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psalacanthea · 4 months

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In the Den of the Beast

here as promised on this fine Fanfic Friday, is 4.2k of fic between my Durge and Gortash! She's featured before in this Durge x Abdirak bit of knifeplay smut, but this is from before then, at their first meeting face to face.

Happy Friday! The next poll for next week's Fanfic Friday will be up soon. Thanks for reading, commenting, reblogging, and all that. Let me know if you're having trouble reading it here, and I'll throw it on AO3 as well.

cw: torture, murder, light descriptions of gore, etc. Durge warning (but mild in this bit of fic)

...

Blood coated every inch of skin, coated her throat as she breathed in, the coppery tang thick and heavy in the air.

Passion cooled with the chill to her bare skin, the brief reprieve from numbness fading away once more. She was left blank and empty. Following the wordless command of a small, sharp click of her tongue, Iris scurried over, carefully pulling her robe over her arms as she extended them to her sides. Letting her eyes drop down on the wall, she stared in silence at her erstwhile sister, the crudely made beast that she was. Orin was seething, lips pulled back to bare a twisted scowl, cloudy eyes wide with anger.

She hadn’t been expecting to be watched, but she should have been.

“I hope that you have sufficiently reflected on your mistakes,” she told Orin, dropping her arms as her voiceless servant finished tying the robe. “If you ever ignore my instructions again to play your pointless and capricious games, I will make you wish you never slithered out of your mother’s polluted, violated womb. You are no whimsical artist, you are a disappointment. Idiot child.”

Picking up Orin’s knife from the table by the door, she examined the bloodstained, pink bit of flesh that flopped about on its tip as she turned it over. “You may have your tongue back.” She threw the knife at Orin’s knees, walking past her seething sister as she crossed the large, echoing stone brick chamber. Behind her, the corpses of Orin’s latest targets, used as an object lesson once more on how a killing should be performed.

It should be quick, brutal, and thorough, not…artistic.

How dare Father ever bless this crude and misled child, when she sacrificed so much for Hi–

No. Such thoughts were to be buried, cast aside. Sacrifices must be made willingly, or they were not sacrifices at all. It rankled, however, to have her struggles so dismissed, her fight for lucidity all but mocked.

She paused, glancing over her shoulder. “If you embarrass me again, I will peel away the veneer of civility from my flesh and do what I was made for. As your elder sister, it is natural for me to want the best for you. And of you. The next time I hear your voice, it will be saying ‘I am sorry, Sister. Thank you, Sister.’. I love you.”

Inarticulate, burbling, some vile curse came from the figure behind her, marred by the damage her rude mouth had taken. Mannerless to the end. Truly, family was a burden unlike any other.

Her eyes drifted until they locked, finding that which did not belong.

An interloper.

The figure standing by the door with its disgustingly lax posture straightened up as she approached, but she ignored the vaguely familiar, dark-haired man. Her attention shifted instead to the woman standing to the other side of the door. An expected person. She, much like Iris, was veiled and dressed in burgundy, with her mouth daintily stitched closed.

Weary-eyed man and servant both turned and followed her as she walked past them, gesturing sharply.

Perhaps the man wasn’t as bumbling as she’d presumed from his portrait.

He knew enough not to speak inside a place of worship.

They paced out into a high, narrow hallway, stone-brick walls uneven, lit with flickering torchlight. They were designed to demand a single file, but the man crowded close, almost as if he expected to walk shoulder to shoulder with her. It made her walk more quickly.

“Violet, tell go fetch the prisoner in the left cell, give him the keys to Orin’s restraints, and tell him he may leave if he frees her,” she instructed quietly. If Orin didn’t kill the man, she was even more incompetent than Belladonna thought. Near-unfathomable.

It was important to give a child something productive to do after you punished them.

Violet turned and walked away immediately at the first claustrophobic intersection, movements as silent as her sealed lips.

“It wasn’t my intent to intrude on a family matter, forgive me,” the man said, husky voice oozing what she supposed he thought was charm.

