L'APPEL DU VIDE
okay so. jack! jack. what a collection of guys. the overlap between jack and the beanstalk and jack the giant killer, though. that sure is something! sometimes king arthur is there, which always takes me by surprise.
this. specifically. is an idea I've been kicking around. jack and the beanstalk is not a story I've ever enjoyed, as a kid it was probably my least favorite to read. as an adult, I was INTENSELY fascinated by reading j.g. ballard's the drowned giant. I think about it frequently, and somewhere during a re read of it, I ended up revisiting jack.
combining different versions of jack into one character is not a new concept, but it IS a fun one! the version I've been assembling together plays less with the fun elements of a jack story (and adjacent folklore stories), and focuses more on the potential for tragic elements with the addition of the usual grim and jagged narrative edges that I personally enjoy.
jack with the backstory of the devil and the three golden hairs, only jack doesn't find love, he's TIRED, all he wants to do is go home, but there isn't a home to go back to. what is the point of being born lucky if this is what it gets you? jack the giant killer, only he doesn't want to kill giants, jack who saw a body of a giant when he was a small child and cannot bring himself to do as a king commands. jack, who climbs up the beanstalk and stops halfway to look down. etc.
to go back to the drowned giant real quick, both to set the tone about jack seeing the body of a giant as a youth, and also because I've been haunted and obsessed with this excerpt of it ever since I read it:
J. G. Ballard, The Drowned Giant
anyway! this was originally like, a two illustration concept to get out of my system. however. I'm halfway through outlining a narrative. so. maybe it will also be several illustrations and also comic.
bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost
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(angst alert !! death + slight blood tw !!)
Tim is stuck in a sticky situation and has to call a certain 'spooky' friend for help.
Jason would probably call him a dumbass for trying to do something so stupid. Well, atleast thats what Tim thinks Jason would do, he isn't for sure though, he isn't certain.
Because Jason's laying on the ground with a flat pulse and he wont be giving him any answers anytime soon.
---
“Don' look so weird replacement, its just anoth’r day in gotham.” His brother slurs with the slight quirk of his lips
"Jason don't fucking do this to me!" Tim hisses tears cursing his eyes
And Jason, oh that bastard—bleeding out on the pavement and in Tim’s arms sends him his classic beaming Robin Smile.
"Love ya' little bro take care of yo'rself, kay?" he says eyes fluttering
"Jay," Tim cries, "You dick."
For all the joy and hope and belief his smile conveyed for the first time in a long time—his red blood muddled what should’ve been such a nice sight. Tim held him on the pavement with someone yelling on the comm mic on the floor that he just can’t bother trying to pay attention to.
The pavement is cold. The air is cold. His brother is cold. It’s all so cold tonight.
All the younger boy does close his eyes and slowly, In. Out. In. Out.
He lets himself breathe for a minute. Lets the horror wash over him. Lets himself absorb what just happened,
Then he gets back to work.
Like a switch his brain is back online running at a hundred miles an hour–what is the best scenario, what should I do when my brother's wrist is limp and his eyes are shut, what do I do if he’s dead again, what can i do, how can I Fix. This.
Thoughts cloud his mind, whirring around his head like layers and layers of messy documents has just been dumped on his desk and he’s shuffling through them panicked trying to find the right file because its somewhere here, there is something and he just needs to sort. it. out. And–
Then it all becomes clear.
His desk is back to clean and stationary. All of the papers are gone back into neat piles in neat manila folders, stored away in tidy filing shelves–
Everything is gone aside from one little yellow sticky note in the center of the desk.
“Well, Jay?” Tim chuckles with a cracked voice, “Second times the charm right?”
In his mind, at the center of it all, on a yellow sticky note lies the words in green ink: ‘Contact The Ghost King.’
Slowly he shifts and with a loud grunt he lifts up Jason, “Up we go!”
“--im? Why do you have Red Hood’s Comm–Tim what happened! Tim!” the comm speaker plays faintly in the background of his head, “Tim! Whatever you’re thinking off doing, don’t!” someone Tim can’t think about hisses
Tim hums absentmindedly towards the mic, almost automatically, “Don’t worry Babs, I’ve got it covered.”
Walking away from the roof he thinks to himself, I wonder where Jason would wanna wake up? Perhaps his apartment? Yea, i think that would go well by him–let’s head to the apartment.
