anenddarysden - Tumblr blog

[anenddarysden]

I wasn’t made aware of “Strange Tales of Halloween 2022″ until just three days ago, so I didn’t really “make” this story specifically for it - but I’d very much like to squeeze under the umbrella! Chapter 9 definitely falls under Prompts #28 Spider and #31 Summon, and Chapter 10 meshes perfectly with #4 Pumpkin.

Happy Halloween everybody!

Evicted from his apartment, Peter finds himself on the doorstep of Stephen Strange, but when a theft takes place at the Sanctum, they suddenly find themselves at the center of a dangerous mystery that takes them halfway around the world. No knowledge is forbidden… but some things really ought to stay buried.

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"When he landed on Nevarro he was lookin' for some work.

He met up with ol' Greef Karga, who told him with a smirk:

"You're the best one in the parsec, that's the whisper from each lip.

Now I've got business for the Mando with the big iron on his hip."

THIS -->  www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iavdy2… Me and watercolors have had a rocky relationship. I could never get the colors to blend right, or they'd end up smearing where they shouldn't, so I copped an attitude towards them that lasted for over two decades. About a year ago, it occurred to me (a day late and a dollar short) that maybe my issue was that I'd only ever used those plastic pans from middle school with the dried up little color cakes and the brushes with stiff plastic bristles. So I went looking for something a little more professional, for the tubes from England and cold-pressed paper, and fancy squirrel hair brushes worth $50 each. Exactly how much was I willing to pay to experiment with this? On my travels through the Amazon.com jungle, I came across these: Chromatek Watercolor Brush Pens. I was immediately intrigued. Then later upon receiving them, I fell instantly in love. It's a two-step process. They lay down color and gradient like markers, which allowed me to overcome half my troubles from the start, and then you apply the water - and let the colors mingle in pure, liquid satisfaction. Afterwards I got this antique leather journal for my birthday. (He knows my struggle. He knows I thirst for "Indiana Jones" things. He was put on this Earth to test me.) The paper is cotton rag, and the colors blend like velvet clouds. No show through on the back side of the page. So... yeah. I've made a thing. My hand must've slipped. The Mandalorian is incredible. It's Firefly met Star Wars in all the best ways, the only genetically pure incarnation of the fandom since the Clone Wars TV series lived and died. Everyone in my family was excited, even my Mom. For the record, she doesn't get excited about shit. In conclusion, I'm mighty pleased with how this painting turned out. Why, yes. That is a bar of beskar. Yes, it is solid steel and as heavy as you'd imagine. THIS IS THE WAY.

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Hail to the Jewels in the Lotus Chapter 8: The Burning Cold Winter itself seemed to emanate from the Warframe’s presence; neither the crystalline needle of ice nor the chill grip of space, but something else entirely… almost indescribable… as if the frozen, fathomless dark between the stars could somehow burn.

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A lifetime of cruel taunts and heartbreak has taught Aurelia to hide, to not get too close to anyone. A painter and gallery docent, her only solace is in the art that can’t stare back. When a new piece arrives, depicting an angelic figure who shares the physical features she’s always thought of as monstrous, Aurelia searches for the artist, determined to get the answers her mother has long-refused to provide.

But Aurelia isn’t the only one searching; there are others who want the artist—and the truth—silenced. She’s attacked by figures from the painting, fierce warriors with wings and sharpened blades. Shaken and bloody, Aurelia manages to escape with her life but finds herself hunted by the Iyarri, who are anything but angels. As she comes to terms with her connection to them, Aurelia is drawn deeper into the heart of a millennia-old struggle. 

If she’s not careful, the consequences will tear her body, her heart, and the Iyarri in two.

Every page of this book has been an incredible alchemy of world-building and character development. Leather and labradorite, sketches and scented oils; so many of my own personal pleasures came to life inside, like reading something captivatingly unique, but also strangely, deeply familiar. The depth of Melissa’s plot, and the characters thrust into it, is mesmerizing in its entirety. I can’t recommend it highly enough!

