I love how different the two ways of rotating Blorbos in your mind are. Like theyāre either in the gentle caress of the microwave plate or The Blender
I hear his themes are impeccably laid out in each one. I hear he captured the character's voice so well some readers forget some of his lines aren't canon Adaine lines in the show. I also hear he's got a six pack
I hear Tangerine_Blast is nearly 1% of all AO3 fics and is also known by his alias, Quality Adaine Fics Georg.
Also I will also shamelessly self-promote myself. Do you like Adaine in Situations? Do you think that she wasn't kidnapped for long enough in SY, and the Court of Stars could have made some real inroads on forcing Adaine's compliance if they just had some time to put in the hard work? Then you may like Against the Tide <3
Chapter 15! Adaine runs into the cold reality of the legal system and international diplomacy. Itās one thing to run away from home. Itās quite another when your guardians want you back. And much worse when powerful players are vying for control of the Oracle...
Chapters: 15/?
Fandom: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Adaine Abernant, Kir (Dimension 20), Aelwyn Abernant, Jawbone O'Shaughnessey, Sandralynn Faeth, The Bad Kids (Dimension 20)
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, eventually, Unreliable Narrator, Kidnapping, Aftermath, Operant Conditioning, Trust Issues, Dramatic Rescues, Alternate Universe - No Night Yorb, Adaine Abernant Needs a Hug, And Gets One (eventually), Child Abuse, Food Issues, Angwyn Abernantās A+ Parenting, ), If your first kidnapping doesnāt succeed try try again, Manipulation, Recovery, Post-Campaign 01 Season 02: Fantasy High Sophomore Year (Dimension 20), Psychological Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ā PTSD, canon-typical sleep deprivation, Canon-Atypical Sleep Deprivation, Eventual Happy Ending
Summary:
Fig tilted her head as she listened to the Sending spell. āRight off the streets of Leviathan. Sheās not hurt, but sheās out of spells and theyāve stuck her in an orb.ā
āI will bloody murder them,ā Aelwyn fumed. āI will burn their stupid little tower to the ground and melt their spellbooks into slag. Who do they think they areāā
The kids had already leapt into action. Kristen was calling the group thread to marshal up Riz, Gorgug, and Fabian. Fig had rushed upstairs to throw together a pile of gear, returning with a mishmash of bags and weapons and snacks.
The Court of Stars is not willing to let their Elven Oracle simply walk away. Three weeks after returning from the Nightmare Forest, they make another retrieval attempt. Alone and cut off from her party, Adaine is plunged into a battle of wills as she bides her time for escape
On being Kalina, Sylvaire, and the restoration of a homeland
Sometimes you're a goddess's familiar. And then your goddess dies and becomes a nightmare king, and you're left as a disembodied plague for 850 years while your homeland crumbles into dust and brambles and all the original people who remember Sylvaire as it was age and die, exiled from their homeland where they were immortal, leaving their children and grandchildren to carry the faint memories of the beforetimes.
And then sometimes you decide to solve that problem by kidnapping your old partner's kid and throwing him onto the streets to struggle and survive and then swoop in and teach him how to be your hands in the mortal world (shoutout to Midnight Oil and @thecryptidzenith).
In some worlds, you get defeated and the Nightmare King restored to their original form. And in some worlds... you win. Your boy is a prince and your ancient kingdom is restored and you have a body back and your old partner and his wife to torment and your home to explore.
So why aren't you happy?
your mom is back from the dead. mom? why isn't she talking to you?
The Call
Kalina stood in the deepest part of the castle, alone. The room here was in even more disarray than the rest of the building: the glazed floor tiles bubbling up with tree roots and crazed webs of cracks spread across the stone walls. The roots raced along from the walls to the floor to the centre of the room, then up into a twisting embrace sheltering a polished chunk of obsidian that pulsed with a quiet, steady magic.
She had long since lost track of where the hell she was, having followed too many staircases and passages. She had climbed down enough stairs that she should be deep underground, she had thought, but sunlight streamed in hazy rays through grimy windows.
