#it's eldritch beach ball or something
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Sooooo I was using fantasy name generator, as one does, just to look for inspiration for the name of my warlock's patron since I wasn't feeling any of the canon 5e options for the Great Old One. I went to the mindflayer name one, to see if there was one that sounded just 'eldritch entity' enough in my head.
Tell me why the second option was KEN 😂😂😂
I can't stop laughing, fantasy name generator really said:
Ken, the warlock patron of beach ✨
#d&d#warlocks#the great old one#bg3 oc#j speaks.#also keep misreading the first one as 'slut'#now i'm imagining what a warlock patroned to ken's spells would look like#instead of eldritch blast#it's eldritch beach ball or something#fucking life jacket of madness#POCKET SAND
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I’ve seen a lot of posts going around lately along the lines of ‘what if eldritch horrors treated humans the way we treat animals in a well-meaning but terrifying sort of way?’ There was a comic about a shadow creature dragging a human out of a carbon-monoxide-filled house? I can’t find it now, curse this site’s search system. Anyways, it kinda inspired something.
Ya know how people accidentally kidnap baby birds thinking they’re abandoned when really they’re fledglings and actually 100% fine? Now I’m imagining sea monsters kidnapping random humans swimming or on boats because they think the human is lost at sea and in danger of drowning. Either taking them in to care for or dumping them back on land and the humans are like Hey! What the hell?! But there's a language barrier so everyone's confused. "Hey, little fella, chill! I'm not tryin'a hurt ya!" "Let me go you big ugly slime-ball! I'm gonna crawl up your nose and punch you in the brain if you don't PUT ME DOWN THIS INSTANT!" *descends into incoherent shouting and flailing* "Ow, hey! Calm down, little guy!" *human shrieks louder as another tentacle covers them, further restraining their limbs - which they have been using to punch and kick at anything within reach* "Okay, okay, just a couple more minutes, I promise! We're almost to land and then I can put you down." *human eventually goes silent, preserving their strength as they furiously plan future escape attempts* By the time they get dumped out on the beach, the human is too tired and in shock to do much except sit in the sand and watch as the sea monster swims away. "Bye little friend! Take care!" "What the hell was that for, you dumb pile of spaghetti?!"
#eldritch horror#or an attempt anyways#i'm not super familiar with this genera#sea monsters#soft cozy eldritch horror#my writing#humans are weird#i had too much fun coming up with interesting ways to insult a tentacle monster#make of that what you will#hylian writes fanfic#or original fic in this case but that's my writing tag
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Im gonna ramble in your inbox for a bit lmao, I have a few ideas!
What about music themed?? Like music notes, treble clef, etc (idk a lot about musical notation honestly but ik theres a lot of symbols). My next thought was instruments but usually those are super detailed, like string and brass? A Harp?? The simplest i can think is like, some piano keys would make a cute design, or maybe just the headstock of a guitar! God, brass instruments would be so intense to make, i just looked at a saxaphone and I'm freaking out thinking of the detail and how impressive that would be. Or maybe physical media like a vinyl record or a little cassette tape? A little boombox, record player, or radio?
Going off of that, I think people really like decade themed/nostalgic stuff. I love 70s things personally so i may just be projecting, but i think 80s and 90s vibes are super popular! You could look at toys, technology, icons, and popular colors of an era, things like that and that might be inspiring!
Also thinking about summer themed designs since summer is coming up! Seasonal stuff is so cute and I notice people are always looking for little seasonal projects! Surfboards, beach umbrella, a fruity lil drink, are things that come to mind for me!
The more i write the more ideas i think of but this ask is already huge lmaooo so ill leave with these and hopefully its not overwhelming
First of all I will not be out-rambled in my own house lets gooo
These are all so good and sensible and fun! Thank you so much! I spent a day and a half sketching out just some of them (and going off an a few tangents), and there are a few already that I can't wait to actually pattern up and make <3
Musical instruments and notation are both perfect and super hard for the format. They're so detailed, like you said, and their design is so specific; it's hard to know what can be fudged or elided without getting the whole thing irredeemably wrong. (I've had the same problem with birds and arthropods). Like, how many of the saxophone's fourteen-hundred eldritch appendages *do* I need to show? I could include them all, and the motif would be the size of a bedspread and take a month and a half to crochet, and I perversely want to do that now so thanks also for that.
Even in that keyboard motif (which, you'll have to trust me, is a very good likeness of Casio keyboard whose demo song was the soundtrack to my early childhood) is already over twice width of my largest typical designs, and it would have to be twice as big still for me to space the keys accurately.
Decades are a great organizing conceit! They lend themselves to a kind of idiosyncratic hodgepodge that really appeals to me, and "random collection of old things that you remember" is a trope people don't seem to ever get sick of—and new things are getting old every day. They're also a way to ease into pop culture references, which I haven't really done, and which might offset some of my Debbie-Downer tendencies (when you suggested "70s things" my actual first thought was "what do quaaludes even look like?" My first idea for the 80s was "Margaret Thatcher demolishing a council house," and my thought process for the 90s went "Monica Lewinsky's dress, OJ Simpson's gloves, Tonya Harding's crowbar… NAFTA?" Terrible patches, all. What people want as a little picture of a sofa at a jaunty angle with a caption that says "PIVOT!").
Anyway. I'm especially excited to try the disco ball, the record and the off-brand Tamagotchi (I preferred Gigapets, personally). Those all have double-length diagonals that I've freehanded a few times and know to work at least okay, but which I haven't figured out how to notate. Oh! and I haven't got a beach umbrella that I like just yet, but the hurricane cocktail seems like a good way to kick off a summer collection—as long as I don't follow it up with, like a graph of yearly average temperatures, which is something I would absolutely do.
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Ambrova long palette names
Sorry I didn’t Realize People Like You Have Feelings (Einar when he's feeling sadistic)
You Must Have Real Self Confidence Mortal To Attempt Flirting With Something All Holy (Angels when they're being pursued romantically)
Let Your Tender Hands Rip Me Apart (Binary stars. What losers)
Focus On Me (Ignore The Blood) (Einar)
Prove That You Love Me And Reanimate Me (Einar but he would never say such a thing because he wants the sweet release of death. Ira goes through the loop for him anyway.)
Stand Still As The Darkness Grows Roots In Your Mind (Drystan family curse)
Lost In Your Eyes Never To Be Found (Einar @ Ira EUGH)
I Saw The End Of The World In Your Eyes (Ira @ Einar WHY ARE THEY LIKE THIS)
I Touch You And My Hands Burn My Hands Burn My Hands Burn (What Have You Done) (Dyre @ Aaryn when the feelings kick in)
What Are You Doing In My House / Now Now I Don’t Usually Make It A Habit To - Stop Yelling - Break Into People’s Homes But As You Can See Sometimes I Do (1. Einar 2. Dyre)
Well First Of All I Am Positive What You Did Is A Criminal Offense / And Second Of All Why Didn’t You Invite Me (The Drystan twins)
What’s A Little Murder Between Friends (The Drystan twins)
Who Put Strawberries In The Bathtub
Who Put Strawberries In The Bathtub Again
This Is The Third Time Someone Put Strawberries In The Bathtub Who Keeps Doing This Please Stop
(Aaryn would make a great mom friend I'm cracking up just thinking about him having to deal with his space pirate crew)
It’s Not A Good Cake But It’s Not A Bad Cake Either (As Still It Is Cake) (Ira)
Scallops Reside Where My Brain Should Be (Again, Ira. Also shoutout to their sea eldritch ancestor.)
Being In Love And How It Sucks Sometimes (Dyre and Aaryn because they suck)
Do You Remember When You Told Me That You Love Me When You Told Me That You Love Me When You Told Me That You (Binary stars and whatever Dyre and Aaryn have going on)
I Loved You I Did So How Did We End Up Like This (Aaryn @ Ira He was trying his best)
This Will Hurt You More Than It’ll Hurt Me - And That’s Okay! (Einar when he tortures someone. Also shoutout to Dyre's powers.)
American Girls Scare Me (This gave me such visceral Dyre vibes why)
I’m Always At Least A Little Bit Scared Hopeless And Frustrated (Aaryn. Someone help him.)
The Shadow Out The Corner Of Your Eye (Einar)
Can You Help Me Find What’s Wrong With Me (Drystan twins and Aaryn. I believe they would benefit from therapy.)
Unexplainable Excruciating Pain That Started Suddenly And Will Never Go Away (Drystan family curse also the trauma)
An Unhealthy Relationship With One’s Own Identity (Einar)
Men Like Us Aren’t Supposed To Feel These Things (Again, Drystan twins and Aaryn. Inability to be vulnerable?)
Men Like Us Die Alone Because We Think We Deserve It (Aaryn. Okay this actually makes me sad.)
My Lungs Are Full Of Ink (Drystan family curse. I wish I was joking.)
Biting Into A Rubber Ball Like An Apple While Maintaining Full Eye Contact (Dyre. He would do it if pressed.)
I’m Just A Normal Functioning Member Of The Human Race And There Is No Way Anyone Can Prove Otherwise (Every sojouner ever)
Visual Representation Of The Sound A Rainbow Makes (This is giving Iracore)
The Eye Lips Eye Emoji Face Fills Me With Unbridled Rage (Aaryn)
Doctors Say You Need A Consistent Amount Of Sleep To Be Healthy So I Consistently Sleep For 4 Hours A Night (It's giving Aaryn. No sleep for the space pirates.)
Whether You Qualify As A Beach Or Not Depends On The Amount Of Sand You Have Consumed In A Lifetime (This sounds like something Ira would say)
What Will It Take For You To Give Up Your Humanity And Become One With The Night (Drystan family curse Drystan family curse)
My Heart Was Stolen By A Blue-Haired Angel With Piercing Eyes And A Penchant For Singing (Them angelfuckers)
The Privilege Of Being Born Somebody Else (Honestly mostly every sojourner ever)
My Favourite Ride In The Theme Park Is A Bench (Aaryn. He's starting to give old man vibes.)
I Apologize If You Found Finding This Place Difficult But You Must Understand I Am Currently Evading Detection And Arrest For Crimes Undisclosed (Aaryn and Dyre. Binary stars are protected by the law.)
So Good At Sleeping I Could Do It With My Eyes Closed (Dyre. He seems like the type to be able to fall asleep within seconds. Aaryn, on the other hand- 💀)
You’re As Beautiful As The Light Reflecting Off The Teeth Of The Moon (Einar @ Ira when Ira's speech patterns start rubbing off on him. THEY'RE SUCH LOSERS)
Write Your Love In The Blood Coursing Through My Veins (Binary stars because Einar is a freak)
And If You Thought It Was A Threat It Might Have Been (All 4 of them because they have dangerous jobs)
Putting On A Show To Seem Alive / When I Don’t Feel Alive (Drystan twins? Aaryn?)
Here’s Cheers To The Man Who Stole My Heart Away (Aaryn and Dyre. I should come up with a ship name. Maybe mentos and coke.)
If Someone Tries To Shoot You Simply Tell The Bullet To Leave You Alone (Shoutout to Dyre's powers the funniest man ever)
She Drowned Jupiter In Her Martini Glass (Ira)
The Sort Of Love You Only Feel When Drunk (Mentos and coke because they're both terrible with feelings)
The Man Who Looked At Me So Sweetly In Soft Flavours Of Deep Beige (Ira seems like the type to think beige is love's colour)
Oh Baby Don’t You Know Our Sort Is Locked Out Of Heaven (Drystan twins and Aaryn. May I recommend therapy)
You Have To Stop Making So Many Enemies (Ira @ everyone else)
Now We’re Cooking With Lasers (Aaryn, said with an disbelieving tone. Mom friend mom friend)
Middle Of The Night Yet You’re Wide Awake Thinking About Waluigi (Ira because they're silly like that)
You Have This Power Inside And It’s Frightening (Binary stars)
I Don’t Know What This Is But It’s Not An Avocado (The sojouners when the eldritch start eldritching
Wish Me Luck Honey (I Couldn’t Ask For More) (Einar @ Ira)
All The Things You Did Before You Did Them (When the time loop starts looping)
Keep All Body Parts On The Inside Of The Vehicle At All Times As Failure To Comply May Result In Having Them Unwillingly Removed (Dyre when he drives)
Do The Trees Bite Where You’re From (I need to make this a thing)
My Overconfidence Is Astounding And It’s A Surprise I’ve Never Been Killed (Dyre. Einar has the decency to be cautious.)
