#piglet: riot

[vabam-fr]

more riot concept stuff!! this is just a concept sketch, but hopefully more to come :-)))

@ringleaderising obligatory piglet ping

[vabam-fr]

FR Username/Numbers: Vabam #450994

Basic Clan Lore: An amalgamation of dragons willing enough to ally themselves to scholarly pursuits, the Rotting Woods is a deceptive name. The bulk of the clan digs beneath Arcane and Plague territories, studying how the pulsating magic intermingles and mutates the landscape. The Matriarch of the clan, Akeldama, abides the curiosity of one overly curious fae that leads the scholarly expedition. But the deeper the dig goes, the more history the clan uncovers. Freezing water and gemstone caverns meet the clan at unfortunate turns. Scholars and lair dwellers alike fall into freezing temperatures, crushing their bodies against jagged rocks. Gaolers that have patrolled the caverns for centuries are disturbed to find bodies so close to the prisons. Not all deaths were natural… Reluctantly, the gaolers seek aide from the burrowing clan with hopes to contain the Emperors that plot their return to the surface of Sornieth.

Plans For Dragon:

OKKAYYYYYY man i love the idea of the tattoos!!! and coincidentally I didn't draw her with any face paint either! (i tried getting a sketch done during my off hours orz) (fat dragons FTW!!!)

This is my "early years" concept for her, nearly fresh out on her own. I ALSO had the Alchemist tools in this outfit scry. The idea of using vials to upkeep her leg mechanics ... sharing that plague-brain cell...

• I imagine a lot of her studying pays off making her a sound tactician. While she's not the most proficient on her own, she learned from watching her sisters how to best utilize other people's strengths. (As she gets older though, she figures out how to make use of her tinkering and inventions for harvesting. Maybe she even has secondary, cleaver-metal weapons, like the Plague swords, in her case.) (Although im a huge sucker for a meat hook x) ..)

• I was also thinking about her becoming really proficient tinker-er, since she has to upkeep her prosthesis, as mentioned above! The vials help with the mechanical moving aspect (much akin to lightning robotics) but it also helps curb the ghost pains while using the rusty appendages. On good days, the prosthesis feels like a simple extention of herself. On bad days she has to take her rusty leg off entirely, spending the day to rest.

•• I already have thoughts about how the Godfall went for Riot! Most of it are rough first draft ideas, but I have a dragon planned (a lightning dragon named Ion) that opposes Riot for her strategizing, and thus causing the loss of her leg and tail half. (Mostly being crushed under Encore himself, close to the end of the hunt.) (She also gets a sick af face scar from the whole ordeal, but everyone just remembers the limb loss..)

• Her scholarly nature fits really naturally with my clan! I think her experience with the Godfall (and perhaps future returns to the event) makes her a very suitable strategist for handling the under-dwelling Emperors my clan frequently interfaces with later in the clan lore.

•• One of the emperors, Benzaiten, is very sound of mind, due to her own worship of the Stormcatcher (and various rituals that are preformed to keep her calm.) Riot meets Ion again while meeting Benzaiten, and they clash heads. They get under each other's skin often, but they try to agree to disagree on things for the sake of their respective clerical duties. Ion is there to help with the ritual calming and containment of Benzaiten, while Riot learns more about the other emperors being kept in the prisons. Benzaiten is pretty benevolent in this regard, and she refers to emperors as fallen gods or spirits.

• On that note, I think Riot's Deity-charge is the Plaguebringer, despite the internal conflict and peace it might grant her. She sees the loss of her leg and tail end in a more positive leaning light because of her dedication to the Plaguebringer -- despite, at first, being very bitter about being stuck with the caravan while her sisters ventured off.

•• My headcanon is that while waiting for her father to finish making her prosthetics, she works herself up from all the emotions she suppressed as a child, on top of the frustration she feels being "left behind" / "last out" despite knowing her purpose before her sisters. In consequence, she becomes sick with a fever, and has a spiritual moment communing with the Plaguebringer, which grants Riot insight where her journey will lead her next.

• She brings a very cerebral element to the "survival" dogma of Plague. Her intellect and care make her a force to be reckoned with when she sees needless cruelty. Oftentimes, the cruelty is a waste of energy or resources, but most of all, it simply gets under her skin. While she might not always kill the offenders outright, some dragons say she looks the most like her parents when she's angered (she's figured out how to make your life a living hell before anyone knows she's caught wind of it. The offenders just might disappear under mysterious circumstances....)

An "older" version of Riot! ( I think the glowing bit of her leg prosthesis changes color depending on the magic in the vial she uses!) (This scry also uses the underbelly gene, for color balancing reasons. I might keep her tertiary as is, if i can find / make a decent uma for her!)

I think she keeps up to date with her sisters quite often, sharing her tinkering ideas, as well as being the most familiar with the technology behind the cleavers outside of their father. If there was anyone to figure it out, it would be Riot!

Additionally, the caring and cerebral element of worshiping the Plaguebringer means she's very attuned to the concept of community and sharing. ( "When all you've got is nothing, There's a lot to go around!" )

She's better at holding her own in a fight, but since then, she's established her own "hunting corps" (Which is named The Hunting Corpse, as a gag). The Hunting Corpse was suggested by a team member, thinking it was a clever pun, since they "hunt corpses." From an exterior perspective, the rattling bones that hang from their bodies as prizes sound like one large, rattling beast on the move. The corps become a huge boon to the clan via trading and coin for the scavenged material they gather from their hunts. The "rustworn zealot" title happens during this time-period, since she dedicates the hunts to the Plageumother, and they often have ritual music to play before they embark and during the hunt. (Plague drums and chanting anyone?)

Other trivia/headcanons:

• She wears a lot of bone jewelry, both in reverence of the Plaguebringer and her aesthetics, it's very melodic to Riot. The jewelry are often trophies from Godfalls she was specifically part of, or other impressive spirits they felled.

• She has a very in depth understanding of Plague fauna and flora, which makes her the clan's go-to for beastclan knowledge. Incidentally falling into a political role between the dragonclan and beastclan relations.

• She definitely uses the Godfalls as a way of promoting the Hunting Corpse as a sellsword business when theyre away from the clan. Lots of mouths to feed, and skills to hone. For Riot, the corps reminds her of the caravan, and finds the traveling to be very nostalgic and freeing

Post-Godfall lore drop

RAAAHHH I love all of the Godfall lore so much!!! I'd love to bring that lore into my clan with Riot at the helm!!! All the ideas tinkering around in my head, I have nearly a full crisp picture of the dragons within The Hunting Corpse, amd the shenanigans that ensue.

I think Riot would form the Hunting Corpse as preparation for any eventual Emperors that would break out from underneath my clan. Theyre not as large as Luminax, since most excess heads or appendages have been stripped in an effort to control and contain them, but I think Riot would secretly hope they broke out, just at the chance of taking one down and harvesting the magic that keeps them pieced together.

----

I liiieed i already have dragons that i think would be great to use for the Hunting Corpse...

The Arcane skydancer, Odeta, would be a perfect Witness for the group (skydancers are canonically predisposed to sensing energy too!) And I was mulling over a geneplan foe the banescale, Huntsman, but she would be great as a Wind - Bane Torchbearer! Varg, the mirror, is covered in seemingly bottomless bags for Needling! Just to name a few

Intended Payment: perhaps.. art? i'd love an opportunity to draw pig, or any of your dragons! im very much good at drawing humanoids. perhaps a humanoid pig? yes.. yes a humanoid pig art would be very fun...

PIGLET APPLICATION #03 RIOT THE RUSTWORN ZEALOT.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT:

These Piglets are for lore clans with a tumblr presence (sideblog, FR posting on mainblogs, etc you simply have to be a lore clan who engages with the community here on tumblr.)

