#this is from a trombone

[synthesis-music]

Look, I know rotary valves may be a bit awkward to oil compared to piston valves, but you still gotta do it occasionally.

[da-birb-writes-sometimes]

How You Turn My World; Chapter 3

As the reality of your situation sets in, you try your best to survive in the Underground... and find a way out. Little do you know though, someone else is trying to find you.

Character; Lilia Vanrouge

Content; Gender-neutral reader, more shenanigans, getting more into the meat and bones of this fic

Content Warnings; Swearing

Word Count; 3.2 K

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 |

Do not put my work into AI - I will push you into the Bog of Eternal Stench

Your night for the most part was uneventful. The horrid screaming had thankfully went in the opposite direction, away from your tree-top abode. Although throughout the night, little crowds of glowing eyes had amassed at the bottom of the tree, but they made no attempts to reach you. Even though they couldn’t reach you, you couldn’t help but feel unnerved, since all you could see was their eyeshine, and hear them chittering to each other.

Great, they’re probably pointing and laughing at the new fool in town. ‘Oh, look, Jim, a new plaything! Don’t they look stupid hanging in a tree like that? Fufufu.’ But you kept quiet, and just watched them, as much as they did you, making sure they didn’t try any funny business.

They didn’t stay for long though, either leaving due to their curiosity being quenched, or from how boring you were trying to be; silent, and watching, not moving. If worse came to worse, you would have started chucking rowan berries at them; if fae don’t like the tree, they probably wouldn’t like the berries either.

Eventually, the dark night dissolved into the dim glow of dawn, and once you could actually make out your surroundings and it wasn’t just one large mass of darkness, you started making your way down the tree. You were a bit proud of yourself, seeing that you had 1) survived the night, and 2) not fallen out of the tr—

Snap! … you celebrated too soon, since the branch you were using as a foothold gave way, and you tumbled your way to the ground. At least the fall wasn’t too high up, but it still stung like a bitch, and you’d definitely have a bruise; both to your body and your ego.

At least there was no one around to see you eat dirt.

Sighing, you rubbed your eyes, and smacked your cheeks; fighting off sleepiness. Focus; you need to get home. Read the damn book Mr. Sparkles gave you… damn prick is probably gonna call in a favour later…

With a still sore butt, you found a mossy rock that looked somewhat comfortable and sat down, opening up your ‘How Not to Die in Fairyland; For Dummies!’ book (not really the name of it, but it was damn close).

“Chapter nine; how to leave the Underground,” you muttered, flipping to the page. Weird, it’s only one page? 

“While leaving the Underground is possible, it is a task that not many have accomplished. 

Of the possible ways include;

Finding a portal; typically an enchanted faerie ring, or royal portal.

Finding a fae and tricking them into owing you a favour

One should leave the Underground before their thirteenth day. Should you stay beyond thirteen days you will not be able to leave the Underground, and will be a permanent resident.”

You shut the book, taking in a deep breath. What has it been, ten hours? It was hard to tell, the blurring of time. But at least you had a rough time of twelve days to find a portal — or have a fae owe you a favour — and get the hell back home. If worse came to worse, you were not above some benign trickery so you could see your idiots again.

…

…

Lilia had arrived home safe and sound, slept in his warm bed, and had some of his … delightful home cooking before he was due back at the castle. And while he was eating the somehow overcooked yet still raw eggs, he couldn’t help but wonder how the little Beastie was doing; how you were doing.

He didn’t technically owe you any favours, since he had given you that handy dandy book — if anything, you owed him, since you did say ‘thanks’ and everything — but curiosity is a fickle thing, and you seemed interesting. Humans typically reacted more when they ended up here, and made no proper moves to ensure that they made it back. But you, the little Beastie? Lilia saw a fire in your eyes, of both ire and determination. You wouldn’t give up easily, and while it was entertaining, he also knew that trouble could, and most likely would, follow wherever you go.

