#nonbinarywithaknife

[titanias-stolen-shoes]

bad kids multiclass consider: celestial pact warlock riz mc whose dad is his patron (thus joining fig in the, "i multi classed as a warlock with my extraplanar dad as my patron" club)

Oooh, yes, yes, yes!

Riz: Mom, I made a pact with dad and he's my warlock patron!

Sklonda, who is already Exhausted from the shenanigans he gets up to without magic: That's great! But why!

[luckthebard]

consider frumpkin batting at the ioun stone only to actually catch it, and now caleb has a fey cat clinging to a glowing stone floating in circles around his head

Every time someone has a new “Caleb and the Ioun Stone” take, it gets better

[swarmkeepers]

riz & gorgug for #5! ✨

5. heard you tell the same story multiple times but doesn’t point it out to you when you excitedly bring it up to them again + riz & gorgug (prompts linked here)

(starting immediately post-fhsy, and a little more angsty than the other prompt fills so far because it deals with some of the aftermath of spring break. sometimes friendship is late nights and brownie recipes and old stories.)

There are forty minutes left until Elmville when Riz digs his claws into the headrest of the passenger’s seat and clambers over the seat backs to sit shotgun in the Hangvan. 

Everyone else is asleep, or as Riz suspects in Tracker’s case as she stays oddly still as a human pillow for Kristen in the backseat, at least pretending to. But Riz is quest-restless even though they’re heading home, and Gorgug’s awake because he’s driving, and both of their darkvision light up the street ahead for them. 

Gorgug doesn’t look surprised when Riz lands in the seat next to him. Of course. Because his whole party knows that Riz doesn’t sleep, or at least has to be told to, or has to know that there are hit points to be regenerated and a fight to be alert for the next day. 

Streetlights speed by and Gorgug brings the van to a smooth stop at a light, accelerating smoothly up afterwards to not jostle anyone in the backseat. He’s practiced, easy, calm. Meanwhile, Riz’s thoughts are a messy turbulent maelstrom. He can’t sleep, and after everything in the Nightmare Forest if he never saw a bed again it’d be too soon. But, forget sleep, his brain isn’t even letting him relax right now, and Riz is struggling to figure out the questions that are on the tip of his tongue. His fingers itch for a ball of red string, trying to figure out why he wanted to be up here with the passenger seat and the windshield and Gorgug.

“What’s being a barbarian like?” he asks quietly, and Gorgug doesn’t exactly startle but does tip his head to the side curiously. 

“Can I ask why?” 

“I’m—angry,” Riz says, surprising himself, but it feels true enough. “I killed Kalina, but she said she was with me my whole life. And I hate that.” He wants to hiss, to bare his teeth and make the hair on the back of his neck stand up, but it’s not Gorgug he’s mad at. “Sometimes I wonder if I should use that to. Hit things.” 

“Okay,” Gorgug says. 

“And you—you know about that. About being angry, and not being. As comfortable. Or at least you’ve said stuff like that.” Riz picks at his long fingernails, pretending to be nonchalant and not looking up to see if Gorgug’s insight is better than his shitty attempt at deception. 

“Tell me about why you wanted to be a rogue?” Gorgug asks instead, and Riz understands it’s not really a question. He trusts Gorgug. He thinks about it. 

“Um, my mom was always a detective, I guess. And my dad was a spy, but I guess I didn’t know that.” Riz spends a lot of his time thinking. He’s realizing he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about himself. Maybe he needs to make a new conspiracy board. “Uh. I guess the first time I ever saw Penny sneak attack someone was really cool, I definitely knew I wanted to do that.”

Gorgug makes a soft hm? noise that asks Riz to keep talking. “Because I was little and Penny’s little too, and we were at the mall and some asshole catcalled her? And oh, man, you should have seen her, Penny was probably an Aguefort freshman then? But she told me to hide behind this vending machine and—”

--

They’re all the way home, with the Mordred Manor crew taking their stuff out of the trunk while Gorgug and Riz keep talking. Riz finished his story hurriedly as they pulled into the driveway, ending with Penny teaching Riz to make brownie bars at Strongtower after the sneak attack incident and being so cool and badass and nonchalant about making that guy’s nose gush with blood. He’s talking fast and gesturing big like he doesn’t usually, caught up in a story that he can tell well and that he hadn’t thought of in a while. Him and his rogue friends are tiny badasses. 

