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randomshyperson · 3 years ago

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THE SCARLET WITCH PROPHECY - Chapter VI - The Fourth Year (Final Part)

Gif is not mine, blessed are the gif makers.

Summary: As the youngest daughter of Howard Stark, you have ordinary expectations for your years at Hogwarts. Little do you know what adventures await you when your destiny is intertwined with the legendary Scarlet Witch.

Warnings: +16. Adaptation of the Harry Potter Saga, Magical Thematic, Prophecies, Mentions of Violence, Torture and dark magic, Language (swearing and minor/major offenses), manipulation of will, Underage kissing, insinuation of smut with minors, Smut (overage), descriptions of death, aggression, obscurity, angst, fluffy, soulmates analogies. | Chapters Warnings: Heavy angst in this.

A/N: This took me a while, because i had writer block (and it's not over yet). Anyway, I hope people like this. Let me know if anything is confusing okay? Sorry about typos too.

Words counting: 11.344K

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//-//

The Fourth Year - Final Part

Wanda was avoiding you. Well, not just you, but all your friends.

You told Gamora what happened, but you didn't have the stomach to repeat the story to anyone else, so your sister passed the news on.

You were coping well in spite of everything. You missed her terribly the whole time, but you were pushing the feelings down and trying to stay positive about everything.

By trying to put yourself in Wanda's shoes, you understood why she did what she did. You just had to find a way to prove to her that what you felt was real, and for that you needed to find out more about your magical bond.

Your best alternative to the lack of books about it in the library was to talk to the professors. Judging from your experience with them, none of the teachers would tell you anything. But Fury has been acting very differently all year, and although you don't agree with the way he has been teaching D.A.D.A. lately, you have the impression that he would tell you anything you asked.

That's why after a particularly exhausting class where he made all students practice the shield spell until one of the boys threw up, you waited until the room emptied to talk to him, watching with curiosity as he turned a small bottle he kept in his pocket to his mouth.

"What is it Stark?" He asked still on his back. You wondered if behind the eye patch he had some enchanted eye to see around things, but the idea seemed too absurd to you.

"Sorry, Professor Fury." You say. "I have a question about advanced magic and would like to clear it with you."

Fury put his materials away in his bag, and beckoned for you to accompany him into the private office, and you followed him into the small room, watching him set the desk on a coffee table and move toward a glass cabinet of magic supplies.

"Have a seat and make yourself comfortable." He said with his back turned. "I need to prepare a potion, but you can ask me what you want."

You stumble half-heartedly to one of the empty armchairs, and then clear your throat.

"It's about magic bonds, professor." You recount. "I... well, I think I have one. And well, I'm not finding much material on it, and I don't understand how they work."

Fury makes a noise with his mouth in understanding, his hands wandering through the cabinets behind ingredients you don't recognize, but he seems to be paying attention to both you and the brewing of the potion.

"Are you familiar with the concept of magical bonds and connections, Miss Stark?" He asks and you deny it. The professor cuts something that looks like mushrooms on the table as he speaks again. "The reason you can't find books that explain to you exactly the nature of this magic, is because no wizard has been able to decipher these enchantments correctly." He explains. "The magical bonds are one of the oldest and most powerful enchantments in the magical world, Miss Stark. Extremely dangerous, yet immeasurably valuable for some purposes."

You swallow dryly, but do not interrupt. Professor Fury bends down to reach a tin cauldron and places it on the counter in front of him, on a small makeshift stove. He deposits some ingredients inside.

"Have you ever heard about any of these bonding spells?" He asks and you think for a moment.

"I think I've heard about the perpetual vow, sir."

Fury gives a small smile, nodding. He sniffs a small bottle before pouring the contents into the cauldron.

"Yes, the perpetual vow is a great example of a magical bond." He says. "But it is still an active spell, you need to recite an incantation and both parties need to voluntarily close the bond. Some witches believe it's a contractual magic, much more than a natural connection." Fury explains. "I particularly prefer to use another example, Stark. The life debt."

Fury has a smile at the corner of his lips, and a strange gleam in his eyes when he looks at you for a moment, but you don't have the courage to ask. He turns his attention back to the cauldron, lighting the flame under the metal with his wand.

"I don't know what that means." You confess and the professor doesn't take his eyes off the cauldron.

"A life debt is a magical bond created when a wizard or witch saves the life of another magical being." He explains. "And I say magical being, not just another wizard, because I've seen it happen once for a centaur to owe a wizard their life. But never the other way around."

"How does that work?"

"It's very simple really." He says. "If you save someone's life, that person or creature will owe you a debt. The bond is created, without needing an incantation. The act of preserving a life is magical enough to create that bond." He explains and his expression turns almost somber. "The best part is that the person saved needs to pay back."

"And how do they do it?"

"A life can only be paid with another life." He declares. By now, the potion is smelling. You don't know what it is, but it looks like lavender, and it makes you a little dizzy. "I have witnessed a quitting in my time as an auror, Miss Stark." He tells you, and you already imagine that what he is about to say is not something you should tell a fourteen-year-old witch, but you don't think to interrupt. "The debtor throws himself in front of the Reducto incantation to prevent the death of the witch who saved him once. I still remember the pieces flying around the room."

You looked away, uncomfortable with the mental image you were given. The professor didn't seem to mind.

"But of course not all debts are paid off like that." He added as if he hadn't just told the story of someone tearing themselves apart. "Stopping a friend from falling off his broom in a game of quidditch might be enough to pay off a debt. Or to create one too." He counters. " This kind of magic has always been very difficult to decipher."

You murmur in understanding, keeping your gaze on the floor. The professor sighs lightly, moving away from the cauldron to sit in the empty armchair in front of you.

"But I'm guessing you're not talking about any of these bonds, are you?" He hints and you swallow dryly, feeling intimidated by the watchful gaze he gives you. You figure that lying is not an option.

"N-no sir." You reply. "I wanted to know more about protective bonds. Like... like the idea of someone you care about getting hurt, causes you a really bad feeling. And it makes you ignore your own safety and makes you go too far e...."

"Impressive." The professor interrupts, his gaze almost fascinated on you, and making you swallow dryly. "And how far are we talking about, Stark? What's the limit? Would the wizard put themselves in front of an unforgivable curse? Would they offer themselves up as a sacrifice? If one were to get hurt, would the bruises show up on the other, or does the very idea make your insides turn? Or…”

"Fury." You jump in fright when Strange's voice interrupts the monologue of the other man, who was very close to you now.

Fury looks annoyed that he has been cut off, but he turns away with a smile. "Pardon the interruption. I need to have a word with you on a matter." Stephen said, but he didn't look happy at all, and his expression was one of concern and disapproval, probably from the discussion he witnessed.

You stood up awkwardly, taking a step back, your heart still racing from the things the professor told you.

"Of course, Professor Strange." Fury spoke as he stood up. "Stark, I hope that has cleared up your doubts. If there is anything else you wish to ask me, you may come to my office as needed."

You bit your tongue to avoid saying that Fury only scared you rather than clarifying anything, and nodded in understanding.

"Defense Against the Dark Arts may not be my class, but I am also available to talk with you, Miss Stark." Stephen added softly as you passed him in the doorway. You mumbled a goodbye before walking out of the office, ignoring the horrible feeling that settled in your stomach.

//-//

You were really disturbed by the conversation with Professor Fury. The story of the wizard casting himself in front of a spell gave you strange dreams, and you could no longer be sure that you wouldn't do the same for Wanda.

Your friends were equally impressed by what you told them, and you ignored the feeling of dissatisfaction at the pit of your stomach that you felt because you wish you were talking to Wanda about it, and tried to be more grateful that you have someone to talk to at all.

You were thinking of talking to Tony about everything, and you thought you'd look for him in the Slytherin hall, and to your surprise, he showed up in your common room. You thought he was there to spend some time with Steve, but he really came to see you.

"Daddy wrote for us." He explains as soon as he greets you. The letter already open in your hands as he throws himself on the couch in the communal hall. It is Sunday, but the room is very empty because with the amount of free time and foreigners in the castles, most of the students are socializing outside. You had dismissed your friends' invitation to practice Quidditch in exchange for a nap, as you were upset by the way Wanda left the main hall at breakfast when she realized you were sitting at the Slytherin table with her brother.

"Finally." You grumble as you sit down in the armchair across from Tony, stretching out your arm to pick up the letter. It must have been the first letter in three months or more. Last time, your father had said he was overwhelmed with work and would not send any news for a while. You thought it would be days, but it was months. Jarvis at least wrote to tell that he was alive, working in the basement.

Looking down at the paper, you began to read:

"Dear children, how is school going? I hope you are studying as I have always asked you to do. I have been busy with an important project at the ministry, an invention to improve the astronomical forecasts of the wizarding community. Please forgive me for the lack of contact these last months.

Tony, I received the letter about the detention, and I was quite upset when I heard about the bet. You are the older brother and you should protect your sister, not put her in danger. But I am glad that everything ended well and hope that this kind of behavior will not happen again.

Y/N, dear, I heard about your willingness to start studying Muggle Studies, and I'm very glad..."

You stop reading the letter halfway through, frowning and looking at Tony next, who was lying with his head on the cushions and his arm under his eyes.

"What kind of crap is this?" you ask with confusion and irritation, causing Tony to let out a short chuckle. "Dad telling us to study? What the...?"

"It doesn't sound anything like him, I know." Tony interrupts and then sighs, sitting down on the couch to point to the paper. "And see how he doesn't make any jokes about the dare, or any comments about your incident at the lake? It sounds so mechanical and vague."

"Do you think he hasn't read our letters? He only mentions the one from school." You say and Tony leans back on the couch, thoughtful.

"I don't know. It just doesn't sound like him." He says. "I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Jarvis wrote it."

"Why would Jarvis do that?"

"Because Dad hasn't spoken to us in three months." Tony retorts with irritation. "And well, you almost drowned and he didn't even bother to read about it."

"Tony..."

"No, it's fine." He grumbles, taking the letter from your hands and standing up. "Screw him." Cursed the boy in annoyance, tossing the letter into the fireplace in the room. You frowned, sighing. "We don't need him. I'll take care of you."

You were tired of this. Running a hand through your hair for a moment in frustration, you let Tony take your hands in his as he knelt in front of you next.

"I'm sorry I've been absent this while." He says surprising you. "I hated how all the adults were hiding things from us, and I did the same with you. I promise I will tell you everything from now on."

You nod in understanding, squeezing Tony's hand lightly.

"I need to tell you something too."

And you do. The whole conversation with Wanda and with Professor Fury shock Tony. And he has a frown creased in concern when you finish.

"I know it's a lot." You say. "But I'm terrified. I don't know what will happen to me if I lose Wanda, and all I can do is miss her."

"Hey, it's going to be okay." Tony says tenderly, releasing his hand to caress your cheeks and wipe away the dripping tears. "I won't let anything bad happen to you. I promise."

"What if you can't avoid it, Tony?" you retort softly, your voice whiny.

"I will." He assures you. "I will help you. We'll figure out a way to break this bond, and then you and Wanda will be safe."

You nod, deciding to believe his words. Your brother hugs you next, and you wish he is right.

//-//

Just like you, Tony was also unable to gain access to the restricted section of the library. But that is the least of your problems.

As the date of the last task approaches, you are a pile of nerves. Tony assures you that he will try to find something about ways to break magical bonds on the last trip to Hogsmeade in a local library, but you are barely listening to him, your thoughts wandering towards Wanda.

The other girl, on the other hand, continues to avoid you and your friends. Your only option is to ask Pietro about her, and he assures you that she is as upset as you are as if he is trying to make you feel better somehow. But all this information causes is a worsening of your distress. Pietro is not comfortable coming between you two, so you don't insist that he spend time with you or your friends, knowing that Wanda needs company. You also insist that Gamora and Nebula continue to spend time with the witch, but they comment that Wanda is not really sociable after the whole thing.

The rest of the school starts to notice the way the Maximoffs are no longer hanging out with you, and since everyone in the school loves a little gossip, the news that you and Wanda broke up starts to circulate very quickly.

You don't want your detention for the lake story to escalate, but it's hard to control the urge to jinx your classmates when their snarky remarks reach your ears.

"I heard they broke up because Wanda became a champion, and didn't want to be seen with a hufflepuff anymore." Said in a not so low tone, a Ravenclaw boy as you were walking ahead of them toward the Potions classroom.

"No, dude, that's not true. I heard that Wanda got pretty close to the other champion, Jean Grey, and obviously she'd go for a famous quidditch player than a nobody." Added a female voice, and you clutched the books in your hands tightly, but didn't turn around.

"Come on, the girl's a Stark." Retorted the boy. "I think Maximoff is a winner with either one."

The girl laughed lightly, and you wished you reach the classroom soon.

"I think you're right." The girl spoke up. "Maximoff has always been weird, I don't know how she got such great options."

Your attention wandered from the conversation when Mantis reached you. She went back to the dorm to get the potions book she had forgotten, and frowned at your annoyed posture when she arrived, but when she caught the words of the pair behind you, she threw them an annoyed look that made them fall silent.

"Don't pay any attention to that kind of gossip, Y/N." She asked gently and you just sighed.

"I just wish people would mind their own business." You grumble annoyed and Mantis agrees with a murmur.

Potions class was as difficult as it usually is. What surprised you was Professor Lensherr's tired appearance, but you imagined it must be because of the tournament finals that were being organized by the teachers.

When you were packing your materials, you almost knocked over the glass jar when he appeared in front of you.

"Stark, a word, please." He asked earnestly, and Mantis shot you a glance before hurrying to leave. The professor waited until the room was empty and then nodded to the door, which closed. "Wanda told me about your magic bond."

"Shit." You grumbled immediately, and Professor Erik raised his eyebrows. You cleared your throat, apologizing for cursing. "Look, sir, I don't know what else to say about it. I don't know where the bond came from, and I'm trying to find out..."

"I can help." He interrupts and you fall silent, surprised.

"Really?"

"Yes." He says straightening his posture and crossing his arms. "I obviously have more magical knowledge than you, and your nosy brother." He says and you understand that he is talking about the way Tony has been pestering the teachers to get information. "And if this bond affects Wanda, it is of particular interest to me."

You swallow dryly, nodding in understanding. You explain to him how you feel next, and Erik absorbs your words with a neutral expression.

"Interesting. I had my theories since you couldn't duel with Wanda in the second year, but since you became close, it wasn't my place to intrude.” He tells with a bit of a nostalgic face as you finish speaking. “I have a few questions, Miss Stark. I need clarification on the nature of this bond." He says with his arms still folded across his chest. "Last summer, Wanda had a cold. Did you feel anything?"

You thought about the vacation for a few seconds.

"No, sir." You reply. "I don't remember getting sick."

"I see." He says. "Tell me, have you ever had dragon pox?"

You nod in agreement.

"At how old?" The teacher asks, and you think for a moment.

"I don't know, four I think. Maybe five."

"Wanda had dragon pox when she was six." He declares, his gaze assessing you. You blink, trying to follow what he is trying to say. "It's not a very common disease in England, is it?"

"I don't think so." You mutter without understanding why the professor is looking at you like that.

"Wanda caught the disease in Sokovia, the country where she was born." He recounts. "We were on vacation and she came back sick. The last case of that disease here in England was almost a hundred years ago."

"I guess I'm unlucky then." You try to joke, and Erik almost smiles.

"The flu Wanda had last summer was not of magical origin." He adds, and you frown slightly, not knowing what to make of this information. "But dragon pox is magical in nature."

"Professor I don't..."

"Wanda broke her wrist at the age of seven." He interrupts as he uncrosses his arms, gesturing slightly. "She and Pietro were playing in the backyard, no magic."

"Okay..."

"I imagine Wanda has already talked to you about her exceptional magical abilities, Miss Stark." The professor continues. "Her visible magic, I meant. It started when she was three years old, when she was able to bring her toys into her crib and wrap them all in a magical cloud." Erik tells and you smile briefly at the image of a baby Wanda, but his expression makes you bite the inside of your cheek the next second. "I want to know how much of this you were able to experience, being on the other side of the country."

You swallow dryly, looking away and trying to think back to your childhood.

"I don't know, professor." You reply. "I was a child. Maybe Tony or dad will know something."

"Come on, isn't there anything you can tell me?" He insists. "Any specific memories, any strange dreams? Anything."

You think, and think, but none of your childhood memories seem relevant. And then you frown, remembering one.

"Actually... There was this one time I got really sick. I think I was about eight. Maybe nine, and dad took me to St.Mungus. I had a high fever, and I couldn't sleep at night with nightmares, but I don't remember what happened. They thought it might be the flu, but we never found out what it was. The next day I was better."

Erik was slightly wide-eyed and then he sighed.

"Before she came to Hogwarts, Wanda was afraid of losing control of her magic at school." He starts to tell. "I tried to calm her down, but she was very upset. She managed to convince Pietro to help her into my potions room and took an entire bottle of a brew for magical containment. Her magic seemed almost enraged, and she destroyed the greenhouse with a wave of energy. I've never seen her so out of control." He says thoughtfully, as if remembering the events. "She passed out from exhaustion, and didn't wake up until the morning. She was ten.”

"You don't think...?"

"That's exactly what I think, Miss Stark." He interrupts, "The dates match. Every time Wanda was in danger from a magical source, you were affected, because the nature of your bond with her is magical. And that was confirmed during the tournament by noticing the way you jumped into the lake during the second task. I imagine your little interaction with Professor Heimdall when Wanda was facing the dragon was about this as well?" He asks and you nod your head in confirmation. "Right. Well, that's a problem."

"I noticed." You grumble, but then realize from the professor's expression that in addition to what has been said, it seems to be a problem for another reason. "Why?"

"Regarding your safety, I mean." Explains the professor. "The last task of the tournament is going to be exceptionally challenging, and perhaps not the best of experiences for you."

You widen your eyes in anticipation.

"Professor, what will happen in the third task?"

"I can't tell you." He says. "But there will be many challenges. And Wanda may encounter difficulties, especially since she is only fifteen."

You sigh, trying to push the wave of worry down.

"I hate this tournament." You state in a mumble and Professor Erik gives a short little smile. "I hate to see Wanda in danger. If it's for the gold, she can have all mine."

Erik laughed, and you blinked in surprise at the sound.

"Believe me, I dislike this competition as much as you do." He says. "There is no pleasure in seeing Wanda in danger for something as superficial as eternal glory. But the goblet chose her, and she would have suffered a magical penalty if she didn't obey the contract. It was a difficult decision, but it was the best for her."

You mutter in understanding and the teacher is thoughtful for a few minutes.

"I would recommend you not watch the competition so you don't get so nervous, but clearly distance doesn't matter for the bond." He remarks. "I need more information about how all this works. I want to run some tests with you two."

You frown slightly, but before you can ask what kind of tests, the teacher speaks again.

"That will need to wait, of course. With the competition and the final exams, I understand that you are experiencing enough stress and I don't want to cause any more suffering." He explains. "Over the vacations, perhaps I can write to your father. It's time to see old friends again after all."

You are surprised that the professor makes this mention, but you don't bother to comment. He clears his throat, and signals that this is all. You thank him as you get up and then leave the room.

//-//

When the day of the last task of the tournament finally arrived, the whole school was in a joint peak of excitement.

You could hardly sleep, strange nightmares throughout your entire night combined with the anxiety at the pit of your stomach made you wake up several times during your sleep. In the morning you decided to ignore the buzz around the hallways about the task and the possible winner, and joined your friends for breakfast.

You wanted to talk to Wanda, but you didn't see her at the Slytherin table, and Gamora tried to cheer you up with news about a band you liked playing in London next month, but you could barely force a smile, feeling tired and irritated.

You heard a group of Gryffindors commenting excitedly that the occultation spell had been removed from the quidditch field, and that the gates of something that had been conjured for the last task were already visible, but before you could try to hear what they were saying, the boys were already leaving the hall and Pietro came to talk to you.

"Hey, good morning, how are you?" he asked curiously, taking a seat across from you at the table.

"Not well, if you want to know." You grumbled dejectedly, your fingers lazily stroking the piece of bread on your plate. "What about you?"

"Worried." He replied shrugging his shoulders with a small corner smile. "But I'm optimistic. Wanda is confident, and thinks she can win. And I'm trusting that everything will end well."

The mention of Wanda makes you sigh slightly and lean your chin on your arm on the table, looking at the boy in front of you.

"I miss her, Pietro." You confess upset and ignore the way Gamora and Nebula who are sitting next to the boy look at you with pity, but appreciate how Mantis strokes your back lightly. "She won't talk to me, and I can't blame her or even be mad at her."

"Wanda asked for some time, didn't she?" he asked slightly curious and you grumbled in agreement. "Well, I guess you have the right to ask the same."

You frown in confusion, and Pietro has a little smile as he pours himself some juice.

"What do you mean?" You ask.

"Ask her for, I don't know, five minutes of attention?" He suggests. "Five minutes to at least give her good luck. You look miserable, and I hate to see you like this."

You sigh, thinking about the idea. And then you smile.

"Thanks, P." You say as you raise your head.

"No problem." He says. "You can try now, Wanda should be on the lower floors. She wanted to talk to dad before the task."

You nodded in understanding and then said you would meet your friends outside.

It didn't take long for you to find Wanda. The girl was walking up the stairs as you were coming down, and well, she had no choice but to look at you.

You felt your heart race to have her looking directly at you after so long, but you ignored the sensation as you walked down the steps and stopped in front of her. Wanda swallowed dryly, but held her gaze.

"Hey." You greeted half breathlessly, smiling slightly.

"What do you want?" she asked uncomfortably, her gaze serious. You ignored the seriousness of her words.

"Talk to you."

"I already said I need time."

"I know." You said without hesitation. "But I also have the right to talk. Can you give me five minutes?"

Wanda looked away, and then at her feet. She sighed and nodded, and you waited for her to look at you again before speaking.

"I miss you, Wanda." You confessed and watched Wanda swallow dryly, her eyes filling with tears as she looked away. "And I wanted to wish you good luck in the last task."

Wanda sighed faintly, nodding in understanding, her gaze on the stairs. You raised your finger to her chin, gently turning her face so that she was looking at you. Wanda closed her eyes as you fitted your hand to her cheeks, your thumb stroking her skin tenderly as she leaned into the touch.

Her hand moved up to your forearm the next moment, squeezing before moving your hand away from her face as she pushed your arm away gently.

You sighed, ignoring the feeling in your stomach and the urge to kiss and touch her again.

"Please don't do that." She whispered. "Don't touch me as if you love me as much as I love you."

You gasped, widening your eyes at the confession. But before you could add anything else, footsteps approached and Erik was coming up the stairs behind Wanda. The girl took a step back, wiping her eyes quickly.

"Stark." The professor greeted politely. You had a hard time disguising how much Wanda's words stirred in you. "Wanda, you'd better hurry up for breakfast. The task will start soon."

"Yes, dad." Wanda agrees and she doesn't look at you as she leaves. Erik nods politely and you stand on the steps for long minutes, your heart racing in your chest.

Wanda loves you. And you can't be with her.

Ignoring your broken heart, you turn and walk back into the hall, following the crowd of students who are making their way to the site of the last assignment.

//-//

The third task was a maze full of magical trials.

You gasped as you reached the sight of the large grass ones that were raised at the entrance to the quidditch field and the matched grass gates.

The crowd of students spilled out onto the bleachers set up in front of the maze, and you began to look around for your friends, ignoring the urge to run to Wanda and tell her you loved her back, not wanting to upset her before the task.

When the crowd was fully seated in the stands, and some students were already raising their cheering posters in the air, you watched the tournament judges move along with the faculty as Agatha took her place to announce the start of the competition.

"Hey, it's going to be okay." Gamora whispered to you as the director made the announcements. "I bet Wanda will be back before you can miss her."

