#inscrutable teach

[thaisibir]

Kevesi and Agnian Heroes living in the City headcanons

-Ethel and Cammuravi make literally everything a competition (who can run the most laps around the entire City, who can eat the most torpedo wraps in one sitting, good ol' fashioned brawls at the wrestling ring, etc)

-Alexandria tried to enroll in university but was turned away for being too young. High school quickly bored her to tears. It begged the university to get Aionios's resident smartass off their hands. The university finally caved in and let her enroll to study business and IT.

-Valdi is everyone's go-to guy for fixing Levnises, of course. He insists on bunking in the tech quarter, forgoing actual furnished rooms in the residential quarters.

-Cammuravi was initially treated as a walking fire hazard until Ethel and the Ouroboros gang convinced people that he will not in fact burn down the entire City, by accident or otherwise.

-Fiona regards the park as her favorite spot in the City. She's the City kids' favorite playmate.

-Isurd is a new member of the City's tabletop and board game club. He got Zeon to join when he mentioned that some games are farming sims.

-Miyabi joins the City street performers, alternating between her flute and fans to entertain folks with music and dance.

-Not wanting to steal Ethel and Cammuravi's thunder as already established sparring instructors, Teach spends much of his time at the university to learn how gentler arts are being taught.

-Zeon is absolutely enthralled by the concept of greenhouses and balcony gardens.

-Ethel's second home is the City library. The senior librarian is practically her adopted mother.

-Juniper spends more time outside the City than in it, patrolling and exploring the wilderness outskirts to their heart's content.

-Ashera is the resident terror among Lost Number recruits and soldiers. She's always showing up to the training facility uninvited, joking about eating them for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, depending on the time of day. Ethel swatting her off like a fly is a daily occurrence. ("Ash please go away, I already fought you yesterday, you're scaring the poor recruits")

-Isurd becomes a regular at the City's most popular massage parlor and acupuncture clinic. It's very hard for Taion to hold a proper conversation with him there when he's emitting satisfied "oohs" and "aahs" every five seconds.

-Despite stating precautions and giving warnings to discourage any derring-do, Juniper is not popular among parents for being a "bad influence" on their children, who want to slide down ziplines willy nilly. They have to limit their sliding to nighttime, when the kids are in bed.

-It was Fiona's idea to grow more flowers around the Remembrance Stones. City folks backed the project and believe the place has become even more lovely and precious for it.

-Valdi has his own names for all the City Automatons. Half the Lost Numbers think it's endearing and the other half think it's downright annoying.

-One day Hollis gathered all of them at the medical facility to sit down for The Talk. Alexandria and Teach took meticulous notes. Zeon, who had just grasped mastering how to grow potatoes, was hopelessly confused. Juniper, a veteran at growing potatoes, was just as confused. Ashera kept making faces like something had died in the room. Valdi nodded along politely, but really couldn't care less about something that's not at all like making Levnises. Fiona and Miyabi thought the whole thing was simply magical. Isurd stared off into space, mulling over that kind of possibility with a certain someone who loves saffronias. Ethel and Cammuravi looked around everywhere but at each other, their faces red as Noah's jacket.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Leaving aside the whole debate about the ethics of AI art and copyright, I think one of my biggest gripes with the AI art industry is that generative AI art has this natural tendency towards producing weird and surreal imagery that I actually think DOES have a lot of artistic merit and potential if explored and leaned into as one of the unique strengths of the medium.

Like, when AI image generators were at the stage imbetween the vaguely recognizable imagery produced by neuralblender and the type of generators we're seeing today, they were producing really fascinating imagery that I'd argue had value as a contribution to the art landscape that was entirely unique to AI, since the weird surreal quality of the images was the result of Machine Learning programs interpreting words and images in a fundamentally different way than humans do.

Like i'd argue shit like this indisputably has a place as its own artistic style/medium, it's surreal and weird in ways which are completely distinct from what a human artist could produce because its unique strengths come from details that are inscrutable, ambiguous, and hard to parse to the human mind, which a human artist would have an extremely hard time mentally visializing, let alone translatong into an art piece.

But since the main selling point of AI art for both the people making these generators and the teach aficinados who are a little too into them is that AI art can serve as a cheaper/faster replacement and/or alternative for the work of human artists, progress is measured not in terms of how well they can use and explore the distincly non-human quality of AI art, but instead in terms of how well they can supress it to make it more closely mimic the work of human artists. So all advancement in the tech is geared towards progressively getting rid of the things I find artistically interesting about the medium instead of towards leaning into them as strengths that give it a unique, artistically worthwile style.

Like, I don't think AI art is inherently "soulless" or devoid of artistic merit, but I do think the focus on trying to make it increasingly indistinguishable from art produced by humans strips away the things that gave it artistic merit to me. This thing can produce imagery that is weird and wild and hard for us to even conceive but the profit motive's tendency towards rewarding homogenization has neutered that to turn it into a factory of increasingly bland, generic, serviceable imagery.

[maximumzombiecreator]

Some of the comments I get when I talk about introducing 5e players to other games really bum me out.

Like, if you talk about other TTRPGs on the internet, you will get a certain amount of 5e players who are weirdly defensive and hostile showing up to argue with you. I get that, I truly do. But you gotta understand that those are just very online people. If you start projecting those people onto every 5e player who is reticent to try something else, you're doing both yourself and them a disservice.

There are a ton of people who play 5e and essentially don't interact with the online TTRPG culture at all, outside of passing around a few D&D memes and possibly watching a few actual plays. Those people have an understanding of D&D and other TTRPGs shaped by word of mouth and the ambient culture, and those have told them the following things:

5e is a very easy TTRPG

5e is so complicated, they shouldn't try reading the rulebooks and just let their DM teach them

5e is an exceptionally flexible TTRPG that can do anything

The rules of a TTRPG are just suggestions and the DM will overrule them regularly

Trying to argue with the DM based on the rules is Rules Lawyering, which is bad behaviour

Building on 4 and 5, whatever the DM says goes, so if you don't like it your only option is to leave

Now, if you're experienced with TTRPGs, you know that those things are not true and some of them are contradictory. But those are such ubiquitous messages that to someone outside the culture, they just get taken for granted. They don't see 1 and 2 as contradictory, they just conclude that if both 1 and 2 are true, that other TTRPGs must be so complicated it would be hopeless to try to approach them. Add in 4 and it wouldn't even be helpful to engage with rules, since they only exist at the discretion of the DM.

Similarly, if 5e is so flexible and the rules are at the DM's discretion, there's no need for other games, since their engagement with the game only extends as far as doing what the DM tells them. In fact, learning the rules will only incline them towards rules lawyering.

These are bad habits, but they're habits formed by engaging earnestly with the play culture they encounter. The people teaching them the game clearly know more than them, they say this is how it is, all the memes agree with them, why would they doubt that?

But fundamentally, the attitudes underlying this response are good ones. These players are taking in good faith what they're told and trying to behave in the manner they've been taught is socially correct. They've just been given bad premises.

This is why my approach to onboarding 5e players to other games focuses so much on meeting them where they are. I'm not doing that as a reward for being brave and trying something new. I'm doing it to show them that I'm a safe person, someone they can trust to treat them fairly, and to step outside their comfort zone with. I'm showing them that I'm not going to tell them something is easy, then throw an inscrutable textbook at them and humiliate them when they don't understand it. And it's a shame that that's necessary… but it is necessary.

There's some stuff they need to unlearn, and it will take a little bit of effort, but most people are willing to do it. They just don't realize they need to. And I think it's worth extending those people the opportunity to learn.

[wannabespiderman]

Man vs machine

Hello! This is my first fanfic written in English so I'm slightly nervous to post this but I couldn't get this idea out of my head so... I hope you enjoy :)

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Just an old man confused about modern technology.

.

.

.

You were walking past the living room door when a discontented grunt caught your attention. You took two steps back to crane your neck past the half-closed door. Bucky was sitting on the sofa, leaning over the living room table, which looked like a toddler’s table compared to him, his face illuminated by the bright screen of his new laptop that you’ve bought him not too long ago. His eyebrows were tightly knit together when he mumbled a quiet curse. You turned around, a curious expression on your face as you walked through the door.

"You okay, baby?" you asked and promptly sat down next to him. Bucky gave you an inscrutable look before turning his eyes back to the screen. “Where the hell do I find my emails?” he asked in frustration. A sudden laugh escaped you. You should have realized that a 106 year old man who had little to do with electronics would have some trouble with a laptop. Bucky gave you a displeased look with a slight, unconcious pout appearing on his face. “Click on the internet icon.” You spoke softly, willing to help. Bucky’s brow furrowed. “I don’t need the internet, I need my emails.” You stayed silent for a moment, slightly baffled by his words. Just last week you took the effort to set up a Google account with him and you were pretty sure he had paid attention then. “Bucky.” You said an amused huff escaping you. “Your e-mail is connected to the Internet. Just click on the icon.” Bucky clicked his tongue in annoyance to cover his slight embarrassment and went back to staring at the desktop. He was definitely taking his time, and at one point you doubted he knew what an icon was. “Need any help?” you asked as kindly as you could, though the sight of Bucky squinting his eyes like a real old man made your voice sound rather amused. With an exhausted sigh, Bucky leaned back against the seat back and rubbed his face, his shoulders visibly slumping. “You do it.”

You snort, but immediately apologize after he gives you an exceptionally grumpy look. “You can do it.” You said encouragingly, giving him a small smile. Bucky rolled his eyes, but relented and bent over the laptop again. You shuffled closer to it so you could see the screen properly, and the little orange and blue Firefox icon literally jumped out at you. You pointed your finger at it and looked at it again. “Just click on this one.”

You tried to be patient with him, really, and actually he did exactly what you said, but you couldn’t hold back the little sigh that left your mouth as he moved the cursor over the Firefox icon and clicked. Once. “Okay.” You mumbled, rubbing your eye. Apparently, you needed to be more specific. "This time you click twice." Another brief but piercing look from Bucky before he actually double-clicked and the browser opened. You sent a quick thank you to the heavens before instructing him to type the url into the search tab and cringed silently when he started typing with both of his pointer fingers. Right this second you decided to teach him how to properly type with all ten of his fingers later. A few more instructions later, probably a little more than usually necessary, he reached the Google log-in site.

“I assume you can handle the rest?” It was supposed to be a statement but your voice shifted into a question at the end.

He hummed quietly in affirmation, though his brow was still furrowed as if this whole thing was incredibly complicated which, to be honest… it probably was for him. You pressed your lips together, a slight sting of guilt coursing through you, your previous amusement and frustration about his hardship completely vanishing. One second you were quietly sat next to him and the other you had your arms wrapped around his bicep and your head leaning on his shoulder. “I’m sorry about laughing earlier.” You whispered, almost too quiet for him to understand if he weren’t a Super-Soldier and had enhanced hearing. “I know it’s new for you.” Bucky tried to shrug it off but you saw how his eyes softened when he tilted his head to look down at you. A sudden, quiet chuckle escaped him, making you quirk an eyebrow in curiosity.

“You’d think, as a Cyborg, I’d be better at this.”

[dailyadventureprompts]

Deity: Boccob, the God of Magic for Magic's Sake

Artsource

It is strange (especially for those who view their relationship with the gods as transactional) that one might offer up prayers to a figure known widely by the epithet " The Uncaring". Why perform oath and ritual for a being that will not intercede on your behalf? Or grant you good favour in exchange for your sacrifices? Those that study the words of Boccob understand they have no need to beg for miracles when they have magic at their command.

Known to commoners as a god of magic, foresight, and balance, Boccob is not so much a deity as he was a great teacher, a philosopher-sage who's now ancient treatise on magic and council on it's use are as much an object of faith for many as a more ordinary god's scripture. In instructing his students how to be wizards, Boccob taught his students how to be good wizards, and these lessons form the ironshod foundations of innumerable magical traditions practised to this day.

