#dude i thought i got thrown by a mob earlier and i DIED and now i think i just jumped on my bed on accident

[dandelionstep]

??? WHY DO BEDS JUST FLING YOU INTO THE STRATOSPHERE ON THE QBLRSMP

[triple-a-enderdragon]

End of Act 1

But far from over

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Something was very wrong, that much was apparent. Without checking his comms, Tango knew, as he had with Cub and Xisuma, that Iskall was dead. That's not what was so troubling, though. The flash of blue and the sudden horribly alien glee rippling through him freaked him out.

Now, more than ever, Tango needed to focus. Never mind that every hermit who came to watch was also dead, but Iskall dying was critical and Tango didn't have time to find out why.

He could hear TFC–or Earth, rather–directing Stress and Grian to stay in position, and for that he was grateful; he could focus on what he needed to do.

Which was–he now realized–to facilitate a little chat.

~~~

He never felt himself hit the ground. One instant he was falling in incredible pain, the next he was standing in front of a massive pillar of fire.

Iskall expected to be afraid, but he wasn't. He was furious; part of him realizing the fury wasn't entirely his own.

As the pillar of flame walked closer to him, a voice rang through the thick air:

How dare you.

The pillar stopped. Again, the voice rang out:

How dare you.

The pillar looked as if it would speak, but it never got the chance; it disappeared in a flash of smoke. Behind the clearing smoke, however–

Was Xisuma.

~

Xisuma's base was a whirling inferno. The only thing keeping the four avatars from burning was Tango's sheer will; a will he directed at the inferno itself.

"Fire! As I am bound to you, so you are bound to me! Answer!"

I need not answer you!

Tango looked at Fire grimly. "You already have." He layed his hand on the altar's southern point, the other avatars mirroring him.

Do you even know what that does?

"I do," said Earth, calm and unfazed. "It calls forth the wronged, and you have just committed a grave mistake without considering the consequences."

Another flash of brilliant blue light and Fire was thrown into the wall, a sparkling diamond figure where he had stood.

How dare you! You thought I wouldn't interfere!?

Wh–I don't understand–

Because you don't think! You never think! Now your avatar has to do it for you!?

~

"X?" Iskall, still in shock, was trying to process everything. "I thought you were dead. Or am I dead?"

"We're both dead. Though, I'm wondering who the diamond-blue person behind you was; he seemed furious," said X, looking past him.

"Diamond? Huh." Maybe that would explain a few things. "What have you been doing this whole time?"

X looked amused. "Saving you and Python from mobs of pigmen for one."

"Ah, that was...quite nice. Thank you."

A pause.

"So now what do we do?"

~

What have you done with him!?

Nothing yet! Why would you even care!?

Why would I care!? WHY WOULD I CARE!? Surely you can't be this blind. Release him!

As if I'd listen to the likes of you.

Don't make me force you.

Oh, you're threatening me? Is this how you want to handle this!?

YOU WRONGED ME.

...

RETURN HIM.

For a moment nothing moved but sparks and embers. The internal conversation that took place must have made an impression; Fire's flames dampened. He seemed almost afraid.

...alright geez. Calm down.

A flash of light.

~

Joe was kind of glad he hadn't gone. When he'd asked Cleo if she wanted to watch the spectacle, she'd reminded him about Cub, and about how he might wake up alone and utterly confused. And even though Joe was ready to go outside and safely die from a creeper-induced heart attack, she was right. He thrived on confusion, but that would be just tacky.

They had been conversing quietly—Cleo was telling him of a weird dream she had earlier—when an explosion went off, in the distance, from the direction of X's base. Joe could think of a few reasons why that would happen, but none of them were good. Evidently, Cleo came to a similar conclusion and started to head outside.

But before they could make it far, a noise could be heard from the Ministry.

Cub was waking up.

~

Whatever panic Python had when Iskall passed out in the tunnel now returned tenfold. As he laid Iskall's body next to X's, he tried his best not to think about his situation. He already disliked the Nether; hours and hours of quartz mining had seen to that. Now, alone with no foreseeable way out, Python knew he would never go back in if he could help it.

But all that dread soon turned to relief as two of his friends, one just recently taken, started to stir.

~~~

Several days had passed since Cub found himself in the Ministry and X, Iskall, and Python walked out of the Nether. Outwardly, things returned to a normal rhythm. But know everyone knew they weren't alone. Besides the Four Cardinal Directions–as they were now known–no other avatars were revealed. Some hermits, however, had their suspicions.

X had been in his base for the past day or so, sifting through world data. He had suspicions on a few counts, and both had finally borne fruit.

