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seadeepywrites · 1 year

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Not A Follower

Character: Haven Vasselon Words: 1990 tw: fantasy violence and a lotta bones

The sting of sea-spray on chapped lips, the ominous crimson light from the cat-eyed moon, the clattering of tiny fish skeletons against the outside of the Magic Circle — it all adds up to a thunderous assault on Haven's senses, a drumbeat of rising panic as the crew of the newly christened Stormborn lays its preparations for the monstrous undead shark approaching the ship.

Haven takes a deep, brine-soaked breath and holds it, with the same determination she uses to clutch her wand and spellbook close. She squeezes her eyes shut for just a few seconds, rehearsing the incantation in her head. She's cast exactly one other spell of this power before, and tonight's spell is entirely new to her — scribbled down from a stolen spellbook in the week before the Stormborn set sail, while the Everstorm lashed rainwater against her dormitory window.

But Haven needs to get this right, tonight, right now, because their lives and their brand-new ship depend on it. On her.

Haven shoves her hair back out of her face, twirls her wand, and speaks the words of the spell. Her magic rises up from within her, power roaring in her ears to the rhythm of her pulse. It dances out across the water, coating over the blood-dark waves with a shimmering golden sheen, and — there it is, an entire swath of the ocean at her command.

Haven flings her hands out and pushes — not necessary to the spell, but it helps her focus her will on the motion. And the water responds, a golden wave rolling up and away from the ship. Carrying the menacing dorsal fin of the undead shark away with it. Thirty feet, fifty, a hundred — in the red moonlight, her magic glistens like an enormous square of satin that has drifted down to settle on the ocean's surface.

"It's out of my range now," Klaus grumbles, but he quickly finds another target to interest him. He and Aeolyn insist there's a humanoid out there swimming towards the ship, whom Haven can't see and can't spare the attention to search for.

She lets the archers worry about the humanoid, and trusts in her wards to protect herself, and pours the entirety of herself into the Control Water spell. She is distantly aware of the toss and roll of the deck, and the relentless hail of the skeletal fish, but she plants her hooved feet on the deck right in front of the mast, at the center of the circle of runes she painted so carefully a few hours ago, and she concentrates.

Haven's spell, appropriately enough, ebbs and flows as the seconds pass. She falls into a pattern: waiting for her power to reach its peak, the point where the seawater is indistinguishable from the blood in her veins, and conjuring another wave into the area she controls, shoving the shark back again and again. Apparently oblivious to the unusual pattern in the currents, the shark continues its stubborn progress forward, swimming almost exactly as fast as she can summon the waves to counter it.

"Haven!" Siggi calls, leaning into her field of vision. "Can you cast Fly on me? There's an undead triton trying to board the ship, and—"

Haven doesn't listen to the rest. She glares at him, her whole body vibrating with the effort of her spell. "I can only do so much at once!"

"Understood," Siggi says, cool as ever, waving a hand in acknowledgement. He grips his spear and steps out of her Magic Circle, already focusing on the next threat. The quippers flopping on the deck leap for him, but Haven has to rip her gaze away to push back the shark again and doesn't see if they hit. She figures Siggi's faced a lot worse, anyway, and died twice. These fish aren't going to be what takes him down.

Beneath the storm-surge of the Control Water spell, her abjuration magic whispers at the edges of her attention. Most of the crew huddles inside her Magic Circle, with the exception of the team working the ballista and the unlucky sailor whose turn it is to shovel the piles of murderous-but-pathetic fish off of the deck and back into the sea. If Haven were to approach the edge of the Circle, as she did when she first activated it, her Arcane Ward would flare up, bright and solid, shielding her from any danger. Her Mage Armor, plated invisibly across her body for the time being, seems practically redundant.

As this final battle of Vecnocht stretches on, Haven spares a small corner of her brain to think that maybe, just maybe, she'll make a halfway decent ship's mage.

And then the shark dives, disappearing into deeper waters and leaving the range of Haven's Control Water spell.

"Where did it go?" Haven asks of nobody in particular, desperation pitching her voice up half an octave. Practically everybody on this ship is more observant than she is, after all.

"It's coming towards the ship," Klaus says. He nocks an arrow to his longbow, tracking a shape beneath the surface that Haven can't see. "There."

