Grian comes to again, flat on his back, and groans. Distantly, he hears Scar yelling an apology. It’s hard to tell if Scar had accidentally dropped sand, accidentally kicked one of the dragon eggs currently littering their bases (causing it to fall), or had missed concrete somewhere and caused that to drop, but the apology, this time, was at least sincere, so he’s fairly certain Scar didn’t intentionally knock Grian out. Doesn’t mean Grian hadn’t been knocked on his ass by, what, a pavlovian reaction to sand? But it means Scar hadn’t been intentionally exploiting it.
He’s rubbing his head when he hears them chittering distantly. He looks up, and then he Looks up, just to make sure he’s not imagining it, and… yep, they’re there. The Watchers. They’re busy happily chittering about the fact that Grian passes out when any block falls to the ground. Of course they are. He wonders if this is their fault. Probably not; Watchers may be annoying, but they can’t see the future, so it’s not like they’d have known about the egg thing ahead of time. No, they’re probably just amused at his suffering.
Joke’s on them. This is mostly just going to make cleaning up slower. And they’re going to have to deal with that too, on account of the fact Grian can’t do much else until it’s done.
He’s trying to hit another egg with a piston when he hears, distantly, “shoot, the beach!”, realizes what has happened, and then he’s waking up on the ground again. He stares at the sky for a moment.
“Trust Scar with sand, I thought. He terraforms all the time, I thought. He won’t keep messing me up with it, I thought.” He groans.
The chittering of the Watchers gets louder. He hears a lot of ‘Scar’ and ‘sand’ and ‘he can’t bear it’ and. Great. Grian’s pretty sure he knows what comment is coming next—
you’ve never left that desert.
“So this is your fault!” he says, accusingly. “Why! All it’s done is make my life more confusing!”
Indistinct noises. At one point, when Grian had been more one of them than he is now, he had been able to tell all of the voices apart easily. Now, the Watchers are somewhere between the wall of incomprehensible, horrible sound that they are to mortals and normal voices. He has to strain to pick out anything overly specific. He supposes if he chose to go all Watcher again he’d be able to tell what they’re saying, but frankly, they’re all annoying, so why would he bother? Better to stick to things as they are.
He messages Scar: If you drop sand one more time I am going to figure out how to add more dragon eggs to your base.
Scar messages back: its an accideet
Grian responds one more time: lol. accideet.
He takes a moment before standing up to check around himself. Scar does seem to have moved on from whatever he’d been doing with terraforming to keep dropping gravity blocks, so it’s probably safe to stand without passing out again. What had he been doing? Right. Eggs. Piston.
you never left that desert, Grian hears again from the wall of noise.
“Right. That’s me. Never left,” Grian says. Honestly.
can’t stand the sight of scar and sand.
“You know you guys are reaching, right?” Grian says.
never left—
“I would if you’d let me!” snaps Grian.
Indistinct chittering. Deep breaths. He’s fine. He's apparently developed sand-based epilepsy or something, and is trying to find the solution to that, but. Fine. He’s fine. It’s not like arguing with Watchers is ever actually worth it. They never change their mind. The thing is that they tend to think they know exactly how he works, and no matter how much he tries to refute their baseless assumptions, they still have a picture in their head, and they still keep working off of it.
A strange shudder runs down his back.
you never left that desert.
“Look, it’s not that I’m not over it,” Grian says. “I’m actually pretty over it. I’ve been over it since Last Life, really, even if none of you believe me.” He puts another egg in his inventory. “Scar’s my friend and he’s a weird guy and I like him, but it’s not like I’m not over that stupid game. Wouldn’t keep playing it if I weren’t over it, would I?”
Indistinct chittering about tragedy and deserts and dramatic final suicides and, look, Grian is good at telling stories. That’s the whole point. That’s why these guys won’t leave him alone. But sometimes, he swears…
“So you know, I would have left the desert by now. It’s just that you all haven’t. So guess who’s still stuck here? Believe me, it’s not me who’s not over it. If you wanted me out of the desert, you could let me leave any time you’d l—”
He has a second’s warning before he’s on the ground, dizzy, hoping he hasn’t gotten a concussion. He glances down at his communicator.
Mumbo says: that was me this time my bad
Shakily, Grian types: you have 10 seconds. start running.
The chittering gets more distant. Grian gets up. He checks to make sure his wings are on. He goes to light a rocket, but not before shouting: “Scar, if you do anything with gravity blocks while I am actively flying I will kill you dead!”
“Have fun buddy!” Scar shouts back. Grian’s not sure Scar actually heard a word he said. Well, hopefully there will be no sand falling from his hands while he goes to murder Mumbo, then. If there is, Grian’s—well, Grian’s going to have a broken bone at that rate, but he’s recovered from far worse falls. Some of those have even been Scar’s fault, by some measure or another.
He Looks back up at the mass he knows are the Watchers. “If this is you all’s fault because you never seem to have gotten over the whole desert thing, I’ll find a way to, I don’t know. Inconvenience you greatly. Not sure what I’ll do, but I’ll figure it out.”
The chittering gets way more fond, then. Pleased. They want him to do that. Can’t even threaten the assholes properly, they like it. Honestly, Grian doesn’t know why he bothers. It’s not like they’ll listen. No matter how many times he says he’s over it, it’s not like they’ll listen.
