#worm arc 17

[gastlives]

well then what is the solution just DYING

well atl east she knows too so ure not alone

damn… at least now we're delving into the ramifications of having a whole second earth

huh so 1 haywire was a supervillain 2 haywire is dead

oh hes pissed

jeeesus 8 horus?

damn 9/11 was the endbringers thats crazy

what the hell is ddid

damn

jesus

the fuck does that mean aegis is here??

oh shit

oh… crystal world

gbye krouse..

guess oliver didnt take one maybe

ok im starting to see where noelle mightve been fucked up

inchresting

trickster's whole mindset throughout his life after dating noelle i suppose

trickster going like well that happened

ok ig it wasnt a taylor thing

i wonder what would happen if u had like a whole room of patients and gave them the vials all at once as a cape and experienced like 100 visions at once

hmmm maybe half a vial isnt good!!

cool… for now..

um

this power is nice for escaping

hm

oh god dammit

vial just to not heal 😔

ok so luke is ballistic

cuz he sure didnt have time travel guess cody's dying or smth

goddamn

uh oh

[the-amazing-spider-bi]

reading a game of thrones and fuck. robb doesn’t get to be a narrator (he’s lyanna stark he’s the dead girl in the pool he’s the narrative’s most special ghost) but he barely has to. we’re watching him from every point of view but his own. he’s the lannisters’ second thought, a teenager pretending to be the man his father was. he’s jon’s best friend, his older brother, the guy he compares all the others to, snowflakes melting in his hair forever. he’s catelyn first son, it was just the two of them for so long, her boy who looks like her but takes after his father so much it aches, and yet is never like him quite enough, a boy soldier leading men to war when he can barely grow a beard. in private, he listens to his mother’s lessons about command as if she was a school teacher, blushes when he gets the answers wrong, then he earns the lords’ respect in public, like he is older than his years. her son slipping between her fingers when he’s right here.

but most of all in the first book we see him through bran. he’s lord robb, who commands his men and fights wildlings and only has to say one word for his wolf to rip an attacker’s fingers off. he’s robb the brother, who comes into bran’s bedroom in the evening to cry because he’s scared, actually, he’s so scared that he’s going to die, that he has no right to order all these people to die for him, that his father isn’t here and he went south and starks never come back from the south, and now he’s the fifteen year old boy on the throne of a war hero with no idea what he is really doing. he’s scared and he does it anyway. ned tells us very early in the book, after the execution, that it’s the only way to be brave and we don’t know yet that he’s talking about his son. robb haunts the narrative and he’s not even dead yet

[snazzyscarf]

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

“Theoretically speaking,” I said, “Just in the interest of problem solving, or figuring out what’s going to work or not, would the chance of this happening change if I just drove around America and killed everyone in my power’s reach?” “Not really,” Dinah said. “Damn,” I replied.  If she’d said yes, I could have narrowed it down to maybe the eastern United States or the west, then cut it in half again with north versus south, or narrowed it down to certain states.  Home in on the person or people that the problem centered around, dealt with them one way or another

Its not that I don't understand why she's asking about it in this way, but also, I love that this is the way she picks to ask about it.

Our girl Taylor really does just leapfrog straight to the most escalating option :rofl:

[faultlinescrew]

*head in hands* worm is a good book

[clonememesfrikyeah]

AU where Rex has a secret kid during the early days of the war and he gives them to the Jedi temple because this is war and he’s a soldier, he can’t raise the kid or keep them safe. But he sees them whenever he has leave and takes them places and he makes sure they have a happy childhood with him still in it. His kid knows he’s their dad but no one else knows. Everyone always wonders where Rex sneaks off to when their on Coriscant but he’s too good and looses anyone who tries to follow him. After order 66 he races to Coriscant to try and find them praying their not dead with the rest of the younglings. He didn’t find her there but he found out she was still alive and was being trained into the empires ranks, which is the last thing he wanted for his baby. It takes a few years but he tracks her down and rescue me her, by now she’s 11 but it seems she got a little of her dads execrated aging because she looks more like 17. But he knows that’s his kid, she looks just like him, sporting blond hair she prefers to keep buzzed because like her dad, she’s practical and has sensory issues, aside from that she is missing a few teeth because she loves to spar too rough and gets into fights with other cadets. She can act like him too, straight to the point, cunning, reckless, a little bit too confident for her own good, never half asses a job, always on the move, and ready for action. But anyway, the main point of this au is that when Rex brings his kid back home where all the brothers he’s rescued are (spoilers this is also a no one dies au too) and their like umm Rex who’s this child that look a lot like you and he’s like well umm meet my kid, aka your niece that I’ve been hiding since the beginning of the war haha and there like ayo Rex wtf and Alpha 17 is there because I said so and he’s PISSED that Rex didn’t tell him he had a kid.

[seaalgae]

i’m rereading worm and i’ve gotta say. big fan of the simurgh singlehandedly turning things into psychological horror for an entire arc by virtue of being just evil causality

[lakesbian]

Are there any spesific moments you wish to see be adapted/animated from worm? Do you think your's differ from most others?

i too am unfortunately not immune to the fact that worm is a Big Fucking Book and it's easy to forget or lose visuals that were striking in the moment but some ones i remember really wanting to see drawn in the moment:

THE OIL RIG. taylor literally turning into a bug and being furious with scion scanned like something that should be an iconic fandom visual to me the first time i was reading it, but i would also like to see the bit w/ sveta clinging to the metal rails & weld coaxing her onto him with the sky and sea and disaster as backdrop

this visual of alexandria:

also from the echidna fight, when the part of the-thing-that's-still-getting-called-noelle that still looks like noelle is just entirely lopped off....and then regrows, but with her arms wrapped around and attached to her chest like a flesh straightjacket, and she sort of keels back and is tipped up at the sky. incredible visual and also i love it as an indicator of like. Ohh. It's been getting called noelle because it used to be noelle, but she's long gone now. reports are in: ship definitely not theseus's anymore

the part in arc 17 where krouse and to my memory jess find a pet bird in the house they've broken into bashing its head against its cage over and over again and they're like hm that can't be good

when the travelers are crawling across the now-horizontal apartment building with krouse carrying noelle on his back and the simurgh is like. Right there where they can see her. fanart of this please please please youre nothing

there is probably more i could think of if i pondered longer but alas i do have tasks. no idea how different or not they aren't from other people though

[vodika-vibes]

Hi vod'ika

I'm pretty sure I saw a post saying your requests were open,

If they are please could I get Alpha 17(or fox, rex, wolffe) with some kinda civilian contractor, some kind of pining a lil bit of friends/coworkers to lovers vod teasing about this very obvious crush bit of feelings realisation (my favourite) (there can be smut or not up to you)

I love the way you write Alpha 17 especially but I don't mind really who you write it for!

The Edge Of Dawn

Summary: Alpha-17 doesn’t have friends. His job is to make sure that the cadets survive to adulthood, and that’s it. There’s absolutely no reason that he should be so comfortable with the civilian contractor who is in charge of teaching the cadets how to slice. But if Fordo doesn’t stop making smart comments, Alpha’s going to be down one vod.

Pairing: Alpha-17 x F!Reader

Word Count: 1616

Warnings: None

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni @imabeautifulbutterfly

A/N: Sorry that this took so long to get back to! It took me a while to come up with an idea that made me happy. I don't know if I followed your prompt to the letter, Alpha-17 doesn't do emotions well after all, but I think I'm happy with it!

“Alpha,” There’s a small smile playing on her lips as she hops up to sit on the barricade next to the much taller man, a datapad hanging from one of her hands, “What a surprise to see you here!”

He spares her half a glance, and then focuses his attention back on the ARC trainees that he’s currently responsible for, “Yes. What a surprise. That you found me in my training room.”

She beams at him, unrepentant, “Your little ducklings seem to be doing well.”

“Don’t call them that.”

“Your tooka kittens.”

“Not that either.”

“Your-”

“Is there a reason you’re here, harassing me, and not in your office doing whatever it is the long-necks hired you for?” Alpha asks, finally pinning her with all of his attention.

“I missed you.”

“You saw me an hour ago, try again.”

“It’s been a whole hour since I’ve seen your smiling face-” She continues dramatically, only to yelp when Alpha takes a strand of her hair between two fingers and tugs on it. “Rude.”

“I can be ruder.” He counters bluntly. “What do you need?”

She lightly raps her knuckles on her datapad, “There’s something...but I think it can wait.” She finally says, “You could come to my quarters tonight.”

