#sandcrab

[dduerksen]

Sand Crab #hoteheels #sandcrab https://www.instagram.com/p/CoTyWpQOcSM/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[passumstars]

Memories

[ihatebottles]

hi! happy season 8!!! or 11 if you go by broadcast

i made a list of all the programming bender scrolls past on their TV in episode 141:

Cosinefeld

Jupiter’s Next Top Model

Shatner’s Creek

Friends Reunion Reunion

The Steady-State Universe Theory

Unexplained Friday Night Lights

Mets vs. Godzilla

Next Week Yesterday

The [“A” in Alien Language 1]-Team

TruthBusters

Regular Ghost: Coast to Coast

Downton Crabby

Wide Wide World of Quarks

Star Trek: The Original Reboot

Disenpantment

The Mare of Neutropolis

Better Call Cthulhu

A Quiet Place: Live!

The Queen’s 8-bit

Plaid Programming

The Marvelous Mrs. Poopenmeyer

Buckminster Full House

Fonfon Ru Crashers

Stanley Tucci: Searching for Alderaan

The Sex Lives of Amazonian Women

π‘s Company

Melllvar Place

Alien vs. Predator vs. Bluey

Queer Eye for the Straight Line Segment

America Lacks Talent

Say No to the Overalls!

Married with Pupae

The Sims’ Sons

Infomercial: The Bowflexo

Fleaborg

Pimp My Hovercraft

Grey Alien’s Anatomy

The Botfather

Family Gorn

Will and Grkrk

0.999 [repeating] Full House

Sandcrab and Son

All in the Phylum

Look Who Glorbin’ 2

30 Rock from the Sun

American Holo Story

Back to the Present

M*A*T*H

The Best Dental Dam Show Period

CSI: Ceta Alpha Ⅴ

Just Disruptor Blast Me

News at √11

The Lego NewsHour

Rick & Morky

Everybody Loves Raygun

Halitos15

Blasterpiece Theatre

Frank Herbert’s Name That Dune

TCU Hypnotoads vs. Georgia Bullfrogs

Two and a Third Mutants

SporkCenter

Fargo But In Space

Quantum Nonlocal News

Smizmar Island

NYPD Ultraviolet

Yak Chat

Monday Night Rollerball

and the stuff that’s onscreen when fry is looking at fulu:

People Who Enjoy Mediocre Dramas Also Enjoy…

Slurm Dog Millionaire

Stranger Fonts

Smelly in Paris

Geiger King

The Clampmaid’s Tale

Things We Claim Are Trending

How I Met Your Smizmar

Only Murders in the Hoverdome

The Great Neptunian Bam-Off

The Scary Mirror

Humorbot 5.0 Stand-Up Special

Top Hits

Blob’s Burgers

Head Lasso

Real Housecats of Thuban 9

It’s Always Sunny on Mercury

Green-ish

[howlingday]

What about "The Colt"

Jaune: Cardin? I didn't know you had a gun.

Cardin: I don't, but I'm trying to make lien by selling my cousin's gun.

Ruby: Does your cousin know you're selling their gun?

Cardin: What? You gonna squeal?

Jaune: ...So what's great about this gun?

Cardin: It's like magic, dude. You shoot something, it dies.

Jaune: ...

Ruby: ...That's all gun, Cardin.

Cardin: No, seriously! Goliath? Boom! Dead! Sandcrab? Boom! Dead! One shot, one kill.

Ruby: What kind of ammo does is use?

Cardin: I dunno. Probably whatever bullets this thing takes.

Jaune: What kind of bullets are in them?

Cardin: There aren't any.

Jaune: ...

Ruby: ...I'm out. (Walks away)

[redstarforge]

In this month's Patreon post, Petrus previews some initial work on Mutation in the Doronai Nui: https://www.patreon.com/posts/113089929 We also have an art preview for our Heralds of the Toa-tier patrons: https://www.patreon.com/posts/113089967

Last month's Patreon post, in which Sandcrab and RyanTheFilmmaker preview a new Supertype coming to the Doronai Nui, is now available here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/110348233

Not a patron? You can support us for as low as $1 per month. https://www.patreon.com/redstargames

#bionicle #doronainui #ttrpg #hordika

[prionentanglement]

If you’re reading this, it is over. Definitively terminated. Concretely splattered. Oftentimes I’ve wondered what your final thoughts must be, falling through the sky. I don’t believe in honourable suicide, most people are probably scared, regretful, frantic. As the sky becomes Earth, as head becomes pavement, as man becomes corpse, freedom becomes absolute and unattainable. Infinite freedom requires infinite creativity. Rules grant us choices. One of those choices is whether or not to break the rules, to tap into the limitless potential beyond what has been outlined for us. To escape the dreams we’ve written, to live as an expression of our souls. To cry out in desperation, to parade in blood, to rain onto the Earth like an atom bomb. To explode into crimson passion.

The expression of my soul is as follows. What you will read now, if you are brave enough, is my blood on the pavement. I hope it is impossible to look away.

