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strangersteddierthings · 2 years ago

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Bad News First, Eddie

Part One 🦇 Part Two🦇Part Three🦇FInal Part

This was getting longer than both Steve and Wayne's parts combined, so I'm gonna break it into 2 parts. Posting part 1 now, and part 2 should be up within a day. Thank you everyone for the wonderful replies/reblogs. I screenshot them cause they keep me going haha.

Trigger Warning: Child abuse referenced, as well as one scene of a child being slapped. Use of slurs in a derogatory manner.

Bad news first, Eddie thinks to himself as he swings the trash can lid turned shield, this is a fuckton of bats. Good news, Dustin is safe.

The bats are overwhelming but he's holding his own. He can do this. He can buy them more time. He's done running away from the things that scare him.

Bad news, Eddie thinks, watching Dustin sob above him, I'm gonna die here.

Eddie dies. He knows this because all the hurt stops. The world has faded into itself, dimming to a blackness deeper than Eddie's ever known.

The afterlife is a bit disappointing if he's honest. He's not sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't nothing. Endless, unfathomable nothing.

He kinda hoped he'd see his mom or something, but that's delusional. If the afterlife was heaven or hell, he wouldn't end up in the one his mom went to, that's for sure. Too many sins under his belt for that.

Death is pretty boring though.

Time is impossible to track. He's tried a few times, counting seconds to make minutes but that's so boring he loses his train of thought. Ends up humming some tune or another before repeating the process.

The day he finds himself humming a Wham! song has Eddie a little panicked. He doesn't listen to Top 40 stations. He spent a good deal of time avoiding learning any Wham! songs, actually, so now that he's somehow gotten one such in his head...

This has got to be capital H Hell.

Well. Everyone in town thought he was on the road straight to it. Laugh it up, Hawkins. You were right. The Freak went straight down.

Eddie misses Wayne. He can't remember the last thing he'd said to him. When did he last tell his uncle he loved him? Wayne knew it though. He had to know it. They didn't say it out loud but they didn't need to. Right?

In the distance, Eddie sees something. A light? He's not sure what it is but it's something new. Something different.

The light leads him back into the Upside Down. The bats are swarming and he just crashed the bike- fuck fuck fuck, run. Run, Eddie, get the fuck out of here!

He's screaming at himself to run but instead his body stops. Turns. Pulls the shield and spear from his back and screams at the bats.

Eddie rips himself back, away. Crumples to the ground, folding into himself. Not that. Anything but that again.

A soft humming sound. Gentle, warm.

Loving.

Eddie unfolds himself to see what it is.

His mom smiles down at him, reaches out to ruffle his hair as she hums. Eddie knows the danger has passed and he is safe now because Mamma only hums that when it's safe.

"There's my handsome boy," she moves the hand from his hair to boop the tip of his nose. "How about we play a little game, hmm? The floor is lava!"

She scoops him up and plops him on the kitchen table. There is a crunching sound beneath her feet as she moves. Lava sounds an awful lot like Dad's broken beer bottles but if Mamma wants to play pretend then Eddie can do that for her.

His mother is beautiful. The most beautiful woman in the world. He takes after her in a lot of ways. Matching curly locks, the same face scrunch when they're angry, their noses, big brown doe eyes. Eddie even shares her voice, just a different pitch. The point is, Eddie's mom is beautiful and he's got enough ego left at four years old to think of himself as beautiful, too.

The problem, then, is that Eddie makes the mistake of saying it in front of his Dad. 'As pretty as Mamma,' he'd said. They'd, he and Mamma that is, were sitting crosslegged on the floor in the living room. Dad had been in the kitchen, Eddie could hear him puttering about. Mamma had booped his nose and called him the best looking kid in all of America.

Eddie nodded fiercly, "yeah! As pretty at Mamma."

It used to be a fuzzy memory, what happens next. A flurry of movement and shouting. Now he's witnessing it with terrible clarity. His dad's hand curling around his upper arm and yanking him into the air, crushing hard enough to bruise. His dad's shouting at him. He remembers not remembering the words but now they hit him like the slap his dad delivered to his face. "No son of mine is going to be a fuckin' fag, thinkin' he's some pretty little girl. Is that what you want, you little shit? To be a little girl?"

"Stop it! Stop it! Let him go, he didn't mean anything like that!" he hears his Mamma plead but his Dad won't stop shaking him and screaming. He bursts into tears because it hurts and he's confused and his Dad's never hit him before- "Hit me! Hit me! If you're gonna hit someone, hit me!"

Eddie gets tossed aside. He lands on back and sees as his Dad does exactly as his Mamma demanded. Eddie's never been so scared in his life, he can't watch. He scampers down the hall as fast as he can and crawls under his bed to hide.

If Eddie had to guess, that's the memory that ingrained his need to run.

He's reliving his memories. He's a little embarrassed how long it takes him to figure that out. They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. They don't tell you that the quote flash unquote takes a really fuckin' long time. Like, you know, your whole life long time.

It's so strange to witness, too. Like he's both watching the memories as an outsider, but also through his own eyes. He has both the knowledge that he had when he died, and also no experience beyond what he's seeing in the memory.

He watches his Dad beat his Mamma, beat him, but also watches his Dad push him on the swings and slow dance around the kitchen with his Mamma. And that's the worst part, he thinks. That his Dad could have been an awesome one. If he'd stayed sober like he kept promising. He didn't though, couldn't. Hell, maybe it's even a wouldn't. He watchs Wyatt fucking Munson pick beer and drugs over him and his Mamma time and time again.

Couldn't even put them down long enough to be there when Mamma got sick.

Eddie is seven. He's just had his head shaved, bald as his Mamma now. He regrets doing it as soon as he sees his Mamma's smile falter when Uncle Wayne drops him off at the hospital.

"We match, Mamma," Eddie says shyly, eyes downcast. "I wanted to match..."

"Oh, baby, come here," and she's scooping him into a hug, genuinly smiling again, "I love that we match. So long as it was your decision to cut your hair."

Eddie realizes now why her smile had faltered. She thought Dad had shaved his head against his will, probably because long hair was for woman, as he liked to say. Eddie in the memory didn't know that, though, so he just cuddles closer and says, "Yeah. Uncle Wayne did it for me, so it would be nice and even, he said. Wanna hear what we did in school today?"

There is something looming at the edges of his vision. Eddie can't seem to make whatever it is come into focus. It's not a memory because those always focus. It's something else. Something new.

His dad teaches him to hot wire a car. Makes him learn how to pick the lock on car doors and handcuffs. When he sees how easily Eddie took to lockpicking, he makes him learn other locks, too.

Eddie misses out on school because his dad can't be bother to enroll him and Eddie doesn't know how to do it himself. He's too scared to, anyway. Afraid his dad will start swinging and won't stop until he's dead.

When Eddie is eleven, a lot happens. It was a pivitol age for him. He got his first crush (a boy named Jimmy) and a first kiss (a boy named Jeramiah). Eddie also ends up in the hospital because his Dad caught him kissing Jeramiah.

It's not his Dad that picks him up from the hospital, though.

Eleven is the age he is the day his Uncle Wayne moves him to Hawkins, Indiana.

He's also eleven the first time he hears Black Sabbath.

Eddie is also eleven years old when he decides that he wants good news delivered last. To end with something good.

He relives becoming himself.

Catching up in school because he's not stupid, but falling behind because he is kinda dumb (schoolwork never seemed as imporant as hanging out with friends, or starting a band, or playing dungeons and dragon, or any other number of things).

The relief he feels the first time he meets another person like him, learns there's another word besides faggot for what he is. Gay. The immense pleasure of feeling truly seen the first time he says that out loud to someone (it's his best friend, Jeff) "Bad news, Jeff. You might hate me for this. Good news, I'm gay."

Good, good news. Jeff doesn't hate him!

There's a fear that Wayne might be like his Dad regarding all this, so he can't tell him; won't tell him.

But then Wayne comes home unexpectedly when Eddie is a freshman and catches him with another boy's tongue in his mouth. Eddie has a panic attack that winds up with him in the hospital.

He remembers the paralizing fear when Wayne came to pick him up upon his release. Eddie had walked to the pickup numb and afraid. He climbed in, buckled the seatbelt, and waited for the worst.

Wayne climbed in and started the pickup but didn't put it in gear. Instead, he spoke, "Life is gonna be rough for you, boy. Rougher than it should be."

Eddie cannot make words form to reply. Can't do anything but shake.

"Eddie," Wayne says and he feels the seat move as Wayne shifts to turn towards him, "the bad news is, life is gonna be rough, but the good news? Living under my roof isn't. Won't be. Eddie, my boy, I love you. And nothing, absolutely nothing, will change that."

Eddie breaks, like a puppet with its strings cut, sags in the seat and sobs. Never, never had Eddie ever bothered to entertain the idea that this might be Wayne's response.

Eddie is a sophomore the first time he notices Steve Harrington. It's fucking awful. It's also amazing.

Because noticing Steve Harrington means noticing Steve Harrington. He's immidiately popular because he's good looking and good at sports.

Eddie's not gonna claim to know Steve, he doesn't. There's just these little clues that King Steve isn't a default jerk. For one, Steve doesn't partake in bullying. He stays silent. Lets it happen.

But Eddie's also been witness to two times when Stever did step in; both times when it was escalating to be a phycical altercation.

"Hey, Tommy, don't," Steve had said, not quite stepping between Tommy and the other kid, but enough to be within Tommy's line of sight. "The game is tomorrow. You throw that punch and your hand is gonna hurt like a bitch through the whole game. And I swear to God if we lose this game because you can't handle it-" Steve didn't finish the sentence, didn't have to. Tommy lowered his arm and scoffed. Walked away mutter about how the kid wasn't worth it anyway.

The other time, it had been Jeff he'd defended. Jeff hadn't even been doing anything. Just stumbled into some asshole from the basketball team and knocked him over. Eddie had been the one who'd shoved Jeff (because Jeff was teasing him) and he was ready to place himself in the way when Steve had beat him to it.

"Fucking relax, it was an accident," Steve stood face to face with Roger. Eddie and Jeff just stared at the back of Steve's head. "It's not Jeff's fault that barely tapping you knocked you down like a house of cards. Right, Jeff?"

Eddie and Jeff blinked at each other in a sort of stunned silence because since when does King Steve know either of their names? Steve turned to look over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. Jeff stammered out, "R-right. It was an accident. Sorry, man."

"See, he's even sorry."

Eddie reached out, wrapped his hand around Jeff's wrist, and tugged him away. He could not stay here and witness anymore of Hero Steve or he was going to embarrass himself infront of the entire cafeteria in the worst way possible.

That was the tipping point for Eddie. When he finally had to admit he wasn't just noticing Steve Harrington. He had a full blown crush on the dude.

