#I imagine in the starting zones

[astrxlfinale]

aether edits an anvil above his head. (in the spirit of penacony?)

SNAP BACK TO REALITY.

O'! THERE GOES GRAVITY.

"SONNUVA B--!! ..Uh?" Abruptly drawing up from the dreamy pool of an entryway, there's a pause, frustration causing him to grit his teeth as that very abrupt finish to him. There's a price for not being prepared for when ridiculously weighted things intend to say hi to the noggin! Worse off!! He's caught that glance of Tem's before that inevitable descent!

.........

Leans back in a VERY annoyed fashion, simply squinting at the ceiling as that particular person's face remains so fresh in his mind.

"Just they goddamn wait.. First I'm gonna be giving them the suplex, then we're reeling it right into the Boston Crab combo.. Slammin my damn head with some big metal piece of fffffuuuu.." A familiar stir of drowsiness finds itself catching him as he begins to nod off, continuing his string of expletives in the meantime.

As for the old dream Caelus before Tem? He was squished into a bundle of multi-colored goop and confetti.

One of those billboards initially gasped at the sight! Except, realizing it was Caelus (and how it was annoyed at him.) It proceeds to flash 'CONGRATULATIONS!!' towards her.

Look at how great she did.

[mortysmith]

while we're on the subject of "morty-prime teamup" what if there was another two crows situation

[nattikay]

ear

The ears are definitely the part of the head that I've been dreading the most, because I've always struggled to make them work. I was never 100% satisfied with the ear results on past heads, so this time I'm trying a different method. It's based on TinnatuPaws's ear patterns, not actually printing and using any of them directly because I wanted that front border to have a slightly different shape, but taking the general method/idea. Took a couple hours to put together a working pattern because I only had a vague idea of what I was doing, and I guess the final look is pretty similar to TinnatuPaws's canine ear design anyways so perhaps it would've been easier to just use that one directly but w/e too late now. I think it turned out pretty alright, but of course the real test will come once I actually put fur on it.

These ears also probably look a tad on the large side for a standard housecat--that was intentional; I'm a bit worried about this head base being a bit too small compared to the other parts of the suit so I'm gonna try compensating by exaggerating the ears, head floof, and cheek floofs a bit. This base already has proportionally very large eyes so I think I can get away with it. Fingers crossed!

I did try on my previous head with the new body the other day to get a better idea of the size ratio and it looked alright, though while the base for my previous head is similar in size to this new one, I do think it might be sliiiiiightly larger overall, even accounting for the fact that it has fur and this one doesn't yet. Hopefully the difference won't be all that significant and I won't be walking around with a comically tiny head, but as with the ear method, the real test won't be till I actually fur it. So....we shall see.

[adorablegorilla]

Dr. Kel: "You guys are the best friends I have"

The Aliens who constantly break in to steal their food, push them over and call them cringe:

[feelixthecatboy]

There’s something about 9/11 and the war that followed being the thing that tipped Leif over the edge after his dad literally predicted a war coming in their last fight:

Dad: You think because it’s the year 2000 that we don’t go to war anymore?

Leif: Go to war with who?

Dad: Doesn’t matter, we’ll find somebody. Ask yourself if the thing you’re working on right now can be dropped on a village somewhere.

Leif’s dad was right, and not just about the war, he knew Leif was hiding something from him, knew he wasn’t where he said he was. Sure he wasn’t working for earth’s government but he did make a deal with the Teds. And the thing Leif was working on maybe wasn't dropped on a village in the literal sense, but it did destroy the economy of a moon, forcing its people into huge debt they won't ever recover from

Dad: A man has to live in accordance with his beliefs, kid. That's what I'm doing. What do you beleive?

[glow-worms-are-believers]

Down the rabbit hole (dp x dc)

"Shit, shit, shit," Danny mumbled to himself as he frantically looked around to see if anybody had noticed the glowing green portal that had opened up underneath the giant overpass.

As he desperately tried to pull the dimensional hole closed, he couldn't help but curse his lack of sleep. If he hadn't gone to sleep so late because of the Doom event that was taking place on his server, he would've woken up in time for him to get to the airport to take his flight connection back to Amity.

Instead, he had woken up so late, his only chance of getting there on time was flying himself as Phantom. Apparently, a lack of sleep meant his control on his powers got a little wonky and he'd ended up face planting right into the overpass and through some sort of unlucky coincidence, as he instinctively grappled to catch himself from falling, he'd inadvertently clawed a rift right through to the ghost zone. Truly, this was the worst timing to discover what would otherwise be a very cool new power.

Danny grabbed at his hair desperately, as he walked to and fro, while still floating a few centimetres off the floor. On one hand, leaving an open portal to the ghost zone would be terribly irresponsible. On the other, he knew from experience these types of portals never lasted long by themselves, at most a quarter of an hour. But that was a quarter of an hour he did not have.

What to do, what to do? If he missed his plane, Jazz was going to kill him. Danny bit at his lips as he looked around to the deserted area. The chance of somebody finding the portal in the next ten minutes were astronomically low. Maybe if he put up a sign or something...

Looking around, Danny spotted an old piece of cardboard, just large enough to cover the portal. With a last look around, Danny got a sharpie from his bag.

Stephanie was about to turn in for the night. She grappled towards the Dini bridge, where she'd gone a few times to catch the first rays of light touching on the city. It usually made for a nice ending to some of her long nights, and Stephanie was due for a nice pick-me-up.

As she got there, she noticed a new feature that hadn't been there before. About five meters off the ground, there was a piece of cardboard, nailed to the bridge with what looked like a metal ruler. Stephanie squinted. In black sharpie, in an uneven calligraphy was written the following: "DANGER! PORTAL TO ANOTHER DIMENSION. DO NOT REMOVE"

Curiosity piqued, she shot a line up at the railing of the bridge, before starting to reel herself in until she was hanging in front of the cardboard. Attaching the line to her belt to free her hands, Stephanie grabbed the bottom of the cardboard and lifted it up. Her eyes widened as she came face-to-face with a whirling green portal.

"Ok," she whispered to herself a little bit uncertainly. "Guess the sign wasn't lying."

