffled and her eyelids seemed to droop.

“...Figured it would work.”, he mumbled, “Gasket used to do this with me back in the Dead End- I had a habit of curling up tight when I was upset and well...”

He nodded at the way Mimi had coiled up into a ball against Perceptor.

They both chuckled, sadness tinging the sound. Perceptor breathed deep, feeling Mimi’s grip tighten as she drowsed against him, still hiccuping out the ghosts of her fear, before he spoke again.

“... I’ll admit, it’s a bit hard to reconcile the image of you curled up like a huffy kitten with... well.”

“Deadlock?”, finished Drift quietly, “... There comes a point in the tears and fear where you suddenly realize that... you can make it all go away.”

“..The Syk?”

“.... The gun.”, said Drift, almost a whisper, “I just.. Really hope she has your anger, Perce. I wouldn’t wish mine on anyone. But I have a feeling you and Ratchet were beyond right, saying she takes almost too much after me.”

Every oracle has their prophecy, it seems. The one prediction that comes true, and elevates their sight to the level of a story.

And for Mimi, that day came after almost three months of nothing but courts, cops, and paperwork. Sitting in a cold room, with colder gazes on her- arguments over what ‘Conspawn’ really meant, what ‘intent’ truly was.

‘It seems a shame to ruin a nice young man’s life over one mistake!’

It was Mimi not even smiling when guilty verdicts were read, it was her staring down ashamed parents sitting in rows and taking sick joy when they became ghosts under her gaze. It was the rumbling of the monster she released once, when Quickdraw was curled up in the grass and Chrona shrieked to be let go.

It was the sudden realization, like Drift had once had before his teeth grew sharp and his aim even sharper.

It was Derby cornering her in front of cameras and demanding her forgiveness.

“No.”

“Mimosa, please- haven’t I suffered enough? I admit it, okay, I went too far!”

“No.”

“I even defended you to the afterwards! I told them they shouldn’t have gone after you, sugar-”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I told them that you were good, even if you were Conspawn- I told them they should’ve gone after Quackdraw or whatever first-”

The world stopped. She tilted her head up, slowly.

“You did. What.”

“I told them they should’ve gone after that idiot first, yeah it was wrong or whatever but I was worried about YOU- and I didn’t know they were going to RAID YOUR HOUSE after everything like-”

“You... told them. To hurt my baby brother.”

The silence stung like acid rain as he stammered suddenly, not liking what he saw in her eyes.

“Well, you’re more important than him, so I-”

‘You can make this all go away.’, whispered something vicious in her head- something that had always been there. It was there when she cut her hair on the Lost Light during the mutiny, telling her to wear Perceptor’s pistols. Telling her where to aim and when to fire when the ship was taken back.

It was what guided her hands when her fists raised to defend Quickdraw, then Chrona, then Dani and Kiki-

Little Dani and Kiki, who chimed up at the worst moment from behind her legs, “You mae them take Quickdraw’s eyes!! You made them try to hurt us too!!”

Kiki glanced up, and grinned a childish grin before looking back to Derby, and spoke words she knew could unleash a hailstorm, “What if they had killed us? What if you made all of my big sister’s siblings die? She’d be all alone and it would be ALL. YOUR. FAULT.”

“Shut up, kid-”

“DON’T YOU TELL HER TO SHUT UP, FILTH!”

Mimi’s hands were strong. Made strong from clambering around on an old battleship, on a newer battle cruiser and from picking up little sniffley bundles of blankies and stuffed animals. Her arms were toned by hugs and rockabyes and her legs were made sturdy by bearing so much weight until they broke away to be replaced with steel and iron-twined sinew.

And the monster in her chest laughed like Deadlock in old videos on locked proxies and the creature it spawned in her her head cackled like the witches she envied back when she thought about forbidden cruelties- like death, like destruction.

Like making them all go away.

Derby gagged, yanking at her wrists as her fingers closed around his neck and she dragged him down to his knees. Her eyes were toxic waste and noxious nuclear clouds, she spoke like a bomb’s heatwave and her words hissed like uranium reactor rods being submerged.

“You. Ruined. Everything.”, she snarled, her nails digging in, dull though they were, “You. HURT. My Family.”

He gagged again, lips already blueing up.

“I’m gonna hurt you now, Derby.”, she snarled, “And no one’s gonna stop me until I’m done with you.”

Her siblings stood behind her, grim and unmoving, as their fathers leapt to try and separate Mimi and Derby as he tried to scream while his voicebox was being crushed. Perceptor pulled at her shoulders until she kicked backwards and sent his knee nearly inward- he swore loudly in shock and then Whirl’s hands latched onto her upper arms and began to pull.

Derby convulsed in her grip, whimpering softly- and then Drift’s hands were over her eyes. On instinct, she released her target, making a confused noise in her throat- and then she heard speaking cut through the howling in her soul.

“Cool down, stand down. Breath.”

She blinked against Drift’s palms, snapping back to herself with a hiccup and shakes beginning in her shoulders.

Drift stared down at the coughing and hacking Derby, and narrowed his own too-bright eyes, “Fuck outta here, whelp.”

A few shrieks in the gathered crowd, several faces suddenly painted in fear as the old growl of Deadlock’s voice was spat out by this unmatched visage.

Whirl slowly released Mimi’s arms, continuing his mantra of “Cool down, Stand down. Breath.” until Mimi stood with her vision obscured. Drift moved around her, hands uncovering her eyes only for him to hold her face to his chest and nod at the siblings to start moving. He reached down, easily lifting his eldest daughter and keeping her face hidden as they moved away and away from the crowds.

“I-I-I-I-”

“I know, kiddo, I know.”, he murmured, “It’s terrifying, when you aren’t scared anymore. I know.”

She closed her eyes against his shirt, and whispered apologies that no one could hear as her siblings glanced back at Derby- hoping he learned his lesson.

Mimi wasn’t the only one who swallowed down their anger, and she wasn’t the only one who knew how to cause damage.

It was a new era for their little family- realizing that there are some things that not even time can erase.

[qm-vox]

The Far Realms vs. Obyriths: Cosmic Horror in D&D

Shout-out, once again, to Afroakuma, from whom I learned most of the material I’m about to explain and with whom I’ve had many fascinating discussions about this topic.

It’s ya boi Vox, back at it to complain about RPG shit in an educational fashion again. Remember when I did a whole article about (evil) gods in D&D, arguing that they have more potential than to be used like supervillains? We’re gonna do that again, but this time with incorporating cosmic horror elements into your D&D campaign. Some of this advice may also be useful for games similar to D&D but for the sake of my own sanity I’m gonna confine myself to the one system or I’m gonna be here until my kids are in college.

This article will be broken down into three parts: an overview of cosmic horror’s origin and original thesis (in which we travel my favorite magical land, Full And Complete Context), a breakdown of the Far Realms in D&D (including older takes from late 2e & 3.5, how those changed in 4e, and their ambiguous state in 5e) & how you might use them for a cosmic horror campaign, and a breakdown of Obyriths in D&D and how you might use them in your campaign.

No discussion of cosmic horror is complete without some Content Warnings. Right up front: cosmic horror has its roots in extremely racist fiction, and I’m going to be talking about that straight-up. Also included in this article will be body horror, descriptions of mind control and mental corruption, supernaturally-induced madness, violence, and medical horror, among other things. This is a genre that hit the ‘fuck shit up’ button with its face on fuckin’ Zero Day and does that but again every time we successfully write something in it. Additionally, spoilers for some of Lovecraft’s work will be in here, with absolutely no tags and no warnings before they happen. You have been warned; do as thou wilt.

HP Does A Racism - Origins Of Cosmic Horror

Yeah, I’m about to be like that about it.

In the beginning there was Howard Phillips Lovecraft, an absolute garbage fire of a human being whose personal issues are such a knotted mess that I’m half-sure that the concept of the Ouroboros is just the echo of his bullshit reaching backwards through time. Like many authors of his time, Howie Love here was born into significant wealth, and while his education would be cut short (he had some manner of health problem in high school that ended his attempts at schooling) it was pretty high-quality, as it tends to be when you’re rich and white in the late 1800s. When he began writing his most famous body of work, Lovecraft had three attributes which would shape it: EXTREME racism, an incredible love for the works of Edgar Allen Poe, and every fucking phobia ever turned loose on God’s green Earth.

If you want to know more about that first point, try looking up what he named his cat; Lovecraft was so racist that even other racists thought he was too racist. Mother fucker was so racist that he wrote about the dangers of contaminating one’s bloodline with French-Canadians. His racism made it into all of his works in some way, shape, or form; many had themes of miscegenation, plenty included people of color only as deranged cultists of terrible powers, and as we’ll get into later in this segment the very racism that caused him to do these things also made him write the...let’s say ‘villains’ for lack of a better term, of his ongoing body of work as thinly-veiled stand-ins for white people.

No, really.

Lovecraft’s early work included a few short stories in the American Gothic style, the most famous of which is The Rats in the Walls. It’s a fairly classic story as far as those go, but Howie Love would soon abandon American Gothic for the genre he founded and defined: cosmic horror. Keep the racism and phobias in mind going forward, they’re about to become real important.

Howie Love Clowns On Himself - Themes And Thesis Of Cosmic Horror

While Dagon is generally accepted as the ‘first’ cosmic horror story, I prefer The Colour Out Of Space as the definitive example of the original thesis of cosmic horror at its most clean and clear (it’s also the work of Lovecraft’s that has aged the best; I highly suggest it if you haven’t read it yet!). In it, an alien presence - arguably but not necessarily an entity - crash-lands outside the fictional town of Arkham. Our narrator, a surveyor, coldly investigates the horrors that occur after and learns the sorry tale of a family destroyed by this alien presence as it blights their land, corrupts their bodies, and drives them to madness. The presence leaves, but not wholly; a fragment of itself remains behind, alongside the chilling possibility of a repeat performance.

The Colour Out Of Space, and indeed most of Howie Love’s work, was written at a time in the United States and the United Kingdom where human exceptionalism was the norm. Humans were not merely important, but special, chosen, exalted in nature and placed in a universe whose sole purpose was to be the stage for our domination. The Colour Out Of Space proposed a different idea: that we ain’t shit. Not only is humanity not exalted, but humanity is insignificant, existing at the mercy of fate, able to be casually annihilated at any time by forces we do not understand. It was a shocking proposal when it was published, and though the zeitgeist that gave it power has faded (most people realize we ain’t shit these days, can’t imagine how that fucking happened) it still resonates with many people.

The later works that defined the Cthulu Mythos would build on this theme, introducing powerful beings which claim dominion of Earth or of all reality. You’ve probably heard of most of them - Cthulu is the big one, of course, but there’s also Yog-Sothoth (The Dunwich Horror), Azazoth, Catboi Slim (Nyarthalotep), and many more, not all of which were written by Lovecraft himself. These beings are gods, or else so far above humanity that the difference is academic, and this brings us to the second defining theme of cosmic horror that Lovecraft would lay out, that of forbidden knowledge.