You try to smile, your stomach turning in nervousness.

Watching the field below, you see the champions positioning themselves at the entrance.

Jean Grey had the highest score, so she entered first. The Durmstrang students cheering loudly until she disappeared into the maze.

Soon after, Wanda entered. The Slytherin people conjured a serpent of artifice through the air that disappeared as soon as she walked into the maze.

And then Maria Hill last, the Beaubatox crowd clapping their feet until she entered.

Just like the second task, all that was left for the crowd to do was wait once the champions entered. So as soon as the gate closed, the students started talking animatedly among themselves, in addition to the betting chart that began to circulate.

You also noticed that the reporters of the Daily Prophet were asking the cheering people in the front row about the bets for the winners.

Trying to distract yourself from the sense of worry that had taken over you most likely linked to the fact that Wanda was inside a place dangerous enough to kill her, you tried to engage in some of the conversation with your friends.

//-//

With thirty minutes to go, a movement in the field below caught your attention.

"Y/N, isn't that your father?" Gamora asked poking you in the ribs to call you, but you were already looking down.

Your father was not alone. There were four other witches with him that you had never seen before, but judging by their capes, they were aurors from the ministry, as they were dressed exactly like the witches that day in the cup.

There was a sudden movement among the teachers, and then the aurors were opening the gate to the maze and Headmistress Harkness was talking to the judges, all looking extremely worried. The crowd was buzzing, and it didn't take long for the comments to reach you.

"They're saying they're going to cancel the test!" Told a Ravenclaw girl who had just leaned forward to listen to her classmates, and then he turned and said to you and Gamora, making you both widen your eyes. You looked around next, in time to catch Tony coming down the bleachers from the side until he reached your father.

"What do you think happened?" Gamora asked you.

"I don't know, but it doesn't look good." You replied already moving to leave in Tony's direction. Gamora and Nebula looked at you, but you just signaled for them to wait up there.

When you reached Tony and your father, they seemed to be arguing.

"You didn't think to send at least a letter?" Tony squawked angrily, but your father was distracted, looking around and especially back at the entrance to the maze.

"I can't talk now, Tony, please." The man asked. He gave you a short smile as you approached, and Bucky and Steve joined you all next.

"Dad, what's going on?" You asked, but before your father could say anything, the principal was asking the students to return to the castle and the crowd erupted in booing.

The tournament judges were commenting quietly among themselves, and you frowned when Professor Erik approached and whispered something in your father's ear, who made a worried frown.

"Go back to the castle." Your father ordered looking at you and Tony, but you didn't move and Tony pushed your father's hand away.

They began to argue, but you felt your whole body shiver all at once, and you looked back, thinking that someone had called your name.

Professor Erik looked at you curiously, but before he could do anything, you ran past him and into the maze.

//-//

Gasping for breath from the run, you blinked in confusion as you stopped at a crossroads. Your head was spinning slightly, and you looked around.

The maze was dark, and the walls were high and shadowed the path. You noticed that the noise of the crowd was muffled from the inside.

Taking the left path, you were not fully conscious, following only the magnetic energy that seemed to pull you around the correct path.

Your wand was raised to your hand, an illumination spell that you don't remember conjuring. You frowned slightly when you noticed another light, and then Maria Hill was standing in front of you.

"Who are you?" she asked, but you didn't answer, walking past her in a mechanical manner. The girl looked at you with confusion. "Girl, can you hear me?"

"Wanda." You whispered without stopping your walk. Maria hesitated but then began to follow you through the labyrinth.

"Are you hexed?" She asked curiously but got no answer. When she tried to hold you by the shoulders, you pushed her to the ground. "Hey, no need for that!"

You didn't answer and Maria sighed in irritation as she stood up, running lightly to catch up with you as you turned the corner.

The tugging on your abdomen began to get stronger, and then you reached the center of the maze.

"Wow, you found the center." Maria commented in surprise next to you. "But where's the cup?"

You looked around confused, feeling the pain in your head increase.

And then noises of footsteps and shouting became closer and a moment later your father and Professor Erik entered the center through one of the trails.

"Honey!" Your father exclaimed worriedly, but before he could reach you, you fell to your knees, a shrill cry of pain escaping your throat.

Your vision blurred and you had another vision.

It was the graveyard from your dream, but now much clearer than before. You were attached to something, and there was a tall wizard standing in front of you.

The man turned around and you could see his red eyes staring at you with hatred.

"Erik, what is happening to her?" You heard your father's voice sound muffled by the ringing in your ear. You were trying to breathe normally, lying on the grass with your hands on your head.

"Look out, Howard!" It was Professor Erik's voice, but you didn't have the strength to look up.

"Protego!" Someone shouted the incantation next to you, maybe it was Maria but you can't open your eyes to see.

The pain in your head seemed to subside slightly and you forced your gaze upward, not understanding what was happening.

There were two bright lights in front of you. The image was not very clear because of the pain, but you struggled to understand what you were witnessing.

A wizard you didn't know was exchanging spells with Professor Erik. And Bucky was standing next to him, his robotic movements exactly matching those of the mysterious sorcerer. Your father was dueling with the younger one.

The unknown wizard let out an angry grunt, and said something in a language you didn't recognize, and then a green light shot out of Bucky's wand and hit your father in the chest, knocking him backwards.

"Stupefy!" Shouted a female voice from your side, and the spell hit Bucky squarely.

You whimpered in pain again, and could stare no longer.

A few minutes passed before you gasped back to consciousness, or perhaps it was hours. Your tears wet your shirt, and you coughed helplessly.

You raised your eyes to a scene that you didn't understand at first.

There were three people lying on the ground. A man you had never seen before, Bucky and your father, and Professor Erik was kneeling beside the last.

You blinked in confusion and then Tony came running out of the other opening and he widened his eyes when he noticed father.

"Hey, can you stand?" it was Jean Grey beside you. Maria Hill was holding you in her other arm, and you blinked in confusion at both of them.

"Where am I?" you grumbled, and then looked forward again. Tony ran up to your father, and you widened your eyes.

"Dad?" Tony asked with his face wet with tears. "Dad? Wake up!

"Stark..." Erik started as he touched the boy's shoulder, but your brother didn't look at him as he pushed his hand away.

You forced yourself to get up and with the help of the girls you succeeded. You took two steps and then fell to your knees again, understanding what had happened.

You had just witnessed your father being murdered.

//-//

The maze was dismantled from the inside out.

The rest of the teachers moved to remove the incantations and the maze disappeared around you, while you and Tony were kneeling beside the body of your father.

Soon there were reporters trying to reach the center, but Principal Harkness ordered them to stay away.

The aurors from the ministry were also there and they conjured a containment spell around the man who dueled the professor.

"We need to get the children out of here, Harkness." You heard someone say, but their gaze was on your lap, the hand you entwined with your father's.

"We don't know how many of them then here." Another witch said.

"Darlings, let's go inside, okay?" Professor Erik asked you. You were too tired to contradict, but Tony refused.

He said something about responsibility, and they did not contradict him again. You were led out of the maze, however, and the place where the entrance was located was empty.

The reporters who had been thrown out approached you and the ministry's auror immediately as soon as they saw you two, and you blinked at the flashes of the cameras.

"Can you tell us what happened inside the maze Miss Stark?"

"How are you and your brother going to take care of the fortune now that you are Howard's heirs?"

The lack of sensitivity made your stomach turn, but you were too tired to cry.

The auror who was with you said something to keep the reporters away, and then you were taken back to the castle.

"Hey, kid, are you still with me?" The lady asked as she knelt in front of you, her expression concerned.

You sighed, feeling an urgency to close your eyes. You think she called you again before you blacked out.

//-//

When you woke up, it was warm. And when you realized that you were in the infirmary, it took you a few moments to remember everything that had happened. As you did so, you began to cry. Finally understanding that your father was dead.

Your pillow got wet, but you didn't care, finding it hard to see past the tears.

"Hey." It was Tony, looking extremely tired, standing at your bedside. You couldn't tell if he was already there when you woke up, or if he had entered the infirmary at that moment, but you didn't ask. He lay down on the bed with you next, and hugged you.

You know that he was crying too, even though you didn't look at him.

You eventually fell asleep between sobs, and when you woke up again, you were feeling better physically.

Tony was standing in the doorway of the infirmary, talking to the Auror who brought you in. When she noticed you looking, she nodded slightly to Tony and he looked at you, forcing a smile.

The two wizards walked over to you next, and you sat down on the bed.

"Hey, are you feeling better?" Tony asked and you shrugged. "Carol wants to ask you some questions."

You looked away from Tony to the woman, and she looked slightly embarrassed to have to question you after a situation like this, but she did it anyway.

"My name is Carol Danvers, Miss Stark." She introduced herself first. "I am an auror from the ministry of magic. I brought you to the infirmary, can you remember this?"

You nodded in agreement.

"I need to tell you some things, and then I'll ask you about what happened in the maze, okay?" She asked and waited for you to confirm before she started talking.

Carol explained to you how the dark wizard Korvac used polyjuice potion to disguise himself as Professor Fury all year long, and infiltrate the tournament organization. The real Fury was a family friend of the auror and was able to warn her in some way that she didn't tell you, and then the aurors used flu powder to get to Hogwarts. Your father was still an auror in secret to the ministry, and so he also joined the operation group.

When the Aurors arrived, however, Korvac had already entered the maze and they went after him. Neither your father nor the professor were supposed to enter the maze, but when you did, your brother followed, and consequently Steve and Bucky did the same. Your father and the professor went after, but the maze was enchanted to make everyone get lost, and that's exactly what happened. While you were guided by your connection to Wanda, everyone else was lost all around.

Carol told you that Korvac had found Bucky and used the Imperio curse to control him, so he was fighting on behalf of the dark wizard against both your father and your teacher. With Jean Grey's intervention, Bucky was knocked out and Professor Erik hit Korvac, but it was too late.

Everyone eventually found themselves in the middle and the maze was dismantled. Tony had already given his statement to the ministry, and Korvac was sent to Azkaban.

"Your brother told me that you have some kind of magical bond with one of the champions and that's why you went into the maze right?" Carol asked as you wiped away your tears. You sniffled slightly as you confirmed. "Miss Maximoff won the competition and she has also talked to my colleagues about what she saw in the cup portal."

"W-what?" you questioned with confusion.

Carol sighed slightly and then her posture changed. She looked back for a minute.

"Look, I trusted your father. He knew there was corruption in the ministry, and he warned me about it when he recommended me to work with him." She began as if telling a secret. "Let's keep that between us for now. I don't know who I can trust in that department."

Carol told about how the triwizard cup was bewitched to become a portal key, most likely by Korvac. She repeated Wanda's words to you, saying that the girl had ended up in a graveyard with the remnants of Mephisto's followers in place. Wanda also said that Mephisto himself had returned and that they faced each other. She managed to escape by touching the cup again.

What made you angry was knowing that the minister didn't believe any of her words, and refused to acknowledge Mephisto's return. The whole thing would be treated as a trial of the tournament that got out of hand, and Korvac, who had been captured, would be accused of all the crimes.

Carol didn't seem happy with the minister's decision either.

"I have nothing to say but tell the minister to go fuck himself, Carol." You informed irritated and the blonde smiled at you.

"You inherited your father's attitude." She comments and you think the intention is good, but it makes your heart ache. "I will close your statement then. Thank you very much for your time, Miss Stark."

You nod and Carol hesitates. She sighs lightly and touches your brother on the shoulder and your outstretched hand on the bed.

"I used to be friends with your father." She says. "Don't think you are alone, children. You have more family than you can imagine. And you can contact me if you need anything."

Carol smiles and walks away with a nod. You and Tony exchange a slightly surprised look. Tony sighs and sits down next to you on the bed. You say nothing, but you both know that this should be one more among your father's many secrets.

//-//

Nurse Cho released you from the infirmary that same afternoon.

Aside from the mental exhaustion, you were perfectly healthy.

Your friends, with the exception of the Maximoff twins, approach you in the dormitory. They hug you together, mourning the death of your father. You want to say that you feel a little better about this, but that is not true.

As you are seen in the corridors, students and professors stop you to say "my sympathies", and you answer them in a polite way. You can also hear the gossip after all.

Wanda did not obey the order of the minister of magic, and when the journalists of the Daily Prophet asked her about the tournament, she told her version. Nobody bought her story, and she was branded a liar after the minister denied the return of the dark wizard.

Professor Erik also greeted you in the hallways, and Pietro was with him. The boy hugged you tight, and you held back your tears.

"Stark, my home is always open to you and your brother." Erik said as his hand was on your shoulder. "I just want you to know that."

You nodded in understanding and then walked toward the communal hall intending to organize your belongings, since the school year would end that week.

//-//

On your last day at Hogwarts, you finally talked to Wanda.

Because your nightmares had become more frequent than ever, you had spent the last days at school without sleeping properly, and on the last night you gave up sleeping and decided to go to the kitchens.

You were in the empty halls when you heard the familiar noise of Drax monitoring the castle and stumbled to the first door you found, trying to avoid being seen.

As you waited for the hissing noise to become distant, you looked back and gasped in surprise.

There was a girl sitting on the floor and it took you a few seconds to realize that it was Wanda.

"What are you doing here?" You asked curiously, and your voice startled her. She stood up quickly, looking at you in surprise.

"Shit, you scared the hell out of me!" She complained and you frowned slightly as you realized she was crying, but Wanda quickly wiped her face.

Only at that moment did you notice the large antique mirror behind her. On the metal rim was a Latin phrase that you didn't understand.

Biting the inside of your cheeks, you looked away to the floor.

"Sorry to bother you, I couldn't sleep." You mumbled clumsily and Wanda shifted the weight of her feet before clearing her throat.

"Do you wanna stay?"

You raised your head in surprise, but then nodded in agreement.

Walking up to the girl, you stopped about four steps away from her, not knowing exactly what to do next.

"Are you going to tell me what you were doing here?" You asked again, and Wanda bit her lips before turning toward the mirror.

"I found this place in second grade." She counters. "That's the Mirror of Erised."

"I am supposed to know what that means?" You ask with mild irony causing Wanda to smile slightly.

"We studied that in fourth grade, so yes." She retorts.

"I haven't been busy this year, no time for books, if you know what I mean." You say with a smile and Wanda laughs softly. You stare at the mirror in front of you, but there is nothing special about it. It seems to reflect you and Wanda just like any other. "What does this mirror do anyway?"

Wanda turns her face to you, and you want to ignore the nervous feeling that settles on the edge of your stomach, but to no avail.

"Look closer." She says, and her gaze lingers on you for a moment before she takes a step to the side. You turn your face to the mirror again, and then step forward.

It takes a second for the image to change. It is you in the reflection, but you are not alone. Your father is standing beside you, smiling contently. You frown in confusion, gasping slightly at his sudden appearance.

Ignoring the lump in your throat, you continue to stare. The image trembles slightly, and you try to understand what the mirror is telling you. Nothing looks much different except the image of your father, but then you notice the wedding ring in your reflection.

You look down at your hand for a moment and then back at the reflection. Your image copies the movement with delay and you squeeze your eyes shut to read the letters on the ring.

Your face heats up as you read Wanda's name and you take a step back. The image becomes fainter, but doesn't disappear.

"What do you see?" Wanda asks curiously from beside you, and you startle, turning your head to her quickly.

"M-my father." You answer at the same moment, biting your tongue to make sure you don't say anything else. Wanda's expression tumbles, and she looks down at her feet. You swallow dryly.

"I'm sorry, y/n. I really am." She whispers, and you look away. There is something that is bothering you as much as your father's death, and it is the distance that seems to exist between you and Wanda now.

"Thank you." You mumble the response you have learned to give whenever someone says that to you. "W-what do you see in the mirror?" You ask next, trying to change the subject from you. Wanda looks surprised at the question and even in the low lighting, you notice the slight redness in her cheeks.

"My mother." She answers without looking at you. "And... myself. No magic. Just me and her, and Pietro and papa at a distance. We look happy and normal."

It is the most intimate confession Wanda has ever made to you. You want to caress her face, hug her and thank her for her trust, but you just nod in agreement, swallowing her words and pushing the desire to touch down.

"Have you been here many times?" You ask after a moment and Wanda sighs before confirming. "You never told me about this place before."

"I never told anyone." She retorts without sounding angry, just slightly weary. "I guess I wanted it to be something just mine."

"I understand." You comment as you look into the mirror again, the image of your reflection and Wanda's now visible. "A private space for you to visit your mother."

Wanda murmurs in agreement, and you think she won't say anything else, but she does.

"I need to tell you something."

You turn your head toward Wanda's direction, but when she turns her body toward you, she keeps her gaze on the floor.

"About the day of the task." She says. "About Mephisto."

"Okay." You mumble as you wait. Wanda takes a deep breath.

"I guess you've heard from the whole school that I fought with him." She starts with a sad smile, and you nod in agreement. "Well, there's a reason he couldn't kill me."

You frown with confusion.

"Right...why?"

"It’s better if i show you." She takes a deep breath, raising her hands between you. "Can I?" she asks, and you notice the red magic escaping her fingers.

"You can do that?" You ask impressed and Wanda nods with a shy smile. When you consent, she raises her fingers to your forehead and then you have another vision.

You see the moment when Wanda was teleported into the graveyard, and it's as if you're seeing everything through her eyes.

The moment when a hooded wizard appeared and locked Wanda in a spell against one of the tombstones. You watched the wizard walk to the center of the graveyard and conjure a rune on the ground that you didn't recognize. He recited a few words and then cast an incantation in the sky. The mark of a hydra.

Walking back to the rune, the sorcerer deposited a necklace on the ground. With a dagger he took from his pocket, he recited an incantation in a language you didn't recognize, and cut his own palm. When the blood fell on the necklace, Wanda gasped in pain.

The ground around the rune began to open up and a man crawled out of the earth. You imagined it was a necromancy ritual and they were resurrecting someone. You didn't have to ask to know that it was Mephisto.

When the wizard stood up completely, he laughed darkly. The man who helped him bowed.

"Master, you live!" Celebrated the wizard. Mephisto approached, a gentle flick of his wand wiped all the dirt from his robes, and you could see the metallic Hydra strolling along the entire length of his robes, as if getting used to being awake again.

"All thanks to you, John." Mephisto said his deep voice echoing through the room. "Your loyalty will be rewarded, my friend."

"Thank you, master." Said the man without raising his head. Mephisto touched his hood, pulling it back, and you looked at the kneeling figure. He was a man of about thirty, his blond hair was long and dirty. There was a deep scar across his cheek to the extent of his right eye, which was closed.

Mephisto raised his wand toward the young man's face, and a silver spell escaped from the tip along the scar. The mark didn't disappear, but when he opened his eye, you noticed the metallic glow of the reddish iris.

"Be my eyes again, John Walker." Mephisto commanded and the boy thanked him again. He continued kneeling as Mephisto turned toward Wanda, who was still attached to the tombstone. "I almost forgot about my guest of honor."

"Who are you?" Wanda asked angrily, you could almost feel her fear.

Mephisto smiled devilishly, ignoring the question as he took a deep breath. He raised his wand high and the Hydra's mark seemed to glow even brighter.

In the following moments, shadows began to appear in the sky, and only when the first one of them landed on the ground that you understood that they were wizards appearing.

There were at least eight of them, but because of their position, Wanda couldn't see them all. The masked witches remained static, waiting for their companions. Mephisto murmured softly, and after a moment without any movement in the sky, he sighed.

"It is only at our worst that we see who is really loyal to us." He comments somberly, before opening his arms to the crowd. "Friends! It's so good to see you all again, finally. So many years!"

Mephisto's smile doesn't reach his eyes, and then the wizards are kneeling, and recite together an "It is an honor, master." Mephisto laughs lightly, lowering his arms.

"Look at you folks." He comments with a psychotic look on his face. "You're not even ashamed that you abandoned me." He charges, but no one speaks up. Mephisto sighs impatiently. "No one has anything to say? What a disappointment."

"Master..." Started a wizard on the edge and then Mephisto raised his fist toward him hanging him in the air with his magic. Wanda's eyes widened, but the wizard let go just before the one in the air stopped struggling. As the wizard coughed to try to breathe again, Mephisto pushed his long hair out of the front of his face.

"I don't want your hollow apologies, Zemo." He says. "Nothing will erase the betrayal of all of you, cowards."

No one makes any mention of interrupting the speech, and Mephisto puts his cloak away momentarily.

"But a new era begins, and we need to leave the past behind." Says the mage. "I finally have my treasure where I wanted it, and nothing will stop me from reaching my power again."

Mephisto turns to Wanda now, a mental look on his face. The wizards look at her too.

"Master, is this...?" One of the masked men begins, and Mephisto interrupts with a devilish grin.

"Yes, my friend!" He says. "The Scarlet Witch."

The group loosely shares a buzz of excited excitement, but falls silent the next moment. Wanda wriggles uncomfortably against the spell.

"What is it, my dear?" Mephisto asks as he watches her struggle. "Is it tight? Try a coffin underground. I guarantee the discomfort is greater."

The comment makes Wanda clench her jaw as the group lets out a chuckle.

"I'm not who you say I am." Wanda retorts with irritation and Mephisto lets out a laugh approaching. You wish you could enter the vision to get him away from Wanda.

"Your name is Wanda Maximoff." He says looking her straight in the eye. "You were born in 1989 in a dirty muggle neighborhood of Sokovia. And you are a scarlet witch by birth." He narrates and then his gaze changes to malice. "And you belong to me."

"Fuck you."

Wanda's rude response makes Mephisto smile.

"Perhaps you, my dear friends, were not aware of what really happened that night fifteen years ago." Mephisto says as he turns to the group again. "I can only imagine the lies the ministry of magic must have told the world, making sure to tell I was defeated by some of their pathetic aurors."

The group exchanges surprised looks and Mephisto laughs, walking ahead.

"I think everyone has a right to know what really happened that day, don't you, my dear?" He asks Wanda, and then lets out a wry laugh. "Oh, I forgot that you were just a filthy brat back then. I'd better tell them instead."

Wanda struggles against the grip again and Mephisto raises his wand toward her, causing the spell to tighten more and Wanda to grumble in pain.

"Hold still and listen to the story, little brat." He commands. "Didn't the blood traitor teach you manners?"

You know Mephisto is talking about Wanda's father, but the girl doesn't respond to the teasing.

"Do you remember how well everything was going for us, my friends?" Begins the wizard, and he waits for the group to agree before speaking again. "I should have known that the cursed muggles in your community would bring more trouble than I expected."

Mephisto looks slightly nostalgic, but no one is going to interrupt him. He gives a wry laugh before continuing.

"You know that I was seeking the power of a scarlet sorceress for myself. And well, with all the commotion in the ministry, I decided to capture the child without being accompanied by any of you." He says. "I was always the most powerful, but now that I look back, a companion would have prevented so much delay."

When Wanda makes mention of fighting again, Mephisto strengthens the spell.

"I went to take what was rightfully mine in that muggle pigsty that is Sokovia, and I never expected that a filthy muggle would be able to stop me." He tells you and you notice Wanda's interest in the words, curious to know what he was talking about. "Maybe the traitor lied and she had some witch lineage. We'll never know, since I killed her." He comments humorously. "Contextualizing my friends, I went up to the second floor to get the child of prophecy, and I ended up running into two of them."

Mephisto counters with a wry laugh.

"Crazy isn't it?" He says. "But of course it was easy to figure out who the right baby was, since the sorceress' power emanated in the child's aura. I had no function for the other one so I decided to discard it."

Wanda's eyes widen at the confession. Mephisto was going to kill Pietro. She gasps slightly, feeling her anger rising.

