#Dimension: Betwixt

[cizzle-freezy]

Krystallynn Neva, or "Krys" for short. Heiress to the throne due to her divine connection to Prysm, the goddess who watches over the kingdom of Mayamai.

... aka this is yet another self-indulgent thingy. Wouldn't call it an AU, probably more like a multiverse? Dimension? Regardless, I call it "Betwixt", and it started because of a gartic phone prompt where I did a swap AU of sorts.

Also! This is an outfit redraw (or adaptation?) of a 'sona @hikaririnku-blog had drawn of me back when we were in high school (probably 6 to 10 years ago at this point, there wasn't a date on the drawings), and she gave me permission to share them here for sake of comparison:

[genshin-impact-updates]

The "Blades Weaving Betwixt Brocade" wallpaper series is now available!

Click the link to download the wallpapers in different dimensions!

https://hoyo.link/7oyhFBAL

[taldigi]

i've deduced that the fact that ren /akechi can't work is based solely on Akechi once calling Ryuji stupid to Ren's face- wherein any and all attraction and or goodwill drained out of him like a tub of water before the flextape is slapped on. Sorry, the only one who gets to call Ryuji stupid is Ren's cat and that's because they've got a very complicated friendship and need to work that out betwixt themselves actually and akechi sort of threw away that theoretical privilege when he decided that murder is more titillating than friendship- which is high treason in The Anime Dimension

[ximiiixx]

read this post first!

this is a continuation of the music artist mc au.

imagine baxter ward as your manager. he's by far the most personable hire you've got, but there's an air of detachment to him that sings to the allure of mystery; a strange, offputting charm that comes with how easily he smiles at you no matter the acidity of any sour attitude you might harbor. be it that you're not a morning person or that you're simply a surly person in general, he'll take all of it - all of you - in stride with nary a strand of hair out of place nor a blemish or bruise on his flawless press-board figure.

and maybe if you were a bit more brazen than what was listed in your job description, maybe if you were a naïve little thing - you might have eyed the sweep of his delicate fingers across his bangs with more intrigue, might have found a dark sort of thrill in the smoked swim of his voice as he pings off demands and calls like bullets off armor, might have taken more time than you needed to watch him slide off the impeccably cut blazer hiding all that smooth-planed goodness.

maybe if you were a bit bolder, you'd let your curiosity get the better of you; wrestle every instinct and rule hammered into your brain like tenderized meat and keep it all under lock and key in favor of using the tick of his fingers and the unlacing of his scarf in the mornings as a distraction for your ever-fidgeting eyes.

and baxter- oh, he knows everything there is to know about you. he's your manager, after all, and it's his job to know these things and delegate accordingly. he knows how you take your coffee, what you like on your morning toast, the exact dimensions of the perfect dressing room size for you to prepare comfortably for a performance, what colors bring out the shimmer of your eyes the best; all of it, he's kept neatly filed away on the back burner for later, try as he might to seem nonchalant about the whole ordeal.

but it's hard to ignore when he's dead set on making sure everything goes perfectly - and by that, he means that everything must go your way. any desire of yours, any base need or fleeting want or whatever may come betwixt - it will all be yours at the work of his hands if you so much as snapped your fingers.

a certain jewelry maker from a certain writer's most beloved heist film said it best; "[they] must have the sun."

and have it you shall, if only you would ask for it - if only you would let him bring it to you with bare, burning hands.

call it uncanny, if you must - call it unsettling, even, to have such a straitlaced man waiting on you hand and foot. but your fame is well-earned, and who is he to look an opportunity in the mouth?

after all...perhaps there's a different kind of mouth he'd rather become well-acquainted with.

[lactating]

Before you begin your daring and quite magical physica manouvers, you feel a little tingle from your ally in chromancy, UP! You indulge the box of lights' koans for another few minutes. UP: Hi! NG: hiiiiiii NG: rhyme or meter? You find the challenge enhances every possible dimension of inter-personal communiques. [11] UP: Rhymes this time. fuck yes UP: Do you know where I can find a disk? A CD Disk? NG: the oracle isnt parsing this question; rephrase it with mythological intention UP: O Wise One, Wherefore do I find the Lightning-Fired Tome of Sacred Knowledge? you sincerly have no idea NG: if you can find it, its for sale, and if its hay bale, horsegale mangrit! NG: goshdarn dangit? four hour workshift? UP: I suppose that much was obvious. UP: What have you been up to? NG: pride month in a plastic land wizard wants to attend, pride staff in hand ill omens she portends, across the lands pride month in a plastic land UP: Those are both also in meter. You spoil me. NG: babbling across the petrified sands twisting, tortured souls forever to remand evil aroots betwixt microplastic cracks alchemical creations reproduce autofiat do your footprints leave tire tracks? even trees give their leaves for free pride month in a plastic land wizard sees a rat crushed beneath the motor spirits noble heel ill omens she portends, like. for real. UP: ...:) NG: i need to get off my phone lightbox scrambles my melon so lost in the poetry zone it was flowing out of me like a ballet NG: so good luck - ; as a spell i cast to your pluck UP: Oh fuck yes, more spells for me? NG: “do whatever you want forever”; advice a true treasure UP: Okay, lest we get too giddy. UP: I bid you adieu; I’ve stuff to do. NG: til we meet again, friend ^_^ As do you! It seems like BT must have done its dirty work of wrangling nonnie to do the one thing he is supposed to do today. Yippee!!!!!!!

