Deltora Quest AU where Dain, Fallow, and 3-19 are all just not quite loyal to the Shadow Lord, because existence is a Curse and this is the only way that can get revenge on him.

If Dain spends a bit to long monologuing when he should be going after Lief and Doom (who survived the Shadow Lands, and therefore should immediately be threat #1) when he’s only been efficient before- well, he’s just declaring his love for his Master.

If Fallow is busy with Lumin when he should be interrogating the prisoners, well, that’s not really unexpected. If he tells the Shadow Lord that he doesn’t think Jarred’s son is on the quest (because that’s clearly Endon, there were portraits of him, for f*cks sake), well, he’s not lying (and it’s not like the Shadow Lord asked if he thought the man was Endon).

If 3-19 just happens to not look under the covers of a cage that clearly shouldn’t be there, if he hesitates to convert the King of Deltora- that’s to be expect of a failure like him. (If he slips and leaves food scraps by the bars, if he looks in the wrong place when hunting for resistance members, well, he’s just getting used to his new form.)

Incompetence is difficult when a master demands perfection, but they make it work.

…Look, I just can’t believe that they were all that stupid, alright?!

So does anyone else ever think that Doom always felt so strongly about the three because he /knew/ them- or at least deep, deep down?

Lief is supposed to look a lot like Endon, Jared/Doom’s childhood friend (😉).

Jasmine is his daughter and also supposedly looks like her mother (from memory?).

Barda is the son of Jared/Doom’s nursemaid Min who raised him and Endon. Even if they never met I would imagine Barda must have resembled his mother is some sense.

Ok bye I’m going to crawl back into my hole now

Dain is given his name by the Shadow Lord, his maker; the closest thing, he figures, he will ever have to a father. His siblings—or the closest thing he will ever have to siblings—are 3-16 and 3-18, but Dain is Dain. A name is a privilege for an Ol, he is told. It is given only in return for great responsibility. And Dain’s responsibility is greatest of all: he is the last insurance, the plan within all the plans. His personal character and appearance are designed into him, for such things would take too long to teach. But other things he must be trained in before going to his appointed task. He learns how to eat, and how to shit, and after watching live vivisections in the Factory he learns how to make his body function so that it bleeds when it is cut, and shows bone in all the right places, without his having to consciously will it. He becomes so skilled that he experiences something very unpleasant when his body is damaged. He learns that this is called ‘pain.’ He learns to produce water from his eyes when this occurs, and that it will make others pity him.

Please find below the beginning of my WIP Bad in the Blood, told from Dain POV, covering all the way up to the end of the story (someday). No idea when I’m going to finish it, so I figured I might as well post the beginning. Much character development to come after this segment ends.

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I remember being a kid and thinking "Damn Jasmine, how were you so dumb to believe Faith was real?" and just hating her for falling into the trap to begin with, because Jasmine was supposed to be the logical, wary one, but damn, now that I'm older, it hits hard understanding emotions more.

Jasmine has never had any human family. Despite Lief and Barda, she doesn't feel that close to them yet at the end of DQ1, and has difficulty confiding in people.

Deep down, she just wants to be loved. Filli and Kree are her family but of course, her inner child would want more. Despite her pragmatism and apathy, deep down she's overly compassionate about this sort of thing.

The idea of having a sister who went through something that SHE possibly could have gone through had her mother not told her to hide in the bushes must've been painful for her, tugging on her empathy.

It would've been possible to her that her mother wasn't killed immediately and that she was pregnant and gave birth in the Shadowlands, because she didn't see Anna get killed.

"Why didn't she ask Doom?"

Even after Jasmine finds out Doom is her father, they're not exactly close, and the SL took advantage of this. She wanted to find something in life again, and didn't ask Doom cus there was just that...gap. Didn't feel close enough to him.

Doom's struggling, he's going through a lot of shit, must I remind that Doom HATED King Endon? Then all of a sudden he finds out Jarred is King Endon and that he's Jarred and remembers he loved King Endon, it's all a major shocking dissonance and then Endon dies within the same week.

He's back to his old self, he's severely dismissive-avoidant etc. He subconsciously sees emotional support as weakness, and most likely doesn't want to get close to Jasmine so it won't wear her out. I doubt Jasmine felt an actual loving bond at the time enough to confront him.

Growing older you realise how the SL psychologically manipulates people using grief and loss (that he caused) and it's scarier, like Paff's story. He killed Paff's family, she's a case of a severely mentally ill woman with deep-rooted anxieties, people-pleasing tendencies, major depression etc. No wonder she killed herself for release.

Paff is so tragic like man the rep of a very mentally ill woman with deep-rooted anxieties being preyed on by the Shadow Lord is just so sad, rest in peace :(

Hear me out.

Sorceress Thaegan's final death is extremely sad. Up until this point, her children had been orphaned twice. This time, they didn't want to be without her anymore.

That, in itself would be sad, but then consider what happened off screen.

When they heard of her death the first time, they were determined to eat up Lief, Barda, and Jasmine. After failing, they were all, probably, grieving with Icabod being the one to keep them together. By the time Thaegan comes back, they're all ready to help her because they know it would keep her with them. They fail again and are left alone.

By the final time she's defeated, her kids can't stand it anymore. They want to be with her forever. They didn't want to be without her. They loved her.

