#celestial entropy

[cryerrscar1et]

🔥

[stonedragonisnthere]

MSM Fighting Game AU (PART 1)

Okay so I'm actually gonna try to take posting seriously this one time.

So I've been busy with a project outside of Tumblr where I've made the MSM celestial monsters into fighting game characters!! I will post movesets soon but here are some designs and a rundown on the lore!!

In this AU, almost all of the celestials are humans.

Attmoz is an angel who was a rockstar and part time super hero during the 80s-90s. Years later he retired and opened a guitar shop and tutors Glaishur on the guitar and drums

Galvana is a college student and mechanic in training at a research organization known as "Ethereal Co". But then she found the notes to create a material known as "Wubblyte", which was described as "a physical, Tangible, form of electricity" in the notes.

Vhamp is a robotic being who was discovered and reactivated by Galvana through replacing the Wubblyte core that powered them.

Loodvigg is the head scientist of a marine biology team at a rival research organization named "Prismatech". Prismatech also made Loodvigg, along with other employees at the organization into super agents. And at times they are missioned to hide their identity and steal information from Ethereal Co. At night

Plixie is a product of Prismatech's experiments, being a dead man brought back to life through means of cutting through his body and supplying an artificial blood-flow through the machines attached to them

Scaratar was a scientist-turned-biohazard arsonist after a poison related disaster happened in the labs of Prismatech. They also were an infamous villain in the 80s-90s, but has since been hiding, not trying to pull attention to themselves anymore.

Glaishur is also a college student who's taken a few hobbies while working. Galvana made the mech arms as a means to work with drilling, but in a turn of events Glashiur had to use them in defense.

In this AU it takes place after the superhero/villain events in the late 80s, two research organizations are still budding heads with each other.

[entropy-sea-system]

Flag redesigns !

of the aro alignment terms made by @polyfragmentedchaos ! (Calling these the aro celestial alignment terms for now but idk if there is a broad term for these?)

(made bc I wanted to make alternate designs, colors based on the names of the labels, Im a sunshine aromantic and eclipse aromantic!)

Sunshine Aromantic - Someone on the aromantic spectrum who wants to date anyone

Moonlight Aromantic - Someone on the aromantic spectrum who doesn't want to date anyone

Eclipse Aromantic - Someone on the aro spectrum who switches between wanting and not wanting to date people

Starlight Aromantic - Someone who is on the aromantic spectrum and is unsure whether they want to date people

[This post is about aromanticism. Do not tag as ace/asexual/acepsec.]

[cosmichalo]

You As A Boss Fight 

[hellenhighwater]

Why all the stars on stuff? Both in your house and in the sculptures.

It's true that I will take the thinnest possible excuse to make anything celestial themed; I will own up to that without shame.

I don't know if I can put it into words. Astronomy was a big part of my childhood--my dad was president of a local astronomy club and we spent a lot of summer nights at a little observatory in the middle of nowhere, chasing lightning bugs and watching supernovas. I learned to make model rockets and how to navigate from the North Star, and that the constellation of freckles on my left arm was only three stars short of Orion. That feeling of warm wind over the fields, the serenity and wonder of staring skywards, will never quite leave me.

But also, as an agnostic person, there's something about the stars that I find so hopeful and isolating all at once. As far as we know, we are the only things in the universe that look at the stars and wonder what other worlds may wait. The cataclysmic power of infinite suns, and none of them wondering if they are alone. The endurance of billions of years of time and space and the eons of distance light has crossed to meet our eyes, looking upwards into darkness, telling stories that turn the nuclear fury of distant galaxies into nothing more than the memorial of a human hunter. Pinpricks of light that will outlive the entirety of our species, named only on our breath. They're a tether to every one of our ancestors, who looked up into the field of diamonds and marveled, and every one who will come after. A star is the ultimate proof that creation and destruction are inexorably intertwined, that utter failure and collapse is not an ending, that light continues on.

In the emptiness between them is the persistent promise of entropy. The reminder that life, for all its glories, is finite, and darkness is not. The warning to savor what hope crosses the deep oceans of universe to reach us, because even that will not last forever. Entropy, the great hunter, will lay stars and souls down in the same grave someday, and all things will end no matter how we fight it. There is a comfort in knowing that whatever awaits us past the final flicker of life spares nothing, not a single cell or a galaxy entire, all of us entering the great mystery together.

We, the stargazers, are the cosmic elite--we alone look out at the universe, which, for all its splendor and vastness, has no eyes to gaze back at us. We alone have the privilege of sapience, not only to exist in the whirl of fireflies in the endless night, but to know it, to get to revel in its beauty, for the momentary flicker of our existence. And still there is hope that we are not alone; that the universe is so incomprehensibly enormous that the statistical impossibility of existence has occurred more than once; that maybe someone else out in the beyond is assigning meaning to our sun.

[afreakingdork]

You Are My Sunshine, My Only Moonshine - Chapter 10

RotTMNT x Reader

Donnie and juice, just the perfect sort of parallel for this week's chapter art by @birdsnout

Rated: Teen and Up Audiences

Relationships: Michelangelo (TMNT)/Reader, Michelangelo (TMNT)/You, Donatello (TMNT)/Reader, Donatello (TMNT)/You

Warnings: POV Second Person, Gender Neutral Reader, Anxious Reader, Introverted Reader, Stuttering, Aged-Up Mutant Ninja Turtles, Romance, Love, Love Confessions, Falling In Love, Unrequited Love, Rejection, Aromantic Asexual Michelangelo (TMNT), Bisexual Donatello (TMNT), Pansexual Leonardo (TMNT), Lesbian Cassandra Jones | Foot Recruit, Demisexual April O'Neil (TMNT), Implied Cassandra Jones | Foot Recruit/April O'Neil/Sunita, Endgame Donatello (TMNT)/Reader, Romantic Love, Platonic Love, Panic Attacks, Sexuality Crisis, Agoraphobia, Social Anxiety, Happy Ending, Fluff

Synopsis:  You’ve lost most of your life to anxiety and fear. Now, in your late 20s, you are desperate to reclaim it and during one such outing you encounter the sun personified. With his and his similarly celestially inspired family, will you finally reach your goal or will you lose yourself along the way?

Also available on Ao3

First 💛 Previous

Donnie liked things in order.

Which was to say it didn’t have to be a specific one.

In his lab, his brother’s would often complain of the mess.

It made sense to him.

He knew exactly where his next blueprints were and that he had yet to put that lone 17/64 in. drill bit that had rolled under the cabinet beside his desk back in its pack.

That was the nature of the universe. 

It was both a state of chaos, but also one of order. 

It was a scientific debate. 

Physics was orderly and seemed to be the same everywhere one looked.

Thermodynamics, alternatively, always snuck in a bit of entropy.

There was measure in that too.

The measure of uncertainty.

As Donnie stared at the chilled set of juice boxes he had removed from the fridge, he wished his life was as cleanly packaged.

What was he doing?

Well for one, he was hunched. 

His back pinched and his hands were on the counter with his digits spread out wide. 

He was currently staring at a set of unopened beverages and very much wanted to drink one.

It was his whole reason for finally reentering the house after a dreadful night of attempting to sleep outside before going to bunk in the tank.

He’d bought a cabin for the family.

If his father continued to insist on a nature reprieve then they could at least rough it in a consistent manner.

They never cared. 

They hadn’t even thanked him. 

They made jokes. 

He was ridiculed for drinking delicious apple concentrate.

So what if he was almost 30?

These came in a convenient form factor, had an adequate amount, and were tasty.

Simple, they were so simple.

You were simple too once.

You made sense as a villain, and then you made sense as a scaredy cat.

The second part didn’t make as much sense to him personally, but it still stood as a sort of fact.

He chocked that up to entropy.

Whatever your reason was for putting up your fearful front was yours and not his.

What was his was Michelangelo.

His dearest baby brother.

Everyone’s favorite brother.

Minus, Mikey, of course.

They knew their rankings. It was obvious who the clear winner was. Despite his failings, Mikey was infectious. He was the heart of their group of Planeteers. As asinine as the show was and with how very little sense it made, in this case it fit. Reaching out, Donnie picked at the outer plastic that kept the many juice boxes together. A malformed plastic corner marked where the factory had mistakenly melted that outer layer a little too thickly. Their failure would be his gain as it was the perfect flap in which to tear the wrapping off.

He needed to do that.

He needed to shed this damn outer layer.

That’s what it was.

He had on a happenstance coating that kept him away from sweet nectar.

His developing crush on you.

No, he refused to call it that.

This was why he deemed it a development.

What grounds did he have?

First, he sent you to a veritable breakdown.

He had yet to mention that part to anyone else in the family and that alone was tearing him apart.

At the same time, he had no idea how to explain that he had been unusually attentive and had held a stranger close as they sobbed. 

More than once. 

A little shiver ran up his spine at the thought. That wasn’t him. He wasn’t so cool or aloof. He’d pretended to be when he was younger; when he thought those sorts of attitudes were appealing. It had all been so silly. Having only punctured the tightly packed rectangle, Donnie left the juice to make a fist on the counter.

He’d offered himself to you as the second best option.

Had that been his first failing?

Since when did he think so little of himself?

