#read again

[thecatchat]

Wait, I just thought of the best concept for an alternate version of Mysterio in a fantasy setting.

Mysterio's whole thing is illusions and pretending to be a magic user summoning and doing spells using special effects. The obvious thing to do in a fantasy setting is make him an actual magic user and have him do real spells. But that takes away the whole point of Mysterio, he's presenting himself as something he's not to intimidate and bluff his way into and out of situations.

So I had an amazing light bulb moment.

What if he is a magic user, even a fantastical creature of some kind with wings, but as Mysterio, he presents himself as a mad scientist/engineer but all his "inventions" are cleverly disguised magic. He adds some kind of reflecting/glowing pattern to his wings and calls it "fiber mesh". In a lot of fantasy settings, silver is considered a weakness of many supernatural entities, so a sleek silvery/steel look would probably be intimidating and unnatural, especially if this is the type of fantasy setting that doesn't have knights. He rests his wings to hook on his shoulders so it looks like a cape and only extends them when he needs to fly away with his "jet pack" and uses a spell or something to launch himself without flapping his wings!

I kinda wanna do a drawing of him, any suggestions? Ideas? Comments?

[blabbershere]

Light the flame in your belly, get hungry for it. Face it straight and smile through it all. You can shed those tears once you reach the top.

— Ruth Winters / Flame

[thecatchat]

@thebadchoicemachine

Fuck It, Internet Guide

Hey there! As social media becomes more and more inhospitible for the local user, I wanted to post some useful/fun links to just about anything I can think of! Enjoy! Also, if you'd like an invite to the P!rated Games discord, lmk! ^_^

I AM CURRENTLY STILL UPDATING THIS POST AND I WILL REBLOG IT WHEN I ADD TO IT! Feel free to comment things I've missed, I'm sure there's way more than this came from!

WEB CENTRIC

CURLIE: THE COLLECTOR OF URLs (Curlie strives to be the largest human-edited directory of the Web. You can save sites and create your own mini webring!)

Internet Archive (A collection of over 818 Billion websites, books, movies, music, and more. Hosts the Wayback Machine, which can be used to access a multitude of sites, given they were indexed in time.)

Wiby (Human submission search engine for older webrings, as well as a how-to guide on how to develop your own search engine)

Unicode Text Converter (Easy way to make your text illegible to Google but be warned, it will make screen readers malfuction)

Embed Responsively (Easily convert links and embeds to work responsively within your site - perfect for neocities!)

Generator Land (Generate a list or prompt for just about anything!)

GifCities (Part of the Internet Archive, a special project done as part of the 20th anniversary in an effort to save data from GeoCities. Find a gif for just about anything!)

Animated Images (Another gif repository, though this one is easier to search and includes small animations.)

Gifs-Paradise (Another gif repository. I swear I collect these. Searchable and categorized.)

ASCII Art Archive (Database of ASCII Art, also known as text art)

Christopher Johnson's ASCII Art Collection (Another, arguably larger, ASCII Art database)

MelonLand (A web project and online arts community that celebrates homepages, virtual worlds, the world-wide-web and the digital lives that all netizins share, here at the dawn of the digital age. See their thoughts and the WEB REVIVAL they're starting.)

Sadgrl Webrings (Webrings brought to us by Sadgrl.Online - 60+ different ones to be exact) and Sadgrl Links (70+ links just like the ones in this post)

Districts at Neocities (Remember neighborhoods on Geocities? Imagine that but for Neocities!)

Neocities Banners (Banners from all across neocities. Blinkies, banners and more leading all over the web. Mostly 88x31, though there are bigger ones too. Technically counts as a webring.)

Blinkies.cafe (Site for blinkies where you can even make your own! I get most of my blinkies here and off DeviantArt.)

88x31 Collection (Possibly the largest collection I've seen for 88x31 buttons)

90's Cursor Effects (Want a funky cursor for your blog or website? Wanna be able to realtime preview what cursors would look like? Come get some code!)

The Malware Museum (Interact with malware and viruses from the 80s and 90s through emulation! No nasty virus interactions needed :D )

KNOWLEDGE BASES

Library Genesis - LIBGEN (Scientific journals - dedicated to archiving every science journal and their articles in existence.)

