#already doling out the thumbs up for the whole campaign

[stitches-and-icecream]

Didn’t watch the Super Bowl, but your family did?

They’ve probably unknowingly been exposed to (and have possibly eaten) Evangelical bait. 

Extremely wealthy right-wing Christians have funded a campaign in an attempt to combat the church’s deep, growing unpopularity among the U.S. populace - church attendance is down and they’re freaking the fuck out. 

The ads have been around, maybe you’ve seen one, but Super Bowl has pushed them into the spotlight. If you missed it, a lot of people just saw a general vibe of “Yeah, let’s not kill all the gays! Poor people deserve to have food and clothes probably!”* and quietly nodded along.

The way the foundation works is to encourage positive feelings, then prey upon them by offering a service to direct people towards Christian spiritual centers. Any of them. Including some perhaps unfortunate options.

For emphasis, don’t give them any money (they’ve already got plenty). The campaign primarily targets culturally Christian agnostics and other spiritual fence-sitters who are hurting for a sense of community, especially right now. Watch out for your vulnerable! 

*ive seen like maybe a cumulative 30 seconds of clipped ads so i dont actually really know how the ads are but this seems like the low bar theyre trying to pass here

[dateamonster]

Will you do a little thing about a girl who tries to get an orc to like her? Like not a dainty one but a thick tomboy type with actual strength behind her fluff?

((i got really into this and it ended up longer than i meant it to so it’s under a cut for convenience))

The circumstances under which they first met were... less than ideal.

After the war, Della had been restless. She joined a guild of healers campaigning to Kolgarten, one of the territories that had been most devastated in the conflict, hoping to find some satisfaction doling out vaccines and curatives. But her training was still first and foremost as a field medic, so when a group of villagers showed up on the proverbial doorstep of the mobile hospital unit with a titan of a woman sprawled out on a makeshift stretcher, something in Della just clicked.

Before she knew what she was doing she was cleaning and bandaging, summoning flame to disinfect and cauterize, ordering fellow volunteers around like this was still the army and she was still hot shit. Though Della knew she had been out of her bounds, the chief physician still commended her quick response.

“We weren’t able to salvage all of it, but she’s recovering now and that’s as much as we could hope for. In fact, considering the situation it was nothing short of miraculous. You should be proud.”

She tried to be proud, but most of what she felt was more of the same. She watched over the patient with a sort of guilty tension, always wondering if there was more she could have done. When the most immediate danger, the infection from the shrapnel in her hand, had passed and she was no longer a priority case, Della kept watching.

The patient woke up once while in her care, still heavily drugged. She looked at Della, mumbled something (she couldn’t tell what. Her orcish was mostly limited to “yes” and “no” and “where is the bathroom” and “you need to stop moving so I can find a vein”) and went back under. Not more than a day later, word got out about Della’s apparent heroic handling of the case and she was hurriedly relocated to an area in more dire need of skilled hands and capable casting. Her only regret upon leaving was that she’d never find out what happened to the woman.

The second time they met was several years later. Della was in a pub in Newalte, making her way steadily from her regular state of slightly buzzed to well and truly toasted, when a lone woman walked through the door.

In these parts coming to a pub such as this one unaccompanied was generally meant to project loud and clear to the other patrons that one was looking for nightly companionship. Della herself had come in with similar intentions. However, this woman was an orc (and quite a specimen besides; tall and muscular even by the standards of her species, silver hair in a braid as thick as rope hanging down to her waist) which meant she was probably from out of town, and thus might not know the etiquette.

Della weighed her options for a while and but ultimately decided, fuck it, and approached her.

“Hey, bet I could beat you in arm wrestling.”

As pickup lines went, it was not the finest, nor the most subtle when there was already a faint blush painted across her cheeks from the ale. The woman looked at her quizzically, prompting Della to roll up her right sleeve in demonstration. She had a fair bit of muscle herself and though it hardly compared to the orc across from her, she hoped it would be enough to impress.

“I am fear you would win that bet,” the orc woman said in thickly accented common. She raised her own arm in demonstration. “For you have me at a disadvantage.”

It was true, for now Della saw that on her right hand all but her thumb and forefinger were severed down to the knuckle. A prominent scar cut across her palm and trailed towards her wrist. Della recognized the mark instantly and her mouth fell agape.

Misinterpreting her shock, the woman chuckled and set her hand down on the countertop. “It is old wound. I used to scavenge old battlegrounds for scrap to sell. Picked up inactive explosive, only was not so inactive.”

Once again Della was presented with a choice.

“That... that kind of injury must be difficult to live with,” she said cautiously. She pulled up a stool and, when she did not object, sat down beside her. “Even after everything, the casualties just don’t end, do they.” She cleared her throat and changed the subject. “Your common is very good. Do you travel much?”

“Only most recently. I study much before, practice a little bit every day. I had wish to leave the homeland, learn more. In wartime I was-” She struggled for the words. “Homefront military. Home was locked down, whole city close, no one in or out. I was... enforcer.” She shook her head. “It was no good. I have many regrets of that time. Now, I want to go new places, learn new things. Such a thing should not happen again, if only all people learn.”

Della nodded. Maybe it was the pure startling serendipity of the encounter, maybe it was the drink, but she found herself transfixed by her. Her dark eyes, her firm, stalwart features set against olive green skin.

“My name’s Delores Van Wieren, but you can call me Della.”

The orc smiled, creases forming around her eyes. “My name is Sigmit. In original orcsar means something like, ‘she sticks in eyes with burning knife’.”

Della burst out laughing. “It so does not.” She licked her lips and pronounced her words in slow, clumsy orcish, “I think you are beautiful.”

Sigmit’s eyes widened. An emerald blush crept up her neck. “Impressive. Do you talk this way to all the orc girls?”

Her gaze fell briefly to the two-fingered hand resting atop the bar and thought, no. Somehow, someway, it always had to be her.