#AND LETS NOT FORGET ADAINE

[squishymar]

the bad kids x insta accounts bc brainrot is real ✨💫

[deconstructthesoup]

Okay, now that all of the Bad Kids have their new art out... I can finally freak out/gush over/analyze it, because I didn't have the energy to do posts for every single one.

GUYS

Fig!!! My girl!!! The mismatched shoelaces! The bass guitar from Gorthalax! The phoenix feather earring for Ayda! The fishnet! The classic leather jacket/gray band shirt/red pleated skirt combo! The fingerless gloves! THE CHAIN WALLET!

KRISTEN IS BUTCH. Let me repeat that---KRISTEN! IS! BUTCH! And she's wearing the yellow jumpsuit that we saw in her figurine but she still has the purple in her backpack and her staff and her TIE-DIE SPORTS BRA! And she's got a new hairstyle! And a rainbow bracelet AND a lesbian bracelet! THE TEDDY BEAR! THE ICE CREAM SANDWICHES!

RIZ HAS AN UNDERCUT AND GLASSES AND HE KEPT HIS TATTOOS!!!! We've got the briefcase! We've got the angelic weapons! We've got the sword of shadows! We've got GADGETS! WE EVEN HAVE ARO/ACE RINGS! He looks so cool and nifty and crafty and BADASS! My boy has grown!

Gorgug. Oh my god, I can FEEL the "going into a worry" energy radiating from this. But he's got the axe! He's got artificer goggles and tools and a rucksack! He's FINALLY got the emo ripped jeans that he always deserved! He looks so sweet and huggable and perfect! AND HE HAS THE BIG HEADPHONES STILL!

ADAINE. My god. I love this girl so much and her art is perfect. She has patches on her jacket! We can see the cool design on her shirt! She's got high-fantasy boots and belts and she's got her new arcane sword! BOGGY IS THERE! And she looks so lovely and cool and her hair, oh my god, her hair is perfect! I'm so proud of her!

And lastly, the man, the myth, the LEGEND. Fabian looks perfect. Everything from the sword to the sheet to the expression to the tap shoes is spot-on. And his outfit? He's got harem pants! He's got a stylish shirt! He's got wraps around his hands! He's doing a dance move! Man-bun Fabian is now officially canon!

(Also, I'm never gonna shut up about how the Bad Kids are now all spellcasters, and almost all of them are different than how they were in freshman year because that's how growing up works! Fig's ditched College of Whispers as she learns to be truer to herself and has claimed the coolness of College of Lore, and she's got some warlock action to be closer to her dad! Kristen's a Twilight Domain cleric instead of the Life Domain, and I remember being so excited when that became official because that domain is so freaking cool! Riz is an Arcane Trickster, just! Like! Penny! Gorgug's an artificer as well as a barbarian, which is one of my favorite classes, and it looks like he's leaning even further into it! And we can't forget Fabian double-classing as a College of Swords bard! It's so beautiful! It's amazing! Maybe we'll get Adaine doing a martial multiclass to round out the "we're doing different things!" ANYTHING'S POSSIBLE!)

[dullgecko]

Fig can be summoned using Adaine’s custom variant of summon Fiend that her and Fig made. After junior year if there in a bad fight Adaine has full permission to summon her into battle.

This has meant that multiple times during a fight with other humanoids a fight has come to a sudden halt when teen rockstar and famous adventurer Fig Faeth has arisen from a portal to hell in the middle of battle.

I also like to imagine that Arthur has held mock battles for the school to watch.

One of these times Arthur was having the bad kids fight devils in front of the new first year students and because it’s Aguefort it got out of hand. So Adaine summoned Fig to aid in battle.

This causes a couple things to happen. The new first years are stunned as Famous rockstar Fig Faeth was just summoned from what seems to be hell by a student?

Second is Fig slipping into archdevil mode and scolding the remaining devils like the other bad kids have seen Sandra Lynn do to her. They do not let her forget about it.

Literally the first day back at school the bad kids end up having to deal with the same old song and dance. The principal has decided that their party was going to put on a mock battle for the new students, then promptly threw out the whole 'mock' part and summoned actual devils.

The bad kids do /not/ do so well. They managed to hold their own in spectacular fashion for a while but they're down an entire party member who just so happens to be one of their healers. The teamwork is all thrown out of wack, and they're taking hits a lot harder than they usually would with only Kristen to bring them back up. The fight is very impressive to the new students, but its turning into a death-by-1000-cuts.

Kristen already has her hands full because both Gorgug and Fabian had gotten badly injured trying to keep one of the devils away from Adaine at one end of the arena.

Adaine ended up using the summon in an act of desperation when, with Kristen too far away to help, one of the devils fully punted Riz into a wall with a reaction and started going after him to finish him off.

Fig appears in the middle of the arena in a cloud of smoke, glances around for a second and uses her bardic magic to enhance her voice as she tells the devil to KNOCK IT OFF. The devil having the good sense to look properly scolded, puts Riz back down on the floor gently, and apologises.

Look its not HIS fault, recreational murder is one of the number one pass times in hell. He didnt realise these were her party, honest, he'll just go home now.

[recycledraccoon]

May I offer some cheese 🧀 for some Inkblade headcannons? 🥺

Alright. Alright ok.

I've tormented @omamorens with this MULTIPLE TIMES and now I'm inflicting it on a wider audience.

Oisin and Adaine's romance is violent. Anybody unfamiliar with dragonborn courting look in on this and thing it's the MOST toxic thing in the world. Adaine probably recognizes this on some level as SHES not even super familiar with dragonborn culture and courting.

But to Oisin? He is LITERALLY living a childhood fairytale.

And that fairy tale is the story of the Dragon, Princess, and Knight, as told to him as a hatchling, like it was told to his sibling and mother and grandparents and so many others of a dragons bloodline.

Think about it.

Why do Dragons kidnap Princesses? They already live on a mountain of gold and jewels, the few scraps of jewels they could get from a princess pales in comparison and it such a risk to bring that much direct attention from an entire kingdom on yourself, even as an incredibly powerful dragon. What are they going to do with her? Eat her? Let her waste away? A princesses lifespan, elven maidens not included, are a blink of an eye in the face of the lifespan of a Dragon.

There is truly no meaningful reason why a Dragon would kidnap a Princess. It's just not worth the cost and effort for no meaningful reward.

There is only one thing a Dragon can guarantee by kidnapping a princess. And that's summoning knights to come try to take her back.

Dragon courting comes in two major stages.

Combat.

Sharing of hoard.

Dragons are apex predators. They highly valued strength and power. It must be so novel, so intimate to them, to experience the singular intensity that comes with being hunted down. The Dragon becomes the center of the Knights world, their focus. Its all centered on killing them.

Others hunt dragons down all the time to get their hoards, it's what the dragon madness manifests to avenge against. But I don't think it would, because the kidnapping of the princess is an invitation and offer, it is not being stolen.

So they come, they battle, and the truly worthy kill the dragon and take the Princess home. But they always get the dragons hoard too. Sometimes they end up with armor fashioned from the scales of their fallen foe. They go on the rest of their lives known as a Dragonslayer.

To the races of man, this is a story of triumph over evil. Of worthy knights proving themselves and the romance of saving the trapped maiden and being a hero.

