#which is why I am convinced that after War Games the Time Lords went around the universe

[lurking-latinist]

This is what I'm reading for my dissertation right now:

Meanwhile in the other tab the thing I am reading for fun is Unnatural History. I am a caricature of myself.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What would happen if you were sent back and ended up in the orphanage with Tom Riddle—and say you also had magic?

Oh boy.

Well, there's a lot to question here. Judging by the... spirit of this ask, I presume I'm... pretty much reincarnated. I'm in the orphanage, I'm much younger than I am now and a child, I'm pre-Hogwarts age, and I retain my current knowledge.

For the purpose of this ask I suppose I also retain my current mental faculties. Despite being in the body of an eight-year-old, I'm not The Carnivorous Muffin at eight.

Welp, there's a lot to consider here.

First, I probably don't realize I'm in Harry Potter for quite some time and instead assume I've been reincarnated to some parallel universe. It's the 1930's, I'm in England in the depression, WWI has occurred and the vast majority of major historical events I know about seem to have happened in the right order, and this Earth is eerily similar to the Earth I left behind.

Strange that I appear to remember everything of my past life with my adult mental abilities, but alright universe, I guess that's how we're going to play this.

What I do know is that I'm dirt poor, presumably still a woman which does not bode well for my career prospects, and if I want any prospects in life period I'm going to have to fight tooth and nail for it. It'd be great if I got adopted to help with this, and might be nice to have people in my life who love me, but there's a lot of orphans in the world and a lot of orphans who are much less weird than I am.

The orphanage is the orphanage and not great, Mrs. Cole is overworked, the orphanage is chronically understaffed, and the kids are running wild beating the shit out of each other.

Being a girl, I probably don't have to worry about getting the shit kicked out of me quite as much, but I still probably try to keep my head down and don't aggravate the particularly beefy looking orphans.

Yes, there's some very angry gremlin named Tom Riddle around who will shove you down the stairs in retribution, but that's just a weird coincidence. And then supernatural shit starts happening. Billy's rabbit hangs itself, people get injuries when Tom is nowhere near them, and I start wondering if this is really the Tom Riddle.

I'm in Wool's Orphanage, my matron is Mrs. Cole, Tom Riddle is running around lighting things on fire. It's possible, though it could all be a strange coincidence.

Now, how things go from here depends on how controlled my own magic is. Since accidental magic typically does manifest at least once or twice, it probably does manifest for me for.. something. If Tom Riddle's there to witness it then...

Well, I imagine he's very offended. Here he was, special, different, better than everyone else, and then some girl in the orphanage (who dares to get very good grades on her assignments in school) has it too.

And I just stand there, smiling, going "Tee hee".

He probably confronts me to prove that he's better at it than I am, and he probably is unless the universe hates both him and me, but having someone else with the Shining around probably prompts him to take me as his protégé (in part so he can show off and in part because he's genuinely excited to be able to share this super cool talent).

I am now apprentice to eight-year-old Tom Riddle. Whoop de doo.

Well, I don't remember this part of Harry Potter, so now I'm probably confused as to where I am again. Regardless, I try to advise Tom on how to tone it down and not, say, traumatize Amy and Dennis for life and antagonize all the other orphans forever. He probably doesn't take me seriously. What do I know, I can't even light that patch of grass on fire?

Hanging around Tom Riddle gets me a reputation to, given the difference in genders, probably a fairly nasty one at that. When Dumbledore arrives he's undoubtedly told hot gossip about how eleven-year-old Tom and I have had sex in a ritual to summon Satan. Dumbledore takes this seriously.

Dumbledore probably meets us both at the same time and it's a disaster. I tried my best to prep Tom without revealing I'm a prophet, Tom first doesn't believe there might not be others, then doesn't believe they would be antagonist/anything but amazed by how awesome he is.

Well, Dumbledore lights his wardrobe on fire while I sit there. Dying inside. Dumbledore probably also does something to me too, to teach me some kind of lesson about something.

I imagine he temporarily disfigures me/makes me appear very ugly, then sticks a mirror to the wall, that way I realize that looks aren’t everything/being a whore is wrong. Tom, still traumatized over the wardrobe, is no help and my magic’s probably not controlled enough to do a thing about it.

I spend a day looking like a pig, Tom and I are given just enough money to buy new wands and second hand/barely functioning everything else and given the world’s worst directions to Diagon Alley. Thanks, Albus.

Well, months pass, we get our wands, Tom gets excited for Hogwarts and I... start seriously considering the future. WWII is coming, the Blitz is coming, Tom and I live in east London and must be able to evacuate during the bombing of London (which went on well past the Blitz to the end of the war). I also start considering my future in the wizarding world. Do I now actually have career prospects?

Probably not because I’m muggle born and a woman. My best bet is doing very well in useful subjects and finding employment with the goblins, I can’t imagine they have the same hang ups as the wizarding world.

Tom wants to go to Slytherin, of course, I tell him this is a bad idea. “Gee Tom,” I say, “Not sure how I know this but I have this feeling that Slytherin is filled with people who loathe our very existence and will shank us. Why don’t we pick Ravenclaw or Gryffindor instead?”

No one shanks Tom Riddle! Tom says. Tom is still eleven and while he admits that sometimes I may, in retrospect, have been right about certain things that doesn’t mean he wants to go to the house known for hard work. That’s code word for everyone there being a moron and having no other redeeming features than tenacity. As for the other two, Ravenclaws sound like smug, elitist, nerds and Gryffindors like dumb jocks.

Better to be known for ambition, cunning, and actually being competent.

Well, there’s no talking him out of this one, and goddamn it we’re all each other has.

I’m the closest thing Tom Riddle has ever had to a friend in all these years and in the orphanage the only one who could hold a decent conversation with him. And while it’s not my moral obligation to keep Tom from becoming a domestic terrorist, and there’s no guarantee I even can, dumping him for one of the other houses and drifting apart won’t help.

Not to mention that, after all these years, I’m undoubtedly lonely, I’m in this foreign land, and he’s now the closest thing to a friend I have.

Looks like I’m going to Slytherin, YOOOOOLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOO! I shout as a battle cry as tears run down my face. I may have to convince the hat to put me in Slytherin, but like all human beings I am a mixture of many qualities. I’m not cunning in the least, mind games exhaust me unutterably, but I’m full of ambition. 

This confirms every bad opinion Dumbledore had regarding me and Tom.

For the next several months, Tom probably beats the shit out of dormmates who steal his things/harass him. He beats up mine too because feminism (TM) means that he should treat all people equally when guilty of the same crime. I... am not sure I can win that fight so I just resign myself to having to adopt some of Tom’s tactics to make sure I’m not shoved in lockers, have tampons thrown at me, or pig’s blood dumped on me at the prom.

Once again, everyone thinks Tom Riddle and I are dating. I don’t even know if they’re wrong at this point.

Well, being in class with eleven year olds who seem to have had little to no prior education, Tom and I are undoubtedly blazing through class. I imagine I’m bored out of my mind (the Hogwarts curriculum sounds unbelievably boring) and Tom is... well, probably devouring the library but probably also bored. I decide to try and see if I can find some real history texts on this world (there are probably none, the wizarding world seems to only have two historians and both... have a different approach to history than current modern thought as I know it) and discover what magic even is. That shit is fascinating: wingardium leviosa is not.

Dumbledore likely gives neither me nor Tom points in class, I think the house cup is stupid, so I really don’t care. I have no interest in playing quidditch, neither does Tom, so that doesn’t happen.

The second world war starts up, Tom, me, and the muggle borns are the only ones who give a flying fuck. I work harder on figuring out how to get lodging during the Blitz/the bombing of London. Unfortunately, Mrs. Cole hates me too for being the Bride of Satan, so that’s a no go. Third year, 1939, I probably write her in earnest anyway telling her to PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, send Tom and I instructions for the summer/where the orphans are staying/how they’ve been dispersed to the countryside. As a back up plan, I try desperately to shmooze shopkeepers in Hogsmeade during every Hogsmeade weekend to get myself and Tom part time jobs and lodging over the summer. As a back up back up plan, I spend my time badgering Tom to become very good at survivalist wandless magic and if the Lord has pity on me gain some ability in it myself.

Hopefully, either Mrs. Cole or one of the Hogsmeade shop owners take pity on us. If not, then Tom and I are going extreme camping. Given Mrs. Cole (and the brain damage brought on by Dumbledore erasing memories left and right) and the likelihood of Hogsmeade shop owners just not getting it, Tom and I probably go extreme camping.

(Tom, meanwhile, asks Dippet and Dumbledore if we can stay in Hogwarts over the summer. He’s told no exceptions. London’s being bombed, you say? No exceptions. Toodles. Tom is never the same.)

Me, Tom Riddle, a tent we made ourselves, several rabbits we had to catch and skin ourselves, and the pitiful fire that we can keep going through pure will alone because if we try to use real people spells then we’ll get arrested. It has the benefit of making Tom feel very manly and impressive, catching his own food, but both of us are well aware that this sucks.

But hey, we aren’t dead.

Well, I’m sure Tom doesn’t appreciate that and this is where I imagine he seriously starts talking about violent revolution. I imagine much of my time is spent discussing the merits of not violently overthrowing our ant overlords. I imagine a thirteen-year-old Tom isn’t impressed by my pacifism, but he’s not married to Voldemort yet (probably).

Then I imagine the horcrux thing comes up and... Well, I will argue hard against it. Humans die, it is a truth of the universe, and simply something we have to accept. Horcruxes are not a measure against that, they can be destroyed, given infinite time they will be, and the sacrifice they require is too high: human life as well as the very essence of who you are.

What is a soul? I’m not sure, we never really learn in HP canon, but whatever it is, it is in some way the essence of yourself. If you take half of it and throw it somewhere else, you will cease to be you, someone or something else is walking around in your body while the other half of you exists in endless agony.

If you must chase immortality, create a philosopher’s stone (as I darkly wonder why it was that couldn’t be replicated and what Flamel had to do to make it in the first place). On second thought, maybe we should search for the Holy Grail.

Whether I can talk Tom out of this or not is... unclear. I’m going to say that I can, in part because I imagine he’ll want to show the chamber off to me, tell me when he realizes he’s Heir of Slytherin, and in doing so I can prevent the basilisk incident from occurring. Without that, there’s no dead Myrtle, which means no first victim. That summer, when he goes to the Gaunts, I’ll go with him and convince him that it’s not worth it. He can just turn around and leave these people alone, I hopefully can talk him down. Which means no second victim.

I start writing Flamel to see if Tom or I can get an apprenticeship (Dumbledore probably beats us to the chase and poisons him against us, but it’s worth a shot).

Then, should all go well, I can convince Tom to find employment with the goblins rather than shady antique dealers on the bad side of town. Hopefully, I can convince him to never become Voldemort, and instead we travel the world together looking for the origins of magic or something.

Dumbledore goes around taking people’s memories of us in preparation for when Tom becomes a dark lord and I his lady of the night darkness.

TL;DR Apparently my life would become an SI/Tom Riddle fic. So, thanks anon.

[manonblaqkbeak]

Family Time

good morning/afternoon/evening/night. hope you’re all doing well and staying safe!!!! i have a rowaelin fic that i wanted to post before rowaelin month started since im focusing on those prompts atm

i cant wait to see what everyone has in store for rowaelin month, im very much looking forward to it!

enjoy! :)

1835 words

The day that Aelin had been looking forward to was finally here.

She and Rowan were going to spend a week in their spot in the forest. A week was longer than usual, but it was much needed. Not only had she and Rowan been working extremely hard to the point where they weren't going to bed until the middle of the night, his family was arriving to Orynth to visit for a few weeks in a week and a half.

And not just a few members of his family, almost the entire Whitethorn family was coming, with the exception of a few—namely Sellene, who would be gifting them with personal letters and presents, and those that were too old or just didn't feel like making such a long journey.

Aelin was looking forward to it, to meeting those she hadn't, to hearing others perspectives on Rowan's childhood. Her mate, however...not so much. Rowan was looking forward to catching up with the cousins that he liked, but not so much for the meddlesome ones. He warned her that whatever secrets that people were hiding wouldn't be secrets anymore, that the nosy ones liked to make a game to see who could learn the most secrets.

Aelin admitted that could be a problem, but in his letter, Enda claimed that everyone would be on their best behaviour.

Rowan wasn't entirely convinced. And not just because of that, he was worried that the conversation of when Aelin and Rowan were going to have children was going to be brought up as Rowan had written that they were forbidden from doing so.

Months ago, only several weeks after the war, after a meeting with the Lords and Ladies of Terrasen, Aelin and Rowan came to the decision to wait for a while to have children after Lord Gunnar had brought up the topic of heirs. Aelin could still remember the silence, at her speechlessness of how suddenly it was mentioned. How Rowan had turned to Lord Gunnar and demanded not just to him, but to everyone around them, that it was a private matter between the Queen and himself, and that it was not up for public discussion.

It wasn't a very long conversation—they both wanted to have a family, but Aelin wasn't ready. She was having nightmares from her time with Maeve and Cairn, and throwing pregnancy in the mix just screamed disastrous.

Rowan took her hands in his large warm ones and promised that he would wait for as long as she wanted. Whether it was one year, five years, or one hundred, he would wait until she was ready and willing.

Aelin had never loved him more.

Since then, Rowan was taking a contraceptive tonic. It hadn't taken very long for it to spread around the castle, but neither Aelin or Rowan would let others opinions change their minds.

And it wasn't like they were completely without family. They had their friends and Fleetfoot, with the canine joining them on their week long getaway.

Aelin and Rowan helped the servants set up the Royal tent and the square wooden table where they would be eating and playing chess and card games. There were a few books that Aelin was very much looking forward to reading, too.

Aelin was excited for this week away, to forgo her corsets, dresses, pants and breast-bands. She was determined to stay in Rowan's shirts and her slippers the entire time.

So the moment that everything was set up, the trays of sweet and savoury foods on the table, and the servants and guards were gone, Aelin stripped down to nothing, swaying her hips the way that Rowan liked when she spotted him drinking her in and slipped on one of his shirts and put on her well loved slippers.

Grabbing the picnic blanket from one of the chests, Aelin turned to see Fleetfoot sniffing hungrily at the trays of food, moving closer with each second that passed. Just as she was about to inhale the food, Rowan took the pup out of her misery and feed her a handful of sliced fermented sausage.

Aelin smiled at the sight. Rowan might grumble about the mess Fleetfoot made and how she kept slobbering on his pillow but Aelin knew he loved her—even when she ate his socks.

Aelin set up the blanket and pillows against a thick oak tree, ready for her week of relaxation.

X X X X X X

Aelin's stomach was near to bursting. She hadn't intended to eat that much food, since there was a leg of lamb and chopped root vegetables roasting in the cauldron above the fire, but everything was just too good to have just the once. She ate and ate until there was nothing but crumbs left.

She didn't regret it, however.

She was close to sleeping as Rowan ran a free hand through her scalp as he used the other to read. Her head was on his lap, the sun was warm, and from the happy yips that were coming from the woods, Fleetfoot was having a fun time running around.

Aelin glanced at her husband, his face relaxed as he read his book. And she had no idea why, but she found herself saying: “What would you look like with a beard?”

Rowan blinked, the only surprise he'd show at the question. “Like an old man,” he answered after a moment.

“You are an old man.”

He flicked her ear, and then went back to running his fingers through her scalp. “I grew a beard, once, when I was young. I looked like my father.”

“So you looked very handsome, then.” Rowan had taken up sketching in the quiet moments. He had drawn his parents and they were a very attractive couple. Rowan inherited his fathers hair, eyes, nose and sharp jawline, but got his mother's lips, cheekbones and eyebrows.

They had died long ago, but Aelin would have liked to have met them. Rowan said that they would have liked her, eventually, as he believed that they wouldn't have known what to do with her at first.

Aelin gave Rowan a big smile as the question formed in her mind. And since Rowan knew her so well, he said, “No.”

“You don't even know what I was going to say!” She protested, but it was a lie.

“I am not growing a beard.”

“Please, for me? Just a little one?”

“No.”

“How about some stubble?”

He sighed, exasperated, knowing that there was no point in arguing. “Fine. I'll grow some stubble and that's it.”

“Mm-hmm. Whatever you say, buzzard.”

He sighed again, but there was a small smile on his lips. He returned to his book, and telling her what it was about when Aelin asked. It made her heart swell that her warrior found time to read, as he admitted to her months ago that he never really had the opportunity when he was sworn to Maeve.

Not wanting to ruin today with thoughts of her, Aelin grabbed her own book by her pillow and read, luxuriating in Rowan's warmth and love and in the company of a good book.

X X X X X X

Aelin was losing, but she made sure that the irritation that was coursing through her didn't show on her face. Playing chess with an experience strategist was an absurd idea, but she was determined not to quit.

Rowan had been wanting for her to make her move. Had been waiting for fifteen minutes. Fleetfoot was by her feet, but she was just waiting for the roast lamb to be done.

Five minutes later, Aelin finally made her move. Her eyes flicked up towards Rowan, but his face was stone. He made his move in a blink of an eye. “Checkmate.”

Fire coated her throat as Aelin screeched in frustration, which just made Rowan laugh. Fleetfoot howled and ran off.

Aelin grumbled under her breath as she put away the chess board (for now, they would definitely be playing again once Aelin had more food in her stomach) while Rowan put their dinner on the plates, smiling all the while. Behind him, his mate vowed that she would beat him one day at chess. His smile widened.

Rowan knew that if he said he could beat her even with a blind-fold on, she would go on about how big his head was.

Fleetfoot came back, getting in the way of his feet as he put his and Aelin's dinner down. He gave Fleetfoot the plate reserved for her, using his powers to cool it down, not missing Aelin's soft smile as he did so.

They ate dinner in companionable silence, with Rowan's thoughts on his cousins. He was sure that he wasn't going to get a single thing done while they were visiting. Or if he did, he knew that some of his cousins would want to intrude.

Thinking about it more, he knew that they were going to intrude. Enda had written in-between the lines that there were some cousins that didn't really believe that Rowan was King-Consort and would only believe it once they saw him in action.

That they would actually believe once they saw him in his crown.

And even then, he was sure that there'd be at least one or two that still wouldn't believe it.

Rowan would let them think whatever they wanted about him, it wouldn't matter to him.

Maybe he should have just invited Enda and his mate—but Aelin was looking forward to meeting his family, so he would just deal with it.

It would only be a couple of weeks, possibly three. At best, four, since it was a long journey. He could last.

Rowan could do it, he would just have to block them out if they became too much. He had done that in the past.

“If you keep furrowing your brows like that, they'll replace your eyes,” Aelin said, slathering a fresh slice of bread with butter and running it through the left over gravy on her plate.

