#you ever just think about Gerald Tarrant?

[notwithstandingclause]

Insane about Gerald Tarrant hours because okay okay on the surface of things he can't be party to the god he created because it would mean dying and he has chosen this half life for 1000 years, but it runs so much deeper.

Insane that in this cosmology lucifer created god and Still fell from His grace and suffers eternally at the memory of a light for which he himself drew the blueprints.

Is it about fearing the loss of power that stepping away from darkens would necessitate or is it about fearing what your very presence would Do to the god you've created? Is it about forcibly separating yourself from your creation because You are the only thing you can't fit into the paradise you're constructing?

But no it's so SO much worse for him because the thing is the one genuine miracle we see, the only time God appears in the books, it's because Damien is protecting Jensenny from Gerald. Does god Need an opposite to exist? Is falling the last step, the big sacrifice that Gerald needs to undertake to bring god into existence for everybody else? How much of the Unnamed exists independently of Gerald, and how much has the fight against that evil contributed to the spread of belief on Erna?

CS Friedman really popped off with the whole Belief Begets Being part of the worldbuilding is what I'm saying and BOY is Gerald not having a good time with it.

#gerald tarrant #coldfire trilogy #he makes me physically ill guys #you ever just think about Gerald Tarrant? #what being visibly autistic as a child does to a bitch #he's so meow meow #none of this was coherent somebody else say something

[first-and-last-neocount]

Coldfire Meta: the Othering of Adepts

And How Gerald Tarrant Might Still Be Having Issues About It

I have a WIP I’m struggling with and my poor fevered brain keeps wandering, so… that’s right, it’s Coldfire meta time! 

This has been bugging me since writing the first chapter of “You’re The Words That I Promise I Don’t Mean”, because I was rereading bits of Crown of Shadows to quote the dialogue correctly and I stumbled over this line again. It struck me even on my first read-through years ago, but now that I’ve spent more time consciously thinking and writing about Coldfire and kinda retrained my brain to fall more readily into critical analysis, I found myself chewing on this line like a feral dog gnawing on a bone. From CoS, page 391:

“Is that really what you see down there?” 

The Hunter chuckled. “A faint shadow of it, no more. The most your human brain can handle.” 

*mental record scratch* Okay, wait. Can we, uh - can we go back and unpack that for a second? 

I know from mutual yelling about it with a couple of you folks that I’m not the only who thinks that Gerald’s dislike of Hesseth, and the rakh in general, is probably rooted in a kind of unwanted self-awareness; their place in Erna’s ecosystem as human-analogues that evolved out of what humanity would class as ‘lesser animals’ making him uncomfortably aware of how some of his own behaviour has edged toward the more primal and less civilized side of things since his Sacrifice. A fairly widely-accepted read on things, I think, for our little fandom. The thing is, that’s all built off of subtext and behavioural cues from written body language - fairly subtle stuff. I don’t think Gerald ever actually says anything that outright acknowledges how othered he is from the bulk of humanity, except for right here, at Shaitan. And when I thought about it a little bit longer… I’m not sure he’s talking about what I originally thought he was. 

See, it would make sense for him to say that if he was talking about the way-beyond-normal abilities that being the Hunter have given him. Shapeshifting or something like that, broadly acknowledged to be beyond the capabilities of any normal human. But that’s - not actually what he’s talking about? What Damien is reacting to is just an extremely elevated level of Sight, encompassing more than what a non-adept’s Seeing can give them, and it’s really not that far off from what Ciani describes when she’s trying to put into words what the Dark Ones took from her. She describes being able to see currents “permeating every substance on this planet, living and unliving, solid and illusory… a spectrum of living color that’s gone before you can even draw a breath. And there’s music, too, so beautiful that it hurts just to listen to. Everywhere you look, everything you touch, it’s all permeated with living fae - all in a constant state of flux, changing hourly as the different tides course through it”. (BSR, page 109). Shaitan is a focal point of power, and tainted by a whole heap of humanity’s preconceptions and fears, so the environment that Damien’s experiencing is a lot scarier and more overtly hostile than what Ciani was trying to describe - but nothing that he sees really seems to fall outside the typical umbrella of ‘adept vision’. 

Which makes Gerald’s word choice a lot more revealing and a lot sadder at the same time, because I think it hints towards his issues with feeling like something other than human going back a lot farther than his Sacrifice. 

I think, from this line, that Gerald’s feelings of alienation from humanity predate his Sacrifice and go all the way back to the fact that he was born as an adept in a time where the world really, really didn’t accept them. By Damien’s time, adepts are more common and more readily accepted, but Ciani still acknowledges they are still regarded with a certain amount of wariness by society at large; how much worse must that have been in Gerald’s day, when so few adepts even survived the pitfalls of their own nature into adulthood? Particularly with a family that skewed mostly toward the abusive, he must have felt incredibly isolated growing up, and while becoming the Prophet and the Neocount and being respected by his peers would have helped soothe those wounds, his Sacrifice and becoming the Hunter must have ripped them all right back open again. 

I find myself reminded of the studies on how neurodivergent people are often pushed out of groups because of subtle social cues they don’t mirror/don’t even realize they’re missing, and I wonder how much of Gerald’s rigid adherence to courtly manners is an attempt to overcome that perceived barrier. Damien and the others seem content to chalk it up to him being from the Revival, but he intentionally held onto those elaborate behavioural patterns for nearly nine hundred years, and he’s incredibly devoted to them - it doesn’t seem like it’s just a joke for his own amusement or a game to see if anyone will notice, it’s more like he’s absorbed that ‘chivalrous’ etiquette right into his personality. Was the Revival really that strictly codified, that everyone was like that? Or did a young, insecure adept who already felt like he was at a disadvantage in every situation latch onto those guidelines as a way to endear himself to people, a way to behave ‘correctly’ so that they would react with amusement or respect instead of disgust? I wouldn’t be remotely surprised, if we ever did get a glimpse at the Revivalist court, if no one else was anywhere near as consistently formal as Gerald. The rest of them might have treated the etiquette guidelines as ceremony, like court dress or fancy jewellery, to be donned when the situation called for it and discarded when it was no longer needed - but I doubt any of them ever saw Gerald without that social armour on, except possibly Almea (and Gannon, if you’re a shipper like me). 

In summary, I still think the theory about the rakh making him uncomfortable because of the ‘inhumanity’ parallels is accurate, I just think that the origins of that particular insecurity might go back even further than his time as the Hunter. I think that when he said ‘human brain’ in that moment on Shaitan, he genuinely meant ‘non-adept brain’, and that makes my heart hurt. 

TL:DR; I think Gerald is still carrying some internalized ‘adepts are not fully human’ baggage around from his childhood and I just want to hug him, so now I’ve hopefully made all of you sad too, you’re welcome.

