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#Diving headfirst into the swamp
overthinkingtaleblr · 6 months
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Hey. Having a bad week day right now and your blog is a huge comfort. Can I request some fluffy headcanons for PIE?
Of course! I'm a couple days late because I was swamped with work when the ask came in, but this has been living rent-free in my head for the past 24 hours. PIE has SO MUCH potential for headcanons, it would be amiss to not to touch on the softer side of things! I like to think that PIE was a turn for the better in all of their lives, and I do want to see them happy in spite of my open adoration of dramatics.
Time to let them be happy 🥺 I may have gotten carried away. Everything is under the cut! There are a LOT of words and I don’t expect everyone to read it all at once, it’s okay if it’s too much/you need to stop and come back to it later ^^;
Fluffy PIE Headcanons For The Soul (and Anon <3)
Personal Fluff
Colon actually didn’t believe in ghosts before his first mission with PIE. He just thought Ghost was interesting, and wanted to see what the job of a “paranormal investigator” entailed. He was already a bit of a hobbyist, reading some books about them for fun instead of thinking it was real. Since being introduced, he’s dived headfirst into exploring the paranormal and some types of magic. He feels like a whole new world has been opened up to him.
Colon loves the idea of being a parent some day and has done quite a bit of research to learn how to be properly responsible of children. He was considering being a teacher when he first entered college, but he preferred studying forensics to teaching it.
Because Colon is the only one of the team who has never met any of the other members of the team until adulthood, they don’t know anything about his family. Sometimes he just makes things up because he genuinely thinks they’re making things up with how crazy their families sound. They take him at face value.
Though he’s doing way better now that he’s older, Colon had some notable health issues while growing up, and is no stranger to hospitals and medical procedures. Taking care of his own health and taking note of his symptoms and what caused them has made him very good at giving advice when others are feeling sick, meaning he’s very on-top of making sure everyone is taking care of themselves (if they come to him first, he’s not here to pry). Especially Ghost.
Colon has a kind of beautiful and deep singing voice… but he only ever sings show tunes since he did a lot of theater growing up.
Ghost is usually very prickly, but gets more friendly to social and physical interactions when tired. This usually means he actually ends up more touch-friendly during all-night missions.
Growing up, Ghost’s dads taught him to sew and repair his own clothes when he was in middle school. Meaning in middle school and early high school, he had a variety of fun and interesting patches on his clothes.
Part of the reason why Ghost is so annoyed about being confused for the Ghostbusters is that he really feels like they “ruined” public perception of paranormal investigators in general. Despite his irritable nature, he’s aware that there is more to his job than deleting ghosts from existence and seeing every undead as a threat.
This is also why so much of the team’s tools and machines are home-constructed because he refuses to buy tools that the Ghostbusters sell or are associated with and they are kind of an industry giant. Also they were given some training by his dad but he likes to ignore that.
Ghost actually can read, he’s just super dyslexic and he’s basically decided he doesn’t even want to try if he’s going to be such an annoying struggle.
Spooker has a massive collection of stuffed animals that he treats with incredible love and care.
Spooker is actually allergic to cats, but loves cats and cat-themed things. He is willing to cuddle with a kitty if it means he has to suffer itchy eyes and sneezing. Won’t stop him from complaining about the consequences, though.
Technically out of the whole team, Spooker is both the least and most qualified member of the team. Part of the qualifications for the job is a degree in something that matches the field/industry, and Spooker doesn’t have that… what he DOES have is first-hand experience with the paranormal since BIRTH. He thinks that this is the funniest thing.
Spooker has everyone’s coffee/not coffee orders memorized and sometimes buys for the team on days where he feels he can take the detour.
Whatever the opposite of a green thumb is, Spooker has been cursed for it. He has killed every plant that has passed through his hands unless it was somehow already dead. He’s gotten into flower pressing to make up for it, and presses flowers that represent important dates to him.
After developing an interest in art in university, Toast actually learned how to sketch borderline photorealism, and has tons and tons of doodles in his writings. Buildings they explored on their journeys, sketches of the ghosts they encountered, and a Lot of beautiful but haunting pictures of Mary… and Ghost.
Toast keeps a planner with important dates circled and underlined, including the date everyone joined the team, everyone’s birthdays, and other important dates that may need celebration or revisiting.
In the PIE HQ, there’s a random tape of the Great British Bake-off mixed among all the other work VHS tapes by an old office TV. No one’s noticed it yet, but if they were to put it on, they’d see a college-age Johnny Toast featuring as one of the bakers in the episode. He looks so squishy.
Despite his job, Toast actually hates really scary horror movies and finds them to be a little too much. He can take supernatural-based movies since they feel so unrealistic to him, but the blood and gore in a lot of them is too much. Also, a lot of possession movies make him uncomfortable because he’s had to live through having someone he loves being possessed, and he doesn’t like how much it’s treated like the end-all be-all with few options.
Toast has a habit of feeding local stray animals, but doesn’t know all the local fauna and was feeding opossums for a long while thinking they were some kind of cat or bald rat or something, he didn’t want to ask.
Relationship Fluff
In order of who met first:
Johnny Ghost and Fred Soup
Surprisingly in first, Spooker first met Johnny Ghost when he was Gregory Casket. Spooker’s dad had several positive encounters with Timothy Casket and Johnny Ghost Senior, allowing for the two kids to have semi-frequent playdates. Ghost doesn’t remember this at all, but Spooker’s known since after the puppet arc. Spooker considers Ghost his oldest friend before of this.
Always the commanding kid, Gregory/Ghost actually came up with the nickname Spooker, it just stuck. Fred stopped going by the nickname around high school, but chose to take it up again because it just seemed to fit the paranormal investigating job.
Ghost has one-sided beef with Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza because of his time as a McDonalds manager in a city where everyone preferred pizza. Unknown to Spooker, this is most of the reason why Ghost was so annoyed during Spooker’s first mission. Ghost did Not want to be there and just wanted to leave as soon as possible.
Around when Chris first getting used to the team’s dynamic, he told Ghost that he’s far too critical to Spooker, so for about a week, Ghost tried holding himself back and being “nicer”. Spooker quickly caught on and told him that her liked that Ghost was honest and serious with him— even if it was kind of mean. He felt it meant that Ghost would always be honest with him and didn’t see him as someone who needed to be coddled.
Ghost was pretty openly mean about Spooker’s stuffed animals when he first joined the team, but got pretty used to them after awhile and will offer to repair them when one gets ripped or damaged so Spooker doesn’t get upset.
For his fifth anniversary with the team, Ghost made a big deal about not wanting to get anything for Spooker, only to present him with a hand-sewn stuffed animal with the PIE symbol on its little arms and back. Spooker cried.
Ghost tried to make him stop by saying that it was only made from scraps that Ghost had lying around from repairing the team’s stuff. Spooker cried harder.
He named the stuffed animal Tart and lets Woah sleep with it when she needs something to hold at night.
Johnny Ghost and Johnny Toast
Toast was actually seen as the problem child out of the two of them when they first met. Ghost was still kind of shell-shocked and processing his PSTD, and Toast was lashing out at anything because the sudden change in his lift was stressing him out. The two were sometimes paired together by the school’s faculty because they were hoping Ghost’s easy-to-startle nature would make Toast settle down. Instead, Ghost got more hectic as he worked through his problems, and Toast barely mellowed out as he adjusted to life in the States.
Ghost was the first person to really be there for Toast after what happened to Mary. He was the only one who really had an idea of what Toast was going through, and tried his best to give Toast the comfort that he would have wanted when he was going through his own grief. It was more effort than Toast was hoping for and really helped him in ways he didn’t know he needed.
Toast tried to go no-contact with his family around when he graduated University, and maintained it up until the founding of PIE. He saw how much working several jobs for all hours just to keep the lights at PIE on was wearing out Ghost, and reached back out to his family for the money so Ghost wouldn’t have to work so hard.
For the longest time, Toast’s Home Screen on his phone was him and Ghost making a hand heart together… in front of an explosion. Ghost had a similar one as his Lock Screen, except his was over a swallowing abyss, and his Home Screen was all black. Ghost thought it was funny, but Toast thought it was adorable that they matched.
Though he’s very prim and proper with the team, Toast is actually pretty messy when at home. He can manage his own stuff, but he struggles at keeping a tidy space. To make up for this, Ghost regularly marks days on the calendar when they’ll spend the morning cleaning before they go to work, and take note of what specifically needs focus throughout the week.
When Johnny Toast first got into cosplay, he would go to stores to get the outfits and wigs or buy them cheap online and try to grin and bear the quality. Ghost couldn’t help with the wig aspect, but he’d sew incredibly complicated outfit designs for Toast under the guise that he wanted to prove that the quality of the store-bought stuff was That Bad.