Rowan grunted but tried to relax his forehead. It took him a minute longer than it should have.

Later on, they went for a late night swim. Which was slowly turning into something more, up until Fleetfoot jumped into the water with them, saturating them further.

It was the best first day that Aelin could have asked for, and was very much looking forward to the rest of the week.

X X X X X X

Aelin woke up to one of her favourite sights. Rowan shirtless, sleeping on his stomach, his tattooed arm curled around Fleetfoot who slept between them all night. The hounds golden head half on Rowan's pillow, her paws stretching towards Aelin, her furry face soft in sleep.

Smiling, Aelin shuffled closer, and wrapped her own arms around the pup, her fingers just touching Rowan.

Joyful, Aelin fell back asleep, a smile still on her face.

[butwhatifidothis]

I have thought it would have been a hella better game if Sothis had been the protagonist too! Here’s how I imagine it would be like:

Byleth is the actual reincarnation of Sothis and the child-Sothis we see at the start of the game is actually her subconsciousness. Sothis/Byleth is still the emotionless mercenary with no social skills when the game starts, but she does become more and more emotional and expressive as she begins interacting with specifically Rhea, Flayn and Seteth, her old family. They do form a bond with the lords and the students though (I think the dynamic in AM as a close friend is nice) and most of Byleth’s thoughts are shown through child-Sothis’ commentary.

They can still have the “protagonist being ignorant about Fodlan” thing going on, but with a little twist that it is actually because Sothis keeps confusing the old Fodlan of her era with modern Fodlan and gets blinding headache all the time but actually that is her getting flashbacks. Because of this Jeralt took them away to Morfis (which didn’t exist in her time yet) and they only returned recently after being hired by Rodrigue who had them take care of some bandits in the Kingdom (that is why she has heard of the Tragedy but doesn’t know the details of it).

For example, when she leads the class to the Red Canyon, she mistakenly thinks it is a big, prosperous city that is supposed to be the capital of Fodlan and the lords and Rhea have to explain to her the legend of Zanado. Then she faints and gets a flashback of a beautiful city called Zanado with many humans and dragons living together in peace and unimaginably sophisticated technology located in the exact same valley. She confuses a lot of places with old Fodlan too. To her, Arianrhod is still a small fishing village, Fhirdiad is a food paradise and tourist’s attraction, Goneril is the capital of Agartha, a neighbouring belligerent nation, Enbarr is an ordinary small town where she landed when she first crashed into Fodlan, the Valley of Torment is a fertile valley with a large population focused on agriculture, the Church of Seiros is supposed to be called the Church of Sothis instead and she doesn’t know what the knights are because such concepts did not exist in her time nor Morfis, etc.

Of course, because she often gets so confused by the current Fodlan, the lords and Rhea still have a lot of explaining to do every time they have to travel somewhere like they do in the game. Claude becomes very suspicious of her too.

When she gets attacked by Solon, child-Sothis merges with Sothis, now reincarnated as Byleth, and regains her memories and power as the goddess and from now on her emotions and stuff are back. Then a cutscene showing Sothis’ memory of how and why she came to Fodlan as an alien, how she created the Nabateans and passed her knowledge to the humans in Fodlan, how Fodlan thrived as a nation of Nabateans and humans living together, how Agartha rose as a highly technologically advanced belligerent neighbouring country in the east and how Fodlan and Agartha fought in a war that devastated the entire world so much that she spent centuries healing it until it finally began prospering again and she went to sleep. In her memory we are also shown that the Nabateans all had symbols like the current crests of the 12 Elites and we are misled into thinking those with the crests are the descendants of the Nabateans. The cutscene then ends abruptly when Sothis is jolted from her sleep and the last thing she sees is a wicked man (Nemesis) raising an axe on her and a young girl’s screams that she knows it’s her daughter Seiros.

She is very confused right now because apparently the world she knew is just completely forgotten by the people, and apparently five of her children founded an empire called Adrestia with a human an entire thousand years ago. She knows they can live longer than 1000years and realises they must still be alive now and wants to find them. She also doesn’t know how she died too and is rather panicked that she will be killed again if word gets out she is Sothis. Ah, and she is very curious of the true identities of the 12 Elites as their first names were not recorded and shared the same crests with some of her children. Sothis worries if they were her children who adopted a different surname because that would mean her children fought amongst each other and may be they destroyed each other to the point that Fodlan was in such a ruin that no one remembers the old Fodlan now.

After this cutscene showing the old Fodlan under Sothis’ guidance ends, Byleth who has now remembered her life as Sothis and regained her full power, wakes to Rhea singing a lullaby very popular in old Fodlan so Sothis thinks Rhea may know something about the old Fodlan, but she is paranoid because she thinks there are parts of her memory missing and does not know for sure if Rhea is trustworthy. As a result, she doesn’t immediately tell Rhea she is Sothis and Rhea is not aware that her mother has already come back.

Rhea suggests having Sothis sit on the Holy Throne to jolt her memory and she accepts, hoping to remember what happened to her after the man with the axe showed up. However, before she can sit on the actual throne, Edelgard comes in with her soldiers and battle begins. Then the Imperial army attacks the Monastery before Sothis gets a chance to investigate and talk to Rhea/Seteth/Flayn. Sothis is completely stunned when Rhea turns into a dragon to protect the people because she finally realises Rhea is Seiros all along. She goes back immediately to protect Seiros when she is in danger but gets hit by Thales’ magic energy balls and falls down the cliff. She manages to tell Seiros she is Sothis before falling down the cliff though.

From this point, the route differs into the three non-CF routes.

SS will be a more personal story about Sothis trying to recover her memory and finding out what happened to her family. Sothis will also slowly realise Seteth and Flayn are her family and Macuil and Indech will also join them on this route to help rescue their little sister. Unfortunately, none of them can tell Sothis what exactly happened on the day of the Red Canyon Tragedy because Seiros was the only survivor and the four of them weren’t present in Zanado at the time. They can only tell Sothis that the five of them banded together with Wilhelm, a human and later Seiros’ husband and fought with Nemesis and his 12 Elites who tried to conquer the southern half of the continent and subjugate them to his tyranny. They can confirm the 12 elites were not their siblings and just magically got the crests of their family via unknown means. In the end Sothis rescues her daughter and storms Shambhala. The family are happily reunited and strive to rebuild Fodlan together after Rhea explains what she did to Sothis in her infant state.

VW will be a story about Sothis and Claude learning about what happened to old Fodlan and Agartha. Claude notices that Sothis has been reading up on the founding of the empire/church and the legends about the 12 Elites/saints too. He suggests they team up because he is also doing the same thing. Sothis tells him about the truth of her identity, her missing memory and the old Fodlan she remembers. This clarifies things up for Claude so Claude actually opens up to Sothis and begins trusting her as a friend and the rest follows canon. Rhea will explain what happened in the Tragedy and the fates of their family. Sothis and Claude take down Nemesis to avenge herself and her family. They also learn that Agartha is why Almyra and Fodlan fight all the time.

AM will still focus on Dimitri and the Kingdom but this is how I would frame the story: Sothis thinks the Kingdom nobles descended from the 12 Elites are the descendants of the Nabateans and may know something about her children and what happened to them. Sothis asks Dimitri if he has heard of the Nabateans. Dimitri doesn’t know anything but promises he will help Sothis investigate into this. Everything follows canon until Cornelia’s death, who not only taunts Dimitri about his stepmother but also mocks Byleth that she is assisting the descendants of the 12 elites who slaughtered her entire family 1000 years ago in a war against the descendants of her own children. Sothis in the end comes to term with the possibility that Dimitri’s ancestors might have killed her and her family and continues to support Dimitri as she believes he will make a good king while Edelgard is currently a terrible ruler who has caused the suffering of thousands of people.

CF, on the other hand, will be a much darker story. After Sothis wakes up to Rhea singing to her, she gets to choose between “ask Rhea” and “ask Edelgard” about the saints and the elites. If “ask Edelgard” is chosen, Edelgard will ask why and you can choose “tell Edelgard the truth”. She will lie and convince Sothis into helping her by telling her that Seiros and the four faints did a major cover-up and they were the ones who killed sothis and turned their blades against the rest of their siblings for power. The man Sothis saw in her memory was a bandit hired by the five saints to kill sothis and the other children, known as the 12 elites now, banded together to resist Seiros around a heroic mortal that is Nemesis. When they lost, Seiros hunted down the 12 elites, crafted weapons from their bones and gave their blood to her own allies. The church then lied to the people again that the 12 elites were helping her because one of the five saints didn’t want people to remember their siblings as villains forever. Her own ancestor wilhelm helped Seiros in her unjust war for power and she intends to make things right now and asks if Sothis wants to be a part of that. If Sothis refuses her offer and expresses her scepticism of Edelgard’s claims, the game will immediately end because Edelgard will kill her.

If chooses “yes” then you enter the CF route. Edelgard tells Sothis she intends to declare war on the church to take down Rhea and take back the lands occupied by the evil descendants of the people who slaughtered Sothis’ children, aka Faerghus and Leicester. Edelgard, however, tells Sothis she intends to capture Rhea so Sothis will be able to ask Rhea the same questions to prove her claim. They do not return to the Monastery for the Holy Throne ritual and the coronation scene and war declaration scene play instead. When Sothis returns to the Monastery, she is with the Imperial army intended to conquer the Monastery. Sothis confronts an infuriated Rhea, who is extremely mad about her betrayal, and asks why Rhea/Seiros sent the assassin on her and killed her siblings. Seiros quickly realises Byleth/Sothis is in fact the reincarnation of her mother, but Edelgard notices that and has Thales attack Sothis from behind to prevent Seiros from telling Sothis the truth and swaying her to their side. Sothis falls off the cliff and Seiros tries to kill Edelgard for turning her mother against her and killing her again before she retreats to the Kingdom.

Five years later, Sothis wakes up and rejoins Edelgard’s army only to find out the Empire is on the brink of collapse against the combined might of the Kingdom-Church-Alliance with only Garreg Mach, Gronder, Fort Merceus and Enbarr left in their control. Not all of the Black Eagle students are fighting on their side either - Ferdinand, Dorothea, Petra and Caspar have abandoned the Empire and are fighting for the Kingdom-Church-Alliance army while Linhardt and Bernadetta simply refused to join the war. Instead, Ladislava, Fleche, Randolph, Count Bergliez, Arundel and Jeritza have become your new units.

Sothis continues to help Edelgard in the war and they quickly reclaim the territories lost to the allied powers. As they continue to push forward, Sothis encounters Seteth and the other three saints too (Indech and Macuil joined Rhea after learning of what Edelgard did to Sothis) on the battlefield. They will try to tell Sothis the truth and you have an option between “question Edelgard’s claims and spare them” and “believe in Edelgard’s words and kill them”. If the former is chosen, the game will end immediately as Edelgard will backstab Sothis instantly if she knows Sothis has turned against her. The rest follows canon, but Seiros will try to tell Sothis the truth again on Tailtean. Sothis will be killed if she believes Seiros instead of Edelgard here too. Heartbroken and traumatised by the fact that her mother has killed all of her only remaining family members and has already tried to kill her twice and is about to come and kill her again, Seiros transforms into a dragon in Fhirdiad and sets the city to fire once the citizens have been evacuated, hoping to bring down all of her enemies including her mother with the fire in order to avenge her friends and family.

In the end, Sothis kills Seiros as canon but loses her power and immortality as a goddess because it was Seiros’ magic that kept the creststone alive, and without the protection magic on the stone it would just be an ordinary stone and couldn’t function as a heart. Sothis almost dies without a working heart but the Agarthans save her by a heart replacement surgery on her using Seiros’ heart on the condition that she will give them the Crest of Flames creststone and the sword and share her blood with them regularly. Everything else continues as canon and the route can end with a realistic dark ending (everything crashes and burns) or a fake happy ending (the one in the game).

YOOOO dude this is great! Byleth as a character is so uninteresting, at least to me, because the only actually interesting thing about them is something that was done to them, not something they did. Byleth was born without a heart and was given the heart of a long-dead Goddess to let them live - neat! Intriguing! But nothing else catches your eye like that about them. They live on as a mercenary who apparently only wanted to ever ask questions about anything ever at all once they get to the monastery. The biggest thing they’ve done is make a name for themselves for how well they fight in battle. 

Now, we pivot the idea of Sothis being the protagonist, that’s where things start getting interesting. She fell from the stars and created new life? She helped humans prosper in knowledge only to have that knowledge be used for evil? She healed all of Fodlan from the devastation caused by the war humans enacted and fell into a sleep because of it? Those are all things she does that are worth getting to know more about. Her being murdered during her rest by another greedy human and was reduced to nothing but a dormant consciousness for a thousand years being coupled with the “being given the heart of a long-dead Goddess” being what was done to her isn’t the only interesting thing about them anymore. That’s all stuff that offers so much to the player to want to delve into, especially with a character who is gradually more and more vocal about their want to learn about themselves, with thoughts and feelings about what happened to them, what happened to their family, what they did in the past they can’t remember. 

I especially like all the ways you can just get a game over in CF - in a way that reminds me of that one mission in Sacred Stones where if you beat the boss you get an insta-game over since he was your only way to progress the story lmao, except this is turnt up to 11, and instead of punishing you for being a dingus and fucking up the plot, in a way it’s trying to save you from becoming a kin-killing pawn to a tyrant.

About the only thing I might have a bit of a ehhh with is Agartha being why Almyra and Fodlan feud, just because I find them feuding due to themselves and not a third party to be more interesting to me (personally! That’s just for me lol, it’s not an inherently bad notion!), but thanks you so much for sending this!! 

[headcanonsandcupcakes]

hola muh dude: so I hear your a maiko shipper? Possibly? Do you have any random Headcanons for them two?

Hey my friend!!! I am so sorry I am getting back to you late on this! I had so many thoughts going around my head regarding these two, that I had to take time to write what I really wanted on this :) Yes, I am a Maiko, Zutara, and Jinko shipper :) But Maiko will always be #1! Are you ready for a lengthy headcanon? Warning: It is also a little depressing :(

- The childhood crush between Zuko and Mai wasn’t one-sided. Zuko also took an affection to Mai, however, it wasn’t as intense of a crush like Mai had for Zuko.

- As they got older, the playing field became level. They had their first kiss together and also hung out with each other outside of Azula (although it was limited because she was threatening). Mai was also the reason why Zuko got into knives and swords. He saw her playing with a small one, and decided he wanted to like knives too, because she liked them. Eventually the interest progressed into swords :)

- Zuko was actually going to ask Mai to be his girlfriend the day after the Agni Kai. However, that never happened. 

- Mai attended the Agni Kai to support Zuko, as she knew he could beat the general. Once she saw that it was Ozai that would be dueling Zuko, she realized it was game over for Zuko. Even as the years passed, she never liked to think about that day. 

- Zuko was banished the day after the Agni Kai, and she never got to properly say goodbye. They kept in touch as best as they could via messenger hawk, but Mai noticed that Zuko drastically changed. It hurt her so much to know that he was going to a TON of pain and turmoil, and she couldn’t do anything about it. Being “friends” with Azula didn’t help matters either, as Mai had to hear horrible commentary about Zuko from Azula. It disgusted her that Azula didn’t even care about her own brother.

- Despite everything that was going on with Zuko, Mai was his shining light. Besides searching for the Avatar, Zuko would look forward to her letters, as that was his only happiness. This explains why he couldn’t get close to Song or Jin, and why it seemed like their relationship came out of nowhere, because they were regularly in contact (until Zuko and Iroh went on the run). Zuko felt a sense of loyalty to Mai, and didn’t want to hurt her by dating other girls. 

- Although Mai had a lack of passion for everything else, she was quite passionate in the bedroom. She is the one who was insistent on cheering up Zuko in “Nightmares and Daydreams”, by having sex, which Zuko graciously accepted. That time was not their first time, however, but rather their first time was during their Ember Island vacation (after ruining Chen’s house). To say the least, Zuko is very awkward, and Mai took charge of most of the activities that night (despite it both being their first time).

- Mai and Zuko dated for two years after the war ended, but took a break because Zuko was struggling with Fire Lord duties and felt that he couldn’t be a proper boyfriend to Mai. Mai rebounded fast, and started dating a councilman’s assistant. Zuko was jealous, but knew that he couldn’t give her what she needed and wanted. 

- Mai ended up dating this man for three years, and many of the nobles thought they were going to get engaged. During this time, Zuko didn’t date anyone and still was madly in love with Mai (this didn’t impress his advisors, who were in insistent on setting him up with someone for an heir). Additionally, although Mai was dating this other man, she still kept in touch with Zuko, and would even visit the palace to check up on him. 

- However, a day came where Mai broke up with the other man. She told Zuko it was because she didn’t see a future with him. Nothing happened between Zuko and Mai for 8 months, as they enjoyed just being friends and being in each others’ company. But, that didn’t last too much longer, as Zuko couldn’t stand to let her get away again. So, he asked her if she would like to try again with their relationship, in which Mai responded, “took you long enough, you’re the one that I want in my future.”

- Their second time dating was a huge success. They realized that the time apart, as well as maturing a little bit, really helped solidify their relationship. They still had their fights, sure, but it wasn’t as unstable as it was when they were teenagers. 

- They dated for a year, until Zuko proposed to Mai. He proposed by getting down on one knee, and presented her a knife that he welded himself. This was the first time he ever saw Mai cry, as she exclaimed, “Yes!”

- Their wedding was absolutely beautiful, and they enjoyed a nice honeymoon on a remote island near the Western Air Temple. They enjoyed married life for several years, and cringed at Uncle Iroh and Mai’s mother’s asks about children. Zuko made a decision a long time ago that he NEVER wanted children because of his childhood, and Mai supported his decision.

- When Mai finds out that she’s pregnant, she’s nervous on Zuko’s reaction (at this point, he was willing to give Tom Tom or Kiyki the throne). She hid it for a few weeks, until Zuko asked her why she was getting sick, eating weird things, and being much moodier than usual, that she confessed. His mind went blank for a moment, but tears automatically streamed on his face. He was already in love with their baby, and realized how stupid he looked for not wanting children.

- When he first felt the baby move in Mai’s belly, he started bawling his eyes out. He loved Mai being pregnant, and enjoyed catering to her every need. One of Mai’s favorite things that Zuko did for her when she was pregnant was that he would heat his hands and place them on her lower back. He also gave into every craving she had, including fire flakes with pickles and ice cream (this was a favorite request of hers). He also was a helicopter husband, as he wanted to ensure that her and the baby were always safe.