To dragons this is a beautifully tragic romance for the ages. The Knight comes and proves themselves as having all the strength and power of a dragon, they are worthy. They take the gold left behind, all the treasures, all the things the Dragon values most, haunted by Dragon Madness they may never even feel the effects of because this was not stolen from the dragon after their demise, this was a gift to a lover. The Knight wears their scales as protection forever after, they are known as Dragonslayer like taking a lovers name after marriage. Their fates and histories are tied together for as long as either of them will be remembered. You can not forget one without forgetting the other.

This is the intimate intertwining of fates forever. Dragons swoon over these tales, when parents of humanoid races tell a fairytale of a romance between the knight and princesses and their mutual foe, the dragons tell their children of the romance eternal of the Knight and their dragon, and the princess who was gracious enough to officiate for them.

And sometimes, Dragons meet their Knights and it ends not in the blood upon steel they crave, but in a tumble of bodies for an even more dangerous fight, breathless and euphoric. And that's how you get Dragonborns.

So Oisin sees Adaine hating him, feels their magic clash and the intensity of her hatred and determination to kick his ass, and he feels closer to his ancestors than ever before, falling into the same trap as all of them on falling in love with the one whose violence you crave. He see's his own blood dripping from Adaine Abernant's sword and the pounding in his heart is enough to shake the world with the intensity of his feelings.

Oh one day there will be softness too, it will not be like this forever, but this is always how it starts for them, and it will never quite leave.

Anyway one day the Rat Grinders and Bad Kids are gonna end up chatting and fairy tales will come up and Oisin will sigh wistfully about the most romantic fairy tales he was told as a hatchling and despite everything those were such formative memories that he holds tenderly in his heart.

"what fairy tales??"

"the romances between the dragons and the knights who kill them?? You know, with the princesses?"

And EVERYBODY is like WTF.

Except Mary Ann.

Mary Ann, also of some type of dragonic heritage, ALSO grew up with these stories and fully agrees with him. Its all very romantic. Gorgug's absolute HATRED of her during Junior year was very attractive.

ALSO the Princess in Adaine and Oisin's story is Boggy.

Boggy is the princess and whenever the frog decides to go hang out with Oisin and Adaine assumes Oisin stole her summon it's playing RIGHT into this fantasy. At some point Oisin thinks he needs to get Boggy a little tiara.

[saphic-with-t]

I saw people talking about Jawbone being a bad school counselor for how he treated the situation with Kipperlilly, and while I agree that from what we heard, it was definitely not good, I’d like to use this to point something out.

This single situation highlights two major things I think we forget or overlook when looking at the more serious, intense stuff within the storytelling genre of dnd/actual-play. Both boil down to things not being perfect.

First, this feels like the situation where we should remember that Brennan isn’t a school counselor, and never has been, or gotten training. He doesn’t know the proper procedures for stuff.

Second, this is improvised. It’s off the cuff and can’t be changed. If it was a traditional style of writing like a book or script, maybe an editor would have picked up on the inaccuracies or problems of the character and brought it up to Brennan for revisions in the next draft. But that can’t happen, and it’s pretty much set in stone as soon as it’s put out.

There is also the possibility (though I don’t personally believe this) that Brennan was intentional with Jawbone handling the situation poorly.

Jawbone’s mistake adds to and reinforces his character. I have met with school counselors before and they are usually far from perfect. In fact, Jawbone is still definitely one of the better examples of a school counselor in fiction and irl. We know that a lot of students (and staff) do really enjoy him. He was able to diagnose Adaine’s problem and has helped a few of the bad kids quite a lot and gives good advice. But he’s still new. He doesn’t have official education on child psychology and is pretty much completely self taught. It makes sense that at the very least he would let some kids slip through the cracks or make some bad calls. Especially since Kipperlilly’s situation and Jawbone’s secondary relationship to them is a unique thing that he would definitely not be prepared for.

Also, you can just add your head cannons into the mix. I saw one saying they believed Jawbone recommended to KlCk’s parents that they find her a therapist outside of the school and they declined it, but since it wouldn’t be part of her file, Riz and the rest wouldn’t see or know about it. Things like that are the whole point of head-cannons, to help explain stuff that goes unexplained.

Anyways, if you read this far thank you, I just needed to rant about it because people were getting really nasty about it (especially on Twitter) and I wanted to drop my two cents into the void.

[adainekelmpmybeloved]

I can't stop thinking about Adaine talking to jawbone a couple episodes back.

How she framed her independence.

"it felt good to handle something on my own" coming from the girl who killed her own FATHER. Who had to kill him because no one ever protected her from him or her mother. is. insane. It's not like she's lacking independence or needed to prove that she could do something on her own. She was neglected her entire life. Her parents never cared about her. Never held her or gave her a kind word. They didn't tell her that they loved her or praise her incredible divination. They never even thought about her anxiety disorder. She didn't know that it was something that could be helped. She didn't know it wasn't because she was a coward. Her family teleported away when their house was attacked and didn't say a word. Didn't reach out, didn't try to get a message to her. And let's not forget that the REASON she had to kill her father is because he wanted alewyn to kill her. Because she knew she was the only person who could save alewyn and herself. Adaine has done everything herself, she has handled everything on her own because she had no other option. No one was coming. No one was going to do it for her. And when her only Real parent tells her that he noticed that something was wrong she says "it's okay, I fixed it myself". She says she wanted to do it alone. Maybe she thinks she does.

But I think it's the only way she knows how. I think she doesn't know how to accept someone helping. Much less a father.

[bowenoke]

I'm microwaving the mechanics of stress tokens rn. because as per Siobhan's comment about animal handling and nature checks... they get to pick which skills they'll take disadvantage on.

The solution everyone here on tumblr is talking about for ALL their other problems, to just rely on each other, would genuinely work here. All they have to do is pick one person to maintain a given skill, and everyone else can not bother with it. forget arcana checks; Adaine can do arcana checks. Everyone else stops giving a singular shit about magic. Sneaking?? Who cares about being stealthy! Everyone else rocks comfy pajamas at school, and lets Riz take care of that. (Not even in a meta-gaming way, but in the genuine sense that they cam rely on their friends in-world to handle specific types of problems.)

More than forcing them to exhaustion, the stress mechanic seems like a really great opportunity to let individual party members shine at Their Thing, their Expertise, in a party where skill bleed is huge, and everyone has taken feats and multiclasses to become a jack of all trades bc of the modern setting often splitting the party

[flightlesskiwi]

I don’t think the Rat Grinders are irredeemable or whatever but I DO think a lot of people are putting the onus on Brennan specifically to redeem them or “write them a redemption arc”, like yes it is a show and there has to be character narratives especially for foils to your PCs, but ttrpgs are fundamentally a /collaborative/ storytelling medium, the thing about DnD is that the players have to invest in the NPCs, they have to give them the time and space to redeem themselves through interacting with them, the reason we see characters like Aelwyn and Ragh get a redemption arc & change and develop is because the Bad Kids went out of their way to talk to them (In Aelwyn’s case Adaine had to commit to redeeming her sister on multiple occaisions). Lets not forget there have been other teen villains, like Penelope, Dayne and Biz who the Bad Kids just straight up killed in combat, who didn’t get redeemed. Do I think it’s fully possible that the Rat Grinders can experience redemption/forgiveness and it would be narratively satisfying? Absolutely! But, imo, a lot of the narrative thrust behind wether a character gets redemption is in the hands of the players, and it would be a little bit unsatisfying if being freed from their rage crystals immediately gave them all full personality transplants (like removing all of Kipperlily’s anger and ambition for example)

[found-family-tournament]

Found Family Tournament Round 1 Part 10 Group 50

Propaganda and further pictures under the cut

The Bad Kids: Riz "The Ball" Gukgak, Adaine Abernant, Fabian Aramaris Seacaster, Gorgug Thistlespring, Figueroth "Fig" Faeth, Kristen Applebees (& Ragh Barkrock)

Drawtectives: Gyorik "York" Rogdul, Grendan "Grandma" Highforge, Rosé, Jancy True, Eugene Finch

Submissions are still open!

