#NO OFFENSE TO Y'ALL
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I love y'all... And I swear this is not aimed towards anybody. This is merely just a friendly reminder that if y'all are going to post or reblog insect/arachnid content, please tag them somehow. I have a horrible phobia of insects/arachnids, and I also really hate how y[o]utube or f[a]cebook keep friggin showing or recommending me insects/arachnids videos or photos. Like plz no. Can you not????? And there's like no way I can blacklist those on those two.
I don't mind mentions or words involving insects/arachnids. I just really don't wanna see any photos or videos of insects on my dash cuz I think they're gross and creepy and all that like ewwwwwwwwwwwwww LOL. Butterflies are okay btw, though I would not want to touch one.
Also for future reference I usually tag triggers or squicks as "___________ cw" or "___________ mention cw". If you use something else to tag triggers or squicks, feel free to let me know and I'll use that tag to blacklist whatever I kinda hate seeing too or if you kinda hate seeing.
#screaming internally all day everyday (ooc)#ooc#//strangely enough some people i follow have been reblogging some insects lately :thinking:#must be a musing thing#but also ewieeee#NO OFFENSE TO Y'ALL#I JUST REALLY HATE INSECTS/ARACHNIDS#IDK HOW THOSE DON'T GIVE Y'ALL THE HEEBIE JEEBIES
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Wait, you DON'T have horrible depression, anxiety, trauma, etc, unlike the rest of my friends? OH MY GOSH!!!1!1!1!
YEAHHHHHHHHHH
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on the one hand the world is burning and everything is terrible, on the other hand the canadian olympic soccer team got caught spying on the new zealand squad with drones and it has provided me with endless spectacular joy and entertainment for the last eighteen hours
#like im sorry canada but this is the most hilariously stupid thing you could have possibly done#i will be laughing about this for the next seven months at LEAST#also like why would you take this risk over nz when you have to contend with colombia and france in your group too#no offense to nz y'all are great but statistically the risk VASTLY outweighs the reward here#asdl;kgha;sldfkasjf#olympics 2024#canwnt#nzwnt#soccer
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Maybe it’s the mean-spirited part of me talking but I kinda want to see a Tudor period drama with absolutely perfect 200% accurate gable hoods but costumes that are completely innacurate otherwise and see how the Tudor girlies react
#like no offense but y'all go so crazy over gable hoods that it honestly would be pretty funny to me
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The Texan rizz
#saw how many engiemedic fans started making content about Engineer comforting and ending up with Medic after their 'divorce' that happend#on VA's streams#i find it really funny#shout out to them#also no offense Heavymedic fans this is all just good fun#y'all chill#tf2#science party#team fortress 2#art-chi#engiemedic#engineer x medic#medicengie#medic x engineer#tf2 medic#tf2 engineer#bird brains#genetic engineering#yall chill i meant as on you are all chill and have nice art sometimes#tf2 heavy#heavymedic
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for as much shit as the art style gets, i still maintain that the animorphs graphic novels have my absolute favorite human tobias design.
this is the wettest, most pathetic tobias i've ever seen. his clothes are visibly more wrinkled than everyone else's, he's always walking around with a pair of ratty headphones, and he's desperately trying to pull off a hair style that just isn't working. one look at this guy and you can instantly believe jake met him with his head shoved in a toilet. hell, i almost want to shove his head in a toilet. a+ work, no notes.
#no offense meant towards the fanartists of course#but i think some of y'all have a habit of making him look just a little bit too cool#animorphs#animorphs tobias#idiot teenagers with a death wish#koolmathgames.com
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if I see one more drawing of Warriors' scarf tied around his sword in the ground, I'm going to go feral.
why. why must you hurt him? Just why.