- When Mai was in labor, he broke the Fire Lord tradition of not being in the room. He wanted to be there for his wife and see the birth of his daughter. When their daughter was born, they gave her the name Izumi, meaning fountain, where it all started. He was afraid to hold Izumi, as he thought that his daughter would be afraid of his face. After some reassurance from Mai, he held her in his arms, where she looked at him with big golden eyes. He thanked Agni for this blissful moment, and the life he had. It was at this moment that he swore to Izumi that he would always love her, and would NEVER hurt her. 

- Zuko and Mai took to parenting rather well. They wanted to both be hands-on parents, and didn’t want nannies or wet nurses involved at all. Even though Mai always showed a blank canvas, Izumi and Zuko were the only ones that could make her smile and cry of happiness.

- A year and a half after Izumi was born, Mai started to get really bad headaches, to the point that she would have to be bedridden for the day when she would get them. Zuko got really worried, and insisted on Katara coming to the palace to see what the problem was, but Mai told him to back off. She was convinced that it was due to lack of sleep or stress. He did eventually write to Katara, much to Mai’s dismay, and Katara said she would come to visit as soon as she was able (she just had Bumi five months prior to Izumi’s birth, but he was a handful).

- One day, when Izumi was two years old, Mai fainted and had a seizure out in the gardens. Izumi was too young to understand what was going on, and cried for 20 mins until one of the guards found them. Zuko was informed of what happened to Mai during a budget meeting, where he left to the infirmary without saying a word.

- The Fire Sages confirmed that Mai had a death in her brain (cancer wasn’t really studied during their time, but essentially Mai had stage 3 brain cancer). Mai only lived for 6 more months after that. Zuko took time off from his Fire Lord duties (Uncle Iroh stepped in) to take care of Mai at her bedside. Aang, Katara, and Bumi moved into the palace full time to take care of Mai as well.

- Every night, once he put Izumi to bed, Zuko would fire bend in a feral manner. He was incredibly angry that life was dealing him this card, and was also very stressed, because of the pain his wife was going through and also trying to stay strong for their daughter (he had surpassed his Book One anger, that’s for sure). Uncle Iroh, Ursa, and Aang were the only ones keeping him from not going on a rampage, although they understood why he was feeling this way.

- During the last three weeks of Mai’s life, the Gaang came in to check on Zuko, as well as help with the care of Izumi. Zuko was distracted because he knew Mai’s time was coming soon, and wanted to be with her for every moment. However, they had a two year old daughter, and that two year old had needs. So, the Gaang stepped in to feed and put Izumi to bed when she couldn’t stand being at her mother’s bedside any longer (she’s a toddler, it happens).

- Katara tried her best to heal Mai, however, she was too far gone. On the last day of her life, she looked up at Zuko and Izumi with glassy eyes and rasped, “I love you”. Mai died a few hours after that. 

- Izumi was too young to understand what had happened to her mother, however, it didn’t make it easier for Zuko to tell his own daughter that her mother, his wife, the light that kept him going during his banishment, the one that always had faith in him, was no longer on this earth. Although he wanted to be sad and completely disengage from the world, he couldn’t because he needed to stay strong for his daughter. 

- However, Zuko was still numb after Mai passed. He didn’t eat or sleep for two weeks, and went through the motions of the day as if he wasn’t in his own body at all. Even with taking care of Izumi, he wasn’t really “there”. Katara took notice of this, and told Zuko that he needed to grieve. So, he grieved the only way he knew how: being incredibly destructive. He burned an entire wing of the palace that was abandoned for decades. He sat in the middle of the flames and cried for many hours. 

- Mai was buried near the fountain where it all started. Mai always said that she loved that fountain, so Zuko made the decision to bury her right there. For many years after her death, Zuko made it a point to visit her grave every day. Even if he was incredibly busy with Fire Lord duties, he would commit to seeing her and talking to her. The silence when he didn’t hear anything back was always so hard to hear. 

- Izumi doesn’t remember her mother at all, however, Zuko will always talk about Mai to ensure that her legacy is prominent. There are many times in Izumi’s life where he wished she was around to see how amazing of a person Izumi had become. Even when it has been 15 years since Mai’s death, Zuko still aches for her. Before he goes to sleep every night, he kisses the painting that they took together when they were teenagers and says, “goodnight my love”.

[whimsywispsblog]

All’s Not Fair in Love and War

A/N: Hello hello! Here’s chapter 5 for y’all! This one’s got some sadness and angst. Enjoy!

PART1, PART2, PART3, PART4

CHAPTER 5

March 12, 1981

The team sadly lost Lazar in Cuba. It was a great loss for the team and a horrible heartbreak for Park. They never even got the chance to let their feelings for each other bloom. The pain of loosing Lazar felt awfully familiar to her. Just like Harry. Loosing her brother was one of the most difficult phases in Park's life. He was someone who she confided in, someone who she trusted and admired. Someone who she loved with all her heart and soul, lying with blood splattered all around him, lifeless body staring at the distant sky. A haunting image that could never be erased from her mind. Lazar's death was just like that, except she saw him getting shot twice, the poor man helplessly surrendering to death. The scenario kept replying in her mind. -As soon as the team got back, Adler put Bell in a session. Poor Bell. He kept blaming himself for Lazar's death. He never even got a chance to mourn properly. "Adler! Let him rest! I don't think he's-""Not now, Rei. We need answers." Of course. He needs answers. Rei prepared the room for the session with Sims. "I hope he can survive this...he doesn't look well." Rei whispered to herself. If Bell dies, it was all for nothing. If the programme backfires, they loose everything. And Adler...good lord Adler. That man is going to get the boy killed. "We're doing an intercebral injection." Rei nodded to Adler, taking the injection. "Injecting directly into the brain could provoke seizures, or worse." Park warned, earning a glare from Adler."Unless, we don't overdo anything and keep the adrenaline from spiking. Hopefully" Rei replied, injecting. "We have a job to do." And that's when all hell broke loose. -Park hadn't noticed the time that had passed by while she kept staring at the wall in her apartment. The session was a success, minus a lot of drama from Rei and Adler. But Park's mind was caught up elsewhere...with Lazar."Park?" It was Rei. "You okay?"Park nodded her head sideways, tears now starting to roll doen her cheeks. Rei reached out to the woman. Park accepted her hug, burying her face in Rei's chest. She let out all her tears of agony, little sobs and wails escaping from her mouth. Rei kept rubbing her back, soothing her with her soft whispers of consolation. The death of Lazar had affected the whole team, even Hudson. They stayed like that for quite sometime, until Park left the hug to compose herself. Rei handed her a glass of water. "I talked to Chief. He said that they will let Bell in. He will stay under my wing." Park sipped a glass of water. The hiccups after crying made her squeal a little. Rei kept rubbing Park's upper arm. "That's great, but there's bad news. According to the plan that I overheard, Hudson wants Adler to kill Bell there in Solovetsky, away from the crowd. He has to make it look like an accident."

"Oh God. We have to improvise our plans then." Rei stared out of the window. The recollections of yesterday's session where Adler injected Bell through the eye socket and forced him to give everything without giving the boy even a moment to process his traumas. That was the first time in her life where she got highly physical with Adler. "Russell fucking Adler! Stop it! You're going to get him killed!" Rei kept pushing Adler away from Bell. He kept increasing the doses, like as if Bell's mind is a respawning game. Rei had enough. She pushed Adler away and ordered Park to get Bell out. The fight turned into a screaming match between Rei and Adler. In the end, Sims had to drag Rei out and Hudson had to hold her back from attacking. The two of them refused to even look at each other. Rei rubbed her bruised arm, thanks to Adler holding it tightly while getting her away from the room. "We need to get him to trust us." Park looked at Rei with an eyebrow raised. "Yes, but how?"

"We talk to him." Rei shrugged. "Park. How about tomorrow you stay close to Bell and once it's over, you pull Bell away? I'll get a ride for us and we can leave."

"We can do that, but, I doubt Adler will leave Bell out of his sight, unless we tell Bell about Adler's plans." The girls looked outside, deep in thought on how they can pull Bell out of the situation. To Park, Bell was her only chance in life to do something she couldn't- save her brother and Lazar. It was the same for Rei- the loss of her brother, Riley.-"Alright Bell, listen up." Park pulled Bell into a room. Luckily no one was there close by except for Sims and Rei. The girls came up with a brilliant plan. The Chief of MI6 would convince Black to let Bell go, once they manage to get Bell out of the field. Park and Bell will fly to London, immediately after the mission. Rei will stay back to handle the situation, if things turn ugly. "Tomorrow, once the mission is over, you will ride with me. I'll tell you where I am. Whatever you do, do not go with Adler."

"Why not?"

"A complicated situation which I will explain later. Give me a set of your civilian clothes. Once you're off the field, we will be picked up by an informant, where you will change your clothes and head for the airport, straight to London." Bell looked at Park, perplexed. "But...why are you doing this?"

"Bell, I owe you. This is the only way I can repay, making you MI6. It's the easiest escape route to give you a life of some degree of normalcy. I have done enough damage to you, maybe you don't trust me. But this one time, I need your trust." Bell looked at Park. Her eyes were red, swollen. The tone of her voice was that of someone pleading. True, he wasn't sure who to trust, but if she seemed to be ready to put her neck in the line for him..."Alright. I'll come. But, can I trust you?" 

"Of course." Park smiled. 

"Are we ready?" Rei barged in. The two nodded.

 -Everything went according to the plan in the Battle of Solovetsky. The nukes were stopped from detonating. The soldiers were busy celebrating the victory. But for Rei, Bell and Park, victory was yet to be achieved. According to the plan, Bell will excuse himself from the group when Park sends the cue 'Aah the artic air'  and somewhere a little further, Park will pick him up. From there, Rei will pick up the duo and a ride a little further, with 2 helicopter rides to the safehouse in West Berlin (sponsored by some 'friends').As soon as Bell got the cue, he waited for five minutes, laughing and hugging Woods and Mason. "Ah nature's call. Got to take this one." Woods snickered at Bell. From there the plan went beautifully. -"Okay, so it's a pretty long ride to Germany and we'll be stopping a couple of times." Rei yawned. Bell looked out of the window as Park treated his wounds ."Tell me again, why isn't the Chief talking to Hudson now, instead of us performing this drama?"

"Long story short, if Bell dies on the mission on the way or if Bell gets captured anytime now, then he becomes a liability to MI6. But once we're out of Solovetsky, I'll send the code and he will let Hudson know." Rei kept pondering, not fully understanding the situation. Bell was completely lost. The boy had too much to process. From loosing his identity, thanks to CIA and now being deemed a loose end after everything he's done for them, the boy found it too hard to digest anything at all. "Would the MI6 consider me a loose end?" Rei and Park looked at Bell, the boy giving them both an innocent puppy dog eyes. He looked so vulnerable and scared. "Well, once you win their trust, you'll be considered one of them. You have already won mine, you don't have to worry about anything." Bell nodded. His eyes grew heavy. The last few days' theatrics was finally taking a toll on him.

-

"Wait, come again? They want Bell? Park taking responsibility? Under Park's wing? But he- okay. Okay sir. Understood. I'll send the necessary documents for the transfer." Hudson rubbed his forehead in frustration. "What's the scene?" Adler blew out smoke. The anger in his eyes was concealed by his shades. "Your girlfriend and her best friend managed to sneak out Bell from under your eyes. MI6 wants Bell, they talked to Black. Park will take Bell to CIA. They will send an informant now, to whom I'll have to give the documents for the transfer." Adler sighed, he was boiling with anger. If Bell decided to turn his back against them, they will be in deep trouble. "Damn. Am I glad that your girlfriend had the balls to do something that I wanted to do." Mason glared at the two men. Woods just chuckled. "Mason we-""If he wanted to do something, he'd have done it by now." Mason was right. Why would Bell willingly give up everything he knew despite knowing that they had robbed him of his identity? "Right. We'll settle this in West Berlin. Pack up." Adler commanded, leaving to his room. He took out his wallet. In it was a polaroid of Rei that he had clicked a long time back. It was a beautiful moment he captured. Rei laughing merrily, her eyes twinkling, her long dark hair swaying sideways to the breeze- all under a beautiful blue sky. His thumb rubbed her face softly. "What are you up to, Rei" he whispered.

TAGLIST:

@lovinggooppalacebanana​

@quizzyisdone @sophtheunlikelybakeryfestival @nikkibell1937 @pookolokon​

[onslaughtsixdotcom]

Scaling Up Dragon Heist

Around April or May of 2019, I started to run Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, one of the official WotC 5e hardcovers. I’m still not done with it, although that is largely the fault of COVID and my own extensions to the campaign. 

I think Dragon Heist is one of the better 5e modules by WotC. I think it’s got a strong playground for the characters, and Waterdeep has 30+ years of publication history to draw on. The release of the module also heralded in a HUGE amount of third party extension content, including the famous Alexandrian Remix. I hadn’t heard of this before I started running my campaign and having ideas about how to do it, so it didn’t influence me--although I’m sure we came to a lot of similar conclusions and ideas, based on common perceptions of what the actual flaws are of the module.

Still, despite those flaws, I think they help the module rather than hinder it. It gives the DM a shitload of room to improvise and draw in the margins, rather than some other 5e adventures which feel like they can’t be fucked with in the least.

Here’s the kicker: I started my adventure at level 4. We had a pre-existing party that I had run through the classic N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God. (Fun fact: A map that I drew is the 3rd Google Images result for that. Woah.)

The party spent a few real-world weeks traveling across about 7 days of overland travel where I ran some drop in one shots; including Mike Krahulik’s Dusk (a Twilight parody) and a really fun 2 hour diversion where the players saw an ancient blue dragon take off the roof of a church during a wedding. Then they arrived in my city: Dawnharbour.

I don’t run the Forgotten Realms. I find it not to my taste. Most of the names suck. The lore is invariably boring or weird, and not the fun kind of weird. I was going to run Dragon Heist, and I was going to put it in my own city. I gave the players some justification previously for why they would want to go there: The cleric’s sister had been kidnapped by the Cult of the Reptile God and turned into a Yuanti; a snake person. The bard had stolen a golden statue of the Reptile God and wanted to melt it down and plate his violin with it. I told the cleric that they would need a high level magic user and someone in Dawnharbour could probably help them; ditto the bard needing a highly skilled magical blacksmith. The third player didn’t really care where they went since he was on the run from his home country. So, off to Dawnharbour. They reached level 4 when they got to the city.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the details of my city or everything I changed for the campaign. Instead, I’ll talk up some hard and fast ways to make the adventure work for a higher level party. Most of them revolve around the encounters. I’m assuming the party will start around level 4 or 5.

Chapter 1

The book opens with the players in the Yawning Portal, a famous tavern with a big ass well to a megadungeon underneath. (More on this later.) They’re hanging out doing whatever when a troll and some stirges pop out of the well. The book says that the players get attacked by the stirges while the owner of the bar, a typical Forgotten Realms 15th level Fighter running a fucking bar for a living deals with the troll.

A troll is CR 5. They can handle a troll. If they can’t, you have a bigger problem.

Next up the book leads them to a Zhentarim warehouse. When they get there it’s abandoned and there are (ugh) 3 Kenku. Kenku are like tengu if they sucked. They’re bird people who can only speak in mimickry, like parrots. They can only repeat words they’ve heard before. This is stupid as fuck (especially when a player wants to be one) but more importantly, they are incredibly weak. I think the kenku are just hanging out or they got captured by the Zhentarim who left them there after they bail or something like that. Whatever.

I put the Zhentarim there instead. I put like 20 Zhentarim. I used the Spy statblock; they don’t have a lot of CR and at level 4 or 5, the players are real slice and dicey about killing them. They can basically carve through two of these dudes in a turn. It was *really* fun to just have the players mow down these mooks. They used the 2nd floor to their advantage, casting Grease on the stairs and creating a bottleneck and then picking them off with ranged attacks and spells. I think I might have given the Zhents 1hp and treated them as minions (see 4e). 

I think I had the police show up after they were all dead; someone heard the commotion and called the cops. I think I also put an NPC there; I shuffled around a bunch of the NPCs the module uses. (They got their quest to save Volo from Bigby in the Yawning Portal; instead of finding Volo here, I think they found my equivalent of Renaer Neverremember.) There was a day’s break between this and them going into the sewers in the next part.

The sewer introduces the Xanathar’s minions. I believe a Duergar is actually there and I took this as a sign--I made most of Xanathar’s mooks Duergar, and then decided--this dude is a Beholder and he has a Mindflayer for a lieutenant. The Xanathar’s forces should ALL be classic D&D dungeon monsters, like rust monsters and umber hulks and ropers. This gives you a wide variety of weird shit you can throw at your players at different CR levels, and the idea of a gangster Beholder who thinks hiring a bunch of umber hulks to go shake down a local deli is fucking hilarious. But, it doesn’t make them any less dangerous. Throw some umber hulks or something in this lair. Go nuts--the weirder, the better. Xanathar’s crew should have no qualm about hanging out with a gibbering mouther or a carrion crawler.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is the least developed chapter in the book. It also revolved around a bunch of Forgotten Realms faction nonsense that I wanted nothing to do with. I used this time instead to formally introduce the Xanathar, the Cassalanters and Jarlaxle. After they foiled his plans to rig a goldfish competition (think a dog show but for fish), the Xanathar became convinced the players worked for the Zhentarim and invited them to have a sit down about their intentions; if they worked for the Zhents he wanted to formally declare war. The players hated the Zhents--they killed an NPC they liked back during N1, partially to set this all up. Xanny was cool with that.

The Cassalanters were a way to introduce a new player. They call up the Blackstaff to say, hey we have a magic item, can you send a guy here to deliver it? (Magic item possession is illegal on the streets in my setting, but if someone important hires you to transport it, then you can do it. This makes being a courier a very lucrative job; lots of people are just carrying around other people’s stuff for a living.) They almost immediately knock out the new player sent to pick up the item, and replace him with their dofflegagher. The idea was that the dofflegagher player would then infiltrate the Blackstaff’s organization.

Blackstaff is no dumbass and hired a random dude off the street--my new player. Then, Blackstaff hired the rest of the party to go rescue him--mostly as a ruse to snuff out the Cassalanters and get evidence that they were shitty.

When they encountered the Cassalanters, I used a Cambion; one of their servants turned into him. This guy slowly became a recurring lieutenant; he was basically the Goldar for the Cassalanter’s Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa. At the time, I hadn’t read any lore for Cambions; I’m not particularly concerned with monster lore the way the guys who make the game write it. I literally thumbed through my deck of monsters, saw this winged devil horn dude, and said, “Right on, he looks like he’ll work.” A Cambion is CR5, more than suitable for the encounters the party will have with him over the next few levels. The Fiendish Charm ability is fun and can really fuck with the players; I ruled, of course, that anyone under its affect would obviously be free if the Cambion was killed. Even after it was killed, he just kept on coming back, because he’s from Hell and killing him on this plane doesn’t really do anything.

