#jestregard

Beaujester Week Day 3: Modern AU / Love Confession

“What about shipping calculus? Isn’t the shipping calculus going to be interesting?” people have been asking, and boy oh boy have we wanted to deliver this quickly, but three things happened: 1) Three quarters of our staff took sick days after the episode aired because the anxiety made them physically ill, 2) the Angst Points statistical program we use was overloaded and we had to recalibrate it to handle larger loads of data, and 3) one asshole decided to write fanfiction on company time instead of doing their job.

+10 to Caleb/Cat-Shaped Creatures or in this case, cat-shaped spells. Caleb may have a big heart, but if you want a place in it you’ll have a tight squeeze beside his massive love for massive pointy-eared, bewhiskered, four-legged folk. Bonus points because Caleb’s cat-love apparently gives him game with the rest of the party, between Fjord’s MeeeOOOW and thinking Caleb’s spells are super sexy, Jester going right for Caleb’s goopy center with the “big heart” comment, and Caduceus Clay Grinning Like A Fool.

+10 to Caleb/Fjord/Jester between Jester’s “Caleb is going to kill me, and Fjord is going to finish me off!” belief of the two Charmed and Charming Men (alas, Jester, you could have been charmed with them!), and then Fjord and Jester both standing over Caleb’s unconscious body, desperately trying to keep him and each other alive. For the record, Caleb tried his best to help them too. Mostly he managed it by accidentally tanking and absorbing damage with his multiple KOs.

-2 to Jester/Succubus While Jester was open to the flirting and pursuing the relationship, the succubus decided Jester wasn’t her type after all.

-30 to Beau/Incubus Neither Beau nor the Incubus were each other’s types. What the nine hells was he thinking? If he’d only checked in with Caleb before trying, Caleb would have let him know he should spare himself the effort.

+15 to Fjord/Detective Work Fjord is definitely out to oust the Detective Agency as Wildemount’s #1 Detective, between discovering the beginnings of anchor glyphs being sketched in the tunnels (identified and destroyed by partner Caleb Widogast, rubbings taken by Beauregard), and then discovering the Big Bad Abyssal Anchor that had been causing all of their trouble in the first place (alongside partner Caduceus Clay, identified by partner Caleb Widogast). The Agency needs to work on defending their reputation! Perhaps those documents Nott located on the Succubus will help them gain some ground next week.

-10 to Caleb/Uk’otoa and Fjord/Uk’otoa as for the second time Caleb puts up his middle finger at Uk’otoa’s Super Special Powers and Anyone Fucking with the Wall of Fire. Fjord was sadly robbed of the chance to admire Caleb’s guns as he was knocked himself against some stalagmites by the bidet he summoned. He and Caleb are equally stinky now though, which seems….symbolic.

+15 to Caleb/Fjord as besides being the most compatible Detective Duo outside of the Agency, how Fjord shows Absolute Implicit Trust in everything Caleb says and does. Destroying the glyphs perhaps not a good idea? Absolutely shouldn’t destroy them. We should destroy the glyphs? What a wonderful idea! The only person to support Caleb’s Abyssal Riftmaker in the Bag of Holding idea before Caleb himself thinks better of it. Stays put for as long as Caleb asks in the tunnel, literally saying they’re staying put because Caleb said so, and coming forward again because he said so as well. Sure, he and everyone else got blasted to smithereens for it, but though Caleb/Leadership got -10 points, Fjord was probably mostly just impressed by Caleb’s ability to totally murder him and shoot down all his magical abilities. Concerned and hurting, yeah, bruised in body and ego, but a little turned on, all the same.

-5 Fjord/Self Confidence as Fjord attempts self affirmation exercises to build himself back up after Caleb Fucked Him Up, screaming “I’m not useless!” as he just barely manages to kill a quasit.

-50 Nott/Being a Team Player between healing the mildly-injured wizard in preference to all her other friends he brought to the precipice of death, and forgetting for the second time (third time?) that making things explode while her friends are around causes collateral damage. She’s picking up some bad habits from Caleb in the explosion department.

-3 Caleb/Humor No spell will ever make him laugh. Points mitigated because the joke was a bit questionable.

+8 to Beau/Tough Love. Tries the Diplomatic Friend approach with Caleb, nearly gets set on fire. But beating some sense into Yasha proves effective! Experiments show that fists are the only way to solve problems, guys. And she can do it from a distance now, hey!

+20 to Beau/Yasha. Did not know it was possible to gain so many points while the player for the character is absent! Nonetheless, Yasha continues to carry on the M9 shipping tradition from Fjord, not of having a crit of love, but having crit fails of love. It’s almost as if a part of Yasha was resisting hitting Beau in particular, but once Beau cottoned onto the fact that Yasha wasn’t on her ass in exactly the way she was hoping, Beau too carried on the M9 shipping tradition from Molly of beating your partner back into awareness. Yasha had to scamper off to murder a demon before she could get a kiss, though. Damn.

+4 to Jester/Beau as Jester begs for the enemy to come after her instead, and not Beau. Does the plea make logical, strategic sense, what with Beau’s higher AC, higher HP, and reaction punches? No, but love is rarely logical and strategic. Love is just love. Beau and Jester also bond once more over their love of chopping up dead demon bodies. Compatibility! Keeping the huge demon heart is probably symbolic of something.

+2 to Fjord/Jester as Fjord makes sure to choose Jester’s side of the flanking formation, just to make sure she doesn’t end up alone again.

+2 to Caleb/Jester Another rollercoaster week for a Jester ship! We should be glad we aren’t in negatives with these two! Peak Widojest with the “big heart” comment, with Jester telling Caleb to catch up, with Jester as always standing over Caleb’s unconscious body (whether faking or otherwise!), spending all her time healing him even before Fjord came to help, and dragging him away from the fray. #ItPaysToBeADamselInDistress. How even casting spells against Caleb, Jester chooses the one that will make him less dangerous without hurting him. Points taken away because Jester chopping up bodies brings up supes unpleasant memories, and Caleb came terribly, terribly close to murdering Nugget. The dog is off limits. I guess we could mention Caleb nearly murdering Jester, too. There is that.

+2 to Caleb/Caduceus “I can definitely see you,” Caduceus says with delight as Caleb attempts to stealth. Alas, Caleb is concentrating on Srs Bussniss and does not respond to Caduceus’ poking (Question: Are all Cads ships fundamentally based on banter???) Caduceus trying very hard to heal Caleb in battle despite being in Lots Of Danger, and Caleb’s gift finally coming to use as Caduceus is knocked out for the crime of focusing too much on healing people besides himself. Caduceus making sure to give Caleb resistance while he tries to identify the Abyssal Anchor. I mean, gods forbid he should die, right???

+15 to Caduceus/Death “That was invigorating,” he said. Dying, but getting that sweet confirmation you are on the right path to your personal quest in the process? That’s great. That’s so cool. Can’t wait to do it again.

-20 Taliesin/Periapt of Wound Closure. That item is cursed for you, my guy. That’s 2/2 times you’ve used it and your characters have died. It’s dangerous!

-500 The CR Cast/Sam’s Terrible Beauregard Puns. Stop!!!!!!!!!!