Check out the book, its companion scented oils, and many other magical things besides, here on Etsy!

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"Young men, soldiers, nineteen fourteen Marching through countries they'd never seen. Virgins with rifles, a game of charades All for a children's crusade.

Corpulent generals safe behind lines, History's lessons drowned in red wine. All for a Children's Crusade."

Everyone check out these amazingly beautiful FMA Tarot Cards by Emmmeralddd!! 

[anenddarysden]

Star Wars: The Funeral  Pyre

The planet was a fetid swamp under a dying crimson sun. At the time, Piett had been flabbergasted by how easily the Dark Lord could shrug off pain, killing the creature even after its three-foot barb had pierced his shoulder – but that'd been over an hour ago, before Vader's hand had begun to shake, and before the notion of poison had first entered the panicked Captain's head.

Also posted to FanFiction.net

Awesome art is awesome! Reminds me of a retro-style comic panel. ^_^

Imperial Big Bang 2017 works are up!

Artwork by me, story by Anendda_Rysden on AO3

http://archiveofourown.org/works/11844501

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My entry for the Warframe Macabre Premier Contest 2018! 

The galleon was a derelict floating high in the orbit of the first planet. Attempts to hail the ship were met with an eerie silence, broken only by the sob of a low-frequency distress beacon. Static scratched at the empty vault of space, and very little could be discerned from the guttural voices it carried. The Grineer were difficult to understand at the best of times. Still, some progress had been made once the dialect had been recognized: “Liberate mae- liberate mae. Liberate mae!” The message repeated, looping over and over. It came as a surprise to Tudk, that the Grineer still remembered the language of the Creators, though they did not use it in common parlance and most could not force the syllables through the degraded mush of their minds. The fact that one had chosen to record a distress call in such terms spoke of a certain degree of madness, or delirium. Liberate mae. Save me. The message did not offer specifics, but Tudk could guess. With their decrepit machinery and dirty, chugging engines, the Terminus was not the first Grineer ship to loose life support out in the black, nor would her crew be the last to suffocate on their own breath. Ultimately it didn’t matter. All indications were that of ghost ship, so Company procedure was to strip it for salvage. Everything had value. Even the greasy components of a galleon could be sold for a profit – usually back to the Grineer themselves, for they were rarely able to grasp the workings of anything beyond their own outmoded technology. Tudk lowered the box-like helmet over his head and sealed it, feeling the subtle change in the engines as the Christi came up alongside and initiated docking procedures. A muted thud rocked the bones of the ship. “Umbilicus sealed, Captain Tudk.” Hoisting toolkits and thermal lances, the salvage team walked onto the galleon. The ship was dark and in a state of deep freeze, the rust-colored walls glistering with frozen condensation. Despite the bone-chilling cold, however, Tudk was surprised to discover that life-support was still operational, albeit at minimal power. Atmosphere was reading nominal. It wasn’t asphyxiation that’d killed the crew. Tudk’s heavy bootfalls echoed in the corridor. To his rear, someone had already fired up a plasma cutter and applied it to the conduits that ran the length of the hall, throwing a rooster tail of sparks that caused the shadows to leap and float in phantasmagoric patterns. Tudk palmed the comm on his chest. “Jhon, you getting anything on the crew?” “Negative, Captain.” The Grineer weren’t known for ambush tactics; if any had been on board, they’d have come to investigate by now, so Tudk remained comfortable with his original assumption. The ship, a derelict. The crew, lost. To what, however, Tudk was admittedly curious to find out. Radiation levels were dirty, but that was normal for a Grineer vessel of this size. Tudk pressed deeper into the confusing warren of bulbous, vaguely organic architecture. A veteran of many such ships, however, he kept his bearings and steered a course for a the bridge. The cover of a maintenance hatch lay in the middle of the corridor and steam fogged on Tudk’s helmet as he passed under the open vent, leaving a thin sheen of oil. He was glad he didn’t have to breathe it. He found the first body crumpled in the corner by an access panel. The Grineer had been taken unaware, terminated by something that’d punched through his spine and crushed his beating heart to pulp. A dark puddle of blood had drained onto the floor, glistering with a thin mantle of ice. Tudk was no stranger to corpses, either, but the brutality of the kill left him uneasy. He unlocked the door and stepped through. With the exception of the massive, floor-to-ceiling