First, he'd confirmed his (suspicions) about the shadowy being who approached him years ago. They had been an Element from the End, yet his encounter with them left him scarred and definitely not an avatar. He hadn't yet found why.

His second findings were on the diamond-blue person and his connection–if any–to Iskall. And hoo boy, was there a connection. There was the same connection between the two of them as there was between Tango and Fire, or Stress and Water. Iskall was Diamond's avatar.

Curious, X had searched the other hermits for a similar connection, and found two. Doc and Ren. Doc had been fairly easy to figure out; his scary ability to mold redstone to his liking, his eerily accurate diagnostics on whatever was wrong with a circuit, his strange cybernetics. Doc was Redstone's avatar.

But Ren. Ren was a mystery. The only reason X had figured out Iskall and Doc's Elements was because he already had had an idea of who it could be; but with Ren, he had no such idea.

All X could do now was wait.

~~~

"I don't know why I wasn't killed by the magic blast, Tango. I was kind of hoping you would know."

"But you were killed when you hit the wall..."

"Are you trying to figure out why?"

Tango looked at Zed, amused. "And you don't want to know?"

Zed laughed, saying, "I just thought it was my wonderful personality."

"To save you from a incredibly powerful magic blast?" Joking as they were, Tango was deep in thought. And in a situation like this, there was only one thing to do, experiment!

~~~

As he approached the entrance to the Stock Exchange station, Mumbo was pleasantly surprised to not hear angry yelling. Entering the station proper, he couldn't immediately see Doc, but he knew he was here.

Sure enough, Doc was working on the departure/arrival area of track, fine-tuning the minecart dispensing and re-uptake system.

"Doc? You here, mate?"

A head poked up from behind the platform. "Yeah, man. What's up? Checking in on me?"

Mumbo looked a little sheepish. "Yeah, kind of. You all right? Redstone no longer going haywire?"

Doc climbed out of the rail pit and looked at the vending machine. "No, it's weird. After this whole 'Element' dealio, everything's gone back to normal. I'm not sure how to explain it, but I don't really want to know, either."

"Yep, I can understand that. don't want to mess with anything."

"Yes, that."

They both stood in companionable silence for a few moments before Mumbo asked, "So, you want any help with this one?"

Doc looked at him, amused. "If you're up for it, then I won't turn you down."

As they worked, Mumbo was constantly amazed by how intimately Doc knew his redstone circuits, able to pinpoint exactly where a change needed to take place without needing visual contact with it. Between the two of them, redstone powerhouses in their own ways, the minecart circulation system was one of the most beautifully constructed machines either of them had seen.

~~~

"They really aren't leaving you alone, are they?"

"I feel like they think I've been away too long."

Stress laughed as one of the huskies tugged on Iskall's sleeve as he tried to leave the lab. "And what makes you think that?"

"Hercules! Honestly! I'm not going very far! Sit!" Hercules obediently, if a bit reluctantly, let go of Iskall's sleeve and sat. "I'll be twenty minutes, and I'll be back, ok?" Iskall scratched Hercules' ears and said, "Good boy. I'll be back soon, I promise." Hercules whined, but stayed put.

Finally able to take off, Iskall went after Stress, who was already in the air, waiting for him. When she'd contacted him about the ice farm (of doom), he welcomed something fresh to do.

"From how he acts, you'd think it's been weeks since he last saw you," said Stress as they flew side by side.

"Well, he's always been more attached to me that Venus is. Besides, I think he could feel what I went through. You ever had that feeling? That your dogs know what you go through?"

"That hadn't really occurred to me, but now that you mention it, I could believe a few of them do." Stress paused for a moment, before continuing, "The rest, I'm not to sure about."

The rest of the way to the ice farm, they chatted; mostly about their animal companions and future plans for the lab.

~~~

It was dark. The sun was far overhead, but under the dense jungle canopy, it was dark. A shape edged through the shadows, careful to not disturb whatever might be lurking beyond them. A parrot, intrigued by this movement, perched nearby and started chattering.

"Where did—? Shush! Not now, dude!" Ren was desperately trying to quiet his stubborn new friend, who was quite happy to argue back.

"Of course I can handle myself, I'd just rather not tangle with anything if I can help it! Don't you have someone else you can bother?" Ren listened to the bird. "Fine. Come along if you must, but please. Be quiet!" The bird settled herself on his shoulder, quite pleased.

Now thoroughly distracted, Ren had to get back on track. He was looking for an ocelot, though why he wasn't quite sure. Even if he did find one, he wasn't sure he could get very close. He wasn't stealthy like Python, or fast like Grian; and ocelots were notoriously difficult to negotiate with. Negotiating was still his best bet.

