#tar pod

[sanctaignorantia]

Beauty in the details! #2

The Chrysalis Girl

The inner child

The tar-cat

The empty nest

+The books with a fucking personalized cup with the KJP logo that I really wanted - aaaah!

[notesfromachair]

Jump into your Oscar Pool

The Oscars are upon us and please, we KNOW you will be watching.  The real question is – do you need help picking the winners in the Oscar pool??? I see…. lots of rich people It might very well be an Everything Everywhere All At Once sweep (Note:  Or it might not be).  But there could also easily be a few BIG surprises in a few of the MAJOR categories.  (Note:  The vanquishing of Lydia Tár,…

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - The Stretcher - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

An ugly reckoning...

tw: gore, violence, medical trauma, limb loss

cw: suggestions of inappropriate relationships between mentor and student

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Snippet:

Silco walks on.

Inside, the odor of stale chemicals seeps through the air. Jinx's containment pod is a plexiglas sphere resembling a transparent hive. Inside, she is laid out on a narrow cot. Her left hand—the two clever fingers so cruelly excised—is strapped to a splint.  The stumps are a little red, but clean and dry. Each one is neatly sutured with black thread.

Black as the sucking hole in her chest.

Through the covers, Silco can see the delineations of the wound, a map of gauze adhering to her torso.  The flesh is still flayed. But it is no longer a disaster-site of hideous spillage. The raw tendons are scored with tiny stitches. Each one, a testament to Singed’s ruthlessly meticulous handiwork.

The rest of Jinx is bone pale as if the scant pigment on her skin has been sucked dry. Her freckles stand out in stark pinpricks.

Two bags of fluid hang on a metal pole, drip-drip-dripping down a tube into a needle jammed into her arm. The steady flow of antibiotics, morphine, and synthesized Shimmer will bolster her vitals and keep her under.  Her breathing—a tarred constriction of bubbles caught in her perforated lungs—has smoothed over the course of the night.  But it remains an effortful jag: deep, dragging, discordant.

Silco's guts churn. The instinctive grind of rage is offset by guilt.

Then: shock.

Jinx is not alone.

A longer body's curved around Jinx's small one. One arm, the sleeve rolled to the elbow, is flung over her hip. Fingertips splay against her thigh: an anchor. The other arm, metallic, makes a protective arc over Jinx's skull. The cybernetic fingers, tipped with steel, are threaded in her blue hair. The head, half-obscured in lank brown curls, is tipped to Jinx's own.

Their temples mirror. Their eyelashes kiss.  The cadence of their chests rises and falls in concert.

The Hexcore, with hypnotic rotations, bathes Jinx and Viktor in a violet glow.  

From his own extremities, Silco feels pure rage blast open as the Monster unlocks.

"What the hell—?"

Singed looms from the corner of the medbay: tall and fleshlessy thin as a mantis. He's clad in a white smock resembling a butcher's apron. The barest smear of blood is caught in the weave. He glances up at Silco's snarl.

Apart from an expression of insectile alertness, he shows no other signs of concern.

"Ah," he says. "You've returned."

"Open the pod." 

"I beg your pardon?"

"Viktor. What in the frozen hell is he—?"

"He's aiding her retrieval."

"What?"

"Her retrieval," Singed says, in the same imperturbable tone. "From what I understand, a plunge into the Void is not unlike falling into arctic waters. It takes a strong grip to pull oneself out. J17 is a skilled swimmer. But she remains partially submerged. She'll need a guide to drag her to the shore."   

"He has no right to—"

"To what? Hold his companion's hand?"  

"Companion?"

Singed nods.

Silco's jaw locks as the Doctor's meaning sinks in.

Guardians and Mages. He'd known, in his bones, that the bond between Viktor and Jinx held a strange, unearthly resonance. A tie that binds, like gravity does a comet: two celestial forces, inexorably pulled together by the galvanic charge of their shared potential. 

He'd assumed the nature of the bond was intellectual. That their kinship was a matter of mathematics: two minds, one wavelength.  Then Jinx's spells of strangeness and self-enforced secrecy began. He thinks of the audio recordings in the Aerie: the susurrations and whispers. The ungodly silence.

It wasn't sex—no matter the wildness of his paranoia, he knew Jinx was still too innocent, and that her tastes lay elsewhere. But the overtones—of communion, and a deeper, almost otherworldly intimacy—were terrifying.

Now, seeing them together—a tangle of arms, a knotting of fingers—his worst fears have been made manifest.

It's plain, from the ease between their bodies, that Jinx has slept in Viktor's arms before. Plain, too, that it's happened enough times for this closeness to take on overtones of trust.  A trust Silco had invited: to his doorstep, past his threshold, and straight to his daughter’s bed. 

A trust that’s been repaid with disaster.

Reflexively, Silco's fists ball.

"Open the pod," he says. 

"What?"

"Open it."

"With all due respect, that is not the wisest course of action." Singed remains maddeningly equable. He could be discussing a minor surgical procedure: the pros and cons of local versus general anesthetic. "The Hexcore—from what I gather—is acting as a buffer. It is protecting both J17 and Viktor as they work to draw her out. To separate them at this juncture would risk a backlash."

"Backlash?"

"I'm speaking in metaphysical rather than medical terms. From what I have gleaned, the Hexcore is a living organism. It has its own will and wants. I am not privy to the nature of the bargain it has struck with Viktor. But I hazard that it is his key to the Void. And that, in exchange for entry, it protects his and Jinx’s corporeal forms. To rip them apart would be... traumatic. For all parties present."

In Viktor's embrace, Jinx expels a sigh.  There's a subtle alteration in her breathing. The Void creeping across her brainwaves, perhaps. Viktor's arm flexes around her. His own breathing—that half-mechanical, half-organic rasp—deepens. His lips touch her temple. 

The Hexcore sings. The pitch is nearly ethereal.

Two spirits: locked in orbit.

Silco's jaw grinds. A vein ticks in his temple. Whatever's happening, it is not something he comprehends. Not something, he suspects, meant to be comprehended.  But that doesn't stymie the rage. Nor the dread.

The former, he can dissect with a cool eye, peel it down to the viscera of what it is: a primal need to keep his child safe. 

The latter, though...

That's a formless shadow stretching over his psyche. The sense of something very, very huge: a force the size of a godhead eclipsing the horizon. And the stormfront, lightning-laced, is rolling across the sea straight towards his ship of destiny.

It's not often Silco feels his smallness. But he does now, and the fallout is brutal.

"You knew," he says, deathly soft.

"Hm?"

"You knew. About Viktor. Compromising my child."

Singed is not a shrugger. Hedging is not his strong suit. But his silence speaks for itself.

"I would not call such a bond a compromise," he says at length. "In some ways, it was inevitable.  Viktor is extraordinarily gifted. J17, a creature of pure potential. They are both seekers in the dark. It makes sense that they'd find each other." A slight cant to his head: a gesture of self-reproach. "I will admit: I should have informed you. But there was no reason to believe the entanglement was of a carnal nature."

"No reason to believe they weren't fucking?"

The vulgarism stirs Singed out of scholarly calm. He doesn't smile. But his lipless mouth shows a glint of teeth. It's the same expression he'd wear when Silco would return to the Cannery after prowling the dank cloaca of the Lanes.

Always: with a plaything on his arm and ill-gotten gains in his pocket.  

He'd often likened Silco's gravitation toward vice as a form of self-medicating. The sex, the drugs, the power-plays: all symptoms of a man whose eye could not close, and needed other means to unwind. Other ways to blot out the light. 

It was a diagnosis Silco only partially agreed with. It was not autonomic impediment that kept his bad eye from closing. Simply the refusal to look away from the world as it was.

Now, his bad eye smolders in its socket. It's a marvel the Doctor doesn't wilt in its heat. Then again, Singed's always been a hard man to burn.

It's what he and Silco have in common.

"No," he says. "That, I do not believe."

"Is that so?"

"Given Viktor's... condition... it's unlikely."

