#kinda terminator-esque | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

unclefard · 28 days ago

Text

For context this is from a Deviantart specevo project of mine which i wont link because it's cringe. if you want to see edgy teenage cringe you can reverse image search. the big bird guy is the Nephilim, the smaller bulky guy is the Atrox Sapient, and the guy in the middle is waltuh. The world setting is an "ice-age" planet called Paradise, much wetter than earth, with a single continent situated near the poles and expansive, often shallow seas.

Redid the Nephilim. I’ve been planning this for a while for a number of reasons. I wanted to make them more distinct from the other two sapients on Paradise anatomically as well as behaviorally, as opposed to just having the same body shape (the body model is literally the same one as the original Ogre and Atrox Sapient) and a different head. The redesign is done to A) make them easier to animate, as the old clunky model had a lot of difficulties, B) make them more scientifically plausible in regard to what is known about biped/hominid size constraints and anatomy, and C) make them more closely resemble other probers as opposed to butt monkey but with dolphin skull for head. I do imagine their ancestors resembling the older model however.

This writing is basically just a generalized description of the Nephilim and a correction of the themes in the older writing (depicting them as these hyperintelligent perfect organisms, the whole “doomed constant starvation” (still present especially as the ice ages got worse but not their whole thing), and the whole being super incomprehensible/above everything else). I imagine them, basically, as big intelligent carnivores and all that entails, with the vibes of elephants and whales. They’re smarter on average than Atrox Sapients, and a little less barbaric, but they’re also more self-centered and isolationist than Atrox Sapients, and quite violent themselves. They’re not as religious as many other sapients, but they’re also not somehow magically above spirituality and religion despite being a primitive hunter-gatherer culture.

I think a big problem with them is, as a rule, I should write what I know, and in creating them I tried to write things I did not really know, which ended up giving the wrong vibe. I wanted to make them this mystical ass incomprehensible eldritch race. To a degree that’s still the intent, but at the end of the day they are still mortal animals with mortal animal needs, understandable motivations/ideals, and flaws of their own. Funny enough in the actual books? I have been working on, and was making at the time of a lot of the older Nephilim content, the Nephilim are just kinda dicks half the time and socially awkward+somewhat more intelligent than the Atrox Sapients, but not at all mystical, the other half.

Nephilim are probers, which are a group of mostly quadrupedal animals who are generally omnivorous and have long, thin snouts/mouthparts to aid in foraging. They are divided into two major groups: the more basal soft-snouted probers, who have elongated mouths terminated in a small radulae, and are usually generalist omnivores who forage for algae as well as fungi and small animals they root up from the muck, and the more derived, specialized hard-snouted probers, who have the namesake hard, bony probe as a sheath covering their mouthparts. Nephilim are hard-snouted probers, their mouths being a prehensile proboscis sheathed in the elongated probe. Their snouts, which lie directly above the mouth, are also elongated and tubular, serving as resonating chambers to amplify their calls and lending them a jawed appearance.

Nephilim are descended from large ground-sloth-esque animals who lived in small troops like gorillas and were specialized for foraging on the sessile pseudofungi, breaking through the tough skin with their probes and liquefying and siphoning up the meat within. They were initially mostly quadrupedal, locomoting like ground sloths, and had a compact, stocky build, with much shorter, thicker, and more powerful heads, limbs, and necks. As the changing climate broke up their native forests, fragmenting them throughout an increasingly open landscape, the Nephilim’s ancestors evolved similarly to hominids, becoming more upright, more suited to long-distance travel, more intelligent, and better at throwing things.

The modern Nephilim species existed well before the present ice ages, mostly to the south which was a low-lying region mostly made up of marshy plains and pseudofungi forests. It was extremely flat, at sea level, and prone to flooding and extreme weather. They had developed their own form of agriculture as well as complex tools and architecture. The cooling climate and displacement of their ancestral stomping grounds forced them northwards, to what is now known as the last continent, where due to the harsher, more seasonal climate they were forced into a more nomadic existence, becoming scattered bands of hunters trailing the migratory megafaunal herbivores.

Eventually, their home planet Paradise would be colonized, owing to interests in its untouched stores of valuable minerals, oil, and natural gas. These colonizers (future humans) would find the Nephilim as under a thousand in number, existing as isolated, often heavily inbred populations along the southern coast of the last continent. Discovering them to be extremely intelligent, and easier to work with than the much more populous Atrox Sapients, the colonizers would integrate them into modern society, providing them with a number of powerful technologies, aiding them in the construction of various cities, and other means of uplifting them. The intent was to outsource the extraction of Paradise’s great wealth to its desperate inhabitants, making them dependent on the much more advanced visitors and thus eventual future subjects and allies.

The Nephilim, however, after nearly being wiped out by a combination of climate and Atrox Sapients, and somehow still maintaining a common sentiment that they were the best things ever to exist, were not very keen on this. They, witnessing the power of the gods from above, slowly and quietly built up their own. Although given limited resources, they worked towards constructing many of the modern technologies themselves, and, given tools to acquire what was the blood and muscle of those technologies, were easily able to do so. An valuable resource was found in the Atrox Sapients, who, although excluded by the colonizers, were rapidly growing in numbers due to the altered climate and enormous amounts of waste. The Nephilim, taking a page from their enemy’s book, exploited the Atrox Sapients, using them in various mining, farming, and manufacturing operations, using the tools the gods from above lent them to become gods themselves. Many Nephilim were compliant/doing so under the idea/assumption that the Atrox Sapients were also being liberated/ would be uplifted themselves, and made efforts to integrate them into the society they were forming. Others were simply indulging their old hatred and superiority complex and just wanted slaves. Many Nephilim societies hate/hated Atrox Sapients, owing to a superiority complex on the Nephilim side, as well as a history of competition/warfare between the two species. A commonly held belief was that Atrox Sapients heavily contributed to almost wiping them out.

Eventually, Paradise would fall completely under their control, and the decadent elder race would be gradually driven further and further away. Some Nephilim would return to their ancestral ways, roaming the empty wet world, tending herds of mastodon and rhino. Others would live on in the world they built for themselves, enjoying the many luxuries of the modern world. Others yet, a rich and privileged few, would create for themselves enormous, artificial bodies, becoming real, physical gods, and take to the stars to float around, terraform planets, or just make a general nuisance of themselves. The Atrox Sapients ended up being left to their own devices and, building up from the decaying remnants of the Nephilim’s rise to “godhood” and the invaders that preceded them, built modernized worlds of their own.

Nephilim are sapient, hypercarnivorous apex predators. They range in size from 600 to 2,000 pounds, with most getting around a thousand and individuals exceeding 1,500 pounds being considered very large. They are bipedal, with huge, columnar legs terminating in short, pad-like feet with large claws. Their arms are enormous and immensely strong, with a “sheath” of thick rubbery tissue armoring the forearms and strong, dexterous five-fingered hands.

The hand claws are long and hooked, designed for grappling with and ripping open large animals (ancestrally pseudofungi). The thumb and forefinger are more dexterous than the others and have proportionately smaller and shorter claws, which are often filed down to aid in various delicate tasks. The middle two fingers are thick and short, with huge claws, and the fifth is a vestigial nub. The palms and undersides of the fingers are covered with small, rough nodules, creating a sandpaper-like texture and aiding in gripping. Nephilim hands are less dexterous than those of humans and Atrox Sapients, being more suited to rough physical activities like digging, hauling heavy objects, and grappling opponents and prey. They are however still capable of many fine tasks and can use their prehensile proboscises to help overcome the difficulties of their bulky, clawed hands.

