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#i also got wasteland landscapes

skaiind · 10 months

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some wastelander portraits as practice to 1. learn different faces and 2. explore possible looks wastelanders might have

each of these are from a set of nine faces, which you can look at on my patreon ( amongst other things )

#i also got wasteland landscapes #character art #comic spoilers #general sketches #and more #pencil art #pencil sketch #portrait #art #ink illustration #wastelanders #fallout

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andr0nap-wf · 2 months

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Ok, but now youve really piqued my interest. What do you think Deimos looked like pre-infestation? And, yknow what? Even if you dont yet have the skill to draw it well, do it! Make a shitty landscape sketch of the Son of Mars, the personification of terror himself!

ohboy this ask activated my worldbuilding worms.. probably not that different from how it looks now:

a barren stony wasteland.

except it used to have 30 hour days. i say "used to" bc it seems deimos stopped spinning over time (possibly due to the infestation tearing it apart and making it lose momentum), locking our part of the moon in permanent night. which is. bonkers to think about.

limited terraforming couldve been done since it seems like it served as a research facility outpost for the entrati first and a home second, so just enough has been done to sustain life (which might be even limited to the region around the necralisk, who knows).

they mightve introduced pioneer organisms:

simple, resilient flora like grasses, mosses and shrubbery (like the blue plants we see by the necralisk entrance. the wiki speculates they might be remnants of the original vegetation which i like)

and a small selection of animals: insects, fish and pre-infestation variants of the vulpa, preda and avichaea to propel and maintain the ecosystem.

which can give us a barren, desert-like biome:

think nevada desert but in space? i guess? the grass is supposed to be tiny shrubs but i am not drawing those sorry

besides that we also have plenty of entrati ruins littering the plateau:

like remnants of a suspended road system.

the buildings(?) that housed the requiem obelisks

and other facilities (some of which seem to have collapsed below the surface and lead into the iso vaults)

so i came up with this messy thing thats mostly headcanon, speculation and wild guesses based on what we can find around the necralisk and what i think is cool:

(inclusion of the garden based on sons dialogue (iykyk), attached to the necralisk for convenience. with extra roads. for convenience)

this was fun to brainstorm and i had the game open in the bg while drawing to make sure i got things semi-accurately. im not trusting everythings position on the landscape 100% since a lot seems to have shifted around or is like. missing completely (the roads that lead off the plateau and into the infested abyss. fun!) which imply that the drift used to be bigger before the infestation tore it apart

thanks for the question! i hope this was... helpful? insightful? a fascinating glimpse into my sleep deprived and overthinking mind because i pulled an all-nighter for this and am going to bed now?

#warframe #my art #my screenshots #inbox #chronicler-of-narrative #dont worry about the allnighter its not your fault #your ask inspired me and my illness is very mental (adhd)#im going to bed GOODNIGHT

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puddleorganism · 8 months

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Pondering a new rancher au (yes the giant fucking bird is Jimmy) - rambling/explanation under the cut

[Image IDs:

ID 1: a digital drawing of Jimmy/SolidarityGaming and TangoTek, in which Jimmy is a massive approximately 20 foot/6 meter tall bird-like creature. He’s standing idly (to show off his design) with a nervous smile on his face. He has a long neck and long legs that make him look like a dinosaur, but he is covered in light golden-brown feathers and has wings. His wings are huge, the primaries/tips sticking out behind his back. They’re modeled after a turkey vulture’s wings. He’s got a grey hooked beak that is mostly covered in feathers. He’s also got long tail feathers that look just short of skimming the ground. His legs are dark grey with huge talons. All over his legs, wing tips, and tail feathers is a dark grey ash. Tango’s sitting cross-legged on his back/shoulders, hunched over and looking at one of those map books you usually have in your car. (Note: the next image is of Tango, so to avoid redundancy I’m going to describe his appearance better there.) /End ID 1

ID 2: a digital drawing of TangoTek, a humanoid with fire for hair and a long, thin tail tipped in fire; like how a lion’s is tipped with fur. He’s standing idly (again, to show off his design) with his hands in his pockets. He’s got light tan skin with freckles on his nose and wrist. He’s got what look to be black scales on his ears - which are long and pointed - cheeks and nose that have glowing orange cracks in them like burning wood. He’s wearing a red handkerchief over his nose and mouth and has red-tinted goggled pushed up on his forehead. He’s wearing an off-white sweater, a worn leather jacket with red accents, grey cargo pants and black boots. He also has a pale gold and brown messenger bag slung over his left (the viewer’s right) shoulder and back behind his arm. He’s also got two scuffed, worn pins on his jacket; a small, round yellow one and a tiny polyamory flag. He’s also covered in ash - even more so than Jimmy - to the point where his boots, sweater, and handkerchief are stained with it, and are almost more grey than their original colors.

ID 3: simple digital sketches of the above characters. From left to right they are: Jimmy laying down with his head bowed, and Tango standing on his tiptoes to lean against Jimmy’s head. Both their eyes are closed and their foreheads are pressed together. The next is of Tango with his goggles on and looking confused at the map book, which is folded in half in his hands. Jimmy is leaning over his shoulder to look at the map as well. Two question marks float by Tango’s head. The last is of Jimmy standing upright, one of his talons held up near his chest. In his talons he’s holding Tango who seems surprised and is kind of doing that thing that cats do when you pick them up under the arms. This sketch is captioned with the word “hold”. There’s also a small bit of wing from a drawing that’s been cropped out in the corner. /End ID 3

/End IDs]

Ok rambling time!

So it’s set in a that was similar to the modern day, but after in a post-apocalyptic world (recent enough that they both would’ve known the world before). Not a zombie apocalypse or anything, though. There may be Foes but probably not.

I’m not exactly sure what the apocalypse that happened actually is yet, but it’s left the world an ash-covered wasteland with few ruins and even fewer survivors (survivors being organisms in general, not just humans). I want the landscape to be kind of surreal and bizarre, but I haven’t decided if that’s because of the apocalypse or not. Maybe it was just Like That lol.

Anyway, one thing you may want to know more about, is why the hell is Jimmy a giant bird? And the answer is: I like giant birds. In all seriousness though, he’s cursed! Don’t know why. He was a normal ass dude. Now he’s a bird.

Tango might also be cursed? Depends on how edgy I end up wanting this to be lol. He might be an undead wraith or something who knows.

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7-wonders · 4 months

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After

Michael Langdon x Reader (Mad Love Act II, Chapter XIII)

Summary: What comes next?

Word Count: 6.6k (haha ironic)

A note from the author: Is this my best work? No, absolutely not. But I needed to get from Point A to Point B somehow, and I also wanted to show how we got there. Anyways, hope you enjoy, likes, comments, and reblogs make my world go round.

Content warnings for this chapter include mentions of death, thoughts of suicide, and graphic depictions of the apocalypse/end of the world. Reader discretion is advised.

Mad Love masterlist

One day after

Death is no stranger to you.

You’ve met a few unlucky times in your life and felt the devastation they bring with them when they come knocking every time. Tears have been shed, and mourning has been done, and eulogies have been listened to from the pews. Each time is just as tragic, and each time, you wish to never see death again.

So yes, you are unfortunately familiar with death. What you are not familiar with is the carnage, the totality, that death has ushered in now. Never before have you lost everyone you ever cared about in one fell swoop. Never before has the vast majority of humanity been annihilated with the press of a few buttons. That is a totally new level to the death you thought you knew.

You don’t remember moving to a bed after Michael had revealed to you that this was “his” plan at work. You don’t even remember seeing a bed when you were first deposited here by the Cooperative. But this must have happened, for when you come out of the daze you’ve fallen into after realizing that the apocalypse was real and that everyone was truly dead, you’re lying on top of the covers of a bed. The room in which the bed sits is just as sparsely furnished as the room you originally arrived in. It’s reminiscent of a hotel, and you get the feeling that this is not where you’re meant to be staying for very long.

There are curtains on the wall next to the bed, and curiosity begins to eat at you. Will you see a nuclear wasteland outside the window, some terrible and barren landscape? Or maybe this was all just a sick and twisted dream, and you actually are in a hotel somewhere safe. Sitting up, you pull back the fabric to reveal nothing but the wall. They merely hang for a sense of normalcy, you realize. Your hopes fall along with you as you crash back against the mattress.

It was all real, then. The sirens and the running for your life, being forcefully taken and having to feel as nukes were dropped onto the Earth’s surface. The world ended, thanks solely to the man that you love (loved? Where do you stand now?), and you were saved for no reason other than you being said man’s wife. Your stomach starts to churn the more you dwell on this cruel twist of fate.

Before you can feel sick enough to warrant needing to find a bathroom, someone knocks quietly, and you turn your head toward the sound in anticipation of the visitor. The door cracks open, and Michael sneaks inside. He’s silhouetted by the light of the living room, but you can still see the fond smile he sports.

“Hi,” he whispers, as though worried you might be asleep even though you’re staring at each other. “How are you feeling?”

Did he seriously just ask you that? You want to snap at him, to yell and ask how he thinks you’re feeling, but the fight has leached out of you and been replaced with a heavy exhaustion. You couldn’t come up with something to get your true feelings across even if you tried. So, you don’t try. Instead, you shrug.

“That’s alright. I have a surprise for you.”

“I’m a little scared to see what your idea of a surprise is after today.” Your voice sounds hoarse, both from the strength of your earlier cries and how long it’s presumably been since you last used it.

“It’s a good one, I promise.”

He ducks out before quickly returning, holding a lump in his arms. You stare at it curiously, and Michael shifts. Your cat jumps out of his arms and onto the bed, padding across the mattress until she reaches you.

You blink owlishly in disbelief, slowly reaching a hand out until it lands in her soft fur. Fur that feels so real under your touch. She is real. She’s here and safe and in front of you. Both hands land in her fur now, one scratching the top of her head, and she begins to purr in contentment.

Michael chuckles at the sight, and you remember that you’re not alone. It takes you a moment to remember how to speak once you look up at him. “You…you saved her?”

“Of course,” he says like it’s the most obvious decision in the world. “She’s like our child—I would never leave her behind!”

You try to hold it in, you swear. But once you start laughing, you can’t stop. It’s a hysterical laugh, the type that can be confused with sobbing, the two sound so similar. Maybe you are sobbing a bit, and the tears falling down your face aren’t just from laughter. The situation is just so ridiculous, though, that laughter is really the only reaction you can think of.

“What’s so funny?” he asks.

“Michael, you just ended the fucking world,” you gasp out in the pockets between laughs. “You killed billions of people, but you stopped to grab our cat before you did?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Michael begins to laugh as well, likely just because you are, and for a moment, things feel almost normal. Then you stop to catch your breath, and reality sets in once more.

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand your priorities again.”

“My priorities are simple, and they’re the same as they’ve always been. To make my father proud, to create a new world for us, and to love you the way you deserve.” At that last part, he takes your hand and kisses the back of it. Revulsion creeps up your spine, and you gently pull your hand away from him.

“I’m tired,” you say. This isn’t a lie—you are tired, just…tired of him, and tired of your current reality. You sink further under the blankets while gathering the cat in your arms and pulling her under to snuggle with you; something that she’s more than happy to do.

“Okay. I have more work that I have to do,” he rolls his eyes as though dealing with the logistics of a post-apocalyptic world is a nuisance, “so I’ll be a little bit longer. I’ll make some dinner when you wake up. Does that sound good?”

You hope your smile doesn’t look as forced as it feels. “Yeah.”

Michael kisses the top of your head. “I love you.”

Luckily, his phone chimes (wait, his phone still works? You’ll have to ask about that later) before he can wait for you to say it back.

One week after

It takes approximately one week for the radiation levels post-nuclear apocalypse to fall just enough that the Cooperative, with all of its tools and technologies, is able to travel safely.

You spend most of it curled up under the covers, trying desperately to sleep and wake up to a world prior to the end. Every time you open your eyes to your reality, you’re let down once more.

Considering he’s the source of your misery and also increasingly unhinged, Michael is surprisingly sympathetic to your grief. And though you want to push him away, to scream at him that you think he’s evil and that you don’t know if you’ll ever be able to love him again knowing what he’s done, you’re also very, very sad.

Actually, sad feels like too light of a word. You’re heartbroken. Your entire life has collapsed in front of you, burned to ashes, and you’re left adrift. The only familiarity, the only link back to a time that feels like so long ago, is Michael. You forgive yourself as you fall apart in his arms time and time again, clutching onto him as one clutches onto a life preserver while you cry and scream.

You’re once again in his arms when you jolt awake with a loud gasp, fear coursing through your veins and the memory of your friends and family screaming in agony as they were killed fresh in your mind. Michael tightens his grip around you, threading his fingers through yours as you squeeze his hand to remind yourself that you’re not sleeping anymore. As you come to the realization that it was just a dream, you’re hoping that you’ll open your eyes and be back in your bed—not just a bed, but your bed in the manor you shared with Michael. Looking up, you see the metallic gray roof of the armored, impenetrable Cooperative vehicle that’s taking you to the Sanctuary, and not your bedroom ceiling.

Disappointment curls in your stomach, and you tuck your head into Michael’s chest.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, even though he knows the answer. Your bad dreams are increasingly common and are by now a nightly occurrence.

Regardless, you tell him. “I had a nightmare.”

