#but she tends not to move any plot herself- rather being brought along by May

[bluejaybytes]

June SplatOC has two different AUs where she gets to be angsty and drive the plot around herself but in her canon her biggest plot issues are "unmedicated anxiety" and "setups so cheesy they're too much for even the most obvious of romcoms"

[elendsessor]

ok ok didn’t know there was a new smtv rising revengeance preview so i decided to check it out and here are my thoughts

everything’s below the cut so if you don’t want spoilers at all skip this :)

first off MY WISH CAME TRUE!!!

your partners can summon demons!!!! i mean i don’t really know how to feel about partners taking up party slots but

hey they brought back a cool thing from 4a and i’m here for it look at the silly bird and dazai channeling his inner pokemon trainer

then of course there’s the new drip and imma be real (and this is not the last time imma bitch) this uh. doesn’t vibe with me. i mean it’s fine??? i guess??? the new move looks cool but something about the design doesn’t really fit the serenity of the nahobino’s design. i really liked not having some completely edgy vibe especially since it contrasted with the other nahos so well. feels like its being taken away. though this may be more aogami dominant or something idk. i like a lot of 5’s demon designs so this was a bit of a letdown.

side note i like how the protag and aogami sitting on a bench are included in a lot of press release screenshots it’s just. really funny to me.

now here’s a really hot hot hot take

i hate this. i hate that they brought mastema back the way they seem to be doing. hear me out for a moment—

it has a lot to do with the law bias megaten has. i like mastema in strange journey but god they fumbled him in the chaos route by turning him into another angel who openly admits they just want complete control and i’m really fucking tired of it. he was basically a drug dealer in 4 and did like. absolutely nothing and was a whiny bitch. i wouldn’t mind him returning as a strictly summonable demon, but due to his framing in the trailer, he’s either going to be a part of the main plot or part of a sidequest.

the problem is that due to how much megaten pushes “law bad” it requires butchering characters. a lot of it definitely has to do with japan’s history with christianity and whatnot which is 100% valid. i don’t think i need to explain how abrahamic religions have impacted the world pretty negatively due to the evangelicals, but the fundamentals of religion are actually well intended. what matters is who preaches them. how it is often portrayed in megaten is controlling and sacrificing individuality when law as a concept is a lot broader and also comes with other downsides often overlooked and also often depicted as being almost downright exclusive to abrahamic religions when that couldn’t be further from the truth. heck japanese society is conservative af and punishes “underperforming.” so basic capitalism. as such, many of the angels in smt are also often depicted as slaves to god’s system or wanting something to be gained, and a lot of law reps are either depicted as being blindly complicit with things they were shown to be against or be made just as mindless.

law has been done well before. getting amane’s ending not only makes a lot of thematic sense but leads to one of the best written scenarios in the franchise along with one of my favorite exchanges in gaming. dsrk2 handles law stuff in a completely unique way that asks a lot more questions than any mainline game has ever done. it’s just a shame that status quo tends to be kept.

i’m not entirely worried since there’s a chance he could be handled well. abdiel is still the best written angel of them all because she wasn’t looking for control, rather approval, even if it meant committing a taboo/tearing herself apart to please god, which is a perfect commentary in it of itself and fits her namesake. law in 5 was actually pretty tame and not nearly as extreme as it usually is. though, considering how mastema’s character has been reduced to being an untrustworthy ass as opposed to just being relatively hands off when it came to pushing the good word of the lord, i don’t think that’ll change anytime soon. again have to stress i don’t dislike his inclusion because i don’t like him as a demon (i really do), i’m skeptical about his inclusion because of his character being assassinated in the name of the generic law bad thing and he clearly is going to be given a role outside of possibly usable demon.

to end on a good note tho

the ability to play as nahobeeho is very welcome in every reality

and though i already made a post on them gonna show them again

I LOVE AMABIE!!!!

[linkspooky]

What do you think about utahime’s role in the series and what her development is going to be?

Iori is a character set up to do things as soon as the next few chapters probably, considering that the most recent chapter has brought her into play again in the Shibuya arc as well as the rest of the Kyoto Students. An analysis of her character and ideas for potential development underneath the cut. 

1. No, I Don’t Respect Satoru Gojo

If there was any character I would compare Utahime to right away my mind jumps to Nanami. Someone whose strength is that they are caring and attentive, especially with the children under their responsibility, but they don’t necessarily challenge authority. They follow the rules because they don’t have the strength to just blatantly laugh in the face of them like Gojo. 

Gojo works outside of the system. Everybody needs him, and because of that he doesn’t really have to play much politics or cooperate with somebody. Gojo never in any situation has to bow his head down, be quiet, or respectful. 

This is both a strength and a weakness. It’s a strength because Gojo sees what’s wrong with the world, and is actively taking steps to challenge it. However, because Gojo absolutely refuses to play politics with others it means that people can often pull strings behind his back and get away with it. Gojo is the strongest, but he lacks the authority of the higher ups, or even the finesse to try to subvert them. Yuji’s first death in the series was also Gojo losing a political move, because a lot of higher ups in the upper crust of the Jujutsu World that Gojo usually refuses to play games with, went behind his back while he was on a mission.

Gojo is many things but he lacks sublety. To put it in another way, Gojo tries to solve everything with strength, because he doesn’t know what it means to be weak. The first thing we’re introduced to about Utahime is that she’s Gojo’s literal opposite. 

Gojo assesses her as a weak person, the kind that he usually likes to look down upon. He teases her the same way he does Ijichi (probably just because he can, he’s a brat like that) however one difference is Utahime always snaps back at him when he tries something with her. 

He also asks something of her, to investigate the Kyoto School. This is Gojo whose tendency is to do everything by himself. 

I think the point of this comparison is Utahime is strong in exactly the areas that Gojo is weak. Utahime can keep her head down, play politics, and investigate others in a way that Gojo can’t because he’s just too loud and unsubtle about things. He prefers the direct approach with everything and to use strength to win. 

Gojo and Utahime occupy the same position in the Jujutsu High, she’s the head teacher for the Kyoto class, and Gojo is the head for the Tokyo class. However, how they run their classes is entirely different. Gojo wants strong comrades in arms who will eventually be able to fight for him, and surpass him. 

The Kyoto school is notably weaker, but also tends to act together as a unit more (with the exception of Todo). Even in the Kyoto vs Tokyo fight, the Tokyo kids all broke up and fought individually for the most part, while the Kyoto Kids planned on fighting together. They all ambushed Yuji together. Momo showed up to try to make Nobara understand Mai. Mai showed up to save Momo when she was about to lose. Miwa was cooperating to take Maki off of Mai’s trail before she lost her sword. 

The Tokyo school seems to be a group of highly strong individuals, who sometimes have difficulty fighting together. The Kyoto school kids are all weak individuals, who are stronger together as a unit. It’s even said last year that Tokyo won by having Yuta overwhelm and defeat everybody by himself because he was just so strong as an individual. 

In the event it looks as if the principal plotted behind Utahime’s back to take out Yuji. So either, she’s unaware of the corruption of her own principal unlike Gojo who is directly confronting it, or she like Nanami is keeping her head down. However, Utahime is one of the few adult sorcerers just like Nanami shown to be immediately concerned about the welfare of the children she’s taking care of. 

We’re kept in the dark about a lot with Utahime. We don’t even know what her Jujutsu technique is, and we even saw the old man’s. However, it seems that her first priority is always the children. 

Utahime is more or less the caretaker of a very, very troubled group of teenagers, as the Kyoto kids tend to be emotionally unwell and take it out on others. Utahime is very caring, but it seems there are a couple of times shady things happen underneath her notice because she’s not individually strong enough to stop them. She couldn’t prevent the principal from going above her, and telling all the kids to gang up on and kill Yuji. She could not prevent Mechamaru from going behind her back, and spying on both Jujutsu High and the other side in order to attempt to take everything on himself.

In a world where strength is everything, Utahime doesn’t seem to be traditionally strong. Gojo is probably right about whatever Jujutsu technique she has considering what the six eyes allows him to see. However, she subverts two classical attitudes of Jujutsu Society, she’s a caring person who likes to get close to others and she also tends to rely more on strategy and figuring her way out of situations rather than powering through them. Utahime tries to solve the puzzle of the room she’s trapped in in the Hidden Inventory flash back, Gojo just breaks it. 

Utahime is clever and subtle enough to have figured out the mole almost immediately. She’s good enough at getting close to others, and being open about her feelings that her and Shoko are still good friends many years after Geto and Gojo have broken apart, and the students she teaches all work together as a group of friends despite having highly volatile individuals (Momo, Mai, etc probably wouldn’t usually get along with a girl like Miwa). 

There are strengths to her ability to keep her head down, but probably at the same time just like with Nanami there are times where her weakness slaps her in the face. There are things she might have been able to prevent by challenging things head on more in the style of Gojo, instead of either trying to think her way around it, or be working within the system. She wasn’t able to stop her kids from targeting Yuji which would have gotten a child killed, and she couldn’t stop Mechamaru in time.

Now the biggest disaster in Jujutsu History is happening, and Utahime got sent away the day of, because Mechamaru thought she was too weak to survive with the rest of the kids. 

If Utahime doesn’t assert herself and challenge things, she’ll be left with the regret of not being able to do anything when the time comes. People like Mei Mei who are less caring but individually stronger end up mattering more because they assert themselves. Utahime is actually pretty strong willed, she basically never bows to Gojo’s teasing, but she is in situations like these passive.

If the Kyoto kids do charge to Shibuya in order to help the situation out, Utahime will most likely be the one leading them and that might be her character development. If they were all together they might fight together.

If Mei Mei doesn’t get to Gojo. Then basically every single other 1st grade or higher sorcerer is out of commission. Naobito got flamed by Jogo. Nanami was finished by Mahito. Kusakabe isn’t going to go into the subway tunnels because he’s too much of a coward. Shoko is kept out of the fight because she’s too valuable an asset to lose. Nobara, and Megumi are knocked out. If it’s not Yuji or Todo who gets there. Then the only adult left to do something is Utahime. 

This theory is a bit of a longshot, but considering how Utahime is framed as the  opposite of Gojo, and the way hidden inventory started... with Utahime being trapped in a curse and Gojo letting her out by smashing it. This time it could be Utahime letting Gojo out of the box, if she somehow gets there in time before the seal is finished and steps up to the occasion. That’s my current theory on what Utahime might do next. Also, my own personal pet theory is that we might see more of her in the next arc when everyone is dealing with the political fallout of so many deaths of important people in the Shibuya Incident Arc, because Utahime is the one who handles political matters and digs into the politics of the Jujutsu World not Gojo. 

[literary-spirit]

Bonnie Bennett believed she'd finally discovered her good enough ending. Yet, like most things in her life good enough goes left and leaves her with another ending. Or, perhaps a fire beginning...Journey with everyone's favorite Bennett Witch to the Viking Era for much needed lessons in devotion, courtesy the Lothbrok brothers.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, none of these characters belong to me. And to add unfairness to poetic injustice, neither does the shows or the books. However, I still intend to pull the characters' strings and make them dance, all while having a ball upsetting canon plot lines!

AN: Alright Bennett Fandom this one here is a bit different from what you're used to. Okay this one here is a bit different than I'm used to. Francesca has recently rediscovered Vikings and with it the sons of Ragnar. And don't you know she wouldn't rest until she brought our favorite Bennett Witch into their mess! As if our girl didn't already have her own problems. SMFH! So thanks to my lovely muse, here we are with a whole lot of trifling savagery that I'm just not so sure about. But as always I'll let you be the judge if this WIP lives to see another update. Flame it or acclaim it in comments.

“You know as much as I’ve savored the joy of tormenting you over the years-,” Klaus began.

“No,” Bonnie shook her head. She’d tried to go along with his final request. Really she did, but how could she? When in the end all he’d be was gone. “I’m sorry, bae. We’re not doing this.”

Rebekah’s eyes rolled. She released a drawn out exhale that hadn’t been necessary for her since wood ash and pointed stick tattoos were a thing. “Bonnie, don’t ruin this for him! Permit him whatever comfort he demands. He shoulders a burden you’d never be able to fathom. Can you not allow him to experience but one moment of grace? A moment Hope will undoubtedly cling to after he’s gone.”

“No, Rebekah! I’m not about to listen as the man I love gives us all a corny goodbye and pretend to be okay with it. And why the hell should Hope have a moment to cling to when she could have her father?” She gave her head another firm shake. “No, this is not okay with me,” her voice rose as she drilled visual holes through each of them. Klaus tried to shut her down with an arm around the shoulders but she curved him with a shrug, all while committing ocular homicide on him in the process. “So why the hell is it okay with you, Hybrid?” Her scorn riddled gaze darted from him back to his so called family. “Or any of you?”

“You must’ve been down on Bourbon sipping on that Absinthe again if you believe any of this shit is okay with us,” Marcel waved her off barely sparing her a glance. “We all just know Klaus is gonna do whatever Klaus wants no matter how any of us feels about it. The most dangerous place you can be when his mind’s made up is in his way. So I suggest you step out of it.”

Her neck snapped back as if she’d taken a two piece to the chin. “You think I’m afraid of the big bad wolf? I wasn’t at seventeen and if I thought for a second it would save him, I’d put his ass back in the dirt again. I take care of my own, Marcel. No matter the dangers or consequences,” she jabbed a thumb at her hybrid, “And make no mistake, that Original pain in the ass over there is mine.”

“Cute.” Marcel laughed as he rubbed at the corners of his mouth. “Bonnie, we’re his family. Each of us have known, feared, hated, respected, and loved him long before even your parents’ parents became an idea. Hell, even after everything he’s dragged me through, there’s not a drop of blood I wouldn’t bleed for him.”

“Then stand behind those words and do something, Marcel,” she pleaded, because at this point she wasn’t above begging for the only bright spot remaining in the dim bleakness that had become her life seven years before.

“What would you have us do, Bonnie?” Elijah questioned in a barely engaged tone.

Bonnie turned to consider him. A perpetual moroseness now cloaked the one she’d once believed to be noble. His arrogance hadn’t been quite the same since the restoration of his memories. More and more he’d begun to remind her of Finn. She squared her shoulders and straightened her spine. Since discovering what Klaus planned to do, she’d toyed with an idea she’d vowed never to indulge. Yet, under the weight of impossible desperation such vows could not stand.

“The eternal witch spell should be evoked,” she said.

“By whom?” Kol questioned. His chocolate browns moved from Freya to Hope. When both appeared to know less than him his disbelieving gawk returned to her. “You?!” Laughter burst from his mouth. “Oh Darling, I’ve witnessed that spell make a supernatural mess of the most talented witches to ever recite a chant. There’s only one destined to master the eternal witch incantation and her sorcery is said to be unmatched.” His knowing gaze drifted to Hope, and then back to her. “There’s no way you’re powerful enough to undertake the task. You’re not even the strongest witch on this block.”

Bonnie flinched. Damn it, if Kol hadn’t DOA’ed her pride. When the hell did he jump on the Bennett hate train? To hear how far his opinion of her plummeted sort of burned.

She nodded. “Okay, if not me why not Davina. You tend to enjoy blowing her horn. If she’s all you claim her to be, get her here. I’ll happily bow down if her being greater than me will save him.” She jerked her head in Klaus’ direction.

“No!” Marcel barked.

“Leave my wife out of this.” Kol zipped across the distance separating them to tower over her. His original face no longer concealed by his human deception.

Klaus rocketed forward to place himself between she and Kol. “Step away from my fiancé, baby brother. For if you harm her then you’ll be joining me in the afterlife. To hell with your bloody dagger and box.”

Ignoring Kol’s and Klaus’ dagger and the box bit, her distressed stare collided with Freya’s. “What about you? Will you help me save your brother?”

“Bonnie, that spell is much too dangerous. Even for me.” The blondes eyes offered her a thousand apologies but not one solution. “I’m sorry, but I can’t risk it…not now.”

Her desperation bottomed out to despair as her gaze took a hail Mary launch to the supposedly most powerful witch in the room. “Hope?”

The room erupted. You’d think she’d offered the girl a crack pipe. When she was Hope’s age she was taking down well…her dad.

“Bonnie!” Elijah yelled.

“This is madness,” Rebekah growled, taking a step in their direction. “Nik tell her!”

“We’ve already talked about this, Bekah.” Marcel shook his head and tugged Rebekah back to his side. “That doesn’t concern us.” Bonnie heard Marcel mutter.

Klaus spun away from Kol to regard her. He grabbed her face and cradled her cheeks in his palms. “Everything’s going to be alright, Love.” He whispered, before brushing his lips against hers. Liquid pain disturbed the stillness of his crystal blue stare and contradicted the hell out of his reassurance.

“How?” She tugged herself free of his grasp. “How’s everything going to be alright? You’ll be dead and then what? Life goes on? Fuck that! I’m not about to stand here and mourn a defeat I haven’t loss yet!” She whirled away and marched from the gathering. Her decision made.

Once out of sight, she hurried towards their bedroom. Inside, she closed the door and locked it. The barrier wouldn’t hold her hybrid, but the fraction of time it would provide may be all she needed to complete the spell. She fell to her knees next to the mattress. Carefully, she tugged the blanket from underneath the bed. The already prepared altar and ingredients slid out. She stared down at the athamae and exhaled. Second thoughts plagued her mental, but she shook them away. She’d come this far already. The time to bitch up and forget about it had come and gone. Now was the time to do and die, literally.

