Alternian Ask Meme
Send me an ask with a symbol + Name to find out more about my troll characters! Feel free to reblog this as well if you like the questions.
🌅- Do you have a certain routine for starting your night?
👽- What is your stance on aliens? Should they be treated just like mutants?
🌞- Have you ever gone out or gotten caught out of your hive during daylight? What happened?
💀- Are you strong enough to face shadow droppers on your own if faced with them?
🛌- Do you sleep in a recuperacoon or do you rest in other accommodations?
🤳- Do you use trollian? If so, what is your handle? If not, do you use any messaging system?
💅- Do you have time or resources for self care or small luxuries?
🌌- Have you ever wanted to travel intergalactically? What would you look for in a place to visit off planet?
🍳- What sort of cuisine do you normally eat? Are you openly okay with items labelled only as grubsauce or grubloaf?
🚌- How do you normally get around/travel? Would they ever be able to afford their own scuttlebuggy?
🌃- Do you prefer to live in a rural area or more populated places with communal hive stems?
🎭- How do you access entertainment? What is available to you to do for fun?
🩺- How do you access healthcare? Do you have access to doctors or do you have to rely on other forms of medicine?
🔮- Do you believe those who claim to be gifted with the ability to see ghosts or talk to lusii telepathically? Or do you think they are lying?
🧿- Do you believe in horrorterrors? Or do you believe they're just scary stories?
🤖- How do you feel about drones? Do you try to avoid them when they come around?
♥️- Do you think that pity should still be considered the normal feelings for a red or would you say love is a more common practice to look for in a mate?
♦️- Do you think it's dangerous for lowvbloods to be pale with highbloods?
♣️- Do you have any interest in an ashen, or do you see it as obsolete in current day?
♠️- Do you think pitches should only be based on hate, or do you believe they should also be based on a strong rivalry as well?
🔱- How different do you think Alternia would be if the planet wasnt ruled as a tyranny? Would it be better or worse?
🪦- Do you believe everyone should be given a proper burial or is it a waste of time to have gravediggers?
🪖- How do you feel about the ever looming threat of being put into the fleet if called upon by the empress to do so?
⚖️- Do you believe the justice system works, or do you feel justice has to be taken into your own hands?
🃏- What are your thoughts on organized religion?
🎄- Do you celebrate holidays of any sort? If so, what ones?
🐚- Are you afraid of the beach or ocean? If so, what reasons?
🐾- What is your lusus like? Are/were they around often or do/did they normally leave you all by yourself?
🔥- Have you ever done something (outside of murder) that most likely should be considered a criminal act, but either wasn't or was just swept under the rug due to your status?
216 notes
·
View notes
So Far to Fall
This drabble is preceded by To Stave Off the End and followed by In Cold Blood.
Ullane Wistim & Epsilo Volant | Present Night
Late twilight hung over Chimer’s estate in a beautiful dark shade of blue, the color of relief from a recently set sun.
The hive cast in warm glow and dark shadows was elegant without being opulent, a more lowkey building than one might expect to belong to a fuchsia. It had some well-maintained trees and a wild lawn, standing a short ways from other, similar hives also owned by highbloods in the rural area.
In this part of Alternia, the dangerous local wildlife was kept under careful control by those who enjoyed hunting them. There were very few murders; most trolls around had what they needed. Lusii that ate trolls were forbidden, and culled if brought in.
Ullane sat by the duck pond near the hive on a long low-set wicker lawn chair, watched the birds bob peacefully in the water, and was so bored she felt like she might start screaming.
She should be grateful, she knew, as she idly shredded grass with her hands. She was as safe as she could be, and had gotten off far more lightly than she deserved.
Yet she couldn’t contact her friends. Couldn’t make any sort of communication that could be tracked by the grey mob.
They might still be hunting her.
She had made the trip here about a perigee ago disguised and under cloaking tech, but after the trial, they certainly would have put together how one of their number had been imprisoned. They may have also realized how another had lost an hour of his memory.
Ullane now dressed in hemoanon colors whenever she stepped outside, and had swapped her symbol for a different one. She had stopped dying her hair and covering the marks on her face.
She had - with slight reluctance - stopped wearing her contacts, letting her true violet-tinged eyes show. One could never be too careful.