That’s part of why he doesn’t want to go anywhere with Toast while Toast is in cosplay because he’s actually kind of embarrassed of his earlier work but doesn’t want to make Toast retire his favorite outfits.
Both Toast and Ghost have had long enough hair to braid in the past (or present, for Ghost), and they’ve had moments of absent-mindedly braiding segments of each other’s hair.
Toast was Not the only person getting fangirls and stalkers, Ghost just looked at Toast, saw him as the hottest man on the planet, and went ‘yeah, that’s the only reason why they’re here.’
Johnny Toast and Fred Soup
Originally, Toast didn’t realize that Spooker was going to be a long-term member of the team, and he thought Spooker quit when he went missing halfway through the Puppet Arc. Realizing that Spooker lowkey sacrificed himself to try to save Ghost made Toast come around to him staying with the team… Spooker also didn’t realize Toast was the other member of the team until after Ghost got back, though. Only Ghost knows that they were both confused.
Spooker insists upon keeping track of the birthdays of ghosts that they see frequently, and Toast has begrudgingly began adding them to his planner. It does require trudging through graveyards or examining old records sometimes, and it can be a lot more work than anyone was asking for… but Toast is glad it makes Spooker happy.
Spooker loves Toast’s art and is trying to convince him to try coloring some of it with watercolors. Toast doesn’t want to admit that paint deeply confuses him, so he just lets Spooker do it for him.
Lacking blood when he’s spectral (a consequence of being half-ghost), Spooker actually struggles with generating his own body heat. On the other hand, Toast generates warmth faster when infected with lycanthropy. That being said, when both conditions are met, the two can consistently be found together, as close as possible.
Unexpected to Toast, Spooker actually knew several werewolves growing up and figured out Toast was a werewolf before anyone told him. This led to Spooker giving Toast some really good werewolf-coping advice up until he was properly cured, and Toast thinking it was just a really insane coincidence for like. A year after it.
Despite Spooker not really having a paycheck for literal years, Toast would find “sneaky” ways to pay him for his work. Toast thought he was slick, but Spooker just didn’t want to comment about how he was being given like 200 dollars for gas money and 500 dollars to restock the fridge at the base. He just thought it was like how Ghost was bad at reading and didn’t want to bring it up.
Spooker saw a picture of Toast with his hair long and in a ponytail soon after college and has been begging him to grow it out ever since then. He thinks Toast’s hair is literally angelic and can’t imagine why he likes it short. Toast just says he got sick of brushing ghost slime out of it.
Spooker can’t tell Toast and Gavin apart, to the point where he kind of doesn’t remember they’re different people after being explained that they are. Gavin feels horrible for tricking him because Spooker is always really nice to him, even after being told that he isn’t Toast. Toast thinks it’s funny, though.
Chris Ghostie and Johnny Ghost
Ghost was really friendly with Colon while he was driving Ghost to his location. It had been a long time since a stranger who was ignorant about the supernatural was actually interested in learning about it and wasn’t judgmental, weird, or gave Ghost a fake smile before brushing him off. They had a long, friendly conversation that mostly consisted in Ghost explaining how the paranormal worked from a professional perspective, which Colon was very receptive to. That’s the main reason why he allowed a stranger with no experience to come with him on a potentially dangerous mission. He thought Colon really had the chops for the job. And he was right.
Though Colon was initially very drawn to Ghost, there was a period of time where he doubted himself because Ghost could come off as kind of cruel to the other members of the team sometimes. It took him awhile to realize it was just a front and that Ghost had a very soft inside with a very prickly outside… that was also when he realized Ghost probably really liked him to start their friendship by exposing his soft side.
Colon originally found his nickname kind of annoying, but Ghost laughing about it actually made it grow on him over time. He’s found he’s grown more comfortable with it over time. Also, he’s found ways to make fun of Ghost back if it ever strikes a nerve with him.
Despite spending incredibly minimal time with the team compared to everyone else, Colon was able to tell the difference between Ghost and Casket incredibly easy. He’s started spraying Ghost with water when he suddenly spikes with Casket activity out of nowhere to startle Ghost back to attention.
He can also tell the difference between Johnny Ghost and Johnny Cranky almost immediately, but didn’t tell Cranky the first time the doppelgänger tried pulling one over on him. He made up a Ton of fake drama happening inside of PIE to freak Cranky out and circulate false information around DIE. At this point, he sees Cranky as the most unthreatening version of Ghost.
According to Colon, upon realizing Colon’s love of research and learning, Ghost appointed him the team teacher so that Colon could teach every newcomer to the team. According to Ghost, he gave Colon the job so he’d stop suggesting they hire or adopt every vaguely paranormal-inclined person and creature, because then they’d be his responsibility to deal with (he did not stop).
When Colon gets really excited about a book, he usually tells Ghost about it because chances are, Ghost is never going to read it so he really doesn’t care about spoilers. This is the only way that Ghost has ever actually gotten invested in books— fiction and nonfiction— because Colon is very, very thematic when he summarizes stories.
While Ghost was retired, Colon sent regular emails to Ghost’s work email as kind-of a diary. He figured that even if Ghost opened his work email, he wouldn’t read most of them, even if he sent something back. Ghost didn’t actually open his work email again until right before he was considering joining the team. Part him wanted to find it annoying, but it’s part of what eventually pushed him into joining back. He used TTS to read them all.
Fred Soup and Chris Ghostie
These two have the strongest stomachs to blood and gore on the team, and first started going over to each other’s places to watch horror movies together. They tried making it into a team thing, but had to stop making it a horror thing when they realized Ghost and Toast weren’t as into it.
When Spooker realized Ghost only recognizes him with the hat, it was Colon’s idea to dye his hair a bubblegum pink. He dyed streaks of his own hair a temporary blue in solidarity, but it was kind of hard to see without bleach.
Colon asked Spooker why he acts kind of stupid on the job, and Spooker explained that most ghosts would underestimate him if they thought he was stupid. Colon thought that as a little bit ingenious and will sometimes join in, much to Ghost’s tired annoyance. To be nice, Colon will take missions seriously when it’s just him and Ghost.
They started putting on Bluey for Woah to watch, but Colon quickly realized that some of the episodes counted as honest-to-god parenting advice and pulled Spooker into watching some of the episodes with him. He didn’t realize it would be actually kind of therapeutic for Spooker.
They have a Minecraft server together. Woah has her own special area that Colon used mod privileges around to ensure mobs wouldn’t spawn. They put their minecraft beds together.
Colon has a lot of dietary restrictions because of his. Whole relationship with specifically his colon, so Spooker went out of his way to learn new recipes and double-check some of his old recipes so Colon would always have something he could eat without a stomachache anytime Spooker cooks for the team. It took some experimenting, but they figured out a system, and Colon is really grateful.
In spite of getting all his information from Johnny ‘they are the most threatening, horrifying thing on the planet’ Ghost, he’s chosen to go out of his way to give Spooker’s demon cat plushie a chance. Though he is still a little suspicious about it getting too close to Woah.
Colon is the only member of PIE that Spooker has personally introduced to his dad without his dad knowing they were involved with PIE, meaning Colon is the only member of PIE who Chakalata likes. (He begrudgingly kept liking Colon even after finding out the truth.)
Chris Ghostie and Johnny Toast
Out of all the members of PIE, Toast was the only one Colon knew of before joining PIE. How? He’s read Toast’s book cover-to-cover. Several times. He has multiple sections and most of the cases detailed in that book memorized.
Colon is gradually and slowly trying to teach Toast to drive in return for more background information about Toast’s book.
A big reason why Toast doesn’t experience curses or magical afflictions as often as he used to isn’t really because they stopped coming, but because Colon started making him different charms and curse-repellants when he realized how often Toast suffers because of the supernatural. He is a little disturbed with how quickly Toast goes through them, but Toast is just relieved to have any break. At all.
Colon was incredibly excited of Toast’s cosplaying when he found out about it, and has offered to tag along with him to contests, or to dress up with him if he needs a double. They’re the closest to being the same size out of everyone on the team, so Colon can actually wear some of Toast’s older costumes if the need arises.
Colon is sometimes disappointed that he missed out on Toast being a werewolf (in cases where Toast gets cured and manages not to get it again) because the stories from Ghost and Spooker makes it sound way cuter than it actually was.
Toast and Colon are both incredibly organization-oriented, and both have different methods of keeping track of things. Sometimes they compare notes to make sure that they have everything since they tend to value different information.
I dunno if I said this anywhere else, but I’m dubbing these two as the biggest nerds on the team. They will talk fandom and understand what the other person is talking about. They compare tv shows and movies and talk about the state of the animation industry and how best to support actors. It’s fun and exciting.
He’s also really good at telling Gavin and Toast apart, but tends to doubt himself since Gavin will commit to the bit as hard as possible and he doesn’t want to make Ghost panic. Sometimes, Toast is Just that chaotic and that’s okay.