She picked up the dagger and called forth every ounce of mystical energy which bled through her veins. A swell of Bennett sorcery overwhelmed the room. Pictures rattled on the walls. The balcony doors blew open and the glass shattered. Furniture not nailed down whipped about the room like she’d caught a ride in a tornado. Steeling her nerves, she continued. She called forth her psychic energy, her huntress energy. Any and everything supernatural about her she offered to the Goddess of all in exchange for an eternity of knowledge and the fated eternal mate destined to help her defeat the Hollow.

After relinquishing her all to the Creator she sliced open her palm. Blood gushed from the wound and saturated the ingredients. A searing light illuminated the room. The bargain was struck and accepted. Now the sacrifice. She swallowed and raised the blade. Aiming it at the center of her chest, she closed her eyes.

“Bonnie, no!” Klaus’ voice penetrated the white noise blaring throughout the room. “Love, don’t do this. You won’t survive.”

She opened her eyes. He stood just beyond the enchantment circle, attempting to force his way into the barrier. “Neither will you if I don’t. Besides, if it doesn’t work I’d rather be in the ground anyway than breathe without you, Klaus.”

“Bonnie, please,” he pled as he dropped to his knees. He slammed his fist against the barrier. “Please, don’t do this. We’ll find another way. You have my word, Love!”

A sad smile flirted with her lips. “You’re lying, Klaus. If there was another way then it would already be the plan.” She plunged the blade into the cradle of her breasts. A piercing burn penetrated her chest.

“No!” Klaus’ bellow seared layers from her punctured heart. The storm of mystical energy whipping about ceased.

Her knees buckled. Klaus caught her before the ground could and cuddled her close. She attempted to talk, but a wheeze whistled pass her lips instead.

“No, Love, don’t speak.” He bit into his wrist and placed the bleeding extremity to her mouth. His blood might as well had been battery acid because she’d bet dollars to air it burned the same. Hacking coughs damn near shook her frame apart by the joints. “Why the sodding hell isn’t this working?”

“I-It’s the s-spell,” she managed to utter. “M-my death is the p-price of a-admission.”

Tears trickled from his eyes onto her face. “Why did I have to go and love you, Little Witch?” He demanded, looking beyond confused.

“B-Because its what we b-both needed at the time and no m-matter how this turns out I’ll always be indebted to you for giving me a reason. L-Love you, Hybrid…always and f-forever.” His face faded until nothing but darkness surrounded her.

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, none of these characters belong to me. And to add unfairness to poetic injustice, neither does the shows or the books. However, I still intend to pull the characters' strings and make them dance, all while having a ball upsetting canon plot lines!

The abyss gave way to blinding lights. Bonnie squeezed her eyes shut. A cacophony of sounds battered her auditory senses. The eardrum rupturing racket nearly distracted her from the violent rocking motion. A violent rocking motion which would no doubt wrought absolute fuckery on her cyclic vomiting syndrome. Right along with the tang of salt-water, unwashed bodies, and rotten fish. The potpourri of funk came close to singeing the lining of her nostrils.

A familiar acrid burn tickled the back of her throat. On cue her belly spun a series of gold medal winning somersaults. Oh this was going to happen. Her lack of sight heightened her senses and made her that much more sensitive to all the upchuck factors swirling about her. Unable to continue to live in the darkest part of her denial and remain vomit free, she opened her eyes. The brightest day she'd ever had to tolerate greeted her light discriminating gaze. She closed her eyes once more. What in the extreme fuck? Was this some kind of hell dimension? Is that why she was only a five minute drive away from the damn sun? Oh Goddess no!

"Cade?!" She growled.

The acrid burn that flirted with the back of her throat developed a sour chunky consistency. Once again she forced her eyes open...and blinked. She was on a vessel that appeared to have hailed straight out of Vikings. Damning the unnecessary brightness and her afterlife in general, she turned and tossed up the entire contents of her stomach over the boats edge. The seafood gumbo from Rousseau's she loved nearly as much as Klaus shot from her mouth and floated one way while the wind and Hades' cruiser sailed her in another.

As gravity took her down exhaustion fucked her over. She rested her cheek on the boat's wooden ledge. Drops of putrid salt water splashed her face. Yet, her fucks to give was at a negative zero low. Not only was she dead, but more than likely so was Klaus. She'd failed him...she'd failed them. Not even eternity would be long enough to make that shit okay.

Bonnie's vision blurred. Her chest throbbed. She clawed at the pounding ache between her breasts. Goddess, it's a wonder her chest didn't have a gaping hole in it after everything her heart had lost. Shaking her latest failure from her thoughts, she turned to slouch back to the boat's floor. She then lifted her gaze to assess her surroundings. Various shades of irises gawked back at her. She froze. Oh damn! Just her luck the water was sacred. She opened her mouth to offer an apology, but snapped it closed. Wait...why the hell did everyone look like extras from the Last Kingdom?

Slowly, her gaze dropped from the filthy hairy men towering over her to what she wore. The burlap sack dress she donned stopped her ever ticking clock. And based on the breeze cooling her cakes, her La Perla's had opted to skip the journey to the other side. Her back teeth clenched. In what kind of after life had she been dropped? Was this some kind of Viking hell? Had she somehow been granted eternity with Klaus in his hereafter?

The shifting of bodies snaked her attention from Kanye's spring wear to the now parting beefy men. A sight which had her questioning her sanity emerged. Bjorn Lothbrok or at any rate the actor who portrayed him in Vikings. Was he dead and stuck on the Otherside also? Wait, was Alexander Ludwig even supernatural?

"You're not one of the slaves who was captured during the raid. One of your hue, I would've remembered." The head Viking in charge edge that resonated in Bjorn's or Alexander's voice snatched her from her contemplations. "How've you come to be upon this ship?" When she opened her mouth to speak the cold sharpened point of a sword pierced the hollow of her throat. "Speak to me of canards or sagas and I shall open your gullet."

She hesitated for a moment. What could she say? The truth would definitely get her neck split wide. "I-I'm not sure. Before...when I closed my eyes, I was somewhere else and now that I've opened them, I'm..." she glanced from the horror frozen faces of the crewmen to the beyond frightened slaves. The poor shackled souls huddled away from her in the ship crevices and corners on either side of her. She swallowed and allowed her gaze to return to Bjorn. "I'm here."

"Oh my god," she heard one of the slaves mutter in a tone that, to her surprise, sounded annoyed?

His scoff sliced the disbelief inspired silence in half. He withdrew the biting tip of his sword from her throat and sheathed it in the scabbard at his side. "Bind her hands to her feet and toss her over."

The ship erupted in a flurry of movement. Two overfed red-haired and even redder faced Viking men moved to grab her. She nearly projectile vomited her heart from her mouth.

"I know what I'm saying sounds apeshit, but I swear on everything I love, Alexander," she said slowly uttering the name and searching his face for a flare of recognition. When nothing sparked in his expression she stammered on, "I-I'm telling the truth. Please, you have to believe me, Bjorn!" A flicker of curiosity narrowed his glare. Bingo! "You can't let them kill me! Please, I don't wanna die again!"

"Halt!" He bellowed, raising a hand to stop the men from advancing, "How've you come to know of my name?"

Shit! She pressed her lips together as her mind flipped through a too short list of plausible explanations that wouldn't get her burned at a stake for witchcraft. "I-I've dreamt of you a-and of this moment." There, that didn't sound too bad. One thing she'd learned from Klaus, watching Vikings, and Google, is ancient Northman actually revered oracles and seers.

"You've dreamt of me?" He knelt before her, arresting her stare with a penetratingly incandescent blue gaze. At a deliberate methodical pace, his eyes crept over her face. Her lungs threatened to collapse under the thorough scrutiny. "Of this moment?" Unable to look anywhere other than in the irises that burned brighter than the now blazing sun, her head bobbed. A smile enticed the corners of his mouth. "Then why fear what you know will follow? Have you not prepared well to meet your fate?"

"Not if my fate resides at the bottom of the ocean," she said with a firm shake of the head, "That's an introduction I'd like to cur—avoid indefinitely."

His head tilted just so as he continued to regard her. "Name yourself."

"Bonnie Bennett," she answered.

A golden brow lifted. "Bonnie Bennett of where?"

"New-M-Mystic Falls...Bonnie Bennett of Mystic Falls."

"I have never heard of a land with such a name," he huddled a bit closer to her, "in which direction does your homeland lie?"

Before she could answer, thick gun metal gray clouds rolled across the azure sky and swallowed the glaring sun. A sonic boom exploded somewhere in the distance, while blue streaks of lightening zigzagged its way through the stodgy swirls of gloom. And if the situation wasn't already atom splitting serious, fat drops of rain and hail the size of golf balls began to pelt them.

"This storm is unnatural!" A seaman yelled.

"What in the name of Odin will become of us? None of us shall discover the gates of Valhalla at the bottom of the sea!" A ruddy face old man with a scraggly beard roared at anyone who appeared to be listening.

Another much younger seaman, maybe a little older than herself, turned an anxious stare on Bjorn. "Do you believe the All Father has forsaken us, Ironside?"

Bjorn opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by a blonde slave girl who pointed a finger in her direction, "It's her! Her very presence displeases the gods. You should heave her over and pray the sacrifice appeases them."

"You sound dumb as hell! It's no wonder you're in chains," Bonnie snapped, regretting her words as soon as they left her lips. Stupidity had nothing to do with forced captivity. Yet, that bitch had some damn nerve.

"No one will be heaving anyone over," Bjorn said, while standing from his crouch, "Raise the sails and provide the slaves with pails so they may began dumping water from the ship's floor."

A surge of magic thickened the air. The foreign sorcery incited something within her. Something unfamiliar. A bucket was pushed in her face. She took the wooden pail without looking away from the sea. The very stench of alien witchery agitated her own strange mystical energy. The fiery heat of her somehow altered super charged power practically scorched the inner lining of her veins as it raced through her vessels. Who would dare interrupt the supernatural and natural balance on this scale without justification? It was like using a heat seeking missile to take out a mosquito. Un-fucking-called for!

Instead of allowing the now aggressive powers within her the retribution it sought, she settled just to keep the occupants on the ship safe. So, while she dumped water from the boat's floor, she chanted under her breath. Soon, a protective shield formed around them in an elusive form of the previous sunny day. The Vikings and slaves alike erupted in praises to Odin.

"Yep," Bonnie forced a smile. "Praise Odin!"

"Come, Mystical One," Bjorn stood over her, his shadow casting her much needed shade.

Distrust and her impromptu guest starring role on a show which highlighted the fact that Vikings had no problems raping captives, raised her guards. Though realms out of her element, she was far from ignorant.

Her gaze moved over him in an attempt to size him up. "Where?"

"To the prow," He gestured towards the front of the ship before snatching the pail from her hands, and then tossing it aside. "I wish to learn more about you and this numinous land named Mystic Falls." When she took too long to follow he locked his hands behind his back and considered her. "If I wanted to lie with you then all I need do is have you. Do you believe anyone here would be minded to protect you?"

She lifted her chin as she glanced about the ship to see not one person watching them for concern purposes. Every eye she caught on them looked to be pre-historic Shade Room and TMZ reporters. If they had tea kettles back then they'd no doubt be ready to spill the damn things. No, Bjorn spoke the truth. No one on that confoundingly long boat would lift a calloused palm to help her.

"Alright." Exhaling, she stood and leveled him with a glare even a PMS'ing demon would be incapable of exacting. "But fair warning, no one on this ship can protect me better than me. And make no mistake, I'm not above defending my own honor."

He reached out and took her hand in his. "That is a certainty about you of which I'll never be mistaken, Bonnie Bennett of Mystic Falls."

[petalshields]

[ MINA EL HAMMANI, SHE/HER, DEMIGIRL ]  —  [ KAIA DEMIR-ZERHOUNI ]  is a child of  [ DEMETER ]  with the power of  [ FLORAL HEALING & PLANT COMMUNICATION ] .  they were born in  [ 1996 ]  and have been in nemean lion since  [ 2019 ] .  with the change, they  [ ARE TRAINING IN ]  the  [ MEDICAL ]  role which makes sense since they’re usually  [ NOT TALKING AND TENDING TO HER GARDEN IN HER ROOM  ] .  if you’d like to meet them try the  [ SUN ]  building . @nlupdates

hello friends! its ya girl garnet and this is my newest baby. like this and i will not only find u...i will plot WITH u (threat).

Kaia’s pinterest is here!

BIOGRAPHY!

( near drowning tw, death tw )

Mystery shrouds the exact circumstances of Kaia’s birth, but there was no denying that her father was Ilyass Zerhouni. His tryst with Demeter lasted through the winter: a season of mourning for the goddess of harvest. Their romance extinguished in March, timed with the thaw into spring, and Demeter left Ilyass without a trace of her presence in his life. Ilyass did some mourning of his own before, as he always had, continuing his life.

However, Ilyass saw Demeter one final time when she revealed she gave birth to his child. The child was born in November, and she urged him to protect her from supernatural forces, even gods themselves. Demeter knew the pain that came with losing a child.

Ilyass named the baby girl Kaia: Norwegian variant of Kaja, the diminutive form of Greek Katherine. Tracing this history, the name Kaia is intertwined with two meanings: ‘pure’ and ‘tortured.’

Born in sweltering Los Angeles, Kaia wasn’t shielded from her godly heritage. Ilyass called her his ‘miracle baby’ but he didn’t anticipate the degree. There were no parenting books on what to do when his child fell off her bike but flowers sticking out of her gashed knees. This led the man to be overly protective of her, to ensure that she did not draw attention to herself by harming herself or provoking others to harm her. He attempted to round all the sharp corners of Kaia’s life for her own protection, but for the most part, Kaia grew up happy.

Her affinity for plants stemmed from her ability to communicate with them. Their voices weren’t something she could ignore. Trees sang eerie songs as they swayed in the breeze, branches scratching against heaven, and a chorus of grass blades gossiped whenever they were stepped on ( blows kiss to the sky: for rowan ). It made it difficult for her to sleep sometimes, their voices were so constant, but Kaia learned how to tune out the plants and filter their thoughts from her own.

NEAR DROWNING TW: At age seven, Kaia contacted meningitis after being left unattended in the pool by a babysitter. Thankfully, she recovered quickly, but she suffered from moderate hearing loss. This incident only deepened Ilyass’s protectiveness. His later wife, Yaren Demir, was raising a demigod child of her own and shared the desire to shield their daughters. As a blended family, Yaren and Kaia’s new step-sister Sila acclimated to Kaia by learning American Sign Language. Though hearing aids lessen the severity of hearing loss, Kaia prefers ASL to verbal communication. ( note: she has difficulty holding a conversation one-on-one without them, and being in a crowd with them causes her a lot of anxiety. )

Adolescence was, for lack of a better word, an adjustment. Kaia prided herself on being mysterious, well-behaved, and reserved, but she began to push against the concrete boundaries set by her parents. Specifically, her competitive nature drew her to sports, which her parents staunchly disapproved of. The more Kaia wanted to expand, the more that her parents increased their restrictions. She took matters into her own hands when she was seventeen. Enticed by promises made by her then-boyfriend, Kaia ran away with him.

What could go wrong? Kaia’s not naïve; she knew that being bested by your emotions was never the correct move, but he was her first love and that love was the poison she’d inject into herself, over and over. There were red flags that the relationship wasn’t the healthiest, but, like any romantic, she ignored them all. Until it almost killed her 🤪

DEATH TW/CAR ACCIDENT TW: Almost is the key word. If she were mortal, she would have died. The boyfriend was drinking and driving, and he swerved off the road while Kaia tried to coax him into letting her drive. She doesn’t remember much of what followed. Blinding white, the sound of her voice shrill as she screamed for him to help her. The slam of the car door as he crawled out from the wreckage, a black figure bleeding into the night. The tree whispering, life, life, life, as flowers broke out of the gashes, blooming along the split skin. After fading in and out of consciousness, Kaia healed enough to gain strength to crawl out of the vehicle’s skeleton and stumbled through the surrounding woods.

Too ashamed to return home, Kaia found solace in an abandoned greenhouse. As a token from her mother, goddess of harvest after all, Kaia was fed throughout her time “missing,” surrounded by plentiful edible plants that yearned for her to eat them. She grew used to her own solitude, the simplicity of her life in the woods, but her own call out to reconnect with her sister caused her to punch her number into her phone. Soon enough, Sila found Kaia and convinced her to accompany her to a strange place she’s only heard about in passing: NEMEAN LION.

Kaia’s been on campus for two years, and the constant chatter and people and all else that comes with their godly heritage are thoroughly tolerated; she is still the prideful girl she once was, but her trauma caused her to have heightened suspicions of those around her, and she’s now more difficult to get close to. Beneath her new armor, there’s still a soft core, most evident when she’s volunteering at the infirmary or trailing behind her sister or smiling at a plant ( weird vibes but ok ). 

WANTED CONNECTIONS!

FRIENDS/A BEST FRIEND: PLEASE SOMEONE GET THIS BITCH SOME MILK!! Or rather the ability to build an attachment to someone that’s not her sister.

ENEMIES: Kaia may not express it all the time, but she does hold grudges and she’s very spiteful. I think this would be interesting because this is a bit of a shadow-self that she never got to explore in her youth, but she’s more willing to lean into it now because, in her mind, everyone sucks and should not be trusted. We can develop in the DMs!

PEOPLE WHO HELPED HER WHILE SHE LIVED IN THE GREENHOUSE: in my mind? while she was "missing” there was a little gaggle of people who brought her essentials in exchange for her helping them out somehow. Maybe she was their healer, or maybe she posed as a distraction for them to do some shady shit. either way, this relationship was mutually beneficial!

OPPOSITES ATTRACT: throw her your sunshine-y muses but she can be a little finicky so this may be a bit hit or miss SKJSKFJ. However I think that it’d be cool to have a muse who doesn’t flinch from her intensity sometimes, or bounces off of it. idk fam i just think it’d be Neat.