“I’m sorry.” This isn’t a new routine for either of you. Though it’s been only a week, every single time you go to sleep, you’re tortured with these nightmares. You almost dread falling asleep now, but your body seems to use sleep as a protective response to the fear you’re constantly dealing with.

You look up at him. “I think the worst part is that, when I have these nightmares, I wake up right into another one, one that I can’t wake from.”

“What do you mean?”

“I see those that I love dying, over and over again. And then I wake up, and they’re still dead. Everyone is, and it’s because you killed them.”

“I did.” There’s no remorse in his voice, nothing to say that he’s sorry for what he’s done. You know that he’s not, but you still want to force him to be faced with the reality of what he’s done. For some reason, you still believe that he’ll come to his senses eventually and that he’ll wake up one day horrified by the devastation he’s wrought.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive you,” you admit.

“Give it time.”

You don’t say that all the time in the world won’t matter, that you’ll hold this anger and pain and distrust with you until your very last days. Instead, you pose a question. “Would you let me die?”

Michael looks down at you in alarm. “What?”

“You always say that you’ll do anything for me. If I told you I wanted to die, to be with those you killed, would you let me?”

“No.” He pulls you up from where you’re leaning against him so that he can look you in the eyes. Panic is evident on his face, and a sick part of you enjoys it. “No. Why would you even ask something like that?”

Why wouldn’t you? How are you supposed to see yourself going on with everybody gone? Alone in a post-apocalyptic hellscape with the Antichrist? The thought of suicide, of killing yourself to get out of this nightmare and be reunited with your loved ones, has crossed your mind more times than you’d care to admit in the short week since the end of the world.

You know that you can’t, though. You’ve seen Michael’s power at work, and you’ve heard all about the Seven Wonders, both from Mallory and Michael. If you kill yourself, Michael will just use Vitalum Vitalis to bring you back. You’ll never be able to escape him, the monster that is your husband, even in death.

You shrug. “I just wanted to make sure, even though I knew the answer.”

“You’re my wife, my person. I love you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Guess you won’t have to find out,” you mutter bitterly.

Instead of answering, Michael puts a hand under your chin and pulls you up to look at him. He kisses you softly on your lips. You want to turn away, truly. Shove him away and declare that your marriage is nothing but a farce now. But muscle memory is a funny thing. Your lips work against his, and even your heart stutters that old, familiar staccato. Your body still holds the memory of your love for him, even if your mind rebels against that.

“I love you,” he says once more, leaning his forehead against yours.

You don’t say it back, and he doesn’t call you out on it.

The vehicle shudders to a stop, and Michael peers out through the window. You’ve refused to do the same this entire trip, not wanting to see the barren wasteland you know is outside. After a moment, you start moving again, into a garage much smaller than the one from a week ago. Instead of getting out and going into an elevator, the car itself begins to descend down, down, down.

Michael barely waits for the elevator to stop and for the car to pull into a large, underground chamber before he opens the door and bounds out. He looks around proudly, then turns to you with a grin.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

You’re not, but you nod nonetheless and take Michael’s outstretched hand.

“Home sweet home!”

One month after

The Sanctuary is…nice, you suppose, if you were asked to be completely objective about it. The compound is huge. There are nine different “levels,” because why wouldn’t there be symbolism when it was built by and for the Antichrist? With how deep underground you are, it almost feels like you’ve descended into Hell. You wouldn’t even be surprised if that were the case.

All the stops were pulled out for this project, and no expense was spared. Scientists and engineers and the world’s best and brightest had come together (whether they knew what they were working on or not) to create the technology that would allow the Sanctuary to be self-sustainable. There was plenty of room for new arrivals—though Michael had used the Outposts as a way to get rich fucks to finance the end of the world and had plans on killing them, there were still plenty of survivors who were chosen due to their exceptional genetic makeup, those who would be creating the next generation. Plenty more were important to the “rebuilding of the new world,” and more still were religious fanatics who happily served their lord and his kingdom.

People enjoyed their new lives, for the most part. The devout were more than happy to be in the presence of their savior every day, the Cooperative and their families enjoyed continuing their luxurious lives, and the lucky ones were just thrilled to still be alive. There was always something to do, and everybody had a role to play to keep the Sanctuary running and functioning (everybody except the richest of the rich, but that’s par for the course). Life had moved on, and survivors created a home here.

All except for you. No matter how much Michael tried to make your quarters like they were—it’s almost an exact copy of your former home, and it’s still just as creepy as it was the day that you arrived—it doesn’t feel like home, and it never will. You miss your home, in all its familiarity. The creaky stair on the way up, the house staff that you knew on a first-name basis (you had gotten them all Christmas gifts, and now they would never receive them), and the back of the couch that was a little wobbly from where you fell into it when you and your friends had your last sleepover are just a few of the mementos that you long for every time you wander the halls of your new home.

While everybody else has been finding a new normal in the month since the world ended, what you’ve found is time. Time to think, and rage, and for the grief that’s been swallowing you to subside enough that you can finally focus and think about your situation and what to do now.

What’s become clear is that you can’t give up, no matter how much you want to. So many hours of this first month have been lost to tears and wishes that you could be with those you love instead of in this hell on Earth. So you can’t die yet! What you can do, however, is make Michael’s life miserable.

Since one of Michael’s favorite things in life is, well, you, you’ve decided that you’ll deprive him of that favorite thing. Your method? The silent treatment, which has been going on for basically the entire time that you’ve been at the Sanctuary. Beyond answering questions that need to be answered with the most basic of responses (“yes,” “no,” “I don’t know”), you haven’t talked to him. No in-depth conversations about random topics, no idle chitchat, nothing. It drives him absolutely nuts, and you’re reminded of another person that you once drove nuts with the same silent treatment.

(Oh, Mallory. You still can’t think about her, or any of your loved ones, without crying, and so you try your hardest not to. What you wouldn’t give to be able to give her the silent treatment once more, even if it meant you were kidnapped by Cordelia Goode once more!)

To really hammer home the point that you’re not pleased about any of this and are not just going to roll over and take it, you also attempt to make yourself scarce whenever he’s around. There are plenty of rooms in your “house” that Michael doesn’t bother to check—you’ve made one of the guest rooms into your hideout, and it’s actually very comfy—and you’ve gotten really good at hearing him coming so that you can disappear. You suppose the one nice thing about your house being copied at the Sanctuary is that you still both have separate bedrooms. Where you once loathed to sleep apart from him, now, you crave it.

The best part of this is that you know that Michael’s insanely frustrated. He had an entire vision for how your life post-apocalypse would be, one that involved the two of you in that same honeymoon phase you had found yourselves in before visiting New Orleans. Whereas you had imagined your perfect future as you and he exploring the world, he saw your perfect future as the two of you becoming bloodthirsty monarchs over a world that was yours to mold however you saw fit.

Fat chance.

You can only keep avoiding him for so long, and it appears that tonight is where your luck runs out. You’re sitting in the kitchen and reading, waiting for the timer to go off on the oven—truly nothing really changed about life, except for the fact that it was now underground. You were still able to enjoy frozen pizzas, even! Since Michael’s usually still off doing whatever it is Antichrists do at the Sanctuary at this time, you let your guard down. Your mistake.

He grins when he sees you sitting at the counter, pleased that he finally caught you. “I was hoping to find you.”

Sneakily, he tries to duck in and steal a kiss. You’re quicker than he is, though, and you turn your face at the last moment so that he’s only able to catch your cheek. Frowning slightly, he straightens back up.

“There’s a dinner tonight being hosted by people that aren’t insufferable.” Michael waits for you to answer, to show any sign of hearing him, even though he knows that you won’t break. “I think it’ll be fun, and a good way to meet some new people.”

“Enjoy yourself,” you murmur, keeping your eyes fixed on the book in your hands.

“Come on, won’t you please join me? There’s so much here that I want to do with you.” He tries to take your hand, but you pull away before he can. Hurt, raw and unfiltered, crosses his face. “Why are you ignoring me? I hate this, this isn’t you.”

You scoff. He’s one to talk about sudden personality changes. “I told you, didn’t I?”

“Told me what?”

“Before you ended the world, I told you that I wouldn’t be able to stand by you. That you would lose me. I wasn’t lying.”

Michael groans. “You still don’t understand! I had to, it’s my destiny and—”

“Oh, I believe that you believe that. But it still doesn’t justify your actions, and it still doesn’t change what I said.” You finally meet his eyes. “Physically, publicly, I will play the role of your wife when I am forced to. I’ll stand by your side and wave and shake hands and pretend like we’re a happy couple. Emotionally? When we’re alone? You get nothing. You should consider yourself lucky that I’m even talking to you now.”

His eyes go dark. Not the dark, pure black of the demon that lives inside of him, but dark with a rage you’ve never had directed towards you before. “Is that right? You want to wage this battle against me, the monster you’ve created in your head?”

You stare at him defiantly, refusing to cower now.

“Baby, my love, the one to whom my soul belongs.” Michael showers you with pet names in the hopes that it pisses you off, which it does. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for us. And I’ll continue to do so, no matter how much you hate me for it. You’ll be grateful one day, even if I have to force you to see it.”

His threat has you recoiling, but not because it scares you. No, it’s because this new Michael now follows through on said threats. “Fuck you, Michael. I hate you.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” He smirks, before walking over to the oven and turning it off.

“Hey!”

“You said that I have to force you to play the role of my wife. Well, I’m forcing you. Get ready. We’re having dinner with some people tonight.”

You’ll be honest, you weren’t expecting him to make good on what you said. If you weren’t so blindingly angry, you’d almost be impressed. Glowering, you slam your book closed, screech your stool across the floor as you shove it away from the island, and stomp away. Since he’s going to force you to do this, you’re going to voice your displeasure as loudly as you can, even if it means throwing a tantrum.

Michael smiles as he watches you, calling out, “We’re going to have so much fun!”

For some reason, you don’t believe that.

One year after

There’s a party tonight. A celebration, it’s been billed as. One year since the end, and one year since the beginning of what would become the “new world.”

In the past year, there have been so many changes in your life. But there’s been no bigger change than the one that Michael’s undergone. His hair’s grown longer, with the perfect blond waves falling to just past his shoulders. He’s learned how to do makeup, and he’s started painting red on his inner crease to make himself look more dramatic and intimidating. He’s also grown extremely confident, almost cocky. The world is his now, and he has the bravado to back it up.

You can’t help but think back to when he started to change, the drastic shift in personality after that fateful meeting with Papa Legba in New Orleans. The memory of those last, golden days before everything went to shit is one that you remember often and fondly. If there’s a day where you’re feeling extra masochistic, you’ll force yourself to remember that last date, and how Michael’s eyes shone with joy as he held a firefly in his hands for the first time. When you and Michael were just enjoying being together and making plans for the future. When there still was a future. By now you would have graduated college, and likely would have moved somewhere else to attend graduate school. Secretly, you had been leaning towards the East Coast; you were so excited to watch Michael experience snow for the first time.

It makes you miss the Michael you once knew, the Michael that you loved. This new Michael feels so unfamiliar, it seems like you’re living in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” At least you were able to pretend like it was your Michael when he still looked like himself. Now, there’s no fooling yourself.

Even though you live with a stranger now, you still see shades of that Michael in this one. You still love this Michael, even though you wish with all your being that you didn’t. Oh, you remain furious with him—you always will, probably. But apparently, the whole “soulmates” thing wasn’t bullshit. Despite your best wishes and attempts, you love Michael Langdon.

(Not that he needs to know that. No, you’ll tap into all that hatred whenever you’re near him.)

Though you wish that you were spending today in solitude, so that you can cry without anybody seeing and mourn in your own way, Michael has other plans. He hasn’t backed off on forcing you to play the part of his wife in public. He brings you to events, dinners, parties, and walks through the Sanctuary. The whole time, you’re holding his hand, smiling, and acting like you’re interested in whatever drivel is being discussed by those you’re surrounded with.

In private is a different story. You avoid him, and he gives you your space. You suppose it’s nicer this way; at least now you don’t have to be sneaky and hide any longer. There’s only one time that you let him touch you, and it’s the time that you’re most ashamed.

About six months after the end of the world, your constant fighting with Michael came to a head. You were both furious with each other (only yours was justified) about the same things that you’re always furious about. At some point, as you got in each other’s faces, you stopped yelling and started kissing. It was then that you discovered: hate sex is the best sex. And hate sex with Michael? That’s on a whole other level.

You’re obviously not proud of this. But it’s a whole new world, you try to reassure yourself when you try to sleep at night, and it’s not as though any of this is out of love. Things are complicated, and you’re trying to forge a new path in life. So if you fuck your husband out of anger a couple of times? Well, you hope Mallory and Kate are cheering you on in the afterlife as you draw blood scratching down Michael’s back.

Presently, you allow the Cooperative stylists to make you over for the “celebration” that you couldn’t get out of even if you tried. To the inhabitants of the Sanctuary, you’re simply the Antichrist’s wife. What’s the point of trying to prove to them that you’re more than that? you’re reminded of the first time you found yourself in this situation, a whole lifetime ago. How nervous you were. Back then, you fought so hard to not wear the typical Cooperative color scheme. “I want to be me,” you had said. Now, you don’t put up any sort of fight as you’re helped into a black, floor-length gown with off-shoulder straps. It’s not as if you really care anymore. Your entire identity post-apocalypse has been reduced to “Antichrist’s wife”, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

You don’t hear Michael enter the room. Instead, you see the stylists bow and curtsy before promptly filing out, and you know that he’s here. Rather than look at him (or roll your eyes), you stare at yourself in the mirror and pretend to wipe away an errant eyelash. You hate Michael’s insistence on everybody treating you and him like royalty. You never wanted to be a queen, and you certainly don’t relish the position now.

