#intrusive ideas

[nd-babblinggoblinfromthevoid]

Oh my gods why does my brain do this to me I just took a swig of the last of the water from my glass from last night that I had left in the living room and as I downed the big gulp my brain went "TOE JUICE"

Why?!

Whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy

How very dare you

Brain

Storpit

It is 7am you bastard thought

[underwhelmingalchemist]

*mom voice* You can get these words back when you know what they mean

[meltedmush]

Dumbass thought but shizun (sy) x Tony the tiger

I’M CRYING

[heartscrypt]

"this isn't the proper meme format" yeah well i cant control them they're freaks sorry they defy the logic of the original meme okay

[kindaasrikal]

Sometimes i wonder how much the venom effected Garmadon, even when he got purified from it, or when it didn’t have such a strong effect on his mental state anymore.

Because the devourers venom was with Garmadon since childhood. It was one of the first and will be one of the last things he ever understood so wholeheartedly. Like a disease you’ve gotten far too comfortable with after years of having it. Garmadon never truly knew life without the venom, so he and the venom essentially became one.

I look at Sensei Garmadon and wonder how he questioned how much he truly cared for Wu and Misako at that point. I think he continued to have the intrusive thoughts that constantly followed him around, and now that he no longer has the venom to specifically blame, he knows he is one of the most horrifically disgusting people alive as he unwillingly imagines things he wouldn’t(but could’ve) do.

He is split between keeping himself away from Lloyd and being the father he knows the other needs and so he runs off far away. He hides and hopes his son won’t have the time to visit in his little dojo.

He feels his heart beat as its ripped to pieces when he learns that Misako will follow him. That the love of his life won’t leave him like how he left her, yet he is terrified knowing what he could be capable of.

And as much as he wished to cry in a corner about it, he is constantly thankful that his relationship with Wu is far too messed up for the other to happily follow him along anywhere.

I think Garmadon, no matter what happens, could never escape the effect the venom had on him. The venom is him and he is the venom and he will never avoid that. It is apart of him, in such a deeply intimate way.

[dustcrumbs]

I hope you guys know that I am aware that Dust/Murder sans eyelights are not constantly red/cyan. I am aware. I know when he isn't using his magic. It's just white.

I wanna give you my reasoning why I don't draw him like that

1. He's never feels safe.

That's it.

He always tensed. He's never been relaxed enough to let go of his magic.

Why would he want to anyway? He needs to constantly burn it anyway. Right?

Actually, constantly using his magic is the reason why he needs to burn it out so much.

If he has it constantly activated, it'll continuously produce magic to restore what is lost. This leads to the overabundance of magic in his system. He's not always wasting it, but he's always using it. His body and mind THINKS he needs the magic. So it's rapidly replenishing what it thinks is needed for an emergency. If he just let it go, it'd build up slowly rather than rapidly pouring magic into his little body. It's also why he's so irritated. He's always tensed and on the verge of snapping at someone.

It's like leaving your phone on when your on an application. It starts to heat up. Unless you turn it off, it won't cool.

Dust is so paranoid that he thinks everyone is out to get him, even when he sleeps.

The only time he ever let go of his magic is with Killer. And god, he's never doing that again. Especially after what he did. Everyone's just proving his point. Being vulnerable is a ticket to death. As much as he'd want to die, he would rather die in his home. Not these disgusting replicas or twisting worlds that taunt him as he scrambles out of them.

Dust just can't catch a break. No matter where he is or who he's with. He rather die then be caught vulnerable and fragile in someone else's arms.

I guess that's why he conflicts with Horror so much. Horror wants to attend to and affirm. He doesn't mind vulnerability or weakness. It's a sign of trust. And Dust despises that idea. Because every time Horror lets Dust point a gun to his chin, there is no struggle. And Dust worries that one day, he won't stop himself from puling the trigger. Horror trusts him, even if it'd be the death of him.

[coffeegnomee]

Mapicc overheard Zam talking about the minecarts under the tree trap?!!?! Actually scripted (/j) holy moly we don't deserve such beautiful content.

It was the one and ONLY time Zam ever talked about making a trap this season. And Mapicc freaking caught it on video. Actual work of art.

