#patch 5.4

[lendasdeazeroth]

Cerco a Orgrimmar Patch 5.4 (Sierge of Orgrimmar)

Cerco a Orgrimmar Patch Lançado em setembro de 2013 | World of Warcraft Patch 5.4 Orgrimmar, o coração da civilização órquica em Azeroth, ardeu com as chamas após o Cerco a Orgrimmar. Quando o Chefe Guerreiro Garrosh Grito Infernal reviveu o coração do Deus Antigo Y'shaarj para fortalecer seu exército, ele profanou o sagrado Vale das Flores Eternas de Pandária. Esta afronta, assim como as con

https://lendasdeazeroth.com.br/patchs/cerco-a-orgrimmar-patch-5-4-sierge-of-orgrimmar/

#Cerco a Orgrimmar #Patch 5.4 #Sierge of Orgrimmar

[ainyan]

He’d been told about the changes wrought in the Empty by the final confrontations with Eden. He’d been told that life had come once again to that which had been beyond dead. He’d been told many things, but he’d never expected to actually see it with his own eyes. And yet here he was, standing amidst the waving grasses, perched on the edge of a short cliff overlooking waters of a vibrant blue. Around him he heard birdsong; flickers of butterfly wings danced amidst the patches of flowers scattered along the edges of the lake. A giant multicolored crystal speared upwards from the waters, reminiscent of some of the structures found in the Bestway Burrows upon the moon.

And in the distance, Eden itself was barely visible within the sprawling branches and verdant leaves of a great tree rising in the distance. He’d been reassured that the sin eater - the Ascian - was no more, and that its pale hulk was inert and inoperative, the life-giving aether it had stolen from the world slowly dispersing back into the ecosystem, revitalizing it one steady ilm at a time.

At his side, Kal’istae stood with him, her fingers tangled up together as she held them before her, a faint tension singing through her small, slight frame. Distracted from the view, he glanced down and noticed that her tail-tip was twitching madly, lashing the backs of her calves without cease. “What’s wrong?” he murmured.

She flinched at the sound of his voice, then looked up, dark eyes wide and guileless, her smile patently false. “Nothing at all. What do you think of the miracle that Ryne and Gaia have wrought here?”

“I think you had as much to do with it as they did,” he replied steadily, “but it is magnificent nonetheless. That does not explain why you’re so tense, Kali.”

Wincing, she made a visible effort to relax. “I’m sorry, Thancred - I’m not trying to steal from this moment. You shouldn’t worry about me - look out there! You and Urianger had as much to do with it as we did; be proud,” she whispered, “of what you have achieved through your love and belief for your daughter.”

He reached out and buried his hand in her hair, tugging lightly until she fetched up against his side. “I am proud of me, and Urianger, and you and the girls, I swear. I look out over this miracle and I wonder what it will look like in a year’s time - in ten years, in a hundred. What will it look like when the aether has stabilized enough that people can begin moving out here, building here, living here?” Kal’istae wasn’t able to stifle the soft sob that rose in her throat, and Thancred turned, alarmed. “Honey!”

She turned into him as his arms came around her. “I’m not - it’s just…” She trailed off, fighting for enough breath to speak. He said nothing, merely stroked her head and crooned comfortingly. Finally, she pulled back, scrubbing at her eyes. “I’m so happy for you, Thancred. I’m so happy you get to be happy.”

Confused, he took a hold of her shoulders and shook her lightly. “Of course I’m happy. I’ve been happy for a long time, Kali.” When she frowned at him, he shook her again. “I’m with you. I love you, and you love me, and knowing you’re by my side has gotten me through a lot of rough spots.”

She rubbed the heel of her hand across her eyes, peering up at him. “But not all the way happy. You haven’t had Ryne. Now you can have her.” His continued confusion must have shown in his face, because she exhaled heavily. “You’re going to stay.”

“Ah.” The word whispered out, carried on a gentle puff of air. “I’m considering it,” he admitted steadily, and watched her tail and shoulders droop, her gaze fall away. “It’s been a long, hard fight for all of us, but Garlemald is on the mend, and they no longer have need of my especial services. Riol is more than capable of handling what little need there is for intelligence and espionage amongst the Scions. You yourself have laid rest to the great threat against which the Scions were formed to stand.”

Her hands shot out to capture his and she lifted her face. “Then do it,” she said urgently. “Stay here with your daughter, watch her grow up, help rebuild this shattered world as you helped rebuild a shattered nation. There’s no reason not to!”

His fingers curled around hers. “If that is the case, love, then why are you so sad?”

Her lip trembled, but she neither pulled away nor looked away, and he was impressed; so often she sought to flee uncomfortable personal conversations between them - this, then, must be very important to her. “I will miss you,” she whispered.

Ah. “Kali, even were I to remain here, it would change nothing about what is between us,” he said firmly, drawing her closer. “The bridge across the Rift is open and stable; I need only walk through the mirror in the Ocular to return home whenever I wish. And you need not even do that; your aetheric connection to the First means that you can Teleport here on a whim, from anywhere.”

Lavender-edged eyes blinked in incomprehension. “We will live on different worlds.”

Laughing gently, he coaxed her the rest of the way into his arms. “Have we not practically since we met, love?” he teased gently. “The distance between us would be no more than it has ever been as I have served the Scions’ interests and you have followed your wandering heart.”

Biting her lip, she leaned into him, brow furrowed. “You’ll have a life here.”

“And will your life there exclude me?” he wanted to know.

Indigo eyes flashed wide, filled with indignation. “Of course not!” Then she flushed. “Oh.”

Overwhelmed with love, with adoration, he laughed again and dropped to his knee, keeping his arms firmly around her. “Oh, indeed. Sweetest Kal’istae, my own love, I have tried to show you in every way I know that I am yours, as you are mine. Even should I make a life here, you will always be a part of it. The biggest part of it, and the best part of it.”

She gazed down into his upturned face and reached out to frame it with her hands. “You’re my everything,” she said simply.

It hadn’t been how he’d planned it. He’d had it mapped out in his head, from beginning to end. But as she gazed down at him, eyes shining with love, with adoration, her hands soft against his cheeks, he knew that all of the planning in the world would not have given him as perfect an opportunity as now.

He dropped one arm away, keeping the other snug around her hips to prevent her from leaving. When he went digging in one of the copious inner pockets of his jacket, she frowned curiously and canted her head to one side. “Where did I… ah! There.”

When he pulled out a small enameled box, she tilted her head to the other side, her perplexity growing. “What is that?”

He thumbed open the lid, his arm sliding from about her as he took her hand in his, clenching the box lightly in his fingers. “Promises,” he told her, gazing up into her puzzled eyes. “A promise asked, and a promise offered.”

For a moment, a breathless moment, she still didn’t understand. Then her gaze dropped from his to the box, and what was inside.

The stone was violet, a rich, dark bluish-purple that shone with an inner light. Upon the faceted surface of the stone she could see was etched the same meteor symbol that was inked between her shoulder blades. It was set in platinum, and the pale silvery metal gleamed against the dark blue gem and the black velvet in which it was housed.

“I - Thancred,” she breathed, and when her eyes lifted to his, they glistened with unshed tears and gleamed with a terrible, glorious hope. “You can’t mean…”

He gazed up at her, and for once did not bother hiding his nerves or uncertainty behind a cocky smile. He allowed her to see what no one else was ever permitted; his doubts. His fears.