INJURED/HEALER: Someone who she always treats at the infirmary? I imagine that she’s gotten a hold of her powers enough that she’s able to heal others on command. She will always cluck her tongue and shake her head and, if they’re close enough, try to talk to this person. This takes a lot of ironing out because it really depends on where their relationship stands but we can make this work

DEMETER SIBLINGS: Kaia feels very much indebted to her mother for keeping her alive while she was in the greenhouse, so! She has a soft spot for all the Demeter siblings because she views them as being all a part of her, in some way, so throw her more family!

COMBAT BUDDIES: ( kaia 2 me: buddies is a strong wor- ) no but her having people to train with. Kaia isn’t about killing people ( unless you’re her ex boyfriend ahahaha that’s to unpack later ) but ! she is about learning to protect herself and wanting to do so with the utmost competency. Therefore she throws herself into combat training, and it’s a way for her to work out a lot of the pent up aggression that she has from not processing a lot of the things that have happened to her.

HOOKUPS: absolutely no strings. With the exception of Taylor, Kaia isn’t the relationship type I’m afraid and isn’t emotionally available, but she still has needs!

OTHER TREE HUGGERS: pretty explanatory, stole this from rowan. A friend of trees is a friend to Kaia.

ANYTHING! LET’S MF GO I’m really down for also filling yr plot needs! 

[charityfaithfull]

Connection and Plot Ideas

THE CLOSE FRIENDS charity’s circle that she interacts with usually daily. They know her ins and outs. She is drawn to people who feels she engage in both mental and emotional states. She is talkative and likes to solve problems. They are an academic bunch, but they’re interests can diverge into many fields.

open connection

THE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS Charity is a halfblood with wizard family on her father’s side. She would know some other wizard children, however she is much more engaged with the muggle world because she is closer to her mom

@frcnklcngbottom Frank Longbottom - They don’t speak all that often, everything being more mild acquaintanceship in the end.

open connection

LOVE/HATE DORM MATES   Charity isn’t the most typical Ravenclaw. Often her diverse experience and views can conflict with those near her.

@allaircss​ Ellie Allaire - It’s so bad. It’s only gotten worse. The more pets Ellie has brought, the more posters and records Charity hangs about the room. Ellie is resistant to Charity’s salt-of-the-concrete-city essense, and Charity is resistant to Ellie’s taste for the lavish.

@chvrrys - Usually the buffer for their rather…intense living situation. The pair get along much better. Unfortunately, their different life experiences and desires tend to be more of a wedge than discussion point.

@ivytravers - She may be the most relatable of the bunch for Charity, the most similar sentiments. Charity understands her anger with the world, but perhaps not how she believes she can handle things on her own. While Charity knows the grime of the world, Ivy knows the underbelly of the elite.

open connection

THE INSURGENTS  Someone who works with her in all respects for her beliefs in changing the view anti-muggle and muggleborn sentiment

@macmcry​ Mary MacDonald - The pair had plenty to relate to since Charity lived half her life in the muggle world. She was all about helping Mary in any little way, and they don’t mind breaking the rules to get it done.

LOST FRIEND   This is the person who she became unlikely friends with. She’s a great teacher and tries to experience things fully. However, she has been discouraged by how sour things all turned. It’s likely this was someone pureblood who thought they could resist the high pressures of family and social circles. It was a great disappointment to Charity when they could not.

open connections

FRENEMIES   Engage her mind, she lives for conversation and will try to prove she is the smartest person in the room

@frcnklcngbottom Frank Longbottom - Occasionally, Charity can enjoy having the upper hand in an intellectual conversation too much, and Frank isn’t one to enjoy that. Just as equally, Charity does not want to be bested by him.

open connection

ENEMIES   Come at her death eaters! She may be a pacifist in most situations, but she can make enemies easily. She openly shares her opinions and thoughts, which not everyone agrees with. This has gotten her into trouble for not just attempting to rework the educational system while she’s still in it, but for speaking out of turn because she knows she has to.

open connection

THE SILENCER - Somebody trying incredibly hard to get her to shut up about her pro muggle and pro muggleborn talking points. It’s a real battle because she is so well spoken and so clever. This person is getting to the point of considering more extreme means to get her to stop.

Open Connection

EXES  Charity is mature in that she has a deeper understanding of herself. Yet, she feels really young and doesn’t actively try to take things too far in relationships. She has a crew of muggle friends who she wanders around with, one of whom she has a special connection with, but because they are far apart most of the time, she chooses to not pursue anything. At Hogwarts, she knows she can’t worry herself with that and likely had at least one serious relationship.

open connection

DECISION MAKER Charity is becoming indecisive about her future. It’s a typical smart kid, told they were gifted when they were young and now they are suffering, type deal. She’s considering making her way to muggle university, but this person thinks her skills are better put to use in the magical world. They may even suggest she become a teacher...

open connection

FLING In some ways Charity is more suited to flings, she can be endearingly sweet but also finds her brain just moving too fast. She is someone who is hard to keep up with.

@aciiers​ Sirius Black (summer 1976) - She never thought he was dumb, just a little stupid. It was a good summer to forget and live a bit. Charity appreciated his attempts to mimic her conversational style, it was charming in the end. However, continuing into the school year wasn’t even a thought that crossed her mind.

open connection

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE   I always struggled to think of character comparisons, but yeah I think Charity is basically Lizzie Bennett. This is her Mr. Darcy. It isn’t someone who she has to be end game with, however this is someone from the complete opposite world. They can come off rude, but their choice to consistently interact intrigues her. It would take a lot of releasing their own pride to make anything happen, otherwise its all tension. basically gimme wizard pride and prejudice

@dirtbvg - Overlapping with plot for Star-Crossed Lovers. This was never intentional, and up until the last minute she had every doubt. Now that it’s summer, things may cool down. Their blossoming friendship can be less hidden in the shadows when its behind the wall of her London pub. But it won’t last as long as their own prejudices persist.

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 5-Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Hey there, hope you’re doing well, whenever/wherever you’re reading this. We’re on the fifth episode of the Ranma Rewatch, and I just realized that you can pretty clearly delineate the last three episodes into one arc, all about introducing Kuno. This episode and the next few, judging by the title, look like they’ll be focusing on Dr. Tofu and Akane’s crush on him. I...really cannot recall a lot about these episodes, so it’ll be interesting to look at them with a fresh perspective. See you all again in a second, once I’ve finished watching the episode!

Wow, uh...I am finding my memories of this show are definitely blurred in ways I hadn’t expected. Or rather, when I saw it as a younger person, I didn’t notice the same things I’m noticing now.

The episode starts with Ranma brooding over how often Akane gets angry and violent at him, which ties into Akane training in the dojo with her dad. For a second, she remembers Ranma’s rude comments from the day before, and the anger makes her hit her dad so hard he’s left pretty hurt. Kasumi, the eldest of the Tendo siblings, tends to his injury, but pleads with Akane to reign in her violent tendencies, even if the exact specifics of that promise change from the Sub to the Dub.

Later, Kasumi sends Akane out to get meat for dinner, at the same time Ranma is brooding in the same area. They run into each other, and Ranma provokes Akane so much that, even after trying to restrain herself to Kasumi’s promise, she gives up and clobbers Ranma so badly she has to take him to a doctor. Specifically, Doctor Tofu.

This is actually the good doctor’s first time seeing Ranma as his uncursed form, so they’re formally introduced. Tofu reasons out that Akane is responsible for the extensive damages, looking serious...only to happily point out that the injuries make that clear, since the way she fights is so distinctive. To Ranma’s surprise, Akane is in a hurry to leave once Ranma is okay, and before they go Tofu tries to tell Ranma that Akane’s actually a pretty nice person, which Ranma is skeptical of.

Seemingly to prove his point, Tofu hit a pressure point on Ranma’s back just before they left, so that halfway home his legs would go out. Despite the fact they’d just been arguing, Akane immediately offers to carry Ranma home, something he only accepts after being splashed with water, thanks to his pride as a man. It’s there, being carried piggyback style, that he considers whether Tofu may have been right after all, but just isn’t sure.

This whole time, their dads have been trying to think of some way to make them get along, since things are only getting worse between them, but it seems they don’t have any ideas. At breakfast the next day, Kasumi asks Akane if she can take a book she’d been borrowing from Dr. Tofu back to him, only for Akane to refuse. When Ranma questions why she’d do that, about to spill the beans on her crush, Akane hurries to school with Ranma in toe, not even noticing that Ranma gets splashed as they sprint down the street.

Once there, she realizes the curse has activated as she starts chastising Ranma for what he did, namely by opening up Ranma’s shirt...revealing his breasts in front of all the guys who usually fight Akane. Not that they seem to notice. They’re not about to fight Akane anymore, telling her that they’ve decided to honor her engagement to Ranma, since he beat Kuno, their best fighter and biggest pervert.

Not that Kuno himself is going to honor that agreement, even if he’s still covered in bandages from all the hits Ranma got on him, and can barely seem to stand. But when he notices Ranma there in his cursed form, he goes from toting the virtues of Akane to his red-headed love in seconds. Ranma is annoyed, and that only gets worse when Akane pretends to support the two getting together, in the hopes that maybe that would maybe get Kuno to leave her alone. For a few seconds, Kuno is struck with indecision...only to once again reiterate that he’s in love with both of them.

During gym, a few guys in Ranma’s class hassle him over his luck in being engaged to Akane, and needle him over whether they’ve ‘done anything’ yet. Just when he’s about to mention that Akane already loves someone else, she hits a softball right in his face, though it’s unclear whether this was on purpose or not.

This means another trip to Tofu’s clinic, though this time they run into his newly hired assistant: Ranma’s dad in his panda form. Tofu laughs to hear that this panda is apparently Ranma’s dad, but it’s unclear if he actually believes that or not. Ranma is getting more and more curious about why it seems like Akane is trying to avoid the person he knows she likes, when the phone rings. Akane answers and talks to that person, before finally telling Ranma that Dr. Tofu already has someone he’s in love with, and that woman is one the way to the clinic, that’s who Akane had talked to on the phone. After a fake out, it’s made clear from how the scene cuts to her that the woman Akane’s talking about is Kasumi.

There are a few things this episode has really brought to mind for me. To start with what I alluded to earlier: when I have thought about Ranma 1/2, for the longest time, I’ve thought of it as a very episodic storyline. Throughout it’s very, very long run, I mostly remembered it being unrelated little stories, aside from the small arcs that populated the various seasons, cropping up from time to time. I do remember enough specific episodes to come that I do know there are one-off episodes later on.

But as I look at the five episodes I’ve covered so far, I’m kind of staggered by the continuity. Each episode flows seamlessly from the last, even as we’ve kind of moved on from an arc about Kuno to one about Akane and Dr. Tofu. Now, whether this is something the show will outgrow with time, as it drifts farther and farther from the manga, isn’t really something I know for sure, so it’s a thing I’ll have to keep an eye on.

So much of this episode is devoted to Ranma and others thinking about his relationship to Akane. He’s clearly very skeptical about any idea that they might work out as a couple, already seeing the rough ways they tend to hit each other where it hurts when they bicker. Still, there are other moments where he can clearly see her better traits, such as when she immediately moves to help him when his legs fail him.

In that same vein, I was very much befuddled at first when Akane just opened Ranma’s shirt to check he really was in his more feminine body. Like, that just seemed out of character for her, but then I realized a better way to read that. Akane has no problems doing something like that because she considers Ranma a guy, for better or worse, regardless of what he looks like at the time. Unlike so many characters, who tend to treat Ranma differently depending on if he’s in his cursed form or not, Akane always sees him as Ranma. Here, that made things awkward, but on the whole it’s kind of a big plus from her. She validates Ranma for who he really is, in that way.

Oh, back when I was recapping things, I mentioned a couple of guys hanging out with Ranma at school. Well, fun fact, those are Hiroshi and Daisuke, and I think this is their first appearance in the anime. They become Ranma’s default two friends at school, and later on Akane will get her own similar pair of friends to match. If you’re not paying attention, they might seem like extras, but Hiroshi and Daisuke actually have consistent designs and personalities, which I find pretty neat.

This week, for the character spotlight, I thought I should round out the Tendo siblings with the oldest, Kasumi. After all, she’s getting more attention in the plot right now, and there really aren’t a lot of characters worth focusing on introduced yet.

Now, as best as I can tell, her voice actresses in the original Japanese and the English dub are doing the same kind of thing. Namely, a very sweet, if restrained, kind of performance. In English, she was played by Willow Johnson, another fairly minor Canadian voice actress who doesn’t seem to have done a lot of work recently, though she is also Kikyo from the Inuyasha dub. In a strange coincidence, she also played Lalah Sune in Mobile Suit Gundam, which I’m going through for the first time right now, and her character literally was just introduced a few episodes ago, so that’s cool. Her Japanese voice actress seems to be more well known and well regarded, Kikuko Inoue. She’s done a ton of roles, including more recent work. She’s even worked for Japanese dubs of American series, such as playing Blue Diamond from Steven Universe. And, like I said last week, she was a member of DoCo.

Of the three Tendo sisters, she’s definitely the one that’s gotten the least attention and development so far. Sadly, I’d say that’s also generally true throughout the entire series, as far as I can recall. Akane is one of the protagonists, after all, and Nabiki is a great source of conflict. In contrast, Kasumi is mostly...there.

That said, even if she isn’t the most well developed character, she’s at least clearly defined. It’s obvious already that she’s the one running the house, seemingly with more authority than even her father. She acts more like a mom than a sister most of the time, which from personal experience is definitely a thing that happens with oldest sisters sometimes, even without dead moms in the picture.

Kasumi cooks their meals, cleans their house, and just seems to be the one making sure everything gets done. She’s also very kind and accommodating, and comedically her strength is her nonplussed reactions to the madness going on around her. Kasumi is nearly always unphased by things like houseguests sparring in the yard. The exception did appear in this episode, however. When her father was injured, she did try to lay down the law on Akane, even bringing up their dead mom to try and make clear how serious this was.

That’s...really all there is I can say about Kasumi, at least so far. I can really only think of one really interesting thing they ever did with her character, and I’m sure other fans know exactly what I’m talking about.

Okay, so, what did I really think of this episode? On the whole, I’d say it was fairly strong. I appreciated seeing Ranma really thinking stuff over a little bit, and that scene with him and Akane at night was very cute. That said, I also do kind of find this Tofu plot a bit boring, since he as a character hasn’t really done a lot for me. So, in the end, I’d say this episode is middle of the pack.

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

But what will I think of the second (and only other) part to this small arc? We’ll see next week with the sixth episode, “Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know”. Man...I really do love these kinds of episode titles. See you then!

[silversabl-inova]

( same information beneath the read more if you’d rather click through. ) BIOGRAPHY | BASICS | WANTED ARCS

i can bear any   p a i n   as long as it has meaning.

IC PORTION; BASICS —

CHARACTER NAME/ALIAS: Silvija “Silver” Sablinova

FACECLAIM: Katherina McNamara

AFFILIATIONS: The Wild Pack, ISA 

AGE (physical age as well, if different): Twenty three (23)

SPECIES (human, metahuman, alien, etc): Human

IS YOUR CHARACTER’S IDENTITY SECRET OR PUBLIC?

... Is ‘both’ an okay answer? I’m sure she thinks her identity is secret, but her name is Silver Sablinova, it’s not like... a leap to guess she’s the Silver Sable.  I guess it’s probably secret to the rest of the world because I don’t think she’s “famous” yet, but in her home country and the criminal underworld of eastern Europe, she’s probably pretty well known for her more infamous capabilities.

IF SECRET, OR YOUR CHARACTER IS A CIVILIAN, DO THEY HAVE A CIVILIAN OCCUPATION?

She prefers the term “secular recovery operative” but she’d be most appropriately dubbed a nationalistic bounty hunter.

IF YOUR CHARACTER LIVES IN THE FORTRESS, WHAT ARE THEIR DUTIES?

N/A.

DESCRIBE SIX TRAITS (3 positive, 3 negative) YOUR CHARACTER HAS AND HOW THESE AFFECT THEM:

[ + ]: PROUD - The third generation of Symkarian nationalists, Silver’s childhood was quickly marred by an airstrike that stole her mother’s life and destabilized her entire country, causing a civil war. Ever since, all Silver’s life has felt like a battle: for freedom, for justice, for family, and for peace. She knows her family history like the back of her hand, and because of this, she knows that fateful day was the result of her own family lineage doing everything it can to protect Symkaria & its people - but in the end, they had done anything but. The last surviving member of the Sablinova line, it’s Silver’s duty to restore balance to Symkaria, and she holds this duty deep in her heart, fueling the fire inside her. Everything in her life can be boiled down to ending the war in Symkaria - nothing else matters to her, and Silver’s duty to her country & compassion for her people are, arguably, her best qualities. [ + ]: RESOURCEFUL - There’s nothing in a room that Silver can’t make into a weapon at a moment’s notice. She’s not above fighting dirty to achieve the upperhand, and if her arsenal of gadgets won’t do the trick, than whatever’s closest to her will have to do. Locked in an empty room? No matter - she’s trained her entire life for the inevitable day when that situation arises, and when it does, her foe will be shocked to learn that she is the deadliest weapon of all. [ + ]: UNWAVERING - Devotion is one thing, but Silver is unwavering in her support. Once past her icy exterior, Silver tends to show her devotion with actions rather than words. She’s the first to interject herself into a dangerous situation to protect those she cares about; that circle is too small to allow any harm in its way, and Sable would break any law or commit any crime to safeguard those closest to her. It’s why her heart has such exclusive access - that kind of loyalty is, quite literally, worth dying for.

