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pushing500 · 5 months

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Randy Random decided that Salvatore the cat was not enough for our colony and sent us eleven chickens, a brachiosaurus (we hunted it for the fifteen units of kibble and three silver it was carrying), and a feralisk migration (which we steered well clear of).

AND THEN Randy sent three caravans in rapid succession, one which had Socks' wife (Socks is in prison atm), and one with Vasso's biologically-older, chronologically-younger brother.

We sold all our male chickens to one of the caravans, I didn't pay attention to which one it was, and now we are down to four out of eleven chickens, which is much more manageable.

A man named Purple Shark crashed near us, and we deigned to rescue him, but if he wants to stick around he'll be treated to the same fate as Socks and Blackdragon.

Speaking of Socks and Blackdragon...

They tried to break out together (how the tables have turned from Blackdragon holding Socks prisoner!!), and we decided now was as good a time as any to begin our violent conversion while our guest Purple Shark slept in the background.

Blackdragon was first up, and he saw our "reasonable ways" (what reasonable ways??) and converted. So it looks like we won't be eating him anytime soon, but he is still in jail until we can recruit him. We do have to wait twenty days before we can do the ritual with Socks, but if she converts in those twenty days, we'll just recruit her and be done with it.

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the-sycophant · 3 months

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WIP Wednesday

“Do you know what that means?” He didn’t respond. Of course he didn’t. A hand reached out to cup at his jaw, to turn his face one way, the other. He let her. So her attention glided over it, the details of him. The hook of his nose, how it bent and turned, crackled and erupted up like a heat filled street too many years left untouched, uncorrected. All the way up to the ridge of his brow, just as blotchy and purple as the rest of him. A thumb pressed into his cheek, to where it could force the coagulation under his eye to burst, making him grunt, jerk back. She let him. And she did not dare to bring that same thumb to her mouth, to slide it back and forth along her tongue and let his insides mingle with the outsides. With the dirt, the leather. She sighed around the idea, now moving to relax wrists against bent knees. The material of her gloves creaked with her self restraint, with the flexing of her fingers, the turn of her wrists. “It means you are outside the law.” She mumbled, thumb and forefinger rubbing in small circles together, working his blood around absently. Her tongue slid behind her teeth which chittered together with a clickity click click. “If I wanted to, these fingers of yours,” and she reached to touch them, felt how they twitched and turned as he shifted in his bindings, “I could clean them for you.” Soft lips, bruised lips moved over a knuckle, the same knuckle that had split her face twice over. Pressed to it, kissed it. The sound he made was…well, it was something. Disgusted? Detested? Distasted? Taste. “Could clean the meat all the way down to the bone, maybe make them a bit less sticky. And they wouldn’t care. They just care that you come back- you don’t even have to come back alive.”

Tagged by (TY!!) || @wpip-raham

#prompts #stories | seditious spiritual saucy #it ain't wednesday but #hmmm #have marlowe bullying someone #again #bring the desperate into cult-work #how dare they try and steal from HER caravan #night version of this pic

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leftski-if · 1 year

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RotC Snippet - Big News

A flashback to when Ruokar had some news to share with his brother.

Ruokar stands outside the shop, nervous energy fuelling a never-ending dance as he shifts back and forth on his feet. He's still reeling a bit from the news himself, but throughout his life he's always gone to his brother first when big things happen and he's not about to stop now.

Taking one final deep breath to steel himself, he pushes open the shop door and exhales as he steps through.

Magreth glances up from behind the counter at the sound and Ruokar freezes in place a moment before eventually managing to force an awkward smile. "Hey, Mags! I... thought you'd be upstairs."

"It's the afternoon on a workday," Magreth replies quietly, his brow furrowing.

Ruokar nods along as though he's barely registered what was said. "Right, right. So, hey, I have some news." When Magreth says nothing and continues to stare back at him expectantly, Ruokar clears his throat and continues. "I... Uh... Well..." One more deep breath. "Sera's pregnant."

There's no immediate response, and a long stretch of silence passes between the brothers as the shop falls remarkably still. Eventually, Ruokar asks, "You, uh, gonna say something?"

Magreth folds his arms, looking back at Ruokar with a discerning tilt of his head. "Are you the father?"

Ruokar opens his mouth to speak, then stops short, confusion momentarily breaking through the nerves. "I-- what? Of course I'm the father."

Magreth shrugs, glancing away. "It'd be awkward if I congratulated you and it turned out it wasn't yours."

Ruokar takes a moment to wrap his head around the statement, mustering every ounce of his self control to refrain from informing his brother that his response was, in fact, still awkward. Before he can dwell on it too long, however, the rest of what was said clicks. "Congratulate...? So you're not mad?"

