Since people really seemed to like the saga of Olaf Olafson, I’m gonna tell you guys about one of my own characters, Brenan the Punch Wizard.
My friend was running a Dragonlance game back in college, and I jumped at the chance to not have to DM for once. I ended up rolling up a Neutral Good farmboy mage whose proclivity for magic was discovered relatively late (like… late teens) and so compared to the other wizards he was a total hayseed who knew fuckall about the theory of magic. His familiar was an his old farm dog ffs. An Australian Shepherd with a red neckercheif.
Well, he passed his test and became a White Robes mage (as you do when you’re not a shithead) and started going on more frequent adventures. Brenan quickly established himself as a pretty excellent hard-counter to enemy meatheads, with his suite of nonlethal spells targeting their usually weaker Will save. He was a good kid. He really didn’t want to kill anybody. We took a lot of prisoners with Brenan around.
Eventually, though, we started running into the Plot, which meant- among other things -running into a lot of Evil Wizards. Their Will saves were usually pretty damn high and so there was little chance of catching them with Sleep or Charm Person or the like. But almost all the spells that targeted their Fort save were kinda brutal, and the Reflex saves weren’t much better. He could counter-spell them sometimes, but not always, and it didn’t solve the problem, really. Just put the onus of murder on our Solamnic knight, running up and stabbing the cackling Black Robes with a huge fuckoff sword. That wasn’t very satisfactory, either. What’s a near-pacifist to do? Fireball? Finger of Death? It was a dilemma.
Until Brenan picked up a null-magic zone spell. I can’t remember the name of it. But you cast it, and for a fairly sizable area, nobody could cast any spells. The enemy mages and clerics would start to fret, but they felt secure at least that Brenan was equally screwed.
Only, he was a farm boy. With a Str of 16 and a feat in Unarmed combat.
By the time that campaign ended, Brenan had personally captured over a dozen renegade Black Robes and dragged them back to the Tower for judgment. They hated and feared him- most of all because he didn’t even have the decency to kill them. No- every last one of the world-bending megalomaniacal sorcerers he defeated had to live with the knowledge that they’d been beaten by a farm boy prodigy and his mean right hook.
asukaskerian replied to your post “you know, a lot of stargate’s monster-of-the-week plots completely...”
... *perks up* you have my attention. *_*
...ok. ok, this is more than anyone ever wanted of this but I’ve been thinking about it for a while and you’re just going to get all of it and it’s a mess
let’s do this.
every episode that involves an alien doppelganger is cut short when the wolves declare attack mode
same for every episode that involves someone being sneakily infested by a goa’uld. like. the wolves could smell it and they’re psychic. although it’s less “attack mode” and more “every wolf in the mountain surrounds the person snarling until the humans figure out what’s happening, attack as necessary”
OH GOD HATHOR
it’s early in the stargate program, no one thought to check the random homeless lady for a goa’uld or to at least make her pass a wolfy sniff test, they have learned
honestly this starts pretty much the same way, maybe hathor has a slightly harder time controlling the wolfsibs, but no one was prepared for someone quite as subtle and targeted as hathor
except when all the men are under her control all that’s left is the women (who are terrifying) and the ten furious wolves ( who are fucking terrifying)
ok the episode ends with hathor getting away through the stargate and she shows up again in s2 but I’m pretty sure that in this universe the wolves just straight murder her. like, all the humans are distracted with saving the other humans from the pit of gua’uld larva but the wolves have a mission, ok? and that mission is the mission wolves have had since the beginning of time. kill the monster
(so the military likes to pretend that their wolves totally don’t form packs and they 100% obey human chain of command and everyone lets that fiction stand as long as it doesn’t cause problems)
(danny’s sister, angie, is the only bitch wolf in the stargate program. she’s tiny. she’s not part of the military chain of command. everyone knows this and the wolves do not care)
(it wouldn’t have been a problem if hathor hadn’t taken every wolfsib out of commission, but she did, and the wolves were left to their own devices to solve things. it’s not immediately noticeable but it is A Problem)
(mine angie says. YOU STOP THAT danny says)
I feel like they end up with a really different relationship with cimmeria? like, wolves have such a weird place in norse mythology and cimmeria is pretty thor-centric. they get treated really differently when they first arrive there in any case.
any time there’s a alternate reality plot the other reality doesn’t have bondwolves. GOOD LUCK EXPLAINING THAT ONE DANNY.
