#gets turned into an eldritch monster instead like the other kids

[ghostreblogging]

Damian stands before the corpse of his brother.

Is it a corpse? He doesn't know.

They had come to this lonely stretch of land that was once called amity park because something something. Damian hadn't really cared. It was supposed to be a simple get in and get out situation . They were already much busier with their own cases .

Eerie ruined houses and buildings seemed to paint a rather depressing picture. Because you could feel that people used to live here. Half drunken bottles and stollers were out. Just like if everyone just disappeares while walking. But the rotting flesh In the strollers seemed to suggest that darker things have happened here. The everyday norm seemed to frame the gateway to hell. The green glow was the only thing that was truly out of the ordinary.

Perhaps it's just an opening to another Lazarus pit.

But It doesn't feel like a normal Lazarus pit . Damian would know that better than anyone. It somehow felt brighter. And an electric buzz permeated the air. It felt sickening. The destroyed sign makes somewhat of an archway for the entrance. It says Fen- something something? The letter had long fallen off from the elements

"God, bloody hell. This place just reeks of infinite realms," the laughing magician commented before pulling another cigarette from his pocket.

"Infinite realms?" Father grunted

"Don't get your panties twisted. There's a reason I didn't tell you about them, the more you know the harder they are to deal with"

There were more mindless chatter between his family. But Damian ignored that in favor of staring down the archway . It felt like a cold shiver on his back and a horrible burning sensation on the palm of his right hand. Weird.

Damian knew that what awaited him was death. He didn't know whose though.

"Do you feel that?" Damian asked before he could stop himself

Grayson turned to look at him, raising his eyebrow. "Babybat, what? What feeling?"

Damian knew he already walked into communication.

"The cold shiver, and the burning sensation on your right palm"

"Ha! Just sounds like your scared demon brat"

"Forget it"

And they promptly walked into hell.

Damian I've missed you so much! But it's dangerous here. You'll get caught by him

Inside Damian felt as if he was walking for years. All with that , horrible disgusting smell. Burnt flesh and plastic. So overwhelming that his eyes stung even through his mask. He had to wake with his eyes half closed. Stumbling his way through the uneven terrain.

Winding corridors made out of crushed rubble.

Damian , be careful there is sharp glass there

Eerie glow that never seems to get closer.

Damian? I really don't like the Lazarus pits

It was dark and an encompassing ceiling above him felt like spiderwebs, a trap. But beyond that you could see the sky.

Hey Damian? Let's go stargazing again!

Hey Damian please don't go further

Something kept bothering him but he didn't know what. But he kept on walking.

And eventually they found themselves in a big chamber. Lazarus pit waters filled the caver like a lake. Beautiful flowers that seemed misplaced grow up to the sky.

The sky.

Maybe that was the source of the discomfort?. They came in at dawn.

It shouldn't have been dark .

And the stars were wrong. How long did they walk for?

Long enough. Just go please

There was a huge rift. Beyond were Lazarus green lands with floating landscapes. Sometimes you could see something big float by . Damian wonders if they were living or just a part of the landscape.

Beautifully enchanting. Like freedom, feeling of wind on your ski-

And then Damian's eyes fell on the thing. How could he have not noticed that.

Please get away that is not me that is not me that is not me that is not me

Like some kind of a lost puppet it was hung in front of the rift. That was the source of the smell. A white suit that once had been sterile, burnt and fused with the flesh below. Dark burnt hair that hung and thankfully concealed the empty eyes.

For once Damian was thankful he couldn't see something. He just felt that if he saw the thing's eyes, he would never recover.

Because that face.

He knew that face

It was one of he had forgotten a long time ago.

Damian please that is not me plEase. I aM LOSiNg my SeLF

A brother that went missing during a mission.

"God what the fuck is that" Grayson's voice broke Damian's trance.

Damian frowned. It didn't feel appropriate to talk here.

Hide. Hide hide hide hide

A voice broke the silence soon after.

"I advise you to leave immediately" a familiar voice. From the oh so familiar corpse . It grated against his ears. And the corpse moved in tandem. Exaggerated and cartoonish but in a horrid way like a machine struggling to run in their later years. It felt like it was coming from everywhere at once.

Hey Damian let's not go here

Damian it's not a good idea to be here take you family and leave

Damian, let's go another route

I can barely maintain luciedicy please listen to me

"I advice you to leave immediately" just like clockwork. The exact same tone, the exact same horrid little dance.

"Well we can't. Well we can't before we know why In the everliving earth there is a direct portal to the infinite realms here." Constantine seemed to have nonchalance as he spoke but Damian saw his cold sweat. And eyes darting , trying to look anywhere but directly at it .

The corpse directly ignored Constantine. It turned to him . Each movement sharp and gutted.

"Damian we are finally together again :) "

[itsbrucey]

hello! this is your free pass (or threatening reminder. however you want to interpret it.) to ponder your AUs!

ramble about them if you want even. or perhaps keysmash about which is your favorite. it's enrichment.

THANKS SEI. OK OK HERE HERE brainrot time. Um reading cut bc I think I'm just gonna word vomit.