Michael leans on the wall next to the mirror, watching you with a soft smile on his face. Since your emotions are already fried today, you don’t bother risking a fight by ignoring him. When you look at him, his smile widens into a grin, and you yet again catch a glimpse of the Michael that you once knew and loved. It makes your heart clench, and you swallow harshly.

“You look lovely,” Michael says, kissing the corner of your mouth so as not to smear the lipstick that the (admittedly talented) Satanist makeup artist applied.

“Thank you. Are we running late?” You hope that’s the case; you’d love to keep everybody waiting as long as possible, simply out of spite.

Michael checks his watch (yet another thing you don’t understand—how the Cooperative has managed to keep to the traditional format of keeping time) and shakes his head. “Only fashionably, not that it matters. We’re the guests of honor, of course.”

“Goody,” you say dryly.

“Are you not excited for tonight? It’s a party!” He grabs your hand, pulling you to him and swaying with you. “We can even dance. You love dancing.”

Correction: you used to love dancing.

You shrug out of his embrace and move to put on your (pre-approved) shoes. “I don’t feel like dancing tonight.”

“But we’re celebrating!”

“Celebrating what?”

The flimsy dam that you had built up to hold your feelings back upon waking up this morning bursts, and nothing can hold you back now.

“How could I dance on a day like today? The day that everybody died, the day that I became an orphan, the day that I lost all of my friends and family. I mourn today, I dreaded today.” Tears prick at your eyes, and you roll them toward the ceiling to keep them from falling.

“I understand,” Michael says, coming up behind you and placing a large hand on your shoulder.

“Oh, you do?”

Though you inject a healthy dose of sarcasm into your voice, it seems lost on Michael. “I lost people that I cared for, too.”

He’s right. It had only been a couple of months, but Michael had gotten close with the group that he started playing video games with. Before the blast, you could confidently say that Brennan and his fraternity brothers, Matteo and Jack, were Michael’s friends. He was even friendly with Kate, and cordial with Mallory.

(You thought that time would help to make the absence of your best friends more palatable. If anything, time has done nothing but make that loss so much more bitter. They’re with you in everything you do, and in everything you do, you think about what they would be saying and how they would be reacting. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism, that you’re imagining your dead best friends. But there are no therapists to tell you it’s unhealthy, so until that day, you’re going to keep doing it.)

“You don’t mourn for them, though,” you point out.

“Their deaths served a purpose,” he parrots that old, familiar line.

“Michael,” you snap, so sick of hearing it over and over again.

“What?”

He sounds just as frustrated as you, and by now, you know what’s coming when your tones match in this way. You still don’t have it in you to fight today, so instead, you close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths. Once you safely feel like you won’t blow up at him, you look at him once more. “Nothing. Let’s just go. Your kingdom is waiting, after all.”

He smiles triumphantly. “Our kingdom.”

Because that’s where the issue lies, doesn’t it? He’s proud of all of this—the pain and devastation he’s wrought, the annihilation of the world that everybody once knew. There are no regrets from him, even knowing the individuals that he’s killed. The blood of seven billion people is on his hands, and he loves it.

Michael holds out his arm for you to take, but you refuse, instead marching side-by-side with him. It’s only when you reach the doors to the ballroom that you begrudgingly slip your hand around his bicep. The roaring of the crowd, full of Satanists and members of the Cooperative and those who were lucky enough to make it in, greets you and Michael as you enter the main ballroom.

You’re surrounded by people, but you’ve never felt more alone.

Eighteen months after

After going into the Sanctuary, you honestly expected to be stuck there, underground, for at least five years. Nuclear science admittedly wasn’t your strong point, but you knew enough about radioactive half-lives to know that it wouldn’t be safe enough to be above ground for a long time.

But you forgot about who your husband is, and what his plans post-apocalypse were.

Michael had never been shy about the fact that the Outposts were simply a means to an end. He needed the end of the world financed, and he also needed central locations to quickly get the survivors worth saving to, even if they were far away from the Sanctuary. Hence the creation of the Outposts. What to do about those that populated the Outposts, though?

As Michael had explained it to you the one time you felt brave enough to ask, that was where the fun began. He would arrive at each under the guise of being a Cooperative member tasked with deciding who was worthy of coming to the Sanctuary. After teasing the survivors, playing mind games with them, and pitting them against each other for a few days ( “Sowing chaos,” he gleefully called it), he would extract the survivors with optimal genetics and leave the rest to die. Sometimes he would let them kill each other, other times he would leave them to starve, and a couple of times he planned on killing them himself. His newfound bloodlust made you shiver in fear, and you dropped the conversation.

Shortly after the anniversary celebration, Michael decided that it was the perfect time to start on this next phase of world domination. He would leave the Sanctuary, traversing the globe to each and every Outpost until all were emptied of any signs of life. It was almost like a business trip, you thought, if business trips involved mass murder.

The thought of Michael, the perennial thorn in your side, finally leaving for extended periods of time should have filled you with joy. You would finally be free of him, at least for a bit. But the more you thought about it, the more you realized that you didn’t want to be left alone. The Sanctuary still didn’t feel like home, and Michael was really the only person that you knew. He was the only constant, and being on your own in a place that was still frightening and unfamiliar was not something that appealed to you. It was surprising that you felt this way, but maybe it shouldn’t have been. After all, survivors band together, even if one of the survivors caused all of this mayhem.

Michael seemed just as surprised when you asked if you could accompany him to a few of the Outposts, but he was still happy to accommodate your request. Even though he knew the reason—his powers had also grown immensely in the past eighteen months, and he could read everyone’s minds with ease now—he still saw this as a way to spend quality time with you. While you wouldn’t necessarily agree, you would still be spending the most time with him since before the bombs dropped, and he counted that as a win.

You had visited three Outposts with Michael, choosing which ones you went to. Since you certainly didn’t enjoy watching Michael play with his prey before slaughtering all but those whose genetic material ensured a bountiful next generation, you only went when Michael would be gone for a particularly long time or you were feeling extra stir-crazy. It was a luxury that nobody else had, getting to choose when to stay or go, and you pushed down feelings of guilt every time you were given the choice.

Things were different, you constantly reminded yourself when thinking of this, or about how the you of eighteen months ago would be horrified at the thought of being okay with Michael committing murders. You are still horrified by the murders, and the ease with which Michael performs them. But over time, you’ve become almost desensitized to it. Everybody had to do shameful things to survive now, including you.

You weren’t originally planning to join Michael on his visit to the last untouched Outpost. It was less than 100 miles away from the Sanctuary, which meant that Michael would be gone a week at most. Since the Outpost 9 trip was almost three weeks long (it was all the way in what used to be Spain, which meant an extra difficult transmutation for you, who still has not gotten used to this mode of traveling), you were happy to spend an extended amount of time back at “home.” But Michael insisted that you come with him, promising you that it was only a week-long trip, if that. Though you were confused, you still acquiesced. It was only when you were on the road—Michael wanted to take a carriage for this trip, which should have been your first clue that this was no ordinary Outpost—that he revealed why he wanted you with him.

Outpost 3 was built in what used to be Hawthorne School for Exceptional Young Men, and it absolutely wasn’t a coincidence. Michael was openly cheerful when explaining that this was his plan all along, and that he always intended for Outpost 3 to be the last stop on this journey. You don’t pretend to understand his motives anymore. On another, non-evil level, he was excited to show you the school that had played such a formative part in his accelerated adolescence. Another glimpse of the Michael that you used to love, though these glimpses get fewer and farther in between the more time passes.

The plague doctor getup you’re forced to wear upon venturing aboveground is happily removed when you enter the decontamination pod in Outpost 3.

“Would you like to come with me to meet our hostess?”

Well, it’s better than being stuck in your temporary lodging. “Absolutely.”

You’re greeted by a woman wearing all black, just as you and Michael do. Michael always wears black now, but the point of your matching black wardrobes is to make you look like regular Cooperative officers when you enter the Outposts. The only splash of color is her hair, which is a bright orange. Her hands tighten around the top of a can as she watches you enter the office that she will soon find out is being commandeered by Michael. She smiles, but it’s a haughty, smug smile.

“Wilhelmina Venable,” she introduces herself as. “I’m in charge here.”

From beside you, Michael tilts his head teasingly. His game begins immediately upon first contact, and you just stand back to watch. “Of course you are.”

“You don’t sound like you believe me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” He plays his part well, you have to admit. “Seems like you’ve done a wonderful job. The walls are still standing, your people are alive and healthy, which is…quite a feat, considering.”

He’s baiting her, but, predictably, she bites. “Considering?”

“That three more Outposts have been overrun, and the remaining three won't last through the year.”

“Why are you here?”

You zone out a little bit during the well-practiced rigamarole that Michael whips out during every introduction with the Outpost leaders. It’s tedious at this point, and they all react the same. Shock, revulsion, disbelief. It’s only when he grabs your hand that you fall back into the part that’s expected of you.

“I could take all of you…or none of you. Those who make it live. Those who don’t…” Michael smiles serenely. “End up like our horses.”

Tag List: @thatonehumanbeing05 @xavierplympton @hecohansen31 @codycrazy @love-on-the-murder-scene @michaellangdonswhore @nsainmoonchild @aftertheglitterfades @iamlivingforturner @narwhal-swimmingintheocean @angiestopit @littleangel4996 @xo-angel-ox @ajokeformur-ray @iamavailablesstuff

(I really don't know why I still do a tag list. Habit, I suppose.)

#michael langdon #michael langdon x reader #michael langdon imagine #american horror story #ahs imagine #american horror story imagine #michael langdon imagines #mad love musings

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vela-pulsars · 1 year

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Cliffside Retreat

A hideaway for a few forlorn deserters

Fanseason of Passage/Cycles inspired by the celts that I decided to stop working on for now, it was going to be about war deserters in the Golden Wasteland, hiding near the waning peaks of the Valley of Triumph. It would be set near a mountain lake that’s at first muddy and polluted, but as quests are completed, arches would emerge from the gradually clearing waters as the landscapes slightly change to reflect each season of the year. More under the cut !

The questgiver would have been a warrior at the head of a troop who decided to desert the battlefield to save their and their people's life, they got bear themes since they were seen as rulers of the forest in some mythos, and the link to the Ursa minor/major constellations as guides was really cool. They feel like a failure and a coward though, and the fact they they all ended up getting got by darkness anyway doesn't help, so what's left of their troop will try to cheer them up during the season.

Each spirit is inspired by a realm we cross before the Wasteland (with the questgiver themselves being GW) to symbolize how much one has lived through before making it to the middle of their life. So, pretty much, this is a season about reminding yourself of how many cycles you passed through before that kind of hardship, reminding you that you got all the experience you gained so far to do so. I also like to think there could be parallels between deserters feeling guilt because they made a complicated choice, and being into adulthood realizing a lot of complex things also have higher stakes and feeling like you're betraying yourself and what you stand for.

The first few quests have you gathering items to build the hideaway back; The first one has you look for scraps with the Wayfinder, summoning the first arch (spring) and making grass and a few cold-colored flowers appear in the desert. For the second quest, you help the Laborer carry and assemble shelters, after which the second arch of summer emerges and the landscape becomes even more verdant with longer grass and warm-colored flowers blooming alongside the ones from the previous quest. As for the third quest, the Blacksmith asks you to deliver items they crafted to the other spirits, making the third arch of autumn come out of the water as harmless rain falls in the area and all the plant life that grew so far turns various shades of yellow, orange, red and brown.

The last two quests are special: Fourth quest starts off normally with you helping the Performer play a song to cheer everyone up, which works... until the fourth arch of winter emerges. A clap of thunder not unlike Eden's is heard, and it becomes split in two (mirroring the twin elders). Snow falls upon the Cliffside Retreat and covers the grass and flowers as the winds become more violent, making flight more difficult... Finally, the questgiver themselves ask you for help for the last quest: a storm is sending all the work done so far flying, and you have to catch it mid-air. At the end, the guide plays their carnyx (an instrument ultimate gift), summoning an elder bird and its flock to guide the winds into being less chaotic. The clouds part, and underneath starlit skies, you see an aurora borealis. The spirits fix what they can, and after looking over life blooming in the area even more colorful than it was before, they feel at peace and ascend to the stars.

#sky: children of the light #thatskygame #fanseason #sky fanseason #beta spoilers on the name and one cosmetic for the next season but ----->#I worked on this since before the season of Passage was announced... so seeing the name and the ult mask is a bit bittersweet #I'm happy but also a bit frustrated my idea actually wasn't new but oh well #at least I know someone at TGC got based tastes in animals and season names

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dailyadventureprompts · 2 years

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Footnotes on foes: Eldrazi

Hey DMs, do you need an unfeeling aberrant force to threaten your campaign world at various scales but don’t want to use mindflayers? Bored of lovecraftian knockoffs threatening to drown reality in abstract but unspecified “madness”? Well have I got the monster for you friends, It’s the Eldrazi: an unknowable and all consuming horde that’s here to reduce your setting to nothingness.

I’ve always had a fondness for the Eldrazi after they originally debued in magic the gathering, alien beings that sap all life from their surroundings and seem to have no other aims beyond the total and complete obliteration of whatever world they happen to dwell on. (plus they have a super cool look, and in the end isn’t that what matters?)

