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shadowsfascination · 3 years

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Shadamy Swordland | Ch 1 | The Hayloft

In reference to this post Sorry if it’s a little long!I might add a second chapter to this. I got carried away and alrady wrote the draft, aaah! ^^

The Chaos energy that we know from the canon is seen here as a source of magical powers. One can master spells and learn the sacred arts to perform them. Special thanks to @shadamyheadcanons for writing all these beautiful headcanons. You may not know, but your writings are a huge inspiration to me and brighten up my day (: I’m not even sure whether I write well, but here goes, lol! ___________________________________________

There’s a hidden entrance to the hayloft above the stables-building where Shadow used withdraw himself after a day of training his students or intense swordfights. It’s accessed by a ladder, stuffed away in a dark corner of the stables-building. One must know about it’s existence to use it or one will not even find it. To keep it like this, Shadow told no one about it, so he’d be left alone, even if he has a pleasant home to go to. His house was located near the central square on the academy and therefore way too noisy for him. Shadow liked the quiet so he could think. He was sensitive to incentives, which could be a blessing and a curse all at once. In addition to the crowdy location of his home, there’d also be the many, many encounters he’d have with young female students who always ‘happened’ to run into him on his way home that he’d rather go without. Notorious for being an excellent swordsman and a noble too, there’d always be female students trying to catch his eye. When both not intending to engage in nor interested in any romantic affair, he’d also feel extremely awkward not knowing how to let them down easily. He had a reputation of being blunt and did not want to add to it. Especially after he’d been called to the board to explain why there had been gossips around the academy about a romantic involvement with one of his students, Amy Rose.

He made clear to the board there was no such thing going on between them and offendedly told them that their presupposition was to be unheard of. He was her superior, she was his trainee. It was unthinkable that he’d become romantically involved with her. Even more so because he was a noble and she was not. No, Shadow had no interest in romance whatsoever. His work as a trainer and duty as a knight was too important to him and he did not let anything distract him from that. And so he returned to his hayloft, alone. Or so it seemed…

A cloaked Amy Rose snuck out of the trainees’ dorm in the middle of the night, remaining in the shadows of the academy buildings. When unable to avoid stepping into the range of the torchlights on the streets, she used her special skill to briefly turn invisible and disappeared into the shadows again. No one would catch a glimpse of her. She’d been doing it for about two months now and became more skilled in the art of hiding, blending into the background and admitted to herself that she even enjoyed sneaking around. Checking for the last time to see if the coast was clear, she placed her boots on the spurts of the ladder and carefully climbed up. Once she made it to the stables-building, she was safe. No one would come around at this hour and it was far away from the dorm. And that meant she didn’t have to be quiet anymore. A wave of excitement rushed through her as she stepped further, peaking around one of the wooden support-beams. Her trainer and now secret lover was napping in the hay, a twig of wheat between his lips, armor and sword removed. Even without any of it he was still extremely handsome.

“You’re here.” “Hey you!” Amy felt caught. She kept forgetting how well developed his senses were. A heat gushed to her cheeks. “Did no one see you?” “No. Surprisingly, there wasn’t anyone out there tonight.” Amy stepped in on him, out of the small, faint light that managed to beam into the loft. “Lucky you.” “I am. I get to spend time with you.” She seductively winked at him. “We see each other almost every day. I would say we already spend a lot of time together.” “Yes, but almost never can I do this…” Amy bent over and gave him a quick peck on the lips. Shadow then grasped her wrists and pulled her into him to passionately return her gesture and playfully pulled her over into the stack of hay he laid in. Twigs of straw flew up around them and the old, wooden floors creaked at her landing, slightly startling the horses in the stables beneath them. Cloak and rapier were taken off to be placed near his sword and amor. Besides her room at the dorm and the bathing facility, this was the only place where she’d put her sword away. Even when their district wasn’t engaged in a war currently, there were lots of obscure figures around with bad intentions and she should be able to handle them herself at all times. But not here. She was safe around him and could even pretend to be a damsel in destress if she wanted. She properly sat next to him, being handed a handmade clay cup with fresh water, which was all he could provide her up here. It was unevenly round and was a steal from the dorm-kitchen.

“Sadly you cannot. I was called to the board a few days ago.” “What? Why?” “They asked me to explain the apparently present gossips about us being romantically involved. I believe they bought my story, seeing how the apologized for the improper assumption after my offended reaction.” “There’s gossips about us? That’s bad! I cannot imagine who would have caught onto us. We’ve been really careful.” Amy chewed her lip and drew a sorrowfully face, staring at her reflection in the cup.

“Beats me.” “So, what did you tell them?” “I might have raised my voice and angrily scolded them for daring to accuse me of such foul, improper behaviour, you know?” Shadow said with a neutral expression. Amy heaved a sigh. “Plagues, Shadow! You really said that? Oh, who am I kidding? Of course that’s what you said!” “What are you being so dramatic for? It is in fact one of the very few assets that comes with the title of being a noble.” “You’re hopeless. Others will despise you for this kind of behaviour.” “What business do I have with others? Besides, they’re already not very fond of me. I’m an outsider and always will be. Anyway, we have got to be extra cautious from now on. They let me off with a warning, but this is serious.” “Serious, how?” “If they have the slightest proof that something is in fact going on, I’ll be suspended from training students and you’ll…” A long pause followed while Shadow looked away from her.

