#tucweek

[book--brackets]

Gregor the Overlander Is Out

Gregor the Overlander is officially out of the running for best childhood book, although it was a pretty close call. For anyone looking to get more involved with the series, I'm here to provide some resources.

A quick summary: When Gregor falls through a laundry room grate, he ends up in the Underland, a place where humans, bugs, and rodents live in an uneasy peace, one that gets more fragile by the day. Gregor soon discovers that he is part of a prophecy in the Underland. At first, he wants no part of it, but when he finds that it could help solve the mystery of his missing father, he begrudgingly agrees to help.

Buy Gregor the Overlander here: SecondSale, Thriftbooks

It's likely that copies of this series will be available at your local library

@deanpinterester (fanartist)

@orangeblob79doodles (fanartist)

@emieclat (fanartist and other things)

@sidras-tak (not just Gregor)

@tucweek

[prophecyofgray]

does anyone know if @tucweek is happening this year 👁️👁️

[ezilo]

TUC Week, Day three!

A very late and very chaotic submission to Day Three: Prophecy/Bane

The prophecy of Bane, and the five senses.

Sight

Ares looks at the two sleeping forms – one his bond, one a pup. One the Warrior, one the Bane. The little rat rolled over in his sleep, into Ares’s outstretched wing. He almost recoiled at that, a lifetime of hating rats behind him. But he was also bonded to Gregor now, he’d protected Boots enough times, to understand why the Bane could not be killed. And so Ares wrapped himself around the pup, to keep it warm.

Against his charcoal wing, its fur looked so much whiter. It was strange, for an all-powerful being to be so vulnerable. White fur in the Underland, Ares could not think of a worse predicament. Had he not used his own dark robe many a time to escape notice? Perhaps it was poetic justice then, that the Bane, who was supposed to have everything – speed, strength, spirit – was easy to spot. Perhaps they would have one advantage, then, if it came down to fighting it. And Ares had little doubt that the Bane would rise to power, eventually. Power, leadership, they were too tempting gifts to refuse (Henry had not). But Ares actually had a little doubt, a small sliver of hope in him, that perhaps this tale would end well. Gregor had given him that.

Ares watches over his bond, his dark skin and hair. They were well-matched, it seemed, after all. For Ares had loved Henry, deeply, but he found himself actually liking Gregor, thinking of him as a good person. In his sleep, the boy looked younger, too young to have lost a sister, only a pup himself. Ares will stand by him, through the trials to come. He settles next to him, his dark fur blending with Gregor’s curls, watches over him.

In dark, in flame, in war, in strife.

Touch

All her life, Twitchip had navigated through scent. Scents were her first memories, her mother’s fur, the warm smell of milk, the familiar scent of her litter. They are her best memories as well: decadent feasts, a lover’s arms, the apples in the Garden. Her worst memories too of course, were driven by smell: the sharp scent of her cave by the serpents, the stench of hate in the air as gnawers encircled her. But now, with her nose smashed, Twitchtip is nothing more than a normal rat, or perhaps even less.

She is stripped of everything here. It has been days since she has eaten anything. They cut off her tongue, and it is so quiet and dark here, it is difficult to rely on echolocation. And even when she can, well, there’s not much to see in the pit.

But she can touch. She can slowly go around it, feeling every crevasse, the sharp edges, the smooth dips in the stone. She explores it’s a great big landscape instead of a few feet of stone. Twitchtip had always seen things others did not, entire worlds wafting in through her nose. And so she curls up in a corner, paw sliding on the wall, breathes in deeply through the pain. She thinks of Queen Luxa fighting back to back with her, of Gregor’s warm leg against her fur, of little Boots trying to tap on her wound to cure her. Ow! I no touch. She thinks of the feeling of Gregor’s life jacket, gripping him for dear life, closes her eyes, and tries to hold on.

Smell

No one asks Temp, but he smells it too.

Something is wrong with the water. They have a word for it in crawler, but in the human tongue he cannot think of one. The water is dancing in strange ways, circling itself, round and round and round again. Temp does not speak up, because no one will listen, besides the Princess of course. The Princess always listens to Temp. And the Warrior might, perhaps, although he is easily distracted, and, as all humans, he trusts his own more.

Temp clings to the princess, ready to defend her, but the fliers are fast, and he distracts her enough so that she does not dive after her brother. When Gregor comes back, coughing up water and holding on to a gnawer, Temp thinks it is not surprising that they are of the same blood.