(Sometimes, he hates that he’s so good at stories.)
Right then. Time to wreak havoc on his friends for exploiting his very exploitable weakness, then. This sword’s got sharpness on it, right?
------
(originally written for @hermitcraftguesstheauthorevent, and posted on ao3 here; now that it's revealed, i figured i'd go ahead and post it here, since it really matches the cadence of one of my tumblr things more than an ao3-only fic. enjoy!)
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i'm here to peddle my crystal and farrah agenda so that means it's everyone else's problem now too.
i'd personally like to revamp crystal's entire character. like instead of being the snow king's daughter (which is fucking stupid might i add) she's just the snow queen's daughter, and in this version, the snow queen is a very cold and neglectful mother who couldn't care less about her daughter.
i think it'd be cool to have it established that canon crystal's personality is basically what crystal acted like as a child when ashlynn and briar knew her; as a fun-loving, carefree child with far too much power, but ultimately someone with a good heart who just wants to have fun.
but then crystal grows up. she grows up in a cold, isolated palace, entirely alone save for her callous and uncaring mother and hordes of servants who fear and hate her because of her mother.
this crystal is one that grows up and turns into her mother. she grows up bitter and spiteful and powerful, and she grows up with zero checks on her behavior, because the servants are too scared to ever say no to her, while her mother doesn't really care about what she's doing.
i'd like her to grow into someone so confused and upset; someone who very, very badly suffers from a lack of love or a loving home or parent. someone whose only happy memories are of the friends she made so, so long ago. someone whose happy memories are pushed so far back in favor of all the terrible things that have happened since.
anyways then the entire epic winter plot plays out, those shards in her mother's eyes or whatever, and instead of just being neglectful and cold, her mother becomes downright tyrannical and EVIL, and crystal's forced to go down to ever after high to get help from the only people she has left, who are, of course, ashlynn and briar.
and then, instead of having a whiny fucking little bitch who can't tie her laces and complains at any given moment, we'd have a crystal who is numb and unfeeling (something which i want ashlynn and briar to visibly question and be concerned about; i want them to CONSTANTLY be asking themselves about what the fuck happened to their friend and how can they help), and someone who is very, very selfish and is used to taking care of herself and only herself.
but then throughout the special we see crystal grow, we see her mature and we see her learn to love others and realize that she has a lot of people who love her and care for her too; and then gradually, we see her soften and see how her relationships with the other characters deepen.
and here is where i would want to put farrah in, because the crystal x farrah agenda is getting to me i think it'd serve to highlight the contrast between the two of them.
because on the one hand, we have farrah goodfairy, who loves helping people, who always puts people above herself, who risked literally death in order to ensure that ashlynn had a happy ending with hunter. farrah is someone who is said to exist to make others happy, that is her "job" as a fairy godmother; her own happiness doesn't matter.
but then there's crystal winter. crystal winter, who has cared for only herself and has learnt about the cruelty and harshness of the world from a very young age. someone who was not awarded any warmth and love and has learned to turn acrid and bitter and turn away all and any love. crystal is someone selfish. someone who thinks that she's self-sufficient and would not care to help anyone other than herself.
and then throughout epic winter we see them interact and we see them grow through their relationship with each other. farrah is baffled as to how anyone can be so selfish and self-centered and crystal can't believe anyone as optimistic and naive as farrah exists.
soon they get to know each other however, and crystal learns about farrah and her struggles with realizing her own happiness and farrah learns about crystal's lonely upbringing, and we see how crystal learns to be less selfish and care more about others while farrah learns to finally put herself first and prioritize her own needs sometimes.
and then they kiss in the magical epic winter fever dream because i said so and because all of my favorite ships had cute moments in the dream. i'm not really sure about the end, honestly, i'd just like to change crystal's character.
anyways sorry for this horrible ramble, i just have really strong thoughts on crystal and her ruined potential and epic winter, and i couldn't resist mapping something out.
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Tw: mentions of bleeding out, vivisection/lab table, blood, death, and shattered glass.
Ok so I went to this random indoor pool today and for some reason my first thought was "This would be a great place for Danny to bleed out in!" My reasoning is as follows:
The entire pool was made of metal. Like lab-table metal, shiny steel or something. When you jumped on it it clanged and you could feel the vibrations all throughout the pool.
The pool was lit green. So now, we have lab-table metal bathed in green.
The ceiling was glass, and it was night, so as you lie on your back floating, you can see the dark sky.
When you're in the pool, alone, you can hear everything, the quiet swishes as you move your arms and legs, your joints popping, your breathing, and nothing else.
Bright fluorescent indoor lights on the edges of the ceiling (outside of the glass bits)
Together, we have a vast expanse that's incredibly peaceful (lots of time for "I'm almost dead" thoughts), practically tailored to remind Danny of whatever vivisection he just went through, but also perfectly tailored to allow Danny to look at the stars. Plus blood-red will contrast the pool's green, and blood mixes in very cool-looking ways with water. Additionally, shattered glass from the ceiling Danny probably just fell through would also reflect beautifully, perfect shards for Danny to, idk, view his old life in/reminisce/be forced to confront his reflection as he dies. And finally! The obvious stuff one could do with the concept of sinking as one bleeds (I'm thinking bubbles, if that makes any sense).
Anyway, in conclusion, there should be more fics where people find Danny bleeding out in a pool.
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