#the Candlemaker

[dccomicsbracket]

Motivations:

Jay Garrick (The Flash)

The Golden Age Flash and mentor to many. He has this loving parent/grandparent energy sometimes that I really like. The world can never have too much Jay Garrick.

The Candlemaker

The Candlemaker is humanities fear of nuclear annihilation filtered through the night terrors of a little girl. Something vast and deeply personal, all at once. Something that destroys entirely, yet pierces at the very core.

[cadaver-moss]

Eddie art dump bc I almost never post my Book Of Life OC art ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

He’s the apprentice of the Candlemaker! And since I’m terrible at drawing humans, here he is in his alternate form.

[o-kaythislooksbad]

ailesswhumptober day 26: electrocution / burning / "this is going to sting"

chapter 5 / 7 of i'm too close to breaking | rated t, chose not to warn

he can't feel the different fabrics of the shirts any more than he can feel the cool autumn breeze on his face, but that doesn't stop cliff from insisting on wearing a t-shirt and jeans to clara and mel's wedding. suits and dress shirts don't exactly come in his size, and going to a tailor is out of the question; they don't want to touch him any more than he wants to be touched by them. 

"okay, i'm sure between everyone in this house, someone's gotta know how to mend clothing."

"that's not the point, larry! button-down shirts are itchy." 

larry brings his hands to his head, like he's trying to tear out the hair that hasn't been there since the 60s. "cliff, your body doesn't have any sensory receptors."

"i know that, asshole. that doesn't mean that the clothes can't be itchy."

larry sighs, and the woman with jane's face and body who speaks in a way that is definitely not jane nods in agreement before larry can continue his tirade as captain obvious. the woman compliments his collection of t-shirts sprawled across the dining room table, and cliff doesn't need ears to register her tone as condescending, or eyes to notice that something's not right about her. 

"who the fuck are you?" 

"i'm miranda," the woman says, pasting a polite smile on her face. 

cliff nearly short-circuits. "didn't you drown ages ago? and where's jane?"

"i healed, and she's resting. we had a rough visit back to our childhood home and she's not handling it very well."

maybe it's the use of the word well from this persona, or the sudden use of collective pronouns, but cliff's bullshit radar is going nuts. he hadn't seen much of the underground, or miranda's station and memories, but he's 99% sure that the person standing in front of him is not miranda. 

if he wasn't so busy making decisions and planning a speech for clara's wedding, solving the 'who the hell is this poser?' puzzle would be at the top of his to-do list. 

"right. tell her 'hi' from me." he turns back to his shirts.

"everyone's gonna be looking at the brides, anyway," larry says. "i'm sure that whatever you choose will be fine."

for once, larry's said something helpful. cliff picks a shirt up at random, and if he had the ability to smile, he would. instead, he raises a fist in the air and shouts, "hell, yeah! look, lare-bear, it's perfect."

he holds the black t-shirt out so larry can read the text. "'hello, world'?"

"yeah! it's a nerd thing with computers or something, i think, and it lets people know that i can talk! hello, world! cliff steele is back and better than fucking ever!"

"that's a terrific choice, cliff. your daughter is going to be so happy to see you and get the chance to speak with you again," not-miranda says, her voice dripping with honey and something else, something bitter.

"i hope so," cliff mutters, suddenly nervous again. not-miranda talks to him like he's slow and stupid, just a brain in a clunky can, and it stings a bit.

at least with jane and hammerhead, their dislike and distrust is open. at least with silvertongue and lucy fugue and flaming katy, their violence towards him is warranted. not-miranda won't even give cliff a chance to prove himself as a friend, or at least as a decent housemate.

"on the bright side, clara knows you. it's not like you'll be surprising her by showing up as yourself."

"yeah, your kid sure was in for a shock. how's he doing, by the way?"

herschel falls through the ceiling, chattering about armageddon, but for real this time, at the fair that he and dorothy just got back from, and cliff's limited patience runs out as larry unexpectedly volunteers everyone for a rescue mission. 

"you coming or what?" vic asks. 

"no way, man. i want to see my daughter get married. it only happens once, you know, unless they get divorced, which isn't really the steele style but who knows."

"if it's the end of the world, there won't be any wedding," not-miranda says.

cliff wishes he could punch her until jane resurfaces. jane would understand. she'd hate him, but she'd understand. 

"if it's the end of the world, i deserve to be with my family!"

"then what the hell are we?" larry's voice breaks a bit at the end of his question, which so isn't fair. 

there's family and then there's family, and cliff finally has his daughter back in his life, and he's sure as shit not gonna fuck things up again and push her away. for all the bullshit everyone gives him about responsibility, he'd think they'd want him to own up to it. 

rita plays that card in her own way, saying that if he wants to be the man clara needs him to be, then he'll help dorothy out of trouble and not let the world burn at the candlemaker's hands. 