[ - ]: COLD - There’s a certain sharpness Silver tends to adopt when dealing with... people. Whether it be her version of professionalism, or just a product of her childhood, Silver’s apathetic approach to most interactions may give the impression of aloofness or distance. Bridging that gap is difficult for her, and for what she can’t give people emotionally, she tries to supplement with non-verbal acts of compassion. Not everyone has the ability to see through her stony exterior, or bone dry humor, and she often comes across as unhospitable or unconcerned, even if she’s anything but. [ - ]: DETACHED - Sometimes, you have to be selfish to be selfless. Silver has to remind herself of this fact constantly to keep herself in check; it’s easy to be swept up in the warmth of compassion for all, but a good leader knows when to draw the hard line between what’s good for everyone, and what’s good for your people. Silver has to draw that hard line far more than she’d like to - her one track mind is on brand for the Wild Pack’s affairs, but on a larger scale, this self-centeredness can spell disaster when they’re not careful. She just continues to tell herself that if Symkaria will ever be restored to its former glory, she needs to become as comfortable as she can with restricting big picture empathy. [ - ]: INFALLIBLE - When Silver makes a choice, be it over a contract or a personal matter, she becomes quite obstinate that her decision was the best possible one. In most cases, thankfully, it ends up being true; however, when Silver does make a mistake, she will outright refuse to accept responsibility, instead often blaming all other factors surrounding the situation for impeding her. If the mistake is a deadly error that costs innocent lives, than her adamance  increases tenfold, but in her heart, she knows she’s not free from wrongdoing - she just refuses to relent her headstrong exterior for fear of losing the respect of the Wild Pack.

POWERS AND/OR ABILITIES:

Indomitable Will: unnaturally strong willpower, able to resist all forms of temptation, including subordination manipulation, telepathy, subliminal seduction, & mind control.

Weapons Specialist: skilled with a katana, throwing projectiles, stun guns, & dual-wield fighting.

Master Martial Artist: and gymnast!

Multilingual: Fluent in seven languages - English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Somali, & Symkarian

WEAKNESSES:

Human: Quite literally, she’s human. No level of aptitude with guns, throwing knives, Kevlar bodysuits, or martial arts will help her defeat super-powered foes, and even though she can keep up with the best of them, a well timed sniper would write the end to Silver’s story immediately.

The Wild Pack: One of the last vestiges of her family history, Silver’s pledge to lead the Wild Pack includes protecting them, at all costs. There’s few honors she holds higher than the privilege to be apart of their ranks, let alone their commander in chief. She wouldn’t jeopardize their well-being for any contract, no matter how ludicrous.

Symkaria: It goes without saying that on the global playing field, Symkaria is the beating heart of Silver’s allegiances. She loves her country, and she would do anything to return it to the glory of her childhood - even if that means aligning with the wrong people for the right amount of time. Silver’s compassion for her countrymen - and longing for what used to be - outranks her perception of the bigger picture.

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?:

Well. I love Silver Sable, off the bat - the Spiderverse is pretty much my favorite comic conglomerate in the world, so I feel pretty comfortable writing characters derived from it. I dig a good villain, or at least, antagonists, and I just feel like Silver is one of those characters you can really dig your teeth into & flesh out so many different layers. The death of her mother at a young age, the duty to a country she saw prosper & implode within her lifetime, the lineage to uphold within The Wild Pack, and moving forward, the mending of Symkaria & creation of Sable International -- they’re all different strokes of the same woman, and I love poking & prodding around them all to see what sticks!

IC PORTION; DETAILS —

WHAT BROUGHT YOUR CHARACTER TO SOKOVIA?

Money. She’s only there to fulfill a contract - she’s been hired by the ISA to retrieve any powered people she can find. She’s not a big fan of Sokovia as of late, especially given their recent catastrophes. The damage to Sokovia had a ripple effect, upsetting the socioeconomic standard of neighboring countries. This, of course, includes Symkaria; getting powered people out of Sokovia will hopefully halt the continued destabilization she’s watched through her country even further off balance, making it easier for the oppressive regime currently in place to make swooping laws

(I would like to offer your current players the ability to opt into this plot! I don’t want to assume anyone wants her as an antagonist - if no one’s interested, she can certainly creep along the sidelines within the city of Matchak in the name of reconaissance. I would die if she & the Wild Pack were part of the reason why people are going missing in the woods, or at the very least, they begin to provide intelligence as to who or what is causing it.)

DID THEY SIGN THE ACCORDS? WHY OR WHY NOT?

No, Silver & her team aren’t superpowered and thus, outside the scope of the Accords, the ISA, or anybody else, for that matter.

(Well, maybe not Interpol, but that’s not her chief concern... ever.)

PROVIDE 3-5 HEADCANONS RELATED TO YOUR CHARACTER:

Thou Shalt Not Kill: Silver doesn’t consider herself a mercenary, unlike the rest of her crew, and for good reason. She staunchly keeps to a “no kill” rule; her clients pay her for retrieval, not assassination (and even if they did, her price would be too high). Silver specifically accepts contracts that require her to bring the target back alive, preferably to face trial. It’s a moral and economical decision - she believes in the hard lines of justice, and typically, the Wild Pack will get hired to also run security for these high profile trials. It’s a win-win in her eyes, especially because this moral alignment begins & ends with her; she can’t force the Wild Pack, a band of true mercenaries, to abide by that rule unless it’s part of the fine print. Otherwise, they don’t get paid.

I’m Not Your Silver Lining: Silver does not “connect” well with others. Even the Wild Pack, despite being raised within their ranks, has become inexplicably difficult for her to bond with after she assumed a leadership rule over them. She doesn’t put herself on any kind of pedestal; it’s just lonely at the top, and heavy is the head that wears the.. crown? Tactical helmet? Whatever. Regardless, her icy exterior isn’t the result of her pride, but her inability to display outward affection. It makes her quite difficult to befriend, let alone romance.

Anything You Can Do...: She does not do well with being confronted with her own mortality, chiefly the indisputable fact that she is not super powered. She’s quick to start a fight with anyone who dares to say it. Silver has accomodated this woeful transgression of fate in every way she could, keeping a strict training routine that began in her childhood and never letting herself have a “real” life outside of the Wild Pack. Stories of her “powers,” passed in hushed whispers around Symkaria, never failed to bring the smallest of smiles to the Ice Queen’s lips, before quickly melting away. She feels uncomfortable around true superpowered individuals, knowing she’s at a tactical disadvantage at all times, so Silver prefers the company of augmented humans or just normal people.

WANTED CHARACTER CONNECTIONS:

Peter Parker: NEVERENDING PLOTS FOR SPIDEY!!!! I’m partial to Silver being an antagonist against Spiderman; I’m also partial to them being begruding partners, and pretty much everything in between! There’s a lot of back story I would want to establish with Peter’s player, since Silver does have some background in NYC at the Symkarian Embassy. Has she heard of him from her time in America, and can’t believe her eyes when she sees web residue in the forests of Sokovia? Maybe he intrigues her, in the sense of cat-and-mouse, the chase for a target that she can never quite catch. Anyway, I just like that they’re well matched and could endlessly go in circles around one another!

Dick Grayson: Silver will not take well to other mercenaries on her turf, and if she finds herself losing targets - and money - because of some dick in a spandex suit, she’s going to intervene the only way she knows how: a tactical net and a stun gun, to haul his ass off to ISA, or whoever offers the highest bid for his head. Either way, their connection would be openly antagonistic, and it’d be way more enjoyable if he continously slips through her fingers through the fault of only her own.

Tony Stark / Bruce Wayne: Waaaaaay in the future, but right off the bat - I know I’d love to lay the groundwork for Silver to have Tony and/or Bruce help her begin the first drafts of Sable International weaponry, specifically the special red energy blasters they use as well as their unique armor.

I like the idea of Tony trying to spear head any kind of science based project, but obviously, he has his own demons that he’s struggling with re: his inventions, so that would be the slowest of burns for Silver to actually convince him to help her of all people. Potentially, it would be easier to recruit Bruce because she has a hard moral alignment of Justice, which may appeal to him, but it also may not since she doesn’t have an issue breaking other countries’ laws to acquire her target. It really depends! I’m open to either or both options.

POTENTIAL CHARACTER ARCS: ( ohhhhh buddy... )

THE WILD PACK: Silver’s ascenscion to leader of the Wild Pack may not be a new development, but  I don’t think she has quite the handle over her role as her father had. At the moment, she’s still trying to prove herself that she was their best choice. It doesn’t help that she was merely picked for lineages’ sake, the group being “passed on” to her, despite there being members who were more qualified and possibly, even more respected than a Sablinova. It’s caused Silver to retreat within herself, for now, as she tries to feel out what’s the best version of herself to be that can actively command their respect. I want to see her grow within this role, specifically finding her stride and proving herself as not just her father’s daughter, but her own person. I’m mainly focused on her accepting the weight of her father’s death as a “positive” burden to shoulder, because it gave her the Wild Pack, but without anyone to banter off of, I want to remain a little removed from addressing her relationships with individual members until I get a better idea of her.

THE BAD GUY?: At the moment, she’s not very concerned with anyone’s opinion of her, outside of the Wild Pack’s. If that means that she’s comes across as a “villain” for simply doing her job, she doesn’t quite care - everyone has to make a living somehow, and she hasn’t seen these so-called “superheros” do very much to help anyone other than themselves. Sure, individual civilians are great to rescue, but they hold no concern for the bigger picture when it comes to their actions.

THE GLOBAL PEACE AGENCY: I don’t know what the hell is going to happen with this group, but boy am I excited! Regardless of whether their true to their name, I think Silver’s entire personality is tailored to be taken advantage of by them, especially if they promise stability for Symkaria. As long as she’s not exposed to intel that hints at bad intentions, she’d probably operate at their beck and call, until her trust in their motivations becomes fractured.

SABLE INTERNATIONAL: I want Sable International to come to fruition!!! I don’t know how, or why, but I just love that journey for her! Maybe as a retirement plan from “bounty hunting,” so she can lean more into private security consulting? Maybe as a tactical weaponry distributor that could rival Lex Luthor / Trask / Oscorps’ on the global market, but in the name of “good”? Maybe something happens to the Wild Pack and it’s the only way she can keep herself sane in the following months? WHO KNOWS!!! I’m always open to ideas!

CHARACTER BIO —

Silvija Sablinova and her mother, Sacha, were sleeping peacefully in their beds the morning that the Sablinova family was changed forever. It was too early to even be awake, dawn having not yet struck its colorful brilliance across the lavender-grey when the drone peppered the valley. It wasn’t the first time such an act of aggression was lobbed across their way, but this time, her father Ernest wasn’t there to save them, away on an assignment with his Wild Pack. It was the end of February, the winter of 2002. Silver was five, and from that moment on, she never left her father’s side again.

After that, the story sounds the same. Daddy's little girl raised to be his right hand; there's no softness, no grief, only purpose for them both to find vengenance for her mother's killer. Not a border nor an army could keep them from finding whoever ordered the strike, and with the Wild Pack by their side, their path toward retribution knew no limit. In the mean time, they trained, and Silver's entire life began and end at all the same lines as her father's. It would be nice, if the story could stop there, but it never does.

For generations, the Sablinova's served the monarchy that ruled over Symkaria, until World War II threw the entire planet off-kilter and brought their beloved country into turmoil. Her grandfather was a prolific Nazi hunter and a national hero, actively fighting against the civil war threatening to break out across the land. Her father followed in his footsteps, his career more focused on collecting HYDRA agents with terror charges, alongside his infamous band of mercenaries as they brought countless criminals to justice. In 2017, when it was exposed that HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD, a frequent employer of the Wild Pack...It was no surprise they would be targeted, but once again, Symkaria became the battleground of their disposal; their loved ones targeted, their neighborhoods raided, and soon, they were left no choice but to go underground.

Silver was there the day that her father's tenure as their fearless leader came to a shuddering halt, face to face with the man who hadn't just taken her mother from them. He'd destroyed their homeland in the name of the enemy. He'd taken peace from innocents without a second thought. In his final act of treachery, he stole her father's life and body, slipping through the Wild Pack's clutches as they gave desperate chase, but to no avail. She was the natural choice as his successor; it was a lifetime achievement tainted with sorrow and defeat.

The hunt has never ended, despite what Silver says. She knows her father's dead, and she'll probably never find the man who destroyed her family, but still, she waits. Until then, it was business as usual; catch the bad guys, bring them to justice, rinse & repeat. No duty is monotonous when it serves a greater purpose, but eventually, even Silver couldn't stop herself from pushing the Wild Pack toward Sokovia. Their unrest had begun to bubble over and spill across its borders, eventually displacing refugees and criminal activity into Symkaria's own. Silver Sable may be investigating client contracts, but Silver Sablinova is bidding her time, waiting for something, anything to help her either accept the fate that's been handed to her, or to find the man that caused it.

Until then, all she can do is be stronger than she was the day before.

[queenofcats17]

BATIM D&D Party

I wanted to write out backstories for the BATIM characters in a D&D world, so here we go. These are very much my versions of the characters, as well as some of my oc’s. 

I also kind of made a story out of it.

I used this to help me decide everyone’s classes upon first thinking about this, but this is also very helpful.

Thank you to @randomwriteronline and @chaostheparrot for their input and help in ironing out what classes would fit each character. 

I especially loved Random’s comment that the Music Department would be, and I quote, “just increasingly off the shit bards”. 

-------------------------------------------------------

Timeline:

Joey and Henry meet up and decide to adventure together. 

Original party is formed: Joey, Henry, Norman, Wally, and the bard band

Henry and Joey get into a fight and Henry leaves the party

Shawn and Grant are inducted into the party

Joey’s party passes through Cordelia’s town and she joins as they are in need of a healer

Asmodeus reaches out to Joey and becomes Joey’s patron

Tom and Allison are brought on. Joey explains that they need another healer and Tom has some experience with magical artifacts. He refuses to explain what sort of magical artifacts he wants Tom for

Joey approaches Bertram to make an artifact for him which leads to Bertram and Lacie traveling with the party in order to gather the materials for the artifact

Joey leads the party to defeat a necromancer holed up in a castle, and takes up residence there once the necromancer is defeated. 

Joey starts conducting immoral experiments, occasionally kidnapping residents from the nearby town

Joey turns his attentions to his party members, beginning to experiment on them

Henry gets a letter, inviting him to the castle. Joey has something to show him...

Now on to the backstories. 

Sammy, Susie, and Jack are all bards who have been friends since childhood. Johnny is Sammy’s younger brother and also a bard. They each have their own reasons for wanting to go out adventuring. Sammy because he wanted to spread his music, Susie because she wanted to see the world and sing for people, Johnny because he was not about to let Sammy see the world without him, and Jack basically because he wanted to be around his friends. They’ve formed a band of sorts. Sammy plays banjo (although he can play nearly any instrument), Jack’s on violin, Johnny basically plays a keyboard, and Susie sings. They’ve been run out of a few towns due to Susie and Sammy’s strong personalities. Sammy gets into fights with people about music and Susie squares up when her friends are threatened. Although there was one time someone broke Jack’s violin and he did a number on them. 

Sammy and Susie will flirt with anyone and everyone. They are disaster bisexuals. Favorite targets are Norman, Tom, and Allison. Sometimes Wally, although that’s mostly Sammy. Meanwhile, Jack has kind of a thing for Grant. And sometimes Sammy. He’s a quiet and distinguished gay. Johnny falls in love very easily and it’s hard to get him to move on from them. He had a crush on Susie when they were all little and Sammy continues to tease him about it. Susie thought it was cute.

Joey: Warlock. His patron is Asmodeus, the Lord of Hells. Growing up, Joey dreamed of adventuring. His parents strongly discouraged this, knowing the dangers that came along with adventuring. They didn’t want him to get hurt. Joey, however, took this to mean that they thought he was too weak to make it in the world. It didn’t help that a lot of the other children liked to pick on him due to his small stature and sickly nature. He threw himself into studying magic, being too weak to class as anything particularly physical. His success was rather...mixed. He was alright at magic, but nowhere near as powerful as he’d hoped. 

He ran away from home at around 18 in order to adventure and find a way to boost his magical power. He ended up in Henry’s town and the two became friends. Joey suggested they go adventuring together and Henry agreed. The two set off on their adventure when they were in their 20′s, forming a party with Norman, Wally, and the bard band. Joey's search for power was temporarily forgotten as he reveled in the joy of adventuring with his friends. However, tensions began to run a bit high between him and Henry, who thought Joey was being greedy and pushing the party members farther than they were capable of going. The two of them fought and Henry left the party.

Joey was convinced he could make it without Henry, bolstering the ranks of the party and continuing to press on as though nothing was wrong. However, this was the beginning of his spiral downwards. He began to throw himself even more into trying to bolster his magic. He started dragging his party into even more dangerous situations in order to find a way to make himself more powerful. 

It was at this point that Asmodeus reached out to him. He appeared as a handsome red-skinned young man and promising he could give Joey everything he desired. Joey took his offer, becoming a rather powerful warlock. 

For a bit, things were alright. Joey was happy with his newfound power. He had to perform sacrifices to Asmodeus, which was a little inconvenient given his party’s moral compass, but the party was already killing evildoers. Asmodeus seemed perfectly satisfied with these sorts of sacrifices, though.

But soon...Joey began to wonder. Why did they have to rely on gods for magical power? Why couldn’t they just have it themselves? He’d seen many a warlock fall due to losing the favor of their patron. It was incredibly dangerous to rely on these gods for power when their favor could so easily be lost. If he could find a way to allow humans to have godly powers without the contract, then he could prevent others from falling. And so, unbeknownst to his party, he began to look into magical artifacts and rituals. 

