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jaegertango · 3 years

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An Invitation

Sometimes me write. Not very often, but sometimes. This is actually a precursor to what’s (probably) going on this Sunday in the Skyhunters but y’know. I’m impatient so I am posting it now.

He needed another moment to himself.

It was funny, wasn't it? After so many years of spending time in isolation, far from other mortals and kin alike, now Vykaenai found himself surrounded by so many young, proud and capable faces – and he still wasn't sure if he liked it. They were endearing, yes; so many of them from different parts of Azeroth and even beyond, all united under a singular standard and cause. Yet, their incessant bickering, their inability to trust his wisdom, their concerns on morality akin to a child crying over spilled milk: that tended to frustrate the dragon to no end. Ten thousand years had tempered his patience into a hardened slab of steel, unyielding and staunch against even the grandest of hammers, but somehow the complaints of mortals always sundered it like a rock through water. It made incredulous laughter escape the Grandmaster as he stroked his beard.

Bah. Mortals. Couldn't live with 'em, couldn't live without 'em.

The play was still winding down in Ardenweald, but even as much as Vykaenai was enjoying himself, he couldn't bring himself to stand one more second between Lady Firehawk and Araane. He had great respect for both women – but no patience whatsoever. The utter and complete awkwardness between the two every time their actresses came onto the stage together was as thick as sludge – and it only got worse as time went on. The only thing keeping them from trying to kill each other on the spot was the sheer secondhand embarrassment strong enough to even make a fully grown black dragon run away in disgust. Granted, he didn't doubt they would try to take each other's head off just to avoid sitting through the play any longer. Vykaenai respected the two of them, but having them both in the same room was such a headache.

He grumbled darkly, looking up towards the sky. There were no stars, but it seemed to last in perpetual night, here in Ardenweald. It reminded him of home – or rather, a home he once had. A time ago, when he was just a fledgling drake and his dearest friend first taking up her glaive as a Warden, Vykaenai called his home in Ashenvale. When he was able, he would look up towards the night sky, seeing the many colors reminiscent back in Highmountain, and feel at ease. This sky made him feel the same way, but bitterly so. He missed Ashenvale – before it was ripped apart by the Destroyer, then stamped underfoot by the Horde. He shared Araane's rage at the forest's desecration – but he shared Lady Firehawk's disdain of the world's politics at present too.

Back then, he used to just eat the bad people.

A tumultuous sigh. Vykaenai kept his gaze upward as his powerful arms crossed over his chest. Times seemed easier back then – even only a thousand years ago, with the War of the Shifting Sands. The greatest of all dangers, the Old Gods trying to make their presence known above the earth. Their threat was so great that neither the Kaldorei, the Shu'halo, and even the many tribes of Furbolg could deny it. They stood to fight against an endless swarm, readily and willingly, and heeded the warnings that only a dragon could give. There was no argument, no fallacies between soldiers, no backstabbing traitors that Vykaenai could not dispose of-

*snik*

His brooding was interrupted as a shiv was suddenly stuffed into his jugular – or at least attempted to be. The knife instead was pricked against that vein as if it was made of iron, and no blood even spilled from his exposed throat. The towering Night Elf did not even have the courtesy to flinch or gasp, his fiery eyes instead peering down to that long-nailed hand gripping the assassin's blade uselessly at his neck. There was a very concerned second of silence as it became awkwardly clear Vykaenai was not injured, before the dragon turned his neck slightly to try and face his would-be killer.

“Can I help you?” He grunted simply, sounding quite annoyed.

The Grandmaster did not manage much of a glimpse before the shade leaped backward several feet, hissing lowly with that dagger in hand. As he landed though, Vykaenai could far more easily see the detail in that assailant. To his surprise, the figure was absolutely as big as the Night Elf was, if not a bit taller, but definitely not as built. The creature had pallid gray skin and bloody red eyes, along with teeth like the razor needles of a murloc. For all intents and purposes, he seemed just as deadly without a knife, but his clothing denoted a far greater intellect. In fact, it was some of the finest garb that Vykaenai had seen – and he was familiar with the Highborne garb of eld, even before the Sundering. Whatever he was, he definitely was not an Ardenweald native.

“Cursed walker,” the creature spat, reaching to his belt to also draw a rapier. This surprised Vykaenai, for the blade looked even more intricate and beautiful than his clothing. For such a vile abomination, clearly he had taste!

“If you hope to kill me with that,” Vykaenai snorted, keeping his arms crossed. “It better be much nicer than your dagger.”

The assassin did not reply. Instead, he dashed forward with shocking speed, surging forward with such swiftness that he was barely visible in that flash. Yet, for all of his agility, with that mighty thrust aimed to Vykaenai's heart, the dragon reacted without fear. One of his arms untucked from his chest to instead snatch at the killer's wrist, pulling his sword away uselessly from the dragon. His other punched to his throat, a powerful hand choking the creature out easily. In that same swift motion, Vykaenai had disarmed his assailant, and also pinned him as he held the ghoulish man aloft effortlessly, glaring at him.

“Would you like to play nice now?” Vykaenai asked, cocking his head at his killer.

The creature gurgled a growl, those sharp teeth gritted together as his free hand tried to stab his dagger at the side of the dragon's temple – to no avail.

“Incorrect,” the Grandmaster replied coldly, and his hand on the creature’s wrist pulled outward. The result was a terrible ripping of cloth and flesh, the dragon easily wrenching the assailant’s entire arm from his shoulder as if made of tissue paper, leaving only a few strands of bloody sinew and muscle fiber hanging uselessly from his right side. The assassin shrieked out wretchedly, his call reverberating around the trees even as he was being strangled. Vykaenai mostly looked irritated, and he had to chide himself as he realized he had overdone it - again. He wanted to hurt his would-be slayer, but he wasn't planning on killing this thing – at least not yet. Lady Firehawk's advice to not instantly slay everything he came across was proving itself useful, and he did not want to-

The assassin then suddenly vanished in a cloud of ruby smoke, dissipating from existence.

Vykaenai groaned in even greater derision as his only source of information ran away. He pinched at his brow, letting his guard down once again at how aggravating this night was turning out to be. Yet, nothing came to slice at him once again. It seemed his would-be killer was gone. That probably wasn't good; leaving an assassin alive never tended to be. Now Lady Firehawk was going to chew him out for endangering the Skyhunters. Hopefully whatever it was, it wouldn't dare go to Oribos...

When he was done pouting, Vykaenai returned his gaze back to the space in front of him – only to find that beautiful rapier still laying in the grass. Reaching down, the Grandmaster picked it up, examining it. There was a sense of comforting weight to it, but still just a tad too light. The metal felt warm to the touch, and... it was pulsing. That was kind of gross. The blade seemed to be manifesting a heartbeat of sorts. Well, it was at least a clue; if Vykaenai could find out where this sword came from, it was a start.

“Vyk! Vyk, I heard a scream!”

The dragon turned to see Visscera running up, a mixture of concern and excitement on her face. Vykaenai kept the sword clutched in his hand, and as soon as he recognized the other Night Elf, he felt the blade seethe in his hand eagerly. Despite that, the Grandmaster smiled to Visscera, shaking his head as he shifted the blade's grip around so it wasn't so threatening in his grasp.

“Indeed. I will have to talk to Lady Firehawk about it,” Vykaenai grunted, but he still winked at Visscera as he held up the rapier. “It seems I have attracted company.”

“Do swords count as company?”

“Nay, but those that wield them do.”

“...So you stole that from them,” Visscera answered, and she looked disappointed. “I didn't think you were one to steal.”

“I would not say I stole this as much as I...” Vykaenai started, but then shrugged. “Rightfully earned it from them.”

“Oh!” Visscera stated, her eyes brightening as she thumped a fist into her hand. “...So if I fight you for that-”

“You are not fighting me for this,” Vykaenai snorted, but his grin widened as he walked back to the play stage. “Come, little shadow. I just needed a moment of space.”

He was probably going to need another one once he explained what happened to Lady Firehawk.

#jaegerwrites

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symphonyofthewrite · 4 years

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Inverted Recurrence

Fandom: Castlevania Symphony of the Night (but with the Netflix series characterizations)

Summary: It's been three hundred years since Alucard saw Trevor and Sypha. When he sees a version of them in the inverted coliseum...he just can't seem to win the fight against them.

So he loses. Over and over.

(The inverted coliseum boss fight from Symphony of the Night, but with the Netflix series characters)

Notes: First of all, warning! (As evidenced by the summary) there will be swearing in this fic!

This is a fic for the game Symphony of the Night. However I used the characterizations of the characters from the Netflix series. (This is also why Grant is not present, even though he's present in the actual fight. I wanted to include him, especially because they took him out of the show...but because they took him out of the show, and because I have yet to play Dracula's Curse, I didn't feel like I could properly characterize him to have him in the scene.)

In case you've only watched the show, but are still interested in reading, I'll put a little summary of the things you need to know about the game in order to read in the replies!!

If you enjoyed this I'd really appreciate it if you could leave a comment and/or reblog! They make my week, and really help motive me to keep writing multi-chapter fics like this one!

I’ve also posted this on my general writing blog @antihero-writings if you want to check it out there!!

Chapter 1:

Alucard hit the ground of the save room…which happened to be the ceiling, breath and heartbeat crawling through his chest like fire ants.

“Well…fuck.”

******

Fire consumed the werewolves’ snarls, echoing through the stone hall, and he continued up the corridor without a glance back.

Alucard paused to think; count the rooms.

He wiped the blood off his sword—well, not his sword, that is to say, he still didn’t have his mother’s sword back from that dickhead, Death. Due to this, he was using one he had borrowed from one of those green skeletons upon its second death.

“Are you prepared?” he asked his fairy familiar. “If my thinking is correct we’re coming upon the main part of the coliseum. This could get”—he adjusted his grip on the sword and inclined his head to the side. “Interesting.”

She folded her arms and bowed. “I am prepared for whatever comes our way, Master Alucard.”

He grinned back. “Good.”

He marched forward, and, sure enough, the upside-down version of the coliseum center revealed itself. The same room where he had fought the Shaft-possessed-Richter in the right-side-up castle. The sconces spilled blue fire endlessly to the ground, fixed to columns that didn’t reach the ‘floor’, in a circle around an overthrown throne. A throne which held no one now, as if he were a gladiator in an upturned universe, a slave of the games, watched by an invisible sadistic god, hosting this for their own pleasure.

The doors shut themselves behind, and in front, of him with a loud thump, closing off his exits.

Yup. Interesting.

He stood on guard, aiming the sword at the pentagonal spinning coffins in the center of the room, his mind cycling through what might step out;

Let’s see, skeletons? Zombies? Ghosts? No it’d be something more advanced than that. Maybe a dragon would walk out? Or maybe he’d fight the embodiment of emperor Nero himself? That might be fun.

When their lids creaked forward and the first enemy stepped out it did not, in fact, have rotting skin, or a malevolent grin…It looked like a man.

A man with brown hair, blue eyes—one of which a scar fell across—sauntered over to Alucard, the Belmont crest gleaming on his chest.

Alucard froze, eyes widening.

The man groaned when he saw Alucard—but not in an undead way, more like a man who was annoyed—and, unlike many of the monsters, he spoke:

“Well if it isn’t the cockwart, Alucard.”

Alucard fought werewolves and demons, things that spit fire, things that turned him to stone, things that would eat his soul out if given the chance, and he didn’t even break a sweat. Not much could make his heart hammer these days.

But this—

“Trevor! What have I told you about speaking your mind?!” Alucard had been so focused on Trevor he hadn’t noticed the other enemy: a woman in blue smacked Trevor on the back of the head.

“Uhh that it’s what everyone should do it all the time?” he rubbed his head.

She pulled on his ear.

“Okay, okay! Easy on the moneymaker!”

Alucard’s eyes stayed open wide, as if he was afraid if he closed them they’d disappear and he’d remember he was dreaming. The golden irises oscillating beneath waves of memory, the sword at his side twitching.

“Master Alucard?” the fairy’s voice was muffled behind the sound of his heartbeat.

He fought reanimated flesh, and first-animated metal, he fought things straight out of books, things he wished were mere fantasy, and never once did he stand paralyzed.

But this…this made his blood thump cold and relentless in his ears. This made his heart start churning with questions, his head ache with memory. This made his throat tighten with sentimentality long forgotten.

The fairy couldn’t hear the words he breathed.

Three hundred years is a long time. Even if he spent most of it asleep, time has a way of weighing heavy on the chest.

They were arguing amongst themselves, while the fairy was asking him questions, but he couldn’t make out any of the words. As if he was beneath many tons of water, the pressure slowly crushing him.

Being immortal has never been the blessing humanity thought. Watching your friends, your family, die is hard enough, but when you know you won’t be joining them wherever they’re going for a long time, if at all, things get more complicated. The pain, then, isn’t just loss…it’s the knowledge of what you’ll never lose. Watching your friends die, while you, standing at their death bed, look the same as you did when you met them sixty years ago, like you’re taunting them, like you’re some cosmic joke… Watching them die, while you have millennia left to spend grieving, making new friends and watching them die too, just living… it isn’t exactly something you’d spend one of your three wishes on.

Sometimes he wished he was mortal. Human. That the blade and arrow would sting more, that words would mean more, that he’d remember the things his friends told long ago, under moonlit skies. He wished he could feel something, that he could feel fear and horror and hope. That the fight would pump in his veins. That he could grow old, and die, and wouldn’t have to live a thousand more lifetimes before death took him away. Sometimes he forgot how to appreciate life; they say death is what gives life meaning, after all.

Seeing his friends from centuries ago, his friends who he had argued with, played games with, laughed, cried with. Friends who he had watched die, who he had mourned, grieved long ago back again…

“What’s the matter?” Trevor put his hands on his hips, noticing that he was standing there dumbstruck. “Cat got your tongue?”

Alucard backed up on shaky legs, biting his lip until it bled.

He was twenty years old again. Twenty years old and they were in a snowy woods speaking of God, mothers, old books, and how lonely they all were, on their way to defeat Dracula for what they didn’t realize then was only the first time.

“Master Alucard!” the fairy fluttered in front of his face—how long had she been calling him? “What’s going on?!”

His lips were sealed shut; he couldn’t answer even if he wanted to. His eyes gravitated past her to the two behind her.

It had been so long. So long since those lonely nights. Since those sunny days. So long since he’d seen their faces. Heard their voices. Seeing, hearing, them now was like medicine after years of sickness, like sobriety after spending years drunk. Like reminding himself he hadn’t made them up after all—(because sometimes it felt like he had). So long…So long since he’d been with his friends. So long since he’d had friends.

“I did want to resolve our differences.” Sypha shrugged. “But, we’re going to have to show you what we really think of you now.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself. It was nice—well uh…it was something knowing you.”

“…What?” Alucard’s breath made clouds in these snowy woods.

Trevor glanced up at him, unspooling the morning star whip—the one that he had once used to fight the night hordes with together…or at least a version of it…it didn’t look quite right.

“It’s a real shame”—he said like it wasn’t much of a shame at all—“but…we do have to kill you now.”

“We have a reputation to keep.”

“You know, vampire slayers and all. Can’t have the son of Dracula walking around.”

Alucard had to keep his breath from catching on itself and tripping.

He backed up, turning to see Sypha holding out her hands in a combat posture.

He shut his eyes and shook his head quickly, clearing the snow from his eyes, reminding himself the woods were nothing but memory; he was here, in Dracula’s upside-down castle, fighting phantoms of his friends.

They’re not real, he told himself. They’re not your friends. Trevor and Sypha are gone. They’re just one of Dracula’s tricks. He’s using them to get to you.

He felt something wrap around his leg.

“Master Alucard!”

“It’s nothing personal.” Trevor spoke, “Except if you count the fact that we’d only do this to you...because you’re the worst.” He yanked on the whip and swung Alucard by his leg into the far wall at full force.

Sypha held up her arms beads of light before her fingers, then brought them together, making spikes of ice jut out from beneath the walls, stomping towards him.

He pried himself from the wall and jumped out of their way.

Trevor threw a cross at him—one made of bones—but it came back without finding its mark.

Before Sypha could send her jet of flame at him, Alucard burst forward, knocking her down.

“Attacking poor, innocent girls now? So that’s how you want to play it, huh?”

“Who are you calling ‘poor’ and ‘innocent’?!” Sypha crossed her arms, “I can handle myself thank you very much!”

“Oh—I—uh—I didn’t mean it like that!”

Sypha scowled at him.

It was like they walked straight out of his memory. …Were they really not real?

Trevor jumped up, raising his whip.

You don’t have to do this, Alucard wanted to reason with them.

But he knew. He knew this wasn’t them. They were only a shell. A reanimated memory. Empty. There was nothing in there to reason with.

Alucard blocked his attack with his shield, and crouched down, slicing his leg, knocking him down. But before he could send the sword through his chest, Sypha raised her arm and incased him in a block of ice.

The fairy broke him out, but this had given Trevor enough time to get up, throwing another bone cross. This time it knocked Alucard down.

Sypha floated before him, ready to blast him with fire. This time Alucard teleported, slashing Trevor in the back.

“You filthy vampire bastard.”

Why them?! He wanted to demand of Dracula, but that was all-too obvious.

Alucard disappeared in a column of gold, then reappeared, opening his cloak and sending fireballs towards Trevor, who extinguished them by swinging his whip.

He dodged Sypha’s ice spears, but Trevor took this opportunity to power up, and once Alucard was out of their way he began throwing continuous knives at him--which Alucard turned into a bat to avoid.

Sypha incased him in ice for the second time, returning him to human form. The fairy broke him out.

Before Sypha could cast her next spell Alucard turned into a wolf and bowled Trevor over, leaping into the air to bite Sypha’s leg—

But before his teeth clamped down on her leg something caught in his throat—something too close to sentiment—and he fell to the floor, himself again.