The Bad Kids:

before i start the pictures below are by isawiitch (https://www.tumblr.com/isawiitch), victor rosas (https://twitter.com/SirVictorThe2nd), and m0nomercy (https://www.tumblr.com/m0nomercy) respectively check them out they're very cool and also that middle guy did the official art for fantasy high its very cool

Mods note: said middle picture is a .webp. And I sadly can't add those. But the others are below

anyways all of these dumb teens are just god they complete each other they're the most important people in the world to each other like fabian and gorgug meeting with a punch to the stomach and going on to share a hug in an evil forest and "DO YOU WANT ME TO BITE IT OUT FOR YOU" "the ball, wait" -riz and fabian and kristen's really bad inspiring speech (they're gonna get inspiring real soon) but they are inspiring because they're from the best and sweetest friend in the whole world and gorgug getting razzed a little for thinking random people are his dad and the sheer joy everyone felt for him when he met his real parents and RIZ THE BALL GUKGAK AND FABIAN SEACASTER THE DUO OF ALL TIME and adaine learning to be a normal teen and fig swearing she's not an open person when she pours her heart out to her friends every chance she gets and riz and adaine being the only two non-horny members of the team and bonding over that and being smart but terrible in social interactions together and "its called being gay, when you're here you're family" -kristen applebees, 2019 and fig starting a band with gorgug, one of the more socially awkward members of the party and "what would riz do" "you bite down hard on a piece of glass" and adaine's actual worst fear being what she would become after her friends passed and the KILL YOUR DAD chant and its gorgug keep going and all of them feeling each others' overcoming of fear in the forest of the nightmare king no matter how far apart they are and riz shooting off an incel's fingers for being weird about adaine (there was other stuff going on but you can't convince me that it wasn't at least partially because of that) and the gang not really letting gorgug and kristen forget that one time they died (they got better and were psychologically okay with it after a bit so this was lighthearted jabs and not straight-up reminding them of a big traumatic moment) and "my friends were warmer to me on the first day that we met than you were to me in my whole life" -adaine abernant, 2020

AND that doesn't even include all the crazy stuff with bad kids-adjacent found family members like gilear faeth getting his life back together thanks to these teens and jawbone o'shaughnessy being the dad of all time to the point where he actually adopts adaine at the end of sophomore year and aelwyn abernant holy shit (she's harder to justify here because her main important interactions are with her sister, unlike gilear who is technically fig's stepdad but is a core part of the found family in all directions) aelwyn abernant is trying so desperately hard to be better and ayda aguefort and adaine swapping homemade spells named after each other (adaine kills her dad with hers its a good time) and ragh barkrock getting over his internalized homophobia

SO IN CONCLUSION these guys have changed each other so much and every single combination of them, be it a duo or a trio or whatever has a distinct dynamic thats so so important to me. they're all family to each other, some of them more than even their real families. they are the guys of all time and my blorbos even and are a wicked good found family

Sometimes a family is the kids who all got detention together on the first day of school at adventuring academy.

And sometimes that family is:

A Half-elf-Half-Pirate rich boy who killed toxic masculinity by learning how to dance, and mercy-killed his father by stabbing him with a sword.

"The Greatest Wizard of this Age" (actually a Barbarian who took a level in artificer to boost his cellphone-reception to call and apologize to his satyr girlfriend) Half-Orc drummer who was adopted by Gnomes;

A bisexual Punk-rocker Tiefling who thought she was a wood-elf until her horns came-in & caused her and her adoptive father to discover that her biological father is actually an Archdevil;

The Elven Oracle (later just "The Oracle"/"Everybody's Oracle") who was adopted by the school's Werewolf Guidance Councilor after her evil parents disowned her (she later punched her evil bio-dad to death in a single round of combat, despite being a magic caster);

An aro-ace (un)licensed Private Investigator Goblin who carries a briefcase and ate the face of the dragon that ate his father;

And a lesbian ex-fundie human who met the corn-god her family worships, found out he sucks & left the church and her family, CREATED HER OWN GOD (of Buzzfeed listical symbols, known first as "YES!" then later "YES?"), only to then abandon that god to become the Saint of the long forgotten Goddex/Goddess of Mystery, Night and Magic.

(Optionally, add in the Half-Orc repressed-gay bully they befriended and helped come out)

And sometimes, that found family becomes a literal family, because over the course of the series:

Fig's mom starts dating Adaine's adoptive dad,

Fig's adoptive dad gets engaged to Fabian's mom,

Fig's biological dad starts dating Riz's mom,

Kirsten starts dating the niece of Adaine's adoptive dad/Fig's mom' boyfriend.

(Gorgug is the only one who still isn't related to the others, but he did find his biological parents. And although he still lives with his adoptive parents, he is now in the famous band "Fig and the Cig Figs" along-side his bio-parents, Fig, and Fig's bio-dad)

Currently, Fig, Adaine, Kirsten, Fig's mom, Adaine's adopted dad, Kirsten's GF, Adaine's biological older sister, Adaine's sister's ghost fiancé, Ragh, Ragh's mom, and Fig's Half-Phoenix librarian/pirate GF all live in one giant haunted old Victorian-style Manor.

Drawtectives:

They are so silly and cute <3 Three strangers bond over solving a murder mystery as interns to a tired detective/mom figure. In s2 they pick up an amnesiac guy and adopt him as a son (despite one of them being younger than him). Everyone pls watch Drawtectives it's so fun and there's lots of wacky drawing shenanigans involved

they are SILLY they are BESTIES they are in a POLYCULE they LOVE EACHOTHER 🥺🥺 (eugene is their son who is also their age and jancy is their mom. dw its not weird) (art included is all by karina @dilfosaur of drawfee)

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 1

We're SO Back

School is back in session y’all!!!!

Fantasy High has returned to us after a long break and I am thrilled to come out of my recapping hiatus to bring back the Report Card for Junior Year! You know I could let my favorite chaotic high schoolers go un-analyzed! 

This episode wastes no time in getting started so neither will I. Brennan makes what I think is a very strong narrative choice by starting us in media res at the end of a classic Bad Kids adventure. It is the summer between Sophomore and Junior Year and the party has spent the last four months hot on the trail of the dreaded Night Yorb.

We catch up to our Intrepid Heroes in the Red Waste and they’re trying to catch up to the Night Yorb which is a big, eldritch, manta ray like monster who threatens to plunge the entire world into darkness, creating a very slow (but still effective!) apocalypse! The Night Yorb is flanked by its groupies, made up of members of the many cults dedicated to it (collectively known as “Yorbies”).

As I said, the Bad Kids are hot on its trail, in (and on) the Hangvan. Gorgug (who has been leaning more into his Artificer vibes lately) has outfitted the top of the Hangvan with a solar lasso that can be used to capture and reel in the Night Yorb so that Fig and Adaine can defeat it with a magical sigil. I’m gonna quickly run down where everyone is and what they’re doing:

Adaine and Fig are both standing on top of the Hangvan in order to spring the sigil when the time comes. Adaine is also joined by Boggy and a new addition, Moggy the Doggy (aka, Mordekainen’s Faithful Hound), which is a very round, very cute, very invisible Pomeranian looking dog. 

