#but its okay because she’s a necromancer

[littjara-mirrorlake]

The Color of Hope: Ambition, Necromancy, and Black Mana

Black is one of the most misunderstood colors in Magic: the Gathering, not least because it appears on the surface to be so straightforward. Look at the most iconic black cards of Magic and you'll see deals with demons, necromancy, mass destruction and cruelty and suffering–the trappings of classic fantasy evil. Even the color's symbol itself is a skull, a universal signifier of death and danger.

And in early Magic that seemed to be all it was. White was the color of Fantasy Good, black was the color of Fantasy Evil, and the rest of the colors were... fire magic? Elves? Whatever odd but intriguing skeleton affairs are implied by Time Walk?

Gradually, though, Magic deepened as both a game and a storytelling medium. The color pie grew into itself as a system of complementary philosophies, archetypes whose associated aesthetics were only part of the full picture. Their arrangement around the wheel, below, is highly deliberate; neighboring colors are said to be allies with a high degree of philosophical and mechanical overlap, while colors on opposite sides of the pie are known as enemies, more likely to disagree on fundamental levels.

Black stopped merely representing capital E Evil and became the color of striving for power; unlike its peers, black felt that nothing, least of all morality, could prevent it from seizing what it wanted. Mark Rosewater's 2015 article about black emphasized the color's focus on the self:

"Black's philosophy is very simple: There's no one better suited to look after your own interests than you... Many costs require the sacrifice of others for your own advancement. Because it puts itself first, black is always willing to make this trade. The weak must fall for the strong to thrive." -Mark Rosewater

At its worst, black is an exploitative, amoral color that prioritizes itself at the expense of all others, allowing the "weak" to fall and scorning the very idea of compassion. Rosewater writes that black is "always willing" to trade others for itself. And these can certainly be parts of black's philosophy, when taken to its worst possible extremes, but they're far from the entire story.

Over time, Magic's outlook on black gained nuance. Magic story introduced protagonists like the necromancer Liliana Vess, whose craving for immortality, seemingly exploitative nature, and demonic deals called back to the oldest portrayals of black–and yet she was not one-dimensionally evil. She underwent character development over the years, learning the value of reclaiming herself and standing beside others, and at no point did she become any less mono-black for it. Remember her; we will come back to Liliana and her story later.

In addition to the usual death and decay, black cards began to feature a theme of relentless devotion. On the plane of Eldraine where each color represents a virtue, black's is persistence, explicitly as important as any other color. On the plane of Ikoria, the love between bonder and beast pulls Winota back from the brink of death. Wherever this Oathsworn Vampire printing is set, its flavor text is quintessentially black. It's the same self-driven attitude as before, but cast in a different light: black is nothing if not persistent when it's got its heart set on something (or someone) it cares about. Nothing, least of all the grave, will keep it down. After all, black will always come back for its own.

These newer cards uncovered the true face of black as a color capable of both great love and harm (sometimes even the latter for the sake of the former), and suggested a tantalizing new thread: perhaps putting yourself and yours first isn't all that bad, necessarily. Black is a deeply protective color; it says you don't just have to accept what you're handed, it's okay even to be furious about it (hello, ally color red), but let that galvanize you to do something about it. 

Vraska, a gorgon who faces extreme discrimination on her home plane of Ravnica, triumphs by reclaiming herself, gorgon powers and all–and even more radically, loving herself. She displays traits often considered the purview of white and green, such as a love of home and a drive to elevate the oppressed, but they are all filtered through the lens of her black alignment. Vraska staunchly refuses to deny herself or her people, the Golgari Swarm, of their value. Nor does she allow law or propriety to prevent her from championing them by any means necessary–even if that means cold-blooded murder, or aligning herself with a villain like the Planeswalker Nicol Bolas.

"[Vraska] thought of Mazirek, of the kraul, of the rest of the Ochran assassins and the malignant Jarad who reigned with casual ruin over the most downtrodden of the downtrodden. She remembered her years of isolation, and the heinous cruelty of the Azorius, and how no group deserved to suffer as much as those who would subjugate her own. Eliminating that hell was all she ever wanted." -The Talented Captain Vraska, Alison Luhrs

Like Vraska, black loves fierce and hard, willing to break any taboo for the sake of those it cares about. And it whispers, the entire way through, you are enough. You deserve better. No matter what others may say or do, you are enough.

"If I am to be met with disrespect, then I must first love myself with a fierceness no fool can take away." -Vraska in Pride of the Kraul, Alison Luhrs

Even black's "ruthlessness" isn't as fundamentally cruel as it appears, centering a passion for problem-solving (shared by its other ally blue) instead of a blunt disregard for others.

"People don’t understand the word ruthless. They think it means 'mean.' It’s not about being mean. It’s about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B. The line that goes from motive to means. Beginning to end. It’s about seeing that bright, clear line and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution. Not caring about anything else but the perfection of it." -K. A. Applegate

All of this comes together to make a black a color not of evil but of strength, integrity, and persistence. And that's all well and good, but I'm going to take it even further and put forward a new proposition: that black is the color of hope.

Of the nine mono-black Magic cards with "hope" in their names, all but Liliana portray black as an instrument of hope's destruction. This is, once again, black's flaw taken to its extreme–crushing others to achieve its own ends–but neglects black's own relationship with hope.

Black, more than any other color, requires hope to stay alive.

For black to persist, it must believe in a light at the end of the tunnel, a future in which its goals are realized. As long as it does, it will endure any hardship, walk through fire, and turn reality itself upside down on its way there. Primal, desperate ambition is the engine of hope that burns at the heart of black, keeping it always one step ahead of stagnation. Bitter and stubborn, black believes tomorrow will come because there is no other choice. After all, for black to relinquish hope is to let itself wither, regress, and die–an unacceptable outcome. 

Thus, it is monumentally difficult to strip black of hope. That only makes it all the more crushing when it happens, when black contends with the idea that there is nothing it can do.

Black's deepest, darkest fear is helplessness.

Like any mono-black character, Liliana Vess is driven at her core by a seething, desperate hope. When Liliana first unlocks her necromantic power, it is out of a sheer refusal to allow her ill brother Josu to die, even when the esis root that would cure him is destroyed by enemy witches in an undead-raising ritual. She defies her previous training as a healer, which taught her only to take the safe path, in favor of a higher-risk and higher-reward approach: stealing life from the witches themselves to restore power to the esis root she needs. It is her knowledge that her brother needs her, and her sheer stubborn will to succeed, which allows her to defeat the witches against steep odds.

"Six foes, and Liliana stood alone. But Josu's life depended on her, and the power blossoming within her was more than enough." -Liliana's Origin: The Fourth Pact, James Wyatt

Tragically, however, Liliana's attempted cure goes horrifically wrong, transforming Josu into an undead being plagued by eternal suffering. In his pain, Josu attacks Liliana. For a while Liliana holds out hope, finding the power to fight back while she determinedly searches for a spell to reverse the harm she's done. It is when she realizes this isn't possible that her strength falters.

"All this time, she had believed… that she could turn the power of death to the service of life and health. That a healer should use every tool at her disposal. But Josu was the result, a horrible fusion of life and death, and all her spells meant to manipulate the life force of the living could do nothing to harm the dead." -The Fourth Pact

Liliana learns that even her own dark magic, fueled by determination, cannot solve the problem she's created. She discovers the hard limit of her willpower, and the despair of this discovery is what causes her Planeswalker spark to ignite.

At this time Planeswalkers are as gods, immortal and near-omnipotent. Liliana spends decades enjoying this affirmation of her capability before the Mending strips her and all her peers of their power, reducing them once again to mortal mages.

"Then the Multiverse reshaped itself, robbing her—and every other Planeswalker—of the godlike power they once had wielded. Some called it the Mending, as if something broken had been repaired, but to Liliana, it seemed the opposite. It broke her beyond any hope of repair." -The Fourth Pact

Once again, it is Liliana's fear of helplessness and her refusal to accept it that drives her to push beyond the bounds of propriety–this time, to make a pact with Nicol Bolas and four demons to maintain her immortality. It is not enough for her merely to delay death; she requires the security of knowing she is fully beyond its reach, that she will never be helpless before it again as she was with Josu.

"Holding death at arm's length for whatever years are left to me? No, that's not enough. I want to be free of its shadow." -Liliana in The Fourth Pact

Black isn't like its enemy colors white and green, which are superficially associated far more often with hope. Unlike white, it doesn't believe that conviction, justice, and community will bring about rightness. Unlike green, it doesn't trust in the wisdom of the world or the natural order. Black believes that nothing will change unless you make it change; ultimately, black's self is the only one it can trust to bring about the world it needs. In addition, black lacks its enemies' idealism. Instead, it strives to be a pragmatic realist, making a final assessment of defeat all the more definite and crushing.

While white and green are more amenable to finding hope and holding it aloft as a banner, black claws hope desperately to its chest with shredded, bloody fingernails. Every ounce of hope black has, it tore by itself from the clutches of an uncaring world.

Ironically for such a self-driven color, black's fierce hope is the greatest asset it can provide to others–on its own terms, of course. It was Liliana who turned the tide of battle against the Eldrazi titan Emrakul, defiant in the face of cosmic despair. And when Nicol Bolas made his bid to return to godhood, using Liliana's necromancy to command his undead hordes, Liliana finally turned against him. In reclaiming her power, so too did she use it to free her fellow Planeswalkers from Bolas' assault. Her fear of helplessness no longer shackled her to him; agency and autonomy were hers at last.

The triumph of black, its moment of ultimate victory, is the hard-won fulfillment of its hope.

"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." -Dylan Thomas

An aetherborn, railing against the shortness of their natural lifespan, constructs a new body for themself with their own bare hands. An artificer's grief over her lost companion causes her to push invention to its limits. A young girl who loves her brother calls on the darkest of powers to save him. As it turns out, necromancy–that original thematic keystone of black–is only one of black's many, many refusals to let go of love and hope once it has them, even in the face of the ultimate end.

Time and time again, black–in love with life, ablaze with hope–looks the Grim Reaper in the eye and tells it: "Not today."

[katakaluptastrophy]

You know when you're at a dinner party with God and things start to get...weird...? It's Maundy Thursday, and it's time for more Bible study for fans of weird queer necromancers!

It's currently Holy Week, the week where liturgical Christians reenact the events of Jesus' death and resurrection in real time. And today, it's Maundy Thursday, which commemorates the Last Supper, where Jesus ate with his friends before he was crucified.

Before we get to the Locked Tomb, what's so special about the Last Supper?

There are actually a few significant things that happen during the Last Supper, but this is where Jesus introduces the concept of communion:

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood. - Matthew 26:26-28

This isn't actually the first time Jesus has told his followers they will need to literally eat him:

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. - John 6:53-56

If you're thinking that sounds a bit intense, you're not alone - the Bible says that "many" of his disciples left after being told that they were apparently going to have to eat Jesus to be saved and resurrected.

While many Protestant denominations take this symbolically, Catholicism teaches transubstantiation: that when the priest prays over the bread and wine at mass, they really do become Jesus' body and blood.

With this in mind, let's circle back to necromancers:

"Overseas to Corpus. (She likes the word corpus; it sounds nice and fat.)"

This is probably Corpus Christi College, Oxford (named after the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, where the church celebrates the real presence of Jesus in the eucharist). The symbol of the college is a pelican - there's even a fabulously gilded pelican atop the sundial in their main quad.

What do pelicans have to do with the eucharist? Quite a lot, actually... The pelican is a really old symbol for Jesus, because it was believed to feed its young on its own flesh and blood in times of famine. The pelican on the Corpus Christi sundial is pecking at its own chest.

The pelican, like Jesus, was believed to give its own body to save those it loved.

Okay, so we've talked about Jesus, and weird cannibal birds, but why is this relevant to necromancers?

Specifically, the necromancer, the Necrolord Prime. John Gaius styles himself as "the god who became man", echoing Jesus as "the word became flesh". His entire pastiche of divinity is a sort of bootleg Catholicism. But while Catholicism posits Jesus' offering of his own body as foundational to the salvation and resurrection of humanity to eternal life, John's godhood relies the exploitation of other's bodies as the foundation of an empire of eternal death.

I've mentioned before in discussing Lyctorhood, how vampires have been understood to represent a sort of inversion of the eucharist because instead of consuming Christ's blood to receive eternal life in heaven, they consume other people's blood for an cursed eternal life on earth. John, and the Lyctors who followed him, gained power and eternal life from the consumption, body and soul, of another person.

In Catholic theology, Jesus offered his own body to degradation and death for the eternal salvation of humankind, but John forcibly consumes someone else's in service of his own apotheosis and immortality, dooming humanity in the process. He wants to be a Catholic flavoured god, but without the suffering that entails. But he's perfectly willing to outsource that suffering to others.

