#betrayed magician ~ milo

[starlitfunkster]

[LRG]'s giant Kirby OC post

And by giant.. I mean I redesigned most of my Kirby OC's. Two I did back in January, and also adding newcomers. In total, I now have six OC's. Most being puffballs.. one dubiously a puffball, one's apart of the Waddle Dee species, and one is part cat.

This is Sir Adne, one of the newcomers. He is an Ex-GSA knight, and one who's now training both Juniper and Locke. This is because he has orders from his Kingdom that he protects. He also looks after his crush, Princess Flora.

Speaking of Princess Flora, here she is! She loves flowers, her people.. and especially her knight, Sir Adne! Though she seems like the person who wouldn't fight, she'll join in if the situation calls for it!

Locke is a cat-like spirit in a puffball form who lost to Sir Adne. Now they follow him around idolizing him. They also are now training under him. Beware the yarn-bomb! It won't hurt, but you'll be immobilized!

Juniper is a shy, mute Waddle Dee that wears leaves on their head. They treat it like it's hair.. even if it is just a pile of leaves. They befriended Locke and wanted to be as strong as Sir Adne. So they began practicing archery in their spare time.

Cocoa is a child-hood friend of Flora's, and the artist within the Kingdom. She usually has two paint buckets, one filled with ordinary paint... the other has been spiked with all sorts of spices. It's best not to anger her...

Milo was once friends with Sir Adne, back when he used to work with the GSA. Now he's become a warlock and intends on striking his old friend down. But you have to wonder.. why is he doing this? Surely one's behavior wouldn't change over night.. right?

This is what Milo looks like when his eyes are not obscured. They look foggier when he was under that spell cast by Luna...

Luna is a Succubus in disguise as a puffball. As a result, she has no intentions of following through with her desires. Why would she? She prefers instead seducing men with magic and making them fight their friends. As such, she is considered the embodiment of Lust to some. Others think she's just a coward who hides behind strong men.

[the-down-upside-finch]

I was thinking about my characters recently and I got worried for a bit that one of my stoic characters wouldn't get mad at anything! Then I realized, "Nah, there are SOME select situations.." It was really fun!

SO! Pick a character of your choice (probably a more put-together character but it doesn't have to be!) and think about their Anger TM.

What would make them mad but would also be really funny and amusing to them?

What would send them into a wild rage? A tirade? Violence, if they're so inclined?

What would make them the kind of cold anger that would lead to months of plotting revenge?

What would make them "not mad, just disappointed"?

No pressure but I thought it'd be cool to pass the prompt around!

OH I LOVE THIS Thank you!!!

Because I've been hyperfixating on my new WIP as of late, I'm gonna do this for the main/more important characters in Feather Candles, which I'm going to put most of under a cut because I already know this is going to get very long haha

(Also I apologize for my awful formatting but this was just how my brain wanted these listed out)

Mad, but it's also funny:

Lark - This is an emotion specifically for when his sisters complain about his "bad habits," if they can be called that. "Can you please stop rolling up your sleeves? It's so obvious you're showing off." "I was actually just making sure I don't drag them through the food on the table but whatever." - Also whenever people ask why he's not courting anyone yet, he's just kind of like, "Hey I'm grieving the death of the person that was basically married to me. Can you leave me alone????" ~

Milo - If she accidentally trips on something/runs into something and someone says, "By the way, there's a chair right there," (or whatever it is), she will get mad, but she also has to laugh because it is kind of funny, despite it being at her own expense. There's more anger than amusement, but she'll still laugh a bit. ~

Peregrine - "You're way too young for/to be doing [X]!" Oh boy. This man is about to burst out laughing at your ignorance. The "anger" burning under his amusement is at the fact that someone is saying that without knowing just what he's been through. Sure, he's young—but he's had way too much life experience already. - This is also the emotion for when people tell him he's gonna die young because his magician's mark appeared when he was only six years old. He laughs with some bitterness because "Do you even know anything about how magic works?" But he's also a little peeved because he hates being reminded that yeah, this might actually be true. ~

El - This is his reaction to people making jokes about his lost memories. He knows it's a joke and can't help but laugh. He also is really stressed out that he can't remember who he was in service to or why he wields a sword. - This is also his reaction for people that poke fun at his body shape/build. He's just a tiny bit mad that someone would make a comment about his height/weight, but he laughs because he's well-aware that he could snap them in half like a twig.