I stand at the margin which divides souls in two The sands between the fragile earth and the sea of death I build a castle I dig out a moat I fill it with water. I watch the sculpin slowly dissipate, drowning in the sand I build a new castle A bigger castle, a better castle A better-planned castle, a more beautiful castle A romantic castle, a seductive castle I spend 40 days building the castle The tide has come in countless times Stained with the corpses of sculpin and sandcrabs filled with venom I walk away rather than watch it crumble I walk towards the sea Behind me I leave two castles  one born of solitude and one born of romance I can’t bear to look back at either I sit down at the edge of the tide The sand, as though it was powdered lemonade dissolving in water, begins to melt away The sea, as though it was made of sand dusting through the wind, begins to melt away The sky, as though it was made of water diffusing lemonade, begins to stain itself yellow then orange then red Why does the sun set red? I look to the sun for answers I look directly into it’s crimson eyes I’ve broken a rule I fall

[prisounebound]

What animal is junices lussus based off of?

sandcrab :D

otherwise known as an Emerita

[thewapolls]

ANTLION, SANDSTAG & MYRMECOLEO I bundle together here because the first two are basically identical, and MYRMECOLEO seems like it's just a weird lost part of the SANDSTAG line. Myrmecoleon is both the scientific name for the actual Ant Lion insect, but also the name of the mythic creature, aka ANTLION, from old medieval bestiaries. (I feel like it's super backwards that the original WA design was by far the coolest, WA2 was kinda goofy but accurate to the old bestiary illustrations, but then the later model is just kinda meh?)

SANDCRAB, originally called SAND SCISSORS in Japanese, I'm throwing in here because it's become kind of a companion monster to SAND STAG. And it's the central pillar of a different monster family.

HERMITCRAB & HAMMERTAIL are the other two uses of the original WA1 model, neither of which survive into the rest of the series, so they get to band together here. Funny enough HAMMERTAIL is the name of a D&D monster, basically just an Ankylosaurus, introduced as part of the Eberron setting... but that was introduced in 2004, well after the original WA. (Weirdly the HERMITCRAB never came back in WA2 as a recolor of the OANNES enemy, but we'll get to those later...)

ROCKBUSTER doesn't appear to take its name from anything in particular. (Maybe referencing a Beast Wars transformer with the same name? But he debuted as part of the Beast Wars Neo series, which came out the same year as Wild Arms 2, so I feel like there wasn't time for it to come out first and then still make it into the game in time for release. Is there some kind of Japanese thing about rock busting crabs I'm just not aware of???)

SCORPIUS is a funky little link in the tree. Originally a WA3 recolor of the SANDSCISSORS and ROCKBUSTER, it vanished for a few games and then came back as a totally different arthropod. It feels weird that it becomes a flying insect and not a scorpion but ti could be a play on the SCORPIUS constellation making it "in the sky"?

VESPER, which I'm pretty sure was just meant to be VESPA, as in "wasp", is just a recolor of the SCORPIUS in WA4 and 5. (On the one hand I think it being a big wasp/hornet is sufficient enough, but there is also technically a VESPA constellation; it was an alternate name of the Apis:"bee" or Musca:"fly" constellation which kind of neatly aligns it with SCORPIUS' shtick.)

but notably, even though SCORPIUS in WA4 is where these two trees cross over, this model actually started back in WA3 with GARBUG, another classic D&D monster that has probably fallen pretty thoroughly by the wayside over the years. Understandably large bugs just don't have quite the same sticking power as Goblins and Kobolds, or Dragons and Gelatinous Cubes. (There's also the CHIMERA WING, just another of several elemental CHIMERA mosnters in WA3.)

CRAB BUBBLER blowing bubbles is just a thing crabs do, it shares a model with the enemy GIANT CRAB in WA2, which is also just a thing some crabs are. In fact the GIANT CRAB is actually called RAID SCISSORS in Japanese, although I don't know that that's any sort of reference either.

GRODINE. Fascinatingly, this is the source of what would become the enduring crab enemy design, totally unrelated to the preexisting crab enemies when first introduced in WA2 as a random boss type monster. It appears to be based on a series of "(Flying)Saucer Organism" toys, specifically one named BLACK DOME.

DEATHMASK being a big crab enemy is a reference to the villain, Cancer Deathmask, from Saint Seiya.

[dhwty-writes]

whatever a sun will always sing - chapter 4

Welcome to the "horny Jaskier" AKA the "Fabi tries to write sexual attraction" chapter. I'm sorry, I'm very ace and tried my best. This is also more of a filler chapter, I hope you’ll enjoy it regardless. I'll be back tomorrow with more plot (and more Jaskier lyrics)!

Written for the @witcher-bows-and-arrows event.

Read on AO3

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Jaskier was an admirer of a great many of things. He was an admirer of women and wine, of men and mead, of fine fabrics and finer arts. He adored the flowers that budded in spring as much as he cherished the leaves that danced in autumn rains, loved the summer sun as dearly as the winter winds. He admired his fellow bards and their works (with perhaps the exception of Valdo Marx), the innkeeps and tavern owners that put a roof over his head and food in his belly, the adoring audiences that filled his pockets with gold. 

And not least among those, he considered himself to be an admirer of Geralt of Rivia. Professionally so, one might even say.

Could he be faulted for that? Geralt of Rivia was hardly a difficult man to admire. For starters, there was his witcher strength with which Jaskier had seen him break entire tree trunks with bare hands, to say nothing of his fabulous sense of smell that could sniff out a perfumery from a mile away, or date a fine vintage up to three decades past. He was kind if he allowed himself to be and funny if he wanted to. And he was easy on the eyes, too!

