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#i can't tell you much about them because of BACKSTORY SECRETS

ungarmax · 1 year

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two new d&d ocs. their names are sasha (left) and elliot (right) and they're in love.

#z art #i can't tell you much about them because of BACKSTORY SECRETS #but here they are #sasha #elliot

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genericpuff · 2 months

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How long do you plan making rekindled? I loved Lo at some point, But now I cant get enough of your version!! And I wanted to know how did you come up with the darker back stories for Rekindled?

I have a semi-detailed skeleton of the plot with basically every story beat planned out, but I can't definitively say how long it will be as I haven't actually scripted every single episode out yet.

Not to mention a lot of the time my scripts will change from their original versions, by the time I get to an episode I've planned ahead for I've either thought of new ways to do it or don't like how it's paced so I change it. Case in point, there was a specific scene I had planned for the next episode and then wound up not liking the pacing because it was too fast so I moved it to several episodes away and restructured everything on the fly, took a whole new text document and scrapping sketches to figure shit out LOL I actually do have up until Episode 70ish scripted out in my documents with like, actual notes and dialogue for each episode, but I already have sooo many of those crossed out now because of how much I've had to tweak and change as time has gone on. This is why I plan ahead well in advance though, so that if I do need to make those changes, I can make them long before the episodes are even due to be drawn (and believe me, they get changed during the sketching phases too LOL).

What I can confirm for certain is that the current 'arc' we're in right now is definitely the bulk of the story. And that's not to say there isn't any content afterwards, more like the pacing just gets completely turned on its head in the last 30-40% of it where shit gets N U T S and just can't go back to the same energy that it was in the beginning. Without spoiling, there's a certain 'turning point' in the plot and everything after it isn't quite as long as the stint of story we're in now. This is mostly because the arc we're currently in is still establishing a bunch of stuff like the Underworld Corp, Persephone's schooling, etc. and once that turning point hits, it's basically all character development and focusing on the consequences of everything setup in the first arc.

I guess if I had to illustrate it, the story progression in the end will look something like this?

It's basically just this slow and chill climb that, once it hits that sharp peak, doesn't ever return to normal levels LMAO So I guess enjoy this part of the story while you can because it's the chillest it'll ever be w(°ｏ°)w And boy, I am EXCITED for that peak, but we have a long way to go before we get there. As for how long, well, I'm hoping I'll be able to have Rekindled's story wrapped up in the next 2 years, tops. Just depends on how the update schedule goes, and assuming the plans I have put down for the plotting don't change in any major way. I don't have as much of the latter half of the story actually scripted out yet so for all I know it could wind up being way longer than anticipated, but right now I have a pretty good sense of how the story beats will play out in relation to each other.

So it's kind of a wait and see thing, at least until I have every episode scripted out, and even then I won't be 100% sure because things are always being tweaked and fixed and changed on the fly! I'm guessing it won't go much longer than 170 episodes, give or take, but that's a very very VERY rough estimate.

Regardless, Rekindled still has a lot more story to tell, and I'm hoping y'all enjoy the ride with me <3

As for the darker backstories, y'all don't even know yet. Like... I've got stuff planned. Stuff that even Banshriek (my BG assistant) doesn't know about. Stuff that I keep buried very deep in Rekindled's episode documents that won't see the light of day until they have to be ripped out of the deep dark trenches of the characters' own buried secrets, and by that point, the toothpaste will be out of the tube, there will be no going back. So, again... enjoy it while it lasts. Because I don't pull my punches. And maybe even you won't be able to look at me the same way again once the final blow has been dealt.

Sleep well.

#k but i am actually really nervous for how those bigger turning points go #esp the spiky one LOL #i feel like it'll definitely be uh. interesting. in how people feel about it.#but mostly because it'll just be a punch to the gut #i will definitely give adequate warning when it's coming so that people can steel themselves LOL #ask me anything #ama #anon ama #anon ask me anything #lore rekindled ama

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lilylylalil · 3 months

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Loving the right way - Chuuya

People think that Chuuya is a green flag but did you all forget that he is an executive..?

I believe that it depends and will see why…

anyways Reader's ability is inspired by a magazine and the author is Raicho Hiratsuka

WARNINGS: Reader and Chuuya have problems, brief smut (no details or description but you know that they are doing it) talks about killing, gun, seeing how Chuuya is rich, talk about Chuuya trust issues, brief of drunk Chuuya

_____________________________________________________________

Chuuya has trust issues. It's not a new information but an important clue to understand his trauma but also backstory. You didn't want to force Chuuya to open up after all if he wanted to say something to you he knew himself that he could…only..he hesitates.

He doesn't like to relay on someone much after all he knows that his work could get himself killed or his closed ones, he is already selfish to want to be with you, a civilian.

Of course, Chuuya trained you personally in combat so he can be less tense every hour he is away from you.

He doesn't underestimate you but he can't make an error to underestimate the enemy either way. He believes that you were favoured by the Gods because you had a pretty destructive ability, it can almost be as the same as Chuuya's ability…

Your ability is “Bluestocking”, you could manipulate light but also bend it at your will, the only problem is that in the night you could protect yourself with your ability much, why? because even if there is sunlight from the moon your ability needs directly the sunlight and not the reflection so of course other type of light other than sun can't be manipulated by you…

Chuuya wonder how the mafia didn't know about her ability and he asked her but Reader only smiled and said “it's a secret but i promise you i will tell you one day at the right time”.

Chuuya was even more curious why Reader didn't try to find a job that she could use her ability but she simply said that she didn't really want to work for the government and preferred her current job, being an interior designer plus she wins 120k € a year so it's a pretty good sum of money for a job that isn't at all dangerous besides meeting Karens. Well Chuuya can admire the patience Reader has because if it was he, he could already snap their necks, of course not with his ability. They don't even deserve it.

Chuuya isn't a horny person but that doesn't mean It's rare for you two to make love, He is gentle, always asking if you want to continue or not. He can't lie but he has fantasies but in the act he forgets about them because he just wants you to feel loved and seen.

Really having sex with him feels like you are already in the aftercare. He kisses your lips, neck, cheek, hands. He also hugs you tightly but not enough to hurt you..

Now how about looking at the most fragile point in your relationship with Chuuya?

The trust

Chuuya is still paranoid because he actually is very sensitive with the people he cares so if you break his trust, examples: by cheating or selling information of the Port Mafia to others).

He will never ever forgive you. Even after 5 years. Your relationship will be ruined forever. Maybe he will not kill you (depends if you really sold information of the Port Mafia i believe the boss could order Chuuya to kill you and don't forget that he is loyal and he will do it)

Also Chuuya can be very sadistic (people forgot that a lot lol) and if you two are fighting he could say serious messed up things.

Or Chuuuya has a hard time being open minded after all for him the way of the mafia is the best and that's pretty messed up.

Even if the relationship isn't rainbows i can't lie but there can be funny situations, examples when Chuuya drank a lot and couldn't recognize you and he slept on the floor to not 'cheat on you’ as he thought you were another woman or the other time you invited Chuuya to ice skate and it was a first time for both of you but at the end you fell more and actually Chuuya never fell. You guessed all the trained he had for combat can be useful for others things, can't they?

For Valentine day you and Chuuya could go to Chuuya's private boat an navigate for the day on the Ocean.

The moment you learnt Chuuya knows French you forced- you mean asked him to speak some and to also teach you some lol:

“-So anyways that's how my travel in France went” Chuuya says one of his travels for a mission to Reader and Reader says

“oh cool so did you have a hard time in France with the language barrier?”

“oh, actually i know French”

Reader abruptly says

“What!? You know French and you didn't tell me?? Uh the betrayal!”

you say the last thing dramatically playful. Chuuya rolls his eyes “yeah yeah really tragic but seriously I don't see the big deal”

“Chuuya can't you understand that makes you sexier”

Chuuya was caught off guard by Reader bold words but even more by her casualty “Don't you have any shame?”

Reader looks innocently and says “can't understand what are you talking about and anyways can you speak French for me?”

Before Chuuya could say “don't you forget to say a ‘please’?

Reader points a gun at Chuuya and just after 3 seconds the two starts laughing, they had an inside joke that even Mori couldn't understand.

Either way it's not a perfect relationship but It's of course better than others and actually what i think is beautiful is that you two accept each other and forgive but not forget. After all how can you do better when you forget?

#bsd #bsd chuuya #chuuya × reader #chuuya nakahara #chuya nakahara #chuuya x reader #bungostraydogs

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twig-tea · 4 months

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Cooking Crush ep 10: This Show Has My Whole Heart

I wrote about some of the things Cooking Crush is doing so well in my response to a recent ask, and so I'm particularly glad that episode 10 came through with a strong flourish to get us set up the last two episodes.

I wanted to call out a few specific things this episode did that are contributing to why it's working so well for me.

First, I want to mention that the reciprocity continues! Previously, we had Prem comforting Ten during a panic attack post adrenaline crash. In this episode, Ten comforts and supports Prem during his worries about Samsee and the competition.

Picking up on something else I've talked about before, this show is committed to its character's arcs. Fire is struggling with his sexuality and his desire to keep their relationship secret last episode led to the conflict between Samsee and Dynamite this episode. Fire showing up to support Dy in public, giving him affection, and using the petname Dy insisted on having is all evidence of Fy's increasing comfort with it. He's already said before he intends to tell his mother, and Dy has been clear he's not rushing him. The way Dy is so careful with Fire but also so receptive to and appreciative of what Fire is able to give warms my heart (pun intended). And Samsee and Prem seeing it and reacting supportively too, because they know what this means to their friend!

[The gifsearch is not cooperating but please enjoy this gifest by @gunsatthaphan.]

I also want to talk about how this conflict with Samsee hits Dynamite hard, and in the context of knowing he's lost relationships with his parents because of his sexuality, to think his relationship with Fire could have lost him a close friend must be bringing back up his feelings about being cut out of the lives of people he loves. However, it speaks to the strength of his bond with Samsee that even though Samsee is furious and not speaking with him, he does not kick Dy out of his apartment. Dy mentions that he didn't see Samsee the night before the competition because Samsee didn't come home (we find out later why, but I loved this subtle nod to the fact that unlike Dy's own parents, Samsee didn't abandon Dy when he made choices that hurt him. I AM IN MY QUEER FOUND FAMILY FEELINGS, FRIENDS).

Along these lines, Ten going to confess to Prem, noticing that these friends are having a moment, and quietly stepping away to give them space is such a good character moment for him, since previously he's been begging to be let in to their shared space even when Prem mentions he's concerned about its impact on his friends and their relationship. Ten's realizing he can't be everything for Prem, and it's better for both of them if he isn't.

That scene of reconciliation, the three friends re-establishing how important they are to one another, that got to me. And that the show prioritized it over the romance! I cannot tell you how much I love that this was an explicit decision the show made, to say 'no, this is not the time for a confession, this friendship reconciliation is more important right now'. And I love that the show gives us a solid, character-grounded reason for why Samsee reacted so strongly to being left out in the first place. We've been told Samsee has changed school majors 3 times, and it's been played as a joke as well as an explanation for why he's an older student. I love that we've now had the consequences of those changes on Samsee's friendships added to his story. Even a "joke" backstory has ramifications for the characters in this show, I am obsessed.

I also want to mention that I am loving what the show is doing with Samsee and Metha, two characters who are the "fuck-ups" of their friend groups, but who are also the most loyal and most supportive of them all. They conflict with one another around what that support looks like, even while they enable one another to continue to be the best friends to their respective besties.

Prem has struggled this entire show to use his words, and in particular he's visibly wrestled with how he can gracefully reject Chef Changma without putting his own career at risk. In this episode he manages to say 'I don't think that [a hug] would be a good idea', and he's ignored. Ten immediately steps in, but I wanted to highlight how big a deal it is for Prem to have said no to this Chef--who he's idolized, who is his mentor, and who is a judge of the competition he's in--in this moment.

When we do get to the confession, Prem continues to lead with action, and Ten continues to push him to use his words. I love so much that Ten never lets him get away with copping out of saying the words, since it's something we know Prem struggles so much with. This speaks to @lurkingshan's earlier post about how Cooking Crush shows us its leads are better thanks to their relationship (in the same way that Fire self-actualizing and being more free to be himself and express affection also speaks to this point).

Beyond character arcs, there's one other thing I am very excited for heading into episode 11 next week, and that's the conflicts in this show converging so brilliantly. So far, the show has set up a few conflicts: Ten's relationship with his father, the cooking competition, the bullies, Fire's relationship with his mother, and Chef Changma's interest in Prem. All of these have now been queued up to expertly converge as a single conflict in ep 11, based on the preview. With Changma's advance and subsequent punch being recorded and distributed (I'm placing bets that this was recorded by one of the bullies, btw), Ten's father once again steps in the way of this relationship that he sees as a detriment to his son. Prem also previously stated that he wanted to enter the competition in order to prove to Ten's dad that he has potential, so these threads were already starting to come together weeks ago. Even if I'm wrong about the bullies having been the ones to record that video, they're sitll in the competition as competitors. And of course Fire has promised Dy he'd come out after the competition, tying the last thread of these conflicts all together around this single event.