Central to Boccob's teachings was the idea that magic was a path that must be walked to gain greater understanding, and that an adherent of this path should study, experience, and witness as much of its wonders as possible in order to become better arcanists, leading to the adoption of the open and unjudging eye as his symbol. Boccob himself followed this path to the outer planes and beyond, never to be seen again, leading many to credit Boccob with being the first mortal to climb the fabled infinite staircase, or perhaps even its architect.

Adventure Hooks:

Millennia after his (literal or figurative) ascension, a scroll containing hitherto unseen passages of Boccob's writings have been discovered in a crumbling library, setting off a disastrous chain of events as jealous archmages scrabble for the text like seagulls after a frenchfry. Their clashes are frequent, leaving the surrounding area scattered with hastily summoned servitors and all manner of misfired magic. Perhaps if the party is quick and clever they could sneak in and take the text for themselves, learning its wisdom or using it as a bargaining chip with one of these powerful spellslingers.

If it’s one thing Boccob’s Acolytes like almost as much as uncovering the arcane secrets of the universe, it’s proving their intellectual superiority by hiding their findings behind inscrutable riddles and logic games, the way The Uncaring did for his first pupils. Ledoran’s Labynthical Libram is an infamous example of this practice, a spellbook containing all manner of useful rituals and genuinely brilliant insights hidden behind a gauntlet of ciphers, mazes, and "gotcha" enchantments. Any self styled master of the arcane is likely to have a copy on their shelves, meaning that' it's only a quick looting spree away from ending up in the party's possession.

If "a wizard did it" is the answer to the age old question of "how?", "because they were listening to Boccob?" is the answer to the inevitable follow up of "why". Arcane crossbreeds, inexplicable puzzle dungeons, magical items amounting to bad jokes with bodycounts, all of these are created by The Uncaring's followers as a means of testing and expanding their abilities.

More of my adventures involving Boccob and his followers can be found HERE

Lets get into some philosophy...

While Ioun promotes the study of arcana for the sake of furthering knowledge, Mystra maintains and obscures the secrets of the weave, and Corellon glories in the wonders spellcraft might create , Boccob focuses on the pursuit of magical ability as a means and end of its own.

To Boccob, " I want to learn magic so I can be great/help people/make life easier" is a false start, because it ties the acquisition and understanding of magic to an external metric, encouraging the practitioner to take shortcuts with the magic to achieve their worldly desires.

Greatness, beneficence, and ease of living are but some of the infinite virtues that follow from being a great mage. Indeed, a reoccuring theme in Boccobian writing (especially in the ensuing literature made by his followers) is the idea of the Panexplicatic endstate of magic, where the perfect mage (and the body of wisdom they represent) has an answer for all things, specifically a magical awnser.

While some followers have taken this to mean that a mage's pursuit should always be towards omnipotence (Vecna's grasping eye motif can be seen as a direct response to Boccob's unjudging one) the largely more accepted thought is that arcanists should specifically dream small, creating a self sufficient life for themselves withdrawn from the world while focusing on the inward path towards enlightenment. That's why you'll so often find wizards at the top of spires in remote areas, interacting only with their apprentices or whatever travellers have gone far afield to seek them out for magical guidance.

This leads into one of the main critiques of Boccobian thought, which is that it alienates the practitioner from the world at large, not only focusing on magic to the exclusion of all else but also contextualizing magic as something that exists only to help the practitioner along their individual path, other people and consequences be damned. A hedgemage living a simple life in the forest may seem like they're hurting no one when they create a tree that grows a full crop of apples every day so they don't need to worry about stocking their larder... but what happens to the local ecosystem when these everladen trees start cross pollinating with others, to say nothing of the drain/disruption to nearby laylines and how such magic might have downstream consequences. To take a completely different tack with the same problem, the poor in the village nearby might LOVE to have a bottomless supply of apples, but the Boccobian adherent would say that because they haven't devoted the years of study required to create the tree, they're not entitled to its fruits.

Titles: The Uncaring, the Master of all Magics, Archmage of the Infinite

Symbols: An eye in a pentagram, often crowned with a crescent arc.

Signs: Light through a cracked open door, stars that seem longer than they should be, the appearance of inexplicable magical text.

Worshippers: Sorcerers, wizards, and any with an access to magic innate or otherwise. Adherents usually worship in private practice but occasionally band together into temples or schools.

[vaguely-concerned]

another really interesting thing in our man bashir to me is that I think this is the point where garak finally mostly relinquishes his self-appointed role as bashir's teacher. he seems to have taken it upon himself early on, for inscrutable but probably partially horny, partially cultivating a promising (and lovely) contact reasons of his own, to imbue julian bashir with some spysmarts and basic bastard thinking literacy skills, in the hopes that he won't go get his bright beautiful excitable ass killed at the first opportunity. there's a lot of mentor/protege undertone there in the early years. (if you want to get into asit stuff, very much in the same vein as palandine and garak's relationship in the beginning.)

but in omb garak really only has one of his little lectures, and it's basically about The thing about being a spy (and a person) that has most shaped his life: That's something else you've yet to learn, Doctor. A real intelligence agent has no ego, no conscience, no remorse. Only a sense of professionalism. There is no joy, no magic, no real delight to this, no winning, no recognition, and most importantly no connection; the reward for work well done is only ever the work itself. You don’t kiss the girl, get the key — you simply get on with turning yourself into nothing as best you can. and julian, who had just been trying to momentarily imagine a world where secrets can be cool and glamorous and for good, meaningful reasons that empower him to help the world rather than shameful and isolating and alienating and like a damocles sword hanging over him and everything he cares about, shoots back with 'well, but what if not that, though? that's the whole point of this game! this is my story not yours, trust me to know it better than you do. (I have more things to teach you too, if you’d just listen. And once he gets shot a little bit, garak does listen.)'

(somewhere beneath all this is almost exactly the same debate they will have explicitly later on -- "Sentiment is the greatest weakness of all"/"If that's true, that's one lesson I never want to learn". Something something the freedom to imagine and play around with different worlds in your head, no matter how cringefail james bond LARP nonsense that world is as long as it brings you hope and joy and new perspectives, kill the part of you that cringes etc. Garak you're allowed to get out of the closet in your head now, Tain is gone, you can imagine different things than what has been and no one will turn it against you. Im… sad)

through most of this episode garak is observing, and when he's not simply bitching about everything from the sidelines (<3), he's tentatively trying to throw in comments to play along, to figure out how the flow goes like he's learning a different language, and he's BAD at it hahaha. he barged in there to put himself in a position to learn something about julian bashir's ~*hidden inner psyche*~, but UH-OH spiritual uno reverse card time he's having to face some shit about his own psyche and the immense barrenness it's been forced to operate under for so long.

The learning between them has of course always been two-way (that’s partially what the whole relationship is built on), but in giving up the more ‘formal’ role — mask — of teacher, garak is also opening up space for realer emotional intimacy, letting one layer of artificiality fall and allowing more realness to shine through. even so he doesn’t let go of control completely until he’s faced with irrefutable (horny) proof that julian’s sentiments and ideals are backed by real conviction — julian knows (possibly better than garak does) what is a game, and what is real, and where he draws the line between frivolous and deeply necessary is different from where garak would and by the end of the ep I think garak trusts julian more, enough to leave the story in julian’s hands without trying to steer or form him even indirectly/sneakily. And to top it all off, the way julian uses his last dramatic speech to signal that he did also listen to what garak told him… augh.  

the teacher role, along with the lies (ever his swiss army knife god bless), has helped garak keep a sort of fine-tuned control of the level of emotional intimacy possible between them, stay in control of what narratives are even on the table. and I think finally letting that fade more into the background transforms their relationship in ways that can pay off big time down the line, for all that it leaves things a bit strange and tentative in the meantime. by garak standards he’s being positively transparent in this episode. for the first time he talks about his time in the order without any coy prevarication, he states his hunger for knowing julian better right down to his ~*hidden inner psyche*~ almost pathetically openly (<3<3<3<3). And this is just my headcanon and definitely not what was meant at the time of airing, the unplanned nature of the augment reveal being what it is, but in context of the whole show as it became it feels a lot like garak offering some of his own authenticity to signal that julian could trust him with his. It feels like garak has figured out at least the rough outlines of what julian has uh got going on and tried to make this gambit, having… perhaps underestimated the extent of the defenses julian has internally/psychologically against Being Known, quite aside from the practical real world consequences of his secret getting out. Anyway. Lots in this episode. Many thoughts.

[gutsby]

Mr. Dixon

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader

Summary: Your efforts to seduce the DILF next door have all failed spectacularly, so you decide a wet hot car wash in front of his house is in order. Mr. Dixon is less than impressed with your antics and plans to teach you a lesson in good manners and ‘neighborliness.’

Warnings: NSFW. Dad's friend Daryl! Drastic age gap!! Daryl's a dirty old pervert in this one :-) Voyeurism. Masturbation. Descriptions of oral sex (m!receiving). Dirty talk. Degradation. Slight misogyny. Daryl may or may not masturbate out a window at some point.

You had an old pair of Daisy Dukes and a dream.

Faded, frayed, and two times too small for your frame, the shorts hiked an inch up your ass every step you took across the room. Made it damn near pointless bending over before the man in front of you—he could see every inch of your butt regardless—but you did it all the same.

This was Mr. Dixon, after all.

Cool blue orbs illumined by candlelight took the sight of you in and flitted away just as fast. His hands busied themselves with the gun he was taking apart, while you reached for the bullet that had just rolled onto the floor.

“Here you go, Mr. Dixon.”

Your voice had a charming lilt as you held the round out to him.

“Over there,” Daryl grumbled, jerking his head toward the end of the table, “An’ what’d I say ‘bout callin’ me tha’?”

“I feel weird calling daddy’s friends by their first names.”

You shrugged and chucked the tiny piece of lead into the pile of ammunition like Daryl had told you to. Then you sat down beside it, crossing your arms.

He could be so cruel sometimes. Just fooling with his pistol and barking orders like a drill sergeant. Never looking at you longer than a second, and if he did, just shooting you a glare or wounding you with a scowl.

He’d been the toughest nut to crack out of all your father’s friends. No matter how straight-laced and upstanding the men around Mr. Grimes had made themselves out to be, you’d always found the fault line—the weak spot that got you access to the filthiest parts of each one. You’d teased and you’d flirted, earned a couple groping touches and open-mouthed caresses from the likes of the late Mr. Walsh and many others. But never Mr. Dixon.

Even now, sitting across from him in your skimpy Wrangler cut offs, wedges, and a skintight, starch white tank top stretched so tight over your tits the fabric was practically see-through, it was like you were invisible to him. You kicked your feet out in front of you as they dangled from the table and actually felt yourself pout at the feeling of frustration bubbling in your chest.

“I wanna help.” Sounding pitiful.

“No use,” Daryl said as he studied the barrel of the gun with an inscrutable expression, “Already told yer dad, ain’ no use for little girls on the range.”

Your nostrils flared as you started back on your feet.

“I am plenty useful, Mr. Dixon. And I— I’m not the little girl you think I am,” you fired back, sounding more miserable and juvenile with every word you spoke.

At the last, Daryl looked you up and down. It was hardly more than a passing glance, but deliberate enough to be expressive. Emotive.

He looked repulsed by you.

And, rather than dignify you with a response, he simply discarded his firearm on the table and left the room. You trailed behind him into the kitchen and watched him swing the refrigerator door wide on its hinges. Blue eyes surveying the shelves for a can of PBR, most likely.

“I can do anything you need me to,” you rejoined in a huff, desperate to be heard, “I’m twice the shot my old man ever was at my age, I can track if I need to— hell, I’m always doin’ stuff, Mr. Dixon. Things.”

You weren’t sure what rattling off your talents to a man who clearly had no interest in hearing them would accomplish, but you tried it anyway. You sounded like your father. When both of Mr. Dixon’s eyebrows raised in mock surprise and he plopped down on a bar stool opposite you, you wanted to melt right into the floor.

“Doin’ stuff, huh? Thangs?” he mocked your twang.

