#where gets a big ass hammer or an axe

[pa-pa-patato]

Please…please please PLEASE! GIVE BENDY A BIG ASS WAPON !

[allwormdiet]

Gestation 1.6

Took like an hour and a half nap after work, hell. Time for the good guys to make an appearance

Yeah I'll fucking bet she's exhausted. Girl's out in the middle of the night and coming down from a near-death experience where she mauled people with insect swarms and got cornered on a roof by, what, the strongest cape in the city? It's incredible she has enough space left to even think.

Here we get more lore on the big dogs I was thinking about previously, and of course the local big dog himself. I wonder if he would be galled at Taylor's narration describing him as one of the wing members in the V formation, feel like a lot of capes would have an ego thing

Thank you Armsmaster, now I get to holler about my stance on polearms. Polearm are the best melee weapon in most scenarios, simple as anything. Tight quarters and CQB, sure, not so much, but that's what sidearms are for. Swords, axes, hammers, whatever, that's for people trying to be cool. Polearms are for people trying to fucking win. I dunno if Armsmaster is good people but he has reasonable taste in primary arms so that's points in his favor.

On the one hand, poor Taylor, she's gonna be dealing with that first impression for a long time, but on the other hand lol and also lmao. I told you that costume design was gonna come back around as being too scary.

Armsmaster underwear is like, so distracting as a concept, actually. Honestly any underwear that's got real people on it. What a fucking weird product to sell, like I get Spider-Man undies but Spider-Man isn't real, y'know? Does Taylor get underwear made about her down the line? Does owning Taylor's merch after a certain point in the timeline get you weird looks?

This kind of thing must be such a pain in the ass, I've mucked around with my own original superhero setting and names were such a fucking dilemma with so many characters. Having to deal with that but like, as your own self? You're the super? And you gotta worry if taking a name is gonna get you sued or assassinated by someone who already has that name? Fuck that noise.

Couple things here, take it one at a time.

This is legitimately a huge moment of vulnerability for Taylor. She can't tell anyone about the night she's had, there's nobody in her life that she can trust with this massive weight on her entire soul. She almost died, and she knows how it would've happened, and she knows that it wasn't even her own play that saved her life in that final moment of the confrontation. A sympathetic moment from someone else who's lived this life and faced this danger could be such a balm for her right now.

So obviously what Armsmaster does is softball a recruitment pitch. "That's rough buddy" would have actually been way more tactful at this point, for real. I don't know if this is who Armsmaster is as a person or if this is the kind of party line you're supposed to hold as a Protectorate member, nudging scared teenaged capes into the Wards so they stop running around unsupervised, but either way it's such a bad read.

And then yeah, of course Taylor doesn't want to be a Ward, it's just being a high schooler but even worse because now the other hormone-addled teenagers you're locked in with have trauma and superpowers. Not only no, not only hell no, but fuck no. Especially knowing about Shadow Stalker, like Christ.

These two lines are a minor detail in the grand scheme of things, but girl you almost died, nobody in their right minds would blame you for being in a bit of a mood

God the Undersiders are so cool. Like yeah they're criminals but they're criminals with an underdog flair. Good on them for managing to come out on top when they're outgunned, I know that like Bitch is basically the only one with an offensive power so the fact that they've won fights is impressive as hell.

The vulnerabilities that get shown by these characters feel so critical. Taylor, the Undersiders, and Armsmaster all show their underbellies over the last two chapters in conversation, admitting to fears and failures. Like even setting aside the masks and the bravado, that's the real stuff.

Also that costume thing is gonna haunt Taylor for at least as long as she has it, and maybe longer.

In a fight, righ*gunshots*

Jokes aside, good on Taylor for understanding some of her limits. Enough to realize antagonizing the Undersiders was a bad call (although that's assuming she would even think to do so with how shaken she'd been in the immediate aftermath of the fight with Lung), but she still went and picked a fight with fucking Lung so partial credit.

Beyond that, didn't expect the "flip the negative" trick to come back up from Armsmaster of all characters. Might have expected it from Taylor's dad maybe, I dunno. And of course Taylor immediately envies his ability to do that better than she can, because that's just kinda where she's at.

Taylor finally gets praise from a hero for doing hero shit, and of course there's strings attached. Fucked up. Let's see where this goes.

Don't know why I thought the ABB were restricted to operating in the Bay, but I guess it makes sense that they have connections and operations outside.

Anyway, this and everything we learn about Bakuda being a bomb Tinker makes me think that someone at the Protectorate isn't doing their fucking job. I think if there's someone in your city whose specialty is fucking super bombs, you maybe put out like some public service announcements? TV, radio, fucking posters up on a wall? "If you see this woman fucking leg it and call the cops" kinda stuff, what are we doing where a Brockton native doesn't know there's a bomber in the city.

Armsmaster rolls up to the aftermath of a cape fight to find an unconscious Lung and a shivering, exhausted teenaged hero who almost died taking down one of the beefiest villains in the whole town, and he has the nerve to ask "are you gonna finish that?"

Joking aside, this sucks. And I get it, and Taylor gets it too obviously, and I'm certain that Armsmaster is legitimately concerned about an indie hero getting blown to fucking pieces by a vengeful ABB, but Armsmaster getting credit is at least partly a factor. Maybe 60% concern 40% opportunism, I dunno, it's hard to gauge just meeting the guy.

...Actually knowing that he's angling for the credit on Lung I'm more willing to bet that "in the wings of the V formation" line earlier would have gotten under his skin.

Taylor is walking away from tonight with favors owed from a minor villain team and the Protectorate's local honcho. All it took was throwing down with the leader of a major gang and staring death in the burning metal face. Good job, kid, now go fucking sleep.

Current Thoughts

It strikes me as very deliberate that Taylor's first non-hostile interaction with villains and heroes are back to back with notable contrast. The Undersiders, who know full well that Lung wants to kill them all, find out that some random cape decided to take the fight to Lung for them and immediately jump in for the assist, expressing their gratitude as they go. Armsmaster rolls up after the dust has already settled and congratulates Taylor for a job well done, saying he owes her a favor even, but only after securing the credit for himself in the doing, and being just that much less delicate with an obviously shaken rookie.

This isn't to say "villains good heroes bad" because I don't think that's true, I'm absolutely certain the Undersiders have hurt people and will hurt more people down the road, and Armsmaster is operating within what I guess is a pretty inflexible organization. This isn't The Boys, where every alleged hero is a huge piece of shit and all their good will is propaganda consumed by mindless sheeple (I haven't actually watched The Boys but I don't enjoy the vibes and am not really in a rush to see it for myself). Capes are people here, warts and all, and sometimes the career criminals are easier to get along with than the career law enforcement officer.

Was kinda shocked this little arc is already over, but I guess it's interlude time. Get a glimpse into the head of someone who isn't Taylor.

[atsadi-shenanigans]

Feeding Alligators 40 - Mirror, Mirror

Astarion goes fishing (and not for fish).

On AO3.

Y’all coulda made it back by nightfall, now that y’all know where you’re going. But both Wyll and Gale agree that arriving after a whole day of hiking is a bad strategy (to the disappointment of Karlach and the disgust of Lae’zel). So y’all stop about an hour away—close enough y’all can be rested when you get there, but not so close a patrol might trip over somebody’s tent.

Gale has a spare canvas, nobody has spare poles or stakes; Karlach solves that problem by sauntering to the edge of the trees and ripping three saplings out of the ground to whittle into poles with that bigass ax.

She drives them into the ground and does not use a hammer.

You ain’t the only one watching this with a little too much interest.

big lady your brain chants.

She carries a regular pack, from which she pulls out a blanket that smells vaguely like vasoline, and a raggedy teddy bear she introduces as Clive. The bear is singed around the edges, and seems nearly shellacked in the not-vasoline stuff on the blanket. Some kinda fire-resistant salve she says.

She’s careful not to touch nobody, or even get too close. You watch this, lips pressed tight, chest hurting for her.

Dinner is, once again, bread and cheese and wine. No fire so close to the tollhouse. Karlach strikes up a conversation with Lae’zel about the best way to twist somebody’s head off, while Shadowheart watches over the rim of her goblet.

Gale, without much to do in the way of a cook fire, plops down outside his tent with a book, several scrolls, and an ink pot to start scratching away. Meanwhile, Wyll volunteers to go on patrol—make sure y’all really are out of fake paladin range—and set up some snares. You can’t tell if he’s upset with y’all’s decision to let Karlach join, or if he don’t like her around, or if it’s some secret third thing that’s got him so tense. He’s seemed like a real good dude—though everybody has shit takes on something.

The sun sinks low and the light goes gray as evening deepens. Lae’zel actually takes a night off from breaking your ass (either distracted by Karlach, or deciding that leaving you like, rested, increases your chances of not fucking anything up tomorrow).

Which leaves you just…hanging out. For the first time, you have the mental and physical energy to stay awake, but you have no phone, no internet, no books or movies or anything to fiddle with. Maybe you could work on that strip of linen Astarion “gifted” you. But then he’d see you doing it and start shit and besides, you got no clue how to sew.

You’re so busy trying to think up a way to be busy, that you notice the man skulk out of his tent. He’s got something shiny in his hand. He’s positioned his tent slightly facing away from the fire, tonight, which leaves it facing your tent more than usual. He’s not, like, hiding, but he’s not out in the open as he holds up what you realize is a mirror.

Huh. Lots of different cultures have vampire lore; you wonder if the mirror thing is accurate. You got nothing better to do, so you find yourself trailing over, coming up behind him.

“Looking at something?” he says. It’s addressed to you, even though he hasn’t glanced over.

“Saw me coming?” you say.

He stares a moment longer, before turning. There’s no sparkle to his eyes, tonight. His lips are a straight line. “The only benefit to a mirror when you have my condition. It doesn’t make up for a lack of reflection, mind you.”

Ah. That part of the lore is true, then. Ouch.

“Sorry to hear that,” you say. “You must miss it.”

And then you want to kick yourself over how stupid that sounds.

“Preening into the looking glass? Petty vanity?” he says all flamboyant. Until he deflates. Until you see what might be a flash of sadness in him. “Of course I miss it. I’ve never even seen this face. Not since it grew fangs and my eyes turned red.”

You didn’t know about the eye color thing. None of the others are anywhere nearby; you wonder if that’s why he’s letting this show. He’s never made so much as a peep that wasn’t joke-flirting, complaining, stabby, or bored.

“What color were they before?” you say. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I—” he starts. Blinks a few times and there’s the barest shiver of, dare you call it, vulnerability in his face. “I don’t know. I can’t…remember.”

He stares out at nothing for a pause. Don’t got the presence of mind to slip the smarmy mask back on. It’s like he…like he just realized that. Doesn’t remember his own eyes.

Then his face shutters. Tight-lipped anger slips down and buries all traces of confused horror. He chucks the mirror to smash on the ground.

You try not to wince even as you take a step back.

“My face is just another dark shape in my past,” he says. Looks away. “Another thing I’ve lost.”

You can forget some details about your own face, sometimes. You don’t generally wear makeup (never learned, and then when you could, that shit is expensive), and your hair mostly sorts itself out when you comb conditioner through it in the shower. So you don’t see your reflection every day (the ladies room at the office don’t have a mirror—used to be a closet until the seventies or eighties when they converted it).

But you know your eyes are dark brown the way you know your own name. It’s just a fact about you. You can’t imagine what it would take to just…lose that.

“How long you been a vampire?” you say.

His gaze flits around a second. “About two hundred years, give or take. Things start to run together a little.”

Two…two hundred years? Under that fuckface? Without ever being able to see himself?

Holy fucking shit.

Holy fucking shit.

And yet, he’s standing here, traveling with all y’all, acting…well, not normal. But he ain’t catatonic. He’s only killed people when y’all were fighting already, and he only tried to bite you the once (without asking). He’s talking to you, and he makes jokes and…

And he said you were his first “thinking creature” blood.

In two hundred fucking years.

The kind of strength it would take to scrape himself together and hold in there…even if it was barely. Even if he wasn’t all there. You’d known that shit for over a decade. But two hundred motherfucking years.

You been staring. He notices, and turns to you. “What?”

The man teases you. Steals from goddamn refugees (he has got to stop that). And he hasn’t seen his face in two centuries. You can maybe afford to make a fool of yourself if the idea blooming in your brain makes a fool outta yourself.

“I can be your mirror,” you say, your neck heating up, trying not to squirm. “You don’t have to. Or I don’t have to. If I made this weird, that is. I can, uh, leave.”

His eyebrows twitch down into a micro frown. He stands there a hot second, sucks in a breath through his nose. His mask is slipping again, and the man underneath…

“I want to know what the world sees when it looks at me,” he says. “What, well, what you see.”

Slight emphasis on the “you” that you ain’t gonna read too much into.

A long face. Thick brows. A strong, straight nose. Thick lips, pointy chin, and floofy, white hair.

You ain’t never really described somebody in detail. Not like this, and not to their face directly. You ain’t a poet or an artist. This was probably a really bad idea.

“Your face is very, uh, symmetrical,” you say.

He pauses a moment, before drawing back. “Oh darling, you’re terrible at this.”

Fuck you, too!

“Well, I mean, it’s the most noticeable thing aside from the granny hair.”

And now he fucking recoils.

“What? I have the best hair in camp. If this is your idea of a joke—”

“Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m kidding,” you say. It’s only kinda a lie. It’s granny hair, no two ways about it. “Your hair is very shiny and it looks real soft. The rest of you” —you wave your hand vaguely around— “looks good.”

“Really?” His usual smirk slips back on and he damn near purrs. Then he lifts his hands and gives a slow, little runway spin. “Anything in particular?”

Jesus lord. Man’s moods turn on a fucking dime and he cannot stop being a prima diva.

You think. What would you want to know about your own face? You got no idea how elves age or how old he was when he got bit. He looks young, in the dim light, but there’s an age to him, a smattering of fine lines at the corners of his eyes that you started noticing on yourself recently. You ain’t gonna mention how gaunt his cheeks are, even if they do make the bones stand out all high fashion or whatever. It ain’t a healthy look (any time anybody mentions native cheekbones, you have to bite back the little historical fact that a lot of those photos was of starving natives, of course their cheekbones stood out like that, their food sources were butchered, burned, or a thousand miles away after a forced march).

You’re gonna ask in the morning if Wyll can bring back what his snares catch before he field-dresses them, and ask Astarion if he wants the blood. Man needs to eat more often. Put some goddamn flesh on them bones (oh god, you sound like your aunties).

“You got these eye creases when you smile,” you say.

But he does not take that as the compliment you mean.

“Excuse me?” he says like you just called his mama ugly. “I’m an eternally young vampire, forever beautiful.”

Forever corpse-y.

“It’s a good thing.”

“It sounds an awful lot, my dear, like you just called me old.”

“You just said you was at least two hundred.”

He gestures down to himself. “Vampire. Come on, darling, you can do better than this sorry excuse.”

And then the man has the audacity to fucking pose. Hand on his hip. Shoulders swaying like some old-timey, rich debutante.

“This whole thing is just you fishing for compliments, huh?” you say.

He looks at you like you’re the weird one. “Well of course it is. Now don’t leave me waiting.”

You ain’t sure if this entire cluster started as a sham, or if it just naturally devolved into one (he’s very good at the latter). His frustration had seemed genuine, though. He wouldn’t meet your gaze for a time. And you’re picking up on a pattern: obfuscation. He gets all fussy and theatric right around the time you notice (or he notices, maybe) he’s expressing something that ain’t flirt or murder.

You…kinda want to see what he’s trying to hide. What’s actually under that mask you caught a glimpse of.

In any case, it’s funner to play along right now, so you don’t got to think about the bullshit waiting tomorrow.

What would a vain peacock like him want to hear?

“Your eyes,” you say. “They’re real sharp, especially when you’re focused on something. I think people call that ‘piercing.’”

He rolls said eyes. “Acceptable. Finally. Now just tell me I’m beautiful and we can end this travesty.”

And you can’t help yourself. “Well, Karlach is beautiful. You’re fine, though.”