It had taken weeks of exploration to track down the small chamber Kalina barely remembered from when she was a kitten, padding after Cassandra with a soft ribbon curled around her neck. The corridors had twisted and warped every time she left and returned, leaving her to begin her search again and again as she prowled decaying scent memories from her old life until she was ready to nearly scream in frustration.Ā
Finally she had given in and wheedled a packet of provisions off their new cook ā thank the gods for Leska. If she'd had to put up with another night of spaghetti and jarred sauce served to her by a girl who looked on the verge of emotional collapse, Kalina didn't think she could be held responsible for her actions ā and set off to search for three days straight.Ā
Not like she had much else to do. Riz was doing the hard work around here, nearly buried in it. It was good for him. Kept him busy so he didnāt have time to dwell on the past and all its fuck ups, and it wouldn't do for her boy to get soft and reliant in having her around all the time.Ā
Plus entertaining herself catching up with her old friends only took up so much time. Sleeping did too. Gods above, it took up so much time. And eating and cleaning herself and that stupid heat that swept over her body and made it impossible to think straightā
Down below in the depths, the weight of centuries pressed down on her, deep in the crumbled heart of what should have been her home. It wasn't what she had had. This wasn't what she had lost.Ā
The stone hummed. She didn't need to consult Riz about thisā or anything.The kingdom was as ready as it would ever be. Word had already started to trickle out and more and more people were showing up, bright-eyed and hopeful and painfully naive, at every border town.
Time to speed things up. Kalina was done being patient.Ā
Neatly slicing through the pad of her paw with a single sharp claw, she let the blood fall.
She placed one paw on the bramble-encased obsidian and let the feeling flow through her, pouring every drop of homesickness and loss and grief and hiraeth into the stone. She let the longing for what had been and what could be again build until her bones were shaking with it.Ā
The energy surged, blazing brighter and brighter until Kalina had to throw up a paw to shield her eyes. It splintered into a hundred thousand strands, quivering with eagerness for the command.Ā
And the call went out.Ā
~~~
Sandra Lynn staggered, nearly losing her grip on her mug. It was like a hook sunk deep into her insides, slipping past her ribs to anchor into her soul like a fish caught on a line.Ā
She could hear bells tolling, a chime that smelled like pine and sap and wet earth and the sea salt spray of the ocean. A voice rattled her mind, wordless and beyond language, comprehension beamed directly into her skull.Ā
come home. come back. bring your families, return to your roots. Sylvaire will welcome you with open arms.Ā
The pattern on her mug danced, leaching off the porcelain and crawling under her skin. It swirled and writhed and then bloomed into vines, the patterns winding their way from her fingertips up her arms. The movement was hypnotic and Sandra Lynn watched, entranced.Ā
A tangle of memories knotted in her chest. The scent of baked apples, dusted with spices that couldnāt be found in Solace, bedtime stories about the treants who walked the forests of Sylvaire, wistful tales of the Before Times spoken with the bittersweetness of loss. Drawn-out screaming fights between her parents, the Sylvan spoken too fast and agitated for her to even begin to parse, no matter how much she strained.Ā
A pounding drumbeat sang in her ears.
