#how did i summon him

[indescribable-isla]

Did i go on a fucking ghost from call of duty liking spree at some point? I’ve never played call of duty, all of my dash is now owned by this mask skull man and i do not know him, what did i do?

[triglycercule]

sleep deprived dust can't recognize what's dream and what's real when he goes in and out of consciousness so i think dust is allowed to be incredibly reckless when he's awake but thinks he's in a dream. he will kill whoever passes by him (or attempt to. for him it's an instict to shoot bones anyways.) he will drink 4 bottles of alcohol just because he thinks its just a lucid dream. have incredibly loud conversations with phantom paps because he's asleep so nobody will hear him talk. or just have loud ass breakdowns because again he thinks he's asleep!!! nobody's gonna know what he gets up to in his dreams. and until someone (probably phantom paps) tells him that he's not asleep and this is reality he won't realize until he's done something really reckless

horror is seconds away from exploding dust's skull open with his magic while dust is trying to strangle him and FINALLY phantom paps tells him he's awake and dust snaps out of it. killer is walking around the house with bones sticking out of him like pins on a sewing pattern (casually too. another day in the life for him) and he just asks dust what that was about. dust just gets off of horror and shrugs his shoulders with an idk. and then walks away. this is the 6th time its happened this month

[acourtofquestions]

Kingdom of Ash Chapter 61

Chapter; Highlights (okay the entire chapter is a highlight)🤣

As requested @mysterylilycheeta I NEED TO SQUEAL IN WYVERN FANGIRL WITH YOU NOW CAUSE OH M GOODNESS THIS CHAPTER ON SO MANY LEVELS I JUST AHAKWIHUHFEJLZXBKEKA

Agony was a song in Lorcan's blood, his bones, his breath.

Every step of the horse, every leap she made over body and debris, sent it ringing afresh. There was no end, no mercy from it. It was all he could do to keep in the saddle, to cling to consciousness.

To keep his arm around Elide.

She had come for him. Had found him, somehow, on this endless battlefield.

His name on her lips had been a summons he could never deny, even when death had held him so gently, nestled beneath all those he'd felled, I, and waited for his last breaths.

And now, charging toward that too-distant keep, so far behind the droves of soldiers and riders racing for the gates, he wondered if these minutes would be his last. Her last.

She had come for him.

Lorcan managed to glance toward the dam on their right. Toward the ruk rider signaling that it was only a matter of minutes until it unleashed hell over the plain.

He didn't know how it had become weakened. Didn't care.

Still Elide kept urging the horse onward, kept them on as straight a path toward the distant keep as possible.

No ruk would come to sweep them up. No, his luck had been spent in surviving this long, in her finding him. His power would do nothing against that water.

The farthest lines of panicked soldiers appeared, and Farasha charged past them.

Elide let out a sob, and he followed the line of her sight.

To the keep gate, still open.

"Faster, Farasha!" She didn't hide the raw terror in her voice, the desperation.

Once the dam broke, it would take less than a minute for the tidal wave to reach them.

She had come for him. She had found him.

The world went quiet. The pain in his body faded into nothing. Into something secondary.

Lorcan slid his other arm around Elide, bringing his mouth close to her ear as he said, "You have to let me go."

Each word was gravelly, his voice strained nearly to the point of uselessness.

Elide didn't shift her focus from the keep ahead. "No."

That gentle quiet flowed around him, clearing the fog of pain and battle. "You have to. You have to, Elide. I'm too heavy-and without my weight, you might make it to the keep in time."

"No." The salt of her tears filled his nose.

Lorcan brushed his mouth over her damp cheek, ignoring the roaring pain in his body. The horse galloped and galloped, as if she might outrace death itself.

"I love you," he whispered in Elide's ear. "I have loved you from the moment you picked up that axe to slay the ilken." Her tears flowed past him in the wind. "And I will be with you ..." His voice broke, but he made himself say the words, the truth in his heart. "I will be with you always."

He was not frightened of what would come for him once he tumbled off the horse. He was not frightened at all, if it meant her reaching the keep.

So Lorcan kissed Elide's cheek again, allowed himself to breathe in her scent one last time. "I love you," he repeated, and began to withdraw his arms from around her waist.

Elide slapped a hand onto his forearm. Dug in her nails, right into his skin, fierce as any ruk.

"No."

There were no tears in her voice. Nothing but solid, unwavering steel.

"No," she said again. The voice of the Lady of Perranth.

Lorcan tried to move his arm, but her grip would not be dislodged.

If he tumbled off the horse, she would go with him.

Together. They would either outrun this or die together.

"Elide-"

But Elide slammed her heels into the horse's sides.