There's something just achingly awful about Alecto liking the feel of the word "corpus" - "body" - when she so hates the body that John constructed for her. John describing Alecto as "in a very real way" the mother of humanity and the mother pelican on the Corpus sundial rending her own flesh for her children. John forcing the earth into a personification of femininity and playing Jesus on another's sacrifice. His daughter, unwillingly trapped in her own corpse walking around with the wounds of her significant self-sacrifice like the resurrected Christ but yet again another body exploited by John in support of his performance of godhood. It brings to mind a very different fantastical engagement with Catholicism, where in the Lord of the Rings Tolkien - riffing on St Augustine - suggested that evil cannot create, it can only mock and corrupt. The ethics of The Locked Tomb may be messier than that, but there's something indicative in how John shies away from his creative powers - his abilities to grow plants, and manipulate earth and water - in favour of his dominion over death.

The metaphysical world of The Locked Tomb is clearly not intended to be the same as that of Catholicism. But with hindsight, perhaps John was onto something when he was surprised that he didn't "get the Antichrist bit" from the nun too.

John isn't the Antichrist. But he is, thematically, anti-Christ.

If we're talking about John and Jesus, there's also, of course, the question of Resurrection. But we've got to go through Hell and back before we get there on Sunday...

[harunayuuka2060]

Ace: Okay. No one had expected the party was going to be a blast.

Epel: Both in literal and figurative sense.

Ace, Deuce, Epel, Ortho, and Jack: *laughing*

Jack: And who would've thought that MC-senpai's sister and Ruggie would click?

Ace: Like, bruh! I still remember their conversation!

Ace: "Is MC-senpai looking for a brother-in-law?"

Ace: "They don't. But I'm looking for a boyfriend. Are you available?" *claps, laughing*

Epel: By the way, we'd only seen senpai when the party was about to end.

Jack: Yes. And I think they have injured their left eye.

Ortho: I wonder what happened.

Malleus: Didn't I tell you to be careful?

MC: *has returned with a bleeding eye and deep scratches on their arms and neck* *giggles*

MC: The souls I have arrived to were too excited~.

Malleus: ...

Malleus: Let me patch you up.

MC: Hm~? Has your mom left already~?

Malleus: Yes. She didn't want you to see her off.

MC: Eh~.

Malleus: Oh and, you've decided on Rosehearts and Schoenheit?

MC: Hmm~ *giggles* Riddle will never be my option~. He's too young~.

MC: And will die easily because of stress~.

Malleus: That's... *sigh* How about Schoenheit?

MC: If it's Vil~ Hehe~ He's a fine choice~ But~ I'll be too possessive~.

Malleus: You're worried that you would be too possessive for Schoenheit?

MC: *nods then giggles* Wouldn't anyone be~?

Malleus: ...

Malleus: I'm surprised with your self-awareness.

MC: *touches his face with their bloody hands*

Malleus: *frowns* Hey.

MC: *giggles*

Malleus: *sigh*

Silver: MC's parents are amazing.

Lilia: Indeed. I don't think anyone would do what they have done for the sake of love.

Sebek: That's just pure insanity! And I don't even understand the explanation at all!

Sebek: How could they be both half-dead?!

Silver: MC's father had died long ago, but for some reason, his body never decomposed. And their mother, who was an infamous necromancer, found him and fell in love at first sight.

Sebek: I understood that part! What I'm trying to say is how were they able to produce offsprings?!

Silver: ...

Silver: Oh. You have a point with that, Sebek. *turns to look at Lilia*

Silver: Do you know how that is possible, father?

Lilia: Yes. But you're still innocent to know.

The Ramshackle students: Housewarden! How is your eye?

MC: It's fine~ But it feels really itchy~.

Grim: Don't think of plucking that out, mryah!

MC: *giggles* Why~ Its string is still connected to the socket~.

Grim: Just don't!

MC: Okay~. If you could distract me~.

The Ramshackle students: We will study hard so we can get the first place in rankings!

MC: Eh~ That's a nice proposal~.

MC: But if one of you fails~ Would you like to receive my eyeball as a reward~?

The Ramshackle students: N-No, housewarden...

MC: *giggles* Fail or not~ All I want you to do is enjoy school~ Like how I enjoy my stay here~.

The Ramshackle students: *sniffles* Yes, housewarden!

Grim: You're awfully nice today. *looking at them suspiciously*

MC: Well~ The next couple of months will be a torture~.

The Ramshackle students: That's still fine, housewarden!

MC: *giggles*

[littledata]

I know you’re probably working on those prompts, but I, too, just ended up on North Sea tiktok, and if you have time, I’m curious what Ava’s reaction to that particular algorithmic destination would be. Because like, Bea’s the most capable person ever, but those waves are Very Big, and why isn’t everyone tethered to the boat at all times??

(From the on that dizzy edge universe. An example video if anyone would like context.)

For a long time, Ava's TikTok experience was predictable. It mostly went: hot girl biting her lip, hot girl playing guitar, hot dude baking a cake, weirdly mesmerising crafting video, drama about people she'd never met, hot person kissing another hot person.

The number of straight-up thirst traps has been on the decline recently though - mostly because Ava just has to turn her head and Bea will be changing her shirt or using a hammer or standing perfectly still, all of which is a lot hotter than any video she's ever seen. In its infinite wisdom though, The Algorithm has seen her scrolling past those videos and decided it needs to fill the void with something else.

That thing, apparently, is North Sea TikTok.

They're lying in bed when it happens for the first time. Beatrice had spent the first few weeks after she came home insisting they should try to maintain separate bedrooms, move their relationship along at an orderly and appropriate pace, but she pretty quickly gave in to the allure of spooning and her bedroom defaulted to being both of theirs.

Now, before they go to sleep, they often end up lying side by side while Beatrice reads one of her insane books about lesbian necromancers or whatever and Ava scrolls TikTok or reads fanfiction about hot people falling in love in coffee shops and stuff. It makes her feel mature and settled and safe in a way that's sometimes so exciting she has to take Bea's book out of her hands and make out with her about it.

Anyway, so they're doing that (lying in bed, not making out) when it shows up on her for you page. It starts with the weird, slow sea shanty, then there's the huge waves, and then someone is getting slammed in the face with the fucking ocean.

Ava lets it loop. Then she lets it loop again. Then she taps on the suggested search north sea tiktok and she's presented with a thousand more videos exactly like the first. People falling overboard and huge waves crashing over ships and and and -

"Bea." Ava taps her arm insistently.

Bea looks up from her book without much concern - she doesn't use TikTok but she does submit to being shown Ava's curated favourites. Also, she's wearing glasses and she looks super cute.

No, Ava, don't get distracted.

"Bea," she repeats and holds her phone up to her face.

Beatrice watches with a scrutinising gaze. When the video finishes, she says, "They really shouldn't be filming in those situations, it's distracting them from proper safety precautions."

Ava stares at her. "That's all you have to say? They could have died."

"Possibly," Beatrice agrees. "Once someone falls overboard it's very difficult to recover them, although certainly not impossible. And it depends a lot on the kind of ship. I assume someone wouldn't post a video where someone died though."

Although Beatrice's naivety about what people are willing to post on the internet is adorable, Ava's mind is stuck somewhere in between the words overboard and impossible. Even Beatrice, careful and capable as she is, couldn't keep herself from being swept off her feet by some of those waves. Ava can picture her so vividly, disappearing under the surface.

"You're not making me feel better about this."

"Oh." Beatrice blinks in surprise as if she has only just realised that they aren't having a purely practical discussion. She puts her book carefully down on the nightstand. "I'm not sure what to say. I can't lie to you and pretend it isn't dangerous. Those are cherry-picked clips showing the worst though, it isn't always like that."

Which, yeah, okay, Ava already knew it was dangerous. For all the months that Beatrice is away she lives with the low-level, prickling anxiety that the next call she gets will be telling her Bea is hurt, or worse. It's different seeing it though, seeing how quick it is, how powerful -

"How often are you in the north sea?" she asks, as if that's the only problem with it.

Beatrice winces, "Well, it depends. The contracts I work - " She explains something complicated and lengthy about shipping and demand and the company she works for and Ava thinks she's the most interesting person in the world but this stuff is, also, a little bit boring and she's still pretty busy picturing her girlfriend's imminent death.

She needs to send these videos to Camila. If there's anyone she can rely on to overreact with her, it's Camila.

"Ava," Beatrice says, seeing that she's lost her. She tugs Ava's phone gently from her hands and puts it down next to her book. Then she wraps one arm around Ava's shoulders and the other around her waist and pulls her in close.

Ava has always loved being hugged by Bea, even before they got together - she's strong and solid and lets Ava hold on for as long as she needs to. (Also, she smells fucking amazing, like, all the time).

It wasn't until they started dating that she realised Beatrice had been holding something of herself back though, not letting herself relax entirely whenever they touched. Now, it's as if her whole body sinks into it, like some tension evaporates the moment Ava's arms are around her.

Ava pushes her face into Beatrice's chest and inhales, lets herself hide there in the fabric of her shirt for a moment. It's dark and warm and hard to worry about anything.

"I promise I do everything I possibly can to come home safe to you," Beatrice says into her ear, "I'm sorry I can't give you any more reassurance than that."

"Okay," Ava says, voice muffled against Beatrice's chest. It's not enough but it has to be enough. This is Bea's job, the thing she loves more than anything else, and Ava won't ever touch the sanctity of that. "I'm still going to worry about you."

"I know." Beatrice presses a kiss into her hair and pulls back, "I worry about you too though, when I'm gone."

Ava rolls her eyes, "The most dangerous thing that could happen to me is Lilith finally snapping and turning on everyone she loves."

"So fairly likely then?" Beatrice asks.

Ava snorts, "Like a 90% chance."

They settle themselves to go to sleep, lying down fully and adjusting the pillows and blankets. That's another thing Ava learned recently: Beatrice - her big, tough sailor - likes being the little spoon. She won't admit to that, obviously, but she sighs contentedly whenever Ava wraps her arms around her from behind.

So when Beatrice reaches up to switch the lamp off, Ava does just that, presses herself against Bea's back. She listens to Beatrice's breathing become slow and even, and she clings on.

[sainamoonshine]

Okay so I saw that @foxy-alien made art of a TLT house swap AU and it started me thinking about how I’d do a similar AU… I did that instead of sleeping last night btw.

So here’s what I have so far:

Ninth House: Ianthe, Corona and Babs. Once upon a time a woman and a baby fell on their planet. When they saw the woman’s red hair they thought “ugh what Third House bullshit is this” and while they kept the corpse, they sent the baby back. We don’t want this keep your trash. They have their own drama to deal with anyway; the tomb needs its keeper to be a necromancer. Corona, while officially the heir and Reverent Daughter, is not one. Ianthe and her started hiding her lack of talent before their parents explained the whole “unbroken chain of the tomb keeper’s necromantic bloodline” thing. So long as Ianthe is around, the twins expect that everything is still fine. Still, their house hovers on the edge of breaking a promise of ten thousand years once their parents die and Corona inherits the duties of the tomb… unless they find a way to make Corona a necromancer, either by turning her into a lyctor, by making Ianthe a lyctor and then Ianthe makes her necromantic (?), or they just straight up ask Jod for a boon.

Eight House: Abigail and Magnus. Everyone is surprised when they meet them, as they do not meet the traditional pattern of their house; especially when you know the fact that Abigail’s cavalier was supposed to be a cousin but was replaced by Magnus when he married Abigail — their blood type was, luckily (or unluckily?) compatible. Like, who the fuck would want to be an Eight House cavalier??? (Magnus would. He think going into the river is exciting. He also trusts his wife.) It’s usually only when Abigail starts actually doing necromancy that people remember she’s scary AF. Through her interest in ghosts, she has developed her own custom safeguards against Magnus getting possessed when she siphons him… or if he does get possessed, she is a quick and extremely brutal exorcist.

Seventh House: Palamedes and Camilla. Pal decided on his medicine focus due to his house’s propensity for weird necromantic cancer. He firmly believes that if he can just find a way to either stabilize or treat it, the inhabitants of the seventh house will live more comfortable lives. He is considered something of an heretic due to this, but house leadership is willing to ‘let him cook’ -> they’ll wait to see if a necromancer with a stable cancer is still powerful before they decide whether to censure his research or not.

