#however i'm told it's very very faithful to dnd so

[a-dragons-journal]

Would using Baldur's Gate 3 (currently downloading) to explore/indulge my probable paladin archetrope be cheesy of me

(hint: it does not matter i am doing it anyway)

[jingerhead]

JINGER BABES!!! Hi hello hi, you know what I'm gonna ask about!!

Ahem

DND OCS

ATLA AU

MAGIC PEGASUS AU

I need these like I need air thank you.

Omg pint babe I would love love love to tell you about these!!!!! Buckle up for a very long post haha!

Play the WIP game with me here!

DND Ocs

Omg so I have been DYING to tell someone about them in detail cause the campaign I've been playing is with some of my closest friends and unfortunatly I can't tell them ANYTHING 'cause we aren't done yet. So, let me tell you about Themong and Chairion.

They're both tieflings (I commissioned @fortheloveofexy to draw them and they turned out amazing ;-;) that were raised together in a cult worshiping the goddess of necromancy. At eleven years old, Themong discovered his unique ability to directly communicate with said goddess, and as a result he was forced into a leadership position from that moment on. He grew up with far too much responsibility on his shoulders and with the mindset that his goddess' word was law and that he should always listen to her first and foremost. Despite his new role, he and Chairion remained very close, and Chairion was the only one that didn't treat Themong like royalty. They were simply friends despite everything.

Tragedy struck the kingdom they lived in when it became engulfed in a war. In desperation, the queen of the kingdom reached out to the cult powerful in necromancy magic for assistance. The final decision was left to Themong, as it always was, and he turned to his goddess for help. However, for the first time in his life she told him this was a choice that he had to make alone, and he was lost, only thinking about the fact that if he agreed he could loose his friend. As a result, he decided to do nothing. The war was quick, and within a day the cult was destroyed by soldiers from the warring kingdom, resulting in everyone scattering and becoming separated.

Feeling tremendous guilt, the only reason Themong survived was because of Chairion. They wandered the destroyed kingdom they once called home for years, alone and separated from everyone else. As the years passed, they slowly went from simply friends to something more, developing a physical relationship that never went further. In the end, on one random night, Chairion approached Themong to admit to him that he'd completely lost the faith he'd grown up with. They have an argument that night that resulted in a destroyed friendship and them going their separate ways, meeting each other only one other time to fight to the death that they both give up.

And thus far, they haven't met in the campaign again yet but Chairion's presence has been heavily hinted at and I'm just waiting for it. I'm in the process of completely writing out their backstory because I'm obsessed with it lmao. Thank you for asking Pint and I'm sorry this was so long haha!

ATLA AU

SO I've gotten so into ATLA again and couldn't help but make my own au. Here's a snidbit I wrote ages ago for it:

"So," Matt began. Neil already knew what was coming, but he wished that people would be blunt about it like Wymack had been, or simply wouldn't ask at all. "You're a refugee," Matt continued.

"Mmhm," Neil hummed, pretending to be busy shoving another spoonful of soup into his mouth.

"And you're from the Earth Kingdom?"

Neil nodded, taking his sweet time finishing up the food he'd eaten, and waited for Matt to ask what everyone in the room wanted to know. He exchanged looks with Dan once, then hesitated for too long, prompting Allison to huff and spit it out. "What happened to you?"

"Colony village got erased," Neil explained with a shrug. "Nothing special."

Thankfully, nobody in the group seemed shocked or gave Neil a pitying look like others he'd run into had. There were some small parts of the world that managed to go untouched by the war, blissfully unaware that the slightest opposition could mean absolute destruction. Then again, everyone here had to have experienced exactly that, or they wouldn't be a Fox.

"And the scar?"

The only reason Neil tensed was because it was Andrew who asked the question. He slowly turned his head to face Andrew, feeling himself frown despite himself. Though he looked as though he was lounging against a nearby rock, both of Andrew's feet were firmly placed in the ground as though he couldn't keep himself from already taking a fighting stance. It made goosebumps flare up on Neil's skin and a chill go down his spine, but he wasn't sure why. 

"Ran into a Fire Nation Commander," Neil managed to get out once he remembered how to move his tongue.

The answer was good enough for everyone else judging by the subtle gasps Neil heard, but he didn't break eye contact from Andrew, whose head tilted so minutely that nobody else had to have seen it. But Neil did, and now he could feel adrenaline running through his veins, the familiar feeling of running trying to move his body.

But Neil couldn't run. He'd come here to stop doing that, after all.

Later, when dinner was finished and everyone began heading to their rooms for the night, Neil found himself cornered against his door by Andrew. He wasn't surprised. "Do you have any idea how easy it would be to sink you into the ground and leave you there?" Andrew asked.

"Yes," Neil said. He fumbled when he felt his feet sink into the stone he was standing on, arms flying to his sides to keep balanced.

"Lie after lie after lie," Andrew tutted, tapping one foot on the ground and causing Neil to slip further down, until the two were at eye-level. "Your sob story won't work on everyone, Neil."

"It was the truth."

"Pieces of it were," Andrew agreed. "Nobody here will care who you really are so long as you're not a spy."

Neil sucked in a breath and had to hold it so as to not let the fire roaring in his body escape. He knew that had to be what Andrew wanted to happen, and the one thing stalling the panic growing inside him was the fact that Andrew wouldn't be able to get away with killing him. "I'm not a spy," Neil said, looking Andrew in the eyes as he did so. They were hazel, but a trick of the lightmade them glow gold momentarily, almost like a Fire-Bender's would.