"Even if I was, it's kind of late for that," Magreth replies, shrugging again. "But no, I'm not mad."

Ruokar nods along, relieved to hear that his worst fear won't come to pass. With that worry out of the way, however, a new one begins to take its place. He glances down at the floor before finding Magreth's eyes again. "Do you... think I'm ready?"

Magreth pauses, watching his brother carefully as he thinks over the question. "Do you think you're ready?"

Ruokar rolls his eyes at the unhelpful non-answer and begins shuffling his feet again. "I mean... I don't know. I've never done this before. Babies are a big responsibility. Huge, even. You-- You've got... books and stuff I could read, right?"

Magreth raises a skeptical brow. He's never known his brother to read voluntarily. Eventually, hesitantly, he nods, although he's not sure how helpful his assortment of academic texts will be in this situation. "Sure, if you want them."

Ruokar nods along absentmindedly, and Magreth isn't sure he's even heard the answer.

"Ruokar?"

The sound breaks him free from his scattered thoughts. Ruokar stops fidgeting as his name is called, looking back at his brother once more.

"Are you happy?"

Despite the tumult of the storm in his mind, Ruokar only has to think for a moment before he knows the answer. His expression softens and this time, his smile comes naturally, blooming wide and unbidden as he thinks about the future. His future. His child. Whatever else may be in store for him, the very idea has him ecstatic.

"I... yeah. Yeah, I really am," he says, the grin growing with each awestruck word. "I mean, it's kinda terrifying, too, but... I'm so excited, Mags -- I'm gonna be a dad!"

Magreth gives a satisfied nod, his normally stony expression breaking into a small smile. Even for someone as stoic as himself, Ruokar's joy is infectious.

He emerges from behind the counter, approaching his brother and clapping him gently on the shoulder. For an occasion as special as this, he can put up with a little touch.

"Then you're ready."

#leftski writes #character: magreth #character: ruokar #raiders of the caravan #cw pregnancy #I've been wanting to write how Ruokar told Mags about Lucy for ages but it never really fit in the story so....here!

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dreampearls · 4 months

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j ust. wait. hear me out. wait stop where are you going dont leave hey wait

#THIS IS SO 😭😭😭 like on one hand no of fucking course a caravan being under monster attavk is a plot beat its genshin impact #its an incredibly reliable and generic way of making a story happen this isnt saying anything im drawing a line where there is absolutely #nothing BUTHEAR ME OUT OKAYYY. OKAY.. OKAY!!!!!!! AMBER KNOWING THIS ABT HER GRANDFATHER #& SEEING THE BLACK FIRE INCIDENT HAPPEN REAL TIME W COLLEI AND HER BEING IN HER POSITION AS AN OUTRIDER HER CHOOSING #TO LOVE AND CARE FOR COLLWI ANYWAYS AUGUGGHHHH heywehere are you goigndont leave im not done yet

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thisfuckingdork · 1 month

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MOTW npcs that I absolutely adore playing

#Millhouse the teen worker at the local fish and chips shop #who hates his job and does everything possible to waste customers time #and Marn the kindhearted owner of the local caravan park #who always has a story to tell and will talk your ear off until neither of you remember what the question you asked was in the first place #my art #monster of the week #motw #lakeview myrtle #furry #furry art

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daisyachain · 1 year

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there’s one version of an f/m/m triangle that crops up so often I’m surprised there isn’t at least a tvtropes/vernacular name for it. Miyokichi/Kiku/Shin. Molly/Fitz/Fool. Asuka/Shinji/Kaworu. Futaba/Taichi/Touma. not-really-but-you-could-shove-it-in-here Luthien/Beren/Finrod. Utena/Touga/Saionji is a twisted spun-on-its-head version of it. Specifically comprising:

masculine male character A: either is the protagonist or a character on to which male viewers can project.

female character B: a secondary character and A’s official love interest, often kept apart from A by story/circumstance/gender roles. Shows some resentment of the trials she’s put through by the story in being A’s lover such as being shoved to the side, cut out of his life, or put in danger.

less masculine male character C: another major character, A’s devoted sidekick, feminine and/or conspicuously cold toward women or sexuality, somewhat ill-used by A but not resentful about it, as a contrast to B.

The dynamic is used pretty equally by female and male creators, though probably with different purposes. Outside the story, there’s a clear explanation for how the roles are divided: men are main, women are peripheral. Obviously the female love interest has to be on the margins of the story. Obviously the male main character has to have an ally in-story who can bounce dialogue back. Any human person has to have a best friend (for men, has to be male) and a lover (for men, has to be female). The major character male bestie and the minor character female gf is the minimum character dynamic you need to sustain the main character as a believable construction.

