#City awakening

[blxphotos]

A glimpse from my bedroom window at 5:56 a.m. today, March 24, 2024, reveals a captivating scene. As the city slowly awakens, towering skyscrapers stand against the serene backdrop of dawn, while lush trees provide a natural contrast to the urban landscape. The soft hues of the early morning sky cast long shadows, creating a tranquil atmosphere that hints at the promise of a new day.

Photo taken and edited by me. Please seek permission before copying or reproducing. For inquiries, contact me directly. Thank you for understanding and respecting my work.

[wereshrew-admirer]

The Figure goes to Phrygian for some rest and relaxation and what do they get? Chine and Duvall and the Baby, (mostly) tragedy free!

[available as a PDF for easy viewing]

EDIT (01/30/24): updated to correct some missing dialogue!

This year's secret samol for @thelostlarrikin! I chose to combine two of his prompts (queerplatonic Figure&Phrygian + "Chine, It, and Duvall being a cute weird family"), and hopefully delivered (I, like Phrygian, don't always know what counts as "cute".. but i think i've got a handle on weird!)

content warnings for: body horror (not treated as horror), reference to past trauma and shitty (read: homo/transphobic) family member(s)

[lazycranberrydoodles]

COME ON GUYS DON'T LET DIANXIA DOWN

[gdmtblr]

早朝の海へ。

ハグはまるで天職であるかのように、ひたすら貝殻拾いに勤しんでおりましたU(° ꈊ °)U✧ｷﾗｰﾝ!!

One early morning, I went to the sea with Hug.

She finds her ideal job in picking seashells🤣🤣🤣✨🐶🐚✨

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Erhzyzyr4fI

[50cal-fullauto-astarion]

your bones singing into mine

nikto x GN!reader (no use of Y/N) 1.7k words

(parts: one - two )

cw: reader is a bio weapons engineer, extreme isolation, allusions to suicide

you were once a brilliant thing, a creator of terrible and powerful miracles of modern science that could bring the world to its knees, and the russian crime syndicate that swept you up tucked you away in a small, dark place to keep you safe while they moved. nikto arrives at this barren corner looking for information and resources, and he finds exactly that in you. he decides that he will keep you, put you back to rights.

+

Nikto was wonderful—he held so many other people within himself, beneath his mask, like endless refractions of facets folding in on themselves. He called himself ‘we,’ and he dug you out of your grave, and he replaced the family that forgot you down here, in the dark.

(They forgot, didn’t they? They wouldn’t just leave you? They wouldn’t pack you up like the dead family cat in a shoebox, give you a thoughtless little funeral, only to walk away forever?)

(There used to be others down here with you, but they’re gone now. A few got sick. One said he was going to see himself out, holding a bottle of OxyContin, and he told you that you ought to see yourself out as well. He never got back up to leave. And now there is a room at the back of the dark place you just don’t go to.)

Every single one of Nikto thought you were special enough to take away from the bunker when the world was well-ended, because of all the secrets you kept papering the inner walls of your skull. Schematics, calculations, formulae. Components, dosages, contacts both dead and alive. A forgotten vault of knowledge, and his kindness bought him passage into it. 

The bunker had been running on emergency power for two years now, recirculating the stale air, and the only light came from the dull red bulbs in cages at the tops of the walls. You couldn’t remember your hands being anything other than burgundy, nor your face in the water-stained mirror in the bathroom. All the food you ate was crimson, and so was all the water you drank. 

There was only one pistol, and it stayed tucked in your waistbands as long as you could remember, red as drops of blood.

(It was strange that the length of your memory shrank and shrank and shrank. You were someone important once, from a line of important people. You were a scientist, and you made powerful things. You held the sun in your hands, and contemplated the cost of unleashing it on the world.)

(What is Armageddon if it was only ever a threat? Could such a thing be controlled, directed? If it could not, was it still an effective deterrent? Could you still bend all the world to your iron fist if it meant there would be no world left were you to open your fingers? Would you kill yourself along with everyone else to prove that you keep promises?)

