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vaguely-concerned · 7 months

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Stray Gods Character Design Thoughts

In order we're going Pan, Apollo, Persephone, Eros, Aphrodite and a little bit of Venus! Disclaimer that I have no professional experience in character design at all, so these are only my vibes-based ramblings and observations purely for fun and because my brain simply won't shut up about this game haha. Also I will freely admit Pan probably gets the most attention in this because of who I am as a person and where my heart truly lies at the end of the day lol

PAN

Ok, first of all I have so many questions and they all delight me. This guy is the god of the wild places ("Where else would I be, but among the trees and the wild things?"), he lives in a magical garden on top of an office building... and he’s walking around everywhere in an expensive three piece tailored suit (when Freddie accuses him of being a sleaze in a cheap suit he protests mildly that his suit is anything but cheap haha). The cut of it is really carefully thought out and planned, but the bold colours under the grey coat and (studied I am sure) careless details like the tie also make it fun and playful. Which is pleasingly coherent with the general theme of his character in the writing too and I adore it.

This is not the point, I know, but I’m wondering how he makes that work just like. Practically now. Has Athena fixed up Olympus with in-house laundry service? And other sentences I did not expect to type out today lol. Ah well he’s wily I’m sure he has his ways.

I can't heap enough praise on it, this design is SUCH an interesting and elegant marriage of the immediately recognizable satyr features and thus animal symbolism with all its added pagan weight in a post-Christianity setting, and the sort of ‘man of wealth and taste’ imagery of the devil at the crossroads they clearly want to evoke, especially in his first scene. And partially through his mannerism there’s also an added element of like… eccentric but surprisingly competent college professor — just look at the way he carries himself whenever he isn’t putting on the charm or when he’s being guarded and self-contained. That little hands resting on his back pose exudes ‘nerd’ so deeply to me haha. (Incredibly fuckable nerd, to be sure, but still!)

you don't fool me buddy I know what you are. I know all the trouble you went to to get a book.

His body language shifts very quickly between wild playful expressiveness and a sort of nonchalant urbane detachment that borders on coldness sometimes, and it fascinates me. Especially since that more refined unavailable side seems to be something he’s deliberately cultivated, to some extent. When Grace calls him out on how boring it sounds to just let yourself go numb and distant to survive, he doesn’t deny that at all, only saying that at least it’s been quite effective.

Putting the rest under a cut to save people's dashes! I may, as they say, have gotten a tiny bit carried away.

Physically he’s not very imposing — he’s only a little taller than Grace, and the shortest of all of the love interests, which I find somehow very charming and also plays into him being more of a guile-based character. “Seeing as I am neither big nor truly bad, it behooves me to be wary of those who are both” indeed!

I’m fairly sure he’s the character wearing the most layers. Even his hands are mostly covered by gloves. He partially covers up his eyes with the tinted glasses — interesting, as one of the features that most give his real nature away with their sidewise pupils, and the lenses are tinted purple as the complimentary colour to yellow, so it downplays just how bright they are. All together it’s very much a ‘well, he’s certainly got to be in there somewhere’ sort of vibe at times. (Since he also seems to care about his clothes quite a bit — he complains about scuffing his pants during the climb in the Medusa mission if you go the lockpick route — I have drawn the conclusion that getting him out of all of that must take quite a bit of time, no matter how much practice he’s probably put in over the years of meeting 'delicious people' lol)

It’s a design that manages to give, at the same time: animal-featured ancient god, deal with the devil, teacher, overtones of con man if you’re inclined to be Freddie-levels of uncharitable lol, eccentric rich weird uncle… there’s a lot going on here and somehow it all works haha. He isn’t wearing any jewelry at all unless you count the glasses, which now that I’m looking at the rest of the character designs in this game is actually fairly rare among them!

His eyes really are incredibly bright when uh naked as it were, though. I like the implication that he is aware of this and actually goes out of his way to downplay it, even when he’d normally be wearing glamour anywhere it would strictly matter for it to show. Between that, the meaningful zoom in on him at the Underworld when Apollo says that all the Idols can be themselves there even if they don’t look human, Pan claiming he’s been distrusted and side-eyed by the others basically since the beginning and seeming kind of frustrated and hurt about it, in his deflecting way, and the implication of a hierarchy among the Idols at least under Athena’s leadership in this stained glass painting (notably all the visibly non-human Idols/hangers on are at the bottom, and Hecate, Asterion and especially Medusa are the characters most affected and confined by the oppressive status quo Athena upholds)...

this one! sing it with me now EVERYBODY LEAVES THIS PLACE ALIVEEE ok we can move on

you know, some possible Subtext and Implications going on here, I’d say. (It is only potential subtext and implication, though, so, you know, take my extrapolations here with a grain of salt!) He certainly doesn’t do himself many favors with the persona he’s built up in regards to being trusted and included either, but his status as a little bit of an outsider does seem to precede that so I feel like it’s more of a response than the main cause. Along the same lines he gets much more testy about the Green route of ‘I Can Teach You’ than he does about you just not choosing him in the Red one, he takes that pretty gracefully. So it is the being deliberately kept on the outside and openly distrusted and dismissed that gets to him. (To be clear I don't think openly distrusting a strange guy showing up in your living room like that is at all unreasonable either haha I just think the nuances of his response are enlightening as to where he's really coming from)

this one isn't even to illustrate anything it's just because I love him so much and think he's pretty I'll be real with you all

Anyway I just keep thinking about how incredibly tender it would be if sometimes, when they’re in private, Grace takes his glasses off to see his eyes better and he lets her. That shakes something deep in my soul apparently. That fucks me up but like in a good way.

APOLLO

- Apollo’s style of dress leaves his navel helpfully exposed for the copious amounts of depressed gazing he habitually subjects it to. (I say this not entirely without affection.)

a crumpled tissue of a man

In keeping with his incredibly emo mode, there’s very little colour involved and he doesn’t take much care to present anything with care (look at the state of that shirt and tell me if Apollo has picked up an iron in the last forty years), BUT interestingly he’s not entirely open and unadorned, he does wear that network of jewelry across his chest and neck. Which I think is to show that the old Apollo is not entirely gone (“There he is, god of the sun”), even if he has been a sack stuffed with sad for a long time now. I wonder how many of these things are leftover preferences from being only Lucas — presumably the tattoos at least are from before he fished Apollo up from the sea? If I’m reading the vibes right on that, the blue of the tattoos and the gold of the sun… thingy he wears with the jewelry are the main splashes of colour in his design aside from his hair, and they’re both ‘leftovers’ from both his previous lives, surfer bro and solar deity recently fallen on hard times. Physically he would be tall and imposing, parodically built, except that he carries himself with all the confidence and panache of a damp depressed dishrag.

Also I can’t believe this guy is walking around everywhere in sandals. Apollo makes sad flip-flop sounds wherever he goes, including when he steps up during ‘The Trial’. That’s so amazingly pathetic (affectionate).

We can see from the photo with him and Calliope that he wasn’t always quite this much of a mess. Once, he did his shirt up a whole maybe four buttons and wore something that wasn’t beige!

Intellectually I acknowledge that it's a design meant to provide fanservice, even though I personally could not consider this guy in a sexual or romantic light if you gave me a thousand years to build up to it. (I've said it before but if he's anything to me, he is the incredibly fail father figure continually letting me down in tiny ways I never had.) Godspeed to the Apollo-enjoyers out there, though, Summerfall gave him those abs and that poor little meow meow energy just for you and it's your right to enjoy that

- Pan and Apollo also bring out some really interesting contrasts both as characters and designs when you hold them up against each other:

Once you scratch the surface a tiny bit Pan clearly has just as much self-loathing as Apollo (“If Athena had taken me up on my offer, the Idols would have been better off” uh. Okay buddy we’re gonna have to process that one together later what do you say), but where Apollo is completely helplessly open in his misery at all times, you need to unbutton Pan at least three layers until you get a honest or straightforward emotion out of him and I think that’s amazingly carried through into their visual designs. It's Good Visual Storytelling Brent

PERSEPHONE

- I’m fairly sure the colour of Persephone’s suit is supposed to evoke pomegranate seeds. See and judge for yourself I suppose:

She also has details on her coat that depict foliage and growing plants, but colour-wise they and the rest of the detailing is in the blue-green that symbolizes the Underworld and so death. Her jewelry is gold, which — and I’m about to do some reaching here, I’ll be big enough to own — could play in with Hades being the god of riches as well as of the dead/the underworld. Probably it’s because it works well with the colour scheme, but I’m going to pretend that it’s because even if she didn’t get the throne she did get that motherfucker’s hoard when she killed him <3 Love that for her. Her jewelry is more rose gold than Apollo’s yellow gold, too. Watch me go for even more of a reach: between the necklace and the watch, those round discs of gold remind me of the coins put on the eyes of the dead but like you know repurposed since she doesn't need them to pay the Ferryman. I never promised I'd be reasonable in this did I.

The short hair works real well for the butch vibe and looks amazing no notes, but I think it’s also a deliberate way to differentiate herself from her younger self — when speaking of Demeter’s death, she says that moment was also the final death of that young her, ‘that girl with the long hair who loved her gardens’. Clearly the Idols do a lot of reinventing themselves over the ages in more and less conscious ways.

She has a tattoo of what looks to be foliage and a skull across her left chest and arm. I really like that idea of her having the testament to both sides of her — goddess of spring, queen of the underworld — directly on her skin, under two layers of clothes that each represent those aspects. The one on her arm looks like stalks of grain tied together to resemble the bones of the hand/forearm, maybe? which is metal as fuck, needless to say.

She is TALL and scary and the staging always plays that up, Grace tends to look up at her like O.O. I love how sharp she is too.

Also she is incredibly hot but you don’t need me to tell you that you all have eyes I assume.

EROS, APHRODITE and VENUS:

- I love literally everything about Eros’ design except his hair. Not even the concept of the haircut and colours or anything, just the way it’s rendered. It looks like one strange flat cap I can’t quite make understandable in three dimensional space as hair in my head lol. Other than that it’s a banging design though, the delicate see-through material over the leather BDSM harness is genius. Choosing this form of sensuality and attractiveness for him to embody -- one that is so deeply queercoded -- also works super well. The warmth and vulnerability of his body language on top of it is *chef's kiss*. just. please define his hair a bit more and it's perfect haha.

- I'm not sure I have that much to say about Aphrodite’s design except that of course she is beauty she is grace etc., it takes a lot of thought to make such a simple design shine and by god did they do it she’s so stunning. Also interesting how her dark blues and greens with cool/silvery details contrast with Venus’ warm reds and pinks and… brass? Idk I don’t really understand jewelry haha. All warmth and soft romanticism, anyway, it looks nice. (Side note but I love Venus’ rose tattoo.) Eros and Venus have much more matching colour schemes and they both bring those islands of warmth standing around Aphrodite in her shimmering ocean coolness. (Which of course is something she has to deliberately put on before going into public these days, and is unselfconsciously glamorous in the way of an old timey Hollywood starlet, as the blue route of 'The Ritual' lampshades)

:') *whisper* everybody...

Venus is wearing pearls, which is pleasing considering her connection to Aphrodite (and the backgrounds of the 'Lost in a Moment' variant of 'The Ritual')! and both of her and Aphrodite's outfits go for a shoulderless look to great effect.

ETA: When the camera is close on Aphrodite you can actually see that she has dark circles under her eyes, only partially covered by the makeup :'( I didn't notice that before I played through 'The Ritual' on a bigger screen today

All in all I just want to acknowledge what a fantastic job the character designers at Summerfall Studios have done! There are some really fresh new takes on these mythological figures here, and it makes so much sense within the world the game presents without resorting to well-worn and tired iconography, I really do admire it greatly.

#stray gods #stray gods pan #stray gods apollo #stray gods persephone #stray gods eros #stray gods aphrodite #sorry about the varying quality of the screenshots I have done my best lmao #if there's anywhere you can get the sprites in high resolution I couldn't find it so uh well be gentle lol #it's SO hard to track down scenes where you see them all in full figure and decent clarity #stray gods meta #meta #i don't even know if this is coherent anymore but it IS out of my head which is what I needed it to be haha I am free!! for now

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firstkanaphans · 8 days

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SMASH or PASS: GMMTV 2024, Part 2

Ossan’s Love: Based on the trailer we were given, PASS. However, I will watch this one regardless because it’s EarthMix and I have hope that the actual show will be a bit less cringe because P’Au is directing it and we know from MSP that he can do romantic comedy well. Unfortunately, I have not seen the original and this particular trailer made me never want to.

Leap Day: PASS. Not even an autistic-coded Gun Attaphan could save this one for me. But good for Pond! This is a huge role for him.

The Heart Killers: Obviously, SMASH. I know people are saying this feels like SandRay 2.0, but I’m getting more YokGaipa vibes and I am living for it. You can read my full review here, but I just want to go on record once again and say how grateful I am that FK got an adult show with an adult plot and a queer director.

Friendshit Forever: SMASH. It’s giving me Cruel Intention vibes and if they let Mook and Pat make out at least once, I’ll send them a fruit basket.

Perfect10 Liners: PASS. If I never hear the words “Engineer Cute Boy page” again, it will be too soon.

Us: SMASH. Both Bonnie AND Emi make my brain go brrr, so I can’t promise I’ll be able to produce any coherent content about it, but I will be eagerly watching.

Hide & Sis: SMASH. This looks amazing and I loved P.S. I Hate You, so I’m expecting great things. Plus, Lookjun and Pepper finally get to work together! I’m so happy for them.

Thame-Po: SMASH. I know nothing about LYKN, but I enjoyed the trailer and I think it’s a great way for GMMTV to market their musical artists. Don’t think it’s going to help with people IRL shipping Est and William, though.

Break-up Service: lol, PASS.

Revamp the Undead Story: I will watch it because it is Boun’s baby and I love him, but in general, vampire shows only interest me if they’re slutty and I’m not sure GMMTV is going to allow that. So…PASS?

Sweet Tooth, Good Dentist: Genuinely, I didn’t think there was anything that could make Mark Pakin unattractive to me, but they somehow managed it. That trailer was just weird. Ohm TPK is way too green to be leading a BL and I didn’t sense any chemistry between him and Mark. I hope the show's good for Mark’s sake, but my expectations are not high. PASS.

The Dark Dice: I think I might have to wait until the actual trailer for this one, but tentatively SMASH. The problem is that I’m not a huge fan of Prom or Prim, so I would be watching exclusively for Gemini.

The Ex-Morning: Y’all, I’m still drooling over Singto in that fucking trailer. I’m sorry, but he looks hot as fuck. I’d SMASH for him alone. This was by far my favorite plot of the night. I love me a good rom-com and since this one’s being written by P’Aof (and none of the characters are blind), I trust him.

Overall, I thought this was a much better line-up than Part 1 and I'm excited for what's coming!

EDIT: I forgot Scarlet Heart Thailand, which I guess makes my opinion obvious. It's a PASS. If I was a woman surrounded by that many men, I would run. That's a horror movie, not a love story. And even without knowing anything, I guarantee she's going to end up with Win. Because someone at GMMTV thinks he's hot or whatever.

#gmmtv 2024 #gmmtv 2024 part 2 #i'm begging them to rename some of these shows though #sweet tooth good dentist???

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fansplaining · 1 year

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Do you have any advice, guides, or opinions on how write a good rec list?

