#Deep deep deep dive lol

[a-stormie-crt]

Long af rant about Velvette's old design and character as I share my art of her :D

Pilot Velvette/ Og Velvette gives extreme babydoll harley quinn vibes, which is a stark contrast from how she ended up being in the show. I like to imagine that something extreme happened to her, like a horrible breakup or betrayal, and she went all crazy. This is the version of her we see in the pilot. The Voxtagram stories seemed to lean into this, depicting her as more immature, bratty, and murderous. She also depended more on Vox and Val like she saw them more as father figures than co-workers. (Just a thought.) However, as she adapted more to the landscape of hell she became the Velvette in the show; A fashion icon girlboss who is much more independent and while not serious, much more mature than her pilot counterpart, and even the other Vees. They ditched her psycho vibe to replace it with something that made more sense to her character.

Something that I personally wonder is: Why was Velvette like this in the beginning if she was meant to focus on fashion? A puffy Lolita dress goes against the Vees whole idea of being up to date, so what was the original vision for her? People have complained about Velvette already having too much going on for her, being both the overlord of fashion, master of social media, backbone of the vees, selling a love potion, etc. If those ideas were already there, did they just think a crazy serial killer girl would be even more extra clutter to her personality? 

A concept many fans I've talked with is if the Vees personalities in the pilot stayed. Val would be pretty much the same, but the other two were almost different characters. In the Voxtagram stories, Vox let Val beat him around, had a goofy pet, and seemed to care less about his public image to remain more villainous. Velvette I already discussed was extremely different, the only thing connecting her to our Velvette is her connection with the Vees and fashion.  In this universe, would Velvette see Vox and Val as toxic dads who kept breaking up and getting back together again, instead of seeing them as equals and KEEPING THEM TOGETHER? it's a wild shift. 

Essentially, Pilot Velvette acted more like a bratty little girl, while her show version acts more like a annoyed but controlling teen. We see her pilot look as her profile picture, so this 'phase' of hers is still canon. I know she already died as an adult, which is why I'm so curious as to why she originally acted this way. Did Viv think she would be a better contrast to Vox and Val like this? To be fair, a spoiled brat AND annoyed girlboss are both contrasts of their personalities, just two different approaches. Was their originally going to be a backstory for her as to why she was this way? or was she just crazy to BE manipulative? or you know, just liked murder while looking cute like Niffty. speaking of Niffty…

I think Niffty is the most likely reason why they changed Velvette's design and personality. we already have a little crazy girl who admires 2 men she sees as older figures and enjoys murder for mysterious reasons. It mightv'e seemed a little counter-intuitive if there was 2 versions of the same character stereotype. Another reason they could've changed her is that she stands out more. If we're supposed to take Velvette as an overlord seriously, how are we supposed to do that when she leans back on the other two guys and looks like she's from a horror movie? Sure, I'm positive pilot Velvette could've been intimidating at times when she got legitimately frightening. however, this didn't seem like her vibe 95% of the time. It might've made her blend more into the background of the Vees than she practically already does. (Which is just a problem for female Vivzie characters but that's a whole separate rant.)

A headcanon of mine is that this was just her psycho little girl brat phase, and she is hella embarrassed over it. like a teen being embarrassed over their phases of when they were a kid. and Vox and Val would constantly piss her off by reminding her of it. That could lead to some fun banter in the future I would love to see as a reference to the pilot. 

Anyways, sorry for the literal Essay I wrote here again, just a ton of over-analyzing which I'm best at. Personally, I do vibe with Velvette's new design and character for the show, I just cant help but think of why she used to be so different and arguably had the BIGGEST character shift from pilot to show In Hazbin Hotel.

[imsodishy]

I know we all love when writers go deep down a research rabit hole on something really specific for the sake of a fic (I certainly am not immune to doing ridiculous research into minute details for no real reason lol)

but allow me, just for a moment, to sing the praises of ✨️vagueness✨️

Unfamiliar with a city's precise geography? Be real vague.

Want a character to be a doctor but don't know how surgery works? Mention it in passing.

Character plays a sport you know nothing about? Vague it up!

You don't know what specific brand of a thing would have been popular in that time and place? Go generic baby!!

You really can just hand-wave stuff that's not where you want the focus of your story to be without anything falling apart. The audience will look where you point them, like a magic trick! If the research is stopping you up and making progress hard or frustrating you can just... not do it.

[triaelf9]

Just a lil post about Taash and how I'm feeling about how ppl are reacting to them as someone who relates to them very strongly not only on the gender journey front, but also on the mom-issues front.

Cut for length b/c of course this won't actually be a "little" post lol

So I hear a lot of "Taash is too young" "Taash acts like a child" "Taash is too brash" "Taash has wildly binary views of the world" "Taash is thinks their reality is the world's reality" etc etc etc

And I'm here to say that as someone who realized that non-binary was a thing later in life, grew up trying to be them, but society was not only unwelcoming to that, but openly hostile at points, with a mom who had totally different interests, who very much wanted to protect them from the outside world to a point where it left them unprepared to deal with nuances of the world, etc, a mom who thought they were "just doing their best" but was never meant to be a mom, and never wanted to be a mom, didn't have the tools for mom-hood, who wanted to protect their child, but had no real idea how, and how every comment turned into the mom trying to steer her kid the right way, but just came out as a dig or a "you're not good enough" remark, AND looking after your mom in a world that is wholly unsuited to her, that she can't really adapt to and fit into, and kinda becoming her mom to a point so that your life completely revolves around her until you leave home?

Yeah. I get Taash. It's actually kinda freaky how, fantasy elements aside, I get Taash on a frightening level. (aside from the dragon stuff, we're both the same with that HELL YEAH DRAGONS)

Taash doesn't read young to me because I've always read young because of how I was raised. I didn't get the chance to figure myself out until I left home. I also had the benefit of being able to leave for college at a younger age, and got a chance to experience things away from my mom earlier. But seeing things in such a binary way, that's how it is when you're protected like that.

You don't want to admit how similar you are to how your mom sees the world, b/c she sees it in one way, and as you go through life, you get to learn differently. You come out of this situation INCREDIBLY judgmental at first. Why aren't THESE things conforming to MY reality. You come across as brash and childish. And when you get treated as such, it's triggering b/c that's how your mom treats you.

You hate how you look, you think you look like a freak b/c your mom is constantly commenting on your appearance. She does it out of love (she wants you to be healthy & not mocked by your peers) but she doesn't consider that constantly telling you not to look a certain way does damage. My self confidence only recovered in my thirties. I'm 4 days from my 38th birthday, and it took getting pregnant to finally be like "you know what, I don't hate myself & my body" which is MASSIVE for me.

So where do we get our self confidence? In things we enjoy, in hyperfocuses that we're good at. For me that's comics, naginata, fantasy & DA lore lol XD For Taash it's dragons, fighting, and working out. And when we falter there, it's devastating b/c it's the only way we can feel good about ourselves b/c our SELVES are disconnected and tucked away b/c they make us feel bad.

So I totally get how Taash reads to people. The autism aspects are more like my wife (who is autistic & has issues with social cues, while I'm HYPER AWARE of social stuff which fuels my anxiety b/c of the type of person my mom was and how I had to look after her), but I get it.

