#someone who tried that would probably go grimdark trying and only make it worse

[gffa]

I was talking with @himboskywalker​ about Tolkien and fandom and fic, because I’m always curious where people’s “area” of the wider Legendarium are at, whether they’re a fan of the Dwarves or the Humans or the Elves or the Valar or what!  (As a surprise to absolutely no one, the Elves are where my heart is at, where I very much love the Noldor, but if you give me a choice I’m going to run over to that Sindar-centric fic every time.) Which got us onto the topic of fic recs, where, yes, I’ve done a LOT of Tolkien fic recs but I tend to read something of a wide variety and this is a list specifically aimed at those who are familiar with the wider Tolkien world, but haven’t really read much fic and want to know where to start! Other Recs First: - If you haven’t gotten further into Tolkien’s work (like say beyond the movies), I’ve done something of a primer here, which includes fic recs and brief explanations and links to videos that help explain some things.  It’s not as hard as it seems to get involved, honest! - Some other fic recs here, as an addition to the above. - My Tolkien blog (which I haven’t been on in awhile, though, I haven’t let it go in my heart yet) has, I’m not kidding, A LOT of fic recs, I did recs regularly for about three years, so it’s almost as massive as my collection of SW recs. If I Could Only Pick Three To Start You With: ✦ And What Happened After by thearrogantemu - This is the fic that took me from enjoying the Silm characters to diving face-first into really loving them, because it wove such an engaging story about the characters sailing to Aman at the end of LOTR, where various characters you wouldn’t think interacting would be as meaningful as they are, but the fic absolutely sells them on it.  Frodo and Feanor having a conversation about language?  Sam and Maglor sharing a boat to the West?  These things are amazing, as this is a fic about healing and what it means to sail into the Undying Lands.  Also, it has a Feanor and Fingolfin reunion that literally put tears in my eyes. ✦ Interrupted Journeys by ellisk - I’m generally not someone who does a lot of rereading of fic just because I have so many new ones to get to, but I’ve read my favorites in this series (parts 3 to 5 are my sweet spot especially) probably four times through now because “Elfling Legolas growing up in Greenwod with a whole cast of characters around him, as the Shadow so very, very slowly creeps towards them” may sound somewhat simple, but the worldbuilding here is off the scale.  The weaving in of how much the First Age and various Elven politics influenced Thranduil’s ruling of a Silvan people is a major theme, but it’s also good parents raising that precious Elfling right and he and his cousins+friends getting into all sorts of mischief, so it’s balanced between humor and drama in the exact amounts I want.  You can skip the first two fics and jump into the third if you like, which is when Legolas is introduced, but I enjoy the whole thing. ✦ Return to Aman OR Quenta Narquelion by bunn - I can’t pick between these two, they’re both incredible.  Return to Aman is basically “Elrond grabs Maglor and drags him to Aman with them” and it breaths such incredible lift into all the characters of Aman, it doesn’t negate the terrible things the Feanorians did, but neither does it negate Elrond’s love for them and his biological family, too.  It’s another fic that’s about healing and forgiveness and it made me glow to read it.  Quenta Narquelion is basically “Feanor refused the call of Mandos after he died and everything started to snowball from there” and it’s an absolutely heartbreaking look at all our Problematic Fave Feanorians and how they were once good people trying to do the best they could, but bit by bit they slipped into the dark.  It’s especially amazing for capturing the complexities of Feanor, as he hovers over his children as a spirit and it really brought me around on his character. The Silmarillion and other First Age Batshit Faves: ✦ The Starlit Sky by Cirth is the fic that really made me get the potential of reading about Maedhros and Maglor raising Elrond and Elros, where it does such a fantastic job of showing that there was genuine affection there, even the midst of all the angst and trauma and pain.  You really get why Elrond could never give up on them, after reading this fic. ✦ In Courts of Living Stone by ncfan - “What if Maeglin never left Nan Elmoth and instead, several decades later, found himself on an errand to Menegroth and developed a relationship with Finduilas instead?” isn’t a fic I expected to capture my heart, but boy did it ever.  Beautiful characterization and beautiful writing, it really captured my imagination, but also gave me ALLLLLL the Maeglin feelings, as well as made me pine that this Finduilas couldn’t have been more common in fandom. ✦ naught but the shores and the sea by ncfan is more of Elrond and Maglor, where it’s an AU that has Elrond finding Maglor after the disastrous attempt to recover the Silmarils and I loved it a lot. ✦ The Crane Wife by Trebia is one that takes an underused character from Tolkien (Lalwen, in this case) and breathes this incredible life into her, gives her personality and joy and sorrow and meaning and, look, any fic that can convince me that Thranduil would marry a Noldo and utterly believe it, you know it’s well-written! The Second Age Is Kind of Quiet in Fandom But I Love It Regardless: ✦ The Art of Long-Distance Grandparenting by Kazaera is a lovely and bittersweet (but mostly lighter in tone) fic about the separation of the Sea between family members and does a wonderful job with Idril’s character, as she tries to stay connected to her grandchildren while being so distant from them and unable to see them, unless they choose to come to Aman.  There’s joy to be found here and it’s a lovely read. ✦ Relativity by French Pony is a lovely look at the final meeting between Elrond and Elros and strikes the right amount of bittersweetness, where it’s awkward and difficult and heartbreaking, but also feels natural and like this was how it was meant to be.  I had many, many Elven Twin feelings during the whole thing.  (I like all their fic, they’re worth checking out their other stuff for, too!) ✦ A Thing or Two About Elrond by Crookneck is a series of fics about Elrond and the various relationships he has--with Celebrian, with his children, with Gil-Galad, etc.--and I remember being really charmed by all of them and how much shit Elrond has seen over the course of his life. The Third Age, Lord of the Rings Version: ✦ Boromir's Return by Osheen Nevoy - This one is sort hard to summarize, but it’s basically “Boromir lives, makes a friend, and slowly changes everything about the LOTR plot”, but it’s so much more than that, where the worldbuilding is phenomenal, the pacing is incredible, it made me fall in love with Boromir as a character all over again, it contains probably the best portrayal of Denethor I’ve ever read in fandom, and I really loved the OC and so on.  It’s utterly engrossing and honestly I cannot recommend it highly enough, even if you’re not usually into this sort of thing. ✦ The River by Indigo Bunting is a fic where Legolas and Sam get separated from the others for a brief time and I love fics that take two characters who don’t interact much, throw them into an intense situation, and sees what happens.  It’s not precisely a light-hearted fic, it’s very intense, but it’ll make you fall in love with the sheer good in both characters and the friendship they develop.  It’s brilliantly written and I cannot recommend it enough. ✦ A Bit of Rope by Aiwendiel is a fic where Gandalf doesn’t fall at Moria and it changes everything--not necessarily for the better.  The slow, creeping sense of things changing, things going just a little bit worse here and there, until you realize how much darker the Fellowship’s journey could have been, was brilliantly done, and one I thought did justice to the idea, it’s not grimdark, there’s still light and hope here, but it makes you feel like, oh, maybe things happened as they did for a reason, even as hard as that seemed sometimes.  Gorgeously plotted and utterly engrossing. The Third Age, Mirkwood Version: ✦ daw the minstrel has an entire series of fics about Legolas growing up in Mirkwood and there’s absolutely a reason why she was one of the most well-known authors in that corner of fandom.  Her ability to create new characters (including two brothers for Legolas) was incredible, I cared so much about the family dynamics and got swept up in the drama (which was in a very loving family, but Legolas was definitely a mischief-seeker) and they’re fantastic.  If you find yourself in something of a stretch with too many OCs and your attention wavers, you can always skip around, they don’t have to be read in order and a lot of the non-canon characters can be skimmed over, imo. ✦ In a Field of Blood and Stone by ScribeofArda is so much better than what The Hobbit movies gave us of the Battle of Five Armies, it does such beautiful justice to the complicated character of Thranduil and Legolas, not sacrificing the warmth there for how difficult these times are and the war they find themselves in the middle of.  This Bard is also really engaging and fun to read--I read pretty much the entire novel’s worth in, like, a day or two because I could not put this one down. ✦ Swordplay and Swimming by cliodna_bright has an incredible meeting where Thranduil comes to visit Rivendell, runs into Elladan and Elrohir, who are young enough that they speak without thinking, and it’s not precisely a humor fic, but I was screaming the entire time because it’s so sharply written and so absolutely delightful, I LOVE IT. ✦ Deep and Crisp and Even by rivlee made me fall in love with how Elves and humans may look very similar, but there’s this sense of otherworldliness to the Elves, as shown through Bard’s eyes when he has a meeting with Thranduil.  Beautifully written and just the right amount of atmospheric. The Fourth Age Where Everything Actually Does Mostly Work Out: ✦ Far Horizons by Bodkin is the Fourth Age fic of my heart, where the various Elves that we came to know in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are all in Aman and decide to build their own realm there.  Which is difficult because Elven Politics even just amongst themselves, much less clashing with all the established politics of the other Elven realms in Aman!  But it’s a light-hearted fic (for the most part) that’s about healing and moving forward, balancing their ties to their history versus that Middle-Earth changed them, and I love it for soothing my soul.  (Thranduil sailed, you can’t tell me otherwise!!!)(Bonus moments of Glorfindel being pretty hilarious.)  I like all of bodkin’s work, but this one has a special place with me. ✦ Age of Healing by trollmela is one where Maedhros and Legolas have a conversation in Aman and it’s about the bittersweetness of healing and how difficult it is, taking two characters who would never have met in canon and weaving something entirely engaging and poignant out of it. Collections That Span The Ages: ✦ This Taste of Shadow by Mira_Jade - This is a collection of dozens of various shorter stories (or sometimes 10k “ficlets”) that you can largely skip around in if you have specific characters you like or you can just start at the beginning and read through.  It contains looks at pretty much everyone, from Maedhros to Galadriel to Thranduil to Elrond to Caranthir to Glorfindel to the Valar, etc.  I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything I’ve read in this collection! ✦ Fiondil's Tapestry and Tales from Vairë's Loom by Fiondil are in the same vein and I have really enjoyed everything I’ve read from both of them!  I especially remember that there was one chapter that had a scene between Thranduil and Cirdan and thinking, ahhhh, why has no one ever written that before!? as an example of the neat things it does.  But also lots about Elrond and Glorfindel and the Valar and so on! This probably doesn’t feel like a super extensive list, but those collection series will give you an excellent spanning of Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Hobbits, etc., not just the same central characters, but giving time to a lot of lesser focused ones as well.  Like, I feel I’ve read a fair chunk of Elwing fic, but I couldn’t point you to a specific one in my list of recs, which means I’m pretty sure it was in the collections ones or else she got some good scenes in one of the Aman-based fics, so I swear the above is at least a solid place to start for dipping one’s toe into Tolkien fic. AS ALWAYS, OTHER PEOPLE’S RECS ARE WELCOME, god knows I haven’t read anything in the last two years (and will have missed a lot even before that) and so I always need more recs, too!

