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theminecraftbee · 1 year ago

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There are several things Martyn realizes, all at once, when he opens his eyes:

He is dreaming.

It's one of those in-between dreams, the ones that aren't quite dreams.

He is sitting at a green felted table. It is sitting on a stage. The lighting is dim, and no one is watching, but out of the corner of his eye he can see the stagehands dressed in black, waiting.

He is not the only one sitting at the table. There is a Watcher, draped in purple. There is a Listener, draped in yellow. There is someone he recognizes in a red sweater. There is someone he thinks he should recognize, but can't quite, shuffling a deck of cards.

"Right. What's all this, then," he mutters.

We are playing blackjack, the Listener says.

We are deciding the rules, the Watcher says.

"It's not like we have anything better to do. Honestly, I'm glad you're here. Do you know how boring these guys are?" Grian says, and Martyn decides to quietly file Grian away as a dream-Grian, as opposed to real-life-Grian, so he doesn't go insane and/or stab him when he wakes up. He waits for the almost-familiar dealer to say something. He does not. After another few moments of awkward nonsense dream-silence, Martyn sighs and leans forward on the table.

"Sure, this might as well be happening," Martyn says. "Deal me in. How's the betting work, again?"

"You put your bet on the table. If you beat the dealer, you get to add it to the game," Grian explains. "If you don't beat the dealer, it takes it."

"Yeah, but like, that's abstract, isn't it? What does that mean, exactly, me losing what I bet if I don't beat the dealer," Martyn says.

Grian shrugs. "Don't ask me. To be honest, I'm hardly the storyteller you are."

"Me? Why are you acting like I have any control over these things when you're--"

Are you ready to play?

Martyn shuts up, looks at the Listener, and sighs. "Yeah, sure, I'm ready to play. Why not."

The dealer looks to its left. Grian sighs. "Why are you making me bet first. Again. We should rotate where we're sitting--fine, fine, I know it's an advantage because I'm the worst at this. Uh. Hm. No trading or giving away lives again. Not even as time or something. It makes the dynamics all weird, and I think we could use a nice straightforward death game next time."

(Martyn wants to roll his eyes. Nice and straightforward. Sure.)

The Watcher goes next. I would like there to be deep and wonderful bonds between the players. I would like those bonds to seem unbreakable.

"Coming from you, that's ominous," Martyn says.

Can I not just miss the alliances of the early days? the Watcher says.

"Never left the desert," Grian says, rolls his eyes, and looks at Martyn in commiseration. Martyn just stares back. So sue him, he's a bit more worried about this whole concept than an eye roll and a pithy phrase. Things Watchers want are rarely good.

When the bonds are enforced, they're less interesting, complains the Listener.

Martyn looks over sharply. Hey, wait, he thought--

I didn't say they had to be enforced by rule. I said they had to be deep. Encouraged, as opposed to discouraged.

Just saying. You'll never recapture Third Life.

Martyn swallows. His throat is dry. Weren't the Listeners supposed to be the good guys, here?

Besides, what I want is for each death to be meaningful again. They've felt too meaningless, lately, the Listener continues.

Martyn thinks the dealer raises an eyebrow, but it strikes him he's not exactly sure. Grian snorts. "Meaningful deaths. That's rich for you to say. I mean, I guess they're meaningful sometimes? I don't know, Martyn's the one who understands dramatic sacrifices, I just like killing things."

"Why do you keep on looking at me when you say those things," Martyn says.

"Look, you wouldn't be here if you weren't helping write," Grian says.

"What?" Martyn says.

We're here to play our cards for the story, the Watcher says. Aren't you also one of the authors?

"Me? What? No, I'm--what are you talking about," Martyn says.

Oh, well. I also hope your meaningful deaths make it in, the Watcher says the Listener.

Thanks, even if I disagree on the bonds, the Listener says.

"They hardly ever talk about real, concrete rules they want," complains Grian. "It's easier to understand the consequence if they bring up actual rules. Like boogeyman or no boogeyman."

"We're all just betting on cards!" Martyn says, throwing his hands up. "You're giving me a headache!"

It's your bet.

"Fine!" Martyn says. "Fine! You know what? Screw all of you. I hope this is the last one. I hope we never have to go back to that stupid death game. I hope it's miserable to watch or to listen to or to play and everyone just gives up. How's that for a bet?"

You're no fun.

Is that what you really want?

"Suit yourself," Grian says. "Honestly, if I still had that to bet, I guess I probably would."

"What do you mean, if you still had that to bet?"

"Well, I mean, that's not how blackjack works, is it? I don't just get back my in when I play it."

The dealer nods, and then silently, with a long bony hand, deals the cards.