Other players with their siblings (and myself with their parents) will be not only welcome to but encouraged to write interclan letters/in character messages to their siblings, and you'll have to be okay with everything that comes with that (On-Site DMs, the potential of a message going unanswered/etc) I would also appreciate if you ping me for the stuff you do with them because I want to see what they get up to <3

If you win one of the siblings, please refrain from applying for another, this is so everyone interested gets an opportunity and a fair shake at taking one of the girls home!

If you're the selected winner, the dragon is yours to do what you please with! (Regene, change species, rename, change gender identities/pronoun preferences, etc) I ask only that you have a lore/character reason for breed or name changes, as they'll be connected to a wider group of dragons that would need to know these things (What kind of dragon their sibling has become, What to call them in letters, etc) and if you can keep them a modern breed so they can keep their cleavers, well that'd just be nice for their old man Pig.

Please honor the basic lore of the dragon you win, you're welcome to rewrite/reinterpret the lore they arrive with, but please don't eliminate that history entirely, since they'll be interwoven with other clans/players!

[and a big thank you to Khadjin for reminding me I never mentioned this yet!] my lore deviates pretty substantially from site lore. however every aspect can be explained within the context of the site, please don't feel like you have to adopt my headcanons to participate in these!- my "Lesser Gods" are nothing more than magically afflicted/overcharged spirits or magically mutated dragons created in a reactor explosion somewhere in Lightning and some timeloop silliness, and the 'Gaps' are highly concentrated leylines caused by this incident. the eleven gods of sornieth remain the only true gods in my lore much like the site on the whole!- the Piglets and their parents simply lived under the affliction of spirits, cults, and mutated dragons and contextualized them as "Gods" the very same way we create urban myth/legends. While they would know of The Host and the Gaps because of the direct effect both have had on their parents, they are not required to have continued to believe in them as "Higher beings" and can have learned in their time away from their family that these things are likely, little more than the arcane gone haywire.

BLANK APPLICATION

Please copy/paste and fill this out in a Reblog here on tumblr or send it to me through my submit box here so I can keep track of things on a per-dragon basis for the course of the 48-hours each application will be active!

FR Username/Numbers: Basic Clan Lore: (just a general description of the lore/area of your clan you intend to place this hatchling in!) Plans For Dragon: (A little description of any of your ideas, headcanons, story beats, etc you're thinking of for the dragon you're applying for! This can be anything you've got in mind, scries, outfits, etc, feel free to go as big or as little as you want, I wanna see what's going on in your head!) Intended Payment: (These dragons will be PWYW, but I need everyone to acknowledge they're not free, so whatever you're planning on paying/trading for them, even if you change your mind when the time comes, stick something here.)

RINGLEADER'S HEADCANONS

These are just some smaller lore bits and pieces you're welcome to use or disregard for each child, things that I couldn't fit into the bios in a way that made sense. much like the example outfit photo up-top, this is for fun or stuff to help get ideas flowing, if you're stuck!

Riot is almost completely magically null, and her prosthetics run on the magic she harvests from her prey, or from the larger pockets of it around Sornieth. When she left home, Pig and Sow ensured she had enough filled cores to keep her leg and tail functioning for a few months, as they are both well aware she was already not exactly the most capable combatant.

While her relationship with her sisters is somewhat strained after an early life being spent teased for being "unlucky" they've all grown beyond this, and Riot doesn't hold it against them- she's the only one to lose something important in their Godfall, after all.

A scholar at her core, Riot is a seeker of intelligence as much as she is of her charge, flourishing in the pursuit of knowledge of all forms, she has a functional awareness of most everything, from invention to incantation, and is always seeking more alongside the "God" her charge calls her to.

While some of her siblings have chosen to paint their faces in honor of their parents, Riot instead wears her family loyalty through tattoos imbued with magic- the blood constantly staining her parents' claws and tail marked into scales as a glowing grasp on her three remaining feet.

THIS APPLICATION IS OPEN FROM 3:30 PM DECEMBER 6TH, 2024, TO 3:30 PM DECEMBER 8TH, 2024. REBLOGS AFTER THIS TIME WILL BE DISQUALIFIED FROM THE RUNNING.

And here's the pinglist! (Starting to think maybe you can only ping so many people at once?)

@hor-wod-flir @harpyartisan @fuiran @terra-tortoise @bawkrya @pocketmouse-fr @spongyspingy-rising @avalonianrising @clansunsharp @khadjin-fr

[clansunsharp]

Are there any ideas you have for Rot that youre willing to share, now that the applications closed?

- vabam-fr

sure i can share what i sent ringleader for her application. this long as hell proceed at your own risk.

Basic Clan Lore: Wake's Bane is a disorganized pack of criminals, outcasts, and vagabonds operating under the guise of a mercenary company. Led by a ruthless mirror of the same name, they terrorize the ruins of the Emperor's Wake, preying on the uprooted clans and refugees left vulnerable from Luminax's rampage. Their strategy is simple: if a clan is able to pay, Wake's Bane will protect them. If not, the company will take their dues in other ways - theft, murder, kidnapping - they're not picky. Wake's Bane will occasionally clash with Clan Sunsharp when their Vanguard are sent to probe the southern reaches of the Light domain. Due to Bane's history with Clan Sunsharp's commander, Alacrith, it's highly likely these missions are sabotaged on purpose thanks to an age old grudge. Clan Sunsharp's opposite in every way, no tenets govern Wake's Bane other than blood and gold.

Plans For Dragon: This one is trickier since I don't have any of the clan member's bio's written out (the ideas are in my head, but alas my work ethic). That being said, Rot would fit in well with Wake's Bane. She's a lean mean killing machine, and that's perfectly in line with how most of Bane's crew gets their kicks. She'd have to fight for respect just like everyone else, but it would quickly become clear that she has the skills to back up her mouth, and her past experience dealing with dangerous entities (I'm thinking of the godfalls here) would cement her as a solid asset to the band rather than just an opportunistic tag-along. Most likely she would be personally pushed and tested by members who especially doubt her (Maerys and Ewara come to mind) and in the ensuing fight she'd permanently scar or maim her opponent, which would put an end to anyone else questioning her place in the company. I have a feeling she would become attached to Ratha, Bane's right hand and fellow guardian from Plague. Neither of them would acknowledge it formally, and their relationship would be pretty contentious, but the two of them would form a twisted sort of mentor/mentee bond, much to the chagrin of the rest of the company (gods, we don't need TWO of them! one is scary enough!). Ratha would push her hard (and she would push right back) but Rot would ultimately grow more strong, flexible, and cunning under her tutelage. Esdras would also take a liking to her, acting as a weird uncle figure who encourages her worst habits (he benefits from this relationship through the many corpses she leaves for his use). In her rare moments of weakness, Esdras would be the one she turns to, and he's tactful enough to not acknowledge her struggles as he understands how deeply embarrassing that would be for her. Where Ratha lacks in magical teaching, Esdras can make up the deficit. He would be especially interested in Rot's method of harvesting magic and would encourage cultivating this skill. As far as peers go, Maerys would be her greatest rival. As a disgraced ex-member of the Lightweaver's exalted army, her ego is huge and fragile, and she would easily rise to Rot's bait every time she wants to cause problems on purpose. Conversely, she would get along well with Hawthorne, Bane's informant who acts as Rot's softspoken and delicate opposite. They would be paired on jobs together often, since they both have a propensity for stealth (and because Hawthorne keeps requesting it, but she will deny this if asked about it outright). While Bane encourages indiscriminate bloodshed, she also understands the value of clean, efficient kills - something Rot is capable of demonstrating (unlike many of her peers; Maerys makes things too personal, Ewara leaves too much of a mess, Jet and Magyrinth are too high profile, etc). After proving herself as a member of the company, she would be put to use as an assassin and scout, scanning the horizon for Luminax, spying on clans and noting weak points, and blending in with her surroundings to take out more dangerous enemies that can't be attacked outright. Due to the grudge Bane holds against Clan Sunsharp, Rot would also be sent on a few recon trips to the Mirrorlight Promenade, instructed to observe and report their movements back to her boss. Rot is clever enough to see that she's essentially a weapon in Bane's hands just like the rest of the company, but she's compensated well for her services so it doesn't bother her that much (plus it beats being kept on a literal leash like Jet).