Jaskier was not ashamed to admit that in the beginning, his admiration had mostly consisted of attraction. Horniness, even, if one must be so crude. Then again, he had been eighteen and the road to Posada suffered from a criminal lack of brothels, so what could have been expected of him? In any case, he was older now, much wiser and more mature, and no longer troubled by such trivialities as lusting after his best friend.

He had fantasised more than once about taking the witcher to bed (Or for a roll in the hay. Or being fucked against a tree, really, he wasn’t picky) but as incredibly dense as he could be, he picked up on Geralt’s disinterest soon enough, with how his friend ignored any and all of his advances. Whether that stemmed from a disinterest in Jaskier or men, or people entirely, he could not say, and in the end, it made no difference, so it hardly mattered.

Soon, his earnest flirtations turned into a staple of their friendly banter. Jaskier made dick jokes and Geralt snorted and that was just the way it was, just as much as Jaskier played the lute and Geralt slew monsters. Although sometimes his witcher would reply with something just as lewd. That made Jaskier guffaw and Geralt hide his lovely smile when he earned that reaction and Jaskier knew that he was... well, if not loved, at least cared for.

Love he could get from the masses.

Care was for someone special.

Although even for witchering and lute-playing the lines weren’t as clear cut as all that. Over the years, Jaskier had slain a total of one drowner, three sandcrabs, and a rabid dog when they had wandered into their camp and Geralt was far away on a hunt. And Geralt had played the lute, albeit only once.

It was, oh, perhaps five years into their friendship, when Jaskier asked if Geralt knew how to play any instruments. “Just imagine, we’d make twice, if not thrice the coin!” he dreamt. “People would travel across the continent to see the monster-slaying musician and we could retire to grow fat and old.”

“No,” the witcher growled from where he was stoking their campfire. “Never had the time.”

Jaskier sat up abruptly, silly daydreams gone from his mind. “Would you have liked to?”

“It’s useless,” he grunted and thrust the charred tree branch so forcefully into the coals that a few embers tumbled from the neat ring of stones and sparks danced all over the clearing. After a moment, he amended: “For a witcher, I mean.”

“Not all things have to be useful, not even in a witcher’s life,” Jaskier replied with carefully practised carelessness. “I could teach you, if you want. A simple song, the first one I learned.”

“Hmm.�� They had travelled together long enough for Jaskier to know that to mean alright.

“Well then, get your arse over here, you big grump, I am not moving any closer to that smoke cloud you just created, thank you very much.”

With another grunt, Geralt complied and sat down almost silently on Jaskier’s bedroll next to him. It was a marvel how he controlled every muscle of his body whenever he moved; Jaskier did not think he had ever seen him relax. Well, except for that one moment in Beauclair when he had told him he’d missed him, before he had realised his mistake and frozen up again. But that had been so brief, Jaskier hardly thought it counted.

“Alright, take the lute.” Geralt looked at him sceptically. “You’ve travelled with me long enough; you know how to hold a lute.” In fact, his posture wasn’t half bad, once he finally accepted the instrument, although he nearly dropped it with how delicately he was touching it. “You won’t break it,” Jaskier promised and his witcher seemed to believe him at least on some level and tightened his grip.

Jaskier went ahead and explained to him the different strings though judging by the look on Geralt’s face, he might as well have told him he was able to grow wings and soar above the clouds. ‘I had already mastered the flute and have been reading sheet music for three years before I ever touched a lute,’ he reminded himself, ‘Geralt has no clue that a C can be anything other than the ocean.’

“Alright, that was a poor attempt on my part,” Jaskier apologised. “Let me try something different. You know Toss a Coin to your Witcher?”

The stare Geralt levelled at him could have killed a lesser man. “Very funny, bard.”

“Right, hum it for me, if you please.”

It took a bit more convincing for the witcher to actually do so, but in the end, he complied. ‘He has a lovely singing voice,’ Jaskier thought and he had to remind himself for a moment how wise and mature and how absolutely not attracted to his friend he was.

“Good,” he replied cheerily and ignored how his voice cracked at the beginning. “You see, the first note of that song is an F. And if you put the fingers of your left hand here—” He arranged Geralt’s hand on the neck of the instrument. “—and then pluck one of those strings, that’s how you get that note. And all the notes that are used in music are somewhere on those strings, depending on how you move your fingers. Try it!”

This time, Geralt plucked at the strings himself, once, twice, thrice, his frown deepening every time. “It doesn’t sound the same. As what I sang.”

“Well, yes.” Jaskier shrugged. “Your voice is deeper than mine, so you started out a little deeper as well. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed by re-tuning this lovely lady, though. Anyways, let’s move on to another song.”

“Couldn’t you teach me Toss a Coin?” he asked, frown deepening even more.

Jaskier’s cheeks were burning. “Well, ahh— Hmm. Let’s not do that, it’s not what I’d call beginner’s friendly.”

“What would you call it?”

“A pretentious error.” The words slipped out of his mouth and could not be swallowed down again. “I was a fool who had just graduated Oxenfurt and wanted to write a masterpiece that turned out a mess, lyrically as well as otherwise. So, let’s just leave it at that and not make it the first song we attempt to learn, hm?”

