#might be bio luminescence

[1random-starfish]

Might make this guy

[rin-may-1103]

Just a Bite.

Master Post | Next

Danny stared out at the busy street from behind his dumpster.

or well, not his dumpster, but it might as well be his considering how many nights he's spent sitting behind it like some rabid raccoon.

Two months ago, he would have been sleeping in his own bed. His glow-in-the-dark stars vaguely lighting up his room in soft luminescent colors. The sound of Jazz snoring in her sleep just a room over, his parents still milling around in the basement.

he would have just finished fighting the box ghost and collapsed onto his bed, the sound of his home lulling him to sleep.

Oh, how things can change in a blink of an eye.

No, instead of sleeping on his bed with his cartoon ghost sheets and NASA poster covered room, he's out here in some random dirty city, sleeping behind dumpsters.

dirty, grimy, rusty dumpsters.

"did you hear?" some lady dressed in a light blue summer dress asked, turning to look at her friend as they started to walk past. "Mr. Wayne donated another lump sum to that charity." she huffed, shaking her head like she had just said the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard.

her friend stopped in the middle of the alley opening, her graying hair splaying in an ark as she twisted to face the other women. "my word! again? what the hell is that man thinking?"

the woman huffed, then smirked in amusement. "it's like he's shouting for the world to hear how desperate he is for attention. he thinks if he donates enough money to those scoudrails they'll love him or something. With how he's acting lately, it's like he wants all the street rats to barge into his home asking for money, food, and clothes."

her friend clicked her tongue in disgust, "I'd believe it. he has so many kids now, it's like he's running an orphanage. someone, anyone really, with black hair and some tragic story could walk right in and not even be noticed. they'd blend right in with the others."

"I heard it's genetic, his father was the same way before he met Martha. Bruce's blood son, Damian I believe, acts just like his father. the boy's been spotted taking stray cats and dogs inside. It wouldn't surprise me if the paper posted about him convincing his father for another sibling at some point."

the women then turned and started to walk away, their conversation slowly bleeding into the surrounding city ruckus.

Danny leaned back, resting his head against the crumbling brick behind him.

walk right in and not be noticed? wouldn't that be grand. He had heard of Mr. wayne and his gaggle of black-haired children. What were their names again? he could have sworn Sam told him before, in one of her rants about rich society.

Richard Grayson was the first, Danny remembered because Tucker had been making none stop dick jokes for a few hours. Danny didn't understand why the man would willingly go by Dick, but then again, who was he to question someone's name when he fights ghosts like Skulker and Technis on a daily basis?

Next was... Jason? Sam had mentioned there was a whole conspiracy theory of how his death was a cover-up. how all the unsolved crime community swore it was Bruce who killed the kid, that or the kid had some terminal illness that Bruce didn't want the media to know about.

thennnnnn-

Danny glanced around, trying to dig through his memories of Sam's rant. Dick: the orphaned circus act taken in the night his parents died. he's romanie? maybe, Danny wasn't too sure on that one. Jason: taken off the streets, one of his parents was out of the picture and the other one died of a drug overdose.

and then there was..... Tim! Right, Tim, the one who was Mr. Wayne's neighbor before his mother died and his dad went into a coma, then died later on. right, right. he was the known tech genius, the one who took over the company while Mr. Wayne stepped back for a while.

there were others? like, four others? Damian, the lady said he was the blood son sooo, that would imply he was the only bio kid.

who else was there? hmmmm.

well, either way, Danny's tired brain agreed with the women. someone, anyone, who looked vaguely like the other kids could walk right into the house and no one would notice.

it was a bad idea. a terrible one really. but. Danny was hungry.

he's been sleeping behind dumpsters for a few weeks now, he hadn't had anything good to eat in forever, and he was tired. (not as exhausted as he was back home, but still tired. who would have guessed he'd sleep more while homeless?)

he wasn't going to steal from people, his core wouldn't allow him to. and well, he's pretty sure Dan would have stolen already, so there was no way Danny was going to. not unless his life was at risk, and well? it wasn't right now, so no stealing.

but this? walking right into a house and blatantly taking food? right in front of them?

it wouldn't be stealing if he just flat-out didn't try to hide it. they'd be able to stop him and send him away. heck, he doubted he'd even make it past the front gate before they turned him away.

...

was he really going to do this?

...

yes, yes he was.

standing up, Danny started making his way out of the alleyway and over to the tall building with Wayne's name on it. It was a good place to start, maybe he could even find one of the kids and walk with them. or, even better, he could find Mr. Wayne and walk with him. he liked that better than following some kid around.

suddenly, a car honked right next to him, the window rolling down to reveal a tired and disheveled man behind the wheel. glancing up, Danny made eye contact with the taxi driver.

the man yawned and gestured for him to get in, already speaking before Danny could decline. "Mr. Wayne! Your father," yawn, "Father already paid for me to take you home. just hop in."

Danny blinked then glanced around, looking to see if the Wayne the man was talking about was around. nope. turning back, Danny spotted a green sticky note on the back seat.

well, alright then. guess he was getting into the taxi and doing this after all. Clockwork obviously approved if he messed with the timing of things.

Next

[thebusybumblebee]

You Thought You Were So Clever

You'd heard whispers of great riches for those willing to take the risk. Make the right deal with the fae in the forests, and one could walk away set for life. You go when the sun starts to dip just below the horizon. Summer heat is just cooling down. A pleasant breeze kisses your face. Fireflies are already bobbing between bushes and branches. There's so many despite the season coming to a close soon. In fact, there are almost too many. They surround you, the bio-luminescent bugs creating a trail for you to follow. The trails turn and twist deeper and deeper into the woods. The sky grows darker, the air colder. When you're finally in a clearing, even the breeze has stopped. The fireflies disappear, leaving only the moonlight for the shadows to flicker in. Silence is all-consuming. The ringing in your ears grows until you think you might turn tail and give up this venture. "My, my," a voice whispers on the wind. "It's been so long since we've had a visitor." You turn this way and that, straining to find the source of the voice. Another voice, closer, muses, "much too long. Poor little lamb seems lost." Before you can think better of it, you call out, "I came to make a deal." A cacophony of sounds pick up with the sudden return of the winds. You cover your ears trying to block it out. The wind settles in one final gasp. You open your eyes. What was an empty, dark clearing has been transformed. You find yourself in the midst of a party. Lanterns are strung from the trees. Fae are dancing and mingling by fires. In the center, there is a table heavy with food and drink. It's a miracle the legs aren't bowing under the weight of it all. A fae, tall and lithe, strides over. "Welcome, little lamb." You begin again about deals and bargains. "Hush," they coo. Their nails trace up your neck until they hold your chin. "We've so missed having a human to entertain us. In exchange for your company, we will send you off with more gold and riches than you can walk away with just as soon as the feast is over." You nod. It's a simple deal: spend time with the fae and you'd be made. The fae smiles wide and leads you to a seat. The chair is sturdy, lavish even. A golden plate is pressed into your hand. All kinds of food fill the surface. You can't quite recognize some of it, but you're tantalized all the same. Fruit juices coat your mouth, the flavor blooming across your tongue. Hot, yeasty rolls in butter help sop up the many sauces you try. Bread pudding and liquor cut some of the savory flavors before you return to the cuts of meat laid out for you to try. Fae-folk flit in and out of conversation. They're charming and polite, always smiling and refilling your plate and cup. You can't say how much time has passed or how long you've been at the table. There's a point where everything seems warmer. Sweat drips down your face. Why were you breathing so heavily? You pull at your shirt collar to try and loosen it. The fae simply disrobe you. "It's a party," they say. "Don't think so hard." So you don't. You must get tired at some point too, because it's getting harder to lift your arms. It seems like it'd be hard to leave this seat, even if it is more cramped than you remember. You try to lean forward to grab your cup again. Though, try as you might, your fingertips can hardly reach it. The cup topples over. The clatter awakens you from your stupor. It’s as though a veil had suddenly been lifted.

Whatever cotton was dulling your senses can no longer hide what has happened to you. Your arms have plumped up like the hams on the table with fingers resembling sausages. Your hips must have spread across the seat too, because you can feel the arms of the chair gripping your love handles more surely than any lover ever has. You try to look down, but your thicker neck and double chin have to fight for space. A plumper chest greets you. The largest change was the heavy belly that crested beyond your knees. It was burgeoning with all the delicacies you’d been plied and stuffed with all evening. With a small hint of dread, you realize you’re still hungry.

“How long have I been here? When will this end?” You fret and try to rise from your seat. The fae that greeted you puts a hand to your belly. Their touch is appraising, paired with a gaze filled with a hunger of their own.

“It seems our lamb isn’t so little anymore,” they tease. Already, other fae start preparing more plates for their guest.

“When is the party over?” You ask again. You’re met with smirks and snickers all around.

“Oh, darling,” their voice drips with faux sympathy. “Here, in this realm, the party is never over.” You feel a cold chill down your back, but don’t fight the cup being brought to your lips again. As the spiced, warm cider flows down your throat, you find your thoughts flowing away too. The last realization you have is that any gold would be too much to walk away with when soon you won't be able to walk at all. You thought you were so clever.

[phantomwithbreakfast]

DANNYMAY DAY 10: Family

Day 09 • Day 11

⟢ Did I know what to do with this prompt? Absolutely not. Thankfully, some amazing friends helped spark the idea—so huge thanks to them for the rescue! This was also the very first time I’ve ever drawn Maddie—so… that was a whole experience on its own, geeeez—(more under the cut)

Genre: Angst / Drama • TW/CW: Graphic Content — Violence — PTSD — Emotional Distress • Maddie’s POV • A moment after Scarred For Half A Life (my phic) • AU — OOC

The house was quiet again.

Too quiet.

No Jazz stomping up the stairs with textbooks cradled to her chest. No Danny thudding through the door with muddy sneakers and excuses. No laughter. No shouting. No heartbeat.

Just the whispers of a silent home that used to be full of life.

Jazz was away at college—pursuing her own future, a future Maddie once envisioned proudly for both of her children. And Danny… Danny was gone. Not gone as in missing. No. She knew where he was—out there, somewhere. Wandering. Existing. A ghost of the boy she once held in her arms.

The boy she cradled. The boy she once watched the stars with, his tiny hand wrapped in hers. The boy she whispered a future to—soft dreams beneath blanket forts and starlit ceilings. A life full of promise. Of hope. The boy she tried so desperately to save.

But it was no use.

She hadn’t saved him.

Now all that remained was silence. And the echo of everything she’d lost.

Maddie sat on the edge of the couch, back straight, hands folded politely in her lap. In her palms, she held the photograph frame that always sat on the coffee table. It was old now—edges chipped, the silver rim dulled. But the image was still crystal clear.

Her boy. Her Danny.

She studied his face, her gloved thumb brushing over the glass in a delicate motion. A mother’s caress—sterile, careful, as if even through the photo, he might vanish at her touch.

How had it come to this?

How had the sweet, smiling child in the frame become the thing that stood in front of her in the lab that day—wild-eyed, screaming, burning with ectoplasmic rage?

How had Phantom infected him so deeply? So thoroughly that Danny couldn’t see the truth anymore?

No… that wasn’t fair. She knew the truth. Knew what had to be done. All her research, all her testing, the sleepless nights… they were for him. Only for him. For his safety. For humanity’s safety.

That’s what she‘d told herself. But buried under all the logic and justifications was something far less noble.

She just wanted her little boy back.

Her Danny. Her son. Hers.

Not some half-dead, ectoplasm-saturated anomaly with Phantom’s reverberating vocal frequency and those irradiated, bio-luminescent green eyes—unnaturally aged beyond the developmental stage of an eighteen-year-old.

Maddie exhaled sharply, the breath rattling through clenched teeth. Her hand trembled as it traced the curve of her little Danny’s cheek in the photo—just for a moment—but she forced it still. Composure was key. Logic was essential. Emotions clouded judgment. Still… the memory came unbidden.

That last conversation—if it could be called that. A confrontation. A breakdown. A rupture.

“Everything I’ve ever done for you! Every time I was there for you—it was all for nothing!” she’d screamed. She remembered the pitch of her own voice cracking.

And its reply—so calculated, so… cold, laced with a dangerously elevated cortisol spike in its tone. It wasn’t the neural cadence of her son. It was something else entirely. Something Phantom.

“You’re a fucking sick, narcissistic psycho! I wish you were dead! DEAD!” it had screamed, its voice reverberating with raw ectoplasmic resonance, each word slamming into her like a shockwave. Phantom—pinning her down, overpowering on the cold lab’s floor. There was no way out. No escape. Just its fury—heavy, suffocating and absolute.

The ghostly, green ectoplasmic blade had materialized before her cortex could fully register his words—a volatile construct forged from grief, rage, and betrayal. Ectoplasm manipulated at a molecular level, shaped not for defense, but as a precise instrument of hatred.

“I tried… to be your son. I tried… to be what you wanted. I tried to be enough for you,” it said—its voice trembling, brittle with long-suppressed emotion. She watched its hands shake, still gripping the ectoplasmic blade suspended above her body. The energy shimmered, unstable, reacting to his elevated stress levels and unstable core.

Ghosts don’t feel emotions. Ghosts don’t feel pain.

She repeated it like a mantra—over and over and over again, forcing the belief into every corner of her mind until it sounded like truth. Until it had to be the truth.

But… was it?

All those years of study. All those sleepless nights in the lab, dissecting ectoplasmic signatures, charting neural echoes, cataloging behaviors and anomalies. Mapping the so-called biology of something that shouldn’t exist. She’d convinced herself—convinced the world—that ghosts were nothing more than sentient patterns. Echoes. Constructs obsessed with an idea, not real people. No real emotion. No true pain. Just manipulation coded into their being. Just psychopathic mimicry—strategic, rehearsed. They didn’t feel, they performed. They adapted to get what they wanted.

And yet…

That voice. That blade. Those dispicable eyes.

That boy.

Was it all just Phantom’s performance?

Or… had she miscalculated the truth all along?

She should’ve felt fear. But all she could process in that moment was the devastating truth—

It—he still wanted to be loved. And she had failed him. She’d failed herself. Not as a scientist. Not as protector of humanity. But as a mother. She’d failed her son. And in doing so—she had failed herself. Completely. Irrevocably.

Before her neurons could even fire in response, before cognition caught up with reality—the blade dropped, piercing straight through her sternum. A precise, calculated strike. Not reckless. Not wild. Just deliberate. Cold. Controlled. As if it—he had been holding it in for years.

She could still feel it sometimes—phantom pain in the space just beside her heart.

“And it was… it was never enough. So fine. If I’m nothing to you, then you’re nothing to me,” it—he had said—his voice flat, final. Not shouted. Not screamed. Just spoken like a verdict.

The blade stayed lodged between her ribs, pulsing faintly with unstable ectoplasmic energy. Her lungs stuttered against the pressure—sharp, shallow gasps cathing in her throat. The tissue around her sturnum burned, the spreading cold, the biological confusion as her nervous system began to misfire. Each inhale felt tighter, narrower—like the air itself was rejecting her.

She was suffocating.

Everything blurred. And for a moment, she couldn’t tell if she was looking at her son… or the thing… she’d created.

His hand had trembled when he twisted the blade—but not from regret. From fury.

“You’re not even worth killing,” he whispered—spat through clenched teeth, each word dripping with contempt.

The blade was drawn from her chest in one clean pull. Not with hesitation. Not with mercy. With disdain.

The withdrawal burned worse than the strike.

Before she could fully register the movement, his hand hovered inches above her chest—right over the open wound. A chilling cold bloomed from his palm, not the comforting kind—but the clinical, detached kind. Ice spread over her sternum, seeping into the torn tissue. The wound began to close—not fully, no. Just enough to stop the bleeding. Enough to keep her alive.

“You’re worth it to fucking suffer,” he finished, his voice low, final, echoing in the sterile silence like a death sentence.

It wasn’t kindness. It was all about control.

Maddie’s hands trembled around the photo frame now. Not from fear. No—never fear.

This piece is—a kind of aftermath of what is going to happen in my phic. I don’t even know if people are reading it lol.

Just… the aftershocks of loss. The lingering tremors of something she refused to name.