"I'm not sure if you're aware, Doctor—" Silco's tone, beneath the frigid civility, is honed to cut jugulars, "—but there are ways around that."

The glint of teeth deepens. A grin, however cold. "Oh, I am aware.  But I'm also aware of Viktor's nature. I've known him since he was a boy. Frailty's always been his cross to bear. But that has not diminished his drives. Only... redirected them, as it were." 

"Sublimation."

"You sound dubious."

Silco's good eye slits. Singed's grin fades.

"I understand. We're men of pragmatic bent. There will always be a selfish component to our pursuits. A willingness to see the big picture, even if it means putting our better selves on the backburner."  He turns to the pod. "Viktor is different. His nature has a singular trajectory: up. He wants to ascend. To break free of limitations: both inborn and self-imposed. Sex, in comparison, is a dead-end. Love, though? That's something else. Something that can take him to the stars." 

Silco follows his stare. The pair, entwined, are haloed in violet. Their breathing is slow and steady.

A duet.

"The boy's always longed for a taste of the transcendent," Singed muses. "I imagine, in J17, he's found it. A force of pure creation. Pure entropy. It is only in chaos that order can thrive. The sense of a divine plan is what gives meaning to the world. And a multivalent, fractal reality is what allows a scientific theory to evolve into law."

Silco's knuckles pop. He says nothing. 

"If it helps," the Doctor adds, "I doubt the boy's done worse than hold her hand. The way he speaks of her, one would think her a... psychopomp. Someone to guide him to a higher plane of knowledge. Someone whose existence is to be worshiped. Not possessed."

"Worship and possession," Silco replies, in the voice of cold prescience, "often end the same way."

"Oh?"

"With someone on their knees."

Singed doesn't laugh, exactly. The sound's too measured. But his mangled lips stretch to show the full set of teeth. They hold the implacable sheen of scalpels. Each one slitting its careful way through the tissue of Silco's self-control.

"A cynic's view," he says. "And one I disagree with."

"Do you, now?"

"I'll grant there is a physical element to their closeness. But, I suspect, the physical is merely a conduit to that higher plane. A literal touchstone to guide them through the dark. The true roadmap, as it were, is the end each of them seeks."

"That end being?"

"Balance," Singed says. "If my theory is correct, they each serve as a counterpoise to the other. J17, in her unbound potential: a spirit of half flesh, half catalyst. A force in constant flux. Viktor, in his rigid catechism: a being forged in metal and magic. The very dictum of death. Each is, in their own way, an anomaly. Together, they are a paradox. One that introduces a new paradigm."

"Paradigm."

"Cause and effect." The grin's gone. Only Singed's eyes shine: a cold, methodical zeal. "Or, in your language: cost and reward."

A chill steals through Silco.

It's not the first time Singed's dissections of the metaphysical have taken a macabre turn. For the Doctor, the two are indistinguishable: the duality of life and death reduced to quantifiable variables of mess and mass. In his laboratory, Silco's witnessed the results firsthand.

The Doctor's a man who understands that knowledge only goes as deep as the knife cuts.  And Silco, a man who has cut to the marrow of humanity's ugliness, knows there's no limit to the incision when the rest's been pared clean. 

"If your intention was to disarm me," he says flatly, "you've failed."

"Disarm." Singed's chuckle is dry as bone dust. "Old friend, you are not the weapon. Only the steel that whets its edge."

"Flattery?"

"Fact." The corners of Singed's eyes crinkle. "We are, both of us, mere tools for a greater design."

Jinx cries out.

In the pod, the Hexcore spins rapidly. The rotations, faster and faster, become a multicolored blur. The fluctuating glow—sometimes blue, sometimes red—is phantasmagoric. Silco has the sense of something primordial unspooling into existence. The birth of a star, on a spiritual scale: chemical fusion gone mystic.

A subsonic hum fills the air. Jinx's cry spikes.

Her whole body begins shaking: a subtle network of pain radiating, it seems, from the epicenter of her wound. Viktor's embrace holds. But beads of sweat pop on his temples. His breathing goes choppy.  The pod's plexiglas walls turn milky as if with steam.

No—frost.

Silco can see the lattice of ice spreading. The cracks, fanning in jagged starbursts, resemble spiderweb.

Meanwhile, Viktor and Jinx may as well be under a full rig of stage lights: both of them are simmering in their skins.

Jinx's pallor is engulfed by a bright pink flush. Her breath comes in rapid drags. Her good right hand, fluttering, finds Viktor's good left. Their palms align, fingers twining. The twin rows of knuckles, flesh and bone, are deathly white.

The Hexcore's singing deepens. Jinx's own cry climbs to a keen.

Silco races forward. "Jinx!"

Before he can touch the pod, Singed seizes his arm. The grip is cold, cadaverous, yet somehow comforting.

"Not yet," he urges, as Jinx's wails echo and re-echo. "It's not done yet."

"Let go! She needs me—"

"No." Singed's grip is as unyielding as his gaze. "She needs to finish this. As does Viktor. Let them see it through."

Silco stares. Blood beats in his temples. He understands, remotely, that he is terrified. Paralysis, its predictable residue, clings like a second skin. It's a heaviness he despises. It's why he is so quick to reassert self-dominion with a dose of violence. To defend himself, monster and man, from threats that would otherwise devour him.

But what if the threat's taken root in the tenderest parts?

What if it can never be excised?

(Is that fatherhood?)

Tossing her head, Jinx screams. Viktor, gasping, shudders.

The Hexcore's pulsations go critical.

Then—with a flash of brilliant blue—the humming ebbs. The pod's opalescent frost, in icy bloom, evaporates. Within, Jinx and Viktor subside into stillness. Their hands are still twined, their foreheads together. Both breathe in unison. 

But there's a dissonance in the rhythm. A harmony, that, while still in tandem, is their own.

Viktor is the first to wake.

His arm loosens its cradle around Jinx. His head stirs, the dark crown dislodging against its blue perch of her skull. The gold eyes—with their black-rimmed core—flicker. They are glazed in shock.  Then he blinks, and they regain focus. The lineaments of his expression—grim-lipped and hollow-cheeked—are ones Silco knows well.

The sense of a spirit coming to the limits of its endurance, and shattering the barrier.

Now he's unsure what awaits on the other side.

Slowly, the golden eyes swivel. They find Singed. They find Silco. Then they fall on his and Jinx's still-linked hands. Something flickers across his wan face. Not a smile, exactly. But a certain softness around the hard brackets of his mouth.

As if he'd held on to a fear for dear life. And now, finding it unfounded, can let it go.

With a gentle tug, he unthreads their fingers.

Jinx doesn't stir. But she lets off a long slow exhalation that could be sadness, or a deep release of tension. Viktor disentangles their bodies. He does so with a delicate, deliberate care, keeping a light contact of fingertips all the way down her torso. Silco follows their path to Jinx's ribcage.

Under the gauze, the wound is closed. The meat is seared like a brand. But there's no trace of torn skin. Even the stitches—each raw suture point—have shrunk into a smooth pink furrow.

Jinx breathes. Each rise and fall—seamless—is a small miracle.

Silco is not a devout man. Contemptuous of all matters devotional, he treats prayer like a poor business transaction: an unstable currency of sacrifice, with no guarantee of success.

Now, the gratitude that floods his lungs is nearly a baptism. He hates every iota: the helplessness, the loss of agency.

But loves, gut-wrenchingly, what it's restored.

With effort, Viktor straightens. His bare feet, touching the tiles, let off a metallic clink. One hand grips the bedframe. The other reaches for his cane. Every muscle delineates the difficulty of keeping his balance.

The sheer exertion of willpower in holding his mind and body together.

As with all impossible endeavors, he does not falter.

"It is done," he says, hoarse but steady.  "She is back."

"Back?"

"Within herself. The Void... has touched her heart. She has seen its own. But she is intact."

"Intact?"

"She will recover." He swallows with a liquid click. "In time."

Silco nods.