Jaskier had to endure another ten minutes of friendly ribbing — it’s your most famous song, Jaskier, the people love it, Jaskier, why are you blushing, Jaskier — before they could finally move on and attempt to learn a lullaby that he had once learned for his baby sister.

It went rather well, all things considered, though they wasted some time figuring out how he could correct both of Geralt’s hands at once — he attempted to put his arms around his witcher from behind, but his turned out to be too broad for that, even though Jaskier was by no means a small man, and the position was incredibly distracting to boot — and some more arguing about how the notes sounded different when Geralt played them compared to when Jaskier did — Jaskier maintained that they didn’t, but had to admit that even perfect pitch was no match to a witcher’s hearing. 

In the end, their lesson lasted nigh to an hour before his witcher grew frustrated and thrust the lute back into Jaskier’s arms. “I’m fast enough to evade a basilisk but for some fucking reason I can’t move my pinky from one string to another in time,” he growled and stomped over to his own bedroll.

“It takes time and practice,” Jaskier tried to soothe him. “How long did it take for you to grow quicker than a basilisk?”

“About a fortnight,” came the bitter reply, but this time he refused to feel bad for bringing up sour memories. His witcher was being obtuse on purpose and they both knew it.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” he chided and put about securing the lute in its case. “I am well aware how long knights train to be proficient with their arms; my father tried to turn me into one. With bards, it’s the same, though our weapons may differ. But I assure you, we both did our due in the training yard to become as good as we are now.”

Geralt didn’t dignify that with and answer, which was just as well for him. They both completed their evening toilet in silence, but his witcher still wished him good night, so he couldn’t truly be hurt. He only spoke up again once they had both settled into their respective bedrolls: “Did your father really attempt to train you to be a knight?”

“It’s late, Geralt,” was all Jaskier yawned as a reply, “ask me again tomorrow.”

Geralt never asked again and Jaskier wasn’t about to complain. 

It was one of their unspoken rules that had developed over the years spent travelling together. Just like Jaskier wouldn’t meddle with Geralt’s potions or follow him to a hunt, Geralt didn’t touch Jaskier’s notes for new songs or asked the same question about his past twice. 

Which did not mean the witcher was completely ignorant to Jaskier’s life before becoming a travelling bard. Rather, Geralt knew what everyone knew: a distorted truth shrouded in the garb of a thousand colourful tales, each a little bit too genuine to be called a lie, each a little bit too grotesque to be taken at face-value. 

He had begun doing this even before his graduation in an attempt to cultivate an air of mystery around his person. Though since everyone at the Academy had known his birth name, he had largely failed at that. 

After leaving Oxenfurt and taking on the sobriquet he was now so famous for, it had become a lot easier to spin his tall tales in order to seduce beautiful ladies or impress strapping lads and Jaskier had found himself enjoying deceiving his audience as much as entertaining them. It also provided a nice degree of anonymity, should he ever need to retire after all and raise Julian Alfred Pankratz from his final resting place. 

With Geralt, the deception had gained a particular thrill; in the beginning he just wanted to see if he could lie to the witcher. It rapidly became apparent that no, he could sniff those out as easily as Jaskier’s fear or joy, though he never quite learned how. Then, it became a game, to see what kinds of reactions his fables could elicit from his friend. 

His claim to be part-fey only got a derisive snort, his account of how his parents had been important ambassadors at the court of Redania raised an eyebrow at least. When he invented a thrilling saga of how he was a former student of Ban Ard who had failed his final exams and was on the run from a former lover, all he received for his troubles was a “No, you’re not.”

It was fun. 

Now, years later, he was much wiser and older and more mature, so he could admit that maybe fun had not been the only reason for his game. Perhaps there had been a small part of him that might have been afraid of Geralt’s reaction. He had long grown used to the fact that many people who were perfectly amiable at first grew distant and tended to grovelling once they found out you were nobility. 

It was silly, of course, since his noble descent was among the things Jaskier could not hide; his speech betrayed that as much as that he hailed from Redania. Geralt also knew that he had graduated Oxenfurt, though if he ever went looking through its archives for his name, his search would prove to be a long one, for Jaskier had been born outside the Academy walls on a whim. He also knew the relationship between Jaskier’s family and him to be tense if at all existent, but he never questioned that.

Not that he thought Geralt was the kind of person to grovel. Melitele’s tits, in half his tales he was a noble on the run. It had been a silly thing, almost as silly as it was to still not talk about the truth ten years into their friendship. There was a reason for it, surely, though perhaps Jaskier wasn’t ready to face that yet. 

Geralt, on the other hand, preferred not to speak of his youth at all. That was a bitter lesson for Jaskier to learn, four years after Beauclair. He had known his witcher to be especially taciturn when it came to that period of his life, of course, but he had was stupid. He pressed him for more tales to put into his songs and pushed too far. Geralt shouted at him if he also unearthed corpses from their graves, since he could not seem to grasp that what lay buried must remain in the earth and when Jaskier woke the next morning, he was alone.

That was also the year in which he returned to Oxenfurt triumphantly, after news had reached him, that Valdo Marx had left to seek his fortune elsewhere. He spent the winter at the academy and most of his time that wasn’t allocated to teaching, getting drunk with old friends and getting laid by the very same, he spent researching witchers.