It was in this moment that Thaegan came back to her senses. She had been so obsessed with living forever and remaining beautiful with immense power that she forgot she had her children who loved her dearly.

I think that's also why her ring fades away. She's done with serving the Shadow Lord, chasing after vanity and power. She just wanted to be with her kids again.

Yes, it's not exactly the saddest anime death but I feel like it's symbolic with the theme of the episode. Family gets mentioned a few times and this moment serves as a reminder to the audience that Lief, Jasmine, and Barda were fighting a family. A family on the opposing side but a family nonetheless.

so in shadowgate what if—what if instead of KEEP OUT the moths just said—

I really really love Sharn and Doom’s relationship. I mean:

Jarred admired Sharn when they first met, and her courage gave him the strength he needed to sacrifice everything.

When Endon, Sharn and Jarred are about to leave the palace, and Endon is reluctant to flee, Jarred and Sharn both take turns trying to convince Endon. I love how Jarred steps in after glancing at Sharn’s worried face. And in Isle of Illusion, when Sharn tries to warn that Amarantz is about to poison herself, Doom instantly understands and leaps to stop Amarantz.

They save each other’s lives! Sharn saves Doom’s life in Isle of Illusion; Doom saves Sharn’s life in Sister of the South.

Doom’s so gentle with Sharn, like in Isle of Illusion when he reassures her that Lief is alive and when he tells her that they can’t go after Lief, Barda and Jasmine and must have faith in them.

I really think that they grew very close after Lief became king. They both knew each other from before Jarred became Doom, and they endured a lot of shit and sacrificed a lot. Plus they’re both connected by their love and grief for Endon. Not to mention, they have quite a bit in common: they’re both strong, smart, brave, and intelligent. They’re also the ones who survive their spouses.

I just think that they work so well together. Can you imagine what they could’ve gotten up to if Jarred had never left the palace and had befriended Sharn when she became Endon’s wife? :D They would’ve had so much fun. And I think they would’ve managed to convince Endon about the true danger that much sooner.

My mom: “yeah, my daughter is studying for her finals”

Me: “If the people of Noradz had such a problem with rats why they didn’t buy a cat?”

so glad that there are still good people in deltora who will help out those who are down on their luck <3 #blessed #seekthenomad

01 | Valiant

Screaming sea-birds, the wind blowing at her hair, and the taste of salt on her lips. 

These were all things that Verity had associated with love since she had been a little girl. Love for the sea that brought her fish that fed her, driftwood that her father would carve into toys when she was a child, sprays of water that would cool her on a hot summer’s day. But now the gulls do not sing, their mouths are too full of the berries and fresh water that keep her from death. She counts the nights—wind has not blown in nearly two weeks, not since she was tied to the prow of The Lady Luck. The salt is still there, but it tears at her lips and makes them bleed.

The ropes that bind her to the prow of the boat bite into the flesh not covered by her cloak and nightgown, and thin trails of blood spiral down her arms as the crew below her jeer and shout horrible things, but she does not listen to their crude words. While the water does not move and the waves do not crash, the subtle sounds of the sea play like music in her ears. There is no hatred in her heart for her father and the mistakes he has made, only a deep love and wistful grief. She feels no hunger nor thirst—the birds have cared for that. There is pain, yes, and exhaustion, but the knowledge that she is cared for by something greater and unrelenting than these things brings her comfort.

For a vow once made cannot be broken.

I hear your words, James Gant, and they will bind you.

The blade pierces her heart and the sea screams with her. Blood and bile rise in her throat, choking her last words as pain spreads through her body like a plague. Black blood spills from her wound and her lips, onto the mottled wood of the ship, and into the unforgiving sea. Great waves crash upon the boat, ignoring the screams of the men that have bound her, and instead focusing on the one they love.  

Screaming sea-birds, the wind blowing at her hair, and the taste of salt on her lips.

No more fear. No more pain. The sea, her true mother, pulls her soul home beneath the depths.

(Deltora Quest Spoilers ahead) Okay so I don't really look into AUs or really read many fics outside of stuff for TTRPGs I am personally in but hear me out. Good Dain AU where he is still an Ol but is genuinely moved by his connection to Lief and Jasmine, and probably to a lesser extent Doom and Barda too and betrays the shadow lord, maybe he's even the one to ultimately kill Fallow in this AU, and I really want a scene sometime after the resolution of the main story where Lief and Jasmine take him to Tora and he's of course super anxious about it but once inside the city he realizes he's no longer affected by it's magic and has overcome everything the shadow lord wanted to make him... yeah

Do you ever think about how if the Shadow Lord had just… been a decent ruler, he would have won? I mean, all he had to do was make it that people weren’t being taken as slave labour and were getting enough food, and people would celebrate the king falling.

Day 8 - Cunning

Neridah. Before this, I really didn’t give much thought about her; she was merely a deciteful woman who had brief roles in the story. But now that I had to think about her personality to see how I like to imagine her, it struck me hard to see how much I can understand her.

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The pirran pipe except to keep the evil out of the land you have to play the flute bit from Down Under by Men at Work.

ckarl the type of guy to get turned into a llama in a failed murder plot and go on a heros journey to learn about humility and the power of friendship

I'm late I know but knowing Ethan would have lived if he teamed up with Karl is super fucking depressing

I want to see Karl make mechanical prosthetics for Ethan cus well why the fuck not :D