And so Temp learns his lesson, and speaks up when they reach the island. Twitchtip is right, it is recent. The island still quakes like a young one, eager to grow. But the bugs, oh the bugs. Temp knows their smell. They are… the word is… Yet again, there is no one here to understand the clicking, and so they do not listen. The flier goes down in seconds, like Temp had known she would, because he had seen many a warmblood collapse under thousands of bugs. How they always underestimate the insects.

Flesh-eating. Whirlpool. Temp stores the words away as new vocabulary, and keeps protecting the Princess, waiting for the next danger he will not be able to name.

Hearing

At every pitter-patter of feet in front of their door, Grace jumps up. It’s never them though, never her son and daughter coming home. She sits at the kitchen table for hours in the night, watching the withering shadow of a man who wears her husband’s face. Whenever there’s a little crack or an echo, she’s up, running out, wrenching the door open. But the hallway is empty, and so Grace sits back down, and continues to wait, the faint melody of Christmas songs reaching her from the street. She tries to convince herself that they came back after mere weeks last time, but Jonathan had taken years to come back, long, hollow years.

Sometimes, she sits in the laundry room and stares into the tunnel that has swallowed her children, and listens to the faint hum of the currents. If she scooted a little bit closer, they would swallow her whole. She would join them down there, and defend them, and bring them home. But Grace has Lizzie, and Jonathan, and Grandmother. She has other people sitting on her hunched shoulders. But she does allow herself this moment, to kneel in front of the tunnel and listen to the currents, wait for them to spit her children back.

Taste

Andromeda laid down a few fishes next to him, gave him a sympathetic nudge, and then promptly fell asleep on the raft, wings wrapped around Mareth’s unconscious form. Even if he could not feel it, or her warmth, she still held him close. Because that was what a bond was: devotion, no matter the conditions. That was what Howard should have been, for Pandora. He should have gone after her somehow, he should have helped her, he should have been more careful… Despite the journey, the wounds, the loss of Luxa, nothing feels sharper than the pain of losing his bat.

He carefully scrapes his knife against the scales, cuts through the fish, takes out the innards and rinses the flesh in the clean water. He removes the head, and cuts himself little heaps of it. He leaves a half for Andromeda, and then slowly gulps down the rest, taking bits at a time. He stares out at the Waterway, and weeps. The fish tastes like long afternoons swimming with Pandora, sharing shellfish and squid, afternoons escaping his family always too full of children and crying, Susannah counting her loved ones and always coming up short. Howard was an eldest, and a proud one; he helped people, he loved people, he invented songs. But with Pandora, spending hours eating raw fish and seafood, there he could rest, and think only of himself and his bond for a few hours. He thinks about giving Boots his portion of bread, her indignant yuck! at the taste of raw fish as he chews, the iodine taste spreading on his tongue. Somewhere behind him, Gregor was wandering through a maze, avenging his sister. Howard had not lost a sibling just yet, but he had been old enough when Hamnet had died. He hadn’t been shielded at all, and so he had seen his mother collapse to the ground at the news. Yes, somewhere, Gregor was doing what he could to survive this loss.

The fish is almost done. He pauses for a second, thinking about how he would have good-naturedly bickered with Pandora about getting the last bit. About the fact that she’d died exploring, tasting, the way she would have wanted to.

He knows it’s silly, and wasteful. But he doesn’t take the last bit, drops it into the water, watches it disappear into the deep.

You take it, Pan.

[shrimpincreamsauce]

Day 1: Past

For the first day I’ve decided to focus on something that was mentioned in the books, but happened long before the events of the series. We all remember now Ripred tried to take over the fount with an army of lobsters, but do we know how he found that army? Now we do!

@tucweek

[mentalmeles]

@tucweek Day One: Epithet

The Prophet, The Warrior, The Queen, and The Bane

[luxaofhesperides]

@tucweek DAY ONE: EPITHET

OVERLANDERS

[badlydrawingtuc]

TUC Week 2021 Day 7 - Free Day

damn bro you got the whole squad laughing

I did it! I did a TUC Week! I was worried I’d forget a day but I didn’t! Man this was a blast, I can’t wait for next year :)

From top to bottom and left to right, they are: Nike, Aurora, Mareth, Dulcet, Nerissa, Howard, Gregor’s Dad, Grace, Vikus, Ripred, Temp and Boots, Gregor, Luxa, Hazard, and Lizzie :) Happy TUC week everyone! Thank you so much to @tucweek for hosting and @rin-solo for giving me inspiration for some of the days! Until next year (or maybe I’ll do some drawings if folks give me some suggestions :wink:)

[thescaredflier]

Day: 1

“The warrior”

Didn’t have much time to do anything, so sadly I had to be very quick on this one.