She was about to flip the cardboard back down and call Oracle for some backup, when the foothold she was using to push herself off the wall shifted and Stephanie felt herself swing right into the green gaping maw. With a cut-off scream she fell right into it, though luckily her grapple line was still tense and solidly anchored to the bridge's railing.

If Stephanie had been a bit luckier, this would have been an easy fix, as she would have swung right back out thanks to her momentum and the anchor up above.

Unfortunately, at this precise moment, the portal ran out of time, and closed just behind Stephanie, leaving behind a few strands of blonde hair, a cut grapple line and a hanging piece of cardboard behind with its ominous message on it.

[aromantic-diaries]

Worry not guys I have not forgotten about this blog it is on my mind 24/7 but lately I have been more thoughts going into my actual diary by the way I think my real life diary is pretty funny look at this thing. I got it cause i found it funny

It's where I write about everything I don't talk about like things that'd get me a concerned look or my opinions on which of my sweaters go well with my two favorite pairs of socks

[aeb-art]

so i was thinking about men's wear,,,

as always geo belongs to @8um8le 🙇

edit: oh gosh i just realized i forgot to include pose references, silly me, here they are ↓

[unfortunatelyilikebnha]

The diffriders are so fucking fascinating to me specifically flare trooper dumjid bc like. You take a dragon mercenary who has seen war and has actively watched many comrades die. His whole thing is that he’s a perfect guard and thus the only one who survived, leading to a fucked up conception of himself as above death. And then you have him possess the body of some kid who presumably agrees to let him see earth bc That’s His Favorite Card And He Thinks He’s Cool and who’s probably like 12 (sorry saori I have no clue how old you are I’m just guessing based off taiyou + hiroki) and just. Walk around on earth (where are saori’s parents btw. Like you could say this about most vanguard characters but where are saori’s parents/guardians/friends do they know what “saori” is up to?? Does anyone who knew him pre-diffride realize how different he’s been acting?). Play a card game where he commands his dead comrades bc shiranui is paying him (which. How is he paying him, earth currency or cray currency? And what IS cray currency for that matter?). The only thing he likes about earth is the music but he is specifically cursed to keep having his headphones break. When a unit who’s diffriding a human dies in the human’s body, both the unit and the human die on both planets, and besides the money dumjid is only on shiranui’s team bc antero/miguel DIED, a fact which he’s fully aware of and iirc derides him for (may be wrong abt that one though). He constantly tells people to die when he’s cardfighting them. He is laid-back about vanguard and doesn’t care much until he loses a cardfight and because loss and death are inextricably linked in his mind he proceeds to get Super Fucked Up About It bc he’s built his entire self image off being The One Who Survives and losing the cardfight is akin to confirming that it’s possible for him to die & he especially can’t accept that Some Random Humans have the ability to take him out. Sometimes he shows his opponents the battlefield and the bodies of his comrades and they really don’t seem to devote much thought to it (like. What??? I get that chrono & friends love vanguard and chrono does address it a little bit but mostly iirc just to say “I don’t think that’s what vanguard actually does/that’s not OUR vanguard”). He’s affected worse and worse with each loss and joins a group trying to end the world to get revenge on the humans who’ve beaten him (iirc unclear whether he knows the success of the destruction of the earth will destroy him too). He becomes the last of the original diffriders - chaos breaker dragon doesn’t count he was diffridden during U20 - to remain on earth, a point which he makes sure to bring up as proof of his superior survival abilities. The kid whose body he’s possessing expresses that he’s not happy about the way dumjid’s acting and dumjid doesn’t give a shit and continues to puppet his body around. Just, everything about him as a character is so fascinating in a concerning way and, like shiranui, he brings up the fact that vanguard is Real in a way that the earth characters don’t really consider - yes they have strong imaginations and genuine attachment to their units, but ultimately they’re playing a card game where even if cards get sent to the drop/damage zones they can come back for the next battle* whereas on cray they’re fighting Actual Battles and the units that die die For Real And Permanently. Unlike shiranui, who eventually began to see vanguard as a method of reunion with his dead friends and decided that what he’d been told about earth vanguard being a direct cause for his friends’ deaths might be wrong, Dumjid never changes his view on earth vanguard after “experiencing death”, so when he finally loses and goes back to cray he’s essentially dragged back clawing and screaming. I don’t know, there’s just something about him that’s sooooo soooo fascinating to me

[fleetsonourgecentral]

ugh all I can think of lately is Fleetway!Sonourge. good job on spreading that to me

also thinking about the Freedom Fighters protecting Scourge from Zonic when he shows up. like, him trying to arrest all of them for hiding and protecting a criminal and all. how do you think the FFs would overcome him?

:3 it's spreading as planned

It would take a while for the zone cops to even come to the conclusion Scourge is hiding in the fleetway dimension, tbh. He's good at running from the cops, and knows lots of places to hide. It's difficult to track him down when he's not actively causing trouble, and the fleetway universe is quite a ways away from the dimensions he normally hangs around in. The zone cops are expecting him to show up in Moebius, or try to take over the Prime dimension again. They aren't going to be looking in the dimension with the evil Super Sonic that's thousands of miles away, because why would he be there? Even once they do investigate there, they're probably initially be inclined to take Sonic's word for it when he says Scourge isn't there. Zonic knows this Sonic hates lookalikes, after all. It would take a while for them to genuinely suspect the fleetway universe

Usually when Zonic shows up, the first thing they do is hide Scourge, which can range from hiding him elsewhere in the dimension (special zone included) or finding a way to get him out altogether, and he'll find somewhere else to hide until they leave again. The zone cops can't actually arrest him if he isn't there, and they can't prove the freedom fighters have been hiding him, since, well, he doesn't legally exist in the fleetway universe. The best they can do is ask around to see if anyone has seen him, but Sonic is always quick to point out that anyone could be a green hedgehog in a leather jacket. Metamorphia did turn into a green hedgehog, once. Without seeing Scourge with their own two eyes, the zone cops have no way to prove the green hedgehog in a leather jacket is Scourge and not someone else.