viewport on the far wall, the bridge was a strictly utilitarian affair. The ship’s slowly decaying orbit had brought it around to face the dark-side of the planet Mercury, which hung, rusted and barren, less than a thousand miles away. Tudk set his toolkit on the ground. He’d found the rest of the crew – the command staff, anyway. Grineer corpses littered the bridge like confetti, crumpled and sprawled and draped amidst gallons of spilled blood. Tudk swallowed the knot in the back of his throat, unable to shake the feeling that something had been playing with them, like a cat tossing the corpse of a mouse. His comm gave a squelch that nearly startled him onto the ceiling. “Captain Tudk?” He slapped his comm, his heart jackhammering against his ribs. “This is Tudk. Go ahead, Decima.” “I’ve found the crew – what’s left of them, anyway. Looks like most of them tried to clump up around the mainframe.” “Any survivors?” “None. There’s as much on the floors as there is on the ceiling, if you get my meaning, sir.” Tudk got her meaning very well. There was a soft, furtive clunk from the overhead vents, exactly like a fan settling on its bearings. He paid it no mind, carefully stepping over the frozen lakes of blood to the command console. His gloved fingers worked to bring the security holograms online. If he was lucky, the aging technology would have caught the intruder on file – information that was liable to sell for quite a bit of money. “Sir?” Decima’s voice was hesitant. Tudk could almost hear her chewing the words. “I’ve been listening to the transmission and I think the Company made a mistake.” “Go on.” Tudk pressed a button on the console and the bridge lights flared, first yellow, then a dull orange. Jittery holograms sputtered out of decrepit emitters mounted high on the walls, rendering the galleon’s occupants as they had been recorded in life. One of the holograms passed through Tudk’s chest, making him feel as though he’d been brushed by a ghost. “They thought it was repeating Liberate Mae – ‘Save Me’– but I don’t think that’s it,” said Decima. All around him, the holograms moved about their daily tasks, their movements growing more and more agitated. Rifles were unslung. Orders were barked to underlings. Something flashed through the bridge doors before they could close. A cloud of pixels fountained into the air and dissolved, falling exactly where blood gathered in heavy beads. “Here, listen. Can you hear it?” She played a scratchy copy of the distress beacon back to him, filling his helmet with the screams of the dead as their final moments played out around him. Grainy orange specters appeared to rise from the bodies lying dead at the top of the stairs, lifted up by shafts of pure energy impaled through the back – leaving them to hang like fish writhing on the tip of an Ostron spear. Inside his glove, Tudk’s fingers were icy cold with sweat. He pressed the console and the twitching image slowed to half speed. Something appeared at the top of the stairs, something humanoid but certainly not human, floating a half meter above the floor. Tudk had never seen anything like it. Lithe and small, adorned with trailing ribbons and armor reminiscent of the vanished Orokin and their gilded halls. It hung there suspended, bobbing up and down. Alive, but not living. A Grineer lancer stumbled across the floor, trying to hold his entrails inside, and collapsed at Tudk’s feet – collapsed through him to cling at the console, dragging a clumsy hand across the buttons. The Thing at the top of the stairs tilted its blood-spattered head to the side, regarding the act with a kind of demented curiosity. “It’s hard to make out, but it’s not ‘liberate mae’,” Decima continued nervously. “It’s 'liberate tutemae'... followed by something that I think is ‘ex inferis’,” her voice overlapping with that of the dying Grineer at Tudk’s feet. Liberate tutemae ex inferis. Save Yourself from Hell. Tudk knew now what had lurked at the top of the stairs, blood pouring from claw-like fingers. There had been rumors, but nothing substantial. Nothing more than Quill-whispers- but they weren’t rumors, were they? No, it was something more. Myth given flesh. Legend turned to terrible reality. They were awake, they who had journeyed beyond the universe and returned from the place the Orokin called Hell – the hollow soldiers in twisted frames, things of such unholy beauty that even the stars wept. The Betrayers. The Twisted. The Tenno. Tudk lifted shaking eyes back to the top of the stairs. His heart stopped and fell coldly into his stomach. The hologram had suddenly gained a twin, formed not of lasers and embered pixels, but of bone-white limbs spattered with the blood of those it had killed. Parts of it glowed with cold turquoise light, light that glistened on the curtains of blood that’d poured down the stairs. Not a derelict. It had been waiting here all along. The paused hologram suddenly timed out- -and the Tenno lunged with a harrowing shriek.