Gorgug is also up top with them because he’s manning the solar lasso. 

Fabian is inside the Hangvan along with Baby (aka Wretchrot, aka Fig’s screeching blood imp who has no mechanical benefit unless she takes another level of Warlock as Brenan keeping reminding us) and Ecaf, a mirror with a sultry voice that Fabian is *heavily* flirting with, much to everyone’s discomfort. It’s tres Narcissus. (Also, ha, Face backwards. I see you Brennan).

Kristen is in the back with Fabian and Riz is driving, even though he is WAY too small to effectively be driving a Gorgug sized van. 

The Hangman–Fabian’s trusty motorcycle/hellhound–is out in front of the Hangvan.

Also Squeem is on the roof with the others! Beloved, fan favorite Squeem!

Yeah, so this episode does a thing of pretending like we’re jumping into the last episode of an arc that we’ve seen every episode of and introducing characters in a very Sam Reich, “He’s been there this whole time” way even though it’s their first appearance. I think it’s very funny and it reminds me of that Community episode where they’re all flashing back to episodes that never aired. But anyway, I mention this so that if I mention a name and you’re like “Whomst?” it’s probably just a bit, you’re not forgetting a major character.

Anyway, we’re joining this chase already in progress which means our kids are hurt and down spell slots but their opponents are as well. The distribution is pretty uneven–Adaine is way less hurt than Fabian and Kristen for instance, which honestly checks out (curious how they decided on that though). 

Because this episode is just one big battle sequence for the most part, I’m going to follow the precedent I set in the recaps for The Seven and just give the highlights in bullets and then do an analysis on where all the Bad Kids are right now at the end:

Murph comes in hot, using his first action of the new season to shoot his gun and doing 30 points of damage with a 27 to hit. New year, new Murph! 

Siobhan invokes the corn cuties debacle from fight one and all the falling off the tables that happened. Clearly, a bit of Adaine’s oracle energy is rubbing off on her because the next thing that happens in that Fabian decides to jump on top of the Hangvan to cast Faerie Fire on the Night Yorb (which has shrouded itself in magical darkness), rolls the first Nat 1 of the season, absolutely eats it, and gets run over by Riz–narrowly avoiding going down. He’s ultimately fine–The Hangman comes and picks him up–but it’s not a very auspicious star from Master Fabian. 

Emily and Murph have a cute moment of womping Brennan back to back by using Silvery Barbs to make him reroll two attacks on the Hangvan–one of which is a crit–and then giving each other the advantage on the next roll.

Kristen is a real pillar in this encounter–holding up the Circle of Power spell that allows her friends to ignore big chunks of damage that absolutely would have dropped them. But throughout the entire fight, her patron goddess, Cassandra, keeps trying to talk to her and Kristen keeps leaving her on read–we’ll get more into that in a bit. 

Adaine comes in clutch with a Nat 1 portent roll to stop the NIght Yorb from resisting Gorgug’s attempt to reel it in further. Truly, the best time to roll a Nat 1 in this game. Divination Wizards are awesome!

We learn that “Don’t Speak of the Night Yorb” is more than just a silly bit when Fig realizes that saying its name makes it heal up which isn’t great because they’ve been *very* cavalier about invoking its name. 

Squeem gets a big emotional goodbye with Gorgug on top of the Hangvan, heroically leaps off to fend off some Yorbies…and then rolls a 2 and totally faceplants. No! Squeem! Beloved fan favorite Squeem! They already had to revivify you once! 

On the Night Yorb’s turn, Brennan does an attack and shakes so many dice that it sounds like maracas. It’s 61 points of damage and squishy wizard Adaine goes down, but everyone else stays up–large in part due to Kristen’s aforementioned Circle of Power. (Siobhan, describing how bad her saving rolls were zings two separate friends saying, “It was Fabian level nasty. I fucking Murph’d it.”)

Luckily, Fig and Gorgug are up on the roof with Adaine so she does not go sliding off the van when she goes down. They catch her before she can fall. 

At this point the Van has sustained a lot of damage so Murph reminds the teacher that they have homework/Brennan that they have to roll for a mishap. That turns out to be the breaks blowing out. Now, all the Van can do is accelerate! It’s just like the movie Speed!

Two more characters who we totally know and have been here this whole time show up to help–Balthazar and Duggan McCann! A cool grizzled veteran and a centaur cowboy. Riz immediately starts doing cool guy banter with them because he’s somehow convinced them that he’s cool (which he is for the record, just in a completely different way lol). Unfortch, Baz almost right away gets eaten by the NIght Yorb. Who’s gonna take care of his litter (?) of parrots?????

 At this point in the fight, everyone gets a ping on their crystals, reminding them that school starts in three days. This stresses everyone out more than the fight that they’re currently in. 

Fig brings up Adaine with a Healing Word but she immediately has to do Wis save with the rest of the party. She and Fabian fail, but once again Fabian is saved by fear negating effects of his dad’s eyepatch. So Adaine starts to have a panic attack about the fact that she’s fighting the Night Yorb while standing on the roof of a moving vehicle which, real talk, very normal and valid reaction. In fact, probably concerning that she’s reached a point in her life where that *isn’t* the default reaction. 

The Hangvan is coming up on a jump it’ll have to make to continue following the Night Yorb (and it can’t even try to stop because the brakes are cut). Riz fails the roll which means that the van is probably going to fall on its side. Adding insult to injury, a pillar of rock falls and is going to crash into the van, doing even more major damage. 

Fig watches this, and almost dissociates, feeling the weight of the entire summer taken from them to do this quest. Feeling so so tired. Feeling the fact that even if they win, they’re just gonna have to go back to school and adventure some more. A piece of magic she’s been holding inside of for a long time flickers and she hears an enticing voice whisper in her ears. “If you would take me, you know what you would save.” She smells a sour, curdled scent and she knows that if she says yes, she can save her friends. Maybe there’s another way, but she just wants this to be over. “I’m yours,” Fig says. 

There’s a flash of “lemony, yellow, creamy” light (hmmmm) and the rock stops falling. The Hangvan starts righting itself.

And then there’s a sick gurgle from Fig’s stomach. 

Uh-oh, gang. 

For those of you who are new to these recaps, every week, I give one PC Detention and put one on the Honor Roll for their in-game actions. We’re starting off hot this semester with:

Detention 

Kristen Applebees for Being a BAD Friend to Cassandra 

Like, OK. Faith is complicated. Kristen’s relationship with religion is complicated. Being a cleric is complicated. But notice that I didn’t say being a bad *cleric*. I said being a bad *friend*. To be clear, she’s also being a bad cleric, and I’ll talk about that later. But having understandably conflicted views on religion doesn’t make sliding in your Fantasy Airpods while the being who is essentially a lonely teen girl and who is keeping you and all your friends alive tries to talk to you NOT seem like a giant dick move. Come on girl, get it together. 

Honor Roll

Brennan Lee Mulligan for Being a Great DM!

I realized as I was writing this that I’ve given Brennan Detention but never Honor Roll so he’s getting it today. It feels so good to have him back in the dome with the kids and he drew me back into the world, right away. I’m so psyched that we have a full season of this ahead of us! 