[senipsenipsenip]

Just watched the Winnie the Pooh Halloween special so guess what

The Gravity Falls Gang’s Favorite Winnie the Pooh Characters

(Soos has decided in order to prepare to be a father in the future, he needs to watch Every Classic Piece of Children’s Media to study up. No one is quite sure how everyone else got roped into this but anyway)

Dipper: Winnie the Pooh. He’s the title character for a reason! He’s just a nice guy trying his best. Sure he doesn’t understand everything all the time, but that’s okay! It’s…huh. It’s okay to not know what you’re doing all the time as long as your kind. That’s. Huh.

Mabel: Tigger. This guy is a hoot! Unfortunately for Dipper she takes to “bouncing him” when his guard is down. Stan has to eventually put a stop to this when he realizes just how black and blue Dipper is getting. Sure, he wants to toughen the kid up, but he also wants Shermie to trust him with his grandkids. Besides, Mabel’s rendition of “The Wonderful Thing about Mabels” is enough for anyone to endure.

Stan: Also Tigger. Come on, the guy’s a riot! Besides, someone needs to show that stuck up Rabbit how to have fun every once in awhile. (When they find out Tigger got his own movie, Mabel and Stan insist they watch it. Stan really was not prepared for the amount of emotions he would feel watching Tigger without a family wandering around alone in the snow)

Ford: Roo. He didn’t expect it either, but something about that little bouncing kid, full of wonder and love of adventure has him endeared to him. (If he shed a tear at the end of The Tigger Movie when Tigger calls Roo his little brother, Stan can’t say anything because they’re both adamantly refusing to look at each other because they know they’ll lose their composure. And their dignity)

Wendy: Piglet. She always cheers for him when he faces his fears to follow his friends. When Dipper says he figured she’d like one of the cooler characters, she ruffles his hair and says ‘Scared little dude running in head first? His heart is bigger than his fear dude, that’s really cool.”

Soos: Winnie the Pooh. He respects a guy who loves his friends and food. He and Mabel do Pooh’s Stoutness Exercises before breakfast together. It’s become as much a way to start the day as a sunrise.

[spongyspingy-rising]

happy fat dragon friday the 13th! :)

i liked my app(s) for the tooth/riot piglets so much I ended up buying a dragon to make into a character that's sort of a combo edition of both... decided I really wanted to bring back godsblood since it works into Blackminster well!

From long before she began her search, Megaera knew her charge. She felt the pull of them across sands and seas, through tangled woods and open valleys. She sought him out ready to offer everything before she even knew him, forging herself into the perfect vessel, the dog to her master's gentle guidance. She prepared all the love in her twisted heart for the God she yearned for, and when at last she found them she HATED them.

Megaera is a necromancer, and a scholar as much as any plague dragon can be. raised on the battlefield, fighting for her life in the wasteland, she bears evidence of her past in the arm and leg prosthetics she wears. not something of her own design, their haphazard construction allows her to harness the GODSBLOOD she distills in The Abscess; its berserker-like and regenerative powers allow her to become ever the more terrifying fighter, capable of wielding a weapon many times the size of an ordinary sword or cleaver. A side effect of the drug fragments her teeth into an endlessly smaller repeating number of new ones, peeling out of the sides of her mouth like a twisted overgrown shark.

settled in the rotting body of a behemoth god, Megaera obeys the instructions of her charge, distilling deific blood and flesh into a viral strain and further into a drug. she will not go against him, but she despises what he's done to her dogma, dismissing her belief in him without a thought. where she feels she can get away with it, she studies what he has set her to do, determined to unlock the truth of last piece; in her mind the most important one. she long ago learned there exists somewhere in this world a possibility of GODHOOD, a power so immense that it can raise a mortal beyond their potential to something penultimate, and she has been fixated ever since.

Megaera is a listless, vicious soul inhabiting The Abscess. something haunts her, a reflection of herself that presents in dreams like funhouse mirrors, laughing at her. it makes her angrier, more vicious, more determined. she keeps puppets of old enemies and remnants of old battles, listless without the direction of a fight to keep them moving, and they unnerve those that enter her quarters or find them wandering The Abscess. her leanings are macabre; interests in taxidermy, strange non-magic medicines, and music that combines the screams of the tormented with clanging metal. her role as de-facto leader in The Abscess is never questioned, because unlike most who pass through the ribs of the great beast, she never leaves.

[yuragawa]

NRGの勝利にNAファンがなぜこれほど沸き立つのか

NRGがノックアウトステージ進出

Riot公式Flickrより

　Worlds 2023 スイスステージDay8、3勝すれば勝ち抜けの新フォーマットで激突した2勝1敗の2チーム、NRGとG2。国際大会観戦勢にとっては定番ともいえるのEU vs NAという対決が行われた。LECにおいて常に一つ抜けた強さのチームとして知られるG2と、CLGの組織を引き継いでLCSを勝ち抜けたNRG。ともに地域の第1シードチームとはいえ、下馬評ではG2が圧倒的に有利とみられていた。しかしそんな予想をNRGはあっさりと覆してG2を2-0で圧倒。3勝1敗でノックアウトステージ進出を決め、その勝利にLCSファンは熱狂した。単なる勝利、ベスト8入りに留まらないその意味について、過去を振り返りながら紹介していく。

NAの国際大会戦績

　Worldsで『NA=Near Airport』、あるいは『Last Hope C9』といった表現を見たり聞いたりしたことはあるだろうか。前者は北米からWorldsに参加するチームは空港が近い＝すぐに敗退してしまうという事を自虐的に評したミームであり、後者はそんな中で最後に残って戦うチームが毎回C9であるという事を表した言い回しだ。実際、LCSチームは過去のWorldsでは苦戦続きとなっており、C9を除いたチームがベスト8入りを確定させたのは2014年のTSM以来となっている。

　C9に限れば2018年のベスト4入りといった結果も残っているが、それ以外のチームはグループステージ敗退が常となっていたのだ。特に2020年に至っては第1シードチームが0-6で敗退という記録を残し、ファンを大いに失望させている。伝統の一戦として扱われているEU vs NAも、実績面で言えばNAは後塵を拝していた。そんな流れの中でEUの象徴ともいえるトップチームのG2をBo3で破ったという結果はNAにとって大きな勝利となった。

NAという地域の現状と熱狂

　NRGのベスト8入りについて、LCSを追ってきた人たちは大きな喜びをあらわにしたのだが、一方でいくつか特徴のある反応が見られた。

NA org owners are you watching? If this isn't proof of the possibilities with NA talent then I don't know what is. TAKE A BOW @NRGLeague

— Kobe (@esports_kobe) October 28, 2023

I remember back at Training Grounds like five years ago I was embedded with the team @palafoxlol was on Even then, he was the kid that everyone else ignored And he smashed everyone Then he went to Academy and got doubted, and crushed everyone Then he went to LCS and got…