WELL! This is Elizabeth, and as the longtime co-curator of "The Rec Center" newsletter (with @hellotailor) I do have *a lot* of thoughts about rec lists. 😊 I'm delighted you asked, because as I'm sure both Flourish & I have mentioned on the podcast, rec-list-making is way less prominent now than it has been in previous fandom eras, and I think that's a shame. Reccing can be a great critical tool, and rec lists make a fanwork space richer—not least because they can move readers beyond the mostly quantitative metrics of the AO3.

I'll put the rest of this under the cut:

So obviously there are different kinds of rec lists, including by category/trope, favorites about a character or a ship or fandom, etc. To me, a true ~authored~ rec list is one in which the writer(s) deliberately put together a batch of fics to make some kind of argument about the works/the ship/the fandom/the source material.

Most of the lists we run in the newsletter are not like this, because we're pulling 5-7 works from our guest submissions bank—and since we don't (realistically, can't!) read the stories that are sent in, I have no idea if those 5-7 compliment each other in any real way. (When I put together one of these lists, I aim for balance: not all M/M, not all white characters, not all Western source material, etc.) (Yes, unsurprisingly, those are overrepresented in our submissions bank.)

But an authored rec list treats the rec list itself like a fanwork: you can tap into connective tissue that runs throughout the fics you choose, and you can put stories side-by-side that illuminate something when read together. You can approach this from two different directions: working from a broader pool of fics you like and pulling out a coherent batch, or starting with a theme, an argument, that connective tissue, and seeing what fits.

When I first got into my current fandom, I kept a google doc with fic titles, links, brief descriptors, and general thematic vibes etc., for future reccing use. (Obviously you can do this with AO3 bookmarks, but I use those differently, so this was a separate endeavor.) These were set up to transfer to "The Rec Center" easily, e.g.:

“Celestial Navigation” by kaydeefalls. 9K words, rated Teen. Canon-era: C & E go to NYC to try to recruit several mutants. Delicate balance sort of story with a soft revelation. No tropes.

When I actually go to rec something, I reread it—mostly because I want to get the content warnings right, but also because reading it to rec is more like reading for work: you wind up looking at the text with a different eye, always lowkey thinking about how you'll make your argument about it in writing. I haven't actually recced the fic above in the newsletter, but here's another X-Men fic I did rec at one point:

“Come Together” verse by blarfkey. 60K words across 4 stories, rated Teen. Backstory: When Peter gets arrested for breaking Erik out of the Pentagon, Erik returns the favor and breaks Peter out in turn—and takes him to live with Charles. Beautifully awkward father-son bonding coupled with bitter, stubborn exes pining: *chef’s kiss*. The verse spans five years, with really believable character growth, which is really saying something, based on the emotionally-stunted starting point for all parties involved. Rec: Peter is the POV character here, so a+++, and the close third-person narration plays with the spaces between what he feels and what he says while capturing his voice beautifully. This means 50% dragging people and 50% feeling like an idiot, which is a total joy. A lot of X-Men stuff, canonically or...fanonically...sorry...is about found family, and I mean, this one is about finding your literal blood relations, but it’s also about building a true family, and I think the author gives that enough space to really sell it. Content warnings: Canon-typical violence, torture, ableism, the unenlightened thoughts about women’s bodies that preoccupy heterosexual teenage boys

That rec is from a whole list I did with @morgan-leigh a few (five???wtf lol) years ago, which I think is a good example of an authored rec list: Morgan and I had overlapping tastes and similar interpretations of the characters, so all the fics here feel like they're talking to each other in some way, and making an argument about who these characters are (in Morgan's beautiful words, many of these stories "capture the exquisite and venal dickishness of both our heroes" lol).

Obviously rec lists don't have to be super formal—we created this reccing format a long time ago to keep things standardized—and I certainly don't think recs need to sound like literary criticism (not that the examples above sound like literary criticism lol...you know what I mean). Some of my favorite rec lists are pure vibes and (performatively? in a good way) emotional, and that's great. If you're a fic author, you know what a delight those comments are to receive. And like someone's AO3 bookmarks, the all-vibes rec list is an opportunity to see if you, too, feel like the selected fics smack you in the face or whatever violent expression of appreciation people are using. They often don't give you a ton of information, but if you and the reccer have similar taste, you know you can trust their picks.

But! I would make the case for reccing as a chance to talk about fic in a way that you really wouldn't in a comment to the author or in a performatively emotional tag: critically, not in the "this is bad" definition of "criticism," but, like, in the lit-crit way. Why does this work—and how does it work? As with all literary criticism, "work" is totally contextual; a good rec list sets up that context, and gives you just enough information to want to click through and see for yourself.

All that being said, you don't need to overthink it—and I say this partly because I'd really love to see more rec lists floating around! The AO3 often primes people to sort in a top-down way, and though there are tons of great fics with lots of kudos, as the meme goes,

Rec lists let you include things that aren't super popular, that hit niche characterization or plot notes, that really worked for you specifically for whatever reason. They're pure human curation—not just recs, but an arrangement of those recs that creates a whole new work in the process. And that's something I really love about fandom! We don't want algorithmic 'if this, then that' for-you pages; we're interested in doing the actual work of reading, thinking about, and sharing what we like with others, and that's wonderful.

#asks #fanfiction #reccing #rec lists #the rec center

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xalygatorx · 4 months

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Unbound | Chapter 11, "Old Scars"

Áine Ts'sambra—a wayward half-drow bard with a painful past—has her world upended when she's snatched up by a Nautiloid ship and furnished with a tadpole to the brain. In her journey to remove the infestation before it can turn her and her newfound companions illithid, she not only finds that their solution has more layers to parse through than she can count, but that a particular vampire in her party does as well.

Unbound is an ongoing generally SFW medium-burn romance based in the world of Baldur's Gate 3 between Astarion and a female OC. Any NSFW content will be marked in the Warnings section. Contains angst, fluff, explorations of trauma, spice, graphic fantasy violence, and a guaranteed happy ending.

For anything additional on what to expect (and not expect), check the preface post.

Summary: Astarion tries to make sense of his feelings following his tryst with Áine. When Áine wakes, she sees an alarming scar pattern on Astarion’s back, bringing up questions about his past. The group recovers from the party over breakfast and receives their next steps from Halsin, which unearth something buried for Áine. A monster hunter passes by the camp and alerts them to a rogue vampire spawn in the area.

Pairing: Astarion x Fem!OC

Warnings: Suggestive content & dialogue; trauma; angst; description of a panic attack; lightly proofread; struggled through the last half of this one a little bit; author note at the end

Word Count: 8.3k

Listening to: Dead Man - David Kushner, I’ve also had White Winter Hymnal on a literal loop for like three days bc vibes (and also I have a cute little recurring vision of Áine dancing to the melody at the tiefling party with Alfira)

Astarion found no rest that night, his mind far too full and his stomach far too twisted. What he did do was ensure that Áine was too exhausted by the end of their tryst to stay awake, lest she be coherent and, ever observant, start asking the right questions. He was unsettled by the idea of entering a reverie of any depth while knowing someone else was this close by. It was a vulnerable state for him to enter and he’d had enough of vulnerability despite seeming unable to avoid it when it came to being with her.

Instead, he’d eased her spent, supple body down to the grass and waited with something akin to apprehension until she’d fallen asleep. Astarion had run his hands over his face, exhaled against his hands, and risen to retrieve his clothes. Everything save his shirt went back on and he could admit that he felt a little less anxious now that he was no longer naked below the waist. He was a mix of residual feelings that had nothing whatsoever to do with that night in isolation and new inclinations that had everything to do with that night.

He sat back down in the grass near where Áine was curled on her side, maintaining his distance yet still close enough to feel her gentle heat radiating from her skin. Even he couldn’t believe his excuses anymore. Astarion bridged his fingers, resting his chin against them while his elbows found purchase on his crisscrossed legs. He closed his eyes, venturing into a territory that frightened him by delving into his memory to search for answers to a question he needn’t even ask.

Astarion thought back through the last couple of hours, but particularly to the first “round,” so to speak, and he forced himself to start admitting some things internally if only to make sense of what their situation had become. The first thing he needed to admit was that his physical reactions to her were based on how he felt about her. He could hem them in with effort, but when their night of passion first escalated, he hadn’t been ready in the slightest for how hard it would hit him to finally be with her.

Taking her blood while they were fucking had also been utterly intoxicating and something he, of course, had never experienced before her. His troubled thoughts tried to latch onto that to serve as sufficient reasoning for everything he was contending with, but he swatted that compulsion away. He didn’t have to explain himself to anyone, but for his own peace of mind, he had to get to the bottom of this.

Astarion rolled his shoulders, his jaw setting at the tension he felt in them. He supposed it shouldn’t have surprised him that he’d react this way to realizing he was growing attached to someone. The last time he’d been too sentimental to bring a target back to Cazador, he’d spent a year entombed, starving, and alone, as punishment. He’d raked his nails raw against the underside of the casket, desperate to carve his way out, until it became clear that he’d stay there as long as his sire desired. Then it was all a waiting game. Waiting to give up. Waiting to be released from the crypt and put back into service, free-roaming but never free. Waiting to die. Knowing all the while that he’d never have such an easy escape from this life as to die before his master wished it.

Somber crimson eyes opened slowly, prematurely cast downward toward the sleeping beauty in front of him. She was, of course, not that sweet boy from all those years ago. Astarion had always wondered what had happened to him in the end. If because of his sacrifice, that man went on to live a full, wonderful life or if in the end one of his siblings had done what he’d not had it in him to do. Despite how hardened he’d become to everyone but himself in this wretched world since then, he still hoped the former. Then perhaps the pieces chipped from his sanity during that horrible, horrible year would amount to something.

That at least accounted for why he felt so afraid. He wasn’t afraid of her. In fact, she might have been the only person in this world he didn’t fear in any capacity. Astarion’s mind wandered back to when he’d taken her hands off his waistband and moved them to his shoulders, how she’d kept them there without question despite not knowing in full what he’d been through. And he’d trusted her to, also without question. That may have been the most unnerving part of all.

Astarion went rigid when Áine stirred, but she simply stretched a little and rolled over to her other side, curling back up but facing him this time. It suddenly crossed his mind that she might be cold, but as far as his icy body could tell, it was a balmy summer night. He supposed he had found her in this position when he’d trespassed on her tent the night she’d first let him drink from her, so perhaps this was just how she slept. He’d yet to truly get used to sleeping on the ground, but she seemed comfortable enough.

In her sleep, Áine set a hand on the grass beside her as if searching for him. He recanted the thought, considering that perhaps that was wishful thinking on his part. Astarion contemplated her hand—he knew its touch well after their coupling. How her fingers felt in his hair—a touch he’d nearly ducked from until he realized what she was doing wasn’t to inflict pain and, Hells, instead it had felt delicious—and how just one of his hands could hold both of her slender wrists (and pin them above her head). He knew where on her fingers playing her lute was giving her callouses and how the pad of her thumb felt when it brushed against his hand, against his jawline while the pinpoints of her fingertips dotted his cheek like the smallest constellation.

Should he let her find him? He was tempted. However something akin to panic lashed through him again and he looked away from her outstretched hand, his eyes instead finding the slowly lightening sky. Astarion rose when the sun finally poured down into their clearing, drawn like a moth to a flame. Under normal vampiric circumstances, that would’ve been an accurate analogy, but at least for the time being, he had a free pass to feel the sunshine on his skin again. He stepped into its rays, not without some habitual trepidation still, but sighed contently when it warmed him, his eyes fluttering closed.

There was so much warmth, so much color, in this world he’d never noticed before being deprived of it for so long. He craved power, he craved vengeance, but he craved these small things, too. These simple, quiet moments when it was as if only he existed. And now, he supposed, that extended to Áine too.

Behind him, awakened by the same morning light, Áine drew a deep breath and opened her eyes. She was initially disoriented to find grass around and under her instead of the nest of pillows that she’d accumulated in her tent. And then, after remembering why she was out there in the first place and noting the empty clutch of green grass her hand rested on, Áine found herself confused about where her lover had gone. She only had a few seconds to wonder if he’d just left her out there when she raised her head and followed a familiar elongated shadow toward its equally familiar source.

Áine couldn’t help but smile. Sometimes she couldn’t look at him and not see a cat curling up in the afternoon sunshine. That was the sort of life he deserved. That was the sort of life they all deserved after everything they’d been through.

“You’re staring again, darling.”

Discovered, Áine startled but felt unabashed. He was standing there practically glistening, what was she supposed to do but respectfully gawk? She ignored his statement and asked instead, “Not staying for a cuddle, I take it?”

Astarion didn’t turn to look at her but remained with his face and palms skyward as if he could absorb the sun’s fire. “In truth, I thought you’d be exhausted after last night,” he said.

Áine blushed, a sleepy smile touching her lips as their post-party activities resurfaced in her mind. Also swift to cross her mind were the moments she could’ve sworn, even in the darkness, that she’d seen sadness cross his features. At times, even something akin to distress. Every instance had been gone in a flash but stuck firmly in her memory all the same.

Pursing her lips, she felt as if she simply had to ask, even if she was wrong. “You…seemed a little distant at times. Like you weren’t fully there,” she said hesitantly, a tilt to her head as she studied his profile. “Are you alright?”

Astarion was glad he was facing away from her—he felt the mask over his true emotions fissure at the question. “Of course. Who wouldn’t be after a night like that?” he purred, turning his head just enough to offer her a debonair and yet still fiendish smile. “I will admit I was holding back a little… I didn’t want to lose control.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. “Delicious as you were, I didn’t want to go too far.”

She wasn’t sure she believed him, but she had no reason not to, she supposed. Absently, Áine touched her neck, her fingertips finding the small indents his fangs had left behind. “Mm, well I guess I should thank you for leaving me some blood then.”

Astarion chuckled darkly. “I discovered several new delicious spots on your body last night, my sweet,” he said, “but I do admit your neck is still one of my favorites. Second only to your—”

“Okay, okay,” Áine interrupted quickly, her hands finding her flaming face but doing nothing to hide the way her blushing darkened the tips of her ears.

Astarion crumbled a little internally, finding her shyness as endearing as ever, especially now knowing how devilish she could be between the proverbial sheets. He smirked and asked, “Shall we get on? I want to go before anyone else thanks me for saving their tails.”

“Gods forbid a show of gratitude,” Áine commented with feigned scandal. “What would that do to your reputation?”

“Exactly, my dear! So glad you understand.”

Áine smiled to herself and shook her head as she got to her feet, brushing herself off. The change in perspective also shifted the way her eyes caught the light and they adjusted accordingly just as she returned her eyes to Astarion’s back…

…By the gods, what had happened to him?

Her lips parted in shock and her eyes narrowed as she tried to discern what the markings she could now see were. She’d thought for just a second that perhaps they were a sort of tattoo or even a brand, but they were very much scars. Purposeful, deeply rooted scars.

“Once again, she stares,” Astarion commented and Áine flushed with chagrin this time, immediately turning her eyes to the grass. She knew better than anyone with her own old injuries that sometimes the worst ghost pains were people asking questions about them that they shouldn’t. There was a beat of pause before Astarion seemed to realize her dilemma. He sighed and said, “You can ask, you know. I’m not exactly hiding them at the moment.”