You gripped the door frame so tight your knuckles turned white. Daryl took a couple swigs of beer and stared you down through every swallow. He brought the can back to the counter, near-empty now, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I got a couple thangs for ya ta do,” he started, grinning, “Why don’t ya put those pretty hands ta work, throw a little apron on, and just...bake me a fuckin’ cake?”

“Funny,” you spat. You felt a surge of bile rise in your throat at the sight of his smug expression.

“Wash my car?”

“Fuck you.”

Daryl’s amusement only grew as the forbidden F-bomb flew from your lips—a word he knew Rick would never tolerate if you’d been in his presence. Presently, his eyes raked over your slight, shaking form at the threshold of the room and figured himself pretty lucky to have provoked such a strong reaction from you. He polished off the last of his drink in a single gulp.

“No need ta get all foul-mouthed, Ms. Grimes, I only—”

“Fuck. You.” Your reply came slower and a touch more measured than he’d expected. Even punctuated with a hint of a smile, making sure to stretch that Southern drawl when you added, “Dar-yl.”

It was the first time you’d ever used his first name.

You weren’t sure you liked it.

Daryl, on the other hand, felt quite certain the sound of his name suited your mouth just fine. A subsequent stir in his jeans wiped the smirk clean off his face, and he began to shift in his seat.

Before he could speak, you were already turning on your heels to leave. Formalities escaped quicker than your anger, and your fingers seemed to move of their own accord to flip Daryl off over your shoulder as you strode out the door, far out of his sight.

Meanwhile, and much to his chagrin, Mr. Dixon was already growing ill with the sounds of your parting wishes bouncing loud off the walls of his skull. Before the front door had even closed, his fingers, too, seemed to move involuntarily and do a thing they probably shouldn’t have done: touch the mound in his jeans.

He rubbed his clothed erection and groaned.

You were such a fucking brat.

Daryl had always thought with a father as eagle-eyed and attentive as Rick, you’d never reach this level of naughty, haughty, and straight up cunt-like, but here you were. Doing Lori proud the way you’d gotten another one of Rick’s best friends wrapped around your little finger.

You were good like that, and still too dense to understand a fraction of the effect you had on him while you did it. The way you’d been looking at him earlier, Daryl was sure you’d convinced yourself he hated you.

If you could only see him now, spitting in one hand and unzipping his fly with the other, freeing his cock, and finally, finally getting his fingers wrapped fast around his shaft with the sole thought of you on his mind as he did. If you could watch him shudder, close his eyes, draw a deep, jagged breath through his nose to scour the air for the faintest trace of your scent lingering there—maybe you’d get it.

Daryl slid his hand down his cock and exhaled a shaky breath. You would simply never “get it,” because he’d already promised himself he wouldn’t let that happen.

As his thumb grazed the head of his red-hot, leaking cock and imagined it was your tongue doing all the work, he had to remind himself this was nothing but a fantasy for him. There was just no way in hell he’d sink to Shane’s level and actually lay his hands on you, no—he was better than that.

He was a man of principle, furiously jerking his cock in his kitchen with the thought of his best friend’s daughter on his mind. He just couldn’t touch you.

Damn if those tits didn’t sit nice under that top, no bra to hold ‘em in. And those shorts…

Daryl felt his head drop back as a wave of pleasure coursed up his spine. In his mind, you were sucking him now, hollowing those soft, sweet cheeks around his member and bobbing your head up and down, again and again, eyes never leaving his. Maybe you’d know to cup his balls, use your tongue to draw a couple lazy shapes down his cock. Any way you wanted it done was exactly how Mr. Dixon needed it, he’d decided.

He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter and fucked his hand like a man half his age.

Someone like you.

Scarcely nineteen and so oversexed they might burst.

The difference was Daryl would explode any second now; he had only to hunch over, pump himself a few more times, and finally shoot his load, pretending it was spraying your insides and not the floor of his kitchen.

He’d intended to do just that, clenching his jaw at the filthiest thoughts of you yet, when suddenly, a sound shook the house.

Daryl dropped his cock and looked right out the window.

Down below, outside, you’d laid heavy on your car horn. Let the noise blare a couple seconds before Daryl came bounding over to the window.

When he did, the man thought his legs might buckle.

You were standing beside his truck in the driveway, sponge in hand, soaked head-to-toe in water and soap and smiling brighter than he’d ever seen you. The fabric above your tits was translucent now, clinging like a second skin and affording his lustful gaze every inch of your torso. Your free hand was waving up at him.

Daryl inched the window open with trembling hands.

“Mr. Dixon, this truck is filthy!” you shouted from down below.

Swallowing and blinking was all he knew how to do, it seemed. Finally, Daryl managed, deadpan:

“I know.”

You placed your hands on your hips and narrowed your eyes up at him.

“Have you always been such a dirty old man?”

Fuck. It was like you knew what he’d been doing, crouched over in the privacy of his home while he drooled and dreamed of fucking you stupid. He watched you cross the front of the car.

And lean down to start rubbing your sponge across the hood.

Daryl sincerely feared you might hear his loud groan the second it rose to his throat. He gritted his teeth, tried to fight the sound, but came up short with nothing to show for his efforts but a whimper slipping past his lips.

You started swirling your sponge in circles, tits shaking with every movement you made.

“Too bad little girls ain’t good for nothin’,” you sighed.

When you leaned flat across the metal surface below you, Daryl pictured himself standing behind you, taking his dick and shoving it deep between your folds. Stretching you out and making you scream into the space in front of you.

Slowly, discreetly, Daryl’s hand drifted back to his cock.

“Yeah. Too bad,” he mumbled as you bent over to soak your sponge once more. When you straightened up, you made sure to squeeze the thing over your chest so the water would douse your front. Daryl took the window frame in one hand and his cock in the other, leaning out just slightly to ask, “This the ‘stuff’ ye’s talkin’ ‘bout?”

“Thangs, really,” you answered dryly.

The two of you exchanged a brief smile, and Daryl’s hand started stroking his length.

Lucky for him, and unlucky for you, the size of the window wasn’t primed to make you privy to the sight of him pleasuring himself. At most, you saw a forearm moving gently back and forth. You bit your lower lip and kept your sponge moving in loops.

“Well these ‘thangs’ are gonna get ya in a whole heap of trouble with yer daddy if ya keep this up, girl,” Daryl warned, nodding toward your house with a wary look.

“It’s empty, Mr. Dixon. Whole place is mine for the weekend,” you replied with a sly intonation.

Finally, you stopped long enough to get a hand back down to your shorts. Facing Daryl still, you popped a button on your denim cut-offs and looked up at him with a glossy, innocent stare. You pretended to feel for something that wasn’t there, snagged the band of your light pink thong, and lifted it up to Daryl’s hungry gaze. You saw his bicep visibly strain as he jerked his cock even faster.

Back inside, Daryl was panting, groaning, reeling at the thought of you all alone in your house next door, splayed out across your bed in a baby pink panty set. He soaked in the sight of you and curled his toes into the floor as a new jolt of pleasure broke out through his body.

He was closer than he’d ever been. He rested his head against the window and watched you run your hands over your body, down your front, in your shorts. He imagined your fingers grazing your cunt and how wet you must’ve been then, imagining him right back and fucking him steady with your eyes.

For a moment, your eyelids fluttered, and a blissful look crossed your features. Daryl rutted his hips at the thought of you finding your clit in front of him—desperately wanting to be the source of that pleasure himself—and pumped himself even faster.

“Darlin’, I…I need ya. In such a bad fuckin’ way.” He couldn’t keep the tender term of endearment from dancing on his tongue. The sight of you alone had his brain on the fritz.

You slipped your hand out of your shorts and brought a couple honeyed fingertips to the edge of your lips.

“How bad, Mr. Dixon?” you asked, eyeing him intently.

Daryl whined and felt his insides churn with the threat of release. He knew he couldn’t hold on much longer.

“So— so bad. Need to fuck ya so bad.”

That satisfied your affirmation-hungry itch well enough. You pushed two digits between your lips and started to suck.

From that point on, you didn’t need to see him or hear him or be there waiting patiently on your knees to get a mouthful of his cum—you knew it was coming. Daryl’s face contorted with a blissful, fucked-out expression, and suddenly he was pumping that space below the window full of his load, likely spraying the whole damn thing on the wall.

You stood back and admired your work. Daryl had all but collapsed with both hands planted on the windowsill, wet, brown locks hanging low in his face as the aftershocks of his arousal washed over him.

He was panting and barely able to meet your gaze. You couldn’t quite read the expression.

At any rate, you knew your job here was done.

With a hand waving sweetly back up at him once more, you eyed the mess of a man—your father’s best friend—and started to reach for your bucket and sponge. You buttoned your shorts back up and took a step from his truck. When it seemed Daryl was just then starting to open his mouth to speak, you beat him to it and called out, cheerfully,

“See ya around, Mr. Dixon!”

[wildmoonatic]

eating up ur captain design............ /pos

can i ask how pico and captain met in your au (i think its an au anyway)?

very canon adjacent, but it's an au, yeah. my friend and i's funky little universe just to the left of canon where we take things too seriously, you feel me

short version: they happened to meet at a cop shop while pico was waiting for (yet another) police interrogation, weeks to a month after the events of pico's school. john took an interest in pico and offered, mostly as a joke, to teach pico how to handle a gun properly. what was supposed to be a one-off lesson for a quick bit of entertainment turned into regular practice sessions and accidental (but immediate) emotional attachment from both parties. whoops!

and if you'll indulge me, here's the long version, because it's been brewing in my brain recently and i guess my hand slipped

(WARNING: descriptions of and vague flashbacks to the events of pico's school)

💚💚💚💚💚

The police station was usually quiet at this time of day. Idle tapping of fingers against a keyboard, muffled sounds of cars passing outside or of people talking in another room, none obtrusive enough to disturb the thoughts swirling in his head.

Now though, he was entirely preoccupied by annoyance.

Shut up. Why are you so loud? If you don't like pigs, why did you even come in here?

Pico had seen the strange man in black from the corner of his eye, swaggering in like he owned the place, only to start chatting to the receptionist with all the warm familiarity of two former classmates who never really liked each other very much. Derisive whispers in Pico's head grew louder in concert with his rising stress, adding to the noise, birthing a cacophony he couldn't escape from.

The man went quiet, and for a brief moment, Pico was sure he felt eyes on him. His own gaze stayed firmly on his sneakers.

The receptionist finally piped up with something other than a disinterested hum. "That's, uh, that Pico kid. Pico Fulp?"

"Ohh, so you're the kid who shot up his school."

Pico's head snapped up.

In an instant, his vision was dyed red, blood running so hot it threatened to burn him up from the inside. He didn't know when he got to his feet, but he was already taking steps toward the man.

"It wasn't me!" he snarled, words bubbling up and bursting out before he could stop them. "It wasn't! Watch your fucking mouth or I'll break your jaw, you stupid—"

"I got it, kid, calm down," the man talked him down, in a far more stern tone than Pico had been ready for, stopping him in his tracks. Matter-of-factly, he added: "I don't care how tough you are, you've got another thing coming if you think you can break any bone in my body."

Pico grit his teeth, fists clenched at his sides.

The white-hot fire of rage burnt out almost as quickly as it ignited, his little body only growing colder as he actually looked at the man standing before him, red giving way to black and white.

Tall and broad-shouldered, wearing sunglasses so dark it was almost impossible to see the inscrutable eyes behind them. He was uniformed — the army, not the police. Which rank was the three stripes for? Was the 'Captain' on the tag his rank, or his name?

Pico dared to speak up again. "It wasn't me," he repeated, far softer than before.

Captain turned bodily to face him. "I heard you the first time. So, what did you actually do?"

He looked away again, wringing his freshly scarred hands. "I... I stopped it, sir. I killed the shooters."

The slight movement of Captain's eyebrows snared the corner of Pico's vision. "Really now?"