The moment of truth. See if he’ll engage…

He gasps, but through a grin. Literally splays his fingers over his chest. “How dare you. I thought we had something special.”

Warmth flutters through you. You set the game down and he picked it up. He’s returning it. Holy shit, you went and established banter with a maybe-friend. It’s a damn good thing you got so much practice keeping your face blank.

He clucks his tongue. Nudges at you with his hip. “Still. You’re nice, too.”

Well that’s an overstatement. You are plain and plus sized, and it ain’t some false-modesty thing. If you ain’t in some colorful or flowery blouse, you can feel kids staring at the store. More than once you caught a, “Is that a boy or a girl” and a parent frantically shushing.

You’d always thought the boobs would be a giveaway (they ain’t subtle), but hey, baggy clothes.

Sailing too close to the rocky Shore of Truth. Time to veer back into the humor pool. You deadpan. “Oh good. The pretty boy thinks I’m acceptable. Now I won’t have to cry myself to sleep in shame.”

The smallest snort tears out of him. Seems to catch him off guard. But he quickly folds it under his mask and sighs. “I’d better go get some beauty sleep, darling. Seems like I need it if I’m to catch up with the competition.”

“You do that,” you say, letting a tiny grin crack your own stoic mask.

Which he returns.

Which is right when the ground in the middle of camp cracks open and some kinda hell goo burbles up, spinning in a vortex, before it bursts into flame. Out pops a winged demon lady with her tits half out.

Previous - Index - Next Chapter

[aldi-spice]

Retirement home anon again: I’d like to get your opinion on this (if you have one), it’s gonna be long sorry 💀

I bought Story of Seasons: A wonderful Life for the Nintendo switch which is a remake of the 2003 harvest moon a wonderful life.

I’ve bought other harvest moon/story of seasons games for the switch as well and honestly… I’m disappointed.

The character design lacks, they all look so dead and emotionless I don’t know how to explain it. The whole world looks like it’s straight out of Cocomelon. You also start with a gifted Cow and other things, that you’d normally not get in the originals and tbh it feels like they stripped all life away in all the newer versions, made it way easier in the beginning and tried to up the cuteness to a maximum which resulted in it looking like a kids show. The dialogs also turned so soft imo.

In harvest moon ds you straight up start with the mayor of mineral town insulting you and then the character (you) proceeding to try to kill him/punch him with an axe, a hammer, a scythe, even a watering can and in the end your dog bites him in the ass in a blackout screen.

It’s like how they took the sass out of the animal crossing characters with time and it just makes me sad. The new versions of the characters feel like lifeless copies :/

I‘m still hoping for more remakes and I’m still a big fan of the harvest moon/story of seasons franchise. But fields of Mistria honestly gave me the exact feeling I had when I got harvest moon ds on Christmas as a kid and started it up for the first time. I literally had a bit of a teary eye playing the demo and then the EA version of FoM 🥺

That’s also why I like FoM so much - it’s funny, it has innuendos, it’s made for adults/older teens despite it being cutely designed, the characters look and feel like they’re adults as well.

I‘m not trying to be mean to the newer games and I understand people enjoy playing them, hell I still buy them because I love the series, but they leave me hanging. ://

YESSSS I get it OMG it's so boring I have about 100 hours in PoOT (pioneers of olive town) and although I controversially found Harvest Moon One World better than Olive Town (I loved the open world concept and Jamil in particular), it was still kinda boring compared Stardew Valley which I bought as my first game for my switch back in 2019.

That day, I played SDV until 4 am, it was summer break and I just graduated highschool and it was magical playing SDV for the first time, I could barely put the game down for long enough to take care of myself lol.

And I get that exact same feeling again playing FoM, that kind of magical feeling where you're completly transported into a new world. I don't think ConcernedApe made SDV with children as a primary audience in mind, if he did he probably wouldn't have added depressed alocholic in there and I love it, I love a good story and good characters, inperfect characters with flaws, they feel way more real and more likable than the boring nice, polite ones we were getting in newer HM/SoS games. All I remember from PoOT is how claustrophobic the town feels, and how hard it was to decide who to marry because none of them was interesting enough, even Damon, the edgy biker boy, felt like he was taken straight from the Disney Channel. I want characters that I can call bastards, I want mean characters, they're the funniest to learn to love.

As for making the games way too easy, I'm not sure, I just remeber struggeling in older games but mostly because I was a child when I played them. I'm pretty sure you also could get a free cow in Animal Parade and in the tale of two towns but I could very well be wrong.

I'm not gonna lie, I never played Harvest Moon DS but that sounds hilarious, we need more of that back, and less Ned Flenders neighbors. That's another reason why I love SDV so much, Pam and Shane are so mean to the player at first (hell even Sebastian is kinda cold) but that's what makes them more compelling characters than the cast of PoOT, where frankly only the non-marriagable characters were interesting.

I think that's why I'm so obsessed with FoM right now, while yes the characters are so so nice, they're not boring and I don't even remember them by their niceness, Hayden is a super polite farmer, but I'd say his distinct traits are loud, open and so very passionate wbout farming, even his dialogue about being a good neighbor and lending you sugar is so much more memorable because he's so forward about it. I feel like most characters in this game can be described with a positive and a negative trait, which is what newer HM/SOS games lack, the balance between baby boy baby and bastard. And the dialogue in general is soooo good, I don't feel like I'm being talk down to, it feels like a normal conversation between adults, not between a child and their caretaker.

Laslty, thank god (NPC Studio) for the older characters, I feel like farming game fans are not in their teens (13-15) and more like in their twenties and up. We don't want to romace teens, we want something that doesn't feel illegal lol.

I totally agree anon, I love FoM so far and it has also made me super emotional playing this game. Ugh I can't wait for more content, I need to fall for this game harder.

[am-i-sans]

dnd adventure 16

we spent sometime talking about the logistics of fucking a talking sword

cam goes to eeby deeby and inferno comes out. undyne punches him in the face lol.

we let the mayor know we killed the dragon and he tells the town. mayors kid said theirs a beast of some sort in the woods so were gonna go kill it!

undyne,suzy, frog and tori got fuckin lost lol. dans and inferno corral them cause good lord undyne is punching trees.

2 shambling mounds? gotta free the person!

crit 31 damage from me FINALLY!

we STILL dont see frogs new dagger. dammit moss show meeeee!!!

tori keeps getting hit for rookie numbers lol.

undyne did 29 damage jebus. plus 12 to hit my ass.

frog can FINALLY use the dagger! the guitar solo from bohemian rhapsody? what? dagger of guitar solos?! wtf.

undyne finally kills viney! she saves the dude!

used my hammer to smack the other guy cause yay new weapon!

frogs dagger is now playing freebird help me.

tori learns! she moves out of the way of everyone to use lighting bolt! IT HAS LIGHTNING ABSORPTION YOU KILLED US!

i got hit! so did frog! bazinga. so i slapped it with my boomerang.

(i am once again reminded i murdered the music bot on accident ;-;)

(also raz was so fuckin mad it didnt die in the big hit he did lol)

undyne finally kills it! freedom! LEVEL UP!

got a new spell poggers. frog learned eldrich blast ;-; and fireball xD

going back to tell the mayor that the monster is real!

im going to sell my shit. frog is doing band stuff. undyne and tori are going drinking and forcing inferno around. suzy is being secretive?!

inferno is gambling lol. and i got fuckin loaded selling my shit yeasssss like over a thousand gold *dab* inferno is doing blackjack. he won.

sharing some ale with undyne. inviting tori for some drinking. just some wholesome bonding. dans reassures tori and undyne hes not upset about what happaned. tori contemplates her lighting and hurting others. undyne works her anger out.

we notice suzy isnt back yet. dans passes notes to undyne and tori telling them about the money and to not tell inferno and then eats the notes.

susie found a cave where their family stayed when she was a kid. SUSIE LORE! we go visit the cave. its just a bare cave. her family was an actual pack of fuckin wolves. humans kidnapped her when she got near a town. she stole an axe and escaped. met a bear. lived with her. kidnapped by elves. joined hyenas but they sucked so she left. went solo. mt cave. (cam popped into chat in the middle of this lol) dragon lair. ate her whole. chewed her way out. stomped on its head until it died. met frog and tori and lived near the woods by them.

cams no longer in eeby deeby! and is fuckin freaked at suzys background. 'dragons can be killed?!' lol

we see a flyer about a festival in a city a few days travel away! midsummer festival! party! we get on soupnik!

we see a burnt down town! oh no! undyne was supposed to roll a history but got a 3 lol. tori ALSO knows this place hmmmm sus. thankfully frog calls tori out lol.

tori lore finally! she used to live here :( her mother made 'a poor decison' made a pact and got everyone killed. including her siblings. everyone hug the tori!

to be continued~

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Dream SMP Recap (March 16/2021) - Worst Day

“May the best day of your past be the worst day of your future.”

—-

VOD LINKS:

Ponk

Foolish

Tubbo

Ranboo

Quackity

Badboyhalo

Captain Puffy

—-

- Foolish continues work on the mansion.

- Ranboo goes mining and talks about his ARG plans while getting chat to gamble. It’s the calm before the storm.

---

WORST DAY.

---

- Quackity’s stream opens with a shot of Schlatt’s Grave. The sound of a chest opening can be heard.

“Alex...you know, you and I? You know I wouldn’t do anything disadvantageous...”

-

Chapter One.

-

- Quackity climbs up to the roof of Punz’s tower, where he comes face to face with Bad.

Bad: "You keep getting in my way, Quackity...”

- Quackity asks why Bad brought him up here. He tells Bad he’s just an asset to the Egg. Bad replies that he’s not just an asset -- he’s serving a purpose Quackity could never understand.

Bad: “You call it the Egg...that’s just the surface. That’s just what you think it is. It is so much more than that. It is something you cannot even comprehend.”

- Quackity asks if all Bad is is an “asset to power.”

Quackity: “You don’t know what power is, Bad, then that’s your issue. That’s why I’m getting in your way. It’s ‘cause I know the ins and outs of business, I know the ins and outs of power. And I’m sorry that’s something you’re never gonna understand yourself.”

- Quackity tells Bad to not waste his time. Bad replies that he called Quackity to tell him to stay out of his way.

- Quackity then says he can show Bad what he’s been working on: real power.

- A cutscene shows Quackity and Bad riding off into the distance, making their way to:

Las Nevadas.

-

Chapter Two.

-

- At his cow farm, Quackity finds a book in the chest, wondering who put it there. It gives instructions to follow a railway track above.

“You had the fattest ass in my cabinet.”

- Quackity follows the line down into a cave where Glatt is waiting for him. It’s...a gym? The Big Man Gym.

- Austin from Austinshow is a dead guy with Glatt.

- He can’t go upstairs or else his skin starts falling off, so he stays down in the gym with his dad.

- Wilbur goes to the gym every day in his beanie.

- Tommy also came down to the gym.

- The dead all come down to the gym to lift weights.

- Quackity asks who else is up there. Glatt says he just wants to reconnect with Quackity.

- Glatt has apparently been learning Spanish.

- Mexican Dream also comes down to the gym. Neither Quackity nor Glatt know who he is and Quackity asks if Dream’s been visiting. He hasn’t helped Glatt learn Spanish.

- Quackity tells Glatt he hates seeing him, so he’ll give him five minutes.

- Glatt gives Quackity a preposition: He wants to escape the confines of the gym and wants to be revived. He knows of a thing that exists that could help him: a book.

- The green guy who comes down to the gym sometimes has this book.

- Quackity tells Glatt he has a business venture, and is willing to offer him a bet: 

If Quackity loses, he goes to Dream and gets the revive book and gives it to Glatt to use. If Quackity wins, Glatt never gets revived and works for Quackity forever.

They agree on the bet and start walking, Quackity asking Glatt about his other adventures...

-

Chapter Three.

-

- It’s raining. Quackity is standing outside Bee ‘n’ Boo as Sam walks up to him. He apologizes for calling Sam in on short notice.

- They head into the Big Innit Hotel, and Quackity tells Sam it’s time for him to visit Dream.

- Sam is hesitant. The last visit didn’t go well. 

- Quackity says that there are issues with the prison, and that’s that Tommy died in there, and as Sam’s business partner, he wants to know Sam is reliable.

- Sam replies that his job isn’t to keep the visitors alive, but to keep Dream there.

- Quackity asks, even though Sam has Dream locked up, what stopped him from killing Tommy? Nothing.

Quackity: “He has power, Sam. He still has power. Why haven’t we killed him?”

Sam: “We can’t kill him, Quackity, he’s the only one who can bring people back to life. It’s the whole reason we put him in the prison in the first place.”

- Quackity suggests, then, that they go in, take the book from Dream and then they won’t need Dream anymore.

- Sam points out that he’ll refuse to give anyone the book, since Dream knows that’s the only reason they’re keeping him alive.

- Quackity asks that he at least be allowed to try. 

- Sam says it’s not that he doesn’t trust Quackity, it’s that he doesn’t trust Dream. But, as Quackity points out, that’s the safety issue.

- Sam still doesn’t think it’s a good idea. Quackity starts backing away from the hotel slowly.

Quackity: “So how am I supposed to rely on you for any business opportunities, when you won’t even grant me one simple visit?”

Sam: “What is that supposed to -- I assume you’ve seen the work Awesamdude Constructions has done in Las Nevadas?”

Quackity: “Yeah, but Sam, that’s...You’re good at what you do, you’re just not cooperating though. That’s what I need from a business partner, cooperation.”

- Quackity has an idea. He places two item frames on the wall with an axe and a sword and asks to bring them in with him. That’s all he needs to get the last bit of power Dream has.

- Sam is still doubting, but Quackity brings up Tommy’s death, asking if Sam is going to let Dream get away with it. He assures Sam that he won’t kill Dream, just talk with him.

Quackity: “Sam, there’s an underlying safety issue, he killed Tommy. Do you really have any control of him right now? Is there any control you have over him right now, Sam? I can fix that, I can fix that! All you gotta do is let me in and bring these two in.”

- Quackity assures Sam that he knows what he’s doing and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get that book.

- Sam finally agrees, and they walk over to Pandora’s Vault. They enter the prison and Sam asks Quackity the entry questions:

“When’s the last time you visited the prison?”

“This is my first time. I’ve never visited the prison before.”

“Where is your place of residence located?”

“Las Nevadas.”

“Do you believe the prisoner deserves to be locked up?”

“No doubt about it, of course I do.”

“What are all your prior relations with the prisoner?”

“We don’t get along, I’ll leave it at that.”

- Quackity seals the waiver book without signing it.

- They go through the security measures and Quackity does the same with the other waivers.

- They make it to the lava wall. Sam gives Quackity some food.

Sam: “The tools you have are whatever, but...if you’re gonna do this Big Q, do it right.”

- Sam throws Quackity shears, Warden’s Will, Warden’s Hammer and some item frames. He tells Quackity to not hold anything in his hand.

- The lava lowers, Quackity crosses on the bridge and comes face to face with Dream.

- Quackity asks Dream how it feels to be in there. Must feel bad.

- He brings up what Dream did to Tommy. Dream asks what people think about it. Did they think it was cool? What were they saying?

Quackity: “What matters is the very concept of it. You have a book that can bring people back.”

Dream: “And now people will believe me!”

Quackity: “Yeah...I know you have that book, Dream. Everyone at this point knows you have that book.”

Dream: “Yeah! That’s good!”

Quackity: “I mean, depends on the eyes of who you see it.”

Dream: “Well, I mean...it’s good for me.”

- Quackity tells Dream that he wants -- needs the book.

- Dream tells him that he burnt the book. Now it’s just knowledge in his head.

Dream: “I’m the book.”

- Quackity asks him to tell him what he knows, or else. He puts up the item frames on the wall and puts Warden’s Will in one of them.

Dream: “How did you -- “

Quackity: “I’m asking the nice way, Dream, and you didn’t want to tell me.”

Dream: “You’re not gonna kill me.”

Quackity: “I”m not gonna kill you, but --”

Dream: “SAM!”

