#the best kind of piotr
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Jane Doe (Ride the Cyclone) Propaganda:
Great singing, also she’s literally wearing a doll‘s head bc she lost hers
do they have their soul or is it rotting somewhere with their head?
BALLAD OF JANE DOE IS SO SAD AND SHE IS GREAT AND I ONLY WATCH RTC ONCE BUT SHES NY FAVE OK
cool asf
She forgets her name after her death and has no story told in the production
She's so sweet and deserves the world. Her song (The Ballad of Jane Doe) is great.
the song goes so hard just listen to her song guys please
she literally died and her head was cut off so nobody could tell who she was PLEASE let her take one (1) W
BECAUSE SHE IS AMAZING. First she already won the tournament in the musical to regain life, as she won them over with her sad wet cat energy because she did not have a head and feared that she lost her soul. Second, she died on a roller coaster and lost her head, but stole her doll's head and thats very gender. Third, throughout the musical she is used as a vessel for religious allegory, she is an angel, she is jesus, she is a demon, she is forsaken but she is purity itself. Fourthly, she is is given the identity of Savannah with the greenest eyes after the other characters who died with her hold her a birthday party, and I think thats sweet because its probably some kind of meaning I cant see but auughfhfhh shes so cool
i mean her name isn't TECHNICALLY jane doe but we refer to her as such. she's so silly!! autism powers! i don't have a lot of propaganda tbh. i would've just been surprised had she NOT been submitted
She lost her head literally when the rollercoaster derailed. She wasn't able to be identified apart from the school uniform she was wearing.
Her name is forgotten, and so is everything about her. So she’s called Jane Doe. She’s very sweet and very creepy, but she doesn’t mean it
and im asking WHYYYYY LORRRRRDDD
I LOVE HER! she died in a roller coaster accident and was decapitated, her body not being found. in the show, her head is actually just her doll’s head. the coroners couldn’t identify her, so she was dubbed a jane doe. in the game to be alive again, she ends up being voted, her name being revealed to be penny lamb. anyways she’s a little creepy and also quite silly and she does her funny little waddle like a porcelain doll (or corpse).
She deserves it! She lost her head she shouldn't lose this too.
Not convinced you didn’t start this tournament just for her tbh
They have a great song and a true air of mystery to them. They also have arguably the best song in the musical, The Ballad of Jane Doe! I would definitely recommend listening to it >:)
—She LOST her HEAD and had it replaced with a PORCELAIN DOLL —In all seriousness her story is really poignant. No one could identify her body so she arrives in the afterlife not knowing her identity and she spends the show vacillating between depressed and angry at her situation, leading to… —“The Ballad of Jane Doe”, specifically Emily Rohm’s version, might be the most haunting solo in musical theatre history.
The Anatomy Students (The Magnus Archives) Propaganda:
So technically there a 7 of them each with a different localization but one of them is legitimately John Doe
Also they are responsible for bone apple teeth
They are very fun
This submission is for the class of students in Episode 34: Anatomy Class, who are named Erika Mustermann, Jan Novak, Piotr and Pavel Petrov, John Doe, Fulan al-Fulani and Juan Pérez, which are all "John/Jane Doe" names. They are so creepy and so cool.
[about John/Jane Doe in particular]
Very good normal anatomy student doing his best to learn
This is a horror that went to anatomy class with a group of different variations of john doe esque names to learn about human body functions and scare a teacher for a full semester. was called john doe in the statement but later shows up as jane doe. trans rights?
#jane john doe tournament#jane doe#rtc#ride the cyclone#jane doe ride the cyclone#tma#the magnus archives#anatomy students the magnus archives#round 3
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Love Yourself
Pairing: colossus x reader
Warnings: body insecurity
Summary: anon asked “Gotcha! In that case, i had this idea about fluffy Piotr x chubby fem!reader, she's insecure about her body, Piotr is such a gentleman and respects her boundaries and also tries to help her see how beautiful she is, maybe he could lift her spirits with some innocent tickling and kissing while they cuddle in his cold room? He loves hearing her laugh and showers her with compliments to see her blush and get flustered cause I think hes just that kind of guy❤️”
You and Piotr were out and about in the city, doing some holiday shopping.
You walked up to a store window, admiring a pair of shoes that caught your attention. Your eyes drifted to the other goods within the display. Your eyes stopped and stared at the impossibly thin mannequin.
You let out a sigh as you pulled your jacket tighter around your body. Your insecurities began creeping up on you.
Piotr came out of the store next door, just in time.
“(Y/n) I have found best workout pants and-“ He stopped mid sentence, his focus on you. “what is wrong darling?”
“Nothing, just ready to head back.” You flashed a faux smile, hoping he wouldn’t see past it.
“Me too.” He agreed.
Piotr could tell something was wrong, but he didn’t want to push it.
“Why don’t we go back to my place and watch film?” Piotr suggested, hoping to take your mind off things.
“Sure.” You replied, ready for some colossus snuggles.
Piotr’s room was rigidly neat, as was his lifestyle. Wake up. Breakfast. Workout. Teach. - that’s how his days usually went. But then there was his time with you, which he’s gladly more flexible with.
You and piotr lay snuggled up in his bed, you insisted having the thick fuzzy blanket, it was always cold in his room. ‘Good for keeping germ count down’ he says. ‘Reminds me of home’ he says. But all in all you weren’t complaining, it just meant you got to snuggle up close to your metal man.
“Will you tell me what is wrong ?” Piotr spoke up after a few minutes into cuddling and a movie.
“I just, it’s stupid….”
“Y/n…”Piotr gave you the look. “Not stupid.” He assured you, now sitting up.
You rolled over to face him, mirroring him.
“Look..I saw the mannequin in the store and it was like stupid thin, like not even humanly- or mutantly- possible. Makes me feel insecure even more than I already am”
“No need for you to be unsure of yourself. You are perfect.” He tucked your hair behind your ear. “You are kind, smart, beautiful....I could go on but my English fails me when it comes to adjectives..my point is you are amazing , y/n!”
His comments earning a small smile form you.
“Da, do I see a smile?”
You blushed, his compliments sending you into a tizzy. He was always good at getting you all flustered.
“Yeah, yeah there’s a smile.” you teased.
“I bet I can see a bigger one.”
“Oh no.”
“Dats right.” The expression on Piotr face unmistakeable, you were about to be relentlessly tickled.
As the laughs fell from your lips, Piotr’s heart swelled, he just wanted to see you happy. And if some childish tickling was what it took, then he was happy to oblige.
“Okay! Okay! I give up, You win.” You said breathlessly, only then Piotr stopped his relentless attack of tickles.
“Da. There’s that smile.” He boasted.
“Yeah, yeah.” You said, feigning being upset about never winning the tickle battle.
“I try not to cross boundary, y/n, in all seriousness, I only want for you to see you, how I see you. I want to see your pretty smile and hear your laugh.”
“You’re too sweet Piotr Rasputin.” You leaned up to give him a peck on the lips, but Piotr held your kiss for much longer, and kissed you much deeper.
You liked where this was going.
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tags: @chromecutie @xenomorphique @evelyn120700 @nightriver99 @iamwarrenspeace @this-that-and-every-thing-else @hsk-puma @bungeewabbit @pianomad @lesbianstarkx @hazilyimagine-blog @super-darlcloudtsudent @thehuntress26 @siren-lamented-vampire @mooleche @rovvboat @leo-writer-deactivated20221124 @dandyqueen @nitemaremotionless @thewintersoldierswife @master-sass-blast
#colossus#piotr rasputin#colossus x reader#colossus fanfiction#deadpool fanfiction#piotr rasputin x reader#mine#kacceywrites
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Headcanons and AUs
Here is a list of ideas people can ask me about, nsfw stuff under the cut! I'll add links for each one I address over time.
General Egon headcanons:
He was a complete and utter chaos gremlin as a kid
He fell off the roof once when he was ten
That one time he actually bit a guy in college
He learned to drift on a bet
The MIT campus legend about a student that lived in a maintenance closet is not a legend
Ray has video of him post-wisdom teeth extraction, and it's hilarious
Man can COOK
Canon-divergent; these are based on the fic I'm currently writing, after which he stays to raise Callie instead of leaving for Oklahoma:
Callie was practically glued to him as a baby, although Grandpa* is an acceptable substitute
His car is a two-ton dad joke
He definitely terrorizes his daughter once in awhile
And his grandkids
How he ended up with a Twitch channel
He is also on TikTok
How he handles Trevor and Phoebe's dad leaving
Callie asks him to teach Trevor to drive, did not expect him to teach Trevor to drift the Ecto
Rocket Car Isotope:
His mother, Ilse Spengler, is German and his father, Piotr Kowalski, is Polish and both are ethnically Jewish. Both are different flavors of Nerd
How they met and became friends and later fell for each other
Ilse's dad Johann trolls Piotr twice in a row
Piotr asked Ilse out completely by accident
How they got to the US and how things went once they settled down
Piotr cannot hold his liquor to save his life.