Haven stares out helplessly over the waves. Her fingers twitch on the shaft of her wand as she mentally sifts through her arsenal of spells. She prepared for this night the best she could, with control and combat spells specifically aimed at the undead who have risen to do battle with the ship. But it's nearly dawn — most of her magic has been used up over the course of the night — and she can't think of a single thing to do against this shark anymore except blast it with as much firepower as possible and hope they can put it down before it chomps the boat in half.

Nitha scuttles over to the railing, producing a sack from gods-know-where, and begins to cram it full of a dizzying variety of bottles and jars. She seems intent on her mission, whatever it might be. Haven leaves her to it, skidding up beside Siggi and gesturing at the purple stone orbiting her head.

"I can cast Fly now," she says breathlessly. "Will it help?"

Siggi studies the choppy red waters with thoughtful turquoise eyes. "I think so," he says after a second.

"Good enough for me," Haven says, and pulls the spell out of the stone. She flings it over Siggi like a pail of water — a golden haze that condenses along his arms, drips down his sides and pools beneath his feet. From the haze, tiny wings sprout, glittering and fluttering at his wrists and ankles. It makes Haven smile.

Siggi lifts off the deck almost immediately, plunging into the water, and Haven loses sight of him. What she can see is the pale swirls of the quippers in the water that swarm towards him, hungry for a taste of flesh.

Maintaining her concentration on the Fly spell for Siggi isn't nearly as active a process as wielding Control Water was — she only has to hold the spell in her head, not manipulate the shape of it constantly. It gives her time to find her unsteady way across the deck to Nitha and stare downward, hoping — and at the same time, fearing — to catch sight of the shark approaching.

It's there. Even Haven can see it, rotting gray cartilage and gleaming white bone, undulating as it rises towards the surface. It's gathering speed to ram the ship, she thinks, and from the size alone she knows such an attack would be catastrophic.

Nitha waves a hand, something white clutched in her claws. There's a corresponding flicker in the depths below them, near Siggi's characteristic glimmer of indigo and gold.

"Take the bait," Nitha mutters. "Tasty tuna, come on..."

Haven has no clue what Nitha's talking about, but she knows one thing she can do to help. She braces herself against the railing, leaning out over the water. Aims her wand downward. Casts one of the best damage-dealing spells she knows.

Haven's Lightning Bolt spell snaps in the air, releasing a massive static discharge that lifts strands of her hair outward from her head. Initially a straight line as she'd intended, the electricity bursts outward as it hits the water and becomes more of a lightning... cone. It crackles and zig-zags in unexpected directions — Haven's jaw drops — and engulfs several swarms of quippers within its fast-expanding boundaries.

Unfortunately, it also engulfs Siggi. Oops. Haven squints, hoping that the swirling disturbance beneath the surface is him preparing for the shark's approach and not the quippers feasting on his lightning-roasted flesh. She really needs to get more careful with her area-of-effect spells.

"Wow," Nitha says.

Haven can't read the expression on her serpentine face, but from her tone of voice, maybe she's impressed? Nitha's not looking at Haven, though — her beady little eyes are still staring down into the churning waves, the feathers beneath her hat and along her forearms sticking up and her gangly limbs coiled tight with tension.

Haven racks her brain, concerned that another Lightning Bolt might fry Siggi completely — but a few Magic Missiles or a Toll the Dead cantrip aren't going to do much against a creature this size — and Klaus has told her in no uncertain terms not to Shatter anything that's even close to the hull of the ship. She can protect other people by flinging her Arcane Ward out over them, but that's not going to help when this shark munches a hole in the hull of the boat.

And then whatever the hell Nitha was up to explodes, violently. It's difficult to make out, but the percussive force of it rocks the deck beneath their feet, and the triumphant squawk that Nitha emits clearly identifies her as the mastermind. There's a brilliant green light from the general vicinity of the shark, but Haven doesn't think it's magic. Something more chemical, perhaps, that bubbles as it leaks out from the shark's shattered jaw.

"Did we do it?" Haven asks Nitha. "Is it dead? I mean, dead again?"

"Yes," Nitha hisses, triumphant. "We did it."

Klaus joins them at the railing, kicking aside a flip-flopping quipper as he does — and his presence, more than anything, reassures Haven. If she can see him out in the open, if he's not a blur of motion firing his longbow from the shadows, then the danger is past. He points upward, so Haven looks.

Throughout the night, a ragged gash of darkness has bisected the blood-red fullness of the moon, transforming it into an ominous evil eye glaring down at them. But now, as the crew of the Stormborn watches, the darkness shivers and recedes, curling in on itself. The skeletal fish on deck cease their spasmodic twitching and teeth-gnashing, returning to their true state as miserable little piles of spindly bones.