#coldfire trilogy #gerald tarrant #the neocount writes #i've made basically no meaningful progress #on any of my WIPs so far today #but i just churned out over 1k of meta in twenty minutes #why brain #why are you like this XD

[theobscurepotato]

I THOUGHT I SENSED AN ASK GAME IN PROGRESS. Can I get K, P, and U? :P (M is too dangerous for either one of us, lol)

Thank you for your mercy in avoiding “M.” I’ll go out of order on these answers, so I can hide a CFT snippet for you.

P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an "architect" or a "gardener"? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)

Eh, gardener? I usually know all the “big moments” when I start a fic. (I loved your comment last night around “melody plotting.” I take a very similar approach a majority of the time). My time loop fic is the hardest story I’ve written so far because it required me to put on that architect hat and map it all out, and re-map it, and spackle over the plot holes, and check the mapping again, so while it’s much stronger as a result, the writing process definitely stretched muscles I don’t normally flex.

U: A pairing you might like to write for, but haven't tried yet.

Ooo. I answered this in crowbito’s ask, but odds are good that I’ll succumb to writing either Iorveth/Roche or some complicated Ogata/? this year. I just have some wips I want to knock out first.

K: What's the angstiest idea you've ever come up with?

My angstiest abandoned fic is 500 words hidden in a Google doc titled “Damien dies.” Which is…um exactly what it says on the tin. If you feel up to some post-CoS angsty dialogue:

--

“It's dangerous for you to be here, isn't it.”

The man didn't answer. Which was, in its own way, an answer.

“You were supposed to grow old,” the man who wasn't Gerald Tarrant finally said, as if Damien's illness was a personal affront to him. “I thought surely there'd be a passal of young Vryces. A family, a home, accolades…everything you deserved. Not–” he hesitated.

“Not alone?”

A short, tight nod.

“I wasn't always alone, Damien said. “But it wasn't…” Now it was his turn to hesitate. He paused and started over. How to safely say it? “There was…someone that I deeply cared about and when they were gone, I just guess I never really got over it? But I–” Oh, and how that old wound still hurt, “I left him. When I shouldn't have. He asked me to, sure, but I abandoned him when he needed me the most. May God judge me for it.”

He shut his eyes against the flood of emotion, and felt a slender hand cup his face, a thumb moving gently against his cheekbone to catch at his tears.

“I think,” that unfamiliar voice said, with such a familiar cadence that it hurt Damien anew just to hear it, “I think I've been a fool, Vryce.”

#ask game #theobscurepotatowrites #coldfire trilogy

[fallintosanity]

@inktail tagged me in a questions game! Answer the 11 questions asked, then come up with 11 questions of your own and tag 11 people to answer them.

1. What is your favorite nickname you ever were given?

I... actually was never given nicknames? My IRL name does not lend itself to nicknames, and while my friends group in high school liked to come up with silly names for the group as a whole, I don’t remember us ever nicknaming each other. Sanity is my handle, a little more than a nickname but probably the closest thing to one that I’ve had. 

2. Are you still in contact with your first best friend?

Nope. Her name was Audrey and she lived across the street. Her family moved away when I was... in middle school? I think? and I haven’t heard from her since. 

3. Tell me about your favorite grade school project.

Grade school, oh man, that’s digging through the ol’ memory bank. I only remember a few projects from that far back. I don’t know if I’d say it was my favorite, but our school did this thing where kids would get refrigerator boxes and make “shops” out of them and set up a “village” in our classroom. I have absolutely no idea what we were supposed to be learning, but it was fun to build your refrigerator box shop.

4. How much plagiarism did you get away with in high school?

None! I was that obnoxious kid who followed all the rules. 

5. Who is your favorite fictional character right now?

Please tell me I can pick more than one because I can’t pick just one. XD

The chocobros, Sephiroth, and Ravus. Hongo Yuri, who surprised me. Gerald Tarrant, always and forever. 

6. Is it Yeet/Yote or Yeet/Yeeted. Show support for your choice.

Yeet/yeeted, based on majority vote/usage on my D&D sideblog. Yote when someone is trying to sound pretentious and speak in Ye Olde Englyshe. 

7. When did you last see enough stars to make you dizzy contemplating the sheer enormity of the universe?

First, I love this question. Second, it’s kind of depressing to realize it was probably close to twenty years ago, whenever the last time my family went camping in the UP.

8. Do you go to new movies asap even if it means going alone or do you wait for a friend to be able to come with you?

I, uh, mostly don’t go to movies? But I’ll usually wait to go with someone, if I know I have someone to go with. 

9. If you took me to your favorite restaurant, which one would it be and what will you order? 

Cracker Barrel, because I’m a sucker for Southern food and Cracker Barrels don’t exist where I live so scarcity makes the heart grow fonder and all. 

I’d order the chicken and dumplings meal, because who needs greens when you have dumplings?

10. How do you feel about detox products?

I’m not actually sure what constitutes a “detox product”? I don’t really do the self-help/self-care/fad diet/whatever stuff so all I ever hear about are the really hilarious snake oil ones. 

11. Tell us your favorite joke!

Okay, this is an old and dumb one, but here you go (apologies to my fellow blondes):

A flight to Los Angeles is boarding, and a passenger complaines to a flight attendant that a woman is sitting in his first-class seat. The flight attendant checks, and sure enough, there’s a beautiful blonde woman sitting in the man’s seat. The attendant says, “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but your ticket is for coach. Please go to your assigned seat.” 

“No,” says the woman, and tosses her hair haughtily. “I’m blonde, I’m beautiful, and I’m flying to Los Angeles first class.” 

The flight attendant asks again, more sternly, but the woman refuses to budge, repeating, “I’m blonde, I’m beautiful, and I’m flying to Los Angeles first class.” 

Finally, the flight attendant goes to get the pilot. She explains the situation, and the pilot says, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” The pilot goes up to the blonde woman and whispers in her ear. The blonde’s eyes get wide, and she jumps up and runs back to her assigned seat in coach. 

“Wow,” the flight attendant says to the pilot. “What’d you say to her to get her to move?” 

The pilot grins. “I told her first class wasn’t flying to Los Angeles.” 

My questions: 

Which two fictional characters would you most like to see stranded on a desert island together? 

What’s your favorite board game, and why?

What song is your current earworm?

Peanut butter: crunchy or creamy?

Zip-up hoodies or pullover hoodies?

Have you ever had a secret handshake with someone? What was the handshake?

What book was a formative part of your childhood? 

What’s your earliest memory?

Do you have any body modifications (piercings, tattoos, etc)? Is there a story behind any of them? 

Which fictional universe would you most want to be part of as an ordinary person? What about as a protagonist or supporting cast?

When you jump off a swingset or climb on top of the slides, what story are you acting out?

Tagging - only if you want to - @ageofzero, @ceescedasticity, @tjwock, @undeadandinbed, @hitthebooksposts​, @puffbirdstudio, @inktail (can I tag you back? is that fair? XD ), and anyone else who wants to answer!