And this is what I mean when I say the writing on this show is so good. Because the characters are coherent and consistent and have clear arcs, and the conflicts are grounded in the characters, even though there are several threads, they come together easily and in a way that makes perfect sense and that work with the character arcs rather than against them.

The last thing I'll mention, because it's something I actually brought up as a negative to this show previously, is the use of non-linear storytelling. Cooking Crush has used non-linear storytelling several times, showing us a scene and then flashing back to what happened before that scene in order to fill in the gaps. This can be an effective storytelling tool, but it has to accomplish something in the narrative. The difference between unnecessary and excellently-deployed non-linear storytelling is whether or not there's a good answer to this question: What is the purpose of delaying this information to the audience, and how does that delay affect the audience understanding of what they're seeing? In previous instances, for example the kiss and then flashback to the full date, knowing that Ten and Prem kissed at the end of their date didn't add anything to the viewing experience of watching their date, and having seen their date didn't change my experience of the kiss. This is why I consider it an ineffective use of that technique.

In episode 10, however, we get the cold open that shows Ten joining Prem and Samsee in the competition, and then we flash back. Knowing Ten will be joining Prem and Dynamite in the competition helps to colour what we see about Prem and Dy trying to get Samsee to reconcile with them, as well as Samsee's absence. When we get to Ten stepping in, we have learned it was as much a surprise (and disappointment) to Prem and Dy as it was to us. Ten stepping in doesn't actually work, but it does give Prem the courage to ask if they can compete as a duo, rather than just letting themselves be disqualified without a fight. And we later find out that Samsee was so touched by the letter that he went to his hometown to dig for prawns and that's why he was late for the competition. [I also wanted to mention this because based on @respectthepetty's roundup post it sounds like the cold open was cut for the youtube version]

I lied, I have one more actual last thing, this one is obvious but I can't not say it: THANK YOU to this show for consistently queueing up the typical miscommunication fumbles that get so annoying in every BL (in most romance plots of any sexuality) and then saying NOT TODAY SATAN and having the characters choose vulnerability and honesty and bravery, and talking it out. Every time the show does this (and it's at least 2x per episode, no exaggeration) I feel a little more faith in romance writing restored.

ANWAY, TL;DR Cooking Crush continues making me so happy every week!

#cooking crush #bl meta #long post #typed so that I can stop thinking it #sorry y'all i am so obsessed with the details about this show #everything that makes it feel normal to everyone else is what is making it feel extraordinary to me

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flymetosnarryland · 6 months

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A little progress.

I'm working on "Infraction." My precious baby, uh. This art is part of it in a way. Eileen Prince and Tobias Snape. When people are falling in love everything seems easy, but then life happen.

(I'd like to talk about how things are going with Infraction.)

I'm back on it since couple of weeks and working on it is intense (my brain is literally boiling). I don't think I ever planned a story for that long. The first idea has born 6th January this year. I was writing down (like crazy) everything I wanted to be in this fic. During first months it was chaotic and messy, but brought me so much joy. When I've had everything that (I thought) I needed, I wrote first chapters, yeah. And then shared them, because was so excited about all of it and just couldn't wait. Gosh.

Now I... hm... well, maybe not "regret" it, but I think, I totally should have wait. Why is that? First thing first, this story is not ready yet for being written in, you know, final version. It's too fat, lol.

I may want too much from it. There is a lot, like, seriously, A LOT of things to cover. First notes took me around 80 pages and it had many gaps in it (too much if you ask me). Things I needed to figure out and fill in, in the same time making everything work together. Because this Snarry is not sprinkled with crime. It's filled with murder, political shenanigans, family shiteshow and tough, not always appropriate, love. There are secrets and lies, blackmails and history that matter. Backstory of many people, whose actions over the years supposed to bring us to the point where we are now. And, you know, all of it gives me the thrill. First time in my life I feel like a true Puppet Master.

So, couple weeks ago I started to write a proper outline, if I can call it like that. To put everything in order and, going from the very beginning, to fill all the gaps. To answer all the questions I was asking myself in notes. To figure out the missing clues, some details without I couldn't go further and with that - to find out how characters will change facing new situations. How they will grow (I really love this part). Sometimes I think, "why am I even doing it?" I could just write some cosy, little fic where Harry and Severus' silly problems would be the main goal of the story. Like, focusing on them should be enough, right? Why am I going for all the other things, if I just want them to shag and have their happy end after all? 😂

Well, if it's not for fun, I don't know the other reason. The level of excitement is just incredible. I don't know, if what I'm writing is good or bad. If it really has sense, because I've always seen myself rather as a potato, not as a great mastermind who can plot some good shite, you know. That said, "Infraction" feels even more challenging that I ever thought it will be. But I feel deep inside that I can do it. Going step by step where the main plan leads and... it just feels good.

I've started in October 1989. Now I'm in January 2011. It means that I managed to finish everything that happen before the fic starts, lol. And, actually, I almost covered the first part of the book. So, two more to go? Hehe. It'll take time, yes. It's crazy how much I want to continue writing the main chapters, not only swim in the plan-phase. Drawing the series of "Muggle London" art helped me a lot with easing this itch. However, it's still there. I know, though, that I have to finish it. The whole outline, I mean. Without it, things can go south.

That said, I can't tell how long it will take. Couple weeks? Maybe months. This is really... a lot of work and I want to be proud of it. Even more so, because this fic means a lot to me. I know it may not be, you know, mind blowing or something. But I hope that giving it all my love, it could be, you know, not that bad for reading, hehe.

#Infraction #Muggle London #Eileen Prince #Tobias Snape #personal #talking about writing

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greenerteacups · 24 days

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forever grateful to you for sharing your musings, as if the book writing weren't great enough and hard work enough, you truly spoil us and i love you.

I'm popping in here to ask if you would like to talk about how you see Dumbledore. Sometimes I feel his manipulative side is abused in fanfiction, depicting little more than a heartless chess master.

And well, I guess I'm curious to find out if Lionheart Albus has a heart and will we get to see it. Maybe the more generous glimpses you give us of Snape and his interactions with him will shed some light on his hidden depths? Or will his appearances remain fleeting and enigmatic, always far and above all the little people we do know and adore?

Sorry, I know you can't possibly be completely balanced in your portraying of the whole cast, or they would spread too thin. I am here for the plot, for the Dramione and the Blacks, but I deeply enjoy all the character building (I truly live for all of them, not only our loved ones, I even cherish Warrington with sincere hate and am waiting for his comeuppance ) so I thought I would ask if you wouldn't mind a few comments on our opaque headmaster.

Thank you, friend! You're really kind.

Dumbledore has a relatively minor role in Lionheart for a few reasons — chief among which is, as you point out, that we just don't have time for everybody to get the same level of characterization the mains do. I have plot justifications for that, but it'd be disingenuous to suggest otherwise: Dumbledore's minor because I'm less interested in him than I am in Snape and Narcissa, and Lionheart is much more about Draco's sphere of the world than Harry's. That being said, I think some people forget how small Dumbledore's role is in the original books. He pretty much exists to deliver exposition and tell Harry how to beat the final boss; dude doesn't even get a gesture at a backstory until he's already dead. In fact, it's kinda weird to me that everyone (including a lot of people in the series) treats Dumbledore like he's some kind of guardian for Harry, especially with respect to the decision to keep him at the Dursleys. I know it's set up in the prologue, but if I'm Dumbledore, and I'm catching strays for Vernon Dursley being a piece of shit, I'm gonna be like:

The TLDR on Dumbledore is he's blamed way too much for stuff he doesn't do instead of the stuff he does. People seem to blame him for everything bad that happens to Harry because he's a competent adult in the general vicinity of the kid. But with the possible exception of hiring Lockhart — a bad decision I attribute to Early Installment Weirdness and, just maybe, a certain scarcity of applicants for a position where the last dude Literally Fucking Died — there's not a whole lot of shit that happens to Harry in the first few books Dumbledore could've prevented. Plus, he does in fact have Other Shit to be Doing. Is he a really powerful wizard who probably could've saved Harry's ass in a lot of the fights he gets into? Yes. Does he also have a whole school to run, a secret guerrilla group to direct, a Ministry full of political enemies to placate, and — oh yeah — a snake-faced immortal evil sorcerer he's playing 4D chess with at all times? Yes!

The whole lamb-to-slaughter thing with Harry is admittedly quite dark, but I don't read it as machiavellian. For one, Dumbledore obviously comes to this conclusion after a lot of deliberation, and to his death, he refuses to tell Harry about it, because (one assumes) he never intends to kill Harry himself. He's willing to hinge the fate of the free world on his respect for Harry's autonomy and/or his faith that Harry will make the "right" choice. That's pretty humane, given the circumstances. And he holds off on telling Harry about the horcruxes because... he doesn't want to inform a literal child that he'll eventually have to kill himself for the war effort. Oh, GOD, what a SCHEMING MONSTER. Surely this is motivated by menace, and not the grieving reluctance of a seasoned veteran who wants to preserve whatever few years of happiness this kid can eke out of life.

The areas where Dumbledore is morally shady come out most in his interactions with other adults. His conversation with Severus in 1981, for instance, is the one time in the books where I was legitimately frightened of him, because it's a rare time he's completely without mercy or grace. "What will you give me in return, Severus?" is a character-defining line, because Snape has just told him that two twenty-somethings and their infant child are about to be murdered, and Dumbledore's hit back with the subtextual equivalent of: "Tough shit. Why is it my problem?" Which is COLD AS FUCK! And we can kind of infer that he's not in earnest here, that he's manipulating Severus by making him think Dumbledore won't protect the Potters (even though they're Order members, which this theory requires us to assume Severus doesn't know) so that he can get him to work as a spy — but we don't know that for certain, right? It's all inference. We hope that his implicit threat isn't genuine, but what would happen if Severus said no, and walked away? How much did Albus understand about Snape's feelings for Lily, and what kind of person does it take to bluff like that in front of a known Legilimens? That line is intimidating as fuck whether or not Albus means it.

It's bits like these, where he's talking to people that he actually dislikes, where we get hints of the real Machiavellian Albus Dumbledore, and it's absolutely fascinating. He's the veteran of two wars, going on three when he dies, and you can tell in how he conducts himself. That includes, by the way, his gentility with children and his respect for innocence. But he's not just Good Funny Grandfather Dude or Crafty Mastermind. He's a general. He's been waging wars from the back lines since his twenties. That does something to your brain, and it doesn't leave a lot of you left over for anything else.

#greenteacup asks

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littjara-mirrorlake · 20 days

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tell me things about moritte of the frost ? making a magic oc and she might be integral to her backstory so id love to hear anything you know

Ooooh, I love OCs!! Especially those related to Kaldheim and Littjara! Excited to see what you make 👀

Unfortunately I can't give you too much in the way of canon information. This is her bio in the Legends of Kaldheim article:

Moritte is an enigma. A shapeshifter from Littjara, she was born a Gladewalker. While many grown-up shapeshifters leave Littjara to explore the realms, Moritte wanted more knowledge. To reach that end, she took the form of a young Covewalker. Living among the Covewalkers, Moritte absorbed all their knowledge and secrets before vanishing into the mists. She now wanders the realms, the most knowledgeable shapeshifter of all, seeking the solutions to new unanswered questions.

It's vague, I expect delibrately so, but that's a little frustrating when you want actual details. I wrote a more in-depth post about expanding Littjara and changeling lore a while back, which might help if you're looking for headcanon inspiration.

As to the "knowledge" Moritte seeks, I'm inclined to believe it is cosmological, since that's a major part of Kaldheim's functioning--the way realms are formed, what happens to them when they break off the tree (they become planes!), and how Cosmos monsters are born. As a creature especially attuned to aether and the Cosmos, Moritte learning more about Kaldheim cosmology would also mean deepening her knowledge about herself.

Perhaps her quest for all-encompassing knowledge leads her to a revelation about the Multiverse even before the Phyrexian invasion forces everyone to be very, very aware of it. It might even entangle her with forces far beyond her comprehension. Namely, the Eldrazi. After all, what are Eldrazi but much larger Cosmos monsters? Wouldn't she want to find out?

After March of the Machine, I am almost positive that Moritte has left Kaldheim, traveling to learn the lore of other planes. (I know it very likely does not work like this but it would also be funny if all changelings were now planeswalkers, because of how Kaldheim cosmology works.) Some fun places for her to be: Arcavios for its repository of knowledge in Strixhaven, Kamigawa for its overlap of mortal and spirit realms, Zendikar for its history of entanglement with the Eldrazi titans.

I have correctly predicted major canon at least twice with my Kaldheim posts and I'm still riding that power trip a little bit.