“That-” Alpha is cut off at the very telling sound of Fordo choking on his laughter. “Problem, vod?” He bites out.

Fordo tilts his head towards her, but doesn’t say anything. Though his shoulders are shaking with repressed laughter. And Alpha is seriously considering shooting him.

Instead he focuses his attention on her and flicks his fingers towards the door, “Beat it. I’m busy.”

“Yeah, yeah. Who isn’t? I mean it, Alpha. I need to talk to you.”

“I’ll come find you when I can.”

“Great!” She hops back to her feet and glances at her datapad for a moment, before she beams at him and motions for him to duck his head a little bit.

Alpha eyes her suspiciously for a moment, but does as she instructs. She presses her lips, soft and warm, against his cheek, before she turns and scurries out of the room.

He stares after her, jaw slightly slack, as his hand comes up to press against his cheek. And then he’s jolted out of his shock at the sound of Fordo laughing. Alpha decides to table his, admittedly conflicted, thoughts about the slicer who has wormed her way into his heart, and decides to turn his annoyance at Fordo onto the baby ARCs.

He’s always had an easier time working through his emotions physically, after all.

It’s later, much later, when Alpha is able to pull himself away from his work for long enough to go and hunt down the little slicer. And yes, he did ignore the knowing looks his vod’e were shooting him as he left his barracks.

They’ve been giving him shit about how he treats her for months now.

All of them claim that he obviously has a thing for her (one of his brothers used the word crush and Alpha kind of wanted to punch him for it). He disagrees.

He respects the hell out of her.

He wants to protect her from the long-necks, he doesn’t like the speculative way that they look at her sometimes. And yes, okay, he likes looking at her.

That doesn’t mean he has a thing for her.

Sure, maybe he’s had a stray thought about wondering what it would be like to kiss her. And maybe he’s wondered if her skin is as soft as it looks. And maybe he’s considered what she’d look like if she was pregnant before.

But that doesn’t mean anything.

It can’t mean anything.

He knocks on the door to her suite, and it slides open surprisingly fast. Fast enough that his hand is still raised when she drags him into her suite.

“Were you waiting?”

“Yes!” She slams her hand on the control panel, shutting and locking the door before she turns and hurries deeper into his suite.

There’s a strange humming noise coming from a small device sitting on her coffee table, and it takes Alpha a moment to recognize that it’s a jamming device. Slowly his eye brows creep up as he looks around the suite.

Like all of the suites on Kamino, it’s small. About the size of a studio apartment. Though her room seems much smaller due to the sheer amount of stuff covering every inch of open surface.

“What’s going on?” She scurries around the room and Alpha takes note of a packed backpack sitting at the foot of her bed. “Is that a bug out bag?”

“No!” She pauses, “Well, yes. Technically.”

“Are you running away from Kamino?” Is he...hurt? He is. He thought she liked it here.

She grabs her datapad, her personal datapad based on the ridiculous looking purple protective case wrapped around it, and she turns her panicked gaze towards him.

All of his hurt feelings fly out the window at the look on her face, and he immediately shifts into, what she’s called, his badass soldier mode. “What happened?”

She won’t meet his gaze, and her free hand is fluttering over the designs on the protective case. And Alpha’s heart sinks. He’s not going to like what she’s about to say.

“Um, so...you remember why I was hired in the first place, right?”

“Yeah. The Jedi were worried about Seppie slicers getting into these computers. You were hired to update the security. Which you did.”

“Yes! Yes, I did.” She lifts her gaze from where it was tracing the paint on his chest place, “I…” She takes a deep breath, “I have a thing.”

“A thing?”

“I don’t like secrets. And I don’t trust the Republic. And I really, really don’t like the Kaminoans.” She says quickly, “So…”

“So?”

“I left myself a backdoor in their system.”

“...okay. Okay, so what. Did someone, other than you, use the backdoor?”

“No. You’d only be able to find it if you knew it was there.” She says quickly, “But, well, I’ve been perusing their system and...and ten years is a lot of stuff to go through, but I learned a lot.”

“Like?”

“Like the fact that the clones were commissioned by Count Dooku on the order of someone called Sidious. Like the fact that all of the clones have a chip in their brain to overwrite their free will.” her grip tightens around her datapad, “Well, all of the clones except for the Alpha Class.”

He was right. He doesn’t like this.

“I think…” She hesitates.

“Well, don’t stop now.”

“I think the clones were created as a trap for the Jedi. I think you were created to kill them.” She says quickly.

Alpha doesn’t say anything for a long time. And then, slowly, he exhales. “Okay. So how do we fix it.”

“You believe me?”

“You’ve never lied to me before.” Alpha pins her with a look, “I assume you have a plan.”

“Chips can be hacked. There must be a computer or terminal somewhere here that will allow me to overwrite the code on the chips. I just...need to find it.” She finally loosens her grip on her datapad, “This computer isn’t hooked up to the regular network, I know. I’ve looked.”

“You’ve looked.”

“...your brothers are very talented. But a lot of them are going to die if they turn against the Jedi. I don’t want that. I...don’t want any of this.”

Alpha stares at her for a long, long time. His brothers were wrong. He doesn’t have a crush on her. It’s so, so much worse.

“Alpha?”

He’s in love with her.

“Hello?”

Obviously he needs to claim her as his before they go any further with this.

“Do you need a medic? Should I call for help?”

Alpha snaps back to attention when she waves her hand in his face, worry written clearly on her face. He catches her wrist, and pulls her arm to the side.

“Oh, there you are. You went somewhere else for a bit.” She says, the worry fading away now that he’s moving again.

“I was thinking.”

“Oh, I know this is a lot-”

“Not about that.” Alpha interrupts.

“I...what?”

His grin is sharp, “I was thinking that I’m going to kiss you and claim you as mine, and then we can work out a plan on how to save my stupid ass brothers.”

She just blinks at him, startled, but she doesn’t try to pull away as he leans in and presses his lips against hers. In fact, she enthusiastically kisses him back.

Alpha releases her wrist and cups the back of her head to hold her close, deepening the kiss in the way that he’s been dreaming of for longer than he’ll ever admit to, and then he pulls back and presses his forehead against hers.

“Now,” He murmurs, “Is there anything else you learned that I should know?”

She blinks at him through hazy eyes, “Uh...Jango Fett is alive and in cryo in the basement.”

“What!?”

“Um, the Jango Fett who died on Geonosis was another clone who took his place. Apparently.” She says quickly.

Alpha stares at her for a long time, “Oh...kay. We’re going to table that particular crisis until we deal with this one. I’m going to go get Fordo and General Ti. You-” He pauses, “You’re going to hide your bug out bag and clean up some of this mess.”

“Oh. Right.”

He moves his hand so he’s able to brush his thumb across her lips, “And then, we can talk about us.”

And a small smile crosses her lips, “I’d like there to be an us.”

“Me too.”

[cairavende]

Worm Arc 17 thoughts:

Travelers backstory!!!!!!!!! WOOOO!!!!!!

HOLY SHIT THEY ARE FROM EARTH ALEPH! That really explains the mysterious nature of their backstory up to now.

Would have loved to get some PoV's from some people who aren't Trickster but I'll live.

He's just such an asshole! Like I already knew he was but god DAMN did this arc remove any doubt.

Just the worst type of asshole that can be found in MOBA games (I say this as someone who played MOBA games for years). And then given superpowers. Ugh.

THE SIMURGH FUCKING HELL OH MY GOD I LOVE HER!!!!!!!!!

SHE IS MY FAVORITE ENDBRINGER AND ONE OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS EVEN IF SHE IS SUPER DUPER EVIL AND TERRIBLE! BUT SHE JUST SINGS IN EVERYONE'S HEADS AND THEY SEE THINGS THAT SHE WANTS THEM TO SEE AND SHE SEES THE FUTURE AND CREATES A CAUSE AND EFFECT PLAGUE BASICALLY AND I LOVE HER!!

Just the level of planning ahead she does, the number of moves ahead Simmy is playing. After the first few times she shows up they start quarantining where she attacks. Which ends up being exactly the right situation needed to push the Travelers to the choices she wanted them to make. Like, is quarantining even a counter to the Smurph or is it exactly what she wanted?

Sure precogs mess with precogs. That makes sense. But I don't know that it is as clear cut as Coil presented to Trickster. He implies two precogs just cancel each other out, but I assume it's more of a strength thing - a strong precog will cancel out a weak precog, but a weak precog will only make things a little fuzzier for a strong precog. So having Dinah would have helped against the Simurgh but I don't think it would be enough to just cancel out the Simurgh's power. Coil and Tattletale would probably also help. But I'm not convinced the last few months in Brockton Bay hasn't been more or less what Simmy wanted to happen.