Grian is dealt the four of diamonds. The Watcher is dealt the nine of spades. The Listener is dealt the five of clubs. Martyn is dealt a jack of spades. The dealer deals itself a seven of hearts. The dealer deals Grian a six of clubs--

"Hey, isn't that supposed to be face-down?" Martyn asks.

"Not here," Grian explains. "They're all face up so we can't touch the cards. So we don't have to. So we can't cheat."

"Who said anything about cheating?" Martyn says.

"Please," Grian says.

The dealer makes a hand motion. Martyn, grumpily, falls silent. He supposes they're playing by casino rules, then. He hasn't been in a casino since--he wouldn't know. Hard to remember anything that isn't this, isn't it? Isn't killing and dying and things out of his control and things very much in his control and, apparently, bizarre dream sequences designed to make him want to strangle Grian.

Anyway. Grian is dealt a six of clubs, giving him ten. The Watcher is given an eight of spades, giving it seventeen. The Listener is dealt a king of hearts, giving it fifteen. Martyn is given a six of clubs, giving him sixteen. The dealer deals its own second card face-down. Martyn stops to try to speak, and then shuts his mouth. Right. Dealer's advantage.

He stares at the numbers.

Grian sighs. "Well, I've got to double down, don't I? Fine. I want the whole 'red lives can kill' thing to be enforced somehow. I don't care how. There's my double down."

The dealer nods.

"Why would you want that," Martyn says blankly.

If we all win, that will be interesting with the bonds, the Watcher says mildly.

Grian shrugs. "I mean, we've enforced red names not befriending green names, but not the murder thing before. Figure we should switch up the game, right?"

"Why?" Martyn says again.

Well, it wouldn't do for it to be boring.

"No, not that. Just... isn't it easier to handle when the rules are laid out properly?"

Martyn throws his hands up, but stops arguing. The dealer gives Grian a face-down card. The dealer moves to the next party at the table.

The Watcher looks over at the dealer and makes a cutting-off motion. I stand.

The dealer moves on. Hit me, the Listener says, and is dealt the queen of diamonds. The Listener gestures to Martyn. It seems I bust. Pity. I suppose there will be no guarantee of meaning, then. Not what I'd prefer.

The dealer looks at Martyn. Martyn looks at the other hands. Martyn pauses.

"Wait, this is like, casino blackjack, yeah? I'm only playing against you, not the whole table?"

"Why would you be playing against us?" Grian says. "Writing's a collaborative process."

Martyn looks entreatingly at the Listener, but the Listener is a little too caught up in the bad hand it has been dealt. Martyn looks entreatingly at the Watcher, but the Watcher just looks somehow confused.

"I was under the impression that, I don't know, you all were adversarial."

Why? All we want is the same thing as you: the story to be told a certain way.

Martyn's not sure if he's furious or just numb.

"Fine. Got a sixteen, don't I? Hit me."

Two of spades.

He's furious. He wants to win against the dealer. He wants to win against everyone. He wants his idea to make it through. He has an eighteen, though. There are only two numbers in the deck that will not bust him, and he's no fool. Hitting on sixteen is a risk enough; if he wants his stupid bet of everything finally ending to make it through, he's got to hold here.

"I hold," he says through gritted teeth.

The dealer silently deals itself another card. A three of hearts. Distantly, Martyn's ears rush. He could have taken that. He could have taken the hit. He could have won. He could have had blackjack, and he doesn't know what the extra payout for blackjack even means in a game like this one, but he could have had it, and he held back, he didn't take the risk, he didn't--

The dealer flips up its cards. Seven, eight, three. Eighteen.

Martyn's heart pounds. A stand-off.

Grian flips up his own card and groans. It's a five of diamonds. "There goes that bet," he mutters.

The dealer makes a sweeping motion around the table. The Watcher smiles, a terrible, terrible thing. Martyn, all at once, realizes that he can't ask again. He can't say 'this is guaranteed to be the last one' again. He backs out of his chair. To the sides, he sees the stagehands change the lighting. A spotlight, on him and the dealer--

"That isn't fair," he says. "It's a tie. I should get my bet back, right? It's a tie!"

THAT IS WHERE WE DIFFER FROM THE HOUSES IN VEGAS, the dealer says, and Martyn's heart stops.

(The voice is familiar. Familiar, but he cannot place it.)

YOU SEE, IN THIS GAME, THERE IS ALWAYS ONE THING THAT HAS AN ADVANTAGE. ONE THING THE STORY IS ALWAYS PLAYING AGAINST. ONE THING, THAT INEVITABLY, AFTER LONG ENOUGH PLAYING, WILL WIN.