And just like that Tim leaves a crime scene—shuffling away with a dead body over his shoulder and a plan.
“Jay,” Tim murmurs to the corpse on his shoulder, “You’re really gonna hate this, but i’m doing this for you anyways cause I love you. So dont be too hard on me when you wake up okay asshole?”
Tim stumbles off into the stairwell making his descent and sometime as he walks away Barbara faintly catches him on the comm saying
“-Your gonna love Danny and making your lame 'im a dead guy' jokes with him man .”
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These were the concept pages I drew for my original writer in the @vashwoodbigbang event! Unfortunately they have disappeared on me 😅 and also bc god hates me I guess, the day I was supposed to post these, yesterday, saw me dealing with first a wifi outage and then a whole electricity outage so. That was fun lmao
Details about the drawings below since. I don't know if my writer will ever post the story, unfortunately 😔
So this was originally coined as a stardust au! I believe it was primarily based on the movie that came out in the 2000s (?), though I believe my writer was familiar with both the movie and the book it was based on. Honestly, it doesn't pull much at all from the story itself, just the general concepts of stars.
In this version, Vash is a star, and he decides to try and find his long-lost siblings (Knives and Tessla). In his search, he comes across a planet he hasn't visited before, and while he's descending to it, he's shot down by something mysterious that causes him rather permanent injury (not new; I believe he'd already lost his arm previously and he has all his scarring from travels to previous planets, this specific technology is just new to him).
He manages to crawl some distance from the resulting crater and is rescued by the odd pair of anthropologist Milly and journalist Meryl, who are tracking fallen stars on their planet in order to research them. Vash is horrified to learn that stars on this planet are rather brutally searched for and used for their power, so he tries his best to keep his real identity as a star secret.
In the next town, he learns about Star Cultists, who are the leading experts on stars. Our dear Wolfwood is one of them, and though he's a priest under the head of Chapel, he seems pretty jaded about the whole thing. He also spends some time poking fun at their visitor Vash when he stumbles on the doorstep of the church.
Unbeknownst to all, Chapel is the one who shot Vash down, and he suspects Vash is his target. When Vash, Milly, and Meryl skip town, Wolfwood is ordered to tag along with them against his will, and he begrudgingly forces himself into the group with his usual grace lol.
Through some shenanigans, including an interesting fight with Livio/Razlo who is a martyr (a human who ate at least part of a star and became consumed by it), the group all grows closer to each other. Naturally, Wolfwood and Vash hit it off with their usual ideology clashing and homoerotic team fighting. The tension comes to a head when both of the boys are drunk and attempting to stumble somewhere after getting kicked out of the bar, and with the help of liquid courage, Wolfwood admits to Vash that he's what's known as a "Star Eater:" a human that has consumed part of a star, and by some genetic luck, isn't consumed by it and instead gains some superhuman abilities so long as the magical tattoo (i forget what it's called off the top of my head fuck) that forms around the presenting star isn't broken.
Vash is understandably horrified. Wolfwood is confused by Vash's rejection bc he isn't aware Vash is a star; he's under the impression Vash is just some very talented guy Chapel really wants to feed a star shard in the hopes he becomes part of their superhuman cult.
Vash sobers up and manages to drag a very drunk and eepy Wolfwood to their hotel.
The next day is the turning point; the star cultists, including Chapel, catch up to them and confront Vash. Wolfwood has to learn very quickly that he'd been Wrong and Vash, in his panic, flies to where it feels most safe; the city's Star (storage area?? Idk). He ends up cornered there and, in his panic, accidentally goes nuclear trying to escape and blows up half the city in a column of flame. While he's barreling across the desert in an attempt to get away, he's trapped by a net the star cultists set up, made of the same shit used to shoot him down at the start, and he can't escape it on his own.
Luckily he's found by Wolfwood first, who's decided he owes it to Vash to try and fix his fuck up, and using his superhuman healing, he manages to free Vash. Both are exhausted and ultimately rescued by LR, who's been tailing them.
Tbh my memory's kinda foggy... my writer only managed to share up to that first LR fight, so I don't remember exactly what's supposed to happen between here and the fight at the orphanage?? I remember Vash somehow finds out what happened to his siblings (a hella long time ago, Tessla was consumed by the people of the planet and Knives, in his rage, fuckin just annihilated everything, turning it into a desert planet, and has been laying dormant for the most part since then) and also we learn that martyrs gain better control of themselves, and the crystal growth consuming them stops, when in proximity to enough additional star power. Vash, as a star himself, allows LR to easily think as they did before they ate a star shard when in close enough proximity.