“That was a good story,” Gorgug says. “Rogues seem pretty cool.” 

Riz grins, all his fangs out and happy in the driveway of the manor. “Thanks, dude.” 

“I think you can be angry and not a barbarian,” Gorgug says, gently. 

And “Okay,” Riz says, gentled. 

--

It’s the tail end of one of Fabian’s all-out summertime ragers. The Bad Kids are in a big cuddle pile that barely fits on the picnic blanket on the lawn of Seacaster Manor, and Gorgug’s at the very bottom. Riz is tipsy on half a beer (goblin metabolisms are not good and it’s not his fault) and he thinks Gorgug looks a little lonely, lying on his stomach and tapping at his crystal with all the wind knocked out of him from everyone lying on top. He scrambles down the pile of friend-bodies and sits on the grass by Gorgug. Riz racks his brain for something good to say. He doesn’t want Gorgug to be lonely, not when Riz is going to be up all night and Riz is usually the lonely one.

“Di’ I ever tell you about the first time I saw someone get sneak attacked,” Riz says, words big and bubbly and coming out too fast. He doesn’t care, he’s buzzed and happy and Gorgug looks like he could use a good story.

“I don’t remember, tell me,” Gorgug says, putting his crystal down face down so its glow goes dark. 

“Oh man, you’re going to love this story. It was, like, me ‘n Penny at the mall, and there was this real asshole of a dude, and I didn’t know Penny went to Aguefort but she took out this knife? And it was like she flew at him—”

At some point in the story Gorgug falls asleep, and Riz is more pleased than annoyed. He looks cozy. And not lonely. 

--

“What’s this, The Ball?” Fabian asks when Riz takes a fantasy tupperware of brownie bars out of his briefcase and puts it on the the table in the cafeteria.

“They’re sneak attack brownies,” Riz says. 

It evidently does not clear up any of Fabian’s questions. 

“Penny—Penny Luckstone?—they’re her recipe, she taught me how to make them the same day I ever saw her sneak attack a dude,” he explains. “She like, jumped out from behind one of those fake potted plants at the mall and slashed him so bad with a dagger and then she didn’t even get sneak attack on it but she also socked him in the nose and it was like the coolest thing I’d ever seen. And then she just went home and washed the blood off her fist and then we made brownies.” He puts a hand on his chest. “And I’ll never forget it.” 

“Okay, The Ball,” Fabian says, but he takes a brownie. 

Next to him, Gorgug’s already halfway into his second, nodding happily and energetically so his hair flops in front of his face. “I love that story!” he says. He’s all leaned in, listening to Riz’s story.

Riz lights up—he’s no Fabian, with expensive magical gifts, and he’s no Gorgug either with little artificed trinkets and sweeping big gestures. But he’d remembered the story and remembered the brownies and wanted to make some, and he’s just glad his friends like them as much as he does.

“Because the secret ingredient is sour cream,” Riz confides. Fabian fake-sputters, sending tiny brownie crumbs everywhere, and Gorgug swats at him. 

“You were eating it just fine before!” Gorgug says indignantly. “Respect the brownie, dude!”

“You’re right, Gorgug,” Fabian sighs. He takes another bite. “They’re not bad, The Ball.” 

--

Riz only dimly registers footsteps pounding up the stairs and also a greataxe brute forcing its way through the booby traps at his office door. His crystal is abandoned on the floor next to him, the last text he sent to Gorgug still on the screen. It’d been “Having a bad time. At my office. Can you come help? Thanks, Riz” and it’d been typed out with shaky fingers as his breaths started coming too fast, the way it does whenever he lets himself be alone in his own office for too long. Riz hates it but he needs help. He forgot the period on that text and it’s been staring at him for the past few minutes. 

