#2024 the year of self indulgence

[palettepainter]

I’ll be posting a little writing WIP for Hired Sparky later today, but for the Undertale fandom, may I propose an idea with Siren Horror?

I’m a shameless fan of HTTYD and the Sea Beast and 2024 I am dubbing my year of self indulgence so I’m posting this. I might write this if it’s popular enough or if I get the confidence too, but imagine: 

Y/N as a newcomer to a seaside town, neatly nestled on a coastline in the middle of nowhere. It’s bitterly cold nearly all year, and the people are about as sweet as vinegar. But the housing is dirt cheap, considering the looking threat of sirens that infest the waters. Y/N is nearly dirt broke and is looking to build a life outside of their family home, so the unwelcome seaside town it is! Not many people are willing to go fishing in waters popular for siren sightings, so the pay is pretty impressive (even if the work field is a bit competitive at times)

They’re hired onto a boat crew of hardened fishermen who all retell gorey tales of siren attacks in great detail fairly quickly, after doing a bit of research on sirens. The crew are at the point where they’ve learnt to laugh a little, they’ve worked the job long enough that they’re pretty relaxed despite the looming threat of danger on the water. Y/N is not so eased. They’re hired purely as a second hands on the boat: tending to nets and sorting fish once they’ve hauled onto the boat, nothing else. But the captain still hands them a rather heavy harpoon gun with permission to fire if need be. 

They set off into deeper waters where few fishing boats are given the clear to fish, meaning it’s basically free game for anybody with a net to catch fish of all kind. The weather is rough, but the crew bat their hands and say they’ve faced down worse storms 

But then a siren is spotted breaching the water a little ways from the boat. They’re not in immediate danger, and so reader assumes they’ll simply sail out of its line of sight, but the crew already fire a warning harpoon into the water to try and scare it off. For a beat, there is nothing, before the siren attacks the ship - a kraken of all things, one of the most dangerous species, considering its ability to grasp at the ship 

The harpoon has wedged itself into the creatures skull, piercing through the top and dimming it’s eye lights. It screeching, in confusion or anger, maybe it’s the panic coursing through their system, but the protagonist thinks that maybe, their might be fear mixed in with that shrieking. More harpoons and swords are fired at its heaving body, chipping at already injured and cracked parts.

When Y/N is ordered to shoot they instead aim for the rope attached to the end of the harpoon wedged in the creatures head, it grazes the rope, but it’s enough for the creature to snap is with a violently throw of its head. The creature sinks back into the water, the boat tossing from the loss of its weight, sending many of the crew overboard - including reader 

They try to swim back to the boat, but swimming in the confines of a pool to practise swimming in the sea proves that the sea is far more ruthless. They end up being dragged out to sea, climbing to a part of the boat railing that had been snapped off during the attack. Reader wakes up in some kind of enclosed cavern like structure, obviously forged overtime from the waves chipping away at the rocks. They’re cold, hungry, terrified…but alive. And they learn quickly they’re not alone. The siren is nearby, confused, disoriented and greatly weakened from the spear still stuck in their head. They can barely keep their head upright before they topple back into the shallow water with a grunt of exhaustion 

It takes a bit of effort, and gently coaxing, and a hell of a lot of stupid bravery, but when the siren has tired itself out enough and after several failed attempts at trying to swat them away (missing mostly each time thanks to their vision being heavily impaired from their injury) but eventually, the reader dislodges the spear, and is then promptly smacked *hard* and is sent flying into the sand 

Reader is certain they heard something snap as they fall back onto the sand, but miraculously, they don’t collide back onto any rocks. Feeling sore, they sit up, the siren is supporting itself on an arm with laboured breaths, the other clasping at the eye socket on the injured side of its head. Gradually, a red, focused eye light burns to life, focused dead on them. The siren looks at them curiously, as if they’re only just realising it’s alone - Y/N expects an attack, for it to pounce, so something…instead, the siren snorts, shakily hobbling off to the were the water is deepest 

Basically: what if Reader was THERE when Sans got that injury on his head?? The two have been washed into a cove by the tides: Sans is too exhausted to climb out and the water is dangerously shallow, there isn’t enough food for him to sustain himself, and without it, he won’t heal. Reader goes through the whole “Maybe these monsters are only monsters because we chose to see them that way” and overtime the two form a somewhat bond, reader bringing Horror food and such while he heals and Horror showing them that sirens are far more intelligent than what silly books have documented about them 

I’m a sucker for enemies of two separate tribes or species breaking the generational hate and learning to be friends it is SUCH a good dynamic and it scratches my brain the perfect way 