#61: ford the dragon for real this time >

#18: The Dragon? >

[daemonlogical]

To turn one's back

Danny knew, upon taking the crown and ring, upon accepting the mantle of the Infinite Realms, that he has power enough to cleave Earth in two. Gather all remaining captives of the GiW in Earth, gather his family and fraud, and obliterate the planet that has hurt him for so long. Doing away with mortals thinking that they can cow the Infinite, break the will of the Beyond, conquer the Hereafter.

But, in the wisdom the crown gives, he knows all will go to him in time.

So, instead, he made this proclamation, hoping to keep conflict away from the Realms:

I, Phantom, the Balance, Rex Infinitus, Sovereign of the Realms Betwixt and Between, declare this as truth: the Infinite Realms shall be closed to this dimension, to be reopened only upon death of the last of mortals ensouled.

With that proclamation delivered, the Infinite Realms responded to their King's command and sealed all entrances across the universe, from end to unreachable end. His people are already safe in the realms, there is nothing to return to, so he turns his back to the world that turned against him first.

What he didn't understand though, was closing the Inbetween isolated that dimension's plane from Everything Else. And those from Elsewhere in that dimension were sealed as well, doomed to never go home.

The living raged, disbelieving. The dead understood, accepting.

What happens now?

[viiioca]

day 20 - discovery

Dear Edmont, I shall not bury the lede on this one: I am writing to you from beneath a volcano. I've been finding myself in increasingly absurd situations of late. I have no complaints about this, surprisingly; the aftermath of war makes these conflicts seem almost relaxing. It's a lovely thing to find myself beneath a volcano, or a lost city sunk deep into the earth, or in a crater that leads to a rift betwixt dimensions and not wading through the mud and blood of a battlefield. (It occurs to me that I might not have told you about those stories yet. Suffice to say, I will not want for topics of conversation when I next visit.) But I'm getting ahead of myself. Do you remember some decades ago when the ladies of the high court discovered their insatiable appetite for Eastern imports? If I'm to believe Perette, it was she – always happy to make a scene – who set the fashion. It was good business for House Laussienne, of course, but as a consequence, the estate was always full of what seemed like an endless parade of these tiny treasures which had seemed so magical to me as a little girl. I drank the stories like droughted land; I loved the tale of Tenzin, cast out for his gift that sounded so similar to my own, and how he roamed the land finding friendship in a coterie of talking animals, each themselves an outcast. I remember a lacquered fan my mother gifted me that revealed Byakko – a white tiger of legend – on the hunt in a bamboo forest and I loved it with my life. I met Byakko today. (I apologize – I promised I would not bury the lede, and yet here we are.) And wouldn't you know it? The volcano featured in those stories as well. There is a cavern here, and a shrine, and all these delightful talking animals: and just like that, I discover that the fairy tales I loved so well are true and real. But that should not come as such a surprise to me, should it? That is the joy of adventuring. With my own hands, my own feet, my own eyes, I learn what is real in the world after all. In the interest of expedience, I am enclosing a series of small watercolors I've done, which still do not do justice to the particular qualities of the aether here – the luminescence is spectacular – but paint a far more literal picture than my words could. I am also enclosing a bottle of sour plum wine (do not be fooled by the name; the plum is more of an apricot, and it is mascerated in a rice spirit, and I have found it to be a lovely digestif). As Tataru has inexplicably volunteered to come along on this expedition and this letter will pass through her hands, do not be surprised to find inclusions that I haven't listed. If you write a letter in return, please send it to her; peace talks with the Garlean emissaries are ongoing and I suspect I will be volleyed back and forth between Kugane and Doma for the next moon or so. Please give the boys my regards. With love, Estelle P.S. I shall actually include two bottles of the plum wine; could you see to it Aymeric takes a break to enjoy it from time to time?

[roevember 2023 prompt by wintertitania]

[spottedenchants]

fluffy lil 400 word bit inspired by this post @essekthelysssideblog :3

~

Essek has had many faces; between them, even more names.

Among his favorites are those wrapped in jests and in teases, in kind intent nevertheless.

‘Twinkle Toes’ dresses in a faint brogue, while ‘Essie’ stays in a softened shrill tone. ‘Man’, gruff enough in a way he can comfortably withstand, and ‘big guy’, gently rumbles from one twice him in dimension. ‘Best friend’, shortened to ‘bestie’, laced in bouncing vowels.

‘Friend’, ‘my friend’, shared between a placid drawl, a light sea-sway, and a thicker, now-sleepy lilt.

And now in the last, though not quite new, the newest:

“Dear.”

Continue below or on AO3

The word itself is a smile, the syllable of it nothing but sweet.

“Another to the list?”

Essek asks, unnecessarily, given the grin glinting in his dear friend’s pretty blue gaze.

A threaded blessing like the rest, Essek sets aside this title’s very own crafted space.

“It is you, hm?”

Fingertips trace along his cheek. The whisper, the planes of his face.

Pads follow warm to the well-worn homes of kisses, the different paths they all may take.

Greetings. Goodbyes.

The ‘do better’s, the ‘come back’s.

The very best in this moment: the ‘please stay’s.

“What do you think?”

A great many things, all tricky to phrase, so as always, Essek weaves in this one, too.

“Caleb Widogast…”

That suffices, a crystalline success as Essek draws out a simple chuckle; he catches it like a butterfly, a quieting brush betwixt.

By now, he needn’t say much else to convey this trickling depth of delight.

Even still, he does try, for Caleb is well worth every effort.

“Very well. Call me as you would like.”

But Caleb peers, clicks his tongue.

“So formal.”

A teasing curl to his mouth, like a taste isn’t quite enough to sate.

Well, certainly a challenge can’t stand.