He held his own high praises in reality. He’d accepted things that others thought he shouldn’t and acknowledged others that were mutually agreed upon that he should. That was the sway of consciousness. Being aware meant having choice. Having choice meant choosing. Not choosing was a choice and he preferred to make them. There was science in that.

Reactions, equal or opposite, were those to be studied.

Was that why he watched you?

He’d long labeled the activity as his usual wariness of strangers in the lair, but he also had a propensity for deciding things without giving them enough thought.

That was his third law’s failing.

He rushed and would be forced to change his mind.

He disliked that much more than disorder.

It ranked somewhere just below pineapple on pizza.

Not that his list was exact.

Those rankings changed by nearly the second.

A jockeying scoreboard based solely on his preference.

You ranked too highly on that one.

No. 

He gave his fist a soundless bang.

You weren’t allowed on the scoreboard of things he liked.

It no longer made sense for you to be on the one he disliked.

You had to go into the neutral category.

That one was a no man’s land where he didn’t bother ranking and shoved everything he felt ambivalently about.

He didn’t care about your doe eyes.

He didn’t care about the sharp tongue that you tried to hide.

He didn’t care that he had the privilege more often than not of being the one that you didn’t stutter in front of.

He wasn’t counting.

What was there to tally?

How he’d saved you twice since?

What was that for interactions?

If anything you were some damsel in a story and happily ever after was something cowardly writers never bothered to write.

Because they couldn’t.

Because it was obvious that one only liked the other for surface level reasons.

There was no basis.

They had no real relationships.

There was trauma bonding at best.

Love stories were made by quick decisions, to see quick outcomes.

Thoughtless.

That was what he was in this regard.

That was what he’d grown to understand about emotions.

He couldn’t avoid them.

Frustratingly, he felt them too strongly for that.

They took too much time.

His low empathy regarded his tolerance for other’s feelings.

Sudden emotions were baseless.

Snap decisions were made without reason.

People needed time and awareness to make good judgment.

The heart was to emotion as the brain was to logic.

Reason was required.

If society ran on impulse desire alone then it would have been left in ruin.

The fact that many civilizations’ collapses could be traced back to inane emotional drivel proved his point.

You were some quick hit of dopamine.

You were something new and interesting for his brain to work out as you’d inadvertently tricked him.

You’d snuck your way onto his radar.

He rarely even noticed his other brothers’ fancies before you.

This time he banged both his fists.

Each turtle was different.

Not just in species, but in the sense that they were different people.

All four of them had grown up the same, but perfectly different.

Not once in their entire lives had any of their romantic interests overlapped.

They fought over more coveted items.

They squabbled for seats to their favorite movies or who actually had the rights to the video game consoles.

Those were solved with contracts.

Bargains.

They were inanimate objects to be traded.

Not people.

There had never been secret heartbreak.

No one had a crush on their brother’s crush.

It wasn’t a crush.

It was a spike in Donnie’s heart rate based on stupid chemicals that didn’t know the reality.

He refused to be the one to break a good streak.

Especially when you were Mikey’s first.

In a swipe, Donnie tore the plastic straight down the middle of the packaging. Cleanly separating eight juice boxes into two rows of four, he quieted his mind by plucking cartons out one by one. Setting them back into their tight formation, he tossed the excess trash. He then took the rapidly warming containers and placed them back in their tidy line in the fridge minus a single soldier. That one he stabbed mercilessly but cleanly with its accompanying straw.

He needed to pick back up that eco-friendly packaging design he’d been toying with for these.

Less nonsensical plastic.

Lifting the box up, he got the straw between his lips and sucked.

There it was.

That familiar feeling.

That rush of good chemicals.

It was the same as drinking juice.

Yes, that was what it was.

Nothing but a little treat that some would say was a crutch.

He could quit it if he wanted.

He could pick and choose his vices.

That was his.

His mind a sort of clear in a cluttered way, he released the box and held it up with the straw between his lips. It freed his hands up to check the closest drawers for paper. He wanted to get that package design down before the next genius idea flittered through his head.

You chose just then to appear on the other side of the counter.

Maybe he could go back to classifying you as evil.

You made eye contact and your shoulders came up for a tentative greeting. 

Donnie didn’t appear to be a morning person. 

You had heard the crinkling of plastic from the top of the stairs and thought it would be alright to come down even if the option terrified you. Though last night you had a clear preference, right now you weren’t sure which brother you wanted to run into. It felt like years had gone by since you chased a man made of sunshine. In your quest to live your life, defeat your fear, and finally be a person, you had somehow regressed on all fronts in a single night.

You had run away.

You had kicked your best friend in the face.

You had been reduced to nothing.

All because you couldn’t handle the change in a status quo that only you decided existed.  

Because you were so obsessively focused on getting through any single day.

Because you couldn’t look outside of yourself for one minute to see how you were impacting others.

Because everything you did was through the most frustrating self-absorbed lens imaginable.

You needed to talk to Mikey.

You needed to figure out what happened and not what you assume occurred.

After your little dream which you now deemed a nightmare, you had avoided sleep.

You had spent hours pouring over the events at the lake.

You’d come to realize a few things.

The first being that Mikey had no way of knowing how insecure you had felt.

You had given over to one split second reaction after another.

You had fumbled everything, but even knowing that and having all the time in the world to prepare, you still dreaded the conversation.

You knew the steps all too well. You would start with the awkward titter and dance where neither of you knew who should lead. You would talk over each other by mistake and then flounce with apologies until you were stuck in misery. It’d be followed by one of you, Mikey obviously, going first. He would try and take all blame to make everything better when in reality you were the one at fault. He had said he wanted to test the waters. He had said this was new to him. He told you to tell him if he made you uncomfortable.

That he’d stop.

Immediately. 

Instead you kicked him in the face and threw a tantrum the likes of which caused you to desecrate someone else’s home while making its tenants sleep outside. That was three scoops of your shit sundae which you topped off with whipped cream in the form of you sobbing pathetically into your friend’s older brother. A toss of sprinkles came as you’d then forced that same man to clean up after you. You then dotted your creation with the most infuriating cherry of all: you were clearly developing a crush on Donatello.

Why Donnie?

Why the one who didn’t like you?

Why the one who had been so cruel to you from the get go?

The most perfect man in the world already liked you and you turned to his closest, least interested companion and said ‘this one.’ 

You damned masochist.

You tainted everything you touched.

You hated it.

You despised yourself.

You also felt immense joy at the sight of Donnie’s face. 

Even while he looked at you like you had walked in and disturbed his meticulous work. 

You were the worst.

You had to beat these feelings back.

It couldn’t be more.

Even if you were to somehow set aside Mikey’s feelings, it seemed patently absurd to have a crush on a friend’s sibling. So many movies touched on it and every time the person in question had been some creeper.

You were the creeper.

It was only a dream.

Dreams didn’t depict what you really wanted.

Dreams were random.

Donnie was a source of comfort because he’d saved you.

You were vulnerable and your mind had filled a void.

Donnie looked adorable with that juice box dangling from his lips.

Adorable?

You wanted to sob.

By all accounts, he was a groggy mess.

The dark circles under his eyes punctured straight through his mask and his posture read a certain menace. Head tipped down, his eyes turned up against stooped lids where he was just a shy step beyond glaring. One tweak of his eyebrows and he’d hold fury, but it was all contrasted by a pop of purple color with bright red apples on it. Smearing any semblance of intimidation coming off him, the casual nature of the juice box made him seem like a guy who just wanted a little treat after a hard toil.

He straightened and looked down his beak at you. “Tell me it was worth it.”

Your expression withered. 

He was understandably upset with you.

“What… happened?”

“What didn’t?” He sneered openly and plucked the juice from his mouth. “Let’s begin: There were only porch chairs to sleep on! Mikey tossed and turned in an emergency blanket because, for some reason, he thought he might freeze even though the temperature is nowhere near uncomfortable! There were bugs! I was then banished to the tank only to find my secret cot there in ruins! I suspect Leo, but the reinforced interior meant I couldn’t access the cabin’s Wi-Fi to review my security footage!”

You imagined the only good left in these woods was you could bury your own body and no one would presumably find you. “Donnie… I’m s-so sorry… this is all-!”

“Tell me.”

You blinked out of your misery for shock.

“It was worth it!” He outright bellowed with a twitching eye.

“It…”

Lie.

You needed to lie.

Lie and not tell him you were up all night because you were afraid to dream about him a second time.

“It was…”

He gave an impatient hum.

You brought your head down. “I f-felt secure, but I couldn’t sleep. Too much happened…”

The tense moment of silence seemed to build until your gaze bottomed out on the floor.

Donnie then gave a heady sigh.

“Well…”

“Thank… I mean, thank you…”

“For what?”

You heard a sound and snuck a glance to find he’d folded his arms on the counter. “For… protecting me… for… ugh… I cried on you again…I….”  You whipped your head back and forth, frustrated with yourself. “No! I’m… I’m… tired of this! This is the third time. I keep… I hate it. I hate that I keep doing this to you. You said not to make you a third wheel and a-all I wanted was to make sure that was true. Then I went and made you something worse! You had to deal with both me and Mikey and… it’s me. I hate that I can’t keep it in. Even now…” You rubbed at your cheek hoping to shut down your scorched sinuses. “It’s… I don’t know… It feels easy to dump my bad emotions on you because I feel like you understand?”