They walked for a time, his steps coming to pace with hers, until she was forced to acknowledge his presence. It was true that he was following her without knowing why. She paused, turning to face him, voice and words solemn.

“Punishments sink in much better with the added pressure of humiliation.” Belladonna paused, glancing sidelong at him, lifting her chin. “And she was the only one who had something to be ashamed of in that room. Don’t you agree, vulture of Bane?”

“I only wish our rituals seemed as…” At the slight narrowing of her eyes, he smiled, tipping his head. “Fulfilling.”

Hmph.

“Pity for you. Have you considered conversion?”

The Banite laughed, throwing his head back, with an unsettling earnestness. A strong emotion. It made her uncomfortable– he was uncomfortable to be around. Serenity-intruding.

Best to get rid of him quickly before she gave in to her discomfort and disemboweled him. She needed this conniving man. Unlike Orin, she knew that acting without thought meant your plans were doomed to fail.

Pray the little idiot never learned the art of forethought.

She was still far, far too impulsive and extravagant, no matter how many times corrected.

“Usually I prefer that people wait until I send them an invitation before they answer it.”

Gortash spread his hands helplessly, fingers gnarled from a lifetime of work. Not a soft man, then. “It’s been on your desk for over a week. I kept anticipating its arrival, only to be disappointed. I thought a nudge might help keep things moving.”

“You need a better spy, it has been over two weeks,” she replied, trying to calculate just how he would have gotten the interloper into her ranks. A waste of her time. If he wanted her to be happy, he would tell her. “Well, now I know you’ve been trying to infiltrate since we’ve been in contact, no doubt, since it could not have been done easily. Tell me how you accomplished it. That is an order, not a request.”

“Yes, it was quite the difficult task. I’d be happy to share my dark secrets, if it soothes your ire,” he said affably, lifting one hand to his partially bared chest.

“You will. In detail,” she agreed, nodding instantly. If he wanted something from her, he would be honest. If he was planning to attack her from within by making himself seem helpful, well, she would kill him. Always a silver lining.

Banites were untrustworthy, it was simply in their nature, but they could work together perfectly well.

Until he inevitably made her angry enough to murder him.

“Perhaps in another venue? Your hall is…” His eyes scanned the stained, faintly-damp stone brick of the walls. “Echoing.”

She had no desire to speak to him in a private space, but it was inevitable and so she merely nodded. Unwelcome as his intrusion was, she must use it. Why the fool had ignored the fact that she obviously did not want to respond to his ardent requests for an invitation, she didn’t know, but even if she found him irritating she could not waste this opportunity. Right now she felt lucid, clear-headed. Sated.

For now she could face this man and his machinations.

“If you stray from me, steal from me, or touch anything you should not…then you will not be.”

“Concise and convincing! Delighted,” he said, smile too wide and sly for her taste.

"That was a threat, you realize," she said, vaguely baffled by his demeanor. Pausing, she turned to face him, insisting, "killing you would be as great a victory to me as alliance."

He lifted a hand, tilting his head. "If there is one thing my people are good at, it’s keeping records. I am well aware you have killed…several among our number. After reaching out to them to ally, too, as you did me.”

So he did know.

They turned a corner, her eyes flicking aside at him once again. He seemed sincere. And yet still arrogant enough to face her in such an audacious manner. What a curious man this Enver Gortash was. Perhaps clever enough to succeed where others had failed, she hoped?

Why come here, to the very heart of her power...alone?

Was he a madman?

“You aren’t stupid enough to arrive with that in mind unless you are very assured of your plan or your power. What makes you so confident?” She paused at a four-way junction, gesturing him to the left.

“You are so delightfully blunt!” he laughed, lowering his voice when she shot him an irritable look. Turning away, he headed towards the open door nearby, “I’m not about to let a golden opportunity escape me. I’d imagine you’re very tired of inferior fools. I will make for an excellent contrast.”

“So it is stupidity after all,” she said flatly. Pointing to the door, she stifled her disappointment in him. “Enter.”