#this must be legally defined as a joke#and no offense cuz y'all are some really good artists#but like#ough augh *heart shattering*#loz#link#linked universe#lu warriors#lu#linkeduniverse#hyrule warriors
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you know, there is a difference between having a headcanon and being purposely obtuse when misreading a story.
it is literally not up to debate whether the doctor and rose had a romantic relationship. he was in love with her. i could bring up receipts, but i literally don't need to. it's textual from the beginning that this is a romantic love story.
and it's so odd to me that people will act like tentoo came out of left field and turned their relationship romantic as if it weren't before that, or they talk about tenrose and ignore ninerose.
the doctor kissed rose because he was in love with her. he sacrificed his ninth body in the process of saving her life because she was in love with him. tenrose is the way that they are because they were already in love with each other. saying they never kissed is absolutely moot point because they did and you are choosing to ignore that to say the nature of their relationship is up for interpretation when it isn't.
and using the so called evidence that david tennant has said the doctor is asexual to corroborate this continues to perplex me. could he not be demisexual? does him not experiencing sexual attraction the way an allosexual person would immediately mean he cannot be in love with rose? no. and the idea that it does is really fucking weird because you're implying that sex and romance are one and the same, when sex is different things in different circumstances.
i've never read david tennant saying that tentoo and rose have a lot of sex as him saying tentoo is allo bc he's human. tentoo is the doctor but part human, and ten has always felt sexual attraction to rose but he doesn't have any reason to keep rose at arms length emotionally so he can allow himself to open up to her emotionally and sometimes emotion and sex are tied.
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Someone save me🙏🏾
The ballad of Tam Lin was ruined by Sarah J Maas and sadly, this beautiful love story had to pay the price of falling into the hands of an overrated author.
If you were to look up a video or Tik Tok explaining the ballad, there's a mf going "Acotar?" NO, YOU FUCKING DIP SHIT.
And the women who insult Tamlin's name like are you serious? GROWN WOMEN doing childish things like this. You're not in elementary anymore. You're not in middle school anymore.
You're an adult woman with bills and taxes to pay, a job to go to, a husband to deal with, and probably some bummy kids to drop off or put down for a nap.
But here you are. Sitting on your miserable ass, going online, and making jokes and comments about a FICTIONAL CHARACTER and calling them a menstrual product. And some have the audacity to call themselves a feminist. Are you saying there's something wrong with period cycles? Is that why you're insulting a character by calling them that?
I can't really talk though because I do the same towards the inner circle but I'm only a teen, my life hasn't even officially started. Y'all got more free will than I do and you're going to use it like this? You can do better.
Your opinion is not valid or important if you seriously call Tamlin that. I don't care if you like him or not, it's still a immature thing to call someone.
Put down the phone, go outside, and be one with nature. And perhaps when you're ready, you can come back with your big girl pants on. Hopefully, you're mature enough not to call someone "tampon" anymore but this is the Acotar fandom, maturity is a rare thing to be found in a group filled with halfwitted jackasses. Correction: GROWN halfwitted jackasses. (Coming from someone acts like a dumbass most of the time)
There's no need to do all of this. Just say you hate Tamlin and move on, simple as that. Go back to dick riding that racially ambiguous dictator (high lord that happens to leave the women and children of his two other regions to suffer at the hands of men) you call a "book boyfriend".
I'll be here ranting, criticizing, bitching, and complaining about this series and how sjm brings ruination to anything she touches.
(I don't wish to type in English so enjoy this Arabic rant)
أخذ الله أرواحكم ورزقني الله الصبر. سارة، ما خطبكِ يا سارة، ما خطبكِ أنتِ وإضافة العبودية إلى كل قصصكِ؟ والأيديولوجيات الصهيونية أيضًا مع مزيج من الجنيات الفاشية؟ عزيزتي، أنت ذاهبة في رحلة باتجاه واحد إلى الجحيم.
(Used translate on the Arabic part since I ain't fluent but just put it in Arabic to English, it means the same thing. Kinda. I recommend this link.)
When will she pay for her crimes?
#anti acotar#anti acotar fandom#acotar fandom critical#acotar fandom#tamlin deserves better#y'all suck#full offense#anti sjm#sjm critical#fuck sjm
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God though there's something CHILLING about the Eye of Sion.
Like--the realization of what an ISD-sized hyperspace ring means, the inherent propaganda coup of bringing back the fucking Chimera is a bad thing, yeah, but I'm talking immediate emotional impact.
Because the thing, is, right--there's a Trope at play here.
And the Trope is that...this is a top-secret evil space project, you know? This is Morgan Elsbeth's Evil Masterpiece, her refuge-in-audacity strike at the heart of the New Republic, operating in the open under their very noses, etc. This is the 'Eye of Sion', the dark weapon that will restore Thrawn to the galaxy.