[novelmonger]

First Contact

Written for @inklings-challenge 2024. It feels very first draft-y to me, and didn't quite end up how I initially envisioned it, but here it is.

When the first lights were seen in the sky, some said it was the end of the world. Passages from Revelation and other religious texts were thrown around, talking of stars falling from the sky or the Four Horsemen coming to bring judgment.

Others said, with slightly less drama, that it must be some sort of cosmological phenomenon—perhaps dozens of meteors falling to Earth to usher in the next Ice Age.

Still others, with an air of smugness, said these lights proved they'd been right all along. The extraterrestrials were real after all, and now they'd come in their UFOs to subjugate all of Earth at last. They'd been called crazy when they talked of inexplicable lights and experiences of being beamed into flying saucers and probed, but now the little green men were back, and everyone who'd called them liars would see the truth. Oh yes, they would see.

And then of course there were those who pointed fingers at one country after another, blaming them for sending missiles and unauthorized aircraft across the borders of peaceful nations. Some ran for their bunkers, but those who continued to pay attention to the news quickly learned that the same thing was happening all around the world. None of the world's superpowers were capable of such a feat.

Dr. Shannon Campbell wasn't sure what to think. Ever since reading War of the Worlds in high school, the thought of first contact had fascinated her. If aliens really were out there, what would they be like? Would they be hostile like so many books and movies claimed? Or might there be a way to communicate with them?

And suddenly, it wasn't just an idle imagining or the raving of lunatics. The possibility that they were not alone in the universe started to look more and more likely. And then she got a call, and then a visit from some bigwig at NASA and a General Somebody-or-Other decked out in camouflage, and the next thing she knew, she'd packed a bag and was heading to an undisclosed location in the Midwest.

It turned out everyone was a little bit wrong, and a little bit right at the same time. In the middle of a cornfield, an extraterrestrial spaceship had landed. But it was more of a shiny silver sphere than a flying saucer, and it didn't quite seem to be the end of the world just yet. Not to mention that the beings that emerged were neither little green men, nor were they Tripods or bug people or anything else Dr. Campbell had ever imagined aliens to look like.

The aliens...stepped? Floated? Well, they emerged somehow from the side of their spaceship, which shimmered to let them through but immediately looked the same as it had before. Not like a door or a hatch opening. And the aliens themselves were pale creatures that somewhat resembled octopi, or maybe jellyfish. Their bodies hovered in the air, with long, thin tentacles dangling down to the earth.

But even as the NASA scientists and soldiers surrounding the spaceship looked on, the aliens' forms began to shift. They hunkered down closer to the ground, their many tentacles sticking together and morphing into thicker, smaller limbs. Soon, instead of dozens of tentacles, they only had four, and their bodies compressed into something more like a torso and a head.

They were mimicking the humans, Dr. Campbell suddenly realized. In mere minutes, they had assumed roughly humanoid shapes, with arms and legs and...well, it looked more like two clusters of tiny eyestalks rather than eyes, but they were basically in the right place on their faces. They had no ears or noses that she could see, and their hands looked like they were wearing mittens rather than being divided into ten fingers. And where their mouths should have been was a thin membrane that glowed slightly as it vibrated with the low humming sounds the aliens had been emitting the entire time.

One of the aliens began to glide forward, holding its too-long arms out to the sides. The humming intensified, all of the aliens joining in at different pitches and frequencies, like some kind of interstellar choir. Several soldiers raised their weapons, but Dr. Campbell hastily said, “Please, don't shoot! We should at least try to communicate with them first!”

The general glanced nervously between the slowly advancing alien and Dr. Campbell, then gave her a sort of shrug as if to say, “Suit yourself.” He motioned for his soldiers to lower their weapons, and everyone took a step back.

Dr. Campbell swallowed. Now that she stood facing the alien leader, presumably, she felt like she had during her first undergrad presentation: two inches tall, and faintly sick.

But then...was that just her imagination, or were those words, garbled in mouths without tongues? Words in English?

“Gogojohnnygo. Heusedtocarryhis. Guitarinagunnysack?”

“Wait...is that...'Johnny B. Goode'?”