Most tales he came across, appeared to be fables and fairy tales to get little children to behave, rather than truthful accounts, for the witchers in those were more akin to beasts and behemoths than the people Jaskier knew them to be. But others appeared to be more credible: brief histories about the creation and the purpose of the schools, as well as their decline. The documents were incredibly vague and all his attempts to learn more about the founding of the School of the Wolf proved fruitless.

The documents about the end of the Golden Age of witchers were more numerous. Jaskier remembered vaguely from his history lessons that they had been hunted almost to extinction about a century ago and that the decline of some of the schools had been due to infighting. Most were diminished by angry mobs, however. Brushing up on his dusty knowledge of the matter, he was horrified to discover that it had been Geralt’s school who had suffered that fate, since the first attempt at subduing the Wolf School had left too many members, who had been out on the Path at the time, alive.

A year or two prior to his research, Jaskier had asked jovially where exactly it was that Geralt vanished to every winter. “It’s better if you don’t know,” was all he had gotten in response, which had confounded him back then, but he began to understand now. Still, he wondered, ‘better for whom?’

Scribbled in the margins of one chronicle he discovered some remarks about the alchemical trials witchers underwent to achieve their superhuman strength and senses, cross-referencing scientific notes of the attempts at recreating those. Jaskier was nothing if not a thorough researcher, so he hunted those down as well.

Alchemy had never been his speciality and he could make neither head nor tail of most of what he read, much less testify to the functionality of the process, but he understood the notes about the reaction of the ‘test subjects’ well enough, though that was not necessary to comprehend the damning results. The poor souls chosen as cannon fodder for magecraft had been in abject agony from the mutagens and spells trying to warp their flesh, although the period of time their suffering lasted differed. Those who made it past the three-day-mark had been seen as promising, though none survived a week. Jaskier found himself gripping the book tightly with fury thinking of the twenty-seven lives that had been wasted for this madness. He barely curbed the urge to retch upon reading the final remark of the report:

Though critics may consider a toll of 27 subjects too high, it is important to remember that even during the Golden Age of witchers, the mortality rate of those undergoing the trials was never below 60%. I am certain that with enough time, resources, and patients, I can provide similar results, especially if given younger subjects, since no witcher to survive the trials, is known to have been older than fourteen.

‘Children,’ Jaskier thought horrified, ‘they were putting children through this.’

There was no name attributed to the report, but whoever had written it, Jaskier hoped they had died a horrible and gruesome death. After that, he never brought up the topic of Geralt’s youth again.

So, the years went by and they both learned that one did not need to know a person’s past to recognise them as one would their own reflection. By the end of their summer in Toussaint, they were so familiar in their routines, neither need to talk to set up a camp. Two years later, Jaskier could cook Geralt’s favoured meal blindfolded with one hand and Geralt knew if his bard was in town as soon as he passed a city’s walls. They also developed a queerer set of skills to decipher each other’s peculiarities: by the eighth year of their acquaintance Jaskier had become fully fluent in Geralt’s mannerisms and by the time a decade had passed, he could have written whole dissertations about the intricacies of his witcher’s hums. Geralt, on the other hand, developed a particularly keen ear for when a lute string was about to snap as well as reflexes for catching said instrument should its carrier stumble suddenly.

All that did not mean they were glued to each other’s sides. They always spent their winters apart, except for the winter 1251/52 when they were beset by early snowfalls and Geralt had no hopes of reaching whatever hideaway he normally snuck off to, so he stayed with Jaskier in Oxenfurt instead. By the time spring arrived they were so sick of the other’s presence they didn’t meet up for two years afterwards. But even aside from the winters, their paths entwined as much as they led to different destinations. Sometimes they shared the road for a scant few days, sometimes for weeks or months (and sometimes Jaskier wished they did not have to part at all, though he’d never tell his witcher that).

This was another one of their unspoken rules: neither had the right to monopolise the other’s time. 

It was, perhaps, Jaskier’s favourite rule, for it was this that truly set this relationship apart rather than some paltry lack of shared sexual experiences. Geralt, apart from Priscilla, was the first person with whom Jaskier felt like he could truly be himself without fear of judgement, without fear of suffocation. 

And while he did not dare call it anything but that, he admired his witcher for his trust.

The summer of 1255 was a beautiful one, that Jaskier spent in Novigrad, enjoying the seaside air in the hopes it might get his creative juices flowing. He had spent enough time with Geralt the year before to have material for a hundred ballads, though for some reason the words stubbornly refused to put themselves into the right order the entirety of winter. ‘Perhaps,’ he had thought, ‘a balmy ocean breeze will thaw this dam in my creative tide. Or I might even find another muse.’

The second task was much easier accomplished than the first. He indeed met a lovely lady named Vanka, with copper ringlets that bounced whenever she laughed and freckles spreading from her cheeks to the tops of her breasts, where constellations hid and waited to be found. The kisses they shared even managed to dislodge his writer’s block somewhat. 

He was going for a refreshing stroll along the Pontar and was halfway through the second stanza of a sonnet to Vanka’s beauty when he heard a voice behind him: “You! Bard!”

‘Oh no,’ he thought as the blood froze in his veins. Over the years he had grown far too acquainted with that tone of voice, even if it had been a few years since he last heard it. He ventured a glance over his shoulder and sure enough was assaulted with the sight of a balding man built like a bull, dragging Vanka behind him by the wrist. 

“Who, me?” he said as innocently as possible.