Ok first things first. For the Bigtop Burger au, I'm still rolling with Lark's idea where Dood essentially infested and turned a normal food truck into an eldritch, Doodler foodtruck. That FUN and CUTE. ALSO SEI IM MAKING YOUR'S AND LARK'S MAKEUP IDEAS CANON IN MY HEAD BC THEY BALL SO HARD.... Scary purple drippy makeup, Normal has school-spirit pep rally dots ( I think maybe either blue and red bc purple OR yellow and blue bc. cute?), Taylor in my head has orange flame inspired makeup, and Linc has green football stripes :]

As for the function of the food truck, I haven't thought too hard bc this au strikes me less as a super serious story one, and moreso as a S1 Bigtop Burger au where Shit Just Happens For Fun. The teens run it on the side as a cover for Dood and to get around while making some money ( maybe the money they earn is converted into daddy Warbucks bc that gimmick was good). Also Scam Likely has a food truck and it's a zomburger esc. rivalry. And I was maybe think the Mayor/The other Dooderlized people have one too but i'm not sure about that! I'd like to hear thoughts!

+ I was just thinking it would be cute if the other NPCs got roped into it for a brief amount of time. Like Erica, Margherita, Hermie OFC ( he's gonna pull grand-theft auto instead of a mascot heist), maybe the Varsity Soccer Team... something something, another Agent Schmegan car chase but it's an eldritch clown food truck filled with teenagers. I JUST MISS THIS SILLY AU AND I'M ALWAYS DOWN FOR BIGTOP BURGER,,

The Actor au is super similar in that it's not really anything besides silly, but I was just thinking of more fun scenarios! Like Henry having to be suspended in the air while doing "magic" because I love. shots of actors dangling in their dumb littles harnesses. Or clips of a show without the effects put in so it's just dorks waving their hands around and yelling. I was also thinking about how actors do side interviews/gameshows(?) and how the bonus episodes of the show are Just That.

OKOK and for the Krampus au(?) or whatever I'm doing with that because I'm just. thinking. plotting. But I wanna keep the silly art side idea with Glenn as Krampus, Darryl as Santa, Henry as a Christmas Elf, and Ron as like....a big gingerbread man. but I was thinking maybe a real au.

the main setup I have right now is the Dads being normal. vaguely-fantasy. villagers. Darryl being a carpenter/woodsman, Henry being a town healer maybe, and Ron being a traveling merchant who lives there/sets up shop. But there's a Weird Fucked Up Creature in the woods and everybody tells their kids its Krampus and they're gonna get stolen/eaten if they misbehave and he becomes this genuine myth. But turns out! probably after one of them runs into him in the woods ( probably Darryl), it's just. Glenn. and he's a goat demon monster but he's actually Pretty Chill! and he starts coming around town more and messing with people bc the Dads pretty much "invited him in" y'know. I was also thinking about having Nick as a baby goat demon...... unsure if Morgan would also be a demon or a human woman....

Thats just my way of getting my fill of monster content because I LOVE. WHEN PEOPLE HAVE TO PUT UP WITH MONSTERS... and they're already so awkward around monsters in universe so them having to navigate this demon who hangs out on their roof is PERFECT.

I also have my various unplanned/nonsense-aus cluttered around. Like the Dads as monsters, I was thinking a Swap Au ( either just Closeson or all the Dads. If all, I think it was that Darryl was the Bard, Ron was the Barbarian, Henry was the Rouge, and Glenn is the Druid. Alternatively, Darryl-Rouge, Glenn-Barbarian, Henry-Bard, and Ron-Druid).

I have a lot of thoughts and none of them string together coherently.

[duckapus]

The first five MRU universes

So again, gonna be a while before these actually happen because I want to actually write out the process of Piper stealing the HMG research, some of the preparations for Launch Day, and the actual First Activation, and I'm waiting until after I finish the Wonder Arc to write those so I don't end up abandoning it half-finished for months. But I at least wanted to list them out.

Again, universe 1 is basically the Test Universe, while 2-5 are in one batch that gets activated all at once.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Anchor: Link

Supervisor: Trinity

MRUs: 0 and 1

To justify having references to every game (because why wouldn’t it) Time Portals appeared basically everywhere at the same time the Memes did. Also, the Internet Graveyard got merged with the Wild-Era Sacred Realm (which was obviously never visited and is at the current End of the timeline so it doesn’t mess anything up and I can do whatever I want with its aesthetic). Yes, whoever did the setup had to get every Korok seed so the Key Items menu couldn’t canonically update and potentially break something. They did, in fact, get a raise for that.

Hamtor Tubez

Anchor: Doc the Hamtor

Supervisor: GIF

MRUs: 2 and 3

A puzzle game about leading Hamster-like creatures called Hamtors through elaborate tube mazes. Doc is a Mad Scientist and the leader of the Hamtors and is training them for when he will one day TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!!, and there’s other unique Hamtors with special abilities that get introduced throughout the game as new puzzle elements.

Beneath the Faerie Mound

Anchor: Frida

Supervisor: Quazar

MRUs: 4 and 5

A metroidvania about a Changeling who gets Taken Back and has to fight her way out of Faery Country so she can return home. She initially thinks that MRU5 is another faerie who's come to try Taking her again.

The Fairly Oddparents!

Anchor: Timmy Turner

Supervisor: Spreadsheet

MRUs: 6 and 7

Look, making the Pokemon Anime universe part of the AU has set the precedent for also being able to use cartoons as SMG/MRU universes instead of just Games.

Interestingly, the Memes changing things to make the universe more entertaining undid a lot of the later season retcons, especially the Season 9 ones, so a lot of the characters are actually less Mean and Stupid than before. I'm using kid Timmy because he's the Real One so the live action movies and That One Spinoff aren't canon outside of memes, but Nicktoons Unite and its sequels are. So are seasons 9 and 10, 10 because I happen to like Chloe (or at least what she had the potential to be) and 9 because I think it would be funny to have Sparky be The Thing We Never Speak Of among the characters who would know about him.