His brain is whirring too fast—Shadow Cat, Kalina’s eyes in his own eyes, Baron in his mirror in his own office, darkness and danger and Fabian in churning waters, he died in that forest and so did Adaine and so could any of his friends, bullets dodged and bullets fired and it’s too much, too much. His breaths are coming too fast but also not fast enough. Riz feels suffocated. 

He’s wedged himself into his own briefcase of holding, the sides squeezing his arms in a way that’s grounding and comforting when nobody else is here in his office to help.

But Gorgug is. Gorgug is here to help now. He skids to a stop in front of Riz and sits on the floor and Riz only dimly registers it out of the corner of his eye where his head is curled into his chest trying to make himself small, make himself safe. 

“Riz, can I touch you?”

Riz does his best to nod and Gorgug just wraps long lanky boy arms around his torso, gently lifting Riz out of his own briefcase and settling him in Gorgug’s lap as they sit on the floor of the office. He doesn’t let go, just squeezes tighter. It’s so much help, and also— “Can you. Talk? Anything— Anything’s fine,” Riz says. 

“Um. Sure, Riz. I guess I can. I could list a recipe? My parents have been trying to teach me to cook more, for when we go to college in a couple of years. I’m sorry, I’m not like Adaine, I don’t have lots of interesting things memorized,” Gorgug says, apologetic. Riz wants to be able to tell him not to be, but he’s a little preoccupied trying to make his brain tell his lungs to breathe.

“Uh, so these are called sneak attack brownies?” Gorgug says hesitantly. Riz realizes what he’s doing and tries to laugh, the giggle interrupting the choked breath he was trying to take.

“They’re called sneak attack brownies because they’re my badass friend’s recipe. And he learned it from his badass friend. Um, I don’t know this super well, actually, but I really should by now and I’m just going to keep talking and if it’s wrong then I guess it’s wrong? I know that you need chocolate for a brownie. And eggs and sugar. You told me the secret ingredient is sour cream.”

Riz nods, thudding his head into Gorgug’s chest a little. He takes a deep breath. Gorgug’s hoodie is soft. And he’s a good listener.

“Right, uh. After sour cream. Flour. And butter?”

“The butter’s— the butter’s unsalted,” Riz manages to eke out, voice small and quiet and mostly talking to his own knees. 

“Got you. Unsalted butter,” Gorgug agrees, easy as anything. 

“Penny said— Penny said that dude she punched’s tears were salty enough, that’s how I remember it,” Riz tells him.

“Tell me more?” Gorgug asks, and he waits patiently as Riz lets his brain just focus on a recipe, an easy recipe and a badass story. It helps, to be given something focused to do. And Riz is just so, so glad he has friends who will give that to him, will listen over and over again when Riz needs to talk. 

And Gorgug waits. And Riz tells him. 

from the prompt list linked here! i’m closing prompts from this particular list simply because i have so many excellent ones to get through

[fia-bonkginya]

happy valentine's day laura!! eldermourne polycule HC is that henry introduces the concept of cuddle piles into the group and fia and zirk become instant fans

happy valentine’s day to you too!!! you are absolutely getting a drabble because this concept is so so good,, this takes place during an ambiguous future journey and it’s just fluff babey!!

(chanting quietly.. one big bed.. one big bed...)

~~

“Gods, it’s cold,” Henry muttered, trudging up the steps, Fia and Zirk following behind. “That’s what we get for staying in this shitty inn in the dead of winter, I guess.”

Behind him, Fia laughed. “Considering our only other option was to sleep in a tent on the side of the road, this is probably better.”

Henry just grumbled in response, not wanting to admit out loud that Fia was right. Reaching the top of the stairs, he pushed open the door to their room, almost immediately collapsing onto the bed in the middle of the room, not bothering to pull his coat off. 

Fia and Zirk both grinned at him, Fia taking a moment to clean her sword, Zirk pulling some bottles out of his bag and starting to set up at the small table in their room.