Nikto brought with him the first cracks of natural light you’d seen in years, and fresh air came along with it. He arrived with others, large and sharp bodies in the angry and sullen shapes of tactical gear, and he walked at the front, cradling a big gun in his sleek arms. He looked at your pathetic little pistol, shaking in your hand at your side, with something like contempt. 

“It’s over now?” you asked him, never once lifting the barrel of your gun. “Did they send you to come get me?”

He tilted his head almost imperceptibly, readjusted the grip on his gun by millimeters. There was a soft creek of leather from his gloves. He jerked his head over his shoulder, threw a hand dismissively, and his fellows fell away. To you, he said, “There is a database in this bunker. It contains the inventions of a team of scientists. Where is it?”

Oh, the way you grinned, sick-dog, mange-ridden, wanting so badly to please. “Me. I’m the database.”

His eyes under his heavy mask narrowed, then widened. “We don’t understand what you mean.”

“I have a perfect brain. It’s—a little foggy. Spiders crawled in and made lots of webs, but everything is there. It’s all there. I know how Nova Gas was invented, and I know so many big, loud things that the Soviet Union didn’t get to use,” you promised him, taking a jittering step to the side. Your voice was pain, rusted with disuse, but you were not lying. “The Kulikova’s put me down here to keep me safe while the world ended. Everyone is dead, it’s just me. So, you being here means it’s over, right? You’re going you bring me to them?”

A strange look washed over his eyes, and something happened in the carriage of his shoulders—maybe his body tilted towards you, recognizing something familiar in your rundown existence. You wouldn’t have the time or energy to think of it until later. But he chews on a silent moment, his finger caressing the trigger of his rifle, and he nodded. 

“The world is done ending,” he assured you (and it’s…mostly a lie, but only mostly—his world had ended, and your world was ended, so perhaps it was close enough to the truth), “but the Kulikova’s are dead. They…asked us to retrieve you. Keep you safe.”

A frown contorted your features, almost a sneer. “I’m supposed to work,” you snapped. “I’m supposed to work! I’m supposed to WORK—!”

He cut you off, one hand snapping from his rifle to your arm, gripping you tight. “You are going to work. We need the plans in your head. We’re going to fix the world. Do you want to help us with that?”

Your frown deepened, and you surged right into him, pressing against his body, crushing your face against his mask. He tightened severely, jerking, and it felt like your wrist was going to break.

“I don’t make things that fix things,” you spat, desperate that this stranger understand the reasons your soul was sold from day one, “I make things that make people scared. I put lightning in a bottle, and it’s only supposed to quiet the lambs on their way to slaughter. Does that make sense?”

(There were many things that the world would never, ever know about Andre Nikto. That, in a past life, he would doodle skulls and crossbones and fat sleeping snow leopards on the corners of his reports to focus his mind between sentences. That he would sing or hum Krokodil Gena’s Birthday Song to himself when he was feeling very poorly, because that’s what his father used to do to soothe him. That he preferred his tea from a samovar, and that he liked to slurp it boiling hot from a saucer with a sugar cube between his teeth.)

(That he came down to a bunker forgotten by gangsters-gone-global to find a solid state drive or a computer, only to find an accomplished scientist rotted away to insanity and almost nothing else—only to find you, and fall in love with you the moment you demanded he understand the magnitude of potential atrocity made by your hands.)

“We do,” he told you, voice a gravel-grit moment of understanding. Another note rang within it, a chord of relief stricken in some deep, hallowed hollow within him. “Would you come with us?”

Satisfied, you relaxed, though you could not bring yourself to back away from the mask. Something in his eyes locked you in—perhaps the steely gray reminded you of the Baltic Sea, along which you grew up, or perhaps you found his patchy, plucked eyelashes charming and vulnerable on such a foreboding body. You couldn’t say. But his grip on your wrist relaxed into something bordering on beckoning. 