After a second, Andrew blinked and Neil found himself suddenly standing on solid ground again, slightly disorienting him for a minute. Andrew began to slowly walk around him, still staring. "I can feel vibrations in the earth," he explained as he went. "I can feel where everyone in the Foxhole Court is. I can feel every breath you take. I can even feel every beat your heart makes."

Neil stiffened. He wasn't sure if Andrew was lying to scare him or not, because he'd never heard of an Earth-Bender capable of that, but he couldn't take the risk. The Earth Kingdom had always been the Fire Nation's greatest opponent because of benders like Andrew, after all.

"Your heartbeat quickens when you lie," Andrew said, finally walking away. "Make sure to consider that the next time you open your mouth."

When he was finally gone, Neil let out the breath he'd held and saw a tiny puff of smoke. He managed to move after another moment, walking into his room and leaning against the closed door, thoughts consumed by the fact that Andrew only let him live because he hadn't been lying about being a spy. Then again, the truth was more complicated than he'd ever know.

Magic of Pegasus AU

It's exactly what it sounds like. Ever watched Barbie: the magic of Pegasus? Yeah so I thought it would be funny if Aaron was cursed to be a Pegasus, and then it spiraled from there with Andrew seeking revenge on Riko and with finding a way to turn his brother back, becoming so consumed by it that Aaron leaves and Andrew's memories of him get erased until Riko suddenly returns a year later. Also, I thought Neil would perfectly fit Aiden's personality. I haven't actually written anything for it yet but this is a completely self indulgent fic I wanna do haha.

[esther-dot]

1 fatal tidiness, lol forever! I keep thinking what might have happened those crucial days when DnD met with M in his house. M: you see, it's all abt Jon and Dany. DnD: Right; we knew that; it's THE romance. M: no, it's abt their confrontation. DnD: ...? M: You see, Dany is a threat like Ice. Fire-Ice, get it? DnD: ... we can live with that. So, Jon is good, Dany is evil, Tyrion is good, Sansa is evil -M: No, tyrion is bad news; he'll try to get WF for Dany. You don't have a marriage like that

😂 I do think their meetings as the series went on had to be very distressing to poor Mr Martin!

This is the last paragraph of that blogger's thoughts you’re referencing:

"I'm not saying it made good sense - quite the reverse. But narratively, you could see what was being aimed for. Your big questions were answered, but the answers were stupid. It lacked that element of chaos and incompleteness that can empower bad finales of other shows to actually energise their fanbases. There was a fatal tidiness to it." (link)

They are specifically talking about GoT, not ASOIAF/its fans, and speculating why the finale straight up killed all love of the franchise, and I think they're right. A show fan doesn't know the depths of Jon’s love for the Starks, and in the show, he died for the Free Folk, so for Jon to end up with them "makes sense,” but it’s still a letdown of an ending.

Dany stans are never going to be ok with her ending, but to a general fan of the show, hearing that the girl with dragons who has been threatening to burn cities and take the throne for seasons eventually burned a city and took the throne only to be killed the same way her dad was...I mean, it undeniably makes sense. It just feels pointless because we weren't allowed to consider this a victory with the underdog Starks taking out an overpowered Dany.

I think the emotional distance that this kind of fan has would allow them to think exactly what that blogger said. Everything is answered, but these are stupid answers because D&D didn’t set them up well. The fatal tidiness is that it did give endpoints that in the abstract made sense, but the characters who survived had been so neglected, for the average viewer, the show stopped dead in it’s tracks with that ending. It is over when with writers who cared, it could have felt like a beginning. They didn’t finish the show, they murdered it and our ability to happily engage with it.

Also, for a less invested show fan, the Starks weren't the heart and soul of the story (because D&D didn’t like them), so their reactions would be as "shallow" as the show’s answers. These fans were never looking for the resolution of inner struggles because D&D never did much with that. Their questions about their fates might go like:

“What about the other Starks?”

“Arya goes adventuring.”

“That’s cool.”

“Bran becomes king.”

“REALLY?!”

“Yeah, because he’s like, a god.”

“Oh. Wow. Ok.”

"Sansa?"

"Becomes QitN."

"Oh yeah...she wanted to be queen in the beginning."

Hardcore fans won't accept certain things because they have way more questions, they bother to ask those questions and really want the answers, but the vast majority of the show watchers didn't/don't. Because the show told us Dany was the center of the story, her death did end it. All along we were being force fed this idea of Dany as a revolutionary figure who would make life better for the downtrodden and D&D cut out everything that undermined that, so fans think, “after all that, the status quo remains. Lame.” Whereas (I’m assuming), in the books Bran and Sansa will be the most dedicated to creating and preserving peace which is why they will rule. The future they create will be better, but there’s precious little time dedicated to that idea in GoT. All the same, the general fans can shrug and say, “oh, I guess that makes sense” because there were one or two things that served as justification for these endings.

And, I don’t have faith that Martin isn’t going to punish Jon however nonsensical it seems to me. He always leaves wiggle room in his answers to questions, but everything he said over the years spoke of his conviction the show would give the mains his ending and after the finale, he continued using the same examples, no back tracking. I’m not claiming there’s no chance what you speculate happens (I hope some of it does!), but the fandom likes to act like all the blame is on D&D (all the mischaracterization certainly is), but I think all sides of the fandom are setting themselves up for disappointment by assuming it all is on them. I think stuff none of us want will happen.

That being said, there is a lot of room for interpretation in the ending we got, maybe you’re right that D&D thought Jon being in the North was close enough to married and in Winterfell, but speculation is speculation, and until Martin stops calling GoT a faithful adaption, I'm not going to believe that we will be getting something better in the books, no matter what I hope.