Fuck.

Watching his memories play, Eddie realizes he spent far too much time in high school trying to get Steve's attention. Bumping into him on purpose, being antagonistic to his friends just get a response, or trying his best to use Jedi mind powers to make teachers pair them together for projects in the rare few classes they shared (this never worked; teachers liked Steve too much and hated Eddie).

Steve changes between junior and senior year and still doesn't notice Eddie. Eddie's kinda bitter about it.

Then Steve graduates, but doesn't leave. He's always hanging around, bothering the freshman Eddie's taken under his wing. He's not jealous that Dustin Henderson thinks Steve hung the moon. He's not. (he is).

Anyway, the bad news. Steve graduates but doesn't leave and Eddie can't get over his stupid crush. Good news, he and Steve share a mutual friend in one obnoxiously lovable freshman, so that's like one step closer to Eddie being Steve's friend, right?

The thing that's looming finally comes into view when his most recent memories come up. Or, more accurately, it -she- makes herself seen.

He's holding a broken bottle to Steve's neck demanding to know what he's doing here and then the scene pulls away from him until he's watching himself threaten Steve. The memory moves in slow motion.

"Eddie?"

He screams because Jesus H Christ nothing else in the afterlife has ever spoken to him.

"I am sorry. I did not mean to scare you," she says. Eddie can see her now. She doesn't look like either an angel or a demon. She just looks like a regular person, a girl with shoulder length brown hair, wearing jeans and a yellow shirt that looks too big for her.

"Uh, it's fine?" Eddie says, because what else is he going to say? "Who're.. who are- what are you?"

"I am Eleven. It has been difficult to reach you, Eddie. Had to try, though."

"What?"

Eleven nods, like someone has said something he can't hear. There is a long pause before she speaks again. "Do you want to wake up, Eddie?"

"What do you mean wake up?" Eddie feels like he might start having a panic attack.

"I am not good with words. Not delicate, Mike would say," Eleven says, "so I will be frank. You are alive. Can be alive. Doctor Owens says you retreated into yourself. To protect yourself. But it's safe now. It is all safe. The Upside Down cannot hurt you again."

Eddie feels the panic set in almost instantly at those words. The memory explodes into black and the girl vanishes.

The more Eleven shows up, the more aware of other things Eddie becomes. Occasionally the sound of conversation drifts in but it's far away, muffled. He can taste food on his tongue that he had not eaten. Feel a brush get stuck in his hair.

They don't really talk, he and Eleven. She takes her queues from him and since he's got no idea what's happening he doesn't know what queues to give.

"So, you're not here to like... send me on, or something?" He asks. They're sitting cross-legged in front of each other. Eddie in the outfit he died in and Eleven in shorts, a crop top, and an oversized jacket.

"Where would I send you?"

"Y'know. Like... Hell or wherever."

Eleven is silent a long time before she says, "I don't want to send you anywhere. I want to bring you back."

Back. He can go back? That doesn't seem right. That doesn't seem like it should be an option. "You mean like, back to Hawkins?"

"Eventually."

Eddie's not sure what to make of that. Is he gonna be a ghost? Because if it's Hell or being a ghost, the latter sounds infinity more fun. Plus, as a ghost he could probably check in on Wayne.

"Alright. You win, Eleven. Take me back."

Eleven stands up immediately, offering a hand to help Eddie up. "You have to want it."

"Want to be a ghost?"

"No. You have to want to be alive."

That makes sense, Eddie supposes. Wanting to be alive is probably what makes ghosts be able to like, be ghosts. "OK. OK. I can do this." He does a full body shake, dancing from one foot to another to pump himself up. "Alive. Alive. I want that. I want to live. I want to see my uncle again. Want to give Hawkins a big fuck you for thinking I'd end up in Hell. I want to see Jeff and Gareth! I want to haunt the fuck out of Dustin Henderson for trying to follow me! I want to know if Robin, Steve, and Nancy won! I want to know if they made Vecna pay!"

He is yelling by the end of it, and Eleven is beaming at him like she's proud of him.

"Yes! Yes! Now, wake up!"

Eddie does wake up. Sort of. He's already awake, sitting in what appears to be someone's living room. He blinks several times before exhaustion washes over him and he sags back into the chair he's sitting in. "Wh-" he tried to speak but his vocal chords don't seem to want to work.

"Holy shit." A voice says off to his side. It's vaguely familiar. Like a distant memory. "Call Owens! Call Owens right fucking now!"

Bad news is this. He's been stuck in his own head for several years. His fucking body has been moving around without him yet the amount of physical therapy he has to do is torture. Fucking Owens won't let him contact anyone until he gets the all clear from his new therapist. Oh, and his uncle believes he's dead.

Good news is this. He's alive.

#steddie #eddie munson #my fic #child abuse mention #eddies really going through it guys

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freddie-77-ao3 · 4 months ago

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garden games camp half blood has banned, a non extensive list:

tag. any version of tag. a lot of kids can teleport/shadow travel or have super speed, and the ones that don't DO NOT appreciate playing tag with them. It wasn't officially banned until cecil, connor, and chris teamed up in what became known as the "battle of the c's" and demolished everyone (all 263 kids playing) within three minutes and fifty-eight seconds. travis still has nightmares.

Freeze tag in particular was banned when someone with winter/ice powers misunderstood and actually ended up freezing a couple of demigods. Poor Chris never looked the same.

ring around the rosie. fun fact, this is how michael yew got claimed! yeah... not actually fun considering he started going on about how the song was about the bubonic plague and then GAVE clarisse the bubonic plague because... it sounded like a good idea at the time?

Red Light Green Light. Again, teleportation/superspeed. It had fallen out of favour, but was officially banned when five year olds Will and Connor both ended up in the infirmary because Connor kept cheating, Will got mad and started yelling, and a tree nymph got mad and tripped both of them.

Sharks and Minnows: surprisingly, not a superspeed/teleportation related ban. No, it got banned when nine year old Clarisse tripped Michael so she could make her way to freedom, but Michael fell into Annabeth and she fell too... Annabeth beat both of them up for causing her to lose. Miranda still talks about how she won. Annabeth still glares every time Miranda talks about it.

Simon Says. Sherman won all of Ares Cabin's cash by saying Simon Says give your money to Sherman, and Ares cabin refuses to back down from a challenge. This then turned into a riot when Sherman didn't give the money back.

duck duck goose. there's already an incorrect quote about "fuck, fuck, shit", need I say more? yes, actually, because that's not why it was banned. It was banned because travis gave beckendorf a concussion by hitting his head too hard.

musical chairs. they broke the chairs. the steel, extra reinforced chairs. because instead of playing, they were fighting over who's music to turn on.

dodgeball: certain someones (ellis and cecil) swapped out the dodgeballs for firework grenades. aka fireworks that are motion activated. that only activate when they hit their target. Auto banned... after it happened for the third time.

The floor is lava: michael climbed lee like a tree to win, and so did clarisse. Lee fell over. carrying several jars of nectar. yeah...

jump ropes with rhymes: apollo cabin is very creative when it comes to coming up with rhymes. a little too creative. banned.

hide and seek: so many incidents. so many. also malcolm kept winning and drew kept getting mad, and they started fighting, which meant they both lost...

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blueweaver1 · 10 months ago

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This is part 2 of my Oathbound AU

Click here for part 1

I been working on this AU some more, as you can see. Above are the different forms that Impulse and Skizz can shift in-between. I just realized I forgot to add Skizz's scruff, please pretend he has it. Below has more details about forms, the environments they grew up it, and how this AU interacts with the Life Series.

--Forms--

Impulse prefers his human form. He works a lot with redstone and machinery so lots of tight spaces and moving parts. So while having horns and wings is cool those parts are more likely to get stuck or pinched.

Skizz prefers having at least his wings out. However, he doesn't like it when random people clock him as an angel. To remedy this, while he has his wings out he'll store his halo in his inventory. If anyone asks what type of hybrid he is, he'll just saying some type of white hawk. Impulse would say Skizz is a type of pigeon.

--Places--

So the places that Angels and Demons are form aren't new dimensions, but more like extensions to existing places. The placeholder names are The Upper and The Under. I thought about using the Aether name, but ultimately decided against it.

The Upper is a place far above the sky. Past the limit where fireworks refuse to ignite. Past the limit where elytra start to freeze and shatter. Past the limit where even the sturdiest avians refuse to go. That is where you'll find the angels.

The Upper is a very cold land. Water isn't a thing up there only ice. However, it's no winter wonderland given that it's much too cold to snow. Angels are built for this type of environment, because while they can eat food most of their energy comes from light. Shelter and tools are made from stone and wood-like materials. Although most angels are perfectly fine just finding a nice, flat, floating rock and sleeping on that. The air up there is very still and quiet.

The Under is a place far below the Nether. Beneath the lava lakes of the Nether, in netherrack that is partially baked from the intense heat and weight, you'll find the demons.

The Under is a very hot land. Winding tunnels and caverns that were dug out connecting with chaotically formed ravines all of which is only lit by lava that has snuck through the cracks. Demons are mostly fire proof, because of this they are able to crawl up from the lava lakes are search for food on the Nether floor. There are things they can eat in The Under, but almost all Demons prefer the stuff from the slightly above. The tunnels are often quite noisy.

If it wasn't clear: The Upper is above the overworld, The Under is in below the Nether.

--Who did the Oath first?--

This was answered in the comments of part 1, but I also wanted to put it here.

So if you asked them directly they would probably give you a different answer time. 1: because it's very personal 2: because it's funny. So what actually happened is both Skizz and Impulse thought of the idea independently, but it was Skizz who brought up it up first. However it was Impulse who did the oath first. Of course it took multiple years for him to psyche himself up to do it, not because he didn't trust Skizz, he was just very nervous about it.

Impulse is also just a "tiny" bit competitive and wanted to go against the demon stereotypes. While Skizz would've preferred it to happen sooner and was will to go first, he understood that this was important to impulse. He does have fun needling Impulse that it took him soooooo long, but it's all in good fun

--Life Series--

I personally like seeing that the Life Series started as a fun hardcore series that turned into a death game due to outside forces. Impulse and Skizz (in their human forms) understand that things are going wrong when the second game starts. While everyone's hybrid abilities are being suppressed by the outside force so no one get too much of an advantage. Yes, they could brute force it by going Eclipse mode and getting everyone out they don't know if that would help in the long run. I mean what if it happens again but since they outsiders how of their powers they don't take Impulse and Skizz and the two of them completely lose track of their freinds?

So they settle for trying to pick up clues and win at least one of the games...

....

...

.... why are they so bad at this ....

(though it sounds like angst, it's probably going to end up as a comedy if I'm going to be honest...)