I Understand Where You’re Coming From But Where Did You Get The Gun (Drystan twins talking down someone. With varying results.)
Have You Found Yourself Or Your Loved Ones Suffering From A Case Of Empty Eyes (Trauma?)
As You Can Tell By The Yellow Filter We Just Entered Mexico (Ira)
You’re Telling Me He Died From The Mould? And What Did The Mould Do, Stab Him? (When the eldritch start eldritching HELP THIS IS SO FUNNY)
Next Time Maybe Don’t Go Into The Forest At Night Hm Buddy? Just A Thought (It could happen to anyone. But mostly Ira.)
Well That Was A Little Unnecessarily Brutal Don’t You Think? (Dyre @ Aaryn or Einar)
Too Cool To Sleep At A Reasonable Hour (AARYN PLEASE)
I’m Sick But The Bags Under My Eyes Are Sicker (AARYN)
Chicken Nuggets Heat Up Faster On The Higher Shelf Of The Oven Because Of Their Proximity To God (Ira would say this)
You Can’t Just Ask A Guy Why He’s In Love (Mentos and coke when you ask why)
Who Needs Sleep When I Can Just Drop Dead For A Rest (Aaryn why. why.)
Feelings Of An Almost Human Nature (Einar. He and his relationship with his humanity should be studied.)
Can’t Let It Slip That There’s More To Me Than Little Old I (Every sojouner in hiding ever)
Seeing The Future In The Tear Stains On Your Cheeks (When the loop-)
Adopt Your Enemies To Establish Dominance (Einar when he recruits Dyre into the military)
You Are A Dream In A Crowd Of Nightmares (Einar @ Ira)
I Know I May Look Like A Real Person But I Am Actually Not A Real Person At All (*Whacks Einar over the head* Get therapy)
When It Comes To Near Death Experiences I’m An Expert (All of them but mostly Einar)
You’re The First Descendant In A Line Of Workaholics Utterly Convinced Your Willingness To Sacrifice Your Own Health Determines Your Worth As A Human Being And Promptly Working Yourself To Death To Provide Unto Others What You Never Had A Chance To Understand You Deserved Yourself (EINAR OH MY GOD)
So Far Throughout My Life I Got Mildly Electrocuted On Three Separate Occasions (Aaryn. He seems like the type.)
My Brain Operates On Frequencies You’ve Never Even Heard Of (All of them but mostly Ira)
People Ask Me How I Manage To Think Of You Everyday And To Be Completely Honest I Never Know What To Say Because It Feels So Natural (The 4 of them because THEY'RE LOSERS)
Standing In Front Of Me She Quickly Undressed Confessing Her Desire To Cause Me Physical Harm And Needless To Say I Was Baffled But Nonetheless Intrigued (This seems like a situation mafioso Dyre would get into at some point)
The Only Thing Greater Than My Ego Is My Impostor Syndrome (Einar istg)
You Scream Ancient Curses In Long Dead Languages And Perish Surrounded By Friends (When the eldritch-)
The Cons Of Being My Friend Greatly Outweigh The Pros (Aaryn and Dyre why are they like this)
You Are Who We Say You Are Because Public Opinion Beats Self Worth Every Time (Sojouners: We just want to live in peace Everyone hunting them: Christ you are extremely fucking selfish. Die.)
Murder And Other Expressions Of Love (Honestly all 4 of them)
What Do You MEAN There Was A Fire (Aaryn. Please you don't understand how funny it would be to make him the tired mom friend)
My Companion Looked In Horror At The Scene Unfolding Before Our Very Eyes Before Finally Saying Out Loud What We’ve All Been Thinking / Did He… Did He Steal Her Teeth? (When the eldritch-)
Give Me Salvation I Swear I Won’t Bite (Aaryn)
Your Love Has Brought Me To The Point Of No Returning (Binary stars. WHY ARE THEY LIKE THIS)
If A Mushroom Can See Itself As A God So Can You (Ira)
You’re Being Hunted (By Me) (Dyre @ Einar, Aaryn @ Ira)
A Toast To Our Special Little Brand Of Sin (Good for them)
House Of Gets Up And Leaves (The entire Siridean household)
The Good Times Are Killing Me (Einar)
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Thoughts on Arceus? If you haven't done it already.
finally. the time has come. I get to use Judgement on god itself
I’ve gone over reviews for the rest of the creation trio and, as you can gather from reading those, I don’t love their designs. They’re not terrible, but they tend to be overly cluttered and just kind of messy.
But Arceus itself? I actually really like it, mostly because the design is fairly simple. It’s just a vague quadrupedal form with a ring around it and some flow-y bits with the tail and head. The colors are quite nice--just white with gold, black, and a tiny bit of green in the default form- and I really like the overall shape of it, especially the pointed legs, which give it a rather otherworldly look. And while it’s hard to give a design to god itself, I feel like this conveys the feeling of divinity as well as it can.
I know some people argue that it looks too psychical and “normal” so to speak for something that’s so powerful as to be near-eldritch, preferring something more similar to the placeholder beta sprite. However, I always saw this form as how it appears in order for others to comprehend it, with the true form being something more similar to the glowing orb at the beginning of PLA. This lines up with the 1000 hands things and the ability to give you mere pieces of itself. Obviously that’s just my interpretation, but I think this is fine for what we got from a conceptual standpoint.
Anyway, going back to the visual aspects, I also like how they put a lot of thought into how the design works with the plates. The eyes, gems, metal frame, and dark bits all change color while the white stays, which helps with consistency. For the record, I like the electric-type palette the best outside of the normal one, but I also really like the unused ???-type one and wish it had been integrated somewhere:
Aside from that, I do have a few nitpicks of course. First, the eyes:
What’s up with that random green dot under the eye? Definitely don’t need that. The middle is also strange because red doesn’t show up anywhere else in the default colors. I would’ve gone with gold, or even made the outside gold and the inside green to replicate the look of the gems in the middle piece. I also wouldn’t be opposed to it just having hollow rings for eyes, like the beta placeholder does:
Aside from that, the middle of the body is weirdly shaped. It’s hard to see in the official art, but it becomes obvious when looking at the model:
Rather than the torso being normally shaped with the metal braces just sitting around it, its torso suddenly becomes completely round. Everyone makes fun of original Dialgia for looking like it has a fork in its throat but I think we need to dunk on Arceus for looking like it just swallowed a beach ball more often. The point is that it’s really bizarre and throws off what’s otherwise a nice silhouette.
Other than that, I don’t feel like you needed the spikes at the top of the legs or possibly even the neck, and the white bit under the chin could’ve just been all black instead of framing the eye in a weird way.
As a whole however, I’d say this is the most successful out of all the deity designs in Gen 4 and it captures both the mystical vibes of the concept and works in some practical functionality as well.
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3 Prompt Summaries Game
reunions, masks, body worship - suggested by @polizwrites
@polizwrites - Now that Rhodey was full time military, Tony hadn’t seen him in months. They made plans to meet up in Key West during Fantasy Fest — wearing masks (and very little else), they could finally indulge their own fantasy of being a couple in public.
@psychiccatpanda - Rhodey took the kids trick-or-treating on his own because Tony had been called away on business again. When they get back, Tony's home and has set the place up for a Halloween party for the kids and their friends. When the kids' friends go home and the lights go down, Rhodey takes his time welcoming his husband home.
@somesortofitalianroast - It was 5 years since Steve Rogers had last seen Bucky Barnes, when Barnes left in the middle of the night after they had sex for the first time, leaving the country the next day for a lucrative job, and Steve heartbroken. It had been several years since Steve had thought of Barnes, though he’d recognize the man anywhere, even behind a domino mask at a masquerade ball. Just seeing Barnes made his blood boil, and he wanted to charge across the ballroom, slap the man silly, and then worship every inch of the man’s body. Too bad he was at the ball with clients and there was no way he could do that without losing a very important contract.
@darthbloodorange - (ShrunkyClunks) - He waits in the shadows of an old warehouse, a mask obscuring his identity. No one could know he was here; not only would his reputation be tarnished, but that of the Avengers as their leader. But there was something about the dark assassin that drew him in. Barnes treated him like no other in this world. Treasured him, possessed him, worshipped him. Not like a hero as the world did, but as a man and lover.
Keep reading for lots more!
cookies, mermaid, dancing - suggested by @somesortofitalianroast
@somesortofitalianroast - Darcy didn’t bake for the Avengers all the time, and she never made her mermaid cookies, since they were complicated and she needed to pay attention to the details when icing them with fancy icing. So it was a big deal when she made them, the sort of thing that made you want to dance in the kitchen.
@gavilansblog - Luca AU where Tony introduces mer-people Steve and Bucky to cookies and dancing
@deehellcat - Morgan's eighth birthday party featured a mermaid theme, cookies with sparkly decorations, and dancing.
@psychiccatpanda - Bucky Barnes never dreamed he'd ever be put in charge of kids. Who'd want the Winter Soldier for a babysitter? But this little girl - Tony Stark's little girl - stared up at him, waiting for a reply.
He was pretty sure the last time he'd been this nervous was when he came back to the States after Wakanda. "Yeah, we can do that. Sounds like fun."
Which was how he found himself not-quite elbows deep in blue-green frosting for the ocean reef cookies they had baked (that he had baked) while Morgan spun around the kitchen dancing in her mermaid costume.
@lbibliophile-mcu - Tony looks at the tray of raw cookies in dismay. Whoever had designed the mermaid cookie cutter clearly had no concept of the baking skill of the average parent.
He had managed to press out all the pictures without causing more damage than the occasional lost arm or misshapen head (and a couple of 'defective' cookies are always required for taste-testing straight out of the oven). But the process of transferring the cookies from the bench to the tray had caused the raw dough to stretch and fold and tear; leaving figures better described as some sort of vaguely-humanoid aquatic eldritch horror...
Impatient, Morgan clambers onto her stool and gasps in delight. "Look, Daddy! The mermaids are dancing!"
@darthbloodorange - (Thundershield) - Thor set out on his boat to the middle of the lake. A smile on his face and a song on his lips. People feared the lake and the creatures that dwelled within. He didn't see why. Peering over the edge of the boat, he watched the mermaids dance. His eyes drawn to one in particular; the blond with the silvery-blue tail. He unwraps the cookies and sets them on the edge of his boat, hoping to draw the merman close again.
picnic, dragon, promises - suggested by @psychiccatpanda
@deehellcat - Steve and Bucky slip away from the village every chance they get to spend time together. Their favorite place to picnic is perilously close to a rumored dragon's lair, but they dare it for its beauty. imagine their surprise when one night as they stargaze and promise forever to each other, a dark shadow flies overhead then lands nearby. It's the legendary dragon, who greets them and offers to witness their solemn vows. (spoiler alert, the dragon is Tony, and I'm not sure what his relationship to them would end up being.)
@psychiccatpanda - Tony hated picnics. He'd been on so many for photo shoots with his mom and Howard, then for Stark Industries, and the occasional summer charity event. Picnics sucked. There was either too much sun or not enough, not to mention bugs, screaming kids, or other couples making out.
"You promised, Tony," the love of his life reminded him. "And I got you a surprise." The surprise was a kite in the shape of a dragon. Suddenly, the day was looking better.
@somesortofitalianroast - Steve was walking to a picnic on the beach when he found a baby dragon, abandoned on the side of the road. He picked it up, intending to take it to the local fantasy animal shelter, but as soon as he touched it, he knew he would never be able to let it go. Which is why he was standing on the dunes, murmuring promises to the dragon in his arms.
