#but we're done for now lmao

[opalescentdreamscape]

I just realized I forgot to post part 4. 😭 anyways, time for Simon Riley in the COD x Stardew Valley crossover! (Also this turned out longer than expected, so most of the drabble is below the cut.)

When Simon moves to Pelican Town, no one actually notices at first. It's the middle of winter, with snowstorms every other day, and most people wouldn't expect anyone to be out in that weather for normal errands, let alone moving. The first mention anyone makes of him is Leah, when she tells Haley and Elliot about this weird cottage that was built near the wizard's tower, and how she never sees anyone coming or going but has seen smoke in the chimney and large bootprints in the snow nearby, usually heading up into the farmer's land. This conversation starts some whispers and rumors around town, of course, but with the farmer being gone most days, there isn't much for anyone to do about the gossip.

The farmer comes into town bright and early one morning (after several grueling days of mining in the Skull Caverns) and sees a notice in front of Pierre's shop asking for someone to kill some skeletons in the mines, as the "local population is getting too large to be safe." Well... money is money, the farmer thinks. They decide to go home and suit up, even though they had planned on resting that day.

The mines are cold and damp, as usual. The farmer gives a quick hello to the dwarf that hangs out just inside the mines and is surprised to learn that they haven't been the only visitor recently. Apparently a large man with a skull mask had come through earlier that morning. Every time he's here, he goes straight to the elevator, usually entering the place before daybreak, and doesn't come back out until well after night falls. Intrigued, the farmer wonders whether or not they got a new resident in town while they smack the down button to the elevator, hearing the wheels and pulleys creak as they get lowered into the earth.

As soon as the door opens on the 60th level of the mines, the farmer notices several things that are out of place. The stalactites are still dripping icy cold water into puddles, the air is frigid and stale, and it sounds like there might be a few monsters about, but the place feels... off. Someone certainly has been down here, and the copious amount of bones littering the floor just affirms what the dwarf told the farmer.

As they progress down one, two, five, and finally ten floors, they catch neither sight nor sound from the man, but see even more evidence he was here. Rocks broken into pieces but not picked up after, bones and slime littering the floors, and once, even a few discarded gems, laid haphazardly in a corner by the next floor entrance. As the farmer pockets these things, mumbling about wastefulness, they feel more curiousity over whoever is in the mines with them, thinking how odd it is that a person would go to all the effort of being down here without taking any loot back to the surface. And on another note, why come down here and kill all these skeletons without taking the message from the board so he can get paid for being down here? These questions plague the farmer's mind as they continue working through levels, deciding to break at the next safe room before heading back home for the night.

The sound alerts the farmer to the man's presence before they actually see him. As they drop down from level 79 to level 80, quaking from exhaustion, exertion, and the adrenaline that comes with fighting monsters, they hear the crunch-munch of someone chewing. Then, the farmer sees the cheery glow of a small campfire, and, gaze trailing up from the floor, the hulking behemoth of a man sitting next to it. He's mid-chew on what looks to be a cave carrot, and stares right on back as the farmer sizes him up.

"Y'know, I can see why you might've left the rocks and slime alone, but dropping actual gemstones seems a little over-the-top." The farmer blurts out, a sheepish smile on their face as they pull out one of the abandoned gems from their pocket. The sparkling, frozen teardrop catches light from the fire as they pass it from hand to hand before returning it to their pack. "I assume you just moved to Pelican Town, seeing as I haven't met you yet?"

The stranger nods. "Name's Simon. Moved in a week ago. I prefer my solitude." He gives the farmer a pointed glance before returning to his carrot, seemingly ending the conversation. Unfortunately for him, the farmer isn't deterred so easily. They decide to plop down across the fire from Simon and make a quick snack out of their cheese and granola before trying to start the conversation back up.

"So, Simon... usually the first place people want to explore around here isn't monster-filled mine shafts, even when they want to be alone. Any particular reason you're down here and not at home or something?" Simon shoots the farmer a glance and hesitates before answering.

