#It always comes back to Convex

[regularconvexheadcanons]

Headcanon 6

Vex like repeated (annoying) noises - like clicking pens, or honking a horn, or a squeaky toy - and it often either calms them down or makes them hyper-focus on that instead of possessing a vexling.

This can be great for stopping possession, or calming an upset Vexling, but also bad as the Vexling is often so entranced by the noise they just forget everything else except MAKE THE NOISE. And they just stare at the thing, making the noise, their eyes slightly glazed over.

Which means that:

A: Cub and Scar’s bases are littered with squeaky toys and stuff that makes noise, and always carry 20+ clicky pens on them at all time

B: whenever they need to use one of these item, or come across it accidentally, they can end up in the Vex-noise-trance

C: other hermits have complained in the past or got annoyed at the noise-trance, including Grian, which led to this interaction:

Grian: It doesn’t make sense, why can’t Scar just stop clicking that stupid pen?! Why would anyone have an instinct to press something

Cub: *places a single button*

Grian: *immediately presses* ooh button- wait- oh- I think I just proved your point

Cub: yep

[msdk-00]

this is my problem. thank you 40 year old reddit man for putting into words my feelings better than i ever could

[calmcoldevening]

Back at it again with a prompt idea!

What if the slasher/s are trying to kill a victim but they are immortal and keep coming back

And the victim keeps following the slasher only to annoy and be a little menace to them >:3

(maybe they fall in love later O.O)

What ever slasher you choose is fine for me ;)

Art the clown x immortal!reader

Tw: blood, murdering, torturing? well, yeah. Art is an ass sometimes

• Art has always been a fan of violent and noisy 'games' that chilled the blood in his veins. That was his sadistic nature, and the whole of Miles County and people for hundreds of miles around had already heard a lot about it. A strange man in a clown costume, who sent at least a dozen unhappy teenagers and adults to the next world. He loved blood and horror, and no one would dare stand in his way, not wanting to become another victim of brutal violence.

• Maybe it was fate's will, or maybe it was just your bad luck or an accident, but one day Art saw you in one of the cafes late at night. He was watching you from a dark alley, so it's unlikely that you would have seen him even if you really wanted to. He clutched his garbage bag in his hands, and a cruel grin appeared on his face. You were a good little thing and you definitely could have brightened up this cold night for him.

• Without thinking for long, Art hit you on the head at the most unexpected moment and took you to one of his 'game rooms', which in fact was just a room of one of the old factories in the city. He wasn't in the mood to hunt you down and catch you in your own house for a long time. This game was supposed to be fast but colorful.

• The clown involuntarily licked his lips, watching you slowly regain consciousness and open your big innocent eyes. He walks around you like some kind of fancy Christmas tree. You're sitting on an old wooden chair, badly scratched and already soaked in blood from past victims. Your limbs are tied in wooden material with strong leather straps, and thick barbed wire with rusty, blunt teeth is wrapped around your neck, chest and abdomen. There was a smell of dampness and fear in the air, which made the Clown giggle noiselessly.

• Finally, Art stopped right in front of you and gestured at the trash bag to your right. Making a playful, almost pretended sweet expression, or reached into the bag as if looking for a Christmas present for a small child. In the flickering light, a long thin tool with a convex handle and a bizarrely curved metal tip appears, more like a sharply sharpened blade. A man comes behind you and caresses your tense shoulders with almost uncharacteristic tenderness. His fingers are rough and rough. The clown's palms slowly descend lower, sliding along your clothed back through the open part of the back of the chair. The movements are slow and measured. Suddenly his movements stop and in the next moment they are replaced by acute pain. Sparks dance in your eyes and you emit a strangled cry, reflexively your body gives way forward, blunt spikes painfully dig into your tender flesh. Art laughs soundlessly, continuing to press the blade deeper into your spine, and then abruptly moves his hand down. With a nasty creak, the fabric of your T-shirt is torn, and at the same time your soft flesh is torn. Art rejoices, seeing how his hands and white gloves are stained with maroon lingonberry liquid, flowing in a thick stream onto the concrete floor. Tears are pouring from your eyes as you desperately bite your lower lip in an attempt to control yourself. Your back, which was once a flawless canvas of pale skin, is now covered with a network of terrible red lines, each of which testifies to the cruelty of Art's tools and his relentless thirst for suffering. There is a pungent smell of iron in the air, mixing with the acrid smell of fear that remains on your sweat-soaked skin.With deliberate slowness, I pick up the razor-sharp instrument again, its sinister curves gleaming in the dim light. Your body is trembling, every muscle is tense with fear, while the man is preparing to inflict even more torment on you.In the flickering shadows, a grotesque smile appears on his painted face, a silent promise of future torment.

• Suddenly, the blade hits the blood-soaked concrete with a ringing thud and bounces off somewhere to the dark wall. Art goes back to his "magic" bag and takes out some kind of leather strap. With a deft movement of his hands, he hooks the clips connected by a strap onto your wet cheeks, the gloves wet with blood rub unpleasantly against your face. Art smiles his creepy smile and gently touches your chin with his fingers. Your eyes were swollen and your cheeks were wet from tears and saliva flowing from your open mouth. But not that you can complain here. All you had to do was mumble something, barely moving your limp tongue.

• An unpleasant crunch filled the half-empty concrete room. With a strong crack, Art broke off a piece of your tooth with pliers, the fragment unpleasantly scratched the already bleeding gum. All you had to do was mumble something indistinctly, to which Art just grinned madly and jokingly grabbed your tongue with the edges of the pliers, watching the despair in your eyes. He broke off tooth after tooth until a dozen teeth had been pulled out in his hand.

• Your throat burned from screaming, and your eyes burned unpleasantly from the tears you shed. You wanted it to be over as soon as possible. Realizing that Art won't get the right reaction from you anymore, noticing your exhaustion, he snorts soundlessly, clearly losing interest. With a graceful movement of his hand, Art deftly takes out an old battered pistol from a trash bag. He slides the edges of the gun over your cheek, drawing uncomplicated patterns. His movements are slow and upward. One. Two. Three. Finally, his hand reaches your head, the muzzle of the gun is pressed against your painfully throbbing temple. You wearily close your eyes, feeling a leaden heaviness in your limbs. His arms and legs were already blue from lack of blood.

• Art blows on the smoke coming from the shower of the gun and throws the weapon back into the bag. The man steps back, admiring his work and your smoking wound on his temple for a couple of moments. After that, he carefully removes the straps from the dead body and puts them in a bag, slowly leaving the building.

• Art pinned a young man to the ground, slowly cutting the meat from his face and putting the skin in his mouth. A soft laugh was heard abruptly behind him, and another pair of hands, softer and softer palms, covered his hands. The man raises his eyebrows questioningly and turns back, meeting your satisfied gaze. Your face still looked tired and tear-stained, and there were bruises and streaks of blood on your neck, but overall you looked almost.. normal?

• Without thinking twice, you grab the scalpel from his hand and with a sharp movement stick the blade into the clown's eye. He screams soundlessly, raising his hands to his face. You step back, watching his agony with a satisfied expression on your face. "You didn't think it would end so easily, did you?" You purred, folding your arms over your chest. The clown frowns, baring his sharp black teeth, and jumps up from the lifeless body. He walks towards you with quick steps and grabs your throat with his cold hands, lifting you off the ground. No matter how thin he looks, the guy has plenty of strength. You giggle, covering his hands with yours. You can already feel the air leaving your lungs, being replaced by an unpleasant burning sensation. Without thinking twice, you reach out your hands, touching the clown's face with your fingers, and scratch his painted face, mixing the paint with the blood from his wounded eye. He presses harder, enjoying the crunch of your airways.

• It quickly turned into a constant game of cat and mouse. Wherever Art was, you were always there. And I was in his way. Art was angry, cursed, and killed you. But you were coming back. Each time, your body was still decorated with old scars, but the man added new ones. He realized that the old scars would disappear. He had to make new ones. It was as if he was celebrating his favorite, best victim in this way. He can't be uninterested in your natural stubbornness and immortality.

• Over time, the clown really begins to look forward to your recovery and return, despite the slight irritation that you cause in him. He feels it in the pleasant piercing of his fingers. His hands crave you, your body, his fingers want to touch your scars and leave new ones.

