I have been a fan of the underland chronicles for 16 years. I spend time on its tumblr page, but I don't usually post on it though because I consider TUC on of the more nuanced series I have read and i could day that has not already been said. I made 1 post a couple years ago though where I answered a frequent posters theory about Gorger and twirltoung being siblings with my own theory that the rats Razor and Goldshard were Ripred's siblings (this would make the Bane both Razor and Ripred's nephew). That theory was reblogged a couple times back then and I even saw it referenced recently.
I might be late for TUC month, but I finally thought of some more posts that I want to make another post of. Let's talk about Pearlpelt/The Bane and his relationships with his parents/gaurdians.
He had 7 that I can name.
The first two are his bio parents Goldshard and Snare. We know Snare was at the start the Bane's downward spiral. He was the first to introduce violence, fear, and gluttony to The Bane when he killed the other pups in the litter because the rats were starving and Snare wanted to make sure his future weapon, sorry (not sorry) his son, got all of Goldshards milk. (Unessisarly as Ripred points out that even in those hard times any numbe of families would have taken the extra pups). It is also stated that Snare used to beat The Bane when he was just a pup.
For Goldshard, before the Bane and her other pups, she was in love with Snare. Even among other rats king Gorger and close followers of his, like Snare as an example, were known to be ruthless and bloody monsters. People in Goldshard's life (her big brother Ripred) warned her that Snare was no good and to stay away from Snare. Unfortunately she did not listen. She married him and moved far away from everyone with Snare, to a remote hard to reach, and not often visited corner of the rats land. The other rats in the pack there were probably snares troops, no one to help Goldshard. And once her pups were born she was stuck. Where as Snare saw the Bane as a weapon Goldshard wanted something else for her baby, but wasn't able to get it. When his white coat grew in she tried to forgo his prophetic name and tried to call him pearlpelt, but Snare and all the other rats still called him the Bane, and in her final moments even Goldshard uses the name. She wanted to protect the Bane from Gregor, waking the serpents to sink the ships and eat the questions was her idea.. But when she saw both Gregor and Snare outside the den she looked at Snare: her husband, the Bane's father and abusor, her other pups murder, and she attacks the bigger threat first, losing her life in the process . Her last word "Don't" was the start of a plea for her baby's life. This leads Gregor to conclude she was a loving mother. 6 months later he meets an adolescent Bane, who is already an unstable mess. On page 29 of Marks of Secret when Gregor and Ripred are discussing the Bane and his issues Gregor remembers Goldshard and says this "Maybe if Goldshard had lived" "Maybe he would have been okay". On the next page Ripred replies "But she didn't so we will never know". Well when I was a kid and first reading the books I tried to make up an AU where Goldshard survived her battle to the death with Snare, Gregor and Ares are then somehow able to get both Goldshard and the Bane to Ripred, and the pair live together in happiness, and the Bane never grows into the monster he became... But that is all a fantasy, for more reasons than the obvious this book is fiction, and Goldshard actually died. No actually going over what happened to the Bane's gaurdians and why, well even in a world where Goldshard was able to escape with her baby she would have still likely died, this time at the Bane's paws. The Bane did grow up with love after Goldshard, but it did nothing to stop what he became.
Ripred was guardian number 6. He did not love the Bane. Actually by the time Ripred was forced to assume Gardianship he flat out hated the Bane. (Once again my theory is Ripreds hatred came from a mix of the Bane reminding him of Snare, compounded with Ripred unfairly/rightly blaming the Bane for the deaths of Goldshard/Razor.) But it was also mentioned that Ripred and the Bane had only been together a week. Taking the Bane to Regalia may have been a last ditch effort to get him away from Twirltoung, and the Bane's melt down where he insisted Ripred's "hated him" and kept him "prisoner" "all his life'.. I do believe Ripred when he said he wasn't unkind to the Bane as a pup... This is mostly because I genuinely believe that Ripred did not have much to do with the Bane when it was a pup. I believe that he left Razor (the Bane's other possible Uncle) to raise him, and only checked in from time to time to see how Razor and the Bane were doing and to try and shoot down any ideas the Bane had about becoming a King or carrying on Snare/Gorger's conquest. Ripred mentions he used to have give up food to the Bane during the starvation, but that could be explaned by Razors struggles to provide for the Bane and Ripred wanting to help Razor (whether you believe me about Ripred and Razor being brothers or not, it's clear from Razor's first mention that they had some kind of personal relationship).
But let's talk about Razor for a moment. He does not get enough love or recognition from the fandom, and that's a shame because from what I can tell, despite joining King Gorgers guard at one point (he was likely forced. Even Gregor could tell was ashamed to be there) he seemed like a really good guy. He took the Bane in six months into the starvation, and raised and loved him as his own. Both Ripred and the Bane have nothing but good things to say about Razor as a parent: How kind he was, how much he had loved the Bane, that he tried to teach him survival, and went hunry for him. Razor did his best to give the Bane all the love that Goldshard had, to be everything that Snare should have been as a father.... The Bane repaid all of this by killing Razor. He threw him off a cliff over a crawler carcass. This happened between CotWB and MoS, which means that the rats had control over that river and were eating well again. So the crawler carcass was not the only food they had seen in days or anything. They could have shared it and then gone fishing if the Bane was still hungry. But no, as soon Razor tried to take part of the carcass for himself the Bane attacked his loving father, pushing/hitting him so hard he fell off a cliff and died. Then he had the desparete/dirangged idea to try and conceal his crime by eating Razor. Shudders. To the Bane's credit he did feel bad about it afterwards. When Ripred tells Gregor he cries and tries to say it was an accident, he did not know how hard he had hit Razor. He can also give a (bad and unjustafiable explanation), which is more than he could do for the next two.