Their heads are proportionately large and long, with long, elegantly curved necks. This is mostly a product of their beauty standards (like that theory of hominid faces becoming “softer” and gentler looking over time because we find that attractive) as opposed to functionality, though, similar to how our upright stance helped us better scan the landscape for danger, the long necks did and do play a role in searching for threats and food. The head and neck are very lightweight, with the head being mostly unsuitable to the ancestral task of boring into tough pseudofungi and the neck being relatively thin and weak, with much of the apparent mass being loose and saggy skin. The brain is massive and protected by a bony crest to the front and thick, rubbery skin all around. Many Nephilim possess “tusks” which are in fact hornlike outgrowths of tissue and mostly serve a display purpose. In their sturdier ancestors these were shorter, tougher, found mostly in adult males, and, owing to the overall greater resilience and functionality of the ancestors’ skulls, had a role in intraspecies combat. In the present, both sexes grow tusks, attain similar sizes, and look quite similar. Nephilim overall are quite androgynous, again owing to the beauty standards as well as necessity. In a small group threatened by large predators and dependent heavily on hunting to survive, which for Nephilim means in large part being big and strong, it is beneficial for everyone to be big and strong, not just the one or two adult males.

Much of a Nephilim’s anatomy is geared towards or exaggerated for display/beauty standards, namely the head and neck. The hump and the back, as well as dewlaps, also exist as a result of this tendency. This aside, they are very well suited to their profession of being enormous bipeds. Despite weighing potentially fourteen times as much as the average human being, they are able to stand up fully erect, have a large and powerful upper body, and are surprisingly athletic for their size. A major reason behind this is their bones, which are more like those of birds/dinosaurs than mammals and thus better geared to supporting large sizes. Their lower body, especially the legs, is also much heavier and sturdier than the upper body, and they have a rudimentary tail to help balance out their weight. The upper body despite its size is very lightly built, as previously mentioned with the head and neck. In addition, Nephilim do not walk completely upright like humans do, rather favoring a theropod-esque forward-slouching position that better balances their weight (though they can and do stand fully erect).

That being said, Nephilim cannot jump, are poor climbers, and at larger sizes their run is more so an elephantine fast walk. They do not live as long as humans, with exceptionally old individuals getting to be around forty, and often suffer from problems related to their size as they age. Injuries to the back and legs are, when they do occur, much more debilitating than those in humans, and in their primitive migratory societies often a death sentence. They are, however, very quick walkers, and despite their enormous frame can walk at a brisk pace for days on end. They are also rather agile, moving frighteningly quick with excellent reaction times, are very capable throwers, and immensely strong (though proportionately weaker than Atrox Sapients). They swim very well and spend much of their lives in water, increasingly so with age. This may seem odd, but humans and sloths are built similarly and both are excellent swimmers. There was even a species of marine sloth: Thalassocnus - Wikipedia.

Although being so huge protects them from most predators, most extremes of climate, and makes them better slayers of the megafaunal herbivores common on Paradise, it also makes them very vulnerable. Needing huge amounts of food in an increasingly unproductive environment means they can only exist in small, scattered populations, unlike Atrox Sapients who can form very large tribes and weather the bad times of year by hibernating, an ability Nephilim do not have. They reproduce much slower and more infrequently, usually lead shorter lives, and efforts requiring large groups (warfare, big construction projects) are more difficult.

Nephilim are born proportionately much smaller than human babies, their claws barely present, and their rostrums are extremely short. They grow rapidly, and are able to walk proficiently by their second year. Juvenile/adolescent Nephilim are much more athletic than the adults, being able to run, climb, and jump (somewhat like T. rex adolescents being much leaner than the adults).

Nephilim are similar in intelligence to human beings, often said to be even smarter (usually by the Nephilim themselves). As a very crude overgeneralization, Nephilim brains work a little slower than human and Atrox Sapient brains, but are much better geared towards memorization, and more creative/inventive. They are quite large, mostly to accommodate the Nephilim’s much wider range of senses.

Nephilim, despite not having visible eyes, can see in color to the same degree we can, by way of patches of photoreceptors on their face. Their vision is however much blurrier than ours, contributing in part to the more abstract nature of their art. They, like most Paradise animals, can echolocate, and their hearing is incredible. They possess fleshy, pads like the disks of an owl’s face, serving to direct soundwaves to their ears. Their sense of smell is quite good as well. By way of their massive rostrums, Nephilim make very low, deep calls that carry for a very long time, allowing them to communicate over considerable distances like whales.

Nephilim, having a butterfly-like proboscis as opposed to teeth, jaws, or even the rasping mouthparts of Atrox Sapients, may seem poorly adapted to be carnivores. The truth is, they are. However, human mouths and teeth seem poorly adapted to meat, and we ourselves are predators. The Nephilim compensate for their dentary shortcomings by way of their strength, intelligence, and, most importantly, extremely powerful digestive juices. The pseudofungi-boring prober species, in addition to developing their probes into powerful chisels to hammer through the thick skin, also developed extremely powerful digestive juices, which they could quickly expel into the inner meat to dissolve it, often neutralizing any toxins as well. Nephilim have inherited this trait, and thus despite having tiny mouths and no teeth can turn their meaty dinners into smooth liquids that are easily ingested. Their mouths are small and thin but propelled by very powerful muscles that give them surprising suction power.

A very common thing to find in Nephilim camps, lairs, and middens is their pottery, as well as skin sacks and drinking bags. Despite Paradise lacking wood, and thus any reliable way of cooking meat for a primitive society, and the Nephilim being unable to consume tough dried jerky, they still stored large amounts of food, placing hunks of meat and fat in cisterns, jars, etc, and vomiting on them to turn them into palatable broth. Of course there is the issue of the eventual decay. This is overcome in a few ways: salting the meat+digestive juices killing most bacteria/fungi/etc+Nephilim are basically humanoid vultures in the sense that they can consume surprisingly putrid meals. A rancid sack of melted pink flesh is, to them, a well-aged and relishable lunch.

In the past with butt monkey land stuff I was aiming for less of a realism aspect and more so a fantasy eldritch creature world. I still want the scary eldritch creature world, but I want it to be plausible, realistic, which I feel makes it even scarier than an edgy, skull-island-esque death world it was originally intended to be. That is why the older Nephilim writing tends to portray them as this doomed “master race” of enormously intelligent, powerful wandering artists. While it could work in the vein of mythology or propaganda or both, it lacked nuance and made them feel a little less real in my opinion. It is however still kind of there: they’re huge, strong, and smart, and they almost went extinct.

The next parts are going to be iffy because these things are people and people have a massive amount of variation in basically everything besides anatomy. My tendency when writing about sapients is to write about them like any other, generalizing and describing them like a passage in a field guide would about some bird or squirrel. I like it at times but this is meant to elaborate more. The following parts are basically just a general sum of their culture/behavior, mostly the more primitive:

Nephilim in general tend to champion two things: art and physical strength. Being so massive they have less need for clothes and shelter than we do, and their bodies are more animalistic than ours. They can survive easily on their own, with only a small pack of supplies. Their size and strength mean they can acquire food, if competent enough, without even needing a weapon. So forth from their beginning they were able to dedicate much more time and mental energy to artmaking, which has persisted into modern day. Not all Nephilim like art, or making it, but it is very common in virtually every Nephilim culture. Artistic accomplishment is and was seen, commonly, in a similar light as many human societies see things like having a good job or getting married: a metric of individual accomplishment and worth. Despite being their greatest source of pride, and mostly having innocent/noble intentions, it very often became a means of societal control and discrimination.