“We’ll go,” you told him, the slip into his patterns an easy one, as if you had already stepped through his threshold and weaved yourself into the tapestry of his existence. “The Kulikova’s will want to get started.”

“They’re dead,” he repeated patiently. “They are corpses, and they’re working on nothing. Beyond that, their goals were nothing. Forget about them.”

It didn’t settle into your mind completely—it would take months before the idea even rooted itself in your mind—but you didn’t argue him. Instead, you let him lead you by the wrist, to the exit stairs you had spent years watching. 

“It’s different now that the world ended,” he warned you. “You’re going to get sick, after being down here for so fucking long, and it’s going to hurt. A lot. But we will put you back together.”

You shifted from foot to miserable foot, curling your hand to try to take his. Anticipation flooded through you, a brutal resurrection. “Of course you will. You’d’ve wasted your time if you didn’t intend to,” you said, as close to an admission of faith as you thought you’d ever manage again. 

It made him laugh—only a rough bit, the grit of powdered glass under a hard boot—but it sounded like salvation. 

“I’m going to cover your eyes,” he warned you, and you thought with great offense it was because the world was such a tragedy now that he would rather protect you from it, but he continued, “the light is going to burn your retinas like a fucking nightmare.”

You looked at him, searching, and found his eyes vexed under the mask, swimming in the black of his grease. He’d walked this path before, it was evident in his voice. All of these things had happened to him before, and he did not have someone who knew, who could prevent little pains as they collected. 

You nodded. “Spasibo. Okay.”

He laughed again, and your skin prickled at the broken-glass-and-gravel tone. “We like the Russian. You should speak it more,” he hummed, and one of his arms slid across your back to brace you. His free hand came to your face, pressing over your eyes carefully, to shield them from what was about to unfold in front of you.

With great care, because he was holding something of utmost preciousness to him, Andre Nikto led you out of the bunker that should’ve been your grave, holding you steady as your bare feet touched grass for the first time in three years, as the white-hot light of sunshine peaked between the cracks his hand couldn’t prevent over your eyes. He held you through the agony of sensation, and led you to an armored vehicle, to a new life.

“It’s overwhelming, we know,” he promised, as you curled into a ball in the backseat. He took one of your hands and held them in both of his, keeping low, as if making a vow. “We’re going to take care of you. We’re going to put you back together—we’ll never leave you behind.”

His hands squeezed tight, as if he needed you to understand. 

“You’ll never be alone again. We won’t let that happen.”

All you felt was relief and love flooding you in equal measure, your fingers turned to claws in his grip, and he held even tighter. 

You would leave outrageous damage behind in the touch if he ever left you, and he only welcomed it.

[crossdressingdeath]

One of the things that gets me about the Hero of Ferelden's (potential) refusal to sacrifice themselves at any point despite that being the Wardens' whole deal is that unless you're playing Cousland or Aeducan, your world has wanted you dead your whole life. Brosca's casteless, Tabris is a city elf shunted into the alienage, Mahariel is Dalish and stuck living on the edges of human society, Amell and Surana are mages; Thedas wants them all dead just for existing. And with a lifetime of that on their heads, when they get into the Wardens and learn that they're now expected to die for the world that hates them, they say no. They're not going to do it. They'll fight for the world, they'll give stopping the Blight all they've got, but they are not going to sacrifice their life or their people for it. Most potential Wardens can look at all the shit the world has put them through already and say you do not deserve my life. And then in Awakening they can extend that; they can look at all the shit the world has put their newfound family through and say "You don't get their lives either" and put them above everything else! Burning down Amaranthine is absolutely not the right call as the arl(essa) of the place or as the Warden-Commander who's the first Warden to run Amaranthine; it's not exactly putting the Wardens in the best light. But the Hero of Ferelden can decide that no, their duty is to their Wardens first and foremost and if Amaranthine has to burn to protect them then they will burn the city without hesitation. I just really love narratives where people who've been treated like shit by the world do not decide to go for forgiveness and compassion, but instead decide to protect their own above all others even if it means letting "innocents" die.

