don't expect consistency from me. I came here for Undertale and ended up falling into every fandom I could on the way. currently maining Hermitcraft and Life Series. don't always tag spoilers, be careful
Riding for 2 days straight probably wasn’t good for his health. No, it definitely wasn’t good for his health especially considering that he was expecting to find conflict at the end of his journey. Confronting Olsted tired and delirious wasn’t a good idea, even if he wanted to get there and back as fast as possible.
A day’s ride out from Thistle Hill is where he finally decides to set up camp. He can sit, eat some jerky, and be rested enough for tomorrow.
As soon as he gets comfortable he’s already asleep.
He wakes up to hands grabbing his arms and a sharp kick to the stomach.
Consciousness hits him like a truck as he opens his eyes to torchlight illuminating way too many limbs for his still delirious brain to parse out into individual people. He had been discovered somehow, and by the pain still radiating from his chest, they weren’t nice.
His body reacts faster than his brain, already beginning to kick out at his attackers, trying to free his arms enough to grab one of his knives or to activate his spell components. He flails for a bit before feeling his foot connect with somebody’s chest. Hard.
He watches the figure stumble back, loosening his grip just enough for Legs to wrench his arm away, grabbing one of his knives from his belt and throwing it up into a blade barrier. Even though he’s not directly holding the knife, he still feels as the blade sinks into one of his attackers, blood spurting from the wound and onto his shirt. A different figure responds with a punch to the face making him see stars as his concentration drops.
With one arm free though he has more options. First step, get his attackers off of him. He sneaks his free hand into his component pouch and channels his mana into one of the pieces of iron he grabs. The iron begins to vibrate as the figures surrounding him are shoved away, one of them holding on so hard he leaves scratches along Leg’s arm as he’s thrown back.
Second step, make some distance. Well, that was the plan but without the figures holding him up he quickly collapses back to the ground, grunting as he lands weirdly on his arm and knocks his head onto the packed earth. He tries to scramble back up but there are already people on top of him again, holding him down and grabbing at his arms.
He’s frantic at this point, kicking and slashing at anyone within range, his eyes darting around, looking for any possible exit. There were even more of them then he had first thought, at least 7 or 8 of them that he could see at this point. It was too many for him to fight off even with his magic. Was he gonna make it out of this alive?
He slashes at as many of them as he can but eventually one of them catches hold of his wrist, twisting until the blade drops uselessly into the dirt. He watches helplessly as one of the bandits grabs a sturdy rope and begins binding his hands with it. That’s when he hears a familiar voice that makes his blood run cold.
“String him up.”
He whips his head around and there he sees him.
Olsted is just as he remembered, long white hair and beard, massive scar cutting through his ear, and big, larger than any alchemist had any right to be. Looking at the bits of armor now adorning his figure it seems there was a reason for his size after all.
He can’t take in the sight of his old master for long, however, because he quickly finds a rope around his neck and then he’s being hoisted up, just enough for the rope to cut into his airflow until he can’t breathe.
As he chokes and gasps for breath, he hears Olsted laugh from somewhere in front of him. “Were you out here looking for me? Crawling back to your old master now that the Academy’s no longer enough to protect you?” Olsted snarks. Legs vision is beginning to go dark around the edges and he can feel himself slowly losing consciousness.
“Well, I’m afraid you're out of luck. You wouldn’t have found me at Thistle Hill even if you had made it there. But thanks to you foolishly walking all the way out here alone, The Shield can finally be rid of you and your stupid Iron magic. I do feel a little bad that you won’t be around to see our plans come to fruition, but oh well.”
Legs’ vision was scarcely more than pinpricks now and it was taking all his willpower to even stay conscious but those extra seconds of consciousness gave him exactly the opening he needed. Most of the bandits had backed away and let their guards down meaning he finally had the distance he needed to escape.
Reaching his mana out, he feels for the knife he had dropped earlier in the scuffle. Latching onto its blade he throws it with all his might, straight through the rope suspending him off the ground.