But it makes me sad when I hear people dunk on Taash as "bad writing" and "unrealistic" and "annoying" and it's like...is that how you see people like that? Is that how you see me and people like my wife? I feel like people aren't willing to look deeper so often (an issue with all the companions tbh & some day I'll have to get into my Davrin feels b/c BOY do I have them. Neve too, WHOOF) but I feel like if you do that in a game, I hope you don't do that irl.

anyway TLDR this is a Taash defense post b/c while they have a lot of issues, stuff they need to work out & have wrong opinions on stuff, they're growing, they're learning & they have to do it later than most. They're an incredibly complicated character with tons of nuance, and I can't wait to get deeper into their story and banter with companions in round 2 of my playthroughs, and then again in round 3

Sorry this is too long, and I'm sure not all of this was intended when they were written, but this is how it all clicked with me as someone who has lived a large portion of that stuff. Like, again, I'm nearly fucking FOURTY and I don't feel like I should be there yet b/c I started so far back. It ALSO doesn't help that ADHD wild child I was, I was held back in preschool b/c neurodivergence also makes a kid read younger, AND the choice to have me be the youngest in the class would have been a very bad one. So I'm older than most of my peers BUT I've always read younger, felt younger, and have had a sore spot when it comes to all that.

Thank you for coming to my Taash Talk, I'll be here all week to think about more stuff, including how their body makes them read as lady, and they're not sure how to feel about that, but they don't want to CHANGE it, but is it right?

ANYWHO this is why Taash is a fascinating character & deserves better than to be regulated to "annoying kid"

[lambilegs]

spent way too long on butch-femme twitter and am now heading to sleep at 5AM with a pit in my tummy about potentially never finding the right person one day </3

[liltaireissocute]

For your consideration: Vampire Anna

(hot crazy women with fangs awooga)

SO HI TO YOU ANON

btw anon do you know the song "lesbian vampires from outer space"? 'cause vampire!anna vibes exactly like this song :D

[tadc-and-md-sideblog]

"MY COOL BOYFRIEND IN HIS CAMPING FIT" 🤩💜💛💜💛

I FRICKIN LOVE NUZI SO MUCH AND I LOVE HOW EVEN IN THESE MERCH ADS THEY'RE STILL GETTING CONTENT 🤩🤩

We got a Nuzi date IN MAY 2025 and they HELD HANDS and STARGAZED and went SHOPPING TOGETHER and WERE THIS CLOSE TO POSSIBLY KISSING IF V HADN'T INTERRUPTED WAAAAAHHHH

y'all I'm so happy rn MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAA

[winnie-the-monster]

Outlander quotes that feel so Elucien coded to me:

“I can bear pain, myself, but I couldna bear yours. That would take more strength than I have.”

“Ye werena the first lass I kissed,” he said softly. “But I swear you’ll be the last.”

“I wanted ye from the first time I saw ye—but I loved ye when you wept in my arms and let me comfort you, that first time at Leoch.”

“I am your master…and you’re mine. Seems I canna possess your soul without losing my own.”

“It has always been forever, for me, Sassenach.”

“Do ye not understand?” he said, in near desperation. “I would lay the world at your feet, Claire—and I have nothing to give ye!”

“You are my courage, as I am your conscience,” he whispered. “You are my heart—and I your compassion. We are neither of us whole, alone. Do ye not know that, Sassenach?”

“Your face is my heart Sassenach, and the love of you is my soul.”

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

I hear some stuff about writing that doesn’t have believable or meaningful cultural differences when it comes to fantasy settings/cultures, so i want to ask: what exactly makes a culture meaningfully distinct? what differences in a culture make sense, or lack of differences that don’t? just like where do i start with all that it seems complicated

Disclaimer that I am a white american, so like I don't think im an expert on this lol a lot of other people probably have more to add with actual personal experience in seeing their own cultures crop up as bastardized fantasy cultures, possibly mixed up with a few other cultures as well. I am opening this up to my followers! Please add your opinions!

The first thing to note about fantasy culture is that it can be difficult to create a new culture entirely from scratch without taking ideas from real cultures, because of course the only references we have are real world human cultures! So step number one in writing a new cukture is to give yourself some grace, because you're going to end up with some details that might seem similar to any number of real cultures, and that in itself is not inherently a bad thing. It's not appropriative, for example, to write a fantasy culture that has some important dances involving some form of costume with masks. This concept alone can be found in several real cultures around the world because people like to use music and dance and costuming in order to tell stories, some of which even have religious significance.

But if, say, you find yourself directly referencing more specific real like cultural dances in this category, copying their styles and even taking the stories they tell with those dances, you should probably step back and rethink it.

A personal example: there is a dance in the opening chapters of my current story draft. It is an orcish funeral dance, in which a raven-like bird is shown guiding the spirit of the deceased person to the afterlife. Costumes and masks are used in this dance. But I also know that the real life Native American cultures in my own area have raven dances that tell specific stories about a sacred raven figure. So when I design the dance costumes and try to describe the dance in my story, i do my best to avoid copying real life raven dances. Am I perfect at it? Absolutely not. But I am trying.

And it helps to build up your fantasy cultures as whole interconnected things, not just disconnected pieces of things that seem cool or only support one or two plot points and have no other impact.

But I think maybe am diving in a little too deep too quick here, so let me back up.

I interpreted this ask at first about making fantasy cultures distinct from real world cultures, but the other interpretation is making fantasy cultures distinct from each other within their settings. Which is equally important!

For example, while in fantasy it is useful to kinda lump your people groups up as species (elves have elf culture, orcs have orc culture) it is also a good idea to vary them somewhat (elves from location A have a different culture than elves from location B, even though they share the same cultural ancestry and have more in common than they do with orc cultures)

Making these cultures meaningfully distinct, to me, means they feel organic and alive and not like cardboard cutouts reusing the same stock ideas every time. Which is not to say that you can't use the same ideas that are commonly used with things like elves and orcs, but that you should explore deeper and figure out what you personally enjoy about those fantasy folks and then expand on it.

The thing about culture is that it affects every aspect of people's lives. So your fantasy cultures also need to do that!

One common example I see is worldbuilding that has a surface level attempt to make a fantasy world modern and feminist by just having some female deities and putting female characters in leadership roles. But then immediately under the surface they're still using very patriarchal and sexist details that line up with exactly the real world they've grown up in. It's a lack of deeper thought. What does it actually mean for these fictional people to worship a goddess? Why if they're ruled by a matriarchal figure are they still degrading the role of motherhood and treating women as lesser than men? And why does the female protagonist feel like a #feminist not-like-other-girls girlboss from a Twitter thread? (This one is a major pet peeve of mine, can u tell)

Hmm I feel like i am saying an awful lot but I don't know if I have actually answered the question.

Let's go back to "how do I start?" Because I think that is the most important detail, right? Where do you begin to write distinct fantasy cultures that isn't just a list of "well here is some stuff other people do wrong" or "don't copy real world cultures".

Start with two groups of fantasy people. They don't have to be related.