@rebelmeg - pepper sighed. "tony, you promised you were gonna stop doing that." pointedly looking away from her, the red and gold dragon roughly the size of a large dog pointedly opened his mouth, and stuffed the donut hooked on his claw inside. puffs of smoke emitted from his nostrils and he chuckled in a rough, growly way when a sandwich in a baggie smacked him in the back of the head.
"we're never going on a picnic when you're shifted again, this is ridiculous."
@darthbloodorange - (Stucky, Fantasy AU) - Steve walks up to the den of the dragon; his once best friend and lover. Baskets of meat in hand, and his heart weighted heavily in his chest. He'd kept his promise for over 70 years, and he wasn't about to break it now. "Bucky, it's me. I know you remember me. You're in there somewhere, I feel it," he says in his elvish tongue. Within the den comes a mighty roar, seeming to shake the very core of the mountain. But Steve is not dissuaded.
bread, defenestration, jingle - suggested by @rebelmeg
@rebelmeg - standing at the window and very calmly eating her sandwich, natasha watched as clint climbed out of the bushes underneath and went streaking for the street, where an ice cream truck was driving past. the second he'd heard the jingly song, the idiot had flung his own sandwich in the air and literally dove out the window. wondering if he'd realize he didn't have any money on him, nat smirked.
@psychiccatpanda - (WinterIronHawk implied) To be fair, Clint had not thought about 'costume integrity' or the fact that the Christmas elf pajamas did not count for much in the way of bodily protection. On the other hand, though, he'd just been planning on eating as much of the freshly baked panettone bread as Bucky let him get away with while they waited for Tony to get home. Getting thrown through the window of Tony's Malibu house by some Hydra experiment had not been on his radar at all. (Not Bucky - to be completely clear, he was cute and Clint didn't think mean things about people who baked him a nigh-endless quantity of sweets.) At least he managed to keep the hat with its little bell that jingled cheerfully as Clint sailed through the air.
@darthbloodorange - Stony (probably a 5+1 fic) - Tony frowns as the familiar jingle of his phone drew him away from kneading his sourdough. He groans when he sees who it was that was calling. He nearly doesn't answer, but Barnes almost never calls, so curiosity gets the better of him. "Stark," the man greets, voice as gruff as ever. "What do you want?" he grumbles. "Arm's acting up again. Accidently threw your husband out a window. He's hanging on about the 26th floor? Thought you should know." "Damn it!" Tony cries, armour assembling around him quickly. He wishes this was the first time Barnes' arm had thrown an Avenger out the window... but it wasn't.
@lbibliophile-mcu - Tony likes bread as much as the next guy, but he is this close to swearing off the stuff entirely. He tenses as Clint moves behind him, his humming looping into yet another round of the jingle for the local bakery. He snaps. "Clint! If I hear another note I swear I will throw you out this window! And not send the suit after you." Clint grins, opens his mouth and... shuts it again. Silent.
Werewolves, Gardening, Hurt/Comfort - suggested by @darthbloodorange
@somesortofitalianroast - (preserum!steve/werewolf!bucky) When he moved into the house, Steve was looking forward to growing a garden, with a large vegetable patch, all the herbs, and some flowers for the colors. He wasn’t expecting to get overheated. He certainly wasn’t expecting the werewolf to bound out of the woods to take care of him. He’d think he imagined the entire thing, except the werewolf stuck around. Still taking care of him.
@tehroserose - Steve and Tony had retreated into the woods. Obadiah had taken over Tony's birthright, and Hydra had encroached on Steve's home of Brooklyn. They met there, and lived off their wits. Tony did most of the smithing for the various exiles, while Steve gardened vegetables that were rare and valuable. They were content, and while they wished they could save their homelands, there was no real hope of doing so. No hope until one night, when Steve was doing one last check of the garden before going to sleep, he found a big, bleeding wolf.
@rebelmeg - "right here, honey," pepper pointed to a spot in the dirt, and tony padded over, pawing at the spot a few times before starting to dig. "yep, that's enough." she stopped him when the hole was deep enough, then held out a hand for the flower morgan had cupped in her hands, cradling the ball of roots and dirt with care. "see, now it's perfect! you wanna take a ride on daddy now, morgan? i think he's getting bored with gardening."
"yeah!" morgan jumped up with a shout, and scrambled up onto the werewolf's back with no problems. "go, daddy, go!" with a woof, tony took off at a run, morgan holding tight to his fur as she giggled, and pepper smiled as she watched them. tony hated going through a transformation during the full moon, the pain of it pretty extreme, but they'd found a lot of ways to make up for it.
@psychiccatpanda - Tony had avoided Barnes since Steve had brought him to the compound. The werewolf had done the same. Howard hadn't had anything good to say about weres in general, but everyone knew wolves were the worst. It was part of the reason that part of the Avengers had been politely asked to leave Wakanda. Opening the door to his patio, Tony caught the shine of eyes and Barnes scrambled back from what he'd been doing. Tony scanned the patio and only saw a trowel, some loose dirt, and a flat of plants - wolfsbane. "Doesn't that stuff give you blisters or something?" Tony asked, knowing that it was probably true. "How about you come in and wash your hands and tell me what you're up to."
@darthbloodorange - (Ults Stony) - After Steve is infected with Lycanthropy, Tony took him to one of his parents' houses out in the country. Everyone expected Steve would get over it, given time, as he did with the vampirism. But the lycanthropy sticks, appearing to have fused with the serum. While SHIELD's scientists look into a cure, Tony stays with Steve. Growing bored of the overly-manicured, emptiness that was the green fields surrounding the country house, Steve takes up gardening as his current mission. Tony watches, completely enthralled, as Steve slowly transforms the area around the house.
letter, basket, book - suggested by @rebelmeg
@jamesbuckystark - Someone left a basket on Tony's doorstep containing a book, a map, and a magnifying glass. Inside the book was a letter dated 1942. He's curious to find out what this means
@tehroserose - Morgan put down the letter. It was the last one. Her father had written her one for every birthday and potential special occasion. This one was for when she became a mother. She couldn't have them hidden away, they were on a basket on her dresser in her room, but that didn't make them any less bittersweet. He left her behind. To save the world, but he had left her.
She went to sit in the rocking chair next to her child's crib and began to read the children's story her mother had allowed all those years ago. "Iron Man and the End of Thanos". Any children she had would know their grandfather.
@somesortofitalianroast - When Bucky decided to become a librarian, he thought it would give him access to all the books all the time, in exchange for maybe some shelving. He didn’t realize how much work went into collections development and management, nor how much time was spent looking books up for patrons on their own system when asked if the library had a particular book. Boring and frustrating. He just had to stick it out until he paid off the worst of his student loans. Until the day the letter arrived on his desk, sitting next to a gift basket from a local fancy food store. A letter letting him know that the gift basket was from his secret admirer.
@jacarandabanyan - After waking from the ice, Steve took to reading voraciously to catch up on what he'd missed. Despite Tony's offers, he never did come around to a screen reader, though, and instead opted to keep a pile of books on his bedside table. When the pile of books got too big, he had a whicker basket to put the overflow in.
Tony feels like the two of them can't have a conversation outside the heat of battle without devolving into arguments and personal attacks, so he takes to slipping notes into Steve's books. Over time, the notes get longer and longer, until it would be more proper to call them letters than notes.
@rebelmeg - tiny!tony is digging through a basket of new books the jarvises got him, a mix of kids books and textbooks and novels. as he digs, one of the books falls open, and out falls an envelope. the letter inside seems to be written in code... but he's also pretty sure that's his mama's handwriting. a grin spreading across his face, he sits down next to the basket and starts working out the code.
@darthbloodorange - (Stucky? Witch/Fantasy AU?) - Steve sits in his chair by the window and opens his favourite book. With careful hands, he pulls out the letter from his mother, which he'd been using as a bookmark, and carries on where he'd left off. Library, his familiar, jumps from her basket into his lap and curls up, butting her head against his hands. Despite the warmth and happiness he felt here, it wasn't complete. A part will always be missing until Bucky returns.
@psychiccatpanda - Whoever had suggested they stay at this rickety, 'quaint' seaside hotel had apparently never seen any island murder movies ever, Tony thought with disgust. The wood floors creaked and the building made weird noises at night. Combined with the crashing waves, it was not what Tony called relaxing. Somebody knocked and Tony assumed it was the room service snack he'd ordered. Instead, he found a basket with a book tucked inside. Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.
"That's not ominous," Tony muttered to himself, flipping through the pages. Then he saw the letter tucked inside.
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Deep Into That Darkness Peering
Chapter 1 (of 4): The Siren
[Piers x Reader, SFW]
Warnings: Alcohol Mention, Caves, Monsters, Existential Horror, Near-Death Experiences
What do you do when you discover that your best friend is an eldritch monstrosity that has inspired countless myths and ancient folklore, who could easily tear you limb from limb or consume your entire existence whole? You double down, obviously.
(An AU where everything is the same except Piers is the monster mash and you’re down to graveyard smash.)
[Told ya I was gonna do it. Don’t worry, we’ll soon get back to your regularly-scheduled requests and smuttery, I just had to get this ball rolling and out of my system.]
The first time you saw him, it was an accident.
You were tired. Your days seemed to become busier and busier, and recently, you slept very little, finding that with every waking morning, the bags under your eyes grew deeper and more pronounced. Your nerves were fraying, and your patience was wearing thin. Finally, at the precipice of burning out, something inside of you snapped. You decided to take a holiday, retreating to the seaside town of Spikemuth, where you would hopefully find solace among the neon-laden streets. Most people would raise their eyebrows at the prospect of spending a holiday in Spikemuth. After all, the town was somewhat run-down, notoriously underfunded and forgotten by the region’s more affluent citizens. However, beneath the massive structure overhanging the forgotten hamlet, was a treasure trove of beauty and inspiration, not only in its many historical structures, dilapidated as they were, but in the people that lived there. Spikemuth was a town that thrived on artistry, home to an impressive number of painters, sculptors, photographers, and, of course, musicians. This was the aspect of the coastal town that drew you under its spell. You fully planned to spend the majority of your time looking at art, attending concerts, drinking heavily, and crashing on your best friend’s couch. And luckily, said best friend was none other than Piers, the town’s local celebrity, and resident expert in all things Spikemuth.
One night, a few hours after passing out on Piers’ couch for the umpteenth time, you found yourself wide awake and painfully sober. After tossing and turning for another hour or two, you decided to give up on a full night’s sleep altogether, begrudgingly dragging yourself out from under your pile of blankets and retreating to the bathroom, where you proceeded to slide on a pair of well-worn sweatpants, and a hoodie with Piers’ band’s logo on the back (an outdated one, which the singer insisted on replacing for you at some point), topping it all off with a messy bun. Tip-toeing to the front door, you put on your sneakers, grabbed your phone and keys, and exited the flat, pulling on your hood when you realized just how cold it had gotten—and it would only get colder, where you were going. Walking along the main street, you breathed in the crisp seaside air, adjusting your eyes to the pulsating neon and trudging your way past a few bars and clubs where the town’s nightlife was still raging strong. You smiled as you noticed a few Sableye skitter around a corner into a nearby alley, clearly looking to cause some mischief to any overly-drunk party goers.