Piotr learned his son was a very grabby baby The Hard Way
How Piotr got the nickname Four-Stroke
That time Ilse blew up the patio
The Big Damn Hero incident that almost got Piotr murdered by his wife
The time Piotr tackled Egon to the floor so he couldn't rat to Ilse that Dad's up and about on his bad leg despite being told to Not Fucking Do That
That other time Ilse had to get the hose out on her two idiots who were trying to out-stubborn each other
That other time Egon got gibslapped for telling his mom what happened the ONE time Piotr figured the odds were in his favor to drag race some chud at a stoplight
*Piotr learns his granddaughter inherited her father's grabbyness The Hard Way
The Alkali Metals Isotope:
Egon has five younger siblings and they're all various flavors of highly intelligent, devious little gremlins
Johann could be his twin, goes by Joe which comes back to bite him later in life
Wilhelmina, goes by Wil or Willie, is one of three of them that is almost always at the root of any major household chaos
Iosif is a copy-paste of his mother and also gets dragged into the nickname shenanigans with his older brother Johann
Marie is a copy-paste of her dad. Shit-starter and one of three of them that is almost always at the root of any major household chaos
Pierre is the last one who is almost always at the root of any major household chaos, but always manages to escape getting in trouble for it because everyone else is old enough to know better and he capitalizes on that.
NSFW headcanons below the cut; cw for both the sexy kind and the Substance Use kind
Egon did drugs For Science in college; he learned many things about himself and there were two or three Incidents(tm)
Still makes the best weed brownies though
How he discovered his kinks and what parts of his psyche and personality they tap into
Specifc to the Carbon Dating college AU:
Why everyone thinks that weird maintenance closet on the fourth floor of Bemis house at MIT was the scene of a murder
The alternate version of the wisdom teeth video
Specific to the Rocket Car isotope:
That time Piotr pulled a job to restore an antique steam-powered sex toy and it nearly broke him
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Going back around to something I really loved earlier in Mirror Dance:
The medic looked back and forth from Miles’s body to the loaded cryo-chamber. “Captain Quinn, it’s no good. It won’t hold two.”
“The hell it’s not.” Quinn staggered to her feet, her voice grating like gravel. She seemed unaware of the tears running down her face, tracking pinkly through the spatter. “The hell it’s not.” She stared bleakly at the gleaming cryo-chamber. “Dump her.”
“Quinn, I can’t!”
“On my order. On my hands.”
“Quinn…” The medic’s voice was anguished. “Would he have ordered this?”
“He just lost his damn vote. All right.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll do it. You start prepping him.” (Chapter Seven)
You can tell Elli hates that she’s doing this (and it only gets worse as she has to get Phillipi’s body out of the cryo-chamber.) You can tell that she knows exactly what the choice she’s making is, and that if there turns out to be another cryo-chamber free and Phillipi manages to be revivable from this, she’ll be surprised and relieved. (“On my order. On my hands.”) You can tell what she’s saying to herself at first - Miles would have somehow magically found a way to make that chamber fit two through the power of sheer willing it and forcing reality to comply. But she’s not Miles, and so she has to give the order to dump another Dendarii over him.
Everyone in this scene except maybe Mark knows that Miles would NEVER have made a provision for his death that he should be cryo-chambered at all costs. He wouldn’t choose this. There’s a reason why the Dendarii are so loyal to him, and there’s a reason why Elli’s best response is “he’s not here, he can’t say.” Among other things, Miles’s low self-esteem and self-awareness means that he doesn’t realize that no, it’s not a coincidence three different people among his closest confidants are in love with him. He's the kind of person who can inspire absolute, unconditional loyalty in very little time at all, and part of that's that he cares about the people under his command enough to personally visit with the injured and cryo-revived, to see a woman got her face burned off under his inexperienced command and personally ensure she gets the best possible care, to pledge himself a knight to one murdered infant and fix Barrayar in her name.
Pretty much all the Vorkosigans we see in-series inspire loyalty like that in one form or other - Aral with Simon and his crew, especially Kou; Piotr still inspires it fifty years after the Cetagandan War; Cordelia has her crew and Bothari and Aral says in his first proposal he fell in love with her BECAUSE she had a dead subordinate and refused to leave for safety without burying him properly. The glittering tinsel of neo-feudalism in this series works as well as it does because Vorkosigans take the duty implied to their people DEAD seriously. Hell, even non-Vorkosigans who try and think like them can inspire someone to, say, decide they want to have kids with this person they'll likely never see again (platonically) and ask for an ovary. It's what Mark notices among the people who know Miles, and it's contagious.
It's particularly strong in Miles, who managed to steal a mercenary fleet with his charisma in a few months and left such an impression he still had loyalists who recognized him on sight three years later and would stage a coup for him. The Dendarii follow Miles because he’d never give an order to dump someone and their chance of cryo-revival for him, and because of that, they’re willing to do it OVER his implicit desires because he's so important to them. Note that while Norwood won't do it himself after spending "hours" per Mark trying to keep Phillipi alive, he stops protesting and starts prepping (and does a damn good job) when Elli takes it on herself. Sure, she's the commanding officer on the field then. But he's also the one who, spur of the moment and about to die, ensures Miles's safety by mailing the cryo-chamber to the best people he can think of, by asking what Admiral Naismith would do. (He also demonstrates the perils of asking what Admiral Naismith would do - Miles gets lost!)
The thing is, I do think there’s circumstances where Miles would have dumped Phillipi. Not for himself, but for Elli. As irreplaceable as Admiral Naismith is to the Dendarii, this is also obviously the choice Elli’s making as Miles’s girlfriend, who can’t stand the thought of him being gone, and Miles is the one who proposed within 48 hours of finally getting together and keeps proposing even though he knows Barrayar is a dealbreaker for her. (Which… I mean, tracks for this family.) She's not making this decision just because he's their leader, there's no way he'd be making this decision calmly even setting aside how little the words "calm" and "Miles" belong together. And Miles has also had REALLY BAD luck with love interests, too - we know Beatrice’s death haunts him, and we know that Taura’s degenerative condition weighs at least as heavily on him as it does on Taura (who tries to make peace with her unpredictably short lifespan as best she can.) I don’t think he could stand losing Elli like this, too. And so I think he would’ve given that order and hated himself just as much for doing it as Elli hates herself.
I love this exchange. It's gutting. It's fantastic. Mirror Dance hurts.
#long post#infanticide#briefly discussed under the cut#vorkosigan saga#i guess this is a vorkosigan saga liveblog now#miles naismith vorkosigan#elli quinn#dendarii free mercenaries#currently at Aral's heart attack so this is going WAY back but it's stuck with me#so I wanted to do more than just the 'ow Elli my heart' because 'On my order. On my hands.' is just SO GOOD.#not gonna tag all the vorkosigans it can just be assumed they're all Like This
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I'm bored, and you’ve been super kind, so here's a present for ya. I'm gonna try to come up with some genuinely good questions regarding Atticus. Some will be simple, while others will try to dig deeper. Here we go:
1. What is the most important thing in the world to Atticus? His undisputed #1 thing?
2. Would Atticus give this thing up if it meant saving mutantkind?
3. What angers Atticus most?
4. What saddens Atticus most?
5. What is Atticus' biggest flaw?
6. What is one regret he will carry for the rest of his life?
7. What made you follow the official timeline for his story instead of making your own?
8. Who do you think Atticus would be with if Illyana did not exist?
9. Is Atticus a genuinely good person to you? What dark traits does he have deep down, if any?
10. What could potentially turn him to a villain? If anything?
11. If you had to change his powers, what would they be?
12. How much of you has been reflected into this manbear?
And that is all for now! Hope you enjoy.
Thanks for the questions! I appreciate the questions, especially when they're thinkers like these ones. That being said, there are a lot of them so they're gonna go under a read more.
His books. It's Illyana. Of course it is. We are talking Illyana as number one, and then his students and team mates at second.
2. Absolutely not. This has more than once gotten him punched in the face for his stubbornness. His loyalty to Illyana is more than a little bit self-destructive lmao.
3. Atticus is an incredibly laid back dude, but literally any moment when he is forced to interact with Xavier makes him want to rip his hair out. Years of watching the egg-man ruin his friends, students and others lives because he think he knows best drives Atticus up the wall. Also Sinister, he exploded when he found out Sinister was on the Council.
4. SAD! KIDS! As a former traumatized teen and currently mildly traumatized adult, nothing upsets him more than seeing a young person having a rough time. This why he has so many (unofficial) adopted children (consisting of ever single student he has ever had).
5. A combo of stubbornness and, in a smaller sense, cowardice. Atticus has spent most of his adult life avoiding the superhero community, and until Krakoa, he was very committed to never getting involved. This has made him difficult to deal with, especially when he talks to people like the X-Men or Avengers. It also applies to his convictions, cause good luck getting him to budge once he's made a decision.
6. 3 big ones. Not stopping the Avengers from putting the Phoenix into Illyana, Piotr and Emma (he doesn't care enough about Summers or Namor to worry about them.) The other one is not being in Sydney when Australia's Sentinel program killed his mother accidentally. Notably he couldn't actually stop any of this from happening, but he still regrets it. Finally, he regrets leaving his job at Avengers Academy, since the events of Avengers Arena led to the deaths of a bunch of his students. (No wonder he's so protective.)
7. Honestly? It's easier LMAO. Not having to think as hard about the timeline of everything means that I can focus more on character work, which is really my area of expertise. And it's not like I can't mess with canon (the timeline I write in splits off after the 2023 Hellfire Gala) since comic canon is already so bullshit.