Protagonists in Howie Love’s stories have a tendency to lose their minds. Later authors would chalk this up to the idea that witnessing these gods or their works is so inherently horrifying that the mind simply snaps in their presence, or even that these gods are bound up in the concept of madness (this second one is a rather incompetent reading, not that I’m thinking of any PAIZO in particular that just ran with it in their RPG setting), but Howard’s own work doesn’t always bear that out. The protagonist of Call of Cthulu is not driven mad by that being - he is driven towards the brink by the realization that the Cult is still out there (and coming for his life), and that Cthulu will only rise again. Our viewpoint character in At The Mountains Of Madness realizes he has committed unspeakable atrocities on living beings much like himself by mistake, and that if further explorers come to disturb their slumber they will only repeat the same errors and lead to mankind’s annihilation. It’s not just that these ancient powers are terrifying or even that they are alien, but that to comprehend them is to understand that humans are so far beneath them that their attitude towards us cannot be thought of as ‘benevolent or ‘malevolent’, because we are beneath their notice, lesser in comparison than even a bacterium. In such a context, all humans do is consume resources better used by our superiors, and thus our existence is a profanity upon the divine. The only moral action, the stories argue, is self-annihilation; only ignorance permits us to justify our own existence to ourselves.

Sound familiar? Almost like this is the exact argument chucklefuck racists make about the existence of people of color, Jews, and anyone else they happen to not like? Yeah. This is the part where Lovecraft accidentally made himself the villain of his own work. Congratulations Howie, you played yourself. And since his audience was largely fellow white men also hard up on that whole racism thing, this idea of human profanity tapped a deep well of anxiety. I’m not about to argue that racism is over (it isn’t) and that’s why this vision of cosmic horror is less popular; indeed, it’s retained a pretty solid cult (heh) following, in part because the idea of such beings is inherently kinda terrifying. But I’d be remiss not to bring up the fact that this terror has its roots in racism, so...there you have it.

Other authors also built on the Cthulu Mythos, with Lovecraft’s enthusiastic blessing. These days their works tend to be mistakenly attributed to Howie Love himself, but that’s not actually his fault; they were published on their own, under their own authors’ names, and as far as we can tell Howard never tried to take the credit. These other authors had a tendency to substitute the indifferent divinity and corrupted humans of Lovecraft’s work with direct malice; their vision of these god-like beings was one in which they noticed humanity and did harm to it, creating a movement away from Howie Love’s original thesis (”human insignificance will lead to the unimportant and unmarked event of our destruction” & “seeking knowledge can only lead to self-annihilation”) during his life which only picked up momentum after his death. Indeed, most modern attempts at Lovecraftian horror mimic this overt malevolence, often without even lip service to the original thesis. It’s not necessarily an unworkable angle of horror, and it definitely has bones in with its origins; “God is real and He hates you personally” is a terrifying idea! But this movement away from the cold indifference of stories like The Colour Out Of Space definitely contributed to the current climate of...sloppy adaptations, let’s say.

Not that I’m thinking of any Paizo in particular.

So Should I Use Mythos Content Directly In My D&D Game Or What?

No, because I will cry and tell everyone that you punched my children and kidnapped my girlfriends.

More helpfully, probably not. The presence of other divinities, but especially evil divinities like Erythnul (Greyhawk) or Malar (Forgotten Realms) makes the thematics of cosmic horror pretty fucking weird. If you really wanted to, your best bet is to not use the published system of divinity at all (see the previously-linked article, up at the top of this one) and instead make Lovecraft’s gods the setting’s only gods. That means asking yourself some hard questions about clerics in your game world and possibly divine magic in general - that’s a separate article though - and even then you’re in for a rough row to hoe. D&D’s characters tend to be competent, dynamic, empowered - a far cry from the educated but otherwise fairly helpless protagonists on which cosmic horror tends to trade. Themes of futility in the face of incomprehensible beings don’t really make for good D&D most of the time, not when so much of the system (any edition, it doesn’t matter) is set up to create and reward cunning and heroic struggle. Classic cosmic horror, in the original proposed form, is not a good fit.

Thankfully, we have two solutions to give you what you crave in-house. Let’s start with the one that is somehow both the closer fit and the further fit.

You Have Fucked Up - The Far Realm Overview

Originally introduced in late AD&D 2e, the Far Realm as an idea hit its stride during 3.0/3.5 before getting a major rework as part of 4e’s cosmology, where it became the source of most/all aberrations. We’re gonna go ahead and pretend 4e didn’t happen, not because 4e is bad (and for the love of fuck please don’t start an edition war on my cosmic horror post) but because 4e’s cosmology just doesn’t really fit in with any of the rest. 1e <-> 3.5 is more or less coherent and you can beat 5e into line with a wrench and some harsh language, but 4e...well, anyway.

The Far Realms is outside reality. No, not in another dimension, we know what those are - those are the Planes. It’s outside reality; it is Somewhere Else. “It” is probably even the wrong term, since by definition any place (”place”) that isn’t the multiverse as D&D knows it is the Far Realm. To paraphrase Afroakuma, if the Great Wheel is a Lego brick, the Far Realm is a giant squid; if the Great Wheel is a bowl of Fruit Loops, the Far Realm is the theory that intelligences from Pluto rig the results of major sporting events. The contexts are not compatible. These two things do not go together in any way. Combining the two can only end in sorrow and woe.

So mortals try to combine the two all the time, because we’re dipshits like that.

Every now and again, some truly, monumentally stupid person - usually but not always someone inside reality - breaches the skin that contains reality inside itself, and lets in the essence of Outside. This is a phenomenally bad idea; the immediate result is corruption in both directions as the essence of each form of reality bleeds into the other. Both attempt to ‘scab’ the breach, translating the foreign substances and beings into something more like the reality they have moved to. If a breach happens, there is one of three outcomes. If you are very, very lucky, no being on the other side notices the breach, and you’ve ‘merely’ blighted and corrupted a vast stretch of land, tainting it with something sort of like, but not enough like, Chaos and Evil for millennia to come - maybe even forever. If you’re not lucky, a being on the other side notices the breach and acts to seal it, the ripple of which causes you to not have a nation or continent any more as said corruption absolutely consumes the lands in which you live. And if you are phenomenally unlucky, the being on the other side is just as stupid as you are, and it comes through. The last time that happened the original Gnomish pantheon got murdered. Their homeworld doesn’t exist any more.

There is no ‘good’ outcome. This is the repeated and absolute theme of the Far Realms; whatever your reasons for getting involved with them, whatever you wanted, whatever you were seeking, you don’t get it. Mortals fuck with the Far Realms because our inability to comprehend them leads us to think of them like things we can experience. The scabbed-over beings we meet that are from there (Psuedonatural creatures; see the Alienist prestige class in Tome & Blood and Complete Arcane, as well as the bigger version in the Epic Level Handbook) are Chaotic Evil because that is how reality translates them. They aren’t Chaos, they’re another reality, and their unwilling and unwitting corruption of all around them gets redefined as Chaotic Evil in order to reduce their damage to all of existence to a manageable fucking level. Were you seeking the Far Realms in order to harness power for great change? Get fucked, you can’t control what happens. Were you seeking magical power? Get fucked; the reason people go mad when exposed to the Far Realms isn’t just that the knowledge they gain makes no sense, it’s that the complete lack of context means all of the stuff you killed and stole and lied and cheated for is more or less completely goddamn useless. Trying to escape existence for some reason? One, death is faster, but two, hope you enjoy suffering the entire time you die - and that’s if the breach stays open long enough for you to be able to enjoy death as a concept before you get sealed away in a place where mortality doesn’t meaningfully exist.

You don’t get what you want. This was a bad idea. You fucked up.

5e, the most recent edition of D&D, mainly continues this trend. It has suggestions of the lazier interpretation of Lovecraft’s work tied to the Far Realms, which I heartily suggest you ignore, but some of the other ideas are phenomenal. The Great Old Ones Pact for Warlock has one in particular that I like quite a bit, which suggests that the Warlock-to-be created an unintended connection to a Far Realms intelligence and gained power against both of their wills and possibly without the intelligence in question even noticing. You don’t need to change a lot in 5e’s run to bring out the extant themes of the Far Realms - though admittedly this is greatly assisted by the fact that 5e barely has any Far Realms content to begin with, so there’s not a lot to edit. That also means there’s not a lot to use, so if you want to use Far Realms stuff in 5e you’re gonna have to get ready to spend a lot of time making your own. Which brings us to...

Who The Fuck Funded This Research?!? - Using The Far Realms In Your Game

Considering that all-important theme - “this was a bad idea” - the Far Realms are likely to be antagonistic in nature in your game, even if ‘antagonistic’ isn’t the right term. Published adventures have used Far Realms content as a sort of backdrop (Firestorm Peak comes to mind here) before, and you can easily make Far Realms creatures a more direct problem for your PCs by centering the campaign around a cult or research team attempting to cause a new breach. This could be a great time to engage with player-side themes such as the ethics of magic use, the cost of power, and the burden of responsibility for said power, assuming your group is down for it. Even if they’re not, horrifying monstrosities that by definition have no place in this universe are great to kick in the head(s).

What motivates people to cause a breach? Mainly stupidity, but the special kind of stupidity you only get when someone is highly educated and deeply intelligent. For awhile, in the real world, there was a burst of designers making D20 heartbreakers - successors to D&D 3.5 meant to fix its many catastrophic flaws. Each person thought they had it, the secret to make the system they both loved and hated finally function, and they were all wrong. Causing a breach into the Far Realms is like that. Every sign points to it being a bad idea. Reading the research and spells of the last people who tried it reveals that it’s a bad idea. All of the diaries and primary sources of those who did it and those who stopped them say it’s a bad idea, but that’s okay because I, Wizardhat von Dipshit, am not like those fools. I will be more careful, and the power to reshape the Planes will be mine!

The easiest way to make Far Realms creatures for use in your campaign is to start with an existing monster and fuck it up; rearrange its abilities (adding or emphasizing mental attacks and psychic damage, if you can), alter its physical form, and generally just make that shit wrong and fill its blood with spiders. If you want to get more alien from there or make something original, the best guideline I can offer for you is that aboleths were the result of Far Realms taint in the beginning of this reality (it’s telling that the closest thing reality could translate their progenitor into was a Greater Deity).

No one wants power for its own sake, of course, but what your antagonist actually wants is more or less irrelevant because the important bit is that they had every chance to know better and they’re about to make this bad decision on purpose anyway. This is how the Far Realms brings out cosmic horror themes in a heroic context; power that is beyond both mortal comprehension and control, which has no place in this reality and recoils from us as violently as we recoil from it. Like Lovecraft, whose stories revealed a deep cynicism about knowledge and science, your antagonists will be erudite individuals whose ruinous plans are only possible because of what they have learned and, in turn, chosen to ignore. If nothing is done, unstoppable catastrophe will be unleashed, and with it will come madness and desolation. If only some heroes were on hand, eh?

The disconnect the Far Realms has from classic cosmic horror is also the source of why they fit; they don’t belong here. In Lovecraft’s work, it’s humanity that doesn’t belong - we are a blight upon the rightful property of higher beings. The Far Realms are instead an intrusion, something from Elsewhere which doesn’t want to be here as much as we don’t want it here. That helps those classic cosmic horror themes work much better in this context, but maybe you’re looking for something else, something from here. Do the Planes have cosmic horror from within the shell of Reality?

Yes. Oh yes, they do.

Ancient Evil Survives - Obyrith Overview

In the beginning, there was war.

The primordial War of Law and Chaos is the greatest conflict to have ever rocked the Planes. It was so destructive, so all-encompassing, that it consumed entire Material Plane worlds, reshaped the nature of the Planes themselves, and is still happening, even now. It began in the early days of the Great Wheel and was prosecuted by Chaos, led by the self-styled Queen of Chaos, over a single question: should reality be real? Should effects follow causes, should gravity exist, should fire burn and light reveal, should things age and die, should...