Áine swallowed thickly and chanced a glance up at him as she gathered her clothes from the ground. “You needn’t tell me anything you don’t want to, but… What exactly are they?” she asked, donning her smallclothes and then pulling her trousers on after.

Astarion sighed, deciding that speaking on this now couldn’t hurt. There was never a “correct” time to surface this sort of thing. “It’s a poem,” he told her honestly. “A gift from Cazador. He considered himself quite the artist and used his slaves as a canvas.” He paused heavily, listening to the rustle of Áine’s clothes as she got dressed to help him ground his thoughts and evade the memories that threatened to sweep him back into those moldering kennels. “He…composed and carved that one over the course of a night… He made a lot of revisions as he went.”

The pain in his voice alone broke her heart in two. She wondered if his expression was as honest in this moment, if that was why he hadn’t turned around to look at her. “I’m sorry.”

Astarion’s brow pinched and he did turn to look at her then, finding her at arm’s length and as tempting as ever, standing there with her shirt on but still untied and her hair a glimmering tousled mess atop her lovely skull. His hands flexed against his sides as he resisted snatching her back up. It was a maddening feeling, to want her so much and be fearful of wanting her at all. “What for? You really must stop apologizing for things you had no hand in,” he said.

“I understand,” she said, beginning to try and work the tangles from her hair while they stood there conversing. When Áine’s eyes met his again, they shone with sunlight and her sincerity. “And I understand that it fixes nothing. But I… I hate what you’ve endured.” Áine pursed her lips. “And I wish I could do something better than tell you that I’m sorry for it.”

And you don’t know the half of it, Astarion thought, his brows knitting as he tried to decide how her sympathy made him feel. It was a complicated mess of irritation and appreciation that felt more knotted than her tresses. “Yes, well,” he said uncomfortably. “You’re right. It fixes nothing.” Áine internalized her embarrassment and the hurt that lanced through her, instead just nodding acknowledgment. This wasn’t about her, after all. Far be it from her to get upset that her words didn’t magically repair everything. “Anything else?”

Áine shrugged and gave up on her tangles, instead pulling her hair over one shoulder to make a manageable side ponytail to deal with the mess later. “Why is the poem in Infernal?”

That, Astarion hadn’t been ready for. “Infernal? I… Who knows? The bastard was insane,” he said, quickly dismissing the question. “Anyway, enough pillow talk. Let’s go before the tieflings drag us into another mess.”

Áine watched him fetch his shirt before returning her attention to containing her pearly locks, feeling as though she’d thoroughly killed the morning mood. It wasn’t something she wasn’t used to doing, usually unintentionally, but as with everything so far her feelings around things to do with him proved more intense. That included the disappointment in herself at likely guaranteeing he wouldn’t be pursuing something like this with her again.

Oh well, she sighed inwardly, but the casual nature of her thought didn’t mirror how she actually felt. Familiar and dismal, she wondered again why she was the way that she was. It really did seem to cause her nothing but grief when it came to these sorts of things. She supposed she just hoped he’d had a nice time up until their chat, that he’d gotten the bit of “fun” he’d been pining for out of it.

Áine finished knotting the leather tie around her hair and moved to the ties of her shirt next, only to find that Astarion had, at some point, moved to stand in front of her. Her hands paused against the strings and she looked up at him with a question in her eyes. He gave her a long, unreadable look, and she half-expected him to tell her they were better off keeping this as a one-night thing or scold her again for unhelpfully offering apologies or something to that effect. There was something beneath the surface of his expression that she just couldn’t quite see.

Instead of any of those things, Astarion held eye contact with her as he replaced her hands at her shirt ties, lacing her back up. Áine stared back, feeling her face grow a little warm again. Would she ever get used to things like this from him? She had to imagine so, but every little touch from him felt like a gift. Especially given how touch-averse he seemed to be at times, each gesture felt intentional.

With deft fingers, he finished tying her laces, polishing off his work with a small bow. Áine smirked and started to thank him, but he hooked a finger beneath the knot he’d made and tugged her into a kiss that smothered her words of gratitude before they left her mouth. Her hands reflexively rose from her sides to hold him, even just to rest against his arms, but he gracefully dodged her touch, looking smug when their eyes met again. At least she figured this meant he wasn’t too upset with what he saw as her excess sentimentality.

Offhand as he led the way back to camp, he innocently mused, “I wonder if anyone managed to get a wink of sleep last night despite your mewling…”

“You’re pushing your luck for this sort of thing ever happening a second time,” Áine informed him as she walked alongside him through the woods, toying with her hands to stifle her urge to try holding one of his or putting her arm around his waist despite his teasing.

She was discovering that she was quite tactile in the way of affection once she had an emotional stake in a person and it was difficult to contend with that discovery while not being able to dote on her person of interest. Respecting him and his space was easy. Resisting the inclination to show him he was cared for with little touches here and there was proving trickier.

“Am I?” Astarion wondered with clear doubt. “Pity. It’s swiftly becoming my favorite way to pass the dark hours. And you needn’t tell me so for me to know it’s just as appealing to you.” He’d leaned in toward her ear to whisper those last words and his cool breath against her sensitive skin sent a shiver through her that proved his point.

Áine glowered at him as he leaned away, looking mighty pleased with himself. “You know, that feels a little unfair,” she finally decided to point out, ever the one to be bold enough to bring up a hard topic. Even in an area she was very unfamiliar with it seemed.

Astarion glanced down at her. “Hm? What does?”

“That you’re able to enter my personal space on a whim, but I’m not—to my knowledge—allowed to do anything categorically similar,” she explained. “To be clear, I’m fine with you doing what you’ve been doing. And I’m also fine with whatever you’re comfortable or uncomfortable with for yourself. But some ground rules would be nice, I think.”

“You want ‘ground rules’?” Astarion repeated, bewildered as he tried to follow what she was saying. Was she asking his permission for something? To touch him? New things left, right, and center, he mused.

“Well…yes,” she said, becoming self-conscious but holding her ground. “I have inclinations but I’m too anxious to do anything because I’m worried about upsetting you.”

He looked at her consideringly, his lips becoming a thin line. “And what are your ‘inclinations’, my dear?” he asked in a measured tone.

A not-distant-enough memory began nagging at the back of his mind. Of being grabbed and squeezed and fondled in all the ways and at all the times he didn’t want to be. Which, in fairness, he’d never wanted to be. It was a process, a means to an end. But the thought of her touch wasn’t an unpleasant prospect nor a necessary evil. He was no less apprehensive though—what if she surprised him in a bad way? What if she regarded him as some sort of plaything?

Well, he could run what-ifs all day, but his mind had one consistent answer to all of those questions—he didn’t think she would.

Áine met his thoughtful gaze with one of her own before she offered him one of her hands, palm facing up. He looked at it and then at her, not sure what she wanted him to do. When she recognized his hesitation as confusion, she instead reached out and gently took his hand, locking their fingers together after minimal fumbling.

Astarion stared at their hands and waited for her to do something more—pin his arm back and use his defenseless position to grope him or use her grip to cause him enough pain to put him on his knees and there begin to make her threats and demands, all things that had happened to him before just without this much exposition.

When she didn’t do anything else, he gave her a funny look that she took to mean he wasn’t a hand-holder by nature. Áine gave him an embarrassed smile and started to unthread her hand from his. “Silly things, I suppose, it’s fine if you—”

Áine quieted as Astarion followed the hand she’d attempted to extract, recapturing it and keeping it firmly in his. He craved her warm touch, her closeness as much as ever and she was simply allowing him some of that now with no strings attached. It was something he was aware of—he’d of course seen plenty of lovers in the city holding hands or linking arms and the like—but that had never been something meant for him.

With as much hesitation as she’d yet seen him speak, Astarion studied their hands, unable to meet her eyes, and said, “...If you’re the one touching me, I don’t… I don’t think I’ll mind as much.”

A faint crease formed between her brows at hearing the vulnerable nature of this confession. Was he a master seducer who had never been shown affection? Or was something worse the cause of his anxiety?

Slowly, Áine nodded and smoothed the pad of her thumb against his, something he’d remembered her doing the night before that he’d enjoyed in the moment. And she was just giving this to him again for free? He waited for the catch, but nothing came. Instead, she just said, “If it’s ever wrong or too much, you can tell me. In fact, I insist you do. And I’ll do the same. Fair enough?”

Astarion wasn’t entirely sure he believed that she wouldn’t be upset at all if he spurned her affections, but he was at least able to look at her this time as he nodded. “Alright,” he said.

Áine offered him a smile. “Thank you,” she said, and they kept walking like that, hand-in-hand.

It was a strange sensation to Astarion—to Áine too but for vastly different reasons—and he kept occasionally tensing for the situation to flip. And it just didn’t. He just got to hold a little piece of her while they walked the rest of the way to camp, the little rhythm of her pulse occasionally tip-tapping against his silent wrist. They would occasionally readjust their fingers or he’d find Áine gently toying with his hand while her skin warmed his, but that was as far as the gesture went. And it felt…nice. Like they were part of something that was just them while still being allowed their own identities, their own freedoms. He could—with a surprising measure of confidence that she wouldn’t lash out at him or even bat an eye—let go right now if he wanted to.

And, by every single god he no longer believed in, he didn’t want to.

While everyone had still been passed out from the party the night before when Astarion and Áine finally made it back to the campsite and snuck back into their tents for a little extra rest before it was time to move out. It wasn’t near enough rest though before Áine was awakened by the sound of the refugees packing back up to make their way to Baldur’s Gate and she started to hear her own travel companions beginning to rouse and sort breakfast.

The promise of food was what convinced her to leave her tent and join the others near the extinguished campfire, which she set to relighting while Gale sorted through their foodstuffs for anything worthy of a hangover. He greeted her when she sat down and took up the flint rock, and Áine didn’t notice the way his eyes fell to her neck and then darted away.

“Did you enjoy the rest of your night?” he asked pleasantly enough, any poison in his words slow-acting in their sting.

“I did,” Áine said, managing not to blush and feeling invincible for it. “Did you?”

“Ended up tucked in for the night by the wine, but I’m no stranger to that, I suppose,” he chuckled. “We spent many a night back in Waterdeep with a dusty tome and a good vintage.”

“You and Mystra?” she asked in surprise. She wouldn’t have pegged a goddess for the “spending a night in” sort.

“Oh, no,” Gale chuckled. “Me and Tara. My assistant and my best friend. She’s a tressym.”

Áine’s eyes lit up. She’d never seen a tressym before in person but she’d seen illustrations of their likeness before. Astarion stepped out of his tent then and spotted the look on her face, nearly turning around and going back inside when he saw it was being gifted to Gale. “Is she back in Waterdeep then?” Áine asked, oblivious to her vampire’s plight.

“Yes, and better for it, I’d reckon,” Gale said emphatically as he started cooking some eggs and sausage. “I could never ask her to make this journey. She’s safer there.”

Áine nodded, feeling a wet nose bonk her arm and turning to see Scratch presenting her with his ball and a wagging tail. She wrestled the toy away from him and threw it across the camp, turning her attention back to Gale when the pup gave chase. “Then I’m glad she’s safe. You sound like you care a great deal for her,” she said.

“Very much,” Gale agreed. “She was the only one who stood by me after my condition began and worsened. Once we sorted out that magical artifacts seemed to help ease its intensity somewhat and I’d worked through the majority of powerful objects I’d collected in my tower over the years, she immediately went in search of whatever she could find.” His eyes softened in reflection. “I owe her a great deal and she’d scold me for saying so. You actually remind me of her, you know.”

Áine smirked, throwing Scratch’s ball again when he brought it back to her, wiping a bit of drool onto her pants. “Well, I’m flattered. She sounds brilliant.”

“You should come visit us in Waterdeep once this is all over,” he suggested. “Plenty of room. She’d likely adore the chance to play hostess as well.”

“Sounds delightful,” Astarion commented as he sat down next to Áine. “We’ll be there.”

“Great!” Gale said, thrilled at the prospect of company, it seemed. It wasn’t the reaction Astarion had expected to get and he almost felt bad for interrupting now. Almost.

He looked over at Áine, knowing already what he’d find—eyes alight with amusement and a silent accusation of being jealous. Astarion found precisely that and sniffed dismissively in her direction while she stifled a laugh.

“How are you faring this morning, Astarion?” Gale asked suddenly, plating some breakfast and handing it to Áine. “I thought I spotted you partaking in the wine at some point, unless that was blood I mistook for a red blend.”

“Technically both are red blends,” Astarion commented. “It was wine though—blood would’ve been preferable.”

“Can you taste wine properly then?” Gale asked as he sat down and started to eat as well. Their friends were slowly following the smell of cooked sausage out to the fire, each looking worse for wear than the last. “We’ve discussed food, so I figured wine may be a similar issue.”

Astarion sighed dismally. “Wine is a lost cause, too, I’m afraid. I’ve just yet to find it in myself to admit it for good. And I just have to try because what if this blend is different than that one or whathaveyou…,” he said.

“It’s too bad the tadpole couldn’t have lent you that back as well,” Áine mused. She cast a glance around the group now gathered around the fire and taking the breakfast Gale had made like medicine, but far more delicious. “Where’s Wyll? And Halsin?”

“Wyll ended up drinking with the best of them late last night,” Shadowheart said, looking a bit disheveled but smug at the prospect of someone ending up worse for wear than she had. “Even without the extra vintage,” she added quietly to Áine, who elbowed her arm. “I haven’t seen Halsin though.”

“He was packing up last I saw,” Karlach supplied through a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

“Well, shit,” Áine muttered as she set her plate down and stood up. He owed her some answers before he managed to get away again. Thankfully she didn’t have too far to go—he was just walking across the camp and she was able to head him off not too far from the rest of the party. “Halsin! Were you just going to leave?”

“Only temporarily,” Halsin said. “I must square a few things away at the Grove before I join you on your journey.”

“Can you at least tell us where we need to go next?” Shadowheart asked from where she was seated nearby and Áine silently thanked her for being another voice asking for the information he’d promised them. She was starting to feel like she was badgering him, but she certainly wasn’t above doing so if it meant helping herself and her friends.

Halsin looked a little sheepish as he said, “Of course… But the journey will not be an easy one regardless of the path we take—there are routes leading through the mountain pass near here or alternatively via the Underdark. There were whispers of an entryway down into its depths under the Selunite temple where the goblins were taking up residence.”

“Was that why you went with Aradin and his crew?” Áine asked. “To try and find the Underdark route?”

“Precisely,” Halsin said. “Of the two routes, the Underdark will likely be the less treacherous to take, but it is ultimately up to you to choose your path.”

“The teeth…tiefling Zorru spoke of my people in proximity to the mountain pass,” Lae’zel interjected, giving Áine a meaningful look. “It is imperative that we seek their crèche. That we seek purification.”

“Where are these paths meant to converge exactly?” Áine asked, absently fiddling with the little bow at her shirt laces Astarion had left. “Maybe that can help us decide where we go from here. Or at least in what order maybe.” She’d added the last bit to appease Lae’zel, not wanting her to feel as though she wasn’t being heard.

And then Halsin said two words that Áine had hoped never to hear again.

“Moonrise Towers,” the druid answered.

He’d singlehandedly turned her blood to ice and hadn’t the slightest clue. She wasn’t going to let him see it. Her face remained stoic, her arms still crossed over her chest while her fingertips toyed with one loop of the bow at her collar. The string was becoming akin to a worry stone, a touchpoint for grounding.

