#i may...edit some of these down | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spectacular-supernova · 3 months

Note

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PRESIDENT OF TONARI CLUB!

I, uh, m-made something f-for you.

Know that I'm totally embarrassing my ass over here, so... Don't laugh loud enough that I can hear you from over here!

Aaaaaand now, per Lyndis tradition, I'm gonna overexplain shits and turn a simple Ask into a whole ass Ramble!

-----------------------------(why is there no "Read More" partition in an Ask? I'm so embarrassed right now goddamn it)-------------------------

If you're short-sighted, try removing your glasses or contact lenses and look at this picture. I just did and it's suddenly even prettier!

I actually planned to draw your Sonicsona at first. And then I realized I deadass couldn't even draw Base Sonic. Then I thought I should draw a mole. I realized I also couldn't draw a mole. I thought I should just go for the easiest shit and draw ToFu. I realized I could not draw either one of them, too.

Because I cannot draw, I cheat! I mean I turn things into shapes (chiefly triangles, though not all of them) and then color them and hope that something shows up. This is me using this scientific /+ philosophical concept called Emergence.

No, I didn't just say THAT to sound like I have a technique of any kind, trust. It's so totally a technique—my very productive ass told me.

I remember you saying your favorite color is something like pink, blue, and stuff? It was from that tag game from last year. Hence, I decided I should create a context so I could draw an obscene amount of pink and blue.

If I'm being honest, it took me less than a millisecond to come up with the exact context—Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom is abundantly blue.

And since I always wanted to sneak ToFu in, I thought I would make a purplish-pink dusk. And then I will sneak those stargazing two in.

Come on. Everyone knows those ToFu panels. Even someone like me, who had not seen that part of the manga yet, knows.

Bless Tonari for being so relaxing to color.

HOWEVER! Fushi's limited-ass color presented a big problem for my cheat-drawing. How many combinations of "white" can you even make before you zoom out and see... nothing?! So I basically sabotaged them. That's what you get for being difficult, you mopey, neck-crick-possessing, fragile-enough-to-be-blown-by-the-wind cutie doofus.

I made up the color of their pants. I didn't even refer to their Nameless Boy drip when I decided on the color. I assed that part.

Yes. I admit I put a shit ton of effort into coloring Zelda. This version of Zelda is my kin, you know. Anyway, I like the way her, uh, shirt turned out.

I also like how the Master Sword turned out, but there was so much blue I ended up requiring outlines to distinguish it from Link's shirt and the sky. Told ya I have no technique or skill. I cheat through and through

I was too lazy to draw those sky islands. Besides, the ToTK side is already saturated with details.

What the fuck issa "proportion?" Everyone's head is an orange. The difference, Nova, is whether it's a Mandarin Orange or an Orange.

I don't know if I overdid Dinraal's draconic mane. It looks like she's wearing a wig. At least she is different from how she initially looked—a red tapeworm outfitted with chicken legs.

I admit I put more effort than any Past Me would have into Dinraal because a certain mutual is very, ah, particular about dragons.

Drawing two of your favorite ships for their show of devotion was a completely deliberative choice on my end. Did you also realize that both Link and Fushi had a short, small, low ponytail and that both Zelda and Tonari had similar hair? I believe it's due to me hitting my drawing skill limitation.

There is actually an Easter Egg of some sort in this picture. It's not the ugly doodle thing, no. That thing is me. I'm not an Easter Egg; I'm a ghost.

I'm not telling you what that Easter Egg is. I'm fine with it never being discovered; it'd be like those secret levels in old video games.

But if you DID discover it, come tell me what you think it is!

---------------

I hope you like it enough! Instead of it giving you a migraine, that is. Surely my """art"""... doesn't require a trigger warning... right?

Have a good one, mai bruzha!

---Lyn

A RAMBLE FROM YOU LYN IS THE BEST POSSIBLE BRITHDAY PRESENT I COULD HAVE EVER RECEIVED!!!! COUPLED WITH ART BY YOU????? AND OF MY FAVORITE FELLAS????? What did I deserve to be so blessed ;A; 💕💕💕

I’ll spare us all a little extra scrolling on my part by adding that read more you were fretting about, I have my own ramble upcoming!

I KNOW YOURE ON YOURSELF ABOUT NOT BEING ARTISTIC OR WHATEVER BUT THIS IS ART!!! AND DAMN GOOD ART TOO!!!!!!! This is!!!!!!!!!!! I want this made into stained glass I want to make this the permanent window to me bed roOM LYN THIS IS AMAZING THIS IS ALMOST CERTAINLY GOING DOWN AS ONE OF MY FAVORITE ART STYLES!!!! There’s no such thing as cheating in art, it’s all art!!! “Cheating” is a style, no technique is a style!!! I should know I have none either, hehe -w-‘ your art may be some type of cubism? Hehe idk I’m not an art student :3 Either way this is absolutely gorgeous I’m in LOVE!!!

It’s so creative and well done and I LOVE your eye for detail, the lighting is inspired!!!! Like the way the sun hits the space behind Zelda is so pretty, AND ZELDA IS SO PRETTY!!!!!! EVERYRHING IS SO PRETTY, I CANT FOCUS ON ONE THING BECAUSE I KEEP JUMPING BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN ALL THE THINGS I LOVE ABOUT IT (every thing, every last detail!!! Is that a little you in the middle? Is that the Easter egg???? I could just pick you up and pat your little head!!! 😭 I know you don’t love hugs but that’s how I’ll be standing if you’re ever ready for one!!!)