Historically it was also a means of communication, crafting unique markers to cement a group’s territory or presence. A very common form was the pillars, usually made of clay or carven stone, with which Nephilim would mark their territory, inscribed with the names of tribe members, recordings of births and deaths, and imagery of prevalent local fauna as well as feats of strength. These pillars took many years to make, collaborated on by multiple individuals, and were maintained even after fully being covered for potentially centuries after their making. Even in present day these, at least those remaining, are very treasured artifacts. Similarly in function to the pillars, Nephilim would carve, scrawl, and paint on cliffsides, boulders, and cave walls. They would make odd altars of piled rock and bones, or shape favored landscapes in enjoyable ways. What architecture they did make was usually ornamental, often being gardens, temples, or simply enjoyable assemblages of carven stone and molded clay.

In the present, Nephilim would maintain their ancestral tradition of drawing on the walls, covering their many structures in organic and hieroglyphic designs very similar to those of the past, though often mass produced and more automated in creation. It was and is very common for a Nephilim, in its individual dwelling, to cover the walls, ceiling, and floor in some form of drawings and paintings. In addition to this, they would often make various abstract environmental and physical aberrations, manipulating weather into bizarre, localized patterns, creating bizarre terrain, and seemingly magic manipulations of heat, light, and energies. In addition, there would be the very famous “living art”, half-machine at times, always animal at least in part, intended to be living paintings, musicians, artificial gods at times, things to live forever so that the Nephilim would live forever, brazenly treading the grey mires, looming amidst the monolith cities, drifting endlessly in space as eternal testimonies to their creators’ existence.

The other great championed Nephilim trait is their physical strength. They relied on it to assert themselves, find food, fend off predators, wrangle livestock. They take enormous pride in their physical power, and the shape and abilities of their bodies. Nephilim very rarely clothe themselves, and when they do it is usually ornamental: robes, crowns, loose-fitting cloaks, and jewelry. They do have functional clothing, mostly cloaks, pants, and footwraps reserved for very bad weather, but do not favor it and prefer to lumber around in the nude.

Physical fitness and accomplishment is seen in most Nephilim cultures as a great virtue, on par with artistic excellence and accomplishment, and a source of pride. Nephilim who excel in strength, athleticism, and/or hunting and combat prowess are highly revered. It is often seen as a moral failing to let one’s physical condition degrade, unless it is due to sickness or old age.

For all their apparent gentle, wise superiority I rambled about in older writing, Nephilim are still hyperaggressive apex predators, descended from territorial omnivores. They love violence, are prone to recreational and ritualistic combat, and often have a disturbing passion for hunting and killing. Their tempers are often short, and many carry a disregard for anything besides other Nephilim. Martial arts is to them as great a pastime as art (the kind that doesn’t involve smacking each other in the face (they can’t ball their fists up to punch because of the huge claws)), and they treasure scars, recovered injuries, and won battles. In many early Nephilim societies, it was a right of passage to hunt a huge and dangerous animal, and this often persists into the present.

Art aside, much of their inventions have been some kind of trap, weapon, or armor. The ancient Nephilim carried a long, bone spear, or perhaps a club, and a sling. It may have doused its pointier weapons in toxins, or crafted sacs of irritating powder to disorient enemies and victims. It was an excellent thrower of rocks, with and without the sling and practiced from childhood. It may have carried out many raids on enemies of its own species as well as the Atrox Sapients and Ogres in its lifetime. A few treasured skulls and skins of slain enemies and prey may have adorned a cave or grotto of its liking. It would have greatly enjoyed stalking the cool, desolate plains, feeling the dull squelch of its padded feet on the muck, rattling its sonar over the landscape, scanning for something on the horizon to stalk.

It is worth noting that some Nephilim cultures view their violent tendencies as a curse, a thing distinct from their true selves, and something to be banished/overcome. Thus the opposite of many cultures (admiring violence) is present here, admiring the calmest, least aggressive individuals. It is also worth noting that they are not a whole lot more aggressive/violent than we are, though both sexes tend to be equally aggressive/violent which combined with being huge carnivores in an often-desperate hunter-gather society make it seem more extreme.

Nephilim are as a rule not very religious, and in general do not revere the world around them to the same degree as humans and Atrox Sapients. This is in large part a modern invention but has roots in their primal ancestry. A common belief among Nephilim is that they are the “favored” among all living things. They do not revere the great animals and natural forces as the Atrox Sapients do, at least not to the same degree and frequency. They believe themselves to be the originators of their race and all they hold dear. A common religion involves the following creation story: another world exists, a proper paradise (to them). It is in most tellings an endless shallow sea, warm, lush, with a gentle silt bottom. There are immense carved pillars everywhere, neatly ordered and stretching infinitely into the mists above. Its residents exist in unending, ecstatic hedonism of which they never tire. This world very weakly overlaps with the real world, which was initially an empty void, with the planets, stars, etc being formed from spillage from the paradise. The Nephilim are said to be children of this paradise, or, in some variants, formed from the spillage, and belong in the paradise, being “too good” for the real world. The greater their accomplishment, their mastery over their more animalistic side, the good they do for their people, the more likely they can return to their proper place upon death. Living in the real world is often considered a test, or a soiling of their mind and soul, a challenge to be overcome.

Of course, there are many Nephilim religions that are kinder and less arrogant, and many Nephilim cultures do not favor any religion at all. They dislike worship, or reverence for anything, rarely wanting to see anything as greater and more important than the Nephilim people and their creations, and if they do it is usually not an individual or animal but clearly defined as an abstract, incommunicable force. A greater emphasis is often placed on individual or societal accomplishment than the appeasement of a deity.

Nephilim are very active, despite their size. They are often “busybodies”, get bored easily, and demand frequent stimulation. The usual exception is after a big hunt or feast (the two are often intertwined) where the bloated, gorged Nephilim would usually find somewhere to soak and spend the next day or two lounging around, digesting. Like any predator, they also enjoy sleep, taking frequent naps. Much of their rest is in water, avoided only during the colder months, and many of their sports and games take place in it as well. In primitive times they would often busy themselves with patrolling territory, hunting, or making art. Group recreation was usually some sort of hunt, sport, often roughhousing, or having sex. Conversations and social tool/clothe/artmaking was usual limited to just a few individuals. Nephilim enjoy music, and use it as a means of storytelling, bonding, and cultural memory. Most of it is however somewhat private, done alone as an individual wanders, serving as a means of communicating over long-distances as whales do.

Despite being social, Nephilim occupy very small groups, usually a wolf pack-esque unit of a mated pair and their children, or a small gathering of friends. Although their modern society is fairly similar in organization to modern human society, in the past a Nephilim society was often comprised of multiple families/bands/tribes, usually under a dozen individuals each, occupying their own territories and coming together at certain special occasions throughout the year, usually for holidays, to celebrate births, mourn deaths, or perform religious ceremonies. These were often used as an opportunity for trade, socialization, and occasional moving between groups.

Nephilim then and now enjoy lots of alone time. They often get stressed out and irritated in large crowds, or if subject to constant interaction, and historically would often patrol or hunt territory alone, spending days at a time with only themselves for company. Very old and very young individuals, however, constantly stay/stayed with others.

They also tend to be obsessive. Individual Nephilim often have very narrow interests and focuses. In general, Nephilim dislike casual conversations and prefer occasional long conversations with more “substance”. Outside of their particular interests, the rest of the world is often seen as something to be used, background noise, or a hindrance.

Despite this, there is a common sentiment in almost every Nephilim culture of contributing to the greater good. Strength is a source of pride, but also a way to defend kindred and provide food. Art is a personal accomplishment and expression, but also a way to bring joy to others, communicate, and record important information. An individual Nephilim may spend much of its time alone, but most of its activities will also be done with the greater good/benefit of the community in mind.

Although the extreme seasonality of Paradise’s sole climate prevented agriculture, at least how it is commonly envisioned, in primitive Nephilim societies, they did practice it. Most often, it involved tending large numbers of mastodons, rhinos, and/or other large herbivores, who existed in a semi-domesticated state. The tribe would hunt down and kill any predators nearby, drive off competing herbivores, constantly following their charges as they went up and down the continent in accordance with the seasons. Up until the present most Nephilim occupied this kind of lifestyle, supplementing their diet with wild game.