High-pitched trills exploded from every alien, their mouth-membranes vibrating loudly as their long tentacle arms waved excitedly in the air. At least...she thought it was excitement. For all she knew, maybe they were about to attack.

Some of the surrounding soldiers seemed to think this, as they tensed and looked ready either to bolt or to start firing.

Maybe the alien leader realized this, because his trills descended sharply in pitch and volume, like he was shushing them. The others quieted down as well, until the humming started up again. This time it was a complicated rhythm, interweaving several melodies at once, with an interesting breathy quality to their voices that almost made them sound like musical instruments on an ancient phonograph.

And yet...the longer she listened to them, the more she realized it sounded familiar too. “That's, like...Bach or something, isn't it? They're humming Bach.”

But how on earth would they know Bach? Or 'Johnny B. Goode,' for that matter. The only reason Dr. Campbell knew it was because of Back to the Future. She pressed a couple fingers against her aching temples. Multiple PhDs in linguistics and anthropology hadn't prepared her for this.

While she was pondering, the aliens moved on from their Bach concerto and suddenly started barking like a dog. Then made the clop-clop-clopping sounds of a horse trotting along. Then something that almost sounded like the pattering of rain on a roof. Then, as one, they all emitted the exact same laugh.

A sudden suspicion. Dr. Campbell whipped out her phone and frantically looked something up on Wikipedia. Sure enough, it all clicked into place. With a gasp, Dr. Campbell straightened up and looked at the aliens looming over them. “It's Voyager! They're mimicking the recordings sent with Voyager!”

“What does that mean?” the general snapped, irritation masking his nervousness at not having a handle on what was going on.

Slowly, a smile spread across Dr. Campbell's face. “It means we have a basis for communication.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

By the end of six months, Dr. Campbell had managed it at last. She'd managed to hold an entire conversation with the aliens, and was reasonably certain both sides understood what was being said. It was the greatest achievement of her life...and she was just getting started.

Once it became clear that the aliens weren't going to immediately start shooting laser guns or levitating people into their spaceship and start probing them, the army seemed to relax a little. A temporary camp of trailers and tents had been set up in the cornfield with all the equipment Dr. Campbell needed to do her work, as well as a base of operations for the soldiers who created a perimeter around the cornfield to keep curious civilians from wandering through before they could fully ascertain the aliens' intentions.

It seemed the aliens were also in favor of caution. After that first day, when Dr. Campbell had pulled up a recording of the record that had been placed in Voyager and played it for the aliens, attempting to convey that they were trying to communicate, all the other spaceships that hovered in the air around the world had returned to orbit around Earth. They linked together in a chain, like Earth were wearing a pearl necklace, and just stayed there.

Presumably, communications were carried out between those ships and the one in the cornfield, that attempts were being made to speak with the humans. Maybe now that they were finally able to speak to each other and they could ascertain their intentions, the other ships would land again.

So far, they hadn't discussed anything of particular importance. Just things like names (the leader that Dr. Campbell talked to most often was called something like Brrringgnggniiiiib, but she called him Johnny), whether the aliens could breathe the air (it seemed they could, though they preferred the pressurized atmosphere of their spaceship), and what various objects in view were called. Both parties were curious about the other, but cautious of giving too much away. Just in case.

The aliens' language was highly tonal, like Mandarin but with a whole symphony of timbres and tones, some of which were far too high or low for human vocal cords. The real breakthrough had been when the team of technicians from around the world had cobbled together a soundboard with programmable pitches. Over the months, by working with the world's most skilled computer engineers, they'd been able to create an alien translator, where a human could type in what they wanted to say on a standard computer keyboard, and it would translate to a series of music-like tones that would play on a speaker for the alien. Then when the alien spoke in its language into a microphone, the machine would translate it into English on a little screen.

It was a slow, arduous process, but it worked. It only translated to English for now, but it would be a simple matter to add more human languages to the database, a project the technicians were already hard at work to complete. And though the translator was currently the size of a pipe organ and required a mass of extension cords and portable generators and solar panels just to run for a few minutes a day, Dr. Campbell had no doubt that eventually this machine would be reduced to a pocket-sized translator everyone carried with them. That is, if the aliens were going to stay.

And that was what today was all about.