Except within the story, the dynamic begs far too many questions. On B’s part: her other half and love interest uses her for sex once every few chapters and dumps her to go off on another plot-relevant adventure. She’s kept in the dark, talked down to, pushed away, and distrusted. Her place at her sweetie’s side is occupied by Some Dude and no matter how much she puts into their relationship, she’s always going to be a prize for after the mission. Why does she stay with him? What could possibly attract her about this bestubbled grunt machine whose passion for the sword outmatches anything she’s given him?

On C’s part: he gets used as an emotional support crutch, designed to service his best friend’s every need at the expense of his own goals or story. He’s a housewife, he’s a domestic, he does every thankless story task with a smile because he has to provide the exposition/set up the plot/set the plan in action that carries the main male character to victory. He doesn’t have a love interest of his own, meanwhile the most important person in his life is obsessed with a woman he barely speaks to. Why should he care so much about someone who only takes? Why is he committed to this one-way friendship? What does he think of taking the backseat, providing support, submerging his own will for the sake of a person instead of an ideology?

On A’s part: if he’s a red-blooded heterosexual male character who pursues a woman as is acceptable, why does he dig himself so deep in with his designated ally? Through dialogue and because he has to in order to show the audience, he exposes his heart and soul to C and keeps him in his pocket for as long as we are watching, so why then does he cast him aside so easily? He invests the most time and energy into his relationship with C, cultivating love and loyalty there, but he draws the line so firmly in the sand that the audience is sure he’ll never, ever step aside for one minute to follow the friend. Why does he choose a man for his emotional battery? Why doesn’t he communicate with his supposed partner? Why does he choose to use B and C for sex and solace respectively, and why don’t they ever mix?

The gender dynamics wrap around to simple: women aren’t up to being equal partners to a cool guy, so you need a male wife to do everything for you and appreciate the protagonist’s sick abilities. romance with a man is perverse and impossible, so you need a female love interest to prove that the protagonist isn’t gay and fulfil the audience’s needs. But in-between all of that you could ask some interesting questions of the spoke character, A, the male protagonist whose actions are taken as normal. the question being: bro. what’s wrong with you

#kelsey rambles #aaaaaand the only thing that satisfactorily calls the A-character on his mistreatment is the podcast CARAVAN. which is not good #actually i'd go as far as to say it's bad #rgu goes into it a little but it's nowhere near the main focus of the series #using asuka-shinji-kaworu as the example that just sucks so bad #shinji's treatment of asuka is so horrible and misogynistic and despite her screentime. in shinji's mind she's never more than peripheral #and gets dumped at the last second and turned into a corpse. she's an object of desire and he refuses to recognize the ways they're the same #on the other hand shinji loves and idolizes kaworu.....only in as far as kaworu is his own dream guy who gives him everything he wants #and never makes even the slightest hint of a glimmer of expectation of anything from shinji in return #the moment kaworu's desires become explicit--he's not only killed but erased from the story altogether #eva rebuild 4.0 does this in the most insulting way possible by farming him off with....rei?#not to try and take eva rebuild seriously but the way it expands on kaworu and sidelines asuka is somehow insulting to both of them #even moreso than the original series was. which is saying something #someday i have to read the eva manga because i hear it takes kaworu in a more problematic direction that is still a direction and so better #or as for SGRS--shin is far more loving and devoted to kiku than he is to any woman and takes a killing blow for him #he watches him in life and guides him through the underworld. he gives more to kiku than he gives to anyone.#yet as a character any possibility of like-liking kiku is denied. what's the damage there?#how does it make story sense? why does kiku have a more serious relationship with a woman than the ostensibly straight shin?#the answer is The Misogyny but even then it's jarring to have shin's plain love be obfuscated with the constant references to being straight #as opposed to kiku. who actually has girlfriends and not one-night stands #it's nonsensical to read shin as a straight man and yet any possibility of him returning kiku's feelings is barred off blacked out redacted #leaving us with a dog's breakfast of a dynamic that IS fun. because in this case it's intentionally bad. and the author is winking at us

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artofhelium · 2 months

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Take a walk Swords at hand Origin so fierce It supersedes command

#art #sketch #artofhelium #caravan stories #arbo judas

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tmgstudios · 1 year

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environmental storytelling

#true story. almost crashed my car to that song LMAO #literally because it was to much of a banger i forgot about the road #rattling bones #shitposts #caravan palace #lone digger

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ehlnofay · 9 months

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Summerfest Day 7 - SWORD

“Shut up,” Efri whispers loudly, fitting as much venomous demand into it as she can while still keeping quiet. “They’ll hear you.”