Inside she was screaming. And not one person noticed the change apart from the vampire who could hear the way her heart skipped a beat and then began to thunder against her ribs.

Astarion heard the disturbance in her chest from where he still sat near the fire and he tried to read her expression from what little of her profile he could see, but she was as good as he was when it came to internalizing her feelings, it seemed. So much so that he started to second-guess himself, wondering if maybe she’d been startled by something he hadn’t seen or something to that effect. Astarion listened to her breathing, even and normal until he heard the faintest shudder on an inhale that he placed instantly. It was the same as when an intrusive thought or a familiar sight triggered memories for him and sent him spiraling, but he had to hold his composure.

Meanwhile, the blood roaring in Áine’s ears nearly prevented her from hearing what Halsin was saying, but she caught the gist of it all. The cultists were gathering at Moonrise and if anywhere held the secrets of their parasites’ origin, it would be there. “Then when can we expect you back from the Grove?” Áine asked. “Should we wait, would you rather catch up with us…?”

Astarion listened to her voice, not a tremble in her tone. It was like when he’d seen her pause her pitch-perfect singing the other night and turn around with tears still streaking down her face. It was no wonder she seemed so finely tuned to call him out on his masking—she did it, too.

“It will only take a half-day to do what I must do there,” Halsin reassured her. “Tying up loose ends and all that. I can return this very night.”

Áine nodded. “Great, we’ll wait for you here then,” she declared. “Thank you.”

“I can only hope that this gets you the answers you need, my friend,” Halsin said and, despite Áine’s momentary suspicions of his reasons for withholding information, she could see the genuine affection and concern in his eyes. That was more than enough for her in these far too-interesting times.

“Only one way to find out,” she said, waving as he headed out of the camp to consult with the druids back at the grove. The tieflings had gone before they’d even had breakfast prepared, so it was just their usual crew left in the camp now.

Áine’s heart still hammered in her chest and she felt her hands begin to shake where she’d stuffed them under her arms. A high-pitched yelp from near her feet startled her, but she looked down and found only Scratch standing there, his ball placed before her on the dirt. She managed a weak smile and snatched up his ball, winging it across the clearing before she realized she needed to make herself scarce lest she have a panic attack out of seemingly nowhere in front of the very people who expected her to lead them.

It was an opportune time for her that a very hungover Wyll chose that moment to stumble out of his tent into the glaring sunlight and a loud “wahey!” of jeering applause from their friends. Áine was able to slip away, back into her tent, and she nearly collapsed inside the moment she did.

Her knees hit one of the throw pillows when she went down, her face buried in her hands while her nails bit into her tender temples. Áine bit down the violent urge to scream, clamping her palms against her mouth when she started to lose that battle and managing to contain it to a low whine instead. Godsforsaken fucking Moonrise, she repeated in her mind, screwing her eyes shut and feeling them burn as hot as her chest. Would she never escape that horrible place and the sickly shadows surrounding it? The onset of ceremorphosis felt like a better option.

Áine drew in breath after shuddering breath, each more deeply and slowly than the last as she tried to calm herself down before someone came looking for her. Speak of the devil, she heard footsteps approaching and then someone cleared their throat just outside.

Just go away, she prayed desperately, biting her trembling lower lip.

“Áine?” Astarion inquired, sounding the faintest bit hesitant. Gods, why did it have to be him? And why did her name have to sound so good from his lips? It just made her want to curl up in his lap until she felt better and she couldn’t think of anything worse to put him through than for her to ask for his emotional support.

She swallowed hard and asked in response, “Yes?”

He paused at length. “May I come in?” he asked at last.

Please.

Áine could tell he sensed something was wrong, which unnerved her, so she tried to reply in a way that felt like normal banter. “I thought you didn’t need permission to enter homes anymore,” she said.

Astarion wasn’t buying it, it seemed. “I don’t, darling. Still, may I?”

The bard sat stone-still for a long moment until she finally said, “...I think I need a few minutes to myself. Can we talk after?” He couldn’t see her like this. She didn’t want anyone to, but especially not him.

There was a beat of silence from the other side of the canvas before she heard him say, “Of course,” punctuated by his receding footsteps. When those steps faded into the background sounds she heard from the others still near the fire, Áine’s shoulders slackened and she smoothed her ponytail with nervous hands.

Moonrise Towers. Could she return and not lose everything she’d scrapped and pieced together of herself since the dawn she left? Did he still live? Did they all still live?

Would she live through it a second time?

For reasons he still fruitlessly tried to deny, it had hurt him when she’d turned him away. He even understood quite well, he thought, what she was experiencing. Would he have been in her place, he would have turned her away too, and likely with less grace. And it still ate at him that he hadn’t been permitted to check on her.

For what? He knew she was safe, uninjured, and simply taking a rest in her tent. The mood of the camp was calm and unbothered. He, by all accounts, should have taken the free time just to settle in at his tent and parse through one of the books he’d snatched up from the temple ruins between rounds with the goblin cultists. Yet there he was, wearing a rut in the dirt near his tent while he waited to see or hear any signs of Áine stepping back outside.

Astarion wasn’t entirely sure how long she’d been sequestered in her tent, but it had been longer than a few minutes. He’d seen Shadowheart wander over to her tent door as well only to be turned away as he had. When the cleric had looked his way, first suspiciously and then imploringly, Astarion had simply shrugged in reply. He hated not knowing.

It had to have something to do with Moonrise Towers. He’d heard her pulse quicken and her breath hitch not seconds after he’d uttered the name. But Astarion had never heard of the place before and had no context for what it could mean to her. Or did he?

That vision of Áine in gleaming armor crossed through his mind’s eye again, a vision hand-delivered by her tadpole to his the night he’d first bitten her. Had she served there, before he’d met her, before the tadpole? Her hair had been cropped short in the vision, so it couldn’t have been that recent. A few years ago, however, was a possibility.

What he could only approximate to be a half-hour or so later, Áine emerged from her tent, looking tired but no worse for wear. Astarion watched her cast a wary glance around the camp, seeming relieved at what she found before her eyes found him. She smiled when they locked gazes and the kind expression touched her eyes, which brought him more relief than he felt was due. Something was clearly still bothering her, but she at least seemed in better spirits.

Taking the smile as an invitation, Astarion approached her and parted his lips to speak when an acrid smell passed through his nose. He scowled in disgust, not realizing the scent hadn’t reached Áine’s less sensitive senses yet until she asked, a bit amused, “A fine greeting—do I offend?”

“No more than usual, my dear,” he ribbed her, earning her signature glare. “You can’t smell that?”

Áine inhaled deeply, this time catching the same odor he had. Her features contorted but she inhaled again, trying to understand what she was smelling. “What in the gods—”

“Well met, stranger,” said a strange voice. Áine and Astarion both turned to see an approaching man holding what appeared to be some sort of thurible with thin tendrils of smoke winding from its grating. It appeared to be the source of the horrific, sickly-sweet scent. “Ah, forgive the aroma. Powdered iron-vine—old hunter’s trick. Most monsters will think twice before making a meal of me while this holds up.”

“Most anything may avoid that,” Áine remarked, coughing against the back of her hand. “Sorry, who are you?”

“A Gur, it would seem,” Astarion interjected, an edge to his voice. “Funny to imagine one of your ilk as a monster hunter… I thought you were all vagrant cutthroats.”

Áine gave Astarion a look. “Must we?” she chastised him.

“No, no, your friend is right,” the man said tiredly. “We also steal chickens, curse your crops, seduce your daughters… The list goes on. Would that I had half the power settled folk think my people possess. Alas, I am a simple wanderer. And monster hunter, of course. My name is Gandrel.”

“Well met,” Áine said. “What exactly are you hunting out this way?”

“I seek a vampire spawn, so nothing that may charge us in this daylight hour,” Gandrel said. Áine’s stomach twisted, wondering what the odds were just before the monster hunter answered her question outright. “His name is Astarion, but I fear he’s gone to ground… There is a hag nested in these lands that I am hoping can help me flush him out. If I can afford her blood price, that is.”

Áine could feel Astarion tense beside her. As she’d just spent the past combined hour metering her expressions and concealing her true feelings, she was nicely warmed up for this by her estimation. “Bold to go toe-to-toe with a hag,” Áine commented warily. “What are you meant to do if you find this ‘Astarion’? Kill him?”

“Desperate times and all that,” Gandrel admitted before answering her question. “Not this time though. My orders are to capture him.”

“And bring him where exactly?” Astarion asked.

“Baldur’s Gate,” Gandrel said. “My people wait for me there. I don’t suppose you’ve seen any trace of such a creature in your travels ‘round these parts?”

“I couldn’t say,” Áine said. With a faint smugness that likely came off to Gandrel as overconfidence only, she asked, “Should we be worried? With him only being a spawn after all?”

Astarion took the bait immediately. “I don’t know… I’m sure a vampire spawn could still rip out your throat if he felt like it,” he mused, his words as pointed as the fangs he was being careful to keep obscured. Áine bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smirking at him.

“Your friend is right, unfortunately,” Gandrel said, oblivious to their wordless exchange. “They are only weak when compared to their masters. During the day, we have the advantage, but at night, when they hunt… Well, you will not find a more deadly quarry.” He frowned toward Áine. “If you’ve not already made it practice, it would be wise to post guards at night until you leave the area. The threat is very real.”

“Indeed, it is,” Astarion said gravely. “We should do something about this…threat.”

Áine scoffed at him before smiling pleasantly at Gandrel. “We will be careful. Thank you for the warning,” she said.

“That’s it?!” Astarion demanded of her, causing Gandrel to look his way in confusion. Godsdammit, Áine swore silently. “We’re just done here then?”

“Of course,” Áine said. To Astarion to cover his tempestuous outburst, she added, “No need to fret, we’ll be careful. I can take the first watch tonight if that will make you feel better.”

“That’s the spirit,” Gandrel said with a nod of approval. “Go in peace, my friends. I hope our paths cross again.”

“They’d better bloody not,” Astarion muttered so only Áine could hear.

“You, too,” Áine said, watching the monster hunter as he retreated. When Astarion’s hackles went up and he turned on her, she raised a hand, still watching Gandrel’s retreat. After he was out of sight, she looked at Astarion and groaned. “Alright, go.”

“If this comes back to bite us, it’s on your head,” he gritted.

“He’s no threat to us unless he figures out who you are,” Áine said. “Which is unlikely since he’s seen you in the daytime now.” She looked at him speculatively. “Any idea who sent him?”

“Cazador,” Astarion spat. “It has to be him. Only he would know to send a Gur after me.”

“Why would that be poignant?” Áine asked.

Astarion blew out an angry sigh. “Because it was the Gur who left me to bleed out in the streets the night that bastard offered me an escape from death…,” he muttered.

“So he did it to taunt you, you think?” she asked.

“I do,” he murmured. Astarion growled low in his throat as he glanced back the way Gandrel had left. “I cannot believe you would let him walk!”

Áine frowned. “Like I said, he hasn’t a clue who you are. And besides that, would it not help Cazador to pinpoint where you are should one of his lackeys suddenly perish in the area? Surely this one can’t be the only one out looking.” Astarion grimaced down at her. “Look, if he comes back, you can kill him, alright?”

“Oh, thank you for your consideration,” he sneered, dripping in sarcasm.

Áine was baffled by his kicking and screaming. “You do know you don’t need my permission to do a damn thing, don’t you?” she asked, her tone incredulous. “Go kill him if you want to.”

Astarion gave her a long angry and considerate look before he snarled out a sigh and shook his head, stalking off to his tent. Áine watched him go and exhaled the breath she’d been holding, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Who was that?” Shadowheart asked as she sidled up to stand beside Áine, her hands resting on her hips. She cast her gaze back toward Astarion disappearing into his tent. “And why is he in a mood?”

“Some monster hunter that’s looking for our vampire,” Áine sighed, rubbing her temples which still throbbed a little from where her nails had dug in. “He’s mad because I didn’t outright stab him in the eye, I suppose. But we had the conversation in broad daylight, so I assumed we wouldn’t have to cover our tracks. Yet, anyway.” Shadowheart gave a noncommittal hmph. Áine looked at her. “Do you think I should’ve?”

“I don’t know,” she said simply. “Your logic tracks though. Who sent him?”

Áine wasn’t sure how much of what he’d told her about Cazador was meant to be between them, so she said, “His old master. To capture though, not kill.”

“Odd,” Shadowheart murmured. “I wonder why. I’ve never heard of a vampire going to so much trouble over a spawn.”

“Worries me more than a kill order would have,” Áine said, running her hand over the back of her neck and realizing how lucky it was that she’d had her ponytail on the side of her neck he’d bitten the night before, effectively covering the marks. Properly anxious now, she decided she’d stay up for guard duty that night.

“I think it’s good that you didn’t kill him yet, for what it’s worth,” Shadowheart said. “We won’t be in the area for much longer anyway if all goes to plan. Let them wander in circles. And if they come back—”

“Let them bleed,” Áine finished for her.

“I’d meant to ask how your night went, you know,” Shadowheart pointed out. Her eyes gleamed with curiosity. “So?”

Áine sighed and glanced toward Astarion’s tent. “Moot at this point, it seems,” she murmured. Her gaze returned to Shadowheart. “But it was nice.”

“That’s what you want, isn’t it? To lose yourself in me?”

The sadness in his eyes as he’d said those words resurfaced in her memory. There was much more she didn’t yet know, she was sure. Whether or not he decided to talk about it at some point remained in his hands.

“He’ll come around,” the cleric reassured her, mistaking the sadness in Áine’s face for fretting about the state of her new dynamic with Astarion. “I expect details when you’re more in the mood to share.”

Áine smirked and shook her head as Shadowheart retreated, looking down as Scratch trotted up to her. “Hi, buddy,” she sighed, kneeling to pet him when she saw he was holding something in his mouth. “What do you have there?”

Scratch’s tail swished as he carefully placed his prize on the ground, whimpering toward her hands as if asking her to take it. Áine’s brow creased when she saw what it was. “Did you swipe my mint pouch?” she chuckled, picking up the familiar knit bag. “Why did you—”

She looked into Scratch’s large brown eyes, finding something akin to worry there, and her words trailed off. Áine looked back down at the bag, pursing her lips. She always did grab a little sprig when she needed to clear her head. So much so that apparently even their canine companion had noticed.

She smiled faintly and looked at Scratch again, giving him a loving pat on the head. “Thanks, boy.”

Next chapter: Chapter 12, "Bergamot & Rosemary"

A/N: Two things. Number one, I'm very excited to write this next chapter as scenes from it were what finally gave me the inspo kick to write this whole thing. 🥰 Hopefully I do them justice in the end.

Secondly, Act 1's canon will round out at about Chapter 18 and I'll be taking a break to do some outlining for Act 2 after that point. So I'm not gone-gone! Just might take a bit before another chapter crops up. Thank you so much for reading! x

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flamebringer0 · 7 months

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More About Nightwing Powers

I decided I had more to say about this post, so I reblogged it and wrote some more. It seems like when you do that Tumblr doesn't put the post into tag searches, so nobody can actually find it. I'm just going to copy the full text into a new post. I'm sorry if this spams anyone's feed, I just don't understand how this site works yet. I've never actually had a blog before.