Quackity: “I’m gonna make your last days in this fucking prison hell, Dream.”

Dream: “SAM! HOW DID YOU -- “

Quackity: “Don’t fucking touch me man, alright? It’s simple, Dream, alright? You’re gonna tell me all the knowledge you have in that fuckin’ book or I’m gonna come here every. Single. Fucking. Day. To make your life hell. That is exactly what I’m gonna fucking do, and I”m gonna stick to it until you give me that fucking book.”

Dream: “I’m not gonna tell you anything!”

Quackity: “You have no other choice. If you want me here every fucking day, then you’re gonna give me the fucking knowledge on the book. I’m not fucking around, Dream, you’re gonna tell me!”

Dream: “SAM!”

Quackity: “You can scream for Sam all you want, Dream.”

Dream: “How -- there’s no way -- How did you sneak it in?!”

Quackity: “Alright, alright, you know what? There’s been enough talking. There’s been enough talking, Dream. You’re gonna tell me, or we’re gonna do this the fucking hard way for as long as we need to do it.”

- The screen fades to black.

- Quackity walks to the El Rapids poster, his clothes splattered with blood. One by one, he takes down the faces of Sapnap, George and Karl. He leaves his intact.

- As Quackity goes to the peak of El Rapids and begins to take it apart, voices can be heard in the background.

...

Quackity: “This means nothing, George, this means nothing in comparison...to a challenge to power.”

“At the end of the day, what this is is a new beginning, okay? This is a new beginning for the country El Rapids. Ready? Let’s just hit each other at the same time, ready?”

“Three...”

“Two...”

“One...”

“Yeah!”

Sapnap: “I wanna fight Dream.”

Quackity: “Step by step, Sapnap, step by step. We’ll get there someday.”

Ghostbur: “What is Mexican L’manburg?”

Quackity: “Mexican L’manburg was a little place we made next to L’manburg, to kind of commemorate...”

“It’s time to say goodbye and rename it to El Rapids, baby! Have you heard of Cedar Rapids, Ghostbur?”

Ghostbur: “Yes, I’m just chilling there! Most of the time.”

Quackity: “YES!”

...

- Quackity removes his face from the picture.

- There’s a final shot of Quackity from the back, looking at the picture...

It cuts to live-action as Quackity crumples the shot into paper, puts down a whiteboard calendar with all the days marked “Visit Dream,” crosses off the first and throws his briefcase down, spilling its contents of poker chips and a pair of scissors.

- End of stream.

---

- Bad gets a pet horse named Pebbles! 

---

Upcoming events remain the same.

[arrowflier]

Breaking Shit (before it breaks you)

Here’s scene 2 for yesterday’s comfort!anon:

"I know it doesn't make fucking sense!" Mickey shouts brokenly, voice garbled by the tears he’s frantically trying to wipe away.  "You think I'm doing this shit on purpose, asshole?"

Ian sighs.  "Course not, Mick.  It's just--," he breaks off, biting his lip and considering.

No one would ever argue that Terry Milkovich had been a good man, and it killed Ian to see his husband waste tears on a father that hated him, beat him, and would happily have seen him dead.  A father that had been the driving force behind the vast majority of the obstacles Mickey had faced alone, and the ones they had faced together.  One of the reasons they had fallen apart so many times, back in the beginning.

But clearly, that isn't what Mickey needs to hear now.

So, pushing his own feelings back, Ian switches tactics.

"Come on," he says, turning around to scrounge through their dresser for one of Mickey's signature vests and an old shirt.

"What are you--" Mickey starts, and is interrupted by Ian tossing the clothes at him.  The shirt lands half on his head, covering the streaks of tears on his face, and he claws it off with a scowl, balling it up in his lap.

"Put it on," Ian urges, "and get your ass out of bed.  “You don't stop wailing soon, everyone's gonna think you're going soft."

"You're soft," Mickey grumbles under his breath.  "And I told you, I can't fuckin' help it."

He does as he was bid, though, tugging off his stained sleep shirt and pulling on the new one after a quick sniff check.  He holds out a hand and Ian throws him the deodorant, and a pair of not-quite-dirty jeans off the floor.

"So what'm I gettin' dressed for?" Mickey asks.

"We're going out," Ian answers.  "Find a distraction."

"Yeah?"  Mickey stands up from the bed, using his discarded clothes to wipe his face clean.  The tears had at least stopped for now.

"How're you plannin' to distract me from my dead fuckin dad?"  Mickey attempts to give suggestive eyebrow wriggle, but with his red eyes, it looks more like he’s going to start crying again.

"You'll see," Ian replies vaguely.  "You'll just have to trust me."

---

“Where the fuck are we?” Mickey asks about thirty minutes later.  They’re standing outside a nondescript, warehouse-like building off a run-down side street, and Ian seemed way too happy about it.

“Just come on,” he commands, shoving Mickey toward the door with a hand low on his back.  “Let’s go inside.  You’re gonna love this, Mick.”  He’s practically vibrating with excitement.

Mickey shakes his head at Ian’s enthusiasm, but goes in.

They’re greeted just inside the door by a large man holding a clipboard.  “Gallagher, party of two,” Ian tells him, and the man nods, checking something off.

“Alright, looks like you’ve got our rage room package,” he says cheerily, setting his papers on a counter to the side and grabbing up a mess of protective gear that he thrust into their arms.  Mickey holds up a plastic face shield and stared at it, then stared at Ian.

The sneaky bastard just grins.

They’re led to a cage-like room in the back of the building, filled with vases, fine china, and old electronics set up on pedestals.  Bats and hammers are lined up against the wall, each one scarred from extensive use.

“Alright,” the man says, “you signed the waiver online, so you’re ready to go.  Gear up, you’ve got thirty minutes before we reset for the next group.”

Mickey raises his eyebrows behind the man’s back as he walks away from them.  “I definitely didn’t sign a fuckin’ waiver,” he points out to Ian, who shrugs innocently.

“Might have involved some mild identity theft,” he offers casually, and Mickey snorts.

“Identity theft?” he questions.  “Thought we were goin’ straight, Gallagher.”

Ian smirks.  “Well, it is Mr. Milkovich, now, isn’t it?  Besides,” he adds with a nod to the room, “this is our version of going straight.  No guns, no stolen goods, just us and a bunch of shit we get to break.”

Mickey’s smile is slow, but wide.  “Yeah?” he says lowly.  “Then lets go break some shit.”

Ian gives an awkward whoop that sends Mickey into a fit of giggles--”You’re such a fuckin’ dork, man”--and beelines for the tools.  He picks up a hammer for himself, then pauses to consider the choices before picking out a solid black baseball bat for Mickey and passing it over.

“Suits you,” he offers by way of an explanation.  “Been wanting to see you swing one since you got kicked out of little league.”

“Sure that’s what you wanna see me swingin’?” Mickey teases, tongue between his teeth as he takes it.  He gives it a few experimental swings, feeling it out.  “Could break a leg real good with this,” he muses, and Ian reaches up to catch his next swing in one large palm.

“Why don’t you go break that TV, instead,” he says dryly, nodding at the big-ticket item in the center of the room.

Mickey shrugs, and goes for it.

He takes a good, solid swing, sending the matte-black bat into the side of the TV with a bang.  The plastic side, dark grey and scratched from years of careless use, cracks and pops off, falling to the floor and exposing the guts of the machine.

Mickey breathes.  In.  Out.  

He stares at the broken television, so similar to the one that had been in his own house growing up.  Not his home, he hadn’t had one of those, but the living room of his father’s house where he had tried so hard to live by another man’s rules.

The TV he had been watching the first time Terry hit him for leaving a girly show on too long.  The TV that he had seen Mandy’s reflection in the first time Terry grabbed her a little too hard in the kitchen, stayed a little too close while he drank his fifth beer,  The TV that had been on in the background while he and Ian made out on the sofa for the first time, the one that was too quiet the next morning to hide the sounds his father made when he found them there, together.

He takes another breath.  In.  Out.

Then he releases an embarrassingly loud war cry and swings again, and again, and again, pummeling the thing until it’s all in pieces on the floor. He thinks he might be screaming--”Fuck you Terry, fuck you, you fuckin’ useless piece of shit, see how you like it you goddamn fuckin’ bastard”--but he isn’t sure.  He hits the largest piece one more time, then kicks at the rest, sending plastic fragments scattering over the concrete floor.

When he looks up, Ian is watching him, and for a moment Mickey is worried.  But he doesn’t look scared, or horrified, or even concerned.  He looks almost...proud.

Mickey is panting.  He waits for Ian to say something, but he never does.  He just smiles, picks up his hammer, and smashes a plate.

“That one looked expensive,” he finally says.  “Like something Frank would try to sell.”  He spits on it.  “Fuck you, Frank,” he says to the shattered ceramic pieces, and Mickey starts smiling too.

They have a go at everything in the room, shouting out insults against their fathers, authority figures, and that one punk at the grocery store last week.  They even take their tools to the pedestals themselves, managing to dent the heavy-duty supports, laughing as they almost fall over when their weapons ricochet.

Mickey knows his face is stained with tears, again, but Ian’s is the same.  He feels a weight lift from him that he hadn’t known was there, and as he braces himself for another crack at the pedestal in the center of the room, he smiles.

---

When the man from earlier comes back, it’s to find them holding each other up in the middle of the room, laughing through tears as they look at the sheer destruction surrounding them.

He wisely doesn’t comment on the state of their faces, or the state of the room.  Instead, he just checks that little clipboard, and asks, “Are we ready to move on to the axe throwing?”

Mickey straightens, though he doesn’t pull out of Ian’s hold.  His eyes are wide, and his teeth flash as he grins.  He glances at Ian, who nods with a smile, and then looks back to their host.  

“Fuck yeah, we are,” he confirms.  “Let’s go throw some shit.”

[nevaryadl]

Day 6 of the 31 Days of Apex: Heirloom cw:  Mild Caustic/Fuse, flirting and bantering, Fuse's foul language, mentioned canon typical violence

"Shit, it's heavy Alex," Fuse grinned as he held Caustic's hammer.

"Yes," Caustic merely said, watching Fuse gave a few gently and cautious swings with it.

Thankfully he had unloaded the liquid cartridges inside that would release small controlled bursts of the toxic gas in his much larger traps. It was not that he did not trust Fuse, he still sort of did not despite being friends with the man, but accidents did happen and he was not going to hear someone complaining at him if Fuse breathed in the smoke outside of battle (even if he did have the antidote and could very easily nurse Fuse back to health). Just best to avoid it entirely, and Fuse seemed more focused on the fact that it was a hammer of some size and weight than anything, grinning as he gave it a slightly stronger swing and undoubtedly felt the weight more keenly in his arms.

"You must be built like a fuckin' strong man under all that gear if you can swing this thing around no worries," Fuse said as he gave another gentle swing.

"Is this another line of flirting on your end, Walter?" Caustic questioned.

"... Well now that you've mentioned it..."

Caustic rolled his eyes but said nothing else. After the ass slapping incident, Fuse's attempts at flirting were decidedly mild at best. Pretty much tolerable and even tasteful if Caustic was being honest, not that he would say anything to encourage Fuse. If Fitzroy truly wished to 'pursue' him, then he would need to invest 'blood, sweet and tears' into it. Even if he was as invested into his work, he was not so blind as to not admit that Fuse was an attractive man, he was even intelligent especially when it came to the science of his explosives and the techniques needed to take down men with bare hands. But he was not so easily won over with a pretty face and required more.

"But seriously Alex, this is great," Fuse smiled, apparently done as he walked the hammer over and gently set it down next to where Caustic was sitting. Caustic nodded at the care given to his equipment. Even if it looked like a hammer, it had a number of complex machinery meant for small releases of his toxin and he had placed a lot of work into making it work and he did have a small appreciation for someone that could at least treat it with some care. "Always had this picture you were a hardworkin' man that could sit at a desk and scribble notes, but also roll up your sleeves and do the dirty work too. Get your hands dirty."

"Oh?" Caustic asked. This was the first time that someone did not assume he was bookish through and through, even with his size. Or just a brute because of his personality.

"Yeah. I mean... you got the size. Anyone with eyes can see that you're a big man, got the hammer so you gotta have the bulk underneath," Fuse said, rattling off on his metal fingers as he took a seat next to Caustic. "And you're real smart, Alex. Don't know anyone smarter than you."

Caustic did not want to admit to preening underneath the compliments but well... there was a difference between being self assured in your own strengths and endeavors and someone else saying saying it. So yes... there was some small amount of preening at the compliments. What could he say? He was only human.

"What about you?" Caustic ventured, wishing to move the subject along before his preening became too obvious. Like he had noted, if Fuse wanted him, Fuse was going to have to put in the work for any bit of his attention.

"What? A cool do-dad like you? Yeah no, not yet," Fuse hummed, kicking his feet idly. "I'll figure somethin' out, no worries."

"You, yourself, are also an intelligent man," Caustic said, "I am certain that you will figure something out."

"That means a lot comin' from ya, Alex," Fuse beamed.

"At the very least, I trust you to not make a statuette of yourself or come into a gun fight with an ax," Caustic said.

"Hey, hey! As someone that's taken that statuette to the jaw before, Mirage can do some bloody fuckin' damage with that thing," Fuse laughed, rubbing his jaw at the memory of the solid base connecting with his jaw. Honestly any harder and Mirage probably would have broken his jaw, but thankfully Fuse had just been left with a persistent pain and a decent bruise for a few weeks. "And Houndie? You really need to doubt their ability to knock some cunts around with an ax? Guns or not?"

"Fair point," Caustic chuckled.

"Also Mozzie's little butterfly knife. I am still scared absolutely shitless about bein' stabbed with that thing. I don't know what he stabs himself with, but I am sure that a lesser man like meself wouldn't be able to take it like he can," Fuse laughed.

"Also a fair point."

"And you hear what that shonky mongrel recently got his boney fingers on?" Fuse asked, animatedly worried. "A fuckin' scythe! They gave him a fuckin' scythe!"

"Yes, I did hear about that. If nothing else, it fits," Caustic hummed.

"Feel like I need some fuckin' steel points on me steel hand to get even," Fuse sighed.

"That is an idea," Caustic pointed out. "With some modifications... perhaps it could be similar to my hammer. A short burst of force, perhaps not outright an explosive, but something to give your punch some extra, literal, punch."

"... Alex, I could fuckin' kiss ya right now! That's fuckin' brilliant!" Fuse grinned.

"Not until after the first date," Caustic quipped dryly.

"Don't taunt me with a good time, Alex," Fuse grinned.

"Not a taunt, there are few instances that I fully enjoy taunting," Caustic hummed, standing to retrieve his hammer and heft it onto one shoulder. Fuse stood with him dusting himself off and then following after as Caustic started walking. "However... there is something about you that makes me want to make you work for my attention."

"You're a sly sadistic bastard," Fuse said. However, in any other instance where that was said with venom, malice and hatred, Caustic was surprised to see Fuse seemed to be charmed instead. Maybe Fuse liked being made to work for attention? What a lovely coincidence.

"Yes, I am," Caustic chuckled while Fuse walked with him, grinning mischievously.

[therobotmonster]

The Adventures of Albert Sauros: Rumble in the Court of Princess Sparkle-Sprinkle!

Ey, it’s Roderick Friggin’ Rockhammer, ya boy, ya wizard, ya least favorite but it doesn’t matter cuz I’m friends with the guy with the big axe! So sit down and listen while I tells ya about the sweetest fight I ever seen, or else you can tell your friends you got beat up by a gnome with rickets!

Okay, by the best friend of a gnome with rickets, but the point stands.

So long story short, about forever ago my great-grand-whatever saved the life of this dwarf guy and our clans have been best buds since forever even if the Leadstones say otherwise. I’ve been hanging with my ‘cousin’ Borin Leadstone, lettin’ ‘em pay me back for all the hard work grand-whatever did. Also cuz they rescued me from wage slavery from the chizzlers at the Drutch East Primordia Tradin’ company. 