8. Uhhhhhhhhhh. I actually don't know? He's kinda crafted to fit well with her so much now that I have a hard time considering it. Maybe Emma? That could be a similar and cute relationship. Same thing with like, Lorna. Maybe there's a cursed timeline where he ends up with Boom-Boom. IDK, Atticus is drawn to people with Issues (and blondes), so that's probably your best bet.
9. Woah, big morality question. The boring answer is yes because I say so. But I think removing myself from that position as his creator, I do think he's a good dude. He definitely has his issues, but ultimately he just wants the best for himself and the people he cares about. If anything dying and coming back fused to a living garden has probably made him even nicer.
10. There's def an alternate universe where he's swayed to Magento's Brotherhood for a while, and I've looked at Beast's descent into villainy as a fun What If? thing. It would have to be if Illyana had died, or he let his more controlling elements take over.
11. Plants or making him a Telepath (of the unwanted voices variety). Honestly every time I write Atti's powers in action it gives me a headache, even though I think they're legitimately cool.
12. Uhhhhhh, some amount. As he developed he's actually gotten pretty far away, but it'd be silly to say nothing about Atti is similar to me. I'm Australian, and am currently in Uni for teaching, so there's the ones that 100% still apply at least. I wish I was as much a bear as Atticus is tho, I'm a little chubby, not quite as cuddly as he is (or hairy.).
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@starfishlikestoread's Ezar quote board has actually infected my brain, and it reminded me I have this whole backstory timeline thing for Ezar that fits approximately 15% of actual canon about him (which is embarrassing considering how little there actually is, you'd think I could get it right) but I shall now inflict it on all of you regardless.
Part 1: First Cetagandan War
Basically we pick up roughly a year into the war the Cetagandans. (Inaccuracy 1: in my brain the ninth satrapy's base of power was mostly in the southern continent (SC), and Dorca lived through/during the Cetagandan War. He also isn't fully emperor yet - he's building a powerbase and Yuri and Xav (and therefore the Betans) see him as the planet's independent leader, but the actual remaining Vor families of the Northern continent (NC) are … split, to say the least. He's got maybe 70% support among the Vor, and plenty of that is purely opportunist. Major holdouts include Fyodor Vorkosigan and most of the northern huntsmen, a rabble of anti-monarchist types led by eighteen year old Ezar [unknown].)
So a year into the war, most of the fighting is focused on the southern part of NC, with Xav off on Beta running weapons and Yuri leading guerilla attacks in SC. Shortly before Yuri left for SC, he formed a temporary alliance with Piotr Vorkosigan without Dorca or Fyodor's knowledge. Piotr is leading a warband of Dendarii hillmen and his thought process is basically 'well, I don't want this Vorbarra upstart's family pretending they control me, but this is the best chance we've had to throw off the Cetagandans in my lifetime, so fuck it.' Fyodor has thus far refused to commit any support to Dorca and most of the Vorkosigan loyalists have retreated into the mountain caves. Piotr splits his warband, sending half of them with Yuri to the satrapy and the others with one of Yuri's riders to rendezvous with Dorca, who is in hiding with his command squad and his younger children. (Xav and Yuri are essentially the weird older stepbrothers of other women, and no one's 100% sure whether Yuri or Dorca's new legitimate son will inherit, but that's not important right now ;). Dorca's family tree in my mind is a whole other can of worms.)
Piotr meanwhile takes a small group of hillmen and heads north to attempt to convince the huntsmen to join them in fighting the Cetagandans (very Nakia going to M'Baku for help, in my mind). He assumes he's going to negotiate with an old warlord, very like his own father, but instead finds Ezar the weird forest child.
Ezar things: he's not the blood son of the former leader. No one is in fact sure where he's from. The former chief, Xandor Borisovich, brought him back from a solo hunting trip on the ice sheets and no one was brave enough to ask. The huntsmen aren't big on social classes or standards, and Vor/prole social dynamics don't really apply. Ezar ended up as their unofficial leader after he hunted and killed the mountain lion(esque thing, ik it's an alien planet) that killed his foster father. Ezar uses Borisovich when he feels like it, but largely doesn't use a patronymic at all.
Ezar is a year younger than Piotr and has no interest in supporting Dorca or any sort of leader who outranks him. They go back and forth on this for a while, and Piotr probably ends up dueling Ezar's champion to prove himself. Eventually, Piotr convinces Ezar to join him, with the understanding that Yuri won't hold either of them to a true oath after the Cetagandans are thrown out. Also he promises Ezar a bunch of land that he definitely doesn't actually own, because like grandson, like grandfather.
The reason Yuri even wanted an alliance with Ezar is that Ezar's people had a better understanding of ships (the sailing kind) than anyone else on their continent. The Cetagandans have most of their power concentrated on SC, but they also hold most of the coasts of NC - the resistance is almost all inland. So Piotr and Ezar spend most of the next year working their way down the coast, liberating coastal cities - Ezar with his fleet, Piotr with his ever-growing calvary troop as farmers and merchants in the cities behind them join him. Piotr and his lieutenants train them to function as an actual calvary troop, and trains Ezar as his military apprentice, etc, and by the time they rendezvous with Yuri, they have nearly three times his numbers.
Yuri has been generally wreaking havoc in Cetagandan territory, and also has been stealing lightflyers, guns, and other technology he can get his hands on. Dorca is back in Vorbarr Sultana acting as supreme commander, and Xav sent a group of mercanaries to rendezvous with them and train Yuri's men how to operate spaceships.
Anyway, then some battle stuff happens, IDK that part because battle logistics are so not my strong suit.
Point being, when the dust settles, the Cetagandans have bombed Vorkosigan Vashnoi halfway to hell in retaliation for Piotr assassinating some higher-ups in their command and getting captured. This pisses Fyodor off so much he joins Dorca and swears loyalty to Dorca's 'empire.' Fyodor dies defending Dorca's family in battle, leaving Piotr the last man with the Vorkosigan name.
While this is going on, Ezar does something devilishly clever to get Piotr free and Yuri lets loose Betan bombs on SC in revenge for Vorkosigan Vashnoi, wiping out tens of thousands of native Barrayarans.
At some point after that (seriously I have no idea how battles or timelines work) Dorca, Yuri and Piotr bring the Cetagandans to a standstill, and Ezar uses Yuri's stolen Cetagandan ship and flies for the wormhole, threatening to the Cetagandans that he'll blow himself up and collapse it, cutting off any Ceta reinforcements. To be clear, Ezar has no idea this will work - he barely knows how to control a spaceship at this point. But the Cetagandans fall for his bluff, and accept Dorca's terms in return, leaving the planet altogether.
In the aftermath of all of that, Dorca rides a wave of support to become emperor in truth, although admittedly only of the NC. Piotr agrees to abide by his father's oath, and becomes Dorca's first official Count. Ezar, in the process of threatening to kill himself for Dorca's cause, finds to his own surprise that the idea of a unified Barrayar is actually something he believes in, and also swears loyalty to Dorca. Refuses any countship, but agrees to stay with Piotr and help define what kind of government the Imperium is going to be.
End Part 1.
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Mutie Lord (Vorkosigan saga)
Corry Csurik has a scar on her lip. It’s because she’s a mutie.
Most people don’t know that, just by looking. There’s plenty of ways a person could get a scar like that, people don’t assume “mutie” straight off. But Corry’ll tell anyone who asks how she got it, she ain’t ashamed.
Everyone in Silvy Vale knows of course, and none of them mind one bit. Least ways, none of the younger ones mind, some of the adults probably do, but none of them says nothing. Folks in Silvy Vale know better, nobody dares say anything against Corry or her Mama, not since the Mutie Lord came and set things straight.
Corry was born in the hospital in Hassadar like the rest of her siblings, and she came out with her lip split in two and a hole going up straight through the top of her mouth. Mama showed her pictures when Corry asked, and it looked real delightfully gruesome, but the doctors in Hassadar fixed it up right quick, and all she’s got to show for it now is the scar.
Corry’s the oldest of Lem Csurik’s kids, all of them born down at Hassadar General. She’s the oldest and the only mutie, except that she’s also not. Corry could have had a big sister, born way back ages ago, before Mama even went and got her education. Her name was Raina and she was a mutie just like Corry, except she was born up here in Silvy Vale instead of down in Hassadar, and she was murdered by her grandmother.
That’s when the Mutie Lord came, to bring justice for Raina, because Mama walked all the way down the mountain and asked him.
There ain’t many Count’s sons, Corry thinks, who’d go and do a thing like that for any baby, let alone a mutie one. But the Mutie Lord did. There’s folks as says that the Mutie Lord only came because Raina was a mutie, but Mama says that ain’t so. The Mutie Lord came because he cared. Because the Mutie Lord cared about Mama and he cared about Raina, and he cared about justice, even in Silvie Vale.
Old folks up here still talk about old Count Piotr, who fought the Cetagandans from these mountains. Most poor folks in other districts don’t care much for their counts one way or the other, but us as belongs to the Vorkosigans are different. Old Count Piotr was a legend, not the sort as stays far away in some castle, but the substantial sort, as gets its hands dirty and is of some use. Everyone’s proud of Count Aral, of course, because he was Regent and Prime Minister and all, and Mama says it was him as let her tell about Raina, gave her an audience all formal like, and sent the Mutie Lord to be his Voice, so Corry supposes he’s all right enough too. But it’s the Mutie Lord, who will be Count one day, who is the best of all of them, Corry thinks.