Eldrazi have a lot of mystery surrounding them, but in trying to puzzle them out I came up with my own headcanon that was too good not to use. Below the cut I’ll go into detail on how I think the eldrazi function, and how you can best use them in your campaigns.

TLDR: The eldrazi are the great decomposers of the multiverse, reducing dead worlds down into their base components, and then into dust to be reabsorbed by the cosmic cycles of the astral sea. A perfectly natural process, but one that can go catastrophically wrong should the eldrazi be drawn to a world that has not yet died as they often are by witless dabblers or disruptions to those same astral currents. When they end up on a world they’re not supposed to be they end up creating wastelands, fighting against nature like an infection.

While they’re scattered about many regions of the astral sea where stagnation looms, the eldrazi mainly occupy a region of the multiverse known as the dead realms, a cosmic landfill where realities decay into one another and the faceless horrors can do their work.

It is important to note that the eldrazi are not a species, or in many ways actual organisms: Each eldrazi brood (differentiated by trends in their alien anatomy and what they transmute material into) is the intrusion of a singular will into the cosmos with its own aims, which constructs its bodies from the errant energies of whatever world it happens to interface with. This makes communication with the eldrazi highly difficult, especially for those who encounter them without prior knowledge, as the will that pilots an eldrazi brood experiences the whole of the brood at once, many bodies at once, many dimensions at once. Even the most intelligent and independent members of a brood are merely hands in comparison with the greater body, able to exert a greater tactile degree of control but not actively conscious.

This alien existence extends to their anatomy: resembling summoned or illusory creatures, the body of an individual Eldrazi lacks blood or organs, and is instead a notional matter primarily used to store the magical potential they sap out of the worlds they digest. When an eldrazi dies they do not rot, instead they erode, the magic that composes their being leaking back into the laylines they siphoned dry. Such transference can cause surges of wild magic proportional to the size and number of the brood slain.

This lack of a physiognomy extends to how Eldrazi seem to “breed”, budding like fungus or grotesquely merging to form larger bodies, which amounts to the prime entity behind the brood splitting up its focus for multiple tasks. Sometimes the entity needs to actively participate in its act of decomposition, in which case the brood begins draining all it can, growing all it can, and then merging together into an eldrazi titan. These entities can lay waste to landscapes but also think in ways the disparate brood could do nothing about.

Eldrazi have a strange relationship with magic, in that their singular goal seems to be to extract the magical/living/quintessential essence out of dead worlds, meaning they become very adept at reading and manipulating systems that are built upon these primal currents. Eldrazi broods spread along a plane’s laylines like mushrooms along a rotten branch, sapping at its nutrients till the line goes dead and the landscape with it. This infection can even spread to enchantments, curses, and magical constructs, bringing them into a titan’s influence and even providing a seedbed for the growth of more eldrazi.

Very little of this information is well known by planear scholars, and even less of it is understood by those who might encounter stray eldrazi that’ve ended up scattered on their worlds. What most understand is that the Eldrazi show up following great magical disasters, create a wasteland wherever they go, and seem to have an innate ability to overcome and subvert magical defences. Most are content simply to hunt them on sight, and the prime eldrazi seem more than content to let their stray buds be culled while they focus on the real task of eating worlds.

Adventure Hooks:

High in the mountains there’s said to be the wreck of some kind of flying ship, that locals say they saw hurtling through the sky decades ago only to crash somewhere amid the peaks. The ship is in fact a spelljammer, and salvaging its helm might just be the first step in the party setting off on their first cosmic adventure. All is not well though, as when they begin exploring the high cliffs and isolated valley, they find ship and much of the surrounding landscape has been turned into a spiralling labyrinth of giant bismuth crystals, the haunt of a few eldrazi the jammer crew picked up while fleeing a dying world that ended up scuttling them in the end.

Powerful spikes of magic draw the eldrazi across the planes, so after the mid-campaign villain attempts their apotheosis and fails miserably, not only to the party have to deal with whatever threat that unleashed, but increasing numbers of sightings of horrifying entities skulking about the countryside near the villain’s old lair. This gives the party a chance to re-explore an old dungeon, finding its corridors warped and its chambers filled with dust.

Desperate to impress their supervisor by summoning a rare creature from the outer planes, a group of arcane grad students at the local magical college have unwittingly ended up snagging an eldrazi away from its brood, and are intent on studying it. For its part, the eldrazi seems oddly complacent, but is infact exerting its flesh warping influence on the students and the animals surrounding their lab. The party first gets involved tracking drown grotesque chimeras of ratswarms and stray beats, which invariably lead them through the increasingly organic sewers and up into the lab, where the eldrazi has broken containment. Not all the students are accounted for, and while some got away with benign abnormalities, others have been incorporated into the brood, and will seek new places to take root.

Also, while there’s no official stats for eldrazi, a lot of great creators have already taken the challenge upon themselves, so I encourage you to go out and find some of their work.

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voraciousvore · 3 months

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Hot Chocolate

Ever imagine being a tiny on a freezing cold day, and sitting on a marshmallow in a cup of hot chocolate? :3

Winter-themed g/t vore oneshot below (2.1k words)

Content warning: soft, fatal, willing vore (an unusual combination, I know, but this is my version of comfort vore, as bleak as it may be)

Life was always hard for tiny people in a giant world, but this winter was especially brutal. The snow accumulated on the ground higher than we were tall, turning the landscape into a frozen white wasteland. Food was scarce as the plants withered and died into bare skeletons. The cold was bitter and biting, significantly worse than in previous years. Most of the time, us tiny folk would hole ourselves up in underground shelters with stashes of supplies and hope for the best until spring.

However, this year, calamity struck. A blizzard destroyed our shelter, ripped open our tunnels, and exposed us to the harsh elements. Wild animals raided our stores of salted meat, grains, berries, and nuts, and the flesh-eaters devoured many of our own before we could fight them off with sharpened spears fashioned from twigs. In the aftermath, most of us starved from lack of food or died from exposure. When a gigantic fox attacked us, I was separated from the rest of the group, and I returned to find my entire tribe demolished, their red blood still bright and fresh in the white snow.

I was alone, and I knew no matter how much I struggled, I probably would not survive the winter. I fought my internal despair as savagely as I fought the external world around me. The woods were a severe and unforgiving environment, full of life-threatening hazards and carnivores. My clothes were threadbare from snagging on thorns and branches, and failed to protect me sufficiently from the chill. I was hungry, tired, and cold—so horribly, painfully, agonizingly cold.

Without the support of my family, I realized there was only one place for me to go where I might have the slimmest chance to live. I desperately needed food, as well as clothing and tools that I lacked the skill to fashion on my own. I might be able to find some raw materials in the forest, if I got lucky, but supplies were more plentiful in the giant city nearby.

I dreaded going anywhere near the giants, though. They were extremely dangerous, miles tall, and aggressively hungry for any human morsels despite how ridiculously small we were compared to them. Despite us being no larger than the size of a giant fingernail, they viewed humans as special delicacies, and would typically eat any human they discovered without hesitation, purely for pleasure. They also possessed a keen sense of smell for hunting any humans that attempted to hide from them. Normally, I would avoid the giant city like the plague.

In this case, though, I was desperate. I didn’t know what else to do. So I left the relative safety and quiet emptiness of the woods for the hustle and bustle of the city. On my way there, I rubbed pungent herbs all over my clothes and body in the hopes that they would successfully conceal my scent. The snow would probably wash some of the smell off, but it was worth a try. Fluffy flakes fluttered down from the gloomy gray sky, and I picked up the pace so I wouldn’t get buried under layers of snowfall.

I emerged from the trees to a plain of white and gray. The silhouettes of titantic buildings far in the distance, speckled with yellow lights from the windows, gradually sharpened through the brumal flurries as I approached. When I finally reached the roads, I found them slushy and wet. I was splashed by frigid, dirty, salty water that chilled me to the bone whenever a gargantuan car roared past. The wetness saturating my clothes only added to my misery and made me freeze faster. I shivered uncontrollably as I watched my breath form visible puffs in front of my face.

I was reaching a point of no return: Either I would find salvation here, or perish a heartless death, with nobody to mourn me. As I trudged through the layers of snow and slush, I was having increasing difficulty forcing my legs forward. I kept having to brush piles of snow off my head and shoulders and shoes. My fingers and toes hurt as the winter frost nipped them with its icy teeth. I feared I would soon be frozen in place, like a statue carved from ice.

The fear in my heart exploded as I penetrated deeper into the city and the giant inhabitants stomped past me, bundled in thick layers of winter gear. Not too many of them were out and about, on account of the weather, but every towering colossus that came near me jolted my heart with terror. Their footsteps shook the earth, and their immense shoes splattered me with chilly droplets. While none of them detected the insignificant creature at their feet, I still feared being crushed into a red stain. I sank further into misery with every leaden step.

I had journeyed far, but I spied on the horizon a coffee shop that I believed would save me. If I could slip through the door, I’d be warm. I could find crumbs to eat on the floor. It’d be risky, but I might yet survive. I forced my legs, which were growing numb, to progress in a straight line. My hands and feet were blocks of ice by now, and my whole body was screaming in pain, but I kept moving. Just a little farther.

I was almost to the door, perhaps a few hundred feet away, when I found I could no longer move. No matter how much I internally screamed at my body to proceed, I was overwhelmed with agonizing cold. I collapsed with a shudder, curling up into a quivering ball. My consciousness was fading, but I strained to stay awake. If I passed out here, I’d never wake up again.

A shadow encompassed my vision. At first, I believed I was beholding the specter of death itself, until the looming figure crouched down over me, dwarfing me with its impossible size. A giant. A terrifying, bloodthirsty, man-eating giant. I was doomed. I couldn’t even scream or run with how frozen I was. I could only shiver as I saw in my peripheral vision a massive hand hover over me, until the tips of a gloved finger and thumb closed around me. I had been captured.

I felt a rush of vertigo as the giant stood up, and I ascended at a whirling speed to incomprehensible heights. I was blind, muffled by thick wooly fabric from his gloves. He released his hold on me and I plopped onto something plushy and warm that gently rippled beneath me like a boat in a lake. Heavenly heat radiated from below. I instinctively snaked my hand down, craving the warmth, but was met with a searing heat that made me jerk my arm back with a sharp yelp. My fingers stung with sharp pins and needles. Whatever the heat source was, it scalded me in my current half-frozen state.

The tepid warmth that did reach me wasn’t enough to thaw out my insides, but it helped to bring me back to full awareness. I opened my eyes and sat up, trembling, only to see I was sitting on a big, soft, white mass, surrounded by other identical fluffy cylindrical shapes, bobbing in a hot brown sea of sweet-smelling liquid. The realization hit me like a truck. I was sitting on a giant marshmallow, in a thick pile of other marshmallows, that were floating in a great big mug of hot chocolate.

I nearly fell backwards off my marshmallow perch into the boiling lake when the giant’s enormous face, like a mountainside, loomed over the lip of the mug and stretched high above me and outward in all directions. I had never seen a giant’s countenance up close, since their heads were usually so far up in the sky, so the sight was quite a shock. His skin was pale from the wintry bluster, but his nose and cheeks were flushed red. He was clean-shaven and looked to be in his 20s.

“Hey there, little one,” his voice boomed, like the voice of a god, making me flinch. “You look cold. Want me to help you warm up?” He spoke through a pair of vast, plushy, pink lips easily the length of six men. The steam of his breath felt divine on my icy skin. I was so miserably cold, to the point where I feared I may never experience a comfortable temperature again. I was sorely tempted. Without concern for the consequences, I nodded. I would do anything to be warm again, to not freeze to death.

His lips curved into a devious smirk. He tilted the mug as he touched the edge to his mouth and took a small sip. I couldn’t help but squeak in fear as the heap of marshmallows rushed towards the edge, carrying me with them.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” the giant teased. Raw terror pierced my heart as his mouth opened slightly, showing off massive white teeth that beckoned into an unfathomable darkness beyond. Even so, I was so, so fatigued from the unbearable cold that even now burrowed through my worn clothes, tearing at me with icicles for teeth. I couldn’t take it anymore; I just wanted to give in. The heat from the beverage, from the giant’s body, was so close, so tantalizing, yet just out of my grasp. I nodded again, sealing my fate.

The giant raised a thick eyebrow, curling his mouth into an amused smirk again, but obliged. The immense lips parted, showing a glimpse of the forbidden depths, yet the warmth of his internals drew me in like a moth to a flame. The mug tipped forward, and before I could regret my decision I was swept inside in a deluge of marshmallows and chocolate.

The mouth closed, cutting off the chill from the wind. The space within, encircled by walls of teeth, was easily as big as a living room. The warmth kissed me in a loving embrace like stepping into a sauna. The marshmallows dissolved underneath me into a sticky puddle, and the liquid from the beverage flowed down the gullet yawning in front of me, yet the giant kept me in his mouth. I lounged back on the huge fleshy tongue, soaking in the heat like a jacuzzi. It felt so good to finally give in, to give up, to no longer have to struggle through miles of snow. I should’ve been terrifed, but I was desperate for heat.