As soon as the tension is released he falls to the ground like a sack of potatoes, but he doesn’t have the time to recover. As soon as he can breathe again he’s already calling for his wolf, hoisting himself up into the saddle and speeding off as fast as he can go.
He doesn’t stop until he can see touches of orange along the horizon.
Little Pup, I'll Teach You The Ropes (Someone In This Godsforsaken Kingdom Has To)
AKA Bear got distracted from their mini-series by another, larger project. Alert the church elders we have an unprecedented scandal.
Huge props to @mcytblraufest for putting on the event that has consumed my fic writing life for the last two months, the mods and the community are amazing
Huge shoutouts as well to the following people for keeping me (somewhat) sane the last two months and helping out with art, with editing or just keeping me company
@the-bittern-cold, for their amazing art which can be found here!
@itsrh0 for helping with editing and sanity
@stellarfoam For keeping me company and helping me lock in
@redstonebug For readthrough, motivation and sanity
Props to the flight fan discord as well for letting me get my grubby little bear paws on some of the head canons that made their way into the fic. I put the words in the doc, but this wouldn't exist if it wasn't for these guys above
Summary:
Legundo doesn't talk about what led him to the dragon rider's academy. It's too fresh, too painful. He just wants a new life where he can be useful, be helpful. Its just him, his Daemon and, now, his dragon. His dragon! Why should he focus on the past when there's a whole new life unfolding in front of him?
Only, Legundo has never been around so many Daemon-hybrids before and he's discovering very quickly that for all that Olsted taught him alchemy and tinkering, he neglected A LOT of other, very important things that he really should have known. Nesting? Co-grooming? Grappling? Words that he knows the dictionary definitions for, but in practice he's stumbling around blindly.
Enter Juniper. She just wanted a friend, and someone she could trust with her last letter, but instead she ended up with a very anxious, clueless puppy to look after. Well, no matter! He's her responsibility now and she looks after what she claims as hers.
Now if only he would stop being such a brat, everything would be perfect.
Warnings: None!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
functionally suicidal character saying “I would die for you” to their significant other and its like. I get the sentiment, honey, but if a hot dog vendor told me he’d sell hot dogs for me, I wouldn’t feel very moved now would I
for funsies yall can have a little preview of that one animatic im working on cause it's taking me a bit to work on it
run cycle will go between all four, sausage's segment extends into zam and graecie's segment for the time being until i finish animating all of them just so it completes the verse :P
song is Seven Dollars by Happy Birthday Mr Baskets
Hanahaki disease is a psychosomatic illness. It's a thing that your body does in response to stress over constantly repressing/concealing your feelings in settings with high background magic. It's like you've been ignoring pain for a long time and suddenly your vision starts going dark, because your affected body is just YANKING on random alerts trying to get you to PAY ATTENTION there is a PROBLEM. Yes the flowers do really exist. So do non-magical psychosomatic symptoms. The flowers aren't special.
This does of course open up the trope to options for non-romantic concealed feelings. Which I think is great. There is something viscerally satisfying about the person who seems so outwardly chipper coughing and hacking and spitting up Depression Flowers so now everyone has to know they're hurting. Isn't there?
some characters just need to run away from their current circumstances and survive (just barely) on the streets or in the wilderness for a while, you know? i don't think it's necessarily the most efficient path to healing and it's certainly not the least painful/traumatic one but sometimes a character has been so stripped of agency and you just want to see them run away and forcibly shift their genre to survival thriller......