I should slow down maybe and pick a few things to focus on BUT I JUST CANT I LOVE IT ALL!!!! The two scenes just blend so well into one another that my eyes are just naturally being drawn back and forth between both of the scenery! Dinraal, who turned out AMAZIING BY THE WAY, ABSOLUTELY NOT OVERDONE, if anything I’m so glad you had fun working on her!!! She’s so gorgeous!!!! I bet your friend is so so proud of how well she looks!!! Oh but anyway, Dinraal naturally leads my eyes over to the sun/moon (and the 24, hehe, thank you!!! /)//(\ Your memory is astounding!!), which have their own beautiful rays of light leading down onto the adorable couples 😭 I love love LOVE the moonlight leading down onto Tonari and Fushi, and the fact that she’s pointing at it too like she can almost reach it? Beautiful! Gorgeous!!! And it just leads my eyes down to them too, there’s just such a natural circular flow here, no wonder I keep getting caught in a loop of admiration! 😁

The blues and the pinks, and the stars on the ToFu side!!! I just noticed them and they’re everything to me!!!! Hahaha I’m so glad Tonari was relaxing to color hehe, same for me, something about her is just so lovely and calming when she’s relaxed 🥰 As for Fushi’s colors, I didn’t notice! Even after you pointed it out it looks good to me! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ this is from someone who never references colors though, I’m so loosey goosey about everything -w- BUT YOUR SOLUTION TO YOUR PROBLEM WAS GREAT, THEIR SHAPE IS VERY VISIBLE AND EASY TO MAKE OUT hehe :3 I love their crossed little legs 🥰

Zelda being your kin is so good to know hehe, I’ve always been drawn to all versions of Link myself! I think we’ve been perfectly set up to “play dolls” with these characters in the future, so to speak! Aaaahh they can’t have been easy to draw, there’s a reason I almost never dabble in drawing those two and their intricate outfits, but you make it look effortless!!! Zelda’s shirt turned out amazing, and I’m stuck looking at her little triangle braids!!!! I don’t know why I’m so fixated on that it’s just adorable!!! 😭💕 What a lovely technique, man, I’m so enchanted! AND THE MASTER SWORD, I know you called it cheating BUT I LOVE THE LINE WORK, it makes the sword stand out, almost like you lined that specific part with some sort of melted gold??? Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!

This is gorgeous and beautiful in every which way and thank you!!!! For everything!!! For this beautiful drawing and for giving me a chance to ramble and giving me something gorgeous to look at for the rest of my day, and for indulging in both of my silly little ships /)//(\ I’m so glad I don’t need glasses because I love every inch of your art, thank you thank you THANK YOU!!!!! Gosh it’s so so so lovely 😭💕 you’re so lovely!!!!

I don’t know how to say goodbye so I guess I’ll just say good night for now! Thank you for thinking of me… I’ll have a wonderful day, so long as you promise me you’ll have a wonderful night along side me 🥰

Goodnight, Mai Bruzha!

- Nova

#Lyn the Zelda Kin (I’ll come up with a better tag some day I PROMISE 💕 haha!!!)#Friend Rambles 💕💕💕#long post #IM SO STOKED YOU HAVE NO IDEA AAAHHHHHHHHHH KICKING MY FEET #I’m typing the tags before I actually type the main body heehee I’m gonna jump over the moon!!!!!#and thank you for the letter too I’ve been rereading it! I’ve been getting back into writing letters of my own and wow!!!#the quality of yours are amazing!! I may have to take a note or two on how to craft a good one that one was amazing!! and thank you :’)#ok editing: this nova back after her ramble in the body text #I’m sorry for how disjointed this all looks! I kind of tackled my response based on where I was looking at at any given time #and I wanted to get my reply back before you hit the sheets for the night!!! still it took me some time but I hope I made it!!!#ahhh Lyn I hope you rest well! I’m going to have an amazing birthday and you’re a contributing factor in that my friend.. Mai Bruzha!!!#I know for a fact I’m forgetting details too like just the fact that I love the idea of Tonari and Fushi chilling at night #chatting and looking at the stars and enjoying each other’s company. my favorite scenes of them are always them shrouded in darkness and #covered in some sort of fireside lighting I just!!!!!! they’re so good in the dark thank you for drawing them at night #they are a moon couple to me… and ZeLink is a sun couple to me like idk how you got all these details DOWN about me! maybe we see the world #similarly :3 good to know I have someone in the world who sees them the way I do 😁#aahhhh I’ll let you get off to sleep now dear friend!!! and thank you again! thank you thank you thank you!!!!#this is truly shaping up to be the best birthday ever!

16 notes · View notes

good-beans · 6 months

Text

(Milgram self-insert oc masterpost hehe)

Name: For the sake of posting online I’ll call her Rose!

Color: #E7355B [the pink in the art]

Age: I guess she’d be 20 given when Milgram started huh. Gross.