• Your constant presence in Art's life begins to gradually change his thinking and thoughts, your image has settled in his head like a damn poison.

• Your immortality and lack of fear make you a really worthy partner for Art, he realizes this on an unconscious level. There's something about you. Something that makes his blood boil in his head. He's falling in love with you. Yes, in his own way, but he falls in love. Despite your initial maniac-victim relationship, Art is starting to see you as almost an equal. This is surprising. He loves you in his own twisted way.

• Art and you are in a love-hate relationship, constantly joking and arguing with each other. Despite the constant quarrels, you are united by a deep connection and understanding, which becomes apparent in your communication. You both feel extremely comfortable in such a relationship in your own perverted way (this is especially damn noticeable in sex..)

• Art begins to crave your company and gets annoyed when you are not around. There's something nice about knowing that after a bloody murder, he can properly combine his anger and passion on you. Especially in your intimate moments. Playing with blood, strangulation and other elements of bdsm is an integral part of your pleasure. You are a perfect match for each other, you are feared by all the states in the district.

[tibbycaps]

do you know if the time cub switch to vex skin corresponded with when the ore snatching happened?

i believe he was wearing the skin the night before docs second diamond was reported missing?

^ this is cub logging on and being in the vex/demise skin im pretty sure. bro doesnt elaborate and just comes back normal. ty evan btw

whenever vex stuff is mentioned convex are always like 👀🤨 at each other its rlly funny

[francixoxoxo]

୨ৎ Dream a little dream of me ⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 .

Billy The Kid x fem reader

Desc; billy can’t stay awake when your voice lulls him to sleep so easily.

This is my very first short fic to go on tumblr that wasn’t originally just for ao3 and also my first Billy the kid 🫶 enjoy!!!

Billy worked long days full of physical labour and mental stress. You knew how much of a toll it took on him by how exhausted he was when he came home to you. You saw it in the way he’d hang his hat with a heavy sigh, in the way he’d grimace from sore muscles as he slipped off his boots, in the way he looked at you as if you were an angel that’d lull him to sleep.

Partially because you were. Maybe not an angel, (though he’d beg to differ) but you had a certain effect on him that made him drift off the moment he had you in his arms. Quite a feat, considering most nights without you were sleepless and nerve wracked. Your presence in his bed after a hard day was like melatonin.

You had a particularly fond memory of him slipping into bed, his head on your chest. You lulled him to sleep by humming softly a lullaby from your mother, the timbre vibrating in your chest soothing him like a baby in a warm blanket. Your love filled every corner of his soul with warmth, your soft humming filling his ears as he slipped into the first good dream he’d had all week.

He’d asked Tunstall for a day off at your request. You knew he’d work himself to the bone if you didn’t, and you could tell he needed a break.

So here he was, back against the bark of an oak tree you’d claimed as yours and his spot. You were slotted between his legs, back against his chest and your knees folded to keep up a heavy book you brought. Billy was nosing the back of your neck, humming in thoughtful acknowledgment as you read to him. Your horses were tied to the trunk of this tree, grazing a only few yards away. You spent the morning half in bed, in all honesty.

Billy's chin had come to tuck perfectly atop your head as you'd curled up against him; and the steady thrum of your voice reading to him had him smiling softly in contentment. His thumb lightly swept across the page of the book as he wrapped himself around you further, breathing in the sweet scent of lilacs as he rested with you, the sounds of horses huffing and the tree’s leaves rustling lulling him into a sense of pure bliss.

One of his hands slipped across yours as you read, idly twining his fingers with yours; a small gesture, but one that still managed to bring a gentle flush into his cheeks. You read in that soft voice of yours, “He greatly admired the graceful arch of his antlers, but he was very much ashamed of his spindling legs.”

Billy pressed a loving kiss into the nape of your neck, but he could already feel sleepiness creeping into his bones. He laid his head back against the rough bark of the tree, the movement making you lean back further as he let his eyelids close.

You had always been a big reader, you were in love with books. And when you met Billy, you were eager to share that love with him. The way he listened to you with his whole heart made you feel so important. “"How can it be," he sighed, "that I should be cursed with such legs when I have so magnificent a crown."” The soft lull of your voice was something he heard even when you weren’t around. Even in his dreams.

Billy opened his eye a crack. Your hair was pulled into a French braid over your shoulder, sleek and neat.. Sunlight poured over the convex slope of your nose and your thick eyelashes.. Billy thought you were a work of art. His attention fixated on your every word, taking in every syllable of your voice like a child with sweets. As you continued to read, his fingers lightly brushed over the skin of your leg, moving slowly up to where he reached the bare skin of your knee.

“I don’t think your legs are spin’lin’.” Billy mumbled, distracted, his voice gruff and low as he pulled you in a little closer. His lips, pink and plush, lightly pressed to your temple; and a smirk spread across his face as you melted just ever so slightly into his arms.

Turning your chin, you pressed a kiss to his stubbled jaw to repay the one to your temple. You giggled, furrowing your brows. “Well, s’ about a stag, not me!”

Billy’s gaze settled over you with adoration and affection as you pressed a kiss to his jaw; and another breathless laugh slipped through his lips as you pulled back. He loved your laugh, a melody he’d grown used to and completely addicted to. “Mm. My mistake, pretty.” He murmured, a smirk spreading over his face as he stared intently at your lips. You realized that he was a bit distracted from the story. You could do nothing but oblige his silent request, pressing your lips to his for a lingering moment. He smiled fondly, softer at you as you broke the kiss, letting you turn back to the book. “Keep readin’.”

With a soft smile, you did just that. “At that moment he scented a panther and in an instant was bounding away through the forest..”

Your voice was just the perfect lullaby. You thought you heard a soft snore from behind you, making you turn your face. A grin tugged at your lips as you watched him jolt at your stirring, his long lashes fluttering and his lip twitching. “‘M listenin’.” He mumbled.

“You’re sleepin’, baby.” You snorted lightly at Billy, making a sleepy smile stretch across his lips.

His voice was low and gruff as he shook his head, lips parting to reveal his front teeth in that sweet way of his. “No, m’ invested.”

“What’d I just read?” You jeered. You honestly didn’t mind, you found it cute that he was already falling asleep at noon. You couldn’t resist teasing him, not when he looked so cute.

Billy hummed, squinting at you. His hands moved to knit over your belly, the warmth seeping into your skin. He chuckled through his words, “‘S about a stag. N’ he’s got nice antlers.”

You laughed a little, the fable being retold to you in simple terms making it sound a bit silly. Another soft chuckle rumbled from his chest, if not from the simple joy of having made you laugh.

“I knew you wouldn’t listen to the book.” You cooed, settling your head back onto Billy’s broad chest. He nosed the crown of your hair for a moment.

“Wait, am I dissapointin’ you?”

You hummed thoughtfully. “Most definitely. Cannot believe you’re fallin’ asleep on me, William.”

Billy laughed at that, one hand moving to pinch your side. You chirped out, the sound of surprise delving into a cheery giggle. God, you loved this man. This man who spent his day off listening to you read a silly book to you even when he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

Billy pressed a kiss to your cheek, nosing the outer corner of your eye. His arms tightened around your middle as his head leaned back against the oak’s trunk. “You want me to keep reading?” You spoke softly, not wanting to rouse him.

He hummed affirmatively, unable to resist the exhaustion finally catching up with him. So you continued, in a gentler voice. “But as he ran his wide-spreading antlers caught in the branches of the trees, and soon the Panther overtook him.” You grimace. Perhaps it wasn’t the sweetest fable to be reading your lover to sleep with. But you glanced up at him. Knocked out, the poor boy.

But not too sleepy to murmur drowsily, “Love you.” Billy’s eyes were closed, eyelashes dark against his sun-freckled cheeks. You took the moment to appreciate the sheer beauty of him. The gentle set of his mouth, the stubble covering his jaw and chin, the protrusion of his damn perfect nose. How could a man be so beautiful?

You decided to shut the book right there. You didn’t need to read the old print to know the next lines, and the moral of “appreciating the ugly yet practical things over the beautiful and inconvenient” seemed unimportant right now. You snuggled into his chest with a contented sigh, fixing to take a nap right there with him. “Love you more.”