What are their physical traits? Are they human or something else? What environment do they live in? What resources are available to them?

With those resources, what can they make? What do they eat? How do they gather the resources they have access to?

What do they consider to be important? How does thus affect their social structure? Their form of government? Their spiritual beliefs? Do they value wealth? How does that look for them?

You'll want to explore several different cultural topics and connect them back to these central questions. Some important topics are clothing and accessories, transportation, architecture, cuisine, and entertainment.

If your two people groups live in separate environments and/or are different species, it will be easier to create unique distinctions between their cultures. But if they are the same species in the same environment, they may share some cultural foundations and differ more in things like spiritual practices and social structures (like government). The important thing to keep in mind is that the details of their culture will effect every part of their lives, so you need to create consistent rules for how to write them.

Also, people who interact with each other will end up influencing each other in one way or another. How do these two groups interact? What do they trade? Are they allies or enemies? Does either group oppress the other? What does that look like in this case?

And then of course you can repeat this process as much as you like with more groups in your world. And don't be afraid to research real life cultures! You do actually want to know what's common in particular environments. Like for example, what clothing styles are most common in arid environments? How about cold environments? What animals and plants are available as resources in a temperate forest?

I think a lot of us are tired of seeing desert dwelling fantasy people who wear skimpy outfits that would actually give them serious sunburns and heat stroke, for example. Please stop doing that.

I have also seen some newly popular fantasy books that give absolutely zero consideration to what the people in their worlds would actually have access to and know about. Like a woman living in a fantasy desert surrounded by sand and suffering through a near constant drought, with no mention of any other countries with more fertile land, should not be able to easily access any grain based alcohol while complaining of a lack of water rations. She also should not just casually make reference to a "feast day turkey". Girl what turkey. What whiskey. You don't have those things. You live in a place that resembles Tattooine. (Sorry, more pet peeves)

Just put some actual thought into your fictional cultures and be genuinely curious about it! If you're having fun with it, exploring all the options and making it consistently cohesive, it will read fine. Also just have the chutzpah to pull it off. A fantasy world that unapologetically and enthusiastically puts a lamp post in the middle of a forest is better written than one that seems to just copy every common vaguely-old-fashioned-western-europe fantasy setting that has ever been written and never does anything new or fun with it.

Your elves can still be nigh immortal forest people who do archery, your orcs can still be big buff warrior types, but you gotta find a way to make them your own and have some fun with it.

[dynamightmite]

In his moment of triumph, he chooses to announce himself with that childish, beloved nickname. Because before he was ever THE Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight, he was already a hero to someone. And that's the person he wants to be known as.

[moonlitkissing]

Recent fantasy: an inexperienced friend asking me about how he can tell that his future partner is cumming - he's read that many women fake their orgasms and now he's scared he won't be able to tell the difference and if i could give him some pointers?

So I offer to show him how it feels instead. He nods hesitantly, face flushed and attempting in vain to hide behind his short hair, but his eyes stay glued to my body while I'm undressing.

Slowly, I spread my legs wider, shifting both our focus on my pussy, and trail one hand down, spread it for him with my fingers. Poor boy looks about ready to faint, but he does his very best to stay focused and listen to my explanations. I show him my clit, tell him that many girls cum from clit stimulation, that prenetation isn't always enough and that he shouldn't feel bad about it.

I start up a rhythm of tight circles on my clit as I'm talking so my words occasionally tip over in a moan, and his eyes grow wider with every single one of them. But he also leans forward, pants tenting as he watches me touch myself right before him.

After checking that he's okay with touching, I grab his hand and drag it to my pussy, instructing him to put two fingers in. He groans when he does, mumbling about how tight, how wet i am around his fingers, how soft it feels. I clench more or less involuntary around him and laugh softly at his startled expression and tell him that he's doing everything right, to crook his fingers, to keep repeating that motion.

I let him finger me for a while, let him find his rhythm while I'm still working my clit, climbing steadily higher and higher. Eventually, he looks up from where his fingers disappear inside me and watches my expression instead, cheeks still flushed but for another reason now.

"Close," I tell him around a moan and press harder on my clit, pleasure shooting through my middle with every crook of his fingers and every press of mine.

It's almost more rewarding to watch his face than the feeling of the orgasm washing over my body when it happens. His mouth is slightly open, eyes lazer focused on my pussy once more as it keeps clenching around his fingers, and he mutters a breathy "fuck" over the noises my wetness makes.

I have to take a minute to catch my breath and another to gingerly pull his hand free from my body but when I do, I'm met with the most bashful smile and a cute little "thank you"

[wigglebox]

Bedtime Stories 🌙

[wordssricochet]

something i stole from pinterest

[ilynpilled]

im sorry but this fandom is so funny when they conflate and try to incorrectly contrast “redemption arcs” in this story. first of all the primary focus of most of these other characters isnt even taking a deep and complicated look at redemption specifically as a figure both within the text and out of it, and second of all they are often kinda incomparable with what approach they take and what they are actually exploring when touching on the subject

[generic-enthusiast]

Johnny always loved the sea. There wasn’t a first time he thought of it, or some grand moment of realisation, it just always was.

He’d never seen the sea, of course, living in Tulsa, but he had imagined it. Someday, once he got out of that house and made a life of his own, he was going to see it. Maybe he didn’t have an exact plan as to how, but he knew he would. 

The ocean was freedom. He didn’t need to have seen it to know. It was there, in “Oh Captain, My Captain”, and Impression: Sunrise and all of Ponyboy’s drawings and everything he read out loud when the two of them sat alone in his room, passing the time when there was nothing else to do. 

There were no buildings out at sea. No Corvettes, no greasers, no Socs with their rings and Mustangs and Madras. There were no stifling houses with screaming parents, no cement beds with newspaper sheets. 

It would just be Johnny and his boat and more water than he could ever imagine. 

It would be beautiful, too. So beautiful he wouldn’t need Ponyboy to remind him to pay attention to it, not the way he needed to remember to watch the sunset, sometimes climbing a tree so he could see over the buildings. Not the way he needed to remember fireflies were dots of flame, flying around, not pests he wanted to kill. Not the way he needed to constantly remind himself that someone designed that house, someone grew those flowers there, someone put everything where it is right now, because they wanted to make it beautiful. 

It would just be beautiful. 

At just sixteen, he didn’t know where life would lead him, other than out of Tulsa. He didn’t know how he would get to California or Florida or anywhere else he could finally see the ocean. 

He just knew that he would. No matter what it took. 

Molly doesn’t know what she was imagining when she went to nursing school, but it definitely wasn’t this. 

She thought she would be calming down babies who needed to get shots, telling kids to stay still so the doctor could measure and weigh them. At worst, she thought she might get a moody teenager with an impatient mother. 

She’d be helping people, putting her years of memorising body parts and metabolic processes to use. 

But they don’t teach you how to comfort a fourteen-year-old with a dead best friend in nursing school. So she hands him a handkerchief and offers to call his parents. He doesn’t seem to notice she’s there, just grabs onto the dead boy’s hand stronger — sixteen, he was just sixteen — and whispers his name. Johnny. 

