Written for the Friendship is the Blood of the Covenant zine in this year's zine jam, enjoy this Efink-focused piece! Escape from the Bloodkeep has really grown on me over time, and it's likely to (relatively) move up the next time I do a ranking of seasons, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've written for it.
As usual, my quasi-monthly roundup of my bad ideas of the day from the D20 Fic discord! In this case, about half of these were written before FHJY started airing; I've put in a note at the point where that aired. (Oldest ideas are first on these lists. Part 6 is available here and then links to older lists are available from there!)
Bad idea of the day, making canon even messier edition: At the party, Aelwyn senses the one link in Adaine's friend group even weaker to a somewhat crazy girl kissing them and doing fantasy coke off their chest: Kristen Applebees, whose brain is borderline broken for the subsequent fight. (And who, in the months to follow, is somehow even LESS respectful of how much Adaine does not want to hear about her sister being hot)
Bad idea of the day, we go now to an interview of the deceased edition: A true crime crystalcast starts a series discussing the group of teens involved in the murders and other deaths of their school's lunchlady, guidance councilor, vice principal, and principal and the mysterious circumstances around their arrest and escape from prison. Oh, and bloodrush coach. Forgot one.
Bad idea of the day, 2023 memorial collectable retrospective vintage edition: On the first day of school, Aguefort comes demanding Riz run for the position he was destined to meet: Student Body President, a role that has gone unfilled since a great tragedy turned all the members of the then-student government to stone seventy five years before. Can Riz ascend to the ultimate form of every briefcase kid, or will he become another trophy president?
Bad idea of the day, pact of the tome edition: It's the end of their senior year and all the graduates to be have a period on the bloodrush field in which they're expected to sign one another's yearbooks! Will they fall for this scam, or will they realize that the teacher running this is the warlock instructor, trying to drum up business for his patron by slipping an infernal contract into the pages of one of the student's yearbooks?
Bad idea of the day, a horse is a home edition: Fabian is a rebellious kid early and decides that he must master what his father never could. Since his father was the master of the sea, he must become the true master of the land! Yes, he must become a horse boy! (Katja and Fabian as childhood friends, obviously)
Bad idea of the day, unhelpful parenting advice edition: The bad kids are faced with that classic nonsense assignment of protecting an egg for a week without letting it get damaged; they are not informed in advance that Arthur Aguefort himself will be testing them, making the 'week' rather flexible, nor that no student has ever passed.
Bad idea of the day, niche goods and services edition: Adaine, in her search for a Job and some cash, ends up getting paid by a casino not only to not play but to help them catch other diviners who might try cheating at the games with their ability to see the future, and then ends up caught up in a dramatic Ocean's 11 style heist
Bad idea of the day, unfortunate belief patterns edition: It turns out that Porter is actually a demigod, born of an affair Sol had with a mortal woman long ago, who historically has mostly wanted to chill out and do nice things and ignore all his more powerful side outside of his rages. Unfortunately, it also means his character is vulnerable to changing if someone starts believing in him hard enough, and nobody believes anything about him nearly as hard as Figueroth Faeth believes he is evil…
Bad idea of the day, lost and found edition: Riz finds, to his slight annoyance, that he's been voted in as the student government treasurer against his will (because he was out the day elections were held and Fig thought it would be funny) and thus he is now responsible for returning any treasures the student body accidentally loses over the course of the school year, a responsibility he is the first person to take seriously in three hundred years
Bad idea of the day, final countdown edition: The Bad Kids are forced into the annual Aguefort talent show; Fig and Gorgug have it easy with their band, and Fabian dances of course, but Kristen, Riz, and Adaine are forced to scramble for something. Riz and Adaine end up doing a stage magic show together; Kristen does a ribbon dance and manages to break her leg again in spite of the stage only being four feet off the ground. (Adaine gets talked out of her original plan by Riz of just going on stage and holding out Boggy for everyone to admire.)
(This is where FHJY started airing)
Bad idea of the day, Margaret's bad day edition: After the run-in with the art squad, Margaret jumps to some incorrect conclusions about what her 'friend' is looking for in a 'friend' and begins to take up bad poetry and nihilistic philosophy. Can the rest of the gunner channel snap her out of it before they all reach their limits of free verse in their lives?