Status: Milgram Staff, Machine Technician

Symbols/imagery: ballet, musical theater, potted plants, board games, various bugs

Song genre: very similar to Mahiru's, something upbeat and extra pop-y

Tentatively she's number 011? She's not really prisoner but she's also not free to come and go, so I'm not actually sure if she'd get a number

Story: I figured since the project is supposed to be realistic/present day, the mv machine would be brand new and unpredictable tech, so they’d want someone keeping up on maintenance and making sure the brain-invasive process won’t cause any harm to the prisoners. She was studying abroad in Japan working on some cool neuroscience tech (irl I know nothing about technology or brains but shh) and she stumbled upon the Milgram team’s machine/plans. Long story short she was dragged into the experiment to make sure things ran smoothly.

Writer's Reasoning: She’s really fun for me to play around with, as she allows me to work with a character who is simultaneously trapped in the prison but hasn’t committed any murder**, someone who has a tiny bit of pull over Es’ mindset in conversation but not the final decision (aka the voting system), and someone who would have a reason to see all the canon content.* I really enjoy the character interactions and dynamics Milgram has set up so far, so it’s been super fun seeing how things change for better and worse when someone not quite aligned with either Milgram/the prisoners is thrown into the mix!

*As much as I love dramatic irony in fiction, it would drive me crazy if I knew every detail of of the vds/mvs but Rose didn't – and every single Milgram character is The Worst Communicator Ever so I couldn’t justify that she’d hear it second hand from them...

**I’ll also add that I don’t believe I’m above murder lmao – the main thing stopping me from making her a prisoner was a) the reason above, and b) there’s no way I could have produced a full music video, and it would've driven me crazy if she didn't have one 😂 Still, I imagine she has to run some tests on the machine to make sure things are calibrated correctly, so she'd extract little things here and there (giving me the opportunity to think up lyric snippets and recurring symbols for her without worrying about full encompassing music videos :))

Story roles:

She’s a bit conflicted -- she’s officially Milgram staff and knows she should remain neutral on the prisoners, since she won’t be allowed to interfere with the process/executions. At the same time, her job description is literally “make sure they all are safe and healthy” and she's way too emotional to avoid getting hopelessly attached to everyone 😅

I really enjoy the theory that the machine extracts videos based off of priming, so one of Rose’s duties involves listening in on the interrogation and making sure there’s been enough material discussed/not too much time has passed overall (hence the ringing of the bell happening at different lengths for each vd). She then watches the mvs along with Es to make sure there are no machine glitches.

I'm not afraid to admit she falls into Mary Sue territory every so often by being everyone's friend, because it's less about "aw everyone likes her" and more about "canon is too painful rn and I need a fix-it tool to take care of these guys and give them hugs and tell them someone forgives them and cares about them and unfortunately these characters wouldn't let anyone less than a friend do that." Rest assured she's definitely not perfect and will fuck everything up on occasion :3

Miscellaneous: Whenever I play around with normal au ideas she's still working on the machine (but in a public, more ethical setting), and she's Mahiru's roommate :) Her character isn't super focused on love, but if I had to pick a cover song it'd be Stickybug II. It's very much my vibe, the lyrics fit well enough (better than most songs, at least lol) and it's one of my favorites of the unchosen songs!

So yeah, I hope she's not too boring without a cool crime to decipher, but I wanted to share since I was really proud of her! It took a bit of tinkering to find a way to fit her into a perfect secret-third-thing role that runs very smoothly with all of canon, so I was very excited!

#waaahh posting before i chicken out #I've never posted about a self-insert so please be kind lmao 😅#i dont expect a ton of hype for her but if people have questions im always down to talk about her hehe #this is my only art -- i rarely draw oc stuff but i was really happy with how this came out #i definitely dont think shed get a number or those side rune straps by canon standards but the art wouldnt look right without them #im mad that the lab coat and gloves make her look a bit like shidous design :/ i definitely wanted more scientist vibes than doctor #dw she wears her PPE when she works on the machine 😤#yeah yeah theres some shipping aspects sue me -- but genuinely its mostly for fun character studying and fix-its #mkdr and neoneon also hold a special place in my heart but i didnt want to double up on covers #im so sad because she just. doesnt fit into LCSyS #the machine is fake in the au so shed have no opportunity to join the experiment #plus even if i made her generic staff shed just be on the receiving end of the lie with es... which is just canon until the very end adfsdf #WOO huge thank you to kyanako5972 and purgemarchlockdown for enabling me to be annoying once again >:3 #and thank you gunsli!! our chat was the first time i ever talked about her and it really gave me a lot of confidence :')#not maintagging but i will edit for organizational tags later #i also may put this on my writing blog at some point but we'll see #my art #rose posts #ocgram #milgram

27 notes · View notes

thebluestbluewords · 19 days

Text

cinderellaverse?? In my 2024??

it’s more likely than you think!

(for context: the rotten ot4 are wildly codependent, Ben is possibly seducing them all via unreciprocated acts of kindness, and this takes place directly after the iconic Good Boy scene, only with some AU changes that aren’t ready to post yet).

(why am i posting this if no other context is finished yet??? Because I’m needy and crave validation. Next question, please).

“Ugh,” Mal agrees. She looks mostly asleep still, which is understandable. “Weird. Did you eat yet?”

Carlos lifts the napkin-wrapped bundle in his hands. “I brought food. To share. If you want.”

This, predictably, gets Mal up. They’re far enough away from the isle that Carlos can almost believe that their parents aren’t lurking behind every dark corner of the castle, but not so far that they’ll turn down fresh food, even at stupid early hours.