#hermitcraft fanart #impulsesv #impulse fanart #imp and skizz #skizzleman fanart #skizzleman #skizz fanart #hermitcraft au #hermitcraft #oathbound au

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sigmalvrr · 1 year ago

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﹙★﹚HEADCANONS ! ౨ৎ

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ SIGMA X CHILD!READER HCS

[PLATONIC!]

If you have long hair, sigma loves to braid it since he has long hair of his own, it does tend to get a little tangled. he also teaches you to braid it yourself if he isn’t around, he also does take you to the casino on occasions but mostly makes you stay in his office and gives you random stuff to keep you entertained for a few hours while he deals with other things, sigma does play some child like games with you, for an example he does enjoy playing hide and seek, tag, sometimes even the floor is lava! once you guys played and you tried to climb onto him(you both ended up falling into the imaginary lava)

If you have nightmares, sigma is surprisingly really good at singing you back to sleep, if you can’t go back to sleep that way then he’ll either read you a story(classic) or lets you sleep on his lap and soothes you back to sleep while rubbing circles on your back, if you don’t wanna go back to sleep then he’ll let you stay up a bit longer and you both can watch movies until you’re able to go back to sleep, he’ll even let you make hot chocolate or any drink of your choice!

Sigma usually keeps you away from fyodor and nikolai, he doesn’t quite trust them to be around you as much, he knows what they’re fully capable of, and he doesn’t wanna lose you. He has lost a lot of people even though only being in 3 years of existing in this world, hes been through a lot, he cares about you deeply.

When your birthday rolls around, he actually goes all out on your party! he gets you a lot of gifts and for your cake he gets a cake that was commissioned making everything detail to your liking, you want vanilla? Done! you want chocolate? Done! you want strawberry? DONE! Anything you want! he also gets every gift to your liking as well, you like books? He’ll get your favorite genre, or you want toys? He’ll get everything toy you wanted that you mentioned to him once, and if you convince him you’ll wear matching party hats! Overall sigma is glad to have you as his sibling !

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themadauthorshatter · 3 days ago

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Lucky through out Finding Frankie:

"Yeah, I'll play this game, I earned it."

"HOLY SHIT! ... Okay, BYE, BITCHES, I'M OUT!"

"The other contestants mysteriously died! Not sure how that happened! Oh well, at least you're still here!"

"Yaaaay, I love being surrounded by CORPSES."

"How many circuit breakers does one trampoline and water park NEED? If it's this many, can't I just WORK HERE? You guys get any new employees or are they also rabbit food?"

"(Hiding) please don't see through mesh. Please don't see through mesh. (Frankie leaves) Okay, so the floor is lava. Or just a no-go unless I want to die slowly and painfully."

"Made it! And no- WHAT THE SHIT!?(As Frankie crawls by) ... I'm getting that 5 mil. I'm buying this place, and setting it on fire with that abracadabra looking asshole inside."

"GET AWAY FROM ME! GET AWAY FROM ME! GET AWAY FROM ME! GET AWAY FROM ME! WHO PUTS LOGS ON THIS STEEP OF A SLOPE AND HAS A MAN EATING RABBIT CHASE YOU!? I THOUGHT THIS PLACE WAS ALSO DESIGNED FOR KIDS!?"

"Aw, ducky. (Gets pecked) FUCK YOU TOO. Gonna play nice or do I need to throw you again?"

(Encounters Henry)

"... Do I still want that 5 million? We'll, I can't have if I'm dead. ... Alright, away we go."

"WHY IS THERE NO LIGHT IN YOUR AREA!? WHY ARE YOU FRIENDS WITH A CARNIVOROUS RABBIT!? ... (Inhale) Okay. I can handle the giant man eating rabbit. I can handle Talking Telephone man that keeps trying to strangle me. I can handle the fucking duck. I can handle this stupid costume and the fact that I'm surrounding by decaying bodies in this hellhole. But I DRAW THE LINE AT FUCKING BUZZSAWS! WHO'S IDEA WAS THIS!?"

"... Really? You guys have an incinerator? So what's paying this place? All the circuit breakers or this incinerator?"

(Encounters Real Frankie)

"... what... What the fuck?"

(Sees Henry die)

"WHAT THE FUCK!?"

(Gets help from Real Frankie)

"Thanks. Please don't tell me this will come back to bite me later."

"Again with the buzzsaws! In a WATER PARK! ... At least the circuit breaker won't get wet."

"Aw, noob noobs. (Explosions) Sorry, got a game to win and money to collect."

"Oh, hey, a chat board. ...'Boring?' I resent that. Raise the 10k to 30. I'm living and I'm going to buy this place and turn it into a hotel. Frankie's broke ass won't be able to stop me. ... Wait, did someone bring up lava?"

"Frankie's Frosted peak. Just get to the top. Easy. (Slime gets released). SCRATCH THAT! CHANGED MY MIND! I'M BURNING THIS PLACE!"

"I'm never using a buzzsaw again in my life."

"Hey, uh, Frankie, can you help me out? I'm... I'm stuck. (Gets shut it) ... Thanks a lot. Dick."

"STOP MESSING UP MY F*CKING GAME SHOW!"

"SO TRYING TO KILL ME WHEN I'VE ALREADY WON, BITCH!"

"NOOB NOOBS! Wait. OH, SHIT! NO!"

"Surprise, mother fucker. Give me my five million in cash."

"... (Sigh) Fine. *One more season.* But no buzzsaws, no slime, and no fucking corpses scattered all over the place like the Black Plague hit this place. We have an incinerator to play with."

#ramblings #finding frankie #lucky contestant #long post #some things might be out of order sorry #just lucky being sassy #i get that vibe

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prettyboykatsuki · 7 days ago

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what is your skull cavern strat? i feel like i spend way too long in there to ever really get enough loot (i’ve already done the related quests i just wanna get perfection already 😭😭)

okay im gonna try to sum it up in key points so its easy 2 follow.

you need to go on highest luck days only.

you need your axe to be upgraded, at MINIMUM, gold. but you shouldnt be using it often though but if you do need to use it - it needs to be fast.

you need to bring bombs and you need to bring a good weapon. if you dont have the galaxy sword, spend the 25k gold and get the lava katana from the adventurers guild

YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED TO BRING FOOD. i think this is obvious but not just food, drinks too. goldstar cheese or salads from gus are preferred.

your main stats are +luck and +speed. you can only have one food buff active at a time, but you can get buffs from drinks. my combo is the spicy eel (available at dessert trader in exchange for rubies) and a triple shot espresso (takes three coffees to make) but you can do things like a lucky lunch, a pumpkin soup, a ginger ale etc

personally though i think spicy eel and triple espresso work best and they're pretty easy to get up to this point in the game.

you need to get there as EARLY as you possible can. im talking you need to forfeit your day plans and drop everything to go do a run. the desert trader has warp totems for calico desert in exchange for omnigeodes, buy them BEFORE your plan to run- they are always available.

(you'll also want a warp totem for the farm so you can pass out closer to home. you could pass out in there but the former is easier for me lol)

as for strat itself - the key thing in the skull caverns is that you're trying to get as far down as you can possibly go.

now, there are some ways to do this to circumvent having to find shafts and holes to jump in. specifically - people make sheds of crystalarium with jades to trade for staircases at the desert trader. but this takes sooooo much fucking set up lmao so i dont often bother with it. if you want to get down quickly in one go, its a good method but it takes a long time to get up and running.

but you can get pretty far down if you just focus on getting down as far as possible. don't clear floors unless you're really really low already. if there's a spot with a shit ton of ore thats easy to blow up, then you can stop and do it then but for the most part time is money.

it seems counterintuitive but you will accumulate a lot of stuff simply breaking rocks with bombs and picking them up while you get down. it is not like the normal mines so its best to just ignore any ore that would take up a lot of time.

so the strat is place a bomb, find a ladder or shaft, jump in and repeat. stop to get easy ore but focus on going down. always take shafts over ladders and make sure to heal up because you do take fall damage.

also if you're struggling to find a ladder, try killing mobs. it is much, much more lucrative to do it in skull caverns and the drops are extremely good depending on the monster.

also keep in mind that time runs about 25 percent slower in the caverns compared to a normal day so try not to stress too much.

its pretty easy to have a good run if you just keep all of this in mind. the hardest thing imo is getting bombs

personally i don't like buying them so i usually just craft them but if you buy them it gets costly fast. you can always replenish your reserve for ore but money can be tricky. thats just me.

ANYWAYS. GOOD LUCK 🫡🫡

#return to sender #ari plays sdv

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raainberry · 1 year ago

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Blossom

« When good feelings or relationships blossom, they develop and become stronger. »

Sana x gn!reader

Angsty Fluff

synopsis - Your relationship with Sana was perfect, until you realized it wasn’t. That caused quite the argument, but you’re determined to come out of it stronger.

wordcount - 1.8K

A/N - This one’s for @donburiburrito and anyone who likes to read about Sana. Hope you like it!!

“Forever isn’t real, Sana!”

You felt your eyes watering, regretting your sudden outburst and the words it made you spit out.

Your voice had never risen around her. You never had any reason to, nor did you even want to. As much as your patience was put to the test at times, it was always a last resort in your books.

You prioritized your feelings, and found it easier to express them when you took the time to sort them out instead of reacting to them in heat of the moment.

Usually you’d just take some time to gather yourself alone.

However, that night it just didn’t feel like an option. It felt like giving in to that pressure inside your mind was the only way out.

Like it was necessary.

You loved Sana. It had come to that point. It had been two years since you had entered each other’s lives. Two years since you both decided to entertwine them with the same intentions in mind. You had been clear about it all since the day you had taken her on your first date.

You walked side by side ever since then, hand in hand as you helped each other through whatever life threw on your path.

You were by her side the whole time.

Yet she didn’t seem anywhere near where you had ended up.

That would have been completely fine, if only she wasn’t the one leading the way.

“What are you talking about?”

Her voice was small, and her tongue seemed unsure of itself. As if it was hesitant on pronouncing words you already knew were for show.

Your vision blurred itself slowly, but you could still make out Sana’s shaken features through the tears before wiping them away.

In the time you’ve known her, you’d never once thought she would be the reason behind the frustration tears you hated so much. The ones you were all too familiar with and tried to avoid as if in a petty game of the floor’s lava.

That’s how ridiculous it felt when they managed to break through. That feeling was erased though, when her arms suddenly wrapped around you.

It felt warm for an instant. Comforting, like it’s always been. Then it turned awkward.

Maybe it was the silence that hung heavy in the air around you. Or the fact that for the first time, your arms didn’t immediately reach around her waist to pull her even closer.

Sana noticed the latter. How couldn’t she? She expected it every time.

Pulling away, she expected your eyes to meet hers. That didn’t happen either, and she felt her heart pick up the pace as she slowly realised what was happening.

“Y/N, tell me what you mean.”

