#benzo lizard

[13lizardsinatrenchcoat]

When. When will my body learn that losing my eyesight in stressful situations does not make them less stressful??

[boltermasterbon]

The Dragon of Zaun

{Alright heretics I’m feeling like a self indulgent Bastard today so I’m going off script and Doing an OC x Character story!……Enjoy :)}

Our Story begins in the undercity. Vander was….well he was making his way back to the Last Drop after having a small chat with Benzo. It was night and dark out and Vander was minding his own business…..until he heard something in an Alley way….something was scavenging the dirty dumpsters and for some reason or by Fates will….he decided to investigate. And that’s when he met our main protagonist…..A little 8 year old boy but- he wasn’t human…Scales as Black as obsidian with golden accents and vain like lines. His eyes glowed like Golden Ember and tail with hinged lizard like legs and a face that looked like a…..Dragon?…..and he was bleeding golden blood?! Vander quickly shook off his shock and spoke to the boy “You alright kid?!” Vander asked with concern. The boy growled out in fear and in defence but then began to cough violently. His blood coming out of his mouth. “Woah woah easy! Easy kid…..I’m not gonna hurt you” Vander reassured the young lad as he helped the boy up and into his arms. “Please……don’t hurt me….” The boy said weakly as he was near deaths doors. “Don’t worry kid. I got you” Vander said reassuringly as he made his way towards the last drop with a quick pace the boy fell unconscious in his arms. Vander quickened his pace until he reached the last drop. There he quickly grabbed the med kit and began to attend to the boy’s wounds. After an hour of making sure the boy was patched up and put to rest on something decently comfortable. The next day and the boy woke up and saw Vander looking at him. He gasps with panic and backed up a little bit. “Relax son. I’m not gonna hurt you” Vander calmly explained to the young lad “R-really?” The boy said with wariness and shock. “I mean it. You nearly died kid” Vander explained to him awhile he looked at the boy with sympathy and calm, patience eyes. He knows too well how cruel the undercity can be. “Thank you……” the young lad said with still fearful yet sad eyes. “What’s your name son?….” Vander asked. “…..B-Bon….” The young lad said to Vander. “Hope you don’t mind me asking but….what are you Bon?” Vander asked with a brow raised. “I-Idk……I-I’m an Orphan” He explained to Vander which Vander replied with a hum. “Well Bon….my names Vander.” He said to Bon with a gentle smile. “Vander……n-nice to meet you…” Bon said shyly poor lad was still a bit wary. “there’s no need to be wary Bon….your safe.” Vander explained. “Would a warm meal and some water help?” Vander asked Bon with a fatherly tone. “…..Y-yes” he replied. “Alright.” Vander said as he got up from the chair he was sitting on and went to the bar stand to pour the boy some water and then went to the kitchen to make him something warm. Bon got off of the cushioned chairs that were attached to the wall. He still had the warm tattered blanket on him while his body was a sore but wrapped in bandages. He only had his shorts on while he made his way towards the bar counter seats. Once he got himself seated he looked around at the quiet and empty bar that was oddly warm and cozy. And that when Vander came back with a bowl of potato soup that smelled So, So, So, SO! Good. “Here you go kid” Vander said to Bon as he gave him the bowl of soup and a spoon….and Bon didn’t even waste another second before he scarfed it all down as quickly and greedily as possible. Once he was done he looked up at Vander and asked “More?” Vander merely chuckled and went to grab more for Bon. 5 bowls later and Bon was full. “You look satisfied Bon?” Vander asked with a smile at the boys satisfied face…even his tail was wagging like a happy puppy. Then Bon burped and ummmm….well fire came out of his mouth. “Oops….s-sorry” Bon said with an apologetic smile which merely made Vander chuckle a bit “your alright kid…..” Vander said as he smiled. “Ummm……c-can I stay here?….p-please?……I-I-I promise I’ll work for you if you like!” Bon pleaded with Vander which Vander shook his head “No need. You can stay kid….for as long as you like” Vander said with a warm fatherly smile. Bon with a look of disbelief quickly changed into one of tears. THE END! For now!

[blue-hazewhite-light]

First and last Screenshots of 2019

The more things change (Ayri>Saya), the more they stay the same.... (lizard)

The second one is kind of funny without context but the context is still basically just ‘mom and dad are having a disagreement ):<’ tbh

tagged by: @abrasive-pistols

tagging: ifn you ain’t done this and you see it and wanna, tag me owo i can’t be assed to type more rn

[hexblooded]

daemon!au part 2 because I started writing headcanons and things got out of hand 😬

[rivka-kopelman]

Delivery Lemur Logbook : 13

<view full logbook>

In the babble of the rabble, in the shaking shuddering cortex of the world, in the hot haze, the controlled chaos & the actual chaos, in the heart of all hearts, is my teeming steaming native land. This is planet Cloudout, capital and administrative keyworld of the Eight Galaxies. Specifically, we're in the suburb Bobby_Cloud. I was born just around the corner from here back when I was a baby.

Feel what I'm feelin?

“Yes ~ I do,” Mocha Menosky thought to me. I wanted to show all this to her, so I reached out, and here you are, in my head.

“Twinkly warm feelings ~ A memory on every corner. Plastic toys in primary colors. Over in that tower ~ you're recalling it ~ your classmates went rollerblading without you?”

I made an excuse to stay home. I was afraid I'd go too fast and fall over the guardrail and die in the boiling core.

Through the back of my head Mocha sees the wallpaper in my childhood bedroom. She tastes the undercooked seaweed soup my dad used to make, and feels how my cherry shampoo used to sting my eyes. It smelled so good I kept using it. I was 9 or 10. That brand doesn't exist anymore. Too bad.