“Hey, no,” Henry said, pushing himself up on one elbow. “It’s cold as hell, you two need to get over here.”

Zirk blinked at him. “What?”

Fia looked equally confused, looking between the boys.

Henry closed his eyes, conjuring an image in his head of cold nights and happier times, his son curling up between him and his wife, cuddling for warmth and comfort. “Cuddle piles,” he said, his eyes opening back up. “Come on, it’s not getting any warmer in here.”

Almost immediately, both Fia and Zirk brightened. Without even a moment of hesitation, Fia took two massive strides across the room, practically launching herself into the bed, curling around Henry’s side. 

Henry grinned, holding out a hand towards Zirk. Zirk smiled back, a little more hesitant, and stepped forward, grasping Henry’s hand. 

His grin turning a little bit sharper, Henry pulled, making Zirk yelp and yanking him down onto the bed. “Cuddle piles,” Henry said again, pulling both Fia and Zirk close, wrapping himself around both of them.

“Oh,” Zirk said, his voice almost a whisper, instantly relaxing in Henry’s grip.

“We’re going to keep doing this forever, now,” Fia said, her voice muffled as she buried her face in Henry’s chest. “You can’t escape it.”

It wasn’t the same, Henry knew. His old family was gone, but he had a new one now, and the rest of the night, he didn’t feel cold at all.

(send me a ship asks for valentine’s day!)

[staggeringsmite]

i hate that murph is so good at That Voice like sir you can't make me love your mall-less mall goth before the season even starts-

murph said "yeah so my last pc was a rat guy who ‘died’ from everything bagel anyway here’s my goth sword pc and you Will die for him”

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

just wanted to pop in and say i love and appreciate your pro jedi content ✌💖✨

💖💖💖

Have some beautiful Jedi people and beautiful Jedi Temples, as a treat.

[bloodkeep-escape]

"i don’t think that relationship would take off right away for exactly this reason, but that’s a whole other post" 👀 i fully agree and am Listening

fjkdfjkd WELL . i must of course self-promote the fic i wrote, which deals with this concept a bit...

but going more into it, i just think. that leiland got really messed up because of his relationship with zaul’nazh! he’s going to have a hard time figuring out what love is supposed to be like, and obviously his friends are helping him to realize things and feel better about himself (we even see that over the course of the campaign), but it’s going to take time

leiland was in a relationship with a man who used leiland and his feelings for personal gain, who didn’t respect leiland as a person, who tried to change him and mold him into someone different, someone who “deserved” his love, and then he tossed him aside when he found something better. and that’s rough, and leiland is gonna need some time to recover from it!!

and i think that markus figures that out pretty quickly- maybe leiland tells him, but i think it’s more likely that maggie sits him down for a talk and is like, “hey. i know you’re into leiland. but this is what happened and he’s going to need some time.” and i absolutely think markus respects that. and they probably start spending more time together, but leiland needs a chance to learn what family means and what friendship means before he can work out what love means

and i like to believe that markus gives him that chance and helps him to figure it out and so do their other friends, and leiland heals and figures out who he is, and eventually they have a wonderful relationship .. just not right away :’)

[adaine]

"step 3: light the stage on fire" for a fake fic title 👀

in which one misty moore, once a legendary actress, becomes a theater teacher at a local high school and is tasked with saving a dying program. with the assistance of the rat-like guy in charge of sound and lighting and a veteran english teacher, Mr. Brown, who wrote the script, she must put on a show that captures the eye of not only students that may be interested in the program, but also that of the pta and alumni association, whose donations are vital to saving theater at the the school. can she an her starring students: heartbroken senior sofia bicicleta, nervous freshman peter conlan, and ricky matsui and esther sinclair, two sophomores who are sickeningly and obliviously in love, pull this thing together and put on a show that absolutely nobody will be able to forget? the answer is not without breaking a few rules in the student handbook.

send me a made up fic title and i’ll tell you what i would write to go with it