Last time a human like you ended up in the Underground… it didn’t end well (said human nearly burnt the Queen’s labyrinth down to the ground). Hopefully though, you didn’t prove to be as foolish, or as obsessed with fire as the last human. Who knows, maybe you would even escape! If you didn’t though, the court could use a new fool, and you seemed amusing enough to please their majesties whilst not incenting their ire.

“Hmm, wonder if their majesties have felt the intrusion,” Lilia hummed to himself, cleaning up his dishes. He could easily just magic it away, but the trip to the mortal realm had taken a lot out of him, so he was stuck doing some good old fashioned manual labour, not that he really minded. Doing the dishes was better than being digested by some mangy, overweight, cat.

A crack of lightning sounded outside, disrupting the otherwise beautiful and peaceful day. “That answers that question!” Lilia sounded too cheerful for what many fae considered to be a bad omen, as lightning rarely meant a good thing when it concerned the royal family.

A raven came to rest on the windowsill, eyes glowing green; a messenger.

Lilia tapped its beak, letting the message play.

“General Vanrouge, I require you to apprehend the trespasser on our land, lest they taint the soil,” the raven recited Queen Maleficia’s message. “Shall you deem it necessary to use drastic measures, so be it… To call this number back, place a coin into the raven’s mouth. To save this call—”

Lilia groaned, but coughed up a bronze coin so that the Queen didn’t send more ravens to his house on his day off. “Our guest shall be dealt with swiftly, I assure you of that.” Lilia ended his call, the raven blinked, coughed out the coin, and flew off in a ruckus of cawing.

He sighed, and cracked his back. “Hopefully our guest can understand… and not hit me with a broom this time.” With a snap of his fingers, Lilia poofed into his trademark green sparkles, and he was a bat again. Instead of being lost in the mortal realm though, he was off to find you, who was most likely lost in the Underground… hopefully you didn’t get eaten or fell into the bog again, since he doubted the Queen would want a dead(?) or putrid smelling guest.

“Beastie, Beastie, Beastie, wherever could you be?”

…

…

“Where the hell am I,” you wheezed. You had been walking for a good bit, since hey, the bog really smelled bad, plus you didn’t want to stick around long enough where the creature that was screaming last night decided to come back and make an appetizer out of you. So, you were walking. Where to? You had no idea, all you knew was that you needed to find a portal somehow, of the mushroom variety, or royally produced.

Currently, you were fighting gravity and making your way up a steep hill, but you knew you would be able to see over the dense forest canopy once you reached the top, and maybe, just maybe, you would be able to make sense of your bearings. Would you know where you were once you reached the top? Pfttt, no, but at least you would know what exactly was around. A sulfuric rotten egg-smelling swamp was one thing, but you wouldn’t be all too surprised if you found out there was a man-eating daisy patch or some other nonsense here.

Finally, you made it to the top of the hill, and you caught your breath before looking out towards the horizon. To the north, the sea of trees continued for what seemed forever. East, the trees made their way into a grassy plateau where there seemed to be a village of some sort in the distance; quaint. South, uh, the swamp, definitely not going back that direction, you’ve had enough of that swamp. And west, a castle, surrounded by a maze.

“An enchanted faerie ring or royal portal,” you muttered, weighing your options.

You had about twelve days left to get out of this place. You could spend those twelve days trying to find a so-called ‘faerie ring’ in the forest since those things were mushroom circles, but the chances of finding an enchanted one seemed to be slim to none. On the other hand, castles usually equaled royalty, which would equal portal. Knowing royals though, they were probably batshit insane. Also, if they felt like you were lying or trying to dupe them? Hey, they could apparently turn you into a slug or some other easily squishable being if they wanted to. And you really didn’t want to be turned into a slug… now at the moment at least.

“Forest,” you looked at the forest, “or castle?” You could also go east, but the grassland didn’t exactly scream portal potential or had any rowan trees (or any trees for that matter). “That is the question. Look for weird mushrooms and maybe get eaten by some critter, or potentially piss off some royal and end up as said critter. Hmmm.”

You groaned, and flopped down to the ground; both options weren’t all that appealing, or even guaranteed that you would find a portal. Rolling over to your stomach, you opened up the book again, seeing if it had anything that could help you make up your mind on the options in front of you.