"But the muggle pig begged for mercy." He continues. "You know very well how much I hate muggles, but if she had stood in the corner as I told her to do, I would have done no harm. But of course she had to throw herself in front of the infant, become a pathetic martyr."

The group laughs at the narration and you feel like vomiting. Mephisto stared at his own wand for a few seconds.

"I should have realized the sacrificial bond that was created, but I did not expect such a thing from a muggle." He counters somberly, sounding bitter. "When I skipped over her body and repeated the curse, it came straight back to me."

The group let out a chorus of surprise, but Mephisto just smiled.

"Don't worry, friends. I'm here after all." He says. "But a death curse is powerful enough to injure a body. And so I needed to escape." He counters as he walks around. "I would return for the girl as soon as I could restore myself, but where there is one blood traitor there is always another."

The group listened to the story intently and you swallowed dryly, trying to remember all the details.

"The traitor Stark and that muggle slut he called his wife were waiting for me downstairs." Mephisto counters and you hold your breath. "I knew that in my condition I couldn't stand up to an auror like Stark, but he could be useful to me. It was the perfect opportunity to have someone look after my belongings."

Mephisto sighed lightly.

"I think muggles must have some sort of self-sabotaging lifestyles about throwing themselves in front of spells, folks." He mocked causing the group to exchange confused looks. "I aimed at Stark, commanding him to protect what was mine, but it was the muggle who received the enchantment." He counters and you gasp in surprise. "Stark was furious of course, but I used the moments he spent assisting his wife to apparate."

Mephisto's expression was no longer content.

"My body couldn't handle the power of the apparatation, obviously." He counters. "After the curse, it began to betray me. I was on the brink of death for months, until I finally succumbed. My consciousness shallowed, waiting patiently for my faithful followers to find me. And here we are."

The group lets out a small exclamation and Mephisto forces a smile, straightening his posture.

"But that's in the past, of course." He says. "My sorceress is here for me, and I can regain my full power now."

Wanda swallowed dryly as she watched Mephisto approach. The wizard made a motion with his wand and the grip around her neck shortened slightly.

"I never had any use for the witch's receptacle." He says raising his wand to Wanda, you held your breath. "It's nothing personal, dear. At least you'll meet that pig of a mother of yours in hell."

The green incantation comes out of the small wood next, but never reaches Wanda. A yellow energy bumps into the magic and deflects it almost hitting one of the wizards in the circle. The group moves in fright and Mephisto has a psychotic but surprised look on his face.

"The protective spell... How?" he asks, stepping forward. “The spell killed the muggle, I saw her body! How is it still there?” He angrily asks .

His followers look as surprised as he is, and Mephisto assumes an angry expression. He raises his wand again, and even without saying anything, the emerald incantation escapes and the same thing as before happens. Distracted in his frustration, he doesn't notice that with each attempt, the spell binding Wanda grows weaker, until the fourth time he tries to curse the girl, the golden light explodes in the air, ricocheting light startling all the wizards in the circle, as Wanda falls to her knees, free.

The second of shock from the group is enough for Wanda to cause a wave of energy with her powers that kept the wizards away as she reaches for the cup at her feet, teleporting back to the school.

You stumble out of the memory, your eyes watering.

Wanda looks at you, but you turn away feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information.

"W-what was that?" You gasp taking another step back.

"I'm sorry if that was too much." She hastens to say. "I-I needed to tell you. About your mother."

You wipe away the tears, moving further away.

"I can't do this." You grumble. "Not now. M-my father just died, Wanda. I can't. I'm sorry."

The words are a little disjointed, but Wanda understands. She doesn't stop you when you rush to leave the room.

//-//

Coming home is much more difficult than any other time.

The ride on the Hogwarts express is longer than ever, but you don't mind, wanting to avoid the moment when you and Tony will set foot home without your father.

Jarvis picks the four of you up at the station, and you are grateful that Gamora lets you eat all her candy left over from the trip.

The whole feeling of stepping into the house and looking around and seeing your father's objects all around is oppressive, but you try to get used to it. You think the conversation with Tony about your mother can wait.

//-//

Tag list ( let me know if you want to be tagged or removed idk haha) @mionemymind / @abimess / @stephanieromanoff / @yourtaletotell / @tomy5girls / @justagaypanicking / @thegayw1tch / @idek-5 // @myperfectlovepoem // @helloalycia // @ENSORCELLME // @AIMEZVOUSBRAHMS @imapotatao / @aimezvousbrahms/ @ensorcellme/ @helloalycia // @ichala || @madamevirgo

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda x reader #wanda maximoff #wanda x you #wandaxreader #wandaxyou #wanda maximoff x you #wandamaximoffxreader #wanda x yn #marvel imagines #avengers imagines #avengers #The Scarlet Witch Prophecy

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elizabethemerald · 3 years ago

Text

Fall Anniversary at the Soltryce Academy

Caleb walked into his classroom at the Soltryce Academy with the immediate instinct that something was wrong. He had been teaching Transmutation theory and application in this same class room for the past twenty years, so anything that seemed different set off alarms in his head.

He mentally checked the wards on the class room and found them intact. There were a few students in their seats, a few more filtering into the lecture hall, by the second. None of them seemed alarmed. Whatever was different today did not appear to be an immediate threat.

Still just to be safe he subtly cast Detect Magic as he set his bag down and took off his coat. Immediately a few points were highlighted in his mind. Of course his own magical items, the amber around his neck and the amulet beside it, the ring on his finger, the chalk he had enchanted to help him lecture. Nothing off there.

There were a few points of magic around the rest of the room, each quickly analyzed and dismissed. Transmutation magic on a small pile of coins near the wall, a low level student’s practice project. Abjuration magic in the wards along the walls. Divination magic in a button, another spying device Astrid had tried to sneak into his class room to keep him from teaching against the school’s policies.

It was the illusion spells that caught his attention. A few of the students were covered in the same, linked illusion. Their appearance normal enough to blend in, but also entirely too normal for a real student. And there, a student he didn’t recognize even with his keen mind, covered in an illusion spell. Several other magical objects of varying power, hidden under the spell. The Vestige appeared to be within its pocket dimension, so at least they hadn’t brought a weapon onto campus.

After setting down his things and greeting his class he squeezed past a few of the students to grab Astrid’s enchanted button. He quickly dispelled it and slipped it into an envelope to return to her later. As he returned to the front he gave the cat sitting on his desk a brief scratch.

“Hello Jester.” He said. Of course he didn’t need Detect Magic telling him of the cat’s aura of Transmutation to know his friend. She was bright blue after all and staring at him far more smugly than even a magic fey cat would.

“Now class, I know we were discussing transmutation principles as applied to effecting the elements around you, but I am afraid that lesson will have to be postponed. It would seem that it is the anniversary of the Mighty Nein getting together and they have decided to invite themselves to my class.”

There was a muttering around the class room as the students looked at each other, before one of them near the front stood up, the illusion dropping off her form as she did so.

“I told you he wouldn’t fall for it!” Veth said in her high voice, She looked mostly unchanged from when they first brought her back to her proper body. A few more laugh lines, but nothing more to show the passing two decades. “Lebby, is an amazing wizard, he wouldn’t fall for something simple like that. You students better appreciate the skill of your teacher.”

Caleb smiled fondly as Veth walked up to the front to give him a hug. Interspersed through the seats a few more illusion spells dropped. A half elven man walked up from the front row and kissed him on the cheek. Essek’s own illusion lasting even as he dismissed the Seeming on Kingsley and Yasha.

“How did they rope you into this?” Caleb whispered to Essek.

“Oh you know I can’t resist a practical joke.” Essek maintained his deadpan delivery for only a few seconds before a small smile graced his lips. Caleb knew quite well that Essek looked as ageless as ever, under his illusion. His elven blood would keep him looking much the same for the next few centuries. Caleb returned the kiss, to the muttering of his students. They weren’t ever a 100% sure who Caleb’s rotating cast of elven boyfriends were, and Caleb was more than happy to keep them in the dark.

“Well you can’t fault us for trying!” Kingsley said. They were wearing a scandalously low cut shirt, a pair of plain black pants, and a pair of thigh high boots. His purple hair was fading to a less vibrant shade just a bit near his ears and he had a larger collection of scars, as one would expect from years of piracy and being a bloodhunter. They were also wearing their sword much to Caleb’s disapproval, which was apparently not magical.

“You can’t expect me to hide this glorious look without magic though can you?” He said, sliding his hands down to his hips then back up his torso. Then he grabbed Caleb’s chin and kissed him full on the mouth, with tongue for several seconds, while his students lost their collective minds. Caleb smiled against Kingsley’s lips right before the tiefling stepped back. He was sure the rumor mill of the school would go wild about that for a few weeks. He wished he could see the look on Master Beck’s face when the news came across her desk. “Here’s to another twenty years, magic man.”

Yasha and Caduceus walked up next, each giving Caleb a tight hug. These two showed their age the least of the non elven members of the Nine. Cad could have been just stepping out of the temple doors in the Blooming Grove, saying that he had only three cups, if it weren’t for the increased presence of lichens and mosses of all kinds on his clothes and armor. Caleb was fairly certain there was an actual bird’s nest in his pink hair. Yasha of course looked as badass and muscular as she had when they first found her. Her hair was completely white, done up in an ornate braid. Home life seemed to suit her well, she looked genuinely happy and relaxed like she certainly hadn’t when they had first gotten together.

Fjord’s spell dropped as well. The half orc’s hair had large stripes of gray in it, he had crows feet at the corners of his eyes, and his salt and pepper beard had significantly more salt to it now. He still looked good, life at sea, despite its hardships, keeping him fit. He laughed at something over Caleb’s shoulder as he approached and he found himself lifted bodily into the air by a pair of muscular blue arms.

Jester having dropped her polymorph spun him around briefly in the hug before setting him back on his feet. She would never fail to look divine. Her horns now curling in on themselves, almost like her mother’s had when they first met her. Her hair is pulled back into a pony tail, poofing out behind her head from the salt air. Her sailing days were certainly not hurting her in anyway. Her smile was still just as wide, her eyes just as sharp, and her arms just as strong, if not more so.

“Happy anniversary Caleb! Twenty years ago you were a stinky wizard. Now you are here teaching!” Jester’s happiness in her voice carried to every corner of the lecture hall.

“What happened to our plan of drinks in Nicodranas this evening?”

“I just couldn’t wait Cay-leb.” She pouted. “Fjord and I got into port early, and I was so bored.”

Caleb smiled at her, then looked around at the rest of the Nein, pretending to count.

“We appear to be one short. Where is my sister? Couldn’t drag her away from the Cobalt training pit? Or did she get lost in a book like some kind of nerd?” Caleb said with a smirk.

“Mother fucker!”

He looked up towards the voice above him, just in time to watch Beauregard drop from the ceiling, to land on his desk with a perfect three point landing. She hopped off the desk and punched his arm, before also grabbing him in a tight hug.

“I am not a nerd, Widogast!” She snapped, a wide grin on her face.

“Beauregard, please do not land on my desk. It was a gift and I don’t think it could bare too many impacts like that.” He stopped to look up at the vaulted ceilings of the class room. “Also, how did you get up there?”

If she had been invisible she would have tripped the wards on the class room. And if she had gone in the brief break between classes one of the early students would have noticed her and caused a stir.

Beau took her turn to smirk.

“I have been waiting up there for four hours so we could surprise you. It’s surprisingly comfortable. I could have gone another couple of hours without breaking a sweat.” She paused to flex, causing several students, and Yasha to blush at her muscles.

Beauregard’s monk training meant that she looked like she hadn’t aged a day since Aeor. And she could still easily out fight everyone else in the room if she wanted to. She was also the one member of the Nein that Caleb saw the most frequently. Their work to root out corruption among the Cerberus Assembly, and other bodies of power in the Empire often kept them up together late into the night, until Yasha would intervene and throw her wife over her shoulder to carry her to bed.

“Can I finish the lesson, or should we depart immediately?” Caleb asked, already guessing the answer.

“Cayyyllleeeb.” Jester groaned, pulling at her face. “I’m sooooo bored. I want to drink and party already!”

Caleb turned back to his class of students. He was sure most of them had heard rumors about Professor Widogast and the wild adventures he got up to with the Mighty Nein back when they first got together. He wasn’t sure how much they actually believed, but he was sure that even the most widely blown out of proportion tale didn’t even begin to cover the truth of what they had done together.

“In honor of the anniversary of this group of arschlochs finding each other, consider this to be a free day. Keep up on your readings, and if you have any questions I will be at my regular office hours tomorrow morning.”

The students immediately started buzzing as they stood and packed. No doubt during tomorrow’s class he would have to field a whole host of questions about the Nein, and that was just the way he liked it. The day after the anniversary was the one day he would talk about what his family had done. As the class filtered out, with many a lingering glance thrown at the colorful group at the front, Caleb turned to Essek, setting the envelope with Astrid’s button in it on the table top to deal with later.

“Would you like to teleport us to the beach, or shall I?”

Essek put up both hands.

“I already used my spell slots getting us all back together again. You can bring us to the coast.” Essek said, his smile a mix between smug and fond.

Caleb rolled his eyes before pulling him into a soft kiss. Then he turned to address the rest of the Nein. The family he had made for himself.

“Are we ready?” After a series of nods, he pulled an ancient clay turtle from his pocket and gave it a squeeze. “Then let’s go!”

And they were off, to a night of drinks and celebration and stories told, and memories shared. And of course many toasts, “To another twenty years.”

#caleb widogast #essek thelyss #shadowgast #kingsley tealeaf #jester lavorre #the mighty nein #critical role #writing emerald #stories entwine evermore

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mariamermaid · 4 years ago

Text

Crush

Modern! Harry Potter x fem!Granger!Reader

Summary: Y/N Granger, the absolute Queen amongst the students, with many admirers and even Harry himself, finds himself falling for his best friends sister.

Words: 2.7k

A/N: Requested anonymous: “heyaaa, can you make harry potter x fem reader in which the reader is hermonie's elder sister and very popular in the school and harry has massive crush on her? like the song crush by tessa violet?” I also decided to write this in a more modern style! I feel like all my Harry Potter imagines end at a party?? But who cares.

Your laughter echoed through the hall before any of them could even see you. Harry immediately felt his heart speeding up, while Hermione next to him, only let out a sigh. You turned the corner and Harry, Hermione and Ron finally made eye contact with you. You had joked with Cedric Diggory and Harry felt an even deeper sting in his chest. Quickly, you waved your goodbye at the Hufflepuff boy before joining your sister and her friends.

“Mione, you look like seven days of rain were just announced!”

Hermione only rolled her eyes, no one really fully understood how the two of you were related. Ever since beginning your education a year prior to Hermione´s, you had been crowned one of the most popular students. Unlike her, who especially struggled with making friends in her first weeks, you were at ease with social contacts. Another difference was your approach at studying, you simply didn´t enjoy spending hours and hours at the library and yet, you weren´t bad at any subjects. You weren´t class best, but at the top five. Outgoing, adventurous, funny and charming; it was no wonder why everyone seemed to like you.

Usually, your popularity wasn´t a problem for your younger sister, but lately Hermione realized a changed she wasn´t very fond of.

Harry.

Within the past weeks, he had been daydreaming a lot and barely focused on anything anymore. And unlike Ron, who was probably last to find out if he wasn´t explicitly told, Hermione quickly realized why that was.

I can't focus on what needs to get done

I'm on notice hoping that you don't run,

“Haha, very funny Y/N!” You nudged her side grinning. “So, what are you guys up to anyways? Trouble I reckon?” Ron and Harry smiled as you chatted with them.

“Hermione makes us study for the upcoming potions exam”, Ron explained, which annoyed Hermione even more and you laughed lightly. “Ron, you should start listening to her, pretty sure she´s the only reason you haven´t failed.” You turned to the boy with the glasses.

“What about you Harry? Sentenced to study as well?”

Harry opened his mouth, but before any words left his lips, Hermione pulled him closer.

“Yes, his talent won´t let him pass all the exams!”

You gave the two boys a pitiful pout, but then switched back to your smirk.

“Anyways, I´ll have a date at Hogsmead to try on the upcoming summer collection!”

You think I'm tepid but I'm misdiagnosed

'Cause I'm a stalker, I seen all of your posts,

Two hours later, Harry got a notification on his phone; Y/N uploaded a picture on Wizagram! Hermione, who was currently too focused on Ron, didn´t see how Harry sneakily took his phone and hid it beneath the desk. You stood smiling widely in the shop Feathers and Fabrics, wearing a dress from the newest collection. Even though you had posted the picture only minutes ago, the likes were already rolling in and the comments didn´t hold back as well.

Harry read your caption; Guys, this is only a small sneak peek, just wait there will be more!

And I'm just tryna play it cool now

But that's not what I wanna do now

And I'm not tryna be with you now, you now

A lot of the comments were from female students. “You look so stunning!”

But then again, a few of your male followers couldn´t hold back. “Gee Y/n, is it hot in here, or is you?”

Harry felt heat rushing up to his head, but tried to play it cool, so his friends wouldn´t notice. Quickly he hit like and put the phone away, trying to focus back on studying. But the words in front of him were beginning to blur and tumble. You weren´t dating anyone currently, but everybody knew you had enough options. Fred and George even made bets on it, secretly hoping one of them could win you for themselves. Each time the topic was discussed, Harry felt the pit in his stomach, digging deeper and deeper. He was the chosen one, but would you ever choose him?

Hermione noticed her friend beginning to trail off, but it wasn´t the right time to address it yet.

The weekend approached, the old game of Gryffindor against Slytherin was in everybody’s mouth. Harry was just getting dressed for the game, then his eyes fell back on his phone. He unlocked it and found himself back on Wizagram, you had posted a boomerang in your story with the Weasley twins. Both of them wore their Quidditch uniform and leaned forward to kiss your cheek. You wore a hat with the Gryffindor colors and a light dress in red, while grinning widely into the camera. “Rooting for my fave team!”

Both Fred and George as well the Gryffindor Quidditch Account, who was proudly run by Oliver Wood, were tagged in the story. Harry quickly scrolled past, realizing that each of the tagged Accounts had reposted your story. It was stupid to think you wouldn´t root for him, but he wasn´t tagged, was he?

It’s a stupid crush, Harry reminded himself, but even later when he stepped onto the field with the team, his eyes only searched for you in the crowd.

But you found his glance as well, offering him a reassuring smile. It´s all he needed, those very few seconds of your attention and the game started.

The game was at tie, but the rooting and shouts from the fans kept going either way. Harry tried to play cool as he searched the arena, secretly searching for you. As he found you again, you hadn´t even moved from your seat, he noticed your eyes guiding him. Just above the tower of the Hufflepuffs, the golden snitch hovered. He didn´t have time to rethink and his muscles moved on their own as he leaned forward to start rushing. Draco tried his best to follow, but he was at the other end, and Harry easily caught the snitch and held it up proudly.

“And Harry Potter proves again, Gryffindor is unbeatable this season!” The speakers echoed and the crowd went even more crazy than before. All Harry could think about however, was he had to thank you. But the moment he landed back on his feet, he was carried off to the Gryffindor room, where the party immediately started.

It felt like eternity, until he finally found you in the overfilled place. But there you stood, smiling innocently at him, like you had been waiting all along for him to approach.

“I think I owe you a thank you.”

You make it difficult to not overthink

And when I'm with you I turn all shades of pink,

I wanna touch you but don't wanna be weird

It's such a rush, I'm thinking wish you were here,

Harry had to lean forward in order for you to hear him, feeling as your hair brushed against his skin. You winked at him. “Yeah, you do, but we´ll keep it between us.”

He wanted to lean further, his hand twitched as he tried not to reach out and touch the bare skin of your arms. Even your smell felt divine to him. Before he could speak up again, Niall Atkinson, he was a year older than you, wrapped an arm around your waist.

“Y/n, let´s dance!” He offered loudly as he pulled you closer. In the same second, Ron, Fred and George swept Harry into their circle to begin dancing as well, even though it was more an uncontrolled jumping. Harry could only catch your apologizing glance, before the space closed and the two of you were pulled into different directions.

And I'm just tryna play it cool now

But that's not what I wanna do now

And I'm not tryna be with you now, you now

He truly wanted to celebrate the success with his team, but his attraction craved more of your presence. But what was he supposed to say? Sorry, I have to run after the girl, that everybody anyway wants and is also my best friends’ older sister, but my biggest crush?

No, he couldn’t.

So, he tried to overplay it, danced and jumped around with Ron, but the shine in his eyes was gone. Hermione sat on the stairs, glancing back and forth between you and Harry. She knew both of you well enough, to tell that neither of you were fully happy at the moment. An inaudible sigh escaped her mouth, what was once jealousy, turned into sadness. Yes, her best friend had the biggest crush on her sister, but what no one knew, was your crush. You had never told Hermione, or anyone for that matter, but the reason why you never accepted a date offer, was because the wrong people asked you out. Hermione didn´t fear losing Harry as a friend anymore, she much more feared that the two of you never even got a chance to be happy together, and instead ended unhappily alone. She had to do something.

Then, an idea formed in her brilliant mind.

You starred on your phone; Harry had sent you a dm on Wizagram. He had never texted you, your history simply persisted in you tagging him, when you posted stories. Usually, you hung around Hermione at the three broomsticks and more so often, you tagged the trio in your account.

I wanted to talk to you, can we meet outside at the corner to the girl’s bathroom?

Your heart skipped a beat, quickly you looked up to check, if anyone had noticed your blush, no one had. You couldn´t make out Harry either, but you quickly excused yourself from Niall. Whatever was happening, you found it quite exhilarating. You answered with a quick yes and Hermione hastily logged out of Harry´s account. Harry was a brilliant wizard with many talents, but writing down his password in his herbology book wasn´t the smartest move.

Hermione grinned, her plans always worked out.

But I could be your crush, like, throw you for a rush, like

Hopin' you'd text me so I could tell you

I been thinking 'bout your touch like

“Harry!” The brown-haired boy looked up to find his friend approaching him, Hermione smiled brightly. Almost too brightly, but Harry wasn´t focused enough to realize that something was up.

“Have you seen Y/n?”

Harry quickly shook his head and Hermione, good actress as she was, put on a thinking mien.

“I haven´t seen her as well, just wanted to make sure she´s okay, she´s been so quiet lately.”

“Quiet? I didn´t notice”, Harry explained and Hermione could literally watch how his thoughts began running around you. “I´m sure it´s nothing, but I think I´m going to check her room.”

“I can check outside!” Harry quickly announced, she had to suppress a laughter, he was easily tricked. But instead, Hermione nodded agreeing and while she only took the first few steps up, Harry hurried outside, not wasting any time. Only seconds before, you had left the room as well. Everything was coming together.

Touch, touch, touch, touch, touch

I could be your crush, crush, crush, crush, crush

I got a fascination with your presentation

Makin' me feel like you're on my island

You're my permanent vacation

Touch, touch, touch, touch, touch

You stood outside, hiding behind a corner and almost disappearing in a nook, but Harry immediately recognized your figure. You looked up from the phone in your hands and felt as a smile crawled upon your lips. Harry felt his heart fastening and he approached with swift feet.

“Hey, are you okay?” He asked with worries in his voice, your brows furrowed. Something felt off, but you pushed that feeling to the side. It was probably just your nervousness. “Yeah, I´m good, are you enjoying your party?”

Harry shrugged, his eyes traveling to the floor. “It´s always a bit of the same, isn´t it?”

You nodded agreeing and a short, awkward silence formed. “What was it, you wanted to talk to me about?”

Harry looked up, now confusion in his expression as well. He wondered, if you had noticed his change of behavior towards you. But he never mentioned it out loud, or did?

But you watched his reaction closely, something clearly was up and while Harry was still trying to piece everything together, you took out your phone again. Holding up the screen, which enlightened the dark hallway, you showed him the text.