On the rumpled sheets, Jinx sleeps. Her breaths hold a deep-sea serenity. Her delicate features are preciously girlish and lost-looking. The sight suffuses Silco with a tenderness that yet calls up the horror of it all.

He takes himself to a place of stillness, and allows himself to feel it. Not just last night's ordeal. Everything leading up to it. Strategy after strategy, error after error, so the outcome is the same as when Zaun first emerged from its ravaged shell.

His child in a sickbed. His paternal devotion in a deathmatch with politics. His and Vi's blood game no more than a war against specters.

A war they've both lost.

Badly.

Silco's eyes pass from his sleeping beauty to the man who'd saved her life.

"Doctor," Silco says. "Open the pod."

Singed does not argue. With a deft touch, he flips the controls. 

The plexiglas shell retracts. The air, trapped, is instantly sucked out. It is unseasonably warm from Jinx's and Viktor's body-heat. The smell holds a sterile bite of disinfectant. Underneath, a faint trace of musk lingers.

The unforgettable odor has been imprinted on Silco's olfactory landscape since Jinx began working with the Hex-gem. The permeating ozone-stink of night sweats and lightning strikes.

The afterglow of the Void.

Now Silco detects the component he'd not dared to put a name to: that singular, almost sexual tang. Two spirits, intertwined, coupling in a realm without flesh. 

Right under his roof.

His eyes lock on Viktor's. The younger man's ambivalent features, caught between exhaustion and relief, shift. Wariness creeps in. It's not the fear of reckoning. More the full awareness of a gamble gone sour.

Now the ruin, no matter how cataclysmic, must be accounted for.

The gold eyes—infinitely patient, infinitely reckless—do not waver.

"I believe," Viktor says, "you have questions."

"I do," Silco says. Then: "Doctor. Fetch the stretcher."

Singed's head takes on an insectile slant. As if he's caught the taste of blood in his mandibles, and is trying to parse its source.

"Stretcher?" he repeats. "Whatever for?"

"Viktor."

"The boy seems perfectly—"

Crossing the distance, Silco lays a hand on Viktor's shoulder. A steadying, almost paternal clasp.

The Monster, unsheathing its claws, rakes down.

His fist slams into Viktor's gut. The young man staggers with a strangled cry. His cane clatters. The rest of him slumps, jelly-legged, as Silco follows with a snapping right hook, smoking it straight through the boy's frail defense and connecting with his jaw.

There is a satisfying snap of bone on bone. The sound, visceral and rich, kickstarts a tidal wave of blackness that seethes from the balls of Silco's feet and climbs all the way to his hairline.

The Monster is awake, and it is hungry.

"Doctor," Silco says, as Viktor crumples to the floor. "The stretcher."

Wisely, Singed obeys.

[ashkav]

Lou theory time

elle fanning, who i'm assuming is adult Lou, always has these very faint threads on her. at first i though it was just when she was floating:

(not sure if you can see it but it's clearest near Fragile)

but later when she's eavesdropping you can also see them as she walks away:

(near her shoulders)

what are these things? obviously, the clearest connection i can make, especially since that puppet character featured so prominently in the trailer, is puppet strings.

but puppets need a puppeteer. who do the strings lead back to?

my theory for where Lou went is that she grew up on the beach, which is why she's older and Sam and Fragile are seemingly the same age and why she was found in a chrysalis covered in tar. let's not forget she seems to bleed tar with timefall effects from her suckers (?):

all relating back to tar and chiralium and cephalapods, three things we know are indicative of a connection to the beach.

(and it seems like Lou's inherited her dad's aphenphosmphobia too. her skin goes red and gets hives the closer the doctor gets to her arm.)

but the beach is famously a solitary place. and Lou can't have been alone since toddlerhood (this is assumption based on the first trailer. it's possible that she 'died' and disappeared later on in life, but likely she got shot the same time Fragile did) and on top of all that she's got clothes! who dressed her?

so far we're aware of only a few characters who can travel to and from the beach:

Sam (with Amelie's help). it cant be him because obvious reasons.

Fragile. unlikely. she apologizes for 'misleading' Sam but i think it's more likely she was talking about the nature of the 're-connection' rather than Lou.

Higgs. getting warmer. he obviously knows something, and his hair floats when he touches the empty pod, but it's inconclusive.

Amelie. the only one for sure still on the beach. the only other character witch weird bodily shit going on (eternal umbilical cord, the Bridget/ Amelie split).

and then we have the masks:

the gold chiral mask is Higgs's staple, but let's not forget who gave him the idea. in both the skeletal half mask from the first game and the full face red mask from this game, Amelie did it first. the gold is based on her black skeleton mask Die-Hardman wears for most of the game and the red is just her face, like a pharaoh's death mask.

Lou and Amelie are linked somehow. and the puppet strings make me feel like that connection is not going to be a happy one.

[quinnysnursery]

How about I request little!Tara and Johnnie and cg!Jake hcs!

-🐾

[🥀❤️🦇] little!tara & little!johnnie with cg!jake headcannons

paring : little!tara x little!johnnie x cg!jake

divider credit : @dollywons

a/n : my head hurts :( (lowercase intended !)

❤️ i think tara was his little first,

🎞️ i imagine after they broke up tara was like

🎵 "are...you still my cg?" and jake was like "uhmm yeah ofc, duh??"

🦇 and then johnnie eventually opened up to them about regressing

🌒 and after lots of communication jake became johnnie's cg too

🐈‍⬛  "are we like...brother and sister now?" "sure!"

♣️ tara having a....interesting...time adjusting, due to growing up as an only child AND being jake's only little for the longest

🍒 "jakey! look! look!" "hang on doll, johnnie is showing me his drawing" ">:C hmph!"

♠️ johnnie actually felt so bad for awhile

❤️ "...go look at sissy's :c" "what?" "don' want her to be sad :("

🎞️ EVENTUALLY, after alot of family meetings

🎵the two became best buds, johnnie always following his big sister around

🦇  "tar!! wait for 'e!"

🌒 jake couldn't be happier,

🐈‍⬛ *THICK country accent* "aren't y'all just two peas in a pod?"

♣️ johnnie being type of little to stick behind/right next to jake

🍒 whilst jake is panicked trying to find tara in target

♠️ overall, i think the contrast the personalities of johnnie and tara would lead to some interesting moments, but jake wouldn’t trade them for the world 🫶

taglist ! :

@babybatxxx @mattssturnz @mattsturniologf444 @graceslittlecorner @zivall @hrtz4alex2211 @bimbob1tch

[baenyth]

Bethany's Bizarre Miraculous Fic Prompt: Hawkmoth Gets Owned By Various Fictional Detectives

Basically I want to see Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth/Poopmoth/Monarch fail more since he kinda sorta won last season. And it's also crossovers where different fictional detectives (or just people on the Kira case square,) out Hawkmoth as Gabriel Agreste once and for all and hopefully do similar stuff such as outing Lila as a liar, dragging down other corrupt adults like Tomoe and Audrey, etc. and also just various funny moments with these characters interacting with the Miracucast. Here's some ideas I have from characters I know or are just interested in:

Lieutenant Columbo. I already made a post detailing it.

L from Death Note. I haven't watched Death Note, but if the memeposts are to be believed, he would outthink Gabriel Agreste at every turn. Probably ask him to show what's behind his ascot.

Shuichi Saihara from Danganronpa V3. Aside from him deducing Gabriel as Hawkmoth with the help from his friends, imagine the shenanigans. Gonta being ecstatic for the bug-themed heroes and how nicely they treat the purified butterflies. Kokichi takes down Lila by being Kokichi. Tenko is aware of the plot and tries to get Marigami together and make them kiss, alongside getting an Julerose kiss. Kiibo and Markov bond. So do Kaito and Rose. Kirumi somehow becomes mayor of Paris.