You looked up from the ground, and it was only then that she noticed the heartbreak you held in your gaze.

It seemed like it had been there a while, weighing on your mind and keeping you up at night according to the faint bags under your eyes.

Tears started to burn and pick at her own too now.

How long had this been going on? When did she start hurting you this way? Why didn’t you say anything?

“Are you breaking up with me?”

The words pushed an ugly chuckle past your lips.

That wasn’t even a thought in your mind. Well, it was, but again: it was a last resort.

You wanted to sort things out first.

“I don’t want to do that.” You finally spoke up.

Sana allowed herself to breathe again, closing her eyes shut as relief lightened her heart.

“But it sure feels like you do.”

Her eyes opened again, allowing you to catch a glimpse of something you always knew she was hiding a part of.

Her love for you. Or at least, it looked like she cared about you a whole damn lot.

Enough to trigger a sort of sensory alarm within her.

“What— No, I don’t. What makes you say that?”

Her words were quick. Seemed like her tongue had gained a bit more confidence.

Was she being truthful?

“Then why does it feel like you’re holding out?” You argued.

She wasn’t going to get away with it so easily anymore. If she cared about you as much as she claimed to, this could only end one way.

You just hoped it actually would.

“On what?” She asked, a bit confused.

“My question is for what.” You corrected. “Why do you feel so distant and unsure about me? It’s like you’re holding out for something else. Lately I can’t help but feel like you’re even hoping for something else.”

Your voice was surprisingly steady as you aired out your mind of the frustration that had been building up over the last few months.

“Are you scared of anything, or do you actually want something else? I need you to be honest with me, Sana.” Your voice faltered this time, the sight of your girlfriend losing the fight against her own tears getting a bit hard to see.

It hurt knowing you had something to do with that one drop rolling off her cheek. Seeing it land on the fabric of your pants as she refused to look at you for some reason didn’t help either.

A soft sigh escaped your lips, and you looked out the window for some soothing in the familiar landscape. It had long been plunged in the dark of the night, and your damp lashes rendred the various lights a bit blurry.

Your mind made a wonky comparison of it to the future of your relationship. It was startling to think about when not too long ago, the life you had imagined with Sana looked just as clear as the sound of her strangled cries.

The dreams and goals you revealed to each other over time allowed it to get as real as it had gotten. The shy giggles you shared made you bask in bliss whenever your conversations wandered into that hopeful and almost naïve subject.

Back then it was so dreamy. How did it turn into some nasty fuel, lighting up the worst argument of your relationship so far.

Your mind drifted back to a few minutes ago, and replayed the words that had lead you down to this awful moment.

“I can’t wait until we live together.”

You wondered how it had escalated to this point. It wasn’t like you had asked her to move in tomorrow. Your best guess: it was the drop that spilled the glass, but whatever it was, you just wanted to clean up the mess.

“Sana.” You spoke after a while, surprising the both of you.

You looked back at her, and your chest warmed up when her eyes finally acknowledged you.

“Do you remember during the last holidays?” You started. “When you went on about how much you missed me over the phone, and we ended up talking about what it would be like to live together? How awesome it would be to get back home to each other every day, in a place we made our own?”

You watched as your girlfriend bit her bottom lip harder with each of the words that came out your mouth.

“Do you remember?” You asked again, pulling a nod from her. “Did you mean it?”

“I did.” She sniffled.

“Did you mean everything else you’ve told me?” You asked, almost desperate. “Do I really know you and what you dream to be?”

“You do.” She cried, breaking down in your arms in a matter of seconds.

You caught her of course, like you always have, and felt the cries she let out into your shoulder all the way down to your heart. It hurt. You hated it, but endured every time. You knew she was hurting a lot more in those moments.

However, ‘hurt’ wasn’t even close to describing the way she was feeling.

A painful shame is what her tears were rather translating. Came with it a weighing guilt as she came to realise the amount of damage she had been inflicting to both you and your relationship.

And as much discomfort as she felt, a part of her was glad you had put your foot down.

Who knows how long it would have been until you’d left her behind, clueless.

Believe it or not, she was oblivious to her own doings until you’d raised your voice.

The words had shaken her to the core, and it took a hot second to piece it all together, but at least she was aware now.

She realised how blind she had been in her quest towards perfection.

The perfect relationship, where both her and her partner would move to the next step at the perfect time.

It seemed to be stuck in the back of her mind, no matter how much time she spent with you.

Something perfect that could last forever.

Whatever that ever meant in her mind, it now sounded so… Foolish. Almost ridiculous.

Yet she got so lost looking for it, she acted as though she had forever to find it.

Like she’d have you by her side forever while she figured it out. Whether that perfection was with you or not.

You eventually noticed that, but denied it until you simply couldn’t anymore, leading you to confront her just moments ago.

Needless to say those words of yours dragged her back to reality rather abruptly.

“I’m sorry.” She apologized through shaky breaths as she pulled away.

The soft caresses of your hand across her back had helped her calm down.

The comfort you managed to bring her with just a touch was heavenly. It had soothed her from the ugliest meltdowns, leaving her with a sense of plenitude she had been taking for granted.

But she loved that feeling.

She loved you.

“I know it’s not an excuse, but I just wanted to be happy and got lost, I’m sorry.”

“I know.” You nodded, wiping her tears away with your thumbs.

“We’re not breaking up, right?” She asked, and you laughed despite the clear worry in her voice.

“We’re not breaking up.” You smiled, cupping her face and bringing it to yours to place a kiss on her cheek.

“Just promise me you won’t hold back anymore.” You pleaded.

Might seem pathetic, it sure felt like it. But all that mattered was Sana.

All you wanted was to be with her. To love her. You wanted her to know that. You made sure she knew that.

If that made you look pathetic then so be it.

Because you knew she felt the same about you anyway, and the kiss you received in response only proved it.

The kiss was a bit too salty, though, due to the amount of emotions spilled in the past few minutes. However that only tilted those emotions into the positive side as you both pulled away, laughing about the taste of each other’s lips.

You teased each other, putting the blame on the other before you settled the playful argument with another kiss on her cheek.

You giggled as she returned the favor rather quickly, yet a bit shy, and the words she whispered into your ear turned your smile into a grin.

“I love you. Let’s just grow and be happy together.”

#sana imagines #sana x reader #kpop x reader #sana twice #twice x reader #twice imagines #twice

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sunstone-smiles · 1 month ago

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No Need to Be Embarrassed

Original request (from @magma-queen): "My friend, I must come here and request #8 with Archie and Maxie <3 please!"

Author’s note: We’re officially one week into Tickletober! Here’s Day 8: “Nuzzles,” “Festival or Fair,” and “Exposed Body Part” from August’s Prompt List, Crow’s Prompt List, and Nim’s Prompt List! I hope you enjoy!

Series: Pokemon

Characters: Archie and Maxie

Word count: 1,242

Summary: Maxie is feeling a little embarrassed about being at a crowded festival, especially in the costume he’s dressed in. Archie knows just how to cheer him up.

---

The festival is loud, rowdy, and upbeat as people celebrate. Booths are lines up at the edges of the walkway selling candies, toys, tickets for games, and more. There’s music playing, decorations of the spooky variety, people chatting and laughing, and they’re all dressed in attire inspired by pokemon.

One would expect that it’s impossible to feel anything other than elation at a festival such as this one, but Maxie on the other hand…He has other feelings.

“There’s a lot of people here…” Maxie tenses as Archie and him enter the festival. Archie thought it would be cute for them to dress as the primal forms of Kyogre and Groudon as a couples costume. Archie wears a sleeveless blue shirt with white patches and light blue stripes to match with his fingerless gloves of the same color. Thick blue ribbons hang from behind his belt to mimic the tail of the legendary pokemon.

To pair with Archie, Maxie wears a black sweater under a red tail coat that’s designed with similar black stripes and white spikes as Groudon. For extra attention to detail, Maxie’s black sweater has small, rib-shapped openings that reveal a bit of his skin down the sides of the upper-half of his torso in order to mimic the lava filled cracks of Groudon’s primal form.

“Of course there is!” Archie enthusaticlly responds to Maxie. “There’s a festival going on! I would be surprised if people weren’t here.”

“I don’t know about this anymore,” Maxie looks around at the crowd like a scared mouse. He stays close to Archie. Archie can feel the nervousness from his form.

“Hey,” Archie gently puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him. He pulls Maxie and himself to the side of the walkway—a nice open area to move away from the crowd of people coming and going.

“You don’t need to be embarrassed. Everyone is here to have fun.” Archie rubs Maxie’s shoulder.

Maxie glances to the floor. He places his arms across his chest to bundle himself up. “But look at what I’m wearing…”

“Maxie,” Archie’s voice is soft with concern. He turns Maxie around towards the waves of people celebrating and holds his shoulders. “Look at everyone. They’re all wearing costumes too, some more extravagant than ours. It would be ‘strange’ if someone wasn’t wearing a costume. No one is going to give you a dirty look. And if they do, you better be sure that I’ll be there to defend you like no other,” Archie gives a reassuring shake to Maxie, then places his head on his partner’s shoulder.

The red-haired man shows a small smile for the first time since entering the festival. However, his smile quickly fades as his eyes dig deeper into the ground and his conflicting thoughts weigh on his mind. His silence says everything.

“Come on, Maxie,” Archie says. “Show me that smile again.” Archie nuzzles his beard into the side of Maxie’s neck. Maxie lets out a soft huff of laughter and scrunches his shoulders to his neck.

“Archiehehe,” Maxie softly giggles. “Stop it!” Maxie says a bit more stern, afraid that they may be drawing attention to themselves. A little squeak releases when Archie nuzzles into the back of his neck.

“I’m not stopping until you start relaxing,” Archie switches to Maxie’s second shoulder to nuzzle into the other side of his neck.

“Ahaharchie, cut it out,” Maxie giggles and tries to shove at Archie’s chest. Archie then moves his hands down to Maxie’s ribs and wiggles his fingers precisely where the small exposed openings of his costume are. Maxie gasps and grabs Archie’s wrists.

He looks over his shoulder and glares at the taller man, “Don’t you even think about it.”

“Okay, I won’t think about it.” Archie grins. “I’ll do it instead.” The taller man digs his fingers into Maxie’s ribs. Maxie lets out a quiet yelp and begins to giggle again.

“Archie!” Maxie attempts to scold before he’s overridden with more giggles. He leans forward as far as he can and slaps a hand to his mouth to quiet himself, but the giggles continue to pour and his hand returns to trying to tug Archie away. He wiggles around like a fish caught in a line and twists completely around, now facing in the opposite direction, with Archie twisting with him. Archie wraps an arm around Maxie like a hug and pulls him in closer when Maxie almost finds leeway to escape; Archie gives a good-natured chuckle at the attempt.