Slammed her heels into the dark flank and screamed, "FLY, FARASHA." She cracked the reins. "FLY, FLY, FLY!"

And gods help her, that horse did.

As if the god that had crafted her filled the mare's lungs with his own breath, Farasha gave a surge of speed.

Faster than the wind. Faster than death.

Farasha cleared the first of the fleeing Darghan cavalry. Passed desperate horses and riders at an all-out gallop for the gates.

Her mighty heart did not falter, even when Lorcan knew it was raging to the point of bursting.

Less than a mile stood between them and the keep.

But a thunderous, groaning crack cleaved the world, echoing off the lake, the mountains.

There was nothing he could do, nothing that brave, unfaltering horse could do, as the dam ruptured.

Rowan made himself stand there, to watch the last moments of the Lady of Perranth and his former commander. It was all he could offer: witnessing their deaths, so he might tell the story to those he encountered. So they would not be forgotten.

The roaring of the oncoming wave became deafening, even from miles away.

Still Elide and Lorcan raced, Farasha passing horse after horse after horse.

Even up here, would they escape the wave's reach? Rowan dared to survey the battlements, to assess if he needed to get the others, needed to get Aelin, to higher ground.

But Aelin was not at his side.

She was not on the battlement at all.

Rowan's heart halted. Simply stopped beating as a ruddy-brown ruk dropped from the skies, spearing for the center of the plain.

Arcas, Borte's ruk. A golden-haired woman dangling from his talons.

Aelin. Aelin was—

Arcas neared the earth, talons splaying.

Aelin hit the ground, rolling, rolling, until she uncoiled to her feet.

Right in the path of that wave.

"Oh gods," Fenrys breathed, seeing her, too.

They all saw her.

The queen on the plain.

The endless wall of water surging for her.

The keep stones began shuddering. Rowan threw out a hand to brace himself, fear like nothing he had known ripping through him as Aelin lifted her arms above her head.

A pillar of fire shot up around her, lifting her hair with it.

The wave roared and roared for her, for the army behind her.

The shaking in the keep was not from the wave.

It was not from that wall of water at all.

Cracks formed in the earth, splintering across it. Spiderwebbing from Aelin.

"The hot springs," Chaol breathed. "The valley floor is full of veins into the earth itself."

Into the burning heart of the world.

The keep shook, more violently this time.

The pillar of fire sucked back into Aelin.

She held out a hand before her, her fist closed.

As if it would halt the wave in its tracks.

He knew then. Either as her mate or carranam, he knew.

"Three months," Rowan breathed.

The others stilled.

"Three months," he said again, his knees wobbling. "She's been making the descent into her power for three months."

Every day she had been with Maeve, bound in iron, she had gone deeper. And she had not tapped too far into that power since they'd freed her because she had kept making the plunge.

To gather up the full might of her magic.

Not for the Lock, not for Erawan.

But for Maeve's death blow.

A few weeks of descent had taken her powers to devastating levels. Three months of it

…

Holy gods. Holy rutting gods.

And when her fire hit the wall of water now towering over her, when they collided —

"GET DOWN!" Rowan bellowed, over the screaming waters. "GET DOWN NOW!"

His companions dropped to the stones, any within earshot doing the same.

Rowan plummeted into his power. Plummeted into it fast and hard, ripping out any remaining shred of magic.

Elide and Lorcan were still too far from the gates. Thousands of soldiers were still too far from the gates as the wave crested above them.

As Aelin opened her hand toward it.

Fire erupted.

Cobalt fire. The raging soul of a flame.

A tidal wave of it.

Taller than the raging waters, it blasted from her, flaring wide.

The wave slammed into it. And where water met a wall of fire, where a thousand years of confinement met three months of it, the world exploded.

Blistering steam, capable of melting flesh from bone, shot across the plain.

With a roar, Rowan threw all that remained of his magic toward the onslaught of steam, a wall of wind that shoved it toward the lake, the mountains.

Still the waters came, breaking against the flames that did not so much as yield an inch.

Maeve's death blow. Spent here, to save the army that might mean Terrasen's salvation. To spare the lives on the plain.

Rowan gritted his teeth, panting against his fraying power. A burnout lurked, deadly close.

The raging wave threw itself over and over and over into the wall of flame.

Rowan didn't see if Elide and Lorcan made it into the keep. If the other soldiers and riders on the plain stopped to gape.

Princess Hasar said, rising beside him, "That power is no blessing."

"Tell that to your soldiers," Fenrys snarled, standing, too.

"I did not mean it that way," Hasar snipped, and awe was indeed stark on her face.