This is only Haven's twenty-first Vecnocht, but she knows what such things mean. She looks to the east, where the dull gray fringe of the Everstorm still blurs the horizon, and yes — there it is. Weak and watery, fighting to be seen through the rain and the fading crimson moonlight, the pale disk of the sun has just risen.

The sky lightens, dawn erasing most of the evidence of their terrible night. Vunrus and Mark are hard at work flipping quippers off the deck, but soon even those mementos will be gone. Haven scrubs at her face with both hands, exhausted, and nearly pokes her eye out with the wand she has forgotten she is holding. She scrapes her hair into a lumpy bun, too worn-out to care that it is listing significantly to the right on her head, and stuffs her wand into it without a shred of finesse.

The ship is intact. Her friends are safe. Despite it all, hope rises in Haven with the sunrise.

The Stormborn sails north and west, away from Savnaer, as the 1st of Cyrdut dawns cold and clear.

#i did that thing again where I re-read a story I remembered as nearly unsalvageable #and found that only a few paragraphs needed some massaging #this one literally needed 100 words to finish it and a quick round of editing #why do I play myself like this #Haven #title is from 'Thunder' by Imagine Dragons because I think I'm funny #corsairs campaign

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righteousdelusions · 1 year

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for some reason i keep reading backwards i started in 45 and now i'm up 39

#asja i didn't want to reread the whoooole bomb girl arc #why do i play myself like this #izzy.txt

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eyrieofsynapses · 1 year

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hey, Leverage peeps, I've got a thought. I've seen a lot of posts and memes joking about Nate's inability to understand that his clients do not want money, they want revenge. I also find this funny. but I was thinking about it and I realized something: there's a personal reason behind it. there is a very, very good reason why Nate doesn't get that.

Nate's drive to lead Leverage, outside of the crew, originated from his son's death due to his insurance company's refusal to cover the bill for the required treatment. we all know this. if his company had paid for Sam's treatment, everything would've been fine.

…or, if Nate had been a little wealthier, had a little more change to spend… maybe he could've paid for it. maybe Blackpool never would've had a say in any of it. maybe Nate would've had everything under control from the start.

we've discussed at length in the fandom how money equals safety for some of the others in the crew (Parker and Hardison grew up with little to none and know its importance to survival, Eliot needs it to stay ahead of his old enemies, etc.), but I don't know that I've seen any discussion on how it's relevant to Nate. for him, however, money equals security in healthcare and in housing (he lost the house, remember?). Nate's older than the others. he remained in the same place for much longer, and he had a stable life for a while. the others haven't been in that position before. many of their clients, however, are at that place in life.

yes, for the others, money keeps them ahead of the game and it keeps them secure. but none of them ever lost a kid because they couldn't pay for healthcare. none of them risk losing the life of someone who is completely dependent on them when they don't have enough.

(Hardison, perhaps, has the closest understanding, considering he hacked a bank to pay for his Nana's healthcare. but he never lost her.)

Nate thinks ahead, you know? he has a long-term view of things. I imagine that for him, when clients refuse the money, they're not just refusing a month's worth of groceries, or a place to stay the night, or the ability to keep running. for him, they're refusing control over their hard-earned, stable, long-term living situation. they're refusing the potential to save a family member's life.

I dunno, guys. I think that's a pretty good reason to not understand why people don't want the money.

#leverage #leverage meta #nate ford #meta #ello folks it has been A While #but I saw another one of these memes today and couldn't help but ask myself 'why?'#and this came out #anyway I figure this is a fair reason to have more trouble Getting It #when you think about it Nate's probably gotten the closest to most of their clients' living situations #the rest of them have had Very Unusual Lives #but so many of their clients are PARENTS #they're people with STABLE LIVING SITUATIONS #they're ordinary middle-class people!#and Nate was the only one who lived as an adult in that situation!#he's the only one who understands what it's like to have a regular family depending on him to keep the household running!#no WONDER he worries more about this!#he understands the consequences better than the others do!#I dunno I feel like that gets overlooked a lot #anyway have fun playing with this #synapse meta

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oceanview15 · 5 months

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#why do I always play myself like this?#zutara #meme #zuko x katara