[the-what-but-not-the-when]

Darkness

Happy TUC Week everyone!  A short angsty fic for day one to start off the week!

Gregor's dreams were dark.  Sure, they were filled with sharp claws and gnashing teeth, but they were dark. The sunlight that streamed in through his bedroom window was always too bright, even if the sky was shielded with clouds, even when it was only being reflected off the moon.  He couldn't remember the last time he used a lamp.  The TV hurt his eyes.  He found himself living more and more of his life with his eyes closed, in the dark.

His parents bought him blackout curtains and sunglasses, trying to ease his discomfort.  They didn't help much.  The only place that was dark enough was the family's small bathroom.  A sigh always fell out of his lips after Gregor pushed the rug against the crack at the bottom of the door in the windowless room.

Darkness.

He spent the majority of his time there, quietly listening to music or audio books from the library. It was just dark enough he could picture himself in a dimly lit castle miles under the ground.  There, where he stuck out the most, he felt the most comfortable.  

There was nothing that made him stick out when he walked through the streets of New York, his slowly fading scars hidden safely under clothes.  But somehow, here, in his home, Gregor no longer felt like he fit in.  The colors were too vivid, there was too much space, it was too bright.

Gregor's dreams were dark, even when not about his time in the Underland.  His family making a nonsensical dinner from food Boots made up was only seen by the light of a few candles.  When Gregor dreamed he was the protagonist from his favorite book the only light on his adventure was a headlamp his friend wore.  Gregor dreaded the day his dislike of light led to his nightmares no longer being shrouded in darkness. The idea of reliving the death of the Bane, but with the scene lit up by the sun. . . he couldn't stand it.

School was the worst.  He couldn't wear his sunglasses.  He had to have his eyes open to write notes or do homework and he would get in trouble if a teacher saw him with his eyes closed during a lecture.  The fluorescent lights were unforgiving and all encompassing.  Not to mention all the windows.  He had asked multiple times to do homeschooling, but his parents were still undecided.  Gregor thought it was because they were still hoping he could adjust back to the life he had.  He didn't think that would ever be possible.

Gregor's dreams were dark.  He dreamed of clothes made from spider silk.  Of a world where peace was still new.  Gregor dreamed of living in a place where he would always be immediately seen as Other.  Of a girl with silver hair he imagined had grown out to her shoulders by now.  Of gallons of shrimp in cream sauce.  He dreamed of building the family he started, full of royalty and soldiers and people who weren't human.  

Gregor dreamed of a life full of darkness, but so full of light.

[doodlenotesproductions]

So this is my take on the prompt “Darkness” for DAY ONE of Underland Chronicles Fandom Week. XD Because I live in a different time zone, I may have started the week earlier than others. XD

TITLE: No Cake

I streamed the creation process of this here. And the source of the idea was looking at the opposite of darkness in TUC. If the Underlanders need light on a long voyage, where fuel might run out before they get to their destination, they’d need another source of light. Good thing the Shiners are there...if you have cake. XD

[kittenzvrzpuppiezkittenzwin]

TUC week 2020 day one: Darkness

The first prophecy’s words about light and darkness inspired me to do some sort of dark vs. light thing (can you tell I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare, because I didn’t)

[deliver-the-light]

Gregor, baby I’m so sorry this has been a whirlwind of a month. You will stay uncolored for now.

[ethmaron]

set aside any regrets

(day 4, regrets. this is actually my first time ever drawing lizzie but i think it turned out ok! @tucweek)

[ezilo]

TUC Week, Day 2! Overland/Gregor

Managed to squeeze in both prompts for today! Title is from a Maya Angelou quote.

Happy TUC week!

The ache for home lives in all of us

"I want to go up to the Overland."

Luxa drops her fork. This is the moment Hazard realizes he's messed up. His sister never loses her composure, ever a queen.

"Up to New York city?" Her regalian pronunciation of the name feels wrong to him. He can still hear how his mother had said it, how Gregor had formed the words, Boots's little voice squealing.