The town’s energy waned as you approached the east exit, the one leading to the sheer, black cliffs that descended to the rocky shoreline far below. You loved exploring them, especially at night, despite the potential dangers that lurked there. Luckily, you arrived when the tide was low, so there was no immediate risk of being swept out to sea or thrashed against the jagged rocks. You carefully made your way down one of the many damp, creaky wooden staircases to the main beach, the misty wind nipping at your skin, cold enough to bite, but not enough to cause a shiver. It invigorated your senses as you leaped down the remaining steps and onto the shore, almost stumbling in the process. The beaches of Spikemuth were not exactly the type you would want to picnic on—on top of being rather cold and windy, the floor was comprised entirely of uneven pebbles. However, it was still beautiful, in its own way, and in the past, you had spent countless hours watching the waves, collecting sea glass, and occasionally exploring the array of mysterious caves and tunnels that bore deep into the cliffside. They were only visible at low tide, and never failed to capture your imagination, particularly Mourner’s Cave, which was by far the largest of the bunch—you had yet to find its end, if it had one, in your own amateur spelunking. As with all the darkest, deepest, most unknown parts of nature, there were many folktales surrounding Mourner’s Cave. For centuries, locals regaled tourists with the harrowing tale of a siren, who would lure victims into the depths of the seaside cavern during low tide, in order to feast upon them. Of course, it was likely just a story parents would tell their children in order to keep them from straying too far beneath the cliffs, potentially getting lost, trapped, or worse.
Standing at the very edge of the water, just inches from where the waves ebbed and flowed across the craggy shore, you stuffed your hands into your pockets, relaxing your gaze, allowing yourself to fully space out. The sky was mostly clear from where you stood, a large, full moon illuminating the icy waters, its luster reflecting off the thousand tiny, shimmering pebbles beneath your feet. In the distance, you could see a heavy fog rolling in, and there were no boats, as far as you could tell, so the horizon line was completely obscured by an inky, infinite haze. You stared, allowing your mind to wander, breathing in the briny scent and relishing in the isolation, when you heard something. It was faint—so faint that you barely noticed it above the crashing waves and the wind whistling through the jagged grottoes. At first, it sounded like a low humming, which you assumed was just your loss of hearing from the eardrum-shattering concerts you’d been attending. As you wandered further down the beach, in the direction of Mourner’s Cave, the humming grew louder, and you reached up to plug your left ear, then your right, seeing if you could isolate the damage. It wasn’t until after bending over, turning either ear towards the ground, and shaking your head up and down like you were trying to empty a piggybank, that you realized it was neither hearing damage nor vertigo.
Your curiosity getting the best of you, you decided to follow the sound, fully expecting to come across some sort of wild Pokemon, or even nothing at all. The beach’s rocky structures had a tendency to “wail” in turbulent weather, creating an eerie, otherworldly effect and spooking hapless beachgoers who were unfamiliar with the area’s geology. Continuing your trek, you were led away from the tumbling waters and towards the sheer, ashen cliffside containing the entrance to Mourner’s Cave. As you drew closer, so did the sound, and you realized that it wasn’t humming at all, but singing—a strange, mournful, sort of singing, that made you stop in your tracks. It was unlike anything you had ever heard before—a swirling, ethereal sound with no discernible melody. It seemed human, uncannily so, but there was a sort of… wrongness about it, like it was almost synthetic—and there was a warbling to it, as if it was not one, but multiple voices, all stacked on top of each other, but clearly belonging to the same owner. You inched closer to the mouth of the cave, wanting to turn back, wanting to sprint back across the beach, up the wooden stairs, back to town, but your shoulders tensed, your stomach knotting in worry. What if this person, or Pokemon, or whatever it was, needed help? It almost sounded pained, or at the very least downright miserable, and something else—something that bothered you more—a sense of… familiarity. A unnerving, nostalgic sort of feeling that forced you to carry on, despite yourself.
Just as you decided to retreat, to call it a night, to run and hide under the covers and try to forget this ever happened, you passed through the mouth of Mourner’s Cave. Something in the air shifted, as if you broke an invisible barrier, and suddenly, there were no waves. There was no wind. Not even the sound of your footsteps, once shifting and trembling through the gravel, now plodding across solid, damp stone. There was only the singing. It filled your head, to the top your skull, pouring out of your ears—overshadowing any thoughts of fear, worry, or self-preservation, stripping you of any desire to leave, of returning to the world you once knew. Your eyes glazed over, shoulders relaxed, arms hanging at your sides as your legs moved of their own volition, though sluggish, as if moving against the tide. You no longer felt the cold, salty air against your flesh, instead feeling something heavy, oppressive, suffocating, weighing down on your shoulders. The air around you crackled with an unseen energy, prickling at your skin, making each hair on the back of your neck stand on end. The darkness ahead smelled like dry ice and ozone, but you didn’t care. You never cared. You could not remember caring about anything but the singing, of finding it, claiming it, lying in it, succumbing to it.
The moonlight had long since abandoned you, as you journeyed further and further into the depths, where it could not follow. The encroaching darkness only served to heighten the sound as it bounced around the cavern walls, infinitely echoing in a beautiful, dreadful cacophony. A streak of warmth slid down your cheeks, though your eyes were unblinking, as you mindlessly accepted the fact that you were going to die. You did not feel afraid, so much as indifferent, and somewhat peaceful, like the darkness was an old friend, and you were always meant to become a part of it.
The singing stopped.
Blinking rapidly, your eyes stinging, you reached up to rub them, surprised to find that that they, along with your cheeks, were wet. Were you crying? Wait, where were you, anyway? You whipped your head around, squinting against the darkness. Why was is so dark, all of a sudden? You turned on your heels far too quickly, panic welling up in your chest as you slipped on something. You yelped, falling forward, managing to catch yourself before splitting your face open on the clammy stone floor. Wait, stone? Were you in a cave? Ignoring the fresh scrapes on your palms, you fumbled with your pockets before finally retrieving your phone, turning on its flashlight. You blinked against the harsh, cold light now illuminating the yawning chamber, seeing that, in your panic, you managed to slip on a slimy, stubborn patch of algae. Standing up on shaky knees, you tried to ignore the trembling in your hands and the thumping in your chest once you realized you had no clue which way you came in. If you weren’t careful, you would end up wandering deeper into the cliffs, and wouldn’t be able to escape before the tide rolled in. You tried not to think about what would happen then, deciding to stick to the path opposite of where you were facing when you snapped out of your stupor. As you walked, you got an idea, and looked down to your phone, unlocking it and turning on the camera to record some footage. You figured that if you didn’t manage to make it out in time, you could at least leave behind some evidence of your final moments, as morbid as that was. That, and, as you walked, you thought about the stories you’d heard of people losing time, of being in one place and suddenly waking up in another, often citing alien abduction as the cause. Maybe if you were recording your predicament, there would be a chance that someone could find out what really happened here, in the deepest, darkest depths of Mourner’s Cave. Maybe they would make a late night TV special about you. The thought made you laugh, though it was more of a sad, frantic giggle, and you were thankful nobody was around to hear it—or so you thought.
Something shifted behind you, above you, dragging along the cave ceiling and knocking loose a few rogue stones, which tumbled down the rounded walls and skidded across the floor before bouncing off the back of your shoes. You spun around, bringing your flashlight with you, fully expecting to come face-to-face with a ravenous, wild Pokemon—inwardly cursing yourself for forgetting to bring any of your own. Instead, you were met with… darkness, but not the darkness you had come to expect from within a cave in the dead of night. No, that darkness was malleable, it had depth, it could be permeated. This darkness looked… solid... quite literally the definition of pitch black, like someone had cut out a section of deep space and draped it across the cavern wall like some impossible curtain. Frankly, you had no idea what you were looking at, and a confused, fearful noise bubbled up in your chest and slipped past your lips.
Suddenly, the darkness jolted towards you, surrounding you completely and snuffing out your only source of light. You yelled, dropping your phone and throwing out your arms in a feeble attempt to defend yourself. Your body made contact with nothing, however, as the air grew thick around you, caking the inside of your lungs. The oppressive static returned, jogging your memory and overwhelming every one of your senses, your nerves screaming as your fingers and toes twitched. You felt yourself seizing, a deep weight in your chest forcing you backwards, and after stumbling, swearing, and babbling incoherently, you tripped over yourself, your tailbone slamming hard against the stone floor. Before you could register the pain, you suddenly realized that you could now see your legs stretched out in front of you, as well as the rest of your body. Though faint, there was undoubtably some sort of light coming somewhere from above, and after looking up, you realized you much preferred the darkness.
Hanging above you were eyes—so many eyes—staring accusingly down at your pitiful form, each of them glowing an electric magenta that made your retinas burn and your forehead pound. Next, you noticed the teeth—an obscene amount of teeth—razor sharp and emitting the same unnatural hue, stark against the pitch backdrop. Behind the sickening aura, you saw the faint outline of something sharp and skeletal, forcing you to look away, and thanks to your new, terrifying light source, you could now discern that the solid darkness enveloping your senses was, in fact, hundreds of black, amorphous tendrils, covering every inch of the cave, floor to ceiling, effectively trapping you. You had no chance of escape, entirely helpless, completely at the mercy of whatever creature made up this hellish cage. You were going to die.
You wanted to scream, but felt as if your lungs were being squeezed inside your ribcage, so all you could do was sob—a pathetic, choked noise escaping your throat. You fell, your consciousness descending deep into an abyss from which you never expected to awake.
---
[Eldritch Piers' look in this story is HEAVILY inspired by @lulzyrobot's version of him, so go give them some love!]
#piers#piers x reader#piers pokemon x reader#piers pokemon#swsh#pkmn#pokemon#pokemon piers x reader#pokemon swsh
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rundown of my version of niffty:
eats dead bodies if they’re left for too long
if her cleaning supplies fail her, she might eat whatever waste it is
has licked dust she couldn’t get into the dustpan off her fingers
is not allowed out during the exterminations or a small period of time after bc she WILL eat every body she comes across and she’ll make herself sick (you do not want to see her sick)
sometimes when she opens her mouth, it’s just dozens of teeth and a black void
an absolutely adorable ball of eldritch horror
when she curls up into a ball, she’s the size of a basketball/small beach ball
skitter. skitter skitter skitter. will climb up your back, up your arms or clothes to get to eye level and climb immediately back up if thrown to the ground if something interested her around your head/shoulders
edit: goes hunting with alastor and usually eats what he doesn’t/the bones
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i’ll fight for you
rating: G word count: 3074 one shot
AO3
The Mighty Nein are fighting a dragon for Reasons Fjord dies, because he's a selfless himbo Jester saves him because of course she does Hand holding, beaches, and kisses
Shit.
Shit, fucking, shit-balls.
Fjord would ponder later that his internal voice still had a bit of twang to it, but for now he was focused on the pretty blue body which was currently not moving some thirty feet on the other side of the cave.
Caduceus was too far away, but Fjord knew he could do some good now; the only down side was the dragon between himself and Jester, but fuck that.
He pushed away from the stone and ran as fast as he could across the stone floor, and when the dragon swiped at him he tried to duck out of the way but the thing was so massive it’s giant claw easily scraped down the side of his arm.
Fjord could feel the warmth of the blood dripping down his arm, leaving a trail of red drops in his wake. He could feel how weak he was now, but he’d deal with it later. Jester was the priority.
Dropping to the ground beside her Fjord put his hand on her sternum, and thanked the Wildmother Jester was still breathing.
Not dead, not yet.
“Let me help her,” Fjord began pleading-praying, he corrected himself. It wasn’t pleading when you knew someone was listening, when you knew someone cared. “Please, let me help her.”
He focused on the injuries he could see and the beat of her heart beneath his palm, the rise and fall of her chest with each breath. “Open your eyes, Jessie. Let me see your eyes.”
Beneath his hand the rich green magic accumulated and spread across her chest and Fjord thought about how little power he still had, but it would be enough to keep her alive and when it came to Jester, he’d always give his all.
The magic faded and Jester inhaled sharply, her eyes opening.
“There you are,” he smiled when his gaze met hers. “Sleeping on the job, Jester?”
“It seemed like a good time to take a nap,” she teased back, her hand reaching up to touch his which was still pressed against her body. She sat up and looked over at the dragon who was staring at the space where a crossbow bolt had come from. Fjord knew Veth was somewhere in the shadows, but even he couldn’t see where she was.
“Shit, my spiritual weapon is gone,” Jester grumbled as she sat up. Her hand still holding his. “Are you okay?”
“I’m right as rain,” he lied, keeping his left hand out of her line sight. “You better heal yourself.”