His hopes.

“Please, Kali,” he whispered. “Marry me. Be my wife, my bondmate, my partner from now until eternity ends. No matter how far apart we may be, let us be bound together as completely as any two people may be.”

Her mouth opened and closed, but she seemed at a loss for words. The silence stretched between them, growing ever more brittle before she finally managed to take control of her brain. “Thancred,” she croaked, voice gone hoarse, “are you sure-”

“Yes!” His affirmation was explosive. “Gods, yes, never more sure!” Sucking in a breath and easing his grip before he hurt her, he continued, “I have had this in my pocket since you first said you loved me. I just needed the right time, the right place.” He hesitated. “The right words. Kali, please!”

There were no words more right. “Yes!” The word exploded from her, and her eyes grew wide, unfettered hand rising to cover her mouth as she stared at him. Then she dropped it away, revealing a brilliant, if unbelieving, smile. “Yes, gods - yes!”

He didn’t question it. He didn’t confirm it. He merely dropped the box away, uncaring as it struck the ground and rolled away. The ring remained in his fingers and he slid it onto hers in the same gesture, sealing their promises in an unending circle. “I swear to you,” he said, staring up into her eyes, “you will never regret this.”

“I have never regretted anything about you,” she murmured as she leaned in to capture his mouth with hers. Against his lips, she smiled, and he could taste the sweet tears of her joy. “And I have no intention of starting. My love,” she whispered, and lost herself in his kiss as his arms came around her, holding her as if never to let go again.

#ffxiv #kal'istae miurani #thancred waters #wolcred #wol x thancred #eden spoilers #patch 5.4 spoilers #open worlds au

[hibiscus-tome]

FFXIV Write 2022, day 3: temper

When Y’shtola sets foot in the Bismarck for the first time in three and a half years — or two and a half weeks, depending on whom you ask — she deliberately ignores the wave of nostalgia that immediately washes over her. It’s been a long, long time since she was that fresh-faced Scion tasked with Limsa Lominsa’s future and prosperity — but it’s easy to fall back into an old rhythm, as one of the culinarians escorts her to the same table outside that she’s sat at a hundred times before.

“Your usual, my lady?” the culinarian asks her.

It takes Y’shtola an unacceptable few seconds to remember that her “usual” entails whatever fruit tart happens to be in season, though the precise tea that should accompany it eludes her. “Yes, thank you,” she answers anyway, as briskly as she ever did.

She waits a moment before she lets her aether sight lay dormant. Spending any amount of time in Limsa Lominsa, after Gridania’s Seedseers had plucked her out of the aetherial sea, leaves her with a headache more often than not — all those people milling about, coming and going with the ships that pass through the harbor, put a strain on that which already strains her plenty. It’s not that her aether sight can’t keep up; it’s that it’s rarely worth the effort — and yet, to neglect it altogether would be to submit herself to an unnecessary risk.

—so it’s a relief that Merlwyb isn’t quite as late as she usually is to such meetings. She slides into her seat only slightly out of breath, as loud and clamorous as every other pirate in the city. “Pray, forgive my tardiness,” she says, slightly out of breath — as if she’d rushed over, instead of taking her time leaving whatever commitment of hers had stretched for too long.

“No harm done,” Y’shtola replies. “Tell me: how fares the thalassocracy?”

Merlwyb shifts in her seat — leaning back, if Y’shtola had to guess from the way her legs have extended under the table. “Better, now that we have the Kobolds’ cooperation — though I’m sure you’ve already read your colleagues’ reports.”

“I have,” says Y’shtola, “but ‘tis a different matter altogether to hear it directly from the source, no?”

At that, Merlwyb barks out a laugh. “That, I agree.”

The culinarian returns then, setting Y’shtola’s tart and tea down on the table, as well as some sort of cup for Merlwyb. The tart is no different than Y’shtola remembers — but it’s nostalgic, in a way that it hadn’t been the last time she set foot here.

“A cure for tempering…” says Merlwyb, quietly. “Had I not seen it with mine own eyes, I would have scarcely believed it.”

Very serenely, Y’shtola sips at her tea. “Alisaie’s theory was sound,” she says, “but… it would be a lie, to say that I did not have my own reservations concerning this plan’s success. Fortunately, it seems my worries were for naught.”

“Concerning the technique employed, you mean,” says Merlwyb, “but what of the Kobolds’ response to this?”

Ah, there it is. There’s a specific answer that Merlwyb would like to hear, when asking such questions; instead of asking it outright, she insists on reeling it in on a baited fishing hook. “Do you want an honest answer,” asks Y’shtola, “or a kind one?”

“Come now, Y’shtola,” says Merlwyb, lightly. “You and I both know that a dishonest answer is no kindness at all.”

Y’shtola sets down her teacup. “If I may speak plainly,” she says, “’tis nothing short of miraculous that the Kobolds entertained your request at all, even with Alisaie’s connection to one of their own. That they chose to put aside their grievances for this — their valid grievances, to be perfectly clear — is nothing short of miraculous.”

It’s nothing she hasn’t said to the Admiral before; it’s not even the worst thing she’s ever told her — and yet, the prospect of having said the wrong thing, of having said too much with too little care, gnaws at her. She had to be gentle, deliberate with the Night’s Blessed; employing that same gentleness on Merlwyb would have left Y’shtola out of a job years ago.

Across from her, Merlwyb sets down her cup. “And that, my dear, is why I sought your counsel for so long,” she says.

“Sought my counsel and refused to heed my advice, more like,” Y’shtola retorts. “Well… until recently, at least.”

“And you were right,” says Merlwyb. “A cure for tempering, miraculous as it is, is but a bandage — a means to ameliorate the symptoms of a wound that has festered for far too long.”

Smiling, Y’shtola lifts her fork and digs into the tart. “And how do you mean to address that wound?”

“Well,” says Merlwyb, “that is where I would seek your counsel once more. Presuming that you have the time and the inclination, of course.”

What a strange thing, to return to a role Y’shtola had once so readily discarded. It had been discarded out of necessity, sure, but it was out of practicality that it was never picked up again. Three and a half years ago — or two and a half weeks, depending on whom you ask — there had been far more important matters to attend to than the petty squabbles that made up the vast majority of Eorzea’s bureaucracy. Between the Warrior of Light’s escapades and the seemingly revolving door of Scions coming and going from Revenant’s Toll, what use was there in falling back on those same old tactics Minfilia had once employed to keep abreast of Eorzea’s political climate?

“I think,” says Y’shtola, “I would like to reacquaint myself with Limsa Lominsa first. It has been quite some time since I last set foot here, after all — far longer than you realize.”

Merlwyb hums. “I’ve heard part of the story from the Flame General,” she says, “but nothing specific. Perhaps you could enlighten me while we walk?”

It’s an old rhythm they fall into, as Merlwyb catches a culinarian’s eye and leaves him with enough gil to cover both her and Y’shtola’s orders. She extends her arm, and Y’shtola takes it without argument — and though it requires her to lean against Merlwyb a bit more than necessary, she lets her aether sight lie dormant for a little while longer.