Even before the present there was a degree of selective breeding present in their herds, and they frequently modified their environment to make it more suitable both for their stock as well as favored wild game, clearing pseudofungi scrub and forest to encourage the spread of algae plains and marshes, carving out ponds and ditches for certain worms/wyrms, and diverting rivers and draining lakes to enrich potential grazing areas. Often they would make pens and corrals of piled earth, as well as artificial wetlands. It was not uncommon to see massive herds of fat, dim-witted mastodons, attended at all times by a rotating roster of titan herdsmen.

It is worth saying that many of the unfortunate tendencies mentioned (favoring violence, treating art/physical prowess as a measure of individual worth, the viewing of themselves as greater than all other living things) are growing rarer, less abused, and less favorable in Nephilim societies. They are overall less brutal, more tolerant, and more humble than their ancestors.

note: the Atrox Sapient model is a bit dated, mostly in regards to the posture+position of the legs.

#speculative biology #speculative zoology #speculative evolution #creature design #3d model #creature #creative writing #alien oc #alien creature #eldrich horror #eldritch #eldritch creature #xenobiology #alien planet

9 notes · View notes

americascomic · 1 year ago

Note

Hello. I sat here for a good 30 minutes trying to think of best how to ask this question without giving the online version of an annoying exposition dump, so I hope this somewhat makes sense: I’ve found myself, increasingly, having conversations with the more tenderqueer-esque queers in my life surrounding slurs- specifically slurs like faggot and tranny. I’m a trans guy, and I was told by another trans guy of the genre of person i just mentioned that only gay men can reclaim the word faggot, and trans women can reclaim the word tranny. I thought this was a stupid and gatekeep-y idea, and told him so, but i have been genuinely wondering if this is just a manifestation of terminally online induced queer infighting or a form of ignorant transmisogyny on my part. Is tranny a slur directed at and only to be reclaimed by trans women? Or is it just another tick in the barrel of a long line of slur speciation discourse?

I think the short answer of who can say what slur is "this is terminally online bullshit"

And my second answer is "this is a conversation that mostly people under the age of 30 have, and people mostly online have." I think the age is important - it's feels like it's a developmental phase a lot of queers go through, where they negotiate their identity." So, like I'm patient (if a little irked) when I see it on my feed. Or hear some dipshit socially awkward t-femme at Bluestockings rudely chime in to a conversation I'm having with a friend.

and I sometimes put it as a hypothetical;

I'm telling you right now, as a trans woman, in my lived experience, people of your exact intersecting identities are only allowed to say the word "tranny" on a Tuesday and "faggot" on a Friday. If you forget, remember 'tranny' and 'Tuesday' starts with 'T' and 'faggot' and 'Friday' starts with 'F'

Like, that's absurd for me to ask. And so I think that kind of forces the thought that at the end of the day I'm the one asking it. There'll be no consensus on this issue.; you have to decide for yourself whatever or not to respect one point of view over the other.

We say "listen to black people" but I had this moment in my life where IRL I did a call-out of Nazis in my community and a Black friend told me that I was talking over people of color and another thanked me for speaking up in a way that they wouldn't be listened to. Who is right? Neither. Both. You have to decide for yourself and have a strong sense of race. Same with interacting with our own queer community.

Who can say what queer slur where and when is a thing that can never be litigated online. It's such an interpersonal person-to-person thing. There's no pundit square that can fit all slurs and all identities and all experiences.

in the case of the teen in the previous story who told me not to use the word "tranny," I immediately retorted that people say that word to me on the street and spit at me, which means they recognize it as a thing of power and so I will use that power. And I don't think she'd ever had copped to it, but I think changed her mind because she was saying "tranny" over the next months.

I think for some of this shit, us trans women policing who can say "tranny" is us just doing a proxy war for transmisogny. Like, we get transmisogny in our community, an AFAB person queer person of some type who could probably leverage their privilege against us says "tranny," I can see it irking some. But, have you met a trans woman? Everything irks us. We're reprehensible.

And, I think in terms of your conversation and your friend. I dunno, I think of who-gets-to-be-lesbian discourse. I see so many people online twist in the wind trying to justify to others that they're a trans masc lesbian, or a non-binary lesbian or a bisexual lesbian and I'm kinda sitting there on my ass wondering why they're trying so hard to get probably the dumbest people online to justify our identity. Like, we're hear, we're queer, get used to it. I sometimes feel of the matter that we're all a mass medium as one and just going about shit without apology as a way to force people to confront our humanity.

Iffen you want my personal feelings on the matter, you're just as impacted by the codified violence of the state that's imposed on us and so we're all faggots at the end of the day. But the t-girl sitting next to me might feel differently, and you have to negotiate with that. Sometimes times calls for moments of respect and sometimes it's a matter of saying "fuck it" and doing the thing you know how it is.

If you would like, I can draw you a card that says "Amber, a hot trans woman, says I can say 'faggot'"

Finally, I'll say I wrote a couple paragraphs for you so I'm going to force you to return the favor and just challenge you to sit on your ass and ask yourself in honest ways what the word means and what it means to you and what's beautiful and what's ugly about the word. That - an internal process - a lot more valuable thing worth to litigate then everybody in-community being cops to each other.

And then after that, I always like to challenge people to look beyond the debate. This post I made on the matter is about a dead trans teen. It's nice to debate words, but it's also nice to look out at our wonderful, annoying community, name problems we see that creates material struggle, and then imagine solutions.

#asks #slur discourse #tenderqueer #trans #queer slurs

43 notes · View notes

piratesexmachine420 · 3 months ago

Text

I like that Mare Ignis guy's videos as much as the next terminally online hard sci-fi fan; but I also think they kinda go too hard, to the point where it wraps around to being sorta hard to follow or care. Like you gotta do a little more than just Evangelion-esque images of scary computer diagrams and all-caps Latin words with lots of stop consonants.

#my thoughts #not that im much better

3 notes · View notes

captainjoongki · 3 months ago

Note

The NMG JYB romance looks interesting but I saw terminal illness in the plot and whyyyy

okay listen i also had a lowkey aneurysm when i saw that but namgoong min has possibly one of the best eyes for scripts and jeon yeobeen is just so so so spectacular on screen and both of them doing an old school 2000s esque kdrama melodrama is kinda what my soul needs so idc they’re serving and if one of them dies in it at least i know the acting will be flawless!!!!! im seated either way for this insanity like LOOK AT THEM!