Wild rage (and maybe violence):

Lark: - If someone dares to insult Brant's memory, that person is about to regret opening their mouth. (The duke of Halisin is probably not coming back to the dining hall any time soon, that's for sure.) - Likewise, if someone even hints at insulting either of his sisters, you can bet this man is about to break some bones. ~

Milo - She almost never reaches this point because if she ever reaches this level of emotion, she's more likely to get upset and start crying (and this is still extremely unlikely) than to feel true rage, but if you do something that betrays her trust, she'll start heading in the direction of screaming, "How could you do something like that?!" at you. ~

Peregrine - If someone hurts a person he cares about, you better believe he's slamming his tome as hard as he can against that someone's face. This is basically the only thing that will get him to snap because "Violence begets violence" or whatever, but he's actually got pretty good restraint when it comes to violence. Like, this man could easily just magically explode someone with lightning, but he'll choose to hit you with his tome. - His anger for not realizing something "obvious" (hindsight is 20/20 vibes) also falls into this category. Even if he's the first to make the realization, he'll still fly off the handle at the fact that he didn't figure it out sooner. Not in a physically violent way, but this is basically the only other time you'll hear him yelling and see actual rage in his eyes. ~

El - Do not hurt this man's friends. He will challenge you to a fight that you will not emerge from unscathed. - Do not insult this man's values. He will challenge you to a duel that you will not win.

Cold anger (with potential revenge):

Lark - This is how he feels in regard to that assassin that killed Brant. Dark, cold anger that will not leave him until he's avenged his friend���at whatever cost. ~

Milo - Someone insulting her abilities on the basis of something completely unrelated (like her sight). She won't necessarily plot revenge, but she might not speak to you again until you thoroughly apologize. ~

Peregrine - Nothing you do to him personally will get this man to feel this way. But if you do something to someone he cares about, you can bet that he's got a list in his mind of your personal weakness that he can exploit when it will hurt most. (But whether or not he's actually able to carry out revenge is a different story. His heart is too gentle for that sort of thing.) ~

El - Cold/lingering anger just isn't really his style. He'd rather get things off his chest so it's not bothering him—and maybe just have a fight to settle whatever it is that he's mad about.

Not mad, just disappointed:

Lark - Oh my sweet summer child. This poor broken boy. (I mean he's like twenty-eight years old but REGARDLESS) This is the "anger" he carries for himself, and himself alone. Everything that happened is all his fault, and he should have prevented all the bad things. (He fully believes that he's the reason that Brant died and that he could have saved him somehow.) - Also (we're not gonna get deep into this but) he's got this mentality that he's a disappointment to the queendom for being born a son to a queen. He does all the boring/useless tasks that his sisters don't have time for, and he's basically given free rein at all times to just leave the castle and wander around. (Seriously, how else is he supposed to feel after realizing that there was an assassin after him but they didn't increase reinforcements??) Like, he's not mad he was born in his situation, and maybe not even quite disappointed, but it's basically that. ~

Milo - Really stupid mistakes (especially where people got hurt) that could have been easily avoided. She's a tactician. Most of this disappointment is directed at herself. ~

Peregrine - Kind of odd(?), but this is kind of his attitude about threats and/or violence. Like, if there's a situation where someone is engaging in unwarranted violence (towards himself or someone else), he'll just sadly shake his head at them. "Are you trying to provoke me into fighting back? I could kill you with a simple wave of my hand, but you know I won't, so you're taking advantage of that. It's a bit pathetic, don't you think?" (No, this isn't in the "I'm trying to get under your skin" voice, this is the "I truly believe you are a good person and are capable of being better" voice.) ~

El - This is how he feels about Peregrine's unwillingness to "stand up for himself" (because what else are you supposed to call it when a man barely reacts to slurs being yelled at him???), as well as verbal violence in general. He finds it disappointing when people talk big and only talk big. If they can't even fistfight for what they're getting so worked up about, then why are they getting worked up about it? (Don't worry about El, he's fine.)

OKAY YEAH THAT WAS A LOT But that was fun! Thank you for this prompt, I enjoyed it a lot!

Also I'mma tag @my-cursed-prince because hey friendo wanna see some goofy character stuff???

[spookyspaghettisundae]

The Empty Room

It looked like any other tall office building downtown. An ominous skyscraper in a concrete jungle. A sizable number of its windows glowed in different shades of yellow, dotting its exterior to contrast the nightly sky.

Two men stood in a narrow hallway on the building’s ground floor, right outside of a simple maintenance room. Even after dark, they could have heard the traffic from the streets with some car horns honking. Though as far as James and Leroy were concerned, the world might as well have not existed in that moment. Both of them felt heavy, like their limbs had doubled in weight and their bellies had been filled with bricks. They stared at the lime-colored door to the maintenance room. An overwhelming fear had paralyzed them both.