"Everyone around here is an idiot," Sonic will sneer if Zonic tries to point out that he showed a picture of Scourge to some civilians and they said they recognised him. "They'll mix any hedgehog up. Someone mistook Amy for me, once."

Technically, the circumstantial evidence is enough to bring Sonic and the other freedom fighters in, but there's always the risk of him turning into Super, if we pick the part of the timeline where they're one person. He's harmless if they get the collar around him, it's just getting the collar around him without being vaporised that's the tricky part. Even if they're separate people, well, if Sonic is gone, who will stop Super if he goes out of control?

If the zone cops decide to bring them in anyway, well. The freedom fighters are freedom fighters. They're going to fight, and they're going to fight dirty. Sonic alone is a pain in the ass (and, again, a huge risk if he and Super are one person) but everyone else will make it even worse. The cops could subdue them eventually, but... ultimately, I think they find it more trouble than it's worth to bring them in, especially when they have no surefire way to prove Scourge has anything to do with them. And if the freedom fighters were arrested, Scourge would work his ass off to bust them out. It could be a good way to trap him, but Scourge has escaped from prison once before, they don't want it to happen again

Ultimately, I think they decide to bide their time. There are other criminals to take care of, and they can't really spare the resources to go hunting for Scourge when he isn't even causing any trouble aside from "already being a wanted criminal", so they decide it's better to periodically check in to see if they can catch him unaware or wait until he causes a big enough problem to give them justification to go knocking on the door and arrest the lot of them. Unfortunately for them, the freedom fighters are protective, and will make sure that never happens

[arolesbianism]

Thinking abt Sif Odile duo looping au again and I wanna be able to plot everything out more coherently but act 5 eternally looms overhead and boy I do not wanna look up

[confetti-cat]

Each, All, Everything

Words: 6.5k

Rating: PG

Themes: Friendship, Self-Giving Love, Romantic Love

(Written for the Four Loves Fairytale Retelling challenge over at the @inklings-challenge! A retelling of Nix, Nought, Nothing.)

The giant’s daughter weeps, and remembers.

��

She remembers the day her father first brought him home.

It was a bit like the times he’d brought home creatures to amuse her while he was on his journeys, away on something he called “business” but she knew was “gathering whatever good of the land he wanted”. Her father had brought back a beautiful pony, once—a small one he could nearly carry in one huge hand. One for her, and not another for his collection of horses he kept in the long stables. She wasn’t as tall as the hills and broad as the cliffs like he was, so she couldn’t carry it easily, but she heaved it up in both arms and tried nonetheless. (And—she thought this was important—stopped trying when it showed fear.) She was gentle to it, and in time, she would only need speak to it and it would come eat from her hand like a tame bird. She’d never been happier.

(The pony had grown fearful of her father. Her father grew angry with anything that wasted his time by cowering or trying to flee him. There was a terrible commotion in the stables one day, and when she sought her pony afterward, she couldn’t find him. Her father told her it was gone, back to the forest, and he’d hear no more of it if she didn’t want beaten.)

(There was a sinking little pit in her stomach that knew. But when she didn’t look for the best in her father, it angered him and saddened her, so she made herself believe him.)

The final little creature he brought one day was so peculiar. It was a human boy, small as the bushes she would sometime uproot for paintbrushes, dressed in fine green like the trees and gold like her mother’s vine-ring she wore. He seemed young, like her. His tuft of brown hair was mussed by the wind, and his dark eyes watched everything around him, wide and unsure and curious.

When he first looked at her from his perch on her father’s shoulder, he stared for a long moment—then lifted a tiny hand in a wave. Suddenly overwhelmed with hope and possibilities (a friend! Surely her father had blessed her with a small friend they could keep and not just a pet!), she lifted her own hand in a little wave and tried to smile welcomingly.

The boy stared for another long moment, then seemed to try a hesitant smile back.

“This,” boomed her father, stooping down in the mist of the morning as he waved away a low cloud with one hand, “is what I rightly bargained for. A prince, very valuable. The King of the South—curse his deceitful aims!—promised him to me.”

“He looks very fancy,” she’d said, eyes wide in wonder. “How did the king come to give him to you, Father?”

“How indeed!” the giant growled, so loud it sent leaves rattling and birds rushing to fly from their trees. He slowly lowered himself to be seated on the weathered cliff behind him and picked up his spark-stone, tossing a few felled trees into their fire-basin and beginning to work at lighting them. “Through lies and deceit from him. When he asked me to carry him across the waters I asked him for Nix, Nought, Nothing in return.”

The little boy shifted, clearly uncomfortable but afraid to move much. Her father scowled, though he meant it as a smile, and bared his yellowed teeth as he laughed.

“Imagine his countenance when he returned to find the son he’d not known he’d had was called Nix, Nought, Nothing! He tried to send servant boys, but I am too keen for such trickery. Their blood is on the hands of the liar who sent them to me.”

Such talk from her father had always unsettled her, even if he said it so forcefully she couldn’t imagine just how it wasn’t right. Judging from the way the boy curled in on himself a little, clinging meekly to her father’s tattered shirt-shoulder, he thought similarly.

“Nix, Nought, Nothing?” She observed the small prince, unsure why disappointment arose in her at the way he seemed hesitant to look at her now. “That is a strange name.”

Her father struck the rocks, the sound of it so loud it echoed down the valley in an odd, uneven manner. He shook his head as he worked, a stained tooth poking out of his lips as he struck it again and again until large sparks began alighting on the wood.

“His mother tarried christening him until the father returned, calling him such instead.” He huffed a chuckle that sounded more like a sneer, seeming to opt to ignore the creature on his shoulder for the time being. “You know the feeling, eh, Bonny girl?”

The boy tentatively looked up at her again.

The fire crackled and began to eat away at the bark and dry pine needles. A soft orange glow began to creep over it, leaving black char as it went. With a sudden, sharp breath by her father, a large flame leapt into the air.

“It is good that she did so. He is Nix, Nought, Nothing—and that he will remain.”

—

Nix Nought Nothing grew to be a fine boy. Her father treated him as well as he did the prized horses he’d taken from knights and heroes—which was to say that the boy was given decent food and a dry place to sleep and the richest-looking clothes a tailor could be terrified into giving them, which was as well as her father treated anything.