Bad idea of the day, jury duty edition: We're shown in Unsleeping City that the unsleeping city side of new york has its own judicial system. The pool of potential jurors in these cases is very, very low; how does Mister Civic Duty himself Ricky handle getting Magical Jury Duty for the eighth time this year?
Bad idea of the day, romance is hatred right? edition: Plinth/Null slashfic fusion of ASO and TUC
Bad idea of the day, a (Basketball) Court of Fae and Flowers edition: BINX would like to reclaim the Court of Craft's lost magic from Apollo and Suntar. Can she do this in the one way that fae tradition allows, a 2-on-2 basketball game where the winner takes all and the first to 21 wins? Can she really trust Suntar's brother to play with all his might, and can they somehow claim victory with all the eyes of all the fae watching and cheering and charging way too much for concessions?
Bad idea of the day, Figueroth Faeth's wild ride edition: The first day of freshman year, Fig isn't in school because she successfully talked Gilear into a quest to look for her real dad instead, sending the two of them to go look into court records in Bastion City and leaving the bad kids down Fig for the corn fight.
Bad idea of the day, talking magical weapons edition: The Sword of Truth from Never After turns up and falls straight into the hands of the most truthful person with sword proficiencies in the party, one Figueroth Faeth. It does not approve of this carrier.
Bad idea of the day, FHJY spoiler edition: Riz handles Fabian making a romaence partner out of a mirror in front of him a lot worse, and sets out to find out if Ecaf is really on their side or is in fact two-faced. Can he deal with seven years of the misfortune of Fabian bitching at him if he need to shatter this mirror and his best friend's heart at the same time? (edited)
Bad idea of the day, Once Upon a Time edition: Instead of cutting through the woods and kind of accidentally murdering somebody, our intrepid fairy tale creatures end up deciding to ride the story of the lost Prince of Shoeburg into the ground in a blaze of glory. This definitely works out for them.
Bad idea of the day, grandfather paradox edition: Ayda, curious about her family beyond Arthur and her phoenix mother, tries to find out what happened to Arthur's parents. The quest eventually reveals that her grandparents haven't been born yet, and in fact Arthur won't actually be born for several hundred more years; he's travelled back in time a thousand years in his very young days, and much of his attention at all times is on making certain he doesn't accidentally do anything that will cause himself to not exist.
Bad idea of the day, you know I had to do it edition (JY spoilers!): Kristen, while having her little verbal pissing match with her competitor for student class president, is shocked when she's suddenly attacked from behind by an offended student who is actually four dogs in a trenchcoat.
Bad idea of the day, cosmic horror edition: There is a way in Spyre to detect those who might be infested with sometimes being possessed by eldritch beings of great impulse and power, those who can seem to reshape the world with their whims, those… 'player characters'
Bad idea of the day, no really this one's kind of bad edition: Fig, desperate to loop in the last bad kid who she's not in some weird way related to, decides to go all in on getting Gilear and Hallariel into some kind of poly swinger situation with the Thistlesprings, going so far as to set up a very awkward dinner party where she tries to prompt them to go for the binder, much to Gorgug's disconcertment
Bad idea of the day, this one's just canon but it was definitely a bad idea edition: The true love story of how Efink met and married Percival very very quickly for what definitely seemed like good reasons at the time.
Bad Idea of the Day, You Get What You Kill Edition, light JY ep4 spoiler: After killing her dad, Adaine is irritated to discover after they get back to Elmville that she is in fact now the official Fallinel envoy to Solace and that she's been fully Santa Claused into another elven position against her will.
Bad idea of the day, Adaine DID seem much more interested in this option edition: Adaine takes one of Aelwyn's suggestions and starts selling weapons in the forms of scrolls of fireball and the like
Bad idea of the day, the ultimate D20 party edition: Come up with an excuse to put Adaine, Fabian, Katja, Efink Murderdeath, and Colin Provolone in the same party to bring the ultimate fear to all parents everywhere. (I honestly might be forgetting somebody. There's been a lot of parent-killing in D20.)