Pausing in the doorway, he laughed, low and amused. The echoes, though faint, annoyed her. He must have sensed her wince, as his gaze shifted over to her. The laughter stopped. Rather than give him the satisfaction of seeing her discomfort, she gestured to the door again silently.

Gortash cleared his throat, adjusted his coat, and walked into the room.

After a quick glance around the featureless hall, she turned to follow. Off in the distance there was a scream of rage that came to her ears, distorted by echoes, but she ignored it. Temper tantrums. Father should be grateful she got anything done at all, with family to manage on top of it.

The room off of the hall was small. This font of worship was not particularly large, considering it belonged only to her. The butler despised this place, urged her to return to the Temple, but she required the distance. By now she had learned that the prattling minikin who tended to her was to be ignored as much as the festering urges in her own blood and heart.

Her task required such sacrifices of her.

The room held nothing more than a desk, a dozen mismatched bookcases, and a rusted metal bier she used to sleep on. Her spare furnishings were not what held the Banite’s attention. Instead, his dark eyes were locked upon the mangled heads being held outstretched in the hands of two of her silent maidens, mouths agape, eyes gouged out to bare bloody blackened sockets. Well, two of the three heads had eyes removed.

Rose’s work.

The Banite’s men.

“Would you like to take them home for burial?”

“No, do as you like with them!” His lack of concern for his lurking spies made her eyes narrow, but he only smiled. “I did order them to stay without. If my orders were broken…”

The taller of the two handmaidens gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

“There is very little difference to me between knowing where my temple is, and actually breaching the doors. Do you understand?”

“Surely you couldn’t expect me to visit without–”

She gave him a cold look to silence him, dismissing the handmaidens with a flicker of her hand. “Orchid, Frostrose. Go meditate upon if you believe yourselves to have followed my expectations by killing without orders. If you decide you have not, submit to punishment. Have the heads left at the exit so that the Banite may take them if he leaves this place alive.”

There was no reason to let him get comfortable.

Walking past them without further commentary, and no pointless bowing and scraping, the maidens left, taking the heads with them. If they failed to punish themselves, she would do so. Not because she disagreed with the killing, of course, but because they had not informed her beforehand. Order was the difference between success and failure.

Order and self-control.

The door closed heavily, the sound hollow as a tomb, leaving them in the pristine, but claustrophobic room. She silently walked between the bookshelves, heading for her desk. There was no chair. It was unnecessary. Walking behind the large slab of salvaged, ancient wood, she reached for a pile of carefully-written correspondence. Leafing through it, she found the letter she’d not decided to send to him, and silently held it into the candle flame. The parchment quickly caught.

Lifting her eyes from the fire, she stared at Gortash as the letter burned.

“The skull as a candle-holder is very atmospheric.”

“It was on hand,” she said casually, the ruddy edge of the blackening paper stinging against her fingertips. She dropped the unburnt corner, which burst into flame and then ash, drifting down to the desk.

“No chairs.” He sat on the corner of her desk, folding his hands together on his thigh. The smug man ignored her glare. He seemed to enjoy not reacting to her– almost as if it made him victorious. “Bhaal is…against seating?”

She was not impressed.

“I do not find a chair necessary. Why would I fetch one and drag it through the sewers and caves just to have something to sit on? I can write standing up.”

“I thought this was your home…that’s all. My information must not have been as accurate as I was expecting.” His lips twisted into a grimace, before he shrugged dismissively. “Well! You’ve killed the people who failed me, regardless.”

“This is my home,” she corrected, keeping her voice monotone. Why did he prattle so ceaselessly? “I asked if you understood why your men died.”

“Yes, perfectly well. Another threat. I do notice them, you don’t have to keep pointing them out to me.”

He sounded sincere, which was suspicious. The longer this went on, the more uneasy it made her. “I do not idly threaten, and I do not subtly threaten. They are warnings. I suggest you treat them as you would the snarl of any beast, because despite my current calm and amiable nature, they are quite serious.”