#ask #anon #kdrama #like i started shaking like an electrocuted squirrel when i saw the teaser

4 notes · View notes

hydrxnessa · 8 months ago

Text

i did character moodboards but instead its the characters i drew inspiration from over the years

(very long) rambles to the void below // // its very long. heed this warning.

ok first off; Hydra! she first started off as a roleplay character back in the 2016 minecraft hypixel housing roleplay days. your generic ender dragon girl hybrid kinda thing. whole reason why i call myself hydra, she's basically my persona atp

years would go by and she'd later have her own separate story instead of a bunch of one-offs with just 'feral edgy dragon hybrid girl' as a template

she's an unhinged, loose cannon who's generally outcasted by society. all four characters: jinx, nimona, surge and catra are seen by this.

with jinx, mainly her growing up being rough which shapes her to become the feral loose cannon she is. also a twisted father figure. sounds familiar.

with nimona, its mostly just the unhinged-ness and outcast traits. also her personality, with being reckless and rushing in without a plan but also emotionally unstable, easily irritated and fragile.

with surge, its her whole gist of being an experimented cyborg-esque character, with the purpose of surpassing a highly-renowned figure (sonic) -- at the cost of forgetting who she used to be before. yeah i stole that whole thing and threw it onto hydra/hj . once again emotionally unstable due to not knowing who she used to be, and her purpose was created by someone else, not for herself. once that someone else is out of the picture, she'd go on to struggle purpose for herself, whilst being haunted by her past. i think surge is the Major inspiration for hydra here tbh

aaand finally, catra. i /could/ compare adora and catra's relationship to hydra and lyura's, but its very minor. they both grew up together, fought together, played together; but as they grew up, they'd grow distant away from each other. up until the point where they have completely differing ideals and views. and betrayal, there's hints of betrayal in there. and once again, emotionally unstable. i think there's a pattern here

////

okaayy, next up is Intoxicate! he actually started off as an oc completely based around angor rot (top middle). like, entirely angor rot, just furrified. you can probably see his old art on his toyhouse if you scroll down on his gallery. i hate looking at it but its a nice memory. he was always meant to be some sort of antagonist in the Wings' Ascent story, but i didn't really know where to take it

anyways he's a cult leader now, deemed as one of the most powerful Lights in the galaxy. very charismatic, yet ruthless. a deeper motivation to serve his god to save one life; a life so dear to him. tbh its giving gabriel agreste HELP

not much with neuvilette since i haven't played genshin's fontaine region (nor do i plan to, i just really like neuvi). he's the dragon sovereign iirc? more powerful than the archons themselves. authoritative and strong, those were the traits i gave intox. also similar hair.

i already spoke about angor rot - whole reason why intox exists in the first place. also the blue spots over his body, idk if there's story to that in the franchise but i stole that and made it like some sort of terminal disease on intox, just to make things dire.

lunatic cultist - i mean not much to say. intox serves the Lunatic Star. cultist serves the Moon Lord. i think its self-explanatory

suguru geto !! i love u geto cult leader, aand adopted two daughters that he basically saved from a village about to execute them. intox basically adopted tohka when she had nothing else. also charismatic yet manipulative demeanour. also hair. to that one person who compared human intox to geto, and i have never seen jjk ever, you are the reason i watched jjk in the first place. thanks

gary miller - cult leader. ruthless, cruel, sacrificial. would do anything for the entities he worships. also seems charming, yet manipulative. i do find the garyjohn ship silly and cute yet twisted

the lamb from cult of the lamb. oh boy, so unexpected. in intox's backstory, he dies through beheading but is brought to the Lunatic Star from death instead of being sent off to the heavens. Lunar promises him she will save Amaera, if he vows to serve her and gain her freedom from her shackles. very similar to the Lamb who was also beheaded and sent to the One Who Waits/Narinder, who promises vengeance in exchange of starting a cult to gain him power

////

ok finally, Trojan! honestly if you're still reading thanks for listening to my dumb rambles about my ocs ??? really appreciate it lol even if im just talking to the void

oh he's a weird one. created him in 2021 i believe? which was when the project renekton skin was released (2nd row on the right). i also wanted a scientist character. so basically, i combined the two. red/orange lizard and scientist. anyways i never drew him again

ok he's back now. repurposed him and fit him into hydra's story so that he's the scientist who created her (i forgot what her story was beforehand, other than experimentation, though i think it was just an scp foundation situation). originally meant to be a very cruel and very evil scientist, but i started liking the idea that he'd be more paternal and fatherly to her, and then slowly losing that sense as he gained more power and more involved with his research.

basically, mad scientist with a child experiment.

abrahm valentin - i actually dont understand the iris lore tbh. i do know that he killed his brother and repurposed his remains/nervous system into some sort of circus attraction, whilst his brother remained conscious. trojan killed his father and repurposed him into a powerful machine (H4YW1RE). also abrahm's pretty insane. like deadass insane.

dr clef - i think this was one of the original inspirations back when i first created him. doctor/researcher for the scp foundation, but he's anomalous himself. also batshit insane

dr starline - he's connected to surge's story, whole reason why she exists. similar to how hydra/lyura only exist because of him. also voice claims are generally a posh british accent. that's as far as that goes.

draedon. ough i love draedon. a powerful scientist and researcher who transferred his whole conscious into this mechanical body. built crazy powerful technology; armour for a literal godslayer, a worm god, dangerous robots, etcetc. also i liked the idea that he had multiple labs across the continent, but as he grew more powerful and gained more knowledge, those labs became abandoned.

project renekton - similar to angor rot to tox, he's the major inspiration and starting point of trojan. though the inspiration mainly came from his aesthetics, and a tiny hint of unhinged personality but thats it really

lysandre, ooh this one's interesting. his ideal was that the world was no longer beautiful, instead growing uglier, so he wanted to create a perfect world by ridding all of imperfection. trojan's ideals are heavily based around perfection and transcending the Stars and their flaws. also lysandre was seen as a very influential figure, who's technology was basically everywhere in kalos. trojan was the same, just on a wider galactical scale. a very renowned scientist, where most tech of akr'byx could be traced back to him.

viktor - pretty much the same as lysandre, only that he replaced his body and augmented it with machinery as he saw it far superior than flesh.

i dont actually remember what viggo grimborn's inspo was other than his voice claim. maybe also for his charming yet manipulative demeanour

boothill was actually meant to be up there but i didnt have space !! his backstory is Very similar to trojan where they both lose a loved one and died just after, yet brought back via augmentation of their body.

ANYWAYS. thats the end. im so tired. thanks if you read all of this. im not reading back there's probably mistakes and i will probably die of cringe. woohoo i love having favourite characters then stuffing them into ocs

#; oc: hydra #; oc: intoxicate #; oc: trojan #; scales' descent #; wings' ascent #; startex: singularity #sharp teef talks

5 notes · View notes

fanficcrow · 2 years ago

Text

Keep it Quiet

Librarian!Thor x fem gn!reader

645 wk

No use of Y/N

Please repost and give feedback!

WARNINGS

smutty book

creepy Thor (only if you squint)

A/N: Heyyy!!! I’m going with Thor’s comic book height for this because 6’6 makes my knees go weak <3

(Also sorry I haven’t written for a month, I forgot how to type <33)

Hoooool-y shit.

You walk into the library and come face-to-face with the hottest man you’ve ever seen. Not only is he impossibly tall, seriously HOW can a man be that tall???, He’s also dripping in muscles.

And those clothes. You’d expect a gorgeous buff man to at least dress bad, to balance the universe, but apparently he didn’t get the memo. Because standing right in front of you is 6’6 of sinfully tight turtleneck and a felted coat that would send you straight to hell.

You snap out of your fangirl-esque stupor and realize he is looking right. At. You. Ah fuck. He’s got a confused look on his face that makes your blush run all the way to your ears and down your neck. I’m sure people come in and stare at him all the time, no biggie! You’re sure he won’t even remember you…. right?

Before you can be too consumed by embarrassment you break eye contact with him and scurry off into the library to go look at the books. Hopefully you’ll never have to see him again and everything will be fine!

You shake off all the thoughts of the mystery hottie and start looking for books. You aren’t proud of it, but you’ve taken to reading erotica. Ever since you and Eric broke up you found that the books would light a certain fire deep inside you. One could say you’d even become addicted to the feeling. You were just glad that most libraries had self checkout scanners. Saved you from weird looks and from human interaction!

You find a book with a promising cover and flip it open to a random page.

James held a tight grasp on her ponytail as he slowly entered her from behind. Her wanton moans filled his ears as he picked up the pace-

“Hello dove, anything I can do to help you?”

You yelped and slammed the book shut, before spinning around and pressing your back to the bookshelf. “Oh my lord you scared me!!” You sighed, and then looked up, your breath catching in your throat. Ohhhhhh fuck. It’s him. The hot librarian. And he just caught you reading erotica in a public library.