Cody is the only person here that is probably more of an asshole than Krouse. Just could not get over the fact that Noelle didn't want to date him. Unbearably entitled dick. Possibly dead now, if Accord got his way. But very possibly not. Won't be surprised if he shows up again.

Cody's power is fun. I think it's the first "time travel" power I've seen. I mean Clockblocker does time freezing which is basically the same category but still, curious to see if we get any more level of time travel than this.

Marissa needs someone to make her some cookies and give her a place to hang out that isn't the house her mom lives in. I mean, I guess the current situation handles that but not how I meant.

I already liked Jess and now I like her even more. She's a cape geek! Wonderful.

Luke is interesting cause he was the only person besides Noelle who was close to Krouse at the start, but he's the first (well, aside from Cody I guess) to leave him. Really went through a character arc. Also Krouse lists Luke's "individual tragedy" as "not getting to fly" which is hysterical.

Oliver is a trans girl. Headcanon 100% established. It just fits so well. She just needs to find herself! And once she does and realizes what she actually wants to look like her power will get her there and won't need to keep adjusting! Right now Oliver's power is doing performative masculinity for them.

Noelle has had a bad time. God damn. She was having a bad time before everything happened and now she's having a very bad time. Damn. I had some guesses about her correct. Figured she was like, monstrous bottom half and normal top half. And figured touching her was bad. But I didn't foresee "touching her creates mutated evil clones". I'm sure that won't be a major problem in the next arc or two. I'm sure there won't be evil mutated clones of a bunch of capes to deal with . . .

I had long figured Travelers had Cauldron powers. It just fit with their power levels and such. I had also figured whatever Noelle's condition was, it was related to having a Cauldron power. I had a lot of guesses. None of them were "only drinks half a vial". For some reason I thought everyone would be too smart to do THAT! (I have no idea why I thought that.)

Current guess is Noelle is sort of in a never ending "trigger" event. Her power is constantly in the "building and gathering" phase and is not reaching the "lock things down" phase that normally happens (Bonesaw talked about this). Definitely a lot of other things it could be, this is just the best fit I've found so far.

This goes for Oliver too, which is why their power keeps changing how they look. Oliver just got lucky and has much less significant troubles compared to Noelle.

Got to see lots of new Case 53's. That was fun.

I expect to see more of Accord in the future. Just cause like, he gets smarter the more complex the problem. And the world is supposedly going to end due to (I think) the actions of higher dimensional entities. That is a very complex problem. And at the same time, he seems like the kind of person that might see "billions die" as a good way to reduce chaos. To simplify the world. Not saying that is what he will do, just that it seems a shame to not bring him up again.

I knew 40 people had died due to actions of the Travelers. I did not know Noelle had eaten them all! Because she tried to starve herself. I can see why it's important to keep her well fed. And why it's going to be an issue that there is no longer someone providing her with thousands of dollars of meat a week. No waste though, she has a very efficient digestive system.

The ending, with Trickster just staring at the bloodstain left behind by Coil's body while Genesis stares out at the ocean ... very good. I mean, really sucks for them, but it was a very evocative arc ending.

I wonder who won the Ransack tournament? One team disconnected because the building they were in disappeared into a space hole. I wonder what the rules are for that?

[gastlives]

um.

the fuck does this mean for her

aw…

thats why were the travelers haahahaaha

meanie

oh yeaah there we go

oh what the hell noelle's power did this…??

goodbye cody..

damn... all bc of simurgh, who wouldve thought

the hell

ok so those were just copies

god damn

geez....

maybe its coil..

theres no way this isnt coil

well, that hasnt happened

well... hes dead now ... so

god dammit

…………………………

why do u have to eat Meat because of that...

hm well he wouldnt have dinah with him yet so .... whomst

damn i have a feeling u might kill skitter for that

. my jaw dropped

this is scary and here i thought she looked normal except when using powers or something but no shes just hiding her lower half

also didnt the leviathan want to go after noelle too??? i think at this point she might be legit becoming an endbringer which is fucked up like is that only bc of drinking half a vial or what??o liver is normal so far

eugh who?

also we're fucked now since noelle escaped im guessing the body might be cody i guess oliver got the lucky end of that vial

[stellanslashgeode]

I'm happily educating myself on all things Barriss via your wonderful blog. If you'd ever feel like unpacking more of your Wrong Jedi thoughts/intrigue, I'd love to hear more of your analysis.

Oh my, you've put a quarter in the machine now you have to hear the whole song.

The arc is very divisive with Barriss enjoyers because her character veers so far from her Legends depiction. She was a pretty prominent character in the original Clone Wars multimedia project and was a caring and selfless healer. And the arc doesn't do much to explain her motivations for turning.

Another thing that vexes me is because it is essentially a police procedural (they even hired a writer from Third Watch for this arc) so much occurs off-screen. So, we do not know quite what happened but have to infer.

Let's start with motivation. In her very few post The Wrong Jedi appearances they've tried to hint at Barriss falling mainly though post-traumatic stress disorder. And that's sort of a good explanation? She was at Geonsis at the start of the war, and was one of two Padawans we know of IN the arena who lived and the other was Anakin! You have to think this is a healer, someone who was trained to be a pacifist, and the battle was so sudden and frantic that she had to witness other Padawans she knew in the creche die all around her and she was too busy defending herself to do anything. So that's trauma and guilt. The short story A Jedi's Duty shows that she sat out nearly the entire first year of the war healing others back at the temple, explaining why she wasn't there to deal with Asajj Ventress with Luminara in TCW season 1. Also, she is having trouble sleeping because of memories of that first battle. She asked for help but they told her to meditate if she couldn't sleep, but she couldn't meditate properly because of this haze of the dark side invading her perceptions. She's even having trouble Force healing and she feels guilty that others are taking risks that she is unwilling to take. She consults with an old friend, Tutso Mara and is finally able to meditate, but right then Luminara calls her to a briefing, and wouldn't you know it, they're going to Geonosis again. She is frightened but memorizes the tunnel formations under the weapons factory they need to destroy because that's her duty to the Light and to her Order. The last scene is her joining Luminara and Gree to depart for the battle. And it's such an ironic story because Master Mara is one of her later victims and the place she bombs is right there in the temple hangar where the story ends. I think that's why she chose it as her target, it was the place she went from safety to chaos.

And what happens next? She almost is buried alive Right Away, then as she's reeling from that she gets a Geonocian brain worm. She was also at the Battle of Umbara, and you know how that goes. So I guess trauma is a fairly good reason, as well as her love and admiration of Jedi ethics and pedagogy that just went right out the window when the Jedi had to do what it took to fight in this war. Barriss is a bookworm, all that heritage meant something to her. And really, that was the purpose of the war, to isolate the Jedi by having them betray their morals and sully their reputation with the public.

Fanfiction writers also can pick and choose from Legends, such as all the crazy stuff that happened to her on Drongar but that's a story for another day.

So we get to the Wrong Jedi Arc itself. We aren't shown how she meets Letta Turmond, how much of a partnership that was. Letta says Barriss was the mastermind of the operation but that's after she's jailed. I don't trust her. I mean, Letta is a grown woman and while Barriss was an idealistic and heartsick Jedi at that point she's just 17-18 according to Feloni. I can see it as a situation where a teenager gets politically radicalized and taken advantage by a woman she trusts. If we get a Letta flashback in Tales of the Empire I will be so happy!

Ahsoka is framed. But there's a multi-step aspect to it. Part A, Letta calls Ahsoka to the prison because she was told she was the only Jedi her collaborator trusted and gets Force choked by someone we do not see. Part B, after she is arrested someone leaves a key card outside her cell and she follows a trail of first injured then dead clones to make it look like she broke out and went on a killing spree. Part C is the only one we actually see start to finish, where Ahsoka contacts Barriss and she lures her to the factory that made the nano-droids.

Barriss is guilty of Part C. But did she do Part A and B? She was at the funeral with Ahsoka and heard same time as her that she was transferred to a military compound. Then in the maybe hour, two hours Ahsoka was in a mission briefing Barriss supposedly broke into a brand-new high security compound, got in the walls, and strangled Letta as Ahsoka was in the cell alone with her. Then Part B, she hung around undetected for a few more hours to set up the escape while also erasing the audio off the recording of the murder.

