#cmon... the potential

[therizino-ao3]

Hermit Horror Week 2023

Day two: Environment

Summary: xB wants to support his friend, but there’s something about his base that feels wrong. He can’t bring himself to leave, no matter how much he knows he should.

Read on ao3

Contains: unreliable narrator, a character being non-consensually drugged (implied + in a magical way), loss of free will (strongly implied), panic attacks, fairy folklore, suffocation mention, weird time shenanigans

“So dude, have you seen my base yet?”

xB looks up from the diamonds he’d been counting, “Hmm? No, I haven’t. You’re doing like, mushrooms or something, right?” So far, his and Hypno’s business has been doing great. They’ve been getting quite a few sales lately, to say nothing of the IOU collection they’re racking up. They’re making bank.

“Yep! Like a mushroom forest, mystical land kinda thing,” Hypno takes the diamonds xB hands him, “You should totally see it! I’ve finished the main mushroom and a bunch of decoration around the place, it looks so cool.”

“I’ll take your word for it. I’m happy to head over now, if you want?”

They head over there by foot, instead of by elytra. It’s… a little weird, but xB doesn’t mind, he thinks Hypno wants to show off the custom lamps he’s made for the path. It’s quite atmospheric, he’ll admit, with the towering dark oaks letting only small puddles of sunshine hit the ground, and the glowing fungi beckoning them forward. It’s magical.

They seem to walk for ages, wandering down the twisting path. At one point, xB turns around, just to see what’s behind them. There’s nothing. It’s pure black, no sign of the pretty little lamps they just passed. xB swivels back to Hypno, about to voice his concerns, but Hypno starts talking about dye farms and making concrete and xB just kind of forgets about it. It’s not too much of a concern, anyway. The further in they go, the more xB realises how safe it is. Like, initially he was super concerned of a creeper crawling out from the forest, with how dark it was outside the path, but he actually hasn’t seen a single creature other than them. He can’t even hear the birds sing here. Hypno must have done some mad mob-proofing.

Eventually, the trees open out and he looks at Hypno’s hard work and instantly his stomach drops. His mind is screaming at him to get out. He needs to leave. His heart is thundering. His eyes squeeze closed. Then, he feels Hypno’s comforting hand on his shoulder and it’s all okay. He blinks a little and looks up at his friend.

“Is everything alright xB?” he’s frowning.

“Yeah, I’m just- I felt on the verge of a panic attack for a second there but, now it’s all gone,” his face feels a bit wet, is he crying?

“Are you sure? We can go back if you’d like, I don’t want to continue if you’re hurt,” Hypno looks concerned.

“No, no, it’s all fine. It might be like, hay fever from all these mushroom spores,” he says. As he says it, he knows it makes absolutely no sense, but he wants Hypno to stop worrying.

“Alright,” Hypno seems to buy it, his tone becoming more playful, “You know, you can just admit you’re jealous of how cool my base is, xB!”

“I am not jealous, we all know, out of the two of us, I got the cooler base. M’kay?” he smiles, feeling a bit better. They’ve crossed over a barrier of tiny mushrooms in front of the path, seeming to circle around the whole area. Inside, there’s a field of beautiful light green grass, home to all sorts of fungi Hypno’s been cultivating. They’re mainly red and white, with some brown, but they’re in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. Throughout the area, there are fairy lights and lanterns and fireflies and they all glow in the darkening dusk sky. When they left Horse Head Farms, it was mid-morning, xB remembers. It’s funny how fast time passes.

Most of the mushrooms seem decorative, but the larger ones have been made into buildings. There are cute little doors carved into the trunks and signs that say things like “Storage” or “Farms”. One particularly thick and pretty mushroom has been decorated a lot, he assumes it must have been Hypno’s starter base.

“I can’t believe you’re living in Smurf village, dude,” xB giggles.

Hypno punches his arm, “This is not a Smurf village! It’s a fairy realm. Get it right, xB.”

xB’s mouth feels dry. He knows that word. Fairy. Right now, he can’t think of what it means. He nods. He looks at the giant mushroom in the centre of the base.

It’s obviously the centrepiece, towering over every other mushroom. It’s incredibly beautiful. Hypno leads them to the front entrance. xB feels sick looking up at the gills of the mushroom. He can almost imagine the microscopic spores floating down, filling their mouths, suffocating them. Spore particles would probably be good to add, the movement would make the build more dynamic. He’ll tell Hypno later. Hypno drags xB into his home. The wooden staircase looks very nice, Hypno’s done a pretty good job on the spiral. They run up it together. The air smells sweet, almost sickly. After a very short tour, they come back outside - Hypno hasn’t finished the interiors yet. He’s surprised he was allowed to leave, he thought Hypno would trap him there forever, not that he’d mind.

Hypno is looking at him, “So what do you think of my base, xB?”

xB thinks. He thinks about the amazing lights and the vibrant colours and the magical aura. He thinks about Hypno, who’s one of his best friends, who has worked so hard on this base, who xB would do anything he asks him to do. That’s weird, he’s able to realise. He likes Hypno but Hypno is also sometimes very annoying, and other times, xB just likes to mess with him. He wouldn’t do everything Hypno wants. He thinks about all the people willingly signing their IOUs. Is xB willingly answering Hypno’s question? Not that he has any choice, he has to answer it regardless. He wonders if Hypno’s human. He always assumed he was, not having any visible non-human traits, but sometimes the signs are more subtle. He’s thinking too hard.