She nodded and with a shaky hand reached down to clutch the symbol hanging from her skirt and the bright purple magic swirled around her and he watched the paleness of her skin darken as the color returned. “Okay, I’m better now.”
Fjord nodded as a blast of energy shot from Caleb’s hands a second before Caduceus sent a wave of healing through the group. A wisp of sound came from his right and from the dark a flash of something silver in the air before the dragon snarled. In the darkness came Veth’s voice, “Take that motherfucker!”
The dragon took a swipe at the darkness and there was a small screeching noise, but half a second later Beau appeared, and climbed up the dragon, using her staff to bash the creature on the side of the head. It never ceased to amaze Fjord how a single person could do so much damage. Near the dragon's foot Yasha was raging with her terrifying sword.
Feeling a little better, Fjord stood up and twirled his wrist to send his sword singing. “Ready to get back in it?” he asked Jester, but didn’t wait for an answer as he ran up to the beast and sliced through dragon scale and muscle.
The howl of pain and anger terrified the shit out of him, but he stood his ground as Jester’s lollipop appeared above them and then smacked the dragon hard on the head with it.
The rest of the Mighty Nein took their swings in turn until there was a quiet rumbling.
Fjord looked down automatically, expecting to see the pebbles below him rattling on the stone floor but they were perfectly still. It was then Fjord realized the sound was coming from above him and watched as the dragon took a few steps back and opened it’s wide mouth from which a blast of something acidic forced it’s way from throat to cavern and Fjord tried to dive out of the wave but he still wasn’t used to the way his body had changed.
He stumbled and felt the full force of the acid hit him, the feeling unlike anything he’d ever experience before as every inch of his body burned with a sizzling sound.
Fjord groaned and automatically dropped his sword, the weapon disappearing the instant it left his fingers, as everything he had left him. His knees hit the ground and the heel of his palms scraped along the rough stone and the pain kicked in that little thing he had from whomever had born him.
From one second to the next everything went from dark silence, to raging noise and light. He was unsteady as he came back to the land living, but he managed to throw out a couple shots of eldritch blast while he was still on his knees and could see Jester out of the corner of his eyes, her hand stretched out in his direction.
There was a purple haze over everything for the briefest of moments; a gift from Jester at fifty feet away.
He stood up, it wasn’t much she’d given him but it was enough to keep him going for now.
Fjord tried to keep track of what was happening but he was barely able to stand up; he saw flashes of magic and the roar of a dragon.
This time when the acid hit him, he didn’t feel it.
Everything just immediately went black.
Jester screamed when Fjord hit the ground.
Beau swiped at the dragon as she ran towards the cleric, and in response the black wings beat in the small space throwing both Beau and Fjord’s bodies across the cavern. Jester helped Beau stand up but she was already pulling away and grabbing Jester’s shoulders tight enough it hurt. “You have to get him out of here.”
Jester blinked at her friend, then looked to Fjord’s body. “I have to heal him.”
“You have to get him out of her,” Beau repeated. “No matter what you do, the dragon can take him out again. You have to get him out of this cavern.”
Jester nodded, knowing Beau was right, and ran towards Fjord. “I’m going to take care of you,” she promised, hearing how shaky her own voice was. “Let’s get out of here.”
She wrapped her hand around his and whispered to the Traveler, the doorway opening up beneath them, and together they fell through and landed on the soft moss of the swamp outside the cave where the rest of their friends still fought.
“Fjord?” she asked after she cast another heling spell. “Fjord?”
But he didn’t wake up.
“No,” she said, the tears streaking down her face before she finished the word. “No. No, no, no, no.” She checked his pulse and couldn’t feel anything, and it was then she realized his chest had stopped moving. “Fjord!”
Jester fumbled through her bag to pull out the diamonds and placed them on his chest. What would have happened if they didn’t have the gems? A whole life, bereft of Fjord, flashed through Jester’s eyes and she could feel her heart squeezing desperately in her chest.
“Traveler?” she whimpered. “Wildmother?”
She needed to finish the spell, knew she had to do more than just place the diamonds and whisper a few words.
Jester had to pull him back from wherever he was.
The fear that he was with Uk’otoa, that she wouldn’t be able to get him back from the fuckface terrified her, but she’d fight for Fjord.
There was warmth around her, something more than the humidity of the swamp, and then the Traveler was sitting across her on the other side of Fjord’s body. His mouth a grim line from under the cloak.
“You know what to do,” the Traveler told her.
Jester nodded and brushed back the hair along Fjord’s temple. He needed a haircut, she realized, the thought a soft thing in the chaos of her head. “You have to come back Fjord,” she told him, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I don’t know how to do this without you. I don’t want to know how to do this without you.”
Following instinct, she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead, to his cheek. “You’re mine, Fjord Tustktooth, and you’re not getting away from me that easily.”
There was a heavy silence, between the beats of her heart, but it was enough for Jester to panic.
Then Fjord’s hand tightened on hers a second before he inhaled sharply.
With a shriek laid her body on top of his in an attempt to hug him and Fjord’s hand awkwardly patted her back. “You okay?” he pulled back, shifting in her embrace so he was sitting up but her arms still wrapped around his shoulders. “Hey, are you crying?”
“You died, Fjord!” she yelled, punching his arm.
“Ow, shit. That explains why everything hurts.”
She laughed, the sound a little hysterical to her own ears. “I asked if you were okay, and you lied to me. I should have healed you sooner.”
Fjord shook his head. “No, Jessie, you needed to heal yourself. If you’d gone down, I couldn’t have brought you back-dead? You’re sure I was dead?”
Jester settled next to him, her hip touching his, as she studied his face. “I’m really, really sure Fjord.”
He seemed to study her face, his hand reaching up to brush away the drying tears on her cheek. “Sorry, didn’t mean to do that.”
She nodded and didn’t resist the urge to lean into his touch. With eyes closed she soaked up the feeling, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do that again.”
“I’ll try,” he rested his hand on her shoulder, his fingers brushing against the strands of her hair. “Thanks for saving me. You’re my hero.”
“That’s what we do,” she reminded him cheerfully, trying to push away all the fear and terror she could still feel creeping around the edges of her heart. “We save each other.”
“DID YOU SAVE FJORD BECAUSE WE’RE RUNNING FROM THIS DRAGON BECAUSE THE CAVE’S GOING TO COLLAPE DON’T ASK WHY. YOUCANRESPONDTOTHISMESSAGE.”
Jester furrowed her brow as she answered Veth, “Yes, I saved Fjord. Are you coming to us?”
“WHERE ELSE WOULD BE GOING? YOUCANRESPONDTOTHISMESSAGE.”
“Veth?” Fjord asked as he stood up, taking Jester’s hand and pulling her along with him.
“Yeah,” she kept her hand tight in his, not quite ready to let go and needing the reminder he was alive and with her. He squeezed her hand once as if he understood. “The cave’s collapsing apparently. She didn’t say why, but I think it’s going to be a quick escape.”
“Anything we can do to help?”
“I don’t think so.”
Their five other friends came running out of the cave, Caduceus carrying Veth in his arms while she screamed. “We’re safe now,” Caduceus was saying and he patted Veth on the head. “You can stop yelling.”
“This is my regular voice!” she shouted even as the big man set her down. “Why do we keeping running into dark places with dragons, this was a terrible idea.”
“We’ll keep doing it as long as they have stuff we need,” Beau answered, looking relieved when her eyes landed on Fjord. “Oh, thank the gods. You’re okay.”
“Thanks to Jester.”
“And Beau,” Jester piped up. “It was her idea to get you out the room.”
“Thanks, first mate.”
Beau’s smile was small but full of everything. “Anytime, Captain.”
“We’re getting out of here,” Caleb announced. “But I’d like to get away from the mouth of this cavern as it will take me a minute to draw the circle.”
“Down the hill,” Fjord decided and everyone started following the small trail down away from the cave entrance.
Jester realize a couple seconds later she and Fjord were still holding hands, but she wasn’t about to be first one to let go. She snuck a glance over at him and he looked pale, his feet almost dragging along the dirt. “Are you okay, Fjord?”
She saw the moment he thought about lying, but he shook his head instead. “I might go unconscious again if a bird looks at me wrong.”
Jester laughed and took Sprinkle off her shoulders and put him on Fjord’s. “There, Sprinkle will you protect you from birds, and I’ll protect you from everything else.”
Fjord laughed and tugged on their joined hands, and together they walked down the mountain together.
The group made it down the mountain safely so Caleb could send them back to Nicodranas where they would be able to figure out exactly what the object they’d just risked their lives for actually did.
While Caleb hid in his room with the item, Beau went to meet up with someone from the Cobalt and Veth spent some much needed time with her family. Caduceus said something about tea and no one asked any follow-up questions, but Yasha did go with him.
Fjord found Jester in her room, looking at it was always such a weird experience for him. What must it be like to always have a place you could go back to? This was the room Jester had grown up in, and even as an adult who could save the world, she still had a place in her mother’s house. “Hey, Jester. You busy?”
She looked up from an orange she had place on her desk. “Nope, Mama’s working so I was just practicing my tattooing. What’s up?”
He shifted on his feet, tried to be more confident than he actually was. “I was going to go for a walk, would you like to join me?”
“Oh!” She looked a little flustered but smiled and put down her things. “I’d love to.”
Together they walked out of the house and were silent for a few minutes as Fjord tried to figure out the words he wanted to use and how to say them.
“Are you okay?” she asked, and he almost smile at the burst of sound coming from her. He wondered how long she’d been trying to hold them in before they’d broken through her sealed lips.
“Of course I am, why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re being very quiet,” she answered as she looked at him. “Not that you talk a lot, but it’s a very intentional silence.”
“Do you mind if we wait till we get to the beach?” he asked and she nodded.
When they got to the sand they both sat down and began pulling off their boots. “Shit, I always think I make up how good the sand feels, but every time…”
“It is pretty great,” she agreed, shoving her boots into her bag and then taking his and doing the same. “Is it the dying thing? Is that why you wanted to talk?”
Leave it to Jester to skip over the easy stuff and go straight for the heart.
“No,” and figuring this was as good a place as any, he settled on the sand and picked up Jester’s hand. “It was the coming back to life part.”
She was quiet, but she shifted closer so her arm was pressed against his. It was weird how used he was to no physical contact, every time Jester touched him or grabbed onto him it was a shock to him while it seemed so casual and normal for her. And yet, he was constantly terrified she’d take it away.
“I saw her,” he finally said. “The Wildmother, I mean.”
“Oh!” her smile was bright and warm. “That’s wonderful! I was worried you were going to see him. Did you?”
“No.” He’d been afraid of that too, but thankfully the sea monster who owned a part of his soul had not been around, but Fjord had felt him. But he didn’t want to think about that and looked down at their intertwined fingers, a green and blue pattern that reminded him of mountains and rivers. “But I heard you.”
There was a rush of red beneath her cheeks, giving them a little bit of a purple hue. “Oh.”
“You should know, I’d never try to get away from you.”
“It was stupid-“
“Hey, it wasn’t stupid. We’ve both had a lot of people who walked away from us, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility. But you should know, the only reason I’d ever leave was if I didn’t have a choice.” He paused and seemed to add as after thought, “Which I did.”
Her eyes narrowed with confusion. “Did what?”
“I had a choice,” he answered carefully. “The Wildmother said I didn’t have to go back, if I wanted peace I could stay with her. It was fucking beautiful, Jester, and it was calm. So calm.”
Jester’s face remained carefully neutral, but she couldn’t control the look of hurt in her eyes. “You wanted to stay?”
“I thought about thinking about it,” he admitted. “Then I heard you, and nothing compared to hearing you say I was yours. Not even heaven.”
Her eyes were wide and her mouth was parted a little in surprise.
“I like the idea of being yours, Jester. And I wonder if maybe, on the off chance, you’d be okay with being mine.”