It took the better part of an hour for him to glimpse a flash of yellow in the dense foliage. Crouching down, he once more impressed the importance of silence to his parrot passenger; he didn't want to spend more time than he had to out here. She ruffled her feathers and stayed quiet.

When he moved closer, Ren heard a small mew. Tentative, inquisitive.

"No, I'm not going to hurt you." He listened to the ocelot meowing, answering, "No, nothing like that. I just want to talk."

As the ocelot slowly crept from it's hiding place, Ren became aware of a gentle green glow from behind him. Turning around, a figure seemed to emerge from the trunk of the nearest tree. If that wasn't enough to make him faint, she spoke.

Welcome. The forest has accepted you, you are finally ready. Come, walk with me.

Utterly shocked, Ren fainted dead away. Maybe it was a bit to much.

[hoenursey]

Hi, can I ask the I guess story of Othello real quick even just a summary if you don't want to go in depth because I was excited about hearing about it, but then I was also really thrown off seeing Othello being a slave and all and now I'm just kinda confused?? Because Nursey in silk with a choking kink DOES sound amazing but I guess I'm just confused af now

lmao, okay, so. originally i was writing just an au of nursey and dex playing desdemona and othello, respectively. however, othello’ character background is that he was a former slave and a moorsman, or a person from the moor, and moorsmen are black people.

the beginning of othello starts with roderigo and iago outside of the house of brabantion, desdemona’s father. roderigo is jealous of othello because he’s in love with desdemona and she pretty much turned everyone down and she’s like dainty and pretty and hot as fuck, like the most beautiful fair girl ever and shit, but she’s falling in love with othello. also i’m pretty sure roderigo saw her and othello chilling or w/e. so basically, in the middle of the fuckening night, roderigo and iago start yelling to brabantion to come outside and talk to them. brabantion is generally a pretty cool dad and he’s like “bitch she doesn’t like u stop getting drunk and coming to my house my daughter turned ur ass down already”, rod and iago proceed to say a bunch of racist shit and say “check her bed she’s out being a slut with a black dude lol” to which dadbra says “she would never she’s so sweet and she’s also turned down literally everyone who’s ever wanted to date her” but desi, my girl, is actually gone from her bed, so dadbra is like “you’re right!!! i can’t believe my daughter is fucking around before marriage in the middle of the night!!! i trusted her!!! time to go chase after othello, who i welcomed into my house, with a bunch of pitchforks” which they do. they show up to othello’s crib like “what’s up here’s our accusations time to throw you in jail for fucking my daughter because if she turned down all the hot dudes in the entire city she’s definitely not gonna fuck a black dude out of wedlock unless there was some type of witchcraft involved” to and othello is like “uhh okay cool i’m dealing with the house of senators rn so like. can this wait a second my dudes” and they’re like “perfect! we’re gonna show them what a terrible black dude you are!”

they go in front of the senators and they’re like “what’s the sitch why is this angry mob here my dude” dadbra is like “uh he fucked my daughter, i’m sending him to jail for witchcraft or kidnapping bc there’s literally no other way she’d fuck a black dude when she doesn’t even like these hot white dudes”

othello’s like “uh actually i married her”

everyone: “what”

and he kind of explains like “buddy yeah i’m not super good with words so i’m not gonna bs you. i married your daughter. no kidnapping, drugging, or witchcraft. she fell in love with me and so now we’re married. she’s at the inn down the street also so like i’m def not fucking her since we’re at my house and she’s at a hotel”

everyone except dadbra is like “oh okay that sounds reasonable” but dadbra is like “you’re telling me that my good white upper class daughter fell in love with a black dude who she’d be afraid to look at? i’m calling bullshit it’s clearly witchcraft”

the duke p much is like “uh… but where’s the receipts tho i don’t see any witchcraft” and the senators are like “go get desdemona so we can confirm this also othello bro keep talking”

othello’s like “yeah i was a warrior and i travelled a lot and dadbra used to like me a lot so he invited me over to hear my stories about the wars and how i fought and battles and being on ships. i told him my entire life story from when i was a kid all the way until now, how i was captured and sold as a slave, how i bought my own freedom and just all types of cool shit and then when she did her chores around the house for dadbra she would come around as soon as she finished and ask me more and ask me to tell her more stories” essentially desi thinks he’s hot and a tragic hero and she’s like “everything that happened to you sucks but you’ve also got some sick ass stories so maybe that makes it a little better? idk sorry all this bad shit happened to you but you’re rly interesting to talk to. if any friends had any stories like yours i’d probably fall in love with them”