I personally think Palpatine MIGHT have done part A. He has much greater access and he has the motive (to take away a pillar of stability for Anakin). If Barriss did do Part A, what was the motivation? The most pessimistic reading is she did it to save her own skin and purposely framed Ahsoka. Another is that Barriss genuinely talked up Ahsoka to Letta, and did NOT do so to set her up but because she was one of the lonely girl's only friends (and maybe love interest) and then Letta goes ahead and calls her there, Barriss is in the walls, and she just cannot have Ahsoka's opinion of her ruined. She killed Letta to silence her from tainting this one friendship she had left, did so out of panic, and wasn't thinking of the consequences. Then Part B, oh no I got my girlfriend framed for murder. So she springs her out. So why does she kill those clones to further frame her?

Consider the conversation after the funeral, "Ahsoka, do you think it is right for us to ignore our emotions?" I think the subtext there was "Ahsoka, I'm hurting so much, join me to stop me." She was feeling her out to see if she felt the same about the war as she did. And she did Part B to see if Ahsoka would run, SO THEY COULD RUN AWAY TOGETHER. Sure, it's manipulative as all Hell, but that's the dark side for you. It was a test, and Ahsoka failed because as soon as she gets out, she calls Barriss to help clear her name. So that she could get back to the war. The war Barriss hates with all her being. So that's why she did Part C. She had been alienated by the Order and her own master by all these deployments and the one person left who she valued was buying into the propaganda that the Jedi needed to finish this war. It broke her. And she did something awful.

All and all I think her fall is fascinating because it wasn't for personal power or attachments, she wanted to sacrifice her own grace to save the souls of all other Jedi. She did it out of love for the Order, even if it came in such a twisted and destructive form. That's also why she'd become a lousy Inquisitor. They're the anthesis of all she stood for, an army fighting for the dark side.

I know a lot of fans hate this arc but... man that speech! I spent the whole Prequel trilogy and TCW waiting for a Jedi to stand up and say "What we are doing is wrong, we should stop." Yoda and Mace know their path is leading to the dark, but they see no other way but through. I just wanted someone to say no with their whole chest. And it was Barriss. That's why I love her, your honor. I admire the idealists, her and Satine. They should have teamed up and put a stop too all that nonsense.

Sorry this is so long? I have a lot of FEELINGS and now you can see why I have a lot of trepidation about this Saturday. You know, I thought of you last night when I was rewatching Tales of the Jedi. It was the scene were Dooku was leaving to meet Palpatine with Yaddle following in The Sith Lord. I was imagining how you felt watching that for the first time, and I remembered my reaction was "Oh no, it's the temple hangar! Barriss is going to blow the shit out of this place in a decade and change!"

[imthepunchlord]

Honestly? At this point Miraculous seems like a pick and choose kind of fandom??? Like when the storyline and author of something become too much of a mess for the fans to care much for canon anymore so they just choose what the want to write fanfics about. It happens in stuff like DC where they can't have all the different characterizations of the characters together without contradiction. Death of the author situation I think???

It was already happening with fan artists so very intrigued by the PV. And then as new characters and powers were introduced people started omitting some characters n episodes.

Now, with the absolute nothing having done for the character arcs for most of the characters (Adrian, Chole, even Alya) people are just tired.

Understandably so. We have almost a decade of bad writing, inconsistency on characters, clashing set up and characters, upsetting/huge choices that don't have any real consequences to them or not the right response, and honestly at the core, nothing changing all that much. S6 is going to have LB and Chat still not know each other's identities, and are still going to face a villainous Butterfly user.

Only difference is that there's now a total of 17 heroes in Paris, but given that LB and Chat are the center piece, I don't know how much we'll really see them. Oh, and Adrien and Marinette are dating, though I wouldn't be surprised if s6 just had them broken up or immediately broke them up. They did it before. And this pair is supposed to chase each other eternally... maybe they'll stay dating s6 and onwards but idk, it seems like no one likes writing couples together, which is a shame as that can be a whole other can of worms and not always happy, as you're taking that partnership further, you're going to learn more of who your SO is, and there's going to be fights, there's going to be learning communication, there's going to be learning compromise. There's a lot to explore with couples together that's not always sunshine and rainbows, and hardly any show wants to really explore it. Maybe they will s6 but I'm not really anticipating the possibility.

Either way, yeah, ML is that medium where, because of the inconsistency, you can pick and choose what you think fits the character. Given the lack of consistency, it can be up for debate of what's even in character for this character.

Like, I remember when Collector first came out, and Chloe is sobbing about Adrien being pulled from school and I was so surprised by the choice. The Chloe that was presented in s1 would not be sobbing. She was be mad. She would go demand and threaten Gabriel to give Adrien back. Probably one of the few people she genuinely cared for, and this is a girl who knows that she has a lot of political power and can get her way easily. She would not be crying over this, she'd be marching her way to the Agreste manor, ready to give Gabriel a bad day for the audacity of pulling her friend out of school when she waited so long for him to join her in school.

And that's just one of many moments where something can feel out of character, at least for me. Depending on how you view Chloe, that could very much be in character. And that's the nice and frustrating thing with Miraculous, no consistency, anything is up for your interpretation.

Even more so when you have characters that have a clear route of progress to follow.

Like, take Felix, who got cut because he didn't work with what Astruc wanted to do, which yeah, he doesn't. Which he wanted to do a status quo story, which means little to no progressing forward, no major changes to that initial set up. Felix though is a character that needs progress. He starts out selfish, not wanting to be a hero, and his set up arc is learning to care. Learning to truly become a hero, learning to make friends and working with others, coming to genuinely fall for his partner and being genuine with her.

Felix would've been fine with a story progressing forward.

He had a clear path to take.

Chloe, given all the build up to be Queen Bee, had two clear paths to take, be it redemption and rising to becoming a hero, or embracing a role of full villainy.

Alya had a clear path to take, with her eagerness to expose the heroes publicly, she needs to learn the value and security of secrecy, and the reality that her trying to expose them put them at risk; that she needs to reevaluate her priorities and how she should go about things.

There's also the issue of lore, which ML has really bad lore. Which can leave us to be more creative with it, make changes so it makes sense. And this can extend to powers too, as I don't think a majority genuinely like all powers presented, I don't know anyone who really likes time traveling Rabbit or really knows how Rooster works. So it is really nice that people are pretty open to seeing Miraculous power changed or expanded upon.

And of course, there's the lack of consistency in what they set up.

Ladybug and Cat are supposed to be THE most powerful, the big two! But they don't feel like. Butterfly feels like the most OP given it can give any power and can make superior versions of preexisting Miraculous. Peafowl can do the same, and make actual life apparently, that you can fully control and terminate whenever you want. Rabbit can freaking time travel. Rooster it seems can give you any power you want, I know they tried to explain that Rooster can't do what other Miraculous do, but that's a clashing statement as Ladybug and Goat both generate items, and the Paris Special reveals that a Ladybug CAN control what items they gets, and you got Butterfly and Peafowl able to function the same, and in the Paris Special, Butterfly can make a champion that can go to different realities, and Rooster can give the ability to go to different realities, so I guess we'll just go with Rooster can give you any power you want?

Yeah, Miraculous over all is a huge frustrating mess. Even more so that it's still going on despite how sloppy it is.

And for me at least, I create content for it as I can SEE the potential it has for the concept. It's such a brilliant idea for a superhero/magical girl show.

Doing animal themed heroes, with their powers working off the animal symbolism, themes, folklore, and mythology? Yeah, that is great. That can give you SO MUCH to work with and do. Even more so, most animals have the same themes across different cultures, like everyone agrees that foxes are tricky, horses are about heroism and traversal, bees are the peak example of community, ect..

And then there's these little beings that are based on those animals, that have lived through a long history alongside humanity? Easily could've been the most fascinating part of the show, especially if they work off animal archetypes. That gives you a preset personality to build upon, and can shape each kwami's view, moral, and guidance.

Like Pollen as a Bee should have values of having a role to play in the great hive of the world, you might need help finding your purpose, and to believe that humans should communicate, work with others, work hard, be kind but take no bull. Live a life of integrity and responsibility.

Trixx as a Fox though should be a trickster. One that's ultimately for the greater good, but she's going to be chaotic about it. Maybe a little selfish, maybe a little mischievous, and maybe a little risky. She's going to urge a value of cleverness and perception in her humans, but she's also going to let them act for themselves as she wants to see how things play out for curiosity and fun. And in the grand scheme of things, everything will work out as Trixx intends, with her having various predictions on how things will probably go, but my goodness, anyone caught up in her gambling game is going to be in for a wild ride.