— The Esports Writer (@FionnOnFire) October 28, 2023

　これらのポストは、NA在野の才能とその育成について言及した内容となっている。これはLCSという地域の歴史や性質に関わる問題なので、順を追って説明していきたい。 　LCSという地域は、LoLのトップリーグの中でも歴史が長く、本家であるという自負があり、また多額の資金が投じられているリーグの一つである。特に地域外選手の採用という点では最初に他地域の選手をチームに加え、地域外選手は2名までというルールを作った原因となった地域でもある。今までLCSに参加した各地のスター選手や若き才能を上げていけば、BjergsenやLustboy、Looper、Froggen、Piglet、Crown、CoreJJ、Zven……と枚挙に暇がない。

　一方で多額の獲得資金を投じてスターを揃えたはずのチームがWorldsで結果を出せないという状態も続いていた。RiotやLCSのファンは各地域の選手を育成し、地域ごとの特色を残すことを意識して下部リーグの充実を図ってきたものの、チームの側ではNAの苦境は地域選手の弱さが問題なのであり、投じた費用に見合った選手を世界中から5人集めて国際大会に勝てるチームが競うリーグにするべきだという声が表に出るようになっていた。極端に単純化すると、「我々はJDGやT1を丸ごと買��資産があるのだから、買い取ってLCSチームとしてWorlds優勝させろ」といっているのに近い。

　実際には2022シーズンにはEGからJojopyunとDannyが新星として活躍するといった反証があったものの、LCS参加チームは2023シーズンの夏スプリット開始前にアカデミー部門という「投資価値が低く負担にしかならない組織」を切り捨てる決定を行い、結果としてリーグ開催自体が危ぶまれる事態にすら発展していた。

　そんな状況の中で、2016年以降パッとした結果も無くシーズン途中に他組織へと看板を掛け変えたNRG（元CLG）がLEC最強格であるG2を破ってベスト8入りを果たした意味は大きかったと言える。

地域の可能性

　今回NAを熱狂させたNRGのメンバーを見てみよう。 　Dhoklaは2017頃からキャリアをスタート。以来アカデミーとLCSを行ったり来たりしていた。アカデミーでは悪くない結果を出すものの、LCSではそれなりで、国際大会には手が届かない中堅所だった。

　ContractsはC9での活躍で2017シーズンを華々しく終えたが、その後移籍したGoldenGuardiansでは苦戦、その後もアカデミーとLCSチームで低迷する時期が続いていた。

　Palafoxは2017のスカウティンググラウンズで見出されたプレイヤーだったが、やはりLCSでは良くて中堅所だった。

　FBIは元はオセアニアのプレイヤーで、かつては地域を代表するADCだったが、2020以降はLCSプレイヤーとして活動して2021から3年連続でWorlds出場を果たしている。とはいえ地域単位の評価で言えば、いわゆる強豪地域の出身ではなく、オセアニアは国際大会出場枠を失ってしまっている。

　IgNarはEU・NAを渡り歩いている韓国人プレイヤーで、2020シーズンからLCSチームで活動しているので4年目になる。FLYやEGといった比較的育成を重く見るチームで踏ん張ってきたベテランだが、国際大会はWorlds2020以来の出場だ。

　こうしてみると、地域外選手5人で固めるチームが想定しているであろうスターや、既にLCSで活躍しているWorlds優勝クラスのベテランたちとは毛色の違うメンバーが揃っている。彼らはLCSやその2部リーグであるアカデミーリーグで戦い、何ならSummer splitも5位でプレイオフに入ったメンバーだ。それでもLCS 2023 Championshipに勝利し、スイスステージではTL,MAD,G2を下してベスト8を勝ち取った。おそらくこの組織の強みは総勢9名のコーチ、ストラ��ジックコーチ、ポジションコーチ、アナリスト陣なのだろう。これは同じくWorldsに出場していたTLやC9と比べても倍に近い人数だ。

　次戦はスイスステージ初戦で敗北を喫したWBG。TheShyやXiaohu、Crispと国際大会優勝経験者を含めた強力なメンバーが揃っている。はっきり言えば苦しいゲームだろうが、LCSチームはMSI2019において前年の世界王者iGをBo5で破ったこともある。分析と対策を積み上げて勝利を掴み取ることができれば、彼らの強さが再び世界に証明されることになるだろう。

[drivingsideways]

SFD rewatch, episodes 1-5

One of the best first episodes of a series. Quickly and indelibly establishes the characterization of all the major players.

Love the kid actors, but mainly Lee Re as Boon-yi.

Piglet scene still as unacceptable as the first time. Come on.

Absolutely in love with the theatrical scene constructions, including how we meet Jeong do jeon (stealing a potato); the farce at Yi In geom's residence, Ddang-sae telling the story of "Viper", and the first time we see the Do Dang. I do love Jeong do-jeon inciting a riot (and Kim Myung-min's sexy sexy voice) but also? I think on the first watch and now, it felt a bit off. Mostly because the song becomes a swelling soundtrack over the scene- I wish they had just let it be Jeong do jeon's voice going hoarse and a few people singing it.

Got impatient with the segue into Gongmin's assassination, and at some points the name drops become tiresome. I know SFD was written for an audience familiar with these characters, and so this is on me, but having to pause every few minutes to look up wiki or bodashri's tumblr (seriously MVP of the SFD fandom) is not a great viewing experience for me.

Gil Tae mi -11/10 no notes, especially in that mango-yellow robe. Park Hyuk-kwon completely pussy out in this drama, playing twins who are polar opposites in everything except that they fight like ballet dancers.

Had to ffwd Yeon-hee's rape scene and aftermath. Yes, we get it, losing his mother and his lover are foundational to everything about Ddang-sae, but hoo boy, how about they'd...just not?

I just really, really enjoy Hong In-bang's villainy- his turn to it makes 50 times more sense to me that whatever is going on with that little psycho with his murder grove. [When he went on about justice preventing evil, my eyes rolled back in my head so hard. OKAY, you pathetic little meow-meow, if that works for you, I GUESS.]

Love that the writers re-used a line from TwDR- paraphrased, it's that "the people endure, while monarchies rise and fall". In TwDR, when Sejong says it to Jeong gi-joon, it's to refute his rather nihilistic view of the chaotic future where people are able to choose their own leaders; here Hong In bang uses it to justify raising taxes on an already overtaxed population. Writers nim, your minds.

Boon yi is THE BEST

Moo-hyul is a baby. Imagine watching the extremely boring Jo Jin-woong playing this character in 2011 and then waking up to Yoon Kyung-sang's adorable himbeaux portrayal in this.

Byun Yo-han is such a genuinely lovely actor; I just wish that Ddang-sae's whole trajectory wasn't unmitigated misery. It's harder on the rewatch because at least the first time I had hope. I think writer nims are fond of reminding us that being born poor , and consequently often powerless to resist constant degradation, is a lifelong curse that only a few escape- you see it in Kang Chae Yoon's fate as well- but I think Kang Chae yoon's fate felt like less of a punishment by capricious gods than Ddang-sae's.

Ok, but Byun Yo-han and that marketplace performance. LOVELY.

Ddang-sae's leaving Baek Yoon's dead body in the street like a prom invite for Sambong. (and then he went and left and actual note that says "whom do i kill next?") made me laugh. C'mon Sambong, take some time out from fulfilling your divine purpose to give this boy the railing he deserves. I feel like so many of both their problems would have been solved by this.

[newtypezaku]

P-P-P-Power Rankings!!

Shinkalion: Change the World (Last: 1): SPECIAL EPISODE ABOUT ANIME PRODUCTION BECAUSE APPARENTLY THE NEXT ARC IS GONNA BE WILD.

Mechanical Arms (Last: 2): Aki went against the organization to save her little sister, which naturally requires her to kill Hikaru.