"I... I found a big gun in the janitor's closet, they must've stashed it in there," the words spilled forth, as if he were back in that vile interrogation room already. "So I took it, and I shot them. All of them. There were four, a-and I didn't even know what I was doing, I was scared out of my mind, I'd never held a gun before in my life, I don't know how I—"

"You've never used a gun, but you still managed to take down four armed threats all by yourself?" There was a note of interest in Captain's voice, despite him crossing his arms.

Pico swallowed thickly.

"Please leave me alone!"

"I was told to just scare you! I wasn't gonna kill you!"

"...Two of them weren't moving, sir. I'd disarmed them, and they were afraid..."

Captain hummed. "Right. And the other two?"

No answer. Memories of callous men in blue giving him withering looks or laughing in his face when he told the truth kept his jaw clamped shut.

Captain lifted his head, looking around the otherwise empty room. "Where are your parents?"

A half-hearted shrug. "They don't want anything to do with me right now, sir."

They never did in the first place.

The soldier's thick eyebrows furrowed, but for the life of him, Pico wasn't sure what it meant. The man was as easy to read as a book with all its pages glued together. That, or he was just illiterate.

"I probably only lived because we were all just kids who barely knew what we were doing," Pico found himself saying, as if he hadn't also slaughtered a giant alien that day — Cassandra had been young and inexperienced in her own way, too. "If something like that happened again, I… I dunno."

Captain said nothing, just staring down at him, seeming thoughtful.

Silence fell over the room for a long moment, disturbed faintly by the nasty voices Pico had learned only he could hear. When the man's voice broke through the murmurs again, it hardly sounded any kinder.

"Look, if I were you, I'd stop pissing myself and go get some actual experience under my belt."

"But—"

He wasn't done. "You know where the gun range is, right? The one five minutes north of here? Meet me there at thirteen-hundred tomorrow. Even a minute late and the offer expires, got it?"

…What?

Pico lifted his gaze to meet Captain's, incredulous. "You mean... But, why would you help me?"

It was Captain's turn to offer a lazy shrug. "I'm bored outta my skull, and this is the most entertainment I've gotten in months."

He said that, but he didn't look very amused. Besides, a soldier like him surely didn't have time to waste on such petty entertainment as watching a child grappling with fear. Pico tried scrutinizing the man's face for a moment longer, unsure what he was even searching for, but quickly found himself at a loss.

The easy answer was that it was a genuine offer to help, to teach him how to properly handle a firearm and put that aspect of his trepidation to rest. Pico wasn't sure if he believed that, but for some reason, he really hoped it was true. That would mean that Captain saw something in him, something more than the unfortunate kid and murderer that the other adults saw, something worth taking a chance on.

Nice. This man, a total stranger, was being nice.

When was the last time anyone said something nice to him?

(Weeks ago, in a sterile hospital room, two hands gently clasping one of his own, their owner smiling in spite of the anxiety behind those pretty black eyes, the sweetest voice Pico had ever heard telling him over and over how everything was going to be okay—)

Pico shook his head, as if he could physically clear the memory away.

He's gone now. Stop thinking about him.

By the time Pico dragged himself back to the present, Captain was already on the way out, muttering something about the stench of hogs. Pico watched him walk away, until he disappeared from view.

"Prick," the receptionist muttered, returning their attention to their computer.

With little else to do, Pico returned to his seat. His own thoughts quickly took center stage as usual, but they were different now, looking tentatively to the future, rather than the bloody memories that tugged insistently at his back.

It had been a while since he had something to look forward to.

[bookatans]

After reading Dooku: Jedi Lost it's so hard not to get stuck on how his closest mentors happened to be on the opposite side of a very complex spectrum and how that has just as much to do with the way Dooku's opinions of both the Jedi and the Republic were formed as much as his years of messaging Jenza.

On one hand, you have Yoda, who we all know. "Wise and inscrutable," as Sifo-Dyas put it. Yoda is the picture of what a Jedi is supposed to aspire to be. He is the be all, end all of Jedi-hood. Under Yoda's teaching, Dooku was placed in a position where he forced himself to be the best — already an issue he faced before becoming a padawan.

On the other, you have Lene Kostana. From the first time meet her in the audiobook, they tell you that Lene Kostana is someone that the Jedi Council scrutinize and don't take seriously. Her interests in Sith history are seen as irrelevant more than they seem dangerous. Everyone is blind to the idea that the Sith could make a return, while she's preparing herself for a potential – and, to her, ineviteable – ressurection of the Sith.

In a perfect world, these two opposing forces would create a balance where Dooku might be able to learn from two teachers whose ideals might clash, but could ultimately be interwoven to form something coherent.

But this isn't a perfect world. From the very beginning, Dooku already has conflicts of interest, and they only add on over time. He's in contact with Jenza – a sister a Jedi is not supposed to have–, he struggles with an attachment to Sifo-Dyas, he has a tendency to let his emotions get the better of him.

Of course, all padawans have struggles that they have to face, but Dooku's are exacerbated by a couple of facts: Yoda is an absent Master when his responsibilities to the Council override his teaching, and Lene – who Dooku already knows is different, who Dooku originally wanted as his Master! – is the one who continues to mentor him when that happens.

Lene Kostana is not a perfect master. Of course, neither is Yoda, but Lene makes her deviation from the typical Jedi known and doesn't shy away from it. She's unapologetic in her search for Sith history, and while Dooku might find that fascinating, we as the readers can see where the faults lay, where that obsession begins to override everything and begin that rift in Dooku's faith and trust in the Jedi.

They suffer a traumatizing experience that unquestionably affects Dooku and makes Sifo-Dyas' visions worse, and what does Lene do? She asks Dooku to keep this a secret from the Council, because the Council already wants her to stop what she's doing. Then, when Sifo's visions do continue to get worse, she asks Dooku to hide it and places in him the fear that the Jedi will do something terrible to Sifo-Dyas, like institutionalize him. Lene tells him over and over again that the Jedi Council is not perfect either– tells him to be weary of them, that they''re afraid.

In contrast, when a situation comes up where the Council do find out about something else that's against the Code within the Jedi, Yoda tells Dooku that they would've helped had they been trusted and known, but Dooku doesn't believe him. He's even shocked and disillusioned by the Jedi taking legal matters into their own hands.

This isn't to say Lene's influence or Yoda's paragon status shaped Dooku into what he became. Everyone had a hand in that, Dooku himself most of all. Circumstances fell into place to create that path. Ultimately, it was Dooku's own hubris that became his downfall.

But, shit, having those two wildly different people to guide him sure as hell didn't make it any better.

[underdark-dreams]

[Poll results]

A smut piece for Rolan that became a 7k word fic. I don't know what it is about him--I just need him to be happy. 🖤 For anyone else who feels the same!

In Amber

Rolan can't remember what made him this way. Bitter, insufferable. He only knows he wants things with her to be different. A series of encounters between Rolan and the person who is teaching his black heart how to hope.

Tags: Fem Unnamed Tav, Explicit Sexual Content, Mild Hurt/Comfort | Word Count: 7,033 [Read on AO3]

The beloved hero of the Grove has saved them all from the Shadow Curse, apparently.

Word spreads fast, and it's all Rolan hears the Harpers talking about in their rush to take final leave of Last Light Inn. Nearly all had gone to Moonrise Towers with the Druid, but a small group stayed behind with Isobel in case the fight turned to the worst.

Rolan was the first one packed. With the shadows lifting, all he wants to do is travel the road to Baldur's Gate and finally reach his destiny. Leave this hollow place behind him.

At last they are finally moving in the right direction again--the three of them along with Lakrissa and Alfira, led by the Harper rangers.

He glances at Cal and Lia walking beside him. They're in the middle of chatting about the first things they want to do when they reach the lower city. Rolan can't seem to stop checking that they’re still there–as if he might look to find them gone once more.

He hasn't seen their savior since the night she brought his siblings back to him. That made twice now that she'd saved all three of their lives. Few things bristled against his nature more than owing a debt that couldn't be repaid. Rolan didn't like the feeling of being under anyone's thumb.

She wouldn't even accept a reward for saving his brother and sister's lives, just waved him away with a smile on her lips. The memory frustrated him endlessly. He couldn't understand why she took such an interest in helping him and his family. He was even beginning to consider that goodness of heart might really exist…at least when it came to hers.

Half of his mind felt tormented by her inscrutable kindness. The other half thought he'd very much like to kiss her.

Before he could brush away the alarming idea, the Harpers in front threw up a cheer. Rolan looked around to see the commotion.

She and her companions were covered in more blood than he'd seen on them yet, but they were still standing as they led their small army down the path from Moonrise Towers. 

His eyes light automatically to her face–it shines with a radiant smile, but Rolan recognizes the way her shoulders slump under her armor. He is flooded with relief. At least she's alive. 

Their groups converge on the road outside the tower. Everything is a jumble of cheers and shouts as the Harpers jostle forward to reunite with their comrades; a man he's never met claps Rolan’s shoulder hard enough to make him wince.

"Go on, then," says Lia beside him. She's following his gaze knowingly. "While you've got a chance."

He only manages to throw his sister a scowl before she trots away. Is it that obvious?

He decides to take her advice after all. She was right that this could very well be the final time their paths converged. Baldur's Gate was a large city, and whatever grand adventures their savior would face next, he doubted they would involve spending much time browsing magical emporiums.

She gave him a little wave as he approached, the kind one might give an old friend. It pricked his conscience. He'd thanked her for saving Cal and Lia, true, but his mind tossed up all the countless other times he'd been needlessly unpleasant toward her. 

"Seems we owe you thanks yet again," he said, hoping it came off sincere. 

She shook her head wryly. "I've never done any of it alone, you know that. Every one of these people fought like hells in there." 

Standing close, his nose was hit by the thick tang of blood that coated on her armor. How much of it was hers?

"You should go to see Isobel," Rolan insisted. He'd drag her straight to the cleric himself, if she'd let him.

"Do I look that bad?" She was teasing, but there was a strain to it. "As long as I make it to my bedroll in the next hour, I'll be fine. You're sweet to worry, though."

"Stop saying things like that," Rolan snapped, unable to contain himself. "You're so nice, and I'm just a bastard."

Her eyes widened at him, taken aback. "I don't think you're a bastard."

Rolan looked down at his hands. "That's what makes you so nice," he said. He had to get to the point. "Look…I know I haven't been the easiest person to get along with. I've been rude and awful, ever since the Grove, and you didn't deserve it. So." He straightened up properly. "I'm sorry for that."

It's far less eloquent than he'd rehearsed, but she seems to understand the sentiment.

"Don’t worry about it," she tells him. "You feel responsibility for the people you love. That can make anyone forget themselves for a while." 

"I suppose," is all he can manage to say. How well she seems to speak what's in his mind.

Her Githyanki companion approaches with a clear intention to speak with her, and Rolan turns away, not wanting to intrude on the company of her true friends.

"Rolan, wait–" 

The flutter in his stomach humiliates him. Will he ever get used to her saying his name?

She rummages in the pack at her waist. "Almost forgot. I found something–well, stole, but it doesn't matter now." 

A fist is held out to him, closed around something. 

Uncertain what to expect, Rolan offers his hand. Her fingers graze softly against his as they deposit something small and hard. He looks down at his palm.

"A rock," he says, deadpan.

"Not just any rock, it's a topaz."

Rolan blinks at her. "And…what am I supposed to do with this, exactly?"

"I don't know," she shrugs. "Keep it, or don't. It just made me think of you. Matches your eyes." The admission brought a flush of pink to her cheeks. 

He felt his heart skip at the sight, followed by a jolt of fear–as if she might be able to see the hope blooming inside his chest.

He turns away with a tut. "Absurd."

She gave only a satisfied laugh before taking her leave. Once she'd retreated out of sight, he tucked the gem securely into the folds of his robe.

-

Rolan has long abandoned the fantasy that he is his master's apprentice. 

Whipping boy would be a more accurate job description. Perhaps test subject. He is trapped in an impossible game that he can never win, and his highest purpose is to be the canvas where Lorroakan paints his next magical experiment. 

His mind shudders at the way the red wizard's eyes rest on him during "lessons": casually devoid of all concern or care. No matter how hard Rolan concentrates, no matter what he answers, it won't be good enough. And then the pain will follow. 