“Caleb Widogast.”

His name honey, Essek glazes it to Caleb’s lips.

Smile toothy, Caleb backs.

“My friend?”

“Silly man.”

And again Essek leans, unresisted.

Caleb tuts.

“Needs must.”

“Ridiculous man.”

Once more, Essek meets him, and this Caleb parts with a laugh.

“But of course, my dear. And your thoughts?”

A little sigh, nuzzled close; Essek returns exactly to where they began.

In a silent reply, he gifts Caleb yet another kiss, this one up, soft between brows.

And he smiles, affection’s roots having grown ocean-deep in his chest.

“You know, given time… I think that it just might do.”

[acupofqueercoffee]

“On again, off again, love you like oxygen”

whumptober 2022 // Lin Beifong x Reader

cw : implied self-harm

i got into watching legend of korra at the beginning of this year because of lin (only while watching it did i realise i’ve seen some of it on nickelodeon lol) and believe it or not i’ve been raking my brain for ideas of a good lin x reader ever since, but it has not been quite successful. however i got this little thing out for whumptober and having been inspired by it, i might write a longer piece for it when i’m feeling particularly in the mood

I have held my breath in a pool before, but this is nothing like that.

This is akin to plucking a thin, dainty silver betwixt a thumb and a forefinger, and willing my hand that seems to have a mind of its own not to gravitate towards the already messy canvas.

Of course, when has the body ever known to comply with the boring old brain when the ever arresting heart is right there?

After all, romantics tend to value insanity over sanity.

And just as it is out of my control that my hand decides to help the edge of a silver draw scarlet onto my skin, my nose will inhale, and my lungs will absorb regardless of what my brain tells them to do, or rather, what not to do.

In this battle that the heart has started so foolishly itself, it becomes the defeated.

The outcome is not so much a bombshell as a disappointment, I conclude, because in the end, what I want does not matter.

It is always what is supposed to be.

But alas, the water enveloping me is not a beautiful cerulean blue.

The water rushing into my lungs is a breathtaking emerald green.

She has stubbornness for a heart, and gentleness for hands.

She soothes the stings, writes poetry on the empty canvas of my soul, and breathes warmness into my ice cold lips.

Believe it or not. Being smothered in her embrace, even at the expense of having my breath taken away from me, does not feel suffocating.

It feels safe.

She drenches me in loving glances, swaddles me in words secretly shared, and finally, finally when I am least expecting, asphyxiate me with heartbroken eyes.

I will say; it is a slow, painful death.

“Do you take Lin Beifong to have and to hold from this day forward, to love and to cherish her, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others for as long as you shall live?”

“I do, I do, I do, oh I do!”

Except that it is not her name caressing my ears, leaving a trail of colourful flowers in its wake.

It is red hot tar seeping through the pores of my skin, eating away at my flesh and bones, until it tarnishes my lungs at which point will have long been shrivelled and sucked dry of air.

“Do you take this man to be your husband, to love him, to cherish him, to…”

Anytime now, I will be turning into sea foam, nothing more than flesh and bones ready to decay in the depressing currents.

“I am not yours and you are certainly not mine.”

Her words from last night echoes.

And as I stare beyond the man in front of me and intensely into the deepest depths of those greenest eyes, I utter with resolute conviction.

“I do.”

Perhaps in another world, another universe, another dimension, I will get to live life as Lin’s instead of a walking shell of a person who is simply not Lin’s.

[rotten-pest]

Coiled spring of death; Or, 2nd molt.

It is a strange thing, to try to explain. Humans, all their ken (birds, rodents, hooved things, hounds, so on…) shed skin regularly. But that was a very different sort of thing, more like a tree losing a leaf. So small and inconsequential as to be unnoticeable. But for her kind? Shedding, or molting, as it were, was a long process. First the old skin must be separated from the flesh. One becomes inert, lethargic. For humans, such a process is called ‘de-gloving’, and is a bad thing. After the outer is separated from the inner, digestive fluids are flooded into the space but do not yet get to their work—but they do singe, tingle, a bit of a numbing sensation. First the new shell must be prepared. It is soft and flexible. One cannot put to words the immense relief, whence previously unknown, to this stage. But it is a short lived relief, for what comes after. For once complete one must break out of their old shell, pushing and bulging and squirming and throbbing and twisting and crawling, digestive fluids weakening the structure, lubricating the separation point, until one splits along their old back and is able to begin pulling themselves out. Then they are a soft thing. Teneral, or callow. Then they may grow into their new skin, swallowing air to expand the flesh while it still flexes And then, rest. While their new skin hardens, tans, until one is no longer soft-bodied-pale, near transluscent.

It is, in so many words, exhausting. For Pests, who are enormous compared to any other hard-shelled things, it is a very, very long process. And such the need for cooperation, then. One must be tended to, extensively, while they molt. Cleaned and tended to, helped if they get stuck. Nothing quite as terrifying as being sealed within one’s own flesh.

But it is not especially painful, perse. Even having once pulled off one of her own arms, it hurt, but it was a dull aching pain for a short while and then ceased. And then it grew back, a molt or two later.