Information Mesh (A web platform celebrating the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web that explores social, technical, cultural and legal facts throughout different interactive timelines.)

Web Design Museum (Over 2,000 sorted websites showing web design trends from '96 to '06.)

The History of the Web (A twice monthly newsletter about web history, and the incredible people that built it. Goes from 1989 to present.)

Field Guide to Web Accessibility (Principles and applications to every day web scenarios in order to make the web a more friendly place!)

CARI - Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute (an online community and collective association of researchers and designers dedicated to carrying on the important work of categorizing "consumer aesthetics" from the late midcentury, when work on the subject somewhat trailed off, through today.)

The Eye (Archive consisting of 140TB of books, websites, games, software, or anything else you can really think of.)

The Uncensored Library (A project from Reporters without Borders, where they use a loophole using Minecraft to distribute information.)

National Gallery of Art Public Domain (The National Gallery of Art has an open access policy for images of works of art in their permanent collection which the Gallery believes to be in the public domain. Images of these works are available for download free of charge for any use, whether commercial or non-commercial.)

Library of Congress Public Domain (Features items from the Library's digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use.)

Public Domain Review (an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas.)

New York Public Library Public Domain (Our digitized collections are available as machine-readable data: over one million records for you to search, crawl and compute.)

Official articles from NASA (PubSpace is NASA's designated public access repository. It is a collection of NASA-funded scholarly publications within the STI Repository, aiming to increase access to federally funded research in accordance with NASA Public Access Policy.)

Universal Hint System (Wanna get some vague help for an older video game without getting spoiled? Check out these awesome hints!)

Smithsonian Open Access (Download, share, and reuse millions of 2D and 3D digital items from their 21 museums, 9 research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.)

Instructables (Wanna know how to make just about anything? Check here!)

QZAP Zine Archive (Archive of LGBT+ Zines, began in 2003 with zines dating back all the way to the 1970s. NSFW AT TIMES, BROWSE AT YOUR OWN RISK.)

P!racy Masterpost (Tumblr-based masterpost of game piracy, last updated 2021. A bit old but some of the stuff there is still good. If this link breaks, please contact me.)

P!rated Games Megathread (masterpost created by r/P!ratedGames includes required components as well as anything else you need. NOTE: PLEASE HAVE SOME SORT OF PROTECTION WHEN NAVIGATING THIS SITE)

Geocities Gallery (A website hosting a working archive for many abandoned Geocities Sites.)

Snipplr (Code Snippet repository. Great for coding issues.)

GeoCities (Archived) (Great for searching ancient webrings for gifs and website ideas. Not so great for downloads.)

Freeware Guide (Archived) (The Freeware-Guide died sometime in 2021 [we think March] but it's still full of VERY valuable information. Links are broken pretty much all the way through, but the names of software as well as what they do can be useful in finding them elsewhere thru some google searching)

Peelopaalu (Where I got a good handful of these links - AND THERE'S MORE!!!)

The Simple Site (More links to so much more cool stuff!)

ART TOOLS

Untitled - Paint (An in-browser version of classic Microsoft Paint!)

KidPix (In-browser version of classic KidPix for the public domain!)

Pixel Logic - A Guide to Pixel Art (Comprehensive guide to making cool art for $10 USD, updated semi-frequently and you get all new versions for free)

SAI - Bootlegged (A version of SAI with a multitude of brushes and textures pre-installed. Quite literally the only thing I use to draw aside from Clip Studio Paint.)

Stripe Generator (Need some easy stripes for an art piece? Can't be bothered to try and space stripes evenly? This is for you!)

Photopea (Free online photo editor supporting files for Adobe Photoshop, XCF, Sketch App, Adobe XD, and CorelDRAW, as well as many more!)

blender (A FOREVER free and Open Source software for 3D Modeling, full of tutorials and assets. I feel like most people don't know it's completely free to play with)

Vertex Meadow (A web-browser tool that renders 2D images as explorable 3D terrain. With it you can create detailed and unusual 3D environments to explore using a 2D paint-program-like interface.)

OpenGameArt (Need art for your game but you're not an artist? Consider checking here first [or just hire a real artist looking for work on here!])