You could feel him staring.

“Why would you…?” You gestured down yourself with a bitter hand. “… understand this? Why? We’re nothing alike and it’s unfair of me to think we are. I can’t seem to stop taking advantage of your kindness...”

“Your thought processes are boring.”

Your gaze snapped to his.

His lids were lulled.

You could only pop an incensed plosive.

The corner of his lip quirked. “How do you feel now?”

“A-annoyed?!”

He blossomed into a smirk. “This is why I don’t believe you.”

“Believe what?”

“That you’re actually scared.” He rounded the counter.

“I am! You have no idea-!”

“I don’t.” He approached and used his juice box to point at you. “You just said that. You don’t know me and I don’t know you well enough at all, but I know when to throw out a grounding technique so it will be successful.”

“Grounding…?” You trailed off.

“It’s as if your mind gets stuck.” He pointed one digit and curled the others like a gun to his temple. “Spiraling. Catastrophizing. Doomsaying. What have you. However, if something unexpected is said, it interrupts the feedback loop.”

You shirked the information and looked off to the side.

“Maybe your baseline is shy. Maybe you’ve been rightfully wounded. Maybe you have a minute social battery. Maybe you have anxiety disorder. On and on, but from what I’ve seen…” He slid an arm along the counter to tip his body and try to catch a glimpse of your face.

You shared a small portion.

“I’ve seen you fight back. I’ve seen you furious when you’ve been wronged. I’ve heard you blurt out raw thought. It’s hard not to imagine that’s you.” His face then contorted with disgust and he rose up with you chasing after. “This is where Leo would say something overt like ‘you’re a fighter, champ.’”

“I doubt he’d call me ‘champ.’”

“True, it will be something equally old man worthy. Count your days.” Donnie rolled his eyes.

“Why… do you keep helping me? Aren’t I… a-annoying?”

“Incredibly. You’re disruptive and you’ve upturned my peaceful life!” Donnie threw a hand up in Shakespearean dismay.

You watched on with wide eyes.

He held the pose for several seconds before a smarmy smile turned on you.

“Was that another grounding!?”

“No.” He chuckled.

“Wha-?! Hey!”

“Sometimes a sentence needs a little pizazz. I appreciate theatrics.” With a slow blink, he tipped his head as if it couldn’t be helped. “If I must be serious then I will clarify that I don’t mind. So is the life of a hero!” 

You made a noise that was sadder than you hoped. “Because heroes help anyone…”

He cracked one eye open in your periphery before shifting to fully gawk. “That’s not-”

You turned to look, hoping you masked the hurt.

That was the truth.

You weren’t special.

You were nothing to Donnie but another soul to be saved.

He did what he did because he had to.

It was good to hear.

It was grounding.

“That’s not exactly…” Donnie looked at his juice, but said nothing more.

You filled the space so he wouldn’t have to feel bad. “Where’s Mikey?”

Donnie gave a full body twitch. 

You held firm in your question. 

His gaze shifted through a few things before he neutralized them all and gestured to the right of the door. “Around the side.” 

“Think he’s ready for me?”

“Are you ready?”

“Yeah… I’m… I’m ready to apologize.”

“You!?” His head shot high.

You nodded.

“Don’t.” His teeth flashed with severity. 

“Why?” You felt confident in this. “I overreacted.”

“He should pay better attention to his friends!” 

You thought with a purse of your lips. “Does he do this to you? Miss things? With his family… I mean.”

Donnie made a disgruntled sound at having to switch thoughts so rapidly. “It… depends. He is oft for distraction, but when he is focused; it’s impenetrable. Not even pest control can save you. He’s in the walls!”

You gave a puff of amusement. “That sounds about right.” 

There was another moment of silence, but this time it had a standoff quality. 

You needed to do this. 

Donnie hadn’t tried to dissuade that. 

He was focused on who was to blame. 

Your gaze didn’t falter this time so he was the one to relent. “Go then, if you’re so sure. Patch things up, but at least let him have it a little? For me? Consider it your pittance and because I’m tired of being the only one that seems to think he can do wrong!”

You pouted your displeasure, but considered the thought aloud. “A little…” 

One of his brows rose, proud. 

You turned away from it with warmed cheeks. “Maybe! No promises…!” 

You heard him chuff. 

“Thanks, Donnie.”

He shooed you from the kitchen and as you were headed for the door you ruminated on one last thing: 

You had ruined a lumberjack’s breakfast.

If that was on Mikey’s mind he may have cared. 

Instead, he’d been stewing for hours and only stopped when heard the door open and shut. 

He could tell it was you.

It was in the little pause between hinge swings where you tried to catch the door before it slammed shut. You tried to minimize that presence of yours. He never understood why. That and Donnie always let the thing bang loudly since he vowed not to fix it after Raph broke the stopping mechanism three times in a row. The oldest brother had called it a penchant for closing doors with purpose. It had cracked Mikey up, but that wasn’t what he was supposed to focus on now.

Now was time for apologies.

Not that you should let him.

How did he even begin to explain the weird rush he’d felt?

He had to.

He knew that much.

He had seen you take it the wrong way.

That didn’t matter though because he deserved the night outside for what he’d done.

If the roles had somehow been reversed, he would have totally freaked out the same way as you had.

Spasming and kicking were classic escape techniques.

A bad guy can’t hold you down if you’re all over the place.

That was also the reason for zigzagging.

Wait, was that right?

Focus.

He turned his head in time to find you had arrived.

He’d been thinking about this for hours and he knew exactly how he was going to start. 

“You ever try to zag on ‘em?!” While the words exited his mouth, his brain screamed at the folly.

Thankfully, you’d frozen on contact with the strange question.

“That was not what I meant to say!” Mikey stared with painfully wide eyes that begged you to understand. 

You folded slightly and a hand came up.

He messed up.

He messed up so bad.

Crushes were dumb.

They made you infinitely more stupid.

That raised hand of yours became a fist. 

It met your lips. 

You used it as cover to giggle behind.

Literal song birds could have flown out of the nest of Mikey’s hair.

That was what it felt like.

“W-what does that e-even mean?” You tittered and moved to his side.

Mikey could feel his face go ooey gooey and he tried to cover it by making a chopping motion with his arms. “Zag like zigzag. They think you go one way-!”.

You gave a weak mime the other direction. “And you go a-another?”

Mikey’s smile split his face. “Good morning, Y/N.”

“Morning… Is this…?” You gestured to the chair next to his where Donnie had tried to sleep the night prior.

Where had Donnie gone?

Mikey had woken up alone. 

“Please.” Mikey reclined, cross legged.

You took your seat politely on the edge. “I heard sleeping out here was tough… I’m… I’m sorry…”

“No!” Mikey yelled a little too loud and pushed down on his knees to keep himself in place. “I slept like a baby! I was worried I’d be cold, but I conked out. I’ve always been like that. Just hit the pillow and poof! Light’s out!”

You nodded, sort of intrigued.

Sighing with the knowledge that he couldn’t pursue this light hearted conversation, he collapsed into his seat. “Yesterday.”

You bobbed to attention, ready to speak.

“Can I go first?” He tilted his head at your adorable eagerness.

Something passed over your features that looked like surprise, but also relief.

He liked the way you mixed seemingly unrelated emotions. “Yesterday.” He repeated and added a haunt to his expression. “So that must have been… confusing.”

You shuffled as if ready to flee.

A little rabbit.

He shook his head clear of that prey drive of his. “I told myself I’d start by saying you did nothing wrong.”

“That’s n-not-!”

“It’s true.” He turned openly and knew he would have to interrupt. “You didn’t. Your instinct was good and that’s good! Protect yourself! I want you to! That’s what we agreed on! I totally deserve a swift kick now and again.” He unfolded his legs just to demonstrate.

“But after… That… wasn’t…?”

“Wasn’t… how you should react? How should you?”

Taken aback, you thought it over by tracing the wooden armrest of your chair.

He wondered if you could tell he carved them.

“This is uncharted territory for both of us, I think.” He continued on, hoping to embellish your thoughts. “Like what are we even doing? We’re probably doing something no one has ever done before!”

“I don’t know about that…” You returned with a soft expression.

That fit you best.

That kind warmth to your eyes.

It was something he wanted to dip a paintbrush in and that gave him the perfect metaphor. “I had to think long and hard about what actually happened…”

“Don… Um, Donnie told me you weren’t ready to talk… last night…”

“Oh, you got my message. Yeah…” Mikey tipped and his chair creaked. “I was a mess, but not like you. Don complained and complained about the water you trailed inside and how it was going to seep and puff up the hardwood or something, but it’s sealed so like, what’s his problem!?”

Predictably, you went rigid with fear.

You very much disliked damaging places that weren’t your own. 

He liked the way you floundered when you did. 

Stupid predator thoughts.

If only he had time to tease you. 

“I came at it from all the angles like you’re supposed to with a sculpture.” Mikey mimed a looking glass. “See what’s in the stone or clay or whatever.”

“Inside…?”

“Yeah!” Mikey spun in his seat. “You can try to force the art, but it won’t art. Let it reveal itself and that’s when it gets good.”

“Oh…”

“That’s you.”

Your lips parted with a question, but you closed them as you tried to parse out which part.

He waited to see what you’d come up with.

“A… a… lump of… something t-to be molded?” You earnestly looked to him.