Billy snored softly again, utterly succumbing to your ambrosia voice and calming presence lulling him to sleep. Not for the first time, and not for the last.

—

Yall I really like The Stag and His Reflection by Aesop lol

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

(Sorry for the back-to-back asks, I was looking through your blog and got distracted by the postman)

I've been trying to find a post I swear I remember you making explaining the rules of Tali, but am coming up empty when I try to search for it on your blog. Can you help me out? All good if not, tumblr do be tumblr. Hope you're having a good day!!

i too suffer from 'cant find my own shit in tumblrs garbage search" disease i had to pull this from the laoft discord server akjsdhaksjdh

Tali, named for the game pieces, which are the talus bones of ruminants.

Each bone has four sides - a broad convex side, worth one, named "Iron," a concave broad side, worth 2, named "Stone," and convex narrow side, worth 3, named "Gold," and a concave narrow side, worth 4, named "Silver." (yes silver and gold are in that order on purpose, humans consider gold more valuable but fae are the other way around)

(when i play these games myself or write them, i just use a d4, but technically talus bones are not equally likely to land on every side. a closer (but still not perfect) analogue vis-a-vis probability would be to use a six-sided die and treat 1 and 2 like Iron, 3 and 4 like Stone, 5 as Gold and 6 as Silver)

you roll four tali - most rolls, you simply add up the total value of the sides, but certain combinations of sides are treated different

First combination roll - 1, 1, 1, 1, or four irons, also called "Cursed Irons." this one varies the most in behavior depending on exactly what game youre playing but its always bad, and usually not worth any points, sometimes worth negative

and there are three categories of trump rolls

Akind (4 of a kind of 2 or 3) which are worth double points,

Doubles (2 pairs), 1122 is lesser doubles (worth 15), 1133 is odd doubles (worth 20), 1144 and 2233 are both middle doubles (worth 25), 2244 is even doubles (worth 30), and 3344 is greater doubles (worth 35)

Finally, Crowns, also called high trump - four 4s, called Silver Crown OR one of each (so 1234), called a jeweled crown

The game Remus and Io play is called "Riches" and is a simple first-to-100 game. the only real odd mechanic is that Cursed irons "robs you" and cuts your points in half.

a variation of Riches called "Iron Riches" has multiple rounds, and is played somewhat in reverse - the first to 100 in each round immediately loses all their points, while the rest keep theirs. at the end of all the rounds, whoever has the fewest points wins.

there are other games you can play but thats the only ones i have real concrete ideas for. "playing blank" means to play without magic, on chance alone. most games can be played in such a way to incorporate some element of gambling, but its not an inherent component of any of them

[the-mcyt-crackships-brackets]

[clears throat] anyone order clownscar fic propaganda? no? too bad. clownscar fic propaganda.

"so. i've been thinking."

"never a good sign," loony says without looking up from the redstone he's working on -- he doesn't need to look up to know it's clownpierce again, because not only does he recognize the man's voice but he also only ever ends up with one man invading his hardcore world. "what trouble are you getting yourself into this time?"

"i've been thinkin' about branzy," clown starts, and loony lets out a long-suffering sigh. "dude," he says, "you just need to call him, not-"

"-and i've decided i need to get him to call me by making him jealous. it's been too long since i've put myself out there, you know? i should be showing that i'm not only available but also a catch, so he realizes how much he misses me."

"you're a menace," loony says in a complete deadpan. "and also insane -- are you hearing yourself talk right now? call him."

"so what i'm thinking is," clown says, breezing right past loony's very good advice, "the ideal rebound has gotta be some guy from one of those toxic codependency deathgame duos, right? everyone loves them, they always have great thematic significance or whatever the hell, and they'll be good enough at pvp to hold their own but bad enough that i could take them in a fight, easy. that? that's some trophy boyfriend material right there."

"i'm not hooking you up with legs, dude."

"who?" clown looks genuinely confused for a second, and then shakes his head and moves on. "no, man, i already have a date lined up. he seems like a great guy. he's a builder, he even likes running scams, he's famous for the deathgame thing."

loony sighs again, though it's more at his malfunctioning redstone than out of actually caring what clown is saying. "what poor man are you dragging into your nonsense rebound scheme this time?"

"his name is goodtimeswithscar," clownpierce says proudly. "he's a terraformer."

...loony blinks. "come again?"

"you heard me. i have a date lined up with scar, like from that whole desert duet thing everyone was going wild about a couple years ago?"

it actually takes loony several seconds to realize the reason his chest hurts is because he's laughing so hard he can't breathe. "you? you're going on a date with scar? you are boned, clown! there is not a snowball's chance in the nether that is ever going to work out!"

clown crosses his arms. "listen, you don't have to get salty with me just because i pulled a hermit."

"oh, yeah, i'm salty, sure." loony tries and fails to wipe the tears from his eyes. "dude, i'm just saying, i'm pretty sure only one of you eats people, and in my experience that's usually a dealbreaker?"

"being a killer clown doesn't make me a cannibal, loony," clown huffs.

thunder rumbles in the distance, and loony perks up his head at the sound of rain. "oh, wow, would you look at that, it's storming! guess i'd better go collect some more mob heads before it passes." he sweeps the rest of his redstone supplies into a shulker hastily, swapping into his elytra and grabbing a few rockets. "good luck on your date or whatever!"

"loony, i do not eat people-" clown starts.

"-yeah definitely what i was talking about good luck on your date bye!" loony yells from the skies, having already taken off for his guardian farm.

.......................

two weeks later, clownpierce is back in the redstone lab, looking very huffy and somewhat like a wild animal has gotten to his clothes.

loony grins at him. "how'd it go?"

clown crosses his arms. "you forgot to warn me about the convex on purpose."

loony snorts. "i did say only one of you eats people. it's not my fault you're self-centered enough to think i was talking about you."

"yeah, yeah, you worded that misleadingly on purpose and we both know it. and you call me a menace."

"i do, because you keep breaking into my hardcore world with insane rebound ideas instead of just calling branzy. speaking of which, now are you going to give up on your weird schemes and just text him?"

clown grins, arms still crossed. "nah. we're going on a second date tonight."

"you are a lost cause, dude."

yeah. anyway vote clownscar.

CLOWNSCAR FIC PROPAGANDA!!!!!

[tyxaar-fics]

Hello it is I, I am writing vaguely uncanny Convex fanfic again! :P

Fandom: Hermitcraft SMP Rating: Teen No Archive Warnings Apply Other Warnings: Body horror, Disassociation, Identity issues Something I wrote about what it feels like to join the Vex and the Convex's transformation.

To Sacrifice One's Humanity It’s always the things that aren’t said that are the most dangerous. For instance, Scar was never told just what the process of joining a sinister order of otherworldly trickster Fae involved. He supposed it was the Vex’s own little revenge for Cub and him scammi- getting a good deal out of them.

Okay maybe Scar was starting to reconsider the Pact, but he always tried to look on the bright side! After all, regrets and sulking were useless in a situation like this, the change was irreversible and they both went into it knowing that. But, regardless of how certain they were beforehand, nothing could quite prepare him for the uncanny experience itself.

The deathlike pull of having one’s soul ripped out as payment, the rest of him ready to be hollowed out and made into an inhuman vessel for foreign magic. It was…? He sifted through words in his head a few times before settling on one. It was intense . To call the process painful would be misleading. ‘Pain’ was too physical of a sensation, too mortal. This was something deeper and far more spiritual, it was the cold burning of the mind and body transforming into something else, rending itself apart from the inside to prepare the shell for its new purpose. It was the creation of a postmortal and the presence of something new, something eager that now tugged at his mind and wasn’t stopping. It filled in the gaps left by his absent heart and it wove itself into him, shifting, changing.

The part that bugged Scar the most about this whole ordeal though, was he still felt like himself . Despite everything, lying collapsed on the planning room bed as his body twisted itself into a new form and every part of him was taken and destroyed, he was still Scar… At least, he certainly thought and felt and considered himself that. He logically knew he didn’t have a soul anymore, it was taken as sacrifice, so he should feel different somehow, right?… But no, no it was still good old Scar thinking these thoughts. The same person he was before… 

Maybe.