home, home, home. come home. build it higher, build it stronger, build it better, build it. come home and live forever. come home and be free.Ā
Some distant part of her knew that this wasn't real, that it was a vision. But it felt realer than anything she had ever lived. Trees sprung up around her, towering high and dripping with vines and moss. Her kitchen was bursting, roots tearing through the linoleum, petrichor in the air. Motes of light danced in the air, dappled greengold like sunlight filtered through the forest canopy.Ā
It felt like all she had to do was close her eyes and leap.Ā
And then it was over, snapped back into her body like nothing had ever happened, like she wasn't standing in her ordinary kitchen with a gaping hole in her chest. Sandra Lynn touched her cheeks and her fingertips came away wet with tears.Ā
~~~
The light swirled, humming with potential. It danced across the nine winds and tugged on the shirtsleeves of her lost children, peering into their hearts and souls.Ā
~~~
Alone in a dimly-lit apartment building, a balding man set down his cup of lemon yogurt and let his breath catch in his chest for a second.Ā
~~~
A young girl firing arrow after arrow after arrow into a paper target, her face set into a scowl. Her hands stuttered as she reached for the next arrow in her quiver. The burning pulse of ruby red crystal shards embedded in her skin cooled for just a moment, the angry red buried in soft moss.Ā
There must have been a door or a window cracked, further down the hallway. The scent of the sea was rolling in, the smell of the fresh air and salt almost burning her nose. She grabbed another arrow, landing it dead center in the target.Ā
~~~
A woman paused, her hands midway through kneading dough as the sudden ache and loss flared in her heart, teasing her with promise.Ā Ā
No thank you, she told it politely. She anchored herself more deeply into the simplicity of the holly tree. Maybe one day. When Danielle was grown, maybe sheād take Winona by the hand and let the green of her ancestorsā homeland fill that little ache in her chest that had been there ever since she had asked her grandmother where she was fromā¦
~~~
Alone in the moss-splotched room, Kalina waited in silence for a long, long time, but nothing happened. Blood dripped quietly onto the tiled floor, drying brown against the tree roots. The loudest thing was the ringing in her ears.Ā
Closing her eyes, she reached out for herā to the Nightmare King.Ā
Nothing. Like always.Ā
Suddenly furious, Kalina kicked a rock, letting her blood pound hot in her muscles and chase away the cold queasiness. Ears flat, she stalked out of the room as the door slammed behind her satisfyingly. Where was the kid? Wasn't it supposed to be cleaning up the rooms around here?
Chapter 14: Contingencies
Adaine continues to make... interesting choices when it comes to maintaining her independence and safety post-rescue. Is it really paranoia if the Court of Stars is out to get her?
Chapters: 14/?
Fandom: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Adaine Abernant, Kir (Dimension 20), Aelwyn Abernant, Jawbone O'Shaughnessey, Sandralynn Faeth, The Bad Kids (Dimension 20)
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, eventually, Unreliable Narrator, Kidnapping, Aftermath, operant conditioning, Trust Issues, dramatic rescues, Alternate Universe - No Night Yorb, Adaine Abernant Needs a Hug, Child Abuse, Food Issues, Angwyn Abernantās A+ Parenting, And Gets One (eventually), If your first kidnapping doesnāt succeed try try again, Manipulation, Recovery, Post-Campaign 01 Season 02: Fantasy High Sophomore Year (Dimension 20), Psychological Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ā PTSD, canon-typical sleep deprivation, Canon-Atypical Sleep Deprivation, Eventual Happy Ending
Summary:
Fig tilted her head as she listened to the Sending spell. āRight off the streets of Leviathan. Sheās not hurt, but sheās out of spells and theyāve stuck her in an orb.ā
āI will bloody murder them,ā Aelwyn fumed. āI will burn their stupid little tower to the ground and melt their spellbooks into slag. Who do they think they areāā
The kids had already leapt into action. Kristen was calling the group thread to marshal up Riz, Gorgug, and Fabian. Fig had rushed upstairs to throw together a pile of gear, returning with a mishmash of bags and weapons and snacks.
The Court of Stars is not willing to let their Elven Oracle simply walk away. Three weeks after returning from the Nightmare Forest, they make another retrieval attempt. Alone and cut off from her party, Adaine is plunged into a battle of wills as she bides her time for escape
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Chapter 13 of Against the Tide is live and we are back on track for regular updates!
Guys, you have no idea how excited I am to get to part two. Seriously, the stuff I have planned is making me giddy. Enjoy Arc Two: PTSD, Elf Politics, and Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
who's PoMO Adaine's favorite and least favorite person. or honestly any info your comfortable sharing this au rules
Glib answer:
Favourite: Riz
Least-favourite: Riz
Riz is Adaine's owner and she loves him more than anything else in the world. But even Adaine will admit that he can be absolutely infuriating, especially as he ages and calcifies into the Crown Prince of Sylvaire, the last vestiges of the boy he once was buried under a crown.
Outside of Riz, I'm going to say Nil and Pok. Adaine won't admit it, but Nil is by far her favourite of her owners. They're easy to love.
As for Pok? Adaine fucking hates him. Life for Adaine in the immediate aftermath of the Nightmare King's resurrection isā¦ Not Good. Pok is not best pleased to have come back from the dead to find that his old partner has groomed his son into a monster. And the more Pok tries to push back against it, the more Riz digs his heels in and the worse it gets. Adaine would really rather than Pok stop trying to 'help' her and just leave her alone.