“You’ll be refrained from participating in battles, not allowing you to advance in your training or education. Worst case scenario might be that you’ll even be transferred to another academy.” “Aaargh! That’s so unfair!”

Amy intensified the grip on the cup enough to cause a crack in the enamel and angrily muttered about the ways she could scold the board for being this unreasonable. If it weren’t the middle of the night her somewhat impulsive, hot-headed nature might’ve gotten the best of her, storming off to the board to give them a piece of her mind. That was if they’d even let them see her. It wasn’t her place, coming from a lower-rank family. She furiously hated the hierarchy in the world and let out a curse. Shadow then grabbed her face and accidentally squeezed her muzzle a little too hard. Interrupting her many wrath-driven ideas to change the board’s vision, she was now forced to look at him. “I’m telling you now: you are NOT to mingle in this! I forbid it.”

“You forbid it?!” Amy broke away from his grip, bewildered and offended by his statement. “Yes, I forbid it. One of the benefits of being both your trainer and your lover. You’ll only make things look more suspicious.” An angry frown appeared on her face. “It’s not okay that they have that much power! I hate it! It shouldn’t matter! It doesn’t matter how big the gap between us is! I don’t understand how you’re not upset about this?!” “Fire and torments, Amy!” Shadow yelled at her. “Just get over it! Both our futures are at stake here! You have great potential to become a fine swordswomen and I’m not just saying that because you’re my trainee.” “So, our career-perspective is all that matters to you?” A sudden cold gushed through his body and Shadow’s face grew pale, leaving his hands to tremble and fists clenched. “How dare you say that to me?!” He whirled around, pushed her down and bent over her. The heart that had eagerly anticipated being with him tonight was now afraid of him for the first time in her life. It cramped inside her chest in fear, but that feeling faded to be replaced with a mixture of compassion and sadness when she caught his gaze. “BLAST, women! You’re the only person I choose to hang out with voluntarily. THE ONLY ONE!” A crack in his voice ended his scream. Startled by his outburst and her own false accusations, mean even in a way, Amy fell quiet. He wasn’t angry. He was afraid! Afraid to lose her. Shadow turned his face away from her, swallowed and bitterly stated: “If that’s what you think of me, you’d better take lea-“ Amy leaned in on Shadow, pulling him into her and silenced his doubts with a passionate, yet tender kiss. The hands that were clenched together as fists just a moment ago, opened up and slid under her back to lift her in his arms, holding her closer to his body. Her heartrate changed into a different pace, still rapid, but now driven by the intimate connection between them. She broke away from their kiss, eyes tearing up. “I don’t! At all!” He nodded at her once, closing the remaining distance between them again before she could entirely finished her sentence. He not only locked lips with her once more, but lifted her muzzle with his index-finger to force her gaze upon his. Amy then clasped her hands onto his back, slightly losing touch with reality with every touch. She ran her fingers through his quills in ways that made him shiver, returning his hasty, impatient ways of loving her. Shadow’s lips found their way to the soft lines that formed her jaw, then her neck and softly, heatedly blew in her ear, sending a hot rush through her veins. Abruptly he sat up. “Shadow, wha-“ He silenced her at once. His ears then twitched. Did he hear something? She held her breath. Suddenly the least of background sounds were highly present and she couldn’t differentiate them anymore. Luckily, as a feature of the ultimate lifeform, he was more than qualified to. When he breathed out at last, she followed his lead. “False alarm. I thought I heard something there for a minute.” Already leaning in to pick up where they left, Shadow was stopped by Amy. “Hey…I’m really sorry about before…” “Just promise me that you’ll stay out of it.” “I’ll bear with it.” “It’s only until you graduate. Now, can we please drop the subject?”

“Sure thing, my lord.”

She stuck out her tongue, knowing he hated to be called that and gave him a playful push, but was suddenly startled by the sound of a crack coming from the ladder. “Someone’s here!” She whispered with eyes wide open. She panicked, grasped in the direction of her belt to find that her sword still laid on the haystack and rushed over to get it. Being followed by Shadow, who also gathered his armor and sword and pulled her close to him. She looked at him in confusion. “Trust me, I have a trick up my sleeve: Chaos Control.” Having arrived at his house by teleportation caused by what Amy guessed was a high level sacred art spell, she heavily breathed out the tension in her body.

“That was amazing! How did you…What kind of spell was that?!”

“Plagues, Amy! Your cloak!”

“No, no, no!” she called out in despair, but regained hope when Shadow pointed out this was an excellent occasion for her to use her special skill.

He warped them back to the stables and hid somewhere, waiting for her to come back with the cloak.

Amy turned invisible and entered the spurts of the ladder as quiet as possible.

She quickly scanned the loft for the stranger. Her vision became more blurry when using her special skill, which was one of the downsides of it.

She was in luck: there was no one around. The other must have left.

There it was!

She swiftly footed her way to the piece of clothing, grabbed it and turned around to leave.

In the blink of an eye Amy regained visibility when a hand cupped her mouth from behind.

Amy let out a muffled cry.

The free hand of the stranger pushed her arms behind her back and fumbled the cloth around them.

“Surprise!”