The mindless Constructs are worth far more to his master than he is. 

There was a time when someone made Rolan feel like he could deserve more, but that time is gone now. All he can hope is to learn enough, train hard enough, and one day claw his way through to something better.

Today, however, will offer the chance of a reprieve. He's been sent to deliver a message on foot across the lower city. Weeks ago he would've seen the task as an insult. Now he wonders whether it might take all morning, if he's lucky. 

If he often feels like a drowning man, these moments of escape are like a sweet gasp of air. He walks with his face tilted up to soak in the sun's warmth. 

The marks of abuse that paint his features have long stopped troubling him. An occasional passerby might stare at the bruises, but since the Absolute army's march, most Baldurians give Tieflings a wide enough berth not to notice. One wearing fine robes is no different to them.

As he passes the bridge to the Counting House, his eyes land on her figure. He stops short in surprise, earning himself a rude remark about clumsy devils from the woman behind him.

Rolan would recognize her face in any crowd. She stood on the bridge in the middle of some kind of confrontation between two women; one of them a beggar, by the state of her, the other finely dressed.

As he watches he very clearly sees her invite the rich one to "piss off", to the woman's indignation.

An affectionate chuckle escapes him. Then he winces, hand rising to the cracked skin on his lip. He tastes a drop of blood.

Swift panic grips his chest. She can't fucking see him like this, not once–more broken and pathetic than ever. Not after how many times she's already played rescuer to him. He cringes in shame at the thought.

At least she hasn't found him trapped behind his desk, there's a chance he can slip away unnoticed yet–

"Rolan?" 

He missed his moment by a hair. It's unfortunate that hearing her voice after all this time freezes him straight to the cobblestones, or he might consider dashing away like a coward.

"I thought that was you! I'd recognize those horns anywhere." 

Resigned, he turns back toward her. But he keeps his face cast down toward the pavement.

"What do you want?" He asks stiffly.

"Hello to you too," she laughs, and he stifles the impulse to watch her do so. "It's been a while. Cal and Lia, they're good?"

"Thanks to you," he concedes. No thanks to me.

"I'm glad to hear it." He watches her boots step closer, tentative. "Everything okay with you?"

She can never just leave him alone, can she. Why does she insist on caring when so many others don't bother?

"Fine, busy with my studies," Rolan deflects. "I've got to get back to the Sundries."

There's a tight pause, and then her voice grows firm. "Look at me."

He curses himself for being unable to disregard her, and for his eyes wanting to take her in despite everything. Slowly, he raises his head to meet her gaze.

Her face is somehow lovelier than he remembered. As he watches, it shatters in shock. He can see her eyes flit from mark to mark as if taking inventory.

"Who did this to you?" She whispers, aghast.

He turns away, unable to hold her gaze. "Believe me, it's nothing that can be helped."

"Rolan–" Her hand extends toward his jaw.

If the thought of her touch thrills him, the thought of being touched by her with pity is unbearable.

"I don't need your help," he spits, slapping the hand away with his own. "And I certainly don't need your damned sympathy!"

The shock and hurt on her face are the last things Rolan sees before he turns on his heel.

-

The archwizard was not pleased with his late return. That night, Rolan comes home with a large fresh bloom of purple over his left eye.

Lia's already limited patience snaps. She flies into his face with angry tears and threats that she'll march straight into Lorroakan's tower herself with shortsword in hand. Cal stands between them, pleading for peace, eyes wide and sad.

"Enough," Rolan orders them both. "Don't you see we're nothing but hellspawn refugees to these people? My position is the only thing keeping us under this roof, the only thing." 

He doesn't stop Lia as she storms out–she didn’t take her sword with her. The door rattles on its hinges as it slams behind her. He pushes wordlessly past Cal to his room, and collapses in a heap against his bed pillows.

His face aches enough that he knows sleep won’t come easy tonight. One hand reaches into the robe at his chest, and he slowly pulls out the small amber stone. His fingers turn it over and over as he closes his eyes once more to escape into imagining.

In some other world, he could've been the one powerful enough to save and protect her. Even be the person who makes her smile. 

He would not be the pathetic, broken man that he is. He could feel worthy to return her tender touches with his own, drawing her close to him instead of pushing her away. Feel her lips on his own…her hands circling his shoulders… 

Rolan rouses himself to stare down at the topaz shining in his palm. He feels his rotten heart crumple. 

He can't remember what made him this way. Bitter, insufferable. He doesn't like the man he is. He wants to be different–he wants things with her to be different. 

The stone grows warm in his fist as he clenches it. She crept deep into his heart a long, long time ago. He'll probably never get the chance to tell her, so he might as well admit it to himself.

And even if he did see her again–what chance did he have that she might feel the same? None. She single-handedly managed to improve every part of his life that she touched. What could he possibly offer her?

In this world, precious little.

-

Lorroakan of Ramazith lay dead on the ground. 

Rolan felt a numb hatred as he stood over his former master, eyes frozen wide in the final shock of death. Months from now the expression might have given him cause to laugh. Today, Rolan can only stare mutely.

One more sick megalomaniac who possessed more power than Rolan could have dreamed of wielding…brought down by his insane, insatiable lust for more. Always always more. For what? In the end, he was just another corpse.

It was she who dispatched him, of course. Why wouldn't it be? 

After all this time, it was perfectly inevitable that she and her friends would be the ones to fly in and deliver him from yet another tragic end. He felt like he was stuck on a wheel going around and around. He couldn't escape her, either in reality or in his own mind.

Rolan comes to himself and looks down at his robes. Blood splatters his front and soaks up to his elbows; a crust of frost coats his boots, from whose spell he can't remember. All at once an overwhelming tiredness soaks into his bones.

The dream of destiny that had carried him here…had it ever existed, really?

He decides to slip away while she's distracted, speaking urgently to one of her companions. Her plans probably extend far outside this room and beyond, but this is where his path reaches a bloody dead end.

He allows himself one last look at her profile before stepping quietly to the portal. He wants only a bath and the release of sleep.

His feet drag along the streets of the lower city as they carry his body home, ignoring any frightened stares at the state of his clothes. Silent as he can, he slips through the front door and down the hall to his room. Cal and Lia's voices carry from the kitchen. He'll face their questions when he wakes. 

In the end, exhaustion and relief overtake him. There will be no more lessons. He falls to bed in a heap and drifts off, still wearing his master's blood on his hands.

-

In retrospect: letting Lia discover him face-down in his bed covered in dried blood was not the smartest decision Rolan had ever made. 

After he'd groggily yelled himself hoarse enough to stop her screams, a sharp pang of conscience drove through him like ice. During the time he thought the two of them were lost to the Shadowlands, he wanted nothing more than to drink himself to an early death.

He never wanted either of them to feel that emptiness. For once, he let Lia hold him tight without protest.

With a few days' rest, and some of Cal's better efforts in the kitchen to date, Rolan's spirits had rallied sufficiently that he felt well enough to leave the house. Even to attempt a cautious return to his place of employment. 

To his surprise and distinct confusion, no one at Sorcerous Sundries had a thing to say about Lorroakan's disappearance, or about any possible employee involvement. 

If anything, the mood around the shop was noticeably lighter. He even caught Tolna humming a soft little tune to her bookshelves. “The tomes never respected him, you know,” she whispered to Rolan.

And once he got over the bizarre sight of Lorroakan's projection, hovering with a vacant smile behind his former desk, he found a perverse humor in it. Who was the fucking errand boy now?

Most of all, Rolan found himself free to finally do what he came to this place for: study magic. He had no archmage master, but he was intelligent, and he now had free access to all of the tomes in the tower library that Lorroakan had enjoyed dangling under his nose.

These days he preferred to spend his days alone in the upstairs, absorbed in theory and practice. His skills grew, and so did his confidence in himself.

If he also felt drawn to the spot because it was the last place he'd seen her…well, he was far too late on that score. He could've finally confessed the feelings that had long been bursting through his chest. 

Instead he had slunk away in silence, too scared to stand in front of her and admit how misguided he'd been all this time. She must think very little of him. She probably didn't think of him at all.

Who knew if she was even still in Baldur's Gate? He searched every face he encountered on the streets, hoping for an answer. It had become a reflex.

At the end of another day, he trudged alone across the twilight square. His hands ached from practicing the gestures for elemental conjurement over and over. One of the Steel Watchers clomped mindlessly past, looking about like Rolan felt. 

The thought of going home filled him with weariness. Cal and Lia's cheerful bickering always annoyed him, in an affectionate way. But tonight, he truly felt he might not be up to it. 

He felt sad. Lonely.

Glancing up, he found that his legs had carried him to the steps of the Elfsong. A drink…that would soothe his sorrows for an hour or two, at least.

The doors swung open to usher a wave of stimulation over his senses. Warm firelight, the smell of roasting venison, tables packed with conversation and clinking glasses. 

He was grateful that many others seemed to have had the same idea this particular night. It made it easier to slip through the crowded taproom unnoticed, catching meaningless slices of gossip and flirtatious banter on his way to the bar.

The surly bartender didn't look overjoyed to be serving a Tiefling. He took Rolan's gold without comment, however, and left him alone with his wine.

As the alcohol spread a welcome relaxation through his limbs, Rolan passed the time by idly watching the groups around him. 

A halfling sat alone with shoulders slumped, staring down his tankard as if he wished to drown in it. Across the way, a large bearded man was leaning across the table in open pursuit of his female companion. Clearly getting nowhere, from her expression. But he looked far too drunk to notice.

In front of the great hall fireplace, a pale elf sat in conversation with a pretty dark-haired young woman. 

Rolan's brow furrowed; he knew those two. His eyes quickly scanned over the room's faces until he found her.

She was removed a ways from her usual traveling companions, seated at a small table in the far corner. He watched her swirl the cup in her hand idly. Her eyes followed the liquid’s pattern, but the look behind them was leagues away.

For the first time in days, Rolan felt his heavy heart lift. She was exactly the person he wanted to be with tonight. Even if it was just sharing a drink.

This was it, he told himself. He had to speak with her or he'd regret it the rest of his life.

But first–he knocked back a very large mouthful.

His heart pounded in his ears as he drew closer to her. With each step he expected she might look up, piercing him with those eyes that visited most of his dreams. But she remained transfixed by the wine even when he drew up beside her table.

Improvising, he cleared his throat. "Hello."

She glanced up at him in pleasant surprise. "Oh!"

They stared at each other for an awkward silence. Then, somehow, he found himself laughing with her.

"Sorry, it's so strange. I was just thinking about you," she said, her face brightening.

The fact that he occupied any space in her brain would consume him later, but he shoved it aside for the moment.

"Mind if I join you?"

She patted the chair next to her. As he sat, he wondered if the spot had been a tactical choice on her part. Their table had a view of the whole room and both exits, yet the wall behind offered a sense of privacy. 

"You're not drinking with your friends tonight," Rolan observed.

"Just taking a little break. We're celebrating another family reunion," she explained, gesturing her glass toward the group around the blazing hearth. 

Rolan looked back over his shoulder. He recognized the one-eyed young man with curling horns, but not the older one whose hand was clasped on his shoulder. Quite clearly father and son to anyone with eyes.

"I'm glad for them," Rolan said. To his surprise, he found he truly meant it. The Absolute had ripped apart so many families in so many ways, including his, leaving the lower streets flooded with the hopeless and broken and displaced. He counted himself and his siblings incredibly lucky, and it heartened him to see another happy scene among so much misery.

“You know–” She eyed him curiously. "I was hoping I’d see you. You ran off before we could talk that day."

He looked down at his drink. "I know. I've regretted it since then. At the time, it was just…a lot to take in."

Her eyes narrowed, but not at him. "I hope you don't mind me saying, but that man can burn in Avernus for all I care. For what he did to you. For what he tried to do to Aylin."

Rolan recalled the runic circle in Lorroakan's library, the one whose mysterious power had at first awed and enthralled him. And then he'd seen the aasimar with the shining wings, and watched the demented hunger in Lorroakan's eyes, and the horrible realization had run through him like a sickness.