She set the frame down carefully, like it was a specimen too fragile to fracture—too sacred to break. Her expression remained composed, perfectly arranged, every muscle calculated into stillness.

But inside?

Inside was a mother’s graveyard. Unmarked. Silent. And filled with everything she’d buried just to survive.

⟢ I’ll be honest—I’ve developed a real hate for headcanon Maddie. Not just because of all the existing phics out there where she vivisects Phantom—her own son—whether she realizes it or not. But because of my own phic. I created that version of her, and now I can’t look at her without cringing. Drawing her was… uncomfortable, to say the least. And yeah, I know—it sounds weird. But it is what it is, and there’s no undoing it now.

⟢ I don’t enjoy writing Danny as a villain either. But sometimes, to really understand a story, you have to look at it through someone else’s eyes. Right?

⟢ This piece is a kind of aftermath of what’s coming in my phic. Honestly? I’m not even sure if anyone’s reading it, lol.

[beardedalcoholic]

Memories of a Soul

Galgac couldn’t believe his luck.

He cursed the circumstances but promised himself he would make the most of it. For a space faring species like himself this was possibly a once in a lifetime opportunity for not only himself but his race and the galactic community as a whole.

A human was dying, an actual human! The tiny gods that ascended to the stars upon pillars of flame and madness, the seemingly unstoppable tide of warriors risen from their garden world of death.

Over a hundred cycles had passed since they took to the galactic scene and in that time, they had started as many wars as they had stopped and brought a level of culture unseen beforehand.

Wars between worlds that had been raging beyond the memory of those involved had been quelled by their words and ideas, while oppressive regimes and entire governments had been toppled from their previously unreachable heights.

With a standard lifespan many times that of their space sailing counterparts it was not unheard of for a human to be entrusted with knowledge, items, messages or words of wisdom for later generations. 

Added onto this seemingly impossible life span it was well known that humans simply did not accept death. Injuries that would kill many other species were more of an inconvenience to the humans, some looked at the loss of limbs and organs as a challenge to come back from and try again while others used their story as a way to teach and warn future generations of miniature titans. 

================================================

For a species known for being able to dive deep into the psyche of practically any and all species, humans were like forbidden treasure troves of knowledge and wisdom: firsthand experience of historical events, important conversations, debated actions of who did what? and why?

All of this information and more could usually be found in the mind of a human…of course there was only the small matter of GETTING the information.

Human minds were said to be nigh impenetrable to all but the cleverest of infiltrators and even then, it was said once you got in there was no telling what you would, or could find. Human mental defenses were said to range from endless labyrinths that constantly changed their configuration to impossible creatures from the humans’ imagination.

To be invited to meet a human was a great honor, to meet one dying of old age was thought among some to be impossible as many species still believed them immortal. To not only be allowed to enter the human’s mind, but to be invited to do so was almost too incredible to believe.

“You’re Galtakal’s kid aren’t you?” The raspy voice from the bed snapped Galgac out of his mental musings.

Following the voice to its source on the hospital bed Galgac focused on the human, thin hair the color of silver, skin wrinkled and spotted with age unheard of among most species, muscles that at one time could bend Taraxian steel and break Fomotian carapace lay withered and atrophied as mere shadows of their former glory. 

Lines creased the human’s face telling of cycles beyond measure spent smiling and laughing…as well as snarling and frowning…the stories this human’s physical self could tell alone were staggering. The eyes though were what nearly stole Galgac’s breath…blue like a clear warmth cycle with not a cloud in sight, yet still sharp as a mono-molecular blade…age may have robbed this human of his physical might, but even time could not seem to dull the mind of this once legendary creature.

“Y-yes, um yes sir, Galtakal was my sire…how could you know that…sir?” The human laughed quietly to himself before he answered.

“The bio-luminescent spots on your face, they are almost exactly like your fathers’ spots…you carry yourself the same as well…arrogance like none other, well deserved and justifiable no doubt, but still I want to punch you in the face just like the first time I met your father. I miss him you know, he deserved a better death than what he got…self-sacrificing prick left you a message by the way, I imagine you will find it at some point.” Galgac was speechless…this human had known his sire, it sounded like they knew each other personally even. 

Walking forward Galgac reached out to the human and laid his webbed digits within the human’s grip, barely restrained strength still coursing through the powerful muscles and bones even in his advanced age. With a feeling not unlike having his brain liquified and then vacuumed through a long tube Galgac slid his awareness down his arm and into the human before him. 

================================================

Galgac found himself on a battlefield on a planet he had never been to, human atmospheric air fighters...jets they called them...screamed overhead with the battle cries of war maddened harbingers of an apocalypse.

Bullets split the air with sonic booms and whizzed like furious insects while lasers and bolts of superheated plasma melted armor...bombs went off far away, no...closer...to close!

Galgac found himself picked up by an ethereal giant and slammed down on his back, surely such an impact just broke his entire back plate and probably a few organs were going to be bleeding...no, he was getting back up...how was he getting back u-

*OOF!*

Suddenly a body slammed into him just before a searing line of plasma wrent the air where his head had been seconds before. 

Looking towards the figure that had just slammed him back into the ground, and saved his life in no uncertain terms, Galgac was shocked…

“Father?” The face looking at him was much younger, but it was unmistakably the face of his sire. 

“Are you injured human? Can you still fight?” Galgac nearly lost the connection to the humans’ mind with the flood of emotions that came with that question. 

A figure blocked the unknown planet’s sun, a long blade raised to strike the both of them in a single blow. With unfamiliar muscles and reactions that superseded conscious thought Galgac wrapped his father with arms that felt as though they could crush the seemingly fragile body within their grasp to a pulp and rolled to the side until he was looking down upon his father from a reversed position of their previous one. 

Adrenalin surged, muscles tensed, nerves fired like atomic engines and Galgac felt his new and unfamiliar body sing with a power he had never known...he wanted to run, he wanted to mate, he wanted to fight, oh how he wanted to fight, to strike down the enemy and scream his power to the skies of this alien world in defiance of all attempts to defeat him.

Surging to his feet and drawing the combat vibra-blade from his shoulder sheath Galgac spun to engage the enemy, only for the visage of the human from the hospital bed to appear, grab him by the throat and lift him up and out of his new body. 

“Sorry about that, Galtakal told me that might happen but I didn’t really think about it until a few seconds ago...I guess the thoughts of your father got me thinking about the first time we met. He saved my life you know, I saved his in return a few seconds later but that was irrelevant…”

Galgac tried to focus on what was his and what was memory, the feeling of being human for just those few seconds was intoxicating.

The power contained in the limbs, seeing the world in spectrums of color and depth so vastly different than his own, senses all on fire from the bloodlust of battle sending him so much information about his surroundings. He was amazed the humans could possibly process it all...and there, in front of him he saw the human whose mind he was now intruding upon, watching his past self and Galgac’s sire fight side by side.

Like two dancers they spun around each other...no... the human ducked and wove like a zephyr of cutting wind around his sire, slicing with his blade and drawing blood with every strike while his sire would spin in place from one target to the next, expertly placing blaster rounds through vital points. 

Seeing his sire like this was...jarring to say the least, for so long he had known him as a peace loving and quiet individual. Seeing one of his progenitors as a whirling dervish of war and death seemingly moving in time with a human was...well he would have to explore those thoughts later, for now he had years of memories to view. 

“Come on lad, let me show you around a bit.” Hearing the voice of the human whose mind he was intruding upon just before a powerful hand fell upon his shoulder gave him just enough time to brace himself. The world around them seemed to blur and melt into a confusing wash of colors before seeming to solidify into a new scene, thankfully less chaotic. 

================================================

Looking around, Galgac realized he was on a ship...by the markings upon the bulkheads it was... yes, the UGF Predatory Might, the first ship designed by humans and built by the Unified Galactic Federation.

Seeing the human begin walking down the hall Galgac followed him and did his best to pay attention to everything at once, this was a ship not often seen by non-humans and even then, it was only really sent for one of two reasons...War and Relief.

This ship alone contained enough armaments to send most smaller celestial bodies spinning into a star while also boasting one of the most advanced medical facilities in the known universe. Walking along the hallways of the ship Galgac could only marvel at what he saw, humans walking to and fro with some running and dodging around their counterparts with grace unseen in most species and others casually reading various reports and updates on tablets while simultaneously avoiding collision with those around them. 

“Ya know I never did figure out how they did that...just dodge around everyone without looking up from reading and still be able to comprehend what they were looking at.” Spinning to look at the human, Galgac felt his luminescent markings begin to glow brighter...this human was not JUST a human as he had been led to believe...this was…

“B-b-battle Master Alventar…” This was one of the most highly decorated humans in recent history, he had personally led more successful war efforts than any other human on record and who had planned an almost incalculable amount of side missions, some of which wouldn’t be released for at least a century AFTER his death. 

“Yes yes...that was one of my titles, did they not tell you who I used to be? Ah well, no matter, come let me show you why we are here.” With an easy smile and almost eager stride the Battle Master continued on down the hall. Following quickly Galgac whipped his head around enough that if he was in a physical body his neck would be getting sore. “Here it is lad…” Battle Master Alventar said ahead of him as he slid through a door and then looked through a window, his voice was oddly low and almost reverently anticipatory. Catching up to the human Galgac gazed at him and noted the strange look upon his face.

A small smile graced the human’s face, coupled with the simple light of joy in his eyes seemed to shed decades from his visage.

Seeing him pressed up against the glass like a child caused Galgac to gaze in slight wonder...this human was one of the most brilliant battle minds of the known galaxy, he had seen more battle than most battalions and had been in command longer than Galgac had been alive, what could possibly be beyond that glass to make him act this way?

Turning from the Battle Master, Galgac gazed through the glass and was slightly taken aback...he actually had to do a double take to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating, one of the figures within the room was a much younger version of the human standing next to him. 

Standing within the room was a mid-thirties Alventar standing next to a rather large woman, her stomach vastly bloated out, disproportionate to what the rest of her body would suggest would be normal. She should have looked like a slim, mocha skinned, dark-haired goddess of a woman but instead she was a rather large, round, goddess of a woman. Skin flushed with exertion and gleaming with sweat the young woman’s face was screwed tight with pain, breaths coming in short pants and gasps.

“What um...what am I looking at Battle Master...why are we here?” Galgac asked softly. 

“This is one of the most momentous days of my life… I tell you now lad, I have seen stars collapse and die, I have seen battlefields strewn with bodies uncounted and I have witnessed entire planets and civilizations reduced to dust but right here...this moment...this is when I witnessed the greatest miracle to grace this universe…the act of bringing LIFE into the world…” The look on the Battle Master’s face was one of tearful joy beyond anything Galgac could relate to. 

Feeling the psychic resonance between them Galgac was soon swept up in a wash of golden joy beyond anything he could have ever conceived. The feeling that flooded his entire mental being was enough to bring him to tears at the simple and expansive joy of it, vitality and warmth flooded down his limbs and seemed to invigorate his muscles and nerves until they were singing like a solar storm. 

“She’s here...my Star Queen…” The Battle Master spoke in a low voice usually reserved for quiet temples and altars. With a voice like he was invoking an ancient goddess’s name the Battle Master pressed himself harder against the glass and continued to speak.

“She was always the best thing I had ever done, my greatest accomplishment and most beautiful achievement…” Galgac reluctantly shook himself of the golden feelings and gazed within the room, there laying on the bed was the dark-haired woman holding a small bundle of blankets to her chest. 

Looking closer Galgac could see the small figure of a human baby swaddled in the blanket, it seemed to be rather upset at its current situation as it was apparently crying.

“I am afraid I do not understand...it is merely a child, there are many of them and they all seem to look like that when they are born…” In later years Galgac would learn how close he came to getting a royal ass whooping right then and that the look on the Battle Master’s face was not one of deep confusion but rather murderous incredulity.

“I have left entire continents barren and choked with death, I have orchestrated missions that toppled governments and overthrew tyrants across more star systems than I can remember but right there, in that room is the first woman to see me for more than the battle scars and nightmares. In her arms is the first time I have ever been associated with life...she is my greatest achievement because she is the result of a true partnership, a battle pair, life mates and soul bonds. That little girl in there has the beauty, strength, mind and absolute power of her mother….and I guess my eyes along with some other stuff…”

Looking into the room once more Glagac observed the interactions of the mother and child, how when the Battle Master was introduced he seemed to show a level of care and gentleness not usually seen in his species of near immortal battle fanatics. 

Watching the three of them, two elders and a newborn, Galgac saw how they instinctively covered the babe with their bodies from threats unknown, how they both glared at any medical professional that dared approach them even if for no more than a heartbeat. 

These were new parents and they would scorch all of creation if it meant their child was safe. The Golden sense of unparalleled joy was soon suffusing him as he opened himself to the psychic resonance again, except this time it was tempered and sheathed in a layer of Steel resolve. Galgac found himself almost overwhelmed at the sheer power behind these two humans’ determination that nothing would harm the child they brought into this world. 

The feeling of a hand landing solidly upon his shoulder caused Galgac to jump slightly. Whipping his head to the side he saw the Battle Master looking at him with an expression of profound sadness somehow mixed with un-ending joy. 

“Time to go lad...There is no way for me to ever repay you for this gift. You have allowed me to witness the birth of my firstborn once more, the birth of the Brightest Star in my Skies and it is something I never thought I would ever be able to experience again outside of my hazy memories.” Turning away from Galgac the Battle Master made his way to the infirmary door that opened onto a completely different world. 

“Well? You wanted to see my memories right?” Shaking himself of the lingering golden affects that the birth of his daughter caused, Galgac hurried to the new door and the memory that lay beyond.

================================================

Walking out of another memory Galgac was giving a new definition to the term disoriented, his head was spinning from the sheer amount of LIFE this single human had experienced. In the last few heartbeats Galgac had experienced events and conversations that could topple at least two governments and probably allow him to black mail an entire planet and that was before the sheer amount of training and battle this man had seen.

“I...I had no idea…” Words did not easily surface in the hurricane of his mind after seeing what he had just witnessed. 

“I know right? Who would have thought your old man was such a badass! I still have no idea where he got a donkey, a ladder, three cases of genuine earth tequila and five pounds of C-4...but that had to be the best bachelor party Calament IV has ever seen.” Finishing this statement with a hearty laugh and missing Galgac’s response that he could have told the man how much of a badass his dad was, the two of them looked around at their newest setting.

Cheers and applause assaulted Galgac’s auditory receptors like a rogue wave upon a beach. Lights flashed and a sun much harsher than his world’s own glared at him from above. A gentle breeze was the only respite Galgac received from the sudden change in settings, this was one of the things he hated the most about going through another being’s memories: having to experience their life through what they remembered. The day could have been ten degrees cooler and the wind even stronger but if the human didn't remember it that way then Galgac sure wasn’t going to experience it that way. 

“Ughh...I was really hoping to never have to relive this day, I guess it makes sense to go from some of the best days of my life to one of the worst…still sucks though.” Galgac looked to his side after he acclimated to the harsh environment and was shocked once more. 

Standing beside him was the Battle Master, but much diminished from his previous gravitas.

Mid to late twenties at best, he almost looked like a child playing dress up. Fresh faced and with coal black hair he stood there in his dress uniform, creases on his pants crisp enough to slice fruit, shirt fitted perfectly and starched to within an inch of its life. He looked every inch the perfect young military tactician...except the eyes. The usually deep pools of light blue were now frozen over and shallow, the sight sent a shiver down Galgac’s short spine. 

“This was the day...the day I received the most painful reminder of my actions, the day that started my worst nightmares.” In a moment of dissonance he had not experienced before Galgac watched as the Battle Master seemed to step out of himself.

With one vision walking forward to the call of his name and the other standing there as solid as a Column of Reality Galgac watched as the Head of the United Galactic Federation gave a short speech and proceeded to pin a shining medal to the Battle Master’s chest. 

“Yes...a medal and speech about peace after one of the greatest instances of near xenocide in my species history. I was to be lauded and seen as a hero of war after making the final decision to nearly annihilate an entire race.”

The only warning Galgac had that something was going to change was the cold feeling of despair sliding through his veins like mercury right before the sunny day and gentle breeze blurred, running like water colors before Galgac’s eyes until he was standing upon the command deck of the UGF Last Resort, the most powerful warship in history. 