[leviathanpretzel]

I already asked someone else, though im not sure if they will do it, but i like to get differing opinions so if it doesnt upset you when someone asks multiple ppl could i ask for a session analysis? i understand if you dont want to tho! it would be for a knight of hope, a rogue of light, a thief of rage, and a sylph of heart! please and thank you for your time!

Alrighty! I don't mind that at all! Let's get to your analysis.

I notice you have neither a time or space player, this will be VERY tough, if not impossible to win, but the players might be able to tip the scales.

First, the god tiers themselves.

Knight of Hope. Your land will probably be something along the lines of the Land of Beacons and Dreams, a yellow landscape filled with pillars of light sprouting from wells of hopes and dreams, recently these pillars have been getting darker, and it's up to you to protect the hope of this land's consorts and PULVARIZE your dream-crushing denizen with your sheer force of WISH!

Your strife specibus is most likely something like Bladekind, Revolverkind, or something else along those lines.

Ah, the Knight of Hope, protector of, you guessed it; hope! this character's session is lacking in hope and it is the Knight's job to protect it and utilize it, using their mastery in the art of pep-talks and their strange ability to make things happen as a tool against the enemy, they might even wind up replacing the space player by willing frogs into existence at the end of the game, so make sure this player survives and gets strong, please, it's only a chance, but please.

Rogue of Light. Your land will probably be the Land of Mirrors and Gold, this glimmering land appears to be made COMPLETELY out of pure, 100% gold, you can see your own footprints im the gold as you walk over it. Recently mirrors have began shattering, causing a lack of light shining in the dark caverns that your consorts live in, putting them at risk of falling or freezing to death! you must redistribute the light throughout your land by using the knowledge you will find scratched into the solid gold ground of your planet to find out who - or what - is behind these mirror-shatterings!

Your strife specibus will likely be something like Cardkind, Tomekind, or something else with similar luck, fortune, or information-based gimmicks.

The Rogue of Light, finder and redistributer of fortune, luck, knowledge, and of course; light! You can darken one place in order to brighten another, draw information out of things or places information cannot normally be found, and of course, you can bring in ALL THE LUCK for your group, ALL OF IT: But it has to go somewhere, maybe into preventing doomed timelines and replace your nonexistent time player?

Thief of Rage. Your land might be the Land of Locks and Tragedy, almost every door is locked, in a town surrounded by a locked gate with two locks, luckily there are lockpicks lying around everywhere, but a lot of the locks are other lock mechanisms too. Strangely, most of the land is ridden with a dark aura, and soon you find out it's because recently the whole planet has been struck with tragedy after tragedy, and it has to do with the fog that has been covering the planet. It comes from the forest that each town tries to avoid by making paths and clearings and locking themselves in, but sadly locks don't stop fog, so you have to.

You probably have some weird specibus, like Tincankind or something.

The Thief of Rage, either the Knight's best friend or their WORST FUCKING KNIGHT-MARE (see what i did there?). you could either help them bring hope by taking the rage away and using it against the enemy in healthy but large portions, or you could take it all not knowing that it actually needs to be used and bottle it up until you let out ALL THE RAGE onto your Knight of Hope, so be careful about your rage-rations.

Sylph of Heart. Your land could be the Land of Hobbies and Flavor, a land filled to the brim with rolling hills oflarge sewing needles and yarn which stops at large casms filled with either a symphony of well prepared treats, or a cacophony of hobby-related tasks, complete and incomplete, and while the treats are nice, all the loot and adventure happens where the tasks are. Towns rest upon some of the hills, and they seem to be complaining about stuff being too flashy... They seem boring, so you've decided to try to bring some fun and passion into their lives, and to heal their sad souls, and they speak about a denizen which "keeps the fun from getting them" ...Sounds like some real sockholm syndrome-esque shit.

You will almost definitely use something passion related, like Pankind, Needlekind, Quillkind, among several other things.

Healer of souls, restorer of passion, party throwing extraordinaire. You are the Sylph of Heart, one who has the ability to heal souls and passion, and heal through souls and passion, you're also extremely effective at pep-talks, and are very good at restoring the life of your friends by practically forcing their souls back into their bodies, and are decent at healing just because you're so passionate about it, you always have a medkit within arm's reach, and might also be able to create souls to puppeteer the corpses of dead carapaceans, creepy.

Overall

This session lacks a time and space player, as i said before, but with enough willpower and hope, there is a slim chance you might succeed.

But i BEG of you to recruit at least a space player, without a space player your chance of winning is less than 10%, maybe worse than that given that your only second chance is combat oriented and not support or utility, so please recruit a space player and hopefully a time player before you enter if it's not too late, although your knight of hope is made to utilize hope when it all seems lost, so you just might be able to do it, but if you can prevent having to go without time and space, do it.

Now for combos, who you should make sure does not go grimdark (hopefully nobody does, but still), and how to deal with who does go grimdark.

The Knight and Sylph are both really good at pep-talks, this is a nice combo for protecting the hope of your team, which is vital in this scenario, having these two not go grimdark is important.

The Thief also combos well with the Knight, but this character has the least game-ending grimdark possibilities, though any grimdark here might ruin your game, but this character can only really go too bad over-embracing their thief or rage roles, so if they go grimdark, hope they go all in for a page of hope inversion, which might even help you win if handled right, as long as they wind up accepting their role as a thief of rage in the end and can get past the setback of going grimdark in the first place.

The Rogue of Light is the only one who doesn't have a particularly good combo, because they work well with everybody, this character poses the smallest threat if they go grimdark, due to the fact that if they only reject their role as a light player, they'll really overshare secrets, which could benefit them strategically, but might hurt friendships, which is bad, another decent outcome is just rejecting their role as a thief, and becoming a knight of light, although you won't get info out of them anymore... other than that if they reject their whole title they might just up and disappear, which would leave you with no information-grabber, which would suck ass.

Basically, don't let people go grimdark, make sure nobody dies, and make sure EVERYBODY goes god tier.

But you can deal with these grimdark players by trying to reason with them, there is practically no other way to deal with grimdark players, the only other option is kill-n-kiss, but we don't want to have to try that, please only have that one as a last resort.

Anyways, I think that's it for this analysis, I hope you liked it! - LP

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E26 (July 17, 2018)

Tonight’s guests: Matt Mercer, Ashly Burch, and Taliesin Jaffe. Heck, I’m nervous for all three of them.

Announcements: Critical Role will be at the San Diego Comic Con on 7/21 in 6BCF at 6:30pm. The panel will be aired next Tuesday during the TM time slot. They’ll also be at NYCC in October!

CR Stats! Episode 26 had 14 natural 20s, the most of the new campaign. This was in no small part due to Ashly borrowing Tal’s dice because she doesn’t own her own dice bag. There’s so much dice karma happening in that sentence I don’t even know how to handle it. It ties with episodes 55, 61, and 100. Keg has the most natural 20s of any single-episode guesting with 4. Molly got the M9′s 100th kill. He leads the party with 21 kills in all. “Hot murder streak.”

We’ve seen seven of Molly’s cards so far: the silver dragon, anvil, serpent, eye, moon, shadow, and the chariot. Tal says the serpent may be the same as the dragon, but he’ll check.

This was Ashly’s first time guesting on the show proper--previously she’d only been on oneshots. Biggest difference? “There were less people dying on the oneshots!”

Matt and Brian both take a moment to applaud Ashly’s characterization and sticking to the true roleplaying of her character over any min-maxing of the dice she might have done otherwise. Tal says the math would have come out either way as it was. It’s the first time she’s ever done something like that in a D&D game.

Matt always prefers roleplaying over what’s strategically optimal, especially since the moments where you falter and fail often lead to the true “hero” arc for your character. “It was very wild and unique to watch the cocksure exterior crumble.”

Everyone’s been kind to Ashly directly since The Incident. It’s only whispers she’d heard indirectly.

Tal already hadn’t slept the night before; he didn’t that night either, just curled up and thought until dawn. He realized in panic that he’d never come up with a backup character as Matt had asked months ago; he has rolled a new one since then, but he spent most of the weekend coping with making a new character in three days after spending six months on Molly. Bless.

Brian woke Ashley up during the live show when he heard Taliesin say “my Blood Maledict’s going to kill me” so that they could watch the rest together. He realized that Matt was hesitating a lot more than usual as things went on, that Matt seemed to be hinting more and more strongly that the impending encounter was about to go very badly for the M9.

Matt designed the Iron Shepherds to be a very dangerous, powerful group when they are all together (as they were that night). He’d planned for several options: the M9 following and never catching up, waiting to gather intel until Shady Creek, catching up but only observing from a distance, and for the actual battle itself. He tried to give them clues about how dangerous they would actually be: that there were more than five enemies, that Ashly’s character knew how dangerous they were, that they were prepared and tough-looking. However, he never wants to be too heavy-handed in guiding the players’ hands. His intent with the battle was to show some surprises and that the M9 didn’t know what they were dealing with, and had hoped that the M9 would take the hint and back out sooner than they did.

Brian could tell that Matt was very visibly affected as the fight went on, which Matt points out was in part due to how late it was. He allowed the battle to occur because he didn’t plan for it to be a long one (the Iron Shepherds were going to speed away...until the M9 dropped the tree across the road). Then he had no idea what was going to happen during the battle. He adds that DMs sometimes end up with encounters harder than they’d plan, and it was nervewracking because as much as he cares for these characters, he also has a responsibility to be true to the strength of the enemies and the realities of the dice. There were a lot of ways the fight could have still gone, but didn’t (parlay, discussion, more ambushing, better dice rolls).

If Keg hadn’t stepped up and used her relationship specifically with Lorenzo to halt the battle, it would have gotten way, way worse for the M9, including the kidnapping of more of the M9 to be sold.

Lorenzo has a specific vanity and enjoyment of power over other people, and Keg’s intervention played straight into that. It’s the only reason that encounter didn’t go more poorly.

Some of the Iron Shepherds’ background information was known by Keg; some was deliberate misleading on the part of the Shepherds to keep Keg in the dark.

Keg wasn’t happy about Caleb’s charming, but Keg knew there was no way she could take on the Shepherds on her own. She has a facade of being cocksure and proud but is truly a coward, and knew that taking them on alone would kill her. The charming was a “necessary evil.”

Taliesin knew the risks of the Maledict but planned to give Lorenzo disadvantage, hopefully dodge the next two attacks, and escape as soon as Lorenzo engaged with Beau. Then the dice came up with the rest of his HP and that was that.