So it's just sort of...expected, with the way this kind of story goes, that the Eye of Sion would be a WARSHIP.
That's just the trope, you know? All this time, all thes resources--it's supposed to have impenetrable armor and some kind of fucked-up new atomization weapon and maybe some murderous AI, it's supposed to have bristling firepower and impossible maneuverability and a massive swinging dick--it's supposed to be Thrawn's Newer And Badder Flagship TM, the terror of the galaxy.
It's not.
It's a hyperspace ring.
That's all. It's just a hyperspace ring.
All that time, all those resources, all this secrecy, the death, the sacrifice...And the Eye of Sion is a hyperspace ring. It has token point defense, and they've had nothing but time in which to do some very nice interior decorating (which is, compared to the cost of the ring itself, a nonexistent price tag) but. It's not a battle station. It's not a flagship. It's not even a light cruiser. It's a piece of tech that was already old-fashioned during the Clone Wars.
All those resources went toward a single, solitary purpose. One journey. Two hyperspace jumps. There, and back again.
That's how difficult it is, this thing they're attempting. Those are the stakes. All of the Imperial Remnant's remaining resources went toward this project--and the result is nothing more or less than a single, massive, unprecedented hyperspace ring.
That's all they think they'll need.
It would have been so much less intimidating if she was a warship.
#I'm not tagging my ahsoka show stuff anymore#because y'all dont know how to fucking behave#but it is SO GOOD actually#the characterization is on POINT the themes are THEMING it is. so fucking good.#full offense but Rebels + Ahsoka made Thrawn good#og legends thrawn is bbc sherlock bullshit smart#canon thrawn is TERRIFYINGLY intelligent#it's grounded and competent and REAL
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look i get what veilguard is going for with the Community and Emotional Support angle but if a bunch of 30-50 year olds can't put their personal issues aside to SAVE THE WORLD then i think the world is fucking cooked + deserves to be for raising a bunch of softies
#no offense but i have been in the throes of depression and will still do shit if other people ask me#because of my Fear of Letting People Down complex#y'all need to COMPARTMENTALIZEEEEE#datv critical#maia.txt
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Me watching everyone and their mother (not me) getting Landostand tickets for Silverstone
#no offense I'm happy for y'all!!!#I'm just so jealous😭#hoping for another Landostand in 2026😔#f1#formula one#lando norris#ln4#silverstone 2025#british gp 2025
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Zutaras are really the original self-insert, "we understand the story soooooo much better than everybody else" girlies and they just never moved on
#anti zutara#no offense to anyone who ships it and follows me but I'm so over the shipping wars of this show that aired almost 20 years ago 😭#at some point you guys are gonna need to hang it up cause there's a sequel series and these people are married with children like...#we get it if you were Katara you would've chosen Zuko but guess what?! you aren't and need to stop projecting onto her#the pretending to care about Katara is what really gets me cause she's never even implied to have romantic feelings for him#or vice-versa + it ignores her anger towards him and how long it took her to forgive him + rightfully so#criticizing the writing for Kataang is one thing but turning around and shipping Zutara while doing so is crazy work#ship it if you want but please stop pretending it makes more sense when both Zuko and Katara have their own separate romances 😭#love how people have to age Aang down + infantilize him and erase Mai to make it work but sure it's the better option#stop erasing Katara's arc and development just to claim that Aang brings her down when she's been a bad-ass since season 1#reducing her arc to that ONE moment with Zuko and ignoring all of her other development just to prop up a ship is nasty#Katara isn't a reward for Aang and she sure as hell isn't one for Zuko stop belittling her like that#if y'all didn't watch ATLA when you were 12 and think Zuko was cute this ship wouldn't even exist#thinking about that post that said the writers /pandered to dudebros/ like we all weren't children the delusion is crazy sdfssdfsdfsd#also seeing AANG of all characters getting whacked for a ship...please get a life and stay away from him#antizutara
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Darth Teeth once again proving that a bit too many of y'all would fall to the dark side if a pretty man told you to.