================================================

“I ask you again Emperor, surrender for the sake of your future, for the sake of your planet and people!”

Captain Alventar pleaded across the vid screen to the enemy ruler. Pouring every ounce of desperation and desire for a peaceful outcome he could into his voice the captain leant over his console. Around him were men and women years into their fields of study and profession and all of them remained still over their stations as they awaited the final word from their Commanding Officer. The air was thick with tension and not a single member of the bridge crew dared even breathe too loudly as they awaited the reply from the Alanshel Emperor. 

“We will never surrender human.” The voice came over the translator in a vile hiss of contempt.

“The Alanshel empire will take our rightful place as rulers of this galaxy and we will subjugate all those that resist us!” It was only by the feeling of frustrated embers squirming across his skin like writhing eels that told Galgac what Captain Alventar was truly thinking, even more so when the embers cooled and became like shards of metal slowly sinking down to drive themselves into his very bones.

“I was afraid you would say that...Just remember that you brought this upon yourself...and may your Gods visit mercy upon your decision, for we will show none.” Galgac watched as the young captain stood up from his command console and seemed to simultaneously collapse and grow in presence. 

Squaring his shoulders and straightening his spine with a sharp inhale the Battle Master stood there with his eyes closed as if steeling himself. With smooth, almost dreamlike movements the newly born Battle Master reached forward and flipped the cover off a deceptively small but violently red button. 

“Let the record show all attempts were made to reach a peaceful solution...and all attempts failed...By the power and responsibility invested in my position as Captain of the UGF Last Resort and Leader of the Battle Fleet Armada, I am hereby calling a fleet wide orbital bombardment...all ships fire at will.”

That was all it took, pressing a small red button and the world seemed to turn in on itself for Galgac. The entire ship rocked and shuddered as its most powerful munitions were unleashed upon the world below. Across the view screens similar scenes played out from different angles...battle cruisers and warships ejecting massive payloads of death upon the planet below them. 

Galgac watched in awe as the planet lit up like small suns were suddenly birthed upon its surface. Looking around the Control Center he noticed almost everyone had either looked away or closed their eyes not wanting to witness the destruction being wrought beneath them...but not the Captain, not the Battle Master. 

Standing there in front of the poly-carbide windows of the Control Center the Captain stood with his arms clasped behind his back, shoulders rigid and legs straight...he would not watch what he had done on a screen when he could witness it firsthand. Galgac approached the Captain, the young Battle Master, and was shocked at what he saw...tears.

Tears were streaming silently down the Captain’s face as he looked down on the world he had just condemned to fire. His breathing was slow and steady, face seemingly carved in stone, shoulders and back locked in place as if he would defy the very laws of the universe to bend him from his stance. Yet his collar began to show signs of the tears soaking it and small plops rang like bells in the near silence as they fell to the floor. 

It was in that moment Galgac felt he began to understand, the decision to burn the world below him had elevated The Captain to his position of Battle Master and in doing so had carved irreparable scars into his soul. With every tear that fell from the Battle Master’s eye, with every new blast that lit up the world beneath them Galgac felt a new wound upon his very soul, a new scar freshly made. 

“Two billion, seven hundred and forty-three million dead in the first ten minutes of the barrage...by the calculations.” The voice that came from behind him was supposed to be the Battle Master, but it was hollow and dead as a tree left to die of disease. Turning away from the broken face of the newly minted Battle Master and ignoring the roiling flames and embers of the planet below them Galgac looked to the human whose mind he was currently walking through. Eyes like chips of ice, face hewn of stone and stance like a mountain enduring a hurricane, the True Battle Master stood there, tears streaming from his eyes as he looked down at the planet. The feeling that radiated from this pillar of strength was that of a human forged in battle, a cold breeze from Galgac’s homeworld at the turning of the seasons, soothingly cold and bracing but with the slightest change and without warning it could become sharp enough to slice to the bone.

“We will never know exactly how many died in the attack...never know how many were condemned to death by my actions, my failure to negotiate peace. I have been told by the best shrinks, negotiation experts, politicians, therapists etc etc that there was nothing I could have done. I have seen the reports, the statistical analysis and every piece of data we could possibly have of the war before, during and after this moment...it doesn’t help. I can hear them you know…” At this point Galgac thought he might be able to hear ‘them’...whoever ‘They’ were. 

“I can hear them in my dreams...in my moments of weakness. I can hear the screams and cries of those that are burning down there right now. I can hear the ones that were on the edge and that survived the initial blasts. I can hear the ones that looked up to the skies that day and screamed as they gazed upon judgment being passed upon them. I was Judge, Jury and Executioner that day and I have never been able to tell myself otherwise.” 

It was probably a trick of the memory but Galgac was certain the fires of the planet burned brighter and fiercer in the eyes of the True Battle Master for just an instant. The feeling of a turning season’s breeze faded only to be replaced by the feeling of a crushing weight placed upon him, as if chains forged in the fires of a dying planet were wrapping themselves around him.

Galgac was about to ask a question on what he was talking about when he felt a shift ...it was subtle but in no way insignificant. There was a weight behind this shift in the memory that defied the understanding of a mere mortal. Looking around himself Galgac noticed that things were becoming...wrong. 

Corners had too many angles...distances were infinitely far away and yet too close to comprehend. Walls were suddenly as solid as time and yet as fluid as thought, gravity became nothing more than a concept as he slammed to the deck of the Command Center with all the power of a star falling from the heavens and yet landing like a feather. 

“What...what is happening!?” Galgac asked as he picked himself up from the floor.  Looking over to the Battle Master he was surprised to see a look of curious anticipation upon his face. 

“Have you ever done this memory walk thing with someone who was dying? Ever heard of anyone who had?” The Battle Master asked with a sense of calm that seemed to spread to the surroundings.

The world seemed to solidify around them and once more Galgac was looking at nothing more than the memory of the ship’s interior. Looking back to the Battle Master, Galgac saw that he had begun walking down the main corridor towards engineering. Hurrying after the human Galgac cast one last look back to the planet as it burned beneath them under the continued barrage of the Fleet Armada. 

In the time it took Galgac to turn his head back to the front they were passing through the galley, by the time he comprehended this fact they had stepped through the security door to engineering, before Galgac could even begin to think of the reason they had traveled so far, he found himself standing in front of a door covered in a variety of signs denoting hazardous levels of radiation beyond the door.

The air was heated as if they were in a sauna and hummed with barely contained power. Noticing the signs posted around them and seeing the various gauges on display Galgac realized they were next to the main reactor. 

“The heart of the ship…” The voice from the Battle Master was almost reverent as he gazed at the door to the reactor chamber.

Walking as if in a dream the Battle Master stepped forward and opened the door before Galgac could stop him. Now Galgac had never been inside a reactor chamber but he was pretty sure it didn’t have such a bright light on the other side of the door. 

Seeing the human silhouetted before him in a light so bright it should have hurt his eyes Galgac wanted to look away but found that he couldn’t. This could be some kind of new memory and he had to bear witness to it. A feeling like the very depths of the void between stars slowly began tracing over Galgac’s skin, cold beyond anything he could ever comprehend, tracing lines of dancing non-feeling across his entire being...down to his very soul. 

“No Son, not that is not for you to see.”

A voice he had not thought he would ever hear again sounded in his ear just before a hand on his shoulder spun him around. Feeling himself wrapped in arms as familiar as they were comforting Galgac found he couldn’t speak past the raw feelings he was being bombarded with. Desperate yearning for something he had never had or experienced, a deep and ever-growing abyss of loneliness that promised to be relieved just beyond that light. Cold beyond anything he could ever understand battled with a warmth he could never forget while crushing solitude warred against familial companionship. “Father…”

The word was barely able to choke itself past the feelings he was trying to make sense of, Galgac drew upon the second-hand memory of a human’s power and will in order to wrap his own arms around the figure before him.

The form was smaller than he remembered, or he was bigger...regardless it was no less powerful than his last memory of it. He had always marveled at his father’s presence, the strength in his figure and weight of his gaze...now he knew, he understood what it was. His father had walked through the fires of a human’s mind and life and come out stronger for it and now it was his turn. 

“Easy boy...I knew you would find yourself here one day, unfortunately this is all I can do for you. You mustn't look lad, that is not something for you to gaze upon.” The voice of his father was enough to bring tears of painful loss and joyous memory to Galgac’s eyes. 

“What is it father, what is that light?” Galgac buried his face in his father’s broad shoulder in the same way he had as a youngling when he had accidentally viewed someone's mind and been scared of what he saw. 

“It is the fire at the beginning and end of time, the edge of eternity and beginning of nothing...it is everyone's final destination.” Feeling his father raise his own head and hearing him speak again Galgac could tell he wasn’t the one his father was speaking to. 

“Go ahead John, I’ll see you on the other side. I saved you a seat and a glass of whiskey just like you asked.” 

“Thanks Gal, I’ll be seeing you soon...you got a good kid there you know.” It was probably just the strange feelings he was enduring but Galgac could almost swear he heard tears in the Battle Master’s voice. 

“Yeah I know...he is pretty awesome, just like I told you all those times. As for you Son, it’s time for you to leave.” And indeed it seemed as if that would be the best plan of action as the world around him seemed to become less and less real with every failing heartbeat that now rang throughout the mental construct. 

“Tell your mother I miss her and that there are so many goddesses in the afterlife I may have to lower my standards for one of them.”

Galgac gave a choked laugh at the stupid joke his parents always seemed to have...how his father could never bring himself to betray his mother because even if a goddess descended before him, she could never hope to live up to his mother’s beauty and sharp wit. 

“HA...hehe…she is going to kick your teeth in when she catches up to you, you know that right.” He didn’t care that he was talking to a mental construct of a father that had died months ago...short by human standards but long enough to dull the pain for many other species. 

“Yeah I know...well she has to catch me first. Farewell Son, it was good seeing you again.”

With those final words Galgac found himself surrounded by a crushing black void and the overwhelming sense of something staring at him. Something older than even humans could comprehend, something that was interested in him only as a future project or a topic to come back to in a casual conversation. Trying desperately to remember how to release himself from another’s mind, Galgac was just about to panic when he felt as much as heard a voice that would speak to him in his dreams and nightmares for years to come. 

‘Not yet...’

================================================

With a jerking start Galgac’s eyes snapped open and it was only after a few seconds that he could understand what he was seeing.

An off-white ceiling, meaning he was probably on his back...the soft cushion beneath him confirmed his current position. Turning his head Galgac realized the ringing in his ears was not in his head but rather the life signs indicator attached to the Battle Master.

“Do not bother…” The voice seemed to come from a great distance.

“The Battle Master has passed from this life and is enjoying his final peace.”

Oh...that was his voice...yes it was...closing his eyes Galgac began the process of reacquainting his mind with his physical body. A body he had been born with but had spent less than his full life-span within, a body that had tasted the power, ferocity and sheer depth of a human’s mind. Doing his best to ignore the sounds of the doctors trying to revive the great man one bed over Galgac forcibly relaxed into the cushion and did his best to bring order to his mind and body...and to come to peace with seeing his father one last time.

================================================

The Funeral for John Alventar, Battle Master, Peace Bringer, Black Operator...husband...father...beloved...was a thing of beauty beyond what most species would understand, but Galgac now could. 

With his newfound understanding of how deep and powerfully a human could feel Galgac felt himself straining under the weight of the proceedings around him. An almost inconceivable amount of children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren approached to console him, as if he was the one losing a family member. 

Representatives from the remaining Alenshal empire arrived along with ones from the Kalasha Shoal, Melenkal Coalition, Sardashian Republic and half a dozen other smaller groups. Entombed upon his final command ship, in a cask of demi-steel the Battle Master gently cruised towards his final destination. 

The Black Hole known as Charybdis...an ever-consuming horizon of unknown danger and glory, what better final resting place for one as mighty as the human that had done so much in his lifetime.

Gazing out at the endless void and pinprick points of light Galgac nearly felt himself begin to slip back into the memories of John ‘Battle Master’ Alventar.

Over there was the main star of the system that birthed the Kalasha Shoal, thirty degrees up and seven to port was the home system of the Sardashian Republic...he was pretty sure he had grandchildren there, no...the Battle Master had grandchildren there, not him, not Galgac who had barely seen a handful of human cycles. 

Giving himself a quick shake Galgac focused on the here and now, what could he hear and what could he see. With a disturbingly human pricking of his ears Galgac zeroed in on a conversation between the representatives from the Melenkal Coalition and the Sardashian Rep.

“Admit it, the only reason you are here is to make sure the old monster under your sleeping pad is truly dead.” The voice of the Melenkal Coalition was like gravel being tumbled in a metal tube.

“Saaaahh…this is true, I wish to make sure the Harbinger is truly gone as it would not be the first time he has falsified his demise.”

Contrary to the Melenkal representative the Sardashian’s voice was a musical mixture of chirps and whistles that translated to a rather pleasant songlike voice. It would be a few rotations before Galgac realized it but at the time he was not using his universal translator and was in fact simply understanding the words and sounds being spoken…much like a human would. 

Looking out over the vast star field that was to bear witness to the Battle Master’s final journey, Galgac casually took note of the wide variety of vessels that had shown up in the last few hours. Flagships and attending lesser vessels lit up the surrounding area with active sensor sweeps as they maintained acceptable distances from each other. 

Blocky and stout Melenkal Destroyers surrounded the long and lithe winged shapes of the Sardashian Rep. Weapons had been physically safed and disabled according to galactic funerary laws but the tension was still enough to be felt across the void. There may have been decent relations between the attending parties, but old grudges still reared their heads every now and then.

‘Ha…’old grudges’...none of these individuals have a grudge older than the Batt...than John’s youngest great- granddaughter…’Galgac just smiled bitterly to himself as he thought this.

Realizing why it was considered a double-edged honor to enter a human’s mind among his people Galgac did his best to remember who he was among the still fresh torrent of foreign memories. He thought he knew what it was to feel anger, but now he realized he had barely felt a candle’s heat when compared to the raging inferno of a human’s wrath. Sorrow was nothing new to him, but the crushing weight and dragging doubt that humans could endure showed him that he had not even begun to understand what loss and pain meant. Galgac had known happiness in his life, but he had never known the glowing golden light of a humans’ joy, the effervescent feeling of happiness pure and light that always seemed to make things a little easier. 

It was with a depth of sorrow he had never felt before, and a greater understanding of the feeling itself, that Galgac watched the great vessel that carried the Battle Master cruise gently forward until it reached the event horizon of Charybdis. Watching the mighty starship be slowly pulled into the depths of the singularity and disintegrate the further in it went, Galgac felt now would be a good time to enact the Battle Master’s final wish.

Unseen to any others in the room Galgac pulled out a small remote and pressed a button.

With a flicker the various view screens around the observation deck switched over to a picture of the Battle Master. To say the occupants of the room were startled at seeing their honored nemesis glaring down at them when he should be well on his way down the throat of a black hole was an understatement. 

“Hello everyone.” The voice of the Battle Master rang out over the station’s observation deck.

“By now you probably think I’m dead and well on my way to my final resting place...and I very well might be, but as you will never see my body, I want you to ask yourselves ‘Is it worth it to try and undo what he did?’...of course this might just be a pre-recorded message, but in case it isn’t let me give you one last piece of advice: let someone else figure it out first.”

Galgac had to draw on a few memories from the late John ‘Battle Master’ Alventar to make sure his laughter at the faces of horror that now surrounded him looked more like the shaking of sorrow and tears. Only a human would do something like this, strike one last bolt of terror into those that were so eager to see him dead. 

Walking off the observation deck as unobtrusively as possible Galgac allowed himself to smile at the sounds of fearful chaos behind him, a true smile with teeth bared and cheeks pulled back to his ears, with eyes squinted and a laugh ready to bubble from his chest...a very human smile.  

[shamefilledsnzblog]

Exploration

So, uh, this is the horniest thing I've ever written. Actually, think it's the only sex scene I've ever written. NSFW!

The Underdark expedition have found some hot springs, a perfect place to relax after a day of exploration. Serafina waits for Perry there and, convincing him of her affections at last, receives some rather intimate attention from him...