And with these two very drastic animal archetypes, it sets up Pollen and Trixx to clash on how they handle things, expanding upon kwamis having unique dynamics, some as friendships while others are rivalries.

Then of course, there's the intrigue of what humans they could get paired with, especially if you go a route of foils that could open the way for growth.

Like Bee was set up as Chloe's ultimate foil, being the opposite of who she was: being mean and petty, lashing out, being lazy, egotistical, selfish, doesn't work with others unless she values them. All of that is the opposite of what bees represent. And all of that is what Chloe needed to grow and improve, but no, we can't make progress, she has to stay who she is, so the Bee is catered to her lashing out.

So yeah, it's a big shame as I freaking love this concept, especially as I like animals, I like reading up on their mythology and symbolism and such. But it's so horrendously done. And that's the biggest shame as I think it could've been one of the great cartoons to recommend. But not how it is now.

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

Arc 17, Reflections

I think I'd have more appreciation for Arc 17 if some of the following were true

If I wasn't already annoyed at Wildbow for a million and one things, most of which aren't even what has actually happened thus far in the text of Worm (but because of my annoyance, the good faith I had for him is largely gone)

If I didn't know what was coming in the Echidna arc, and wasn't so damn annoyed about how it's just another random BS escalation S-class (A-Class?) disaster to throw at Brockton Bay for the sake of it. yes, fine, it outs Cauldron, but maybe we could have the story without that? Or do it with less devastation to the Bay? Fucking hell man.

If It didn't come right at the heels of Coil's defeat and we just... transition, unceremoniously.

If more attention had been paid to the interpersonal drama of the travelers, seeding more hints, since most of Arc 17 is all their stupid drama I don't care about at this point. The travelers have been dancing around the edge of the narrative since the Somer's Rock meeting and becoming more and more central. As it is, the real interpersonal drama seeds arent really laid until Arc 15. Noelle stuff gets dropped in sooner, sure, but the rest of it... nehhhh.

No fucking Cody holy fuck I hate Cody so goddamn much and I don't see any reason for him except for Wildbow to just make shit worse again by having him kill Accord at the Behemoth fight (Yes, yes, building on the theme of Capes being too consumed by their bullshit to work together, but I feel like he's made that point by now)

If it had been Shorter. Like, half the length. I mean, I already noted this Arc Could Have Been an Interlude, but even if it couldn't be, it would have been better as something shorter.

Arc 17 is bad, ya'll. Subjectively, at least.

I refuse to have much else to say because I really don't have much to say. They're gamers. Don't care. They're Aleph refugees. Don't care. Their drama. Don't care. They're all vial capes. Don't care.

Don't care.

Don't Care.

Don't care.

Sure, some of it is stubborn spite, because objectively there is some good stuff here, but forced into the narrative like this now? Fuck it fuck it fuck it.

That said, 17.8 was actually a pretty solid chapter in of itself. First genuinely good chapter in the arc.

[faultlinescrew]

FINISHED ARC 17

More articulate thoughts (& art) later for rn I'm

[belphegor1982]

Scanlan with 17, if you feel so inclined ✨

(17. Tending to an injury/wound/illness from the Put That Guy in a Situation™ Ask Game/Prompt list)

*rubs hands* You know, it just so happens that I had an idea floating in my head and that I was able to use it for your prompt. Thought it might be a nice little 1,000-word story, maaaaybe 2,000, but instead have this 6,100 word behemoth! Thank you so much for the opportunity to write for these characters 💜 I'll post it on AO3 ASAP!

—

Friends in Low Places

“—og! Grog! Scanlan! Can you hear me?”

There’s a voice in Grog’s ear, piercing through the fog, and he makes an effort to shake the cobwebs because Pike almost sounds scared and she never does.

It works, and he realises a few things in rapid succession:

Pike is calling through the earring.

They were all fighting some big beast with lots of teeth and claws. Now they’re not. (At least Grog isn’t.)

They were in a cave, deep underground, and the fight happened right next to a really big drop. Presumably Grog is still in the cave, just… a lot lower.

And last, he’s covered in rocks and pebbles and dirt like a blanket, curled up on himself around something warm and small –

Oh, that’s another thing: Scanlan is alive, too. His breath is coming hard and fast against the middle of Grog’s chest, tickling the scar tissue there, and he’s clutching Grog so tight Grog can almost feel the sting of nails. (Grog likes to think he has really thick skin, so that’s saying something.)

“Guys, speak up if you’re okay – or at least alive,” comes another voice, sharper. Vex.

Grog feels Scanlan move around a little.

“I don’t know about ‘okay’,” he croaks, like the inside of his throat is coated in dust, same as Grog. His voice makes a weird echo in the earring. “But, uh, the other thing, I guess.”

Scanlan is one of those people who often uses more words than necessary. Grog doesn’t mind; that’s just how he is. Besides, Scanlan being tricky with words is a good thing more often than not.

Still, Grog unlocks one of his arms to touch his own earring and says, “We’re good.”

There’s an assortment of relieved noises in his ear. Instead of trying to make out what Vex, Vax, Percy and Keyleth are saying (that would take too long), he zeroes in on Pike’s voice. It shakes just a little still when she asks, “Do you think you can climb back up?”

Good question. Grog unfolds completely – realising in the process that he’s been wrapped around Scanlan, who also slowly lets go of him – and looks up.

And up.

Not that he can see all that well in the dark, even with the dull light of some of the weird worms Keyleth said are attracted to warm spots, but man, this cliff is high. And, unfortunately, way too steep to climb.

“I don’t think so,” says Scanlan, his head tilted real far back, and Grog remembers gnomes can see pretty well in the dark. “I can’t even see you guys.”

“Man, this is deep. How the hell are you still alive?” There’s wonder in Vax’s voice. Now that Grog thinks about it, yeah, that’s a good question.

They’ve been hired by a local mine owner to kill a monster that mangled and munched on some miners; nobody was sure what it was, other than pointy, dangerous, and probably hungry. After two days underground the S.H.I.T.s finally found the thingy – a big beast with long spikes on its tail and fangs that had to be worth a lot of gold each. Grog, who still had no idea what it was except ‘a future corpse’ (and didn’t really care), called it ‘the thingy’. Then, since it just wouldn’t die, apparently, not without trying to take all of them with it, he called it ‘that fucker’ as he hacked at it with his great axe, grinning all the while (gods, whaling on monsters is fun). And then none of that shit mattered, because it scuttled back and swept its tail behind in a wide arc, aiming for the spot Scanlan stood at a safe distance hitting it with magic (and hitting them with healing spells).

Grog completely stopped enjoying himself or wondering what the creature was called. Instinct took over. He bolted between the spikes and his friend and the giant tail knocked them both over the edge of a drop.

Neither of them died, so clearly it was the best decision.

“What happened to the thingy?” he asks as Scanlan opens his mouth to answer Vax’s question. That seems more of a pressing concern.

“Oh, it’s dead,” comes Keyleth’s voice, then some shuffling as Grog pictures her nudging something heavy with her foot. “Yup, very dead. Ew.”

“I’ll put a handful of fangs into the bag of holding,” says Vex, sounding like she’s not exactly looking forward to it, “so we can show them to Barandiaran and get paid. A couple of those spikes, too. Doesn’t look like they’re venomous, but they might be worth something. Oh, and Keyleth picked up your axe, Grog.”

“Hey, thanks, Keyleth.” Grog feels a little naked without his great axe, but at least he knows it’s in good hands and he’s gonna get it back soon.

Scanlan, who’s been looking a little put out that Grog cut him off, crosses his arms and looks vaguely upwards, in the direction Grog assumes the rest of their friends are.

“Yeah, that’s nice. What about us? How do we come up?”

“I’m not sure you can,” Percy remarks, sounding distracted, like he’s thinking hard. Just as Grog and Scanlan glance at each other in alarm, he continues, “So I guess we’ll have to go to you. Do you see a way out?”

“Hah, yeah sure, we… Wait.” Scanlan peers towards the back of the cavern which, to Grog, looks exactly like the sides of the cavern – utterly dark. “Hang on, I think we actually passed this way earlier on our way up. It’s not far from where we last set up camp to lunch-dinner-whatever.”

“Are you sure?”

If it was anyone else than Pike who asked, Grog is fairly sure Scanlan would have said something snarky; but Scanlan is funny about Pike. Even in the dark at a foot of a cliff, where she can’t see him, he beams like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Sure I’m sure! I dropped an apple core not far from here – pretty sure I can find it again if nothing ate it in the meantime.”