Janitor of Heart: Stain Rising

Anchor: Rodney Teegan (Champion Form only)

Supervisor: Connectivity

MRUs: 8 and 9

A Magical Girl Beat-'em-Up that's actually a tie-in to an in-universe comic series called Rodney Teegan: Janitor of Heart.

The premise of the comic series is that a girl named Mina Reynolds who is Exactly the sort of person you'd expect to be a Magical Girl Protagonist gets her chance to when her school is attacked by a goop monster (part of an eldritch being known as The Stain) and she finds a magic bracelet containing the Spirit of Heart, Harmony, who chooses her as the Champion of Heart. But, when she tries to transform, some wires get crossed somewhere and the bracelet's power instead flows into Rodney Teegan, a 57-year-old janitor who Mina considers a close friend and who was with her when she found the bracelet. And because the transformation is based on what Mina wanted to look like as a magical superhero, he ends up in the body of a teenage girl with a cute poofy pink outfit. Whoops.

In his Champion form, Rodney has the expected enhanced strength, and can heal very quickly, but his main power is being able to turn cleaning supplies into weapons. It can be something as simple as a broom (in fact his signature weapon is a spear made from a push broom) or as massive and complex as a street sweeper truck. Also, Harmony isn't just a Cute Mascot Character and actually joins in fighting, mainly using super-strong punches and kicks and acting as a healer. Mina still has the bracelet (it actually can't come off at all) and needs to be nearby in order for Rodney and Harmony's powers to work. I have not come up with what Rodney's hero name would be.

Anyway, the game depicts the events of a particularly large Stain attack, this one being an invasion of the whole city, but other than the larger workload it'd be a fairly normal day (since by this point the three of them are more-or-less used to this since it's been a few months) if not for someone new joining the fray. It turns out that Harmony isn't the only Spirit in town, because we're introduced to the Champion of Storms, Thunderbird, and her Spirit partner Zap. Thunderbird has weather control powers, usually favoring lightning, and has a strange transforming mechanical construct that she uses both as a weapon and mobility aid, usually mechanical wings, giant electrified gauntlets, or supersonic skates. She's fighting the stain too, but has apparently decided to start a rivalry with Rodney's team instead of working with them just 'cause. Also, when her machine isn't in Skate Mode it's revealed that she has a translucent magical construct in place of her right leg.

She's eventually revealed to be Hazel O'Brien, one of Mina's classmates. The machine is her wheelchair, which transformed along with her because why wouldn't it?

Interestingly, Connected Cosmos Company were the ones who made the game, and also the ones who came up with Hazel and her Thunderbird persona. However, due to the terms of the licensing agreement the comic's creator owns the rights to the character, and has made sure that the specific designer in CCC who made her gets the royalties for the character being used in the comic (because the game is canon to the comic and Hazel's now a major character), rather than the company as a whole. She's the one character created by CCC that Jayin doesn't own, and I like to think that grates on her, especially because she can't do anything about it without damaging her company's carefully cultivated reputation.

Anyway, as far as the MRU stuff goes, there is one odd quirk about Rodney's Anchor Status: due to only his Champion Form being playable, his Anchor code is dormant in his normal form. Thankfully this doesn't cause problems for the Meme Cycle or the universe's stability, and it doesn't have the same negative effects as actively suppressing his Anchor Tendencies would. It does, however, make it so his Champion form has a different personality (bubbly airhead with occasional violent tendencies) than his normal form, which is very much Not A Thing in canon.

[spyridonya]

Death House Fanon Plot

So, I’m doing Curse of Strahd and working on Death House and checked out the guides. The crunch and atmospheric details are good and using skill checks to get out of the house sounds great.

I am so very, very disappointed with the plot.

It’s horrifically triggery in several, several ways. Still birth, child abuse, child death, body horror, infidelity, misogyny, and romanticizing power imbalances.

And it doesn’t solve the problem it’s trying to fix.

Read below for the rant, cut due to the zillion triggers.

Death House doesn’t have much of connection to Barovia/Ravenloft in general so the plot is the owners of Death House, Mr. and Mrs. Durst who are minor nobility, think Strahd is a dark messiah that will help them and their death cult become immortal. Mr. Durst even writes for help pleading how to deal with his wife after his problematic affair with the maid results with a stillborn child.

Strahd goes ‘nah’.

For reasons, the parents tap into Dark Power Energy and turn into ghouls, forgetting had two kids they genuinely love and locked in their room for safety, and said kids die of hunger. Oh, and you can find a old deed to the Windmill where more horrific things happen. Because it’s the Curse of Stahd.

Anyway, the plot is nonsense. So, two popular creators rewrote Death House plot.

Instead of having the Dursts being batshit insane, Mrs. Durst feels sad and ugly and old and Mr. Durst feels so sad and depressed and that his wife doesn’t meet his needs. So, Mr. Durst has an affair with his young maid that he Totally Does Not Have a Power Imbalance with No Really This is Romantic - see, look there’s a romance novel that’s Exactly Like Them. Mr. Durst knocked up the maid. Mrs. Durst gets jealous and makes a death cult, Mrs. Durst nags her husband to join, Mrs. Durst gets so jealous after the baby is born that she kills the maid, sacrifices the baby, everyone becomes a ghoul and Mr. Durst goes to hang himself -- even though he’s supposed to be a ghoul. The baby then becomes a flesh monster that can never die.

Oh, and they still forget their other kids in the house. And you get a note about Mr. Durst worrying about his kids while his wife now hates them all.