In the moment’s hesitation Trevor wrapped the whip around Alucard's neck.

His eyes glinted, and his mouth quirked up. “See you in hell.”

******

“Well if it isn’t the cockwart, Alucard,” Trevor grunted as he sauntered down from the wagon, smirking.

“If it isn’t the bastard, Trevor.”

Sypha ran up to the dhampir and put her arms around him.

“It’s so good to see you again Alucard!” She released him, putting a hand on his cheek and smiling. “You haven’t changed a bit!”

“Well being half-vampire does have its benefits.”

They turned to look at Trevor, who was hanging back, rubbing the back of his head.

Sypha put her hands on her hips, raising an eyebrow at him. Trevor sighed.

“Good god, I never thought I’d say this but…” He looked at his feet. “I missed you. …You and your stupid, ugly face.”

"I have something to say to you as well.”

Alucard promptly flipped him off.

Trevor made a face, groaning, “I try to say one nice—”

Before they could blink Alucard had wrapped his arms around them, holding them so fast and so tight it nearly made them fall over.

“I missed you too. …You don’t even know how much.”

******

Alucard hit the floor of the save room—which happened to be the ceiling—at full force, the world returning like a punch to the face. Once he regained his senses, he coughed, balling his hands into fists before him, breath harsh in his throat, heavy on his chest.

“Well…fuck.”

“…Master Alucard?”

He didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t want to talk to much of anyone. He didn’t even want to think. To be here at all, in this castle. He half wished this save room didn’t exist so he wouldn’t have to go back there and do it all over again.

She fluttered up knelt in front of him, brushing the hair from his eyes.

Those eyes flicked to her. Eyes often soft and warm…now full of cold fire.

“I hope it’s not rude of me to ask…Who were those people?”

He didn’t reply at first, dropping his gaze, letting his breath rise and fall like ocean waves ripping through him, filling his eyes with saltwater.

“…Nobody.” He murmured low.

“They…” She paused a moment, trying to figure out how to delicately phrase things, “didn’t seem like nobody.”

He sat up. “…They’re not real.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to quell the burgeoning headache. “Dracula’s just trying to fuck with me.”

“Oh, indeed, I understand that.”—He shot her a reproving glance, so she continued more delicately—“…But most of Dracula’s minions don’t look human…not to mention they don’t know you…It appears to me whoever they represent were important to you.”

He looked away. He didn't want to talk about this. Not now. Not with a creature who--however well meaning--could barely begin to understand the horrors of immortality.

“And…they did know you...right?”

He looked down to see her wringing her hands.

“What exactly are you getting at?”

“It’s just…”

It dawned on him and he smiled, shifting to his knees. “That I’m the son of Dracula.”

She opened her mouth to say something, her wings beating and stopping nervously, looking down.

“Well it is a rather strange thing for them to say isn’t it? I mean, it can’t possibly be true.”

He smirked. “What if it is?”

She fluttered up to him, examining his features closely, her mouth open the whole time.

“You are?!”

He lowered his face closer to hers so she could feel his breath, his fangs glinting, “You scared?”

“...Not scared, more confused. I mean how can Dracula have a son? And—”

He raised an eyebrow. “Would you like me to go into the details?”

“I don’t mean that!” She smacked him lightly. “I mean…How can you be his son?”

“Why can’t I be?”

“Well first of all you don’t look like him—”

“Oh? And how do you know what Dracula looks like? Have you met him?”

“Well…I…” Her eyes darted between him and the ground, apparently grappling with the idea that he knew quite well what Dracula looked like. “This castle is full of Dracula’s supporters… he seems quite persuasive.”

“I’m not sure I’d say that—over half of them are creatures without reason, or free will, enough to know, or care, who they’re following.”

“Still…he has no shortage of allies.”

“What’s your question?”

“…How are you not one of them?”

He smiled. “I like to think I have a little more sense of right and wrong than mindless beasts.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that! I just mean…you’re so kind. I wouldn’t think Dracula’s son—”

“I’m not only the son of Dracula.”

She paused, thinking, before looking up. “Your mother.” Her wings fluttered as she gained understanding, floating up to his face. “It was your mother, wasn’t it? That memory we saw. The Succubus. You said that your mother never said those things.”

“Yes, she said quite the opposite, in fact.”

She gave a sad smile. "...It sounds like you loved her very much."

He gave an almost imperceptible nod as he looked away.

"I'm...sorry that happened to her. That's ...awful. Humans can be brutes at times."

"Yes." He agreed softly, before adding, "But not always. And not all of them."

She paused herself, then began fluttering back and forth—the fairy version of pacing—trying to wrap her head around it all.

“Was she married to Dracula?”

“Yes.”

“Who was she?”

“Her name was Lisa… and she was mortal.”

“Did he love her?”

He smirked at the innocent and naïve question.

“Very much. ...Enough that he’d destroy the world for her.”

She paused, looking at the ground. “Is that why we must defeat him?”

He gave a small nod.

“It seems such a sad reason to have to kill him…for love.”

He looked off to the side, not saying anything.

“Come on.” He stood up. “It’s time for round two.”

******

Notes Cont.:

For the cartoon, I actually wrote this fic before I watched S3, so when I was trying to come up with memories for after S2 with Trevor and Sypha all I could think of was simply them arriving back at the castle. Then reading it after watching S3 I realized their reunion would probably go differently :'( ...I decided to keep it as-is because I really have no clue how that's gonna go in later seasons, and because I felt people might like reading about a nice version of them coming back to him anyways.

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crowsent · 4 years

Text

AUgust 2020: Post-Apocalypse AU

Challenge given by @augustwritingchallenge

Summary: "You’ve gotta be fucking KIDDING me!” Battered and dirty and broken as it is, Max recognised this sign. Camp Camp looked much smaller now.

Pairing: N/A, implied mention of Gwen/David

Characters: Max, mention of Gwen and David

Word Count: 1143

CW: Zombie violence

Notes: the tumblr version is unformatted. for that reason, i highly recommend you to read the ao3 version instead so yall get that sweet sweet tone difference.

im a basic bitch who picked Zombie for post-apocalypse get over it. and i SWEAR to god if ANYONE fucking pulls some disgusting maxv//d bullshit in the notes im blocking yalls asses

AO3 Link: HERE

“You’ve gotta be fucking KIDDING me!” It’s a bad idea, but literally fucking everything is a bad idea in this zombie shitstorm. Who gives a cunt’s hair if Max lets out a scream filled with the rage-frustration-disbelief-rage that had been building up more and more and more? “There’s fucking something laughing at me,” he declared. A god, a demon, a heartless wretch dictating what his life would be behind a silver screen but something out there just wanted him to suffer for as long as possible in the worst fucking way.

The stupid banner under it has torn, the letters had faded even more, and one of the posts holding the sign up had been knocked down, but the stupid fucking thing stubbornly held itself aloft using a nearby overgrown tree branch like a crutch. Battered and dirty and broken as it was, Max recognised this sign. And, as he looked around him, he began to recognise these woods.

Camp Camp looked much smaller now. Max could touch the sign if he reached up for it on his tiptoes. Trace the letters that he spat at in his youth, follow the winding path deeper in with his eyes and if he looked real hard, deep past the overgrowth of leaves and branches, he could almost make out the flag in front of the mess hall peeking out, the one that David always saluted whenever he chanced a glance up like a fucking moron.

Starving, exhausted, and with blisters on his feet from running so damn much, Max can’t fucking believe that luck or fate or whatever the fuck brought him back here. A sharp whine, cut through the air behind him. Without even thinking, Max picked up his baseball bat and swung blind towards the noise.

There was a crack and a snap and just a little bit of that disgusting squelch when wet flesh slaps against the ground. Max heard it way too often these days. The bat cleaved through a runner’s forearm, sending it flying off into the great beyond as the zombie fell back, tumbling head over ass a few feet back. It didn’t stay down, runners never do, and the bitch got back up, scuttling on all fours (threes now, since it just lost an arm) like a shitty human-dog hybrid and lunged.

Max swung again and took the head clean off.

The fucker screamed too before it died. Like screaming was just the national past time in the middle of the apocalypse. Like it just had to let its zombie friends know that “hey, there’s a human here that hasn’t been bitten yet bon ape-fucking-tit.”

Bastard.

There’s a matching scream in the distance, in the direction where Max ran from. First one. Then two, then three. Then there was a chorus as the fucking things communicated. They were coming. Fucking zombies, travelling around in packs and shit like blonde rich girls with pumpkin spice lattes taking up the entire walkway when they traipse down the fucking mall at the pace of a crippled tortoise. Bitch. “I’m not dying in front of this shitty fucking camp…” Max grumbled. He wiped his bat (stolen off a wannabe jock getting his arm bit from highschool a couple of weeks ago) on the zombie runner’s tattered jeans. It helped a bit. There was still gunk and gore and what Max was sure was a tooth embedded in it, but he had no time.

He held it by the middle and ran away from the incoming horde, deeper into the woods. Towards camp. The bus dropped kids off here, and then David would come vomit sunshine all over them and escort them to the camp proper for the grand tour of Campbell’s poor excuse of a money-making scheme. The trail was overrun with grass, path barely visible at all as the trees stretched their gnarled branches out like grasping hands and shadowed everything with a thick canopy of leaves. Didn’t matter though. It’s been years since Max had been in this shitty camp, but he didn’t need to see the trail to know where the camp was.

That upturned rock that kinda looks like a butt was still there. Had to turn slightly to the left until he sees the tree with the sexy Marilyn Monroe pose where had to turn right in a 90 degree angle until he reached the mess hall. Max’s feet moved on instinct and habit, following a path that he’d known seemingly his entire childhood. Happens when your parents punt you out of the car like unwanted luggage and you have to stay in one place year after year after year til they don’t pick you up one summer and you had to be dragged away by some bitch in a uniform and a smile so plastic they could market her off as a hyper-realistic barbie doll.

Muscle memory took Max in front of the mess hall. There was still a redundantly painted ‘Mess Hall’ over the door, though a little faded now. The flag pole still stood; held together with tape and rope and sheer fucking spite. And even though the last time Max had called David ended with his screams and Gwen’s terrified voice panic-yelling that a zombie had made it into their house, he couldn’t help but think that no one else but David could have done this. He was the only son of a bitch dumb enough to ever come back to Camp Campbell in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. That he and Gwen were safe.

I wonder what happened to him?

Max didn’t spend that long standing outside and gawking at the pole like an idiot. No, he was going to be smart about this. He knew that there was an attic in the mess hall where Cameron Campbell kept his shit, and another attic in the pantry behind the kitchen where Neil wrote in his diary and kept biscuits and juice and who knows what else. If he was lucky, there’d be something for him to eat while he waits for the horde to investigate this sham of a summer camp like Agents Millner used to do. Hopefully they’d be just as shitty at it.

He’d be quiet and patient. A thing he used to be shit at, but funny how good he turned out at them when being both of those things meant continuing to live another day of this shitty life.

Max pushed open the door. It creaked a little, but it was unlocked and he could get in.

He didn’t know why he did it, but just before he slipped inside the mess hall and barricaded the door, Max threw the Camp Camp salute at the flag, back straight, arm out, fingers curled as he tilted his head up ever so slightly.

Just like David used to do.

#crowsas writes #au_gust_2020 #camp camp

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antihero-writings · 4 years

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Inverted Recurrence

Fandom: Castlevania Symphony of the Night (but with the Netflix series characterizations)

Summary: It's been three hundred years since Alucard saw Trevor and Sypha. When he sees a version of them in the inverted coliseum...he just can't seem to win the fight against them.

So he loses. Over and over.

(The inverted coliseum boss fight from Symphony of the Night, but with the Netflix series characters)

Notes: First of all, warning!! There will be swearing in this fic!!

This is a fic for the game Symphony of the Night. However I used the characterizations of the characters from the Netflix series. This is also why Grant is not present, even though he's present in the actual fight. (I wanted to include him, especially because they took him out of the show...but because they took him out of the show, and because I have yet to play Dracula's Curse, I didn't feel like I could properly characterize him to have him in the scene.)

If you enjoyed this I'd really appreciate it if you could leave a comment! They make my week, and really help motive me to keep writing multi-chapter fics like this one!

I’ll also post this on my Castlevania blog @symphonyofthewrite if you want to check it out there!!

Chapter 1:

Alucard hit the ground of the save room…which happened to be the ceiling, breath and heartbeat crawling through his chest like fire ants.

“Well…fuck.”

******

Fire consumed the werewolves’ snarls, echoing through the stone hall, and he continued up the corridor without a glance back.

Alucard paused to think; count the rooms.

He wiped the blood off his sword—well, not his sword, that is to say, he still didn’t have his mother’s sword back from that dickhead, Death, so he was using one he had borrowed from one of those green skeletons upon its second death.

She folded her arms and bowed. “I am prepared for whatever comes our way, Master Alucard.”

He grinned back. “Good.”

The doors shut themselves behind, and in front, of him with a loud thump, closing off his exits.

Yup. Interesting.

He stood on guard, aiming the sword at the pentagonal spinning coffins in the center of the room, his mind cycling through what might step out;

Let’s see, skeletons? Zombies? Ghosts? No it’d be something more advanced than that. Maybe dragon would walk out? Or maybe he’d fight the embodiment of of emperor Nero himself? That might be fun.

When their lids creaked forward, and the first enemy stepped out it did not, in fact, have rotting skin, or a malevolent grin…It looked like a man.

A man with brown hair, blue eyes—one of which a scar fell across—sauntered over to Alucard, the Belmont crest gleaming on his chest.

Alucard froze, eyes widening.

The man groaned when he saw Alucard—but not in an undead way, more like a man who was annoyed—and, unlike many of the monsters, he spoke:

“Well if it isn’t the cockwart, Alucard.”

But this—

“Trevor! What have I told you about speaking your mind?!” Alucard had been so focused on Trevor he hadn’t noticed the other enemy: a woman in blue smacked Trevor on the back of the head.

“Uhh that it’s what everyone should do it all the time?” he rubbed his head.

She pulled on his ear.

“Okay, okay! Easy on the moneymaker!”

“Master Alucard?” the fairy’s voice was muffled behind the sound of his heartbeat.

He fought reanimated flesh, and first-animated metal, he fought things straight out of books, things he wished were mere fantasy, and never once did he stand paralyzed.

The fairy couldn’t hear the words he breathed.

Three hundred years is a long time. Even if he spent most of it asleep, time has a way of weighing heavy on the chest.

They were arguing amongst themselves, while the fairy was asking him questions, but he couldn’t hear any of them. As if he was beneath many tons of water, the pressure slowly crushing him.

Seeing his friends from centuries ago, his friends who he had argued with, played games with, laughed, cried with. Friends who he had watched die, who he had mourned, grieved long ago back again…

“What’s the matter?” Trevor put his hands on his hips, noticing that he was standing their dumbstruck. “Cat got your tongue?”

Alucard backed up on shaky legs, biting his lip until it bled.

“Master Alucard!” the fairy fluttered in front of his face—how long had she been calling him? “What’s going on?!”

His lips were sealed shut; he couldn’t answer her even if he wanted to. His eyes gravitated past her toward the two behind her.

It had been so long. So long since those lonely nights. So long since those sunny days. So long since he’d seen their faces. So long since he’d heard their voices. Seeing, hearing, them now was like medicine, like sobriety. Like reminding himself he hadn’t made them up after all—(because sometimes it felt like he had). So long…So long since he’d been with his friends. So long since he’d had friends.

“I did want to resolve our differences.” Sypha shrugged. “But, we’re going to have to show you what we really think of you now.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself. It was nice—well uh…it was something knowing you.”

“…What?” Alucard’s breath made clouds in these snowy woods.

Trevor glanced up at him, unspooling the morning star whip—the one that he had once used to fight the night hordes with together…or at least a version of it…it didn’t look quite right.

“It’s a real shame”—he said like it wasn’t much of a shame at all—“but…we do have to kill you now.”

“We have a reputation to keep.”

“You know, vampire slayers and all. Can’t have the son of Dracula walking around.”

Alucard had to keep his breath from catching on itself and tripping.

He backed up, turning to see Sypha holding out her hands in a combat posture.

He shut his eyes and shook his head quickly, clearing the snow from his eyes, reminding himself the woods were nothing but memory; he was here, in Dracula’s upside-down castle fighting phantoms of his friends.

They’re not real, he told himself. They’re not your friends. Trevor and Sypha are gone. They’re just one of Dracula’s tricks. He’s using them to get to you.

He felt something wrap around his leg.

“Master Alucard!”

“It’s nothing personal.” Trevor spoke, “Except if you count the fact that we’d only do this to you because you’re the worst.” He yanked on the whip and swung Alucard by his leg into the far wall at full force.

Sypha held up her arms beads of light before her fingers, then brought them together, making spikes of ice jut out from beneath the walls, stomping towards him.

He pried himself from the wall and jumped out of their way.

Trevor threw a cross at him—one made of bones—but it came back without finding its mark.

Before Sypha could send her jet of flame at him, Alucard burst forward knocking her down.

“Attacking poor, innocent girls now? So that’s how you want to play it, huh?”

“Who are you calling ‘poor’ and ‘innocent’?!” Sypha crossed her arms, “I can handle myself thank you very much!”

“Oh—I—uh—I didn’t mean it like that!”

Sypha scowled at him.

It was like they walked straight out of his memory. …Were they really not real?

Trevor jumped up, raising his whip.

You don’t have to do this, Alucard wanted to reason with them.

But he knew. He knew this wasn’t them. They were only a shell. A reanimated memory. Empty. There was nothing in there to reason with.

Alucard blocked his attack with his shield, and crouched down, slicing his leg, knocking down. But before he could send the sword through his chest, Sypha raised her arm and incased him in a block of ice.