The forces of Law said yes to these questions and fought to establish and maintain an order and logic to reality. Chaos fought for an unbound reality, one in which each individual would be completely free to express their own true essence as tangible changes in the existence around them. The War was never truly won or lost, but the imprisonment of Miska the Wolf-Spider broke the backs of the Chaotic coalition and brought the War to a stalemate of sorts, in a reality which, if not dominated by Law, is definitely Law-leaning. Mortals are familiar with the terrible demons used as footsoldiers by the Abyss, the Tanar’ri, who reign yet in that terrible place. But it was not the Tanar’ri in command of Chaos, and not the Tanar’ri who prosecuted that terrible War. Indeed, the beings we now recognize as demons rose up against their creators, the Obyriths, after the imprisonment of Miska. They overthrew the Obyriths in a great slaughter and replaced them as the dominant exemplars of Chaotic Evil.

The Obyriths are not dead. They plan, and they wait, and they wage war and slaughter upon their wayward slaves in the Abyss. Every last one of them burns to reignite the War and achieve their vision of unbound reality, free of the wretched Law and all too weak to survive without it.

Prisoners Of The Flesh - Obyrith Nature

So what are Obyriths? The easiest answer is that they’re demons - the first demons, in fact, which preceded the more famous Tanar’ri (when you think of demons in D&D chances are you’re thinking of a Tanar’ri), and while this answer is entirely correct it is not the whole story. Tanar’ri are famously Chaotic Evil; they revel in corruption and destruction and are driven to maliciously annihilate or taint all they come across. A demon army marching across the land will stop to personally kick every puppy between point A and point B and they will absolutely mutiny against you if you try to stop them from doing so. What is good and pure must be soiled; what exists must be made to not exist, its foundations shattered, its virtues turned against themselves, its values abandoned. Tanar’ri respect only raw might, and only as long as they think they can’t defeat it.

But Obyriths, their progenitors, are Evil Chaos.

Let’s have some examples. This little guy is a draudnu, a kind of Obyrith made from the bones of chaotic celestials which post-dates the ‘end’ of the War by a pretty significant amount of time. They’re on the weaker side for Obyriths.

(You’ll find this boi in Monster Manual V for 3.5 incidentally.)

Take a nice long look. Really take it in - because that’s not the draudnu. That’s the prison of flesh, the scab, that reality has forced on the draudnu, that the terrible Law has locked it within. The actual draudnu looks like it’s inside me God it’s inside me I can feel it growing and twisting it HURTS get it out, it’s seeping into my blood it’s inside me it’s INSIDE ME -

Let’s have another example. This is a sibriex, recently re-published in Mordenkeinan’s Tome of Foes for 5e with no mention of Obyriths, which is a damn shame. They were instrumental in defining the forms of the common breeds of Tanar’ri.

Fun, right? But again, that’s not a sibriex; the actual form of a sibriex is perfection. Absolute beauty and grace. I am nothing compared to this perfection. I am no one in the face of this perfection. My existence can only profane this perfection. I must serve the Perfect One. I must let it remake me and reshape me, I must appease it, I must make amends for the crime that is my trespass upon the reality made for the Perfect One.

Those two are ‘common’ Obyriths, examples of that race of demons which have peers who are much like themselves, but the Obyriths still have extant Demon Princes. The Queen of Chaos is still alive and nursing her ancient hate. Pale Night’s true form is so profane that reality cannot stand its existence; when she reveals it to you, the multiverse destroys your soul so that knowledge of her truth does not exist. Obox-Ob, murdered by the Queen of Chaos, yet exists as an Aspect of himself - and the Planes live in fear of the rise of the Prince of Vermin, whose truth is agony, rot, and corruption, such that even if you magically remove memory of it from your mind you continue to die from the soul outward.

And Dagon plots within the depths of his palace, sponsoring and advising Demogorgon - the Prince of Demons - and contemplating unimaginable lore of evil. The Demon Prince of Depths looks like this.

This is the form carved on blasphemous altars in the depths of the oceans, where sunlight has never reached. This is the form worshiped by mortals who delight in corruption, destruction, and fear, who dream of a sea where vision is a distant memory and predators hunt by the scent of blood. It is the form sought by those who lust for ancient lore, kept in places far from mortal sight and utilized by an evil older than many gods and mortal races, a form whose mere touch can taint a body of water, mutating & mutilating all within and unleashing their fury, their terror, their slaughter, for ages to come. And it is not Dagon. Dagon’s true form, imprisoned within that flesh, is I’m drowning in the cold dark, I can feel my bones breaking, my eyes are bursting, I’m blind and I’m drowning and I can’t die, my lungs are gone, the water is seeping into my blood I’m drowning and I just want to die make it stop I’m DROWNING.

It’s telling that witnessing Dagon’s true form, his Form of Madness, can give even creatures that breathe water, or which do not breathe at all, crippling hydrophobia.

The true forms of Obyriths are not flesh or matter; they are not, by nature, Material beings the way other Outsiders and mortal things are. Their true forms are that you, personally, are going mad. You, personally, are being assaulted, violated, and infected; you, personally, are being victimized, corrupted, consumed, and betrayed. Imagine if the act of pouring flesh-eating beetles into someone’s eyes had a personality, will, and desires - not the person doing it, the act itself - and that’s an Obyrith. They are evil because what they are is evil, much in the way Erythnul is evil. Unlike their creations, the Tanar’ri, Obyriths aren’t in it to kick every puppy that has ever existed. They want to throw off the yoke of the Law and release their unbound forms. They want an existence of darkness and isolation in which all beings are free to express their true essence to the limit of their might and their will.

They just wanna be themselves.

No matter who has to die.

The Foes Of All Reason - Using Obyriths In Your Campaign

Do you enjoy life’s little conveniences, such as cause-and-effect, linear time, predictable & observable physical laws, not having your body boil away beneath the agonizing will of some random asshole, and the capacity to recognize patterns in nature? Then Obyriths are your enemies. As demons, Obyriths can be summoned and are thus easy to use in the sort of ‘guest star’ role that Tanar’ri are often used in, even if it takes a moon-sized pair of brass balls to decide you can contain one. However, this use - while valid - is not a good way to bring out their cosmic horror themes, and since you decided to read an article about cosmic horror in D&D this far down I’m going to go ahead and assume you’d like to do that.

As one of the Planes’ most ancient and active evils - arguably the most ancient one that hasn’t died or otherwise fucked off - Obyriths are absolutely prime for campaigns that deal with ancient lore, primordial conflict, and unreality. If you like the idea of long-burn plots by masterminds with the patience of aeons, Obyriths are definitely for you. For an example of one such story, check out The Tale of the Whale, written by Afroakuma. The downside to using Obyriths in this way is that if you want to do so in canon settings, you need to be prepared to do some absolute fucking deep dives on the lore, which may require access to books or PDFs as far back as 1e & 2e. If you’re using your own setting this problem is lessened, though at that point you do have to manage to sell the ancient nature of such beings in a way that makes them feel suitably eldritch.

For more...let’s go ahead and say modern for lack of a better word, takes, keep in mind that Obyriths are not Tanar’ri. They do not scheme to overthrow the government of a nation; your pale, fleshly shadow of the Law is nothing to them. The plots of Obyriths upend the Laws which underpin reality itself. Could the great contract that details the alliance between the tribes of Men and Cats be found and perverted, turning each against the other in all reality? Could the insects of this realm be infected with the essence of Obox-Ob so that the Demon Prince of Vermin can feast on mortal souls and effect his own return to power? Could a bridge linking the Deep Ethereal to the Abyss be constructed, permitting the sibriexes and their master, the Prince of the Chrysalis, to shape new slaves from the very essence of raw Potential? Obyriths pervert what is and should be, not just because it suits their end goal of chaos unbound, but because corruption and violation is their very nature. It’s how they think, how they move, what they believe in, love, and value.

Obyriths have a lot to suggest for them when it comes to cosmic horror stories in D&D’s context. They bring out direct themes of madness, terrible truth, malign alien intelligence, and reality-unreality. You can comprehend their motives and even their nature, sort of, but their end goal is completely alien to mortal beings; the reality they want would be completely unrecognizable to the denizens of the current one. They are evil as mortals understand the concept, but not in a way that matches or even relates to their peers, which means they act in surprising and unpredictable ways.

All of this of course damages their ability to fulfill the classic cosmic horror thesis, but there’s something to be said about the idea that an alien intelligence, to be horrifying, needs something humans can attempt to relate to. It certainly makes writing for them easier.

If you’re using Obyriths in 3.5, you’re set to go; look for them in the various Monster Manuals, as well as Fiendish Codex. If you’re attempting to use them in Pathfinder, good decision but you’re gonna have some stat block converting to do. Trying to use them in 5e is gonna be the absolute bitch of a job, and I’m not sure where to even start on those suggestions except to note that the signature trait of Obyriths - the thing that makes them them, mechanically - is a Form of Madness ability, where they reveal their truth to their victims. Forms of Madness are mind-affecting abilities which hit all non-demons near the Obyrith, tainting them in some way. You can see some example ideas above, and the ones from 3.5 in the published books I just mentioned, but here’s hoping I can find an expert on 5th Edition’s mechanics kind enough to lend me a hand here.

I hope this article proved helpful to you! As with all of my work, questions and critique are welcome. Thanks for reading!

[twilightofthe]

For the Star Wars questions- 16 & 19. :)

Thank you!!! (y’all this got ridiculously long for two damn questions lol)

Send me a number and i’ll tell u my fave/least fave:

16. Book/Comic (Aight, so I’m actually not a huge comic reader in general, most of my comic knowledge comes from other fans on here posting about them, so this is gonna be mainly book-focused)

FAVE:  Welllllll, since I’m literally incapable of narrowing down my favorite anythings, I’m gonna do faves for both canon and EU novels.  

Canon-wise, it’s a tie beween A New Dawn and Ahsoka.  I know I don’t post about them as much on here, but I truly have a super soft spot for Kanera and Kanan and Hera’s characters, they’re just so GOOD and I love themmmmm aaaaaaaaa.  You get super good insights to how Kanan was running wild and traumatized and trying to repress everything and how Hera was a little naïve but still tough as nails and she had a dream and she was going to make it happen or so help her, ugh I just love how the story showed how they’re strongest as a team working together and I just love character dynamics where the two are so obviously married and kinda snark at each other sometimes but they have each other’s backs through everything and know each other like the back of their hands and uggghhhh this is just such a healthy good ship and such a good book.  The Ahsoka novel is just fantastic all on its own because it shows Ahsoka as a young adult, kinda floundering and lost in this new world, full of guilt over what happened with Anakin and the Order, trying to do what she can to help people and just enduring because she’s a survivor, she was raised (by two argumentative, adoptive parents who love her very much SO SAYETH THE BOOK) to be a survivor and handle herself, but that doesn’t mean she’s not lonely as all hell.  And oof I just fucking adore Kaeden Larte and her relationship with Ahsoka (who absolutely comes back and marries her once the war is over oh yes) and her relationship with Miara and ugh just all of it is A+++++.  E.K. Johnston is just an amazing author in general and her other book, Queen’s Shadow is one of my two canon runner ups because I am in love with her Sabé and her Padmé.  Other canon runner up is A Certain Point Of View, if only for the “Time of Death” chapter.  Don’t get me wrong, the rest of it is also fantastic, but oh god it kills me DEAD OBI WAN DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER AND I CRY I REALLY CRY

EU-wise (oh god, I haven’t even gotten to least-faves yet), it has to be the Revenge of the Sith novelization.  Without a question.  Y’all it’s SO FUCKIN’ good, and in my personal opinion should be considerrred canonnnnnn (look I think the reason they gave for excluding it is that there’s no mention of Ahsoka or Rex or Mandalore or any of the stuff that happened literally the day before which is valid, but I counterpoint that Anakin is a mess with A Lot Going On At The Moment, he could have just forgot?  He forgets most of his morals, all of his common sense, and three of his limbs by the end of the story, Snips could have just slipped his mind! xD).  Anyway, besides the fact that it’s like 99% written in Obikin-colored glasses which really just makes me happy as a person because I love it being acknowledged just how important they are to each other, it really offers a deeper insight INSIDE the chaos going on in Anakin’s head, the mess, just why he falls so quickly and so awfully.  I love it gives the Padmé plot that got cut on screen some validity.  The beautiful beginning and the goddam introductions to Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi are just A++++++++++++++ and oof other people can more accurately describe just how good this book is, but I love it a Big Lot ok?