Kazari flicks an ear and trills good, one of about ten of their motions Efri’s been able to memorise so far, but she doesn’t think they mean it; if they did, they wouldn’t be helping her lift the sword in the first place.

It’s a cool sword. The blade is silver – Efri’s seen it – though right now it’s hidden in a dark leather scabbard lashed to a back frog. The guard is silver, too, with corners so neat it looks like it wouldn’t need the blade to cut someone. The hilt is wrapped in black leather. And it’s huge – standing up it’s probably about the same height as her and what must be at least ten times as heavy. She had to beg Kazari to help her sneak it out from where it was left near the tent – she couldn’t have hoped to move it otherwise. She’s still trying to figure out the trick of it, the scabbard resting on the back of Kazari’s neck, the stitching caught in her hair. She’s not impressed. Sissel is more enthusiastic, though pretty obviously only because Efri is – but she keeps getting nervous, because they’re not supposed to borrow the sword, and she’s always a stickler for these things.

J’matha, Efri thinks, will understand. It’s such a cool sword! And he’s pretty cool, most of the time – lets her stand on his shoulders, sometimes, and plays games with her that most of the others in the caravan don’t have the patience for. Lets her do almost anything except hold his sword. But he’s not using it now, and no-one’s going to tell him, so –

There is a trembling in the snowy underbrush. A shaking of bushes, a snapping of twigs. And then, because Efri has the worst luck in the entire world, J’matha steps out, squeezing between a rimy tree trunk and the quivering leaves of what might be a bare snowberry bush. “There you are,” he says, pauses; smiles, Efri thinks, though it’s a bit hard to tell with him. He doesn’t make faces quite like the other Khajiit do but he can’t make them like humans do, either. “And there’s my claymore. I was wondering where that got to.”

It's not very feasible to try to hide it behind her back, for multiple reasons; Efri squints at him from across the clearing and chooses redirection. “What are you doing here?”

“Khasir sent me to tell you the farmers have finally come out to trade,” J’matha replies, squinting back. “He wants to know what you want. Tsradaro’s angling for scallions and I think Shirri-la was insisting on beef. What are you doing?”

Efri – had not prepared an excuse, actually; J’matha wasn’t supposed to find them. She can practically feel Sissel’s anxiety emanating from the space behind her, even though Sissel knows that J’matha won’t be angry (probably), and it’s throwing her off a bit. She says, “I needed to cut my hair.”

There is a momentary pause. Kazari looks at her with what she suspects is incredulity; she can hear Sissel making an odd little breathy noise, and normally she’d suspect it’s crying or something close, because Sissel does that quite a bit – but Sissel’s been doing well with it all, lately, getting chatty with the caravan and helping with cooking and letting them buy her new clothes and once Efri showed her a weird slug and made her squeal and then she didn’t cry about waking them all up after, so Efri doesn’t think she’s crying now. Which is quite annoying. Because it means she’s laughing at her, which is just mean.

It's not even a lie. Efri does need to cut her hair. It’s gotten to a silly length where it brushes her shoulders if she hunches them, and she likes to keep it just below the chin. That just isn’t the reason she borrowed the sword.

Judging by how J’matha’s staring at her – forehead wrinkled up in a way she can see even through his stripes, one ear flicked forward, pupils dark in the round yellow-gold of his irises – he knows that that’s not the reason, too. He doesn’t smile with his eyes like Kazari or Tsradaro or Khasir or Shirri-la do – he curls the edge of his mouth, bright and toothy, and says, “Try again, kid.”

Efri sticks up her chin. “There’s monsters,” she tells him, “in the forest. Really scary ones. Spiders big as a house. We need to kill them. To protect you.”

J’matha, one of the caravan’s two ridiculously huge bodyguards, only grins wider. He gestures at Sissel. “Your friend there,” he says, “makes lightning with her hands. Your other friend lights our campfire with a breath. I don’t think you need my sword.”

“I can’t do any of that, and I need to help them,” Efri argues. She is gripping the hilt of the sword very hard; her hair is falling in her face. (Definitely needs a cut.) She tosses her head to get it out of her eyes. “Come on,” she says after a moment, boots sinking into the snow. “Please?”

Kazari chuffs something that, considering the look on her face, Efri thinks she is glad not to understand. J’matha cants his head and says, “Efri. My sword is heavy for me. You can’t use it – it’s not safe.”

“I can,” Efri insists, because she resents the implications of that argument; if he’d only give her time to figure it out, she’d be able to manage holding it on her own, probably. Maybe. It is very heavy, but so’s a lot of things. She’s strong.