This took way too long so I don't particularly like the comic anymore but I think Grian would have needed a good huh after all that emotional stuff hehehehe
stares bigly. hi i would like to hear the storm kingdom info dump. i apologize for how long this is going to be feel free to copy/paste and break it up under a cut or something if you do reply to it.
some particular bits im curious about:
What is Storm Kingdom's general climate, besides the obvious heavy rainfall. It seems like Summer Kingdom has multiple climates/biomes within it, so I presume Storm Kingdom is similar? are there more temperate areas vs tropical? Are the land areas more marshy/boggy/ghost forests overall or are there more areas of solid land? i know at least some areas are mountainous and we know of folks living in caves - so that's some solid land, but is that the usual/overall or more rare? The amount of rain would make me presume Storm Kingdom is mostly freshwater, especially if they're on the windward side of a mountain range (which i presume puts Summer Kingdom in the rain shadow) so you'd have the glacial(?)/mountain run-off as well. How much of Storm Kingdom is bodies of water? Canyons? etc? I know some folks were also wondering if Storm Kingdom is mostly rain or if it has areas of more snow/blizzard format of storms? Or if it has changing seasons in general. I saw the recent one of Juniper's diary entries mentioning the fluctuation of the storm, so that's at least one variable. Would any of those areas be more regionally-focused? (Like where Juniper is from being mostly fluctuating rain, but other areas in Storm Kingdom maybe getting fluctuating forms of precipitation like more snow/sleet).
Slight aside to that i suppose - so obviously the kingdoms are split seasonally. We know Tegrith has two seasonal areas, which would presume it's located in either Autumn kingdom and Autumn kingdom has a warmer region and colder region, or it's at the border between a warmer kingdom and Winter kingdom. Some folks have wondered if Storm Kingdom *is* Winter Kingdom in a four-seasons system, but I was presuming Terraventus is more of a five or six-seasons system (especially with the note that Storm Kingdom used to be part of Summer Kingdom, or at least parts of Storm), with a Summer/Monsoon (Storm)/Autumn/Winter/Spring, or Prevernal/Vernal/Estival/Serotinal/Autumnal/Hibernal if six seasons. Is that the case of it being more of a five/six-seasons split?
What's the flora/fauna like? Beyond the obvious storm ravens, of course. We know about some birds (i would presume waterfowl and similar are more common?), bugs, and small cave animals (reptiles/amphibians and maybe some fish?). We know large mammals are seemingly uncommon, at least inside the caves/to the degree that they're largely unavailable to residents of the kingdom. Are aquatic or semi-aquatic animals common? Either inside or outside of the caves. I know that one post discussing headcanons you reblogged mentioned fish as a food source may or may not be on the table depending on how corruption can spread through water. I presume frogs as a food source would be similar, especially depending on how sensitive frogs are to ecological changes relates to corruption. I am also personally biased for the potential inclusion of porcupines, since they live in temperate and tropical areas and also have a fun affinity for salt which could be neat for the caves + adding more variety of quills into the resource pool beyond feather quills. Wolves are obviously ridiculously common in Summer Kingdom (and i am absolutely picking up on the ravens/wolves thing. thats VERY fun i am enjoying it greatly), is there a similar predominant animal besides the ravens in Storm or is it just them? Snakes? Alligators/crocodiles? Sharks, dolphins, manatees? Elephants? Beavers? Fantasy creatures? Giant bugs? steeples fingers. what's the food web in Storm. i will be thinking about this. Similarly, what plants are there? We know about the hydroponics, and i presume other plants that might be tended to with more water might be available (rice, cranberries?). Are trees common? What kind of trees or other large plants are there? (Flight Fan Discord had very extensive discussions on what plants they might have access to for farming textiles or paper.) I know fungi and similar were also discussed. Would those be more predominant? Any particular kinds?
What types of fabrics/textiles/similar do they have access to? the Flight Fan discord was discussing that silk would probably be a major one, between silkworms and potentially if they had found a means to utilize spider silk (which would also be fun if silk is among Storm Kingdom exports to Summer). I was also looking at what types of other animal products they might have, like furs/wools/pelts and types of leathers beyond large mammals/large livestock, especially more exotic leathers like reptiles, stingray, etc. (we discussed that storm raven leather is probably out, but if there's any other large birds they could have something akin to ostrich/emu leather.) Maybe small livestock/farmed animals like rabbits/squirrel/etc. Presumably stuff that would be too small or not good quality for most bookbinding. Garment construction would also heavily depend on what types of plant and animal product ratios they have access to. I put way too much thought into this. I really want to know these things for character design purposes.