"I've irritated you."

"Your unwarranted calm irritates me."

His eyes were irritating, so expressive and yet so impenetrable. “You did ask about my confidence. You thought it came from knowing I had men nearby, and now you see that isn’t true. Then let me reassure you, so that I don’t end up with my entrails wrapped around your hands– as enjoyable as that was to watch.”

She nodded silently, resting both hands on the edge of the desk. He still hadn’t stood up. It bothered her, but she didn’t know why, so she said nothing at all.

“As I said, we keep extensive records. I am the fourth. Why would you reach out to four separate Banites in the hopes of finding one capable of allying with you if you did not need one? I am best suited to your needs, as you are to mine.”

That was all?

“Gloating arrogance,” she dismissed scornfully.

“If that is what you would like to call it. You haven’t ripped my head off yet,” he pointed out with a smile. “I think if I told you why you need me, you might, however. So why not tell me yourself?”

That was what made her uncomfortable about him. He did not react. Apart from that brief discomfort when he’d seen the heads, there had been nothing. As if he’d already known enough about her not to be surprised. And that…that made her viscerally uneasy.

“Whatever assumptions you have made about me–”

The damnable affability of his voice was irritating in its effortlessness. “I am discarding them as we speak. Please; share with me so that I may learn more.”

She stared at him in silence for a good three seconds, and luckily for his sake he wasn’t smiling. Just gazing at her expectantly. Whatever convoluted thoughts twisted through his Bane-addled brain, she did not know, but she did know one thing.

“I need you,” she admitted, lips tightening. “I have been given a sacred duty and nothing but impediments to its completion. I will bring my Father’s desires to fruition.”

“But you can’t alone,” he said knowingly, but not condescendingly. Good, for his sake. “All of your victims thought your cooperation was going quite well. They didn’t listen to the warnings, did they.”

“No,” she agreed simply.

“The empty halls, the silent servants, the way you speak and act and move…I take it you don’t enjoy company or people. Find it unpleasant, even.”

“People and noise irritate me,” she agreed, clipped.

“And when you’re irritated, people die,” he surmised, and smiled faintly at her brusque nod. “Forgive me. I watched you kill. It seems more natural to you than…this.”

She closed her eyes, letting out a faint breath through her nose. “It is the gift of my Father and I am grateful for it.”

“But it keeps you from following His greater Will.”

“I can. I am strong enough to control it. I will make the sacrifices necessary to enact His desires. I am the blood and flesh of Bhaal; I will succeed. With or without the aid of grasping Bane’s disciples.” There she grimaced, remembering that it was aid she was seeking, and clarified grudgingly. “With would be faster. But it is beginning to feel that allying with the servants of Bane will only find me condescension, conniving, and crude attempts at backstabbing.”

“My methods are far from cr–” He cut off as her eyes narrowed slowly. “Oh come now. No sense of humor at all?”

She would begin by cutting off his tongue. Her eyes bored into his; she stared unblinking until he smiled in apology. “No,” she finally clarified.

“I wouldn’t have come here if I wasn’t close to certain we could work together. Now, having met you? I’m absolutely certain. I have exactly what you need, right here.” Gortash tapped his temple with a single finger.

“If your brain was all I needed, I would remove it from your–” She cut off contemplatively, staring at the wall. The brain. That thread she’d been forced to cut, that wasted research–

It did still suit her plans, if someone else could help her find a way forward.

“Are you still here with me…” Gortash folded his arms and tilted his head as her chin jerked up, eyes widening as she stared at him. “You’ve never signed your letters. What was your name?”

“I have none,” she replied, turning away from the desk to pace among the bookshelves.

“Is there something I can call you?”

“If you wish to risk it, try,” she agreed, tipping books to the side as she went through an upright stack of them. Eventually she found the one she sought, a blood-stained, battered journal she’d taken on a journey to the Underdark. Retrieving it, she picked up the next two, equally disheveled volumes on the shelf.