She walks away after a couple minutes. There’s paperwork to be done when someone dies, and it’s her turn to do it. Linda showed her how to do it in her first week.

Quite honestly, Herbert just wants to go home. Working at the local registry office isn’t fun, it isn’t mentally stimulating, and he really would like to just go home, have a glass of wine, and read the same book to his kids for the thirtieth time. 

With still an hour until closing time, a young woman steps inside. 

“Hello there, how can I help you?” 

“I’d, um… I’d like to register a death. And get a certificate for a cremation.”

“Of course.” The job may be boring, but most of it is better than this. Dealing with mourning families who have to sort through funeral rites and paperwork. It seems cruel to put them through it. “Name?”

“Mine or of the… the deceased?”

“Yours first.”

“Right. Molly Waters.”

“Relation to the deceased?”

“I was the nurse whose care he was under. He died of uh… we’re not entirely sure what. Could have been smoke inhalation, intense burns…” She trails off. Ah. First time. 

“And his name?”

“Jonathan Cade.”

It never gets easier to handle corpses. 

Michael’s been working at the crematorium for almost ten years now — known he actually wants to be an engineer for eight — and he can still feel the acid rolling around in his stomach with every body he’s given. But if the old bodies are depressing and unsettling, Michael can’t begin to describe what the corpse he’s just received has made him feel. 

He can’t have been older than fifteen, this boy, and never ate a good meal by the looks of it. He’s so thoroughly burnt it seems cruelly ironic that he would ask for a cremation. Makes you wonder what sort of a teenager has funeral rites on his mind. 

Michael tears his eyes away from the boy and closes the box. 

Time for the chamber. 

He sets the clock and starts to wait. 

Most of the cremation process is waiting — there are shortcuts, he’s sure, but they’re heartless, not to mention probably illegal. 

So he waits for two hours until it all turns to ash. Then he takes what’s left of the boy out of the chamber and waits for it — him? — to cool down. Once he puts the ashes in an urn, he has to wait for the closest family member — a man named Darrel Curtis — to come pick it up.  

Most of Michael’s life has been spent waiting. Waiting for the chamber to do its work and waiting for the time to be right and waiting for his father to retire and waiting for a sign from the universe. 

Waiting for time to pass him by.  

At least he’s done something with his life. He’s done something small here or there, something that actually mattered for once. It adds up. Slowly but surely.

But this boy… he’s hardly had enough moments for any of them to count. And he won’t get any more. 

Someday, neither will Michael. 

And Jesus if that isn’t depressing. 

He closes the crematorium chamber and picks up the phone, taking a mental note to ask around for a replacement. 

“Hey, Rosie? It’s Mike. Yeah, I know it’s been a while. I wanted to say sorry.”

Sometimes, if Darry doesn’t talk for a while, his lips will start to fuse together. Something else probably also has to happen — they don’t always stick —, but under the right circumstances, his lips will stick together a bit more than usual and it feels sort of nice to have himself closed off. It used to happen in class all the time, until he was called on and had to unstick them. It was always kind of disappointing.

It hadn’t happened in years when he walked outside to get the mail and found a bag stuffed in their mailbox, a shoebox on the floor next to it holding more bags and their usual letters.  

Two-Bit’s started carrying the chewed-up pencil tucked behind his ear, Steve’s wearing his DX nametag again, Soda still hasn’t told them what he found, and Ponyboy carries the drawing folded up in his pocket and opens it up sometimes. Darry has the football in his closet, beside his work shirts. He takes a moment to look at it before he gets dressed every morning. Takes a moment to remember.

Three days ago, Darry went to sleep with that same feeling of his lips being glued together. It had been a while since he felt it last, probably back in high school, when he was expected to spend hours in silence, listening to teachers. 

Only his lips still feel like they’ve fused together, because he only ever opens his mouth to eat, and ten minutes after eating, it’s like nothing ever happened. 

No one’s said much. 

There’s not much to say.

They’re still waiting for closure. Dally’s buried already, has a tombstone nearby Mom and Dad. But Johnny wanted to be cremated. They’re still not entirely sure what to do with his ashes, ashes Darry only brought home today. 

“Darry?” 

Ponyboy’s voice sounds small, like it has for a week. Darry wonders when it’ll go back to normal. If it ever will. 

“Yeah, Pony?” Unsticking his lips has always been a strange sensation, but never more relieving than right now.

“I was thinking, uh…” Ponyboy opens his mouth and closes it again, trying to find what exactly to say. “I remember we used to talk about the— the sea.” Darry’s about to ask who “we” is before realising there’s only one possibility. “He— he always wanted to see it. Said he’d get to see it if it killed him.”

The sentence hangs in the air between them. 

“I figured, since we don’t know what to do with his— his… him. I figured we could spread the ashes at the sea. I think it’s— it’s what he woulda wanted.” 

“Oh.” 

Ponyboy stays still, looking at him expectantly. 

“I– uh, yeah. We should… we should do that.”

Darry spends the next couple days tracing out a route on their map. His dad always told him not to do it, that it would end up confusing him if he drew out too many, and the map would end up being useless. 

Somehow, he can’t bring himself to think Dad would disapprove. 

The closest beach is Galveston. Due south, through Dallas. 

He tries to find a way around it, another beach they can go to, but everything else is too far and they can’t afford that many days off of work. How ironic. Go through Dallas to bring Johnny peace.   

There must be some sort of metaphor there. He’d ask Pony if it weren’t so fucking depressing. 

The gang all manage to carve out a bit of time, so come Saturday at seven AM (with no small amount of grumbling) they pile into Darry’s truck and start heading south. 

Ponyboy’s carrying the urn in his lap, and he looks down at it every couple seconds, as if to make sure it’s still there. He’s on the far right of the back seat, Soda beside him, Steve on the far left. Two-Bit’s next to Darry, sifting through the bag of snacks he brought. 

Usually a road trip just means Two-Bit and Soda are more annoying than usual because no one can escape, and Steve and Ponyboy start elbowing each other and jostling the whole car until they have to stop to get them to sit further apart. But no one feels like laughing right now, and there’s just three people in the back seat — more than enough space.

The engine in Darry’s truck has never been as loud as it is right now, rumbling underneath the silence, not daring to break it.

Sometimes the urn catches a bit of sunlight and Darry can just make it out in the corner of his eye. 

“Are we supposed to talk about him?” Ponyboy asks after a good ten-minute drive. 

For a beat, they’re all quiet. 

“I don’t think there’s any sort of ‘supposed to’ right now,” Soda answers.

And they fall back into silence. 

Darry should be saying something. Following through with Ponyboy’s idea, starting a round of memories. Lightening the air by telling a nice story, something to remind them all of how Johnny really was. 

But all he can remember is when he failed him worst.

“Y’know, when Pony told me that Johnny wanted to see the sea —” Two-Bit smiles at the play on words but it’s tainted by the sadness that’s dripping all around them “ — I didn’t remember anything about it. Thought it was one of those things they just talked about between them, that none of us knew about.”