The tongue curled around me, massaging me against the rows of teeth and the roof of the mouth as it explored my flavor. As wonderful as the physical sensations were, my body tingled with prickles of pain as the numbness from the cold wore off and blood circulated to my extremities. Even with the heat flooding over me, along with a bath of saliva, I was still frozen in my core. I shivered violently. I needed more; the mouth couldn’t provide me with enough. I was greedy for heat.

In that moment, I stopped caring about anything else. I had nothing left in my life anyways; everyone I knew was dead; I just wanted to be warm and comfortable in my last moments, above all else. I crawled alongside the row of craggy white molars, sidling up to the red meat of the gums, sensing the pulse of hot blood through the flesh. Deeper inside, it would be warmer. I crept over the curve of the slimy tongue as I descended toward the throat. I slid down into the squishy chute, and it gladly received me, flexing tightly around my tiny body as the giant swallowed.

The throat squeezed tightly around me in a tender hug as it dragged me down to the internal depths. The pressure was strong, yet pleasant, kneading me down through his immense chest. His heartbeat throbbed in my ears, and the expansion of his lungs compressed me further as I slid down. I fell deeper and deeper until I eventually splashed into his stomach.

The infernal heat felt divine, enveloping me to the point where I was smothered. At long last, I was warm, blessedly warm, in gurgling heaven. I curled up and allowed the shifting walls to churn me up in the boiling fluid. Like a marshmallow in a cup of hot cocoa, I melted into the larger whole, blissfully free from my tormented existence.

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deep-space-lines · 4 months

Text

Rating Mass Effect 1 Planets (A Tourist's Guide)

Are they boring? Yeah, kind of. Did I get tired of them really fast during my first playthrough? Yeah, kind of. After 860 hours in the game, am I now spending hours just driving around the boring planets in the Mako, absorbing the vibes, exploring the desolate wasteland, and taking nice screenshots? Perhaps.

Allow me to take you on an autism-fueled guided tour of the galaxy and recommend some wonderful travel destinations for the next time you want to take a relaxing vacation in the mountains. (Because it's always fucking mountains.)

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Tuntua: 10/10

I genuinely love Tuntua. This is the planet that I just drove around on for fun during my first playthrough. There's just something about driving over the salt flats and seeing the landscape around you sparkle that fills me with joy. I love the weird inexplicable pyramids. I love how snowy it looks, even if it isn't actually cold. I appreciate a good human-friendly temperature, as I'm sure most tourists will, but I kind of wish it was colder because I want to go ice skating here so, so bad. I can skate pretty fast but I am not good at turning or stopping, which is just what this landscape was made for, baby! I am going to set a new land speed record on these sparkly salt flats in this stupid wonderful brick of a tank.

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Asteroid X57: 8/10

I'm kind of torn on this one because I'm not a huge fan of how grey most of the place is, but on the other hand, yeah, that's a solid asteroid. You get what you pay for. Something about the atmosphere (or rather lack of), the looming planet in the background, the multitude of structures in relatively close proximity, make it feel more claustrophobic yet exposed than the other locations you can visit. The northernmost part of the map offers a truly breathtaking view of Terra Nova. Vacation-wise, I think you have two main options. You can lie in the dust and stare up at the sky and ponder your mortality and how small you are in the grand scheme of the universe for as long as your oxygen supply will allow, or you can explore a variety of abandoned structures if that's more your cup of tea. Why are they abandoned? Not relevant to your vacation! It's not trespassing if the owners are dead! ...I think.

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Rayingri: 7.5/10

While it seems pretty boring upon first inspection, I think it deserves a pretty high score anyway.

Some of the points are for fascinating rock formations. You've got these extremely steep, strangely pillar-like mountains, plateaus, and cliffs; the terrain is a lot more interesting than most other planets. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea for relaxation, especially considering the earthquakes and all, but I'd love to visit Rayingri with a geologist and just hear them talk about it. How old are these mountains? I wonder if they're really young and their formation was spurred by the tectonic disturbances caused by the looming planetoid that's about to crash into it? Look I dunno how this works, my degree is in astrophysics not geology.

But on the topic of the planetoid... The real draw here, I think, is impermanence. This planet will be obliterated by another planet within a few hundred years. A blink of an eye, on a galactic scale. You might not have the most fun here, but it's a cool place to visit just to say you have- especially if you're a krogan or asari and will live long enough to see it destroyed. There's something profound about that, I think, even if the planet itself is rather boring. Rayingri: experience impending doom today!

Also, my sister wants me to add that orange is a good color. So, bonus half point for good color.

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Antibaar: 10/10

I'm gonna be upfront: this place is snowy and cold as balls. If you don't like your vacation spot snowy and cold as balls, you should probably vacation elsewhere. However, I'm a huge fan of snowy wastelands (doing research in Antarctica is at the top of my bucket list), so if you are like me and have a rapturous enjoyment of snow and winter sports, you'll be pleased to learn that Antibaar is just warm enough to enjoy the great outdoors. Bring your sleds, your skis, your skates, we are HAVING A SNOWBALL FIGHT UNDER THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SKY IN THE GAME. Don't let the haters' talk of "low temperatures, high speed surface winds, and low visibility" stop you from having a jolly good time. High speed winds just means your sled will go faster.

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Casban: 3/10

I'm going to be real with you: unless your vacation goal is to isolate yourself like a monk and wreak havoc upon future generations of algae, any experience you can have on Casban, you can experience better on Earth, with the added bonus of vacationing on Earth not being illegal. Don't get me wrong, it's a stunning planet- it's just that I don't particularly enjoy sitting in the lush grass, watching a beautiful sunset, and thinking about how nice it would be if the air was breathable and I could have a picnic here. Not that I've ever done that, of course. That would be illegal.

However, if you're a rogue ecologist with no moral qualms about disturbing a delicate ecosystem, this would probably be a really cool place to hang out and do some illegal rogue ecologist research. I won't stop you, I'm not a cop.

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Maji: 4/10

Maji is, I think, mostly just a place to stop for a cool selfie. The sky is beautiful, but I mean, there's really only so long you can stare into the suns before you either get bored or sustain eye damage- and if you do want to look at the binary, you'll probably get a better view from space anyway. Given all this, I'd rate the planet a 3/10; however, I'm tacking on an extra point for excitement. Terminus pirates sometimes dump people here and make them fight to the death to be rescued, so if you enjoy blood sports, this may just be the perfect vacation spot for you.

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Solcrum: 10/10

If you want to feel like you're back in the early days of human space travel, when everything was new and alien and deadly, when we thought we were alone in the galaxy, when other planets were dreary and uninhabitable yet fascinating wastelands- Solcrum might be just the place for you. The roiling behemoth of a star looming over the horizon like some kind of eye and casting eerie blue light over a fragmented barren landscape... Solcrum is another good place to feel small. With the mass relays making travel across the galaxy near-instantaneous, it can be easy to forget that most of the Milk Way is vast, unexplored, empty, and impersonally hostile to life. Solcrum is a humbling reminder of that reality. You're going to want to bring your SPF 3000 sunscreen and a lot of cold water, because this moon sits at a balmy 351 °C. It isn't an easy vacation spot- but then, you're not vacationing to Solcrum because it's easy.

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Agebinium: 9/10

This was actually the last planet I visited, but it felt right to place it here, as the renegade to Solcrum's paragon. Blue giant, red giant. I love a planet with some mood lighting, and the mood here is a little bit evil in a sexy way. I'm into it. I'm putting it a point below Solcrum because Solcrum just has this memorable eerie dark vibe that Agebinium doesn't quite replicate, but in terms of atmosphere, it's up there. It's a bit colder, a bit flatter and easier to drive around, and kind of reminds me of a forlorn desert. An evil desert. In a good way. It's not really a place you go to do things as much as a place you go to be there, you know? Like the woods or something. I don't really go into the woods to do things, I go into the woods to be in the woods. Look, something about the vibe here just makes me want to be evil and sexy while doing it. I don't need to explain myself to you.

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Edolus: 1/10

Honestly, there's just not enough on Edolus to justify the risk of visiting. As you can see above, meteor impacts are disturbingly frequent, and I don't know if just another windy desert is worth the risk of being instantly snuffed from existence by a loose boulder. On the bright side, they might name the crater after you.

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Sharjila: 4/10

To start with the positives: Sharjila is one of a handful of explorable worlds with higher animal life, and the only visitable world we know of that supports silicon-based life! Sick! And I can guess what you're thinking; wow, silicon-based life sounds cool! Would love to see some someday! Unfortunately, the silicon animals are elusive, and I've never been able to glimpse them for myself. Even if you did come across wildlife, you probably won't be able to leave your vehicle for a closer look, as the high atmospheric pressure is deadly to everyone who isn't a volus.

The main drawback to this world, however: it's full of ammonia and sulfur. Assuming you can get your hands on the equipment necessary for a visit, your stuff is going to smell like total ass for weeks.

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Eletania: 9/10

Animal life, lush meadows, beautiful landscapes, a delicate ring system AND a moon, stunning skies- Eletania has it all. Which is unfortunate, because it wants to kill you so bad. It would be an easy 10/10 if the local microscopic critters would just chill the fuck out, but NO, I have to sit in my tank and gaze wistfully at the beautiful scenery and think about how much I want to frolic out there.

Look at that view. Don't you want to take a hike here? Don't you want to climb to the top of one of those mountains and have a romantic starlit picnic under the rings? Don't you want to just roll around in the grass for a bit? Imagine playing fetch with your dog here. It would be nice, right? Well you CAN'T, at least not for very long, because then you and your dog would both be DEAD. You gotta stay in your car and play safari while you watch the pyjaks roam around aimlessly in your place. Undignified. Why do THEY get to be free and I, the clearly superior ape, have to sit in the Mako like I'm in time-out?!-- Anyway, it's a nice planet.

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Mavigon: 7/10

"Let me guess, you like the-" YEAH I LIKE THE FROZEN WASTELAND PLANET!!! AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT MAKE YOUR OWN POST!

Some points taken off for having less general whimsy than Tuntua and Antibaar, and for the fact that the great outdoors cannot be enjoyed by virtue of the planet being negative 8 billion degrees. But like. I wanna look outside the window and see that howling storm while I sit nice and cozy by a fireplace, bundled up in a sweater and a blanket, drinking hot chamomile tea. Either that, or I want to sit in my tank and watch the snow and listen to melancholy music. NOT sad music by the way. It NEEDS to be melancholy. This is a planet that will give you seasonal depression.

My favorite part is just at the edge of the map though (see above screenshot), where the mountains disappear completely and give way to a flat plain that stretches out as far as the eye can see. Makes me wonder if the whole area is covered by an ice sheet and the mountains we see are just the very tips of a massive mountain range buried beneath kilometers of ammonia ice. Cool and spooky. I think if I had to pick a planet to die on, this one would be up there. Very atmospheric.

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Trebin: 0/10

I wish I had something nice to say about Trebin. I really don't. I don't have anything all that terrible to say about it either- which is kind of worse. This is a planet defined by what it lacks. Water. Life. Redeeming qualities. There are more dangerous places you can visit, but at least danger is its own kind of excitement. Trebin is just... eh.

You may be wondering why it is that I praise some planets for being empty and desolate, while condemning others. This is based purely off the vibes that I can objectively sense with my giant brain. I hope this answers your questions.

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Klensal: 8/10

I was going to give this one a 7/10 like Mavigon until I realized the entire map seems to be covered distinctly with glaciers, rather than snow. There's ripples where you can see the ice has been flowing, and valley glaciers flowing between the mountain peaks. I helped out with a little bit of glaciology research in undergrad and this tiny aspect of a planet sparked joy for me ok? The way the ice flows just feels so natural! Maybe it's on Antibaar too and I was too distracted by the beautiful sky to notice? But the other ice worlds I've seen so far are kinda just. White and snowy. But on Klensal the surface is tinted blue and looks almost iridescent. The whole landscape is awash with pastel blues and purples and greens as you drive, it looks more like blue glacial ice rather than a thin layer of snow over rocks. There's just a bunch of teeny tiny details that come together to make a subtly awesome planet.

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Presop: 1/10

So y'know how I mentioned Solcrum feeling like the early days of space travel? This is like that but without the glamor. The fact that you can actually see the stars and that it reminds me of Luna gives it a marginal point over Trebin, but there's just no tourist attractions here. If you're stopping at Presop, it's gonna be less for tourism and more like stopping at a gas station to use the bathroom on a long road trip.

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Amaranthine: 1/10

So... Amaranthine is not a particularly fun place to visit. However, my main gripe with this "tourist destination" is that it is advertised as purple. "Under the dim light of the red dwarf Fortuna, the surface of this world is lit in rich twilight blues and purples even at midday"- is what the brochure said. It was named after this supposed purple-ness. Amaranthine is supposed to be a purplish-red color, right?

Now look at my photo. I know that lighting can sometimes look different in photos vs real life, and you may be tricked into thinking the same thing I did, that surely it must look better in person. It does not. Allow me to personally assure you that this thing is blue and gray. Blue and gray are fine colors, but the important point here is that they are not reddish-purple. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed when I landed down here. Surely we could've saved a pretty name like that for a purpler planet? I'm actually trying to get in contact with the International Astronomical Union, see if I can propose a name change to something more appropriate. Cobalt? Indigo? Sapphire? Iris?

However, I'm going to give it a single point for a rather befuddling atmosphere. For some reason it reminds me of how alien planets in Star Trek TOS just looked like a bunch of fake rocks with an unnaturally colored sky in the background? Good planet to dissociate on.