Sixth House: Jeannemary and Isaac. They’re still young, but very good at getting into places they’re not supposed to be, particularly by breaking wards and then rebuilding them better. Both of them keep trying to apply into the cohort but the scholars of the Sixth see Isaac’s skills with wards and want him to pursue academia instead. When the summons to Canaan House came the council all looked at each other, remembered they still had to appoint a new master warden after the last one passed, figured that nobody wanted to abandon their current study/experiments to go participate to what would be sure to be a tedious dick measuring contest with the other house heirs, and decided to invoke an obscure emergency clause in a law book somewhere in order to appoint Isaac to the title. He and Jeannemary really were the only ones who actually wanted to go to Canaan.

Fifth House: Dulcinea and Protesilaus. It is a shame that her health is so poor, because she would otherwise have become a hell of an ruler. While she has an ease with history and academia, her true skill is diplomacy. Dulcinea can get a very accurate read on most people, and she knows how to use their own psychology against them to make them agree to her ideas. She looks nice and fragile, but she is cunning. Meanwhile, Protesilaus is surprisingly good at paperwork for a guy who looks like he eats skulls for breakfast.

Fourth House: Judith and Martha. This AU version of them is less cocksure, but just as proficient at gathering information, profiling people, and writing down ample notes. Their rank in the cohort is lower than in canon, and they often get assigned to the tasks nobody else wants. Such as: overseeing security on ships bringing prisoners to the Ninth House prison installation… and this is how Judith and Corona met.

Third House: Harrow and Gideon. Once upon a time, the Ninth House sent them an orphan they claimed was theirs. The King and Queen didn’t pay the mystery much mind and stuck the baby in an orphanage. They had their own troubles to deal with: the royal family had not been able to produce a necromantic heir yet, and the vassal families were closing in. They figured that they couldn’t let a lesser branch of the family inherit the Third; it had never been done, would discredit them in the eyes of the other Houses, and would cause political instability. So in order to ensure the necromantic potential of their latest vat baby experiment, the King and Queen sacrificed the children in one of the lesser orphanages. They claimed that an hull breach in the space station caused the poisonous air of the planet’s upper atmosphere to get inside the ventilation system… except there was one survivor. The King and Queen were weirded out by that seemingly unkillable toddler but public opinion was heavily positive towards the ‘miracle survivor’. Not to mention having at least one person survive the incident helps make the ‘it was an accident’ excuse sound more credible. So the King and Queen brought the child to the palace and decided to do some PR by giving her a place to live and an education, and eventually made her the Cavalier of their (powerful) new daughter.

Second House: Silas and Column. Duty-bound, fanatic, no fun allowed Silas is a bit young for military service, but that doesn’t stop him from climbing the ranks. Column is still used as a battery, even in this AU, except his role is to start killing people to produce the initial necromantic boom to give Silas something to work with when they deploy to new battlefields. He hates doing this btw.

[lemon-natalia]

Nona the Ninth Reaction - John 8:1 🐄

the message now reads: ‘THE/TOWER/HA’ . i’m sticking with the assumption that ‘tower’ is a full word and ‘ha’ is the beginning of the next until proven otherwise

okay and now it’s talking about falling asleep within the dream, which is confusing as all hell. whoever this narrator is, ‘her body was a mystery to her’, which is very reminiscent of the themes throughout of Nona wondering who she is. i really do think that this narrator has to be Alecto somehow or on some level, maybe because of Harrow falling asleep in the Tomb at the end of HtN?

also hammocks made of ‘baby-soft skin’. Ew. 

and an interesting point of reference, John’s eyes are explicitly black w/ white rings on them, so this dream is set after Alecto becomes his cavalier. although it might mean nothing, it’s also very interesting considering just how significant eye colour has been that the torchlight makes the white ring ‘a satiny gold’, given his eyes were originally gold - i wonder if it might have something to do with the type of shared Lyctorhood he and Alecto have going on?

honestly if someone came on the internet showing off that they could control dead bodies or whatever, i would think it was a deepfake or some other trolling as well. i love that apparently there are still Flat Earthers around despite having the tech to have some kind of space station on Mars existing

its ironic people calling him the Antichrist initially, given that he eventually adopts the exact opposite vibe of being a deity. and the whole religious/God/Christ associations aren’t even something that he solely adopted post-Resurrection himself either, even here people, and John’s group of friends, are explicitly comparing him to Jesus and using Christianity as a basis of what to do

and uh yeah, realistically someone broadcasting that they can raise the dead and heal everyone would probably be considered a cultist not just by the government, but by most people honestly 

and we’ve got A— Junior, (presumably) Alfred, joining the team as well, who apparently went from being a hedge fund manager in one life to swordfighting in the next. wild. 

‘she’d adored being a cop’ i like Pyrrha well enough so far, but yikes 

even though John’s still getting to grips with his powers, and can’t do proper resurrections yet, he still seems a lot more powerful than other necromancers later, given he’s able to build an entire wall out of perpetual bone, something which from what I remember Harrow treated as a massive achievement at the end of GtN 

what the actual fuck did those cows and sheep do to you man!!! is this why Canaan House has all that horned skull imagery, as like a weird little tribute to how cow murder contributed to him becoming Emperor. maybe the real cow murder was the friends that we made along the way

‘they treated us like we’d done some kind of huge crime’ MY DUDE.

[greyborn2]

Elisif headcanons now! (friendly tone ofc <3) Why do you think she would be a good marriage candidate? I'm curious :)

Yesssss!!! Okay - so this boils down to two categories. Personal interest in it, and underrated narrative JUICE. Starting with the former because its easier to begin with. So Elisif is just... she's neat. She's simultaneously one of the most politically important people in skyrim while also being COMPLETELY overshadowed by the men around her (Nobody talks about her, really, they talk of Torygg. The civil war isnt her vs ulfric, its TULLIUS vs ulfric. Her own decisions in court the first time we even see her are seemingly overruled on a dime by her own court, by Falk.). Its like she's this big thing of incredible importance and is constantly hidden away both in narrative and in game. But despite that, if you actually sneak in a bit, ignore all the big figures standing in front of her and propping themselves up on top of her, she has a surprising amount of meat to her.

Most of the Jarls are like... a few word summary at best. Greedy idiot boy, honourable honorman, paranoid bigot, old seer, etc etc etc. You get an initial impression of them and thats kinda it. Ulfric has a lot more, obviously, because he's a major character but it would *SEEM* that Elisif should be on the lower end of content. It takes so much to seek her out in her overshadowed little corner after all, but she has so so so much surprising stuff around her. The necromancer potema plot revolves around her, a whole big dialogue tree that isnt super common to see for a jarl, some touching personal quests that go into detail about how she saw her late husband. Its just all super compelling to me to have a character that, despite being so important, is *soooo* hidden away actually have some meat to her. Plus she's just a nice person!!! ANYWAYS!! PART 2!! The JUICE!!

For starters, I think, there should just be more opportunities for the dragonborn to play the political game if they want. Beyond just choosing a side in a war or ticking off their 'thane of everywhere' list, actually getting in on climbing the ladder and enmeshing oneself with the politics of the land they're in. BUT BUT... same can be said for Ulfric. Absolutely true. I do think he should also be a marriage candidate. BUT...

I think Elisif PARTICULARLY makes sense as a marriage opportunity that isn't one you seek out, but one that is put forward to the player. Specifically with an Imperial victory in the civil war.

The war is won. Alduin MAY or MAY NOT be slain. But either way, no matter what, at this point the dragonborn is a war hero, a champion of the people, and decorated imperial legate. And this would be fucking FRIGHTNING, I think, to the politicians back in Cyrodiil. There's a *history* of war hero dragonborns, popular with the people, turning on their commanders and declaring themselves emperor afterall. Oh boy is there a precedent. Suddenly they're the big figure in a war that was supposed to be Tullius' duty and they might start sweating in their boots a little.

SO... after the war is won... the legion starts... pushing. Just a little. A few letters, a few comments, that the dragonborn should maybe marry Elisif. Become High King by marriage. Lock them in and satisfy the war hero with a political title off in the ass end of the empire before they turn their gaze toward a ruby throne. Don't give them time to think on it. Ooooh look tasty treat right here shhhh dont think yes you did very good dragonborn yes yes be high king.

I think from there it could go one of three ways;

1) Last Dragonborn marries Elisif but with her actually agreeing to the union (after completing her personal quests) and she FINALLY steps out of the shadows. Rather than the expected you using her for power, she uses YOU for power. You allow yourself to be the thing she props herself up on and finally really starts coming into public view. Maybe to the nervousness of the Empire as she's a less eager puppet then they might have thought, now.

2) Last Dragonborn falls right into the trap the empire placed. You didnt do the quests for Elisif, she remains in the shadows, there's a loveless marriage and you get to be satisfied with a big title that hopefully keeps you occupied.

3) Last Dragonborn refuses all of this. Things seem to proceed as they do in canon but... well... maybe you notice a few more non-DB assassins using imperial weapons attacking you on the road then you did before. Curious.

[dmsr-art]

ooo that other anon with the dom corona/sub ianthe ask has me 😵‍💫😵‍💫 i'm imagining corona putting a muzzle on ianthe because even though they both know she needs this, ianthe insists on being a brat and making corona bring her to heel. corona tying ianthe's arms behind her back with the leash connected to her collar and keeping the other end in hand while she spanks her and makes her come over her thigh in the most humiliating way possible. ianthe drooling for it now that she's come but still so empty, necromantically growing her tongue to pathetically lick at her sister's fingers through the bars as she drags her around by the muzzle until corona finally puts her to work between her legs where she belongs. if she's a good girl corona will let her use necromancy to make her lactate so ianthe has something so suck on while she rides the cock corona also let her grow her (it's big and beautiful just like the rest of its owner and makes ianthe cry working it inside.) corona makes ianthe do all the work until her weak necromancer muscles give out, then she uses her strength from the sword training ianthe always makes fun of her for to flip ianthe onto her back and pound her into the next myriad. she doesn't stop until ianthe is full of her milk and cum and squirting their combined fluids which she makes ianthe clean up with her tongue before she's finally allowed to rest. woof 🥵 sorry i got too horny and blacked out while writing this

WHOA OKAY HOLD ON WOW WHOAAAAA HOLY SHIT FUCK WOW.... WOW OKAY!!!

[heyitschartic]

I love the Harrow Nova AU a ton, it is one of my favorite fanfic concepts to read for TLT. I think as a concept it's so intriguing just because of how much it turns everything on its head. Gideon the favored, Harrow the reject. The different ways that authors decide to depict this dynamic can be so fun and interesting. Despite this, I've only read one fanfic that didn't partway through break my suspension of disbelief beyond repair.

Something writers need to recongize is that most of the appeal in Gideon the Ninth is the relationship between Gideon and Harrow. It's fun, it's fucked up, it's interesting, and it's tragic. This AU inevitably breaks that usual bond and almost calls for some new, interesting fucked up dynamics. And you'd better deliver it or else you're stripping away some of the best parts of the story for a tacky coat of paint.

I think the problem is that you need to make some serious changes and stick to them without cracking the narrative like an egg on the sidewalk. Gideon as the Reverand Daughter is interesting, but it also requires her to, you know, act like the Reverand Daughter. A lot of the fun byplay in Gideon the Ninth is that the two of them are putting on that facade that the Ninth are fine, everything is okay, we're just two nuns. Their entire house relies on this bluff. But if Gideon is the Reverand Daughter, unless you're gonna completely change her personality, then it's gonna hit the point where you go "why is she still doing this? Gideon wouldn't care about preserving the Ninth the way Harrow would." And if you've stripped that rigid structure from her, then you better have something interesting to replace it, some fun reason that she needs to play the devout nun, or else, inevitably, everything else will start collapsing in on itself.

Harrow's situation is just so interesting on its own. The horror, the grief, the rage, the purpose of a generation given to her and then stripped away. There's so much juicy stuff to work with and if she's playing off a wet noodle, I'd almost wish she'd just do both of us a favor and kill Gideon off.

I like Harrow Nova. I like the concept and I like the stories, but it requires a pretty fundamental change to keep the narrative flowing. Maybe they're sent to something not Canaan, somewhere they're being watched and need to keep up appearances or risk having major plans blow up in their face. Maybe their new personalities force Cav Harrow to take the lead, playing mouthpiece for a Necromancer who can't handle people. Maybe Harrows life is literally on the line and Gideon cannot do anything but play-act the nun or Harrow will get killed.

There are so many fun possibilities for this what if, please use them! Otherwise it will become a fix fic and nobody wants that.

[docholligay]

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Thank you @becauseforoncethisisme for sponsoring this! Regulars know this, but if you're new here, all opinions are mine and it's fine to disagree with me, but please don't get weird about it.