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022 #ffxivwrite #y'shtola rhul #merlwyb bloefhiswyn #y'shtola/merlwyb #patch 5.4: futures rewritten #fic

[kuroimarzipan]

hey does anyone else think about merlwyb and her “closest advisor” like at least once a week or is it just me

#like im just saying. im just saying that. #i think that merlwyb and eynzahr might be. they might be together im just saying #god patch 5.4 was one of the best moments in shb specifically just for me it was written just for me. #how many tags do i have to put again before it doesnt go in the tag?? #i think five #ffxiv

[munsons-maiden]

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐬 𝐀𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 - 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐧𝐞

This series will be updated every weekend. If you’d like to be added to my Eddie taglist, let me know. I hope you enjoy the first chapter! - Love, Kiki ❤

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 | Eddie Munson x female reader

𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 | THEN. You’re the only survivor among the Mind Flayer’s victims, thanks to your friends - but after the Battle of Starcourt, you find yourself adrift in a sea of nightmares. Until an encounter in the woods with Eddie The Freak Munson offers an unexpected life line and turns your world upside down. NOW. Four months have passed since the winter night you walked out of Eddie’s trailer and his life for good. But when the mysterious headaches and nightmares return full-force and something wicked stirs in sleepy Hawkins, starting a witch hunt against Eddie, you realize that there are two things in this world that might be more persistent than you’d thought: Evil...and love. The story will be told in two timelines: the past (after the Battle of Starcourt) and the present (during the events of season 4).

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 | angst with a happy ending, fluff, smut

𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | SMUT (in the later chapters, so you need to be 18+ to read this story!), angst with a happy ending, harassment, canon-typical violence

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 | 5.4 k

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | attempted sexual assault but Eddie saves the day, Jason Carver, canon-typical violence (Those are the chapter warnings. There will be lots of smut in the later chapters so please only read this if you’re 18+ years old!)

𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐄𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭.

𝐀𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬, 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝! ♡

[Friday, March 22nd, 1986. NOW.]

It had already been there when you’d woken that morning, that strange, nagging feeling in your gut, like a silent shadow in the corner of the room. Dread. A sense of something being…wrong.

The feeling in your guts had started to grow when Robin had climbed into the passenger seat, and by the time you’d reached Forest Hills to pick up Max, it had spawned into a dark, sinking premonition.

“Holy shit, what the Hell’s happening here?”, Robin gawked at the sight unfurling in front of you when you steered the car to the side of the road, yellow police tape fluttering in the spring-breeze.

“Do you think something happened to Max?”, your friend gasped.

The trailer park was abuzz with police.

In the flashing red-and-blue lights of the police cars painting eerie patterns on the walls of the nearby trailers in the blushing light of dawn, cops whirred around the place like a swarm of flies over a rotten carcass.

And the dark premonition morphed into panic.

“No,” you breathed. “Not to Max.”

You didn’t hesitate a single second, didn’t wait for the officer walking up the gravelly road to reach your car

With Robin’s surprised call piercing the early-morning-air behind you, you burst out the door and broke into a run, ignoring the warning shouts of the officer right on your heels as your feet carried you across the crunching gravel, the haze of panic buzzing like static in your mind, turning your surroundings into white noise and blinking lights.

The gravel beneath your feet turned to dry patches of grass, and you reached the trailer, the crackling static of RT units and shouts filling the morning air around you, all blurring beneath the thundering of your heart, the rush of blood in your ears.

For a fleeting heartbeat, time seemed to freeze.

There was the door you’d walked out of for the last time on a freezing winter night three months ago, the blue paint chipped in places to form a familiar pattern that hit you like a punch in the guts.

The door was ajar to reveal the heap of fabric on the floor – and it took a moment for you to make sense of what you were seeing. To realize that strange shape sticking in the air like a zombie’s hand reaching out of its grave in a horror movie…was a hand. A real hand. But something was wrong, because the fingers were sticking out at the most grotesque angles, as if they’d been snapped like twigs, one by one.

It wasn’t a heap of fabric. It was a person.

Don’t let it be him.

“Miss, you can’t be here!” The voice was far away, blurry and dulled as if you were under water. Sinking deeper and deeper.

Don’t let it be him. Please, please, please don’t let it be him.

Hands grasped your shoulders, pulling you away from the trailer’s door.

But you’d already seen enough.

When they led you away, away from the horrid, disfigured hand stretching towards the ceiling and the dead body it belonged to, two things shattered the numbing daze of shock clouding your mind like stones hurled through a window.

Relief, because the broken body on the ground of the trailer…there had been no mess of unruly dark curls, no flash of tattoos, no ripped denim or worn-out leather.

And shame, because of the relief you felt even at the sight of the familiar scrunchie, a rich pine-needle green on strawberry blonde hair.

[Friday, September 6th, 1985. THEN.]

First came the headaches. They reverberated through your nerves as sharp as a knife’s edge, as if someone was working your head with a hammer drill, hard enough to bring tears to your eyes.

Then came the nosebleeds, sticky warm rivulets running from your nostrils to coat your tongue with the metallic tang that made nausea churn in your guts with the memories it elicited – of black, freezing shadows and screams, of fire and pain. So much pain.

It was one of these nosebleeds that had you burst out of the gym right now, away from the raging victory celebration going on inside and into the cool night air on the sports field.

And with the taste of blood coating your lips and running down your throat as you pressed one hand in front of your nose in a useless, half-hearted attempt to staunch the flow, came the panic.

It was a tingle at the tips of your fingers, racing along your nerves like a speeding train until it reached your chest, dark and cold and as sticky as the blood spilling from your nose. The panic, though, was harder to get rid of than the crimson stains on your clothes. So were the memories.

Memories you kept trying so hard to bury, of those thirty hours where control had been ripped away so thoroughly, so utterly, as the Mind Flayer had taken the wheel and forced you to watch, muted and frozen and locked away in your own head, a puppet dancing on its master’s string. And how the monster had made you dance.

Bile already rising in your throat, you broke into a run. You couldn’t run away from the demons in your memories, but you could run, do what the Mind Flayer had denied you. Moving would help battle that sticky dark thing that threatened to throttle you.

The sweat coating your skin from the past two hours of dancing and jumping and waving your pompons with that wide, frozen grin plastered to your face until your cheeks hurt, kept the bite of the cool night-air at bay for now as you raced across the freshly mowed grass of the sports-field and towards the line of trees, the small patch of woods separating Hawkins High from the white-picket-fence neighborhoods surrounding it.

The noise of the party in the gym was fading into the night with every step your feet carried you, and you let your hand sink back to your side. Blood still seeped from your right nostril, running over your lips before dribbling down onto the shirt of your cheerleader uniform. You made a mental note to buy a new pack of baking soda to scrub out the ugly stains before the game next week.

By the time you’d reached the tree line at the edge of the sports-field, your breathing was labored, your heart racing as if it was about to burst straight out of your ribcage – but the sensation of panic had started to subside, the weight on your chest beginning to ease with the first step you set into the darkness between the trees.

You’d just have to sit it out.

But here in the silence of the woods, with the already cooling night air that carried the scents of rot and decay and fading greens to herald the end of summer, breathing felt a lot easier than in the too hot, sweat-laced air inside the gym, the noise and shouts and laughter pressing in on you from all sides like a flood wave.

Your labored breaths mingling with the sounds of leaves rustling and twigs snapping beneath the soles of your sneakers with every step, you followed the small path cutting through the brambles, still so familiar despite the fact that you hadn’t set a foot into these woods in what felt like a lifetime.  A minute passed, then two, until you reached the spot where you’d used to hang out with Nancy and Barb during lunch breaks, in the first year of High School.