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prettyboysdontlookatexplosions · 4 years

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inspired by @honeybabydichotomy some time back / me wildly needing a series of small brain breaks from trying to plan this remote lesson while sleep deprived because i simply could not fall back asleep after 3:15 this morning and my brain is feeling A Wee Bit Totally Deranged, here is my vague/wishy-washy to-write list!

things you can more or less properly call WIPs:

*the story i am actively working on right now, in which eliot & quentin take a miserable vacation together and i attempt to set a world record for number of words devoted to cultivating the precise emotion of Agonized Horniness. i thought that this was going to be short and it is definitely going to be well over 20k, big lol @ me for wildly underestimating the quantity of feelings i had about eliot waugh! but actually i am having extreme amounts of fun with this deeply self-indulgent project, which has both let me try out some things that feel new for me and also unexpectedly become very personal but not at all in the way i usually mean when i say that a story is very personal, to the extent that not only am i not (as i usually am by this point in a fic) incredibly impatient to finish it, but also i am a little sad at the prospect of no longer living with it in my head all the time! i have superstitiously grounded myself from posting any more snippets of it but taken as a set i think these do capture the vibe.

*a quick & slightly goofy resurrection fic set as a kind of episode tag for 5x03 set in an alternate universe where the “plot” of season 5 is not really happening but alice and eliot still wind up on the top of grief mountain. my motivation for this one decreased as season 5 continued to be Like That to the point of erasing any desire to keep anything from it in my personal magicians canon, but i like the central conceit which involves rewriting alice’s golem spell as a collaborative spell because i’m a sucker for any and all pieces coming together imagery, and also i feel like for me personally actually succeeding in writing something light and breezy would be a really instructive and cool learning experience!

*i am too bashful to publicly describe the last item on this list and may yet prove to be too bashful to ever finish it but it started out as me trying to imagine a conversation in which quentin tells eliot about Ye Olde Sex Magic Escapade and has sort of evolved into like me thinking a lot about eliot’s ability to trust himself? trying to find the right tone/voice for this one has been a beast largely because quentin turning 800 shades of red while he explains to eliot that a stranger had to give him advice about how to give his girlfriend the orgasms he didn’t know she wasn’t having is the funniest thing in the entire world to both me and eliot, but then every other Concept i have for it is, you know, not so much. i would like to persevere though for precisely the reason i am so bashful about it, which is that i am interested in trying to do what like 80% of people into fic do several times a year, namely write a story that moves through characterization & emotional beats mostly through the mechanism of Doing It.

wisps of half-assed notions floating idly in my brain which may or may not ever result in any actual writing:

*i have two vague epilogue/coda notions for wild geese. one is that i’d like to just check in on that version of quentin a few months later and get to see him feeling like a functional person and enjoying & reflecting on the novelty of that, learning to lean in a little more to who he is and what he wants, possibly via [redacted for reasons of bashfulness], possibly just further toying with the hugely entertaining to me notion that one lingering side effect of his death/undeath is that he suddenly becomes a foodie. or he gets into, i dunno, kickboxing. just very Wow I Have A Body times. the other idea is that i am charmed by the notion of quentin and julia getting a brakebills grant to do summer fieldwork at a hedge coven/hippie commune in like maine or something, both because i like the idea of q & j getting to have a fun low-stakes magic adventure together (they deserve it!!!) and because i’m amused by the extent to which julia would be like “this is an extremely fun way to spend exactly 2 months of my life after which i would fully go out of my mind” while quentin is like “idk maybe i do want to join a hedge commune? i wonder if eliot would be into it.” also q & e writing interdimensionally transmitted letters!

*some.... thing... about julia and eliot becoming friends, either like a snapshot of them bonding while trying to resurrect q, or else a post-resurrection fic where the process was very quick so they never really bonded but now that eliot and quentin are dating julia just shows up one day like “hello eliot who is dating my best friend and therefore also my best friend now! :D” and eliot’s like “wait what now” because he’s so used to imperiously friend-seducing people in the weirdest way possible that julia texting him a link to showing of john waters shorts at metrograph is not something he knows how to process

*some... thing... about alice figuring out how to Be Okay after quentin undeads and they break up. she gets really into some niche hobby or takes herself to some scenic location and hates it or finally tries pot. shit, maybe i am accidentally talking myself into casually shipping alice/josh. but also maybe she doesn’t hook up with anyone? maybe she gets to just have... a... friend? (kady?)

*the night of the s5 finale what i really wanted more than anything was some kind of wildly, exuberantly happy ending for eliot and the mechanism for that which popped into my head was an old school kinda 5-times-ish fic centered around a series of new year’s eves. (1) yes i have written this exact conceit before (2) yes this was partly influenced by the fact that new year’s day by taylor swift REMAINS the eliot love song of all time and “i want your midnights / but i’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on new year’s day” is still the most infuriatingly perfect description of eliot in love humanly conceivable. the heart wants what it wants.

*something exploring my vague headcanon that quentin and julia absolutely accidentally did magic as kids but it was always in the structure of being dreamy kids playing at magic and half-convincing themselves in that dreamy-kid way it was real, so that when later they outgrew that they also mentally filed those experiences away as playing pretend with great intensity.