“ok all those words you just said are great where’s my sister.” “your? sister???” “.....the wolf?” “what”
there’s a running gag where every time they meet a more advanced alien species they think angie is running the show and the humans are just there as backup (and portable opposable thumbs). some of them are easier to convince otherwise. some of them will just not be convinced
the nox get there eventually but the tollans keep trying to negotiate with angie. sometimes it’s kinda doubtful who the asgard are helping
THE WHOLE T’AKAYA AND XE’LS THING IS AN EVEN BIGGER CLUSTERFUCK
so the planets inhabitants trust them way easier because they’re traveling with a wolf, CLEARLY a sign that they’re good people
but it’s not like t’akaya and xe’ls trust anything, so the same body switch happens with SG-11
CUE ATTACK WOLF MODE
seriously the entire thing just devolves into an ugly slugfest where SG-1 is super upset that their men were replaced with doppleganger spies and the planets inhabitants are upset that SG-1 just attacked their spirits.
NOTHING GOOD HAPPENS
any time there’s an “alien traps SG-1 in a virtual reality” plot it immediately gets ruined by danny
“all that sounds great where’s my sister” “your? sister??” “....the. wolf.” “a. ha. a ha ha. yes. the wolf. *desperately makes an illusion of angie* there she is!” “nnnope. not my sister. wait, wait, guys, she’s talking to me. shit! we’re in a computer simulation again”
oh jeeze the entire two part s2-finale/s3-opener completely falls apart because of this.
“it’s 80 years in the future, you’ve just come out of cryo-freeze, and everyone you know is dead” “that’s awful where’s my sister?” “....we just told you? every one you knew is dead??” “but she’s still alive? I can feel her???? look, guys, she’s looking for me, so whatever is going on here seems great but could we raincheck until I find my sister again?”
WAIT SHIT THAT WAS THE HATHOR RETURN EPISODE!
oh man there’s that one episode where a princess uses a sarcophagus to mess with danny’s head? GUESS HOW LONG THAT LASTS
there’s an episode where invisible aliens infiltrate cheyenne mountain and boy oh boy the wolves Do Not Like That
and then the episode where a dying alien body-swaps with danny. all the suspense goes *poof* when angie and all the other wolfsibs are there to vouch that not-danny is really, really not danny
wait, how many episodes like this are there? shiit, there’s a couple of them, I might as well start a new count :/
ok, all episodes where an alien device directly messes with someone’s head just go off the rails
tbh the asgard help out way more in this universe. they like humans and all but the wolves are theirs in a way that nothing else really is.
AND THIS IS JUST THE FIRST 3 SEASONS
I’m going to straight up declare that bondwolves were made by the asgard. there was some asgard/goa’uld conflict on earth way back when and the asgard designed the wolves as a way for humanity to self monitor for goa’uld and protect themselves (without the asgard actually having to, like, explain things to humans or anything. explaining things would just be silly) the wolves were left behind after the great alien-god exodus (the svartalfar are def a weird offshoot of the asgard though) trolls and wevryns are probably also leftovers of this??
there are a few ways wolves could work with stargate in general but I have a really hard time imagining a universe where there are that many wolves in the air force/space program. I’m also pretty sure that most wolves would hate the stargate. planes? they can handle that, they (as a species) have gotten used to that. they’re good. spaceships? weird, super weird. maybe five wolves in total have made it to space and the zero gravity thing was super cool but man getting out there was hell. (and it’s so far away from other wolves, the pack sense is barely there. no, wolves won’t stay in space for long until you can get an entire pack out there) the stargate though? a giant screaming hole in reality that drops you so far away from any other wolves you might as well be the last one in the universe? hate. straight up hate.