“We need to get uptown,” Lopcorn said. My meditation cracks open.

His voice. His face.

Tangible reality. The deck under me.

I'm Delivery Lemur (deliveremur). Hi.

“Ah yeah. Uh, hang on,” I say. I hit a few buttons and we accelerate.

Everything I see through the porthole is familiar but the vibe is very wrong. The planet's frantic. Paranoid. The casual subversion of the reformists and the counterculture is not so casual today, if the din on the public comm is any indication. The vindictively persecuted Catfish Church was rallying lots of sympathy. The famine, believed over, was worse than ever now that the Commercial Spacefaring Commission's fleet had been destroyed – rammed into the Bolo blockade by the renegade Berg Lazerson, crushing intergalactic trade and risking a mass breakout by the dreaded Possum Patrol. A mob blaming the Dept of Agriculture for the (yet again) empty grocery shops has been targeting the private residences of high-ranking officials. Civil liberty activists crashed a pro-Berg rally in Macula_Cloud; when soldiers showed up to disperse them, the uproar became a riot and spread to six other cities before President Gault got things under control. An hour later, anti-Gault fanatics were firebombing admin-centers all over Cloudout. Elsewhere in the galaxy, secessionists in Shark City had flooded the local barracks with nerve gas, killing the entire garrison. They dammed the harbor with corpses and were declaring independence. The stock exchange and board of trade in Jorora had been razed by rioters while a vast phalanx of police watched in silence and eerily did nothing. In Yugrug on Blurg XI, a cholera outbreak in the wetlands had driven peasants into the cities by the billion and 75% were expected to die. Psychics everywhere were returning to the Psy Santuary en masse. Road Lizards were rampaging in Karatoc for no known reason, laying waste to mineral extraction facilities and bombing unpopulated mountains. Hackers had devoured the វាលខ្សាច់ banker's cyber-guild and instantly turned a million millionaires into destitute vagrants. A feud between SM grunts and Benzo Bears on Rialk Prime had escalated to hypersonic missile exchange and over 100 cities were destroyed this morning. Hyde Station had gone dark, all aboard presumed dead. Zura-Chalga Station had lost a thruster to suspected sabotage (culprit unknown) and fallen into the orbit of red dwarf star 324-Q; most of the overcrowded escape pods exploded on launch and only 1,471 of the 6,340,000,000 inhabitants survived. The planet-spanning bramble forest of Szymański had been ignited; no rescue operation had begun and the entire population was doomed. Floom-fearing alien cultists were holding ritual suicides in all cities and towns on all planets. The SM blockade around the Bolo system was stretched to the limit to contain a new all-out offensive by Possum Patrol. New Year's Eve parties have been cancelled left and right.

Well. Not much I can do about that. I've got a job to do, after all. Gotta deliver a certain salad fork to a certain sloth. I've met the guy - Franz Welker. Some call him an evil mastermind, and blame him for everything that goes wrong in the universe. Some call him their papa, and revere him as an altruist. He uh, has really good manners? I think he's a stress-head. Needs a vacation.

Anyway. We're zipping along through the vapor. Grey, grey, grey. I love driving around here. I know this place like the tip of my tail. I could navigate Cloudout with my eyes shut. In fact... let me try that.

Tum tee tum, ta ta tee, ta ta ta

BONK

Ah we have hit something. That must be my house. I open my eyes. It is - Yeah it's my house.

“Hahah ~ be careful,” Mocha thinks, a galaxy away in her asteroid conservatory orbiting Febris, deep in Psy Sanctuary Space. I smell hornwort broth through her nostrils. It's suppertime over there.

“Did you have your eyes shut?” Lopcorn wanted to know.

“Yeah! Don't worry. It's my parents' place,” I explain.

I guess my mental map or my muscle memory or whatever guided me back here. “I should really pop in. Haven't been back for a while. There's clean laundry I'm supposed to take.”

I wonder if Mom got that stain out of my neck-warmer? Peanut oil in polar-fleece. That's beyond my power. I bet she did it though.

I buzz out a docking pylon and disembark. Ceaseless traffic streams in all directions. The hot wet breeze washes over me. The boil-coils of the artificial planet-core exhale the nostalgic swimming-pool scent of chlorine with a hint of charcoal or burnt coffee. Though it might just be that Dad left the percolator on.

Lopcorn follows me out.

“Your parents? Don't tell me - is this their actual address?”

When I swivel around to answer, I stumble on something. But when I look, there's nothing there. That's a very weird and suspicious thing to happen. Well whatever haha

“Yeah, why?”

He grips my shoulder and steers me back into the ship.

“We'll come back tomorrow,” he whispers. “We can't show our faces here.”

“Why not?”

“Me and your friend Stackland were supposed to kill each other, remember? That's why we were sent out to the edge of the world.”

“Oh right.”

“They might be surveilling your house in case you make it back.”

That would be so freaky.

“He's right ~ you're being watched.” Mocha's thoughts float up. I hear and I know.

“Good point,” I say. “Let's get out of here.”

“Your family is okay ~ run ~ hide.”

Confirmed FREAKY.

“We should ditch the ship now,” I say.

“Yeah,” Lopcorn agrees. “Where's somewhere y-”

“The old forum.”

Afraid, kind of. Anxious and stiff in the shoulders. Rushing. Go go go.

Omnipotent Mocha Menosky feels my impatience. She sees my bad feelings; sees the sprawling, curling branches of worry and fret. If this goes wrong then that could happen then this or that or

“There there ~ it's alright.”

Mocha shows me psychic artwork and soothing sounds of something and unwritten brain-books in the language of raw emotion and pre-thought. Dream with me ~ for a bit ~

[yeah]

She reads every synapse in my brain and fathoms the full shape of my fear. It's effortless for her, fluent in all feelings, to suss out exactly what'll console me. She understands everything and she takes care of me. I feel better.