Rowan leaned against the battlements, panting hard as he fought to keep the lethal steam from flowing toward the army. As he cooled and sent it whisking away.

Solid hands slid under his arms, and then Fenrys and Gavriel were there, propping him up between them.

A minute passed. Then another.

The wave began to lower. Still the fire burned.

Rowan's head pounded, his mouth going dry.

Time slipped from him. A coppery tang filled his mouth.

The wave lowered farther, raging waters quieting. Then roaring turned to lapping, rapids into eddies.

Until the wall of flame began to lower, too. Tracking the waters down and down and down. Letting them seep into the cracks of the earth.

Rowan's knees buckled, but he held on to his magic long enough for the steam to lessen.

For it, too, to be calmed.

It filled the plain, turning the world into drifting mist. Blocking the view of the queen in its center.

Then silence. Utter silence.

Fire flickered through the mist, blue turning to gold and red. A muted, throbbing glow.

Rowan spat blood onto the battlement stones, his breath like shards of glass in his throat.

The glowing flames shrank, steam rippling past. Until there was only a slim pillar of fire, veiled in the mist-shrouded plain.

Not a pillar of fire.

But Aelin.

Glowing white-hot. As if she had given herself so wholly to the flame that she had become fire herself.

The Fire-Bringer someone whispered down the battlements.

The mist rippled and billowed, casting her into nothing but a glowing effigy.

The silence turned reverent.

A gentle wind from the north swept down. The veil of mist pulled back, and there she was.

She glowed from within. Glowed golden, tendrils of her hair floating on a phantom wind.

"Mala's Heir," Yrene breathed.

Down on the plain, Elide and Lorcan had halted.

The wind pushed away more of the drifting mist, clearing the land beyond Aelin.

And where that mighty, lethal wave had loomed, where death had charged toward them, nothing remained at all.

For three months, she had sung to the darkness and the flame, and they had sung back.

For three months, she had burrowed so deep inside her power that she had plundered undiscovered depths. While Maeve and Cairn had worked on her, she had delved. Never letting them know what she mined, what she gathered to her, day by day by day.

A death blow. One to wipe a dark queen from the earth forever.

She'd kept that power coiled in herself even after she'd been freed from the irons. Had struggled to keep it down these weeks, the strain enormous. Some days, it had been easier to barely speak. Some days, swaggering arrogance had been her key to ignoring it.

Yet when she had seen that wave, when she had seen Elide and Lorcan choosing death together, when she had seen the army that might save Terrasen, she'd known. She'd felt the fire sleeping under this city, and knew they had come here for a reason.

She had come here for this reason.

A river still flowed from the dam, harmless and small, wending toward the lake.

Nothing more.

Aelin lifted a glowing hand before her as blessed, cooling emptiness filled her at last.

Slowly, starting from her fingertips, the glow faded.

As if she were forged anew, forged back into her body.

Back into Aelin.

Clarity, sharp and crystal clear, filled its wake. As if she could see again, breathe again.

Inch by inch, the golden glow faded into skin and bone. Into a woman once more.

Already, a white-tailed hawk launched skyward.

But as the last of the glow faded, disappearing out through her toes, Aelin fell to her knees.

Fell to her knees in the utter silence of the world, and curled onto her side.

She had the vague sense of strong, familiar arms scooping her up. Of being carried onto a broad feathery back, still in those arms.

Of soaring through the skies, the last of the mist rippling away into the afternoon sun.

And then sweet darkness.

[alackofghosts]

wolbert week day 1: a new life

a miracle is the sound of reality buckling

[theflowerofthecommonwealth]

Jasmine: (Does a ghostly call around a campfire) “¡Ayyyy miiiissss hijooooos! ¿Dónde están mis hijoooooosss?”

MacCready: (Puts his hands over his ears) “StOoOoOoOp!”

Jasmine: (Has her hands out in front of her as she moves around) “¡Quiero mis hijooooos! ¿Dónde están mis hijos?”

Piper: “I have NO idea what you’re saying, kid- but it’s freaking me out!!!”

Danse: (Is as white as a ghost at his spot by the campfire)

X6: (Says nothing while shuffling on his own two feet, hands in his pockets)

MacCready: “Can’t you just… Tone it down a notch or two?”

Jasmine: (Throws up her hands) “It’s Halloween!!! It’s suppose to freak you out!!! That’s the point!!!”

Piper: “After all the spooky scares we pulled on each other during the prank war- we all are a bit tender!!! So give us a break! Now we have to worry about some vengeance filled Mexican lady coming after us!”

Jasmine: (Rolls her eyes) “¡Cobardes! Y’all are a bunch of sissies! I’ve been hearing this story since I was born and so had most of the kids my age in my neighborhood.”