Of all the discoveries the party had made so far, the hot springs were the one Serafina had come to appreciate most. The great vistas Perry had shown her, lit with an ethereal glow of bio-luminescence, alive with a haze of spores and various creatures she could never have imagined, were of course magnificent. The ruins of ancient temples and towers and fortresses were breathtaking and inspired her imagination. The myconid colony, populated with mushroom people, some of them as tall as trees, had filled her with wonder. But at the end of a long day of exploring, being able to sink into hot water and let it soothe away the day’s aches and irritations was nothing short of heavenly.

Serafina lounged on the soft moss at the edge of one of the larger pools, her feet dangling in the water. She wore only her trousers, rolled up to the knee, and a loose blouse, unbuttoned far more than was proper. The rest of her clothes and belongings were discarded in a pile beneath one of the enormous glowing mushrooms that shaded the area. Serafina would eventually shed her remaining clothes and add them to the pile, but for now, she simply waited, tail flicking lazily, anticipating company.

The imminent arrival of her expected company was announced before long, and her tail began to flick faster as she heard his approach.

“HhHIIEssshhHYIEWW!”

Serafina smiled, laying back more and looking up at the mingled steam and spores swirling through the air, lit by the soft blue glow of the surrounding mushrooms. Those spores would be tormenting Perry by now, invading his over-sensitive nose, setting it twitching, scrunching, sniffling…

“HhhSHIEW! H-shhIIIEW! HhhiieeeSHYIEW!”

Poor man, he always sounded so weary by this time of night. After a day of sneezing, trying desperately to rid himself of the irritants he continuously breathed in, his sneezes always took on an exhausted quality. Still as desperate as ever, but they sounded as if they were being wrenched from him, somehow. No doubt he was coming here in the hopes that the steam might soothe him. Serafina could see his face in her mind’s eye. Lips parted, damp-lashed eyes beginning to close, red nostrils flaring wider, and wider, until…

“AhhhSHYIEW!”

With that last outburst, Perry emerged from the path leading to the spring. He failed to notice Serafina at first, too busy wearily blowing his nose. He sighed and dabbed at his streaming eyes with his handkerchief, before tucking it back into his pocket. Giving an irritated sniffle and scrunching his nose, he looked up and saw Serafina at last, and stepped back with a soft a cry of alarm.

“Miss DeVille!”

“Bless you. Joining me for a soak?”

Already somewhat flushed from his sneezing fit, Perry turned even pinker, his eyes widening as he took in Serafina lounging casually on the soft moss, her hair down, her blouse half open. She tilted her head, flicking her tail as if in invitation.

“I… Apologies, I didn’t realize you were already… Erm… I’ll go, please enjoy your bath…”

Struggling to keep his eyes averted, Perry hastily turned to leave, bumping his head on the cap of a giant mushroom in his hurry to flee. The movement shook loose a puff of spores, and Perry, already flustered, struggled to get his handkerchief out in time.

“HSHYIEWW! SHIEWW! HASHYIEWW!”

Tail flicking faster, Serafina got to her feet and padded forward. Perry, utterly helpless and near bent double with sneezing, could do nothing as she rested a hand on his back.

“Poor thing, that nose of yours is wearing you out. Come and sit, and breathe the steam. I’m sure that will help.”

“Plea-eeESHIEW! SHIEW!... No need… HhhSHYIEW!”

“There’s every need. Listen to you, you can barely speak. Come, sit.”

With an arm around Perry’s shoulders, Serafina guided him to the side of the pool, helping him clumsily sit down. She rubbed his back as he sneezed again and again, growing increasingly breathless, until at long last the fit trailed off with a weak, exhausted “Hhhshew!”.

“Bless you again. That’s it, blow your nose. Now, deep breaths. Try to take in some of the steam.”

Perry did as he was told, blowing his nose delicately, as if afraid of setting it off once more. Putting away his handkerchief at last, he took in a cautious, snuffly breath, and gave a sigh of relief when it didn’t immediately escape as another sneeze.

“Apologies, Miss DeVille. The spores, I couldn’t help but breathe them in, and…”

“Peregrine, how many times? No apologies! And how many times must I say, it’s just Serafina? You can at least call me that here, can’t you? As far from polite society as we can possibly be?”

She kept her hand on his back, rubbing in slow, soothing strokes, and felt the tight muscles loosen a little. Perry, cheeks still flushed, avoided her eyes. He seemed to be trying to avoid looking at her entirely, though with her so close, she had noted his eyes briefly darting to her barely-covered chest. Adorable, the shade of pink he turned at the sight.

“I… I should leave you to your bathing.”

“Perhaps you should, but do you want to?”

Perry fell silent, but for the occasional sniffle, seemingly lost for words. His hair had come loose from its ribbon as he sneezed, and Serafina reached out, delicately tucking a strand back behind his ear. At the touch, he turned to face her at last. He met her eyes, as if looking for some sign that this was a trick, or just her usual playful teasing.

“Were you waiting for me?”

“I was. Ever since we found this place, you’ve been coming here around this time, to wash away the spores. I though tonight I might help you.”

“With… With bathing?”

“With bathing. Relaxing. Look at you. You’re awfully tense. Practically trembling, poor thing.”

She brushed a little more hair from his face, and this time, let her hand linger. Sure enough, Perry’s hand trembled a little as he raised it, laying it over hers. His eyes remained on hers, wide and nervous. And, as her fingers gently brushed his cheek, dilating noticeably as his breath caught.

“I shouldn’t… This is… Are you sure you..?”

Serafina smiled fondly, cupping his cheek with her hand, feeling her heart warm as he leaned into her touch, seemingly out of sheer instinct.

“Peregrine, when you left for the Underdark for that first expedition, I wept, wishing I’d kissed you goodbye, propriety be damned. I’ve sat with you as you studied. I’ve danced with you. I’ve played you music. I’ve nursed you when you were ill. And as close to you as I get, I always find myself wanting to be closer. So yes, Peregrine. I am sure.”

Perry remained silent, letting her words sink in, his hand still over hers. Seeming to find no trace of teasing, he allowed his eyes to wander a little at last. His gaze fell to take in her body, so much more of it on display than usual. He swallowed hard, meeting her eyes once more.

“I… I’m a little lost for words.”

“Well, shall I provide you with a script? If I’ve read you wrong, then simply say ‘Miss DeVille, I’m flattered, but I would like to bathe alone.’ Or, if you’d like things to go a little further, ask ‘May I kiss you, Serafina?’, and I’ll give you your answer.”

Perry swallowed again, closing his eyes and taking a breath.

“May I kiss you, Serafina?”

Her smile widening, Serafina leaned in, pressing a kiss to his lips.

“You may. Amongst other things.”

Perry opened his eyes, blinked, and broke into a smile, letting out a breathy, rather giggly laugh.

“I never thought I’d have the chance…”

He leaned in and kissed her, one hand stroking back her hair. Serafina let out a hum of pleasure, pulling him forward into her embrace. Stroking one hand up his chest, she found the knot of his cravat and began to tug it loose. Perry’s hand moved from her hair and slid down her back, coming to rest on her waist. He broke off the kiss, breathing heavily, and after giving Serafina a tentative look, kissed her neck.

“Is this…”

“Yes. Please.”

Serafina pulled his cravat loose and cast it aside, setting to work on unbuttoning his waistcoat. Her breathing quickened as Perry kissed her neck again. And again, lower. His own breath began to quicken, growing unsteady as he reached her collarbone. He might have explored lower, except…

“HISHIEW!”

Serafina couldn’t hold back a moan as the mist settled on her neck and shoulder. Warmth pooling in her belly, she squirmed imperceptibly as Perry pulled back, fumbling for his handkerchief, sneezes and apologies muffled into its folds.

“Damned allergies… HiieeSHYIEW! HasHIEW! I’m so sorry, I… SHHIEW! Snf!... That was awful, I can’t apologize en-ehhhESHEW!... enough…”

Serafina seized his wrist and, making him lower the handkerchief, kissed him, softly at first, then with increasing urgency. She felt his nose, warm from a day of allergic torment, twitch against her cheek. When Perry, his nose now too stuffed for easy breathing, paused to catch his breath, Serafina resumed her work on his buttons.

“Are you sure you… HSHYIEEW!... I’m so terribly sorry, that’s likely to keep happening. Perhaps we ought to wait until…”

Serafina pulled him into another kiss, smiling at his somewhat bewildered expression.

“Peregrine, if we wait for a time when you don’t have to sneeze, I’m afraid we’ll be going to our graves unsatisfied. If I were revolted by it, we wouldn’t be here. Now, would you kindly resume your attentions?”

With his nose momentarily appeased, Perry needed no further encouragement. Settling his hand on her waist once more, he pulled her close, pressing kisses to her mouth, her jaw, her throat… Serafina took his hand and guided it under her blouse, sighing with pleasure as it reached her breast.

“Is this alright? Apologies, I’m familiar with all of this in theory, but…”

“Peregrine, if you apologize one more time I’m going to bite you.”

“Really?”

Peregrine flushed a deep red at the earnestness in his voice, seemingly as surprised as she was at what had come out of his mouth. Serafina let out a rather unladylike snort of laughter, and resumed unbuttoning his waistcoat.

“Well, we have things to explore, it seems! Speaking of exploration, do feel free to let your hands wander.”

“It’s just… When you talk, I can see the points of your fangs, and I’ve wondered on occasion…”

“Have you, indeed?”

Serafina eased his waistcoat over his shoulders, then pulled him back in, kissing him again. He slipped his hand beneath her blouse once more, feeling her breast move with her increasingly rapid breathing, before lowering it, finding the waistband of her trousers. He broke off kissing her to give her a questioning look, and she nodded, before tugging the ribbon from his hair and running her fingers through the silken strands.

Easing her trousers over her hips and setting them aside, Perry blushed at what he saw beneath. Looking to Serafina for confirmation once more, he set his fingers to work, parting her folds. After all his sneezing, she was slick enough for there to be no resistance at all. Serafina let out a gasp as he found what he was looking for.

“AH! You’ve clearly studied your theory well. Some men need a map down there!”

Perry lit up at the praise. Charmed, Serafina pulled him in for another kiss, moaning against his mouth as his delicate fingers stroked and circled. What he lacked in experience, Perry made up for in attention to detail, seemingly noting what drew noises from her lips and altering his technique accordingly. Serafina all but whined when he slowed his ministrations and, face flushed, avoided her eyes for a moment.

“I wonder… I’ve read… I wonder if I might try…”

“Try whatever you like. You clearly have an instinct for it. Just don’t stop.”

To her immense frustration, Perry did stop, looking around for something. Spotting it and smiling, he rose, positioning himself to get up, and wrapped one arm around Serafina’s shoulders, the other beneath her knees, clearly meaning to lift her.

“May I?”

Serafina nodded, and let out a giggle as he scooped her up, holding her against his chest. As he carried her to a nearby moss-covered rock, she pressed a kiss to his exposed throat, and gave him a teasing nip. The noise he made was utterly delightful.

Perry set her down on the rock, and knelt before her, looking equally excited and nervous. Looking to her once again for permission and receiving a nod, he parted her legs and leaned forward, his mouth picking up where his fingers had left off. Serafina gasped, arching her back, and placed a hand on his head, stroking his hair as he attended to her.

“Is this..?”

“Peregrine, I don’t know what you’ve been studying, but… AH! … Top marks…”

Serafina squirmed, her fingers stroking through Perry’s hair, her breathing quickening, unsure if she wanted him to draw matters out, or go in for the kill. Perry’s hand stroked her thigh as his tongue circled her most sensitive region, and she moaned, whimpered, squirmed, and…

“HHYIESHIEW!”

“AHH!”

Her fingers gripped his hair tight as the cry was drawn from her throat, and Perry pulled back in horror, eyes wide.

“I didn’t feel it coming, I’m so very…”

Serafina leaned forward and crushed her lips against his, tasting herself on them.

“Don’t you dare apologize!”

“I… should I keep going?”

“I may do something drastic if you don’t!”

Blushing furiously, nose still twitching, Perry bowed forward once more, pausing as he attempted to find his rhythm again to rub his nose against her inner thigh. Serafina let out a desperate mewling, her skin now shining with sweat. Her breathing grew quicker and quicker, warmth and tension growing and growing, until, with one last sweep of Perry’s tongue, she arched her back once more, barely recognizing her own voice as she cried out.

Breathing heavily, she watched as Perry rose, taking his handkerchief from his pocket to attend to his nose and tidy himself up.

“Was that… HhssHHIEW! Snf! Guh, I beg your pardon. Was that..?”

Loose limbed, smiling lazily, Serafina took hold of the front of his shirt and pulled him into a kiss, slow and languorous. She leaned her forehead against his, feeling his nose twitch as it touched hers.

“Every time I think you can’t surprise me more…”

“Erm… Would you like that bath now?”

Serafina kissed him again, first on the lips, then, pressing a quick kiss to the tip of his nose. Her smile widened as it twitched again, and she pulled Perry into an embrace, feeling his chest expand until he unleashed an irritated “HYESHIEW!” over her shoulder.

“Bless you. And the bath can wait a little longer. I believe there’s still you to attend to.”

[starwrighter]

Hi! So I just read your Subnautica DcxDp AU. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next chapter(s)! So I don't know what you have planned (and haven't even read though all your asks just yet so I am sorry if you have already talked about this) but I was thinking about some of the stories that have "eldritch Danny" where he has alternate forms, some of which are much bigger then his normal Phantom forms (like his space noodle, or "leviathan" forms), so he might not be a *tiny* baby to the Leviathans forever! And he is bio-luminescent! I haven't played Subnautica (yet, it is on my list) so I am not sure what all is original to this story and what exactly is from the video game so there is that. He is thinking it is something artificial blocking his abilities but I wonder if it is more something inherent to the planet/Solar system. Danny does seem to be recovering his powers though, so I am wondering if he is adapting to whatever is blocking them? He does seem to adapt to things in the DP canon as well so that is interesting if it is the case. I wonder how long it is going to be before Jazz, Sam, and Tucker, notice his ship has gone missing, and start to use the Ghost Zone, to go look for him... I mean if asked nicely Frostbite would probably use the Infi-map to see if they can reach him. I also can't wait until Danny and the Batfam can talk to each other, I am guessing that what they are picking up is Danny's "ghost speak" empathy but he is not able to understand them because they are using true telepathy which he doesn't have (yet, as mentioned above Danny, and his powers, seem to be adaptive and I don't doubt he will figure it out). I think Dami will be upset when Danny tells them about how he felt like Dami was treating him like a pet, also how close Dami came to crushing his habitat when he was curled around it... One thing about them is I don't think that they would be all that surprised at him switching forms, considering what they can do! So yeah, I really enjoyed reading what is up on AO3 and am looking forward to the rest. Sorry about the wall-o-text message! Have a lovely day TfW K-

The wall of text is totally fine lol Thanks for the ask.

I recommend you play subnautica it’s one of the coolest games I’ve ever played. The crushing loneliness of being the only survivor figuring out what’s going on on planet 4546b while slowly dying of Kharaa gives the game a vibe of desperation I’ve only seen in a few other games.

——

Danny wouldn’t be little forever but he would be the family’s baby forever considering they are over a thousand years older than him. Danny will have a leviathan form but that’s a long ways away considering currently Danny’s main goal is to get off the planet and return home. The leviathan Bat Clan wouldn’t be surprised by Danny’s transformation but they would be surprised about the powers. To them Danny’s grocery list of superpowers would be like seeing a toddler carrying around a loaded rocket launcher and a backpack full of bear trap!

——-

Danny’s powers being affected by 4546b’s solar system is a really cool idea! It really fits with the idea of Danny having a space obsession. I have a plan for why Danny’s powers are malfunctioning that I won’t spoil. But it does have something to do with both the Precursor’s Thermal power plant and Danny’s body reacting to the Kharaa infection.

——-

It’s going to take a while for Sam, Jazz, and everyone else to realize somethings happened to the ship. Alterra is already a shady corporation that keeps secrets and conveniently the Aurora went down outside of confederation space. Danny’s friends and Family are expecting Danny to be gone for months without much contact so it’s probably going to be when Danny’s doesn’t come home as expected and the phase gate hasn’t been built like Alterra promised that they start their rescue efforts.

