Lae'zel's character and her entire situation at the beginning of the game becomes so much more funny when you find out she's 22. It makes so much sense. Imagine you're 22 and you're exposed to this dangerous toxin or chemical or something - but not to worry, you learnt that this can be easily fixed, you just need to dial 911 real quick. Common knowledge. Everyone knows that. You learnt that in kindergarten, it's up there with fire alarm drills.
But the people you're stuck with have no concept of modern medicine and when you say "let's go to the hospital" they will say shit like "i think they kill people at the hospital" and "we should ask this swamp lady" or "this guy over there told me about this homoeopathic healer kind of guy but he got abducted" or "this random bard wants to help" and "I'm not going to dial 911 because I don't want the government to know my home address" or "maybe we should consider a deal with Satan". And then a bunch of them KEEP consuming the chemical because it makes them "stronger". One guy might explode for unrelated reasons. You have a few days before this situation is getting critical and suddenly they're solving crime and doing general charity for the community.
And FOR SOME REASON you still try to help these idiots and you STILL want to help them get the cure even though they all keep insisting the "doctors" at the "hospital" might try to "kill them" and they don't have insurance. And you keep telling them to just. go. to. the. hospital. before the time runs out and you all die very horribly of a very treatable condition.
And also you're 22 in a foreign country and you're responsible for shepherding this gaggle of idiots who are all ranging anywhere from 24 to 240 years old.
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Hey! Are there blacksmiths in your story? I'm a hobbyist blacksmith and I'm here to help!
Blacksmithing is one of those things that a lot of people get wrong because they don't realize it stuck around past the advent of the assembly line. Here's a list of some common misconceptions I see and what to do instead!
Not all blacksmiths are gigantic terrifying muscly guys with beards and deep voices. I am 5'8, skinny as a twig, have the muscle mass of wet bread, and exist on Tumblr. Anybody who is strong enough to pick up a hammer and understands fire safety can be a blacksmith.
You can make more than just swords with blacksmithing. Though swords are undeniably practical, they're not the only things that can be made. I've made candle holders, wall hooks, kebab skewers, fire pokers, and more. Look up things other people have made, it's really amazing what can be done.
"Red-hot" is actually not that hot by blacksmith terms. when heated up, the metal goes from black, to red, to orange, to yellow, to white. (for temperature reference, I got a second degree burn from picking up a piece of metal on black heat) The ideal color to work with the metal is yellow. White is not ideal at all, because the metal starts sparking and gets all weird and lumpy when it cools. (At no point in this process does the metal get even close to melting. It gets soft enough to work with, but I have never once seen metal become a liquid.)
Blacksmithing takes fucking forever. Not even taking into account starting the forge, selecting and preparing metal, etc. etc. it takes me around an hour to make one (1) fancy skewer. The metals blacksmiths work with heat up and cool down incredibly fast. When the forge is going good, it only takes like 20 seconds to get your metal hot enough to work with, but it takes about the same time for it to cool down, sometimes even less.
As long as you are careful, it is actually stupidly easy to not get hurt while blacksmithing. When I picked up this hobby I was like "okay, cool! I'm gonna make stuff, and I'm gonna end up in the hospital at some point!" Thus far, the latter has yet to occur. I've been doing this for nearly a year. I have earned myself a new scar from the aforementioned second degree burn, and one singe mark on my jeans. I don't even wear gloves half the time. Literally just eye protection, common sense, and fast reflexes and you'll probably be fine. (Accidents still happen of course, but I have found adequate safety weirdly easy to achieve with this hobby)
A forge is not a fire. The forge is the thing blacksmiths put their metal in to heat it up. It starts as a small fire, usually with newspaper or something else that's relatively small and burns easily, which we then put in the forge itself, which is sort of a fireplace-esque thing (there's a lot of different types of forge, look into it and try to figure out what sort of forge would make the most sense for the context you're writing about) and we cover it with coal, which then catches fire and heats up. The forge gets really hot, and sometimes really bright. Sometimes when I stare at the forge for too long it's like staring into the sun. The forge is also not a waterfall of lava, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.
Welding and blacksmithing are not the same thing. They often go hand-in-hand, but you cannot connected two pieces of metal with traditional blacksmithing alone. There is something called forge welding, where you heat your metal, sprinkle borax (or the in-universe equivalent) on it to prevent the metal from oxidizing/being non-weldable, and hammer the pieces together very quickly. Forge welding also sends sparks flying everywhere, and if you're working in a small space with other blacksmiths, you usually want to announce that you're welding before you do, so that everyone in a five-foot radius can get out of that five-foot radius. You also cannot just stuck some random pebbles into the forge and get a decent piece of metal that you can actually make something with, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.
Anvils are really fucking heavy. Nothing else to add here.
Making jewelry is not a blacksmithing thing unless you want jewelry made of steel. And it will be very ugly if you try. Blacksmithing wasn't invented to make small things.
If there's anything here I didn't mention, just ask and I'll do my best to answer.
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Oh fuck I uh I just realised that Everything Stays now also gets to be about Simon. He’s changed so much but he’s also exactly the same. The world he lives in is different, alien, isolating. He was a normal man, then he spent some 1000 years in a dreamlike state, and now he’s normal again but everything is different. He carries that trauma in everything he does even though he’s “better now.” He was waiting in the garden so long for someone to turn him around but the underside is lighter. Only he seems to notice that he’s faded. Ever so slightly. Daily and nightly. In little ways
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Trigons Backup Plan
So! Trigon knew from the moment his Daughter was taken in by the Monks of Azarath that it would be difficult to turn her to his will. He wasn't stupid, he knew just how hard it would be to make his daughter turn on everything she has ever known in her (very short) life.
He can't really blame her, even he believed that indiscriminate mass murder was wrong until his mid-200's, he just needs to wait for her to grow out of it.
But until then he still needs a way into the DC Universe. And if his daughter wouldn't help, then he could always just make a 2nd one.
So, he searches and eventually finds a Couple of Scientists who seem to be good targets. They are researching Magic and Ghosts, so he makes a Demonic Pact with them. He will give them the secrets needed to complete their Research, and in exchange all he asks is that they help him bare a child.
They agree, and Danny Fenton is born.
Danny was supposed to become a Hellmouth when he turned 16, unlocking his Demonic Powers and opening the way for Trigon to enter the DC Universe so he could conquer it.
Instead he managed to get himself killed at 14. Then he managed to come back to life as a Halfa, he got himself adopted by Clockwork, and he usurped the Throne of the Infinite Realms in the span of 1 year, therefore putting himself on the same level as his Father on the cosmic scale.
So there goes his Backup Plan.
Dammit.
...
Meanwhile Raven is panicking. She had been messing around with her Friends when they asked about the Spells she could do, and she off-handedly mentioned that she could cast Family Tracking Spells.
One thing led to another, and they all wanted to know if they had secret family. Then they asked if she wanted to try as well, and for some reason she agreed.
And long story short, she has a little brother somehow. A little brother who is only a few weeks away from turning 16, who doesn't know the Azarathian Spells she learned to prevent his own transformation into a Hellmouth.
Oh shit...
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