CHARACTER CHECK-INS

Like I said earlier, because this is the first episode back, I want to really quickly check in with all of the Bad Kids and where they are, character-wise. I’m going to do this roughly from least concerning to me to most concerning to me. 

-Adaine: Adaine seems like she’s living her best life. She has her frog! She has her dog! Her character art is so much more chill and she’s coming into her own. This season, I’m hoping we get to see more of her relationship with her sister (yes, I’m a predictable bitch. Sue me) and with Zayn (who is also living at Mordred in her tower) who I think has a lot of potential to be an interesting supporting character with more spotlight. But yeah, go Adaine! 

-Gorgug: Gorgug is making his parents proud (not that they ever weren’t) by taking another artificer level. He’s not a 7/3 Barb/Art split. I love that he’s gone from calling himself dumb to taking on this very technical skill. He also apparently has a homunculus? Fascinated to see what that looks like. 

-Riz: Now that his big investigation is over and he knows his dad is a cool secret agent, Riz has switched his subclass from Inquisitor to Arcane Trickster which means he’s got tons of gadgets and that he’s a ring guy now. Love that for him. He’s very much not a chill person though so I’m very curious to know what the next thing he’ll latch onto is. He the kind of guy who always need something going on, you know? 

-Fabian: Fabian is a fancy, dance boy now (6/4 Fighter/Bard)! But that doesn’t mean he’s any less athletic. I mean, have you ever seen a male ballerina? He still is, however, a total disaster. And I mean that affectionately. I mean, his current love interest (?) is a mirror that is showing a fuzzy reflection of his own face. My guy, what are you doing? Although I will say, idk if that’s more or less toxic than him dating Aelwyn. 

-Kristen: Kristen. GIRL. 

OK, so first of all. There is nothing inherently wrong with getting super jacked and like, respect. But in this context it feels like a red flag. Like the kind of thing you do because you’re on the rocks with your girlfriend or if you’ve recently broken up. I will be *very* interested to know what Tracker is up to as she’d not mentioned in this episode. Last we heard, she was out doing cleric stuff for the Moon Goddess, right? Long distance can be hell on a relationship. (Also, idk how seriously we’re supposed to take this but Ally mentioned the one shot it happened in in this episode so Kristen was also totally trying to flirt with a college girl in that college visit oneshot. Brennan shut it down pretty quick, but it very much did happen). 

Also, speaking of cleric stuff, Cass. I feel SO bad for Cass. Like, a god isn’t owed followers, but Kristen chose that role. She CHOSE it. This isn’t like a Helio situation. Cass wasn’t pushy. She specifically says in this episode that she doesn’t want to be pushy. Hell, she says in the episode where she’s introduced that if people don’t want her around she’ll go away. But Kristen chose to be her follower, knowing what the implications of being the sole follower of a goddess is. Cass is made in her image. That’s how deeply entwined they are. Her goddess is made in her image. In The Seven, we learn that Ost’s god hasn’t talked to anyone in years. Kristen has Cass coming in like a mom offering snacks mid battle and Kristen is leaving her on read! It’s honestly kinda hard to watch her be so blithely dismissive of someone so dependent on her even though it’s played off as kind of a joke. I felt like I was watching a loyal puppy get kicked every time they interacted. 

And like, I said this before, Cassandra is made in Kristen’s image. But specifically, she looks like Sophomore year Kristen. Still all skinny and still in her tie-die shirt and shorts. There is a definite vibe of almost wanting to kill the part of yourself that embarasses you, you know? It feels like she's being mean to Cass but also to herself. 

Also, mechanically speaking, it’s wild to be just ignoring the person you’re getting your powers from like this. Like, this is real Wizard behavior. You don’t have to answer to anyone if you studied for your magic but you absolutely do as a cleric. Does Kristen even want to be a cleric? It honestly doesn’t seem like it. She’s shown a pattern of behavior of chafing at every god put in her path, even the ones she literally made up. I thought Cass might be the end of her searching, but we’re right back on the Merry Go Round. The party absolutely needs a healer though so idk how she deals with that. 

I saw the snipped clip of Ally’s interview about Kristen’s arc this season involving what happens when chaos stops being cute, and I can def see seeds being planted. Fascinated to see how they explore that because this feels like a real ticking time bomb of a situation. 

Oh also, her Dex went DOWN????? GIRL!

Fig: I had a lot more to say about Kristen but Fig has to be last on the list for making a deal with a literal devil lol. Like, classic Fig though, right? This WOULD happen. Emily talked about potentially retiring Fig and getting reeled in by some enticing plot hook from Brennan and it feels like we might be about to find out what that is. I won’t speculate on it too much right now because we’re presumably about to find out but there were a LOT of yogurt themed adjectives when that magic activated which has me very split on whether this is about to be deeply concerning or deeply silly. Or both! It could be both! 

Random Thoughts

I LOVE that we have a proper theme song now. It feels so fitting and I love the opening art and it’s all so cool. The show’s so profesh now!

Also, shout out to @caitmayart for making the new art! It has the quality of a professional and the extra love of a fan. It’s my fave D20 official art so far. 

I don’t know when this feature was added but I love that there is a full transcript you can pull up and search and jump to that time in the video now. That’s gonna be SO useful for me. 

One of my favorite things about Adaine is that she’s generally polite but occasionally she’ll just absolutely verbally decimate someone so casually and this episode she said to the Solesian Yorbie they encountered, “What movie theater were you assistant managing before you decided to become a Yorbie?” Brutal. 

Also love how vehement she was about the fact that Brennan couldn’t touch Moggy, even when she went down. You are absolutely NOT gonna kill that dog Brennan.  

“Object interaction, touch Gorgug’s foot.”

Fig asks Gorgug how they can heal a van and he says, “Take it to a shop for 3-4 days.” Zac, underrated comic genius. 

I really can’t overstate how funny it is that Fabian spends most of this episode flirting with his own reflection. I’ve said this many times but something I love about Lou is that he’s not afraid to make Fabian deeply uncool, even though Fabian’s whole thing is being as cool as possible. 

Kristen says she needs to have an intense conversation with Cassandra when the fight is over and what does that mean? Like a breakup conversation? Which I guess would kill her because then she’d have no followers again? I am, como se dice, concerned. 

Also, just looking ahead, Tracker is also a cleric. A pretty faithful one from what I can tell. I have to wonder what her take on Kristen completely neglecting her goddess and church is. 

I think it’s so funny that Emily was thinking about retiring Fig so she could just ride off into the sunset with her cool rockstar life and awesome girlfriend because Riz’s big thing last year was being worried all his friend would pair up and leave him so for him to accept it and then have his fears validated right away would be like, welp. 

At a certain point, Murph has to roll damage and he rolls 45 out of a possible 50 damage. That’s crazy. Let’s see how long that luck holds.

[smolandweirdwriter]

oh let me tell u i am so normal about adaine so here have a collection of some of my headcanons (that i can remember)

adaine starts dressing more "punk" in a sense because she lives with fig (totally not cause shes trying to remove herself from her goody two shoes appearance that her parents knew)

I also think this comes out of necessity as she doesnt have the money to buy new clothes if they get damaged so ends up sowing patches onto her clothes.