So it is to say that this molt, as it were, is the worst agony? That it is past pronunciation, past full consideration, at certain points. Where her great and immense form, her perfect chitinous body? A hide untouchable, blades broke upon it? Now rendered by the rot of Aeonia? Her body, broken upon the wheel of fate, in a way, for it was the destiny of all things to die. The depths of a beast opened up by prey too large, her body is wrecked, and as the tears of the flesh emerge, they leave behind the tears of sorrow. Ants and flies pillage her corpse, a thousand tiny mouths. Worms writhe beneath the thin layers of her flesh. Tiny, toothless mouths burrowing through her flesh. It hurts, but it is no sharp pain. It is a long, dull agony. She cannot focus on the pain anymore, but there is nothing else to think of. So she is awash in pain. The gnawing. And then other things come for whats left. Decaying as though dead, turned to not much more than Dread and Ruin in the most nebulous of terms, as more dead among the rot. Like sand through her fingers, she grips onto her own certainty with strength to shatter bone. Desperation that could tear a star out of the night-sky or spit in the face of a Goddess. I am alive, alive, alive, and live for greater purpose. And what wretched agony blooms forth from her grip, like lightning licking her cortices. Fire, it feels like fire, or maybe being dipped into cold-beyond-cold, torn betwixt the two wildly.

And then, silence.

The absence of all things. Sight, touch, sound, taste. Hot, cold, light, dark. The very sense of where she is in space, the dimensions of her body. Unmade, unraveled. A single thread in the tapestry of life, plucked out. Time does not exist in this place, and for one who worships the vibrancy of life and curses where it has been limited by earthbound gods, who who drinks deep the well of fungal networks as they prize life from the dead, it is torture.

Somewhere, distantly, there is a reclamation of something. A fleeting thing, no more than a hair.

When she emerged from the Rot, it was with purpose. Go forth and find Our Goddess, sang the choir. Shrill desperation turned their voices sharp, like shards of broken glass upon which she cut her teeth and honed her mind upon that which she’d sought. Before her was a dilapidated land, flush and yet barren. The Rot starved, neglected. She was a chord in the epitaph. To seek. To bring back. In one way or another, she'd bring Her back.

Her reviled children, begging for the barest sliver of love. To put an end to the stagnancy of ever-abundance. Poison, the tool of her trade, was in her mind far less harmful than the Golden one’s holy decrement. An empire built on top of corpses. Achievement and pride brimming in absence of life.

A forest without saprophytes and armillaria—the soft and dry rots—was a forest bound to overcrowd, where the eldest trees would rule over for time immemorial and smother their babes in their cribs, if they ever flowered at all. That was the degradation of the world, and She turned her face from it.

And yet the chorus begged for Her yet still.

Cotesia hated them for it.

She remembers her first sunrise. She remembers being held up, to see it. Look there, young one, said gently, scent-taste so sweet and nurturing. Held, lovingly. They, so wretched and unloved, treated with such revulsion.

And so her flesh is pulled around the scaffolding of bone. Blood fills her veins, no longer to idly slosh around a body cavity at loose direction. A heart is separated neatly into four chambers, a pair of lungs and a diaphragm work in tandem with a mouth and nose to allow air in and expel it out. She is woven from all things reviled, not ash to be returned to such. She is alive. Painted in scarlet hues, cleaved close back to the realm of that which can be held, molded into what could be seen. What could be rent and cleaved. Abandon ambiguity, reverence, nostalgia.

I am alive.

She bursts from the swamp of Aeonia gasping, pulling herself from the muck.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #309: To Find OLYMPIA!

November, 1989

Namor looks like he's got some negative things to say, in the zone.

And it is canon sometimes that the Negative Zone makes a person feel negative. Its the Bad Vibes Place.

I have no idea why dead Gilgamesh was drawn with the What's Going On He-Man face. Or why She-Hulk is in her Fantastic Four duds.

So, lets get into it.

Last times, in Avengers: Captain America held a meeting to declare that all the Avengers teams were one team and he was in charge of the Avengers. Also, the Avengers got kidnapped by Lava Men. And so did Namor. They were taken to the Last Lava Man, a priest called Jinku, who accused the Avengers of genociding the Lava Men, which they kinda sorta did do by killing a random demon named Cha'sa'dra during Inferno. The Avengers don't beat Jinku and the giant monster he summoned so much as run out the clock. Some of the dead Lava Men turned out to not be dead so much as incubating. They hatched into golden men and told Jinku to knock it off. Alas?, Gilgamesh got fatally slapped while fighting the lava monster and is now exceptionally dead. The Avengers take Gilgamesh to Sersi who can't help and suggests they take him to the Eternal city Olympia. Except Eternal Sprite managed to blow it up like ten minutes before they get there. The whole city.

Just a big, steaming crater now.

Thanks Sprite, you screw-up.

Sersi: "It is... gone! All of fabled Olympia! Snuffed out as a flickering candle flame! How can this be??"

Captain America tries to offer any help the Avengers can do. But Sersi just dramatically faints after psychically scanning for any trace of Olympia.

She murmurs about emptiness and enormity and the loneliness of endless space.

Such a dramatic person.

There's also a weird bit of choreography where Captain America caught Sersi when she fainted. So he's clearly not holding his shield. He tells She-Hulk to hold it for him but she's already holding it and must have grabbed it when he dropped it to pick up Sersi, since she's right behind him in that panel.

And she gives it right back to him as soon as he's put Sersi down.

So why was it necessary for Cap to tell She-Hulk to do something she was already doing? Did Byrne worry that the choreography wouldn't stand on its own?

Ah well.

The Avengers wonder if there's something wrong with the Eternals lately. Because, well, Gilgamesh is mostly dead despite being Eternal and the Lava Monster didn't hit him THAT hard.

Gilgamesh should have been able to heal himself, since all Eternals have the power of molecular manipulation over their own bodies.

Sersi drifts back to consciousness and explains that "all Eternals an sense the minds of all other Eternals no matter the range" so she tried reaching out.