*some............... thing........... involving present day post-s4 (alive) quentin and arielle’s... grave? great-grandchild? i dunno man, like, teddy never existed without quentin going back in time, but arielle was presumably a real person and not some weird quest-generated cipher, and i just can’t imagine that a version of quentin who remembers even as much as her name and that they were married has access to fillory and some free time and doesn’t try to figure out what did happen to her. or, like, eliot comes across someone in a familiar town with familiar eyes and is like, q i think there is someone you maybe have to see. for most of my half-assed notions i would probably be almost as happy to read a fic that already exists instead of writing it myself but for this one in particular if anyone has read one please do send it my way. it just feels like an odd gap to read so many fics where quentin and eliot are thinking about The Mosaic and Their Family and not at all interested in the branch of that family that like, concretely in this timeline lived. in my brain this is NOT a depressing story but it is admittedly hard to see how that would work out in practice.

*as you can tell from this list i am not generally a big AU person in terms of writing, because by the time i’ve exhausted the things poking at me from canon to resolve or play around with i have historically lost my stamina for that fandom. BUT, the one gratuitously self-indulgent non-magic AU i want in the world is one where quentin and alice were college sweethearts who got married at 23 and divorced six months later and quentin reacted to this by deciding that love/joy/hope/happiness/dreams are for children and stupid people, and now it’s like... 6-10 years later idk and quentin is “fine” in that he shows up to work on time and pays his bills on time and doesn’t often feel sad but lives a very small life in which he doesn’t often feel much of anything or have much of a connection to himself or other people, enter of course eliot having gone through some Rough Times but eventually turned a corner towards getting his shit together and whose joie de vivre / general hotness / open-hearted affection shakes things up in ways that are both thrilling and totally horrifying!

uncategorizable by the headings listed above:

*on december 28, 2019, i started a google doc titled “magicians underworld breakout fic” which i have sporadically been adding notes towards ever since, inspired mostly by how much i think it was a missed opportunity to never have quentin and penny come to any kind of mutual understanding of each other (or even of their own reactions to each other!) except via fake pod person underworld nonsense, and how potentially fun it would be for them to team up to make it back to life. it currently contains just under 3600 words, but they are exclusively things such as:

hades and the underworld library? hades and the whole library? what’s cool about god motivations is they are almost definitionally stupid

or:

They have been taught certain things and those things are lies - connecting to how Margo got her axes

similar to #3 on the WIP list above, the reason i may never write this is the same as the reason i very much want to actually write this, which is that it is by necessity very plotty, something i have never, ever, ever done. i started brainstorming in the last few days i was wrapping up wild geese partly because i was so excited to have written a story where like magic events happened and only like 96% of the plot could be described as “and then a person has a feeling” as opposed to my usual 100%. i have generated a lot more ideas than i really expected to (some of which i like a lot!) but also am still extremely far from having a workable story, although i also have not dedicated any purposeful time to it really, just kind of let it percolate. also it is tough because every version of how it might be told i come up with definitely involves multiple POVs and so far seems to involve more than 2 partly because like a bunch of my other magicians grudges/missed opportunity wishlist items keep sort of working their way in, which is... a lot. i feel like a sensible thing to do would be to come up with at least one (1) kind of mid-tier plottiness concept, somewhere between “50k words of And Then A Person Has A Feeling with a couple thousand spent on Magic Things Happen, Which Are Also Feelings, But Whatever” and like “5 strands of plot drawing together for me to work out every single one of the 700 beefs i have with this show at once” but AS YOU CAN SEE i literally do not have any ideas that fall into that category at the moment, so. we shall see!

#the magicians #this wound up truly unhingedly long but sleep deprivation is rly jostling my brains!#also first real of quarantine qontent is there are no rules of quarantine qontent

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movedtosalamoonder · 7 years

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99, 97, 89, 84, 82, 79, 75, 74, 68, 59,48,32, 23 ( I know a lot of questions but there are so many!!!)

((Wow, um. Okay.

99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them.

There are SO MANY, oh my gosh. I’ll just list the main ones right now. Runnin by Phillip Lambert and Echo by Vocaloid are both songs I listened to daily when I was really depressed and those songs will always mean a lot to me. No matter how many times I hear them they always pull me right back to those days. Similarly, Spirits by the Strumbellas, which is a song that just…empathizes with me, and reminds me of two of my favorite short stories, which I discovered at the same time.

97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house?

INFP, Cancer, and Slytherin (woot woot)

89: are you close to your parents?

I…used to be. When I was really little, my mom was such a hands on parent, and my dad was my science teacher (I’m homeschooled). Now, though…well, it’s kind of a sore subject. My mom never talks to me. My dad talks AT me, but never TO me. I can’t really express an honest opinion anymore.

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones?

YES I am. There’s this really cool design I saw somewhere online–just a few abstract lines flowing over the shoulder and part of the arm. The color and style reminded me of the style of The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, which is my favorite movie.

82: are/were you good in school?

I was/am mostly an As and Bs student, although I used to be terrible at math and I have this really bad habit of just forgetting about a class and not really studying/working if I don’t like the subject material.

79: what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you?