MUSIC TOOLS AND DISCOVERY

BandLab (Social music platform that enables creators to make music and share their creative process with musicians and fans. Completely free with an option to set up stripe where you get 100% OF PROFITS. Available for apple/android/desktop)

JummBox (Free online beat-maker with a very simple interface that runs on your browser)

Mydora (Mydora is a continuous streaming player that gives you a deep dive into the lost archives of Myspace Music, based on some recovered data called the Dragon Hoard, with some additional metadata (most notably the locations and genres) from a different scan of Myspace conducted back in 2009. Contains 490,000+ songs, only a fraction of what was wiped out.)

Radiooooo (A place where people are able to play hit songs from the decade of their choosing from whatever country they wish.)

WFMU (Independent freeform radio broadcasting. Currently ongoing.)

Gnoosic (A sort-of music search engine that finds you songs/bands based off of your music taste.)

Khinsider (3.1 TB worth of video game soundtracks)

Radio.garden (Listen to thousands of radio stations all around the world.)

FUN STUFF

FrogLand (The purpose of Frogland is to show that the Internet can indeed provide a wealth of useful information and still be fun. Mainly, this site is dedicated to the many teachers out there who are finding new uses for the Internet as a tool for educating youngsters. Hopefully, it will inspire some young minds to find new interest in herpetology, biology, and environmental issues...not to mention providing some inspiration for young future computer "wizzes"! No longer active but still useful.)

Windows 98 icon Viewer (Want clear jpgs of all the Windows 98 symbols and icons? They're all here!)

GifyPet (Create your own embeded pet that people can play with and feed when they visit your page! See my version HERE [only works on desktop tho])

Ultimate Mushroom (Like the idea of picking mushrooms in your area but no idea what to look for? Check out this info hub!)

Gif Gallery (Another gif repositiory, only sorted by being numbered 1-100,000. Fun and silly, not so much useful unless you're looking for random gifs. Part of the MelonLand Webring)

Interesting DOS Programs (A host of DOS programming, guides and links.)

Internet Archive: MS-DOS Games (8,000 games right in your web browser! Your browser can play DOOM!)

Tiled Backgrounds (Need some small jpegs for easy website bg tiling? Browse this collection sorted by color.)

cOOl & EMO tEXt cOnVERTer xXX (Flashing warning. Wanna type like you're in the 2000s? Need a funny Green Day lyric as a caption? This is probably the best place for you.)

0x40 (Flashing Warning. Anime images synced with music. Fun for parties, lol)

WebGL Fluid Simulation (In browser fluid simulator, great for art backgrounds and desktop wallpapers.)

Flashpoint (The biggest collection of preserved Flash Games and Animations)

NCase (Free games and open source projects from Nicky [THESE ARE REALLY COOL AND FUN, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND])

Your World of Text (A huge interactive text doc that anyone can add to anonymously.)

Text To Speech (TTS in more than 30 languages and over 180 voices.)

ASCII Art Generator (Make ASCII Art from any image.)

Petit Tube (Random Youtube videos with less than 10 views)

Noclip Website (Noclip around various video game maps in your browser!)

Monster Mash (Create and animate some monsters in browser! You can also download their files.)

[thecatchat]

Blurry. Delete. Blurry. Delete. Hmm. Crop. Nope, delete. Too zoomed in. Delete. Blurry, again. Delete. Delete. Delete.

Jed continued flicking through his camera roll at his latest subject. Meg Thomas. A track and field upstart who passed on a full-ride scholarship to take care of her ailing mother, worked at the local library full time, and was cursed to end up blurry in nine out of ten photos taken of her.

Maybe he was exaggerating. He rapidly deleted another three photos in a row, eye twitching in frustration. Maybe he wasn't exaggerating. He had never had as much bad luck with motion blur as he did with Meg. Even when photographing his own kills, people struggling, thrashing, and fighting for their lives, he didn't get this many blurry photos.

-----

BEHOLD THE JEDMEG FIC!!! PART 1!!!!

@slashthrashandcrash @unnamed-blob

[thecatchat]

@slashthrashandcrash @unnamed-blob

THE FINAL CHAPTER IS RELEASED!!!!!

Shorter than last chapter, at just over 2,300 words! I'm so proud of myself for finishing a multi-chapter fic for the first time! Kudos to both of you for inspiring it!

[thecatchat]

There's a lot of ways to play around with two Vultures.

Vulture Sr. Vulture Jr.