She sensed them near but not on Earth.

Which Cap finds baffling. But Thor has an idea what she means.

Remember how his hammer used to be able to create dimensional portals and then it couldn't? Well, it can again.

He figures that near but far probably means another dimension. And he doesn't have to be precise. When all you have is a hammer, it helps if its a really, really cool hammer.

Thor just wills "let the powers that split the raging heavens now be focused here, into a single place, a single purpose... and let any barrier betwixt us and Olympia... be SUNDERED!"

And bippity boppity boo, a portal is opened through.

To the Negative Zone, apparently. Well, the cover spoiled that. You're not special for realizing it on sight, She-Hulk.

Sersi confirms that Thor hit the nail on the head. In the Negative Zone she can indeed sense Olympia.

She-Hulk: "In the Negative Zone? But... how the heck did it get there? I thought the only access was through the portal in the Fantastic Four's headquarters." Thor: "Nay, green one. That is but one way to reach this parallel dimension. Mjolnir hath opened this small gateway by drawing on the residual energies of whatever force dispatched Oympia hence."

Namor says that the time for discussion is over. If Olympia is in the Negative Zone, the only hope for Gilgamesh will be to find it.

Sersi agrees.

Sersi: "We must go now where Olympia has gone... into the Negative Zone!"

"Meanwhile, elsewhere" we check back in on old guy who blew up his own house subplot.

Professor Harker takes the blueprints for his fantabulous new invention to the Polydyne company and blows them away!

A guy in a tie: "It's absolutely amazing! Something like this is going to make cold fusion seem as antiquated as rubbing two sticks together! Why... the kind of power that could be harnessed from a single such device would be enough to supply the needs of the whole world for centuries!"

Professor Harker himself prefers to think of it as more the power to re-shape the whole universe maybe. But the Polydyne peeps warn him the money men won't understand that so maybe stick with the 'makes cold fusion look like a joke' sales pitch.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, the Great Lakes Avengers!

Huh, I guess Byrne really is writing three teams in two books since the GLA is showing up in East Coast Avengers now.

I do worry that it's going to be hard to balance between the needs of the book's actual team and whatever Great Lakes Avengers content is showing up this month.

Hawkeye tells the Great Lakes Avengers that they did okay against the Absolom University chumps but they could have done a lot better.

I mean. They were only in action for a few pages so I don't know how you can tell.

But anyway, Hawkeye and Mockingbird have come up with carefully tailored training for the team!

Carefully tailored until they ran out of steam halfway and decided Mr Immortal and Doorman's powers were too weird to train and just have them training in athletics.

Didn't even try with Flatman. Hawkeye just tells him to do whatever he wants.

Pretty amazing how quickly Hawkeye goes from Tough Coach to half-assed.

So they have Dinah Soar flying while dodging hay bales, Big Bertha doing track and field, Mr Immortal and Doorman doing an obstacle course, and Flatman also doing an obstacle course but with more wiggling.

Hawkeye decides to throw a wrinkle in the training by shooting a grease arrow right in front of Big Bertha.

She slips, bumps into a fatphobic Mr Immortal, and he falls into Doorman.

Literally into.

This is weird because Doorman's powers are only supposed to work if he's against a door or a wall. Y'know, so his body can function as a door?

He's never had someone go through him when there wasn't a through.

Dinah Soar doesn't wait around for them to talk through the situation.

She flies right into Doorman. Literally into. And soon after flies out carrying Mr Immortal.

She cradles him against her chest as he shivers that it was so cold inside wherever he was.

Y'know... Next time the Great Lakes Avengers gets a miniseries or whatever, they should resurrect Dinah Soar. She missed out on a lot of the modern fleshing out the team got because her death basically kicked off the plot of the Dan Slott miniseries.

A new Great Lakes Avengers thing could have a lot of fun bringing her back and making it a whole thing about comic book resurrections.

C'mon, do it.

Anyway, Hawkeye decides they're gonna do a bunch of tests on Doorman, until they figure out how he works.

I was going to joke about Hawkeye trying to do science but I did then remember that Mockingbird does have a Ph.D.

In biology which may or may not wholly cover whatever is going on here. But in comics, a Ph.D. can do all the science.

Look at Hank Pym, revolutionizing robotics (derogatory) when his degree was in biochemistry. Almost as far from robotics as you can get.

Meanwhile, the A-plot.

I've missed it so.

... Actually, its the Save Gilgamesh plot so I didn't miss it so much.

Byrne is blatantly pushing to make the Great Lakes Avengers a thing but the main plots in both the Avengers plots are so blah that I don't actually mind the Great Lakes Avengers panel-time takeover so much.

Anyway, instead of just walking through the portal, the Avengers stopped to go get their Quinjet and are flying it through the Negative Zone.

I guess this is one of the space capable ones.

They're relying on Sersi's psychic connection with all other Eternals to guide them and she says they're on the right track.

Although the Avengers are doubtful about that since they just passed themselves.

I didn't know the Negative Zone did that.

Sersi insists that they're going the right way but she doesn't sound sure.

Cap agrees to keep going the way she's indicating but only for another hour or so! After that, they'll presumably have a very serious conversation about trying something else!

But Sersi was leading them right. Because right after that interaction, they find Olympia.

Just floating in the Negative Zone.

(Dammit, Sprite!)

The place is deserted - although most of the population was already gone before Sprite blew the place up so grain of salt on it looking deserted when it practically already was.

But it also looks decrepit, like its crumbling into ruin.

Sersi still senses her fellow Eternals... somewhere. So they land to look.