Team-Focused Fluff
Every primary member of the team can pick up and carry Ghost with relative ease. On days when Ghost is dazed or out of it for some reason, he has been picked up and carried by the nearest teammate in the chase.
Toast getting strong-armed into keeping track of the birthdays of ghosts has actually had the humanizing but unintended side affect of actually re-learning and teaching ghosts their own birthdays. They all react differently, some better some worse. Maxwell actually eased up on them. Aimee cried.
Colon has needed a surgery or two since joining the team, and absolutely everyone joined in to make sure he was as comfortable as possible. They did give him space and time to recover on his own, but they also went out of his way to make sure they had snacks he could eat and that he was always comfortable and had something to do. One time he was bored to a point that the usual methods wouldn’t fixed, so they set up a whole mystery in his room for him to solve without straining himself.
EVERYONE on the team has a story around biting someone that they were too young to remember but their parents thought were notable/hilarious. Spooker bit another kid while playing a game where everyone was an animal (~1yrs old - he was probably just teething, but his dad thought it was really funny), Ghost bit someone while he was being taken in after being found wandering in the woods (~7-8yrs old something his dads always noted as being a sign that he was a fighter— trying to spin it into a positive), Toast bit one of the servants who was taking care of him when they tried to pry as to why the usually chipper toddler was suddenly being so closed off (~4-5yrs old - his mother’s first red flag that something was happening to her children, but it would be another few years before anything was done about it), and Colon bit a doctor while dazed and waking up after a dental surgery (~7yrs - old his mother thinks it’s hilarious). They find it funny that THAT’S a distinct and notable thing they all have in common.
It’s really hard to get a babysitter for Woah. Options in the past have ranged from random teens in the paper (Woah just does whatever she wants since they can’t touch her), Maddie-Friend per Gertrude’s recommendation (overall really responsible, but usually busy with college or stalking), Spencer Acachalla to keep him from coming on missions after he forced himself onto the team (puts Woah on the coms while playing online games to make them think a six-year-old girl is destroying them… also managed to burn water), Poppy Soup per Spooker’s request (she invited friends over without realizing one of them was the ghost the team was after and got herself banned from babysitting… but was otherwise okay.), and Maxwell Acachalla (Colon was hoping it would be therapeutic. It actually kind of worked. He has no idea how to cook food.).
They have talked about starting a band, mostly as a joke. They kind of stopped talking about it when they realized they would technically be a boy band.
Everyone in the team is actually pretty okay at cooking. Spooker is the most skilled at cooking a lot of food at a time for a group of people, of course, but that’s not the only needed skill. Toast has an incredible attention to detail when picking out ingredients but struggles at measuring time, Ghost is adept at using replacements when lacking specific ingredients but doesn’t keep track of the level of nutrients he’s taking in at a time, and Colon is incredible at making a little go a long way but gets easily overwhelmed in a large kitchen. Also, Spooker most struggles at cooking for just himself, often making wayyy too many leftovers.
Casket will sometimes bore and start poking around with stuff if he can’t find anyone after finding himself in control with Ghost’s body. That’s how the team walked in on him trying and failing to sing Karaoke with Ghost’s hoodie around his neck like a cape after they left Ghost at home for a mission because he had a migraine. This was the most humanizing moment Spooker and Colon have ever had with Jimmy Casket. It was also incredibly embarrassing for Jimmy. He tried killing Toast for managing to get pictures and everything devolved into chaos, but Toast ultimately won.
Everyone tends to wear different styles outside of work than they do in work. Toast actually prefers to dress down and wear more casual, rugged, and loose-fitting clothes. Spooker likes colorful, flowing stuff with sparkles and loose bits. He has also done some bedazzling of some of PIE’s tools. Colon likes wearing a bit of an academia look or business casual and enjoys jewelry. The only exception is Ghost, nothing on the planet will get him to part from styling his entire outfit around an oversized hoodie and thick-soled combat boots. They only ever look coordinated when they’re on the clock.
They celebrate Halloween like no one’s business. They also Hate Halloween because of the spike of absurd cases— both fake and real. It’s kind of hard to tell someone they’re overreacting when there IS a chance that SOME GHOST is crazy enough to do JUST ABOUT ANYTHING just because it’s Halloween.
Thanks for asking, and I hope your week has improved as much as possible since you sent that ask <3
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feely-touchy · 1 month
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I wished all the frogs I kissed
Would turn me green with envy
That maybe I could learn to be amphibious and happy
That I could somehow breathe with my head held underwater
While my screams come bubbling up
Befitting of a princess
Keeping my composure once the guillotine is done
Yet at night I pray to long dead stars and angels
That tomorrow would see me reborn
But I am only human
The mirror tells me so
There's no crown for second place
There's no holy space where I could go
If I don't forgive my body
Then peace, I'll never know
Still all I ever want is to strip down to my skivvies
Dive headfirst into the swamp
Find myself my people
Be where I belong
Sink to the bottom of the silt to be buried
Staying if I want
Holding my breath for hours
Pretending that I'm gone
And if I return I will be met with celebration
A chorus of, "Love, tell us what is wrong?"
Even though I cannot answer
I'll be safe from harm
Something close to normal, or the best that I could hope for in this life
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poursomesunaonme · 2 years
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writer appreciation !!
@maries-gallery sent out a post months ago that i forgot to rb with my own so i just decided to post myself hehe
anyways, my gal @maries-gallery never fails to immerse me in whatever scenes she writes ! u constantly amaze me babe and yall when she throws that good good french dirty talk into her fics… i MELT
@ob-levi-on if anyone can make me simp for giyuu more than i already do, it’s cielo. her characterization is on point ! works wonders when my imagination runs a little short >:)
@princess-jaeger / @erenergic if anyone needs an eren fic, ill send aleks’ entire masterlist. she never fails to astound me with her creativity and plot and dear god this shit is THICK with content so GOGOGO
@cyancherub cassie dear GOD cassie’s entire masterlist is god-tier. anything. literally anything. the amount of kinks ive discovered for myself while reading their work - embarrassing.
@killerbananas in addition to being one of the most wonderful human beings ive ever met (and helping me start this blog all those months ago), i can dive headfirst into a literal sentence that kb writes. the vocabulary??? the grip on language??? i am always in awe.
@lacheri who knew that i could fall in love with levi so many times ? cherry’s masterlist is chock-full of goodies that i need to reread every month otherwise i’ll keel over and die
@whats-her-quirk my jean-bo sisterwife - just when i think i can’t love jean more, juney hits me with the most scrumptious shit ever to hit tumblr’s dash
@thegetoufather ever need a thousand feelings while reading something ? try out aman’s masterlist. never have i blushed and cried so many times in one sitting.
@postwarlevi eliza’s mind !!! dear god !!! my heart skips a beat at her work :’) you can tell how big of a heart she has in how much her writing lifts your spirits
@bakatenshii … i have no words. jk i have thousands. angle’s work has me on a whole other plane of existence. who knew i would be comatose on the floor with a literal paragraph???
@bokutosdove in addition to being one of the funniest people on the mf planet, no one has me simping over beefcakes more than lani ! (seriously tho if u ever need reaction media, hit my baby up)
@putridsimp my fellow monsterfucker and villain apologist, no one gets the gears grinding for those hoes more than the queen of the swamp. pls go peep putrid’s masterlist bc you don’t get to see this kind of content around
@kweenkatsuki cycling through laughing, crying, and horny is just the regular for reading one of marq’s works. just INCREDIBLE
@heavenlyres yall know the feeling of moving with a piece? thats every time i read one of L’s fics. capturing motion is hard imo but L just has such a grip on language its UNREAL
and to anyone ive forgotten, you’re all incredibly amazing. any work that you put into whatever you do is worth it. your talents don’t go unnoticed - so don’t ever give up on what you love doing, as much as it may seem to be exhausting. kith kith
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littleastrobleme · 1 year
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I READ 22 BOOKS IN 2022!
Which isn't a lot, but I was also recovering from genuinely brain-shattering burnout after finishing my master's thesis last year.
"Hey," the observant among you might be saying, "don't you like polary boaty stuff? Where's Franklin and da Crew?"
That's where the burnout comes in, friend! In order to keep myself from resenting the historical topics I research any more than I already did after doing a whole stressful thesis, I expressly avoided reading polar topics for a while and decided to dive headfirst into mostly fiction reading. Short comments on each book below the cut for those interested :)
The Bone Seeker, M. J. McGrath *****
McGrath's Inuit sleuth Edie Kiglatuk is a real delight to read, and McGrath does a really interesting job incorporating Inuit culture into the mysteries she writes. These stories are a quick but compelling read!
The Butchering Art, Lindsay Fitzharris *****
Yes, reading about Victorian medical practices is skin-crawling, but Fitzharris's detailed dive into the career of Joseph Lister and the development of germ theory was page-turningly fascinating.