You were the cutest. “You’re the art.”

“I’m…?” Your head reared back in confusion.

“That’s not exactly what I thought in the moment because my thoughts are… you know… but it’s what I meant to think.” Mikey turned and searched the woods for that intangible feeling. “Looking at you, where the water dripped down your skin, the way your spine curved, and the weight of your limbs. Your skin stretched. The fabric bunched.” He rounded his hands around some invincible piece. “You were stunning… A work of art. The golden rule personified. The most beautiful landscape a painter can never in a million strokes ever dream to capture!”

Your arms blocked off your torso in a layer of protection.

That made a sad sense.

“Y-you… you… you… well… you b-blushed…?” You looked at him, nervous flush darkening your cheeks.

“I’m gonna own how corny this is because it’s super accurate: it was cupid’s arrow.”

You exploded with new shades that he wished he could wick off your skin with a swipe of bristles.

“Seriously.” He swept a hand against his knotted locks. “I think I’ve only felt something close to that like one time! It was the first time I got into Frick! Or… was it the Guggenheim…? Whatever, the first time I got to see a real painting up close. To see the brush strokes. The artistry. The masters! It felt like my face was on fire! It was pure unadulterated excitement!” His eyes raised with towering canvases. “It wasn’t life changing; it was life affirming.”

“B-but… m-me…?”

“Just like you.” He tipped his head to watch you comfortably.

You stewed with the weight of his statement.

“I’m sorry if it seemed like something else. I totally get how. I mean even I kind of thought that was the case, but when I examined what happened, it was all kneejerk. Also I’m… I’m kind of sad it wasn’t? Well not sad…” He blew a bit of a raspberry. “I don’t want to feel that way and I don’t, which is good, but it’s also…?”

“It’s o-one of those… t-things you wished… you could?”

“Yeah, but it’s a dumb one like when they give you a piece of furniture to build and add those extra pieces that aren’t listed in the instructions.”

You gave an unsure smile at his comparison. 

“Your body wasn’t provocative to me in the way most people think. For me, you were provocative to the mind! Stimulating my artistic senses and making all my brain juice’s explode!” Mikey pointed at his head from different angles and crossed his eyes.

You giggled.

“There, how’s that? I think that’s all me. If it makes sense! Wanna go?” Mikey offered a hand to pass the conversation.

You folded your legs together and tapped your knees. “You took my blame away…”

“Huh?”

“I was going to take full blame. I r-ruined everything like I… always…” You slowed, a heavy sorrow on your eyes.

His chest sank with it.

“I couldn’t face you. I hid. I made Donnie do all that work…”

“Dee woulda done that anyway. I was definitely gonna track water all over the place.”

You gave him a smile despite everything else swirling on your face.

“A shower sounds real good though…” Mikey felt his eyes drift.

You bobbed. “I-I’ll l-let y-you go-!”

He waved his hands. “I’m just saying to remind myself! Shower then breakfast because I also want to hit that griddle so hard. Now that’s provocative! Pancakes!!”

“A-art!” You tried to join his enthusiasm. 

“Hey-o!” He raised the roof. “Sorry, you were feeling bad. Wanna talk about that?”

“Uh… s-sure… I was… I wasn’t until I was… That swimsuit…” You squirmed with what was almost a shiver. “I was really uncomfortable in it. H-hearing you like it… I… It doesn’t c-change my mind, but… I’m glad… in a way that i-it wasn’t what I thought… It should be nice that you think of me that w-way, but also it’s… I… It d-doesn’t make me feel better a-about it…”

“Did it not fit?”

“No… It did…”

“Was the cut weird?”

“No, that’s not…”

“I had a pair of trunks once that would ride up which is like, hello! There’s a shell there! How’s it getting past that?!”

“Mikey…”

“Yeah, huh?”

“W-wearing it made me feel uncomfortable.”

He stared back.

That felt important.

He should put a pin in that.

A stressor on top of repetition was an obvious cry for his attention. “You… It made you feel bad?”

You gave a single tight nod.

He had to hold himself back from a protesting rant.

That was absurd and he’d heard and seen pretty much every crazy thing there was to see.

Nothing surprised him anymore.

Then say, surprise parties, but that was because his brother’s always topped themselves.

“I…”

His mind cleared as he snapped to you and your quiet voice.

“I… felt… provocative… the bad one… The one... t-that you think is… unnecessary…”

“Oh.”

“Yeah…”

“Then you saw me see you and you thought…” Mikey crossed his fingers while drawing lines. “Eugh… That’s bad.”

“I’m sorry…”

“You shouldn’t have to say that. I’m the one that’s sorry…”

You shook your head, eyes down. “L-like I said… It should be nice… I just can’t…”

“Accept.” He spoke. “Not how I feel about the swimsuit.” 

You gave another sharp nod as if it hurt you.

He wished he could take that away.

“Well…” Mikey sighed, the air feeling a little too heavy. “I mean that’s not… new. You already don’t accept me.”

“Mikey!”

“Right, right. You don’t accept my feelings! I gotta specify!” He chirped. 

You wound with dismay. 

“It’s true!” He rolled in his seat and it rocked with his weight. “Which is still fine, by the way! I feel the same and I think I unlocked a new piece even if I’m still not totally sure how it goes into the puzzle.”

You made an unsure sound.

“I’m just spitballing. You can have those without understanding ‘em. They’ll make sense eventually.” He eyed you hoping it didn’t apply much pressure. “Are we… still good?” 

“You… you still want to…?” You looked around for an out, but there was none among the wilds. You returned with what he liked to imagine was a wiggle of your nose. “... b-be friends with m-me… d-do this…?”

“Of course, silly.” He smiled easily. “There was never a doubt.”

He watched one layer of anxiety fall off of you only to reveal the next.

That was about your limit for these things. “You hungry?”

“W-we missed breakfast because of me…” You stuttered out. 

Mikey chuffed so hard he almost wished he had a noisemaker to go with it. “Doubt it. Don mighta made something in the meantime. Oh! Maybe he baked something! He’s really good at baking, but he whines too much. I can hear him now! ‘Mikey, the humidity of the trees is affecting my rise time!’ But don’t let that fool you! He’s got nothing on this chef! If we’re eating good; it’s gonna be cause of me!” He threw a triumphant thumb into his figure.

“O-oh…” You looked confused.

You needed time. “I’ll go… shower! Yeah!!” He grinned proud for his memory. “And you chill out here or in there or wherever. I’ll cook, you clean. You do the dishes! How’s that for mutual punishment? Win-win!”

“N-no breakfast pizza…” You looked relieved enough that he could tell you were making a joke.

Mikey threw himself to his feet and tilted a smarmy smile your way. “I don’t know! I think those old axe wielders would totally crush a forest with Mike’s supreme lumberjack breakfast bake ‘za! Think of the complex carbs that’ll fuel a working man’s hard day!!”

You giggled that bird song.

“Nah, I’m making pancakes and no axe murderer will stop me!” He lifted his foot as high as it would go before taking a step.

“W-when did t-they become-!?” You pivoted to track his movement.

“Who’s to say!?” He cheered and ran in time with the rapid pace of his heart.

Listening long after the door had clattered closed, you eventually sank back into your chair. The woods were a lovely backdrop no matter how you felt. At an odd peace even though it didn’t quite feel like everything had been dealt with, you watched a bird preen itself on a nearby tree. Twitching to check its surroundings between each flick of its head, it then ruffled its feathers for a job well done and flew off to some unseen task.

You figure it was probably food which is what finally got you up and headed back inside. You quickly found a sort of pandemonium where Donnie was stone-faced catching enormous flapjacks being tossed through the air. Some sort of ancient game, Mikey threw more and more as Donnie moved on near muscle memory to catch them. Creating a stack that was unnecessarily tall and probably crushing at least the bottom twelve discs to pulp, you waited by the door until Mikey spun with his still damp hair dancing tendrils around him.

“Perfect timing!” He shined all too bright with the only crack as a gap in his teeth.

You were soon stuffing yourself to the brim which should have led to comatose except Donnie demanded a nature hike. The product of some agreement between him and Mikey, you were left staring vacantly as the brothers prepared to go. Mikey mentioned this was related to more mutual punishment so you were excused, but he also appeared to have suffered the same overeating fate that you were. Moving on camaraderie alone, you hobbled together with Mikey as Donnie, who had eaten nearly as many pancakes as his brother, seemed completely unperturbed.

On the trail, Donnie spouted fact after fact and staunchly only called things by their scientific names. The food coma lent a period where you excused the stubborn act because you were only half listening, but as more steps aided in your digestion, it became annoying since you had no idea what he was talking about. His facts sounded interesting and you began to feel like you were missing out. When you checked in with Mikey to see how he was fairing, you found a similar irritated look on his face. You both then shared a wry smile before Mikey stood taller and began loudly commenting about purposefully incorrect flora and fauna to spite his brother.

“Polemonium vanbruntiae is a perennial herb that grows erect from a horizontal rhizome.”

“Dang, Y/N. Can you believe earth worms can grow straight up from the ground like that?” Mikey gleamed at you. 

“Oh, I’m hearing you want facts about Lumbricus terrestris! Very well!!” Donnie’s voice was getting bitterer by the second. 