The fairy broke him out, but this had given Trevor enough time to get up, throwing another bone cross. This time it knocked Alucard to the ground.

Sypha floated before him, ready to blast him with fire. This time Alucard teleported, slashing Trevor in the back.

“You filthy vampire bastard.”

Why them?! He wanted to demand of Dracula, but that was all-too obvious.

Alucard disappeared in a column of gold, then reappeared, opening his cloak and sending fireballs towards Trevor, who extinguished them by swinging his whip.

He dodged Sypha’s ice spears, but Trevor took this opportunity to power up, and once Alucard was out of their way he began throwing continuous knives at him.

Alucard turned into a bat to avoid them.

Sypha incased him in ice for the second time, returning him to human form. The fairy broke him out.

Before Sypha could cast her next spell Alucard turned into a wolf and bowled Trevor over, leaping into the air to bite Sypha’s leg—

But before his teeth clamped down on her leg something caught in his throat—something too close to sentiment—and he fell to the floor, himself again.

In the moment’s hesitation Trevor wrapped the whip around his neck.

His eyes glinted, and his mouth quirked up. “See you in hell.”

******

“Well if it isn’t the cockwart Alucard,” Trevor grunted as he sauntered down from the wagon, smirking.

“If it isn’t the…bastard Trevor.”

Sypha ran up to the dhampir and put her arms around him.

“It’s so good to see you again Alucard!” She released him, putting a hand on his cheek and smiling. “You haven’t changed a bit!”

“Well being half-vampire does have its benefits.”

They turned to look at Trevor, who was hanging back, rubbing the back of his head.

Sypha put her hands on her hips, raising an eyebrow at him. Trevor sighed.

“Good god, I never thought I’d say this but…” he looked at his feet. “I missed you. …You and your stupid, ugly face.”

"I have something to say to you as well.”

Alucard promptly flipped him off.

Trevor made a face, groaning, “I try to say one nice—”

Before they could blink Alucard had wrapped his arms around them.

“I missed you too. …You don’t even know how much.”

******

“Well…fuck.”

“…Master Alucard?”

She fluttered up knelt in front of him, brushing the hair from his eyes.

Those eyes flicked to her. Eyes which were often soft and warm…now they were full of cold fire.

“I hope it’s not rude of me to ask…Who were those people?”

He didn’t reply at first, dropping his gaze, letting his breath rise and fall like ocean waves ripping through him, filling his eyes with saltwater.

“…Nobody.” He murmured low.

“They…” She paused a moment, trying to figure out how to delicately phrase things, “didn’t seem like nobody.”

He sat up. “…They’re not real.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to quell the burgeoning headache. “Dracula’s just trying to fuck with me.”

He didn’t respond.

“And…they did know you, right?”

He looked down to see her wringing her hands.

“What exactly are you getting at?”

“It’s just…”

It dawned on him he smiled, shifting onto his knees. “That I’m the son of Dracula.”

She opened her mouth to say something, her wings beating and stopping nervously, looking down.

“Well it is a rather strange thing for them to say isn’t it? I mean, it can’t possibly be true.”

He smirked. “What if it is?”

She fluttered up to him, examining his features closely, her mouth open the whole time.

“You are?!”

He lowered his face closer to hers so she could feel his breath, his fangs glinting, “You scared?”

“Not scared, more…confused. I mean how can Dracula have a son? And—”

He raised an eyebrow. “Would you like me to go into the details?”

“I don’t mean that!” She smacked him lightly. “I mean…How can you be his son?”

“Why can’t I be?”

“Well first of all you don’t look like him—”

“Oh? And how do you know what Dracula looks like? Have you met him?”

“I’m not sure I’d say that—over half of them are creatures without reason or free will enough to know, or care, who they’re following.”

“Still…he has no shortage of allies.”

“What’s your question?”

“…How are you not one of them?”

He smiled. “I like to think I have a little more sense of right and wrong than mindless beasts.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that! I just mean…you’re so kind. I wouldn’t think Dracula’s son—”

“I’m not only the son of Dracula.”

“Yes, she said quite the opposite, in fact.”

She fluttered back and forth—the fairy version of pacing—trying to wrap her head around it all.

“Was she married to Dracula?”

“Yes.”

“Who was she?”

“Her name was Lisa… and she was mortal.”

“Did he love her?”

He smirked at the innocent and naïve question.

“Very much. Enough that he’d destroy the world for her her.”

She paused, looking at the ground. “Is that why we must defeat him?”

He gave a small nod.

“It seems such a sad reason to have to kill him…for love.”

He looked off to the side, not saying anything.

“Come on.” He stood up. “It’s time for round two.”

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sheconquers · 3 years

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SEASON ONE // EPISODES 6-10

S1. E6. A Golden Crown

The thought crosses Daenerys’ mind that perhaps the dragon eggs are not simply stone. She studies it closely, remembering that fire cannot harm a dragon, that even she thrives in heat. Out of curiosity, she places one of the eggs on a brazier… but nothing happens. It is a disappointment, but when she pulls her hands away from the heated egg, unharmed, the thought continues to linger that perhaps there is a way to hatch them.

Soon, she is summoned by the dosh khaleen, the wives of khals slain in battle who run the city. Before them, she eats a stallions heart as they read omens. She struggles at first to keep the organ down, but, to the relief of both her and her husband, she manages to compose herself. As she finishes the heart, the crones declare that her son will be “The Stallion That Mounts The World”, the khal of khals, the ruler who will unite the Dothraki into a single horde to overrun all of the lands according to Dothraki legend. Daenerys then announces that her son shall be named Rhaego, after her brother Rhaegar who was slain by Robert Baratheon. She is then lifted by Drogo who carries her about the room as the Dothraki chant their son’s name.

Infuriated and drunk, Viserys arrives at a feast to celebrate the Khal and Khaleesi to demand that Drogo pay him for giving him Daenerys. He draws his sword to threaten Daenerys and her unborn child, believing that since the Dothraki cannot draw blood in their sacred city that he cannot be harmed. Drogo promises that he will give Viserys a golden crown “that men will tremble to behold”. Daenerys makes no move to argue or disagree, knowing that this has always been how things must happen, this is how the story has always been written.

She watches as Viserys’ pleasure quickly slips to pain as Qotho grabs him and breaks his arm before kicking him to the floor. She watches in silence as as her husband melts a belt of golden medallions into a pot and her brother begs for mercy, begs for her to stop what is about to happen. She watches as her brother is blessed with a golden crown that encases his head and burns his scalp. She sneers as he dies, collapsing on the ground, stating that he was no true dragon.

For fire cannot harm a dragon.

S1. E7. You Win or You Die & S1. E8 The Pointy End

It begins to occur to Daenerys that, perhaps, her son should sit upon the Iron Throne. She begins to plant the seed in Khal Drogo’s head that an invasion of the Seven Kingdoms would benefit the Dothraki. However, Drogo does not wish to cross the Narrow Sea and that a man does not need an “iron chair”. He only needs a horse. Daenerys realizes that the conversation is fruitless and continuing it would be pointless, so she tucks the desire away for a better time.

Instead, she travels to the marketplace with Jorah and her handmaidens. She takes the opportunity to ask Jorah to help her convince her husband to invade the Seven Kingdoms because the throne is hers by birthright. In response, she is reminded that Aegon the Conqueror was only able to take six of the Kingdoms because he had dragons who were able to fight alongside him.

When Jorah separates from her and her handmaidens, the group wanders into a wineseller who is seemingly eager to impress the Khaleesi with a particular vintage. However, as she has been convinced to drink the wine, Jorah intervenes. It is quickly discovered that the wine is poisoned and that this was an assassination attempt. Jorah explains to her that that Robert Baratheon will never stop trying to kill her.

Once back at the tent, Drogo quickly arrives. He glares at the wineseller but immediately goes to Daenerys to be sure she’s unharmed. As a thanks to Jorah, he offers him any horse of his choosing before becoming enraged and shouting that his army will cross the “poison water” to take the Iron Throne for his son as punishment for their assassination attempt on his Khaleesi.

The next morning, the khalasar leaves Vaes Dothrak… the wine seller tied naked to the saddle of the Khaleesi’s horse, forced to walk until he collapse from exhaustion to be dragged to his death.

Khal Drogo wastes no time in making good on his promise to Daenerys. Almost immediately he begins the march of conquest towards the Narrow Sea. In order to afford the coming war, the Dothraki must raid villages and take people to sell into slavery to allow them the money they need to hire ships for their assault on Westeros. Despite this being explained to Daenerys, she is distraught at the aftermath of the raid on a village in Lhazar. She sees the Dothraki killing the villagers, raping their women, and she orders it to stop. The Dothraki grow angry, but Daenerys quickly claims all of the women she sees to protect them. Angry, the warriors make their complaints known to Khal Drogo. However, Drogo is amused by his Khaleesi’s boldness and allows her to keep her slaves, much to the frustration of the Dothraki.

Drogo is challenged by an offended warrior, Mago. He takes a wound to the chest in the midst of the fight but quickly kills Mago, silencing the complaints. Daenerys sees the wound he has received and insists that it be treated as she is concerned that it will become infected and fester. She allows a healer, Mirri Maz Duur, whom she rescued, to treat the wound despite Drogo’s bloodriders proclaiming her a maegi… a witch. Unbeknownst to Daenerys… this is the beginning of the end.

S1. E9. Baelor & S1. E10 Fire and Blood

Despite the help Daenerys has sought from Mirri, Drogo’s wound begins to fester. He keeps marching forward despite growing weaker and weaker while his Khaleesi watches on, concerned. Eventually, he is unable to remain upright on his horse and he falls to the ground. Daenerys understands how dangerous this makes the situation as a Khal who cannot ride, cannot rule. To buy Drogo time, she orders his bloodriders to make camp and claim that the command came from the Khal. She then orders that Mirri be brought to her.

Drogo is brought to his tent with Daenerys and Jorah arrives soon after, warning her that the khalasar is learning of Drogo’s fall. Distraught, Daenerys begs for Jorah’s help, begs him to help her save her husband. When there is none but the two of them, Jorah removes the covering of Drogo’s wound to reveal a deeply festered and rotted patch of flesh, leading him to declare that Drogo is as good as dead. He immediately urges Daenerys to flee, that the power struggle that will follow Drogo’s death will likely end in the winner killing Rhaego. Daenerys, however, refuses to leave Drogo’s side. Instead, she sends Jorah to fetch his armor to be sure he is prepared if something happens.

Once Jorah has left, she asks Mirri to save Drogo using blood magic. The witch warns her that death may be cleaner and that only death may pay for life. Though, once Daenerys is reassured that her life is not the one needed, she agrees to the ritual. Once the ritual begins, Daenerys is instructed to be sure that no one enters the tent during the ritual. As she leaves, a battle breaks out amongst the bloodriders and Daenerys’ Khas. Rhaego begins to kick and Daenerys falls to the ground as she goes into labor. The birthing women of the khalasar refuse to treat her until someone in the crowd suggests Mirri. Concerned for Daenerys, Jorah lifts her and carries her to the tent while she is too weak to protest.

Days later, she wakes with one of her dragon eggs in her arms. Something she had requested during one of her few waking moments between fever dreams. Jorah is there, having not left her side, and reveals to her that Rhaego was born dead and deformed, covered in scales. He also explains that most of the khalasar has gone, moved on, and left them behind. However, Drogo is alive.

She demands to see him. She is taken to a cliff where she finds Drogo in a catatonic state. When questioned about when he will become himself, she is told “When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before.” In this moment, Daenerys realizes that the death of her son and husband is her fault as she is the one who invited Mirri into their Khalasar and asked her to treat him.

Miri is arrested and Drogo is taken to Daenerys’ tent. She spends the evening bathing him, speaking to him, and attempting to seduce him. But nothing works and she understands that he is no longer there, that though he breathes, Khal Drogo is gone. She kisses him one last time and, crying, smothers him with a pillow because she knows this is not the life he would want.

Daenerys and those who have remained with her build a funeral pyre for Drogo. She speaks to those left and tells them that they are welcome to leave if they would like but that those who stay, she will lead to a glorious future. She frees the slaves in her presence and asks that they stay among her as equals. Though some walk away, this does not deter her. She commands that Rakharo place her dragon eggs on the pyre and has Miri Maz Duur bound to a pillar in the midst of the pyre.

Concerned, Jorah approaches her, believing that she intends to take her own life. He begs her to reconsider this choice, tells her that they can take the eggs, sell them, and travel far away, proclaiming “I won’t watch you burn”. Daenerys grows quiet for a moment before softly responding “Is that what you fear?”. A kiss is placed to his cheek as the pyre is set aflame. Calmly, Daenerys turns and walks into the flames, quickly appearing to be consumed by them.

Come dawn, Jorah is the first to approach what is left of the pyre. Instead of her charred corpse, he finds Daenerys sitting among the embers with three newly-hatched dragons crawling over her. She is covered in ash, her clothes have been burnt away, but she is completely unarmed. At the sight, Jorah and the remaining Dothraki drop to kneel and swear their allegiance to Daenerys.

The Mother of Dragons is born.

#☾ *･ﾟ: * META ↳ ĸιnd people are ғorged ιn ғιre and darĸneѕѕ and ιмplodιng ѕтarѕ #rape //#pregnancy //

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absolxguardian · 4 years

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T H E F E A R S

I mean what I said. These things, these forces, they are our fear. Deep fears. Primordial. Always looking for ways to grow and spread.

I always think it helps to imagine them like colours. The edges bleed together, and you can talk about little differences: “oh, that’s indigo, that’s more lilac”, but they’re both purple. I mean, I guess there are technically infinite colours, but you group them together into a few big ones. A lot of it’s kind of arbitrary. I mean, why are navy blue and sky blue both called blue, when pink’s an entirely different colour from red? Y’know? I don’t know, that’s just how it works.

And like colours, some of these powers, they feed into or balance each other. Some really clash, and you just can’t put them together. I mean, you could see them all as just one thing, I guess, but it would be pretty much meaningless, y’know, like… like trying to describe a… shirt by talking about the concept of colour.

Of course, with these things it’s not a simple spectrum, y’know, it’s more like -

An infinite amorphous blob of terror bleeding out in every direction at once.

Sometimes you impulse buy a kid’s rock painting set from Micheal's of all places and end up using it to make sigils for all of the Fears.

Close ups under the cut (also poetic descriptions drawing from my headcanons about the Fears).

The End. Death. Terminus.

The oldest of all the fears. All other Fears are simply layers separating the fear from it’s source- the fear of death. It was created because of fear, and fear was created because of it. It is the end, the stopping of it all, the force we fight against every day with every breath.

Primary Avatars: The Reapers/Death, The Sybil (Oliver Banks), and The Speaker (”Jane Doe”)

Ritual: It has no need of one, all threads must be cut one day.

Allies: They are all its children.

The Hunt.

The End’s firstborn. It was born in the time before sapience, when fear was simpler. But that was still enough. It is a fear for animals, of being hunted down and killed, of being prey.

Primary Avatars: The Hunters and predators [mundane].

Ritual: The Everchase

Allies: The Flesh, The Slaughter, The Desolation, and The Eye.

Enemies: The Vast and The Buried.

The Vast. The Falling Titian.

The child of The End and the twin of The Buried. It began as an animal’s fear, of the fall that shatters your bones of the sea you cannot cross for it is not yours. But with sapience, it evolved. It is falling, heights, lighting, and the Not Yours that surrounds Yours. But also a human’s own insignificance and the true emptiness of the world. It is too much space.

Primary Avatars: The Fairchild family and The Lightning’s (Michael Crew).

Ritual: The Awful Deep

Allies: The Lonely, The Flesh, The Eye, and The Dark.

Enemies: The Buried.

The Buried. The Center. Choke. Too Close I Cannot Breathe

The child of The End and the twin of The Vast. It did not evolve as much as its despised sibling. It is suffocation, and the dirt that fills lungs. But with humans, it became more complex, more existential, as it always does. Those brains can find more in caves than suffocation or the dark. While even an animal fears a small space in case they get trapped and fall to a hunter, only humans could create constructs to bind and crush each other with. It is when there is too little space.

Primary Avatars: The Pit and The Gravedigger (Hezekiah Wakely)

Ritual: The Sunken Sky.

Allies: The Lonely, The Dark and the Web.

Enemies: The Vast, The Flesh, The Eye, and The Slaughter.

The Dark. Mister Pitch. The Forever Blind.

A direct child of The End. The fear of the dark- for it is scary because we cannot know. We cannot see the threats that may hid in its embrace. With the life-giver being a star, it has come to oppose all life and heat. It wishes for blind eyes.

Primary Avatars: The Church of the Divine Host, The Rayner, and the Black Star.

Ritual: The Extinguished Sun.

Allies: The Vast, The Buried, The Stranger, The Spiral, and The Dark.

Enemies: The Eye.

The Desolation. The Lightless Flame. The Devastation. Blackened Earth.

The End’s child. While it sure does love the destruction aspects of fire, it is not just fear of burning. It is the fear of pain and the fear of loss- of power, possessions, or loved ones. It lacks the motivation of The Hunt or the Flesh and destroys more than just lives, unlike The Slaughter.

Primary Avatars: The Church of the Lightless Flame, The Flame’s Messiah (Agnes Montague), and natural disasters [mundane]

Ritual: The Scoured Earth.

Allies: The Slaughter, The Hunt, and the Buried.

Enemies: The Flesh and The Corruption.

The Lonely. Forsaken. The One Alone.

The End’s youngest solo child and a fear for humans alone. It is the complex webs of society on top of a simple fact- you need the pack to survive. Not to mention that the simple physical brains of humans abhor isolation as well. Isolation, both emotional and physical, strip away one’s mental and physical wellbeing and often driving them to drugs. And simple physical isolation will strip away one’s connection to reality itself, so The Lonely feasts on that unraveling mind just aware enough to fear the fall.