Maxie squirms about in Archie’s hold and shoves at his partner’s chest again.

“Yohohohou are in sohoho much trouble when we-hehehe get home!” Maxie attempts to scold him once more, although the intent of the scolding, even without the presence of his giggles, is meant to be lighthearted. He ends his sentence with a small squeak when Archie wiggles his fingers into his belly.

“Eh, I doubt it,” Archie grins over Maxie’s giggling shoulders. “I bet that you’ll thank me later.”

“Ohohohoh? Is thahahat what you think?” A smug tone appears to grow from Maxie’s laughter. “Well how’s thihihis for ‘thank you!’” Maxie whips around, finding an opening, and digs his hands into Archie’s exposed underarms. Archie lets out a bark of laughter and immediately releases Maxie to clamp his arms down to his sides.

“Mahahaxiehehehe!” Archie giggles, quite loudly, and tries to twist away like Maxie had previously.

As Archie laughs, a few festival goers have smiles on their faces as they witness and walk past the scene. Maxie sees that he’s drawing attention to himself and immediately pulls his hands away from Archie. He clears his throat and straightens out his costume and his glasses, attempting to forget that he allowed himself a brief moment of play in a public setting.

A few leftover giggles trickle from Archie before he stands himself up straight. He walks closer behind Maxie and plops a hand on his shoulder. Maxie crosses his arms.

“Well, looks like you had some fun at the festival after all, huh?” he shows Maxie a grin and shakes his shoulder. Maxie scoffs and glances to the side.

Archie leans forward to get a better view of Maxie’s face. His tone shifts to one of compassion, “But seriously, Maxie, if you don’t want to stay, we can go.”

“No,” Maxie turns to look Archie in the eye, “I…I want to try and stay.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to force you into something you’re not comfortable with.”

Maxie places a hand to Archie’s cheek. “I know. And I appreciate that,” Maxie shows a soft smile. He gives Archie a kiss. “But, you’re right. I shouldn’t be embarrassed. Granted, I am still a little weary and I’m not completely over that feeling of embarrassment, but it would be a shame to miss out on the festivities, and to miss out on spending time with you because of it.”

Archie smiles back at his husband. He basks for a moment in the picture of Maxie’s smile backlit by the warm glow of the festival lights.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Archie responds, “The festival awaits.”

The two walk side by side and join the crowd for the celebration. Although Maxie stays close to Archie for most of the time, it’s comforting for him to know that his legendary partner, the water to his fire, is with him during every tough battle to lend him a helping hand.

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coffeecat1983 · 5 months ago

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Hello! Hope it's okay if I send you a suggestion for the drabble game 🥰 I was thinking, how about 10 "I'm right here, okay?" for Mario and Luigi? No rush of course! 💖

A pleasure, my friend! I hope you enjoy.

Prompt #10 "I'm right here, okay?" (set in the Mario movie-verse, 2023)

The apartment door swung open and Mario shuffled in with a groan. Despite his aches, he smiled when he heard his mother singing along to the radio as she made dinner. Hearing him, Marianna came out, a warm smile greeting her son. "Hi sweetheart," she kissed his cheek before noting how exhausted he looked. "Bad day at work?" He slid the toolbox off his shoulder. "Just a long one. Really could have used some help today." he said softly. "Well get cleaned up and come eat, dinner's almost ready." she said, returning to the kitchen. Mario went to wash up and change. As he entered the bedroom, something felt off but he couldn't place what it was. Returning to the dining room the feeling increased as he took his seat. Dinner was quiet, just him, his parents, and grandfather. Talk was light until Giovanni asked how work went. "It was lousy, had to pull a lot of old pipes out from the floor. Thankfully the bathtub had already been taken out." Mario said, picking idly at his plate. He glanced at the chair beside him. "Big jobs like that will be easier once Lu gets back." Giovanni froze, fork halfway to his mouth. Placing it back down he cleared his throat. "Ah, Mario..." he stopped as Marianna touched his arm, a barely perceptible shake of the head making him change his mind. "I mean, you're right, son. It's been a long day. Why don't you take tomorrow off, get some rest?" Considering this, Mario gave in. "Yeah, yeah I think I will. I'm not very hungry tonight." He went to stand. "Sorry, Ma." "It's all right, sweetheart." He didn't notice the worried looks from his family as he made his way back to the bedroom. Going over and turning on his bedside light, he rubbed at his head. "Really can't wait for Lu to..." he turned and letting out a small cry, fell back. Hurried footsteps raced down the hall, Marianna bursting into the room with Giovanni right behind her. "M-Ma?" Mario pointed, hand shaking as she kneeled beside him. "Where... Lu's bed, where's his bed?!" He stared with horror at the empty spot. All that was there now was a table set up with some of Luigi's things with a framed photo in the center. Mario's heart twisted as he realized it was a shrine. "Mario," Marianna put her arms around him, "he's been gone for a year now." she said gently. Memories that he kept pushing back came flooding forth. A melted cage. His brother hanging on. Racing to reach him as he fell. The scream that pierced his very soul. The scream that echoed in his dreams night after night. "No...I couldn't... I tried, Ma, I tried!" he broke, his body shaking as everything came back. Clinging to his parents, he threw his head back with a sob. "Luigi!"

"Mario, Mario, wake up..." The nightmare shattered around him. Waking, Mario gasped wildly as he struggled to sit up, shoving his blankets off in a panic. Hands grabbed his own, tired blue eyes that matched his watching him with worry. "It's okay, it was just a dream." the soft, rusty voice he loved so dearly wrapped around him, forcing back the waves of fear. "L-Luigi?" he choked out. The nod was all he needed. He grabbed his twin, trembling as tears flowed. "I dreamt I lost you! I wasn't fast enough, the lava, you f-fell." another sob shook him. Warm arms held him close, a tender kiss to his head. "Shh, you didn't lose me. I'm right here, okay?" Luigi soothed. "I'm not going anywhere. I promise." "Mm'sorry." the exhausted apology was mumbled into his brother's shoulder as Mario slumped against him. Gently guiding him so he could turn, Luigi rested against the headboard with Mario snug against his chest. The gentle heartbeat provided a lullaby and Mario relaxed. "Th'nks Lu." he mumbled again. "Love you." A faint chuckle. "Love you too, big bro."

END

By "CC"

Drabble master list and game here

#fanfic #luigi #mario #super mario bros #mario movie #mario bros #not ship #drabble request #drabble game #thanks for the request!

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foolofatook001 · 1 year ago

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woooo hermit horrors week! excited for this one :D

Day One - Season 8/Game Mechanics

cw mind control, temporary character death

Zedaph has never really had a hard time talking anyone into doing something for him. He’s a very persuasive kind of guy, when it comes down to it, and of course the other hermits are always so very helpful, so it doesn’t take much to convince them into whatever scheme he’s cooked up lately.

This really comes in helpful for this season, especially now that his chamber is ready for live hermit experimentation. His first subject is Tango, and it’s an easy job getting him into the chamber— just a little word in his ear, a mere suggestion, really (and a directive to sign the waiver, before they begin), and they’re ready to go. Tango is always so willing to help him out with these science experiments, it’s really very kind of him. It’s one of the reasons why they’re such good friends.

He has to be careful when the subject is actually in the chamber, though— he doesn’t want to taint the experiment. Each solution to the task set before them has to come from the subject’s own pure brain, without any hints or nudges from him. But Zedaph has lots of experience, and the push-to-talk intercom system certainly helps him be a little more deliberate when he speaks.

He gets lots of interesting results from Tango, and sends him on his way with a casual Go ahead and toss yourself in the lava there, sending him up to the bed to respawn and exit.

It’s a few weeks before the chamber is properly reset and cleaned out, and by that time Zedaph has landed on Bdoubleo as the next subject. Bdubs is not as used to helping Zedaph in the lab as Tango is, but a few choice words set him on the right track, and by the end of the session, he is performing marvelously. The results are absolutely incomprehensible, but the process was so very fun that he sends Bdubs off with a suggestion planted in his mind— Just something to think about, but— come back to the lab sometime soon. For some follow-up tests, of course.

Bdubs says he definitely will. Zedaph is very happy that Bdoubleo has discovered such an interest in science. He checks the “willing to return” box on the subject information sheet.

The next subject is Beef, and Beef is such a character in of himself that Zedaph doesn’t even really need to tell him what to do— he’s content to observe through the soundproof glass as Beef goes through the various tasks he’s set. Mumbo, too, is highly independent— though he looks awfully tired, Zedaph notices, marking it down as a note on his clipboard. There’s a certain sluggishness to Mumbo’s movements, and it’s dragging out the series of tests. Zedaph clicks on the mic. “Er, Mumbo? Go ahead and pick up the pace a little bit.” Mumbo speeds up, limbs moving jerkily as they try to keep up with his suddenly galvanized mind. The rest of the tests go by at a much faster tempo, and Zedaph is satisfied with the results. He also marks down a strange and only-just-suppressed urge toward violence from Mumbo, despite the man’s commitment to— what was it again?— right, “Peace, Love, and Plants.”

It’s been a while since the last hermit experiment now, though. For one thing, he hasn’t decided on a new subject. He’s been thinking of giving Xisuma a call and asking him to come over, out of pure curiosity, but it’s not urgent. For another thing, the seismograph has been going absolutely mad lately— there’s been tremors all over the server, with no discernible cause whatever. If this keeps up, Zedaph’s going to have to go out and do some actual field work.

He shudders at the thought.

A rapidly pulsing red light blinks on at the top left of the security monitor screen, just a moment before the proximity alarm goes off. Zedaph whirls around and gets a split-second look at Mumbo looming over him like a bespoke string bean before Bdubs tackles him at the waist and he hits his head on the tile floor. The next few moments come through in dizzy flashes: lab lights, far too bright for suddenly sensitive eyes—being picked up and carried, his head throbbing with each step—an uncomfortable heat radiating near his arm, but he can’t muster the words to tell it to go away.

His stomach suddenly drops and for a moment he flails through empty air before landing with a sickening crunch on the dull white floor. He’s not in instant respawn territory yet, but he’s close, and his kidnappers seem to know this, because he hears shattering glass quite near him, and then comes the bubbly, prickly feeling on his skin that only happens with splash regen and healing potions.

His headache clears after a moment, and he’s able to get to his feet. “Oh, goodness me,” he says, upon realizing where he is.

Tango, Bdubs, Beef, and Mumbo all stand on the other side of the tinted glass, wearing lab coats and looking somewhat vindictive. Mumbo’s got a clipboard and pen.

“This is highly unusual,” Zedaph says, crossing his arms over his chest. “There’s procedures for these things, you know. Standards and that.”

Tango steps over to the desk and keys the intercom. “Hey, Zed, ol’ buddy. I know you’re probably a little confused, here. Let’s just say we didn’t, uh— didn’t appreciate being your little lab experiments very much, my friend.”