#mtg #magic the gathering #kaldheim #moritte #changeling #littjara #askbox #vampireopossum

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yanderes-galore · 6 months

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Fandom : Homestuck

Character : Dave Strider

Pairing : Romantic

Description : Just some regular Headcanons with the coolest Boy

Love your writings! :D

- Eridan Anon

Sure! This focuses on my take of him in Homestuck, if something is off I'm so sorry :( I wasn't sure if I wrote him right so I researched what I could.

Happy late Birthday to Dave, I share the same extended zodiac sign as him and I love his character :)

Not fully edited, may have spelling mistakes.

Yandere! Dave Strider Concept

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Delusional behavior, Overprotective behavior, Trauma (Dave's backstory primarily), Manipulation, Kidnapping, Violence/Death, Stalking, Secret picture taking, Forced relationship.

I feel Dave is one that both tries too hard around you yet also puts up facades.

More than anything he feels he should protect you and that he knows best.

The above trait is something he shares eerily with Dirk due to the trauma he suffered with Bro.

He greatly cares about you but at the same time appears distant at times.

Dave tends to make music for fun and for his friends, playing a cool persona despite being quite vulnerable due to his past.

He tends to go on long rants and talks to himself and is quite mature.

He jokes but can take things seriously when he needs to, he also tries to not abuse his time powers.

Yet it's shown he'd go back in time to prevent the demise of any of his friends since he cares a lot.

Dave originally appears like he doesn't care about you or your interests.

Although, in reality, Dave really enjoys you and listening to you talk.

He remembers every interest you have to bring up later, just to hear you speak about it.

Dave is easily influenced by you too.

He really does think you're cool and if you bring up the fact you like something... Dave does his best to find a gift that goes along with it.

He'd talk to you over Pesterchum and send gifts to you at times.

He often wants to ramble at you about various things, like he's venting.

He'd love it if you listened, honestly.

In a way Dave displays delusional behavior as he thinks he knows how to care for you.

Part of him is certainly projecting trauma.

Similar to how he wanted to protect Jade because he liked her, he feels he has to do the same with you.

You can tell Dave has care towards you through the music and gifts he sends.

It's all tuned to your likes and interests, showing he does listen to you despite the front he puts up.

Honestly, due to his past I can see Dave wanting your praise.

He would want to feel validated through you.

Being there for him is enough to make him attached.

As I said before, he is eerily like Dirk Strider in terms of yandere behavior.

Dave may manipulate you without really meaning it.

This is due to the delusional thought that he knows best.

He knows kidnapping you, isolating you, and being the only one around you is wrong.

But to him is seems like the right thing to do.

Seeing the mortality of his friends and himself certainly doesn't help such thoughts.

If you were in his session he would use his powers to protect you.

Still tries not to abuse them, yet he can't see himself going on without you.

If you were both Derse Dreamers, Dave would want to find you to just talk.

Dave seems like he'd get unintentionally clingy.

Subconsciously he wants to get closer up until he eventually gives in and isolates you.

He just feels comfortable with you, you're so much more welcoming than Bro was to him.

He hates to upset you but finds it necessary at times.

How else is he supposed to keep you safe with him?

Dave is skilled in photography.

Which obviously means he tries to take as many pictures as he can of you.

Everything from shared selfies to more... candid and secretive pictures.

He keeps them in either an album or a folder on his PC to look at.

They bring him comfort.

Dave often suppresses his emotions.

While he does feel bad when he makes you upset, he can't be so easily driven by emotion to let you go.

Which is ironic... as he allowed emotion to drive him to the point of isolating and kidnapping you.

Dave doesn't mind you speaking to the others for the most part.

But he isn't afraid to restrict it eventually.

Dave doesn't mean to be so possessive and protective at times.

He unfortunately can't help it.

You're just about the only one he can cling to.

This leads him to trying to form a romantic attraction towards you.

He just wants you all to himself... for the protection and comfort of both of you in his eyes.

Dave would try his best to be affectionate.

It's difficult for him as he doesn't understand at first.

However, if you showed him affection before things went downhill, then he'll do that.

Tight hugs, attempted kisses, stuff like that.

For the most part he feels comfortable with the fact you're safe.

He tells you that in his rambles.

Dave no doubt would make songs that represent the two of you in his mind.

He'd then play them while sitting beside you, just enjoying the moment while you plot ways to leave.

Overall... I feel yandere Dave means well... but that does not make what he's doing right.

Due to his background and experiences... he's so obsessed with protecting and impressing you he loses himself.

Leading to Dave often neglecting your own feelings in favor his own.

#yandere homestuck x reader #yandere homestuck #yandere dave strider

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erraticalart · 8 months

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Saw Fortress II

Well, is this what you've been waiting for?

So, as some of you may or may not know, Saw is getting a new movie, Saw X, in two days and I'm so excited for it to come out! I decided to pay tribute to this movie by making a crossover between Saw and, of course, Team Fortress 2. I've been getting interested and invested in the Saw franchise, from its story to the characters and especially the creative but deadly traps. Took me about 22 days to create as I had classes and needed to take breaks every once in a while, but I finally finished it and presented it to my brother as a birthday gift (as well as an official Fallout cookbook).

Now, for the fans of both Saw and TF2, I'll explain the reason why I chose the characters and their designated roles. It's time to play a game.

Character Comparison and Roles

Warning: Spoilers for the Saw franchise

RED Engineer: John Kramer aka Jigsaw - Well it's pretty much obvious why. They're both engineers. They both are talented in creating many different unique contraptions that are beneficial, but deadly and dangerous. Engie also has his morals, although it's way different from John's. Let's not forget that Engie can be somewhat a little sadistic and loves seeing his enemies go down, although John hates sadistic people despite the irony in his traps. Also, are we gonna ignore his Gunslinger taunt kill and his sinister, evil laugh? I'm not sure if Engie should have the Gunslinger with him, but I think it would be pretty cool to have it on him. Maybe in this version when he attempts to commit suicide and fails, but all he's left is a completely maimed hand, he cuts it off entirely and replaces it. It would be a pretty cool backstory as to why he has it and would make a really cool reveal to show to the audience. I wonder what Engie sounds like saying the iconic line "Game Over"?

BLU Medic: Dr. Lawrence Gordon - It's also pretty obvious why. He's a doctor. (Can you guess the reference?) Dr. Gordon is my favorite character in the series, and I love seeing the change and progress in his character from a doctor and trap victim in the first Saw film to John's favorable accomplice and in his words, "My greatest asset" in Saw 3D/Saw: The Final Chapter/ Saw VII (Yeah, I can't believe that movie has multiple names). In a way, it makes sense to have Medic as Dr. Gordon because just like how it was shown at the end of Saw VII that he and John worked great together, Medic and Engie are also seen working together in Expiration Date as lab partners. They both would work great as an amazing sadistic duo. Also, I think it's kind of cute to have Engie give Medic a prosthetic foot after he too cuts it off entirely. Not only would it make sense because Engie knows a thing or two about prosthetics, but it would show that Medic and Engie both have something in common: cut off what's unnecessary to help with your survival. Medic would also try to justify and reason Engie's actions. Also, I love Dr. Gordon's "Game Over" line, it's soooooo good!!! It's my personal favorite (Of course nothing beats John's iconic classic version). I could totally imagine how great Medic would sound saying that line!

BLU Spy: Detective Lieutenant Mark Hoffman - Ok, this is where things start to get a little interesting. Hoffman became John's accomplice after replicating his ideas and making his own traps that John never made himself. In a way, he's becoming Jigsaw. Just like how Spy can become and replicate any class, Hoffman also became more mysterious and secretive to his fellow colleagues and tried to frame Special Agent Peter Strahm as Jigsaw. In the end, when he gets caught, he goes against everyone and executes them, so the secret never comes out. Also, another reason why Spy is Hoffman and please tell me if I'm not the only one here who thought this when watching Saw: Did anyone else get Hoffman and Strahm mixed up because they almost look like the same person and it's always confusing when there's a scene that focuses on one of them but it's actually the other? I decided to have two Spies in the story with the BLU Spy as Hoffman and the RED Spy as Strahm since they look the same minus the color.

Miss Pauling: Amanda Young - You're probably thinking, "Why her? Is it because she just so happens to be female and I just filled her in that role?" Well yes, but actually no. It's because Amanda was very loyal to John, looking up to him, defending him constantly, and was very close to him. Miss Pauling fits that role when it comes to the Administrator, but here she's loyal to Engie. I feel like she likes Engie the most out of any other class, so she would definitely help him out as well as get advice from him. She also can get shit done when being asked to accomplish a task. Sadly, we know what's to come for Amanda. Just like how in the comics Miss Pauling fails to bring the Australium, Amanda fails in John's tasks as he reveals to her that she's part of another game. I do feel like Miss Pauling was stuck playing around in the Administrator's game and it was also implied that every year the Administrator sends people to assassinate her to see if she succeeds as if it's an employee review. So, yeah, Miss Pauling and Amanda both are stuck in pretty tight situations.

RED Pyro: Billy the Puppet - Ah, yes, who could we ever forget? The main icon of the series. Both Pyro and Billy have terrifying appearances that'll leave you quivering on sleepless nights. I used to fear Billy as a kid, but now I see him as endearing and strangely, but freakishly, adorable. Pyro is freaky-looking, but he's such an adorable bundle of flames. I could definitely imagine seeing Pyro riding on Billy's iconic tricycle. That would be so funny, cute, and scary. As for Pyro's voice, since Billy is voiced by John (and Hoffman, I think? Idk), I'm not sure if Engie (or Spy) should voice Pyro since Pyro speaks in muffles. Maybe they should, idk. I also don't know if Pyro should speak in mumbles from time to time or whether he should have the ability to move and just walk around or just remain seated. And, of course, I don't know if Pyro should do his iconic laugh (maybe sometimes, idk). What I do know however is that Pyro should definitely have the iconic Billy laugh.

RED Balloonicorn/The Combustible Cutie Cosmetic (Yeah, I know it's pink, but it's the RED team's version which is why it's pink): Pighead Mask - Oink! Or in this case, Neigh! The mask that John and his accomplices dress up as with the iconic robe (though I'm not sure if this robe should remain red and black or pink and black, maybe the first option should be for Engie since he's the leader while the accomplices get the latter, or not, maybe they should match Engie, idk). At first, I chose Balloonicorn since it's related to Pyro and I know he'll love seeing everyone dress up as one, but then I remembered that there's a cosmetic for Pyro as a mask called "The Combustible Cutie" that resembles Balloonicorn, and boy does that mask look freaking scary!!! It's really fitting for both Saw and TF2 as a whole! It's pretty funny and scary to imagine getting kidnapped by a herd of pink unicorns all because you've been very naughty.

I hope fans of Saw and Team Fortress 2 enjoy this lovely piece of fanart as this has become one of my all-time favorites to create. I was also listening to the Saw soundtrack specifically the Zepp/Main Saw Themes. My favorite being, of course, "Hello Zepp". It fits Engie and John's character theme even though it's Zepp's (although you can argue that it IS John's since it's his perspective since he's saying hello, which I agree). But my actual favorite is "Zepp Overture" because to me it sounds like a holy church. I especially like the way the string instruments sound. Yeah, I know you can argue that Dr. Gordon has a theme at the end of Saw VII called "Dr. Gordon Montage" and "The Final Zepp" but to me, I think this theme fits Medic the best because, y'know, he replicates that sound by playing an actual saw when you taunt which is both funny and adorable. And it really fits his character to be seen as a holier-than-thou and especially a God. This might also fit Spy, but idk. I'm not sure which themes work for Spy and Miss Pauling or even Pyro (if you want Pyro and Engie to share the same theme, then that's fine by me). I might need to go back and listen to all of them depending on the movies that Hoffman and Amanda appear in. Maybe some of you can suggest one. But anyway, please go listen to the Saw soundtrack, especially the Zepp/Main Saw Themes, it's soooooo good!!! I might as well argue that it's one of, if not, THE best horror themes out there!!!

Here's a link to listen to it while you look at the art or whether you are interested in the Saw series and its music:

youtube

Welp, like I said before, I hope you fans enjoy it!!! I just can't' wait for Saw X to come out soon on September 29!!! I just hope and pray the movie is good though. Well, let's just wait and see. But until then,

GAME OVER!

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bitchwhoreofastorm · 7 months

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sometimes i don't think through the things i'm doing (1st person pov; 10k words; read on ao3)

summary:

Those who would become Hands of Almalexia must undertake a pilgrimage: they must wander Morrowind as anonymous adventurers, aiding the Dunmer in secret, and alone. After the Akaviri war, a young woman and Hand-Aspirant does a bad job at this.

I saw you this morning. When I was leaving the cornerclub, I saw you for a moment behind the counter. There was a jug of expensive-looking sujamma in a mug polished to shining, and I saw your face slip across it. I should have known better but I turned around to look for you. You turned around, too. You weren't behind me. Nobody was behind me. I left in a hurry.