Primary Avatars: The Luckas family.

Ritual: The Forsaken.

Allies: The Buried, The Vast, and The Spiral.

The Flesh. The Meat.

The child of The Hunt and its successor. It is a fear for animals, but those that never know freedom or a game to try to escape. Their path is set, they are the animals raised and slaughtered by humans for meat, with no risk to themselves. They are to be eaten their flesh in a form unconnected to their own appearance, consumed by those who know not how to prepare them. While humans are not raised like that, their separation from The Hunt makes them quiver at the idea of being consumed in any form. With all their knowledge in this era, humans are coming to understand that they may be no different than animals- just organic molecules animated by electricity. The Flesh also feasts on that philosophizing.

Primary Avatars: The Eurachist [mundane] and slaughterhouse workers [mundane].

Ritual: The Last Feast.

Allies: The Hunt, The Corruption, The Desolation, The Stranger, and The Spiral.

Enemies: The Slaughter and The Buried.

The Slaughter. Violence. War

The child of The Desolation and The Hunter. It the anticipation of uncertain violence. It is violence that isn’t committed for the direct benefit of the murder and/or specifically because of the victim. It is found in both frenzied killers and in the steely, impersonal murder of armies. It rules over all the fear that comes from war, and eats heartily from all the conflicts humans keep creating all by themselves.

Primary Avatars: War Ghosts, The Piper/War, and soldiers [mundane].

Ritual: The Risen War.

Allies: The Desolation, The Hunter, and The Web.

Enemies: The Flesh and the Buried.

The Eye. The Beholding. Ceaseless Watching.

The Hunter’s least favorite child. An animal fears being watched because it means a predator may be observing, but humans have taken that fear as an end onto itself. It is watching, recording, and servailing. It feasts on the scraps of other Fears, reliving the trauma of their victims.

Primary Avatars: The Archive (The Magnus Institute), The Archivist (Jonathan Sims), and The Heart (Elias Bouchard)

Ritual: The Watcher’s Crown

Allies: The Web and The Hunt.

Enemies: The Dark, The Stranger, and The Spiral.

The Stranger. I Do Not Know You.

The child of The Dark, sapience extending the unknown to the other. It is the fear of what is not quite human. But the fear of the humans that are not quite you? Humans spend so much time creating reasons and convincing others to fear eachother. So much mundane fear of the other exists that The Stranger could survive on that alone.

Primary Avatars: The NotThem/dopplegangers, The Circus of the Other, The Deliverers, and bigots [mundane].

Ritual: The Unknowing.

Allies: The Dark and The Spiral.

Enemies: The Eye.

The Spiral. The Twisting Deceit, Esmentiaras, It Is Not What It Is.

The Dark’s other child, for one cannot know if one cannot trust their senses. It is the fear of madness, of unreality. It induces this fear by warping reality, leading its victims to believe they are the ones at fault.

Primary Avatars: The Distortion (once Micheal, now Helen Richardson) and The Worker in Clay (”Gabriel”).

Ritual: Our Great Twisting.

Allies: The Dark, The Stranger, The Web and The Flesh.

Enemies: The Eye.

The Corruption. Filth. Crawling Rot.

The child of The Flesh (but born before The Flesh) and The End. It is a collection of things that are unrelated in reality (bugs, rotten food, poison, mold, decay, and disease), but are associated in the mind of humans lacking knowledge- death without a clear cause and corpses.

Primary Avatars: The Hive (Jane Prentiss) and Pestilence (John Amherst).

Ritual: Unknown.

Allies: The Flesh and The Web.

Enemies: The Desolation.

The Web. The Spider. Mother of Puppets.

The child of The Corruption and The Buried. It is the fear of being restrained, but in a more metaphorical sense than The Buried. It is the fear of manipulation, being controlled, and that your will is not your own. And, from its other parent, spiders.

Primary Avatars: The Binding Table, The Spider Horde, and The Patriarch (Raymond Fielding).

Ritual: This world is almost identical to the Web’s, so why bother?

Allies: The Corruption, The Spiral, The Eye, and The Slaughter, The Lonely, The Buried, and The Dark.

Enemies: The Flesh and The Lonely (their relationship is complicated).

The Extinction. The Terrible Change. The Future-Without-Us.

The child of The Stranger and The End, this Fear is still emerging. It developing as humans confront their old hubris about the end times. It is the end of the world, but with no holy rapture. It is an end that isn’t the end of all life, just the end of them. It is the fear of being replaced by another species. It is the fear of how they will ruin themselves. It is the collapse or radical change of society. It is taking all forms of change from the dominions of the other Fears and bringing it into its own.

Primary Avatars: The emergence of true AI [mundane], climate change [mundane], and nuclear weapons [mundane].

Ritual: Many theorize that it seeks to end the world as it is known and replace humans with another sapient species to begin the cycle again.

Allies: The Stranger and The Desolation.

Enemies: Many avatars seek to disrupt its emergence as it would shatter the balance between the powers. They also fear the possibility that The Extinction wouldn’t repopulate the world with a new sapience species right away, setting them back eons.

#tma #the magnus archives #the fears #my art #my writings #rock art

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purplewitch156 · 5 years

Text

Sequel Teaser!

As today is Tom’s birthday and we’re welcoming in a brand new year, I wanted to share a scene from Of Your Making’s sequel. I’m still piecing together the first draft, but it will be ready sometime in 2019.

Happy New Year, everyone!

xxpurplewitch156

p.s. I got the line in, @thechoi-choi

p.p.s. Apologies for the extra spaces. My theme smushs the text otherwise.

Tom didn’t need to check his watch nor the garishly tacky cuckoo clock mounted behind the sofa, which roared like a lion every time the hands struck twelve (a late Christmas present from one of Harry’s school friends, Luna Lovegood), to know that they were very nearly late. He marched to the foot of the stairs.

“Harry, we need to go.”

“If you’d tell me where we’re going, I’d know what to pack,” Harry shouted back.

“Nice try,” Tom replied, amused. “But I’m still not telling you. Just grab something and get down here.”

A string of grumbles that sounded like curses drifted down the stairs. Tom smirked. He was enjoying this far too much.

Tomorrow Harry would turn nineteen and Tom had been planning an extravagant celebration for months.

“He’s never been out of the country,” said Granger during a lunch in June. They had been gathered in the backyard of the cottage he and Harry shared. While Harry played with a toddling Teddy Lupin in the distance, he, Granger and Weasley sat around the tea service under a leafy cherry tree. “I think he’d like that.”

Against his wishes, Tom had eventually chosen to confide in Weasley and Granger about his desire to shepherd Harry away. It was impossible to expect everyone in Harry’s life to not ask pestering questions when Tom stated that they’d be away for the occasion, so he enlisted help. Harry’s oldest friends jumped to Tom’s aid energetically, spreading in whispers that it was to be a surprise until the very last minute.

Since moving in with Harry shortly after Christmas, Tom quickly discovered that living with Harry also meant living with a horde of red-heads, a snot-dripping one year-old, and a constant stream of impromptu guests, though Harry would say he was over exaggerating.

“How much time are you taking off?” Granger asked.

“Three weeks,” said Tom, pouring himself another cup of tea.

Robards had been surprisingly relaxed about his two highest ranked Aurors taking such a long leave of absence.

“We won’t be on call,” Tom had told him firmly.

“Of course not,” said Robards. “You’d think I’d drag you two back here over a few murder cases? I do have other Aurors, Riddle. Enjoy yourselves.”

There had been a twinkling gleam in Robards’ eyes that felt far too knowing, as if the Head Auror suspected that the surprise birthday get-away was merely the setting for a much larger surprise.

Weasley sat back in his chair. “You know, I don’t even think Harry’s been on a vacation. He’s never mentioned one.” He suddenly snickered. “I’ll bet five galleons the hotel is burned down by a chimaera. That’s just his luck.”

Granger kicked him under the table.

“I’m not taking him to Greece,” Tom replied as Weasley rubbed his shin ruefully.

Granger looked around at him, excited. “You’ve picked a place?”

Tom nodded.

Granger and Weasley both stared at him expectantly and Tom found himself admitting, “Peru.”

“Oh!” Granger cried delighted as Weasley said, with a grin, “So it’ll be a Vipertooth.”

“Ron, they aren’t going to be attacked by anything,” said Granger, annoyed.

Weasley snorted. “Do you know the same Harry I do?”

Granger ignored him. She turned back to Tom. “It sounds wonderful. He’s going to love it.”

“Love what?”

All three of their heads whipped around. Harry stood before them with Teddy against one hip. The child’s usual sandy-blond hair was now exactly the same as Harry’s, even sticking up in the back. Over the last few weeks, his metamorphmagus skills had been expanding rapidly. It made taking him shopping in the Muggle village of Ottery St. Catchpole a trying task. Tom noticed, startled, that the boy had chosen to mimic his eyes today. He looked exactly as one would expect their offspring to look like, if he and Harry ever chose to do something like that, which he hoped to Salazar would never be the case. If anyone else caught the unsettling resemblance, they let it pass without comment.

“Love what?” Harry repeated, looking at them expectantly.

“That book Hermione’s been reading,” said Weasley after a beat. He turned to Granger, snapping his fingers. “Toadstools of the … what was it?”

“Southern Hemisphere,” Granger quickly supplied.

Harry’s right eyebrow rose. “Sounds riveting.”

“Oh, it is,” said Granger, emphatic. “Neville couldn’t stop talking about it. I had to give it a try.”

“Kay,” said Harry, eying them all suspiciously. “I’m going to wash Teddy up before Andromeda comes.”

And hopefully get the boy looking more like himself, Tom thought, still unnerved.

Besides Granger, Weasley, Robards and Shacklebolt, no one knew who Tom really was. Or, if he was going to be precise, who he used to be. To the rest of the world he was Thomas Thorne, a skilled and efficient Auror who happened to be dating his co-worker. To quote the Daily Prophet: Thomas Thorne, Harry Potter’s Chosen One.

Andromeda visited the cottage at least every other week, bringing Teddy for play dates. She had lost a great deal during the war — her husband, her daughter, her son-in-law, but she had Teddy and she had Harry. Tom was rather impressed with how well she was coping. Though he had never spoken to the third Black sister, as she estranged herself shortly before Bella joined his Death Eater ranks all those years ago, he found the woman’s company surprisingly pleasant. It amused him how often he caught himself being surprised. After all, realizing he loved Harry Potter should have been the surprise to end all surprises. Funny how it was just the starting point to an endless stream.

As Harry and Teddy disappeared into the house, Weasley turned to Tom and gave him a thumbs up. “Doesn’t suspect a thing.”

Granger rolled her eyes, both humored and exasperated. “Toadstools? Really?”

Weasley shrugged. “What was I supposed to say?”

“You’re hopeless,” said Granger, but she was charmed.

And again, to Tom’s surprise, with each visit of Harry’s two closest friends, he too found himself charmed. Granger’s brain was a scholar’s dream and Weasley — for all his laid-back humor — was the bloke who’d wade into flesh-eating waters if it would save one of his companions.

Tom had never had something like that. He’d never had friends or confidants. He’d never understood the appeal. Not until Harry. And though he did not think of Granger or Weasley in such a light, he also did not mind them as he’d once thought he would.

Unlike, for instance, this lion clock. Waiting for Harry to appear, Tom stood before it, counting its golden, ticking seconds. Harry’s insistence on hanging it up had been met by Tom’s retaliation of turning their bedroom as Slytherin green as wizarding possible. The sudden sounds of Harry’s feet on the stairs had Tom turning.

“Okay,” Harry said, setting his suitcase down. “I’m ready. Unless I need goulashes.”

Tom eyed the trunk. “You’ve packed everything, haven’t you?”

“Yep. Unless, you know, I need goulashes. Do I need goulashes?” Harry asked, still trying to wriggle the truth of their vacation spot out of Tom even though he was seconds from finding out himself.

Biting back a laugh, Tom flicked his wand and the trunk shrunk down to the size of walnut. Another light twitch and it zoomed into his pocket, safely tucked away next to his own luggage. Harry took his offered hand, wearing the same excited grin he’d had when Tom first told him of the holiday. From his other pocket, he extracted the portkey the hotel had sent by owl the week prior.

“We’re not Apparating?” said Harry, surprised.

“It’s too far. I don’t expect you’d enjoy spending the first day recuperating from splinching.” Neither would he, matter of fact. He checked his watch as Harry placed his forefinger against the rather plain looking medallion. The only thing remotely interesting on its face was a small etched figure of a —

“Is that a dragon?” Harry asked, scrutinizing the coin. He grew even more excited. “Are we going to —” But he was cut off as the portkey glowed bright blue. With a sharp jerk behind the navel, he and Harry zoomed across the Atlantic. A second later, Tom’s feet hit solid ground and Harry stumbled against him, his elbow banging into his rib cage. They had left their sitting room in Ottery St. Catchpole and now stood in the floo foyer of a dazzling hotel.

At once, Harry turned on the spot, taking in his surroundings. A floor to ceiling window took up an entire wall, opposite the set of floos. Harry’s mouth dropped open. He stepped closer to the glass.

“Where…”

“Peru,” said Tom, stepping up beside him and taking in the stunning view. Like a bird’s nest, the hotel resided in the upper crook of a mountain. “In the Andes. Twelve ridges over is Machu Picchu, but this is a wizarding hotel so we are overlooking Ligero de Valle, an even more ancient civilization.” As he spoke, a buggy drawn by flying horse took off from the wizarding city that gleamed before them, speeding its passengers to the neighboring mountaintop where more of the city sprawled, built precariously along the ridges. He cut his eyes to Harry. “Do you like it?”

When Tom had been choosing which scenic place to take Harry, there had been only one requirement: that it be as stunning as he. As Harry turned to him, radiant with happiness, he knew he’d come close.

#my writing #of your making sequel #fanfiction #harry potter #tom riddle #tomarry #romance #teaser

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breaking-shadows · 5 years

Text

Breaking Shadows

Chapter 2

Demons.

Deep breath.

I shuddered despite the summer night and kept my arms wrapped around myself.

Demons are real.

Deep breath.

Another involuntary shiver. I headed straight for home in the centre of the village keeping to the middle of the lane, so I could see all around me. Valestone was tiny, particularly in comparison to Pagnall, our nearest town, but today I was happy about that. I just needed to be home. Considering what had happened tonight, I thought the village would be awash with residents racing around in mad hysteria. But there was nothing but the usual peaceful slumber I would have expected in the early hours of the morning.

Reaching into my pocket, I took out my phone and searched for Will’s name, checking behind in case something had made it into the village. The phone rang for an age and when he didn’t pick up, nausea settled at the base of my stomach. I tried Kat and got the same response. I couldn’t bear to think about what could have happened to them.

By the time I reached the cottage, my heart thumped to a wild beat and a dark cloud of ominous thoughts has settled in my mind. Gran’s cottage was cast in the same eerie darkness as the rest of the village. Vile panic burned the base of my throat. It was too quiet.

I eased the rusted metal lock on the garden gate before slipping through. Peering in each of the windows, I was relieved when no curtains twitched, or shadows crossed behind the panes. I tried to be as quiet as I could as I fished my keys out of my pocket and bit my lip when the jagged teeth on the front door key jutted into the cut on my hand.

The door released a creak of pain and I winced. One step inside and the hallway light flickered on.

Shit. My heart stopped.

As did my grandmother.

The soft grey curls framing her face were wild and dishevelled, her eyes wide and glistening in the artificial light.

“Oh my- Riley!” she crossed the few steps between us and wrapped me in her arms, the scent of lavender triggering a dormant headache. One of her hands went to my hair, pulling my head towards her shoulder. “Riley, you’re all right.”

Her voice wavered. There was desperation, relief and even surprise wrapped up in my grandmother’s arms. I had expected a bollocking. Not this.

I looked up in surprise as Marion Tudor, one of our neighbours, emerged from the gloom behind Gran. She smiled at me, highlighting the small pixie-like features of her face and I wondered what the hell she was doing here in the early hours of the morning.

“Rebecca, it is after midnight. It is the third.”

I stopped myself pointing out that the third follows the second in every month, but I held my tongue. It wouldn’t serve me well when Gran’s relief subsided because I’d broken her rules and anger reigned.

She pushed me away, holding me at arm’s length. Withered hands cupped my face, her thumbs making downward strokes with her thumbs.

“Where the hell have you been?”

That didn’t take as long as expected.

Marion’s eyes darted between Gran and me. “I’d better go, the babysitter will charge me double at this rate.”

“Yes, and thank you, Marion,” Gran called out as the other woman left.

“And just where the hell have you been?” she repeated.

I felt my whole-body slump. Here we go.

“Gran-”

“Don’t you Gran me! How dare you disobey me? I have rules in place for a reason, Riley.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” I closed the door behind Marion with my head low, keen that nothing should slip inside. Bolting the door firmly in place, I toyed with the idea of telling her the truth. Look Gran, I’m sorry but I’ve had a crap night because I’ve just been attacked by humongous spider demons. Oh and yeah, demons exist.

The fury etched out on my grandmother’s face changed my mind, no excuses would wash with her in this mood.

“Anything, I mean anything could have happened to you tonight. And then what? What would I do?”

“Gran, please. I’m sorry. But as you can see, I’m okay.”

“You’re sorry that I caught you,” she sighed and ran her hand down her face. “It’s late. Go to your room, I’ll speak to you in the morning.”

“But Gran-”

“Go!” She unfolded her arms to point up the stairs. “Wait!”

I paused on the first step.

Gran rushed into the kitchen. I could hear the banging of kitchen cupboards; the clinking of a glass being placed on the worktop. Moments later, she re-emerged, glass in hand.

“Take this drink with you and make sure it’s all gone before you sleep. All of it. Understand? Oh, and give me your phone.” Both arms stretched out to me, one grasping the glass the other upturned, expectant.