It pained her to hand them to someone else, even temporarily. Every page written in a shaking hand, every revelation a struggle to uncover. She had suffered for this knowledge. It was the culmination of her lifelong studies, but she could not use it.

It was the ultimate betrayal of her pathetic mortal limitations.

“I spent years studying a fledgling Mind Flayer colony.” Stepping out of the shelves, she was unnerved to find the Baneite still sitting on her desk with his hands folded, but turned towards her this time. He was indeed too calm. “Watching them breed. Taking them apart. I kidnapped and killed hundreds of them, in every state of transformation.”

She dropped the journals on the desk next to him.

“There are some who think the Invisible Arts have power greater than the Weave itself. I have studied many serpentfolk as well, in the hopes of unlocking their mysteries. It is innate. I cannot learn it through mere desire and effort.” She had to admit it grudgingly– the greatest failure in all of her work. “I know how mind flayers are created– in depth. Have created them myself. I have dropped a wriggling parasite into an orifice and watched it take root in an exposed brain. A nascent mindflayer gestating within a host, flowering into life like mushrooms sprouting from a rotting corpse.”

“You have? Fascinating,” Gortash picked up the journals with nary a flinch for their state. “May I ask why?”

“The Mind Flayer is an efficient and unique killer. The Invisible Arts–”

“When you say ‘invisible arts’, you mean refer to mind magic?” At her cold stare for his interruption, Gortash smiled. Again. “I’ve outed myself as being uneducated. Luckily, I’m a very quick learner.”

“Higher purpose eventually called. But still…Father has called me to build an army. So my mind has been ruminating on this research. If there were some way to alter the parasite…but with no Invisible Arts, the mind flayers could not be controlled. It is a dead end, but still…”

Gortash went still, smile fading from the edges, expression going blank. Slowly she saw the corners of his eyes, his lips tense, crinkle. Deep in thought. “No army would willingly march under the banner of Bhaal. It’s the only reason the world yet lives.”

The reminder was unwelcome, but the profound and overwhelming relief at someone listening to her had overtaken her annoyance. For now. She had become so accustomed to struggling alone…which meant that her relief was likely a weakness. Something to be considered later.

Before the Banite exploited it.

Gortash had a contemplative look on his face, nodding very slightly. “He has gifted you with a near-impossible task. To build an army that kills until the time comes to kill itself. Mind control on a scale that large would be...well, as you said. You have no ‘invisible arts’. I myself, of course, have an equally near-impossible task, a task which requires me to study and rectify the mistakes of my predecessors.” His gaze shifted to her, finally reaching down to pick up the stack of journals. “One of those mistakes I have been studying was angering you.”

“And?”

“And I would like to succeed where they have failed. How should we accomplish that?”

His insistence on focusing not on what she was speaking of, but on their alleged ‘partnership’ was irritating. She felt manipulated. But…perhaps it was manipulation for the right purpose. If he was useful, she did not want him to die. “One died because they plotted against me too obviously. One died because he touched me without permission. The other two were condescending.”

“Too obviously? Not ‘at all’?”

“You serve Bane. I am not stupid. Heed my warnings and you will keep your life. It will save us both some trouble.”

“Done, and done!” He said, stacking the journals together neatly. “May I borrow these? Not my area of expertise, but it sounds interesting, and it may give me some insight into you.” At her blank stare, he smiled. “I’ve decided to on try honesty for a change! What do you think? Does it suit me?”

“No,” she said flatly.

“True. Does it suit you, however? That is what actually matters.”

“Past experiences have made me wary,” she said, seeing no reason to hide it. Again, this problem was simple. If he crossed her, she’d kill him and move on. As she had done four times before. “Provided you never play such tricks again as you have tonight, infiltrating my home.”

“I thought that being caught off-guard might keep you intrigued. I paid the price for it, but I’m still alive at le–” At her confused look, he chuckled. “The men you had killed?”

“They paid the price, not you.”

“Well, yes, but they were usefu–” Gortash sighed at her continued blank stare. “Please don’t murder my people in the future? I need them.”