Namor flies off on his little ankle wings to scout around the city. And soon returns reporting he found nothing but a vague sense of unease.

He didn't see anyone in the city but he felt a presence all around.

Cap echoes his unease. The place feels haunted. Which Sersi dismisses since Eternals can't die.

Namor: "Yet that is precisely what is happening to Gilgamesh."

Acksually, he's only mostly dead.

Sersi wonders whether Olympia being lost in the Negative Zone and the Eternals being missing might somehow be related to Gilgamesh's advanced case of being sorta but not really dead.

Cap suggests they Split Up, They'll Cover More Ground That Way.

Thor is sent off on his own because he's a big, tough guy. She-Hulk and Sersi are sent off as a team. And Namor and Captain America make up the last team.

=_= Like. Did he put all the girls (all two girls) on the same team on purpose? Did he just want to hang out with his Nazi-punching World War II buddy, Namor?

Because. They discuss World War II as they're hopping and flying around the city. So it could very well be the second reason.

Captain America and Namor discuss how Olympia feels similar to Berlin in the last days of World War II. How it feels like there's an emptiness of spirit or the bitterness of "the death of dreams."

Cap worries that all they've accomplished on this journey is bringing Sersi to witness the end of the Eternals.

BUT NAMOR DOESN'T HAVE TIME TO CARE ABOUT THAT.

He re-steers the conversation back to how cool it is to hang out with an old-Nazi punching buddy. He misses the old gang.

Cap mentions that hey, recent revelations are that Vision wasn't made out of the Human Torch which means the Human Torch is maybe, probably, still around!

Namor: "Aye, and aye again! If he could be found... reactivated! The Invaders might well live again..."

Ugh.

I assume that was a huge part of Byrne's reasoning to do the VisionQuest plot.

He was big mad that robot Human Torch got tied up in Vision's origin and he wanted to peel him away so he could bring the Invaders back as a team again.

Either as a third book he'd be writing or as a fourth team he'd be writing in the two books he already had.

Every so many years, Marvel tries to bring the Invaders back.

I assume due to trademark reasons.

And it never lasts. Because the team doesn't make much sense outside a war. And any modern wars they've been shoved into are... just fraught with issues.

A new Invaders book was spun off from the Avengers way down the line to deal with the War on Terror and it was not great.

Anyway, a mystery off-screen person also agrees with me that reforming the Invaders is stupid as fuck and blows up Captain America and Namor.

Alas.

Meanwhile, She-Hulk and Sersi (designated lady team not cool enough to hang out with the Nazi punching boys) walk through the High Tower of Olympia, toward the Great Hall.

She-Hulk tries to mention she heard a far-off distant sound like thunder and also muses on how weird it is that the Negative Zone has breathable atmosphere but Sersi tells her to shut up.

THIS IS THE HIGH TOWER OF OLYMPIA, HUMANS DON'T USUALLY GET TO WALK THIS PASSAGE. BE IMPRESSED BY THE GRANDEUR, SHE-HULK.

Sersi: "This is the High Tower of Olympia -- the seat of our government, the holy of holies. No human has ever walked this passageway... Ahead lies the Great Hall, the central meeting place of all Eternals. Tread softly now in this hallowed place. Choose every word with care. Beyond these doors lies the very heart of Olympia. Draw your breath in awe at what will now unfold..."

Then she walks into a door.

Honestly, that's a funny gag.

Presumably the doors are supposed to swing open when an Eternal approaches them.

But, obviously, that's not happening.

So She-Hulk just shoves the doors open and strides on through.

She-Hulk: "Excuse me if I don't pay this place quite the respect you seem to think it's due, Sers... but let's try a more direct approach to opening these doors."

I hope She-Hulk sticks with the team whenever Sersi ends up joining. These two seem like they would have a hilarious dynamic.

The Great Hall seems to have been through a war, of some kind.

There's holes in the walls, pillars are shattered, the stonework is cracked.

In shock, Sersi declares no force on Earth could do this kind of damage. Especially not the Deviants. Not that there are any on Earth, since they were all launched into space as a cube. Probably.

Also, they're not on Earth. There's a lot of things in the Negative Zone that are heavy hitters. It's why people don't go there for fun. That and it makes people depressed to be there.

Weirder than the damaged state of the hall, Sersi can sense her fellow Eternals here, somehow! Here in this room! Everywhere around She-Hulk and Sersi! Despite the two seeming to be alone here!

Still angered by the idea of the Invaders reforming, someone blows up the Great Hall.

She-Hulk and Sersi are sent flying by the explosion.

And despite being gamma strong, there's something weird with gravity, so the fall knocks She-Hulk out despite cannonballing through seventeen stories of building in Avengers West Coast. Gravity is to blame.

Thor is aggroed by all these explosions. Like She-Hulk, he assumes that its the sound of thunder and this is a man who loves thunder.

He flies to the central tower and finds the place in ruins and Sersi in a weird intangible state.

Then Thor must have been thinking about the Invaders or something because he also blows up.

Nahhh just kidding.

It's Blastaar. He's been blowing people up.

He's incorrigible.

Unsurprisingly for a guy designed by Jack Kirby, he looks incredibly like a Kirby character. I think he goes to the same tailor as Darkseid. And the same beard barber as Highfather.

Anyway, Blastaar being the answer of 'what happened to the missing Eternals' sure is something. Not very satisfying as an answer but maybe him getting his ass kicked will be cathartic.

Follow @essential-avengers because one day that sub-tumblr will be up to date. One day, yes. Also, like, reblog, comment, and other such ways of interacting with this post.