Before Nancy had started dating Steve. Before Barb had gone missing and life had changed. Before you’d learned of faceless monsters, of evil shadows and girls with superpowers.

The picknick table was still there, in the middle of the small clearing. A soft smile tugged at your lips as you stepped closer, letting your hand skim over the weathered surface of the wooden tabletop, searching for something you knew would be here somewhere, and your smile widened as your fingertips brushed over the scratches in the rough wood, following the lines you’d carved into that table on a sunny day in late summer three years ago. A lifetime ago. You could see the edges and lines of the tiny letters, shadows beneath the pale light of the waning moon that hung low in the sky, its light obscured by the canopy of trees ahead.

Three sets of names, side by side. Barb Holland. Nancy Wheeler. And yours. You remembered that day clearly, because it had been one of the last lunchbreaks the three of you had spent at that table together.

Nancy had been giddy with happiness as she’d told Barb and you that Steve The Hair Harrington had asked her out on a date. You’d tried to be happy for her, had smiled even though you’d felt scared by the way things were inevitably going to change, that the three of you had started to grow up, entering this strange new world of High School that still felt like jumping face-first into a dark, dark lake without knowing what else would be in there. That time was…running out. It had, at least for Barb.

Later that afternoon, you’d put your name on the audition list to join the cheerleaders in a fit of need to do something to stop that feeling of getting left behind.

You all had tried to do what you could to make the best of High School. For Nancy, the means to the end of being popular enough not to be eaten in the shark tank that was Hawkins High had been Steve. Yours still was cheerleading.

God, how beautiful the time had been, when the scariest thing to happen was to not be invited to a party.

“Hey there,” a voice tore you from the past, and your head snapped up to the figure prowling towards you, stepping from the darkness between the trees.

“Jason,” you greeted, voice still a bit too high, laced with the residue of your earlier panic. You’d never liked Jason Carver. The guy gave you the heebie-jeebies.

“Saw you leave the party,” he explained, in that tone that demanded attention, that left no doubt that he was an alpha gifting the world with his presence. “Your nose is bleeding.”

“Yeah.”

Just go away and leave me be, you thought.

But he didn’t go away. Instead, he continued to step closer. To prowl closer, like a beast of prey rounding in on its dinner.

You couldn’t tell if the sense of danger that made your muscles tense was a warranted one, or simply an overreaction of the paranoia one got if they’d been chased by interdimensional monsters for the past three years.

“Won’t Chrissy miss you?”, you tried again, never leaving Jason out of your sight. You’d never understood how sweet, gentle Chrissy was so smitten with him. But then again, you didn’t know any of them that well apart from the basketball games and cheerleader training.  

When Jason came to stand in front of you, a feeling of unease growing in your guts, he shrugged. “Maybe. But I’m here now.” He reached out, giving the silky green ribbon that held your hair in a high ponytail a flick that made you flinch away from him.

“Aw, don’t be shy,” he grinned. There was something dark in that grin, glinting and sharp like the edge of a razor blade, hidden beneath the superficial charm.

In a swift motion, he reached out again, tugging at the fabric to undo the ribbon, and your hair spilled from the ponytail. You watched the green piece of silk flutter to the dried leaves covering the ground, like a lonely streamer at the end of a party.

“I always thought you looked prettier with your hair down.”

It’s not my job to look pretty for you, you wanted to snap. I don’t care if you think I’m pretty.

Fuck off.

But none of the words actually left your lips. Your tongue had turned to lead, your whole body freezing like a deer in the headlights.

Only then did you realize the gravity of your current situation.

You were alone in the woods with that guy. Too far away to be heard if you screamed for help.

“I think I’ll head back to the party,” you said, pushing yourself away from the edge of the table to leave – but Jason’s hand shot out, wrapping around your upper arm with enough vigor to make the feeling of unease blaze into alarm.

“Come on, don’t be a bore. Keep me company. I won’t bite,” he smiled. His tone was even, calm – but the edge underneath made clear it had been a command, not a plea. You’d always found it unsettling, how Jason’s wide Hollywood-smiles never quite managed to reach his eyes.

After Barb had gone missing three years ago, the school had paid for an optional self-defense class for the female students. You’d gone because you’d been naïve enough to think three hours of info-dumping and a few basic karate-moves on a Sunday afternoon would help prepare you to fight monsters. Back then, you’d learned to never scream at the perpetrator, never get loud or rude. To stay friendly as not to hurt their sense of pride.

So that’s what you did now. Not yet trying to squirm out of Jason’s grip, you held his gaze and replied steadily, “I’m freezing, Jason. I want to go back inside before I catch a cold.”

“Well, good thing I’m here then. I can keep you warm.” He gave you a wink that made the alarm blow up into fear.

“My jacket will do just fine.”

“Come on, you know that’s not what I meant,” he chuckled, as if you’d made a joke.

“I’m aware what you meant. I’m not interested.” Your voice rose – but to what avail? You were alone with him. In the woods, in the middle of the night.

“Aw, come on. Don’t play little Miss Innocent in that outfit. If you didn’t want attention, you would’ve picked a skirt that didn’t reveal half your ass.”

The words felt like a slap.

“Let go of me, Jason.” You hated how your voice sounded. Small and frightened and weak.

“You wanted to be popular. How’s that saying go? If you want to fuck with the eagles, you gotta learn how to fly. You learned to fly.”

The implication was clear.

Before you could come up with a reply, Jason’s grip around your arm tightened, and your pained little wince fused into a fledgling cry as he pulled you closer, whirling you around until your lower back hit the edge of the picknick table. Pain shot up your spine with the impact as he used his body to pin you in place.

“No! STOP!”, you screamed as loud as your lungs would allow for in the fleeting hope to draw in help, struggling against him like a helpless little mouse in a trap. Your cry for help was cut off when Jason smashed his lips against yours.

Somehow, that was worse than all the monster-shit you’d gone through.

With all your strength, you slammed your hands against his chest to push him off of you – but it was hopeless. He was so much stronger than you.

Tears stung in your eyes at the nauseating taste of your own blood still on your lips mingling with the stale beer on Jason’s breath as he forced his tongue into your mouth, his knee between your legs to part them as he pressed you harder against the picknick table, hard enough for an outcry of pain to rip from your throat that got lost in the kiss he was forcing on you.

“I’ll make you feel so good,” Jason crooned against your lips, his breath too hot as it hit your face, “You’ll see. Thank me later.”

His words flipped a switch deep inside of you.

This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. You hadn’t survived the Mind Flayer’s grasp only for Jason Carver to force himself on you, for your control to be ripped away again like a ball in a fucking sports game.

Paralyzing panic turned to blazing fury.

When Jason’s lips pressed against your mouth again, you bit down. Hard.

Blood welled from Jason’s lip, and you felt like you’d throw up with the taste of it as Jason reeled back a few inches with a suppressed growl of anger and pain. A mistake, you realized. Before you’d bitten him, Jason had been calm, feeling save in the entitlement that whatever he wanted, the world and everyone within it were obliged to give it to him.