"Straight to the point, aren't you? Need somethin' to do. Don't got much else to occupy my time." He finishes his snack, fixes his mask back over his face, and starts putting the fire out, forcing the farmer to stand to avoid getting smoke and ash in their eyes.

"So you like fighting monsters?"

"No."

"Being chivalrous, then? Keeping the town safe or some other similar reason?" The farmer jokes.

"If you say so."

"Care to join me in some monster-filled caverns in the desert sometime?"

At this last question, Simon finally pauses packing his things, eyes glinting at the farmer from behind his mask. "Explain. And walk while you're at it. It's getting late." He has the farmer walk in front of him as they explain about the Skull Caverns, offering no noises or any other indications that he's listening beyond the occasional grunt when they pause for breath.

"There's all sorts of crazy crap down there, and you can't even begin to imagine how rich the resources are. I meam, I've found prismatic shards, emphasis on the plural, in that place. Problem is, the whole cavern is crawling with hundreds of monsters, most of which are a lot tougher to kill than what we get in the mines. Things like flying serpents and iridium crabs and pepper rexes. Thought you might be interested in coming along, and I'd pay to get you good gear and a better weapon if you did. It can be difficult traversing places like that alone, even if you're pretty good at that kind of thing. And I promise I won't be so chatty all the time if you do decide to join me." The farmer trails off as the elevator reaches the top of the shaft, yawning and stretching their back.

"I'll consider it." That's all he says before walking off, but it's more than the farmer might've hoped for. A week goes by without them seeing their new neighbor again, but they notice his boot prints leading straight through the middle of their land and up to the mountains every day without fail, so they start leaving little notes and snacks in a bucket for him every night. At first, the bucket goes untouched, but one day they find it empty, save for a small note scrawled with messy lettering that says 'thank you'.

A few days before spring, the farmer decides to stay home for the day and relax. They haven't seen Simon in two weeks, and without having any idea of where he is in the mines, it seems like a bad idea to try to check on him. It's really too bad, the farmer thinks, seeing as he likely would've made a good companion to have along for cavern days... they feel their eyes drifiting closed as they think about it, and have just decided to take a cat nap when they're startled by a heavy knock at the door.

The farmer shuffles over, and is only half surprised to see Simon on their front step, towering over their doorway in a get-up that can only mean one thing.

"Hey, Simon. What brings you here? Thought you'd be well into the mines at this time." The farmer smiles as they invite Simon inside, feeling the floorboards shake a little as he knocks the snow off his boots off by the door.

"Decided to take you up on your offer, if it still stands." He glances at the farmer, seeming to note their pajamas and socked feet before chuckling. "Taking a day off, are we? Might've just stayed home then. I appreciate the little gifts you've been leaving me. Is it all homemade?" He watches as the farmer shuffles into the kitchen, grabbing two mugs from a cabinet and starting coffee machine. The farmer grins as they turn their back to him, not missing how chatty he is compared to their last conversation.

"Yeah, actually. I have some animals and a surplus of cheese and eggs and milk, so I figured I'd share some of my better stuff as a thank-you since you've been tending to the mines for me. Before you moved up here, I was the only person in town that was skilled enough to successfully explore most of the mines. Not that I was very good either, mind you. Care for a cup?" The farmer smiles ruefully before offering Simon a plain cup of strong coffee.

"Well, it's good stuff. Thanks for the cup. You should get ready, those Skull Caverns have had my curiousity for weeks now and I'd like to get there as soon as possible." He starts sipping at his coffee and blowing on it, and you watch his eyebrows lift in surprise when he finally gets a good drink of it.