[thecatchat]

I put the tag system im working on in the google doc. Any ideas for the in between place besides between? worried it's a bit generic

Well, for the tagging system we have #Kaleidoscope Dimensions as both the main tag and the tag for anything relating to the Lenses. Maybe for the second one, the tag could just be "The Lenses" or something like that?

For the new name, we could go with a synonym for between: betwixt, 'tween, amid, halfway, in, midway, etc.

Or we could go with a synonym for everything (since it's between everything): all, lot, aggregate, all that, sum, the works, complex, all things, each thing, whole, etc.

Here's some other words I found just browsing thesaurus.com: panoptic, allness, any, oneness, lump, linkage, average, common, central, indifferent, mean, so-so, neutral, middle, throughout, amidst, inside, etc.

Then we should also keep in mind, if we go with a synonym of between or everything, the Other Side will likely be renamed to fit the antonym of that thing. So either between: from, out of, around, beyond, without, outside, out, after, beside, etc. Or everything: nothing, zero, single, least, little, minor, nil, insignificant, etc.

What do you think? We could do The Middle and The Brink, or something along those lines (with Karl telling people he's from the middle. Middle of what? The middle.)

[reginrokkr]

At the edge of time when all dust has settled does the Twilight Sword of old return to where it all began: Irminsul. In its presence he reminisces the hard fights that have been won: against corrupt divine, imposters to the original first gods to exist in Teyvat; against the star-devouring ailment they brought with themselves that was silenced by his hand. When all threads of fate have been re-weaved by the hand of the just and balance betwixt all creatures, short-living and carriers of longevity alike irregardless of their power —for in Teyvat there is no such thing as imbalance in power, divine or human: both are equally as important in this star's health—, a wondering mind questions the All-Knowing that has been ever present in his mind and soul since the beginning of his own existence:

Where did forbidden knowledge come from?

Irminsul always answers to his voice, yet this time it is in the form of a new variable that Dáinsleif has never encountered before. As if he was plunged into the Abyss that Khaenri'ah wished so much to conquer and explore with their own flesh and blood only to resign to resort to a fallen star from afar, everything around him is naught but a dark sky filled with stars. His eyes close once, the next time they open he finds himself before what he believes to be Irminsul at first due to its reasonable similarity, only to reject this idea as soon as he listens to this new entity's voice upon smoothing the palm of his hand over its golden-white trunk: the Imaginary Tree.

Though no connection whatsoever would be expected to remain with the Axis Mundi that belongs to a world when he's at the core of the universe, recognition is made manifest in the Imaginary Tree of a man chosen by one of its infinite extensions and so a link is established nonetheless. Wordlessly does the tree show images of other stars that fought against an energy called Honkai, others struggling against one by a different name: Stellaron. Individuals who gave it they all to defend humankind as he successfully did in Teyvat and a clear image of the last man who touched the Imaginary Tree before him, a man with alarm-inducing similarities.

From unspoken imagery does Dáinsleif come to the conclusion that this energy that once desolated Teyvat and threatened to consume it whole is no different than a stellar cancer that affects other corners of the cosmos as well. Thus a question reverberates within the confines of his mind next, ethereal:

Now that your question has been answered, what will you do? Return to your homeworld to spend the river of time peacefully of your long-lasting life? Or—?

That is true. Even if the curse has been lifted from him at the end of the crisis, his status as a long-living creature never changed. For he was never human through and through since the very beginning, despite his humane traits. He whom looks at the tree, core of everything that was birthed in this universe, he wonders: Was Phanes, who gave life to humanity in Teyvat originated from this tree too? This tree where time flows in the trunk of the Imaginary Tree and branches out into an infinity of worlds. Whose every branch is a form of civilization, while every bud is their past and present etched onto the dimension of time. Where each twig is a world line and each leaf is a bubble universe.

There is no continuation to the second option given, but Dáinsleif knows what follows. Looking back to all his life experiences, there is no more left for him in a world where he has closed one chapter. When a door closes, a window opens— or so they say. Perhaps this is the moment to say goodbye to a chapter of his life that has found its closure that welcome a new phase of his long-lasting life.

❝It has been decided.❞

A knight knows no end to his battles, neither does the Twilight Sword of old. In this battle for humanity's sake where he has the means and the strength to tip the scales in the right directions, his love for humanity will become the first step towards an unknown that doesn't frighten him.

Do it.

Through telepathic communication as per the eternal link that connects him to Irminsul's brethren in the center of the universe his answer is communicated, and so the tree that glows golden-white inundates Dáinsleif's starry vision with its light and a parting gift: he who remained a wingless seraph in soul and mind only to be displayed in his realm of consciousness has been elevated back to his celestial origins, so would Dáinsleif come to realize upon setting foot to a new world and seeing himself atop water's reflection. With his state of completion that he hasn't felt in several centuries, he now treads unknown grounds with a clear destiny in mind from the start— unlike when he was lost after everything was taken from him once.

[infernal-dominion]

The Tree of Hell

It is said that when the Angel Lucifer first took a bite of the Cursed Apple, one of the many black seeds within the fruit had been pried loose and clung onto his lip. When the Demon King, now turned Fallen and his body cut free from the clutches of God’s divinity, approached his lover, the then human Lilith, she had kissed him, taking in the curse of the forbidden apple from the lingering taste of the fruit that still clung to his lips, and in doing so, swept the black seed into her mouth and under her tongue, where it would remain. When the two of them eventually were cast out of Heaven and left to fall into Hell, Lucifer, tortured bloody, with his wings torn free of his back, and Lilith with a sword stabbed clean betwixt her breasts, still the seed did not dislodge from her tongue, and it is only when that Lilith awoke, no longer a human, but instead, the First Sinner, surrounded by the depths of Hell’s lifeless landscape, did she move to finally spit out the cursed seed she had been concealing the whole time.