“Y/n, I´m so sorry, I don´t know how… I didn´t send that text…” Harry stumbled over the words and regret rolled over him. It wasn´t his fault, and yet he felt responsible for pulling you away from the party. You on the other hand felt shame rising and your cheeks heated with fire. His text had seemed too surprising from the beginning on, you should´ve known better. You felt stupid and wanted to crawl into a deep, dark hole and never come out again. Stupid crush!

Letting out a loud sigh, you sat down on the bench of the nook, putting your hands to cover your face.

“Did you just say stupid crush?”

Oh, if it was heat in your cheeks before, then hell just got unleashed. Where is that hole of shame, when you needed it the most?

Harry carefully sat down next to you, with your hands still up, you only felt the slight air breeze. “I shouldn´t be saying this, you´re Hermione´s sister, but I like you.” He paused shortly.

“A lot. More than I ever should.”

Swiftly, you glanced through your fingers at him. “You do?”

Barely a whisper as you opened your mouth, but enough to watch as Harry nodded. Slowly you took down your hands, now starring at him with a blank expression.

“Why did you never say anything?”

Harry couldn´t help but huff. “Y/n, have you seen yourself? You´re school queen, nobody hates you, not even Draco Malfoy! You´re always on top of the grades and basically the entire Quidditch team has a crush on you. On the side, you´re head girl and you´re modeling for Feathers and Fabrics. And to all that, you don´t even realize, how undeniably stunning you look and how your kind words inspire me every day?”

I could be your crush, crush, crush, crush, crush

Sorry

And yeah, it's true that I'm a little bit intense, right

But can you blame me when you keep me on the fence, like?

And I've been waitin', hopin' that you'd wanna text like

Text like

It's what I was born to do

And yeah, it's true that I'm a little bit intense, right

As he spoke, you jumped off your seat, feeling a wave of way too many feelings rave inside of you. “Harry Potter!”

Finally, he looked up as well and just to find you gaping at him. “Why by Merlin´s beard, would I care about the Quidditch team? Do you think I don´t know about the bets going on, on who´s going to be my boyfriend? The only reason because I don´t have a boyfriend yet, is because the only boy I´m interested in, was too shy to ask me out! And imagine, he´s brave enough to fight Voldemort instead!”

It was Harry´s turn to search for that hole of shame and he couldn´t help, but facepalm himself. There was no way that the situation could’ve been more awkward and playing cool wasn´t an option either. You listened to your heartbeat slowing down and your chest lifted heavily after your outburst.

“If I had known about your crush…” You trailed off, your words now barely a whisper anymore.

And I'm just tryna play it cool now

But that's not what I wanna do now

And I'm not tryna be with you now, you now

Finally, Harry lifted himself off the bench as well, walking towards you. “I didn´t send that text, but maybe I can ask you out in real life?”

A shy smile was on his lips, it suited him so well in the dim light.

“I´d like that very much.”

Carefully, you leaned forward, feeling his warm breath on your skin. “But let´s not tell anyone just yet, we have to find a way to get back to my sister.”

Harry furrowed his eyebrow, but quickly realized as well, who had hacked his account.

“Sounds like a good plan.”

Grinning, you finally felt his warm lips brushing against yours. It had taken a couple of misleadings, but your crush had found its way in the end.

But I could be your crush, like, throw you for a rush, like

Hopin' you'd text me so I could tell you

I been thinkin' 'bout your touch like

#harry potter imagine #harry potter oneshot #harry potter x reader #daniel radcliffe #harry potter fanfiction #mariamermaidimagine

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sexywookieesquadron · 4 years ago

Text

Origins: Mey-Gon

Hey all, we’re finally ready to start sharing our OCs! This is the first chapter of OC Mey-Gon Niek’s backstory, created and written by Megan. We hope you enjoy and follow along as we introduce the rest squad and their wild adventures!

Word count: 1487

Chapter 1/9

Summary: How does a famous, wealthy party girl end up joining forces with a controversial paramilitary group like the Resistance?

Next Chapter

xxx

26 ABY, Hosnian Prime

Despite the minimalist styling, it was still one of the most luxurious rooms Mey-Gon had ever been in; and it was only the waiting room. Even as her eyes roamed, she had to squeeze the fingers of one hand tightly in the palm on the other to keep herself from fidgeting further. She didn’t want the secretary behind the desk in the corner to think that a professional like herself was nervous about being here.

Excited or nervous, she couldn’t really tell the difference anymore. All she knew was that she loved these kind of dizzying moments, the icy tingle of adrenaline in her veins. It was this addiction that drove her back again and again to nerve-racking auditions from the time she was ten years old until she’d started to land acting roles steadily enough to call it a career. Then, when her tolerance for the fear and pressure of the industry grew too strong, she had discovered a whole new threshold of exhilaration in the high-speed sport of swoop racing. She bought her first bike at sixteen and was racing competitively by eighteen. In the four years since she’d joined the sport, she had worked her way up to a mid-level league and started gaining a whole new kind of fanbase. It was ironic that her notoriety as a racer had probably helped land her the role that had brought her to this office but also resulted in her having to take the entire coming season off to shoot the holodrama. She had read the script, though, and the swoop chase scene she would be shooting more than made up for a missed season.

Her daydream about weaving a bike between giant trees was interrupted by the secretary looking up from her monitor and announcing, “Senator Organa is ready for you now.”

“Thank you,” Mey-Gon stood up and smoothed her dress.

The door next to the secretary’s desk slid open, and Mey-Gon paused to take a deep breath before walking through into the office beyond. As she entered, she saw the senator stand up from behind her own beautiful desk and walk around it to greet her with an outstretched hand.

“Lovely to meet you, Miss Niek,” the older woman said as they shook hands.

“It’s an absolute honor, Senator Organa,” Mey-Gon tried not to sound too giddy.

“Leia, please,” she said kindly, then swept her scrutinizing gaze up and down the actress’s tall frame, green eyes, and copper hair, “You look nothing like me.”

“That’s the magic of the business,” Mey-Gon assured her with a smile, “As long as I capture enough of your spirit, the visual wizards will do the rest.”

Leia gestured to a couch and admitted as they both settled in, “I must say, Mey-Gon, I have not seen any of your previous work. Politicking doesn’t allow for much leisure time to watch holovids.”

Unfazed, she maintained her energetic smile, “Oh, that’s all right. I doubt many of them have made it as far as the Core anyway. I’m only well-known in my home system of Haidoral and maybe a few other Mid Rim worlds. Maybe someday, though, yeah? This part is definitely a step towards galactic fame.”

Leia let out a genuine chuckle, “You have my ambition, at least. How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

She smiled and nodded, “About the same age as my son, then. So you won’t remember anything of the Galactic Civil War, yourself.”

“No, ma’am. The battle on Haidoral Prime happened a year before I was born. I’ve only ever known the New Republic. But I’ve studied so much about you and those last years of the war. This holodrama is going to start with the Battle of Endor and cover the first few years of establishing the government. I know the whole plot: your victory, your marriage, your training with your brother, the signing of the Galactic Concordance, and the birth of your son. The beats are clear, I just need to know how each of these events made you feel . What was going through your mind?”

A veil of nostalgia fell over the senator’s pleasant expression, “Well, well, that is a lot to cover. Let’s start at Endor…”

The next hour and a half barely got them through the subject of Jedi training, but it took them on a roller coaster of emotions all the way. Leia seemed guarded with some details, but generous with her feelings. Mey-Gon studied her carefully, memorizing her mannerisms, cadence of speaking, and all the other subconscious details she would need in order to portray a convincing version of this amazing woman. At the same time, she engaged in the conversation by asking more probing questions or drawing parallels to her own limited life experience, hoping to find real emotional memories to draw on in her performance.

Gradually, a bond began to form between the two and both were shocked when Leia’s secretary peeked in to let her boss know that it was past time to shut down the office and remind her of her dinner reservations. How had the time gone so fast? To Mey-Gon’s surprise, Leia barely hesitated before inviting her to join the dinner and continue their conversation. She accepted immediately and felt that delicious prickling of excitement return. Dinner at a fancy restaurant on Hosnian Prime with Leia Organa? Dreams really could come true.

When they arrived, Mey-Gon was more relieved than ever that she had decided to wear one of her nicest dresses for this meeting and had sculpted her hair into a fashionable style to match. If only her accessories had been just a little more expensive, she would have fit in perfectly with the clientele of the restaurant. The only person dressed more casually than her was their dinner companion, who still managed to take her breath away when he stood up to greet her as they arrived.

“Mey-Gon,” Leia introduced, “Meet my husband, Han.”

“Pleased to meet you,” she whispered in awe as she held out her hand.

Nearly as legendary as the senator, herself, Han Solo was also still an incredibly charming, handsome man. Clearly he caught the dazzle in Mey-Gon’s eyes, so in lieu of a handshake, he brought her fingers up to his mouth for a polite kiss.

“Happy you could join us,” he said.

Leia shook her head with a scolding smile and slapped her husband’s arm gently, “Still such a scoundrel. Sit down, Han, and order us some drinks.”

Mey-Gon couldn’t stop smiling as she settled around the table with the couple, “I do hope I’m not imposing on an occasion or anything…”

“You’re fine, kid,” Han waved a dismissive hand, “We’ve just been eating out a lot because it’s easier than cooking at home. Leia has a habit of working late, as you probably know. I’m guessing you’re one of the new aides or, Force forbid, a lobbyist?”

“Worse,” she grinned, “Actress.”

“Mey-Gon will be playing me in an upcoming holodrama,” Leia explained.

“Oh, yeah?” he gave her another once-over, “You don’t look like nearly enough of a pain in the ass.”

Mey-Gon hid her laugh behind her hand as Leia combined her knowing smile with a glare. Looking pretty pleased with himself, Han paused for the arrival of their wine, then swirled his around and smoothly continued, “So who do they got playing me?”

“I look forward to finding out,” she admitted, “We won’t really meet until training. Production has us scheduled for some kind of bootcamp for the action scenes. I have to admit, I’m pretty excited to learn how to shoot a blaster.”

Leia sipped her wine thoughtfully, then looked at Han with a wistful smile, “Can you believe a generation has grown up without ever needing to handle a weapon?”

They shared something meaningful through their eyes, then Han reached over to hold his wife’s hand as he turned back to Mey-Gon proudly, “I’ve seen this woman take out a stormtrooper from a hundred yards and pilot a swoop bike through a thick forest, so that better be some kind of bootcamp.”

“I’m sure she’ll do fine,” Leia said, “Mey-Gon is already a swoop racing champion on Haidoral Prime.”

Han looked impressed, so the young woman humbly clarified, “Only a two-time winner of the Haidoral Besh-class Circuit Tour. I’m still hoping to get invited to the pro league.”

“Not bad, not bad,” he nodded, “So I’m guessing you gals already talked about Endor, then?”

“We covered it thoroughly,” Leia assured him, “But you are joining us just in time to discuss the signing of the Galactic Concordance and Ben’s birth.”

“Now, that was quite a day,” Han raised his eyebrows and took a long drink, “Maybe one of the best days of our lives.”

Mey-Gon leaned back with her wine glass poised in front of her lips and eyes glittering with interest, “Tell me all about it…”

#star wars #star wars oc #mey-gon niek #rebel alliance #new republic #resistance #fan fic

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dmintraining · 3 years ago

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im about to just gush about my halfling family with no coherency so youve been warned

ok so my whole dnd experience began with one lightfoot halfling level one bard called eoifira maplefoot. i knew i wanted her to be Not A Good Person, but also didn't feel comfortable playing a bitch when i didn't know anything about the other players in the party, so i did what any normal person would do: i encorperated pretending to be nice to get what she wants into her back story.

eoifira's backstory time! (where we get introduced to the character i will play this summer, llwella, and a character i am desperate to play at some stage, erling) middle child of turpin and grace maplefoot (grace's maiden name was proudfoot), eoifira was taught to entertain by her grandmother on her mother's side. her mother's family ran the only inn and bar on a small island, but when her father married her mother, his parents moved in too. so, under one house, we have the proudfoot grandparents : otto and mary, and the maplefoot grandparents : hildegard and basso. turpin and grace had three children together, their eldest daughter, llwella, is two years older than eoifira, and their youngest is their son, erling.

like i said, mary taught eoifira how to entertain, through story telling, playing the lute, and playing the spoons. the two performed regularly in the bar. llwella was never a people person, but people liked her well enough and she was a wizard behind the bar from a young age. erling played a bigger role in the running of the inn than the bar, as he was far more gentle than his eldest sister and much less self-centered than eoifira.

running the only inn and bar meant that these three kids met a wide variety of folks, and for eoifira, that turned out to be a huge problem. a 16 year old eoifira met a 29 year old halfling wanderer with a chip on her shoulder, and became fast friends with her. by the time she was 18, eoifira had been indoctrinated into this other halfling's way of life : she would regularly travel to the mainland to aid in the slaughter the nobles who were partially responsible for the poverty of her island. the duo did not limit their targets based on age, if they were of noble descent, they were fair game. initially, eoifira was merely the distraction, flirting with guards and playing the damsel in distress while her girlfriend actually did the killing, but over time eoifira's hands became just as bloody.

no one could prove it was them, but popular opinion was that the girlfriend was the perpetrator, and when a 19 year old eoifira announced to her mother that she wanted to propose, grace maplefoot panicked and locked her daughter in her room. eventually, eoifira's would-be-fiancé stopped showing up at the island, and grace felt safe enough letting eoifira go about her chores on the island. one day, eoifira asks her mother for help out in the fields, where she'd offered to harvest the crops for an elderly neighbour. naturally, her mother agreed, thinking she'd be able to reconnect with her daughter, and explain why she did what she did, and to apologise.

she never got the chance. eoifira slit her throat in the field, disguised herself as a cabin boy using the uniform of a boy she'd murdered that morning, and escaped on a ship to the mainland before anyone even really noticed grace wasn't working the desk of the inn as usual.

on the mainland, eoifira searched for her lover. she found a grave. her lover had been trialed, convicted, and executed for the murders. she had never mentioned an accomplice.

unable to return to her homeland, and with the person she'd carefully curated her personality for dead, eoifira was at a loss.

unTIL she runs into a travelling group in the woods of rouges and college of whispers bards who live as they please, taking what they want. eoifira made a slight adaptation to her personality, so that instead of killing for a Cause, she would kill with Purpose: to get food/gold/possessions the group needed or wanted. unfortunately, eoifira fell in love with one of the bards, and thought it would be safe to come clean to him about her past in its entirety.

he was repulsed. she made a dramatic change to her personality, now advocating for sparing peoples lives; she was now a pacifist. eventually, the man she was in love with came around to her, and they got engaged, and lobbied for the party to become more merciful. the party got sick of their bullshit, and sprung an attack on the couple, killing her fiancé stone dead right in front of her. standing at a whopping three feet with an armor class of 13 and very little training as a bard, eoifira knew she didn't stand a chance, so she fell to her knees and started begging, claiming her lover her threatened to kill her if she hadn't done what she did. they believed her, the idiots.

that night, she went around to their individual tents and slit their throats as they slept.

once again alone in the world, and now in her 40's, eoifira began her life on the run, never really staying in one town for too long, preforming in taverns in return for lodgings and food. there's more on her, but im going to take us back to the island, the day of the murder.

llwella actually discovers the body. she and her sister were close (or so she thought), so initially llwella thought that whatever had slaughtered her mother had gotten to eoifira too, and went into mourning with the rest of the family. then, the murder of the cabin boy came to light. with very little digging, llwella followed the blood trail eoifira had left behind before and during her time with the party, and by the end of her investigation, became certain her sister had murdered her mother. she never felt as peaceful as the rest of her family- she had a horrible temper and a tendency to drag out grudges for longer than was healthy, but this discovery ignighted a rage in her that did not subside when she lashed out like she normally would. she knew she needed to be more proactive about this anger, and eventually joined a monkhood : the way of mercy. they were helping her work on her anger by channeling her energy into her job, which initially was to kill the patients who were beyond saving (think nurse ratched type), but as she progressed, she became responsible for reinforcing quarantines by any means necessary. eventually, she hit a block. she'd managed to work through most of the sources of her anger and use the energy productively, but try as they might, her fury towards her sister was too strong- it came to a point where it was affecting her work with the monks. they told her she needed to find and forgive eoifira if she ever wanted to progress.

llwella left to find her sister alright, but with no intention of forgiving her. she was going to end her sister if it was the last thing she did.

she spent years trying to find her, staying in inns she knew eoifira had preformed in and following her faint yet distinct trail left from her performances and charisma.

unbeknownst to llwella, she actually caught up to eoifira.

one evening, eoifira was sitting in a dark corner of an inn she'd just finished preforming in, having a nightcap before turning in for the night, when her sister appears. she sees llwella check in for the night at the desk, before immediately heading up to bed. eoifira moves to the desk, and starts flirting non-stop with the receptionist, flustering them so much that she manages to see the bookings list without getting noticed. she knows what room her sister is in.

in the wee hours of the morning, eoifira sneaks into her sister's room and slits her throat, running away before making sure she'd bled out.

luckily for llwella, there was a cleric in the vicinity, who'd been up late with night terrors, and heard her helpless gargling as he made his way back to bed. he was young, and only half-trained, and while llwella survived, her wound tends to seep blood and pus when she exherts herself to expend a ki point, and her voice is low, gravely, and prone to breaking. she has not yet come that close to her sister again.

back to their hometown : after their mother passed and the family went into grieving, erling, while mourning just as much as the others, subtly kept both of the family businesses running. there was a brief period of time where his father and his grandparents began to take up the reins again, but the workload fell on him once again once it was discovered eoifira was not in fact, dead, but on the run after having killed many people, mary included. when llwella joined the way of mercy, erling became enamoured with the idea of healing people. he loved his sisters, despite now having severe mixed feelings about eoifira, but he wanted to heal, he wanted to help people plain and simple. he didn't want to kill for fun like eoifira, but he didn't want to kill for mercy like llwella, he wanted to heal. but he was stuck behind a till and a bar for several years, until the proudfoots, now well into the ends of their lives, decided to sell the bar. his father took full responsibility for the inn, and with all four grandparents helping out here and there, erling felt comfortable enough to go out and chase his dream. unable to afford medical school, he reluctantly reached out to the monks his eldest sister had joined. he was upfront about his hang-ups about their practices, but opened up about his quiet and private worship of one of the deities they worship, mishakal. they directed him to a local collection of life clerics who worshipped the same goddess, and he became very happy there with them, at ease.

im yet to decide what whips him out of his peaceful life with these clerics and into a life of adventuring, but im pretty sure it will have something to do with either llwella or eoifira dragging him out either directly or indirectly (i have a feeling llwella might go missing, and it might be up to her brother to find her (because while eoifira doesn't hate her sister, she has pretty much washed her hands of her family))

#chats #dnd #dnd character #dnd original character #maplefoots #eoifira #llwella #erling #halfling supremacy

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save-the-spiral · 5 years ago

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Do you have any headcanons about what Malistair thought about the young wizard through out the first arc? Like, did he just hate them or was it a bit more complicated? Did his feelings change at all at the end? I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

I tend to not write about Malistaire, but as soon as I read your ask it just hit me so here. Warnings for death.

At first, it didn’t even register that this was the grand adventuring party that Ambrose sent out to vanquish him. Yes, Malistaire recognized the child from their unfortunate meeting in Golem Court, but he never would have suspected that a wizard barely enrolled would be sent off on such a dangerous quest.

Malistare still follows through with his plan- it has to work, a young wizard will not stand in the way of that- but some of his ideas are toned down. He burdens dangerous beasts with smaller ones to get in their way, never finds allies too intelligent. For some reason he does not make things impossible. He makes it so the young wizard, barely even a teenager, would not die at the very least.

He doesn’t think about it when he does it. Malistaire was stuck on the denial stage of grief, and he would not change that even if he was purposefully sabotaging himself in order to ensure another life is not lost aside from his own.

He sees the confusion, the almost dazed look in the young wizard’s eyes when they finally meet again at the top of Big Ben. For a moment it is silent, but Malistaire speaks, monologues, because otherwise Meowiarty would take things into his own paws and go too far.

Malistaire has to leave- He has the Krokonomicon, and simply needs to get the key to Dragonspyre. He leaves for Mooshu, but anytime his mind is not consumed with thoughts of Sylvia it is of the young wizard. Just how short they are, how wide their eyes got with fear when they saw him. How they would surely be missing many classes to chase after him.

In another universe, a different Spiral, Malistaire would have taught them. He would just be another adult sworn to care for them, teach them.

Some part of that hurt, distantly. The overwhelming wound of Sylvia’s loss hurt more, however. So Malistaire continues on.

In Dragonspyre, in the time where he has to make a final choice, go all in, he goes for it, knowing that the young wizard is soon to arrive and attempt to stop him.

And they do. Slightly older. Their eyes are not as bright.

The battle is hard. They do not speak, and when it is just Malistaire and them, all summoned allies gone, Malistaire cannot help but close his eyes at times, listening to the roar of the wind, almost choking on the sulfuric stench, the knowledge that the Dragon Titan looms behind him enough to send him stumbling at times when he makes mistakes.

If only Sylvia were here now, to tell him what to do. To give him guidance, peace.

The young wizard is so small, and that old fear comes back when they see a bone dragon cast for the first time, and Malistaire feels guilt like a lead weight in his chest.

He knows this battle only ends with one person living, and no matter how much he wants his wife to live again, he cannot bring himself to kill a child. Not when they still carry the Ravenwood crest.

Malistaire hits that acceptance stage very quickly. He makes mistakes he never would in his right mind, and falls under the spell of a child who looks far too relieved to watch him die.

And then he sees Sylvia again, and nothing else matters.

#ask #lacina-and-lucy #wizard101 #wizzy101 #writing #malistaire drake

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imagitory · 5 years ago

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Just thought I’d share a little of my progress in the game Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery! Right now I’ve just started year 5, and yeah, while the game definitely isn’t perfect, I’m having fun! If you want to read more about my character, I put in a cut! (Sorry about my character holding hands with your character Alana’s bae, @weasleyismyking540 -- if I could’ve picked Chiara as Carewyn’s other half instead, I would have!)

My character, Carewyn “Cursebreaker” Cromwell, although she resembles me quite a bit visually, isn’t exactly like me, but one thing that she and I do share is a love of fashion! She changes outfits all the time depending on what she’s doing, from wearing all black when she was tailing Rakepick to wearing the Weasley sweater she got from Bill when she was trying to become Prefect. The outfit she’s wearing in her screenshots and in the biggest sketch I did is her usual “adventure” outfit, though she will break out the black version when she needs to be stealthy, like when she sneaked into the Forbidden Forest in fourth year. She also managed to become a Prefect, despite her disregard for the rules! In my head, I imagine it’s largely due to her maternal streak, rather than any astounding respect for rules and regulations: even if she’s a Slytherin, she likes protecting and looking after other people, especially social outcasts, since she herself has had to deal with a decent amount of people misjudging her.

Backstory -- Carewyn is the second child and only daughter of the half-blood Cromwell family. Her father, Evan Bach, was a Muggle who left his family when his son Jacob received his Hogwarts letter and his wife, Lane, revealed her magical ancestry to him. After that, both Jacob and Carewyn took on their mother’s maiden name, Cromwell. Carewyn was a late-in-life surprise for her parents, being born only two years before Jacob started at Hogwarts. Jacob disappeared when Carewyn was eight years old, and ever since, Carewyn has been starved for news about her lost brother. Part of her worries that Jacob -- a Ravenclaw who was kind of obsessed with learning and achieving every single thing he could -- has gotten roped in with some bad people or, worse, that he might not even want to be found, so as to not shame her or their mother or to keep them from harm. Whatever his reason is, though, Carewyn knows she has to find out what happened to Jacob and remove the shadow of the Cursed Vaults looming over her if she has any hope of living her life the way she wants. Carewyn is close with her mother, Lane, but has greatly downplayed her involvement with the Cursed Vaults so as not to worry her.