[anenddarysden]

The Tenno were awake, they who had journeyed beyond the boundaries of reality and returned from the place the Orokin called Hell. Who can say how many they’ve saved from a life of darkness, and how many they’ve cast into the abyss. Every story is a piece of the puzzle, surah... and the universe is full of stories. [Anthology]

Hail to the Jewels in the Lotus Chapter One: Silent Night

Tyre considered himself moderately intelligent. He knew mechanisms well enough not to stick a coolant cell in backwards, and could clean and maintain his rifle without discharging the power pack into the floor, unlike so many of his tube brothers. He also liked shiny things, things like gemstones and distant, twinkling stars. When the rest of the station is slaughtered by the personification of the night itself, what’s a single, unarmed Grineer to do?

Hiding was a good start.

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Routine took away his fear

Hail to the Jewels in the Lotus Chapter 7: Into the Void

To the surprise of many, Baro Ki’Teer was an audacious man, a collector of rare antiquities and lover of the exotic. Self-styled master of the Void – and of the myriad of dangerous things contained within. Site 4 was meant to be an expedition like any other. After all, he’d peered into the abyss more times than he could count.

What he didn’t expect was for the abyss to blink.

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The Tenno were awake, they who had journeyed beyond the boundaries of reality and returned from the place the Orokin called Hell. Who can say how many they’ve saved from a life of darkness, and how many they’ve cast into the abyss. Every story is a piece of the puzzle, surah... and the universe is full of stories. [Anthology] Hail to the Jewels in the Lotus Chapter Five: The Weight of What We Owe

Ain't no victims on these lists, Stardust. Every one of them workin' against the impossible to make things right for them and theirs. Makes them a hero in Ticker's eyes. Still... like the man said... show me a hero and I'll write you a Void-damned tragedy. 

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O Fortuna Oh Fortune, 

Velut luna, Statu variabilis Like the moon, are you changeable.

Semper crescis, Aut decrescis Ever waxing, and waning.

Nunc obdurat, Et tunc curat. First oppresses, and then soothes

Ludo mentis aciem. As fancy takes it.

Egestatem, Potestatem. Poverty, and Power.

Dissolvit ut glaciem You melt them like ice

-o- Fortuna was the Roman goddess/personification of Fortune, particularly the ever-shifting balance of prosperity and disaster. Similar to Lady Justice, she was often depicted as wearing a blindfold, but was usually sans scales. I added them back in because I liked the additional symbolism of the “weight” of the Corpus autocracy and their unfairly skewed values. 

-o- Here, Fortuna is rendered as an Orokin, hence the asymmetrical arm. This is because the Orokin remind me of some hybrid of Japanese nobility and space Romans, a vibe that was certainly reinforced by Ballas’ silky toga and the overall “living Grecian statue” look about him. And while Fortuna (the Venusian debt colony) is not Orokin, per say, I’ve always thought of the Corpus as wannabe Orokin – regarding the Golden Lords as the pinnacle of achievement and trying to model themselves after them. As revealed in Simaris’ data frags, they certainly didn’t appreciate the literal apocalypse brought on by the original Tenno rebellion, thus why they still refer to them as Betrayers. 