Adaine is the second tallest bad kid (after gorgug) at 5'11 simply because fabian is 5'10 and claims hes 6'0 (adaine is having none of it)

Adaine and tracker are still really close even after kristens breakup

She also has chronic fatigue which did not help her anxiety attacks. for most of her life she just believed she was lazy and not trying hard enough due to her parents thinking she was making excuses

Fig realizes at the beginning of Sophomore year that she really, really likes fun colors. She’s sick of all black. She wears bright red skirts and t-shirts of all colors and she smokes her cigarettes and dyes her hair and paints her nails pale pink and is uniquely, wildly, entirely herself. She doesn’t limit herself to a “rocker aesthetic”. Isn’t the whole point of rebellion to be you? 

Adaine’s style has changed so much. Partway through freshman year, she begins dressing as defiantly as possible. Whatever her parents would hate the most, Adaine wears. She borrows Fig’s clothes, which tend to be a bit too short and tight on her, but it’s all black with a leather skirt and ripped fishnets and her mother calls her a slut and her father forces her to go back to her room and change. Aelwyn mocks her for it over breakfast and Adaine stares at her food and doesn't wear fishnets or crop tops again.

(Aelwyn sneaks out that night wearing a similar outfit because she knows what her parents would say and the idea of the look on her mother's face being pointed at her is enough to terrify her to the point of nausea, and she drinks and drinks and drinks until she forgets to be afraid.)

Still, Adaine's style keeps changing. Sophomore Year it's mostly her Jacket of Useful things, t-shirts, and jeans. But as much as she hated being forced to wear the Hudol uniform, she really likes nice clothes. Junior Year she begins exploring more elven clothing: long skirts, vests with collared shirts, pleated blouses, breeches, tall boots, et cetera. She, Ayda, and Gorgug work together combining Wizardry and Artificing on her Jacket of Useful Things so that it can effectively transform into any coat/jacket/vest/etc to go with her outfit. It's perfect as her style is constantly shifting on a daily basis. 

This is just my thought on all of their heights, but here we go:

Riz is shortest, obviously. He’s actually average-height for a goblin, resting at about 3’6’’. 

Fig gives severe Tall Vibes, so much so that people forget she’s actually only 5’3’’. She wears boots that bring her up to about 5’5’’, but she’s still the second-shortest bad kid.

No one will let Fabian let down how short he is. He’s tried changing his diet, stretching, everything he can imagine—he’s still 5’4’’. It’s mortifying. Fig fits into his clothes perfectly.

Kristen has always felt somewhat ungainly, her limbs at different shapes and sizes, and she’d crash into things a lot. She’s always felt too much: too tall, too wide, too much, too much, too much. Junior Year she starts working out and begins getting comfortable with her body. Still, she’s tall, almost 5’10’’.

Adaine is quite tall, but her parents and sister are taller than her, and she’s spent her life feeling inescapably small. Her posture is good, but there’s something to the way she tilts her head, the general way she carries herself, hunching around a too-big orb and clutching books to her chest, that makes her look short and small. Sophomore Year, her confidence grows, she becomes more stable, and most importantly, she eats much more. She uncurls herself, and by the time she finds Aelwyn again, Aelwyn is horrified to see that her little sister looms over her. Adaine is 5’11.

Gorgug hunches over a lot, and it’s actually after becoming an Artificer that he gets better with his posture, because he’s sitting a lot more now and his back hurts if he hunches too much. His actual height is 6’5’’. He’s the tallest bad kid.

My personal headcanon is that Tracker also has anxiety and used to “wolf out” whenever she got overwhelmed. So she understands Adaine very well, perhaps better than anyone else. She understands the way Adaine’s anger stems from her fear, from her lack of control. Tracker helps her find the right anxiety meds and teaches her methods of working through and handling feeling overwhelmed.

When the bad kids see Nara and Tracker again in Fallinel, she introduces them all to Nara. “Ah,” Nara says as she and Adaine are introduced, and Adaine tenses for oracle, the daughter who killed Angwyn Abernant, the oracle who ran away, but what she’s met with was: “Tracker’s little sister.”

Adaine never tells Tracker how much it means. She loves Aelwyn, and Aelwyn loves her, but that love is something that has been asked for by both parties. Adaine never realized before that she shouldn't have to ask. 

[operationslipperypuppet]

Do you happen to have any Adaine and Aelwyn headcannons you can share?

damn they’re literally so… wow.

It takes them truly so long to build the bunk beds. They, admittedly, forget two important things when they start: 1) that they have magic and 2) that they could look up instructions online. After staring at everything for far too long they admit defeat and go ask Jawbone for help. He is also useless. In the end it’s Sandra Lynn who helps the three of them work out what to do, and Aelwyn and Adaine quietly wonder if that’s what moms are supposed to do. They let Sandra Lynn in a bit more after that.

They both just take a while to sit in the same spaces and do nothing right after Aelwyn moves in. Kind of like when you introduce cats to one another. They both knew they love each other and wanted to be happy to spend time together, but it was hard for them to not hit the same strides right away. So they sat there and forced themselves to remember that they are a team. And can help each other. And they continue to do it now, quietly working on things individually, in the same space, happy to spend some time together. It also took them a while to get used to the idea that they can hug each other without it being bad. The other members of the house pick up a bit on how they clearly want to hug each other but aren’t sure, so they start an environment of hugs whenever (to those who are comfortable with it) to kind of break the ice. It does help. Eventually, Jawbone and Sandra Lynn get hugs whenever Adaine leaves for school. Aelwyn isn’t quite there yet, but she’s getting close.

They always sit next to each other at group meals. Sandra Lynn, Jawbone, and Lydia demand (positively) that Sunday nights (or Elmville week equivalent) are for family meals. Everyone who lives in the house has to attend, but anyone else who wants to in their gigantic circle is always invited. Aelwyn kind of hates it at first, but slowly discovers that these people actually do care about Adaine and are starting to care about her. She looks forward to them now.

About a month after she arrived at Mordred, Aelwyn was confronted by Kristen and Fig. They made things clear: that they believed wholeheartedly that she had changed and was trying to do better, that they, too, would forgive her for her past actions because they trusted Adaine, and that if she ever needed anything in the house she didn’t feel comfortable asking Adaine for, they’d be so happy to help. But, if she in a single instance tried to betray Adaine again, they wouldn’t hesitate. Because they wouldn’t make Adaine go through that pain again, and this time they’d do anything in their power to protect her. Aelwyn was honestly touched, happy to know that her sister had friends so willing to help her.

[deconstructthesoup]

What Fear Entities the Bad Kids would serve

Yeah, you know what, I'm doing this. *cracks knuckles*

Adaine: If her fear dream sequence in Sophomore Year is any indication, Adaine is very much a Lonely avatar. Her story has several reoccuring themes of feeling isolated and abandoned, and I could definitely see her retreating into the melancholy of the Forsaken after a particularly devastating loss. She'd probably fight it at first, though---I don't see Adaine becoming an avatar willingly.

Fabian: He was very hard to pin down, but I think he'd be pretty fitting as an avatar of The Vast. This is in no small part due to the fact that his father was a pirate, he himself has a lot of piratical imagery, and pirates are tied with the sea and the amass of wealth---two things that The Vast has wrapped up in it---and let's not forget the fact that Fabian is someone with vast opportunity ahead of him. Plus, he's got the energy necessary for a Vastard, so I think it fits.

Fig: The Stranger is the most obvious choice for her, seeing as she has a love of disguises and being something she's not, but I think that she could also just as easily slide into The Desolation. She's all about rebellion and chaos and "burn towns, get money," after all---makes sense that she'd be a little flamey.