Not only do we have the Unfortunate Implications Affair, Non-Ironic Gothic Horror Misogyny, we now have three dead kids, and one of them turns into an Eldritch Abomination that you probably can’t kill.

And it still doesn’t connect to Barovia any differently than in RAW. The only tangible change is ‘stillborn’ is switched to ‘bastard’.

I managed to fix it a little bit. But that’s for another time.

[withoutatrace-pkmn]

off screen rp

Alec. That was Demetria’s fiancé’s name, which she had thankfully introduced him by when they’d gotten back to their flat. Holly wasn’t planning to spend her whole time in Galar in the flat, obviously - but an hour or so with her best friend who she hadn’t seen in years was certainly acceptable.

And the fiancé was nice too. Obviously he was, Demetria wouldn’t have gotten engaged to an asshole - but he was likeable. Kind. And very sad.

Holly could see it behind his eyes. See it in the way he moved, the faces he pulled when he thought no one was looking. Come to think of, Demetria wasn’t seeming so great either - not quite at the same level as her fiancé, but certainly subdued. Maybe just for seeing her lover suffer, but-

How many phone calls had she made to Demetria and had no idea what kid of grief she was carrying? Just what had happened?

It wasn’t exactly a question she could just come out and ask, out of nowhere. But she was determined to get an answer, one way or another.

Demetria and Alec were pottering around in the kitchen, insistent that Holly, as a guest, do nothing but sit down and relax. Holly was doing neither. Instead she was inspecting the small flat, looking for some kind of- evidence? Some reason for the air of grief that hung over them.

No overdue bills scattered across the coffee table. No letters scrawled in shaky hands by ailing parents. Nothing, nothing at-

A small table in the corner. Empty save for a candle, and a framed picture.

Bingo.

She crept towards the table, glancing every now and then at the door to the kitchen. Really, she knew she wasn’t actually doing anything wrong, but this seemed so clearly personal. To be caught snooping would just feel awkward.

When she got close enough she crouched, leaning over the table to get a closer look at the photo. It was of a teen, probably seventeen or so - short silver hair, a nervous but excited disposition, and cradling a very young looking Golett in their arms. Holly frowned. Something tugged in her gut - a feeling of deja vu, or something similar. Like she’d seen that kid before. Had they been on tv? A Galarian gym challenger?

“Holly?”

She started, turning to see that Demetria had entered the room without her hearing. Holly flushed in embarrassment.

“S-sorry, I just-”

“It is alright.” Demetria smiled, slightly sadly, coming to stand beside Holly.

“Uh- who is that?”

“Trace. They were Alec’s younger sibling. I did not know them well, but they and Alec were close.”

“What happened to them?”

Demetria looked down, away from Holly, shoulders dropping.

“They were… doing the gym challenge in Paldea. They had an accident.”

“Wild pokemon?”

“The crater.”

Holly’s chest tightened.

“We do not know exactly what happened to them. Only that they fell inside, just over two months ago. We can… only hope it was the fall that- well.” Demetria shook her head slightly, then sighed, straightening and turning to face Holly with a renewed, if subdued, smile on her face.

“At the very least, they are at peace now. Just- please do not bring it up with Alec.”

“Of course.”

“So- ah, where did you say were going tomorrow?”

Well, Holly couldn’t very well say she was going to dump an eldritch monster in the crater of Paldea now, could she?

“Um- Hoenn. Going to see- Birth Island. Yeah.”

“Really? I am sure Sinnoh is closer to Hoenn than Galar…”

“Yeah, I, really wanted to see you.”

Demetria’s face split into a wide grin, and hot shame flooded Holly’s body.

She allowed herself to be guided to the sofa, sitting and smiling through Demetria’s excited ramblings on the best places to visit in the region. One hand clenched at her side, the other clutching her bag.

Her bag with the monster inside.

[izusun]

Headcanon: Izuku is into DIY.

Hot Take: Izuku would create a long furby. He has a collection of various eldritch creepy long furbies. Katsuki absolutely refuses to go into his room because of them. He would've exploded them by now but that would make Izuku cry.

Other CursedTM Things that Izuku does that makes Katsuki die inside and that Katsuki tries to hide from the rest of Class 1-A:

He's a part of the Vulture Culture community and collects roadkill and dead animals to turn into bones.

He has a collection of shitty All Might hawaiian shirts.

He has a collection of stuffed animals. They all have names ripped from Lovecraft such as "Yawgsathoth" and "Mother of Pus"

He writes fanfiction of the heroes.

He has a giant worm on a string plush, and his room is also decorated with Worms on Strings (you have no idea how much Katsuki had to bribe him not to add worms on strings to his uniform blazer)

He does have a plague doctor mask and will regularly just go out in a cloak and his mask

He cosplays exclusively female heroes, and crossdresses the worst dresses

He basically does art makeup, on his face and the face of Katsuki

"Hey what are you reading?" "Oh, this book on how to cook frogs."

He will eat anything. Including stuff that is on the ground. He has an iron stomach.