“Berries?”

“Yeah. Brought berries for you. And muffins.”

“Evie wants chocolate,” Mal says immediately, stretching out both hands for the napkin-wrapped bundle. “And weird that Ben made you meet someone new. I thought we’d already been subjected to every princess-type in the school by now.”

“Not a person. He made me meet a— a dog.”

Mal stops with the muffins in her hands still outstretched. “Oh,” she says carefully, which is nice of her. Their Auradon education must be kicking in, or some shit. “And you’re not halfway home?”

“I was. But Ben sort of—put the dog away and tracked me down? He was cool about it. We went over afterwards to check out the stables, cause he thought maybe it was like, just animals I don’t like, and they’ve got cats and stuff there. And the dog was on a leash, and he’s actually super tiny and not murderous.” Carlos shrugs, telegraphing the motion as much as he can. Which isn’t much. He’s supposed to be working on the whole expressing emotions thing. Even though it’s so much easier to shut down entirely whenever he feels an emotion. “So yeah. Still alive, still here! And Ben’s being weird.”

“Weird how?”

“Just weird. He was being all nice and stuff. D’you think he’s been bribed by Fairy Godmother to get info on us?”

“Might be,” Mal agrees, tearing into her muffin. She’s unwrapped the whole bundle, and laid them out in an order that’s got to make sense in her head. (it shouldn’t make sense. They can’t afford to be predictable. Predictable is how you get your lunch stolen, or poisoned, or eaten by pirates who think it’s funny to take a perfectly rotten sandwich and swap it out for seaweed slime). “You should eat though. You didn’t tell him anything, right?”

Carlos pulls a scrap off the cinnamon sugar muffin. It’s the one Mal’s put in his assigned spot, which is directly across from her own, with Evie’s double chocolate on the left and Jay’s lemon poppyseed on the right. He’s not really hungry, but it’s still too much to turn down food, so he rolls it between his fingers until half of the sugar falls off into the napkin, and the rest of it is compressed into the smallest possible ball of muffin flesh. He can eat a little piece of it, and then Mal will stop asking, and he can eat for real later. Once he’s alone.

He pops the ball of muffin into his mouth. “No. Not really.”

Mal shoves another mouthful of muffin into her mouth. She picked the blueberry one, and it turns the whole mess of it vividly purple as she chews. “Cool. He’s probably just being a royal brat then, trying to get some new intel for the gossip mill. But hey, it’s cool that he showed you the stables. Maybe next time we need to get to town you can steal us a horse, yeah?”

Carlos snorts. He’s seen a horse now, and there’s no way they can get away with stealing something that big and ornery. Cars might be bigger, but they don’t bite and they don’t poop and they don’t have teeth the size of his fingers and a desire to bite through anything that looks even remotely like a carrot. “Yeah, no. Horses are fucking giant.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Mal says casually. She throws one of her loose berries up so she can catch it in her teeth. Sometimes, when it’s just the four of them, Mal forgets to act human and does things like this. Things where she snatches treats out of the air with her teeth, when her neck bends in ways that a human’s shouldn’t, like she’s forgotten that she only has seven bones in her neck and not seventeen like a standard dragon. “Nobody ever wakes me up at the crack of dawn to show me cool shit.”

Carlos wants to laugh and make this whole thing normal, but he’s fucking exhausted and the cinnamon sugar from the muffin is sticky on his fingers. He’s been trying to pull it apart carefully so that his whole hands don’t get covered in the crumbly topping, but that’s been working about as well as their escape plan so far, which is to say not at fucking all. “Yeah, yeah. He also made us run laps first, don’t be jealous.”

Mal snaps her teeth. “I’ll be whatever I want. He didn’t do anything else?“

“Nope.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, mom. He just wanted to talk a bunch about how we’re settling in. And how we’re doing emotionally.”

#emotions are really hard when you’re…. from the isle #(I haven’t worked on this section of this fic in genuinely ages and I’m HAVING THOTS AGAIN)#mostly about how these two are soooo bad at communicating #anyway on a totally unrelated note!!!#(I say. Lying.)#I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that I am possibly. less than stellar at processing emotions. because of the way my brain is wire #which is to say #my husband (diagnosed autistic)#thinks I may also be on the spectrum #and i am choosing to make that a fictional character problem #so anyway specifically these two will be having an AWFUL time before I do some. toning down in the editing process.#this doesn’t get a real fic tag don’t look at me

13 notes · View notes

downtherabbitholewithlucy · 1 year

Text

A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far, Far Away...

(Wes' "Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in a Star Wars Movie Poster" T-Shirt)

(Fred's Fem!Boba Fett forearm tattoo)

(R2-D2, Darth Vader, & Yoda in the background of Sam's Photo)

(R2-D2 in the background of John's photo)

(An AT-AT Walker in the background of Wes' Instagram Post)

(Darth Maul in the background of this photo of Sam and Wes)

(Please do not re-post or share my video compilation/edit on any other social media platform. Thank you.)