“Hmm, it’s alright,” he says, “My base is still better.”

[cishetdesertduo]

sick and tired of seeing people draw wild life joel buff. joel is not buff. wild life joel is wearing a cheap padded muscle suit under his vest and the only person whos noticed so far is gem. it drives her insane.

[one-chaotic-neautral]

Arcane ships ranked, for fun

The main ships and some rarepairs I've found, I like pretty much everything in the first 4 rows. I probably missed some but idk what they are and I'm too lazy to add more rn.

feel free to add your thoughts or ships but again its just for funsies :)

[futuristichedge]

[dovaldraws]

I have no explanation for this 4am sketch except my brain is slightly hazy and I’m a sucker for slightly bratty Tim Drake

[friedri-ce]

grimm is a drama queen

[qoldenskies]

absolutely crazy to me that mikey's canonically intended adhd gets undermined by the hc that leo has it. like dont get me wrong, he absolutely does not a single ONE of those turtles are neurotypical but mikey's adhd writing was just as intentional as donnie's autism and it feels like nobody talks about it....let's all start writing mikey adhd angst guys

[raptorladylover6969]

Scott said The Handler’s backstory can be up to interpretation does this mean I can make my dreams of her being an ex VOGUE model come true.

[lotus-pear]

finished persona 5 and the only thing i can take from this is how fucking robbed akechi fans were like fym you crafted the most tragic and gut wrenching character only for him to be missing for like 90% of the story and only show up in minor flashbacks or cutscenes and momentarily join ur team only to stab you in the back and proceed to be the most problematic bitch in the game despite not even having a palace

[sayidsjarrah]

something about sayid’s first ep being called solitary and shannon’s ep being called abandoned… something about how they’re both completely alone before the island. something about sayid being around shannon's age when the americans came and made him "something different"... something about how even on the island, they were both such outcasts from the rest of the group…. something about how they were each others most meaningful connections on the island. something about how they got to be the happiest versions of themselves together. something about how sayid is so much happier and friendlier with everyone after he starts talking to shannon. something about how their faces light up around each other. something about how gentle and smitten they are with each other. something about how they have the same dry, sarcastic sense of humor.... something about how shannon was the first person to care for sayid when everybody else acted like he could take care of himself. something about how shannon is the only person to thank sayid for all that he does. something about how sayid is the most capable person on the island and he’s the first person to take shannon seriously....... something about how sayid wears white in the first eight episodes until he tortures sawyer and reverts back to his old self, only to wear white again after he and shannon fall in love. something about how shannon would date rich older men because she thought they could take care of her and when she falls for sayid he helps her realise that she’s capable of taking care of herself.... something about how even after boone tells sayid this about shannon’s past, he still makes sure to tell her that she’s capable. something about how sayid talks with shannon while everybody else talks down to her. something about how when sayid stopped searching for love he found it with shannon right away. something about how shannon and sayid are the first serious couple on the island. something about how they're also the only island-made couple to have interacted before the crash. and something about how because of this, "you'll find me in the next life, if not this one," ends up being about shannon.

[love-is-a-pearl]

good thing about journeys not giving me proper dawn focused episodes is that i can just make stuff like this and say its canon

[noxious-fennec]

He's focusing guys let him focus on his art

[the-haven-keepers-collective]

Y'know... We've realized smth and I dunno how to feel about it.

Everyone makes the "*sigh* p;m new" jokes, and "uh oh new introject" and etc. etc. and that's fun!! It's genuinely an okay joke to make, we have no issues with these jokes. We join in on them often, they're silly and most plurals probably experience them as 100% harmless.

But lately we've noticed we... don't experience them as harmless. Actually we've realized that, personally, there's an underlying truth there. Admitting a new headmate is real is seen as admitting defeat. We feel the need to question and interrogate ourselves at the possibility, and we feel like we're not allowed to express any want for a specific introject or headmate for reasons I can't articulate. To the point that one of our new headmates, love him, has literally told us "I won't force this. A lot is happening at once, I can be the one to step back and wait until you're ready to believe that I'm here."

LIKE THANKS I GUESS BUT??? GODDAMN. We're realizing that we don't let things develop in our collective, as much as we wish we were a collective that welcomes new headmates with open arms; we tend to fight it until we can't deny it and then we welcome them. But they have to truly fight to get us to believe them, because "what if that's just me." It's a lot worse if it's a sourcemate, or someone that we'd want to be there.

There's no real point to this post other than maybe to offer up our experiences in case someone feels the same way. Not a vent so much as something I hope someone out there might relate to.

-Travis

[r0semultiverse]

shipping this shipping that blah blah blah

Hear me out!

💞 SURVIVORS POLYCULE 💞

[knockknockitsnickels]

Thinking about parallels between Ms. Beast and Tower. They're both the result of choosing to fight the princess and losing (no-knife and knife routes respectively), both have similarly boastful personalities and see you as beneath them (prey and a pet).

Something about how one becomes an animal and the other becomes a god, yet both transformations are equally dehumanizing.

[phoosey]

This shit is NOT fair