Putting aside existential questions of identity, as were topics to consider after this was over, Scar forced his aching body to turn over briefly to check on Cub. Collapsed on the couch on the other side of their makeshift headquarters, he looked just as dishevelled. However there was a… strangely comforting feeling about Cub, cool and safe and familiar. It made a faint smile spread across his tired face. A weird blue mist surrounded Scar’s vision now, and he could feel something tug while hazily staring in half-consciousness at his friend… a dancing, captivating energy. Was it magic? Probably to be honest. It felt good. How long had they both been like this? Days? Weeks? Would the other Hermits try to look soon?

It whispered at him, that incessant force. It had been for a while now, but as Scar rolled back over in delirious exhaustion, it took hold. It wanted him to rest and this time, and so he gave in and fell back. A nap would do him good…

Dreams of laughter in the darkness, echoing through his skull. Wandering aimlessly. Hungry, hunting, patrolling the open air in search of a victim.

----------------------------------

Cub considered himself lucky to have slept through the first stages of the transformation. A waking mind would probably make the process more complicated, and he did not want to deal with the physical world whilst the most torturous part was underway. The dreams were bad enough already.

However, that phase was coming to an end, and upon stirring back into consciousness, the first thing he noticed before even opening his eyes was that something was gone from the room. It took him a moment to connect that missing presence to Scar, and he absentmindedly hoped his friend hadn’t gotten into too much trouble…

Cub slowly cracked open his eyes to check the bed, and yep, Scar was gone. The twisting haze over his vision had also started growing more vibrant. It wasn’t necessarily obstructive , just unfamiliar. It’d take some getting used to he supposed… In the meantime, Cub started taking stock of his other senses. A sweet taste in his mouth, as well as something weird and hard, a similarly sugary smell, a gentle storm of whispers in the mind, and itchy skin, like something trying to get out.

His head spun as Cub forced himself to stand up and stagger to the bathroom just off the main room, trying to avoid the loose paper and miscellaneous objects from their studies scattered around. He needed to deal with whatever was in his mouth, as well as maybe take a shower. Cub wasn’t meaning to look in the mirror, avoid it until the process was complete… but, once he caught a glimpse of what was on the other side, it was inevitable.

The creature was staring blankly at him in awestruck silence. It leaned forward on diamond-hard claws that cracked the sink’s ceramic in their trembling grip.

It had no eyes. In their place there were just soulless glowing pits of white light spilling out into the dark bathroom, illuminating it in a sinister glow. Its skin was peeling off in sheets to reveal an eerie grey-blue underneath, framed by hair that bled out colour to reveal an icy white. The teeth were…. Cub now knew what that sweet taste and weird feeling in his mouth was when he spat a handful of human teeth out into the sink, coated in glistening blue blood let out by the new deadly fangs growing in. They were sharp and strong, designed for ripping through flesh. He raised a hand to his face, gently running claws through his hair as the creature in the mirror moved in sync with him. 

No, no, it didn’t. He needed to stop dissociating, he knew what the Faerie in the mirror was, who it was, what he was. 

This was what Cub had become. Here he stood as one of the Vex, a freshly prepared vessel to host their magic. 

His face twisted into a sharp smile, and let a resonant chuckle echo through the dark room, newfound energy sparking on his voice. The onset of power was giddy, a sugar rush of laughter and voices and whisperings of chaos. They told him what he could become now, they promised to teach him their secrets for service and loyalty.

This is what Scar and him wanted, what they sacrificed themselves for, this form and its magic was their reward. 

Cub felt unstoppable.

(Or at least he would after having that shower and maybe another nap.)

[daisychainsandbowties]

bea - eviscerate + stitch

this dark is everywhere, we said (and called it light)

a percy jackson au

///

Lilith wakes to the latent heat of volcanic glass seeping up through the palms of her hands, lacing along the blade of her cheekbone, drinking down the tears that scatter out of her lashes as she lurches awake, gasping.

She’s lying spreadeagled on hard, garish black rock, glittering with the reflection of enormous stalactites – a ceiling of sharp ends diving down out of the gloom. Her hair, distinguishable only as a more greyish shade of black, is stuck in clumpy patches to the ground and it peels away as Lilith forces her leaden arms to move, pushing away from the ground that always seems like it wants to eat her.

A tremor of white pain travels from her breastbone to the hook of her floating ribs, and she groans as she glances down at blood-sticky rock. It is shiny, glassy like a dead black eye – and Lilith sees her sword lying in the manner of a crooked smile underneath her upraised body. The hilt is shaped like a fishhook, the blade concave near the hilt and pitching out into a broad convex near the tip.

There’s a chain of soft gold running from the hook of the handle to the blade, and it shines strangely in the wet reflective surface of the volcanic stone that runs up to the high walls of hell itself.

Lilith knows, without looking, that there is a very specifically-shaped bruise running from just underneath one of her breasts down the rungs of her ribs, terminating just above her hip. Others too, splashed across her jaw and the socket of her right eye. There is dried blood crusted in her hairline and on her lips, cuts beneath her clothes that have bled into the fabric.

The last thing she remembers is fighting, knee-deep in snow somewhere in the Himalayas. Red spotted in the drifts and an old oil lantern trying vainly to scoop the darkness up off the snow, throwing reflections onto white-capped stone. She was following a fresh trail of blood and gore up a switchback that couldn’t really be described as a path when a great shape came crashing out of the night.

She recalls being swept aside by a massive paw, or maybe a hand, and landing dazed in the snow. Rolling aside just in time to avoid a sharp-seeming downstroke. Might have been claws, or a blade, or a set of enormous teeth. Her lantern rolled away, and Lilith heard the ringing in her ears that announced death. She scrambled to her feet and saw where her light had been tossed away, where it came to rest by a shape lying limp in the snow, surrounded by a halo of blood.

Lilith didn’t need to roll the corpse over – didn’t have time, as snow swirled and a shape stalked her. There, with snow and ice muddling the feeling of stone beneath her feet, she felt powerless. She couldn’t reach out and rend the earth, couldn’t call fire up from the mantle of the planet. Too much interference, too much fear.

There was a crumpled polaroid in the back pocket of her jeans, showing a smiling woman in a puffy green jacket, pretending to blow on her hands for warmth, though she stood next to a bonfire and underneath a clear, starry sky.

There was no need to roll the corpse over because the jacket lay in pieces around the body, rent by claw or blade or teeth, and Lilith felt anger surge up inside her as she tore her sword out of its sheathe and turned in a wary circle, trying to pierce the blizzard with the tip.

But then she heard a flurry of movement behind her and something rammed into her back, tossing her forward and face-first into snow. A phantom voice in her head whispered through the wind as Lilith reached vainly, dizzily, for invisibility, for her god-given power over not being. Coming up, as usual, against the wall of her own scattered focus.

A voice in her head saying, shut the fuck up and fucking Travel, or so help me I’ll come back to life and murder you.

And so she Traveled. Reaching out to gather up the shadows into a soft blanket, into a blade she pressed willingly through her own body, carrying it away from the blood in the snow and the monster in the dark. And there was nothing and no one and nowhere to think of but home, wretched though it is.

Hades.

Lilith stands, dragging the sword with her so that it dangles with the tip almost touching the ground, resting the blade flush against the curve of her boot. It has a soft black glow, down here in such proximity to the waters where Lilith stood, stripped to the waist and running with cold sweat. Where she dipped the fresh-forged blade into the polluted waters of the Styx.

She’s wearing her black aviator jacket, sunglasses sticking out of the pocket, over a somewhat threadbare t-shirt with a weird, shadowy creature on the front. She keeps meaning to Google what it is, but a giant snake ate her phone last month.

And, anyway, there’s no one left to call.

As ever, a pall of ghoulish green light sits over the gateway to the underworld, seeping along the riverbank in both directions. It’s a little like dry ice, but this isn’t a stage or a theatre. It’s just where she lives.

Lilith frowns down at herself, at the spots where her jacket has frayed, where the black leather has cracked or been scraped away by claws, the chill sitting barely above her bones from weeks of sleeping rough up on the surface. The golden chain on her sword settles against her knuckles – a faint, weird warmth – and Lilith lets a small sigh escape from inside her mouth as the greenish mist rolls past her.