Dr. Campbell stepped out of her trailer, breathing in the crisp air of the October morning and wrapping cold fingers around her mug of coffee. As always, the shiny dome of the alien ship rose against the sky, the constant backdrop of what her life had become. It looked somewhat foggy towards the bottom—frost, perhaps?

She took another sip of coffee, swirling the bitter liquid around her mouth as she wondered what Johnny would think of the taste. They hadn't yet discussed what the aliens ate—if they ate. They didn't exactly have mouths, after all. Though Birdcall, what she called the shortest of the alien crew, had once picked up a blade of grass and seemed to absorb it through the palm of the hand, before Hellohello had whistled shrilly, apparently admonishing Birdcall, who had immediately 'spit out' the grass, leaving it a little crumpled in the dirt. Like a mother scolding her child for putting something into her mouth that she'd picked up off the ground.

Draining the last of her coffee, Dr. Campbell stretched and set off across the cornfield to the tent where the translator resided. “Time to make history, I guess.”

Just like every day, Dr. Campbell met Johnny in the middle of the cornfield with a trill she personally thought sounded like a ringing telephone. It was a greeting, one of the alien words she was actually able to say herself. She held her arms out to the sides and wiggled them a little—it was like a hand wave. She'd finally stopped feeling stupid when she did it.

Johnny also held out his arms and wiggled them, though his looked much better because his 'arms' were really just tentacles stuck together in an approximation of human arms. “HeeLLLlllooooOOOoo, DoooktoooooRRRR,” he said in his sing-song voice. Johnny was much better at speaking English than she was at speaking his language.

Dr. Campbell thought of Johnny as 'he,' mostly because she'd started calling him Johnny, but she still wasn't sure if the aliens even had genders. The conversation they'd tried to have about that had left everyone more confused than when they'd started.

“Shall we begin?” she asked, gesturing towards the tent with the translator.

Johnny 'nodded,' which for him meant bobbing in a sort of full-body bow that made him look like one of those floppy dancing inflatable things outside of a car dealership. The aliens didn't nod as a way of indicating assent, but Johnny was always trying to mimic Dr. Campbell's mannerisms. It was kind of cute, in a way. If a tall, spindly alien with eyestalks and no mouth could be called cute.

Once she'd situated herself at the console of the translator, Dr. Campbell looked across at Johnny. He knelt or sat (it was hard to tell which when the limbs he folded beneath him had no joints and just sort of glommed into a squishy mass supporting his torso) on the ground a comfortable distance away. She'd offered him a chair several times before, but even once he finally understood what to do with it, he'd assured her that he was just as comfortable without one.

Taking a deep breath, Dr. Campbell put her fingers on the keyboard and looked across at Johnny, meeting his eyes—well, at least a few of his eyestalks, anyway. He liked to keep a 360-degree visual range at all times. Then she typed in the first, and perhaps most important, question:

Why did you come to Earth?

The almost musical sound of computerized tones echoed through the still morning air. Dr. Campbell was suddenly aware of many eyes on the two of them—the general, the two guards who were always stationed at this tent to keep anyone from tampering with the translator, the technicians and scientists standing by. They couldn't understand the aliens' language just from listening to it, but everyone knew this was an important day in history. The day they would finally get some answers.

Johnny's trills and chirps were very familiar to Dr. Campbell by now, and she could almost catch a few words here and there, but he spoke much too fast when they were at the translator. She had to wait for the words to trail across the screen.

“We hear voicings we know people being in the darkness. We must bring light.”

Light? Do you mean knowledge? Dr. Campbell's heart leapt. Maybe they would share the secret to faster-than-light travel.

Johnny bobbed in a half-bow. “Knowings. We asking you a questioning now Doctor.”

Dr. Campbell looked up at Johnny and nodded. A question for a question. Only fair.

Johnny leaned forward a little. It was almost impossible to make out expressions on his mushy alien face, but he seemed eager. “Are you knowing of your origin?”

“Origin?” Dr. Campbell muttered aloud as she read the words on the screen. She frowned up at Johnny for a moment, trying to understand what he was asking. Do you mean my parents? The people who gave birth to me? She didn't even know how the aliens reproduced, or whether Johnny would understand what she was talking about.