Acro Trip (Last: 4): Fossa Magna HQ sent a replacement mastermind that Chizuko, Chrome, and Berry teamed up to beat for status quo purposes.

Dandadan (Last: 3): Ken and Momo spent an entire day failing to be friends and then being embarrassed about it and then making up.

Do-Over Damsel (Last: 6): Hadis resolved Beil's riot without tons of murder, then he and Jill were embarrassed by coupley things.

Blue Lock (Last: 5): Isagi made the lineup for the U-20 match as Rin's most effective shadow while Sae broke Shidou out of dumb baby jail.

Ranma 1/2 (Last: 8): Ranma mostly failed to console Akane after her impromptu haircut and was jealous when Ryoga invoked piglet supremacy.

Rekiaku (Last: NR): Alicia began reality-checking Liz full time, impressing the king and prince but pissing off everyone else.

Aiming for eight each week cuz eighters gonna eight. [Full Watch List]

[winterwolvesandstarbucks]

'What the hell...' The alarming mantra strummed rapidly through his veins, scowlingly Bucky pulled his shapely-wide lips into a taut grimace as the vomitous stench of hoggish reek became infectiously penetrative to evade. Salvaging onto tactical resistance against the miasmatic stench wafting out of the barricaded pens, he stoked up rampageous adrenaline only to feel deterred by a sluggish onslaught that forced him to stumblingly brace his athletic-bulked mass against a parked vehicle; gnashing his tusked incisors that jutted over his bloodied underlip, Bucky raised up his leather-sleeved arm, concealing the freakish deformity sorcerously barraging him in a morphic wake-his little guy was in the line of crossfire."Bren-" he grunted feverishly in throated pitch, feeling a protruding heaviness straining underneath his sweat-drenched shirt. "Grah...Kiddo..."

"D-Dad...over here!" A timid whimper followed his son's response. Close by but unseen amidst the numerous parked cars in the lot outside of the circus. Brennen shivered and stared unblinkingly at the amount of hair spreading across his arms. What was happening to him? Did he get some weird cooties by petting the rough-looking pig inside the pen? Why wasn't it stopping?! "D-Daddy help." He groaned as he tried to situp. He had fell behind in their mad haste to escape the circus after some kind of riot began to happen. The 5-year-old wasn't sure what had happened, but a bunch of people were screaming and his daddy was pulling him along as they rushed for the exit.

Against contractive tension raiding in his veins, menacingly Bucky gunned his swaggering paces in tactical succession, with his sniper prowess, he stealthily utilized the maddening obstruction of vehicles as he advanced closer to his little hellraiser's exposed proximity. Robotically attuned to panic-razed volumes deafening around him, Bucky enforced combative readiness in his motionless stance, chimerically feeling phantom-demonic heat pulse as the mechanized rigidness of his bionic fist was poised to flex bestial intimidation if anyone of those demented circus freaks dared to seize his little guy.

Keeping his steel-aquamarine irises unwaveringly fixed on abandoned clothing that creepily dragged underfoot, woozily Bucky caught a daunting glimpse of blubbery pink-flesh hog thrashing distressingly on its humped back-an isolated threat. "Hell, that can't be good-" he quipped raspily under breath, as he eased in mid-crouch behind a vintage top-down black Mustang- the reality of his son's unbridled panic careened him like knifepoint as he watched Brennen stealthily duck behind a trash can with a variance boyish resilence in his poise. The baby-face suppleness of his shadowed, dimpled features was saggily fusing into globby layers of mutative pudge. "Bren...You gotta run to Daddy..." he urged murmurously against a rugged grunt, as half-smirk coaxingly quirked over jutted fleshiness of his swelled lips. "M' gonna get you out of here..."

Brennen let loose a frightening cry the moment he realized what was happening to him. What he thought he saw happening to the people in the circus who vanished into their clothes. The fur now encompassed his whole body while his arms and legs bent into a quadrupedal position. He felt heavy. He felt itchy all over as if bugs were covering him. "It itches!" He rolled and thrashed along the ground, feeling his body continue to change while his dad's voice called to him. A puddle of rain-water was next to him and when Brennen saw his own face, he felt both shock and fear. "I-I'm a piggy." He squirmed and made his way on unsteady wobbly hooves around the car where his dad waited. His dad was hunched over, holding his stomach and looking down at him funnily. "D-Daddy...mommy's gonna kill us."

In the protective succession of deadened reaction, under lengthy, unkempt tresses Bucky gazed blankly down at the chubbier dwarfing piglet stubbily wobbling in frantic traction over the stripped heap of torn clothing, echoes of bone-rigid distress rackingly intensified against a mutative tenor of robbed humanity. The occultic-insane denizens of the nightmarish carnival had demonically pegged them into morphic crosshairs of soul-arresting conjury.

Everything bleared out against the feverish intensity of heated wetness melding heartbreakingly in his widened grayish-aquamarine irises; shiveringly in tentative flexion of his bionic hand, he deftly graced the short-round piglet's arching back with pacifying ministrations. "S'it's my fault, kiddo..." An oinking breath gutturally emitted out of him, as his sagging throat felt doughily rubberized against his jacket's leather collar as he choked off a throaty sob coupling against hoggish grunts, urgently. "W-Whatever happens you gotta stay close..."

"We can change back right, dad?" Brennen squeaked out in a pitch that made the piglet cringe and shudder. He sounded almost nothing like his boyishly cool-self that had a touch of Brooklyn drawl in his accent. He sounded like a wimp-a frightened boy with a squeaky voice that bullies would prey upon. He wished they had never come to this circus! It was smelled, it was boring and now horrifying all at once. "We gotta! I can't stay like this, someone will serve me up for dinner!" He oinked and nearly buried himself against Bucky's side in an effort to hide himself from the cruel world surrounding them.

Angling his pudgier snout, Bucky grimaced against odorous reek malodorously sailed over the obstructive environs of the parking lot, around them blubbered masses of obese-fattening hogs-visages of divested-ensorcelled- humanity were shifting blindingly in discarded heaps clothing, squealing out cadences in unison of anguish that deafened into a panic-razed frequency-it was a damnable nightmare. Bloatedly, his furred girth ballooningly protruded tatteredly underneath torn leather as he eased the jowelly flabbiness of his larger head off the pavement; he was fully morphed into an overweight hog.

Exhaustingly, Bucky grunted in raspier pitch, feeling his precious little guy quakingly wedged his chubby form against the jutted swell of his bulbous underbelly-that visceral boyish sweetness evidently beckoning for Daddy's protective embrace-damn it felt good. "Hey, you think M' gotta let those circus freaks throw us on the ropes, kiddo..." he murmured throatily, dragged a hind-hoof with gentled precision of chaste heat, as he soothingly kept Brennen cushioned against his rotund girth. "We gonna dodge this fight cause that's what Brooklyn kids do, right?"

Brennen could barely muster an affirmative nod. Inwardly, the 5-year-old wanted nothing more than to tuck himself into a ball and make himself look as small as possible so that none of the circus monsters could find him. Everything about this place changed so quickly. The colors of the tents and curtains weren't imaginative and bright, but confining and dark. The whiff of popcorn and cotton candy didn't make his mouth water with hunger but his stomach curl with disgust. This place was bad-evil. Everything was phony and fake. the people who came here like him and his dad were oblivious to the magical illusion until it roped them in. "I want to go home, Daddy. Please, get us out of here." The youth said with a pout, try to control himself and the discomforts of his new pudgy form.