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Xawin: 3/10

I feel like I'm betraying some personal principle by saying this, but... I'm getting a little tired of snowy wastelands. I forgot how many there are. How many planets. I have 10 more to go. I should've counted them before I started tbh. I'm running out of unique ways to get excited about the cold.

Xawin. It's cold and snowy. Not in an unrestrained winter fun way, but in a way that kills you. You want an average surface temperature of 140 Kelvin? We got it. You want ice storms? We got it. And that's about it. This world just makes me think about how Antarctic researchers supposedly get so bored that they just fuck all the time. If I were a mercenary hanging out on this rock, I'd probably do the same, and I'm asexual.

+10 points for snowiness. -7 points for being boring.

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Ontarom: 10/10

FINALLY A FUCKING PLANET I CAN HAVE A PICNIC ON!!!! We got everything we need. Breathable atmosphere. Livable temperature. Soft grass-equivalent. Docile space cows that you can pet, or that can provide a nice cow steak if you forgot to bring picnic food. Space beetles big enough to ride on, not that I condone or recommend it.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows- in fact it is very stormy almost all the time- but joke's on you, I'm a slut for a good thunderstorm. The terrain is shit. Getting up to the plateaus is quite a hike. It's hot as balls. But I can have a picnic. I wanna take my girlfriend on a date here so bad.

My only concern is that I seem to have lost all my credits?

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Chasca: 8/10

Chasca is basically Ontarom minus the beetles. 30C is a bit hot for my taste, but compared to the other planets we've seen so far, it's extremely comfortable for humans. There's some really cool pyramids for any archaeology enthusiasts!

The terrain is a bit rougher than Ontarom, perhaps a better hiking destination than a picnic one, which is great because I LOVE a good hike. There's these valleys that are basically just perfect paths through the landscape, and if you're lucky you might run into some space cows here. I wonder how aliens feel about the human habit of naming everything 'Space _'? I mean, space cows, space beetles, space hamsters... come on guys, we're better than this...

___________

Nodacrux: 4/10

This is just Chasca but it kills you. Chasca is right there. It's right next door. Just go to Chasca.

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Altahe: 8/10

YEAAAAA!! Look at this place. It feels like an evil wizard should live here. Or a dragon. Or a space vampire. This feels like the setting of a sci-fi horror movie. Every aspect of this planet LOOMS. Like what ARE those mountains? They look more like hydrothermal vents than mountains.

The fact that it's a double planet is incredibly cool. I did a bit of lazy digging (which is frustrating when most of the 'literature' on the subject seems to be one admittedly cool-sounding sci-fi book from 1982 (Rocheworld by Robert Forward) and a few reddit posts), and it seems like a system of two planets orbiting so close that they share an atmosphere without breaking apart falls under the umbrella of 'sort of kind of barely physically possible maybe?' Like theoretically it checks out, it sounds possible for there to be a window where the tidal forces are enough to rip the atmospheres away before the actual rocky parts fall apart, but how narrow is that window? Sadly I don't know, and I'm not quiiiite confident enough in my physics knowledge to do that kind of math, and it's going to bother me for the next 2 weeks to 12 years of my life.

So if either spooky landscapes or witnessing the laws of physics doing something really weird sounds like your kind of thing, this planet might be up your alley.

___________

Nepmos: 6/10

Is it safe? No. Is it beautiful? For the most part, not really. If you've ever looked at an active volcano and thought, 'wow, I wish I was there!', Nepmos might be the place for you. (The fact that I have thought that is why it scores as high as it does.)

The sky is absolutely stunning. Cool volcanic rock, you can see the flow of lava and some places where you can see the rock is only a thin layer with magma flowing just beneath the surface. Explore at your own risk; assuming you don't lose a limb to stepping in some rock soup, your friends will think you're either an idiot or a total badass.

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Binthu: 0/10

I'll just save myself the trouble and quote the travel brochure here: "Data about the world is surprisingly brief and generic, painting a picture of an unpleasant and uninteresting place." Sadly for this vomit-colored world, we are after pleasant and/or interesting.

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Nepheron: 9/10

I forgot this one existed, probably because I usually only come across it relatively late into a playthrough, which is a damn shame because it's really cool. The mountains sparkle. Bitch the mountains sparkle! And there's salt flats! It's like Tuntua but with cooler mountains and a complimentary color scheme, which I'm a big fan of. The only thing separating Nepheron and Tuntua by a point is personal preference, honestly- I like the brighter atmosphere of Tuntua- and the fact that it's a bit difficult to drive around, with much less opportunity to enjoy setting land speed records on salt flats. The travel brochures weren't kidding about geological beauty though. If I had a geologist with me to talk about the cool mountain ranges (and they are quite cool- most planets seem to have hills or disconnected mountains, but the landscape here is very much mountain ranges) I would probably have a really fun time here.

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Aaaand that's it ladies and gentlemen. This took me like? 4 days? Ish? I had to do Noveria, Feros, and some of the Cerberus side quests in order to unlock all the planets (except Chohe or Nonuel, the ones you get once you get a certain paragon/renegade score, I'm just too lazy), and speedrunning the main missions to get to the boring side quest planets was certainly a unique experience. Not one I'd recommend. I DIDN'T EVEN TALK TO GARRUS. It was weird. But fun! The apocalypse can wait. We were busy sightseeing, bitch!

#mass effect #this is so fucking stupid literally why did i do this #i had fun though! i think. yes.#posts that make me want to grab me by the collar look me in the eyes and ask “but... why”#officer the autism made me do it #straka's shitposts

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veveisveryuncool · 1 year

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adeleine appreciation squad!!! time for me to project artist problems all over her and headcanon the heck out of this gal :]

adeleine is the type to go through a set of 24 prismacolors in a week and constantly has to get new supplies (dw, having a king as your friend means unlimited art supplies)

is adeleine’s age ever confirmed?? idk anyways i hc her as no more than 12

after the oil pastel incident, ado only lets kirby and ribbon use her leftover supplies to keep them busy while painting

bandana dee is the exception. bandana dee is allowed free range of adeleine’s supplies. bandana dee has earned her trust.

the first time ado hit art block, she cried for hours on end because she thought she had lost her talent forever

what’s in ado’s notebook? we will never know.....(its old 2014 deviantart ocs)

she loves oversized clothing sososo much

adeleine and ribbon have a weekly friendship bracelet making ritual :]]

i forgot to add it in the doodles, but adeleine’s hands and clothing are perpetually covered in paint splatters. always.

she’s also always got at least one bandaid somewhere plastered on, hard to avoid injuries when you’re a one-hit KO, and also when you’re the last human and nobody knows quite how to treat your wounds right

OH YEAH last human stuff here we go:

going to shiver star was lowkey traumatizing for her. ado always knew she came from shiver star, sure, and she still holds a couple of memories from there (she was 5 when she came to popstar. why? idk im still working on that). but nothing could have prepared her for the barren, abandoned, frozen wasteland that was left behind. it was as if every last shred of life was torn away, nothing but amalgamations of creatures that she had once read in storybooks floating in test tubes. it was so strange and so scary for her to realize that the beautiful, lush landscapes she held in her mind and in her paintbrush-- her home planet, were gone.

yikes that was dark what else uhh

when she met meta knight for the first time, she couldnt stop talking about how cool he looked, how his color palette was a perfect complimentary/analogous mix, etc. meta knight took this as a very deserved ego boost

adeleine gives a lot of odd compliments about someone’s geometric symmetry or color scheme

dedede’s not sure what a triadic color scheme is but damn if he isn’t proud of it

IM GONNA STOP HERE ACK THAT WAS LONG I HAVE MANY MORE THOUGH!!!!

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singularattitudeofasafetypin · 2 years

Text

Meet Me in the Pouring Rain

Masterlist

Summary: Hawkins has had a heatwave for weeks on end, when it finally rains, Eddie and reader dance in the storm.

Word Count: 1k

Warnings: none.

A/N: I think this is a drabble? I'm not actually sure what constitutes one but it's fairly short and there's little to no plot. Also, if you squint, I was vaguely influenced by this scene from The West Wing. Idk I just really like thunderstorms and got this idea in my head, so I wrote it! I hope you enjoy!

Please don't copy my work!

The sun beat down on Hawkins. Exhausted residents cowered in their homes; windows flung open in a futile attempt to cool them down. The streets were deserted, shops closed early, not a single car on the roads, even the local pool was all but empty. After almost a month of muggy, baking heat, no one had any energy for anything!

It could have been a ghost town.

Nowhere was safe from the merciless temperatures. Far away on the outskirts of town, the dilapidated trailer park wasn’t much different. The earth was parched and cracked and the grass was a sickly straw colour.

While everyone else could take refuge inside, Eddie’s trailer trapped heat like a furnace. The two of you lay sprawled in the meagre shade of the picnic shelter on either side of the bench. Eyes closed, not talking, your fingertips brushing.

Eddie had finally shed his leather jacket, a sure sign the scorch was unbearable. He was clad only in a light t-shirt and ripped jeans, hair pushed off his neck and falling over the side of the bench. Both of you had kicked off your shoes long ago hoping it would lend relief but nothing seemed to. There was only heavy, humid heat.

Conversation forgotten; your brains were soup. ‘It’s too hot,’ and ‘When, please, when will it end,’ were the only thoughts you could form.

At least you were going to suffocate together. You stroked your fingers against the back of Eddie’s hand and pictured the small smile that graced his lips. He groaned softly, which you took to mean either, ‘I love you,’ or ‘Make it stop!’ You went with the former.

People always said Hell was coming to Hawkins and if the temperature was anything to go by, you believed them. What you wouldn't give for even a breeze!

In that moment, or perhaps it was centuries later, something changed. You couldn’t exactly explain it. A feeling? A buzz in the air? A taste in the back of your mouth? You sat bolt upright.

‘Eddie?’

He groaned again. ‘Eddie, it’s going to rain!’

‘No, it’s not!’ he slurred, shifting to get comfortable, ‘They’ve been saying that for weeks! It’s a cold-hearted lie!’

‘I’m serious!’ the feeling had filled you with a new sense of vigour. You climbed over the table and him and started wandering about, staring at the sky with your hands outstretched

‘Come back!’ he complained, ‘I want to die in this sweltering wasteland together!’

‘I can sense it!’ you insisted.

Eddie squinted at the sky, there was maybe one cloud, two if you counted that weird pale whisp of nothing! ‘You’re delusional!’ he retorted; you paid him no heed. ‘At least put your shoes back on! You’re gonna get glass in your feet or something!’ he tossed your sandals in your direction, covering his eyes with his arm and turning over.

‘Come on! Come on!’ you muttered, ‘Ha! I felt it!’

‘It’s a mirage!’ he teased half-heartedly.

‘Come on!’ you went on.

‘Lie back down!’

‘Any second…’

He grumbled your name.

‘Now!’

A crash of thunder split the silence and the sky opened. Eddie nearly fell off the bench, spinning to see your wet grinning face.

‘Woah! What else can you do?’ he scrambled to his feet.

‘I didn’t even know I could do that!’ you giggled at your hands as though they held magical power.

Cool, refreshing rain hammered down on you, splattering when it hit your skin. ‘Come on!’ The two of you scrambled to put your shoes on and raced out into the downpour.

Rolling grey clouds had materialised from nowhere, darkening the landscape; it felt like a whole ocean was falling on the dry, brittle town. You ran through the shower, feet splashing, laughing at the top of your lungs. The scent of petrichor filled your nose. You were wet through in seconds and Eddie wasn’t far behind. His hair was plastered to his forehead and his shirt clinging to his chest. He was laughing too.

An especially loud crack of thunder made you scream, then convulse into a fit of giggles. Eddie caught up to you, grabbing you from behind and spinning you around to shrieks of delight. You were flying, drunk on excitement.

He set you down and pulled you round to face him. Nose to nose, water streamed down your faces. Staring into each-other’s eyes, he cupped your cheeks in both hands and kissed you. It wasn’t the first time you’d kissed Eddie by any stretch, but every time managed to feel different. This one was invigorating, full of relief after so long being forced apart by the heat. It felt just like a movie. Everything was right again, the earth quenched and your love replenished.

The wind began to pick up, tossing spray into your eyes while you danced and jumped in puddles like little children. He kissed you again and again between euphoric giggles.

You were drenched to the bone when a brilliant flash of lightning split the sky. You yelped in surprise and Eddie grabbed your hand, dragging you, still laughing, inside.

He shut the door but the rainstorm drummed on the roof of the trailer so hard it might have broken through. Though the wind rushed and whipped the fragile walls, making the battered trailer creak and groan under the buffet, you never doubted your safety.

Leading you down the hall Eddie pulled open a draw, handing you some dry clothes and starting to change himself. You pulled on his warm, dry t-shirt breathing in its comforting smell. You took turns squeezing your water-logged hair over his bathroom sink, drying it carefully with a towel. Eddie pulled you into bed, finally able to wrap you in his arms and sleep soundly.

The window was cracked keeping the rain out but letting in the fresh, rejuvenating air in. You closed your eyes, Eddie’s warmth a comforting embrace. Raindrops plinked over the roof, gurgled along the ground, and dripped off of ledges, soothing and guiding you to sleep. Thunder rumbled a million miles away and lightning still flashed but you snuggled into Eddie’s chest, safe and sound from the storm.

***

Thank you so much for reading! Feedback and reblogs are always appreciated! I really hope you enjoyed it!