"Yes." They stare at each other. "Luxa, this cannot be a surprise. I am a Halflander, after all."

"Yes, of course." She resumes eating. "But you are also my brother."

He hears it, hears what it means. You are my family, you know how many people have left me already. And you're leaving me, too?

She doesn’t say it, but he hears it anyway.

You know what if I have lost to the Overland.

*

He goes to Nike first.

"Greetings, Hazard." He had never really gotten used to the formality of Regalia, after a childhood of vines and easy laughter.

"Hello, Nike."

She looks glorious, up there, the queen of the fliers. Athena had died a few years ago, and Nike had gracefully lived up to her duty. It had proved essential to the peace, that she and Howard were bonded; the queen of fliers and the head of the Fount had worked tirelessly alongside Luxa.

"You have come for my help?"

"Yes. I know that my father told you my mother’s full name, before the battle of the cutters." That's how it had gone down in history, this fight that had claimed his father. All he remembered was the scent of starshade and waiting, curled up in Aurora's golden fur. All he remembered was that he had never for a second thought Hamnet would not be back.

"He did." The queen purred, studying him.

"I need it. I'm going up. I want the opportunity to find my mother’s family." 

There's silence, and then Nike flutters down to him. He runs a hand through her striped fur.

“He told me and Temp, indeed.” Hazard nods, and Nike waits like she knows he has more to ask.

“Why did he tell you?” She cocks her head a bit. “Your father did not trust Aurora, or Luxa, just yet. And perhaps he was right. Royal blood is fickle.” Hazard stares, wonders what she means, if she wants him to challenge her on that. Luxa is not fickle, has never been, but he understands where his father was coming from.

"Very well, I will tell you. I believe it is the right choice."  It shouldn't matter, but Hazard is still blinking back tears at her blessing.

"Your mother's name was Hannah Golding. Will you be needing a flier for your mission?"

*

Before he leaves, he stops in the museum, grabbing a few flashlights, some Overland money and clothes. On the way back, he bumps into Nerrissa in the room of Prophecies. Her eyes turn to him.

“Hazard. You are just about to leave.” She doesn’t say it like it’s a question, simply says it like she knows. He had hated her at first, because a part of his child brain blamed her for Hamnet’s death. If she hadn’t told him to be the guide, he and his father would have still lived happily in the jungle with Frill, right?

He did not hate her anymore, but he still felt uneasy around her, the seer, the spare.

“I am. Are you alright? Reminiscing?” Her fingers trace the words carved deep in the wall. “Oh no. This prophecy is not past.” She turns to him. “Yet.”

He glances at the title for a second, and then turns away, shaking his head.

The Prophecy of the Halflander is etched into the stone, but Hazard has never read it.

*

Vikus had written a letter, to take to his mother's family. Ripred and Luxa had both left letters on his desk, in case he managed to track down Gregor and his family, and hadn't talked to him about it. They really were a well matched pair. Ripred had been kind enough to do some of the work to track down his family, taking a look at phonebooks instead of just munching on them, and so Hazard felt he owed him.

He hugged his sister tight against him and promised to come back. She didn’t believe him, but that only meant that he would be able to surprise her, and he liked that.

Persephone was a small, almost green bat. She was agile and fast, and as they talked on the way up, he found out that she'd spent quite a bit of time in the jungle, on missions for the kingdom. They excitedly shared stories about plants and rare fruits, and he was almost sorry to be dropped off.

"I will meet you here again in four day's time."

"Very well, prince Hazard." He rolled his eyes. The title was only honorary, he had no claim to the throne, and he hated it.

"Call me Hazard."

"Then you must call me Persia. It is what my friends call me." He smiled.

"Deal."

And she flew away, graceful and fast, with a last call to fly high.

He had harassed Gregor with questions about the city, back then, those long months when the warrior’s mother had been recovering and he and Boots had practically lived in the Underland with them. He’d asked Luxa to write down everything for him, so that he would remember, and he still had the little notebook in his back pocket. Luxa’s neat handwriting spelled out neighborhoods – Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Soho, metro lines, attractions to see – Times Square, Statue of Liberty, Museum of Natural History, Central Park. That’s where he would emerge. The stone let no light out, so he did not know what he would find.