#ask meme #sanity replies

[adiresim]

Tale as Old as Time

Note: The following was originally written in 2012, but it is the best introduction I can give to who I am as a writer, the story I have to tell, and what this blog is all about.

You’re going to laugh at me, I know you are. I’m 28–almost 29–and I went to see Disney’s Beauty & the Beast in the theater last weekend. And that’s not why you’re going to laugh, even though my husband & I were the only adults there who did not have children or grandchildren with us as a reason (or an excuse) to be in the theater. No, you’re going to laugh because I cried while watching it. And I cried a lot.

You see, I didn’t know how much it would mean to me to see Beauty & the Beast in the theater again, I really didn’t. I knew I wanted to go because it’s always been a favorite of mine, but I simply thought it would be fun. I didn’t expect it to touch something deep inside me, something so deep that I spent most of the movie in tears; so deep that even now, almost a week later, I still can’t entirely explain it to myself.

But here’s something else: I’ve done a lot of thinking in the past year or two about who I am as a writer and what has influenced my creativity. Until then, I just went along blithely, writing this and that, happily bouncing from one story to the next without ever seeing the common threads that wove through them. 

Then one day I took another look at my two biggest projects and had an epiphany: although the characters, plots, and worlds of those stories are very different, they share several of the same themes. And it wasn’t much longer until I started realizing that those themes have showed up again and again in my writing ever since I was a child… Which, in turn, got me thinking about why those things are so important to me as a writer. And what I’ve discovered is that every one of those themes is something that I was exposed to very early in life through books and movies, and then that theme was reinforced by other things I read and saw over the years, things that I loved and had a huge impact on me.

I’m particularly fond of polite villains, for example. I enjoy any well-written villain, but my absolute favorite is always the one who is a consummate gentleman, who will smile charmingly even as he performs his wicked deeds. Seriously, I love these villains–I’m not kidding, I practically go weak-kneed for them. 

And do you know why I adore polite villains? Well, it’s got a lot to do with the fact that between the ages of four and fourteen, I encountered three of the most marvelously evil, charming, and gentlemanly villains/anti-heroes in all of fiction: Captain Nemo, Regis Blackard, and Gerald Tarrant. (Don’t worry, I know you haven’t heard of the last two.) Between the three of them, I got a lot of exposure to well-mannered villainy while growing up. So, when writing my current novel, I created what is (for me) the ultimate villain: deliciously evil, but oh so very, very courteous about it. And believe me, he’s not the only polite villain to play a role in my fiction through the years.

I know that was a bit long-winded, but the point is this: I was eight years old when Beauty & the Beast was released in theaters for the first time. Do you know what I was doing when it came out? I was almost halfway through my second year at The World’s Worst Private School, where my classmates tormented me relentlessly for being different from them. And this is what made me different: I was creative, and I loved to read. So it’s not surprising that Belle is, and always has been, the Disney heroine with whom I identify most strongly. In many ways, I am her: imaginative, a lover of fairy tales, longing for adventure and romance; lonely, misunderstood, and treated harshly by my peers.

But it goes even deeper. This movie plays to many of my favorite writing themes: redemption, identity (man or monster?), sacrifice, love. Beauty & the Beast is a foundational work for me, along with The Chronicles of Narnia, Amy’s Eyes, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and many more. But as much as I have loved it throughout the years, as much time as I have spent considering my influences as a writer, I did not truly realize how important it is to me until seeing it in the theater again.

It sounds a little ridiculous, doesn’t it? It’s a kid’s movie, for heaven’s sake. It’s Disney, for heaven’s sake. It could hardly be less accurate to the original fairy tale, and there are singing candlesticks and dancing teapots and a barking ottoman. But I sat in the dark theater in the very back corner of the last row, and it came to the part that has always spoken for my heart more than anything else: Belle singing, “I want adventure in the great wide somewhere, I want it more than I can tell…” And I sang it with her as I do every single time without fail, not quietly and shyly as I am wont to do when anyone can hear me, but as loud as possible, with all my heart behind it. And my husband reached out and took my hand as I sang those words, and that is when I began to cry.

I cried several more times throughout the movie, including at the end. Bawled my eyes out for most of it, to be honest. And still, I can’t quite explain it to myself, let alone to anyone else. Maybe it’s something to do with the loss of that adventure I have been yearning for–and singing about–my whole life, for my pelvic injury has put the great wide somewhere far beyond my reach. Maybe it was seeing something familiar and beloved for the hundredth time and finally realizing that this is much more than an old childhood favorite, although I am still incapable of analyzing how it touches me so deeply. 

Or maybe it was something about the fact that this, this is the story I have been writing for the past ten years, that I have poured my life and soul into crafting anew, that I need to tell more than anything else I have ever written–or may ever write again. It is not Disney’s version of Beauty & the Beast, not by a long shot, nor is it Madame Villenueve‘s version or anyone else’s, but it is Beauty & the Beast nonetheless.

And really, is it any wonder that this is the fairy tale I have chosen to rewrite, the story that has so captured me? Beauty & the Beast truly is a “tale as old as time”–it is a type of “Cupid and Psyche,” the oldest known literary fairy tale. It gave me the opportunity to delve into all the themes that are so close to my heart, years before I was even aware of them. 

And somewhere in between the lines I have written, somewhere in the hundreds and hundreds of handwritten pages stacked in folders around the house, there is a little girl who fell in love with ancient civilizations, Sir Percy Blakeney, the beauty of Tolkien’s invented languages, polite villains, fairy tales and myths, and a hundred other things; and somewhere in those words is a little girl who sings loudly in the back of the theater as tears twenty years in the making roll down her cheeks.

#beauty and the beast #fairy tales #fiction #writing #my writing #fantasy #cotgr #inspiration

[theobscurepotato]

Thanks for tagging me, @straysinfiltrator!

What is your total word count on AO3?

58,255.

How many fandoms have you written for?

On AO3? Just Witcher & Coldfire Trilogy. Not sure what my lifetime count is.

What were your top 5 fics by kudos?

over the hills and far away

fire and flux

i'm wishing (i'm wishing)

The Roses of Cintra

Night on Bald Mountain

(Real live evidence that order of kudos ≠ order of quality)

Do you respond to comments - why, why not?

Yes. Sometimes it takes me a while, but I am always extremely grateful when people take the time to comment. This year I’ve also tried to take the time to write comments for the fics that I love reading -- doing penance for my fandom lurker days. 😉

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I generally write fics with happy endings, but in terms of pure, self-indulgent fix-it, I'd have to say A second beginning. The literal happy ending was one of the first scenes I thought out and I wrote the fic with that eventual end goal in mind.

What's your fic with the angsty-est ending?

The Roses of Cintra -- that “Major Character Death” tag is there for a reason.

Do you write smut? if so, what kind?