The actual reason Izuku hangs up All Might everywhere (it used to be a mix of all heroes) is because once in middle school Katsuki accused him of being straight, so he put him up everywhere and continued the habit, Katsuki hates his room now

- Goblin Anon (otherwise known as Goblin anon projects everything she does or wants to do onto her fav)

HI GOBLIN!!! GENUINELY SCREAMED AT THIS AU BECAUSE WTF

even i would not want to enter the beloved’s (izuku’s) room because of his shit.

i’ve searched up long furbys and i am, simply put, traumatized. i had a collection of furbys when i was a kid but we had to give them away because there’s too much of them. but long furbys? i am very much scared.

there’d be a picture of a long furby under the cut, and i’m genuinely terrified of the fucker.

also, can i just say that izuku writing fanfictions is the least cursed thing that he does? because like, reading the rest is like looking at that picture where you can’t decipher a single thing because, again, wtf izuku.

but they’re also funnier? creepier? because i can genuinely see izuku doing those dhekdoowks

✄┈┈┈

this shit would probably be snaking around the frames of izuku’s door. or he probably has one at the corner of his wall, the one that meets with the ceiling, and when a visitor looks up, they’re greeted by the sight of this centipede looking furby that has additional four eyes that izuku lovingly and carefully sewn on. it’s so nightmarish :’)

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

the vulture culture part started when they were young. his interest started when he saw a documentary on how to pin butterflies and he was like, “you know what? thats actually something i want to do!” but! BUT!! he cannot catch a butterfly, thus he settled for mounting dragonflies which he collected in the nearby stream (where katsuki fell).

fun fact about mounting dragonflies: they lose colours when they’re dead. you can use acetone to not only help preserve its colours, but also to stop its decay. they decay so quickly, it’s terrible.

anyways, izuku does not know that and instead followed a youtube video of how to mount dragonflies, using an old picture frame as the case.

inko comes home, sees his son doing his stuff and is just happy that izuku’s not rewatching that loud all might video. she helps him pin the other wings and they are fascinated at how pretty they look. well, the next day, the wings are now transparent and the belly side of the dragonflies are black. it also stinks so they had to throw the whole thing plus the case.

izuku’s fascination grows from there.

a failed experiment, after all, instigates the desire to right them.

so that’s where he starts: butterflies, moths, beetles, another dragonfly case.

katsuki is fascinated and disgusted because, “why would you want dead insects in your room, deku?”

the rest began when the bakugou’s and the midoriya’s have road trips. inko doesn’t have a car so the bakugou’s drive along with them, and it’s a good day. the kids are having fun and getting along, and the parents are chilling and enjoying their vacation. life is good.

then on their drive home, izuku, who is sitting sandwiched between katsuki and inko, lets out this blood-curdling scream. it wakes katsuki up and almost had masaru swerving the car out of the highway.

“maru-san (because my boy izuku cannot say masaru) can you please stop the car! i wanna get that!” he screams, pointing at something indecipherable by the side of the roads.

masaru does anyways because it’s so rare for izuku to request something, but also his heart’s still pumping so fast after izuku’s scream.

masaru wasn’t even done stopping the engine when the car doors are opening, and katsuki and izuku are tumbling out, hand-in-hand. masaru and inko follow them closely, while mitsuki stayed to watch over the car.

katsuki’s excited for an adventure, but then izuku just. stops them. in front of a skull.

masaru chokes from behind them and katsuki lets go of izuku’s hand so fast, running back to his dad because, again, “deku what the shit?”

izuku ignores him and gestures at the deer skull, one that has moss growing by the teeth and around the jaw, turning to inko to ask, “mama? can we bring that home?”

masaru feels very faint, but doesn’t say anything when inko easily agrees, laughing at her boy and patting his untameable hair as if your child asking you for a carcass’s skull is normal.

inko picks it up and they go back to the car. mitsuki does a double-take on what inko’s holding, but shushes up when she saw izuku bouncing happily. katsuki hesitantly sits beside izuku, but when izuku began yammering about all might, he forgets about the skull and nerds out with izuku.

inko explains to mitsuki and masaru about her son’s newfound interest, telling them that it’d go away in two years, don’t worry.

it didn’t. instead, his interest and his collection grew. so for his subsequent birthdays, along with hero merch, he has vulture culture collections gifted to him.

when he moved to the dorms, they’re more packaged than his hero merch and katsuki wants to get angry because he’s been looking for those limited hero merch and yet there they are, chilling beside izuku’s many many skulls and bones.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

IZUKU STARTED COLLECTING THE ALL MIGHT HAWAIIAN SHIRTS WHEN HE WAS TWELVE

he ransacked for the very first edition, often saving his allowance just so he can buy the retro versions of the all might hawaiian shirts. sometimes he’d barter, but that’s only when he’s really desperate for the shirts. usually he’d just be in an auction site and buy just those.

he’d take katsuki with him and katsuki is very careful in what to buy, often researching the things and having a very long pros and cons list to narrow down what he’d buy, then his best bud izuku just out there buying all might hawaiian shirts.

funniest thing too is that those are the first to go because they? don’t value much? and they’re ugly, tbh, and yet izuku’s slurping them all up.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

the first time class 1a were talking about plushies, izuku dropped the names and they’re confused because-

“bro did you name your plushies with lovecraft names?” OR “bro? do you perhaps have personalized lovecraft toys?”

it’s the earlier one but izuku would want to buy personalized lovecraft monster toys.

ok but? he names them as per the appropriate lovecraft characters? like:

a purple octopus plushie is called azathoth.

a green gecko plushie is called bokrug.

a fish plushie (literally nemo) is called dagon instead of nemo.

a pink jellyfish plushie is mother of pus.

he has other plushies that have normal names (well, as normal as naming a plushie “cheese grater”), but he has a collection of specific plushies that align with lovecraft beings.

he writes all might x reader fanfictions, i’m sorry ;v;

he only writes them because he doesn’t want other heroes with all might, but also the reader pairing gets more views than all might with other heroes.

katsuki caught him writing a slowburn, enemies to lovers all might x reader fanfic and proceeded to proofread it for him.