Carewyn’s biggest flaw is her pride. Although she’s made a lot of friends at Hogwarts, she has difficulty showing vulnerability and tries to be perfect in absolutely everything she does. If she doesn’t think she can do something, Carewyn tends to ignore it and/or pretend it doesn’t matter. To complicate matters, when she started at Hogwarts, she actually dreamed of doing all of the normal things Hogwarts students do, like joining clubs, the Quidditch team, and the Frog Choir, but because of her brother Jacob and the Cursed Vaults, she’s had to basically put all of her more selfish ambitions on the back burner. After writing to her mother for advice, Carewyn selflessly gave up her spot in the Frog Choir -- something she really, really wanted -- to Merula with the thought that since she earned the spot once, she could always get it back the following year when there would be room for both her and Merula, but even that ended up having to be put off because of her quest to find the Cursed Vaults. Carewyn enjoys watching and playing Quidditch, but is reluctant to commit to the Slytherin team because she’s afraid of letting them down. Carewyn is actually kind of a stick in the mud too! Unlike her brother Jacob, Carewyn is a meticulous organizer and planner who believes everything has its place, and despite liking Tonks and Tulip quite a bit personality-wise, she can’t stand the idea of most pranks, thinking they end up really mean-spirited and kind of stupid rather than anything funny. (This of course only makes her a fantastic target for pranks among her friends, who think she needs to lighten up!) Appropriate to a Slytherin, though, Carewyn can also be a little manipulative -- despite having a very strong moral compass, she isn’t above putting on an innocent face, playing mind games, or out right lying if it’ll help her reach her goals. She likes to look her best around everyone, both in her fashion sense and in how she behaves, and she hates it when her more negative impulses or insecurities peek through. Her biggest insecurity is her lack of control about her own life. Because she feels like she’s the one with the most drive to find the Cursed Vaults and break their enchantments, Carewyn has subconsciously assumed all responsibility for the fall-out and blames herself if anyone else is put in danger because of her search for her brother or because of the Vaults. She wants to control absolutely everything in her life, but the most she can control nearly all of the time is her attitude, her workspace, and how she presents herself, so she does so. Her greatest fear would be a threat she’d have no hope of controlling or overcoming -- namely, Voldemort.

Relationship-wise, Carewyn’s closest friends are Chiara, Bill, Talbott, Charlie, and Barnaby. She also really respects the eccentric Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, Orion, and fancies Ravenclaw’s own “Style Wizard,” Andre Egwu, who shares her love of Quidditch and fashion. The thing Carewyn likes best about Andre is how passionate he is about his interests and therefore how much fun their conversations are. Fortunately Carewyn’s interest is reciprocated -- Andre and Carewyn attended the Celestial Ball together and have now been on two dates, one at Madame Puddifoot’s and one in one of the Hogwarts Greenhouses after a Valentine’s party hosted by Gilderoy Lockhart that neither of them remember very well. (META NOTE: As mentioned, I probably would’ve paired Carewyn with Chiara if ANY of the dating events would’ve let me, but I really like Andre too. And after choosing him for the Celestial Ball, it only felt right for Carewyn to stick with him, as I see her as a very monogamous sort, relationship-wise.)

Carewyn latched onto Chiara very quickly because of her “outcasted” status as a werewolf, and since then, she’s sort of become Chiara’s own personal Sirius Black, using her hawk Animagus form to keep Chiara company when she transforms. The Weasley family (Bill especially) sort of filled the hole that Jacob left in Carewyn’s life, but because Carewyn loves magical creatures, she really enjoys talking about dragons with Charlie and everything else with Barnaby. (Barnaby really enjoys whenever Carewyn sings to the creatures she’s working with to try to calm them down.) Carewyn was also pleasantly surprised to find out that Talbott enjoys poetry, given that she loves the arts (music especially), so she encourages him wholeheartedly in his writing, even if her enthusiasm kind of weirds Talbott out a bit. (He likes it, though.) Carewyn clashes most with Tulip (largely because of Carewyn’s aforementioned dislike of mischief), Ismelda (her sadistic streak turns Carewyn off big time), Skye (Carewyn was really upset when Skye started telling rumors about Erika Rath without any proof!), and Professor Rakepick (who Carewyn at present doesn’t trust at all, but will be play nicely with if it’ll help her find out what happened to her brother). (META NOTE: I also adore that Carewyn and Rakepick have some physical similarities, even though that wasn’t on purpose -- it just makes for great visual symbolism, considering that Rakepick is clearly trying to groom Carewyn as one of her apprentices!) Carewyn is also pretty protective of Ben and now Penny, since her younger sister Bea has gotten trapped in a portrait thanks to the Vaults’ most recent curse.

Although the so-called “Most Powerful Witch at Hogwarts,” Merula Snyde, would love it if she were Carewyn’s main rival at school, Carewyn’s kind of gotten tired of the old song and dance Merula’s done with her these last five years and now tends to just ignore her terrible behavior. When Merula is willing to play nice, Carewyn’s glad for her help, but she honestly just isn’t interested in indulging Merula when she’s being awful anymore (which is often). And as much as Carewyn may think of Merula as immature and irritating, she knows that Merula had it rough growing up and that the two of them have a few things in common, like their love of music, and her mother (who was a Ravenclaw like her brother) would counsel her to choose the more peaceful route over active hostility. Carewyn wouldn’t call Merula a friend exactly, but she’s more of an ally of an enemy purely out of necessity, and for that, Carewyn shows Merula the base level of compassion and respect, but nothing more.

Carewyn’s favorite professors are Flitwick -- who taught her about Wizard Dueling and teaches her favorite class, Charms -- and McGonagall -- the one teacher who she respects above all others and would never have the heart to lie to. Being a Slytherin, Carewyn also trusts Snape’s judgement, even if she gets little of the standard favoritism from him: she was all too eager to try to help him spy on Rakepick. She also adores Care of Magical Creatures and probably would enjoy History of Magic more if Professor Binns didn’t teach the class, since her mother Lane works as a magical historian.

Carewyn’s love of magical creatures has prompted her to adopt several pets and magical creatures on the Hogwarts grounds. Her most constant companion is her orange tabby cat Mimi (named for the halfhearted “meows” she gives), but Tulip also gave Carewyn a toad she named Sir Robin the Brave, or “Robin” for short (kudos to anyone who gets the reference!!). At the magical creature preserve, Carewyn has trained a Niffler named Wicket, a Fairy named Belle, a Welsh Green Dragon named Esmeralda, a Porlock named Tumnus, and an Abraxan Winged Horse named Arjuna. Carewyn’s connection with her Abraxan is also beautifully reflected in her Patronus, which is also a Winged Horse.

I’m looking forward to seeing where my curse-breaking baby goes from here! For those of you who have advanced further in the game than me, I can’t wait to catch up with you!

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scoutception · 4 years ago

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Final Fantasy II review

One of the most interesting parts of the Final Fantasy series, and a big reason why I’m so fond of it, is that every main series game takes its own approach to the gameplay. From the job systems of III and V, the Materia system of VII, the Junctioning system of VIII, or the straight up action combat of XV, every game has a different focus that makes them stand out, and while the results can certainly fall short at times, it’s still something worth commending. For example, take the subject of today’s review, Final Fantasy II. For the second game in the series, and a game that came out in 1988, it’s a huge step up from the original game in a lot of ways. A much more detailed plot, containing several defined playable and supporting characters, a much more experimental battle system, the introduction of many elements, gameplay and otherwise, that would establish a true identity for the series, away from just being a ripoff of Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition, it’s an impressive and critical step forward for the series. Unfortunately for the game, it hasn’t been 1988 in over 30 years, and it’s now easily the weakest game in the series in my opinion. As for why that is, well, that’s what we’re taking a look at today. As with the first game, I’m reviewing the PSP version. Note I’ll be pretty lax with spoilers, so take caution, if you actually care to avoid spoilers.

Story: Final Fantasy II takes place in an entirely different world than Final Fantasy I, a tradition that every main series game would follow. The peace of this world is shattered after the rise of Emperor Mateus of Palamecia, who, bent on world domination, raises a fearsome army and unleashes the denizens of Hell upon the land, conquering a large portion of the world. The city of Fynn organizes a large resistance effort, only to be attacked by the Emperor’s army, forcing a small remnant to flee to the town of Altair, establishing the Wild Rose Rebellion, led by Princess Hilda. During the fall of Fynn, four youths, Firion, Maria, Guy, and Leon, attempted to escape as well, only to be attacked and left for dead by the Emperor’s soldiers, with Leon going missing as well. Rescued by the rebellion, and healed by the white wizard Minwu, Firion, Maria, and Guy, having nothing left to return to, and wishing to search for the missing Leon, join the rebellion to fight back against Palamecia. Meanwhile, the Emperor, his army having taken heavy losses taking Fynn, takes to devising much less conventional methods of establishing his rule, starting with a massive airship called the Dreadnought, meant to scare the populace into obedience, on threat of total destruction.

Compared to the very light plot of Final Fantasy I, the story here is much more involved. Instead of wandering between locations more or less aimlessly, there’s always an explicit plot reason to go to new locations, the party being given tasks like finding mythril to supply the rebellion with better equipment, or trying to recruit potential allies. Compared to the party in the first game just being completely blank slates, the party consists of the more distinctive Firion, Maria, and Guy, with the fourth slot being filled by various guest characters that come and go as the story goes on, such as Gordon, the prince of the fallen kingdom of Kashuan, and Ricard Highwind, the last of the dragoons, and there’s actually an established side cast, including characters like Hilda, the leader of the rebellion and princess of Fynn, Paul, a noble thief assisting the rebellion, and Cid, a former knight who maintains the world’s only airship, with this notably being Cid’s first appearance in the series.

Final Fantasy II is also very noticeably darker than the first game. While the plot circumstances of the first game weren’t exactly cheerful, with the world falling apart due to the influence of the Fiends, outside of a select few towns, this wasn’t very obvious, and the game overall carried a bright, adventurous feel. Not so with Final Fantasy II, where the Emperor is a much more prominent and ruthless villain who’s already conquered or ruined a majority of the world, always keeping another plan on standby, and staying one step ahead of the heroes. Many characters die over the story, from random NPCs to even temporary party members, and the game overall carries a prominent melancholic, empty feel to it, one that’s very impressive considering the time it was made.

To be honest, however, it actually goes a bit too far in this regard. Almost everything the protagonists accomplish comes at the cost of allies dying, or something preventing them from fully completing their mission. Many NPCs are pessimistic about the chances of humanity being able to win against the Emperor, and so much destruction is wrought upon the world by the end that it seems there’s not even much left to save. From the very beginning of the game, which starts with your party instantly being destroyed in an unwinnable battle, the game is nothing but a constant stream of death and hollow victories, with plenty of characters you can find mourning their losses, and there’s very, very few points in the story that offer any sort of relief from it. Combined with the Emperor barely seeming bothered by anything the party accomplishes, and running circles around them more than a few times, it’s very easy to simply lose any investment in the story.

The characters unfortunately only add to this lack of investment. It’s hard to hold it against the game, but the main party of Firion, Maria, and Guy is still easily the least developed cast in the series. They have little dialogue to themselves to begin with, and have very minimal personality traits, especially Firion, who pretty much only exists to be the hero by default. Additionally, whereas in most RPGs, the cast’s varying personalities and skills tend to gain importance, here, the only skill any of them have is Guy being able to talk to beavers, which only comes up once in a way that doesn’t even affect the story, and, again, they have nearly no personality otherwise, which totals out to each of them having, at best, 1 moment each throughout the story where they’re not completely interchangeable with each other, which barely elevates them above the completely blank slate party of FF1.

The guest party members and NPCs fair a bit better, but not by much. The guests tend to be at least mildly interesting, like the fatalistic Minwu, the cowardly Gordon, who learns to be courageous as the story goes on, to the pirate girl Leila, but they’re still nothing special, and there’s surprisingly few other NPCs, most of which aren’t too memorable either. Even the Emperor himself is about one of the most stereotypical evil emperor characters you could have, not helped by the very few scenes he gets. That’s not to say he’s a bad villain, though. His successfulness does create a presence that looms over the entire story, and he pulls off one of the coolest plot twists in the series; after being killed by the party in a very easy battle late in the game, he simply returns as a demon himself, having become far, far stronger than he had ever been in life, to the point of taking over Hell itself. It’s such a unique and unexpected twist on the seemingly weak political villain that it alone cements the Emperor as one of the more memorable villains in the series. Overall, while the writing of the game is quite impressive for the time, and laid a good deal of groundwork for the improved writing of future entries, it’s just passable at best nowadays.

Gameplay: Here’s where things really start falling apart. On the surface, not much the combat doesn’t seem terribly different from Final Fantasy I, with it still being a standard turn based system with basic commands like attacking, using magic, and defending. The big differences in Final Fantasy II’s combat lie in the character progression. The first game had you simply selecting a party of 4 classes at the start of the game, gradually making them stronger across the game by leveling them up and acquiring specific equipment and spells for each, like pretty much every normal JRPG. FF2, on the other hand, uses a much more complex system. Every party member is capable of using every weapon and learning every spell, in the process abandoning the D&D system of set spell charges and instead introducing the traditional MP system, and characters are not set in specialized classes and roles. Instead, FF2 discards the usual EXP based leveling system, and instead uses a stat leveling system, where the individual stats of each character level up separately depending on the course of battle, and while each character starts with predetermined stats that favor a particular role for them, with enough grinding, you can still reshape them however you wish. This stat growth system would later be used and refined for the SaGa series, and it’s a very ambitious attempt at improving upon the party building system the first game established.

In total, there are 12 main stats that can be increased through battle: HP, your health points, which is raised in regular intervals, or losing HP in battle, MP, magic points that allow you to use spells, which is raised by having MP reduced in battle, Strength, which determines your physical attack, and is raised by using the attack command, Magic, which determines how much MP you get when it is gained, and is raised by having MP reduced in battle, Spirit, which determines the strength of white magic spells, and is raised by casting white magic in battle, Intelligence, which determines the strength of black magic spells, and is raised casting black magic in battle, Stamina, which determines how much HP you get when it is gained, and is increased by losing HP in battle, Evasion, which determines how likely a character can dodge physical attacks, and is raised by being targeted by attacks in battle, Agility, which factors into evasion calculation, and is raised by having high evasion, and Magic Defense, which determines how resilient a character is to offensive magic, and is raised by being targeted by offensive magic in battle.

However, it doesn’t stop there, as individual weapon types and spells also have levels that can be raised, which is done so by gaining skill points in them by attacking or casting them during battle. Once enough skill points are gained, they advance to the next level, with the hard cap being 16. Gaining weapon levels allows that character to be more accurate and attack more times at once with that type of weapon, and raising spell levels increases their power and makes them more accurate. Each weapon type, consisting of swords, spears, axes, staves, knives, bows, shields, and unarmed, have different attributes, such as spears being a relatively balanced type, with lower individual power than swords and axes, but higher accuracy, while bows are allow characters to attack from the newly introduced back row, which makes them immune to physical attacks, but prevents them from attacking with any other weapon type. While focusing on one weapon type with each character would seem the most efficient, the game only tends to give you one or two weapons of each type at a time, many of which have good boosts in power or added effects, making focusing on a few different types a decent idea.

Shields are unique in that, while equipping them doesn’t raise your defense as might be expected, and actually lower your attack, they give large evasion bonuses that makes dodging attacks much easier, and have the chance of blocking a physical attack completely even if something does connect, all of which increases as you gain levels in it. As for other defensive equipment, you have heavy and light types of armor, with light armor giving less defense bonuses than their heavier counterparts, but not weighing nearly as much, and thus leaving you much more evade. As for spells, they start out very underpowered, and have awful accuracy in the case of buff and debuff spells, but become much more effective after a few levels, with the downside of them costing more MP to cast with each level gained. Characters can learn up to 16 spells, and are free to remove them at any time, at the cost of having to level them again from scratch if they ever relearn them. Instead of simply learn spells by buying them in towns, spells are instead learned from tomes, which can be bought from shops, found in treasure chests, or dropped from enemies. Using them on the field teaches a character that spell, while using the tomes in battle instead casts a high level version of the spell, at the cost of losing that tome.

Unfortunately, as creative as this all is, this system has some serious issues. The main one, which you have already guessed, is that the game is incredibly, incredibly grindy because of these mechanics, and in a much worse way than most other RPGs. While not every stat is going to be important for each character, depending on how you build them, there’s still a lot of things it forces you to keep track of. Even if you want to make a dedicated mage, sticking in the back row with a bow for the whole game will leave them with so little vitality and HP that they’ll just be uncomfortably fragile, and with the magic attacks enemies have by the endgame, you really want to keep them in the front row for a good part of the game. Most spells, including important ones like Life and Esuna, for reviving party members and removing status effects respectively, while extremely useful, have such horrible accuracy to start that they’re completely useless before you level them up, and the weapon distribution is quite unbalanced, with swords having easily the best selection even in the midgame, essentially leaving most other types as stopgaps.

While you might level your important stats a good bit just naturally going through areas, trying to deliberately level any of them is a commitment. While HP, strength, spirit, intelligence, and magic defense tend to come easily enough, increasing stamina often only happens through the loss of a large chunk of their maximum HP, which, obviously, preferably doesn’t happen on a regular basis. This goes likewise for MP and magic, which is rather irritating, as not only do you need more and more MP as your spells level up, but ways to restore MP are extremely limited and costly. The bizarre loop of agility factoring in to evasion increasing, while itself only leveling up based on your current evasion, means that the only reliable way of increasing either is to equip the lightest equipment you have. While leveling up weapon levels is easy enough, especially since you can dual wield different types at once, leveling up spells is a much slower process, with casting low level spells during random encounters, even those that won’t actually help at the moment, often being one of the only feasible ways to get them leveled quick. You may even be tempted to ignore magic beyond simple spells like Cure because of the individual effort needed, but the game will quickly hammer the importance of magic into you; from the randomly encountered flans and bombs that either have absurd physical defense or tend to explode if not fully defeated in one turn, with magic being the only reasonable way to take them out, to mandatory bosses that hit quite hard, and also have enough physical defense to make physical attacks nearly worthless without absurd grinding, you’re not getting through the early game without dedicating some time to magic. On the flip side, another early dungeon has a boss that outright absorbs magic, making physical attacks the only way to beat it.

The game has quite a reputation for being brutal, and it’s not inaccurate, with most dungeons being more than glad to beat you down without remorse, and there’s tons of troublesome enemies to be found throughout the game, doubly so if you try to go for all the treasure chests in the area, as many of them are guarded by encounters called monster-in-a-box, which are often much more powerful than other encounters around. Most bosses are more than happy to make your life miserable too, especially the infamous Lamia Queen and Behemoth. However, this difficulty is in no way fair or well designed. While the growth system can easily leave you unsure as to whether or not you’re prepared for a dungeon, since you have no easy guideline to go off of compared to standard leveling, that’s not even the worst of it. The design of the dungeons, and even the world map, are horrible. There’s tons of doors scattered throughout pretty much every dungeon, and 90% of them lead to dead end rooms with raised encounter rates. There is absolutely no way to tell which doors are dead ends and which are necessary to progress, so you’re reduced to trial and error, which is extremely exhausting when there’s so many doors per dungeon, and you’re almost guaranteed to get into an encounter before you can leave each one, and if you’re tempted to ignore any doors when they don’t seem mandatory to progress, in many of those cases, there’s treasure rooms hidden among them, once again with no way to figure out other than guessing.

The world map, on the other hand, is one of the best arguments against open ended world design there is. Compared to the first game, there are almost no physical obstacles barring where you can go, other than a few rivers that are only crossable by canoe, something you get almost immediately, and a few areas only accessible by boat. Instead, you’re kept out of where you’re not supposed to be through the Dragon Quest 1 method of having the random encounters kill you horribly. The problems with this method are twofold: not only are the borders between where you’re supposed to be and where you’re not very thin, to the point of running into late game enemies just outside of the first town if you go just a biiit too far to the left, compared to Dragon Quest 1 often using bridges as visible borders between areas, but it just doesn’t really fit with how the game is designed. Dragon Quest 1′s pacing is rather relaxed, as while you do have plot objectives, the game doesn’t rush you to fulfill them. You’re meant to just hang around the areas you can survive in, grinding your way up and getting whatever equipment you need until you feel confident to move onto whichever area seems to be designed for next. In Final Fantasy II, you’re constantly being sent back and forth between areas to get new orders or do whatever the plot wants of you at that moment, but while the game loves telling where to go, it’s pretty bad at telling you how to get there, with its often vague directions being spread out between NPCs in multiple towns, to boot. While there is a map of the overworld you can access, it can still get pretty annoying having to meticulously check where you’re going, and you’re still liable to being decimated just because you wandered into a harmless seeming area. One nasty example comes after completing Kashuon Keep, not too far into the game. You’re expected to head back to Altair, which is on the other side of the world and is quite a bit of a walk, but heading south soon loops back to the Altair area, making for a much shorter walk. Trying to put this idea into practice, however, sends you across the large Palamecian desert, full of enemies more than eager to tell you that this area is still a few dungeons away from being accessed. It’s not completely unsurvivable, and can be safely traversed by finding the nearby hidden Chocobo, but it’s still a nasty situation after a very irritating dungeon.

The biggest, and most frustrating, source of difficulty, however, is that the game stubbornly refuses to tell you anything about what’s going on behind the scenes. There’s so many mechanics left unexplained that cause a lot of difficulty if you don’t understand them. For example, every enemy has a stat called rank, which determines how many skill points for your weapons and magic you’ll actually get by using them on said foes. Essentially, if your weapon or magic levels are higher than the enemy’s rank, you need to use that weapon or spell more times in that battle based on the difference between the numbers to actually get any skill points. Not an unreasonable system, and you can view every enemy’s rank in the bestiary, but the game never directly addresses this, and even the most powerful enemies only go up to rank 10, effectively softcapping your skills and spells at 10, which often leads into having your party attack each other to bypass the entire mechanic, a depressingly efficient solution most of the time. Other stats the game never cares to explain are evasion and magic defense, which both display both numbers and percentages. For evasion, the number represents the number of attacks that character is capable of dodging, as physical attacks strike multiple times per round, and the likeliness of evading each attack. With magic defense, the number represents the number of attempts at avoiding a status effect can be made, and the percentage represents the chance of successfully doing so. Despite the name, the stat does not reduce damage taken from magic attacks.

On the subject of magic, the spells available to you are also plagued with unneeded complexity and vagueness. First off, the descriptions for many spells tend to only give you the barest idea of what they actually do; Aura “Enhances effectiveness against various foes.” It never tells you what enemy types count, or that it only becomes effective against certain types as its level increases, you just have to hope that it’s working whenever you use it. Barrier “Raises a barrier to defend against special attacks.”, again giving you no indication as to what it’s actually protecting against. Shell and Wall both claim to raise magic defense, but give no obvious indication how they’re actually different from each other, and Dispel claims to remove protective magical barriers, which lowers the target’s magic defense, even though you may infer that it removes buffs, like in later games. Other spells tend to be redundant or very situational. Basuna removes temporary status effects, compared to Esuna removing permanent status effects, which is near worthless since not only do temporary effects wear off after a number of turns, but they go away after battle regardless, and are rarely effective enough to waste a turn removing. Fear increases the likelyhood of enemies fleeing battle, which is not only rare to actually work, but is worthless, since you don’t get any credit for defeating any enemies that do flee. Sap reduces the MP of the target, which is not only rarely likely to work, but counterintuitive if you have the infamous Osmose spell, which saps large amounts of MP while restoring the same amount for the user. Status effects also have different elements to them, namely body, mind, and matter, with most enemies having different resistances. Some spells, like Stop and Paralysis, have the same effect, but different elements, and keeping track is both difficult, both remembering which spell is which element, and what enemies are actually affected by each element, and nearly pointless, since the effects are rarely worth bothering with in favor of just attacking. Matter elemental spells, however, are rarely resisted by most enemies, even bosses, and mostly comprise of instant death spells like Mini, Break, Teleport, and most infamously, Toad. Not only does this game make instant death spells effective, it makes them downright overpowered, with almost every encounter being capable of being solved through judicious application of Toad.