There’s something about the mist that feels animate, today. It almost seems to cup her cheek, to flow over her cheekbone like a cold thumb, taking a little heat out of the bruises. Though, there’s a pressure to it – almost a reprimand.

Lilith stares towards the gates and the looming canine shape that sits squarely inside, worrying the inside of her lip. Is it her imagination, the slightly-chiding care that runs through the green light, the cool river mist?

She doesn’t speak to her father – not more than a handful of times in her life. He didn’t save her mother from the bombs or her sister from starvation, and he tucked her away in a dreamless sleep until he had a use for her. So what does she owe him?

Nothing.

Certainly not conversation, or whatever paltry imitation of love he can scrimmage out of his rotten heart. Fuck you, she thinks. There’s no benefit in saying it aloud, but Lilith lifts her middle finger, pointing it towards the mammoth walls, toward Cerberus and the stupid, banal bureaucracy of death.

The ghost in her head chuckles, low, and Lilith feels the golden chain brush her fingers again though there is no wind here to move it.

A wave of dizziness wash over her – a wild urge to lift the hilt of the sword up to her mouth and kiss the chain, but all she does is stand there in the shadow of her father’s kingdom, aching down to the marrow of her bones.

Then, from behind, from down in the direction of the ferry, she hears the scrape of wood over stone. Here, on the parallel shore of the Styx where nothing moves or walks or breathes but Lilith.

She whirls, sweeping her sword around so that she stands – unsteadily – with her body held sidelong in a narrow target, blade parallel with her raised arm, tip pointed towards whatever foul thing has crawled up out of the river.

Then she freezes, blinks, feels all the moisture in her mouth turn coppery and sour, because it’s not a monster.

It’s a girl.

Shorter than Lilith, with a pair of dark eyes pooled above a grim little mouth. Lilith realises – with a sense of disquiet – that she is beautiful. There’s a dust of freckles sitting like an afterthought on her nose, her cheeks, drawing out the dark shadows beneath her eyes. Her mouth is pulled tight, grimacing, but it hardly upsets the softness of her jaw.

She’s wearing a dark blue shirt over what looks like a thermal base layer. It’s cold down here, though it has never truly bothered Lilith. She’s built for it, or just used to it. Despite the extra protection, there is still a faint tremor sweeping through the girl as she stands, black rock glittering underneath her.

It’s easy to see why.

She is drenched in blood, leaning heavily on a spear made of bronze, decorated with tiny winged shapes. Lilith can’t make out what flying creature it is, but she makes a guess. There is, indeed, an owlishness to the girl as she stands, blinking through the gloom at Lilith, making no move to defend herself as blood spills out from where her palm is pressed into her stomach. Lilith can see the pink glisten of unearthed viscera beneath it, can see that her fingers are pressed inside to the knuckles.

A half-blood, then.

Lilith’s fingers tighten around the hilt of her sword. It’s Stygian iron – a substance that can only be forged in the waters of the Styx, capable of absorbing the essence of monsters, ripping them even out of Tartarus. Monsters and mortals and gods fear it, but the girl only blinks down the curve of the sword as Lilith holds it aloft.

Her voice, when it drifts out of her mouth, rolling into the mist, is clipped and precise and soft. All by itself it makes a crack in Lilith’s resolve.

‘You’re the daughter of Hades?’

It is, Lilith thinks, mostly a statement. In her bruises and her battered black clothes, with the life-eating pall of a Stygian sword in her hand, Lilith looks like the bastard child of death.

The stranger is a hazy shadow, cut to the quick by the perpetual drain of this place; the sewer of the Styx washing by with a sound like a hundred thousand muttering voices.

Blood patters softly onto the stone at her feet, but it scarcely has a chance to pool before the stone swallows it. The girl, hair half-unbound around her shoulders, strands falling down around her face to complicate it with shadows, stares at her own boots for an instant, wobbling. Lilith understands what she is feeling; it took weeks for the rock of this place to feel solid, to stop warbling underneath her with the threat of turning to liquid, to blood, to ink.

Lilith has dreamed of the bottom of hell, and this is not it. This is only the threshold.

‘Who’s asking?’ she growls, taking a careful half-step forward. It’s more of a shuffle, really – a habit born from fencing lessons held deep inside the walls of the Underworld, in a garden full of soft fruits and the promise of spring. The place she learned to fight.

The girl straightens, stiffening under Lilith’s scrutiny. There’s a sort of raw-boned intensity to her, like she’s holding herself very precisely in check. Her fingers, too, have tightened around the haft of her spear.

She’s shaking, blood now flowing down to drip from the tip of her elbow where it’s clamped tight against her body. Lilith wonders what it took for Charon to ferry a dying girl across the river.

The tip of her sword is only a foot from the girl’s throat as it bobs, as she raises her chin to expose the bumpy layers of cartilage sitting in a line; the very slight bulge above her windpipe.

There’s no point in asking who sent her. If she’s a half-blood, there’s only one place she could have crawled from.

Softly, again, the girl speaks. Backlit as she is by the green glow on the shore, she carries the countenance of a ghost. Lilith might mistake her for one, if she didn’t know better.

‘My name is Beatrice,’ she says, in a voice like cold water and warm milk, ‘I am a daughter of Athena.’

There’s blood on her lips, Lilith realises, as they pull into a grimace. They shiver as Beatrice pulls her fingers out of the slit in her stomach, holding them out in wry invitation.

It’s utterly bizarre, but Lilith finds herself lowering her sword, leaving it to sit against the leg of her jeans. Beatrice has proffered her right hand, so Lilith is forced to juggle the sword into her left so that she can reach out, tentative, to wrap her fingers into the sticky, blood-stained cup of Beatrice’s hand.

‘Lilith,’ she says. Somehow, it feels like an admission, like giving something away.

The daughter of Athena smiles. Pink-tinted saliva dribbles down her chin. It’s ghastly, but Lilith finds that she is somewhere on the opposite end of disgusted, wherever that might be.

There are, after all, no destinations along the river Styx but one. Death.

Beatrice squeezes her hand. She takes a ragged breath, her dark eyes heavy-lidded and hazy, boring into Lilith’s. ‘Pleasure,’ she says, a little giddily. ‘I thought I would have to go deeper into hell to find you.’

‘Well, here I am.’

A tightening around her hand, not quite a squeeze. ‘Here you are,’ Beatrice says. She lists forward, catches herself, ‘I’m here-‘

She coughs, and the redness of it floats weirdly in the mist. Beatrice stares, shakes her head like she’s trying to banish a ghost.

Her voice is very faint. ‘We need your help… daughter of Hades.’

Then the daughter of Athena, her skin like dark gold even in the bad light of the Underworld, falls forward. It happens slowly, at first, like she’s just taking a step, but then Lilith sees her knees buckle, watches the spear slip through her fingers.

And without thinking she steps forward, capturing Beatrice’s warm body in her arms.

...

Ten minutes later Lilith crouches next to a limp figure she has propped up against the pitted, high stone wall, feeling like a thief as she unbuttons Beatrice’s blue shirt and peels her black base-layer away from the slice in her lower abdomen.

Her sword is on the ground next to her, at a right angle to her body, the hilt in easy reach. Beatrice’s spear is propped up against the wall. It is, indeed, covered in tiny filigreed owls.

Beatrice does not stir as Lilith raises her hand, ignoring the unhappy shiver of the mist against her back as she draws on the power in her blood, summoning up a sliver of bone from a tiny vial of bone dust she keeps tucked inside her boot. It forms in the air, turning from powder to liquid to solid bone in the span of a moment, before settling down into Lilith’s red-painted palm.

It’s not ideal, but she can hardly wash her hands in the river. It’s full of plastic and rot and blood. Instead, she makes do with the little wadge of bandage and thread she keeps in the pocket of her jacket.

Beatrice continues to breathe as Lilith carefully threads her bone needle. There’s a voice in the back of her head spouting stupid facts about the history of needles and sutures, but Lilith hisses at it to shut up before dipping the sharp end of the bone through Beatrice’s flesh. The thread turns red as it passes in and out, but it’s proper surgical suture, so it also tugs the flesh back towards itself. It makes whole.