synopsis of the fanfiction: reader is a villain with a sound quirk (tailored to present mic’s quirk) and all might met them in a hero gala where the reader pretended to be a worker so that they could infiltrate the gala’s holder’s office for a specific banking access that is linked to the world’s bank. all might manages to sniff them out and proceeds to fight them, but when a beam is about to hit the reader, all might swoops in and saves them. cue the reader developing unwanted feelings for their greatest foe, all might.

aND THEN!!! all might knows the reader outside of their villain persona and is actually very much taken by them. so it’s a painful surprise that the reader is a villain. but he is willing to save them.

it is still incomplete despite having 102 chapters. by chapter 78, katsuki asked for payment because shit was too long and too angsty.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

HEISOSL IZUKU HAS A WORM ON A STRING DOOR CURTAIN

he genuinely likes them but creating the door curtain kind of extinguished that interest because that’s just too much worms and too much strings for a single curtain, and it was very much tiring.

he has a tiny one stitched on his blazer and inko heaved this really big sigh when she saw that her son’s crisp UA uniform got a worm by the chest pocket.

aizawa eyed it once and was so close to expelling izuku just because of that.

shouto, when they became friends, sends a box of them to izuku because he thought that those are izuku’s favourite. katsuki had not stopped cackling when he saw the huge box of them.

to punish katsuki, he made a furby with worm hair and left it by katsuki’s door. katsuki’s scream woke everyone up.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

the moment he walked out with a plague mask, tokoyami was exiting his dorm room too and they made a long eye contact.

tokoyami does not know if he is amazed by izuku’s plague mask or he is terrified because why does it look authentic.

for halloween, he was a plague doctor.

he stowed them away after saving eri.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

his first women hero cosplay was in third grade when they had a play about different heroes. the girl who was playing ragdoll got sick and everyone’s already strapped in as their hero and unwilling to change. izuku, himself, is present mic (katsuki’s all might).

the girls don’t want to give up their heroes and izuku, the bestest boy, goes and says he will become ragdoll.

their teacher agrees and helps him strap in as ragdoll and you know what, izuku loves it.

from then on, he tries to cosplay as much women heroes that he can afford. inko loves helping him and katsuki thinks he is adorable but! dont tell deku!!!

OK BUT he wore the dress that broke the internet once and katsuki almost exploded the dress off him. almost because izuku dodged and warned him that if he ever breaks that dress, katsuki will have to pay (either monetary or revenge, katsuki doesn’t know so he behaved).

FOR HALLOWEEN, HE WORE THIS AND KATSUKI HATES IT

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

izuku painting star freckles on his face!!!! or heart freckles!!!! or flowers!!!!

izuku in fairy makeup, pleaseee!

he also loves giving katsuki his own freckles because something about blonde hair and red eyes with pale cheeks kissed by freckles is making izuku gay panic.

izuku putting concealer on his own freckles once and his classmates are looking at him weirdly, wondering why he looks off?

like he still looks amazing, but something’s missing. it’s fucking them up and katsuki isn’t helping them so they’re trying to piece what’s up.

it takes monoma sneering at izuku and asking where his eight freckles are that 1a realizes why he looks different.

ok but denki asking monoma why he knows how much freckles izuku has and monoma spluttering, bright red and embarrassed, until he just walks away.

(answer: he’s crushing on green bean).

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

IZUKU HAVING A COLLECTION OF LIKE ARCHAIC? BREWING? STUFF? BOOKS.

i dont know how to explain it but my friend has this specific book about poisons, detailing recipes and ingredients.

it also talks about the use of frogs, lizards, snakes. the benefits of different flowers (ones with toxins) and how to use them during tea time.

it’s bizarre but the book looks pretty so i think izuku would have a handful of those in his room.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

izuku eating grass? flowers? trying dandelions and complaining that it’s furry

izuku wandering what a twig tastes like so he just sucks on it like a lollipop.

inko gave up on stopping him because her son would just eat anything but his broccolis, and she’s very much tired of thinking if izuku would have an upset stomach. he never had.

first time mitsuki saw izuku do that, she forced him to drink cola and eat candy to cleanse his palette.

katsuki goads him on eating more.

izuku’s favourite is chewing on maple leaves. he’s just a weird boy.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

OK BUT THE FINAL ONE ABOUT HIS ALL MIGHT POSTERS?? I HAVENT STOPPED LAUGHINGF

izuku wanting more all might figurines than posters. he only has some chemistry stuff (periodic table) on his wall, a little tapestry that matches inko’s, a canvas of monet’s water lilies (again, matching inko), and some cosmic facts that he bought online.

and yk katsuki sees those and thinks that it’s so weird that izuku has those posters but not all might?

his first thought was, “he doesn’t like all might as much as i do.”

the following one is, “he’s straight so he doesn’t want a guy’s face on his wall.”

katsuki’s mouth so happens to say the second one and the next week he visited izuku’s room again, each surface of the wall that is not taken by pinned insects and his frog-book stuff, plus his other existing non-hero posters, is covered in just all might posters.

he belatedly realizes that his own face is also on izuku’s wall, but that’s for later musings because for now he’s jealous that izuku managed to scourge the limited all might posters, but also is disgusted a bit because that’s too much all might.

katsuki walks out before his interest in all might plummets.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

ps to my beloved: ﹤୨♡୧﹥

GOBLIN I LOVE YOUR AUS ALL THE TIME AND IM SORRY FOR RESPONDING SO LATE! YOU ALWAYS MAKE ME SMILE AND I LOVE U!!!! you’re genuinely so precious pls dont stop your ramblings!!!!