So we’re fomenting some kinda frog-rebellion when my boy Borin and his gang roll up in the Drutch Governor’s personal airship, what they captured on its attempted escape, and they’re all “Get on, ya knobs, we’re going to deliver a chess set to a dragon!”. 

So we goes to this sandcastle in the middle o’ nowhere, and we got the full gang, we got the A team, we got the B team, the C team is there, and the A++ team, which is me. And there’s this giant frikkin’ dragon, and she and this tall lizard who I think is the manager of Borin’s band or something start talking about wakin’ up her ancient granddad to save the world. 

This is when we find out three pieces of vital information. The first, is that cuz my boys broke reality with their mushroom scam, the planet’s spinnin’ the wrong way, and the spell what was supposed to pump the dragons up with ley line energy is instead gonna suck ‘em dry. The second is that Princess Sparkle-Sprinkles ain’t gonna be able to save things on her own, cuz she’s like, twelve (in dragon years). The third is that traditional dwarven children’s drink strawberry quix, is 80 frikkin’ proof. The latter two points were learned, shall we say, after the fact.

So when the frikkin’ energy field holdin’ the golden goldbrickin’ grandpa in sleepytime falls down, there’s guardians, cuz of course there’s guardians, and the dragon kid’s hung over and trying’ to un-ward a magic door, so its time for the Rumble!

And in the every corner, we have a horde of burning coal pseudo-elementals.

In the center of the ring, surrounded on all sides, we have!   (rumble beneath the fold)

The A Team:

The Axe to the Max! The Dwarven Rage! Borin “the Kills-in-art” Leadstooooone!

The Prince of Stab, the Duke of Grab! You won’t see him cuz he’ll see you first... O. G. FASSIL! 

Mr Chomp-and-Circumstance! The endless drone from parts unknown! Professor Talk-A-Saurus Hex himself, Albert O. Sauros!

And ya got me, Roderick Rockhammer! Whattya mean I’m on the B-Team?! What the- Get your hands of me! I’m tellin’ this story-

The B Team:

Lee, Jade Dragonborn Monk. Very proud of his new punches.

Sister Sagittarius. Aarakocra fighter and Ib cultist, survivor of dragons.

Blazin Kush. Dwarf bard, recently both dead and a halfling. Reincarnation is a hell of a spell.

The Pie, fiendish mimic that had a bad mushroom trip and now thinks they’re a carnivorous pie.

The C Team Rest:

Snakey the Mummy. Formerly a snake, reincarnated as a humanoid mummy (reincarnation, hell of  a spell). Just got their first level of rogue.

Dat “Jack” Ass, formerly a partially elemental donkey, reincarnated as a simic hybrid of lizardfolk and elf that’s best described as a sleestak. What’s a sleestak? That’s your heart attack towel rack throwba One of these:

(He’s a druid now, also level one.)

Now fight fans, you may be saying “C’mon Roddy, those coal guys is chumps, your man Borin chops ‘em up like cole slaw!” Sure, that’s true, but the thing is, normally, the team doesn’t have two first-level baby boids to protect.  

There always seemed to be one more coal elemental than there were defenders. WHAM! A coal mass slams into Dat Ass, knocking him straight to unconsciousness and teetering toward death. Albert summoned the spirit of a tyrannosaurus rex to enlarge Lee to dinosaurian proportions as elementals hammered them from every side.

As for our intrepid heroes, luck had abandoned them. Blazen called down healing light only for Dat to be knocked out moments later. Sagittarius took to the skies to snipe, as Lee and Borin went hand to hand with our foes. The coal elementals scored hit after hit, and after a brief success with the ghost gun, Albert was knocked on his tail when the ghost gun experienced a backfire. 

Even I, the great and powerful Roderick Rockwell, was brutally beaten and bedraggled by those smoldering slag piles! Well I had enough of that, so I drw up my mysical-type knowledge, and cast catapult to hurl a chunk of shattered coal into one of the jerks! “In ya face with your buddy’s face!” I shouted, and the tide of the battle, boy it turned! 

Borin shredded his down to nubs! Lee hammed ‘em down with his magic punch-em-ups stuff, and the ghost bust ripped them to shreds. Fazzil was all “stab-stab” and then all “Zap zap!” and arrows just pelted them from the sky!

Lee even ground one “brought down to size” elemental out under his giant talons!  We kicked ‘em where it hurt, and kicked again! And when we were triumphant, what happened?

I had to give an ancient gold dragon an illusionary puppet show.

That’s how it happened, and don’t let nobody say otherwise.

[itsmypeach13]

[Read only if you are okay with female &female relationships. Warning because of strong language, fighting scenes. Rating is +18]

[Hello my ravens! ❤️It's been an eternity but please welcome my second chapter of my Soma POV fanfic, things will get messy and entangled full of angst and more angst. I hope you'll like it, I spiced things up with flirty Valka and women fighting🤭 Let me know what you think in the comments any opinion/thought is welcome🥺❤️]

TALES OF THE BEAR-HEART: SOMA

CHAPTER II.

Battling Hearts

The soft crackling sound of fireflames embracing hardwood woke me up tenderly. I slowly opened my eyes and saw Revna sitting by the fire sharpening her dagger, preparing for the battle ahead of us. Her raven-black long hair was braided at the sides and neatly It must have been around dawn, but it was still pitch-black outside. Busy voices surrounded us, swords clinked, horses were running up and down impatiently, some people shouted over to the other with instructions. Valka's magical sleep potion put me so well to sleep, that I was surprised at myself how late I could join onboard the ship towards the brewing sea of bloodshed. I had to pull myself together and that only worked with some ice-cold river water and some excercise.

'Good morning Revna'-I greeted my warrior as I swiftly sat up and put on my stone-hard armor.

'To you as well.'-she wiked at me playfully and lifted up the pair of the iconic hammers fixating them on her sides. ' Now you slept well for sure, how is that you sleep the soundest when battle is so near?-she laughed a little and took a sip of water from the table.

'Valka's hand in that.-I raised my brows slightly. 'Sorry, I didn't plan to start like this Revna. I have to go now and freshen up. Shall we meet at the entrance of the longhouse?'

'You're such a womanizer you know that right?'-she held up her tusk. ' Valka is a fine woman, I am happy for you now. I will meet you there nevertheless.'

'Ha!..You're absolutely misunderstanding, but I have to rush now.'- After this conversation, the fine shilouette of Valka's back flashed through my mind from last night. I quickly stepped into reality once I was out of my hut. The Raven warriors painted their faces with red and white strokes, most of them were saddling the horses.

I hurried to the shores of the river nearby, finally allowing my flaming skin to meet with the freezing waves of water. I gathered some liquid in my palms so that I could splash it onto my face over and over again. It felt like a hit on my cheeks that put me into the right battling spirits, and imagining Randvi's head on the enemy's helped a lot also.

I did some stretching and sprinting in the shores, while sloppy waves embraced the land. I was sharpening my axe and asked for Thor's strength and blessing, when I heard cat-like footsteps from behind approaching me.

'Your blade is already sharp enough, Bear-heart'-said Valka smirking, while she walked up to me.

'I could cut down a village with it yes. I guess it's just my ritual before I actually do it.'

'I bought you some food, here, some died figs with bread and a slice of boar meat from last night.'- she kindly handed over the plate.

'Thank you Valka, the gods bless your kind spirit. This will help me to do my best today. For Ravensthorpe..and Eivor.' While I started eating quickly, we sat by the shore and Valka carried on.'

'Soma, you have to remember, whatever happens today, you can count on me, you know where to find me. I saw into your soul last night and found loneliness there. But you are not so alone.' -she stroked my arm then stood up and disappeared in the crowd of warriors.

I was startled a bit, the last piece of bread almost choked me. Was that a friendly invite to her hut? I mean, private hut? I guess she needs cleaning there if you know what I mean. Who would have thought.

***

When I rode to the longhouse, a massive crowd of warriors have gathered in front of the building. The golden locks of Eivor showed up with that deadly, stern smirk on her face. She was riding a snow-white mare with her armor glistening in the awakening morning sunrays. A huge hunnish bow spread on her broad back and two axes were fixated on her sides, one can never be so sure with just one, right? Randvi followed her closely, rumour has it that she is going in battle after long years spent in the map room. I was curious how she would perform outside these walls. Revna joined me swiftly and we quickly caught up with Eivor and other leaders riding in the front.

As if she sensed my closeness, the wolf-kissed greeted me with a wide smile.

'Morning Soma, I hope you are ready to spill some blood today with me.'

How could she know I was ready to do anything with her, my eyes wandered on those rosy lips talking to me. She looked stunning with freshly dried warpaint framing her ocean eyes.

'I will smash skulls today, as my father taught me'I assured her. ' You don't want to make it a contest, I am the champion in this.'

'We'll see, I will beat your ass.' Eivor uttering those words brought me to the depts of my wildest fantasies for a moment. Holy mother of.. A shiver went through my spine as I actually pictured this. 'Okay, whoever wins this beheading game will pay for the best ale in land for a week.'

'That's a deal, officially.'-Eivor agreed playfully.

As we left Ravensthorpe Randvi joined us to briefly go through our plans , and of course to keep an eye on her drengr.

'Hi Soma..I hope you haven't lacked the care and wealth of Ravensthorpe.'

'Thanks Randvi, I had everything I needed' except for Eivor in my bed last night, but I guess that's the VIP package. It’s good I didn’t say this out loud.

'Good. Now our plans are the following. Eivor and you will hide in the thick bushes of the main road on both sides with our archers. When Birna's army is well inside the trap, Eivor will sign you with her horn, then both of your teams will fire and wipe out as many as you can. I will wait for Eivor's horn and join with a group on horsebacks to push them back towards the hills where their camp is. We'll follow them and burn it down to force them out of mainland.

Cheolbert's army will be only used if necessary. They are stationed on the right side of the forest.'

'Smart plan Randvi, I am sure we can protect our people, which is the most important aim, I feel honoured to be here today and lead this army' -Eivor answered then we positioned our forces in the thick undergrowth of the main road. Some archers even hid high on the old oak trees to have a nice and deadly view on the road. Our eyes met with Eivor and I was once again stunned by those piercing blue eyes, radiating godlike power and trust in me. She made me weak with one stern look, this feeling was brand new for me..Soma trembling like a leaf in the autumn breeze? My eyes wandered lower, on Eivor’s bulging arms holding those big, heavy axes.

Revna positioned herself right beside me like a protective bastian ready to spill blood, her hands firmly gripping the two hammers.

’They will eat my hammer for breakfast.’-she whispered to me, keeping her voice down.

A medium group of soldiers were nearing our forces, all of them on horseback.

They were led by a young woman with blood red hair, riding on a pitch-black horse. Just before Eivor could use her horn to give the sign for us to attack them, the enemy started throwing flaming throving balls into the thick and completely dry undergrowth that caught on fire in no time. They knew exactly where we were hiding, forcing us to be distracted for a second and be stunned by their unexpected moves. Revna quickly brought me back to reality with her loud roar she jumped out of the bushes and ranted at our enemy. As if she were a deadly panther, she pulled a man down from his straddle , threw him on the ground finally smashing his face on both sides with her double hammers. What left off that head was forming an unrecognizable mixture of broken bones and flesh.

I joined her swiftly and shouted at all of my men:'Don't just stare, cut all of the bastards down and burn their flesh!' The archers could perform a swift attack from above before the flames got to the upper branches, then joined us from behind our shield wall Eivor was forming with the Ravens.

I quickly got on my horse and joined at the side of Revna, who was sandwiched between two twin shieldmaidens fighting with swords. Just before the bigger one could plunge her longsword into Revna's spine, I trapped her with my axe, agressively pulled her body to mine from behind holding her still for a moment shouting in her face: 'I will burn your whole village for this.' -then I slit her throat and pushed the body down to the dust. My face became sprayed with fresh blood, and I could see Revna kept herself busy, the other one joined her sister in death.

-Thanks Soma, I am glad you have my back, literally -Revna shouted at me with ave.

-I am never late, you know me.-I winked at her assuringly. -someone betrayed us Revna..we have to find that son of a bitch. -I shouted back while I saw a huge man charging at me with a poisoned axe.

-You will die bitch-his deep growl ecoed in my ears as I prepared for defense. I thought I would end him with my wit instead of my valuable strength, I slipped between his legs and cut right into his balls leaving him a suffering mess falling on his knees, and finally collapsing in the bloody pond forming underneath.

-Not today, bastard.-I stated. While we fought our way a little further with Revna I quickly looked behind my back to see how Eivor was holding up. Then I saw the blood-haired war-chief woman charging on her horse at full speed towards the wolf-kissed, she wanted to end Eivor. Her plan was to cut the head of the snake, I saw her green eyes burning with ambition, fury and wrath, she jumped off of her horse slamming Eivor to the ground. Unfortunately, the charging horse killed several men around Eivor failing to hold the shield wall.

I felt my heart beating in my throat , as both Eivor and that killer bitch disappeared from my sight behind the crowd of clashing soldiers.

-Revna, you have to hold this mess, I will be back!-I gave my clear orders to my right hand , and with that I ran into Eivor’s direction as if there was no tomorrow. Many men tried to stop me on my way, but I cut them all, roaring like a beast, both of my arms were drenched in blood. The inner bear has awoken. I saw Randvi charging on her horse towards the same spot, my worry mirrored in her desperate eyes. She fought like an amazon, a tiger let out of her cage , she was never really tamed behind that map table after all. I must admit she fought fiercely. Her long copper braid was dancing around in circles as she slain anyone who got near her. Unexpectedly, her horse got an arrow in the front leg, causing Randvi to fell foward harshly, she was flying several meters from the saddle. The killer-witch had supporter archers at the top of a nearby rock, they were backing their leader and her evil plans.

I didn't have time to care for Randvi, I slammed into the shield wall to see what was happening with Eivor behind it.

The blood-witch was strangling Eivor with her strong arm, Eivor had deep cuts on her own arms and her side. Fuck.. she really didn't see it coming.. oh that fucking bitch ! Eivor wanted to kick her in the face but her legs were entangled in strong hold by that serpent. She fought differently, wrestled her enemy, held the body in position to slowly end it with deadly cuts. I couldn't let her finish her work..my heart would break in two for an eternity..

I grabbed her hair pulling her upwards, while I watched her cry out from the pain.

-Hey, you blood whore, don't you dare to move or I will cut your pretty head off. Eivor broke free swiftly, but instinctively put her right hand on her ribs. I saw a considerable blood stain growing there, which felt like a punch in my stomach. It seemed I actually got one, as the redhead tried to break away. Just before I could end her, I felt a powerful but blunt hit on my back, an arrow's burning head fought it's way into my flesh. I instantly fell on my knees then I started to crawl on the ground ghasping the dust.

Eivor didn't give a fuck about her serious wound on her side she ran towards that sly whore to avenge this mess. Randvi arrived just in time her huge smash with her shield put the escaping rat onto the ground. The blood-witch was cornered and there was no way out. My sight became blurry and I wanted to vomit from the pain that radiated into my chest and my back.

'Tie this one up quickly, we'll inerrogate her at Ravensthorpe. Randvi instructed two soldiers. -Oh God..Eivor you're bleeding-she mumbled with care as she stepped to the wolf-kissed, her eyes wandered on the huge blood stain. Randvi's bottom lip was craked and bleeding, probably from a huge stroke.

'I am fine Randvi, bring our forces left to safety, we have to retreat, now' Eivor's raspy voice echoed, turning to Randvi. 'I can only thank my life to Soma' Eivor hurried to me while Randvi called a retreat to Ravensthorpe, we could defend the way from the woods but it was clearly a trap. Somebody gave valuable information to the enemy, Birna and Ivarr could attack any moment.Both sides lost countless men, the woods was in flames around us.

'My poor bird..' Eivor whispered calmly, holding me in her arms in a second sitting on her knees on the ground. She turned my body really slowly to spare me from the additional pain, I could have screamed out loud in my despair, but I couldn't show the slightest sign of weakness while she was around me.

'I m have to get this out now' she said apologetically, furrowing her brows.