But the peak of all this is a special property that some enemies, like ghosts and the final boss, have applied to their physical attacks: a draining effect that not only restores their HP by the amount of damage inflicted, but specifically inflicts 1/16th of the target’s maximum HP per hit, with them eventually attacking 8 times per turn by the final dungeon. To sum this up simply, this makes heavier equipment worse than worthless. Not only will the defensive power do nothing to protect from this damage, but it actively weighs you down and destroys your evasion, guaranteeing you’ll take all those possible hits unless your did some extreme evasion grinding. You’d be protected better by not wearing anything at all, because at least then you’ll make use of all your natural evasion. Unless you want to constantly heal your characters for half their health everytime you run into specific encounters, you have to dedicate a lot of your time, or most of your run through the game, to getting their evasion leveled enough that this isn’t a problem. Knowing this can be the difference between fruitlessly blowing all your resources and breezing through effortlessly, and there is a certain weapon, the Blood Sword, that has this same draining effect, which can singlehandedly annihilate the final boss once you’ve figured this out. While there’s a few other smaller issues, like several encounter formations that cannot be ran from for no apparent reason, other than possibly being formations used in certain monster-in-a-box encounters, those are the main issues, and being aware of them, and having the information to circumvent them, makes the game much, much easier. If anything, it makes the game extremely breakable. From physical attackers that dodge everything thrown at them, to spellcasters that can wipe out encounters with a single cast, it doesn’t take much to erase the difficulty once you know what you’re doing.

As for bonus content, there’s Soul of Rebirth, a bonus mode unlocked after completing the main game, first added in the GBA version, which focuses on several characters who die in the course of the story finding themselves in what they think is the Jade Passage, the path to Hell. While a cool concept that has a really neat final boss of its own, namely the light side of the Emperor, who split off from his dark half after death and instead took over Heaven, it still has issues of its own, namely that most of the party are guest characters in the main game, and carry over the stats, equipment, and spells they had when they left the party, meaning if you didn’t bother training them and stripped them of all equipment before they departed, you’re in an absurd time. The mode is also quite short, and only consists of two dungeons that are just mirrored versions of the final two dungeons of the main game and a town. A neat addition, but not much more than that. Other than that, the only optional content to find in the main game is the Arcane Labyrinth, a bonus dungeon added specifically for the PSP release. The game uses a keyword system where you can learn important terms from NPCs, and ask about those terms to get directions or a bit more plot. It’s sort of neat in concept, but in practice it doesn’t amount to much other than make it slightly more annoying to find out what to do, especially if you manage to miss a keyword. The Arcane Labyrinth, however, revolves around its use. In order to progress past the entrance, you must select a keyword at the portal to the next floor, which then takes you to a specific floor based around the keyword you chose. Almost every floor has a little sidequest to solve, like defeating specific enemies or giving items to NPCs, which give you new keywords exclusive to the labyrinth, or hints for some of the trickier floors. While they can be kinda annoying to do, you only ever have to complete them once for their reward, and can otherwise run straight to the exit on subsequent visits.

Every floor requires you to select keywords for the next, with 45 different floors being available in total, and the Arcane Labyrinth is actually split into 3 sections, with the northwest section requiring four floors to be visited, the northeast seven floors, and the south ten floors, though while you can’t visit the same floor twice in the same section, you can choose repeats in separate sections. There is much more strategy than simply randomly selecting floors, however. Each keyword belongs to a different category, which cause different reactions depending on your next choice. Picking keywords in the same category in a row cause better treasure to spawn and lower the encounter rate, while picking something in a category that opposes it, such as a matter and materials floor after going through a magic and spirits floor, has the opposite effect. Even more importantly, each playable character has a set of keywords that resonate with them, to varying degrees. This becomes important after finishing all three sections, which unlocks the Arcane Sanctuary. Within is Deumion, the master of the Labyrinth, who summons a superboss, Phrekyos, to test you, with its strength varying depending on how many keywords you’ve gotten through the story, making it beatable even in earlier parts of the game. Beating Phrekyos allows you to get a reward from Deumion; if you picked enough keywords that resonate with a certain party member, you will be able to get their ultimate weapon, which not only have tons of power, but confer massive stat boosts when equipped. If your keywords didn’t resonate enough, you only get an elixir, something that you can buy, albeit with absurd amounts of money. The optimal keywords for the main party are only unlocked in the endgame, but it can actually be worth visiting early for the party members that are used in Soul of Rebirth, as the weapons make it much more manageable, though visiting too early can end with you being much too powerful compared to how you should be. A special set of keywords also allow you to see Deumion’s past, leaving you able to either peacefully receive from him the Revive spell, or fight him as the ultimate superboss for the Destroy spell. Both are disgustingly impractical, but it’s a neat idea nonetheless. Overall, the Arcane Labyrinth, though still rife with its own set of frustrations, is actually one of the more enjoyable bonus dungeons I’ve come across, with a very creative concept that actually leaves you curious as to what the next floor could hold.

Overall, while the gameplay of Final Fantasy II has some interesting ideas, it’s held back by an irritating lack of explanation as to how it works, the overly grindy design, and just plain poor design and execution. It’s a miserable experience that makes even other early JRPGs seem appealing, just because their grinding is so much simpler to handle, and I need to note, this is the most polished version of the game. Between bugs, a horribly limited inventory, and even more absurd design decisions, like stats sometimes decreasing instead of increasing, or weapons massively decreasing magic accuracy, and increasing skills taking even longer, any version earlier than the GBA version is even more infuriating and even less playable.

Graphics: Final Fantasy II is actually a quite nice looking game, as with the rest of the Final Fantasy releases on PSP. Locations have a lot of detail to them, like ambient effects like rolling fog, and noticeable lighting effects, with a few areas like Pandemonium having pretty fascinating designs, and there’s some pretty good looking cutscenes for bigger story events. Spell animations are pretty neat, and attack spells have a nice detail where their animations become more elaborate as you level them up more. Characters even finally look accurate to their original art by Yoshitaka Amano, unlike earlier versions, though that’s not necessarily a positive: between Firion’s random mishmash of materials and colors, Maria and Guy’s awkward, half complete outfits, and the terrifyingly gaudy Emperor, this is possibly the tackiest looking cast in the series. The monster designs, on the other hand, are top notch. After Final Fantasy I’s bestiary was lifted almost entirely out of D&D, this game introduced a lot of original and iconic enemies, like the coeurls, the bombs, the malboros, the adamantoises, and the behemoths. It even introduced chocobos, though it’s easy to miss their existence, as their confined to one spot on the world map that’s decently hidden. While there are still a lot of oddities like vampires and giant mantises, it’s still one of the biggest advancements in the series in this regard. The enemy designs also excel in that they look much more threatening than in the first game. These enemies literally come from Hell, and look the part. I’d even go so far as to say that this is the best looking Final Fantasy game on the PSP, and has some of the coolest enemy designs in the series.

Sound: Final Fantasy II’s soundtrack was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, as usual, and remixed by Tsuyoshi Sekito for the remakes. All things considered, it’s my least favorite soundtrack in the main series. That’s not to say it’s bad at all, and there are some great tracks like the Rebel Army Theme, the somber main theme which plains on the overworld, Ancient Castle, the Tower of the Magi, Battle Theme A, typically used for major boss encounters, and Battle Theme 2, the final boss theme. However, as an overall, it’s just not quite as good as the soundtracks for the rest of the main series, to me. It also contains my least favorite version of the Prelude, being just a bit too high pitched for my liking, and my least favorite battle theme, sounding way too intense just for regular encounters, and quickly becoming grating not too far into the game. The soundtrack is good in its own right, and is worth a listen, it just doesn’t quite reach the heights that some of the others do.

Conclusion: Overall, I give Final Fantasy II a firm not recommended. Though very ambitious and important for its day, its story, design, and mechanics have aged like milk compared to the other Final Fantasy games on the NES. While technically still perfectly playable, especially with deeper knowledge as to how the mechanics work, it doesn’t make for much fun at all. You’re better off keeping your distance from this entry. Now, with this absurdly long review finally done, finishing this game, and the subject of my next review, hopefully to be soon, have convinced me I need a break from older RPGs for a while. Till next time. -Scout

#final fantasy #game review #long post #jrpg #final fantasy ii #square enix

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alexthegamingboy · 5 years ago

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Toonami Weekly Recap 11/02/2019

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind EP#02 - Bucciarati Is Coming: In a flashback, it is revealed that Giorno, who was once abused by his step-father and bullied by other kids, began being treated with respect after saving an injured gangster, giving him a reason to live. Back in the present, faced with Bucciarati's Stand, Sticky Fingers, Giorno desperately uses Gold Experience to defend himself. Upon striking Bucciarati, the latter's senses to go berserk, giving Giorno the upper hand. Bucciarati creates a dimension-distorting zipper to try and escape inside another person, but Giorno tracks him down by turning one of Bucciarati's teeth into a fly, which attempts to return to his body. Given the chance to finish Bucciarati off, Giorno decides against it, instead asking to join his organization so he can defeat his boss and take over the city.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba EP#04 - Final Selection: Two years have passed since Nezuko's transformation, and Tanjiro leaves for the Final Selection. Before his departure, Urokodaki warns him that a demon's strength is equivalent to the number of humans it has eaten, gifting him a fox mask with a protection spell. Tanjiro reaches Mt. Fujikasane, where wisteria flowers bloom all year round, creating a prison for demons. The test administrators, a pair of twins, explain that only those who can survive here for 7 days will pass. Tanjiro is soon ambushed by two hungry demons on his very first night. Using a special "Nichirin Blade" that can kill demons without risk of them regenerating, Tanjiro remembers his training and utilises Total Concentration: Water Breathing swordsmanship style, to unleash an attack that kills them quickly. However, him and another applicant come face-to-face with a huge morphed demon made out of ghastly hands. This Hand Demon promises to kill him, recognising Tanjiro as Urokodaki's student from the fox mask, and gleefully admits to murdering 13 of Urokodaki's students since he was captured by the man himself, Sabito and Makomo included. Tanjiro attacks him, enraged. Back at the boulder, Sabito and Makomo's ghosts wonder if Tanjiro can defeat their killer, having failed themselves to slice its neck. Sabito recalls that Tanjiro sliced through the toughest boulder of all of them and chooses to believe. By unleashing an array of attacks, Tanjiro successfully decapitates the Hand Demon.

One-Punch Man 2 EP#04 (16) - The Metal Bat: It is revealed that when Garou was young, he always rooted for the bad guys to win due to the good guys being too popular. When he asked his father, his father replies that the good guys will always win. Garou find that unfair to the monsters because to him the monsters were always the ones trying their best to win, but will lose all the time because they were seen as "freaks." Unwilling to accept the status quo, Garou resolved to become the strongest monster and never lose, and to change the scenario. Garou wakes up from his defeat against Saitama, with no memory of what happened. Garou meets up with Tareo and sees Watchdog Man and Metal Bat, and plans to find them. Saitama signs up for the fighting tournament, and is looking over a list of the contestants of the tournament when Sour Face, a former disciple of Bang, shows up. Sour Face plans to win the tournament to be famous like Bang, and reveals that the year before a contestant named Wolfman won the tournament. However the authorities found the real Wolfman tied up, which is why there's a new rule that if there are any participants that are wearing disguises or is an imposter, then the participant will be disqualified and banned from the tournament forever, as well as paying a heavy fee. It is also revealed that 6 months ago Garou decided that he has nothing left to learn and rampaged through the dojo, disabling many of the students, including Sour Face. Garou then received a beating from Bang and was expelled from the dojo, which also caused Sour Face to quit the dojo. When Sour Face insults "Charanko", Saitama points out that at least Charanko was brave enough to fight against Garou one on one while Sour Face quit, and vows to win the tournament which angers Sour Face. Meanwhile, the Hero Association plans to protect its officials from monster attacks by assigning S Class Heroes. King manages to get away by lying that he's fighting against a secret boss when in reality he is playing a video game. Metal Bat is forced to babysit Narinki, a VIP sponsor of the Hero Association, and his son Waganma at a Mouse Sushi restaurant in S-City instead of watching his little sister play piano. When Metal Bat receives a call from his sister, two monsters named Junior Centipede and Venus Mantrap attack Nanrinki but Metal Bat easily kills them. Suddenly, another monster named Senior Centipede attacks Metal Bat. A monster named Raffleseidon appears and puts on sleeping gases which knocks out Narinki and Waganma. Metal Bat is forced to endure many hits before hitting himself in the head, which pumps adrenaline into his system, rendering the gas useless and enabling him to kill the two Demon Level monsters with one hit apiece. Two local heroes take Narinki and Waganma when a Dragon-level monster named Elder Centipede attacks Metal Bat. During the fight, Elder Centipede knocks Metal Bat near Garou. Thinking that Metal Bat is dead, Garou plans to find Watchdog Man when Metal Bat gets back up. Garou naturally wants to fight Metal Bat, but Metal Bat wants to go back after Elder Centipede. Garou initiates the fight by attacking Metal Bat, and Metal Bat barely manages to block the preemptive blow. In the post credit scene, a martial artist named Suiryu asks two girls to lead him to the Fight tournament.

Dr. Stone Kingdom of Science Arc EP#11 - Clear World: Senku uses quartz sand to produce glass, which he uses to create glasses for the short-sighted Suika. Lacking the skills needed to glassblow useable lab utensils, Chrome brings in a skilled craftsman named Kaseki, who is able to quickly adapt to the unfamiliar substance. To break in their new lab, Senku offers to make Ginro a silver spear as part of a dangerous mission.

Fire Force EP#14 - For Whom The Flame Burns: While chaos reigns in Asakusa with Infernals appearing and people's appearance being changed at random, Konro and Benimaru argue over who should take charge. Benimaru eventually defers and gains everyone's attention. He explains what's happening, then goes after the Infernals while Konro and Company 7 attend to the fires. Meanwhile, Shinra and Arthur face Haran who has become a horned Infernal after swallowing an Infernal Bug. However, Benimaru intervenes and attacks Haran with his Ignition ability. Benimaru launches Haran into the air with his matoi to spare the town, but Arrow fires a flaming arrow towards them. Shinra uses all of his speed to intercept and deflect the arrow, allowing Benimaru to take the opportunity to use his Crimson Moon (紅月 Akatsuki) avility to create a massive explosion which destroys Haran. Shinra catches Benimaru as he falls from the sky, completely spent from the confrontation. Later, Benimaru and Obi share some sake, sealing the friendship between Companies 7 and 8.

Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma EP#17 - The Seductive Karaage: Arriving back home, Soma temporarily re-opens Yukihira Diner to serve his loyal customers, including his childhood friend, Mayu Kurase, who has a crush on him. He learns that the Sumire Shopping District has been doing poor business lately due to the arrival of a popular karaage chain shop, Mozuya. Wanting to help revive the shopping district, Soma decides to come up with a competing karaage recipe, calling in Ikumi as his meat expert while Mayu winds up as his taste tester. The three do some recon at Mozuya, where they find its CEO Kinu Nakamozu to be a spiteful woman, before beginning work on a karaage recipe of their own. As Soma takes Mayu's suggestion to use their shopping district location to their advantage, it is revealed that the figure behind Mozuya's success is one of the Elite Ten.

Lupin the 3rd Part 5 EP#20 - Zenigata, Gentleman Thief: Lupin, Jigen and Goemon take a trip to one of their old haunts in Russia to carry out some easy heists. To their surprise, they find another party of thieves already raiding the same targets with their old enemy Zenigata among their ranks. When Lupin talks with Zenigata, he finds that the latter has alcoholic amnesia from a massive drinking bout after another failure to catch Lupin. Zenigata has adopted the alias "Monety" and the modus operandi of his old nemesis Lupin while trying to uncover his lost identity. Unwilling to leave Zenigata in that condition, Lupin and company intercept Zenigata at the site of his next heist. When Lupin and Zenigata escape the crime scene together, the encounter finally snaps Zenigata's memory back into place, and to everyone's relief their relationship returns to its usual state.

Black Clover: Elf Tribe Reincarnation Arc EP#93 - Julius Novachrono: Marx, the Wizard King's advisor, sends word to every squad captain, ordering them to help the Wizard King. Licht's spells cause massive damage to the city, yet Julius holds back so as not to injure Vangeance's body. Julius reveals his Grimoire, which is so large with so many pages it has no cover, just an endless circle of pages around a central spine. Licht comes to believe that as he had planned to unbalance the world by eradicating humans, fate itself conspired to restore balance by creating Julius as the embodiment of order. Licht casts a spell powerful enough to completely wipe out the entire country. Julius recalls his youth as a magic knight, searching for his life's purpose, until he met Zara, Zora's father, who taught him that a true knight should serve the people. After Zara was murdered Julius grew disgusted at the way the class system kept both nobles and commoners from reaching their potential. He decided to become the Wizard King so he could help make the world a better place through the efforts of knights like Asta, Yuno and Noelle. Refusing to give in Julius uses all his accumulated time to reverse the entire country back a few seconds, saving everybody but leaving himself open to Licht who stabs him in the heart. Yami arrives too late to stop him and draws his sword in preparation to kill both Licht and Vangeance.

My Hero Academia Season 4 will air on Toonami November 9 at 11:00 pm EDT.

youtube

#Toonami #Toonami Weekly Recap #JoJo's Bizarre Adventure #JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind #Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba #One Punch Man #One Punch Man 2 #Dr. Stone #Kingdom of Science Arc #Fire Force #Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma #Lupin the 3rd #Lupin the 3rd Part 5 #Black Clover #Elf Tribe Reincarnation Arc #My Hero Academia #Shie Hassaikai Arc #New Toonami Show Promo

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sharpen-jadescythe · 4 years ago

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Taming Party!

I’m a giant fangirl, so of course I started off a post about being a Warcraft hunter with a Britney Spears video.

So here’s a tip. If you’re up really late in WOW with friends, or you’re up really early--too early to party up for anything... consider taking advantage of that server refresh, loading up your favorites on Petopia, then hop on your hunter alts and have a taming party. Images of all the pets I caught over about 1.5 hours doing this are beloooow...

Duskfang

Taking your hunter out for a spin to try and grab pets that have long been on your wish list, or that you’ve never even heard of before can be SUCH fun. I think I picked up the habit back in Vanilla WOW when you had to find certain pets in order to learn pet abilities like Bite 4, then Bite 5 that’s only from this one wolf in this one dungeon... In order to play a hunter, you actually had to go hunting. And, keep your pet fed and happy like it was a 90s gigapet. It was like a mini-game built into your class. Honestly, I loved it. The maintenance and camping rares for a really long time are actually nice memories I have. Either way, whether you’re a new or seasoned Warcraft hunter, a taming party is mainly about -the hunt- you know? The exciting chase where you’ve never seen this thing before up close, you’re not totally sure where it is... heck! You might not even have flying in that zone so it’s even harder to track them down...

Gib the banana hoarder

And then once you find the beast, you quickly have to figure out how to tame the beast. You might have to drop a frost trap, or climb to the top of a lonely pillar, fly up, then fall off your mount and target the beast mid-air... A taming party can be as complicated as you like, or you can keep it simple. I’ve never done a taming party with a friend before; it’s been kind of a nostalgic lone-wolf journey every time. But that’s fun as well because when you’re on your own, you can just try the weirdest stuff to figure out how to get the pet that probably only someone like you would want. And it just feels like you’re treating yourself.

Duskcoat (shiny)

Feras (also shiny!)

So, some hints on how to do this smoothly with very little frustration... Before you head out, make sure you have plenty of open taming slots. (I tried going with NO pets on me, but I really regretted that when I ran across a rare mob that I had a hard time catching up to and then it died mid-air and I didn’t have a pet on me, or even a tameable animal near me for a few ZONES which was a weird-ass problem to have, and I couldn’t even send in a pet to fetch loot from it if I couldn’t reach it. But I digress...) Having at least one pet on you will help you get out of weird fixes you can’t even anticipate, and as a hunter, a pet is the main tool for your class, so... I recommend not completely clearing the slate.

Spectral Gryphon

And before you rush off, start with Petopia’s Tameable Looks gallery. There are a few ways you can search and navigate through Petopia to narrow down what you want... But I kind of scroll through the gallery, fall in love with a certain pet model, then click the little Wowhead rocket link on the right side of the pet’s page and go from there. Wowhead will give you an exact map, coords, spawn times (some are every two hours; you don’t have to wait for a server refresh). I don’t use the coords, I’m old school. I just go for it and scan the target area. One thing I wouldn’t be without though is a macro.

Bulvinkle

Open up your macro panel by typing /macro into your chat box or you can open the main menu by pressing Esc and clicking Macro from there. Once you pick a name and an icon for your pet search macro, inside the macro box, type:

/tar name of pet

I’m not a gaming wizard here, I just need something that shows me if I’m getting close. Getting lost, getting stuck, corpse walking if something goes horribly wrong... those chances to laugh out loud at yourself (or your friends) are all part of the fun. Keep the mood light and try not to feel frustrated. Move on to the next tame on your list if something isn’t working out after a while.

Quetzl

With your friends, if your friends are roleplayers, this might end up being some really cool RP. Well, between moments when you’re going ‘Oh shoot! Hurry up, hurry up before someone else comes and kills it!’

This is essentially a chance to play Pokemon through WOW if you wanna think of it that way. Good luck and enjoy. And do me a favor when you’re done? Just like they do in the Pokemon game after you finish the Safari Zone? Make sure you /cheer and go “Good haul!!”

And please start your adventure by playing Slumber Party by Britney Spears. This is really all I ask.

#taming party #hunter #warcraft

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brownstonearmy · 4 years ago

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2020-06-07: The Butt Of A Joke, Part 1

July 30 (Thursday morning)

As the party assesses their service requests for the day, Constable Silas Blackheart walks in with a request of his own for the hard workers at SHART HQ. Vandals stole the butt from the statue depicting the town's founder a few days ago, only for it to suddenly reappear in its usual position in the Brownstone Park grotto. Now the statue loudly excretes real turds whenever anyone approaches.

Silas suspects that some of the students at Wentenbocker are behind the theft and potential enchantment of the statue's posterior, but lacks the jurisdiction to launch a formal investigation there. He pleads with the party to investigate on his behalf, since this is a sanitation anomaly and SHART is specifically given the authority to solve such things. The party takes the case and sets out for Brownstone Park to assess the situation.

Brownstone park is located about 3 blocks southwest of SHART HQ, so it's an easy walk. The grotto with the founder's statue is the most prominent feature in this small park, though now it is accompanied by the pungent odor of Some Business (tm). As the party approaches, the statue loudly pinches another loaf, which plops onto a growing pile behind the statue.

While Spleenifer collects a tithe from the statue for holy reasons, Q (going by Disco today) notices a visible seam at the statue's hips and another just below the statue's ribcage. The butt of the statue is almost imperceptibly floating between the torso and legs without touching either part. Lucky makes note of the gender neutral depiction of the Brownstone statue and is curious about why no historian seems to be able to remember what the founder looked like. How common face blindness is among dwarves, anyway?