Similarly on garment construction - Legs mentioned the "Storm Kingdom uniforms" in Thistle Hill including large cloaks. Could have been a lie or the fake uniforms, but Juniper (and it seems some of their sisters?) have a shawl or similar, so is layering common? Are big cloaks common? Is Storm Kingdom commonly cold or is really warm and humid? What are the common colors? (Based on Juniper and their family I was presuming green might be one - which is quite fun for being opposite Summer Kingdom's purple + being the color of particularly strong storms. Also relatively easy to achieve with natural dyes that they might have access to - especially since said dyes are colorshifted more green/brown using iron! which is abundant! it's all coming together...). Are there particular means through which residents handle the rain in their wardrobes? I was looking at traditional means of waterproofing boots while fiddling with Storm Kingdom clothing designs.
Just generally I am thinking A Lot about what kind of accessorizing and detailing Storm Kingdom has on their clothing/etc (glass beads? ceramic beads? metal adornments? gemstones? quills? feathers? scales? squinting at the skin designs for Juniper's family + Juniper's shawl detailing has been the longest i've stared at pixels in my life i fear). Between the definite birds and (biased-)maybe porcupines it'd be an excellent excuse to give Storm kingdom quillwork which i am VERY biased towards. we can always get more Indigenous in our fantasy!!!! (especially since I know some folks were getting Thunderbird vibes from the storm ravens and i am absolutely here for it, especially considering Storm Kingdom/Summer Kingdom dynamics and some Indigenous stories across cultures about the Raven and his association to the sun. I like these vibes a lot.)
What do some of the traditions/culture of Storm Kingdom look like, if you've thought about that much? I was theorizing that because of the lack of access to bookbinding materials, written documentation would be more likely to occur on clay tablets/engravings/paintings and murals/etc similar (possibly reason why Juniper is so buff working in a library job? carrying stone/etc tablets around to transcribe onto paper?) and oral tradition might be more prevalent? Which would make what you've said about how Storm Kingdom operates with telling truth with lies being more through omission or more uncommon be very fun in internal consistency, since that'd be somewhat necessary for that being the predominant history-keeping format. Would also make Juniper's hunger for physical records a fun cultural detail. I am chewing greatly on all of this.
I love the Flight worldbuilding so much!!! Absolutely everyone has been getting so fun and going absolutely ham with it. We *are* enthusiastically taking notes and we adore having community discussions about this. Genuinely Keld, the fairies, the Flock, Mars, Tegrith/Thistle Hill/other little towns on borders, the different kingdoms, everything with the environmental interactions of the dragons and other animals, etc etc is SO so much fun to dig my teeth into. This is my jam and I'm having a great time.
Thank you!!! ^v^ - @redstonebug
THESE ARE INSANELY GOOD QUESTIONS! I’m gonna consult and see what I can say, because I already started typing and explanation and ran into important info I can’t reveal because everything is soooo cause and effect. I WILL COME BACK!
I'm so happy people like that stupid gif I had to try to make it, like, 5 separate times. I do not know how to make gifs.
This gif was born out of my own experience with a small group of friends who became obsessed with this little guy. It began with the "summoning friends to hang out" circles:
...and evolved from there (featuring other server emotes by @gh0st-s0da, which you can find on their ko-fi)
(I don't have to hide who said that one because that's me lmao)
Anyways we put yippeegundos in half the messages we send in that server it's an absolute mess. Thank you for creating such a goofy little guy
spaceshroom doodle page!!! was meaning to do one cause i love this duo a lot but then we got even more yesterday so i simply had to include that. they're so silly <3
Feel free to reblog for other people to vote. DO NOT SEND HATE TO ANYONE FOR WHAT THEY VOTED. This is merely for fun and to see what people genuinely think.