I opened my mouth to argue.

“Now, Riley.”

Reluctantly, I pulled it from my pocket, slyly knocking the screen to see if I had any missed calls or messages. My heart sank at the lack of notifications. I handed it over. How the hell was I supposed to contact Will and Kat now? Anything could have happened to them. I couldn’t think about it. I shuddered, shook the thoughts from my mind and climbed the stairs. Gran’s furious glare bore into my back all the way up.

I abandoned my bag and the glass in my room and headed to the bathroom. In the poor light, I examined the jagged cut across my palm, a slither of exposed flesh flanked by bright red flecks as though my hand was encrusted with rubies.

The wretched thing would leave a scar.

I washed it, scrubbing away the dirt and the blood. It was only after I’d changed into my pyjamas and fallen into bed with the sheets drawn up to my chin, I realised how much I trembled.

My ears thudded in the blackened silence, drowning out all other sound. I didn’t hear Gran go to bed. If she had gone to bed.

A horde of female spider demons scuttered across my mind as they had the forest floor. Then I allowed myself to think about him. My rescuer. I hadn’t asked his name, Gran would have had something to say about my terrible manners too. His face formed clear in my head. The tussle of dark hair kissing his broad shoulders. The thin white scar that cut through his full, bottom lip. My mind’s painting glazed over his eyes, I couldn’t do them justice. A photograph would have failed to capture the otherworldly beauty of them.

***

My alarm sounded at seven the next morning, hours after I’d woken. Sleep had been snatched away like my sanity had last night. I had tossed and turned all night, breaking off to sneak up to the window to make sure no demons were creeping up the shadow drenched lane.

In the brief moments I did sleep, arachnids and insects skittered across my body, pincers poised for attack and most strangely of all, a fluttering of wings covered in dark feathers.

I showered and dressed, a knot tightening in my stomach. Any other day, I’d get ready in a hurry so I could spend more time with Will and Kat. Today, the desire had drained away, and I wondered if the foreboding feeling was about having to face Gran or something else.

All was quiet downstairs. Dumping my school bag on the floor in the hallway, I hurried into the living room and switched on the TV. Perching on the edge of the sofa, I skipped through all the news channels for any mention of the demon attack, for anything out of the ordinary. Okay, so there wasn’t anything on the national news but maybe it hasn’t gone national yet. I checked the local news. Police were monitoring a certain deadly accident hotspot; a local vicar’s puppy had gone missing and a poll about piercing children’s ears.

“Watching the news? My, my, something must have happened last night,” Gran said appearing in the doorway. She arched a testing brow and pursed her lips.

“Morning,” I said sheepishly and pressed the power button on the remote. Following her into the kitchen, I found a plate of charcoal coloured toast and a glass of clear, popping liquid waiting for me. The same drink she gave me last night. God knows when she’d had time to make it.

“Eat your breakfast, I’ll be taking you this morning and make sure you drink all of that. I’m not being called irresponsible because you’re dehydrated at school.”

Her words were as sharp as a knife tip. I shivered as they ran down my spine. Pulling up a chair, I ate my breakfast and did my best to keep the throbbing wound on my hand out of Gran’s sight. I didn’t need any questions about that.

“Are you sure there is school today?” I lifted the glass up, my nose wrinkling at the strong smell of aniseed. It went straight back down on the table and I pushed it away with the tip of my finger.

“Why would there be no school?”

I nearly spat out the words ‘because of the huge spider demons’, but that didn’t seem like a good conversation starter. We’d begun our questions dance.

Gran stood square before me, so still, hands on hips. “Did something happen at the festival?”

“Have you heard something?” I asked idly.

She looked at me as though I’d told her the sky was made from custard. “No. Do you have something to tell me, Riley?”

I wanted to tell her but there was a gnawing in my gut that made me keep my mouth shut. I shook my head and finished my breakfast.

“Now that’s cleared up,” Gran narrowed her eyes at me. “Eat, then we can go.”

“You don’t have to take me. I’ll be fine-”

Gran spun on her heels, a black fury flashing behind rimless glasses “Don’t dare test me today, my girl. No arguments, nothing. You’ve got five minutes then I want you in that car.”

Things didn’t improve once we were in the car, the atmosphere hanging between us like a veil of frost.

“You’re grounded by the way.”

“Grounded? Gran, please! You can’t ground me! It’s the first time I’ve ever done anything like this…”

It could have been a trick of the light, but I’d swear Gran’s skin held a yellow tint, the white of her eye too. Pale yet noticeable.

“I’m aware of that but believe me when I say it will be the last. That Kathryn is a bad influence on you,” Gran stared ahead. Her 1964 mini struggled to swallow the road in front of us.

I hung my head low. “It’s not her fault, I decided to go.” One of the few truths I could tell her about last night. Despite Kat’s badgering, the decision to go had been mine.

Already whitened knuckles paled even more as Gran gripped the steering wheel tighter. “I don’t impose these rules just for the sake of it, Riley.”

“I know.”

“There are other people much stricter than me, I’m not being deliberately cruel. Do you realise anything could have happened?”

“I know,” I repeated, shuddering as I remembered how close those creatures had been. “It won’t happen again.”

“You’re damn right it won’t happen again, and you’re still grounded. Two weeks. I will take you and pick you up from school, you will have your tea and then you will go to your room. You can do your sixth form work and that’s it. Nothing else. No visitors. Am I understood?”

I wanted to argue or at least reason my way out of the grounding but one sharp glance from Gran shut me up. “Yes,” I said in my smallest voice.

“Good. Luckily for you, it’s the weekend so I have plenty for you to be getting on with. Oh and no phone.”

We travelled in silence the rest of the way, Gran’s heaving breathing reminding me each mile that she was as mad as hell. I even chastised my own breathing in case that pissed her off more. School offered a welcome escape. As the building came into view, I nearly jumped from the moving car before Gran pulled into the side of the street.

“Have a good day.”

I got out and slammed the car door.

Students already packed the halls. Most of them were huddled together around lockers, a rambunctious boom of voices filling the narrow space.

As someone who rarely drew attention, I could have dismissed the first couple of looks that came my way. A series of turning heads and whispering behind closed hands followed me down the halls.

Surely it wasn’t about me.

Not after last night.

But then as I dared to look at the faces of my classmates, I wondered why no-one seemed horrified. They’d all ran from the festival. They’d all seen them. No-one was talking about what happened.

“Hey Riley,” Norah Ellison called out. “Did you enjoy the festival last night?” The group sniggered.

What had I missed? I scurried past, keeping my head down. Securing my bag strap higher on my shoulder, I crossed my arms across my body determined to make it too my locker.

The sight of Kat gladdened my heart a little. She hurled a book inside her locker making it clamber against the metal interior. When she saw me, a huge grin broke out on her face.

“Well?” Kat asked as I hurried to her.

“Well what?” I kept my head down.

Kat shoved the last book into the metal void then slammed the door closed. “Is that how we’re playing it? OK, but I’m supposed to be your best friend.”

“You are my best friend.”

“In that case then,” Kat continued, still grinning. “Can you at least tell me why you were clinging on to the waist of an incredibly hot guy on the back of Devon Carver’s motorbike?”

My jaw dropped. “What?”

“Loads of people saw you. It’s all around school.”

“So that’s why people are looking at me strangely.” I double checked and yes, eyes were still flickering my way, the low hum of voices amplified. My cheeks burned.

“Kat swept her long fringe from her eyes. “You’ve always been the good girl, everyone is either shocked, don’t believe it or think you’ve made it up yourself. I covered for you, by the way, with Will. I told him it was absolute rubbish and I want a copy of your English homework as payment.”

“Yeah, fine. He was only helping me get away from the creatures. I couldn’t see you, Will or Simon anywhere. I didn’t know what to do.”

“What creatures?”

“The weird spider things that trashed the festival last night.”

Kat’s brow furrowed. “You didn’t drink from that bottle after we abandoned it on the grass, did you?”

“No-one spiked my drink.”

“There weren’t any creatures, Riley. Everyone left because the police arrived and told us all to bugger off because we were trespassing. No-one had bothered to get a permit to hold the festival on the land. But you’d know that because you were there.”

I staggered back a few steps. “That’s not what happened.” Had I dreamt it? Was it all in my head? No, I didn’t have the imagination for that.

“That is what happened,” Kat turned to the lockers lining the other side of the hall where another group, two girls and a boy huddled together, talking. “Hey Molly, can you come here a sec please?” Molly Adams was in my English class.

“Sure,” said Molly. “What’s up?”

“Can you tell Riley why everyone left the festival last night?”

Molly raised a dark eyebrow. “But she was there and left in quite some style I heard.”

“Humour us and what you’ve heard is wrong.” Kat winked at me.

I answered with a weak smile.

Molly huffed but confirmed Kat’s story. Someone had tipped off the police that alcohol was being served at an unlicensed event.

“So, you didn’t hop on Devon’s motorbike with some random then?”

Think of Will. “No, I didn’t.”

Molly shrugged disappointedly. “Shame. For a second I thought you were interesting.” With those words, she gathered her friends and walked away, flicking her long black curls.

“What a bitch!”

“Ignore her.” Kat hooked the strap of her bag over her head before linking her arm through mine. “Now, while I escort you to class, you may divulge all the tasty details of your moonlit ride through Derwent Forest.”

Turning to start heading to my first class, I went straight into another body. Fawn Underhill, a girl who lived on the eastern side of Valestone lay sprawled at my feet.

“Oh god, I’m sorry,” I muttered. My hand went out to help her up, but Kat batted it away.

“Don’t apologise to her. Are you blind Fawn or does your mass of unbrushed, unwashed hair restrict your view. I bet birds would reject it as a nest for their young.” Kat laughed.

Fawn’s eyes grew wide and I shifted on my feet.

“Come on, Riley.”

I bit my lip but followed.

When I dared to look back, Fawn had scrambled to her feet and was hurriedly gathering her things. Shame lapped at my face.

The bell sounded, its piercing ring placing me right back on that motorbike.

Demons. That’s the word he’d used. But why had no-one else seen them?

I prayed the day would go quickly and then I would have two whole days away from the place. By next week, all of this would be forgotten.

@focusdumbass

Chapter 1 Chapter 3

#breakingshadows #writerblr #youngadult #mariemurphy #witches #Covens #urban fantasy #ANGELOFDEATH #wip

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ourimpavidheroine · 6 years

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Sayuri and Zu at a Bad Mover (for tortoisesforhire)

“Two for An Earthbender’s Revenge, please,” he said, shoving his glasses up his nose, patting at his various pockets, searching for his wallet.

“Or maybe we should get two and a half.” Sayuri patted at her noticeable baby bump. “Although to be fair little Dumpling here would only be able to hear it, not see it.”

The woman selling the tickets snapped her gum apathetically. “How many did you want?”

“Er, just two are fine.” Hmmm. He was running out of pockets. “Didn’t I bring my wallet?”

“Oh, I picked your pocket when we were getting out of the car.” She produced it from one of her own pockets. “You know what QiQi says, practice makes perfect.” She beamed at him.

“I never felt it!” He beamed back. “You are getting better!”

“Is someone going to pay for the tickets?” The ticket seller frowned.

“Right, right, of course.” He fished out some yuan and handed it over, taking the tickets in return, holding his arm out for Sayuri. She was normally graceful and light on her feet but had begun to totter a bit this far into her pregnancy, her balance just slightly off. She’d stumbled on the way into dinner a few nights prior and his father-in-law had immediately put forth his opinion that she should henceforth stay off of her feet, an opinion which Sayuri most vociferously did not agree with. She was already disgruntled about being forbidden any of her noxious chemicals in her workshop, but it was Meili who had put down her elegant foot over that one. Sayuri, he’d come to learn very early on, simply didn’t hear whatever it was she didn’t want to hear; taking after her royal father that way. But even she backed down when Meili made a decision. People might think that it was his eldest sister-in-law that was the most intimidating; she was, after all, a warrior, one of the greatest firebenders alive, the wife of the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, not the beautiful and serene waterbender healer Meili.

They’d be wrong on that one. So very, very wrong.

He queued up at the snack bar while she first went to use the toilet and then inside to get them seats, remembering her bubble tea, going back and forth between sizzle crisps and miniature mochis before purchasing both. It wasn’t hard to find her once inside; she was very particular about where she sat, needing it to be exactly the proper distance away from the screen and not too close to any of the walls or else she’d spend the entire mover fretting and squirming. Not to mention her hair was out in force, barely held back by a waterbender clasp that he believed she had somehow gotten from Sitiak. Spirits knew how; she could have stolen it or simply asked for it, anything was possible, really, when it came to his wife.

He loved her so very much that sometimes he’d lay in their bed, in the entire suite her royal father had renovated for them on the third floor, marveling at how lucky he was. It was like someone had reached into his head and found the perfect woman and had brought her out, idea made flesh, into his amazing Sayuri.

“My bubble tea!” She reached out her hands, delighted, and immediately popped the straw into her mouth.

“I got us both sizzle crisps and mochis.” He removed her book from his seat, tucking it into the satchel he'd brought with him, before sitting down. “And Cork provided me with some snacks from home, as well.”

“Yes, very good,” she said. Meili had taken them all aside at the beginning of the pregnancy and told them to feed Sayuri whatever she’d eat, whenever possible. She was naturally thin as it was and, when she’d get caught up into something, prone to forgetting to eat if not forcibly reminded. They’d all gotten into it; Grandfather LoLo and Cork whipping up dishes they knew she liked in the kitchen, Grandmother Lin imperiously ordering her back into the house for meals, both his father-in-law and his royal father-in-law in turns cajoling and commanding her to eat. His mother-in-law would take her hands into theirs, kiss Sayuri’s knuckles, and in that quiet way of theirs say, Baby, the baby needs to eat now.

The somewhat unfortunate result of all of the extra food was that he’d also put on a little weight as well, his trousers getting tighter and tighter until he’d finally admitted to himself that he’d better update his wardrobe. He’d tried on his new clothes for her and asked her, joking, if she wouldn’t be happier with someone who looked more like her devastatingly handsome sandbender brother-in-law. She had watched him for what seemed an incalculably long time before reaching out to put her fingers across his mouth. My Zu, she had whispered, and then, to his shock, tears had began to drip down her cheeks. His Sayuri, who always laughed rather than cried! How could you even say it? she’d whispered, wrapping herself tightly around him, her belly pressing into his, the baby giving a kick hard enough for him to feel. My Zu. My own precious, perfect, perfect, perfect, portly Zu.

The lights started to dim down and he leaned over. “What is the mover about anyhow?” He’d never been very good with keeping up with whatever was current. She turned and kissed him, the thick straw from her drink scraping at his cheek.

“I haven’t the foggiest, but Pearl saw it and told me we couldn’t miss it.”

He adjusted his glasses as he settled back into the seat, absently taking a bite from one of the mochis before handing it to her. The mover scrolled across the screen, the setting a typical Earth Kingdom farm, or at least he thought so. He’d never actually been to an Earth Kingdom farm. There was the virile earthbending farmer, swaggering about the barn and his beautiful young wife, dressed in an improbably stylish dress and heels.

“Nice dress for a farmer’s wife,” Sayuri murmured at him. “Does she go out in the fields in those shoes?”

“Not unless she wanted to break her ankles,” he muttered in return.

“Shhh!” admonished someone from behind them. Sayuri, as per usual, ignored them.

“Maybe she has servants,” Sayuri snickered. “Maybe he just bends her along so she doesn’t have to walk anywhere.”

“Do you mind?” The man was leaning forward, glaring.

“Oh, not at all,” she replied, with a sunny smile and he bit his cheek to hold back his laughter. “Mochi? They aren’t as good as the ones from home, of course, but they aren’t that bad.” She held one out.

“I don’t...just be quiet!” The man’s eyes were starting to bulge out.

“Very rude, my gracious,” Sayuri said with a sad little shake of her head, turning back to the screen. “I vote the wife will be dead in five minutes, at the very most.”

The wife was dead in two minutes; killed by some very ruthless Dai Li agents, employing some very odd looking things that looked like large foam fists, poorly painted, that they quite literally threw at people.

“Honestly,” Sayuri tsked. “That’s not at all what rock gloves look like. And they’d most likely use their rock shoes to get up those walls, after all.”

“SHHH!”

“I once asked one of the Dai Li to capture me with one of his rock gloves to see what it felt like but Daddy found out and put the kibosh on it.”

“That sounds like your father.” He handed her a dumpling from the box in his bag, which she popped into her mouth.

“Well, no worries, QiQi let him, just not where Daddy could see. It wasn’t like he was going to actually squish me, he was very gentle. But my gracious, Papa found out and shouted at QiQi for hours, the impropriety of a Hou-Ting getting grabbed by a rock glove, you know how he is.”

“Really! And they put up with that?”

“Oh goodness no, QiQi just sucked on their teeth and then went for a very long drive. But Papa kept going on and on about it until GrandLin told him to zip it before she zipped him.” She took a deep suck of her bubble tea. “It was an excellent fourteenth birthday, all things considered.”

“Will you shut up!”

“Speaking of someone who could use a glove fist...oh Zu, do we have any more dumplings?”

“Of course.” He handed her another one. They watched for a time in silence as the grief-stricken earthbender swore his revenge on the King, fighting off dastardly Dai Li at every turn.

“He’s killed twenty-seven Dai Li so far,” he told her, finishing off the last of the mochis. “And he’s not even a Beifong.”

“Imagine how many he could have killed if he had been a Beifong!”

“Scads!”

“Hordes!”

“SHUT UP!”