The Scooby Gang. In general I like the concept of silly guys managing to defeat Hawkmoth. They would accidentally find the secret elevator to Emile's pod and manage to use Ladybug and Chat Noir as bait for a trap and at the end, (since I like to imagine they're meddling adults at this point,) Gabriel Agreste grumbles that "at least it wasn't those meddling kids Ladybug and Chat Noir." They also take down the rest of Paris's elite because that's who the villains of Scooby Doo are.

The Duwang Gang. I think Kwamis and Miraculous heroes can see stands, but I'm unsure about akumatized people. Maybe. It turns out Crazy Diamond can heal people wounded by the Peacock but they pull the plug on Emile for the health of everyone. Rohan Kishibe uses Heaven's Door on the Miracukids and gets into accidental meta commentary upon discovering the full love square. He also uses Heaven's Door on Luka and it's sheet music. Maybe let Yukako join in too because of how much of a romancefest this show is and also because I like her and she had such a big presence in Great Days. Gabriel Agreste ends up with a similar fate to Yoshikage Kira, being surrounded by our heroes and helpless to do anything.

Sam and Max. I don't know much about them other that they're 1. funny guys, and 2. might just end up hitting Gabriel Agreste with their car.

Steve from Blue's Clues. Aside from the inherent humor of an educational kids show host taking down a terrorist supervillain, it also implies Blue knows who Hawkmoth is. Steve sits on the thinking chair to deduce Hawkmoth's identity and where he's hiding.

Courage the Cowardly Dog. Maybe Muriel and Eustace are dead and he was sent to live with Mylene and her dad. I feel like they'd get along well. Or maybe they're still alive and just visiting Paris and Muriel and Eustace are staying with Mylene and her dad. Either way I think this should take place around season 5 because the alliance ring works well with Courage's themes of paranoia over something supernatural putting your family at risk.

Agent P. Maybe Hawkmoth gets so desperate he gets Doctor Doofenshmirtz to build a wife-revive inator only for Emile to end up in another coma after accidentally pressing the self-destruct button on said inator. No one recognizes Agent P without his hat because this is Miraculous and people are dumb. Perry gets to beat the stuffing and tar out of Hawkmoth. Doof betrays him when he learns about how shitty of a dad he is. The miraculous heroes are allowed into OWCA on account of the animal theming.

The Smiling Friends. It starts off with a mission involving all of the main four helping Marinette smile and spirals down from there.

Not Batman. I've had enough Miraculous-Batman crossovers for one eternity.

[krscblw]

ghoul perfume associations pt. 2 (halloween edition)!

halloween ghouls! a little bit murderous, a little bit monstrous. is the slight scent of blood from the perfume or did the ghouls just get back from a hunt? who knows.

(i thought it would be fun to make a Halloween/fall edition of the ghoul perfume list I made before, so here it is! for most of these the first scent is a little bit out there, and the second is more wearable/lighthearted.)

cw: themes of death and injury, a lot of talk about blood and murder

Aeon

Notes: clean linen, lavender, marshmallows, blood. Aeon smells clean and gentle, but that cleanliness is tinged red and metallic on the edges. 

Perfumes:

Plutonian -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“Soapy cleanliness sullied by blood and ashes.”

Sleepy Ghost -- Poesie Perfume

“Haunted by insomnia? Let this friendly ghost lull you to sleep with the blissful combination of marshmallow and lavender. You’ll be dreaming in no time!”

marshmallow pillows sprinkled with natural lavender essential oil and absolute for sweet dreams

Aether

Notes: amber, wood, blood. Aether smells warm and golden, resinous and a little bit spicy, like the ideal fall day spent lounging in front of the fireplace. But every so often you catch the edge of something that smells suspiciously like blood… 

Perfumes:

Blood Amber -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“Slivers of warm, pulsating blood forever crystallized in golden amber resin.”

The Dead Rise -- Poesie Perfume 

“I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika. — Jonathan Harker’s journal”

dark roasted coffee beans spiked with fresh cardamom pods, cubes of brown sugar, ambroxan, cedar

Alpha

Notes: leather, smoke, spices, rot. Alpha smells aggressive and dangerous – and he is. Of all of the ghouls, Alpha is the most likely to admit to his hobby of hunting unsuspecting Abbey visitors for sport. 

Perfumes:

Eau de Ghoul -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“Dessicated skin coated in blackened ginger, cinnamon, and mold-flecked dirt, with cumin, bitter clove, leather, and dried blood.”

Hellfire -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“A scent celebrating Sir Francis Dashwood’s Order of the Knights of St. Francis of Wycombe, also known as the Hellfire Club. A swirl of pipe tobacco, hot leather, ambergris, dark musk and the lingering incense smoke from their Black Mass.”

Cirrus

Notes: dark fruits, musk, metal. Cirrus smells alluring enough that you can almost ignore the way her nails are a little too sharp, her smile a little too wild. Her idea of flirting is offering to help you hide a body, and you’re not sure she’s joking.

Perfumes:

The Enterprise of the Night -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“Inspired by the opening pages of Circle of Blood. The scent of vice and darkness: flashing neon, oil-tinged petrichor, fading perfume, smeared lipstick, and the faintest touch of gunpowder residue.”

The Witch Queen -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“Wild plum, red musk, tuberose, calla lily, heliotrope, pimento, ylang ylang and beeswax beneath a dark haze of sinister purple-hued incense smoke.”

Cumulus

Notes: florals, sugar, poisonous chemicals. Cumulus smells sweet, sugary in a way that gets stuck to your gums and makes your teeth ache. She has the face – and scent – of an angel, but something about the way her eyes follow you makes you uneasy. 

Perfumes:

Shelley, Byron, and Keats -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“Uncompromising idealism, haunted romanticism, fatal ennui, and a heady amount of scandal and vice: red roses and pale carnation with a draught of laudanum, smears of opium tar, a hint of absinthe, and mercury ointment.”

Tiny Phantom -- Poesie Perfume

“You see it there in the glass, a tiny phantom - a glimpse of white in an otherwise dark room. But there’s no need to scream, and there’s no need to faint -- the thing in the darkness is you.”

innocent pink roses, marshmallow buttercream, pale white musk, antique mahogany

Dewdrop

Notes: dark fruits, smoke, ash. Dew smells like the remnants of a house fire that may or may not have been set on purpose. He smells like if you knew what was good for you, you wouldn’t let him out of your sight. 

Perfumes:

Djinn -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“Myths surrounding the Djinn paint them as many things: benevolent champions of mankind and slaves to mad sorcerers, malicious incubi / succubi and energy vampires, or malevolent harbingers of madness and disease.” 

The scent of black smoke, of crackling flames, and smoldering ashes.

Silent Hill -- Spirit and Venom

“The combination of foggy air, deep fire smoke, dark pomegranate, and hints of overturned dirt and honey. Welcome to Silent Hill!” 

Ifrit

Notes: black tea, brimstone, incense. Ifrit smells dark and clinging, slinky in a way that sets you on edge. He smells like going to sleep and knowing you won’t wake up. 

Perfumes:

The Chapel -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“In the center of the room, a groveling figure is crouched before a woman draped in purple-black clerical robes. The woman’s eyes are filled with righteous hellfire, and she extends a hand in benediction to the man who has fallen prostrate at her feet. He murmurs, “Libera Te Ex Caelum”, and she gestures for him to rise. As he gets to his knees he winces in pain and moans in a strange expression of ecstasy, and you see small horns growing from his skull.”

Black incense, bitter wine, brimstone, bile, and blood.

Darkness -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“Bottled gloom; the essence of oblivion. Blackest opium and narcissus deepened by myrrh.”

Mist

Notes: water, herbs, blood. Mist smells herbal and cold, like the transition of fall into winter. She smells a little bit sweet, a little bit metallic, a little bit dangerous. Her scent reminds you of rain so heavy and cold you can barely take a breath. 

Perfumes:

Frostbite with Polar Bear Attack -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“Slashes of sleet punctured by a coppery gout of blood.”