"Lorroakan was a monster," he agreed. "I just wish I'd seen it sooner. Or even found the strength to open my own eyes."

He felt a hand rest on his forearm.

"I saw what you went through to get here,” she said. “It’s natural that you thought you had to see it all through, no matter what.” 

Rolan said nothing for a while, just let her kindness soothe into his chest like a balm.

“On the bright side,” he added suddenly, “He did keep an excellent library. I’ve learned more from one of his books than I ever did from him.”

“That’s because you’re a proper talented wizard,” she laughed. “And he was an idiot.”

“A dead idiot.”

“To that,” she said with a lift of her cup, and they both drank. He noticed she used her free hand, not moving the one that laid on his arm.

When he caught her eye after, she was watching him with a smile. "You look so well, Rolan."

He knew what she meant. The last time she saw him, his face had been dappled in marks and bruises from Lorroakan's brutal instruction, with more that she couldn't see under his robes.

Now, the last mark across his cheekbone had faded almost to nothing. He hoped it would take the memories of the meaningless pain he'd endured along with it.

"Thank you," he said simply. "So do you."

He meant it; he realized now that he'd only ever seen her dressed for combat. Tonight she wore soft hide pants tucked into her hunting boots, a linen shirt half unlaced at her collarbones. It softened her. Close beside him and bathed in firelight, she set his heart racing again.

Perhaps it was her closeness or her touch that gave him the courage, or perhaps it was just the wine. He shifted his arm slightly to capture her hand in his.

"No one else has ever shown me the kindness you have. Not even Cal and Lia, though I do love them." 

She watched him speak in silence, and he gazed back at her, as if the answers to everything might be found in her face. 

"I don't understand you,” he said earnestly. “Why you've kept giving me chances. You've been so much more generous with me than I deserve. I've insulted you, yelled at you, I've been an absolute unbearable prick–"

Before he could think, she leaned in to silence him with her lips.

The kiss lasted forever and only a second all at once. Rolan closed his eyes, breathing in the faint smell of lavender on her skin.

Before he was anywhere near ready, she gently pulled away.

"Because," she murmured, "you're a good man, Rolan. And I like you." Her words, the lingering taste of her on his lips, they made his head spin. He felt like he was watching the door to a new world swing open before his eyes.

Before anything else, Rolan had to kiss her again. He released her hand to smooth the hair back from her face, watching the way she tilted into his touch, and gently guided her toward him.

It was deeper this time; he tasted the heady wine on her mouth, her breath a soft tickle against his cheek. As his fingers tangled her hair, he felt her hand wind sweetly over his shoulder, holding on to him.

A wet stripe flashed across his lips. His mouth gasped open in surprise, allowing her tongue to softly meet his, then draw slowly over his pointed teeth. 

The unexpected sensations brought his mind back to reality, and to the fact that they were in a public place. With effort, he wrenched himself out of the kiss. They breathed against each other for a moment. 

"I've got a room upstairs," she murmured. "If you want to?" Her cheeks were flushed from firelight and wine, and possibly even from him.

Whether or not he wanted to was no question: her words sent a fervent rush of blood to his groin. But first, he mustered enough control to hold her back from him for a moment. Her lips were parted in question.

"I adore you," he said. "I think I have for a long time. It's–very important to me that you know that. Before anything else." Even if the anything else was a dream that had kept him awake more nights than he could count.

Her soft hand cupped his cheek; he thought he might combust if she didn't say something. "Thank Gods," she laughed breathily. "I swore you hated me for a while there."

"I had no idea what to do with my feelings for you, I was a fucking idiot." It was all tumbling out of him now. He opened his mouth to continue, but her fingertips went to his lips.

 "Rolan–" Her voice was full of relief, and he was charmed to see the blush across her face deepen. "I feel the same way. I really, really like you."

His rotten heart could have flipped with joy. 

“Now.” She cocked her head askance, and he felt her fingers twine with his. "Make it up to me?"

Yes. Please, please, yes. He nodded in a daze, reeling like he'd sustained a blow to the head. All he could feel was the elation and anxiety swirling around and around in his stomach as he followed her toward the staircase, let her lead him by the hand like a lovesick idiot.

As they passed her companions he pointedly averted his eyes; he couldn't afford to lose any of the nerve building inside him. He'd need every bit of it in a moment.

The dark staircase seemed to ascend forever. Part of him wanted it to–he was no virgin, but the hand she held tight was shaking with anxiety. He wanted to make this perfect.

Overthinking proved pointless. The moment the heavy door closed behind them, he found himself pinned against it with a thud by the length of her body.

His involuntary groan was lost in their kiss. She was everywhere around him at once: hands pinning his shoulders back against the wood, hips grinding into his thigh with no pretense, her tongue pressing against his lips and slipping past his teeth to taste him. She moaned against his mouth, and the sound reverberated from his head to his feet.

His erection was practically instantaneous. He hooked his thumbs over her hip bones, sharp nails finding purchase in her pants, and rolled himself against the yielding softness between her legs. 

Whatever release the pressure provided multiplied it tenfold. Desire coursed through him, burning in his veins hotter than he thought possible. 

The maneuver brought an approving hum from her throat, however. Encouraged, he ground her into him again, and again, as slowly as his body could be convinced to go.

Her hands released his shoulders to rake upward through his hair, pulling his face toward her.

Pulling him deeper into the room, he realized. He stumbled slightly against something; tasting her lips was infinitely more important than breaking the kiss to look where he was going. He trusted her lead, impatient to reach whatever destination she had in mind so he could freely explore her.

Their connected bodies bumped up against the edge of something soft. She pulled away, and his immediate disappointment rapidly turned around as he felt her fingers fumbling with the clasps of his robe. He guided her hands, struggling at the same time to kick off one boot and then the other. 

As his robes pooled on the floor, her palms pressed him away for a moment.

Rolan stood frozen and panting in his trousers. She licked her kiss-swollen lips as she looked over his bare shoulders, his chest. When her eyes reached the obvious hardness straining in his pants, she let out a delicious sound.

Rolan's hands grabbed for her of their own volition. They slipped under the hem of her shirt, against the bare skin of her waist, and wrenched the garment up over her head in one motion.

To look at her directly was almost too much–he felt love and desire churning together inside of him. "Beautiful," was all he could say.

He buried his face in her shoulder instead, fang-like teeth brushing over her skin as he left a trail of kisses along the curve of her neck. She let out a gasp when his hand gently stroked her breast.

"You're so warm," she murmured into his hair. To him, she was pleasantly cool; he shivered when her fingers traced the small set of ridges that ran from his collarbone to his sternum.

But he needed more of her. He hooked both thumbs over her waistband and tugged ineffectually. She quickly took over, shucking them off with a shimmying motion.

The sight of her bare, for him, was almost enough to make Rolan come then and there. He reached out to her hips to steady himself. She was so much more divine than anything his paltry imagination could have conjured.

Through his blazing arousal, he was barely aware of the hands unlacing his pants until she tugged them down to finally let his cock spring free.

A sigh of relief escaped him. He watched her take him in, her eyes half-lidded with arousal. 

"You're incredible," she whispered. Then her arms slid around his neck, pulling him down into a kiss.

He tried to concentrate on her mouth, but the way his cock brushed and nudged against her skin every time she moved was taking over his brain.

With a motion of her hips, she captured his length between her thighs and rocked forward and back, sliding her dripping wet center over his cock. The revelation of her own state of desire sent his mind spiraling with want.

Rolan let out what could only be called a whimper. He clutched her to him, capturing her bottom lip between his teeth as firmly as he dared, as if she might suddenly disappear and leave him in an aching pile.

She made a pleased sound, then gave his shoulders a push. With his pants still around his thighs, he lost his balance–knees buckled as he fell backwards onto the mattress behind them.

He propped himself up on his elbows just in time to see her kneel on the floor in front of him. Her two hands pushed his knees apart, as far as the straining fabric would allow–

Rolan tried and failed to breathe normally, heart pounding in his ears. It felt like time was slowing to a crawl. Her eyes glanced from his face to the stiff erection between them. A droplet of moisture shone at its tip.

"Can I–?" She was asking him for permission, hands poised on his thighs, her expression heady with arousal.

"Anything," Rolan swore, and he meant it. She could do whatever the fuck she wanted to him right now. Before he could prepare himself, her mouth closed wetly around his tip. 

Truly, nothing could have readied him. He let out a gasp–his head dropped back as his hips rose involuntarily to seek more of her soft, cool mouth. 

He had scarcely adjusted before she took him in further, sliding her tongue down along his length to his very base–then slowly, achingly slowly, back up again.

He heard the rip of fabric as his nails gripped the bedding. He gathered the will to raise his head up to look.

Rolan was mesmerized by the sight of her lips wrapped around taught red skin, his length disappearing into her mouth and returning wet with saliva. She was working him over almost reverently slow, eyes closed as if tasting him.

Tasting herself on him. His cock twitched inside her mouth at the realization. She glanced up at him, releasing him from her lips with a soft, wet pop.

He could have groaned at the loss of her. Instead, he used the moment to work off his constraining pants and toss them away. Before she could reach for him again, Rolan pulled her up and onto his lap.

Her knees sank into the bed on either side as she straddled him, but she kept herself hovering well above him without contact. He pushed aside the ache between his legs to focus on more important things.

He leaned forward to press a soft kiss between her breasts, allowed his mouth to explore. She sighed with pleasure as he alternately licked and kissed across each curve, then drew sharp breath as his teeth sucked at the soft flesh under one breast. 

Her hands, at first resting on his shoulders, flew to grab two fistfuls of his hair. The sensation sent a shiver down his spine.

Rolan pulled away for a moment for admire the purple mark blooming on her breast. He glanced up as though looking for approval. She gave it, tugging his hair to tilt his face into a waiting kiss.

Ever so carefully…mindful of his fingertips, he placed the flat of his palm on the heat between her legs.

“Rolan–” she gasped, breaking away. 

The sound of his own name had never been dearer to him. He was run through with a thrill, and a fervent desire to do whatever it took to make her say it again.

  He massaged gentle circles into her, the base of his palm pressing against her clit in slow rhythm. Her wetness coated him with each stroke. She quaked under his touch, eyelashes fluttering, and his other arm circled her back to support her. He felt her lean against him without a second thought. Trusting completely.

“I can’t believe I have you,” he heard his voice say, perhaps to himself. 

As he spoke he felt the core of her tightening under his hand. Abruptly, her fingers closed around his wrist to still his ministrations. He froze, immediately afraid he had scratched her somehow. But her face shone with nothing but desire for him.

"On your back," she directed.

Rolan nearly pinched his tail under himself in his haste to obey. He swept his legs out from between hers and stretched out as she climbed over to straddle him. 

Now they were finally here, she wasted no time leaving space between them. Her hips rolled down onto him and drew the wet folds of her center across his tip. His entire length throbbed at the blessed return of her touch, the head of his cock burning against her. 

Smoothly, simply, she lowered herself onto him.

The shuddering exhale from his lips met against her moan of relief. Rolan willed himself to keep his eyes on hers, even as her inviting walls gripped him, even as he practically felt his pupils dilate with want. Her features relaxed into a state of pure, unadulterated satisfaction.

Then she started to move her hips.

She pushed her palms against his chest for leverage, riding his cock at a steady pace that felt entirely too slow. Whatever will he had to follow her lead was immediately tested; he was overcome with the need to touch her everywhere at once. 

Care forgotten, he gripped the soft flesh of her back with his fingertips. She cried out softly as his nails dragged from her shoulders to the base of her hips, but he felt her walls clench around him in response. His tail curled up and around her waist of its own volition, holding her as she took him in further with each bounce of her hips.

She gasped and fell over him, hands braced on either side. She was already losing control. He felt his own release closing in, used the new angle of her hips to thrust up into her. 

“Oh, Gods, yes–” Her mouth dropped open. She moved her hips back with each of his thrusts to take him more deeply. 