It was a completely ridiculous mover; at one point the earthbender, waving his arms and randomly stomping his feet, swirled a single small rock in excruciatingly slow motion above his head as the Dai Li stood about, waiting for his attack, which improbably killed all six of them when it finally hit them, knocking them all down despite the fact that it only hit one of them. Several people booed enthusiastically and a man a few rows below them got up with a snort and left, shaking his head. “Couldn’t even hire an actual earthbender,” he grumbled as he left.

“It’s worse than watching Uncle Bo trying to be a waterbender,” Sayuri said happily.

“Oh! There goes what’s left of his shirt!” He scrutinized the actor. “Not as good looking as Ping, though.”

“No one’s as good looking as Ping.” She grabbed at his hand. “I swear I saw Meili discreetly checking him out the other day, you know, when he and Tupilek were sparring in the backyard?”

“You never did!”

“I did! I swear I did!”

“Naoki, I’d believe, but Meili?”

“Oh, Naoki, she’d just up and whistle at him with his shirt off, you know she has no manners.”

“You know who else has no manners? YOU!”

Sayuri turned around slowly in her seat, hand pressed to her chest. “My gracious,” she said, in her very best I am terribly put out by your shocking behavior tone and he clapped his hand to his mouth to stifle his laughter.

The scene cut away to what looked suspiciously like the throne room at the Little Ba Sing Se Fashion Mall, stuffed to the gills with what most likely was meant to look like opulent pieces but looked rather like a fairly seedy secondhand shop instead. A short man, darker of skin with spectacles, extraordinarily puffy hair that was clearly a wig and long, heavy robes, sat upon the rather small, albeit ornate throne. A Dai Li agent ran into the scene. Your Imperial Majesty, Hou-Ting, he cried, before kow-towing, and Sayuri let out a shriek of joy.

“Oh! It’s Papa!”

He couldn’t help himself, he started to laugh. “This is the best thing I’ve ever seen!”

I am the wise and venerable Hou-Ting, ruthless leader of the Earth Kingdom, the King on-screen proclaimed, throwing out a hand. Rise and report, minion.

“MINION!” Sayuri choked out, nearly doubled over with laughter. “MINION!”

“But why the wig?” he asked, wiping tears out of his eyes.

“It’s the humidity,” she explained, pointing to her own hair, setting the both of them off again.

Several exoticly dressed men and women entered, clustering about the throne. My royal concubines, the King announced, and Sayuri dropped what was left of her bubble tea on the floor.

“Your father finally got some concubines,” he managed to wheeze out as they clutched each other, trying to breathe.

“I am going to get the manager!” the man behind them roared, but they were well beyond that, simply trying to breathe. It didn’t help that next up was a bear, lumbering into the throne room and that was it, Sayuri nearly slid to the floor.

“I can’t, I can’t,” she gasped, wiping at her face. “Oh Zu!”

His ribs were aching with laughter, but he couldn’t stop; not when the King stood up from his throne, waving his hands about as the concubines tittered, the bear hunched over miserably in the corner of the screen, and certainly not when the King, in a fury, kicked at the hapless Dai Li agent. The very idea of his respectable and sophisticated royal father-in-law shouting death sentences, stamping his feet and gesticulating to the sky while surrounded by a great deal of unclothed flesh - not to mention a chained bear halfheartedly swiping its paws nearby - was simply too much for him.

The Queen! announced a royal servant, and a woman dressed in extremely revealing clothes, complete with terrifyingly high heels and a shocking amount of paste jewels, entered and promptly threw a knife into the wall above the King. Poor Sayuri bellowed, waving her hands about, utterly speechless, pointing at the screen. More specifically, pointing at the extremely improbable mustache on the Queen’s face.

“Oh, oh, oh,” he gasped, trying to hold himself together between whoops of mirth. “But why a mustache?”

“Sex appeal,” Sayuri managed, and then they were screaming with laughter, angry mover goers turning around and shouting at them, the man behind them jumping out of his seat and announcing he was getting the manager. He didn’t care and he knew she didn’t either; they were too busy laughing to care about anything but the Queen on the screen before them, telling all and sundry that she’d kill anyone who threatened the King. Finally, Sayuri put her head on his shoulder. “Oh Zu, I hate to say it, but I think I might need a toilet. In fact, I might have needed one a few minutes ago.”

He immediately gathered together their things, standing up and guiding her up as well. “Let’s get you to one, then.” They awkwardly shuffled past the rest of the people in their row, provoking angry hisses and a shout of Down in front! He got her to the aisle, however, and made sure she was steady on her feet before helping her towards the door and out into the lobby. “Can you manage on your own?”

“Them! Those are the ones!” The man from behind them was pointing at them, infuriated, the manager standing next to him. “Arrest them!”

The manager sighed. “I can’t arrest them, I’m not the police.”

“In any case, we’re leaving,” Sayuri announced. “Although not before I make use of what are very clean facilities, might I add,” she said, bestowing her very best smile at the manager, who looked pleased. “I must commend your staff and your most excellent management.”

“Thank you,” he preened. “Our customers’ comfort is always our first priority.”

“What? Seriously?” The man was outraged. “What about my fucking comfort?”

“Well my goodness, you needn’t curse like that, honestly, the lack of proper deportment in public is just scandalous, really.” She tsked at him before smiling brightly. “Now, you’ve missed some of the film. Would you like us to fill you in before you go back in? No? Suit yourself, then.” With that she sailed off to the toilets, throwing back, “We’ll tell the parentals they need to see it tomorrow night, of course. Shall we come with them?”

“Naturally,” he said, and ate the last of the sizzle crisps while going out to fetch the car.

#date prompts #sayuri #zu

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rakhall · 7 years

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I got tagged, and I’ll do this kind of post for first and last time...

Tagged by @cid331 AND @heavybond56 and by a lot of anon mails, but those don’t count, please stop.

RULES : answer the questions and tag 20 amazing followers you’d like to get to know better!

⭐⭐⭐

NAME: Yeah... You probably couldn’t pronounce it correctly and I don’t want you to cause permanent damage in your tongue.

NICKNAMES: Call me whatever you want, until it’s not rude or disrespectful.

ZODIAC SIGN: Which zodiac are you talking about? The Chinese Zodiac, oooor...

HEIGHT : 6ft 2.409449i.... What? What did you expect from me? A round number?

ORIENTATION: Heterosexual

ETHNICITY: Ethnicity matters less and less in the 21st century because tradition and culture are constantly and drastically changing and transforming, in smaller countries as well as among ethnic minorities in every country they live in. And I’m not only talking about cultural assimilation but also about the fact that more and more places in Europe and Asia start to adopt American habits and cultural elements. This process is due to the consumer society and multiculturalism, but the internet is playing a big role in it too. Just to mention an example: In some Middle European countries, people celebrated the so-called “All Souls' Day”/”All Saints’day”/”Day of The Dead” -sorry, I couldn’t find a proper translation- but nowadays, even in these countries Halloween costumes and Halloween pumpkins became m ore and more common, in stores. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, neither that it’s something good. But one thing is for sure, in the future as well as in the present, the only barriers of complete cultural amalgamation will be religion, language, and nationalism. So after this, let me ask you the question. What matters more the ethnicity you are born into, or the ethnicity you feel comfortable with?

FAVORITE FRUIT: Depends on... If I want to eat it, then pear, If I want to write a fanfiction, then lemon...

FAVORITE SEASON: Winter. I can’t take the sunlight. It doesn’t matter if there’s 313.15K (yes, I used kelvin because I’m an a**hole so your brain gets a little extra exercise while you google the celsius-kelvin calculator,) until I can stay any place where I can avoid sunlight.

FAVOR BOOK: Too many to choose from, so I’ll just go with the one that made the biggest impact on me: “The Tragedy of Man” Synopsis: The main characters are Adam, Eve and Lucifer. As God creates the universe, Lucifer decries it as futile, stating that man will soon aspire to be god and demanding his own right of the world, because God was forced to create with him, "the ancient spirit of denial". God casts him out of Heaven, but grants his wish: the two cursed trees in Eden, the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Immortality. Playing on Eve's vanity and Adam's pride, Lucifer tempts both into sin. After the Fall and expulsion from Eden, Adam is still too proud to admit that he acted wrongly. Instead, he recounts his dreams of human progress and achievement; he feels that now, unencumbered by God's rules, he is ready to pursue his own glory. Lucifer puts Adam to sleep, and the two begin to travel through history. There is a link you can read it online legally for free if you are interested.

FAVORITE FLOWER: I don’t like flowers, but I do happen to know, that in the language of flowers walnut blossom means stupidity, and nettle means in rough translation “Get the heck away from me you freak me out!!!”

FAVORITE SCENT: If I write something edgy and dark-overlord-like as “the smell of death, and rotting flesh” no one’s gonna take me serious ever again and everyone unfollows me, BUT if I will say “the smell of fried chicken legs” I’ll be called swallow, and 90% of the vegans are gonna attack me for it.

FAVORITE ANIMAL: Axolotl. When that lil’ dingaling -sorry but I already swore too much in this post so I won’t do it again, unless it’s a quotation- somehow is washed ashore, instead of drowning it simply goes with an “All right f*ck you from now on, I’m gonna breathe air! Mother nature is my b*tch, b*tch!”

COFFEE, TEA, OR HOT COCOA: No.

CAT OR DOG PERSON: No.

FAVORITE FICTIONAL CHARACTER: Actually I have a lot, so I can’t simply go with one, sorry.

DREAM TRIP: Any place that’s far away from Goldshire Inn.

BLOG CREATED: I don’t understand... So I’ll just divide this question into two parts: 1) “What kind of blog did you create” To answer this question: It is a fan-drawing blog (I used this word combination instead of “fan art” because I don’t consider my drawings as “art”. 2) “What’s the purpose of the blog/why was it created” Originally it was created so I could share the jokes I made up in my comics with more people, not just with the ones on Deviantart. Later on, the purpose changed when I got into STVFOE, and it became my main drawing site, (while Deviantart became secondary,) where I shared my exaggerated parody comics or my “what-if” ideas about the show. Right now my goal is to turn this blog into a fammiliar place where my followers like to be, and also turn it into a friendly community.

NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS: To avoid hate, I’ll skip this question.

WHAT DO I POST: My drawings, and thoughts... I don’t really reblog, because it would make harder to navigate for those who aren’t tumblr users, just bystanders who found my blog.

DO I GET ASKS ON A REGULAR BASIS: Yes I do, and sorry for not answering all of them, I read them all guys, but I don’t want to spoil, the future comics, neither confuse the readers. If I can answer privately, it makes my job easier though. I only have the “anonymous” option, because this way everyone can write to me not just tumblr users...

AESTHETIC: Noun: a set of principles underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or artistic movement. alternative meaning: a set of principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art. Adjective: concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty.

FAVORITE BAND: Don’t have favorites, I listen to what I like, it doesn’t matter which band plays it. If the whole band has only one single track I like, then I listen to that one, and nothing else from them.

FICTIONAL CHARACTER I’D DATE: again, depends on, what my goal is. If I want everyone to hate me then I’d choose a typical “Everyone’sWaifu” like Heka-the-best-girl-poo, if I would want to spend a good time with someone I would have common topic with, then someone smart and kind enough not to turn all of our conversations into something swallow, or to give smart, but mean/offensively sarcastic answers. The problem is, most of these characters have already someone.

(if they don’t, they are underage, lol)

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Why always Harry Potter? I mean I don’t have anything against it, but why is the extra question always Harry Potter? Why never “Horde or Alliance” or “Favorite Digimon” or “Demon or Angel” or anything...

I don’t tag 20 people because I don’t make difference between my followers... consider yourselves all tagged. Or none of you, whichever you want.

#Rakhall thoughts

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evolutionsvoid · 7 years

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Myna is a Mimic, a species of shape-shifters that love to imitate furniture and eat gold. After she budded off her parents, Myna was left to live a solitary life where she was forced to fend for herself. Quick to learn and able to shift her form with ease, Myna has adapted to a life of trickery and imitation. She uses her shape-shifting powers to fool victims and hide from attackers, but it is mainly used to get her claws on gold. Young of age, she is addicting to the precious metal and spends most of her time hunting for it. Her preferred method of obtaining gold is conning others through the art of seduction. She will morph herself into an attractive form (be it male, female, or even ???) and lounge about in marketplaces, pubs, theaters and other public spaces. If she spots a wealthy victim, she will alter her form to be more appealing to them and try to catch their attention. This is an act she has done hundreds of times, and she knows how to steer someone when they are blinded by lust. The end goal is for the victim to cheerfully take her back to their home, where they show off their riches and fortune. When the two are alone, and the gold is found, she will drop her act and attack. The victim is slain and the valuables are devoured in an uncontrollable act of gluttony. This tactic is her main one, but she can easily adapt her strategy if it means getting more of that delicious gold. It was this hunger that caused her to first join the Knights of the Wrong Table. Though she told Osryx and Vikus that she was joining because she wanted to help out, it was actually so she had a cover for when she slipped into homes and robbed them. When sent on missions, she would slither away and break into safes and vaults so she could feast on their innards. When it became apparent that she was not there for others, but only herself and her greedy appetite, the order kicked her out. Myna was fine with being booted from the order, until word got around to others. She received endless ridicule and mockery over being the only person to be kicked out of an order that was currently employing a snail and a coat rack. With that, Myna became bitter towards the Knights of the Wrong Table, and often seeks a way to tear the order down.

Attitude - Despite coming from a species of ambush predators, Myna has very little patience. She is easily annoyed when things are taking too long or not going her way, and this frustration is only enhanced by her short-temper. She is quick to snap at others who irritate her and is always ready to voice her complaints if she doesn't like how things are going. If the plan goes off the rails, or it is taking too long for the prey to walk into the trap, she will drop everything and try another, more violent, route. Though short-tempered and easily irritated, Myna has a very slick tongue, and knows how to talk her way through situations. This comes from her main form of conning, and she is very good at acting. She can play convincing roles and is well trained in the ways of steering conversation. This smooth talking is the way she gets people to drop their defenses, or show her the way to their gold horde. As a young Mimic, Myna has not learned how to control her addiction for gold. While older Mimics have mastered their hunger for the shiny metal, Myna is still driven by it. Gold is practically a drug to her, as she is ravenous for its taste and will do anything to get her claws on it. The mere scent of it will drive her wild and any scrap she can grab is greedily consumed. When in the presence of gold that is out of reach, she is very erratic and uncontrolled. Her body quakes and her voice will stutter. Her mind will have a hard time thinking of anything else besides that delicious gold. The longer one baits her with the gold, the more likely she will just snap and fly into a crazed fit. Once she gets gold her mouth, though, the quivering will stop and she will calm down to the point where she almost appears to be sedated. This only lasts for a short period of time, before she starts hungering for more and she continues her search. With this addiction, Myna is a thieving person who loves to use tricks and cons to get into people's pockets, and is fine with using violence if things go south. Relations - Myna does not have any strong relations with any of the other villains, and with good reason. Due to her short temper and hunger for gold, she can be a nasty, thieving person to be around, even to the likes of Olaf or Englorious. That does not mean she won't team up with anyone else though. Since she is an addict for gold, one can bribe her to join their team if they offer her gold. These team-ups often require half the gold up front for eating, and the other half for when the job is done. Even then, Myna is a wild card in anyone's plans, as she can abandon it all if she gets agitated or if an outside source of gold is revealed. Rather than having her fight on the battlefield, or be a part of a long term plan, Myna is often hired for quick work, like stealing certain objects or planting evidence to cause chaos and distrust. After her simple task is done, most of the villains are quick to get her out of their way so that she doesn't muck things up when she gets bored. Any associate who brings her to their territory know to always keep an eye on her, as she will sniff out their hidden treasures if left to her own devices. Subordinates - None Abilities - As a Mimic, Myna is capable of shape shifting into practically anything. Be it organic or inorganic, she can alter her body to copy its appearances and properties. Her flesh can become hard as steel, sharp as a blade, or as squishy as jelly when ever she needs. She can control every part of her body, which allows her to morph into bizarre amalgamations or grow numerous limbs. She can change her size, but only to a certain extent. She is incapable of shrinking down to mouse sizes, or swelling up into dragon sizes. Though she has a size limit, she is very crafty and can warp her body into the right combination of size and shape to get around these limitations. True that she cannot shrink down to the size of a rat to scurry out a small hole, but she can stretch and compress her body so she becomes long and thin enough to slither through. The biggest limitation that her shape-shifting has is the one hitch that affects all Mimics. The tongue of a Mimic cannot be altered. The tongue is the only part of her body that cannot be changed, so she has to find ways to hide it so her disguises work. Often the tongue is crammed into the mouth, or coiled up in secret pockets. When not hidden, the tongue is extremely prehensile and can easily be used like an extra appendage. Tools - Due to her ability to shape shift into pretty much anything, she has little use for tools. If she does require a sword, shield or even a wrench, she can easily morph one of her limbs into the piece of equipment she needs. Weaknesses - Her hunger for gold is her greatest weakness, as she is practically addicted to it. The mere scent of it is enough to get her riled up, and when presented with a considerable sum, she will have a hard time controlling herself. Baiting her with large chunks of gold is a surefire way for her to go off script and muck up any well laid plans. Her temper is another weakness, as she gets agitated very easily. If parts of the plan don't go just right, or even if they are taking too long to work, she will often ditch it and wing it from there. Though her shape-shifting powers are extremely advanced, she can only do so much. Most notably is her tongue, which she cannot alter or change. She may be able to morph her body into any shape that is her size, but her tongue will remain. She does her best to hide it in various ways, but if it reveals itself, her disguise is quickly ruined. Another problem is that she can only take on the physical appearance of a person. She cannot copy immunities or powers a being may have. For example, she cannot copy the immunity to fire and lava that demons naturally possess. She can alter her form to create skin and structures to dampen such heat, but this can be spotted by those with sharp eyes. If the target she is mimicking has the ability to use magic, she cannot copy that. All one has to do is demand the use of magic, and the impostor is easily revealed when they cannot perform the spell

#mimic #monster #creature #shapeshifter #art #drawing

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kingdoms-of-fate · 7 years

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Glongia

Setting:

Mordeadus - homebrew

Country:

Glongia

Race:

Human,vampires Note: Vampires are playable in this setting.