It’s subtle, but the whole car’s listening to Darry. Steve’s looking out the window, but his eyes flicker from the cars outside to Darry; Soda’s playing with his hands, but he slows down when Darry starts talking; Two-Bit’s sifting through the snack bag, but he’s making sure not to make anything crinkle too loudly; and Ponyboy’s drumming his fingers on Johnny’s urn, staring at Darry with wide eyes. 

“Then I thought about it a while. And uh— it wasn’t. Johnny tried to tell me, one day. Bit after junior year ended, I think. I was tellin’ him ‘bout how I wanted to get out of here, go to college and study finance or somethin’ like that, and he said that he wanted to too, said the buildings were suffocating, you can hardly see the sky.

“He was just startin’ to talk about the sea — called it beautiful an’ freeing, I think — when the phone rang and I told him to hold on a minute. It was Paul, or Mark, or someone. They were gonna play ball and I headed out with hardly a goodbye.”

This is the part where someone says it’s not his fault. Where someone says he couldn’t possibly know it would be that important to him, he couldn’t know the conversation would matter, he was just a kid, he made a mistake. 

But no one does.

They settle into silence again. It takes thirty seconds for anyone to say anything else and it’s just “That’s fucked up” from Steve. 

There’s not much to say to follow that, so the silence frees up some space in Steve’s throat, letting the scream nestled in his chest crawl up his esophagus, scratching at the back of his tongue.

He wants to scream. He wants to yell at the top of his lungs, holler until he can’t anymore, until there’s no air left inside him, until he’s as empty as he feels.

There’s so much he didn’t tell them, so much he never had the guts to say, and he can’t stop thinking about what he would do if they had more time. 

The name tag’s still in his hand, the pin needling at his finger pad.

"Don’t pretend like you hate the kid. You're not foolin' anyone but him, an' someday it'll be too late."  

Jesus, he wants to scream. 

But he can’t, not inside the truck with all his friends around him, and he can’t, not so soon after Johnny screamed for the last time. 

Because if it weren’t for Johnny, Steve would still be that stupid, angry kid that kicked shit when he was mad. If it weren’t for that one day, one completely normal day where Steve got kicked out again and he ran to the Curtises’. 

And it was empty — he thought it was empty because he called out and no one answered — so he threw the pillows down on the sofa and punched the wall until his knuckles hurt and did all he could to make everything else hurt — everything but himself. 

And once he was done, standing next to the couch, gripping the armrest, Johnny came walking out of the kitchen and said evenly, “I usually just scream.”

And Steve froze. It was supposed to be empty. 

“I’m alone,” Johnny told him. 

Steve sat down on the couch. “What do you mean, you scream?”

“I mean when I’m mad, I scream. I find some place where no one can hear me — I ain’t got a car so nowhere too far — and I scream. Usually near Buck’s. Music’s so loud no one can hear, and if they do, they assume it’s a fight they don’t wanna be in.”

Then Johnny walked past Steve and out the front door. 

“Where you goin’?”

“To get Pony from the library. Wouldn’t put it past the Socs to jump a twelve-year-old.” When he was about to leave, he turned around on his heel and looked Steve in the eyes. “I don’t reckon anyone’d think too much ‘bout someone yellin’ ‘round here.” He laughed humourlessly. “God knows my folks do, and no one bothers much.”

And he turned around and left. 

And, y’know, Steve never thanked him for that? Not when he came back with Ponyboy, and Steve was sitting in Darrel’s armchair, drinking water to relieve his throat. Not when a drunk caught him out behind Buck’s and he just narrowly escaped a jumping. Not when he found a field a half hour away where no one could hear. Not when it all became too much for Soda, and Steve brought him out so he could scream too. 

Hell, Soda probably doesn’t even know Johnny thought it up. 

“We didn’t do good by him, did we?” Steve asks the silent car. 

“I don’t think we could,” Soda answers. “Was too good for this world.”

And it’s the truth.

Ponyboy once told Soda that it was like he understood everyone. Soda smiled and ruffled his hair and said “thanks, buddy” and didn’t ask who was left to understand him because he already knew the answer was no one. 

Maybe someone could’ve but no one bothered. No one bothered to try and look past the smile that came as easily as breathing. Whenever it fell, whenever the mask broke, a couple pats on the back and half-hearted smiles were supposed to be enough. 

Even Steve didn’t know what to do when Soda came crying to him. He tried, sure, but he could never get the right words out. 

So when Soda cried, he cried alone. 

Until he collapsed onto the couch after skipping seventh and eighth period and rolled his head back and let himself feel the tears tickle as they crawled down his face because for three hours — three hours — he tried to get it. He spent an hour trying to read it last night, even had Pony try and read it out loud to him (isn’t that humiliating, having your little brother help you with school?) but he just couldn’t concentrate so he skipped out on chemistry to try and read it but the words swam in his head and he was thinking about the conversation he had with Steve yesterday and then the bell rang and he still hadn’t read a paragraph so he took math too and then it was English and he still hadn’t read the homework and Mr Anderson called on him and—

He let out a pathetic little sigh, hiccuping through it quietly. 

The couch cushion sank beside him and his head shot up. Johnny was sitting down next to him. 

“You okay man?” He asked, eyes flickering to Soda. 

“Why’m I so fucking stupid?”

Oh, don’t say that, honey, you know it’s not true. 

No, you ain’t. 

You’re a smart kid, Pepsi-Cola. If ya just try a bit harder I’m sure your grades’ll go up. 

You ain’t dumb, Soda. Just takes you a while longer to learn, that’s all. 

“School’s bullshit,” Johnny said, and lay his head on Soda’s shoulder. 

And he let Soda rant until their family came home. About school, about grades, about how stupid Mrs Morrisson made him feel, about how Pony could do better than him in his classes.

When the rest of the gang got back from wherever they had been, Johnny said they’d been talking about last week’s drag race and they changed the topic to Kyle Terry’s obvious cheating, everyone talking over each other so loudly they hardly noticed when Soda didn’t contribute. 

And then Johnny never mentioned it again. (Neither did Soda. Didn’t thank him, didn’t ask if he wanted to talk about anything.)

“Didn’t deserve the cards he got.” Two-Bit sighs and shuffles around a bit. 

A couple of them hum in agreement but no one answers. It’s not fair that they’re here, talking about him and that he’s here but not really, here but not whole, here but not alive.

He meant it when he said they could get along without anyone but Johnny. Johnny’s the only one they couldn’t take losing.  

He lays his head on the headrest behind him, looks up, and closes his eyes. 

It takes a little over half an hour for Two-Bit to hear the sobs. He’s clearly trying to cover them up, but the house isn’t exactly big, and the walls aren’t exactly soundproof, so Two sneaks out of his bedroom. 

Johnny’s on the couch Two-Bit’s Mama bought at a flea market two years ago, his face pressed into that pillow Grandma made before she died. His chest is shaking and his knees are pulled up against him.  

Two-Bit tries his best not to scare Johnny as he sits down beside him, but he flinches anyway. Kid’s been trained to jump at any small noise. That fucking bastard. 

“H-hey.” He hiccups, burrowing his face in the pillow again. “Sorry for wakin’ you.” His voice comes out muffled.  

“Don’t be,” Two-Bit says. 