Masterlist

#eddie munson x reader fluff #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson fluff #eddie x reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x you #eddie x you #eddie x y/n #eddie munson drabble #amber writes

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beamattack · 1 year

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Hi omg i love your loz idea so so much they live in my head rent free for real!! I have a question tho; what happened to my girl hylia?? Like you said the faceless statue in the village might have crumbled or been destroyed somehow but is that the ONLY statue there is? Are there others? Are they also destroyed somehow? Has the whole concept of the godess hylia faded from hylian memory??

Also as someone who lives in the arctic sircle you got the vibes perfect btw!! Love the frozen wasteland it is my natural habitat ^_^

Thank you so much!! :^D I'm glad you like it, and that you like the vibes! I don't live in the arctic circle but i do live pretty close to it, so we usually get quite cold snowy winters as well!! I love snowy landscapes, they can be more beautiful & have more variety than many might think!!

As for if the concept of Hylia have disappeared from hylian memory - both yes & no! Just as with Din, Nayru & Farore, whose names have been lost to history and are now just known as ”The Three” or ”The Creators”, Hylia's name and visage has been forgotten & warped over time. The statue of the Faceless is the only one known by the villagers, so for them it's normal that that's just the way she looks. There are stories about both her and The Three that have survived and transformed over time - about how after The Three created the world, The Faceless brought down people from the heavens to live on it, and about how the Faceless herself battled an unspeakable evil but had to retreat to the heavens after she had sealed it away, as her wounds were severe. This period in Hyrule is almost exclusively reliant on oral tradition & retellings to tell history, so stories change naturally over time (only Zelda, Impa and a few others can read & write since it's important for the work they do! And no, Link can't 👍).

So in the end, it IS still Hylia that the villagers pray and ask for guidance to, even if it's by another name, but much about her have been forgotten and retold over many, many years.

There is one other statue of the Faceless that can be found out in the middle of nowhere, but just as the one in Link & Zelda's village, its face/head has been destroyed in some way. As for why both statues are like that, I like to keep that to everyone's own interpretations :^) If this really WAS a game there never would be an answer for it in-game either, haha!

(loz idea masterpost)

#ask #grey-misty-mornings #loz au #sorry for the wall of text….. i think a lot about the goddess statues and saw my chance to unleash my ramblings #thank you!!

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the-void-writes · 4 months

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Void! If you're taking prompts then from the kiss prompt could I get a "smiling/laughing into the kiss" for any pairing of your choice :0?

Oh hey, thank you so much! This was perfect for getting back into Micah and Adrien’s story. It’s just some fluff and worldbuilding for Bluebrook’s crazy landscapes, so I hope that’s okay.

Bluebrook - The Frosted Deer

The wasteland areas outside of Bluebrook’s borders had all been changed in different ways. Some were merely dry patches, still too deadly for anything to thrive in. Others had bonded perfectly with the chemicals released by the missiles that leveled the world, resulting in biomes far beyond Micah’s imagination.

Swamp-like foliage formed in regions far from a water source, flat stretches of road had risen into peaks and spikes, and all around, mutated animals wandered the land and picked at whatever food they could find. The thought of exploring these warped landscapes was a little frightening, but Micah was fascinated by this new world. It was the only one he truly knew, since losing his memories so long ago.

His favorite biome to explore was a valley not too far from the coastline. The gasses released from the missiles in that area had dropped the temperature to the point that everything was covered in ice, and no amount of defrosting could break it. The animals that inhabited this area were also affected by it, and had learned to live off of the ice.

The harsh temperature meant that few people could explore the area without the appropriate gear, or else their warm bodies would go into shock. Luckily, Micah’s powers had already lowered his body temperature significantly. He was made for the ice, as was the man who accompanied him.

Adrien crouched behind a crystallized bush, peering through his binoculars at some frosted deer in the distance. He would observe their behavior, giggling to himself, and then write something in his journal before watching them again. It was adorable, Micah thought, especially when his excited smile revealed his fangs. After a moment, Adrien passed the binoculars to him.

“The big one, in the back,” he whispered, “that’s the leader of the pack. Look at his horns.”

Micah looked through the lenses at the large group of deer. Their white coats shimmered in the sunlight as they ate from a small tree, crushing the icy leaves with their thick teeth, developed to break down the ice and reach the nutrients underneath. At the back of the group, a tall deer stared off into the distance. His neck ran well past the height of the tree, and his coat of fur was longer than the others. As Adrien had pointed out, his horns were different from the smaller white horns of the others. His were tall and grand, with slight reflections of blue and purple from the light.

“They’re pure ice,” Micah said.

“Precisely,” Adrien said. “They have been exposed to the air the longest, which means he is the eldest in the pack. Frosted deer always follow their elders.”

A smaller deer— a fawn, with a pure white coat— walked up and nudged the elder deer’s chest. The deer unhinged his jaw and bit down on a low branch, letting it fall to the ground. The fawn gnawed on the ice, breaking it slowly but steadily. Micah couldn’t help but laugh, but the sound got caught in his throat as the elder deer suddenly looked his way.

“Aidy?”

“It’s okay, mon cœur. Completely safe, I assure you. Just stay still.”

Adrien kept his arm around Micah’s shoulder, watching the deer as he stared them both down. Micah’s heart pounded, both at the fear of the steel-mouthed deer chasing them down, and at the contact of Adrien’s hand. His touch was the one thing that gave his body warmth.

After a while, the deer lowered his head back to the fawn. Micah released his breath, trying not to follow Adrien’s hand as it rose from his shoulder.

“There we go. Now, he knows we’re not here to disturb them.”

“How can you tell?” Micah asked.

“It’s animal behavior, dear. You start to pick up on things the longer you watch them.”

“I’d prefer to watch them when they’re not hungry.”

Adrien chuckled softly. “I just need to take some photos of them for the research team, and then we can go home.”

“Sounds good.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Even though the warmth of the heater was still dull on their skin, it felt much nicer than the air in the ice valley. Adrien was grabbing some wine from their fridge, while Micah stood at their bedroom dresser. He pulled his dark hair up and out of his eyes so he could see his reflection in the mirror. The scar that ran down his left eye and cheek stung a little, looking more pink against his brown skin.

It was a permanent reminder of the dangers of the wastelands, the creatures that lurked outside of Bluebrook. Perhaps that was why Micah was so weary of wildlife, even softer creatures like the deer. Anything could be deadly in this new world. Still, being able to see the pack up close was breathtaking.

A gentle hand traced his scar, drawing him out of his thoughts. Adrien was applying a warm cream to his face— medicine to help him heal. His ruby eyes sparkled more in the light, now that he wasn’t wearing his thick, tinted glasses. He only took them off around Micah, a fact that still made his heart skip.

“We should look into some eyewear for you, mon amor,” Adrien said. “I’m amazed that your contacts haven’t dried out.”

“That’s the beauty of your guys’ work.” Micah blinked a few times. “But now that you mention it, they are starting to burn a bit.”

“You could always get glasses, if you’d like.”

“I know, but… Something about it feels wrong.” He cleared his throat. “Not that they’re bad, of course. I just have these weird feelings about them.”

Adrien frowned. “I hope it’s not from any bad memories. If anyone bullied you for wearing glasses, I’d hunt them down.”

“Aww, I appreciate it. If I remember any bullies, I’ll let you know.”

“Très bien.”

Micah smiled and pulled him close for a kiss. Adrien ran his hands through as much of his hair as he could manage, trying to pull him closer. They were both laughing, unwilling to break apart just yet, no matter how their chests burned with a need for air. When it was finally too much for them, they stopped and pressed their heads together. It was a beautiful moment, just the two of them in a quiet embrace.

“I hope you’ll still join me for these expeditions,” Adrien said. “It’s nice to have some time away from the other doctors.”

“Oh yes, absolutely.” Micah took his hands. “All alone, out in the wilderness, with no one around to interrupt us…”

Adrien’s face grew as red as his eyes. “Micah— Don’t tease me like that.”

“You’ve thought about it, I know you have.”

“Please, just come drink with me, before I curl up in bed and die of embarrassment.”

Micah laughed and kissed his hand. “Alright, sorry. Drinks sound lovely.”

Adrien smiled softly and led him back into the living room, where they drank and talked for the rest of the night. Evenings like this, with a glass of wine and his partner in his arms, made Micah feel like the luckiest man in the world.

#writeblr #ask games #wip: bluebrook

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cool-ghoul · 13 days

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Are we lucky enough to hear about one of those OCs?

This one's a little against the premise, but I've got a pretty neat Legacy: Life Among The Ruins campaign going, tentatively named "Ragnarok Circlejerk", and I'll tell you the tale of my gal, a funky little critter named Yai-Isa-Nim.

I think she counts as a blorbo from my brain.

She's a nasty eldritch abomination called a Neth. The setting's post-apocalyptic and society ended as a result of an eldritch convergence humanity has interpreted as "Ragnarok", or simply the Fall. A horrible, branched entity-- the Wyrdtree breached into Earth, carrying with it a chaotic energy called Wyrd, which turned Earth into a nightmarish wasteland. Neth are mutated humans capable of thriving in the shattered landscape.

Their phenotype sorta looks like they've been hybridized with a reptile and some kind of eldritch insect-- resinous scales, prehensile tails, shining pink eyes with slit pupils, slime-dripping claws and digitgrade legs. They communicate with each other in clicks and trills.

Oh! They also purr.

Neth resemble no known animal, but instead are a kind of fully-realized genetic optimization project, a gestalt of numerous adaptations and runaway mutations. They can trace their origin to a genetic program run out of a Neo-Soviet gulag ,created in a prescient attempt to devise a labor force that would survive the coming Fall.

Horrifically, they succeeded: the Neth were left alone amid the chaos, and are now thriving: breeding teeming hives and lurking in the dark places beyond humanity's dwindling firelight.

Neth live underground in eusocial societies lead by a Tyrant-- Tyrants command the drudges, control the incubators and produce pheromones that give them some enhanced sway over other Neth. It's not quite mind control, more an animal magnetism that has to be accompanied with savvy rulership. Neth will rebel against an incompetent Tyrant, as we'll see with Yai.

Tyrants war with each other, and atrocity is a way of life-- cannibalism, slavery, and zero-sum wars of extermination are everyday occurrences. That said, the cruelty's not inborn but learned: the Neth are simply iterating on the brutal life their ancestors lived in the gulag.

While Neth have all the equipment to make babies the old fashioned way, they almost exclusively reproduce via incubation pods which turn humans into Neth, and dead matter into symbiotic "drudges", adorable little bipedal isopod-lookin fuckers, which I describe as "meat pikmin". Drudges work alongside the Neth as drones, sorta filling the slot of work animals.

For this reason, they make a habit of capturing humans (living or dead) to replenish their numbers, making them rightfully feared as enemies of civilization.

They're no drones, though: Neth all have their own personalities, and enjoy expressing their individuality and interior lives. They compulsively create art like humans do, and are particularly handy with their resin, and your average Neth is seen replete with charms, jewelry, and sculpted chitin, either homemade or sourced from skilled artisans, who're prized amongst the hive.

All that said, we can now understand our girl Yai:

Yai's a rebel tyrant, leading the newborn "Nim Hive". She staged an insurrection with her peers, and scored some royal jelly-- a genekit that promotes a garden-variety Neth to a Tyrant. Thus enhanced, she gathered her followers and drudges and bolted to found a new home.

Yai is, by Neth standards, a bleeding-heart. She likes humans, and rejects the policies of forced capture and enslavement that are common among her peers. Still, she is a Neth, and sees humans as squishy, weak, and unaccustomed to the wasteland. They're stubborn, using dated tech they plunder from the ruins, encase themselves in unreliable suits, and repeat the mistakes of the past in an attempt to cling to a way of life that has already failed.

To Yai, the logical thing would be to convert as many people as she can into Neth so they can prosper and survive in this new, strange world, but most humans aren't into it. This is where the other Tyrants would start capturing, reeducating, and converting any hominid they can catch, but since Yai's a softie, she's instead attempting to slowly forge bonds with humanity, understand their ways of living, and use Neth power to protect them.

In-game, the Neth are just one family at the table: Her bridge to connect with humanity is another player's family: a gang of kids who play a "game" that has some arcane connection to the beasts of Ragnarok, something the Isa Hive interprets as proof that humanity can adapt mentally, and adopt new techniques to exist within the wasteland, while the kids think the Neth are kinda cute and helpful. What kid doesn't want a monster pal?

These two factions exist alongside a company of the defunct Red Army, some raiders worshipping a lycanthropic mutant goddess-- a fork of the same mutagenic force that created the Neth, and the Concern, a secretive society of transnational black-ops who foretold the Fall, but were unable to stop it-- think XCOM crossed with the SCP organization. They also had a hand in making the Neth.

The factions are getting along pretty well right now-- trying to stop some bandits who fucked up a rite that called an eldritch entity, Kvasir, to bless them with sorcery. His "intoxicating blood" is presently polluting the fuck out of the homeland. Stay tuned to see how they handle that.

#my writing #Ragnarok Circlejerk #Thanks friendo~!

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ask-the-phox-gang · 11 hours

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[]^[] < Question relating to [(=)413/(=)612]: []^[] < What do each of the lands look like visually?

non formatted version:

[]^[] < Question relating to [(=)413/(=)612]: []^[] < What do each of the lands look like visually?