Her tail, too, flowed unbound behind her.
The former clinic administrator stared up at the stars starting to appear in the sky, a slight breeze rustling through the trees and tossing her ponytail.
She wasn’t sure what was more fantastical; having once been willingly possessed by a horrorterror and working with him to wrench her clinic away from the gang she had worked for, or being pursued by a different criminal syndicate after successfully escaping their attempt to frame her for murder.
The yellowblood thought of the lost Varzims. She’d seen Zanzul last when the violet had talked to Calcit for her, and Thrixe some time before the whole business started.
Why was she safe, and they were trapped in the furthest ring?
Nothing about her life made sense.
Only science ever had.
The lowblood fed the ducks some lettuce, scattering it over the water as they quacked and gathered to eat it, jostling for the leafy scraps.
Then she got up, and walked back inside with a blank expression.
Hours passed in which she tried to read research papers, then cleaned the hive in the vain hope any excess dust had manifested since last night. She exercised, ate without really thinking about it, and fed her lusus his own dinner.
Eventually, as dawn began to creep over the hive, she slipped into her recuperacoon and went to sleep.
Ullane sat bolt upright, gasping. Salt water welled from her mouth. She was - she was -
The water surrounding her rippled darkly, crushing down on her back and shoulders, yet she was not crushed. Violet tinged the liquid, galaxies of glowing lights slowly rising out of its depths, as if appearing from fog.
She floated, suspended in this strange abyss, yet something about it was intimately familiar.
“Uryali.” she whispered.
She felt a rush of confirmation, of…relief?
What relief could she bring the Muted?
My DeScENDAANTSss are imPrISONED in the RING, came the voice that rose and fell in layered harmonies, a deep undercurrent of sadness welling through it.
YoUUU heLPEd Us OOnCEE, MEDIIC. hElPP mE AGAAINN, foRR PESTILEnCE caaNNOT. THe fAEE have baRRED theiR reALMSss. buT yoU and I coULD opEEN thE wAY.
“I am no medic.” She said softly. “Stripped of my title, my license.”
She felt…amusement? Amusement, and a hint of disdain.
alWAysS a mEDIC, medICC. yoU hEAL wITHoUT lAW.
Ullane had no retort to that, and felt Uryali’s satisfaction.
sOO yOU wiLL Go. YoU WIlLL haVE to CRoSS ALl FOUR cOURTSS to fIND TOBRIA.
“Who?” She said with a frown.
hE PREDIictED theSE eVENTss. He Is a POWErful PRophet…or WAs.
Sadness again crashed over her like a wave.
“Why should I find him?”
oNlY hE cAN guIDE my DescENDANTS hOME.
Ullane sighed and figured trying to ask more specific questions was probably pointless.
It was a miracle to get this much sense out of the horrorterror…though, she supposed he had once been a troll. Thrixe had been able to stop him from destroying Nott Station in his anger, by appealing to what was left of his compassion.
She’d watched as the horrorterror piloted her body, nearly killing her as an unintended side effect of his possession.
In light of this, a different - saner - person might have hesitated.
Ullane Wistim did not think of disobeying. The thought never entered her head.
“How will you help me?”
A vast starfish tendril reached up from the dark waters and placed its tip gently in her hand, leaving behind a small, unknown plant bud.
tAKE pART of mE wiTH you. I wILL sPEAk in YoUR dREaMS, yoUR PsIiONICSs bOLSTERED by My poWER.
We WiLl UnLock The WAy. I wILl gUiDE yoU.
She woke up heaving for air in her sopor slime, clawing at the edges of the cocoon.
A dream.
She licked her lips. They were crusted with salt.
Slowly, with dread, she turned her hand over.
A black bud lay tattooed - no - scarified on her palm. It…moved. The edges of it moved over her veins and the lines in her skin, rippling with her breaths, changing in the light as she tilted her hand.
How had she bound herself? Could it be undone?
No - could she truly rescue the Varzims? Had the dream been real?
She took a deep breath and climbed out, green slime gently steaming away as she took off her day clothes and got dressed.
Yes. Yes, she would accept it as true. She would question Uryali when she slept again.
Ullane changed into clothes she hadn’t worn for a long time - her traveling wear, sturdy and full of pockets, warm and water-resistant. Her tail flicked, still unused to being free of clothing layers.