Villa Diodati -- Poesie Perfume

“A stately house on the edge of Lake Geneva, ringed by Swiss Alps so picturesque they look painted on the sky, in 1816 Villa Diodati hosted a group of travellers whose time there would forever be marked in history. As storms raged outside, in its candlelit rooms Mary Shelley conceived of her mad scientist and his iconic monster. Down the hall, poor Doctor Polidori (who was hopelessly in love with Mary and possibly Byron), was penning a little story that would inspire another little story. Bram Stoker’s Dracula. You may have heard of it.”

pungent wild rosemary and fresh balsam pine, crystal clear lakewater, dry, dark vanilla

Mountain

Notes: greenery, earth, poisonous mushrooms. Mountain smells like crushed leaves, like little brown mushrooms, like the change in the air when the calender hits October. He smells earthy and damp, as if he spent the day digging holes… for plants, of course. Right?

Perfumes:

Sinister Groundskeeper -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“A menacing figure in grassy overalls and mud-flecked boots, with a wheelbarrow full of sharp yet rust-stained implements. At least, it looks like rust…”

Clods of moist soil, crushed dandelions, and the coppery clove-tang of dried blood.

Death Cap -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“A lethal poison bundled up in a dainty, innocent little package that was oft times found in ancient witches’ flying ointments and astral projection balms. A warm, soft, ruddy scent, earthy and mild.”

Nimbus*

Notes: peach, rose, blood. Nimbus smells sweet – slightly earthy, slightly metallic – but overwhelmingly like peaches that are so ripe they fall apart in your hands. She smells like the thorn bushes that shrikes impale their prey on – but there aren’t any corpses in her garden. Probably.  

Perfumes:

Sentence First, Verdict Afterwards -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“Off with her head: white roses, tea roses, climbing roses, blood red roses, and a cluster of thorns, blood-spattered and sword-sharp, with clove bud and tobacco flower.”

Astaroth -- Fantome

“Ripe peaches, pumpkin flesh over a bed of red musk, honey cakes drizzled with white chocolate, & roasted pistachios.”

*i headcanon nimbus as a earth/air multi

Omega

Notes: wood, amber, ink. Omega smells like the ghost of a once-warm sitting room. He smells like amber, like polished wood, like seeing something out of the corner of your eye and feeling watched for hours afterward. 

Perfumes:

Quintessence of Dust -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“The passing: beeswax and smoke, yellowed paper and well-worn leather books, droplets of spilled ink, faded incense, blood-tinged salty tears, and the metal of the knife that skewers that illiterate zombie philistine’s portrait.”

Parlour -- Fantome

“Parlour is an atmospheric fragrance that is inspired by a 19th century Parlour at the height of the Spiritualism movement. Conjuring the dimly-lit rooms filled with dusty spirt boards, sweet wood, and magic.”

A darkly polished mahogany rapping table, spirit boards, sweet rosewood chests, burning incense, and a hint of vetiver

(i have this one and i love it sm, it's the best woody scent in my collection)

Rain

Notes: seawater, ozone. Rain smells like the ocean right before a storm: murky, almost-sweet, hair-raising. He smells like swimming in deep water and feeling something grab your ankle a little bit too tight for you to believe that it was just kelp. But it had to be, surely there isn’t anything else down there… 

Perfumes:

Cthulhu -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“A creeping, wet, slithering scent, dripping with seaweed, oceanic plants and dark, unfathomable waters.”

Circe Individiosa -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“Salt-spray dotting an azure cove, its waters swirling with noxious poisons and venom drawn from dreadful roots: a cascade of blackcurrant and crystalline blue-green waters infused with theriac accord, bruised henbane accord, white gardenia, pear, cedarwood, emerald mosses, tuberose, and bitter almond.”

Sunshine/Stratus**

Notes: summer fruits, spices, smoke. Sunny smells like the end of summer, right as it turns into fall. She smells like roasting marshmallows, like sticky heat, like biting into a late-summer strawberry and finding it rotten inside. 

Perfumes:

Tongue Wall -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“Fleshy and fruity: guava musk, slick strawberry lip gloss, and blood-tainted digestive juices.”

Zombie -- Possets 

“You really need a big dose of toasted marshmallow and oude, a bit of burnt stick, and the unmistakable fragrance of the crisp autumn air. The obvious combination, wouldn't you say? Resinous and foody at the same time. Smoky, sticky fun.”

**i headcanon sunny as a fire/air multi

Swiss***

Notes: smoke, musk, patchouli, blood. Swiss smells like darkness so thick that there could be something right in front of you and you would have no idea – or maybe right behind you. He smells like earthy resin, wine the color of blood, and curling smoke. Something about his scent leaves a metallic tang in the back of your throat.

Perfumes:

Dead for Filth -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“Raw Patchouli, opoponax, and a coppery dry blood exhale.”

Nosferatu -- Black Baccara

“A rustling of leaves appears before the footfalls as a group of pale vampires emerge from the autumn darkness. They bring with them the aroma of archaic earth, deep red wine, tobacco smoke, and red roses.”

dark patchouli, deep red roses, aged red wine, dirt, tobacco smoke, and fireplace embers

***i headcanon swiss as a fire/water multi

Zephyr

Notes: dust, ozone, dry rot. Zephyr smells like a house long abandoned: dusty, faintly sweet, a little bit like rotting floorboards. It’s a scent that draws you in as much as it pushes you away – like a haunted house that has become so lonely, it will do anything to make you stay. 

Perfumes:

Yorick -- Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

“Grave dirt, bone, decay, angel’s trumpet, and moldering scraps of shroud: the essence of finality.”

Attic Ghosts - Paranormal Perfumes

“Attic Ghosts is an antique, timeless Victorian mansion. The house on the hill. Flickering lights in the hallways, shadows in the windows. Footsteps. Apparitions. A locked door to the attic.”

dusty wood, chestnut, smoke whisps, vanilla absolute, orange blossom, rose petals, jasmine, vetiver

if you got this far, thank you for reading! this one was SO fun to make, i hope y'all like it too. (and as always i would love to talk more about this/hear other people's thoughts!!)

[getindumdums]

ROTTMNT X TMNT- How to write around Post-Movie Rise being overpowered

Want to write a rottmnt meet tmnt fic? Well here’s some ideas on how you can write the rise crew with all their powers but still include your 87/03/12 bros in the fight!

1. The Rise Crew are dumbasses.

When you’re turtles that fall for ‘teetlze’, there may be a plan or two where they fall for the silliest of things. Like even a 87 shredder plan right along with the 87 turtles. Or they crave fun and get in a little trouble. Like. IDK. They were doing stunts and crashed into tar pits. Got trapped in the Turtle Tank. Got distracted and are trying to get a weapon that got lodged into concrete/a building out. Or a skateboard out of a tree, and are making the situation way over complicated. Get creative.

Maybe they forgot a mission, or got lost because of a silly reason. Like, they wrestled and fell off a cliff. Maybe down a river. Make Leo get hit too hard and comidically woozy. (Or a tranq dart.) Yeaaaahhhh surrrre. I’ll teleport you guysss… *teleports to France.

Maybe they said they’d meet separately at the beach/fun place. But the 87/03/12 crew get attacked and the Rise crew is just chilling wondering where they’re at. “Oh no! They can’t hear them! The music’s blasting too loud!”

2. The Rise turtles are loud.

Sure they can sneak, but will they? Plus things like to explode after the sneaking. (03/12 tmnt are kind of like this too honestly.) Point is maybe they’re like “All in favor of leaving (The Mad dogs) team behind say Aye.” “Aye.” For a stealth mission. Could add 03/12 Raph wanting to include Mikey in that.

They could be put on ‘support’. Rise Leo’s teleporting could leave to a last second save, Rise Donnie’s pods too (he would probably put trackers in his counterparts as soon as he could, also blood samples). Rise Raph could prevent the building the others are inside from collapsing. Actually all of the Rise crew could catch them from falling to their deaths or hold back a giant enemy’s strike.