Written in Bone, Sue Black *****
Sue Black's autobiographical dives into the world of forensic anthropology are both heartbreaking and enthralling. Favorite piece of trivia: sesamoid bones--bones in our bodies as tiny as sesame seeds, hence the name!
The Third Rainbow Girl, Emma Copley Eisenberg ***
Eisenberg's investigation of the murders of two young hippie women in West Virginia is half true crime story, half memoir. Unfortunately, I didn't particularly enjoy the memoir parts, so it took me the better part of a year to actually finish the book. If you like memoirs more than I do, give it a try!
Strange Children, Sadie Hoagland ***
Hoagland's exploration of teens living in a polygamist cult is interesting, but not exactly an optimistic book...this was the first book I read in 2022 and I think it set a precedent for "downer books" the rest of the year!
Swamplands, Edward Struzik ****
Struzik's discussion of swamps, bogs and other wetlands is incredibly fascinating and poignant, but the discussion of hideous crimes against the natural world due to ignorance or corporate greed was so demoralizing I actually couldn't finish the book, as interesting as it was. I do still recommend it, although it is heartbreaking.
Nightmare in Savannah, Lela Gwenn et al **
This graphic novel about teen vampires was, to my artistic tastes, sometimes lazily illustrated and the story was kind of disjointed. The premise, however, was pretty cool.
Little Sister Death, William Gay *****
William Gay is one of my favorite authors, but he's not an author I can read uncritically; as a "southern writer of a certain time," shall we say, he sometimes writes about women and people of color in ways I can't jive with. However, Gay's prose evokes the southern landscape in a way that is familiar yet utterly magical to me, so I guess he's my "problematic fave"? He is also a great hater of quotation marks, which I'm sure also turns people off :')
Passersthrough, Peter Rock **
This story has some interesting themes of liminal spaces that exist when we want or need them to, but the dialogue felt kind of unrealistic to me and I didn't feel like the characters in the book acted the way real people would act.
A Children's Bible, Lydia Millet **
Millet's story about rich teenagers living through an apocalyptic storm (but it's also Da Bible??) felt kind of like it was written by someone who had only heard of teenagers as a concept and has never met one. The dialogue didn't feel human and I didn't like any of the characters.
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison *****
Toni Morrison writes the most evocative, heartbreaking prose. Her characters, even the most despicable, feel achingly human. This book destroyed me [complimentary].
Of Love and Other Demons, Gabriel Garcia Marquez ***
Marquez's magical realist worldbuilding renders the past a gorgeous and mysterious world of magic, but I couldn't really get over the squick factor of a "tween girl-adult man relationship" plotline.
Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt *****
I had made it to my mid-twenties without reading it despite this being a popular school reading book in the United States. This brief but poignant exploration of an immortal family and their mortal friend had beautiful and clean-cut prose.
The Lighthouse Witches, CJ Cooke *****
Cooke's story of an artist and her daughters living in the real shadow of a lighthouse and the figurative shadow of Scotland's historical violence against women accused of witchcraft was a rather suspenseful read (and although the teenage girl character didn't always feel realistic, for the most part, the characters felt like people).
Beauty is a Wound, Eka Kurniawan *
TW: mentions of SA.
I genuinely think this is one of the most dreadful books I've ever read, and I have no idea why I finished it. Kurniawan's book uses the shield of being """metaphorical""" as an excuse for him to write hundreds of pages worth of SA against women and girls--the book genuinely feels more like him working out his violent sexual fantasies on paper than it does a "magical realist history of the Japanese occupation of Indonesia." I understand that this history is a violent one, but Kurniawan's nigh-loving depictions of violence against girls turned me off of ever reading something he's written again. UGH.
Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead ***
Whitehead's prose is always beautiful, empathetic and humanizing; I didn't enjoy this book or get into the plotline as much as I did Nickel Boys or The Underground Railroad, but Whitehead is still a master of language. I never thought descriptions of furniture could be so compelling, but that's Whitehead for you!
Salt Magic, Rebecca Mock and Hope Larsson ****
Mock and Larsson's graphic novel adventure following a young girl trying to save her family from a witch's curse is so beautifully illustrated I could weep. I wish that the world of witches in the story had been explored a bit more, but it was still a beautiful and heartfelt adventure (I love a "scrappy little girl" protagonist)!
The Prince and the Dressmaker, Jen Wang ***
Wang's story of a prince who cross-dresses and the dressmaker who helps make his dreams come true somehow came up short for me. I think I was hoping it would end up, I dunno, more trans? Than it did? It was still a very heartfelt story with beautiful illustrations.
Stories from the Attic, William Gay ****
I can kind of see why these stories were squirreled away in an attic; aside from being incomplete, they are some of Gay's more violent and angry works. William Gay can write one character extremely well, and that is The Worst Man You Have Ever Met [derogatory]. In a way, Gay's clever, floral descriptions of malicious and mean-spirited hicks, men he can write really well but never fully sympathizes with, is a really interesting dive into toxic southern masculinity. Now, it doesn't exactly make for light reading! However, I will probably start saying "shitfire" and "they goddamn" because of him. I can't say I could recommend this to someone who wasn't already a fan of Gay's work; try another book of his if you really want to read his prose.
Blacklands, Belinda Bauer ****
Bauer's harrowing real-life inspiration, the despicable Moors Murders of the 1960s (which claimed the lives of five children), is transformed through her very sympathetic prose into the fictional story of a young boy trying to find his murdered uncle's body by corresponding with the killer. The story is suspenseful and realistic, and our main character Steven is, in short, just a good kid.
What Moves the Dead, T. Kingfisher ****
T. Kingfisher's story, a take on "The Fall of the House of Usher," features some wonderfully squicky body horror and is an interesting reinterpretation of Poe's tale. However, both too much and too little time were spent on the worldbuilding of the fictional country the story was set in for so short a book, and I found myself wondering at the end who most of the characters even were and what made them tick. If you like neopronouns, this book features pronouns invented for the fictional culture therein.
The Hollow Kind, Andy Davidson *****
Is this cosmic horror? Southern gothic? Davidson's book was incredibly suspenseful and well-written, but kind of crapped out in the last thirty or forty pages. Despite an anticlimactic ending, the story of a woman and her son trying to create a new life for themselves on a haunted turpentine plantation was thrilling and empathetically written.
Would you read any of these? Have you already? I can't say I enjoyed every book I read this year, but I'm certainly glad I read the vast majority of them! Thank you for joining me for this literary breakdown of 2022!
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ecologwu · 3 days
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kahin · 2 years
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i could get into BSD but the authors names are enough to put me off. also trying to search for content of the actual authors is like diving headfirst into a swamp trying to search for a lost necklace or something
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msclaritea · 3 years
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I am just guessing the movie will be a remake of Swamp Thing? 🤔
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palem8 · 3 years
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just how life be sometimes
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julek · 3 years
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inspired by @valdomarx‘s post 
Geralt’s fought many monsters throughout the course of his life. He’s studied them closely, gathering information about their weak spots and their strenghts, the causes of their existence and the consequences their actions leave in their wake. He’s thoroughly injured many of them, leaving the monsters no other choice than to flee, to exile themselves into oblivion. He’s killed many, as well, mainly the lesser creatures, whose understanding of the living and their intentions is so basic and sparse, not even a patient and dedicated Witcher can make them leave without spearing silver through their bodies. He’s seen monsters, felt them against his skin, carried their severed heads or dangling limbs as proof. 
He’s never talked to one.
Sure, he’s sat down on a mushroom-covered log and gesticulated wildly at a group of trolls that were very keen on not leaving the pond they’d taken residence in; he’s screamed at a noonwraith to stop dancing around him and finally take a corporeal form; he’d even tried, early in his training, to engage in conversation with a particularly stubborn drowner, to no avail. Talking to monsters for anything other than bargaining their leave, or allowing them a few last words —or screams, or growls— had never been Vesemir’s indication, not to Geralt’s recollection.
Well, it hadn’t been. Not until Jaskier came along. 
Geralt has never had anyone trail after him with such innocent curiosity, smelling of jasmine and sweat but not of fear — never fear. He’s never had someone test his patience and his very extensive knowledge on monsters daily, never had to explain why both Basilisks and Harpies had wings, but they weren’t pretty little birds who just wanted to be loved, Jaskier. 
He’s never had anyone pull at his heartstrings the way Jaskier has, either. 
It’s infuriating, really; he’s a Witcher, he’s never wanted anything for himself. Never found something worth keeping. But when Jaskier makes it clear he’s not leaving, not even if Geralt comes to him smelling of death and decay, twigs and blood and something else entwined in his hair, Geralt finds himself stuttering, his breath catching in his throat. He never asked —never would— but Jaskier gave him an answer anyway. It’s in the way the corner of his lips go up whenever Geralt gives in and makes a joke, it’s in the way Jaskier’s body seeks his warmth during the night, inevitably tangling their legs together. It’s in the way Jaskier’s eyes light up when they reunite after the winter, nothing but pure joy and relief overwhelming Geralt’s senses as he’s wrapped in a warm embrace.