[khalixascorner]

Paid in Blood

From this post by @monster-cock69 . Thanks to @the-mad-starker​ for the betaing!

Tony finally puts his foot down and kills the bullies that have been bothering his precious boy Peter. Then he uses it as a way to teach Peter a lesson about who he belongs to.  AO3 here

“Please, Tony, don’t do this,” Peter cried. He tried to pull free of the Soldier, but even with his enhanced abilities, he couldn’t get loose. “Please, they didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Hush, baby, I already told you this was happening,” Tony said, his blue eyes hard as he looked at the four young men tied and kneeling in front of him. “Cap and Buck warned them what would happen if they touched what’s mine again. They chose not to listen, so now they owe me a debt.”

“They were just being kids,” Peter argued, hoping the old argument might save them. Tony didn’t harm children or innocents.

“Tut tut, baby boy, that won’t protect them anymore,” Tony said, walking over and grabbing Peter’s chin, forcing the young man to look at him. “They stopped being children when you graduated High School. Now, they have to face the consequences of their actions, just like you will.”

Tears flowed freely down Peter’s face but he didn’t fight when Tony leaned down for a kiss. He knew the man loved him more than life itself, and he loved Tony, but he always despised when Tony took a life. The man didn’t go looking for death but he didn’t shy from it when it came his way either.

Peter sagged in the Soldier’s arms, no longer fighting or trying to argue. 

“Good boy,” Tony said, kissing him deeply again. “Keep your eyes on me, princess.”

“Yes, sir,” Peter said, lifting his head even as his stomach clenched. 

                                                      ***

Tony watched with pleasure as the four boys on the floor started to panic and struggle when they realized Peter’s pleas were ignored. It was useless though, because the chains around them were anchored securely to the concrete floor. He had waited a long time for this, gritting his teeth as his men only issued warnings when the assholes at Peter’s school would harass him day in and day out. 

“You know, my sweet Peter has always had a problem with bullies,” Tony said, his voice casual in a way that did not match the violence emanating off of him. “I told him time and again to let me take care of it but he’d always beg for me to spare the bullies.”

Tony paused here, giving them a pointed look because two of the boys on the floor had gone to high school with Peter. Had been warned to stay away.

“I’m not a fan of letting those that disrespect me and mine live, but as he always reminded me, they were just kids being stupid,” Tony said, an unfriendly smile forming on his face. “But now, well. You’re not just kids now, and you should have known better. And I have a reputation to uphold. It’d look pretty bad if some little pissants disrespected my baby boy and got away with it.”

Endosym tendrils began forming, until four long strands extended from Tony’s body, each swaying slightly as if alive. Tony had always found the eldritch horror thing effective, and this time, it was no less true. 

“Now, I debated just beating the shit out of all of you but I need to send a message,” Tony said, pacing in front of them. “My princess is off limits and I don’t play when it comes to his safety, so I’m afraid you’re going to have to die and it’s not going to be a very nice death either. But think of it like this, you’ll hopefully save lots of other lives by serving as an example.”

Without any further warning, the nanite tendrils lashed out. Again and again they tore into skin, broke bones, and ripped the young men apart. Tony heard Peter whimpering but he didn’t turn to look at the boy, knowing the Soldier would make sure his orders to watch were followed. 

Instead, he watched as life drained out of their worthless bodies. It was tempting to let them bleed to death slowly, but he still needed to teach his baby boy the rest of his lesson. It took only a thought to pierce their hearts with armor spikes, letting the bodies collapse to the ground in a bloody puddle. 

Then he turned to his boy. Peter was pale and his face was covered in tears but he was looking at Tony without shying away or trying to hide. Tony nodded to Bucky, and the man released Peter. 

"Come here, baby," Tony said, holding his hand out to Peter. 

His boy was unsteady but still stepped through the pooling  blood to reach him. Tony drew him into a kiss even as he used the bloodied endosym to caress Peter's exposed skin. 

His princess was only wearing sleep shorts and a loose tank, giving him plenty of places to mark him.

                                                 ***

Peter's breath hitched when he realized what Tony was doing. He couldn't stop the full body shudder as Tony grabbed his ass and ground their pelvises together despite wanting to flinch away from the bloodied tendrils. 

"Please, sir, no more," Peter begged. "Please, n-not like this–"

After everything life had thrown at him, death and blood were the hardest for him to see. Even when he was out as Spider-Man, he was so careful to not let people get hurt. 

"Shhhh, it's ok, baby. I'm here," Tony said, running his hands gently through Peter's hair. "I know it's hard for you, but you have to learn this lesson too. You're mine, and no one is allowed to touch you. If you let them walk all over you, then I have to step in. It's my job to keep you safe."

Peter whimpered, burying his face in Tony's chest as the older man kept touching him everywhere. To his mortification, he could feel himself getting hard despite the blood seeping through his shoes and the dead bodies laying at his feet. 

"That's right, princess, this body is mine, isn't it," Tony said, his hands sliding inside of Peter's shorts. 

"Yours, all yours," Peter replied, moaning as first one the two fingers were pushed inside of him with little prep or warning. 

                                                       ***

"Still so loose from earlier, aren't you, baby?" Tony asked, pushing a third finger in. "My precious princess is such a needy thing."

The older man smirked as Peter just moaned his assent, already losing himself to the pleasure Tony gave him. His men watched without blinking, more than used to Tony's possessive behavior around Peter. He debated making Bucky and Steve hold Peter while he fucked him, but he didn't like anyone touching his boy, even if he trusted them. 