Norman: Ranger. No one knows what his background is and he refuses to give a straight answer as to what it is. His story changes every time he’s asked. In reality, he was part of a rebellion against the tyrannical ruler of his town. The rebellion failed, unfortunately, and in retaliation, the ruler killed those who had taken part in it. Norman managed to escape, but his family and many of his friends died. He doesn’t like to talk about it. Sammy, Susie, Wally, and Tom are some of the only people he’s told the truth to. Prior to joining up with this party, he tried not to stay in any place for too long for fear of being recognized and turned over to the ruler. Initially, he wanted revenge against the man who killed the people he loved. He plotted out exactly how he would do it, fantasized about sticking the bastard’s head on a pike. But he’s been running for a long time. And that fire has long since been extinguished. Now he just wants to be free from that looming shadow. 

Henry: Monk. He never really planned on being an adventurer. He grew up in a small village that was pretty far away from any kind of danger. His parents ran a bookstore. He didn’t have any siblings. He had a pretty boring life. He met Joey after Joey ran away from home and ended up in Henry’s town. When Joey suggested they start adventuring together, he was excited. He’d never left his town before. So he left with Joey and the two of them began adventuring together with their party. Things were good for a while until Henry and Joey began to butt heads about Joey’s leadership of the group. Henry ended up leaving over this argument. Angry and upset, Henry went away to train at a monastery. It was during this training that he met Linda, who was passing through on her own errands. The two of them adventured for a bit after Henry completed his training before settling down together. 

Linda: Cleric. A follower of the Lliira. She came from a long line of healers, and while she wasn’t expected to follow in their footsteps, it was highly encouraged. Luckily, she was interested in helping people. She chose Lliira as her patron as she had little interest in fighting or continuing the cycle of violence in their world. Once she’d reached the appropriate age, and had trained sufficiently with her family, she set off on a journey to bring healing and joy to all she could. She met Henry when she stopped off at the monastery he was training at during her travels. She thought he was rather adorable, especially since he tended to accidentally hit himself in the face with his staff whenever she watching him practice. She was more than happy to journey with and later marry him. 

Henry works as a historian/librarian in their town while Linda is the local healer. A not-insignificant portion of the town has crushes on both of them. They’re both very kind and compassionate and surprisingly buff. Linda may be a pacifist, but she chops their firewood herself. 

Tom: Fighter who dual classes as an artificer. He’s made a bit of a name for himself as an artificer, but more often he’s just called upon to fix things. He grew up in an orphanage as his parents were killed in a monster attack. He made himself indispensable to the orphanage staff by being the best at fixing things. He taught himself to fix just about everything. Chairs, plumbing, wagons, weapons. You name it, he figured out how to fix it. Once he got older, the orphanage directors apprenticed him to a blacksmith. Tom tried to find fulfillment in it but couldn’t. He ended up training himself as a fighter, while beginning to hone his craft as an artificer, and set off wandering. He found Allison when she’d gotten herself into a fight she wasn’t prepared for and helped her get out. He thought she was a nice woman and decided to travel with her. She gave people hope and he wanted to be a part of that. 

Allison: Paladin. A follower of the goddess Istus. Her family are nobles and frankly bastards. She ran away from home at a young age to join a convent. However, during her journey to the convent, she saw the injustices of the world. So, instead of going to the convent, she went to join a paladin order. The paladins were initially a little unsure about whether to take her on, especially since she was the daughter of a noble and they didn’t want to have her father storming their building demanding her back, but she proved she was serious about the situation. After she completed her training, she set out to help those in need. She met Tom after stumbling into a fight she wasn’t prepared for. The two started traveling together after that. She believes that there is always hope, no matter how many times she is knocked down. There are many who take comfort in her unshakable faith.

Shawn: Rogue. He grew up in the slums of a major city, learning how to pickpocket and swindle in order to provide for his family. His mother constantly told him that there were other ways for them to get by, but no matter how many jobs she or his siblings picked up, they never had enough. Shawn saw stealing from the rich as the only viable option. It wasn’t like taking from the ultra-rich of the city would hurt them, he thought. And it didn’t. They just threw huge fits before eventually moving on. He earned a bit of a reputation among the city guards as a troublemaker. Shawn started having a bit of fun messing with them, which led to guards to target his family. He ended up leaving the city in hopes that it would improve his family’s lives if he wasn’t there. He began to travel, becoming a Robin Hood-esque figure. The poor lauded him as a hero while the rich saw him only as a villain. Joey found him in a holding cell after getting caught stealing from a corrupt baron. He continues to send money to his family even now, hoping that he can still try and make up for the mistakes he’s made.

Bertram: Artificer. Born to a well to do family, Bertram was never particularly interested in adventuring. He was, however, very interested in inventing and figuring out how to imbue magic into the things he created. He ended up becoming a rather successful and sought after artificer due to his uncanny knack for figuring out how things worked and how they could be improved. He began traveling in order to expand his business, which is why he hired Lacie. He needed a bodyguard and she wanted to travel. He ended up encountering Joey when Joey approached him to design an artifact for him. Bertram didn’t particularly trust him, but business was business so he agreed to do what he could for Joey.

Lacie: Monk. Kind of like an older, more tired version of Beau from Critical Role. Her family were wealthy and wanted a son, but they got Lacie instead. They tried to force her to be the ‘perfect’ daughter which led to her rebelling quite a lot. She ended up running away to join a monastery. The monks helped her to deal with the anger and frustration she felt, teaching how to channel it into more productive avenues. She stayed at the monastery for many years, gaining a reputation as a competent fighter and a general pillar of common sense, until she was approached by Bertram to be his bodyguard. She’s been traveling with him ever since. She tries not to pick fights, but she will absolutely finish any ones started by other people. 

Grant: Wizard. From a young age, Grant had an insatiable desire for knowledge. It was this desire that led him to begin to study magic. His family didn’t have much but wanted to send him off to a magic academy so that he would be able to study magic. Thankfully, a magic academy did take notice of his aptitude and sent him a letter. Although Grant excelled at his magical studies, he proved too anxious to function as a power player. He had no interest in playing mind games or working in a court. He was better suited to academia, and so became a professor and scholar after graduation. Grant was more than happy teaching others magic and often regrets leaving his position at the school to travel with Joey, especially since Joey doesn’t exactly treat him well. Joey wanted Grant for his vast knowledge and tactical mind, often treating him as nothing more than a walking encyclopedia. 

Wally: Druid. A follower of the goddess Eldath. He grew up in kind of a hippie commune. He has a really big family and the kids were basically allowed to run free in the forest and do whatever they wanted. He was happy in the commune, but he always kind of wanted to see the world. Plus, he felt a bit bad that he wasn’t as good of a druid as the rest of his family. He just didn’t take it as seriously as others did. He left the commune when he was about 16 and started just roaming around. He ran into Joey and Henry and joined their party because they thought he was absolutely adorable and just a little ray of sunshine. He’s not much of a combatant, because Eldath abhorres violence and won’t fight even to defend herself. The few times he’s tried to fight he’s lost his powers from her. It was easy enough for Joey to take him down in the end. Wally would never hurt a friend. 

Cordelia: Cleric. Follower of the goddess Hel. Despite Hel’s less than savory reputation, Cordelia follows her because it gives her comfort to think there is someone looking out for her parents, both of whom died from sickness. Had a rather sheltered upbringing in a small village where nothing much happened. Roy left for adventure when she was about 15. He returned when she was 17, carried back catatonic by a few paladins. She volunteered to take care of him since both of their parents needed to work. This is how she started learning how to be a cleric in the first place. She was 18 when Joey’s party rolled into town, making her want to go adventuring like her brother had. She specifically latched onto the bard band, wanting to be just like them. Maybe even travel with them. Her parents were averse to the idea, especially after what had happened to Roy, but they didn’t want to quash her dreams. They died later that year from a sickness she could neither treat nor cure. She was devastated, shutting herself in her room for days on end. But, upon Roy’s suggestion, the next time Joey’s party came around she left with them.

Roy: Former bard. Formerly a rather successful bard before an adventuring mishap put him out of commission. He got bored in their little village and set off for a life of adventure. Although he couldn’t play music too well, nor sing, he had a charismatic presence that drew people to him. He was part of a rather large adventuring group filled with similarly eager young adventurers. They were all predictably naive and foolhardy, rushing headlong into danger and getting into their fair share of scrapes and danger. One day, they ended up going on a quest that they couldn’t handle. Roy was the only one who survived. He was found, catatonic, by some wandering paladins who managed to get him home. He didn’t say anything for years until his and Cordelia’s parents died and he forced himself to step up and be there for Cordelia. He was the one to suggest she become an adventurer. Despite his own misgivings toward that career, he thought it would do her good to get away from their town and the memory fo their parents.

Esther: Paladin. Follower of the god Tyr. Although she’s not an adventurer, she still takes her job very seriously. She wants to protect those who cannot protect themselves. She became a paladin after Joey ran away. Specifically, she went on a journey to try and find her brother again. Along the way, she witnessed the injustice and cruelty of the world. It horrified her to see the way people treated each other and the abuses that people got away with. When she returned, not having found her brother, she went through paladin training and became the protector of her town. She later met the man who would become her husband, Robert, when he was passing through the town as a traveling bookseller. The two struck up a friendship, which later turned into a relationship.

[hellsbovnd-archive]

dossier.

individual lf rp posts will be made for each character. this is simply an alternate dossier created for ease of access. i guess you can reblog this if you want, but more useful info is on the individual lf rp posts. last updated: 09/14/2019

check out my plot wishlist too!

Leonnaux Altoix  — The Hidden Ace

status: active (main); open for rp, in-game preferred server: balmung (crystal dc) connections: alizarine  «INK» (@alizarinefc), ebonguard - no legacy (@ebonguardls)

For all practical purposes a ghost, this Elezen only appears on public records as far back as three summers ago. It’s likely, then, that he’s chosen to live under an assumed name. He tends to use his appearance to his advantage, passing himself off as a Wildwood whenever it suits his interests—which, given the discrimination that Duskwights face, is more often than not.

He first stepped into the public’s eye as a small-time journalist—and, unbeknownst to all but those closest to him, the proprietor of The Cloak & Dagger (under the alias “Crow”). He is passionate about magicks and has a demonstrated talent for alchemy beyond what one may expect of a man who’s only twenty and one summers old. Shortly after founding The Cloak & Dagger, he retired from journalism to pursue academia full-time.

looking for: business contacts (academic/criminal), a mentor (tradecraft, magic), fellow shroud-born Duskwights links: full bio | tag | lf rp

Percival Rigel  — The Chief Mourner

status: semi-active; open for rp, tumblr preferred server: balmung (crystal dc)

Born to Ala Mhigans fleeing to Thanalan during the Mad King’s reign, Percival’s parents did everything in their power to ensure that her lifetime was one of opportunity rather than one of endless strife. Although her parents died in her teenage years at the hands of Amalj’aa bandits, their work for a trading company taught Percival all she needed to know about running a business—and brought her closer to the woman she would eventually marry, Ilyia Rigel.

However, their happiness was not to last; Iliya died during the Calamity. She was left in full their trading company, and while it is certainly in capable hands, Percival no longer finds any joy in running it and outsources this responsibility wherever possible. Now, at thirty and two summers, Percival finds herself called to horizons beyond the walls of Ul'dah.

looking for: business contacts (mercantile), rogues, fellow ala mhigans? links: full bio | tag | lf rp

Wren Leyland  — The Roundtable Rival

status: semi-active; open for rp, no preference server: balmung (crystal dc)

Where many would benefit from being tight-lipped about their pasts, Wren allows herself to be an open book—that is, if you don’t mind the fact that the story will change just about every time you ask. As a travelling bard, music follows Wren wherever she goes. All that’s really certain about her is that she’s not from around here, and that she’s rarely seen without her violin.

Bursting full of energy, Wren might strike others as a little strange. Those that do, however, would be well-advised to keep their opinions to herself; she has been barred entry from several taverns for inciting one too many brawls, and she has a mean streak when drunk. That said, keeping quiet might not do much good, since it’s just as likely that she’ll pick a fight for the thrill of it.

looking for: rivals, travelling companions, music enthusiasts links: full bio | tag | lf rp

Rosemund Blackthorne — The Final Heir

status: active; open for rp, no preference server: balmung (crystal dc)

Rosemund Blackthorne, born Rosemund de Valieroix, is an Ishgardian Elezen of 34 summers. The head of a house regarded as low nobility, Rosemund quickly plunged his house into debt. Rumors circulated about the family after Rosemund's father was tried for heresy by being thrown from Witchdrop, and in an effort to maintain the House Valieroix's outward social status, he tried to appeal to his peers with lavish gifts, which of course they accepted without giving him what he sought in return.

While the House's good name was cleared along with his father's post-mortem, Rosemund's faith in the church never recovered. Resolving that he could not stand by and watch a broken system prosper, Rosemund took up the sword of the Dark Knight in secret. Since then, he's wielded it to defend those who have no means to defend themselves—namely once-accused heretics and those of low social status, who despite Ishgard's various reforms, still face no shortage of discrimination from above.

looking for: fellow ishgardians, temple knights, noblemen, dark knights, heretics, fine wine and good spirits links: full bio | tag | lf rp

Janos jen Renata — The Imperial Nuisance

status: active; open for rp, in-game preferred server: balmung (crystal dc) 

The third of four sons, Janos has high expectations pushed onto him from a young age. His family name often preceding him (his two older brothers being officers in the military and his father being a high-ranking engineer), it might take a moment to realize that Janos himself is the family's black sheep. Having failed to even get into the Magitek Academy despite having a passion for working with machines and magitek, Janos instead became an Architectus in the military in order to serve his country and make his family proud.

Unfortunately, bad luck and poor judgement led to trouble following in his wake. Where his siblings are marked as loyal and accomplished, Janos himself is marked as negligent at best, and in six years of service, he failed to earn a single promotion or any recognition for his work whatsoever. He was continually reassigned, never working for too long on any one project and occasionally being moved to different posts altogether, and eventually was relegated to simple maintenance work. Now, as a result of circumstances unknown even to him, he's found himself in Eorzea: lost, homeless, and scared—but thankfully not alone.

looking for: fellow Garleans (loyalty optional), fellow engineers, business contacts (magitek component salvagers/etc) links: full bio | tag | lf rp

OOC Information

tracking: #hellsbovnd discord: emet-selch wears prada#5086 main blog: @penvmbral free company: @alizarinefc linkshell: @ebonguardls discord servers: FOR THE SKY (Ishgardian RP Community); COR AUT MORS (Garlean RP Community) pronouns: they/them timezone: NA, active during EST evenings/late nights preferences: med/heavy mature rp, generally lore-strict. 18+ players only. character and plot-driven. looking for: general plot-focused connections/friends! linkshell + discord communities!! i’m not really interested in being recruited to fcs because i happily lead my own but i’ll come hang out if you want company owo

please note that as an extremely goal-oriented rper, i do not enjoy jumping into interactions blind. please make sure that you have a character profile (carrd or tumblr posts only please; do not link me rpc wikis) and some plot hooks ready, and please come with an idea of which of my characters you’d like to interact with as well as which hooks, if any, you are interested in.

please also be aware that as i don’t like to jump into interactions blind, this does mean that i will expect to be able to actually plot out an interaction between our characters, such as the circumstances of meeting and the end-goal for the interaction (which should be more than “intro rp/makes a friend”).

if you are unwilling or unable to do this then i am going to have to pass. sorry!

In-game RP [ ✔ ] Discord RP [ DEPENDS... USUALLY NO ] Tumblr RP [ ✔ ]

unabridged ooc info here.

[fcrvcnts-archive]

( kennedy walsh. twenty. cisfemale. she/her. ) ❛ jessica o’niell, a cancer from camden, maine, moved into holloway one year ago. they are a college student & aspiring singer that lives in apartment 4b and their neighbors don’t particularly mind them. some say they can be -self-doubting and -impetuous but others say they’re +warm-hearted and +effulgent. anyways, one thing is for sure: you hear i don’t exist by olivia o’brien, it’s jess blasting it. 

it’s me again. back at it with another child!!! but if you’re reading this intro before luciano’s...i’m bronny, i’m 22, i’m from new zealand and all you really need to know is that i love my children luciano & jess.

i can’t say jess’s intro is as great as luciano’s but that’s mostly because she’s a newer oc and there’s really just a jumble of ideas about her background floating around in my head. but again, i’ll stop rambling and get on with the intro!!!

JESSICA O’NIELL

jessica o’niell wasn’t exactly planned, you see—she was a product of a romance during the summer after both had graduated high school. but no matter what, jess’s mother adored the little girl from the moment she entered into this world and for the first few years of her life, so did her father.

jess’ mother never fully explained what had happened, but all jess knew was that when she was 2, her father never came home one day. he was there one day and the next gone. birthday cards, weekly money and the photos of him with her when she was young was the only thing she had left of him.

throughout her childhood, her father’s absence wasn’t that big of a deal. jess had her mother and that’s all she really needed—all she really knew or remembered. she may be her mother but she was also her best friend, she really doesn’t know where she would be without her.