There, the dealer looks Martyn in the eyes, and Martyn, all at once, knows exactly what the dealer must be.

AND THAT IS ME.

Martyn stares Death in the eyes.

Then, in a cold sweat, Martyn wakes up.

He does not sleep again for a long time.

#trafficblr #martyn inthelittlewood #grian #the watchers #the listeners #a bee fic #this is me getting ALL OF MY MOST PRETENTIOUS URGES OUT before i go write more giftfic #literally all my most favoritest pretentious tropes. death personified. weird audience/writer avatar watchers and listeners. cards.#the series abstracted as a stage show. martyn being tired and confused.#really really ominous portents of the next game that hasn't actually happened yet #this is what self-indulgence looks like. if you're me.#there could not be. a more me fic.#anyway. ANYWAY. martyn doesn't understand why he's here. but why WOULDN'T he be here?#out of everyone in the series he's one of the ones who shapes the narrative the most after all

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headfullof-ideas · 5 days ago

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All right this took me. ALL DAY. To color. And it’s not even that impressive (to me anyways) BUT, at long last- the Dark Orca Pirates in my crossover AU.

The Dark Orca is a mighty pirate ship, heralded from generation after generation of pirates roaming the seas. The ships current owners are the family of Captain Hammerhead, and his children. The Dark Orca and her crew spend most of their time at sea, searching for unsuspecting traders or fishermen out at sea, plundering them of their goods, or raiding the various sunken ships or forgotten temples that they find of their treasures. Sometimes, they even tackle the various tidal class dragons that emerge from the depths to poke around the ship. The Dark Orca was once an old armada ship, its size and military might on par with that of the Grimborn brother’s strongest ships. The crew that handles the Dark Orca, it’s sheer size and militia prospect, and the foreboding ‘ghost ship’ feel that the Dark Orca has means that most other people tend to leave her and her crew alone. However, the Nekton family with their own similar in scale ship, the Aronnax, aren’t above tussling with the Dark Orca’s pirates, especially if there’s a dragon or treasure of their ancestry home Lemuria involved. When the Dark Orca isn’t at sea, plundering it and its travelers for their treasures, she can be found at many different markets, from the markets filled with clothing stalls and food markets, to the seedier markets where underhand deals and questionable trades occur, and sometimes even at the markets frequented and run by Dragon Trappers, meant for their business. The Dark Orca’s crew have heard rumors of people riding dragons, though with the cesspool of rumors and gossip that the pirate community is, they’re not sure how genuine these rumors are. Though, with Dragon Trappers being the ones to spread most of the tales, they’re wondering if there’s any merit to the stories.

Captain Hammerhead is the head of the Dark Orca, steering it and his crew in every direction that they go. Every wreck they visit, every ship they plunder, it is all done when Hammerhead says it will be. Hammerhead is the Captain, and everything is done as he says it will be. Hammerhead is like any other pirate, obsessed with all the gold and jewels and treasure that he can get his hands on. Hammerhead however is also determined to live up to the legacy of the ship that he inherited through his father, and his father before him, and as far back as five generations before his grandfather from the Dark Orca’s original captain, Grimbeard the Ghastly himself. The Dark Orca has a fearsome and impressive reputation, and Hammerhead is determined to ensure that legacy lives on. Gold and jewels, artifacts the likes of which no one has seen, maps that entail the most exotic of lands and treasures that not just anyone can get, power and adventures that make an even bigger name of the already legendary ship that he commands. Hammerhead is determined to make sure the Dark Orca’s legend lives on, hoping that his name and that of his children will live on in the Captain’s log and diary that lives in their ships helm, and amongst the tales and legends that circulate the widespread community that the pirate trade is. Recently, Hammerhead has found a rather inconvenient annoyance in the shape of a group of children that have started making their rounds around the markets that he takes their ship to sell goods and plant stories. A group of children seemingly bearing no knowledge of the way things are run in this corner of the world, who buy supplies and other odds and ends through means of trade, using dragon scales from more than one species and more gold and jewels than children seemingly on their own should have as currency. Hammerhead is determined to figure out where these children are getting their dragon scales and jewels, though he is unaware of what exactly he may be getting himself into.