LEAST FAVE:  Okey doke, here we go....  So firstly for canon, I’m not the biggest fan of how Claudia Grey writes Leia’s character.  She’s a wonderful storyteller and I love her worldbuilding, but just the way she characterizes Leia herself never felt... right, ya know?  Idk, I can’t really explain it, but it makes it difficult for me to enjoy her Leia novelsWarning right now that this is a VERY unpopular opinion and my opinion alone, please do not yell at me!  So as skilled and admired an author Timothy Zahn is, I don’t like the Thrawn books.  I’m sorry, I don’t.  To me, Thrawn is just.... ok so he’s like BBC!Sherlock but in space.  The plot makes a big deal about how “oooh cool and intelligent and Literally Better Than Everyone Else” Thrawn is, but the only way they really show his “cleverness” is by either him solving problems by pulling together information that literally no one but the writer knows and then acting like it was oh so obvious and in front of everyone OR, the story dumbs down other characters to make him look smart.  And maybe it was because the one Thrawn book goes after Anakin/Vader in particular to do the latter is what kinda ticked me off on Thrawn books in general, but y’all, it really ticked me off, because Anakin is like the lowest hanging fruit for an author to pick to make their character look good in comparison, and therefore it is done All The Time (LOOKING AT YOU, CLONE WARS), which I think is lazy and an insult to Anakin’s character.  Look, I am fully aware Anakin Skywalker is a dolt to the highest degree sometimes, but he is ALSO A GENIUS.  He is SMART.  IT IS CANON THAT HE IS SMART.  So when the Thrawn book has Thrawn constantly one-upping Anakin The Useless Doofus (and Padmé a bit!!!) and then doing it again once he meets him as Vader, that just makes me hmmmm.

The canon comics are actually gonna be featured on the list here a bit because if y’all don’t already know my hatred for That One Particular Vader Comic (not the rest of the series run as I have not read it and from what I hear, it’s excellent and I’d probs like it a lot) doing the implication in a dream sequence where it says that Palpatine used the Dark Side to impregnate Shmi and create Anakin, well I HATE IT.  Look, I know the plot was literally about Sidious trying to mess with Vader’s head and that dream shouldn’t be trusted, but it fooled all the fans too and now like 60% of Star Wars fans actually believe Sidious fathered Anakin and I am so damn tired of hearing about that.  Yeah, now that Reylo is canon, that comic’s authors are trying to do damage control by saying that no, Sidious isn’t Anakin’s father and Rey and Ben are not second cousins, but they’re still being mysterious about it and “oh well it COULD be this--” so now there’s just more fans who are digging into that theory just because they don’t like Reylo and I don’t really care for the ship either but I really HATE the entire “Born of the Dark” concept for reasons I can explain more separately, so I’m pissy at that particular comic for spawning it.  I know it’s petty but I do.

EU-wise, well, this is gonna be unpopular too, cuz I haven’t read most of the EU stuff, and from what I’ve heard of it, there doesn’t seem to be much that I WOULD like.  The movie novelizations all seem good, but everything else???  “Obi Wan prequels but guess what, he had a shitty childhood too!” uh, no thanks, the rest of his life sucks enough, I want to see him happy.  “Mandalorian worldbuilding, but they’re all a bunch of stoic, overpowered badasses who are Good At Everything And Better Than Literally Everyone and the plot bashes the Jedi left right and center!” ehhhhhhhh pass.  “What happened after Return of the Jedi, except the Skywalkers still don’t get a happy ending because the galaxy goes to war again, Han and Leia’s son turns evil, Luke Suffers, and Palpatine comes back again!” nah, that sounds too depressing-- oh wAIT :) :) :)(at least the EU actually lets Han and Leia grow old and happy together okay okay that’s enough sequel salt for one day)

19. Outfit

FAVE:  Everything Padmé Amidala wears in the movies.  No I will not narrow it down.  I am in love with her whole wardrobe and I want it. 

 I also love the standard Jedi tunics and tabards and cloak (c’mon, the cloak completes the picture!)  It’s just such a signature and unique look that’s supposed to combine medieval European knight tunics and samurai warrior clothing and just the #aesthetic is oof, just wonderful.

Also Sabine Wren’s armor and its various paint jobs.  It’s just so uniquely her and bright and beautiful and badass in all its stages and yes good I like it.

Also Lando Calrissian’s cloaks!  Swooshy and colorful and good!  I love cloaks!  

LEAST FAVE:  Gonna go with my petty, silly ones first, and those are all of Padmé Amidala’s outfits that are only seen in the The Clone Wars TV show (so not the ones that were based off of movie costumes).  Eh, actually three of them were nice, her orange outfit she visits Mina in, her white casual housedress, and her black slinky Clovis dress.  All of her other series-only outfits made me highkey pissy because they were either A.) Wrong for the situation she was in, B.) Defied the laws of physics and should not have held the shape they did/stayed on her body, or C.) just plain UGLY (the highest crime of all), and for the animators to have the audACITY to put any of those things in the mere vicinity of the most stylish woman in the galaxy is an insult to Padmé, an insult to ME, and an insult to Star Wars as a whole (yes, I am mostly joking, but come on!).  No, I will not give the designers the excuse of clothing being difficult and expensive and time consuming to animate because I have SEEN the fancy, PRETTY outfits of the other ladies of Padmé’s status on the show.  Everything Satine Kryze wore was intricately beautiful as all hell and I loved it.  Riyo Chuchi’s two outfits were lovely and fashionable.  Heck, I’m pretty sure I liked Mina Bonteri’s outfit too.  There were tons of people on that show with stylish clothing!  How hard would it have been for the animators to remember Padmé doesn’t wear exposed midriffs on official government business?  That dresses with no sides or back cannot be sleeveless or they will not stay up?  Not give her hairstyles that looked like either a goddam tuning fork or like Jimmy Neutron’s mother?  That beige jumpsuits are BORING and adding a mauve vest is NOT enough to make it exciting!!!! xD xD xD 

Aight, now in more seriousness, I also hated both of Ahsoka’s outfits in the original TCW show.  Enough people have spoken on why sending a fourteen year old into an active warzone in a tube top and miniskirt is a BAD IDEA, but like it just makes me extra mad when you remember her older and more experienced at Not Getting Pulverized Masters were both in full concealing robes and chest and shoulder and shin armor, so you can’t even pass it off as Jedi not getting hurt as easily.  Her updated outfit was only slightly an improvement because her Masters STILL got at least fully covering robes and arm bracers, while Ahsoka still had her entire back exposed, leg holes exposing valuable arteries and stuff, and a goddam boob window that basically signals “shoot me here”.  Look, I know the animators goofed, and I know how they have learned from it because from Rebels on, they never show her as improperly covered for battle, in the new TCW season both outfits are cute and practical too, but seeing her running around in her red outfits actively impeded and took me out of my watching experience because I was cringing over her having a lack of protection, that it made her that much more vulnerable to injury.

Finally just gotta give a standard raised finger to the Slave Leia Bikini.  Carrie Fisher hated it so I do too.

[the-only-universe-here]

Tell me about ocs. Is now legal obligation

Okay I've rewritten this like three times because I want this to be a good and fun post for everyone and maybe try to not completely overwhelm this ask with the many... Many conflicting character thoughts I've been thinking about recently which spans across like 8/9 characters and like three universes because I'm a goddamn mESS.

So instead of all that I'm going to assign the class some reading which you can find here and here about my team KRML, which I'm always ready and interested in talking about, and tell you some about my fan apprentices for The Arcana.

Starting us off is the apprentice that I initially used for both Julian and Asra's routes, Verun Levvie. Before I started playing the Arcana I honestly didn't really have much for her - she was just a neat little self insert cameo in a couple of my stories.

Originally she ran a magic shop with the main intent to help people with their dreams. Her magic would basically snatch the memories of dreams out of their minds and she would craft dream catchers from threads that she basically infused with their dreams. Nightmares, good dreams, and anything else. If they had a recurring nightmare they wanted to get rid of, or if they wanted to keep the dream catcher and be able to re-live that memory... Yknow.

She's also a mess and she can't help but copy the tendencies of people around her. So if she's around a certain boisterous, flirty beanpole man? Oops now she's flirting back and where the hell did she get all this confidence?? Or if she's around her favorite magician boyfriend she'll end up following along with his shenanigans and getting into some sort of trouble with him. But on her own, she's just generally very quiet and very very introverted. Like, vampire hissing as the curtains are drawn back, don't touch me don't look at me unless you're one of my boys. Also yes, she's in a polyamorous relationship with Julian and Asra and I have custom background stories for the three of them that I will spare you from... Unless you really wanna hear about it.

5'7" of Verun to love her boys with... Also she has like. Honey-amber eyes is how I describe it in my writing? If I can pinpoint the exact color I'll show it when I can. But I'm infatuated with the color. Also I stole an hairstyle/hair color from my sister for her hair, so just think of like, red-orange-white fire-ish lookin hair. I don't know how to describe it without sharing photos of my sis but its cool and I'm absolutely too fuckin powerful in a universe where people can have purple-pinkish hair and red eyes.

Akaira is my second fan apprentice, and uh. Okay just an fyi but my fan apprentices all exist in their own universes so there's no messy storylines crossing.

Because Akaira ends up fucking all of the main male LI's except for Muriel, because the big forest man reminds her entirely too much of her sister and that would just be WEIRD. (He also probably hates Akaira so. There's that.) And that's all before the game actually starts. She's like, the barely-has-morals thot. A classic chaotic neutral rogue multiclassing as a ranger, if you know D&D. She has Looks™ and knows how to use them to get what she wants. And if someone isn't tempted or swayed by her flirting and beauty, she's handy with both knife and bow and has no qualms about spilling blood.

It should be no surprise to anyone that her main LI is Lucio, because honestly... She's kind of a gold digger and Lucio is also a barely-has-morals thot.