Mama and Da go down to Hassadar sometimes to argue with folks about Silvie and the rest of the villages up here in the Dendariis. What sort of things they need up here to make their lives better, and what sort of things they really don’t need, whatever the Countess says.
(Mama’s got a whole lot of respect for the Countess on account of all the things she’s done for them as lives out in the backcountry, enough she named Corry after her even. But the lady’s got some strong ideas about what it is they should want when it comes to modernizing and so forth, and Mama gets right fed up sometimes explaining to her and her city experts that it ain’t their right to get to decide what’s best for them, them as belong to these mountains are more than capable of doing that on their own.)
Anyway, Mama goes down to Hassadar a lot, and she brings the kids along too a lot of the time, and it was in Hassadar that some city boy punched Corry for calling the Mutie Lord the Mutie Lord.
Corry just stared at him sorta aghast for a second after, because didn’t this boy’s da ever tell him it ain’t right to hit girls? But then Corry supposed he could be from a modern family that thought that old fashioned chivalry was a kind of oppression, so maybe the punching was a sort of compliment.
“Don’t you dare call Lord Vorkosigan that, he’s our Count’s son and I won’t let some backcountry bumpkin disrespect him,” the boy said.
And if he’d had the sense to stop there, Corry might’ve let it be, might even have apologized. Because there’s folks as think calling anyone a mutie ain’t right on account of the word itself being dirty. Corry’s never agreed with it, mind, so far as she can see, words is words, it’s peopleas have to go and be rude about it. But if the boy just didn’t like calling him the Mutie Lord on account of the word, that’d be fair enough. But then he had to go and keep talking.
“Lord Vorkosigan isn’t a mutant, he was deformed by a soltoxin attack, but his genes are as good as anyone’s.”
Corry’d crossed her arms, narrowed her eyes at him real stern, “What difference does that make?” She said.
The boy looked baffled, “It’s the whole point isn’t, it? We can’t have a Count with some kind of mutation. The whole line would be tainted. And a mutation like that , they say he’s completely deformed.”
Corry’d turned her eyes into a full on glare then, she knew how to be right scary when she wanted, “There ain’t nothing wrong with being a mutie, I’m a mutie,” Corry said, and the boy stared at her, shocked, that she was a real honest breathing mutie standing in front of him, and that she’d said it right out like that in broad daylight, “D’you think it matters to the Mutie Lord one bit how he got the way he did? Bet it don’t hurt less to have his bones all stunted and fragile on account of soltoxin instead of a mutant gene. And anyhow, if you’re so worried about the precious bloodline, you know for certain any Vorkosigan babe’d be cooked up in one of them fancy uterine replicators and gene cleaned and all. But it don’t matter either way, because being all mutie looking as he is doesn’t make the Mutie Lord any less of a Count’s heir a smidge. It don’t make him less clever, and it don’t make him less kind, and it don’t make him less wise, and he’ll be best of all the Vorkosigans there ever was when he’s count, mark my words. So you’ll take it back, else I’ll have more than words for you, and you may be egalitarian enough to hit a girl, Piotr Gansy,” (that being the boy’s name) “But I’m betting you ain’t so egalitarian you’d fancy being beat by one.”
The boy didn’t apologize, but he did run off, and Corry supposed that was satisfaction enough. She likes to think she gave him something to think on, at least.
Corry thinks on it often enough, certainly, her and the Mutie Lord. Because the Mutie ain’t a mutie, technically, but he looks it, and Corry is a mutie, but she don’t. The folks in Silvy Vale, they know what’s what these days. But Corry’s heard folks down in Hassadar, grown folks she ain’t in any position to lecture. They talk about the Mutie lord, and sometimes they talk something ugly. And Corry supposes it’s even worse in other places, where folks aren’t predisposed to like him, him being their very own Vorkosigan, and she supposes it was worse when he was younger, before he went and got himself made Lord Auditor and all. And there ain’t nothing he can do about it, because everyone who looks at him sees a mutie.
Corry’s not sure what she wants to do with herself when she’s grown, but she’s got an idea of going to university on one of Countess Cordelia’s scholarships, maybe all the way in Vorbarr Sultanna. She’ll have a choice then, of whether or not she’ll tell folks she’s a mutie. She supposes it ain’t none of their business, really, but she thinks she’ll tell anyway. Because she can , see, and Raina can’t.
Mama says that uterine replicators are getting more and cheaper all the time. By the time Corry’s ready to be thinking of having children of her own, maybe there’ll be some even for folks in Silvy Vale. Someday, maybe there won’t be any more muties like Corry. There’s always been accidents, though, and there’s always been war, and Corry can’t see that changing any time, so there’ll always be muties like the Mutie Lord.
It matters , Corry thinks. It matters how folks think, and it matters how folks see each other. It matters what and who folks count as important. They learned that, they as live in Silvy Vale, when the Mutie Lord came all the way out to bring justice for Raina. So Corry’ll tell folks she’s a mutie, because she was lucky, growing up in Silvy Vale. She’ll say it because it matters, and she won’t be shamed. She’ll say it for all those as don’t get a choice whether to say or no.
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You can't mend a relationship, but you can slap crappy tape on it and call it good.
This takes place in a mission where Illyana and Piotr run into Mikhail and Piotr just can't take it anymore
Warning: Talk of dying, cussing, death, and violence
Piotr stood there in the open field, the breeze blowing so gently it felt more like a tickle than a slap on the face. He looked up at the sky, squinting at the harsh sunbeams that beat down on him. He felt hot and sticky, but distant and cold - hard to tell you feel so many things at one time.
In the distance he hears the rustle of his teammates as they go about checking the surroundings for civilians and, more importantly, themselves. Piotr chances a glance to the right and spots his older brother, Mikhail, panting in exhaustion - he had just warped a huge nearby structure and teleported those they were fighting to possible death.
To his left he peers at Illyana, his baby sister, and views her eyes losing their glow. He sword drops lower as she loses the tension in her stance, even her own gaze moves around - first at the surroundings, then the various teammates, to Mikhail, and finally on him.
Nothing is said for a time before Illyana lifts her sword and points it in Mikhail's direction. Her words come out in a dark edge, saying things like 'you can't fucking trust him, brother', 'you have to fight him', and 'Piotr listen to me, you can trust me damnit'. Mikhail in chance he got, lifted his hands and snapped back 'she didn't want to bring you back when you were gone', 'I will always be there for you', 'You can trust me'. It all was so much noise to Piotr, and beat down on him like the sun.
He covered his ears and called his eyes hoping to block it out, but he couldn't do it. He couldn't do better, he couldn't do better.
"Shut up. Shut up. Shut up, please. I can't take it anymore. Я больше не могу это терпеть."
He didn't realize the silence, the screaming was him. He was doing it at the top of his lungs and everyone was staring.
"You two are helpless. You two don't care what I want or think. I spent how many years being the best younger brother and then older brother. I spent longer being a teammate, and then when I finally had chances to be a brother again I - I couldn't be better.
Piotr dropped his hands and stared off in the distance. His eyes blinked at the dust that got in them, he'll blare it on that not the tears that were collecting.
"I fucking tried and tried. I did my best, or what I hoped was my best, to be a brother and bring my family back back but no matter what you people hurt me. You people manipulated me in doing horrible things just to what?!?! Prove a damn point ?!"
He dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around his body. A shuddering breath was taken.
"I died so much and came back to less each time. I never got what I wanted but everyone else did. I have had my heart broken too much yet everyone else got to feel love eventually. I wanted my siblings but I couldn't have that.
I should have stayed dead. I should be dead. It doesn't matter because I have nothing. The longer I love the more I just lose."
Through his rant his siblings just stand there, having not moved an inch unsure if they could even offer a kind word or caring touch.
"This relationship I have is use and use and use till I have nothing left and I just give up. To just try again till I rinse and, о черт, I repeat. I am so tired, so very tired of this sad game I have been willfully playing.
I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE. I want it to stop, I want it all to just stop. I can't take you two manipulating me anymore! I just can't take it!"
Piotr remembers hearing that saying 'just stick a bandaid on it' when he first came to America. He didn't quite understand what that meant till later when Mikhail used him the first time and hurt the Morlocks. He realizes since then he just has been sticking the proverbial bandaid on all of his woes and hoping for the best. Now that bandaid is dirty, covered in blood and torn.
"I can't do it. Please leave me alone. Please, please, please. I can't beg any harder. I just want to be alone. I can't - I won't - no more! Just please no more ..."
Piotr kept begging right there on the ground in front of siblings, in front of his teammates, in front of those civilians, and the structures that lay in ruin around them, voice drifting out in that light breeze as the sun beat down on him.