I couldn't speak as I felt my power leaving me, I was close to fainting, so I just nodded and let myself concentrate on those strong arms being folded around me. This was the closest Eivor ever got to me.. my heart was burning and beating fast both from the trauma I endured and the excitement that was ruling over me inside.

'I will be as quick and gentle as possible'Eivor promised with a light smile.

I held onto her arm and mumbled a few words:'Just do it, please..' I closed my eyes knowing what will come.

Eivor clearly had pratice in this, as she firmly held onto the arrow, turned it slightly in my flesh, then pulled it out with a powerful move.

It felt as if a burning blade was turned inside me ripping out my flesh. The pain was undescribable with words, I cried out, my eyes became blurry with tears.

'Fucking GOD' I shouted.

'The worst is over Soma, I promise. I can thank my life to you, so I am in your debt, I will help you through this and bring you to Valka.' Eivor lifted me up, placed one of my arms around her neck and holding my weight with her arms below my knees. ' 'I got you now -she gently stroked my arm and carried me to her horse, we headed back to Ravensthorpe with our forces left , following Randvi's soldiers.

As we rode along those old oak trees I could feel the sweet scent of Eivor's skin around her collarbone as I laid my head on her broad chest. Small sweatdrops were glistening on her perfect face while her ice-blue eyes stayed focused on the road, I could watch this living statue of perfection all day.

Spring breeze played on my cheeks while I closed my eyes to just feel the bumps and turns of the road.

I couldn't get a peaceful monent as my thoughts caused me an inner turmoil. Where the hell was Revna? Did she join to Randvi and her forces? How am I supposed to fight like this? The hardest part of this battle is still ahead of us..I came here to defend Ravensthorpe, not to behave like a whining child. And who was that blood-haired shieldmaiden?

***

[creativerogues]

Using In-Game Props in your D&D Game...

Potions & Brews

This is probably the easiest and cheapest D&D Prop you can make yourself!

All you need is some glass jars or test tubes and vials, which you can get all from your local craft store, and fill them with different soft drinks and different coloured sodas to represent various D&D potions:

A Cherry Red Potion for a Healing Potion is the first thing that springs into my mind: And it’s an actual healing potion you can drink!

Now if you’re not into that thing, you can always take a look at “Healing Potion Kits”, which are essentially fancy glass vials filled with colourful resins with a number of dice equal to the rarity of the potion.

Either way, it’s relatively cheap to make, and pretty cheap to buy pre-made.

I have my own Healing Potion Set: Four little glass jars with a red resin inside and d4′s for each rarity of healing potion, and it only cost me about ~$26 USD, and that’s including all the Shipping and Handling stuff.

Whenever the Party finds or buys Healing Potions, I hand one of these bad boys to that Player, and they just keep it with their Character until they use it, roll the dice, and hand it back when they’re done...

Bonus: And because I like to brag sometimes, I like to use the skills of my many friends to build some awesome D&D Props.

And with one Friend being a Graphic Designer and another being trained to use a bunch of Glass Engraving Gear, I can proudly say I have a bottle of actual “Dragon’s Breath” Brand Whiskey (a Famous Brand in my D&D World), with a Custom Designed Logo that’s been engraved onto the fanciest whiskey bottle I could find...

Did I need this? Probably not... Is it cool? Heck yeah!

Wands, Daggers & Weapons

Now, obviously you probably don’t want to give your Players actual knives and daggers, so take a look at LARP Weapons!

You can get Daggers, Swords, Axes, Wands, Staffs and more, with most of them being a little expensive, but often times worth it...

I bought an “Assassin’s Sword” as a Prop for my game, since the Player’s are currently on the hunt for a forgotten forge from ages past, and are trying to forge a Silver Sword in a desperate attempt to stop a War with the Githyanki of the Astral Sea.

To buy this Prop ‘Silver Sword’, and the stuff I need to maintain it (just to make sure the sword doesn’t break), it cost about ~$100 USD, which ain’t cheap, but since it’s a Prop sword, it’s gonna get a lot of use...

But if you’re a DM on a Budget, you can buy some very fancy wooden wands and daggers from places like Dog Might Games, who do Custom Wooden Weapons like Daggers, Wands and even Big Ass Hammers from prices of $39 USD upwards.

And as someone who owns two Custom Wooden Wands, it’s fantastic!

I have a Flame Birch Imperial Wand to represent a “Wand of Fireballs”, and an Ebony Necromancer’s Wand to represent a “Wand of Fear”.

Both are really well done, and the faces you get when you hand your Wizard or Sorcerer an actual Wand of Fireballs... priceless...

Maps

Maps are a good thing to hand your Players, because they read “Big Bad Forest up North” and think “We should go there sometime...”

Now, you can draw a map yourself with various pieces of software, or you could even Commission an Artist to draw one for you, with the Prices being anywhere from $40 to well over $200+.

Now, obviously that depends on the detail of the map, and the map’s size, but if you just so happen to know a bunch of Artists and Cartographers, you could easily get a map done for pretty cheap...

I luckily have a bunch of Artists for friends, so I just send them my VERY rough details of a Map, and they draw it out, and with one of my friends being an actual geography student, she really does know where rivers, mountains and forests should be, resulting in a beautifully accurate map of the local area for the Players to explore...

And yes, I pay everyone for their time and their art, because you should, that’s what decent people do...

Wanted Posters

Similar to maps, but a bit more exclusive. If you have an artsy friends, or you’re artsy yourself, it’s pretty easy to create an old western style wanted poster for one of your Player’s Characters, or even the whole darn Party!

Luckily none of my Players have been that naughty lately, but I was in a Game recently were our Party had just escaped from an assassination attempt on the Queen’s life and had to leave town, only to sneak through the City Gates a couple of sessions later to find our faces plastered over every wall...

That was when the DM handed us her Custom-Made Wanted Posters, with each Players face right above the words ‘WANTED’.

Scrolls

Spell Scrolls, Scrolls of Protection, whatever you want to call them; you can find a bunch of spell scrolls online from some absolutely fantastic artists...

My personal favourite at the moment are the Scrolls from Arcane Scrollworks and SkeletonKeyGames, who produce some absolutely freakin’ fantastic looking spell scrolls for prices as little as $11.99 USD.

They do scrolls for the Arcane, Divine, Natural and you can get entire bundles of scrolls for less than $60 USD, which is great for a DM, or a Wizard wanting to expand their Spellbook...

Actually, speaking of Spellbooks...

Spellbooks

You can get some beautifully made, leather-bound spellbook-looking notepads and journals for your Wizard Player, or even for yourself.

It can make a great Journal to take notes on the session’s events, or as an actual prop with real runes, glyphs and arcane symbols drawn inside for the Wizard Player to decode with their 20 Intelligence...

Coins

Copper, Silver, Electrum, Gold, Platinum: There’s a lot of different Coins in D&D, and handing your Players a couple of real coppers definitely increases the immersion, and makes shopping for potions and magic items a little more tolerable...

You can buy a whole bunch of them online, I got 50 Coins (10 of each type) for less than $20 USD, and there are companies out there that specifically make coins for D&D, from elven coins to dwarvish coins, to freshly minted coins for adventures like Waterdeep: Dragon Heist...

Bonus: Invisible Ink!

Ever wanted to make the Rogue Player feel extra special? Or maybe the Wizard Player finally got the chance to cast Detect Magic on that magic scroll they found earlier.

Well Invisible Ink Pens and UV Lights can make the experience all the more badass.

Say you draw an arcane symbol on a piece of paper and hand it to the Wizard Player, when they cast Identify or Detect Magic on it, just hand them a UV Light and watch their faces light up (get it?) when they uncover the hidden writings beneath...

Or maybe you want the Rogue to decipher a hidden message, or maybe a secret riddle is hidden on the Dungeon Wall and can only be found by casting See Invisibility or Detect Magic...

Invisible Ink is is one of those things that I could find 10,000 uses for if given the time...

[highladyluck]

WoT AU: Perrin’s Cursed Shadar Logoth Ax

Concept: WoT AU where Perrin is the dumbass who keeps a shiny cursed ax from Shadar Logoth, while Mat drops the dagger before leaving Shadar Logoth and ends up getting wolf powers instead, so they get each other's powers and story paths. Their personalities are the same.

What's really interesting about this is how much it highlights that the individual ta'veren struggles are actually at root the same; all of the boys struggle to accept both the responsibilities and the violence that the narrative pushes on them.

However, the boys don't struggle with the same issues to the same degree! So if you give responsibility-avoidant Mat the plotline that incentivizes responsibility, and violence-repulsed Perrin the plotline that incentivizes violence, they hit their growth points quicker and get over their internal conflicts faster. XD

I’ll put the plot and characterization details under the cut. Also, shout-out to @adurna0, ßætåñŵå£k€r ßùprëmê, and Pexitron for contributing enthusiasm, questions, and ideas to this nonsense.

Mat’s Path: Beloved Culture Hero With Daydreaming Superpowers

In the original universe Mat's internal struggle is to come to terms with responsibility (with his spelled-out fate as catalyst), and his external struggle is about leading battles and revolutionizing warfare. In the AU, he'd be put in a position of responsibility after saving everybody and he'd behave better because he was being appreciated and trusted, and the only struggle would be to stop him from using the Wolf Dream for literally everything, including battles somehow.

I think Mat would likely be kind of uneasy about the wolf powers at first, but he'd LOVE Tel'aran'rhiod, he's always daydreaming, and that's a place where your daydreams become real. He'd test out all of his fun wolf powers and Dreamwalking abilities immediately. Hopper would still be exasperated but for completely different reasons. Mat would also go back and rescue Emond's Field from Trollocs and Whitecloaks and turn it into a trading empire. At some point when Perrin returns from Rhuidean, Mat would go on a special mission to steal Perrin's hat, because frankly Perrin wouldn't keep wearing it after leaving the Waste anyway, and it looks better on Mat. This is my only concession to the original storyline’s aesthetics.

Unlike Perrin, Mat would not hesitate to rescue people from Masema, and he'd be good at the political stuff. He'd love being viewed as a hero, though he'd possibly have some of the same struggles Perrin did re: taking on leadership, because it implies responsibility. But with Mat, it's more that he'd pitch in during a crisis automatically and then bitch about it after, and I think after people started giving him positive attention for helping them, he'd act out and complain less.

He and Faile wouldn't be into each other but they'd be bros (a little like him and Birgitte in the original universe) and have a good working relationship; Faile would be his work wife (but not his actual wife) in his role as Lord of the Two Rivers. Mat's love interest in this situation is Berelain, but it's a very slow burn. (I can’t imagine anything but a slow burn romance for Mat, he’s just built for it.)

He'd be freaked out about Berelain at first (due to getting the Min advice about running from the most beautiful woman you've ever seen) but eventually he'd be like 'wait, hang on, I do not take advice' and he'd court Berelain and even more eventually succeed. Probably Berelain is the one who gets kidnapped by the Shaido in this version? Also, he would absolutely kick Lanfear's ass in Tel'aran'rhiod, with or without the power of love.

Perrin’s Path: Luckily, I’m Very Qualified For This Job

Ok, so on to Perrin. In the original universe, Perrin's internal struggle is to come to terms with his capacity for violence (with his wolfman destiny as catalyst), and his external struggle is about taking on political and social responsibility. In the AU, Perrin would now have actual stakes for the hammer vs ax issue, so it would get resolved sooner. Also, Perrin's issues with responsibility aren't 'I don't want to work hard', they're 'I'm not the right man for the job'. Once Perrin has the thought "The Pattern has specifically prepared me to be really good at killing people, that's my job now", he'd just go do his job.

Again, I like to think that Perrin still has the hammer vs ax dilemma, but now has rather different stakes, and Perrin might be a lot more concerned than Mat ever was about the lingering darkness in his soul. I think that's what prompts him to go through the stone doorway in the Stone of Tear, in this universe. Unlike Mat, he knew specifically what he was going to ask for in the Rhuidean doorway, so he asks for them directly (I haven't quite worked out what his accessories would be in this universe, but I bet one of them is a hammer. Maybe the ashandarai becomes a war hammer?)

His big internal bugaboo is whether all of his new battle memories make him a bad person and whether he’s tainted forever by the ax, so he spends way more time than Mat ever did feeling bad about being really good at war. However, once he decides, 'Well, I'm working for the light, this is clearly my job now, and I have the tools for it, so I should do my job and take pride in my work," he's fine.

I also think that, being a blacksmith, he would be more familiar than Mat is with metalworking and would invent cannon way earlier. He would invent cannon so early that I also think he would have time to invent guns. That's right, in this universe, Perrin has a gun. He probably forges a gun with the One Power. He'd also make it out of *Finnland earlier than Mat, and with all of his body parts, because a) Perrin would absolutely bring guns to fairyland, b) Perrin doesn't give a shit about the delicate rules of fae bargains and c) Perrin would have obsessed over the puzzle of the gift he didn't specifically ask for, and would have known before he entered *Finnland what it was for, so once he found Moiraine he'd be able to escape immediately.

Perrin and Tuon get married somehow, but there's no love there and by the end of the series they're both fully intending to kill each other. (Tuon doesn't trust him and is pretty sure he's going to be a huge threat to her rule; she doesn't flirt with him by threatening to kill him, because when Tuon wants you dead, you are just dead, she doesn't telegraph her intentions.) Perrin feels bad about having to kill his wife, but the Seanchan are evil and there's no way in hell Perrin's leading their armies after all this is over, so she's gotta die. Perrin might manage it first, since Tuon would wait till after the Last Battle, but then Selucia or literally any other Seanchan party would immediately kill Perrin. So. Hopefully everybody stays their hand till after the Last Battle, because otherwise the Light is screwed in this scenario.

[siflshonen]

Can we get some Director’s Commentary on Ivory Tower tho

Oh! My random-ass GohanxDende story on Ao3 from a few years ago??? Oh sure!!!

So, the story itself began as a draft as I was hammering out the finer details of Dende as he (and his motives) appear in Heavy/The Red Boy and before I knew it the whole thing had just spun off into its own thing since I knew I wasn’t exactly going to get in deep with any kind of shown romantic relationship between the two of them in that story (by design. Unless I’m writing a specific ship for a specific niche I don’t like to mix my “blatant ship fic” with my “big scale action-adventure-drama fic”, if that makes sense. I don’t know; I guess I just have levels of indulgences when it comes to fanfiction because I generally only write it when I have an axe to grind.) There was enough content there that I figured I ought to post it and see what happened.

Um, I remember I had planned out “and they will be teaching Piccolo how to read!!” as a scene and a gag (because it’s among my favorite fanon Piccolo cliches), as well as the idea that “ha ha they’ll probably do that Cliche Nerd Thing where they get a little too close while studying because it’s just a thing that screams “Son Gohan” in glittering all caps”. That was pretty much it. The rest of it kind of organically happened??? I’m not happy with all of it in retrospect but I’m glad I wrote it if only because Gohan/Dende deserves the world and I can say I contributed.

My favorite chapter to write was definitely the one where Gohan takes Dende to a family dinner. As much as I like Gohan and Dende, I was so, SO happy to for once write a “domestic” Goku (as much as one can domesticate Goku) in a low-stakes setting as he is in the manga. Which is to say, “I love writing Goku (and Chi Chi, but hers is different) with a dialect.” I know some reviewers were upset about that because some claimed it made them sound stupid and others claimed it made their lines harder to read, but honestly? The inclusion made just as many reviewers (and me) very happy, so it was all a mixed bag. In general, people’s reactions to my work between Ao3 and ff.net are like night and day, so I’m used to mixed feedback, but this is one of the rare instances where the split of opinion happened pretty much entirely amongst the Ao3 crowd and not at all in the ff.net audience. At least, most people on ff.net did not say anything about it.

Thanks for the question!! Hopefully that was enlightening!

[lonelyghosts-stuff]

Avengers Infinity War-First Time Watching Reaction Play-by-Play (Pt. 2)

Part 1

I wonder how many people Gamora has killed? What made her finally snap to not serve Thanos anymore?