Oh. wow. So many stories. Um…how to pick just one…well. Let’s see.One time I was at swing dance and I was sort of having a terrible day, to the point where I couldn’t even pretend to be okay, and my friend keeps asking me if I’m alright. I keep saying yes but he knows me and he knows I’m lying. So he asks me to walk with him over to the other side of the strip mall, and then he asks me what’s bothering me. And I just started bawling.Now, to paint you a picture, I’m on the side with the actual shops and stuff, and he’s at the edge of the sidewalk maybe six feet away. I have sunk to the ground in complete patheticness and I hear this slight scuffling and suddenly there are arms around me and he pulls me into his lap and he just starts rambling about Lord of the Rings because he knew it made me happy for I KID YOU NOT, HALF A FREAKING HOUR. And the whole time I’m crying my eyes out and he keeps stroking my hair and holding my hand and talking about various fandoms because he doesn’t know how else to comfort me and to be honest I’m not sure anyone will ever live up to that level of kind for me again.I should add that afterward he danced with me, even though I’m extremely far from the best dancer there and he’s super experienced.

75: tell us about your pets!

Ah yes, Khoshekh!! He is the best cat in existence, I swear. Super laid back teen kitty recently rescued from our local shelter. If he were a human, he’d be a lazy yet uber smart gamer/skater kid. He’d wear hoodies all the time (he loves sleeping on hoodies). He’s all black with greenish yellow eyes (narrowly almost named Loki, but I chose Khoshekh because, Night Vale). I want to train him to be a therapy cat and am currently looking for a dog to socialize him with. He comes and curls up next to you when you are sad and kisses you when you wake up and he loves junk food and I taught him how to high five, omg he’s the best.

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns.

My best friend is a cynical angel originally from Russia. (I have a headcanon that they’re the child of Black Widow and Hawkeye). They are basically me from an alternate universe. They have so many feelings or none at all, so much hate and love and anger and awe all at once, that sometimes it’s hard to put your finger on one feeling and pin it down and know for sure; or, sometimes, they’re just quietly unemotional. They are full of words, rants and poems and stories and songs.

68: what’s winter like where you live?

Hell. Ha, no, just kidding. If there’s snow, it’s actually quite magical. If not, then it’s a good time to stay inside and watch movies. But there’s also a lot of free concerts and events downtown and caroling and of course the Christmas parade, which inevitably falls on the coldest night of the year.

59: what’s your favorite myth?

Oh, another tough one. How to choose. Um…I like the selkie myth quite a lot. The idea of a creature so magical and majestic with such a huge weak point is really interesting to me.

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today?

Um…probably getting eaten by something in the deep end of the pool. And no, I have definitely gotten over my fear of deep water.

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends.

Well, one time at a church retreat we made a giant bed out of six different mattresses and two bunk beds and a heck of a lot of blankets and pillows and we spilled secrets super cringey middle school style and then fell asleep talking. We must’ve been up till five at least.

23: what’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations?

Make an egg sandwich, wrap myself in blankets, and binge watch Superwholock. Or, if I’d in a really bad mood, My Little Pony. Because, y'know. fluff.

Thanks for these! They were fun.))

#masq speaks #tagged #old blog (ask-thewhiphand)

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ruleandruinrpg · 7 years

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CONGRATULATIONS, JEN!

You have been accepted for the role of VASILY BARANOV. Admin Rosey: Jen, you have no idea how completely over the moon I am about this application. You captured him in a single sentence, "He is a man who is so much more than what people perceive of him." You captured that perfectly, from the future plots, to the para sample that utterly broke my heart, to the headcanons. He's a man of many talents and intricacies - and you condensed all of that in this single application. When I read your application you brought him to life with his voice, his interactions, and just about everything else. I can't wait to watch him unfold! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Jen

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: she/her

AGE: 18

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: UTC+2 | I finish my finals this thursday and then I will start my summer holiday so my activity level will be pretty high. I’d say 8/10.

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: @lyradyson

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: Vasily Baranov

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?

I didn’t really expect to connect with Vasily upon first glance at his bio, to be honest, but once I actually read it and got to look at the snippet of his soul which was exposed in his bio, I immediately felt like I understood him. He is a man who is so much more than what people perceive of him. Outwardly, he would seem like someone who was born for nobility; the way he speaks, the way he holds himself. He would seem like someone who knows who they are and carries it proudly but if one were to pay more attention, they might notice the slightly stiff cadence of his voice; how he strings his words together as elegantly as one would pair up musical notes but somehow, there is always a flat undertone to them. You would never catch his voice rising in pitch as he spoke of something he was enthusiastic about, you would never catch him stammering with tearful eyes and a sorrowful expression, either. He rarely smiles genuinely; whenever he does smile, it’s more out of instinctual politeness or a required reaction than anything else. He doesn’t express emotion because he felt it so intensely while growing up that it got drained out of him

I feel like, as a child and afterwards as a teenager, living around nothing but his father’s toxic presence and the ghost of his mother that constantly haunted them, he must have carried immense guilt. The mentions of his mother which used to be a constant in his life, along with his father’s self-destruction as living proof of the tragedy his birth had brought onto them, it all contributed to his belief that his existence brought nothing but destruction. And of course he had no chance to expel that guilt and all the sadness he faced whenever he was around his father–and even when he wasn’t around him–and so he ended up teaching himself to compartmentalize. He bottled it all in to keep from tilting beneath the weight of his guilt and all the other emotions he had to experience everyday throughout his life with his father. The weight which had just kept getting heavier and heavier. He taught himself not only that but practically everything; he brought himself up because nothing was going to do it for him; not the love of his dead mother, and not the envy of his barely-living father. He’s independent and self-reliant but those two qualities definitely came at a heavy cost. From how much he had kept his emotions in and how much he had learned to school and anchor himself, he ended up locking his emotions and losing the key.