As the players continue to face the Cassalanters, a go-to seems to be spined devils. This is fine but not very powerful for a level 4, 5, 6 party. Therefore I suggest supplanting it with barbed devils. They’re CR5. Adding one or two of those to an encounter with spined devils can make this a real fun encounter that isn’t too horribly overwhelming, especially if at least one of your martial characters has a magic weapon (which they fucking should; they’re level 5!)

IMO you can also introduce Jarlaxle in this chapter; a fun way is through his Zardoz Zord persona. It could simply be that Jarlaxle knows Volo (or any other NPC the players know) and wants to invite them to a free meal to get to know them. In my game, Jarlaxle operates openly as himself (I found it would just complicate things if he was someone else) and invited the players to his yacht shortly after they met the Xanathar, to formally tell them all about the Vault of Dragons, the Stone, and how everyone they have met in the city is after it.

Chapter 3

I am not the biggest fan of this part of the module. I think nimblewrights and similar creatures are really dumb and don’t fit my D&D world. A lot of the stuff in this chapter is investigation stuff, and you can play that out however you like. It doesn’t drastically need scaling up, though you may have to account for something like Zone of Truth that they might not normally have access to. It also helps if you do the opposite of the book, and make the police a bunch of shitheads who don’t care about the city--this way the players are actually motivated to help. I’ve seen a LOT of posts that open with “the fireball happened and my players shrugged and said they would let the police handle it.” Horrible! The police should either be incompetent, apathetic, or (best case) both. They don’t care who did this and if they did, they wouldn’t be able to catch them. Now it’s completely on the players.

IMO it also helps if you do the leg work to make the NPC someone they actually care about. In the book it’s an NPC they’ve never met but they have a mutual acquaintance through--it would be nice if they get invited to a dinner with this NPC or something similar prior to this. Or, change it to be any NPC they like who you don’t mind killing. Hell, they’re level 5 or 6 at this point--if they got a cleric, they can even cast Revivify and wake the dude up. They could even cast Speak With Dead and immediately find out who blew him up or what he was doing here!

Moving on, there’s the Gralland Villa. I retooled the name to actually sound like a good name; sue me. 

The book has a bunch of Zhents hanging out here. A simple way to make this dramatic and hard is to pull the trigger and make the players fight their way in. The stone is right here at the villa and they need to steal it. Sounds simple enough.

Things got complicated for my party when a recurring NPC appeared. She was an ex girlfriend of the bard in our party; they were both Tieflings. She now worked for the Zhentarim and was basically their second in command. And she was here to steal the stone, come Hell or high water. The bard, still in love with her, was perfectly content to let her steal it and even cover her getaway. The rest of the players, not so much, but when the chaos was ensuing and she was literally running past them with the stone in hand, made the decision that it was smarter to try and help her escape and then figure out how to get the stone from her later, than try and get it from her now.

This led literally directly to chapter 4.

Chapter 4

By now it’s obvious: I used all 4 bad guys.

I ran through the chapter and picked the coolest maps and best encounter ideas, including the rooftop chase, the theater, the sewer and the courthouse. I weaved them together carefully, and all the changes I had made to the groups paid off when they entered the theater, chased by barbed devils and our Cambion friend, only to have an Umber Hulk with the Xanathar’s logo painted on his face crash through the stage, flanked by two Duergar. Add in some Drow gunslingers and it was a fucking party.

(the large hexagon is where somebody cast Darkness; the big scuffed circle is a grody spot on my grid tiles. I still need new ones...)

The courthouse had a great scene where the Cassalanter dofflegagher impersonated the chief of police, interrogating the players for the code word to activate the stone (I added one; who cares?) until the real chief of police showed up! The players had to do an entire encounter with this guy while handcuffed; thank god for verbal only spells, right? 

From here the stone ended up with the players, and then it ended up with Jarlaxle who they are working for. Jarlaxle attuned to it and told them the Vault of Dragons is inside Undermountain; 3, 5 levels deep? Who knows? And it requires 3 keys: The Crown of Asmodeus, the Ring of Winter, and the Robe of the Archmagi.

I gave these 3 magic items to the Cassalanters, the Xanathar and Manshoon. This is a pretty common hack and it means the lairs in the book actually get used. I made up one of the magic items (Crown of Asmodeus) and stole another from a module I don’t intend to run as written (the Ring of Winter is, I believe, in either Tomb of Annihilation or Storm King’s Thunder). They’re fun!

So the rest of the campaign has been the players bouncing between going deep into Undermountain, the megadungeon underneath the Yawning Portal, and going to the 3 different villain factions to steal their shit. 

The villain lairs are NOT statted for level 5 players AT ALL. The players have no hope of actually killing ANY of the villains at level 5; to fight the Xanathar is a pure TPK at level 5. But at level 8, like where my players are now? One of them died and then got Revivified; the others all survived or made their saves when they were hit by death or disintegration. (In the spirit of the Xanathar, I rolled every eye beam randomly, rerolling if I had used that ray in the last round.) That’s about the best you can hope for with a Beholder IMO! 

The rest of the lairs you can mostly run as-is. Any very low CR mooks, basically anything lower than 1 or 2 CR, I would probably replace with a higher CR variant. We’ve already discussed what you can replace them with above, and if you’ve made it this far into the module, you should have a pretty good sense of what your players can handle.

[hockeysweetheart]

President Snow and President Coin

Where to start.... with these two evil ones I was raised on if you have nothing nice to say don’t say nothing at all... but when it comes to these two oh boy....  lord have mercy and forgive me for this one but damn. what the actual f*** was  that. 

Okay really this war is Coin pissed at Snow and Snow like no one put’s Snow in the corner. and so They use two teenagers who are in love but not seprated by one saved by the capitol  one captured.  

 If I were Katniss and Peeta in that moment I’d be like oh I see how this is going we are being used. Well this is between you two and me and Peeta had nothing to do with this besides being your personal pawns so we are gonna go now.. and run the hell outta there... 

One thing I admire about Snow is he did as well as Katniss promise not to lie to each other ( tho he totally was like Oh I don’t want to kill you let’s be friends if not that allies) and the whole ( I don’t beileve your in love with that boy bs)...  oh you must be enjoying the company of this other boy that I just threatened to kill. bla bla bla bla ( the mumbling). 

another thing I’d amire about him mainly because I just laugh. He’s like meh to the swearing at him tears the love poems like nothing knew.... Katniss comes in a freaking Mockingjay and is like Oh my god how the f*** dare you. ( I thought I left that bullshit years ago now you made it a freakin symbol)  and the baby bomb oh my god I’d pay big money to see snows face because I am sure  he would of been like oh my god why me.

admire part 3. Of Snow.... He knows damn good and well that Killing Katniss would set off a chain reaction and Killing Peeta isn’t any better after them breaking out of the arena.

admire 4. of Snow okay he doesn’t deny he killed people he came out flat like it was nothing but still he didn’t even bother to hide the fact that yeah the games killed thousands of children. ( but heres the thing) he might be like yeah I killed so and so but doesn’t admit how. For the most part. but heres a thing for seneca crane like everyone knew about that one.  and he streight up tells Katniss well blames her for it which I am like eye roll. And is like because of you he’s dead and your alive... Isn’t he just a joy.

admire 5. We know hes the bad guy okay he doesn’t even try to deny it.... 

Here is a list a list of things Snow did that pissed me off. 

1. Allowing the Games to go on for so long 

2. Lord knows what he does to his drinks  and roses  and poison. and Snakes blood.... 

3. When he shook his head no he’s not convinced. I wanted to scream...  I am like the nerve of him I swear... 

4. The  Audacity to think Katniss is playing Peeta and enjoying the company of another guy. Just because you fu**** in those woods doesn’t  mean Katniss would do the same plus you knew shes been going into the woods for years. And know nothing freaking happened.. besides hunting and talking about how much  your little system sucks. Here’s the best part if Katniss refused to see Peeta Naked  in the damn Games what makes you think she is fu***** around. Plus Katniss made it clear she  went into the games single af came out with a man she care about clearly or one of them would be dead. 

5. Thinking its okay for freaking 12 year olds to play the games.... Thank god Katniss made a point to be listen this aint okay and this  girl wont stand by it. You go glen coco 

6. We all know  this but it pisses me off... Sending the victors back to the games...  just  because your like well you have a little fued with one of them. 

7. I will never forgive Snow for what he did to Peeta. 

8. The fact he killed Finnick. Nope 

9. When he banned all symbols of the Mockingjay. Like he’s literally scared of a 17 year old. Just saying you kinda asked for it. 

10. Using Peeta as his personal pawn.... to use against the girl he is so in love with and finally she is in love with him and what happens you turn him into something to make him forget hes in love with her. 

I have so much more but that would be the longest post ever... 

Coin she honestly scares me deeply okay. 

My favourite thing is Katniss is like I’ll play your little game but I don’t trust you.  and When Katniss shot her just saying Like she knew her life would be hell with Coin alive no better with Snow dead. So she really shocked us all killing coin and snows exicution  and oh thank god ( okay I am not one to be like people should die but for this fandom thank god it happened that way)

Things that Coin did that Pisses me off. 

1. The okay when the Victors are saved if you step outta line sweetheart  they will have to pay for it too.  I screamed. Like WHAT!!!  at least Katniss knew this time she was being played with or I would of been like umm no I would of pulled an Elle woods move and be like that’s not what we agreed to last night in comand. but she is one sneaky person ...

2. She’s shady af....   

3. This is District 13 in general that fact that they basically sat back and watched the other Districts for years without a we are still alive 

4. The fact that Gale is like her minon. I love how Katniss calls him out on that... because she knows damn well Peeta would never. because they been threw that shit show before and are like oh my god they  are alike snow and coin. 

5. The fact she doesn’t admit her wrong doing... 

6. That she is after Katniss and has no freaking reason too. Okay Snows at least makes a bit of sense but her... This bitch is suppose to be on the same freaking side, and just because Katniss wouldn’t vote for you . You want her dead 

7. Her bullshit Speech over Katniss’s death... the fact she actually teared up I am like oh my god  she literally sent Peeta there to kill you Boggs told you That she is planning to kill you after this war is over. Thank god Katniss didn’t fall for it.  even  Plutarch was like looking at her like you don’t even like her what is this about. Even snow was like Honey I know damn well what your doing...  * the I had no idea I meant so much to her has sarcasm all over it. 

8. She is the reason Prim is dead. and you make it seem like it was Snows idea...

9. The fact she is pretty much using Katniss  against who she loves ( like  she knew that) Katniss figured out how the capitol is using Peeta and still wanted her to preform thank god Katniss has some good people on her side that convinced Coin not to go ahead. 

10. The fact she wants to keep Katniss locked up and as Haymitch says that my firends is how a revoultion dies....

I have so much more but I’ll leave it at that let yall fill in the blanks.. 

[fuckallthegood0nesweretaken]

The Dove and Her Hound - CH. TwentyOne

Title: The Truce

Words: 2,309

Warnings: Some strong language

Taglist: @tonbluemchen @affection-rabbit @art-flirt @10morgan10 @thatting @iwontdance-dontaskme