Scanning over the table of contents, there was nothing about where to find a portal in the woods. There was, however, a handy dandy chapter on fae etiquette, including government specifications… 

You looked up towards the castle again, eyeing the maze. And started coughing out into laughter at your situation. “Pfttt, didn’t I wish that the Goblin King would whisk me away from my life,” you wheezed. “And here I am! In the fucking Underground with a labyrinth?!” Your laughing subsided into a tired sigh, and you set your eyes back towards the castle. “The irony is astounding really.”

At least you didn’t have to worry about some baby being turned into a goblin… right? 

No, no, you only wished for yourself to be taken away, no one else. But would that mean you would end up as a goblin? Fae? Or as some weird pet or servant to a fae? Hopefully not… and at least you had the somewhat credible book that Mr. Sparkles gave you. 

Shit, I owe him a favour though… CURSE YOU SARCASM!!!! 

Well, maybe Mr. Sparkles will cut you some slack, since ya know, you did save him from Grim… but you also did hit him with a broom… and insulted him… I am so fucked, aren’t I?

…

…

You eventually got to the entrance of the maze (the labyrinth?), and sat down on a bench outside of it, huffing and puffing. “Does everything want to–” you stopped that sentence, knowing your luck, if you said it out loud, it was bound to happen. “Never mind that…”

“Never mind what?” A voice said to your right.

You shot up and whipped your head around, coming face to face with a door(?) with a face. “I-”

“You never mind!” A second voice said, and on your left was another door, sending its counterpart a dirty look. “You know better than to meddle in such affairs!”

The right door, which was a weathered red, rolled its eyes at its neighbour. “Bah! Curiosity killed the cat-”

“But satisfaction brought it back. I know!” The left door, a brilliant blue, huffed. “Ignore them, they do this to everyone.” They sneered (if doors could sneer) to their neighbour. “Don’t you have anything better to do than trick people?”

Did I just get in between these two during something?

The red door got offended, turning even redder by some means. “Like you should be one to talk! ‘Oh my dear traveller, one of us two doors is a liar and does nothing but lie! Do not let my neighbour fool you!’ It’s the same every single time with you!”

It’s giving bitter divorced couple who for some reason still live with each other—

“I would do no such thing!”

“LIAR!”

“NO YOU ARE THE LIAR!”

You groaned, their bickering was starting to give you an all too familiar migraine. “Will both of you shut up?!”

Both of the doors tch-ed at your remark but stopped their nonsensical arguing, and you rubbed at your temple, easing away the building tension. But they turned their attention to you, looking at you with a mix of curiosity and something else… doors couldn’t be fae… right? The book didn’t say anything about talking doors… could they be portals? It couldn’t be that easy, nothing was ever that easy.

“Did anyone ever teach you any manners, mortal?” The red door huffed, turning its nose up at you. 

The blue door looked at you with a similar expression, “Yes yes, awfully rude you know! Lucky it's just us though, and not the mistress. Oh ho ho! She would turn you into a newt for that!”

I wasn’t too wrong about them turning me into a slug I guess… would a newt be an upgrade in this case? Since they have bones— 

“And you’re a door,” you deadpanned, “you both haven’t been polite either, ya know?” You had better things to do than kissass to two sentient doors, so no, you weren’t going to be polite. “So the sooner you tell me which way to go, the sooner I’m out of your… splinters?”

The doors grumbled but didn’t raise any objections.

“As you may have overheard, one of us is a liar,” they both said at once. “One of us will lead into the labyrinth, whereas the other will lead you back to where you started your journey.” They both chuckled, looking at you with amusement. “It is up to you to decide which is which.”

You looked between the two doors, weighing your options. “And what if I just walk into the labyrinth? What happens then?”

The blue door hummed, “Well, it would eat you!” … why did it sound all too cheerful about that?!

“So I don’t really have any other option then, do I?”

“Nope!~” They both gave you cheerful smiles, and you were half tempted to go off into the woods and find that magic portal by your lonesome. At least then you wouldn’t have to deal with a pair of divorced doors, and a human-eating labyrinth that belonged to some mistress that would turn you into a newt if she felt like you were being snippy with her.