[momo-t-daye]

For @superfallingstars Snapetober 2024 prompt "Garden"; toddler Draco getting some lessons in the garden from Sev

Draco thought it was downright pathetic the way Gryffindors whinged and whined about Professor Snape being scary. Professor Snape had to follow a syllabus that was Dumbledore-approved. Professor Snape didn't get excited and go off on tangents about all the ways a plant could kill you or parasites could eat your brain, Professor Snape had to teach the same lessons year after year and was probably quite bored. Severus, who DID get excited and go off on tangents about all the ways plants could kill you or parasites could eat your brain, had terrified/trained Draco out of sticking random objects into his mouth at a very early age. He might be scary, but he was a very effective teacher.

Text reads:

-and the seeds are chock-full of cyanide! Do you remember what cyanide does for us? That's right! It shuts down cellular respiration and you die from histotoxic hypoxia! But that's not all, every leaf has our old friends oxalic acid and urushiol, which can mess up your kidneys and ruin your day. Even worse, the sap is incredibly phytotoxic and the blisters will hurt for years. Isn't gardening fun, Draco?

[ask-october-fox]

I felt a warmth swirling through me, something I felt I had long forgotten. The world around me felt so much more alive than it did before. It was like the magic returned. A happy Halloween to you all~ Until next year..

Happy Hauntings and stay spooky~ 🤍🖤🧡🕯️🎃👻🍎

[elivanto]

STAR WARS: THE BAD BATCH 3.12 JUGGERNAUT

[briebo-art]

managed to break through the art block for my first drawing of 2024, my trans tiefling oc Belladonna in a pretty outfit. coincidentally, she was also my first drawing of 2023! they are one of the only things my brain lets me put to digital canvas, but i'm not fully complaining <3

it's always quite affirming to draw pretty trans women who have broad shoulders, narrow hips and sharp jawlines. as someone with those features, giving those to my ocs is always very fun!

as always, timelapse is under the cut, warning for flashing lights due to how the speed works.

ta! that's all.

[cynderrfall]

[tenmastrousers]

Happy Pride 2024!!!! ❤️

[wolvenjay]

Scarecrow Week 2024 - Day 3 Farm-Life Family

[rkn001]

you gotta keep what's precious, and hold onto it tight baby!

[turbulenthandholding]

This utter indulgence of brain-rotted fluff is my love letter to many things: the Sydcarmy fandom; Jason Isbell’s song Stockholm, for its inspiration; my adopted hometown of Chicago (and its largest airport); and the lovely city of Copenhagen, where I spent three beautiful days back in June of 2017.

[kinetic-elaboration]

July 22: D/J, Thunderstorm

Daria/Jane, ~850 words, 28 minutes

*

The storm is still just black clouds on the horizon but the rain has already begun, so steady and quiet that Jane can barely hear it over the music from her stereo, when the phone starts ringing. No one else picks up. So she scrambles around on the floor until she finds the cordless, which she dropped down there last night, late, after the longest conversation she's ever had about nothing at all.

"Yo."

"You've got to get me out of here."

Her sketchbook's propped open on her knees, and she smiles down at it, just halfway. The words are dire, the voice that says them even and emotionless.

"Who is it this time? Sister? Mother? Father? D, all of the above?"

"Aunt," Daria answers. "Rita's boyfriend dumped her and her house is being fumigated."

Jane raises an eyebrow. "Is the boyfriend a giant cockroach?"

"Yes."

"Mmm." She's been playing Radiohead on repeat all day; it's that kind of weather, that kind of mood. She reaches back to turn the volume down just a little. "You can always hide out here." A moment's pause, uncertain, the corner of her lip pulled in hard between her teeth. "We could do that thing again." Coward's move, not being able to say it. But it's more than Daria has managed in almost forty-eight hours now.

A long silence stretches out over the line. "We could," she answers.

"We don't have to," Jane adds, quick, and too bright, because she can't read in those two syllables—so carefully formed, not a single crack or hint of emotion in them—what her best friend might be thinking, and that's so odd for her it makes her stomach feel like it's flipping right over in the middle of her.

But I'd like to.

"I can be over in a few minutes," Daria says, and hangs up.

Jane hides her sketchbook in the drawer next to her bed and stands up and tells herself they'll watch whatever's on TV and maybe talk about Rita and Barksdale sisters' drama and whatever was up with that cockroach guy, he sounds like a real prize. And that the rest was an aberration. And that she has to stop thinking about it, and thinking about it, and thinking about it.