It would be awfully presumptuous of Geralt to dive headfirst into his own feelings without being sure Jaskier feels the same, but that doesn’t stop him. He finds himself stealing glances at the bard during his performances, watching him in his element. He starts to ration their food to favor the bard, almost subconsciously, always giving him the juiciest pieces of meat and the freshest fruit he can find. He catches himself offering Roach the minute Jaskier’s scent turns sour with pain, either from a roaring hangover or from walking in those gods-awful boots he insists on wearing, the ones that accent his breeches and pair really well with the color of his hair—
And just as he’d feared, Geralt starts losing focus. Important things slip from his mind, and anything that doesn’t involve Jaskier’s choice of soap or doublet or undershirt flies right over his head at a worring pace. It’s not a curse, that he knows with certainty. The pull he feels in his gut whenever Jaskier’s away has nothing to do with magic, the feeling of contentedness that stretches over his chest when they’re together is not potion-induced. 
They’re in a small hamlet near Vizima when Geralt snaps.
It’s dark, stars reflecting on the swamp. Geralt’s sitting behind a log covered in moss, not far from where he first heard footsteps approaching. He’s stalking a zombie, which is an easy task even though he hasn’t encountered many over the years. From what he’s gathered, zombies are rather innocuous, non-sentient creatures, usually in search of bones or small animals to take to their Bokor, their creator, whom they submit to. He’s not sure if such a small town could even host such a powerful sorcerer, but he’s not ready to rule out that possibility yet. 
The zombie staggers across the forest floor, its movements slow and uncoordinated. It’s muttering something under its breath as it bends down to grab a small spider, crushing it between its bony fingers. The zombie stands tall again, but stills as Geralt’s sword is pressed against its exposed breastbone, the zombie’s eyesockets boring into Geralt’s face.
“Show me your hands,” Geralt grunts, careful not to press his sword too far, lest the creature dissolves under its weight. 
Surprisingly, the zombie nods and puts its hands up, rotting flesh hanging from its fingers. They’re empty, and Geralt thinks he’s caught it just at the beginning of its hunt. He crouches down to check the ground, sword still in hand.
“You smell terribly, by the way. Jaskier would surely recoil,” he says with a chuckle, his mind conjuring up the image of Jaskier’s nose scrunching up in disgust. “Yes, if he were here, he’d kill you in a heartbeat, just to get away from the stench. Then he’d write a song about it, so your reputation would be truly lost.”
He picks up the spider corpse and inspects it closely. 
“He’s very delicate, you see,” he tucks the spider away in his pocket, “like a flower. I’m no poet, but he really is beautiful like a flower. A rose, maybe.”
He stands tall, ignoring the way the zombie’s mouth hangs open. 
“Yes... a rose is pretty and smells good,” he reckons, leaning his weight on the zombie’s chest. “Jaskier always smells good, and he always looks beautiful. And he’s so good to me, you know. He sees good in everyone. I’m sure he’d even see something good in you.”
The zombie hums, a low sound slowly making its way out of the zombie’s mouth, but Geralt cuts it off with a dreamy sigh.
“And it’s just so hard to work now. I can’t even concentrate during a hunt, because he’s made a habit of hugging me before a contract, for luck, you know, and when I move too fast I catch his scent on my skin, and I just can’t—”
“Kill,” the zombie slurrs, its face twisting with effort to get the word out.
Geralt’s eyes widen, golden slits shining in the dark. “Did you just speak to me?”
The zombie ignores him and moves its hand up, aiming for a weary gesture.
“J-just... kill me,” it pleads. “Please.”
Geralt frowns. He can’t recall the last time —if ever— he’s had a monster request him to end their existence. He usually has to fight his way through, and there’s more blood and guts and swords involved. Modern times, he thinks, everyone’s a critic.
He shrugs and drags his sword up, splitting the zombie in two. It falls gracelessly to the ground, and Geralt can swear he hears the bones rattling in relief. 
“Rude,” he says as he gathers the bones in a bag, proof to take to the alderman. He’s never had a monster critique his hunting technique, so he’s not sure how to react — what would Vesemir say, hearing a zombie speak to him like that?
He clicks his tongue and makes his way out of the forest. In the distance, he can see a candle burning in the top window of the inn, can almost imagine Jaskier trying not to fall asleep to hear all about his heroics the minute he walks in. 
He smiles, and makes a mental note to add to his bestiary. Zombies — sentient. Eager to engage in conversation. Nosy. 
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seven-waters-hc · 3 years
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Hi Sep!
I would like to request the same fight idea like Sanji and Shanks but for Marco with a female reader!
Why do I have the feeling this is turning into a series? It's just so so good and I love to read your ideas!
Thanks a lot (◍•ᴗ•◍)✧*。
Of course 💐!
[thank you so much (´;ω;`)]
Fighting
<scenario>
<Marco x Fem!reader>
<~590 words>
Marco hadn’t been paying attention to you at all lately and it was starting to get on your nerves. You knew he was usually buried in work as a first division commander, but he always made time for you two. But now his routine was waking up, working, and going to bed. It’s been like this for 3 days now and you were starting to wonder if he was simply lying about the amount of work he had so he could get away from you.
On the fourth day, you decided to ask him what was going on. You enter his small office and watch him fiercely writing on papers, passing them from one mountain to the next. You come up to his desk and lean onto his chair.
“Marco, how much more work do you have?”
He doesn’t even pause to look at you.
“A lot-yoi.”
“Would you maybe come out for lunch?”
You hear him huff out a small sigh.
“Maybe if I get this finished. Could you please leave right now?”
Well, that kind of hurt.
“Sorry, I’ll leave.”
And with that, you quickly exit the office. You knew it was selfish of you to bother him but you just loved spending time with him. You do whatever chores you have around the ship while talking with the rest of the crew throughout the day, waiting for night to come so you could go to bed with Marco.
When the time finally comes and the sun had set, you make your way to bed and wait for Marco. Although you don't see him often in these recent days, you still had your nights together. You wait for Marco until you fall asleep- without him. And when you wake up he isn’t there either.
You were fed up with him ignoring you. Getting up, you once again enter his office.
“Marco, quit this. What is with you suddenly diving headfirst into all of this work and then not coming to bed last night? Are you tired of me?”
You watch him put his pen onto his desk and turn around to look at you. Did you hit the nail on the head? Had he finally gotten sick of you and wanted to break up with you?
“What the hell were you talking about? All I did was fall asleep in my office. I’ve been stuck on a huge project. Will you quit this?”
“You've never had this much work in all the time I’ve been with you, surely it must be something I did?”
“No, but it’s about to be with all of your weird paranoia. Look, once I’m done with this work in a bit, I’ll do whatever you want. Now let me finish.”
You walk out feeling like an idiot. Maybe he was just swamped in work. You read and wait for him. Just as you're about to finish the book, he comes in and lays down beside you.
“Sorry that I started ignoring you out of nowhere, that project was very stressful.”
God, you felt like a jerk.
“I’m sorry for overreacting, that was immature of me.”
You crawl up to him and plant yourself right next to his side, just glad to have him to yourself again. He puts an arm around you and picks up the book you were reading, putting it on the bedside table.
You two lay there for the longest time until dinner comes around. The food never tasted better now that your boyfriend was with you again.
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Sorry I’ve been neglectful about posting, school opened back up to 4 days a week and it was a huge change lol. Anyways, I’ll make sure to write as much as I can because that's the whole reason I started this blog. Summer is very soon though so I’m pretty stoked for that.
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nikibogwater · 3 years
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The Norse Chaos Chronicles: Chapter Four--In which by some Easter miracle, the Incompetent Vikings defeat the Elder
Been a few days since my last update in regards to Team Bogwater’s exploits in the world of Valheim. This is mostly because we actually had a couple of play sessions that were relatively calm.
We actually did manage to expand to the Black Forest across the sea and set up a functioning base there, where we lived in somewhat cramped quarters for a while until we had gathered enough minerals to enter the Bronze Age (and by cramped, I mean all three of us were crammed into what was basically a single king-sized bed because we failed to make the house big enough to accommodate a reasonable amount of space between each of our beds--clearly some home renovations are in order).
I, being a very kind and responsible sister, spent some time on the server by myself making our base more secure with Stake Walls, setting up a sufficient space for storage, and gathering food, all tasks that the others didn’t seem too excited to take care of. I was expecting the boys to notice and at least tell me that my additions were helpful.