BUT!! even though she knows her mum loves her and she loves her mother more than anything, their relationship is a little more complicated. there have been times in her life where her mother has felt more like a big sister rather than a mother to her. maybe it’s the fact her mother’s only 38 ( if i did the maths correctly that is ) that plays a big part in it. not to mention it’s not a rare thing for jess to feel as if her mother puts her many and frequent boyfriends before her.

it wasn’t until jess was around 15 that she really started asking questions about her father—and to this day, she wished she’d just taken her mother’s advice and left it. but her being her curious and impulsive self, she needed to know. because what she found was something no one should have to face. finding out that your father has a new loving, happy family well underway while he left you behind? she couldn’t believe it. it broke her heart and a part of herself.

since that day, she’s never felt good enough—for anything.

on the outside, the girl is a ray of sunshine and only wants the best in the world for everyone. but buried deep down is a girl with deep trust issues & the horrible feeling of not being good enough. if her own father couldn’t love her? well….she felt as if there was something wrong with her? 

it even transferred into a part of her life that meant the world to her—music.

music had been her one true passion for as long as she could remember. her fondest memory is when her grandmother brought her a piano for her 12th birthday. it was all she’d ever wanted to do in life—it was a big dream, sure, but her mother and grandparents always encouraged her and she once believed it was possible. but after finding out about her father, her self-belief faltered.

she put herself in the background of a lot of things and hardly let anyone hear her play one of the many instruments she’d learnt how to play. but she especially didn’t let anyone hear her sing.

it wasn’t until her acceptance letter into juilliard came through that pushed her into opening up a bit more. she hadn’t thought she would be accepted. she had convinced herself that she wouldn’t. so the acceptance letter was the first step in the direction of her starting to believe that she really did have some talent.

moving away from her mother was one of the hardest things she’d done in her life but it was also one of the best things she’s ever done.

she started off in the juilliard dorms but eventually moved out a year ago and into holloways. there’s definitley still some underlying problems left over from her father but she’s quite positive in where she is at the moment. not to mention, she’s even gotten a few little gigs at bars & clubs singing and they haven’t been a complete disaster. she’s really just taking life one step at a time and trying to focus on the good things in her life. 

jess is well and truly attempting the faking it until she makes it!!!

EXTRAS

her pinterest board can be found here!!!

her voice claim is olivia o’brien :’)

she has 1 cat ( a little rescue tabby ) called kovu and she ADORES him

she taught said cat to be on a harness.

would literally be happy to go and live in a cabin in the woods. she loves the outdoors, nature & going on road trips ( bringing kovu along - hence the need to teach him to be on a lead ).

probably currently obsessed with our planet on netflix, definitley the one that gets up when things go wrong for the animals.

thanks to friends made at juilliard, jess has managed to record a few of her songs and is currently one of the artists trialing the ‘upload beta/spotify for artists’ on spotify though her limited officially released songs have previously been available on soundcloud. but since she’s not signed to any record label, she tends to stick to the live shows she manages to score at bars & the like around new york. the majority of her songs aren’t actually released but they can be found on youtube via live show hq recordings by her/friends she roped in & not as hq ones by her fans.

has had thoughts about dropping out of school to really give her all into singing but she’s just uhh terrified of not succeeding!!

if anyone would like to plot a little something, my ims are always open, i’m also up for plotting via discord, and i’d love to plot a little something!! i swear i don’t bite so please send me an im if you’re up for something, but honestly if you give this a like i’ll come to you!!

but if you are interested in plotting, i have a plots page with loose ideas here!!

[ilseofskadi]

please validate me this is the only thing i can write and my grades are suffering

Maka can see ghosts; Kid and his dad were murdered and people suspect his brother who disappeared after; Maka finds Kid’s rings and thus gets Kid’s attention; Kid can’t remember anything of his murder but believes it can’t be his brother; eventually Maka begrudgingly decides to investigate the murder.

For as long as she could remember, she could see ghosts. When she was young she was teased by her classmates, the teachers and her parents brushing it off as an overactive imagination and youth. She saw no problem with it, the ghosts were more friendly than anyone else she knew. During recess she would sit at the edge of the playground and talk to the ghosts, and she didn’t have to worry about being bothered as no one would go near her.

Eventually, as she grew up, she learned to keep quiet about the ghosts. Her Mama started telling her it was time to grow up, her Mama started telling her she had to make friends instead of reading, her Mama started telling her things were changing and she couldn’t be around all the time. She didn’t know why that mattered, or why she should have to change; but as she went into middle school she found it better to pretend the ghosts weren’t there in order to keep herself away from the eye of her pupils.

Middle school was hell. Three years of torture. She tried to make friends in sixth grade, but rumors of her being the “creepy ghost girl” got around to the students from other elementary schools and they kept their distance. Bullies found it easy to pick on her quiet and lonely state. It was much easier to sit and let it happen.

This wasn’t to say she had never made friends.

When the grueling years of middle school had passed and she entered the next stage of education, she once again found herself with the opportunity to make friends. Again, old rumors still floated around, but not as frequent as before. She was able to make acquaintances with a few people, but not real friendships. Part of her had resigned to the fact she would never have friends, and she was prepared to accept that. Of course life has a funny way of showing her otherwise.

.

“You’re the ghost girl!” A sudden voice all but shouted, far too close for comfort, and she was surprised she hadn’t noticed anyone before.

Turning slightly, she moved her eyes from the empty lunch table to the three people who had settled in to her side. Two boys and one girl. One of the boys had a foot on the table’s seat and leaned in close, the girl hovering behind him with a nervous expression, the second boy seemed to ignore his friends in favor of sitting down and taking out his lunch. She didn’t particularly want to respond to the rude comment, but seeing as the three weren’t leaving, she had no choice.

“Yeah,” she spoke briskly, wanting to go back to her food, “that’s me.”

The boy’s face lit up and his grin widened almost comically as he leaned back. He dropped himself on the seat —the girl following suit— and pointed a finger at her.

“I knew I recognized ya! Ya know, I used to be in your kindergarten class!”

“Hm,” she could tell where this was going.

“I was always kinda pissed off about you!”

She suppressed a glare, favoring to put away her food.

“Yeah, everyone always talked about you and how weird you were! It was really annoying! Especially when they should have been talking about me!”

This got a raised eyebrow and a pause in her motions as she waited for him to go on.

“I ended up switching schools for elementary so I never saw you again. But now here you are!”

“Yep,” she sighed coldly, “here I am.”

“Hey, hey!” The boy raised his hands mock-defensively. “I’m not here to pick on ya! I’m here to be friends!”

“Friends? Why?”

“Why not? I figure that you’re not the talk of the school anymore, so I don’t have to hate you!”

“That’s…ridiculous.”

The boy just laughed, the girl behind him sighed and the other boy chuckled along.

“Name’s Black Star!” He pointed his thumb in his chest proudly before briefly moving to point behind him. “And that’s Tsubaki and Soul!” Tsubaki gave a polite “hello” and Soul mumbled around his food. “And you’re Maka, right?”

She hesitated. Was she ready for full-blown friendship? Then again, it didn’t look like she had much of a choice.

“Yeah, I am.”

“A’wight!” Black Star cheered, pumping a fist in the air with far too much enthusiasm. “Hey, what classes do you have by the way? We should all compare our schedules!”

.

Black Star, Tsubaki, and Soul turned out to be good friends, she found. Black Star and Soul —those probably weren’t their real names but even the teachers called them that— were loud and outgoing, always pushing her to hang out and do stuff; Tsubaki was kind and passive, almost like a kindred spirit, but one-on-one “girl time” had shown that she wasn’t always so quiet and polite.

Her parents were glad she had finally made real friends. Her Mama told her she was proud and her Papa let out some nonsense about her not having male friends. She just rolled her eyes, still staying in her room whenever she was home. While her parents smiled and acted fine, she knew they had been trying too hard in the past few years. She knew of her father’s bad habits and her mother’s growing distaste for her spouse, but she kept quiet about it as they thought they were being secret enough for her not to know.

So it wasn’t a surprise when her parents announced they were getting a divorce. In fact she saw it as a long time coming, breathing in relief that they weren’t pretending around her anymore. The divorce moved fast, and she was too involved in her academics to notice when it finally ended and her mother had disappeared across the country —or world— leaving her alone with her father.

Outwardly, she just shrugged and accepted it; but inwardly she was in all words pissed. How could her Mama just leave like that? How could she not take her with? Did she think it was better for her? Better to leave her only child behind with her cheating ex-husband? She thought it despicable. Both of her parents were awful. Tsubaki was a ray of shining light in these times. The girl provided a shoulder to scream at, someone to listen to her venting and rants, and she couldn’t be more thankful for the girl’s smooth ability to lie in order to help her.

With all the events whirling around in her life, she had almost forgotten about the ghosts.

.

Deaths were, as a part of life, not uncommon in any town or city. Murders, maybe a little less common, and violent murders were something thought only to be seen in a larger and heavily populated city. Sure, the name of her home city may include the word “death”, but it wasn’t a grim place by far. Maybe, she thought, it was bound to happen eventually, though.

At the edge of town sat a mansion, grand yet somehow also humble, that housed a fairly rich family of three: a father and his two sons. The father’s job was something business like, something that brought in good money; most people preferred not to know what the man’s job was, wanting instead to build up rumors and outrageous ideas on their own. Both of the man’s sons were homeschooled, and none of them were frequently seen around —though it was a possibility that they were out often and it was just that no one knew what they actually looked like.

They family was more of an idea to the people, something to brag about rather than actually see or touch, and it seemed that most people tended to forget they were even there. At least until the event on a Friday 13th happened. Funny, how the date was one that held such superstition was the one when it happened.

Neighbors in the area around the mansion had reported noises loud enough they could be heard from their houses, and later one report of figures running out the back. Police cars and ambulances didn’t arrive soon enough and the city found themselves without one rich family.

The father and youngest son had been murdered, the oldest son missing, and the police department with their first homicide case in who knows how long. Word spread fast and it became the only thing anyone would talk about. Popular idea was that the eldest brother had some mental disorder and finally snapped, murdering his family and running away. The family had a funeral held, hosted by the city, and tension died down. With the bodies buried, people would be able to forget.

.

Hook Cemetery was a fairly poor kept plot of land built next to a thick woods. No one went there unless they had to. It wasn’t as if it was a scary place, it was just that no one wanted to think of the dead unless needed. Despite its poor upkeep and somewhat dreary atmosphere, Maka loved taking walks through the winding paths of the graveyard.

It was a calming place to be, she believed, because no one frequented the place and she could be left alone to her own devices. Normally her devices were just reading or counting the graves. When she was younger she would visit as often as she could to talk with the ghosts, but as she was older she avoided the idea of such a thing.

With school approaching, and her friends being rather annoying, Maka eventually found herself wandering to her old hang-out place. Shrugging, she didn’t bother turning around to go home, instead walking down the old path of the graveyard and glancing at the old tombstones.

A few minutes in to her walk she was startled by a spectral movement in the corner of her eyes. Her heart beat faster before she remembered. She could see ghosts. It had been years since she saw a ghost, but the fact that she could always hung in the back of her mind.

Stealing herself, she ignored the few ghosts that moved silently and kept on her way. When she came to the other side of the land she turned around, her breath tense as she watched some of the ghosts stare at her. Shaking her head, she went on, walking faster and faster away to wherever her feet would take her next. Eventually she noticed she was near the mansion of the dead rich family, a fact she wouldn’t have taken in had she not tripped over something at her feet.

Grumbling, she turned her attention from the abandoned building to the place where her shoes tapped the offending object of her fall. Brushing her hands around the grass she found two silver rings fashioned with a cartoonish skeleton head. She rolled the objects around, slipping the tips of her fingers in their holes briefly in thought. Shaking her head again, she stood up and found herself pocketing the rings. She pulled out her cell phone to look at the time, a slight frown appearing as she decided she’d have to start making her way home.

Continuing to ignore the few ghosts, she went back to her path through the graveyard. In her pockets she fingered at the rings curiously, wondering where they had come from. It wasn’t until a few minutes later, after passing a rather large tombstone, that she noticed something following her. Her breath held and chest tightened, she picked up her pace, stepping off the path in order to cut through faster. Still, she felt herself being followed. Nearing the edge of the cemetery she sped up a little more, only to once again trip over something at her feet.

Cursing her luck, she picked herself up, rubbing dirt from her face in annoyance. What were the chances she’d trip twice in the same hour? What rotten luck she had sometimes.

“Are you alright?” a polite voice asked from behind, causing her to jump to her feet.

Turning around her eyes widened at the figure before her. It was a ghost, that she knew by the little opacity, and she felt regret clawing at her chest for being as stupid as she had been. The ghost seemed to be a boy if her guess was reliable. He had black hair and wore a black suit with no breast pocket; his hands were at his side, almost hesitantly, and he stood straight up yet still leaning forward slightly.

She swallowed and turned away from the boy, the sound of grass ripping out from beneath her feet accenting her departure. If she ignored him he would go away. That’s how it always went. But of course her luck of avoiding ghosts had seem to run out as the boy was soon at her side and walking with her. Still, she tried to ignore him, knowing he wouldn’t be able to follow her out of the cemetery, and that in only a few more steps he would be gone.

Or at least he should have been gone.

Now a good few feet out of the cemetery land, she stopped abruptly in her stride and turned to the boy. He seemed to flinch back at whatever emotion her eyes were showing, but kept himself composed, seeming to wait for her to speak.

“What do you want?” She demanded, fists balling up at her side as if she could fight him off. The boy remained silent, his head tilting to the side slightly in presumed thought. Still not speaking, the boy reached out a hand slowly towards her, causing her to jerk back.

“Stop,” she hissed, “and tell me, what do you want?” The boy looked her in the eyes, a shiver running up her spine as she finally noted the slight glow of what appeared to be gold. Both held their ground for a moment before the boy finally spoke up.

“I’m following you.”

“Yeah, I can see that! Why?”

“…” he was silent again, now looking her up and down as if questioning himself. “I’m not quite sure. I believe…I believe you have something of mine, though. I do not know why.”

“Something of…” she repeated softly, hands moving to her pockets to pull out the rings. “These?”

The boy’s face lit up and he moved as it to grab them, only for his hands to pass through her own. Face falling slightly for a moment, he stepped back before nodding.

“I suppose…you can keep them.” His voice was quiet, as if he was saddened by something.

“Well I don’t want them.”

“Then why did you pick them up?”

She paused. Why did she pick them up? She had no reason to and she very well could have just left them in the grass. Glancing down at the rings in her hands, she turned them around slowly before looking back up at the boy.

“How come you were able to leave the cemetery?”

He was quiet again, this time turning around to see if her words were true. When he looked back at her he seemed confused himself, but still kept quiet in thought.

“Maybe…maybe it has to do with the rings?” He whispered, more to himself than to her.

Part of her wanted to throw the rings as far as she could at that point, to be able to leave him behind and continue to live her life as before; but there was still part of her that seemed to want to know more. It was as if some unconscious part of her wanted to return to the ghosts, to return to familiarity despite how it made her look.

“So are you going to be following me around or something?”

“…I suppose…”

She sighed, pocketing the rings again and placing her hands on her hips. She started off into the sky, rolling around the thought of having ghosts around again. Glancing briefly at the boy she couldn’t help but laugh inwardly at how awkward he seemed. Rolling her shoulders she sighed lightly before taking a breath.

“My name’s Maka,” she said curtly, turning around just after. “If you’re going to follow me around you deserve to know that at least.”

.

By the time she arrived home, silently sneaking in through the back door, it was already late enough for her Papa to have returned home and pass out on the living room couch. She opted to ignore him, walking up the stairs with quiet steps. Reaching her room she opened her door and closed it, making sure to remain quiet, and jumped slightly as the ghost boy phased through the wood. They stared at each other for a moment but it was broken by her turning around and sliding off her shoes. It wasn’t until she was only wearing her shirt and pants —her jacket and socks crumpled over her shoes— that she hesitated with her fingers remained at the bottom of her shirt.

“Um,” she began, nervous on how to choose her words, “are you going to stay there?”

“What do you mean?” While his voice was even in tone she there was still a slight incline at his question. She held back a heavy sigh and threw up her arms, pausing only to make sure her voice didn’t come out too loud.

“I’m about to get undressed!”

“And?” She stared at him in disbelief.

“What, are you a pervert or something?” And that got a reaction from him.

“No! Of course not!” She didn’t say anything in return, only motioning with her hands for him to try and piece together the situation. When it seemed he wasn’t going to understand she opted to grab her pajamas and move into her bathroom to change instead. Thankfully the ghost decided to to follow her, giving her a moment of peace.

Finally letting out a sigh, she slipped her shirt over her head to replace it with her lighter one. As she removed her pants she paused to take out the rings from her pocket. Noticing that there was a fair amount dirt covering them she decided to run the faucet and rinse them. As the dirt washed away she was able to get a better examination of the bands.

At first they seemed almost like the plastic rings you would get from a machine outside of a grocery store, but as the caked layers of dirt was scrubbed away she noticed they were much nicer. They were heavier than plastic, and they probably shined more when they were still in use. The skull that sat on the front was bigger than she assumed, or than what she deemed practical. They seemed to be well made, as no matter how much she pressed on the skulls to clean them they refused to wiggle even slightly. She wondered how much they cost, where the ghost had gotten them, why he chose to have a skull, and why he wanted two.

When most of the dirt had been cleaned from the small nooks she dried them off nicely with a hand towel. She was almost proud of how she had done. Of course that moment shattered as she noticed the ghost next to her, leaning towards the rings. To make matters more awkward, she remembered that she had still yet to put on her pajama bottoms.

The shriek she let out was, upon later realization, not the best of moves, but it succeeded in making the ghost flinch back.

“Wh-what?” The ghost was flustered, not rightly so in her opinion. That privilege belonged to her in this situation.

“Get out!” She was careful to lower her voice, hissing instead of screaming. How the ghost remained to oblivious was honestly a wonder far beyond her grasp. His sight moved from her face to his rings and back several times. At least they didn’t look at anything else, she supposed. Still, she had to get him out.