I'm in Gnisis today. I'm on my way to a kwama mine. There's a rumour that they're having some trouble with bandits, egg thieves. You know. The sort of job they like to give wandering adventures. That's what the publican said-- 'wandering adventures like you.' It's a noble tradition, in Vvardenfell, to wander and go searching for adventures. It seems to me that Vivec never deals with his problems because, if he did, the wandering adventurers would run out of things to do.

It's a long walk to the mine. That’s okay. There's nobody on the road, so I can talk to you.

All the Hands told me that travelling alone would be hard. They were really concerned by that. They made a big fuss over it, that I shouldn’t let the loneliness get to me. They told me that, should I ever feel forlorn, or abandoned, or just lonely, I should talk to Her. That if I had faith She was with me, I would never be lonely again. I thought it was funny that they gave me that advice. I did that a lot as a child. Do you remember? After you started to leave. I would tell Her about how mean you were and how much I hated you and how I missed you and how I wished you wouldn't ever go. It made me feel better back then, to talk to Her. I felt less alone.

I can't do that now. Not now that I've met her. I know she'd hear, and I know how she'd smile, or smirk, she does this knowing smirk and it makes me feel shy.

I can't talk to her like that now that I know Her. I feel like I'd rather talk to you.

At the kwama mine they ask who I am. I say I'm a wandering adventurer come to deal with their bandit problem. They ask me my name and I say, "Shona..." then I add, "Slonsi." And they stare at me strangely, so I add, "I'm a veteran of the Akaviri War," and they see my sword and I guess they decide that's fine.

I'm bad at coming up with fake names. All the Hands said that I should pick one or two, and make consistent fake identities out of them. Come up with a backstory. A new self. I tried, but every time I meet someone, they just go out of my brain. Fake identities are like a handful of comberries to me. I can’t keep them straight, and as soon as I have to pick out just one, they all fall out of my grasp.

But I guess I’m not really trying. Making up a fake identity just seems like a bad idea. This is your face too. What if someone were to meet you, and call you by my fake name? You'd have no idea. You wouldn't know to keep the lie.

I thought about using your name once, but I already look like you, and there might be someone who remembers you. Then I'd be in trouble.

I see you again when I stop to eat lunch. There's a low cliff jutting out over a smooth little lagoon, on a hill that overlooks the ocean. I sit down on the ledge and scoot over, scoot to the very edge of it, until I can look down into the still water and see you. You’re framed by strange Vvardenfell plants, frond-ish coils reach out to touch your face. This must displease you because you're frowning at me. You always frown at me. You always look so serious and so unhappy. I tilt my head to one side, then the other. So do you. You have your hair tied back-- you always hated having your hair tied back.

Sometimes, at times like this, I think that if I jumped into the water you'd really be there. I would jump in and wrestle you down to the bottom, and then you'd cast a water-breathing spell on yourself and lie there, arms crossed, cheeks puffed out, until I'd go gasping up for air. Then you'd come with me and drape yourself along my back and make me carry you to shore. At times like this, I can hear you cackling in my ear-- Onwards, noble steed!-- and I feel you clawing my shoulders as I drag you back to land. You were always so mean to me.

When I blink, there is someone beside you.

I start and turn around. A dunmer woman also starts, and she turns to me, a gentle smile on her lips.

"Pardon me, sera," she says to me, "I didn't mean to scare you."

I can't find the words to reply to that. I'm not a child any more, but sometimes, when I'm surprised, I lose my voice again. So I just stare at her and try to think of something to say.

"My name is Thelsa," she says. "Telvanni Thelsa."

"Shani," I say. "Shani Sholasa."

"May I sit, Shani?"

I slide over on my ledge, and she sits.

"Beautiful view you've got here," she says.

I look up. I was so busy looking at you that I didn't notice. Smoke has made the sky is the colour of old parchment here, fading to an unwell blue on the horizon where it touches the sea. The hills rise and fall abruptly, sandstone-coloured, tall pillars and cliffs and arches that all make no sense, and then there’s shrubs and flowers here. Green, yellow, blue, all making up too many shapes.

I don't like Vvardenfell-- it looks like it was created very thoughtlessly. It’s too chaotic. But when I turn my head Thelsa is staring with approval at the Inner Sea, and the slanted haggard trees that stand here and there.

"What are you doing so far from town, Shani?" Thelsa asks. She has a kind face that reminds me of a Temple acolyte, with round cheeks that are used to smiling and brown hair in a tidy little bun.

"I'm, uh, adventuring," I answer. "I'm an adventurer."

"Are you from Vvardenfell?"

"No. Selfora. It's in Deshaan."

Thelsa nods. "I'm not from around here either," she tells me. "Tell me, adventurer, where are you going?"

"North."

"Ah, so am I. Perhaps we could travel together? I'm a healer, I'm sure I could be of use to you on your adventuring. I would feel much safer, with a strong warrior like you to protect me."

I shrug. And pull out my scrib roll and eat it in a hurry. I can't see you any more.

I don't like this turn of events. I don't like Telvanni-- I haven't forgotten how they denied Almalexia the Ebonheart Pact. I don't like their wizardry, maybe because it reminds me too much of you. And, to tell you the truth, I don't like being around other women. Especially not pretty women close to my age, with soft lips and kind eyes and a silky deep voice that makes my stomach clench. After Idrenie, it just feels wrong. I don’t know why but I have no interest in it any more. Aside from you, I just want to be alone.

Even worse, while this Thelsa is walking next to me, I can't talk to you. Not out loud. Even talking in my head to you is risky, because I can't do that and also focus on what she's saying, and I hate to seem rude.

So I shut up. I don’t talk to you. As we walk together, Thelsa talks to me instead.

She talks about her recent trip to Gnisis. She says her father is a wizard of House Telvanni and he wants to set up a new trading line through the north flank of Red Mountain. She says the dreugh that live in West Gash produce the best dreugh wax, which is very valuable to Telvanni wizards. She says her father sent her to Gnisis as punishment, because she'd displeased him, somehow, but she doesn't say what it is she did to so displease him. She talks a lot, and she really does have a beautiful voice. It’s a soft voice and deep, and it sounds the way a silk handkerchief feels, when you pull it across your skin. Smooth, overly indulgent. The nice dresses Father got us, the one I ripped within a day.

"You're a very good listener," Thelsa says after a while, "But why don't you tell me about yourself?"

I hate this part of conversations. "I was a soldier," I say, because at least that's not entirely a lie. "I fought in the Akaviri invasion. Now I'm just trying to make ends meet."

"Who did you fight under?"

"Uh, Mournhold's army. The Duke's army."

"Mournhold." Thelsa appears only mildly interested. "I thought you were from Selfora. Why fight for Duke Ra'athim?"

She has an intense gaze, fiery red eyes, like the red of that dress I ripped, and the red of Father’s eyes as he yelled at me. My unforgivable carelessness. Why did she have to say Ra’athim?

So I just shrug. “My superiors thought I’d be a better fit there."

You were the one who told me that my lies should include a little bit of truth.

"What is your quest?" Thelsa asks me.

I hesitate. I say, with reluctance, that I'm hunting the bandits who have holed up on the nearby mountain, the ones who have been poaching from the kwama mine. She asks me how I plan to get there and I say that I'm just going to walk up the mountain.

"I know of them," Thelsa frowns at me. "And I know the road you speak of. There are powerful wizards among them. The road to their hideout is full of traps. You'll surely perish if you try and attack them head-on."

“Then I'll perish." I keep walking.

Thelsa takes my arm. The touch is a light one, and it’s embarrassing that I flinch. "There's a back way," Thelsa says. "It's a little longer, but if we go around, we can levitate up the cliffs. They won't be expecting it. It will be safer."

"I don't use magic," I say.

"I do," she says. "I can levitate you up."

I hate the idea of it. You're the only one who's ever made me levitate. I hate the thought of this stranger doing that to me. If someone else were to do it, it might cover up the memories of how it felt when it was you. What if I was to lose those memories? I could never get them back. We're not children any more. I'm never going to see you again.

She mistakes my hesitation for something else. "I am not offering out of charity," Thelsa says. "If my father is to open a trade route here, these thugs will place it in danger. By dealing with them, I will earn the favour of my House." She smiles a little. "And I'll expect half of the spoils, of course. Do we have a deal?"

How could I possibly explain to her the violation she’s committing? I can never put my thoughts in over. It would look weird if I were to refuse.

"Fine," I hear myself say. "We have a deal."

Thelsa holds up her hand, palm facing me, in the universal Dunmeri gesture of honour. I mirror the gesture without thinking about it. The Ordinators do it all the time. And maybe it is because in that moment I hate her for trying to come between you and me, and I’m looking for reasons to be suspicious of her, but I think she is staring intently, far too intently, at my hand.

Near the evening we come to a place where a river has incised a slot into the yellow rock of the landscape. I jump across the chasm with ease but Thelsa falters. I see her look down at the gap-- no wider than the distance between the roof of our childhood manor and that tree you always liked to perch in-- I see her staring down at the dark, rushing water. She looks like you used to look like when you were afraid.

"It's not that far!" I shout at her.

Maybe she doesn't hear me-- she doesn't reply. She's looking at that abyss like it's going to swallow her.

"Why don't you float across?" I call.

"I don't want to waste my magika!" she replies.

I barely hear it; her voice is like a dropped amulet, a shiny trill lost in the churn.

She steps to the chasm's edge. "Won't you help me across, Shani?" she calls, then, swaying in the mist.

I reach my hand across the gap and she takes it.

I am strong-- she is light-- she leaps, and I pull her towards me. We stumble backwards together, one step, two.

I expect her to let go of my hands then and she doesn't.

She is standing so close to me. I try to let go of her hands but she clasps mine tightly. She is so close and suddenly I feel her thumbs press so hard into my palms, pressing hard, insistent, like they’re searching something under my skin-- and, oh God, it’s so awful, but she pushes her thumbs up , the pads of her fingers so hot with friction over the tender part of the inside of my hands, pressing, wanting, it’s like she’s seeking something, I don’t know what, seeking, down to the very top of my wrists. She is standing so close to me and her fingers find the frantic heartbeat in my veins and then in that same horrible moment her eyes find mine.

She lets go. She steps away.

I turn away from her, shuddering. My face feels as hot as the red of her eyes, the intensity of her is crawling over my skin, my stomach is doing something weird that is perilously approaching nausea. I hear her make a little sound, something between a gasp and the panting of a wounded animal, and I feel her move away from me the way I've felt bandages pulled off of wounds. She leaves an absence that feels cold and sore.

A terrible silence falls between us.

"... Thank you, Shani," says Thelsa. Her voice is a little thick, as if she's choking back something. "You are... ah. Stronger than I expected."

I almost don't hear her. I can't bear to hear her. I'm fighting my own mind. I'm trying to think of you-- the coldness of your face, your passionless expression, the ambivalence with which you watched Father denounce me. I need that coldness and the careless ice in your voice when you called me broken and offered to replace me as the more adequate sibling. I'm desperate! I cannot be feeling the thing I’m feeling right now, it’s unbearable! I'm picturing your disgust like I'm picturing the pain of Father dragging me by my hair and the hardness of the street when he drove me down outside and the scrape I got on my hand and how you never answered any of my letters, not one, except for the one where you told me that I should've known better than to go and do something without your permission, idiot that I am.

"Shani?"

"It's fine," I reply, and my voice sounds so hoarse in my ears, as hoarse as yours sounded when-- "Let's go. It's getting dark."

I try not to look at her.

I miss you so badly.

It's awkward between me and Thelsa when we make camp.

That's good. Things are always awkward for me. I can deal with awkward.

I don't look at her; she makes me dinner. Steamed saltrice and a mushroom sauce from a powder in a satchel. She places it next to me; I don't touch it. I pretend to be maintaining my sword, which doesn't at all need maintaining. She urges me to eat, while I incorrectly use a whetstone to pretend to sharpen the blade. I act like I’m busy. She doesn't press. She announces that she's going to go bathe in a spring that's nearby, and she waits, standing near me, but when I reply only with a grunt, she disappears. I'm finally alone.

The dinner she made for me is delicious.

When I lay down that night I only want to talk to you. I want to close my eyes and lie very still in my sleeping roll and transport myself back to when we were kids staying up late to gossip in bed. I pull my blanket up to my chin and hug my cloak to my chest and settle in to catch up with you, since I've barely gotten to speak to you all day.

But I must have made a mistake-- I must have fallen asleep-- suddenly, She is here.

In my dream I know it's Her before I open my eyes. She's always boiling hot, like a bath that's been heated up too much and is too warm to really be comfortable. Sometimes I think that's why she seems to glow even through my eyelids. But I keep my eyes closed, thinking that if I ignore her, maybe she'll go away and leave me to talk to you instead.

She does not go away. "My servant," she says gently. Her furnace-hot lily-rancid breath. Then, "Il--"

I press my thumb to her lips. "Don't call me that."