As for the infi-map for the same reason Danny can’t use his powers well on 4546b other’s can’t use such items and abilities either. The precursors, while unaware of the infinite rhelms themselves were extremely prepared when it came to quarantining the planet.

———

Damian would be crushed that Danny thought he thought of him as a pet. He’d be even more upset when he found out he could’ve killed Danny by wrapping himself around his base.

Tim and Danny would be having a very long conversation about what Danny’s found out about the precursors and about his species himself.

[not-that-dillinger]

"Wings"

(Let's see what happens if you want!)

-CorruptedCodelines-

Admittedly, Ed should have expected to find the old computer from his nightmares in the arcade basement. The Grid itself wasn't even that much of a surprise, considering Flynn's ramblings before he disappeared and how they alligned with his father's angry rants about the MCP and the digitization laser.... and the whole... DataWraith project that had thankfully been shut down just over half a decade ago.

What Ed hadn't expected--couldn't have in his wildest dreams--were the wings.

Everyone had them: giant, bio-luminescent, feathery wings folded on each of their backs. Well. Maybe not bio-luminescent, given he was on the computer, but the feathers were glowing...

And then he looked up, and noticed more programs. He'd been so in awe of them, so fascinated by the variance in wing structure, how one had wings more like a vulture, and another more like a kite, and a third--with a matching tail made of the same luminescent feathers--had the wings of a scissor tailed flycatcher, that he didn't realize they were descending toward him until nearly half a dozen glowing orange programs practically landed on top of him.

It wasn't until after that, when two of them forcefully folded his own wings against his back and a third wrapped a glowing band around his chest to restrain said wings that he realized he even had them.

Everything after that was a blur, he recalled bits and pieces, the programs grabbing him by the arms and taking off toward a building that looked like Encom Tower, and then--then some cyberharpies stripping him out of his clothes and forcing him into a skin-tight glowing suit that made Ed's skin itch--and then being prodded out of the room and forced to kneel in front of... Flynn.

Or, someone that looked much like Flynn did, twenty years ago when he disappeared.

Though whoever he was might have looked like Flynn, it didn't take long for Ed to realize that who he was talking to was another program, and not the missing CEO. It just as short a time for Ed to realize that Flynn's doppelganger--Clu, he'd been called--intended to make Ed his user pet. To control him.

Ed had enough of that from his father for a lifetime, and no intention to let anyone else do the same.

Still, he didn't have much time to do anything about the situation as two glowing orange harpies pinned him to the floor while he struggled, two more held out his wings, and Clu... Ed couldn't see much, aside from Clu's finger igniting, and him kneeling down on top of him. It wasn't until after he'd been let up and saw the feather ends--white, but no longer glowing-- that he realized Clu had clipped his wings, in much the same way Ed would have clipped his pigeons' (Clacks, Turring, Dwar Ev, and Aegius's) wings.

Ed didn't care. All he knew was he had to get out, get away from Clu, and hopefully get back to his world where all he had to worry about was Mackey firing him, and the judge agreeing to renew the restraining order against his father.

There was only one entrance--the one he'd come in through. There were most certainly more guards on the other side, and many, many more between him and the elevator to the ground floor.

The only alternative...

Ed charged at the large window overlooking the city.

Maybe the guards hadn't expected Ed to attempt to escape that way, given they'd clipped his wings, or maybe they hadn't expected him to be able to break the glass. His fist connected with it, and for a fraction of a second, Ed could sense code beneath his fist, and then it was gone, and he was tumbling through open air toward a dark alley below. He focused, and with some concentration, managed to spread his wings. With luck, he'd have just enough to be able to glide safely...

The ground rushed up to meet him.

Ed knew his landing was going to be rough, given the conditions.

He hadn't expected to crash into another program.

[yuurei20]

Hello! I'm wonder what is known about the suits of cards on the faces of the students from the Heartslabyul?

Hello hello! Thank you for this question! I think the most information about the suit symbols might come from the Magical Archives Game Guide:

"The symbols on the students’ faces are magically applied by the housewarden when they are accepted into the dormitory, who decides what their symbol will be. After that initial application, the students apply their own symbol themselves via either make-up or magic." - Twisted Wonderland Magical Archives Game Guide (2020)

(Update: this has recently been confirmed in-game!)

Since Riddle became housewarden in his first year this seems to mean that he might not have decided the symbols for the current 2nd years or for Cater and Trey, but he did assign Ace's and Deuce's!

This information doesn't seem to track with certain, in-game scenes like Riddle's and Ace's ceremonial robes vignettes where Ace is wearing the heart-shaped makeup before he has been assigned to Heartslabyul, but this is likely just a limitation of the visual-novel medium.

Another example of users being asked to use their imaginations to compensate for the limitations of the sprites comes up in Phantom Bride, where Idia describes the outfits of Riddle, Rook, Ace and Epel as "burnt and tattered," "ripped" and "sweaty," when in game they do not look any different than usual.

(Though we do get a chance to see what it is that Idia is seeing in his Suitor Suit groovy!)

Since the creator's original intent maybe couldn't be reflected in the game (possibly due to technical limitations), it seems like it would be fine to go with whatever explanation you prefer for, for example, fanfic purposes, as the sprites themselves might just not be able to reflect the official explanation, which makes what is technically "canon" into something of a paradox.

Other things that Yana mentions in the guidebook are: ・Jade and Floyd being bio-luminescent in their eel forms (which we have yet to see in the game) ・Sebek trying to grow his hair out so that he can style it all back (which has not been mentioned in any in-game dialogue) ・Rook often wearing gloves in order to not leave any fingerprints (while he is usually wearing gloves, there is no in-game explanation about why) ・Lilia dyeing his hair (it is explained that his natural hair color is black and he changes the color depending upon his mood, so it is not always pink, but this has yet to come up in the game)

As for what we have actually seen in the game, we know that the suits are capable of changing color!

Ace's heart is black for his ceremonial robes and Playfulland looks, gold for Fairy Gala IF and silver for the Platinum series, while Deuce's is blue for the Rabbit Fes event, Trey's is silver for the Platinum series and Cater's is black for his ceremonial robes.

[worldimaginedreaming]

Imagine Assisting Singed in the Lab

Summary: You help Singed with a radical experiment. His fascination with your mind gives way to unsettling attraction. Science and obsession entwine. Pairing: Singed x femReader Word count: ~1,100

You weren’t sure when the line began to blur : between curiosity and complicity, between admiration and something stranger.

At first, it was just a research opportunity. A rare apprenticeship under one of Piltover's most controversial scientific minds, buried far beneath Zaun in a lab that always felt too cold, no matter how many hours you spent there.

Singed didn’t smile much. He didn’t talk unless it served the experiment. His voice was steady, low, and detached yet oddly soothing in its precision.

“Give me the stabilizer,” he said, eyes fixed on the tank in front of him.

You did without hesitation. Your fingers brushed his glove. He didn’t flinch, but he did glance at you just a flicker. Like he was cataloguing the sensation.

The creature inside the tank thrashed, translucent skin rippling with bio-luminescent veins. It had once been a rat. Now it was something else entirely.

“I don’t understand,” you murmured, reading over the notes. “This mutation—its cell division shouldn’t be sustainable.”

He looked up at you, slowly. Not as a scolding mentor. As something else. “Exactly.”

That was the moment something shifted.

You’d expected pride. Or perhaps cold dismissal. Instead, you saw something else in his gaze: a flicker of… admiration? Maybe even something possessive. Like he was proud not just of your observation—but of you.

From then on, he let you closer.

He asked your opinion more often. Gave you the most dangerous tasks. Let you document things he hadn’t trusted to paper in years.

And you said yes every time.

You told yourself it was for the science. For the prestige. For the chance to change the world.

But in the silence of the lab, sometimes you caught him watching you.

Not in the way someone watches a peer. In the way a chemist watches an unstable compound.

Fascinated. Intrigued. Aware it could all blow up with the wrong touch.

“You have an instinct,” he said once, after you'd stopped a reaction from melting straight through the floor. “A certain edge.”

“You sound surprised,” you said quietly, not looking up.

He didn’t answer. But the corner of his mouth twitched—barely noticeable. If you hadn’t known him so well by now, you might have missed it.

Then came the night you stayed too late.

The experiment had gone sideways. The test subject : a hybrid strain had begun deteriorating too fast. You stayed past midnight to run diagnostics, your hands shaking from the cold and lack of sleep.

Singed didn’t tell you to go home. He just watched. Hovered.

“You don’t take care of yourself,” he said after a long silence.

You looked at him. The lab lights buzzed overhead, casting strange shadows. “Neither do you.”

That… made him smile.

Just barely.

You didn’t know what it meant.

Later, when the trial was done and the sample destroyed, you leaned back against the workbench, fingers stained with something you couldn’t quite name.

He stood near, not touching, but close enough to feel the weight of his presence.

“You know,” he said, voice quieter than usual, “this would not be possible without you.”

You turned your head to look at him. “Is that your version of gratitude?”

“It’s a fact,” he said. But there was something else in his tone. Something that made your skin prickle.

He reached out slowly—gloved fingers grazing the side of your neck, like checking your pulse. Scientific. Almost.

But not quite.

And in that silence, you realized something:

You had become part of the experiment.

Not the subject. Not quite the partner either. But something in between. Essential. Observed. Treasured, in a way that made your chest tighten.

And when he said softly, “Stay,” he didn’t mean for the night.

He meant for the work.

For the madness.

For whatever was slowly growing between you that had no name in science.

And you… didn’t say no because you wanted to stay with him.

A/N : First imagine I did on Singed. What do you think? Do u like it ?Have a good reading! A lot of love ! ❤️❤️❤️❤️ Would u like another one ?

[prima-materia-ttrpg]

Species Highlight - Sepia

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if cephalopods could live for more than 2 years? Perhaps even passing on generational knowledge? My mind wanders to this topic fairly often, the Sepia are a result of me following this line of questioning to its conclusion. I present to you, the Sepia.

The Sepia are Cephalopods, very similar to cuttlefish. They can mimic other objects and animals thanks to their ability to change the color and texture of their skin, as well as their very fine motor control over their arms. Sepia are also mildly telepathic, an ability that allows them to coordinate large shows of mimicry and move in tandem with any number of other Sepia involved in the show. They use this ability to mimic creatures that are much larger than they are, such as sharks, or sometimes to hypnotize larger animals by sending pulses of color through a wall of Sepia.

As Sepia are unable to make any useful sound underwater their languages are polyvisual; they incorporate multiple glyphs, colors, and textures into words and tonality which they display on their bodies. Some of these words are even animated to an extent. Despite the inherent complexity of their languages, Sepia conversations are very fast; ideas that would take a sentence to convey in most phonic languages are often condensed into a single specific word in Sepia languages.

Much like humans, what the Sepia lack in strength they tend to make up for with their ingenuity; and as a species that needs to navigate fully three dimensional spaces to survive, they're very sharp. They have domesticated many species of sea creatures for various purposes. They keep fish for food, blue sailsharks for herding fish, bio-luminescent remora for use as lighting, and many others. Many sedentary Sepia civilizations farm clams for food, and nomadic Sepia tend to keep small beds of poisonous clams for use in hunting.

Tagging along with Giants

Many Sepia are nomadic, having forged a mutually beneficial relationship with the Sophont whales on Patek. How this relationship started is lost in the fog of time; those who live in these communities say it has always been this way.

The Sepia act as hands for the whales, using their tools to take care of them and even help them with forms of self-expression through making tattoos, piercings, and other outward displays. In return, the whales carry their homes, cargo, and graves. The whales, blessed with two and a half century long life spans and nothing to manipulate objects with, also do the majority of the mental labor of lore keeping and social deliberation. This relationship is not generally seen as transactional, but rather as expected contributions to a community or family - the whales and Sepia often form multi-species family units, with whales in the family often carrying their family's home.

The religious beliefs of the nomads are very heterogeneous, but they share more in common than one might first expect as a result of meeting up every year for the Sophont's breeding season. The courtship rituals of Sophont whales; wooing potential partners, meeting the families to be joined together, and spending much-needed alone time once a partner and their family is chosen is very complex and takes several months. These social interactions often sweep up more romantic Sepia into the moment, and lots of cultural exchange happens as a result which leads to certain tropes appearing in most of the nomadic religions. The most important of these tropes is the idea of the three realms of existence. The realm of the living is full of fish to catch and life to live, where all your favorite things exist and unless you're very unlucky, where all your experiences have taken place. The parched realm, where the water is too thin to breathe and the weight of your own body can crush you; not to mention the horrible beaked demons that may pick you apart as soon as they see you. The gods often summon great storms, and Sepia of great folly can get caught in them and thrown wayward never to be seen again. Only whales can tolerate the parched realm, and only for a time, as they must draw life from emptiness itself. The third realm is the realm of the dead, far below the world and past a barrier of frigid water. Some wild whales are able to breach this barrier, and though they cannot be spoken to their scars tell stories well enough.

Whales, being the only creatures with a connection to all three of the realms of creation, are revered by many Sepia and have great religious significance. Some whales are happy to be the center of the nomadic spiritual life and are attended to by Sepia priests as they speak expansively on the metaphysicality of creation with their peers and share their wisdom with others. Other whales take on a more utilitarian roll with their spirituality, becoming graveyards for Sepia that have past. It is their job once they die to ferry all the Sepia souls that they carry into the realm of the dead so they don't get lost.

Natural entertainment in the pelagic zone is sparse, so the nomads come up with endless games and art forms to pass the time. The Sepia perform plays, re-enacting heroes and important religious and cultural events; Sophonts will come up with songs and tales, and tales in the form of song, and have a Sepia transcribe it. Children play with each other and their remora pets. Thinking puzzles, conundrums, and paradoxes are popular among most of the nomads, courtesy of the whales; many of which love to talk long-windedly on philosophical matters.

Not all nomadic groups interact with others outside their cultures, though after a particularly good hunting season, some will often take their surplus catch to their sedentary cousins who live on the reefs and seagrass meadows to trade for finished goods and luxuries.

Putting Down Roots

The vast majority of Sepia are sedentary, settling in coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and on the periphery of estuaries. Their towns range from small aquaculture villages that raise beds of clams, to large cities among the reefs that are host to thousands of Sepia kept fed by surrounding aquaculture villages. While there are some Sepia civilizations that have sprung up on seamounts or the shelves around islands, most of these civilizations are found along the coasts of continents, and as a result have much more interaction with other sapient species, especially Koura who live both in water and on land.

Most people know of the Sepia from stories Ternaki bring from Sifia, as the Ternaki have excellent trade relations with the Sepia off the Sifian coast. Sepia will trade food, finished goods, and raw minerals in exchange for metal products and other things they usually can't make themselves. Some of them have taken to training small hammerhead sharks to act as metal detectors to find silver and gold on the ocean floor for the express purpose of trading with land species.

Religion among the Sepia varies wildly among the sedentary civilizations, and often has influence from those they trade with. One belief, which varies in its interpretations, is that estuaries are gates to start on the journey to the afterlife. They are guarded by divine creatures with beaks that snatch anyone who would be so foolish to try and find what lies beyond, but tales of following the rivers and streams up to the mountains speak of untold beauty. Some Sepia believe that when they die, their spirit will be free from their body and they can physically follow the rivers to the mountains past the birds and unbreathable fresh water to see the heavens, and they aren't technically wrong. Spirits do exist, but that's a topic for another blog post.

In the modern day, the beaked creatures are known to be birds and many estuaries are made safe for Sepia to farm fish, shrimp, and mussels. As a result, most Sepia that have this belief, particularly ones that work in estuaries, don't interpret it literally. In addition, there are Sepia that have taken the first steps on land inside mechanical drysuits, designed by Sepia and aided in their manufacturing by the Ternaki.

Life on Land

The Sepia are an aquatic species, but they're also playable so I need them to be able to go on land. The answer, obviously, is mech suits.