I know for a fact that they at least noticed, because when I joined them for this most recent play session, Gustav had decided that what our base needed now was a spike pit around the front gate, which I know wouldn’t have occurred to him if I hadn’t put up the spiky walls. I was never told that my additions were helpful or appreciated, but considering that there were far fewer deaths happening close to our base, I suspect they were nonetheless. 
Niki: ...Is....Do we really need the spike trap? Like, is it necessary? Gustav: How could you even ask something like that?! I have never been more upset in my life.  Niki: It’s just...like, there’s a bridge that goes right over it. Gustav: Yeah. So we can get across it. Niki: Right but so could the Greydwarves. Gustav: Greydwarves aren’t that smart. (20 minutes later) Gustav, trying and failing to shove a Greydwarf into the pit: You guys, I may have overestimated how unintelligent Greydwarves are.
Gustav got exactly one (1) Greydwarf to fall into the pit and die. The only other thing he caught was Tripe. 
Okay, well, he did manage to get a Troll to walk into the spikes, but then it just smashed them all to pieces. It was at this point that Gustav finally accepted the reality of the fact that a spike pit was completely useless to us in this particular area.
Gustav, filling in the pit with rocks: Man, why didn’t one of you guys warn me that the spike trap was a dumb idea? Niki and Tripe: Yeah, that was our bad. 🙄 (10 minutes later) Niki, just peacefully mining copper in the forest: Wait, so where did the Troll go- *gets slammed by the Troll before I can even finish voicing the question* GUSTAV, WHY DIDN’T YOU KILL IT?!
Tripe and Gustav upgraded to Bronze Gear and Troll Hide (I brought mine over from my single player world to save time and resources). I was still trying to gather up enough Bronze to make a Cultivator so we could eat something other than Cooked Meat and Queen’s Jam, when suddenly I was informed that we were getting into a boat (we upgraded from the raft, finally) and going to kill the Elder.
Tripe: Get in losers, we’re going to kill the next boss. Gustav: *jumps in without any hesitation* Niki: Wait what?! That’s a terrible idea! (5 minutes later) Niki, sulking in the front of the boat: Did I mention this is a really bad idea? Gustav and Tripe: It’s fine. How bad can it possibly be?
Horrible. Absolutely horrible. That’s how bad it was. 
We had rather unlucky RNG with our world generation, and the Elder’s altar was a good 1,000 miles away from us. Which meant a significant portion of this play session was actually just sitting in the boat and watching the scenery pass. 
It sounds like a pleasant time, but I was absolutely terrified the whole way there. 
Gustav: ...Oh hey, we discovered the ocean. Niki, who has seen videos of Sea Serpents absolutely wrecking well-equipped players: BACK TO THE SHORE. GO BACK. DO NOT MOVE INTO OPEN WATERS. GUSTAV, FOR THE LOVE, GO BACK TO THE SHORELINE! (Passing a Plains biome) Niki: ...Did you guys know there are one-hit death bugs in the Plains Gustav and Tripe: Will you please calm down
We happened to run across Haldur the merchant shortly before reaching our destination. Since Valheim doesn’t tie your inventory to individual worlds, I went ahead and bought a few things to bring back to my single-player world (namely the fishing gear). I hopped off the server for a minute to transfer the items, and while I was in my world, I grabbed some extra food (the boys are terrible about keeping food in their inventories) and, since I figured we’d need all the help we could get, grabbed a few jugs of mead without really paying attention to what effects they gave.
When I came back into the server, Tripe and Gustav were setting up our temporary base so we could reset our spawn points. Right. Smack. Dab. Next to the altar. As in, when the Elder spawned, he was going to basically be standing directly on top of it. 
Niki: ...You guys that seems like a poorly-conceived plan. Gustav and Tripe: No, it’s fine. Stop worrying. 
At this point, I was pretty resigned to the disaster that was inevitably going to unfold, so I just grabbed some wood and set up my own shack a decent ways away without making any further attempts to convince the other two. 
Gustav: Niki, where are you? We’re all ready. Niki: I just...I’ll be there in a minute, hold on. Tripe: What are you doing? Niki: ...I’m building a house. Gustav: YOU ARE BUILDING YOUR OWN HOUSE WHEN WE HAVE A PERFECTLY GOOD ONE RIGHT HERE?! RUDE! Niki: I DON’T WANNA RESPAWN AND THEN JUST IMMEDIATELY BE SQUISHED AGAIN, ALRIGHT?!
Houses built and weapons readied, we all gathered at the altar. I chucked the Ancient Seeds into the flame and immediately booked it out of the vicinity as fast as my meaty Vikings legs could carry me, frantically downing a jug of mead as I went. The Elder spawned in and within seconds, absolute carnage reigned supreme.
Gustav died within the first two minutes and spent the next ten trying to make it back to his grave. Which he couldn’t really do because his respawn point was right next to the Elder, and emerging from the house naked of all armor and gear was basically an instant death sentence.
Gustav: I’ve died six times trying to get my gear back. We really shouldn’t have built the house this close to the altar. Niki, why didn’t you warn us? Niki, fleeing from the massive thorny vines that the Elder is trying to impale her on: I hate you guys so much right now.
I was hanging back as much as I could, dealing damage with my Finewood Bow, but the Elder has a huge range of attack, and it had me down to single digits in health within less than a minute. And it was at this point that I realized I had majorly screwed up.
The mead that I had been frantically chugging in hopes of gaining better health regen? It was actually slowing my health regen and only increasing my stamina.
Niki: YOU GUYS THE MEAD WAS A MISTAKE. OH MY GOSH, IT’S MINUS FIFTY HEALTH REGEN, NOT PLUS! OH CRAP CRAP CRAP--I’M LITERALLY SLOSHED OVER HERE! Gustav: WAIT, NIKI CAME INTO THIS FIGHT DRUNK?! Niki: I DIDN’T NOTICE THE MINUS SIGN!!!! *yeets the rest of the mead into the ocean before meeting my first demise at the hands of the Elder*
Miraculously, I only died twice during the fight (again, mostly because my respawn point was away from the altar, meaning I had a clearer path back to my graves when I respawned). I have no idea how many times the other two died. Towards the end we were also being bombarded by hoards of Greydwarves, which only made things ten times worse.
Gustav: Have either of you seen my corpse? I mean, I have several lying around here at this point. 
I don’t even know how we managed it, but we did finally take out the Elder and received our Swamp Keys. We all stood around the scene of destruction for a minute, just kind of collecting ourselves. 
Tripe: ...I feel like that could’ve gone better. Gustav: Yeah.  It’s just, Niki goes and does all this research and watches videos and then she doesn’t bother to tell us not to put our house so close to the- Niki: *punches him*
The trip home was blessedly uneventful. Tripe did decide to cut across the ocean instead of following the shoreline in order to save time. I was 90% certain we were all going to be eaten by a Serpent, but we were fine. 
We made it back to our camp only to find a Greydwarf Shaman mucking around in our front yard.
Gustav: What is he--is he barfing on our house...? NO, HE’S SMASHING THE CART! OH YOU SON OF A-- *takes a flying leap out of the boat and tears through the shallows, furiously waving his spear*
The Shaman poisoned Tripe, who had a mild panic attack because his respawn point was still back at the Elder’s Altar, and if he died now he would have to walk all the way back here. 
Tripe, with 1 HP left: NO I’M NOT DYING LIKE THIS! *dives headfirst into the nearest bed*
So yes. That is what I was doing this weekend, in case any of you were wondering where I disappeared to. I am hoping to spend some time working on ToA stuff today, but I again, I think it is important to record these events for posterity...and perhaps as a cautionary tale for others.
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katrinawritesthings · 3 years
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my favorite jonghyuns: this bright firecracker
i love this junghee!!! she just has so much bright bubble gum pink she is energy!!!
like from the moment she enters she is a blur of pink diving headfirst onto her stomach on the couch and smiling at key with her chin in her hand. from the moment she enters i am in love
i love that she instantly starts monologuing about her pokemon and i love that she makes big loud noises for her big loud emotions and i love that she wails through the house for key to save her from tiny little spider and i love that she has song samples just saved as numbers on her computer
i love that their eyes eyes sparkle!! i love that her smile is boxy and bright and contagious!!! i love that she swamps herself in giant turtlenecks!!! i love that her speaking voice is dark and sparkly and her humming voice is peachy pink!!! they just have so much like. energetic physicality to them. just in the way that they are and the way that she acts and the things that she does like!!! it radiates off of her and makes me feel !!! also
and i love her curiosity and the way she is so carefree and easy going in her acceptance!! it feels very warm in my heart how easy it is to be comfortable with her and the reverse is also true with how carefree and easy going she is in her own queerness like. "i think it smells like lesbianism” icon??? their entire little conversation about the end????? the essence of being gay 
this junghee really just feels like a shot of she is era straight into the bloodstream and that is so so so wonderful uwu
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mst3kproject · 3 years
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Bog
Imagine Creature from the Black Lagoon but made by the creative (for lack of a better word) team behind The Giant Spider Invasion.  That’s Bog.