Matt did in fact roll the Golden Snitch for the bad guys this game. Brian: “Let’s not give him the most powerful die in the game next time.” Tal: “Oh, it’s going to go mysteriously missing any day now.”

Lorenzo was not visibly afraid at any point during this fight. Matt declines to elaborate further.

GIF of the Week! u/rndmanswrs4rndmqstns from Reddit, for a gif of the battle map from last episode superimposed with a tragic news ticker footage of the slaughter.

Molly’s final words were an easy choice. “He’s not complicated in that direction, and his feelings on violence and death are easy.” Tal says it didn’t fully hit him until hours later. Still, Molly never really felt ownership of his own self; it all still felt borrowed. He knew death would come eventually and probably earlier rather than later. “As ways to go existed, I think that was a very Molly way to go.”

Matt thinks these reminders of mortality are important...depending on the type of story you’re trying to tell. Their game needs the stakes of having the risk of death, although that’s not what would be fun for every game and should not always be on the table. However, they know each other so well that he feels it’s an important reminder that there are consequences for their actions and that it suits the world they live in. Tal points out that the same thing is true for so many types of fiction: “they’re only fine because they’re not real.” Sometimes these stories happen in a vacuum and the hero is immortal...and sometimes, as in their game, they’re not. Matt thinks it’s important to be able to grieve and feel catharsis for even a fictional character (and cites a particular death from C1 as an example for himself). Matt: “In a weird, macabre way, I’m excited to see where the story goes from here.” Brian: “Me, too.” Tal: “Me, too. I mean, at first I was panicking, but now I have a pretty good idea.”

Ashly initially panicked when Matt revealed the Iron Shepherds’ abilities (since she thought she’d misremembered what Matt had said), but then felt even more justified in her RP. Everything felt worse because so many people were gone, including Laura and Travis. “I felt like the babysitter who dropped the baby.” She felt the whole time during the fight that they shouldn’t be engaging the way they were.

Molly’s final thoughts were “easy and simple and base...the immense, reasonable, and wonderfully sustaining emotion of ‘well, fuck you, too,’ which is the righteous and more reasonable cousin to ‘fuck you.’“ No fear, no panic.

The Iron Shepherds existed as part of the worldbuilding in the northern region and were intended to be a later issue, but Matt wove them into the story soon since Laura & Travis had to leave. He wasn’t intending for them to become such an immediate, intense antagonistic force, but DMs have to adapt to the situations and this one felt natural.

Cut to Dani Cam, who had a very hard Thursday night ( :( ). She asks Ashly how Keg, someone very self-preservational, decided to sacrifice herself for the M9. Ashly remembered that in their discussions, Matt characterized Lorenzo as someone who liked to make examples of people, and thought that if she prostrated herself in front of him, he might maim her but not kill her, which turned out to be accurate--so it was still fairly self-preservational on her part. They’ll find out more next week. Ashly will be with us the next two sessions and will be joining the crew at GenCon! Heck yes!!

As much as Tal likes Matt’s Lingering Soul class, he would never consider it as an option for Mollymauk. “There’s no version of Molly coming back as a ghost that doesn’t end with him desperately wanting it to be over.” Matt designed it more narratively to be a person whose sheer force of will keeps them from accepting the moment of death due to unfinished business or the pure determination to live...which they both feel is the exact opposite of Molly.

Matt liked how Taliesin showed that all personalities can play the Blood Hunter, not just the edgy grimdark type.

Fanart of the Week! @jesttothenines, with this pain. Ow.

If Molly hadn’t run to Lorenzo, Beau would have likely been his example instead. Molly was an easier target, though, because he was closer and more hurt. If Beau had been unconscious instead (and not dead) when Keg made her plea, Lorenzo might have asked what she was willing to trade to get Beau back.

This is the second of Tal’s characters Matt’s killed. The first one was a mad monk who liked to set things on fire who was eaten by ghouls.

Dani: “Why can’t this campaign be happy? And fairies?!” Matt: “We had the fairies last campaign in the Feywild! They murdered the pixies! They sided with the werewolves!”

After last campaign, Tal and Dani hugged while Dani cried pretty hard. Then Tal went home and cried himself. He left the table during the episode because he was on the verge of having a panic attack and couldn’t handle watching everyone else panic as well.

Ashly thought she was going to have a limb lopped off at minimum when Lorenzo had her kneel. She didn’t expect to be let go unscathed. 

Molly would have considered his death “worth it” if he knew it meant Beau was spared. In a way, it helps that he now has an “eternal one-up” on her. Matt: “That’s very Molly of him.”

The persuasion success from Keg was a chief reason Lorenzo spared them, but it was also because the rest of the M9 were insignificant gnats to him. Keg’s reaction was the only one he cared about, so as soon as she gave in he’d gotten what he wanted. Then he just wanted to set the example and spread the word.

Ashly hadn’t meant to let them know she’d been part of the slavers until Shady Creek, but actually likes how it came out.

Matt really doesn’t think it was an overall bad plan. It was just a few strategic missteps, some very bad dice rolls, and an enemy that outmatched them.

Dani recalls to us all that Molly had told us it would be a cursed trip.

Molly’s parting advice to the M9: Tal declines to think about it much in depth. “Life’s short, eat a bagel. Join the circus. Lighten up. Life’s short; do something to a bagel.”

The illusion that cloaks the cages under the tarp means that even if the missing three of the M9 are in there, they wouldn’t have seen Molly’s death.

Molly is no different in Taliesin’s head than he was last week, which is why he's having a slightly easier time with this than everyone else. “He’s no different for me, I just don’t get to trot him out on Thursday.” He was based off of several friends, some who have passed away, and several experiences he had as a teenager and places and people he knew that profoundly affected him. He mentions a song off the soundtrack for Wristcutters: A Love Story, since that movie had a lot of “good carnie family vibes” about weird people taking care of each other. There was an archetype in film that was very much Molly which Tal hasn’t seen in a long time, and he explains: there’s a way of living a life where you don’t give a fuck about what people think but you do give a fuck about people. He never needed to be fixed and he never needed permission for anything. He’s not Iron Man where you’re waiting to see him become a good person, and he was never a creature of profound change like Captain America, where you watch to see the good they make on the world; his unfinished business was in each interaction he had with the people in the world and making them deal with him, but making sure that dealing with him was always a positive and kind experience. Matt gets very emotional at the description. Me too, friend.

His favorite part of playing him was being a teenager version of himself; the art and cosplay were spectacular. And the terrible accent, of course.

Brian takes a moment to thank Taliesin for making memorable characters and memorable choices that have a bigger impact than what only they can see. He looked at all the tributes for Molly this week because he wanted to get a feel for how the community was feeling so that they could hone the questions for the show. The character meant a lot to a lot of different types of people, and it’s a testament to Tal’s heart that people connected so much with this character.

Brian, Matt, and Tal are all crying at this point. Ashly starts reactive-crying. Dani’s crying on the Dani Cam. This is AWFUL.

After Dark: QQ Edition

We open laughing (relieving change) since everyone’s hurled obscenities at Brian just before the show went live. Matt enjoys being on the other side of that for once.

Beau is the member of the M9 who’s best earned the right to wear Molly’s coat. “She’s the one who needs to lighten up. Caleb’s never going to lighten up and that’s okay. Jester doesn’t need it. Fjord doesn’t need it. That’s not Nott’s problem.”

Keg is super interested in Nott’s never-ending flask. “I’m abandoning this super dramatic narrative. I’m going for the flask.”

A TPK was possible if the M9 kept throwing themselves at the Iron Shepherds, but Matt knew they were smarter than that and would either flee or give themselves up as Keg did. “It relied on the players’ actions at that point; that’s why I was so nervous. I was like, this is the scenario I built and now we have to see it through.”

Tal honestly doesn’t remember what Liam said to him when he left the table right after him. It was mostly a “well, that happened,” and Liam just refilled his drink before going back to the table.

Tal went home after the show, cried in bed, and then the sun came up and he realized he had no idea for a new character. He spent so much time working on Molly that he never got around to making anything else. He came up with his next idea in about thirteen-fourteen hours, and he’s very happy with it. Matt points out he was explicitly clear about how they needed to come up with backup characters when the campaign started. “These low levels are dangerous!”

Everyone addresses the new studio in terms most respectful and patient, asking it to be benevolent now that it’s had its blood sacrifice. 

Keg’s going to grow a vengeance beard.

Brian talks about Ashley’s reaction on the couch; she leaned forward on her knees, looked over at Brian, and said, “I’m gonna kill that motherfucker.” Brian said, “Yeah, you probably will.” They now have a formidable villain for the early campaign.

Tal can’t even answer the question about how Yasha will react when she finds out. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”

Matt and Brian have a retrospective moment of panic about how good it is Yasha wasn’t there that night, since she’s a rage-based barbarian. Matt, wide-eyed: “There would have been no parlay. Oh, no. Next question.”

Keg’s favorite moments were the secret-sharing with Nott and the conversation with Beau. Matt loved their meeting: “When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. It was beautiful.”

Brian’s first desire after the show was to rage-tweet Matt Colville. He, apparently, refrained.

 Matt thinks the threat of death should be present and played out when it happens, but he never likes playing DM-vs.-player.

Tal smiled when Molly was being killed because that was both Molly’s reaction, and because Tal himself is a nervous smiler.

Matt doesn’t consider this revenge for Tal killing him off so soon in the Vampire oneshot; Tal reminds us that he knew Matt knew about the very specific subclass he’d given Matt and they both knew what would happen when he went outside.

Tal and Matt reminisce about early PC deaths. “What was that, 2012?” Ashly: “Aw, you guys have killed each other so much!”

They’re asked about the best lie they’ve ever told. Tal convinced someone a nonsense Pirate Queen existed; Matt doesn’t really lie, but when he senses gullibility he doubles down until reality’s rearranged.

Tal started wearing black when Jim Henson died...except that he forbade black at his funeral. The camera zooms in on Tal’s iridescent loafers & his peacock paisley shirt: “This is Molly’s funeral shirt.”

Ashly will definitely be back on Thursday; Tal will be back as soon as the narrative allows it. He’s prepared for Thursday if it works out.

And that’s where it wraps up tonight. Be good to each other; it’s almost Thursday.