Yes, although I’m much more in the character driven > PWP camp (at least where writing is concerned). I like exploring the character dynamics of first-time sex scenes in particular -- usually some permutation of funny/tender/awkward.

Do you write crossovers?

Does mashing together different Witcher canons count?

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Fortunately, any people who haven't liked a fic of mine just politely clicked away without comment (as one should). 😂

What is your all time favourite pairing?

That’s a tough one. There are a few ships that will always hold a place in my heart:

Shuten/Rajura (Yoroiden Samurai Troopers/ Ronin Warriors): My oldest and rarest ship, the one that introduced me to fanfiction.

Gerald Tarrant/Damien Vryce (Coldfire Trilogy): Snarklord priest and the equally snarky undead prophet of his faith. I love these two so much it causes me actual, physical pain.

Jean Valjean/Javert (Les Miserables): I’m sorry, he followed him for how many years? 🙃 Never met a post-Seine fic I didn’t like.

Remus Lupin/Severus Snape: While I was in undergrad pretending to be a Serious Writer, I was also reading a metric shit-ton of Snupin.

What is a fic you would like to finish but don't think you ever will?

*looks in my ever-growing WIP folder* If I post something, I'm generally committed to finishing it. That being said, I have some barely-started WIPs that might turn into a "Dear Yuletide Writer" letter instead of a fic. #outsourcingforthewin

Writing strengths?

Dialogue. I am much more verbal than visual and I’m a little ...fanatical about getting character voices right.

Writing weaknesses?

Pacing -- and my usual habit of posting while I’m still writing the story does not help this at all. However, I’m working on a long-ish fic right now with the goal of writing and revising and beta-ing it in its entirety before posting (shocking!) So we'll see. I still feel rusty in many aspects of my writing but I’m having too much fun to stop.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Ronin Warriors, back in…’01, ‘02? Just some cringey self-insert gen fic that I probably made @officialebonymaw read.

What's your favourite fic you've written?

A second beginning. I got to geek out on Coldfire lore and all sorts of little canon details while packing the fic full of all my favorite tropes... all with the end goal of giving Damien and Gerald the ending they deserved. It’s easily the most self-indulgent thing I’ve ever written & I like to think of the fic as a gift to my much younger self. (They were also just too much damn fun to write).

Tagging @flamingo-queen-writes, @crowbito, @tea42, @bomberqueen17, & @reineyday. (I'm not always sure whose tumblr matches to what ao3 username, so if you aren't tagged but want to respond, consider yourself tagged! I love love love when fandom writers talk about writing).

#ask game #the potato does fandom

[first-and-last-neocount]

Whumptober Day 11

Late post is late, but I had to work an early shift because Thanksgiving and didn’t have time to post before I went into work, lol. 

About twenty minutes after posting Day 8, with the author's note that I didn't think it would be continued, I got the idea for this. I swear my brain does this to me on purpose sometimes. Another short one, but that's not really a bad thing. My lead on these prompts disappeared pretty quick, and I had to churn out several over the weekend so I wouldn't fall behind thanks to the brain-rot from my job; I'm basically incapable of producing meaningful content on days when I work, and have to write these in batches on my days off.

I have thalassophobia, so literal drowning was right out. Have some flowery metaphor instead. There’s also going to be a third part to this, on Day 13, so I hope everyone’s enjoying themselves. XD

Day 11 - Theme Chosen: Drowning

Drowning had always been a very literal fear for Damien. Having grown up by the coast, witnessing shipwrecks as a child, the ocean had always held a special terror for him; after having survived the brutal landfall of a ship as it was slammed into the docks by a rogue wave, his nightmares had taken on an even more vivid hue. Those nightmares usually centred around the prelude – the shipwreck, the landslide from the cliffs, the disaster that dropped him unsuspectingly into the merciless sea – but sometimes, they were simply about drowning itself. The terrifying struggle for life-sustaining air, the pummeling of the waves, the agonizing burn in his lungs as he was pulled under and fought to hold his breath.

With that dread so keen and strong in his subconscious, he'd always been a little bothered by people who used 'drowning' as a metaphor. Drowning in debt, drowning their sorrows; every time he heard it, a part of him wanted to protest.

It can't possibly be that awful, that immediate, that urgent. Drowning isn't just being overwhelmed, it's the knowledge that you're literally about to die, that you've lost all control of your fate and the question of whether you live or die is being decided by something enormously more powerful than yourself. How can anything else feel that all-consuming?

Now, he was starting to understand.

It wasn't just the physical obstruction in his lungs as the black roses proliferated; it was the terrifying, crushing awareness of just how helpless he really was. It was the awareness that another foe had joined the forces arrayed against them, but this one was not a physical enemy that Damien could defeat with the swing of a sword. This was an insidious threat, carried inside his own flesh, that he ultimately stood no chance of besting. Even if, by some miracle, they managed to defeat Calesta, this opponent would still be waiting in the wings; ready and waiting, at the eleventh hour, to ensure that Damien didn't walk away from this hopeless quest alive.

If he had been travelling with companions that knew him well, Damien was sure that his secret would have been found out long ago. As time wore on and their ship drew ever closer to their home continent, his anxiety only mounted, his manner growing ever more strained and troubled; he was starting to lose the battle of treading water, and he knew it. Now, though, there was no one to see it. The crew of the God's Glory didn't know him well enough to see the truth – he and Captain Rozca were on good terms now, but it was a recent and relatively shallow camaraderie, and the Captain no doubt attributed Damien's growing stress to the threat of Calesta awaiting them after making port. There was no one else on the ship that Damien could confide in – Hesseth was dead, Senzei was dead, Ciani was half a world away in the rakhlands.

His only true companion now was Gerald Tarrant himself, and that...

Well.

With every day that passed, the Hunter's presence grew more dangerous for Damien. If the adept was cold and uncaring, the thorns in Damien's throat prickled a little more sharply, a stinging reminder that his feelings were one-sided; if Tarrant showed some trace of compassion, or one of those rare flashes of good humour that reminded Damien so sharply of the man he must once have been, new flowers bloomed, velvet-soft but terrifying in their significance. On the day when the erupting volcano had nearly sunk the ship and Tarrant had intervened, the sight of him – pale and determined, the angel of death personified as he Worked to save the ship despite the risk of deadly sunlight – had driven Damien to seek refuge in his cabin, where he had coughed up nearly a dozen roses, his lungs spasming desperately as new flowers grew almost faster than they could be expelled.

Those moments, kneeling on the floor and struggling for breath as he choked on the black petals that filled his throat, had been some of the most terrifying of Damien's life. It was every bit as terrifying as the icy grip of the sea, to know that there was nothing he could do – that all his skill as a Healer, all his knowledge of fae and flesh, was useless against this sickening wrought by his own emotions. The current was inexorable, and it didn't matter how long he fought or how hard he swam, in the end it would pull him under.