“You can buy or kidnap more people.”

“Not much for delegation, are you?” He shook his head, rising from her desk.

She took a step back from him, feeling oddly uncomfortable as he rose, almost as if in breaking his stillness he was intruding on her all over again. He had been in her space for too long, she felt stifled by his presence and his company. Peace had been broken for too long.

Her time was up.

“Peony will be waiting in the hall, she will see you out.”

Gortash looked quite nonplussed, deeply tired eyes penetrating as she avoided them. “We have a great deal to discuss, are– of course. I should heed your warnings. Do you prefer open invitations or scheduled ones?”

“Scheduled,” she said shortly, feeling his voice beginning to grate on her nerves like it had at the beginning.

“Do you eat…food? Or are you–” As she jerked her head up and stared at him, Gortash took a wary but not frightened step back. “No invitation to dinner, then. I hope you’ll come to speak with me…on your terms, this time. I will simply tender an invitation when I’ve had time to think. I promise to actually send it.”

“You are the eager one,” she said, feeling the edges of a headache beginning to threaten.

“All the more so now,” he said, in a voice that was likely meant to be ingratiating. Her eyes had already dropped from him, however, and when she didn’t look at him again, he cleared his throat. “Good day, my dear Bhaalspawn. It was wonderful to meet you."

“Go,” she said simply, every word grating what remained of her perpetually frayed nerves.

She didn’t look up again, staring at the candle flame to try and quell her irritation. It was mere seconds before the door opened and closed, the Banite making a hasty retreat. Luckily for him. Well.

Maybe he would be the one to survive, after all.

It was about damned time something went right.

#durgetash #Durge x Gortash #Enver Gortash #Durge: Belladonna #tho she doesn't have a name here yet #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 fanfic #bg3 #Fanfic friday #not all of them will be this long!#when your life is such a struggle you have No Fucks to spare #belladonna is me after a very long week of work is what I'm saying #but it never stops for her #at least she's a good big sister!

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nemesis-is-my-middle-name · 5 months

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Pls tell me your ideas about their maybe-mom. And also any other ideas you have been playing around with that you are willing to share. Submas homelife hcs are always so interesting and fun esp if they're ones I've never heard before

WAH OKAY!! under a cut because. oh god i talked so much. i didn't realize that was gonna happen oops.

actually the funny thing is i have so many things i'm really solid on abt this character except for her uhhh. name. my first thought was anita virosa joy as a shortened form of amanita virosa (we'll get to why) but there's already a character in unova named after amanita so it feels... weird... and then i was also thinking about shepard joy, bc i think shepherd/shepard is a sort of fun thing to call both her and the subway bosses, and also bc it sort of nods to the only unovans with a full canonical name, the harmonias, who are named after musical tones (ghetsis specifically is named after a tritone), as a reference to shepard tones. but then idk if i want to change anita.

and uh. oh god this post is gonna be 50% talking about names, fuck. but unovan names are generally three parts. they use the roman tria nomina, so it goes first name-last name-last name part 2. which is why AVJ/ASJ, and not just AV/AS or AJ. the majority of the time, the last last name denotes a branch of the family, generally stemming from one person who was notable enough to earn a new one.

anyway, the last part of her name is definitely Joy. this is... getting into the region of hcs where i always sort of stop and go "dude this is pokemon. where are we going with this." but anyway, Pokémon Center Nurses in this hc are also generally referred to as "Nurse Joy," like the anime nurses, because their actual legal name is, always, Joy. this is bc the Joy Nursing Order is very intense as an organization, and it's kind of a requirement to adopt the name as a symbol of dedication. this is also why they all look the same like, down to the hair. Nurse Joy is almost like a character you adopt during work hours. most regions just have the family name and personal name, so you'd be XYZ Joy or Joy XYZ, but since unova has three names, it's not uncommon to see people preserve one part of their family name alongside Joy. i guess she could also be joy shepard? hmm.