Genetic Experiment or Tech Suit. First or second in origin order.

Personally, I like the idea best of First Genetic Vulture Jr and Second Tech Suit Vulture Sr.

Just, Vulture Jr. being obsessed with birds and flying and having an emo look (mowhawk of hair with saved sides that covers one eye, does that make sense?). Loves science, mostly anything to do with bird or the sky. They have a special place in their heart for vultures, since their uncle goes by that nickname since he kinda resembles one.

With the rise of super crime, Vulture Jr gets identified as a good candidate for experimentation: basically no friends, has done petty crime before, and willing to do anything to fly. Jr. Thinks they're signing up to be a pilot or something. Definitely a tester of sorts. There was an NDA thing or whatever that says they can't talk about it but they absolutely have to tell their favorite uncle all about this! They even drew up a design for a personal flight device inspired by vultures! It's probably not what they're signing up for, but it looks cool!

So, the experiment happened and the people in charge were kinda banking on Jr. Having told no one and having no one to turn to, even if they did escape. Which Jr did like immediately. And went straight to her favorite uncle.

So now Sr. Has a giant bird for a family member... yah he's going to call up some old college friends. Otto, perhaps? Maybe even acquaintance-before-accident-but-havent-seen-since Electro?

Regardless, Sr. Can tell that Jr. Wants revenge on the people who did this, who tricked them and almost caged them too. And he's hardly letting a teenager go up against mobsters and criminals by themselves. So personal flying suit it is.

For reference, I'm basically imagining TSSM Vulture as Sr. And USM Vulture as Jr. For style and powers, but it could be played around with. Like, I'm imagining Jr's. Mohawk stands straight up in bird form, like those crested cockatoo's. Is it entirely animal accurate? No. Is it fun? Yes.

[heartbreakincident]

nothing but respect for our troops (smut writers) but listen. i dont want to be the person to tell you this, but not every character is going to be a dom or a sub. some people. and i know this is hard to hear. but some people do have vanilla sex. and some of those people might even be The Character.

[thecatchat]

He doesn't quite plan the date so much as it falls into his lap.

A week later, the other photographer at his work takes time off after their dad dies. From lung cancer. Not from Jed, he'd only ever seen the man once in passing at a company party. The man had left for five smoke breaks in only two hours so it wasn't a real shocker to hear. Unfortunately, that left him to take the nature photos for the third tourist luring fluff piece this month.

Not that he was opposed to tourist pieces. The opposite, really. His little killing spree wasn't the best for local businesses, even if he never really understood why it made tourists so afraid. He was a stalker! He stalked people who lived in the towns he killed in. Tourists were the safest people in town! He truly couldn't see why no one else had put that together yet.

Instead, they churned out fluff pieces. Like this one.

-------

CHAPTER 2 IS OUT!!!!!!

@slashthrashandcrash @unnamed-blob behold! It's over 3,500 words long!

[thecatchat]

@thebadchoicemachine

Amazing dnd story!

losing my mind at this amazing story from r/dndmemes some people’s dnd adventures are just. So Fucking Cool

here’s the link and the story, it’s Amazing

[amartworks]

had a fun experience on the subway the other day

[thecatchat]

The Creation of Quarry

In the beginning, there was nothing. A nothingness so complete that there was no light or darkness. Only nothing.

Then there were two somethings.

Two gods, a dragon and a mask, came into existence. They did not know of each other at first as there was nothing else. Not until the dragon took their first breath, creating sound.

The mask was curious about what made that sound and created light to illuminate the nothing. The dragon, overwhelmed by the sudden brightness, created shadows so they could shield their eyes of it and dim the light.

The two gods finally saw each other and introduced themselves.

"I am The Maker," said the dragon.

"I am The Muse," said the mask.

The Muse quickly got bored with the nothing surrounding them, and lamented to their companion about it.

"Let us make something to fill it." The Maker replied. "I will fill it below us and you can fill it above us. Then we will have something."

And so The Muse put the source of all light directly above the two, to allow them to see when they worked. They created the first color, blue, and put it everywhere above, creating the sky. To fill in the space, they added clouds.

The Maker created the ground, made of black stone called obsidian. Deciding the ground was much too hard for them to rest on, they created white dirt to rest on.