And yet, despite all that, he walks among people gracefully, not once displaying the torment he had endured and does endure occasionally nowadays. Life as a trader; a life which depends on charisma and wit had taught him to feign; to pretend; something which must have been unfamiliar to him because he could never really pretend around his father; the living testament to his destructive existence. But when he was finally free of that, he adapted to the new environments he was constantly finding himself in which made him qualified for eventually joining the Ravkan court. The fact that he’s not emotionally expressive doesn’t mean he’s emotionless, however. Vasily feels. And he feels intensely. Which is part of the reason why he keeps it all in.

He’s just so burdened that it makes me feel genuinely sorry for him. Burdened when he doesn’t have to be. When he allows himself to think about it, he blames himself for his mother’s death, for the way his father’s life had deteriorated even if the man always claimed that he wished he’d married someone else and denied the fact that he was grieving. He blames himself for accepting the way his father had cast him aside and how he pretty much abandoned the man because he feels partly responsible for him; he feels as if it had been up to him to help the man heal somehow, as if it was his responsibility simply for being his son. He grew up to become a bright man; the only hope left for the Baranov name–and yet, he finds nothing prideful in that; doesn’t really see it as an accomplishment. I find him to be quite the pessimist but it’s justified that he turned out this way considering how every time he dared to have hope, fate always snatched it from his grasp somehow.

There’s just so much of him to explore. The emptiness that constantly envelopes his soul has made him lose sight of who he is. He has many personas; the gentleman, the noble, the strategist, the supporter. He is whatever the situation requires him to be; that’s how adaptable he is. But in the midst of his adaptation and the layers he continues to surround himself with, he lost the essence of who he is. I want him to discover it again. I want him to want to discover it again, to finally find the motivation to conquer the void he feels within him. I want to put him in situations which will test his morals, his values, his flaws, his qualities. Those are all things I can’t really see clearly right now from how much his emptiness is overshadowing it all but I want to see it. I want to know how he truly is and I want him to know it as well. In a situation of crisis, would his primary concern be rescuing himself or would he consider other people first and rush to help as much as he can? If he had a chance to, would he cheat to win the game or would he feel like he is above cheating? Who was he, who is he, who is he going to become?

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

( players of the same game ): Rhea has got plans for Vasily and although it’s a plot that mostly depends on what I could potentially plan with Rhea’s player, I feel like it would have a big impact on Vasily. He has been playing the game fairly so far; I don’t think he’s been involved in any shady business in the court; after all, he’s still establishing his position as a Duke and you could say he’s being too careful and he might agree with you but Vasily is nothing if not calculated. He’s not impulsive. And that’s why he never responded to Rhea’s offers. But he does consider them whenever he thinks about it. So, it would be interesting to see what he would get involved in with the woman and whether he would allow her to manipulate him like she wants to. If he would be willing to risk falling into something beyond his control just for the sake of the thrill he might find in the potential danger of whatever the woman has got in mind.

( pills and potions ): Vasily hates the sense of losing control of himself and the circumstances he’s in. He’s a control freak, you could say. It’s why he never drinks too much and never indulges into the blessing of obliviousness. The drug Druvik gave him represents that blessing and Vasily would be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted to use it. Vasily is always stumbling in the darkness of doubt; constantly doubting his values, constantly doubting himself. He is a man who values self-control and yet, there is no bigger temptation he faces than the small, inconspicuous bag he has in his drawer and the potential it holds. It could take away the suffocating silence which only accentuates how loud his thoughts could get. It could take away the emptiness he finds every way he turns to in his miserable life. It could, it could, it could. He knows it’s dangerous; he inherently knows Druvik wasn’t really doing him a favor when he slipped that bag into his hand…or was he? To be honest, I want to push Vasily to the point where he would either allow his emotions to overflow for once or he would succumb to the temptation the drug represents. It would be so interesting to see just what it would take to get him to that decisive point; the point of deliberately giving away control. He doesn’t know what the drug is made of, what its effects are, if it’s addictive or not; it’s not something he can pre-empt which is what is so intimidating about it to him but it’s a constant temptation if only for its constant presence and promise.

( confidant ): Aside from emptiness, there is another demon that Vasily is constantly tackling; loneliness. He’s not incapable of putting trust in others, it’s simply that he never allows anyone to get too close. One reason is because he breaks everything he touches; he fears that his presence becoming constant in someone else’s life would only bring tragedy but another reason is because he never knew what it was like to trust someone or to love someone and vice versa. He’d been put at fault for simply existing from the minute he was born and that was all he had known while in the presence of his father. All the connections he’s ever formed in his life were business connections or simple acquaintance; nothing more and nothing less. I want him to find someone he can trust, someone who sees him for who he is, someone who will acknowledge Vasily’s emotional boundaries and limitations and deliberately slip past them. I want him to explore what a connection with another person would feel like; a notion that is so alien to him. I want to explore if it would have positive or negative effects on him; if it would prompt a reaction from him where he embraces it or if it would make him push it away and dismiss it; if it would change him in the long run and help him to be more genuine or if it would only make him close himself off the rest of the world even more.

