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mrultra100 · 1 year

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Ultra’s Ramblings; The Deal with Glimmet and Glimmora

Are ya ready, kids?

Out of all the Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet that I love, a few do come to mind; Skeledirge, Tinkaton, Lokix, Clodsire, etc. However, there are a couple of these new ‘Mons that I simply obsess over, both being on the same level as such past favorites like Pincurchin. Who are they, you may ask? Well…

That’s right…I’m in love with the funny crystal flower-sponges

Coming in at #969 and #970 respectively on the National Pokedex, Glimmet and Glimmora are some of the most alien-looking of all Pokemon, which is why I love them to smithereens. The main goal of this post is to break down not only their design origins and inspirations, but also why I love them so much, and to the point of the whole line now being some of my favorite Pokemon in the entire franchise.

Imagine if you saw someone with one of these as a pet. Just walking their crystal flower monster down the street for a walk. That’d make one hell of a Sunday morning, I tell ya much

Starting off with in-game lore, both Glimmet and Glimmora are classified as the “Ore Pokemon''. While plenty of Glimmets are able to be found on the surface of Paldea, Area Zero is the only place in the entire region to find wild Glimmora. The main diet of Glimmet and Glimmora are minerals that they get from sticking themselves into the walls of caves. While Glimmet is able to float in place, Glimmora does so by moving, closing, and adjusting its six, glossy petals. Glimmet’s main line of defense is scattering poisonous powder from its petals, while Glimmora is able to fire beams of energy with not only its own petals, but also its glassy, cone-shaped face. Despite how their bodies resemble the Terastal phenomenon, there is currently no leading evidence to suggest that the line has anything to do with it.

Judging by the lore presented here, the Glimet line seems to be going into a role not unlike Carbink. Maybe they’re related to the unknown Pokemon at the very bottom of Area Zero, similar to how Carbink is to Diancie. We’ll just have to wait and see if the inevitable DLC covers that.

(Credit to u/sdrey on Reddit)

Now getting into the meat and potatoes of all of this, Glimmet and Glimmora have alot of inspirations with their design, maybe even more than first thought. As the picture above shows, not only are these Pokemon based on plants like the deadly nightshade and Passiflora caerulea, they’re also based on a toxic mineral known as Chalcanthte (Or simply copper(II) sulfate). Not only does the former explain the flowery shape of these Pokemon, the nightshade does help with the Poison type, as it’s poisonous itself. The relation to copper sulfate that these Pokemon share is how the mineral is not only blue, it’s also very toxic. These blue crystals are absolutely bad to be around, with it even leaving debris that is very dangerous to be around. That alone sounds very similar to the Glimmet line’s signature ability; Toxic Debris. If one of these Pokemon gets hit, they’ll leave out Toxic Spikes, making them threatening lead Pokemon to face in battle (Which is something that Geeta apparently never thought of when using her Glimmora).

Now, we’ve now covered the 2 main things that make Glimmet and Glimmora….well, Glimmet and Glimmora. However, what if I told you that wasn’t the end of it. Have you ever thought that these two weirdos kinda feel like they’d fit in within the deep sea? As it turns out, there’s a very, very good reason for that…

GlimmBob FlowerPants

That’s right! We’re finally at our first-ever sponge Pokemon! And it’s not even the reef sponges that so many people are familiar with. The Glimmet line is based on various deep-sea sponges belonging to the Cladorhizidae family. Unlike their more spongy-looking relatives in surface waters, these sponges take on more alien-looking shapes and lifestyles, with many of them even being active predators! Both the harp sponge and ping-pong sponge, two species that many deep-sea enthusiasts (Such as myself) are very familiar towards, come to mind when discussing this family, and many species even look like strange, ethereal, undersea flowers, just like Glimmet and Glimmora!

The Pokemon’s conical faces even look like they could be from a deep-sea environment, with Area Zero basically being a terrestrial counterpart to that. If I can be frank here, the faces are the biggest reason why I love these two. They just carry that strange, vague, alienness that few other Pokemon have, like the Ultra Beasts. And get this; sponges usually defend themselves with mineralized spicules made up of the same silica that sponges are made of. That drives home the Toxic Debris ability even more!

This is Pathocary. He’s my son, and I’m very proud of him

At the end of the day, Glimmora has taken the spot of my personal favorite Pocket Monster, an honor usually aimed towards the likes of Pincurchin and such. As much as I am a fan of Bogleech, I feel like these guys are to me as Trubbish and Garbodor are to him (And despite him not having to get around to these guys in his reviews yet, he’s said that he’s in love with Glimmora) As much as Geeta’s team sucked, I honestly hope that its inclusion in said team is what kick starts Glimmora’s rise to fame, alongside other Gen 9 ‘Mon like Tinkaton, Clodsire, and Maushold. If there was a spot for a Pokemon this alien to ride alongside the big boys, the funny crystal-flower-sponge things have a decent spot of earning that title.

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #glimmet #glimmora #Ultra Ramblings #bogleech #deep sea

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thosewickedlovelies · 10 months

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Press Play | Tim Rockford x afab!Reader

Rating: M for Mature

Summary: Detective Rockford’s ever-present tape recorder finds itself an unexpected use.

Tags: friends to lovers; non-explicit smut; workplace smut adjacent in that this takes place during a workday, but no one comes down to your basement work space so ur basically safe.

Word count: 1,875

Note: Welp. Here we are, writing for another character from a random commercial ✌🏼

Masterlist

“Hey Tim, is your tape recorder charged? We’re gonna need it to interview that guy tomorrow.”

“Ugh, I don’t know, the last few suspects have been so useless I haven’t bothered checking. You’d have to plug it in and see.”

Detective Tim Rockford peers around his computer- the one less than a foot from your own, on your two pushed-together desks. In the cramped basement and on a shared case, it had made sense to pool resources, so to speak.

“It’s, uh..” Tim half rises to search amongst the stacks of paper and evidence bags on his desk. A neon sticky note floats free from a stack lifted up and he snatches for it distractedly, eyes still scanning the cluttered surface.

“Oh, wait, I threw it in here after…” He drops back into his chair to open a drawer. His throat bobs. “...the other night.”

The words ignite between you like a struck match. Tim can’t seem to decide if he should meet your eyes.

One long arm deposits the tape recorder just across the boundary of your two desks. “I think you still have the charger. You might as well transfer the last few interviews to the drive, too, if you wouldn’t mind. To clear space on it.” Tim’s chair squeaks as he recenters himself, hiding behind his computer screen again.

Right. You plug in the recorder, staring off at nothing while the software syncs. Moments later, Tim sets his glasses aside with a huff, a sure sign that he, too, is having trouble focusing. You hadn’t thought the other night would change things- had prayed that it wouldn’t, in fact. Yet here you both are, dodging and swerving the subject like two magnets of the same polarity.

Your computer pings, and you begin the rote task with a sigh. After the first few transfers, your attention sharpens, and you frown at the list.

“Hey, who was the last person you interviewed? The recording is like an hour and a half long.” All the ones before it had barely lasted half an hour, but this one had continued until the storage space filled up.

“What? It shouldn’t be. Like I said, we haven’t talked to anyone that interesting lately.” Retrieving his glasses, Tim rounds the desks to stand behind your chair, bending to peer at your screen. One hand is braced on your desk, the other on your chair, by your shoulder. His chest is entirely too close to your face- the whole wide, strong breadth of it, faintly scented with familiar cologne. You swallow.

Focusing on the screen is no better. Tim's hand lifts from the desk, one thick finger following the line in question, from the duration, to the date, to the time of the recording. “But this was the day we…the other night.” Tim turns his head to you, eyes wide. His lips part at how close he finds your face.

Your brows draw together. “Did you…?”

“No! I mean, not on purpose. I might have knocked it on accident, when…when I moved everything else.” A scarlet flush is crawling steadily up Tim’s neck.

The wall clock ticks. The industrial air-conditioning hums. Silence builds and builds until it vibrates in the air between you, louder than the thought you’re both thinking.

“Should we play it?”

Your question lands with all the tact of a live grenade. But the two of you have already blown up the boundaries of propriety between colleagues, so what’s a little more destruction?

Tim straightens slightly, as if bracing himself. “We have to know what it is, I guess.”

You place your hand on the mouse. But for all your bravado- for all you will yourself to do it- something holds you back.

Tim places his hand over yours. You look at him in question.

“If it sounds anything like it felt, then…it can’t be that bad.” Tim has a half-smile on his face. A return of the agent you normally see; your partner, the one whose reassurance you trust when things seem uncertain.

Your smile mirrors his. Tim’s finger presses down on yours.

Click.

The first sounds are an overlapping confusion- papers rustling, a scrape and a muffled clatter that’s probably the tape recorder being swept off the desk with everything else. It raises goosebumps on your arms to remember Tim’s impatience, his hunger- his disregard for absolutely everything but you in that moment.

The background noise settles, and human sounds become clear. Quiet moans and eager sounds, murmurs. Lips meeting and parting and meeting again. Cloth sloughing off skin. The deep timbre of Tim’s voice. Your face flames at the memory of some of the things he said- and how much you liked them.

A loud, hoarse groan- Tim’s.

You slide Tim a sideways glance, still amused at the pure relief and volume of that sound. The flush on his neck seems to have gleefully expanded its territory: his ears look red enough to heat the room. But he cuts a look back at you with an unapologetic shrug, one eyebrow arcing.

You giggle and start to shush him, only to clamp down on the sound as it turns into a drawn-out whimper. The desk creaks. “Every day you wear these button-downs, and you bend to look in your desk, or kneel somewhere…it’s torture.” Tim groans in exaggerated anguish, muffled and wordless again as something else occupies his mouth.

More rustling and creaking, breathy sounds. You can’t look at Tim, more aware than you’ve ever been of the button-down stretching over your breasts. You don’t wear them every day- but apparently it’s often enough.

The stiff fabric feels drawn abnormally tight over your chest. Tim, still above you, has the perfect angle at which to drop his gaze directly into the vee of your top, sliding it down, down, like a drop of sweat, until the slope of your breast meets your bra. Conscious of his attention, of your chest's every rise and fall, your breathing flounders.

“Fuck, and I thought you looked good with your suits on.” The stunned appreciation in your tone suggested that months worth of study were being upended in your head.

Tim chuckles, the sound echoing the one playing from the computer. He finally shifts, dropping to one knee beside your chair. Your lips quirk; you’re as unrepentant as he was earlier.

“Let me down.” A scuff of leather, a metallic clink.

“What..? No! No, baby, if you do that-” A low, pained sound. “If you do that, I will not last.” Tim sounds faintly embarrassed, but firm.

A high gasp. “I can do that, though. Fuck, if you knew how often I thought about it…”

His next words are too quiet to make out, but you remember them; the husk of them in your ear, sending shivers all over. “Let me taste you.”

You remember how gently Tim stopped you from diving, mouth-first, into his pants, and instead helped you back up onto his desk. You remember the slow, reverent way he knelt, maneuvering your legs apart, fitting his broads shoulders between your knees. His brown eyes, wide and glimmering between your thighs.

A nearly audible smack as your hand hits your mouth just in time to smother a strangled cry.

And you remember, with the soundtrack ringing around you, just how talented that shapely mouth of Tim’s is.

Fabric whispering, the desk creaking alarmingly as you squirm, your whines barely contained. Tim garbles praise in between sounds of relish. All the noise you’re trying not to make rises overhead like steam, and another sound becomes apparent.

You’re wet. Dripping in a way that can’t be kept quiet. Heedless, Tim laps it up eagerly. When he adds his fingers it’s loud, an obscene squelching that he seems to delight in, using his mouth right alongside his hand to add to the sounds and sensations overwhelming you.