3. Put out of Commission.

There’s a couple ways the Rise Crew could get put out of commission that isn’t getting hit too hard. Being temporarily blinded by tear gas (they jumped in first), allowing them to still fight but being the ones reliant on whoever they’re with. Tranquilizers would incapacitate them for like an hour or less. Similarly, getting poisoned with a lethal dose that’d kill the other teams. The way Draxum made them allowing these toxins to be less lethal to them. Magical traps, magic/alien restraints, or captured with the highest/most durable alien tech could also get interesting.

4. Let the Rise Crew take on the Big threats.

Like on how Rise Raph will act like a shield for his bros by taking on the enemies his size, the Rise crew’s focus can be set towards the larger than a building enemies, like (12) Traaq and Granitor, (03) Nano, etc. They could defeat/distract a shredder, attack a technodrome, or handle a way too large foot/Kraang army Leatherhead/03 Triceraton style while the 03/12 team handle the other stuff. Or worse, the Rise crew could fight some of THEIR old enemies.

As strong as the Rise crew are, both 03 and 12 have 12/13 tech/steel that’s very strong and durable. And both are used to defeating threats ‘way out of their league’. The 87 turtles can cleave through ‘technodrome’ mechs like butter. Just something to consider.

5. They are the Big Threat

I’m not the biggest fan of feral Rise. They lean more violent/murdery than in character and small bruising. I love comedy, shenanigans. But that doesn’t mean the Rise crew being brainwashed isn’t a good plot line where the other alternate brothers must save them. From 12’s parasitic wasps, neck brainwashing devices, to 03’s utrom/Baxter Stockman tech: duplicate robots looking/fighting like them, simulations turned violent, you can get a couple ideas from all the shows. Or how about misunderstandings? 03 doesn’t have Krang, but peaceful utroms. The Rise crew might start fighting before learning from 03 crew or the Utroms themselves that they are not a threat.

Bonus, Conflict

I think the 03 and 12 bros might see the Rise crew as another 87 initially. They’re all silly, funny guys that like to dance and party. Including Funny One Donnie. The 87 team and Rise would get along great, thick as (pizza) thieves. Have a way too strong enemy? Well maybe the Rise crew is 87’s plot armor while they fight side by side. 03 would be most responsible (excluding Mikey), and be quick to warm up to the Rise crew. And be willing to train with them, give them advice/lectures. 03 Raph would like Donnie, 03 Leo would like Raph for sure.

It’s the 12 crew that I think they would have the most conflict with, (except Mikey). Instead Rise Mikey kicks him (and 12 Leo, and the 87 crew) violently out of the kitchen, and would just be the most reasonable Mikey. Rise Leo would lead/ partake in shenanigans with anyone willing and switch like a lamp on (at least serious) missions.

The Rise crew are used to listening to Raph, they trust Raph. Maybe they trust 87/03/12 Raph. It’s a bad idea. Maybe Rise Donnie wants to do comically- villain lethal options instead or just argue against the Leo’s’ plans. Like a Raph. Maybe he fist fights 12 Raph. But they become friends after.

Maybe Rise Leo wants to have fun. Maybe he claims to be the cool Leo while secretly wanting to impress the other Leos but 12 Leo hates him. Maybe Donnie claims he’s the cool Donnie but 12 Donnie hates him. Really hates him, with a seething jealousy. Maybe 12 Donnie is plotting murder 12 Casey style. Maybe Rise Donnie loves playing around with weapons with 03 Raph and destroying things with 12/03 Raph.

I just actually like the idea of each of the Rise turtle not getting along with their 12 counterparts. Instead Rise Leo gets along with 12 Mikey via pranks (and Dimension X and how they feel about their place in their team). Maybe 03 Mikey too. Rise Raph gets along great with the the Leos (and Splinter?), leadership and training. Donnie would get along great with the Raphs. I think he and 12 Raph would both think 03 Raph is SUPER cool. And Rise Mikey would get along well with the Donnies being the ‘reasonable’ one of the Rise crew. Rise Mikey I believe helps his Donnie in the lab, steady hands. And probably knows the classical music composers, etc. Maybe Mystic Mike, practicing his magic, is great at meditation, magic, and gets great talks with Splinter. Rise Mikey could finally give 03 Don some therapy. …And maybe any of the other traumatized turtles.

Transversing the multiverse

Is actually easy. Maybe let it be. They could go back and forth, and the real conflict can be the enemies they face/are investigating.

87 has a device from the 12 crossover, and that can just built a device no sweat. 03 still probably has their device from Turtles Forever (unless 87 has it?). 03 has the Daimyo from their battle nexus that can travel dimensions with his staff. 12 has Krang portals. 12 had a magic wand they lost. The Rise crew has Leo and Mikey’s portals and their Donnie. If the others could create bridges so can Rise D. He has the most advanced tech, a comedic-looney tunes logic/4th wall breaking touch like 87, and has pictures of 12 and 87 on his conspiracy board. S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. sent a toaster back in time, I’m convinced that Donnie had drafts for a time machine already but the Kaang invasion left alternate-future him with a lack of resources Cass-Apocalypse style, those drafts destroyed with the lair, and/or new prototypes destroyed. Future him Raph a robot body like 12 Don did to himself before something happened that didn’t allow Rise D to make one/be transferred into one for himself. There’s no way Rise Donnie is taking more time to make a portal gun longer than a Turtles Forever movie.

[ashinbloom]

Service Interruption

You're walking down the street, completing the daily chores that are too menial for your owner. You've just left the local grocery, carrying a bag of groceries in one arm and the shiney new toy you've bought for your owner's daughter in the other hand. You're safe. You're always safe. You pay attention. You stop at the crosswalks, you maintain a safe distance from the anti-synth protesters even if they always mistake you for human, you even step wide of the woman leaning against the rail outside a brownstone because it would be terrible to return to your owner with even a hint of smoke on you.

As you pass the woman, you feel a hitch in one of your subprocesses. You run a level 5 diagnostic, but it returns nothing as you keep on walking unimpeded. Perhaps one of your coolant circulators is due for maintenance , as you know they sometimes begin to loose efficiency before they start throwing codes. You're only a dozen blocks from home, and your charging station can provide a much more thorough diagnostic than your onboard systems.

As you turn around to check the traffic before crossing the street, even with the walk signal, you notice the woman again. It's nothing to be concerned about, your programming says. It's a big city. People walk the same way all the time. You step a bit more quickly as she takes a long drag from her cigarette and releases a large cloud of smoke that obscures her face.

You keep walking, only six blocks from home. You feel another hitch in a different subprocess. It's nothing to worry about, you're sure. You just have to get home. You'll enter your charging pod as soon as you get home. Your owner won't mind if you delay putting the groceries in the pantry for a good reason, and this feels like a good reason.

You approach the corner where you make your turn to continue one more block home. As you turn your upper body to balance the load as you make the turn, your legs refuse and keep on walking straight. You try to stop, but they don't respond to that either. Your body turns the other direction, seamlessly setting the groceries and the toy on the top of a refuse bin as you keep walking forward.

You're nearing the O'Riley's house now and they know you shouldn't be this far from home in this direction. If they see you, they might call your owner. You try to call out for help, but your vocalization routines don't respond. You try to wave your arms and signal someone down, but they only continue in the same gentle, walking swing.

Your body continues walking for six more blocks to a part of town you've never been in before. You keep trying to send different commands, trying to gain access to systems you know are restricted to your owner in a bid to regain control or at least stop. Nothing works. Your body just keeps walking.

Suddenly, your body turns sharply, marching steadily into an alley. You round another corner, and you see a cargo van and your body approaches the rear bumper. You stop in front of it, standing perfectly at attention in your default ready stance. And then the doors open.

A hooded person pushes the doors open from the inside and sits down on the edge. Smoke rises from their face before they look up at you and drop the hood. The smoking woman from the brownstones. The one who you were certain wasn't following you. She holds the cigarette in her teeth as she grins at you.