The racking distress of his little guy's tubbier form heart-cripplingly imploded through the globbier rotundity of his droopy girth, raggedly against gruntier hitches, Bucky nudged the darkish-chestnut furred piglet's tremorous back with his tusked-snout, delivering a pacifying caress that grounded his pudgier kiddo at his stubbier fore-leg. S'it's gonna be okay, Bren, Daddy's not gonna let anything happen to ya..." he murmured in oinkish timbre, whisperingly, knowing that his plumpish mass would shield his little guy from the streets of Brooklyn. "You know what, you're kinda cute like this, not a fat tub like me..." he quipped, snarkily, grimacing at the wiggly corkscrew tail rapting over his bulgy-furrier rump. "Yeah, M' gonna be feelin' that every time I walk...Great."

A shattered giggle escaped the piglet's snout. "Yeah, you're a big porky, Dad. You're like Pumbaa with the cool horns," he said with a touch of awe as he noticed the fearsome tusks extruding from his father's mouth. For a small moment, the piglet felt light as a feather and forgot all about how bad things were for them. His daddy was a superhero after all. Being a pig couldn't change that. It just made him a super-pig!

Hearing his little guy's puckish quip jauntily fringe with a snarkier grunt, unabashedly, Bucky glanced at his curved tusks that menacingly jutted against the elongated-wedged of his jowelly snout; his furrier ears droopily rapted against his puffier cheeks as he tactlessly wobbled on stubbier-cloven hooves. Against implosive stokes of unbidden hunger that ricocheted through his bulbous girth, snortily, Bucky eased his puckered snout up, catching addictive whiffs of greasy french fries that were heaped within a parking lot trash bin. "Woah...Do ya smell that kiddo..." he murmured, oinkishly and advanced with clunkier paces of his boarish swagger. "Just stay right there...I'll be right back."

[vabam-fr]

"everything has been leading up to this" i say, drawing another fat butch <333

older riot thumbnail concept <3

@ringleaderising

[ringleaderising]

Piglet #4 in the books, we're getting there, folks.

Tried a little something different here, Riot already has her charge, but it's vague enough it should fit in plenty of lore stories. Really, I wanted to lean into the survivalism thing that comes with Plague, so Riot here is an amputee with a pair of prosthesis that not only assist in movement once more, but make her a notable threat to any who might oppose her.

But she's still Pig's daughter, so they're certainly not the clean, nice replacement parts you can get out of lightning, no, these were handmade, rusty presents from her daddy.

[whimsicaldragonette]

ARC Review: Dark Breakers by C.S.E. Cooney

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Add to Goodreads

Publication Date: February 15, 2022

Synopsis:

NEW FROM WORLD FANTASY AWARD WINNER C. S. E. COONEY A young human painter and an ageless gentry queen fall in love over spilled wine—at the risk of his life and her immortality. Pulled into the Veil Between Worlds, two feuding neighbors (and a living statue) get swept up in a brutal war of succession. An investigative reporter infiltrates the Seafall City Laundries to write the exposé of a lifetime, and uncovers secrets she never believed possible. Returning to an oak grove to scatter her husband’s ashes, an elderly widow meets an otherworldly friend, who offers her a momentous choice. Two gentry queens of the Valwode plot to hijack a human rocketship and steal the moon out of the sky. DARK BREAKERS gathers three new and two previously uncollected tales from World Fantasy Award-winning writer C. S. E. Cooney that expand on the thrice-enfolded worlds first introduced in her Locus and World Fantasy award-nominated novella DESDEMONA AND THE DEEP. In her introduction to DARK BREAKERS, Crawford Award-winning author Sharon Shinn advises those who pick up this book to “settle in for a fantastical read” full of “vivid world-building, with layer upon layer of detail; prose so dense and gorgeous you can scoop up the words like handfuls of jewels; a mischievous sense of humor; and a warm and hopeful heart.”

(My Review and Favorite (absolutely gorgeous) Quotes below the break)

My Review:

★★★★★

I LOVED this collection of connected stories, and I am very much looking forward to reading Desdemona and the Deep now. The writing is absolutely breathtakingly gorgeous. It was challenging at first, a bit of a tangle, and then as I read it opened up and I fell in love with it. With Athe and the Valwode, humans and gentry and goblins, and doors that open at midnight and art that can change the world. The characters were so layered and intriguing, so interconnected, and it was a joy to come to know them. There was honestly nothing I would change about it - a rare thing - and I am hereby adding CSE Cooney's name to my list of favorite and must-read authors. *Thanks to NetGalley and Mythic Delirium Books for providing an e-arc for review.

Favorite Quotes

- They stood together on that liminal platform between second floor and first, and peered over the bannister into the main hall below.

-----

“That same sandpaper tongue, that flays as it licks.”

-----

Gideon did not like people touching him unexpectedly — or at all, really. But for some reason, sometimes, he suffered Elliot’s touch. Elliot did not know why. And he would never, for all the gentry gold in the Veil, ask.

-----

A half-smile from Gideon was about as resistible as a riptide. Elliot returned a shy one of his own.

-----

A little water, after all, might quench thirst — but a little more would drown you.

-----

But she must be careful. Too much, too fast, all at once, all the time: that was Athe.

-----

Illusionist artists painted ceilings that looked like skies — just to remind you that they were ceilings.

-----

But sometimes, sometimes, Nyx the Nightwalker, Queen of the Valwode, ruler of the unruly gentry, exerted herself to dream a little fragrance into her life, just to delight her own dreaming self — even at the cost of a riot.

-----

But Nyx was no longer young and stupid — which made her different from all the other perpetually young and stupid gentry…

-----

He sounded practiced, patient, wise, and anciet.


She frowned at him in peeved admiration. That he dared use that voice on her! Did he imagine Nyx to be one of his unbaked human dough balls, his piglets, his caterpillars, come romping through his halls for an education? Watch her tell him her true name — all of it — pronounced by a bolt of thunder across the whole of the Valwode sky, and see if he survived it!

-----

But she nodded. She trusted him to do what he did best — and to re-make her, so that she might re-make the world.

-----

And perhaps, Ana thought, that very feeling of ridiculousness was part of what made the walls between worlds. The fear of humiliation, of talking nonsense, of babbling of things unseen and worlds unknown.

-----

“Mortal children may learn these things. But they forget. Or they do not believe. But you — you, Ana — when you speak, you are retelling the World Flower into being; you are paving the way for Ymbglidegold!”

-----

All Ana had to do was readjust a lifetime of perception. All she had to do was think of them, not as stories, as histories. Nixie’s personal memories

[nukyster-blog]

Changing course Chapter 18) Silent Rebellion, Loud Acts of Defiance.

.-.-.

When Ivar woke up, he stared straight into two horizontal pupils. He flinched in reflex, his hand automatically reaching out for his axe. Instead of the murder weapon, his fingers brushed over a warm hand, which made him flinch even more, pause and then frantically rub his eyes. 

The early morning nemesis turned out to be Piglet’s favorite lamb who was now chewing on Ivar’s makeshift blanket of hay, a few inches away from his face. The small animal stared at him dully and bleated loudly before tottering off. 

Ivar stared at the wobbly little legs with envy before untangling himself from Piglet’s limbs. During the night, she’d inched closer and closer, wrapping her arms around his waist and hooked her legs around his. Ivar hadn’t been sure if she’d strategically curled up against him like a snake, or if she was actually asleep. He also wondered if she knew he pretended to be asleep, he hoped she didn’t, it would be easier to brush off their sudden closeness and label it as surviver’s instinct; body heat.

He knew one damn thing for sure; if he hadn’t confessed his impotence, she would have never dared to cross that makeshift line of hers. He simply was the lesser of two evils; one that might kill her but in this world, there were worse things than death. 