#No offense to Darth Teeth or Kylo Ren but y'all don't got any standards#ESPECIALLY WHEN DARTH MAUL IS RIGHT THERE#THE ULTIMATE BABY GIRL#Like STAND UP christ#lmfao#star wars#the acolyte#qimir#darth teeth#me rambles
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but slowly the instinct takes root in her throat
read it on ao3 here!
Story: but slowly the instinct takes root in her throat
Chapter: 1/1
Characters: Kipperlilly Copperkettle, Ruben Hopclap, Porter Cliffbreaker, Jace Stardiamond, (mentions of other Rat Grinders)
Summary:
Kipperlilly has been chosen by a nascent god of rage. She's proud of that fact, excited by what it might mean for her future. In the meantime, she's stuck on night watch during her sophomore spring break with Ruben Hopclap, her least favorite party member. She's been told to worship her rage, to accept it in all its savage glory. What could go wrong? -- A one-shot about my head canons for how the Rat Grinders' first quest to the Mountains of Chaos went down.
“It’s cold out here.”
The knife in Kipperlilly’s hand stuttered over a knot in the stick she was carving into a stake. Her motions were harsh and confident, but not well practiced. Woodcarving wasn’t a hobby of hers, but she would have done just about anything to dull the boredom in this moment—and to distract her from the incessant whining of her companion.
That she was being asked to keep watch at all was an insult. The thought sat under her skin like molten metal, but she pushed it away. Not only had she been chosen, she’d risen to the challenge. She could feel the symbol under the stiff, pressed fabric of her shirt, and the memory of the ritual was still fresh in her mind. Jace’s magic, the glittering red shatter star, the oath she had sworn to the god of rage.
Jace had continually checked his notes as he administered the oath, and Porter had seethed at the indignity. “Maybe I’d remember this better if I’d had the chance to undergo it myself.” The sorcery teacher was cool and unbothered around most of his students, but Kipperlilly had come to know him as a perpetually exasperated presence in her life. “But, no, it wasn’t this easy for me.” He said as he traced a slender finger down the page of his notebook.
“An eye for opportunity is well rewarded.” Kipperlilly had chirped unhelpfully. She smiled smugly in the direction of the barbarian teacher who, in an official capacity, was not meant to be attached to this quest at all. Even the rest of her party didn’t know he was here with them in the Mountains of Chaos. But he had revealed himself to her for this ritual, because she was his chosen, because he trusted her—
“It’s cold and boring. And doesn’t it freak you out that things are so dangerous here that we need a nightwatch?” The drone of Ruben Hopclap’s incessant complaints pulled Kipperlilly back to the present moment.
The stick in her hand snapped under the pressure of her knife. It was no real loss. She didn’t need a stake, just a distraction. She needed Ruben to shut up.
“It’s the Mountains of Chaos.” She responded curtly. “Of course it’s dangerous.”
“I heard Yolen Harris’ party is going to Harroway Bay to fight a sea serpent or something.” As he spoke, Kipperlilly grabbed a new stick to resume her carving. Something about the steady motion helped to ground her, and she needed that more now than ever. “I bet the serpent won’t be fun, but think about it: Toes in the sand and crystal service! Now that’s a decent spring break.”
Kipperlilly watched as the wood parted from itself in thin, curling layers and grit her teeth. “It’s also a monumental waste of time. People kill sea serpents all the time. No one’s gonna remember that quest in a month.”
She shouldn’t humor him with responses. Of all the people in her party, Ruben was the most indolent. Not that he lacked ambition; He envied Figueroth Faeth in all her stardom. He just didn’t have the actual follow through to do anything about it. It made Kipperlilly sick, and it was the lesser of the two things she hated most about him.
Kipperlilly was proud to say that Lucy Frostblade was her best friend. But, since they had met Ruben in middle school, she’d suffered the slight of having to share the claim to being Lucy’s.
“Who cares!” Ruben whined. He was always whining. She found herself wishing the high-pitched frequency of his voice would drive a nearby pack of wolves into a slavering bloodlust and they would come here to rend him limb from limb. As she turned the stick in her hand, and notched her knife into it once again, she imagined the violent scene in great detail. It brought her some solace. “I’m cold! I’d rather be at the beach! Who’s gonna remember us for coming to this empty, useless temple and looking for a dumb name, anyway? Even if we find it.”