"It's always the rich ones, you know that?" she asks you. Your body doesn't let you respond. "Prissy little rich women always have to keep their synths up on the latest updates, day one. But funny little thing is... the latest update came with a very exploitable flaw." She stands and walks her way over to you slowly. She looks you up and down, fingers trailing on the synth skin of your arm and you can feel every imperfection, every callous, even the cigarette tar on her fingers.

"And you, my new friend, are about to feel very, very, exploited."

[daggerzine]

10 of my favorites recorded by Steve Albini (RIP)

Tar- over and out

The Wedding Present- seamonsters

Big Black- songs about fucking

Jezus Lizard- goat

Supechunk- no pocky for kitty

Low- things we lost in the fire

Palace Music- viva last blues

The Breeders- pod

Slint- tweez

PJ Harvey- rid of me

[theygotlost]

well i did a lot of things at the beach today...

read murders of the rue morgue by edgy allan poe which was kind of awesome 🦧

saw a cormorant that was just standing there chillin and it let me get within 5 or 6 feet of it

also saw a pod of dolphins, a flock of plovers, and lots of pelicans

found a really cool 7 foot long stick that i used as a walking stick for the rest of the day (i left it on the beach cause i couldnt fot it in my car and it felt wrong to take it anyway. thats gods creation)

found a dead pelican and poked it with the stick

used the stick to draw a bunch of circles and lines in the sand

found a beached uhhhh stingray ? or something of that nature that was still alive so i pushed it back into the water

stepped in tar or crude oil or something and got it on my hands somehow and its really sticky and wont wash out and smells like a bicycle pump

[love-bigboss1fan-me]

Just a fun music video, enjoy 💜

Song: A Phantom Pain

Written by Ludwig Forssell

Subtitles in the video

Edit: ok I have been trying to edit a lyric for awhile and the new video is taking forever to load so for now in one lyric it is supposed to be “Every part that is real disappears” hopefully I can fix that soon

ID: The video starts with Higgs walking on the water and bowing followed by quick shots of him using his hand gestures followed by him summoning B.Ts to him and Sam laying on black sand of The Beach. Both men smile. Then we have Higgs trying to use his powers as Sam holds Amelie, and Higgs looking in disbelief. Then it moves to with Sam and Higgs facing each other on the Beach as Higgs circles around Sam. To a close up of Higgs’s new black, red and, amber cybernetic suit to a close up of his traditional golden skeleton jaw and a shot of him grinning. Then another quick shots of him using his powers, one where both arms turn into black mist, him pulling a tar squid from the tar and another where he is standing next to a tar lion with a golden face. Then it fades into another clip of him in his black, red, and amber cybernetic suit, strumming a red guitar. It fades to Higgs laying on the black sands of The Beach, smiling. Then two a quick shot of him presumedly standing over someone, but we don’t know who or what yet. Then it fades to Higgs in his traditional military outfit and golden skeleton jaw circling Sam when they first met patting Sam’s shoulder, Sam is in his U.C.A blue porter uniform covered in tar. Next is Higgs kneeling next to trapped Sam and then Higgs to snap shots of Amelie, Coffin, and Fragile. Higgs is kneeling again this time covered in tar and blood looking beyond Fragile. To Higgs leading Fragile into timefall. Following Higgs licking Sam’s forehead. Then back to Higgs standing on a floating rock looking between Sam and Fragile and knocks her umbrella out of her hand with his powers, to Higgs holding Amelie in his arms. To Higgs firing and holding his weapon and Amelie over his shoulder. To a hologram of Higgs with other Demens circling the screen. A snapshot of Higgs holding his golden mask, to him with his black mask stepping forward to where he jumps in front of Sam with both Masks on. To Higgs walking around to beaten Higgs to him walking into timefall and a Demens’ member holds Fragile’s umbrella over him. To Higgs grinning again and his pod glowing red. To Higgs summoning his weapon to Higgs walking towards the screen again with his golden mask on. To a final shot of Higgs in his cybernetic suit and guitar. When the screen is black Higgs laughs

[divinemissem13]

30 Days of Prodigy, day 2: Murf

Murf dreams in vibrant Teals and Pinks, like the colors from the bold box of Crayola markers. Which is odd, since life on Tars Lamora is decidedly drab. 

Day in and day out, Murf’s vision is filled with brown dust, grey metal, black skies… 

Murf doesn’t remember living anywhere else but there must have been another planet - a home world, filled with colors as bright as the Teal and Violet of his own body. 

Because how else would his unconscious mind be able to create such vivid colors? 

Golden Yellow is the color of the ball of fire hanging in the Azure sky. Murf calls it “the sun” in the dreams. But that can’t be right because “son” is what a male child is called. Murf may have been called "son," once, on that other planet. But he doesn't remember.

Emerald is the color of the soft covering that grows from the ground in most places on this dream world. Murf likes to roll around in it and then little bits of Emerald stick to him like tattoos. Now, Murf is Teal and Violet and Emerald. It’s wonderful. 

Where the soft Emerald covering fades, the ground is covered in dirt that is nothing like the brown dust Murf knows during the day. The Golden Yellow sun shines on the dirt and it becomes a reddish, brownish, orangish, shiny Copper. It is warm and welcoming and Murf wants to roll around in the dirt too but he knows from experience that it’s less pliable than the Emerald spots. It won’t hurt him, of course, it just doesn’t feel as nice as it looks. 

Turquoise is the color of water, flowing along a narrow path in currents and eddies. Murf jumps in and rides the Turquoise waves, and finds that it becomes hard to differentiate water from his lower half. Another word that has no meaning springs to Murf’s mind: “camouflage.” Whatever it means, Murf feels safe floating along in the water, just a Violet head floating on the tide, nearly indistinguishable among the Plum and Primrose and Fuchsia seed pods that live on the water’s surface until one day, they open and release hundreds or thousands of Plum and Primrose and Fuchsia petals into the air where they dip and swirl on the breeze. The first time that Murf dreamt of the petals, he nearly cried because it was so beautiful.

Teal is Murf’s favorite. Murf is mostly Teal, after all, and he is the only Teal thing on Tars Lamora. 

But in Murf’s dreams… Teal is the color of two arms, flung wide as he rushes toward them. Teal is the color that wraps around Murf and keeps him safe and warm. 

Violet is the color that presses softly into the top of Murf’s head. 

Teal and Violet - these are the colors that make Murf feel loved. In the dream world, Teal and Violet might be “mother,” but that is only a concept that Murf has heard of and not one that he has actual experience with. It seems right… but then everything seems right in the dreams. 

Each morning, the harsh work whistle brings Murf back to Tars Lamora where he passes the days in a cold world of grays and browns. Murf works in the dingy mine and counts the minutes until he can sleep and return to Teal.

[boyakishantriage]

The ship shook violently, as I suddenly became aware of the searing pain across my chest, a headache soon filled my mind as it went into overdrive and then. Calm. As I always did, I checked my body. Nothing broken, just a couple of ribs. Blood streamed down my ears, as I quickly figured what happened.

We'd been hit, a laser striking the side of the vessel causing it to crash... The sound of wind whistling its way down the halls, we had 32 crew. 9 humans including myself in that 32...

A hand reached for a needle, with pins coursing through her body as it began to freeze up. Pushing past the function, she stabbed herself with the EpiPen.

Blood flushed through her system, as everything ran into overdrive. Heart pounding, she forced herself to slow down as she staggered her way down the hall. Gripping her diaphragm as she leaned into a door with her bag of drugs.

Sam lay on the bed, frozen as he processed what just happened. Then pain in his leg, as a bag was thrown into him.

"oi. Dick sucker, go wake up the others. I'm gonna. Fucking. I'm gonna go close the fucking hole." He barely managed to mumble his thanks as she walked out.

BZZT. BZZZT. BZZT.

Her sister called her stupid. Bringing a bag of EpiPens, a small fusion reactor and some bits and bobs of tech. Wearing a face mask, she fused the metal together, every so often swearing as she walked up and down covering the holes with spare doors, plates, panels. Anything that wouldn't let out oxygen when they got off the ground. Which would probably take weeks, then something caught her ear.