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Ohhhh damn I just had another thought about this. This is my problem, I think about this stuff all the time and I keep coming up with new things I think are cool, but now that I've written all this out and published it for the whole world to see I can't change it so easily.

It's actually fine though. These thoughts are kind of a mix of things I think are canon but sufficiently non-obvious to be worth stating (All Nightwings have powers at hatching and then lose them), things that are definitely not canon but I feel like it doesn't mess with the story too much to change them (Prophets have a silver scale on their foreheads), and things that are ambiguous and I'm just filling in the blanks (fake Nightwing magic is based on their sense of smell). But there's a fourth category, which is things that I don't like about canon but changing them would basically entail writing a whole new story. I'm pretty sure this new idea falls into the latter category, so I wouldn't really have put it in that post anyway.

But let's explore the hypothesis that Tui T Sutherland and Scholastic collectively lose their minds and give me the rights to Wings of Fire, and also I have infinite time, resources and motivation to make my own adaptation of the story. Then what happens? Well, the first thing is obviously to change animus magic to be something other than total omnipotence, because omnipotent characters are the kind of albatross (tee hee) you don't want around your neck when you're trying to write a coherent story. And the second thing is to make it so the terrible Rainwing queens in book 3 are hereditary royalty and Glory is not, because I've never liked the valorisation of hereditary royalty in WOF (or in general), and that would be an easy way to subvert that. And THEN I would turn scavengers into lizard people, because I am a furry and I think that's cuter than making them humans. Lol.

But somewhere down the list would be the fact that I don't actually vibe with the idea that normal Nightwing seers/mind readers apparently have a built-in power limiter that varies randomly according to the specific individual, and the special gift you get for hatching under three moons is just to have that limiter set to 0. I don't like this because, first of all, the fact that it works like that just doesn't fit into my brain in a satisfactory way. Hatching under zero, one, or two full moons each results in a qualitatively different outcome, so in my mind, the third full moon should also do something qualitatively different. But it doesn't, it's just the same as two full moons but better. And then I'm left to assume that there are probably very rare cases of twice-moonborn Nightwings who have all the power, just because whatever secondary factors there are happened to line up in their favor? Weird.

But the more important reason is, I don't really like the idea of Clearsight as someone who has extraordinary power because she just hatched that way. Nor do I like the fact that the reasons for this are, on the one talon, unexplained (maybe inexplicable?), and on the other, not a function of who she is as a character. I think it would make for a much stronger motif if run-of-the-mill seer Clearsight were able to take down once-in-a-generation chosen one Darkstalker because she's diligent and doesn't believe in destiny while he's entitled and sure of his glorious future. At its core this feeling is actually the same thing as what I said about the Rainwing queens above: I just don't find it satisfying when the hero has some kind of special trait that makes them naturally better than everyone else. A villain can have that, but a hero I want to prove themselves through their own efforts. But that's explicitly not what happened in canon: Clearsight IS naturally more powerful than all the other seers, that's an essential part of her story, and changing it requires basically rewriting the books. I don't love it!

So anyway in the universe where I'm rewriting the books, here's a thought about how Nightwing powers might work. This partially contradicts what I wrote above, but I've decided I'm cool with that. I love contradicting myself actually, and maybe next week I'll contradict all of this again. There are no laws.

Some Nightwings are seers, some are mind readers, a few are both, and most are neither. But aside from the fact that an individual might or might not have these powers, they don't vary in strength from dragon to dragon. All seers have equally strong abilities, and all mind readers have equally strong abilities. But the strength of the abilities does vary: not per individual, but over time. Specifically, the current state of the moons affects the abilities of empowered Nightwings. On a hypothetical "darkest night" with three new moons, all Nightwings are effectively powerless. On the brightest night, empowered Nightwings experience the full strength of their abilities. Seers can easily look down many different paths into the distant future, and mind readers can easily examine any information in the mind of another dragon. Of course, the phases of the three moons are not synchronous. Most of the time, the moons are all in different states, and empowered Nightwings experience abilities somewhere in between those extremes.

Above, I said that the "strength" of Nightwing abilities doesn't really vary per dragon. Strength, as I use the term here, only refers to the raw potential to look into the future or into another dragon's mind. But different individuals do have different levels of adeptness when it comes to applying their abilities. On the brightest night, any seer can look with relative ease into the far future, down multiple timelines, examining subtle ripples of possibility. The rest of the time, most seers can't use their abilities on that level, but a particularly adept one can get closer. What makes one seer more adept than another? Well, it's really just training. If you're someone who, for whatever reason, keeps looking into the future, over time you'll get better at it, just like anything you keep doing. This is what sets Clearsight apart from her peers. She isn't more blessed by the moons than them, because no seer is more blessed by the moons than any other. Clearsight just looks into the future all the time, to a degree nobody else does. She works harder on her visions than any other seer, so her abilities are more advanced than those of any other seer.

There is one exception to the maxim "no seer is more blessed by the moons than any other". The special gift of the thrice-moonborn is that they are exempt from the cyclical waning and waxing of power with the phases of the moons. They hatch on the brightest night, and its power soaks into them and becomes permanently part of them. And so, they live as if every night is a brightest night. They always have the potential to see the ripples that spread into many distant futures, and they can always pluck any information they want out of another dragon's mind. What other Nightwings may train and train for, these dragons do as easily as they breathe.

There are few Nightwings who never dreamed as dragonets about what it would be like to have hatched under three full moons. How different their lives could have been from those of the common powerless Nightwing, or even ordinary seers and mind readers! And not just directly because of what they could see: the thrice-moonborn are almost inevitably beloved by their tribe, showered with attention, and elevated to the highest strata of society. Wouldn't that be nice, think the dragons who could have walked that path but for something as meaningless as the sky under which they hatched.

It's unsurprising that many covet that life, but it's not entirely as pleasant as they imagine. The adulation that surrounds the most powerful Nightwings is instrumental. As laid out in excruciating detail just behind the eyes of smiling dragons, few love them for who they are; many more love them for what they are. They will never have any interaction with friends or family that isn't fundamentally shaped by the asymmetrical power dynamic implied by their abilities. It's easy for a dragon in that situation to become profoundly isolated, especially without support. But the brightest night comes so rarely that most Nightwings who receive its gift will grow up with neither peers, nor mentors who can relate to these experiences. That many ultimately respond in unhealthy, self-destructive ways is a given; that the self-destruction of such powerful dragons often also destroys those around them is a recurring tragedy in the history of the tribe.

But it's not inevitable. No dragon's fate is actually written in the stars or sealed by the moons. It's always possible to choose a different future.

#the nice thing about making a blog is that now i can record the infinite cascade of thoughts im always having about night dragon moon magic #without feeling like im compelling any particular person to listen #next time ill talk about a different topic though #probably #wings of fire #wof #wof headcanon #headcanon #wof nightwing #nightwing #wof clearsight #clearsight #wof darkstalker #darkstalker

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cringecompanionapologist · 5 months

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Because I'm Bored: Doctors 1-13 Ordered from "Most Human" to "Most Alien"

So, some incarnations of the Doctor seem more "human" than others. Factoring vibes, aesthetic, social skills, emotional connection to companions, and then just shrugging and picking an order that makes sense, here goes:

Short Version, from most human to most alien: 1, 3, 5, 10, 9, 12, 6, 8, 2, 13, 7, 11, 4

(Very) Long Version:

Here There Be Spoilers for multiple Doctor Who Stories, the most recent of them being from Series 12 (and I'm not sure if the bit I'm talking about counts as a spoiler since it's just a thing that happens in the episode). Also this really got away from me and there are quite a few tangents in there. And because it's so long and it's very late I didn't really edit it, so I hope it's at least mostly coherent.

Most "Human"

Okay, this could be defined in a lot of ways, but based on my own definitions:

One:

The Doctor wasn't originally intended to be an alien, just an eccentric human from the future. So One isn't very "wacky". His cloths are a sort of vaguely Victorian/Edwardian normal. Because of Hartnell's age and health, he usually isn't very high energy. He's curious and mysterious, but if you didn't know from future reveals, you might not think he's a literal space alien.

Three:

This one was almost a tie. Three was the first incarnation to be established as an alien from his first story, and because he was written as an alien, he's more alien than an incarnation mainly written as a human. But, he usually comes across more like an eccentric professor with little regard for rules and regulations.

The UNIT Era setting might be a part of this. You take time travel from a Time Lord and what you've got left his a lord. He's an aristocrat who's fallen on hard times and had to get a job and is grumpy about it.

Five:

Five is one of the more cautious Doctors. He's aware of how his curiosity can get the better of him and sometimes tries to reign it in. He can also pass as human very easily. In Black Orchid, he fits perfectly into the setting, a costume party/cricket match in the 1920s. He is very traditionally British, and the British are almost definitely humans.

Five has more alien companions than most incarnations, which means that the ways in which he's alien don't stand out as much. He's been traveling the universe for centuries and he loves Earth, so he's picked up on a lot of human stuff. Adric and Nyssa are much younger and much more sheltered, so they're the alien fish out of water. Turlough has a bit more experience with humanity, but he hated it and is quite proud of being an alien to these people, actually. So, the Doctor blends into Earth surroundings while his companions either have no idea what's going on or are actively protesting it.

But, Fivey's still a space alien. He's still eccentric, and somewhat socially awkward. He misses social cues and tends to deal with emotions by avoiding them. Adric just died? Sadness is happening? Well, he doesn't know how to process and express that emotion while also comforting two people who are also feeling that emotion. So, he basically tells them to stop grieving and get back to the plot. He still feels emotions, of course, but he tries to ditch them whenever possible.

Ten:

He's often thought of as the most human Doctor. He's got quite an emotional range and can connect with humans very well. But, a thing with Ten isn't that he's the most human, but more that he most wants to be human. The Time Lords are dead because he killed them and humans are his adoptive species. But he can never truly be one of them. That's one of the many tragedies of the Tenth Doctor.

Ten is more overtly quirky than the Doctors listed before him. He talks a mile a minute, he's easily distracted, and he can say some very silly things. He's the guy who gave as "wibbly wobbly timey wimey". He's the first Doctor on this little list to regularly seem too weird to pass for human, though he still can when he's really committed to it.

Nine:

I honestly wasn't sure where to put him. He has a less quirky appearance than most Doctors, with his leather jacket not being out of place in a modern setting.

But, he's still very quirky with an added element of being unstable and more emotionally distant than Ten. He's a bit more cynical about the universe, having just come out of a war.

Honestly, 9 and 10 sort of tie. They're both human and alien to around the same degree in different ways.

Twelve:

Twelve changes a lot throughout his run, so it was hard putting him in one spot. He has the darker edges of Nine, but those soften over time and he becomes your silly professor who was in a band in the 70s.

So, in Series 8, he's a grumpy space grandpa. The first to point out that he's an alien. By Series 10, he's hung out on Earth for a while and lightened about. Strangely, he feels more human when he's being silly than when he's being serious.

There's also the added element of Moffatisms, which aren't exclusive to Moffat, but they are elements of the show that became more prominent around 2010. The Moffat Era had the Doctor as more genuinely socially awkward than before and more likely to view that as a problem. It feels like the bit where the Doctor's an alien but he's spent centuries around humans so he knows the basics at least was sorta lost.

Even though I called this a Moffatism, this trend only became more noticeable after Moffat left. We'll get there when we get there.

Six:

The only reason Six isn't higher on the alien scale is his darker, more violent edge. It doesn't feel very alien. But, Six is probably the most alien-looking Doctor.

Six is great at pissing people off, sometimes on purpose and sometimes not. But, even in the TV episodes that usually had weak scripts, you could still see how much he cared.

When I think of the Doctor being socially awkward, I often think of The Mysterious Planet, of all stories. Basically, Peri has a bit of an existential crisis over realizing that she's on a far future Earth and that Earth won't last forever. Six has a little speech about how everything ends at some point. It's not very comforting, but you can tell from his tone that he intended it to be. As a centuries-old time traveller, the fact that everything ends isn't quite that big a deal. You can just go back in time to before the world ended. But Peri, though she's been traveling with the Doctor for a while, is still a regular human from 1984, of a single time and place where time travel doesn't exist. So when something ends, that's it. The Doctor understands that Peri is upset and he wants to comfort her, but he doesn't understand her feelings enough to succeed at it. It's a great little moment from one of the more "meh" stories of the era.

So, there's the Doctor being an alien depicted in a slightly more subtle way, underneath the loud technicolor dream coat.

Eight:

A while ago, I made a post that sorted the Doctors into three loose categories. One of them was called something like Wacky, Zany, Silly, Fun-Time War Criminal. All the Doctors I'll talk about as the most alien are in that category. Eight is the most alien incarnation to not be in that category. Eight is a romantic, heroic type, who also happens to basically be a puppy with the zoomies for whatever parts of the TV Movie he doesn't have amnesia in.

I haven't seen a lot of Eight, so I don't have much else to say. He gets more seriously later on, because of the Time War and several companions dying. There's also a difference between the Eight Doctor Adventure novels and the Big Finish audios. Big Finish is where a lot of the "Eight gets more serious" arc happens. Both series have the overall plot of "the puppy is kicked repeatedly by absolutely everything". The EDA Doctor is traumatized by it and that's another thing that triggers an amnesia arc, but he remains upbeat when he isn't suffering The Horrors. BF Eight grows more cynical over time.

Two:

The Most Human of the Most Alien. He's very silly and very energetic. He plays the recorder and behaves in a way that often feels half-child/half-grandma. He's the template that all the other Wack, Zany, Fun-Time alien Doctors are built from.

So why's he the most human of that category?

Two actually has a unique skill. Though many incarnations of the Doctor can be manipulative, or use their understanding of people to accomplish their goals, Two is the most socially intelligent Doctor. He acts silly because he likes being silly, for the most part. People underestimate him, which can be useful. But, his more serious moments show a side to him that, though he doesn't act like a normal human, he understands humans, as individuals and as a species, very well.

Compare that scene from The Mysterious Planet I mentioned earlier to The Tomb of the Cybermen. Victoria is a knew companion who only became a companion because she'd otherwise have been stranded on Skaro. She's also just become an orphan. The Daleks killed her father. So, though she's trying her best, she's obviously not doing very well. The story stops for a moment and the Doctor talks to Victoria and what he says actually comforts her. While Six couldn't understand Peri's existential crisis, Two can understand grief, losing family, and being forced to leave home. So, he's able to emotionally connect with Victoria in a way Six couldn't with Peri, even though he wanted to.

Two's emotional intelligence gives him a strong human side, or at least a side that can relate to humanity.

Thirteen:

She's quirky. Very, very quirky. She has no attention span and often just does things. Chibnall takes the Moffat Era social awkwardness even further. Thirteen is self-aware and obviously insecure about not relating to her companions socially. She's also one of the more secretive incarnations, so she sometimes just refuses to connect with her companions, but even when she wants to connect with them, it often feels like there's a barrier between them.

Some of this is, at least as I perceive it, the result of consistent writing problems. Basically every writer of this era had difficulty distributing lines between the three companions and making sure everyone had something to do. Unless the plot had stopped for the characters to talk about their feelings, the companions tended to all fall into the stock "what's happening, Doctor?" role. I get the feeling that people who like these characters, and there are people who love these characters, love them for the fleeting moments when they get to be characters, when there's nothing else going on. Yaz stands out when she's talking to the Doctor on the beach, trying to sort out romantic feelings, but not when she's one of three companions in the middle of some Alien Bullshit.