The local forum is the Formido Tremendum. There's free parking. I tuck us away in the back corner of the lot. Mocha's looking at the memories I've made here. I feel like a large-print softcover. It's unusual but not embarrassing. She grasps my perspective on her perspective and she furnishes those thoughts with some special context. Mentally she shows me snips of her own past and present. It's too much to write down today but I'll get to it at some point.

Physically, Lopcorn eases himself onto our beanbag chair and I know he's looking at me. The warmth of him on my right side makes my left side feel colder. Mentally, Mocha slips away.

“...gonna be okay,” he's telling me. Crap, he's been talking. What's he been saying?

“What is a what?”

“Your ship.”

“Oh. Yeah, it's a, uh, it's okay to leave it here for now.”

He asks me lots of stuff that I don't really parse. He's nice and warm though. I notice I'm blinking alot.

I stand up.

“Let's go in.”

In. What? Where – oh the forum. Oh gosh I was here all the time when I was younger. On chilly days I used to get hot rosewater and put the bottle in the inner pocket of this olive-green jacket I had, and just hold it when I was walking around, feeling so cool that I had this secret heat source. And I had these yellow-foam headphones with glow-in-the-dark comets on them for listening to white noise and ocean sounds before I discovered podcasts. Hahha!

We go in. It's dim and deafening. The floor is sticky fauxstone. I stepped on a hard nugget of feces. In an environment so damp and crowded, you can't pamper your paws. Locals such as myself learn to ignore their feet entirely. An empty Midnight Muktuk can is rolling around, kicked by everyone. The frantic pulse and stifling anonymity of the universe's most densely populated planet is best exemplified here in the forums. The self itself is muffled, and the we has the volume turned all the way up.

They're rowdy today. Its worse than I've ever seen. The public and the tribunes are debating the Bolo Blockade, Berg's mutiny, the intentions of Franz Welker, and most of all, this the latest news item:

{Transcript of the Pope's confession!}

{Catfish Pope under INTERROGATION by captor Berg L.}

At long last, the fledgling Catfish Pope had been caught and put to the question. The staggering &700,000,000R bounty put on his head by Franz Welker had drawn no shortage of attention. Our buddy Rudler Stackland and his buddy Felix Rølvag were supposed to nab him but they lost the chase to Berg Lazerson.

I double check again that Lopcorn is behind me. We're deep in the throngs now. The cyclone of chatter is wrapped around an mp4 video.

{Health Minister Anna Siong Leaks CFP Interrogation Tape!}

{“...bound by my oath of office to make this information public...”}

We watch it. Yikes.

In the grainy video: the ancient fish was bleeding from his mouth and face.

“May Gog forgive you. Gog forgive you,” he was moaning.

“You were the chaplain of the SMV Callier during the Floom Expedition ?” the lilting drawl of Berg Lazerson was unmistakable.

CFP: “Yes.”

BL: “Did you see the aliens?”

CFP: “There are no aliens. Stop asking. Stop asking me!”

BL: “Who was your commanding officer?”

CFP: “Franz Welker. It's - that's common knowledge!”

BL: “You never encountered any aliens?”

CFP: “No, child. There's no such thing.”

BL: “What happened on the expedition?”

Narration played over a looping clip showing a very old spaceship.

Year 3404: Anomalous energy wavelength detected on the far side of the gargantuan Sheol Nebula by a prototype isotropic transducer being tested by the Space Military's science directorate [SMsD]. Experts believed the phenomenon could be evidence of intelligent life.

The chief of the SMsD at the time, F. Welker, was ordered to investigate. He commissioned the construction of a long-haul carrier, the SMV Callier, and departed with an elite crew hand-picked from the academic elite, Psy Brigade (now defunct), and Possum Patrol. It was estimated that the Callier would reach the source of the anomaly in eleven years, and take eleven years to get back. F. Welker returned – Inexplicably alone – in 3417, 13 years after the mission began. He told the cabinet that on January 1st 3432, when the gravitation of neutron star YXY-18309 pulls the Sheol Nebula into its perihelion and the anomaly becomes directly observable from our galactic cluster, an alien race called Floom would exterminate our civilization instantly. Tomorrow's the big day.

CFP: I was a preacher. Spacefarers of this era don't seek spiritual guidance... But the diplomatic corps asked our church for a representative, considering the... what the mission may entail.

He wheezed and shuddered.

CFP: .............. I'm afraid of the dark. Closets and corners... Dying. The fate of my soul. That most of all. Will I ever hear the voice of Gog? Is every one of us alone? The Ancients struggled with the mystery forever. It did them little good. Ah. I said yes. I agreed to go with Welker into the abyss. We sailed off the edge of the map.

He laughed until he started coughing. He looked like the most terrified and insane person I ever saw.

BL: You went to the Floom Empire. What did you see?

CFP: Like I told you before you flogged me, child: The void is the void. There's nothing out there. You can shine the light of your childish imagination on it. The aliens at Floom are Franz's fantasy. The Callier was hijacked... Oh, pray for Gog's forgiveness. Molder in quiet water. Swim into the rippling dawn. Splash in the rivers of heaven. Be purified by Gog's love. You still have time.

BL: Thank-you, no.

Berg snapped his fingers four times, trying to bring back the Pope's attention.

BL: What happened next? What about the hijacking? Why did Possum Patrol betray the SM? What's this really about?

CFP: Hah......... haahhahahahahahaAhhahahahahahahahahahahHahah--

The video feed was cut. Everybody lost their shit.