othello’s like “yeah uh i’m not that smart and i’m more of a military dude than an intellectual but i know a fucking hint when i see one”

he says the sweetest thing too like “she loved me for the horrors i had been through and that i had the strength to come out on top, and i loved her for feeling so strongly about me and having passion. here comes my wife now and she’ll tell you the exact same story”

desi comes in and is like “yeah dad sorry i shouldn’t have like run out in the middle of the night to get married but i really do love him promise no messing around”

and this is part of the reason i think brabantion is kinda cool bc he’s not actually a racist he just said some shit without rly thinking and let the things that he’s used to hearing influence him and he’s like “oh, well, you’re in love. that’s fine then sorry i didn’t realize. i’m super glad you’re my only daughter because after this whole disaster, if you’d had any younger sisters i know i would have overreacted and acted like a prison warden to them and women don’t deserve that. i’m still a little upset abt u sneaking out in the middle of the night but like blessings on your marriage i guess.

so that’s like…. act one

later on some fuckery happens, iago decides to be a dick, because they’re all together for some reason that i don’t feel like saying idk something abt the turks and also because he’s a miserable worm

cassio is one of their friends who’s also there and he’s, like, some type of foreign i think (probably spanish or italian) and has respect for women and his wife (who’s not there) but bc he’s spanish or italian (probably italian as verona is mentioned and shakespeare REALLY has a thing abt italy??? idk he’s a pasta fucker) or whatever he does the thing where he kisses people on the cheek and because it’s the elizabethan era, he kisses women’s hands, and earlier he had like politely greeted desdemona and iago’s wife and called them beautiful and smart and shit and called iago out on being a misogynistic piece of shit. iago like actively hates his wife and also literally anyone else’s happiness so he’s like i’m gonna fuck up cassio’s life and i’m gonna fuck up othello and desi’s and also he’s a jealous racist misogynistic asshole wants to fuck up othello and desdemona’s (healthy, loving, trusting, equal) relationship so he’s like

"hey othello. ur wife’s a slut. she’s fucking cassio behind ur back lol”

and othello, who thinks his wife is the shit, is like *daveed diggs voice* “whaaaaat”

iago: “yeah totes she’s a massive hoe”

and othello is like “nah not my wife. maybe someone else’s wife, but not mine”

and iago is like “no bro im serious. we’re sleeping in the same bed (i don’t know why i mean his fucking wife is there isn’t she) he’s been having like wet dreams about her and saying ‘damn i wish u weren’t with that black dude’ and he’s been rolling over in his sleep and dry humping me whilst moaning ur wife’s name” (honestly iago the reason you don’t like women is because you’re gay and jealous calm down)

(literally that was so extra i can’t believe how overwhelmingly bisexual shakespeare was that he needed to slide that gay ass shit in there)

anyways othello’s like “okay so that’s a little weird but that doesn’t mean she did anything. maybe cassio just wants to bang my wife. that’s understandable, as id also like to bang my wife” (they’re super into PDA they’re so in love)

iago: fair. also iago: i mean there’s no way to prove it but like… maybe your wife gave him something. like, idk, does she have a hand embroidered handkerchief maybe? just a thought just a thought lolothello: ya i gave that to her as like a courtship gift she never goes anywhere without it bc she loves me so muchiago: yeah well uh i cassio wiping his beard with it so they’re definitely fuckingothello, my dumb son: NO!!! THAT DEFINITELY MEANS THEYRE FUCKING IF MY WIFE GAVE AN ITEM OF GREAT SENTIMENTAL AND PERSONAL SIGNIFICANCE TO HIM!!! MY ABSOLUTELY TOTALLY FAITHFUL AND COMPLETELY INNOCENT UP UNTIL THIS POINT WIFE!!!!

so he’s like “uh i have to kill her i guess now :(((((((”

problem is he’s still fucking in love with her like he literally loves her so much and can’t even bear to stab her like a normal person would do if they’re trying to kill their wife, so what does he do? he fucking kisses her awake to explain what he’s doing and why he’s doing it and then gently smothers her to death

so gently, in fact, that she doesn’t actually die, just passes out

a servant walks in and is like “boi what the FUCK”

othello: uh

it’s desi’s handmaiden lmao and he’s like “i had to she’s fucking other men” to which she says “no she’s not you idiot” and then desdemona wakes up to say something dramatic and then properly dies

except no she doesn’t bc othello literally is just really really fucking in love with his wife so he’s an incredibly ineffective murderer despite literally having been in the military for almost all of his life but that’s all i’m explaining bc my hands are tired and i answered this all on mobile plus that’s all you need to know for my story