(Just gonna add this) Tagging @sadstonewrites @emma-frxst and @osmiumamygdala
#piotr rasputin#mikhail rasputin#illyana rasputin#Piotr Rasputin needs to just stand up for himself#sort of a mental breakdown?#big Russian beeds a tight hug for ages#colossus x men#colossus#e
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11, 18, 49, 58, 61 (Black Ace and The Golden Dildo), 65 Golden Dildo
11. Do you write scenes in order, or do you jump around?
I try to write scenes in order when I can, but recently I've been trying to address my "from start to finish" rigidness by skipping ahead to sections that are causing me less trouble just so on hard writing days I write something instead of write and re-write the same paragraph over and over again. I prefer start to finish, though, because I think it keeps the tone consistent.
18. Do you enjoy research? Which fic of yours required the most research?
I do enjoy research! I read a lot of non-fiction and am a naturally curious person who loves to hoard interesting factoids, so writing is just an excuse to expand my knowledge in unexpected ways. I think Black Ace and Call Me If You Wanna Reach Me (wip) required the most research because they dealt with hard topics that I had opinions but no concrete knowledge on.
49. What fic of yours would you say is the best introduction to you as a writer?
I think it's probably love-punch, part because it is usually the introduction to me as a writer, and part because it includes everything that I like to write about. I think if you dislike love-punch, you probably wouldn't like anything else I'd write (except maybe atlas, which is probably the worst introduction to my work because it's the only one of it's kind in my body of work - I've had a decent amount of people like atlas, and not like anything else I've written.)
58. Do you have a favorite piece of figurative language you’ve written?
I do love my figurative language. I can't think of anything on the top of my head, and I'm too lazy to re-read, but when it comes to re-reading, usually it's my exceptionally bizarre figurative language that gets me laughing.
61. In [insert fic], what’s your favorite scene that you wrote?
In Black Ace my favorite scene is probably the entirety of the first chapter or when Wade is being an absolute nuisance in the barracks and arguing with Piotr.
In The Golden Dildo my favorite scene is probably when Peter is trying to avoid stepping into Wade's trap with the bill on the table and the aftermath of that or the ending where Peter is literally stripped of his mind and boundaries to such a terrible degree that you can't even really enjoy the sex (or you can, but god, is it ever sad)
65. f you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what would happen in it?
I actually have, like, nine parts of the You Can't Buy My Love series left to write. The next one is about mommy kink.
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Velma?!?!
Characters react to Velma - Miss Dumb Dumb
Oof… That’s a show I’ve avoided watching out of respect for my main dog Scoobert de Doo. But I think I’ve got enough info from listening to rants to get the gist.
Sorry, if ya actually like the show, but it’s a hill I’ll die on.
HRE: Hansch was introduced to the show when it was left on by one of his older siblings. The poor kid was so confused by what was happening on the screen. Each meta-joke and crude innuendo left the child wondering what was meant.
The show didn’t play for long before Wil ran in and dived for the remote. Scrambling to turn off the material.
One intense glare in a now silent room told Hansch that it would be best not to ask any of his questions at this time.
Finland/Sealand/Ladonia: Similar to Hansch, it was an accident when Niilo discovered the program, but more intentional for the boys. It all went down when Niilo had been conned into babysitting his nephews.
Sealand and Ladonia had become bored after a day of avoiding being tranqed by their uncle. So, like most modern kids, turned to the easiest solution to entertain their minds.
Velma caught their eyes by the cartoony appearance and hints of murder from the appearance of green, ghoulish hands.
There was no hesitance when they agreed to hit play, but after three episodes of crude humor, the tv exploded from a single gunshot. Like broken sprinklers, the two boys turned to see their Finnish uncle as they listened to the glass shards slide to a stop. They felt their blood became stone as they stared into his fiery glare.
“Bed, now.”
Poland: Piotr didn’t pay the show any mind when it popped up on his feed. He just continued scrolling through the tv options, looking for something to numb his stressed brain.
The more that passed by his tired eyes the less he cared. He tched as he forced the scroll back, settling on watching Velma for some noise. Anything to make it seem like he was busy, should that pesky 1p show up.
With blurry vision, he didn’t make it through the opening joke as he slipped into the blackness.
Czech Republic: Matylda wasn’t the type to usually watch cartoons of any kind. Instead wanting to enjoy the juicy and obviously fake drama that came from personality clashes in reality tv. Though, she decided to give it a chance after being told by one of her bees that Velma had a similar type of drama.
She didn’t make it through the first episode before pausing it and putting her head in hand. Sighing, Matylda grabbed her phone and called her worker bee to collect the one that gave the recommendation.
Soon, he sat before her, and Matylda circled him. Her eyes were colder than the winter skies as she spoke.
“What is the point of escaping a blood-soaked reality when shows like Velma bring it back to the forefront?”
“W-what do you mean?” Trembled the bee before the hive queen.
She didn’t answer, instead snapped her fingers. “Tom, reeducate him.”
Note, for the future; if I’m not given characters then I’m just gonna use my handy-dandy spinning wheel and use the first four that pop up.
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Tell us about the Big Damn Heroes incident where Ilse almost murdered Piotr
So, to start with: Piotr is the kind of guy who would rather suffer himself than let other suffer if he can help them. The man has a heart of gold and it's gotten his ass kicked more than once in his life. He's got a strong sense of justice and loyalty and would give you the shirt off his back or take on someone he knows is going to beat the shit out of him if means you'd be spared the harm.
At some point in his late twenties he joins the army as a tank mechanic and serves in both Korea and part of Vietnam. In the latter conflict, he gets set to a forward repair base when their foreman is KIA. He's slated to take the guy's place temporarily until his replacement arrives, and while he's there they end up having to go on tank recovery in hostile territory.
Now, retrieving an M48 Patton tank is almost always going to be An Affair in and of itself, depending on just how badly damaged it is. And if it was damaged enough that it couldn't be driven back to base, that means you've gotta send people out to get it, which requires a tank recovery vehicle (usually just another wholeass tank modified for towing) and also possibly do any repairs that it might need to even make it towable, and do so in the field.
This is what Piotr and his guys are doing when they discover it was a trap and they walked right into it.
So bullets are flying and people are diving for cover, of which there isn't much. Piotr is the guy in charge as far as the mechanics go, and he knows that the longer they sit there the more losses they'll incur. Yeah, they've got a guy on the radio yelling for backup, but between that moment and when backup actually arrives, IF it arrives at all, is an unknown quantity and a lot can happen in that time frame. Their best bet is to get to the recovery vehicle and beat a hasty retreat, while hoping the VC don't have any anti-tank weapons.
So this motherfucker decides that it's his job to get the recovery vehicle unhooked from the tank they were gonna recover and pile as many guys into it as possible while providing moving cover for anyone else so they can get out of the middle of things and into a more defensible position. Of course, this is a dumb idea, but Piotr can be dumb as a box of rocks at times. He's a machinist, engineer and mechanic, not a tactician.
He gives his dog tags to another guy, says the classic 'tell my wife and kid i love them' line, and then runs off. Miraculously, he's not instantly hit. Instead, when he gets to where the two vehicles are hooked together, he runs into an enemy soldier. Once again, he miraculously escapes injury or death by bayonet and instead brains the guy on reflex with the mini sledgehammer he had in his hand. Being close enough to see the effects of a hammer on a human head and watching the guy die is not something he was ever prepared for, and it's here that he locks up and gets hit. Not only does he get perforated, but his left knee takes a decent piece of shrapnel right to the joint and he gets a pretty nasty concussion and goes down.
Backup does arrive, and being concussed and panicky because holy shit he's been hit, Piotr gets uncharacteristically combative and gets his ass sedated before he's flown out to a MASH unit where he's patched up. But when he starts to come out of sedation, he's still combative due to having a traumatic brain injury and keeps saying his last name isn't Spengler, it's Kowalski, so not only can they not immediately verify his identity, he gets put in a medical coma for a while and is expected to recover but have chronic problems at absolute best.
While he's out, a clerical error occurs where he's mistakenly listed as KIA, and the corresponding letter is sent out to his wife, who is understandably distraught. Luckily, the day after she gets the letter, Piotr is brought out of the coma and it turns out he's just one of those lucky sons of bitches who recovers completely from the brain injury and nobody really knows why or how. And once he's been awake for a day or so, he finds out that he was mistakenly listed as dead and goes 'Oh fuck I need to call my WIFE.' Which he does, and when he explains that this whole mess is because he was trying to be a hero, he gets chewed out in German loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear.
Not long after that, he finds himself on his way home on a medical discharge because the cartilage of his left knee got pretty fucked up and he's no longer fit to serve. But rather than a warm welcome, Piotr is greeted with a halfhearted slap across the face and another tirade of German as Ilse goes off about what an ass he is, how he scared the shit out of her, about what a dipshit move that was taking off his dog tags and trying to be a hero, etc etc. The ride home is quiet and tense, as is getting settled in for the evening.
Once everything is put away and they're behind closed doors though, he pulls Ilse in for a hug and apologizes for putting her through so much. er emotions finally come out and she just sort of collapses into the hug and cries. Seeing her crying over the whole thing has more of an impact on Piotr than her being pissed enough to slap him; he goes to sometimes comical lengths to avoid causing her distress or otherwise upsetting her or making her feel bad, even on accident, and knowing that he did it anyway really eats at him for awhile.
Over the decades though, the time Ilse almost murdered her husband for being a shit idiot becomes something of a running joke.
Along with the time he got goaded into going streaking on a motorcycle.