"I have coffee bean plants in my greenhouse, so that's freshly grown, roasted, *and* brewed coffee, by the way. I'll be right back." The farmer smirks as they walk away, and Simon chuckles again. He hadn't originally intended on talking to the farmer more, having moved to Pelican Town for some peace and quiet, but they had worn him down rather quickly when, instead of being irritated or frustrated with his shortness towards them, they had decided to make sure he was taken care of. Because really, what kind of person leaves offerings like that to a somewhat rude man they've met one time? And it was all good quality, homemade food too, not that microwave crap they sell at JojaMart. He's already bulked up another 10 pounds from the hearty foodstuffs they've been leaving him every day. Simon shakes his head at the train of thought, bewildered but not upset by any means, as the uncommonly friendly farmer returns with their gear in tow.

"Ready to go?" They smile up at him again, and he feels his own lips twitch up for a moment. Pelican Town really was a decent place for some peace and quiet, but being able to be around the farmer... well, he supposes he won't mind the noise for once.

[a2zillustration]

Gottem

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[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]

[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]

[softpine]

she's looking especially sacrificial lamb today 🥩

[painted-bees]

Sometimes I forget that we have a big ol' webcomic...but recently, we received a comment from a new reader saying they had spent three hours binge reading it.

We have made so much comic, it takes about three entire hours to read through what is avaliable so far!! That is WILD lmao

So...this is a celebratory post of panels from the comic.

It is called Woven, if you wanna check it out!

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

the picnic table scene

[songofsunset]

Today we weren't allowed out on the playground due to wet paint, and my kids were doing great but by the end of the day we were getting stir crazy and bouncing off the walls

And also separately we've been working with this one kid to try and control her temper (her tiny body fills up with So Much Rage and she will bite!!!) and I realized that we only tried to give her tools to deal with that when she was all worked up, and that isn't any sort of way to build a new skill

So we all sat on the carpet and and dimmed the lights and took like 5 minutes for toddler yoga and deep breathing and it was actually great?????? We practiced taking deep breaths and blowing them out (toddlers can't see the difference between breathing in and breathing out, they just hear it, like a lot of times if you show them how to smell a flower they will blow on the flower!!!! So emphasizing the blowing out part helps them figure out the breathing in part) and we patted our heads..... And our shoulders ... Then gave ourselves a big hug!!!! (One little boy who loves hugs was so excited about this part!!) Then I walked them through a basic sensory activity where we felt the carpet with our hands and listened with our ears to see what we could hear and then looked around for what we could see, and then we did deep breathing and stood up together for some stretching and wrapped it up

And it was so helpful??? It really helped reset the mood in the classroom, it was amazing

AND THEN, later in the day, when my tiny child was full of rage when her classmate grabbed a toy, I said 'take a deep breath!!!'

AND SHE DID

SHE STOPPED RIGHT THERE ALL FULL OF RAGE AND TOOK THE TINIEST ANGRIEST MOST ADORABLE BIG BREATH IVE EVER SEEN AND IM SO FUCKING PROUD OF HER!!!!!!!!

[plugnuts]

CYBER AU PART THREE: MISSING

PREVIOUS | START | NEXT TBA

Panels under the cut:

[bangcakes]

.

[lesbiansanemi]

I am so fucking sick of living with my roommate and his fuck ass boyfriend. Also watching my roommate burn every single one of his (already rather minimal, I might add) bridges for this guy is also kind of painful but also his relationship with me is one of said bridges so I'm almost past the point of even feeling bad for him lmao

[ace-malarky]

Weekend WIP Game - Mist World Shorts

Hey y'know what, I'm going to like. make a few separate non-dated versions of this so I can have all the things? I've been working through my files etc so now they're organised better and I can see everything, so!

I'm also numbering out the scenes that are part written! so if you wanna chuck that into the mix. That is also good.