Bog Lake is the type of little nowhere town that looks as if it ought to have a local cryptid, like the Flatwoods Monster or Mothman… and sure enough, tourists who come to fish in the lake are getting drained of blood by some creature with a chitinous proboscis!  The police are baffled, the locals are buying guns, and the coroner straightfacedly suggests it might be Count Dracula.  The only person who seems to really know what’s going on is The Old Hag of the Woods, and she claims that the swamp monster is some kind of ancient god.  Once awakened, it must feed on blood before it can return to the slime at the bottom of the lake and sleep for centuries more.  At this point, the viewer is probably expecting something like the Giant Leeches crossed with Cthulhu, but the truth manages to be even cheaper than a Corman film and, unfortunately, infinitely rape-ier.
Why does this movie remind me so much of the works of Bill Rebane?  The main reason is probably the 70s soft focus and the midwestern accents, but there are quite a few points that spark specific memories of The Giant Spider Invasion.  The movie’s heroes are two people in at least their forties, in which the woman is a more qualified scientist than the man.  The married couples we see are totally dysfunctional and dissolving in booze. A shotgun-wielding mob forms and chases the monster towards the instruments of its demise.  There’s even a middle school chemistry classroom that stands in for a laboratory (I particularly enjoyed the fact that this, which presumably represents a room in the town morgue, has a map of the moon on one wall) and science that starts out grounded in reality but then dives headfirst into bullshit while hollering “cowabunga!”
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On the other pedipalp, there are also ways in which Bog is notably better than The Giant Spider Invasion, most of which have to do with the characters.  Admittedly, these do not get off to a good start.  The first people we can really be said to meet are two assholes who have come for the camping and fishing, and their wives who have come to complain.  The couples clearly hate each other and we can’t imagine why they ever got together in the first place, and each individual is kind of an idiot.  I won’t complain too much, though, because the crabby wives get eaten almost right away and the asshole husbands fulfill their plot function by bringing it to the attention of the authorities and then follow their spouses out of the movie.  Good riddance.
The real characters are the Sheriff, Ginny the Coroner, and Brad the Doctor.  None of them are exactly likable but they come across as the sort of very ordinary people you’d probably meet in your day-to-day life and while they’re not your close friends, you don’t dislike them.  Ginny is of an appropriate age for her position of authority, and her colleagues treat her with the respect she is due.  Her romance with Brad is clearly something that’s been going on for a while now and doesn’t suddenly develop over the course of a weekend, and the two of them are close in age.  All three of these characters behave in a professional manner and seem to have good working relationships, which is a breath of fresh air.  Far too many movies try to insert unnecessary drama by having characters who hate each other for no reason.
The best of the three is actually the Sheriff, who is one of a very few small-town movie sheriffs who actually seems to take his job seriously.  Aldo Ray used to be a real actor, and you can tell – he plays the Sheriff a with nice everyman quality and a great deal of integrity.  This unfortunately makes it all the more puzzling when the character suddenly runs off to fight the monster with fisticuffs and gets killed for it. Brad says it was in the Sheriff’s nature to do this but it doesn’t seem to match the sensible and down-to-earth characters we’ve seen so far.
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I got the impression, actually, that the Sheriff was what was keeping the movie sane because after he dies it starts getting weird.  Ginny does some scientific tests that consist mostly of pouring coloured liquids into Erlenmeyer flasks, and determines that the monster is made of cancer and molybdenum. If either of these facts have any effect on the plot I missed it, although I did imagine Crow deciding the monster was his long-lost relative.  Then we get into how it reproduces and things go right off the deep end.
You see, there’s only one of these monsters, and it’s a boy.  Fauxilla got around this through hermaphroditism, but the monster from Bog prefers the Humanoids from the Deep route.  If you’re lucky enough not to have seen Humanoids from the Deep, its fish monsters have decided they need human genes to speed up their evolution.  The monster in Bog does kind of the opposite, devolving humans to make them compatible with itself.  It does this by injecting a dose of its own blood into the victim and the result is a huge clutch of transparent spawn that Ginny describes as ‘not really a seed, not really an egg’, whatever that means.
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This, we later learn, is how the Swamp Hag knows so much about the creature – she’s apparently been its mate for hundreds of years! She dies attempting to warn the monster that it’s walking into a trap, which leads Brad and an ichthyologist to conclude that one effect of this infusion of monster hormones is that ‘the victim becomes willing’.  That is icky and I hope it doesn’t reflect the writers’ feelings about real-life situations of sexual assault.  The idea is intended to add urgency to the need to rescue Ginny from the creature.
Creature from the Black Lagoon never did give a reason why the titular monster was interested in kidnapping human women.  It was obvious enough that the Creature was supposed to be a sexual threat, but its quest was clearly doomed and it was not apparent why the women were attractive to it.  Humanoids from the Deep appears to have arisen from the brain of somebody who spent way too much time thinking about these questions and trying to come up with answers to them.  Bog decided its monster simply didn’t have any choice – there aren’t any other bipedal things around for it to mate with.  What neither of these movies realize is that the questions didn’t need answers to begin with.
There are things movies need to be explicit about, and slimy swamp creatures raping women is not one of those.  A lot of times, horror works better when the details are left to the viewer’s imagination, and the fact that Creature from the Black Lagoon doesn’t understand that it cannot get what it wants from its captives actually makes it worse. The writers of Saturn 3 did something similar with Hector the robot’s crush on Alex and while Saturn 3 was not a good movie overall, that aspect worked fine.  Going into the details just gives the audience an opportunity to think about how stupid it is.
It is worth noting that neither Creature from the Black Lagoon nor Saturn 3 felt a need to use the words the victim becomes willing, either.
The monster’s silhouette resembles a man in a fish costume he probably bought on Amazon, and it sounds like it doesn’t want to get up in the morning. I suspect that hidden in the poor lighting is something that would be a shitty movie monster classic on the order of The Giant Claw or the spidermobile from The Giant Spider Invasion, if only we could see it.  There are very few things I enjoy more than movies that are loud and proud of their abysmally cheap monsters, but sadly Bog doesn’t want to show off.
This is doubly a shame because a lot of this movie just drags. The bit with the scuba divers takes way too long for the payoff it gets.  Brad and Ginny’s makeout scene lasts way after we’ve gotten the point, whether or not it bothers you that the people doing the kissing are middle-aged. And anything with the two fishermen and their wives is not only slow, but annoying.  The movie is at its Giant-Spider-Invasion-est here, when everybody on screen is a repulsive caricature of a human being and you can’t wait for them to die.
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There may be a slight 70’s Nature’s Revenge angle to this film, in that the monster is apparently awakened by some idiot fishing with dynamite, but Black Lagoon is evidently the primary inspiration.  Unfortunately, all the things that made that movie enjoyable are missing here.  The monster doesn’t look particularly realistic or well-adapted to its environment. Attempts at suspense are just boring and the movie is unnecessarily explicit about things that should remain implied. Bog is not a complete write-off as bad monster movies go, but it’s not all that great either.
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aghoststorycomic · 4 years
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A GHOST STORY HAS UPDATED!! THIS IS THE END OF BOOK 2!
TODAY’S UPDATE: HERE START THIS CHAPTER: HERE START FROM THE TOP: HERE
SUPPORT A GHOST STORY ON PATREON
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A GHOST STORY IS A HIVEWORKS COMIC!
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well, that's that!
that's the end of BOOK 2 of A GHOST STORY and i am very pleased with how it ended AND how well the next story line is going over on patreon. i'm already diving headfirst into the next part. i'm really excited for it mostly because it wraps up all this shit about hands so i can stop focusing on drawing them so much.
as always, the end of a chapter means that i take a month off on the main feed while i rebuild my buffer in case of an emergency. in the meanwhile, every saturday you will get a black and white comic page for a short and very stupid comic about...an experiment. i hope you like it. its going to be dumb as hell.
there is a new poster for this chapter coming soon to the store. i have been working on it in between the many other things i've been working on. i would say it's about 70% done. i keep finding new things i want to add to it, so its kind of my fault its taking forever. but it looks nice! i think its my favorite one so far. the typesetting is going to be the real pain.
i am working on other projects and got swamped with real life (not literal) fires i had to put out this month that made working on things difficult so i'm catching up on like 5 different things at once.
if you would like to help me out, consider donating to patreon (especially so you can see these new pages, early, people have been commenting lately and i've been loving it) or showing people my comic. spread the word! i would appreciate it. now that i have two complete arcs i feel better about trying to throw it at people. when im in the middle of a story line it feels like im going "no i promise this is going places, i swear" to someone who has no reason to believe me.
thanks for reading. love you all.
it's been a crazy 7 years and 2 books.
can't wait for more! :D
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donkeybro · 3 years
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I dare tommy to dive headfirst into a muddy swamp
*Tommy does just that*
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Complexities Unknowable- Chapter One
Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23274334/chapters/55737937
MasterPost
Okay so- Second ever fanfiction! And it’s a series! I’m planning on having 7 chapters, and I promise this time I won’t wait a month to post anything! 