Rolan thought he might shatter apart. Waves of searing desire swept harder and harder through him. She took him so perfectly, his cock almost painfully gripped by her tightening walls, so wet and lush and sweet and for him–

A hand flew up to the back of her neck to grasp and to pull her down so he could taste her as he came. Lips crashed together frantically as the pace of their bodies started coming apart at the seams. 

In one bright concentrated moment, she shook and trembled violently into him as she grasped for whatever part of him she could reach. He managed one last stuttering thrust before his climax was ripped from him by her own, spilling inside of her clenching center, hurling him outside himself and into the wide Astral plane.

They shuddered against each others' bodies as white-hot waves receded outward farther and farther. Her head dropped to his shoulder as though she'd lost all muscle control. 

He felt her slowing breaths fan out across his chest, and he rested a hand on the back of her head to keep her there.

-

As Rolan stared up at the wood-paneled ceiling above them, something cold dripped down at the base of him. He realized he was still inside of her. He swung his free arm over the side of the bed–still woozy enough from his climax that he nearly slid head-first to the floor–and snatched up his rumpled robes to clean them both.

She rolled off him then and cuddled up on her side to watch him. He mirrored her pose, adjusting against the pillows to make a spot for his horns. One of her fingers found the point of his ear and began tracing.

“How do you feel?” She asked. 

Rolan sighed deeply. “Happy.” He could cast around for another dozen words, but he’d rather take her in. He smoothed a hand up and down along the curve of her side.

“So do I.” She leaned over to spread light kisses along his lips, then his jaw and cheek. His tail brushed against her leg in an idle caress. 

She glanced down. “I didn’t actually know about…that.”

“Am I your first Tiefling?” He teased, though the thought genuinely pleased him.

“First and last,” she replied. The words were instantly locked away in his chest. 

She gave a little shiver then, tucking her body against his warmth. He dug the covers up over themselves and wrapped her up tight with his arms and legs. The simple feeling of holding her brought him a deep sense of calm.

“I love this, Rolan.” Her lips moved against the hollow at the base of his neck. “I wish I could take tonight and carry it with me everywhere.”

Something sparked in him at her words. He opened his eyes and reluctantly released her to feel around the floor at the floor for his stained robe.

"What are you doing over there?" She lifted her head curiously to peer over the bedside. 

"Just need to find something." He rummaged through his layers of discarded clothing before finally, his knuckle grazed something hard.

He slid back up under the covers beside her. She propped herself up against him, resting a palm on his chest with an expectant look.

He held out his thumb and index finger. Between them, an amber stone glinted in the dim light.

Her mouth fell open in recognition. For one second, he was afraid she might cry.

Then she buried her head in the crook of his neck, wrapping both arms tight around him. "I knew you were a darling all along." 

[5typesoftrash]

MumScott Week Day 4: Canon / Picking Up Each Other's Mannerisms

[A/N: And just like that I'm back on track. Sorry this one's shorter, I didn't have a ton of ideas I just wanted it to be silly. @mumscottweek2025]

Mumbo stares up at the two bridges in the little concave area of the mountain where he, Grian, and Skizz have made their base. “I think it needs something else,” he tells Grian, standing next to him. “Just can’t think what it might be.”

Grian glances at him, looks back at their bridges, then does a double take. “Mumbo,” he says quietly, and Mumbo turns to look at him.

“Hm?”

The look on Grian’s face is inscrutable. It’s hard for Mumbo to decipher. He looks... curious, but also mildly anxious? Like something’s gone wrong? Mumbo can’t make heads or tails of it.

“You’re biting your lip,” says Grian in a voice that is clearly taking a lot of effort to keep even. Lines appear between Mumbo’s eyebrows.

“I’m not biting my lip,” he argues, then goes right back to biting his lip.

Grian nods forcefully. “No, you definitely are. You don’t do that. Is something wrong?”

Mumbo makes himself stop. “Just thinkin’,” he says casually. Grian narrows his eyes at his friend, and Mumbo rolls his own before turning back to the bridges. “I’m fine, G. Just trying to figure out what we’re missing here.” He tilts his head to one side, then snaps his fingers. “Another bridge!”

Grian snorts, but he doesn’t seem quite ready to drop the other thing. They move onto constructing another bridge, followed by a meeting room, but as they’re working on a TNT launching tower, he says, “you know who bites his lip?”

Mumbo looks over at him. “Who?”

“Scott.” Grian raises his eyebrows a couple of times for emphasis, and Mumbo shoves him.

“It’s not like you think.”

Grian laughs. “Suuuuuuure.”

~~

Scott is busy building his birthday cake when Skizz comes over to visit. Scott holds his sword out as a clear reminder for the red life to keep his distance. Skizz holds his hands up in an ‘I surrender’ gesture, but doesn’t argue.

“What’s going on?” he asks, in his patented friendly Skizzleman manner. Scott shrugs, examining the cake as he tries to decide where he wants these strawberries.

“Just building. Trying not to get killed. Day in the life.”

Skizz laughs. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t be here, then.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Scott starts to say, but startles himself by dropping the blocks he’s holding. They narrowly miss his right foot. “בן אלף זונות,” he exclaims. Skizz gives him a startled look.

“Did you just say ‘ben elef zonot’?” he asks. Scott glances at him, having nearly forgotten he was there in his surprise.

“Guess I did,” he replies. Skizz narrows his eyes.

“Did Mumbo teach you Hebrew?”

Scott pauses, startled out of his skin. “Er... kind of? Yes? Why?”

Skizz smiles cheekily. “You speak Hebrew with a British accent.”

Scott snorts at that. “Somehow, I am not surprised.”

Skizz shrugs. “Also, if I may, ‘son of a thousand whores’ is a little intense for just dropping some blocks.”

“I’m vulgar, what do you want me to say?” Scott laughs. “You’ve heard how I normally talk.”

“Guess I can’t argue with that,” Skizz replies.

[honeyed-latte]

Thinking about a Hiccup that ran away with Toothless after the episode in DoB where Berk thought the Gods were angry at Toothless.

After his electrocution did nothing to prove to the others that it was the metal, Hiccup instructed Stoick to remove the posts- and ran. If Toothless wasn't welcome, then neither was Hiccup, which suits him just fine.

Hiccup spends all his time rescuing Dragons, hoping from island to island to help, and he forms a sanctuary of his own in a way. He and Toothless head it as a two-man defacto Queen.

The island that would have been Dragons Edge becomes Hiccups Sanctuary, this brings his warpath to The Hunters front door and after skirmish after skirmish, hunt after hunt, auction after auction is upended and the dragons all freed. Money and men being lost by the handfuls, Viggos attention is most thoroughly snagged by who his men are calling "The Black Blight".

He doesn't believe them at first, who would? A man in all black on the back of a Night Fury pushing back all their operations away from the east, getting all too close to their bigger centers for Viggos comfort.

He comes face to face with this Blight not long after he confirms the mans existence, he knew where he'd hit next and patiently waited for the mystery man to rear his head and eureka, there he was, right on schedule.

It's surprisingly less violent then Viggo anticipated for a warrior his men had taken to calling such a... resonating moniker, but it was fitting that his guest is so sure of himself.

Hes a tall, slender thing doused in blackened sturdy armour, the kind of creature that moved with confidence and calm assurance even surrounded by Viggos Hunters. He was impressed by the candor and the mind that lurked beyond the empty, inscrutable eyes of the sleek helm, but they have mush to discuss if this was going to end in a way that favoured them both.

Viggo isn't surprised when the Dragon Master agree's to talk things over as opposed to battling it out, neither of them are unreasonable after all, but he is surprised when he takes off that intimidating (and beautifully crafted) helm and the man under it...is hardly a man at all.

A boy, rather, a feral and beautiful boy with eyes as quick and green as his Night Fury's.

Once they're properly introduced, they talk.

And talk.

And talk.

And drink.

And talk...

Until they find common ground, until they find agreement; Viggo will learn how to more reliably supply his economy with trade, non-lethally and without the selling of dragons while letting the dragons he currently housed free, and in return Hiccup will help Viggo expand his reach to make up for the gap in his gold and stop attacking all Hunter ships.

The sun is high up when they sign their names to the document outlining the agreement, its a thing that makes the feral scoff, what good is the name of an Exiled viking really, but who cares if it makes Viggo stop hurting dragons.

They work together, closely together, to make sure neither of them goes back on their word. True to form, Hiccup teaches Viggo how to appeal to a dragons gentler nature, and Viggo opens up Trade in the east- scaled armour, recycled metal and scrap from traps, Gronkle Iron, weaponry.

They help eachother scout new dragons, forge new inventions to trap and release them. They end up being a Team more often then not as the Hunters undo their years of harm, and Hiccup undoes years of loneliness (in Viggo and himself.)

Slowly, Hiccup and Viggo enter a more romantic relationship as well, they're a perfect match and together they build a stronger empire. Hiccup is free to come and go as he pleases, he saves even more dragons with Viggo as his partner, and having Hiccup around further soothes Viggo's people- he's a kind man after all, helpful. Even if Ryker loathes him, even if Viggo is at risk of assassination at the hands of old allies, even if Hiccup see's Berk less and less. Its all worth it, because they have eachother and they're making the world safer for dragons.

[kaguranobatya]

But in general, I suddenly thought about why Kunishige taught Chihiro to forge swords, especially since he apparently wanted to teach him to forge magic swords.

It sounds logical that a father teaches his son what he can, but... Make nuclear weapons?? Maybe that's enough, Kunishige? 😭😭 The ways of the creator are inscrutable

I will really easily attribute it to the fact that Kunishige had nothing better to do. Well, like. They sit in the house, it's boring 😔😔

And all Kunishige can do is be silly and make nuclear weapons

Now he has a son who all he can do is be a housewife and create nuclear weapons (ah, but for now he's mostly engaged in murders)

[yuurei20]

Malleus Facts Part 15: Malleus and Cater (pt1)

Cater is one of several characters on the main cast who shows no fear of Malleus, treating him like a normal student the majority of the time.

He teaches Malleus about toasting for small celebrations during Firelit Sky, saying he is proud of him when Malleus proposes a toast on his own.

There is an ongoing theme of Cater trying to get a picture of Malleus for his Magicam account (fore which he also pursues Vil and Epel, with all three characters consistently turning him down).

Cater spends an entire vignette trying to take a photo of Malleus.

Malleus seems willing, at first, but then Cater comments about his “hard to approach,” “otherworldly” and “terrifying” vibe, which sours Malleus’ mood.Malleus gives Cater permission to photograph him only to intentionally move too quickly for Cater to get a proper shot, saying, “Perhaps because I am an otherworldly ‘mystery boi’ whose thoughts are inscrutable and hence terrifying, I do not show up in picture at all?”

Cater calls Malleus out for holding a grudge (“Why would I be upset over that? Go on and take as many photographs as you like. If you can, that is.”), saying he will beat the odds and get a perfect shot of him.

Riddle references this interaction in Malleus’ second birthday interview.

Cater goes to Malleus’ rescue during Beanfest, advising him to avoid the opposing team, but Malleus says he “was enjoying a rare bit of excitement.”

Cater attempts to “snap a pic for good luck,” but Malleus leaves before he can.Grim tells Cater he should have invited Malleus to join their group but Cater explains, “there would have been too many cons” with how he stands out and attracts enemies.

Malleus says that Cater showed him how to take photos during the Firelit Sky event.

[insidemyrottenbrain]

Peripeteia - TSH

TW: sensitive topics, explicit content I have two things to specify about Peripeteia: it is written from Henry's point of view and it was inspired by "the master" lines from Vita Nova by Louise Glück. On another note, I feel this is an opportunate time to share my TikTok account: @ aionter. I do post, rarely, but whose to say my fate cannot be altered? My reposts, however, are prominent and mostly informative with a few slip ups. Enjoy indulging in my writing.