Johnny swayed his whole body from side to side, his version of shaking his head, while humming a single note that sounded kind of like a dial tone. Every single one of Johnny's many eyestalks zeroed in on her, catching her in an unblinking alien stare. Johnny's next words came like a song, so mesmerizing it was all she could do to glance down at the screen to see what he was saying.

“Origin is life beginning. Origin is light sun star root. Origin is making planets moons we Doctor Earth. Origin is making good peace life. We are of Origin and when Earth metal rock falling to our planet we are saying we must see. We must know. Does Earth is knowing Origin? Or is only darkness?”

Dr. Campbell's mind whirled. Suddenly, after months of extreme caution and dancing around revealing too much, now she wasn't sure what to do with this influx of information. She had a dozen new questions, and it took her a moment to decide what to ask first.

Is Origin your planet?

Johnny swayed a no again. “Origin is making our planet. Origin is making Earth. Origin is making us. Origin is making you. Origin is making cooOOOoorrnnnnffffIIIiiieeeeEEEEllLLLd,” he added, switching to English for that word, since the aliens apparently didn't have corn on their planet.

Slowly, a suspicion dawned on her. This 'Origin' was something that had made everything in the universe. It almost sounded like...a creation myth. Are you talking about a god?

Johnny's long limbs flipped into the air, and he let out an excited trill as he bobbed up and down. “We are not knowing you are knowing this word Doctor. Please saying this word in your voicings so we may be learning it.”

Dr. Campbell looked up at Johnny's eyes going haywire, at his 'arms' beginning to fray into many tentacles in his excitement. Slowly and clearly, she said, “God.”

Such a short word, but when Johnny repeated it several times in his musical voice, it sounded so beautiful. Like somehow, the little song made from the membrane of his 'mouth' vibrating was part of the very fabric of the universe. The music of the spheres.

After a few minutes of repeating the word God,interspersed with the trills and chitterings of his own language that Dr. Campbell couldn't fully understand because he wasn't speaking into the mic anymore, Johnny made an effort to calm himself down. “TTTtthhhhHHHaaaAAAAaaannnngnggnkk yoooOOOOOoooooouuuuUUUU, DoooktoooooRRRR,” he said carefully in English, before pulling the mic closer so he could speak more fluently in his own tongue. “We are very exciting Doctor because we are seeing now that God is showing to you in Earth also. God is holding universe in hands and we are family with Earth. We are thinking we must fly to Earth to show God leading the way but you are already following.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up a second,” Dr. Campbell muttered. “I haven't even been to Sunday School since I was five.” But how to explain that to...an extraterrestrial missionary, apparently? Biting her lip, she eventually went with I'm not even sure I believe in God. There are lots of people on Earth who don't. Some people believe in different gods, or none at all.

Johnny hummed for a little after the translator's tones subsided. Not humming in words, just a faint sound of discomfort. Or thoughtfulness. Dr. Campbell wasn't sure. But he grew still, with none of the excited energy of a moment ago.

Finally, Johnny leaned towards the mic again and said, “We are saddening to be hearing this Doctor. But we are also gladdening because this means we are staying in Earth for longer. We are hoping you are letting us stay. We want to be learning more of Earth. We want to be talking more about God with you and other Doctor people.”

Funny. If it had been a Jehovah's Witness or somebody like that on her doorstep, asking if she had time to talk about their Lord and Savior, she would have shut the door in their faces. But this was a literal alien saying that he wanted to have conversations with her about God and who knew what else. So she found herself smiling and typing in response:

I would like that.

[mabaki]

He's got a voice in his head... that's his but not his. (Tower of Nightmares era)

Oh, all the things he hears and endures.

I only wanted to do the first panel but then I added more sketches and sometimes I dont know when to call it quits.... until I get lazy LOL

Me: Im gonna draw Lore The Lore: gay LMAO

Without the extra cropping. I mean i might as well, i drew it all out after all LMAO

He's the reason why he can use the vines and Dreamthistles the way he does, but the more Mabaki uses it, the stronger he becomes, at least in terms of influence. And if he wants to, he can take away the ability to control the vines. (Totally didn't hurt someone because of this as Mbk watched, not able to control them at all, no no).