Ivar watched her, Piglet. The Wildling. She truly was a mystery to him. Wrapped up in tattered rags from head to toe, hiding her true forms and curves. He wondered if her physique matched the women of Kattegat as he wondered how many winters she’d seen. He knew one thing very well; her shape already had the beginnings of womanhood, her small peaked breast had pressed firmly against his back for at least half of the night. 

Ivar tilted his head, his mouth slightly ajar as he continued to observe Piglet’s body; he still wondered if she was fully human or a descendant of a Huldra. 

Curious, Ivar crawled alongside her and stared at her back. What if she’d had a tail and a bark covered back? What if she truly was a forest creature, enslaved by humans? So out of place in a world she did not belong in. 

Then he knew her pain. From an early age, his brother Sigurd-Snake-in-the-Eye had teased him with the possibility of Ivar being a bortbything, a changeling. Swapped right after birth with a human child and burdening their family. There was an old folktale of a human mother being advised to brutalize the changeling, so that the forest creatures would return her true son. But the mother refused, unable to mistreat an innocent child, despite knowing its nature. When her husband demanded she abandon the changeling, she refused and her husband left her. 

Them. Their father left all of them. 

During any brotherly fight or disagreement, Sigurd never left out a chance to remind Ivar of the tale. And in every tale there is a grain of truth. 

Heart wrenched, Ivar thought back to all the times he’d wondered through the woods, searching for a hint of his real family. And if he found them, he would eagerly trade places with the true son of Ragnar Lothbrok, because as a fraud, he certainly did not deserve to be placed on such a pedestal. 

Keys were rammed into the lock and Piglet’s dark eyes flashed wide open. Without a second to waste, she jumped up and leaped over the wooden border back to her side of the shed. 

It was the Giant and instead of eagerly cracking his knuckle to beat some sense into his slave, his hands were jammed together against his chest. Pious as a true devotee, the Giant came to collect the lost sheep, to guide them back towards the house of his God. 

Ivar growled and rolled his eyes as his chains were unshackled; it must be Sunday. 

.-.-.

“Hail All-Father, wise warrior, one-eyed wanderer, come sit at my fire. Tell me your wisdom stories, the scenes your missing eyes sees. You who chooses the slain, look on my deed and when my time comes, to run the sky with you. Let me end be worthy of song. In the meantime, let me feel excitement and poetry and fury and joy. Let me understand sacrifice. Think long, remember well and journey far. Odin, witness this.”

“Amen,” echoed simultaneously through the chapel and Ivar re-opened his eyes. 

“Allahu Akbar,” Piglet whispered so softly only her direct heathen neighbour could overhear her. Their eyes locked, both gleaming with satisfaction as they’d carried out their secret pact. 

To riot against the God of the Christians, in their most sacred place of all by praying to their own Gods. 

Their rebellion earned them better food, as the Giant mistook their devotion and clasped hands as a first step on the path of righteousness. 

Instead of working their heads off, Ivar and Piglet were allowed to share lunch with the other commoners in the castle’s kitchen. This of course did not mean the pair would automatically be accepted by the other servants and slaves. The linen maidens still stared at Piglet as if she were bird shit on their Sunday dresses and Little Cunt would wack her stick repeatedly against Ivar’s shin bone if his legs appeared out from underneath the table. As a cripple, he was not allowed to sit at a decent height and in all honesty, he was fine with sitting on the floor. As revenge, he made a sport out of tying laces together, always fast enough to flee the crime scene before getting caught. Besides, when he was sitting below, Piglet was able to sneak all leftover to his side. He hid the food inside the pocket of his tunic, which Piglet had sewed in. She was a proper thief and he made a fine smuggler; this way, both could grow back some fat before winter fell. 

Little Cunt and Big Cunt managed an entire feast inside the kitchen during this particular Sunday. Ivar guessed it had something to do with the arranged marriage; showing off their wealth to the female newcomer. 

Ivar silently hoped both would break their necks and bust their knees as the two spiteful women carried trays of food to their rulers. 

Right before supper, the Giant managed to ruin the atmosphere with his mere presence. His hostile air and booming voice made most of the women flinch and sit up straight; everyone beside Little Cunt of course, due to her crooked back. All elated feelings simply vanished into thin air. It only fueled the Giant’s ego; the man fed off fear of the lesser. 

The Giant noticed how his favorite target was banished to the floor and lacked a proper plate and cutlery. For that, Little Cunt was scolded, which surprised Ivar. 

An odd little tinge nudged the inside of his stomach as the Giant grabbed him by the shoulders and allowed him to sit at the long table, with the others. 

Piglet did not trust the Giant’s uncharacteristic favour and nudged Ivar against the shin bone underneath the table. She stared intensely towards her plate and nudged him again, indicating he needed to follow her example. 

The Giant was pleased with the suffocating silence and sat down directly next to Ivar, shoving Little Cunt’s plate and cutlery across and placed it all in front of Ivar. 

There was something very wrong with the gesture, but all Ivar could focus on was the knife which lay inches away from his balled hand. 

Around him, all the table mates clasped their hands together and the Giant started to speak: “Rex tremedae majestic, qui salvandos salvas gratis. Salve me, Fons Pietatis, Salve me, Fond Pietatis.” 

All repeated his words, all but Ivar who’s eyes still lingered at the knife. It was blunt and wouldn’t be able to carve into bone. But it would be enough to make a cross from eye to eye and shove it deep down into the gaping hole of a mouth. 

Ivar’s silence did not go by unnoticed, the grey dead eyes of the Giant burned with outrage and he slammed his fists onto the wood on the table with so much force all plates rattled. 

The silence was deafening and sparked Ivar's stubbornness and will to provoke the enemy. 

Instead of whimpering in fear, he slowly tilted his chin up while pursing his lips firmly shut. The Giant could dance on his corpse and rip out his tongue, he was not going to repeat that phrase. 

Piglet met his gaze with wide eyes, her glance was a mixture of horror and utter frustration. The nails of her right hand were digging into the left wrist and although she didn’t dare to speak, she tried to will him into giving in. 

The Giant repeated the phrase again, his voice guttural and blazing with held back fury. When Ivar still refused to utter a word, the Giant became unhinged. Before Ivar could brace himself, his face was smashed into the wood of the table. With his nose inches away from his plate, he stared up as the Giant tried to crush his skull. 

“Rex tremedae majestic, qui salvandos salvas gratis. Salve me, Fons Pietatis, Salve me, Fond Pietatis.” The brute spat in his face as he increased the pressure on Ivar’s scalp. 

Piglet had always been right about one thing; Ivar was thick headed and even though his heart was throbbing in his ears and dark spots started to blur his vision, he kept his damn mouth shut. 

When the Giant noticed how fruitless his action was, he kicked his own chair back and took hold of Ivar’s left hand, while keeping firm pressure on his victim’s head. 

“Rex tremedae majestic, qui salvandos salvas gratis-” he repeated again, while straightening Ivar’s arm above his back, “-Salve me, Fons Pietatis, Salve me, Fond Pietatis.”

Slowly but steadily, he started to turn Ivar’s arm. Unwillingly, the muscles of his left arm were stretched further and further up onto a point Ivar could no longer keep his sound in. His previous inability to speak vanished and he cried out like a wild animal. And although those sounds were music to the Giant’s ears, they weren't the words he wished to hear. Agonizingly slow, Ivar’s arm was stretched to their absolute limit. Cringing from pain, Ivar tried to free his head, while howling like a mad dog. The twisting became unbearable and he swore he felt something tear inside his bicep. His eyes shot open, yet all he could see was red. Red and the knife that still lay inches away from his free hand. 