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

Sandor Masterlist

Game of Thrones Masterlist

Masterlist

~~~~~~~

It had been a long voyage to King’s Landing. Jon and Daenerys were apparently now an item and you had learned something about you. Tyrion had successfully convinced Jaime to talk to Cersei and there was a temporary truce. You and Daenerys still weren’t getting along, but for Jon’s sake you were civil. Now you were walking along with Tyrion, Jon, and Sandor. When your group of people met another, you saw some familiar faces. Brienne of Tarth and Podrick Payne.

 “Welcome, my lord’s. And my lady’s. Some of your friends arrived before you. I’ve been sent to escort you all to the meeting,” the man leading the other group said.

Sandor’s grip on your hand tightened and you looked to see where he was looking. His eyes were glued to Brienne and hers to him. She looked at you after and bowed slightly. You nodded your head back and she looked surprised. Following her gaze, it lead to your intertwined hands. You blushed lightly and a goofy smile found its way to your face. Her eyes still held surprise, but understanding.

 The Dothraki protecting your group went and walked ahead with some of the Lannister men Cersei had sent with Brienne and Podrick. You were still with Sandor when everyone else started moving. Tyrion and Podrick stopped for a second to chat and he bowed his head as you walked past.

 “What’s in the box?” A Lannister soldier asked Sandor.

 “Fuck off,” he replied. The soldier backed off and Brienne took his place.

 “Thought you died,” she said.

 “Not yet. Came pretty close.” You stiffened slightly and held onto Sandor tighter.

 “I was only trying to protect them.”

 “You and me both.”

 After a moment, Brienne spoke again. “She’s alive. Arya.”

 “What?” You said.

 “Where?” Sandor asked.

 “Winterfell. She’s with Sansa and Bran.”

 “Who’s protecting her if you’re here?”

 “She can take care of herself. The only one that needs protecting is the one who gets in her way.” You let out a laugh at that.

 “It won’t be me,” Sandor said. “I have too much to protect here.”

 “Hey! I can take care of myself, thank you very much!”

 “I know you can, but it’s not just you anymore.”

 “What do you mean?” You and Sandor looked at each other. He motioned to go ahead and you looked at Brienne with a blinding smile.

 “I’m with child!”

 Brienne was shocked and gave her congratulations. You couldn’t keep the smile off of your face and if you looked at Sandor you could see the happiness in his eyes. Soon after you dropped that bomb on Brienne, you had arrived at the Dragonpit. You waited for Sandor to finish hitching his horse and cart then walked with him to the pit. Cersei wasn’t there when you were escorted in. It made you uncomfortable. The place you were in was the perfect place for an ambush.

 “I don’t like this,” you said lowly to Jon. Your hands were splayed protectively over your stomach. You were only four months pregnant, but you couldn’t help it.

 “Neither do I. Please stay close to me or Sandor.” Jon looked at you, worry in his eyes. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

 “I promise.”

 Hearing clinking, you looked towards the entrance. Cersei, Jaime, the Mountain, and two men you’ve never seen before were approaching. They took their seats and after they sat down you sat next to Jon. Sandor was standing behind you. He stepped out in front of everyone and approached his brother. You straitened up slightly and watched with hesitant eyes.

 “Remember me? Yeah you do. You’re even fucking uglier than I am now. What did they do to you? Doesn’t matter. That’s not how it ends for you, brother. You know who’s coming for you. You’ve always known.” After his little monologue, he went to go get the Wight.

 “Where is she?” Cersei asked Tyrion.

 “She’ll be here soon.”

 “Didn’t travel with you?”

 “No.”

 Cersei looked angry. She looked at Jaime. He looked back when the sound of wings flapping echoed through the air. He got up in a panic as the shadows of her dragons covered the Pit. They were beautiful yet they still filled you full of fear.

 Drogon roared and made his way down the side of the Pit. You could see the uneasiness in all of the Lannister men and in Cersei and Jaime. Daenerys got off of her dragon and made her way to her seat. Drogon took off into the sky to join his remaining brother.

 “We’ve been here for some time,” Cersei said, venom lacing her voice.

 “My apologies.” You could feel the tension in the air. Tyrion got up and stood in the center of the platform.

 “We are a group of people who do not like one another. We have suffered at each other’s hands. We have lost people we love at each other’s hands. If all we wanted was more of the same, there would be no need for this meeting. We are capable of waging war without meeting face to face.”

 “So instead we should settle our differences and live together in harmony for the rest of our days,” Cersei said.

 “We all know that will never happen.”

 “Then why are we here?”

 Jon stood up and joined Tyrion.

 “This isn’t about living in harmony. It’s just about living,” he spoke. “The same thing is coming for all of us. A general you can’t negotiate with, an army that doesn’t leave corpses behind on the battlefield. Lord Tyrion tells me that a million people live in this city. There’s about to be a million more soldiers in the army of the Dead.”

 “I imagine for most of them it would be an improvement.” Cersei seemed to think this was a joke.

 “This is serious. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t.”

 “I don’t think it’s serious at all. I think it’s all a bad joke.” She looked towards Daenerys. “If my brother Jaime has informed me correctly, you want a truce?”

 “Yes,” Daenerys said. “That’s all.”

 “That’s all? Pull back my armies and stand down while you go on your monster hunt. Or while you expand your position. Hard for me to know which it is with my armies pulled back. Until you turn back and march onto my capital with four times the men.”

 “Your capital will be safe until the Northern threat is dealt with. You have my word.”

 “The word of a would-be usurper.”

 “There is no conversation that can erase the last fifty years. We have something to show you,” Tyrion interjected.

 Sandor came up the steps with the Wight’s box on his back. He set it down and unlatched it, everyone who knew what was in the box was on high alert. When Sandor pushed the lid off of the box and stepped back quickly, your heart beat rapidly. Nothing happened and Sandor kicked the box. The Wight started running towards Cersei and you could see the panic in her eyes. The Wight was stopped before it reached her and Jaime stood up from his seat.

 When it saw Sandor, it rushed towards him. Pulling out his sword, he cut it in half. It still tried to get to him despite not having legs and when it reached out, Sandor cut his arm off. After that, Sandor took his place behind you. Jon took the arm from one of Cersei’s men and Ser Davos lit the torch in his hand.

 “We can destroy them with fire.” He lit the arm on fire and the Wight screamed in agony. “And we can destroy them with Dragonglass. If we don’t win this fight, then this is the fate of every person in the world.”

 Jon stabbed the Wight with his Dragonglass dagger and it fell to the floor, dead for good.

 “This is the only war that matters. The Great War. And it is here.”

 “I didn’t believe it until I saw them. I saw them all,” Daenerys said.

 “How many?” Jaime asked her.

 “Hundred thousand at least.”

 “Can they swim?” Euron said, twirling the Wights hair around his fingers.

 “No,” you answered.

 “Good. I’m taking the Iron Fleet back to the Iron Islands.”

 “What are you talking about?” Cersei said tersely.

 “I’ve been around the world. Seen things you couldn’t imagine. And this, this is the only thing that terrifies me,” Euron said to Cersei. To Daenerys he said, “I’m going back to my island. You should go back to yours. When Winter’s over, we’ll be the only ones left alive.”

 Daenerys looked unimpressed and just looked at Euron as he walked away.

 “He’s right to be afraid and a coward to run. If those things come to us, there will be no kingdoms to rule. Everything we suffered and lost would’ve been for nothing.” Cersei looked at Daenerys. “The Crown accepts your truce. Until the Dead are defeated, they are the true enemy.”

 You let out the breath you had been holding and your frame became less rigid. Then Cersei kept talking.

 “In return, the King in the North will extend this truce. He will remain in the North where he belongs. He will not take up arms against the Lannisters, he will not choose sides.”

 “Just the King in the North? Not me,” Dany said.

 “I would never ask that of you. You wouldn’t agree to it and if you did I would trust you even less than I do now. I ask it only of Ned Stark’s son. I know he will be true to his word.”

 Jon looked at you for a moment, then looked at Dany. The both of you told him with your eyes to say yes. Please say yes.  

 “I am true to my word. Or I try to be. That is why I cannot give you what you ask. I cannot serve two Queens. And I’ve already pledged myself to Queen Daenerys, of House Targaryen.”

 You went tense again, and Sandor put his hand on your shoulder. Everyone was looking at each other, waiting for someone to speak. You knew that Jon had said the wrong thing and now nothing good would come of it.

 “Then there is nothing left to discuss,” Cersei said as she stood. “The Dead will come North first. Enjoy dealing with them. We will deal with whatever is left of you.”

 Jon looked as if he wanted to speak to Cersei as she passed him by, but he could not find words. They all walked by him and Brienne was the only one to talk.

 “Ser Jaime,” she said, going after him. You didn’t hear the rest of the conversation and you looked to Sandor. He said nothing and only took your hand.

 “I wish you hadn’t done that,” Ser Davos said when Cersei was gone.

 “I’m grateful for your loyalty, but my dragon died so that we could be here,” Daenerys said. “If it’s all for nothing, then he died for nothing.”

 “I know.”

 “I’m pleased you bent the knee to our Queen,” Tyrion said. “But have you considered learning how to lie every now and then?”

 “I’m not gonna swear an oath I cannot uphold. Talk about my father if you want. Tell me that’s the attitude that got him killed. But when enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything. Then there are no more answers only better and better lies. Lies won’t help us in this fight.”

 “You’re right,” you said to Jon. “But the more immediate problem is that we’re fucked. Are there any ideas of how to change that?”

 “Only one. Everyone stays here, and I go and talk to my sister.”

 “She’ll kill you before you can say a word,” you said.

 “I know. But we have to try something.”

 ---

 While Tyrion went to try to talk to Cersei, you sat with Sandor. You were growing restless with the waiting and all you wanted to do was get out of King’s Landing. You had always hated this shit city and never wanted to go back. But here you were, trying to get an army from your most hated enemy. You didn’t think that Tyrion would be able to talk some sense into his sister and that would most likely lead to the death of everyone here.

 “It’ll be alright, Dove,” Sandor said to you. You looked up at him and smiled faintly.

 “I don’t know about that. You know Cersei. If she doesn’t get what she wants she’s going to kill us all.” Sandor sighed and pulled you onto his lap. He held you close and put his hands on your stomach.

 “I won’t let that happen. She will not touch you or our babe.”

 You put your hands over his and rested your head in the crook of his neck. You were both silent until Tyrion showed up. You got up out of Sandor’s lap and stood. When Sandor saw Cersei walking back behind Tyrion, he stood as well and put a protective hand on the small of your back.

 “My armies will not stand down. I will not pull them back to the capital. I will march them North to fight alongside you in the Great War. And when the Great War is over, perhaps you will remember that I chose to help, with no promises or assurances from any of you. Call our Banners, all of them.”

 You were dumbfounded, but relieved that Tyrion was able to actually talk to Cersei. She left just as quickly as she came and after a few minutes, you followed. Sandor was by your side, still touching your back and didn’t let go until you were safely on the ship. It was time to sail back to Dragonstone and get ready for war.

[leepace71]

When Pedro Pascal was roughly 4 years old, he and his family went to see the 1978 hit movie “Superman,” starring Christopher Reeve. Pascal’s young parents had come to live in San Antonio after fleeing their native Chile during the rise of dictator Augusto Pinochet in the mid-1970s. Taking Pascal and his older sister to the movies — sometimes more than once a week — had become a kind of family ritual, a way to soak up as much American pop culture as possible.At some point during this particular visit, Pascal needed to go to the bathroom, and his parents let him go by himself. “I didn’t really know how to read yet,” Pascal says with the same Cheshire grin that dazzled “Game of Thrones” fans during his run as the wily (and doomed) Oberyn Martel. “I did not find my way back to ‘Superman.'”

Instead, Pascal wandered into a different theater (he thinks it was showing the 1979 domestic drama “Kramer vs. Kramer,” but, again, he was 4). In his shock and bewilderment at being lost, he curled up into an open seat and fell asleep. When he woke up, the movie was over, the theater was empty, and his parents were standing over him. To his surprise, they seemed rather calm, but another detail sticks out even more.

“I know that they finished their movie,” he says, bending over in laughter. “My sister was trying to get a rise out of me by telling me, ‘This happened and that happened and then Superman did this and then, you know, the earthquake and spinning around the planet.'” In the face of such relentless sibling mockery, Pascal did the only logical thing: “I said, ‘All that happened in my movie too.'”

He had no way of knowing it at the time, of course, but some 40 years later, Pascal would in fact get the chance to star in a movie alongside a DC Comics superhero — not to mention battle Stormtroopers and, er, face off against the most formidable warrior in Westeros. After his breakout on “Game of Thrones,” he became an instant get-me-that-guy sensation, mostly as headstrong, taciturn men of action — from chasing drug traffickers in Colombia for three seasons on Netflix’s “Narcos” to squaring off against Denzel Washington in “The Equalizer 2.”

This year, though, Pascal finds himself poised for the kind of marquee career he’s spent a lifetime dreaming about. On Oct. 30, he’ll return for Season 2 as the title star of “The Mandalorian,” Lucasfilm’s light-speed hit “Star Wars” series for Disney Plus that earned 15 Emmy nominations, including best drama, in its first season. And then on Dec. 25 — COVID-19 depending — he’ll play the slippery comic book villain Maxwell Lord opposite Gal Gadot, Chris Pine and Kristen Wiig in “Wonder Woman 1984.”

The roles are at once wildly divergent and the best showcase yet for Pascal’s elastic talents. In “The Mandalorian,” he must hide his face — and, in some episodes, his whole body — in a performance that pushes minimalism and restraint to an almost ascetic ideal. In “Wonder Woman 1984,” by stark contrast, he is delivering the kind of big, broad bad-guy character that populated the 1980s popcorn spectaculars of his youth.

“I continually am so surprised when everybody pegs him as such a serious guy,” says “Wonder Woman 1984” director Patty Jenkins. “I have to say, Pedro is one of the most appealing people I have known. He instantly becomes someone that everybody invites over and you want to have around and you want to talk to.”

Talk with Pascal for just five minutes — even when he’s stuck in his car because he ran out of time running errands before his flight to make it to the set of a Nicolas Cage movie in Budapest — and you get an immediate sense of what Jenkins is talking about. Before our interview really starts, Pascal points out, via Zoom, that my dog is licking his nether regions in the background. “Don’t stop him!” he says with an almost naughty reproach. “Let him live his life!”

Over our three such conversations, it’s also clear that Pascal’s great good humor and charm have been at once ballast for a number of striking hardships, and a bulwark that makes his hard-won success a challenge for him to fully accept.

Before Pascal knew anything about “The Mandalorian,” its showrunner and executive producer Jon Favreau knew he wanted Pascal to star in it.

“He feels very much like a classic movie star in his charm and his delivery,” says Favreau. “And he’s somebody who takes his craft very seriously.” Favreau felt Pascal had the presence and skill essential to deliver a character — named Din Djarin, but mostly called Mando — who spends virtually every second of his time on screen wearing a helmet, part of the sacrosanct creed of the Mandalorian order.

Convincing any actor to hide their face for the run of a series can be as precarious as escaping a Sarlacc pit. To win Pascal over in their initial meeting, Favreau brought him behind the “Mandalorian” curtain, into a conference room papered with storyboards covering the arc of the first season. “When he walked in, it must have felt a little surreal,” Favreau says. “You know, most of your experiences as an actor, people are kicking the tires to see if it’s a good fit. But in this case, everything was locked and loaded.”

Needless to say, it worked. “I hope this doesn’t sound like me fashioning myself like I’m, you know, so smart, but I agreed to do this [show] because the impression I had when I had my first meeting was that this is the next big s—,” Pascal says with a laugh.

Favreau’s determination to cast Pascal, however, put the actor in a tricky situation: Pascal’s own commitments to make “Wonder Woman 1984” in London and to perform in a Broadway run of “King Lear” with Glenda Jackson barreled right into the production schedule for “The Mandalorian.” Some scenes on the show, and in at least one case a full episode, would need to lean on the anonymity of the title character more than anyone had quite planned, with two stunt performers — Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder — playing Mando on set and Pascal dubbing in the dialogue months later.

Pascal was already being asked to smother one of his best tools as an actor, extraordinarily uncommon for anyone shouldering the newest iteration of a global live-action franchise. (Imagine Robert Downey Jr. only playing Iron Man while wearing a mask — you can’t!) Now he had to hand over control of Mando’s body to other performers too. Some actors would have walked away. Pascal didn’t.

“If there were more than just a couple of pages of a one-on-one scene, I did feel uneasy about not, in some instances, being able to totally author that,” he says. “But it was so easy in such a sort of practical and unexciting way for it to be up to them. When you’re dealing with a franchise as large as this, you are such a passenger to however they’re going to carve it out. It’s just so specific. It’s ‘Star Wars.'” (For Season 2, Pascal says he was on the set far more, though he still sat out many of Mando’s stunts.)

“The Mandalorian” was indeed the next big s—, helping to catapult the launch of Disney Plus to 26.5 million subscribers in its first six weeks. With the “Star Wars” movies frozen in carbonite until 2023 (at least), I noted offhand that he’s now effectively the face of one of the biggest pop-culture franchises in the world. Pascal could barely suppress rolling his eyes.

“I mean, come on, there isn’t a face!” he says with a laugh that feels maybe a little forced. “If you want to say, ‘You’re the silhouette’ — which is also a team effort — then, yeah.” He pauses. “Can we just cut the s— and talk about the Child?”

Yes, of course, the Child — or, as the rest of the galaxy calls it, Baby Yoda. Pascal first saw the incandescently cute creature during his download of “Mandalorian” storyboards in that initial meeting with Favreau. “Literally, my eyes following left to right, up and down, and, boom, Baby Yoda close to the end of the first episode,” he says. “That was when I was like, ‘Oh, yep, that’s a winner!'”

Baby Yoda is undeniably the breakout star of “The Mandalorian,” inspiring infinite memes and apocryphal basketball game sightings. But the show wouldn’t work if audiences weren’t invested in Mando’s evolving emotional connection to the wee scene stealer, something Favreau says Pascal understood from the jump. “He’s tracking the arc of that relationship,” says the showrunner. “His insight has made us rethink moments over the course of the show.” (As with all things “Star Wars,” questions about specifics are deflected in deference to the all-powerful Galactic Order of Spoilers.)

Even if Pascal couldn’t always be inside Mando’s body, he never left the character’s head, always aware of how this orphaned bounty hunter who caroms from planet to planet would look askance at anything that felt too good (or too adorable) to be true.

“The transience is something that I’m incredibly familiar with, you know?” Pascal says. “Understanding the opportunity for complexity under all of the armor was not hard for me.”

When Pascal was 4 months old, his parents had to leave him and his sister with their aunt, so they could go into hiding to avoid capture during Pinochet’s crackdown against his opposition. After six months, they finally managed to climb the walls of the Venezuelan embassy during a shift change and claim asylum; from there, the family relocated, first to Denmark, then to San Antonio, where Pascal’s father got a job as a physician.

Pascal was too young to remember any of this, and for a healthy stretch of his childhood, his complicated Chilean heritage sat in parallel to his life in the U.S. — separate tracks, equally important, never quite intersecting. By the time Pascal was 8, his family was able to take regular trips back to Chile to visit with his 34 first cousins. But he doesn’t remember really talking about any of his time there all that much with his American friends.

“I remember at one point not even realizing that my parents had accents until a friend was like, ‘Why does your mom talk like that?'” Pascal says. “And I remember thinking, like what?”

Besides, he loved his life in San Antonio. His father took him and his sister to Spurs basketball games during the week if their homework was done. He hoodwinked his mother into letting him see “Poltergeist” at the local multiplex. He watched just about anything on cable; the HBO special of Whoopi Goldberg’s one-woman Broadway show knocked him flat. He remembers seeing Henry Thomas in “E.T.” and Christian Bale in “Empire of the Sun” and wishing ardently, urgently, I want to live those stories too.

Then his father got a job in Orange County, Calif. After Pascal finished the fifth grade, they moved there. It was a shock. “There were two really, really rough years,” he says. “A lot of bullying.”

His mother found him a nascent performing arts high school in the area, and Pascal burrowed even further into his obsessions, devouring any play or movie he could get his hands on. His senior year, a friend of his mother’s gave Pascal her ticket to a long two-part play running in downtown Los Angeles that her bad back couldn’t withstand. He got out of school early to drive there by himself. It was the pre-Broadway run of “Angels in America.”

“And it changed me,” he says with almost religious awe. “It changed me.”

After studying acting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Pascal booked a succession of solid gigs, like MTV’s “Undressed” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” But the sudden death of his mother — who’d only just been permitted to move back to Chile a few years earlier — took the wind right from Pascal’s sails. He lost his agent, and his career stalled almost completely.

As a tribute to her, he decided to change his professional last name from Balmaceda, his father’s, to Pascal, his mother’s. “And also, because Americans had such a hard time pronouncing Balmaceda,” he says. “It was exhausting.”

Pascal even tried swapping out Pedro for Alexander (an homage to Ingmar Bergman’s “Fanny and Alexander,” one of the formative films of his youth). “I was willing to do absolutely anything to work more,” he says. “And that meant if people felt confused by who they were looking at in the casting room because his first name was Pedro, then I’ll change that. It didn’t work.”