( chess board ): I don’t believe being a member of the Ravkan court is easy; it’s a chess game. And Vasily is only one of many pieces. I refuse to believe that there aren’t things brewing in the background of the court and that things are a lot more multi-facted than they seem especially with the wars that are currently brewing. I want Vasily to get waist-deep in it all. He’s been playing it safe since arriving at Ravka but I want him to drift away from that, even if he will without realizing it. I want him to get knotted in the politics and tactics of it all and to see how it would influence him and his already weak grasp on his own values and morals. What connections will he form and what would their nature be? Will he gain enemies or allies or both? Will it make him more shrewd and jaded or will it make him hold on to whatever integrity he might possess? Will he get lost in it all and let himself get corrupted or will he somehow maintain his frail grip on who he is?

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?: It depends on whether I end up losing muse for him and if it would further the plot, honestly.

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

“You’re leaving.”

Vasily glanced up from his plate of burned potatoes and vegetables; eyes falling on the glass his father was twirling lazily in his hand, the liquor within it swishing and making soft sounds as it clashed against the sides of the glass; it was the only audible sound aside from their breathing. His father was clearly addressing him but was it a serious statement Vasily ought to consider a legitimate response to or was it the usual vague sentence he always used as a prequel to whatever drunken story he was about to tell? The young boy chose to stay quiet, his gaze falling back to his food. He’d been cooking meals for them both for as long as he could remember and yet, he always managed to burn the potatoes for some reason even though every time, he followed the instructions carefully from the cook book. He frowned softly as he fiddled with the darkened edges of the potatoes; wondering what he had done wrong. He was always wondering what he had done wrong.

“Boy.” His father called, his guttural voice hoarse as it scraped its way through his vocal chords. Vasily was nineteen now; he was a man and yet, that was not something his father was concerned with; he was only concerned with not speaking his son’s name and as bitter as it used to make Vasily, he was more than used to it by now. He was used to it all. This current situation with his father, it had been a constantly repeated pattern through the years with only minimal changes here and there. He knew how this was going to go and yet he wanted nothing but to walk away and lock himself up in his room.

“Yes, Father?” Vasily replied, a tone of caution seeping into his voice. He refused to look up from his plate.

“You’re leaving.” He repeated, still with the same lazy tone, in his same exact position, still twirling the glass of liquid poison he sought so desperately.

Vasily frowned, not knowing how to respond without any elaboration. His father seemed serious and oddly sober, though. His stomach churned.

“How…am I leaving, exactly?” He made sure his tone remained calm but his sense of dread only rose with each second that passed while he waited for his father’s elaboration. This wasn’t the way their conversations usually went.

“Doesn’t matter how,” He slurred. “You just are. Because I want you to.”

Vasily finally looked up from his food and was surprised that the man was actually making direct eye contact with him. The grim sight of his red-rimmed eyes was unpleasant but it was nothing compared to the cruel determination within those eyes. Vasily blinked then swallowed nervously, barely holding back a flinch against the strange lucidity that suddenly encompassed his father. He was aware of every single word he was saying and he wanted Vasily to know that.

“A ship is sailing with goods at dawn. You’re boarding it. You’re leaving and you’re not coming back.”

For a moment, Vasily had no idea how to react. Part of him was enraged at the way his father was addressing him as some sort of item that he had no use for anymore. Another part was cowering before the calculated cruelty he saw through those eyes that were so similar to his and yet so different. The dominant part of him, however, was already thinking ahead; his father was nothing if not stubborn and he seemed adamant that Vasily was leaving so where would he go? And how would he get there?

Why?

A few stagnant minutes passed where all his father did was glare at him and all Vasily did was clench his fists beneath the table as his gaze fell back on his food. This was unprecedented but the cause was becoming more apparent to him; his father had been more and more aloof and short-tempered around him since news had reached him that Vasily had been incredibly successful on the few trading trips he’d gone on recently. A man had come to visit his father a few days ago but Vasily had only heard snippets of their conversation; your boy is bright. He ought to raise the Baranov name from the dead!

The only reason he had gone on those trips–the only reason why he’d been going on them for years–was to get money for his education. His father wasn’t paying anything so Vasily was earning his own money and had been for years. But it wasn’t out of selfish intent; he enrolled himself into a schooling home because he’d thought his father would appreciate his self-reliance. He’d hoped it would make him less of a burden to the older man. He was wrong in that hope, apparently.

Was his father really banishing him for something that Vasily had done solely to make him proud?

“Do you hear me?”

Vasily looked up and met the man’s gaze once more, sorrow shining through his gentle eyes momentarily before they grew cold with a blink. He gave a stiff nod then slowly pushed himself up from his chair and walked out of the room.

—

Tendrils of wind slashed against his face as he stood aboard the ship that resembled his escape. It was banishment, there was no denying that. But he would call it an escape. He watched the port as it grew more and more distant; no one was standing on it. His father had accompanied him only to make sure that he would actually board the ship and the second that Vasily had stepped foot onto the vessel, his father had left. What had dread sinking into the pit of his stomach was how steady his steps were; you wouldn’t expect his legs to be aware of what a straight line even was from how much liquor he consumed on a daily basis but he hadn’t been stumbling as he walked away. His steps were steady and sure. As if he had made a decision he knew he wouldn’t regret. Casting away his own son.