But now, there was rage in his eyes, flashing like lightning as his grip around your upper arms tightened when he shoved you harder against the picknick table, the wood digging into your lower back so painfully that you felt the air was pressed from your lungs as Jason hissed, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“NO!”, you screamed as Jason’s hands wandered down to grope your rear, caging you against that damn table –

“Hey! Get away from her!”, a shout pierced the night – as with a new rush of sizzling, white-hot rage, your fist connected with Jason’s face. Hard enough for pain to bolt through your own hand.

Jason reeled back with a suppressed shout of pain, one of his hands shooting up to cover his left eye with his expression contorting in a mix of shock, pain and icy anger – before he was ripped away from you.

“She said no. Are you deaf? Take your fucking hands off, asshole.”

To your surprise, Jason complied. Still seething, he took another step away from you as he turned to fully face the figure in the half-dark, finally clearing your own line of sight in the process.

There, in the middle of the clearing with fire in his eyes and a halo of messy curls around his face, stood Eddie Munson – Eddie The Freak – resident High School weirdo and leader of the school’s D&D club, his breathing labored as if he’d been running.

“What’s it to you, freak?”, Jason sneered, voice muffled as he let his hand sink from his eye to reveal the bruise already starting to form there, “What are you gonna do, huh?”

“Fuck around and find out.” Eddie’s gaze briefly flicked to you, before it came to rest back on Jason with the fury of a wildfire as he added sardonically, “The Hellfire Club’s still looking for a victim for our next satanic ritualistic sacrifice tomorrow evening.”

You waited for Jason to snap, to punch Eddie – but to your shellshocked surprise and relief, he seethed, “You know what, freak? You can have her. She’s not that hot.”

Glaring daggers first at you and then at Eddie, who was standing stock-still in the center of the clearing as he watched Jason’s hand brush over his bleeding lip, Jason walked away, leaving you and Eddie alone in the patch of moonlight that was falling through the foliage above.

“Hey,” Eddie’s voice cut through the haze of shock in your mind, softened as he slowly stepped a little closer, “You okay?”

You snapped your eyes away from the spot where Jason had vanished into the night and met Eddie’s concerned gaze, parting your lips to reply that, yes, you were okay, as the mixture of shock and adrenaline, the sickening metallic tang of your own blood and Jason’s on your lips and the revolting remnants of his rancid taste in your mouth crescendoed to a wave of nausea that crashed over you like a rip curl.

You fell to your knees and retched.

Right over Eddie Munson’s sneakers.

To your surprise, though, he didn’t jump back with repulse.

As a new wave of dizziness washed over you and you hurled up the rest of your dinner, eyes stinging with the acidic taste of bile burning your throat, Eddie soothed, “It’s okay. Uh. Let it out, I guess. Let me just – is it okay if I hold your hair?”

You gave him a weak little nod.

With your permission, Eddie stepped closer, and with a movement that was strangely gentle, his fingers carded through your hair, pulling the strands away from your face to hold them at the back of your head as you continued to hurl up your guts.

You didn’t know how long you stayed like that. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, but it felt like hours.

When the nausea finally ebbed, you let yourself fall back to sit on your heels, waiting for the spinning sensation of sickness and the throb of the oncoming headache to subside, the gentle tug of Eddie’s hands holding your hair vanishing as he let go and took a slow step backwards.

“Thanks,” you breathed softly.

“For what?”, Eddie asked, somewhat bewildered.

You waved vaguely at the remnants of your lunch decorating the dried leaves on the ground before you croaked, “I bet your evening took a really unexpected turn.”

You couldn’t see Eddie’s face beyond the darkness of your closed lids as you waited for the dizziness to wane so you could get up from the floor, but your heard him chuckle; a small, low sound that filled the night and took away some of the edge of what had just happened.

You pushed yourself back up on shaky legs, acutely aware of Eddie taking another deliberate step backwards and away from you as if he were afraid to startle you.

I fought monsters before, you wanted to tell him. I just wasn’t prepared for this one.

Eddie’s dark eyes finally met yours in a beat of awkward silence that settled over the clearing, broken only by the rustling of leaves in the cool breeze that carried the scents of fading summer; of greens and the woods and the flowers growing somewhere in a distant garden at the edge of the trees.

A single beam of moonlight was falling through the canopy of leaves above your heads, painting streaks of silver into the mane of dark curls falling around Eddie’s face, and he raised his eyebrows as if waiting for you to break the silence, hands raised at his sides as if he wanted to say, I’m not gonna hurt you.

“You’re – you’re not gonna faint on me, are you? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure I’d be a miserable first aider.”

“After throwing up all over your shoes, I’d like to save the opportunity to tick off this box in my game of Embarrassment Bingo for another time,” you reassured, but it came out as a weak croak, your throat hoarse with the acidic remnants of bile.

Fainting would at least spare you some of the humiliation that was coiling in your stomach – why exactly, you couldn’t even tell. Maybe because you’d thrown up all over his shoes. Maybe because he’d caught…well, he didn’t catch you and Jason. He’d caught Jason harassing you. You obviously knew that you’d done nothing wrong – it just didn’t feel like it.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Eddie said, vehemently – and the sudden sternness in his voice took you off guard as he added, “You sure you’re okay?”

You met his concern with a timid little smile of your own. “I’m fine. Really.”

“Uh-huh. Your nose is bleeding.” He gave a small, awkward nod in the direction of your nose.

“Yup,” you said, looking down at the shirt of your cheerleader uniform, the fabric smeared with stains of drying blood and splatters of vomit, “That shirt goes right in the laundry.”

That made him utter a surprised little laugh. A brief laugh, fleeting, but…you liked the sound of it, the way it lit up his whole face and made his dark eyes twinkle in the half-light of the moon as he threw you a cautious smile, probably trying to assess why you hadn’t already taken to your heels.

And realization started to sink in about what had just happened. What might have happened, hadn’t Eddie interrupted Jason.

You didn’t want to think about it.

But the alarm bells were still ringing in your mind, your senses still reeling with the high of adrenaline as you realized that you were still alone in the woods with a guy you didn’t actually know anything about other than the fact that Dustin and Mike worshiped the ground he was walking on, and that he was the resident School Freak. And while you only laughed about the petty-minded gossip about Eddie’s Hellfire Club being a satanist cult, the rumors about him dabbling in drug dealing, on the other hand, had to be rooted somewhere. You’d always found Eddie Munson somewhat menacing, with his ripped-denim-and-leather looks, the way he always seemed a little…unhinged.

And yet, the step you took backwards was automatic, guided more by your still activated flight-reflex than anything else – but the change of expression on Eddie’s face was immediate.

“I’m not gonna murder you,” he said, “Promise.” He drew out the last word.

“That sounds like a thing a murderer would say,” you deadpanned, but there was no bite in your tone. It managed to break the ice that had frozen the air between the two of you all of a sudden.

“If I wanted to stab you, I would’ve done it when you were busy puking all over my shoes,” Eddie grinned. It wasn’t a menacing grin. It was rather cute, in fact.

“Wait, what are you doing here, though?”, you blurted. “I mean, it is strange to be in the woods alone in the dark.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows. “Well, since I know that I’m not the obligatory serial killer in the woods in the middle of the night” – he took a dramatic little step backwards, hands over his heart like a granny clutching her pearls – “maybe it’s you.”