Distracted by her work, it takes Lilith too long to notice the change in Beatrice’s breathing. She finishes her row of stitches – they’re thick and lumpy and as elegant as she can make them, but there is no ringing in Lilith’s ears to ordain death, so it must be enough.

At a loss for any other implement, Lilith picks up her sword and carefully cuts the thread, leaving a little curl of it to sit against the taut muscle of Beatrice’s stomach. She has, of course, attempted not to notice the ripple of honed, hard muscle that runs the whole length of what necessity has forced Lilith to unearth; the evidence of a life spent fighting.

She has attempted to ignore it.

When Lilith looks up, sword resting on her knees where she’s crouched, balancing effortlessly on her heels, she finds that Beatrice’s eyes are open. Hazy with pain, but alert underneath it all.

A tentative smile flutters across her lips, ‘You saved my life.’

She dumps the sentence at Lilith’s feet like it means something.

Lilith shrugs, ‘I’m a freak, not a monster.’

The freckled skin on Beatrice’s cheeks wrinkles in tandem with her frown, ‘Wh-‘

‘You said you needed my help?’ Lilith interrupts before the question can come out and make everything awkward.

Beatrice’s stomach is still laid bare, covered in fingerprint marks where Lilith has touched her – in every single place Lilith has touched her.

Mercifully, the daughter of Athena lets her question fall away. Her bronze spear shines off of some strange reflection in the volcanic rock.

‘Yes,’ Beatrice says. There’s some depth to the word that Lilith doesn’t look down into, in the same way she doesn’t peer into the waters of the Styx as the ferry glides over it. Some mysteries are not fit for consumption.

‘Alright.’ Lilith nods, ignoring the way that the gold chain on her sword tightens against her hand, like a warm tongue, ‘Tell me what you need.’

[hurlingsupport]

Can I request inside job Reagan x reader platonic who teen prodigy who works at congito inc and reader always looks up Reagan compliments their work and aslo reader has chaotic energy personality lol I hope this ok

It's definitely okay! This is a nice idea, also thanks for the request!!

(Reagan and Teen Prodigy! Gender Nuetral Reader One-shot)

It’s a sunny Monday morning, the temperature's around 78°, and the birds are happily chirping away. It’s a perfect morning, leading to a similarly perfect day. 

However, that suspicious tranquility is interrupted with the sound of sizzling circuit board joints, a sound you consider music to your ears. So much so, that you hum a melody that vaguely matches the wires attaching themselves to joints on said circuit.

Now, what could a kid—scratch that—TEEN genius possibly create with a singular circuit board? Ah, the possibilities are truly endless. However, before you can use your intellectual mind to make the world spin to your rhythm, there’s a knocking at your door.

The sizzling stops, and your content humming comes to a close. There’s silence, and you have an underlying sense of anxiety about what may be waiting behind the wooden door that you oh so desperately wish you could upgrade. Is J.R going to order someone to put a bag over your head again? You hope not. The first one smelled odd, and you’d rather not catch anything.

A voice, one that isn’t gruff and attempting to micro-chip you, appears behind the alder wood. 

“You there? You’re not dead are you—that’d be the third one this week—please don’t be dead.” You squint your eyes at the mystery person’s words before making a run towards your apartment door. And once you pull it open, you nearly squeal. 

“Reagan!” Your lips curl into an excited smile, bouncing on your toes as you stare at her. She’s not much taller than you, yet you look up to her both literally and figuratively. She smiles back, though it’s more out of relief than excitement. 

“Hey, what took you so long to answer the door?” She walks in, wiggling her shoes off before going any further into your home. Which you’re thankful for. Since she has some unidentifiable liquid on her shoes, you wouldn’t want to clean whatever it was off your carpet.

“Sorry, I thought it was the CIA again!” The two of you let out some chuckles, but yours ends with a fearful hiss. “They won’t do that to me again, will they?” 

Reagan grimaces, then gives you a half-hearted pat on the back, as if to say ‘no, they totally will’—before retreating into your workspace. Really, it was just a rather messy area in your living room, since your apartment wasn’t all that spacious. 

“Tasty circuit work. What’re you working on in this little lair of yours?” She smirks at you, pointing at the unfinished circuit board with a soldering iron resting on its own holder nearby. 

Your eyes widen, as you were planning to show the finished product to Reagan as both a present and a message which stood for: “I wanna be your evil assistant even though you’re not inherently evil but whatever” 

It’s not until silence fills the room that you realize you said that aloud. 

“UH–” You spin around looking for any kind of distraction to convince Reagan that she didn’t hear those words exit your mouth. You find a solution once you spot the modified goggles that sat on top of her head.

“Wow! Look at those goggles—they look super useful. What do you use them for, Reagan ma’am?” Reagan sputters at your use of the word ma’am before answering.

“They’re, uh, a bit of a mix between safety goggles and a magnifying glass. But what did you say-” you interrupt her sentence as you continue to compliment her impressive creation.

“How do they work? Is there a separate layer with convex lenses or is it a mix between that and a polycarbonate lens?” 

“Oh, haha- um, it’s just separate layers.” She pulled the goggles over her eyes and flicked a layer of glass over the structure of the goggles. “You just flip the convex lens over the polycarbonate layer and—viola! A multi-layer tight-fitting eye protector perfected for situations such as chemical splash, irritating mist and/or vapor, AND activities such as soldering!” 

She proudly puffs out her chest, taking in your amazement like a dry sponge, and therefore forgetting your previous statement just as you had hoped. You let out a huff of air as you began to wonder why Reagan was in your apartment in the first place.

“Hold on, why are you even here?” Reagan pauses her monologue about the safety goggles and pulls said accessory off her eyes.

“Huh.” 

There’s a moment of awkward silence, though you can’t comprehend why it’s awkward on your end. 

“Oh! Dammit, I completely forgot about what I came here for.” She loses her grip on the goggles completely, flinching when they slap her head, and makes her way towards your front door. Slipping her shoes on as she grabs the handle, she turns toward you with a more serious expression.

“Change into some work-appropriate clothes. I’m driving you to Cognito.” And with that, she’s out your door, and you’re left to look down at what you’re wearing. 

It’s a dinosaur onesie.

After the awkward acknowledgement that your role model saw you in a onesie, you sped into your bedroom to change into a white button up and black slacks. You almost—no, scratch that you actually do tumble down your apartment complex stairs as you hurry to Reagan’s car. 

She stares in concern at your slightly disheveled appearance before starting the engine. Then silence ensues, leaving you to wonder if she was going to bring up what you thought you had successfully distracted her from.

“Evil assistant…” she mutters.

God dammit. 

“Y’know, I think you’d fit into that role perfectly.” This makes you look in her direction.

“Scuse me?” The words scramble out of your mouth, and you wince at the improperness.

Reagan laughs, keeping her eyes on the road as she slightly leans her head towards you. “I’m not too sure about the evil part, but you do commit some rather wicked acts.” 

You briefly remember her saying something similar after you had blown up their meeting room. You swore it hadn’t been your fault. You only wanted to show off a gun that could shoot things other than bullets. You didn’t know that Andre had pumped it full of nitroglycerin when you had suggested he fill it with ‘literally anything’ earlier that day. You made Andre do your paperwork for a month after that.

You shudder, and Reagan raises a brow before continuing. 

“You seem like a good evil-doer. Or at least as good as an evil-doer can get.” She nudges you with her elbow, encouraging you to loosen up. “I’d like it.”

You smile, staying silent since you really had nothing else to say. You had finally told Reagan, someone you aspired to be one day, that you wanted to work underneath her; and not only had she accepted, but she wanted you to work under her too! 

You struggle to keep happy noises from escaping your mouth, the only evidence of your exhilaration being the wide smile on your face and your feet unintentionally kicking the glove box every once in a while.

Reagan snickers and mumbles under her breath, “Evil assistant, huh?” 

[regularconvexheadcanons]

What have I found

I just searched for Cub and this happened-

1: why is Cub watching me from the search bar

2: why is Scar the picture for Cub on the Hermitcraft Wiki? (I mean I can suggest a lot of Convex-related reasons but still)

3: what is that skin from the Reddit post? (Art from DearExam88 on r/Hermitcraft) I did not expect that.