But! She does actually have backstory filled out, since I've had her character for years and years now. Her first memories are uh. Well, being shot with an arrow to the neck, which left her with her first scar. The man that shot her, thinking the rustling on the bushes of the forest to be an animal, took her to his home out in the middle of fuckin nowhere and added a new daughter to his household. So Akaira was given a name and she acquired two loving parents and a sister. Everything was fine for a while, but then her mother got sick and barely managed to hold onto life for years, until she passed away and everything turned to shit. Her father turned into an abusive asshole, driven mad with grief, and her sister became distant and harsh and just didn't really care about anything. Her and her sister had been taught from a young age how to fight in self defense, but at some point they started... "sparring". Sparring, but like, with just a little bit of blood. So from about the age of sixteen Akaira started gathering scars from her sister mostly, though her father left his fair share as well. (Akaira is always rather sensitive about being called a bitch...) But eventually, Akaira decided to forsake her father and the last name he had given her, so she left her home and got herself into some mercenary work, or whatever would sustain her, traveling around until she got to Vesuvia. Along the way she discovered her talent at manipulation and pickpocketing, which ended up with a lot of "free dinners" for herself 😉

She's also quietly self conscious about her scars, though outwardly she has no issue with flaunting them. The only times that you'll see her actually flinch when people talk about her scars is when she's already having a really, really bad day. Akaira is also like... Weirdly masochistic when it comes to continuing to spar with her sister. Even now she'll go adventure and meet up with her sister and ask to spar even when she knows she'll end up bleeding (sometimes a dangerous amount).

I'm pretty sure that she's also like. My most attractive character, at least out of my girls. Like, 5'4" of blonde loveliness. Long, gently curly hair, light blue eyes, thighs thick enough to kill a man. Makeup game is Stronk. She herself is able to throw her sister, and her sister is a 6'10 monster of a person, and she has the muscle mass to prove it.

Buuuut anyway, onto Aldafa Hylene. Who, surprise, is Akaira's sister! Ahahahaha. I swear she isn't as bad as she seems based on Akaira's side of the story. Like she is, but she isn't. She took her mother's loss really hard, as a child cut off from society would. And since, at that age, she was trained and able to take care of herself alone in the forest... She did. She would spend days or weeks alone in the wilderness, venting her anger and sadness to the things of the forest in whispers and twangs of her bowstring and angry howls back at the wolf packs. She found solace in the primal forces of nature, of fighting for her life with every action when she was alone, and when it came to Akaira welcoming chances to fight those wild instincts just... Continued on into it. So she'd leave cuts and bruises on her sister and then wrap her wounds with bandages and salves and other healing things. She'd also make sure her father left Akaira alone for the time she had to heal, though sometimes when she wasn't there he would aggravate Akaira into lashing out at him. (And if she knew the terribly grievous wounds that he left with his own blades by sight, Akaira didn't need to know. She could deny for a little longer.) No matter what she did, her father never lashed out at Aldafa, so she just kind of refused to believe that he was as horrible as Akaira seemed to believe. (Her sister's blood was on her own hands only, not his. She was responsible for it, she was so sorry for it.)

But eventually, she followed Akaira out of their home and found her own way to Vesuvia. She met Asra and yknow, she didn't mind him. Maybe a bit louder and more energetic than what she preferred, but she knew her tolerance for people was pretty unique. It probably took her like ten or twenty times of her meeting Muriel in the forest for him to decide that this new friend of Asra's was okay, so he gave her one of his little charms for her to remember him with... And after that she would go to him when she needed a break from the city. They're both very quiet, neither of them like people, and honestly having that sort of mutual thinking is perfect. And then it turned into Aldafa spending days with him... And then weeks. And then they just unofficially started living together.

Best thing? Aldafa is just as tall as Muriel, and while she's kind of a beanpole herself (yknow, 6'10 hooman) she's got some serious muscle to her, just like Akaira. Also she has no idea what a haircut is, she'll just take a couple inches off of her own hair with her hunting knife so her hair is short and patchy af but she gives exactly zero shits.

ANYWAY ITS GETTING ONTO 3AM BECAUSE I'M A DUMBASS BUT THANKS FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK AND LETTING ME RANT ABOUT THESE THREE I GOTTA GO BED NOW

[heartslogos]

the unclassified texts of the inquisition’s elite [30]

785): Got home. Somebody tried to sell me weed on the street. I've never had to try so little to find a dealer before.

(705): Did I ever tell you what happened that night after he ran you over?

“It’s like,” Evelyn pauses, sighs, putting her head in her hands, “Listen. I want us to look legitimate. I want us to have recognition and prestige and some modicum of respect. I want the newspapers to stop running stories about us like they’re tabloids out to expose our dirty little secrets and have that be their baseline for telling stories about us because we are literally giving them non-stop gossip fodder rather than real results. I want to go one day without social media blowing up over one of us doing something completely out of this world stupid slash socially questionable. Ethically questionable. Morally and legally questionable.”

“I can hardly see how it’s my fault,” Sera says. “It’s not like I was actively soliciting people for weed. I was in uniform this time, even. I never wear the fucking uniform. You can barely even get me to wear my fucking badge. I did everything right this time, for real. I wore the uniform, I wore the badge, I was with three other Inquisition soldiers who were also in their boring ass uniforms with their stupid badges. We were right next to Inquisition marked cars. Seeker Cassandra fuckin’ righteousness Pentaghast was walking ahead of me. You can’t really blame me for this one.”

“Something about you,” Evelyn gestures to all of Sera at once. Rude. “Something about this just…screams for people to treat you like a hooligan.”

“What are you, eighty? Hooligan. The fuck. Go on urban dictionary, grandma.”

“This is exactly what I mean.” Evelyn shakes her head. “Sera. Just. Tell me one thing. Did you take the weed?”

“He was offering to sell it, not give it away for free.”

“Tell me that you didn’t buy the weed.”

“Of course I didn’t buy the weed, he was charging way above market price.”

“Sera.”

“I’m kidding. His price was average but his goods were shit. Quit it with the look. I didn’t buy any, okay? And Pentaghast turned around, gave him the look, and he nearly shat his pants. Which is, like, character growth or something from her because she held back enough to spare the dumbass some shred of dignity. You should reward that kind of behavior, you know? She’s learning…sympathy or something. Whatever. He’s been arrested and his stash seized, so you can stop having a little fit over there.”

“I am not having a fit.”

“Yes you are. I can see it in your eyes. They get squirrelly.”

“What?”

“Yeah, just ask Rutherford or Josephine or somebody who does paperwork with you. I bet they see that squirrelly look all the time.”

“Squirrelly? I don’t look squirrelly!”

“Listen, boss, you can think that however much you want. You can think that until the sky turns fuchsia or whatever. Doesn’t change the fact that you look two seconds away from a mental break down and suburban-mom-like hysterics.”

“Suburban — I’ve lost you completely. You make things up to confuse me.”

“Spoken like a true old lady. You know you should probably have kids before you skip to the middle aged mom stage, right? Like. You haven’t lived through raising teenagers so you shouldn’t have that frazzled everything going on.”

“Sera, the longer you talk the less I understand you. Can we please get back to the fact that people walk up to you and solicit you for drugs?”

“I’ve stopped the side hustle if that’s what you want to talk about.”

“The what?”

“Nightingale didn’t tell you about that one? Well, shit. I mean. I thought she told you everything? Because? You’re our boss? You know? Wow. Guess we all know who’s really in charge now, huh?”

-

“Excuse me, what?”

Herah hums as Kaaras slowly loses his mind. “Oh, guess you forgot that part. I mean. You were like, what, eight? That was some time ago. Totally reasonable that you don’t remember it. You were unconscious for two days in the hospital. Mom was probably going to murder Kaariss. Good thing he was so apologetic about it. He wrote an entire poem about it. That’s why he treats you extra gentle, you know.”

“Kaariss treats me gently?” This is news to Kaaras. Kaariss usually takes every opportunity to drag him on increasingly dangerous and remotely located hiking trips that he calls survival training.

“Yeah, he didn’t give me that kind of special treatment. He gave you an entire survival kit for your twelfth birthday. What did I get on my birthday? A gift card.”

Honestly, Kaaras would really have preferred a gift card.

“This family is so messed up,” he bemoans. “He ran me over?”

“Yup. In the driveway. In his defense, it was Halloween, it was dark, you were dressed as a vampire with the black cape and all that. Also you had bent down behind the car to pick up some candy you dropped.” Herah pauses. “Technically he ran you over twice because he reversed, and then he drove forward.”

“What?”

“Yeah. That’s why one of your horns is crooked, by the way.”

“One of my horns is crooked?”

“You probably don’t notice because you’ve had it that way for as long as you can remember. But I remember how they used to look.”

“I was eight. I should remember this kind of trauma happening to me.”

“Kaaras,” Herah clasps him on the shoulder. “You remember so little of our childhood. I could tell you anything right now and you’d believe me.”

He squints at her. It’s true. Herah is a very good liar. A con. It’s why she’s Shokrakar’s favorite. But he also feels like she wouldn’t lie to him about his existence.

Then again…she did trick him into thinking that it was socially appropriate to eat raw pasta. So. It’s possible.

“I mean. You forgot that you were run over by a car,” Herah continues. “And you still claim that you don’t remember that time you were abducted and taken all the way to Antiva when you were six.”

“That didn’t happen! There’s no way that happened! There’s no records of it! I’ve looked!”

Herah pinches Kaaras’ cheek. “You think our family can’t make records disappear? So naive.”

[tumblunni]

DR SNAP I LOVE YOU AAAAA

guys I just heard about a NEW SCIENCE GRANDPA *slams fist on the table* FUCK YEAH I will hug all the this one specific character type until the end of time

What's even better is that he seems to straight up actually be Nice Hojo, aka the first science villain I ever liked and then was Incredibly Betrayed By when he turned from funny sassy sidekick guy to child abuse fetal experimentation super duper ultra murder potentially-rape-potentially-domestic-abuse man. And then incredibly confused when his final boss fight tried to be all feelsy and sad and I was just like ok so we are backpedalling to what I wanted him to be but it is too late sorry!! Still the best boss fight ever tho, fuckin punch him in the face three times in increasing monsteriness for not living up to my cute gramp hopes. ALSO HOW DARE YOU BECOME A COOL MONSTER TOO, YOU DONT DESERVE SUCH A NEAT DESIGN

So yeah

This dude

IS CUTE GRAMP AND ALSO ALMOST EXACTLY THE SAME MONSTER DESIGN???

Underappreciated man Dr Snap from Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 1! Also his monster boss form is called Dr Snapped and I'm just like mmyes gud pun, thankyee

He is still a mad science villain yes, but he is very polite and endearing and round and soft!! And has a spooky final boss form that's even more terrifying than Helletic Hojo and has a cool aesthetic with the floaty orbs and also lil skittery centi-legs. Pretty much the only thing I don't like here is the weird jowls, I dunno why but that creeps me out the most. I guess just cos it looks close to a normal human face but like if the cheek meats were all sliced up and melting. Thankfully the game doesn't seem to indicate that he's in pain in any way, so that's a relief. He' like WEIRDLY POLITE AND CHEERFUL ABOUT EVERYTHING INCLUDING BECOMING A HELLBEAST

Good boy. Soft mans. Sweet grampe.

"oh whoopsie doopsie I appear to have dropped my arms and earlobes, sorry about that sonny"

Srsly he's not going "I'm a monster"in horror here, his next line is basically "yay this wasn't part of my plan but this is even better!"