Vasily shut his eyes as a particularly cruel slash of wind assaulted his face all of a sudden; although he was shutting his eyes due to what he was feeling on the inside rather than the outside. Was that pain? Why was he feeling it now of all times? He had been enduring his father’s rejection–his father’s hatred–of him since birth and it never impacted him to this degree; to a point where he felt genuine pain. There it was; an aching, pounding echo in the hollow of his chest. He had no idea what to do with this ache; how to utilize it. He had no idea what he was going to do from now on.

He took a moment to look behind him at the crew; strangers that he was apparently going to live with from now on. Each one of them was going about their business; although that hadn’t been the case when he had first boarded, when they were exchanging whispers and eyeing him strangely as him and his father parted ways. How do they think of him now, he wondered? A noble who finally gave himself a chance to go down a commoner’s winding path? A man who simply grew bored of the finite land and sought the endless stretches of sea? Or did they seem him for what he was; an abandoned son? Or did they have no idea why he was even here?

So many questions and no answers. That had been his life for as long as he could remember. He had been seeking a change. He had been working towards it. He had had hope. But he was never meant to have anything good; he only had himself and the void he constantly carried with him.

He wondered if it would ever be enough.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS

- He loves writing. It’s the only outlet he’s ever had for his thoughts and it’s among the few things that help him to center himself at times when the silence gets just a little bit too loud. Losing himself in the words he lay out on blank papers was the only time where he felt pleasantly isolated, from his thoughts and from his surroundings. His writings are very private to him, however, and he’s always keeping them hidden in fear of someone stumbling upon them somehow. He carries a small journal around with him wherever he goes.

- He’s bisexual. The only reason he discovered that was during a period of time where he’d picked up sleeping around with strangers as the new outlet for his emotions. It had worked for a while but Vasily didn’t like the instability of it and the situation with Rhea is just one out of many examples that show his sexual encounters don’t really end well, most of the time. He was always in it for the physicality and aftermath of it; for the way his mind would go pleasantly blank after a decent climax and nothing more. And while some people were on the same page with him in that aspect, others weren’t and it led to complications. Complications and the personal discovery of his sexual orientation had been the only things he had ever gained out of that time period in his life.

- He always wished to have a sibling. Whether out of a sincere desire for companionship during the lonely, lonely time of his upbringing or out of a childish wish that there had been someone else to receive the blame for their mother’s death and endure the hatred of their father, he didn’t know. But he always liked the sense of union that he felt whenever he thought of the notion of brotherhood. The solidarity of having someone who would always be there for you, if only for nothing except the fact that blood could never be water. Blood is water to Vasily, however, but he likes to think, whenever he bothered to think about it, that he might have ended up with a different perspective if he had had a brother or a sister to stand beside him.

- He considers himself more socially inexperienced than introverted. Vasily can be quite the charmer when he played the part and social gatherings where he had to fall under the guise of politeness and professionalism were the easiest thing in the world for him. However, interactions where he had to be Vasily; where he ought to express himself instead of speaking of politics and the workings of the court; those were the tricky interactions. He’d never had what people would call ‘friends’ and never experienced a situation where he could be himself or express his thoughts openly and without restrictions. He is someone who plans his every word, who embraces the politeness and manners he has taught himself over the years, who calculates every action before he makes it. It’s not in his nature to be sporadic, spontaneous and true to himself; his upbringing never allowed him to be that person.

- He is quite the tactician; it shows in his naturally calculative nature. This trait of his dominates most things he does. As a child, upon waking up, he would stare at the ceiling and list in his mind all the things he was going to do after leaving the bed and what he was going to do throughout the day until the moment he ought to return back to bed. He still keeps this habit to this day. And that trait of his is the reason why he’s not someone who appreciates an abrupt change; doesn’t like it when something happens that disturbs a pattern he had set. It’s also why he’s someone who enjoys routine. He enjoys the stability and predictability of it. He is very adaptable so if he knew that circumstances were going to change, he behaved accordingly but when a change happens sporadically and unexpectedly, it usually makes him flounder a little bit before he is able to formulate a plan to get back on track. He always got back on track. He wonders if a time would come when he wouldn’t be able to.

- He occasionally sends letters to his father to which he never receives a response. He does it more out of a sense of obligation towards the old man rather than a genuine concern for him. Being away from his father has cleared Vasily’s vision somewhat; it transformed a portion of his guilt into resentment towards his father. The man Vasily always tried to please but only ended up receiving nothing from in return. And yet he still sends the letters and actually means some of the things he writes in them. However, they have been getting shorter and shorter and becoming less and less frequent recently.

- He speaks many languages and is educated on several cultures from how much he had traveled prior to landing in Ravka. It has its advantages when he’s representing the Ravkan court in front of a foreigner; his familiarity with several cultures makes him likable to most people he meets in business or social interactions and it makes him come off as a noble, trust-worthy man which is always a perk.

EXTRAS: None because I’m uninspired as shit.

ANYTHING ELSE? Once a nerd, always a nerd; my favorite book is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

#raraccepted #accepted: vasily

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