Hazard stands there, scared. He had never really belonged to Regalia, and not just because he was from the jungle. Because of his dark curls, the blood rushing through his veins that was not from under the earth. His mother had given him parts of the Overland, and she would have given him more, if she’d had the time. He’d wondered about it, about this unimaginably huge world above his head, about the idea of light every day, dark skin, brown eyes. As much as Gregor had felt like a normal part of Regalia to him, a fixture of his childhood, the boy had always longed for the Overland, for his home. Somewhere up there, Gregor was no longer a boy, twenty-three years old like Luxa. Soon, she would have to marry, and the potential suitors were making her queasy already, he knows. Hazard had asked her, once, why she wanted to get married. She’d looked at him, with cold violet eyes, pale skin, fair hair, the spitting image of the Underland, and said “I do not have a choice.” And, well. Nerrissa will never have children, and so the duty falls onto Luxa.

This is why Hazard will come back, even if he finds that part of him belongs to the Overland. Luxa needs him, always will, and so Hazard will come back, yes.

He pushes the stone to the side, and light hits him. He smiles through the tears forming in his green eyes.

*

Hazard loves New York. He understands why his mother had felt at home in the jungle, because the buildings envelop him like the vines had. He wanders for a day, and then clumsily manages to get a room at a hotel, although his accent throws the employee off.

The next day – and how strange to be woken up by beaming, all-reaching light – he heads out for an address in the Bronx.

The woman who opens the door of the address the rat gave him looks like his mother. She asks, annoyed, who he is, and Hazard takes a deep breath, clutching the ring he’d gotten from Vikus in his hand.

“I’m Hazard. I’m Hannah’s son.”

Her eyes go wide.

Later, sitting at a table, Hazard cries, watching his mother grow up from photo album to  photo album, as Halley – his aunt, and holy shit as Gregor would say, he had an aunt – shares anecdotes. Everyone who had known his mother has been dead for long, so he is still reeling from this, from being told new things about her. She even gives him a few pictures to take with him, and he thanks her profusely. She looks uneasy at his tears and he cannot blame her, really. She doesn’t ask many questions at all about Hannah, where she has been, how she died. She asks Hazard, about himself, his likes, and sometimes looks at him like he’s a ghost. His father had always said that he looked like Hannah.

“I don’t want to know much about it, her, why she left and never came back.” And that was not exactly the truth and not exactly a lie either, so Hazard doesn’t speak up to correct her. “Just tell me. Was she happy?”

“Yes. She and my father were very happy, and very in love.”

Halley nods, pensive, staring into her cup of coffee. Even after dumping four sugar cubes and milk in the substance, Hazard finds it disgusting. But Halley is on her third cup. He stores it away as an anecdote about her he will tell his children, some day.

“What was your father’s name?”

“Hamnet.” And at that, Halley finally smiles. A big one, that completely changes her face.

“Huh. I suppose it means she cared about us after all. ”

Hazard frowns. “What?”

“We all have names that start with an ‘h’. It’s a family tradition.”

“Oh.”

They smile at each other for a while longer.

*

“Luxa! Luxa, he is home.” Aurora says, flying into the office.

Luxa is on her feet instantly, rushing out, her crown falling to the ground with a clink. Aurora follows her out, and Luxa hops into emptiness, landing onto her back, and in a flash they are at the docks, watching Persephone land.

Hazard mounts down, and Luxa hugs him tight. “You are home.” She has rarely been so relieved, feeling her muscles relax in her brother’s arms.

He pulls away to grin at her. “Yes I am. I told you I would be back.” He whips around for a second and turns to her again. “And I am not the only one.”

The man who descends from the bat has dark skin, brown eyes, a little lopsided grin. He is tall, and strong, despite the scars crisscrossing his arms. For a second, Luxa has her defenses up, almost reaching for her sword. But then – no, it can’t be. He is in the Overland, is he not?

But when he speaks, all her doubts evaporate.

“Hello, Luxa. I am home.”

[shrimpincreamsauce]

Me if I fell into the Underland: *winks at Ripred* I think I just fell for you

Literally everyone: we need a doctor here this person clearly has a serious head injury

[emieclat]

your boots and temp sketches are SOOOO CUTE!! 😍 I love your style!! perchance, if you feel like it… could you draw Ripred?

thank you so much!! i've drawn ripred once before along with some other character lineups (oh god i just checked the date on the original post and it was. TWO YEARS AGO)

unfortunately i am Not good at drawing animals, let alone animals who are supposed to be somewhat anthro, so the chances of me attempting to draw ripred again is pretty slim 😫