“Yes, you, dammit,”  the man growled, let go of his daughter and stomped even closer. Jaskier gulped when he spotted the dark stains on his leather apron that looked suspiciously like blood — after over a decade of knowing a witcher one grew accustomed to the sight. “Are you the son of a whore who fucked my daughter?”

“Good sir, there has been a grave misunderstanding,” Jaskier tried to defend himself as he laughed nervously. “I was merely admiring—” Quickly he raised his hands as the butcher procured a meat cleaver from the gods knew where.

“You can admire your own prick when I serve it to you on a silver platter,” the man bellowed and Jaskier had no doubts that was a promise he intended to keep.

“No, thank you, good sir, I still need that,” he hastened to say, turned heel, and fled as fast as he could. Unfortunately, that wasn’t very fast; it had been some time since he had last run from an angry father or cuckolded husband and he was also clutching his lute as if his life depended on it. He sprinted off the promenade along the Pontar, taking the stairs leading up the bridge two at a time, and as if his day was not bad enough already, when he turned right and skidded onto a crowded thoroughfare, he was almost trampled by some careless rider who did not look at where his horse was going.

He yelped and leapt out of the way, grateful for the additional barrier between him and his pursuer that the horse provided. A hand caught him by the scruff of his neck, preventing his further escape. “Jaskier,” a familiar voice growled. “What’s going on?”

“Geralt!” he squeaked and twisted around as far as he could with the chokehold his friend had on his very expensive doublet. It was Geralt, sure enough, though the horse was new. The new Roach might be a bay mare as always, but she had no blaze on her nose as the last one had. On her back sat his old friend, in just a black shirt and pants with no armour in sight. 

From the other side of the bridge, Vanka’s father shouted: “Witcher! Hold onto that bard for me!”

Jaskier grimaced. “The gods exist and are good if they sent you my way. You see, I appear to have, er... stored my sausage in the wrong pantry, if you catch my meaning, and that lovely gentleman over there with the large knife means to serve it to me for mine own dinner.”

He snorted. “Serves you right,” the witcher said with an iciness that made a snowstorm look like a balmy breeze, but they knew each other long enough for Jaskier to recognise the playfulness underneath.

With a sigh and a roll of his eyes, he said dispassionately: “Please, oh most gracious and noble of my friends, rescue me of my fate brought upon me by mine own stupidity and the inability of choosing eligible bedmates. I will be forever in your debt, sing odes to your glory, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Didn’t make the ranking, but I suppose it will do.” To his surprise, Geralt leaned down and extended one hand. “Get on up.”

Jaskier balked. “What, on Roach?”

“Unless you want to sup on your prick. I hear it’s quite a feat to brag about if you can shove it into your own mouth.”

“Only if it’s still attached to your body,” he huffed, but accepted the hand that hauled him onto the horses back. Jaskier held on tight as they sped out of the city, the shouts of the butcher dying in the dust behind them.

Once they had crossed a fair distance and slowed to a more leisurely pace, Jaskier spoke up again. “My thanks for the daring rescue. You know, if not for wearing the opposite colour, you could be the dashing knight in shining armour that I always dreamt about.”

“I’m not wearing any armour,” Geralt stated the obvious.

“I know,” Jaskier whined, missing the annoyed tone he was aiming for by quite a margin, instead landing on ‘desperately trying to hang onto the last shreds of my dignity as I can feel every muscle of your torso through that sorry excuse for a shirt, since you don’t even have the decency to hide them behind a doublet, you arse’. “I said almost. Besides, it was only a stupid, infantile fantasy.”

“Hmm?” he hummed. Go on.

He sighed, as if incredibly inconvenienced by the request. “I was a child and a fool and a foolish child and I had just discovered the concept of romance, if you must know. But I used to dream that one day a knight would appear, who’d carry me off on his white destrier to a magical kingdom far away. There he’d bring me to his ensorcelled castle, where he would lay me on a featherbed of roses and we’d live happily ever after.”

“Hmm,” Geralt said and snorted. It sounded bemused.

“So, where were you headed, before I interrupted your leisurely ride with my silly troubles?”

“Oxenfurt.”

Jaskier beamed and hooked his chin over Geralt’s shoulder, poking the other side of his face in an attempt to get the witcher to look at him. “Why, my dear friend, don’t tell me you were on your way to seek me out! Could it be that you have missed me after your winter spent on some lonely, cursed mountain?”

“Hmm,” he replied when he meant to say: you’re a menace and lucky that I like you.

“I have missed you too, dear heart, and am so glad to see you once more.” He hugged his friend tighter again. “And that is a yes to returning to the Path with you. Alas, I have to admit all my belongings still remain in the Kingfisher. I could buy new ones, but I know what you think about wastefulness and my favourite shirt is among those trinkets as well, but—”

Jaskier yelped as he was all but shoved from Roach’s back, barely catching the saddlebags tossed after him. “Go set up a camp,” Geralt growled as he turned Roach around. “I’ll be back within the hour.”

Jaskier grinned widely and hoisted the saddlebags onto his shoulders. “I love you too!” he shouted after his witcher, although he received no answer. He did not fully realise what he had said until he was halfway through setting up a camp. By then, as always, it was far too late to put the words back into his mouth.