How DID Gamora find it? Like, who told her?

How did Thanos capture nebula?

Poor nebula. She’s literally been through hell and back.

Ohhhh she snuck on board...

Thanos you suck so much. You favor one daughter over another.

Oh. Where was said map to the soul stone?

Gosh I feel so damn bad for nebula. She was raised as his daughter too but he tortured her and tore her apart. Nebula never had the chance to be her equal. She deserves so much.

Taught groot as an elective? What about all speak?

Buckle up rocket. It’s gonna get emotional.

Thor is literally all alone. He needs a time to sit alone and cry and break a whole building.

Rocket and Thor friends? Please

1500 years old? Jane, honey, you escaped.

Gotta give it up to Hemsworth’s acting chops here. Especially talking to nobody in reality. Just a bunch of cgi

Ew ew ew eye socket

Should have washed that yikes

Snuck it out by hiding it up your? Huh? You watch too many movies rocket.

Huge title card. Thank you. I wouldn’t have known where we were despite them saying their location many times.

How is that video game battery not dead?

Perceptive rabbit

I LOVE that they used a dwarf to play a giant character!!! This is brilliant! (And that dwarves are giant for some reason lol.)

Soooo again Thanos killed everyone EXCEPT Eitri despite his “morality” supposedly being balance

Poor hands

Poor nebula

Smart nebula

Maybe should have waited to be fixed fully first

Ah crap. SOMEONE PICK UP THE SPACE PHONE

MANTIS

Love how Stark asks for peters help in steering and not Stephen lmao

Nice parking job

Peter, stop popping pop culture refs

Lmao ITS ABOUT TO BE THE ICONIC SCENE

YES PLEASE

Blanket of Death. Capey has a new nickname.

Where’s Gamora

Who’s Gamora

Why is Gamora

What master do you serve?

Jesus?

I mean, yea I do. So does Pratt lmaoo.

LMAO PARKER’S FACE WHEN QUILL SAID THOR WASNT HANDSOME

Storm breaker time baby

“In theory it could summon the bifrost” who theorized this? How do you only theorize and not know?

Oh my gosh mantis is just bouncing around

Mr. Clean lmao

Kick names, take ass

Hey now, these guys saved the galaxy and universe from Ego so lmao

Oh no I know the scene coming up

Poor quill lmao

“I’m half human. So the 50% of me that’s stupid, that’s 100% of you.” “Your math is, blowing my mind.” What’s funny is that Quill’s math was actually completely accurate lol

Stephen having a stroke or a seizure? You good homie?

Soooo if Strange looked to the future and so possible outcomes, what does that mean for the TVA? According to them, there’s ONE sacred timeline, so all other branches are erased (which again messes up what smart hulk eventually says in end game. See kids, this is why you don’t mess with time travel in stories. There’s no way to go back in time without creating a time loop). Ehhhhh I’ll let it slide. Just ignore it... sigh... I can’t help it if I’ve studied paradoxes

Hmmmm not good odds I’ve gotta say...

Watch like, outside of the millions of realities that strange saw, there were like a million or billion more he missed where they won with no casualties lol

Hey Red Skull. Long time no see. How did he get here anyways and why?

Yea you’re prepared all right...

Gotta say, Lord Elrond has seen better days

I’m not ready to say good bye to this Gamora. Gamora and Loki and Nat go down as my favorite characters, gotta say. I know that Tony does and it’s sad, but his feels more satisfying because his sacrifice directly results in them winning. Loki is murdered. Gamora is murdered. Nat died just for a stepping stone for the avengers. She has no idea whether or not they will actually win in the end.

I’m hopeful they may bring Nat back like in the comics, red room clone style.

We got back vision, Loki (kinda), variant Gamora, a new captain America, why not Nat? Yea we have a prequel, but gosh I love her so much.

“You must lose that which you love.” Couldn’t that apply to like an object or something? Could I not throw my Nintendo switch over the cliff? Or my dog? (I would hate that just as much as a person, don’t get me wrong, I’m just curious about the rules)

Yea boohoo sad for Thanos... loses his favorite daughter. I don’t care about him. He deserves suffering.

Poor Gamora doesn’t think he’s willing to do it.. GIRL RUN!!!

Thanos deserves all the suffering.

He does love you Gamora... but that love... it’s selfish. It’s blind... Thanos seems to be a chaotic vigilante who is narrowminded, tunnel vision on his goal with no regards of the cost. But he is evil. If there is ever an alternate route to an end that doesn’t result in the loss of innocent lives, and you know that but you willingly choose the once that costs innocent lives, that is an evil decision. Maybe Thanos isn’t evil, but he’s not good. Far from it. He’s obsessed with this idyllic Utopia but he rushes to one method of getting there. Yes, people suffer. It sucks... it’s unfair... it’s horrible. But it is never the right of someone else to dictate whether or not said person would be better off dead. Who lives, who dies. If Thanos truly was neutral and not selfish, he would have thrown his own life into the mix of the potential 50/50 snap. Thanos is not good. He’s not misunderstood. He’s a murderer. A genocidal cult leader. I have no tears for him. Only for those who suffered more at his hands.

Rant over, time to try not to cry about Gamora...

Her face of realization

Gamora run please

Thanos, I hate you. (Great character her, but not a good person)

Poor Gamora

Oh my gosh the emotion here is great but I’ve heard this sound used as a meme on TikTok too many times aghhhh

Gamora!

What a way to die

I’m crying again. I miss her already...

Who the hell designed this place and put the stone here???? Who did this?

Cry Thanos. Suffer. My only comfort here is that you are sad. You deserve suffering. You really do...

The TVA is laughing here and I’m not okay..

Poor Peter Quill... he’s also lost a lot like Thor, but has had the “luck” of not knowing his family too close.

Wakanda babyyyy

No, you don’t want Starbucks, you want Dutch bros

Lmao I love rhodey. Poor Bruce.

BUCKY BUCKY BUCKY

HUG

NO CMON HAVE A LONG HUG

MALE FRIENDSHIPS ARE SO IMPORTANT.

Yea Shuri show em up.

Okay quick pause, I love love LOVE how Shuri is smarter. It’s a powerful moment for females BUT it’s not done in a way that’s condescending to males! It’s not saying women power because men bad, she’s just good! (And she has had access to technology they never could have but I digress). More of this please Hollywood. Don’t let being a female be the power. I don’t want strong female characters, I want strong characters who happen to be female. Ones who hold their own, have faults like anyone else, struggle, have weaknesses and strengths, but are strong without putting down others. Just a comment, just because a woman character may not be as strong as a man character, that is not saying she’s weak. If you’re the second strongest human in the world, you are NOT weak. You’re just not as strong as the strongest human ever, but that’s nothing against you. LET WOMEN STAND ON THEIR OWN MERITS WITHOUT SEX AFFECTING THEM!

Anyways

I love Shuri

I wish they had more time. She definitely could have done it. But stupid Thanos

Ughhhghhg

I know what many scenes are upcoming... with quill and peter and vision and everyone else

Let👏🏻Bucky👏🏻Have👏🏻Peace👏🏻

Thank you Nat!!! I love that Nat is so protective and selfless.

GET THIS MAN A SHIELD

Bucky needs love please. He’s my stand in, manipulated, greasy, long haired, dark and mysterious, stabby boy. (Also I need Bucky and Loki to meet. But let Loki finish his show (and come out of it alive because if he doesn’t I will sue) and be the antihero hero we need. Please. If he doesn’t get reintroduced into the mcu as a hero I will sue.

Thor, sweetie, are you a masochist?

Back to wakanda

Oh no, bad CGI, floating head Bruce banner. I’ll let it slide... sigh....

Can’t like, you just rain bombs on them forever?

JIBARI TRIBE YEA BOYYYYY

Sorry Proxima Midnight, you look like a frog and your name sounds like a middle schooler’s OC.

How nice. Diplomatic meeting.

“Thanos will have nothing but dust and blood.” Reeeeeeally wish you didn’t say that, T’Challa...

Yay big CGI battle commence! It’s like a really expensive animated cartoon at this point

WAKANDA FOREVER!

Poor Bucky. Forgot this dude doesn’t know much about the modern world.

Ahhhh Kamikazi aliens

I just wanna say that I love that Wakanda still has the artistic culture in their clothing and tradition all the while having badass, super advanced technology.

Why can’t they just rain bombs down the whole fight lol. Rhodey has those super nice bombs, like, do that they he whole time? Please? Why do you not have a barrier around the entire king.

No M’Baku, it’s not the end of wakanda. But half of all life, yea

WAKANDA FOREVER YEAAAAAAA

They should honesty all have nano tech suits like black panther lol. Or iron man suits. Fine maybe the most powerful one with the best quality material for the king, but besides that, yknow.

Wow Steve is hot with a beard.

So much happening at once. Thor, Wakanda, Vormir, Knowhere, am I missing anything?

Okay, but what IS the full force of a star? Like in Newton’s or something? Juls? Is it heat?

What’s this metal? How does it fare with vibranium?

Get off your wooden butt, groot.

“He needs the axe” are you Thor, the god of axes?

Soooo, I thought Thor didn’t NEED the hammer, it just helped him concentrate his powers or act as a conduit. Is that retconned already?

Cmon groot, put down your game. Soooo, is Groot worthy? He technically lifted it. Or is it a technicality because it wasn’t fully finished yet?

Cmon bucky, use that fancy arm of yours.

Wow they’re getting destroyed.

They need wanda to help.

BADASS ENTRANCE BABYYYY

How did Thor know to come to wakanda?

Floaty head Bruce

“BRING ME THANOS!”

Ahhhhhahahaha yeaaaaaa

Cry Thanos. Do it. I hate you.

Much more of a purple grape nutsack.

Oh gosh... I know what Peter Quill is going to do. I still don’t hate him.

“With all six stone I would simply snap my fingers. They would all cease to exist.” Orrrr, now hear me out, I know I sound like a broken record now but... MAYBE DOUBLE THE RESOURCES INSTEAD?? That’s not mercy. That’s not up to you to decide whether or not someone’s better off dead.

Smoosh

Yea quill has experience with the power stone

AIM FOR THE HEAD

Cmon it’s basic zombie tactics

I love peter quill lmao

Go capey!!!

Magic with a kick!

Poor Peter

CAPEY NOOOOOO

Wow he’s OP

Ouch quill just got majorly clotheslined

NEBULA

“Where’s Gamora?” 😭😭😭 SHE CARES AGHHHH

Restrain him! Work it mantis!!!

Why even remove the gauntlet, just slit his throat... kill him....

Quill no... stop being cocky...

Oh no

Quill please don’t

JUST SLIT THANOS’ THROAT

Quill please....

Poor quill. Just lost the person who really really loved him

Okay, I still love star lord. Idc what others think. He reacted realistically. If you hate peter quill for how he reacted, you better also hate Tony Stark for how he reacted to bucky when he learned bucky killed his parents despite knowing for a fact that bucky was brainwashed. Yes it was annoying... yes they were so close, but quill is so human here. I don’t hate him. He gets too much hate for acting like any normal person would have. Distraught, grief filled, he lost his love. Someone who helped him open up and finally move on from his mother’s death and fathers villainy.

Spider man saving mantis gives me life

How did that power stone blast not kill them?

Clearly Thanos has played Majora’s Mask. At least he has good taste.

So close vision.... but I know... I know what happens.

YES BUCKY AND ROCKET GUN CIRCLE.

Lmao give rocket Bucky’s old arm.

“I am Groot.” “I am Steve Rogers.” Comedy gold

Cmon Thor, go after the big one first.

Cmon wanda, save them. We need some scarlet witch magic up here to stop these

Okay that was so cool. AND THEN SHE USED THE BLADES

Oh no but now Shuri is alone

So close yet so far.... Dangit... vision was almost good

Ouch. Bonk to the head

YEA BLACK WIDOW

BADASS TIME

AND OKOYE!!

LETS GOOOOOOO

BADASS WOMEN

Ouch poor vision

Cmon Thor back up vision

Please

Hulk is in his feels

Cmon hulk grow up

Ooooh smart move banner

Aaaaand he’s gone

Giant blade look oit

Corvus, screw off.

YEA STEVE

WHERE IS THOR WHEN YOU NEED HIM

CMON NAT

Oh dang. Nice one wanda. But also, sheesh. Helluva way to go. But no big.

Yea vision. Stabby time.

Now vision and Steve, kiss.

Spider man saving everyone’s lives.

YEA STRANGE

Where was this in New York???

MULTIPLYING

WHY DIDNT YOU DO THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE????

Oh no

Well then... ouch. Soooo where’s the real stone???

Hey look Tony, you have a fan.

Okay I’m just pissed odd they didn’t just kill Thanos when they had him subdued. Like, worry about the glove AFTER he’s not longer a threat

Oof

Tony is taking a beating

HE WAS STABBED

WHAT

I don’t want your respect Thanos. That’s an insult.

They will remember him. They will remember him Thanos. When he kills you.

DOCTOR STRANGE WHAT?

You really doing this??? I guess he knows what needs to unfold for them to win... dang. I wouldn’t trust him tho.

Peter Quill in berserker mode

Where’d he go?

Name dropping the second movie

Strange knows everything about to go down. Who dies, who lives, what Thanos is about to do... he’s accepting his soon dusted demise because Stark needs to live...

AIM FOR THE HEAD UGHHHHH

Stop teleporting. That’s Loki’s gimmick.

KILL THIS RAISIN LOOKING NUTSACK UGH

Homie way too OP

Poor wanda and Vis...

HER LIP TREMBLE

PHENOMENAL ACTING

SAY I LOVE YOU

I JUST FEEL YOU

AGGHHHH IM CRYING AGAIN

Poor wanda. To have to kill her love... this.. this is a sacrifice Thanos... not your murder....

Wow Steve is holding back Thanos with pure brute

WANDA IS SO STRONG

HOLDING BACK THANOS WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY BREAKING THE MIND STONE

I LOVE YOU

AGHHHHHHHHH

And I know what happens next...

Poor wanda

Piss off thanos you understand nothing

You lost more than she could know? Bull crap. You are causing everyone to lose...

Cruel reality. Wanda has to see him die twice. RIP Vision

RIP half of all life...

AIM FOR THE DAMN HEAD

IF THOR KILLED HIM THEY COULD HAVE USED THE GAUNTLET TO BRING EVERYONE BACK TO LIFE. USED THE TIME STONE TO REVIVE THEM ALL.

How did that not kill Thanos tho. It may not have been a head shot but still.

Lil Gamora

What is this place?

Is this the soul realm?

Thanos, I hope you suffer forever. You deserve all the pain...

Rest In Peace: Vision, Loki, Bucky, T’Challa, Groot, Wanda Maximoff, Sam Wilson, Mantis, Drax, Peter Quill, Dr. Strange, Peter Parker (I don’t feel so good), and everyone else...

Thank you Nebula.

Thanos, you do NOT deserve to retire peacefully—wipe that smile off of your face

Oop, Rest In Peace Maria Hill and Nick Fury too... Motherfu— (so close Sammy boy...)

Yea Thanos you didn’t really think that through. Much more than half will died since other people rely on other peoples lives

Good thing he hit that button last minute huh? I wonder how captain marvel would fare in the TVA? are her powers considered magic? I mean, she clearly doesn’t know everything since she only just learned about Thanos (which is funny because she was supposedly traversing the universe to protect people)

Welp... onto movie two!

[hjbender]

talk to us about thor's trauma(s)! how does he feel about his injured eye? what are the habits he developed/abandoned after iw? what words/sights/situations trigger his ptsd? (sorry if i'm annoying, you don't have to answer these if it's too much. i just love reading your headcanons😊)

Thank you, Anon! Thor’s trauma is a big point of interest for me and I’m always happy (ironically) to talk about it.

Thor has had a lot piled on him in an extremely short amount of time, hasn’t he? The past seven years of his one-and-a-half millennia life have been extremely action-packed, but the events that take place in just a matter of days end up having the profoundest effect on him. 