But, you often don't get the "what's happening, Doctor?" Many scenes of exposition involve the Thirteenth Doctor thinking aloud, asking herself questions and answering her own questions, while three other people just stand there and wait to be addressed. Of course the Doctor is going to seem distant from her companions when she's talking to herself most of the time they're around.

Thirteen's social awkwardness actually led to a somewhat infamous moment in Can You Here Me, where Graham talks about having cancer and his fear that it might come back someday...and the Doctor straight up admits to being too socially awkward to know what to say in this situation and there's a complete tonal whiplash from Graham's serious talk about cancer to a "Doctor is socially awkward" joke, as if the seen was getting to heavy and the writer was desperate to change the subject.

A lot of people complained about this and the defense basically amounted to "It's not that the Doctor doesn't care about Graham. She just doesn't always know what to say.". My problem with it isn't that she didn't know what to say, but that she didn't try. Again with The Mysterious Planet. Six was also socially awkward and didn't know what to say to comfort his companion, but he tried. It didn't work, but he tried. And there wasn't a tonal whiplash, since Six not understanding why Peri's upset wasn't being playing as a joke. Thirteen can be socially awkward. She can admit to being socially awkward. But, what you had in that scene with Graham was a poorly timed joke that, because the show tried to lighten the mood, made it feel like Thirteen wasn't taking things seriously. That clearly wasn't the intent, but that's what felt so wrong to so many people.

So, she's about as far from Two as you can get in terms of social skills.

But, the fact that she is so self-aware, insecure in a way that previous incarnations weren't, feels like a very human trait. So despite everything I've had to say, she's still just shy of the top three.

Eleven

Quirky Moffatisms at full force. He is silly, acts like a child, comes with several wacky catchphrases, and sales of bowties in the real world increased about he said they were cool. That was supposed to be weird but the world changed for him.

Eleven is better at connecting to his companions than Thirteen, so I wasn't quite sure which to put first, but Eleven has more in common with the two I haven't gotten to yet. Thirteen didn't really have the confidence to pull of the "angry god" thing that some incarnations, especially in the the new series, sometimes do. She had her lapses in sanity and could be downright cruel during those lapses but it felt more like "the Doctor is having a bad day" than "Do Not Piss Off This Eldritch Horror". When Eleven snapped, it felt like the Wrath of God. No human could really do that.

There's a reason I call this one category of Doctor the Wacky, Zany, Fun-Time War Criminal. They're the silliest Doctors, but also the ones that are the scariest when angry.

Eleven is heavily inspired by Two, but I also tend to see him as combining traits of Seven and Ten. He's high energy and high intensity like Ten.

As for Seven, who was also based on Two, well, there are Eleventh Doctor moments that are basically their own versions of Second and Seventh Doctor moments. Victory of the Daleks has the "Daleks pretend to serve humanity to win their trust so they can take over" lifted from The Power of the Daleks, but while Two was scared of the Daleks, Eleven was enraged. In Two's case, it was because this was his first story. One rarely expressed fear quite this openly, which made it clear that 1. Two is different from One and 2. Daleks are serious business. For Eleven, it was something of a rehash of Nine torturing a Dalek in Dalek. Victory of the Daleks is made up of little moments stolen from better stories.

However, a deliberately similar moment isn't necessarily stolen. Sometimes, it creates another opportunity to compare and contrast. So, let's talk about Seven.

Seven

He's got all the clownish behavior of Two and Eleven, but he comes across as more alien from his tendency to act like a supervillain from time to time. It's all part of the plan and sometimes he screws his friends over along the way. Of course he still cares. Ace is still his Space Daughter. But, sometimes sacrifices have to be made to save the universe...

So, we did a Two vs. Six. vs. Thirteen on the subject of Comforting Companions. Now it's Two vs. Seven. Eleven in Betraying Companions.

Okay, not really. But the companions are made to feel betrayed, whatever the intentions behind it were.

The obvious two to compare are The Curse of Fenric and The God Complex. This is one of the more obvious "new who just does a classic scene" moments. Both stories have a reoccurring theme of faith, which has an effect on the Monster of the Week. The Curse of Fenric has one of the many varieties of Doctor Who Vampire that are repelled by faith. It turns out that the sign of the cross only worked on vampires because it was used by devout Christians. Any sort of faith works. A Soviet soldier repels vampires with a hammer and sickle badge because of his faith in Communism. The Doctor starts listing the names of past companions to repel them because he has faith in his friends.

Jumping over to The God Complex, we have a sort of Minotaur thing that eats faith. There's this weird prison hotel thing where people are shown their worst fears. Everyone has a room with a fear in it. Except for Rory. He's experienced all the Horrors and came back from the dead so many times that he doesn't care anymore. People who have some sort of faith tend to think of that faith when scared for their lives. So, the fear leads to faith, the Minotaur converts that faith into worship of the Minotaur and then it kills people.

The Doctor, Amy, and Rory end up in the prison hotel with a group of other random people. There's a gambler who believes in luck, a conspiracy theorist, a Tivolian, who are a culture of strategic cowardice, and his faith in his oppressors oppressing him, and a sane woman who is a devout Muslim. They all get picked off one by one.

Then we have the companions. Eleven has two with him, but Rory just kind of hangs back for this one. You have Ace and Amy. A names are apparently unlucky.

As companions who jumped at the chance to be companions, Ace and Amy have faith in the Doctor. In The Curse of Fenric, you'd think this would be a good thing, since it keeps the vampires away, but because of Reasons it becomes necessary to turn the faith off to save the universe. In Amy's case, her faith is putting her at risk of getting eaten by a minotaur.

So, the Doctor has to break his companion's faith in him.

But I also mentioned Two, so let's derail things even further to talk about The Evil of the Daleks. It's not as direct of a comparison, but I want to bring it up because the Doctor betrays a companion's trust and challenges his faith in him. In this case, it's Jamie. The Doctor tricks him into taking part in a Dalek experiment to discover the Human Factor, all the things that make humans special, so they can understand the people who keep beating them.

The Evil of the Daleks softens the blow. We see the build-up to the Dalek experiment from the Doctor's perspective. The Daleks demand that Jamie be used in the experiment. The Doctor asks why it has to be him and not some other human. The Daleks say that traveling in time makes Jamie unique. The Doctor asks why they can't just to the experiment on him, and since a later plot point in this serial is dependent on the Doctor NOT being human, I'm going to just say he was lying here. The Doctor's traveled in time too much, apparently.

So, the Doctor did everything he could to keep Jamie out of it, including lying to put his own life on the line. This was an absolute last resort and the Doctor tries to make the most of.

But, Jamie wasn't present for any of this, so all he knows is that the Doctor put his life on the line working with the bad guys.

So, it's not quite the same as the later Faith Breaking stories. The Evil of the Daleks feels more like a misunderstanding.

So we go back to Seven and Eleven. Seven breaks Ace's faith by claiming not to care about her, that he was just using her this whole time, and that he doesn't care if she dies. It's absolutely brutal. With Eleven, it's more about recklessness and incompetence. He failed to protect Amy. He let her down. He put her in danger knowingly, because he likes having companions and he cares more about having their company than about their safety. He keeps talking people into running off with him to see the universe, only for terrible things to happen because it wasn't safe. The Doctor knows it isn't safe, but he just can't stop endangering people's lives. It's more complicated, a deconstruction of the Doctor/Companion dynamic, but it seems like a last minute confession, like the Doctor is breaking down in the face of losing another companion. In the end, he did deliberately say what he needed to to break Amy's faith, but it doesn't seem quite so cold.

Eleven doesn't usually have master plans. He's just willing to get very dark in certain situations. Seven plans ahead, so you can't know just how long he was planning to emotionally destroy the teenager he sort of adopted. That also adds to the brutality. Ace's faith in the Doctor is more like a child's faith in a parent. Eleven was Amy's imaginary friend who turned out to be real, so it's a more abstract faith.

Okay, I've gone on an on and on about so many things. Let's wrap this up.

Four

Four is big and loud. His hair, his eyes, his teeth, his impressively long scarf...You can't not pay attention to him. He looks a bit silly, but he can also be a little intimidating. You have all the quirkiness of the Doctors we already mentioned, but with an added sense of authority. Everywhere he shows up, he just sort of takes over. Two and Seven will just blend into places at times, put Four doesn't need to. He walks in, offers people jelly babies, and starts asking about what's going on. People tell him. It's refuge in audacity. People are too confused to even ask questions and they just start following along.

If you take the idea of a renegade Time Lord: There's a powerful species of aliens and this one went rogue to travel the universe and help people, Four perfectly fits. He's authoritative, like you'd expect a powerful person to be, weird and distant from humans, as you'd expect an alien to be, and chaotic, like you'd expect someone acting in defiance of the ultimate Lawful Neutral Bordering on Evil.

Four is alien in a very specific way that might be the entire show, so yeah, he's the Most Alien Doctor.

This thing's really fucking long I'm sorry...

#all the doctors #first doctor #second doctor #third doctor #fourth doctor #fifth doctor #sixth doctor #seventh doctor #eighth doctor #ninth doctor #tenth doctor #eleventh doctor #twelfth doctor #thirteenth doctor #the essay to end all essays #i think there are like four completely different essays dropped into the middle of this #and yes i realize that i can't sound normal when talking about four #i have no idea why that is #i haven't even seen that much of him

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thesweetnessofspring · 10 months

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"We seal the pages with salt water and promises to live well and to make their deaths count." Mockingjay, 387 (US edition).

A post I made hoping to get maybe 10-15 new songs for my post-war Everlark playlist resulted in a flood of over 130+ song suggestions from the Everlark fandom! Y'all are amazing and I love you.

I've compiled nearly all the suggestions here (plus some of my own) in this playlist and hopefully organized them into a somewhat coherent order, based on my interpretation of the songs/vibes. My thought was to group songs based on the progress of their relationship, from when Katniss returned to D12 through Katniss and Peeta looking back on their life as an old married couple. From there I tried to create a good flow from song to song based on their general groupings of timeline events.

I have this thing where for playlists meant for more public use, I'm not a fan of having more than 3 songs from one artist, so a couple of artists that had more than 3 song suggestions I made decisions about which songs to include.

There are 3 songs on the playlist that are in a language other than English (all of which are so so beautiful). I found translations for the songs from @sanjarka's playlist (which you can find here). Here are translations for Mamo, tyś płakała by sanah and Tęsknię sobie by sanah. And @pearlbeth gave a translation to English for the song she suggested, Se Me Occure by Silvana Estrada.

Last, for the cover art I used a piece by @buggiebite that had the perfect post-war Everlark vibe I was looking for. The soft glow of the candlelight with Katniss and Peeta dancing together in the dark is just *mwah* perfect! (credit is given to buggiebite in the Spotify description as well).

So please take a listen and enjoy nearly 8 and a half hours of post-war Everlark musical goodness!

#the hunger games #everlark #everlark playlist #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #mockingjay

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pocketramblr · 11 months

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machia and yoichi, you say 👀 could you tell us more about this ship, please? i smell a lot of fun here - they both were close to afo, had some emotional attachment to him, experienced extreme violation of their body autonomy because of it, however they had very... well. rough start. but any romantic relationships between them would be based on something more than constant manipulations, lying and lust, i bet

My thoughts are more half-shaped vibes than coherent sentences but I'll do my best. I see two main sets of options for this ship

1- where they do indeed have a very rough start lol. Machia is one of the few trusted with the Vault's location and purpose and brings food when AfO is too busy elsewhere, and sometimes they talk- neither of them think very highly of the other, but I think actual conversation could break out after Yoichi asks where his brother is when it's been longer than usual since he visited, and Machia picks at the concern in his voice, to Yoichi's protests. Yoichi would also ask his name and not get it, but two days later realize Machia never refers to him by name either. "I'm Yoichi, by the way." And Machia never heard his name out of AfO's lips before (never heard AfO's name either, though, surely he doesn't need it, to serve his lord...) but something's gotta shift then, even if it isn't much. Perhaps it is something different, to hold down someone for force feeding when you know their name. (Something different when he shot an angry look at you first, for telling AfO about the hunger strike, even though you aren't the one who got him locked down here and he was skinny enough before-). Also I don't think Yoichi is actively trying to seduce his guard to escape (which is also something fun but anyway less so here) BUT he does have this urge in him. This "I can fix him" urge, or maybe this "I can save him" urge is a better way to put it. Also, Machia had to have seen a lot of quirk exchanges, thefts, and rewards in his time guarding AfO. He's also not that dumb. I don't think it'd be too much of a stretch for him to begin to pick up on the different reaction to someone without a power getting one, someone with a power getting another one that merges, and someone with a power getting another one that overwhelms them. So after Yoichi has a power forced onto him, I think Machia might be one of the ones who realizes what happened first- even if he's in denial, thinks it could be an unusual reaction because Yoichi's body was weaker than expected, surely AfO would know if he has a quirk and they merged together- but after reporting the reaction to AfO, who suddenly can't take it back out of Yoichi, well... clearly AfO isn't perfect. I don't know if it would go fully romantic before Yoichi's rescue from the vault but I think it could be heading that direction. And, Machia would feel guilty enough for Yoichi being taken from the vault even though he was guarding AfO at the time as ordered, more so if Yoichi dies soon after. Guilty and grieving enough to submit to AfO giving him more powers, even as it hurts while they're still merging, he'll survive it, get stronger, never notice how much of his mind AfO clawed back under his control, how little he thinks of Yoichi years later.

2- the second option is that they actually had a rough end. This is one where Machia was Yoichi's friend first, and AfO suffered a bad case of "can't let him have his own toys". Perhaps Yoichi started out as a villain, or closer to it, and recruited Machia in. Perhaps they were friends when younger. Either way, AfO slowly gets in between them, charismatic and manipulative. Maybe seems a more capable villain than Yoichi, who gives Machia powers while Yoichi keeps losing the forest for the trees, trying to ensure each lower member of the group is in the right spot, helped in return, something Machia had appreciated when it benefited him early on, found good, but now finds irritating, as AfO clearly does. Or perhaps Yoichi was always too sweet, and AfO poked and prodded about how he needed more protection, about how only he had the power to do more, speaking of things Yoichi couldn't understand but they, the metas, could. And then it's easy to join, and easy to be betrayed when Yoichi tries to leave. After all, if he'd turn on his own beloved family, who was there before you were, of course he'd turn on you too eventually, and maybe you were more of a project to him than a partner- memories easily rewritten, when pretty green eyes are glaring at your fiercely as if you're the traitor, when you never left, carrying him down to the vault (gently, as ordered, even though you know Yoichi could handle more than his brother's protective instincts want to admit.) And then he doesn't even say anything to you again, never- not in the vault, not after, not when he's dead.

#also. and this is hardly important. but Machia is one of the few people i can ship with Yoichi who would actually be taller than him #pocket talks to people #redoaktreehill

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bettsfic · 9 months

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Hi betts! Ive been finding your posts really motivating, they make me want to write more and more. So id really appreciate if you could give me advice for this problem!

I just dont know how to revise! Or maybe the problem is that i dont know how to write drafts that need revising.

Basically what happens is that i write a draft as fast and messily as i can. And then i reread it, and i really like it! So when i get around to fixing it up, i end up chopping out things just based off of vibes. And then i read that version, and i hate it! It shows a lot more technical skill for sure, and it coheres a lot more, but i feel that its completely lost its voice and style. I tend to write in fits of emotion, and i feel like any revising outside of that mindset just sort of... strips the text of its sincerity?