The Hunter had asked him, just once, about the coughing. The adept had approached Damien on the deck, when the priest surfaced around midnight for some fresh air, frantic to breathe in the night's coolness and forget the claustrophobic feeling of briars clogging his airways. Tarrant had approached him and asked, quietly enough that the few crew members still awake couldn't possibly hear, if he thought his illness was a result of the Hunter taking too much from him when feeding.

Panic flooding through him, Damien had denied it immediately; he told Tarrant that it was a case of mild but persistent pneumonia, that he was having difficulty Healing it because of the difficulty accessing the fae aboard the ship, but that he was managing it just fine and would no doubt be able to fully resolve it once they were ashore again. Tarrant had regarded him in silence for a moment, and Damien had felt a cold sweat break out across his skin, praying that the man wouldn't press him – and, for once, his prayer was answered. Tarrant had accepted the answer, perhaps not believing him but clearly deciding it wasn't worth pressing the point, and Damien had retreated from the conversation feeling profoundly relieved and yet perversely disappointed.

Nothing good could possibly come of confessing his sickness. Either Tarrant would have the grace to let him down gently, which would do absolutely nothing to alter the disease's course – or the Hunter would reject him viciously, which had been documented in some cases to actually accelerate the growth of the deadly flowers. Either way, admitting that he had developed Hanahaki Disease would only put further strain on their situation, since the Hunter would then also be aware of the ticking clock that was hanging over Damien; if the flowers continued growing at their current rate, the Knight might not live long enough to see the end of their quest one way or the other.

Damien had always been a survivor, but even he was beginning to doubt whether he could keep treading water for much longer.

#whumptober2021 #no.11 #Drowning #coldfire trilogy #fic #hanahaki disease #evil is what you make of it #gerald tarrant #damien vryce #the neocount writes

[first-and-last-neocount]

Whumptober Day 5

Aaaand here we are, second offering in the Escape!AU, though this is... third I think?... if we’re going by internal chronology of what I’ve got so far. I’m not even going to try to track that as we go, though, because of the whole still-adding-more-as-I-go-along thing. I’ll figure that shit out when the AO3 post gets made, lol. 

Have some EVEN MORE FEELINGS realization, friends! And also some sad, because y’know, Whumptober. 

With the rest of Damien’s family being pagan, I also had this headcanon that his relationship with them was pretty well trashed after he joined the Church, and that the Matriarch of Ganji had kind of... honorarily adopted him, and that they were still super close, and that’s why she backed him so firmly against the Patriarch’s bullshit. Having that headcanon, though, made me wonder - what must she have thought, when she heard about certain developmens?

Day 5 - Theme Chosen: Betrayal

Damien eyed the pile of letters with some trepidation. He had only meant to grab a few belongings from his rented room in Jaggonath before abandoning it permanently – the world needed to believe that he and Gerald had perished at Mount Shaitan, so he couldn't exactly tell the landlord that he wasn't coming back, but he'd wanted to pick up a few of the items he'd brought with him across the Dividers before he and Gerald left the city for good. He hadn't expected a pile of letters to be laying on the front hall rug, having clearly accumulated during the journey to Shaitan and back.

Gerald was currently at Alesha Huyding's house, convincing the woman to let them take the rest of Senzei's journals on the Iezu for their own project. They were supposed to meet at Karril's temple in less than an hour; Damien definitely didn't have time to read these all. He scooped the pile off the floor and started flipping through them quickly, discarding the majority of them at a glance. Most of them were notes from his fellow clergy members at the Jaggonath Cathedral, wondering where he'd disappeared to; there were a few unpaid bills from local merchants, and one heavy linen envelope with a golden seal that he knew must be his official notice of excommunication. The sight of it made his chest ache, but it was nothing compared to the shock that ran through him at the last letter.

The envelope from the very bottom of the stack was also fine quality, though it lacked the ostentatious gold seal, instead being tied shut with a red ribbon. Even at a glance, though, Damien recognized the delicate hand that had traced out the address of the Jaggonath Cathedral – it seemed the letter had gone there first, and been redirected to his temporary apartment when the messenger learned that Damien was no longer employed by the Church.

The letter was from the Matriarch of the Cathedral in Ganji-on-the-Cliffs.

Guilt pooled in his chest like icy water, and Damien cursed softly. Stuffing the two Church envelopes in his jacket pocket, he left the rest of the letters on the kitchen table and went to gather what he'd come for in the first place. There would be time enough later to deal with the two he'd kept; neither of them, he suspected, were going to be an easy read.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

He ended up putting off looking at the letters for a few days. Between gathering everything they would need to get them to another city, and tying up any loose ends they'd left behind, he actually managed to more or less forget about the envelopes tucked away in his pocket. Gerald had decided that their best bet was to head back northeast, retracing their steps yet again to get some distance from Jaggonath now that they had what they needed from the city; Damien wasn't any more keen on running into any familiar faces than the adept was, and agreed that it was probably the safest plan. Ensuring that they remained anonymous was enough to keep his mind occupied on the road, and it wasn't until they stopped at a dae three nights later that he remembered.

They'd both had their fill of sleeping on the unforgiving ground as winter crept closer again, and when the dae had come into view, they had agreed with only a glance that they could afford the minor risk  of dealing with the residents if it meant getting to sleep in proper beds for a night. Damien negotiated for their rooms while Gerald saw that the horses were stabled comfortably, and they met up in the common room of the dae, at a small table in the corner farthest from the light of the fire. As they sat down, though, Damien made to tuck the room key into his pocket – and his fingers brushed the envelopes still tucked into his jacket.

Either his face had shown his dismay or Gerald had felt it through their link, because the adept turned to look at him immediately, grey eyes narrowed in concern.

“What's wrong?”

“It's nothing urgent, just...” Damien pulled the letters out, feeling dread settle into his gut like a stone. “There were some letters that had been slipped under my apartment door, when I went back to get my things. Most of them weren't important, but I kept these two. I meant to look at them later that day, but – I forgot.”

Gerald's gaze fell on the golden seal of the Cathedral on the top one, and Damien heard his sudden, sharp breath. The former Knight's mouth twisted in a bitter half-smile.

“Yeah, I think we both know what that one is. This one, though...”

He pulled the other envelope out and set it on top, his heart in his throat. Gerald frowned at it, then glanced up at him.

“Who is this one from?”

“The Matriarch. In Ganji,” Damien whispered. “I wrote to her when we were sailing back from the Eastern Continent, telling her everything that had happened. The Master of Lema, what we'd discovered about the rakh, the Undying Prince... you.”

The adept went very still. He was rather like a hunting hawk in that way, a distant part of Damien's mind observed; when they laid eyes on their prey, such birds would freeze, in a manner that could look almost like a prey response itself unless one knew what to look for. In reality, the bird was preparing for the swift, sure, devastating movement of an attack – but the only warning you would get was that unnatural stillness.