Sepia drysuits are a relatively new phenomenon, a consequence of the industrial revolution allowing access to manufactured goods and other recent breakthroughs bringing technology and alchemy up to speed with the ideas some Sepia have been having for centuries. The first drysuits were little more than fishbowls on wheels, connecting pedals or other cranks to the wheels for locomotion. However, over the past twenty years drysuit technology has been drastically improved. Cockpits are now hermetically sealed and durable, with alchemical salt water recycling systems where oxygenated salt water is mixed in one or two canisters and pumped into the cockpit; the old water flushed out of the drysuit. Many drysuits are still utilitarian and use tracks for mobility, with the addition of graspers for manipulating objects. More complex drysuits also exist, including ones with humanoid plans that are piloted with levers, cranks, and quite a bit of pullies. Some more high-end ones use Hydraulics. Some Sepia have taken to pushing the limits of these kinds of suits, making names for themselves on land as skilled pilots able to make their suits do acrobatics.

On the mechanics side of things, I have some simple drysuits written that need to be playtested. Currently, they have a Strength (which is used in place of the Strength Attribute), Size, Speed, Fine Manipulators (number of hands), Armor, Durability (hitpoints based on materials used), and Cockpit Durability (Cockpit hitpoints). These are a way from being tested for the moment though, hopefully within a few weeks.

If you read this far, thank you very much! Also huge thanks to @donutboxers for the art in this post. The next Species Highlight will be the Possum, and the next mechanics post will be about Metaphysicalities.

[psalacanthea]

Chapter 1

this doesn't have a title yet but this is the first chapter that is complete (first draft, unedited!) which I am sharing because I am having a lot of fun and enjoying building this story! its thesis statement might be about the philosophy of the necessity of privacy but thesis statements sort of just happen on their own when I write and then later I figure out what I'm saying! But! also it is about drama, backstabbing, excess, shiny things, and hating your parents.

this is 4.4k (yay i kept it industry standard chapter size!) and it'd mean a lot to me if you read it! the genre is kinda YA (it's a prequel to something else I wrote so I de-aged them and that's just how it ended up). i guess it's like if cyberpunk had UBI

The Del Reyes Ballroom sparkled with carefully manufactured grandeur, like all of the Singapore subcology.

Gilt and crystal flashed, hand-carved pillars of actual grown wood had live plants spilling down their sinuous forms, and everywhere you looked were jungles of riotous flowers and aviary cages of twittering birds. The floors were clear and under-lit, showing the luminescent, bio-engineered fish that swam in the vast aquarium beneath their feet. Clusters of iridescent bubble lights washed the room in rosy dawn hues, a classy nod to Phoenix Corp's orange red and white colors.

The ceiling was hidden by draping vines and foliage, keeping banality at bay. The sculpting of décor left plenty of nooks and crannies. Lots of places to plot revenge, seductions, cold-blooded friendships, and get caught half-naked for the gossip feed. The gossip feed loved a corp celeb birthday.

It was the youth partisan tonight.

Last time they'd been here for an event sans-parents, someone had let out the birds and one had shit on that spoiled whiner Parminder Bhakta's head. Merissa was hoping someone might do it again. She had a few other good targets in mind, one of whom she was watching right now. A half-head taller than everyone in the room, her crown of twisted jet braids gleamed in the light, dozens of tiny plaits intricately woven together and decorated with fresh flowers, simple but perfectly preserved at their peak.

Picking up her oyster fork in two fingers, with a clatter of empty shells, Meri idly spun it. “See that genetic throwback out of corp colors?”

Her lifelong companion and best friend, Eluned Alwar, looked up from their wrist, amused emerald eyes scanning the new arrivals. “In the pink princess dress? They're not that tall.”

“I'm just saying, if she isn't done growing she's going to need shortening surgery- if she doesn't want to be a sore-neck freak.” Reaching over, she stabbed her fork into the remains of Eluned's abandoned cake, leaving it there sticking upright. The food was fine, she supposed, but everyone always twittered about how special they were for eating real food. Subsistence tasted fine to her. “Ugh, why is everyone but me a snob?”

“Tall is in season, she's striking right now, and you are the snobbiest snob to ever snob,” El laughed, not sounding remotely upset.

Some of them hadn't had any choice in being 'unnatural', so why should she get a pass just because her parent was poor?

Not that Merissa would say something like that out loud; she was being petulant, not stupid.

El half turned to face her head on, casting glittering rainbows of color across the tablecloth, the subtle glow of their collar perfectly highlighting every angle of their face. “Don't bully her, I mean it. It's classless, she's no one to you.”

“Hmph. Her au pair should have done more testing before releasing her into open ocean.” Offended, Meri leaned back and stared up at El, raising one eyebrow. Did they really think she was that arbitrary? “I'm being genuine. Mitera always says showing up out of corp colors is a statement, and you'd better have something worth saying. If I showed up out of navy and gold-” she gestured with a hand to her own perfectly-tailored suit, and continued- “it'd be okay, because everyone in this room knows who I am. But it's rude to show up to a party and act like you're important when you're not. She just wants people to go 'ooh, who's that?' and tiptoe around her because they don't know where she is in the food chain. Pathetic.”

“Usually you have a better reason than that to bully someone.”

“Haven't bullied anyone. This shift.”

“You will. What's this really about? Drop the apex predator line, you sound like your Mother.”

Highly offended, Merissa scowled, turning her gaze away deliberately from the pack of twittering idiots, scanning the room. It was easy to tell who was in the know, and who was out. Jia had changed the party last minute, and those who couldn't afford a brand new outfit were still in the more ornate gowns and suits that would have suited the previous occasion. It made them stand out.

The conceit of the flashy people in the room being the poorer ones was a hilarious unintended consequence of Meri's meddling.

Idly sipping at her glass, she wondered if this would start tilting fashion back towards austere; she'd have to see what El's father put out next before deciding to change her own style. Her off-shift wardrobe would be fine. Granted, she still needed to go shopping, but for electronic warfare, not heels.

Across the way Jia Koh, heir of Singapore and Phoenix Corp and titular celebratee, was holding court, their eyes locking briefly in their mutual examination of the crowd. Jia inclined her head with a sway of her glossy blue-black hair before a person walked between them and snapped the connection. That was probably all their interaction for the night, apart from the proper birthday wishes. Jia had a very small group of friends, and wisely didn't trust anyone out of it.

Same as Meri.

“I don't know the throwback's name, but I recognize her,” Merissa finally admitted, when the weight of El's expectant sidelong glances became too heavy.

They laughed. “Have you been stalking people again?”

“I was invited to the group. It's not my fault they backstab each other,” Merissa said, feeling rather attacked at the moment. “Though I could hack if I wanted. Why are you being cruel?”

“That's not the question. The question is, why are you?” El countered with a smirk. Leaning forward, they plopped their elbow on the table rudely, waist-length rich brown hair swinging as they leaned in close. “Did someone covet your property again?”

Caught out, Meri immediately averted her eyes. Not that she was embarrassed. She hadn't even done anything, after all, just a little light plotting. “It's just a gossip group with a bunch of the lower-ranked corp spawn.”

“Mhmm, and with bitch filter off, tall princess dress is...?”

“Adele-somebody, her father's new Prez of R&D in Warsaw.” Ugh, did she really have to admit this? Well, at least it was just El, who might scold her but never betray her. “One of her group alerted me that she'd been talking too much, and invited me in to witness. She may have a gigantic, embarrassing, and very public crush on Dem-”

Eluned rolled their head to the side, strands of hair gleaming as they slid through their manicured fingers. “Desi, yes. That was blindingly obvious. If you keep pitching a fit when people covet him, people are going to assume you're in a relationship. Which you said you don't want.”

“I don't pitch!”

“You can't blame other people for hunting him when you're not marking your claim. He's valuable prey.”

“He'd never be interested in someone like that. She should have hung up her crush once she was elevated. It makes her look trash-”

El pinched her earlobe and gave it a twist. Not enough to hurt, just a little tug that was as much punishment as it was a beckon. “This is why my father says I should find other friends. You're so mean. Just admit you're jealous and stop sounding like the classist bastard everyone thinks you are. You know I'll just get angry.”

Simmering with annoyance, Meri settled, leaning into El's side. They draped an arm over the back of her chair, gleaming emerald-manicured fingers tapping against her shoulder. Feeling particularly trapped and pathetic, Meri heaved a sigh, regretting it when her molded corset dug into her ribcage. Ow.

“I'm still not bullying her.” Meri couldn't help one last irritated argument, trying to win a little ground. “The ones who set her up to be made a fool of are the ones she should be worried about.”

Eluned sighed, conceding her the point with an arm around her side and a kiss on top of her head. A peace offering. “Where is our boy?”

“Maximilian is making him arrive last because he's mad at the Kohs,” Meri said gloomily, giving the ballroom another resentful stare just to make anyone watching her uncomfortable. “Meanwhile Mother forces me to show up early, because it 'shows good training'.”

“Did your therapist talk to her?”

Merissa snorted, finding the very idea laughable. And the reality... “She fired my therapist and got me a new one for daring to agree with me that I'm a person and not a fucking product.” Lifting a hand, she examined her delicately tapered, reflective gold nails contemplatively. Too yellow. Her fault for not getting a new mani when she changed outfits.

“Well, that's what you said would happen.”

A burst of laughter across the room rang out, edged with just a hint of mockery.

Someone was probably being bullied; not her problem.

Meri idly watched the lower-tier celebs across the room clustered together like reef fish. “Yes. I-”

“Oh, just tell me what's going to happen.”

“The bottom-feeders convinced her that they'd help her talk to him.”

El winced, empathetic as always. “You think she believes them?”

“Don't care. I've already destroyed their little op,” Merissa said, fighting the urge to fold her arms. It'd ruin the lines, as Mitera always told her. Ugh, maybe she should have worn a dress; they were less fussy than a three-piece. “They had a whole little plot woven for the occasion, so I...changed the occasion. No more dancing,” Smiling at Eluned's disbelieving look, she flashed a wink. “Or did you forget this was going to be a masque?”

“You made Jia change the theme of her own birthday party?” El asked, too loud and too high. When Meri immediately shushed them, they burst into laughter, eyes slitting closed as they slapped a hand on their forehead.

“Stop!”

“You're so vicious!”

Hardly. “It's called negotiation. I just told her I didn't really feel like going to another masque, that was all. And she was advised that me not attending would hurt her gossip feed numbers, which she values more than some stupid party theme. Jia doesn't give a glittery fuck about these events,” Merissa said, not bothering to hide the boredom and disgust that leeched into her voice. It was all so stupid. If they didn't want her to fuck with them, why did everyone hop to the moment she opened her mouth?

“I don't know her that well, she doesn't talk to us few non-corp,” El said with mocking relish. “If it wasn't for you and Desi no one would ever speak a word to me unless they wanted my father to design something for them. I'm like an assistant. A convenience.”

Ugh, now Meri wanted to be here even less. Making El feel bad always made her feel like dreck. “Let's slip the party and go find a lounge. It'll be hilarious when Demi shows up and we're not here,” she said, thinking longingly of how annoyed he would be. Watching vids of him storming out of the party, leaving behind a hundred disappointed debutantes would be the highlight of her night. Just looking at the irritatingly imperfect girl across the room, standing above the crowd, made her want to leave and ruin the night for everyone.

How dare she think Demi would be in any way interested in her?

Merissa might not be able to even hold his hand in public, but damned if she'd let anyone think they had a real chance with him while she was living.

Desmond Arden belonged to her.

“I am not dealing with a night of his tantrums because you won't play with him,” Eluned said, a hint of playful disgust in their voice. “Your relationship is so twisted.”

“Gee, I wonder how that happened,” Merissa deadpanned, and then heaved a long, tired sigh. The worst part of it was, their parents were right. Their relationship was a problem.

The system as-was worked.

It had to.

“Only four days, Isa. Only four days.”

“I can't wait for the fucking off-shift,” Meri sighed, watching the crowd with deepening ennui. “Every month it seems like it takes longer and longer to get here.”

El gave her a sidelong look, but their response was silenced by a sudden change in the crowd. Conversations picked up, bodies turned, attention shifting in to a singular point. Ah. He was here.

Desmond Arden had arrived.

“The gossip feed says you're Adelaide. That's like...a city, right? A dead city?”

Awkwardly she looked up from her wrist, a flick of her fingers banishing the soft pink glow of the holo, scattering words into meaningless tendrils before they faded away. Forcing her attention to the half-circle of people encroaching on her, Adelaide forced a smile. It likely looked forced. The person examining her like a line of bad code was wearing a sharp suit in the electric blue and black of New Delhi, their cropped hair carefully colored to match. It was a slick look, cohesive from head to toe- a bright blue stripe starting at the top of their head and ending at their toes, matching their glowing artificial eyes.

They even had a bio-luminescent graphic liner injected into their skin to match, glowing variegated dots that followed the curve of their eyelid crease.

It must have been expensive.

Dad said she looked beautiful, but Ada was starting to feel more and more out of place by the second. She figured natural eyes were in- all the tower heirs had them- but no one on her 'level' seemed to. This was way more complicated than her corp etiquette teacher made it seem. “It- yes, it was near Canberra,” she said quietly, wishing her cohort would find her. “On Old Earth.”

“And their color was pink in Adelaide?” emex asked innocently. “Sorry, I just don't know a lot about your culture. Baby pink is really a unique corp-color!”

From every direction in the vibrantly hued crowd around them, Ada heard gossipy giggles, her stomach falling even further. “No, I um, I'm not from- my father's the head of R&D for Oracle. I ah- someone said that we didn't have to wear corp-colors.”

They tapped nails against their cheek, the mani-tips flashing in a different color with every impact. “Oh! So you're just more special than us. Unique. Unique Adelaide. That's slick, I like that.”

“I-” Stop saying um. She was more socially savvy than this! “No, I just don't look good in Warsaw orange,” she admitted, in hopes that self-deprecation would get them to leave her alone.

“Oh wo-ow.” The word was drawn out slowly. “That must be rough. I really don't know, I've never had that problem.”

Yes, she was definitely being bullied again.

“Did you hear that? 'I don't look good in orange'? Change yourself, deficient,” she heard someone whispering, nasty laughter in the words.

“She's been poor for a long time, don't be rude,” someone else muttered.

Her father had been second-in-command for Warsaw's research and development for a decade, did they really think she was- yes, she was literally standing in a room with her idols, but it wasn't like Father had gone from unemployed straight to Head of Research and Development! She hadn't worn corporate-provided subsistence since she was ten and they'd left the Blocks for Downtown. This wasn't her first time in custom clothing! But she supposed to people like these, everyone below them looked the same.

No.

It wasn't worth the fight; she couldn't afford to upset anyone.

With a smile and a quick farewell to cover her confused seething, Adelaide tried to slip away. Yes, she knew that it made her look weak, but that was life here. Make enemies and die. Socially, at least. She paced away at a clip, ignoring farewell mockery behind her. Scanning the room in search of support, Ada twisted her hands in the skirts of her heavy, voluminous dress, gems glittering in the rosy light emanating from silvery monofilament lace. It was hard not to stare at her shimmering gown when it moved. She'd never worn anything so in-fashion before.

Ugh. Where should she go? Hiding would be easiest, but father said it was vital to their future that she make friends.

That was how you got the good partnerships and even promotions- making friends with other corporate heirs.

Ada couldn't say she'd struggled making friends before joining this group, but there was an overwhelming history between every single one of the maybe two hundred people in this enormous room that made fitting in almost impossible. Even just in her own group of first gen, lower corporate heirs it was all cliques. And the higher you got in power and prestige, the longer they'd known each other. And at the top of them all...

Desmond Arden.

Through the wilderness of pillars and tables, she saw a quiet alcove of filigree cages and massive scarlet flowers with strange, alien shapes. There was no one there. At a quick, but discreet angle, she made for it. Her eyes stayed on the move, but she knew in her heart of hearts she wasn't looking for her 'friends', but the brilliant royal blue and white of Ardent Technology, Desmond's company.

Well, his father Maximilian's company.

Washington Subcology dome was the oldest, biggest, and most important of all. They controlled food production, and rehydration and flavoring technology, with very little competition. But even more than that- they made seawater filters.

Without a steady supply of seawater filters, the whole world would die.