“An’ I’m sorry for bein’ here so much, I know you ain’t got the space or nothing, but it’s only been three days and Darry— he can’t—”

“I know, Johnnycake, I don’t mind.” He puts his arm around Johnny’s shoulder and pulls him towards him. 

There’s only two years between them, but something about Johnny reminds Two-Bit of his little sister and turns him into a big brother whenever he sees him. 

“I miss ‘em too,” Two-Bit whispers, “We all do.”

“I know,” Johnny whispers back. 

Two-Bit is rudely snapped out of his half-lucid dream by an obnoxiously loud clang coming from the trunk. Ponyboy jumps and grabs the urn protectively as though someone would try to steal it. 

“Shit,” Darry mutters and turns back to try and see what it was. 

“Just an old beer bottle,” Soda calls out, “bumped into a bucket or something.”

The silence settles back in and it’s so acutely uncomfortable. It’s never happened before, that silence is uncomfortable with the gang. They know each other so well, they’re so attuned to each other that silence hardly ever exists, and when it does, it’s never awkward. Or, at least, never awkward like this.  

“Can we, uh… Can we put on music?” Ponyboy asks. He could deal with silence most of the time, but this one was suffocating. 

“Yeah, sure, little buddy.” Keeping his eyes on the road, Darry feels around for the button and turns on the radio. 

Everybody loves somebody sometime

Everybody falls in love somehow

Of fucking course it’s this song. Because what else could play while a cold urn burns holes in Ponyboy’s legs?

He can’t ask for them to turn it off though, not without someone asking why, and he’s not about to get into that. 

He’s not about to get into that summer day last year, when it was too hot to do anything so Johnny and Ponyboy just laid around in Pony’s room, listening to the radio. Then the song came on and Ponyboy started wondering. 

Most thirteen-year-olds had at least had a crush. Boys in Ponyboy’s grade whispered things to girls in class and they giggled back; plenty of them called things out at girls down the street — which, sure Pony did too, but they actually meant it —; and every kept on shoving Mary at Thomas to see how he turned red. Soda said he’d grow into it eventually but shouldn’t he have already grown into it? Everyone else had. 

“Hey, Johnny?”

“Yeah?”

“D’you— D’you think they do?”

“Huh?” Johnny asked, sitting up on Pony’s bed. Pony looks up at him from where he’s laying on the floor. 

“D’you think everybody really does love somebody? Like the song says?” 

Johnny took a moment to think and the question started to weigh down on Ponyboy’s chest. It was a stupid question, wasn’t it? Johnny’d think he was some sort of freak.

“I dunno,” Johnny said after a while, “I don’t think everybody does anything.” A beat. “S’not bad not to, I don’t think. Don’t need it to be happy.”

Ponyboy hummed and Johnny lay back down and they went back to listening to the radio, as if the conversation never happened. 

Sometimes Ponyboy would wonder if Johnny even remembered the conversation. If he remembered it when a distant relative asked too many pointed questions about whether he liked any girls yet, when school friends pointed out hot girls on the street, when a love song came on on the radio, or if that just happened to Pony. 

The car stutters to a halt. 

Here they are. Four PM, they didn’t even stop for food. 

They walk along the beach, trying to find a place to settle down and… do whatever it is they need to do. Their shoes kick up clouds of sand that get in each other’s eyes, and they have to circle around a couple groups of people. At some point, Ponyboy — who somehow got put in charge of leading the group — stops and walks towards the sea, stopping right before the wet sand starts. 

Quite honestly, the beach is depressing as shit. 

The sun’s light is relentlessly bright — he can’t even look down at the urn without being blinded, they can still smell the highway that isn’t that far behind, and the sounds of the city reach them perfectly well. There’s no direction Ponyboy can turn in so he doesn’t see the skyscrapers — taller than Tulsa’s — looming over him. 

This isn’t what Johnny would’ve wanted. 

“He thought—” Ponyboy laughs humourlessly, “He thought it would be beautiful and freein’.”

“Well, fuck me if this is beautiful,” Steve says. 

The sea— it isn’t even blue. It’s closer to the murky grey of old concrete. 

“I sure as hell ain’t spreadin’ his ashes here.” The metal’s growing hot under Ponyboy’s hands. 

“Maybe it’s better that he ain’t here to see this. It’d be worse if he lived his whole life waitin’ for this only to get here and have it be…” Soda gestures vaguely at the disappointment that calls itself the sea.

“Ain’t it good that he had somethin’ to hope for?” Darry asks, speaking for the first time since his impromptu confession in the car, “Maybe it ain’t the way he imagined, but it gave him somethin’ to dream about. Look forward to, maybe. Made him happy, even if he never saw it.”

He pauses for a second and Ponyboy wonders if there’s anyone there that isn’t thinking about Darry’s dreams of going to college. 

“You don’t gotta get everything you want. Sometimes it’s the wantin’ that makes you happy.”

The drive back is a whole new level of dangerous, starting in the late afternoon and going into the early hours of the morning. No one drives for more than two hours straight, and they all get something drawn on them when they fall asleep next to Two-Bit.

Ponyboy holds the urn between his arms, same as he did on the way there, and once, when Steve and Soda are bickering and everyone else is asleep, he brings his mouth near the top of the urn and whispers: 

“I hope wantin’ made you happy, Johnny.” 

Based on this post by @ outsidersheadcanons

[mumms-the-word]

Shadow Curse Events Pt. 1

Ketheric, Selûne, Shar, and Aylin

I’ve played through the game a few times at this point and I always find myself struggling to understand the timeline or at least order of events that occurred with the Shadow Curse. I know some things conflict because there was one version of the story in Early Access (the version where Halsin accidentally killed Isobel) and it was heavily altered for the final version of the game, and some things just got *gestures vaguely* waved away, but I keep wanting to make sense of it anyway.

So that’s what this post (edit: I mean series) is going to do. After the cut, obviously. Long deep dive post ahead! Picture of a tired Ketheric for attention and because same bro c':

TLDR: These events happen either in the 1370s or the 1390s. Ketheric loses Melodia (his wife) and Isobel (his daughter) and turns to Shar. He captures Aylin, then builds a Big Dark Justiciar Army, training them and forcing them to kill Aylin over and over. Meanwhile, a Selûnite resistance is brewing in the town, and it's kind of making everything worse. One Selûnite rebel even goes so far as to make a deal with a devil. And all of that is BEFORE the Harpers and druids arrive as an army.

We don’t have dates, unfortunately, aside from knowing that the shadow curse itself was unleashed about a century ago, so “timeline” would be a loose term to use if/when I use it. But I have two theories about when it happened.

One theory is that because the Spellplague was happening between 1385-1395 DR (during which there was neither a true Weave nor a Shadow Weave, which is what the shadow curse is made of), the shadow curse likely started around 1396-1399, just shy of a full 100 years before the game’s events in 1492. But that’s just me conjecturing based on the idea that if the Shadow Weave is gone…how does the shadow curse stick around? 