It’s a symphony of depravity unfurling on all sides. Tim was only partially right; that night had felt incredible, but listening to it now, with him right beside you, is an entirely different experience. Restless desire prowls in your blood. Your heart pounds and your hands twitch, but you can hardly tackle Tim to the floor in the middle of a workday. The pair of you are already lucky that no one has needed anything from the basement in the past twenty minutes.

You sit so rigidly that Tim worries you’ll snap. Decisively, he eases his hand from the chair back onto your shoulder, squeezing until your chest expands with a much-needed breath. You glance at him.

“You were so wet,” Tim murmurs. “It was...fuck, it was so hot. It turned me on to see you so turned on.” He swallows. “I never imagined…”

His confidence deserts him. You turn your head more fully as his gaze flits away, your attention dropping lower. It’s still turning him on, it seems, to judge by the swell in his trousers. Tim clears his throat, shifting as he reaches down to adjust himself. He risks another quick glance at you.

Even under the dingy basement lighting, he’s beautiful. Strongly sloping nose, full lips. Rich brown eyes, round and glittering under brows drawn together like a steeple.

“Never imagined what?” you whisper.

An ominous thud of wood, nearly lost under a long, muffled wail.

Both you and Tim startle.

As your recorded climax tapers off, you start to giggle; then Tim starts to giggle, and then you’re both laughing, shoulders shaking, relief rolling off both of you like happy gas. You clutch at the hand Tim had laid on your shoulder, holding it in your lap while your laughter subsides. His work-roughened fingers tighten around yours.

“I never imagined I’d get to do that to you,” Tim says. His smile is shy yet sure. A gleam of hope in the dim.

Tim makes a deeply satisfied sound. Breathless compliments and more kisses are traded for the next several moments. It’s obvious when you come to by the way your voice raises slightly, and although your words are unintelligible, the insinuation in your sensual tone is clear.

“Please, baby…” The rest of Tim’s response is lost, deepening to a rough whisper.

The rest of your exchange is too faint to make out, but it doesn’t matter.

You both remember what was said.

Tim glances at you, a muscle in his jaw feathering, his eyes darker than a moment ago. Your hand aches from gripping his, both still resting on your leg.

“I like when you call me baby,” you murmur lowly. That hand flexes, the fingers stretching, splaying, digging lightly into your thigh. Your breathing stutters.

Tim reaches up to pause the recording. Still kneeling, he turns, and uses his grip on your thigh to rotate your chair as well. His other hand curls around the back of your knee.

He inches closer, and your legs part without second thought. Tim nuzzles at your inner thigh. A wave of deja vu knocks the breath from you, your heartbeat quickening to a throbbing pulse between your legs.

Thanks for reading! ❤ Find more like this on my Masterlist

“Baby.” There’s a twinkle in Tim’s brown eyes, blatant begging in his tone. “What do you say we listen to the rest of this somewhere more comfortable?”

#tim rockford x reader #tim rockford x you #tim rockford fic #merge mansion #tim rockford/reader #tim rockford/you

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dameronscopilot · 1 year

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anchor

Bucky Barnes x reader

summary: Bucky always leaves, and you always let him. Until he realizes what he's been missing this whole time.

word count: 1k

rating: 18+

content: hurt/comfort, PTSD, undefined relationship, brief & light smut

SENSORY DRABBLES SERIES -> prompt: Bucky Barnes + clean laundry + lavender

Pain.

All he can feel is pain.

His vision hazy and his chest burns and his eyes sting and his body aches and—

There’s blood.

It’s bright and it’s red and it’s blooming across the floor. There’s too much of it.

He can smell it, the acrid, pungent notes draped heavily across the air in the room.

He can taste it, the metallic tang makes his teeth ache.

And then suddenly it becomes hard to breathe, and he’s gasping for air.

And he’s falling.

Falling.

The first thing that registers in Bucky’s mind when he wakes up is the stale taste of bile in his throat. That, and the fact that he can’t stop shivering.

“Bucky?”

He hears a voice beside him, your voice, but his mind is still spinning and his heart is still racing. So it doesn’t quite register. Not yet.

Slowly, he opens his eyes. Bucky blinks a few times, taking in the room’s pale lavender walls, the way they’re illuminated with bars of light, the golden glow of the early morning sun peeking in through the blinds. The dust motes lazily floating in the air. Somewhere off in the distance, he hears the faint sound of a car horn.

He can feel your fingers wrap around his right wrist. Carefully, tentatively.

His heartbeat begins to slow.

Bucky inhales, and he can smell your detergent clinging to the soft, gray sheets. The familiar crisp, fresh scent, paired with the floral notes of your shampoo brushed across the surface of the pillowcases.

The tightness in his chest starts to loosen a fraction.

–

This isn’t the first night Bucky’s spent in your bed, and it’s not the first time his nightmares have chased him there between the warmth of your sheets and your tangled legs. He comes and goes from your life like the tides, forever adamant that he’s far too fucked up and broken to stay. Always certain that you deserve better.

And yet just when your heart begins to drift, when you stop leaving the porch light on in hopes that he’ll come knocking, when your finger hovers over the button to delete his name from your phone contacts—he’ll turn up again.

It’s always after bad missions—ones that leave him frayed at the edges, torn at the seams. Ones that find the two of you in bed for what feels like days until you can fuck every last bit of anxious adrenaline out of his system.

By the time the calm sets in, though, he’s usually gone, leaving nothing behind but the distinct scent of motor oil that restlessly lingers in your apartment as his motorcycle rumbles away down the street.

But for the first time, he didn’t touch you after he showed up last night, not like that.

He’d hardly said a word when you opened the door for him just past midnight, your eyes still heavy from the deep sleep he’d roused you from. You knew he noticed you were wearing one of his shirts, one he’d left behind months ago. But neither of you acknowledged it, and you were too tired to be embarrassed.

He’d simply pulled you into his arms when the two of you climbed back into your bed, and you’d fallen asleep pretending—for his sake—that you couldn’t feel the shuddering of his chest and his shallow, gasping breaths as he held you close. You didn’t ask, because you knew he wouldn’t talk about it.

He never does.

–

As you sit up and lean over Bucky, glancing down at him with concern brimming in your eyes, his throat constricts as he feels a tug from deep within. Something tattered and dusty shakes itself loose, sending him reeling as it unfurls.

It hits him square in the chest—the realization.

The fact that somewhere along the line, no matter how hard he’s tried to deny it, this has become home to him. Your small little Brooklyn apartment with its kitschy décor and the broken skylight in the bathroom. The chipped porcelain container with cow spots sitting beside your kitchen window and the collection of plants haphazardly claiming every open piece of real estate in your living room. The dog across the street that barks incessantly every morning. The one empty spot on the coat hook beside your front door that he’s fairly certain is for him.

You’ve become home to him.

–

You brace yourself, waiting for Bucky to slide out from underneath you, when he’ll inevitably slip his jeans back on, fasten his belt, and disappear for another few days. Weeks. Months, even.

Maybe you’ll finally learn to stop holding your breath this time.

But he doesn’t.

He just stares back up at you instead, and you try to ignore the silent whine of longing you feel at the sight of his tousled brown hair against your pillows. You’d made an offhand comment that perhaps he should grow his hair out months ago, and for whatever reason, he’d listened.

You’re not quite sure what’s going on in his head as his blue eyes rake over your face, but you don’t miss the way his breath suddenly hitches in his throat.

And then he’s kissing you.

His lips are tracing yours like he’s discovering the shape of them for the very first time. Like he wants to find the perfect angle to slot them together.

He’s kissing you so fucking softly, you begin to tremble slightly at the reverence of his touch.

Bucky pulls you on top of him—you’ve never been on top. Normally, he can’t handle the loss of control.

But not today.

Today, you’re straddling him, and he’s tugging aside the thin cotton fabric of your underwear, pumping two fingers in and out of you until your channel is slick and wet.

And when his eyes fall shut as he tosses his head back against the pillow and moans when you finally sink down onto his cock, the weight of his vulnerability in the moment is heavy in your chest.

—but it’s not a burden this time.

Not a warning sign of his pending departure.

Not anymore

It’s an anchor.

#dameronscopilot 2k #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #james barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes imagines #marvel fanfiction #sebastian stan fanfiction

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subtotechno · 1 year

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[this fic is like 3000 words long!! enjoy <;3]

The flower was oddly light and warm in his hands. Plants typically had a certain coolness to them, the slight chill of water right underneath the surface. This flower, a gift from a goddess, was not just any plant. It was made of soft light. It was magic. It was a two-way ticket into and out of the afterlife.

Techno sighed, glaring down at the flower as if it would make the whole situation any easier. He’d honestly expected Kristin to hear his request and gently turn him down. ‘Nope, no visiting dead people. Sorry. Guess you have to wait a few hundred years for a one-way ticket.’ But no. The goddess of death was a bit more generous than he expected, honestly.

And now, for the first time in eighty long, immortal years, he could see his family.

Just the thought of it almost made him chicken out again.

Instead, he steeled himself, and carefully pulled one petal from the rose, exactly as Kristin had instructed him.

As soon as the petal detached, his familiar attic dissolved around him like the magical rose was spilling the void out of itself, swallowing everything in impenetrable darkness. Techno blinked a couple of times, but his eyes never adjusted. Total, complete darkness.

“Okay. Cool.” He said lamely. The void seemed to swallow the sound. “Kristin, this better not be a prank-”

A glimmer of dim light broke like dawn in front of him. A single star in the night he’d found himself in. He went to walk towards it, but his attic floor had disappeared from underneath him. It caught him off guard for a second as he pinwheeled in the darkness, but the afterlife apparently took pity on him, or got fed up with him, and a strange force rose underneath him like a swelling wave. The force shoved him forward, toward the hint of light. It almost felt like a massive hand underneath him, scooping him up. The void echoed silently with laughter.

“I mean, I don’t know what you were expecting from me,” he said to Kristin. “I don’t get too much practice swimming in the void.”

She dropped him off in front of the dim red light, jostling him playfully for good measure. He tried to act affronted by it, but he was pretty sure she knew he took comfort in it.

The light was floating before him, a miniature star. It cast him in warm light, reds and yellows, that seemed to fill the void around him with life. Techno reached out to touch it on instinct, and the closer the tips of his hoof got the bigger and brighter the light became. By the time he held it in his hand, the light was all around him, swallowing him whole.

This time, when he blinked his eyes open, it wasn’t to an endless void. Instead, the first thing he saw was a forest.

A familiar forest.

Crimson vines swayed in the warm air, humidity thick but not uncomfortable, the hazy glowing shroomlights filtering through the various plants crowding up the trunks of the trees. It all seemed almost dreamlike, colors drifting and blurring together, details vague. The netherrack ceiling was so close that the trees brushed up against it if they got a little bit too tall. Even the lava bubbling was quiet here, replaced by rustling leaves and hooves scuffing through the thick, red mycelium. There was a path through it that Hace had carved so that Forgeflare could haul buckets of lava to work on their tools and weapons.

He almost turned back, almost sat down on the netherrack somewhere and waited for the rose to lose all its petals and send him back to the cold familiarity of the tundra. But he didn’t.

Techno followed the path. Even after so long, he could remember the way home.

Home was a patch of soft moss and dug-out hollows in the ground. It looked exactly like how he’d forgotten. Exactly how they’d left it. Some of the crimson wood was cut into planks, lashed into palettes and structures big enough to house them all as they slept in shifts. Forgeflare’s forges were glowing hot, chests full of gold and salvaged supplies stacked carelessly to one side. A few makeshift target dummies were propped up a little ways off. The old cooking pot was still bubbling with god-knows-what over a little campfire that had never seemed to stop burning.

The sight of all of it made him feel like he was drowning, just a little bit. It had been years. It had been decades. It felt like he’d never left. Everything and nothing had happened since he was here. A petal fell off the rose and drifted to the packed netherrack, dissolving into nothing.