Gorgug: Oh, Slaughter for sure. No question about it, especially now that we see him start to embrace his rage. It's all about the anger, baby.

Kristen: When we first meet her, I'd say that she would be on the cusp of becoming part of The Hunt---in the eyes of her community, someone who hunted the people that the church of Helio regarded as sinners, but in reality, someone who was desperately hunting for answers and a truth that would work for her---but right now? Absolutely The Dark. She's embrace the darkness and the unknown and the comforts of the Forever Blind, and there's no Entity that's more fitting than that for her.

Riz: The Eye. Every single person who is a fan of both Dimension 20 and The Magnus Archives has made this connection, and it's redundant for me to go into it at this point. Riz is one of the most Eye-coded characters in a piece of media ever.

[dullgecko]

Random bad kid headcanons!

- Gorgug is so used to people being shorter than him, that when people are taller than him, he forgets to look up.

- Adaine doesn’t know how to swim, no ever taught her and she didn’t realize until they were having a pool party and she just stared at the water.

- Fig’s math is ass, she actually barely passed 8th grade math and since Aguefort doesn’t have a math class, she still sucks.

- Riz (canon) really like Gilear, because he gets what it’s like to be a little (a lot pathetic) compared to their people.

- Fabian’s bed can fit all the bad kids, and he has enough guest rooms for all of them. But even after everyone goes to their assigned guest rooms, he wakes up and they’re in his room (Riz is sleeping on top of his face like a cat).

Gorgug gets into a conversation with someone significantly taller than him and complains of a sore neck afterwards. Riz just deadpans that it must be really horrible having to deal with that (while sitting on Fabians shoulder so he's more eye-level with the rest of the party).

Fabian is the one who notices that Adaine seems aprehensive about getting into the water and takes her aside later to talk to her about it. She thinks it's embarasing that she's never been in water deeper than a bathtub before but he offers to try and teach her. He's the strongest swimmer out of everyone and she trusts that he'd never let anything happen to her so she takes him up on the offer. They spend a couple nights a week for months during the warmer part of the year paddling around in the shallow end of one of the pools at Seacaster manor until she feels comfortable swimming short distances by herself and can tread water for a decent amount of time without assistance.

Fig can do basic addition and multiplication but anything more complicated than that goes RIGHT over her head. Adaines wizard classes have quite a lot of advanced maths involved and so do Gorgugs artificer classes so if she needs help with anything more complicated than what she knows she bugs them about it.

Riz is aware that Gilear is just a normal guy trying to get through life as best he can. He's also aware that he's been dealt a really shitty hand by luck and circumstance and tries to be as nice to him as possible whenever they meet.

Fabian has woken up so many times in his own house feeling like he's being suffocated that he's used to it by now. Luckily Riz is so light that he can just flip the rogue into a more comfortable position so he's not being smothered and tries to go back to sleep. After the first few times they dont even PRETEND to go sleep in their own guest rooms anymore (he just wishes that Kristen kicked less in her sleep).

[roll-for-gaslight]

we are a lighthouse

Summary: A late night with the bad kids where they finally unpack some things that have been weighing them down.

A/N: this started as a drabble where the kids cuddle and evolved into... this! Hope you enjoy!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/57798592

-----

It’s been a long night. Well, it was a long day, and a long night on top of it. The Bad Kids stumble together into Mordred Manor at almost three in the morning, as tangled up in each other as they always are. Riz is curled around Gorgug’s shoulders, mumbling all of the clues he has yet to write down so that he doesn’t forget them. Fig and Fabian are leaning on each other heavily, the Infaethable Bass and Fandrangor clanging noisily against each other as they talk through the highlights of the fight. Adaine is on Kristen’s back, the latter still casting the last of her healing spells to help them all be a little more comfortable. They don’t discuss sleeping arrangements, and no one bothers to try to separate. Adaine summons air mephits to carry various blankets and pillows down from her tower, while Fig dimension doors to her room and right back. As the boys start to arrange everything, Kristen goes into the kitchen to grab an armload of water bottles for everyone and some ibuprofen out of the medicine cabinet.

There are several moments of shuffling around, everyone helping to finish their makeshift bed and getting comfortable. Fabian collapses into it first with a dramatic flourish and a low, tired groan.

“I never want to move again,” he complains, only for Riz and Adaine to immediately force him to adjust as they lie down as well. Riz curls into a ball (ha) on his left facing away from Fabian and in towards the group, tail snaking out to wrap around his leg. Adaine is on Riz’s other side, curling around him until she can rest her head on Fabian’s chest. She grumbles a complaint as he shifts onto his side to face them instead, letting her head rest on his arm and tangling his right hand into Riz’s hair.

Gorgug is the next to go down, reaching over to grab Fabian’s free hand from behind Adaine but ultimately leaving plenty of space for the final two party members to climb in between them. Fig makes good use of the space by sprawling almost sideways across Gorgug, her legs tangling with Adaine’s despite the space between them. Kristen joins the knot of girls in the middle after only a few more seconds, laying sideways like Fig and resting her head on Gorgug’s stomach. Fig’s arm slides around her waist, and Fabian groans slightly at the feeling of her accidental kicking.

“Kristen, if your cold as fuck feet touch me again I’m cutting them off,” he murmurs, and Fig giggles into her shoulder. Riz shushes him.

“Stop complaining, she got Ray of Frost-ed earlier, you can suffer.” he grumbles, and now Gorgug is laughing too, then Adaine as Fabian lets out an affronted noise. He mutters one more complaint, then Kristen giggles as she kicks him gently again. He shoots her a glare before everyone finally settles; they’re silent, but no one is asleep. There are several long seconds like that. Then—

“So, what did you guys see in the forest?” Fig asks, voice as sure as it always is but softer than they’ve ever heard it. It’s a tone she reserves for them, her parents, and, more recently, Ayda Aguefort. It comes in at the moments they need it most, usually alongside a bardic inspiration to lift them out of their lowest points. Adaine hears it in the middle of her panic attacks, while Fabian remembers hearing it that night on Leviathan.

It makes sense, of course, that they would have to talk about the Nightmare forest eventually. It even makes sense that Fig would be the one to decide it was time to do so, always unable to keep herself from addressing the elephant in the room.

What’s surprising is that Fabian answers first.

“Chungledown Bim said he was going to shit in my mouth, and the sexy rat from freshman year was chasing me. Cassandra said Chungledown was just actually there, which really fucks me up.” he admits, and there another moment of silence.

“He’s never going to touch you,” Riz says the words with such absolute conviction they can’t be anything but true.

Adaine’s eyes, against all odds, flash blue-white. The air grows tense for a few seconds as she arches upward, then Gorgug catches her head as she falls back again. “Mini-prophecy. He’ll never touch you again, Fabian.” she says confidently, and the whole room lets out a sigh of relief. There’s a slight lull before she continues. “I saw this weird phantasmagorical circus nightmare. Biz from the AV club was there, and he had me in an… orb, like what I was in in Fallinel, or maybe it was more like a palimpsest. I just kept leaning into the fear until I found my parents. The rest of it you guys already know.”

Kristen frowns. “God he was so shitty. Congrats on killing your dad, though, I don’t know if I ever told you that.”

“Thanks,” Adaine says as soft chuckles echo throughout the group at Kristen’s words. Fabian, possible the only one in the group who can understand the complex emotions that come with killing your own parent, pulls his hand away from Gorgug’s to gently run it through Adaine’s hair. He’s not usually much of a physical affection type of person, but it’s something Cathilda does for him when he’s sick or upset. She leans into it with a small, soft smile.