(Although. Efri has learned a lot these last couple weeks, not least about Khajiit and how they work and all the cool shapes they can come in – from Kazari who’s bigger than a sabre cat to Shirri-la who looks, to an unaware eye at least, extremely similar to the cats that used to sleep in Ennis’ shed and catch the rats in the inn, to two-legged cat-folk like Tsradaro, or even apparently some that look a lot like elves, though Efri hasn’t met any of them yet. The twins are what’s called Cathay-raht, which means they are big. Efri doesn’t think she’d be able to clear their height if she stood on Sissel’s shoulders. She could probably fit her whole body into one of J’matha’s trouser legs, though she hasn’t been able to test this, because Sissel didn’t want to go along with her prank to make it look like his pants were walking around on their own and it wouldn’t have worked with just her. The point is, J’matha is huge, and he’s strong, because he has to be to help carry stuff and defend the caravan if they need it. So if his sword is heavy to him, then logically, Efri is facing pretty bad odds.)

(She still thinks she can make it work, though. Probably.)

“Kazari,” J’matha says. His rounded Pale accent leans a bit on the vowels; it’s one Efri’s becoming more and more familiar with as they wend their way up north to Danstrar. His teeth dig awkwardly into his lip. “Would you mind, eh –”

With a chirp of assent, Kazari nimbly steps away (and Efri’s forever in awe of how spry she can be when she’s so big, it’s always incredible), letting the scabbard end of the sword thunk into the snow. The tug of it on the hilt nearly yanks Efri’s arm out its sockets. She glares at J’matha across the clearing and drags at it as best she can.

She’s heaving and hauling and hoisting. It’s not doing too much good. The scabbard slides a scant few centimetres through the snow.

“I don’t think it’s working,” Sissel says, and she definitely sounds like she’s been laughing. Efri throws a scrunched-up face over her shoulder at her.

The weight of the blade runs into a root hidden under the blanket of snow and the jerk of it being stopped short nearly tears it from her fingers altogether. Efri turns to glare at the sword frog.

“This sword’s stupid,” she says petulantly. (She doesn’t mean it. It’s still very cool.) She kind of wants to drop it on the ground, but that would be very rude to do to someone’s prized belongings, especially when that someone is part of a group that just bought her new shoes and dress and mantle half a week ago. She holds it out as best she can to J’matha instead, and sulkily ignores the way his eyes glitter as he crosses the clearing to take it.

Kazari jostles her teasingly and she nearly drops it again.

“Thank you,” J’matha says, so jaunty she feels she almost can’t be sullen, and takes the broadsword out of her hands. (If it is heavy to him, too, he doesn’t show it.) He doesn’t bother to buckle the frog on properly, just holds it awkward in his arms; asks, “Why do you want to nick my sword so bad, anyway?”

Efri shrugs. “Just seems like it would be fun to use.”

Swords are cool. This is an objective fact. And it would be nice to have a more concrete skill, out here where she’s no help for navigating and all she can do is wrangle her friends and sneak Shirri-la into shops to get them better trading goods. If she had a big sword, nothing could ever touch them.

J’matha’s tail lashes, the white tip trailing in the snow. (That must be cold.) “Sword’s not the only weapon in the world,” he says, hefting it in his arms. “Taz uses an axe and all. You ever heard of quarterstaffs? You’ve got your stick.” He jerks his chin at the stick lying in the snow for emphasis.

“Course I’ve heard of a staff,” Efri tells him. She wriggles out her fingers – they kind of ache, now, after clinging to the hilt so long. “But it’s for herding, not hitting.”

The trees around them look very dark and leafless, snow streaking along the tops of their branches. J’matha says, “Why not both?”

Efri considers this.

Her old flock is out in the Whiterun plains, about now. Efri hopes they’re eating loads of grass. Above, the sky is dimming; the first star is out.

“I want turnips,” Efri decides, “if they have them.” She doesn’t know if turnips grow this far north, or if Rorikstead’s climate is about their limit. She likes turnips, though. They’re good for eating raw, like apples, cold and crisp and sweet if they’re young enough.

J’matha grins. “Go ask,” he says, the Pale accent pulling on the a again. Then he makes a face. “Hopefully they’re still trading by now.”

#I have a couple pieces to post about efri & the gang travelling with the khajiit caravan :) they're a lot of fun to write #I love writing things focused on the one million side characters I make up for single story beats #tesfest23 #oc tag #efri #sissel #kazari #j'matha #my writing #fay writes #skyrim #tes #tesblr #khajiit

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