Where do i go from here? Its not easy to practice revision when its so disheartening!

When i attempt to write badly, it either turns out good enough that im scared to change it, or bad enough that im not interested in it anymore.

How do i revise a draft without removing the things i like about it? Do i just need to get better at identifying what i like about my work?

that's an interesting situation, anon. i guess my immediate question is, if you like what you write, why do you even want to revise?

in the 50s, the beats popularized this idea of "first thought, best thought," which basically means what goes on the page is what belongs there, and the first words that come to us are the right ones, not because they're good, but because they're first.

for your own purposes, for the sake of discovery, i think this is a great mentality. the process of invention is the purest practice of creativity. you're putting things on a page that weren't there before, and if you're doing that in a way you find satisfying, and if you're pleased with the results, then i think you should keep doing it. it seems to me like your willingness to revise and your ability to say, "no, i liked it better before," will naturally develop into a more dedicated revision practice. eventually you'll write the thing that makes you go, "wait a minute, that's not right," or maybe, "i like this, but it doesn't quite honor the story i want to tell." and those are the seeds of revision.

don't get me wrong, i'm a firm believer in revision. but more than that, i'm a believer in letting your joy guide you in any creative process. revision should feel good. you should want to revise. you may not always be eager to revise, but you should feel strongly enough about the nature of what you're creating that making it better will make you feel better. but if you don't want to revise, then you shouldn't feel obligated to.

still, if you want to get a sense of what revision can do to your work so that you can experiment and grow, i would recommend writing something short, maybe a thousand words or fewer. then put it down for a week, and rewrite it without looking at it again. put that down for a week too. then rewrite it a third time without looking at either previous draft.

when you have all three drafts, try to look at them with a discerning eye. which one overall is best and why? or if you can't tell, go through and highlight all the sentences you like and count them. whichever story has the most highlights wins.

sometimes revision isn't always about making something better. sometimes it's about approaching your work so many different ways that you've conceived all possible angles and chosen the one that's best. sometimes the first thought really is the best thought. but sometimes it's the fifth thought, or the tenth, or one that someone else has to bring to your attention. i think if you broaden your definition of revision to be "considering every way this thing can be written," it'll help guide you toward a process that works for you.

#writing advice #revision #.

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k-dokja · 2 years

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SOFT THORNS — “hell is watching something that was your everything, slip away” | following the four pieces of "i don't want you to fall in love with someone else"

Summary: Collection of writing based on lines taken from Bridgett Devoue’s Soft Thorns.

It's not easy in the aftermath.

He likes to pretend it's fine because nothing else is there for him to clutch on. Yet, he sees it in your eyes when he walks up to you in the morning. You acknowledge him with a quiet nod and match his pace during your walk to school. There is a wall there built by his own hands. Each brick is a fragment of his lies and the cement is his admittance of the truth.

The wall stays for your comfort because he knows love is a troubling thing and when you need time, he will provide it. All Daniel can hope is for it to one day to fall down, even if it's only one brick at a time. It's a strange thing, for his love to lie bare in front of your eyes and all he gets in return is silence.

But he smiles for you anyway, and hopes one day, you will smile back at him in return.

For a few days afterwards, you continue to put on a feign of normalcy in front of others, but when the two of you are alone, it is naked to his eyes — you're trying to think but it's not easy to keep your thoughts coherent with your close proximity. He stays patient because he promised he would and puts on a mask with you.

"Something wrong between you two?"

Zack, strangely, is the one to notice it. He pulls Daniel aside on the fourth day when you're distracted by the cafeteria selection. Your friends keep you occupied enough when he glances back to check, but he wears on an awkward smile for Zack anyway. It's only prudent. "What do you mean?"

"You're acting weird," Zack frowns, "like," he gestures in your general direction, "the two of you, there's this vibe, it's weird."

"It's nothing," Daniel says, "we had some differences, that's all, we talked it out and she needs time to process it."

The frown on Zack's face says he's unconvinced, but if Danie's unwillingness to speak says anything, it manages to make Zack drop the topic. "Fine," he says, "just... forget about it."

Zack leaves as abruptly as he arrived. Yet, that conversation alone has given him more insight than anything else. He's probably worried about the truth you revealed to the original Daniel. The crush you omitted from this version of him when you agreed to go out. It is something which has given him as much joy as heartache.

He puts on a smile anyway when you meet his eyes upon Zack's return to the group. It confuses you, but you do not press when he comes back either. He knows not whether it's a blessing or a curse, but he finds that his mind scrambles, too.

There's wrong on both sides, he can see that. His wrong is bigger than yours, but it stings to think that he has meant to be a rebound, even if it was him you like anyway. In the end, the magnitude can't be compared when he looks at the two sides of the story.

He wishes for there to be a time machine to go back in time and do everything correctly, but staying stuck in the past does him no good. What he can do is make do with his lot in life, now.

At least, he can try.

"Do you..." He asks, after school, the day before the weekend, when everyone's packing up, "do you want to go somewhere on the way home?"

You look at him with mild apathy. He's overthinking it. "Sure. Where do you want to go?"

Daniel shrugs, "Anywhere, really, I just want to be with you," belatedly, he adds, "if that's okay with you?"

"Well, there's a new tea place my friends have been recommending to me," you say while strapping on your backpack, "might be worth checking out."

"Okay, let's head there then," he feels a little relief to see your reception, almost enough for him to reach out for your hand. Yet, he manages to stop his own action once more. He'd not do anything foolish now, treading on thin ice and fearing the plunge into cold water.

But the fear is unfounded. It is you who reach out for his hand on your own, your fingers thread easily. "What are you standing around for? Let's go." You pull him alone with you, ignorant to the envious eyes of other girls in class. And in facing his fear of winter, he finds warmth in your hands.

This time, his smile is genuine.

In the beginning, his hold on your hand remains loose, giving you a way out should you wish to have it. However, after he sees that you're not letting go, he squeezes your hand in his own. He would cherish this feeling forever if he can. There are few greater goods in life that can be comparable to holding you.

Eventually, the two of you set into a rhythm, the held hands swinging back and forth between you both. It's a little habit that you've grown to develop since the two of you begin to date. He finds it endearing, never an occasion to tell you that, however.

"I thought about it," it is you who break the comfortable silence between the two of you, "it makes sense the more I thought about it."

"Hm?"

"The two of you never appear together even if you have mutual friends, you even have the same name and the same mannerism while living in the same place," you say, "although, no one would have made the connection that you have two bodies... it makes sense in hindsight, once I thought about it."

It flusters him a bit to hear you bringing this up after a week of silence. All of the preparation he has made for this conversation suddenly vanishes, he's once again left fumbling. "Y-Yeah? I mean... I'm still me, it's just the way people treat me that's different, I guess."

You nod, once. "Yeah, I get it. You're still you, that's why it's the same yet it's different. I can't say I have wrapped my head around it entirely but... I think I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt, at least."

"Really?" He exclaims with a bit too much excitement, but he can't help it, not when he has spent the week living in suspense. "I... I can't thank you enough, truly. I know it's a lot to take in but, I don't mind no matter how long it takes, because..."

He was going to say something honest and stupid. But he has grown well at catching himself, but not well enough because if the warmth on his face says anything, then it's that the embarrassment is prominent. "Uh, because you're worth all the wait, evidently."

Desperately and perhaps futilely, he ignores the little smirk you make. He glances away and finds it a horrible idea when he realizes how it exposes his blushing cheek to you.

"Yeah, evidently," you mimic him with clear mockery at his feeble attempt at covering his track, "so... we're good, right?"

He lets out a relieved sigh, "Yeah, of course, we're good. There's no reason why we wouldn't be. I mean it does hurt to hear why you agreed to go out with me but... at the same time, it gave me the chance to be transparent with you. So I'd say we're even on that count."

"Huh, yeah," you say with a little bit of recognition, "guess we turned out well on that front, turned out my bad decision was convenient for us both after all."

"Agreeing to go out with me is a bad decision?" He gapes. While he tries to play it off with feigned humour, his heart squeezes.

You only shrug in return, "While I liked somebody else? Yeah, it was. It wasn't fair to you and I know that. So, I'm sorry for that, but I'm glad I decided to come clean."

"Yeah, well," he fumbles again, "I guess it all turns out well in the end, the person you like is still me, after all, and you like me for my personality even, so I'd call this a win-win."

"You're awfully optimistic about this," you drawl.

He huffs a little, "I have to be, this is hard on me, too."

"Oh, so now that you're out of hot water, you're cheeky all of a sudden," you laugh in exasperation and he finds it easy to smile, too, "c'mere, I'll stop your head from getting too big—seriously, where did you find all of this audacity?"

You use the hold you have on his hand to drag him down and pull on his cheek. He could've easily avoided you, but to him at that moment, any attention from you is good attention. Even if it ends with him having swollen cheek. "A-Ack, mercy!"

He's released after a pinch that barely stings. It might have been his thick skin that saves him or maybe you never pulled that strongly, to begin with. However, what matters, in the end, is that you pat on the area of attack and grin up at him. Whatever pain he suffered no longer matters. "There, know the next time you hide anything from me, there'll be hell to pay, so don't get cocky."

"There won't be the next time," he murmurs and finds the light in your eyes distractingly beautiful they are aimed at him, "I can promise you that."

"Hm, there better not be," you turn your nose up but all he notices is how that makes your cheek readily accessible, "now, let's—"

He leans down quickly. A peck on your cheek that he has been hoping to give this entire time. He might be playing with fire, kissing you this soon after a fight, but he has wanted to do that forever and now that the opportunity is here, he'd be a fool to miss it.

Immediately afterwards, he slips his hand away from you and breaks into a sprint. You take only a second to recover but it's enough for him to get a headstart. "Yah, Daniel Park! Come back here!"

If he wanted, he'd have easily managed to escape you, but he keeps his pace slow enough to give you the illusion of catching up. A grin breaks out on his lips, even if he should be fearing for his life.

Somehow, he has the feeling that it can only look up from here on.

#daniel park #daniel park x reader #lookism #lookism x reader #fics

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quillyfied · 6 months

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Okay final episode thoughts that I don’t know that I can expand into real coherent thoughts so heck it we’re doing it live and cramming them together, no chronology just memory vibes, PART FOUR:

- I think part of the problem of it feeling so fast an episode, for me, is the anticipation; I waited to watch it with friends and by the time it was finally happening I had been waiting all day and it was killing me.

- That being said, the pace is breakneck, for something that starts so peacefully

- Love that we get immediate confirmation that Ed is not suited to a fisherman’s life. Though I do love the conflict inherent in Ed meaning “simple” as a compliment based on how hectic and chaotic his life has been up to this point, but of course someone who doesn’t know any of that would think he’s insulting them.

- Also very interested in the shift of Ed going to direct killing rather than trying to put a layer between it and himself; it’s the Kraken but in Protection Mode. Adore that for him. (And maybe the killing doesn’t count if they’re English Navy.)

- I had a feeling Stede was talking to Zheng about being a failure the longer the season went on. Delighted to be proven right. Was also shocked to hear she thought Auntie was dead but then had to reckon with the fact that she hasn’t analyzed a single screenshot and spotted Auntie like I did soooooo

- The simmering anger in my own gut when I saw Spanish Jackie’s overrun and the lady herself treated like that. Also OF COURSE THEY BUILD UP RESISTANCES TO IOCANE POWDER POISON IN THIS HOUSE

- (Side note but the number of ofmd fics, my own included, that have Princess Bride as a reference or element in them makes me smile)

- Calling Ricky Pinocchio. IZZY calling Ricky Pinocchio. The layers. The subtext. The intertextuality. The face-value humor. I’m salivating.

- The letter Ed reads! The way they say the words together!! If they don’t start next season with matching lover’s tattoos (or include it somewhere), I’m rioting.

- THEY GET TO RUN AT EACH OTHER ON A BEACH TO NINA SIMONE FOR REAL THIS TIME

- okay but is Ed’s knee brace a victim of the budget cuts this season bc I miss it

- the entire time they were running at each other I kept shrieking “please don’t stab each other. Please don’t stab each other. Boys please drop the swords and don’t accidentally stab each other”

- KISSIES.

- I LOVE YOU. TWICE.

- Zheng having it up to HERE with these useless gays

- NOT NOW ZHENG THEYRE VERBALLY AFFIRMING THEIR CARE FOR EACH OTHER AND ALSO KISSING

- Olu caring for Auntie. I cry.

- I also cry bc it has seemed to me all season that Auntie and Zheng have a dynamic similar to Izzy and Ed but less deeply toxic; I love that just because it isn’t as toxic, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t still hurt them both. Auntie choosing to listen to Olu and be softer and more open with Zheng, and Zheng returning the favor, is so important to me. Cannot emphasize enough its sweetness. Especially with Zheng thinking she’d lost Auntie.

- “It’s only a suicide plan if we die” STEDE.

- Giggling to myself at the butt shot bc 1. Of course the guy whose butt it is has a whole post about it where he’s a delight, and 2. Fandom has been begging for them to show hole all season, y’all satisfied? ;P

- Why does everyone look so hot in those uniforms though. Why is Ed putting on a tricorn hat so attractive. These are uniforms that represent imperialist cruelty, WHY IS EVERYONE HOT IN THEM

- (It’s the rebellion of it all I think)

- Awfully bold of Ricky to immediately turn on them when he’s still close enough to be shot, but I think it’s his Rich White Boy recklessness.

- Con O’Niell giving the performance of a lifetime to the very end. The subtlety of Izzy not being okay through the entire mad dash to the Revenge, culminating in him leaning on Ed AND Frenchie and the implications of that I EXPLODE

- So. Turns out my final mini theory about that bloody hand screenshot from the trailer was right; it is Izzy’s blood, and it is Jim that Ed’s hand is blocking.

- Izzy giving the apology we have been waiting for all season as a deathbed confession, HECK

- And giving voice to the fact that he loved and needed Blackbeard! And that he knew he was feeding it even though Ed had OUTGROWN it!! And giving Ed closure and release from having to be Blackbeard!!! GUUUUUHHHHH.

- I really didn’t think izzy was going to die until three days ago. Im so sad. It’s thematic and perfect and if someone had to die of course it had to be Izzy and they did him right by that death scene but I CARE MORE NOW. CHEFS KISS STORYTELLING.

- This end bit, to my memory, feels a little scattered and messy; Zheng wanting to work together to get back at Ricky…and then the ship sails off without Ed and Stede. Maybe I need to watch again but I got some whiplash there. Like yeah it’s way more important to the story that Ed and Stede get at the very least a break from piracy before the next season, more in line with the themes and character arcs, but. Idk. Felt sudden still?

- Pete and Lucius marriage ;A; “you may slash each other’s faces” ROACH PLEASE

- YES ED WE SEE YOUR ROMANTIC SIDE EYE

- FRENCHIE IS THE CAPTAIN NOW. Capitalizing on that quiet arc he’s had all season!! I love it!!! And showing that all of the Revenge crew have it in them to be leaders and the best versions of themselves when given an environment where they can. And now they have capable women aboard! Win-win!!