Never a day went by that she was not thankful and with joy in her heart at having a friend so near.

They spent many days while her father was away exploring the forest—Nix would collect small rocks and unusual leaves and robin’s-eggs and butterflies, and she would lift him into high trees to look for nests, and sometimes stand in the rivers and splash the waterfalls at him just to laugh brightly at his gawking and laughing and sputtering.

Some days she wished she was more of a proper giant. She wasn’t large enough for it to be very comfortable giving him rides on her shoulder once he’d grown. She was hesitant to look any less strong, however, so she braided her golden curls to keep them from brushing him off and simply kept her head tilted away from him as they walked through the forests together.

He could sit quite easily and talk by her ear as they adventured. Perhaps she would never admit it, but she liked that. Most of the time.

“I’m getting your shoulder wet,” he protested, still sopping wet from the waterfall. He kept shifting around, trying to sit differently and avoid blotching her blue dress with more water than he already had. “I hope you’re noticing this inconveniences you too?”

“Yes,” Bonny laughed. “You’re right. I hope there’s still enough sun to dry us along the way back. Father won’t be pleased otherwise.”

“Exactly. Perhaps you should have thought that through before drenching me!” he huffed, but she could hear the grin in his tone even if she couldn’t quite turn her head to see it. He flicked his arm toward her and sent little droplets of water scattering across the side of her face.

Her shoulders jerked up involuntarily as the eye closest to him shut and she tried to crane her neck even further away, chuckling. Nix made a noise like he’d swallowed whatever words were on his tongue, clutching to her shoulder and hair to steady himself.

“You’d probably be best not trying to get me while I’m giving you a ride?” Bonny suggested, unable to help a wry smile.

“Yes. Agreed. Apologies.” His words came so stilted and readily that she had to purse her lips to keep in a laugh. As soon as he relaxed, his voice grew a tad incredulous. “Though—wait, I can’t exactly do anything once I’m down. Are you trying to escape my well-earned retaliation?”

“I would never,” she assured him, no longer trying to hide her smile. “I’ll put you in a tree when we get back and you can splash me all you like.”

Somehow, his voice was amused and skeptical and unimpressed by the notion all at once.

“Really? You’d do that?” he asked, sounding as if he were stifling a smirk.

She shrugged—gently, of course, but with a little inward sense of mischievousness—and he yelped again at the movement.

“Well, it would take a lot of water to get a giant wet,” she reasoned. “I doubt you’ll do much. But yes, for you, I would brave it.”

He chuckled, and she ventured a glance at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Bonny and brave,” he said, looking up at her with a little smile and those dark eyes glimmering with light. “You are a marvel.”

It would probably be very noticeable to him if she swallowed awkwardly and glanced away a bit in embarrassment. She tried not to do that, and instead gave him a crooked little smile in return.

“Hm,” was all she could say. “And what about you?”

“Me? Oh, I’m Nothing.” The jest was terrible, and would still be terrible even if she hadn’t heard it numerous times. “But you are truly a gem among girls.”

If by gem he meant a giantess who still had to enlist his help disentangling birds from her hair, then perhaps. She snorted.

“I don’t know how you would know. You don’t know any other girls.”

“Why would I need to?” His face was innocent, but his eyes were sparkling with mirth and mischief. “You’re the size of forty of them.”

The noise that erupted from her was so abrupt and embarrassingly like a snort it sent the branches trembling. She plucked him off her shoulder and set him gently on the ground so she could swat at him as gently as she could—careful not to strike him with the leaf-motifs on her ring—though it still knocked him off his feet and into the grass. He was laughing too hard to seem to mind, and she couldn’t stifle her laughs either.

“Well, you are really something,” she teased, unable to help her wide smile as she tried futilely to cast him a disapproving look.

That quieted him. He pushed himself to sit upright in the grass, and looked out at the woods ahead for a long moment.

“You think?” Nix asked quietly.

She smiled down at him.

“Yes,” she laughed softly. “Of course.” When he looked up at her, brown eyes curious, she held his gaze and hoped he could see just how glad she was to know him. “Everything, even.”

A small smile grew on his own face, lopsided and warm. He ducked his head a bit and looked away from her again, and embarrassment started to fill her—but it was worth it.

It often weighed on her heart to say that more than she did. She supposed she was the type of person who liked to show such things rather than say them.

She had a cramp in one of her shoulders from trying to carry him smoothly, but the weight on the other one—and on his—seemed far lighter.

—

She remembered the day her father came home livid.

She couldn’t figure out what had happened. Had he been wounded? Insulted? Tricked? He wouldn’t say.

He just raged. The trees bent under his wrath as he stamped them down, carving a new path through the forest. He picked up boulders and flung them at cliffsides, the noise of the impacts like thunder as showers of shattered stone flew in all directions.

She was tending to the garden a ways off—huge vines and stalks entwined their ways up poles and hill-high arbors made from towering pines, where she liked to work and admire how the sunset made the leaves glow gold—and suddenly had a sharp, sinking feeling.

Nix was still at his little shelter-house at their encampment. Her father was there.

Dread washed over her.

“Riddle me this, boy,” her father boomed, in the voice he only used when he wanted an excuse to strike something. “What is thick like glass and thin as air, cold but warm, ugly but fair? Fills the air yet never fills it, never exists but that all things will it?”

There was silence for a long moment.

...Silence. The answer was silence. Her father was trying to trick him into speaking.

Her hands curled around the bucket handle so weakly it was a surprise she didn’t drop it. Her father could crush him if he felt he had the slightest excuse.

Hush, hush, hush, her mind pleaded. Her hands shook. For your life and mine, hush—

There continued to be silence for a moment—and then, Nix must have answered. (Perhaps in jest. He tended to joke when uncertain. That would have been a mistake.)

There came the indescribable sound of a tree being ripped from its roots, and the deafening thunder of it being thrown and smashing down trees and structures.

Her whole body tensed horribly, and all she could see in her mind’s eye was nightmares.

No, she thought weakly.