You sighed. Of both the doors, the blue one seemed more sympathetic, whereas the red door was more harsh… “Okay, red, open sesame!”

The red door looked shocked that you picked it over its counterpart, but it opened nonetheless. The blue door grumbled that you had chosen its neighbour over it, but stayed quiet.

When the door opened, all you could see was black. 

“Do you actually lead anywhere?” You threw a rock in, but no sound came out. 

The red door was silent though; apparently, when it was open, it couldn’t talk. And while you didn’t miss the bickering, you really wanted answers, and the blue door wasn’t saying anything either. 

Sighing, you walked forward, hoping that you had chosen the right door. Once both of your feet were over the threshold, light started to filter in. Did I choose right?! But before you got too ahead of yourself, you felt the ground give way under you, and you were falling; falling towards an all too familiar sulfuric-smelling bog. 

“SHI-”

…

You were back in the bog of eternal stench, and spitting the rotten egg-tasting water out of your mouth again. And this time, Mr. Sparkles wasn’t here to make you magically smell better either. Nope, you were stuck smelling horrible until you could find a change of clothes.

Crawling out of the water, you grumbled and hissed curses towards that red door. Of course, you would end up here again! Why not! Laugh it up, Underground! Laugh it up!

“I hate it here,” you seethed, wringing out as much water as you could from your clothes. 

Shit, the book! But the book was still dry… Fuck you, book. Fuck. You. Of course, the book would stay free of wet and stench, whereas you were now shivering, since the water was frigid, plus you were angry and embarrassed that you had been deceived.

It was no use though just sticking around here lamenting and fuming. So you hoisted yourself up and marched back to the labyrinth; and even though the trip was a good three hours, your anger and pettiness drove you forward.

“YOU-” you hissed, pointing a finger at the red door.

The red door looked at you, looked to its blue neighbour, and then back at you before it started laughing. “I see someone took a little dip-”

You got up in its face, “Fuck you, asshole.” You turned around and marched up to the blue door. “Open up,” you cracked your knuckles, not breaking eye contact. And either your intimidation worked, or your smell was so offensive that the door just wanted you gone; weaponizing the stench works wonders against prissy doors.

“Th-” You remembered your first blunder; do not thank the fae. “You are too kind.” And you stepped through the blue door, which was as dark as the red one, but once the door closed, you didn’t find yourself back in the damned bog. You were now in the labyrinth, and perhaps a step closer to finding a way home.

…

…

…

Lilia found himself in the bog, looking around for the Beastie (you). But they were nowhere to be found, save for a wet spot on the grass and some torn-up moss.

“Ah,” he suppressed a laugh, “they fell in again, I see. Poor Beastie.” At least they’ll be easier to find.

He summoned a glass orb, a looking glass of sorts, and looked inside of it. “Show me the human,” he whispered, sprinkling it with some green magic. “And show me their location.”

The glass orb multiplied into three. The first orb showed a close-up of your face, an annoyed yet determined look on your face. The second orb showed that you were surrounded by hedges. And the third and final orb showed that the hedges were actually the Queen of the Underground’s personal labyrinth.

“… at least they can’t really run off anywhere.” But this wasn’t a great turn of events. Many people, both human and fae alike, had tried their best to navigate the labyrinth. But it was a fickle thing; you had thirteen hours to reach the castle, and if you didn’t within those thirteen hours? You would be stuck within it, as one of the beings that tried to stop trespassers from reaching the castle.

Lilia pinched the bridge of his nose, “Beastie, what have you gotten yourself into?” And he turned into a bat, flying off to try and find you. While the Queen did want you apprehended, Lilia would rather it be with his own hands, and not be held liable for any further actions or decisions you made.

...

...

...

...