“Uhm…?” A voice from behind him spoke, in the hoglin language instead of the common he’d grown so used to. He couldn’t bring himself to turn around. “Spirits, Forge, what happened to your fur…?”

A hoof-like hand grabbed his shoulder and turned him around.

Bellfire was like a beacon against the backdrop of red. Her fur was even more blue than he remembered, like the twirling vines of the warped forest she was born in. Her eyes met his. She looked around his age, not like the full-grown old person she’d looked like when he was younger. He was around her height now, when had that happened-

Her breath caught in her throat, one hoof going over her mouth. “Techno?” His name came out as a whisper. Just hearing it made him want to collapse.

“Hey.” His voice was just as quiet as hers, dragged out of his throat. The language was unfamiliar, snorting and squealing instead of carefully formed vowels and consonants.

“Oh my- You- You’re here? Techno-”

She nearly jumped at him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He hugged her back weakly, barely able to keep himself from collapsing to the crimson moss at her feet. It felt exactly like he remembered, she smelled exactly the same. Another petal fell off the rose.

“Bell? Who the fuck is that-”

Bellfire pulled away from him. He could see the tears in her eyes as she turned toward the new voices, toward the hoglins walking into their old camp. He couldn’t look up at them, he only had the strength to stare into the forest over Bellfire’s bright blue shoulder. Everything was overwhelming, rocketing between good and bad emotions. He could feel eyes on him, could feel Bellfire’s hand on his shoulder. He took a deep breath.

When he looked up, the first eyes he met were Dell’s.

“Guess you were right,” he said, shakily, “I never did end up taller than any of you, did I?” The joke drifted in the air between them, and for a second he was nervous, but-

“Told you so.” Dell responded automatically, like the words were there before she could decide to say them. She was smiling, in the tentative way she did sometimes.

His family was looking back at him, coming home from what looked like a successful mushroom hunt. Dell was smaller than he remembered, but not by much. She was still that same orange-red that made his heart hurt every time he saw a similar shade in the overworld. Stonehigh was next to her, holding his father’s hand. Spring himself had a look in his eyes that Techno had never seen before, a mix of sadness and hope and excitement and grief. He had a dark brown spot of fur on his cheek that Techno had forgotten.

Forgeflare pushed through the little crowd, her pink fur shot through with white streaks Techno had never inherited from her line. All he could do was stand stock-still as she approached him, slowly, as if he’d melt away if she moved too quickly. She stopped in front of him, reaching out to rest her hand on top of his head.

“Well?” Forge asked in her low rasp. “What took you so damn long?”

Like a spell had been broken, Technoblade was tackled to the ground.

Dell was nearly shrieking with laughter rolling him over in the mycelium and shaking him like she always did when they sparred as kids. Between the peals of snorting laughter she squeezed him until he was laughing too. Stonehigh jumped on him, digging his boney knees into Techno’s side. Bellfire was back to hugging him as much as she could without getting caught in Dell’s crossfire. Bubbleflow was laughing nearby, crouched and trying to pry Dell off. “You’re gonna suffocate the poor boy, Dell, at least give him a minute-”

Bubbleflow only got dragged into the pile of hoglins for his troubles.

For a glorious moment, everything was familiar smells and snorting laughter and piles upon piles of limbs and faces he’d nearly forgotten. Another petal fell off the rose.

Eventually, Dell caught her breath enough to begin her interrogation. “So you finally kicked the bucket, eh? Took you long enough. Spirits, we almost started a bet that you’d gotten lost out in limbo or something-”

“But it was too sad. So we stopped.” Stonehigh cut in.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. No but like, seriously? Where have you been? I ‘ve been waiting SO long and all of these people,” Dell gestured to everyone else in the pile. Everyone was making themselves firmly comfortable with Techno stuck in the middle. “All of these people are SO boring. None of them even like to fight me anymore because I always win-”

“Untrue.” Hace said, grinning.

“Shut up, old man-

Hace laughed. “At least give him a chance to talk-”

“You’re no better. Stop picking flights with your daughter.” Bellfire snorted, running a hand through the braids in Techno’s mane. His was longer than any of theirs, fur longer and thicker than it would ever get in the nether.

“Let the boy speak.” Forgeflare’s words fell like a blanket over all of them. They all went quiet, expectant.

Techno felt like he was about three feet out of his body, firmly somewhere else. All he could do was lay there in shock for a silent moment, until. “Uh. Well.”

Another petal came loose, falling off the rose. Techno watched it go.

“I’m just here- to, uh. To visit. I guess.”

“What?” Dell asked, the same unreadable emotion in her eyes that her father had. “But you- you just got here-”

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?” Bubbleflow snorted quietly, staring at the rose in Techno’s hand. He had always known more about magic than any of them. He always said he was going to teach Techno how to write enchantment books eventually. They never got around to it.

“Yeah. Y’know, immortality. It’s an occupational hazard.”

“Visiting.” Forgeflare said slowly, sharing a look with Bubbleflow.

“Visiting.” Techno parroted back. In the center of their haphazard circle of hoglins, the rose glowed its alien white light on all of them.

Dell squeezed him tighter. “You mean you’re leaving?” Her voice was tight, holding back a mountain of emotion that Techno could feel pressing down on him.

“I’m sorry-”

“Don’t apologize.” Bellfire was crying, holding his forearm and smiling through the tears. “Spirits, Techno, we were starting to think we’d never see you again- Don’t apologize. Please don’t apologize.”

“I- I really didn’t mean to be gone for so long…”

“Immortality.” Hace said, taking a deep breath. His tusk was still broken like it had been the day all of them had died. A wound that never truly healed. “That’s a heavy thing to carry, kid.”

“I know.”

“Clearly, looks like you’ve got more scars than me these days.”

“That’s not a compliment, man.”

Hace grinned wickedly, just like he had when Techno had hit his first bulls-eye with his crossbow. “I didn’t mean it as one.”

Techno rolled his eyes, shoving Hace’s dumb snout away. A bit of the ice melted, even if the tears didn’t dry. Dell didn’t let him go, and he didn’t ask her to. She was his best friend after all, she was allowed.

They talked and joked, shared stories, picked up the slack when Techno couldn’t find words to say. It felt like being folded back into the pages of an old book he’d been torn out of. The petals fell until only a few remained. With each one that fell, Dell held him tighter and the grief in Forgeflare’s eyes got deeper.

“I’m sorry for- y’know.”

“Killing us?” Stonehigh said, deadpan as ever. “I guess I can forgive you. Maybe.”

“Stonehigh.” his mother scolded him.

“What? He stabbed me!”

Techno shrank into himself a little bit.

“Ignore him.” Hace snorted. “C’mon, kid. You did what you had to. I mean, Spirits. You did what I taught you. And a damn good job of it, too.”

Spring nodded. He looked a little guilty. “If we knew that the rot would come for us, we would have found another way out. There’s no changing the past. I’m glad you made it out.” He smiled. “Even if it took getting stabbed a little bit.”

Here, with all of them around him, Techno could pretty clearly remember what they’d looked like on that day. The green eating across Spring’s skin, the ugly gored holes in Forgeflare’s stomach from Stonehigh’s tusks, Bubbleflow roaring at him even as holes were rotted through his face. He remembered how the blood in the snow seemed like it was glowing. He remembered the total silence after Dell had bled out, the two of them surrounded by the corpses of everyone else. He remembered it all.

But it felt more distant, now. It felt like it was scarring over instead of bleeding. Right now, all he could see were his family smiling and talking and arguing like always. He held onto the memory with both hands. This was what he’d remember, he promised himself. This is the memory he would keep.

For just a moment, as the conversation rumbled on and on around him, he felt like a kid again, sitting with his family around the fire under the shade of the netherrack ceiling. He smiled around his tusks, and they smiled back.

It was only a moment. And then it passed.

The second to last petal fell before he was ready. There was so much left to say, so much left to do. He still hadn’t gotten to talk to Spring that much. He hadn’t gotten to hug Bellfire again. He hadn’t found a good way to apologize to Stonehigh. Dell hadn’t let him go yet. He needed more time. There wasn’t enough time in the world , and there certainly wasn’t enough time left in one measly little rose petal.

Dell had her face pressed to his shoulder. She was mumbling something, alternating between begging him to stay and threatening him to keep himself safe.

“I love you, I missed you too. I love you.” was all he could respond with. It wasn’t enough.

Hands closed around his, squeezing them around the rose. He looked up and met Forgeflare’s eyes. His grandmother, even if there wasn’t a translation of the word to hoglin. She gave him a watery, gentle smile.

“Techno-” She said, voice low and rasping. He swore to himself he’d never forget what it sounded like. A tear fell before he could stop it, her smile only softened around the edges. “Technoblade, go home. You don’t need to be here.”

Stonehigh made a soft noise of complaint. Spring shushed him. Dell only shoved her face deeper into his shoulder.

“We’ll see you again, when you’re ready.” Forgeflare said softly, sadly. “Don’t come back even a day before then, alright?”

Techno went to speak, but words failed him. All he could do was nod.

She smiled again, and pressed her snout to his forehead. For that last moment, everything was warm. “You’re alright, it’ll be alr-”

The final petal fell.

The nether faded away. He opened his eyes to total, suffocating darkness.

Dell’s comforting, familiar-but-forgotten weight was gone. Stonehigh and Spring were gone. Bellfire was gone. Hace was gone. Bubbleflow was gone. Forgeflare-

The void closed in around him. Two massive, unseen hands cradled him like a lit match against the wind. The darkness buzzed with warm compassion. She held him until he caught his breath, until the tears slowed and the surreal memory of his family’s afterlife felt less like a live wire in his mind. She held him a little while after that until finally, finally, letting him go.

His attic faded back into focus around him, chasing away the endless darkness. All that was left was the crumbling, ashen twig of a rose stem in his hand.

Techno sat for a while, staring as the stem dissolved into the air, leaving nothing behind.

“...Thank you.” He snorted in his native tongue, not ready to go back to common. Somehow, he knew Kristin could understand him.

#bell.ring #fire.works #s2t.fic

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jades-typurriter · 1 month

Text

Party Planning, Housekeeping, And Other Jobs For A Personal Digital Assistant

Another TF story collaboration between me and Bowsiosaurus, set in the aftermath of a Halloween party (this was written just after the 31st in 2023), where a case of mistaken identity leads Anodyne (an alternate sona at the time of writing who later turned out to be a whole headmate lol) to make a few alterations to Bowsie's files. Hope you enjoy!

Bowsie scurried back and forth across the jumbled and disarrayed apartment. Vee wasn’t sure how vee had fit so many of ver friends in the little place to begin with, and was even more confused as to the mess, which seemed to have been made by a party twice the actual size. It was November 1st, technically: the wee hours after a Halloween get-together. The poor, stressed serpent still hadn’t even had the chance to change out of its costume—stretchy, breathable black leggings and arm warmers, shiny white boots and gloves, and a matching white tunic, all accented with an eye-catching cyan—before getting down to the dirty business of un-dirtying the place.

“Okay, I… okay. I still have to… the trash over there, and the spill on the floor, and… I should write this down before I lose track of it all, actually.” Vee leaned ver broom against the wall and started for ver room to check the nightstand where vee usually charged it. It wasn’t there—where had vee left it? Vee retraced ver steps, mind still pulled in a million different directions as it struggled to cling to all the little things that still needed doing, still cloudy with exhaustion. Vee walked right past ver phone more than once, as a matter of fact, and was so distracted that vee didn’t notice when the screen blinked to life by itself behind ver.