She had come from a town built over ley lines, a place full of undead, where magic had sunk into the roots of the place and things from daymares prowled.
Never had she imagined accepting a supernatural being’s bidding. Or asking one for aid.
She needed help, if she was to rescue the Varzims. She needed someone who she could rely on, though once she wouldn’t have dared trust him with anything.
She needed Epsilo Volant.
—
The violetblood was refining armor for his guild when he saw her, hands deep in a pile of monster samples - bone, horn, and carapace - that he was working with. He sat at his outside work bench, for the weather was fine and here he could see one of the island’s shores.
At first, the former seadweller thought his eyes must be at fault when he saw her. He took off his glasses and squinted, wondering if he’d accidentally imbibed some sort of hallucinogen from his materials.
No, she was still coming closer, walking across the island, unbothered by any of the passing hunters or their palicos. He put them back on and got up, dipping his hands in the pot of disinfectant he kept nearby before he went over to meet the yellowblood.
“Wistim.” He said, neutral if respectful as she got within a few feet of him and stopped. “Why are you here?”
Last time they had spoken, he had asked for his fins and gills to be restored. For her to lift her part of the curse she and Uryali had laid on him.
She had refused.
She smiled at him, a perfectly normal smile, yet the highblood found himself unsettled.
Perhaps it was her violet-tinged eyes - a permanent remnant of her possession. Perhaps it was the way she looked at him - eager, fascinated, as if he was a particularly interesting specimen. It was not an expression he expected on a woman he had captured and given to a horrorterror.
“I need you.” She said. “You’re a werehyena. Immune to horrorterror influence. Strong, and knowledgeable of animals. You want to be a seadweller again? Help me rescue the Varzims.”
Before he could respond, eyes widening in shock, the lowblood held up her hand.
It had a black bud inscribed on it. A…shifting…black bud, as if it moved in a wind. He could feel the energy from it; the same eldritch energy Vallis and all of Vernrot had.
“Uryali has charged me to save them.” She continued. “I must cross the fae realms to seek aid - very dangerous, though I know something of their ways. I need a guard again. Will you help me?”
Speechless, the highblood couldn’t speak for a few moments, staring at her with a shocked expression, his mouth slightly open.
Then he shook his head and came back to himself, face settling into sheer disbelief.
“Wistim. This is suicide. The two of us in a strange land full of magical enemies? How will we eat and rest safely? How will we ensure we can return safely, or make it there to begin with? It is impossible.”
She stared back at him with those wide, strange eyes, as if he was the one who was being unreasonable.
Then she smiled again.
“I escaped you twice. I survived horrorterror possession. I have wrenched my clinic from the gang I once sold myself to. I have escaped another gang’s clutches, after I tracked and hunted two of their number. I once killed a whole gathering of corrupt jades.”
She raised and opened her arms.
All around her, the air turned headier with the scent of salt and life. The island’s plants curled and blossomed at her feet, roots rising up through the soil.
The hunters, attentive to any disturbance in bio-energy, stopped and stared, looking at the yellowblood and then at Epsilo. A few started to draw their weapons.
“Stop it.” He hissed. “They don’t take kindly to that here.”
He shook his head as she lowered her arms and the power waned, but he could still feel a crackle of it on his skin.
“Yes, I can tell you’re more powerful than before. Will that be enough?” He asked bluntly. “Having Uryali’s blessing doesn’t mean you can stand against every fae.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Don’t you want the Varzims back? For Vallis’s sake, if not your own needs?”
The former seadweller paused at the mention of his best friend. The man had been bereft when the other two horrorterror hybrids had left this world.
He scowled, thick arms folded under his light violet shirt.
The Varzims gone. Arty dead. Vannyn was away from Vernrot most of the time, and Lusien had the lighthouse to tend to…
He put a hand to his neck, where his gills had once been. Sometimes the places where they’d still ached at day, when he woke gasping for breath from a daymare of drowning.
“All right.” He finally said, turning around to walk back toward his hive.
Sifrek wasn’t going to like this, Epsilo reflected as he thought of his primary guild contact and friend. Hopefully she would understand.
Ullane easily fell into step next to him, her tufted tail waving back and forth.