“Informed consent is a big part of the scientific process!” Mumbo says, looking up from the clipboard, clearly unaware of the hypocrisy of his statement. The bags under his eyes have grown even deeper since Zedaph last saw him.

“You signed the waiver when I asked,” says Zedaph, but of course they can’t hear him. They take turns putting him through his paces, making him do— well, frankly, they’re quite silly things. He has much better things to be doing with his day. If he could just talk to them—

“Make a contraption that will blow something up,” says Bdubs, and Zedaph sees his chance. He intentionally builds it just a little too close to the glass— not so close that Tango and Mumbo will be able to realize what he’s doing right away, but close enough that the blast has a chance of damaging the barrier.

The TNT, when it goes off, leaves his ears ringing and all his nerves buzzing. But as the smoke clears, Zedaph spots a block of glass up near the corner that has shattered, and he giggles. Perfect!

“Bdoubleo,” he calls, and Bdubs turns to look at him suddenly. “Come in the chamber!” Bdubs immediately pulls out his pick and smashes through the nearest two blocks of glass beside him. He steps through the jagged hole and then pauses, looking confused.

“What was that?”

“This is all really very funny,” Zedaph says to the other three “scientists,” and replaces the glass that Bdubs broke, leaving the hole up at the top. The alarm melts off their faces, and they begin to laugh at Bdubs’ predicament.

“Mumbo,” says Zedaph, and now Mumbo snaps to attention, meeting his gaze through the glass. “I think for the next test, you should have me do something you’ve really, really wanted to do this season but can’t.”

Beef and Tango break out into another round of chuckles.

“Now hold on a minute,” says Bdubs, looking around, panicked.

“Well,” says Mumbo slowly, lowering his clipboard and taking a step closer to the glass. Zedaph nods encouragingly. “I would like you to… describe… how you would go about killing Bdoubleo using only things in this chamber—”

“Hey!” Bdubs screams.

“—and then do it and tell me how good it feels,” Mumbo finishes, all in one breath. Tango lets out a surprised wheeze of laughter, and Beef is wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.

“‘Course,” says Zedaph brightly. “Have to do what I’m told in here, don’t I?”

“No, no, no,” Bdubs says, backing away.

“Come on, Bdubs,” Zedaph coaxes. “Hop up on this dirt block here and stay put.” Bdubs’s face goes slack and he does as Zedaph asks. “Great! Well, Mumbo, the first thing I would do is get him in prime killing position, like so.” He gestures up to where Bdubs is standing, now looking around wildly. Mumbo nods enthusiastically, taking notes down on his clipboard. “And then I would place— er—” He goes digging through the scattered chests in the chamber to find what he’s looking for.

Oh, perfect.

“I would place some obsidian,” he says, triumphantly, sticking the block down next to Bdubs.

“No, no— no, wait,” Bdubs says, desperation clear in his voice.

“You’re killing me, man,” Tango says breathlessly, clutching his ribs. Zedaph tips an invisible hat in his direction and sends him off in gales of laughter again.

“Yes, yes, go on,” Mumbo says impatiently, pen tapping against his clipboard.

“And then I would place one of these,” Zedaph says, pulling the end crystal out of his inventory and setting it hovering over the obsidian base. He swears he sees Mumbo’s eyes light up.

“Go on, then,” Mumbo says, leaning forward eagerly.

“If you say so,” Zedaph says, and detonates the crystal.

It kills him as well as Bdubs, of course, but that only sends him back to his actual bed, and out of the range of the other would-be scientists. That had turned into rather a fun little tangent, actually.

It probably went without saying that none of them would want to come back to the lab, though.

Well. He’d just have to ask.

also on ao3 :D

#hermithorrorweek2023 #hermitcraft #zedaph #tangotek #bdoubleo100 #vintagebeef #mumbo jumbo #fool writes #is this based on a silly joke bdubs made in that one episode where they're all experimenting on zed? yes #is it also a result of having the silly song zedaph sings stuck in my head since the first time I heard it? also yes #am I sorry? absolutely not

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jq37 · 6 months ago

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The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 19/20

Blinded By Rage

Welcome back for a final time this year to Fantasy High where we’re covering both parts of the finale in one go!

Last we left off here, the Bad Kids had gotten control of the Hangman post dragon fight on election night and were flying back to a much changed Elmville, sky turned an angry red in the process of becoming the divine domain of rage.

When we return, they’re running out of clouds to ride on and need to pick a place to land. Fabian is concerned about just plopping a chunk of his house randomly in town but time is of the essence so they land at school on the Bloodrush field. It’s 10:20 PM, so they have less than two hours until the polls close at midnight. All the non-Bad Kid students get the hell out of Dodge because they’re useless in a crisis as always and all the brave and competent students (read: The Seven) have graduated.

Brennan rules that, despite how crazy it was, the K2 Divine Intervention was technically buttoned up and allows Kristen to choose a special effect. She wants K2 back to help with spellcasting which Brennan grants (and will live to regret).

Elmville is NOT doing well. It’s like 107 degrees and they can hear sirens and gunshots. There’s some real The Purge energy. Mazey has the duffel bag of votes but says she’s not allowed to count them until midnight so they all take a short rest to get their stuff back. They send Jawbone and Ragh to make sure Lydia is OK. They also strategize and throw on a bunch of buffs. Gorgug drinks his crazy strength potion he got as a present from Riz that takes him to a 25 Str. Adaine casts Rary’s Telepathic Bond so everyone can communicate telepathically plus Fly on Fabian, Gorgug, and herself. Kristen handcuffs the duffel bag of votes to Mazey for safekeeping. Perhaps, most crucially, Kristen has K2 cast Ice Feat which has ascended from a mistake to a bit to a homebrew spell with the following effects:

Every creature targeted by this spell takes a level of exhaustion and 1d12 cold damage.

The targets are cured of all disease and poison.

All creatures targeted by this spell make constitution saving throws with advantage and their hit point maximum and current hit points increase by 2d10.

The targets gain immunity to fire damage and the stunned condition.

Remember that last one for later.

Anyway, there’s a lot more that they do but I’ll mention stuff if they come up in a big way. For now, let’s bust into the gym where Porter plus Jace and the Rat Grinders are trying and failing to do the ritual because they never got the proper name (highlighted by Buddy who in his same blind earnestness from before he was rage star’d thinks Bakarath is the true name and they’re just not believing hard enough).

Porter is furious that he was tricked into using the wrong name and grows to an enormous size, doing the foot stomp stun thing from earlier in the season but Ice Feast gives immunity to the stun condition so with a successful “Loser says what?” from Gorgug, it’s time to roll for initiative!

To set the scene, the gym (and all of Elmville really) is breaking apart. Team Porter has invoked all this energy but can’t do anything with it so it’s kind of like a ticking time bomb ready to explode. The floor of the gym is cracking and there’s bubbling lava underneath–lava that is actually the carcass of Ankarna and the rage domain is spilling into the material plane.

I also want to mention that even though several people have abilities/spells active that allow them to see Invisibility, no one can see Kipperlilly. We learn later it’s because she’d never been truly invisible, she’s just that good at hiding.

As always, I’m gonna just hit highlights for the fight but ooh man, there are some highlights:

Riz on his first turn does a super clutch casting of Slow which gums up the works for the Rat Grinders for a big chunk of the fight.

Just as they planned earlier (both in game and as we learned during the AP, out of game) Oisin is the top priority to deal with. A tag team of Fig and Gorgug gets him off the board in the first round before he can even cast a single spell.

Ivy attacks the Hangman on her turn and Fabian returns the favor by brutally one-shotting her his next turn. Like, *extremely* brutally. He has low key had it out for her since she was mean about Mazey way back at the top of the season. But even Mazey (who is joining the fight because they can’t actually kill her, logistically speaking since she needs to count the votes) is like hmm, don’t know if I *love* that. (For the record, Ivy is killed first but Oisin is attacked first. That’s why I have them in this order).

After Ruben hits everyone with a 9th level spell (highest level a spell can be for anyone not familiar) Fig gives up on the dude. Once the 9th level spells get broken out, the time for talking is over. In disguise as Wanda, she rips a very confused Ruben a new one for not being receptive to any of her attempts to coax him onto a redemption arc. She eventually blasts him into hell which sounds brutal until you remember that it’s functionally just her office.

Because the Rat Grinders are clustered together in a very non-strategic way, Adaine is able to hit them all with Synaptic Static which not only does damage but also forces a bunch of their spellcasters to lose Concentration on spells. Everyone but Buddy I believe.

Kipperlilly gets Riz with 8 points of damage but he gets her with 21 damage on his Attack of Opportunity as she escapes which is almost triple. That’s crazy!

And I wanna pause here to make a quick point. The Rat Grinders are kind of bad at this. Like, they have all these high level abilities–and we know Brennan can be brutal in how he runs NPCs cause we’ve seen them in Neverafter and ACOC. But the Rat Grinders are just seriously dropping like flies. And that’s due to a combination of three things. One, the Intrepid Heroes and by extension the Bad Kids are just really good at this. They’ve had a lot of practice and they’ve had time to strategize. They read the rules. They’re making clutch decisions. Of course they’re good at what they’re doing. Secondly, they got some great rolls. For instance, initiative worked out that they had the opportunity to merc Oisin before he could start slinging 9th level wizard spells. And finally, as we learned in the AP, the Rat Grinders had level 20 abilities but they were still very squishy because they didn’t level up properly.

Anyway, back to the fight.

Jace splits himself into 4 copies and finally gets Ankarana’s name with a Detect Thoughts on Fig. That’s not the only road block for the Bad Kids. They’re doing really well considering but also taking some Ls. Fabian drops (as does Fig later) and Adaine gets caught with Flesh to Stone.

Riz tries to find Kipperlilly and, when he can’t, he goes under the gym floorboards, shoots at Porter, and introduces the last big element to this combat: with his last 5 feet of movement, he jumps into the lava to hide. Because, as Emily mouthed to him a few minutes earlier, because of Ice Feast, they’re all immune to Fire Damage. Brennan forgot to account for that. The lava is only a hazard for his NPCs. The Bad Kids are all immune. Kipperlilly is so baffled that she goes, “What the fuck?” and gives away her position.

From this point on, utilizing the combo of Fly and fire immunity to stay out of range of enemies–either in the sky or below the gym floorboards in/near the lava–becomes a major part of their strategy. For instance, Kristen goes under there to do some Mass Healing without being a target.

Porter in this fight is very fearsome. He has Legendary Actions and he can attack so hard that you get hit just from the air moving so fast before his weapon even hits you. Later on in the two-parter, he stops on Gorgug’s skull and gives him two death saves. It’s a whole world of hurt.