They came back together and talked. For seven days and seven nights, the two shared ideas for their new world: colors, day and night, plants, animals, and more.

They created it all.

After some time, The Maker decided to add a touch of purple to their scales. They added it easily to the underside of their body but found they could not reach their back or wings. Feeling foolish, they created a cave and hid from The Muse. For thirty days and thirty nights, they hid away from their companion, who searched tirelessly with increasing worry.

Finally, The Muse found the entrance to the cave.

"Do not come in," warned The Maker, "or I shall hurt you."

"Okay." Replied The Muse, who reached up into the night sky and created the moon. The moons light shined into the cave, revealing The Makers half colored form.

The Muse almost made fun of The Maker for their predicament, but they realized that was exactly the reason why The Maker had hid away from them.

"Would you like help finishing your scales?" They asked instead.

The Maker accepted.

The Muse added purple in beautiful patterns all along The Makers back and wings. In full, the complete art was so beautiful and soul touching that just seeing the edges of it on their wings had The Maker cry from the overwhelming beauty of it. They cried so hard and for so long, it created the oceans.

In thanks, The Maker decided to create a body for The Muse, as The Muse was only a mask. They created a headless humanoid body as the base. They added countless arms so that The Muse may have an easier time creating their ideas. The final touch was a long flowing white cloak, a blank slate to be added to by The Muse, so they may note down or sketch their ideas before creating them.

The Muse was touched and inspired in equal measure by the gift. They created life called Actors in the image of the body they had been gifted. They became the favorite creation of both the gods. The Maker enjoyed watching the plays that The Muse would have the Actors put on, sometimes going on for centuries. They would lay just inside a cave at the top of the tallest point in the world and watch the stories play out.

One day, The Muse had one of their Actors go up to speak directly to The Maker. It was a long and dangerous climb, but the Actor eventually made it to the top. As they looked upon The Maker, they glimpsed the patterns in the glimmer of the scales. Instantly, the Actor gained free will and went off script by dying from fright.

The gods were confused and intrigued in equal measure by this. The Maker leaned in close and gently breathed upon the body. It revived the Actor and created the first soul.

The Actor, frightened and filled with knowledge that it could not understand, pleaded with the gods for its life.

The Muse was initially upset at this change in script. Until they realized that the Actors could create their own plays and inventions. Maybe even things that The Muse would have never imagined.

So The Muse declared that all should look upon The Maker and receive a soul, so that all Actors could think and create. The Maker asked them if that was a wise thing to do. The Muse reassured them that it was a great idea.

This Actor, first given soul and thought, became the first worshiper of the two gods. They spent the rest of their life spreading word of them, bringing people to them, and worshiping them. They created paintings of the gods image, wrote plays about the stories that the gods shared with them, and prayed to them both every night and day.

As free will and souls spread, The Maker and The Muse noticed changes in themselves. They could feel the power given to them by worship. Hear the prayers whispered by all those that prayed. It fed them and in turn made them grow in power.

This went on for a long, long time.

The area around The Makers cave became a sprawling metropolis, filled with all that would worship the gods. Plays would be put on in front of the cave every day for The Maker to witness. In turn, The Maker would give them knowledge on how to make things better as more and more Actors were born.

The Muse, on the other hand, would go out and see their creations everywhere that they went. Answering prayers that caught their eye or amused them. Sometimes taking the form of an Actor and experiencing life among them. Spreading tales of their own life and of their fellow god, The Maker.

The two slowly spent less time together. First a week. Then a month. Then a year. On and on it went, until the two had not seen each other in many centuries.

The amount of power given by worship was unfathomable in its levels. The Muse used this power to move around and grant prayers. The Maker sat and watched and gathered power without ever stepping out of their cave, causing them to grow with it. They had grown so much, they they could not leave the cave through the entrance, only able to stick out their head and watch the plays being put on for them.

The power, running out of room to grow the god, started to grow a new one.

The Maker suddenly felt hungry and requested that they be given fruit. The Actors brought carts upon carts of fruit to be eaten. The line is said to have stretched to the edge of the city miles away. The Makers teeth were said to become stained in bright colors from the amount of fruit eaten.

But they were still hungry.

The Maker requested that they be given meat. The Actors brought as many animals as they could to be eaten. Some say the line of Actors with animals was so long that even The Maker had trouble seeing its end. Entire species of animals were given to them, causing them to go extinct.