which is a long way of saying that, even after expanding to include teams from the army and marines, very few wolfsibs make it into the stargate program, and even fewer stay. (the ones who stay are... very, very odd. they make their own little clique, SG-k9 or something) which means that SG-1 probably doesn’t have a military wolfsib. what they have is a runt wolf bonded to an archaeologist who’s used to being alone
(angie was going to be a military washout anyway. she’s a good 15lb under the weight requirements and they were just going to put her out to the reserve, so when she somehow managed to break out of her puppy compound and climb on top of some poor kid just clawing his way into gradschool and declare mine, people were more relieved than anything. they threw breeding opt-out forms and suppressant requisition forms at the guy and called it a day) (I also personally find this the funniest thing. just imagine danny going through a phd program with a bondwolf? “I swear she can behave please just let me in the library” poor danny) ((also also danny gets into the weirdest situations that would be most impacted by having a bondwolf))
(kowalski’s brother maybe hunted down a new shiny stargate recruit. kowalski’s brother maybe crawled on top of jack, his mine quieter but no less determined. kowalski’s brother 100% stays in cheyenne mountain come hell or high water)
because bondwolves are an asgard thing the goa’uld didn’t bother to take them when they populated other planets with humans. this causes.... different problems than they anticipated but less than expected. like, there are def planets where it’s just normal to travel with animals. a lot of what they find is pretty hunter-gatherer still so having a wolf along just makes sense they rarely have to explain angie at all. but sometimes they find a planet where wolves/wolf-equivalents are an omen of ill fortune or a sign of evil or traveling with one means they’re witches and, well, those are always bad trips
ALSO there are no secrets between wolves, and wolves have no concept of ‘classified’. as soon as the wolves actually understand what’s happening with the stargate every wolf in the entire US armed forces know about it. and, like, none of their sibs think much of it, because wolves have a tendency to chalk everything science related up to “magic” and surely whatever is happening at cheyenne isn’t actually aliens and it’s not like the wolves have a reason to bring it up anyway, but hammond is very frustrated at how many newly recruited wolfsibs shout “I knew it! someone owes me $20!!!”
tbh danny ends up being super good friends with all the cheyenne wolfsibs. like, he’s technically outside of their chain of command and technically angie shouldn’t even be considered in the wolves’ pack structure (and if she was she should be a barely tolerated-weakest-member) but nothing is normal at stargate command. all of the stargate wolfsibs are spacey, lonely weirdos and all of the wolves have a terrible temperment for military service and danny isn’t quite the dad friend but he hideously overidentifies with each and every one of them. and, like, no one talks about it but they low key would 100% start a mutiny if danny or angie said so
jack finds the whole psychic wolf bond thing weird. so weird. he’s really fine with being the only one in his head ok, thanks. (in the worlds where kowalski’s brother bonds with him, he grumbles heavily but never actually protests. bonding his friend’s widowed-wolf is a totally different thing, ok?)
sam is pretty neutral on it. like, she wouldn’t be opposed to bonding if a puppy took a shine to her but she’s not going to actively volunteer to hang out with puppies the way some people do. she always wanted space more than anything else and every one knows how wolves feel about space. (now that space is so easily in her reach, now that she’s touched it, she’s maybe a little wistful for what she never let herself want. she thinks she’s too old to bond a puppy anyway)
teal’c just kinda... accepts it as another Weird Tau’ri Thing. the entire thing kinda gives him the willies (or whatever the stoic jaffa version of the willies are) but it all seems on the up and up so? ok then?? you do you????
*Posting fic to a huge fandom*: 10 million notes, not a single comment in the tags. The denizens of this tag are well-fed. Yours is the 400th fic today. They read, they feast, they reblog, they feel nothing, they move on.
*Posting fic to a tiny fandom*: 30 notes, the comments gush. The tag has not seen fic since 1989. Cobwebs tear in the door frame as you enter. The people have been starving. They read like parched men finding water, gulping, consuming, indulging. There are only 30 of them here. You've become the Messiah.
