#other than that a handful of genderswaps and making the singular Mr. Chesney into the Badminton twins

[nicnacsnonsense]

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Okay Dark Lord of Derkholm AU. I don't believe you've read that book from what I recall of our Dianne Wynne Jones conversation, so I will be sure to explain the relevant parts of the plot as we go.

Our setting is a world that vibes similar to a standard fantasy setting -- which is a key plot point -- and they have a serious problem. The Badminton Twins who are business men who forty years ago managed to capture a demon, which they use as leverage to make the demon king do their bidding. (I have no strong feelings on who should be the demons, but I do think it would be funny if it were Mary and Doug, and since the demon king does help our protagonists, but really only to secure freedom for himself & his mate, it works). Their bidding being to force the upholding of a contract the people of this world signed to hold Badminton's Pilgrim Parties.

Every year they have to do up their world to look like an even more exaggerated and tropey version of a fantasy setting, all of which must conform to the Badminton's exact very racist and sexist expectations, and give a fantasy world quest to 100+ parties of about 20 Pilgrims (people from our world) which culminates in them defeating the Dark Lord and saving the world. They are paid for this service, but it's significantly less than what the Badmintons earn selling the experience, and also significantly less than the cost of running it in resource and labor on the people in the world.

(It's a colonialism. The whole story is an anti-colonialism & -capitalism allegory that's honestly pretty light on the allegory part of it.)

Our story starts with Spanish Jackie, Chancellor of the Wizard University, having an emergency meeting with a number of other various guild leaders, heads of state, high priests, etc. etc. About how they are going to stop the Pilgrim Parties. Their plan is to go see the two Oracles and do what both of them say. The instructions come down as make the first person you see the Dark Lord and the second person you see the Wizard Guide for the last tour group. Upon exiting the second Oracle, the first two people they see are Stede and his younger human son Olu.

Stede is regarded by people in this universe to be just as cringefail as he is in canon. He did technically graduate from the University and is a wizard, but he did very poorly. The trouble was he couldn't seem to conform to what was required of him -- which was to perform to specific standards to cater to the Pilgrim Party economy -- and only wanted to do his own magic that he was good at. The University was a very traumatizing experience for him and decimated his self-esteem, but he now has a beautiful farm/estate with a whole bevy of animals and a loving husband and many children where he is very happy and can focus on the type of magic he likes (or at least he could until this whole Dark Lord thing interrupted).

His preferred magic is kind of like a biology magic, I guess? Plants and animals. He's super great at using magic to grow any kind of plant. Nana, a high priestess/queen of one region, gives him an orange that she bought off of a Pilgrim because she is fully confident Stede will be able to use the pips from this fruit that isn't native to their entire world to grow a whole grove of orange trees. And as far as animals, at his home he has flying pigs, flying talking horses, Friendly Cows (they are so fucking dumb, but they have kind eyes), invisible cats, super intelligent geese (which tbf, I'm pretty sure are just normal cats & geese), etc. etc.

As to his children, Frenchie is the eldest. He's in training to become a bard. And I already mentioned Olu, who is the next oldest and who wants to train to be a wizard. These two are probably adopted in this version of the story. And then we move on to his & his husband's biological kids.

Pete is the oldest, and he and Olu are often refer to as the twins since they are about the same age. Pete is also a humongous black griffin. Yeah, so Stede took some of his cells, his husband's cells, cells from a lioness, and some cells from an eagle, did some kind of magic, put it in an egg, and out hatched a baby griffin, who is also a whole sapient person. John, Roach, and Swede (and possible Ivan & Fang, haven't decided on that) are their other griffin children.

For the rest of the crew, starting with Lucius, he is an elf prince in this one. He and his people are supposed to pose as dark elves and the Dark Lords minions. Stede manages to get Lucuis to agree to give him some additional help because (and this is different than the book) Lucius is into Pete. Lucius the elf is dtf the massive griffin, because why not.

For Jim, as a reminder Olu is the wizard guide for the last tour group (and Frenchie comes along too as their group bard). Jim is one of the Pilgrims in that group, but it eventually comes out they're here to try to figure out what happened to their parents, who went on a tour when they were just a kid, and never came back. We don't find out for sure what happened, but we are able to conclude that the Jimenezes were probably marked down as expendable.

Because yeah that's another service the Badmintons offer. You can pay an exorbitant sum to get an X put down next to a person's name, and that person will meet with an unfortunate accident and simply not make it back from their trip to the other world.

(Also in Olu & Frenchie's tour group are Evelyn, Hornberry, and Wellington. They are posing as a married couple plus sibling, though I'm not sure which configuration of that would be funniest. Ultimately it doesn't matter because they are all revealed to actually be undercover agents from various government organizations in our world investigating the shady shit the Badmintons are pulling).

Buttons is the nickname that is given to a dragon that randomly shows up, half-crazed and very confused. HE just took a little 100 year nap, and when he woke up the world was entirely different. Stede helps hims recover and reacclimate, and in return Buttons helps him out with the whole Dark Lord thing.

And then, saving the best for last, Ed. Obviously Ed is Stede's aforementioned husband. He is a very well-respected wizard and can do these little pocket universe things that everyone loves. When Stede is volunteered to be the Dark Lord, Ed is likewise assigned the role of Glamorous Enchantress. The vibe here of the Enchantress and her domain seems like it's kind of going for a Fae Queen & her court kind of thing. Anyway, as the Glamorous Enchantress Ed is required to look extraordinarily beautiful and extremely sensual if not overtly sexual. I'm picturing him having shaved his beard for the role and lounging about in his loose plait, pearls, a robe, and probably nothing else. To the point that when Frenchie & Olu's group show up off-schedule because Olu got them horribly lost and this was the first place they were able to find, Ed is running around freaking out trying to find his tiny gold shorts (thinking a real RHPS number here) because his kids are coming and he needs his least slutty outfit.

As for the actual plot beats, mainly what's important is that the story is about Stede and his kids running around trying to fulfill all the requirements of the Dark Lord role through an escalating series of everything that can go wrong, will. Made worse by all the people who have had enough of the Pilgrim Parties and are actively protesting in some fashion or another, and Izzy, another wizard who is supposed to be helping them but is actually secretly working for the Badmintons, helping them to mine magic from the ground and import it back to our world, and Spanish Jackie who has decided that the point of Stede being the Dark Lord must be that he's going to fail so hard that the whole operation is going to fall apart, and secretly actively working to make things harder for him.

The worst of Jackie's actions being the enchantment she put on Ed to compel him to leave Stede, so Stede is dealing with all of this and the additional stressor of his marriage suddenly and inexplicably falling apart. Of course when Jackie finally realizes what an asshole move that was and removes the enchantment, Ed is immediately all over Stede, like oh my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't even realize how I was acting, I love you so much.

So our happy ending when things all come to a head, Izzy is discovered for his crimes and arrested. Mary is set free and she and demon king Doug go off together. The gods show up (finally) and imprison the Badmintons inside the jar they kept Mary in and put Jackie in charge of working toward setting the world back to rights after the mess the Pilgrim Parties made of it. All the Pilgrims go back home to their own world, except Jim who decides to stay. Pete and Lucius official become an item. Buttons is revealed to be king of the dragons. And we end with Stede & Ed deciding to have another baby, this time a winged human. The End.