But they were still hungry.

The Maker was stumped as to what they were missing, and confessed their troubles to some of their closest and most dedicated worshipers. An Actor nearing the end of their life, volunteered themselves to be eaten, in an attempt to help their god be sated.

Initially, The Maker refused, not wanting to eat one of their favored creations. But as the days went by, the hunger continued to grow, little by little. An ever present feeling that could not be ignored. Until they finally relented and agreed to eat the Actor.

And they felt a little less hungry.

The Maker was torn. How they loved the Actors, who had done nothing but worship them for countless centuries. Who they had helped to develop technology and inventions to better all their lives. They felt the prayers of every Actor giving them so much. Could they really ask for them to give their bodies as well?

But they were still hungry.

The Maker asked to be given a dead Actor to eat.

It did nothing.

Reluctantly yet desperately, The Maker asked that they be given a living Actor to devour. Then another. And another.

Actors devoted to The Maker gladly gave themselves to their god. As word spread, people traveled from other cities and towns to allow themselves to be eaten by The Maker.

One by one, the souls gathered in The Makers body, mixing with the prayers and power from worship. Something started to develop.

They became hungrier.

They ate Actors, faster and faster, until the amount of willing Actors could not keep up with their hunger. Those condemned to die for the highest of crimes were fed to them. The stories of The Maker had changed. No longer were stories of a quiet god who shared knowledge and instructions told among the masses. The worship started to wane. Instead, there was fear.

They were given a new name. The Dragon. The Beast That Will Consume All.

It made them hungrier.

The Muse, who had been gone from the city for so long as to be considered a myth, began to hear whispers of prayers to them. At first they payed no mind, for they could hear countless prayers from countless other places that had other prayers to be heard.

But soon, they took notice of the desire to kill a beast. A beast that lived in a cave in the tallest mountain. A beast so large that people whispered that the mountain itself was hollow to hold the beasts size. A beast that ate nothing but living Actors. A beast with a dazzling purple sheen in its scales said to have once given knowledge, but now only inspires fear.

The Muse decided to start heading back to their fellow god, stopping along the way to spread good word about The Maker and inspire worship.

As worship for The Maker slowly started to rise, an egg grew inside them. Not in a womb, but inside their gut. As the shell formed, a pain began to grow in The Makers body. It grew steadily. With every newly inspired wave of worship, the egg grew faster. As the egg grew, the pain grew with it.

The Maker already half mad from the ever persistent hunger that had haunted them for several centuries by now, reached a tipping point.

The Muse became alarmed when they received prayers for them to save the Actors from The Dragon, who had broken from the mountain and was now devouring all that it could reach. They stopped inspiring others and rushed straight for the city. Even with all their power, it took them seven days and seven nights to reach the city. Or more accurately, what remained.

If any one witnessed the two meet, they did not survive to tell any one what was said. When The Muse is asked today what happened, they will not reply. The only thing they say on the matter is "I defeated The Dragon." Nothing more, nothing less.

What is known is that the two battled. So violent and for so long that they destroyed the rest of the world around the place where the city used to rest. It shaped the world into a sphere and made the world from an infinite plane to a finite globe. A single landmass surrounded by an ocean.

It is said that by the end of the fight, both gods spoke to each other, exhausted and with only a few tiny prayers of worship to keep them going. It is known that The Muse asked The Dragon, "Why?"

The popular version is that The Dragon snarled and insulted The Muse in some manner and that it was so terrible, The Muse gutted them for it.

The version that was only written once and lost to time, the true version of events, goes like this:

The Muse asked The Maker, "Why?"

"It hurts." The Maker whimpered in reply. "I was only hungry for so long and then it started to hurt. I needed to eat the souls. I would have starved otherwise. I finally don't feel mad with hunger. But it still hurts."

"What hurts?"

"My guts. I couldn't think for so long. I was so hungry. I was in so much pain. But I know what's inside me now."

The Maker wavered and laid down around the last remaining land, part of the base of their mountain and a small part of the city that had been reduced to rubble.

"There is an egg inside me. It grows with every prayer and worship sent to me. It hurts. We can not exist together. We both feed on the same prayers."

The Muse thought for a few moments.

"Do you want me to help you kill the egg?"