“I’ll go with you.” Said the highblood, waving to the hunters that everything was fine. The trolls and their feline companions heeded him, but their expressions remained wary.
“But first, I want more details. I’m not leaving unprepared.”
—
One night later, the pair left the island, taking a motorboat with one of the guild hunters back to the mainland. Winds tossed them about, making waves around them as they cut through the water, but the hunter’s control of the craft was steady and sure.
They arrived on land none the worse for wear, though Epsilo looked like he was having second thoughts.
“Why you?” He asked Ullane as they set their feet back on land, thanking the hunter before they began to walk off.
“Hm?” She said, almost absentminded, eyes ahead as she led them further inland.
“Why can’t Uryali simply possess someone and find this angel-fae himself?” The violet asked pointedly. “Why does he need us?”
“Their body would break down before they made it.” Ullane said bluntly. “I nearly died on Nott, and he wasn’t trying to kill me. I have just enough of his power this time to guide us and help protect us; you can treat me if it starts to overwhelm me.”
“How likely is that?” Replied the highblood acidly.
She looked away from him, smiling slightly as she stared forward.
“It’ll happen in less than a week, regardless.”
The violet dragged a hand down his face, then heard a rumble of thunder.
He looked up, noting the dark clouds.
“Wistim. We should stop for the night. Where did you plan on staying before we left on this fool’s errand?”
“We keep going.” She said, eyes briefly flashing a brilliant pale magenta.
Epsilo shivered as the wind picked up as well, tossing his shoulder-length wavy hair around his head. He took out a band to tie it back.
Why did the Varzims glow the color of moonlit snow, not ink-black like Vernrot’s terrors?
He found he didn’t quite have the courage to ask right now, nor argue with his lowblooded companion.
So he silently followed her as it began to rain, and the lowblood didn’t seem to mind it at all. She did not shiver, nor falter from her path. Water dripped down her hair and tail as she forged on, leading him through bushes and trees as he cursed and had to detach his clothes at times.
“Wistim, slow down - “ He called irritably, and she waved a hand.
The thornbush that had just seized him began to droop from the weight of gray fungus sprung into existence on it, clinging to its bark.
Epsilo sprinted away from it, catching up to her panting and flecked with mud.
“That was unnecessary.” He said between breaths.
Again those unreadable eyes looked into his own.
“It worked.” She said calmly, and turned away from him again, pausing after a few steps.
The medic looked down at…a mushroom ring, Epsilo realized.
He was no mycologist, but he recognized the species, red-capped and white-stalked. Fly agaric, one of the most toxic species there was.
The yellowblood got down on her knees, examining the ring with keen interest, her ears and tail flicking.
Then she swiped into the air above it with her marked hand, the air crackling with white energy as she - she pulled the world apart, creating a jagged rent within the circle as its mushrooms withered and rotted. The fungi then grew together in a thickening black mass as the rift widened and stabilized.
Now it was a gap large enough for both of them to pass through, but Epsilo could not see what was inside it; all he beheld was fog. He leaned over, trying to get a better look -
Ullane jumped inside and grabbed his arm, pulling him with unnatural strength beyond her caste and build as they both fell into the portal.
He yelled curses as they plummeted through the hazy air, writhing, but her grip was firm.
The haze cleared…and Epsilo’s eyes grew wide as his breath billowed out in awe.
Below them - stretching for miles and miles - was a wild land. Frozen forests of vast trees, branches interlocking and grown into fantastical woven shapes. Waterfalls of moving, frothing ice. Lakes set in tundra with waves cast in perfect, glittering frost.
The wind around them swirled with snowflakes and stranger things, glowing blue insects that buzzed about, leaving shining trails in their wake.
Even in the ocean, he had never seen anything so beautiful.
Beside him, Ullane laughed long and loud, and he tightened his grip on her hand.
There was still so far to fall.
5 notes
·
View notes
THE TENTACLE TOURNAMENT
MASTERPOST FOR ALL TENTACLE TOURNAMENT POLLS
ALL POLLS OFFICIALLY RELEASE ON MARCH 1ST -VOTING FOR ROUND 1 IS OVER
Written polls and links under the cut!