Gaurdians 4 and 5 where named Clawsin and Ratriff. They were both attacked by the Bane a week before Gregor met him in Regalia. This leads me to believe they were raising him together and are a mated pair. While we can assume they were both part of Ripred's pack, they do not show up on page with names, and we know nothing about their personalities. But still they took him in knowing what he did to Razor. Knowing how dangerous he was. Knowing that Ripred probably really did not want the Bane in the pack after what happened, they still took the Bane in and tried to finish raising him. Now Ripred reports the two as having been maimed (not killed) by the Bane. When getting into specifics Ripred says that the Bane blinded Clawsin in one eye and ripped off one of Ratriff's forelegs. First shudders again. Secondly while Clawsin might have been able to survive, as long as the Bane's clawmarks weren't to deep and did not become infected; unless Ratriff immediately got some serious web gauss and medical care, they died from what the Bane did to them. Also unlike with Razor the Bane cannot even say why he did it. He cannot remember if they had done anything to him or what the fight was about. He just did it in a fit (reminder he is not a rager) and then they were lying maimed, and he could not stay with them anymore.
I am going to skip over having his army attack Ripred and throw him in the pit, because as established that their relationship was long broken and the pair where at that point enemies in a war. Let's talk about Twirltoung now. She was never the Bane's official guardian, but she had a huge influence on shapping what he became. While we know she was puppeting him and never truly loved him, the Bane thought she did and seemed to regard her as a surrogate mother. When she dies the Bane links her to Goldshard one last time by accusing Gregor of killing her "just like you killed my mother". Snare killed Goldshard though, something the Bane remembered and had had explained to him growing up. And he actually killed Twirltoung moments before, violently and deliberately, ripping off her head because an enemy he hated told him with one sentence that Twirltoung was using him so she could take over, which this notably persuasive rat vitimly denied. Failing for maybe the first time in her life to trick someone. Then the Bane immediately forgot what had happened and made up a fake story.
Twirltoung is the only gaurdian we see the Bane kill on page. But her death mirrors every other one in the Bane's life. It was violent and terrifying, and terrible like all the others. The Bane quickly forgot it just like with Clawsin, Ratriff, Goldshard, and possibly Snare. Last he killed her because he greedily wanted a crown and in a moments decision saw her as a threat to him getting it. Mirroring Razor being killed because he tried to take some of a meal the Bane greedily wanted all to himself. As well as the Bane's littermates being killed because Snare thought Goldshard would struggle to feed her pups, and greedily decided it all should go to the pup with a snow white pelt.
Hunger, greed, violence, loss. All of these hardships and horrors were truly part of the Bane's life from birth to death. Mercy, love, and kindness were there too. First from Goldshard, then Gregor and Ares, then Razor, Clawsin and Ratriff,... Ripred for sometime in-between. But none of it had the effect on him that its givers tried to make. He was lost to the horrors in his life until eventually, he willingly became them. All the good laid to waste.
I had a dream. CW for war themes and character death.
A disillusioned young ex-general, a semi-reformed war profiteer, and a desperate widow with her child walk into an abandoned ossuary
Steampunk! Magic! Dinosaurs!
Gonna start with the dinosaurs because why wouldn't I
Velociraptors are somewhat common pets with a bad reputation because a lot of people don't train them right
War profiteer owns an impeccably trained Velociraptor called Fisk, who saves his ass when he first meets general (before one is ex and one is semi-reformed), who punches him in the face at a ball. They then become friends
Ankylosaurus sometimes wander into the city streets and make themselves A Problem. They're large. They're practically indestructible. They have poor eyesight and, when in doubt, assume a threat. Idiots with poorly trained Velociraptors sometimes set their pets on them, which sometimes results in the latter being shot through windows
Large sauropod herds migrate south along the front every spring, stopping most fighting. General's most famous achievement is studying their behaviour well enough to launch a successful surprise attack practically between their legs. Made him a "hero"
He's low-key a genius, short-fused and also definitely not neurotypical and/or well in the head. Haven't decided the details
Lost his most beloved in battle, ditched the army and disappeared off the grid. Only friends (1 friend. guess) and librarians know he's still in the city. He was searched for briefly but some people were pretty glad he was gone because he, too, likes to make himself A Problem
His disappearance wasn't spun into propaganda à la "The enemy took one of our best" specifically because people who knew how he was like weren't sure he wouldn't do something Unwise if provoked. This is completely correct. He still has that stash of home-made bombs
The story(?) starts when the widow, out of options, goes to seek shelter in the ossuary, which is in the basement of the House of the Dead where her husband worked before he was drafted
Little does she know this is where general now lives most of the time
She has secrets
PLOT WHAT PLOT
Something something corrupt government something something sabotaging the war machine
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‘Just always’ by kidsgotguns - Military Pen Pal AU
“Castiel started writing letters to a solider over seas. The last thing he expected was to fall for him.”
I would have liked to read more letters back and forth and actually watch them fall in love rather than getting told they do. Also, there was a point where Cas out of nowhere decided Dean didn’t want him to write anymore and didn’t care about him at all. It was a bit abrupt. But when they finally meet, there’s a sort of enchantment in the room that works surprisingly well.
If that’s something that bothers you, there are some mistakes with tenses, but it’s not too grave.
Despite the fact that I personally think it would have been a better fit for Cas to be the soldier and Dean the guy who gets pushed into writing him, it was a good read that might have benefited from being longer than it is and certainly feels shorter than its word count.