I knew it-- when I open my eyes, Almalexia's lips beneath my thumb are curled into her damn knowing little smirk.

"Ah," says Almalexia. "What are you called now?"

"Shani. Shani Shlosi."

"That doesn't sound like a name."

I cross my arms high over my chest, burrowing my hands into my neck, burrowing my mouth into my arms. "Why are you here?" I ask. "I thought it was forbidden. I'm supposed to do this alone."

"I'm not here," says Almalexia reassuringly. "I am a desperate figment of your imagination, and rest assured you are violating nothing."

"I don't believe you."

"The insolence of the Ra'athim! Dare you defy the word of a God?"

"You aren't a God, you're a figment of my imagination."

I'm not proud of myself, but it pleases me when she smiles at that. "Good girl," she says warmly. "Obedient even when you're disobeying me. Tell me, child, what are the rules of this quest you're on?"

"I am to abandon my identity," I say. I say it sullenly, as if my sacred quest is just the correct response to a familiar lecture. "I am to go out in Morrowind in secret, devoid of the glory of your patronage. By my own skill and determination I am to aid your children, and improve the lives of all your people. I am to do this without the aid of the Temple, and without orders."

"And why do I make all those who would be my Hands do this?"

"To show that we are strong, and resourceful, and powerful warriors."

"Ah-ah," she shakes her head, spilling her red hair across my pillow. "Wrong. If I wanted to test your strength, I could throw you into Oblivion and have you fight your way through a horde of Dremora. Why send you into Morrowind?"

"To aid your children, who you love, Goddess."

"Wrong again. Do you not know?"

"If you can tell me, I know. Since you're part of my imagination. Which is in my brain."

Her hand burns where it touches my cheek.

"It's so that you may know them," Almalexia informs me, with divine patience. "By being among my children, I wish for you to know them, and by knowing them, love them. Only those who love them as I do may serve me as Hand."

I stare at her blankly. I'm too tired. I want the scolding to be over with. Beneath the wonderful heat, her palm is calloused.

"I am not scolding you," she says. Because she's a goddess, of course, she can read my mind. "I intervene because I fear for you. You are travelling a path of grave danger. Once I would have believed this no challenge for you, but now… I am not sure. You have changed, and I fear that I will lose you. You are not the woman who helped me defeat the Akaviri."

"Of course I'm not," I say through my teeth, "I'm Shani Shpansey. I’ve changed because you ordered me to. I did as you bid. I've always done as you bid. If that is not enough!-- If that is not enough-- then strike me down!” I draw in a breath. “I beseech you, Goddess. For my insolence just strike me down."

And then I roll over and curl up with my legs against my chest, and I hug myself and press my palms into my eyes, until I see stars. I search for you in the fizzing lights; I try to blind myself with you just so I can’t see Her.

There is silence, and then there is her breath again, warm, tickling my ear as she says:

"She is gone to you, Iyahi . This ghost you speak to is not her. You cannot speak to her, any more than you could save her. Let her go."

She's wrong. She's wrong. It's your voice who tells her to leave us alone.

Sometimes I want to pretend it’s all a bad dream. I mean, you leaving, and me leaving. Sometimes I pretend it’s not real. Speaking of those Buoyant Armigers, who I never understood-- I think my time in Vvardenfell is letting me understand why they like Vivec so much. Someone told me once that Vivec thinks everything’s a dream. I don’t think everything’s a dream, but sometimes, I kind of wish it was.

Do you feel the same way? Are you thinking about this too, wherever you are?

I keep thinking I’ll wake up in my bed and I’ll be a little kid again. I’ll be curled up around you like the shell of a beetle, and your hair will be in my nose, and I’ll be drooling on the fancy pillow-cases that Father always complains about me ruining. I keep thinking that Kneads-Dough is about to shake us awake. The same thing that happens every single morning will happen. You’ll wake up first, and I’ll be sleeping too hard, and you’ll order Kneads not to wake me, but you’ll do it so loud that I wake up anyway. But I’ll pretend to be asleep, because I’m shy around Kneads. And you’ll tell Kneads that I’ll want pancakes-- only I hate pancakes, and you love pancakes, but you think liking pancakes is childish, so you never tell Kneads you want pancakes. You’ll say it’s me who wants pancakes. And I’ll pretend to be asleep. And when Kneads leaves, you’ll say-- “I know you’re awake, you know, you’re such a bad liar!”-- and I’ll keep pretending to be asleep, cause it’s a good excuse to hold onto you, and you always let me.

Maybe it’s not a dream. Could it not be a dream? It feels so real. Isn’t it strange-- I can’t even remember how it felt to hold Idrenie, but the sensation of your hair in my mouth is more real than reality itself?

Do you feel this way too? Are you off somewhere, also sleeping in, feeling this way? Or maybe you’re really here in my arms. It’s possible, isn’t it? That I’m tucked into your bed and everything else has been a bad dream.

I could open my eyes and see you. I’m going to do it. You’re going to be there.

I stir, I mumble your name, I pretend to wipe the sleep from my eyes and do a big fake yawn, pretending that I slept through you pointing out I wasn’t sleeping. You’re going to be here. I’m in your bed. I open my eyes--

Thelsa’s face pulls away from mine the same moment I sit up. We’ve startled each other; she makes a pitiful little yelp, like a kicked dog, while I only yank my blanket to my chin.

Was she watching me sleep? She’s blushing, her face is plum-blue, a pretty colour against the bashful pink dawn behind her. Why was she so close to me? My mouth is hanging open, I’m staring at her with nothing to say.

“I’m sorry,” she stammers. “Sorry.”

She looks so pathetically embarrassed that I apologise too. “I’m sorry,” I mimic dumbly, “I mean, it’s okay. I mean. Um. What?”

“You were talking in your sleep,” she rushes to explain. “Call me a fool, but I was worried about you. I worried you were having a nightmare.”

I’m just staring at her. And then I realise why she is looking at me so strangely-- my heart sinks-- I must have said your name.

We make breakfast in silence. Thelsa makes saltrice and mushroom sauce again, hearty travel food; I use the last of my own provisions to make scrib rolls for me and her. Old saltrice kneaded with copious amounts of greasy scuttle, wrapped untidily in hackle-lo leaves. It’s food even an idiot could make. I’m an awful cook; this has been most of my diet since I set out on my quest. My scrib rolls are always misshapen and threatening to fall apart.

When we were little, Kneads would put comberries in one end, meant as scrib eyes, a little bug in a blanket that we could take with us while playing. I dare not try my luck with embellishments. It’s by blind fortune that I haven’t somehow made one explode.

Thelsa and I share a log by the fire when we sit down to eat. The dainty sunrise has given way to a smoggy cool day-- in West Gash, Red Mountain’s smoke looks yellow, so the landscape seems like an old tapestry that’s been hanging in a tomb for too long. Flat grey hills and washed-out stringy clouds against a yellow sky. We stare at this ugly landscape like it’s the most verdant rolling hills of Deshaan, and then Thelsa asks me, very softly: “Do you have a family, Shani?”

“Everyone does,” I answer without thinking, “Babies have to come from somewhere.”

“That’s not what I meant. Where are your parents?”

This takes thought. “Dead,” I tell her honestly.

“I see,” she says. “That’s a pity. How did they die?”

“My mother died in childbirth. My father died during the war.”

“Any siblings?”

I’d just taken a bite of saltrice, but suddenly it tastes like mud. I almost choke on it. I swallow, and turn my head away, and stare with fierce determination at the dirt at our feet, as if willing a plausible excuse to crawl out of the ground.

“I was disowned,” I say. I say it very carefully, in a very flat voice, willing nothing to emerge from it. I try to find your face in the random pinprick shadows thrown by the grains of dirt near my feet. “So. Not by law, no.”

“Ah,” says Thelsa, as if this comes as no surprise to her. Then, “I’m sorry.”

I'm sorry. It sounds so trite when she says it, and this relieves me. Like she was offering her condolences on stubbing my toe.

But then she says, "Did your father also fight under Duke Ra'athim?"

And this catches me so off guard that I'm confused for a moment. "He was--" I start, and then I blink, realising I don't understand the question. "What?"

"You said you fought under Duke Ra'athim," Thelsa reminds me gently.

I can't understand the expression on her face. Is she suspicious? She looks so kind, with her big eyes. I feel my cheeks get hot-- I'm flustered.

"No," I say, "He fought with House In-- um, House Hlaalu, I mean. He was an... accountant. So not really fighting, but-- he got caught in an explosion, some of their weird magic, the Kamal’s magic, I mean, they attacked his camp--" And then I clamp my teeth down on my tongue.

I hear your voice in my head so clearly: Idiot .

I am an awful liar.

Thelsa looks into my eyes for a long time. Her soft mouth is curved into a little frown, her small eyebrows sit high in her forehead and slump slightly to the outside, as if she's sad. I force myself to meet her gaze and then the discomfort overwhelms me and I look away. I pretend to be focused on the scrib roll I'm failing at putting together, hunching over, putting my face near it, until she finally sits back.

"I'm sorry, Shani," she says again. "I've upset you, haven't I? That wasn't my intention."

"It's fine," I mumble. "Just-- don't like talking about it."

"I was almost exiled too," she says.

I look up at her in surprise. She's still facing me, with that soft open face and the gentle long-lashed eyes. A healer's saintly face.

"I displeased my father," she reminds me. "I... I made a mistake, and it was a grave one. There were some in my family who wanted me exiled. I convinced father not to exile me. I was lucky. I'm still lucky-- he could change his mind any day now."

"What did you do?" I ask hoarsely.

"Does it matter?" She sighs. "There are many ways you can digress against House Telvanni. Outsiders don't know that, they think we allow anything. But the moment we stop being an asset to our wizard..."

And she looks down at her hands.

(Your hand, lightly steaming under Father's iron.)

"That's why you want to kill these bandits," I say.

"What?" Thelsa looks up at me, brow raised. Then, "Oh, yes. That's why. I..." She sighs again, looks away. "I need to prove I'm still useful to him."

I don't know why I do the thing I do next. I put the scrib roll on my lap, and then I reach out and take her hands in mine. I slip my fingers flat beneath hers, upturning her palms, and then I press my thumbs, as gentle as I can, to the centre of hers. The very place where they branded you.

I press down, feeling the cup-shape of them, the slight inward curl, the gentle articulation of the tiny bones within, knit together with fishing-line tendons. The parchment-tender thinness of the skin there. Her skin is magician's skin, like yours was, nothing like the leathery callous of my own. She's looking at me, now, her eyes a little wider, and she’s holding her breath.

I want to say something reassuring but I can't. I never said anything to you when you were exiled. I hold her hands, I make myself look at her face. And then I take a breath and release her, rising to my feet with a quick exhale.

"Well," I say, in my most casual voice. "We'd better go kill some bandits, then."

I think I see Thelsa's cheeks darken. She looks up at me, her owlish eyes wide, her breast lifting slightly as she takes in her own deep breath. And then her eyes trail down my body, to my feet.

"You dropped your scrib roll," she points out, looking at the snack that'd fallen off my lap when I stood. But she's smiling. I think I'm smiling, too.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, but I forget to talk to you. I don't know how I forget this-- I don't know how you stop being in my head for a second, and I hate myself for it, so please don't yell at me. Every time I realise I've forgotten to talk to you, I vow to catch you up later, the moment I get a chance. And then I forget. And then I remember and vow again. I'm sorry. You know how dumb I am-- I can't help it, please don’t be mad at me.

Thelsa and I had decided to camp close to the mountain where the bandits lay, just far enough away that they wouldn't spot us. We wanted to be fresh and well-rested for the assault, and Thelsa said that, if we attacked during the day, most of them would be away on a raid, and we would have an easier time taking out the remainders. Then we could lay in wait for the raiding party and deal with them when they returned exhausted with their guard down. She's a good strategist, for a wizard. I told her so and I think this made her happy. She even asked for my feedback, but I had nothing to contribute. Her plan was a good one, and I'm not worried about a few bandits, with or without strategy.

The sun is gone that day, covered by a high layer of flat dull cloud that must have rolled in from the north. The air is chilly, but relatively clear, only slightly ashy; we stop at one point to pull out shawls and wraps from our packs, to keep our necks warm. Thelsa shows me how to tie mine in the Telvanni fashion, with the arms of the triangle braided into a sort of diamond shape, which she tucks into my neck near the top of my chest. I've already put on my bonemold travel-cuirass for the day, so she has to push her fingers under the armour; her touch is very careful and her fingers are warm.

We come to the mountain a little before noon.

In Skyrim I climbed Throat-of-the-World. That is the tallest mountain in Tamriel, apparently-- a shitty three days of up, up, uphill, getting sick on the thin air, numb from the cold. I’d stared at Almalexia’s back the entire way, desperate to impress her by not complaining or stopping for rest. I am not scared of climbing big mountains.