But, the Bad Kids also are no-selling him at every single turn. He insults them but they just say he was a shitty teacher. He tries to activate their rage crystals but, guess what? They all avoided taking a rage token all season so it has no effect. He even tries to give them a speech about how the school sucks and they should be on his side but they’re like, my brother in Ankarna, YOU’RE a big part of why the school has been sucking. Adaine and Fig have great back to back lines. Fig accuses him of having no principles, just pride. And Adaine says the school didn’t MAKE them waste their summer on the Night Yorb quest. That was their mistake and they fixed it. He seems a bit surprised and confused that they won’t engage with his philosophy but that’s really on him if he thought THIS would tempt the Bad Kids at all. They’re great at getting mad all on their own. All he’s offering is the destruction of their homes.

Riz on his next turn sets himself up in a purposefully clumsy hiding spot where he will be easily visible to anyone looking for him but they will have to get in melee range to hit him and he readies an action to catch a spell.

On Fig’s turn, she gets away from Porter to get in position but that earns her a nasty attack of opportunity from him that's so powerful it starts carbonizing her blood (which is what happened to Yolanda you'll remember so now we know for sure who killed her). But once she gets away from him, she is safe in the lava (which is also Ankarana’s body). She tells Ankarna that she needs to choose her own path and then does a huge Fireball (which is the actual killing blow on Ruben btw). The Fireball also breaks Buddy’s concentration on the spell he’s been holding all fight which was a Banishment on the ballot box. They now have a way to get the votes delivered!

This is where part 1 ends but we’re rolling this all together for the recap so let’s keep going!

(I also have to note that for part two, everyone but Brennan is dressed in emo gear. Do with that info what you will.)

Fabian pulls out Bakur’s gem and throws him out like a Pokemon. He doesn’t break out right away but Brennan takes the opportunity to intro a new mechanic where portals open and on a high enough roll, the Bad Kids can call allies to help.

Fabian ALSO has the idea to push Jace (well, one of the 4 Jaces) into the lava which, surprise surprise, the fighter/dancer is stronger than the waifish sorcerer. And that’s 18d10 damage so yeah. This fight largely becomes the throwing people into lava challenge. And can you blame them? That’s so much damage!

We get a little bit of elucidation about how the rage crystals work. Porter is a kind of hive queen and he can exert influence over the people with crystals in their chest. We see him do it to Jace and we see crystals leave the chests of Oisin, Ivy, and Ruben (well not his chest cause he’s in hell but from where he was standing). The crystals are parasitic and jump ship to try and find new hosts.

Mazey gets rage star’d. Bad! K2 Banishes Buddy. Good! (Extra good bc K2 is Invisible and can’t be Counterspelled)

Porter chugs some devil’s honey and calls to Ankarna that he’s trying to rez her so he can worship her which we know is a lie cause his real goal is to usurp her. Fig and Kristen treat her like a friend who’s getting back with her shitty ex and are like girl he’s lying to you!

In one of my fave moments of the ep, Kipperlilly falls for the trap Riz laid in part one, going to attack him where he’s awkwardly positioned and not realizing that he was actually forcing her to jump over a pit of lava. The moment she does, he hits her with a Hold Person which stops her in her tracks and causes her to fall straight into the lava. Riz gets in the last word in this one-sided rivalry, “Very good on paper, but no practical application.”

She sinks into the lava and, as she does, we see she doesn’t have a visible rage crystal (only a symbol) because, unlike the others, she is a full willing participant. (Note: She DOES have a crystal to be clear, Brennan mentions that later, it’s just put in a different way).

Mary Ann fully jumps into the lava to attack Fig, tanking the damage and downing a very injured Fig in one hit.

Adaine gets a very clutch move next, whisking all her injured friends to safer parts of the battlefield and drawing a legendary action from Porter even though she’s one of the least tanky members of the group. But with her Mirror Images, she gets off scott free! Adaine, Battle Wizard!

Since Mazey is under rage control, Porter tries to make her disband the school but a Clippy style pop up of Arthur Aguefort shows up to say that mind controlling the class president to make them do stuff doesn’t count, you have to win fair and square. The things that this man plans for vs what he overlooks is baffling.

Not only that but with Kipperlilly dead (and no cleric to heal her since Buddy is banished) their plan is kind of screwed. Even if they can rig the vote, their candidate is dead.

When Jace and Porter are squabbling about plan logistics, Porter says, “Figure it out Stardiamond or I’ll kill you again,” which confirms that Jace got roped into the plan that way. Maybe Porter knew he needed someone with spells?

Gorgug gets a Nat 20 to pop up (from Porter downing him and giving him 2 death saves as I mentioned earlier) and then destroy another Jace clone, again with lava.

Gonna pause again to say that I am really skimming over a lot here. Battle episodes are just not conducive to straight up recaps when they’re this long and involved. I’m gonna steal a trick of Adaine and quickly reposition everyone so you know the state of the battlefield where I’m jumping back in with the plot-forward part of the fight. Bakur has busted out of his gem but isn’t sure which side to join at first. The Bad Kids eventually are able to roll high enough to get some allies on the field–Ragh/Lydia/Sandra Lynn/Jawbone/Gorthalax plus Squeem and Balthazar (but don’t worry too much about them. The most notable things there are Lydia does a sick wheelchair jump assistant by Ragh to get an attack in and Squeem heals everyone with cortados). Mary Ann goes down to lava. Fabian is able to break Mazey out of her rage with The Power Of Getting Your Kisses In and they make it official vis a vis boyfriend/girlfriend titles.

Fig and Kristen try to tag team to tell Ankarna that Porter is lying to her but they don’t make the Dispel Magic roll to get rid of the Devil’s Honey. You know who does though? With a crit? As she farts and days Blimey?

Yeah, I told you Brennan was going to live to regret letting her live. Zac takes over again and Brennan just says, “No,” and leaves for a bit while everyone else howls with laughter.

Brennan is so over it that he rules that, after this fight, K2 will be granted true life (Pinnochio style) and then banished to real life actual England. (Which seems dangerous considering Unsleeping City takes place irl but dig your own grave man).

ANYWAY, All Of That aside, the Dispel Magic does work and Bakur is able to see the lies despite the Devil’s Honey. He joins the fight on the BK’s side.

Also the bird cop shows up to shoot the last Jace. Don’t worry about it.

OK, so going into the endgame of this fight, All the Rat Grinders are dead except for Buddy who is Banished. Bakur is there, and fighting with our heroes. Some of their allies have arrived. Mazey and Fabian and both down. All but one Jace (the one who got shot) is fully off the board. And they still have to convince Ankarna that Porter is a big liar.

OK, pieces repositioned, let’s finish this fight up.

Having just been brought up by Sandra Lynn (like I said, I skimmed a LOT), it’s Adaine’s turn and she decides to do something uncharacteristic for a wizard. She takes a leap of faith. She uses her earworm present from Fabian to cast Detect Thoughts on all of her friends in range (Kristen and Fig) plus Bakur and Porter.

According to the wording of the card (which I assume has been partially homebrewed for the setting bc it’s a bit different than the one in the official book), using the earworm to cast Detect Thoughts sends the information gleaned to the nearest extraplanar creature. Which in this case is Ankarna.

The Devil’s Honey is dispelled now so it’s just up to if Porter makes his save or not (Adaine tells her friends to fail on purpose). He makes it, but Gorgug throws one of his inventions–a flashbang grenade–at him with another great line. He goes out of his rage and says, “Hey. Don’t be blinded by rage.” FLASH! The grenade goes off and he’s distracted enough to fail the save. His thoughts get broadcasted right to Ankarna.

Adaine says, "Is this justice? Is this a new dawn?"

In this moment, Brennan lets everyone roll as a cleric of Ankarna for Divine Intervention. I cannot BELIEVE he lets K2 roll but, thankfully, she doesn’t actually get it. It’s Fabian, unconscious and appropriately in a kind of liminal state that’s able to do it (Note: Mazey is supposed to be down at this point so I don’t know how this next thing happens–whether it’s just a continuity blip or in his head or whatever but I’m just reporting what happened at the table, OK?). In his unconscious state, Mazey is really emotional about Fabian going down. She says that he's a really great and caring person even outside all of the things that make him traditionally cool and she wishes they could have lost their V Cards together. Ankarna, goddess of justice, will NOT let such an injustice stand. That’s enough to make her emerge from the lava, fully formed (and Fig, who has the keys to her domain, of course lets her in). She pops up and immediately slices Porter in half with a huge ass god sword. Sayonara Porter! Maybe you can be a boat in hell with Goldenhoard.

Things start to calm, but it’s still all weird and liminal as Ankarna’s domain is being reestablished. Everyone is separated and Brennan asks them all for a moment of something unfair that they regret accepting. What follows is a bit similar to the American Dream sequence in Unsleeping City where Ankarna offers each of them a chance for vengeance/justice but is turned down.

Gorgug thinks of Porter unfairly writing him off. Kristen thinks of her bio family. Adaine sees her parents pitting her against her sister who she could have been loving this whole time. Riz sees how hard it was to connect with people but also how he pushed Fig and Kristen this year and sees a bit of Kipperlilly in himself. Fig sees all of her internal conflict from the past year from not being able to make a pact with herself to not being able to act for help. Fabian sees the burden of living up to his father's legacy. Ankarna heals everyone of their wounds but then sadly sends them to a Twilight Forest (presumably Cass’s domain) when they politely say that they appreciate the offer but don’t need vengeance.

Fabian does have a moment come from this however as Gorthalax and Bakur tag team to bring Bill in for a little heart to heart with Fabian where he says that he’d love his son even if he wasn’t a Maximum Legend and he’d give up his legacy for one more day to spend with Fabian.

(Also, Lydia and Bakur are cool now. They talked it out off screen.)

With all of that, everyone is now together and Cass is holding Ankarna who is badly injured. Ankarna kind of has the attitude that Cass had at the end of last season where it was like, it doesn’t seem like anyone really needs me and all I’ve done is cause trouble so maybe I shouldn’t be here. The Bad Kids reassure her that she’s more than just her usefulness and that contrary to her declaration that she has no followers, she has at least six in the six of them. Ankarna cries happy tears.

Cass and Ankarna are about to leave to have a well deserved reunion but Kristen holds them up to ask about where the hell Kalina is. Ankarna gets all agitated because she’s NEVER trusted that cat and she’s damn near about to go on a crusade to find her as soon as Kristen brings up her suspicions. Before they leave, they have some business to attend to.

They raise Rat Grinders (sans Kipperlilly since she was a willing participant) and Ankarna takes her name off of Lucy and Yolanda’s bodies so they can be raised. Then, Cass takes a selfie with Kristen and Ankarna and drafts a social media post to send to Craig to post because Kristen may be great in a foxhole, but she’s not the most organized person in Spyre.