Spleenifer's proficiency with myriad tithes allows her to pinpoint the Founder Feces as originating from something from an omnivorous non-humanoid, specifically something that feasts on rotten things. Yep, something's suspicious here, and a trip to Wentenbocker is in order.

Once inside the academy's walls, the party meets with the headmaster, Cavander Olisanth. Master Olisanth mentions that he knows of some students who might participate in pranks that might result in colon concoctions, but he cannot simply compel all the students to present themselves for an investigation. Master Olisanth needs names in order to do that, but he gives the party wide berth to conduct their own investigations. He gives them permission to search the aviary, the herbarium, the dorms, and any other accessible commons areas. If the party has questions and can't find the headmaster, he directs them to seek out one of the senior students, an elf named Ariatha Nelson.

The aviary is the first location our party of heroes investigates. They climb a winding staircase to see a woman tending several hutches of ravens. Lucky realizes that ravens are omnivorous carrion feeders, and non-humanoid to boot, so maybe these birds have something to do with the statue? The woman turns around and is startled by the party's sudden appearance. Disco and Lucky both recognize the woman as one of the spellcasters Brynnan employed to send the party to the plane of Mechanus.

The woman's name is Todd (short for Tatyana), and she is considerably less hostile this time around. When asked about the newly-empowered statue, the only name Todd mentions as potentially being behind it is Rooney, the tattooed wizard that also helped Brynnan toss the party through the portal to Mechanus. Rooney isn't here right now, but Todd happens to have a key to her room. That key, and the keys to a lot of other rooms. Just don't ask how she got the key, or the nature of Todd and Rooney's relationship.

Rooney and Brynnan were pretty close, even after Brynnan's expulsion. Lately, though, Rooney's been spending all of her free time reading or going off-campus to... somewhere. The party notices something unusual about the book selection in Rooney's sparsely furnished quarters: the only books that appear to have gotten recent use are not arcane in nature. The books contain discussions about the histories of esoteric gods, the founding of Brownstone, and conspiracies about a powerful artifact hidden in a statue.

Todd is happy to escort the party around the academy for their investigations, and shows them the student's common room. A large and comfortable-looking sofa rests along one wall, while another door bears a large warning sign. "WARNING! Extradimensional space!" it says. "Bags of holding and other extradimensional spaces will explode beyond this point."

Naturally, this is a place the party wants to investigate. Disco opens up the door and sees another dorm room, but the combination of a bed with no sheets on it and some cross-stitch tapestries on the wall indicate to Disco that this might have been Brynnan's old room from before he was expelled. Grabbing a nearby chair, Disco slides the chair into the extradimensional dorm room to see what happens. When the only thing that occurs is a chair being moved into another room, Disco deems it safe to enter.

They perform an impressive display of stealth to skulk around the room and ascertain that no one else is in this room. But after entering, Disco feels as though they are being watched. They cast detect magic and see a faint aura of magic coming from something in the desk, as well as feeling something with an air of divination magic coming from somewhere behind Disco. Inside the desk is a small magical portrait depicting an animated dancer going through a series of impressive dance moves (100GP).

Disco pockets the portrait and leaves the room, concluding that there is nothing else of value in the area. But as soon as they cross the threshold, funky music blasts through the commons area and a group of dancers materialize in front of the party. The power of dance looks like it's going to be the only way out of this situation; let the dance-off begin!

An MC announces the rules that both teams will abide by and the dance moves start flying like Cirque du Soleil. For those of you playing along at home, the rules we're using for the dance-off will be posted shortly. Here's the rundown of who's on the opposing team:

Blue-skinned dragonborn in mercenary garb

Fedora-wearing gnome with a trenchcoat

Brown haired elf in flowing clothing with a ribbon tied to her rapier

Working-class laborer with a painted face and a leather apron

The gnome goes first in initiative order, and pantomimes an stylish investigation with an imaginary magnifying glass. Disco, whose name is incredibly appropriate today, responds in kind with dropping ass. Spleenifer, who is a lady of holy words, is unfamiliar with the concept of dropping ass, because it's not something that is often taught in warrior nun school.

Lucky conjures up some backup dancers with arcana, triggering a wild magic surge that causes a really heckin' cool vortex of air and makes Lucky's crew look super epic. It's so epic that it results in the gnome being the first dancer to get eliminated.

The dragonborn tries to ride that donkey with Animal Handling, but the donkey proves to be too stubborn to hit Lucky. Spleenifer uses her Athletics prowess to lawnmower the dragonborn. Since lawnmowers that aren't livestock-based don't really exist in the world of Dungeons and Dragons, the concept of lawnmowing is more abstractly interpreted as placing one's face on the floor with one's buttocks in the air and charging forward. Such a move proves to be both unexpected and successful.

Disco fan dances dragonborn into elimination with their sleight of hand, and Lucky uses her deception to moonwalk all over the ribbon-dancing elf. Spleenifer uses her persuasion to convince the opposing elf to go ballroom dancing with her, and then causes the elf to lose her composure with a few well-placed poop rhymes.

The laborer strikes back at Spleenifer with an intimidating Haka to eliminate her. But just because she's been eliminated doesn't mean she can't help out. Spleenifer chooses to help Disco as a backup dancer to give them a small bonus. Disco then uses their persuasion to convince the laborer to join a line dance, but the laborer jumps in on the wrong beat.

When it gets to Lucky's next turn, she starts off headbanging. However after a couple head bangs, she uses sleight of hand to secretly throw a handful of glitter to create a distraction. When it clears, she is performing a more classical dance. Several more times, she throws out glitter bombs and changes her dance style. It's too much for the last remaining dancer to take.

With the last dancer defeated, most of the magic fades from the portrait and the losing dancers get sucked back into the portrait. The adventure concludes for the evening, so stay tuned next time for more!

#adventure log #shits and giggles #dungeons and dragons #fishdavidson #dance-off #statue

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seaside-roleplays · 6 years ago

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Wishlist

Hiya ♡ Just a terribly bored girl who likes to spend her free time writing out the lives of fictional characters! You can find me using discord more than anything, as I can use it wherever. If you didn’t already see, I’m 21 and a Female. That matters for some people, for example, I won’t write out mature topics with people under 18.

I double, triple, and enjoy F//, M// and M/F. Fandom and original are both fun! I have a list of fandoms further down that I am happy to discuss or rp ♡ As far as fandoms go, I am OC friendly, and will absolutely play your desired love interest ♡

If you find yourself wanting to write together, shoot me a message! It is the fastest way to catch my attention! please include what plot/pairing you are looking to do rather than just ‘hey, are you looking for an rp?’

Ideas

- Kingdom Hearts, I finished playing 3 and really want to roleplay with someone. Oc/Canon or Canon/Canon if I ship it. I can play your character's love interest if you can play mine ^^ My first girl can be paired with Saix, or Axel if that is an easier character to play. My second girl has Demyx as her love interest. I would be happy to tell you more about them if doubling up is something you want to do. I have played all of the games //or at least watched all the cut scenes hehe// So I have confidence in playing most characters. Shipping wise feel free to ask and I can tell you. It's faster than me listing them.

- A Love Live School Idol Festival Themed rp, we make our own unit of school idols and roleplay their adventures, highs and lows, could be a F// or completely platonic! also open to a M/F romance between 2 idols of different units //ex.Starlight Four vs Phantom Five//

- Miraculous , I want to do something with my girl who is a ballerina with a swan Kwammi, who has Marinette/Ladybug as her love interest. Can play Adrien/Cat Noir for you, otherwise I'm not as confident with the other canons. Could also just use Oc's and do our own thing. I just REALLY want to play my favorite black cat superhero. Chances are I will 100% make a pinterest board or something for the roleplay *-* I do have a couple ideas in mind regarding some villans // Jellyfish and Monarch Butterfly??//

- Something with an animal cafe, where the workers there have animal like traits, a maid/butler has a crush on a human patron or fellow worker. A cute magical slice of life. A slow burn romance, that can play out as the seasons come and go

- Something like "A Simple Favor" . 2 single mothers meet each other through their children wanting a playdate. One being very bubbly and cheery, the type to make beautiful home cooked meals, do arts and crafts and run a blog. The second a chic business woman who lives a life of lavish events and the finest clothes money can buy. These two women over time fall in love, despite their different worlds. Sharing their passions with one another and watching their children grow. A sweet F// really

- F// spy or partners in crime kinda plot! need help building this one!

- A witch curses a princess so that no man will ever fall in love with her! This backfires when the princess thanks her, as she is actually very into women. A cute F// rp

- A Fire Emblem rp with oc's? Basically build our own world? this one would be a lot of work. I do also have one Nohrian Cleric who I would love to use, fairly open minded about who I pair her with, so you don't have to worry about me claiming anyone. Happy to double!

- Something based off the mangas Beasts of Abigaile , the Case Study of Vanitas or Mermaid Boys I am very into these recently and am happy to do oc's or canons. or, build something similar of our own.

- Magical girl stuff. Sailor Moon, Winx Club, Shugo Chara, Pretty cure, etc. I would love to do something akin to a second gen or using various anime as an inspiration to the rp!

- A Marvel rp, specifically with the Thor universe. I would like to do an rp with Loki x Oc, where I play as Loki, since I miss playing him. I saw Thor Ragnarok and didn't know I needed to see Loki in a suit. Prefer that your character had a faceclaim, and not picking on if they are male or female really, like I said, I just really want to play Loki and have him fall in love, and yes, I have seen infinity war

- Adding to the Marvel fandom, I am also happy to play spiderman/Peter Parker for your oc, or Venom/Eddie Brock for your oc. I'm looking to get some experience playing as them, so I would not be expecting us to double, as I don't have an oc of my own that could fit with them.

- Black Butler, I really got back into this and am dying to do something with oc's or canons //maybe even a good canon x oc?// I want to use my oc who would be a maid, similar to Seb, a demon who also has a thing for ciel, not so much romantically. Happy to play Alois, Sebby, undertaker, ciel, or claude for you.

- A cute slice of life rp? a pinch of magic? Maybe a young wizard and witch? one from big city the other from a small town in the country?

- Peter Pan based rp, I had a few pairings and ideas in mind, the 2 I most crave are Captain Hook//TinkerBell and Captain Hook//Peter Pan. I just want to play a captain hook using Hugh Jackman as Hook's FC. BxB or BxG is fine by me, I'm just looking to have the roles reversed, where Hook is the good guy, taking in the lost boys who peter intends to 'thin out' when they start to grow up, and having them join his crew for refuge. He tries to save as many as he can, but sometimes he shows up too late or things get in his way //peter's trusty pet croc?// I like the idea of having there be a routine of Peter collecting a new 'Wendy' Perhaps as a sacrifice to keep him young and keep neverland's magic? Plot with me?

- Very much wanna do a Red Riding Hood style rp, can be cute and fluffy or dark and eerie! The cuter plot would be an academy that teaches two entirely different crowds, the first being the Red Hoods, a class made up of boys and girls who will go into the world and become protectors to ordinary folk. While the other class is the wolves, those either willing to learn to control their gifts, and those thrown into the academy in fear of them running loose with no supervision. Dark and eerie plot could be more historical fantasy, again, there being a group of Red Hood's, who protect their villages and towns from the werewolves that stalk the borders, ready to pick up one weak and foolish enough to stray from home. A red goes hunting in the woods, as they are the only ones experienced enough to fight back, and finds a trapped wolf, and chooses to help them. The wolf then taking shape into a human thanks the Red Hood and promises they won't forget the kindness. This could also be swapped, where a Red has harmed them self and can't get back to the village, and a wolf assists them. Can be F// M// or F/M. I prefer to play the wolf if I can, but am just as happy to play a Red Hood. ^^ we could do multiple pairings for this as well

- Something inspired by ‘A Court of Thorns and Roses’ with the seasons and times of day each having a court/kingdom?

Genres

- Fantasy stuff! Give me your zodiac based rp's, take me to lands where princes and princesses are made to wed, throw all your wizarding and witchy worlds my way. These are what I want! I want to be able to do something that will be imaginative and exciting! Elves, fairies, royalty, fairytales [modern and historical], werewolves, vampires, I love it all!

- Horror, I love me a good scary plot! I've gotten in to playing corpse party again, and would love to see something under the genres of haunted school, a town with a murderer on the loose, dealing with supernatural creatures with morbid tendencies, and ghots with traumatizing pasts and violent deaths. I love me some gore and horror.

- Romance, give me a rp where there is drama, heartbreak, love and friendship. I love love love romance based roleplay's. High school based ones with angtsy teens, day to day living, coffe shop romance, I will take it if it has a compelling plot and a character I can fall for!

- Harvest Moon, I mean, it could be pokemon based, or just straight up village living, I crave that simple life kinda roleplay, it's a game series I do adore, and will always find joy playing

Fandoms!

Marvel~Overwatch~Kingdom Hearts~Love Live~Miraculous~Fire Emblem~Case Study of Vanitas~Mermaid Boys~Sailor moon~Winx Club~Shugo Chara~Precure~Kuroshitsuji~Aikatsu~Corpse party~Final fantasy~Harvest Moon~Rune factory~Persona~Pokemon~Tokyo Ghoul

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rhodesmystery · 6 years ago

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natasha Facts™:

has subscriptions magazines, like trashy celebrity and fashion ones (witch weekly, spella weekly, the american charmer, the witch’s friend, spellbound, etc). has since she was in her early teens, keeps old editions.

endorses wonderwitch products hard. literally drops money backing it when she’s introduced to fred & george’s line. has three pygmy puffs, two pink, one purple, named kronos, atlas, and periwinkle.

her great-aunt vela urquhart played keeper for the holyhead harpies, and her uncle aquila plays chaser for the ballycastle bats. lots of her great-aunts/uncles and cousins are aurors, magical law enforcement or mediwizards, especially due to the war, having left previous careers that were also either to do with quidditch or breeding of magical creatures (notably for the urquhart family). there’s only one curse breaker in her family (great-uncle antares urquhart), one magizoologist (oriane selwyn (nee amell)) and one actress (phillipa graves (nee black)).

takes divination because she made a promise to her great-great grandmother, but she also gets a kick out of scaring trelawney with really great fake prophecies (especially when it means that class has to end early)

madam puddifoots tea shop is honestly one of the places she spends free weekends in hogsmeade at. you know when she’s in there because not many other dare to enter to find her.

may or may not have been involved in an incident where the previous slytherin captain fell off his broom at an early training, and natasha scooted on in as captain in her sixth year.

lyra, natasha’s mum and a number of her aunts and uncles and cousins were a part of the slug club, as was jacob. aquila, her mother’s brother thereby natasha’s uncle, didn’t quite get the ‘honour’

she’s a lot like her father, deep down. looks like him too, in the eyes.

her great uncle or cousin something removed or whatever, haytham black, married the infamous madame zabini. he died in ‘94 due to ‘natural causes’, which is considerably young for a wizard of his potential. no one could prove foul play. they had no children together, but the black family name in their line died with him.

she’s a stupid dumbass, who climbed the astronomy tower from the outside on a dare. you could dare her to swim the length of the black lake probably, if weighed in enough, despite her fear of water and drowning.

this also means she plays guinea pig for penny a lot, because the girl would be like ‘hey look i made a perfect draught of living death but i need to test it’ and natasha would be like ‘oh that’s my job right’ and rowan would be like ‘NO’. also she plays guinea pig because she’s quite frankly a little terrified of penny

one time her and barnaby tried to find out if they cast aguamenti ‘hard’ enough, if they could propel themselves into the air with water. yep.

very good at carrying a haughty air of indifference and smarts, but the reality is that she’s a thrill seeker, and really doesn’t have a look before you leap sense. like preparation sessions for anything is more her being held by the collar of her shirt and being forced to listen. why people follow her leadership is beyond her.

was supposed to be a ravenclaw. like knows it. and sometimes (a lot of the time) catches herself staring at the towers, knowing she should be up there. choosing slytherin to follow jacob’s footsteps was not her brightest decision, and it kind of haunts her a bit.

in saying that, jacob was the pretty boy jock who was great friends with everyone and popular and smart and everything people aspired to be. until he wasn’t. natasha isn't sure if her memories are just trying to remind her of good times, or just messing up what she hears as gossip with the reality, but the whiplash of jacob before and after hurts her. especially since she was barely ten or eleven (math bad) when it all happened. gets to a point where she isn't sure if she wants him back.

lyra seals jacob’s room in the manor. magically very very locked. when natasha finishes at hogwarts, she finally manages to tear the door down.

gets very very good at sneaking around the castle. she can’t help it, gets like manic energy late, yknow? and what better to shake it off than a walk around a creepy old castle. means that she’s found a lot of places to hide, however.

like she’s honestly not That Bad at spell creation, but she’s pretty blasé about it. the only spells she's created, or helped create, were really just to make sure charlie didnt die in the forest lmfao (like ad meridiem is a lighting/waypoint spell, generally utilised on carvings, so he doesnt lose his way). has made up a few hexes here and there though. flitwick is disappointed in her for the attitude though, and she doesnt like disappointing flitwick. that said, she COULD tell him about her charms, but that would mean admitting she knows charlie goes into the forest still and no one wants that conversation

she botched up dying her hair one time but keeps it that really bad not quite a dip dye just to annoy her mother

can’t tell if she actually went into the room of requirement or just a very quiet classroom. and will probably never know.

lets out a low whistle when entering a room she hasn’t been in before

sleeps with the curtain pulled on the right side of her room, which is her right if she was laying on her back, and mimics it with the beds at hogwarts, because that’s how she used to sleep back home in america

picks up random objects with not always the intention of keeping them, but the few she has she keeps on her person (currently: two smooth rocks, worn down by her running her thumb over them in times of stress, a locket missing its chain, a tarnished ring, several pressed flowers and a collection of shells)

while she’s half blooded, through marriage, a number of her extended families are related to other muggle families, pureblood families, or half blooded families.

religiously tells her father’s muggle family she’s a wizard, and proves it by balancing spoons on her forehead, pulling birds out of thin air, or ‘reading their palms/minds’. they think it’s great party tricks with the polite laughter of high society, but really it freaks them out a bit when she stops playing dumb and says something legit. (but then lyra says ‘natasha helene rhodes!’ in that voice and the game is up)

she’s fucking awful at potions. like hands down terrible. penny is literally carrying her through the most part of her education.

her owl is called fox because she thinks she’s funny, and she has a snake called marquis de sade, the third. it ate the second. she rescues it from a shelter, simply on the basis that it was taken from the apartment of some old lady. no one had seen the woman in weeks, the apartment was empty, and only the snake remained. freaky™

legend has it that her great great grandfather, before being burnt of the family tree, raided the family vault at gringotts. while his family claimed he stole, he was still technically a legal part of the family at the time, so nothing could be done. that said, no one quite knows where he put the money. the manor natasha grew up on, named urquhart manor, is actually very far away from where the urquhart family put down roots, and is where a majority of her family lives, or had lived, in their lives. it apparently just appeared one day on the cliff, and that’s the end of that story.

before the legilimency thing was a thing in game, i actually wrote something regarding it. lyra had a knee-jerk reaction to the letters sent home about natasha’s adventures, and spent the summer before her fifth year training her in legilimency and occlumency, alongside other family members. natasha’s ‘natural legilimens’ status is a stretch, as with eye contract, she can get a general read on emotion, plus bits and pieces on a general population of wizard kind. a stronger read on those younger and unawares of the art of occlumency, of course. and then an even stronger cast, provided she uses her wand, that actually gives her the ability to read memories.

#*natasha #hphm #my pc restarted writing this #so i rewrote it all from memory lmfao RIP

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javocjovian · 6 years ago

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A Very Supernatural Christmas Party, Chapter Eight

As you may know, I’ve decided to write a fic for million Christmas December Supernatural Prompt Challenges. The challenges include:

Gabriel’s Monthly Challenge @gabriel-monthly-challenge, @archangelgabriellives, @ttttrickster, @archangel-with-a-shotgun, @warlockwriter, @archangelsanonymous, and @revwinchester

spnfanficpond’s Weekly Episode Writing Challenge @spnfanficpond @mrswhozeewhatsis

Supernatural Amino’s Holiday Prompt List and their Hunters Writing Club Challenge - December.

You can find me and this fic on AO3 Archive of Our Own

I’m also on Ko-Fi

If you’d like to read this chapter directly on AO3, here’s a link: A Very Supernatural Christmas Party - Chapter Eight

A Very Supernatural Christmas Party

Summery: Metatron’s annual Christmas parties are the stuff of legends. As in, no one has ever been able to stop Gabriel bitching about how terrible they are. This year, Gabriel decides to ask one of the Winchesters to go as his date. Guess which one. Castiel has a similar idea, but things don’t go as planned. Meanwhile, Sam, Dean, and Charlie discover the true meaning of Christmas. Spoiler: it’s shopping, and a lot of booze.

Ships: Destiel, Sabriel, the rest are surprises!

Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Castiel, Gabriel, Charlie, Metatron, and a whole lotta angels later

Chapter Eight Summery: Sam, Dean, Castiel, and Gabriel head to the Christmas party at last. With a little help from some old friends, they manage to make it a night to remember.

Chapter Eight

The Christmas Party

“Welcome, one and all, to my five-thousand and twenty-fourth annual Christmas party. I am delighted to see all of your smiling faces. Your gracious host of the evening is I, Metatron, the Scribe of God. But enough about me… Before we begin the festivities, I’d like to a read a passage from one of my favorite books. No, no… it’s not the Bible… a passage from a book I didn’t write… hehem.”

Metatron began to read aloud. The Christmas Party was being held in what looked like an old Gothic cathedral made out of ice and dazzling crystals. Stalactites hung delicately from the ceiling, and a grand chandelier lit up the banquet hall. Despite the wintry wonderland around them, the room was warm and cozy. Blue flames were lit in white fireplaces, and tall, fully decorated Christmas trees flaked the entrances.

Angels filled the marble dance floor, all holding drinks and staring off into space as Metatron performed his quote. He was on a stage a foot above the other angels, speaking into a microphone. He chuckled to himself after a joke, cuing the angels to laugh.

The crowd was dotted with short, curly-haired cherubs holding appetizer and drink trays. They were all wearing green elf costumes. Metatron himself had on a red suit, cotton topped hat, and a false, white beard.

“So, let us toast to the spirit of Christmas, and to the New Year to come.” Metatron gave a wide, self-indulgent smile, then lifted his champagne glass to the glimmering ceiling. He took a great breath, then stopped. There was a commotion in the hallway outside the main doors, causing every head to turn.

“I told you, we should have taken a left when we crossed the arctic circle.”

“Oh where’s your sense of adventure? The caribou were cool, right?”

“You mean the large, angry deer? Oh yes, very cool.”

The crowd of angels began to stir. Metatron’s smile twitched as he tried to talk over the murmuring, “So! As they say… let us be unheeded, happy...”

“Besides, I like to be fashionably late.”

“What, precisely, is so fashionable about being late?”

“Stow it you two, hurry up!”

“Stow it all three of you! Who cares if we’re late? Like you said, Gabriel. Metatron’s a great big...”

Metatron’s voice rang even louder, “...and near to the wild heart of life!”

“...bag of dicks.”

The double doors creaked open and the crowd’s voice died at once. Sam, Dean, Castiel, and Gabriel stood in the archway, frozen in the gaze of over a hundred angels.

Metatron glowered at them.

“Well. That’s awkward.” Dean muttered. He spotted the bar and tried to slip away, but Castiel grabbed him by the arm.

“Winchesters! And the Archangel Gabriel. How kind of you to join us.” Metatron said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “A little late, aren’t we?”

Castiel tilted his head.