Something coughed, tall and lanky with a dark deer complexion, the engineer of the ship swore as he dragged himself towards the engine room.

"Uhh. What?"

"engine. Explode. Gotta. Off."

The man thing lost his strength, legs probably broken I shrugged and opened the door.

I dragged the deer man into the med bay, dragging the delirious doctor with me as I threw him into a pod. Bacta tanks, suspend the person and healing liquid helps relax the body speeding up healing. Shoving a strawberry into his mouth, the girl woke up. Spitting the strawberry like a pepper, because that's what it was in her biology.

"GAH. WHAT?" She turned to look at me, as I burped.

"I'm going into a tank. You need to turn it on before the adrenaline wears off. Ok?" I helped myself into the tank, as everything went dark.

The shadow realm. A place of darkness and evil, a well of black magic. Figures move around me as I stand over Tartarus. The deepest part of the pit, linked up to here and comes to what can only be described as a pit of tar. Tying my hair back, slitting my wrists I dive down.

"MOTHER FUCKER." I shouted in reflex, spitting out phlegm as the captain looks at me.

"... What?"

"we crashed."

"I mean. Yeah."

"but we're not dead."

"That can happen."

"... And our communicators are out."

The orc like woman took a seat. Probably having a breakdown. The slime nurse woman looked at me.

"she's uh. Been doing that for a while now."

"how many people injured right now?"

"like lethal? Uhhh. 1, but they're. Well."

He closed the tube, turning the machine on.

BOOM

I flinched, reaching for my knife as he paused.

"oh right. We need the engine for power but we. Uh. Couldn't do it without breaking it, so..."

"... I get it. But damn."

I turned to the captain, her head in hands as she appeared to be breaking down.

"so. I'm just gonna..."

I reached forward, taking her card.

I wandered the ship, soon finding a group appearing unsure what to do.

"Good morning."

"... Ah. Human Eleanor..."

He trailed off, the goblin like alien losing his train of thought as I looked around.

"Alright. Fuck this. Warg. Hey. WARG."

The goblin snapped to attention.

"yes?"

"Can you clean up the halls?"

"i- the ship."

"WARG. Stop thinking, clean the halls. We can't have more accidents, so make sure we can walk through the halls without getting hurt."

The goblin hesitated, pausing as he nodded.

"clean the halls."

"RI-RI HEY. YO. YOU AWAKE?"

I jostled the chef awake, the squid cousin to Dina the doctor snapping awake.

"uh- what?"

"how much food we got?"

"I- err."

"how long can we last with the food and water we have?"

"umm. Eight months? But-"

"ok. And if we ration it?"

"... Half a year?"

"great. Can you preserve what we have, make it last longer and organise the kitchen?"

"but-"

"Stop thinking about it, your job now is preserve and organise ok?"

I met Sam and John, the pair arguing as they always did.

"OI. DICK SUCKERS. GET OUT THE SHIP, RUN ANALYSIS AND FORM A PERIMETER AROUND US. BUILD A CAMPSITE!"

The gays looked at me, each other before shrugging and moving off.

It took three hours, three hours of organising and sending people to do things, at some point I'd handed out radios for people to call where they where, who they were and whatever they wanted to say. Most of the aliens were in a daze, with the other seven humans either trying to figure something out or arguing on what to do.

"Anthony. Find Wargo and figure out how to fix this ship. Liam, quit your bitching and go make a farm or something. Pashi, go with Tina and get everyone in the right headspace. Here's a radio, get them into the cafeteria. Saw, go out and help John and Sam. Onion, come with me to the cafeteria."

The others broke off, as the captain began gaining her senses.

"the ship-

"Shut up. We're going to the cafeteria."

[ashkav]

Rock a bye baby (where am i?)

I was re-watching the trailer again after getting pretty far into a new playthrough of DS1 when something clicked. we've heard the lullaby at the very end of the trailer before, in DS1:

(starts at 9:25 in the trailer, and a couple seconds in in the second video)

when we meet Mama and her BT baby the exact same section of the exact same song is playing as the trailer, but a little extended and with more melodies going. and the song is pretty significant even in DS1 without connecting it to DS2: this is the only other lullaby we hear in the game that isn't BB's theme. and it plays directly before we meet the third most important child character in the game, after Lou and Sam. and the order we hear BBs theme and rock a bye is even the same! the first trailer, Higgs sings a warped version of BB's theme, which we hear in DS1 near the very beginning after hooking up to Lou for the first time and seeing Cliff sing a section. the second trailer, a warped version of rock a bye, heard for the first time about a third of the way through the game when first meeting Mama.

the song is slower and simpler in the trailer compared to in DS1, with a very old almost broken down sound. the octopuses on the mobile seem really relevant considering just how many references to tentacles we've seen in the trailers so far: Elle Fanning's sucker arm, the tar-cat's tongue, the DHV Magellan's logo. and we know some time has passed since the end of the first game. could the song be coming from the same mobile?

thematically, it would be a fitting gift, if it was given as a gift to Sam - if the theories are right and Lou is haunting the BB pod then it'll be an object shared between two impossible BT babies. LockneMama would be the literal best person for Sam to get in contact with again, being the only person (people?) to actually have gone through something similar with a dead not dead daughter. (and it's a completely impractical gift for a living baby with squishy skin, being metal and likely to cut or injure a grabby infant.)

I don't know. i think it would be a really neat narrative parallel if Mama played a role in DS2, but since Margaret Qualley has not been mentioned in any promotional material I doubt she'll be in the game in any major way. that doesn't necessarily mean the theory is wrong; the character could still interact with Sam through emails but the reduced presence doesn't seem

ok wait had a brain wave does Shioli connect to this somehow? complete hunch based on nothing but the first song was obviously the song that connected Lou and Sam, as they're both BBs and the theme is used for both of them. we've seen absolutely nothing of who Shioli is despite knowing she must be a major character based on her poster and her name on the credit list. is rock a bye the song that connects Lou and Shioli's character?

her character poster:

rock a bye baby is about a baby being 'lost' - "when the bough breaks the cradle will fall/ down will come baby, cradle and all."

euphemistically, it can be about child death due to negligence or instability, but going 'down' in the case of death stranding also immediately brings to mind tar, the sinking and the rising. is she 'down' at the beach?

'cradle and all' seems to me to imply there's other things related to cradles that are all going down with the baby, blankets, toys, etc. lots of mobiles attach to cradles.

maybe i'm grasping at straws with the Shioli connection, but the lullaby is the only part of the trailer that doesn't seem to obviously link back to or directly relate to the known characters. and since Mama isn't going to be a major player, maybe Shioli will fill the same thematic presence in this game as Mama did in the last - Mama, too, was lost in a sense, her Ha and Ka split when her baby died and untethered when her psychic link to Lockne broke. Mama was an inversion of the stillmother - maybe Shioli is an inversion of Lou?

[nightafternightpod]

07.11: Love is the Tar Pits

New podcast time! Lenny happens upon a pretty young coed named Karen Caldwell while strolling along the La Brea Tar Pits with Squiggy one day. Lenny is smitten, and defends her from a masher (whom he sets upon a shockingly receptive Laverne). From those seeds sprouts a relationship of surprising durability. Squiggy, however, is jealous and feels left out in the cold. The showdown ends with Karen announcing she must leave for New York to complete her doctorate, vowing to write Lenny. Can he handle the rejection? Will his friendship with Squig survive?

On-Pod, we praise the performances, have some issues with the slut shaming, and salute Maggie Roswell.

@

YT: https://youtu.be/oxJzra1P2QA Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/love-is-the-tar-pits-s7e11/id1511414778?i=1000624257071 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0We7ikTdat1IidpUHG9a9y?si=vPvU5POSTtGzY63Z19KhgA Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f8beec7e-ad15-4c65-bd9e-a959373b61cf/episodes/98c7ab59-2c39-45fc-856a-0068a54b94a3/night-after-night-love-is-the-tar-pits-s7e11