- I need to go dig up my post about the hollowness and toxicity of revenge in this show bc I have more examples to add to it and strengthen my theory

- Ed and Stede about to go through their Anne and Mary arc. Let’s hope they pivot faster than the other two and don’t get stuck in a rut the same way. But I love that they get to try this out together, to find new dreams and things to do together. They deserve that.

- I also respect the showrunners so much for giving us an ending that could be a decent end if Max doesn’t renew for a third. I like being able to hold my two favorite shows next to each other and see that the two extremes of ending in an uncertain place work—for GOmens, a heart-shattering cliffhanger was absolutely the right call. For OFMD, a soft ending that can be expanded on if allowed. I love them both.

- Gonna go rewatch and then rewatch the whole season and then rewatch both seasons, excuse me.

#our flag means death #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #I weep. I cry. I sob.#what a good. WHAT A GOOD.

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eshtaresht · 1 year

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aaaaaaaa this episode.... it caught me off guard, I have lots of feelings and hopefully a couple of coherent thoughts

SPOILERS FOR EP 8 UNDER THE CUT

tbh I'm really excited about the changes (to the manga) they introduced in this episode, I like the direction so far

turns out vash and naï had different abilities from the start, and it's quite likely that vash felt lesser that his twin even during their time with rem (naï says that making food for him is "a waste" and vash uses the same sentiment when he was rescued). I'm guessing that vash's ability is to give away energy (but he's not self sustaining), while knives can only take from others (but he's eco friendly), which was already touched upon in previous iterations, but very briefly

plant lore! one of the things I didn't like about og anime is how vague all the plant stuff was, I had to read the fandom wiki to understand what they were. very based of stampede to go all hard sci-fi on us

the way vash refuses himself basic needs when he feels guilty.... and how this continues well into his adulthood.... his ass is not coping!!!

sequences after the fall were the most emotional, man! my boy vash got so much trauma from seeing all the dead and dying and feeling like it's all his fault... give him a hug now!!!!! but at the same time he actually was complicit and daaamn I can't wait to hear the full story there

idk if I got the vibe right (maybe subs were a bit misleading), but luida made up that rem saved them? it seemed as if she only said it to give vash a reason to live, and it's partially true (rem did try her best to save everyone), but ship three and a bunch of others survived mostly because they were lucky and not because rem managed to break the code. please correct me if I got it wrong. although I kinda dig the idea of vash glorifying rem while she was just as helpless as any other human in this situation

hair darkening confirmed... we were right to be worried all along. it's interesting that even in the earliest flashbacks he already has darkish eyebrows, hmm... what did this kid do? 👀

once again, wish there were more side characters, but luida and brad were pretty wholesome. wonder is they're still alive and how old is vash in this version (probably younger than 100 if luida is alive)

a bit sad that we didn't get to see the gang interacting while vash was blacked out, I was really looking into it. but at least we saw him with that clunky shoulder piece removed. from the teaser it seems like his new hand won't be all that different tho

love all the slutty outfits people were theorising about.... but that turtleneck? yep thats peak slut fashion and transmask swag. nothing will ever top the manga version but I still support it

next episode is gonna kill me.... and something tells me that the time vash spent unconcious is gonna be all the rest he gets. DAMN. still manifesting scar reveal

now to predictions: after ep 6 I thought that we'll visit the seeds ppl this time around and we kinda did, I just didn't expect for a flashback to last a whole episode and more. ep 9 is pretty obvious from the teaser and in 11 vash should already be in july so that the season finale can happen in at least two episodes. then 10 is probably gonna be all about getting to this final destination. could be that the gang gets separated by that time ('cause vash will push them away), but they'll all still be in july when shit hits the fan

#I might be forgetting smth but this post is already too long for “brief analysis”#I might sound sane but in fact my brain just goes LITTLE VASH SO PRECIOUS MUST PROTECC MUST HUG #please let knives be a compelling antagonist and not just an evil baddie please please pleeease #trigun #trigun stampede #vash the stampede #trigun spoilers

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mxmallory · 2 years

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Tour Day

Or "Four Times Cub Was the Weird One, and Two Times He Wasn't" ----- My piece for @tangodyke's September Surprise Exchange For @mete0rm0ss, who wanted something with Cub or Team Ranchers, and is getting a little of both.

Summary: Before the big charity stream, Jimmy gets a tour of the Hermitcraft server, and learns a lot about his friends' home server.

Final Wordcount: 2144

UPDATE: Now also on AO3

<Tango> just checking…

<Tango> you guys got your invites to Scar’s charity thing right?

<SolidarityGaming> yes! everyone’s very excited.

<SolidarityGaming> will you have time to show me that game you’ve been working on?

<Tango> umm

<Tango> maybe not

<Tango> think the day is pretty full?

<SolidarityGaming> oh :(

<Tango> lemme talk to X

<Tango> see if you can come over early

* * *

STOP 1 - SPAWN TOWN

Jimmy stepped out of the portal and looked around at the Hermitcraft spawn area. It was late in the server night, but the ground was still well lit and even the small bits of starter builds he could see around him were an impressive mix of styles that somehow still managed to blend together in some sort of coherent…something or other. He nervously straightened his vest as he slowly spun around, feeling more than usually outclassed in the moment. Sure, he was happy enough with his Tumble Town builds this season, but they seemed plain enough compared to the rest of the empires, let alone whatever was going on here.

After all, he didn’t build an enormous eagle, or elaborate trees, or…

…or…

…or a shrine made out of crafting tables?

Jimmy chuckled with relief as his eyes landed on the incongruous little build right near spawn, and stepped forward to examine it more closely. Here was something a little less intimidating…

“JIMMY SOLIDARITY,” a booming voice intoned from somewhere behind him, causing him to jump slightly in startlement, hands flying upwards to keep his cowboy hat in place. “WHY HAVE YOU TRESPASSED ON THE HERMITCRAFT SERVER?”

“I have a pass!” he exclaimed, frantically patting his vest looking for his token as he turned towards the source of the voice. He froze as he heard laughter, tensing as he waited to see how he had been made the butt of the joke this time, only to relax as he recognized… “Tango!” he chastised him, though the effect was rather undercut by the broad grin on his face. His Double Life partner looked quite different, sporting black robes trimmed in soul flame blue, and a cowled hood hiding burning blue eyes.

Tango pulled back his hood, revealing bright blue hair and an enormous smile. “Hey buddy!” he said, hugging the taller man and slapping his back in a friendly welcome. “You made it!”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Jimmy replied, teasingly ruffling Tango’s hair. “Gotta see what my ‘not-a-builder’ partner has been getting up to.” He gave Tango’s new outfit a once-over. “Quite the change from Double Life, huh?”

“Well… it fits my base for the season. The dread Dungeon Keeper, y’know?” Tango looked at Jimmy. “And you clearly enjoyed the Rancher vibe. Sheriff, huh?”

Jimmy groaned slightly. “Yes, but don’t get me started on that, or I’ll talk your ear off all day.”

Tango shrugged. “Okay. So…what do you think so far?” He gestured around at spawn.

“It looks amazing! But I’m surprised there’s not more people around - it looks pretty dead.”

“Huh?” Tango looked momentarily confused. “Oh! Well, everyone’s moved on to their main base projects by now. Everything here is mostly emptied out now - honestly, the lag was getting a little ridiculous.”

“So, this place just sits around empty?” Jimmy looked around in surprise. To build all these amazing bases and just…leave them? He gestured at the crafting table shrine. “So, do I want to ask why Grian thought that was a good idea?”

Tango looked over at the shrine, then chuckled. “Actually, I’m pretty sure that one was Cub. Got annoyed at everyone leaving crafting tables everywhere at the start of the season, replaced them all with obsidian blocks, and built the shrine here at spawn.”

“So anyways, what do you want to see first?”

STOP 2 - DECKED OUT

Jimmy stood at the edge of the stone platform, looking out at the massive hole meant to house Decked Out. He shivered slightly, pulling a borrowed sweater tight to keep out the cold as Tango rambled on about the redstone that he had just started installing.

“...so I just finished digging out this area for the Clank systems, and I’m starting to lay all the bus lines out for the redstone lines…”

“Hang on… how much space do you need?” Jimmy asked, jumping in when it seemed like Tango was finally about to take a breath.

“Huh?” Tango looked puzzled. “Well, there’s still a lot of systems to install…I’ve only done the card processing and clank so far, and nothing’s been connected up yet…”

Jimmy waved at the massive pit in front of him. “You’ve got all this space for redstone right here. Why do you still need to carve more rooms on the sides?”

Tango blinked, and then the light dawned. “Oh! That’s for the other levels!”

“Other…levels?”

“Oh yeah - I’ve only laid out the first level so far. There’s still another level that will go in this pit…and then two more levels that will go down into that cave over there.”

Jimmy looked up at the expansive ice dungeon overhead. That had been impressive enough, but…three more?

“And I haven’t even started working on bringing the ravagers and the wardens in…” Tango resumed his chatter, and Jimmy slowly began to realize that Tango on Double Life had been seriously curtailed in his…ambition (‘insanity’ Jimmy’s brain helpfully offered) by the small map size and lack of time.

STOP 3 - SHOPPING DISTRICT

“I gotta say, it must be nice to have all the stores in one place. We don’t really do shopping districts on Empires, mostly just go around and trade with each other for what we need.”

“We tried having shops in the different base areas last season, but all that happened is people just duplicated shops in all the different areas, and we didn’t mix as much. Even though we were staying much closer to each other last time.” Tango led Jimmy around the shopping area. “Gem and Stress’ prismarine shop is…well, it was right there. Huh…wonder what happened to that…anyways! Impy’s been selling beacons and other light sources all season, and he also has a little stand here for shulker shells…”

Jimmy turned around, wondering when he would stop being surprised by the sheer size of the builds on this server. And then there were the signs. ‘THOU SHALL NEVER AFK’ ‘THOU SHALL NOT MINE DIAMONDS’. He started seriously contemplating if putting up signs at all the other empires about respecting the Law would have any effect, only to quickly shelve that idea when he saw how the remaining signs had been vandalized.

He decided that he didn’t want to ask about the signs.

“...but honestly, I don’t really enjoy keeping a shop stocked, and Decked Out is going to be keeping me busy, so I just didn’t bother this season.”

Jimmy nodded. “I’ve been having a hard time keeping gunpowder in stock. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the others just gave up and built another creeper farm…”

“If you want some advice let me know. I can take you around to see some of the creeper farms on the server. Ren’s got one - his industrial district is pretty far away though. Jev’s got one, for the rockets. Cub probably built one too, when he was stocking up Total Chaos…not sure where that is though. Been pretty busy with my own game, if I’m honest.”

Jimmy was about to ask what Total Chaos was, when his gaze landed on a very…odd looking custom tree. He muttered something to Tango, and wandered over to look at it.

“Careful. That’s the TNTree.”

“Someone built a tree out of TNT.”

“Well, Cub had some extra.”

“Out of TNT and ancient debris…” Jimmy gaped. Ancient debris was such a pain to mine that very few people on his server had managed to get even a piece or two of gear upgraded, let alone have enough extra to use to decorate.

“Yeah, he had some extra of that too. You know…I should really see if he wants to help out, I still need about another hundred or so for all the lodestones for Decked Out…”

Jimmy just shook his head in bewilderment at the thought of casually needing that much netherite. He turned his mind back to Tango’s earlier offer. “I wouldn’t mind seeing some of the creeper farms on the server.” “Sure! Let me just see who’s available…” Tango pulled his communicator out of his pocket and started scrolling through his contacts.

STOP 4 - FARMS

“You guys don’t have any idea what ‘overkill’ means, do you?” Jimmy commented as he and Tango leaned back against a wall of cauldrons filled with powdered snow. (Jimmy was trying very hard not to think about how many cauldrons were in the snow farm…he’d tried counting, and given up after one hundred.) He stared down at the massive farm filling the valley beneath them.

“The good news is that the design is modular, so you wouldn’t have to make anything quite that big. The redstone is pretty easy, I’d be able to show you how it’s done.” Tango straightened up, and checked on his elytra. “Wanna go down and take a look?”

The two glided down and landed under the platforms. Jimmy opened up one of the chests, his eyes widening as he saw the stacks upon stacks of gunpowder. “How do you even use this much gunpowder? This is…what…thousands of gunpowder?”

“Six to eight thousand an hour, depending on who else is around,” commented a dry voice from behind them.

Jimmy spun around to see a dark haired man wearing a labcoat.

“You must be Jimmy. Tango said he was going to bring you over to see the farm. So…what do you think?”

Jimmy removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair awkwardly. “Impressive. Probably overkill for what we’d need on Empires though.”

“I can show you the plans if you like. We can probably pare it down to something manageable for you pretty easily.”

“Yeah, and Cub can give you some tips on how to survive in Total Chaos. Give you a leg up for when we play tomorrow.” Tango said, with a grin.

“As long as you don’t expect me to give away all my secrets…” Cub teased.

“Tango keeps talking about Total Chaos…what is it?”

Tango and Cub looked at each other, grinning. Jimmy suddenly had an understanding of what the canary felt like when the cats showed up.

“My friend…” Cub said, clapping a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “I could tell you about it…but it’s probably better to show you…”

STOP 5 - TOTAL CHAOS

��This! Is Total Chaos!” Cub said proudly, gesturing towards the monstrosity of snow and redstone.

Jimmy stared.

There were no words.

STOP 6 - THE PERIMETER

“Tango, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the tour, but…it’s been a long day.”

Tango smiled and grabbed Jimmy’s hand, tugging him forward. “One last thing, then we’ll go back to my base and get some sleep.”

“Okay, okay…” Jimmy conceded with a laugh, letting Tango lead him towards a sandstone building perched at the edge of a massive cliff.

Or rather, at the edge of a massive pit. He carefully moved closer to the edge to look down. “Let me guess…Cub again?”

Tango laughed, and shook his head. “No, this particular crime against nature is Doc’s pet project. Calls it The Perimeter.” Tango turned and waved at a massive flagpole, goat head emblazoned on a white field. Jimmy blinked in shock when he realized that the small white and green speck at the top of the flagpole was waving back at them. He heard the faint sound of a heavy metal anthem playing in the distance.

He turned his attention back to the Perimeter. “This must have taken ages to clear out.”

Tango hmmed thoughtfully. “I think Doc said it took about 14 hours, once he got the worldeater up and running.”

“The what?”

* * *

The next day Jimmy and Tango returned to the portal to greet the rest of the visitors from Empires. Or rather, the other visitors from the Life series. Martyn was the first to pop through, immediately making a beeline to talk to Ren, still resplendent in his king’s finery. Lizzie popped through a minute later, and came straight over to greet Jimmy.

Tango greeted Lizzie with a warm hug, then wandered off to talk with Impulse and Skizz, leaving Jimmy and Lizzie alone.

“So, how was the special tour?” she teased him, reaching up to bat his hat off kilter.

Jimmy smiled as he adjusted the hat back in place. Somehow it didn’t bother him as much when Lizzie teased him. “You know how crazy the Hermits on the Life series can get?”

“Yeah…?” “I…I think they might be the normal ones.”

Lizzie looked from Jimmy, to Ren, to Grian and Scar, to Tango, and back again to Jimmy. “Oh. Oh dear…”

#mallory writes #hermitcraft #trafficblr #team rancher #tango tek #jimmy solidarity #cubfan135 #trafficshipping #< just to be safe #but relationship is written very /p in this fic

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