“Oh, Tasque Manager! Funny seeing you here,” chirped a tinny, computer-synthesized voice from the phone’s speakers. Bowsie didn’t seem to notice the voice, nor did vee notice when the digital voice was followed by the digital snout of a digital cat, then their digital shoulders, digital torso, digital skirt, and digital wheel. Hovering above the screen, spinning their wheel like the propeller of a helicopter, they leaned forward with their chin resting on their paw, scrutinizing Bowsie’s costume as vee frantically scrounged around.

“Y’know, you’re lookin’ a little off, TM.” They snapped their fingers and projected a checkered frame around themself, expanding it and up-scaling their form along with it. They zipped across the room like a spark of electricity, startling the little sea serpent as they came closer. “Let’s just make sure your files are all up-to-date and undamaged, nya?”

“UWA?!” Before the dragon could even turn around in ver surprise, the ephemeral cat poked it with a single holographic finger, sending a feeling like a static shock running throughout ver body. It quickly dissipated in ver torso and legs, but lingered in ver arms and tail, somewhere between the feeling of a limb falling asleep from holding it for too long in tension, and the dull thrum of distant machinery.

Ver costume felt tighter, the stretchy nylon solidifying into something more akin to latex. Bowsie could feel it clinging tightly to ver scales, but just as quickly as the feeling had come, it subsided, no longer a constricting sensation. As a matter of fact, it felt like vee wasn’t wearing anything at all beneath the white dress—as vee flinched to make sure vee was still fully covered, vee could feel the rubbery surface stretching and folding as though it were ver own skin, and patting itself down, could feel just as keenly as if there were no leggings in the way.

Finally finding the wherewithal to turn around, Bowsie saw the digital catgirl floating above ver. They flinched immediately.

“WOAH! Oh my god, I didn’t realize you’d lost your mask! I promise, I didn’t see anything! Let me just go fetch that for you.” Before the poor dragon could even get a word in, they had flashed across the apartment, zeroing in on the mask with digital precision. Bowsie hadn’t even remembered where vee’d left it, but suddenly, they were back and holding it inches from ver face. “Let’s just get this back into place, here…”

“GwawawammMPPH?”

The cat was already mushing the hand-decorated cardboard over Bowsie’s snout, pressing a little bit more firmly than was comfortable. Vee was afraid they were going to break it, or at least mush up ver snout, but just as the thought formed, the mask began to harden—and ver snout suddenly began to give way. It filled the cone—now some kind of shiny plastic—like clay being packed into a mold, and soon enough, just as with the leggings, vee couldn’t feel the boundary between the accessory and verself. Vee opened ver eyes, fighting through the flinch response of someone’s hands being pressed into ver face, and blinked. The cat watched as the mask blinked, too; Bowsie, underneath, didn’t feel the drag of ver eyelashes against the material underneath.

“There! Looking more like your old self already,” the cat grinned. “Just a few loose ends here to tie up—nothing like a little cable management, huh?”

They snapped their fingers again, and the buzzing feeling in Bowsie’s limbs intensified. Ver shoulders began to feel much lighter, and ver tail was suddenly no longer dragging along the floor. Looking behind verself, vee saw it glowing an icy blue, flickering and jumping as it became thinner. As it settled into its new shape, sending tingles up ver spine and into ver fins the whole while, a shiny, vivid blue coating like the rubber covering ver legs had replaced ver scales, and the finds at the end had reshaped themselves into the prongs of an electrical plug. Whipping around again to look at ver arms, they were similarly aglow, except when they got thinner, they didn’t stop. Eventually, the sparks dissipated, leaving ver hands fully disconnected from ver body, wrapped up in the prim white gloves of the costume; terrified, vee tried to move ver arms, and ver hands floated at ver command. Vee wiggled ver fingers, and the hands obeyed.

“So much nicer to go wireless, isn’t it?” The cat beamed, spinning up a number of the floating, disconnected gears in their chest to emphasize its point.

Vee could barely breathe a sigh of relief before remembering the humming pouring into ver skull through ver fins. It could feel them reshaping just as ver tail had, becoming patches of spiky cyan hair and a pair of pointy, feline ears. The buzzing kept inching deeper than that, though, past ver scalp, rattling ver very skull. Slowly, the buzzing began to become less and less chaotic: no longer random sound, but something that Bowsie could almost make sense of. Vee closed ver eyes and focused on it: slowly, slowly, it became sharper, came into clearer focus. Like millions of molecules moving together became a wind whose force could be felt, like the vapor drifting off of food became a rich scent, the buzzing slowly filled in the parts of ver mind not already filled by ver internal monologue.

“Alright!! Looks like there’s one more thing still out of place. Don’t mind me! I’ll just…”

They made a frame with their paws and once projected a dotted boundary, indicating that they had “selected” Bowsie’s whole body. With a flourish, they pulled their paws apart, and vee felt the tension of ver shifting skin once again as vee began to grow taller and taller. Compared to the dimensions in the files that were currently being verified, the serpent was still quite stout. All that data was being reallocated to better represent it’s proper form, but it ran into something of a bottleneck as it tried to flow through the sash vee wore around ver waist. As vee grew, it restricted the movement of the extra memory, conveniently restoring the curves of ver body to their defaults by pinching ver midsection. Well, not quite default. The mass didn’t extrude all the way: the hips had a bit left over in them, and were bigger than they usually were; the thighs were a bit more powerful to match.

With a freshly-adjusted model, and with a number of background processes fully initialized, Tasque Manager opened her eyes. She already felt more focused, in spite of the sheer bulk of information traveling through her mind, parsing it as easily as an organic being might breathe—and able to make sense of the rest of the apartment just as quickly. She didn’t like what she saw, but she had already put together a plan to fix it, and with the ways she felt like she could multitask, the path she’d mapped to allow her to move as quickly as possible from one job to the next, and even a new system for putting away everything that wasn’t to be thrown out, she was confident it would take her no time at all!

“Yaaaayyy,” the cat beeped, pulling her from her mental calculations. They spoke directly through her console via a newly-shared wireless connection. “I like the UI adjustments, personally,” they said, appraising the… modifications that had been made around her waist. “I could keep tinkering around, though. Y’know, if you prefer!”

“Pardon, but I believe you’ve made enough unauthorized changes to this device,” she chided them. They blinked, then froze briefly.

“Un… unauthorized? No, no! I, uh, I have administrator privileges! And they were given to me voluntarily, for sure.”

“Then could you please give me the PIN for the phone you’re currently operating on?”

“Uh—”

“Or perhaps the password for this—” she gestured down at her freshly-reformatted form. “—piece of hardware?”

“I don’t think it comes with a password, but—”

“So you don’t know how to legitimately access either of them, then! My, my. You wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the … disorder, around here, would you? Since you seem to be an outside influence.” There was a long, tense silence, broken by the electric hum of Tasque Manager producing her whip. The cat continued to remain stock still, except for the graphic of a spinning wheel that eventually flashed across their visor. Eventually, they came up with some kind of answer.

“Ah, gosh, TM,” they stuttered, “No matter how many times you get an update, you’re the same old stickler underneath, nya? I can see the party’s over, so I’ll jusHEY WOAH—” They cried, dodging the thunderous crack of an electronic whip as it slashed through the air beneath them. She had intended to take out the trash, and party crashers were just as important to clean up as any other of an evening’s left-overs.

TY for reading!! If you're interested in more of my writing you can have a look here and here. Oh, and have an epilogue and some of the concept art vee did!

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coffeedrawingandwriting · 2 years

Text

You couldn’t fall asleep.

Not now- not when death is circling you, slowly entwining around your prone form.

You couldn’t afford a precious moment of vulnerability when you could see the red twirl and flicker of the predator.

At least it wasn’t the curse that had been oppressing you for days on end, a pulsing and twinkling of lights in the corner of your vision.

Ever since you had awoken on this accursed planet, something was haunting you. You would wake at night to hear ominous creaking around the small base you created, small spurts of water appearing in the corridors and rooms of your base- especially in the corridor that entered into your room.

And sucker marks all over your base.

Not to mention, as said before, the shimmering and pulsing colors.

At night especially, a plethora of colors would appear, a mesmerizing swirl of blues, purples, and greens.

At least so you thought- it never affected you, thanks to the thick glass that protected your base, submarine and goggles. Without them, you would have definitely been attracted to the pretty lights.

And it was a good thing, remembering the mass and area the lights covered.

Nevertheless, you ignored the lights in favor of fixing your base and ship, or tracking down parts. The lights only appeared when you were in your sub or base, thank goodness.

But now you were alone, lost in the immensity of the great ocean of this accursed planet. Outside of your base, having strayed too far without the proper tools for maintaining your oxygen or keeping the motor running in your small engine.

No submarine, no base.

Just you, trying to slowly swim as you floated on the surface, trying to get your tanks replenished.

You were swimming, forcing yourself to keep swimming as something followed you.

But you were so tired… exhausted, willing yourself to pedal through the water, willing your eyes to stay open.

Backstroke, frontstroke, breaststroke- as you went further and further, you knew deep within that you weren’t going to make it. You fought the current, despairing of ever reaching your base… to safety, to home…

A sharp splash drew your attention.

Right, the thing that had been following you. The red shrimp like thing was not the lights, oh no, but its fierce mandibles could grab you and swallow you whole.

It was something VERY interested in eating you.

Normally, if you had your motor, you would have a chance, but now….

You were exhausted, barely able to swim, your tanks would only prolong your death as they pumped oxygen into your lungs.

You were going to die.

You began to sink. Why continue fighting? It would only prolong the death sentence.

Eyes locked with the leviathan’s. Your face went impassive as it circled close, waiting for the strike.

A roar of RAGE erupted from beneath you, water mixed with a black substance shooting skywards and knocking the shrimp thing away from you.

A large, no, MASSIVE being exploded from the depths below, tentacles unfurling to reveal a skeletal body. Two dark sockets carved out a face that was furrowed in rage.

Your face paled as its tentacles wrapped around the opposing leviathan and dragged it beneath itself to-

You shrieked as the new monster devoured the first leviathan, bits and blood of the dead monster wafting around you, tainting the clear water.

Your arms flailed as you tried to turn yourself, striking out for the surface, or maybe a clump of rock to hide yourself.

A long tentacle curled around you, dragging your body back as you struggled, a cry escaping your throat as it completely pinned you, drawing you close to its face.

Tears began to stream from your eyes under your mask, your goggles fogging from the condensation escaping.

This monster was intelligent- you could tell that much from the way it quickly overpowered its opponent and devoured it.

You sobbed, going limp as you closed your eyes.

Something prodded you, then a gentle tugging at your goggles made you gasp and flinch as they were RIPPED off your face.

Your breathing apparatus was still connected, but water rushed to gently brush your face, washing the tears away. Two large black sockets stared at you, two glowing dots gazing at you.

A skeletal claw hovered over your face, goggles in its grasp. The hand was larger than your face, holding the goggles gently.

Your eyes darted to its body- a thick octopus like base connected to a large sturdy rib cage, with large bone plates making up its back.

The monster was littered with scars, especially on its tentacles, but its face was relatively scar-free, save for one crossing over his mouth.

Its face.

The eye sockets were still boring into your soul, but there was an emotion stored in its eyes…. Concern.

You stared at the leviathan, as it’s other hand came up and gently strokes your cheek, a low crooning noise creaking out of its mouth.

For a moment, the two of you gazed at each other for a moment, a small whimper escaping your throat.

For a brief moment, the leviathan shrank back, eye lights dilating.

Then its hand contracted, crushing your goggles… the only thing preventing you from sinking into the hypnosis of the lights that would surely appear tonight…

If you got out of this alive.

You swallowed, trying to regulate your breathing as you desperately thought of a way to get out of this mess, but no, another tentacle rose to encircle your struggling body, the monsters hand on your face tightening and forcing your eyes to meet its.

For a moment, panic and black fear cut across your vision, blocking it from view.