And it was there, on the exact place where the Fallen Demon King had crash landed in the depths of the wastelands, that Lilith planted the seed of a brand new Tree of Knowledge, tainted by the infernal powers innate in Hell’s very existence, and the power of the tree that grew from that little seed not only brought life to the barren wasteland that Hell was, allowing all the plants and all the animals that would come to inhabit Hell as their home, but also is what eventually forms the 7 rings, each ring birthed from one of the many sprawling roots that extend past the boundaries of time and space within the afterlife, filling all of these separate dimensions with their own life, their own distinct infernal lifeforms as well.

This means that all of Hell’s life, from the smallest blade of grass to the largest of dragons, from the tiniest of imps to the grandest of the Ars Goetia, are all sourced from the same tree that corrupted Adam and Eve. They are all given life by the very existence of sin and it’s corruption, they carry no holy energy or divinity in their being, in their life force, in their souls. All of Hell is life, made of it’s own, bereft of the Almighty, of God’s influence and divinity. Even humans have some sliver of divine power in their souls, being made by God and Heaven above. But Hell? Every demon and creature and living being that exists down there has no holiness to begin with. They are free from His power. They have been completely untouched by God in their entirety, and it’s this reason as to why the essence of the infernal is so deadly to God’s divinity.

What’s more? Lucifer’s palace is built in the exact same spot where the tree first grew, keeping it locked away within the palace’s walls, far, far, far below, kept away from anyone but the strongest of Hell’s demons, where Lucifer guards it’s unimaginably sprawling roots and branches and sinful leaves. Legend says that the infernal tree still grows that accursed fruit, and that if a seed were to be planted anywhere else, the tree that could grow from it may very well be indestructible.

[austerulous]

◈   @sgtmiller​ said:   ❛ with gentle smile , alyssa reaches to take hold of hand offered to her , fingertips laid against palm as thumb holds others digits in place. hand is lifted toward sergeants’ tiers and after a brief moment of eye contact , lips are pressed against cool flesh of the back of Maria’s hand.       “ —— it’s a pleasure to meet you. “        / screaming in gay hunter 😭 for maria ! ❜

Her mind was a fractured thing, pulled torturously through the cracks of one dimension and into another.  It had splintered, eroded, forcibly folded in on itself – and yet Maria remained Maria.  Like a marionette, resplendent in gentlemanly attire, she stood statuesque and unmoving until one drifted close enough to snag her strings.

This place was a reflection of another, distorted and jarring.  A living thing.  Chip away the floor tiles, and it would not surprise her to find flayed flesh.  From betwixt the cracks in the plaster, eyes might peer, drinking in the perpetual suffering.  Perhaps she stood in its sinuous heart.  Perhaps its sickness seeped into her mind, dredging, digging out memories root and stem.  That might explain the peculiar scene playing out before her.  A masquerade of nameless entities, decay dressed spectacularly with drapings.  The sick-house was almost unrecognisable.

“And I you…”

Deep, dreamy, distracted came the voice of the dead aristocrat.  Maria did not know the name of the one who stood before her, encased in midnight satin, lace climbing her gloved arms like ivy.  Maria did not know her name, but she realised what she was, understood first-hand her calling.  This was someone living.  Truly living – not simply enduring the same pale mimicry painted on this unhappy canvas.  Warmth soaked into alabaster fingers, bloomed at the spot where lips graciously grazed.

“You are not of this place.”

Around them, ghastly merrymakers swirled.  Fluid movements occasionally stuttered, jarring inhumanely.  Pluck free their masks and Maria was sure they would find warped features, too-wide mouths lined with too-many rows of teeth.  Listen too long to the resonant, crystalline sound of the quartet, and one might realise it was discordant, uncanny.  Wrong.  

“Will you grant me the honour of a dance, Good Hunter?”

[jayextee]

DOOM 2 - Dimension of the BOOMed

We have Quake at home.

Real talk, I've always loved Quake's aesthetic, "it's all brown" whiners be damned. It's a coherent set of gothic environs that lend themselves to great atmospheric setups that I can't get enough of. If only the combat were as satisfying to me personally as that of DOOM.

Oh. Well. So here we have Dimension of the BOOMed, a BOOM-compatible mapset of 9 maps (sorta, kinda) that replicate much of the audiovisual experience of Quake whilst adding its own thing here and there. And 'replicate' is the correct word indeed, when a great many sections; though thankfully not entire maps; are as 1:1 a remake as you'll get in the engine.

It does, however, play real nicely. As per Quake, there's a good focus on verticality; including deep water sections using some COLORMAP trickery (if you stay away from hardware-rendering ports like GZDOOM, I guess) and more than a few instances of light platforming. There's also two new monsters, modelled after the Scrag and Shambler from Quake, even if they're both slightly different.

Betwixt the recognisable environs and aesthetic choices, there are some occasionally-devious combat setups to test the mettle, although never ascending into mean-spirited slaughter -- these are honest-to-goodness DOOM-sized hordes in fair measure to punctuate the meanderings through the architecture, armed with a rebalanced pistol/chaingun combo to ameliorate the usual stock DOOM arsenal.

It all works very well, and even though it feels incomplete (we've a minisode of loosely QE1-styled maps, and a singular QE3-style finale with some scattered faux-hubs here and there) it's a good time. 4/5