His father dies (or is murdered, pick your favorite version). He loses his hammer. Hela kills his friends, the Warriors Three. He is overpowered and enslaved on Sakaar, where he loses his locks and gets whaled on pretty thoroughly by the Hulk. Then Hela bends him backward over a balustrade and blasts out his eye, Ragnarok is triggered, Asgard is destroyed, presumably along with a great number of its people, and the survivors are all homeless. 

And this is before Thanos steps into the picture. Thor is literally having the worst week of his life.

I headcanon that Thor was already suffering from feelings of inadequacy when he finally became king. (Remember how awkward he seemed, taking the pilot’s chair throne? Big change from his cocky 2011 self.) It would be understandable; he’s now alone without his father’s guidance, he’s been disfigured, he’s still missing his hammer despite the revelation that his powers aren’t connected to it, and all of Asgard is looking to him to save their lives, find them a home, and make things right again. That’s a lot for a guy who freed himself from a very humbling enslavement just a few hours ago.

If Thor feels self-conscious about his eye, it’s a secret he keeps to himself. That’s what I like to think anyway. As if having his hair chopped off wasn’t enough of a cosmetic change, now he’s got a charred socket where his right eye used to be. He’s probably not feeling very handsome or confident now (even though he still is, of course he is, he’s Thor), and he probably struggles to recognize the face staring back at him in the mirror.

And then, just when it seems like things are looking up and they’re over the worst of it, Thanos drops in and utterly rips the rest of Thor’s life apart.

I strongly believe Thor was more concerned about evacuating his people than facing off with Thanos. He could have, and maybe he did, but he was obligated to act as a king this time, not a warrior, and getting his people to safety was more important. But he can’t save all of his people, and he certainly can’t save himself—or even those he loves.

The God of Thunder gets his ass handed to him. He takes a beating so hard that he can barely even raise his arm. He’s spewing blood, his eyes are rolling. When he speaks he sounds like he’s barely clinging to consciousness. All he can do is slap weakly at Thanos as he’s being lined up for slaughter.

For the first time in his long life, he tastes defeat at the hands of a stronger foe. Heimdall is killed in front of him. He is made to watch his brother die in a gruesome, horrifying way before being tossed aside like a sack of garbage. And when Thanos leaves, all Thor can do is crawl to Loki’s side, grasp his collar, and lie down to die beside him. 

This is his lowest point. (So far.) He’s given up, accepted defeat and death. He’s ready for it to end. There is nothing more he can do. So he chooses to die with Loki. With Heimdall. With his people. Isn’t that what a king and captain should do? Go down with his kingdom, his ship?

I think if the Guardians hadn’t literally bumped into him, Thor would have eventually died in the cold darkness of outer space and none of the Avengers would have known what became of him. That would have been the end of his story.

But he didn’t die. He lived. And now he wants to get even. 

Why he must get a new weapon after it was established in Ragnarok that he didn’t need a weapon doesn’t make sense. Bad writing, perhaps. Or maybe it’s just that Thor has been going to war with a weapon in his hand for so long that it’s now a habit he can’t shake. Mjölnir’s weight in his hand might have been a source of security and confidence to him. Maybe he’s not used to facing an enemy empty-handed. His powers weren’t very effective against Hela, were they? So maybe that shook his confidence a little (though it wasn’t his fault; Hela just needed to be defeated a different way). 

And since he’s going to challenge Thanos again, the being who has already bested him once before, Thor needs that confidence. Maybe he’ll feel better with a big motherhonking axe in his hand rather than nothing at all. Maybe it will help him concentrate his energy better, give him a way to channel it.

But even with all this, his new axe and his vengeance-fueled mission, he fails to stop Thanos. And half of all life in the universe is obliterated.

He, Thor, who of all the Avengers had the best chance of taking him out, did not get there in time.

This must seem like a horrible deja vu to him. Another failure. Another massacre. He could have prevented it. He had Thanos right where he wanted him, but he wasn’t quick enough, wasn’t smart enough, wasn’t good enough, and so on goes the self-flagellation in his mind. How could he have ever been worthy of anything in his life? If there is one thing I should have gotten right, it should have been this, he thinks.

In the aftermath, Thor goes through each stage of grief with excruciating helplessness. A crushing sense of guilt, failure, and impotence follows him like a shadow, never letting him forget. He probably goes through each day with you should have gone for the head playing over and over in his mind. Like Rocket says, he’s pissed. He doesn’t just think he’s failed. He knows he’s failed.

And when he finally gets a chance to face Thanos a third and final time, when at last he hacks the Titan’s head clean off his shoulders, it makes no difference. The damage that has been done cannot be undone. He is simply fulfilling his promise.

It’s understandable how after this, with nothing really solved, he would try to drown his negative feelings in alcohol and replace the good feelings he normally gets from helping people with comfort food, distracting hobbies, and friends who enable his downward spiral. If he can avoid thinking about the Bad Things, maybe he’ll forget in time. Only he doesn’t. He still remembers. Still carries the weight of his past. He is incapable of moving on. His life has come to a screeching halt, and now he is no good to anyone. Unworthy.

The name of Thanos, as we can see canonically, is a huge trigger. So powerful that everyone in New Asgard knows “we don’t say that name around here”. That’s probably not the only thing; Thor probably has an anxiety attack anytime someone snaps their fingers, although I don’t imagine that anyone would ever snap their fingers in jest after this. That once-innocent action now carries a grave context. Just the image of a hand with snapping fingers might become as abhorrent and reviled as the Nazi swastika. It’s a symbol that represents death.

...I suddenly forgot where I was going with this. Either that or my Think Good Brain Juice just ran out. But did I answer all of your questions, Anon? Did I headcanon hard enough? I hope so. I think this post ended up a big pile of Thor whump and nothing really new to add, but I hope you enjoyed it. And if you didn’t, at least you got to look at some nice angsty Thor gifs for a while, right?

[thecandywrites]

Of Heaven and Fire Part 17

Where Brock suffers the consequences of his actions. *evil cackling*

@imherefortheforthefanart​ @probablyclever​ @funmadnessandbadassvikings​

Of Heaven and Fire 

Part 17

Brock woke up to feeling more hungover than he ever felt before in his life and his whole body itched as his skin crawled from all the mosquito bites as flies buzzed around him before he sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he looked around at his surroundings then back at the clan’s village where he could see the people hewing stones and moving them into place, in front of the same place that your house once stood before he snarled at it. They really were building an alter to you, a shrine, like you really were a goddess, idiots. You were just a woman, there were thousands, maybe millions just like you all over. 

You weren’t that special. 

He instead distracted himself with going through what he was able to keep. He still had his weapons and his armor. He didn’t need much else. He could hunt, he could use his battle ax since one side was a hammer, the other side was an ax and the ax was shaving sharp as he grinned at the eagle carved into it, this warhammer axe was Binga’s greatest creation and with it he had promised her to be his chief blacksmith. They had been friends since infancy, through childhood and into adulthood, mostly because Binga never wanted anything romantically with him and Binga had been one of his true friends and had an honesty and candor that he appreciated in addition to her talents which had no equal in the clan. 

So he set his eyes on the forest- looking at one particularly good tree, just that one tree would be enough for him to make at least a small shelter. He would show them all that he could be just fine without the clan. How many legends did orcdom have of clans starting from a single orc? Too many to count and history repeated itself many times over. He would start his own clan and it would be the greatest clan ever, it would be a purely orc clan where mouras would have no place in it and he took his moura cloak off and watched as it shrunk down to a collar, covered in leather before he put it in his pack, maybe he could sell it or something. He had lived his whole life without the moura influence, he would live the rest of his life without too. 

As he was in the forest, trying to figure out how to fell this tree he overheard talking, it was from his former suitors, they were talking about how they needed to get to Hurricane Breaker and try to court Bedhu because Brock was obviously impossible to please. 

“I’m not impossible to please!” Brock argued which scared those women shitless as they screamed and jumped away at the sight of him. 

“What?” Brock asked as he noticed they looked at him with alarm, pity and disgust once they recognized him. 

“Come on, we should go.” Vursa encouraged her friends as she pulled them away from him.  

“Wait! Stop, just...if you stay with me and help me, I’ll mate and claim all of you, we can start our own clan.” Brock proposed desperately as his stomach was reminding him that he had yet to eat breakfast or lunch as he began to stare longingly at their food pouches. 

“What so you can rape us when you want, eat all our food and choke us too when we piss you off?! You just want a slave you can beat the shit out of in any way you can.” Vursa spat at him. 

“No! I would never, I… I lost my temper, I was drunk and I just hated Miss Auksa and I was being forced into mating with her.” Brock tried to excuse himself as he flushed with embarrassment at the recollection of the events the day before. 

“Bullshit, one minute you were worshiping the ground Yana walked on and the next you hated her worse than she ever hated you when you first captured her and while she had every reason to hate you, you never had a good reason to hate her. You switch your moods faster than the wind changes. And even before Yana came into your life you were always a stuck up, self righteous pain in our collective asses.” Vursa bluntly revealed. 

“What? Just because I’m not the future warchief, I’m not good enough for you to talk to anymore? Let alone be with?” Brock sneered as the girls simply grinned like derisively at him. 

“Duh, we were after you because even if you were a snore in the bedroll and an awkward dork in the streets, you were still the handsome first born of the warcheif and the promise of an easy life with honor and respect was worth it to us to do whatever we could to try to get at that life. But it’s all gone, you threw it all away for what? So you didn’t have to be married to a moura? Even after she did everything anyone could ever ask of her and more? You just used her the way you have always used everyone else in Stormbreaker, you even used us, just for a flask of whiskey. Yana dodged a missile getting away from you. I can’t imagine the bullshit and fuckery she’d have to put up with being your mate. And you know what? We are too. Because what are you really offering now that you have absolutely nothing?  A new clan? A clan of what? Four? Starting from scratch in the woods and built off of what? Petty jealousy, resentment and hatred? You can chop down enough wood to build us a house big enough for all of us with an ax that’s only ever seen soft squishy bodies instead of stone timbers?” Vursa asked as she began to laugh in scornful amusement as she knocked on the tree next to her, listening to the solid sound echo in the forest around them, the kind of tree was known as a stone timber, since it was the hardest of all woods, and while chopping it down and splitting it was almost as hard as working with actual stone but whatever was built from it would stand for a five times as long as other woods but one look at his warhammer ax, there was no way it would chop down a stone timber. 

“Hell no, I may be a whore in your mother’s opinion, but even I have standards and enough self respect to know that that reward is never going to be worth that kind of work and risk, you have nothing to offer me. Your dick has never worked for me or anyone else, in fact I think it’s a miracle it worked for Yana at all. Your hands are useless and your tongue is trash and if you couldn’t be happy or satisfied with a goddess, we don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of ever satisfying each other, let alone making each other happy in any sense. We’re done Brock.” Vursa spat before she tried to walk away again. 

“Yana put me under a curse so that none of it worked, now that she’s gone, it’s lifted!” Brock insisted. 

“It doesn’t matter! You’re cursed Brock! Look at you! Your body is ate up with bites, your hair is hacked off, your honor is shredded, you’re disowned from your family and your clan with no hope of redemption and you’re living in the woods like a beast! And you cursed the very clan you came from. All of us watched as eels from under Yana’s house hatched out of a weird nest and just this morning we watched as they began eating their way through the estuary and every little stream they got into, the water turned black and silty. We even tried to damn them up but the fuckers can walk on land and breathe air and they’ve evaded the dams and they’re spreading like a plague through the waters as we speak. And now the clan is filled with legends of a thankless asshole who rejected the goddess and cursed his clan and the eels are sign from the gods Vagla and Zota of destruction. You’ll be lucky if you get malaria and die before you have to watch the very clan your father worked so hard to build and establish gets swallowed by the very eels you unleashed sending Yana away, none of this would have happened if she never moved her house.” Vursa insisted before she and the others turned and marched away leaving Brock seething before he took his warhammer-ax and threw it into the woods, hearing a clank as the distinct sound of metal hitting stone reverberated through the forest before Brock growled again before he went looking for the damn thing. 

He walked for what felt like hours before he finally found his warhammer ax laying shattered in several pieces at the base of a large boulder that was cracked from the impact before he roared in frustrated anger and let a string of curses fly out of his mouth before he tried to pick up the pieces and use those to at least hack some smaller saplings, having to wrap the pieces in cloth and leather to keep them from shredding his hands and the saplings were of paper trees, a tree that was so soft, pulping it was easy and cutting it down was easy but still hard for him with his broken tools since chopping an actual tree down was impossible for him and building a small shelter out of saplings took nearly all his depleting strength and the only thing he managed to kill was a squirrel by hitting it with a small rock and here he sat just trying to make a damn fire out of the dryer debris from the forest floor. 

It was sunset by the time he got the fire going and was able to keep it going enough to cook the lone squirrel as he sat on a rock and roasted the flesh of it as he tried to think of names to suit his new clan but he couldn’t think of anything. 

In the coming weeks, things just got worse, all his clothes tore and he ran out of thread to mend them and his armor fell apart as if he had been fighting in a hundred wars every time he wore it so to keep himself from being naked, he had to put on his moura cloak to make his clothes and even then, all of his clothes either left him cold or left him overheated because he couldn’t get the hang of how to change the outfits other than either an undergarment or a heavy winter cloak before he found something close to what he would normally wear. He ran out of soap to keep himself clean and he couldn’t seem to capture any game bigger than a trash panda and he lost weight and muscle mass because he wasn’t intaking enough food, let alone carbs to keep his stamina up and the water from the nearby stream which wasn’t connected to Stormbreaker’s waterways was sour and he could only catch a crawfish or two and the shame and guilt of his past actions chased his sleep away as he tried to come to grips as to why he had reacted to you the way he did and it was all just a big blank. He cut down every sapling he could to try to make his house more substantial but the walls breathed and the floor was uneven and unfomfortable and if it had not been for his moura cloak, he would be freezing at night because summer had turned to autumn and now autumn was turning into winter and the only relief he got was that the frost killed the mosquitos and his ability to hunt improved with more “barbaric” tools such as a spears and his only company was a pair of birds, one a white dove, the other, a black raven who were always together, who seemed to watch him from a distance and while it was impossible for him to catch them, they seemed to stick around and just watch. The dove during most of the day, the raven, at night. It got to the point that the only way Brock could stay sane is by talking to the damn birds for company. 

Finally after the third hard frost his mother appeared with a basket on her hip, after hearing where he had settled from the hunting parties. 

“Brock?” She called out before he peeked his head out of his little shelter. 

“Mom!” He called out as he recognized her and eagerly got out and rushed over to her, hugging her tight, making her drop her basket so she could hug him as they were both brought to tears as they hugged each other tight. 

“You’re so thin!” Rhos realized as they pulled apart and they got to see each other and Brock could only hang his head in shame. 

“Hunting has been hard for me.” Brock explained. “No big game comes anywhere around here.” He answered. 

“Well game has become scarce since the summer.” She answered as Brock frowned. 

“Come, is there room in your shelter for both of us?” She asked before he reluctantly brought her into it as they managed to sit side by side in it before she showed him what she brought him. Several loaves of bread, one of which he quickly consumed, having not had bread since he left the clan back in the summer. A big block of cheese, covered in wax and some dried and cured meats along with some root vegetables that could be stored along with a few onions and heads of garlic and the biggest hunk of soap he had ever seen and a new comb and a proper ax for cutting down stone trees along with a bundle of medicine herbs and all Rhos could do is watch on sadly as Brock tried to inhale a little bit of everything, having been dreaming about these foods since he left. 

“The warchief of Stormbreaker has a proposition for you.” Rhos began as Brock paused in his eating. To hear of his father so far removed from him in verbage still cut like a knife and instead of being angry or resentful, all he could feel was sadness and regret. 

“We are leaving for Suchi in a week. If you have had enough punishment for your wrongdoing, and if you would humbly consider reconciling with Benyana who is due to give birth in only two weeks or so, you can come back to the clan.” She revealed. 

“And if I don’t?” Brock asked after he weighed her words and couldn’t bring himself to look at her, only consider the loaf of bread in his hands. 