“This is her response.” The soft words weren't a question. Damien sighed deeply, rolling his shoulders back in a fruitless attempt to shed some of the tension.

“Yes. And probably more, given that I'm fairly sure the Patriarch wrote to her as well – she likely knows by now that I've been thrown out of the Order, even if she hasn't yet heard about our... tragic demises.” He looked up and forced himself to meet Gerald's gaze steadily, feeling the prickling anticipation through the bond, the chill creeping over his skin. When he spoke, he kept his voice very low, not wanting to speak too loudly even though Gerald had put up a Warding when they sat down that would keep anyone from eavesdropping on them.

“I know you're hungry. Take what you need. This is going to be miserable for me either way.”

Gerald's eyes flashed, but the adept only inclined his head slightly, a silent gratitude. Damien swallowed against the lump that had formed in his throat, then reached with shaking hands to untie the ribbon and unfold the letter.

My dear son,

I hope you will forgive my informality. I know that, as the Holy Mother, I ought to have worded this more properly – but at the moment, I care nothing for propriety, so long as I can reach you.

Your letters have given me enough nightmares for a lifetime. This demon that conspires to corrupt our world, Calesta, is all that the Church most dreads; not a passive evil, but an all too active one, darkening the minds of men and swaying them to its nefarious cause. I was horror-struck to learn of the men and women that willingly served it, and what it plans for our world, but those concerns too have paled in comparison to the chill that fell over me when I read what you had written of our fallen Prophet.

Damien. If ever you felt, as I did, that our bond was that of true family – that you were my son in more than the titles that the Church proscribes, that I cared for you as I would have for a child of my flesh – then I beg of you, in the name of that bond... turn aside. I do not need it written out to know that you hope to save Gerald Tarrant, to redeem him from his dark deeds and guide him back into the light of God. I cannot stress enough how much I fear for you if you pursue such a path. There are some choices that a man cannot make without altering who he is forever, and some roads are too dark to retrace one's steps. You cannot save him. God's greatest gift is forgiveness, but a man such as that will not accept it, for to do so he would have to admit that his deeds require forgiveness – to admit that he has become a monster, and repent of what he has done. A man like Gerald Tarrant can never do that.

If you try to save him, I am certain that he will poison you. Slowly, no doubt, and subtly, for to have survived all that he has the Hunter must be a devious creature indeed – but inexorably, and perhaps, irrevocably. I know you, Damien, and your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness; your incredible determination. It has carried you through so much adversity, and it held you to our faith and cause when your family would have dragged you away... but I fear that it will also keep you from recognizing when you are outmatched, and hold you to your resolve to alter his nature, even as his corruption takes hold. If you are focused only on his redemption, you may not see what is happening until it is too late.

Please come home, Damien. I know it goes against everything we preach, but this once, I reach out to you and speak not as the Holy Mother, but simply as a mother. Come home. Let another fight this war; let the Hunter carry this burden alone, if you truly believe he wishes to make amends. We are all of us sworn to give our lives for the Church, but I beg of you, not like this.

Come home.

With all my love and prayers,

Carla

No title. No Holy Mother. Not her regnal name, Aelia II. Just her given name, as a mother might sign a desperate letter to her son.

Damien didn't know when he'd started to cry, but his eyes burned by the time he reached the end; his cheeks were wet, and his chest ached from staying quiet, even as his whole body shook with silent sobs. He dropped the letter on the table and pressed his hands over his face, past caring if his distress was obvious. No one else in the room was going to notice anything with the Obscuring still in place, and it wasn't as if Gerald needed the visual cues to know that he was upset – with the way he felt, in that moment, the grief and guilt had to be flooding out of him like blood from an arterial wound, staining the fae around him black and crimson.

He'd known, since the night he braved Hell itself to bring the Hunter back, that he was turning his back on everything he'd ever cared for. Not merely his faith, intangible as it was, but also his home, his friends, and his family.

Perhaps his parents and brother would not have disowned him for the choices he had made on this quest – but it was years too late for that to matter, after the way they had fallen out when Damien chose to join the Church. The faith of the One God had forced Damien to distance himself from their aggressively pagan lifestyle, and they had seen his choice as a betrayal, a self-righteous attack on their way of life instead of the deeply personal calling Damien had felt it to be. The only thing that had gotten him through that loss and upheaval had been the support of a woman who, at the time, was just another priestess at the Ganji Cathedral. Mother Carla had been his bedrock of support, his sponsor in the seminary and a gentle voice of reassurance whenever Damien felt himself faltering; by the time Damien was Knighted, she had ascended to the Holy Mother's seat as Matriarch Aelia II, and their bond had been unshakable. It had been Carla who recommended Damien for the experimental program teaching young Workers in Jaggonath, who had seen him off with a warm smile and the assertion that she knew he would do well, and that he would return to Ganji-on-the-Cliffs having shaped a whole generation of new minds.

And Damien had betrayed her.

It wasn't what he meant to do, but what did intent matter when measured against the cold facts of the outcome? He had betrayed the faith they held in common by choosing to forgive the Hunter's centuries of crimes; he had betrayed the Church they both served by thwarting Andrys's attempt at vengeance and helping Gerald elude the Crusade; he had betrayed the personal trust she had placed in him by deserting his duty and turning his back on the very principles that he himself had once preached to the Church's young followers. She had sent him east to further the vision of the Church, and instead he had struck it one of the most staggering blows it had suffered in centuries. She had reached out to him in compassion and love, ready to absolve him of every responsibility if he only turned back... but even if the letter had reached him in time, Damien knew in his heart that it still wouldn't have altered his course.

That, surely, was the bitterest betrayal of all – the knowledge that seared through him and left him shaking and cold and sick. That letter hadn't said anything that he hadn't already, on some level, known; he had held all those arguments with himself a thousand times, those long lonely nights on the road to Mount Shaitan. He had recognized the risk that his own stubbornness was blinding him, recognized that his judgement and morals were compromised, recognized that he was nearing the point of no return. Even with all of that, though, when the moment of choice had come – he hadn't even hesitated. He'd seen the murderous rage in Andrys Tarrant's eyes, known that it was the reckoning for all of Gerald's sins, and he'd still stepped in front of the bolt.

He might not have surfaced from that yawning abyss of despair for a long time, if not for the gentle sensation that ran along the link between himself and Gerald. Unlike the assertive, even imperious force that Damien was used to from the Hunter's power, this was softer, almost inquisitive; a coaxing tug, instead of a firm push. He was still too badly shaken to muster any kind of coherent response within his mind, and a moment later, he felt an equally gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Damien.”

With an effort, the former Knight swallowed back the sounds of pain he wouldn't allow himself to make and lifted his head, blinking through tears at his companion. Gerald had shifted his chair and was sitting close by his side now, one hand raised for that steadying grip on his shoulder, and the look on the adept's face took what little breath Damien had regained away; genuine concern, traces of sorrow and guilt – unmistakable compassion, raw and unpractised and honest. A more human expression than the Hunter's face had worn in centuries, one that no one else would even have believed him capable of.