From behind Ivar, a baleful cackle broke free from behind rotting teeth but Ivar barely heard it over the sound of his loud and galloping heartbeat. Hate burned in his heart so deeply that it was ingrained into the tissue and all he wanted to see before he died, was that knife sticking out of the Giant’s throat. 

“NO!” As an arrow shot from a bow, Piglet launched herself over the table and swiped the knife away from Ivar’s trembling hand. Along with the murder weapon, she managed to send his plate, fork and spoon to the floor as well. 

The silence that fell foretold a future of punishment, on both sides.

  “Ivar, speak!” Piglet hissed through her teeth as she mentally prepared for a beating she honestly did not deserve. 

Ivar’s stubbornness yielded to his shame, knowing Piglet risked her own skin. 

“Rex tremedae majestic, qui salvandos salvas gratis. Salve me, Fons Pietatis, Salve me, Fond Pietatis.” He spoke, the foreign words came out of his throat completely empty of meaning, yet it eased the death grip on his skull and his right hand was released, falling back against his body. 

The Giant kicked his chair right from under him, Ivar fell backwards but was quickly hoisted onto his knees. His hands were shoved together and his head tilted down. For a moment, he was confused until he received a fist near his kidney, as the Giant spoke the first two words: “Rex tremedae…” 

Gasping for air, Ivar repeated the phrase while physically steading himself for the next blow. The Giant circled around him like a wolf and hammered his fist down onto Ivar the moment his victim failed to sit up in a straight pose. 

Countless of times, Ivar spoke the words of the fake God until they seemed to be engraved on his lips. He could feel his face swell up due to the punches, but the pain made him dazed, as if he’d grown insensitive to the Giant’s fists. It must be due to the numbness inside of his head, all the while, he repeated the words that meant nothing to him. 

Eventually, his obedience was enough and the Giant simply shoved him aside and then sat back upon his so-called throne to sit with his lessers. Piglet’s plate and cutlery flew across the kitchen and the poor young woman was sent to fetch them while the entire table was ordered to spit at her. 

“Thick-head,” she silently snarled to Ivar as she picked up her fork and collected her strength before heading back to sit with the monster. Ivar did not respond, but he agreed with her, he was too stubborn for his own good, but he survived another day. His busted lip managed to form into a sly smile. Because in his abused right hand, he held the knife Piglet swept off the table. It was too blunt for bones, but it was sharp enough to tear through skin. 

.-.-.

A/N: Oh dang Ivar, you sly thing. I honestly intended to have him beat up again, but whoops now he got a knife. I’d like to address a few other things. The Changeling and the small folktale I added are based on a real folktale about trolls. I’ve been happy to finally add this small ficlet because I feel that this is exactly how Ivar feels, misplaced in his own family. And again, the burden of being the possible reason for their father disappearing. I think that Ragnar was a wonderful ruler but a dead-beat father, but a child always labels himself as the wrongdoer.

The phrase ‘Rex tremedae majestic, qui salvandos salvas gratis. Salve me, Fons Pietatis, Salve me, Fond Pietatis’ comes from the song ‘city of the dead’ from Eurielle. It means ‘King of tremendous majesty, who freely saves, save me, fount of mercy, save me, fount of mercy.’ Which I thought was suiting and ironic because the ‘bring of the words’ is everything but merciful… Oh and I loved writing the start of this chapter, even though Ivar knows how to nicely wrap it all with the whole ‘Huldra thing’ he was most definitely checking Piglet out. Well, that's all folks, see you next at a new adventure of Ivar’s sorry life:)

Xoxoxo Nukyster

The tagged ones:

@youbloodymadgenius

@xbellaxcarolinax

@saldelys

@shannygoatgruff

@pieces-by-me

@apenas-mais-uma-pessoa

@readsalot73

@lauraan182 @conaionaru

@sarahh-jane

@peachyboneless

If you’d liked to be tagged, please let me know:)

[robron-til-the-end-of-time]

That'd be a lot of angry people

Of course it’s a lot of angry people! Forget robron, hearing that a pigs going to run riot, people want to see a set get destroyed, because that isn’t a teeny tiny piglet, you know? Why go to the trouble of getting a pig and three kids on set to cut it?

[vabam-fr]

"Necessity is the Mother of invention..."

New Lore Notes For Riot:

• In the beginning of her journey, Riot travels across Sornieth with Varg, chasing Lesser Falls to keep her leg and tail charged. When they come across a place of latent magic, Riot spends a considerable time dwelling there to stock up on vials. (More often than not, it is an ugly and boring process of hacking up local fauna and plants with her Cleaver... until more befitting tools are crafted..)

• As a result of constantly needing to upkeep her prosthetics, Riot becomes familiar with Artificing. Riot's desire to learn the inner mechanisms of imbuing items with magic was a natural conclusion. She invents a design for her leg that is far more cost efficient when utilizing the magic she's harvested -- and much like Pig and his Cleaver, Riot's augmentations go through many iterations.

• That isn't to say Riot doesn't tinker with her own Cleaver's design. Through idle studying, and various enlightening trips through the Ashfall Waste and the Shifting Expanse, Riot creates other Harvesting weapons, too -- which are expertly used in the hands of her Needlers and Breakers within the Hunting Corpse. When the designs are perfected (or an otherwise acceptable level of craftsmanship,) Riot willingly shares these inventions with her family.

• Riot's travels across Sornieth give her many opportunities to run into her family -- if she's privy to the knowledge on where to find them. Arguably the most sentimental of the nest, Riot doesn't let her Search or her Hunting get in the way of visiting her siblings when the opportunity presents itself.

○○•○○

• Riot is aware of who her charge is just as early as her recognizing that she has the calling -- it was a matter of figuring out where the Plaguemother wanted her to be.

• The intuitive pull carried her around Sornieth, pushing her into more and more challenging circumstances and fights. And her travels enlighten her to the worldly insights of other clans and their customs. The opportunities to adapt and overcome were not lost on Riot -- she recognized the lessons that the Plaguebringer eased her into, or abruptly dropped her in.

• Deeper spiritual wisdom leads Riot ever closer to the understanding of balance between the Eleven. It becomes most apparent when conversing with Water dragons -- their concern and waning magic regarding their absent Father was enough to sympathize with. There was no feeling of conquest or opportunity in the Tidelord's absence. Indeed, The Sea of A Thousand Currents was a territory bordered by the most flights, yet the Tidelord's domain remained. The worry that rang in his worshipers' words felt like a resonant bell that answered back His Sister's sentiments. "Where did he go? Why is he gone? What is he searching for? What did he See?"

• In a longer eventuality, The Hunting Corpse settles in the Rotting Woods. Their base of operations. While Riot still participates in Collapses, her older years grant her the privilege of finding where the Plaguemother wished for her to settle... and to aide in the struggles happening beneath the Wasteland.

obligatory piglet lore ping @ringleaderising

let me know if anyone else would appreciate being pinged in Riot lore posts!

[ringleaderising]

Halloween 2024 Piglet Clans!

Just so everyone involved can keep track of each other, here's a list of the blogs/clans/piglets that were distributed in this last giveaway!

Sisters in Other Clans

@sweeetcotton / Sweetcotton #668687 - Lair - Owner of Whelp

@poop-flying / Shanncrafter #84422 - Lair - Owner of Tooth

@terra-tortoise / Terratortoise #706311 - Lair - Owner of Claw

@vabam-fr / Vabam #450994 - Lair - Owner of Riot

@harpyartisan / Mephistopheles #41876 - Lair - Owner of Ravager

@clansunsharp / Pinnithin #68300 - Lair - Owner of Rot

Parents & Runt

@ringleaderising / Ringleader #77673 - Lair - Pig, Sow, and Runt.

This post will have a link at the top of my Pinned Post on Tumblr for quick-access!