The Maker laughed a sad, sorrowful laugh.

"I will not survive, egg or no egg. I have been in indescribable pain for so long. In so much hunger for so long. I have destroyed nearly everything. I would go mad with hunger again eventually."

They laid their head down and rolled onto their side. Pining one of their wings below themselves and resting the other on their side.

"Take out the egg and hide it. For no surviving Actor will have any love for the beast they believe they will become. I will die, yes, but at least my child will have a chance at life. Let my body give this land resources so that the Actors that remain will survive the following years. I have been dying for a long time, my friend. I wish for the peace that death may bring."

The screaming roars of pain drowned out the sobs of mourning as The Muse dug into The Makers gut.

The Egg was small compared to the sheer size of The Maker. Only as big as an Actor was tall. It was a dark black color, with the barest hint of a purple sheen covering it.

"They'll live." The Maker gasped through the pain. "Make sure they fly, once they can. Make sure they move, once they can. Make sure they live through this, unlike me. Can you do that?"

"I can." The Muse whispered quietly. "I promise you that I will."

"Good," gargled The Maker through the blood in their lungs, "and name them this for me."

The Makers voice at this point grew so weak, that only The Muse would ever had heard it.

"That's a beautiful name."

The Muse watched as The Maker took their final dying breath. Leaving them with an egg, an island, and a civilization to rebuild.

--------

okay, I actually wanted to write more, like where The Muse rests and wakes up and realizes that everything has changed because of the magic of the dead god. but also I've been writing this for 5 hours straight and I need to stop for my mental health.

I have not reread this at all when I post this. I do not have the brain power to do so. Enjoy.

[thecatchat]

hippocatus

Hippocatus! The part of the brain that loves laying in sun beams!

[thecatchat]

:) Shark Fact!!

[holographings]

someone on twitter said Imagine what s2 jayce would give to talk to s1 viktor just one more time. and someone had a time travel alternate dimension fic ready to go. and i read it. and now my face is being eaten by 3750 feral dogs i think

[sunnydaydrawings]

Bestest man goes through worstest day.

[thecatchat]

Bill and Rue discover just how crazy Saponite and Karl are and they're from different dimensions. Cue is explaining to the two.

Start off tense in Cue's office. Getting drinks. "So... what are they?"They're... They... not from here." Starts off in the general explanation of other dimensions. Moves into an explanation of Saponite and Quarry, Saponite being a prince, some cultural differences, also oh yah he's fireproof. Rue is not okay about that. He's security. How is he supposed to fight that. Cue is cagy about giving out a direct weakness, but he eventually caves and explains the alcohol tolerance difference. Bill realizes why Saponite never takes offered drinks.

Bill asks about Karl, Rue nods and mentions how Karl seems really off, especially outside. Cue now has to explain that Karl kinda has... a thing about color? Specifically colored lenses, but he's not going to try and explain that because Karl barely understands it, and Cue understands less. But Karl is the one who takes them between different dimensions, called a Traveler. Loosely explain the colored smoke and how Karl, as far as Cue knows, doesn't really have a dimension he spends most of his time in. He's always traveling, always an outsider, always eager for a story. Then ... he can't not mention the whole "Karl may technically be immortal or something" because Rue would kill him if he tried to hide it. Then he has to explain "no no, if you told him you were going to kill him, he'd probably just nod and ask that it be interesting" or something like that.

"Should we know about any others?"

"..."

"Cue."

"So. Technically. Karl has a twin brother named Lark."

"Technically?"

"Technically, Lark's his reflection, but they decided on being brothers."

"..." "..." "..."

"So, I think that's enough explaining tonight. I'm going to go and talk with them downstairs. You both are welcome to join at any point if you want to talk to them yourself."

@inky-kaleidascope-dimensions I've been thinking about Cue, Bill, and Rue, specifically once Bill and Rue are brought into the dimensions fold. The outline could end there or have like a bonus end scene of Saponite telling the story of how they discovered just how strong of a "poison" Cue drank in Quarry and the alcohol tolerance difference between the two places. Just Saponite being all "I'm trying to be upset but also the situation is hilarious in high sight." Very tired mom energy.

Might write this, might not. What do you think? Any specific details you think should be brought up or any specific reactions Rue or Bill would have to any specific information?