“Do not move,” says Vex, almost as sharp as when she demanded a sign of life from them. “Seriously. Stay put, we’re coming down to meet you. You’re closer to the way out anyway, we’ll be retracing our steps.”

“Sure you’re both okay?” Pike asks. “Not hurt?”

Grog smiles. As usual, he took some damage in the fight, scuffs and scrapes and things – he’s definitely gonna have new scars on his shoulder and his thigh – but he’s super tough and he heals fast. And apart from a few bruises of his own Scanlan doesn’t move like someone who’s injured.

They both reply in the negative. Scanlan’s answer is longer and more flowery. Pike says, “…O–kay,” a little uncertain, but it sounds more like she’s still worried rather than her usual disconcerted and/or amused response to Scanlan being Scanlan. Then, because she’s the best, she adds just for Grog, “See you soon, buddies” before the earrings go silent as they walk away and out of range.

The scratch on his thigh is smarting a little and sending tingles down his leg, so Grog makes himself comfortable on the ground while Scanlan stares up the cliff with a funny look on his face.

“That really was a hell of a drop, huh.” He looks back at Grog and smiles. “Thanks, bud. I think I would’ve looked like one of those fancy holey cheeses if you hadn’t been there.”

Grog shrugs. “I mean, it’s not a big deal.” Then, as Scanlan gets a look on his face like he disagrees and it is a big deal, “Hey, by the way, did you do somethin’? ‘Cause for a second there I thought we were gonna go splat.”

He registered sensations as they fell, other than the wind whistling in his ears and his body trying to curl into the tightest ball imaginable to protect his insides and Scanlan’s. A muffled voice against his chest, a warm tingle enveloping him, the impression that the world slowed down for a couple of heartbeats before he crashed into the ground. Either he developed powers – which he doesn’t rule out, maybe he is a secret wizard and just didn’t know it till then – or Scanlan used his own.

It’s hard to see in the mostly-dark, but he thinks Scanlan looks miffed at the ‘no big deal’ for a second before he shakes his head and grins.

“Well, yeah. I had one spell left in me and I wasn’t about to—what the hell, Grog, is that blood yours!?”

His face went from smiling to shocked in the middle of his sentence. Grog frowns and looks down.

Oh.

Yeah.

Shit.

The scratch on his leg isn’t very big, but turns out it’s a lot deeper than he thought. One of the thingy’s tail spikes must have gone deep into the meat of his thigh. It doesn’t hurt more than the kind of injury that takes care of itself with a bit of rest, so Grog honestly hasn’t noticed till now, but it’s bleeding steadily, probably has been since their fall. There would be a little puddle of blood on the ground under his knee if rivulets weren’t slowly trickling down the slow incline and around the bigger pebbles. The back of his trouser leg is warm and sticky almost down to the top of his boot.

“Huh,” says Grog, blinking down. At least that explains the pins and needles in his leg. “That’s, uh. Not. Good?”

“Not good, sure, let’s go with that.” Scanlan hurries closer and starts rummaging around Grog’s belt and trousers. Good thing Grog isn’t ticklish.

“Lookin’ for something?”

“Yeah, the bag – where is it?”

“I don’t have the bag,” says Grog, who doesn’t like that Scanlan’s usual grin disappeared. Scanlan’s always smiling. “I gave it to Keyleth, and she gave it to Percy.”

“Gave it to… Why?”

“He wanted to keep working on a ‘project’ bigger than his pepperbox. Said he needed the bag to keep the parts.”

“Okay, but you don’t happen to have a healing potion on you, do you?”

“Nah, they’re all in the bag. That’s also why I gave it to Keyleth: you lot need those potions way more than me.”

Scanlan stops frisking him and stares up at him.

“I guess, but what happens when you need one and you don’t have any on hand?”

“Then Pike heals me, gets me back up. Or Keyleth, or Vex, or you. I mean, you have magic, right?”

“Sorry, big guy,” Scanlan says slowly, “I’m beat. I don’t have anything useful left – most I can do right now is try to send a message thirty feet away or hurt somebody’s feelings, and neither works on rocks.” He searches his own pockets and adds with a grimace, “Damn, I don’t even have the fun stuff on me.”

“What fun stuff?”

“Just straps and ribbons and things.” Grog blinks; Scanlan shrugs. “You never know when you’re gonna meet somebody who’s down with a bit of bondage. But they’re all in my pack, and I put my pack in the bag of holding –”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Because it was heavy and I wanted to move quickly in case we found the thingy, or the other way around!”

That’s… a good reason, Grog muses. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that not everyone has his muscles and endurance.

Scanlan stands there for a second, his hands in his pockets, slouching slightly. He bites his lip, looks at Grog’s leg, and shrugs off the leather vest he uses as armour. Then he starts to undo the few buttons on his shirt that aren’t already undone.

“Uhh,” says Grog, baffled, “what are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m stripping.”

“Okay, but why? Oh, you mean you wanna, like, bang?”

Grog knows Scanlan likes having sex, a lot. Which is fair; so does Grog. Having sex is awesome. But this is Scanlan, his second best little buddy, the guy who never balks at going with him to houses of lady favours, one of the very few people he knows who never talk down to him or treat him like he’s too stupid to understand things. Grog loves him a lot, and the thought of having sex with people he loves is too weird to contemplate.

Also, while a few girls Grog had the best kind of naked fun with had dicks, he’s never been with a dude, and he has a feeling it’d be kinda weird, too.

So he sits up straighter and tries to recall the words Pike taught him in case someone was interested in him and he wasn’t.

“’Cause if you do, I am sorry,” he says, sounding out each word carefully, “you are a great person and I respect you very much, but I am not attracted to you like that.”

He must have got it right on the first try, because Scanlan chuckles as he takes off his shirt.

“You don’t know what you’re missing, buddy. Don’t worry, though, I will do my best to live with the sting of rejection.”

He eyes his shirt, then Grog’s thigh, and makes a whole-body eh gesture before walking right up to Grog. “No, my big, incredibly sexy goliath friend, I’m not trying to woo you. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d totally be DTF if, you know, you were interested and I’d get to not be dead by the time we’re done, but that’s not why you’re getting a strip tease.”

“So?” asks Grog, still puzzled. It was warm in the part of the cave where they fought the thingy; Keyleth said it’s because of some gas that makes it smell like walking into a fart at times. But Scanlan usually gets cold way before he does. Why did he take off his clothes?

“So, while we’re waiting for the others to waltz back in and save the day…” Scanlan stops, cocks his head to the side. “By which I mostly mean Pike. She’s amazing like that. Hopefully she still has energy for some spells left – but failing that, a bag full of healing potions works, too. Anyway,” he adds, crouching in front of Grog and trying to wedge the shirt under his thigh as gingerly as he can, “while we’re waiting, you’re getting a bandage so you don’t bleed to death. Or rather the funny word Vex said that time, way back, before Pike came into the picture… You know, the thing she tied around Vax’s arm when he got stabbed bad… What was it – sounded kinky, like pourniquey, or… Tourniquet! That’s it!”

The triumphant grin turns into a grimace when he has to pull on his shirt with all his might to fasten it properly. He’s so small there’s almost not enough material to tie a really tight knot, even when Grog gives him a hand and pulls on the sleeves as hard as he dares. So Grog also keeps his right hand firmly on the wound, half at Scanlan’s insistence and half because of a dim memory from when he was really young, of seeing a fellow member of the Herd clutching a gushing wound to keep the blood inside while other people ran for a healer. His father made him watch so he’d toughen out. Grog guesses it worked.

When they’re done, Scanlan takes a step back and a satisfied look at his handiwork with his fists on his hips.

“There you go. Deluxe bandage. I’ll be taking that shirt back when you’re done with it, though. That’s imported silk from Marquet.”

Grog watches the blood slowly seep into the fabric, dark on white, and frowns.

“Scanlan?”

“Yes, bud.”

“Do you really think I’ll bleed to death? ‘Cause that would be a shitty way to go.”

Scanlan’s eyebrows go up, his smile goes down. He goes to sit on Grog’s left and elbows him in the side.

“What? No, Grog, come on. You’ll probably go out fighting dragons and hydras, only you’ll be so old by then people will wonder How the hell is he still alive and still so awesome? Also, who is that extremely handsome gnome bard who seems so chummy with him? Do you think they’re single? Unless you’d prefer to die peacefully in your bed, surrounded by your kids and grandkids. That might not be so bad, either.”

“Pssh, are you kidding me?” Grog scoffs. “That last one sounds lame. I prefer the other one, it’s badass. Plus I’m a dude, so it’s not like I can have kids, right?”