Damien realized, quite suddenly, that his heart was beating so forcefully that it might have been trying to break free of his ribcage.

He heard himself speak, without consciously deciding to do so.

“I wouldn't change it. Even if I knew, if I could go back and do it again, I wouldn't choose any differently.”

Gerald's grip tightened on his shoulder, and for a moment he just held Damien's gaze, silent. Damien could see the thoughts racing behind his quicksilver eyes, and even with the link, he couldn't read them all – but suddenly he knew, with a certainty so firm that it had to be resonating through the link, that someday he would be able to. They'd been operating on the unspoken understanding that Damien would be helping Gerald fulfill his new goal of establishing proper communication with the Mother of the Iezu, and that their work would keep them together for some time yet, but in that moment Damien knew that it was more than that. He hadn't just chosen betrayal for its own sake, in that moment in the Hunter's Keep; he'd chosen Gerald, and that choice was always going to be there, just like the link that hummed between their souls. They were walking the same path now, and wherever it lead, they would be treading it side by side.

Finally, Gerald spoke, his voice soft but ever so steady; the unwavering voice of a man who had stared Death in the face, and made it bow to him.

“I don't know that I can ever find a way to repay you for that... but I swear, on my life, that I will never make you regret it.”

Damien reached up and took the hand that had gripped his shoulder in his own, lacing their fingers together, the Hunter's once-chill hand now almost warm against his own.

“That's good enough for me.”

#whumptober2021 #no.5 #Betrayal #coldfire trilogy #fic #evil is what you make of it #gerald tarrant #damien vryce #the neocount writes

[fallintosanity]

@puffbirdstudio tagged me back (hah!) in the 11 questions game, so here we go again!

1. What is your favorite vacation spot to visit?

A lot of people think I’m weird for this, but I actually really enjoy going to Las Vegas. You can get hella cheap flight+hotel deals, and then just sit by the poolside and lounge, or take in a Cirque du Soleil show, or do a VR experience, or eat random foods you can’t get most other places (loukoumades! giordano’s!). Like, yes, you have to dodge the street hawks snapping cards at you and other such obnoxious XXX stuff, but I’ve been going long enough that I just tune all that out.

2. If you could live anywhere in the world (and money was no object), where would you move, and why?

Zurich, Switzerland. You get Swiss chocolate, friendly people, delicious foods, and a gorgeous location; you’re also very close to other European countries with more delicious food and beautiful scenery. 

3. If you could commission a piece of artwork from your favorite artist, what artist would you choose and what would you have them create?

Either Michael Whelan or Julie Dillon, absolutely. I don’t know what I’d have them create, though. I always feel inadequate asking artists to draw stuff because their visions are so much more extensive than mine. Like, “draw me Gerald Tarrant!” is not really helpful. 

4. What’s your favorite comfort-read – what book do you go back to and read over and over? (and what about it makes it comforting?)

The Coldfire Trilogy, by C. S. Friedman. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve read it, and I can quote parts of it by memory. It’s a beautifully written world, with incredibly complex and fully realized characters, and an amazingly powerful platonic life partners relationship between the two protagonists. 

5. Did you have a favorite stuffed animal as a child? What was it?

Someone gave my mom a round pink teddy bear at her baby shower for me. I still have it. 

6. If you could learn any musical instrument, what would it be, and why?

Either something small and portable, that I could carry with me and pull out whenever I felt like it; or a giant pipe organ, which is wildly impractical but who doesn’t want to go ham on an organ a la the Phantom of the Opera? 

7. What’s your favorite kind of weather?

The deep, rolling, Midwest kinds of thunderstorms, where the sky turns purple and green, the air is heavy and charged with electricity, and you can taste the storm on your tongue. The thunder rolls in the distance and the clouds flicker with lightning, and the wind hisses ominously through the trees.

8. What has been your favorite fandom group to interact with so far? What makes that fandom your favorite?

The Yuletide crew on Discord, which is more a collection of fandoms, or perhaps a fandom for fanfiction, but they’re by far the nicest and most welcoming group of folks I’ve run into in fandom. 

9. What was your first video game?

This computer game on one of my grandfather’s computers, whose name I don’t know and which I’ve been searching for for like fifteen years without success. It was monochrome green on black, and you played a guy trying to save a princess (of course). You had to navigate platforming puzzles and dodge ghosts to get keys to unlock the next room. One of these days I’m going to have enough time to just recreate it in Unity or something. 

10. What’s the one kind of book that you just can’t resist buying when you find them? (For me, it’s concept design books for films and video games…)

I accepted long ago that I can’t resist buying books, period. XD It’s not just one kind - if I see a book that interests me, be it YA, fantasy, sci-fi, art books, whatever, I buy it. 