Nonspoilery: 

Good God in high heaven and low hell, this is so much better than the first book. This is both a personal and professional opinion.  The only problem with it being, I cannot in good conscience tell anyone to read the first book in order to get to the second. I don’t think it’s so good as to justify that. That’s a pretty tall order. In all, though, if you read Gideon the Ninth and thought, “Hm. Okay, that’s enough for now,” this might whet your whistle a little bit more. 

Spoilery: 

Wow did I like this better than Gideon, you were all so right and it does not bother me even one solitary bit to say so. I think it starts slow, and I don’t know that I really ever connected with the second person bits--once I figured out what it meant, i wanted it to be confirmed and stop-- and of course Muir’s style occasionally grates on me (Muir and I are the same age. I know we grew up in the same fandom environment, and part of the reason I know that is I recognize elements of her style from fanfics being written then as now. This is stuff from like, sporking days. She’s so talented, and so loves these strange, memey asides even in lovely moments. That being said, i think this book strikes a much, much better balance with that and there were even times I found it fun, so, things are improving) But overall I would say I liked this book just fine, and would consider reading it again on some winter night. LEAPS AND BOUNDS over my experience of GtN

I struggled so hard with the first 150 pages or so of this book. I think it was a combination of how little I remembered from the first book, the taste the first book left in my mouth, and the fact that I am just, too stupid for high-concept fantasy. So all the stuff about thanergy and thelergy and conversion, I just, sat there not possible caring less about any of it. I don’t care now, and I came away liking the book! This is for someone, certainly, but I am not it. If this hadn’t been a commission, I think I would have given up at a certain point. I usually give a book 100 pages and this wouldn’t have done it for me*

At the end of the day, I think one of the things this book can be about--for me, it’s about more than one thing, but this is the easy reach--is about grief. And how being willing to give yourself a Fantasy Lobotomy, if that’s what it takes, to avoid the hurt and loss that grief brings in, and the guilt, only ends up hurting yourself and everyone around you. 

Also, it doesn’t bring them back. Forgetting them in every way possible does nothing to bring them back. Now, Harrow is a special case, so for her it can’t only be about avoiding pain, because what she’s also doing, because of how the whole Lyctorhood thing works, is, in a sense, keeping Gideon on life support. Like is said later in the book, shoving her in a drawer she can’t open, but so long as the drawer is never opened, Gideon is alive. It’s Harrow living her entire life in the doorway where where a policeman stands, ready to tell you someone you loved is dead, and she won’t let him speak. Because it’s not true until he does. 

I like Harrow so much more in this one by virtue of the fact that this book cares so much less if we like or forgive her. Because of the way it works with perspective, and the way it’s trying not to tip its hand to the fact that Gideon is our second-person narrator, we get a much more neutral version of Harrow’s life 

How Lyctors work: Love it. What a choice. My favorite takeaway from the first book, and perhaps the only thing I still think about actively while lying in bed at night, is the necromancer-cavalier system. I think it is fantastic, I love it, it works perfectly for imagining all shades of relationship and is very fun to do to your blorbim. I can’t remember if we found this out so explicitly at the end of the first book--as I said in an aside post while I was reading HtN, the pool scene in GtN pissed me off so much that I had a rage blackout for much of the book and forgot it the second I wrote about it--but the idea that the necromancer can only become this sort of ultimate power by killing this person they, by necessity, have some level of intimate bond with? Exceptional. I love that they are, in a sense, protected and powered by a person who loved them, that they murdered. I am so unbelievably into this idea, and the idea of those who can DO this, and who can’t. Reeled me back to my blorbos all over again. 

Which of course makes the whole thing with Harrow so interesting, because Harrow is someone who can’t deal with the cost of it. In full fairness to her, it wasn’t a choice she got to make, but she certainly does Gideon’s memory no honor by refusing to even acknowledge her sacrifice. She’s spitting on the roast lamb on the altar, so to speak. It’s sort of the murdered children problem all over again, though a million times better done: If an impossible sacrifice is made for you, what do you do to earn it? It’s Saving Private Ryan, and you have to spend your whole life hoping you earned a sacrifice someone made without your consent. And you should! What will you do, to earn your place? I know, i know, we all hate that except for me, but if Gideon died to make you a demigod, earn your power, and take your responsibility. 

Ianthe: I love a good horrible, manipulative cunt, and Ianthe certainly is that. This isn’t even me joking, she’s one of my favorite characters in the book (Though not my absolute favorite)  and also my poster child for “I support women’s wrongs.” I think it’s so smart and great that at the end, Ianthe makes the wrong choice, and that you are sitting there screaming for her not to do that, and yet when she does it, it feels completely correct. Of course this is a thing that she both can and would do. Ianthe is about hedging her bets, and above all else, about Ianthe. She killed Naberius as soon as she figured out the deal. We get the sense that she feels…i’m not sure how I want to say this…it’s not that she doesn’t feel about it, but she feels inevitable about it, also. To her, there was no other choice. 

She is willing to help Harrow destroy herself, shut herself off, because Ianthe loves a good “you fucking owe me” but also because other than how it benefits or hurts her, what the fuck does she care? I love her, it’s how I wish I could write Minako if I could get away with it. She’s clever and fun and terrible. I think she’s also, narratively, a great balance for Harrow’s whole ‘That girl in homeroom in an Invader Zim hoodie” vibe. 

Mercymorn my beloved: If Ianthe is my poster child for, “I support women’s wrongs” than Mercymorn is my ‘tag yourself.’ The longer the book when on, the more I liked her because the more I understood her. As an old lady who has been a part of things for many years, who has seen them grow and fall apart, who has lost people I loved and worked with people I hate, I loved everything about her. I love how utterly done she is with the whole thing. The way she so clearly loved Cristabel, and how she reacts to the pain of that love in a way I understand, and didn’t realize how clearly I understood her until Mercymorn killed the Emperor. Then it all hit at once, I remember that moment pretty early on in the book where it mentions that is you say Cristabel’s name to Mercymorn, she reacts like she’s stung. The way she yells at Harrow to never use her name with her, filled with rage. That is a kind of grief I recognize. I don’t want to talk about it and i’ll fucking kill you if you remind me. 

I felt every ounce of hurt, a plucking of a twin string, when she said, “This is the chance for unloveable Mercymorn--critical Mercymorn--to show you that she is the most capable of her name.” 

And then she kills the emperor. Do I think he was sorry? Do I think he never wanted any harm to come to Cristabel**? Does Mercymorn think that? It doesn’t fucking matter. Whether he feels bad about it or not, it’s academic at best. She murdered Cristabel because a man she trusted, a man she took to be her God, lied to her about it. He told her she, to save the world, had to give up a person she adored. Had to do it herself. I, too, would rip him atom from atom, if I were Mercymorn***. Maybe she does forgive him, but only because he is about to make repentance in blood. 

She’s my favorite character in the whole fucking book, bar none. 

(On that note, sort of, I actually came to very much love Augustine.)

Oh! One thing I loved, so much, and I don’t think anyone I’ve seen say anything even offhandedly about the book, is during the fight with the Sleeper, how Ortus’ BELIEF and PASSION form the basis to call up Mattias Fucking Nonius. Is that not incredible? That faith, can be so strong, that Abigail could call up a man that none of them ever knew, who is basically an idea more than a man, to fight? I think it’s such a lovely little lesson tucked in there, because we have been making fun of Ortus’ belief system for the entire book, mocking the way he recites this, and in the end, his deeply held belief matters, it matters so much, and I adored that as a real reversal of mocking someone faithful. 

I think part of the underlying problem with GtN is I just don’t like Gideon. I don’t like her point of view, I don’t like her character voice, I don’t like her general vibe, and the narrative does like her, and wants you to like her. In this book, it’s fine because so much of it is not from her perspective, but it became pretty clear to me that so much of what I disliked (though not all) of the first book was a Gideon-based problem. And you can’t escape her in the first book. 

This all flew immediately back to me when Gideon is taking up Harrow’s body and also the narrative duties. I cannot stand her character voice. Muir is capable of being so smart and so beautiful in her prose, but not only is Gideon herself irritating, but she inspires Muir to do this…recitation of memes, the one I can think of off the top of my head is “Jail for mother” Tamsyn i will fucking kill you. I will not read Nona, because the back page tells me, threateningly, that Gideon will be back in Nona, and not only can i not handle reading another word from her, but also that will unmake the beauty of telling Harrow that she has to let Gideon go, that she has to let them become one and thus lose Gideon, because of course it does because it’s a fantasy book, and fantasy just Does This A Lot. Stop letting people come back! Kill these motherfuckers and leave them dead! 

The thing about Pyrrha and Wake having an affair with Gideon’s body, and wake having God’s baby in order to open the locked tomb, it’s such a weird aside in a weird moment, that I can see I am going to forget about it. It’s so strange! I mean, it explains why Gideon didn’t die when she was supposed to, and I don’t have a problem with it per se, but I also don’t know that I have any feelings about it other than, ‘hm. Strange.” 

In all: Not a bad book! Enjoyed it more as the book went on, Mercymorn for Lyfe. I hope Ianthe continues being the world’s sexiest and worst person. 

Did you want to ask me something? As long as you’re not a dick about it, ask away! Let’s have fun. 

*I suppose that’s my own personal de jure vs de facto, because truthfully I can’t remember the last time I straight up did not finish a book. Perhaps I’m just lying to myself. I dnf shows and movies all the time, but not books. 

** No, I don’t think that. 

***Although I’m actually not all that sure in my marriage if I’m the necro. I think I’m actually the cavalier. I don’t think Jill would feel a whole lot of patience over having murdered me either, though.

[twinsunstars]

Thoughts on The Bad Batch Episode 10 - Identity Crisis - A Discussion Post

I expected almost nothing that happened in this episode, I was bewildered. Let's return back to the special episode centered around our dear Emerie.

(SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE EPISODES YET! all screencaps from www.cap-that.com! https://www.cap-that.com/starwars/the-bad-batch/310/)

The episode opens in a town market, where a mom (or dad? I'm not sure) and their baby are out shopping. The baby lost its toy for a few seconds and started freaking out. Once it used the Force to throw a plant pot to try and find its toy, I started freaking out because this kid is going to eventually be taken by the Empire sadly. Everyone around saw, and the mom quickly hurried away with her baby after finding its toy. One individual who saw the scene ends up contacting a bounty hunter.

Before I get back to the episode, can I just say how pretty Mount Tantiss is? It's such a dark place inside, but its exterior landscape is stunning. When it was shown during an episode when it was sunny on the planet it is on, it looked even more beautiful.

Okay, back to the episode. Once the plot navigates back to Mount Tantiss, we see Hemlock in front of a giant cylinder that is hiding something. He walks out of the same room that CX-2 had been standing in front of behind Crosshair back in Episode 3, and I felt like whoever the CX clone is is the one being kept in there. But maybe we'll see.

Emerie comes by with Commander Scorch (which I am so happy that he got name dropped this episode) and tells Hemlock that Project Necromancer's progress is slowing down. She expresses a desire to take Nala Se's place and oversee the project, which Hemlock decides to agree to after consideration.

Hemlock takes Emerie to the same place he went with Nala Se earlier in the season, ready to show Emerie the vault. I was expecting this dark room with red lighting that was full of cylinders carrying specimen for experiments, but I wasn't fully ready for a brightly lit room that has a few little children given some games to keep them company. It's the Clone Wars pain all over again when they were taking Force-sensitive kids.

Emerie asks, "Why children?" I felt like her eyes are now starting to very slowly open up to the Empire's horrors, but it will take her a long while, especially when she was raised by Hemlock and feels like everything around her is right.

One of the little girls comes up to Emerie and says she likes her glasses, and Emerie wants to connect with her, which Hemlock restricts her from doing. One of the kids closely watches Hemlock input a code using his datapad to open up a door, and makes sure that he remembers what to do, finding a way to escape. All of the kids look so tired and sad while playing with the games that they were given, it really breaks my heart.

It's not a scene where a Force-sensitive kid is taken by a bounty hunter without Cad Bane, who finally shows up for his cameo. He, along with his droid Todo, tests the baby from earlier for its M-count and takes them to drop off to the Empire.

Emerie goes to see Eva, the little girl who had spoken to her earlier. The kids continue to have their blood tested regularly, and Eva enjoys talking to Emerie. She asks about Nala Se and where she has been, as Emerie tells her that Nala Se is no longer in charge of the project. Eva had asked Nala Se to help her find out when she'll be going home, and Emerie says that she'll try to look into it.

Going to see Jax next, he manages to steal Emerie's datapad from her and make a run to the same spot where he had seen Hemlock input some code using his datapad. The others around manage to lock down the room before Jax could get access and escape. Jax just wants to go home and tries to sprint from the troopers that show up, but Scorch manages to stun him. Emerie did not want Scorch to stun him, but he was following orders.