The two bickered an affectionate back and forth. All clear jest, you couldn’t help but also notice the natural flow there. Mikey said something about a B-team reunion as tours guides and from context it seemed like the pair were considered the backup team to Leo and Raph. With Mikey’s mighty mysticism alone that seemed like an impossibility. You couldn’t picture your friend waiting in the wings and Mikey caught wind of your surprise. He explained they weren’t always the mystical warriors you saw today and you had a difficult time trying to picture what they were like when they were young. Mikey moved to sharing training mishap memories and you were left wondering what kind of power Donnie had.

Donnie without mystic magic was horrifying enough.

If someone told you he was the strongest, you might believe them. 

You still believed as much about Mikey. 

You were sure there were all sorts of dynamics between the brothers, but these two in particular had a special relationship. Trailing behind to observe some vines that Donnie had pointed out, it only further cemented your decision: Your supposed crush was nothing more than a ridiculous dream.

You were meant to stand on your own. Mikey was your guiding light from the sun. You didn’t betray that sort of help by trying to sneak away to have a tryst with the moon. The two had a familiarity that you could never threaten. Not that you considered yourself capable of such a thing in the first place. The moon didn’t feel anything special for you.

He only sought to right.

To illuminate injustice.

You fancied him as he was.

You respected that he was an ominous source of good. You would pocket all other feelings. The only emotion you would tend to was the one that cared for Donnie’s kindness. You would let that one blossom in your heart.

The good one.

It was one based on support that you hoped to repay. You could aid him and that was a pure feeling. That one wouldn’t get in the way.

Assistance.

You could do the same for Mikey.

A decision you were sure to agonize over later, in this moment, staring at a green vine, you saw tenacity. Donnie had said this otherwise spindly plant had the strength to clutch onto tree limbs throughout the harshest winters. It formed a symbiotic relationship with the tree once it matured.

That could be you.

You could flourish one day and then in turn help the brothers that helped you. Putting a hand to the trunk, you looked up the tree. They didn’t need your help as they’d long survived on their own, but you could support them in this tiny way. You could provide the little boost of nutrients that made things just a little bit easier. They were the heroes of New York and they deserved as much for all that they had endured.

“Y/N.”

“Yeah?” You leaned in close to the bark, pressing your promise there.

The quiet of the forest took up space before Donnie’s voice softened. “Did you want to know more about Vitis aestivalis?”

“Sure. Which one was that?” You turned to him and kept a hand to the tree.

He seemed a bit bashful as he held up some greenery. “The leaves are thought to be hepatic.”

He’d been hoping to expand on his latest find. 

You wondered where Mikey had run off to now. 

“That’s some sort of cleanse, right?” You smiled attentively for Donnie in Mikey’s stead and for no other reason. 

“They can draw away soreness.” He nodded.

You hummed in interest and moved in close.

Mikey soon appeared on the horizon, triumphant, with a walking stick held high.

💛 NEXT 💛

I LOVE MY BETAS @tmntxthings and @thepinkpanther83

[mossymandibles]

I'm sure it's all lore that will be revealed in due time, but could you tell us about some of the side effects of consuming the celestial flesh?

I’m definitely not good at working linearly and slow at story plot reveal right now anyway, so happy to answer lol

Also, I wasn’t sure how to gage how much context this answer needed so sorry in advance for the long answer 😭. And cw for graphic descriptions of disease/body horror stuff.

Tl;dr Eating Yvishnir eventually caused evolutionary entropy that sometimes causes horrors.

It’s said that Yvishnir (the body not in the ocean) was a fallen star from long ago, before humanity and the fall of Tartarus(ocean body). The primordials, (Furies and sea dragons) were the ancient fish and birds that fed on Yvishnir in order to sustain their size and godhood and multiply on Earth as its continued keepers. They grew jealous over humanity’s progress and out of fear they buried Yvishnir so humans wouldn’t find it, and hid themselves away. That’s how part of the creation myth goes anyway. Then Tartarus fell and uncovered Yvishnir once again, drawing the primordials out and changing the sea.

So when I say ‘eating the flesh’, I mostly mean the Crux. At first, when Yvishnir was discovered and exposed to the atmosphere, it produced something called Crux which permeated the corpse and oozed from it as a liquid, thought to be a type of otherworldly bacterium or ichor to help it decompose. It caused a sort of explosion of hyper biodiversity/evolution, starting with plants. Here are some examples, mostly some fungi:

Most Humans didn’t really consider eating the Crux of course.

There were a few eccentrics and cults however that started the ball rolling. They would mostly eat it from fungi that had grown around Yvishnir, as well as cooking with it. This caused versions of human evolution, where they began to evolve into the Myce and other species to repopulate as, genetically merging with fungi in order to survive the new world. They’re under the blanket term ‘Hox Strays’, who make up most of Marrowtide and other known civilization islands to this day. There are different variations of these and their mutations have ‘stabilized’ over many generations but that’s another story.

As for Yvishnir, there was a point where the Crux changed its properties, becoming more crystalline. Entropy took over the longer the body was exposed. Even the very insects that were feeding on it began to quickly horrifically mutate and grow. People would say that demons were being birthed from its rotted juices. The Crux began to bring on less desirable effects. Humans classified it as several new forms of horrific diseases ranging from otherworldly prions to the very DNA itself denaturing and mutating.

✨Some outcomes include but are not limited to;✨

>Victims known to have fits of uncontrollable laughter while bleeding from orifices. Several cysts that had broken out on the skin were found to contain bits of teeth, hair and even eyes, like they were growing them.

>Some victims became more beast-like but at the cost of their minds and insatiable hunger for more of the celestial flesh/Crux.

>Victims first described it as a tingling sensation in their chest and extremities. Their blood began to change its molecular structure to be crystalline as well. Cells became shard-like, until their blood eventually hardened completely. It could be seen poking through skin, like they were full of glass.

>Worse still, in a sort of sped up form of the first outcome, they can become a never ending cycle of constantly evolving body parts, growing biomass like cancerous tumors of body parts forever in bloom, eg. growing several hands from your eye or numerous organs. The body can’t sustain this and it pretty much ends in death.

These modern day effects were mostly observed by The Ladder and they determined that Yvishnir was not to be consumed by organisms any longer. In the modern day it is safely contained in Hearth, which is the name of the quarantined citadel outside of The Fever, serving god knows what purpose aside from genetic experiments they’re rumored to be continuing with the remaining crystalline Crux Root.

The primordials felt that those who continued eating the Crux were forsaken, punished for eating the god. They along with others had migrated far, far away at that point, populating the mountains of Zenith and oceans that no one dared to sail through. The body of Yvishnir faded into legends. Even people living within Fever and the isles surrounding it knew less and less about the body as time went on, more focused on surviving day to day.

Their are cases where people have somehow managed to preserve the liquid form of Crux, said to still be procured and preserved when the body was first uncovered and would thus have the least amount of risk involved.

Some people hunt mermaids for the soul purpose of searching the contents of their stomach, to see if they have remnants of Tartarus in them.

With Tartarus it’s all based on theory because no one is able to get down there to see wtf is going on, they only see the results.

[2xplusungood]

Alright I think I have a working theory of the events of elden ring. LOTS of spoilers for Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdtree DLC

In the beginning, there was The One, a singularity of intense heat and chaos until The Greater Will, causes the big bang and creates the universe to bring order to this formless chaos and usher in an age of order. However the side effect of that was the creation of The Greater Wills Sucessor, Space/The void/entropy.

The people of the lands between were known as The Numan, who knew of the coming age of stars, worshipped the moon (becuase it happened to be the closest celestial body). Around this time The God of Rot attacked in the form of a scorpion but was sealed away by a blind swordsman. What was left behind was its stinger which carried its rot. However it was discovered that the bodies who had been afflicted by the rot would turn to putrescence which the numen would begin to harvest bodies sent to and from the grand cloister where they would be tainted by The Lord of Rots stinger and turned into putrescence which would then be used to create living silver. (Congealed putrencense and silver tear husk harvestables even share the same model)

Fearful of the coming age of stars, The Greater Will sends down Mythra, mother of fingers. However on her way down she gives birth astel, fathered by The Void (Hence "Naturalborn of the Void" in english and "Bastard of the Stars" in Japanese) who in turn spawns the fallingstar beasts and later the Onyx lords.

As a result, Mythra was abandoned by the Greater Will, furthermore she was rejected by the numens who devised a method to kill her and her children with the fingerslayer blade. Desperate, she sends Astel down onto Nokron, who destorys the city and causes it to sink underground, so that the night sky may never be seen from the city again

Some of the survivors stayed, casting a false night sky over the ruins of the city while others left, becoming shamans in small villages.

Hundreds of years later there where the hornsent who were zealots of a religon centered around the crucibal, the primordial erdtree from which all life orginally spawned. Their faith in the crucibal and miracles of is currents cause them to grow horns, a symbol of divinity. They built a massive tower of babel and actually succeeded in it. As a result of the numens exposure to living silver (another name for mercury is "Quicksilver") their bodies have the ability to have deceased flesh grafted onto them. As a result, shamans are collected, have their skin flayed and then placed into living jars along with the bodies of criminals so that they meld together and are transported to the top of the tower where these "saints" are used to build a massive set of gates to the primordial currents of the crucibal itself and in doing so create a massive colemn of normalized primordial current, that reached the gods themselves.