The projector played a health & safety warning about a float-gas leak. A voice on the intercom was calmly instructing the forum-goers to evacuate in an orderly fashion. The seething mob complied, with much cursing, grumbling, and petty vandalism.

“It was a hoax all along,” an old bluejay was muttering as we shuffled along. “I fuckin knew it. Fuckin load o' shit...”

“They've got to hang Welker for this,” brayed a donkey behind us. “Building those Space Beams bankrupted the United Galaxies. It was all for nothing. They're starving out there, ya know.”

“Oh snap, look,” said the gopher in front of us, showing his pals something on his phone. “Gault's going after him. “'The office of the President has ordered the Justice Minister to countersign an arrest warrant for Franz Welker.' lol crazy!”

“Franz just declared martial law in Galaxy-1!”

We were almost back to the hangar. A paramedic in a gas mask was scanning everyone at the exit with a thermometer or something. “You two, get over here!” he ordered. He was pointing at me and Lopcorn. We exchanged a look and stepped out of the queue. “You've got elevated pleural hydrocarbons. You might have inhaled float-gas. Head down to the first aid station for a checkup.”

We'd all be sneezing blood if there really was a leak, right?

“Thanks but I'm late for my big baseball,” I lie. He waved insistently back down the hall.

“Can't let you go without an exam. Sorry. Just doing my job.”

So. We gotta go down in an elevator to the deserted basement level and find the little first-aid room.

The nurse was a squirrel. She scampered toward us. In a flash, Lopcorn had her by the throat. I gasped and she gasped. Lopcorn peeled her respirator off and revealed her face.

“Oh hi Dr. Siong,” he said, and let her go. He was right. It was the health minister herself.

Anna Siong recoiled and glared at Lopcorn, looking outraged, but regained composure by the time she could breathe again.

“I was just going to lock the door,” she insisted, her voice crackling. She waved her paws. “You s--Nevermind, nevermind.” She poured some chalky green Wakeup=Dead (a powerful stimulant drink) into a paper cup and quaffed it.

“How did you find us? We've barely been on the planet an hour.”

She cleared her throat. “Auto-census. The health department doesn't + can't compile everyone's DNA profile but we bio-scan every ship entering + leaving Cloudout to track occupant species for epidemiological reasons. I've been watching for #lemur and #hare arriving on the same timestamp...” she spoke quickly, and nodded furtively while glancing back and forth at us. “It's rare for hares and lemurs to fly together. It was quite straightforward. If I can find you, so can Franz Welker – so I'll make this quick.”

“Do that,” said Lopcorn, locking the door. Anna Siong took a deep breath and let it out, like she was about to start singing in front of an audience.

“Berg is going to invoke Chapter 55 – No Confidence Clause – against President Gault. I'm going to sign as sponsor and we're going to impeach her. Berg will run unopposed in an emergency election on New Years Day and he'll be the new president, with me as VP – on paper. But – as I'm sure you know – the title is worthless without the means to enforce the rule of law.” Her face was dramatically animated during this frenetic spiel. “No matter what we say, the military can do whatever it wants. Franz isn't going to step down. And he's been declared a rebel as of – more or less – five minutes ago. These next hours are crucial...” she gesticulated eagerly to emphasize this part. “We have a narrow, NARROW window of opportunity. Berg – against my advice – insisted on releasing the interrogation video. He's impatient to resolve this all today. He's being... so rash.”

“That's Berg,” Lopcorn said flatly. “And you know, he got stabbed and had his tongue ripped out. I'd be mad as hell.”

Siong's demeanor changed; her flagpole posture tilted and she blushed, seeming to lose her place in her long recital. “That knife was poisoned. What- what a catastrophe it could have been. But he had the best of care. I saved him.”

“I hope he thanked you for that. And I hope he learned from it.” Lopcorn looked at the wall. “But I'm betting he didn't.”

“That Cutbarf boy...” she rasped, hugging herself.

“I'll deal with him,” Lopcorn said, like a babysitter casting out monsters from under the bed.

Siong wavered for a moment, then started nodding alot. “Berg – He and I will collaborate on strategy, going forward. I can handle his reckless tendencies. It's – this is a tangent. Main point: I want stable politics. I want to stop the bloodshed. I want to set up a new status-quo. I want the Space Beams taken apart. I want to dig up the Floom Expedition Logbooks + prosecute Franz. I want to be the one to tell the public everything. Now that we know the alien empire was a hoax, it's – it's almost worse, isn't it? Because if Franz didn't do – didn't cause all of this to prevent the apocalypse, what – what was the point? What have we been bombarding for six years?”

“Haha I dunno,” I add. This is like one of those complex questions on a test when u wish u could just walk around the room for a bit and not think about it before starting to actually try, know what i mean?

“I have my own idea about that,” pronounced Lopcorn. “But for your coup to work you need Armando. He can veto your plan any step of the way. Did you talk to him?”

Anna shook her head and shrugged, smiling in a plastic way, as if she had practiced for this question. “没有办法. Armando will do what Armando will do. I think he doesn't care what happens. Or – ah. Nevermind. What I wanted to talk to you about was your plans for next year + and onward. Mr. Lopcorn. I've looked into your curriculum vitae. Your history is – frankly – extraordinary. Stranded – at that age – where you were – must have been quite an ordeal.”

“Yeah quite.”

“And - Hero of the Sarissa campaign...You ended the Eagle War and Verückter War single-handedly... You defeated the Ostrich King and Sniper-X. Fernand Veek, Bully Transe, Grand Panther, Luke Horab, the legendary Captain Svalbard – the list is beyond belief. 1,000,000 confirmed kills. I think it was asinine for Welker to demote you over the debacle at Bolo Gamma; Everyone knows Franz planned it all out with Kelly Bookbean to ruin your reputation. Personally, I consider your record of victories to be unbroken.”