We got to know the names of two of the kids, but I wonder who this little sweetie in the room is. I wanna give her a hug; I want to give all of the kids a hug.

Emerie goes to visit Nala Se, who finds out that Emerie has taken her place and has seen the kids. Emerie expresses what she's feeling about the kids, as they're children just like she was. She asks Nala Se, "Was your plan to discard them too?" From this, I'm guessing that Emerie was likely neglected by Nala Se, as Omega was the female clone that Nala Se kept more close to her. Based on my guess, Emerie was likely cast aside by the Kaminoans, which is probably why she trusts Hemlock because he took her in and Emerie feels more important rather than a girl who was neglected by the people who created her. Emerie feels that she can't do anything about the kids, but Nala Se tells her that she probably could. I'm really curious as to what Emerie will end up doing in the next episodes.

Emerie bumps into Hemlock and Scorch after leaving Nala Se, who tells her that a new specimen will be coming today. Emerie wishes to go with Scorch to pick up the specimen, but Hemlock becomes reluctant and tells her no. It's likely that Emerie hasn't been outside Mount Tantiss without him, so he doesn't want her going alone, even if she's with soldiers. When a trooper arrives and tells Hemlock that Tarkin wants to speak with him, he leaves and lets Emerie do whatever she wants.

Tarkin talks to Hemlock about the amount of money that is being used for Project Necromancer, as he wishes to know why they need so much. Hemlock refuses to tell anything about the project to Tarkin, as all the details are classified. I was surprised that even Tarkin was kept out of this project, and this is the Emperor's personal project. Tarkin could likely try to do the same that happened with Thrawn's TIE Defender project and try to shut Project Necromancer down so all of the money they have can be used for the Death Star.

Also, is it just me, or did Hemlock seem more expressive in this scene? I don't know how to explain this, but it's what was going on in my mind when I first saw the episode. Normally, his voice sounds more lower and quieter (which is literally what makes him sound so scary), but while he was talking to Tarkin, he sounded anxious and his voice sounded a little more louder. I don't know, it's hard to explain. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Hemlock contacts CX-2, who tells him that he has received some intel from a Trandoshan-who is likely Cid. If this clone really is Tech, that would be crazy since he possibly threatened her for the intel. Hemlock seems to grow frustrated and tells CX-2 not to return without Omega.

Meanwhile, Emerie goes with Scorch to retrieve the specimen from Cad Bane. When Emerie sees the little baby, her eyes grow wide, and Cad Bane notices her discomfort. He gets paid and the troopers take the baby, while Emerie is left with her thoughts.

While checking up on the kids and before lights go out, Emerie finds out that Jax was put into a two-day isolation as punishment for trying to escape, and Eva is upset about it. Emerie tries to be gentle with her, but all Eva wants is to just go home.

Emerie sits near the blood circle machine, continuing to oversee it. She sits in silence, going through each kid's file. Omega comes up, and I can tell that she misses her.

While thinking of Omega, she is reminded of the straw Lula that Omega had made, and Emerie had kept it with her in secret. She leaves it with Eva, who discovers it the next morning. Eva picks up the straw Lula and loves her, and Emerie watches with a proud smile. She looks so confident here; I keep wondering what her role will be in the next episodes, and I hope she gets out of here as soon as possible too.

I love how Lula has become symbolized here, as she started with being a comfort toy for Wrecker and later on Omega, and now Lula has begun to comfort other kids as well that are going through pain.

It'll take a while for Emerie to open her eyes and realize everything around her, but it's starting and she'll soon likely rebel. I loved this episode and the focus it gave Emerie. I'm looking forward to seeing more of her in the next 4 episodes.

[sketchyonlooker]

[ DMGBeloved has logged in. ]

[ BC Chat Room ]

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[ The main screen of the stream shows an ominous ghostly green skull hovering above Sacramento City. A berth of destruction could be seen around the California Supreme Court, the only intact building in the area. The roars of monsters and cries of people echo through the thoroughly demolished city. A long wurm-like creature wrapped around the ruins of a skyscraper opens its maw towards the building. Light collects and coalesces into an orb within its mouth - its sweltering heat melts the concrete it's next to. It then swings its head back as if to fire - Only for a lance of neon green to nail the wurm's mouth shut, sending both it and the ruined skyscraper into the ground. The world shakes violently as the orb detonates within the creature's mouth - its light overwhelming the camera. Falling dirt rains from the sky with only a large broad crater to mark the creature's death. Hovering where the creature once stood was a man wearing a green hoodie with a skull similar to the one in the sky. His body glowed with an iridescent green. And in his hand was an ornate spear crackling with neon-colored lightning, the same spear that struck the wurm's mouth shut. With glowing eyes, he gives the remains a final look before zipping out of view in a surge of green. The camera moves to follow.

----

Boomer-oh (v): Okay. I can't watch anymore. Watching how many times I should've died might actually give me a heart attack before this whole thing is over. Thank you, mysterious green man / duel monster / whatever.

BanditKLives (v): God. You're in the Sacramento shelter too? Ugh. I know exactly how you feel.

KuriBoom (v): I'm telling you I saw the angel of Los Angeles in person. She has these like light wings and woooosh, smashing up all those dragons with her hammer like it's nothing.

LordofTheNight (v): Wait. You think that's impressive? We got a giant vampire defending the city in San Francisco. At least I'm pretty sure it's a vampire. Can't really tell because he moves so fast, but holy shit he's tall like small-building tall.

LordofTheNight (v): Anyway, fucking vampires fighting dragons. Still feels like I'm still dreaming.

[ A in-line video is posted in chat from LordofTheNight. A military installation with tanks could be seen in the background. An incredibly tall figure - almost a story tall - slams a tanbo underneath an even taller two-headed dinosaur's chin. The force of the blow lifts the creature up into the air. Despite the dinosaur's speedy snaps and slashes, the dinosaur fails to hit its elusive target every single time. And then a flurry of blows from the tanbo strikes the creature so quickly it seemed like they were all performed at the same time. A moment later, the creature collapses with broken body and shattered limbs. The moment it hits the ground, it shatters into shards of light. An enormous fireball strikes down where the humanoid figure just was immediately after, his figure still blurry from the speed which he moved. Briefly, the camera loses track of the speedy figure, only to hear the sound of another draconic roar. The roar is cut short with the sound of something cracking. And immediately in front of the camera, a long Eastern dragon falls onto the earth with a earth-rendering thud. It too shatters into light. On top of a broken skyscraper and under the backdrop of stormy skies, the tall gray vampire is seen in all of his glory, only to turn into a blur once more.

SunnyDay (v): You think that's crazy? I've got a literal skeleton army fighting dragons and lizards outside. And a freaky green-wearing necromancer controlling them all.

LordofTheNight (v): Don't necromancers wear black or something? Like they're all emo or shit?

SunnyDay (v): Well, clearly someone didn't get the memo. Besides I think if you own a skeleton army that can beat up a bunch of dragons, I think you can wear anything you fucking want.

[ An in-line video is posted by SunnyDay. It's clear that the video was taken from the BC Stream chat. A coastline and an air strip are seen. After a quick zoom-in, several skeletons wearing various sets of clothes are charging the dragons along the skyline. Colorful beams of light blast through the dragons attempting to make landfall, putting large holes into the creatures and shattering them into motes of light. The dragons retaliate similarly with fiery blazes and icy projectiles. Meanwhile, the apparent green-clad necromancer engages up close and dispatches several of the hostile monsters in a flurry of colorful red chef's knives. Another human-sized skeleton, tall and lanky and wearing an orange sweater, slams its foot straight into a scaly blue dragon diving face-first at it. The large dragon immediately contorts and flattens like a train slamming into an immovable wall with the sound of crunching bone accompanying it. The broken dragon begins to fall out of the sky before it shatters into motes of light. ]

ExodiaTheForgottenOne (v): Are we absolutely sure that it's not KaibaCorp's SolidVision gone haywire? Cause that whole shattering light thing is like SolidVision's thing.

BlueEyesBlondeDragon (v): For the last time, SolidVision is incapable of being physical like this. You should know better since you've been on the Sketchy stream for so long. And also if we're sharing end-of-the-world stories...

BlueEyesBlondeDragon (v): I was in an airplane that was headed back to Japan, but after all the monsters appeared, we tried to U-turn and fly back to California. Except we had a whole bunch of angry monsters after us. I'm pretty sure we got saved by the angel of Los Angeles.

BlueEyesBlondeDragon (v): One second.

[ An in-line video is posted in chat by BlueEyesBlondeDragon. The video is clearly taken from a phone camera. Quiet panicked murmurs and prayers could be heard. The camera is looking out the airplane window and at the plane's right wing. A large blue winged dragon, one that could be recognized as the Winged Dragon of Duel Monsters fame, is diving straight for the aircraft. Screaming could be heard within the airplane cabin as the plane attempts to futilely veer away from the quickly approaching monster. And then a yellow flash crashed straight into the creature, slamming it straight towards the sea. The figure hovers briefly with its bright wings of light, hammer in a two-handed grip. Surrounded by light and with stalwart frame, the redheaded angel of Los Angeles strikes a prominent figure against the stormy skies. Another approaching dragon dives for her but is suddenly struck down in a brilliant flash. Only when the thunder was heard did people realize that it was lightning that smote the dragon down. By the time the camera recovers from the glare, the angel of Los Angeles is gone. "We're saved!" "Praise the lord!" ]

[staysaneathome]

Okay so because this won’t leave my brain, have a weird, tentative, not-quite canonical in any sense timeline:

Bad end of Wolf 359. Pryce and Cutter get the Dear Listeners’ cloning technology and secure the way for humanity’s domination amongst the stars

In response, Goddard Futuristics pulls funding for Dr. John Geistman’s cryotechnology development. After all, who needs to worry about the future of humanity if you’ve guaranteed your corporate survival? Sure, you’ll bring a few of them along as “citizen-employees”, but there’s new markets to conquer among the stars! Forget the sad kiwi, it’s time to diversify services!

And then Dr. John Geistman goes and develops inexplicable necromantic abilities. Hm.

Pryce and Cutter try to have him arrested, secreted away to the states, but the man makes a flesh fortress out of cows, of all things! And then is recruited by the U.S. government to have the sitting president reanimated after the president’s “accident”!

But Pryce and Cutter have excellent PR people, and you can’t survive the cold recesses of space if you can’t adapt! It turns out their corporate “rivals” have the same idea: the weird necromancer can say what he wants about “saving the Earth”, but it turns out that no one really wants to listen after being reminded of what he did to those cows! And those policemen. And the cult he’s steadily amassing.

All told, it’s easier than it feels like it should be to escape the rapidly failing Earth with all of Goddard Futuristic’s vital employees, plus a few lucky relevant non-employee participants (Dr. Geistman has some cousins that Pryce is most interested in seeing if she can awaken any latent wizardry in, see if their children can inherit anything—Warren Kepler is her reluctant lab rat in this). Really, blasting off to space with all the other multitrillionaires is almost boringly simple!

Dr. John Geistman somehow killing the entire planet, ascending to godhood, and destroying every other planet in his way to stop them escaping in an act of spiteful vengeance is the only interesting part of the whole ordeal! And sure one of the twelve ships gets slightly damaged and can’t make it the whole journey.

But Pryce and Cutter have decades of experience in cheating death. This academic can’t even make them break a sweat.

(The unfortunate denizens of this twelfth vessel attempt to soldier on and create civilization anew on the planets they do reach. When the Empire of the Necrolord Prime, the renamed John Gaius, retaliates by killing these planets, they get a bit testy. The descendants of the survivors form the rebellion group the Blood of Eden.)

The eleven ships set up shop several hundred galaxies away. This becomes the Corporation Rim, which warns its inhabitants to not expand too far for fear of “alien” (really necromantic human) remnants.

Goddard Futuristics, with the help of the Dear Listeners’ cloning technology and Pryce’s advances in AI, rebrand as Stellar Firma Ltd. and begin making and selling planets. Pryce and Cutter remain the shadow-rulers behind the all-powerful Board.

Their business rivals on the other six ships set up their own corporations, beginning to set up colonies for mining and contractually -obligated labor. Some of those colonies get lost in the violent in-fighting between these lesser controlled companies which constantly devolve and are reborn anew. Those abandoned colonies form their own governments and societies opposed to those of the Corporation Rim. These are much more successful, and even propagate higher learning and better infrastructure.

In order to keep up with the competition over this new source of income and potential exploitation, the Corporation Rim kickstarts the development of Security Units within their companies, with inbuilt monitoring to data mine their new clients.