Huffing, and wishing she could risk yelling, she threw the bathroom door open and lobbed the rings towards her bed. The ghost seemed shocked by her actions and went to where his rings had fallen, giving her the space to shut the door and the privacy to put on her bottoms.

[thefairefolk-rp]

Welcome, Mor! Your application for Alekto Bone has been accepted!

OOC INFORMATION:

Name/Nickname: Mor

Age: 22

Preferred Pronouns: She/Her

Timezone: Central Time Zone

Activity and Availability (Please answer in words as well as rating your availability from 1-10): For activity, 6 or 7 seems accurate. I will typically answer as soon as I can and write whenever possible, normally I can get replies out within 24 to 48 hours of whenever I see the post. Availability is at 8, I’m almost always on at some point during the day but my schedule is erratic and I am frequently occupied and so, while I may not be able to immediately reply or post, I am online and able to deal with messaging or lurking in the feed and able to read whatever comes by.

Have you read the rules and FAQ?: yes I have read both and the lore made available by your navigation pages.

IC INFORMATION: Desired Character: Alekto Bone Second Choice Character: Mordrid Fagan

What made you choose this character?: When I read through your character list, there were a handful that caught my eye immediately, this was one of them. I’ve played many characters in the past, on all parts of the moral scale, but Alekto, willing to give up everything for power and still seeking more after she got it, is something new exactly because she doesn’t care about right or wrong, all that matters is how a situation benefits her. “But, her own ambition for power overwhelmed her conscience.” This caught my attention because of what it suggests about the character. One, that she has something of a conscience even if it’s less to her than what she can gain from a situation, meaning that Alekto is more than just selfishness and greed driving her actions. Two, she’s private and cautious about others and clearly values her power, which means she wouldn’t have risked everything for a cause she wasn’t absolutely certain had a chance of winning or at the very least is so confident in her skills that she saw the reward outweighing the risk of treason.

It’s this mix of pride and ambition that contrasts against caution and what strikes me as fear of loosing what she has that drew me to Alekto as a character when I first read over the bio, along with the notion of playing a character who is so strongly driven by personal gain and gladly uses the power at her disposal, which is something I don’t get to do often. There’s a level of darkness in her that is very different from the “good” characters I usually play, and I would love to continue to explore the character as well as how she plays into the plot and interacts with others.

Are there any changes you would like to make?: No. Everything is wonderful.

Questions/Comments: This group is amazing, your plot and lore is so well developed and as an extensive para rper I love the fact that you guys rp in the same way. And you have hundreds of well developed characters that are open and available, which is incredible enough on its own. Thank you for all your help and please, if there are any problems now or in the future let me know. This has also become a thing out of the work of a few days: https://www.pinterest.com/bonesinthegrcund/alekto-bone/

Also the writing sample got long (not on purpose I swear) but I promise I can write shorter if needed and I tend to match length with whoever I rp with unless asked otherwise

Writing Sample (Must be 300 words or more, third person limited, in the character you’re auditioning for’s point of view): Fear was a powerful motivator. And yet, despite the knowledge of what happened to thieves in the Unseelie Court, and what happened to thieves who took from the royal family, the faerie captured by two of the Magi that morning for attempting to steal from the castle had still smiled and confessed with a nonchalance that made it difficult for Alekto to decide if he was brave or just a fool who still believed he could talk his way out of his situation. She settled on the latter, and had gleaned as much information as possible on the criminal. Hob, poor, a daughter and a wife. Desperate. The Archmage watched as the he was dragged forth in chains before the king in a public display to show off what happened to criminals, a warning to the people. She only half listened to the thief as he growled about the corruption of the Aven family and promised that there would be more like him, which was soon cut off by a blow to his back by one of the knights demanding silence.

While the poor shifted uneasily, the exception being the more malicious fae who looked as if invited to a banquet, the nobles previously leering around the room like vultures awaiting a fresh corpse had already quickly started to loose interest in the faerie that was already condemned even if he did not yet know it, as always only caring about such matters so long as they were an entertainment. There was little doubt that many watched the king and those leading his forces with the same attention, searching for weakness and leverage to use in the future. They were creatures of opportunity, just as Alekto was, and she gave them no such pleasure. Archmage; she had always believed the title suited her well, the black robes tailored to fit perfectly and glamoured to appear as if she was clothed in darkness itself, the position one she had carved and taken for herself by raw power and skill, not by the inheritance and bribery of the nobility. She made subtle changes to the magic around her appearance, a dangerous gleam in her eyes that extended beyond the natural, an increased sharpness to her features… and found satisfaction in the way some averted their gaze from hers the second they noticed that she was staring back.

For a second, the thief looked at her as he announced that he didn’t care what happened to him. It sparked something within Alekto that responded to the challenge, the corners of her lips twitching up momentarily in a way reminiscent of the smile of a predator. It had been the Magi that apprehended them, and it was the Magi that would be best suited to make him reveal his secrets when Oberon got tired of hearing him talk. It didn’t take long, his words changed from nonchalance to insult and the king’s expression darkened even more than the Archmage’s, cruelty and anger clearly showing with no need for a glamour of any kind to enhance it. Alekto stepped forward at his motion, the command simple and clear.

“Break him.”

Her robes swirled in the air as she moved, giving the appearance that she was gliding through the air rather than walking. Hob, poor… Alekto regarded his defiant expression and smile with contempt, tilting her head to the side and examining his shackled wrists and feet. A daughter and a wife… She stopped a few feet away from him, watched his face turn from stubborn hubris to horror as she brought forth the illusions of his child and spouse, realistic to a point that had it not been for the fact that they were not present moments ago, one could have easily believed they were physically there. Fear was a powerful motivator, but love was stronger. And when the glamour-created fae began to suffer and cry out in pain, when images rapidly flashed before the thief of his loved ones suffering his punishment and worse, he finally cracked, begging for it to stop and for his family‘s safety, all that bravado gone in an instant. Too real to be dismissed as an illusion, and the message was made very clear. The same could easily be done to the real versions of his family, the king already knew their faces.

The Archmage did not stop, listening intently to every word that came from the pitiful figure thrashing against his chains as he began to give out names and locations, attempting to bargain for the lives of his family. Desperate. Her attention only doubled when he mentioned knowing more, offering contacts and affiliations if his torment ended through violent sobs, though she showed no outward reaction. It was only when the thief had crumbled on the floor, reduced to nothing more than quiet begging and tears, that the king ordered it to finish. Alekto lingered for a heartbeat before complying, the illusions breaking and her magic withdrawing until once again the only glamours she held were the ones around herself. She cast a glance at the preening nobility, now silent and watching the tormented man before them. Oberon ordered that the hob be locked away, having gained yet another example to what happened to those who defied him. For Alekto, it was a display of her power and what she could easily do at a moment’s notice. And not a single faerie in the public could bring themselves to look her in the eyes after such a display.

Later that night, she glamoured her clothes and appearance to appear as a red-haired delicate wisp of a fae, far more the graceful Seelie than Unseelie and with no resemblance of her true self, and crept through the castle to the imprisoned thief with aid from her magic. The guards would later report that an unknown woman had snuck through their ranks unseen and released the prisoner, helping him escape and giving him more than enough time to leave with his family. The king’s fury ended with them being harshly punished for the failure, while Alekto had gained herself both respect and fear amongst the court as well as eyes and ears within the criminal affiliations plaguing it, something which would make her life far easier in the future. And she intended to take advantage of both to their fullest extent.

[dishonoredrpg]

Congratulations, ALEXANDRA! You’ve been accepted for the role of TEMPERANCE with the faceclaim of ZOE BARNARD. I was wholly unprepared for the straight-up laughter that your application would pull out of me, but Meraud is, like, perfect. She’s that even mixture of haughty and beautiful and hysterically arrogant that makes all of her blend together and form exactly what I was looking for in Temperance. The hints and touches of outright ridiculousness -- and the acknowledgment of that -- was icing on top of a delicious pastry. Still, there was an implied human quality to her that had me fully in-love by the end; you really showed to me how she could grow and change if given the chance. Just, completely enraptured -- you encapsulated both the gold filigree and the melting of that filigree as mentioned in the skeleton perfectly. I can’t wait to see what you both do! 

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OOC NAME: Alexandra PRONOUNS: she/her AGE: 22 TIMEZONE, ACTIVITY LEVEL: PST, fairly active? i have no job, and no university classes, and so my time is extremely free! ANYTHING ELSE?: Apologies in advance if i’ve spelled it ‘dishonoured’ at any point in the app, I’m a Canadian and sometimes the ‘u’ just pops out! Also - going through the worldbuilding tag and seeing ‘Brethren Lundqvist, Emissary Konecny’ made me wheeze irl Buzzfeed Unsolved style. TK as a religious emissary… the world trembles at the concept IN CHARACTER SKELETON: Temperance NAME: Meraud Cyrielle Azenari Meraud is a medieval Cornish name, with varying meanings depending on the source. Its connection to the sea within ‘mer’ is unquestionable, and it was that connection I enjoyed: the Azenari family draws their wealth through their connection to the sea, and while they are no longer seafaring, and instead profit off of other sailors, the family’s tradition of honouring that mercurial power. The fact that a different source I found says Meraud actually means ‘a profit from the sea’ is almost too perfect. Cyrielle, a French name, and the feminine variant on ‘Cyril’ — Meraud’s maternal grandfather’s name. Chosen not only to appease the man, a harsh fellow, who disapproved of his only daughter marrying a man whose family’s money was earned rather than inherited (her mother, you see, was from old money, since lost, but the name, and the pride, lingered). The selection of ‘Cyrielle’ appeased him, in part, and while he dotes on all his grandchildren, Meraud is a particular favourite as a result of her name. Azenari is a Basque surname, drawn from ‘azeri’ or ‘fox’. A rather good name for a family that makes their money through cleverness, isn’t it? FACECLAIM: Zoe Barnard (1) or Anya Chalotra (2)! AGE: 23 DETAILS: I found myself so, so torn between Temperance & the Lovers — I tend to go for the sapphic characters, and for Dishonored it was no different. I just adored Temperance when I read her skeleton, the way she was snobby and spoiled but still cultivating a friendship with the Hanged Man, the way she was spoiled and proud and too caught up in herself to appreciate or understand the pure love held by the World and the Lovers. She dreams of being a femme fatale, the protagonist, the heroine, but all she really is, is a spoiled little girl, with dreams and rages in turn, and no real understanding of the world around her beyond what she cares to see. There’s so much potential there, so much capacity for growing and changing, and, given the opportunity, my fingers itch to write it for her! BACKGROUND: What is this character’s history? Where do they come from? What makes them the way that they are? and little girl, who do you think you are? / you think you need it, you think you want love / you wouldn't want it if you knew what it was. The Azenari family was an old one, though not always a noble one. Dust off Tyrholm’s yellowing records and you will find them mentioned, a seafaring heritage, both in legal (merchant) and illegal (pirate) business. It was an easy profit, certainly, bringing luxuries and delights from across the world to bring tastes of warmth to the rocky city, and as they prospered, their power and influence grew. Gold and goods streamed into the city, and, newly ennobled — a gift from a long-past king, pleased at the benefits the port drew into his city, and seeking the influence he’d gain through their inclusion within his court — they flowered even as did the new exotic blooms in the castle’s greenhouse. Skip, then, ahead in the books by a century or two, to a more recent entry: a marriage, a joyful day, the union of Elazar Azenari and Nessa Enys. Scorned by a few in the bride’s family (no matter the hundreds of years which had passed since the Azenari family had been anything but noble, some clung to old prejudices, and a disdain for new money) but celebrated by most, the happy young couple set about their lives with futures light bright by Tyrholm’s most gifted candlemakers. Elazar was the oldest child, the heir to the docks and their wealth, raised to it all his life, and with the inevitable and long-expected passing of his mother provided him with all the responsibilities that came along with the family’s legacy, he shouldered them easily. Nessa was a sweet girl, enchanted by Elazar’s enthusiastic manner and the curious, whimsical gifts he brought her during their courtship, and any familial doubts about his heritage were more or less stifled by the economic reality: she was the youngest daughter of five, and her family could afford very little in the way of a dowry. And they did love each other, perhaps the most important detail of all, with a baby only eight months after, and another two years after, and a third, their only daughter and last child, a year after. Kenver & Ruan, born two years apart, and thick as thieves. Despite identifying quirks (the latter far prefers books and records, a born bookkeeper, the former in search of a knighthood even at a young age), many had trouble telling them apart, and the Azenari household was a rowdy thing before the birth of their youngest, their only girl, a long sought-after daughter: Meraud. She was spoiled, naturally, plied with treats, doted upon by her brothers, showered in delicacies from far-off lands, and grew to expect it all. Her mother taught her elegance, beauty, poise, things necessary for a lady of the Tyrholm nobility, and Meraud’s list of accomplishments and talents only grew as she grew older. She was an elegant thing, long legs, long eyelashes, a skilled dancer and successful flirt, the broken-hearted youth she left trailing after her as a teen only building her confidence, with nothing seeming to even approach shattering it. She had a place in the court, growing up alongside the World, never envying the other’s position or power, but simply glowing on the outskirts, a beautiful flower within the castle’s grey walls. She lacked nothing, and never really learned to distinguish between wants and needs — she received both, after all. Even a shattered engagement did little to impact her, at least not publicly, though inside she burned, hurt even though she refused to admit it to herself. After that, though, the world seemed a little less vibrant than it once had. Envy, loss (both of a friend who grew apart from her, a would-be engagement dissolved seemingly over nothing) hooked their claws in, and she grew spiteful, petulant. A girl who’d been raised to be good even to her lessers instead became disposed to throwing things at them, and many a servant quit rather than face one more morning of lighting a fire in her room only to face Meraud’s petulant rage at being awoken. Her parents refused to see the spoiled girl they’d raised, and continued only to dote upon her, and she grew consumed by herself. Whether the spell would break upon them, as her own refusal to see Tyrholm’s dark corners for anything beyond the home of velvet secrets, whispered confessions, has begun to fracture, remains to be seen. all the feeling was all or nothing / and i took everything I could Grew up very much spoiled by both & mom n dad who always wanted a girl both are awfully protective of her PLOT IDEAS: Regarding the Lovers & the World — I want Meraud to learn! To grow! It’s not as if she grew up without proper models of love in her life (her parents have a rather happy marriage, after all), but the rather superficial experiences she’s taken from the endless spoiling have rather overshadowed it all. Dependant on what the Lovers & the World’s writers want, and how those characters end up being written, I could see Meraud’s fascination with both going in a few directions. Temperance upright: peace, patience, harmony Meraud moves to a deeper comprehension of L&W’s relationship, learning to appreciate it rather than let it dig its claws deep with jealousy. The fire within her turns to soft, warming embers, rather than an inferno that threatens to consume her. Perhaps she learns to love the two platonically, appreciating their love for the beauty it holds, and embracing the importance of her own as different rather than lesser — maybe even finding a love of her own? (A little addition to this can be found in my headcanon regarding ‘Love’) Temperance reversed: discord, recklessness Meraud’s jealousy builds, spilling over, and she finds herself driven to hatred, rumours, gossip: she’s a rather experienced socialite, after all, and could very easily be pushed to attempts at driving a wedge between the two. I don’t see it working at all, really, rather a more tragic bitterness, perhaps that even leads her to work against the World in more political, less personal ways. Meraud! Getting! Woke! She’s closed her eyes to all that is wrong in Tyrholm for far too long, and though the process of opening her eyes has started, there’s a long path ahead for her. Though, frankly, the way she struggles with the dark side of the world may appear ridiculous to other characters, in light of all her privileges and a rather evident love of the luxurious, it’ll be rather overwhelming for her, and I foresee a great deal of gentle weeping on velvet couches with silken cloth dabbing gently at her eyes. I also do, eventually, imagine her pushing for the World as a leader. She does have a certain level of respect for them (fascination at them, longing for them?), and though I’d imaging depending how the above plot idea turns out, I can see her becoming a rather enthusiastic political supporter. Power She’s incredibly ineffectual, a spoiled young girl rather than the powerful figure she could be, if she wasn’t far too self-centered and petulant to achieve it. I’d like to see her grow into this potential, whether for good or ill in the end. She’s intelligent, witty, charming, if she tries, and if she gained a little more awareness of her own flaws, could certainly be a force to be reckoned with. CHARACTER DEATH: Strong yes! The ability to write a romantic, tragic ending for a character has so much potential, creativity-wise and can be incredibly satisfying, I’d love to write one for Meraud. WRITING SAMPLE Wide eyes veiled with dark lashes blink softly, brows furrowed. She’d been late in exiting her father’s office at the docks, summoned there for one reason or another, and had walked over with more than a little frown visible on her face. The gall he had! Meraud had things to do, and besides, the docks were the domain of Kenver and Ruan — she had little interest in the origins of the gilded jewelry upon her wrist, the satin gowns that draped delicately across her body. And then! Adding insult to injury, he father had forgotten their appointment. She’d waited, a dutiful daughter on occasion, but as an hour, then a second, passed, and his tousle-headed figure had remained absent, a fury had grown within her. She cared little for his rule about walking the docks alone. She’d not be here another minute, not wait around like one of her neglected dolls, but would return home herself. It was then, though, that the flaw appeared: far from the docks appearance on days she walked it with her brothers or her father, it was filled to the brim with loud, boorish men. She could smell the alcohol on their breath even from the office’s second-story window, and the things they said! Horrific, scandalous, disgusting, all of them. She shivered at the things they said, words about women that she’d never heard spoken before, ducking as one turned to face the open window. Their conversation turned to her father, and then, of course, to his family, filth in their words and in their intent shrinking her down upon the floor, silent sobs even as she drew her gown around her carefully. It was there her father found her, in the morning, a miscommunication evident in her day-early arrival. But the damage was done, then, in the vicious words of dockhands and pirates, merchants and sailors alike, even those she’d known as a child, her worldview shattered like a poorly-treated bit of porcelain. EXTRAS Anything you’d like can go here, whether that be a playlist, a pinterest board, some headcanons, or whatever you’d like to show us! pinterest board here: https://www.pinterest.ca/draconiform/01-meraud-azenari/ my occasionally serious occasionally not tag for meraud: https://draconicwrites.tumblr.com/tagged/ch%3A-meraud Also wow wow I listened to a lot of ‘Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812’ while writing this app and Natasha……. kindred spirit? So I’ve included some applicable lyrics below that I feel really apply to Meraud (or in many cases, apply to how she sees herself) From Natasha & Bolkonskys: And from the first glance I do not like Natasha / Too fashionably dressed / Frivolous and vain / Her beauty, youth, and happiness From the Opera: Pearls and silk / Glittering before our eyes / Feminine envy / A whole crowd of memories / Desires and emotions  &   They are looking at me / They are talking about me! / They all like me so much / The women envious / The men calming their jealousy Headcanons Pets — Meraud has two primary animals in her life. The first, a fluffy black longhaired cat, is named Parceval, and is more of a family pet. Not the typical mouser seen at the docks, he’s elegant, perhaps even a little snooty, despite his questionable origins. Meraud’s father brought him home as a kitten, even then filled with disdain, a stray discovered by a merchant among his wares. He had no interest in the childrens games, and instead grew, well, not fat, per say, but certainly a little plump, spending nights in front of the fire, well adored (as he should be). The second is Eme, a little songbird named for the emerald she so resembles. She’s a beautiful little creature, who adores Meraud, and is perhaps the creature she most loves (and loves unselfishly) outside members of her own family. Love — Were Tyrholm the modern day, we could call Meraud pansexual. She sees little difference between her capacity for infatuation for men or for any other gender (I hesitate to call it ‘love’, as she doesn’t quite understand the concept, but she could certainly be attracted romantically and sexually to anyone.) The problem, however, is that she’s picky. Meraud is rather self-centered, and the person she’d allow herself to care for must be similarly high-quality: wealthy, pleasing in appearance, fascinating in conversation… I’d rather like her to fall for someone that doesn’t meet these standards, because I think it’d be a good learning experience for her.