Her father kept shouting. But not just shouting, addressing. Asking scathing rhetorical questions. She felt faint with relief, because her father had never wasted words on the dead.

I should have brought him with me. The thought flooded her body and left room for nothing else but dread and regret. I could have prevented this.

The stables were long and broad and old. Once, they had housed armies’ steeds and chariots. Now, they were run-down and reinforced so nothing could escape out the doors. The roof was broken off like a lid on hinges at intervals so her father could reach in to arrange and feed his horses.

Her father had seen no reason to keep the stalls clean. When one was so packed with bedding it had decomposed to soil at the floor level, the horse was moved to the next unused stall. There were so many stalls that she barely remembered, sometimes, that there were other ways of addressing the problem.

“The stable has not been cleaned in seven years,” her father boomed. “You will clean it tomorrow, or I will eat you in my stew.”

She couldn’t hear Nix’s response, but she could feel his dread.

Her father stormed away, more violently than any storm, and slowly, after the echoes of his steps faded, silence again began to hang in the air.

That night, it was hard to sleep. The next morning, it was hard to think.

She did the only thing she could think to do in such a nervous state. She brought her friend breakfast. His favorite breakfast—a roast leg of venison and a little knife he could use to cut off what he wanted of it, and fried turkey-eggs, and a modest chunk of soft brown bread.

When she arrived with it, he was still mucking out the first stall. There were hundreds ahead of him. He was only halfway to the floor of the first.

“I can’t eat,” Nix murmured, almost too quietly to hear and with too much misery to bear. “I can’t stop. But thank you.”

The pile outside the door he’d opened up was already growing too large. Of every pitchfork-full he threw out, some began to tumble back in. He was growing frustrated, and out of breath.

Why would her father raise a boy, a prince, only to eat him now? Her father was cunning; surely he’d had other plans for him. Or perhaps he really was kept like the horses, as a trophy or prize taken from the human kingdoms that giants so hated.

Was this his fate? Worked beyond reason, only to be killed?

Pity—or something stronger, perhaps, that she couldn’t name—stirred in her heart. A heat filled her veins, burning with sadness and a desire to set right. Would the world be worthwhile without this one small person in it?

No.

This wouldn’t end this way.

She called to the birds of the air and all the creatures of the forest. Her heart-song was sad and pure—so when she pleaded with them, to please hear, please come and carry away straw and earth and care for what has been neglected, they listened.

The stable was clean by the time the first stars appeared. When she set Nix gently on her shoulder afterward, he hugged the side of her head and laughed in weary relief for a long while.

—

She remembered the lake, and the tree.

“Shame on the wit who helped you,” her father had boomed. He’d inspected the stable by the light of his torch—a ship’s mast he’d wrapped the sails around the top of and drenched in oil—and found every last piece of dirt and straw gone. Had he known it was her, that she could do such a thing? She couldn’t tell. “But I have a worse task for you tomorrow.”

The lake nearest them was miles long, and miles wide, and so deep that even her father could not ford it.

“You will drain it dry by nightfall, or I will have you in my stew.”

The next morning, soon as her father had gone away past the hills, she came to the edge of the lake. She could hear the splashing before she saw it.

Nix stood knee-deep in the water, a large wooden bucket in his hands, struggling to heave the water out and into a trench he’d dug beside the shore.

When she neared him and knelt down in the sand, scanning the water and the trench and the distant, distant shoreline opposite them, Nix fell still for a moment. She looked at him, hoping he could see the apology in her eyes.

“Can I help?” she asked.

He shook his head miserably.

“Thank you. But even if we both worked all day, we couldn’t get it dry before nightfall.” He gave her a wry, sad smile, full of pain. “The birds and the creatures can’t carry buckets, I’m afraid.”

It was true. They could not take away the water.

But perhaps other things could.

She stood and drew a deep breath, and called to the fish of the rivers and lake, and to the deep places of the earth to please hear, please open your mouths and drain the lake dry.

With a tumult that shook the earth beneath them all, they did. The chasm it left in the land was great and terrible, but it was dry.

Her father was livid to see it.

“I’ve a worse job for you tomorrow,” he’d thundered at Nix as the twilight began to darken. “There is a tree that has grown from before your kind walked this land. It is many miles high, with no branches until you reach the top. Fetch me the seven eggs from the bird’s nest in its boughs, and break none, or I will eat you before the day is out.”

She found Nix at dawn the next day at the foot of the tree, staring up it with an expression more wearied than she’d ever seen before. She looked up the tree as well. It seemed to stretch up nearly to the clouds, its trunk wide and strong with not a foothold in sight. At the top, its leaves shone a faint gold in the sunlight.

“He is wrong to ask you these things,” Bonny said softly. Her words hung in the air like the sunbeams seemed to hang about the tree. There was something special about this place, some old power with roots that ran deep. “I’m very sorry for it.”

“You needn’t be,” Nix assured her. His countenance was grey, but he tried to smile. “But thank you. You’re very kind.”

She looked up the tree again. Uncertainty filled her, because this was an old tree—a strong one. Even if it could hear her, it had no obligation to listen. “Will you try?”

He laughed humorlessly. “What choice do I have?”

None. He had none.

He could not escape for long on his own—he could not be gone fast enough or hide safely enough for her father not to sniff him out. The destruction that would follow him would be far more than he would wish on the forests and villages and cities about them.

She, however, bit her lip.

She slipped the gold vine-ring off her hand, and rolled it so that it spiraled between her fingers. It was finely crafted, made to look like it was a young vine wrapping its way partly up her finger.

“This is all I have of my mother,” she said quietly. “But it will serve you better.”

Before he could speak—she knew him well enough to know that he would bid her to stop, to not lose something precious on his account (as if he weren’t?)—she whispered a birdlike song, and pleaded with the gold and the tree and the old good in the world to help them.

When she tossed the ring at the base of the tree (was it shameful that she had to quell a sadness that tried to creep into her heart?), it writhed. One end of it rooted into the ground, and suddenly it was no longer gold, but yellow-green—and the vine grew, and grew, curling around the tree as it stretched upward until it was nearly out of sight.

Nix stared at her with wide eyes and an emotion she couldn’t quite place. Whatever it was, it made her ears warm.