Terrain:

Mostly windswept plains and grassy knolls. The grass is green and brown with the dirt dark shades of red and orange. From a distance, a field can appear to be bleeding or on fire from the intense color.

Rivers often run red from the sediment, earning the river network through Glongia the nickname the Veinway.

Vampire clan - the Mathi

The nation is not named after their clan like the other vampires, but instead their matriarch, the first of their kind Queen Glongia Mathi, a violent female warlord who spilled so much blood, she stained the plains red. Note: There are other clans of vampire with abilities explained in other countries.

They are a clan of violent warriors who enjoy battle and are quick to anger. Coming off as short tempered, few dare to argue with a Mathi as when a Mathi does become angered, they turn to savages, ripping off limps and tearing flesh from bone.

Vampire Abilities

Counts as undead vs turning They do not eat or drink Immune to poison/disease No CON bonus to hit points D12 hit points per level Damage resistance 1/blunt per 4 class levels Vampires cannot be healed with healing spells and instead regenerate 1 point of damage a day per level Healing/holy deals double damage Sunlight deals D6 damage per round Note: Because vampires are overpowered compared to someone playing a human, consider awarding less XP to vampires per encounter.

Blood Pools

Each vampire has a blood pool which they use to live and grant themselves abilities. If a vampire's blood pool reaches 0, they die and turn to dust. Every day a vampire loses 1 blood point automatically. Every vampire has a number of blood points in their pool with a maximum number of 10 plus 2 per class level. To gain 1 point in the blood pool vampires must drink blood from a human, draining 1 CON point from their victim per blood point which the human can regenerate at a rate of 1 CON a day. If the victim reaches 0 CON, they die.

The Mathi specific Vampire Abilities

To create a Mathi vampire, a human must be drained of blood, given 1 Mathi blood point and then a ritual battle must take place over the battle with the loser, usually a human, having their innards smeared upon them.

Anyone who becomes a Mathi vampire loses all previous classes and replaces them with either barbarian or fighter levels. Note: This represents a person's mind transforming, forgetting what they once knew as their innate vampiric abilities take over.

Gain +2 strength and -2 intelligence

Any time a Mathi is injured, they must roll a save or go mad, becoming extremely violent for a number of rounds equal to the damage. While mad, a Mathi receives plus 4 to STR and must attack the nearest target till dead. This functions similar to being berserk.

Using 1 blood point heals 2 hit points per class level. This represent the Mathi's oneness with battle, their need to heal wounds faster so they can fight again Using 2 blood points can increase intimidate by 1 for their STR score in rounds Using 2 blood points can increase their STR by 1 for their remaining blood pool in rounds Using 3 blood points can harden their skin, giving a bonus of 1 to the armor class for their remaining blood pool in rounds Using 5 blood points allows the Mathi to make one attack re-roll. This represents the Mathi becoming one with the fight and having a better chance to hit. Note: The re-roll must be with the same weapon with all the bonus and penalty of the attack still applying, it is not an extra attack.

Clan Culture

The Mathi group together in clans called a troop or war band, depending on the side.

They love to fight and spend everyday at the city arenas, fighting criminals, beasts, undead and their human populous.

A Mathi will spend most of their time training, battling in the arena with the rest of their time spent drinking at taverns and walking the streets looking for fights.

Mathis almost never back away from a challenge and never when it comes to a fight. They rather die than be deemed a coward, or let an insult slide. Because of this many adventures find Mathi hard to work with as taking the stealthy route or retreating is never an option.

Settlements

The region is dense with cities and is by far the most populous of the vampire nations, having rich farmlands and a good waterway to support them.

Every city has an arena built in the center. This is where the Mathi live and is considered the castle, the seat of government.

Architecture Style

The buildings are made of red and orange mud-brick, cut and gathered from the knolls.

Rooftops are made of deerskin hide and decorated with antlers to make what can look like rows of bone spikes.

Upon many of the walls and homes, the Mathi have hired artisans, most coming for Vertilli, to carve images of battle. These images of battle are usually Mathi champions surrounded by hordes of beasts, lycanthropes, undead and human armies slaying them by the 1000s.

The Mathi pay for the carvings and painting themselves, having a rush of battle every time they walk the streets. It is said, a Mathi cannot walk from one end of the city to the other without breaking into a fervor of violence brought on by viewing the images.

To pay for the art, the Mathi will offer their people and themselves as mercenaries to fight, sending battalions of human or sometimes even members of their own clans to fight someone else's war. Because of this, it is said the Mathi war cry can be heard in every city across Mordeadus. It is even possible to find Mathi mercenaries fighting each other.

Clothing Style

Both the people and the Mathi vampires wear furs studded with metal rings and hooks.

They wear chain bracelets, belts and necklaces, even keeping them well after they rusted - a symbol of Glongia's iron strength and resolve.

All men have beards braided and held together by thin small chain cords, and every one has long braided hair, also held together by thin small chain cords.

Mathi Vampires

Every Mathi has magic red runes on their skin, showing patterns of blood, fists or circling lines. These glow brighter when a Mathi is in battle and fade completely when they die.

These runes detect as magic but have no effect other than acting as a mild mutation caused by their vampiric transformation.

Religion

There is no known religion.

Government

The Mathi rule over the people as dictators.

There are few sturdy rules, with the law changing day to day on the vampires' whim.

Tax is collected but can vary on the Mathi's need and rarely is any power given to humans, with all figure heads of state, guard captains, magistrates, lords and etc. being Mathi.

There is one rule of law that never changes: The people must be hearty and tough. Everyone in Glongia is expected to fight and no one is allowed outside their home without a weapon.

Sometimes Mathi will test a citizen in battle and kill them if they find them too weak.

Those who do break the law, no matter how petty, find themselves in the arena. If they live, most do not, they can go free. The Glongia have no prisons.

Economy

Their main export is food. There main import is art, this is due to the maintenance of battle carvings throughout the city.

Despite the chaotic and tough nature of the Mathi, the people of Glongia do well, as their skill in battle keeps them from being raided or overrun by undead unlike many of the other nations and therefore retain full use of their land and its resources.

Everyone being a warrior also has another merit, crime is down, thievery is not easy when everyone is capable of defending themselves.

The region is dotted with quarries, mines, farms and even lumber mills on the border, giving the citizens more than enough resources to stock their shelves.

Issues

Sisters of the Blue Rose

This is a paladin order of women who do not worship a god but a philosophy, the ideals of the blue rose.

The ideals are simple: order, willpower, discipline and calm, everything the Mathi are not.

The sisters act as a crusading force, venturing into the cities and killing Mathi wherever they can and whenever they can all in the name of wiping out the clan, liberating the people and bringing them to harmony under order and willpower.

The women mediate daily and pray to the blue rose for a clear mind and body. They wear a symbol of the blue rose on their tunics and tattoo one on their face.

Men are not allowed in the order, being viewed as savage, violent and disorderly, making the blue rose only open to women or those who identify as being female. Despite the orders' views, men are allowed to live in the keeps as servants, maintaining the ground and raising the families. They are not considered lesser and respected among the paladins, they will just never be paladins.

The sisters build out in the plains far from the city, constructing fortresses and keeps out of glowing blue stone mined from the ground they blessed by prayer. The keeps are surrounded by rings of blue rose bushes with more rose gardens built within the fortress' halls.

The stones, although dimly glowing, extend their light 40 meters and act as sunlight to any vampire within its radius, dealing 1 D6 damage a round, no save.

For this reason, the Mathi, although at a constant war with the sisters, cannot fight the sisters directly unless they come out of their keeps. To counteract this problem, the Mathi founded the Order of the Perfect Warrior.

The Order of the Perfect Warrior

Chosen from the greatest human warriors of their nation, the order of the perfect warrior is trained by the Mathi to brutal killers taught that violence and battle are the only pure forms of the body and that all things were created to kill, killing being the only perfection. The orders only purpose is to do battle. The order is taught excellence comes from brutality.

The members of the order pierce their skin with hooks and studs, criss crossing chains around their bodies and cutting symbols of blood into their skin. These are all acts of devotion to the Mathi, their pain being tests of endurance, their physical symbols of their pureness.

The order loves to battle the sisters and will raid attack the keeps whenever they can, wearing necklaces of severed sister heads as a sign of their abilities and loyalty.

The order is housed within the arena with members trained to fight by the Mathi themselves. The order acts as the Mathi's army and guard, enforcing laws in the city, acting as bodyguard to the vampires or being the first wave of mercenaries sent to a foreign land.

Because of their toughness, devotion and ability in combat, the Mathi view the members of the order as a step up from mere human and sometimes even threat them as their children, even allowing them to hold minor positions of power.

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tumblunni · 7 years

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Random rambley development for unnamed zombie-fighting super mum simulator! Today’s thoughts- rules and regulations for how the zombies work in this setting.

* On the sliding scale of zombie origins, these ones are far more supernatural than scientific. They’re not really limited by the more strict rules of movie zombies, and judging them by human standards would be a mistake! After all, the mere fact that the dead are alive is already outside the realms of possibility, I don’t understand why ‘scientific’ zombies in fiction are defined by limitation like this. No matter how ‘scientific’ it is, the basic premis is inherantly supernatural! Making it ‘scientific’ should just be like... a genre decision. A way to add verisimilitude if you want a more real life or sci fi setting. It shouldn’t be an excuse to tone down zombies and complain that stuff shouldn’t be possible, because zombies aren’t goddamn possible :P But like.. making people BELIEVE they’re possible is why ‘scientific’ zombie thrillers are good! Making it excessively similar to real life just harms that, it gets people nitpicking details instead of being scared. It gets people closer to the biggest scientific realism- the fact that zombies will never exist. But yeah anyway, my goal isn’t to make people believe zombies are potentially possible, I’m going more for the sadness, character development and philosophy genre of zombie story rather than the pure scary genre.

* Sorry, I went offtopic rambling there. * BACK TO ACTUAL WORLDBUILDING POINTS * These zombies are more supernatural, and capable of things that you’d probably call ‘magic’. It might be better to call this a supernatural corruption instead of a normal virus. Long-lived zombies will eventually evolve into one of many specialized forms, and start shedding their humanoid appearance for something closer to living shadows made of black spores. Their various powers can include more normal stuff like spewing acid or giant claws, or they could have enhanced control of this shadow mist in various ways, or extremely developed ones can even warp reality to some degree. Trapping you in delusions, rending holes through spacetime, contorting in impossible ways... * They’re not quite as rotten as regular zombies, they’re kinda more like the ‘eternally frozen in time’ sort of undead. Not the pretty kind like vampires, but they don’t completely rot away and start stinking. Its more like... I guess... if you had regeneration powers but they were overcharged? They’re in a perpetual state of metamorphosis, their skin blisters and peels and shifts and rots off and grows back. It flakes off like charred ash, and the flesh underneath begins to petrify. Pretty quickly they become cold, at first its just the simple cold of death and soon it’s crystalline bonelike flesh replacing everything that was once human. And cracking open to leak black blood... and then black smoke... until nothing is left. It seems that what we call ‘zombies’ are just the juvenile stage of a demon. A walking crysalis for something else. * Oh, and their complexion is more greyish than green. Mostly just cos big red wounds would look even more horrifying against a monotone colourscheme, and when the blood becomes black too it would be its own kind of horror... I think the shade of stone they become is linked to their skintone though. That’s a thing that always bugged me about certain vampire stories, how they always turn pale in twilight even if they were dark-skinned in life. (Yes, that is a thing in the books. At least the movies threw a bit more diversity in.) And slightly related, its annoying when all zombies turn the same shade of green. I mean its not really the same thing cos its not like anyone’s saying the zombies are desireable and ooo all hot zombies become white, or whatever. It just gets a bit confusing as a sign that the creators just did not think about POC being in this setting. Also its weird because green isn’t really a realistic colour for rotten human bodies, it always feels a bit too cartoony lol. So yeah weird grey stone zombies would not all be the same shade of grey, and this is a minor detail that should have been obvious but regrettably in a lot of stories it isn’t :P

* These zombies are more intelligent than usual zombies, they’re more equivelant to a simplistic prey animal rather than just a lumbering mess. They’re only that slow and helpless at the earliest stages of infection, pretty soon they start adapting and forming hunting strategies, rather than just walking in circles wherever they first died. They can progress far enough to create dens and packs and compete with each other for resources, and normally display about as much natural intelligence as a cat. Their main problem is more like a lack of awareness rather than lack of intelligence, they retain very little memory of their former selves and essentially behave as if they’re learning how to live again from the start. Left to their own devices they just become animalistic, but considering how they DO remember some things, it might be possible to teach one how to be fully aware again...? * The memories they keep of their former life usually lead to them reenacting old routines that hold no meaning anymore. The places they wander between might be places that were important to them in life, they might gather human things like magpies, they might claw wildly at a broom and start smashing it against things, vaguely remembering that at this time on wednesdays they did the chores. This can be used to manipulate zombies if you can observe them and figure out what things would provide a personal distraction. And global things that’re likely to attract every zombie are A LIFESAVER! Malls are the best scavenging spots because even though they’re the most populated by zombies, there are a million methods to misdirect the whole horde at once, and a million useful supplies inside. So much that if you could clear the place out, it might make a really good stronghold against further zombies. I mean, you’d be pretty much guaranteed to have new zombies coming there every day, in numbers small enough to handle... * The big problem is that these vestigal memories of important things can cause zombies to act in unexpected ways, unrelated to their actual degree of intelligence. You might think no zombie is capable of figuring out how to use a gun on its own, but a military person who died holding a gun might! They already have the combat instincts bored into their brain, it was a large part of their life, their last thoughts would have been to keep shooting no matter what. And their zombie self wakes up with this weird metal rifle thing strapped to their chest, banging against them every time they take a step, making it hard to get through doors. They claw at it a little, get curious about it, and those memories are constantly reinforced every day until they come swimming back up. Any zombie that had a useful skill and was in an environment where its easy to remember will most certainly retain it, no matter how low their self-awareness level is. Your only consolation with the rare gun-zombie is that they don’t often remember how to reload, so you only have to dodge one magazine of bullets!

* Miscellaneous thoughts of things! * I haven’t decided exactly what, but there should be certain chemicals that zombies react differently to, compared to humans. That’d make it easier to craft things to help combat them, and to help deal with your tamed zombie. All i know so far is that zombies are immune to poisons and generally have an iron stomach, so when you collect meat for your zombie you don’t have to worry about it spoiling. And there’s probably something that’s like zombie catnip and makes them sleepy, cos that’d be very useful as a gameplay aspect. * I think zombie vision is limited, and they mostly navigate through sound. The degree of limitation depends on what stage they’re at, it goes on a sort of curve with newly infected and very old infected both at the highest end of the scale. Newly infected eyes haven’t started changing yet, though theyre quite dizzy and clumsy at this first stage. Vision quickly starts degrading around the time that their dexterity recovers, so the difference isn’t really that big. Colour vision goes first. It’s complete colour blindness, not just red/green, so they’re even worse at sight than dogs are. (and, in fact, often compete with feral dogs for food) After that, they can only see blurs of light. Moving things or strong light sources will attract them, and they’re almost completely helpless in the darkness. The problem, though, is that later level infected are absolutely adapted to the darkness! After they’ve got used to navigating by sound alone, they spend all their time there. The only way they can perceive light is as heat on their fragile skin, so they hide away in shady places until night falls. So basically, if you see a zombie out in the light you should run to the darkness, and vice versa! And then when the infection starts to reach its final stages, they become able to perceive the world through the shadows they emit. This new form of ‘sight’ is more like a psychic sense, so there are some limits compared to human vision, and some things they can perceive more clearly. But, generally, they’re back to how good their sight used to be, and you should be wary of that. * Zombies are kinda like snakes, lizards or vampire bats. They only feed once in a while, they gorge themselves and then sleep it off for days or weeks afterwards. So not eveyr zombie you meet will actually try to eat you, just break you. And they won’t expend too much effort on it, since there’s not as much benefit to it, even if their instincts tell them that flesh = kill. Generally you just need to avoid letting them know you’re there, or looking like a threat to their territory. And they’ll quickly forget about you once you manage to escape them, they only pursue you to their full extent when its time to feed. So, for example, if you’ve tried scavenging the same place multiple times then enemies might get increasingly aggro! They start to recognise your scent, and they start to notice that things are vanishing from their territory every time you come there. They might start performing more complex behaviours like staking out the place they think you’ll appear, or readying ambushes and rudimentary traps. In comparison, you might actually be able to tame enemy zombies, to some degree. Its not really possible to save every single zombie, its hard enough to be able to restrain and retain this one single zombie daughter, who’s only this responsive to treatment because she knew you in life. But you can make zombies moderately more docile through certain expert techniques~! For example, if you toss them some food every time you scavenge around their nest, then they’ll start to learn to ignore you, and not really notice the stuff that’s dissappearing. They only care about losing food that they can actually eat, so if you focus on canned goods then you can also reduce aggro. And if you move stuff around you can make certain routes harder for them to cross, but it works even better if you also help them move down other routes. That way you don't just delay them finding you, you psychologically encourage them to turn the other way. “Hey, what’s this interesting new path that I’ve never seen before?” Keep switching the paths back and forth and you can trick them into never losing that excitement, zombies have bad short term memory XD And hey, if you make a big noise somewhere every time you enter the nest, you start teaching the zombies to run over there whenever you get there. Expend some time misdirecting them down a long path with a chunk of meat at the end, and eventually you don’t even need to do that, you can just make the noise and they all run down there even if there’s no reward! * Oh, and this idea was mostly just so that feeding your zombie daughter isn’t too difficult. You don’t have to murder a guy every damn day, she can last varying long amounts of time without food. And depending on how big the meal is and how you train her, you can increase or decrease the time. She’s only a baby zomb though, so generally her HELLISH HORROR HUNGER should be relatively manageable ^_^ I’ll have to figure out what would work best, gameplay wise. Once a month? once a week? * Maybe she can still eat human food, to some extent. Its just that only raw flesh and blood sates the monsterous aspect of her, the rest is empty calories. Plus you kinda need to save it all for keeping our human protagonist alive! But you can give zombiekid treats to reward her for good behaviour, or to calm her hunger when she’s gone without food for a long time. A full stomach won’t actually do anything to help, but it’ll keep her docile. And human food is hard for her to digest now, its usually only okay when its a single treat alongside a full meal of human flesh. Too much of it might just make her health worse, but its what you have to do to stop her from lashing out. It can be a bit depressing to have to lie to her and see her wasting away, not knowing why she's feeling so sick...