Tags; @afunkyfreshblog, @cheezy-moon, @eynnwwyjth, @ithseem, @lucid-stories, @ryker-writes, @twistwonderlanddevotee, @xxoomiii

~~~~~~~

Author's Note; After a little break from writing this fic, I'm back! I hoped you enjoyed this chapter, even if it was only for the pay-phone/raven and the divorced bickering doors!

If you liked this, do check out my masterlist for more content!

[finnbin]

Emo Kydron you mean so much to me

for @axiigotlost :)

[appri-dot]

I only draw him once in a blue moon but I love the breakcoreboy

[frascospecimen]

Ok I’m posting this. It’s a little messy but I took the trombone, trumpet and saxophone from donkey lanky and tinys verses of the dk rap and played them on top of each other because I had to make my vision listenable. I like the composition of this song a lot.

[girlblocker]

i have got to learn how to play every instrument

[fleeceyang]

i went to a free all-trombone outdoor concert last night with my brother and it was so endearing watching him watch the ensemble 😭🫶🏽 i know he misses playing…… i wish we had all the time in the world to dedicate to our hobbies forever and ever

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

I am now projecting my desire to play trombone again onto my favorite characters 😔

(please click for better quality <3)

[supercantaloupe]

ive got 8 parts to arrange for the youth orchestras now. yess

[cjhern1109]

Frans Prompt: Sleep

Hosted by @frans-monthly

I’M BACK!! Sorry for not posting for a long while. My finals and graduation preparations have been grabbing me by the choke hold, but rest assured that I’m working on some Frans pieces and more 👌👌

Anyways, the drawing above was intended to tie in with last month prompt (sport) but got so busy that I couldn’t finish it. So here was drawing, in all its unfinished glory!!

And as a fellow band kid, I needed up creating more of this AU, which I had dubbed MarchinTale (I had googled if Bandtale was a thing and it was 😅).

Why can’t I make things easier for myself 🙃🙃

[lovelyisadora]

why is my dad buying saxophone reeds hello

[whaleiumsharkspeare]

Today is my dad’s birthday (happy birthday, dad!) and we went out to eat and it was pleasant but it just reminds me of how last year on his birthday I was sick, and I don’t get sick very often so when I do it hits me kinda hard. But anyway I was sick so my brother drove me to the restaurant where we were meeting up to celebrate our dad’s birthday and he spent the entire car ride talking to me about the plot of Dune and then when we got there we were sitting in the parking lot waiting on my family. So I’m already sick and now I’m sitting in direct sunlight, just burning up through the window, I can hardly breathe, and he’s telling me all about Dune. But I was so delirious from illness that I cannot tell you a single plot element from Dune. I haven’t read it and I haven’t seen either of the movies and that entire conversation was basically just my brother talking to a cardboard cutout of me because I don’t remember anything lol. Like I remember the drive and feeling like I was dying in his passenger seat and I know that the topic of conversation was Dune but I have absolutely no idea what it’s actually about. It’s a sandy planet, there is a guy named Paul Atreides, Zendaya is in it, and there is an important substance called spice but other than that I have failed any book report about that story

[utilitycaster]

@burr-ell replied to your post “I think some of it is joking but a lot of the...”:

i've never encountered the coin hatred! like are people mad at the coin for Gods Bad reasons, or are they mad because the coin flip 'made' fearne revivify orym instead of laudna and thus temporarily got in the way of Cute Girlfriends

​You know, it's not entirely clear so I left this out because it's all highly speculative, but anyway, untagged thoughts on that:

The most vitriolic stuff I've seen is kind of projecting onto Fearne's ambivalent feelings about the coin and turning it into something that I think is much stronger and more unkind than it is [ie, saying in about as many words they hope Fearne makes FCG eat his damn coin when Fearne's position is, quite literally (per a direct quote from episode 3x51) "I trust you. I'm not sure if I trust the coin."]. I have definitely seen this sentiment more from people who do ship Imogen with Laudna than those who don't, but I'm truly not sure if it's anger at the revivify choice - and if it is, since that was Fearne in the end who used it, that feels especially weird.

I think in the end it's a combination of not liking religion, which, sorry pal but this is D&D and if the main villain of the campaign is like "We should unleash something to eat the gods," religion is going to be a pretty present and intense theme; and as a few people have noted in the tags, the fact that people tend to accept Sam's characters only on the condition they serve as support for their favorite characters.