Smiling Finn is Captain Hammerhead’s eldest child. He’s not as interested in the pirate business as the rest of the Dark Orca’s crew, his dad, and his little sister. Finn wants to travel the world, and living on a pirate ship does help ease that passion. All Finn wants to do is snag a ship for himself, even if it’s a small one, and go see the world for himself, no piracy attached. Finn’s dad has named him first mate of the Dark Orca, something that Finn knows is rankling to some of the older crew members. It only makes Finn’s resolve to leave his life of piracy behind even harder, because his dad isn’t super sentimental or anything of the likes, yet he refers to Finn as his first mate with pride and boisterous passion. However, the life of a pirate isn’t all bad. Finn’s desire to see the world is satiated by seeing all the places that the Dark Orca goes, the numerous variety of dragons and the scenery of all the locations they go to incredible. Sure, the dragons they come across are usually attacking the Dark Orca, or his dad is having the crew attack them, and they’re usually stealing treasure from all the crazy places that they go to, but Finn gets to see it all! And he’s usually allowed to roam around the places they go and look at everything, so long as he brings something interesting back with him. And then there’s the Nektons, specifically their only child, a girl named Fontaine. Fontaine is sarcastic and sharp-tongued, always ready with a witty comment. She’s practically at home at the sea, and while Finn is definitely developing a bit of a crush on her that his sister Maddie canNOT know about, Finn’s also finding a friend with common ground and interests with her. Finn tells her all about their adventures, especially about how there’s this group of kids his dad is starting to try and track down, though why, Finn doesn’t know.

Mad Madeline is the youngest pirate on board the Dark Orca, and quite possibly the youngest pirate on board a large-scale pirate ship in pirate history. Madeline lives for being a pirate, she loves plundering for treasure, and testing her skills and their limits at pick-pocketing and stealing things right from under people’s noses. Madeline lives for exploring the seven seas, for braving the watery channels and the raging storms and the fierce dragons that erupt from the depths. She knows Finn’s heart isn’t with piracy and their ship and families legacy, and while she doesn’t understand it she hopes that she herself might one day get to stand at the Dark Orca’s helm and create her own legacy. Madeline listens to her dad and all the other old pirate captains and all their tales of great pirates that ruled the seas. Her favorite is of Grimbeard the Ghastly, who once steered the Dark Orca herself. But Madeline is also interested in more than old pirate stories. She loves to collect stories of ghosts and various legends, mythical creatures and sea monsters from the deepest parts of the oceans. Madeline is obsessed with dragons, specifically the Tidal Class dragons, who are like the sea beasts from the book her mother gave her as a birthday present come to life. She’ll even pretend not to be eavesdropping when the matriarch of the Nekton family tells her daughter something interesting about the dragons that come from the sea. The Nektons are infuriating, but things are always even more exciting when they’re around, and Madeline loves sneaking onto their ship to look at all the cool stuff they’ve found, and then try stealing it. Madeline was the one who first saw the kids trading dragon scales and jewels for expensive leather and clothing and tools, and she’s baffled on why they settled for mundane items such as the things they buy and trade for. She hasn’t told her dad, but she saw them trading jars of green gel, chicken eggs, exotic flowers, and even fish as well to get the items they leave the markets with, though the dragon scales and jewels and gold seemed more important to tell Hammerhead. Madeline can just tell that these kids are hiding something, because why would they be at the markets buying such weird things with such hard-to-find items? She’s determined to be the one to crack the mystery about them, looting them for all they’re worth.

The Dark Orca and the Pirates were fun to figure out and plant within the rest of the story. All the lore of the Dark Orca, and the rest of the pirate community and the Floating Market is gonna be so much fun to flesh. Does anyone else remember how the Dark Orca was made out as some terrifying myth or legend in the first episode they showed up in? And then how they just…weren’t really like that through the rest of the show? It makes sense with the way Hammerhead is in the show, but in my crossover AU? Not happening. The Dark Orca will be the terrifying legend that people who venture out into the open ocean fear and try to prepare against. People steer clear of the Dark Orca when they see her. And the realization some character, important or not, will have that they’re talking to someone that works on that ship? The pirates will be pirates and they will be competent. Though, six kids riding freaking dragons and a family of do-gooder aquanauts will still be an issue for them. But it won’t be so butt-end-of-the-joke with the pirates of the Dark Orca

#i can’t wait to get to writing all the RTTE stuff #so many arcs and so much lore and so many storylines #but i have to get through the first movie and RoB and DoB #though RoB/DoB will also be fun to write #lot’s of early character development in those shows #anyways. back to the pirates #their designs were fun to figure out #Maddie grows into quite the extravagant little pirate lady #and the only difference for older hammerhead is that he gains some weight and grey hairs #Finn was a nightmare to draw. those stupid cheekbones and that stupid hair-do #I’m happy with how they all look though #i have plaannns. PLAAAANNNNS #(i say repeatedly and ominously. despite having done no writing in the last who knows how long now)#httyd/the deep crossover #captain hammerhead #smiling finn #mad madeline

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