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Idril was stubborn and honorable to a fault, and if her ultimate choice was to remain in Mordor, who was Talion to deny her? Instead he offers aid where and when he can. Celebrimbor is not so generous, however, and the thoughtless cruelty of his words is more than Talion can bear. Things said in anger cannot be undone, and truth often cuts the deepest wounds...

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Stifling a cry, Megatron tried to stand, the servos in his legs squalling and unwilling to support his weight. Halfway up, they buckled violently and Optimus lunged forward to catch him against the wall. Beneath their feet, the deck rumbled ominously. Optimus pulled Megatron's arm over his shoulders, heaving him upright as a second explosion rocked the ship, sparks and thick smoke billowing into the hallway. Emergency klaxons blared through the com system, so loud Optimus almost didn't hear Megatron gag helplessly as energon from his ruptured internal systems flooded his mouth. He felt his Spark throb uncomfortably as Megatron turned his head and spat, optics narrowed to burning crimson slits. The sparklight in them was flickering dangerously, betraying the extent of his injuries even more than the energon gushing over the warlord's hand, but except for the labored snatch of his intakes he bore the pain in near silence. I will not fall again, it said without words. I will die on my feet. Optimus hurried to get moving, but progress was slow and difficult, Megatron's weight taxing the hydraulics in his legs and back. The corridor ahead was choked with flames, assaulting his sensors with immense heat and the noxious gasses of burning fuel, but Optimus refused to acknowledge the discomforts, determined to see them both to safety.

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They will never stop hunting you.

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"Y-urp-you see any eggs, don't be shy. Go on up and give those suckers a shake. Those facehuggers are worth more than this whole ship." They existed. They really fuckin' existed. The whole farce had given rise to some diseased questions that Morty couldn't be bothered to give a shit about. Not with granpa's hot, sticky blood drying under his fingernails. Not with that thing stalking along the corridor, its monstrous footsteps thudding in the space between heartbeats. Morty could hear the low, heavy scrape of its segmented tail dragging along the ground, see the phallic shadow of its head begin to slide along the wall. His hands tightened hard enough to cramp, every molecule alert to the stench of burning fuel, the flickering heat alongside his cheek. Most animals retreat from fire, yes? He didn't see Rick try to reach for him, didn't hear the soft, nearly inaudible plea. "M-morty… Morty, no… don't be a hero. Granpa's not worth it…" The alien hissed. Morty prepared to die fighting. Lucky lucky lucky.

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"Keep running, Morty! This was a bad idea! Don't look back, Morty!" They did a lot of that on their adventures, come to think of it. And so Morty ran, the neon-soaked forest slapping at his arms and face. His sneakers squelched with every stride, his muscles burning as though they were pumping battery acid. Rocks loomed out of the shadows, slick and treacherous, and impossible to climb. Rick started fumbling for his portal gun, fighting the sopping fabric of his pocket.  "Rick, hurry!" "I'm tryin', you little shit! Jesus Christ... Morty!" Rick moved suddenly, his spindly body colliding with Morty's. Knocked backward by the impact, Morty yelped and put a hand against his grandpa's chest, falling backwards into the puddles. Lightning lashed the sky above the forest canopy and in that staccato flicker, Morty saw everything - the way Rick crumpled to his knees above him, his expression slack with pain. The two brightly fletched arrows protruding from his grandpa's back, one of them gone completely through his shoulder, its barbed head slick with blood.  "R-Rick?" The portal gun slipped from Rick's numb fingers. As if in slow motion, Morty's looked beyond his grandpa's shoulder and saw the fuchsia-skinned natives gathering on the hill, their gleaming eyes - eyes that could see in the infrared, and to whom the planet's perpetual darkness was of no hindrance - flashing like silver coins. "RICK!" --------------- "This is my church of choice; love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice."