#May the 4th #I DID IT ALL FOR THE WOOKIE #Chewbacca Starfish and the Han Solo Flavored Water #I chose episode II because “Attack of the Clones” could easily be swapped with “Attack of the Chocolate Starfish”.#MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU AND MAY YOUR BIZKIT ALWAYS BE LIMP #ya'll never thought you'd see a Limp Bizkit + Star Wars compilation post but yet here we are. Live. Laugh. Limp Bizkit.#side note I saw SW: The Phantom Menace when it came out in theaters in '99 with my parents. I was seven when the movie came out.#& Darth Maul scared the absolute shit out of me as a kid. Like all the SW merch was every where in stores & his likeness terrified me.#I mean he really did look a like demon to me as a kid #as an adult I can appreciate the film's make-up team and the work they did on this character's look #and I can definitely see how Wes may have drew some inspiration from Darth Maul's make-up for coming up with his own face paint looks #with the whole color block patterns and stuff. anyways... I'm done rambling on.#Limp Bizkit #nu-metal #Wes Borland #Fred Durst #Sam Rivers #John Otto #lucy the rabbit's video edits #down the rabbit hole

49 notes · View notes

cwritesfiction · 7 months

Text

Have I mentioned I'm rewriting No Illusions to take place one year earlier in the characters' lives and two weeks later in the calendar year?

Because

#i said somewhere that i was 'aging down' my characters but that's not actually the case #technically two get canonically older #may the continuity gods be kind to me #this was not the plan btw #not in my edit letter or in my own revision notes #i just had an epiphany that this would solve some lingering issues #and it'll make the book more *marketable*

20 notes · View notes

thewatercolours · 1 month

Text

King's Quest Fic: "The Fairy" (Goblin Graham, #12)

"Gwendolyn. What are you still doing in here? Didn't you hear the guards order everyone out? Can't you hear everything creaking?"

"Um - what? Sorry?"

"Something's wrong, cousin. The castle's shaking on its foundations. Has been since early morning. Something strange here, making it go unstable all of a sudden. You didn't notice? There's... Oh my stars. Gwendolyn! Did those bricks fall while you were in here?"

"Maybe? I didn't really notice. The mirror -"

"I know, I know, you were too busy watching the mirror. I mean, look! It's taken out a quarter of the ceiling? What would you have done if it had collapsed on your head? Look, we'll take the mirror with us, but we've got to get out! Did you even hear me?"

---

Perhaps it was the rich overground air, or the long hours spent escaping, or maybe the cold was more comfortable these days. Graham drifted off as easily as any sleeper could wish. As he blinked away his last moments of consciousness, he felt vaguely that he ought to toss and turn now that he’d been told of Manny and the goblins’ siege of the castle. Insomnia felt more responsible. But exhaustion smoothed his fears away before he could wake himself to make a plan. Three quarters asleep, he snuggled deep into his cloak between the roots of a burly yew.

Mid-dream, something roused him. He rolled onto his right side, meaning to squint at the bedside clock in the castle’s royal chamber. Instead, he found himself eye to eye with a face, glowing blue as midwinter stars. The face giggled.

Untangling himself from the cloak, Graham yelped and scrambled to sit up, back against the tree.

The person before him was close to his own goblin size, and knelt to one side of him with a starry-eyed smile. Unnaturally lithe and dainty-featured she looked, just as he had always heard wood sprites described. He could not see much of her wings, but they appeared to be coolly golden and folded neatly behind her shoulders. Tittering musically, the fairy tapped the end of his nose with one shining finger, sending specks of light he could only just make out skittering over his skin. “Well, aren’t you the wee little goblin man! How precious!”

Half awake and wholly thunderstruck, Graham could not choke a single word from his throat.

She took hold of his long ears. They twitched away reflexively, despite her gentleness. She laughed in gleeful surprise. “Awww! Did I make you flinch? I’ll be careful. You’ve got such big, swoopy, droopy ears, haven’t you? Yes you have, yes you have,” she crooned, reaching again to stroke them.

“Who are you?” whispered Graham, but his voice was even hoarser with sleep, almost nothing like speech. She did not seem to notice.

“A sleeeepy goblin, a tuckered out little goblin,” she went on, fondly rumpling his hair. Her hands were kind, but cool to the touch, even to his strange skin. And though it was hard to tell what she was doing, it appeared that every time she made contact, her hands glowed the brighter, just for a moment. “Oh, your pupils are so big right now! Great big eyes to see in the dark. What are you doing up here in the forest? A bit lost? Or were you just too dozy to crawl downstairs to your home? Are you a tiny bit scared?” she asked as Graham made another attempt to speak up. “Don’t be frightened, little friend. I know something that might make you happy.” She spread her luminous golden wings wide, and flapped them so that gleaming dust dropped in their wake. Her grin grew broader. “See that? I’m a fairy! Yes, you know all about us, don’t you? From your games?”

Graham straightened up where he sat, and cleared his throat pointedly. “For your information -”

Enraptured, she paid no heed. “Just look at you, though.Your little tummy, and your nubby little fangs, and those little pink… freckles…” A suspicious look flashed across her face. She poked an interrogative finger at his chin and cheekbones, considerably less gently. “Not freckles,” she muttered, narrowing her eyes. “You, good sir, have holes in your skin. Or growths, maybe. That’s human flesh, that is.” She sounded positively disgusted. “Or possibly mould. Comes to much the same thing.”

He had never demanded this of anyone, but enough was enough. “You,” said Graham firmly, “will call me ‘Your Majesty.’”