She smiled slightly and stepped back, tilting her head at the vine.

“Well?” she said. He was still staring at her with that look—some mix of awestruck and like he was trying to draw together words—and it made her fold her arms lightly and smile as she looked away. She quickly looked back to him, hoping faintly that her embarrassment wasn’t obvious. “You’d best hurry. That’s still a long way up.”

He seemed to give up finding words for the moment. Nix glanced up the tree, now decked with a spiral of thick, knobby vine that looked nearby like uneven stairs.

“Give me a boost?” he asked with a bright grin. “To speed it up.”

She laughed and gently scooped him up in both hands. “A boost, or just a boost?”

He beamed at her. “As high as you can get me,” he declared, waving an arm dramatically.

She laughed and shook her head. ”Absolutely not. Ready?”

Nix nodded, and she smiled thinly and poured all her focus into a spot a good distance up the tree. With a very gentle but swift motion, she tossed him upward a bit—and he landed on his feet on the vine, one shoulder against the bark, clutching to the tree for support as he laughed.

“A marvel!” he shouted down to her as he climbed. “Never forget that!”

The sun was nearly setting when he descended with the eggs bundled in his handkerchief. He was glowing.

He triumphantly hopped down the last few feet to the ground.

A moment after he landed, a soft crack sounded. He froze.

Slowly, he drew the bundle more securely into his arms against him and looked down. There, by his foot, was a little speckled egg, half-broken in the grass.

She put a hand over her mouth. Nix clutched the rest and stared.

A grievous pain and numbness slowly filled her heart, and she knew it was filling his too.

His shoulders began to shake, and his eyes were glassy.

“Well,” he laughed weakly. ”...That’s it. That’s... that was my chance.” The distress that overtook him was like a dark wave, and it threatened to cover her too. He only shook his head. “I’m so sorry. Thank you for—for helping me.”

For everything, she didn’t give him a chance to add. He was looking at her with the eyes of one who might say that. She couldn’t afford to be overcome with the notion of saying goodbye now.

“No,” she said. Her voice was quiet, at first, but it grew more resolute. “It won’t end this way.”

He blinked up at her, still clutching the other eggs to his chest. She looked down at him, then across the stretch of forest to their home.

Without a word, she gently picked him up and set him on her shoulder. Her jaw tensed as she strode quickly through well-worn paths of the forest, walking as fast as a horse could run.

Once home, she set him down. He was still looking at her questioningly. Her heart beat faster in her chest, and she hoped he couldn’t see the anxiousness rising in her and battling with the excitement.

“I will not let him have you,” she announced firmly. The trees and hills all around were witness to her promise. “Grab what you need. We’ll leave together in the hour.”

—

She‘d barely had time to fix her hair, grab her water flask, and decide it would be best this time of year to go south.

Her father’s footsteps boomed closer across the land.

—

They fled.

They ran, and ran, and struggled and strove, and she called for the help of anything she could think of that would have mercy on them.

Her comb grew into thorns, her hairpin into a hedge of jagged spires. Neither stopped him. Her dress’s hem was in tatters and sweat poured from her brow when they were finally safe.

Her flask lay behind them, cast down and broken, its magic used up.

Her father—her father—lay stretched out motionless in the flooded plain behind them, never to rise again.

—

There was a tiny spark of hope they had that they clung to. A hope of a future, of restoration, of amending the past and pursuing peace—of a life worth living, perhaps far, far away from things worth leaving behind.

(“I’ll go to the castle,” he’d said, his voice brimming with nerves and hope and uncertainty and sadness and an eager warmth. It made her heart try to mirror all those emotions alongside him. “I can tell my mother and father who I am. I’d still recognize them, even if they don’t know me. They’ll take us in, I’m sure of it.”)

He set out into the maze of village streets, assuring her he’d ask for directions and be back promptly. She stayed back by the well at the edge of the town so not to alarm anyone, too exhausted to go another step, but full of hope for him. She would wait until he returned.

(And wait. And wait. And wait and wait and wait and dread—)

The castle gardener came to draw water, and—as if she weren’t as tall as the small trees under the huge one she sat against—struck up a conversation with her about the mysterious boy who’d fallen unconscious across the threshold of the castle, asleep as if cursed to never wake up.

(The spark didn’t last long.)

—

She remembered when he could move.

“Please,” she whispered, as soft as her voice would go. “Please, if you can hear me. Wake up.”

(“Oh, dearest,” the gardener’s frail wife had murmured to her when the kind gardener brought her home to partake of a bit of supper. “I’m afraid they won’t let you in as you are. Would you let me sing you a catch as you eat?”)

The gardener’s wife was frailer by the end of it, but her heart-song could change things, like her own. Instead of towering at the heights of the houses, she was now six feet tall by human reckoning, and still thankful the castle had high halls and tall doors.

(Their daughter, a fair maiden with a shadow about her, had watched from the doorway.)

Nix Nought Nothing lay nearly motionless in the cushioned chair the castle servants had placed him in. His chest rose and fell slowly, like he was in a deep sleep.

He was still smaller than she was, but not by much. He seemed so large, or close. She could see details she’d never noticed before—his freckles, the definition of his eyelashes, the scuffs and loose threads in his tunic.

The way his head hung as if he could no longer support it.

She held him gently—oddly, now, with both her hands so small on his arms and an uncertainty of what to do now—and wept over him. She sung through her tears, her heart pleading with his very soul, but to no avail. He did not wake up.

He didn’t hear her—likely couldn’t hear her. All around him, the air was sharp and still and dead. Cursed.

Still, her heart pleaded with her, now. Try, try. Don’t stop speaking to him. Remember? He never stopped trying.

“You joke that you are nothing," she said, with every drop of earnestness in her being. "But I tell you, you are all I had, and all I had ever wished for.”

There was power in names. She knew that. But was his even a proper name? It really wasn’t—though it was all he had.

It was all she had as well. She had exhausted everything else close to her. There was nothing left to call on, to plead with, but him.

“Nix Nought Nothing,” she said softly. “Awaken, please.”