So with that in mind, I do strongly suspect it's also folded into the Cute Girlfriends situation. It was pretty common fanon in those circles that Sam was a shipper on deck (genuinely unsure why; the most I can think of is that FCG wanted Imogen and Laudna to make up when they fought but like, FCG wants everyone to get along and they would have done the same if say, Fearne and Orym got into a fight; and Shared Dream, which was really just for Imogen). Then, pretty much immediately following the murder bot reveal, Sam actually relaxed and grew into the character and started making interesting choices, and I've seen increasing resentment ever since, which is funny, because FCG irritated me from episodes 1-31 and then from episode 32-present has been on an absolute hot streak.

There's a significant overlap with people who were also furious that FCG went into the Grand Disc because Imogen might die (babe, this is D&D. you hear a loud crash beneath you, you investigate. also Imogen can do magic from like 400 feet away and literally half this party are healers.) and who were mad he brought other party members into the Shared Dream (which, Imogen could have requested this only be a her and Laudna thing, but didn't) and that FCG encouraged Imogen to talk with her father. There's also overlap here with the people who felt Deanna should primarily exist to further Imogen's feelings for Laudna, so yeah, my suspicion is "already doesn't like religion, and then the clerics have the gall to have personal interests and goals that don't center around the ship, and to find renewed/growing comfort in the gods in a crisis? Bad."

It also feels very whipping boy to me - like, I think people are mad at the narrative itself for splitting up Imogen and Laudna for what is shaping up to be at least weeks in game time and months in real time; I think they're mad that their ship is demonstrably not, in fact, the heart of this campaign and that the Uthodurn arc is very good to the point that people who fell off C3 are catching up; and I think they're terrified both that Imogen and Laudna could, potentially, die thousands of miles apart from each other without ever having kissed and that Imogen is not just trying to burn every spell slot and knocking herself out with the psychic damage trying to reach Laudna but is in fact still going about her life. But they can't let themselves be mad at Laura and Marisha about this (even though literally it's their choice that Imogen and Laudna haven't kissed), nor admit that the campaign they've been so vigorously defending is now going in a direction they don't like, so they're just heaping all this onto FCG and their coin. Anyway, good news is after the incredible Commune scene most people have gotten really fucking quiet.

[necromancy-savant]

I went to see Braceface and Kill Lincoln last minute yesterday and it was awesome. I saw a lot of people I haven't seen in a while and/or recognize from other bands. I went with a friend who personally knows Kill Lincoln and got to chat with them again. The whole night I was like "it's blorbo from my Spotify"

[atransformingplanet]

MY MF-ING CRUSH IS AT THIS BAND MEET I FORGOT HES EVEN IN THE SAME BAND AS ME OMFG IM LOSING IT😭

[boltlightning]

obligatory: may I inquire after hunter/hunted (potc)? please and thank you!

of COURSE!! the actual title is TBD but the premise is that norrington is the one hunting after elizabeth on her excursions in the first half of at world's end rather than mercer. it's where i'm funneling my "i don't want to work on the thing that needs to be updated, but i want to write something" energy at the moment and it's great fun, if supremely melodramatic.

a snippet for you:

The  Company had spared no expense. The Clear Course is well-stocked and fitted with every necessity in the Pacific. As a captain in the Navy, Norrington often felt he was more the bursar of Fort Charles than the commander — he fought tooth and nail over every shilling that went into the fort’s maintenance and the men's wages, arguing with the Admiralty Court for months over the cost of timber and sailcloth and broadcloth uniforms. Norrington should be relieved he has less thinking to do on this journey, but instead finds his hours idle, consumed with guilt and doubt. He is on an unfamiliar ship, with unfamiliar men, on an unfamiliar journey, all for the sake of a company whose wealth and greed is great enough to block out the sun. Perhaps it was better after all to be a bursar captain than a mercenary admiral. He wants to find Elizabeth, he wants it more than anything. But if she lives still, it is safer if he never sees her again.

wip asks! ✨