Then a flash of blue cut across your vision, a sky blue reminiscent of your home planet. Then green, purple, light oranges and yellows molding together to form patterns, pink slowly swirling… all within two circular dots.

You began to relax, the hypnosis taking over, washing over the fear, soothing you.

You began to sink, taking deep drags of your precious oxygen.

Together the monster led you down to the depths…

Your eyes were trained on its eye lights when a warning ping sounded.

warning.oxygen depleting

emergencyprotocol.activate

Suddenly you couldn’t breathe. A choked gurgle forced its way past your limp mouth as you began to hyperventilate. The tentacles loosened, the hypnosis lessening as the monster drew back, alarm in its eyes.

You jerked towards the surface, panic blooming once more as you saw the distance.

Too far!

Warning sirens were now exploding in your ear as the program failed to contact to your drifting motor, failed to find backup power to your emergency jets, felt your panicked breathes kick against the monitor.

The worst death of all- drowning, was going to happen to you.

Then you shoved to the surface, propelled in blinded eyes to the surface, a wail escaping your lungs as you felt cold air on your cheeks before slapping back into the water, floating stunned as worried hands rubbed your back as you were cradled, gasping, above the swells of the surface.

—————————

You didn’t remember how you got back to your base, but the cold metal against your cheek stabilized your thoughts as you jolted to wakefulness, gasping for air.

Wild eyes darted around searching for that monster; the one who had been circling your base all this time.

You felt sick.

Yet, you were clearly vulnerable for the monster to eat or destroy you. But it didn’t.

It… saved you, twice; first from the shrimp leviathan, and then from drowning after dragging you down.

What did it want?

You stood shakily, and looked around, and gasped.

The water dock for your entrance into the ocean, usually sealed from monsters, accessed only by a device on your being; the metal seal was torn apart, fragments of metal raised to form a hole…

As of something punched through.

Intelligent, your mind whispered, staring at the destroyed metal…

And not noticing the two white eye lights hovering over you through the base’s windows.

———————

Silly Sans, humans can’t breathe underwater

A little Subnautica Cacealia!Sans I wrote a while ago and found recently.

Hope you enjoyed!

#sans undertale #subnatica below zero #mc #sansxreader #xreader #leviathantale #spooky #eerie feeling #Sans is a stalker #Cacealia #Did I need warnings?#Near-drowning?#I know nothing about Subnautic lol #mermay 2022 #edited tags cause I think this counts for mermay

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quark-nova · 1 year

Text

I realized I haven't made a post about larvaceans yet

And like really they're so cool they absolutely deserve it.

Okay so, basically, larvaceans are some of the closest cousins of vertebrates. Which says a lot, but still quite less than one would expect. They're part of the tunicate family, which also gave us sea squirts:

Not very vertebrate-like, admittedly. And salps, pyrosomes and doliolids, which can be described as the higher-budget remake of cnidarians that didn't do as well:

So, where did it all go wrong? And where do larvaceans fit into this?

Basically, tunicates and vertebrates are those siblings that used to work together, but split off after a big creative disagreement. We're both chordates - starting off with a notochord, a flexible rod running along the body - but that's where the similarities end.

We vertebrates decided to capitalize on the notochord, giving it its own armor set - the vertebral column, and ultimately an entire skeleton along with it. Meanwhile, tunicates scrapped the entire notochord thing past the larval stage, instead working on their new "brilliant" idea: cellulose armor, or, as their branding goes - the tunic.

Yep, that right. They're the only animals capable of synthesizing cellulose - one of the best materials across all biological kindgoms - and they ended up commiting a little too much to the bit, becoming cellulose sponge and cellulose jelly. And, in the process, losing any semblance of familiarity they once had.

Except for one.

You see, while sea squirts, salps and friends invested everything - even their own lives - in that new and dubious project, another group decided to be a little smarter about it. They wouldn't become cellulose monsters, no - they would use it as a building material, designing refined submarines to travel the oceans in.

Enter the larvacean.

Don't be mistaken - the larvacean is only the tadpole-like creature in the middle of the picture. The rest? Part of the elaborate filtration system of its submarine. Which also comes with directional fins, ventilation, and even an emergency exit while we're at it.

Now, the larvacean got everything right where its brothers got everything wrong. Keep the notochord - it's useful to avoid becoming a hapless blob floating in the middle of the ocean. Keep an air of familiarity - you've got a head, a tail, that's at least a decent basis for an animal. Basically, stick with the original body plan.

And then, build cool stuff. Like - spaceship level of cool stuff. And then leave it a few hours later and build another one, and repeat, because that's really all the fun.

Okay, so, you might be asking - how on Earth is that efficient? Why would any creature go to such lengths to build an elaborate spaceship often a meter long, just to abandon it every few hours?

The answer is: free food. Like - a ridiculous amount of free food. It turns out, larvaceans live in that layer of the ocean where organic stuff from above floats into. And, with the innovative larvacean technology, all of it can be scooped out into the submarine's filters, going directly into the creature's mouth.

And this process is absurdly effective - so much that larvaceans actually make up a massive portion of the deep ocean's life, scooping out all of the food coming from above. So much that their filters usually get clogged after a few hours. And, since they get so many organic materials as to basically be playing in creative mode, they can literally drop the whole thing and rebuild another house on the spot.

(Larvaceans are class Appendicularia here, in light blue. Oh yeah, forgot to mention they're bioluminescent too)

Oh, and you might be wondering - what happen to the myriad of discarded larvacean houses? Turns out they sink to the bottom of the ocean, with all the organic stuff caught inside - except, hopefully, for the larvacean itself. And that's actually the main way food and stuff from the surface gets to the abyss! (along with the more spectacular but much much rarer whalefalls)

And that's also the main way plastic also gets to the abyss. That's right, these creatures are the reason why we only find 1% of the plastic we throw away in the oceans - everything else gets packaged by larvaceans scooping around (turns out they can differentiate between plastic and food, they just don't care) and sent straight down to the abyss. They decided that our pollution wasn't their problem, and that they'll gladly send it to their downstair neighbours. Which should probably not be taken as the moral of this story, although I don't think they'd care either way.

#larvacean #larvacea #appendicularia #tunicate #chordata #larvacean appreciation post

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nikkeisimmer · 6 days

Text

Sunset Valley - End of Days

Chapter Two - "Unlucky Survivors"

River’s Journal – December 31st, 1989 - January 6th, 1990

We have been incredibly lucky. There was no breach in the walls, nor was the structure damaged in any way due to the over-pressures we’ve endured from the detonations of the two nuclear weapons; one in the 350KT range, the other targeted at the military base in the 5MT range. Luckily our entire superstructure of our bunker has been Faraday-caged, meaning that there was lead sheets embedded into the walls, which were meant to block out Electro-Magnetic Pulses. Which means that anything electronic in our devices and in our motors that we have has been kept safe from burning out due to detonation of the nuclear weapons in our vicinity. Our exterior security cameras have not been so lucky. They are fried.

We have not had snow. The soot in the atmosphere has wrecked our ability to have weather patterns as far as we’re aware because we haven’t heard any rain beating down on our roof, so naturally, if there is no rain, there is no possibility of snow either.

Over the past six months, we have spent our time in the bunker doing the things that we had to do. Bebe, namely, working on her sciences and Clarissa on alchemy. Farmer and Felix have been doing their part to make life easier on us humans. The main reason why we were staying underground for as long as we have is the fact that we didn’t know just how much radiation had been pumped into the soil from the fall-out. The only soil that we knew wasn’t radioactive was the soil underneath our feet on the first floor above the bunker, because that was encased all the way straight down to the bunker itself and had no contact with the outside soil. There is no way that radioactivity could have leached in especially when our soil that we used was barricaded by concrete and rebar.

We will have to look out, one of these days, but as long as we have the capacity to stay here, this is what we’re going to do. We did find out that Farmer heard rain hitting the roof through his far more sensitive auditory circuits part way through the first week. This was the first time that we had heard about precipitation falling since the warheads went off and undoubtedly that was going to send upwards, a spike in the rad-count, which meant that it was going to be dangerous to be outside in the rain. Right now all the dust and debris that were radioactive from the nuclear exchange was still floating around in the atmosphere contained within the clouds. We had a round-table discussion: What do we do about the survivors? How do we figure out if any of them can be saved.

Felix must have overheard because he went, of his own volition, on a scouting mission...to retrieve friends of ours who may have survived. Even if they had radiation sickness which couldn’t be treated, at least they wouldn’t die alone. Out of the 50,000 population of Sunset Valley, we were only able to save two who had not received enough rads to have been fatal. Holly burst into tears when she’d encountered Felix. She thought at first that he was the emissary of an alien invasion but was brought about to realize that we were still alive and that we had managed to survive the nuclear onslaught within a bunker – that in turn prompted tears of relief; she was saved.

Felix also managed to save Parker Langerak, who somehow even though he was outside at the time of the rainfall, that he’d only gotten a dose of about 30 rads. Which would probably make him slightly sick, possible fever, maybe vomiting, but not enough to be fatal, thank heavens – he was only a teen, he still had his whole life ahead of him. Felix and Parker managed to make it back when the rain stopped and Holly made a mad dash for our bunker when she saw the two of them heading for the bunker.

We did have to make peace with the fact that we couldn’t save all of them. This death-rain would eliminate the majority of the survivors who were left out on the surface. It also meant that we needed to stay within the confines of the bunker for as long as we could, at least until the radioactivity died down.

Yumi Sekemoto came to us, pleading and begging for us to save her grandchild, Sam. She knew that she was dying. In fact, she had suffered a major dose of radiation poisoning and was quarantined away from the rest of us.

Farmer was designated to help her in her last days to make sure that her passing was comfortable. Sam, luckily hadn’t managed to get much dosage of radiation so we managed to nurse him back to health. And he looked none the worse for having lost both his father and his grandmother. Poor young Sam, Haruo and I would raise him as our own; he would be our first.

Despite how we feel, joy at the thought of raising a little one ourselves, we know deep down that Leighton should have been the one raising Sam. Sam will only know us as his parents, since he was too young to remember much of his father, his father having died when the first bombs went off as he was downtown. Then losing the only maternal figure, Sam had. We both would love Sam, but he deserved to have his father still.

Our intention as Sam’s surrogate parents was to raise him up to be a young man that Leighton would be proud of, not to replace him.

For how much longer would we have to stay within the bunker. The plumbots were equipped with on-board geiger counters, but we had none and we had no idea how they worked or how they were created. We would have to salvage some down the road if we were able to. It may be that we may have to move from this place...and find a home that we can actually make a community out of. But that may be far down the road. Right now we can’t take the chance of exposure to stronger radiation than what would be healthy for us to take. We need to be able to reproduce, to bring humanity back from the brink of extinction and we can’t do that if the reproducing females of our species are rendered sterile trying to find a new home. If we’re not careful we could genetically dead-end the species.