Pryce and Cutter meet an untimely end when they take a party barge to the Pleasure Moon of Quixotic, along with the rest of the Board and their families. Stellar Firma, deprived of the overlords that have guided its course since the twenty first century, is thrown into chaos.

I.M.O.G.E.N., Pryce’s magnum opus, becomes the supercomputer behind Stellar Firma’s operation in constant conflict with Internal Standards. She is in charge of using the Dear Listeners’ technology to combine DNA that’s proven to be receptive to the obedience protocol (Donors include R. Min., D. Jac., D. Eif., and A. Max.) to create clone assistants to design and sales consultants. One of these clones proves to be resistant to this gene. She decides to roll with it.

Years later, a Secunit that managed to hack its governor protocol follows a young human that an Asshole Research Transport AI feels very protective over into a coffee shop run by a clone and one of the most powerful administrative AIs to escape the Corporation Rim…

[paganwitchisis]

Always There for You

Rated E (Explicit)

Word Count – 6,991

Pairing – Astarion/ AFAB Female Tav

Warnings – very mild self mutilation, blood, smut, PiV sex, oral sex, breeding kink, maybe more I cannot recall at the moment.

Summary: Set after the main story and features female Tav and Astarion. Tav and Astarion decide to do missions in Baldur’s Gate together but after two months of back to back missions Tav finds herself wanting. Since the missions don’t allow the couple much time to dote on each other, Tav begins to miss Astarion and yearns for him. Tav takes things into her own hands in regards to her desire so she would not pressure Astarion but the trouble is, she cannot find completion. This goes on for weeks until Astarion finds out the hard way but not as you would think. As you can guess, smut is involved and it ends up as a sweet, sweet ending.

AO3 link is here

Chapter one is here

Chapter two - coming soon

Chapter three - Coming after two

RATED 18 PLUS

Story:

Things went as expected after defeating the Netherbrain two months ago. All the companions had said their goodbyes and went their separate ways…well, except Astarion, of course, who, unfortunately because of choosing to not slay the seven thousand souls, he was condemned to the shadows. He was okay with it, though. He kept telling Tav that he had gotten his true freedom and that he would sacrifice anything to be with her. The city, thankful for the heroes and wanting to entice Tav and Astarion not to adventure away, offered them many lucrative missions and a house, free and clear in the upper city, no less. Astarion made jokes about it but Tav decided she would stick around…for now, at least. Originally they sought clues to help Astarion return to the sun but the solution ended up being closer to them then they thought. On a mission not too long in their tenure, they found themselves against a revived vampire master who wanted to destroy the city. With some quick thinking and a lot of luck, Astarion was able to work in tandem with his lover to help bring down the creature. The being would have been tricky and a difficult enemy if not for the fact it hadn’t been around in such a long time. It was nothing Astarion’s array of poisons couldn’t slow down, and the pair worked splendidly together. They never needed to speak when in a fight on most occasions, as if the tadpole was never removed. The vampire had on him something unbelievable that the couple didn’t think was that easy to find. All this time and it was right under their noses? They didn’t have to painstakingly search or reproduce an amulet or jewelry piece? There, was the Sunwalker’s ring…a legend in its own right. Testing it, Astarion put his hand out in the warmth of the sun and was ecstatic when it worked. Tav thought Astarion would have taken a break, celebrate or spend time with her at the very least but instead they headed out and began doing more missions for Baldur’s Gate…properly this time, and in the day. On another note, Jaheira wasn’t far away so they still had a friend nearby.

Although they had a house in the upper city, Astarion and Tav found themselves most of the time in their old stomping grounds in the lower parts of Baldur’s Gate. Sometimes it was the sewers, and once they even had to venture into Bhaal’s temple once more to clear out some necromancers who were starting up in the worst area they could have chosen. By the time the couple made it down to the temple, the necromancers were dead and their bodies were flayed, displayed like some piece of art you would hang on your wall. This reminded them that the murder god’s agents were still operating in the city, of course, and the couple quickly retreated. It didn’t stop Astarion from claiming the spoils, of course, much to Tav’s partial amusement and frustration.

They received so many missions that provided so much coin that Tav suspected they may even rival Cazador’s wealth soon, though she kept her suspicions to herself. With all the missions, however, there was little time for themselves, let alone each other. They would return home each day and toss off their pack and armor, prepare for the next day and reload anything in their pack they need, sharpen whatever needed it, or get more arrows, for example. They would take a quick bath only to clean themselves as there was no time to soak. They were too tired to do more than that and would just snuggle up to each other in bed before the next day came.

After an additional few weeks of the same song and dance, Tav began to feel the neglect, and she longed and missed the man she slept next to every night. She loved him. She cared for him, and it wasn’t long ago they were doing impossible things in the city, or watching the stars at night in each other’s arms, then making love to each other when the mood took them…or, hells, even sensual baths together where she would give him wacky hair-dos and laugh while he would tickle her for revenge before they would make out and confess their love for each other. Now, they barely spoke to each other unless it was for tactical reasons about the missions and to ensure the other wasn’t hurt when a stray arrow was let loose, or a sword almost would cleave her in two like the last mission. What happened to the times they spoke at length about their future? Or the times they talked about their favorite items and birth dates so it was easier to figure out how to surprise each other and make them feel special? Gods, she missed that man. As Tav watched him trance next to her, she also felt another overwhelming need that had been prevalent as well that Astarion didn’t know. Desire. Tav knew she had a fairly high sex drive but she would never put pressure on the man, so she would usually take care of herself in private. It was more difficult during the time when they were in the Shadow-Cursed Lands when she would try to sneak away, but she never got caught by Astarion as they shared a tent and later a bed together. Currently, even though it isn’t as difficult to get away, because of the situation, she would just have to bide her time to when he was hunting. Thankfully, he wasn’t drinking from her that often, although she wasn’t sure why and was partly scared of the answer to that question. It wasn’t like he was gone an inordinately long amount of time for her to be concerned about, but considering that he hasn’t touched her in a couple weeks, a few chaste kisses at best…it did begin to make Tav a little insecure. Of course, she would also not tell him this and her rational mind would remind her that he wasn’t gone long, barely enough time to hunt before he was back to her and collapsed in their bed together. Tav was a wreck at times, but she learned from the best and hid it well, as she usually hid it as exhaustion, which the pair had on some days, if not most as they never took a day off. Tav wasn’t sure why Astarion was so determined to take as many missions as possible but he kept pressing on.

Soon, maybe two days after desire crept back with force, there was a chance for Tav to find a reprieve. For Tav, sex wasn’t just carnal lust. It was stress relief, it was relaxing to help fall asleep before bed lazily, it was pure love and the expression and emotion of it…It was so much more than bodies and pleasure. Right now, she needed everything of course, including the pleasure because her body felt like it had been through hell. Not a single day off in two months, and the missions weren't exactly easy either. Tav waited for a while until Astarion had gone to hunt before she widened her legs, pulled her sleeve up and slipped her hand between them and under the band of her underwear. Thankfully she was only wearing a long shirt and underwear that night so she didn’t have to worry about getting undressed and redressed. She worked herself like she usually did as she went directly for the nerve clusters, not even bothering for slow and steady. She needed release. It felt good….Very good, but nothing was happening. There was no build up or pressure, and although she agreed that it would be better by her lovers hand, that was no reason that her own couldn’t fulfill her need. It had always worked before! Tav steadied her breath and closed her eyes, turning her head to breathe in her lover’s pillow and imagining a time when they made love without abandon and all the naughty things they got up to. Once again, nothing happened. After about an hour and no progress, Tav rescinded her hand and frustratingly closed her legs. Tav was angry, pulled the covers back up and around her, turned away from the door, unsurprised as a few tears spilled and fell asleep.

This became a pattern for unfortunately the next three weeks, but Tav, being the ever stubborn one, refused to back down or give herself a break. She was angry and upset. She was frustrated and wanting. She needed that man in so many ways, but honestly the need wasn’t even on the physical level. She needed his love. She needed the emotion and she needed his touch. To Tav, when they made love instead of rutting around like they used to in the dirt like they did in the clearing, it was showing love and giving themselves to each other, so why couldn’t she get that now? Why was it so scarce now that the threat to the city is gone and the threat to their lives was over? Tav was afraid if Astarion didn't care for her anymore, in some regard, in some irrational part of her brain. It wasn’t just sex, of course, it was everything. The missions always took precedence, and damn the consequences. Tav also wondered that for a man with such heightened senses, why couldn’t he tell she wanted him, or the distress? Did he not care? Tav merely closed her eyes after another painfully failed attempt and went to sleep.

Astarion came back from hunting later that night, exhausted as he took off his gear and pack, he toed off his boots and he took off most of his clothes. He was too tired to throw on any night wear but smirked to himself. His lover has seen him in less than underwear before, so it shouldn’t matter. He laid down to trance for the night and snuggle up to the warm body he loved so much when a very familiar metallic smell hit him. It wasn’t strong but it wasn’t weak either. Astarion, whose eyes were originally closed to prepare for bed, shot open. It was Tav’s blood. Was she injured? Astarion knew they had a hard fight today but she said she wasn’t hit. Was she lying? Astarion gently rolled her over as she slept and he smelled for the source of the blood. Thankfully the day’s event kept Tav asleep while Astarion checked to see where the blood was coming from. When the origin was between her legs, he was confused. It wasn’t time for her cycle, and on top of that, it was too little for it to be that kind of blood but still too much to be ignored. Astarion gently and carefully maneuvered her underwear off her legs and put them aside. As soon as the underwear was removed, the smell intensified, which concerned Astarion. He then coaxed her legs apart so he could see better between them what was wrong and why he was smelling such a strong odor of blood. What he saw horrified him. Astarion repositioned himself between her legs to figure out what had happened. He couldn’t figure it out. She was so inflamed and irritated that she was nearly swollen shut in her vaginal cavity. Her clit and the surrounding tissue looked about the same condition. There was some blood, of course, which is what got Astarion’s attention initially. What had happened? Quickly, Astarion got off the bed and grabbed a vial or two of healing potions. What he saw looked incredibly painful and he had no idea how she was sleeping. Carefully, Astarion got back on the bed between her legs and leaned forward. He put his hand on her cheek and tried to coax her slowly from sleep.

“Tav? Tav!” Astarion called out as he tenderly tapped her cheek to get her to awaken. Eventually she slowly started to come to and saw a distraught and terrified Astarion between her open legs. The cool breeze told her that her underwear was not there. While excessively blinking to gather her thoughts, she knew she was found out. The junction throbbed and burned as a reminder of her shame and failed attempts. She didn’t know what to do except tell the truth. Maybe now was the time to finally have a discussion.

“Tav?”

“Astarion? Are you okay?” Tav asked, although she already knew the answer.

“Am I...am I okay?” Astarion shook his head “No, I am not okay, because I came back from my hunt and smell your blood. I thought you were injured, so I naturally follow my nose to find this. This didn’t happen overnight, Tav. You had to have known. What happened?” Astarion demanded while his anger began to seep into the conversation.

Tav went to move a moment to sit up and winced. Astarion snarled before speaking in reaction to this.

“Take this first. You need to be healed first before we talk. This is…This is too much…Way too much, Tav.” Astarion watched as Tav drank the potion and her folds, although they got better, were not healed and he growled in anger and frustration before pushing a second in her hands. It took two potions before she was healed completely.

“It took two potions! Two, before you were healed! That is how bad you were! What in the nine Hells happened?”

“I’ll pay back the…” Tav noticed Astarion wasn’t calling her his pet names but her real name. He must be either very worried or very angry…

“It isn’t about the damn potions! It’s about the woman I love being so hurt that it takes two fucking potions to heal you. Now what’s this about, and what happened? Did someone hurt you, or…”

“No! I did it…”

“What? Why? How?” Astarion asked as he moved up over her as they spoke. It was a very intimate position, one they hadn’t been in in a very long time. Tav didn’t realize how much she missed it.

“I…promise you it isn’t intentional.” She sighed. “I am not sure where to start honestly.”

“How about the truth and from the start,” Astarion suggested as he gazed at her

“I’ve had a secret. One I never meant to keep from you but ended up that way.” Astarion regarded her quizzically while she further explained. “I have a high sex drive, but I never wanted you to feel pressured or feel like you must perform. Usually I took care of myself when desire struck and we were not intimate or likely to be doing so. It wasn’t a big deal…till after we saved the city. We took on mission after mission and I missed you. I missed us. I’ve been so damn exhausted every day since we never take a day off, or time for ourselves. I tried three weeks ago to take care of myself, but I couldn’t get off while you hunted, and I tried for so long. Since then I kept trying every chance I could. You saw the result.”

“Didn’t the pain make you want to stop?”