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undefeatablesin · 8 months

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My angel, my pride and joy, my beloved AKA the Good Hunter Ruza lmao 🧡 ft. Her Lost Chikage and her fun outfit from these screenshots! + some lil headshots of her in the Yharnam Hunter Garb, a look I also care Deeply About ✨️

#sin scribbles #bloodborne #good hunter #good hunter bloodborne #hunter bloodborne #bloodborne oc #bloodborne oc ; ruza #(ITS DONE CAN U BELIEVE IT I SURE CANT!!!!)#(yes. i repeat. this was largely inspired and enforced by me playin d/m/c5 again. LOL.)#(look.......is it my fault my favourite games happen 2 both be about monster hunters with cool swords???)#(anyways whatever AHEM *shuffles notes*)#(i do rly like ruza in the knights garb tbf its fun and flashy. especially in game where everything is dark af)#(very fun to draw. but i prefer her in the actual hunting garb so THATS WHAT WE STICKIN WITH.)#(at least for now idk my mind changes like the weather sis thats largely why i havent given her a new ref sheet)#(or posted her new bio bc tbh im cursed!!!)#(as soon as i post a ref or a bio i immediately want to change it all. so. i just wont LOL)#(if yall still curious about her u can just send an ask or a dm or smth i dont bite 😂)#(this was supposed to be a sketch sheet can u tell i lied deceived played myself to filth)#(bonus cainhurst armor look bc i love that set SOOOOO....much)#(watch out yall sin is back at it with her nonsense cloth physics again)

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blujayonthewing · 1 year

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#I've played with irl atheists and catholics and everything in between #but it rarely feels like faith is a real factor for anyone-- DM or player #outside of‚ again‚ divine spellcasters and Big Epic Plot Things #I mean there are a couple of 'RAAAHGH FUCK THE GODS >:C' edgy backstory types but #no one is just Normally Culturally Religious and it's WEIRD #like it's not even a matter of faith in dnd! the gods are LITERALLY OBJECTIVELY PROVABLY REAL #so what does that MEAN for the average person! how does it shape language? business? culture?#where are the people wearing holy symbols like amulets-- or the way modern christians very casually wear crosses?#blessings over meals? prayers before bed? burnt offerings?#and like I enjoy thinking about world and culture building but I know that's A Whole Thing but even just like...#it doesn't feel like anyone believes in gods at all except clerics and paladins #like they DO because they factually exist but in the same way I 'believe in' like. the president of france.#like yeah he exists and is important to some people but has no bearing on my life whatsoever #that's such a fucking weird approach to the DIVINE in a polytheist world where those gods are YOUR CULTURE'S GODS??#I am bad at this myself but I'm not religious so it's harder for me to remember what Being Religious All The Time Casually is like lol #funny enough my character with the most intentionally religious background in this sense #is one of my ones who's ended up wrapped up in Big Plot God Things lmao #'aubree starts the campaign with a holy symbol of yondalla because of course she does why wouldn't she'#'oh okay well she's gonna get deeply and personally entangled with a bunch of death gods immediately' fdkjghkdf oh!! welp #you don't really pray to urogalan unless you're breaking ground for a new building or someone just died so it's STILL weird for her lol #but at least I had the framework there of 'oh yeah the gods exist and matter to me and my everyday life and culture' in general #about me #posts from twitter

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carnivalcarriondiscarded · 5 months

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The Fourteen Hidden or "Bug" Audios In Order, With Reasoning

(i think! I'm fairly confident in this! I'm willing to Debate!)

12-14 / Howdy & Barnaby

[we know that Barnaby and Wally go to Howdy's every morning]

8-14 / Eddie & Frank

[the post office is right across from Howdy's]

6-14 / Julie & Frank

[Wally isn't scared of bugs, so he could be recruited to help with Frank's gardening problem]

1-14 / Howdy & Poppy

[Howdy mentions that he has a shipment waiting for his signature]

3-14 / Howdy & Sally

[it's possible that Wally went to Howdy's to get something for the beetles]

13-14 / Howdy & Eddie

[it looks like Wally just bought a box of apples, or something similar. Howdy signs for the shipment]

4-14 / Barnaby & Frank

[behind the pins, it looks like there's an apple or two on the ground. the shape and color is wrong for it to be tomatoes. an offering for the beetles?]