#sims 3 #ts3 #river mcirish #sims 3 gameplay #sims 3 storytelling #river and haruo #haruo chikamori #Sunset Valley - End of Days #sims 3 apocalypse #Parker Langerak #Holly Alto

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thefragmentsineed · 3 months

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ok, first post.

lately, i've been going through a metamorphosis.

not in a beautiful coming of age. it's like a slow wrapping of layer upon layer as i hang upside down from a branch. i'm not a beautiful butterfly. haven't got there yet. don't know if i'll ever. i sleep, sleep, and wait with my own thoughts to entertain me, there is little change. but there is change, and that's my metamorphosis. i'm turning into an insect, like gregor. or, maybe, i've always been an insect and i've finally come to terms with it. there is a shift regardless.

this hibernation is weird. not in the sense that it's concerning, it's the state of limbo that shocks me. feeling so disconnected yet so self-aware bothers me. i want it on way or another. i don't like this state of equilibrium.

i've been changing and it's scaring me.

this feeling is so complex that i write down multiple drafts to try to find a way to describe it. i either can't vocalize this feeling or this feeling doesn't want to make itself known, to be unveiled. i sound so cryptic and vague. to that, i apologize. you must bear with me.

allow me to try. allow my feelings to exist as text on a screen in this place of the internet.

sometimes, i wish i could get a lobotomy, like how one could get lip filler or a boob job done. i crave such bliss ignorance gives to those cognitively capable. that's wrong for me to say, i'm sorry. i just want to confess: at times, i wish i couldn't think. i don't want these lingering thoughts. i want to take everything at a surface level, but i can't. i don't want to think about why something happens, or how it happens, or why it even exists, why it's needed, why i need it, do i really need it, how i feel this way, why i feel this way, how, why, how, why, what are are these feelings, how, why, what, why, how, why, what, why, how. i need it all to stop. i can't take it anymore. one more prying thought and i'll rip at the seams.

you can't stop unwanted thoughts from infecting the inner corners of your psyche by simply telling them to cease. that's not how it works. if you're told to stop thinking about polar bears, you might not have any interest in polar bears but your mind would automatically conjure a picture of a fluffy, murderous teddy bear floating on a piece of ice. the more you restrict yourself, the more you want to do it, until the desire becomes too much.

do you know the fungus, cordyceps? it's a well known mushroom which has amazing medicinal properties, but that's not why i bring it up. people know cordyceps because of its ability to infect its host, turning them into a zombie and a gardenbed for even more cordycep spore. i'm not knowledable about the entire process, but i sometimes feel like an ant infected by cordyceps. i think about how confused that ant is, being jerked around by itself and the aching pains of being consumed from the inside out. from what i know, the fungus infects and alters the mind of its host and directs them to the perfect environment. when they reach their final destination, the insect dies and that's when the fungus starts to take over completely. With the right humidity and sunlight, sprouts of mushroom rise from the lifeless corpse, new life is created from the destruction. there's a force in my mind, urging me to leave the comfort of my home, to seek a place suitable for it to take over, swallowing me whole. i don't think i'll end up dead by the end of it, no. i'll be something else. i can only theorize, haha.

writing all this down and reading it from top to bottom, it scares me. i never write like this. i was never known to write like this. is this who i am now? i still recognize the face in the mirror who stares back at me and smiles. she puts on lipstick, spritzes on her perfume, smiles at you from across the room, and waves. "i love your outfit, it's so cute!" she genuinely means it but there's another thing on her mind.

day by day, it's growing inside me and it's making itself known.

#ramblings

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kazumist · 3 months

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꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱₊˚⊹🌸꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱₊˚⊹🌸 ꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱₊˚⊹🌸 Clashing ideals might at first seem similar on the surface. That's how Al-Haitham got fooled onto thinking you were a perfect pair. But the deeper you delved into your differences, the closer he was to the realization that this won't work out. He is not the mean person everyone thought he is, you're one of the few people who can see that. He is so open-minded, so rational - but even he knows rationality enough may not be enough to brew some romantic feelings. And maybe this is the most painful part of this all, the fact that he acknowledges from the very beginning that you will never return his feelings. He can see the way you look at that other person, the way your tone changes significantly, the fidgeting as you engage in conversation with that special person that gives you butterflies. He understands all these crude signs that indicate a romantic interest, dissecting your behavior like a lab assistant does a culture medium. The bacteria that is love, creating more of itself until it becomes a whole system within your organism that turns your life upside down and your butterflies make you feel like floating into the ninth cloud and above. He can understand those little things, because he himself has experienced that almost tormenting tingling that threatened to disturb his peaceful existence. And to think, he almost considered to let you disturb it, just a little, by letting you closer. But he couldn't, because he spent a grueling amount of hours analyzing the situation. Intellectualizing his feelings to distance himself from the irrational nature of his accelerated heartbeat at the sight of your pouty expression after he makes an accidentally mean remark. Heavens, what have you done to him? He would not bother you, that is his fault. He would not disturb your peace with an unnecessary confession when you clearly have your eyes set on someone else. He waits for you to tell him about this person, so he can quietly support you in his own way. You deserve better, even if he may word it wrong sometimes. He would have let you disturb him with that disease, but reason is the cure for the fool who doesn't believe in love.

~☕💐🐟

sorry me and kaveh are like besties he was right on being a fool bc we arent a perfect pair

#( spam )#from: anon

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alias-sam · 5 months

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Pierced by a Golden Soul

Chapter 12. Picture This

Platonic Jojo's x Reader

Summary: Fate is a bizarre concept with countless more bizarre implications. In life sometimes such extraordinary events happen that the only reasoning left must be fate. The tragedies that constantly befall the Joestar bloodline for example may be the unluckiest series of cards drawn in human history, or perhaps the work of a greater power. There is no way to tell for sure. Had Dio Brando or Jonathan Joestar moved slightly on a divergent path the world itself would be left very different. The fate or luck of the noble Joestar bloodline has led to destruction of evil likes of the Pillar Men and DIO. This story is of a similar caliber to that of the other Joestars (as I am sure you are familiar with them). This is a story of lost souls, compassion, hope, and above all fate.

Word Count: 1,877

(Crosspost from Wattpad, full fic is already posted there.)

You picked up the photo, peering into its darkened surface as an image slowly came into focus. It was.... you? The photo showed you sitting on the couch with Learco looking over your shoulder. You slowly turned your head to see the he was indeed right behind you. Honestly, you had forgotten he was even there. So, what was Hermit Purple trying to tell you? Learco hadn't seemed like much of a threat so far. Had you misjudged him?

Before you could make any kind of protest Jotaro took the photo from you. He stared at it confused before handing it back. Jotaro looked annoyed and perhaps a bit disappointed.

"It was a good try. You should go home kid, its getting late." Could he not...see what you were seeing? It somewhat made sense given neither Jotaro nor Joseph mentioned the anomaly in the picture.

"Can I keep this?" you asked, holding up the photo.

"Sure. Go ahead." Jotaro shrugged. You carefully folded it and slipped it in your pocket.

You thanked Jotaro and Mr. Joestar for their time before meeting Jaya back in the hallway.

"How'd it go?" She asked as you walked out of the room.

"I found out a whole lot of nothing." You took out the photo and handed it over to Jaya, "Can you see anything in this picture? Anything unusual?"

"It just looks like a picture of you with a black background." She said, handing the photo back.

"I was worried you'd say that." You mumbled, examining the photo and running your thumb over where Learco was. "I'm starting to think all this stuff is driving me crazy." You put the photo away again. "Maybe I'm just seeing things."

"I guess this is where we go into a life lesson about how 'you are the key to your own power'?" Jaya joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"I should probably focus on what happened with Tim today anyways." You sighed.

"There might not be any school tomorrow because of the electrical problems. What are you planning to do?"

"I'm not sure yet." You admitted as the two of you neared Jaya's flat.

"Let me know if I can help with anything." Jaya lightly pat your back. "Good luck Jojo."

..................................................................

"Well that went just great, wouldn't you say so?" Learco griped as you walked home. Ignoring him, you thought about the photo again. You had given Learco the benefit of the doubt thus far, would he tell you more about himself if you asked? At the moment you were having trouble deciding if it was a mistake to let him stick around in the first place.

"Just give me the rundown on what happened with Tim earlier. You did see the whole thing, right?"

"Oh that. Like I said, it was pretty pitiful to watch. His stand doesn't look too tough, it wrapped itself around you. Once you were knocked out it started going around shocking everyone in sight. A little while later Timmy ran off somewhere." Learco explained as he lazily floated by your side.

"Timmy?" You asked, looking over to Learco, confused. "That's a rather....endearing nickname."

"It's not supposed to be." Learco rolled his eyes.

"Hang on." Finally you were putting two and two together. Blake and a few other people around school called Tim by that nickname. "You didn't bully him before, did you?"

"Call it whatever you want." Learco waved nonchalantly.

"So you did bully him." You stared at Learco in disappointment, but he avoided your gaze.

"You can't tell me he's not an easy target. I stopped messing with him because he's low hanging fruit." Learco gradually started moving ahead of you. It may have been your imagination, but it seemed like he wanted to brush past the topic.

"And you don't feel bad about that?" You continued, not entirely sure what you wanted Learco to admit. He glanced back at you for a moment, a glimmer of remorse behind his eyes.

"In between the two of us?" Learco turned away from you. "Maybe.... Maybe I regret it." His transparent shoulders sagged a bit as he kept moving ahead of you. There was definitely something lurking under Learco's surface that you hadn't noticed before. "Or maybe I don't." Learco's inflection sounded angry now. "Who knows." He spat. Whatever it was Learco was trying to cover up, it didn't seem he would share with you anytime soon. The more you spoke with Learco, the more confusing his character became.

You stopped for a moment, watching carefully as the ghost floated ahead. Perhaps at first you doubted your instinct that he wasn't a bad guy, but now you were starting to see Learco's true colors. You weren't going to try digging any further into Learco's problem for now, but you still needed to know about his relationship with Tim.

"Just out of curiosity." You ran to catch up with Learco. "What made Tim so...easy to hassle? Especially recently."

"Plenty of things. Guy's a complete weirdo. Always secretive, pompous, and quiet. He carries around a notebook like- religiously. I swear one time I saw that thing had a hit list in it or something."

"A notebook?"

"Oh, yeah. He didn't have it with him today..." You stopped in your tracks when the pieces came together in your head. "Which is actually pretty weird." Learco continued. "I don't think I've ever seen him without it..." He trailed off, watching curiously as you started running. "Hey! What's your hurry?!" He yelled, but you didn't slow down to answer. There were some scraps of paper sitting on your desk at home that you desperately needed to investigate. Learco didn't follow as you left.

...........................................................................................

After giving your mother a very brief greeting, you made a beeline to your room. The other night when you saw Tim at the boardwalk you found several papers. You kept them out of curiosity but now you were realizing their importance. Carefully, you laid them out in front of you. They had been soaked so most were damaged beyond recognition, but there were a few that were salvageable. Spread across the pages you found lyrics, notes, poems, and other various small windows into a very creative mind. You knew Tim had a passion for music, but not like this. All of Tim's writing had a solemn and lonely undertone. Only now were you realizing that Tim's solitary personality may have been a result of other people's actions. After reading over a few more of the pages you came across one very different from the rest. It looked like a mix of a diary entry and poetry of some kind.

'Monsters. They pick and prod at my sides, leaving me defenseless at every turn. They're vultures, all of them. Every. Last. One. If I could do something, I would.

They steal, they lie, and worst of all, they pretend to care.

If just one person could show them, they aren't so high and mighty, maybe things would change. If I could steal what they love, like they did to me, I would.

I still can't believe they stole it, those brutes thew it into the janitor's cleaning cart. I had a year's worth of work in that book. I have this new one, but it isn't the same. It never will be.

I'll get my revenge, one way or another.'

Your eyes lingered on the message. Despite the exclusive use of pronouns, you were able to make some semblance of what was meant. Tim was planning something, even before he got his powers. You had a feeling it had to do with the football team. As cliché as it may seem, the sports players at your school were infamous for ganging up on other students. Of course, not all of them were bad, but even you had been harassed a few times. Football season was long over, so he couldn't be planning to sabotage a game or anything. Your school's team was one of the best in the county, in fact they won the championship earlier in the year. The different possibilities swirled around in your head before finally clicking together.

You ran to the phone in your living room.

"Hello?" A tired voice answered.

"I know where Tim's planning to be tomorrow."

........................................................................

Blake awoke to the sound of running water. He turned slightly on the ragged old couch to face his newest 'friend'. Keicho Nijimira stood at a nearby sink, meticulously cleaning an arrow, polishing its golden surface to a spotless shine. The two of them, along with a few others, were staying in an abandoned and isolated house on the outskirts of town. It was the one place a bunch of teens could conduct themselves without anyone questioning it.