Weaving between bodies, Adelaide hastily turned her gaze aside from a coupling, leaving the shelter of the shaded recesses of the ballroom back into the clearing where the top predators roamed. When it came to things like that, better not to see. Secrets were dangerous. Being noticed snooping, even more so.

It'd been a rough road to learning that, even though she'd entered lower corp society in Warsaw only a few years later than most.

Before dad had gotten that management job in Warsaw they'd lived in the Washington Blocks, up against the arcology walls. Everyone complained about the crowded, utilitarian blocks, but she'd loved it. Her favorite had always been the huge elevators that went up the vertical streets, looking out over the Downtown as they rose higher and higher above it, the artificial sun beaming down from the top of the dome. Sometimes she took a train from Warsaw to Washington just to ride them again.

But she wasn't a worker any more, dad was in the real corporate hierarchy now, and she needed to start acting like it.

It was just hard to give up her love for Washington when it belonged to him.

Her hiding place wasn't a great one. The proliferation of birds trapped in ornate aviaries all started squawking at her the moment she plopped down at the unoccupied table. Both miserably embarrassed and angry at the rudeness of it all, Adelaide dropped her eyes to her wrist, fiddling with it. The private feed was humming.

She sent her location, hopefully, and then lifted her eyes to scan what of the completely overdone ballroom she could see. Ada was still dressed for a masque, without the mask, and so were plenty of the others. But the mood was entirely different.

And without the excuse of dancing, how could she muster up the bravery to talk to Desmond?

Leaving the safety of her social strata felt incredibly dangerous.

The hierarchy was strictly enforced, often by bullying like she'd dealt with earlier. Top of the food chain was of course the tower corp celebs: those set to inherit ownership of the thirty one subcologies that were all that remained of the drowned world. Each subcology had a tower in the center that housed the corporation that had built or hostilely taken over the city, beneath a vast dome that kept the ocean at bay. At the top of each tower the heirs lived sentinel over their cities.

They were the future leaders of the world, each being educated and groomed to take over their parents' position. Certainly, someone else could be made CEO, but it was unlikely. After all, they'd been made for the jobs. Every single one of them had been crafted by science before they'd even entered the womb, and some of them hadn't even seen a womb at all- she knew Desmond had been mechanically gestated.

His father was proud of that fact, which had always struck her as a bit odd.

The tier below were the heirs of smaller companies, those who existed as a subsidiary of the main corps. The big fish. Their position in the room could vary, depending on how big the company and where they were.

Then were the presidents, and big board execs' heirs, the people who probably owned actual homes in the Downtown. And at the bottom, people like Ada. They were the children of important department heads, vice presidents, or unique individuals like artists or vid stars, important researchers. Musicians. The kind of people that were there to be with someone.

The kind of people who were hunting.

Finally her plea bore fruit, and a cluster of brightly-colored corp debutantes found and surrounded her. The lowest of the low- her cohort. They gathered immediately to commiserate with her, lamenting the change in party that had ruined all their plans. Adelaide stood among them, feeling at sea about all of this and wondering why she'd let herself get swept up in their planning at all.

All she wanted was to find her place before reaching for sky.

Luckily someone else was rapidly slighted, and her plight was pushed aside.

A new place should have been a fresh start, but for some reason people had been digging into her past and had uncovered that she'd been running Desmond's gossip feed until Father had been promoted. Yes, she was not only a fan, but the fan, and yes, obviously she was going to do what she could to meet him, but what had once been her claim to fame was now her embarrassment.

If only they'd let her past be.

She wasn't the only one being encouraged to step out of her comfort zone, of course. Advancement was necessary for them all. Every low-ranked corp celeb was here with a mission in mind, venturing out briefly from safety to make their own overtures. There was nothing for Ada to do but follow the group, serve her purpose in encouragement and commiseration, and hope she'd be otherwise unnoticed. The last thing she needed was one of these erstwhile friends blabbing about her past hobbies in front of someone more important.

But of course, the instant the ballroom started humming with those flickers of interest and attention that spoke of an important arrival, Ada's partisan immediately turned back to her. He must be arriving at last. It made sense. No one was above timing their entrance to make a splash; not even Desmond could escape that bit of theatricality.

Hundreds of eyes in every color imaginable turned towards the entry, locking onto the man himself as he arrived, alone if one ignored the pair of security guards that followed behind him.

Being this close took her breath away; Desmond Arden was the most striking man she'd ever seen in her life.

His eyes were a brilliant, saturated blue that stood out sharply against the deep olive of his skin, his naturally platinum hair kept short and carefully styled. It was very dead-world, his style, from the sharp suit always in corporate colors to the strict masc presentation. No matter how fashions changed, and people tried to copy him, he still managed to be the most intimidating presence in the room.

He was dedicated, reserved, dignified, and often cold.

But Adelaide knew it was his pride and high expectations that made him seem so untouchable. Everyone had a public persona, after all. As someone who had grown up beside him, eyes always on his feed, she understood him even deeper than that. She saw every single one of his private moments that had been captured on vid, the different smiles he had.

What he looked like when he was truly happy.

The crowd moved away from him natural, close enough to hopefully be noticed, but not enough to impede his path. He, of course, went immediately to Jia Koh's table, making the appropriate greetings. One of her coterie whispered a discreet 'go' and shoved at her back, sending distracted Ada stumbling forward. Spinning around, she fixed him with a cold, irritable look.

With a jolt of fear, she realized her mistake, but luckily it didn't matter. As Desmond began crossing the floor to his inevitable destination, all the gawking celebs turned back to their own groups. She still watched him out of the corner of his eye as he greeted his friends, but Desmond was unapproachable now.

He was with Merissa Medina, and the undeniable queen bastard of the tower heirs.

Everyone knew to stay away from her unless you wanted to be verbally eviscerated.

Always on high alert, Merissa surveyed the room with eyes so amber they were nearly gold, lifting a hand to flick Desmond's off her shoulder- like he was nothing more than an inconvenience. Instead of being angry, he laughed once with a lopsided smile, leaning down to whisper something into her ear. So close. Even though she knew it was so their sec-tech could hide their conversation, but the sour jealousy in the pit of her stomach rose immediately.

“Don't worry. He won't stay there all night,” someone said sympathetically. “She can't guard him all night.”

“I don't even know what to say now. No dancing.”

“You could tell him you're his biggest fan,” someone else suggested, sympathy less believable, the edge of a smirk creeping out.

Adelaide knew they weren't going to let it go. No, no chance at a fresh start another night, another party when her plans hadn't been ruined. It had to be tonight. This wasn't about the people swarming around her like predators testing her for weaknesses. This was about her.

And while Adelaide was afraid of everyone else in the room, she wasn't afraid at all of Desmond.

After all, she knew him.

[theamityelf]

I’m excited for the zombie descriptions

(Thank you!!)

So, first of all, their eyes. The irises are white, or close to it, which makes it very unsettling when their pupils enlarge or shrink. Their pupils tend to suddenly dilate when they're about to bite someone; it's like a split-second warning. I'm gonna also say their eyes are often bloodshot (though maybe this will depend on things like diet; maybe the 78th class's eyes are bloodshot because they aren't eating human as much), rendering their irises paler than their sclera.

Second of all, their veins. The major ones are highly visible through the skin, because all of their blood vessels (in Danganronpa fashion) have turned neon pink. And blood is red in-universe, so if they've just eaten someone, for example, the blood on their face is red and their veins are an unnatural bright pink. Blood is not normally pink. But the undead do bleed bright pink. (Well, I say "bleed", but their blood doesn't really run in the same way, because the viscosity is higher than normal.) (Their tears and saliva also have a pink tint to them.) Depending on how pale the person already was, smaller blood vessels might also be very visible, but the major ones are stark for everyone. You'd swear there was bio-luminescence going on, but they do not, in fact, glow in the dark.

When they walk on two feet (which they have varying affinities for doing), they all have a somewhat slanted posture. They've all developed new habits, as far as getting from place to place.

Taka walks upright pretty much exclusively.

I'm not saying this earnestly, but I like the idea of a gimmick where Sayaka only moves when you're not looking at her. Like, she's sitting on the floor quietly singing to herself, and Makoto is just doing his own thing elsewhere in the room, and he notices at a point that she's stopped singing, so he glances over to see if she's alright, and she's sitting right next to him. Like, she's not full Weeping Angel, because she still walks to the bathhouse with everyone and eats with them and stuff, but I like her having shades of it.

Mukuro outright prefers to creep along the wall (as in, at least one hand on the wall at all times) like a lizard or crawl like a tiger rather than walk upright on just her legs.

Hiro climbs stuff and just kind of perches in high-up places so no one can jump on his back.

Chihiro crawls on people they like/trust and just generally moves kind of like a spider.

Akane still does parkour, specifically to catch prey when she breaks out. It is terrifyingly effective.

Gundham crouches behind furniture, so whether he's walking on two feet or fully crawling depends more on the height of the furniture he's moving behind than any preference on his part. His hamsters are still on his person at all times, and he doesn't consider eating them.

Mikan is a classic slow-moving, upright, slouching type when she walks, but sometimes she prefers to crawl.

Junko does any number of these, on a whim.

Their hair is still growing and still requires maintenance. Not many of them want their hair to be cut. (Taka is one of the few; he'll bring a pair of scissors to Makoto when he wants him to do that for him. It's always an imperfect haircut, since Makoto isn't really a stylist.)

Some of them still try to wear makeup, but most of them don't do a very good job applying it. Junko actually could apply it very well, but she chooses to look kind of sloppy, so people think she isn't as lucid as she is. Nagito actually helps Gundham with his makeup.

[geraldthellama]

Bowuigi Corpse Bride AU Lore Post

So I said I would probably make this and while I thought about making this into a fanfic and making ya'll read that, I decided that I need to commit to the other three (two and a half?) Mario fanfic ideas I have. So if anyone wants to make a full blown fic or whatever with this AU, feel free (but tag me ofc because I've got to see it).

(This will not be short, just a quick warning that this is a commitment).

This AU is very loosely based off the actual movie. Instead of them being in the underworld, they're just in a haunted house that Boo lost to Bowser in a game of poker, and instead of being a corpse (as the name suggests), Luigi is just a slightly annoying boo. Him and Polterpup are the only ones that inhabit the mansion, and, with the house completely abandoned, it's probably going to stay that way.

In this world, ghosts only stay after some massive traumatic death. Problem is, Luigi has no recollection of how he died, he just knows he hit his head and a little while later awoke, a ghost that's unable to be seen, heard, and is completely alone as a newly-deceased. Aside from the yipping ghost dog at his feet (Luigi has always been afraid of both ghosts and dogs).

As a ghost, Luigi originally spawns (spawns?) into this world with little ghostly abilities. Living beings can't see or hear him and he doesn't have the power to manipulate objects or people in any way. He is essentially a specter, watching the lives of other people for years until, eventually, it's abandoned, and the Peasley family mansion (one of many, that is) is gambled away to King Boo.

But, King Boos already got his own slew of creepy haunted mansions, and, frankly, this one is haunted by a ghost he can't stand. A ghost that hasn't been able to speak to someone for around a decade. A chatty ghost that hasn't been able to speak to someone for over a decade. He's not exactly torn up about parting with it.

Bowser, the poor thing, is on attempt...

Attempt... 2 hundred... something.

(at least 4 proposals a year, for around 20 years... that's...)

Let's just say, Peach does and has not wanted Bowser for a long ass time, and it really doesn't help his self esteem that he's still being thwarted by a plumber that's old enough to be his dad and uses a cane. He really can't understand what Peach sees in him, especially considering she still looks like a youthful 20/30-something into her 60s. Frankly, it's unfair. He's got money, kids (some really awesome ones too), power, looks (he thinks so at least), and isn't 3 pudding cups away from dementia.

What he hasn't got, until right now at least, is an awesome mansion, specially built for human(oid) creatures. Maybe she just didn't like gothic castle architecture? Maybe, as Boo suggests, he just has to get her scared enough to fall into his arms for safety. He's got this all planned out.

Boo did not specify that the "ghostly inhabitants" of this mansion were a hyperactive ghost dog and naive plumber. He didn't think it was important information at the time.

So, when Bowser is plotting and practice-proposes (does he really need more practice?) to the striking blue eyes of a, surprisingly, human painting, the last thing he expects is to be met with a ghoulish grin.

Barely ghoulish, because, god, the thing is bright. The smile and the bio-(bio?)-luminescent energy it's attached to. For a ghost who's wearing bloodied bandages and has been dead for 30 lonely years, he's surprisingly optimistic.

"Really?! And you're not even a boo!" :D

He's very optimistic, in fact, because he's willing to believe that this complete stranger might just be his ticket out of this wall-papered purgatory. He died meeting up with his forbidden love, after all, so it must be a sign. He does not hesitate to shove that ring on his finger, even if his new fiance looks hesitant (he might be naive enough to go with it, but he's not blind). He's convinced the two will make it work.

Luigi is... very tired of looking at the same things everyday. Now, he can attach to his new fiance, who's only slightly hesitant to engage with him, (and is not bad looking at all, in Luigi's opinion). Together, the two can actually have a life together. Luigi was only 25 when he died, and he was far too shy then to do any adventuring. The most rebellious thing the man had ever done was sneak out.

Man, look where that ended him.

For Luigi, this is his opportunity to live the life he wasted was robbed of.

And the guys got kids! How awesome is that?

Bowser is not liking the new pets at his side. One never stops yipping and yapping and one is a dog. Luigi is... fine. From a distance. The problem is that they physically can't get any. As long as Luigi is attached to him, consider them hand cuffed. This stupid, green boo is crimping his style, and any game he had with Peach is virtually ruined when he's got his "fiance" clinging to his side like he's the best thing since breathing air.

At least Luigi appreciates his kids. The ghost obviously has some taste (of course he does, he chose him for pete's sake), and Junior and the rest seem to like the ghoul enough... Even if Junior isn't completely sure that Luigi is a ghoul. Both Luigi and Junior agree that boos are scary.

Maybe, after some hard self-reflection (with Luigi close and present, of course), and some growing emotional intimacy and openness, Bowser begins to kind of, perhaps tolerate Luigi. Just a little. Just enough to find his stupid quirks endearing and just enough to start to think that maybe he's always been too good for Peach, anyway. Maybe he should be with someone who appreciates him and loves his family. It's not like her and Mario had ever had kids in their relationship, and her not wanting kids is kind of a deal breaker.

Bowser's newfound attention on Luigi is driving everyone else nuts, though. Boos barely seen the man since his unfortunate run in with the green leach and no one else at their poker table is any good. At this rate, Boos not even satisfied winning Peasley's riches off him anymore. Occasionally, a guy just wants to lose, y'know? Boo hates only one thing more than Peasley whining about the consequences of his gambling addiction, and that's boredom. He misses when the Koopa King spent all his time plotting against the old-ass plumber. At least then he showed his face at their meetings.

And when Boo finally brings up his grievances, because he deserves to rant, Peasley seems... nervous. Boo loves nervousness.

"There's a... human boo... in the mansion I gave you..?"

"One, you didn't give it to me, you lost, fair and square. Two, yeah, and he's just about the chattiest thing I've ever met. All dressed up in a white suit, the pretentious-"

At that, Peasley turns about as pale as a ghost. Well, if that were possible, considering he's a legume. Suddenly, he's got some important things he has to do somewhere else.

This poker table is looking weak.

When Peasley asks Bowser to meet at the mansion, Bowser warns he can't come alone. It's a stretch to get the green ghost to go back with him, and as much as Bowser wants to tell him "you're coming with me, whether you like it or not", he can't bring himself to say it. Instead, he convinces Luigi that it's a quick stay. Essentially, a welfare visit on the old house and a quick meeting with an old friend. Luigi's narrowly convinced.

Stepping back onto that porch brings back a lot of old memories for the human. Few of them anything good in retrospect.

But he does want to see his painting again. He always did cherish that painting. He's sure Bowser will too, right?

Is that painting a good memory for Bowser? He wonders.

It was all those years ago that a young Peasley gifted him that painting. Like him, he had been optimistic and in love. Even if his rich, snobby parents weren't a fan of the human, they had an entire life ahead of them. Peasley had made him a beautiful painting. It was the one part of the house Luigi felt was his. A good memory.