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ok I do have to bitch because this is such a textbook example of "this could be great if absolutely everything about it was different"
(multiverse of madness spoilers)
because wanda slowly losing her mind and grip on reality through a combination of grief, longing, and the corrupting influence of the darkhold would actually be a really compelling arc?
imagine her trying her best to heal after westview, but isolating herself out of shame and fear, and awakening alone from dreams of her children, night after night. imagine her learning (from strange, or from the darkhold, whatever) that all dreams are actually visions of alternate realities. imagine her slowly becoming obsessed with the idea that her children-- not just any children she might have, but those exact children, the ones she dreamed into being in the depths of her grief over vision, her children with vision-- are real, are out there.
imagine her thinking, if only I could just see them one more time. kiss them one more time. I wouldn't need anything else. I wouldn't do any harm. imagine her learning about dreamwalking. shrugging off warnings of the danger. I won't do any harm, I just want to see them.
she dreamwalks for the first time. tentatively. just to see.
it's the wrong universe. wanda in this universe has no children. but she has a brother. oh she missed him too. oh beloved. oh to look into his eyes once more. why are you looking at me like that? like you haven't seen me in--
but she can't stay here. she's looking for her children.
in the next universe piotr is dead but vision is alive. they're together and happy.
no children though. she can't stay.
in the next universe she's the scarlet witch. a dark and beautiful queen. she kills with a flick of the wrist. the Illuminati or whoever the fuck kneel and pay homage, or are torn asunder. all love her and despair.
still no children.
she keeps looking. she finally finds them.
and by now she's too hungry. she can't bear to do what she was planning to do. just kiss them good night one more time. she can't leave. she has to find a way to stay. there must be a way. there MUST. if there isn't then she'll make one.
what about that little girl. stephen's new protegee. the little girl he found running desperately through the multiverse, searching for her lost mothers. the one he told wanda about as a cautionary tale, when he warned her about the corrupting power of the darkhold, the dangers of dreamwalking. little america who opened a portal with her uncontrolled power and who has traveled through so many universes she can't remember where home is any more. who has no alternate selves. whose parents don't exist anywhere, not anywhere in the multiverse, not in any form. how can that be? we don't know. if we did we'd know a lot more about the multiverse than we do. but wanda the point is that [blah blah blah she tuned him out how could he understand he doesn't have any children]
[he does in some universes. christine's children. and in this universe he's kind of starting to get it a little bit. because little america is starting to give him strange feelings like maybe he'd fucking kill anyone who threatened her. like maybe he'd rip up the fabric of reality to keep her safe. he wouldn't really of course. he's trained better than that. in sorcerous detachment. but he does get it, wanda, please listen--]
etc etc
like it could have been so fucking GOOD!!! god DAMMIT!
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Two-Faced Jewel: Sessions 22-24
Escape From Margaritaville
A half-elf conwoman (and the moth tasked with keeping her out of trouble) travel the Jewel in search of, uh, whatever a fashionable accessory is pointing them at.
[Campaign log]
Last time, last post of which was, uh, several months ago... the party had successfully defended evil vampire lord resort owner Cabana Jim of the charge of murder in court! And then, because his alibi involved the fact that his entire staff were enslaved vampiric thralls, they successfully convicted him on the charge of slavery in court! And then he fought back and got totally smoked!
Problem is, all those enslaved vampiric thralls of his were freed from the compulsions he'd laid on them when he died- including compulsions like "don't eat the guests to sate the blood-starvation I keep you in to ensure you never have enough willpower to resist". So now, down the road, the guests at Cabana Jim's Luxury Resort and Spa are having an extremely bad day. Time for the party to go do something about this!
SESSION 22
They opt to head straight for the resort without enlisting backup- both for expediency, and because the combat will be worth more XP if they go it alone, and they've already got like six people counting Kensa and Vayen. They head over, briefly interview some screaming and fleeing guests (who confirm that the situation as as bad as you'd think), and head inside.
They have the staff list they used as evidence in the trial, so they know how many vampires they need to round up- not counting the ones already subdued at trial, they've got 21 vampiric thralls to deal with:
-Daisy Allclear
-Curl
-Virtue Dawnlight
-Ragna Dorthegald
-Kyer Eshfai
-Joan Feller
-I-shall-not-tell-a-lie Glasshouse
-Amantha Greenwood
-Gredhek Heart
-Jinbera Helbruhin
-Candor Kind
-Sound Mindful
-Truth Openbook
-Hestia Palmfrond
-Spyglass Shine
-Ridge Slamchunk
-Cheat Stabbacker
-Piotr Survivor
-Chris Swimmer
-Plainly Truescale
-Justice Unswerving
-Vola
-Miriko Watchwood
-Carlos Widdenhosken
(Yes, I designed 24 unique NPCs for this dungeon. Shut up. I don't have a problem! You have a problem!)
The resort has two main circuits- a west side featuring the larger more luxurious cabins in the more forested jungle-y part of the island, and an east side featuring more closely-packed buildings above the swamp. A spine down the middle connects to the large pool and bar, and smaller pools branch off in regular intervals between the guesthouses. As is standard for outdoor locations staffed by creatures that burn alive in direct sunlight, the boardwalks, while open on either side, are covered by thatched roofs, ensuring all routes are at least partially in shade during the day.
The party decides to beeline for Jim's house, down the central spine, because that's where they keep the blood bottles and presumably a lot of the staff would also think to head straight there. Unfortunately, as they emerge past the lobby's bead curtain to the northern path, they find it's been engulfed in magical darkness for some reason. Not the best circumstances to fight vampires in.
With that route blocked off, or at least more hazardous than they'd like, they head east, as it's the second-most direct path. The boardwalk on this path is dotted by cabanas that split the boardwalk around them in a circle, like so:
(the marks on the outside are where the boardwalk continues on, and the room in the center is a large standard-issue guest cabana.)
As they're making their way around, they get ambushed- something crawling on the underside of the boardwalk suddenly vaults over the side and jumps on Orluthe! It's a scarred yuan-ti pureblood in resort uniform- one of their targets. Immediately, his bite attack deals 16 damage, which is quite a bit at their level!
Their attempts to fight back don't go so well, with a lot of failed rolls- Saelhen backs off and hides inside the cabana, only to be immediately given away by Vayen, who loudly asks what she's doing there. (What's he doing there? Stealing the resort's complimentary bottles of magical darkness. Don't ask questions.)
Eventually, as the team's brawlers desperately try to fend this guy off, Looseleaf comes up with a plan. She projects an illusion of blood bags inside the cabana on the bed, and successfully tricks the vampire into thinking they're real- for a moment, before he notices they don't smell like anything. They take advantage of his confusion and distraction to hold him down, and Looseleaf puts her recently-discovered vampirism-purging abilities to work.
...and doesn't completely succeed, causing the thrall to panic and throw her off with a nat 20. He then pins Looseleaf to the floor- and Oyobi, thinking quickly (Farn thinking quickly, they control the NPC party members in combat), cuts a strip off the sleeve of Saelhen's kimono instead of any of the other readily-available fabric like the nearby curtains and bedding, and uses it to grapple and gag the thrall before it can bite down on Looseleaf. While being held-down, Looseleaf finishes the job, causing him to vomit his vampire guts up all over her. Gross.
He experiments with his newfound freedom a bit, shocked and delighted by his ability to disobey the orders of guests. He also mentions that there's a bunch of money in the "soul dams", whatever those are. (Vayen immediately takes an interest in this and demands to know their locations- apparently, the little shacks out in the swamp are where they keep those.) According to this guy, soul dams- he doesn't know why they're called that, only that they're these weird machines in the swamp and that every so often a cleric comes around to do something to them- and leaves behind a big pile of money for the boss.
The cured groundskeeper introduces himself as Spyglass Shine, and tags along with the party despite his injuries.
SESSION 23
From there, Looseleaf comes up with a plan. That last trick with the illusory blood bags worked so well, but if they can collect some real blood, it'd make great bait- or a bargaining chip. But lacking equipment to do that in a sanitary way, they decide to take the path that goes past the spa, where Looseleaf and Oyobi originally had their humor-balancing (read: blood-sucking) treatment during their overnight stay. They could collect the equipment there to stage a blood drive, if for some reason from there their path to the blood storage wine cellar place is obstructed.
On their way, though, they pass by one of the pools, and notice that the water is blood-red, with a body floating face-down in it. This is alarming, and they rush down to help. (Saelhen first uses a pocket mirror to reflect some sunlight at it, just in case the body is a decoy- but there's no reaction.)
Looseleaf uses her Mage Hand to pull the body to the poolside, and checks the corpse. It's a youngish tabaxi man with a tattoo of a cube, and he's definitely dead- they'd need to bring him to a church and pay an exorbitant fee to do anything for him at this point, and there's plenty more victims to worry about.
Instead they turn their attention to the shadow in the water at the bottom of the deep end of the red-stained pool. Looseleaf pokes it with mage hand again, and it reacts- panicking a bit and moving to another part of the pool. Spyglass Shine has a hunch who it might be, and Looseleaf uses one of her enchanted telepathy coins to make a connection.
Looseleaf then follows up with some bedside manner and persuasion- having recently fed, the fish-lady is more guilty and terrified than hungry, and Looseleaf manages to convince her to surface so she can be cured.