The fairy leaned back, looking him over from tuft to toe. She still smiled, but her merriment had changed to mockery. “‘Your majesty,’ eh?” she drawled. “A little king, eh? Look here. I happen to know the goblin king, and you ain’t him, sugarplum.”

“I’ve met him too,” said Graham with dignity, squaring his narrow shoulders. “I am the King of Daventry.”

A flicker of doubt passed over her, but she regained herself a moment later. “I don’t keep up much with politics, but even I know the king of Daventry is your standard, garden-variety human. Now, you,” she leaned in again and began connecting the dots on his face with her finger, “are just a goblin with human pimples. Ugh! They’re warm!”

He brushed her arm aside, frowning. “Look, I don’t particularly care if you believe me,” he said, mind whirring, “but if you don’t quit touching my face…” What could he say? “… you’re gonna be going home with spots yourself.”

The fairy recoiled, and turned from blue to something slightly closer to violet. “It’s catching?” she shrieked.

“Like a fishing line,” said Graham brightly. “Take the warning where I didn’t.”

The fairy backed off further and rubbed her hands off her sides, but there still seemed something unconvinced in her. “You’re very well-spoken for a goblin,” she said slowly. “Why did you say you’re the King of Daventry?”

“Because I am. I’m under a spell of sorts.”

“A spell. Oho.” She stroked her chin. “Well, that’s easier to check up on, isn’t it? All right, cupcake, on your feet.”

“Oh, but my -”

Graham’s body parted ways with the forest floor. He rose three feet into the air, and tilted into a standing position despite himself. His dark hair billowed out as though he were underwater. Even his clothing did not drape in the ordinary way. His green wrists stuck out of his sleeve cuffs without the fabric touching them. His satin-trimmed cloak followed his trajectory up into the air, and then wandered gently and randomly like cream on a hot drink. “Hey!” he cried, throwing himself forward, hoping he could dive back to the ground. But he only found himself turning the slowest of slow-motion somersaults in the air. Head over heels he spun, groping for anything solid, but the fairy had lifted him into the middle of the clearing. Nothing met his grasp.

As he turned right way up, he came face to face with the fairy. She tapped his nose again, with just enough force that he lost momentum and didn’t fall into another somersault. “You know you go cross-eyed when I boop your nose?” She crossed her own eyes exaggeratedly. “Adorbs.”

He had no intention of using his claws on her, but this couldn’t go on. He glared and held up a warning finger. “I’m gonna have to ask you to put me down right this second, or this is going to be a diplomatic incident under Daventry Decree 90983.”

“Yes, yes, that sounds fun. But now, let’s have a better look at you.” She twirled her finger playfully.

A mellow warmth kindled in Graham’s core, kind as hot soup and a blanket when you’ve just come in from the cold. It fanned out through him to the tips of his overlong toes and gnarled, spindly fingers. His eyes widened in shock, and he gasped. Gentle as fog melting off a window, his claws flattened and pulled back into themselves, and his fingertips softened into tender pink skin.

The forest quieted. His vision dimmed, and the luminescent greens and purples of the night faded into a largely detail-less darkness.

Then he found himself laughing giddily as he changed and changed. He could hardly see a thing, but oh stars, could he feel it! He threw out his arms above his head as though he had just woken up, and stretched. Never had it felt so rewarding, for his arms actually stretched along with him. He could feel his spine and legs doing the same as that warmth spread through every inch of him. Meanwhile, his hands and bare feet shrank, growing less supple but so wonderfully familiar. And yet, remarkable in their unfamiliarity too. He flexed his goblin hand, and then his human hand, which hadn’t deserved that name in so long, marvelling at how new the sensation of closing his own fingers felt after only a few weeks. It all seemed so much more real than anything had since his transformation began. There was a clarity and quickness in his head that made him wonder how much his mind had been damped till now.

And his face, his face which he hardly ever dared touch, thawed into its true self. He ran his fine fingers over his great big nose, his cheeks, his eyelashes. He knew every line. His fingers came away from his eyes wet with tears. He couldn’t help but smile through them, a smile full of the greatest gratitude he had known in his life. “Thank you,” he murmured, turning to the fairy, hardly able to see her through the mist in his eyes. “Thank you!”

His real voice.

She nodded, smiling wryly. “Well, I guess you are human.” Casually, she snapped her fingers.

Almost instantly, Graham’s whole body reverted. His arms and legs snapped back like stretchy putty released, and he lost half his height. His skin shuddered, rippling and goosebumping. The sensation was something like plunging into a freezing pool through a layer of algae. The warmth inside him extinguished. Then green, and claws, and long, floppy ears flattening against his neck. He plopped to the ground, landing gracelessly on his bottom.

He hardly processed the jolt his ankle took when he made impact, or the forest’s restored brightness. She had turned him back. Back into a goblin. “What?” he growled, rounding on her and shaking with sudden fury. “Didn’t you see? Couldn’t you tell? I wanted to be myself again! I thought you were helping me!”

“Aww,” the fairy jeered, crouching down to the ground with him and tilting her head to one side. “Are we having a tantrum? Is that the king or the goblin side coming out, I wonder?”

“Turn me back,” he said sternly, stumbling to his feet. “I need to be human. My kingdom’s under attack as we speak. They need me.”