She smiled toothily at Lopcorn. He didn't reply.

“That's why I took the trouble to – that's why I wanted to have this private conversation. You've demonstrated your value a hundred times over. I, for one, appreciate you. You're effectively a one-man-army. Exactly what I need.”

“I can see why you'd think I could be useful.”

“Mr. Lopcorn. I want you to go to department of defense in my name, and subdue the Space Military by force. Capture the criminal Franz Welker. Take control of the Space Beams + the SM fleet.” She took another deep breath and let it out quick. “There is no alien menace. With Welker de-clawed, the 8 Galaxies will be at peace and we can rebuild them. I'll appoint you minister of defense. When Berg's term is up, you'll be a shoe-in for president. I'll back you. I just need you to save all of our lives - today. Right now. Right now.”

“그는 이것을 두려워했다,” he said under his breath. “No thanks. I was gonna go get him anyway. I don't care about my career or yours.”

He moved toward the exit. Anna Siong looked startled and affronted and confused.

“Don't worry. You're gonna end up where you wanna be. Just don't attach my name to what you're doing.”

“But, have you considered-”

“We're just gonna go,” he said. I got up. “Oh. Since your head of the health dept. You're gonna wanna make sure there's lots of hospital beds ready for tonight.”

“I already have.”

He turned the knob and opened the door. “See ya. Good luck.”

We got in the elevator. I pushed the button for the hangar level and up we went. The hum of the magnetic actuators sounds pretty cool. Chugachugachugachugachugachugachuga. I reach into my pocket and make sure the salad fork is still there, and it is.

The doors iris open and the misty airflow obliterates the basement-staleness in my nostrils. Fresh air and the raucous chatter of the commons swirl around us. The city is transformed, and the people transfixed. Space Military frigates were appearing in the skyway.

“We've got to get to the department of defense before they decide to enforce a curfew,” Lopcorn said. “We can't take your ship. We could steal one, but if we get recognized it's easy to shoot us down. It'll be tricky to get past the fleet...”

“We could get the bus,” I say.

“I don't think the bus is running to Lugdunum today.”

Lugdunum. That's the Presidential City where the highest government offices are.

“The freelance charters down in Low Fog are always running, unofficially,” I inform him. “Taxi Eels are totally indifferent to whatever goes on up here. We can get into Lugdunum from the bottom.”

He looks impressed by my idea. “In the Low Fog...”

“Lots of utility access at 4H altitude. There are always a few commuters who try to beat the shift-change traffic by diving under 5H, so we'll blend in.”

“Makes sense. We only have to get inside. The guards might insist on slowing us down but they can't stop me,” Lopcorn muttered. He stared hard at nothing and he got quiet for a while. I take his elbow and direct him to a broad escalator. We go down to the lowest air terminal in the forum. Condensation adheres to every surface in damp beads that quiver and streak in the draft. I speed-dial the Taxi Eel Taxi Service.

“Hi could I get a ride from the bottom terminal of Formido Tremendum please?”

“Ohhhhh there'd be no meaning in that,” the eel whined. It's well known that Taxi Eels are nihilists.

“Would there be special meaning in denying my request?” I ask.

“Ohh none at all, that would be meaningless! I'm on my way!”

“He's coming,” I tell my hare.

We arrive on the huge platform with dozens of ships coming and going, beeping at each other and flashing their spotlights. The people were in an advanced state of agitation, squabbling noisily and sometimes tussling among each other. An elk spray-painted HANG WELKER on the wall while passers-by snapped photos. Space Military grunts appeared and dragged her off. A bunch of dogs and giraffes pelted their ship with trash as they took off.

“It might be bad for me to get recognized,” Lopcorn muttered. I found a Delivery Lemur hat in my backpack and put it on his head. It fit so poorly over his long ears that it made him laugh out loud. Yeah, no one will recognize him with such a big smile on his face.

“Help! Help me! Please help!” a high voice was calling. A crowd was gathering by the edge of the pier.

“She's stuck!”

“Hang on!”

A pink balloon was caught on the end of a 40-foot antenna jutting horizontally into the sky. A little girl, who must have hopped the safety rail to retrieve it, was dangling for dear life by her fingertips.

“She's going to fall,” a gerbil wailed, covering his eyes. I looked into the blank and endless void below.

The kid was losing her grip. Her fate hung on four little human fingers curled around wet metal. I don't want to see someone drop today. I turn to my companion.

“Can't you-”

Lopcorn's already vaulting the guardrail. With a fearless face he stepped out onto the antenna. He looked smaller against the vast, all-erasing flow of cloud.

“Hey! I'm coming,” he called, carefully inching toward her with a gymnast's balance. “Don't let go.”

I should get ready to pull them up.

I see a gap in the crowd and rush through so I can help, but I trip over something invisible. That's annoying. Second time today.

“Give me your hand,” Lopcorn was saying. He made it all the way out to the end.

The girl gave him a wicked grin. She snagged the balloon's string and floated away on it, sticking out her tongue at Lopcorn.

“Now!” she cried. A grenade or something exploded in the steel truss holding up the antenna and it broke off of the platform and plummeted into the fog. Lopcorn whirled around and I caught his eye. My hat slipped off his head. He fell.

The horror-stricken onlookers scrambled in all directions. I struggle to get to my feet but invisible bodies are pressing all around me. Their perfect camouflage fades to opaque green and I realize I'm surrounded by Commando Chameleons.

“Here sir! Here!” they're saying.

A human comes out, talking on his cell phone. “He's down. Told you so, Daddy-O,,, no need to wake up Milo,,, See you soon.”

It's Cutbarf. I get a sickening rush of adrenaline but I'm too scared to move or do anything.