ROUND 1:
Squig (Among Us) VS Impostor (Among Us)
Remus Sanders (Sanders Sides) VS Albert Wesker (Resident Evil)
Octillery (Pokemon) VS Malamar (Pokemon)
Mizuki (Arknights) VS Andreana (Arknights)
Ood (Doctor Who) VS Dalek Sec (Doctor Who)
Ventricosus (Land Of The Lustrous) VS Aculeatus (Land Of The Lustrous)
Pretzel (Just Roll With It) VS Aqueous Annie Bell (Jellyfish Felonies)
Squidward Tentacles (Spongebob Squarepants) VS The Queen Jellyfish (Spongebob Squarepants)
Ln'eta (Sucker For Love) VS Estir (Sucker For Love)
Marie (Splatoon) VS Captain 3 (Splatoon)
Glow Squid (Minecraft) VS Ghast (Minecraft)
Squilliam Fancyson (Spongebob Squarepants) VS Marco Diaz (Star vs The Forces of Evil)
Tako-Chan (OMORI) VS ABBI (OMORI)
Ken Kaneki (Tokyo Ghoul) VS Ayato Kirishima (Tokyo Ghoul)
Itona Horibe (Assassination Classroom) VS Korosensei (Assassination Classroom)
Monomon The Teacher (Hallow Knight) VS Sibling (Hallow Knight)
The Rot (Rain World) VS Mikitaka Hazekura (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure)
Gnosis (Mythic Ocean) VS N'zoth (World Of Warcraft)
The Wall Monster (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac) VS Hank (Finding Dory)
Jelly (A Narwhal and Jelly) VS Soundwave (Transformers)
Slenderman (Creepypasta) VS The Old One (Wizard 101)
Kran (The Rise of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) VS "Turn The Lights Off" (Tally Hall)
Pearl Houzuki (Splatoon) VS Frye (Splatoon)
Davy Jones (Pirates Of The Caribbean) VS Take Luka (Vocaloid)
Caelum (Anime Campaign) VS Jason Todd (DC Comics)
DJ Octavio (Splatoon) VS Callie (Splatoon)
Londo Mollari (Babylon 5) VS Fukami (Wadanohara and The Great Blue Sea)
Geryuganshoop (One Punch Man) VS Onionsan (UNDERTALE)
Horrorterror (Homestuck) VS Hatchan (One Piece)
Kala Mer'ri (Monster High) VS Professor Inkling (Octonauts)
Blooper (Super Mario Franchise) VS HP Lovecraft (Bungou Stray Dogs)
Cthulhy Squele (Monster Girl Doctor) VS The Creature (Carrion)
Hermaeus Mora (The Elder Scrolls Series) VS Zoe (Monster Prom)
Shiver (Splatoon) VS Agent 4 (Splatoon)
Ebrietas (Bloodborne) VS Octokittens (The Mechanisms)
Ninomae Ina'nis (Hololive EN) VS Vel'Koz (League Of Legends)
Stephano (Reflection) VS Dharkon (Super Smash Bros Ultimate)
Dr. Octopus (Spiderman) VS Olivia Octavious (Spiderman)
Hastur (Identity V) VS Omeluum (Baldur's Gate 3)
Tentacruel (Pokemon) VS Lord Helix (Pokemon)
Nightmare Sans (The Underverse) VS Ultros (Final Fantasy)
Marina Ida (Splatoon) VS Agent 8 (Splatoon)
Squid Ink Cookie (Cookie Run) VS The Kracken (Mythology)
Ursula (The Little Mermaid) VS Killer Bee (Naruto)
Michiru Ichijou (Mieruko-Chan) VS Cthulhu (Lovecraft)
Weed (Transistor) VS Squid Girl (Squid Girl)
Octodad (Octodad) VS Paul (Children of Time Trilogy)
Mind Flayer (Magic: The Gathering) VS Azul Ashengrotto (Twisted Wonderland)
Venom (Venom) VS Eight Armed Willy (The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack!)
Squidina (The Patrick Star Show) VS Tamaki Amajiki (My Hero Academia)
Nightmarionne (Five Nights at Freddy's) VS The Kraken (Atlantis)
Lady Luctopus (Psychonauts) VS Oswald the Octopus (Oswald the Octopus)
Cecil Gershwin Palmer (Welcome To Nightvale) VS Khoshekh (Welcome To Nightvale)
76 notes
·
View notes