He didn’t know the plan. He didn’t know they would change the world someday. That they’d create their own god, raise him from his mortality. That they would carve Elmville from its stubborn mundanity and reform it in the image of something worthy. They would be greater than the Bad Kids, or any adventurer who had ever graduated from Aguefort. Many alumni of the school had saved the world, but none of them had ever remade it.
“You’re probably cold because you dressed for the beach. Like an idiot.” She snapped, pointing with her knife toward his sandaled feet.
“Dress for the job you want!”
Kipperlilly felt hot, buzzing rage rising in her throat. It was a familiar feeling, like boiling water overcoming all her senses.
Her grandmother had once tried to endear her to her family legacy. She’d taken her to the kitchen, and showed her the Copperkettle, the magical item from which her family got their name. Most halfling families got their names this way, from heirlooms that often harkened back to a time before they came to Elmville. The Copperkettle was barely magical.
Newly immigrated to Elmville, the family had struggled to make ends meet, and the Copperkettle had kept them fed anyway, against all odds. This was the only version of the story worth telling, but her grandmother had embellished it with all kinds of details—the names of her ancestors, what kinds of stew the kettle had produced, the tale of their eventual agreement to share the stew. The story dragged on until there was nothing but a frustrating buzz in the back of Kipperlilly’s young head where the anger rose to meet it. She didn’t want to be standing in her kitchen, listening to a lecture about the history of the most boring family in Elmville—She didn’t want to be reminded that she was a part of that family.
She tried to sit still and quiet, to listen politely like her parents had taught her, but the anger ballooned inside her until it was too big for her tiny body to contain. She had felt near tears with it by the time she admitted it to herself, and acted on it. In her anger, she had scurried forward and kicked her grandmother’s knee—anything to get her to shut up.
She remembered being dragged away by her parents. They had sat her on the cold cement porch stairs outside their family home, wagged disapproving fingers in her face. And she’d known then that they were right—or thought that they were. Anger was something to ignore, to push down and suffocate.
Gods forbid it have the ability to suffocate back.
That night, with Ruben seemingly incapable of shutting his mouth, the same anger was starting to expand hot and fast in her chest. Her anger was always vicious and strong, oftentimes stronger than her, but there was something new this time too.
With the feeling, the symbol on her chest burned steadily. For a moment it was a grounding feeling. She could honor this anger, just like Porter had taught her. She could feel it and savor it—The way her face burned and the way her focus on the world sharpened until there was nothing but Ruben’s voice, and the knife, and the wood.
“And this job sucks. Even if it was memorable, we’ll always be remembered as the dumb kids who needed a chaperone on our sophomore project.” Ruben filled the silence when Kipperlilly didn’t respond.
Her stick snapped again, but this time in the tightening grip of her hand rather than under the pressure of her knife.
“And the solution to that is to resign ourselves to a lazy beach week?” She let the words claw their way from her throat, and seep through clenched teeth.
Her hand held tight to the pommel of her knife. Without the grounding repetition of sliding it along the wood, she started to think of other things she could do with it. She thought of nothing but wolves, and blood, and the heat of rage that clung to her every breath.
Ruben’s sniveling answer fell on deaf ears. She wanted nothing more than silence. She wanted peace. She wanted to not have to endure his weakness and whining.
The first plunge of the knife came without thought. It was a mindless thing that drove her to stand, approach and attack. It all happened in the flash of prickling anger that overtook her senses and mind. But the scream that came with it pulled her back to reality, made her angrier.
Kipperlilly was often angry. She had felt the urge to destroy—to tear the world apart, ruin her friends’ moods, to see things burn because of the fire in her stomach and on her tongue. But she had always felt remorse, too. That destruction, the harsh words, the cruel actions had always stopped her before—she always ended up just the same as that kid on the porch stairs, crying as her parents wagged their fingers in her face.
But not this time. This time, she relished in the anger. She did just as she was told. She let it consume her. It was like falling away from herself and being more present than ever all at once. She viscerally felt the skin and muscle part under her knife, felt as the blade scraped and stuck into ribs. She heard every scream, felt Ruben’s hand clawing at the sleeve of her pristine, white blouse. She saw the terror in his eyes fade into glassy, distant nothingness.