You didn’t know why you were suddenly enough at ease to joke around with a guy you’d never talked to before, alone in the woods in the dark and after everything that had happened with Jason only moments before – but you were. It might have simply been a fit of gallows humor, of hysteria after the surge of adrenaline and danger. For some reason, you were simply feeling perfectly safe with Eddie Munson.

Snickering, you gestured at your bloodied, puke-splattered cheerleader uniform as you quipped, “I can’t be the killer. Don’t you watch horror movies? The cheerleader’s always the first one to bite the dust.”

“Well, in case there’s any killers roaming around,” Eddie retorted, “I’ll stay close so you and your iron fist can protect me.”

You laughed. The sound was so…foreign to your own ears. It was, you realized, the first real, true, heartfelt laugh ever since Starcourt.

“So, you’re not going to tell me about the top-secret business that brought you here in the middle of the night?”, you teased.

“That would take away the whole dark, mysterious appearance I’ve been working on so hard,” he winked, twirling a strand of his hair around his ringed fingers with a mischievous gleam in his eyes, before he added, “A drug deal, actually. I’m here for a drug deal.”

“Oh. Okay.” It was strange to hear him actually say it. Drug dealers were supposed to be scary boogeymen.

“You should head home. Wait, you need a ride or something? I could, I don’t know, walk you back to the parking lot –“

“No worries. It’s not that far. I’ll be fine.” With a smile, you added, “Thanks, anyway. For…” You trailed off. “I can handle it from here.”

“Please, just…let me walk you back to the parking lot, okay?”, Eddie said, giving you another one of his smiles, “Because my sleep cycle is messed up as it is and I’ll spend the rest of the night worrying if I let you walk back alone.”

You snickered. “I don’t need a savior. Though…it’s nice to know there would have been one.”

“In case you didn’t notice, I’m not a savior, princess. I’m the guy from the wrong side of town that your parents told you to steer clear of.”

The nickname didn’t sound creepy or lewd or anything like the pet names Jason and his basketball friends liked to call the cheerleaders. It sounded like an inside joke between the two of you. It sounded innocent. He gave you a grin. A genuine one that seemed to light up the whole clearing with its radiance.

“What about your drug deal?”

“What are they gonna do, sue me?” Eddie quipped. “I’m the only dealer around. I’m basically the owner of a monopoly.”

“I bet that’d look really great on your resume,” you snickered in response, and Eddie laughed, before waving at you to walk ahead down the path.

For a few minutes, the two of you walked in companionable silence. When the thicket of branches thinned and the orange glow of the lanterns illuminating the parking lot at the other side of the sports field came into view, the noise of the victory celebration in the gym – still in full swing, obviously – seeped into the chill air to chase away the tranquility of the woods.

Across the sports field, you could see throngs of people crowding the parking lot, laughing, some of them waving little flags with the Hawkins High tiger emblem.

Stepping out of the woods and onto the buzzed grass of the sports field felt a little surreal, like resurfacing from a dive into another world.

Turning around, you realized that Eddie hadn’t followed you. He was standing between the trees a few feet behind you, his head tilted and the ghost of a smirk on his face as he waited for you to cross the sports field to the parking lot.

“Thank you,” you said, with a little half-smile of your own.

“I told you, I’m not some knight in shining armor.”

“Well, let’s agree on that”, you quipped. “You’re not a knight in shining armor, and I’m not a damsel in distress.”

“Of course not,” he agreed, with a mix of sternness and tease. “If I ever get into a fight, I’m gonna give you a call so you can come to my rescue and whip some asses.”

“Believe it or not, I’ve slain more monsters than you did,” you grinned, slowly starting to walk backwards, away from Eddie and the looming woods. For some reason you didn’t want to leave just yet. It might have been the veil of the night that made it easier to let down the guard people upheld in the light of day – or it might just have been Eddie Munson and his endearing weirdness.

“Well, in that case,” Eddie quipped, stretching his arms like a pair of wings before he bent down in a deep, theatrical bow, “Fare thee well, slayer of monsters.”

Another soft laugh bubbled from your lips.

You realized that Eddie had somehow taken the edge off the shock and diffused the panic in your chest without you even realizing it.

With his parting words hanging in the chill late-summer air that ruffled his messy curls, you finally turned around and walked towards the parking lot, the singing, laughing crowds with their green-and-orange flags and banners ahead of you, and Eddie’s watchful gaze on your back as he waited a few heartbeats longer. Making sure there was no figure in the shadows following you.

 [Friday, March 22nd, 1986. NOW.]

“What’s wrong? What did you see?”, Robin exclaimed, sprinting down the gravel towards you, towards the spot at the edge of the Mayfield’s driveway where the cop had dragged you before returning back to the crime scene.

“I think something bad happened,” Max’s voice chimed up from beside you. In your panicked trance, you hadn’t even realized the redhead had stepped outside to join you watching the scene unfurling in front of you.

“Bad? How bad?”, Robin wanted to know. “Bad, in like –“

She cut herself off at the sight of the black body bag rolled out of the chipped blue front door of the Munson’s trailer on a stretcher.

“Deadly bad. Obviously.” That was Max’s voice, far away and low against the ringing noise in your ears.

“Holy fucking shit,” Robin breathed. “Is that, like, a body bag? A real one?”

The cheerleader is always the first one to bite the dust.

Something horrible had happened with Chrissy Cunningham.

But it wasn’t the memory of the glimpse of the green scrunchie that snapped you out of the daze of terror which threatened to sweep you away.

It was the memory of that smile, wide and radiant and familiar, of dark eyes twinkling as he twirled a strand of his messy curls around his ringed fingers.

“Where’s Eddie?”, you breathed.

↣ 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞

𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠/𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐦𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭! 𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭, 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 ❤

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson stranger things #stranger things #stranger things eddie #stranger things 4 #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things x reader #joseph quinn #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson angst

[morganali-art]

Just some quick warm up sketches before I get stuck into 8 hours of photo editing for work.

Cessalie just finished up patch 5.4.

#ffxiv #cessalie sombreterre #merlwyb bloefhiswyn #keelhaul me ma'am #the trials of being a minimum height elezen

[fisherfruity]

Everyone's focusing on how Meteor isn't the focus on 6.5's key art, when that isn't super uncommon (see 2.3, 5.4, 5.5, 6.2, 6.4). When really I think comparing Patch 6.1 (the first EW patch) to Patch 6.5 (the last EW Patch) is far more interesting.

#ffxiv #ff14 ffxiv #ffxiv art #I almost got an art history degree #its probably nothing

[wildstar25]

I would love to see the breakdown of Arsay’s timeline through the expansions!!!

WEEEEELLLL if you insist... My basic timeline break down is as follows: Keep in mind a few things are still kinda in flux, and if I ever contradict myself in the future literally don't worry about it

1.0 -> Calamity 6 months End point in the 4th umbral moon lining up with what is now the rising event (calamity memorial). Now that I’ve switched up arsay’s birthday, she turns 22 during the 1.0 campaign.

Calamity -> ARR 5 Years Arsay is stuck in the lifestream with the mother crystal for that 5 year period. Her memories of 1.0 and everyone's memories of her are largely erased. Arsay wakes up on a boat to Limsa Lominsa believing it is still her first voyage to Eorzea.