In fact, here's a little snippet of just how much Pok is helping Adaine in their new little life in the castle
Why couldnāt Pok just leave it alone? No, that was disloyal, this was Rizās father. She tuned back into the conversation.Ā
"I have killed so many people and so have you! Why is this what you're so upset about?" Rizās voice was starting to rise.
āI didnāt think a son of mine would own a slave and be proud about it,ā Pok said quietly.Ā
Those words seemed to rock Riz back on his heels. For the first time in weeks, Adaine saw uncertainty creep into his expression. He looked at her, really looked at her in what felt like the first time since she had failed him. She met his eyes cautiously but didnāt say a word.Ā
Riz tore his gaze away and turned his back on her. āSheās not a slave, Dad. Sheāsāā
Pokās voice raised abruptly. āI donāt care what you call her, Riz, sheās a person! You canāt just snap your fingers and bark orders at her like a dog.ā
Rizās face hardened to match. āSo you don't care about the real people's lives that we have both taken but you care about me hurting my Thrall's feelings?"
That hurt, but she let it go. What you want doesnāt matter, Adaine repeated to herself. She was a prop in this fight, not the subject.Ā
Kalina smirked at her, like she could hear what Adaine was thinking. She leaned back, content to enjoy the show.Ā
āWeāre finally at a place where we can make a difference in the world, Dad, a real actual fucking difference.ā Riz ran his fingers through his hair.Ā
āA real change of pace in the world, starting with slavery,ā Pok scoffed. āHere.ā He swivelled to Adaine. āYou canāt tell me you like being treated like this. Are you happy here?ā
Three sets of eyes turned wordlessly to Adaine. She felt like a bug pinned to a piece of cardboard, an echo of the puppet strings from the Nightmare Forest wrapped around her limbs.
other then Kalina who's a having the closest to a good time in POMO
Most of their lives ebb and flow over the years ā and 35 years is a long time. They all take their turns being okay and not okay.
Even Adaine and Poxson are pretty content in their early days, before it all falls apart. I might go so far to say as Adaine has the closest thing to a happy ending, when all the dust settles down the line.
But overall, the runner up is Fig. Sure, she's lost some creative freedom with her music, but overall she has a lot of power, a chance to reconnect with her cultural roots to the wood elf homeland, something resembling a genuine friendship with Riz, and the closest thing to a friendship she can have with Adaine, given that Fig owns her and Adaine will do anything she says without hesitation.
It's a practically a happy story. Just don't pay attention to the festering rot at the centre š
other then Kalina who's a having the closest to a good time in POMO
Most of their lives ebb and flow over the years ā and 35 years is a long time. They all take their turns being okay and not okay.
Even Adaine and Poxson are pretty content in their early days, before it all falls apart. I might go so far to say as Adaine has the closest thing to a happy ending, when all the dust settles down the line.
But overall, the runner up is Fig. Sure, she's lost some creative freedom with her music, but overall she has a lot of power, a chance to reconnect with her cultural roots to the wood elf homeland, something resembling a genuine friendship with Riz, and the closest thing to a friendship she can have with Adaine, given that Fig owns her and Adaine will do anything she says without hesitation.
It's a practically a happy story. Just don't pay attention to the festering rot at the centre š
pomo, like how's Kalina doing or honestly anything about that au i'm fascinated with it
PoMo my BELOVED it's just. Like. I cannot say a thing about this story without it sounding absolutely unhinged it is also full of Fucked Up Shit (TM). It is all the worst implications of @20dimensionsoftangerine's Properties series and the most fucked up version of Midnight Oil Riz because instead of his Emotional Support Abernant being a friend, Adaine's functionally his slave, even if he refuses to acknowledge that.
With all of that being said, Kalina actually gets off very easy for a story where 'everyone gets Worse' is a major theme. For context, PoMo is a 'The Nightmare King Wins' AU (it's also a Royals AU but that's not particularly relevant to Kalina) and, in Midnight Oil, 'The Nightmare King Wins' also means Riz gets his parents back! Pok gets raised from the dead and Sklonda is teleported to the middle of nowhere with her dead husband, her dead son, her husband's murderer and the woman who groomed her son, and her son's slave. It's a great and normal time for everyone.