She doesn't put on her boots, just walks downstairs in her sockfeet. Already she can hear the rain picking up, a distant rumble of thunder that crashes overhead for a long, long time. She glances out and up through the window, sees heavy storm clouds scudding in closer over the trees.

When the doorbell rings, she opens the door right away.

Daria's standing on the other side, drenched beneath a heavy downpour of rain. Her hair is flat and dripping, her clothes waterlogged, her eyes invisible behind her rain-splattered glasses. Behind her, a crack of lightning breaks up the clouds, sizzles through them with a flash of electric-light.

"It was just drizzling when I left," she says, as if this were any sort of excuse at all.

Jane laughs. "You look like a wet rat."

Daria's brows furrow, that sharp, angry V between them that Jane's always thought is more cute than anything, and she answers, "Thank you for that helpful commentary. Aren't you going to let me in?"

"Oh, no, I changed my mind, I think you should—"

She can't get the last words out. Daria grabs her by the wrist and yanks her over the threshold. The rain's coming down so hard, needle sharp and cold and she shivers through her socks from the chill of the pavement and the near-winter shock of it, that she's half as drenched as Daria in about three seconds. And dammit if she doesn't even care.

Because Daria hasn't let go of her wrist. They're standing almost nose to nose out here.

The first, last, and only time they've been this close was right before they kissed, right before Jane kissed her, standing upstairs in the middle of her bedroom after school. It's Daria who leans in first this time, so fast she misses on her first try, and gets the side of Jane's mouth instead. The second one lands right, lands perfect, and Jane's fingers tangle up in her wet hair, thumbs sliding along the wet skin of her cheeks. She's so out of breath from the cold of the rain and the unexpected insistence of this girl, pressing forward, her hands at Jane's waist, that it's all she can do to just hold on. Just hold on.

"You know we could be doing this inside," Jane mumbles, right up against Daria’s mouth. She almost can't hear herself over the sound of heavy rain against pavement, the constant white-noise sheen of it pouring down.

"Too late now," Daria whispers back—which strikes Jane as so funny that nervous, manic laughter starts bubbling up in her. Too late now. They're already soaked so what else could happen? Only a lightning strike right where they’re standing. Which is what this already feels like. Like lighting that has somehow struck twice.

[essenceofarda]

Once i had a fic idea (that I still wanna get back to writing one day) that was the REVERSE* of the "Girl falls into middle Earth" trope, so instead it was "Prince Eldarion of Gondor falls into modern day Earth", and lives for a very confused time in modern day America, where he falls in love with a modern-day woman who he ends up taking back with him to Middle Earth when he Does manage to return, and so the fic would cover two timelines so to speak, or more...

take dual place in both like,,, modern day Earth where he's grappling with the craziness that is technology and modern day... everything, and then also in Middle Earth where she is grappling with "holy shit he was telling the TRUTH about where he came from????????" etc and it was... yeah sure, ridiculous, cliche, and probably something no one would be interested in reading, LOL, but it would satisfy that itch of mine to write a SUPER Self-Indulgent lotr fic 🤣🤔

[messiahzzz]

[beingatoaster]

I would never stop taking my bipolar meds just to get it back, but I miss the ability to slam out 10,000 words in a weekend or 30,000 in a week now and then. It's been two years and I'm still re-teaching myself how to write without it :<

[zanukavat]

cover i made for my stupid little playlist

[dreadfutures]

yeah today on my bus ride home it was just me and the driver and we were talking about how much of an ordeal going grocery shopping is, sometimes it feels like every safeway in the east bay is a police state, and she told me

"that's entirely correct, but you know what though?"

the private security apparently, when they catch someone shoplifting, more often than not just take the stuff back and let them go and don't report it

(supposedly; this is from my bus driver who would know better than me for many reasons)

and she even saw one of them walk a shoplifter back and personally bought them a whole family's worth of a chicken dinner

like. there's so many issues with the world. there are so many ways we're tackling capitalism and the housing crisis and mental health and food insecurity. and one of those ways is, even if it's not what you're supposed to do maybe, or even if someone might call it stupid or useless or dangerous, just to look at other people in your life as human beings and do what you can for them in the moment your lives intersect

and i have found when you start doing that, you start noticing way more when other people are doing it too.

i've mentioned it before but my mom used to hate homeless people with a passion. now she carries care goods--food, water, survival blankets, extra clothes, cash--in her car and makes a point to give it away whenever she has the opportunity.

the world becomes a less hostile place day by day.