#zombie sim thing

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sending-the-message · 7 years

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I'm Hiding In A Mall Bathroom With A Fire Axe by molotok_c_518

I come out occasionally for food, but otherwise, I have been hiding in there fr several weeks.

The mall has been empty. No customers, no employees... everyone is outside, somewhere else, and that is what is keeping me mostly safe.

...and it's all thanks to some dumbass redneck who stole an experimental technology, and doomed us all.

I'm not sure if it has spread out beyond the city. For all I know, the National Guard has us quarantined to keep the violence contained. All I know is, I am hiding to keep myself alive and sane.

Let's back up, though. It's important that the world understand that I didn't do this to destroy us all. I did this to save lives, which makes this all the more tragic.

About 15 years ago, my sister died. Cancer... more specifically, an inoperable brain. We watched as she wasted away, in agony, while doctors tried first to save her life, then save her self, then "make her comfortable." It was like living in a horror movie.

It killed my father; the stress ruined his health, and he died of a heart attack while eating a bagel in his car. My mother took up drinking to cope with the double tragedy, and to this day she spends every waking moment in an alcoholic stupor.

I decided that I would dedicate my life to making sure this stopped happening.

I wasn't very good at biology, but I got good, and combined it with my abilities as a programmer. I threw myself into studying nanotechnology, and puzzling out how I would program nanobots (robots built on a microscopic scale) for complex surgery. I gathered like-minded individuals, and basically infected them with my vision of a troop of 'bots carrying out the kinds of life-saving surgery that was generally deemed too invasive and destructive to perform.

We set up shop on the campus of our local campus of the state university. After painstakingly applying for grants and donations to fund this research (which was hard, as no one wanted to put "real" surgeons out of work), we managed to get the money and time to begin.

It took 10 years, and numerous dead ends (examples: metal didn't work, and tended to degrade and poison the patient; ceramic was too dense to work properly, or so my materials guys said) to finally strike on the perfect solution:

We took a microorganism, and programmed it at the DNA level (creating a compiler that translated my proprietary language to "the machine language of the cells" took months) to repair damaged and infected tissue. A host of them was injected into the bloodstream, and they sought out tumors, nerve damage, torn intestinal sections, etc. The host would swarm these anomalies, and repair them by "eating" the non-viable tissue, replicating more of itself from the protein contained in it, then stimulating the natural regenerative properties of the body to replace the damaged tissue. If anomalies cropped up again (like cancerous tissue), it would sense them, "eat" a bit deeper until the cancer was gone, and try again. Once it stopped sensing cancer, and the area had healed, it would wait a set period of time (usually 8 hours), then "die" and be flushed from the body.

Testing, failing, recoding the DNA in the "meatbots" (as we affectinately referred to them), testing again... years passed, and we finally got consistent successful trials in rats.

In fact, we got miraculous results from rats: We were literally raising them from the dead.

We discovered it by accident, when we were trying to find the optimal time to inject after subjects were poisoned. Several of our test rats had ingested ricin, as a way of finding if the meatbots would save them (it worked). The ones we injected last had died... but then they popped back to life.

It was scary, actually.

The moral ramifications were immediately obvious to us: a world without death would rapidly become overpopulated, and the means to restrict access (by pricing the treatments higher, by restricting production, etc.) would get decried as unethical, or even tyrannical.

We decided, as a group, never to mention this side effect to anyone outside the organization. We instructed everyone to stay quiet about it, and if it did leak, we would terminate the employee and deny everything.

Since we had successful tests, we chose to move on the primate trials. It required a massive recoding of the meatbot programming, as they were set for rodent physiology and anatomy, and regrowing our stock.

As a result, an error crept in: The "killswitch" that was built into the original 'bots got commented out. They didn't become inert and get flushed; instead, they replicated using the "ambient" protein in the blood, and invaded the rest of the body.

I caught the error after one of our monkeys (test subject P1-1) started eating itself to replenish the protein in its blood stream. The wounds bled meatbots. I deleted that recording after we all agreed that no one should watch the poor thing destroy itself.

As I was frantically restoring the killswitch to the rest of the meatbot stock and making sure there were no repeats, our security chief discovered an anomaly in the security logs.

We had a security guard who was stalking a scientist in another department of the science facilities on campus. Somehow, his key card was still left active, and was used to access the "Lazarus Room" where we kept the meatbots. They were sort of clever, in that they put some protein mix into the storage tank to try and cover the depleted 'bots... but didn't think that we kept track of that protein.

It took us several weeks to find the culprit: A Kentucky-born guard named Bobby called in sick for an entire week, and then just stopped calling.

Our chief got together several of his guys to check up on him. An hour later...

"Hey, Dr. {Smith}, this is Chief Red. We need you here. Now. Something went horribly wrong."

"'Something', Chief?" I asked. "Be specific."

"Not on an open line. And definitely not if you have eaten." With that, he hung up.

The address was 15 minutes away. I took the time to stop at Taco Bell and have a burrito, because there was no way it could be as bad as he said.

It wasn't.

It was much, much worse.

The house itself was a tiny two-bedroom bungalow on the outskirts of the city. It was a bit beaten up around the edges, but you could tell it was well-cared for in better times.

Inside, in the living room, were the guard and his wife. They had been zip-tied back-to-back, with their arms tightly tied to their sides.

Those arms were chewed to shreds. Our meatbots were oozing from the gashes, which were rapidly healing themselves.

The two were struggling to get out of their bonds, and were trying to bite into anyone getting near them. "Hungry," the wife moaned. "We're so hungry..."

There was a spoiled-meat smell permeating the air, the result of hundreds of empty containers and plastic wrappings from grpund beef, fast food, and raw beef, as well as shreds of meat and flesh that were strewn along the floors and stuck to the walls.

One of the guards was limping. Bobby had taken a chunk out of his calf when he wandered too close, and the resulting wound was being bandaged by his buddy.

I really regretted that burrito.

Just when I thought it had gotten as bad as it could possibly get, though... it got worse.

See, they had also tried to eat several local animals. Those that had escaped had picked up meatbots, and had spread them to other animals.

Some of those animals had attacked humans. Those humans had picked up meatbots.

Within a week of discovering Bobby and his wife, we had an entire section of town infected with meatbots, which drove them to try and eat as much meat as they could get to feed the replication.

Within a month, no one in town was left unaffected. People ran through the streets trying to eat each other, or any animal they could get their hands on. Wounds would close immediately as chunks were torn from flesh, or gunshot wounds were inflicted.

Headshots? Healed in hours.

The only thing I saw that stopped them from coming back was full immolation. The poor fucker I saw do this screamed and laughed at the same time as he burned away to ash... and it was a close thing, as he was healing almost as fast as he was burning away.

I tried to cure some of them. I injected Bobby and his wife with the new meatbots, with the killswitch reinstated. The old 'bots ate them.

I ended up burning them both away. It was better than Bobby deserved, in my opinion, and I felt horrible about his wife... but she looked at me and thanked me was I poured kerosene over them both and lit the match.

...and so here I hide. I've seen Dawn of the Dead, and I locked the doors to the mall like the protagonists of every version of the movie did. I hide in the bathrooms, where I can hear the slightest whisper of sound in the doorways and be ready to defend myself.

I have stepped out on the roof, and watched an orgy of self-cannibalism play out in a parking lot before a horde of the infected moved on.

Hunger has overtaken logic and compassion. All that drives human and animal alike is the need to eat, and to feed the dreadful miracles that keep them whole.

People have semi-jokingly feared the Zombie Apocalypse. This is much, much worse.

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

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aion-rsa · 7 years

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DC’s The Flintstones Was the Most Socially Relevant Comic of 2016

Had someone said a year ago that the sharpest social satire of 2016 would be a comic book revival of a 56-year-old animated comedy, we’d likely still be waiting for the laughter to fade. But while we did laugh at DC Comics’ “The Flintstones,” by writer Mark Russell and artist Steve Pugh, it was sometimes through tears. After all, 2016 was a pretty terrible year.

RELATED: CBR’s Top 100 Comics of 2016: #25-11

The original Hanna-Barbera cartoon was a thinly disguised spoof of “The Honeymooners” known for its juxtaposition of contemporary everyday life with a fanciful prehistoric setting, complete with anachronistic (and animal-powered) technology: Working-class family man Fred Flintstone operated the bronto-crane at the quarry, his wife Wilma swept the home with a baby woolly mammoth vacuum cleaner, and their neighbor Barney Rubble drove a wooden car that could be mistaken for an oversize pencil.

Those hallmarks are present in Russell and Pugh’s revival, of course, but never has the Modern Stone Age Family seemed so … modern, or so relevant to life in the present (occasionally painfully relevant). DC’s “The Flintstones” takes the satire of the 1960s animated series to another level, tapping into the darker corners of Bedrock — and modern-day life — for examinations of faith, politics, science, social institutions and morality. Suddenly, 100,000 years in the past doesn’t seem that long ago.

The Horrors of War

From “The Flintstones” #5, by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh

The first clues to Bedrock’s dark past appear early in “The Flintstones,” which exchanges Fred and Barney’s lodge, the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes, for the Veterans of Paleolithic Wars. Its members wear the same funny furry hats, which turn out to be part of a military uniform, but instead of boisterous meetings they participate in support groups, sharing raw memories of a massacre. “The poor bastards didn’t stand a chance,” a teary-eyed Joe recalls in the first issue. “We set fire to their trees. When the smoke cleared, there were dead Tree People everywhere!” That bloody picture begins to come into chilling focus in subsequent issues, as Fred reveals, “We participated in a genocide, Barney,” a phrase you’d never hear on the ’60s cartoon. It’s Bedrock’s original sin, committed at the behest of Mr. Slate and his political ally Mordok the Destroyer, who manufacture a threat from the Tree People — “Maybe they will come out to burn you alive as they devour the flesh of your children. Who knows?” — as the pretense for a war to seize their land to build the city. Needless to say, the truth emerges too late.

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But haunted memories of the Bedrock Wars are only the beginning of the problems for veterans. When they returned from the battlefield, they were greeted by a ticker-tape parade, soon followed by unemployment, homelessness and, as a suicidal Joe discovers, a lack of support services. A counselor does, however, provide the veterans with a nonsense phrase to help them cope with tense situations — it turns out “Yabba-dabba-doo!” is the “Serenity now!” of the Stone Age — and they are given lip service, even if they’re left waiting for a statue. That’s still a better fate than the Tree People, whose inglorious memorial is the mascot of Bedrock Middle School (“Home of the Fighting Tree People”).

Exploitation of Labor

From “The Flintstones” #1, by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh

Quarry owner Mr. Slate wasn’t the most sympathetic character on the TV series, and this comic certainly doesn’t cast him in a softer light. Rewarded for his role in the Tree People genocide with access to the granite beneath their land, Mr. Slate builds his empire on the spoils of war and on the backs of his employees. Preoccupied with his own legacy, he has no qualms about trying to exploit the Neanderthals — not, as he believes, Cro-Magnons — who come to Bedrock with “no formal concept of money.” Seeking to woo them with a creepy hot tub party at his mansion, Slate ends up using his wealth to pressure them into first eating a tarantula and then attempting to kill a mammoth for his entertainment (the latter doesn’t end well, for either the caveman or the mammoth). “No offense,” one of the Neanderthals concludes, “but it seems like the whole point of civilization is to get someone else to do your killing for you.”

Of course, if Mr. Slate didn’t learn anything from an unjust war, a rebuke from a Neanderthal isn’t about to trigger personal growth. So when an employee is trapped in a cave-in at the quarry in this week’s Issue 7, his concern isn’t the man’s welfare but instead a looming deadline. “Well, shame about the new guy,” he tells Fred. “But life goes on, right?” In fairness, Mr. Slate does feel guilty enough about his actions to seek absolution from the church, and the poster at the quarry clearly reads, “Try Not to Die.”

Religion and Consumerism

From “The Flintstones” #2, by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh

Speaking of the church, “The Flintstones” devotes significant space to an exploration of the intersection of religion and consumerism, which in Bedrock (and, arguably, elsewhere) are inexorably linked. It’s probably unavoidable as these Stone Age people transition from a nomadic existence, during which they worshiped a crane named Morp, to a more leisurely, civilized life, where they worship … well, that’s a work in progress. When the residents of Bedrock grow tired of one god, the First Church of Animism must scramble to find another, which isn’t easy, especially in a town where animals are used as household appliances and industrial machinery — the octopus dishwasher, the moose hat rack, the triceratops bulldozer, and so on. Wilma is shocked to discover their new god, Peaches the baby woolly mammoth, is actually a vacuum cleaner, which leads to another crisis of faith, and the introduction of an invisible deity named Gerald. Ah, progress.

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But just as the residents of Bedrock collect gods, they also find themselves hording “crap,” the term for all of those items the don’t really need — and, in the case of the Flintstones, can’t really afford — yet are compelled to purchase in ever-growing numbers. The mounting costs push Fred and Barney to take side jobs selling vitamin supplements, which is actually familiar territory for the duo.

Animal Exploitation

From “The Flintstones” #4, by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh

Although one of the trademarks of the “Flintstones” cartoon was its inventive use of animals as appliances and tools, there was little thought given to the ethics of the scenario, or the lives lived by the can opener or the lamp (aside from the occasional humorous protest). It was an animated comedy, after all. But in DC’s revival, the plight of these animals is seldom ignored, whether it’s when a bird-blender labels the Flintstones’ pet Dino a “traitor,” or when Fred returns some of their unwanted “crap” to the store, only to leave with a bloody bag of “appliance feed.”

As in the cartoon, it’s usually played for laughs. But there are also touching (even heartbreaking) moments, such as when, free of human supervision, the armadillo bowling ball befriends the Flintstones’ woolly mammoth-vacuum cleaner, who spends most of its time shut away, alone, in the closet. The ethical questions more relevant to contemporary readers arise when Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm’s class visits the Bedrock Cave of Science and Technology, where they witness a chimpanzee launched into space in the most “Flintstones” way possible (involving an enormous dinosaur dropped onto a lever; see below). “Wait — did they just kill a chimp to impress a bunch of eighth graders?” Pebbles asks.

Marriage Equality

From “The Flintstones” #4, by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh

As the citizens of Bedrock adapt to their fledgling civilization, they not only embrace new gods (goodbye, Morp; hello, Gerald), they also abandon old institutions, like the “sex cave,” which we’re told was the precursor to marriage. However, they don’t give it up without a fight. As the marriage debate rages around them — one television commentator labels it “an immoral threat our way of life,” while a passerby refers to married people as “disgusting” — Fred and Wilma head off to a church-run marriage retreat, to see if it’s right for them. Despite himself, the hapless minister makes a strong enough case for marriage, and for change, to convince retreat participants and a mob of protesters that the institution is the way forward — that is, until he’s confronted with a same-sex couple.

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But when he balks at Adam and Steve (that’s their names, really), Fred springs into action, relating the important role the couple played when he was a child in a tribe of nomads. His plea for love and tolerance provides the minister with food for thought, although it’s clear he won’t dwell too long on it.

Politics

From “The Flintstones” #5, by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh

Much like their modern-day descendants, the people of Bedrock fail to learn from their past. Although their war with the Tree People remains a fresh wound, the election of a new mayor takes place against the backdrop of a looming conflict with the Lizard People. To cement the parallel, the populist candidate Clod the Destroyer is the son of Mordok the Destroyer, who bangs the drums of war just like his father. The crowd chants “Clod! Clod!” as one supporter cheers, “He says the things I wish were true!”

Meanwhile, Bedrock Middle School faces its own choice in the election of a student president: between the bully Ralph, who steals lunches and threatens to “punch you in the beef,” and Portnoy, who offers a perfectly reasonable proposal for decreasing the number of kids plucked off the playground by pterodactyls. Ralph wins the debate by bullying his opponent — at least until Pebbles, often the voice of reason, speaks up. As she lectures her classmates about voting against their self-interests, it’s not difficult to imagine she’s addressing an audience outside of her school, or even Bedrock.

A Tribute to David Bowie

From “The Flintstones” #3, by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh

The launch of the chimpanzee Sergeant Grumbles into space triggers a series of events that leads to an invasion by alien space bros seeking a new spring break destination, sheds light on the mistreatment of veterans of the Bedrock Wars and introduces that most hated of characters from “Flintstones” lore, the Great Gazoo. However, the most poignant aspect of the issue is the tribute to David Bowie, who passed away Jan. 10, 2016: Titled “A Space Oddity,” the story features a panel in which lyrics from the singer’s 1969 classic are used to touching, yet humorous, effect. Right before Grumbles is sent to his death, in the name of science.

“The Flintstones” #7, by Mark Russell and guest artist Rick Leonardi, is on sale now.

The post DC’s The Flintstones Was the Most Socially Relevant Comic of 2016 appeared first on CBR.com.

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