“Then you can come back and watch the house while we’re gone but only while we’re gone, provided you do not cause harm to anything in the house. When we come back from the birth, the only thing you’ll be informed of is how Benyana came through the birth and the outcome, if what she is carrying is really a son or not which seems unlikely that she isn’t carrying one because all tests have proven that she is carrying a son. But those words will be the last words any of us are allowed to speak to you for as long as you live and you will once again be chased off of clan lands and it will be the last time we will ever see you in this lifetime and all others after and this is the last help any of us can ever offer you and all memory of you will be forgotten except for the legends already being told about you, but you are always referred to as ‘the cursed’ in all of those. And no one ever is allowed to be named Brock ever again, in fact no one is allowed to have a name that starts with B in the clan because for fear they would be associated with you. And all those who did have a name that started with B have already changed their names in the clan. Except for Benyana’s name which is always spoken of in reverence. She has been elevated to a goddess and the shrine to her is the biggest in the clan and anyone harming the shrine will immediately be put to death.  She is now the patron goddess of moura orcs, even those in Hurricane Breaker have followed suit and built a full blown temple in her honor and she is the goddess of many more things in their clan, like reuniting, of fortunes, specifically of inheritance, of connecting to your past and prosperous business. And if it wasn’t for her alter and the blessing of her alter, Stormbreaker would have fallen already.” She revealed. 

“What do you mean fallen?” Brock asked. 

“Brock, this year was the worst harvest there ever in the land’s history, after Benyana left, there was a storm that caused a flood that destroyed so much and the hail in that storm knocked all the fruit off the trees before it could grow to any real size and ripen and the hail damaged a lot of houses, then a drought came in the land dried up what was left, we have not had rain since the storm.” She revealed as Brock realized that he too never had rain in the forest and the water level in the nearby stream had dropped since he came in the summer and now late autumn, it was barely a trickle. 

“And if that wasn’t bad enough, the eels ate up every fish in the estuary before they swam out to sea where one of the water dragons was waiting for them before it swallowed all of them whole and once the shrine was built, the silt settled but the water in the wells was never the same, it’s grown bitter and sour and now, the only fish to be found are tiny minnows that hug the edges of all the little streams around the estuary. The only time animals touch the ground of Stormbreaker is before they’re slaughtered for food there, they die overnight if you don’t and something in them spoils the meat quickly when they’re on Stormbreaker ground, the only food and livesstock we have is all on Drauch. That’s where all of this came from because there’s just not much of anything left in Stormbreaker. And every woman in Stormbreaker has since moved to Drauch because they’re afraid that if they step foot in Stormbreaker, they could lose their own pregnancies because those who have not wanted their pregnancies have stayed in Stormbreaker and have lost them overnight and we can’t know what their number is. Now all the women who stay in Stormbreaker are only there to keep from being pregnant, so of course the whorehouse is crammed full of whores from all over, it also means that they’re clean too, any sexually transmitted diseases die on them overnight now and many come to get “cured” but quickly leave again. Now only single men who are helping with guiding the ships through the estuary live there, everyone and everything else has moved to Drauch where we still have food, water and the best shelter the clan has ever enjoyed and the temple to Benyana is the grandest in the city and all roads lead to it eventually. The sale of the fish is the only way the clan has survived so we can buy what we need from the sales and your former percentage of all those sales goes to Benyana to care for her and her offspring from now on for forever and Cugas and Kaive go through all the catches and get the best of everything and bring it to her as food supplements too.” She revealed as Brock’s heart sunk deeper and deeper. 

“How is she doing otherwise?” Brock felt compelled to ask which brought a sad smile to his mother’s face, at the lowly tone he used. Almost like he actually cared. 

“She’s almost lost the baby to grief several times now and she rarely smiles for any length of time longer than a heartbeat, and her state is no different than any other widow I suppose because to everyone, you died in the flames and what sits besides me now is an imposter to the Brock everyone knew and loved before the death in flames. Her parents and her other siblings as well as the rest of the warchief’s other children never leave her side and we have all practically moved in with her to help care for her and the warchief has cried many times, wishing he had a son who was close in age to her and would love her and be the father to her child because suitors have tried to come out of the woodwork because they look at her goddess status and all her blessings and her enormous house and wealth and her sad nature and do everything they can to cheer her up. There is one that comes and goes all the time that she is closest too and they talk often in private. He’s a fae prince, but he insists that we all call him Matae and even his parents and siblings and friends and relatives come to see her every so often, giving her more gifts than anyone can count because she is the single most blessed being any of us have ever known. Every day Matae comes and talks with her, he has vowed to everyone that he will help her through the birth if you are not there and he will claim her child if you do not and he will love her until you are never called to her mind again and her family is pleased as is her colony and even the warchief gives Matae his blessing and he’s a good person. He’s playful and fun yet intelligent, protective and surprisingly sensitive but despite all this, Benyana does not love him. She only likes him as a close friend and nothing more, as if she is holding out hope you’ll come to your senses. She has begged and pleaded the clan not to hunt you like a trophy bear and bring you to her like a caged animal since you are little better than a beast or bring you to her in a heap of limbs with your head on a platter as revenge for the curse you brought to the clan. But she insists that you be left alone to suffer the consequences of your actions since that is punishment enough and that no one is to guilt you into doing anything. And that everything you do must be of your own free will.” Rhos revealed and all Brock could do was hang his head in shame. He treated you like an enemy and you were still protecting him like a friend and he was if anything, the epitome of undeserving but his pride wouldn’t let him admit that.  

“So. This basket is magicked, it can hold much more than it looks like it can. If you choose not to go, you can bring this back when you watch the house and go through what is left of Stormbreaker and salvage whatever you want from what has been left behind, this basket should carry all of it. But know that that will be the last time you walk onto the clan’s grounds because after that, the clan’s houses will be burned and all trace of Stormbreaker will be destroyed so that the lands will return to the way they were before we ever settled there.” She informed him gravely. 

“What?” Brock frowned in disbelief as a deep sinking feeling settled in his gut and on his chest and it made it harm for him to breathe. 

“It’s already been decided. Even now the whores are packing up to leave. When we leave for Suchi, it will be the last time anyone in Stormbreaker will ever touch that ground except for the warchief’s family. And the only things that are to be left behind, are the gifts to Benyana’s temple and alter, and her gifts for you. When we come back, if you don’t take those gifts with you, then we will take them and put them in a museum on Drauch and they will be admired and revered until time indefinite.” She informed him before she got up and dusted off her skirt as she made ready to leave. 

“Come, give me a hug,” she insisted before he did, they embraced for what felt like the final time. 

“Please choose wisely Brock.” Rhos cried into his shoulder before she forced herself to walk away from him, leaving Brock to just watch as she did so, feeling like his feet were rooted to the ground no matter how badly he wanted to follow her, like a duckling or a chick following its mother. But his pride and stubbornness and obstinance would still not allow it. 

Once he couldn’t hear her, or see her, he went back to the basket and pulled out a tent and hastily put it up and found a cot and a bed roll and even more food, even a little wash basin so he could wash himself and his clothes properly other than dunking himself in the nearby trickling stream and inside was a pair of scissors that he used to trim his hair so that it was mostly even and his scraggly beard that had grown along with a simple bow and arrows so he could hunt properly. And he even found mending supplies and some material that he quickly used to mend his old tattered clothes and boots so he could put the moura cloak back on over it and was finally comfortable.  

Six days later he was seen walking back, the basket fashioned into something of a backpack on his back and when he got to the outskirts he stopped where his family used hunting gestures to ask if he was coming and all he could do is cross his arms in front of him which was the universal sign for ‘no’ before everyone just shook their heads and loaded up everything onto Drauch and Brock waited until they were ready to leave when his father signed for him to come with him and follow him but Brock just signed back ‘no’ and shook his head and his mom had to drag his dad back up onto Drauch before the stairway lifted off the ground and the boats themselves lifted from the harbor to dock with Drauch in the clouds before Drauch flew on the breeze to Suchi as a huge gust of wind blew the city to Suchi and only then did Brock get up and go into the abandoned clan village. 

He went around the edges of the village first, harvesting what was left in the gardens, going through the houses, salvaging what was left behind as he noticed a pattern. Every family left something useful in every house. One would have a small sack of one kind of spice and another would have a sack of a different spice, never the same exact thing. One would have a cooking pan or pot, one would have a tool of some kind, one would have a fur, or a cloak, or material, or sewing supplies, as if each household was giving Brock one last tribute and gift and Brock could only weep as he realized the significance of this. 

In orcdom, whenever a warchief retired, either from old age, or injury, each family would give an offering to the warchief as a way for him to live the rest of his life in comfort and peace as thanks for leading them but that there was new leadership, usually whoever the warchief chose to succeed him as successor. It was a proper goodbye and send off and absolutely final. There was no way back from this in any clan’s eyes. 

He finally made his way to his house, where the kitchen was thankfully fully stocked as he set aside all he would want to eat over the next week or so and packed all the rest before he used what he had gathered to make himself his first- last meals at home. It wasn’t as grand as his last meal here was, but it was just as good as any other he had had here. 

Here he sat, at his usual place at the table and ate, feeling like he saw ghosts of his family every time he looked around. Memories of all the fun and happy times spent around this table. 

Then he began to drink. For the first time, he drank to remember. Remember every detail of his life and his childhood here because they were the only happy memories he had left. He was also grateful to be in a house where the cold wind doesn’t come through either the gaps of the saplings or the fabric of the tent. 

Then he heard the door open and someone walk in. Normally he would be defending this place, but right now, he was hoping it was someone who had not listened to you to come and put him out of his misery. 

Instead he found Binga. 

“Just when I thought you couldn’t get any more pathetic, you surprise me and find a new low to stoop to.” She spat as she tossed a handful of blacksmithing tools in front of him disrespectfully. 

“I was waiting for you to come to the shop to gather your last tribute but you never came.” She incited. 

“Shut up and go away.” He grumbled from his stein. 

“No, you have no power or authority to order me to do anything.” She reminded him as she stalked over and sat across from him as she took in the sight of him and could only shake her head. 

“Because the current warchief stripped you of that power, remember? Before he shortly kicked you out of this house.” She reminded him. 

“All for what? Because you didn’t want to marry a goddess?” She jabbed and Brock could feel himself getting drunk enough to lose his inhibitions completely. 

“She was never a goddess! She was just a woman! There’s a billion more just like her!” He roared back. 

“And yet she was the only one who wanted you for you, who actually loved you for you and she will be the only one to ever do either for the rest of your life. And you treated her like garbage after everything she did for you. You told me yourself that she was the love of your life before you were reborn and she is giving birth to your firstborn quite possibly as we speak and you won’t even go! You’re missing it because you’re a pathetic spineless coward!” She roared back.

“She’s not the love of my life, I’ll find a way back into my father’s good graces, and I’m going to be the next warchief of my own clan, I don’t need or even want love, I need a good warchieftess.” He argued hotly. 

“Then you could have picked one of the dozen whores who had been after you since you were 5, hell pick all of them because all of them together will never be as good as she was even on her worst days. Come here.” She dragged him to the living room where all your betrothal gifts were put on display. 

“Look around Brock! She gave you all of this, all those other women working together over five lifetimes will never be able to give you a gift that is even in the same realm as this. This bar that she set is perfect. There are no greater gifts than the ones she gave you!” Binga yelled as she took the clothes and armor off the walls and handed them to him but he wouldn’t hold them, he just let them fall to his feet as he stared at them resentfully as tears flooded his own vision. 

“And you know what? All those girls that had been after you your whole life? Where are they now? If they actually cared about you, they would have scooped you up from the forest and had you live with them or even helped you build a new home or new clan or whatever but they didn’t. Because they’re already gone. They took one look at all this and knew that there was no way they were ever going to top any of this, that there is nothing on this planet that anyone can give anyone else, even if they had limitless fortunes, there isn’t anything they could have ever bought or made for you that would even be close and you know it!” She continued to yell and gesture to everything else as Brock simply winced at her words since he couldn’t argue with her. 

“Why Brock? Why did you reject her?” Binga asked as tears came to her own eyes and Brock couldn’t answer her, he couldn’t even look at her, only hang his head in shame as she put her hands on her hips. 

“The only thing I can think of that would have made a difference is if Benyana would have been a moura orc but the only other moura orcs are in Hurricane Breaker and none of them give a shit about you and will never come to claim you. You really are an asshole because even as perfect as all of this is you still found a way to find fault in it, in all of it! Gods you’re such a stubborn stupid asshole!” She roared, feeling another wave of anger swell. 

“She gave you everything, the clan had never been richer or more prosperous or has ever had this much peace or abundance before because she turned all your enemies into allies, she turned gold, she taught you and your family how to turn mud and rocks into gold, she healed your wounds and bedded you all while she battled her own morning sickness which is a limit that is too far for even our own full orc women and it’s still not good enough for you?! She gave you the best and greatest betrothal gifts anyone could ever give another and you embarrassed her and shamed her and humiliated her into leaving in front of the whole clan and even then she handled it with more grace and dignity than anyone could ever bear it and if I was moura I would have burned you alive myself right then and there.” Binga insisted as Brock still wouldn’t move, wouldn’t react, wouldn’t look up at her. Pitiful thing he was which just enraged Binga even more. 

“Even if you didn’t like her- just the fact that she’s carrying your child should have been enough for you to stand by her and take care of her and do right by her or do you not even have enough honor for that? The answer to that is of course no, because you have no honor! She was the only one not to give a shit that you’re going to be warchief, she would no sooner set you on fire herself than give you the time of day in the beginning and that’s what everyone loves about her because she doesn’t care about standing or hierarchy, only about the person you are and I feel so sorry for her that she fell in love so hard with someone as ungrateful and selfish as you. She fought for you and gave you everything she had even as the rest of her world turned on her and you rejected her. She has more fire in her than any furnace  and she was the only one who called you out on your shit. Even when you were in Suchi she did so with the most beautiful elegance to keep your own dignity intact. And everyone needs someone like that. She was the best thing to ever happen to you and to this clan and you used her and threw her away.” Binga spat in disgust. 

“And now that she’s gone, we’re all suffering, the harvest was the worst it’s been in years, the estuary only has the tiniest minnows now all the other fish are gone. The flocks are dwindling because we’ve eaten them faster than we can buy them and faster than they can breed. And thank the gods for the deal we have in Suchi and the water dragons because otherwise all of us would have starved to death by now. Don’t you think it’s odd that no one has gotten pregnant on this land since she left? No one reaped this fall because everyone is just trying to survive the winter. You cursed us all because of your stubbornness. And if you don’t leave right this second and go after her and bring her and your child back after it’s born, when your father gets back and she and her child aren’t here where they should be, we will create a new moura orc colony of our own further up river and make a new clan without you in it and the clan of Stormbreaker will die with you. For the next week, it’s just going to be you and this empty, abandoned, broken down clan village that could have been something great if you had been a real man and own up to your responsibilities and I hope that they leave these gifts here at Benyana’s alter forever to remind you of her every day for the rest of your life, forever alone and forever haunted by her.  And maybe the biggest reason you rejected her is because you still know deep down in your soul that she’s too good for you, she always has been and she always will be.” She sneered before she left and got on her horse and ran her horse to catch up with Drauch at the next little village to pick up some supplies. 

Suddenly Brock had never felt such a deep and all consuming rage before coursing through his veins like he did in that moment and he took the orb you gave him as a parting gift and threw it as hard as he could against a wall and it shattered like it had been a super thin shell of either ceramic or glass, the thing had felt so strong and solid in his hands before, to see that it was in fact so fragile surprised him. But what surprised him even more was that all that was left from the shattered pieces was a glowing light and it moved as if it had a life of it’s own before all at once it outright attacked him and the moment it touched him it infiltrated his skin, it got up his nose and in his mouth and into his lungs and it burned like super cold ice and all Brock could do is lay on the floor and thrash like he was having a seizure and wait for death and then….

It unlocked his memory and in a rush, it all came back.