Relationships: Established Relationship Dukeceit, eventual intrualiceit, background analogince.
Warnings: Remus Says Things, everyone is sympathetic (but there are some misunderstandings and misconceptions about each other at first), food mention, Things will be sad and they will get more sad but then they will get much less sad very quickly as this story progresses (sorry idk how to tag chapter fics??? on tumblr???), cursing, lmk If I missed anything.
Word Count: 1,563
Feedback is welcomed and encouraged
Patton didn’t hate the dark sides. Patton hardly hated anything! He just thought they had more… problematic ways of problem solving. It wasn’t like they were unbearable, they were just flaws, and everyone has flaws! Perfectly normal. Patton just found it difficult to pick out the redeeming qualities, but they were probably there. Somewhere deep, deep down, there was something, so of course he didn’t hate them. And hypothetically, supposing he did, he would never say something like that out loud. 
Which brought him to now. He was standing stock-still in the kitchen, holding the electric mixer, looking at a scene fit for a renaissance painting. He’d just come back from retrieving the mixer from the hall closet (for whatever reason that he couldn’t parse out), only to find Remus and Deceit in the middle of some kind of kerfuffle, to put it lightly, on top of the counter. Remus was leaning precariously on the edge of the counter, one of his legs somehow stuck all the way inside a cabinet in order to maintain his balance. In his hands were what appeared to be piles of torn open tea bags and coffee grounds. Deceit was hunched over the counter in front of him, all of his arms grappling desperately to keep the gremlin-man’s hands away from his gnashing teeth. 
“-No, sssstop! You know that caffeine makes you feel like garbage, you idiot!” 
“Hot garbage, maybe! I need it to focus on the experiment I’m running!”
Remus broke one hand free and scooped a handful of coffee grounds into his mouth, cackling. Deceit promptly tackled him off the counter and onto the floor, resulting in several appliances falling and a very loud crash. It was at that point Patton realized he should probably intervene before the kitchen burned down. This was uncharted territory, so he resorted to what he usually did when the sides fought. He went Dad Mode™. 
“Boys!” 
Deceit and Remus both stopped dead, their heads snapping up simultaneously to look at Patton in shock. 
Deceit pushed himself up immediately and dusted himself off. He surveyed the room with a quick glance, his eyes blown wide. 
“I apologize for our disruption.” He snapped perfunctorily, sounding not very sorry at all. The trait slipped across the kitchen to grab the broom, returning to bap Remus on the head with it before attempting to sweep up the mess they’d made.
Patton didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t that. Thankfully, he knew exactly what to do when someone tried to clean his kitchen (familiar territory at last!). He put on his best awkward smile and set down the mixer that he’d been clutching anxiously to his chest.
“Aw, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of all this.” Patton reached for the broom; Deceit practically threw it at him in his haste to keep distance between them. The reptilian side gave a short nod of acknowledgement. Remus, meanwhile, had pulled himself up from the floor and grinned. He clambered back up onto the counter and sat cross legged. 
“Hey, thanks! I was sure you were gonna, like- disembowel us and pull a Sweeney Todd!”
Patton surely looked as horrified as he felt about that comment, because Deceit was looking between him and Remus of them nervously. He grabbed his partner’s arm and ducked his head to whisper something to him. Whatever it was, Remus just scrunched up his nose and shook his head. Patton kept his eyes down and just hoped they’d ignore him and get on with their business.
There was an awkward pause as the moral side fixed all his attention on sweeping, every now and then catching a glimpse of Remus sneakily reaching for another tea bag only to have his hand swatted away by Deceit. They seemed to be having an entirely silent conversation.
“Um, well, I was about to get started on some cookies, if you guys want to… help?” Patton had no idea what, exactly, he was doing. He always offered to let Logan or Roman or Virge help him in the kitchen, cooking was a favorite hobby in the fam-i.l.y.! It seemed like only the polite thing to do, and he really wasn’t sure why the dark sides were still. Here. Patton tried really hard to convince himself that he didn’t regret offering, because that would be mean, and he wasn’t mean. That was their job!
“Fuck yeah!” Remus called at the exact time that Deceit spat, “No, thank you.” 
Patton winced at the language. Remus had a horribly mischievous look in his eyes, and Deceit just looked uncomfortable. The two exchanged a few more whispered arguments, after which Deceit pulled Remus down from the counter and hassled him across the kitchen. 
“Well, we’d just love to take up your totally sincere offer, but we really must be going.” Deceit hardly glanced over his shoulder as he walked. Patton found himself torn between feeling relieved and offended. 
“Aww,” Remus groaned, begrudgingly letting himself be led away, “I love baking!”
“No, you don’t, you love making messes and destroying people’s things. Which is not a good impression to make, need I remind you.” 
That was… surprisingly considerate.
“Well- I’ll let you know when the cookies are done!” Patton called after them. Neither responded. 
To Patton’s credit, he did keep that promise. Well, not so much a promise as an off-handed remark that went ignored- but still, the side had principles. After spending plenty of time relaxing with Logan, Roman, and Virgil (eating copious amounts of baked-goods, of course), Patton snuck off to deliver some cookies to The Subconscious. He wasn’t the stealthiest, but he triple checked that nobody saw him before sinking out.
Rising into The Subconscious was like diving headfirst into a swamp. It felt like his lungs were filling up with muck, and he couldn’t much tell where he was going to appear. Pat could feel that he wasn’t meant to be here. He struggled up from the floor and into the living room, fighting down a wave of nausea.
The first thing that surprised Patton about the dark side commons was that it was perfectly well lit. The lighting was actually quite lovely, and there were several big, soft chairs underneath warm-looking lamps. The second thing that surprised Patton was the liveliness of the surroundings! Not a thing looked dusty or unkempt-  in fact, if it weren’t for the odd, grim objects decorating the room, it would have been downright delightful! 
The most surprising thing, however, was that Patton was not the only one there (which was a possibility he probably should have considered; he was just planning on leaving the cookies on the counter with a nice note). Curled into the corner of the couch, seemingly in the middle of a movie, were Deceit and Remus, looking absolutely astounded.
“Uh… hi?” Patton greeted uncertainly.
Deceit schooled his features into something less surprised and  untangled himself from Remus hurriedly. Sensing the hostility, Patton threw his explanation from his mouth like he was on a timer.
“So, I brought cookies! And, um, I figured that it would be empty and I was gonna leave them on the counter? But you’re having a little movie night, so, here’s cookies.” 
Patton saw the undisguised suspicion in Deceit’s eyes. Fine, if he was going to be that way, then he didn’t have to take the cookies. Remus, however, darted up immediately at the mention of food and appeared himself across the room. He grabbed the Tupperware and shoveled several of the cookies into his sharp-toothed maw. Patton tried (unsuccessfully) not to flinch away from the sudden proximity.
“Are you trying to poison us? Because if so, mission accomplished.” Remus spoke through a mouthful of chocolate cookie. Patton was equal parts disgusted and flattered.
Deceit had finally paused the movie and flitted across the room as well. The human side of his face was slightly flushed as he took the Tupperware from Remus, curling his lip to reveal long, dangerous-looking fangs. He proceeded to take a small bite of a cookie (Patton figured the snarling was some odd intimidation tactic (did he really think they were poisoned?!)). 
Patton felt a spiteful little jolt of triumph at the surprised look on the Deceit’s face, his eyes widening. The dishonest trait hummed appreciatively. 
"Thank you. This is actually- I mean, it's fine."
"Well,  you don't have to  act so surprised!" Patton said, managing a small laugh.
"We’re surprised because you don't usually come to this side of the mindscape, and never to do anything nice anyways. Razor blade cookies would make much more sense!" Remus, to Patton’s dismay, had seemed completely nonchalant about that comment. Beside him, Deceit merely shrugged, continuing to nibble the edge of a cookie. 
Patton wouldn’t hurt a fly! How on earth could they think he was the mean one? Oh, he had to show them how wrong they were! Although- did he really want the approval of two sides he… strongly disliked? All because he didn’t want anybody to think he was mean?
Yes, he did, he absolutely did want that.
“I’ll be sure to let you two know the next time I bake, then.” 
And he promptly got the hell out of there, the floor shimmering a light blue in his wake. He’d show them, in the sweetest, nicest, most-likable way possible.
Chapter 2 Link: https://tha-best-url-evar.tumblr.com/post/614327945408987136/complexities-unknowable-chapter-two
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