“Apologies dove, that wasn’t my intention!” He laughs quietly. “I have never seen you here before and it’s my job to help set people up!” He motions to the shiny gold name tag on his chest and you kick yourself mentally.

Oh of course that’s why he’s over here. Your paranoia had almost convinced you that he knew what you were looking for and he was gonna kick you out.

“Oh, um yeah! Is there an online application or something? I’d hate to bother you but if there’s a terminal here I can use that would be great.”

Thor chuckles and leans on the shelf above you. “Afraid not little dove, I’m all you got.” He threw a rakish grin and a wink your way and you felt your face burn up. His arm above you had made you extremely aware of how much taller he was up close, and how much smaller this aisle was when there were two people in it.

"Besides" The word yanks your eyes up to his, meeting them for the first time up close. His eyes were a blue so intense you swear you see flickers of lighting in them. "You'll need an account to check out that book you've been hiding behind your back this whole conversation." You gape at him in shock as he deftly swipes the book from your hand and looks at the cover. He glances up at you. "What, don't tell me you thought I didn't see this? I work here, I know what section we're in."

"I- You? You knew??" You asked, bewildered. You hadn't heard anyone approach you earlier so how?

"You were very busy reading. I caught a few paragraphs over your shoulder little dove, you have great taste in literature."

⚡️

This was kinda a drabble but it slayed soooo

#thor #marvel thor #marvel thor x reader #thor x reader #librarian thor #chris hemsworth #thor in a turtleneck #thor fanfic #marvel #drabble #fanficcrow writes

16 notes · View notes

yusuke-of-valla · 1 year ago

Note

Do you wanna discuss Future Past at all?

Sure! I can't promise much it's been a while since I watched it but I do really like it!

I actually think one really nice thing about Awakening is it's willingness to stretch the genre beyond a relatively straightforward fantasy war story (with some political intrigue here and there depending on the game) to incorporate a post-apocalypse and a terminator-esque time travel story

I'm not saying I want the fire emblem in space game (I do want this only because I think it would be very funny how mad people would get) but I do kinda wish they'd get a little weirder. Be a little silly with it.

#I understand this would be bad for sales but CONSIDER #CONSIDER #fuck you were putting a fucking hallmark Christmas movie in a fire emblem game #you can do anything you want forever as long as you're not a coward #seriously I would love a full post apocalyptic game along the vibes of what digital Devil saga has going on?

4 notes · View notes

cassyapper · 2 years ago

Note

pausing my misery and agony to drop. Tunez in your inbox! Once Again! First week of classes went well btw! The beginning of the end! ANYWAYS! more music you have probably heard!

This is so. Augh. It's on so many playlists for me it is SUCH a song:

https://open.spotify.com/track/3mBzmGcvEytNUsPHmpqtXZ?si=e32d68d2b6d54ec8 This is Jotaro coded I am not even going to beat around the bush about it this time here u go:

https://open.spotify.com/track/4W9WBmSfBjMIMrm26YV8bt?si=2cef6b93475b4c41 As is this :3c: https://open.spotify.com/track/62reWZkKlxUmLphHJy8kRN?si=cca4a96b34d54857

My sad gay ass is holding this so gently: https://open.spotify.com/track/6H2LbNF8RDehF74VZMxhuZ?si=00912f2e4a674732

And that is all for Now!! -Music Anon

hello music anon im sorry it took be ten billion years to get to this my schedule has been crazy as hell the past. uh. well i suppose it's always crazy but still i apologize for repsonding to this so late

i hope ur doing well btw im glad the first week of classes went well <3

as for today's gifts

weight of the world

i've never heard this song before! it's a lot of fun tho i love me a good jazz-esque tune

this reminds me so much of dio like im gonna add this to my dio playlist in fact. this is jsut so blatantly him esp in part 1 like god damn!!!!!! i honestly dont have much to say about it cause honestly i think the song speaks for itself. so much fun thank u for sharing this with me

peace

oh that ominous ass piano of lord above. you're aboslutely right this is ABSOLUTELY a jotaro song holy fucking shit. im actually sick. this kinda reminds me of that antagonist jotaro au i made like. two years ago. this is legitimately so atmospheric i'd be so scared if i heard this at night with the lights off 😭😭😭😭 great song. oh jotaro.... "i will never deserve peace"/"the air tasted of ashes"/"there's trouble in my bones, a frigid tide" oh jotaro........... i wanna cry. ugh the cut at the end as well. sooo jotaro getting slashed core

have a seat misery

oh this is absolutely jotaro and enrica (what i call mrs kujo) core....oh my lord. at the same time it also reminds me of jotaro and star platinum....god just. like you said. very jotaro core jesus christ

ugh this line in particular fucked me up. JOTAROOOO you fucking. UGH

L.V.S.

OUGHHH...GOD...his voice in this one fuck. it's so good

this fits a lot of jojo couples but i am terminally sdc brained so im thinking a lot about noritaro and avpol.....and honestly even just all of the crusaders in general cause this song isnt even explicitly romantic. ough god i wanna cry. i think im gonna add this to my sdc playlist. esp cause the warrior imagery....fallen warrior ....ough...it aches...and we my friend will meet again sometime....

this is so good im seriously fucking shaken thank you SO much for sharing

#cass cries #music anon

3 notes · View notes

saved-for-me-own-stories · 9 months ago

Photo

I did this! Unfortunately, the life of a newlywed writer prevents me from getting involved this year, but I thought I'd take a little look back at my past ones!

Day 1 = the naval parts of the Civil War, but with merpeople!

Day 2 = Man Who Invented Christmas AU!

Day 3 = I don't even know what this one was, but it had spooky moor vibes

Day 4 = the (younger) Othryans do not know what to call it besides a "dragon"

Day 5 = some of my book characters are suddenly teaching the classes of my fandom characters (also Seth is there for some reason)

Day 6 = magic fae being from one story of mine stops a bad thing from happening in the backstory of another story of mine

Day 7 = kinda like a Star Wars RPG for a handful of my fantasy characters

Day 8 = TPC but in the Underworld! Also Naphtali's a skeleton, so that's fun

Day 9 = my mind palace as a coffee shop for all the characters in my head

Day 10 = kinda similar to the Psmith Star Wars AU by @fictionadventurer, but with my Civil War rebel guys

Day 11 = Bernard Walton and some kids get sucked into a fairytale and have to untwist it to get home

Day 12 = Jumanji but Candyland! And also with my characters

Day 13 = fake academia on a franchise that doesn't exist (this one is so nerdy)

Day 14 = VoicePlay but they run a food truck (I don't know how to run a food truck)

Day 15 = Hanahaki Disease, but make it chronic instead of terminal and also about the four loves

Day 16 = ... okay, the posted version was lame, but the not lame version was super spoilery and creepy as heck

Day 17 = Hello Neighbour AU (like, not even the plot, it's just the actual game combined with my book)

Day 18 = the A-Team as 1940s tough kids (in a boys choir, like "Angels with Dirty Faces"), who have to protect the neighborhood priest

Day 19 = my made-up Greek mythology, but it's all spy organizations and rogue agents and secret formulas

Day 20 = "That Hideous Strength" but they actually go to Sulva/the Moon!

Day 21 = Ghost AU, but not how you expect, because this is Sarah & Duck and I didn't want to make an angsty one for that

Day 22 = first Joker usage! Soulmate AU for a Civil War soldier and a widowed mother (and it's SAD)

Day 23 = Penny from "The Rescuers" has time loop powers!