The other theory is that the shadow curse was unleashed sometime between 1371 and 1374. This is because a) Dark Justiciars were still being sent by Ketheric Thorm to destroy Moonhaven (the Blighted Village) in 1371 (Ketheric writes a letter about attacking Moonhave and a journal dated 1371 boasts that Ilyn Toth, the basement apothecary-necromancer dude, got killed by Dark Justiciars) and b) because Khelben Arunsun himself, the literal Blackstaff (super powerful and very old wizard), wrote a letter negotiating surrender on behalf of the Harpers.

We cannot be party to the suffering of the people of Reithwin, and indeed, of the great loss of life that this war will visit upon the Sword Coast - and, perhaps, beyond it. So it is written, and so let it be done, Khelben Arunsun, on behalf of the High Harper Council and its allies.

Wiki says Khelben broke his alliance with the Harpers in 1370 due to some disagreements, but it’s possible his splinter faction was at the battlefield with the other Harpers. I doubt he was there personally, but who knows. I wouldn’t go any earlier than 1371, though, because Baldur’s Gate II happens in 1369, and Jaheira would have been too busy dealing with those events to deal with Ketheric too. But it can’t be later than 1374,  because Khelben Arunsun dies in 1374.

(I have questions about how the shadow curse survived the Spellplague and the loss of the Shadow Weave, but the answer to that could simply be All Magic Was Weird and Unstable at the time…plus Thaniel was already in the Shadowfell by this time, so the land couldn't heal.)

So it’s either 1371-1374 (because of the Khelben timeline, and I guess the Spellplague didn’t affect it) or it’s 1396-1399 (because of the Spellplague, but the writers just forgot Khelben was dead by that point, or maybe his ghost wrote the surrender notice idk). Both are good enough for Halsin and Jaheira to talk about things happening “a century ago,” but you can see why I’m avoiding dates.

But let’s push it back a few more decades. Back when Ketheric was a Selûnite and Isobel a very small child.

As we’re probably all well aware, during this time, Ketheric worships Selûne along with his wife, Melodia. At some point, he even commissions the local Mason’s Guild to build Moonrise as a testament to Selûne herself, according to Morfred the mason (who you can talk to in House of Hope, it’s pretty cool). Ketheric and Melodia have Isobel, but then Melodia dies while Isobel is still pretty young. Ketheric remains a Selûnite, mostly for Isobel’s sake, until she dies too.

Ketheric: I’ll tell you a story, True Soul. About a man who sold himself piece by piece. He had…everything. A wonderful wife. A brilliant daughter. They lived not far from here. His wife died too young. Grief tore through their home like a thief, snatching away the scent of her hair, the rustle of her skirts. But the man did not break. He could not break. His daughter needed him whole, after all. She grew up—grew strong. Challenged him. Filled his heart with such joy it supplanted all sorrow. When she was killed, the man…he tried to remain whole, but it wasn’t possible. Do you understand? Player: So the man fell to pieces. Ketheric: The pain was unbearable. All-consuming. He decided he’d do anything for reprieve. First, he sold himself to the goddess of loss. But the pain did not subside, no matter his obscene feats of devotion. Then a new god came—a god who promised the man something wonderful: his daughter. Her life returned. Imagine it. He would have to give everything: his body and soul entire. He did not hesitate. Not for a moment.

We know this story. Ketheric turns to Shar and everything goes Very, Very Badly. But the exact details/order of Ketheric's Sharran days are a little hazy. So here's what I've been able to piece together to sate my own curiosity.

While Ketheric is still a faithful (but waning) Selûnite, Dame Aylin visits as an emissary of Selûne. Moonrise/Reithwin is a Selûnite refuge and the Thorms are allegedly devout favorites of the moon goddess, so it's a big deal. While she's there, she and Isobel fall in love. Ketheric disapproves, in part because Aylin is immortal and Isobel is not (Isobel and Aylin both say this in dialogue).

Plus, and this is a personal opinion, I think Ketheric might have seen Aylin's interest in Isobel as another thing Selûne was trying to take from him. It isn't enough that Selûne let Melodia die, now her daughter is trying to woo his daughter and take her too.

But then Isobel dies. Somehow. The launch version of the game isn’t clear how. Aylin mourns but Ketheric spirals. He turns to Shar, hoping she will force him to forget about Isobel, but he doesn't. Nevertheless, he becomes a zealous Sharran.

[A journal spanning years, beginning with the birth of a child and ending with what appears to be a series of dateless tragedies.] How can she be gone? Where did she go? The Moonmaiden cannot be so unfeeling - so cruel. Not toward her most devoted servant. Not after Melodia. It makes no sense. It makes no sense. I won't survive it. That much I know. Forgetting is the only possibility. The embrace of oblivion. The reprieve of nothingness. It would not be possible for a man to survive knowing what he knows. Knowing what can be lost. Shar understands that. Hers is the only mercy I can comprehend. My mind is full of holes - yet not enough. The emptiness. The time. The nothingness. And still I remember. Still I remember it all. There is no mercy in this beating heart. There is no mercy in life at all.

He builds the Gauntlet of Shar (or maybe renovates and Shar-ifies it, maybe it was already there) beneath the Thorm mausoleum, connecting it to the much more ancient Grymforge area. Grymforge becomes a kind of base or stronghold for the Justiciar army while the Gauntlet is designed to test their mettle and prepare them for the task that will make them official Dark Justiciars—killing Aylin, though it's not clear when Ketheric and Balthazar lure her into the Shadowfell.

I'll get back to that later.

We know that Grymforge was used as a Dark Justiciar stronghold and possible training ground because of all the Sharran stuff we find there. It's like super obvious. The feasthall room, the dormitories, the weapons that lay everywhere. There's basically a whole Sharran city in the Underdark beneath and near Reithwin, some of which we can see from various points in Grymforge. In fact, if you go through the poisoned room where Nere is, you can see the Gauntlet down below.

(It's a little hard to see here 'cause I play on console but there's a glimpse of the giant Shar statue that takes up a ton of space in the Gauntlet. Somehow, the two places used to connect.)

Ketheric's new Sharran teachings are ruthless and vicious. He encourages his Dark Justiciars to kill a Selûnite once a tenday or more as part of their training and service to the Lady of Loss.

The Law of Nightfall: From the moon falls the foulest of lights. iIt peeks through cracks and fissures, illuminating the most remote recesses of the Underdark. Light bestows hope, a pernicious notion which must be extinguished. At the darkest hour, pray to your Lady and feast in Her honour. The second day after, slay a disciple of Selûne. If none may be found, a Lathanderian or Mystran are an acceptable offering. Do this once a tenday, and the Lady of Loss shall know you.

Reithwin and the surrounding village soon become a hunting ground. Most people convert. Those who don't get hung in the square as examples (according to a shadow memory). All faithful Selûnites are forced to practice their devotion to the Moonmaiden in secret, led by Morfred the mason and his brother Halfred the innkeeper of Last Light Inn. Halfred hides Selûnite relics beneath Last Light (you can still find them) while Morfred plots a true resistance.