His entire villain plan is just cos he loves and cherishes monsters too much, and embodies all the virtues of a monster tamer to a dangerous extreme. He thinks monsters are more pure and good than humanity and the only way to truly get humanity to live with them in peace is to let monsters take over the world entirely. And he's like "oh golly gosh my dream came true" when he becomes the world's scariest goddamn Frankenstein centipede, and is happy that he can fix the world even more super duper double much by making everyone become monsters too! It'll solve all problems!! Somehow!! The key to eternal peace is becoming cute abominations like me, yay!!

Srsly wtf he's so endearing I absolutely adore him AND ALSO HIS PHILOSOPHY IS BASICALLY THE SAME AS ME WHEN IM PLAYING ANY GAME WHERE I HAVE TO FIGHT MONSTERS. Like I was excited about this joker game in the first place cos I always feel sad having to kill all those cute designs in the dragon quest series!!! I wanna be their friend!!! It's a shame that this came out before dqix tho so it doesn't have that cute cow pattern vampire bat thingie or the slug with lips. THEY WERE MY FOREVER FRIENDS

So yeh I'm kinda sad that from what I've heard the game isn't sympathetic to Dr Snap at all despite making him FUCKIN ADORABLE and his entire motives being exactly the same as yours, just corrupted. I would have expected some sort of ending where you can convince him he's wrong and have a big speech about a better solution and stuff, and it's all motivational? Cos srsly it just seems like he somehow lost faith in humanity and felt like this extreme solution was the only way to achieve peace. I wonder if he had some sort of sad backstory where he saw a forest of monsters killed by humans polluting the environment or something. Or lived a sad childhood and his only friend was a pet monster that died defending him from his abusive parents. OR BOTH. Srsly I just feel like it takes a big trauma to lead to a guy being this messed up cos I know my own "humans suck, I will always side with the monsters detsroying humanity" feels come from being abused as a kid.

BUT NO

JUST

HE BAD HE DIE

Also the damn weirdness of your own monster partner saying "he's no longer human so we have to kill him"

I never fuckin understand "being non human in any way equals automatically evil and no human rights" as a morality. Morality should always be about what you DO, not what you are! This dude is still 100% sentient and going golly gosh all over the place but now it's okay to murder him without even trying to talk him down???

Apparently you can actually unlock his monster form as a playable party member in the sequel, but it's not actually him and just like.. same species, by merging some other species together.

But no I choose to reject that reality and instead believe that we motivational speech'd him and restored his faith in humanity and ended the fight without a murder, and he stopped his plan and just went home with us to be our wonderful new eldritch grandpa forever. And now he works hard to make up for his sins, and also do research on monsterness from the monster perspective so we can find even more ways to bring friendship and peace to the two worlds. And someone sewed him a new cute fancy labcoat to fit all his extra tentacle arms!! And little glasses with sticky pads on the nose bridge so they stay on even though his head is kinda indented in his torso now. Also he can hug twice as many baby Slimes with all the extra limbs, yes!!!!! MY ELDRITCH GRAMPS BAKES ELDRITCH COOKIES AND THIS IS THE ONLY ENDING I WILL EVER ACCEPT

So uhh yeh anyways this has been bunni accidentally stumbling upon the ending to a game they've never played via pixiv and now being filled with the strongest fire to play it

I MUST SEE THE WHOLE STORY OF GRAMP...

Also thank u to pixiv user [D.J] who makes many fanarts of obscure sad science villain grandpas getting cuddles and happiness. I feel like my goddamn soul twin is living on the other side of the planet where I can never tell them how much I love their art :(

[pokepairs]

My name is Mido. Clearly, my favourite colour is green. I’m a punk living in North Wales UK. I love gigs, starting mosh pits and act as a constant beacon of “it’s cool to be fuckin weird!”. I guess that makes me pretty popular with everyone locally who feels messed up, which is everyone. I’m short, aggressive at times and violently passionate. ADHD brain mixed with a hatred for expectation and limitations of society. I grew up in the countryside in a converted barn, raised by my folks. My Mum is a conspiracy theorist and deeply psychic woman who raised me to become interested in mythologies and ghost stories. I’m huge into my spirituality and spooks! I’m a bit impish, loud and deeply sarcastic. I adore lizards, collect plush lizards and my online handle makes sense. I draw vector cartoons and follow animation closely. I love the rain, i go to gigs, protests and art shows. I like to find the beauty and greatness in strangeness. Prone to alcohol, prone to outbursts of high emotion (angry soul) and very much a stoner. I laze around a lot too. I’m fairly care free, but in a sorta in your face way? Strong minded and a big sense of self. Think that’s all i can think of! Leather jackets and boots aesthetics for me!

(I’ll admit, this one came quite quickly to me) Let’s see who your partner is!

Shiny Scrafty (#233) / 3′07″ & 66.1lbs / Dark, Fighting

(1) Green, punk, lizard - I’ll admit, this seems like an obvious choice. However, “obvious” doesn’t always mean “bad” - and in this case, it only implies a perfect match. Scrafty is known for its reputation as a bit of a hoodlum - its species name offers that much straight off the bat - but it follows a strict hierarchy. If there was ever a Pokémon that better embodied the perfect combination of chaos and order, I can think of none better than this. Though they’re often seen as possessing a potential for violence, Scrafty aren’t needlessly cruel; they defend their territory and the people they love fiercely, and despite its rudeness, it’s loyal.

(2) With a resting expression that oozes nigh-unapproachable laziness, many often mistake Scrafty for being sluggish; one fierce kick tends to change that opinion quite quickly. In the wild, Scrafty taunt one another with roguish behaviour, but in the care of a trainer, Scrafty is quite tame - providing it’s provided with an outlet for its “bad-attitude” behaviour. The world of mosh pits, gigs and embraced-weirdness is one that Scrafty will take to with a strange sort of glee - though seeing it smile is... a rare occurrence. No matter; it shows its joy in other ways, like... relinquishing control of the “pack” to you, regardless of who has the bigger “crest”.

(3) As a species, Scrafty are capable of possessing one of three abilities: Moxie, Shed Skin and Intimidate. Cocky and blasé, Scrafty are capable of shrugging off damage to themselves in order to grow ever stronger; one might consider them reavers, if they fancied placing a name to their tactics. Point is, Scrafty aren’t easily knocked down, and their self-confidence can sometimes even be a method of undermining those who wish to harm them. Much like you, your Scrafty is incredibly independent, with a powerful sense of character, and despite its occasionally-dubious morality, it has strong principles and a deep-rooted loyalty towards you. Whatever you choose to do in life, I know Scrafty will be right there behind you.

I hope you like your partner! It definitely seems to like you.

[synthaphone]

thinkin about stuff

i’m very glad that people are exposing abusive people in music, that is always the highest priority

but dear god its so emotionally taxing to have to, every three weeks or so, go through my music library and delete a different artist’s music because i can’t listen to them anymore without the specter of whatever awful fuckin shit they did looming over it

like, i only had two songs by grimes, and she’s technically not a sexual predator as far as we know, but i can’t fuckin listen to those anymore!!! like, its not a matter of ‘if i listen to these, i will be doing a morally bankrupt thing’, its a matter of ‘i can’t fucking hear these without thinking about how much of a stupid asshole grimes turned out to be’

said goodbye to fall out boy ages ago because of their pedophile bassist

in an incredibly ironic twist, i had just watched that feature length video essay about parasocial relationships, which reminded me that i hadn’t listened to the rest of The Mountain Goats’ Beat the Champ, was enjoying that, and then 5 days later it turns out that the dude emotionally preys upon his young queer fans- cool!!!! i liked a lot of their music for like, a couple years, but now listening to it feels like i’m listening to some creep’s carefully curated trauma in order to garner sympathy and approval from people a third his age!!!! fuck!!!

also i briefly was enjoying that new carseat headrest album, but then there was

the whole shit that went down regarding 4l*ng and discovering that the cr*wcillers person, who Mr. Carseatheadrest is a big fan of, is ALSO a b*byfur

i kept listening to his music after that like ‘well maybe he doesn’t approve??’ but i know that was bullshit- when i found out two weeks later or so that he was an ass about how sufjan stevens’ album about his mother’s death was ‘trying too hard to be sad’, i finally just gave up on his music. the second thing is much smaller than the first, but convinced me that if he’s a dick he probably doesn’t give a shit about the first thing and so now i can’t listen to that album either

i still listen to paul simon/simon & garfunkel occasionally, because the dude is dead, i’ve listened to it since i was very little, and it reminds me of good times i’ve spent with my dad, but he definitely got into physical altercations with at least one of his partners.

my dad also played a lot of moby in the car when he drove me to school as a kid, and i loved that dude’s boring electronic music for a very long time as a result (a few songs in particular i listened to when i went to japan for a week in 9th grade, and listening to them can remind me vividly about that trip), but moby’s an absolute fucking dumbass and i know that his music is widely regarded to be terrible, so that’s hard to listen to as well.

i dunno, i guess it just feels like... i mean, with artists like falloutboy or whatever, i’m REALLY glad that they were called out for what they did, and they deserve to be buried from public consciousness. their songs were often about the subject of that dude’s abuse, its super fucked up, and i’m really glad that we know now. but man, for some of the smaller stuff, i can’t say there isn’t a part of me that envies people who listened to music before the internet, and didn’t have to know every dumbass thing about the stupid people who make it, and when the musicians didn’t have a massive platform that allows them so many opportunities to fuck up publically

anyway, that’s a pretty selfish envy when it comes down to it. a lot of the artists that my brain reacts to like ‘well, if john darnielle and grimes and carseat headrest didn’t have the internet, they maybe never would have had the opportunity to do anything shitty’, are like... people who maybe wouldn’t even be making music or famous in the first place without the internet. or people who would have done shitty things anyway, but we wouldn’t know about it, and then their victims would have maybe never found a way to expose their abusers.

i think i’m just tired, like emotionally. a huge part of me kind of just doesn’t trust musicians (especially dudes) who make ‘deeply personal’ music anymore- like, when does it cross the line from creating media to help yourself and other people who experienced similar things cope, into exploiting other people who are hurting into worshipping and validating you and your pain?

i have a renewed appreciation in TMBG for making mostly character or conceptual songs and keeping a personal distance from their fanbase- i mean, i know they’re not beyond fucking up too, but i’m just so tired. i was so paranoid that when the aquabats made their kickstarter, as much as i’ve loved that band in the past, part of me doesn’t trust them not to fuck up so badly in the future that i’d have to trash all of their music?? i still haven’t donated, either to the first failed one or the relaunch- i’m tempted to, especially since they broke down where they planned to spend all the money they were looking for, but between the fear of betrayal and the fact that i probably shouldn’t be spending much money frivolously right now, its hard to justify it. i want the stickers, especially if any of them feature lil bat, but again: what if they turn out to be awful people?? does the fact that i’m so paranoid about it with the aquabats but not with a lot of other bands i listen to mean i’m on to something, or is that extremely unfair of me??

i need to open commissions and don’t have any excuse for not doing it anymore- i’m honest to god just scared. i’m scared that i’ll either price my artwork too low, or too high, or that i’ll get a commission and discover that i can’t draw what the commissioner wants, or that i’ll mess up the payment process or the taxes involved with doing freelance...