This mountain is not nearly as tall as Throat-of-the-World-- more of a hill, really, because there’s no true mountains in West Gash. But it’s tall enough, a yellow triangle rising against the grey of the sky. An ill-used path wound up the flank of it, growing gradually steeper, until it turned into a rockfall halfway up, and the top third of the mountain was a steep cliff. The kwama miners had told me that the bandits are encamped in a cave near the very peak of it, because that’s where bandits love being camped the most, in caves at the very top of the mountain. I don’t know if you know this, but trolls in Skyrim work the same way.

(In my head I see you roll your eyes and ask, what do I care about trolls? Or-- more likely-- you’d just correct me, because you’ve probably read some book about the biology of animals in Skyrim, and I’m sure you’d say that trolls actually prefer relatively elevated vantage points with sufficient taiga cover, or something smart like that.)

While you’re scolding me in my own head, Thelsa comes up to stand by my side. “Steep climb, right?” she asks. And then she touches my back very gently. “Are you ready, Shara?”

“Yes,” I say. “Are you?”

“Yes.”

I know I shouldn’t but I turn and I look at her face. She looks back at me, frowning, her eyebrows drawn very slightly together.

I’m about to do something I haven’t thought through very well.

“When we get up there,” I say, “Only levitate me up. You should stay here, out of the way. I’ll come tell you when the fighting’s done.”

Thelsa’s eyes widen. “You want to go in alone?”

“I’m a good warrior. I’ll be okay.” And then, because the good lies always have a bit of truth, “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Or you don’t want me taking the treasure,” Thelsa says, frowning still.

“I don’t care about treasure,” I insist. “I just think I should do this alone.”

“You’re sweet,” Thelsa says, but her voice doesn’t sound like she means it. Then she starts towards the mountain, “Let’s go.”

“Wait!” I lurch off after her. “Promise you’ll wait outside until I kill them?”

“Absolutely not. What if you get injured? I’m a healer, you’ll need me.”

“I won’t get injured. Thelsa, come on! Please--”

I don’t know what’s come over me, but I grab her wrist, as gently as I can, and stop her. She lets me. She’s turned and she’s looking at me again, her hand hanging in my own.

“Are you really worried about me running away with the treasure?” I ask her.

“Please don’t take it personally,” Thelsa isn’t pulling her arm away from me. “You’re lovely, but you know how it is, out here…”

“I know, I know. But what if I prove I won’t?”

“How?”

“I could give you something important of mine. And then you give it back to me when I come back. Here, how about my sword? It’s super important to me, I wouldn’t leave without it.” And my hand goes to the pommel at my hip.

Thelsa just stares at me for a few moments. “If you give me your sword,” she says slowly, “How are you going to fight the bandits?”

“Oh. Right.” I hear your voice in my head: idiot .

“Enough of this,” Thelsa shakes her head. “Just-- come on.”

“Wait, I do have something.” I pull my pack from my shoulders, and I push my hand into a side pocket, until I feel something warm amongst the chilly contents.

Does ebony ever feel warm to you? Ebony always feels warm to me. Maybe it runs in our blood. The ring I pull out of my bag has a tiny bit of heat to it, like holding someone’s hand, nice and comforting. It’s so worn-down that it’s not black any more, but looks dusky and purple from the blueness of my palm.

“Here,” I say, offering it out to Thelsa. “This is really important to me, I wouldn’t run away without it. You can look closely, it’s okay. And even if I do run away-- it’s three-thousand year old ebony, so nothing we find in that cave is more expensive than that.”

Thelsa’s eyes are wide again. She looks at my face, and then she looks at the ring, and then she takes the ring. She holds it very close to her eyes, and then lets her hand fall, fist closing around it.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks, bewildered. “I don’t get it. Why are you doing this?”

“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” I tell her. “I want to protect people.”

I don’t know what the expression on her face means; she is looking at me with so much intensity that it becomes unbearable, and I want to look away, but something compels me to keep looking. I think of you, how you once called me a holy fool; I think of Almalexia’s all-knowing divine smirk; I think of the way Idrenie looked the last time I saw her. For someone who wants to protect people, I haven’t done a very good job so far.

Thelsa lowers her hand. “Fine,” she says, but she seems upset. “Fine, if you insist. I promise I’ll let you deal with them.”

I let my own shoulders fall in relief. “Good. That’s good.”

She nods, and she starts heading towards the mountain.

“Wait!” I call out to her. “You promised--”

“I know,” Thelsa replies. “But I need to levitate you up there, don’t I?”

“Oh,” I say.

Idiot! I hear your voice in my head again. It’s one of those times where you sound so real that I swear I could turn around and see you there. So I look over my shoulder-- I see yellow hills and scraggy trees and a gloomy grey sky and empty wilderness. I see Vvardenfell in all its smoggy ruin. I see the world but I cannot see you.

When I turn around again, Thelsa is already far ahead. I look forwards once more and run to catch up.

We are standing at the base of the cliff and I am trying to hard not to let Thelsa see how terrified I am. I’m standing stiff as a tin soldier, I’m sweating despite the cold of the day, I think I might start crying if I’m really unlucky, which is weird, because I haven’t cried in years and years. But the ash is making my eyes prickle-- it’s smoggy with ash up on the mountain-- and I’m standing too close to the cliff and for some reason I’m scared that I’m going to cry. Maybe I could climb it, I’m saying to myself-- I’m good at climbing, do you remember when I climbed the whole side of the Temple? You had to float up there, but I climbed up like a gecko, and I startled you when I poked my head up over the edge. But you were upset with me, and I thought it was because I startled you, but now that I’m grown up I realise it’s because you realised then that I didn’t need you any more, that I could get anywhere I wanted to go without your help. I’m sorry I didn’t know why you were so sad then. If I could go back and do everything again, I would have thrown myself off of that roof, and you would have caught me, and I would have told you I’d slipped, that I was scared to be so high, that I needed you to keep me from falling. Would things have turned out differently, if I’d told you how much I needed you?

“Are you ready?” asks Thelsa.

In my head I am saying sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry , but I nod, and aloud I say, “Ready.” And then, “Don’t worry. And just wait here, okay?”

Thelsa’s brow is drawn in concentration. “Got it.”

“I’ll call down when I’m done,” I say.

“Shani,” she says.

“If someone attacks you, come up and find me--”

“I’m going to lift you up now,” says Thelsa, and she casts her spell.

Immediately I don’t know why I was so worried. Her magic feels nothing like yours! Your magic feels like it could be my magic; it feels natural, buoyant, just a part of me that I only know about when you’re around. When you make me float I’m like a stick that fell into a pond.

Thelsa’s spell, on the other hand, plucks me up by the scruff and yanks me upwards with no grace at all. Like I’m a bug scooped up in a cup. It happens in an instant and it alarms me, so I scramble for the cliff-face even as I’m speeding through the air. My hands find purchase on the rocks just as the stranger’s magic flings me over the edge.

I’m glad Thelsa’s all the way down there. That way, she doesn’t see me land on my face. I’m dumped ungracefully onto the ground face-down. I skid a little bit, and then my Ordinator’s training kicks in and I vault to my feet. I draw my sword, take my off-hand knife from my belt, and drop into a fighting stance before I’ve even blinked the dust from my eyes.

The first thing I notice is a weird feeling in the air. I can’t explain it, but it feels like I’m in your bedroom: there’s this kind of humming all around me, like the air is pressing down on my skin just a little bit. Tension with no source.

The second thing I notice is that there’s no cave. I’m on a plateau that extends forwards about the length of a large dining room, then ends in another steep cliff. The mountain drops precipitously away on either side of me.

The third thing I notice is the corpses.

Okay, most of them are more like skeletons, but there’s enough desiccated flesh on their naked forms that I make the mistake anyways. There’s about ten or twelve of them, lied out in two neat rows on either side of the plateau, stretching forwards towards the second cliff-face, where the lines join at the base, at the foot of a ghastly altar.

You would be able to tell me what I’m looking at, wouldn’t you.

I feel my heart quicken; I take a half-step back. “Thelsa,” I call, “I was wrong. There’s no bandits. This is some sort of…” I have no words for what sort of this that this is.

I take a full step forwards, to the nearest body. Up close, I see that its chest has been opened, there’s a desiccated ashy hole where its heart ought to have once been, its arms are crumpled up behind its back, as if it they were bound there once. The humming feeling I noticed is getting more insistent, the air is angrier and pressing into me, trying to repulse me, or is that just my own revulsion? I’m thinking of you again and I hate that.

“Thelsa,” I call again, and I turn around--

She is suspended in midair before me and I am finally forced to admit that Telvanni Thelsa is beautiful.

“Don’t try to raise them,” Thelsa tells me. Her robes are rippling around her, her mousy hair is slipping free of its bun and fluttering around her lovely round face. “I’ve warded this place to the hilt. Here you can raise nor summon nothing. Not even a mere fireball will answer your call. If you wish to flee from me, you are welcome to jump to your death.”

I step backwards from her. I keep my sword raised.

“Still have nothing to say?” Thelsa asks. “How annoying. Can we not drop this farce, already? You know who I am.”

“You’re a necromancer,” I say softly.

Thelsa’s eyes narrow. “Stop playing stupid.”

“I’m not playing.” I take another step back, towards the centre of the plateau, where it’s wider. I’m paying attention to the corpses to either side of me, their spacing and proximity, but mostly I’m focused on her.

As I retreat, Thelsa drifts forwards. “Then stop assuming that I am stupid. Do you seriously think I didn’t recognise you?” Her hands are by her sides, palms upturned, fingers curled like claws. “I mean, really! You couldn’t even keep that fake name straight. Shani? Is that so? I called you Shara at least twice, didn’t you notice?”

My heart is beating too loudly for me to hear you say idiot .

“You gave a different name to everyone in Gnisis,” Thelsa says. “Oh, yes, I’ve been following you for a while. I couldn’t believe my luck when I first saw you. I guess even the blessed must fall, but this… this disguise is truly pathetic. I don’t know who healed those brands for you, but they should’ve rendered you mute, it would’ve served you better. You’re a pathetic liar.”

The clouds feel lower, up here, there’s electricity in the air.

“Now,” says Thelsa. “Can we please drop this ridiculous farce? I know who you are, and you know who I am. Before I kill you, I want the pleasure of making you admit your sins. Now drop that sword you don’t know how to use and admit it. Acknowledge me!”

I look at her face very closely. I struggle to think. I say nothing.

Thelsa’s expression turns incredulous. “You don’t know?” she asks, but even she doesn’t sound certain. “That’s impossible. Unless… you’ve forgotten?”

“I have no idea who you are,” I confess.

She replies, “ Karnalta Ra’athim, you bitch!”

Your name hits me harder than her fist. I guess she’s so mad she’s forgotten to use magic, because she quite literally flies at me, and her hand collides with my cheek before I can react. I step back and raise my sword to knock her away, but she’s already retreated to cast a spell, this time, a proper spell-- I twist to the side, her hand discharges lightning into nothing, and all around us, I hear the groan of the dead start to rise.

“Wait!” I gasp-- my head is ringing a little--

“How dare you!” Thelsa yells. “You arrogant whore! You narcissistic jerk! Everything you’ve done to me and you don’t even remember me?”

“I’m not Karnalta!”

“You liar, you coward! Bad enough you stole my place, now face me like an honest necromancer!”

“I’m not--”

But the dead are rising now, the first zombie is stumbling towards me. Sloppy resurrections, slow-moving and uncoordinated. I take a leg off of first one with a wide cleave of my sword, then use the motion to turn and jab the tip of my weapon into the abdomen of the second one, robbing it of its momentum. My mind is reeling with shock but my body acts of its own accord.

The rest of the zombies are beginning to rise, groaning in that terrible, tacky way that necromancers always make their zombies groan, and I want to find room for myself to fight in, but Thelsa is hanging in front of me, blocking my way, sparking with fury.

“It should have been me,” declares Thelsa. “ I should have gone to Cyrodiil! I should have joined Mannimarco’s side! It should have been me! Not you, you stupid child of nepotism!”

“She’s in Cyrodiil?” I try to ask, though it’s more of an incredulous yell. Another zombie is raising in the corner of my vision.

“It should have been me!” Thelsa sends more fire at me, I barely step out of its range. “They should have taken me! Not you! You rotten exile! You cheat!”

“Please listen! I’m--”

The zombie gets too close to me before I catch it with the off-hand dagger-- I’ve never wanted so badly for a shield-- there’s two more on my other side and I push the zombie on my dagger into its companions, unbalancing all three, leaving them open to a few quick cuts with my sword.

“I’m not Karnalta!” I shout, my voice strangled from exertion, “I’m her sister! I’m Karnalta’s twin!”

Thelsa barks out a laugh. “ That is your new excuse? Even now you persist on lying to me? You’re bad at this, s’wit!”

“It’s not a lie!” One of the zombies on the ground almost grabs my ankle; I crush its wrist with my foot, an awful crunch, like I’ve stepped on a cockroach.