Scanlan scrunches up his face.

“I mean. You don’t get to, you know, grow them inside you, but you do get to help make ‘em if you want some. As far as I know that’s the fun part anyway.”

Then, as Grog nods and does his best to look knowledgeable, he gives him a funny look.

“Grog.”

“Yes?”

“You… do know how kids happen, right?”

“Obviously,” says Grog, who has little to no idea, but who’d rather get stabbed by a thingy again rather than admit it.

Scanlan shuffles forward to perch himself on Grog’s good leg, just before his knee, and squints up at him.

“Okay. Spill. Where do you think babies come from?”

“’That a trick question?” Grog scratches the back of his head and tries to dredge up relevant memories. The topic’s never been of much interest to him. “Well, sometimes ladies get big, so they go to the healer’s tent and, well, they make the babies, I guess.”

About a year after he came to live with the Trickfoots, Pop-Pop Wilhand tried to explain what that entailed exactly. His explanation was long, rambly, and full of embarrassed hemming and throat-clearing. He said something about a man and a woman loving each other very much, then segued into flowers and bees, and by the time he reached the tadpoles Grog had checked out completely. He listened politely, or rather waited for Wilhand to finish his speech so he could go outside and help Pike chop up wood. Wilhand did so with relief and the pleased look of someone having Done Their Duty, and Grog walked away wondering what the hell that was about.

Technically he could ask Pike about it, of course, but he won’t. Either she got the same talk and didn’t understand either, or she knows a lot more than him and he’d look like an idiot.

It’s always hard to read Scanlan at the best of times, but at least he’s not laughing at Grog, just staring at him like he’s expecting more.

“Uh-huh. Okay. But before that?”

Grog is sitting in a puddle of blood that isn’t even someone else’s, his thigh started throbbing while he wasn’t paying attention, and he hates feeling cornered like this. His patience has limits. He crosses his arms against his chest and says in a huff, “I don’t know, mate, that looked like none of my business, so I didn’t ask, okay? Nobody ever managed to explain that shit properly, anyway, so I figured it was magic. Just works and no one really knows how.”

Scanlan looks blank for a few seconds. Then he smiles widely, and to Grog’s relief it’s not the kind of smile that means he’s gonna say something snarky.

“It’s not magic, buddy – well, not that kind of magic, anyway. It’s just sex.”

“What?” asks Grog gruffly.

“People make kids by having sex.”

“You’re messin’ with me.”

“I’m not!” exclaims Scanlan, throwing up his hands in the air. “I promise!”

Grog pauses to think. “…Really?”

“Yep. That’s why I said helping make them was the fun part, not actually making them.”

He did say that. Grog thinks some more.

“So… a dude really can’t, like. Grow a baby.”

“If he has a vag and the right insides, sure he can.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“But you need at least two people to bump uglies for that. One of each set.”

Grog taps his finger against his chin. “So, uh. How’s that work?”

And Scanlan explains, matter-of-factly, with normal words and all sorts of expressive gestures, what goes where and how. It doesn’t sound all that complicated. Why so many people clam up and go red about it is just baffling.

But then something disturbing occurs to him.

“Scanlan?”

“Oi?”

“Do I help make a baby every time I visit a house of lady favours?”

“Nah,” says Scanlan confidently. “There’s potions and cantrips for that kind of stuff. These ladies are pros, they know what they’re doing.”

“And the ladies that aren’t pros?”

Scanlan looks thoughtful for all of two seconds. Then he waves the thought away. “Like I said, potions and cantrips. I’m sure it’s fine. If you don’t forget to pull out in time it’s all hunky dory.”

“Oh, good.”

Then he remembers he’s supposed to keep a hand on his thigh, to help the doohickey do its thing. After he presses his palm flat on the wound again, though, he lifts his hand again to glance at it real quick, and frowns.

There’s a lot of blood on and under his leg. More than before. His palm drips with it and some of it is seeping up on the back of his hand from between his fingers. The doohickey did slow down the flow, but Grog’s pretty sure that so much blood on the outside rather than the inside is a bad sign. So’s the tingling that started in his fingers and has been creeping up to his elbows in the last few minutes.

Nothing he or Scanlan can do anything about, though, so he doesn’t bring it up.

Scanlan is humming absently, still sitting on Grog’s good leg. He leans back and yawns, then mutters, “Where’d they go, by way of Wildemount? We didn’t take so long going up, right?”

Grog shrugs. Without the sun or the night sky it’s always hard to tell the passage of time, so he stopped trying. Maybe it’s night outside and his body knows it, hence the impression that the ground is leeching warmth from his bones.

“Gettin’ cold too, huh?” he asks with a jerk of his chin to Scanlan’s bare chest. Scanlan shakes his head.

“Gods, no. This place is more stuffy than the Nine Hells. Well, maybe not literally, it’s probably even hotter down there, but I’m not sure it smells worse. Like… farts and rotten eggs. Ugh.”

“Can’t be that warm if I’m getting cold,” Grog points out, lower than he means to. Wait, when did it get hard to speak at a normal volume?

And why are his eyelids so heavy all of a sudden?

Scanlan’s gaze whips up to his face then down to his leg so fast Grog has trouble following. He springs up and sits astride Grog’s other knee, close enough to press a hand on the wound, right next to Grog’s. His hand is so tiny that it immediately looks like he dunked it in blood.

“Shit,” he says in a tone so sober it sends a chill up Grog’s spine. With the other hand he touches his earring. “Guys, can you hear me? Pike? Pike, we need you here, fast, it’s… Ah, fuck.”

Nobody answers. They’re still out of range. Numbers are stupid and make no sense, but ‘five hundred feet’ suddenly sounds like a lot anyway.

Numbers are stupid; Grog isn’t. He doesn’t need to be able to count to weigh up the odds and see that they’re starting to look bad. Like, bad bad.

The shirt Scanlan used as a doohickey has gone almost completely red, for one. So has the hand he’s pressing into Grog’s thigh with so much force – for him – Grog actually feels the weight of it. Maybe Grog should worry more about the dark that’s creeping up on the edges of his vision, but at this point it feels like too much pointless effort.

“Hey!”

Scanlan snaps his fingers in his face, making him start awake.

“None of that, you’re not going anywhere. Come on, you just gotta wait for the others. They’ll be here soon. Guys? I’m serious, get your asses down here stat. Tell you what, I’m gonna keep talking till one of you replies. I’m going to annoy the shit out of you and you’ll hurry back here just to get me to shut up. How’s that sound?”

Still no answer. Scanlan throws his head back and lets out a string of very creative swears. If Grog wasn’t halfway gone he’d congratulate him.

Gods, it is a shitty way to go. Bleeding out in the dark after fighting a thingy he didn’t even get to kill. Fighting dragons and hydras when he’s really old would’ve been so much more badass.

Somehow, without meaning to and even without much breath left, the words must have passed his lips, because he could swear Scanlan turns pale.

“Stop it, okay? You’re not helping. Forget the thingy, you’re not dying now just because of… Godsdammit! Guys! Help! Pike!”

The last word sends a jolt throughout Grog’s body. Pike is kind and bright, fierce and strong; she loves drinking and fighting and helping people. She would get sad if he died, and the world isn’t right when Pike is sad. Scanlan gets it. He’s always trying to make her smile or laugh.

“Come on, buddy, please don’t – PIKE! Oh guys, thank gods, just – no, shut up, get the fuck over here now! Pike… Please…”

Scanlan’s voice cracks a little on the last word. Grog didn’t know it could do that.

The last thought that successfully takes shape in his brain is that maybe this isn’t such a shitty way to go, after all. He saved Scanlan from the thingy, and Scanlan saved them both from the fall; and sure, he’s not taking a big badass monster with him, but he’s dying with a good friend at his side. It would have been a bummer to die alone, in the ass crack of the world, with miles and miles of rock between him and the open sky.

Grog’s right hand goes slack and slides down from his thigh.

Scanlan makes a strangled noise.

“Grog, don’t you fucking dare—”

Everything stops.

* * *

“—og. Grog. Can you hear me?”

There’s a voice in Grog’s ears, piercing through the fog, and he makes an effort to shake the cobwebs because Pike definitely sounds scared and she never does.

…Wait. This feels weirdly familiar, like a dream he’s already had.

Time pauses, rewinds. Grog recalls a fight, a fall, a friend – yeah, that definitely happened. His right thigh aches dimly, and exhaustion is weighing his bones. That tracks. But also, he’s alive, which definitely doesn’t.

Plus there’s a wet nose that smells of bear nuzzling the side of his head.