James finally budged, wiping some sweat from his forehead with the back of the sleeve of his blue janitor overall. His eyes remained transfixed on the shiny silver knob of the door.

“It’s been like five minutes, for fuck’s sake,” James said. He had forced himself to keep his voice low in a failed attempt to whisper, but the words rode on such a panic that they sounded loud and angry instead.

“I told him to not go inside,” Leroy replied, finally peeling his eyes off the door. He grabbed James by the shoulders and turned him, so he could look him in the eyes. Gently shaking James to the beat of every word to add emphasis, he said, “Calm your tits. The weirdo who can fix this’ll be here any second.”

James brushed Leroy’s hands off and waved his own arms around as if he was swatting imaginary flies.

“Don’t tell me to calm my tits! First Bill, then Simon. The fuck’s this weirdo gonna do about it?” When James asked that, he leaned in towards Leroy, so close that it made Leroy wince when his face was sprayed with some spittle that accompanied James’ outrage.

Leroy frowned and wiped his face while he finally managed to steel himself.

“This guy’s the real deal,” he countered.

“The fuck does that mean?”

“He—well, he looks a bit like, uh, Criss Angel—”

“The wrestler?”

“No, not the wrestler, stupid,” Leroy said with a sigh.

James laughed. It came out high-pitched and sounding fake, followed by him nervously asking, “What, really? The Las Vegas magician douchebag?”

“Well, yeah. Yeah, like him. I know from a friend of a friend—”

“Oh, come on.”

“Listen, the things this guy can do is amazing! And weird. But mostly amazing. He kinda does this for a living.”

“Leroy.”

“What?”

“Two people straight-up disappeared. And you called in a stage magician instead of security? Or the cops?”

“Look, man, I don’t want any trouble, okay? You know how hard it is for an ex-con to find a sweet job like this? No, believe me, my friend Milo wouldn’t bullshit about this. I heard this guy can make things combust. Or one time, he cleanly ripped a guy’s nose off. And he's—”

James interrupted him there with a, “Wait, what?”

Ignoring him, Leroy continued, “Like, an exorcist, or something. Not a stage magician, y'know?”

Leroy finally stopped rambling. He scratched his head and ruffled his own hair in the process, looking past James. James raised his brows and moved to get in the way of his line of sight, trying to re-establish eye contact.

James tried to keep his voice down again but it came out more like a screech when he incredulously asked, “Exorcist? Man, what? Do you even hear what you’re saying?”

“Dunno if ‘exorcist’ is the word I’d use, but finding lost people is kinda my thing,” a silky, unknown voice said behind him. It came right from where Leroy had been looking past James.

James spun around and assumed a pose with raised hands that looked like a cartoon caricature of some karate stance. The two janitors stared at the new arrival. This third figure was dressed in a long black trench coat, wearing jackboots, torn dark jeans, a dirty ‘Ride the Lightning’ T-shirt, a spiked collar around his neck, and enough make-up to make a goth or punk from the 1990s blush. His hair was styled in a jet-black fauxhawk tipped with red highlights and he had a few silver piercings adorning his lip, nose, and eyebrow. He carried a small cardboard box under one arm. Even the thick, smudged mass of black eyeliner under his eyes could not conceal the heavy rings of fatigue underneath them.

James and Leroy stared at the box sitting snugly under the weirdo’s arm. It was brown, with some pictographs warning of fragile contents and a 'This Side Up’ accompanied with an arrow indicating that the box was being held upside down, and silver duct tape having been used to sloppily seal the box’s flaps. As the ensuing awkward silence dragged on, the man cleared his throat and used his free hand to pull a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of a coat pocket. He struck the edge of his cardboard box with it till a cigarette popped out of the pack and he guided it up to his lips, swiftly putting the pack back into his pocket in a fluid motion.

“Hey, this is, uh, a no-smoking—,” James started saying. The sentence died in his mouth.

The stranger just stared back at him and said nothing. He then pulled out a stainless steel Zippo and flicked it open, lighting his cigarette with it, before putting the lighter away and continuing to stare at James in the meanwhile. As if he was challenging him.

“Okay,” James said. While the stranger took a few deep drags from his cigarette, James’ head swiveled to Leroy, and he asked, “Who is this dickhead?”

Leroy shrugged without peeling his eyes off of the stranger. The stranger continued smoking nonchalantly.