Day 24 = the Band and the Halwendes switch roles (it IS connected, but it's very complicated)

Day 25 = look, Mad Scientist Naphtali just works, even if I'm just talking about a dumb Phineas and Ferb crossover

Day 26 = second Joker usage! The Partridge Family but it's about acting and plays and such like (also shamelessly shippy)

Day 27 = Chad makes a Supernatural-esque fanfiction about the Time Travel Trio and maybe accidentally creates Danville Superwholock

Day 28 = Last Unicorn AU for TPC (and a little self-indulgent shipping that wouldn't actually be possible in canon)

Day 29 = Marley McFly (aka Jacob Marley has to go back in time and fix something that went terribly wrong)

Day 30 = you know those MCU posts that were like "everybody lives in Avengers Tower and hangs out and it's fun, even though most of them don't canonically know each other or never interact or are straight up dead"? That but for TPC. And with family LOTR readings.

Day 31 = taking "two of the above" as literally as possible, giving "The Agony and the Ecstasy" an Angelic AU with all theological respect

......

....you know, honestly, this almost seems like it could be an ask game.

Here. We. Go! AU-gust 2022 prompt list just dropped! Go on and spread the word!

What is AU-gust? It stands for Alternate Universe August, and it is a creative challenge for everyone. Writers, artists, fans; anyone can join! Be sure to check out our FAQ for more answers! Join us on Twitter, AO3, Discord and under the tags #AU_gust and #AU_gust_2022.

Special thanks to yaoyorozoops for creating this year’s graphics!

[Image ID: 31 days challenge prompt list as follows: 1 Underwater, 2 Artist’s Muse, 3 Countryside, 4 Dinosaurs, 5 Teachers, 6 Fairies, 7 Science Fantasy, 8 Literal Hell, 9 Coffee Shop, 10 Space Academy, 11 Twisted Fairy Tale, 12 Candyman, 13 Reboot/Fresh Start, 14 Food Truck, 15 Hanahaki Disease, 16 Psychological Horror, 17 Annoying Neighbour, 18 Choir, 19 Spies & Assassins, 20 Space Colonisation, 21 Ghosts, 22 Surfers, 23 Infinite Loop, 24 Childhood Friends, 25 Mad Scientist, 26 Paparazzi, 27 Adoptive Family, 28 Unicorns, 29 Where It All Went Wrong, 30 The Good End, 31 Two of the above. You have three Jokers: Soulmate AU, Theatre AU, Yandere AU]

#salt and light #my writing #au-gust 2022

1K notes · View notes

asingularcanadian · 27 days ago

Note

You reblogged an ask thing so I’m obligated to ask!

8. Do you have a reoccurring dream?

I know I've probably mentioned it a few times but I dunno if I've ever fully explained the series of dreams I've catalogued mentall under the title "The Terminal"

They started I think just before I was hired at CRA and then kicked into really high gear while I was working there. The dream doesn't reoccur exactly but the terminal being there makes it slot into that category for me.

So it started with a dream where I visit this international food terminal in the downtown of a city which looks like an overgrown version of Toronto. Now this first dream was great, I love going to international food stores, it was mostly me talking to the vendors and trying different fun produce and picking up a few nice things to try at home, joking with people, having a great time in general, really lovely.

The second dream is when things started to get kinda weird. I'm putting the rest under the cut cause this is gonna be long. If you choose to read it all, i dunno, good luck, I'm sorry, both?

Just for sake of ease I'm going to provide a map with the locations labeled

So that small black rectangle in the bottom right quadrant is the Terminal

Kawaii store and Expensive grocery: the pink K is the Kawaii store and Expensive grocery

Concert Crescent: to the right of the kawaii

Crowded Market: the purple jagged funnel above is the concert crescent

School of Disappointment: the oval to the left of the market and tot he right of Jimmy's, a university

Jimmy's: the black square with the J to the bottom left of the school of disappointment

CDS: the closed/derelict stores, though they were open in one dream they were boarded up during the rest of them

Brothel: the blue b to the left of the CDS

Slums: a seemingly endless inwards spiral of wooden shantytown esque housing units that get less well kept the further in you go, to the left of the brothel

The Twisted Railway: a tangle of traditional looking railways, to the left of the slums

Bay of Blood: underneath the slums

The Water: to the right of the bay of blood, where the flood starts

The Hungry Mausoleum: the square at the top with the crosses

So after the first dream, the second one started a few streets north of the terminal. It was cold, like November cold thats somehow really dry despite usually being very rainy. I was going back to the terminal to pick something up, I can't remember what exactly. The closer I got the emptier the streets got until I was standing in the square where the terminal was but it was all boarded up, the windows were plastered over with newspaper so you could make out much inside. When I tried to look through the window on the main door I could see the main hall of the place it was barren and covered in dust. Nothing in there was disturbed, the stalls were where they were but they were empty, the lights weren't on, and you could see the dust floating through the little streams of light that managed through the newspaper. I tried to look through a few of the windows but as mentioned it didn't quite work.

When I turned away from the building to the south of it I only then noticed that the water was rising through the city. It was carrying bits of debris and floating pieces of furniture and trash as floods tend to do. I couldn't do anything but stand there as the water reached up my calves and up to my knees wherein I woke up. The water was frigid.

The Next dream I had with the terminal was the start of not being able to touch it/it becoming a presence in feeling rather than something I actually got to see. Basically the rest of these dreams/nightmares will have some element of me trying to get back to the terminal.

It took part in two stages one where I was searching for the terminal but couldn't reach it, I turned down the same streets I did in the first two dreams but when I would turn a corner that would inevitably lead me into the little open area where the terminal was, another row of tall grey buildings would crop up to block me from getting there. I remember trying to go south to come up on it from another street but again was blocked by more buildings. It got late out and I ended up going a bit farther east where I found the Kawaii shop and the expensive grocer.

I don't know if the type of store has a name but there's a few shops in the real life Toronto that basically just function to sell cutesy Japanese stuff like stationary, plushies, gudetama stuff, sometimes games and what have you and the one in the dream was liek that. I didn't do much in there but go in and look around. Just to the right of it was the expensive grocer. I went int here and looked around, it didn't have prices on the shelf so i endeavored to get some flavoured coffee beans (i dont drink a lot of coffee but when I do it's flavoured) but when I got to the cash register the half a cup of unground coffee beans I wanted to get was around 650 dollars so I ended up leaving them at the cash and leaving.

Now the next dream I had I tried to get back to the terminal, same things happened, but then I tried to find the kawaii shop and the grocer and they were both closed.

Next dream after that was the concert crescent. We have this market up by my hometown it's like a big outdoor flea market that happens in the summer it's very garage saley-y, dusty, but sometimes you get booths of people doing really cools stuff like the video game vendor who does retro games, there was a dude who used to sell band t shirts. It was like that but in a crowded dirt street with live music and stuff. I thought I might be able to cut through the back of one of the buildings to get to the street with the terminal on it. On the way through the back of one of the shops, one of the workers offered me a joint, so it was actually one of the nicer dreams in this set.

Next dream after that was the first time I went into the crowded market, I would walk by it in other ones but i think after my first experience there I didn't wanna go back. I remember going into these thinking that I was going to ask if anyone would know about the terminal. The market is a night market specifically which is kinda funny cause those don't really exist in Toronto. So I went int he evening when the sky was that bruis-y mauve just after the sun has set and its still got that daytime warmth. The street was lined with little food stalls, occasional craft stalls, and polls with those little light bulbs you might see at a summer bbq party. The farther I went into the market the smaller it got, there were more people, they got louder, the body heat was enormous. I realized it was actively closing in around me. I woke up when I was crushed to death.

Next was the two dreams about the closed and derelict shops. The first time I was there the shops were actually open, I had gone out that way because I knew I needed to go grocery shopping and probably wouldn't be able to go to the terminal given the past experiences. My younger sister was in this dream and the most memorable part of it was ducking into a discount cosmetic shops. They had my favorite shade and brand of liquid lipstick. The grocery shop we ended up going to was an Italian grocer with a bakery attached, I remember the bread being particularly good. In the back of the bakery i remember seeing one of the employees, a stout round man with white t shirt and apron, jeans, having a dart while kneading.