Voices burst out (“Hey furball! Back off, let him breathe!” vs. “Trinket, darling, give him some space”), but as usual there’s only one Grog really pays attention to.

Sure enough, when he works his eyes open, Pike is crouching just in front of him, very pale but smiling, looking up at him with tears in her eyes. Her holy symbol is still glowing faintly from between her clenched fingers and her dark hair is falling out of her crown of braids.

“Hey, buddies,” she whispers. “Welcome back.”

Her voice quivers a little, but the small hand laid on his chest is perfectly steady. Maybe it’s the residual warmth of whatever spell she hit him with, maybe it’s just because he’s surprised and happy to find himself not dead after all, or maybe it’s because he just loves Pike a whole lot and he’s glad to see her – the last vestiges of cold leave him.

“Hi, Pike.” He frowns. “Did I die?”

She chuckles, and lets go of her pendant to wipe her nose on her sleeve.

“No. Well. Maybe just a little,” she says, still with that weird combo of big smile and wobbling voice. “You gave all of us a hell of a scare, you know.”

All of us?

Indeed, now Grog’s eyes focus farther than Pike in the light of a torch planted into the ground, there’s Keyleth, staring at him with wide eyes, shoulders trembling just a little; Vax, a look of naked relief on his face so stark it startles Grog; Vex, one hand gripping Trinket’s fur and the other grasping Grog’s good leg – whether to prop herself up or to physically make sure he’s indeed alive is anyone’s guess; Percy, both fists clenching and unclenching as though of their own accord, breathing much too deeply and carefully to be natural; and Scanlan, sat slumped near Grog, his face almost as white as his shirt was before he took it off. Blood coats both his hands past the wrists and his eyes are almost as shiny as Pike’s.

“Told you,” he says with a weak smile, “dragons and hydras. Not some random thingy in a cave that smells like farts and rotten eggs. Also –”

He holds up the bag of holding and fishes out a sparkling red bottle that he hands out to Grog.

“There you go, big guy. Bottoms up.”

The healing potion must be one of the really good ones. It goes through Grog like a trail of fire, energy fizzing to his fingers and down to his toes. He doesn’t usually need potions to heal, so it’s odd to feel flesh knitting itself up and blood rushing along his veins again. His limbs still feel weird, and he has a feeling he’s going to need some rest before he’s back to full health, but life and strength are flowing through him once more.

Turns out Scanlan was right: it takes more than a thingy to kill Grog Strongjaw.

Vex takes the empty bottle from him and the bag from Scanlan, who barely reacts, and asks, “Better now, darling?”

“Yep, all good,” Grog replies. It’s not really true, and he doesn’t miss a look from Pike that says she’s going to keep an eye on him no matter what, but it feels kinda true, and that’s enough for now. “So what now? I mean, we’re done here, right?”

“I suggest we find a safe place to camp before we head out,” says Percy, looking around as though he expects another thingy to leap out of the shadows. Which wouldn’t surprise Grog overmuch, really. This place sucks.

They all agree, and after Vax suggests they set up camp where they stopped earlier, pretty close from here, most of them leave to do just that.

To Grog’s relief, nobody fusses over him more. He’s not used to people worrying about him outside of Pike and Wilhand. It weirds him out. Vax slaps his arm with a smile and walks away, Trinket padding after him; Keyleth climbs back to her feet and pats his shoulder awkwardly, though her smile is warm and genuine; Percy gives him a nod before following her, his breathing normal again.

And Vex tightens the bag’s drawstrings and puts it in his hands.

“Grog,” she says. “Um. Listen.”

Grog listens.

“I know you can take a hit better than anyone else. It takes a lot to knock you down, like… a lot. And I know today was, well, an anomaly. But I was thinking… You should keep the bag. You know, full time.”

“Okay,” says Grog, who’s waiting to see where she’s going with it before deciding if it’s worth getting angry about. He loathes being coddled. But Vex also essentially said he was a tough motherfucker, so that makes up for it. “Why?”

“Because you’re not just tough. You’re the fastest of all of us, so if anyone needs a potion or something else from the bag in the heat of battle, you can just run and give it to them, right?”

Oh. Yeah. That’s a pretty good reason. Good thing he didn’t get angry.

“As long as you don’t forget to take one yourself when you need it, okay?” Vex adds in a softer tone. “Anyone can need first aid at some point, dear. Even a barbarian built like a brick shithouse.”

“Right.”

She looks at him intently some more, as though there’s a question in there he’s supposed to answer. When it becomes obvious that he’s said all he wanted to say, she rises, winks at him, and leaves him with Pike and Scanlan.

Vex’s winks are something else. More often than not she uses them at other people like she fires her arrows, so being on the receiving end of a nice one for a change is a treat.

“What’s that on your leg?” Pike asks Grog as they all stand up.

Grog is about to reply ‘just some blood’, but then he remembers Scanlan’s shirt is still tied around his thigh and that’s why Scanlan’s holding his leather vest instead of wearing it.

“I forgot,” he says, “I did get first aid. Scanlan made a doohickey, look.”

Pike does look at the doohickey. Then at Scanlan. Then back at the doohickey, Grog, and then Scanlan again.

Scanlan stuffs his hands into his pockets.

“I mean,” he says just a little uncertainly, “I was tapped out of useful spells and I think that’s how you tie a tourniquet – but then again, you know, I’m a bard, if you asked me what rhymes with ‘tourniquet’ that’d be more my speed. Like, I might say ‘turning key’ but good luck fitting that in a song and it doesn’t really match the scans—”

Without warning Pike grabs him into a hug. An actual hug, so sudden Scanlan doesn’t even have time to say anything, and so tight he lets out a little breathless ooof. He goes an interesting shade of red. Although maybe that’s just because he just got crushed against chain mail.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, very quietly but so fiercely Grog has no trouble making out the words. “Just a minute more, and I wouldn’t have… He’d… Thank you.”

Well then. If Grog still had any doubt left that he really would have died down here without his best little buddies… He’s not afraid to die, as such, especially if it’s against something really badass or to protect someone he loves (which is not that many people). But he’s fucking glad he didn’t.

Scanlan looks at Pike (or rather the back of her head, mostly), looks at Grog, and, wonder of wonders, says nothing for once – just holds her back a little awkwardly, his vest dangling from his hand.

It doesn’t last long anyway. Pike lets go of him and steps back quickly, looking a little self-conscious, like she just only noticed he’s naked from the waist up. Chest hair or jewellery probably doesn’t count. And that’s funny, because she’s never like that around Grog, who rarely wears anything except his trousers, belt, and boots. Plus, now, the doohickey, which he manages to loosen but not quite untie; the knot is really tight and the congealed blood isn’t helping. So he shrugs it off for now and picks up both gnomes, setting one on each shoulder. Pike is a little heavier than Scanlan, because of the chain mail, but as usual it’s like carrying a couple of kittens.

There. Just as things should be.

“Hey, Scanlan,” he says, walking towards the others while Pike wipes her eyes and clings to his shoulder a little tighter than she usually does, “sorry your shirt got messed up.”

“It’s okay, buddy. It was for a good cause.”

“You know,” says Pike, “I think a tourniquet works better with a stick. I could teach you.”

“Well, not many sticks underground, but I suppose if needs be I can always use my—”

“Your what, Scanlan?”

“—flute! I was gonna say ‘my flute’! I am not risking the Cube just to make a dick joke, guys, come on.”

“Hey Pike, remember when Wilhand said babies come from birds and tadpoles? Turns out he was wrong.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. They actually come from people havin’ sex. Do you thinks he knows?”

“I… You know, I think you should definitely tell him next time we see him. Sounds important.”

“Pike? This Wilhand, he’s your… great-grandfather, correct?”

“Great-great-grandfather, why?”

“Oh, nothing. Hey Grog, be a pal and pass me my pack, will you, there’s a clean shirt in there. Also, tell me someone picked up my flute?”

Turns out Vax did.

Having friends, Grog reflects before they settle down around a campfire and take a flagon of ale from the bag, is indeed pretty great.

⁂

(uuughhh I'm still meh about the last sentence (it's been kicking my arse for the past two days at least) 😭 I'm waiting to see if/when my beta is available to look this over before I post it on AO3, but I will as soon as I can 💜)

EDIT oh!! I had fun with a 5e monster/NPC stat block builder and homebrewed a thingy :D Let me know if you think it's appropriate for a level 5-ish party! (ngl, I ripped the Deadly Leap feature from the bulette ^^')

What do you think? Total shit or could actually work?