[tumblunni]

Randomly thinking some more about that old game idea of mine that i just call Dark Pokemon for now, lol

Basically a monster catching game where they're treated as monsters? Normal people are all terrified of them and trainers get treated with a 50/50 mix of reverence and hatred. Because trainers are the only way that humans can try and exterminate the monsters, yet theyre seen as cursed people who dont even count as human anymore. Sort of a way to explain little cliches of the genre like kids being thrown out completely alone to travel the world, and you never really having any reason to revisit past towns after you beat the gym. I was thinking itd be a cool way to do it if the game started off seeming like a normal mon catching game and then before you get the big reveal of the darkness you can get subtle hints if you try and turn around and reenter the starting area. Because it goes against expectations it might be missed by a lot of players.

Also the towns are so small and the routes are so straight and narrow because thats how humanity builds society in a world of monster fear. 90% of the world is uninhabited wilderness where only monsters live. Human towns are sorta like sci fi dome cities without the scifi? Surrounded by protective salt barriers and charms and stuff. And if a monster even touches anything its considered cursed, so if one of them makes it past a salt barrier that town is abandoned and any people caught up in the chaos of the barrier's collapse are left to die just in case they've been corrupted. And the roads between the towns are manned by armed guards who are constantly vigilant to repair the salt barriers. But this means they have to live their entire life alone in these limbo spaces between society and the wild, and often most narrier breaches are caused by the guards getting paranoid from the pressure. You need to keep watch for monsters so any movement in the shadows could be one of them, right?? You get situations of roads being blocked off by some crazed guard who starts seeing people as monsters, or one of them pulling the alarm and getting a town falsely burnt down for being corrupted when the monster was really just a leaf blowing in the wind. Or the worst case scenario where nobody ever knows WHAT happened! You just find the road destroyed and the guard gone. It might have happened days ago and nobody knew until a merchant tries to travel between towns and discovers the only road of escape is gone and everyone is doomed to slow starvation. And you can still see the other end of the road just a few meters away, but the superstition is so strong that nobody will risk taking that single step into monster territory. You'll be cursed and that's worse than death, right? You don't want to turn into a trainer...

And then also nobody really knows what determines who's chosen to be a trainer. Inevitably whenever someone shows signs of powers the town will turn on them and make up any excuse that they somehow invited the curse by being promoscuous or athiest or something. And you need to be removed for everyone's safety! Thus begins the ten year old's journey walking the earth in search of a place they can belong...

Tho usually its not just kids, the protagonist and rival is a rare case. All your neighbours are torn between 'its so tragic it happened to kids' and 'they must be REALLY evil to get chosen despite their age!' And i think maybe the rival would be like a sympathetic gary type? Theyre so determined to be better than you because they think if they can prove theyre good then their parents will let them go back home. And this desperation leads them to make bad choices and reject the only friend they have left :( Also them being bad to their monster pals would feel more justified when they were raised in a society that says monster pals are evil and you cant let your guard down cos theyre just trying to tempt you. Listen to the assholes who dont care about you, because anyone being nice is a lying sinner!

Also i was thinking maybe you catch monsters with a magic song or throwing herbs at them or absorbing them into a jewel pendant or something else more magicky yknow? Maybe magical bandages enscribed with spell runes that wrap arpund them like a collar? And so trainers are divided up into weavers who make these catching tools, and then the actual kind of trainer who uses them to catch mons. Weavers are able to stay in human society and act like the pokeball shops, theyre sorta like a 'town witch' or something. Like 'we will tolerate your magic if you never actually make a contract with a monster'. But then of course catching monsters is necessary to defend against monsters, so weavers have to be allowed to make the catching threads and sell them to travellers. But only travellers are allowed to do that sinful mon hugging! But also hey sinful traveller will you please save us from our doom? Basically this is why most trainers work as mercenaries, all this bullshit means that you gotta be employed by some asshole who hates your guts just cos u need food to eat. But blablabla town limit of X days before you have to leave, etc etc...

Also i was considering an element of different towns having different mythology around monsters and trainers? So you never really know whats real or if all of it is bullshit. Every time you go to a new place theyre equally fanatically convinced that some new thing is the real sin and everything the last guy said is eeeeeevil corruption. Sigh! And a subplot i was thinking of is a town with very sexist mythology, where the roles of weavers and tamers are seen as one gender only. And the town weaver is this nice grandma thats trapped in an abusive relationship with a super misogynist gramps. And one of those cloyingly fake-softspoken "rational" sexists who's all 'im just trying to protec u, wrong gender roles are bad for your immortal soul'. And has a million "logical" explanations for why his bigotry is true. Like technically he's "valuing her as important" by not letting her leave the house or socialize with friends, because yknow "im a nice guy who's nice to you trainers, i know your job is important so shouldnt the weavers be working 24/7 to support you?" The frustrating feeling of starting to trust a guy cos he's not bigoted against your particular minority, but then finding out he's bigoted against someone else... Ugh. So ultimately in the end you can succeed at this sidequest and help the grandma make a pact with a cute fairy monster and kick his ass and leave. And possibly get into a cute and mutually healthy relationship with another grandma in another town, so you get to see that and have a bonus happy note to the sidequest, yknow? Also they give you a hug and bake u cookies. (The monster is wearing a cute chef hat!) And then you'd have a place to stay in that town that doesnt have the 'it gets more expensive every night to try and make you leave' bullshit of all the normal inns. And you get to see a cute animation of your monsters all cuddled up in bed too cos they dont force you to leave them outside in the Designated Monster Containment Cage.

Oh! Also randomly i was thinking of another way of foreshadowing! Like when you go to the first inn you dont know any of this stuff about people hating monster tamers and not trusting your tamed mons even if theyre tame. So you'd probably just think that you not seeing your monsters when you sleep is just the game's limited graphics or you keep them in some pokeball equivelant thing. But when you walk arpund the outside of the inn you can see a door to a basement cellar that's got weirdly heavy duty chains and bars even if you assume they store their valuables down there. And maybe when you heal at the inn it never restores your mons to full health, always 10hp away from maximum or something? Or other small hints that theyre afraid of going to the inn and your protagonist is wary about doing it even if you'd think theres no downside to healing. Or maybe you can see another monster tamer visit the place at one point and you can hear banging and growling from the basement...? Or see some of the chains have bite marks in the morning. And the townsfolk wpuld be all 'can you believe how much noise they made?' and expressing fear about monsters being in the town, though itd have to be written carefully to remain vague. But yeah 'lets mistreat these small animals because we fear them' -> they panic and cry for their one human friend in the world while theyre forced to sleep in a damp dark tiny room -> 'that just proves theyre inherantly violent!' Also the trainer is an ungrateful bastard for acting so sullen when they couldnt sleep from worry over their friends :(

But it wont be all depressing yo!!! All the darkness of the setting is dark but the monster pals are still just as pals! I give u grimdark world so i can give u a protagonist of kindness who fights the system and saves people in every town who eventually rise up and are swayed by their kindness into fighting The Old Ways and making a better world as the story goes on! Its like an adventure of creating the pokemon world? You try and sell everyone on the idea of trusting cute monsters instead of being so damn paranoid you inflict all these atrocities upon other humans and even yourself because 'sacrifices are necessary to keep the monsters away'. Fight the symbol of all bigotry!!! The evil team is Team Bad Dads And Politicians!!!

...sorry lol my story ideas are Weird.

[momestuck]

Let’s read Hiveswap Friendsim - volume 14

We’re getting close to the endgame now, enough that the writers have started dropping some hints about What’s Going On. But before we can see where this road leads, there’s a good 11 trolls left to befriend!

This time... ‘Of Cleanliness and Clownliness’. We open with a little bluster about how edgy and grimdark Alternia is.

The narrator then calls themselves out for using Godwin’s law. Yeah, ‘feeling dramatic’ huh.

Our trolls today are...

...on almost the far ends of the hemospectrum! (Curiously, no sea trolls seem to feature in this game at all. Sure, that might be because they all live underwater, or because they are generally violent and cruel, but the latter hasn’t stopped our protagonist and I’m sure they could overcome the former with a little creativity...)

Marsti

Marsti is the last creation of Aysha before the epilogue! She’s got a pretty fun theme with a bass guitar which kicks in immediately on his route.

We find her in the process of trying to clean off some graffiti, arguing with a ‘purpleblood boy’. Curious... judging by the cans of what’s probably spray paint that Karako is carrying, does that mean that these two trolls are encountered together in this episode?

...is that what that purple bit up there is supposed to be?

Anyway our first decision is fairly straightforward...

Let’s quickly go down the ‘mind your own business’ route, which I’m expecting to be short.

...despite our decision, the narrator can’t resist the urge to intervene, by tripping up the clown. Luckily, Marsti saves us by taking us into an alley.

Her quirk seems to just be... the -_- emoticon. And she’s not pleased that we intervened. She tells us that if we keep this up, we’re going to end up dead. “What’s your deal? -_-” she demands.

We ask her if she really needs to retrieve the cleaning bucket she left behind. Ahh, bucket jokes. Never get old.

Presumably this has a different troll name, other than ‘bucket’. Apparently a cleaning bucket is called a ‘scourdray’.

That one seems like kind of a stretch...

We ask if this is like... her job, but then remember that nobody has jobs. Honestly, how the economy of Alternia works is a total mystery to me. They run an imperial economy based on endless expansion and extraction like ancient Rome, but how are resources worked into useful forms? Is it... robots?

Anyway, Marsti seems to be doing this just on a whim.

But a lot of her whims concern cleanliness. She comments on our strange ‘magnetism’, which she is also feeling.

Magnetism or not, she mostly seems to find us very annoying as we ask her random questions like why she likes cleaning so much (she doesn’t, she just does it), and so on. She seems to suggest it has something to do with being a rustblood, and pushes the narrator to think about whether other rustbloods they know have hobbies.

Anyway we end up helping her clean this wall. Thrilling activities here in Hiveswap friendsim. We very smoothly ask Marsti if she’s doing anything later...

We get the choice of ‘uptown’ or ‘downtown’. Since my gf Elaine was next to me and saw the choice and started singing ‘Uptown Girl’, I guess we have to pick ‘uptown’. The narration immediately also makes an uptown girl joke.

We get in our stolen scuttlebuggy and head uptown. Marsti starts cleaning up crumbs in our car.

Apparently Alternia has scanners that read the driver’s blood colour, but Mallek helped us scramble it.

We briefly get the false impression she’s homeless. The narration draws comparisons for the reader with Diemen and Boldir, which the protagonist turns out to have spoken out loud, as is often the case...

It turns out, however, that she just got tired of cleaning the same hive.

We learn where we’re taking Marsti... Zebruh’s hive!? Really, protag? Of all the people?

To put it mildly.

We decide not to go to Zebruh’s hive, thank god. Marsti’s getting a bit fed up of the lack of mess, and we offer to make a bigger one...

Genuinely not sure what Marsti is parodying. The well known “obsessive about cleaning and kind of grumpy” subculture?