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“Thirteen days of riding, the Moon above my only friend.

Time will only tell if a bullet or the rope will be my end.

Got a price upon my head, the same alive or dead!

There ain't no resting for the Wanted Man.

I've killed in anger. I've killed for money, killed for fun.

Don't need your mercy, don't need your prayers to set me free.

You count the things I've done, and heaven ain't no place for me.”

                                                                            – Nick Nolan “Wanted Man”

Stephen crept closer, fingering the Jakobs he’d picked off a dead Bloodshot some months previous. It was a good gun – much better than the clanking pieces of junk his Pa had banged together before being eaten by a skag. It’d been the sound that’d distracted him from the Hodunk girl he’d been trying to sweet-talk into giving him some poon. A loud, heavy, hollow thud, like somebody had dropped a bag of hammers towards the back of the bar.

Whatever had made the sound wasn’t immediately apparent, but Stephen had discovered something much more interesting. A Siren! An ever-lovin’ Siren! Just sitting there on the back of the couch, toying with a little condensed ball of energy floating just above her palm. Stephen wiped his sweaty fingers on his vest. The Siren wasn’t alone. There was a tall, spindly figure leaning against the wall by the door, and another man sitting on the couch smoking a cigarette. Stephen did a double take, then grinned like a shark. Imagine the stupidity of some folks, sittin’ below your own wanted posters.

He stepped closer and drew the Jacobs. Just one of them idiots would set him up for life, let alone all three! He could afford a ticket off this craphole. Hell, he could buy this craphole and Elpis, too! Stephen racked the hammer back with his thumb. 

“Hey!” he declared loudly. “Mighty dumb of y’all, coming in here tonight!”

The man on the couch (Handsome Jack, as per the poster advertising his mug) turned his head to look at him, switching his attention from the CL4P-TP unit twitching and sputtering on the floor to Stephen’s face, then to the Jakobs he was pointing at them. A grin sliced across his face, exposing teeth far too nice for Pandora. 

“You’d better be reeal sure, pumpkin,” he said, lazily taking the cigarette from his mouth. 

There was something in the movement that broadcasted a wordless threat, of hard, square knuckles and a ruthless grip that could, and would, strangle the life from a man – but Stephen had the gun. He scoffed and gestured to it with his free hand, because hello?! He had ‘em dead to rights here! 

Out of the corner of his eye, Stephen noticed the tall man (Zer0, his brain supplied helpfully) slowly tilt his head, causing the overhead string lights to glitter in the reflective surface of his helmet. Now Stephen didn’t know much about most things, but he did know them huge sumbitchin’ snakes that lived up by Sawtooth Cauldron. As poisonous as they were mean, just looking at one screamed danger – and it was the same message that went skittering up his back as the stranger shifted to look at him, a slow, deliberate uncoiling of muscle that set off every alarm there was to set off. 

Stephen swallowed, his tongue suddenly far too big for his mouth. His eyes darted towards the Siren and found her watching him with the corner of her frosted blue lips tilted up in a smirk. She rolled the energy singularity over the backs of her knuckles. They said Sirens could set fire to crap that could not, should not be able to be burn, that with a flick of a finger, they could cram a man’s head up his ass and leave him there to suffocate. And Maya looked as though she was itching for just that kind of entertainment. Pizza and a show. How nice of him to volunteer. 

The Jakobs wobbled uncertainly, slowly at first, then more and more pronounced as their gazes bored into him, waiting for him to make the first move. Come to think of it, these mother-humpers looked exactly like the sort of folk that’d be packing shields. They’d be on him before the first bullet even popped ‘em open. Stephen lowered the gun so quickly he almost shot himself in the foot. Didn’t take a smart man to know when he was about to become a dead man. 

“N-nevermind. Mistook y’all fer somebody else.” 

I REALLY LOVE the atmosphere of this one!