The procedure goes smoothly, but Vola is a lot less capable of coping with the situation than Spy was, and she's not going to make a useful ally for this dungeon-crawl. He escorts her out of the resort to talk to the police and EMTs.
Meanwhile, the party spots people moving on the outer loop of the east side of the resort- staying in the shade, heading around the loop towards a conspicuous greenhouse, and occasionally poking their heads into cabanas. They don't seem panicked, and the party decides they need to meet up with and/or confront these people who're acting calmly in this situation where theoretically no one shouldn't be panicking.
They loop around, and Looseleaf tries to get their attention with Message while the rest of the party hides.
So, resort staff, but apparently in full possession of their faculties and pretending not to know what's going on. Odd. They claim that they're looking for guests to bring them to "a safe place", due to some sort of emergency they remain vague about but like come on it's obvious what the emergency is.
When Looseleaf delivers the exposition on what they're there to do, the three of them get really tense all of a sudden. Their first question is, basically, whether they're cops- because, apparently, if they are, they're not allowed to talk to them. Hm.
The three vampire staffers- two yuan-ti purebloods and a halfling- come into view. Looseleaf arranges to have them visit one at a time, which they seem to agree is a good idea for some reason. First, they send over Sound Mindful, who when they see her up close is apparently not just small but actually a child, no older than 13. What the fuck, Cabana Jim?
The procedure goes smoothly once again, and Sound is de-vamped. When they suggest she rejoin the others, though, she objects- though with the same weird muted customer-service affect she had before being de-vamped. Something's fishy about that. Instead, she retreats behind the party, clinging to Kensa in particular.
Carlos Widdenhosken is de-vamped next, again without incident- but once again, his weird behavior doesn't stop.
The last one approaches, and Carlos startles and hides behind Sound behind Kensa- both of them seem afraid of her for some reason, and won't explain why. Justice, though, doesn't consider this behavior out-of-the-ordinary. Looseleaf gets to work.
Whatever these compulsions they're under are, it seems they're a little less efficacious when they're no longer vampiric thralls, but they can't completely resist them, either. And notably, despite her more violent and erratic behavior, Carlos and Sound's fear seems to evaporate once she's been de-vamped. (Can you guess why?)
Looseleaf: "Okay yeah we are getting you out of here immediately."
[Saelhen, do NOT mention that we are bringing her to any clerics. I bet that's her compulsion, she's not allowed to talk to clerics.]
Benedict I. (GM): She grabs you by the shoulders and stares into your eyes with a manic, desperate look.
"HELLO MA'AM I MUST INFORM YOU THAT THERE IS A STATE OF EMERGENCY AND MUST ESCORT YOU TO SAFETY."
"I SURE DO HAVE TO DO THAT!!!"
Looseleaf: "Eep! Uh, sure! Yeah! We can do that! Let's just both of us walk calmly to the entrance!"
Benedict I. (GM): She turns and smashes her head against one of the poles of the nearby cabana.
Looseleaf: "Without any manhandling!"
Benedict I. (GM): "SAFETY IS- FFFFUN IN THE SUN, THIS WAY"
She points back north.
Looseleaf: Hm.
[Saelhen, she looks like she's trying to... drag me... northwards??]
[Run and get Hexfang.]
The three of them- no longer vampires- are apparently still under compulsion to bring them all back to the "safe place", which they seem anxious about doing for reasons they apparently can't state. This... isn't a great situation. Saelhen is volunteered to run outside and grab backup- the compulsion-breaking cleric of Eman who testified at the trial, Manny Hexfang.
(Looseleaf stalls for time by scattering ball bearings all over the boardwalk, making it "unsafe" to proceed and forcing/allowing the staffers to spend some time clearing the way by cleaning them up.)
I'm sure he's totally forgotten about this and will never play this card at a wildly inopportune time. It's fine.
What's not fine is Saelhen's attempt to run for help- the magical darkness that had engulfed the northern path has spilled out into the lobby and down the east path, making it impossible to escape unless she jumps down into the marsh and tries to climb the fence.
...unless she does some cool Acrobatics and climbs up onto the thatched roof, and parkours up there where the darkness hasn't spread. Clever! She totally bypasses whatever clunking scratching thing is running around with more than two legs in the dark.
On her way out, she sees some kind of horrible imp-type demon thing emerge from the darkness and engage the cops by the entrance, but she doesn't have time for that- she runs right past and down to the Mug's Horizon, the nearest bar to the courthouse, where she of course finds Manny Hexfang drinking and betting it all on 23 at the roulette table to impress some ladies.
A big pile of money to tempt him away from gambling later, and Saelhen drags Manny back to the resort.
Meanwhile, Looseleaf's managed to wheedle a name out of Justice- Miriko Watchwood, the general manager of the resort. Apparently, she's the one setting the "company policy" they're following. They aren't allowed to say that she's the one enforcing the compulsion, but the specificity of the denial says a lot.
Carlos, for some reason, opts to go check on the greenhouse they were heading towards earlier- apparently the gardener there could use Looseleaf's brand of "help". Sound is still picking up ball bearings, though, so Looseleaf lets him go alone.
Eventually, Saelhen and Manny catch back up with the party, and he summons Eman to start breaking compulsions. He... doesn't immediately explain that's what he's doing, though, so when he touches Sound Mindful and her "service with a smile" compulsion is broken and she immediately breaks down crying on the floor due to all the drastic trauma she's been forced to bottle up, Justice Unswerving kind of panics and...
Eman attempts to advance on Justice and break her compulsions directly, but she backs up into the ball bearings and whoops a god has a slapstick tumble.
The party talks Justice into accepting the heal, and... she immediately starts hooting and hollering and screaming creative and profane threats at Miriko, and runs off to the north brandishing a knife without thanking anyone. That's. Great. Good for her. I guess all of these people are coping extremely well with their circumstances without magical compulsion.
SESSION 24
So- the party opts not to chase after her, because they have multiple small children in tow now and leaving them unattended is probably worse than leaving a knife-wielding maniac unattended. Instead, they try to calm down Sound enough that she can evacuate. Various therapeutic techniques are employed, to some effect- Saelhen gets her verbal again with some eponymous mindfulness exercises. She has her name five things she can see, and then five things she can touch- including, apparently, a key in her pocket.
Kensa parts from the party in order to escort her new friend to, like, some medical attention and/or actual therapy. Meanwhile, the rest proceed to the greenhouse that Carlos ran off to.
Looseleaf immediately notices, via spirit senses, that the glass of the greenhouse is somehow enchanted to do something to sunlight- presumably filtering it to not do the burny thing to vampires, considering who maintains the place.
Inside, they find a whole bunch of experimental hydroponics and strange crops- including a garden box that seems to be growing extremely tiny sunflowers. In fact... the whole box appears to be magically shrunk-down. There's also these odd lamps that seem like they're magic but like, aren't magic? They're these glass bulbs with glowing wires inside them? How's he getting the wires to glow like that without magic................
Saelhen picks a sunflower and it reverts to normal-size in her hand. Huh! Portable garden! That's a cool magic item. Now maybe some of those seeds they've acquired won't be totally useless due to belonging to an adventuring party that doesn't have a single static place to tend a garden!
(Manny gets distracted by a patch of catnip. Whoops.)
Aaaaanyway they find Carlos and a really old yuan-ti man who has, apparently, attempted to bite a tree, and gotten his face stuck in the resulting sap. Looseleaf makes a medicine check, and... hrm. This guy's really old. Like, he should not be alive. The vampire juice is the only thing keeping him going, and even that probably should've killed him a while ago, since he's not a full vampire and those don't actually have a great life expectancy. Dude is holding on by a thread, and curing him without a plan isn't really an option.
They talk to the gardener, who's kind of lost in his own little world. He's hungry, and apparently... the tree, which is this weird thing with a deep red trunk and dark purple leaves, is supposed to be a tree that can produce a blood substitute in its sap. He's been breeding it himself, for so many years he's lost count. It's not done yet, apparently, but he thinks in a few more generations, maybe...!
He also mentions that he's had some help from traveling clerics- including one who looked quite like Looseleaf, apparently! (Looseleaf immediately assumes this is her sister, Yomi.) This person apparently contributed greatly to the work.
(Carlos claims the other thralls had no idea what the tree was or what this guy was doing with it- apparently this botanical lab or whatever has been a side gig only the gardener cared about, and everyone else just depended on it for emergency fresh produce sometimes.)
Unfortunately, pretty soon the authorities are going to call in the Deathseekers and the whole vampire situation here is gonna be donezo. Cabana Jim is dead, the resort's going to close, and the gardener's complicity in the whole thing is going to land him in serious legal trouble that'll prevent him from continuing his work. Unfortunately, he's not deterred, and insists on staying.
With that in mind, the party declines to free him from the tree- they'll come back and handle him later. They tell him they'll grab him a bottle of blood from the reserve, if he's hungry, but this situation is dicey for him.
Also the party loots one of the bloodmaple saplings and puts it in the mini-planter, just in case anything bad happens to this one- this is some valuable work! It really should survive the death of this place!
Next time... the party goes to confront Miriko Watchwood, the owner of the resort. And also next time... we finally ditch D&D and move to a custom system! Gonna have to... rename all those proprietary D&D races.
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General Atticus HC's
Had the urge to write more OC headcanons, so here they are some more!