Instead we head to Galekh’s hive. We’re greeted by the goat, but no Galekh.

D’aww.

Luckily, Galekh’s messy library is exactly what the doctor ordered. Marsti gets to work. Attempts at conversation don’t go so well...

She doesn’t care what a we think... and calls us a ‘condescending alien with no blood colour to speak of’. Oof!

Anyway, at that point the route abruptly ends, with the goat eating some of Galekh’s writing, and Marsti making a break for it out the window. Welp.

All right, let’s try some other approaches...

Let’s try explicitly opting to intervene against the purpleblood troll. The narrator decides fate must be on their side thanks to their conversation with Boldir, and gets involved.

That is not particular ironic. I think you should have a word with Dave. That’s like... not even ‘like five or six my dude’ levels of irony.

So that leaves... downtown.

Which is to say pretty much where we were standing.

It’s mentioned that the drones mostly clean uptown. The protag ponders Zebruh’s whole ‘getting lowbloods to clean for him’ thing.

There’s a weirdly 4th-wally moment.

Speaking of which, the narrator tries offering some places to clean, and gets surprised Marsti doesn’t like us.

Marsti picks up on the whole ‘been killed’ thing. I guess our character does have explicit memory of all the branches where they died? Though that still doesn’t explain things like... having an umbrella from a non-friendship branch. Or remembering things we did in those branches.

The narration tries to brush over it. Uh-huh.

We end up at an empty lot - one we can recognise as where Boldir died, on a branch that got erased. The narration mentions deja-vu...

But it’s not Boldir here, but someone we haven’t seen in quite a while.

The protag tries to get Folykl’s support in ribbing Marsti for her weird cleaning habit. Instead, Folykl and Marsti have a go at us... and we keep digging.

It just gets worse and worse...

You’re not even a member of this whole caste system, narrator! You’ve picked up the whole ‘space racism’ thing remarkably quickly.

Marsti calls us on it. We start going over the fact that like... most of the lowbloods we know are very constrained in their aspirations and hobbies, etc.

Meanwhile,

OK then??

Apparently Marsti has noticed Folykl’s voidrot. And general dirt.

Apparently like... being dirty makes the energy transfer harder? I guess Marsti knows a thing or two about voidrot.

(Recalling that in Homestuck canon, an army of dead Aradias were flinging planets about from outside the universe...)

Our protag helpfully suggests medicine as a field. I don’t even know what their deal is at this point. Marsti doesn’t seem to either.

If she applied to be a medic, she’d get laughed out of the room of course. And the narrator finally gets the hint.

So we... back off a bit, with some uncharacteristic maturity. After a bit, we head off. The protag actually makes a (fairly) genuine apology!

And... yeah I guess we mostly make up.

I actually kind of appreciate such an ambivalent ending. A nice change from the pattern to meet someone who finds our whole... thing super annoying.

The achievement for this chapter says ‘you cleaned up your own attitude’.

These chapters are getting increasingly meta, huh.

Karako

Now for... the second purpleblood in the game! Karaka is the creation of someone only credited as ‘Geezey’, who has not written anything before now.

We get a new, and very pretty backdrop immediately.

That palette! Curiously the narration doesn’t really seem to be acknowledging much of what’s happened so far - that we have a car, for one.

We’re in a relatively sparse area of the city. Unfortunately, the vegetation is not very accommodating for a gentle stroll...

As we pick our way through this, we meet a stranger on the road...

The soundtrack has like... ‘bwmm’ noises with a bunch of reverb, and clown horns. Usual disclaimer that I don’t know shit about music. This track’s title is, impressively, a Unicode drawing of Bowsette.

Surprised by the use of ‘it’ pronouns - usually the narration gets in there quick with gendering.

Anyway, we get a foot sprite. That’s unusual.

We go to help them down from the tree. The narration in this episode is doing the ‘unnecessarily formality’ joke but it’s not really working for me.

They have a nametag, which tells us to call Bronya ‘if lost’. Conveniently, someone we know! The narration supplies an interpretation...

Hmm.

Anyway, this guy’s dialogue consists entirely of the word ‘honk’.

The narrator fills in the conversation - the usual I’m an alien, etc. etc. I guess the joke is that the narrator is really wordy today in contrast with Karako’s one-word lines.

Here’s a sample.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we make some friend overtures along those lines, and then stand about for a bit, until a drone shows up!

The artist is at least making some very expressive drawings in this episode!

We get a choice: help or run. Let’s try to help.

We shield Karako from the drone by leaning on a rock for a bit, and that... makes him happy I guess. He smiles, at any rate. We get back to the whole... weirdly obsessive about establishing Friendship(TM) affect, but then some sea trolls show up.

They laugh at us a bunch, to Karako’s chagrin. Well, it would have to be sea trolls for anyone to be able to laugh at a purpleblood, I guess.

We get some very strained fish puns.

The jabs get a bit much for Karako and he goes for the seadwellers with knives.

This will not end well.

If he wants to throw down... let’s let him. Comfort and support? OK.

We use the dangerous plants to back up Karako’s rampage, impaling some of the violetbloods. But unfortunately for us, they’re pretty much invincible or something.

Curiously there is at least one circumstance where a violetblood has to answer to a purpleblood - the Grand Highblood and Dualscar. But in this case, the hemospectrum seems to rule.

Poor little Karako ends up dead.

And it’s time for the end of this route. But for once, we’re not just getting a death screen!

It’s time for some LORE. Behind the portal is... some kind of carousel?

Well what do you know, the Dark Carnival is real. It’s being ridden by various troll mannequins (or as they spell it here, ‘manikins’... is that a UK/US difference I didn’t know about?)

The mannequins come down and raise Karako into the Carnival.

This religious experience prompts the narrator to get a little introspective about their total insignificance.

We’re sick, we decide, of highblood bullshit. In fact we get quite a lot of philosophising done while bleeding out on the ground here.

The protagonist resolves to do something about this. We get some strained physics metaphors...

We ‘take on the aspect of Clown-sarker’, whatever that means. Taking up some of the soft drinks that Karako was carrying, we... start spraying soft drinks on the sea trolls. The effect of this is... limited. They kill us pretty much immediately. But by dying in battle...

...we seem to have earned our own place in the Dark Carnival!?

Which means... a friendship ending?

Honestly what? Is the next episode gonna start with us in the Dark Carnival?

I certainly didn’t see that coming.

...let’s check out the other branches, I guess.

First, let’s see what happens if we run away from the Drone instead of pretending nonchalance. We make good our escape, more or less, and get a new background:

But Karako is gone.

All right, that was more or less what I expected. Well mostly I thought the drone would kill us, but same difference.

Now, if we try to restrain Karako from fighting the sea trolls...

We try to calm Karako down as we restrain him, but he’s just getting more and more berserk. Given what Gamzee pulled in a state like this... not promising.

He lets off some kind of... rage bomb?

The only thing in canon I can compare with is the Vast Expletive uttered by the Sufferer.

Whatever this is, it nicely does for the sea trolls, and we wake up still with Karako. And... that’s the very quick end to the arc.

OK, that’s a friendship ending too? Huh.

However, this ending does not give an achievement, while the other one did. “You ascended to the Dark Carnival... or did you?” is the achievement text.

What a strange chapter! I’m very curious to see how the next one will begin now.

[mysdrymmumbles]

Andraste’s Witch - Chapter 70 - NSFWish?

Pairings: Slowburn Cullen x F!Witch!Inquisitor

Rating: M for later chapters which will include violence, PTSD, withdrawal,  angst, body horror (think red templars), and possibly other stuff that I will be sure to tag. This is not actually a grimdark story, but I just wanna give people a heads up for stuff that will happen. There will also be fluff and friendship and magic (though to be fair, this is Thedas, so magic will not always be positive and very rarely as adorable as that last statement implied).

Genre: Action/Adventure with elements of romance  

Summary: Cullen’s mulls over his past and wonders about the present.

I should probably wait until next week to post this, but fuck it, lol. Thank you for reading <3

Andraste’s Witch

Chapter 70 - The Commander’s Broken Heart

Since the night he’d held her at the edge of camp, Finley had been avoiding him. Cullen was sure of it.

Maker, Josephine had even suggested they talk. She’d said that Finley seemed even more on edge than usual and that Cullen seemed to have a way with her, but the way she said it had made Cullen worry that perhaps Finley had said something to her, and she was trying to resolve matters before Denerim.

There was tension between them, and he knew Josephine had to noticed it.  

He’d tried to tell himself that he was just overthinking things, but…

But everything was making him on edge.

Worse, he kept hearing people whispering about some damned bet. He’d asked Cassandra about it, but she’d simply shrugged and said she’d heard of one that was how long it’d take her to kill Varric, so she wasn’t really interested in knowing what the newest one might be.

With the pace they’d set for Denerim, there wasn’t a lot for him to do, other than ride and think things over. And his mind was merciless. It replayed his most recent interactions with Finley, thinking about the way she might reach for him, then pull away, as though she were troubled by something. The way she twisted under his gaze, like she was…afraid.

Of what?

Him?

He would never hurt her…

He almost wished Alistair was there, if only to give him a distraction. The man had spent his childhood screaming in Chantries, so Cullen didn’t doubt he’d be good for a laugh or even an argument. At this point, he would have taken listening to a victory speech about how ‘witches’ had to be real.

Unfortunately, Alistair had stayed back at Skyhold. When Finley had asked Alistair if he was coming with them—stars in her eyes and hope in her voice—he’d said no.

Well, there had been snorting, extreme exaggeration, and even a short giggle from Finley despite herself.

The famed grey warden was certainly good at drawing a smile from their Inquisitor…

But no, Alistair was going to wait for Hawke to get back, as Hawke had sent word that they’d found something important. Considering how he’d marked all of his letters to Skyhold as important, telling them that they needed to allocate resources they didn’t have to help people who wouldn’t let them in their country, Cullen wasn’t sure how serious to take the latest message. However, Alistair had been firm in staying behind.  

Cullen was fairly certain Finley wanted to toss Hawke off a cliff for claiming the warden’s attentions, but Cullen hadn’t been able to mind that part so much. The man could trip into a room, and Finley was giddy and girlishly adorable.

She never did that with him…

He supposed he ought not to be jealous, considering she was sleeping with him, not Alistair, and yet he could not keep his scowls at bay. And a relationship between the Inquisitor and a warden outside of the Inquisition wouldn’t cause the same sort of stir as her finding comfort in her commander’s chambers…

Maker, help him.

Even with Finley’s adoration for every warden she met—at least it seemed so—he still wished Alistair was around, if only to distract him from the facts that Finley was avoiding him and that he had no desire to meet with King Cousland.