“I’m Kevin, but you can call me boss, or god, or something,” the stranger said with a wide grin. The grin faded instantly, and he looked around the shiny hallway. Then he peered past the two janitors at the lime door. The corners of his lips drooped ever so slowly until it looked like he wore a frown upon his face. Without looking at the two other men, he suddenly blurted out, “Milo tell you what I want?”

This time, Leroy cleared his throat. Nervously. “Uhuh,” he mumbled and started digging around in his overall’s pocket. He produced a wad of dollar bills held together by a rubber band, a discolored PEZ dispenser with the head of Elvis Presley, and a bronze antique-looking pocket watch. He held the handful of objects out towards Kevin, presenting them on an open palm.

Kevin stuck the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and grabbed the items with his free hand. He sniffed like someone with a cold and examined them close up.

James looked at Leroy and without saying anything out loud, his face and lips clearly asked, 'What the fuck?’ Leroy ignored him and observed Kevin with intense curiosity.

Kevin sighed, and his words slurred a bit because of the cigarette clamped down in the corner of his lips, “These one-dollar bills?” He scoffed and pocketed the items before he added, “Okay, rest’s good. I take it y'know you’re 'bout fifty short, jus’ give it to Milo when you can, he’ll get it to me.”

He walked towards the two men, approaching the lime door with determination. They stepped out of his way as he stopped to stand in front of the door.

James asked, “What’s in the box?”

Kevin either did not pay attention, or he ignored him, asking them without turning around to look at them, “This is the room, yeah?”

He took some more drags from his cigarette before leaving it in the other corner of his mouth, then he leaned against the door. He cupped his hand between the metal door and his ear and listened through the door as good as he could.

“Uh, yeah. So, first Bill went in before his shift ended, and we all thought he had gone home, but then—”

“Yeah. Uhuh. Sure,” Kevin replied simultaneously, and his tone betrayed how he had not paid attention to anything Leroy was saying. “Look, I don’t need your life story. Two people entered, never came out, and the room looked empty every time, with no other exits, right?”

He sniffed again and took another drag from his cigarette while looking back at Leroy.

James suddenly asked, “What’s in the box?”

Kevin still ignored him.

“Yeah, but one more thing,” Leroy said, also ignoring James and staring intently into the Kevin’s weirdly calm eyes. “There was a knocking coming from inside the room, every now and then,” he said, then swallowed like something was stuck in his throat. “Then, just before you arrived? Whispers from inside. Like a little kid’s. Nearly shit my pants.”

Kevin narrowed his eyes when he looked back at Leroy upon hearing that and then took a painfully long-looking drag from his cigarette until it looked like the cancer-stick had burned down its filter. He then flicked it onto the floor and stamped it out with the heel of his boot.

“Okay gentlemen, I got this,” Kevin said.

James sounded upset this time, “Seriously—what’s in that box?”

Kevin and Leroy continued to ignore him while Kevin reached out to the doorknob on the lime door. He twisted the knob, which was followed by a hollow click, and the door opened with an eerie creaking sound that did not fit the cleanly, clinical image of the sleek concrete-steel-and-glass office building they were standing in. Kevin sniffed again and leaned forward, peeking head-first into the room and swiveling his head to get a good look.

The room was devoid of human life. It was also far from empty, though. Inside it were shelves with cleaning chemicals, racks with mops, buckets, other cleaning implements, a workbench, and some power tools on other shelves.

Kevin stepped inside and swung the door shut behind him. James and Leroy both flinched when the door slammed into the frame and Kevin audibly locked it shut from the inside.

James immediately started pacing back and forth on the spot.

“Roy, who is this guy? And what are we telling the cops if he disappears too?”

Leroy groaned, bending over to pick the crushed cigarette butt up off the floor where Kevin had stamped it out. “Beats me. And, well, if he disappears too, nobody will be the wiser anyway, right? C'mon, have a little faith,” he said in a futile attempt to calm down James. Leroy himself sounded more fearful than before Kevin had shown up. He walked over to one of the rounded steel trash bins and dumped the cigarette butt inside it, then haphazardly wiped some of the ashes across the floor with the bottom of his sneaker, smearing them more than anything and creating inky-black streaks on the otherwise shiny floor. “Shit,” he muttered.

Growing impatient and with no less panic in his voice than before Kevin had arrived, James said, “Okay, that’s it, I’m calling—”

A sharp and sudden shout from inside the room caused James to stumble a few steps away from the lime-colored door in shock. A massive force flew into the door from the inside with a thunderous thud. Something that sounded like a dog or a child whimpering followed, and a series of expletives that sounded like Kevin was shouting them from farther away than should have been physically possible from the interior of that small room. Glass shattered, and then another tremendous thud of something slamming into the door with such force that it felt like it would get torn right out of the frame any minute now.