Her voice, no longer so resonant and deep with giant’s-breath, sounded foreign in her ears. It was mournful and soft like the doves of the rocks, and grieved like the groan of the earth when it split.

“I cleaned the stable, I lave the lake, and clomb the tree, all for the love of thee,” she said, her voice thickening with tears. A drop of saltwater fell and landed on his tunic, creating another of many small blotches. “And will you not awaken and speak to me?”

Nothing.

—

She didn’t remember being shown out of the room. Her vision was too blurred, and her mind was too distraught and overwhelmed. The next thing she could focus on enough to recall was that she was now seated on a stiff chair in the hall. Someone had been kind enough to set a cup of water on the little table beside her.

The towering doors creaked softly behind her, and at last, someone new entered. She looked over her shoulder, barely able to see through the dry burning left behind by her tears.

A man and a woman stood in the door. They were dressed in fine robes, and looked like nobles.

"What is the matter, dear?" the woman asked, looking over her appearance with eyes soft with pity. She came close, and her presence was like cool balm, gentle and comforting. "Why do you weep?"

The gold roses woven in the green of the woman's dress swam in her vision as she dropped her gaze, unsure what to say. These people seemed kind. But were they? Would they send her out from here, unable to return to him?

They would be right to do so. She was a stranger here, and Nix could not vouch for her like he'd planned.

"No matter what I do," she finally said softly, "I cannot get Nix Nought Nothing to awaken and speak to me."

In one moment, only the woman stood there—in the next, the man was beside her. The air was suddenly still and heavy like glass, and it felt as though there was a thread drawn taut between them all for a moment.

"Nix Nought Nothing?" they asked in unison, their voices full of something tense and heavy and sharp. When she looked up, nearly fearful at the sudden change in their tone, their faces were slack and pale.

Something stirred in her heart. Look. What do you see?

Green and gold. Their wide eyes were a familiar warm brown.

—

Now, things are changing.

According to the servant who'd been keeping an eye on him, all from the kingdom had been offered reward if they could wake the sleeping stranger, and the the gardener's daughter had succeeded. It was a mystery how it had happened—by whom had he been cursed? Her father? Then why could she not wake him, but a maiden from the castle-town here could?—but now, with the King and Queen hovering beside her and unable to stay still for anticipation, no one cared.

The gardener's daughter was fetched, and bid to sing the unspelling catch for the prince. (Prince. He was a prince, while she was a ruffian's daughter. She kept forgetting, when she was with him.) It was a haunting one that grated on her ears, as selfishly-written magics often did—and as if bitterness still crept at the girl's heart at the sight of all who were here, she left as soon as it was finished.

Nix Nought Nothing awoke—he awoke! He opened his eyes and sat up and looked at her as if seeing the sunrise after a year of darkness, and how her heart leaps high into her throat at the sight—and true to form, only blinks a few times at her as he seems to take her in before coming to terms with it.

"You look a bit different," he remarks, tilting his head slightly. "Or did I grow?"

She chokes on a snort.

"Hush," is all she can say. What had been an attempt at an unimpressed expression melts into a wavering smile. "Are you done napping now?"

He opens his mouth to retort, but a grin creeps onto his face before he can. He snickers. "Have I slept that long?"

"Nigh a week," the Queen says—and when Nix turns his head and sees her, his eyes grow wide. The Queen's smile grows broad and wavers with emotion, and the King's eyes are crinkled at the edges, and shining. "It has been a long time."

Her own father had never shown love like this—like the way Nix tries to leap from his chair at the same moment his parents rush to hold him, all of them laughing and sobbing and shouting exclamations of love and excitement and I-thought-I-would-never-see-you-agains. So much joy rolls off of them that she thinks she could have stood there watching forever and been content.

The first thing he does, after the first surge of this, is turn and introduce her to his parents, who had barely finished hugging him and kissing him and calling him their own dear son.

"This is the one who helped me," Nix says, already gesturing to her in excitement as he looks from her to his parents. "She sacrificed much to save me from the giant. Her kindness is brilliant and she blesses all who know her."

She tries not to look embarrassed at the glowing praise as Nix comes and stands beside her as he recounts their blur of a tale to his parents.

"Ah! She is bonny and brave," says the King. By the end of Nix's stories of their escapes, they're smiling warmly at her with such pride that she dips her head and smiles.

Nix Nought Nothing glances sideways up at her and raises a brow, a knowing smirk tugging at his lips.

"I've tried to tell her that," he agrees. "I don't think she's ever believed me."

She purses her lips and glances down at him. "I'll believe it the day you believe you are not nothing."

"Alright." Simple as that, he folds his arms and raises a brow at her. "I believe it. Fair trade?"

"Fair enough," she decides, with a crooked little smile. He beams, as if she's done something worth being proud of, and looks to his parents, who indeed look proud of them both.

"We would welcome you as our daughter," the King declares heartily, and both the Queen and Nix brighten, which makes her too embarrassedly fixated on the thought of family? Starting anew? to register what comes next. "Surely, you should be married!"

Nix looks at her, arms still folded, his eyes twinkling. There's something hopeful in his eyes that makes her certain this diminutive new heart of hers has skipped a few beats.

"Should we? Surely?" he asks, as if this is a normal thing to be discussing.

She works her jaw and swallows a few times, unable to help how obviously awkward she still likely looks. A flush tickles her face, and the queen seems to put a hand over her mouth to smile behind it.

"I... don't... suppose... I would mind," she manages, and—with those bright eyes so affectionate, and on her—Nix starts snickering at her expression. It's rude, but so, so warm she can't mind. She only discovers how broadly she's smiling when she tries to purse her lips and glare at him but is unable to. "Oh, go back to sleep!" she chides, too gleeful inside to truly mind, even as she makes a motion as if throwing one of the chair-cushions at him.

"Never!" he declares, pretending to dodge the invisible pillow. He makes broad gestures that she presumes are meant to emphasize how serious he is about this. When he stands straight and tall and sets his shoulders, she thinks that the boy she's explored the forest with really does look like a prince. "I have my family and my love all together in safety at last. We have much to speak of, and much time yet to spend with each other." He's a prince, but of course, he's also still himself. He immediately gets a mischievous glimmer in his eyes and puts a hand to his chest nobly as he does what he's done for as long as she's known him—jokes, when his emotions rise. "I shall never adhere to a bedtime as long as I live!"