Maker, don’t let that man remember him. Please, please, please…

He’d been a no one back then, a pitiful wretch, mad from the horrors he’d seen, when Warden Commander Brosca had led her group in to save the day. It had been bad enough that Alistair had seen him that way, but he’d never thought of the strangers.

That he worked with Leliana now was a certain level of misery, as he still expected her to bring up Kinloch Hold at some point, though she never did. He was glad of her silence.

Perhaps, even if the king did recognize him as the raving madman from the tower, he would keep quiet about it.

It was a hollow hope.

King Cousland had been one of the more vocal members of the group who had saved the Circle. At the time, Cullen had thought the noble a blessing, a voice of reason that should have given credibility to his own demands.

He could still taste that bitterness in his mouth from when Knight-Commander Greagoir had refused to kill the remaining mages, not seeing them for the dangers he was certain they posed. With all that had happened, all those who had pretended to be a decent sort only to turn into murderous abominations, how anyone had been able to argue with him had been madness in his mind at the time.

Cousland had agreed. Better to cut them down now than to have them take out the remaining templars and make sure that the Wardens’ treaty could not be fulfilled.  

Warden Brosca had been ready to toss both Cullen and Cousland into the lake, hissing that she’d like to see them swim in their armor. She’d had more choice words, though they’d been directed at Cousland rather than Cullen, and all he’d known was that Alistair and the others with them had managed to calm things down.

In the end, they’d gone on to save the world, and he’d gone to Greenfell to ‘recover’. As though all he’d been through was something that could be gotten over with a bit of fresh air.

Granted, after the first month, he’d thought that…

He’d been a fool, a young, traumatized fool, who’d sought comfort in the first arms that would take him.

Ellendra.

He’d needed someone, anyone to keep him grounded in reality, and Ellendra had offered him her hand and her bed. He’d been desperate to learn and please, to do anything that distracted him from his memories, anything that kept him awake long enough that he was too tired to have the nightmares that haunted him.

He hadn’t loved her, but at the time he thought he had. She’d been his first, and he’d felt that with her he could build some semblance of a life, something constant, something different. He’d even mulled over leaving the Order a night or two, though he hadn’t known what he’d possibly do with his life if he wasn’t a templar.

And then that had fallen through as easily as it had started, and he’d requested transfer, again wanting to be anywhere but where he was.

Knight-Commander Greagoir had suggested he not head off so quickly, that he take the time to allow himself to get better—that he would fight for the Order to allow Cullen that. He came by a few times—when he could spare—to check up on Cullen, though he’d seen the old man’s visits through a haze of betrayal, after the lenience at the hold. The knight-commander had tried again and again to talk to Cullen about what had happened, to encourage him to work through his problems.

But he couldn’t.

And he couldn’t stay in Greenfell. To know he was just one in a long line of Ellendra’s lovers, to know that he’d meant as much to her as he had to the demons that had toyed with him…

He’d needed to be anywhere else.

And so even though Kirkwall was the largest Circle in Thedas, he’d gone there when he’d heard of an opening, hoping to recover some part of himself that he’d lost by throwing himself back into the dream he’d had ever since he was a child.

He would be a protector, someone who would keep the innocent safe from monsters.

Before he’d thought that meant keeping regular people safe from abominations, and keeping mages safe from mobs.

After the madness at Kinloch Hold, though…

His concept of monster was already blurry when Meredith had gotten ahold of him, and she’d done nothing but make sure that the lines were redrawn in all the wrong places, the places he feared they should be.

She had been so confident, so firm, that he’d trusted her. She’d been the strict, stern leader that he’d wanted Greagoir to be. She didn’t give the mages chances to fall to temptation, she protected people.

Or so he’d thought at the time.

Because of that, he’d been her most loyal templar, one of the many reasons that he was promoted so quickly to her second in command.

There were rumors that he was Meredith’s plaything, though it held no merit. Their relationship was strictly professional, and he’d figured that any relations with mages or other templars would lead to nothing but heartbreak or manipulation.

Linda had been a poor waif in Lowtown who somehow always managed to be around and in need of saving. While he’d initially looked into her, suspecting her of helping blood mages seeing as she was always somehow involved with them, it ended up that she was there for him. She fancied him and risked most anything for a moment or two to talk.

After a particularly bad night, he’d fallen into her arms much as he had with Ellendra, just wanting a distraction from everything that was wrong with his life.

She’d been kinder, gentler, and yet he’d never been able to coax his heart into their affair.

They’d carried on for a few years, until one day she came up and told him that she was getting married.

Cullen had been surprised that that hadn’t hurt him like he would have expected it to, but he’d figured that that was what his life was. A series of short reprieves from the usual misery of the horrors that lay just beneath the surface, that haunted his nights.

After that, he’d limited himself to The Blooming Rose when he absolutely couldn’t stand the loneliness that smothered him.

It had been well enough, good enough for someone like him.

Though, as he’d realized what was going on in the Gallows—what he was letting happen—he’d turned away from even that.

Meredith had not been amused when his gaze had turned inward toward the templars, when he’d started listening to Ser Thrask and First Enchanter Orsino.

She’d been even less thrilled when he’d brought several templars to the Grand Cleric’s attention for their crimes against mages after Meredith dismissed him.

It was like he’d made a declaration of war against his superior, and even as he feared lines would be drawn within the templars, he learned that they were already there, and that he’d been on the side of the real monsters.

Maker, he’d been one of them.

Suddenly, he’d found himself having to make sure Ser Thrask or one of the mage-sympathetic templars were out hunting down apostates with him, or he’d find himself getting shouldered into boulders or shield bashed in the face as a fellow templar ‘mistook’ him for a mage in the heat of battle.

All accidents, of course.

And while it was a monster coordinating these things, he couldn’t help the slithering, twisted self-loathing that curled inside him, whispering that he deserved at least this much.

He deserved to be hurt, to be lonely, to suffer as those he’d neglected had suffered.

When he’d left the Order to join the Inquisition, he’d hoped he could find a way to atone, to…not to make up for what he’d done. That could never happen. But he’d wanted to try to be the man he’d dreamed of being when he was boy.

A protector.

He’d never even considered he might find someone…let alone a mage who held the key to saving the world. That someone like Finley could even consider him…

He’d given up on romance long before he realized he didn’t deserve it, and yet here he was, jealous of a hero because of the way the woman he loved seemed drawn to him.

His mind stopped at that, for some reason, slowly playing back his most recent string of thoughts.

Cullen nearly fell off his horse as what he’d thought processed. Snapping up and alert, he glanced around to see if anyone had noticed his near accident, though no one seemed to be paying him particular mind.

He ran his fingers through his hair, staring ahead, heat creeping up into his cheeks.

Maker, he loved her.

He loved Finley.

How?

How could he love her already?

Even as he wondered, all he could do was think of the way she spoke, of the quiet, hesitant smiles she gave him, of the way she came to him before anyone else, the way…

Maker, help him.

He wanted to offer her a ride on his horse, just to feel her body against his. Theirs was a slow enough pace that they could have talked off and on.

Talked and touched and…

And she was avoiding him.

Had she figured out before he had and been scared off? This was…it was far too soon. Love was something that took time and…

And he needed to see her.

When they’d camped for the night, he made sure the guards were posted and then searched for Finley, only to find that she was being as elusive as usual, though Leliana had assured him he needn’t worry and so he’d figured the spymaster had eyes on her wherever she was. Despite wanting to keep looking for her, he’d given in, his body weary from the days on the road, and headed to his tent.

However, when he reached it, he found a small paper tied to his tent flap’s tie. He unraveled it, a mite bit annoyed, especially seeing as the delivery reminded him of Sera, and she was supposed to be back at Skyhold.

He scanned the letter carefully and then sighed. The misspellings screamed that Sera had stowed away with them. While he didn’t care so long as she didn’t cause any mayhem, he knew that Josephine would be concerned if she found out.

Perhaps he’d forget to bring it up.

The note, however, said that he’d find something important at the stream just south of where they were camped, and so he headed off, even as he wanted to do nothing more than crawl into his tent and pretend to sleep as his mind played through every interaction he’d ever had with Finley and why she might be mad at him at present.

When he reached the stream, he found another note tied to a branch—almost hidden—that pointed him to the right.

As he wondered if he should have his blade drawn, he wandered along the brush, watching the water flow past, quick enough that it was clear and crisp. The underbrush and foliage were dense enough that—while it could hide someone easily—he doubted anyone could move through it easily to prepare a sneak attack, so clearly the notes hadn’t been alerting him to a possible weak point near the camp.

If this was some simple diversion tactic…

He forgot about sneak attacks and pranks the second he heard a surprised gasp and looked up to see Finley. She was sitting on a large rock beside the water, washing her long hair.

It was one of the first times he’d seen it nearly tangle free, and his breath caught in his throat as he watched her, imagining for a second it was his fingers in her hair.

“Commander.” Her voice was hesitant, as though she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say. He was surprised by how much that caution hurt.

“Finley.”

At her name, that small, quiet smile he so loved whispered across her lips. It was gone too soon. “Has…something happened?”

That was what he wanted to know.

“Someone left me a note that I should come out here.”

“Oh…” He could see the gears turn quickly in Finley’s head as she assigned blame to the appropriate parties. So she knew Sera was here.

Wonderful.

She’d shed most of her clothes to keep them from getting wet as she fought with her hair, and the way her under shirt clung to her made him want to take her in his arms and cast it aside with everything else. To feel her heart beating with his, to…

“You shouldn’t be alone out here.”

“I’m used to being alone,” she retorted, shrugging and turning back to her original task.

Cullen stepped up beside the rock she was seated upon, watching her muscles in her bare arms move beneath her skin a few minutes before he managed to gather his thoughts.

“You could be hurt.”

“I’m used to getting hurt.”

Cullen flinched at that. A thousand responses flitted through his mind. He was sorry, even though he’d never hurt her himself. He wished she wasn’t used to it. He wanted to make sure she wouldn’t be ever again.

There were so many things he wanted to say, and instead, he stood there, close enough that he could reach out and cup her face in his hands, and yet feeling like he couldn’t.

“Finley.” Before he’d realized it, he’d knelt in front of her, peering up into her face, searching her expression. He wanted to ask what had happened between them. He’d found her in the woods early on when they’d started traveling, and she’d been crying, and she’d… He’d held her for a little while before taking her back to her tent.

The next morning, there had been a change, though, and he wasn’t sure what had caused it.

“Cullen.”

Her voice was soft, but the sound of his name on her lips sent a shiver through him.  

“I just…” she trailed off, letting her hair fall against her back and shaking her head. “I miss the Wilds. It’s a lot easier when you know what to expect and what will likely happen and…here…nothing makes sense.”