The fighting has pushed me forwards; Thelsa has retreated slightly, so that she now hangs over the side of the cliff, she looks like an apparition of wrath against the cold sky beyond.

“Stop trying to deceive me!” Thelsa’s hands are moving again, I hear more zombies moving, I see fire forming in her hands. “Stop lying about who you are!”

“Wait-- I’m Iliah!” I can hear the rest of the zombies shuffling into animation, the oppressive stench of conjuration is everywhere.

“No lie can spare you now!”

“My name is Iliah!” My voice is breaking. How long has it been since I’ve said these words? “I am Iliah Ra’athim! Iliah Ra’athim! Karnalta is my sister!”

Thelsa’s hands become wreathes of flame. “This is the end of you--”

Karnalta, you were right about me. I am an idiot. I do things that I haven’t thought through first.

Once I had you to tell me what to do, and when you weren’t telling me what to do, you were telling me why the thing I was about to do was dumb, and then I wouldn’t do it. But I don’t have you any more.

But if we’re being honest, I haven’t had you since I was a child. I never listened when you told me not to do stupid things. I’d do them anyways and I’d have to live with it. This is all, entirely me, doing things without knowing why I do them, living alone with the consequences.

You’ll never even know about any of this. These stupid thoughts are all my own.

So I do something I haven’t really thought through.

I run. I leap from the cliff. I wrap my arms as tightly around Thelsa as I can.

I drive my dagger into her as we fall.

A child perches high in a tree, a book resting in her lap. It is a beautiful spring day in Mournhold, and the Moril tree in which she sits is thick with fragrant blush-pink blooms. Bees dodder around her, a cliff-darter perches on a branch nearby. Clock-crickets hum their eerily mechanical melodies all around her; the child, completely engrossed in her book as she is, pays them no attention. So enraptured is she by the story she reads that she does not even notice that someone is climbing the tree. She does not hear the rustling below her, the creaking of branches, the occasional clatter of bark scraped from the trunk by a careless foot. She does not hear the cliff-darter croak in alarm and take flight. She notices nothing, until a head drops down from above and proclaims:

“Found you, Kar!”

The child cries out in fright, and looks up. The mirror image of herself is lying across the branches above her, head dangling just in front of her face.

“Iliah!” the child shouts. “You scared me!”

“Sorry,” says her twin, with a gawky grin. “Hi.”

“How did you get up here?”

“I climbed.”

“All the way up?”

“Yeah.”

“Iliah, you idiot, you could’ve fallen!” Karnalta puts her book down, wearing a frown as big and unabashed as her sister’s grin. “You would’ve gotten hurt!”

Iliah shakes her head. “Kneads-Dough says kids our age bounce.”

“She didn’t mean it literally, moron.”

“ You’re up here. You didn’t fall.”

“I can levitate! You can’t! Only a complete idiot would climb up here! And stop dangling upside-down, it’s bad for your brain, you don’t have a lot of brain to start with!”

Iliah flips herself right-side up, then drops onto the branch Karnalta sits on. She straddles it and faces her sister, no longer smiling. “You shouldn’t call me names,” she says.

“You deserve it,” says Karnalta briskly. “You risked your life in a stupid way by coming up here! Really, what if you’d fallen?”

“You’d have known,” Iliah says, matter-of-fact. “You’d catch me.”

“I’m not a mind-reader. You don’t even have a mind to read.”

Iliah kicks out at the tree. “It’s not my fault,” she protests. “You didn’t tell me where you went.”

“That’s your big reason to die? That you couldn’t find me?”

“Well, yeah.”

“You’re such an idiot!” Karnalta reaches out and gives Iliah a gentle hit on the leg. “You could’ve just waited. I would’ve come back.”

“But I don’t want to wait. I miss you.”

“Why?”

“Cause you weren’t there.”

“I mean, why do you miss me?”

“... Because I like being around you?”

“Iliah,” says Karnalta, crossing her arms and speaking very sternly, “To ‘miss’ something suggests you don’t have it. But we are twins. We have the same blood and the same bones and the same meat. We are identical on a cellular level. It is irrational to miss me, because there is nothing I have that you don’t.”

“You have a brain,” Iliah points out. Then she grins another gawky grin. “You smiled!”

“No I didn’t,” says Karnalta, smiling. “Just…”

“... Just what?”

“I would miss you if you died. So stop doing dumb stuff like climbing.”

Iliah rolls her eyes. “I already told you,” she said. “I’m not going to fall to my death. You’d catch me.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Yes I do. Watch--”

And Karnalta watches as her mirror image slips sideways off of the branch, disappearing into the blush-coloured foliage of a beautiful Mournhold spring.

I’m on my back. A cliff reaches up above me, and above that, an awful, grey, gloomy Vvardenfell sky.

I kept my eyes open as I was falling, and that’s the only reason I see it. It’s only there for a moment-- the grey of a spectre against the grey of the sky. Its bony arms cradle me, alighting me on the ground, and then it’s gone, quiet, without fanfare, as if it had only been a speck of dust in my watery eyes.

Still, I lie there for a while, trying to convince myself that I haven’t just fallen to my death. I feel unharmed aside from a bit of singing around my forearms. My dagger is no longer in my hand, nor is my sword. If any of my bones are broken, I can’t feel it yet.

I turn my head to one side. Thelsa is lying a little ways away from me, also on her back, also staring up at the sky, though she is not blinking. Her face is already paler than it was when we travelled together, her lovely round cheeks sallowing. At her breast, driven through the beautiful Telvanni shawl I’d helped her wrap around her neck, the hilt of my dagger sits at a strange angle.

Carefully, I raise myself off of the ground, then stand on my knees by her side. I’m a little dizzy, but truly unharmed; I look over Thelsa, though I think I already know what I’ll find if I search her. Still, I search.

One of her hands is open, its palm burned black with the back-discharge of a fireball. The other is clasped tightly around a plain but enchanted ebony ring.

I wrest the ring from her clenched hand. It feels perhaps a little cooler than it did before, but I cradle it all the same. When we were children, Karnalta and I used to play in the long-abandoned Ra’athim tombs that lay below Mournhold, and, being badly disciplined, we would occasionally take souvenirs, one of which was this ring. Karnalta used to ridicule the ‘mere’ spell of summon ancestral ghost that had been imbued upon it, but I was always too aware of the fact that it would probably summon our ancestors, our family, so I kept it my whole life, out of some sense of obligation. I even took it on this quest with me.

And then I understand two things:

One of them is that I am still Iliah.

The other is that I will never speak to Karnalta again.

I pull my dagger from Thelsa's breast, wipe it clean on her shirt, put it back in my belt. I pull her scarf over her face. Then I rise, turn away, embrace myself, check my ribs for breakages. When I'm confident that I'm unharmed, I push the ring into my trouser pocket. Where did I leave my pack? Ah, right, there by the cliff's base.

It’ll be a long walk back to anywhere inhabited. I don’t have a very good sense of direction, and to be honest, I was a bit distracted when Thelsa was leading me here, so I’m not fully certain where I’ve ended up. I know we’ve come far north, much further than the bandit camp I’d been aiming for, but I’m not sure if it would make sense to aim all the way for the coast. I try to think back to the map of Vvardenfell: Ald Velothi lies north of Gnisis, doesn’t it? Or was it Khuul? At any rate, Idrenie told me that ashlanders live along the north coast, and maybe I’ll run into them. I can probably find some good things to barter from Thelsa’s corpse, and she left her travel-pack behind as well.

It’s going to be a long, lonely journey, and I’m not yet a year into my quest. Somehow, I find that I don’t mind. It will be good to have some time alone so that I can get my thoughts in order. Besides, I owe Almalexia a long conversation, and there’s a lot of Ordinator-ly meditation and prayer that I’ve been slacking off on.

Maybe I’ll meet someone interesting on the road.

#i highly recommend ao3 for this one it is very long #i know literally nobody was asking for a 10k 1st person pov iliah fic. not sure what came over me here #iliah #fic

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fractiflos · 1 month

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I've decided to do the thing where I put a poll up of my wips and write however many sentences that wip gets. BUT! These wips aren't even published yet. I like to put something up then come back to it later so I can at least take the pressure off myself. Because the pressure of getting a first chapter out makes it difficult to write.

Jult - Inspired by a conversation me and my sister had in a shoe store. We were wondering if Best Jeanist ever put a J at the front of words (ex: Jhe Jaghetti jas jood) and if he owned jean themed items like a Jable and Jhair. Then I learned there was a jult around him and thought "hey, what if he had a Jult in canon universe?" which is what happened. Although, this one is a one-shot.

Snippet: The parents would leave the hospital as confident and reassured as new parents could be, doing their best to make sure their child grew up happy and healthy. His blond hair grew out and took on a shine along with his oddly long lashes, and his green eyes always sparkling, much like his mother’s. Yet, despite his healthy look and appetite, there was something worrying about him.

He only liked denim.

Shigaraki - Frankenstein AU! Where AFO brings Yoichi back to life, Frankenstein style. And what luck, Yoichi appears to have lost his memories, leaving him with the opportunity to create the perfect little brother. When Second and Third find out, they try and get his memories back. But there's something that all four of them don't know. That's. Not. Yoichi.

Snippet: It was not a dark day when Yoichi died. It was sunny and there was not a cloud in the sky, though they couldn’t tell as they ran through the sewers like frightened rats. Hearts pounding in their ears, terror palpable in the air.

Ice King AU - The AU where everyone was born earlier into the Age of the Dawn of Quirks. Second and Third are brainwashed and work for AFO while Yoichi has become unrecognizable to everyone ever since putting on the quirked crown that gave him the ice powers. Meanwhile, Izuku and Katsuki are unaware of his tragic backstory and beat him up everytime he kidnaps a hero.

Snippet: At twelve years old, Izuku Midoriya should have been in middle school cutting open a dead frog. Instead, he was battling against a very large, very alive frog with acid spit.

Pokemon AU - Instead of quirks, they get pokemon. Izuku is still bullied for having an eevee that can't evolve. AFO and Garaki do all sorts of unethical experiments on pokemon. And it's really annoying how I can't type an accented "e" on my computer for some reason.

Snippet: Izuku Midoriya was 9 years old when he learned that not all Pokémon were treated equally.

Death Tree - Are you in the market for a fic with lesbian duoholders? Another Victorian era AU, but this time Yoichi and Second are both girls. I thought about how easily AFO's possessiveness over Yoichi would translate over to the attitudes toward women. He'd still have to disguise how deep it goes, but even if he slips up every once in a while, no one would suspect anything. The actual plot is Yone falls in love with the daughter of the stable manager, and they eventually start a secret relationship. She also makes some friends in the small town that she lives near and is pretty happy. Then her friends start dying. Looks like they're going to regret not paying more attention to AFOs behavior.

Snippet: Yone was thirteen years old the first time she met the girl. Her wild hair was a flame in the summer sun, freckles scattered across her cheeks in a way that was reminiscent of the stars in the sky and calculating ruby eyes. She couldn’t help her staring, not used to seeing someone display such blemishes so freely.

#bnha #jane's rambles #note: snippets are subject to change when I put up the actual chapter #But probably not since most of those are first lines and those tend to stay the same

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shiro-s2e2-erukinzu · 8 months

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Anime only watchers and people who aren't caught up with the Manga, BEWARE... Cuz I'm about to discuss Spy X Family Mission 88... You have been warned...! 👌

[SPOILERS AHEAD FROM THIS POINT ON]

OMG...!! 😍 THIS WAS SUCH AN ADORABLE CHAPTER FOR THE MANGA TO RETURN WITH...!!! 💗😆💗

We had to wait a month and a half for this chapter, and I think that it DELIVERED!! 😁 So let's talk about it, shall we...? 😊

This chapter begins with a plot line that's been brewing since Mission 61...

THAT'S RIGHT!! 😆 DAMIAN IS FINALLY GONNA GIVE ANYA THE CAKES THAT HE PROMISED HER!! 😁

And it only took 27 chapters for Damian to accomplish this...!! 😌 I honestly just love how Endo does stuff like this, where he brings something back up a bunch of chapters later (even if it's the smallest detail imaginable...!! 😊)

But moving on, we get something that I did not expect to see...:

ANYA DRAWN IN THE FREAKING SHOJO ART STYLE!! I JUST-- I JUST CAN'T...!! 🤣🤣🤣

This is one of the best and funniest things I've ever seen in Spy X Family, and I honestly can't wait until THIS gets animated...!! 😆

After spotting his dream girl from afar, Damian tries to give her the cakes that he promised, but...

There is just too many people around for him to give Anya the goods...! And with Anya overhearing his thoughts about giving her the cakes (but not fully understanding why Damian wants to give them to her in secret), she devises a plan to meet with Damian in the courtyard...!

And after receiving a seemingly bloody message from Anya, Damian agrees to head to the courtyard with her...