She rose and patted his cheek. Her touch only made him aware that his skin had curdled again. “Take it from me,” she said. “As a human, you’re not much to write home about. Better stick with the twitchy ears, little guy. You’re cute as a button.”

With a surge of ferocity, Graham snarled and shoved her backward. She squeaked and tripped over her own feet into a tall patch of bracken. He started forward angrily, unsure of anything but that he would make her understand the gravity of his situation. But with its customary unfortunate timing, his ankle buckled, and he sank to one knee, wincing and sucking his teeth to keep from snarling further. The voice of reason surfaced. Keep your head. Don’t give in to that side. Anything but that.

The fairy sat up and stared, her jaw hanging open. “Oh. Oh. Did I do that?” There was a long pause as they pulled themselves together. Then the first note of sympathy since her realization that he was human entered her voice. “I see you have a bad foot. Do you… do you want me to put you back up in the air a while longer?” “I’m fine. I’ll just sit down,” said Graham, leveling his voice and grabbing at a branch to support himself. He nearly pitched over. It was a flimsy evergreen, and it wobbled in his hand.

The fairy chewed her lip uncomfortably, and her hands glowed again, though he hadn’t seen her touch anything. “Okay.”

In a moment, he was steady again. The same unseen power carried his legs out from under him. “None of that now!” he shouted, but he need not have worried. The magic set him down carefully in a seated position, propped up against a generous oak, and his foot elevated on a mossy stone.

She settled herself on the farthest side of the clearing from him, folding her hands in her lap. “I don’t like seeing a little goblin hurting,” she mumbled, hanging her head and sounding a bit ashamed. “Even if they’re actually a human king.” She spoke more slowly. “I won’t touch your foot if you don’t want me to, but I’d like to make this better, if you’ll let me. I mean, not magically. But I could find food, or a change of bandages, or something.”

Graham took a deep breath, and pushed away the sneering, angry remarks he could have made. “I… am grateful you want to help me,” he said carefully. “But you would help me and my people a lot more if you worried less about my foot and more about the spell I’m under. You’ve already shown me it’s easy for you to break it. So…”

Yet again, she interrupted him, twiddling her thumbs and shaking her head with a doleful smile. “I think you’ve jumped to conclusions here, um… What’s your name?”

“Graham.”

“Graham. Mine’s Orri. Yeah. So, I didn’t break any spell just now. I just took a quick peek at your real form. It’s a pretty basic magical maneuver, and it doesn’t actually change anything.”

“Well, it certainly felt real,” Graham said, rubbing his ears.

“I guess it would. But it would have undone itself in a few seconds anyway. It’s just a peeling back of the magic for a moment to get a glimpse. It’s not a transformation.” Orri looked up and met his gaze with a disheartened shrug. “I couldn’t turn you into a human if I wanted to - not without a wish, and those are, um, pretty serious.”

“A wish?” Graham stiffened, and he stared at her fixedly. “You mean you could grant a wish?”

Orri heaved a sigh that was more sincere than anything she had said thus far. “Full truth here for a second? I’ve never done wishes before, exactly. Humans aren’t really my thing, if you couldn’t guess. I mean, technically I could probably do it. But it’s messy. Messy for you, messy for me. And give me another ten minutes and I won’t feel so bad about hurting your foot, and I’ll just be mad at you again for not being a real goblin.”

Something crinkled in the corner of her eye. A new light came over her features, literally, and traveled all the way to the ends of her hair. “I mean, I suppose I could make you into a real goblin. That’s loads easier than going the other way ‘round, and it wouldn’t take a wish!” Orri's enthusiasm grew with every word. She practically bounced up and down where she sat.“Oh man. Oh man, I could totally handle that! We’ll just sand down your mind a bit, make a few simplifications …”

“Oh, no, no! That won’t be necessary,” stammered Graham. He forced himself to stay calm, trying to pull her back to her more collected state. “Er, ouch, my foot, my poor foot!”

But Orri was back in full swing, already leaping into his personal space again. “Oh Graham, that would solve everything! Just a few tweaks in that little head of yours, and no more sad king. Your mother taught you all your nursery rhymes and fairy tales when you were a boy, I hope?”

“M-my sister, actually, but that’s -”

“Then you’re ready! You’d be so happy. I mean, you could still be a little grumpypants if you wanted to. It’s not like they don’t get mad sometimes. But most of the time, they just act out stories, and make costumes and stuff. Not a care in the world.” Her fingers began to glow an intense white, and she wiggled them playfully in his direction. “Why don’t you just give me your hands, and I can - ”

In spite of his resolve to stay even-keeled, Graham started crawling backwards, crab style, trying to put the oak between himself and Orri. “Oh, I’m sure being a goblin is a real barrel of laughs, but um, I can probably help my kingdom better with my mind intact. So let’s just reroute and-”

He cried out as she leapt, making a deft grab for his hand. Even before they made contact he could feel power surging from her fingertips like static, connecting with his. Something vital in him wanted to grab hold of her hand and draw that energy in. But he wrenched himself away in a side roll, panting nervously as he came to a halt lying on his front. He tucked his hands under his stomach as she fluttered down beside him, the blue-white of her skin more intense than the fullest moon. Again, the instinct to use his claws came, but not only would that set him further down the goblinification track, probably, it would only give her access to his hands.