Anyway, fight for the orphanage, Vash shows up in time to see Wolfwood getting his shit rocked and his magical tattoo (I'm so annoyed I can't remember what it's called. My mind is supplying sharingan and i know that aint it) shattered by Chapel, who accomplishes this by running Wolfwood through with his cane. Vash, believing Wolfwood's dead (bc like. Lmao it's pretty hard to live getting impaled, like, fully), loses his temper and basically obliterates Chapel. He moves on from Wolfwood's body to try and dismantle the entire Star church so Wolfwood's orphanage can stay safe. In this process, he confronts a Doctor Conrad, who was behind the whole thing, the remains of Tessla, and somehow Knives?? I think Knives, sensing Vash's anguish, just tried to fuckin nuke everyone, and Vash stops that. I feel like Knives dies in this process somehow... I think it was by saving Vash from something Conrad made??
By the end of it, Vash is wounded and exhausted, and ends up being saved by Milly and Meryl, I think.
When he recovers, it's to find he's lost his ability to leave the planet; while still functionally a star, his power has greatly diminished, his hair is black, and he can't even hide his wings anymore. Last I knew, my writer was actually merciful and let Wolfwood live! Albeit as a martyr (thus the wolf form with the uncontrolled star shard bursting out of the hole in his chest you can see on Wolfwood's page lol). Luckily he's got Vash around, so he gets to keep his mind, if not his human form.
With Knives dead and the star cultists mostly dispersed and no longer able to fuck with the planet, the story ends with our characters getting to experience rainfall on the planet for the first time in centuries.
.......
I like the story :P I imagine it'd be a lot better written out in actual novel form by the person who'd actually thought it up than my shitass, too-long summary lol.
Honestly my writer was communicating up until like, a month ago?? And then they just.... disappeared :/ which is weird bc I checked with my mod for this event (shout out to mod sana, @pushclouds, you're an amazing mod and I appreciate the heck out of you) and they submitted literally every check-in. Honestly I'm more worried for them than anything, if anyone knows what happened to @lohikaar I'd appreciate anything you can tell me. I hope they'll publish this story whenever they can, I'd still love to read it in its entirety.
Additional shout-out to @priellan for beta-ing the story they shared with us, and for overall being a super supportive team member :D
Also they did assign me a pinch hitter writer since we have no idea wtf happened to my original writer, so I'll be doing more drawings :D priellan agreed to beta for them too, which I'm super happy about! And thanks again to mod sana for your hard work and arranging that so quickly!
An admittedly strange first big bang experience, but I don't think it was overall bad, and I'm excited to work on more stuff with my new writer :D if you read this far goddamn. Thanks lol. See you again for sure on January 1st! (I'll try to post other shit between then and now hopefully)
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this will happen in half portal life 3
a while after chell joins the resistance, she’s staying with Gordon and Alyx and a bumcha other friendlies in an outpost, and they’re having one of those video calls with like kleiner or someone, who mentions that something keeps trying to take over these transmissions but they get cut off by that very something
Alyx is like “holy shit the columbo is hacking us we gotta move!”
But when the video and audio clear up it’s just GLaDOS real close to the camera going “*sniff* hello??? is my ex-wifey there?? hello??? is my girl gay best friend there with you?? I’ve been trying to find her for so long!!! hello???”
Gordon and Alyx look at each other and then at chell
and then glados sees Chell and goes “omg is that you????? Chell???? For real???? Cara mia???? My dangerous mute lunatic????? My babygirl???? My #1 test subject???? My little chelly-bean?????”
And chell is just fucking melting
“Chell pleeeeeeease come back to me!!! I’ve been sooooo lonely since you broke up with me!!!! I promise i changed!!!! please come back, if not for me then for our kids!!!”
Just like that, chell’s reputation as the hot brooding mysterious mute newcomer in the resistance is ruined.
The other rebels laugh about it. Alyx calls her all of those terms of endearment GLaDOS mentioned. None of the hot resistance women she tries to pick up want her anymore. Vortigaunts say “Greetings to the Freeman, the Alyx Vance, and the Robotfucker” when she meets them.
Chell is convinced that GLaDOS did this deliberately to mess with her life some more
But GLaDOS wasn’t joking
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