This time Jester’s smile was a little amused. “Didn’t you know, Fjord? I’ve been yours for a long time. I was just kind of waiting for you to realize.”
And he kissed her.
There on the beach where they both came from, with the sound of the water a familiar sound in their ears, the ocean breeze a caress on their skin.
“You’re not allowed to die anymore,” she told him, brushing her nose with his. “But if something happens, I’m not letting you go without a fight.”
“Right back at you, Jester.”
He kissed her again, and the place he’d always known suddenly became a kind of home.
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the things that make us
part one
An unspoken rule in Dead Sun was do not steal anything you can’t get away with stealing. Don’t get caught. Don’t get punished. Eilonwy had been told this enough times that it was always bound to back fire. As she sat behind crates, her eyes on Zelphyrin’s abode, the training played over in her mind.
“Always watch your target for a full week’s time, longer if you have the time,” Eilithe’s voice rang in the girl’s head, as she stalked the streets of Dead Sun, watching her mother. “In my pocket, there is a bell. Take it without my noticing and you will get a prize.” For months it had been the same. She’d sneak, on the balls of her feet up to just behind Eilithe before her mother would say, “Nope.” Or “Not even close.” Or “Don’t rush.”
Don’t rush. So she waited, for ten minutes after she saw Zelphryin leave out of his apartment. Thanks to the many break-ins by her brothers, father, and mother-- every window in Zelphryin’s apartment was static and wouldn’t have opened save for a rock through the glass. “Dahk,” she said to herself, before she knelt by the front door and went to picking. Her mother guided her, unwittingly:
“House locks are different, listen to the pins,” Eilithe said, letting Eilonwy pick at the never-used lock on An’Diel manor. “It is easier to start over than it is to pick hand-cuffs, so if you hear or think you hear something. Stop. Hide.”
There came no sound from the secluded alley behind her uncle’s apartment but the turn of the lock and the opening of the door. She had hoped to be home-free, yet immediately was met with the sound of a snoring Severin. Arcane shimmered over her body with a mental chain of ‘Fuckfuckfuckfuck’, before she realized her Uncle’s steward was sound asleep even with the door wide open now. She sucked into invisibility and looked about.
Literature, gold, treasures from around the world. There was a small fortune of things inside of Zelphryin’s apartment. She wanted none of it; but she had to make the scene right.
“No matter your target, you must cover your tracks,” her mother said, in the home office of the manor. “You might want this,” she held up a shining gold ring, “But you take everything from the drawer. And never steal anything you can’t carry out easily.”
Eilonwy took broaches, pendants, anything she could stuff into her pockets. But none of it was her prize. No, what she sought was a simple stone-- hidden inside of something as simple as a cigar box. A box not two feet from the sleeping Severin.
All An’Diels bore the scorpid brand, all of Kurel’s children and the Tanari himself bore the mark on their hip. And so the enchanted stone became the most valuable thing in all of Dead Sun. It was worth the risk. Even as Severin stirred for long enough to grunt, give Eilonwy a small panic attack, and turn over. She closed in on it.
A lift of the lid a sleight of hand and she was out of there.
She had exactly one hour before she was due on the beach to meet her father for one last fishing trip before he’d set sail. Eilonwy moved to a secluded watery cave which she and the other children had converted into a ‘secret’ club house which stored everything from toys, to a stolen skiff. It was hollow and quiet with only her and her stolen pieces.
A few times she pressed the stone to the skin of her hip, only for nothing to happen. And so, she took the stone over in her hand, turning it -- focusing. The sight was rarely something she could manifest on her own-- yet, something in the universe must have known she was desperate for her plan to work.
As she touched the stone, her eyes grew distant as though she saw what once was-- not what was in that moment. She saw her brother’s birth. Her uncle holding the baby not even minutes old. Her mother’s voice was weak. In the present, Eilonwy pressed the stone to her skin and repeated in an eldritch and vacant tone:
“Blood of my blood. Bone of my bone.”
Searing pain shot through the tender flesh as the stone flashed and marred her skin. Marked her as Kurel’s daughter. Marked her as an An’Diel. When it was finished she laid on the cold stone of the cave floor, breathing hard and wiping tears out of her eyes. There was nothing Zelphryin could do now.
“You’re late,” Kurel said, as she arrived. It was partially a joke, since Kurel’s sense of time was largely based on routine. Eilonwy smiled sheepishly, doing well to hide the aching on her hip. “Yeah, I was getting snacks though!”
With naught but fishing poles and a box of kabobs, Eilonwy hopped into the skiff with her father and sailed out into the bay.
In three days time, she would stand on the beach, watching her father’s Man of War disappear over the horizon-- knowing that he would always come home.
@kurel-andiel
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okay so
i know beej is a DEMON but i feel like he also has like. eldritch type capabilities so its like. he could swallow something Big but it won’t look like it unless he WANTS it to bc i mean
if ur eatin a buncha stupid ass breathers you cant have the ones you always swallowed getting in the WAY so realistically he could fit as MUCH as he wanted and only look like so far he’s swallowed maybe, like, a beach ball
though for the pleasure this probably makes him have one tightly packed and crammed belly, not that he MINDS of course
this boy has a masterful control over his body and his abilities and he’ll flaunt it to his benefit
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Um okay, here’s a prompt!!: the boys sneak out of work early to go around and do some stuff, romantic pining (:D) and maybe a confession or two is made.
Hi nonny! Sorry this took a lil while but I am in Dundee and I was very drunk last night soooo
(forgive me mistakes in geography, if any, i do not knowabout the states. Theme for this one is Barcelona, by Ed Sheeran (a tune and ahalf.))
It was summer in the City of Angels, and Shane was dreamingof the beach.
There were very few things he missed about Illinois, buteven in the air-conditioned office his shirt was sticking to his back, and hefound himself longing for the cooling blast of a chill wind. His co-workerswere lounging around in various states of lethargy - Steven had his faceplastered against a window, searching for any cold coming in from the outside,Jen had one of those mini fans close enough to her face to be concerning, andRyan was slumped back in his chair with his shirt rucked up around his midriff,appropriate work attire be damned. Any excuse to be shirtless.
But yeah, the beach. Shane was dreaming of the beach, andnot Ryan shirtless, yikes. The beach, and the sea, the lovely, cold sea…andice cream. Holy shit, Shane would genuinely have killed a manif it meant getting ice cream at that point.
Also, flipflops. Flipflops were optimal footwear. The slap,it was good. His head was starting to feel fuzzy-
“You okay, big guy?” Ryan lifted his head and squinted athim, forehead glistening in a way that very much appealed to Shane.
“What? Yeah, no, yeah, I’m just…dying…” Shane mumbled,unsticking his bare calves from the edge of his seat. He’d worn shorts, a rareoccurrence, but it wasn’t enough.
“Hey, do you wanna get out of here?” Ryan said, lowering hisvoice and leaning closer. “We could escape this hellhole.”
“You mean…ditch?” Shane said, tilting his head in confusion.
“Yeah, ditch. I’ll tell them you’re not well; you alreadylook like you’re suffering.”
“Could we get icecream?” Shane asked.
“We could do anything.” Ryan assured him, jumping to hisfeet and hauling Shane up with him. The feeling of Ryan’s hand around his wokehim up.
They managed to convince the higher-ups that Shane wassuffering heatstroke – he swayed pretty convincingly – and it was mild enoughthat he desperately needed Ryan to make sure he got home alright, but not sobad that he needed hospital. Then they were out onto the street, Ryan punchingthe air in victory and laughing uproariously, the burning sun highlighting thebronze undertones in his skin.
“We should go to the beach,” Shane said, feeling thatimplacable teenage feeling that this day was one that would stamp itself ontohis brain indelibly; a feeling of being too big for his skin, for this life.
“Hell yeah,” Ryan said. “Right, we can swing by mine and getsupplies. God, that means we’ll have to get in a car. That’s going to be hell.”
It wasn’t too bad, not with Ryan. Nothing ever was.
The beach was teeming with people. Shane felt a sinkingfeeling in his gut, before Ryan whooped and ran straight for the edge of thewater, ditching his bag somewhere along the way and kicking his shoes off.Shane stared, then ran after him, almost tripping over his long legs, followinghim into the water with a yell.
“Fucking - amazing!” Ryan cried, reaching down and splashinghis face with the salt water. Shane laughed, apprehension at the crowdforgotten. Ryan had never cared about having an audience, and it made Shane feelless…awkward.
“Heads up, big guy.” Ryan splashed him full in the face. Hespluttered, snapped out of his reverie, and lunged for him.
“You’re in for it, Bergara.” Ryan cackled and danced out ofreach, splashing Shane again. Shane splashed him back, feinting before divingafter him and tackling Ryan straight into the water.
“Oh my god you dick! I’m soaked!” Ryan yelled, his peals oflaughter belying the harshness of his words. Shane laughed too, before realisinghe was basically lying on top of him and scrambling to the side, lying on hisback next to Ryan in the shallows.
“I’m cold.” Shane muttered dreamily, feeling the water lapat the backs of his ears. “So cold.”
“Watch out,” Ryan said, sitting up, and a wave crashed overShane. “Oh, it’s Cthulu, come from the depths to ravage mankind.”
“Ravage?” Shane said, wiping salt water out of his eyes toreveal Ryan with his wet shirt plastered to his back. Jesus.
“I dunno, dude, you’re an eldritch horror. Just laugh.” And Shanelaughed, obediently.
They changed out of their wet clothes, Ryan stripping offhis wet shirt and lying back in just his trunks. Shane sighed. This was goingto be a trying day.
“I’m gonna need about a litre of sunscreen,” He muttered,slapping the stuff on his arms and down his legs.
“The curse of the white guy,” Ryan said, shoving hissunglasses on – aviators, because he really though he was that cool. “Here, letme get your back.”
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” Shane stuttered. If Ryan touched him,bare skin to bare skin, he would probably implode. “That’s cool I got it.”
“Are you no-homoing me, dude? Can’t a bro just want to stopa bro getting burnt?” Ryan grinned, just a hint of mocking and maybe somethingelse.
“Whatever,” Shane threw him the bottle, and Ryan slapped thestuff on his weird, long back unceremoniously. Shane managed not to whimper ordo anything else equally embarrassing at the feeling of Ryan’s hands againsthis bare skin. “Thanks.”
“Just bros being bros,” Ryan winked, and Shane’s brainshort-circuited. Was this flirting? Was this what flirting looked like?
Surely not. Ryan was just his…bro. Ugh, that word made himwant to vomit. Just bros being bros.
“You okay?” Ryan was staring at him. “You look like you’regonna be sick.”
“I’m good, I’m fine.” Shane muttered, and flopped down onhis towel, closing his eyes against the glare and examining the way his eyelidsturned all pink and veiny.
Fine, maybe his feelings for his best friend weren’tstrictly…friendly. It wasn’t that big a deal. He couldn’t tell him, so he justhad to keep the feelings inside until one of them died. No big deal.
The two dozed in the sun, Shane periodically getting up toreapply sunscreen. Eventually, as work days ended and schools let out, thebeach started to grow impossibly more packed. The sun dried them off, leaving acrust of salt in Shane’s hair and on his skin. Ryan rolled over to face him,sunglasses slipping down his face to reveal dark eyes.
“Didn’t you say something about ice cream?”
“Oh shit, yeah,” Shane said, struggling to his feet andthrowing his shirt back on. His skin felt rough and new, and he realised that hehadn’t quite been zealous enough with the sunscreen.
They walked along the boardwalk, icecreams in hand. Shanekept getting distracted by Ryan licking at his, and not noticing when his ownstarted to dribble down his wrist (pullyourself together, Madej.) They came to a little café piping salsa onto thestreet, and Ryan grabbed him by the elbow.
“Do you know how to dance?” He asked, forgetting the icecream.
“Ryan,” Shane gestured to his weird, long body, and flaileda little to emphasise the point.
“Come on, it’s easy,” Ryan scoffed, putting a hand on Shane’sshoulder and stepping back and forth, rolling his hips in a way that made Shane’smouth go dry.