i’ll be honest, i keep doing those centibyte colors because there’s like, a clear end goal. finish all the colors! very simple. don’t know what to do? work on another color!! nothing to worry about, i can zone out and listen to music... but shit like, buying a new laptop, finding a job, opening commissions, personal projects... changing my residency to georgia (i think i missed the driver’s license transfer window and now i’m just... trying not to think about that. denial, heyy)

and i’d be lying if i said a big part of my incentive for making artwork isn’t for validation. one of the problems i have when i consider applying for a job is that i can’t sell myself- i simultaneously KNOW i’m qualified for jobs, like, i’m a fairly talented animator, if inexperienced, and i can draw appealing illustrations and creatures- but my insecurities kind of prevent me from being able to say ‘i’m an illustrator’ or ‘i would be a good fit for your company’. like, i’ve broken down and cried in college on multiple occassions- i really don’t want that to happen at a job??? plus, there aren’t a lot of positions open near me that i’m interested in, or that fit the criteria of what i can do, and combined with my fear to check for new ones...

so posting neopets fanart (or any fanart, really) on the internet is easy validation- i’m obsessed with seeing people enjoy my work, and that’s one of the other reasons i haven’t started my personal project. i want to tell a story, but i really want to tell it for me, without obsessing over how other people will react to it or if other people will like it. i kind of know that it isn’t a very good story?? i just want to put it into physical form, as a sort of emotional fulfillment to myself. i feel like i can only do that if i promise never to post it, but then in the back of my mind, there’s always a voice saying shit like “but if it turns out good... you could eventually post it”, sort of poisoning the whole thing. i haven’t even started. 

i improved so much at art after i started posting my art to the internet in high school, but i do miss how i would just draw and make stuff up for myself and my sisters when i was in middle school. some of my incentive WAS for people to eventually see it and enjoy it, in the case of when i was obsessed with designing toys, or writing a fantasy novel, but that kind of feedback was set in the distant future, and some of it was just for me, or for games i was playing with my sisters and friends. i want to figure out how to make stuff for me again

[hannahindie]

The Wedding Singer - Track 6

“Tainted Love”

Characters: Dean, Reader, Jo (brief), Chuck (brief), a somewhat uncomfortable bride and groom

Word Count: 2,003 (including lyrics)

Series Warnings: Angst, Fluff, Language, Mentions of Infidelity, Alcohol

A/N: This is the sixth chapter of an AU SPN Series co-written by myself and @pinknerdpanda entitled The Wedding Singer and is inspired by the movie. We have been working on this for the last few months and are very excited to share it with you. The series tag list is open. If you would like to be added, please send one of us an ask. I made the 80s inspired aesthetic and the series was Masterbeta’d by @wheresthekillswitch.

As usual, tags are at the bottom. If you’d like to be added, please let me know!

Track List:

Track 1: “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) by: @pinknerdpanda

Track 2: “White Wedding”  @hannahindie

Track 3: “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”by: @pinknerdpanda

Track 4: “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic”@hannahindie

Track 5: “Love Stinks”@pinknerdpanda​

Track 6: “Tainted Love”

Sometimes I feel I've got to Run away I've got to Get away from the pain that you drive into the heart of me The love we share Seems to go nowhere And I've lost my light For I toss and turn I can't sleep at night

Once I ran to you (I ran) Now I'll run from you This tainted love you've given I give you all a boy could give you Take my tears and that's not nearly all Oh tainted love Tainted love

Every single person at the reception was watching Dean in shock as he slurred his way through “Tainted Love”. Even the band had quit playing, although Dean had apparently decided he didn’t need a band to sing this particular song. He stopped after the second verse and took a swig out of the beer bottle he had clutched loosely in one hand, then gripped the mic stand tightly with the other. His bloodshot eyes scanned the room, squinting against the stage lights, as if looking for someone.

His eyes widened as he spotted the newly married couple, “There you are! S’wonderin’ where ya got off to. Anyway, lemme just say a few words.” Chuck was quietly shaking his head at Dean, willing him to stop talking, but Dean pulled the mic off the stand, stumbled to the edge of the stage, and pointed at them with the hand still holding the beer bottle. “You got married today! Ain’t that just a dream come true? I was going to live that dream week before last, but I guess it's not always meant to be. It certainly wasn't for me, because I was engaged to a self centered, raging bitch, but Jeff, looks like you're a lucky guy. At least Sheila...Sheila right? Sheila showed up! That's the first half of the fuckin’ battle and she nailed it!”

The room was dead silent as Dean took another swig of beer. Chuck was nervously looking around the crowd for Jo, afraid to interrupt but knowing someone probably should. Before he could make a move, Dean continued, “Listen, folks, these two married because they loved...well, love...each other. And that's just….it's a beautiful thing.” He groaned as he flopped himself down on the edge of the stage, his legs dangling over the side, “But see, ya need to unner...understand somethin’. It's only beautiful for s’long. Sure, sure, it's great now. Look at ‘em, all happy and shit,” he waved vaguely in their direction, “but it'll just...jus’ fizzle out. And there won't be a warning either Jared...Jeff. She’ll jus’ get tired of ya. S’dont bother sacrificing your career or something you love for her, ‘cause eventually that won't even be enough.”

Chuck finally caught Jo’s attention, who hurried back into the kitchen and grabbed Y/N by the arm, “You need to get him off that stage right now!”

Y/N looked up from the cookies she was putting the finishing touches on, confused, “What? What's going on?”

“Dean is shit faced drunk and he's decided to give them a nice little reception speech. Only it's terrible and everyone is mortified, but no one knows what to do. You need to go out there and get him outside or something.”

Y/N tossed the icing bag down and wiped her hands off on her apron, “Why do I need to do it? Dean and I barely know each other!”

Jo rolled her eyes, “You handled it well last time. Sam told me how you got him home. Just...handle it. Please?” Jo looked at her with begging eyes and Y/N sighed.

“Fine, but...you owe me.” Y/N took her apron off and hung it up, then hurried into the reception hall in time to hear Dean finish up his ‘speech’.

“Anyway, the moral of this story is: love stinks. Good fuckin’ luck!” He dropped the mic onto the stage and high pitched feedback echoed through the room. He slid clumsily off the stage and stumbled towards the kitchen, but Y/N intercepted him before he got too far.

“Whoa there, Dean, where ya going? Why don't we go outside?” He squinted at her then nodded, and turned back the other direction. She gently pushed him towards the exit, and when she caught Chuck’s eye, he mouthed a silent thank you. She nodded and smiled grimly, and wondered how she'd managed to get herself involved in this.

Dean sat on the steps, his hands dangling between his knees and his head down. Y/N stood off to the side, unsure of what to do. What she wanted to do was sit down next to him and comfort him as much as she could, but the bright glint of her engagement ring in the setting sun reminded her that whatever it was she felt for Dean, she needed to leave it alone.

Until he looked up at her.

She had never seen such sadness or disappointment in someone’s eyes. He looked tired and broken, his eyes bloodshot and shining from the unshed tears that were trapped there. This was a completely different Dean than the one she'd sat next to on these same steps three weeks ago. Her heart broke as she looked back at him, and he ran a weary hand across the five o’clock shadow currently gracing his chiseled jaw.

“I'm an idiot.” Whatever had kept her standing was suddenly forgotten, and she tucked her legs under her as she sat next to him.

“Dean, you are not an idiot. You're heartbroken and angry, but you aren't an idiot. No one is going to blame you for having a slight...breakdown.”

Dean laughed bitterly, “Slight? I just ruined their reception. I jus’...I dunno. I don't want anyone else to feel like this, ya know? It sucks. How d’ya know when to trust someone?”

Y/N shrugged, “I guess you can't really know, not for sure. You just have to have faith in people. It doesn't always work out, and you're going to get hurt...but sometimes you find that one person that makes the risk worth it.”

Dean had been staring at his hands, but he turned to look at her, and his eyes locked with hers. Suddenly, it was like she'd forgotten how to breathe. His eyes were so green, like moss in a sun dappled meadow. His gaze shifted to her lips and for a brief moment it occurred to her what he was about to do, and that she should move.

Then, his lips were on hers and she completely forgot about what was right and what was wrong. She forgot about the ring on her finger. All she cared about in that moment was how his lips molded perfectly with hers, and the electricity that seemed to pass between them when he grazed her bottom lip with his tongue. She felt his hand land softly on her hip and she moaned into him, her fingers grasping at the short hairs at the nape of his neck. For a brief, wonderful moment, she remembered what it felt like to want to kiss someone so long and deep that you nearly became one person. She remembered what it should feel like when two people in love kissed; desperate, and full of fire and fear of letting the other one go.

And as soon as it started, it was over. Y/N pulled back with a gasp, and stared at Dean with wide eyes.

“Oh...Jesus...Y/N, I'm sorry…”

Y/N stood so quickly she nearly toppled over, “I...I have to go!” She threw the door open and swiftly disappeared inside.

“Y/N! Dammit!” Dean punched the ground, then swore under his breath at how much it hurt. He pulled his phone from his pocket, stared at his contacts list for a moment, then finally selected the name he'd been dreading to call. “Yea...hey, Sammy? I'm not doing so great, can you come get me? ...Yea, there's a wedding. I think Chuck will need to finish it for me. I...uh...I messed up. No, not just that. I really messed up, man. Just come get me.” Dean hung up and rested his elbows on his knees, his head in both hands.

This was one mistake he wasn't sure he'd be able to fix.

Y/N stumbled into the kitchen, barely holding it together as she turned the corner and leaned against the wall. It had been bad enough that Dean had kissed her, but she had enjoyed it. She had kissed him back, and it was the first time she had felt that alive in so, so long. She thought back to when she’d seen Ketch the day Sam had dropped her off, and it hadn’t even compared to the few seconds with Dean. The weight of what had just happened hit her and the tears came, large, silent drops that rolled down her cheeks. She heard the door open and hurriedly tried to wipe them away, but Jo turned the corner faster than Y/N had anticipated and caught her in the act.

“Oh my God, Y/N, what happened?!” She dropped the plates she was carrying roughly in the sink, ignoring the loud clattering they made as they shifted and nearly toppled out into the floor, and grabbed Y/N’s hands. “Where’s Dean?”

Y/N shook her head, “I don’t know...I mean, he was outside, but I...I don’t know where he is now. Jo...I’m an idiot.”

Jo smiled gently and used her thumb to wipe away a tear rolling down Y/N’s cheek, “Sweetie, we’re all idiots sometimes. What exactly happened to make you feel like that?”

Y/N took a deep breath, “Dean kissed me.”

Jo’s gentle smile turned into a hard frown, her brows furrowed, “That fucking dumbass, I’m going to kill him-”

“I kissed him back, Jo.” Jo’s mouth hung open, still in mid-sentence. She snapped it shut and looked at Y/N with wide eyes.

“You did what? Please tell me I heard you incorrectly.”

“No...I mean, you heard right, I did...I kissed him back. And it was...it was incredible. What is wrong with me?! I love Ketch, I love him more than anything, but we haven’t kissed like that in...shit, months. It’s been months. And then I looked at Dean and he did it so fast, and...God, it felt so right. I remembered what it was supposed to feel like, but...this was a huge mistake. What am I supposed to do?”

Jo gave Y/N’s arm a gentle squeeze, “Listen, Dean was drunk. I’m sure that he wouldn’t have done that sober.”

Y/N rolled her eyes, “Gee, thanks. You really know how to make a girl feel good, don’t you?”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Jo sighed. “Dean wasn’t thinking clearly. He knows you’re engaged. That’s not how he would normally act, and I am sure that when he sobers up, he’s going to feel awful about it. He’s in a bad place right now, and you’ve been nice to him. He was just confused. Just...give him some space, alright?” She patted Y/N on the shoulder, then walked back towards the reception hall. Y/N moved over to the sink to start working on the dishes that Jo had just left, and Jo paused in the doorway.