[Hidden amidst columns detailing the income and expenditure of a tavern is an aside, written in tiny, urgent handwriting.] I have concealed the sacred relics of our revered goddess in the darkest corner of this place. Morfred, my loyal brother, seeks to forge a network of allies to stand against the oppressive reign of Ketheric Thorm. Sadly, fear has gripped the hearts of many, turning them away from our cause. I cannot truly blame them, for trepidation fills my soul as well - but I must put aside my own fears and reunite with Morfred in the bowels of the Mason's Guild. Together, we shall preserve what we can of the Moonmaiden's light, and hope that the banners of the faithful soon rise against that treacherous dog, Thorm.

But as time goes on, Morfred grows increasingly distressed with the events happening in Reithwin and the ease with which people are eager to switch faiths.

- How quickly things change. The Thorms are Selûnite through and through - or so I believed. Perhaps Ketheric only converted for Melodia, and with her death - and then his daughter's - his faith died too. But to turn to Shar? It beggars belief. - Ketheric's Justiciars are growing greater in number, and more determined to rout out any traces of Selûne in Reithwin. Why do they think this town was built? One cannot rip out the foundations of a building and expect it to remain standing. - Brother and I remain the last two bastions of Our Lady of Silver in the town. A few - the trusting few - come to worship in secret by moonlit nights. Others - converts, all. Whether they truly believe, I cannot say. Impossible, isn't it?

(Don't worry, the second page is further down lol spoilers!)

Life is not going well in Reithwin, even if you're not a Selûnite. Ketheric is determined to destroy all traces of Selûne and treason of any kind. His Dark Justiciars begin tormenting citizens to reveal pockets of Selûnite resistance. He also suffers no treasonous word against him, even if the citizens in question aren't Selûnite. We see a glimpse of this and of the Justiciars' cruel influence during the questline with He Who Was and Madeline, who ratted out her friends' innocent(?) complaints about Ketheric to some Justiciars, resulting in their brutal deaths.

Eventually Morfred realizes that the Dark Justiciars are too powerful to resist and turns to Raphael, offering his soul in exchange for something to destroy the Dark Justiciar army.

- Sick of standing idle while Justiciars gain power in our humble town. What will become of us if we allow it? I met a man who was no man. Touched by a devil. Or maybe worse. But he offered me something I couldn't refuse - help. - The time is now. Ketheric's Justiciars, their stronghold in the temple below - they will be wiped out. All of them. I didn't ask how. I just want them gone. Let the Harpers have at Ketheric now. They'll make short work of him.

You can ask Morfred about this in the House of Hope, actually, where he confirms the details. I mean, he's in Raphael's house, so it's pretty obvious the he did, in fact, make a deal with him.

Infernal Mason: When tragedy came, my master fell into darkness and despair. He marshalled a great army to ruin the world and bring all into shadow. I could not let it happen. I sought out the devil Raphael and signed an infernal pact with him. He promised to destroy my master’s army, and I promised him my soul in return. The devil was true to his word. Fiends slaughtered my master’s forces, but he endured somehow, and blighted the land.

The Fiend in question here is Yurgir, who ends up crashing through Grymforge and the Gauntlet to kill all Dark Justiciars in his path. (He misses one, because Raphael is a sneaky bastard who let one get away by turning him into a swarm of rats, but I digress.) We know Yurgir caused the destruction in Grymforge, too, because of the Merregon masks and hellbeasts we find around the area, and the fact that if you pass all the checks with the Duergar mason examining the stone, he helps you piece together this narrative:

Stonemason Kith: An ancient city, hewn from the stone by the disciples of Shar, later abandoned. Untold centuries later, a new tribe revives it. Fresh walls, fresh sculptures...until a great hellbeast charges through, toppling the walls and crushing the people! Heh - that explains the infernal plate I found. Perhaps you might have use of it.

Further proof that Grymforge and the Gauntlet were once connected...somehow.

Anyway, by the time Yurgir is called in, Morfred's already been found out. Thisobald overhears him drunkenly complaining about Ketheric in the Waning Moon and informs Ketheric of his treachery. Ketheric orders a raid on the mason's guild, leaving Halfred the lone source of Selûnite resistance. It's unknown what becomes of Halfred, but considering the fact that the inn was still taking guests (like Art Cullagh) and housing the Harpers right before the shadow curse descended (there's a shadow memory of a Harper toasting his comrades in Last Light right before the battle with Ketheric long ago), it's likely he's a victim of the curse and not Justiciar brutality.

I’m not sure which is worse, honestly.

It's unclear when Morfred dies, though he admits to witnessing the first part of the shadow curse (i.e., "...but he endured somehow, and blighted the land"). But Morfred's deal coincides in some ways with the arrival of the Harpers and druids. I think he probably makes the deal with Raphael before the Harpers officially march against Ketheric and then gets caught after he hears rumors of the Harpers.

Raphael makes good on his deal around the same the Harpers arrive, perhaps a little afterward. This means Yurgir's slaughter of Justiciars in the Underdark must happen concurrently with the battle happening topside between Ketheric's army and the Harpers/druids, meaning Ketheric is losing his army on two fronts at the same time. Victory seems assured for the Harpers and druids, but of course we know now that Ketheric had a way of cheating death already in place.

He had already imprisoned the Nightsong in a Shadowfell soul cage.

Again, we’re not sure exactly when this happens, but it’s after Isobel dies and before the shadow curse, which unleashes with Ketheric’s supposed death in the battle against the Harpers and druids. However, Aylin herself says that Ketheric and Balthazar lured her into the Shadowfell under the pretense of saving an innocent.

Dame Aylin: He and his loathsome advisor Balthazar lured me into the Shadowfell, claimed they'd found someone in need of my aid. There they trapped me in their infernal cage. I was killed, murdered, made dead, over and over and over by Justiciars of every make and kind. I was reborn, for it is my nature. And Ketheric fed upon my immortality all the while.

This makes me think that Aylin wasn’t aware of Ketheric’s conversion yet, so it must have been very soon after, because otherwise, why would she trust a known Sharran telling her to enter the Shadowfell, the realm that is entirely under Shar’s control? I also suspect Ketheric built (or renovated) the Gauntlet around Aylin after her capture, perhaps at the behest of Shar due to their collaboration in making up new Justiciar teachings, or perhaps out of a sick, vengeful desire to see Aylin tormented for daring to love his daughter.

If this is true, then there’s a very real chance that Ketheric was unkillable before he truly started to torment Reithwin town, and well before the Harpers stepped in to take him down.

Anyway we at least know that Ketheric trapped Aylin in the Shadowfell before the big battle against the Harpers because a) both Isobel and Aylin talk about her being there for a century and b) because Ketheric is already using her invulnerability to survive assassination attempts on his life prior to or during the actual battle against him and his army:

23 Elient The Harpers came too close - they poisoned Father Ketheric himself, yet he professes no ill effects. Malus insists it a fluke. Doctor he may be, but he is no less a fool for it: Father has achieved that of which I can only dream: immortality. I have long suspected. I can guess Father's purpose, but I cannot fathom the means.

This brings us to the eve of the battle itself. But this post is already hella long, so keep an eye out for part 2, all about the Harper and druid battle against Ketheric!

[highly-flammable]

Not Cami showing up in Klaus’ life in a horse-print dress in the backdoor pilot, like what chance did this ultimate horse boi have to not fall for her?