Gorgug is the next to speak up, voice as gentle and steadfast as always. “I went up against a sphinx that told me how stupid I am, then a tunnel that kept getting smaller and smaller until I got stuck for a while. I’m not even sure how I got out, I just… I just kept going.” he says, and as he says those final two words, an echo of the private sentiment that never quite reached his friends’ ears, a soft blanket of magic settles over the group. Those who are sensitive to it shiver, Fig’s tail flicking as her eyes zero in on Gorgug.

“Gorgug, did you just use magic?” she asks, and his eyebrow furrow in confusion, reluctantly propping himself up on his elbows.

“No, I don’t think so,” he says.

Fabian sits up as well, a spark of something in his eyes. “No, I’ve felt that before. In the forest. I thought all hope was lost, but then I had this moment where it was like I just knew everything was going to be okay again.”

Everyone starts talking over each other at once, sharing similar moments from their time in the forest. It happened five times for each of them, and that makes for easy math. Since Gorgug is the only lead they have, they start there. It takes minimal prodding before Gorgug bashfully shares his theory.

“I thought, just maybe, that some of us might end up crossing over the same paths if we were all headed to the center of the forest. When I made it to the other side of the tunnel, I felt really scared and alone. I didn’t want any of you guys to feel that way, so I used a trick my parents taught me to record an enchanted message on a rock so that you would know you were going in the right direction,” he explains softly.

Adaine carefully clears her throat before speaking. “What was the message?”

“It’s Gorgug, keep going.”

The magic that settles over them is stronger this time, rejuvenating and relaxing them all at the same time. Everyone settles back into their same positions as before, muscles relaxing despite the strain from the intense fight earlier in the day. It’s silent for a long stretch, but they all know the conversation isn’t over. Fig and Riz are just waiting each other out.

To everyone’s surprise, Riz breaks first. “I know what I did in the forest, just running away without warning, wasn’t fair to you guys. It was just the scariest thing I could think of, just rushing in without a plan or backup, so I thought it would help me find Kristen. After that, I saw Baron, the creepy skeleton boy who kidnapped me and claimed to be my romance partner.” He sighs quietly, “He forced me to come to terms with something that I’ve been meaning to tell you guys for a while; I’m aromantic. I’m not getting my kisses in because I don’t care about kisses, and I don’t want to date anyone.”

There’s a split second where everyone is still processing the information before— “RIZ!” Kristen sits bolt upright and yanks him into a hug that rivals the strength of Ragh’s bear hugs. ”I’m so glad you’re officially queer, you so have to join the GSA with me and Ragh! It’s really great, and we have other a-spec people in there too! And other people who are still new to the community, so it won’t be too overwhelming or anything,” she rambles.

Riz laughs softly, hugging her back as the other bad kids also get up to hug the two of them. It lasts several long moments before they all resettle, a mess of squirming limbs and too-sharp elbows in all the wrong places. For how graceful most of them seem while in combat, they all sink to Kristen’s level of dexterity in softer moments like these, enjoying the playfulness that comes along with it.

Fig buries her head in the crook of Kristen’s neck, holding her tighter than before. Grogug brings his spare hand down to rest a heavy hand on the back of her hair, gently carding his fingers through the mess that is her post-battle unbrushed hair. He pulls some remaining bits of rubble from it, and he sees the moment Adaine casts prestidigitation to clean them both up.

“I’m scared,” Fig starts softly, tone so fragile it feels like she could shatter at any moment. Kristen wraps her arms more securely around her waist. “I’m scared that if I tell you guys what I was really thinking about in that moment, you’ll hate me.”

“We could never hate you,” Riz responds immediately.

“You’re our best friend, and we’ve seen you at your best and your worst. We’re not going to think any less of you for what was on your mind at one of the scariest moments in all of our lives,” Adaine assures her.

Kristen nudges Fig’s horns with her own forehead until the other girl looks up at her. “If you don’t want to share, you don’t have to. I’ll still love you no matter what you say, though.”

It takes Fig several more long moments to finally speak again. “I was so focused on how much of a fuck up I had been the whole adventure. I kept thinking about the horrible things I did to my dad and to Riz, and how my whole mess with Hell had messed with our timeline. I felt like an imposter, like I didn’t deserve to be around you guys. I saw another version of me, and it was like I disappeared and she replaced me, except she was actually cool. She knew exactly what to do, she was helpful, she seemed like she had a plan immediately. She’s the version of myself I’ve always projected out to others and she’s a lie.” she says.

Kristen nods slowly, giving Fig a small smile. “I think you’re awesome just the way you are. You’re one of the nicest, coolest people I’ve ever known,” she says sincerely.

Gorgug nods in agreement. “Without you, I never would have been able to figure out how to be an artificer and a barbarian. It really came down to that moment where you encouraged me to pick up drumming. When you saw me having a hard time, you went out of your way to talk to me and help me even though you didn’t have to.”

“On the first day of school, before you even knew my name, you saw me having a panic attack and tried to take the fall for a stupid thing I did to get me out of trouble. It was the coolest thing I’d ever seen anyone do, and the kindest anyone had ever been to me at that point in my life,” Adaine admits softly, and FIg feels her heart grow warm as her friends reassure her. The final traces of the magic from earlier remains as just a gentle tingling on their skin, and after a few beats Kristen starts giggling.

“We get to tell Aguefort he was wrong,” she points out, much to everyone else's confusion. “He thinks chronomancy is the greatest magic of all and one time he told me that love isn’t magic. We just proved that it can be.”

[satur1day]

My predictions for post high school plans for the bad kids

Kristen: dropping out by the end of this season or switching class to monk/fighter or both. probably going to fantasy trade school (like Ally)

Riz: I can see him going to college with adaine but I can also see him just going straight into being a private investigator/spy. If he does go to college either paid for by some wild sum of money they make this year like the klavaxus hoard or I could see Fabian paying for it. Worth noting u could also really see Fabian and Riz becoming an adventurer duo or getting an apartment together (with Adaine?)

Adaine: going to college (maybe Fabian paying for it?). I could see her deciding it’s not for her after that but I also think she might enjoy it a lot. Also getting more involved with oracle stuff probably studying history of divination or some other semi niche major. But I feel like it will have to do with history

Fig: she’s going to finish the the year I feel like or get a GED somehow but I don’t think she’ll go to a bard college or any college really, her house in the pit becomes a sort of hub for the rest of the bad kids with teleportation circles made by Ayda she goes back and forth between there Elmville and leviathan

Gorgug: maybe opening his own (magical) mechanics shop making items and magical vehicles for adventurers I think he would really love that. I also think the slower pace would be good for him (good for all of them really). Maybe it’s on leviathan and he hangs with Ayda and fig but I think where ever he was he would still meet with them

Fabian: I think he lives the most “true adventurer” life but quickly it becomes too much. He lives a more peaceful life but still goes on wild quests every now and again just with months inbetween. As mentioned before I think he has an apartment (let’s be honest a house) with Riz and probably Adaine too (at least as long as she and Riz at the same school) maybe regularly goes to forgets shop to “work on the hangman” but it’s really just to hang out, sails to leviathan even tho he could just take a teleportation circle because that’s what PaPa would do

I believe they will all stay close friends 100% even if they aren’t all together all the time anymore or if they are across the world. It will be different but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.