ARR->HVW ~6 months The base story including job quests take 3 months in total. The next three months are dedicated to the patches: Primal Trial series -> Coils of Bahamut -> 2.1. ~3 weeks Crystal Tower Raids, LoTA -> Syrcus Tower ~1 month 2.2-2.3 -> Crystal Tower Raid WoD ~2 weeks 2.4->2.55 ~3 weeks

HVW->STB ~4 months Main story starts a day or two after 2.55 and takes ~1 month total Patches take ~3 Months: 3.1->3.2->Void Arc ~1 month ->Arsay gets really into pvp and does nothing but frontlines and CC for a week -> 3.3->Alexander Raids->3.4 ~3 weeks Warring Triad->3.5->3.56 ~1 month

STB->SHB ~6 months Main story picks up a week after 3.56 and takes ~3 months time. (The first trip to Kugane takes 3 weeks off screen, after that travel time is reduced to a few days to a week using the East Aldenard Trading company boats (it would make sense that lolorito has better boat tech imo)) Next 3 month period is all the patches: Ivalice raids->Omega raids->4.1-4.2 ~1 month Eureka exploration->4.3->4 lords ~1.5 months 4.4->4.56 ~2 weeks

I know the ARR to Shadowbringers lead up is a mad dash but if it happened any slower, I don't believe Arsay would have be the character she is by that point. It is incredibly vital that she has almost 0 down time for herself. Her days and nights are PACKED full by choice. Job Quests, Hildebrand stuff,PvP, Hunts all get squeezed in throughout.

SHB->EDW ~8 months Main story picks up a few days after 4.56 and takes only 1.5 months to complete. Its a non stop emotional roller coaster for Arsay to be completely fine and normal about the whole time. Patches take 6.5 months, notably there is more downtime between patches: Chill relaxing after 5.0->Eden I->5.1->Neir raid I ->5.2-> role quest/shadowkeeper->Eden II-> 5.3 ->chill relaxing/recovery time for scions->Eden III->Neir raids II & III->Werlyt->Bozjia->5.4-5.55

EDW->DWT ~1 year (time spent in Elpis is not counted) ->Main story up to credit roll ~1 month ->Recovery time for injuries sustained in Ultima Thul ~4 months ->After credits - Scions Disband, everyone goes their separate ways - 1 day 🙃 ->Rest of the roll quests now that Arsay can mostly fight again(she can't cast mudras😞 ) ~1 month (casting>healing>tanking>aiming>bonus all role cap off) -> 1 month of nothing to do, Arsay still can't cast mudras, character development dictates she can no longer repress every bad emotion she feels, she has no proper coping mechanisms and quickly spirals into a mental breakdown over feeling like she's worthless and that no one will need her anymore now that the world isnt ending constantly and that she's worried without the scions being the scions everyone she cares about will slowly forget her and she'll be all alone again. Y'shtola and G'raha manage to get Arsay talking after a bit of self destructive lashing out. Things are sorta resolved?? Y'shtola and G'raha reassure her of a lot, and do their best to get it in her little kittycat head that she's not a burden on them even when she's sad. Not an automatic fix but Arsay does make the commitment to better her mental health and to work on her self image issues and communication skills! It'll be a process for her. ->5 days round trip to her home island in the southern seas to visit her Aunt and catch up ->6.1 starts when Arsay gets back from that ->Endwalker patch content takes up the final 5 months of that year period. Things are mostly interspersed with how they are released except for pandae which happens all in one go for Arsay between 6.3 and 6.4. Arsay has done all the variant dungeons, Tataru's grand endeavours, completed Island Sanctuary, and Myths of the Realm. ->The gap between 6.55 and 7.0 will probably only be about a week? Maybe 2? It depends how much it seems like the early arrivals to Tural have been there compared to Arsay and her crew.

That's my timeline! Thank you for asking and reading 🙇 hopefully that all made sense haha ^^

Have a picture of them for the road <3

#ffxiv #WOL posting #Arsay Nun #Arsay Nun Lore

[imago1603]

Donald Ressler's whump!list

1.3. "Wujing"  punched and slammed his forehead towards glass, bloody bruises on his forehead.

1.4 "The Stewmaker" punched in the back of his head, restrained

1.5 "The Courier" cut himself on his left forearm to protect his cover

1.6 "Gina Zanetakos" got involved into a fight with Gina in a lift, got punched in a face, been suffocated in a chokehold till unconscious, disoriented afterwards, bruises on his face. Saves everyone by risking his life when drives a car with a 'dirty' bomb inside, jumps out of moving vehicle, in pain. 

1.9 "Anslo Garrick" shot, bleeding out, field care, blood transfusion, unconscious

1.10 "Anslo Garrick Conclusion" slapped, tortured, threatened, recovering in hospital 

1.11 "The Good Samaritan" limping for the wound in his leg

1.12 "The Alchemist" still limping 

1.13 "The Cyprus Agency"  hit by car, pain to his leg for a little while 

1.14 "Madeline Pratt" got in a fight capturing a criminal, got hit in a face couple times, no harm

1.15 "The Judge" was caught off guard while looking for a suspect, probably got hit off screen, no visible damage in the next scene 

1.16 "Mako Tanida" threatened by serial killer, attacked, heart broken, nosed in the car, passed out, several bruises on his face. 

1.18 "Milton Bobbit" shot in the chest but fake scene

2.6 "The Mombasa Cartel" kidnapped, drug problem

2.7 "The Scimitar" sedated, unconscious, hospital, car accident, head wound

2.9 "Luther Braxton" suspended from ceiling by chains around the neck, slowly choked

2.10 "Luther Braxton Conclusion" fought for his life, punched, roughly fallen to the ground, bruises on his throat for had been hanged with a chained noose around his neck

2.12  "The Kenyon Family" involved in car accident, bruises on his forehead, got stuck into the car, captured, tied by his feet and dragged by motorcycle

2.21 "Karakurt" involved into an explosion blast, slammed against a car, bruises on his face 

3.2 "Marvin Gerard" involved into a car incident he provolked, fought, bruise on his forehand 

3.3 "Eli Matchett" fought, punched, bloody bruises on his forebrown and chin

3.11 "Mr. Gregory Devry" fallen from a moving truck against a car windshield, a little dazed

4.7 "Dr. Adrian Shaw" pepper sprayed in the face, stingy eyes, no harm

4.19 "Dr. Bogdan Krilov" struck by a stunning bomb and hit his head against the dresser and passed out, bloody cut on his forehead, tied up drugged and memories manipulated, bruise on his hand where drugs were injected 

5.4 "The Endling" hit by explosion blast and slammed towards the wall, dizzy and ears hissing

5.5 "Ilyas Surkov" hit by explosion blast, flew into the air, surprisingly not harmed 

5.10 "The Informant" got slapped by Presscott, ready to surrender to the police for his crime, saved by Red 

5.12 "The Cook" fought, been hit in a face 

5.14 "Mr. Raleigh Sinclair III" close call, almost got shot, criminal missed

6.18 "The Brockton College Killer" fought, punched

6.19 "Rassvet"  fought, punched, no further damage 

7.8 "The Hawaladar" fought, suffocated in a choke hold, can’t get up, coughing. lost consciousness, headache afterwards 

8.3 "16 Ounces" hit by explosion blast, many bloody cuts and treated in hospital, grimacing