It'll probably take me a while to edit together pictures of all the lands, so instead I'll describe them in text before I do so, as well as to give myself something to work off of.

Alopex's land is the Land of Xanthic Paint and Eels. The name was specifically chosen to be an anagram, and bears no connection to Alopex's Time aspect. (LoXPaE -> aLoPEX) "Xanthic" means yellow, so this planet, ironically for a Fire type, is covered in lakes of yellow paint. The eponymous eels have adapted to their new habitat, and are the consorts of the planet. As the Time player of the session, Alopex's planet also houses the Scratch Construct: a really fuck-huge sundial located exactly at the center of the largest lake on the planet. Alopex's denizen is Dialga.

Gelphox's land is the Land of Prisms and Frogs. All Space players get a Land of (something) and Frogs, save for Calliope, who never got a planet because of Caliborn. The planet's surface is a huge swamp, with mud that's about knee-deep (waist deep for Gelphox, because he has short legs). All across the planet are tall, triangular prisms that reflect and refract the light of Skaia, focusing it into a network of beams that surround the planet. The consorts of the planet are gelatinous cubes that have an unusual hobby of plugging themselves into the ground and pretending to be prisms themselves. The Forge on LOPAF is a geyser, with the biggest prism of them all plugging it up. Dialga's power is the only way to shatter the prism and allow the Forge to be used to launch the Genesis Frog. (Genesis Froakie?) Gelphox's denizen is Palkia.

Cirrus's land is the Land of Bridges and Downdrafts. You know how whenever a pet dies, we say it "crossed the rainbow bridge?" And how in Norse mythology, there's a rainbow bridge connecting Earth and Asgard? That's what the bridges on LOBAD are. The terrain on LOBAD is covered in mountains and rivers, with rainbow bridges crossing over the rivers, ascending to the peaks of the mountains. Due to an unusual quirk regarding the composition of the atmosphere, the sky always seems dusky, yet Skaian light reflected off of the meteors in the Veil is able to pass through, giving it a sky that looks almost perpetually covered in a band of stars. Aurorae are common on LOBAD and often cover the entire planet, rather than just the poles. Another quirk of the atmosphere is that atmospheric pressure fluctuates far more than normal, causing powerful vertical downdrafts to form often. Despite the sky being mostly dark, the ground is lit up by the faint glow of the hitodama consorts that pepper the landscape, growing more plentiful as one approaches the peak of the tallest mountain, where Cirrus's quest bed stands. Their denizen is Miraidon.

Kasi and Akesi are kind of an interesting case, due to their dual nature. They have two separate dream selves, Kasi being on Prospit and Akesi on Derse, yet both of them share a single planet: the Land of Berries and Vitriol. The planet itself seems almost like two planets that got smashed together, with its equator cleanly dividing the two halves. The northern hemisphere of LOBAV is a densely wooded area, packed to the brim with acres upon acres of fruit trees as far as the eye can see. The southern hemisphere, on the other hand, is a desolate, almost hellish wasteland, with the ground cracked and barren due to the toxic vitriol that trickles through the earth instead of groundwater. The poles of the planet host two separate quest beds: Kasi's on the north pole, and Akesi's on the south. The planet also notably has two denizens: Xerneas is Kasi's denizen, while Koraidon is Akesi's denizen.

Topaz is... surprisingly not a Rage player, although I might retcon her to be one. Her planet is the Land of Veins and Foresight. The "veins" refer to crystal veins that run through the planet's crust, poking out sporadically. The planet has been subject to mining operations by the consorts, and as such, it's also criss-crossed by a vast, elaborate network of mining tunnels, leading ever deeper into the planet's depths. On the surface, the sky is polluted and yellow, like that of Venus, but one can find their way through these tunnels by using the psychic trails that snake their way through the tunnels, all leading back to the denizen of the planet: Lugia.

Lastly, Clarion. Her planet is the Land of Brine and Ophanim. The planet itself is surrounded by five rings evocative of its namesake angel. It's a planet entirely covered in water, although land-dwelling players visiting get a bubble around their bodies to prevent them from drowning. The cities of the planet are populated by the consorts, the titular ophanim, who have designed them with alien geometries that only they can comprehend. In the palace of the largest of these cities lives the denizen, Zekrom.

#professor alopex #gelphox #cirrus #kasi and akesi #topaz #clarion #homestuck #ask #the whole gang

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ranahan · 14 days

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Dral’Han & derived words

I think Mando’a should have a whole bunch of words indirectly or directly derived from Dral’Han aka the Mandalorian Excision, and I finally got around to making some.

Ahan (n): desolation, waste, wasteland, desert

I’m really leaning on the “desolate, lifeless” sense here, not just some place that receives less rainfall. Ahane is applicable to any lifeless place, whether that’s a hot desert like Tatooine, a cold desert like Antarctica, lava flats like Mustafar, or a man-made hellhole like Melida/Daan. Very much the same energy as “wastes” in English. I’m thinking Mando’a has another word for “wilderness” or “arid landscape” as well, that leans more on the drought and less on the annihilation.

Construction is equivalent to viin ‘run’ > iviin ‘speed’ or vaar ‘early’ > evaar ‘new’. Should possibly be ehan(?), but I didn’t like the sound, so.

Ahanyc (a): desolate, barren, wasted, deserted, empty, lifeless

Ahane (n): lit. wastes, barrens, deserts. A collective term for the Mandalorian deserts formed by the Dral’Han.

Hane (n): wastes, barrens, deserts; a common part of place names on Mandalorian worlds affected by Dral'Han (e.g. Sundar’hane, the Sundari Desert aka the Sundari Wastes)

A more casual/contracted version of ahan/ahane that could be extended to mean other kinds of deserts as well.

Ahan’choruk (n): lit. desolation rock. Metamorphic rock formed by the heat and pressure of the bombs of the Dral’Han; a general term for impactites formed by bombs instead of natural processes.

Hanil (n): 1. An amulet, carving, or other item made from the glass formed in the Dral’Han. Sometimes left in their natural, irregular shapes, sometimes worked into shapes of extinct Mandalorian plants and animals, sometimes carved with inscriptions. Botanicals are common motifs due to the green colours of the material. Specimens that incorporate pieces of pre-Dral’Han material are especially valuable. Hanile are symbols of remembrance, defiance, and rebirth for some and pursuit of peace for others. Sundari had a famous large mosaic made from desert glass, in a style preceding Mandalorian cubism.; 2. a sigil in the shape of a hanil, typically in a jade-green color and shaped like an extinct plant or an animal, often a flower or a leaf.

Inspired by Māori pounamu and jade carvings of various other cultures.

N.B. trinitite is radioactive, although the radioactive particles decay quite fast. After a couple of centuries, it should have been safe. Trinitite from the Purge of Mandalore during the Galactic Emprie however, would still be somewhat radioactive at the time of The Mandalorian/Book of Boba Fett—not terribly dangerous, but not exactly something you would want to make jewellery from.

And then there should also be a name for the stone that hanile are made from, i.e. basically a Mando’a word for trinitite, but it’s not quite congealing right now. Bedral, behan, hanab (be + han), tehan (teh + han)? I would have made it dralurok, but I already had that down as “diamond”. Basically I’d like there to be a general term for the subclass of metamorphic rocks formed by nuclear weapons (which I imagine are many and varied depending on where the bombs dropped), and a more compact “trade term” for the specific kind which makes pretty trinkets like hanile.

? (n): trinitite formed in the Dral'han, aka Mandalorian desert glass, aka Mandalorian jade (called so after its greenish colours)

#mando’a #mandoa #meta: mandalorians #mandalorian culture #mando’a language #mandalorians #mando'a #conlang #ranah talks mando’a #mando’a extended dictionary #mando’a words

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honourablejester · 11 months

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Thoughts on Starfinder’s Pact Worlds Setting

So I went back and bought the Pact Worlds sourcebook as well, because the hints of the setting from the Core Rulebook were intriguing. I have not regretted it. There is an awful lot of fun stuff in here. I’m only partway through, but some thoughts so far:

The Sun is fucking cool. Even just the option that the sun is an interactable location in the system is fantastic. The Burning Archipelago is such a cool setting element and idea. I love Verdeon so much, this bubble city given over to horticulture and pleasure gardens in the surface of a star. A giant greenhouse with floating planting platforms, some angled straight into the sun’s burning light for extreme heat-thriving plants, and others angled outward into space for more shade-loving plants. Beautiful pleasure gardens, again, hanging inside a star. It’s fantastic.

Also, continuing the theme of solar horticulture, the NatuReal corporation with its orbital jungle boxes full of plant monsters and incredibly well-protected corporate HQ-slash-company-town in Fireside would make a great villain for an adventure. Investigating the oopsies in the jungle boxes and trying to figure out if there’s a more sinister pattern underlying what’s going dark (or a PC/NPC character who survived one of the ‘going dark’ incidents and wants revenge-slash-answers) could wind up with a party trying to do a heist on a fortified corporate HQ inside a fucking bubble city floating in the sun. Which, let’s be real, would be fun.

(If this has shown up already in an adventure, feel free to tell me!)

Verces is also really fucking cool. It’s not the planet I thought would be as cool as it is, but there’s a lot to work with on Verces. The whole tidally-locked thing, and the wildly diverse landscapes and timescapes that enables, are amazing. The perpetually night Darkside and the viciously sun-seared Fullbright, with the full cyberpunk equator-spanning city-belt in the middle, are a spectacular way to get a lot things going on on the same world. You’ve got full on (genuine, entirely literal) Mad Max, Warlords of Barsoom going on in one corner, cyberpunk terrorist shenanigans in the middle, and then John Carpenter’s The Thing on the other.

My horror-loving heart probably does love the Darkside best, naturally. This frozen evernight wasteland of ice and blood. The artificial lights of mining rigs and industrial platforms looming out of the ice and the darkness. The horrific creatures out on the ice who’ll bind you alive inside their bodies and slowly drain you of blood while you still live. The fucking cenobite monastery of terrifying ascetics who let frostbite eat their limbs so that they can be wired directly and bodily into starship drive systems. Verces’ Darkside is less Hoth, and more The Thing meets Event Horizon meets Hellraiser meets Chronicles of Riddick. I’m vibrating. It’s incredible.

(Sidenote: I’m not sure on the timing here, but is it possible the Starfinder writers were taking some notes from Sunless Sea/Skies? There’s a couple of things on Verces that give me definite Unterzee vibes. Lempro and the intis in particular give me Whither/Codex vibes. There’s a lot of influences apparent in Starfinder, I’m catching pieces of so many of my favourite sci-fi/horror/fantasy canons, so I’m just idly wondering)

The Diaspora may well be my favourite of all the Pact Worlds. If you want space. That full kind of working-class SF, roguish SF, asteroid miners and smugglers flying junkers and the wrecks of derelict starships, the Diaspora is for you. The Expanse, Alien, Event Horizon. Godfall from Sunless Sea. The Millennium Falcon accidentally hiding inside the maw of an asteroid worm. Magnetic Rose. Captain Harlock/Queen Emeraldas. If you want to find strange objects and eldritch mysteries floating silently in space. If you want space pirate outpost-cities hidden in asteroids. If you want starship nomads on mobile trade and repair outposts servicing miners and outlaws. If you want vast mining facilities hanging gently in space. If you want underground slave-liberation movements hiding in the ‘mountains’ (asteroids) away from civilisation. If you want vast ship’s graveyards inexplicably bundled around innocuous points in space. The Diaspora has it all. It’s incredible. I would play a whole game that was just dootling around the Diaspora doing odd jobs and stumbling into horrifying mysteries. If Paizo ever wanted to make a Starfinder video game, set it here. I will play it.

Within the Diaspora, The Hum is so fucking good. Look. Vast fields of wrecked and disabled ships orbiting around a weird anomaly in space that makes them lethal to go near is a trope, it’s a fucking good trope, I love it a whole hell of a lot. A madness inducing anomaly that pulls people in and makes it near-impossible to escape is a fantastic mystery to just put there. Can you do anything with it? Maybe not, not survivably, but it’s an excellent thing to just have be there, a known weirdness and danger to shipping, a piece of the lore of a place.

I also really, really love the Farabarrium. A ratfolk trade and salvage barge made from a salvaged warship that they just took over, there’s vibes of Star Wars Legends in there, but also just … Ysoki are one of my favourite races, and them just operating a stolen/salvaged mobile garage/gas station out of a repurposed dead warship in this backwater area of space does something happy for me.

The fact that the Diaspora has significant quantities of ysoki, dwarves and sarcesians, three species that are rapidly coming to be my favourites, also does not hurt its place in my internal rankings. There’s a lot of just good stuff in the Diaspora. Mystic rivers that flow inexplicably through space. Rat-run flying petrol stations. Vacuum-capable player races with solar wings. Monasteries that are not-so-secretly worshipping Nyarlathotep. Strange wailing insane asylums/prisons that drive people insane and may involve the King in Yellow. Dwarven asteroid-cities. Robot liberation movements. The Diaspora is such a perfect intersection of so many things I like. It wins. It has to win.

But I still have six planets to go, so maybe we’ll see. Heh. This is a very fun setting. Also, I suspect I may be showing my tastes in fiction over here.

#starfinder #ttrpgs #worldbuilding #science fiction #science fantasy #science horror #many references to canons i have loved #the sun verces and the diaspora come out on top so far #aballon is also cool though #let's see what's left

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