Does peripeteia, that cruel rapture discontinuing and altering the string of fate, strike in one clear, definite moment, in a flash of divine, or does it seep into the fabric of time altering it with unforeseen fingers? If such a moment does exist, tell me, can I crawl my way back to the life before it, like the pitiful, pitiful man that I am? If I am truthful, my wish to return to the life before, or rather, more accurately, the perturbation of the current one, is what constitutes the reason for my continuous insomnia, migraines and above all my inability to function. Nothing that has worked as a cure before, or at least an amelioration, has succeeded in aiding me this time. I have tried every familiar remedy but to no avail. This unexpected and unfortunate failure left me with one dangerous, possible solution, one that requires me to put myself under a metaphysical scythe: a histoire, an accurate, mostly truthful, final attempt at understanding the basis of my condition, and respectively of them, the anomalous cause and singular symptom of it all.

Few people know what it means to be embarrassed by your flesh and blood, and even fewer acknowledge the genuineness of this unorthodox sentiment. It is often met with a certain disregard by people who believe it to be the depraved product of an unmeasurable arrogance, instead of the quiet, sombre and perhaps paralysing knowledge that it actually is: a phantom limb of a false connection. It is an unfortunate thing to be acquainted with alienation from a young age. It dissolves any security or sense of belonging and, as compensation, teaches yearning. However, humans, no matter how small, are adaptable beings and they can learn to deal with this longing, as well as with the half self-imposed isolation that inevitably follows. After all, when one is forced to live in exile, one grows fond of one’s cage.

I do not believe in luck, but I do believe I must have done something in another life or must have been born under the wrong star to find myself in this unfortunate category of people. My refuges are two: dead tongues and books (my first read was a children’s copy of Greek mythology procured from the school’s library which sits on my shelf to this day because I couldn’t make myself return it). The former was something which caught my attention later in my adolescence, at around thirteen if neither my memory nor my grey cells are playing tricks on me. This combination of passion and comfort, naturally, turned me towards the classics, and they, without much effort, became my obsession and defined my place in the universe. This mania turned me into somewhat of a monk, a fanatic not of saints but of mad philosophers, not of one inscrutable deity but of a pantheon of dead gods, not of scripture but of the eccentrics of ancient languages. 

Perhaps because of my childhood circumstances, existence still eludes me. It is something I endure rather than inhabit, tolerated like a prolonged fever dream, or the distant, teasing echo of a reality never meant for me. The exception is, of course, what keeps my world spinning, my mania, because everything else is boring and depraved of any sublime.

Throughout my childhood, I’ve often heard the phrase “everything in moderation” repeated by my excuse of a father every time he would catch my nose buried between dust-coated pages until the very words became a mechanical reflex on his lips. Soon followed my books falling all around me on the floor, sometimes even losing their track and deviating towards the open window. I imagine his actions came from his wish that one day I might take over his company, and his firm belief that reading was not something his son should be doing in order to prepare for the task. Nevertheless, that did not stop me from gathering the wet, torn or bent books, and nursing them back to health, only for them to be destroyed once again and for me to mend them until the paper gave out. I never once considered that the phrase he kept muttering might have a seed of truth in it until my devotion towards my studies started to abate. The routine, which to avoid being dramatic was my whole life, had transformed itself into something mundane, devoid of meaning. I knew it was only a matter of time before my knowledge would start to seem too garish until the absolute classics started diminishing. 

The Bacchanal should have stayed what it was meant to be: a precautionary measure designed to halt the growing dullness. Instead, it mutated into a beast far beyond my grasp, an uncontrollable surge of madness that I could neither restrain nor surrender. Alas, I could not let the sublime fade, that was simply out of the discussion. What exactly happened during the ritual I’m afraid I cannot tell with the highest of accuracies, not because I don’t want to, but rather because the numerous places in which the action unfolds have mixed together into a blur of motion without a definite start or end. The sequence of that night had long ago dissolved into a fevered, disjointed nightmare. What I do know is that I followed the guidelines left by Romans: become a vessel of ecstatic torment, feast as if the gods themselves demanded it, and indulge in carnal debauchery until the line between pleasure and agony vanished. 

Anything else that had happened that night did so under the influence of divine madness and at the will of Bacchus. I was not the sole host of my mind when I was running through the woods in the form of a wolf, or at least something similar. I was not myself anymore but rather the most primal version of me, intelligence but without the shackles of civilization. The trees were nothing but a blur of fading lines slowly losing themselves in my peripheral vision. I felt nothing of the twigs and branches that clawed at my limbs, or the penetrating cold that should have stung the cells of my bare skin. I knew I had been blessed. 

That is when I first saw her, one half of them. She was surreal, I remember my instincts telling me, with a glowing aura amplified by her long blonde, almost white hair that taunted me through the darkness of the woods, like blinking stars in an otherwise black desert of void. How could I not follow, when she begged me and my animal self roared in abandon? My vision was focused on her, for she seemed to shine brighter than the moon as if she had eaten it and its luminesce. I chased her for what else should I have done, when she with her skin, an eerie hue of bruised violet and spectral white dress, too short to cover her vulnerable knees, was the only clear thing in my sight? I do not remember the exact amount of time until she slowly found her way inside a lake, each careful step a silent dare, a provocation aimed at me as she succumbed to the darkness.

The forest was without life, but she, oh, she at that moment in the breathing lake she promised to fill my yearning. I had to follow, didn’t I? I wanted to keep her, to ingest her very essence. Into the lake she melted, a liquid tomb swallowing her whole, and I dove. I searched the cold depths with my hands for her like a madman clung to sanity. Then, in the faint serpentine streaks of moonlight that slithered into the water, I saw my limbs darkening towards decay. I reached, curious, unaware with one purple-blue finger towards my other hand only to watch the flesh disintegrate into nothingness, unveiling the smooth, indifferent bone beneath without a single drop of blood. I was rotting. When I opened my mouth to scream, he, the other half of the strange duality, interrupted me. He shoved me down with brutal insistence, my head colliding against the jagged bottom. I remember his white hands, far paler than hers, tightening around my neck and squeezing as if deriving pleasure from my humanless state. His face remained a statue as I struggled, my hands desperately attempting to remove his, to escape his grip but above all his dead, dark eyes. 

I did not care much for drowning at that moment, in fact, I did not care for anything but the delirious rage that made me want to rip out his vision, to shatter his illusion of dominance. I reached out and drove my thumbs into his eyes. With every centimetre I pushed deeper, his eyes gushed out liquid punctuated by a crackling pop.

I do not know the moment when I returned to reality. The only logical theory is that I gradually regained my senses and my consciousness, but nevertheless, I found it strange to see that I am alive and unrotten. 

I have a bad habit of avoiding anything that scares me. And so naturally, when they started reappearing at first as quivering, indistinct shapes and then as unmistakable figures standing in the distance, I decided to convince myself that I was not seeing anything, that it was nothing but a post-traumatic hallucination. Despite my deep-rooted fear, my interest in them grew when I realised they work together towards a common goal. She is the siren, and he the restless weapon, both meant to end me. And perversely, as time passes I find my yearning for her intensifying and a strange curiosity forming for him. Even now, as he is standing twenty meters from my window, watching me, unmoving in the blizzard, I can make out his pure black eyes which along with her blinding blonde crown have etched themselves into my memory for an indefinite amount of time.

Having put the events onto paper as truthfully as I could, I now come to realise that there is one way to reverse my peripeteia: to severe myself with my own hand. Judge me if you will but obsession, no matter how identically raw and consuming it may feel settling inside us, is never truly the same as another’s. It is a rational, simple, final move in their deranged game. The most devoted souls are indeed the ones devoured by their own madness.

[sizeofyoursoul]

Interview with the Vampire, The Original Ending

From The Vampire Companion by Katherine Ramsland:

"The first draft of IV was somewhat different from the version that was eventually published. The boy reporter guesses Louis's age to be around thirty-five rather than twenty-one, and much of Louis's story remains the same- with the exception of his discovery that Lestat wrote poetry as a boy- until he and Claudia arrive in Eastern Europe.

Although Louis and Claudia made plans to go directly to Paris, they stay there only two days, for Claudia's reading of vampire lore urges them toward the superstitious lands of Hungary and beyond. The description of their travels is brief, but the vampiric discoveries are the same as in the published version: mindless, animated corpses. Louis realizes that this is what Lestat became after he was resurrected from the swamp, and Lestat is never heard from again in this version.

They return to Paris, take a flat on the boulevard du Temple, frequent art galleries, and attend parties and balls. Soon they see a lone vampire on the banks of the Seine, then a pair walking, and another in a theater. These vampires flee from them, so Louis and Claudia make themselves more conspicuous in the hope of inviting the vampires to approach them.

One night they return to their rooms to find one female and nine male vampires, all dressed in black. These vampires are rather inscrutable, but they invite Louis and Claudia to a house on the Faubourg St .Germain. The house is a musty old mansion that is staffed by elderly human servants who hope to be made vampires one day. Inside, Louis and Claudia see paintings similar to those described in the subterranean room in the Theater of the Vampires. They are met by Armand, who invites them to a ball, where he ladles animal blood from an ornate cauldron into crystal goblets.

About twenty vampires enter the room and form an oval. They recite from Baudelaire's poem, "Les Fleurs du Mal," which offers images of hell, degradation, and death. Louis believes that the vampires must be connected to Satan in some fashion, which gives him some small comfort: he is about to uncover answers to his pressing theological questions.

Two servants then bring in a blond girl, and the scene is a repeat of that in the Theater of the Vampires. She begs for her life, but succumbs to the death they offer, and is passed around. Louis drinks from her, although he is horrified at the orgy of feasting. Armand then takes Louis to a bedroom where another mortal woman is sleeping, and Louis crawls in with her and drinks from her as she sleeps. Louis then engages with Armand in a theological discussion similar to that in the published version of IV. It becomes clear to Louis that Armand has no knowledge of God or Satan, for Armand describes himself as merely part of the natural rhythms of life and death.

Later Louis observes the coven's ceremonies and mannerisms: they prize conformity, abhor wasted opportunities, and delight in provoking one another with elaborate dares and challenges. Also, the making of a new vampire is for them a communal act, involving a democratic process. Louis remains aloof and detached from this coven. He does not like what he sees of their rigid rules. But Claudia quickly exchanges her lavender dresses for black and allows her hair to be dyed white so that she fits in with the coven. She also befriends three brothers who teach her how to torment priests.

When the other vampires learn that Claudia killed Lestat, they decide that his death was just, and there are no punitive consequences; Claudia does not die in this version of the story. However, she does leave Louis for vampires who seem to her to be more her own kind. Left on his own, Louis wanders around Paris alone. One night Armand catches up with him and asks why Louis has shunned him. Louis insists he is completely taken with Armand but does not feel kinship with the rest of the coven. Armand leaves them for Louis. He tells Louis how he was made a vampire in Venice at the age of twenty-five and how he lived with his vampire maker/lover for over a century. They leave Paris together and travel the world.

Louis convinces Armand that what they do is evil, and Armand agrees to go into the sun with Louis and destroy himself if that is what Louis wants. However, Louis does not really desire this, and he eventually gives in to pressure from Armand to go to New Orleans. There he learns how to use the cemeteries to find Armand's favorite victims: those who want to die. One poignant scene describes a mother one year after the death of her daughter. She has also lost her mother and cannot conceive of continuing with life without these two. Time has given her no reprieve, and she suspects that life is just not worth it. It is the expression of Rice's own despair at the time (1973).

Louis admires Armand's ability to draw close to such victims, but he prefers those who struggle to hang on to life. He then also informs the boy reporter that New Orleans was the place of his greatest suffering as a vampire, for it was where he met his mortal love. As tantalizing as this piece of information is, the tale ends here, and the identity of this character is not made known. The boy realizes that dawn is approaching and backs out of the room, hoping Louis will not notice.

By the time he reaches his car, Louis is there, angry that the boy had kept him talking simply to keep his mortal body safe, and he wants the tapes back. Armand arrives and tells Louis that the boy will do with the tapes what Louis wants done: he will make them public. Louis and Armand get into a cab together, while the boy goes to the radio station to listen to what he has recorded."