The balloon girl drifts back and lands next to him.

“Got him, commander! Ya see that? Did ya see?” she frothed.

“Good job Bubblegum,” he said. “You earned some icecream cake,,, Run home now. Eat whatever you want,,, Do not wake Milo up. Don't wake him up.”

“Thanks boss!” Bubblegum saluted and skipped away, chanting. “Fuckin ICE fuckin CREAM fuckin CAKE . YEAH da da da dee dee dee da dee de de da fuckin la la laaa!”

The young commander of the Space Military turned his eyes on me.

“Hey dumbass,,, night-night.”

He stuck a black syringe in my neck and I fell asleep.

[buttercreamfrostedmurdercake]

Self pity post, feel free to keep scrolling.

My birthday was this week. My last irl friend gave me a pill as a present because my supply dried up and he was thoughtful enough to want me to spend the day in a minimum of pain from withdrawals. It was the first birthday gift I’d gotten from someone other than my mother in years.

I’m going to write a thank you note for crappy Mexican ‘oxy’ and it’s going to be so damn heartfelt.

Things are bad. I can’t function without the drugs. Things were better for about 5 minutes in February, I was seeing real progress, then the pandemic and all the (needed) social unrest destroyed years of progress overnight. I haven’t gone 24hrs without drugs in months now.

4 years ago I decided that ‘harm reduction’ constituted killing myself slowly with an opiate addiction rather than very, very fast thanks to my ‘treatment resistant’ depression that was hours or days away from winning.

I got four more years. I saw Endgame, I read so much fanfic, I’ve written whole notebooks of my own fic. I even published a little. But most importantly, I haven’t hurt my friends and family by making them experience losing someone to suicide.

Now I’m adrift in a world without my pills, drinking and gobbling up the anti anxiety meds that help stave off the withdrawals. I don’t care that I spent my entire wedding budget on overpriced counterfeit fentanyl. I just want my demons to stfu long enough for me to have a few hours of peace a day.

I’ve lost 10% of my body weight, I’ve gained it back because sugar cravings are a bitch and half, I’m losing again but alcohol is going to slow it down this time.

Alcohol and benzos make me depressed as all fuck, but desperate beggars can’t be choosers. At least it’s ‘dead on the inside’ depression and not ‘intrusive thoughts about impossible but vivid bodily harm’ depression.

Tl;dr? Shit sucks, I’m still broken on the inside. And I’m moving but it makes my lizard brain thrash and want to scream and cry because it’s disruptive to my ‘safe space’. I’m either going to get better or completely fall to pieces by the time we reach NY. History tells me it’s the second. But hey, at least there are more resources for going insane in places that aren’t this dying, desert hellscape (maybe mom will just leave my jibbering, hallucinating, cutting dumbass in a nice in-patient place in CO on the way to her dream ranch in upstate NY... a girl can dream).

[merlions]

BIG cws for medical fear and stress and panic and stuff, not sure if I comprehensively tagged this so please skip this post or jump to the tags for as full of a list as I knew how to do, or at least tread w caution if any of those cws are related to triggers or discomfort of yours! (Space added to allay potential accidental word skimming of below before people can jump thru - btw pressing the J button on yr keyboard will skip a post)

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can I ask the EDS/POTS communities if anyone has any tips on managing anxiety about health? all the internet is giving me is "distractions" which like I have adhd so YES I'm all about the distractions but I can also be playing a phone game and watching a TV show while music is playing and it barely distracts me from the terror. and I'm getting a grip on it and realizing that I'm NOT having a heart attack or stroke every time I start getting palpitations or racing heart or tingly left hand, but as much as my brain knows that, there's only so much it can do to help my shitty lizard terror brain and I've been having panic attacks literally daily for months now where I'm just frozen in terror and can't move for like 6 to 10 hours out of my day Just In Case which wouldn't wouldn't help if something serious was happening obvs but I can't help it - which obviously ups my stress hormones, which people with EDS are really sensitive to, so the cycle continues. I was prescribed hydroxyzine for panic attacks in lieu of benzos but I have a family history of long QT and really don't think it's safe to take all that often even before considering the POTS and stuff (have a long history of doctors prescribing me stuff that's dangerous to take w a family history of long QT and they don't really see what the problem is despite the fact that one of my aunts died of long QT and another has been diagnosed but has been able to manage it, so I don't think getting benzos is gonna be an option, and haven't been able to get any of several types of diagnosis so I doubt they'll be down to put me on beta blockers) is there any way any of yall have found to like mitigate that type of anxiety without medication?

(Ps also found out a week or so ago that "hypochondria" literally etymologically means "pain or melancholy of the soft cartilage of the chest" which just really hit me hard and was bizarrely satisfying to learn after months of panic attacks about heart attacks and blood clots and pulmonary hypertension lmfao)

[blue-hazewhite-light]

LFC Balmung - Ayri Himaa

basics ––––

NAME: Khetayri (Ayri) Himaa

ALIAS: n/a

AGE: late 20s

RACE: Xaela Au Ra

GENDER: Female-presenting

SEXUALITY: Bisexual

MARITAL STATUS: Engaged - Open Relationship

ALIGNMENT: Neutral-evil

BRIEF HISTORY: Born a twin in typical fashion of the Himaa tribe, Ayri and her sister Kazili were raised and trained as a unit, learning a language of their own between one another, conditioned for perfect synchrony both on and off the battlefield. Their central strategy of feigning death to increase shock or ‘change places’ worked masterfully, mostly, until such a battle that Kazili Himaa did not walk away from the scene, did not get up after ‘falling’. Ayri, in a state of shock and unwilling to accept the truth, walked away. Walked away until she couldn’t continue to walk, and slipped into something of an emotional torpor. 