It was a desperately lean time for Pascal. He booked an occasional “Law & Order” episode, but mostly he was pounding the pavement along with his other New York theater friends — like Oscar Isaac, who met Pascal doing an Off Broadway play. They became fast, lifelong friends, bonding over their shared passions and frustrations as actors.

“It’s gotten better, but at that point, it was so easy to be pigeonholed in very specific roles because we’re Latinos,” says Isaac. “It’s like, how many gang member roles am I going to be sent?” As with so many actors, the dream Pascal and Isaac shared to live the stories of their childhoods had been stripped down to its most basic utility. “The dream was to be able to pay rent,” says Isaac. “There wasn’t a strategy. We were just struggling. It was talking about how to do this thing that we both love but seems kind of insurmountable.”

As with so few actors, that dream was finally rekindled through sheer nerve and the luck of who you know, when another lifelong friend, actor Sarah Paulson, agreed to pass along Pascal’s audition for Oberyn Martell to her best friend Amanda Peet, who is married to “Game of Thrones” co-showrunner David Benioff.

“First of all, it was an iPhone selfie audition, which was unusual,” Benioff remembers over email. “And this wasn’t one of the new-fangled iPhones with the fancy cameras. It looked like s—; it was shot vertical; the whole thing was very amateurish. Except for the performance, which was intense and believable and just right.”

Before Pascal knew it, he found himself in Belfast, sitting inside the Great Hall of the Red Keep as one of the judges at Tyrion Lannister’s trial for the murder of King Joffrey. “I was between Charles Dance and Lena Headey, with a view of the entire f—ing set,” Pascal says, his eyes wide and astonished still at the memory. “I couldn’t believe I didn’t have an uncomfortable costume on. You know, I got to sit — and with this view.” He sighs. “It strangely aligned itself with the kind of thinking I was developing as a child that, at that point, I was convinced was not happening.”

And then it all started to happen.

In early 2018, while Pascal was in Hawaii preparing to make the Netflix thriller “Triple Frontier” — opposite his old friend Isaac — he got a call from the film’s producer Charles Roven, who told him Patty Jenkins wanted to meet with him in London to discuss a role in another film Roven was producing, “Wonder Woman 1984.”

“It was a f—ing offer,” Pascal says in an incredulous whisper. “I wasn’t really grasping that Patty wanted to talk to me about a part that I was going to play, not a part that I needed to get. I wasn’t able to totally accept that.”

Pascal had actually shot a TV pilot with Jenkins that wasn’t picked up, made right before his life-changing run on “Game of Thrones” aired. “I got to work with Patty for three days or something and then thought I’d never see her again,” he says. “I didn’t even know she remembered me from that.”

She did. “I worked with him, so I knew him,” she says. “I didn’t need him to prove anything for me. I just loved the idea of him, and I thought he would be kind of unexpected, because he doesn’t scream ‘villain.'”

In Jenkins’ vision, Max Lord — a longstanding DC Comics rogue who shares a particularly tangled history with Wonder Woman — is a slick, self-styled tycoon with a knack for manipulation and an undercurrent of genuine pathos. It was the kind of larger-than-life character Pascal had never been asked to tackle before, so he did something equally unorthodox: He transformed his script into a kind of pop-art scrapbook, filled with blown-up photocopies of Max Lord from the comic books that Pascal then manipulated through his lens on the character.

Even the few pages Pascal flashes to me over Zoom are quite revealing. One, featuring Max sporting a power suit and a smarmy grin, has several burned-out holes, including through the character’s eye. Another page features Max surrounded by text bubbles into which Pascal has written, over and over and over again in itty-bitty lettering, “You are a f—ing piece of s—.”

“I felt like I had wake myself up again in a big way,” he says. “This was just a practical way of, like, instead of going home tired and putting Netflix on, [I would] actually deal with this physical thing, doodle and think about it and run it.”

Jenkins is so bullish on Pascal’s performance that she thinks it could explode his career in the same way her 2003 film “Monster” forever changed how the industry saw Charlize Theron. “I would never cast him as just the stoic, quiet guy,” Jenkins says. “I almost think he’s unrecognizable from ‘Narcos’ to ‘Wonder Woman.’ Wouldn’t even know that was the same guy. But I think that may change.”

When people can see “Wonder Woman 1984” remains caught in the chaos the pandemic has wreaked on the industry; both Pascal and Jenkins are hopeful the Dec. 25 release date will stick, but neither is terribly sure it will. Perhaps it’s because of that uncertainty, perhaps it’s because he’s spent his life on the outside of a dream he’s now suddenly living, but Pascal does not share Jenkins’ optimism that his experience making “Wonder Woman 1984” will open doors to more opportunities like it.

“It will never happen again,” Pascal says, once more in that incredulous whisper. “It felt so special.”

After all he’s done in a few short years, why wouldn’t Pascal think more roles like this are on his horizon?

“I don’t know!” he finally says with a playful — and pointed — howl. “I’m protecting myself psychologically! It’s just all too good to be true! How dare I!”

x

[fanpom-imagines]

Imagine being a descendant of dragon slayers in Westerns and Jon asking for you to help with the White Walkers while Daenerys wants you to bend the knee as well. (Part 1)

Masterlist (Part 1) [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]

Fandom: Game of Thrones

Words: 1675

Warnings: sassy reader and impressed Sansa

Gifs aren’t mine.

(Edited: Decided to make this into a series of sorts)

(Female Reader)

“The world really must be coming to an end.” I said as I looked down at the King of the North from my seat in my throne. King Snow just gave me a look of puzzlement as he didn’t not understand or expect my reply, so I carried on. “So what I know so far is that this self proclaimed Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains, the Unburnt, and la la la something Targaryen,  wants my people’s and I’s assistance?”

“Yes, your Grace,” Jon nodded in conformation.

“Do you understand how absurd that sounds to me?” I asked him as I raised a brow.

Jon looked around and then back at Ser Daavos who looked about as clueless as him.

I sighed out and answered my own question for him, “My people are descendants of dragon slayers and have had quarrels and wars with the Targaryens for years. They are dragon riders while we are dragon slayers yet you stand here before me expecting me to fight along a woman who’s people had almost eradicated mine and had sent us into exile on an island where we could barely survive?”

Jon looked shocked, but then he quickly pulled himself back into his warrior like stance and told me, “Your Grace I am not asking you to forget your rivalries with the Queen I just ask for your alliance during this war against the dead. Winter is Coming and it seems like it’s going to stay for a long time.”

He definitely had a way with words. No wonder he was crowned as the King of the North, and I do have to admire the fact that he laid down his crown in order to gain an alliance with the Targaryen girl in favor of his people. I contemplated his words for a few minutes and I could feel the air of anticipation rising around me.

“My people and I will help to protect one another from the dead.” I told him and I could see a slight wave of relief in his eyes as he heard those words.

“Thank you, your Grace, we-” I cut Jon off before he continued.

“Thank me when we win the war,” I smile at him and stand up. The two of us bow to one another and he leaves to gather his things and I then start to already pick out men I’m going to bring along with me to officially band together this alliance with the queen.

On the next day the men I had order to come along, King Snow, Ser Daavos, and I made our way to Winterfell which took a few days as we had to use our ships to sail to the mainland. Not a long trip as our island, Ossēnagon, was only around a day and a half away from Westeros. Over the course of that day I asked Jon about the North and what he had been through since I had only heard tales and wanted to know if they were just rumors or if they were truth, and over the course of our trip I came to respect him, yet I did not trust him, but he was a noble and honest man and I admire that in him. It’s a shame he’s not a King no more.

When we had made it to Winterfell Jon showed my guards and I where to stay and then bid me a good night and told me that the next day the queen would like to speak with me. I thanked him and bid him a good night as well.

I fell asleep wondering about Westeros. I never stepped foot on the Land of the Seven Kingdoms before. I had gone to Essos before to see the Free Cities and to gaze upon the Giant guarding Braavos and to gaze around and see all the different people and cultures, but that was when I was younger. Now the whole worlds at war and I have no family to guide me. I envied that about Snow. He had lost a lot, but he still had his family left. Then my mind wandered to the Queen. She had lost her whole family like I had. I guess we are not so different after all, it seems. Yet I still bared hate for her, but my people didn’t come first, and I swore a vow to keep them safe even if it cost me my life and or my legacy.

I woke up with a knock on my door. It was one of my men telling me that the queen will want to see me in about an hour. I replied that i’d be ready and got into my clothing and ate the food they had brought me about thirty minutes before my expected official arrival in front of the Queen.

I heard another knock not soon after finishing and saw it was one of the Queen’s Unsullied. I’d only heard tales about them, and while we were walking rather than my mind being occupied with meeting the Queen I was more focused on the fact that if it was true about them having their parts cut off. That must be very painful, but it also is most likely the reason they’re fearless.

As I walk through the doors into a room where the Queen, King Snow (well he’s not a king anymore, but he still seems to me as one), and a woman who I assume is Lady Sansa Stark are sitting next to one another behind a long wooden table with Ser Daavos, a young girl who stood up proud, a woman with dark frilly hair, a boy sitting in a chair with a wheels to push it with eyes that seemed to stare into ones’ soul, and a man small of stature who, stood behind them while what I assumed to be the lords and ladies of the North and the Southern Houses that the Queen has convinced to have the join their forces were sitting on both sides of the room.

I had to admit they did seem stern and intimidating; the Queen especially, but of what I heard of her past I could understand why.

“It’s a pleasure to have you, Lady (Y/N),” the Queen greeted, which I didn’t not one bit like. She referred to me as Lady, not Queen or your Grace where as Jon Snow had. Now I’m starting to doubt that Jon had told me the whole truth when he had showed up at the doorsteps of my castle.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lady Daenerys,” I shot back my smile slightly moving into a smirk.

I saw, who I assumed to be Lady Sansa Stark, smirk at my reply while I heard a few murmurs coming from both sides of the room and I also saw the slight, shocked eyebrow raise from Jon Snow. Daenerys on the other hand was not pleased.

“You forget yourself, Lady (Y/N),” Daenerys warned, but I just replied.

“No, you forget yourself, Lady Daenerys. You and I are both Queens of equal status. So if you regard me as Lady I shall also refer to you as Lady.”

“You dare say such things to me in my kingdom?”

“Last I checked a Lannister still sits on the Iron Throne.” I replied to her sharply and the whole room went silent. Daenerys may not have shown that she was furious, but her eyes defnitely did.

“I hope you realize, zaldrīzes ossēnagoner, that I am of dragons blood and my fury is just as vicious as a dragon’s, if not more.” Daenerys warned, and by now she was standing glaring daggers into me which I rivaled with my own glare.

“Do not forget, zaldrīzes kipagīros, my people bathed in dragon blood, and we’ll gladly do it again,” I told her and I saw a Lady Sansa and the girl behind her smirk. I heard some shouts come from all around and anger starting to be fueled by my comment

Before Daenerys could reply Jon quickly stood up to stop this argument before it became any worse, “Your Grace and My Queen we are not here to fight one another we are here to defend our people. So for the good of those who you’ve sworn to protect please put them aside for at least till the end of this war. Because right now anyone who is alive is an ally and should be regarded as such because that is the only way our world has a chance at survival.” Again the whole room fell silent at Jon’s command, and that snapped both Daenerys and I back. As everyone goes back to their original seats and the room once again seems to calm down lady Sansa starts to speak.

“Your Grace it is a great honor to have you here, I am Lady Sansa of House Stark. We ask for your assistance and alliance in this war, and I assume you my brother has explained why,” she motions to Jon and I nod in conformation, “So then I won’t bore you with the details, but we do ask you to agree to this alliance and its terms in front of not just us, but the people as well.” She says gesturing to the people around her.

I look around and then I look back to the three sitting in front of me. Lady Sansa seems to have some form of respect for me, Jon’s eyes on the other hand are filled with hope, but also worry, while Daenerys’ eyes stare at me coldly with slight waves of anger swirling around within them.

“I accept this alliance and will grant you the support of as many men as I can supply and anything else that will help you win this war. I swear by the powers of Ice and Fire.” I vowed as I bowed as well as spoke the motto of my house: ‘By the powers of Ice and Fire.’

Talglist:

@bee-wrecker @boogiebunnies @precious-bands-love @supernaturaltrashy@immortal-imagination @mikariell95 @saoirsewhittle​ @jinx-is-fire

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, ART! You’ve been accepted for the role of EDMUND with an approved FC change to Max Irons. Admin Minnie: I knew this was a winner while reading your plots Art, but it was your para sample that really left me speechless. The way you showed us how he had suffered and how he had ached, all that bitterness and resentment and ambition and pride... it was so clear how deep your love for Edmund goes. I am thrilled to see someone with such an intimate, intense grasp on Easton’s soul. Please stay forever, and please ruin us for the rest of your life! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Art

Age | 19

Preferred Pronouns | He/him

Activity Level | Well here’s the thing about quarantine. I will be spending the next two-three months in a house, all day, every day, with consistent access to a laptop. I also lost my job and because the US economy is a flaming pile of garbagé, I don’t imagine getting another any time soon, especially since all my skills are in food. All this to say, I believe I will be incredibly active, outside of my Skype’d classes and grocery runs and whatnot.

Timezone | MST

How did you find the rp?  | A discord friend DM’d it to me after I went on a rant about Edmund and the layers to his “Thou, Nature, art my Goddess” soliloquy. They know me so well, and acceptances were literally in like six hours from when I got the link, so I sat my butt down, put down my real-world obligations for a moment, and typed this whole thing out like I was writing an unstarted essay due at midnight.

Current/Past RP Accounts | All my old RP writing is from years ago and is, frankly, really really bad. Thank you for making this optional.

IN CHARACTER

Character | Edmund or Easton Craven. I love Daniel Sharman’s wonderful, gorgeous face with my whole heart (hello gay awakening), but I’d like to use Max Irons instead, if at all possible.

What drew you to this character? | So, my love of Easton/Edmund actually began about a year ago, when I cut my hair and started playing around with names and different clothes. I was in a Shakespeare class at my college, and it was a requirement that we perform a monologue. It didn’t need to be Broadway-worthy, we just needed to deliver it, and we could do this as often as we liked. I performed two. One from a play we had read and analyzed, as my professor asked, and I did another. That second one was Edmund’s “Thou, Nature” soliloquy. It was the first time I performed as a guy to an audience that thought I was a guy, not a girl playing dress up. So I have a really strong emotional connection to Edmund, regardless of the form he’s in.

I was really excited by this particular version of him, however, because I thought it played right along the line of a monstrous asshole and charming young man doing what he can to deal with the hand dealt to him. He’s both of those things, to me, and I really enjoyed that you brought that forward. Edmund, from the source, reminds me of Chris Evans’ character from Knives Out, in a way? Completely self-motivated, selfish and cruel, and yet really fun and charming, as long as it isn’t you he’s screwing over at the time. I know he isn’t that character and I’m honestly really glad for it. I just found a similarity there.

I just really like those kinds of characters in fiction, and that, combined with my emotional ties and vague debt to the source character, meant I arrived and started writing as fast as I could.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

These are all ideas, nothing here is set in stone, and are entirely dependent on the beauty of the other writers free will.

Some Twelve or Fourteen Moonshines Lag of a Brother: From the get-go of this awful experience known as the human existence, Easton has existed just slightly behind Everett, just enough to keep the guy freezing in the shadows. It’s the last name, the mannerisms, and the goddamn eyes that sit in his skull. It is a truth, acknowledged by both me and him, that there is an association to Easton he really wishes wasn’t there. This is why I want someone to look at Easton and see Easton, not a Craven.

Now, I want to pause here, and say that Easton is a lying snake of a man that would and probably will sell out his own family for one corn chip. He is completely self-centered, convinced of his superiority, and willing to bleed the world dry to get the pound of flesh he is owed. I want someone to see this, to realize there is a snake curled around the Capulet’s necks, willing to bite and kill every single one of them if it means he gets to sit comfortably on a throne of gold and bones. Because that is what he wants, he wants the world to pay for every second of misery he endured in his life. But he is charming, slippery in the way only the truly awful can be. He’s accepted the labels thrown at him and become them, which is its own kind of armor. Who doesn’t love a bad boy?

But beyond all that, he is rotten through and through. I’d like his armor to crack and reveal the duplicity underneath, maybe around someone like Maeve or Catherine, someone that might not be believed right away. I love the idea of Easton being the wolf among some very dangerous sheep, but the really, truly awful ones not realizing. This could produce a really fun dance, where the two parties involved both try really really hard to overthrow or remove the other from their position while still trying really hard to maintain a veil of normality.

But that dance is what makes this all so terribly fun. They’re on a rock, doomed to eventually die, and Easton wants his power, but why can’t he play a few games while trying to get it?

I Grow, I Prosper: Easton, poor guy, was brought into the world and then spent the next twenty-six years being told his existence and all the things that came with it were his fault. They weren’t, or at least they weren’t in the way he had been told his entire life. He has learned to move past the label of “bastard” or “illegitimate”, meeting all such claims with the certainty that he must act the part. But does his position fulfill him? Does his current lot in life spark joy? I think not! He is a captain, yes, but so is his brother. He is, at best, on equal footing with his brother and at worst, he is the younger brother desperately following behind Everett as a living shadow yet again. Easton needs to be more than Everett. He’s wanted this his entire life. The whole city needs to look at Easton and see him, not his brother, and then Easton wants to rub it in Everett’s face, lord it over him for the next century at the shortest. That is the general idea behind this plot: Everett surpassing and overcoming his brother. The fact that he’d end up lording over so many others is really just a plus!

This plot would require effort. Loads and LOADS of plotting and communication on my part, and a whole lot of cutthroat, stepping-on-literally-everyone-else-in-Verona from Easton. He is going to have to exploit the hell out of Celeste and the information she can get him, potentially leading to her downfall just so Easton can succeed. He will need Rafaella and Tiberius to trust him almost unconditionally, which, just from what I’ve seen poking around the main, seems pretty much impossible. And of course, he has to successfully and continually one-up Everett, which might be the hardest job of all, given the whole awful tangle of EmotionsTM that Easton has towards him. It’s hard for him to be clear-headed when he wants to tear Everett into little tiny pieces with his bare hands.

But hey, that is, again, the whole point of this plot: the destruction of the legitimate son. Eliminating the sun so the moon can rule 24/7.

My Services are Bound: No matter how ambitious, how desperate Easton is to rule the world, he doesn’t yet. He works for the Capulets and he is a tool used to further the wishes of those above him in this terribly illegal food chain where dog eats dog. No matter how much Easton wishes it was different, it isn’t, at least not at the moment, and he must bide his time until something better happens.

Yes, Easton is a tool, and I want him to be reminded of that. He has the ambition to rule the world, can picture himself with a crown he may never hold, but he is a knight on the chessboard. I want his ego to be checked, I want him to be taken down at the knees and reminded of the situation he is in, who he works for. Now, ideally, this would come from the Capulet family themselves and not a rogue Montague or something.

The Capulet family, in order to win this war they’ve found themselves in, need their tools to be obedient and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. This is not the case with Easton. He’s a rebellious man, more loyal to himself than any of the lofty ideas the Capulet heads have surrounded themselves with. So the family he serves would need to get Easton back in line, somehow. They’d need to remind him who he is and whom he serves no matter what it took and use whatever tools at their disposal. This could potentially happen after Easton completely blows off a mission he was handed to advance his own agendas, which I think would probably be the best choice as it would probably send these awful shrieking sirens off in the Capulets.

I want this particular plot because Easton is so assured that he will be able to make the world pay and yet he’s just one man against so very many others.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Oh most definitely. As a writer, I am a firm believer in conditional happy endings, probably because I play so many video games. In order to get a happy ending, in order to survive, the character has to do all the right things. The likelihood of Easton doing all the right things is just tiny, absolutely microscopic.  

IN DEPTH

I was going to do both, but I’m running out of time so…

In-Character Para Sample:

There is something beautiful in standing alone, where there are no silent reminders of how Easton arrived in this world, how he stepped into it screaming and no one cared to change that. There were no side-eyes, reminding him of how unwanted he was, how utterly unworthy he was to bear the name “Craven”. No hands hiding giggles at the boy his mother ran from and his father hid away. Here, under the bowed ceiling in the transept of the Capulet’s cathedral, there was only him and God.

“I hope,” Easton began, fingers lightly running across the back of a pew likely not used for praying, “that you know what is coming.” The eyes that proclaim a taint to his family’s name were raised to dance across the ceiling. “If word is to be believed, you, an old man in the sky, a Father,” he spat out, “brought me here. Placed me here upon this Earth to do whatever it is I so wish.” A smile, small and dangerous with heavy promises was birthed on his face, an expression that could not have been more familiar to his muscles. “I suppose that’s all a father has ever done for me. Perhaps,” he mused, lightly tapping his chin as he continued to wander aimlessly among the seats of a flock absent. “Perhaps I should be grateful that both You and him are both so delightfully hands-off.”

“I suppose this rock is where You chose to put all Your bastards, isn’t it? Shoved them away from Your kingdom, making them fight for their place in Your home despite them all being Your children?” The noise that escaped Easton’s mouth was not fit for the place he stood in, but it hardly seemed to matter to him as he collapsed into a pew, feet raised to rest on a Bible, feet that had stood in a man’s blood not hours before. “I suppose that must be how it is, because we’re all made in Your image, aren’t we? And that man had to learn it from somewhere.”

His head fell back, eyes closed to the beauty above him in a silent condemnation for Who it was built for. “You’ve released yet another snake into your garden by making that woman my mother and handing me the Craven name, you know.” The observation was quiet, laced with the bitterness of cyanide, perfected over years of similar declarations. The words were familiar, not on his tongue but rather to his mind, the idea similar to ones he had kept close for years.“I have crawled in the dirt on my stomach for too long because of You, and I shall take a throne and dare You to steal it from me.”

He inhaled, once, a desperate attempt to calm the words he could feel rising like acid in his throat. It didn’t work, though Easton didn’t try very hard. He rarely did when alone. “I am owed this, you miserable old bastard,” he hissed out from behind his teeth, sounding like the snake he had just claimed to be. “I will take everything because this is Your fault, and I will make your precious sheep pay for every inch of Your mistake. It’s mine, I deserve it.” A hand was clenched into a fist in his lap and Easton shifted forward, only to slam it into the wood of the pew ahead of him. “It’s mine.”

He stood suddenly, coat rising around him like smoke rising around a fire, warning the world of the danger just over there. Turning on his heel, he left the cathedral without a look back, without a fear of God. And though there had been no one around, the air hung heavy with a question. Just which father had he been addressing?

Extras: If you have anything else you’d like to include (further headcanons, an inspo tag, a mock blog, etc), feel free to share it here! This is OPTIONAL.

I submitted this through an Easton mock blog! There was going to be stuff there but my laptop crashed and I need to eat dinner!

[masquerade122]

Still Needing a Title

So, I have been trying to push through the haze of apathy that has descended on me between loosing my job and a plague sweeping the planet making getting any kind of financial help damn near impossible.  BUT!  I have managed to transcribe more of my Game of Thrones fanfic, the first bit of which is under the cut for your enjoyment, or derision.  I fully admit I am not the best writer on the planet, but this idea would not leave me alone

Catelyn Stark was very aware of her failings as her fingers wove a prayer wreath for the small boy motionless in the bed before her.  Maester Luwin came in at regular intervals to check the boy’s condition and Catelyn would help to spoon broth or water down his throat and or change his sweat soaked clothes.  With every motion she prayed to the Seven to let him live.  She prayed more fervently than she had when she asked for him to die.  She swore to the Mother she would love him as her own, she swore to make him a Stark in name, just let him live.  Robb distraught over Jon’s illness and though sweet little Sansa was so young, she seemed to know something was wrong with her brother.  Baby Arya was with the wetnurse, far too young to know one of her brothers might not make it through the night.  Ned had been kept busy all day dealing with petitioners and the normal duties of the Warden of the North, and so Catelyn held her lonely vigil over the sickly bastard son of her husband, his every labored breath a lance through her chest.  You did this, the sound seemed to say, You wished a child dead for something he could not help.  When Ned finally came into the sickroom to coax her to her own bed, Catelyn could see the guilt and worry that hung in her husband's eyes.

“Jon understands you have your duties to see to.  He is very intelligent for his age,” she tried to soothe her husband's guilt.

“You should get some rest yourself Cat.  I can take the watch tonight,” Ned offered.  Catelyn was very tempted to take this offer, but before she could open her mouth to accept, Jon let off several hacking and gasping coughs.  Both Ned and Catelyn moved to the bed, Ned shifting his son while Catelyn brought a rag dipped in cool water to his brow.  The child’s breathing seemed even more strained, and somehow, Catelyn knew her response to Ned’s offer would be the catalyst for the boy’s recovery.

“I will not seek my own bed until I am assured with my own eyes he is on the mend.  You are responsible for the whole of the North.  This is a mother’s duty.  If his mother cannot care for him, then it is the very least I can do in her place.  I will keep watch on her behalf and yours,” she rasped.  Ned stared at her for a long moment, even as Jon’s breathing eased and he settled deeper into sleep.  In those solemn grey eyes she could see the old guilt that had been plain the day he had arrived in Riverrun after the war with his sister’s bones in a casket and a bastard son in the arms of a wetnurse.  Ned leaned forward and kissed her tenderly, laying a hand on Jon’s brow before leaving her to her vigil.  Catelyn closed her eyes, letting her prayers fill her mind even as she drifted off to sleep with one arm wrapped around Jon’s shoulders.

“Words are Wind, as you mortals are so fond of saying.  You can promise all these things ‘til you’re blue in the face, but when he wakes, all you’ll be able to remember is that damned Tully pride!”  Catelyn jerked awake to find Jon’s sickroom rather more crowded than when she fell asleep.  Seated across the bed from her was a woman with iron grey hair braided much like her own, wrapped in thick furs and with a lantern set on the table next to her.

“Such chiding will not help us,” another voice, smooth as honeyed mead, drew Catelyn’s attention to the bed.  Perched next to Jon was a woman whose face was very familiar to Catelyn.  Lyanna Stark had her brother’s eyes but her hair was much darker, nearly black.  She was running her fingers through Jon’s curls, a deeply sad look on her face.

“We haven’t Time for gentler persuasion, my dear.  If we cannot convince her more than just the Stark’s will fall,” the old woman riposted.  Lyanna nodded resignedly and turned her attention to Catelyn.  As she did, the Lady of Winterfell was struck by the solemn gaze of her husband's bastard coming from the face of his sister.

“I know you to be an intelligent woman Catelyn.  Did you never wonder at the fact that your lord husband went looking for his sister only to return with bones and an infant boy?” she asked pointedly.  Catelyn blinked at the comment, looking from Jon to Lyanna several times.  Her mind was reeling, the memory of Ned, fresh from the war, eyes heavy with grief and guilt, swimming before her briefly.

“Why?  Why claim Jon as his bastard?  He could have been our nephew, no one would have questioned our taking in your son,” Catelyn protested.

“Ask your lord husband about Robert Baratheon’s reaction to the deaths of the Targaryan babes,” the old woman responded wearily.

“We are already straining the limits of how we can interfere, but there is one who can do more.  Look for a woman with golden eyes and hair the color of raven and flame.  She can help your family, and all of Westeros, survive what is coming,”  Lyanna said.  Catelyn could feel her eyes growing heavy, but Lyanna’s last words spurred her to respond.

“I swear by the old gods and the new, I will love your son as my own.  He will never be made to feel an outsider in his own home again and we will protect him from any who would wish him harm,” she vowed, feeling the words echoing in her very soul.  Lyanna smiled warmly.

“When the snow falls and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.  That’s you now too Catelyn.  Thank you,”

Catelyn slowly opened her eyes, noting the warm body pressed against her side.  She looked down to see Jon curled into her body, his breathing slow and even.  She reached down and lay her hand across his brow, sighing in relief at the feel of cool skin under her fingers.  The touch drew Jon from his slumber and grey eyes slowly blinked open.  Catelyn smiled warmly down at him even as he went still.

“Your fever has passed, thank all the gods.  You are going to be just fine sweetling,” she said with a relieved smile.

“Sorry,” Jon croaked, but Catelyn was already shaking her head.

“You have nothing to apologize for Jon, it was simply bad luck that you fell ill.  The important thing now is that you are on the mend.  I’m going to fetch Maester Luwin to check on you, and then I will let the family know that you are alright.  Robb and your father have been very worried about you,” she said with only the slightest hesitation on ‘father’.  Truth of blood aside, Ned was Jon’s father in every way that mattered, and Catelyn swore she would firmly remind herself of this every day among her prayers.  Jon slowly nodded and Catelyn climbed from the bed, rearranging the furs around him to keep him warm before she made for the door.  Upon opening it, she found Maester Luwin just reaching for the handle.

“Lady Stark.  Any change?” he asked.

“His fever has broken Maester, though when he tried to speak his voice sounded very rough.  Have you anything to soothe his throat?” she asked.

“That is good to hear my lady, and yes, I do have something in my stores that should help.”

“No one else has fallen ill?”

“No, my lady.  Everyone from Hodor to Lord Stark is perfectly healthy.  We were most fortunate my lady,” the maester confirmed.

“Good.  I’m going to give Ned and the other children the good news,” she said with a parting smile to Jon who was staring at her in deep confusion.  She found Ned in his solar reading a letter with a deep frown on his face.

“How’s Jon?” he asked, worry furrowing his brow.

“The fever has broken, and he is on the mend.  Jon is going to be just fine,” she was happy to answer.

“Thank the gods,” he breathed.  Catelyn sat down across from him and thought of how to bring this up.  She was certain that this last piece of the puzzle would pull everything together.

“Ned, what did Roebrt say when he was presented with the Targaryen children’s bodies?” she asked.  Her husband flinched hard at the question, looking over at her with no small panic.  “I swear to you Ned, I have a good reason for asking this, and it involves keeping our family, all our family safe,” she pressed.  Ned seemed to age a decade as his mind was thrown back to that night.

“The little princess was carried in wrapped in a Lannister cloak soaked red with her own blood.  She was so small, I remember wondering how there could be so much blood for such a tiny body.  And then I saw the other cloak.  It was carried between two men and laid out before Robert at the foot of the throne.  Princess Elia had been….it was hard to believe it was her.  It took several moments before I realized not all the, not all the pieces were her.  Prince Aegon had been dashed against a wall.  He was a babe at his mother’s breast and they tossed him against the wall like a glass of wine,” Ned stammered out.  Catelyn reached forward and gripped her husband’s hands.

“Lord Tywin’s men did this?” she whispered.

“A show of loyalty for the new king.” Ned spat.  “I told Robert he had to give justice for these atrocities, that he could not start his rule on the murder of children.  And what he said next, I could hardly believe it was my friend before me.  ‘I see no children.  Only dragonspawn.’”  The last had been in a deeper, rough imitation of Robert Baratheon.  Catelyn had only met the king once during the war, but in her mind's eye she could see him sitting on the throne, staring eagerly down at the carnage before him while Ned pleaded with his friend.

“And so you protected your nephew from your old friends' rage the only way you could think how.  Oh Ned, if only we knew each other better than.  A moon sooner and we could have passed him off as Robb’s twin brother,” she said in a feeble attempt at lightening the mood.  Ned’s head shot up at her words.

“Would you truly have done so?’ he asked incredulously.

“If you had told me everything then, I would like to think I would.  The past is the past, and all we can do now is move forward.  Send a letter to the king.  Ask him to legitimize Jon, make him a Stark in name.  When the children are old enough to understand why it must be a secret, we will tell them.  Jon and Robb are likely old enough now, though it may be better to wait until they are about ten,” she suggested.  Ned was staring at her with his jaw hanging open when a knock sounded at the door.

“Petitioners have arrived milord,” the guard called into the solar.  Ned rose to his feet.

“We’ll continue this discussion later, my love,” Ned said, following the guard out the door. 

*************************************

I still don’t have a title, but the rest adds a new character into the fray in an attempt to undo the Fate of Westeros and the Starks.  I would welcome any suggestions for titles while I dither about putting this on AO3

[isagrimorie]

The Doctor Who showrunner wars is still in full swing despite the three Doctor Who showrunners being friends IRL, and some things they’ve done and implemented can all boil down to preference.

I wanted to weigh in with my thoughts on this.

I like some things RTD did in his time in Doctor Who, I am very grateful to him for bringing the show back from the war but I also remember slowly getting disgruntled with his writing.

He is a drama writer, and one of the best; RTD has a way of turning a phrase that just fires up the imagination like:“Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Could-Have-Been-King with his army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres.”

He has also written and help re-write my favorite two-parter of Revival!Who Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, Midnight, Turn Left, and Children of Earth. The problem is as much as he loves both camp (sometimes the results can work, sometimes it doesn’t), RTD’s cynicism does leak through.

He tried to fight against those instincts in Doctor Who but you can see the strain show as he struggled to keep that cynicism away from the show.

There’s also the part where his frequent joke targets are middle aged women. And TBH, I was tired of Ten’s God Complex (“I am the final authority!”) and how the narrative rarely call him out on it. Unlike Nine, he started to believe his own press and the press of other people

I wasn’t keen on the way he joked about appearances of women above thirty, and tbh, I was tired of Ten’s God Complex (“I am the final authority.”) and how the narrative refused to call him out on it.

Ten believing his own press could have been interesting if the narrative didn’t think he was right. For example, The Water of Marscould have been interesting but I thought WoM resolved Ten’s Time Lord Victorious moment far too soon and easily.

I thought they could have explored more about the ‘Time Lord Victorious’ moment for at least another episode, or have The End of Time comment on it.

Apart from series 1, all of RTD’s series finales were heart-wrenching; each finale I ended up feeling like I was going twenty rounds against a meat grinder.

It was why I loved and will continue to love series 5 and how refreshingly happy the ending was.

No one was trapped in another dimension! No one had to single-handedly stop an apocalypse and have their family enslaved, or mind-wiped.

In the scheme of things, I think in certain aspects, Moffat’s storytelling style is more on line with my tastes. The fairytale seasons. Even Twelve becomes a fairytale Doctor, and I wager that his arc in series 8 is remembering the joy and becoming the fairytale Doctor again.

Another reason why I love series 5, coming directly from Ten’s Lonely God thing, was that a lot of people called out the Doctor on their God Complex and made their self-loathing a lot more text. I also loved the fairy tale aspect of his seasons.

But like with RTD not everything Moffat’s done is my favorite, there were some stories that had missteps, and one of those missteps was Moffat trying to out clever himself. Credit to him for swinging for the fences but he also started to spread himself too thin working on two shows, and the seams showed.

One of the criticisms about Moffat’s writing is character work, and he had no interest in the Companions’ families.

I’m in the middle. I have issues but also (especially after rewatching) I was more forgiving, as an example, in the end I didn’t care as much about the state of Amy’s parents.

No, that’s wrong, I did care.

I cared the first time I watched Angels Take Manhattan, I cared so much that when Amy and Rory disappeared I was so angry because all I could think about was Amy’s parents and Brian (Rory’s dad). I cared to the point that it was one of the reasons why I stopped watching.

On subsequent rewatches, I’ve reconciled with the idea that Companion families and family dynamics (the Companion’s parents) isn’t something Moffat was interested in. It took Chibnall to give Rory a dad (interesting that parent-child dynamic is really something Chibnall is drawn to).

Honestly, if family dynamics isn’t something he is interested in, that’s fair. Also, Amy’s parent’s weren’t a factor since series 6 and Amy’s parents might have well fallen back into the Crack for all we know.

Rewatching also helped me come to terms with some narrative choices I wasn’t fond of. Binge (re)watch tended to sand down any rough parts and I find rewatching can help me hold the shape of a story more.

Still, it took a while to realize Eleven acting big and bombastic was deliberate. Moffat needed Eleven to be big and loud, and full of himself so he can also go crashing down. It falls in line with what River describes the Doctor she knew: “Now my Doctor, I’ve seen whole armies turn and run away. And he’d just swagger off back to his Tardis and open the doors with a snap of his fingers.”

One of the things I wasn’t satisfied with Moffat’s writing (and there were plenty) was how series 6 dealt with child loss. Or, how s6 initially didn’t deal with child loss. The writing would eventually address it, and most prominently in The Wedding of River Song in a fantastically chilling scene between Amy and Kovarian.

But even then I felt it wasn’t enough. Emotional continuity during this time was very low.

This brings me to River. I loved her the moment she stepped on screen in Silence in the Library but my love for her character cooled because of series 6. My theory is Moffat wrote himself into a corner trying to out grand series 5.

For those taking notes at home, I watched Doctor Who sporadically during series 7 and then stopped watching at Angels Take Manhattan. I stopped watching until Day of the Doctor happened.

**DotD* reignited my love for Doctor Who! So much so that I went back and binged series 7.

I liked s7 well enough except for how Amy and Rory left, that still sticks in my craw. I would have been okay if the Ponds left at the end of the Power of Three. Unfortunately, for Revival!Who, there’s an expectation now that Leaving Stories should be hard and tragic, and breaks your heart. I don’t always need grand leaving stories.

TBH, with the exception of The Day of the Doctor, Series 7B is one of my least favorite Moffat seasons.

One of the many factors was the way the writers kept giving Matt Smith big speeches. The writers know he can do big speeches so they kept writing big speeches for him. It was their default.

Also, as one podcast speculated series 7B could have been where the writers realized (belatedly) that Smith was actually quite hunky. This and Moffat being too busy to manage the next half of the season because of The Day of the Doctor can explain the disaster that was the Time of the Doctor.

TotD remains as one of my least favorite Doctor Who episodes ever. (Well, not ever, there are some series 2 and 3 episodes that stand above it).

And then the Capaldi era.

This was the turn around where I started loving Moffat’s work again. It wasn’t easy to get to that point though, and like the previous series, there was a time I fell off the Doctor Who wagon because the first half of Capaldi’s season didn’t click with me.

I found him far too mean and unlikable which broke my heart since I loved Capaldi.

But a binge, again, sanded down all sins (well, notall) and now the difficult and prickly series 8 is something I really enjoy because knowing where Twelve ended up in his character journey helped.

This is why, I don’t mind getting spoiled about a show, as long I only get the broad strokes but not the details. I love finding out what his journey was and I don’t think I would have come back if I didn’t know where he ended up.

I think I saw snippets of Zygon Inversion speech on YouTube, and then I decided to give Husbands of River Song convinced me to finally watch all of Twelve’s run.

And now Twelve is my favorite Doctor.

Moffat’s writing didn’t magically become perfect (to me) but I loved the themes he chose to tackle for Twelve. Twelve is another PTSD!Doctor but unlike Nine, he had an opportunity to grow from that trauma. (And get fresh ones — thanks Time Lords!).

I love that Moffat used Twelve’s stories as a way to interrogate Ten’s stories culminating in Heaven Sent/Hell Bent.

IMO, Twelve’s relationship with Clara is similar to Rose and Donna. Twelve and Clara developed quite a co-dependent relationship by the time series 9 rolled around. They never quite achieved the height of smugness that was the first minutes of Impossible Planet nor have they ever been as obnoxious as Ten and Rose were in Tooth and Claw. Possibly because the Doctor’s older at this point and knows the perils, and similar to Donna because of how Donna kept Ten grounded. And, of course, because of the mindwipe argument that was definitely Moffat’s answer to the mindwiping of Donna, and as Moffat said in the War Games commentary, to the mindwipe of Zoe and Jamie.

And then we have Bill with Twelve, showing the very final form of the Twelfth Doctor. Twelve as a grown-up, feeling settled with himself, finally. He learned a lot of lessons and committed himself to stay in one place.

I love the relationship he built with Bill and while I do love, love, love Jodie Whittaker, I was sad to have only one season of Bill and Twelve. Especially since after Lie of the Land Missy’s story began to have more prominence over Bill’s.

(And there’s the whole Missy thing which tbh would make this a longer post than it already is!).

TLDR. Both showrunners aren’t perfect, sometimes their views don’t align with mine. I loved series 1 because it was my entry point into Doctor Who but there are also things about RTD’s run I wasn’t happy with. Same with Moffat there were things I adored and things that really didn’t sit well with me.

There were points during both showrunner’s time on the show I had to take time off.

Now with Chibnall, the same thread runs through: I like most of his stories in series 11 but it also isn’t perfect and has a lot of room for improvement.

/EDITED

[homenum-revelio-hq]

Welcome to the Order of the Phoenix, Nutteh!