Some time before this, The Greater Will sent down another envoy, this time a fierce beast that was little more than the embodiment of pure order, landing in farum azula where it would be worshipped by the ancient dragons and gives intellelect to the beastmen to serve as puppets to the greater will.

There was born a shaman named Marika, who swore revenge against the hornsent. Advised by the fingers and granted Maliketh, Marika surrendered her flesh to The Greater Will and entered the gates of divinity to ascend to godhood while The Greater Will takes over the crucibal, turning the massive colemn of primordial energy into the erdree, which in turn creates the Scadutree and Shadow Realm around the tower. This is the "Original Sin" and Marika's "betrayl" of the hornsent. Also betrayed and abandoned by The Greater Will, Placidusaax summons a powerful storm that engulfs Farum Azula and takes it outside time itself so that he may await the return of his god.

The flesh that Marika surrenders becomes a vessel for radagon. However, Their offspring are born cursed and fated for fire, Messmer would be sealed away in the Scadutree to wage an unending holy war against the hornsent and Milena becoming the gloam-eyed queen who Maliketh kills and takes the rune of death from.

This begins the golden age of erdree amd thr formation of the folden order. Queen marika takes powerful warrior Hoah Loux as her husband and the fingers place Sarosh on his back to queel his ferocious nature so that he may instead stand nobly as Godfrey, the first elden lord.

While this is happening, Radagon marries a Carian Princess and has Ranni, Radahn, and Rykard. Then dragons attacked the captial but are defeated by Godwyn the golden which creates the dragon cult.

However the crucibal didnt simply disappear. Children continues to be born with horns and demihumans had deep ties the crucibal. Marika, in her hatred of what the hornsent did to her people declared that children born with horns are to have them removed, likely killing them in thr process while those that survive are to be locked away underground.

With Godfrey, Marika has Godwyn the Golden but then has two omen children due to Godfreys Involvement with the crucibal knights and exposure to crucibal energy, leading to Marika casting him and his warriors away. No longer guided by grace and without the ability to die becuse of marika removing the rune kf death, they are sent off on boats to fight in the badlands.

With no Elden Lord, Radagon casts away Renala to become the new Elden Lord but leaves her with the rune of the unborn. Then has Miquella and Millena.

Ranni then traded torrent to Milena for info about the rune of destined death and made her move to rebel against the fingers by killing Godwyn the goldens soul so she could kill her empyrean flesh to set her spirit free to act against The Greater Will. This caused Godwyns soul to die but his body to continue living, creating deathroot and those who live in death.

With something horrible happening to her only son who up until this point had yet to have anything horrible happen to them, Marika is broken and decides to shatter the elden ring. The runes are distributed to the demigods in the hopes that one among them will prove themselves worthy of taking marikas place. However, the demigods aside from Margot would betray the golden order and a war broke out with no one winning.

Miquella then began his plan. Creating the Haligtree and then charming Mohg, he was able to secretly travel to the shadow realm to begin the process of apotheosis free from the influence of The Greater Will. Milena was thrn sent to kill Radahn, resulting in the scarlet rot blossuming in Caelid. From then the stage is set for his plan to wait until mohg and radahn have die so that radahn may be reborn in Mohgs body to user in the god Miquella

With the shattering war at standstill, the greater will returns to the tarnish and they in turn return to The Lands Between. Sir Gideon Ofnir is put in charge of the roundtable hold and made to assist tarnish who show potential enough gather runes from the demigods so that they may bring them to Lyndell. However, the tarnished of no reknown who was able to show off their ability to beat the asses pf demigods beats the ass of demigod morgot. Unfortunately, the tarnished have all been lied to and the greater will has no interest in the dishonor of a tarnished lord so radagon seals the erdtree with thorns, resulting in the burning of the erdtree.

[astrstqr]

𝓔𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐀 dr ∯ ‎ ‏‏‎‎ ‏‏‎‎ ‏‏‎‎ ‏‏‎𓏸𓈒 ‎ ‏‏‎‎ ‏‏‎‎ ‏‎ ‏‏‎‎ ‏‏‎‎☆‏‎

soo really this is just a run down of my etherea dr.

a brief history lesson if you will (it’s not lol)

ok , first things first : this dr is heavenly inspired by the Elder Scrolls series so some elements are taken from that and with the help of chat gpt lol. soo lmk what you think !

⭒ ﹒Early ETHEREAN Era ˊ˗

- Before time there existed a the Primordial Abyss, a realm of infinite. Two opposing forces resided: Magnar, the embodiment of equilibrium and harmony, and Solunis, the embodiment of entropy and flux. From the collision of these cosmic energies emerged Aeon and Myriss. It is belived that during the birth of Aeon and Myriss also came the Nexus of Genesis where they both lived.

- The Voidborne, also known as the “first ones” was the first attempt Aeon and Myriss made to create life. The Voidborne appeared as fractured spirits with their bodies unstable and being pulled through time. Thus Aeon created Chronothos, the deity responsible for time, began his inexorable march, shaping the ebb and flow of existence into a structured continuum. This temporal lattice provided a framework upon which the spirits could inscribe their will and shape.

Together Aeon, Chronothos, and Myriss created the realm Eldari which floats in the void of Magnus which sits in the Nexus of Genesis. Along came the mortal plane called Solnaris, the planet upon which Etherea and the mortal races reside.

- Because Aeon, Chronothos, and Myriss physical shape is two powerful they could not observe Etherea closely they create the Celestial Pantheon, a council of divine beings who brings order and shaped to the world of Etherea. Each deity contributed their unique powers and gifts to the creation of the world, imbuing it with life, magic, and purpose. (more on them later)

- The Celestial Pantheon gathered to discuss the fate of Etherea. They looked upon the vast expanse of creation, seeing the beauty of the land, the sea, and the sky, but they felt that something was missing.

And so, the Celestial Pantheon along with Myriss resolved to create a new race of beings, one that would embody the virtues and aspirations of their divine creators. They gathered the elements of creation—earth, water, air, and fire—and infused them with the essence of their divine power.

From the earth, they shaped the form of man, sculpting bodies of clay and flesh with skilled hands and loving care. They breathed life into their creations, awakening them from the slumber of clay and igniting the flame of consciousness within their souls.

From the waters, they bestowed the gift of emotion and intuition, filling the hearts of humanity with empathy, compassion, and the capacity for love.

From the air, they whispered secrets of wisdom and knowledge, inspiring humanity to seek truth, to question, and to aspire to greatness.

And from the fire, they kindled the spark of creativity and passion, igniting the flame of ambition and the desire to shape their own destiny.

Thus, humanity was born, a race of mortals blessed with the divine gifts of the Celestial Pantheon. They walked the earth as children of light and darkness, bound by the threads of fate and destiny, yet free to forge their own path in the world.

- The Pantheon created different realms. From these emerge races, each originating from a distinct realm. (more on them later)

- The insidious machinations of the Void Lords, malevolent beings of darkness and chaos who coveted the power and beauty of Etherea. With twisted desires to unravel the fabric of reality and plunge the world into eternal darkness, the Void Lords sought to subjugate all life to their will. As their influence spread like a creeping shadow across Etherea, it drew the attention of the Celestial Pantheon, guardians of order and creators of the world. Sensing the impending threat, the divine beings rallied their forces and prepared for war against the encroaching darkness.

- Etherea's fracturing due to The Celestial War, the races of men experienced a gradual divergence, each fragment of the world fostering its own unique societies and cultures. No longer bound by the constraints of a unified landmass, they embarked on separate paths of development, shaped by the resources and challenges of their individual fragments.

Distance and geographical barriers naturally arose between these disparate civilizations, fostering a sense of independence and self-reliance. Communication and travel between the fragments became arduous endeavors, requiring great skill and determination to navigate the treacherous waters and rifts that divided them.

As the centuries passed, the once-shared traditions and languages of men began to evolve independently in each fragment, giving rise to a rich tapestry of dialects, customs, and belief systems. Trade and interaction between these distant civilizations became sporadic, limited to rare encounters and fleeting exchanges.

- In the aftermath of The Great War that fractured Etherea, the very fabric of reality was left in turmoil, giving rise to a phenomenon that would forever alter the world: magic. Born from the chaotic energies unleashed during the cosmic conflict, magic manifested as a potent force, suffusing the land with its ethereal power and granting mortals the ability to wield supernatural abilities.

At first, magic was wild and unpredictable, its untamed energies coursing through the fractured landscapes of Etherea like a raging storm. But as civilizations emerged and ancient knowledge was rediscovered, mortals began to study and harness the arcane arts, unlocking the secrets of magic and bending its power to their will.

end of the Early Era …

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

You have told us how to court your average gallifreyan but how would one go about courting a Gallifreyan member of the Faction Paradox? Like are they in to freaky shadow stuff because I can not move my shadow like that? Like what major differences are their in courting a member of Faction Paradox compared to your average run of the mill Gallifreyan or Renegade?

And is it technically possible to court a Celestis or is that to messed up?

How should you court a member of Faction Paradox/a Celesti?

Courting a Faction Paradox member is very much NOT recommended by the Institute, however, here are some pointers you may find helpful:

🧠 Continue to be intellectually stimulating: Faction Paradox members are no different to normal Gallifreyans, at least when it comes to you remaining intriguing enough for them. Discussing the intricacies of time loops over dinner might score you points, and so might proposing a toast to the entropy of the universe.