[greenlotusleaf]

Well let's give this a spin. And...

d.) hot witch impregnates you greedily

Hmm...

"Here," the witch says. She shoves a decanter into my hands. It's clear glass with a long stem and full round base. It feels as heavy as a bottle of wine. The liquid inside is about the same color as red wine too. "Drink."

I put the opening to my lips but before I tip it back, she says, "All of it." It's a hard command. I've never tried to drink an entire bottle of wine before. I'm not sure I have the room.

I nod nervously. I want this. I begin to drink.

The contents are sweet and warm. It's so easy. I can barely feel the liquid in my throat. After three big gulps I can feel it in my stomach though. I don't have the room. Another gulp. I feel like I'm going to cough.

"Don't." The witch says. "Keep going or the magic will be ruined." She curls up beside me on the deep sofa. Her plump breasts pressed against my arm. I feel warm. Her hand lifts the decanter urging more into my mouth. "That's it. Good. More."

With my head tilted up, I can only see the ceiling. It feels like there's a water balloon expanding inside me. I don't know if my stomach can take it. Her hand rubs my stomach to soothe it. It feels convex. I feel her work the button of my pants undone.

When I want to slow the pace, the witch's hand pushes the decanter up. "More." She commands. It's a whisper in my ear. My body feels soft, tingly, and malleable, except for the swelling at my center. That's uncomfortable, and I can feel it growing.

"Take it all. Take it all inside you." The witch purrs as she messages my stomach. Her hands sink into my body. They wouldn't have been able to that moments ago. She puts her weight on. She's practically humming with excitement. "Grow them fat." That surprises me. I turn to her slightly, not stopping. I can see her big eyes pleading with me. She can't help herself. Her plush lips nibble my ears.

Finally, it's empty. Every once of that liquid is inside me. I can barely breathe. It's too much. The decanter drops from my hands and on to the sofa. Between my shallow breaths, I groan. I feel like I need to belch but nothing comes up. My hands rub my bulging stomach to encourage some kind of movement.

"How do you feel?" Asked the witch.

I wince. I'm glad she unbuttoned my pants. They so tight around hips, butt, and thighs. "Hungry," I groan.

I'm ravenous. This is the most hungry I've ever felt. I'm frightened. Not because of the strange hunger that shouldn't be, but because I can't imagine enough food to sate me.

The witch kisses the curve of my belly. "Good." She says. "I've always wanted a big healthy family."

I know we're working with a theme of greed, but it would be wrong of me to keep this to myself.

[blake447]

Alright! We've made a little more progress on the Dungeon Generation. And we threw it onto a coroutine so we can watch the triangulation in action. Now what I'm doing here is just brute forcing over all triangles after we've added a new point, and we calculate a value based on this matrices' determinant (image courtesy of wikipedia).

Now, what this is supposed to do is find some kind of "optimal" triangulation that minimizes the minimum angle, but you can see from the video that it's having a hard time deciding how to flip some triangles, which shouldn't happen.

We'll get back to that later, but for now, lets go into detail about how I'm flipping these triangles. Time to bust out the Remarkable2 again

We start with our previous representation of the triangles. Recall a tri is a pointer to 3 edges, which are themselves an array of 2 pointers to a set of vertices. The order matters and determines the orientation, but we can always calculate that on the fly and optimize it with clever tricks later. I start by brute forcing to see if they share any pairs of vertices in each edge. Note that the edges are non-unique and have repeating arrays, but the vertices are singular and absolute, so we can just compare their references for matching.

Next we want to begin swapping the triangulation. By brute forcing (yeah look, I'm just trying to get this working lol) a search to find the local index of the edge the triangles share, for each triangle. Once we have the shared edges, we need to find the two points that are not shared. We can do this by taking advantage of the orientation of the triangles and moving on to the next edge in the circuit, then taking the endpoint of that edge.

From here, we replace the shared edges with a new edge consisting of the two non-shared vertices, and arbitrarily choose to preserve the next segment after the old shared edge entirely. Mapping out what each edge now belongs to, we see we need to swap the previous edges to the old shared one, and we will get ourselves a new swapped triangulation. Note that non-convex triangles will cause complications, and run the risk of overlapping other already existing triangles. Additionally, we will need to recalculate the orientation of the triangle, which I covered along with the ground work in Part I of the post here

As for what comes next, I have to fix the triangulation calculations so that it actually functions correctly, because as of right now it appears to be about a 50-50 tossup that any given triangle ends up correct, which is slightly better than all of them being wrong I guess

Here I though this would be quick and easy, in and out lol

[fountainpenguin]

"But I am even more than the two of them; everything they care about is what I am- I am their fury; I am their patience..." (x)

---

New Dog's Life chapter today! ~ 3rd Life series fan-season

Chapter 16 - “Flare (Sniff, Scott)”

❤️ Read on AO3

💛 Start from Chapter 1

💚 More Pixels Imperfect fics

---

While the Dog's Life server plays Session 2, SnifferMyFeet fights the offline Etho for control of his body... Scott and Lizzie recover from the shock of a wild caving adventure, Grian and Bdubs pay the Sushi Boys a visit, and Sniff and Jellie spend some quality time together.

(First 1,200 words under the cut)

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SnifferMyFeet - Player (Unthreaded)

Quarry: Debatable

Hunter: Frequently himself

Allegiance: Whatever this is

🖤  🖤  🖤

"So I guess that's the story," Sniff says, pressing the last piece of gingerbread roof into place. He melds it tight with a flicker of his crafting ability. None of the houses in the ConVex storage room are decorated with sugarcane, frosting, or chocolate chips, but maybe that comes later. The agent simply wanders to the corner and pulls out more cookie pieces so it can work on the next rustic cabin in line. The fact that it's dark doesn't seem to be a problem. Sniff doesn't mind it either. "I don't know, Weird Grian Agent… The cuddles are nice and all, but let's be real… I don't have a chance with Scar or Etho. I mean, Etho called me 'Joel' when we were snuggled up… I don't know if we're coming back from that. Maybe I'm afraid to express my true feelings because I worry that he'll never see me for who I really am."

The agent beeps a few times, not even looking at him. Sniff rolls his eyes.

"Gee… Thanks for that vote of confidence. You don't have to be so snippy."

This time the agent turns full around, growling low in the back of its transmitters. Sniff watches idly, wondering how hard he'd have to punch the thing to knock it on its back. The agent bleeps once more, then turns away as though it scoffed.

"Yeah, all right… I just don't know where to go from here. I mean, look at me. Right now, I'm a charity case just getting by on the kindness Etho, Cub, and Scar have shown me. Oh, yeah- and Grian, I guess. Beef… I'm not in the system. I don't have my own flat. Maybe Pig will let me share, but he always said he lives in a really cramped studio. I haven't even seen him yet since I came to Between… and surely he would've asked around for me, right? I mean, he's usually come home at least once by now. But if I go looking for Pig, I might get answers to questions about his private life I really don't want to have. Like about whatever's going on between him and TwoMuchGrian. You look like you know Grian. D'you know if Pig and Two are married?"

The agent ignores him, kneeling down. It starts setting up the first wall on a cardboard foundation. Sniff runs his fingers through the back curls of his hair, sighing through his teeth.

"I guess deep down, what I really want is for everything to go back to the way it used to be. I want my husbands back, but I can't just say it to their faces… I mean, if they liked me, wouldn't they already be dating me? Err… Grian and Joel."

No response. Maybe a stifled beep. Only one.

"This is just a lot to take in. I mean, I probably shouldn't be worrying about it right now. I guess I should take my time to get used to Between and let the rest fall into place, but if there's any chance, I don't want to lose them, y'know? So it feels weird breaking up with them if it's not hopeless yet. Plus, I'm bored… I miss Etho and Scar. It used to be that I barely went anywhere without one of them hanging around me. When they were gone, I always knew they'd come back- I built our bases or whatever. But now they might never come back, and I'm probably about to get dumped twice back to back by two people I really like who've maybe kind of sort of been leading me on, and that's really gonna hurt…"

The agent starts work on the second gingerbread wall.