I want one of those Wildest Dreams gifsets for Chat Noir/Adrien except when it gets to the ‘he does it so well’ part there’s just a bunch of gifs of him fucking up and text saying “he does it so... oh... um... wow... he tries”
I’m cleaning my room and I found one of my drawing folders from high school. somehow I fucking forgot that I had wanted to do a webcomic retelling of weird and silly myths, set in a boarding school where each dorm housed a different pantheon? and I only drew 2-and-some-change pages, but looking back at them now, they’re not bad. like. they’re not great, they were drawn during the tail end of my really manga phase, but looking at them kinda makes me warm and fuzzy instead of filled with shame for my younger self, which is super nice! anyway, @mellifiedfan likes convincing me to air my shame so shitty cell photos under the cut
also also also there’s some great stuff in norse mythology about how Thor is the strongest badass around but also small and pretty, and that mjolnir is such a giant, fuck-off hammer that even Thor needed special magical gloves and belt in order to wield it properly and I fucking love that, ok? I love it. but I couldn’t remember any of the names for them so weird blank spots in the speech bubbles abound
@ceescedasticity I’ve been thinking about this for days and other than thinking about Allen and Neah as a Cherub all I can think about is if they’re both godtiered and Neah takes over, the outfit switches, right? and when the outfit switches the codpiece just- sproings into existence, like flicking one of those spiral doorstops. just. *sproing*
(they’d also spend all their time messing with each other’s time loops. it would be the worst paradoxspace clusterfuck ever I love it)
Ooohh, you’re right, definitely Page of Life for Miranda. And Maid of Space could work for Lenalee.
I hadn’t thought about Sylph for Link but it fits m well… Don’t think I’d say Blood though. (Have you seen the meta speculating that Blood isn’t about relationships, but the sort of cumulative history and alternate timelines supporting the main timeline?) …actually maybe Blood.
Knight of Hope for Kanda? He would be so pissed. (I say, as if there’s any way he wouldn’t be.) Seer of Doom could work for Lavi though I still really like Void.
I can see how Rage makes sense for Krory, and I think he gets Bard.
I actually don’t remember if any restrictions were established on the appearance of Muse and Lord – the other counterpart classes don’t always appear together, so I don’t think they would need to be together, but I’m not 100% sure they ever show up in more populated sessions…
HELLO YES I’m Nai I’m the person who used to sit on the dgmstuck url before I finlaly gave up on that project, but hello!!!!
I always Knight-of-Life’d Kanda, since Knight seemed to be “weaponizes x” to me when I was big in homestuck and???? yes. that’s literally how his weapon works.
And HAVE YOU CONSIDERED Page of Doom Alma Karma. Unlimited potential to fuck things up. (that is probably not what the doom aspect actually is) (but it’s been a TERRIBLY long time since I classpected)
I prefer to stick Bard on Allen (rather than Prince) because A) MUSICIAN JOKES [jazzhands] B) it’s technically his INNOCENCE that’s supposed to birth a destroyer of time, not him.
Void’s a good aspect for Alma tho I can agree with that, because knowledge of him is so… Void-y. Only the people directly involved know he exists at all, which is something I’ve played with in other -stucks. And he doesn’t really know much himself, either. (my poor child)
I seem to recall that I tagged the Heart aspect onto Lavi, too, for irony purposes. And horribly clashing with red hair purposes.
The thing with bard players is that they’re supposed to be capricious. Who even knows if they’re going to help or not when they show up! which… really works for Allen and the 14th, shit. I just can’t think of anything else Alma would be, haha. Page would be fun, I guess, especially if somebody triggers something similar to Jake’s hope bubble for him.
I thought that Mugen does something with illusions? and the healing life suck was something that the 2nd exorcist project stuck into Kanda and Alma so they’d survive, not related to the innocence at all
…Lavi would be a terrible Heart player, he tries so hard to be logic and uncaring and is so bad at it, I love it
Page suits Alma, IMO, because he IS a lot of unrealized potential [cue the entire fandom for his character gesturing at “but what IF” Exorcist AUs] [but also the way the Order extracted literally every potentially useful thing from him and it was a LOT honestly]. He also has that kind of… Cheerful lack of self confidence that Pages commonly seem to have (see Jake and Tavros).
Mugen’s abilities are called “#th illusion” but only the first tier really is any kind of illusion. The higher ranked abilities drain the user’s life force (it’s third and up, I believe?) - which yes, does mean that Kanda’s getting a double dose of the drain there. That’s why there was a mass “Don’t DO that” over him utilizing the fifth level against Alma - the higher tiers drain faster and Kanda doesn’t have a lot of life force left to start with.
Ok, ok, I see where you're at with Alma (and if you're willing to rec some of those AUs, all the better ;D )
...goddamn it Kanda. Guess I need to do a reread for the technicalities and not just the story refresher. I still like Hope for him though, for personality and character arc reasons.
dailybridgerton
theartofmadeline
gracieabrams
yousharknotpass
tangentwithtanner
areudirty