“Late?” Gabriel scoffed, grabbed a shrimp stick off of a nearby cherub, “A wizard is never late. He arrives precisely when he means to. Shove that up your stocking. Come on, Sammy.” He popped the shrimp in his mouth, grabbed Sam, and made his way into the murmuring crowd with Sam muttering apologies left and right.

Castiel sighed and let Dean lead him after Sam and Gabriel.

Metatron cleared his throat loudly, causing the room to silence again, “Like I was saying, a toast!” His warm smile had returned, with just a flicker of annoyance.

The angels lifted their glasses in unison. Castiel and Dean scrambled to grab glasses off a moving cherub. Gabriel was handing Sam some he’d already swiped.

(“I don’t need three!”)

Metatron sipped his champagne and smacked his lips with relish, “Good stuff! Now… may you all have very Merry Christmas Eve! Huzzah!”

A band began playing music from the stage, and chatter broke out among the crowd. Angels all drifted back to their partners and friends, although there was a halo of silence around Sam and Dean. Neither of them seemed to notice or care.

Sam was staring at Metatron as he joined the revelry.

“Is he… Santa Claus?” Sam asked.

Gabriel just finished chugging his last glass of champagne, “Yup. He does that every year. You gunna finish that?” He asked Dean.

Dean handed him his champagne instantly.

Castiel was trying to drink his, but he kept tasting it and frowning, “There’s too much air in mine.”

Dean took Castiel’s glass and passed that to Gabriel, too, “It’s called carbonation, Cas.”

Sam laughed.

“Alright, well, if you guys need me, I mean... us, we’ll be at the bar.” Dean grabbed Castiel and led him through a gap of angels. No one stopped them, they just stared as Dean and Castiel passed.

Gabriel sneaked his five or six empty glasses onto a passing cherub-elf, then offered Sam his hand. It took Sam a second to realize what he was doing.

“Oh! Um...” Sam glanced around.

“Don’t worry about them.” Gabriel nodded over his shoulder, “Metatron might have told us not to invite humans.”

Sam took Gabriel’s hand, “What? Why?”

Gabriel feigned thought as he put an arm around Sam’s waist, “Probably so the Winchesters wouldn’t find out and crash his party.” Gabriel grinned.

Sam smiled, “Nice tricks, Trickster.” He put his hand in Gabriel’s and danced with him to the music.

“I’m impressed, Sam.”

“What? I took a ballroom class with my ex.”

Gabriel gave Sam a flirty look.

The stares they were attracting gradually shifted from stares of alarm and concern, to stares of curiosity and interest. Several other angels joined them, dancing to the music with their fellows.

“So.” Sam started, trying not to notice the audience, or how good Gabriel looked in his suit and tie. Even his hair looked nice. Did he use product? “...Um.”

“Riveting discussion, Sam.”

“Shut up.” Sam looked at him. Gabriel’s smile was infectious, “I’ve been thinking.”

“Go on.”

“You know how I said, no tricks? No… funny business.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you’re pretty much all tricks and funny business...”

“Gee, thanks.”

“No. What I mean is…” Sam took a breath, “All that stuff is what makes you, you. And... I like you.” Sam looked at him, “So, I take it back.” Gabriel was silent, “You should just be yourself.”

“You do realize what you just said, right?” Gabriel clarified.

“Yeah.” Sam smiled resignedly.

Gabriel grinned at Sam. As the music reached a crescendo, Gabriel spun Sam around and kissed him. Sam’s laughter melted away. They shared a kiss under the mistletoe and tinsel decorated icicles, savoring the taste champagne on each other’s lips.

“I don’t feel right leaving Sam and Gabriel.” Castiel was saying to Dean as they made their way through the crowd. It was easy, all the angels were giving them a wide birth.

“They’re both consenting adults.” Dean said, “Plus, Gabriel’s an Archangel. Not even Metatron’s dumb enough to mess with them.” Dean said, making fearless eye contact with a few interloping angels. For a brief moment he saw a ray of hope, a beacon of angelic light shining ahead: the bar. They were a foot away when someone stepped into their path.

“Hello, Castiel.”

Dean and Castiel stopped.

“Oh.” Castiel said, “Hello, Hannah.”

Hannah smiled politely, then glanced down at Castiel’s hand, which was currently being held by Dean, “I… just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas.” She regained her composure.

Castiel nodded stiffly, “Yes. Thank you. And you as well.” He inched to the right, trying to allow Dean to keep moving.

Hannah inched to the left, blocking him, “Um, I also wanted to say, congratulations.”

“For what?” Castiel looked confused.

“Bringing a human here. After what Metatron told us, I mean, it was brave of you.”

Dean rolled his eyes. He inched next to Castiel, making himself completely visible in front of Hannah.

Hannah chose to ignoring him, “There are some here who will not appreciate Metatron inviting you, but, I want you to know that I do. Appreciate you. Coming here...”

“You done?” Dean asked flatly.

Hannah glanced at Dean, “Yes. I suppose.”

Castiel nodded awkwardly, “Right. Well, thank you again. We’ll just… be going.”

Dean pulled Castiel away and walked roughly past Hannah. He stepped on the foot of an angel wearing a fast food uniform without even noticing. He only stopped when they reached the bar, grabbing onto it like a life raft.

“How did I let you convince me to come to a party where no one understands basic human principles like leaving me the Hell alone?” Dean sat on a crystal barstool. It was oddly comfortable.

Castiel sat numbly beside him.

“You alright, Cas?”

Castiel glanced at him, “Yeah. Of course. Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Dean muttered, “I get it.”

“Get what?”

“That angel back there. Hannah?” Dean explained, “She has the hots for you.”

Castiel looked taken aback, “No she doesn’t.” He scoffed.

“Right. Well you weren’t the one getting the death glares back there. If I wake up dead tomorrow, I’m telling you, it’s her.”

“That’s not funny, Dean.”

“Can I take your order?” A tall, square jawed angel asked. He was wearing a black dress shirt, a grey suit vest, and red and green bowtie. He had a string of Christmas lights draped over his broad chest that he clearly was trying to pretend wasn’t there.

“Hey, I know you...” Dean started.

“Yes, aren’t you Gadreel?” Castiel squinted at him.

Gadreel took a deep, calming breath, “Can I take… your order?”

“Yeah. Uh, do you take Mastercard here or is it just Disney Bucks?” Dean asked.

Gadreel sighed, “It’s an open bar.”

“Wow.” Dean glanced at Castiel, impressed, “That was a mistake. I’ll have your top shelf whiskey good sir, and don’t bother with the ice.”

Metatron was making his way through the party, stopping to greet each and every angel. He clinked glasses together, even though noone but him seemed to know why, and dropped phrases like, "And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” As he passed a confused looking Hannah, he noticed Gabriel and Sam dancing.

“Metatron! Good to see you. I was hoping I could have a word...” Hannah had stopped him, but Metatron kept walking.

“Uh… yes, yes. Merry Christmas to you, too.” He said distantly. He left her in the crowd and marched up to Gabriel, “Gabriel.” He snarled quietly, standing in Sam’s shadow.

Gabriel pretended not to hear him. Sam followed his lead, continuing to waltz.

“I thought I said no Winchesters!” He hissed after them, following them back and forth awkwardly to the music.

“No, you said no humans. And seeing as how Sam and Dean have been dead, reborn, turned into vampires, etc, I hardly think they qualify.” Gabriel winked subtly at Sam. Sam grinned.

“You know perfectly well what I meant. I told you, explicitly…!”

Gabriel swept Sam around and glared over his shoulder at Metatron, “Then maybe you shouldn’t have lit my pants on fire. By the way, nice castle, Elsa. Ciao!” And with that, he slid gracefully back into the dance. He plucked a Christmas rose out of a vase and put it between his teeth. Sam cracked up.

Angels filled in the space between Metatron and Gabriel, leaving Metatron fuming and muttering to himself.

Dean had been keeping an eye on the confrontation from the bar, but it seemed Gabriel had taken care of it. Dean felt his big brother instincts relax a little, so he turned back to Castiel, “So Cas. I’m not sure which one of us is getting more death glares, you or me.” He sipped his whiskey.

Gadreel had made Castiel the ‘house special’ which was a red and green cocktail with a cherry and mistletoe sprig on top. Castiel just kept staring at it, “It’s probably because I rebelled against Heaven, killing hundreds, and you were the sword of Michael, whom you sent to Hell with Lucifer.”

Dean stared at him. He didn’t need to say it.

“Subtly. I know.” Castiel sighed.

Dean sipped his drink. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Hannah approaching the bar. Dean put his drink down.

“So, Dean. I...” But he never finished his sentence. Dean had put his arm over the back of Castiel’s stool, leaned over, and kissed him. Castiel stared in surprise. Deciding he wouldn’t question it, he kissed Dean back, tasting the whiskey on his tongue.

Dean saw Hannah change direction mid step. Dean smiled into the kiss. He felt Castiel kissing him back and decided to make it a formal affair. Gadreel cleared his throat, but when neither of them stopped kissing, he walked away to serve someone else.

“Well well well. Someone gave that squirrel wings.” A low, raspy voice cooed from behind them.

Dean and Castiel broke apart to see Crowley at their side, watching them in approval. Dean immediately reached into his suit jacket.

“Dean.” Castiel stopped him.

“Yeah, Dean.” Crowley said, “Can’t kill me here. In case you didn’t notice, we’re surrounded by Heaven’s choir.”

“So what the Hell are you doing here?” Dean sneered.

“Yes, why are you here?” Castiel repeated.

“I was invited, obviously.” Crowley said, sipping a red martini.

“By who?” Castiel challenged.

An arm slipped around Crowley’s shoulders, and the figure of a distracted, British angel swooped into the picture, “Yes, yes, of course I’m on Instagram! Message me later.” He said to a group of angels passing by before turning to greet whoever Crowley was dragging him over to greet.

Balthazar looked at Dean and Castiel in surprise, “Well! I wasn’t expecting to see you here!”

“You?” Castiel’s brow came together in confusion, “Balthazar. You brought… Crowley?”

“Oh yes.” Balthazar began, leaning on Crowley who was looking immensely smug, “It’s a funny story, you see, we met up at a banquet for the Purgatory Orphans Fund, dreadfully boring by the way, would not recommend, anywho, one thing led to another, and we’re getting shitfaced in my hot-tub and f...”

“Okay! Okay, nope no no no.” Dean interrupted.

“...ing like rabbits.” Balthazar laughed to himself, “Great night. So here we are.”

“Yes.” Crowley sipped his drink fondly, “Here we are.” He raised his brow at Castiel, who was looking nauseous.

Much to the delight of both Crowley and Balthazar, Crowley seemed to be unnerving every angel around them even more so than the Winchesters. Metatron kept shooting Balthazar mutinous looks, but even he was staying away from them.

“You are such a devil, you know that?” Balthazar murmured to Crowley.

Crowley smirked, “Already aware of that, darling.” He purred.

“Darling. I love it.” Balthazar said briskly.

“What’ll you have?” Gadreel appeared in front of Crowley and Balthazar.

“Oh I’ll have whatever Cassie is having. That looks delightful.” Balthazar said.

Dean and Castiel exchanged reluctant looks, both sipping their drinks in silence.

“I must say.” Balthazar leaned in to speak just to Dean and Castiel, “I brought Crowley because… oh thank you, Gadreel. I thought it would piss off Metatron...” Balthazar glanced around quickly, spotting him glaring in the distance, “And I think it’s working.” He smirked. There was a twinkle in his eye.

Dean considered this. He downed his entire drink then, to Castiel’s surprise, said, “I can appreciate that.”

Balthazar nodded, “I knew you would.” He clapped Dean on the shoulder, “Great seeing you two gents, really.” He took his drink and let Crowley lead him back into the crowd.

Castiel sighed deeply, “I will never understand Balthazar’s antics.”

Dean allowed himself a smile, “I dunno. I think he’s got the right idea. Any chance to mess with Metatron...”

“Dean.”

Dean looked over at him, “Yeah?”

“I’m glad you came here with me.” Castiel said honestly, taking Dean’s hand, “I don’t know how I would have gotten through this without you.”

Dean licked his lips in thought, but he chose not to say anything. He rubbed Castiel’s hand, leaned over, and kissed him.

Back on the dance floor, Gabriel and Sam had taken a break. Angels were coming by to say hi to Gabriel, including a young man wearing a fast food joint uniform.

“Alfie! Good to see you.” Gabriel gave him a one armed hug.

“It’s Samandriel.” He reminded him, “Sam, good to see you.” He shook Sam’s hand formally, “I see you aren’t following the rules as usual, Gabriel.”

“Rules are for squares.” Gabriel said.

“Yes, well.” Alfie glanced around quickly, then whispered, “I’m glad someone is bringing a little life to this party.” He gave Sam a small smile then walked away.

Soon, other angels were following Alfie’s lead, coming over to say hello to Gabriel and gawk at Sam. If Sam didn’t know better, he’d think we was Gabriel’s trophy date. But Gabriel’s pride wasn’t coming from challenging Metatron, it was coming from Sam being there with him, so Sam was happy to play along. He made sure to put his arm around Gabriel whenever Metatron was looking, and whisper sweet nothings into Gabriel’s ear as Metatron passed. After a few more glasses of champagne, Sam and Gabriel were truly having a ball. Finally, Gabriel suggested they get something more substantial to drink, and they joined Dean and Castiel at the bar.

Sam froze when he saw Gadreel.

“What? What’s wrong?” Gabriel asked suddenly.

Sam shook his head, “Nothing, I just… I feel like I know him.”

Gabriel ordered for them while Sam caught up with Dean.

“Did you see Metatron? He’s pissed.” Sam smiled.

“Yeah, this is actually kind of awesome.” Dean squeezed Castiel’s hand.

Castiel seemed to have finally relaxed, and was sipping his frozen drink contentedly.

Gabriel passed Sam a green mojito and sat beside him.

“So did you see Crowley’s here?” Dean asked.

“What?” Sam looked around wildly, reaching into his jacket.

Gabriel stopped him, sharing a knowing look with Castiel.

“Yeah.” Dean huffed, “Balthazar brought him as his date.”

Gabriel gave a shout of laughter, “Oh… that’s genius.” He smiled fondly, “I love that angel.”

Sam gave him a look, so Gabriel leaned in and nuzzled him affectionately. Sam laughed and pushed him off.

Soon, a group of angels from Castiel’s old garrison came by to say hi, and Castiel introduced them to the group.

“Sam, Dean, this is Uriel, Hester, and Inias.”

“Yes.” Uriel said, “And Anna is over there with Hannah.”

Castiel and Dean both looked over to the two women chatting by the stage.

Sam looked away.

“Good. Good” Castiel nodded awkwardly, “Tell her I say hi.”

“I’ll call her over.” Uriel said, oblivious to Castiel's trepidation. He caught the redhead’s attention and waved her over.

Dean was looking anywhere but at Castiel.

Anna came over, smiling at him, “Hello Castiel. And… oh! Dean.” She stared at him.

Dean pretended to just notice her, giving her an overly politely smile, “Hey. How are you, Anna?”

Castiel couldn’t help but notice how beautiful Anna looked in a long, purple dress. He kept eyeing Dean.

“And, Sam! How are you?” Anna gravitated towards him.

“Hi Anna. You look nice.” Sam swallowed, “Say, Gabriel, weren’t you just asking me to go do something that’s nowhere near here?”

Gabriel looked at him, “You mean go make out in the coat closet? Hellz yeahs, let’s go.” Gabriel took his drink and dragged Sam off.

Anna’s gaze fell back to Dean. She bit her lips, nodding awkwardly, “Right. So.”

“Dean’s my date.” Castiel told her brusquely. Dean nearly facepalmed, “He’s here as my date.” He clarified unnecessarily.

Anna nodded again, “Right. Well. It was good seeing you, Dean.” She smiled at him, then left with Uriel, Hester, and Inias.

Dean stared at Castiel.

“W...what?” He asked.

Dean grinned, “Smooth.”

“She was… flirting with you.”

“Yeah, probably because we hooked up on her last night on Earth.”

Castiel paled, “Exactly.”

Dean set his drink down, looking oddly smug, “Don’t tell me… are you jealous?”

Castiel’s eyes widened, “You were jealous of Hannah.”

“Yeah, because she wants to jump your feathers!”

“And Anna wants…!”

Dean cut him off, “Wanna go make ‘em both jealous?”

Castiel faltered, “What? How?”

Dean glanced around, “Come on.” He took Castiel by the hand and led him away from the bar. Soon they were weaving into the crowd of dancing angels. Dean caught Anna looking away, so he held out his hand for Castiel.

Castiel stared at it.

“Take my hand, Cas.” Dean muttered, “And put your arm around my waist.”

Castiel did so, then was surprised to find Dean pulling him close. He led Castiel into a slow, simple dance, moving in the time with the music and the other angels around them.

Castiel relaxed a little, “I didn’t know you could dance.”

“I can’t. Not really anyway. Just follow my lead.”

Castiel did as Dean said. He couldn’t take his eyes off of him. Soon, Dean and Castiel had both forgotten about Anna and Hannah, and were dancing happily together, joking and smiling.

“Hey.” Sam appeared beside them with Gabriel. He was retying his tie hastily.

Dean eyed him knowingly, “How was the coat closet?”

Sam grinned sheepishly, “Good. How’s Anna?”

“Who?”

Sam smiled, then let Gabriel lead him into a dance.

As Sam and Dean danced with their angels, they both noticed Balthazar and Crowley on the other side of the marble dance floor, doing a kind of tipsy funeral march. They had just gotten done talking with Naomi, who was now giving Balthazar a dark look. Her date, a clean cut angel Sam thought was named Bartholomew, sighed.

For once, Sam didn’t mind Crowley being there. He shared a look with Dean, who seemed to feel the same way.

“Alright everyone!” Metatron had gotten back up on the stage. The music quieted, and everyone turned to look at him. Metatron was back in full swagger, gazing out over his adoring (sort of) audience, “According to Greenwich Mean Time… it is now midnight, December 25th! Merry Christmas!” He cheered.

There was a general cheer and clapping from the crowd. Fireworks of red, green, silver, and gold lit up the high ceilings, their lights dancing like the aurora borealis.

“Merry Christmas, Sam.” Dean said.

“Merry Christmas, Dean.” He smiled back. Then Gabriel was taking Sam into a passionate kiss, and Castiel followed cue, kissing Dean under the mistletoe.

Once midnight had struck, the party became a bit wilder; Or at least as wild as angels could get. The band picked back up, playing upbeat, jazzy Christmas music, while Sam, Dean, Castiel, and Gabriel traded spiked eggnog shots. Even Balthazar and Crowley joined them. Soon, Dean was leading the angels in toasting to the New Year, something Metatron had been trying to initiate for ten minutes.

Metatron glared at Gadreel, who blatantly ignored him. He’d taken off his Christmas lights and given them to Gabriel, who had put them over Sam’s head. Crowley chuckled in approval. Even Anna and Hannah stopped looking away whenever Dean and Castiel kissed. By the end of the night, the two ladies were holding hands and dancing together. Even Alfie was sharing a dance with a short angel named Ambriel, whose glasses were slightly skewed from laughing too much.

Dean had his arm around Castiel, and Gabriel’s hand was permanently fixed in Sam’s back pocket.

The party finally winded down by sunrise. The castle seemed to glow in the morning light and one by one, the blue fireplaces flickered off. Gabriel and Castiel offered to take a now tipsy Sam and Dean back home.

“Nah. How about you send us to a beach somewhere. That sounds better than Kansas.” Dean slurred.

“Here here.” Sam agreed, “We can get more Christmas trees.”

Gabriel grinned, and even Castiel gave a rare smile.

“Yes... been enjoying the unusual cold spell in Kansas I sent for you?” Metatron had appeared between Sam and Dean. They both stared at him, sobering up instantly.

“You… you did that?” Sam sputtered.

“I did.” Metatron grinned proudly, “I thought maybe you boys could use a little Christmas cheer for the holidays.”

“You realized that made the news right? ‘Global warming crisis in Kansas, USA’.” Sam laughed.

“I call bullshit.” Dean added, “You just wanted to snow us in so we couldn’t mess up your party.”

Metatron frowned, “Yes… but I can see my efforts have gone to waste.”

Gabriel and Castiel both a step forward.

Metatron raised his hands in mock defensive, “I’m not here to make war. Just to wish you all… a Merry Christmas.”

Dean considered him for a moment, then held out his hand to shake, “Good party, Metatron.”

Sam, Gabriel, and Castiel stared at him.

Metatron took his hand hesitantly, “Thanks. Maybe I’ll relax on my no humans rule next year. You hall do seem to have quite the Christmas spirit.” He admitted.

Sam smiled, “Sure thing.”

Metatron walked away, leaving the four of them to their conversation.

“So. You guys ready to get out of here?” Gabriel asked.

Sam and Dean shared a quick glance.

“Yeah, but...” Dean started.

“Just… one more thing.” Sam nodded at Dean.

They both got up and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Gabriel and Castiel in curious silence. After a few minutes of chatting with Gadreel, they reappeared, and Sam, Dean, Castiel, and Gabriel left with the rest of the departing crowd.

“It really is beautiful out here.” Castiel said as they stepped out into the cold, polar sunrise. It was a frozen tundra of sparkling white ice and snow; A beautiful, alien world. The castle behind them now looked like nothing more than an igloo. Sam idly wondered if a survey crew would ever stumble upon it while searching for penguins.

“What do you say we go find those caribou?” Gabriel grinned.

“No.” Dean said firmly, “Let’s go home.”

“By the way, what were you guys doing back there before we left?” Gabriel asked curiously.

Sam and Dean exchanged looks, “We’ll tell you about it later.” Sam said.

And with that, Gabriel and Castiel poofed them all back to the bunker for a warm, festive, Christmas morning.

Back at the castle, Metatron and Gadreel were cleaning up. The place was littered with empty glasses, mistletoe, tinsel, and other miscellaneous rubbish. Metatron still had on his Santa hat, but he’d removed the beard. Gadreel was wiping down the bar when he called out for Metatron.

“Yes, Gadreel.” He sighed.

“Someone left something behind. It has your name on it.”

Metatron glanced at him in confusion, “What?” He went behind the bar to see what has happening.

Gadreel handed him a large, wrapped gift with a green bow on top signed, “To Metatron. Merry Christmas. From, Santa.” Metatron chuckled to himself, “Ohoho… a secret admirer perhaps...”

“It says… from Santa.” Gadreel corrected him.

Metatron rolled his eyes, “Go clean something, will you?”

Gadreel dropped his rag and walked away.

Metatron set the package down on the bar and opened it greedily. His face fell. It was some sort of Santa look alike. Before Metatron could figure out how it worked, music roared through the castle, magically magnified as if by angelic means.

“Feliz Navidad! Feliz Navidad!”

“What on Earth!” Metatron hollered, “Gadreel! We’re under attack!”

The music shook decorations and icicles off the ceiling. Liquor glasses shattered, icy pillars cracked, and Gadreel was no where to be found.

“Winchesters!”

“I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas! I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas!”

Chapter Eight Prompts:

Here are the prompts for this chapter.

Gabriel Monthly Challenge AU/Trope - Fake Dating for the Holidays

Amino’s Holiday Prompt List 8. underneath the mistletoe 13. igloos 14. the North Pole 24. Santa Clause and/or his elves 30. fireworks

If you’d like to read this chapter directly on AO3, here’s a link: A Very Supernatural Christmas Party - Chapter Eight

Thank you all for reading!

It's not quite the end - I plan on posting at least one more chapter. My last prompt is 'Happy New Year!' so I intend on making it a very happy new year for Sam, Dean, Cas, and Gabe.

Enjoy! And Happy Holidays!

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