"And I already know that if Pig had to choose between spending time with me or all his cam account friends, I'd never win. I mean, I've never won him over in that regard. I guess he's got Two? I think that was implied. I'm pretty sure he only came home when all his friends were at work and he was off. And I guess I'm grateful, because he could've just left me on that server forever… but, like, he never mentioned unthreading to me as an option? What's up with that?"

And that's a hard pill to swallow (emphasis on the 'aha'). Sniff flops back against the doorframe, draping an arm across his eyes. It helps a little. It almost makes it silly, and then it doesn't sting so badly.

I mean, when Etho told me about unthreading, I jumped right up. Why didn't Pig ever…?

It would've been nice. If when Joel went under for surgery reasons, Etho knocked politely at the door of his and Pig's flat.

I guess if one of my lookalikes ever needs my code again, Etho will be back. Maybe someone should "accidentally" bump Joel or Grian off a cliff.

"Things seem pretty good in Between, and there are all these other servers out here. Pig can go have fun with his friends any time he wants. I don't know if he visited because he liked me? I think it was just duty, boredom, and pity. Like, geez… I'm not as interesting as a thousand worlds to explore. And we're not dating; Pig knew how I felt about my husbands, so he didn't make moves on me, I think. Or he's not interested, but I don't care about that as I like fighting him.

"Although, it is a bit messed up that he never told me they were off the market… Well, I guess I don't know if they're off the market, but you know what I mean. I really miss them, though. Scar's snuggles are the best, but Etho really makes you feel special when he's affectionate. I really liked their hugs. And our old bases. I loved The Relation ship… and the Red Velvet Keep. I actually do miss those pandas… not that I'd ever tell him that; he'd get such a smug look on his face. I miss chasing pillagers with Etho. And the carroting. The way he used to take me apart…"

He trails off, cradling his cheek against his knuckles. He never did carrot with Scar (Too scared; too stressed; reasons unclear), but he did carrot with Etho. A little. Mind your own blummin' business. He sniffs then, pathetically, which is miserable in the sense that it grounds him to his name (like a boot heel twisting him into the dirt).

He exhales. "I know breaking up's the right thing to do… because even if they want to date me, we'd be building that relationship on memories that only I have. Mine are wrong, apparently. I don't know what's up with that; Etho said I probably have roleplay memories without the context that it wasn't real, so my brain invented its own context, though that still leaves me with a dozen questions… My sneaking around the hub hasn't yet led me to some memory erasing business. I'm just not ready to get double dumped. They might not think I'm worth hanging out with anymore…"

They're experienced players. They don't want some oblivious newbie sniffing at their feet.

[Full chapter on AO3 - Link at top]

[hmshermitcraft]

Vex are tricky creatures, naturally. The malicious malcontent mischief makers that many a mansion raiding Players do so hate.

With a lust for power exceeding that of the basic player. So being a being of both Vex and Player…well…one would have certain abilities unattainable to a basic player.

With their ever oozing mist of Vex blue and glinting eyes and flashing teeth. Well, it seemed that they were a match made in Heaven.

Or hell. Depending on who you’d ask.

But Scar and Cub were truly something. Though they may not have been able to match wits, the boys certainly were able to stand toe to toe with one another; taking turns in their brash dance of Commander and Follower.

With Silver-tounge and mad science, they would be unstoppable.

In the end—or was it the beginning?

Two boys clawed themselves—quite literally—into hard fought freedom. For each other. Possession and protection working hand-in-hand.

And seeing as their captors were obliterated in flashes of blue by their lover?

Well.

It seemed as though that was the best present yet.

Finally. Their power was their own. No one elses.

And if there were a few bodies in the way?

Well. One way out the other. ConVex would take care of them

-nix

For the longest time, their captors thought they could pit the two against each other. It had worked at first. Cub's always hated to lose, and Scar had a much bigger stubborn streak back then. Neither, though, are stupid. The benefits of working together far outweighed those of fighting. And they'd been granted the perfect cover story.

The rest was spent waiting. Waiting for their captors to let their guard down. Waiting for them to forget Cub and Scar are two incredibly smart creatures and not just tools to be used.

Their escape was vindictive and satisfying.

Now, they live amongst the hermits. Their need for violence is behind them, though they indulge every so often. And both of them know they have nothing to fear - they'll always come back to each other.

[elmundodeflor]

CRACKS ON PORCELAIN - a gift for @someonestolemyshoes

READ THE FULL FIC ON AO3

The third flash of realization comes unexpected, one late-night where he's bathing them. He had to drag them there, — out into the common showers. They would have stayed in their room for another day, signing off papers and permissions, hadn’t he done so.

“Oi”, he’d asked, soon as he’d opened the door. “How long has it been?”

Hanji’d barely looked up at him.

“My brain’s fried, Levi.”, they’d sighed, as they ran their fingers through their hair. Good thing he didn’t even need to be specific. “I can barely remember my own name by now.”

He’d nodded.

“More of a reason to get moving, then.”

Now, mercurial blue hours twinkle in the haze between dusk and morning. Hanji’s bare before him, and the pale moonshine traces contours on their body. They’re concave and convex, frail and strong. All too swift, all at once. Levi can’t help but find shapes upon their back, — like he’s connecting dots between muscle and scar. A planet, a cloud. He pretends that he’s a painter. That each stroke of light and shadow brings his work to life.

He lathers up soap between his hands. Water ripples at each one of his movements, as he washes down their neck, their nape, their shoulders. He’s careful handling them, — he always has been. There’s a part of him that feels that Hanji’s made of glass, — that a single blow could shatter them to pieces. They don’t need the extra pressure— the world puts enough on them already. It’s why he holds them with sheer delicacy— as if they’re Erwin’s vase, and he’s trying to bring their broken back to earth. Not everyone gets to see the softer sides of him, but Hanji; — Hanji’s different. They understand him— simple and complex as that. Everyone else is intimidated by his presence, and yet they tease him for being clean-cut. Will say titans don’t shit just to play around with him.

His fingers trickle down their spine, their waist; shy, meticulous. As if all his endings have turned to sea-foam. They have a secret pact. A tacit agreement that goes unexplored, untouched in moments like these, where they’re too hush and helpless. They don’t ask him why he does all of this for them, and he never speaks the two words that would give them enough of an answer.

“You stank, you know.”, he says, instead. His voice’s sweet, but then he stops himself.

He can feel bone under his palms. Sharp, and fierce and rigid. He doesn’t recall it being there before, the last time he’d bathed them. Sure, Hanji had always been skinny; tall, and with a languid frame. Still, it was never like this. It was never this bad. He would know. He’d engraved each scrap of them into his heart before.

When was the last time he’d even seen them eat?

He clears his throat, and swallows hard, and lets out a sigh. He can count each vertebra that pokes from under the skin. It seems that, beneath the shadows, they’re different phases of the moon: one crescent, one full. There’s little muscle in sight; only the thinness of flesh. The tough realization that this is all it’s come down to.

“Hanji…”

They tell him nothing back. They don’t wish to talk about it, and he knows better than to push them further. All of a sudden, it’s like they’re a kid who’s been caught red-handed. A famous criminal found at the theft scene.

It does make Levi’s soul shrink, — to watch them like this, all too small; knees pulled to their chest. They used to shine with every color in the rainbow; a whisp of bright and vibrant. Now, they’re only rain. Nothing but the cracks on a porcelain vase; no liquid gold to glue them back together.

He gets up from the chair he’s in, goes fetch for a warm, fluffy towel. Hanji stands up to their full height, and covers up their breasts with their hands, but he can see it, still. Their weak build, the protuberances on their hips and ribs. For a moment, it almost looks like they’ll bend and fall. Like water will weigh them down, and they’re not sturdy enough to carry themselves to make it.

He’s worried sick about them. Oh, God forbid, he’s so, so worried. He doesn’t understand, — how could he be this selfish; much too focused on his own pain to even notice Hanji’s.

“I’m cold.”, they whisper, barely audible.

And when he wraps them up in cloth, at last, beaming with all the love that he’s capable of, he can only promise himself one thing:

He won’t let them disappear. He can’t. He’ll never.

He won’t let Hanji Zoe become cracks on porcelain.