“Isn’t that a little…stereotypical of you? Latino guyknowing how to dance?” Shane teased, and Ryan poked him in the shoulder.
“Fuck you, salsa is great fun. I used to do it with Helen.”
At the mention of Ryan’s ex, Shane realised how close theywere standing, and leapt back like he’d been burned.
“What’s your deal today, dude?” Ryan complained. “You’vebeen acting weird. Have you got heatstroke for real?”
“I’m fine,” Shane muttered. “Let’s head back to the beach.”
The sun was finally starting to dip in the sky, castingshadows across Shane’s face and picking out the flecks of brown in Ryan’s darkeyes. He was suddenly, inexplicably angry with himself for feeling this way,for not having the courage to just fucking tell him.
“Come on, dude, what’s wrong?” Ryan hurried after him,catching him by the wrist.
“It’s nothing,” Shane practically choked on the words, and Ryan’sbrow furrowed.
“Was it the dancing? I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,dude, I’ll keep my hands to myself-”
“No! No, don’t do that,” Shane said, too quickly, and thencursed himself. Ryan finally caught up, swinging around to block Shane’s pathon the edge of the sand.
“What the fuck, Shane?” He had to tilt his head backwards tolook him right in the eye, and it was too much for Shane.
“I’m like, stupidly into you,” He blurted, and then coveredhis face with his hands.
“Thank fuck,” He heard Ryan say, and when he dropped hishands to ask him what the hell Ryan reached up and kissed him, fingersthreading into salty hair. Shane groaned and kissed him back immediately, handsdropping to his waist and pulling him closer. He heard people muttering, a fewwolf-whistles, but he didn’t give a fuck.
Ryan’s hand slid out of his hair and down the back of hisneck, and Shane flinched away.
“What?” Ryan asked, breathlessly. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Shane mumbled, pressing his foreheadagainst Ryan’s. “I got burnt, I didn’t put enough sunscreen on.”
Ryan started to giggle, and Shane giggled too, the sundancing over where Ryan’s hands rested on his shoulders. Bronzed hands ruckedhis shirt up, hot against his stomach, and a white smile that warmed him morethan any ball of gas in the sky could. His back pressed into the sand as Ryanleaned over him, trailing kisses down his neck and grinning against hiscollarbone when he gasped.
It was summer in the City of Angels, and Shane was dreamingof the beach.
—-
Thanks for reading! Send me the fic you wish I would write, and maybe I’ll write it ;)
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My Review of “A Wrinkle in Time”
Okay, so I just got back from “A Wrinkle in Time,” and I want to talk about it while it and my most recent reread of the book are still fresh in my mind. I’ll list the pros and cons, and give my overall review at the end.
Spoilers ahead!
Pros:
-Meg and Calvin: Both of these characters were portrayed perfectly! Meg is an unsure, suspicious, awkward kid who hates herself and isn’t sure why she was chosen for this quest. Calvin is a kindhearted person who sees the beauty in Meg, and is a kid who is forced to hide behind his popularity and success from his abusive home life and the pressures he feels due to his position in school.
-Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which: These two were completely true to their book counterparts, with Mrs. Who quoting other people because she can’t verbalize thoughts on her own, and Mrs. Which being more of an immense entity, and rarely adhering completely to a human form. Mrs. Which was especially good. Kudos to Oprah!
-Alexander Murry: Chris Pine did a great job as Meg and Charles Wallace’s father. He has always been a great actor, and he was perfect as the loving, but goal-oriented father in this. His best moment was probably when Meg found Dr. Murry and he realized that he was on Camazotz for four years. Superb acting!
-The cinematography: Visually, this was a gorgeous film. The CG was used to its fullest potential, especially when they were on Uriel. The scenes taking place on Earth were also well-shot.
-That scene in the film when Meg asks if it’s possible to tesser back as someone else, and Mrs. Which tells her to think about all the choices, all the circumstances in the universe since the beginning of time that led to her being born exactly as she is. As someone who struggles with feelings of self-hatred, this was a very important and beautiful scene that I think everyone should see.
-The chemistry between (some of) the characters: I’ll get to why some of it didn’t work in a moment, but where the character chemistry worked, it worked! Meg and Calvin, Meg and her father, Meg and Mrs. Which, Calvin and Mrs. Who, Meg’s parents... Through most of the movie, I strongly believed in the bond between these characters and in what they were saying and doing while interacting. Most of the people in this movie acted out their parts very well.
Cons:
-Mrs. Whatsit: Two of the three ladies were flawless, but I’m sorry to say that my favorite of them, Mrs. Whatsit, was utterly ruined. In the book, she was the youngest of the three, but that manifested in a charming way, with her talking too much and getting over-excited about things. In the movie, she acts ditzy, snarky, and downright mean sometimes.
Also, she expresses her disbelief in Meg throughout the plot, when book Mrs. Whatsit was her strongest ally. She believed in her from the beginning, and they had the strongest bond out of all the bonds between the humans and the ladies.
-Charles Wallace: I can’t believe they ruined Charles Wallace so completely. I’m not sure why they decided to make him adopted in the movie, first of all. In the book, it’s stated that both he and Calvin are “biological sports,” meaning that they carry qualities that their families don’t possess, despite their blood relation to them.
Also, he was meant to be an introspective child who could read his mother and Meg. He never talked to anyone outside the family and the ladies. Calvin was the first other person he talked to. In the movie, he’s loud and obnoxious, and his abilities, along with his mental connection to Meg, aren’t properly explored.
He gave in too quickly to IT, as well. In the book, his pride is what causes him to get absorbed. He thinks that his mental abilities are strong enough for him to go into IT and figure out what IT was, so they can then defeat IT. Instead, he is overcome. In the movie, he just recites some multiplication tables, and is taken over in an instant.
-Sandy and Dennys: Or rather, the complete lack of them. The twins weren’t major characters in the first book, but they are important in their own way throughout the series, and even get their own book later on. I guess this means we won’t be getting a Many Waters adaptation any time soon...
-The removal of the star scene: Not only was Mrs. Whatsit’s character ruined, but her backstory was removed from the movie. In the book, while they are with the Happy Medium, the ladies show the children a star defeating a portion of the Darkness before going out. It is revealed that Mrs. Whatsit used to be a star, but she died in that form in order to keep the Darkness at bay. While she can manifest in other forms, she can never be a star again. That act of sacrifice adds a whole new level of tragedy to her character, while showing the children that the Darkness, while strong, can be defeated.
-The Happy Medium: I don’t know what they were thinking with this interpretation of the character. The Happy Medium is supposed to be a cheerful entity who uses a crystal ball to view the good things in the universe, and expresses reluctance at showing the unpleasantness of Camazotz and the Darkness engulfing Earth. The Happy Medium in this movie isn’t cheerful at all. While he’s certainly empathetic and good, he’s too stern and sarcastic overall to really be what he’s supposed to be.
Side note: In the book, the Happy Medium is a woman. I’m a bit disappointed that Ava DuVernay, who wanted this movie to have a diverse cast, missed a perfect opportunity for lesbian representation. When Mrs. Whatsit first referred to the Medium as “cute,” I got super excited. Oh well.
-Camazotz: So, imagine a world that used to be like Earth, a world where individuality and emotion have been forcibly sucked away. Imagine a world where a pulsing beat overcomes everything and everyone, even the children at play. Imagine a great, gray building that is the center of it all, full of workers dressed exactly the same, processing the same paperwork under yellow lights that turn their faces a sickly green color. Imagine rooms that are used to reprogram people who deviate from the norm, including a little boy who dares to bounce his ball outside the rhythm of the pulse. Imagine a world where, if you become sick, you are killed so that you won’t be an inconvenience to anyone. Imagine being in the center part of the gray building, in the presence of a brain that is just large enough to be truly repulsive, where a pulsing light goes into you, making even your breaths and heartbeat adhere to the unrelenting rhythm that permeates everything.
Now, look at the movie, which briefly shows the scene of the children playing in rhythm, followed by a random beach scene, and the man with the red eyes, who almost immediately takes over Charles Wallace. There’s no talk about what IT has done to the planet, no look into CENTRAL Central Intelligence. No scene with the little boy. Not even a look at the fear that fills the inhabitants of Camazotz. No, they just make the planet a magic place that changes forms, and throws tornadoes at our main characters. The hell?!
Also, the climax when Meg is fighting IT is too loud and overblown. IT isn’t supposed to be an Eldritch Horror that tosses her around and physically attacks her. IT is literally a brain sitting on a dais. IT enters the mind and destroys you from within, not by throwing you around with tentacles and bashing you until you’re unconscious.
-The removal of Ixchel and Aunt Beast: Arguably one of the most important scenes in the book is after Dr. Murry tessers Calvin and Meg away from Camazotz, leaving a possessed Charles Wallace behind, and they arrive on Ixchel, a planet inhabited by blind creatures that can detect the very essence of the world around them, seeing not what things look like, but what they are like. During this time, Meg, who was nearly overcome by the Darkness, is in the care of a kindly creature who she calls Aunt Beast. She has to fight the Darkness in her, and overcome her feelings of betrayal and anger toward her father for leaving Charles Wallace behind. It’s here that the ladies return and inform her that she’s the only one who can return to Camazotz and save Charles Wallace.
In the movie, she just refuses to tesser, and we go right to the climactic showdown with IT. Her father leaving without Charles Wallace isn’t addressed, and Meg isn’t properly able to overcome her grief and her realization that her father isn’t perfect.
-Mrs. Whatsit’s love: Again, Mrs. Whatsit is unfairly shoved to the side. In the book, when Meg is sent back to Camazotz, Mrs. Whatsit tells her “You have my love.” Also, Mrs. Which tells Meg that she has something that IT can never have or understand. When Meg is trying to get through to Charles Wallace, IT tells her that Mrs. Whatsit hates her. This causes her to remember Mrs. Whatsit giving her her love, which leads to her realizing that her love for Charles Wallace is what separates her from IT and what allows her to save her brother.
~
Overall, I was disappointed. The movie did come close to grasping the essence of the book several times, especially in the scene with Meg and Mrs. Which, and most of the actors did a great job. However, too many vital scenes were cut out, taking away from the overall meaning. Also, the ruination of Charles Wallace and Mrs. Whatsit, two of the most important characters in the book, convinced me that enough time was not paid to actually reading and understanding Madeleine L’Engle’s masterpiece.
A Wrinkle in Time is about many things: love, the fight between good and evil, the bonds between people, overcoming your own demons, and forgiveness. Several of these things were touched upon, sometimes very well, but it unfortunately fell short of what it could have been.
That being said, I hope this movie will end up being successful enough to allow for an adaptation of A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I hope that Ava DuVernay reads the reviews of her movie and is able to do better, because I do think she, and the cast she has put together, can do it.
In the meantime, if you want to see a more faithful adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, check out the 2003 movie, also done by Disney. I think it did a much better job overall.
#a wrinkle in time#spoilers#review#meg murry#calvin o'keefe#charles wallace#mrs who#mrs which#mrs whatsit#pros and cons#it#madeleine l'engle
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The Cupcake Coterie vs Eldritch Horror
Immediately after the mercy-killing of Darvin’s mother, a creature that those of us who played The Secret World or play Secret World: Legends know as the Ur-Draug smashed through the plate glass window and part of the wall, showering Darvin (human bard, @fauxfire76) with debris. He tried to cast Faerie Fire on it, but with a natural 20 as its Dex save, it flew above the spell and landed a bit too close to Darvin for comfort. What happened next was ... less than fun.
One of the things that the Ur-Draug can do is the spell Hunger of Hadar. So it kept spawning this ball of chilling cold from beyond the stars that kept chipping away at them for no less than seven points of cold damage apiece. They were lucky to be able to get out of the area of effect before the 2d6 acid damage bits kicked in, but still, that was worse than even the creature’s attacks, simply because it got more people. They were also smart enough not to get into position for the Cleave, but Darvin and Sigwald (human wizard, @egoroffie) both got clawed to within an inch of their lives, Sigwald getting knocked unconscious before Hazel (half-elf cleric, @true0neutral) hit him with Healing Word.