"fucking - that's not - fine!" cliff sputters. "okay, fuck it, let's go save the world."

his heart, if he still had in it his chest, would be jack-rabbiting in fear. his gut would be turning and his hands would be shaking and every last fiber of his being would scream at him to get to clara, to hold her safely in his arms, and at least let the world end with that consolation. it's selfish and stupid and everything cliff doesn't want to be, but it's hardwired into him and he can't claw it out.

not-miranda lets flit out for the brief second they need to teleport, then resumes her position as they enter the fairground. a thick layer of wax coats everything from the cotton candy machine to the ferris wheel to the people. several of the booths and tents are on fire, but cliff can't feel the heat or the need to clear the smoke from his eyes. 

cliff can't feel the half-melted wax beneath his boots, and the squelching sound can't cause him to cringe, so thank god for small mercies of large robot bodies. he doesn't want to feel jesus drop-kicking him into a flaming tent of funhouse mirrors or slamming him against the ground, and he doesn't, but that doesn't make it any less unpleasant. 

it's when jesus - imaginary fucking jesus - rips his arm off that cliff really loses his shit. 

"that's it!" he yells, headbutting jesus through a wall. "you're wasting my time! i need to find the candlemaker, get it the hell away from dorothy, and get to my daughter's wedding!"

jesus's eyes glow, and he laughs as he burns out of his flesh, leaving cliff as the only man-person-thing not currently on fire. "you have found me." the candlemaker rises from the ashes, ashes that cliff can suddenly taste, and wraps a skeletal hand around his throat. the fire passes from it to cliff's throat, scorching, melting heat that he shouldn't be able to feel. "but you cannot stop me from getting to what is rightfully mine."

the candlemaker tosses cliff aside as effortlessly as he would toss clara's plush giraffe, and cliff lands on the burning remains of go-kart, shattering his spine. the flames engulf his body, and his brain must be shutting down because all it can do is replay the images and sounds of him crashing and burning in the wreckage of what killed him ages ago. for the first time in this body, cliff can feel, and it's overwhelming as fuck. 

"it's not fair," he tries to say, but his voice box must have broken. he can feel every awful thing happening to him as the candlemaker drips its wax slowly down cliff's head. every imaginary nerve burns, every imaginary limb is locked in place as it roasts, but he can't even summon imaginary tears and screams to accompany them. 

he'll never know what makes larry's pancakes taste so good, or how awesome rita's singing voice actually is, or what all the different textures of the hangman's daughter's paint feels like, or how vic can possible like exercising to the point of feeling his muscles ache. he'll never get to know what it feels like to hold is grandson or hand him back to his moms when he starts to stink.

he's going to die again, this time without kate by his side, and it's only the thought of clara living again that lets cliff fade away. 

[peacefulandcozy]

Instagram credit: co.nfused

[sleepyniusance]

[wintrowes]

this passage in assassin’s apprentice is always on my mind

[skyhawkinsart]

DC character requests! Gonna do more of these!

[pluto-hweat-halcyon-skytober]

Day 2: Ancestor

skytober prompt from @coatl-cuddles !

[wishsparkleemoji]

Can we PLEASE talk about how it’s no longer whale whisperer sitting with blushy??

[bestqprshipbracket]

Best Polyamorous Ship Group 1 Round 1

[yourstrulyray]

so you guys know how much fucking dead people there were in the book of life right (manolos dad, manolos great abuela, manolo himself, his entire ass family etc.)

in manolo's case, almost EVERYONE in his present life died in literally in one day (including himself), and he almost lost his best friend. HOW MUCH MORE TRAUMA ARE THE DIRECTORS PUTTING ON HIM 😭😭⁉️⁉️⁉️ (jorge when i catch you jorge)

not only that, when he married maría apparently half the guests are his dead family line, A LITERAL GOD MARRIED HIM TO MARÍA, WHAT ELSE IS THERE

and lastly the fact he is only NINETEEN YEARS OLD, ALMOST A FULL ADULT, and only RECENTLY he found out THE TWO GODS OF DEATH MADE A BET BETWEEN HIM ANDHISBESTFRIENDONWHOWILLMARRYMARÍATHISCANTGETANYMOREWORSE

[miubow]

BOOK OF LIFE X TOTAL DRAMA PT 3

EXTRAS

Blainley: Museum lady. DJ:Candlemaker 2023 Contestants:Museum kids. Cody, Owen, Geoff: Mariachi brothers. Harold:Jorge Sanchez

[aisdsstuds76]

I just started my first AU I think?

I draw some of sky spirits as dust-bugs (AU maybe?)

Bugs list:

Performance guide (Perfomance)

Franctic stagehand (Perfomance)

Mellow musician (Perfomance)

Modest dancer (Perfomance)

Forgetful storyteller (Perfomance)

Anxious angler (Abyss)

Cackling cannoneer (Abyss)

Compassionate cellist (Duets)

Pointing candlemaker (Isle)

Ushering stargazer (Isle)

Rejected voyager (Isle)

[water-weaving]

look at my candles, boy

[may-y00]

Skytober Day 2 - Ancestor

Prompt by @coatl-cuddles

Ft. Pointing candlemaker in Aviary village

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Such a cutie patootie always greeting us when we pass by

[unionizedwizard]

funniest thing ive learned (and that's coming from someone who had debilitating perfectionist tendencies) is that making your own mistakes is actually thrilling and really fun because it really feels like gaining xp and leveling up but irl. like ah shit i see. well i'll know that's a soak marker next time kinda deal