You have been accepted for the role of MARY MACDONALD, with your requested faceclaim change to Imogen Poots! I really loved the way you brought Mary to life! I could tell through your application that you truly understood what this version of Mary Macdonald, a character who often gets pushed to the side, is all about! I’m so happy to see you embracing her dark parts. I am so excited to have you as part of this roleplay!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: Nutteh

AGE: 26

TIMEZONE: CST

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I work full-time, but one para interaction per week is more than doable. When I get into something, I get really into it.

ANYTHING ELSE: No. 

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Mary MacDonald

AGE: 20

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cis-female, she/her. She is bisexual, if she had to identify herself, but truth be told the idea of placing her heart in anyone's hands - be they male, female, or anything in between - is a daunting proposition. 

BLOOD STATUS: Muggle-born

HOUSE ALUMNI: Gryffindor

ANY CHANGES: I'd like to change her FC to Imogen Poots, if possible. She has a slightly softer look than Emma Mackey, but there's an underlying darkness - a potential for darkness - that I think is important for Mary's faceclaim.

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY: 

Mary MacDonald is good at “soldiering on.” She is adaptable, capable of flexibility when it means a better chance of achieving her goals. A hectic family life prepared her for such a thing. Navigating the streets and slums of Glasgow at a young age made her a direct-line thinker; when the only goal was survival, it was hard not to be steadfast in one’s endeavors. The Sorting Hat debated putting her in Slytherin for that reason, which is perhaps why she’s so close with Alice, but it’s not a trait that makes her particularly gregarious. She finds it difficult to be a devoted and dependable friend when she is wary of people’s intentions, and Mulciber’s attack only exaggerated that part of her psyche. It’s unfortunate, as her splintered relationship with her family has left her in desperate need of real friends. Always a worrier, Mary is used to thinking ahead; but, after she emerged from her fifth year with that long, nasty scar across her cheek, she was convinced she’d grown soft. Her need to be one step ahead of everyone else has morphed into a kind of high-functioning anxiety. She and fear are close fellows and she hates it, but at this point she has become quite good at using it to drive her.      

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY: 

Mary was born in Glasgow, Scotland to eighteen-year-old newlyweds Richard and Ruthie MacDonald. The pride of Mary's young life came from pointing at her parents' few grainy wedding photos - "That's me!" she screamed, jabbing a finger at her mother's swollen belly, straining beneath her wedding dress. Her elder brother Adam, however, was a more concrete installment; he stared blankly at the camera from his perch in Ruthie’s arms, not at all moved by the joyful occasion.  Love ruled the MacDonald household - it had to, as they didn’t have much else. Two more children followed - Patrick and little Holly - and Mary knew nothing but family. All six MacDonalds lived in a three-bedroom flat above Ed’s Bakery, a rather seedy establishment with an owner whose heart was far bigger than he let on. Richard built ships and worked long hours, and Ed employed Ruthie downstairs. Mary’s childhood was filled with the scent of baking (and sometimes burning) bread, and it was spent leading hodge-podge football matches in the back alley. Underneath it all, though, was a kind of dutiful sobriety; she wanted to be like the other children at her muggle primary school, seemingly carefree, but there were things to be done and things to be taken care of at home and she didn't know how to not care. 

That was why it was so jarring when her Hogwarts letter arrived, accompanied by a witch with square spectacles (who, it can be noted, took quite a liking to Ed’s biscuits). Mary’s magical abilities revealed themselves late and subtly; footballs seemed to do exactly as she willed them during games with her siblings, and any spats she had in Ed’s shop mysteriously set the baked goods to burning. The news that she was a witch, however, was somehow less unfathomable than the idea of being away from her family for nine months out of the year. She was used to being surrounded by them, by focusing only on their well-being and their survival; she didn’t know how to have thoughts that didn’t include them. Ruthie and Richard were proud and very supportive of their daughter’s new endeavor - at times, perhaps too supportive. Mary would never admit it, but she agonized over their eagerness and enthusiasm for most of her first year. Were they glad to be rid of her? Were they happy to have one less mouth to feed? She missed them and her siblings something awful, but as time went on she made peace with the anxious squall in her head. To this day it’s unclear, but if her mother and father did want to get rid of her she doesn’t blame them. Their family was a loving family, but it was also a hectic one; as Mary grew older and wiser (or perhaps more cynical?), she became inwardly critical of her parents. Why have so many children if you don’t have the means to care for them? She used to believe love was enough, but when her little brother Patrick was sent to prison for robbery shortly before her graduation, she wasn’t so sure. Perhaps this was why her relationship with her family, once so strong she could scarcely think of anything else, faded. It was gradual, but she was engrossed in a new world while they stayed engrossed in theirs - they had to. They taught her hard work and flexibility, but they both intentionally and unintentionally taught her to protect herself. Despite Richard and Ruthie’s example, Mary learned how to dodge missteps, how to keep from acting rashly and damaging any chance of her own survival. Of course, the more sinister and dire the war becomes, the further she strays from self-control.    

OCCUPATION: 

Mary was fifteen when she was attacked; she was fifteen when she was left panting against the wall of a third-floor corridor, clutching her face as portraits screamed and gasped around her. She was in the thick of her O.W.L.s when Mulciber, a boy two years her senior, unleashed his prejudice upon her, and she only wished he’d done it sooner. If he’d had the sense to do it before she started studying, she would have known what to say when asked about career choices. The attack had done everything it wasn’t meant to do; instead of silencing her, it made her bolder. Instead of making her shrink away from magic, it spurred her on, adding fuel to a fire she’d been allowing to smolder inside her. 

Upon graduation, however, Mary was at a crossroads. She wanted desperately to be an auror, but the Ministry was beyond corrupt and she knew better than to expect anything from it. She idled, working odd bartending shifts at The Leaky Cauldron whilst scanning the Prophet behind the bar. That’s where Dumbledore found her, and his proposition to join the fledgeling Order of the Phoenix wasn’t one she had to think much about. Still, it wasn’t making her any money - organizing against dark wizards wasn’t a job, especially the slow, hum-drum way the Order went about it. As good as she was at getting by with very little, she needed something more. 

The first time she heard his name was during an Order meeting, said with an air of discomfort and slight distaste. He was one of those radicals, one of those militant rebels who found murder a perfectly good way to deal with Voldemort’s regime. Both confirmed and suspected Dark Lord followers were turning up dead all over Europe, and Mary’s skin prickled. The Order did not endorse him, but she met with him in secret; if anyone were to find out or ask her about her current employment, she’d maintain that she has to make a living somehow. It’s an excuse that doesn’t quite fit, but working underground as an assassin, for lack of a better word, keeps her out of the public eye and in a stream of steady income (sometimes more than steady, and in Mulciber’s case, sometimes out of the goodness of her heart).        

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER: 

The speed with which she rose through the ranks came as a surprise, though not to Mary. It was poetic, really - a muggle-born barrelling her way into the “inner circle” - but she didn’t allow herself to think about what it all meant. Every now and then she wondered if her recruitment was meant to be more of a statement than an actual tactical move, but in the end it didn’t matter. If it started as a statement, fine. If Dumbledore recognized the need, the hunger for revenge eating her from the inside out, that was fine too. How she got there wasn’t as important as what she was doing now that she was here, and Mary clings to that thought. She isn’t blind to the Order’s setbacks, but she is comforted by all they have done - all she has done. After the attack during her fifth year, she often wondered why Mulciber didn’t kill her. He had the chance, didn’t he? Why hesitate? Well, she didn’t hesitate, and sleep comes quicker now than it has in years.  

SURVIVAL: 

Preservation is a strong instinct for Mary - she’s good at surviving. Glasgow was in a period of economic decline while she was growing up in its underbelly, and she learned how to avoid trouble, how to avoid being robbed (not that she had anything of value). This was why, as much as Mulciber’s attack drove her forward, it also shocked her and gave her self-esteem a firm shove backward. How did he sneak up on her? Why didn’t she expect anything? Why wasn’t she ready for him? Since then she has worked hard and resolved to be more prepared, more perceptive; it seems all well and good, but she has heard the term “trigger-happy” thrown around more than once. As much as her vigilance has helped her, it’s also made her somewhat of a liability.  

RELATIONSHIPS: 

At this point, Mary’s relationships with the rest of the “inner circle” are strained. She’s been successful so far, hasn’t she? So why do these men (save for Alice, and what the fuck is that all about?) seem so keen on dismissing everything she says? She’s taken Death Eaters down before, likely more than her peers know, but they’re so focused on outwitting and outmaneuvering the opposition that they’re forgetting the merits of just going for it. That’s why the methods of the newest recruits have her straining to hear their conversations, glancing sideways at them as she heads for “inner circle” meetings. Dorcas, Emma, and Benjy are people of action, and Mary respects that. It’s only a matter of time before she offers her help, especially if things keep slogging along like they currently are. 

Her relationship with her family is all but nonexistent. It’s been a year and a half since she saw her parents, and Adam doesn’t write to her anymore - that stopped before her fourth year. The distance became too great to bridge with friendly letters, and now Mary doesn’t know how best to do it. Besides, she doesn’t have the time, and sometimes she feels that the farther away she is, the better it is for them.    

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS: I ship Mary/Chemistry. It's hard to know exactly what her relationships to other characters entail at this point, but if accepted I am happy to discuss those in depth with my fellow players.

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE? 

I suppose Mary has had the luxury of seeing the muggle and wizarding worlds as two separate entities. She isn’t totally naive - she knows muggles aren’t immune to the unseen war raging among them - but given her experience as a muggle-born with a more or less indifferent family, she can’t help but see a stark line between the two. So far her parents and siblings remain unaffected, and that makes it difficult for her to understand the plights and fears of her fellow muggle-borns, especially ones with strong, lasting familial bonds. 

When it comes to wealth, she has a gigantic chip on her shoulder as well; she appreciates the Potters’ and McKinnons’ generosity, but she never allows herself to stay at their estates for long. Seeing the sheer scale of their fortunes sometimes makes her sick, nevermind that they’ve been nothing but kind to her.    

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 

I'm looking forward to dabbling in Marauders' Era again. It's been ages, and there might have been some light peer pressure involved in my applying at all. But now that I've done it I'm really excited! One thing that I think always turned me away from Marauders' Era was the fact that there was a concrete endgame. We know what happens to these characters, so exploring the bits in between seemed silly to me. Now I'm starting to understand the draw, and I think this roleplay being AU is opening a lot of doors and making me feel less constricted.

PLOT DROP IDEAS:

I’d really like to play with Mary’s questionable occupation. She has focused on targets with stark, black-and-white, obvious loyalties to the Dark Arts so far, but I think it’d be fun to have her confront a gray area - perhaps being sent for someone who is good and does good but doesn’t set themselves firmly against Voldemort? Perhaps someone within the Order? I want her job to become a source of contention within the Order if/when the other members find out.  

ANYTHING ELSE? Nope!

[four-loose-screws]

FE4 Suzuki Novelization Translation - Chapter 5 Part 4

If you would like to start from the beginning, read a missed part, etc., click here!

FE Game Script Translations - FE Novel Translations - Original FE Support Conversations - Ko-fi

———————————

Chapter 5 - The Battle in Verdane

Part 4

Aideen was taken to Marpha Castle, which Gandolf was the lord of.

He really was intent on going to Verdane Castle and asking for his father’s permission to marry her. However, once word of Genoa Castle's fall reached them, doing so became impossible.

Between repairing the castle and training the soldiers, there was a mountain of work to do, and they could not leave.

While Aideen and her maids were forbidden from leaving the castle, in the afternoons, they were free to do as they wished. The maids stayed in their bedroom, but Aideen would walk around the castle and chat with those inside.

Among the maids was a young woman who Aideen guessed to be from another country, as her was purple, a very unusual shade not commonly seen in Verdane nor Grannvale.

Aideen talked to her, and learned that her name was Deirdre. She was the maiden of the deep forest between Marpha and Verdane Castles. 

Ten days ago, she'd been found by a unit traveling towards Marpha Castle, who’d kidnapped her and brought her there.

Aideen gasped. “How terrible! Did they do anything to you?”

“If by that you mean whether or not they hurt me, they didn’t.”

“That’s a relief to hear! Ugh, Verdanian men have no shame!”

"They really don’t. But when they tried to touch me, I put them to sleep."

"Oh, you can use magic? So, how did it work? Did they sleep for a long time?"

"Yes, they seemed to be having nice dreams. When they woke up about an hour later, I pretended to cry. That seemed to satisfy them, as they went away after that.”

Aideen scrunched up her face, but then burst out laughing. "Ugh, men are such simple creatures! But you know what, Deirdre? I’m in the same boat.”

"What? You were forced to come here too, Lady Aideen?"

"Yes. And you don't have to be formal with me. I've simply been calling you Deirdre, after all."

Aideen told Deirdre about how she’d been taken from Jungby.

“Oh no! Did they do anything to you?”

“If by that you mean whether or not they hurt me, they didn’t.”

“Thank goodness.” 

Aideen explained how she defended herself.

This time, Deirdre was the one to laugh. "Your magic is stronger than mine."

The two got along so well that they began to chat regularly in their free time.

When evening came and everyone had eaten dinner, Aideen and her maids weren't allowed to leave their room. After the dishes were returned to the kitchen, someone always locked the door from the outside.

But if they moved furniture in front of the door or stuck a pole through the handles, then no one could get in, either.

Gandolf once tried to enter the room, and their blockade kept him from doing so.

"It's me! Open up! I'm the lord of this castle, so you gotta listen to me!" His slurred speech gave away that he was very drunk.

"A princess of Jungby would never let a man other than her husband into her room at night!"

"I'm the man who's gonna be your husband!"

"But you aren't my husband yet. A prince must keep his promises. If you wish to marry me, then take me to King Batu!"

"Damn you woman!" Gandolf screamed before giving up and walking off.

-

Reinforcements from Verdane gradually came to the castle. Among them was King Batu's third son, Prince Jamke.

Unlike King Batu's other sons, Jamke wielded bows.

One day, Aideen noticed him shooting arrows in the courtyard, and she was shocked. He could easily hit small objects from thirty meters away. 'Even Jungby's knights cannot hit a target from so far away!'

When she tried to approach him, she overheard him talking to one of the soldiers. "That was amazing, Prince Jamke! Keep it up, and you'll have no trouble taking out the Grannvalians when they get here!"

'So Jamke is the great archer they've been talking about?'

He looked completely different from his brothers. While they had square, fierce faces, Jamke's was slender. His features were sharp, but he looked very kind.

'Perhaps he has a different mother?' Aideen wondered.

She looked around to make sure that Gandolf wasn't around, then went up to him. "You're skills are simply breathtaking! Even the knights in my homeland, Jungby, cannot compare to you!"

Jamke turned around and saw a beautiful noblewoman. Her eyes shone as she praised him.

"N-Now surely, there's no way someone who's self taught can compare to the knights of Jungby…" He blushed.

'His manner of speaking is totally different, too!’

"I am Princess Aideen of Jungby. And you are?"

"I-I am Jamke, the third son of King Batu."

"Jamke… it has such a nice ring to it! It makes me think of the late-autumn sky. You said you were self-taught, right? So what kind of training did you do?"

"I hunted birds and small beasts."

"Can you hit them every time?"

"No, of course not! They move too quickly! Though my accuracy has gotten much better lately."

"That's amazing!" Aideen smiled, but then sighed.

"What's wrong?"

"I just realized that the Grannvalian soldiers are going to fight against you. It makes me so sad. If they go after you, then surely you'll be killed."

"But we're at war! It's kill or be killed!"

"Oh war this, war that! It's always about war with you men! Do you know how many women you've made cry!?"

"I understand that. But…" His face twisted with anger. "You're the ones who started this!"

"No, we weren't! Verdane attacked Jungby first! That's why I'm imprisoned here!"

"But wasn't Grannvale plotting to attack Verdane? My father approved of the attack because he had no other choice!"

"Who told you that?"

"..."

"Grannvale is currently fighting with Isaach, because they attacked Darna, one of our allied cities!"

"..."

"When Verdane attacked my duchy, we hardly had any soldiers there! Do you really think we would do that if we were preparing for battle?

"But Grannvale just invaded Verdane!"

"To take me back!" She shouted at him, then quickly walked away without waiting for a response. 'I don't know what's going to happen next, but that's enough for one day.'

-

The next day, Aideen spent the morning staring out into the courtyard from her room. Jamke never came out, but just before noon, she saw a boy being locked into the pillory.

She walked out of her room and went up to him. "What crime did you commit?"

The boy looked up to see where her voice had come from. "I didn't do anything, but the mean, nasty soldiers put me in here anyway!"

"He's a thief! You can't believe a word he says!" One of the nearby soldiers shouted over to her.

Aideen looked at him. She guessed he was either thirteen or fourteen, and had a round, cute face with big eyes. He didn't look like a thief at all.

"Won't you help me, Princess? Please! I'll do whatever you say!"

"Are you from around here?"

It took him a moment to answer. "Yeah, if you need to know anything about this area, then just ask, and I’ll tell you! So please, get me outta here!"

'He paused to think about what be should say. If he really hadn't done anything, then he would have replied right away.' Aideen thought. "I'll have a word with Gandolf, but I'm no more than a prisoner here myself. And besides, everyone knows that you can't trust a thief's promises."

"No, I swear it! It's true that you can't trust a thief's promise, but a thief's vow is the real deal. Please!"

"What's your name?"

"Dew."

"It has a very interesting ring to it. It's short, but feels full of lies."

"Forget about that, just help me…!"

"I'll think about it." She said, then began to saunter away.

She thought that he would shower her with obscenities, but he didn't.

"I swear it. I swear it on my life!"

'He just might be useful.' She thought.

-

When afternoon rolled around, Jamke still hadn't come out to the courtyard, so Aideen decided to walk around the main building.

She had a feeling that something was up, as he wasn’t out in the open.

She continued further inside, and saw Jamke standing standing inside a room with the door open, his back facing her.

'I knew it!' She entered the room and called out to him.

"Oh, that was you?"

"I wanted to apologize to you, and I just so happened to see you in here… I went too far yesterday. Please forgive me."

"I don't think you said too much…"

"Were you thinking about something? If I'm bothering you, then I'll leave you alone…"

"No, you're not a bother… but I have been thinking since our talk. I've been wondering who said that Grannvale was preparing to attack us…"

"And do you have a lead?"

"Yes. It was a mage named Sandima."

"A mage?" Aideen raised an eyebrow. "I don't trust anyone who calls themself a mage."

"Me neither. But Sandima has very strange powers, so my father trusted him completely."

"Then you must go clear up any misunderstandings your father has!"

"That's my plan, to go home to Verdane and talk to him. I'm happy that I was able to see you before I left…"

"So am I. But you won't end the war through talking to your father alone, Prince Jamke. So I have a request for you."

"What is it?"

"Please set me free, so I can convince Grannvale to stop fighting. If we work together, we can do it!"

"But how can I get you out of here safely?"

"At nightfall, our room on the second floor is locked from the outside, but no one stands guard in front of the door. So if you unlocked it, my maids and I could get out of the castle… Are there any emergency exits?"

"Yes, there are! But what will you do once you're out of the castle? You don't know this area."

"Please let the boy being kept prisoner in the courtyard free. He can guide us."

Jamke stared straight at her. "Alright. You're stronger than I thought. Can we meet again once the war is over?"

"Of course, Prince Jamke." Aideen said, staring straight back into his eyes.

-

The emergency exit was behind the castle. Since it was made to evacuate people if the castle was ever attacked, one had to jump off a two meter ledge to get out. Meaning that they could exit through it, but not reenter.

Aideen and the others escaped from the castle in the middle of the night.

First, Jamke jumped down and made sure that the ground was safe. Then, he held out his arms and waited for Aideen. She turned towards him, and jumped.

The moment he caught her, an intoxicating scent filled his nose.

Next, the two maids jumped, and Dew was the final one to make it out.

Guided by the moonlight, they traveled for about one hour across the plains and made it out of the castle town.

"This is where I must say goodbye. I will pray for your safety, Princess Aideen."

"And I will do the same for you, Prince Jamke."

"Dew, was it? I'm leaving the rest to you."

"You can count on me! I made a thief's vow with Lady Aideen! I'll get her out of here!"

Jamke saw them off, and didn't move until long after their shadows disappeared into the darkness.

'I pray that we'll meet again someday, Aideen. We may have only known each other for two days, but you've already stolen my heart.'