MacCready: “And I’m pretty sure you kids were living off a gallon of coffee and three hours of sleep all the time!”

Deacon: (Comes out from behind a bush dressed in a white nightgown and a long dark wig) “OoOoOoOoOoOo!!!” (Slowly moves towards the campfire, the smoke machine he set up earlier adding extra dramatic flare)

Jasmine: (Points and gasps) “¡La Llorona!”

MacCready, Danse, and Piper: (Scream bloody murder in sync)

X6: (Stands there stock still as his soul silently leaves his body)

Nick: (Comes running over) “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!?”

Everyone: (Dives behind RoboDad for protection)

Jasmine: (Runs up and puts her arms around his waist, staring up at him innocently) “Papi- La Llorona wants to take me away and drown me! So you hafta protect me!”

Nick: (Heavy sigh as he picks the teen girl up) “Not the vengeance ghost lady again- haven’t you told enough of those scary stories?”

Jasmine: (Huffs) “No- I haven’t told everyone about El Cucuy yet.”

Nick: (Glances behind him at the trembling adults) “Maybe hold off the scary stories until after Christmas…”

Deacon: (Waves his hands around some more) “OoOoOoOoOo!”

[deva-arts]

zomg... the girls! Sketched out! And a few characters I never showed designs for! haha! I keep thinking about the beach, so this is their swimwear.

I hope to make a full fledged drawing for all of them soon~ then the guys~~

Some newbies are: Aura (blue!) Katya (Gold!) and more of Verra (Green!) We'll eventually see more about them as I draw more things and doodles.

[fisheito]

Something about dark nova yakumo makes me want to bully him. Every time I see him I want to shove him in a locker or pour mop water on his head. I'm not sure why; I don't feel that strongly about his other alts but for some reason just thinking of him in a school setting turns me into a generic high school bully.

you're so right nonsy i could be standing under my angelic umbrella with the utmost compassion and empathy for the rough life of a high schooler but if yakumo walks by in his stupid oversized untucked shirt i'm gon na

[moe-broey]

Supplemental Moes. For Morale (it lasts maybe three weeks in Askr before This)

[fabdante]

“It’s a bad night for rain.”

now for something completely different to ring out the old year and bring in the new, a fan art of one of my favorite creepypastas, how to summon the butter street hitchhiker by chris hicks/writechriswrite.

if you're interested in the pasta, i highly recommend the dark somniums narration of it.

art only blog - insta - inprnt - redbubble (image description in alt)

[draw-you-coward]

"Ah, nothing says 'true love' like faking your own death to avoid someone."

screenshot study! which was SO out of my league dear GOd

[soft-cheek]

I got screenshots of our two characters at the beginning and end of the game and it's fun seeing the glow up haha

I kind of miss this hat on pax actually but I got rid of it awhile ago in favor of very good helmets and then also once we both had good armor we needed to match

This was by the end at the little party but I'm glad you could still put your armor on cause we looked rad as hell and I forgot to get a screenshot sooner

I'm glad I also got screenshots during conversations because you can't even see his fun little ponytail in these otherwise

[tsuchinokoroyale]

More like rad-b-gone lol

[mintedwitcher]

Putting aside the controversy of Thirteen's run, I think there's a very simple way that her tenure could've been massively improved, and that's to just cut down the number of companions.

Chibnall has a habit of overloading his casts, and it's objectively awful each time. (Staring directly at you, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, six leads what were you thinking?!)

What I would've done, personally, is split up the "fam" early on. Let that first episode be the same, introducing these characters to the Doctor. But here's where I'd change it:

When offered to travel, Graham and Ryan say no. They're grieving, they've just lost a family member, one that they both loved so much. That loss brings the two of them closer, but they don't need a big fancy adventure to cement that. They say no, and they stay home.

Yaz, however, says yes. Partly because the Doctor is a new mystery, and as (excuse me while I gag) a policewoman, Yaz is going to be drawn to that. But also because she's bored of her life. She's working a job that's sticking her with low-level calls (understandably, she's new), and she's just so bored of it, so when the Doctor promises a trip and that they can get back "in just five minutes," Yaz agrees.

First series companion: Yaz. Just her and the Doctor. This gives them more time to build a genuine friendship and bond, unlike the actual canon which was... surface level at best all around. Let them understand one another, have Yaz bring out the Doctor's sillier, feminine side (since she was most Definitely masculinised to try and appeal to the fanbase). Let them have some fun adventures, some thrilling ones, some dangerous ones, and let them become the Besties we know in our hearts they should've been. (We got bits of that in series 13 before the cast was bloated again, but like. Imagine a full series of that dynamic. The sheer badass potential. I crave it.)