11. Hiking: yes or no?

Nope, nuh-uh, no way. Nature and I do not get along, and I have bad enough ankles that hiking is just generally not pleasant for me. 

~~~

I’m going to cheat a bit this time and tag anyone who wants to do it! My questions are: 

1. What’s your favorite animal that isn’t a typical household pet? 

2. Chewing gum or mints? Why?

3. What hobby or interest do you have that you would have never expected yourself to pick up? 

4. Which fictional character would you want to be your roommate? 

5. Ask me a riddle! (Put the answer in tags or under a readmore, if you’re so inclined, or don’t put the answer at all and let people reply.) 

6. What is your comfort food?

7. Do you prefer to drive cross-country, or take a plane? 

8. What’s the most interesting place you’ve ever traveled to? 

9. If you could perfectly cosplay any one character (including gender), who would you choose? 

10. Describe your favorite Vine in the least helpful way possible. 

11. Would you rather perform on a massive stage in front of 10000 people, but with spotlights so you can’t see more than the first row; or on an intimate stage with 20 people, all of whom you can make eye contact with?

#ask meme #sanity replies

[fallintosanity]

For the fic asks [I have a million, lol! Please feel free to answer none or one, or all, or any number in between]

Oooh oooh oooh so many questions! Thank you!!!

Favorite trope to write?

I was about to say hurt/comfort, but that’s a genre, whoops. I think the Morality Pet and variants might be it - this is also part of why writing moirallegiance is so appealing to me. Essentially, someone dangerous as hell and generally willing to fuck things up, has someone kinder/gentler whom they listen to and for whose sake they’ll stop destroying things. I don’t often play it to the max or very obviously, but looking back at my fics there’s definitely elements of that in a lot of them.

Ever use a notebook and pen?

My first-ever fanfic was written in a notebook with looseleaf pages jammed inside after the notebook got full. I have no idea where it ended up, and I’m kind of sad about that because while it was a laughably bad fic (I mean I was like 13 and it was my first-ever fanfic, of course it’s laughably bad), I’m really proud of it and also curious to read it again and see how far I’ve come as a writer. 

I did try recently to use a notebook and pen during my commute, because I have no cell reception for like 2/3 of it and figured longhanding a fic would be a good use for all those notebooks I keep getting in swag bags. But it turns out I don’t write in a way that works well for pen and paper - I change up things a lot as I’m writing, which you can’t do easily on paper. So I ended up going back to writing on my phone and just dealing with the bad reception.

Pinterest boards or playlists?

Actually, no. (I’m an internet fogey and am still unclear on what, exactly, a “pinterest board” is, lol) I’ll sometimes listen to certain music when I write, but it’s more for the atmosphere - so if I’m working on the Ignis fic, I’ll listen to the FFXV soundtrack, or if I’m working on a Supernatural fic, I’ll pull up my Amnesia: TDD OST or the Submachine OST. (I listen to a lot of soundtracks...) I do occasionally write a specific scene to a specific song, like I did with the Lucifer reveal and Archangel in Cross Cases, but that’s rare. I do have songs for characters(Rammstein’s Engel for Dean Winchester, Sirenia’s Lithium and a Lover for Sam Winchester, Florence and the Machine’s No Light, No Light for Noctis Lucis Caelum), but those are entirely independent of fics. 

Headcanons I won’t give up despite fandom?

Aro/ace Noctis. Insomnia has a sort of local intranet, but “the internet” as we think of it doesn’t exist on Eos. Not sure if it counts as a headcanon since it’s proven in canon, but MTs are not humans in armor and all those MT!Prompto fics are woefully inaccurate. 

Favorite characters to write? 

Ooh, this is a hard one. MCU Loki, for sure, and Tony Stark. Sephiroth, for all that I’ve written one chapter of one fic with him in it. Gerald Tarrant is fun but difficult as hell. I love writing the chocobros as a unit - in the Ignis fic, the first time I finally had all four of them in the scene it felt like a dislocated joint coming back into place. 

Favorite story?

That’s like asking me to pick a favorite child!!! XD Honestly, though, I think J'entre dans la légende is still my favorite, even all these years and all these other fics later. Things just kinda came together in that fic in a way I’ve never had happen since, and I’m still absurdly proud of the twists and turns and emotional reactions of my readers. 

Scariest thing about writing?

Having people mock me. There’s a lot of tooth-rotting platonic fluff I’d love to write, but I don’t because it’s like... pure cuddlefluff, which is an ace thing that doesn’t tend to go over well in fandoms where usually if two characters are cuddling, there’d better be sex soon. :/ So I don’t write it, just to avoid having to deal with the backlash from that.

Best thing about writing?

Making people feel emotions! I love seeing people’s reactions to my fics, seeing them get mad at the villain or be afraid for the hero or cry at an emotional scene or laugh at something funny. It’s by far the most rewarding part of writing - connecting with others like that, giving them an emotional experience. 

#writing #fanfiction #fandom #ask meme #ask me stuff #undeadandinbed

[fallintosanity]

10 Characters Meme

@puffbirdstudio​ tagged me to list my 10 favorite characters from 10 different things, and then tag 10 people! 

1. Gerald Tarrant from the Coldfire Trilogy. He’s brilliant, a magnificent bastard, ever hungry for knowledge, and unrepentantly evil - literally. He actually has a conversation to that effect with the protagonist, about how if he were to repent, he would have to regret doing the evil things he did in service of learning new things, and he can’t honestly say he does. Yet he manages a beautiful redemption arc anyway, because he’s just awesome like that. 

2. Sam Winchester from Supernatural. I kinda fell out of love with SPN when it became clear the show had no intention of treating Sam better, but I still love Sam as a character. He’s complex, with a massive heart and a desperate desire to do the right thing despite the whole world, God, and the show’s writers claiming it’s impossible for him to be anything other than wrong. 

3. Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. While we don’t get much of his backstory - even Crisis Core doesn’t delve into his upbringing - the tantalizing hints we do get speak to a fascinating and deeply traumatized person under the cackling megalomaniac we see him as in VII proper. 

4. Wei Wuxian from The Untamed. To be honest, he’s 90% of the reason I even started watching The Untamed, because I kept seeing gifsets of him. I’m only about a quarter of the way into the show, but my initial assessment has held true so far: Wei Wuxian has only two modes, kicked puppy and incorrigible trickster. 

5. Tremaine Valiarde from the Fall of Ile-Rien books. She was one of the first female fantasy protagonists I found who wasn’t either some sex goddess ninja warrior Strong Female Character or innocent sweet Purity Maiden. She’s somewhat plain, fiercely intelligent, not afraid to pull her weight in whatever’s going on, and, narratively, capable of failure in a way most female characters at the time weren’t. 

6. Ratchet from the Ratchet & Clank games. Tiny cat man with a massive and increasingly ridiculous selection of weapons who manages to be sassy and sweet at the same time? Who gives not a single fuck about the evil emperor he has to overthrow, but absolutely breaks when his best friend is kidnapped? Heck yeah! 

7. Tony Star from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (It’s really a toss-up in the MCU between Tony and Loki. Today Tony’s winning.) Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist who flies around the world in a super-suit, who will sass you to high heaven but will sacrifice anything, including himself, for those he cares about. 

8. Niko Leandros from the Cal Leandros series. An old soul with unwavering-to-the-point-of-unhealthy loyalty to his younger brother, who's smart and talented enough to be anything he wanted and still chose to remain his brother’s keeper despite the risks and pain involved. 

9. Nakago from Fushigi Yuugi. He’s less deep than a lot of the others on here: he’s evil, unrepentantly so, and takes pleasure in torturing the heroes. Unlike Tarrant, he doesn’t get a redemption arc. He has a tragic backstory that’s expodumped at the last second, but I think one of the more interesting things that manga did - whether or not it intended to - was to show that just because you had a tragic backstory, didn’t mean you had to become evil. Nakago was the example of what happens when evil was the path you chose. 

10. Prompto Argentum from Final Fantasy XV. (I go back and forth a lot about which of the bros is my favorite, and really they’re all my favorite for different reasons, but I can only pick one in this meme, so.) Prompto is unrelentingly cheerful despite his own anxiety and feelings of inadequacy - he’s not the Chosen Prince, he doesn’t have any fancy titles, he’s just there to see his best friend get married. Yet when shit hits the fan, he steps up in a way not many people would be capable of, and never wavers despite everything he goes through. 

There’s my 10! I have a lot more favorites tbh, and could talk at length about all of them, but these are the ones who jumped out at me at this point in time (which probably reflects what media I’m currently consuming as much as any specific trends about me). 

Tagging (no pressure!) @tjwock​, @r3zuri​, @ageofzero, @breezy-cheezy, and anyone else who wants to do it! 

#ask meme #sanity replies