Bonus, he's the reason Mbk didn't fall to Mordremoth.

[trials-of-apollo-my-beloved]

I am too lazy to put this into a fic so I am putting it out here in the hopes that someone sees this and does it for me~

I am obsessed with the idea of Meg facing an unkillable monster with Apollo where he's like, "This cannot be killed unless you stab it in this very specific place with this very specific weapon and that's really hard because IT CAN FLY"

And Meg just goes, "But. Lester. But Lester. Can we? Can we? Drown it? Can it breathe underwater? Will it choke on a lake tho? What if I sit on its head in the Pacific? It might be powerful, but is it stronger than the ocean?? Lester, H20. Gurgle Gurgle."

[cutepotatook]

MAKIN SOMETHIN MWHAHAHAHAHA

and wip of au's art!

[victavare]

So @babynorppa wished for more Bojana pics and how could I refuse :}

Sorry for sticking with Euro timeline I’m just trying to explore bit by bit (as I’ve been following pretty chaotically lol)

Taglisting @chaosofsmarty @ljubitelj-sonca @jaarijani @mint-ty (pls lmk if u want to be removed or added for the continued girl saga)

[loganslowdown4]

Remus: Hey Thomas, hey, so like, what would happen, if, this is so funny, if you like just put your hand, haha, in that blender you’re using right now, huh??

Thomas: Uhhhh—

Logan: *barges in; starts spraying Remus with a spritzer like a bad cat* NO! NO! That’s a bad Remus! BAD!

Remus: *hisses* F- FUCK! okok, aaaAAHHH GOD STOP WITH THE SOAP FUCKK-

[2deadkat]

I think the Stilton siblings should have an Elric brothers type dynamic.

Grown up together so they knew each other since they were kids, studied the same proficiency, and always does the journey together. Not to mention a strong sibling bond…and also one is gentle the other is a hot head

That’s how I would write them in the deadkat interpretation anyway

[justaboot]

Well since I know it broke you, what about something involving Della (OG design) inspired by Never Love an Anchor for an art request?

Do you ever think of me and my two hands, and wonder why they never soothed your fevers? And wonder why They never tied your shoes? And wonder why They never held you gently? And wonder why They never had the chance to lose you?

-Never Love an Anchor, The Crane Wives

(rude.)

[coochie-sniffer3000]

generic silent protagonist in a top down or over the shoulder free roaming game of your choosing, but they have intrusive thoughts. game has npc and environment interaction but sometimes instead of “close window” when you want to interact it’s “jump through”

no lead up it’s just apparent this is part of you immediately. hanging out with a girl you want to up your friendship with and she says “hey stay here and watch my bag please?” but noo mr protag can’t do that he has to wait for 2 minutes and struggle not to press y to riffle through her bag and take 20 dollars

everything is optional. and it’s everywhere. shopping for supplies and a “steal” button appears right next to the “buy” button. and it’s just for “pack of bubble gum”. you switch to the one below it (no steal) and back up and it still says “steal” beside it. mc just wants Pack of Bubble Gum so fucking bad. and then later you’re out at town because one of your teammates wanted to bond with you and you think yeah, i’ve been lacking stats when it comes to him. but then you’re there at the wendy’s you said you’d meet up in and the attack button showed up at some point in the overworld and you can just. punch people. and you just have to stand there talking about exams with this guy resisting the urge to punch him in the face even with the little icon over their head 24/7

and it’s not just the environment, it shows up in interactions too. when you chat, you have options to respond with. there are multiple to choose from but at a chance something that could get you in a lot of trouble could show up mixed in with the rest of the responses. sometimes ALL the responses are so genuinely terrible you have to wait out a timed response window and get an “uhhhh ok 😅” response to not ruin one of your hard earned relationships.

for the most part the base options for everything are consistent and typical, but the impulse options add a lot of polarization to the mix. it all seems linear enough but actually you can skip entire party members by destroying your relationships with them early on. you can end up with way better stats or items by doing something mc typically wouldn’t have done. oh uh. the way im phrasing this kind of sounds like mc is his own guy and YOURE his intrusive thoughts. hmm *taps mic* is this thing even on