[ao3feed-crimeboys]

Hidden in the Sand

by bitsinboots

Wilbur's baby brother was the cutest thing in the world.

Sure, some people claimed their little siblings were cuter but obviously they were wrong. Maybe puppies, kittens, and baby rabbits, and all those other tiny animals were adorable as well, but Tommy had them all beat by a landslide. None of them could come close to how cute Tommy was. Ever since that first time he laid eyes on him, Wilbur knew Tommy was his and he swore that he would be Tommy's.

"Wilby! Wilby, look! I found a sand crab!" Tommy came running up to his brother, cupping something in his grasp. The smile that was permanently on his face whenever he saw Tommy grew at the sheer joy the child was experiencing. No more walls for his baby. Just open sky and as much love and care and happiness as he could ever want.

****

Wilbur and his little brother spend a day at the beach. Tommy catches a sandcrab.

Absolutely nothing else happens. No sirree.

Words: 1247, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Dream SMP

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Characters: Wilbur Soot, TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)

Relationships: Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit

Additional Tags: Young TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Dark Sleepy Bois Inc, Protective Wilbur Soot, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Not from SBI, TommyInnit Needs a Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot Needs a Hug, they both also get a hug, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, if there other tags I need lmk! i was not sure how to tag this one lmao

[letmehollaatcha]

Sandcrabbing

[dduerksen]

Sand Crab. Last year the Big Hole fire came really close to the house and we had to evacuate, this inspired me to start taking pics of my cars and creating a digital library of them, which can be seen on Pinterest. I’m going to start sharing some highlights of my collection. #hotwheels #hotwheelscollectors #sandcrab https://www.instagram.com/p/CoTyMTGus6A/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[indirect]

(dozens of myself suddenly filling the room, speaking in unison) have you seen my time crystal?

sandcrab (@sandcrab.bsky.social)

[ashleysingermfablog]

Wk 17, 5th of July, 2024 Research

⭐️ A Gleewoman's notes- Sylvia Victor Linsteadt

The Gleewoman inspecting seaweed, 2017, photographic image by Sylvia Victor Linsteadt

From the text: Tidal Ruins by writer, artist and naturalist Sylvia Victor Linsteadt...

Writer, artist and naturalist Sylvia Victor Linsteadt is author of Tatterdemalion (Unbound, 2017), The Lost Worlds of the Bay Area (Heyday, 2017), The Wonderments of the East Bay (Heyday, 2014), and creatrix of all stories associated with Wild Talewort. 

A Note About the Name: "Gleeman" is the Old English word for a minstrel or a bard, the wandering, wild-hemmed sort who ambled from town to town with stories and songs in his pockets to share in exchange for bed and food and wine. The "glee" part of the word originally meant entertainment and mirth inspired by music, connected to the Old Norse gly for joy, which had its feet in the words for shining, smooth and radiant. I've taken some liberties with the word, feminizing it in a way that makes sense to me. So here you will find my notes and musings about words, tales, old myths, plants, animals, stones, skies, languages, human cultures, new dreams, handcrafts—all the stuff of old minstrel tales— and how we might re-story our relationship to this fraught and beautiful world through old ways and old magics.

There is a language the world speaks, and I think I have been listening for it my whole life. For a long time I thought it was only something that existed in the fantasy novels so beloved to me as a girl, where women spoke with birds and knew the whisperings of plants and the medicine they carried. But I know it for something real now, of this world, the one I live in, the one my body moves through every day and every starry night, the one that feeds and sustains me in every way. I know it for something we humans once knew how to understand, and still can. I know that the books I read as a girl preserved, under the guise of magic, what all of our ancestors knew, if you follow the rivers of your blood back far enough. 

Now, the voice of the thrush in the hazel tree, the spotted towhee rooting in the huckleberry, the patterns left by kelp on the shore, have started to become deeply familiar. Kin, and beloved. I do not know what they are saying, but I know that what they are speaking, and that their meaning is one of the most precious things in this world. 

The Gleewoman's scatter of seashore driftwood, 2017, photographic image

The Gleewoman's seashore, 2017, photographic image

That originally, oracles like those who prophesied by the rustling leaves of the oaks of Dodona, were translating a non-human language into human terms; that what it said was not about our affairs at all, but rather about our relationship to the oak, to the wooddove, to the mountain or the sea, and theirs to earth herself.

I began to suspect that those old sibyls were attuned to what the ocean or the oak said, on their own terms. Kings might come and ask about the fates of wars, and the sibyls did their best to prophecy them, but what the tidal runes speak of is not the destiny of men but the destiny of oceans, and the lives of kelp and sea snail, seal, oystercatcher, bladderwrack and loon. 

Gutted sandcrab, moonbead of jellyfish, cross of saltgrass, stone and dulse, green moss marbles and coiled calligraphy of rotting kelp; what word does the solstice tide spell through you, cast upon the shore? 

I think it is a lifetime's work, to understand the first word of such incantations. 