Leroy took a few cautious steps away from the door, and then the bedlam of strange noises ceased. James and Leroy stared at the lime door with every fiber and muscle in their body tensing up, expecting something worse to follow, but what felt like a painfully slow minute came and passed until they looked at each other with quizzical expressions. James nodded at the door and Leroy shook his head. James nodded at it again and Leroy shook his head with more zest. They repeated that non-verbal exchange a third time before Leroy said, “No fucking way.”

James insisted and Leroy sighed and swore again before he approached the door. His trembling hand closed in on the doorknob, and he held his breath when he started twisting it and opening the door.

Leroy swung the door open and shouted, “Hah!”

Nobody was inside. The two janitors focused on the inside of the maintenance room. It looked like a fight had taken place inside with various items littering the floor and one of the overhead neon lamps having been shattered. Leroy saw something blurry and unfathomable in the darkest corner of the room—all teeth and mouths and nothing else—and he started screaming. James lunged forwards, grabbed Leroy by the shoulders and yanked him back which in turn pulled the door shut because Leroy’s hand had clamped down around the knob in sheer terror. It slammed shut, and the two men tumbled onto the ground.

The shuffling of tiny feet scampered up to the other side of the door, and something scraped up along its surface. Leroy and James crawled and scurried away from the lime door while a terrified yelp escaped James’ mouth. Both of them bumped into the hallway’s wall opposite from the door, and they backed up against it, frozen in fear instead of fleeing headlong from the source of their panic. More scratching, then the doorknob started turning. And then it stopped moving. More scratching.

The sounds stopped, and the men realized that they only heard their own breathing and hearts thumping while they awaited certain doom to explode out of that door.

The lime door opened with an eerie creaking noise. Kevin stood there with a bleeding gash on his forehead and scrunching his left eyelids shut. He hugged the cardboard box against his chest with a single arm and touched the gash, then expressed feelings of pain with a grunt.

James stammered, “What the—what the hell just happened?” His glances swept back and forth between Leroy and Kevin. It dawned on James that Kevin was not holding the box casually anymore, the stranger in the black trench coat was gripping it so tight that the cardboard was bending under the pressure and Kevin’s knuckles had turned white. “Motherfucker, what’s in that box?” His hand shook as he pointed at the box in Kevin’s grip with a meaty finger.

Kevin sighed and blinked a few times, as if his eyesight was faulty, then answered, “You don’t wanna know.”

Leroy blurted out, “What about Bill? And Simon?”

Kevin’s eyes widened and before Leroy realized that the stranger in black probably had not been interested in their names, he saw dread in the man’s eyes for the first time in their brief encounter. Kevin slowly shook his head. Both James and Leroy felt a sinking feeling in their stomachs, like their bodies had turned into lead and they were about to conk out from dizziness. Kevin had said nothing, yet the fearful expression in his eyes spoke terrible volumes about the fate of their colleagues.

Kevin produced another cigarette in a swift motion, lighting it up and turning his back on the two janitors as he walked away. The two men in the blue overalls started getting up and looked at each other in disbelief, then followed Kevin with their gazes as he left them, walking down the hallway. His footsteps echoed through the bright halls, and he arrived in front of the elevator which he summoned with several impatient button presses, even continuing to do so after the doors slid open. A warmer light spilled out of the elevator and bathed him in it while it greeted him with a soft-sounding electronic 'ding’ to signal the doors having opened.

James wanted to say something, but then something inside the box thumped and jerked around in Kevin’s arms. The cigarette fell from his mouth, and it looked like the box moved with such disproportionate strength that it jerked the man around where he stood. Kevin rammed the box against the edge of an elevator door and then shook it a few times, triggering unnatural garbled sounds and a blood-curdling bestial roar to come from the box’s insides.

Kevin whispered something to the box, but he was too far away for it to be clearly audible. Leroy narrowed his eyes and could have sworn he had heard him say something like, “I have plans for you.”

“Sweet Jesus, what’s in the box,” James yammered, sounding desperate and less like he asked anybody—and more like he had resigned to never learning what was inside that box.

Kevin picked the cigarette back up off the ground, and took a drag from it while he disappeared from their sight as he stepped into the elevator.

There was another roar, and then the elevator doors slid shut.

—Submitted by Wratts