The process of this destruction of the self as a pair, the deconstruction of Ayri from the fundamentals of her beliefs, was a silent agony which she now seems far from and well beyond. To date, save for a brief stint under Garlean incarceration, Ayri has established herself in the role of drug dealer, taking advantage of the more addictive curative methods - at a lower cost and easier accessibility than from a true medic, of course - and those who rely on them. 

physical appearance ––––

HAIR: Tinted pastel pink with occasionally visible platinum roots, resting naturally curly and bound into elegant pigtails.

EYES: A cool blush tone. The pupil of the left is distorted from damage, resulting in a much darker iris and exaggerated appearance of its limbal ring. 

HEIGHT: 4’8

BUILD: Mostly lean, hourglass silhouette 

DISTINGUISHING MARKS: Slight ridgelike outgrowths of spines along her horns and wrists

COMMON ACCESSORIES: Bladed jewelry at the end of her tail, gold body chains, usually well kept and brightly painted nails. 

personal –––-

PROFESSION: Alternative slum pharmacist, spearwoman 

HOBBIES: Gambling, people-watching, adrenaline chasing, getting really and truly very high, tarot, crystal (inherently nonmagical) collecting

LANGUAGES: Au Ra old language, Doman, Common, Garlean

RESIDENCE: Semi-transient

BIRTHPLACE: The Azim Steppe

RELIGION: Mostly agnostic theist, not really of interest.

PATRON DEITY: None

FEARS: Being completely alone, being tied down, large and empty spaces, invasions of privacy

relationships –––-

SPOUSE: Engaged to Valerian (kir) Sanguinus (another OC of mine for writing and backstory fodder but I love him ): )

CHILDREN: N/A

PARENTS: Unnamed mother, Unnamed father who died before Ayri and Kazili were born. 

SIBLINGS: Kazili Himaa (deceased)

OTHER RELATIVES: N/A

PETS: None

traits –––-

extroverted / introverted / in between

disorganized / organized / in between

close minded / open-minded / in between

calm / anxious / in between

disagreeable / agreeable / in between

cautious / reckless / in between

patient / impatient / in between

outspoken / reserved / in between

leader / follower / in between

empathetic / apathetic / in between

optimistic / pessimistic / in between

traditional / modern / in between

hard-working / lazy / in between

cultured / uncultured / in between

loyal / disloyal / in between

faithful / unfaithful / in between

additional information –––-

SMOKING HABIT: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

DRUGS: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

ALCOHOL: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

rp hooks ––– –

Your Weed Man: Ayri seems to know a guy; she can get her hands on damn near anything you’d want for a good high, at an incredible quality and potency. For a price, of course.

Passive Observer: Wherever Ayri goes, she takes plenty of time to give her surroundings - and those within them - an intense ocular patdown. She isn’t particularly subtle about her staring, and frankly doesn’t seem to understand what the big issue might be for some.

Model Prisoner: A deal on the inside and a stint in the prison’s medical facilities seemed to take this once-captive Au Ra from ambivalent thug to star citizen. Though some might have known both sides of her on the inside, this inexplicable change of heart saw her released under oddly unrestrictive probationary conditions.

Big Stick Is Back In Town: On top of being kind of a frigid bitch with a moral compass stored in a magnetic case, Ayri occasionally takes side gigs for clientele of status who might have need of a tiny, dead-eyed lizard with a particularly sizable spear and the seemingly instinctual capacity to wield it with deadly efficacy. Ayri maintains a position of being more to the effect of a personal guard and escort, however, than a mercenary or assassin. 

the ooc stuff ––– –

Twenty-something nonbinary edgelord. Roleplay makes me extremely anxious, and I apologize constantly for everything even when it’s best I don’t. I love, love, love, love dark themes and don’t shy away from much so long as the players involved seem to be on the right side of things out of character.

[blue-hazewhite-light]

Elegant fingers curl around Ayri's wrists, thumbs pressing against her tendons with vicious, bruising ease. The pressure stills the trembling in her hands. Each thrum of the pulse beneath the webbing in her palms chips away at the darkness clouding her perceptions; warping her vision into something else, somewhere else, someone else.

Out of sight, out of mind and lost once more - replaced by a strong face at once cruel and placid with rest; long, smooth black hair splayed across the pillows and shining near blue in the sick-dim light of yellowing streetlamps streaming through the grimy apartment window; full lips curving into a frown even as the muscles in Ayri's fingers and arms relax; fire-opal eyes opening to slits even as her whiplike tail slips from where it laid flat and frozen across the top of his leg over the tangle of sheets, resuming its constant idle swish. She feels his breath on her forearms, a steadying sigh in the shape of her name.

"Ayri." His tone is scolding, Garlean lilt thick with sleep.

"Val-"

"Your nails." Though her fingers had lost their tension, she hadn't unfurled them enough that her sharp, manicured claws ceased their digging crescents into the fair skin of Valerian's neck. Her hands go limp and in turn he releases her, though not before a final tight squeeze to solidify any bruising left beneath his fingertips.

"Valerian, I'm-" His hands find her bare hips the second he feels the muscles in her thighs tense against his sides, keeping her still and in place atop him. 

"Hush, Ayri," he mutters pointedly, brushing his thumbs over her skin gently until her body relaxes once more. Her eyes fix on the scored and battered wood of the headboard just beyond him, at the shadows on the wall, anywhere but towards his own. He searches her expression nonetheless - patient, gentle even before his back arches slightly with a deep yawn. "Third time in the three days since you got back."

Valerian sits up, leaning against that battered headboard and adjusting Ayri to straddle his thighs before resting his wrists against her shoulders and massaging her scalp from the base of her skull to the curve of her jaw just below her horns. Though her usual impassive stare had returned, the tears still came silent but unchecked and Valerian shakes his head slowly, sighing.