My love, her heart still repeats every time it beats—as payback, likely, for her calling it diminutive. My love, my love, my love.

She doesn't let it out, for she doesn't know what it will do. But the words weave a song within her, so vibrant and effervescent and strong, brighter and clearer than any she's had before.

"I am glad to see you are certainly still my dear son," the Queen says, her own eyes twinkling. "I'm certain you both need fed well after such a journey. Come, perhaps you both can tell us more of it as supper is prepared."

They fall into an easy tumble of conversation and rejoicing and genial planning, and her heart is so light she thinks it must be plotting to escape her chest.

On the week's end from when she brought him here, Nix Nought Nothing and his family welcomes her into their home. It feels natural. It feels warm, and homey, and so pleasant and right that she often has to stop tears of weary joy from welling up as she considers it all.

Once upon a time, she thought she'd known happiness well enough without him. She had known what it was like to be without a friend, and without love.

Now, it’s hard to remember it.

[ja3yun]

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGddLAx1k/

Nah zoning out on a event is a whole new level how crazy. That’s why he didn’t got so many lines in TDH he zoned out 😭😭😭

no babe forget that for a minute bc this is the ONLY video i have of enha/monstas together from this event 😭 shownu was a pleasant jump scare like i will literally hold this video in my cherish box forever

[hp-lonesome-actual-art]

UHM. UH. More messy rushed doodle collection from today. I will not confess to anything my mouth is sealed shut. Most of it is mindless fun; nothing to do with brainstorming storylines or being worried about staying canonical to how his character is typically presented. Head empty no thoughts since I desperately needed a break from animating again

…but yes to answer your question I’m a bit deranged about him please keep scrolling

[triglycercule]

me when the song mentions retribution and love (i can twist it into LOVE) and time repeating and then i can reach for the song to be about dust. me when the song mentions a dependence on others and wanting to get rid of emotions and manipulation and then i can pretend the song was made for killer. me when the song mentions food themes and rebellion and cooperation in a bad world and i can delude myself into believing the song was for horror. me if making everything about the murder time trio was a competition

[akela-nakamura]

Alone In A Room, for the title game

send me a made-up fic title and I’ll tell you what i would write to go with it:

Okay, okay. I see this two different ways:

First: When a ghost is first formed, it's Lair in the GZ is a single room behind a plain door. It builds itself as the ghost gains strength and younger ghosts have to spend time in their Lairs to regain ectoplasm and "rest" as it were.

Second: When a ghost is forced into it's core, it's like being locked in a room. When they're first forced in, there isn't much around but it doesn't really matter, 'cause they're too tired to be bored. As they regain their strength (and how fast this happens depends on if their core is cared for or is simply left on its own), it builds up. And a ghost can start to feel what's around it. A ghost's ectoplasm is also really malleable when they're in their core, so if they want to change how they look they can do so in their core.

I like the first one better, so this is what I'm thinking:

Danny's only been a halfa for a few weeks when he starts feeling weak. The ghosts he's fighting aren't terrible powerful in the grand scheme of things, but for a young halfa who's still trying to figure out their powers, it's a lot.

Danny also can't understand why he feels so ill, he had been getting stronger, gaining more control but it's like he's hit a wall. Tucker and Sam try to help but they're just as in the dark as Danny is about ghosts and their needs. Sam suggestion hanging out near the portal, Tucker wonders if Danny has to actually eat ectoplasm or something.

At this point, they don't even know what cores are. They're running blind and they're starting to get scared. Maybe there isn't a cure for this, maybe the energy that blasted into Danny during the accident was temporary and it's running out.

Maybe Danny's going to die fully after all. Maybe that's why all the ghosts are gunning for him, he's not supposed to exist.

One night, Danny goes to bed early. He's so tired. There's a weight in his chest and he can feel something stuttering. It's not his heart, but it feels just as important. He feels a little hollow, like he hasn't eaten despite having dinner.

He can't sleep. He's so freaking tired but he can't sleep. It's not enough, it's not what he needs. He works his way down stairs and goes to the lab and it's a little better next to the portal. But it's still not right.

He paces outside the portal for a bit, tired, frustrated, and so so confused. There's something tugging at him, something calling him and he doesn't understand. There's instincts buzzing under his skin and he doesn't know how to interpret them. There's something that has to be found but he has no idea what.

He tries to stick to logic: Fact, going into the GZ alone is dumb, especially when he's this weak. Fact, not telling anyone where he's going is dumber and Jazz will freak. Fact, he doesn't know his way around the Zone, he can't go in without backup. He could run into someone he simply can't fight right now.

As the night drags on, logic--his human logic--slowly starts to lose meaning.

In the end, he's barely able to scribble a note out to Jazz and his friends before he dives into the portal, chasing after something he doesn't understand.

He transforms just before he hits the portal and it's like all thought vanishes. School, Amity, his family, his Obsession--all pale in comparison to what he has to find here, in the Zone.

He's seen the Zone before in brief bursts, but he hasn't ventured very deep yet. He's been too nervous to explore alone and Sam and Tucker can't exactly fly.

None of that matters now, though. He doesn't register anything, his mind is firmly locked on his Lair. There's a beating in his chest that can't be his heart and he feels...driven. There is only one goal and he cannot be distracted.

(He doesn't know it, but no one could find him right now if they wanted to. He's not exactly Phantom right now, he's a baby ghost in need of their Lair.)

He navigates by instinct, feeling the ectoplasmic currants that flow through the Zone and the feel of the larger lairs and kingdoms that dot the Zone.

He finds it and it's like joy. It's like home. It's like belonging.

The door is nondescript but he knows.

It opens for him. When he enters, all the tension in him eases. The pulse in his chest slows and the cycle lengthens, like whatever lies in his chest is slowly drawing energy in. The ectoplasm feels different here, less purposeful, less formed. It's not a fight to pull it in, to use it.

He curls on the floor and finally finally sleeps.