Without thinking, he finally breeched that impossible distance between them, fingers gently brushing across her jaw and cheeks. He just wanted to do something, anything that would help her. “You’re not alone with that. Everything’s a bit of a mess right now.”

Finley leaned into his touch, closing her eyes as she brought her hand up to hold his. Even as she pressed a kiss into his palm, she straightened up, worried. “Am I…should we even…” He leaned toward her as she struggled to find her words. “I don’t really get how to do this. With you. Everything is so complicated.”

Cullen blinked, staring up at her, at the earnest worry settling on her features.

She looked away from him, wincing as she started to say something, and he couldn’t help himself anymore.

Leaning forward, he caught her lips with his, moving his hand back to the nape of her neck, as he moved his lips, seeking to memorize hers.

There was a second’s hesitation that almost made him stop, before her fingers were in his hair, tugging him closer.

He moved with her, surging up and pushing her down onto the rock, his knee propping himself up slightly over her as their hands wandered over each other, desperately seeking bare skin. One of her legs slid up along his to wrap around his waist, though Finley stopped short, pulling away a little.

As she caught her breath and he fought the urge to simply kiss her again, she bit her lip. “Cullen…your sword is pressing into my leg.”

“That’s not my sword.”

“What I’m talking about is.”

With a glance, he saw the problem—obvious thing that it was—and felt like an idiot. Of course he was still wearing his sword on his hip. Even as he cursed how in the way it was, hand reaching to his belt he stopped himself.

Something had cracked in the woods. A stick.

Cullen held his breath, waiting to see what would come of it. Finley was the one to dismiss it. “It was just an animal.”

When he looked back at her, however, he couldn’t shake the fact that someone could have snuck up on them, and they would have been caught off guard.

Maker, he was supposed to be protecting her, not putting her in more danger.

She seemed to be on the same page, already sitting up and running her fingers through her hair to make sure it was still clean.

“I’ll…stay with you until you’re ready to go back.” The words were forced, and he was half afraid to meet her gaze, that he might lose himself in thoughts of touching her again.  

She simply nodded, reached out, and squeezed his hand. Then she was back to finishing up with the last few tangles in her hair. Cullen watched her, trying to keep his attention on their surroundings as well, though he had a hard time with that when they were so close.

Turning his back to her, he walked away a few paces, trying to think of something to calm the fire in his blood. Abruptly, he straightened up and looked back at her. “You were going to say something.”

“Hmm?” Finley braided her hair quickly and turned back to her clothes.

“When I kissed you. I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I just…” He wasn’t sure what to say that would excuse his actions, but he didn’t want her to think he would just kiss her to get her to stop talking or…

She hesitated at that, fingers gripping her shirt with more force than necessary as she stared blankly at the fabric.

“It wasn’t anything important.” She tugged it over her head and then gave him a hesitant smile. “Just a silly fear.”

That gave him pause.

That she’d been willing to open up to him made him want to press the matter, and yet…

Cullen could understand not wanting to talk about things well enough, and so he nodded, reaching out and lightly catching her hand. “Alright.” A light blush settled on her cheeks when he squeezed her hand, and he motioned back toward the camp. “We should get some sleep.”

As he let go of her, she drew in a slow breath, nodding before she exhaled. “We reach Denerim tomorrow, yes?”

“We do.”

“We…we’re not going to be there more than a few days.”

Cullen gave her a reassuring smile. “We’ll be heading back to Skyhold by the end of the week.”

As he gave her that assurance, she let out another slow breath, tilting her head back and staring up into the branches overhead as they wandered back. “I’ll be glad to have this past us.”

“As will we all.”

And for the first time that night, she gave him a more genuine smile, stretching up on her toes to kiss his cheek before winding her way back through the trees to camp with the soft, quiet ease that made him wonder if he hadn’t been wrong in assuming it would be hard to have a sneak attack in this area.

He’d order a few more guards before he went to bed.

He’d messed up so many times before, but this time he would act as the protector he’d sworn he would be.

He would.

[pastelpunkpizzapower]

The Bride of the Red Leader Finale (I mean it) TW: Realistic Violence/Grimdark, Head Trauma and Possible Animal Cruelty are involved.

Well... this is the end, beautiful friends; after less than a year, this is my fanfic’s final chapter.

It’s been a lot of fun~ I’d like to thank each and every one of you who made this journey with me....this fanfic wouldn’t have been anything with out you.

Hopefully, it left you with some good memories so until we meet again (as in, when I make another EW fanfic), stay gold.

Bang.

(Raise your hand if you know what I was referencing there, now let’s get this Birthday party started because April 15th is the day I officially turn 18 and it’s also @dorksandoodles‘ birthday as well so wish 'em a happy birthday 2!)

Fanfiction.net Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11976509/13/The-Bride-of-the-Red-Leader

“Help me.”

Edd’s POV

I awakened by a scent that perked my nose.....a scent that faintly reminded me of a campfire but with a sour, toxic hint....I open my eyes to find myself in a little house, lying on a bed in a hospital gown with a somewhat familiar face cradling me; even though I don’t remember or even know his name, I couldn’t help but try to wake them up but all I was treated to was discovering the bullet holes that where stuck in his head.

“Ready for the honeymoon, soul mate?”

I gasp at the sight of a menacing-looking man with a psychotic look on his face, carrying a gun on one hand and clutching an unknown object in the other; since I presume he was the one who shot the other man who may have been trying to protect me, I decided to run as fast as I can from him but then he starts running after me, looking even less like a human and more like a beast who was ready to snatch me away from safety and gobble me up whole~ I keep running through the labyrinth of the house until I finally begin to notice a broken window; it looks pretty dangerous and I might get hurt, considering how jagged it looked, then again would I really choose the risk of getting shot (or worse) by the crazed lunatic over just a few little scrapes? the answer is obviously no so I decide cowboy up, jump out of the house and into the brutal cold outside where I start looking for a safe, warm place for me to hide away through the blinding blizzard I was stuck in.

As the blizzard begins winding down, I finally see something in the distance that resembles a sweater; not really the exact "safe" thing I was looking for but it did look "warm" but my relief turned into heartbreak when I found out what it really was; It's really a little critter that was caught in a bear trap, the poor little soul....I feel so bad for it that......I begin crying......and I decided to hold the remains of the little angel and pet it as if it where alive, after all, it was probably looking for something too...perhaps someone to give it some love and attention.....I'm such a sap.....

Todd's POV

I've been waiting and waiting and waaaaiting for a single response from none other than my insane boss, the Red Leader or as some know as “Tord”, I wonder if he caught those three yet? I knew it was a terrible idea to split up....boy, I'm hungry, maybe I'll call up and order a pizza...wait, darn it all, then out cover will be blown! man, this rots...suddenly the phone rings, it's finally a response from Tord.

"Hey there, R.L. Stine, did you catch Edd?" I asked.

"Close but no cigar, although I did manage to kill Tom and Matt so they won't go rescuing my guinea pig again~ do you see Edd anywhere?"

"No sign of him yet, boss."

"I'm counting on you, man, you better find that little munchkin alive."

"Yes, sir."

After he hung up, I was searching through the vast winter forest; nothing so far....oh hello, what's this? a figure from not-so-afar hunched over, holding something? Time to take him in and get my promotion! I quickly get up from my seat, jump out of the tank and sneak up against the figure...although it's a little hard to tell because of the storm going on, I can safely say that-hey what the?

"We caught him, m'am! we caught the red leader! over." The figure shouts into a walkie-talkie/phone of her right after she handcuffs me.

"Good work kid, we'll be right over in a bit! over, out."

They must have mistaken me for Tord, which kinda makes sense really, but I didn't wanna get blamed for all his dirty work so I had to do what I had to do once the helicopter dropped in a dozen soldiers with guns aiming at me.

“You’re under arrest, any last words?”

“I’m not the Red Leader!”

“Ha! and I’m the Queen of Atlantis~ take him in before he does anything risky.”

“I’m serious, you got the wrong guy!”

“Prove it.”

“See that wallet in my pocket? fish it out.”

“Alright, you better not be joking.”

She fishes the wallet out of my pocket, finding some photos of me and my dearest brother, Tord that points out the differences between us and thank God she believes me....or does she? judging by the look on her face, she’s probably gonna ask me some more info and with a suspicious glare, she does so.

“Spill us some more home truths and then we’ll un-cuff you.”

“Okay, okay...I know his whereabouts, see that little house east of here? he’s inside there with the bodies of two men he killed and he’s been wanting me to find this person he kidnapped to take over the world by making him a giant robot.”

“And how do you know all this stuff, are you psychic or something?”

“....I work for him.”

“Hmmm makes sense, all we needed to know; free him, ladies.”

They finally get the handcuffs off of me, but as I walk home I hear a loud blast and something small yet very painful hit the back of my head three times; all I can do is fall on the ground, covering my wound and curse out my killers as my last visions on this very earth are apparently snow, blood and my very last breath.

“Hey, we didn’t say we weren’t gonna shoot a commie like you~ now my soldiers, let’s go because we have bigger fish to fry.”

“Yes, m’am!”

.....

Tord’s POV

I looked everywhere for Edd, he must have escaped from under my nose yet again, it’s as if the odds are against me winning; on second thought, he probably took the same route I did: sneaking through that broken window~ that must have been classic stupid Tom’s doing, oh well! I might as well search for the chubby little chipmunk yet again and this time, I’ll definitely have him right where I want him! I walk up to the door to continue my never ending journey, but instead of getting hit by a snowstorm, it’s a group of other soldiers from another army ambushing me with bludgeoning weapons; I tried to use my gun but along with the ring, it was knocked out of my hand.

“HOW DID YOU GET HERE!?” I roar through the harsh beatings.

“A little birdie told us.” One of them giggled sweetly, if not passive-aggressively before hand-cuffing me.

“Tord Lars, you’re under arrest for your crimes against Europe, take this sicko away from my sight immediately.”

“What do you plan on doing to me? the big house for a little time out?” I tried to laugh in an aloof tone.

“We’re gonna bring back the guillotine back in the mother country for what you’ve been doing all these years.” the leader replied.

“Wait, are you gonna confine me first?”

“Nope! straight-up, first-thing’s-first, guillotine for you.”

“I’m just gonna escape again!”

“If you do, we’re just gonna shoot you in the head just like we did with the little birdie.”

Well, I guess this is where my story ends, plan after plan of trying to concur the world, all those soldiers that where killed, all my manipulations, contraptions and what not where apparently all for nothing and only one question remains: who was this “little birdie” anyway!? no matter if I’m in heaven or the other place I am seriously giving them an earful!!