🍽️ Pick the right meal: Forget the spaghetti bolognese; think of dishes that defy physics or even just culinary decency. Maybe go for a meal that exists in a state of quantum uncertainty or a dessert that tastes like regret, if you can find such a thing.

✔️ Embrace mind games: Members of the Faction Paradox love a bit of an enigma. A potential partner who can maintain an aura of mystery is likely to be very intriguing to them. A sudden, nonsensical act or something like an outburst of Woody Woodpecker laughter signals that you're not just another predictable human.

🗣️ Give what you get: They'll probably test you with some snappy comments and insults, cos they love a bit of bants. Give back what you get like some kind of interstellar rap battle.

🫨 Embrace the rituals ... and the chaos: The Faction love a good ritual. You might not be able to move your shadow in eldritch ways, but participation in or even just an appreciation of these can go a long way in impressing them.

👏 Laud their achievements (but not too much): Faction members like to hear how good they are. But not too much, because there's a fine line between providing compliments and just being a sycophant.

🔥 Show hatred for Gallifreyan traditions and customs: They really don't like them, so you shouldn't either. Down with Rassilon!

😍 Physical and telepathic boldness: Unlike typical Gallifreyans, Faction members might be more open to physical and telepathic intimacy, though this could vary, as some may just find it all primitive.

🌟 Courting a Celesti

The Celesti inhabit a realm of existence that transcends conventional physical and temporal boundaries, making the concept of "courting" as we understand it a challenging idea. It'd be a bit like trying to date a cloud.

If you do manage to get into a relationship with a Celesti, don't think in any way you'd be able to control or influence it. Sorry, but you're not driving that ride.

🏫 So ...

Once again, despite all of this, remember that every person is unique, with their personality traits, interests, and views. Tailor your approach based on the individual you're courting.

Related:

How should you court a Gallifreyan?: Advice on dating a Gallifreyan.

How do Gallifreyans flirt?: How Gallifreyans approach flirting.

Factoid: What gift would suit my Gallifreyan and their biology?

Hope that helped! 😃

More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired 😴

[insanelyadd]

what dose Entropy mean? I hear them say it as a swear word but what dose it mean I know that asteroid is probably asshole and stars is shit but I can’t figure out the rest so what do they mean?

YAY I GET TO TALK ABOUT LINGUISTICS this shit is long, I've been working on it for a few hours, it's going under a read more.

Oh they're less one to one than that. They also apply to the meanings they've assigned to those words. So asteroids are bad because they can wipe out all life on a planet. It is what the Collectors would call "a dick move".

Stars isn't shit, because that's not what it means, usually I have them say "oh my stars" instead of "oh my god" (they do not believe in any gods) or "oh my titan" (self explanatory) and this was partially because "oh my stars" is a real thing I've heard people actually say, and also because if the Collectors are to be reverent to anything, it would most likely be stars, because stars give life to mortals and provide a few different kinds of radiation that they feed on. Saying stars in an annoyed tone is probably similar to someone saying "jesus" or "god" like they are extremely frustrated, where it's an exclamation of annoyance/aggravation and not really a swear.

Entropy is probably the worst swear they have in their own languages because their swears work like Dutch swears (in Dutch you swear with diseases) where the worse the original thing is the worse it is as a swear word. Entropy means a decline in energy as it transfers between things, like from the power plant to your outlet to your blender there is energy loss. Though when I was deciding it to be a swear word for them, I was using the association between entropy and the hypothesis of the heat death of the universe. While writing this out I was looking over some discussions and data to better explain what I was going for, and now it's being proposed that this might not even be a thing that will actually happen (very nice to think about that tbh). But it's quite likely that at some point for them they thought it could happen and the horror at such a thing, even if it's so far away, would be enough to make it the Worst Swear Word they have (but not the worst insult).

All their swears words, insults, descriptors, names, units of measurement, are words for space stuff (NOT LIKE PLANET OR CONSTELLATION NAMES WHICH STEM FROM HUMAN FOLKLORE, I MEAN SCIENTIFIC DESCRIPTION OF WHAT IT IS), because for the longest time all they had to compare anything in their existence to was stuff in space. Their vocabulary is probably also much more dense wrt that specific thing, so instead of simply "a star" they'd have specific terminology for every specific type of star and all their life stages.

Other insults/swear words and their rough meanings:

Rogue/rogue planet (reckless, destructive, careless) Rogue is also the name of the marriage/children of Planet + Comet Collectors.

Pulsar (erratic, unpredictable, could also mean someone who is addicted to them, because Pulsars shoot out concentrated beams of energy so they work like stimulants on them like caffeine or similar)

Black hole (they suck, haha, but also: are depressing, a symbol of imprisonment [could imply abusive], some are also addicted to these because getting too close acts as a depressant like alcohol because it sucks energy out of their bodies and makes them sluggish and tired and have similar effects to alcohol)

Brown Dwarf, this is a celestial body that is neither a star nor a planet (gas giant specifically) but is somewhere between the two, and is sometimes described as a failed star. This is a situational insult because like all the other words here it has alternate applications. (This is the worst insult they have, it basically means a total failure, failed to be a planet, failed to be a star, you're worthless) Unrelated to the connotation of insult, a marriage between a Sun+Star (Constellation) Collector and a Planet Collector used to be called this. A Sun + Planet and Star + Planet have different names.

Marriage/Child names below, not including marriages of existing hybrids:

The Eclipse ones are only for unbalanced relationships or children that resemble an eclipse rather than the other type they could be.

Any word can be an insult or a swear word and any listed words here could also Not be.

[stonedragonisnthere]

Celestial Entropy shitpost things

Furnoss art by @strixide btw

[dailycharacteroption]

Planar Tour Guide: Negative Energy Plane part 3

(art by Nexumorphic on DeviantArt)

Denizens

The Void may be empty, but that doesn’t mean that it’s uninhabited, a fact that makes it all the more dangerous. Of course, most entities are not truly native there, but were created from those who visit. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what entities linger in the depths of Entropy’s Heart.

Perhaps the most common type of undead on the plane are the many different varieties of spectral dead. Wraiths, spectres, allips, shadows, and more, all formed from poor hapless fools that were obliterated by the plane’s nature. Perhaps most horrifyingly of all, while they have no statistical difference in terms of gameplay, these spectral undead are less trapped souls and more like echoes left behind from where a soul was obliterated, with truly nothing remaining that could be brought back or reasoned with.

Similarly, nightshades are also a sort of inverse shadow of something consumed by Entropy’s Heart. When especially powerful fiends, blinded by ambition, are consumed by the darkest depths of the plane, they come back just as evil, with new forms and barely if any memory of what they once were. These nightshades, or darvakka, seek nothing else but the end of all life and light in the cosmos, their old goals forgotten. And while this may make their goals the same as daemon-kind, even the Abaddon-spawn are not safe from their depredations. (Side note, all the Second Edition nightshade art is a step down from the First Edition art in my opinion. Being able to see clearly all the details of what is supposed to be a shadow monster simply does not have the same effect).

Similar to nightshades are the devourers, though they are not created by the plane nor are they natives. Instead, the soul-stealing devourers traverse the cosmos at the behest of some terrible entity that waits beyond the very edges of the Great Beyond, and many of their errands seem to focus on the Negative Energy Plane as part of their “Shepherd’s” plans.

And then there are the reapers. Be they minor reapers or true grim reapers (or perhaps THE grim reaper. Nobody is sure if there are more than one), nightmarish undead which bring death wherever they go, and so find the Negative Energy Plane soothing or useful in their plans reap the seeds of life. They supposedly originated in Abaddon, but can be found in the Void as well, to the ill fortune of all that cross them.

Of course, not all mortals or immortals end up dead on the plane. Whether it be by huddling around a failing magical effect or artifact, or by being trapped in one of the rare minorly-negative parts of the plane, some living creatures adapt to the constant blight around them, becoming the void-ravaged. Such entities tend to be hateful and solitary, but not necessarily malicious. However, they can never return to the light, for even the neutral levels of positive energy on other planes burns them, slowly destroying them.

And then there are the entities that are neither undead nor tainted, but enter the plane anyway. The most benevolent are perhaps the movanic deva angels, who watch over the plane as part of their duties to the inner planes on behalf of the celestial forces. Less benevolent are the hunduns, whose interest in the cosmic entropy of the Maelstrom overlaps with that of the Void, which they sometimes visit to contemplate Unsurprising given their role as cosmic monks of chaos. And lastly, there is at least one danava titan dwelling in the Nothing, though none can say why or what it is doing there.

And this is where we get into the true natives of the plane, the most destructive of which are the masses of destruction known as oblivions, forming and hatching from egg-like structures, eager to slip into other planes to bring ruin.

Finally, we have the sceaduinar, the true children of the void. These crystalline bat-like creatures are born from great tree-like masses of compressed, crystalline nothingness, and hate both the living and the undead in equal measure. In truth, despite being classified as outsiders, these entities, as well as their cousins the sceazir, are not alive in the conventional sense, having no souls and no inkling of positive energy in them. It is as if they came to be from a process that is simultaneously like and unlike life.