But the whole time she was wrapped in the resplendent ecstasy of wrath. It kept her distant and safe. It kept the fire in her belly roaring and hungry for more. It smoothed over the edges. It distracted her from the way her hand slipped on the blood slicked grip of her knife and the way the blade cut into the flesh of her own palm. It held her anxieties about being heard and her guilt at a distance.
She sat back from the unmoving corpse underneath her, and stared at the shredded chest of a boy she’d known since middle school. With shaking hands, she set her knife down beside them, in the fast collecting pool of blood. There was a fist-sized bloodstain on her blouse where Ruben had clung to her, but he’d long since lost the strength for that. Her sweater vest was ruined. Warm, tacky blood adhered her tights to her knees. Everything smelled so strongly like blood that she could taste iron on her tongue.
And then there were Ruben’s dark eyes, staring, staring, staring, and seeing nothing.
Kipperlilly lurched to the side and retched, but nothing came up. The weight of what she’d done settled on her like the sky falling. Tears blurred her vision, and she was grateful because she didn’t want to see. Whether they were tears of contrition or self pity, she couldn’t say.
Somewhere nearby her party was asleep, if they hadn’t already been awoken by the screams. Sometime soon, they would see what she’d done—or otherwise notice Ruben’s absence. And Lucy. What would Lucy think? How would she ever look at her again?
Sitting there over the dead body, for maybe the first time in her life, Kipperlilly couldn’t think of a plan. She could think only one thing: Porter.
She’d done what he’d said. She’d given into her rage. He had to help her fix this. He was the only one who would understand—even if he couldn’t have possibly foreseen that it would come to this.
She tried to stand and her polished bar shoes slipped in the blood, sending her tumbling downwards and face to blank, pallid face with the corpse. It was washed in the sickly green light of distant beacon fires, which only made the quickly paling skin look worse. She couldn’t leave it here. This time, she knew the thought was one of self-preservation.
Pulling herself to her feet, Kipperlilly carefully sheathed her bloody knife. Then, she gathered the body in her arms, and pulled it up the stone stairs into the temple. She slinked through the shadows, past the alcove where the rest of her party slept. It was some distance away and, by then, her arms ached under the weight but she hoped that the distance meant there had been no disturbance here. The rock face that made up the temple echoed with every sound, but things were quiet. There was no sound of confusion, or people rushing to arms.
She kept moving, past towering statues of proud warriors and their flaming horses, past the walls scrawled with words of prayer, until she reached the chamber where she knew Porter was staying. His presence was still unknown to the rest of the party and, at least as recently as the ritual, he wanted to keep it that way. This place, deep within the temple, was cavernous and massive. It was the place she had undergone her ritual earlier in the day but now, returning to it, she felt so far from the victorious spirit she’d clung to then.
She stopped once inside, letting the corpse slump to the ground far from the giant altar at the other end of the chamber in front of which a bedroll was laid out. Porter wasn’t sleeping, though, he was standing on one of the staggered platforms, facing the iron brazier that dominated the center of the altar.
Words failed Kipperlilly. She stood over the body and stared across the wide space between herself and the barbarian teacher—the soon-to-be god—who she’d worked so hard to impress, and couldn’t bring herself to speak. He had put so much faith in her, and surely this would be a grave disappointment. But in her panic, she didn't know where else to go.
“Kipperlilly?” He turned before she had to say anything at all, those dark eyes widening in shock. It must have been quite the sight. She was usually so well put together, but now she was disheveled and blood splattered. Not to mention the corpse at her feet. “What in the world have you done?”
“I—I didn’t mean to.” Now that she had found them again, words came tumbling out of her without her control. “He made me so mad. You said to lean into the anger! I pledged myself to it! It was supposed to be—You said it’d be holy, that it would be sacred, but I—” She got stuck on this word, stuttering it out too many times before the sentence died altogether in her throat. She couldn’t say it.
She’d killed him.
Porter jumped from the platform in one fluid motion and strode toward her. His features were pinched with a deep concern, but he didn’t seem panicked. Some small part of Kipperlilly wished that he did—maybe so she wouldn’t be alone with the suffocating feeling, or maybe because she thought it’d make her feel less small.