8.19 "Balthazar "Bino" Baker" into a car accident and dizzy, shot and under gunpoint, hunted down, grunting and coughing, bleeding and treated on the field with makeshift equipment, panting and grunting, under gunfire, dizzy, unconscious and pale, carried in arms, surgery on the field, laying unconscious on a table with a cannula at his nose, IV and patch stained of blood, tube into his chest 

8.20 "Godwin Page" laying unconscios in recovery in hospital, septicemia, intubated and unconscious, crisis

8.22 "Konets" still in hospital, weak, in pain, checked himself out before full recovery 

9.7 "Between Sleep and Awake" in pain still suffering from chest wound from season 8, car crash, in hospital, pneumothorax, in hospital in wheelchair, drug use, severely beaten, emotional whump, in grief

#the black list #donald ressler #whump!ressler #my art #sketching

[honnojis]

Commission for @thunderandbadminton of her DND characters Kyana & Deneb! The artwork's based on the 5.4 patch art for FFXIV. Thank you again!!! They're both adorable 😭

Twitter

#famke draws sometimes #dnd #art commission #commission #thunderandbadminton #had to fix some minor things so it's a repost whoops

[bloodbywinter]

《SPOILERS FOR SHADOWBRINGERS & PATCHES》

hello I’m alive I’m just very slow. currently working my way through making edits of 5.4 and endwalker very shortly! 

thanks to everyone for their patience & support! 🖤🖤🖤

#ffxiv #Final Fantasy XIV #shadowbringers #shadowbringers spoilers #5.3 #5.3 spoilers #ffxiv edit #ffxiv fan edit #g'raha tia #elidibus #mine #edits #viera #ffxiv viera

[silentmight]

< A Bright Solution? > FFXIV Shadowbringers Patch 5.4 comic, shortly after returning from Azys Lla.

#serah art #comics #ff14 art #ff14 #FFXIV #ffxiv art #ffxiv shadowbringers #g'raha tia

[ainyan]

What does Kali'stae think about the Fatebreaker? What was her experience confronting a monstrous version of her beloved? (sorry if asked before)

Thank you for this question!

The Fatebreaker sent her on a tailspin and she had nightmares for days afterwards about fighting him - particularly about hearing Thancred's voice while fighting a creature that wore his face. In fact, it's one of those memories that frequently crops up in her Echo Dreams, and has even had a place in one of my (many, many) fics (see below the cut).

The fact that it wasn't only Thancred made it easier to fight him; the fact that it sounded more like Thancred than Ran'jit struck her to her core. (She'd never tell Thancred, but as much as she enjoyed hearing him before the Flow altered his voice, she's much more partial to his new one.)

Although, when pressed, she'll admit that this fight wasn't worse than fighting Lahabrea in Thancred's body in the Praetorium, or the false-Thancred Elidibus sent after her in Amaurot. Though significantly less difficult in terms of skill required, the first made her fight Thancred's body and risk killing him for good; the second made her fight Thancred's form without any distractors such as the dragon or the wings. At least Fatebreaker wasn't entirely Thancred.

It was enough of him though. =(

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Skill versus skill, as with daggers, Kal'istae and Thancred were evenly matched. Their bout may have continued until exhaustion drove them to a draw - but then it happened, exactly as she’d feared. Exertion exacted its toll upon her, and as Thancred’s gunblade slammed down upon hers, cross-guard to cross-guard, she chanced to look up into his face, and her perfect memory betrayed her.

She knew it wasn’t real. That fight had been won, the Fatebreaker, avatar of Ryne’s captivity, had been banished back into the heart of Eden. The abomination that Mitron had created from the aether - that monstrous conglomeration of Thancred, Ran’jit, and Innocence had been vanquished at her hand.

But as Thancred loomed over her, his hair mussed from their workout, his citrine eyes fierce as he gritted his teeth and strained downward with his gunblade, his face overlaid the gunbreaker’s and she yelped, shoving him backwards with an explosion of aether. He cried out and stumbled away, bringing his own gunblade up cross-body to ward off her next blow. It sent him skidding backwards across the dirt and grass and left him with a hollow pit in his stomach. “Kali, don’t-”

She launched herself at him, swinging out with a flurry of swift strikes that he barely parried in time. He’d known she was holding back - there was no way that he could hold his own against the Warrior of Light in full fettle, but he had never realized just how powerful she became under the influence of the incarnate Light. He tried again to break through her fury, but whatever had prompted this all-out assault had blinded and deafened her to his pleas. Setting his feet, he glanced anxiously to the side. “Y’shtola, some help here!”

“Kal'istae! Stop!” The sorceress lifted her staff, then stopped, eyes widening in horror. “Kali, no!”

Before Thancred could dodge, another explosion of aether rocked him, lifting him from his feet and sending him flying. He hit the ground with a grunt, felt pain radiate up his spine and through his ribs. His gunblade went flying, clattering to the ground beyond his reach. Even as he struggled to push himself up, he heard Y’shtola cry out again, and a shadow crossed his vision. He looked up to see Kal'istae leaping above him, gunblade poised to skewer him.

Whether it was the sight of him sprawled on the ground, helpless, or the sound of Y’shtola’s frantic cries, he never knew, but sense returned to Kali’s eyes even as she descended. With a shriek of dismay, she twisted in mid-air and hit the ground next to him with a thud, her own gunblade spinning off into the distance as she slammed into the rocky soil shoulder-first. “Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods,” she whispered over and over, rolling painfully to her knees and scrambling around until she could see him. “Thancred, gods, I’m sorry!”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Needless to say, the Fatebreaker remains my absolute least favorite fight of Eden (and, consequently, the one I always end up in for roulettes), and it's one of those memories that Kali has worked hard to suppress. In some of the universes I write, she's never told Thancred what happened during that particular fight; during others, it's come out as a result of an Echo Dream or, as above, during a waking flashback.

Regardless, it looms hard as one of the worst fights for her, psyche-wise, on par with Praetorium and Hades in terms of fights she desperately wishes she'd never had to fight.

Thank you very much for the ask!

#asked and answered #kal'istae miurani #thancred waters #eden spoilers #patch 5.4 spoilers #fatebreaker

[ax-ending]

im having fun with the shadowbringers patches :3

(pls no spoilers in tags/replies for 5.4 onward)

#ffxiv #g'raha tia #he has given me toxoplasmosis. i have loving catboy brainworms

[kuroimarzipan]

niuwyb and merlwyb for the npc ship meme? n.n

gripping my head oh good gods

okay so. idk how much i yell abt merlwyb/eynzahr on here but im literally obsessed fr. crying abt the fact theres only 5 fics on ao3 obsessed.

and i will not lie. i wont lie ive considered having them... invite niuwyb to their private quarters around 5.4.... and maybe. stopping by whenever shes in limsa after the fact....

#ask memes #replies #niuwyb #if i did decide to indulge it would probably be a more casual thing i think #sorry i think abt patch 5.4 so often #my fave post shb quests fr.

[necromeowncy]

NEW chapter: 'Wine Drunk' 🍷

Read here on AO3.

What is the WoL like when drunk? G'raha Tia finds out. Takes place sometime around Patch 5.4. Fluffy, warm, and cuddly fic. Musings about a newly-established relationship.

#hey look new fic!! #wolgraha #wol x g'raha tia #g'raha tia x wol #aedric vaillencourt #elezen #ffxiv fanfiction #ffxiv fanfic #g'raha tia #AedRaha #Promises Kept