“It should have but…I guess I was emotionally hurting. I was worried...and it’s stupid…we...we’ve barely been kissing even so I worried you were growing tired of me.”

Astarion took in a shaky breath, his head hanging low and out of sight from Tav who was worried if she hit the truth. Tav went to try to bring her hands up to the pale elf when he spoke.

“Is there anything else you’re honestly feeling before I address this?”

Tav nervously laughed. “I…please understand this is an irrational feeling but I was worried that…you found some else…and that’s why you haven't been drinking my blood recently.”

Astarion exhaled and got off of Tav, which alarmed the woman until she saw what he was doing. He went to his pack and pulled something out that she could not see. He returned and crawled back on top of her, promptly taking her lips in a searing kiss which surprised Tav. He snaked his tongue inside to deepen the kiss and tasted her as much as he could. Astarion moved his right hand up to her clothed breast and rubbed her nipple through the fabric, earning a deep moan from the woman he cared for before pulling back.

“I love you and there is no one else,” Astarion said to Tav while looking her in the eye. “And I will never grow tired of you my love! Never!” Astarion leaned in and claimed her lips again with intensity, earning moans from both of them while they grinded against each other, Astarion’s hand reaching down to grab her backside and pull her flush against him. With almost a thrust of his hard on buried beneath his underwear into her core, Astarion pulled back from the deep kiss as Tav moaned his name.

Astarion panted while he spoke. “I should finish explaining before giving in. Gods you’re beautiful though. You feel so good. So perfect.” Astarion sat up on his heels and brought his hand to his length that stood at attention, the head of his cock peaking out above the band of his blue underwear.

“You’re right, we have been doing a lot of missions…too many actually. I guess I’ve been too focused on the goal, and somewhere along the line I lost sight of how much hardship it was putting on you…on us.” Astarion swallowed thickly while he looked dejected. Tav moved to comfort him but he put a hand up to stop her. “I’m not finished. . .I should have smelled your need, heard your heart quicken and blood race, but I didn’t. Truth is I’ve been hiding a few secrets myself. My senses are dulled. Too dull if this incident is any example. I cannot hunt properly because my senses are dull and my senses are dull because I have a lack of blood. My only sense I have that works fine, is the one that found out your little secret. I haven't asked for your blood to fix the issue because I knew you’ve been tired. It’s pretty obvious my, sweet.” Tav was yet again about to react, to talk and move but once again, Astarion held up his hand. “There is more…a few things more if you’ll continue to hear me out.”

Astarion got up and walked over to his desk, and pulled out an envelope that was addressed to him. One that Tav was curious about at one time but never thought much about it. She figured if it was important that he would tell her, even though it had official seals and script. Astarion handed her the envelope as he sat on the edge of the bed. “Open it. Read it.” Astarion encouraged.

Tav did as encouraged and gasped when she recognized what it was. Astarion was granted ownership over Cazador’s possessions.

“Seems Wyll, even in Avernus, pulled some strings with his dad. I liquidated everything, but I fear that fairly soon the house may suffer a fire….oh, woe is me,” Astarion said with a chuckle and a smile. “All his worldly possessions netted a rather large sum. I’m sure you’ll join me for Baldur’s Gate’s largest bon fire, of course, when his house of terror goes up in smoke.” Astarion’s smiled widened.

“Of course, but why didn’t you mention the letter then? If you got so much gold, why are we doing all these missions?” Tav was confused.

Astarion smiled a genuine smile that reached his eyes and stood up. He hook his fingers around Tav’s knees and turned her so she was sitting on the edge of the bed. Then he dropped to one knee, kissing her knees and calming himself while confusing her before he spoke.

“After 200 years of misery at the hands of being bound to a master, I thought I would never want to be bound again. Not for any reason. Yet I fell in love with you. I found it wasn’t binding. It wasn’t a hardship and it wasn’t oppressive. It was freedom. We’ve spoken at length on how much you’ve freed me. How much you mean to me, which as a reminder you mean everything to me my dear. I love you more than words can express and more than water is on this planet. I love you more than I can ever convey, and so I want to bind myself to you in any way that I can. It would make me the happiest vampire in all the planes if you would allow me the honor of being your husband,” Astarion shakily said, and began to cry as he asked. A rare moment of vulnerability. He pulled out from…somewhere…as Tav wasn’t watching and the man was a master of sleight of hand, a box, and opened it to reveal a ring that took Tav’s breath away. The ring held a black gemstone with red gems in an intricate pattern surrounding it, and it hummed with magic. It was gorgeous.

Tav pulled the man up and kissed him before realizing she never gave her answer. “Yes!” she exclaimed between kissing him senseless. “Yes!”

She tried to pull him onto the bed but he stopped her. He pulled back to put the ring on her finger and explain. “The rings,” He held up his, which although his was a promise ring compared to her engagement ring, they both held magic “have tracking magic to them. While you can always track me my love, I can only track you when you want it. You have to let me by going in a clockwise circle around the band three times. For your privacy of course.”

“Why not your privacy? And was the ring that expensive you needed Cazador’s wealth and the missions?” Tav began to palm his cock through his undergarments, an action he did not stop but rolled his hips with, as he enjoyed the friction and pleasure it created between his legs.

Astarion laughed. “Oh no. But for a life together, that costs money. Especially if we want a decade or two buffer years without worrying what we’re going to do about work, or if we are or are not settling down. And my privacy? I’d feel better knowing my fiance, or…Gods…eventually I can call you wife, was able to know where I am in case a hunt goes bad. I don’t tell you but not all my hunts are safe or ok. If something ever goes wrong, you can use this to find me.” Astarion confessed as he stood against the edge of the bed, his cock hard and rigid as Tav tried to pull his underwear down and take him in her mouth. Before she could, Astarion leaned down and captured her lips. “Before we do that, I have a request.”

“Anything.”

“Blood. I’ve been running on almost nothing since the brain…”

Tav immediately moved back and laid down after taking her shirt off to reveal her bare breasts, which got the vampire’s attention. She moved her hair aside and moved her head to invite him in. Her legs were parted and he keeled between them, and his hands went straight to her breasts. He kneaded them, playing with the nipples and grinding his covered hard cock against his now soon to be bare wife. Astarion kissed the skin lovingly down her neck until he felt the throbbing vein underneath her skin. He kissed it and licked it before quickly puncturing the skin, trying to reduce the pain and drinking the red life essence. He couldn’t help the moan that escaped him as his left hand went to free his cock so Tav could have skin to skin contact. He was so hard it hurt. Her blood always did this. No matter how spent he was, he would always find himself up and running below the belt when he drank her divine and succulent blood. Her blood sang and called to him, and gods did he want to sheath himself inside her and spend himself. He wouldn’t though. He owed her too much. He went for friction instead, and rubbed his cock against her clit as she rubbed herself against him. She moaned as well. It was obvious they both missed each other’s touch, and not just sexually. Astarion teased her a bit by letting the head of his cock enter her a little before pulling back. Soon, Tav gave him a sign to stop, and he quickly retracted himself and licked the wounds of the excess blood, sealing them.

“Gods, I want to make love to you, but I need to hunt or else…”

“I know…I know. Go hunt!” Tav encouraged, even if she missed the weight of him and the feeling of his engorged mast between her folds.

“What did I do to deserve you?” Astarion wondered out loud when Tav kissed him. “You deserve the world,” she said to him.

Astarion got dressed and put on his gear, and pulled out a few potions and tossed them to her.

“What’s this…”

“You were out of potions, right darling?”

“How did you know?” Tav asked.

“I was wondering why you never healed yourself and chanced me catching you,” Astarion replied and kissed her again. “At least it ended up ok in the end. Make sure you're awake when I come back or you're going to find my head between your legs licking you awake,” He said with a smirk.

“Don’t threaten a girl with a good time,” Tav smirked, and kissed him chastely before Astarion left to hunt. He didn’t want to wait a moment and chance losing his nerve and staying to make love to the beautiful naked woman he loved most in Fae’run.

Sometime later Tav had fallen asleep naked in their bed while holding on to his pillow. When Astarion returned, he quietly got undressed completely and cleaned off any stray blood he may have missed before he stood before his soon to be wife. “Well…I made a promise,” Astarion whispered with a smirk. He went to his pack and grabbed a couple health potions and some water skins and put them on the night stand. Then he silently climbed on the bed and moved his fiance on her back, pulling the blanket back little by little until she was revealed. “Gods you're beautiful. How’d I end up so lucky to get a pretty thing like you darling…” Astarion said to himself before he spread her legs and got between them. Astarion smirked before he hooked an arm lightly but firmly on her hips to hold her down as he laid down, and he brought the flat of his tongue through her slit gently and twisted it around her clit. He lightly and sensually lapped at the bud as it became engorged under his care, while the woman clutched the pillow more, moaning in her sleep. Astarion took it one step further and sucked on her pearl, before he moved his mouth south to her vaginal opening. He pushed himself in and lapped inside, burying himself inside her folds and drinking her in. Astarion couldn’t help the moan that escaped his lips or the blood that began inflating his cock. Astarion was rutting against the bed, his thumb running a circular motion on her fun button as Tav finally came to.

“Wha…Astarion?” Tav questioned as another moan escaped her, louder this time. She tried to move her hips and chase release, but Astarion wouldn’t let her.

“I warned you, dear.” Astarion pulled back to say as he used two fingers of his right arm, the free arm, to insert inside her and hook themselves. This hit a sweet spot making Tav sing pretty for the vampire who smiled at what he did.

“This feels so good. I’m…I’m close. I’m sorry, I’ve just been needing and…” Tav began to apologize before Astarion kissed her.

“Don’t. I neglected you. Let go, and come.” Astarion huskily said before he dove down and sucked and licked with everything he had on her clit, adding another finger and pumping her efficiently to give her an explosive climax. Tav screamed Astarion’s name and arched her back, her hand in his white locks, the other in the bed sheets below. Astarion kept going for a bit until he began to slow down, not wanting to make her overstimulated.

Astarion pulled away and pulled his fingers slowly out of her as she mewled in disappointment.

Astarion licked his fingers clean in a sultry display before he spoke with a smile. “Delectable.”

Tav moved forward to reciprocate before Astarion stopped her. “I have something I need to quickly mention before we go on. A couple things my love that I forgot to mention earlier.” Astarion began slowly stroking himself. “After what you did, I just want you to know that I am not too happy with what you chose to do. I don’t want you making decisions for me. I’d rather you be open with me. We’re in this together after all, my love. Now I understand why you don’t want to pressure me. You think there is an issue because of your drive.” At this, Astarion’s serious face changed. He smiled. “You have nothing to worry about, my sweet.”

“Huh? I’m…confused.” Tav admitted.

“Cazador fell onto our blades… three and a half, four months ago? Since then, I’ve been trying to figure out who I am, and little by little, thanks to your boundless patience and love, I’ve been finding bits and pieces out. Now, I still have a long way to go. I don’t know what I lost before, and I don’t know fully who I am now, but I know a few things. I know I love you. I know I’m going to figure out a way to make you immortal,“ Astarion said this with a smirk and a wink “And I know that since he died, my hunger for you has only grown and I cannot contain it. I cannot keep my cock out of my hand every night as I take care of myself while I look at you. Sometimes I may get a treat as one of your breasts fall out of your shirt, but otherwise? I need you I fear as much as your drive makes you need me, and if memory recalls,” Astarion began to crawl up to Tav’s face and kiss her. “We used to be pretty involved in our room in the Elfsong after we killed the bastard. Our friends hated us for a bit,” Astarion chuckled. “But I think I’ve neglected you long enough, my sweet. Plus, we have something to celebrate.” Astarion smiled as his hand came up to cup her face and he used his thumb to rub her cheek bone.

Tav quickly reached forward to grab his cock but Astarion pushed her shoulders down to lay on her back before she could. “I fear if you touch me, darling, I may come prematurely.” Astarion confided in her, and kissed her again. “We also have one last issue.”

Tav cocked her head confused and waited for Astarion to answer. “The rings were enchanted by Gale who was so kind as to tell me of something he was researching lately.” Astarion began kissing her collarbone and her shoulder, making his way to her neck. Tav was confused why Gale was being brought up when they were about to make love. “He brought up Dhampirs. They’re half human and half vampire hybrids. All the pluses and very few drawbacks. They can walk in the sun, their hunger is significantly less and they can do what I can do.” Astarion kissed her jaw and her cheeks and now her lips, before resting his forehead on hers. “Apparently a fertile woman and a well fed male vampire…even a spawn, as long as whichever vampire has quality blood inside them, there is a chance of conceiving. The chances are still very rare, but this is the best chance for a male vampire to have a child.”