[raptorfiction]

Moon’s Mark

(TRIGGER WARNING: TORTURE)

Aeryn cropped onto one of the stools lined along the bar counter in her home. Reaching out, her fingers ran through the lush black fur of her feline companion, Wiggums. Somewhere between the size of a large house cat and a small Senche, the ebony coloured beast plodded his way closer to the Bosmer and sprawled itself out-- more surface area for attention. Just a few moments before, Aeryn had been confronted by the leader of the Bay Tar Bandits, Lazarus Haze.

It was extremely unusual for her to encounter an intruder in her home. Especially her private home, locked away in the ruins of an Argonian temple. The door to the temple itself weighed at least half a ton, if not more. The only way for someone to move it enough to slip in was if they were bodybuilders of a sort, or preternaturally strong. A Werewolf for instance--or a Vampire. The entire episode had left her mildly unnerved, though she had managed to keep that hidden from Lazarus while he was there. He had offered her a contract. A job. Of the permanent sort. It was an offer she would have to be high on Skooma and drunk on sujamma to refuse. And so she had accepted.

A gentle yet jolting nip to her fingers brought Aeryn out of her thoughts and back into reality. Accusatory emerald eyes stared up at her, and the woman let out a soft chuckle.

“Right, of course. How could I forget?” Reaching into one of the pockets of her jacket, Aeryn retrieved a large parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with hempen rope. “Your dinner, for being so patient.”

If a cat could smile, Wiggums would have grinned. With a loving boop of his head to her forehead, he then turned and shredded the parcel’s wrapping. Inside, were about a dozen dried fish, native to the Valenwood. Giving a happy purr, the cat began to feast away as Aeryn stood and made her way upstairs to her bedroom.

Tugging her jacket off, she tossed it onto one of the nearby shelves and walked over to her nightstand. She placed a hand on either side and leaned in, taking a deep breath to calm herself and prepare for what was to come next. She had begun plotting in her head when she suddenly remembered something. Hanging from her belt was a large leather pouch. Removing it, she pulled out the contents. A newly cleaned, pristine skull--Khajiit no less. Carefully she placed it on a shelf with more of its kind. In total, about half a dozen skulls sat in a neat line on a shelf above her bed. Trophies, as it were, of her more successful job assignments.

And with that having been done, Aeryn’s mind set to work mode. Immediately she shifted to her personal stocks and replenished her arrows. From there she pulled off empty vials from her belts and added full ones. Poisons, sedatives, hallucinogens, and antidotes; the latter for herself of course.

Plopping down onto her bed, she reached under a pillow for her whetstone and began to sharpen the daggers she kept at her side for backup. She planned to use everything at her disposal. And to fulfill her new boss’s request, she was going to have to do something she didn’t do often-- go undercover. With a sigh, she finished tending to her weapons and stood up, moving to her mirror. She turned once, twice, three times as she looked herself over.

The tattoos would have to be covered, no getting around that. Luckily, she always carried cosmetics around for just such an occasion. Plenty of nice gowns as well. She always kept trinkets and bits from her jobs for just such occasions. Helped that she knew how to sew as well; she could alter dresses and outfits as needed in order to fit her tiny person.

With everything in place, there was only one thing left to do-- travel to Deshaan and deal with the man who had employed her. A job she had no qualms about taking up as--like many Dunmer--the individual in question was arrogant and rude. He had even cheaped out on her when it had come time for payment. A cruelly wicked smirk curled the edges of her lips as she stepped out the door, ready to make good on her contract.

Mournhold, Deshaan. Some festival or another was underway and the streets and taverns were filled with the denizens of the city. Floating along effortlessly in a ruby coloured gown trimmed with gold, Aeryn kept her eyes open for her one-time benefactor. She knew from what she had gleaned during their contractual conversations that he was a member of House Telvanni. From the trappings around them, to the way he carried himself, to the staff resting nearby.

The individuals he had contracted her to kill had slighted him in some way or another--she tuned him out for the most part when he rambled about the ‘why’. As per her usual, she kept a mask on when she met with him; she didn’t need anyone to be able to identify her for occasions such as this. And to her benefit, it was unlikely he remembered her voice. Not that she would be using her usual monotone manner this evening.

As she was preparing to turn into a tavern, she overheard the haughty, nasal tone of her target’s voice. It was as though fate had intervened to give her this opportunity. Waltzing her way over, as soon as she was within earshot she gasped and squealed aloud.

“Oh… my… GODS. It… it’s YOU! Magister Tervil! I may just faint!” She began to fan herself with her hands in a fit of wild swooning. “I’ve read your theorem on interplanar soul dispersal and entrapment and I am a HUGE fan. Like… I don’t even know where to start!”

“Erm.” The taller, lankier Dunmer seemed momentarily taken aback by the sudden outburst. But once he caught his bearings, he sucked his breath in and puffed out his chest, clearly soaking in the adulation. A haughty smirk crossed his lips and echoed in his voice as he spoke. “Ah yes. One of my finer pieces for sure. I wasn’t aware that too many people had read it, let alone understood it.”

“Oh but I do!” Aeryn slunk closer, grabbing at Tervil’s hand, holding it like it was a treasure. “It was absolutely divine how you theorized that trapping a soul in a soul gem was simply storing it in another planar sphere, and that daedra can be trapped and used the same way as mortals! You’re a genius! You’re my idol! I always dreamed of meeting you!”

Leaning down, she planted a kiss on the back of his hand. At first he tried to pull his hand away, but with a hefty sigh, allowed her to shower him with praise and affection. Aeryn continued with her charade for a bit longer before the magister eventually invited her back to his home. Thanks to the assistance of a suggestion drug mixed well into her lipstick.  Once settled into his private chambers, she began to fuss and fawn over him.

“Oh no, no, no! Let me pour that wine for you! Such a distinguished gentleman shouldn’t have to wait on others!” Scurrying over to the tea table where the bottle of wine and glasses sat, she filled the cups. Before turning around to serve them, she pulled a small vial from her bosom, coated the rim of one of the glasses and replaced the vial fast as a blink of the eye.

“Heeere we aaaare.” She announces in a sing song tone of voice, handing the poisoned chalice to Tervil. Lifting her glass, she offered a toast before taking a sip.

None the wiser to Aeryn’s plotting, the magister took a sip from his glass, and then another. As he drank, Aeryn hid a smirk behind the rim of her glass, watching the fool add more and more poison to his system. Finally, it hit his system, causing his body to freeze, unable to move or speak.

With a devious grin, Aeryn set her chalice to the side and meandered over to Tevril, settling herself in his lap. Looping her arms around his shoulders, she grinned wide--a unnatural, wicked grin.

“Ah, Master Tevril.” Her voice lost all facade of of friendliness or admiration. “I trust I need no introduction…” Gently she caressed the side of his face with the back of her hand. When he attempted to speak, she placed a finger over his lips. “Ah, ah, ah. The poison I’ve dosed you with has paralyzed your body. You’re unable to speak, move, or do anything to stop me. But don’t worry, you’ll be able to feel everything.”

From beneath her skirt she pulled a small dagger and ran it down the side of the man’s cheek. As she got near to the law line, she pulled it swiftly down and away, leaving a small incision.

“You see, Master Tevril,” She began as she stood, spinning the knife against a finger. “You’ve made some people rather.... Upset with your recent choices.” And to drive the point home, she threw the knife, lodging it in the bedside between Tevril’s legs, only centimeters away from a rather sensitive area.

The Dunmer whimpered in fear, though there was little else he could do. Aeryn ripped the knife out of the bed and shoved it violently into one of Tevril’s thighs. “And I’ve been paid good money to make sure you suffer before I end your pitiful existence.”

And with that, she shoved the Dunmer back onto his bed and procured some fabric she fashioned into bindings. Tying his hands together above his head, she fastened them to the head of his bed, leaving his feet free. He couldn’t fight against her even if he wanted to, but Aeryn refused to take any chances. Wadding up some of the fabric, she placed it in his mouth so he couldn’t scream for help if the poison wore off while she worked.

Moving her way down to his feet, she spun the knife in her hand before moving to his toes. Glancing up once so that she was certain he was watching her, she slowly--excruciatingly slowly--began to slip the tip of her knife between his toenail and toe. Once the weapon was wedged deeply enough, she began to lift and pry, removing the nail in an agonizingly slow fashion. When the toe was finished, she moved on to the next, repeating the process until every toe was mangled and bleeding.

Finished with that portion of her activities, she moved on to the next. Making her way over to the fireplace, she grabbed the poker and set the tip of it in the flames. From there she returned to the bedside and reached out, ripping Tevril’s trousers open. A dark chuckle bubbled forth from her chest as she returned to fetch the now red-hot poker.

“A shame you can’t scream…” And with that, she lowered the poker onto his exposed nethers, reveling in the smell of burning flesh. When the heat from the poker waned, she returned to the fire, reheated it and picked up where she left off until there was nothing left but a mass of burned and mutilated flesh.

Having no further use for it, she tossed the poker off to the side. Tears were now streaming down Tevril’s face; he still couldn’t move or make sounds beyond quiet whimpers. That suited Aeryn just fine as she prepared for the next step of her session.

Reaching for her knife, she grabbed his tunic and sliced it open. She tore away the remnants of the tattered fabric and began to trace the knife lightly in looping designs. At least at first. As she continued looping and swirling, the pressure gradually became harder and harder until she was etching looping gashes into his exposed torso. Blood pooled and began to drip, running down his sides onto the bedspread beneath him.

Having enough of the “playtime” she had been enjoying. She finally stood and unbound his hands from the headboard.

“Get up. I’m ready for this to end. You’re boring me.” Grabbing him roughly, she threw him to the ground and then faced him towards his bed. Extending the length of the bindings, she tied his hands to the bed posts, keeping them secure. “This isn’t going to be a quick end. Orders, after all.”

Looking around, she found something that would work as a small hand axe. Grabbing it, she moved back to Tevril, his bare back exposed to her. Bringing the axe in front of her, she hovered it over one side before swinging it back and bringing it down hard. The blade sunk into his dark grey skin, the sound of bone cracking faintly audible. Aeryn continued to hack away, blood, flesh and bone spraying upwards, flecks of it covering Aeryn from head to toe. She wiped her brow and took a breather for a moment, Tevril’s innards exposed now through sliced and opened ribs. Reaching inside, she pulled the Dunmer’s lungs outwards gently and laid them over his shoulders so that he vaguely resembled an eagle with its wings folded.

“I’m curious to see how long you can hold out…” Aeryn makes her way around the bed and crouches down, watching Tevril struggle to stay alive. One minute, two… after five minutes, the light in Tevril’s eyes faded and his body went limp. “Hmph. Five minutes. Suppose I shouldn’t have expected more.”

Standing up, she returned to Tevril’s side. With her makeshift axe, she hacked away and removed the head, as requested. Making a makeshift pouch out of the torn fragments of his tunic and breeches, Aeryn then shuffled through the magister’s wardrobe to find a change of clothes not covered in blood. Once changed, she slipped out of the estate, leaving the headless, blood eagled body for the staff to find whenever they were to come by next.

Aeryn had completed her task and was headed home to wait for Lazarus to show.

[charityfaithfull]

Wanted Connections

THE CLOSE FRIENDS charity’s circle that she interacts with usually daily. They know her ins and outs. She is drawn to people who feels she engage in both mental and emotional states. She is talkative and likes to solve problems. They are an academic bunch, but they’re interests can diverge into many fields.

open connection

THE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS Charity is a halfblood with wizard family on her father’s side. She would know some other wizard children, however she is much more engaged with the muggle world because she is closer to her mom

 @frcnklcngbottom Frank Longbottom - They don’t speak all that often, everything being more mild acquaintanceship in the end. 

open connection

LOVE/HATE DORM MATES   Charity isn’t the most typical Ravenclaw. Often her diverse experience and views can conflict with those near her.

@allaircss​ Ellie Allaire - It’s so bad. It’s only gotten worse. The more pets Ellie has brought, the more posters and records Charity hangs about the room. Ellie is resistant to Charity’s salt-of-the-concrete-city essense, and Charity is resistant to Ellie’s taste for the lavish.

@chvrrys - Usually the buffer for their rather...intense living situation. The pair get along much better. Unfortunately, their different life experiences and desires tend to be more of a wedge than discussion point. 

@ivytravers - She may be the most relatable of the bunch for Charity, the most similar sentiments. Charity understands her anger with the world, but perhaps not how she believes she can handle things on her own. While Charity knows the grime of the world, Ivy knows the underbelly of the elite. 

open connection

THE INSURGENTS  Someone who works with her in all respects for her beliefs in changing the view anti-muggle and muggleborn sentiment

@macmcry​ Mary MacDonald - The pair had plenty to relate to since Charity lived half her life in the muggle world. She was all about helping Mary in any little way, and they don’t mind breaking the rules to get it done.

LOST FRIEND   This is the person who she became unlikely friends with. She’s a great teacher and tries to experience things fully. However, she has been discouraged by how sour things all turned. It’s likely this was someone pureblood who thought they could resist the high pressures of family and social circles. It was a great disappointment to Charity when they could not.

open connections

FRENEMIES   Engage her mind, she lives for conversation and will try to prove she is the smartest person in the room

 @frcnklcngbottom Frank Longbottom - Occasionally, Charity can enjoy having the upper hand in an intellectual conversation too much, and Frank isn’t one to enjoy that. Just as equally, Charity does not want to be bested by him. 

open connection

ENEMIES   Come at her death eaters! She may be a pacifist in most situations, but she can make enemies easily. She openly shares her opinions and thoughts, which not everyone agrees with. This has gotten her into trouble for not just attempting to rework the educational system while she’s still in it, but for speaking out of turn because she knows she has to.

open connection

THE SILENCER - Somebody trying incredibly hard to get her to shut up about her pro muggle and pro muggleborn talking points. It’s a real battle because she is so well spoken and so clever. This person is getting to the point of considering more extreme means to get her to stop.

Open Connection

EXES  Charity is mature in that she has a deeper understanding of herself. Yet, she feels really young and doesn’t actively try to take things too far in relationships. She has a crew of muggle friends who she wanders around with, one of whom she has a special connection with, but because they are far apart most of the time, she chooses to not pursue anything. At Hogwarts, she knows she can’t worry herself with that and likely had at least one serious relationship.

open connection

FLING In some ways Charity is more suited to flings, she can be endearingly sweet but also finds her brain just moving too fast. She is someone who is hard to keep up with.

@aciiers​ Sirius Black (summer 1976) - She never thought he was dumb, just a little stupid. It was a good summer to forget and live a bit. Charity appreciated his attempts to mimic her conversational style, it was charming in the end. However, continuing into the school year wasn’t even a thought that crossed her mind.

open connection

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE   I always struggled to think of character comparisons, but yeah I think Charity is basically Lizzie Bennett. This is her Mr. Darcy. It isn’t someone who she has to be end game with, however this is someone from the complete opposite world. They can come off rude, but their choice to consistently interact intrigues her. It would take a lot of releasing their own pride to make anything happen, otherwise its all tension. basically gimme wizard pride and prejudice

@dirtbvg - Overlapping with plot for Star-Crossed Lovers. This was never intentional, and up until the last minute she had every doubt. Now that it’s summer, things may cool down. Their blossoming friendship can be less hidden in the shadows when its behind the wall of her London pub. But it won’t last as long as their own prejudices persist.