9-14 / Frank & Poppy

[the table is clear of yarn, and Frank references the damage done to his garden]

2-14 / Sally & Poppy

[there are cookies - Poppy mentioned to Frank that she might have a non-seed recipe for his butterflies]

10-14 / Julie & Sally

[Wally could have gone with Sally to help with the script reading]

5-14 / Barnaby & Eddie

[Eddie mentions that it's late in the day, and he already delivered the bowling balls]

7-14 / Eddie & Julie

[Barnaby calls, asking after Wally]

11-14 / Julie & Barnaby

[the lighting through the trees looks like afternoon/evening]

14-14 / Barnaby & Home

[the end deterioration is very final, and Barnaby references things that happened throughout his other audios]

#why yes i Did give myself a headache going through the mental gymnastics trying to make this cohesive #time to go take some tylenol! if im not immune to it yet that is!#dont make me go back to ibuprofen... it nearly gave me an ulcer on my stomach lining...#i also need everyone to know that i had 10 hour wii music playing while doing this #ANYWAY YEAH THIS HAS BEEN BUGGING ME FOR #uh. how long has it been since these audios dropped #SINCE THEN!!!#im still not entirely satisfied since some of the audios are just... so hard to place!#like some of them have indications - eddie saying its late in the day. howdy having a shipment waiting. the damage to the garden. etc #but some are just.... they could be anywhere #so i tried to follow a nonexistent through line #of 'hm. wally is with this person in this place so where would he end up next'#bc a neighbor might be like While You're Here! and thus two or so consecutive audios with the same neighbor #cause. he's already there. he might stick around or go along with them to do something else #yk. they just trade him off neighbor to neighbor #GAH IDK IDK IM NOT SATISFIED!!!#i feel like i have chunks that are Correct but agh. idk idk idk #homebogging #wh speculation #welcome home speculation #i think this counts as that!#the barnaby & eddie one - 5-14 - is whats tripping me up the most #and i think is the main thing keeping me deeply unsatisfied #cause eddie says its late in the day. so it must be near the end of the day's timeline #he already delivered the bowling balls and just aghggggg #biting biting biting-#no that one and eddie & julie - 7-14 #THE BARNABY PHONE CALL IS IMPORTANT TO PUTTING THESE IN ORDER I JUST KNOW IT #is it the first one??? like barn calls around to find wally for their morning walk? or does the howdy-barn audio come later #since they're having drinks instead of hot dogs? but they could have finished their hot dogs and stuck around for drinks-

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verxsyon · 6 months

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canon compliant ptn. chief!gn!reader

! contains major character death !

hey, what’s up? finally started playing ptn. does angst exist in the ptn writing community? if it doesn’t, lemme introduce myself— /shot.

as i was saying! i finished chapter 3 so i don’t know much about the lore yet. but something came to my mind the last few days since i finished it. okay, sinners are unshackled if the sinner themselves die or if the chief dies. zoya wondered about the chief’s shackles, one of which being the side effects, and even the chief doesn’t know the content behind their own powers (amnesiac protagonist amirite).

so this is my idea: what happens if you, the chief, dies? the sinners you shackled finally gained freedom, but why does it feel so empty? and as time went on, their unconscious reactions of grief, sadness, and other negative things that are indescribable caused their mania levels to spike, losing control over their powers and themselves, to the point where they start to hallucinate you being alive.

they hallucinate an alternate reality, maybe a dream. in one life, you and them are strangers. in another, you’re friends. in another, you’re lovers. in another, your relationship with them could be something else. why do their hearts ache when they see you? shouldn’t they feel overjoyed that they have control of their own powers back? to kill you over and over again, the cause of their misery, without the shackles holding them back? but, why is it…regret? should’ve they done something to prevent your death?

when they call your name, depending on your relationship with them in that alternate universe, either you’ll give them a confused look but ask for their name, give them a hug, or kiss their face. and when the dream ends, when they soon succumb to madness of mania, the grief, sadness, and pain finally hit them. they want you to call their name so many times they won’t forget, to hold them a little bit longer to feel their warmth, and to take your breath away as if their lives depended on it. afterwards their mania peaks. their dreamworld starts to fall apart, and you’ve become transparent, slowly vanishing from their memory.

as they inch closer to death, they can feel your presence enveloping them. it’s warm and safe, as if death never came knocking on their door at all. as their consciousness drift away into nothingness, all they can hear are muffled noises, except one: your voice. in that moment, they found you in a field of flowers (the scene in the beginning of the game), in another place of existence where their darkness can’t reach.

“see you in heaven, those who have sinned.”

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