“So wait…” Tav pulled back and away from Astarion so she could understand. “You’re saying…we can have a baby? If we meet those conditions?”

Astarion chuckled and sat back, his cock now soft due to them speaking for so long and the lack of touch and stimulation. Of course it wouldn’t take much to get him up and running when the time came. “Darling. We have met those conditions. Based on your blood, you’re fertile and at your peak. The question is, do you want me to come outside of you tonight or…”

“We never spoke about children. I mean…I thought you would hate having children?”

Astarion smiled. “Thankfully, I had some time to think about this, because Gale told me about this a few weeks ago. At first I was opposed. I thought I would be a terrible father and I didn’t have the patience. I hated the idea, but as time went on, I kept imagining having a family with you. What the child would look like and if they would look more like you or myself. What I could teach them and suddenly I started to long for a family. Cazador stole everything from me, including a family. Although I got one with you…maybe little versions of our chaotic selves wouldn’t be a bad thing? but only if you feel the same way of course, dear.”

Tav opened her mouth to speak but closed it and smiled. She leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth. “You wouldn’t be wrong about teaching them chaos.” Tav laughed.

“Damn right. If you chose for it. Our son or daughter, hells, maybe both, would be a scoundrel with light feet and fast hands, but if anyone crossed them…” Astarion said, the threat left unsaid.

Tav chuckled. “I’ll admit, I always liked the idea of being a mother, but when we entered into a long term relationship, I figured that was a moot point, but the trade off was worth motherhood since it meant I got to be with you. I’m glad you want this.” Tav kissed him again as Astarion deepened the kiss, trying to progress the act until Tav pulled away. “I wanted to say that I am glad you want this, because I want it too. Now love, you just have to get me pregnant.”

Astarion smiled showing all his teeth, including his fangs as he spoke, Tav was growing wet at the thought. “ I’m dying to get you pregnant to be honest. I want to fill you so bad and make your stomach swell with my seed. I want the world to know what we’ve been up to and know that you’re mine.”

Tav couldn’t help her arousal. She was so wet at the thought and she wasn’t even sure why.

“It may take a few tries.”

“Darling, you’re not going to be able to walk…” Astarion kissed Tav deeply while she brought her hand down to his surprisingly already mostly hard cock.

“No.”

“Huh?” Tav muttered confused.

“I’ll spill too fast, and each drop is reserved for your uterus, darling.” Astarion smiled as he took her lips again and this time the two began kissing intensely as they pressed and ground their hips against each other, neither getting anywhere except shallow friction until Astarion pulled back and fished in the drawer for something.

“Astarion, are you..?”

“If I’m filling you with our child tonight, my love, I need your hands where I can see them.” Astarion said as he tied her hands together to the headboard of the bed.

“This was for other kinds of play, and you know it.” Tav admonished playfully. She wanted him just as bad and was enjoying every step of the way.

“You’re going to have so much of my come in you that you’ll be leaking me for weeks. We’re going to have this child. I know it because my love for you makes the impossible possible. You’ve done it with me, with our friends, and with the city. What’s biology got on you?” Astarion said as he lined his cock up and took Tav’s breast into his mouth. Tav moaned and gasped loudly when he sheathed himself in her to the hilt in one thrust.

“Gods Astarion, you’re so thick. I almost forgot. It’s been too long…” Tav moaned as Astarion stilled, allowing her to adjust to his size. She was right, it had been too long, and he wouldn’t say it out loud but he had difficulty as well. If he didn’t pace himself, he would spill too quickly.

“Gods, you’re so tight and wet….so warm. You’re right, it’s been too long. Let’s never do that again. After tonight, you’re going to remember my cock my sweet. Soon you’ll be my wife, and if we do this right, the mother to my child. Gods I’m so fucking lucky…” Astarion said as he went in to kiss Tav, who replied, “You deserve everything Astarion,” before he took her lips and he began to roll his hips slowly. Astarion moved his hand to the back of her head as he took her lips, and the other hand to her breast. Astarion pulled back as he moaned and began picking up the pace, but refused to go too fast. He wanted Tav to quake before he filled her. He wanted to give her the climax that she had been denied.

“You feel so good. Your cock feels like it belongs in me,” Tav muttered while she hooked her legs around Astarion’s hips to pull him closer and not let him go. She crossed them and held tight.

“That’s because it does belong in you. It doesn’t belong anywhere else.” Astarion smiled and, although both were breathing heavily, they kissed again once more, but this time tenderly. “I love you so much. You are my world. My sun. My goddess.”

“I love you too Astarion. You mean more to me than life itself,” Tav said as she felt the pressure rising inside.

Astarion rolled his hips slightly differently to hit at a different angle. He was going to force her to come because he didn’t know how much longer he could last. He upped his speed and thrust harder and deeper inside while rolling his hips. He reached between them and began circling her clit, and huskily spoke to her, “Come for me my love, pull me in and come for me.” Astarion’s rhythm began to falter, and he was doing all he could not to finish first when Tav screamed his name, and the throbbing contracting muscles told him she was coming and he could let go. “Take all of me.” Astarion grunted with each thrust left, and with a few more shaky thrusts, he held her flush to his hips as he came harder than he came in a long time. Literal white stars partly appeared in his vision as he emptied himself inside her, and he felt the sticky substance fill the canal and threaten to leak from her private region. Astarion panted heavily as he gazed into the loving and smiling face of his fiance. Astarion did not disconnect, but instead grabbed the water skins on the side and handed one to Tav, who drank greedily from it before returning it. Astarion did the same.

“That felt great love,” Tav said. She went to move, but she realize that Astarion was staying hard and not softening up, nor was he disconnecting. Astarion smiled when he saw that she noticed something was off.

“Astarion, what’s going on?”

“Darling, our best shot of making a baby is tonight. Also, we’re celebrating our engagement, and I’m making up for all the time I neglected you. You’re staying right here until you’re thoroughly sated my love. No worries though, I thought ahead and have a healing potion for when we get sore, and water.”

Tav smiled and laughed. “Here I was worried my sex drive would scare you off. I love you my husband to be.”

Astarion kissed her sweetly and replied, “Darling, during our time with our wriggling friends in our brains, and I was ok with sex again…around the time Cazador was killed, I was matching you toe to toe, but I love you too, my soon-to-be wife.” Astarion joked with his sass as if it was a game or a sport so Tav would feel more at ease with herself and felt comfortable being who she was.

With that, the couple kissed and resumed pleasuring each other for some time. It was said the couple stopped taking contracts for a month later, and they always took two to three days off a week to allow time to rest, time to themselves and time to each other. The happy couple enjoyed their time of bliss….then a letter came.

[athetos]

Okay here’s the very rough outline of my baru cormorant x locked tomb crossover…. If you have suggestions let me know… Major spoilers for both book series. Also I want to clarify this isn’t going to be a very long multi-chapter thing, I’m hoping to keep this under control and have it be a collection of scenes in chronological order that cover everything. Like I’m absolutely wanting to keep this below 20k words so it doesn’t destroy me.

Taranoke is a planet destroyed and flipped by the lyctors and the cohort. One of the lyctors, Farrier, realizes baru had a spark of necromantic ability and saves her (promising to protect her parents) and sends her to a top necromantic school. Without the knowledge of the emperor (renascent) he secretly trains her when he visits and keeps an eye on her progress. She is given Muire lo as a cavalier, and becomes fast friends with Aminata, the cavalier to croftare. Throughout her studies, baru learns more and more about how the nine houses are run, and decides to overthrow them from the inside, with the ultimate goal of killing all the lyctors and the emperor, so that no more planets are flipped and the war can end. Upon graduation, baru is sent to the ninth house to become their sole necromancer, as the previous ones have all died of a deadly pox, and is told a chance to ‘ascend’ will be sent her way in due time.

There, she of course meets tain Hu, as well as oathsfire, Lyxaxu, and Unuxekome, among others. Midway through her stay, as she’s working to restore the ninth house to its former glory, Muire lo becomes ill and dies. Heartbroken, baru hides away to grieve, before being forced at last to pick a replacement cavalier. As oathsfire and some of the other dukes are all cavaliers with significant experience with their late necromancers, it’s expected she’ll choose one of them, but she instead picks Tain Hu. This is not only because she trusts her beyond any other, but also because she hopes the taboo of a necro/cav relationship will make her crush on her go away (it doesn’t, not at all.)

They of course get the invitation to Canaan house. Aminata and croftare are there, somewhat taking the role of palamedes and Camilla, and the third house is Yawa and olake. Cytherea is a member of the cancrioth, haven’t settled on one in particular. Things go much as they did in GTN, except Yawa is also forced to eat olake’s soul, not willingly, which devastates her. Plus, croftare dies without a plan like palamedes did, but Aminata survives. Baru has solved the lyctor theorem, has at a point probably known for a while and just repressed it, but comes up with a desperate and wild gambit. Meanwhile, When Hu sacrifices herself, Baru tells her she has a plan, and will see her soon. After defeating the rogue lyctor, baru writes the letters to her future self, and ropes Yawa into helping her do brain surgery, with Yawa firmly on her side in contrast to ianthe, as she also wants revenge for being forced to use up her brother.

The lyctors are farrier (cav unknown), hesychast (with iscend as his cav, who takes over his body occasionally like Pyrrha did to g1deon), svirakir (iraji was his cav), yawa and her cav, and tain shir (unknown cav). Baru feels a massive headache when she sees shir, and to a lesser extent, yawa. Shir tries to kill baru, but not because she’s told to by the emperor, but for revenge since she knows baru consumed her cousin’s soul, which confuses baru because she has no idea why shir is doing what she’s doing. Nobody else tells her why, just is cryptic about it thinking she’s insane, and yawa can’t tell her without compromising the plan. Instead of Camilla meeting her on one of the planets, Aminata meets her and Yawa instead, as she was given instructions to by baru, who thought of everything even if she can’t remember it. She took Hu’s body from Canaan house, and upon seeing it baru remembers everything. With yawa’s help, they heal Hu’s body with lyctor powers and insert Hu’s soul. This gives their souls a connection where baru can use some lyctor abilities while Hu can do her own thing, and they have telepathy across even large distances, and Hu can use some of Baru’s necromantic stuff, too.

Yawa had managed to get a blood sample from the emperor, and gives it to Hu and Aminata. While baru and Yawa continue to deceive the emperor, Aminata and Hu travel to the ninth house and use her newfound connection with baru and the vial of blood to break into the locked tomb. With telepathy, they coordinate the perfect moment, when the emperor is vulnerable from a resurrection beast attack, to unseal the Body. As the beast and the Body attack renascent at the same time, they are forced into the stoma and banished. The resurrection beasts pass on, now that their revenge is sated, and farrier is killed in the process. Shir of course is now on their side, and iscend takes permanent control over hesychast, and svirakir disappears. The nine houses as they know it is completely toppled, the secret to lyctorhood is kept hidden forever, and they work to help everyone heal and eventually thrive without their influence. They try to return life to Taranoke, and the what was the ninth house is restored to its former glory. Baru, Hu, and Aminata are in a polycule. The end <3

[lemon-natalia]

Harrow the Ninth Reaction - Chapter 14

ok list of more foods in this world i don’t want to eat: weird tasting NecromancyFrozen™ food

given they’ve been around and cooking for themselves for about ten thousand years, do you think the Emperor & the Lyctors ever had at least one Masterchef night?

if the Emperor doesn’t drink his coffee out of one of a cheap novelty mug that says something like ‘World’s Best Emperor’ i will be sorely disappointed (should i be calling him John now? it feels weird to call him John. i’m not gonna call him John)

ohh there’s for sure something creepy and or mysterious in this guys private rooms. or maybe he just likes his privacy, who am i to judge

the cult of BOE, currently led by resident face of Boe, Captain Jack Harkness

also thats a cult thats been around an awful long time, wow. i … don’t know about the idea of Cytherea working for them, i feel like an insurgent group would want to come up with a slightly more surefire plan than ‘very slowly kill off everybody one by one’?

and how does he know that Harrow’s parents are dead? its possible as a very powerful necromancer, maybe he can just sense these things, but if someone has been through Harrow’s memories and altered them …

and Harrow just tells him, the secret that she kept for so many years, essentially no questions asked. i really can’t tell if this is because its someone she considers her god to be asking, or if there’s something more sinister

dude, you could at least pretend to be disturbed that making such a powerful necromancer needed the mass death of children. also i am very worried about whats going to happen to Harrow, or what he’ll do more generally, now he knows about this possibility

great, the Emperor is giving Harrow weird parent trauma 2.0, exactly what she needs right now i’m sure

BOE stands for the Blood of Eden … okay, interesting. and then he quotes King Lear immediately afterwards, i think my theory about this being the future is back in business baby