Is currently in his late 20’s-early 30’s. Despite being dead for 5 years and his revival being thanks to semi-supernatural forces, the Garden still aged him to keep him in-line with what it thought was right.
Sleepy Bisexual. Probably drinks as much coffee as Illyana does.
Still has traces of his old Australian accent. Still slips ‘mates’ and ‘oi’s into conversation sometimes. Comes out in full swing when he’s upset.
Majored in English Literature and Teaching! Will leap into long speeches about Shakespeare at the drop of a hat.
Put on some weight during his time away from the X-Men. Chose not to get rid of it, even after being revived on Krakoa. ((This is definitely not because Illyana likes it, no sir.))
Sees the original New Mutants as his family, would defend any of them with his life.
Team Dad when Sam is away. He and Dani spend a lot of time wrangling the students and planning for the school with the others. He usually leaves her to deal with the council unless they request him specifically. ((Or he gets to see Kitty and Piotr, whichever is more likely))
Die-hard Dazzler fanboy, Alison once dropped into his and Illyana’s home and found him at the door wearing a “I <3 Dazzler” shirt, she never let him hear the end of it ((she was flattered though)).
A perpetual project-starter. Would start and drop a new, weird thing every few weeks. Some are successful (the sweaters he made his teammates, learning to bake) some aren’t (boxing,
Briefly took a job at Avengers Academy as one of their “normal staff” and a mutant liaison (hilarious considering his history with the X-Men). Took the job despite his dislike of The Avengers because they offered him a ton of money.
Because of this he and Laura are surprisingly good friends, he was the first choice for a teacher for Gabby once he was revived and Akedeimos was more concretely established as a school.
Highly protective of his students, all of them, even the ones who aren’t his students anymore. Had to be convinced to not attack Arcade after he found out about Avengers Arena and almost started a fight with Bishop when he pitched his War Academy.
Frequently uses his powers for mundane things; spinning hand fans, hand drying clothes, rewinding tapes, etc. Will spin the earth around just to skip traffic.
After being revived he can see errors and other signs of reality having been warped or changed in some way in the form of spirals appearing over the top of the affected object. Causes him serious headaches.
Idolizes Captain America. Has considered using a shield as a weapon for its effectiveness and to emulate the man. Was very bummed out when Rogers acts like a “boot-licker” and worked against mutant-kind after AvX.
Dude is just trying his best to live a peaceful and quiet life with his family, and all the superhero drama keeps getting in the way : (
#i have#so many thoughts abt this poor man#x-men oc#oc#original character#marvel oc#marvel comics oc
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Day 75
The quiet home office, where I work 100% on-site right now.
(Except for library excursions, that is.)
It's 10 paces from my bedroom, which is my kind of commute. My window overlooks the backyard, now green with the garden in view. In winter, it's a grayish hellscape, but we're not thinking about that right now.
This room has always been an office for us. First, my wife used it when she was working from home. She's a commercial interior designer, and spent many hours in here working on a project for the offices at Netflix a few years ago. Her employer at the time was doing the remote work thing way before it was cool. After changing jobs, she was back in an office setting, and the space was up for grabs.
The bookshelves on the right side of the photo were a part of the room renovation when we moved into this house. New flooring, new shelves, new paint, new trim.
Other room highlights, from left to right:
- My standing desk, which has been in service since 2011 or so
- The heated mat for my ever-frigid hands
- A 1 of 25 art print from composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir
- A 20th-century Japanese painting on silk
- Maps from a 1950s atlas
- An orange toolbox that my dad made for me when I was 5
- A roller chain, frozen in rust
- A pandemic-era print from Piotr Syzhalski
My Bose noise-cancelling headphones are on the desk; they've been in service since 2015, and they still work like new. I bought them because I was moving from an office with a door to an open floor plan, Frank Lloyd Wright's worst idea. I feared it, since I have difficulty concentrating with audible distractions around. And my fears came true.
There were meeting rooms at that office, and I almost always took my calls from there. This made sense, as I was located in Minneapolis, but working on nearly all of my projects with the team in New York. It left fewer hours in the noisier open seating area.
I got clearance from my lead to work from home in January 2019, after working a few days from home each week prior to that. This uninterrupted time was a dream. My productivity went through the roof, and my anxiety plummeted. I could feel focused and relaxed, doing my best work without distraction.
In September of that year, all remote employees were asked to come in 3 days per week, which was a heartbreak at the time. Soon enough, the pandemic hit, and we were all working from home. I switched jobs to another remote company, and my focus and productivity continued in the same quiet room.
Things are different now. I'm looking for a new job, and many posted roles say hybrid right up front. For the right role, I'm willing to go back into an office setting. I might even welcome it. But in my heart, I know that this is where the best work happens.
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Beware the Demon Bear! (New Mutants Review)
Hello, welcome to the House of Milesverse
This year, we saw the release of the satire (but actually based on a REAL story) film Cocaine Bear. Naturally, it led to a variety of memes and jokes about the titular character. Funnily enough, this year I also got to read a book about another evil bear.
That's right, folks!
Today? We will be talking about the Demon Bear Saga!
Who are the New Mutants?
The New Mutants was a graphic novel released in September 1982, created by Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod. Eventually in 1983, the New Mutants would gain their own book. The group focused on a young team of mutant students assembled by Charles Xavier.
The original roster was composed of Mirage (Dani Moonster), Karma (Manh Cao Xuan), Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair), Cannonball (Sam Guthrie), and Sunspot (Roberto Da Costa). Other members would join the team as well. This includes Cypher (Douglas Ramsey), the extraterrestrial Warlock, and Magik (Illyana Rasputin), who was the younger sister of Colossus.
The New Mutants' started out as a lighthearted story for X-Men fans. The inclusion of the Demon Bear saga kickstarts a serious adventure for the team. Luckily, our grizzly friend provides us with an interesting narrative.
The Bear Necessities for a Story
One character central to Demon Bear's mythology is Danielle Moonstar. She is a young Cheyenne girl with psychic powers. In particular, Dani has the ability to create strong illusions.
Dani believes that the Demon Bear is responsible for her parent's deaths. The large ursine creature wants to kill Dani. He spends a good deal of the saga trying to get to her.
In fact, Dani tries to face the demon bear herself but is wounded. She is sent to the hospital, accompanied by her friends. The other members of the New Mutants try their best to deal with the Demon Bear.
Unfortunately, this is not enough, and it drags them to another dimension. In an unfamiliar environment, the bear temporarily gets the upper hand. In the end, Magik uses her soulsword to defeat the demon bear, reverting it to its original form.
The demon bear's 'original' form was actually Dani's parents. Something had twisted the two into this monster. Dani eventually wakes up and is able to reunite with her parents.
Danielle Moonstar: Our Main Protagonist
There is a lot to say about Danielle Moonstar as a character. Throughout the story, she is distressed about the Demon Bear's arrival. The beast stalks her nightmares, and she is clearly afraid of them.
In spite of that? Dani does her best to try and stop it. She faces off against the Demon Bear alone. Even though she loses, she still tries to kill it.
That quality, facing your fear even if it means certain death, makes her a worthy X-Man.
The Demon Bear is a WORTHY enemy.
I think the Demon Bear on its own presents a pretty scary threat. Can you imagine being in Magik's position? She's being hunted by this bear that wants to maim her. Heck, it goes through the troubles of infiltrating a hospital just to finish the job.
I think the Demon Bear's best feature however is its design. The bear feels so familiar and yet so different. The wonky art style really sells the Demon Bear and how otherworldly it is.
Right here, you see the Demon Bear's abilities. The creature has the ability to corrupt the minds, souls, and bodies of its victims. A police officer and a nurse are unfortunately cursed to become his minions.
It's even weirder afterward because the Demon Bear's defeat does not undo it. Both the sheriff and the nurse are permanently transformed into Native Americans.
As I mentioned before, it has the power to transport others into another dimension. It sent the New Mutants to the Badlands where it could do battle. That was also where it utilized it's minions.
Let's face it, Magik's kind of badass.
As I said, Magik is the younger sister of Piotr Rasputin, aka Colossus. She's a member of the New Mutants, one of the primary magic aids of the X-Men, and the occasional Queen of Limbo. Magik strikes fear in the hearts of her enemies with her vicious soulsword, a manifestation of her mystical powers.
Ultimately, Magik comes in handy against the similarly-mystical Demon Bear. She manages to undo the Demon Bear's twisted transformation, stopping the creature's rampage. It's awesome to see how Magik's able to help the team in the story.
Fun fact, but did you know that in an alternate universe, she would succeed Doctor Strange as Sorcerer Supreme? She even gets the cloak. Even now, she works as a teacher for the Strange Academy.
Conclusion: The New Mutants kind of rule?
The Demon Bear Saga actually made an X-fan of me. Of course, long before I read this, I at least liked some of the members. However, now I just want to sink my teeth into other well-written X-Men stories.
Honestly, I love the vibe of stories that mix superheroes and horror. It combines two of my favorite genres. In fact, this saga has the perfect blend between the two. While it may read as a horror movie in certain parts, it still presents the dynamic superhero action we've come to enjoy.
Overall, I hope you enjoyed House of Milesverse! I'll be back again with another X-Ceptional, Astonishing, and Uncanny discussion!
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