So while Riz's reward is that he gets his parents back, Kalina gets... a body. She still has many of the advantages of being a plague, but after the resurrection, she's a fully fledged person! Does she know how to be a person? No. She was made as a familiar and then transformed into a plague and, now, a person. With free will and feelings and about fifteen existential crises that she does not want to deal with thank you very much.
But, eventually, after Pok bows out of the story for Moral Reasons and Sklonda stays behind, well... It's (partially) Midnight Oil continuity, and while they couldn't fuck there for Thematic reasons, PoMo is for all the Dark Themes of its sources. So: Skalina. Yuri more toxic than a nuclear reactor.
And even in spite of that, Kalina figures her shit out. She learns how to be a person, she learns how to love, and how to regret, and how to grieve. She comes to terms with life and death and self-actualizes in a way very, very few characters in PoMo get to. Which doesn't mean she's not a little shit, of course, just that she is a person outside of her relationship to the Nightmare King--or even Cassandra.
For a story that barely exists, @20dimensionsoftangerine, @domesticice and I have written and plotted a truly unconscionable amount of this AU and it's been an absolute delight. There's a lot more than I've shared here but due to it's dark content and the disjointed nature of the parts we have written, it doesn't look like something we're going to share large swathes of publicly, but we are very happy to yap about it in DMs and on Discord.
Writing this story has consumed my life. Even though legally it is a Sparkling Collection of Scenes rather than a complete story.
Properties of Midnight Oil is a 130k Matryoshka doll of Abusive Relationships, every single character comes out Worse for it by the end of the timeline (except for Kalina) and I wouldn't have it any other way.
The tragedy of PoMo isn't about loss of life or graphic cruelties. It's about the loss of a good life, the happier endings that existed for the characters in another story that they'll never dream of.
<3 to my co-authors
Asks or DMs are welcome! Ask us anything about this little AU
thinking about the time quangle and the other timelines where one of the bad kids isn't a bad kid
the timeline where adaine passes the hudol exam and ends up sequestered in fallinel when she becomes oracle
the timeline where daybreak doesn't give in and give kristen detention and she joins a helioic party at his insistance
the timeline where fig does manage to skip the first day of school and ends up dropping out freshman year because she doesn't have her party to motivate her to stay
the timeline where riz doesn't get caught after stealing the tea from augefort's office and ends up with another party that can't keep him from becoming a neurotic mess over penny being missing
the timeline where fabian sticks with his private tutors instead of attending augefort and never becomes his own man
Adaine most definitely gets wrapped up in the Nightmare King plot at first. With nowhere else to go and under the threat of being put in an orb for disobeying, she goes along until she sees a narrow window to escape. Defiant thing that she is and always will be. For a while, she's on the run through the lush, verdant, ever-summer landscape of the Falinel countryside and wilderness.
Having to manage her panic attacks on her own and getting by on whatever money she stole before she fled. Her oracular visions thankfully keep her one step ahead, but it's terrifying. At the end of her rope, she huddles in the corner of a seaside tavern and startles when a waitress clocks her as fourteen and wonders why she isn't in Kei Lomenuera. Since she was raised in Solace mostly, she hadn't been too familiar with the concept, but when it clicked that no teen is allowed to leave the Land of the Lomenelda until they were of age. The steward, Telemaine, took his job very seriously.
Adaine immediately books it to Kei Lomenuera and as soon as she crosses into the territory, there he is. Willowy and so deeply ancient and Elven. But also far softer and contemplative than her parents ever could be. She breaks down crying when he welcomes her and assures that she can stay for years with nothing expected of her other than her presence. Telemaine holds her and cries as well before sweeping her away.
When the Abernants come for her, Adaine is surprised at how steadfast and unflinching he can be when he refuses to let her leave with them. Also, wow, it's clear how much Telemaine holds nothing but contempt and disdain for them. Yes, he's strange and old and has no concept of time or the outside world, but he's her weird grandpa, And he ends up pulling strings when she ages out to send her to go to school abroad and to live with his dear daughter, Hallariel...
areudirty
germansingergirl
snowghoul
2087
dailybridgerton
turnnoffyourmind
gamechangershow