With this all wrapped up, Aguefort (and Ayda!) finally show up but the Bad Kids absolutely refuse to let him take credit for their victory. Mazey counts the votes. Adaine gets Aguefort to remove the bit in the bylaws about drugs being illegal (he calls it “narc shit).

Riz pulls Kristen aside to make sure she actually wants to be president and that she’s not just doing it for his sake and she says yeah, (though she later says she wants him to be VP with her which he is very down for).

Bobby Dawn tries to leave town (without even taking his grandkid!) but Fabian is chasing his ass down for all of his bullshit against his friends.

Lucy is brought back and confirms that her friends killed her but also says that Ruben was one of her best friends before this started, implying that he was fully personality changed by the rage stars (unlike Kipperlilly who was maybe made more extreme but was rageful from the start). We see this in action when Ruben is brought back, basically tabula rasa. He has no memories of his emo persona and is really stressed to have lost his puka shell necklace. Ivy and Oisin seem like they have more memories and are ashamed of what they did but there’s not an explanation given of why the difference in effect.

Mary Ann is basically the same and has a very abrupt conversation with Gorgug where she asks him if he has a girlfriend, much to everyone’s delight. Gorgug is so baffled and frustrated but finally lands on, “She’s so hot,” to everyone's further delight.

Time for epilogues y’all!

Kristen decides to be a cleric for not just Cass but Ankarna too. She even talks to Tracker (who is on a break from both Nara and Nara's money) about maybe poaching Galacaea from Sol’s pantheon. She also drops Gertie for the possibility of getting into a situationship with Tracker, earning herself a nemesis.

Riz decides to try and chill out a little and switch from coffee to tea. He still thinks change can be scary but he recognizes that without change, he never would have met his friends.

Aelwyn delivers a letter from the Court of Stars to Adaine which they open over ice cream sundaes at Basrar’s. Apparently, some wizard is starting shit in Sylvere–their mother. They’re both ready to plan a road trip to go kill that bitch, but before their sister murder quest (a normal thing for sisters to do) Aelwyn says that she hopes she and Adaine can eat ice cream and do magic together forever, and that if the price to have Adaine was suffering their shitty parents, it was a worthy trade. Adaine happily agrees.

Fabian gets the Tornado to put his house back and rolls for his first time with Mazey. The dice are not on his side but luckily Mazey likes him for his personality, lol. His mom and Gilear show up and announce that they’re expecting…a dog…to guard the new baby. Also Telemaine is moving in. Fabian is distraught, even moreso when he gets a ping on Nemesis Alert. The unborn baby has already declared themselves his nemesis. At least Cathilda is also back!

Like Riz, Gorgug also takes some time to relax since he's no longer taking 4 classes at once. He hangs with his parents and gets some presents for Fig since she was such a big help to him this year. He also makes things official with Mary Ann. Aguefort asks if he's considered being a teacher after he graduates and Ayda boasts that she always knew he was special. Aguefort also stops just short of saying he might be the bad guy next year and disappears into a flock of birds when questioned. Maddening as always.

Fig gets some time with Sandra Lynn who is very supportive of her (which is saying a lot considering Fig has Porter’s literal balls on a chain, do not even ask). She decides school isn’t for her and drops out which she is a little concerned Ayda might judge her for since she’s so studious but Ayda says that learning isn’t confined to a classroom and starts a spell to link Leviathan to her domain in hell. Ageufort is also OK with her dropping out personally, but he does warn her that attack robots WILL be tracking her down for dropping out. Insane, but she’s not too worried about that. She just wants some alone time with Ayda.

And finally, two bits of unfinished business. Unseen to the Bad Kids, Buddy pops out of his Banishment, still a true believer in Bakarath. He believes SO HARD that a baby god comes into existence. Then, out of the shadows KALINA appears and says, "Buddy, we gotta get the fuck out of here. They are coming for us. Your grandfather is not gonna fucking believe this."

And that’s it! End of season. Class dismissed!

Plot Post Mortem

OK y’all there was a LOT going on this season and not everything was neatly wrapped up but I’m gonna take a little bit of time to try and put together what we do know.

We know that Porter was the ultimate puppetmaster of his plot and everyone else was an underling of his to some degree. Jace had a visible rage star in him so it seems that he was forcibly drafted rather than being a fully willing participant.

The Rat Grinders formed a party (at that time called the High Five Heroes) Freshman Year. They went to the Mountains of Chaos for Spring Break. Near the end of Sophomore Year, all of her friends killed her.

The Rat Grinders are on record as just grinding rats which seems to be a half lie because we know from talking to rats that they WERE doing that for a time but eventually Porter recruited them and started farming XP for them.

And we know that Kipperlilly was a willing participant of the plan but the other Rat Grinders were forced.

So my best guess for the series of events here are as follows. In Freshman Year or so, Porter forced Jace into having a crystal so he can have a minion with spells (again, Porter does explicitly say he killed Jace). He spends the year scouting for a good candidate for his plan and finds an already naturally aggro Kipperlilly.

He starts showing an interest in her and lets her in on his plan. She’s super down because she’s already bitter about the perceived injustice of the system. He feeds her unhealthy thought processes. This is why she starts having more rage outburst in Sophomore Year.

Now it’s never made clear when the other Rat Grinders join the plan and how that goes down. The popular theory is that they all died in the Mountains of Chaos but that doesn’t quite make sense. The only way that works is if everyone died except for Lucy. Why would she leave Lucy alive though? Because she was the closest to her? Was it just happenstance? Another possibility is that once they got there, Kipperlilly was the only one willing to get rage star’d and everyone else got cold feet. So, once they got home, she started putting the pressure on everyone else and eventually started killing them one by one to forcibly recruit them, ending with the dogpile on Lucy. This is all speculation of course, I’m just trying to square the info we know to be true with the bits of lore we have. Kipperlilly expected Lucy to come back like the others and they didn’t. With her dead, they needed a new cleric for the plan which is why Buddy Dawn was drafted.

Kipperlilly DID have a rage star–it just wasn’t put into her by force. She chose to take it on. It’s not entirely clear how much it affected her–or anyone’s–actions or personality. Emo Ruben still spoke fondly of Lucy and seemed sad about her death. Kipperlilly was more unhinged in Junior Year but it’s not like she was super hinged before.

It’s also not clear how much autonomy you have when you’re rage star’d. It seems to me that the rage star doesn’t really mind control you so much as play up the rageful thoughts you already have–for instance Adaine when she almost gets rage star’d saying that if she was consumed by rage she’d destroy Falinel and Sylvaire looking for her mom. It CAN mind control you if Porter uses an action to control you but most of the time you’re just an angry version of yourself (though Ruben’s complete personality swap raises questions).

Anyway, that’s the best I can figure. No need to keep spinning wheels now that the season is done.

Honor Roll

Adaine Abernant for Some Unorthodox Wizardry

I am biased towards Adaine but I think she deserves her props this episode.

A Wizard putting themselves in a position where they have to tank damage is so risky, but she cares about her friends enough to Scatter them to safety and hope her Mirror Images do their job.

A Wizard getting in melee range with a Pally/Barb seems like a recipe for disaster but Adaine was able to parry Porter with her sword.

And having faith isn’t really in a Wizard’s wheelhouse but she has enough faith in her friends to try a big swing in reaching out to Ankarna.

(Big Honorable Mentions to Riz trapping KP and Gorgug using his grenade on Porter in the climax).

Detention

Kipperlilly for Being a Bad Rogue

I’m not even giving her this spot for being a bad guy. I’m giving her this spot for being a ROGUE and not HIDING when the plan hinged on her SURVIVING TO THE END. Girl, what were you doing in melee range??? You have a crossbow, bitch, use it! Frankly she shouldn’t have even been on the battlefield, but I know for story reasons she had to be. But if she had to be there she could have played it waaaaaay smarter.

Random Thoughts

Oisin was rage star’d but I have to assume his grandma wasn’t, right? I mean she was buddies with Kalvaxus so she probably just is OK with pillaging and evil. From her POV was it just like oh thank Helio my nerdy-ass grandson finally got cool.

The way that gods work in this world always kind of trips me up. Because gods have been established to not be autonomous individuals in the way that people are. Saying, “Choose your own path” is nice, but it doesn’t really make sense when your personality is literally decided by your followers. They’re more mirrors than they are people. Same thing with morality. If it’s not Ankarna’s fault that she was made into a rageful conqueror, it’s also not Helio’s fault that he’s a fratty college boy (allegedly, I still think that’s more what Kristen felt than what was textually there). Unless we’re saying that each god has a “true self” and anything that pulls them from that is anomalous, then it’s hard to have conversations about gods while viewing them as people with direct agency.

What was up with the vision Adaine kept having? Was that a trick to get them to have that party? Because they probably wouldn’t have done that without her visions. Who did that? Was it a Dream spell like Fig was doing to Ruben?

I didn’t mention it but it was very funny for Adaine to pull a Brer Rabbit: Ohhhh noooo. Please don’t throw me in the laaavaaaaaa.

Who was watching Fig/Wanda “die” in the window, Brennan????? You never told us!!!!

I thought it was sweet when Kristen was like I do wish I had a sister and Adaine was like, I’m your sister :)

I’ll prob make a longer post on this later but I really do not understand why the Ankarna plot is what was picked for this season when it’s so similar to the Cass plot from last season: Goddess of a concept that can be good but people find scary/are skeptical about is changed by the actions of their followers into something monstrous that is being manipulated by bad actors in the current day who the Bad Kids win over to their side and one of them becomes the prophet/champion of. It even has the beat of the goddess, post-rezzing, being like, “Idk if you really need me.” They’re even married! I don’t have a problem with Ankarna the character but she does feel a bit like a rehash of Cass’s storybeats, just in orange instead of purple.

I still have some thoughts but they’ll get answered over the next week as I go through the remaining asks in my ask box and I’ve been working on this for hours so I’m gonna cut this short. As a whole, I thought this season was so much fun! Plot-wise it was probably the muddiest of all the Spyre seasons and I would def have changed stuff but it didn’t hinder my week-to-week enjoyment and it’s always a good time hanging out with the Bad Kids. (Also you all know that the #1 thing I’m here for is Abernant Sisters content and I was extremely catered to in this regard, lol).

Thanks for following these recaps this season! I really appreciate everyone hopping into the tags or asks to talk and theorize and stuff.

If you wanna engage with more of my writing, you can check out my podcast: Absolutely No Adventures or my visual novels on itch.io. It would mean a lot!

#Dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #d20 #d20 spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #spoilers #the report card #ahhhh my unpaid part time job is over!#lol nah I do enjoy doing these #they just are very time consuming #so I am very ready for a break #(though anyone hiring plz know that I will absolutely write you long recaps/media analysis that are better proofread than these lol)

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