Next series, something happens closer to home, and Yaz decides to become a part-time companion instead, choosing to stay on Earth more frequently than dashing off with the Doctor, staying with her family, working her normal job with the satisfaction of knowing that she's not cut off from the Doctor for good. (More akin to the 11/Ponds dynamic, rather than the Doctor's usual practice of vanishing on past companions.)

As for who would 'replace' her as a full time companion, I'd like it to be Ryan for a time, but not Graham yet. As much as I adore the granddad/grandson dynamic of Ryan and Graham, I think Graham had a tendency to overtake quite often, and Ryan was often the afterthought. I'd love to see Ryan really step up into that role, having gotten through his grief over his grandmother. (During this, I'd like to think that Graham somehow meets and befriends Dan, because he really does need a friend who is not his grandson or his grandson's old school mate, Yaz.)

Ryan and the Doctor could have a lot of really great moments, and I think that having the Doctor travel alone with Yaz first would've prepared her more for the intricacies of social interaction this time around, so she's more adept at handling Ryan's story, and more open to him on an emotional level, almost taking on a parental type role with him.

I think, then, it'd be fitting to have a split-season model (like series 7a and 7b), where Graham finally comes aboard in the later half, convinced to go on "just one trip" with his grandson. We get the family dynamic there between Graham and Ryan, on much more solid ground now that they've had time off-screen to put in the work for their own relationship and grief. We also get Graham taking on a sort of brotherly, almost paternal role towards the Doctor, too, because she looks so young despite her real age, and Graham is just as protective of her as he is of Ryan, and the Doctor is equally protective towards the both of them.

Then, give Thirteen a few episodes fully on her own. Give her the space to take what she's learned from her latest companions and internalise it, give her room to work on her own, either by choice or by necessity. Really delve into this 'new' incarnation of the Doctor, what she's capable of. Three episodes, I'd say. Then, have her go and pick up the 'fam', because she's learned how to ask for help this time around, and she knows she needs her friends by her side for whatever is to come. Along the way we can have her meet Dan, a one-off companion, and a handful of the rest of the bloated cast (seriously how were there so many main characters in a NINE EPISODE SERIES jfc I am taking your pens and keyboards away from you, CC), and etc etc etc.

Just by breaking up the companion structure, suddenly the plot and the characters have so much more room to breathe and become a cohesive unit by the end of it. I understand that Chibnall wanted to shake up the typical formula by having three simultaneous companions, but it just fell flat, and the end result was that none of those characters - even the literal lead of the goddamn show - had any space to develop. Genuinely, if you asked me to recount a single line by ANY of those companions, I couldn't give you an answer. Not a single one. Ask me to do the same for Clara, or Amy, or Rory, or Donna, Martha, Rose, hell even fucking Astrid, and I'd be able to give you a few each, probably verbatim, because those characters were developed.

Sometimes, the formula of a show needs to be shaken up. But sometimes it's been the same for a long time because it works. This is one of those cases.

[lem-argentum]

it took me until dt to change rudy's hairstyle, but i ACTUALLY think he would've cut it back in post-stb when he became a reaper. the trope of "character cuts hair to feel more in control of their life" is cliché but REAL. and also the visual of him cutting it with his scythe is fun

[totheidiot]

one good thing about writing a very time-period accurate short story set in the 70s is that i can make a part of my character's backstory that he summoned the ghost of winston churchill and that was how he had realized that he just had the ability to summon ghosts.

[rainbowcarousels]

I was looking at the shots of the new weapon that looks vaguely like a it came out of discworld and I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something familiar about the giant ball of what looks like materia within it.

This was when I realised it looked a lot like the materia (if that even was what it was) that Minerva had in CC/CCR.

Which was about the point that I realised that this sphere looked familiar too for another reason: it looks a hell of a lot like the hibernation circle thing that Genesis sleeps in after CC.

Which in turn looks a hell of a lot like the protomateria in DoC, a special 'one of a kind' materia like the white and black materias. In this case, instead of being able to destroy or save the planet or weild the abilities of a Weapon.

We know that Genesis found the red globe goddess materia and activates it shortly before taking his avatar form. Another interesting point is that the purple stone (likely independent materia) is exchanged for a red one - a summon materia - when he becomes Genesis Avatar after the materia absorbs a crap ton of the lifestream.

So here's my question/theory: does Genesis still have this Goddess materia and if he does, is it another core materia like the black, white and protomateria? If it is, is this materia essentially the summon of the Lifestream's guardian and is this why Genesis can hibernate in a way that's not dissimilar to the weapons, only waking when the need arises?