Ashley Singer, incantations poems i, 2024, poem

Ashley Singer, wishing poem, 2024, poem

Ashley Singer, incantations poems ii, 2024, poem

[flemingbroke]

Tiny Turbo Sand Crab /Celestial Sounds Alchemy #shorts #animals #celestialsoundsalchemy

Tiny Turbo Sand Crab /Celestial Sounds Alchemy #shorts #animals #celestialsoundsalchemy https://celestialsoundsalchemy.blogspot.com/2024/06/tiny-turbo-sand-crab-celestial-sounds.html Tiny Turbo Sand Crab /Celestial Sounds Alchemy #shorts #animals #celestialsoundsalchemy I was just strolling along the beach when I spotted the cutest little critter – a sand crab! This clever sand crab was hiding in my footprint until I got it to scuttle sideways across the sand SO fast. I thought I lost it. I tried to show my son, but he was hiding again. #beachlife #adorable #crustacean #socute #unexpected https://www.youtube.com/@celestialsoundsalchemy?sub_confirmation=1 ******************************************************************************************** Connect with me on Instagram Here: https://www.instagram.com/celestialsoundsalchemy ******************************************************************************************** Connect with me in other places here: https://linktr.ee/celestialsoundsalchemy ******************************************************************************************** I call upon the sacred powers of Protection for me, my family, the Ancestors, my Divine Guidance and all other beings who are here to assist me. This includes everything that I create, collaborate with, support, share and everything I love. May this Protection remain in effect and be effective against any low vibrational energies, those with ill intent, those who seek to cause harm, evil, promoting/spreading fear, disrespect, malign energies, jealousy, cast curses, maliciousness and intruders in disguise. May this Protection forever shield me and my love ones aforementioned. I consent to this Protection to pull/reflect anything harmful from me and my love ones to be sent to a place in the universe, multiverse and all time space realities where it is transmuted into LOVE. Furthermore, I consent to this Protection to enlighten those seeking to cause harm to be prevented in causing any harm by any means necessary! Only Love, Peace, Wholeness, Prosperity, Healing, Enlightenment, Elevation, Guidance, Support, Respect, Truth and Divinity is allowed. Asé, Oshuin. ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ 🔎Tags relevantes the councils of light,the councils of liight,councils of liight,celestial sound alchemy,oshun,oshuin,beach,beach life,ocean,ocean life,crabs,animals,sand crabs,tiny crabs,fast crabs,krusty crab,crusty crab,surprise,tiny,turbo,fast,quick,cute animals,cute crabs,nature,wildlife,seashore,sea,beach combing,summer,summer vibes,beach walk,sandy beach,crustacean,discovery,exploration,beach crab,fastest animals ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ 🔎Hashtags relevantes: #crabs #sandcrabs #turbotrailer #mexicanturbosnail #sandbubblercrabs #turbosnail #samtaborgaminganothercrabstreasure #mrkrabs Tiny Turbo Sand Crab /Celestial Sounds Alchemy #shorts #animals #celestialsoundsalchemy published first on https://www.youtube.com/@celestialsoundsalchemy/ via Celestial Sounds Alchemy https://celestialsoundsalchemy.blogspot.com/ June 25, 2024 at 04:12AM

[celestialsoundsalchemy]

Tiny Turbo Sand Crab /Celestial Sounds Alchemy #shorts #animals #celestialsoundsalchemy I was just strolling along the beach when I spotted the cutest little critter – a sand crab! This clever sand crab was hiding in my footprint until I got it to scuttle sideways across the sand SO fast. I thought I lost it. I tried to show my son, but he was hiding again. #beachlife #adorable #crustacean #socute #unexpected https://www.youtube.com/@celestialsoundsalchemy?sub_confirmation=1 ******************************************************************************************** Connect with me on Instagram Here: https://www.instagram.com/celestialsoundsalchemy ******************************************************************************************** Connect with me in other places here: https://linktr.ee/celestialsoundsalchemy ******************************************************************************************** I call upon the sacred powers of Protection for me, my family, the Ancestors, my Divine Guidance and all other beings who are here to assist me. This includes everything that I create, collaborate with, support, share and everything I love. May this Protection remain in effect and be effective against any low vibrational energies, those with ill intent, those who seek to cause harm, evil, promoting/spreading fear, disrespect, malign energies, jealousy, cast curses, maliciousness and intruders in disguise. May this Protection forever shield me and my love ones aforementioned. I consent to this Protection to pull/reflect anything harmful from me and my love ones to be sent to a place in the universe, multiverse and all time space realities where it is transmuted into LOVE. Furthermore, I consent to this Protection to enlighten those seeking to cause harm to be prevented in causing any harm by any means necessary! Only Love, Peace, Wholeness, Prosperity, Healing, Enlightenment, Elevation, Guidance, Support, Respect, Truth and Divinity is allowed. Asé, Oshuin. ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ 🔎Tags relevantes the councils of light,the councils of liight,councils of liight,celestial sound alchemy,oshun,oshuin,beach,beach life,ocean,ocean life,crabs,animals,sand crabs,tiny crabs,fast crabs,krusty crab,crusty crab,surprise,tiny,turbo,fast,quick,cute animals,cute crabs,nature,wildlife,seashore,sea,beach combing,summer,summer vibes,beach walk,sandy beach,crustacean,discovery,exploration,beach crab,fastest animals ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ 🔎Hashtags relevantes: #crabs #sandcrabs #turbotrailer #mexicanturbosnail #sandbubblercrabs #turbosnail #samtaborgaminganothercrabstreasure #mrkrabs Tiny Turbo Sand Crab /Celestial Sounds Alchemy #shorts #animals #celestialsoundsalchemy published first on https://www.youtube.com/@celestialsoundsalchemy/