This is appropriate, considering that according to the sceaduinar, they were robbed of the ability to truly create in the earliest days of the cosmos, perhaps by the formation of the Negative and Positive planes themselves. Whatever they might have been before that, the void-bats care not for the necessity of the Void’s creation in making the cosmos as we understand it possible. They only understand the pangs of their ancient loss, and that all other entities are responsible.

As for divinities, most have little interest in such an empty places as the Negative Energy Plane, and certainly none dwell there. At most, certain deities of undeath and entropy show an interest in the plane, sending their servants there, but that’s about it.

That will do for today, but it is interesting to see what lives in a place without life, particularly the strange ecology of the sceaduinar and the mystery of what their form of “creation” might have been like. Tune in tomorrow for a little exploration of the mysteries within!

[racefortheironthrone]

Given the recent F4 casting announcement, which characters do you think/would like to see filling out their supporting cast & villains, and who would be your ideal casting for those roles? I personally think that someone like Michiel Huisman would be a great Doom.

In terms of supporting cast:

You need the Yancy Street Gang. Crucial aspect of Ben's character arc, the living connection tying him back to the old neighborhood.

I think it would be a waste to not use Namor if you've introduced him already; I think his new, more explicitly anti-imperialist position would be an interesting contrast to the FF's nostalgic portrait of the New Frontier 60's, because the U.S was up to dark shit in Latin America at the time.

I would like to see Alicia Masters; she's an important leavening element of Ben's arc, necessary to prevent him from being a one-note sad sack.

I don't think this is necessary, but it would be kind of funny for Johnny to hook up with a recast Crystal - if just to give Kevin Feige another chance to dunk on Ike Perlmutter.

It looks like we're getting H.E.R.B.I.E, which I think could be fine as long as Disney puts whoever is in charge of droids in Star Wars in charge of him, because he can very easily be annoying as hell and we want adorable.

In terms of villains, it looks like we're going with Galactus and the Silver Surfer rather than going straight to Doom. In my own pitch, I argued that Doom needed to be a secondary antagonist at most in the first movie - given that they're probably going to want to swap him for Kang as the next Big Bad, you need to build him up if you want to put him over. (Also, while we're at it, it would be nice for an actor with a Romani background to get a chance at the role, given how that issue was not well handled with the Maximoffs.)

I think Galactus is potentially a really good pick, because Marvel has shown that they can do big weird Kirby stuff with the Celestials, and that is what was missing from the version that was tried before (which is neither well-remembered nor well-loved).

The whole point of Galactus is "have them fight God" - Galactus is the cosmic embodiment of entropy, a Lovecraftian entity whose very scale and total unconcern about the heroes scurrying underfoot trying to put a scratch on him suggests the insignificance of human existence in a cosmic scale.

Fighting Galactus is really more of an existential struggle than a punch-up, more about the heroes choosing to "rage against the dying of the light" because they love one another and that gives their lives meaning in the face of everything.

[narwhalandchill]

hoyo rly just went and put straight up whale sonar (Very Obvious clicks starting 1.53) into wrath of monoceros caeli all the way back in 1.1 already while presumably going all tee hee abt it like its just a funky easter egg slash potential lore pipe bomb as if it wouldnt be actively ruining my goddamn life 3 years down the line after noticing it for what it was (yes shut up it took me this long after watching whale documentaries all week to hyperanalyze silhouette of catastrophes sonar to realize they used it before too) like i cant stop thinking about it

like nvm the fucking fact that the title of the track Itself is soooo fucking suspect w what we know now like. isnt it Curious how youd call a song meant for a moment depicting childes Individual Personal rage at Us the wrath of the celestial narwhal. Not the wrath of the "harbinger" not the "snezhnayan warrior" or w/e. but The monoceros caeli . That is what serves as his namesake for this moment in golden house .

they straight up said HIS wrath = the celestial narwhals wrath like Huh indeed 🤨

and Then theres this shit like the tusk drop man like he Already displays shared core characteristics with the narwhal its soo

embodying and embracing a solipsistic character and arrogant ambition so immense the sole image capable of reflecting its essence back at him in full turns out to be no less than the cosmos-cruising godlike all-devouring narwhal?? 🤨🤨 that just fucking Happens to be your own constellation? AND the creature you woke up at 14 just by balling it and tripping on your way down to the abyss??? 🤨🤨🤨 who you remain inexplicably connected to??

Ajax you are not fucking dodging the same/parallel/split/mirrored one singular entity with your narwhal allegations . Like yes its very hard to have anything concrete on the subject of their undeniable similarities but the parallels are paralleling a bit too hard methinks .

(like hypothetically given some themes of chivalry and loyalty and looking after his family in his weird dysfunctional way Wouldnt it be funny if the narwhals core motivation was also one of protection and preservation in its own eldritch way like maybe one thats all abt a sorrowful voyage of entropy and eating world after world with the ultimate goal of preserving life itself and giving birth to a new living one in its own stomach even as the universe with all its stars dims down and dies one da---- oh whoops Thats Canon)

theyre sooooooo undeniably connected but howwww what does it all ultimately pertain hoyo i need the fucking answers 😭😭

anyway tho to talk of the sonar a bit more the singular other occasion featuring it in genshin OST is obviously in silhouette of catastrophe and the thing that interests me in particular is the like. Specific nature of the sounds/references used

bc. yes theres clicks in wrath of monoceros caeli but its also like. Whose clicks? that ones not a question for silhouette obviously the entirety of the sonar references utilized is very much like. You Are Being Hunted Down In The Dark By Sound Alone By This Particular Narwhal. the clicks grind the way sonar of a whale hunting very very close to its prey would. the EDM adjacent beats intensifying and overlapping on the way to the 2nd beat drop invoke the closing in on prey. its looking for you. You are already dead (nani??!?) etc etc

but the clicks in wrath of monoceros caeli are more distant. almost curious? like. literally. theres none of the frantic nature used in silhouette with how the sonar conveys what is quite literally the imagery of a whale lunging for prey right within its reach. the clicks are uniform and sound out during a lull in the melody. their frequency doesnt speed up the sonar is just There. its more reminiscent of sonar toothed whales use when theyre just looking for information . looking out towards anything that might ping back in the distance . just keeping an eye out

and like as much as of a mr "same entity allegations undodged" childe ajax tartaglia foil hat 5head i am. it must be noted that the dude himself has Not exhibited a particular tendency for sonar clicking (and if it was His sonar id be expecting clicks Much more akin to silhouettes sounds of whale on the hunt given the emotions present during the 3rd phase aka bro is angy). but. Well. we all know who very much has and now im kinda just

okay Sure it could just be a theming thing. as has been noted already. ajax' links to the narwhal are Shady. so his boss fight OST featuring both whale call motifs (the electric guitar mimicking whalesong is still soooo) and this particular sonar might well just be intended as establishing that connection too (or maybe even foreshadowing the strengthening of their bond later in fontaine thru childes growth in power). which is already based we love it

but. also . Also. if you just let me get a bit creative (read: insane) with the possible implications of the clicks' presence in particular . Like just a little bit . Hear me out

Did. Did ajax start malding so hard during golden house that his own fucking narwhal (naturally concerned) popped by through their connection to just. Click him up a bit to see whats up with its favorite human . All the while the mans just fully in the flow state murder edition not noticing a thing .

. Is this a regular occurrence

[c0mbatchameleon]

hiii baby <33 could u tell meee more plsss about “celestial body”?? thank youuu

THANK U FOR ASKING THIS ONE IS MY BABY MY CHILD.

I have posted so much of it tbh without context. The only reason I haven’t actually started posting it on AO3 is bc I hate the first half of the first chapter and must redo it.

Anyways. I think I mentioned this one to u once it is my ode to my college yrs that have just come to a close. Reg takes an elective physics class and James tutors him and cue an onslaught of physics related metaphors for every emotion under the sun. And also reg dealing with trauma, as always.

In a nutshell, it’s about entropy; the thing that dictates every physical process, the thing that can only increase, the reason what’s done cannot be undone, because the universe can only grow more chaotic, never less. and so when something changes you, that’s final. your atoms aren’t arranged quite the same as they used to be and nothing can be done to put them back. it’s the arrow of time in a trench coat, never bending. you can only go forward. to resist that is to stand in its path and it’s fucking excruciating.

it’s about looking for explanations. the need to know. the human condition is a desperation to understand what we are and why, and there are a million ways to try to do just that. that’s why they built telescopes and microscopes and invented calculus and charted constellations. that’s why we look for something to worship. that’s why regulus clings to a desolate home until he’s dragged out by his feet.

anyways. for u baby. I have a small snippet.

A habit is hard to break. He’s been running over the same grooves in his brain for so long he’s carved canyons out of them. He’s drawing blood. It’s filling up his skull, flooding; he’s more overflow than person at this point. Regulus can only hear his own voice as a sound-wave stifled by water. Muffled, distant. Drowning. He only knows the person he used to be like a fading dream, a rotting corpse, a house abandoned. Something that holds life as a remnant. Something vacant and excavated and caving in on itself.

He doesn’t know when he became the things that happened to him. Or when they became him, maybe. When the memory metastasized and pushed out whatever else once lived within him. When it became his waking thought, the song that lulls him to sleep at night, the air he breathes.

He doesn’t know when it happened but he knows it must be a problem.