The WIPS

Alepir Holt (In the wake of magic coming back to Leritheyar, people finding out they are mages and werecreatures and coming together. Characters; Kaithr, Kestrel, Fin, Kane (and oh god so many more but these ones feature in the unfinished scenes)). Scenes; 3

Introduce Yourself (intro pieces for side characters in @dorksndisasters. Characters: Aster, Bituin, Citlali, Jiemba, Najm, Seren, Setareh). Scenes; 7

Mercenary Mages (a group of feral mages doing what they do best (annoy each other and become a really tight knit group). Characters; Llinos, Kaua, Jasper, Tamhas, Tadhg, Spence, Kitty). Scenes; 15

Superhero Twins (a group of uni-and-older friends with various magics that bounce around the city looking for the Crimes that brought them all together. Characters; Roxy, Clara, Cai, Oscar, Onni, Kite, Vivian, Seth, Lucy, Mint (technically a set of novels but I haven't written enough for it to merit being there rather than fun character shorts)). Scenes; 3

The Fair (a group of Welsh-inspired Fair Folk and their adopted/stolen children caught in the thros of prophecy. Characters: Brandi, Kamala, Scarlet, Gwen, Bran). Scenes; 1

The Guardians (a group of people from across the worlds all semi-dedicated to making the worlds a better place. Characters: Linus, Gen, Asin, Skilkran, Basil, Rhiannon, Razar, Akeri, Taerne). Scenes; 5

The Games

Three by Threes: For each filename you receive in your ask box, reply to the ask with 3+ NEW sentences on that WIP.

Lore Corner: Answer questions about your WIP. It can be anything from headcanons to backstory that you have for your WIP that don’t even make it into the fic. Askers - get creative with your questions!

[radioghosts-freakster]

*staring at my new Javarock icon and sobbing gently* Look at the adorable cheek smoosh... they look so happy togetherrrrrrrr 😭💖 <- ofc they do silly they're married

[taegularities]

y’all... :’)

[themyscirah]

Get out of my life, Hal Jordan, while I'm still sorry I killed you!!!!!

[altruistic-meme]

dear Abram,

i hope there have been Gentle Moments between the Horrors. dont forget to take it easy, but Take It.

how has the Horrors been going, by the way? last posting i recall you were halfway to acquiring a Vehicle? how goes The Hunt?

with much love,

Milo

P.S.

thank you milo ;;;

there have been some gentle moments!! despite everything, there have been a few good moments this month :) including cat cuddles. i have gotten so much cat cuddles and boy did i need it.

the Horrors. man. i have now MOSTLY acquired my car! unfortunately there was a mix-up while at the bank which means i have to go back again tomorrow, and to the dealer as well, BUT the dealer was very VERY nice and he let me ""borrow"" the car i'm buying since he knew i was actively without a car right now. so the car is parked outside!! i get to drive it!! i have it now!! i just have to finish up with all the financing stuff :') and also with dealing with my sad little VW rip

the rest of the Horrors........ well. i've mostly only talked about my car here bc it's the only one that i can have any like actual control over and it's the only one where it's like "ok this is an issue and this is how it gets solved and all of these things are achievable" so i've been making myself put most of my focus on it since it IS the only issue this month that i CAN solve. the rest is stuff that. sigh. 2 of my family members died this month, one of which was my last living grandparent. and it sucks!! and my mom is currently halfway across the country having to deal with all of the paperwork and logistics of that more-or-less alone.

i know my job has bereavement leave, and i have been deeply considering figuring out how to use it so that i can go see my mom and give her some support. but i can't afford time without pay so i need to figure out if it's paid or not. OUGH.

but SOME good! like my new car being so fucking funny to me. it has push to start. it has android auto. it is so fancy. also it has roll-up windows. and little knobs for the side mirrors. i die. the contrast. her name is also Tails in honor of my favorite Sonic character. and she will be getting flower magnets.

and TSC coming out!! and rewatching Bungo Stray Dogs!!

and Blue! Blue is good too :)

[moregraceful]

my reading of that post was something akin to [sniffles] i'd like to talk about big gay bbq ;_;

also God yeah if ppl wrote about the ahl more there wld be a lot of firebirds fic. or maybe i just see men and am like ouuuughhhh kiss ? i have Angles for like so many different pairings / polyships