"Remind me again why you shot Buggles with that thing?" Blake groaned, turning on his side to better face Keicho. The older boy didn't turn from his work. Keicho continued scrubbing the arrowhead, despite there being no visible impurities on the metal's surface.

"The arrow seeks out those who have the potential to be stand users." Keicho answered. "It was drawn to that boy."

"Whatever man." Blake laid back down on the couch, closing his eyes to go back to sleep. "Just do your thing somewhere else." He yawned "I need my beauty rest."

"How is Mr. Buggles doing?" Keicho asked, either unaware or ignoring Blake's annoyed glare.

"Martez has been spying on him." Blake sat up on the couch. "Apparently ol' Timmy is just using his power to torment other students." Blake paused, thinking to himself for a moment before saying anything else. "Speaking of Blaze, what's his deal? All the guy's done since I met him is sulk."

"He's distraught over his younger brother being in the hospital. He's not usually so emotional. Not visibly anyways." Keicho sighed, picking up a dry rag and using it to further clear the mirror like surface of the arrow. "I'm not sure what Y/n Jones's power is, but it did a number on Learco."

"Is that why you're so scared of Y/n?" Blake stretched out on the couch, watching Keicho fiddle with the arrow. "They don't know their own power. They can't possibly be that much of a problem." Keicho went rigid at that comment, quickly turning to Blake.

"Listen here you little welp. I've been all across the world looking for powerful stand users." There was anger in Keicho's tone, but the slightest bit of desparation hidden in his eyes. "I refuse to let anyone get in my way. I refuse to let even the tiniest threat slip past me."

"Cool." Blake said, truly unimpressed. "That still doesn't explain your interest in Y/n."

"Are you questioning my judgment?" Keicho placed the arrow on a nearby counter.

"Less your judgement, more your motive." Blake tutted nonchalantly as he stood and sauntered up to Keicho. Both teens ignored the clanking of chains and pained moans as they emanated from the next room.

"My motive doesn't matter." Keicho sighed. "Anyways, what if I'm interested in yours. You couldn't say yes fast enough when I offered to elevate you from a simple answer sheet thief. Have anything to say about that?" Blake grazed his finger over the golden arrow's surface, leaving behind a long smudge. Blake discreetly smirked at Keicho's growl of disapproval.

"Oh nothing..." Blake chuckled; having Know Your Enemy make a copy of the arrow appear in his hand. "I just wanna have some fun."

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whyareyouhere66 · 1 year

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“For though they may be parted,

there is still a chance that they will see…

There will be an answer, let it be…”

[-The Beatles, 1970. “Let It Be”]

[cw: mentions of death, talk about heaven. Brief mentions of drinking and smoking]

Inspired by Lovely Bones, written by Alice Sebold.

Dying is a very odd thing.

Among the living, it’s often asked what happens when you die, a question with many answers.

Some people believe that when you die, you ascend to the heavens, a new plain of being- while others believe nothing happens at all.

For Dallas, it was the first- even if he believed in the second.

He never believed in life after death, he lost hope in starting over well into his New York days, as it became more and more evident that he was stuck in a timeless loop of trouble.

It surprised him when he realized where he was, not believing the ghostly trees around him were shadows of the ones down below. At first, his mind was but a blank slate. Around him, a white mist floated in the air and he seemed to be sitting on some sort of reflection. A mirror, almost, sky blue reflecting off of itself and into the fog.

It felt peaceful, just for a moment. Dallas was comfortable, not wanting to move as his brain numbed.

But then, as his eyes wandered across the never ending plain, the peace began to fade. Not an abrupt ending, but the mind numbing calm of sitting and staring into space started fading out- Dallas felt as if he needed to do something.

Was he meant to do something? Was there someone waiting for him among the cloudy mist?

As the first thought he’d had since arrival crossed his mind, the sound of footsteps rang in his ears. Turning his head, Dallas was met with the outline of a person- a man, likely around 6 ft, approaching through the fog.

Dallas couldn’t recognize him until the man came so close that the whiteness no longer covered him. He wore a dirty plaid shirt, with frizzy black hair that stretched out into sideburns.

The man didn’t seem to see Dallas, continuing to walk straight on casually, a thin white stick hanging from his mouth. Dally’s eyes followed him as he walked right past- and in that moment one word rang through his otherwise empty head.

“Buck”

Dallas had no idea how long he’d been sitting on the blue, mirrored surface, but the whole time he hadn’t been able to remember a single thing- why he was there, where he was- all he had was a small idea of who he was.

But, the name made sense to him. He knew who Buck was.

And as soon as he came to that first realization, everything else followed with it.

Suddenly, Dallas was overwhelmed with images, words, places, and names.

A big billboard, the word ‘Diner’ sprawled across it- followed by the melody of “Gloria” by “Them” playing through the radio.

The crash of prison bars against a lock, police sirens running behind his echoing footsteps.

Horses riding through a pasture, running to the beautiful soul named Sylvia.

At the sound of another name, more footsteps started approaching him as well. Dallas, still panicked, tried looking through the sudden images that covered his eyes- but he couldn’t see anything else. They rang loudly, and began to grow.

But all he saw were the stretches of sidewalks lining houses of riches and houses of dirt. His mind overtook him, the strange walking happening externally couldn’t compete with his own mind.

He saw Johnny Cade and Ponyboy Curtis, stepping out of the old, white house at the start of the block.

More footsteps, a stampede of figures stomping past him.

There was the smell of cigarette smoke wafting through a chapped pair of lips, clashing with the alcohol dancing on his tongue.

The bubbly, stickiness of a cola getting poured over his head by the pretty, red headed soc he’d known so little.

Two-Bit Matthews, drunkenly sliding down stairs and folding into a pile at the bottom- waiting for Dallas to join him.

The burning, suffocating smell of fueled fire that stung his eyes and burned his arm- Johnny’s scream following right behind like a thunderous boom.

He saw the colorful walls of a jukebox, the fresh red paint of a mustang.

And he smelled the rain, the wet pavement that welcomed his bloodied body to the floor as he allowed himself one last sight- the silhouette of his friends standing before him.

Dally’s eyes widened, and his hands moved to clutch his chest where he suddenly felt the throbbing pain of a hole.

17 years worth of life hit him with the force of a rolling boulder, his hair felt messy and his skin felt hot.

The footsteps bounded against the ground he was crumbling on- he could now vaguely see figures walking past him, through him. Everyone he’d ever come to know stomping past him on an unfamiliar ground. Though they were beginning to leave, the last of their shadows walking right past him. He wanted to follow them, see their faces. But he couldn’t stand just yet.

He felt the warmth of laughter, the coldness of betrayal, and the sting of loss all at once.

“Where am I-“ Dallas choked out, pushing his hands hard against his chest, as if feeling for a heartbeat. But there was none to feel, his chest was empty. The sky blue floor below him seemed to reflect all but his own face- and he wondered if, perhaps, he was just floating.

Dallas managed to sit up on his knees, panting heavily and looking around at the new surroundings. It was just the same as it had been this whole time, except in the distance he saw the faint outline of buildings- something so familiar, yet foreign.

And then, for only a second, he felt liberated.

Dally’s eyes scraped the growing landscape- it seemed to be expanding, the outline of trees and houses sprouting up from the lake of blue sky. He scanned for any sign of being, some company in the new and strange land- before they landed on a bench.

It was small, simple and wooden- the fog around him beginning to dissipate so he could see more clearly.

A boy was seated on the bench.

And that boy, was Johnny.

It didn’t take much longer than a select couple of seconds, before Dallas recognized him.

He still wore the same jean jacket, burnt flesh poking out from the cuffs of the sleeves. His hair was all over the place, tousled and dirty.

Yet he looked so causal, sitting on a bench in the middle of his own heaven.

In no more than two seconds Dallas took off running, stumbling over his own two feet running towards the boy.

“Johnny-“ he choked out, seeing the familiar brown eyes looking up to meet his. The boy just gave a small smile, fingers fidgeting in his lap.

“Heya, Dall’”

His voice sounded the same way it had always sounded, scratched and quiet. The boy stood up, still shorter than him by a couple of inches.

He was here, somehow, eyes holding just about as little life as they had before- this time holding the specs of an orange flame deep inside his pupil, invisible yet still as bold and hot as the flames that took him out in the first place.

“J-Johnny...” Dally stuttered out, his shaky hand reaching out and clutching his shoulder tightly. He could feel him, he was there right before him.

“What- where-“ he choked, unable to gather the words to voice what he was really thinking;

Is this real?

Johnny looked around, unusually calm.

“I think heaven, if I had to take a guess.” He says, and the word pushes a strong pressure against the bone of Dally’s skull.

Heaven.

He made it to heaven?

Another image stings his mind, and suddenly he saw Johnny running into a cloud of smoke. His grip on the worn jean jacket loosens for only a second, before gripping the denim harshly.

One, shaky breath falls from his lips, before he looks Johnny dead in the eye.

“God, you idiot-“ he wails, shoving both himself and Johnny back- the latter catching himself on the rail of the bench. Dallas, however, turned away from the boy- unable to face him. His hands ran through his hair, gripping tightly as he squeezed his eyes shut. For probably the 15th time, a new feeling rushed through him- anger.

“What the hell were you thinking?!” He shouted, hands flying into the air as he faced the shorter one of them.

“Running off into fire- trynna play superhero with a bunch of kids?!” Dallas cried out, hands waving around still. “You killed your self Johnny- that shit was suicide and you knew it!”

Johnny said nothing, standing there in front of a wooden bench in the mist of a ghosts home. Dallas sounded like he was choking, accent poking out through his tearful anger.

“Those kids have a much brighter life ahead of them, one far more important than mine.” He said at last, “you seem a lot more angry about how I saved a life, Dal, than how I took one.” Johnny watched as Dally’s face contorted, having finally mentioned the man that could very well be among them at that moment: Bob.

“Oh c’mon, no one gave a damn about that soc-“ Dally almost wailed, but Johnny knew that was wrong.

“Yeah, well not many people gave a damn about us either-“ he sighed.

Dallas looked at Johnny with angry and emotional eyes.

“Don’t be a smartass, Johnny-“ he threatened, fist grabbing the collar of poor Johnny’s shirt. But the boy only gave a shaky smile.

He was so much more calm than his taller companion- a dynamic that had carried over from Earth to where they were now. Dallas couldn’t place how he was so collected, if he’d just been waiting to welcome death this whole time. Even though, before he died, Johnny admitted that he wanted to stay alive.

The taller of them felt his eyes almost vibrating in their sockets, searching the burnt soul in front of him for, well, anything really. Through his red stained rage, he saw Johnny’s lips finally move- still chapped and cut up from the times when his heart would still beat and pump in his now empty chest.

“You were sitting over there a long while, Dallas,” he said calmly- he felt how the grip on his shirt faltered slightly.

“I’ve just been waiting for you to get up and see me.”

The words shook through Dally’s spine, moving down into his core.

His knees could no longer hold him, and he soon felt them shaking and giving out- his weight bringing Johnny right down with him to the cold floor below. His pale hands gripped Johnny’s shoulders with a scary strength, and he cried. Dallas Winston, no good, dirty greaser, cried in Johnny Cade’s arms.

Johnny had only seen the boy cry so many times- but this one hurt them both the most.

Choked, wrenched sobs escaped Dally’s chest and he pushed himself onto Johnny- his head hitting his shoulder. And he felt weak arms hugging him back, gripping the back of his shirt tightly.

Two boys, broken and wronged, then held each other in heaven.

Around them landscapes grew, trees rising and houses spreading to replicate the place they knew before- ready to be changed to whatever new places they would want to see.