He never expected to be greeted by the same image he had all those years ago. Peasley, now older, stood in front of the painting. His face now wasn't proud or love-struck or whatever expression he had had then (Luigi can barely remember Peasley's face until just now), he looked somber. It was a rare occasion that Luigi wasn't green, and his teal glow seemed to throw Bowser off.

And divert Peasley's attention away from the miserable painting and over to the ghost, who was nervously twiddling his thumbs with a sympathetic look in his eyes.

It's not long before Bowser realizes that this meeting was never about him, and he feels more awkward than anything else...

Except that Polterpup has been on edge since the moment he saw the bean (now) king. Has he ever seen the dog not wag it's tail at someone?

Immediately, the older man apologizes. Things were never meant to end up how they did. He tried his best to help when he could.

Luigi's not angry, how could he be? Luigi's fall was an accident.

Peasley says he didn't know Luigi had stuck around, and if he had, he thinks he would have done things differently. He would have at least had the place cleaned instead of just letting it rot.

(So Peasley abandon the mansion? The perfectly good mansion for no reason, leaving Luigi alone.)

And, of course, Peasley's sorry for not telling Mario or his parents about what happened to him.

(HUH?)

He insisted that he waited for hours with Luigi, hoping he'd recover with enough gauze. The man told him it was a lost cause. If he could have saved him, he would have.

Hours?

"I was unconscious for hours?"

It came out as barely a whisper.

"I stayed almost the entire night. As long as I could."

Bowser didn't know boos could turn so many colors, especially that quickly. Bowser didn't think Luigi even had it in him to be anything less than smiley, especially completely enraged.

Luigi had never been more angry in his life (death).

Even Peasley's insistence that "You don't understand what they'd have done to me if they'd known I went against their wishes!" fell on deaf ears.

When Luigi's aura finally finished raving, Peasley had backed away from the now red ghost. Again, Luigi recognized the position they were in;

One of them backing up, away from the painting and towards the basement stairs. How could Peasley forget that door never closed all the way? It had only been the exact thing that killed Luigi 30 years ago. The exact thing that, of course, Peasley hadn't fixed.

Luigi swears he didn't push him, even in that state. Bowser believes him, only because the still angry and unaware Luigi yelled angrily down the stairs: "You better not die here, because I'll make your death hell!"

If they both hadn't just watched Peasley fucking die, Bowser would have kinda been into it.

It took Luigi a second to realize that even if his own fall had been an unlucky hit, Peasley wasn't 25 anymore. And he wasn't responding. His red hue didn't last long, especially when Polterpup no longer seems threatened (and Bowser notices that the bean king no longer seems to be breathing).

"What did I do?"

Bowser suggests fleeing the crime scene, which normally isn't his move, but he'd rather not be tied to the murder of a fellow royal. Luigi shakes his head.

This is his fault. And as angry as he still is at Peasley, he can't flee what he's done. Not in a right conscience. Not like what Peasley did to him. Luigi suffered enough sitting in that mansion alone for 30 years, and, as much as revenge tastes sweet, a small part of him still cares. Had he lived, Peasley and him would have had a life after all.

But he hadn't lived, did he.

Bowser can't remember a time ever seeing Luigi's color look quite as dull as it did then.

Playing with his engagement ring, Luigi thinks back on the part of the man he loved. Peasley never did buy him the ring, like he had hoped. Luigi remembers getting himself all excited over the possibility of a scenic proposal as they walked through the flower garden of the mansion. He had gifted him a painting. Which was almost as good.

He couldn't even count how many times he had stood and looked at that painting, thinking:

Was it worth it?

An apprehensive smile comes onto his face. A nostalgic smile. A somber one.

Doesn't really matter, does it? He'd never know if it was worth it in the end. This was how it ended up. Luigi had always believed that fate is what had brought him and Peasley together, considering everything else had lined them up for failure. Fate was what brought him here. What kept him here.

Who is he to drag down others?

He returns Bowser's ring.

"I'm sorry."

Bowser never deserved to have him weigh him down.

"I wasted my life chasing after a family I never got, and then spent my death doing the exact same thing."

Bowser awkwardly matches Luigi's bitter laugh.

"I lived my life, be it a short one, but you deserve to live yours."

Luigi pats the ring on his hand.

"I hope she likes it." He smiles. He means it. Peach sounds wonderful.

Tears prick Bowser's eyes, and all because...

He never did tell Luigi about him and Peach, did he? He can't help but laugh. Tears streaming down his face kinda laugh. The laugh you only get once a year kind of laugh.

"You spent, what? Maybe five non-consecutive years chasing after a family? Try twenty!"

Luigi's eyebrow goes up. This is supposed to be a super emotional goodbye and this goobers laughing? On about his conquest to marry Peach (who, apparently, is already married) and make his picturesque life. Luigi can't help but laugh, because it's so stupid that Bowser's laughing about this right now.

"Her and her stupid, human, mustachioed husband Mario have been kicking my ass for decades. I promise you, boo, you weren't ever getting in the way of anything."

Mario?!

"Mario?" (!)

"You heard of him?"

The excitement in Luigi's eyes (and aura) is obvious.

"My brother's name is Mario!"

With a look of determination, Bowser promises he'll tell Luigi the story of all his and Mario's exploits if he does him two favors.

Leaves this, frankly, ugly and decrepit mansion with him. Because this story needs atmosphere.

Puts the ring back on his finger. Because how else is everybody going to know they're engaged?

Luigi gives a grin.

He looks down the stairs. What about doing his due-diligence?

"I promise you, boo, if fate brought you and Peasley together, and pushed you down those stairs, and brought us together, and then pushed him down the stairs, fate is on your side."

Luigi's lips are still pursed.

"And it's almost sunrise," Bowser points out.

"So?"

"Well, we've waited almost all night, seems like a fair amount of time to me. It's obviously a lost cause."

At that, Luigi begins laughing. Not quite Bowser's guttural, teary laugh, but certainly a cackle. Enough to turn his aura back to a vibrant green, just like before. Enough to make him hunch over and take some (not really) much needed gulps of air.

When the laughing dies down to a hurt giggle, Bowser assures him that:

"You didn't kill him, Weeg."

No. I guess he didn't, did he?

Looking down the stairs one last time, (his death completely bloodless, the lucky bastard), Luigi's brows furrow for a second and he twiddles his thumbs.

If Luigi's learned one thing from being a condemned ghost, it's that you should take every chance you get.

The bottom of the stairs don't look so intimidating now.

"I...

I forgive you."

Maybe that is all Peasley deserves.

Luigi deserves to have another chance. And maybe Peasley does too, maybe he'll find one in the next lucky winner of poker. Someones gotta replace his spot at the table.

Bowser shares that he certainly deserves a mother to his children, and he's already got a quality candidate who's proved he's got what it takes. ("One who cooks, cleans, can't call in sick, die, and is pretty good looking! I hit the jackpot!")

Maybe, at the very least, Luigi deserves to see his brother one last time.

And maybe a few more times after that, for good measure.

Anyways so the original plan was just to have either Luigi and Bowser straight up immediately abandon the crime scene (not really crime scene) or have Luigi sit in the mansion forever and live out a miserable existence.

But I couldn't do that to my boys now could I. (But Peasley still gets abandoned because screw Peasley I hate that little bean man /j).

This wasn't meant to turn out in the format it did but, y'know, it did. Just know this isn't brief but also isn't comprehensive. I might (big emphasis on might) make a shorter headcanon post on this, but we'll see.

I hope you enjoyed. And sorry for the length, I am not known and will never be known for being concise.

[jonahs-arks]

Dead By Daylight x ARK: Survival Ascended/Evolved Chapter Concepts

THE MASTER [might change]

POWER:

•Tentacles - The Master raises his left arm, and 7 tentacles will randomly rise from the ground. They will proceed to slam down in the direction they are facing, injuring any survivors in their path and putting any injured survivors in the mending state.

•Power Orbs - The tentacles on The Master's back will spew out 3 power orbs that will proceed to chase the closest survivor until they are destroyed or hit a survivor. If a survivor is hit by the power orbs, they will have all actions slowed by 5% for 30 seconds.

•Lightning - The Master will charge electricity and conduct it through the ground in a 16 metre radius for 3.5 seconds. Any survivors caught in the lightning radius will be incapacitated for 3 seconds.

SPECIAL ITEM:

When facing The Master, 6 Plant Species Z will spawn around the map. If survivors stand near these plants for 15 seconds, they will get a Plant Species Z Fruit that will stun The Master for 6 seconds if he is using his power upon being thrown down. If they are thrown down outside of The Master using his power, they will deafen and disorient anyone nearby for 3 seconds.

Only 2 can be carried by a survivor at a time.

PERKS

•IMBUED STRENGTH - As the battle continues, you grow more and more powerful.

With each generator completed, gain a token. After hooking every survivor once, Imbued Strength activates.

-One token: Your basic attacks inflict blindness for 30/45/60 seconds.

-Two tokens: Your basic attacks inflict mangled and hemorrhage for 60/90/120 seconds.

-Three tokens: Your basic attacks put healthy survivors in the mending state and inflict exhausted for 3/4/5 seconds.

-Four tokens: successful basic attacks have a reduced cool down of 2/4/6%.

-Five tokens: All of your actions have an increased speed of 10/15/20%. Pallet, flashlight, and flash bang stuns are reduced by 5/10/15%. For the next 10/20/30 seconds after the last generator is completed, all survivors are broken and exposed.

"I have made myself the holy instrument of mankind's final evolution." - Sir Edmund Rockwell

•HEX: INGENUITY - Your intelligence makes your opponents take longer to complete their objective.

After downing a survivor, the furthest survivor from you screams, and the generator with the most progress gets blocked by the entity for 10/20/30 seconds and regresses by 150/175/200%. This perk gives other generator blocking perks 2 extra seconds of use.

This perk deactivates after its accompanied Hex totem is cleansed.

"Before you is the pinnacle of mankind's ingenuity." - Sir Edmund Rockwell

•ABERRANT DIVINITY - Your divine form causes those around you to scream in fear and awe.

When you are in a survivor's line-of-sight, they will scream, revealing their location for 3 seconds. You gain the undetectable status for 10/15/30 seconds, and both you and that survivor gain the blindness status effect for 30 seconds. Aberrant Divinity goes on to cool down for 60 seconds.

"Such power! Such beauty! I can feel it within me, growing stronger by the second. Never have I felt so alive!" - Sir Edmund Rockwell

THE ARK

This map has four variants: The Mushroom Forest, The Portal, Luminous Marshlands, and The Overlook. The Fertile Region contains the Mushroom Forest and the Portal variants, the Bio-Luminescent Region contains the Luminous Marshlands and the Overlook variants; all taking place on the Aberration ARK. In the Fertile Region, players can interact with the few Bulbdogs that reside on the map [including killers]; there will also be Yi Lings gliding overhead as the match goes on. The Portal is the only map variant that contains a shack [custom with TEK and rundown], and is the only variant that contains an actual main building, made of the rubble and debris of the destroyed TEK tribe. The Fertile Region also has some corpses littered around from the TEK tribe. The Bio-Luminescent Region contains Shinehorns that the players can interact with, and there will be invisible Rock Drakes on the walls and occasionally gliding overhead. The Bio-Luminescent Region also has a fun secret near the map borders where, if a player comes close, they can hear Rockwell's faint whispers. The ARK has more pallets to compensate for the lack of vault locations and the lack of a shack.

[bonefall]

Glowworms

(because i keep getting asked about them)

[ID: An adult female glowworm of the species Lampyris noctiluca. It has a bright green glow and clings to a plant.]

Before I even get started, let me lay down some education on the entire Lampyridae family so that we're all on the same page about the specific species that I'm going to talk about for the UK. I've done more research on this topic than the last time I brought it up, and I come bearing knowledge

Lampyridae is a family of beetles, descended from a bio-luminescent ancestor. There are more than 2000 species of Lampyridae, and they can be VERY different. This family is called "fireflies," "glowworms," and "lightningbugs" but ALL of those common names are AWFUL for referring to the full family becaaaaaauuuusee...

Not all lampyridae can fly

Not all lampyridae can glow as adults

Not all lampyridae light up passively; some use it as a lure or a warning

Not all lampyridae light up during flight

In the US, our most iconic species light up during flight, and our most common species have males and females capable of flight. So when I'm talking about "glowworms," remember that those traits are not shared by ALL species of Lampyridae, and especially not this one.

The UK has one species of glowing Lampyridae, Lampyris noctiluca, the Common Glowworm. There's one other, non-glowing species but it's extremely rare and only in the south, and an occasional visitor from mainland Europe.

GLOWWORMS

Only the female lights up, and her final stage is not capable of flight. This is called a "larviform female," because she looks like the wormy adolescent stage that all Lampyridae go through.

The female will climb up to the highest blade of grass she can find and wiggle her butt around until a male, who CAN fly and does NOT glow, finds her. Then she lays eggs and dies.

So because the adults do not eat and quickly die after reproduction, most of a glowworm's life is spent as a larva.

The larval glowworm is a SPECIALIZED predator of gastropods. They hunt snails and slugs for ONE or TWO YEARS (depending on how much food there was in the first year), hibernating over the winter, then waking up and doing it again. All movement in the species is done by the larvae; they have a REALLY hard time establishing new colonies because of this.

This is NOT a pioneer species. You need to have undisturbed grass, moor, or heath, no pesticides, not overgrazed, not brightly lit, for generations of these insects AND their prey. It's REALLY easy to decimate the glowworm population in an area via carelessness.

(let alone the horror story in the Glowworm Survey page where a tiny colony was intentionally destroyed, which is why they have a policy about keeping quiet on reports of certain colonies except to researchers ;_;)

so LOOK AT ME

HOLDING YOU BY THE SHOULDERS

You need to protect glowworm populations when you can. If you ever briefly hear posts in passing shouting about sterile lawns, light pollution, and pesticides, THIS IS WHY. If you live on the island and feel like there's a shit ton of slugs in your garden for some reason? Might be because these factors killed off their specialized predators, leaving you with an unfilled ecological niche.

Environment

Hypothetically, glowworms should be distributed all across Great Britain, except the Scottish highlands, though they have the strongest concentration in southern England.

Functionally, their population is incredibly fragmented. They need tall grass or heather, low light pollution, undisturbed (no pesticide) land, and lots of gastropods to eat. While they can work with forest verges and railways, places for them to thrive are getting rarer and rarer in the UK.

So to restate their very specific environmental needs;

Undisturbed land Glowworms and construction don't mix. Pollution, pesticides, and destruction can destroy the little patches of land glowworms have left. They need up to two years to go from eggs to adults, and a safe place for that to happen in.

A population of gastropods Baby glowworms eat slugs and snails. Because of that, they can't live where it's too dry.

Tall grasses, shrubs, or heathers, but not TOO tall A tree won't do! Glowworms do not live in trees! The females need a tall stalk to climb to the top of, so that they can signal to flying males. At the same time, they can't hunt or find each other in a savanna or a wheat field. Well-managed heathlands are excellent habitat for glowworms.

Low light pollution If it's too bright, males can't find females. Highways with heavy traffic, urban areas, and anything else that gives off constant light will affect the glowworm population.

They glow in June to May, in summer, at night. You won't find glowworms in winter, as all the larvae are hibernating at that time.

BB FAQ

When I determine if something will show up in the Better Bones AU and my Clan Culture expansions, I use iNaturalist to suss out if people are seeing it in the modeled region. Lads, there is a bald spot in my modeled regions. It's almost comical. The closest is in DERBYSHIRE, RIGHT out of reach.

So I'm still unsure about adding them. For now, they are not in BB. I GOT A REPORT FROM A FAN I will be adding them to BB.

"How do Clan cats feel about them?" They're unfathomnably holy, especially because they spend their larval stage eating snails which can be used in divination rituals. WindClan in particular considers themselves blessed for living around them.

"Can you use glowworms to light up the night?" Yes but that's really bad for their populations; leave them be! Clan cats wouldn't use something so holy in such a trivial way.

"Can you eat glowworms?" No they taste really bad. The chemical that makes them light up is REALLY bitter, and it's present in both the larvae and adults. Plus Clan cats wouldn't eat something so holy.