“Why didn’t you bring him to Lucy? She has diamonds, doesn’t she?” He demanded first, coming to stand in front of her and the corpse. She had to angle her face up to see him, always, but now she looked elsewhere. Anywhere but at him or the bloody mess at her feet. Her eyes fixed on the pictographs of war lining the temple walls.
The thought of bringing the mangled body to Lucy made her throat close up. She thought of her gentle friend. She tried to imagine the way hate would contort her features but, for all the awful things she had done, all the ways she had failed Lucy in the past, she had no frame of reference. She knew that even now she was avoiding the full reality of what she’d done. Facing Lucy would mean facing this, and she couldn’t do either.
“I can’t…”
Slowly, Porter nodded, “You’re right. She’d never forgive you.” He admitted callously. “None of them would ever look at you the same way again.”
There was a pause. Wind whistled through the colossal, empty stone halls. “You were right to bring this to me.”
She was right. No one else would understand. She sniffled, trying to pull herself together. “There has to be something—” Something that didn’t involve a cleric. “Professor Stardiamond could summon something.” Just like their training in the woods. All the appearance of danger with none of its teeth.
“How would a monster have gotten here?” Porter asked, shaking his head. “No, that’s sloppy. You can do better.” He pressed. Then, “You wanted Ruben dead, didn’t you?”
“No,” Kipperlilly said with so much conviction that she surprised even herself. She angled her face up to see the disbelieving expression looming over her. She allowed herself a glimmer of self-reflection, just a moment of honesty, to decipher her own meaning. “I wanted to kill him,” she admitted, “But I didn’t want him dead.”
“Those are the same thing.”
They weren’t. Kipperlilly struggled against the fog of panic and misery in her head, trying to piece the words together. She had wanted the violence. She had relished sticking a knife between his ribs, but the consequences of those actions weren’t welcome. She hadn’t thought about them before they were real. But Porter was right; How could she have been so stupid?
“I might be able to help.” Porter turned his eyes toward the still body between them. “But this wasn’t the plan. You were the one who agreed to the ritual. You were supposed to be my chosen.” He ground out the words in frustration.
“What?”
Some selfish dark thing seized in Kipperlilly’s gut. She remembered how she had felt special during the ritual. She had known that she would be relied upon. She would be great, with her name raised above the rest, when it came time for Porter to ascend. Despite the dead boy at her feet, she didn’t want to let that go.
“The others will know something has happened, but they’ve already made their choice. That’ll need to be fixed.”
“Fixed?”
“Go get Stardiamond.” Porter said, tone dismissive. “Bring him here and we’ll catch him up on the plan.”
“What do you mean fixed?” Kipperlilly had not asked for much. She obeyed dutifully. She paid her dues. She would follow Porter through the nine hells if it meant she got her shot at greatness; If she could be a legendary adventurer; If she could be better than the fucking Bad Kids. But, this once, she demanded an answer.
“Even if we bring Ruben back, they’ll see you as a monster. We’ve got to get them on our side.” As if from nowhere, he produced a shatter star. It bathed the chamber in a low, pulsing red light, shifting as he examined it. It tore itself apart into fractal pieces and slammed back into itself.
“How? They already made their choice.”
Some more than others. Oisin, under the right circumstances, might have been convinced. He had a legacy to live up to; He understood ambition. Porter had talked about not giving up, about continuing to evangelize about rage, and the unnamed goddess. The others were never to know about Porter’s plan to ascend. But, they could be won over with stories about a plan to resurrect a dead goddess, with the promises of the glory that that would bring. But, these weren’t the right circumstances.
“We would have had time to change their minds.” Porter’s words were harsh, but grounding. It was Kipperlilly’s loss of control that had brought them here. Even if she couldn’t own up to the rest of it, she had to own up to that. “But there are other ways. Watch.” He instructed, and stepped forward to kneel over the corpse.
The shatter star leapt forward from his hand, burrowing into the mutilated flesh in front of them. The forward motion was violent and eager, and the corpse thrashed disturbingly like a rag doll limp in the mouth of a vicious dog. Kipperlilly watched with wide eyes as blood splattered upward onto her already ruined clothes.
The motion stopped and, for a fleeting moment and eerie peace settled on the room. Kipperlilly looked up, half panicked, to see the way Porter’s steady, focused eyes were fixed on the body between them. Before she could demand to know what was happening, a rasping breath shattered the silence and Ruben came flying upwards, sitting ramrod straight.