[ragingbullmode]

late but uhhh happy 10 years to the movie that wont let me loose from its gorilla grip

[rjcity1]

It’s up and it’s a spiritual awakening.

[kaleliashepherd]

So... who's the unhinged sexy person making the official frogwares insta posts right now?? I want to meet them!

[madcat-world]

Awakening - Alex Andreev

[cn-city-station]

Laundry Day (2004)

[kimtaegis]

still very much hoping for the day taehyung realises that london’s better than paris

[fluffyevil33]

After I finished Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, I could not shake off the feeling there's more to the story. Disrupting a single ritual and one group of cultists seems a bit...underwhelming for a global cosmic threat like Cthulhu.🐙🐙🐙

If we take Eldritch Horror lore as an example, there are at least two powerful legendary monsters on his side, one of those is basically his offspring (spoiler: the main villain in the Sinking City).

If I happen to write part 2 of my fanfic on AO3, I will definitely continue this story, perhaps with cooperation between Sherlock Holmes, John Watson and Charles Reed:) With some unexpected aid from a cultist of another eldritch entity😈♑️

[mfdragon]

Have you watch Fairy Tail by any chance? I'm curious because you like One Piece and I wanted to know if you also like (or at least don't hate) Fairy Tail. It's very difficult to find someone who doesn't dislike it :(

My feelings on Fairy Tail are fairly mixed because back in Uni I was DEEP in the show.

Loved all the fights, loved the power system, loved Natsu, Erza and loved Gajeel a lot! The soundtrack is an absolute banger and I managed to read the manga till the end and watch the anime till the beginning of the last arc.

However, at around the Tartaros arc I started to become aware of certain uh…let’s say the way the author treats his female characters was starting to wear me down. And eventually I lost interest in keeping up the hype.

I did try to read Edens Zero but the “fanservice” in that one was like 1000% worse and really started to disgust me, so I couldn’t stomach reading anymore.

Sorry if this isn’t what you wanted to hear but know that I still have very fond memories of the show and frequently go back to watch moments I love!

[deedeemactir]

ALSO ARE WE JUST NOT GONNA TALK ABOUT THE TITAN HEARTS BENEATH AMARANTHINE AGAIN BIOWARE BECAUSE HELLO THE LYRIUM GHOSTS AND THE UNBLIGHTED TITAN HEARTS JUST SITTING DIRECTLY BENEATH THE WARDENS HOME BASE IN FERELDEN AND THE AWAKENED AND THE CHILDREN AND THAT IDK JUST FEELS LIKE SOMETHING MAYBE WE SHOULD TALK ABOUT

[alisterix]

Now my question is. Does Cacophonix's reputation as the ultimate gaylord precede him. Does anyone outside of the village know him as Mr. Gay. Is he like Lil Nas X where gays all around the. Area. Look up to him as the gay icon that he is.

Thank you kindly, I LOVE getting asks from you cause they are a perfect excuse for me to draw Cacofonix, and if there's one thing in this fandom I love drawing as much as Gaylois, it's Cacofonix. Here's a little comic inspired by your question since I can't help myself:

I can easily imagine Cacofonix on a big trip, having fun and indulging all of the opportunities and glamour of city life, making friends (lovers? possibly? 😳) easily, courtesy of his charismatic and pleasant demeanor (at least as long as he doesn't try to sing). People obviously aren't fans of his musical talent, or rather a lack thereof, but whenever a stranger happens to recognize him and call him by name he tends to immediately jump to that conclusion and brag about it to his fellow village folks, who clearly aren't buying it, lmao. Admittedly, at the end of the day, being appreciated and recognized for being entertaining, pretty and gay rather than for your art is not the worst position to be in, so he does take it for what it is, though not without a healthy dose of fussing about constantly, no matter where he goes, being "strangely surrounded by people who don't seem to understand art".

Funny that you mention Lil Nas X cause I just made a playlist with my favourite bardcore covers in honor of Cacofonix the Ultimate Gaylord™ and Montero is the first song on it.