#scribblingface

1. When did your Durge and Orin meet? What was their relationship like initially? Did their feelings towards each other change over time?

They really don’t have much of a relationship until she’s roughly around three- in which case she quickly goes from annoying albeit somewhat amusing to his dear little sister. He teaches her a lot of things about anatomy and is victim to several botched assassination attempts (for which he typically tolerates until she’s older- then he’s pretty insistent that she only try it again if she can land the mark, other wise he’ll kill her)

Really, they have a pretty good relationship (as good as two Bhaalspawn can have, really) up until Gortash enters the picture- it all goes down hill from there. Worth mentioning that I don’t think they ever got to the point of straight up hating each other- but they’re Bhaalspawn, and there’s really only one way they know how to settle arguments

14. Was there anything Orin and your Durge really admired about each other?

I just realized I never responded to this! Whoops! TY for the prompts, friend. :D

(20 Tav QOTDs)

13. what makes them laugh? what does their laugh sound like?

Both of these are questions about humor, which is generally not something Rakha always has a super good grasp on. She doesn't do a lot of laughing, and I think a lot of jokes often go over her head.

I was actually curious, and just went back and did a full search through Rakha's liveblog for the word "laugh". In Rakha's entire 650k-word adventure, she laughed a total of eight times. Two of them were bitter and without humor, one was a hysterical laugh in the midst of a breakdown, and the other five were moments where someone startled her with a joke they said unexpectedly, usually something taking the edge off a tense situation.

(Of the 321 instances of the letters 'laugh' in the liveblog, probably 50% of them were instead part of the word "slaughter". 😂 )

When taken by surprise with humor, her laugh is low in her throat, a quick, sharp bark, and usually surprises her as much as the joke did. But it definitely doesn't happen very often.

14. do they have any inside jokes among their companions?

I think probably not, given the above. Other people probably have inside jokes ABOUT her, such as Karlach's 'teethling' joke that went on over the course of the whole game. But I can't really think of anything that she was involved in herself.

“Such cruel indifference,” Gabriel said. “Will you eat, or will you compel me to harsher measures?” 

You just described a whole genre of tabletop RPGs - any particular preference in terms of what kind of villainous henchmen? Gadget-wielding Bond villain lackeys, goblin servants to the Dark Lord, etc.?

For a pure comedy approach, you might have a look at Kobolds Ate My Baby. The game’s title is wholly self-explanatory; you play as a pack of dumbass kobolds who’ve been ordered by King Torg to raid a nearby human village for delicious babies. The mechanics aren’t particularly deep, but you’re not expected to survive long enough to really dig into them - it’s one of those high-randomness games where your characters will frequently do stupid stuff simply because the dice say so.

If you prefer your henching with a side of political satire, your best bet is probably Paranoia. Here, you play as troubleshooters - in the sense that you find trouble and shoot it - in the service of a mad artificial intelligence that rules over a massive underground complex housing all that remains of humanity following an apocalyptic war. Your primary mission is to hunt down and destroy Commie mutant traitors; naturally, all player characters are secretly Commie mutant traitors. (This does not mean you’re all on the same side, mind!) Notable for being so absurdly lethal in play that every player is allocated six identical clones of their character to swap in as they expire.

And of course, if you want to get serious with it, there’s the classic My Life With Master, an exploration of the dynamics of abusive relationships wrapped up as a game where you play as the inhuman servants of a mad scientist in the mode of Victor Frankenstein or Dr. Moreau. You have stats with names like Weariness and Self-Loathing, and when play begins you’re psychologically incapable of refusing the Master’s orders, no matter how vile; the default victory condition is finally mustering enough self-worth to up and kill the miserable old fucker.

(Dark Urge and Orin Ask Game)

Woohoo. Okay, time for some major headcanoning cos this is def something I never figured out details about at all for Rakha. :D

When did your Durge and Orin meet? What was their relationship like initially? Did their feelings towards each other change over time?

I think that, based on the flashback that you get after the Heal spell, I pictured Rakha as not having been born within the cult of Bhaal. Prior to Orin's lobotomy, her earliest memories were of wandering the streets of Baldur's Gate as a very young child with her twin sister Z'Rell, and then both being taken in by a human family as wards. Over the following years she and Z'Rell began to evince a greater and greater taste for violence and pain, eventually culminating in their murdering the entire family.

It was as they stood over the dead bodies that the cult found them, having been sent a vision of new scions to be adopted at this moment of their first triumph. She met Orin for the first time on being returned to the cult's temple.

Judging by the fact that Rakha eventually carved up Z'Rell's brain and then Orin did the same to her, I think the three of them had a pretty fierce rivalry right from the beginning. Orin, who had been raised as Sarevok's heir, resented the arrival of two new candidates for the Chosen of Bhaal, and Z'rell felt overshadowed by her twin who always seemed ascendant in any matters involving them both. Rakha, for her own part, felt the other two rather beneath her notice, and gloried in her own power and natural abilities in this place where they were so prized.

If these feelings changed over time, it was only to become more and more vitriolic, until eventually the whole thing exploded.

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6. Does your Durge consider Orin a sibling? Do they think of her as family at all?

I think during Rakha's original life as a scion of Bhaal, she did consider Orin a sibling, but a younger annoying one. As mentioned above, she definitely looked down on Orin (and Z'Rell) and considered herself the superior sibling - but she did still recognize them as blood family (in every sense of the term).

what's this one from?

scribblingface replied to your post “I can't do a proper heart but <3!”

mmmmmmm yes. which fic is this from? I want to make sure I catch the whole thing

this one’s from a long-in-progress AU called “Sword Age, Wolf Age” that I began as a Ragnarok fic looong before we knew almost anything about the movie, and is now going to be non-canon before it ever sees the light of day.

the premise involves...a lot of things, but most of them can be summed up with “space road trip with brothers” and “possibly undead Loki, who knows.”

jujutherubberduckie replied to your post “™¥ I'm at a slow desk and NEED READS”

Wait which wip is this?? Angry Frigga gives me chills~

arcano-cosplay replied to your post “™¥ I'm at a slow desk and NEED READS”

omg this is soo good what is it me needs moaaar <3

so remember that one fic that wasn’t going to get a follow up? (no, that fic. no, the other one.) 

anyway this is the third fic in the Unraveling/Mending sequence and it basically picks up where the last one left off. Frigga’s not happy because, if you recall, the last we heard Thor was going to tell her that Odin was taking Loki off to, as far as he knew, be executed.

so she’s not very happy here.

(no one is.)

courgette96 replied to your post “¤ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸”

Oh dear Lord, I love this and I would love to know more!!!

so an anon prompted me in my inbox a long while back with the question “what if one of Doctor Doom’s attempts at cloning Loki (in “The Vivisection Mambo”) worked out and survived?”

and naturally I went “OH WELL THAT SOUNDS FUN”

jujutherubberduckie replied to your post “¤ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸”

I'm not ready but I'm gonna read it anyway

oh my goodness, I’m glad you’re safe now!!