...anyway. so yeah. she's a pokémon center nurse! or, a retired one, by the time of bw. and the reason why i'm not sold on her being like their, birth mom? or "adopted through normal legal channels" mom? is i don't think she intended to have. kids. being a nurse joy is kind of a demanding job and she's also super single (albeit pretty extroverted with a large social circle, but not really anyone that's like, coparent-with-me close). this is one of those things i keep going back and forth about, but right now what i'm thinking is that maybe the twins were originally the kids of friends of hers, who were very not prepared for having twins or kids as uhh. demanding. as they were. it might have originally been a temporary thing, where said friends went "hey anita i'm sooo super sorry to do this to you but can you watch them for a while while we uhhhhh leave. thx." and then she was like fucka you i'm keeping them. and they were fairly young but not like, babies at that time, probably somewhere in the 8-12 range. but this is all maybe things. if this IS the scenario, i think they're still vaguely in touch with those people (bc extended family interactions with other bw chars maybe) but probably don't consider them family. anita is their mom, thanks.

outside of being a nurse and their mom, her main hobby is pokemon fostering/rehab. she does both. her home's always overrun with little guys. she'll take more or less any of them, as long as they fit physically in her home lmao, but SPECIFICALLY she really likes poison types. her main partner's probably an amoonguss. (this is why the amanita virosa connection.) her one major deviation from the Nurse Joy Uniform is all of the bandaids and such because her hands & arms are perpetually fucked up. it's fine tho. she's used to it. a small price to pay for poison type.

relatedly i think the garbodor on the subway boss teams is actually from her originally. one of her major life goals has been a campaign to get larger unovan cities to shift from trubbish eradication efforts & perceiving them as pests towards actually treating them as worker pokemon, and giving them better care, with alolan grimer and muk and galarian weezing being a major source of inspiration. garbage pokemon are a known phenomenon! if you treat them right they will not be deadly!! she's actually been making pretty good progress on this one, esp. after she retired and could devote more time to it, and esp. in nimbasa city for no reason in particular.

while a lot of it is their own personal thing, i think she also encouraged parts of the twins' specific attitude towards responsibilities and like, general life philosophy. like, "you always have a duty to work with the task or the problem that's in front of you, to improve things for the people around you," etc. which is also sort of a joy nursing order attitude but she takes it to heart and applies it to the rest of her life in a very specific way. and then they took that and put their own spin on it.

i think she lives in anville town, maybe? somewhere where she can have a big enough house and yard to have two kids and a rotating cast of pokes, so not the city, lol. she's close with them still, and they visit pretty frequently (it helps that it's so easy for them if she's in anville) and also sometimes have pokemon for her or will help rehome some of them. and then she's friends with quite a lot of the town, and has established favor exchanges with them (mostly consisting of "anita my purrloin has a cold" or "anita i have a cold") so she was able to lean on quite a few other people to help look after these twins she'd... acquired... when she was busy with work. although they would have probably also come in to the pokemon center with her sometimes!

aaaaaand that's pretty much the whole character brief i think! there are other more minor things but i don't want this to be a mile long, lol, and most of it is "idk maybe" stuff. if you read this the whole way uhhh. thanks! i hope you enjoyed. like i said i had a lot of thoughts about her lmao.

#the nemesis speaks #the nemesis answers #anonymous #pokefic pitch #well not... really at all... but i don't know what else to tag this as #i am leaning towards anita shepard joy as her full name now tho. idk it feels nice. and i like ESJ/ISJ as initials for the bosses #i hope that textwall didn't scare people off lmfao SHE'S BEEN IN MY HEAD FOR A WHILE IT WAS HARD TO SHAKE HER OUT #other thing i don't really have settled on is her appearance. i mean the pc nurse thing helps. but like... outside that idk #anville doesn't have a pokemon center so i think anita would have been the go-to for most people if she lived there #what was her commute like? did the subway exist at that point? great question! you're never gonna guess the answer:#i have not decided yet.#anita shepard joy

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