She clicked her tongue consolingly. “You know, little friend, your mind’s already changing to match your body. I took a peek at what you really are, remember? You don’t have a duty anymore. That’s for humans. You couldn’t help your kingdom for much longer, anyway. Just give me your hands now. It’s just the human side of you being stubborn.” She prodded his side with her foot.

Graham swallowed and dug his fingertips into the patch of soft earth beneath him. “But if I can help them even for a bit, I’ve got to go for it. You said you technically could grant wishes. Can’t we try that first? Nothing to lose, right?” This felt utterly ridiculous, to fight a fairy by lying flat on the ground. But what choice did he have? To this overenthusiastic sprite, he was more or less just a cuddly puppy who was going to the vet’s, whatever he might think about the matter. What would he do if she flew him up in the air again, and he couldn’t hide his hands anymore? Play the world’s highest stakes game of ninja slap until she caught him?

Orri hunched over, and whispered in his enormous ear. “Graham, I don’t have ideas I can be proud of very often,” she said, almost confidingly. “Just let me have this.” Then she seized his ear, and twisted it where it attached to his head.

“Augh!” It was more than he could stand. He didn’t have much understanding of goblin biology, but he did know that twist was about ten times more painful than he would have expected. Before he could think, he pawed wildly to yank his ear out of her reach, to pry her fingers free.

Her hand clasped his. She didn’t seem to care about the claws. She just held on tight, and twined her fingers through his. He felt the magic lock on to him.

Graham’s thoughts windchimed off each other, too fleeting to follow. His head grew light. She pulled him to his feet. The ground seemed to shake underfoot, but all that felt faraway. Everything outside himself was irrelevant, because it felt like his mind was turning inside out. Something surfaced in his head. Something dauntingly clever and complicated and warm and royal red, and everything in him knew it didn’t belong here in his head. He had to get rid of it now before it could struggle. But it hung on awfully hard as he tried to reject it. But here was something else, edging it out, filling his mind. Yes. Something. Pushing it out for him. Something… good. Something yes. Yes, yes. Something something something rum-tee-tum-tee-tum, yes yes yes. Oho, filling up the corners. Hehehehehehehehe! Yes yes yes!

And then ow! Ow! Hand gone. No more hand! No more yes! Rage! Not fair! Ow! Whack you! Whack you! Someone grabbing. Someone pulling him away. No more magic. Turning it all outside in again. Everything spilling over again. Maybe a touch of nausea - in his mind? If that made sense? Nothing made sense, but it was coming back. His feet weren’t touching the ground, but neither was he floating this time. There were huge, pudgy arms lifting him up. No, not arms. Gigantic fingers.

Clarity shot through him. Olfie had him in his careful grasp, and the forest clearing below was a good twenty feet beneath him. Even with dark vision, Graham couldn’t see Orri anywhere. He craned his head back to look up at the bridge troll’s honest, hideous face. “Olfie!” he cried, overwhelmed with relief. “Oh, Olfie!” Olfie smiled, not without concern, lifting him up to look at him straight on. “You okay, King Goosie? Saw you were havin’ some fairy trouble down there. Did she try something?”

“No, I’m good.” Graham said, his chest still tense with stress but trying to let it go. His head bobbled on his neck and the world swam a bit, but fixing his eyes on Olfie’s face gave him a point of reference to stabilize from. “I think you didn’t arrive a moment too soon, though! Is she - did you see where she went?”

“Disappeared as soon as I got a hold on you.”

“Praise the consultations.” Graham muttered as Olfie propped him up in his palm. “I mean the consolati- no, the constellations. Sorry. She tried to mess with my head, and I might still be coming back from it.”

Olfie nodded, about as sagely as a troll could. “Gotta watch out for them. Always pulling tricks. One time they got Pillare thinking she was croissant, and you don’t want to hear how that went down at the meeting. Glad it’s all okay for you. So, I went and got them like you said. You ready for this?”

Graham tried to collect his disoriented thoughts. “You went and got who, now?”

“You told me to get them,” said Olfie. And before Graham could ask any further questions, the troll brought his two hands together - the palm where Graham leaned against his fingers, and the other - where to Graham’s astonishment, sat two of his royal guards, cross-legged in full uniform. Numbers One and Two.

Number One gasped.

#Tune in next week when Graham meets a walrus #So - in this version Graham is not running off like a coward. He's buckling down to be the leader Daventry needs now even if #it's an emotional ordeal for him and everyone involved. Prior to this scene he asked Olfie to gather a few people for him and bring them #to meet with him in the nearby woods - outside the anti-goblin shield that's keeping him from entering the castle and town.#Scrapping that other scene helped me plough forward and re-imagine! I may have to change a few details retrospectively #I'll edit the old chapters at some point but in the meantime I'll give you the heads up on any necessary retcons in the notes.#(price of posting as I go but I KNOW I would never have persevered with any of this if I tried to write the full fic in isolation.)#I might have had too much fun with this scene. It's been in the back of my head (though in a different form) for ages.#This is the reason I tried to drop so many mentions of fairies and wishes in Rippling Consequences scenes - Stargazers is the main #example. Now all my wonky foreshadowing is too old to be remembered but I did TRY to set this up not to come out of nowhere.#Goofy half-planned fic that got re-planned partway through that it is...#king's quest #king graham #rippling consequences #goblin graham #my writing

8 notes · View notes