"Why?" He cups one of her horns, pressing upwards to finally force her to level with his stare. She leans into the touch - just as quickly he withdraws. Her lower lip twitches. 

"Can you speak?"

Nothing, just the uneven shudder of a breath.

"Level with me, Ayri. Nod yes or no."

Ayri blinks slowly, eyes beginning to dry.

"Good. You will tell me." The words read as a heavily veiled threat, but the hitch in her chest tells him she reads it all the same. The constant idle flick at the tip of her tail gives way to stillness once more. He rests his hands on her shoulders, tilting her back and away from him, feeling her coiled muscles and scanning her naked form. "You're telegraphing, you want to hurt me. You're scared." A slight, indignant glare from the woman brings a strange smirk to Valerian's face. 

"It's not like that," Ayri growls, rolling her shoulders under his palms. 

"Isn't it?" he leans forward, hot breath on her cheek, mouth brushing the outcropping of scales, "What in the Hells has you acting like this, then? and I'm not-" his arms drop to wind around her narrow waist, "going to simply let it be. I'm fond of you, Ayri, but this is unprecedented."

In her way, she holds her ground, refusing to lean into him, to accept the strange invitation of comfort in the curve of his body pressed against her own. He knows her too well, her reluctance. Barely gives her time to respond, knows she wouldn't regardless. 

He brushes his lips over hers, breathing into her mouth - "Fine, then. Just, don't forget. You need me. Not the other way around."

[blue-hazewhite-light]

[blue-hazewhite-light]

“I’m here - I’m here baby. I’m real, I’m here.”

Iovita’s face is buried into the sleeve of his mother’s robe, small body trembling wracked with muted sobs.

“So are they, mama!” Valerian can barely make out his older brother’s breathless, agonized retort even as she draws him back gently by his shoulders. She brushes a thumb down Iovita’s cheek from the corner of his eye, resting her palm flat for a moment, pausing.  She draws him close once more and a quick kiss to his brow confirms the suspicion which set her spine rigid: the fever the small boy had been running for weeks had broken entirely and yet he still spoke - wide awake - of figures crossing his vision, speaking to him, following him. 

Iovita squirms, tilting his head back to try and search his mother’s features for comfort in her sudden silence but she only gathers him tightly to her chest, smoothing his bright red hair and rocking him gently. Valerian hadn’t ever seen his mother cry, but even silhouetted as the pair across the bedroom are, when Cassia raises her head to check on him sitting up in his bed and watching quietly, the watery light through the window reveals wide eyes gleaming ruefully. 

There is a question there, one to which Valerian does not know the answer and so he simply shakes his head ‘no’ with a child’s desperation, black curls tangled from sleep falling wild around his moony, boyish face. Cassia pulls one hand from Iovita’s back to extend it toward Valerian and the strange sparks that follow the gesture - an afterimage of pale blue - summon her tears more freely and though her arm simply falls back to her lap, Valerian untangles himself silently from his covers and moves to stand at her side.

“Do you understand, Valerian?” She whispers, and he shakes his head again, now blinking away tears of his own rapidly. 

“He tells me about them too,” Is all the younger, yet considerably taller boy can offer. “I’ve seen him move things without touching them. I thought - I didn’t think anything of it but he told me not to tell so I didn’t.” Iovita tenses, but Cassia can tell by the stutter in the normally eloquent boy’s words that he rambles this confession out of desperation. 

“You could have told me, little Io, but I understand, baby. I know you’re scared.” An unspoken follow-up; I’m scared, too. 

Cassia strokes Iovita’s back once more before reaching up to squeeze Valerian’s thin shoulder comfortingly, brushing his hair back. 

“My boys,” She speaks, words breaking barely above a whisper. “You’re both so good. Val, can you do something for me?”

“Yes, mother.” He straightens importantly, trying to sound strong. Cassia fishes into the folds of her robes and presses a small item into his palm. He uncurls his fingers around the linkpearl and stares at Cassia questioningly. 

“Go and call your sister for me, baby - make sure your father doesn’t hear or see you. Tell her to come home as soon as she can.”

“Yes, mama.” And Valerian grips the linkpearl tight, vanishing from the room on silent feet - little more than a slender shadow along the dark walls. 

“Hey Val, the rice is burn-” The smell of smoke and the observation spoken both rip Valerian out of his seeming trance into the blue flame of the magitek range’s burner and he whirls around on the speaker.

“Then why didn’t you move it yourself you damnable savage?” There isn’t anything playful in his voice, only exacerbated in the fingers gripping Ayri’s wrist and yanking her hand towards the open flame.

She makes a shocked, strangled sound that could almost be interpreted as a fear-slurred 'Ithought’. He catches her eyes, the second before they return to their normal impassivity - the terror of body memory there all too recognizable, and even before she jerks her hand back he eases his grip, face softening.

“I thought you might have been trying something new,” Ayri hisses, holding her ground.

Valerian turns off the burner and returns his hand once more to now trail the scales on her wrist. “I’m sorry, Ayri.”

[13lizardsinatrenchcoat]

After 2 weeks I've developed stress dreams and eczema but at least They are finally finally gone. This gives me.... 5 days to recover before university starts up again.

[13lizardsinatrenchcoat]

I hate covid i just want to suck off a bisexual slut with glitter eyeshadow in the bathroom of a gaybar and then rinse my mouth with the frutiest alcoholic beverage i can find

[13lizardsinatrenchcoat]

I don't get home-sick but I do get psych-ward sick

[13lizardsinatrenchcoat]

My new dentist inhaled sharply when we were going over my medical history and I told him I was completely unmedicated. Yeah, me too bud.