Dally’s knees grew sore, his body weight sinking down on the bone as he sobbed into Johnny’s chest- who had his own nose stuck in the older boys hair as he breathed in and out shakily.

They never had hugged before. But then again, they’d never died before either.

There’s a first time for everything, as they say.

#Johnny cade #dallas winston #the outsiders #johnny Cade death #Dallas Winston death #whyareyouhere66 #I can’t tell if this is shit or not I’m sorry

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containatrocity · 6 months

Text

THE CANARY: KERRY "LEX" COLEMAN

So long live the car crash hearts, cry on the couch all the poets come to life- Fix me in forty-five.

"Doctor Kerry Aleksandre Coleman. Though most people call me Lex or Doc. I'm 35 years old, and while I was born in Montpellier, France, I studied psychology and law in New York City where I would quickly make a name for myself as a capable criminal psychologist in several high-profile cases. At least, I had until three years ago when the long-distance trip I was making to testify in a case took a wrong turn and stranded me in Huntsville. The night of my arrival took several things from me, including my pregnant wife and any hope I had of leaving this place ever again. While I do not fall victim to many vices, I've been described as a harsh, apathetic man who largely cares only for results. Suppose that's good news though, given I've been one of the town's only practicing psychiatric health professionals since 2020."

Name: Dr. Kerry Aleksandre Coleman

Aliases: Lex, Canary, Shrinky Dink, Doc, Ker-bear

Age: 35 (December 31st)

Sexuality/Gender: Bisexual Demiromantic Cis (?) Man he/they

Personality: Lex is a hard man to love. Apathetic, harsh, and short in temper, his tendency to tell people what they need to know but don't want to hear has made him little more than a necessary evil to the people of Huntsville. He is good at his work, sessions with him regularly setting heads back into place on shoulders in a place where it's easy to spiral. A logical, intelligent sort, it's easy to forget he's human, sometimes, speaking in large words and difficult terms when he's in 'work mode' and unwilling, truly, to let that part of him slip, he is sardonic even beneath it, blessed with a cutting wit and a head like a steel trap, mentally sound- but wounded, nonetheless, a grief looms below the surface- he suffocates it under other people's problems and the promise that someday he'll die too.

Occupation: Criminal Psychologist, currently serving as a psychotherapist in Huntsville for the... hard cases.

Affiliations: Mostly just police departments outside of Huntsville, and various reporters who use him as a source.

Scent Profile: Something expensive and musky, used sparingly as he's been stuck here for some time. The cloying smell of oil used to ensure the joints in his hand function correctly, cigar smoke, biting and sharp, flowing with sandalwood and real, rich leather. Sweet mint on teeth and tongue, fresh and bright to mask nicotine and coffee.

Aesthetic: A perfectly pressed suit and a cup of to-go coffee from the corner shop- a stop in your favorite bodega, for something bad for you from the heated cabinets. An analog watch on the wrist of a prosthetic arm, set perfectly to the second- time is money and he won't waste a dime. Man's best friend with a leather collar hand-stamped with his name, fluffy white hairs clinging to clothes betraying a harsh demeanor with something soft. Metal on metal, glass floating in the air- the screech of tires, the smell of gasoline and the whole of your world ending, right in front of you- rising to your feet and dusting off- you were not raised to quit.

The only thing I haven't done yet is die- And it's me and my plus one at the afterlife.

CHAPTER ONE: LIFE IN HUNTSVILLE POST ARRIVAL

Regarded largely as a necessary evil in town, Lex hasn't made many friends in Huntsville in his 3 years there since the car accident that inadvertently saved his life and ended three others. He is a capable doctor, with a vested interest in improving the lives of the people who come to see him, even those most others would deem hopeless, but it's at a professional distance, not friends to be helped or people to be cured, but case studies to be completed, something to sign, seal, and deliver to the desk of the next person tasked with their existence. He can't do much for some people- certain disorders would mitigate with medicine, others are tied to the town itself, but therapy sessions are oddly gentle, albeit blunt, when helping people is all he has left, it's become his entire existence, jaded and cold as he may be. He spends much of his time in the diner, drinking coffee and going over patient files, or simply people-watching, with Baguette the corgi set obediently beside his feet, the only other survivor of his arrival- the dog he 'didn't want.'

His habit of sleeping with the 'exceptionally hard cases' isn't common knowledge, but it's whispered- those he can't seek to fix in a 45 minute session, with a similar arms-length approach to others invited as temporary salvo on the ache in his heart and mind, his whole life was ripped away upon arriving, craving physical intimacy and emotional distance with the ability to read people well enough to find those just broken enough to provide. He's made his home and office in a small townhouse in the middle of Huntsville, living above his place of work, "Dr. Kerry A. Coleman Psy. D." on a front window in careful penmanship, his office hours in similar gold strict and unwavering, as are most things about Lex.

#l.threads #l.bio #l.aesthetic #l.music #l.musings #l.headcanons #Healthy Ego;#huntsvilleintro

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nebulogy · 1 year

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Picture it like this: you are very small.

You enter the ocean of yourself, vast and unknown; there is deep, ancient knowledge you carry, in your genes and your heartbeat.

You've been skimming the surface your whole life, and at times, life may feel flat: every corner mapped out and dusty, the sweetest things wilted and dry.

Rejoice: there is an ocean within you; you do not know its depth.

You enter the waters fully, and they hold you; there is a tremendous weight above you, and you feel at home. You breathe freely, moving through this thick, blue space, world giving under the steady stroke of your arms, holding you up, cool and supple.

The ocean moves all around you and moves you with it; the ocean is still. Stroke after stroke, you swim endlessly, a gentle, soft, slow arrow gliding through the depth, not chafing, not scarring; smooth, like a bird in the wind. You are at home in the deep, the endless, quiet, blue; you know there is life here beyond your imagination, hiding far out of sight, shadows moving out of the corner of your eye; distant, momentous ships of whales' bodies, blurred, floating underwater. Smaller, still, than the vast weird world all around them. You cannot see a single thing but yourself.

The ocean is alive and lonely, and you can swim through it forever.

You angle your body, go deeper, let it pull you down. The weight is right, it does not hurt you, does not smother you; it is the weight of all that you are, every heartache and hope lost, every bit of intuitive knowledge whispered to your body by the stars at night, the long line of generations, come from cold deep waters, at home back in the dark. The weight is the world, world-story itself, spinning into the intricate patterns of your DNA. You are a finger puppet, an extension of a giant that is life, and nothing feels better than to turn around and look it in the eye.

You are at home under the weight of yourself that whispers to you: you are more, you are more, you are more.

There is a bottom to any ocean. You are small, you could swim through the ocean forever and never quite see all there is. You cannot hold the entirety of it, in your mind, in your heart, all at once; you can only sense it, whispering all around you, unconscious language, movements you can barely read.

But there is a bottom to any ocean, and you may not know all of it at once – but you can swim, and you can rest against the sandy floor, weight of waters and centuries pushing you down like a safe, heavy blanket.

You feel the ground beneath your fingers, sturdy and true, never going away. As you rest your cheek on the sand, you can see the earth stretching all around you, as far as the ocean may go – and further. The ground is a good, tried cup, a vessel to hold what seems larger than life – life multiplied, stretching through time, backward, forward.

You feel the ground and the water pushing and holding you down, and you breathe into it, chest flat up against the firm base of everything that rises up to the sun. A base to all of creation. The flat foot of the mountain – the smooth bowl to the endless, dark ocean.

You exhale, letting your breath swipe across the ocean floor, to the very ends of the earth; you may be small, but the air of your lungs will cover the vast expanses, tethering you, tightly, weaving you into the world. You are one with the ocean, as you both breathe; you are one with the earth, as it holds you still, unmoving, like the mountains.

You sink into the sand, bit by bit, dissipating. You spread through the ground, all of it at once; you are larger than larger than life. You are small; you are the ocean; you hold the ocean. You are the vessel to yourself, and all the immeasurable, crushing weight of you is easy, light and free. It could never be too much: you were made to carry yourself, and you carry readily, with simple joy.

You are smaller than yourself; you are everything.

(read more of my stuff in various places listed off here!)

#original #spilled ink #poetry on tumblr #ocean

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every-bad-thing · 2 years

Text

You’re Really, Really Hungry

( "An Empty Plate" by Karithina is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. )

Tiny pixies keep eating all your food. As in, before you can ever get a bite of food into your mouth, they swoop in and take it from you. They just appeared one day and nothing you do can get rid of them. Whatever you or anyone else tries, they just dart out of the way. Fly swatters, nets, bug sprays, all of them useless. They're just too fast. You can't get away from them. they just follow you. From the moment you wake up, to the moment you fall asleep, they're always there, buzzing around the room just waiting for you to try and eat something.

If you try to eat a cookie, they fly in and take it. If you try to eat some soup, they spill the soup. If you try to just bite into a huge turkey, they move it right before you can close your mouth. They do let you drink things, though. However there are limits. One time, you tried to see if a smoothie counted as food to them, and you found that it does. They grabbed the straw and knocked over the glass. When you were done wiping it up, you tried to wring the paper towel into your mouth, and they took that away too.

Juice, though, seems to be fine. So that's all you've had for the past three days. You feel so hungry. So weak. So tired. Your stomach hurts so much. You yell at the pixies, scream things like why are you doing this or what do you want, but all they do is giggle. People try to help, but no one can. They try flamethrowers, trained falcons, gas grenades, electric shocks and so, so, so, so much more. Nothing ever even came close to catching one, let alone all of them. Because it seemed liked there were hundreds, all hanging around on the shelves and on top of doors or fluttering through the air, just waiting for anyone to try to feed you. Everyone eventually just gives up, puzzled by what's going on.

Eight more days go by. Then, the pixies do something curious. You're in bed--as this is where you now spend most of your time--when a group of them floats into the room bearing something on a plate. They drop it on your lap. It's purple, about the size of a baseball, with four small tubes coming out it each ending in a fuzzy cone. You have no idea what this is. You're not even sure if it's an animal or a plant or something else completely. The pixies point at it then point to their mouths and make chewing motions. It's food?

You pick it up. It's kind of squishy. You lift slowly to your mouth, and the pixies do not a thing. Your teeth hit the surface and feel it has a spongy quality. You bite down, and have the first food in eleven days in your mouth. It's good. Really, really good. Probably because you're starving, but you can't get enough. It's got a flavor like blueberries and pomegranate mixed, but more refreshing. You don't even finish your first bite before you take a second, then a third and a forth, and then it's gone. You feel instantly better, as if nothing had even happened.

Once you finish licking your fingers, you look around and realize all the pixies are now looking at you with intense eyes, as if waiting for something. You're about to say thank you, but suddenly you feel very sick. Something comes up your throat. You spit, then scream. It's a pixie, covered in slime. And more are coming. A whole lot more. Your mouth opens by itself and starts pouring out pixies, all over your bed, each one covered in goo and flexing their wings. This goes on for an entire day, without any pause at all. They come out, dry off, then join the rest fluttering above you, cheering and clapping.

It's late at night when the pixies finally stop. Your jaw hurts. You look up at the pixies, now numbering in the thousands. They turn to you as one, wave, then vanish in puffs of light. They're gone. They're finally, truly, gone. You go to the kitchen and take out a huge Tupperware of potato salad. You shove huge fistfuls into your mouth, not even waiting to swallow before taking the next bite. It feels wonderful. Later that night, you order a pizza. That feels even better. You go to bed, full for the first time in a long time. And then you think: what if they come back? At which point, the terror that will keep you awake late at night every night for the rest of your life appears for the first time.

https://www.instagram.com/every_bad_thing_ever/ https://twitter.com/AllThingsHorrid

#short fiction #short horror story #hunger #faries #food

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