But as you can see, Becky, Emile and Ewen decided to follow them...!! 😅 So Damian and Anya decide to BOOK IT, while the others follow suit!!! 😆

After getting chased around for awhile, Damian determines that he's done with this shit and ultimately decides to just throw away the cakes (which Anya hears), and then...:

ANYA, ARE TRYING TO KILL DAMIAN...!? 🤣 HIS LITTLE HEART CAN'T TAKE IT...!! 🤭

Honestly though, this whole page is just so adorable (even if Anya is only doing this for the cakes...!! 💗😄💗)

Anyway, because they were so wrapped up this cake situation, Damian and Anya didn't realize that a wild Henderson has appeared to scold them for missing the the bell...!

Now the two of them have to stay after school, but it isn't all bad...:

After finishing writing their apologies, THE G.O.A.T., Mr. Henderson, offers to have some tea and cakes with Damian and Anya...!! 😁

Then, Mr. Henderson asks Damian about the cakes, and get this little flashback...:

HMMMMMMM..... 🤔

This flashback just makes me continue to be suspicious of Melinda... 😤

But, anyway... To end things off, Damian questions why Anya wanted to meet with him in the first place, and well...:

THESE TWO I SWEAR!!👏🤣👏🤣👏🤣👏🤣

And that was Mission 88, a really fun chapter to get us back into the swing of things...!! 😆

I'm pretty sure a lot of us were expecting something big to happen this chapter (like how I was hoping for Yor's full backstory because season 2 of the anime started), but it didn't, and I'm okay with that...! I'm just glad that we finally got another chapter of this amazing series to talk about...!! 😊 And though that month and a half long break was killing me (I mean, I had Undead Unluck to read in meantime), I just hope that Endo got some well deserved rest!! 💗🤗💗

Also, that flashback with Melinda is just giving me red flags all over the place...!! 😵 I don't know if Donovan is the one telling her to do these things or if she's doing this to get to Anya herself, but everything that Melinda has done thus far has made me feel constantly uneasy... I just hope that she didn't do anything to those cakes that will harm Anya or her powers in any way...!! 😡

Well, that's pretty much all that I wanted say about this chapter, and like always, I can't wait for the next one!! 😆 So, until the next Mission... Take care, be safe out there and be kind to one another...!! LATER!! 👋😄

#spy x family #sxf #spyxfamily #spy x family manga #sxf manga #spyxfamily manga #Mission 88 #anya forger #damian desmond #becky blackbell #emile elman #ewen egeburg #henry henderson #ENDO STRAIGHT UP DREW ANYA IN THE SHOJO ART STYLE...!! 😆#THAT WAS FREAKING HILARIOUS!! 🤣#I am still very suspicious of Melinda...#I am PRAYING AND HOPING that Melinda didn't sneak something into those cakes...!!! 😩#Do not hurt my baby...!! 😡#manga spoilers

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eff-plays · 2 months

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On these notes, can I umm ... have Tavs who are like ... their own people. With personal issues and hangups and conflicts and preferences. I need Tavs who have spines, who don't just exist to be soft and gentle for Astarion's sake, who don't exist to be therapists for him. Like I get it, it's self-care for writers to some extent, but it just makes for such boring reading when a Tav is always 100% understanding and pliable for Astarion. When they're head over heels instantly and understand him perfectly with minimal explanations. When they can somehow tell, feel his pain through nothing but his eyes. After knowing him for days, hours, seconds.

Need Tavs who don't let him drink from them and/or tell him to only bite enemies because it's more pragmatic. Tavs who don't get off to his bites and in fact find them painful and inconvenient. Tavs who disagree with him to his face. Tavs who call him out when he's being a cunt.

"I didn't tell anyone you're a vampire because it's not my secret to tell" but why? He never asked to keep it a secret, and he attacked you. In your sleep. You owe him nothing, and he could pose an active danger to the others if you don't tell them? How do you know he doesn't? He's done nothing to earn your trust, yet you offer it anyway. And you're not written to be stupid, just that you innately know he's important/damaged somehow, so what gives?

It annoys me that the only time meta knowledge is used it's in his favor. Like Tav just knows he's good deep down somehow. Despite him being a huge cunt constantly. Like, he kills Tav if they fail to make him stop. Without remorse. He even jokes about it later when they have the audacity to be upset about it. But that's never even a fear some Tavs have. When it makes far more sense to be suspicious he'd do that than trusting him instantly.

And another thing like ... So many Tavs are just orbiting Astarion. Just straight up fail to make connections of friendships with anyone else. They'll also have some sad backstory of course, but only Astarion is somehow aware of it, he's the only one who has any insight into their inner turmoil while everyone else doesn't give a shit, I guess. Which is just. He gets to both have the benefit of the doubt and special insight and understanding of Tav. He gets to have all the cards.

Where's the mess. Where's the conflict. Where's the intrigue and fun of two actual individual people learning to overcome their differences and/or finding comfort in their similarities?

Idk I realize I'm barking up the wrong tree because this is generally the state of most fic and the romance genre in general but it's extra evident in the Astarion fandom where he's elevated to the status of the ultimate victim and ultimate sex god so any conflict is untenable because he's soo vunlerable and sensitive and all situations must have him coming out on top or else it'll be ... idk, problematic? Abusive? Traumatic to him? What's the reason?

It ends up just doing him a disservice? Part of what makes the romance so compelling-in game (at least the Spawn route) is that Tav challenges him and his assumptions. That they push back. But in fic these Tavs "push back" by just accepting his bullshit with a smile and waiting for him to realize he's being a bitch on his own, I guess. He's also rarely allowed to be silly or cringefail, which he canonically is, and he's so coddled that it makes it look like this grown-ass man can't handle anyone disagreeing with him or teasing him, so he's always paired up with the most weaksauce spineless soft quirky manic pixie dream Tav imaginable.

Like. It's always "Uwu how can I make him happy? Anything to make him happy!" What about you hon? What do you get out of this relationship, babygirl?

And tbh this is headcanon of course but I just don't think he'd respect a doormat Tav very much. He needs to be sprayed with water every now and then. For his own good.

Whatevs. I mean write whatever you want. But. Man. I just want more cool Tavs. And less stunted and flattened Astarion who can't take a joke or a goof or a gaff, who's always too cool to fail or be wrong.

And before someone says "this is why Durge is better!" I have no interest in Durge and do not read Durge fic sorry. Also that wound't even be true.

#bg3 #'noo tav makes him realize the world is a good place by being kind and patient' ok but can they not be kind and patient at their own expens

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i-want-my-iwtv · 30 days

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Hey, thank you so much for answering all my questions! It helps! Curious about you saying "he had been very secretive, which created frustration for Louis and Claudia about their nature as vampires". In the movie he says he doesn't know anything because his maker never told him. Do we think this is a lie then? Is it a lie in the books? Do you recommend all the books or only select few? Are they all canon? I'm def interested in L&L centric stuff (don't think all books are?). Anyway, thanks again!

Hey, thank you so much for answering all my questions! It helps!

You're welcome 🌷

In the movie he says he doesn't know anything because his maker never told him. Do we think this is a lie then? Is it a lie in the books?

Yes and No!

TL:DR; I think some of us Lestat fans forgive him for keeping secrets from Louis and Claudia, it was partially for their safety.

Well, when Anne Rice wrote IWTV, she didn't yet have much of a backstory for Lestat; since she didn't know the secrets he kept from Louis, neither did Lestat 😅 So I would say, no, he wasn't lying then (technically). If that was the only book in the series, then he was not lying.

Anne Rice also wrote the '94 IWTV movie script, and at that time, she HAD written Lestat's backstory in The Vampire Lestat, so at that point Lestat knew secrets that he withheld from Louis and Claudia. In fact, Tom Cruise had read the first 3 books in the series, so his performance is informed from this immersion in the lore; you can see the simmering beneath the surface as Louis asks him questions, trying to get anything out of him, and Lestat evading as much as he can, until he can't evade anymore and bursts out in frustration and pain. He KNOWS and wants to tell him so badly!

(Hit the jump, cut for length)

So in the movie, Lestat is lying to Louis and Claudia by saying he doesn't know the secrets, but it's kind of a partial lie, because his maker, Magnus, gave Lestat very little information. Magnus didn't tell Lestat about the origin of the vampires or what their place was in a religious context. Magnus just wanted to leave behind an heir to his wealth and power before he died.

However, Lestat did learn the origin story of the vampires from Marius. In order for Anne to solve the problem of why Lestat withheld this information from Louis and Claudia, she made a retcon: Marius threatens Lestat that if he tells the secrets to anyone, Marius would punish him, because he can't have anyone know where he is, which could threaten the safety of the entire vampire species.

Marius threatens to crush Lestat to death or set him on fire with pyrokinesis, and that this punishment would include anyone Lestat told the secrets to 😭. So it's partly out of safety that Lestat won't tell Louis and Claudia those secrets.

Marius underscores that Lestat's fledglings might not be ready for this knowledge anyway, it could be "a horror to them," so in not telling them, Lestat is also protecting them from the potential psychological damage.

I think there's also some fanon that Lestat was afraid that in telling Louis and Claudia these secrets, that they might leave him, and that's a giant separate discussion, whether that counts as a form of abuse to keep them against their will. By telling them the secrets, they would have the knowledge of where to start looking for other vampires 😭 Which, again, is a safety thing for Lestat partly, because they were pretty weak as far as vampires go, and therefore vulnerable to more powerful vampires' attacks. And there are worse things than death for vampires.

Do you recommend all the books or only select few? Are they all canon?

I usually recommend reading all the books, even though there are some I prefer over others. How do you know what you will/won't like without trying them? Technically anyone can make the argument that all of the books are canon, but I treat the series like a buffet, as many book fans do, and so not everyone agrees which books are Truly Canon 😅

But in general, if I had to choose, the first 3 used to be referred to as the Trilogy™ (derogatory), those are the most universally-loved, and some fans find that Anne Rice strayed from the parts that made canon so delicious after the third book. I would recommend reading them in order of publication because that's the order Anne Rice explored the stories and characters (even though the timelines do jump around and there are interesting discrepancies between different character's accounts of the same events!)

I'm def interested in L&L centric stuff (don't think all books are?).

Not all the books are L&L centric, but they often have a moment here and there even in books that are not specific to them, like Tale of the Body Thief. So, some shippers will skim through a book just to find any mention of their ship. Knowing the context of L&L's meetups in TOBT definitely enhances the flavor of their scenes together, so I would recommend reading that one, even though it's not considered canon for some fans 🤷 Delicious angst! The Feels! But that is one of the more Problematic books in the series, so it's up to you whether you want to give that one a try.

#Order of Operations for VC

#ask #anon #interview with the vampire #lestat #lestat de lioncourt #the vampire lestat #iwantmyiwtv has opinions #gif #read the book #Order of Operations for VC #quote #actual quote #marius de romanus #lestat reads #lestat reading

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delusinalandpassionate · 11 months

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Hi I just need to come in with an observation that's been breaking my mind and it heavily includes Don so.

You know the Canto order, right? Here's an interesting thing about that, if you split them up into trios, they all seem to have some form of thematic thread connecting that specific trio.

For example Gregor, Rodya, and Sinclair are all people who have been trying to Move on and almost run away from their Pasts but are still deeply affected by them. Yi Sang, Ishmael, and Heathcliff seem to be people who are being Haunted by their Pasts to a much deeper degree. Meursault, Outis, and Faust are the most outwardly suspicious Sinners due to their connections to various factions, and their Cantos are likely to focus on Revealing those Secrets.

So what's the connection between Don, Hong Lu, and Ryoshu? I think it's the idea of perception and reality/unreality.

Don Quixote's whole thing is that she's said to have delusions, her view of reality is presented as heavily skewed, and her source is focused on the tale of someone neck-deep in his fantasies.

Hong Lu has this thing is that it's impossible to tell just how genuine he actually is being at any point in time, and his source has a decent amount of focus on breaking down the idea of what is true and what is fiction.

Ryoshu has a strong distaste towards dishonesty and people who delude themselves, while being based on a character who could only create art out of real things he has seen.

Like I can't be the only one going a little insane over the fact that the order of chapters includes Character who is presented as completely delusional -> Character who is unclear on how much about him is real and how much is not -> Character who is fully focused on presenting the cruelty of reality in all its detail, right?

...Sorry about dropping this in your ask box I needed to scream this at someone who is interested in Don cause I have brain worms.

Don't apologize because now I want more

I didn't think about them in that type of trios, but it does make sense

Delusions and reality is an extremely good idea even if I am still thinking that Don is not as deluded as she seems. I also think if theory about Don being Sancho is true, and if Ryoshu's backstory is close to original, combined with how abusive and controlling Hong Lu's family seems, their cantos theme can be about control over them?

That's actually becomes even more intresting idea when you notice some parallels between them.

And you can't imagine how much I want to see this trio to interact.

#limbus company #don quixote #project moon #ryoshu #hong lu #ryoshu surrounded by liars #help her #ask?

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