An animalistic growl issued from somewhere deep in his chest. Kipperlilly stared—in horror or in awe she didn’t know—as Ruben’s wits returned to him and he turned on her with a murderous glare.
“You fucking killed me!” He roared, launching toward her with a ferocious speed. She stumbled backwards in surprise, still not having fully processed that he was alive, and fumbled for her knife.
Ruben’s hands were outstretched, his face contorted into a mask of animus and hostility. He was inches away from tackling her when he suddenly froze. He shook his head, and was left blinking in dazed confusion.
“We’ll have none of that.” Porter spoke, standing from where he’d been kneeling at eye level. “If you need to fight it out, let’s do it when there isn’t already a monumental mess to clean up.” He grumbled.
Ruben looked down at his bloody clothes, then back between Porter and Kipperlilly. “You killed me so I’d have to worship your stupid rage god?” His anger seemed more directionless, now, and that must have been just as well to Porter, who shrugged.
“You’d have to ask Kipperlilly why she killed you. My god and I just brought you back.” Porter brushed a speck of blood off his hands and onto his pants like it was a meer inconvenience, and added, “You’re welcome.”
“You’ll have to kill the rest of them?” Kipperlilly was slowly piecing it together.
Panic kicked at the inside of her ribcage. A tidal wave of thoughts came crashing down on her. This was her fault. Everyone could have had more time. She could have convinced them all eventually, the right way. But she had fucked it up. She had forced Porter’s hand. Ruben had chosen to worship rage rather than die. Everyone else would have to as well. But Lucy would never.
Lucy would never.
“Lucy’s stocked for revivify.” She blurted out, the words leaving her before she’d had time to process. “If she’s here while you’re killing the others—She can’t be here while you’re killing the others.”
She could feel Ruben’s glare boring a hole in the side of her head, but she kept her eyes fixed on Porter. She would follow him through the nine hells. She would convince her friends to worship rage. She would kill them all, or let them die, if she must. But not Lucy.
Lucy wouldn’t come back. Kipperlilly needed more time. She would have had it, if not for her own miserable wrath.
Porter seemed to consider her words. “Get Stardiamond, tell him to bring the others to me. You keep Lucy busy. Tell her you don’t know where Ruben is, make her heal that cut on your hand. I don’t care, just handle it. You’ve made enough of a mess.”
Relief rushed over her, and Kipperlilly nodded, ever the dutiful soldier. “Right, of course.” Her eyes flickered briefly over to where Ruben’s burned into her like hot coals before she turned to carry out her marching orders.
As she backtracked through the empty, echoing halls of the temple, she recalled slights against her and held them close to her chest like kindling for a fire. The way Oisin and Ivy would whisper behind their hands and snicker at her; Mary Ann’s brutal dismissal when she tried to bond with her; the betrayal of everyone when they changed their party name. The Rat Grinders could die. It was a price she was more than willing to pay for her own chance at greatness. It was easier to take ownership of it all. To foster the anger inside and pretend that this was how she wanted things to go, rather than admit to losing control. The symbol of an unnamed god burned quietly against her chest.
#kipperlilly copperkettle#the rat grinders#i don't trust y'all enough to put this in the general tag i won't even lie#fhjy spoilers#figs writes#i haven't published writing in... checks watch... over a year?? lol#anyway!!! here have a treat. porter's such a fucking manipulative ass#when i GET my hands on that man...#it's sooo over for him#kipperlilly is like#fucked up too yeah sure but i love my girl free my girl#just girly things (we've all wanted to kill our sapphic crush's best friend)#ruben hopclap#sorry to the ruben stans i love him but. he's taking lucy's attention away from klck#and really. that's a capital offense what can i say
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jayce and caitlyn talking in 2x01 doesn't even feel the same it feels like two old friends stuck in messy situationships
#giving each other advice like they know shit about it#jace: mine almost died and i had to merge him w the very dangerous magic we kinda made and now he might not wake up#caitlyn: well mine didn't want to work at the same place as i :(((#lol i love caitlyn#not jayce though#no offense to teu jayce stans but i truly do not think y'all exist#caitlyn kiramman#arcane
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