It's that time again....
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Swift: And we’re back! Welcome, everyone, to the penultimate FQ Roundtable. Once more unto the breach, dear friends. Hold fast, it’s almost over.
Savin: I don’t think my liver could take much more.
Weatherbird: You know, you don’t need to get blackout drunk every time an ish drops, Grandma.
Savin: Easy for you to say.
Swift: First of all, a big welcome to Teru, joining us to comment on the latest overly telegraphed death.
Sust: Who?
Swift: Newstar’s lifemate.
Sust: ….
Swift: Oh, for drukk's sake:
Sust: Oh, OH! Yeah, him! Background Beefcake!
Teru: I was your next-door neighbour for your entire childhood, you narcissistic meathead!
Sust: No, sorry. I just always think of you as Mr. April.
Teru: I do one calendar shoot for charity….
Swift: We all know you’re more than a pretty face, Teru.
Coppersky: And… pecs…
Savin: And guns…
Kit: Tight buns…
Savin: (sotto voce) What does he
do, exactly?
Swift: Tree-speaker in the Great Holt.
Bluestar: Grows killer wackroot.
Weatherbird: How do you know that?
Bluestar: Mom! I’m twenty-five!
Weatherbird: And you were
fourteen the last time you stopped at the Great Holt!
Swift: So, Teru, how did it feel to see your son die in such a contrived and generally useless sacrifice?
Teru: It… didn’t feel like anything, really. I mean… it might have hurt back in… like 2005 or something. But since Alternaverse 2.0 booted up, I’ve had plenty of time to come to terms with my son accepting mortality, growing senile, dying of old age… my grief tempered by the knowledge that his blood lives on in my grandchildren… my furry, mutant four-legged grandchildren.
Coppersky: It helps he’s... not really
your son, you know.
Teru: Well, since you brought it up.... and… okay, I haven’t exactly followed canon all that well… and I don’t want to start… a thing here. But wasn’t Kimo like… way darker before he started shapeshifting?
Weatherbird: Better not to go there.
Teru: I suppose I should be more broken up about it.
Coppersky: Pft. When his own mother isn’t even shown grieving over him – in-universe! – you’ve earned a pass.
Teru: I was far more upset to see him lose his place as a gay elf icon… and to Mender of all elves!
Swift: We’re all upset by that, trust me.
Coppersky: RIP, Kimo. A blade took your life in 2017, but heteronormativity took your soul long ago.
Swift: I think, on the whole, this issue worked a lot better than last one.
Gypsy Moth: Because no Timmain?
Swift: Exactly.
Brightmetal: I liked the trolls getting their time in the limelight. Couldn’t help but notice they were being triaged based on race, though.
#TrollLivesMatterWeatherbird: I think that was less a social commentary, and more… Mender being a dick.
Swift: “Healing wounded trolls < healing wounded elves < killing shit”
Melati: (counts on fingers) The math checks out.
Teru: Remind me… why don’t we have a Mender?
Swift: Instead of ovulating Mender’s egg, Rainsong discovered her own healing powers.
Coppersky: To heal me! “Rainsong’s Quest” – classic 2001 fic! Yes, I am the reason Mender doesn’t exist in this verse. You may bow down now.
Savin: Normally I wouldn’t pander to your vanity, but that’s… that’s worth a bow.
Swift: Anything else? I gotta say, for something with so much action, there is almost nothing worth discussing.
Melati: Leetah’s wretched song?
Kit: Oh DRUKK! Did she think she was Pippin in Return of the King or something?
Savin: Every great war needs a catchy theme song. It is known.
Littlefire: Sarcasm?
Savin: Drukk yes.
Melati: It was rather amusing, hearing everyone angsting about Treestump. NOT TREESTUMP! POOR TREESTUMP! Dying of a minor flesh wound. Outside of the hip? If that’s leaving him on the brink of death, he has FAR more wrong with him than one bullet. Did... did we ever have a Treestump?
Swift: LONG before your time. Oh, and I see Strongbow broke the last of all unbreakable taboos… and he couldn’t even hit the right human.
Kit: No, he did. He shot the human who lightly wounded Cutter. Because satisfying your sense of outrage was much more important than headshot-ing the human who was threatening Kimo. Another brilliant choice by Wyl, ladies and gentlemen. Why miss a chance to get someone killed through your own selfishness?
Gypsy Moth: What is
with you? Seriously, I think FQ has broken you. Your daddy issues were never this bad before.
Littlefire: Oh, thank the High Ones. I was worried it was just me.
Swift: We all deal with trauma in different ways. Okay, let’s wrap this up. That cliffhanger, discuss!
Gypsy Moth: Okay, so obviously the obvious “IT’S A TRAP” didn’t occur to the Wolfriders… despite all their dealings with humans double-crossing them in the past… and Winnowill… and Door… and all the other elves who have proven that LYING IS A GREAT BATTLE STRATEGY! But I’m very puzzled that Shuna didn’t speak up and point out just how damned suspicious they were acting.
Melati: Why did they indulge in a surrender at all? Whose brilliant idea was it to stop when there were exactly three survivors left?
Swift: Moral high ground, honey. Can’t gloat over corpses.
Melati: My lord and I have never had a problem with it.
Gypsy Moth: I assume the Tree is going down with Leetah inside it. Dare I dream my unholy canon counterpart won’t see the outside of her uterus after all?
Swift: We live in hope. But not much of it.
Bluestar: Mel, you’re a healer. What sort of odds do you lay on Shuna surviving this?
Melati: My diagnosis is heavy plot armor. She’ll be fine. No… I am far more interested in knowing how that human smuggled enough gunpowder on his person to set off a chain reaction… and the feasibility of duplicating the experiment on a similar... but larger target…
Kit: (grins) Oh…. ohhhh… yeah, I see what you’re getting at.
Brightmetal: (smirks) Gunpowder is useful shit.
Melati: (tents fingers) Indeed.
The Hive-Mind of the Evertree: What? What are you all looking at us for?
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