After that dream the next time I went to the shops every single one of them was closed except the Italian grocer who had closed the bakery. The produce in the store was really bad and there was fruit flies everywhere.

After that was Jimmy's which I'm going to link separately because it was rather long

Then we have the bay of blood. I thought if I went far enough around and down and back up i might be able to sneak up on the terminal, what a mistake that was. To get far enough that I could get to the beach I had to go through this desolate beach. There was a rustic and rotting wood log staircase down onto the sand which was a sickly orange. The sky was a shifting and warping a too vibrant indigo and green that hurt to look at. There were pillars on the beach anywhere from 6-12 feet tall of sand like drip castles interspersed on the ground with large bones. There was a loud, mid tenor-y mechanical buzzing like if you took the peak sounds out of a saw that got louder the farther you went onto the beach. I call this the bay of blood because wherever you stepped in the dense wet sand a small spring of blood would pool around your foot. I walked through the beach for a few minutes before I rounded a corner and was confronted with a half rotting bird of some variety. I turned around and left after that.

After that was the hungry mausoleum. You know those beautiful and grotesque above ground graveyards in Louisianna that they build because the ground is far too swampy to dig down in some places? It was one of those. The crypts and tombs were Victorian in style made of various colours of marble and concrete in some places which water had stained making it look like they were crying. It was incredibly crowded with students, all dressed in black academic but not convocation robes who strolled distinctly inside the white marble pathways. There were a few animals here and there that also shared the path. I walked with one of the students, a young very pale man with dark curly hair who strode with an air of undue confidence. I was asking him about the terminal and what might make the area behave the way it does. He explained to me something odd that was happening in the fabric of reality in this area that caused things to move and disappear in ways that the university was looking into. As we walked and talked I noticed a rather large mouse hurriedly scooch around people's feet down the path ahead of us. In what I can only imagine was a burst of mouse frustration it tried leaping onto the grass to be able to walk more freely. As it did, a hole the size of it opened up briefly, swallowing the poor creature and closing up, leaving a wee maybe 3 cm tall little grass coloured cross behind. As if noticing the ground around us for the first time, I realized the grassy areas were littered with all sorts of these little crosses and coffins in various shapes and sizes which had previously blended in as grass and rocks.

The next dream was the slums. For someone with incredible natural sense of direction I had somehow managed to get lost trying to find my way to the closest area nearest to the terminal. If I had to guess I would say the city was actively trying to lead me farther away.As I tried to get out of the slums they just got worse. They were walled with big brick walls who's mortar was chipped and missing in some places letter in sharp rays of light from the outside. The further into it I got the taller and more unstable the buildings were, some even swayed in the breeze. The streets were entirely dirt and mud held together with trash. People occasionally lay slumped against buildings in places either sleeping or dead in the warm dim daytime giving it an overwhelmingly wet smell of minerals and decay. The light was largely overshadowed by the buildings by the time i reached the center, it was just hot, moist, smelly, and loud wit the sounds of domestic arguments, children crying, people bawdily laughing, and the general electrical hum of shoddy wiring.

Next dream after that was the twisted railway. Like most city's Toronto has a pretty great skyline and an incredible presence of tall buildings. I remember being kinda scared when I first started living there in my undergrad because everything felt so enormous given im from a smaller town a couple hours north. It also has a decent train system that runs to the surrounding suburbs and cities. Where I was was on the western outskirts of the city where train lines were meant to run to the central station in the downtown of the city. but all the tracks were almost tangled amongst each other. Similar to how grape vines grow and grasp and twirl in little corkscrews then flatten out again these train tracks followed a similar path. I decided I had to follow only one specific line otherwise I would become hopelessly lost so that's exactly what I did. Picked a rail and went with it. I could feel the presence of the terminal calling to me, trying to bring me back but also almost laughing at me. What the track did is eventually double back on itself and lead me farther out of the city and onto an open green field before ending abruptly.

Second last dream was the school of disappointment. This was the university that I mentioned back int he hungry mausoleum. I was a student there and the dream opened with me as part of the school marching band. Now, as musical as I am, I am a vocalist, not an instrumentalist, and this was entirely evident in the dream. I had my little marching outfit on and a flute (never have I once played a flute in my life.) We were meant to be doing formations like you see in american highschool football games and what have you but I had not been to any of the practices it seems so I did horribly. The whole thing was being filmed and it was in front of an incredible stadium full of people who booed me specifically. After we were done with the miserable performance I changed back into my regular clothes. It was seemingly the last day of the semester and we were required to pick up any projects that may still be with professors for grading. I walked up a kind of stair step like corridor until hitting one of the corners where I encountered an old wooden desk made of dark driftwood. On it was a painting, a few small pots that looked like deep red, purple, burgundy, and blue watercolours. The painting itself was strange but relatively simple, swirls of the varying shades of red and purple were brushed frenetically, fading from the brighter more vivid reds on the left side to the darker purply colours on the right side interspersed with lighter and darker shades of the same colours. IF we think of the painting being cut into quarters, towards the left top of the top right quadrant was a space about 3 inches by 2 inches that had been left relatively untouched. As I was looking at it another student came up to me, a small young man with incredibly greasy black shoulder length hair plastered to his head. He didn't give me his name but he had mentioned about it being sad that I never finished the painting, even though I never remember even starting it. We didn't chat long, his countenance was uncomfortable, like that chilling feeling you get when watching a documentary about a serial killer or something and they recount to you the details of a crime they committed in the same tone that one might take to describe an ordinary trip to the store. He ended the interaction with "Well, you better take it with you, someone needs to take care of it." It wasn't until after he had been gone a few minutes and I had been looking at the painting for a while longer that I noticed that the canvas had in fact been made out of skin that still seemed alive. I reached out to touch it and it shifted nervously under my fingers. I figured right then and there that i should try and at least finish it by painting in that one bit of the canvas that had been left untouched. There were cotton balls and crumples of newspapers with the paint which gave me some direction of the method. As I painted in the spot the canvas shuddered and shook, like it was in pain. When I was done I noticed on the right side of it in the bottom right of the bottom right quadrant was a small picture of the terminal.

The last most memorable dream that featured the presence of the terminal was actually making my way back to the terminal. I'll note that I had this one sometime after I was forced to quit the CRA due to my gallbladder issues in 2024. I was on a streetcar coming into the city on the same street that had the derelict shops and jimmy's. I was with a friend of mine at the time that I was really close with in university. We got off the streetcar briefly on the other side from the derelict shops, some of which were being renovated and had opening soon signs on them. We went into a small Chinese grocer to take a look around for fun ingredients. We only ended up getting a cookie each and leaving but I remember the distinct smell of the place, kinda musty in the same way that most markets will be if they have a live fish tank wall for fresh fish butchery with a hint of Chinese wind sausage. We got back on the streetcar and kept travel ling into the city where we passed by the brothel. It was a historically themed place i would say mid 19th century almost burlesque but not quite. There was a balcony where patrons and workers could sit out and have refreshments and talk and just generally have a decent time where the more lascivious activities were kept inside. we didn't go in but it was the first time in a long time I remember in these dreams having any semblance of joy. The last bit i remember was still being on the street car, my friend was napping on my arm as they often did IRL and I couldn't help but feel like I had made a breakthrough. Finally I was working my way back into the city, and I would soon be able to go back to the food terminal.

I haven't had a dream featuring it or it's presence since then.

I am sorry that this took me so long to answer but I needed time to find all the times I'd written down the dreams in my phone, read through them all and then transpose them for here.

1 note · View note