- ash

What if Joey Daccord was enjoying the Big Gay BBQ with his boys after a hard fought game...what if Kole Lind looked at him with a smudge of bbq sauce on his mouth and felt insane about it....and also, what if Chris Driedger was watching this while wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses and vaguely yearning for Grubi...ouagh

[I absolutely derailed myself into a psychological assessment of Chris Driedger his 20s + musings on the AHL fic -- cut bc I had to scroll four times to get to the bottom and the people on my dash who don't care about the AHL just don't deserve that...just a note that there is ZERO salacious imagines under the cut]

Actually Chris is very interesting to me bc irl he is a 29yo who invested in crypto, but he is also a 29yo who suffered his way through his 20s not unlike the rest of us, just with more of a spotlight on him. but it's like, or at least of me it was like this, I hit 29 and I was like, well. I made it this far through my 20s and it absolutely sucked so much and I hated every minute of it and I kinda wish I was dead, but maybe a new decade will be different. I gotta make it through one last year of pushing through this shit and if I take a step back, yeah, it's gotten a little better with every passing month. Maybe my 30s are not a chance to start over so much as they are a chance to start moving forward. And I think for Chris (this is turning in a psychological assessment instead of a sexy imagine sorry) who has suffered through some catastrophic injuries, some terrible setbacks, some truly awful decision-making of his own, and just kept coming back from it and kept pushing forward -- to me Chris at 29, back in the AHL and yet again a back up, but also BACK PLAYING AT ALL which is very much its own kind of triumph, it feels very much like an interesting thing poke at in fanfiction. Like, okay Chris, you turned 29 in May in the middle of a playoff push, back early from injury when everyone thought your entire season was done an almost full calendar year prior. You're a back up again, but you're not really playing. You just watched this kid you love so much and this team who has embraced you have an inaugural season that quite frankly set the standard for any expansion team yet to come and CERTAINLY any team moving around (Wranglers. Cuda.) in the current era. Like, irl he seems very confident, very full of swagger, but also very full of humility and gratitude for how many chances he got and very determined not take anything for granted anymore. If you apply that to the experience of being a queer man at 29, gosh there are so many possibilities. Very "I am going to make it through this year if it kills me." Where do we go from here, Chris???

But also yeah he should eat bbq and send a photo of himself to his friends with his shirt unbuttoned flirting with drag queens and Philipp Grubauer should have a horny meltdown about it and spend all summer sending him thirst traps to get back at him. This does many things for Chris's ego.

also AHL fic is so interesting to me as someone who spent a couple years in bandom when fob had more or less fully taken off but a lot of pete's proteges were grinding it out on one hit wonders or collaborations with more famous artists and they were all clawing for every show and even p!atd wasn't really a sure thing yet... there are a lot of parallels to the whole "boys in buses got it so damn bad but we love it like the last cigarette we ever had" liminal space of the grind of touring and fighting for every last chance and making these friendships you THINK are insoluble but more often than not just dissolve as soon as one of you makes it or one of you breaks down and quits and goes home...the way Warped Tour was a party every year because for a lot of bands it WAS the last cigarette they ever had and they probably knew that on some level...i forgot where I was going with this. OH. the NHL can't even touch that level of "every game could be my last game"/"every show could be my last show" and the kind of desperation but also weird situational camaraderie that comes from that. Like on a pro athlete way for sure but also in that, 5, 6, 9, 12 hour bus rides every week all over the damn west coast. What do you do if you hate the guy sitting next to you. What do you do if you love the guy sitting next to you. There's no escape man. I forgot where I was going with that again but yeah basically, AHL fic is an untapped and very rich universe for people who love dirtbags, writing about people in close quarters, desperate feelings, and accept that there's a solid chance you may have to delete your fic someday when a prospect bombs out of hockey and turns into a normie. You know?? It's great stuff.

[dandyshucks]

a little smooch as a treat !!!