The Chief’s POV

As the soldiers left the room, I spotted some sort of doo-hickey on the floor, must have been a wedding ring or something; I take a closer look to realize it was no ordinary ring, but one of Public Enemy Number One’s typical devices~ I don’t know how it works but I’ll probably find a way to destroy it later so I tucked it safely in one of my pockets.

On our way back to the helicopter just as the storm finally died off, one of my most trusty soldiers noticed a figure wandering around in the distance.

“Hey, you all see that over there?” I asked all of them.

“Nope.” One of them replied before the others guided them with their fingers pointing at the stranger.

“Let’s go offer ‘em a hand.” I replied, leading them to the person’s path.

As I got a closer look, I saw what the stranger looked like: a short, fragile-looking male in a hospital gown, silently crying while holding a cat in a bear trap; finally the poor boy looked up at us uttering one word before collapsing on the ground: “......Help me.” which in truth made all the soldiers began to go “Awwww” with sympathy in their eyes until you-know-who-by-know breaks silence with: “That’s my bride!”.

“Bride, huh?” One of them asks with a disapproving look.

“Tell us more about this “bride” of yours and why did he end up like this.” said yours truly.

“Long-story short..” he trails off as all of us, including the stranger and the dad cat who where in my arms, hustled into the helicopter.

....

That night, before the day Tord is officially executed, he promised a little earlier to permanently bring back Edd’s memories in a little room within our database and just so he doesn’t pull a Houdini on us, all of us keep more than a close eye on him, watching his every movement with weapons in our hands; I swear for one moment I see him shaking in his boots~ serves him right.

“What’s the point of bring back his memory if I’m not free to go afterwords?” He whines.

“Because you’re a dangerous, dangerous man and you need to at least fix one crime before paying for all the others now put that ring on that little pinky finger, then take it off and destroy it so it won’t be used to harm anyone again!” I bark at him.

“Alright, fine, hold on.”

We patiently wait a few minutes before Edd’s memories return to their rightful place and watching Tord tinker around with the settings on the ring for a little bit; finally, Tord clicks a little switch from underneath and slips the ring onto Edd’s finger, but little did we know that so-called “justice” may have been the biggest mistake any one of us ever done~ within moments, the boy went from an emotionless, fail thing to a blubbering mess, crying out the names of who I presume where loved ones of his; it was already to late since Tord throw the ring on the ground and stomped on it to smithereens.

Honestly, it made me wonder who was the real monster in this scenario....

“TOOOOOOM!!! MAAAAAAAAATT!!!! RIIIIINGOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”

And now, for a sneak peek of my next fanfic! *confetti*

“Woah, what’s this little guy doing in my room?”

“Awww, it’s a little me!”

“GET OUT OF MY SMIRNOFF YOU BRAT!”

Edd and his friends Matt and Tom are just your three regular guys, but what happens when their own, much smaller counterparts give them the power of technology and song?

Stay tunedd and thanks for reading!- Juli

[kelasparmak]

001: Vorkosigan Saga. 002: Charles Gunn/Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.

OH MAN THIS GOT LONG

Vorkosigan Saga:

Favorite character: Hmmm, tough one. No, just kidding, everyone who’s ever met me knows Bel’s my favourite, hands down, no contest.

Least Favorite character: I mean, there are a lot of baddies to pick from. Ryoval, Ser Galen and Bruce Van Atta all rate highly.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): This one actually is tricky, since I really really like a lot of the canon relationship dynamics. Byerly and Ivan definitely, Aral and Cordelia (and Oliver Jole, though it’s Aral and Cordelia’s dynamic that I’m particularly fond of), Ethan and Terrence, Simon and Alys, and I think Miles and Bel. (Honourable mentions go to Bel and Nicol, Ivan and Tej, and Elli and Elena, which is a pairing I’d not actually really considered until I got desperate for Vorkosigan fic and ran the Russian works on AO3 through Google Translate and found some really interesting fic.)

Character I find most attractive: My mental images of book characters are generally super vague and I’m eh about attractiveness anyway, but thinking about it I’d probably say Rish, Taura or Dono Vorrutyer.

Character I would marry: I’d be quite happy marrying an awful lot of them, really. Bel, for preference, since I’m practically in actual bona fide love with it.

Character I would be best friends with: I’d like to say Bel, but I don’t think I’m exciting enough. My actual best friends through life have mostly been more like Tej or maybe the younger Kareen, so maybe one of them? Tej and I could definitely bond over language learning. (I would also love to be best friends with Byerly, but again, I don’t think we have the same idea of a good time.)

A random thought: The first thing that springs to mind is my fascination with the fact that Bel and Jole had a fling back in the day. When was this? How (hilariously) would Miles react? I would love for Bel, Nicol, Garnet Five and Corbeau (since he’s the Barrayaran Imperium’s ambassador or attache or whatever to Quaddiespace) to visit Sergyar and pop in on Miles, and have that awkward ‘yes, we’ve met’ conversation when Miles tried to introduce them to each other. Well, awkward for Miles and Jole, at least; Bel and Cordelia would no doubt find it hilarious.

An unpopular opinion: Iiiii don’t really like that more or less everyone ended up paired off to an Appropriately Gendered Spouse, with a bureaucratic position and babies ever after. I mean, that’s an oversimplification and there are exceptions (like Elli, or Ethan and Terrence, though that’s implied rather than explicit and since Athos is men-only it feels a little ‘for lack of alternative Terrence might end up with a guy and if he does it’ll probably be Ethan’) but that’s how it feels to me. I don’t know how unpopular that opinion is, though.

My canon OTP: Aral/Cordelia

Non-canon OTP: Byerly/Ivan (I mean, we’ve essentially had this question already)

Most badass character: I think Taura or Elli, probably? Miles is definitely a contender too, but I suppose because you see him wallowing in self-pity or making it up as he goes or doing extremely silly things pretty often the overall effect is perhaps diminished a little. Though I think overall the sheer amount of obstacles, self-imposed as well as external, that he manages to overcome, might put him at the top of the list.

Pairing I am not a fan of: Leo/Silver, probably. I don’t think it was very ethical for Leo to get involved, at least not at that point - I’m not sure if she was canonically a great deal younger than him or if I’ve just imagined that, but there’s a huge gap in terms of life experience, and I think that given the way Van Atta had exploited her very very recently, Leo should have given her some space and time and the tools to figure out what she wanted before he got involved with her.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Bothari’s portrayal made me pretty uncomfortable at times. Not sure if it was necessarily a screwup because she writes other mental illnesses pretty well, at least as far as my understanding of them goes, but I felt like with Bothari there was a very fine line being tread between a very complex depiction of schizophrenia (specifically traumagenic schizophrenia) & cyclical abuse on the one hand, and the ‘dangerous and barely-human crazy person’ stereotype on the other.

Favourite friendship: So many. In the interests of not just repeating myself from the shipping questions, though, I really like the development of Miles and Ivan’s relationship from not really Getting each other at all in the first book (and Miles in particular being pretty contemptuous of Ivan), to a close (if constantly mutually exasperating) friendship once they’re a little older.

Gunn/Wesley

when or if I started shipping it: Gosh, it’s been absolutely years since I watched Angel and I only watched it the once, so any of these answers may be completely wrong, but honestly I think it was from the first time they argued.

my thoughts: I really liked their 'odd couple’ dynamic - it reminds me a little of a much more extreme version of Eliot and Hardison’s initial impressions of each other, in that they each have a lot of preconceptions about the type of person the other is and about their worth, but pretty quickly get over it and come to respect each other and (shockingly enough) realised that it was actually really useful that they’d had such different experiences and that they worked much better together than separately. I’d have liked more episodes dealing with their very different backgrounds and attitudes in a more casual setting - I don’t remember how often that came up but I don’t feel like it was very often, or at least not often enough for my liking :P I just wish that phase

What makes me happy about them: I guess I’ve just said it. Got a bit carried away there I guess. 

What makes me sad about them: The goddamn unnecessary love triangle! And everything getting fucked up! Why did this happen! I prefer to pretend that storyline, and the Illyria storyline, and the Grimdark Wesley storyline, didn’t happen, because they were silly and unnecessary. Whedon, you didn’t even have to let my kids be happy, but making them miserable because of internal conflict that wasn’t even in-character for them wasn’t even lazy writing, it would have been lazy writing with different characters, but this required effort! To be bad! Why! (Caveat: possibly the Grimdark Wesley storyline isn’t so much objectively bad as I just didn’t like it. I don’t mind him being emo, that’s a-ok, but his behaviour toward Gunn and Fred was straight-up gross, and while I quite liked Wesley dealing with the consequences of his mistakes, I’d have been happier if he’d learned from them instead of getting worse, lol.)

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: Iiii actually have never read any fic of this series, I don’t think, so I guess I don’t know. I can imagine some things that would and that I wouldn’t be surprised to see done.

Things I look for in fanfic: Well, nothing, but I guess it would be the dynamic that I liked between them in the Good Times. Preferably a ridiculous shenanigans, some near-death experiences, actually talking about their feelings, and a healthy dose of fluff (or h/c). And Gunn being smart as hell, because he is and arguably is better at applying that in practice than Wesley.

My kinks: I am a pure and innocent soul and I don’t even know what a kink is. (Okay, but leaving out the sexual element, I guess even though I was talking about how much I hate Grimdark Wes, I’d probably be interested in hatesex fic set during that period if it was concerned with working out their frustration and betrayal rather than just uncomplicated angry sex) (Also, I can see Wesley being super into Gunn being smart as fuck generally, and specifically into his Lawyer Talk after he got essentially the entire corpus of law and G&S downloaded into his brain. In my head this is not a very sexy thing, it’s very ‘Ooh Mr Darcy’, Wesley is hopelessly enamoured and Gunn is initially bemused but flattered and very quickly gets tired of Wes swooning every time he says something smart, which is way too often for it not to have lost its effect AND YET. And especially if they’re working for Wolfram & Hart together in this scenario, in which case Gunn uses advanced legal terminology often on account of it being his job, which makes it hugely impractical for Wesley to try and jump his bones every time it happens. He’s probably just into the legal jargon and not the Gilbert and Sullivan because that would be a very weird kink and not one I can imagine being sexy at all, but now that I say it, if someone wrote that fic I would read it just out of morbid curiosity.)

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Fred! As well as each other! Guys, polyamory, it’s a thing! (If it had to be other people, I’d probably go for Gunn with Fred and Wes with either Angel or Spike. Probably not Lilah.)

My happily ever after for them: No one dies and Gunn has high self-esteem and Wesley stops fucking up everything he touches. Nothing bad happens and The Gang never have to deal with apocalypses or implausibly huge conspiracies or anything, they just hang out being supernatural detectives and doing Season 1-2 type stuff forever. Possibly they are in a triad with Fred but this is not necessary.