“And Y/N?” She asked as she looked at Y/N over her shoulder, “If you felt like that about Dean’s kiss, even when you haven’t known him that long, and you have even a single doubt in your mind about Ketch...you might want to reconsider that ring on your finger.” She left the room and Y/N watched after her, her mind racing with the observation Jo had just made.

Things had just gotten more complicated than she would have ever thought they would when she first moved here.

Like what you see? Would you like to see more? My Masterlist is here and the lovely @pinknerdpanda can be found here.  Thanks for reading! :)

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[ghostmaggie]

you can take my best (it’s yours, it was never for me)

for the @tgpsecretsanta​ holiday gift exchange! written for @cheesecake-heartache, based on the prompts “stuck in an elevator” and “the first sentence your soulmate says is tattooed on your arm.” I hope you enjoy it, and happy holidays!!!

Ships: Eleanor/Chidi

Rated: Teen and Up Audiences

Words: 2k 

Summary: Eleanor Shellstrop almost died. Now she feels guilty for being a dick all the time. 

read on AO3

---

Eleanor Shellstrop almost died.

There had been a dropped bottle of Lonely Gal Margarita Mix For One; a row of runaway shopping carts; a billboard truck hurtling towards her, changing lanes at the last possible second.

And she’s still alive.

She figures it’s impossible to walk away from a near-death experience without being changed at all , but damn it, can’t she trade this stupid dumb guiltiness for two broken legs or a bigass scar on her face?

Because, yeah, she didn’t have a flash of, like, judgment day when those carts hit her, but she did walk away thinking, Wow, what a shitty way to die. And I probably deserve it. I’m kind of a shitty person.

Sitting alone in her apartment after she’s released from the hospital, no friends who care enough to see her--even after she almost died , thanks dickheads--she traces her hand over the words printed on her wrist in stark black.

You are my soulmate .

It would suck if she never got to meet them. It would suck if she wasn’t good enough for them.

Immediately she shoves the thought away. “They’re my fucking soulmate,” she says aloud. “Of course I’m good enough for them.”

But she can’t quite escape that guilty itch at the back of her mind.

---

 There’s no overnight change. That’s not how this shit works, apparently. Eleanor was kind of hoping enough lonely three a.m. Googling about how to be a better person would unearth some magic pill she could buy to make her act better--and more importantly, feel better.

No dice, apparently.

But, like, she’s trying . Mostly. Sometimes. When she thinks about it.

Seriously, she is!

Some dude cut her off on the freeway the other day, and she just honked and yelled at him--she didn’t even give him the finger! And she told a girl that her skirt was tucked into her underwear and only laughed about it a little! Plus she didn’t take any pictures of it. That was big for her. Oh, and she saw a guy drop his wallet and totally gave it back without even thinking about it.

So really, she’s doing great.

This thought is circling in her head as she waits for an elevator up to the third floor of some fancyass office building. She’d--well, she’d quit her job at the sketchy pill company after her accident, around the same time she’d cut her hair short, just above her shoulders, blessedly lighter, not weighing her down so much. So anyway, now she was working at some lameass temp agency. She’s not always as good at the boring lame shit her assignments want her to do as she was at manipulating sick old people, but it makes her feel less itchy.

Ugh. Being good is so boring.

The elevator arrives, finally , and Eleanor saunters inside, immediately checking out her own boobs in the mirrored wall.

She’s startled by a blur of motion as some nerdy looking dude wih bigass glasses and a fuckin’ man purse hurries toward the elevator.

They make eye contact, and the dude looks relieved, sticking out a hand in a hold the elevator, i’m super late and in a huge hurry kind of motion.

But Eleanor hates sharing elevators. And she’s still not a saint. And she’s still pretty much an asshole. So she pushes the door close button.

The door starts to slide shut. Eleanor sends the dude a sorry, bro look, and thinks that’ll be the end of it.

Except before it closes all the way, the dude’s arm is stuck in the way and he’s in the elevator with her.

Oops.

He doesn’t yell at her, or even shoot her a dirty look. He just makes a tight, uncomfortable face, his lips pressed together as he avoids eye contact.

Eleanor feels that stupid twinge of guilt.

But--whatever! He made it in anyway. Boo-freakin’-hoo. He’d’ve done the same thing to me.

The silence stretches.

Awwwkward.

Eleanor decides she’s definitely not going to say anything. This guy clearly lacks the balls to call her out on her dick move, so no harm, no foul, right?

Just as she thinks this, of course, the elevator makes a terrifying screeching noise and lurches to a decisive stop. The big nerd actually stumbles and falls to the floor. Then the lights go out.

“Holy motherfucking shitballs, what do we do?” Eleanor asks.

The dim backup lights flicker to life, illuminating the stricken look on the nerd’s face as he gathers himself to his feet.

Eleanor shifts under the force of his incredulous, unflinching stare.

“ You are my soulmate?” he demands, sounding none too thrilled with the idea.

It takes Eleanor a second to process the question. “ What? ” she demands, half a squawk. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Hands shaking and fumbling, the nerd shoves up the sleeve of his sweater and rolls up the button down underneath. There, across his forearm, are the words Holy motherfucking shitballs what do we do .

Eleanor’s jaw drops. “I...I…”

“Let me see your soulmark,” the guy says, sharp, panicked.

Dumbly, Eleanor holds out her arm. The guy takes it in both his hands, gently, looking closely at the words.

You are my soulmate.

“Oh,” he says.

“Yeah,” Eleanor forces out a laugh. “Not exactly the way I expected you to say that.”

The dude smiles a soft, sad, self-deprecating smile. “I’ll be honest,” he says, dropping her arm and taking a small step back. “I never quite came up with a plausible context for--well--this.” He gestures to his arm before rolling his sleeve back down.

Eleanor tries not to think about the sharp pang that goes through her heart once the soulmark is back out of her sight.

“So,” the guy says. “It seems like we might be stuck. Do you have any signal on your phone?” As he asks, he checks his own. “Looks like a no for me.”

Shaking off her weird reaction to the disappointment she’s sure she saw on his face when he realized she was his soulmate, she gives a cursory glance at her phone. “Nope,” she says, feeling the wall around her bruised heart building itself higher.

If he doesn’t want her as a soulmate, she definitely doesn’t care. She doesn’t need him. She doesn’t need anybody.

The guy is messing with the elevator’s control panel. “Seems like the emergency phone is out, too. Great.” He seems a little panicked again.

Eleanor rolls her eyes, crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall.

“The only elevator in a seven-story building is stuck, genius,” she says, biting. “We don’t need to tell anybody. They already know. We just have to wait.”

For a second, the guy seems hurt, but he recovers quickly. “Right,” he says. “Of course.” There’s a beat. “Well,” he pushes on, “If we’re stuck here--not to mention soulmates --we might as well start getting to know each other. I’m Chidi Anagonye.”

She raises both eyebrows. “Eleanor,” she says. “Eleanor Shellstrop.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he says. “So, tell me about yourself.”

“Excuse me?”

He smiles. “You know, like--I’m a professor of moral philosophy. I like museums and French poetry. I was born in Nigeria, raised in Senegal. I’m here in Phoenix teaching Ethics at Arizona State University for the semester.”

Wow. he’s a major nerd. So why does Eleanor find him so oddly cute? Stupid soulmate hormones. She pulls her face into a dismissive almost-scowl.

“I sell fake medicine to sick old people,” she says. “I like binge watching bad reality TV, binge drinking, and not caring about the environment. I’ve never left Arizona, and I never finished college.” She finishes with a sharp, predatory, winning smile.

The guy--Chidi--blinks at her. He looks distinctly uncomfortable.

“It’s--uh--nice to meet you,” he says again.

Eleanor rolls her eyes. “You too, Cheeto.”

 ---

 They have been. In this elevator. For three. Fucking. Hours. Eleanor thinks they might really die here. Honestly, that might be a relief if it’ll get her away from Chidi’s incessant attempts at polite conversation. She blows him off with increasingly nasty replies every time he tries a new topic, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

Right up until he explodes.

“Why are you so mean , Eleanor?” he demands. “Can’t you even pretend to be decent? I’m trying to be nice, i’m trying to be your soulmate , so why--”

All of her frustrations bubble up from the bottom of her chest, where she’s been tucking them for hours. Days. Months. Years. “Because I’m not a good person, man!” she snaps, leaping to her feet. “I fucking suck, and I always have, and I always will, so what’s the point of all this trying to be good I’m doing when I’ll never gain approval from my stupid morality professor soulmate anyway?”

There’s another long silence in which Eleanor feels her face burn and Chidi watches her with an inscrutable expression.

Finally, he asks, tone void of judgment, “So, you’ve been trying to be better?”

She blinks, surprised to find tears rising to her eyes.

And somehow it all comes pouring out. Her near-death experience. Her first exposure to real, actual, aching guilt for her effect on other people. How she quit her job. How little she feels like her efforts have any impact. How much she hates thinking about what she owes others and what others owe her, when her own parents and her supposed friends have never been there for her, not really. How she’s never really been there for them, either.

Chidi is a phenomenal listener, keeping his eyes on her, making her feel heard, nodding to acknowledge her but never interrupting. She can’t stop the word vomit, but he doesn’t make her feel foolish or shitty or awful because of it. He just listens.

When she’s finished, they’re sitting across from each other, cross-legged, maybe a little too close together.

After one more silence, Chidi says, “I don’t think you’re a bad person, Eleanor.” His voice is sure.

“You don’t?” she asks, feeling small.

“I think you’re a person who has been in bad situations and who has done bad things.” He pauses. “A lot of bad things. Some alarming, weird, improbable bad things--sorry.” He cuts off at her look. “But you’re trying , Eleanor! You’re trying to do better, because you want to, and that’s incredible! I mean, as a professor of moral ethics--”

“You can help me!” Eleanor says, jumping to her feet again.

“What?” Chidi yelps, taken aback.

“As a professor of moral philosophy, you can teach me how to be good! I mean, isn’t that your job?” Her voice rises a few octaves in her excitement.

“Well--yes--” he says. “But--”

Eleanor groans. “Oh, c’mon, man,” she says. “What are soulmates for besides helping? You can teach me how to be good, and I can teach you--how--how to swear, or, I don’t know, how to do two shots at once, or--” She racks her brain for more options. She’s gotta be good at something besides lying.

“Eleanor,” he says, and she stutters to a stop.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll help you. But--” he adds, as her face lights up and she starts to respond. “It’s not going to be easy. It’ll be rewarding and sometimes fun, but these are difficult concepts that are even more difficult to put into practice.” He gazes seriously at her, like this is something important. Like she’s something important.

Eleanor nods eagerly. “I’m in,” she says. “I want to do it.”

Chidi smiles. “Okay,” he says. “Then...great.”

With a bright grin, Eleanor leans down and kisses him on the cheek, rewarded by his instant blush. “Thanks, Chidi,” she says, and his smile softens.

 ---

 By the time the elevator starts moving again, they’ve gotten into three more shouting matches, called off their deal twice, almost kissed at least once, and laughed so hard Eleanor nearly wet herself.

But hey, that’s soulmates for you.

They leave the elevator holding hands.