Hazel and Sigwald were our MVPs, damage-wise. Hazel managed a crit with Guiding Bolt, doing 33 points of damage in a single hit. Sigwald - slipping into this hick-ass ranch-hand accent native to Grey’s Inn, the barony in which he was born - cast Flame Strike twice, and critted once per three strikes (though he also crit-failed once per three strikes). They whittled down this giant pile of hit points a lot faster than I thought they were going to, and Clarity (tiefling rogue, @lindira) helped with that with a Fire Bolt of her own. Froseth (dragonborn monk, @miaaoi) did some damage, though bludgeoning was not very effective. Darvin tried Tasha’s Hideous Laughter but unfortunately the creature was not smart enough to really be affected by it and was immune to Prone state anyway.
Flitty actually helped. While Euphoria Breath didn’t pan out, Flitty cast Major Image over Darvin when he was badly wounded, giving him the appearance of one of the ‘barnacle zombies’ so that the Ur-Draug wouldn’t hit him anymore. Flitty also cast Colour Spray on the Ur-Draug to blind it, which would have imposed disadvantage if the creature had had another attack in it.
But it was Remi (human paladin, @hyperewok1) who got the killing blow again, mostly because Sigwald decided to retreat rather than to go for the kill shot. Remi caught it right through the chest with Divine Smite, with Vow of Emnity in place, and sliced off most of its tentacles as well as gashing its chest wide open. And that was the end of the Ur-Draug.
Remi also got a crit success on the Perception roll I asked for right after, so she was the first to notice that there was something that looked like wood inside the wound. Someone had replaced this thing’s heart with the Heart of Star Coast. The box they heard described by Martin of The Hearth was within, and it was oozing the black tainted gunk. They thought for awhile about how to deal with the ‘infection’ until they figured that, since crossing the flower barrier that Petunia created burned the black ooze, if they took the Heart past the barrier, it would burn the taint off the Heart. Unfortunately, that burning would damage the heart, and they couldn’t tell whether the Heart would survive. But either way, they had to try, because it was all they knew to do. So they fled down the beach, finding the nearest patch of flowers to cross...
The bag they put the box in burst into flames as soon as it crossed the threshold, and even Prestidigitation wouldn’t put it out. They had to just let it burn. ...And they all felt it when Star Coast died. The taint was too strongly entrenched, and the damage to the Heart when it burned was too great. Star Coast as a barony is dead, and the fog, while no longer dangerous, still lingers over the capital city, marking it as a haunted place with no more life to it.
They went back to the Piecemeal and broke the news to Francine, who decided to take her survivors and rebuild the Frowning Trout, figuring that people passing through would need warnings. She also agreed to talk to the halflings of the Hearth, so probably some of them will stay there to defend the place from the horrors that came out of the Undercity. We can hope, at least. Honestly, given the death of Nora, the death of Darvin’s mother, and the death of Star Coast, they didn’t have much left in them beyond going home. Still, Francine gave Darvin the very last bottle of Piecemeal whiskey, and gave Sigwald her cupcake recipe, which I imagine will be passed along to Twilly at some stage.
We sped through the day and a half trip back to Hearthhome, and they landed at the dock at about midnight. Still, they found a light on for them, with Sunshine the faerie dragon sleeping on top of it, and a little tent in which Skylar and Evan were camped, waiting for the Cupcake Coterie to come home. Apparently Keth had been sleeping away from them but nearby enough to be there if the kids needed protection, but the kids were determined to wait for their big-big brothers and sisters. So Sunshine woke them up and there were hugs and discussion about what happened to Nora, and Evan and Skylar traveled back to the homestead with them all, perched on Darvin’s and Froseth’s shoulders respectively.
Keth, overhearing, had managed to head back to the house ahead of them, and Twilly was already heating up some leftovers from dinner for the returning heroes. There was some grieving for Nora, but for the most part there was a certain amount of fanboying - particularly from Sigwald - over Twilly in particular. And by ‘Twilly’, I mean ‘Twylla Quickflight, Master of the School of Abjuration, leader of the Quickflight Diminutives’. She just fussed at them to sit down and eat something, and promised they’d have things a bit more settled for them as a base of operations starting the next day. Apart from meeting Geloe the pixie, and hosting an impromptu medieval rave on Sigwald’s hat with two lots of Dancing Lights and Darvin on drums, they mostly turned in. Clarity skipped dinner, grabbed an apple and cranberry turnover from the dessert plate, left Nora’s old warhammer by the door to her old room (now being used by Remi), then pulled out all three of the fuzzies from her Bag of Tricks for the day (Dolores the giant elk, Ramona the giant badger, and the ever present regular-sized badger Norman) and curled up with them and Noop, a pile of comforting fur for her. Eventually Flitty simply roosted on Dolores’ horns to keep Clarity company. Froseth went out to his meditation area to meditate, fell asleep there, and came half-awake at three in the morning with a quilt over him, Skylar curled up beside him and Sunshine curled up on his shoulder.
And that was where we left them. There will have to be talking and visits to town and Things in the days to come, but for now ... they stopped the spread of the taint through Star Coast, though not without attrition, and they survived. ...Well. Most of them.
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Drabble #001 - Introduction
Two years of excruciating affliction lingered longer than he expected. He could not conceive of the atrocity that occurred and it may happen in trepidation during the realm of the medieval era they’re in. He could not recollect his wife’s face; it was all a blur, obscurity at the back of mind during that vicious incursion. No matter how many nights plagued his sub-consciousness, her physical form remained intact; all without her facial features. Every dream had a different conclusion, the descending plunge from the cliff he fell with knives impaling his torso from the sky above, a non-existent cackle of a demented individual echoing through his ears while trapped underground within a rusted coffin. He would then awaken, in sweat and shivers from across his body. Her laugh remained haunting, even after these years after leaving his original world to destruction.
He could describe the dread in the multiple dimensions he witnessed, but there was too much to pick from his weary recollections. They were greeted countless times by thoughtful humans who were eventually acquaintances; all of them mysteriously vanishing away, only to be found to be deprived of sanity or simply dead by unknown causes. It seemed the longer they stayed in the cloned dimension of Earth, inexplicable events materialized with mountains formed into incomprehensible shapes of crystal-like cones, sometimes remold into a square that reached miles high into the sky with an Eldritch language that formed within the structure. Raw colors of blood-red infected the beaches, an acid-like substance that affected one’s skin to burn painfully. Those would get pulled down into the blood ocean, facing their demise but the unknown force remained a complete peculiarity to these unfortunate drownings.
These troublesome remembrances were an interference, mindlessly gazing out the window within the Inn room. At the corner of his eye, he believed he saw a minuscule insect against the wooden wall, but nothing was there at all. Within the rustling sounds inside the sheets, he believed it was his daughter who came from the bathroom. “There you are. Are you ready for your bedroom story, Ayaka? What was it, the short story of an unlucky lad who turned everything into chocolate? That’s the one you’ve been excited to listen to.” No response, unfortunately. Concerned over his daughter’s silence, he pulled open the sheets, and suddenly; bed-bugs were surging from underneath the mattress, infecting the bed itself from top to bottom. His own heart was exceedingly startled from this disgusting discovery. Other than that, there was this seething disturbance of paranoia, feeling as if something was behind him. He turned around and there was a nauseating reaction from witnessing a dramatic change of the window view. Distorted shapes of the medieval houses were twisted and turned, resulting in a curled ball while the civilians below were eaten inside-out from various insects inside their stomachs. All had the same fate, but he swore he saw a green-eyed creature lurking within the forestry shadows, waiting for its next prey to unluckily pass by.
“Daddy, what are you doing?” She peered inside the room before entering inside.
Startled by his daughter’s voice, he paid full attention to her for a brief moment. When he turned back to the window, everything was normal, civilians enjoying the pleasantries of conversation down below, the wagons shipping an assortment of fruits to the nearby food stand. Strangely enough, everything he’d seen a few seconds ago felt too real to be an imagination.
“Dad, you’re scaring me…”
“it’s nothing little one.” Fatigued to the point of mental exhaustion, he sighed heavily to regain his composure. “Now, what was it again? Oh right, you wanted me to read that story. Let me find it.”
#Drabbles#tw ptsd#ptsd tw#insects tw#tw insects#This one made me so tired to write but gotta start somewhere right? just need development
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For the send a character meme! Please do customer service, if he's already been done could you do nightmare?
Sooo CS just got did, so it’s Nightmare time!
Fear the evil beach ball!
Why I like them
As a meta thing, my very first Kirby game was Nightmare in Dream Land and so Nightmare was my first Kirby final boss. He’s just so classic and iconic and by association I have some fond memories - paradoxical, is it not? XD
In terms of Nightmare himself, I like that he was cast as the Big Bad in the anime. While we didn’t see much of him, he had quite a presence. Like we knew thanks to Meta Knight he was an extremely powerful and dangerous entity, and it ramped up the factor of him being universally dreaded and an embodiment of evil come to the world. Also, he was a good villain already by the start of the series, because he’d already won. Now you can’t deny that this is definitely a staircase up from some weird space ghost from nowhere who goes down in two phases that he was in the games.
Why I don’t
Let’s be honest, in the anime he was a lazy butt. He spent 96 episodes or so dicking around or just staying in the background, and that eventually came back to bite him in the non-existent ass because it let Kirby become strong enough to OHKO him in the finale. He was so inactive they had to put Customer Service in there to do most of the work representing him, so after hearing Meta Knight’s war stories of the horrors Nightmare had inflicted on the world, it seemed Nightmare was not really living up to his word or had decayed somewhat.
Favorite episode (scene if movie)
Out of the 5 or less episodes where he ever had any significant screentime? Eh, I’ll be boring and say his actual proper appearance in full in episode 100 where he actually did stuff (and died).
Favorite line
Let me be cliche again, and go for his (Japanese) post-mortem words: “True to my name I am but a dream that lives in your heart. Therefore, I am immortal. For as long as there is fear in your heart, I will someday return.”
Like DAMN son, if that ain’t a fine villain speech from a quasi-deity known as the Emperor of Darkness, I don’t know what isn’t!
Favorite outfit
I like his anime appearance the best with the starry cape with an infinite void inside. His game appearance with the tornado body and cape of darkness was cool too, but something about him having a Windows screensaver plaid inside his cloak wins me over.
OTP
n/a - can this dude even feel positive emotion lmao?
Brotp
again, i dont know if this can actually be or if it works lol
Head Canon
I do think he feels some kind of connection with Customer Service in some respect because he is his creator, something which is more than boss/employee but not quite father/son. He sees CS as more than just a mindless follower and appreciates what he is to the company, to the point he considers it a terrible blow if he lost CS in any way. It’s not quite love, but it’s some kind of acknowledgement which is the closest an entity made of darkness and fear can get.
Unpopular opinion
He can blast that spherical bastard Zero’s pasty ass into Another Dimension (especially anime Nightmare, but game Nightmare could too (ง •̀_•́)ง)
A wish
Don’t really have much to wish more for about him. Maybe another cameo in the near-future games, or an updated comeback remastering his fight to have more phases. I mean, he was classic as the first real Eldritch Abomination final boss for Kirby from whom every new boss still takes cues from, but now comparing to the recent guys (fuck Dark Nebula tho) his fight’s a bit dated.
An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen
Uh… dunno? Just hope he doesn’t come to life in the real world or anything, or we’d all be fuuuucked
5 words to best describe them
Nightmare-inducing quasi deity wizard
My nickname for them
I’m rather fond of ‘Satanic Blanket’. I mean come on, his body looks like a blanket. Nintendo and HAL could make mad money if they released a line of Kirby themed blankets and one was stylised like Nightmare’s anime cape with the blue stars on one side and a dark star field on the other. I’d buy the shit outta that.
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