With a quick thought, he dragged the endosym tendrils through the pooling blood and then wrapped them around Peter, using them to turn and position the boy's ass up towards Tony while his head was forced to face the bodies. 

The sleep shorts were easy to push to the side and Tony was quick to thrust into his boy's warm hole. 

"Keep those eyes open, princess, or I'll have Buck come over and hold them open for you, do you understand?" Tony ordered, waiting for Peter's whimpered acknowledgement before he began pounding into his boy. 

                                                  ***

Peter couldn't stop as the tears ran down his face again, this time in shame. His hands were forced into the blood pool as he was bent over and the endosym wouldn't let him turn his head, but none of that stopped him from being so hard it hurt as Tony fucked him in front of his enforcers. A few times, his eyes slid shut just from the sheer pleasure, but he was always quick to force them back open when he realized it. Tony didn’t make idle threats and Bucky had helped when Peter had gotten in trouble before as well. 

Sooner than he expected, Peter felt his body coil tighter and tighter until the pleasure burst over him. Cum mixed with the blood beneath him, and Peter couldn’t stop trembling as Tony fucked him through his orgasm. He had hoped for that to be the end of it but Peter should have known better. Tony slowed briefly, letting him catch his breath, but the man never stopped running hands and nanites all over him, smearing more blood everywhere.

Once Peter was hard again, Tony started thrusting into him again, with even more force than before. His breath came in ragged gasps, unable to do anything but take what was given.

“Such a good boy, doing just what you’re told,” Tony crooned, the gentle tone of his voice at odds with the rough treatment. “Just a bit more, princess. Going to make us both feel so good.”

Peter just moaned as Tony changed the angle, pushing deeper into him and grinding on his prostate. It didn’t take much of that for Peter to come again, practically collapsing into the endosym’s hold. Distantly, he felt Tony painting his insides before the older man pulled him up into his arms properly. 

“You look so good in my color,” Tony murmured into his ear “I may be the Merchant of Death, but you’re my Bloody Princess.”

[goldlightsaber]

A Quiet Place Part II

Wow, I just came back from the movie theatre, and I am so pleased that this movie was everything I wanted it to be. So here it goes, another movie analysis/review.

Dare I say iconique? 

There was a lot hinging A Quiet Place Part II. It is one of the first movies “back in theaters.” There was a lot of anticipation because the movie got delayed for over a year. But I don’t think it could’ve come out at a more perfect time. One of the things I noticed about the world of A Quiet Place was that, in thematic ways, it reflects our own. In the height of the pandemic, everyone in our world was scared, worried about supplies running low, losing loved ones, and grieving a life they once had. Like in the movie, we were all forced to lay low by staying inside. Maybe I was projecting my own feelings, but I found it to be highly relatable and touching in that way (without being tragic but rather uplifting instead).

Onto the actual contents, though. The opening scene was *chef’s kiss.* You feel tension right away because of how eerily quiet the town is mid-day, a foreshadowing of what’s to come. Except everything is too neat, the cars too perfectly parked, no windows broken -- we know it is the calm before the storm. I love the patient shot of the stoplight changing lights. We are waiting for disaster to strike but just don’t know when it will. 

The baseball scene subverted a few of my expectations -- I thought Emmett would be a stranger to the family so I was surprised he turned out to be a friendly family acquaintance. This worked well because it probably made Emmett feel some obligation in helping Evelyn and her family later. I also expected Marcus to hit the ball eventually because of the two initial misses -- but then the fireball passes through the sky and life as they know it is over. 

Some part of me expected the flashback scene to be superfluous and just an opportunity to show John Krasinski again, but it served its purpose -- when characters refer to “that day,” we feel the gravity of it because of what we saw in the opening segment. 

I didn’t expect the monster when it first appeared. You expect Lee to have a conversation with the cop, for the monster to show up soon but not just yet -- and then Lee, almost dissociating, is rushing back to his truck after what was no doubt the most traumatic sight of his life at that point. He starts the car with the it’s-going-to-be-all-right facade a parent must don for their child. 

There were several other excellent “oh-shit” moments in this movie. One of my favorites was, after Evelyn sets off the booby trap that attracts the monster (an excellent oh-shit moment in and of itself but already revealed in the trailer), Marcus gets his foot caught in a bear trap. When he screams, it’s like watching a glass you knocked over to the floor crash into a million pieces. My brain was just one big shout of “OH SHIT” and nothing else. Emily Blunt’s acting was superb here and throughout -- the way she played desperation and a simultaneous love for her child was palpable.

Cillian Murphy is an excellent addition to the cast. I was particularly mesmerized by his acting in all the breathy dialogue scenes where he’s protesting against either Evelyn or Regan. Emmett felt believable in all his sweaty, scruffy glory.  He keeps insisting he doesn’t want to help, but, very wholesomely, he always does. He’s a sucker for them from the start. And whether he and Regan like it or not, he is slowly becoming the protective father figure in her life. He can’t get in the way of her plans and her genius, and he can never replace Lee, but the love is there. I love their arc.

And speaking of Regan...

Wow, did the kids in this movie shine. Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupp absolutely exceeded my expectations. Boy, could Jupp scream and look scared for his life. He was completely believable in his role. And Simmonds walks with this quiet strength, this gentleness. I loved what they did with the scenes where Regan and Emmett were struggling to communicate and she had to keep bringing him back down to Earth. I love the way this movie changes the game for what communication looks like -- there is rarely yelling or even regular-volume conversation. Instead there is sign language, exhales, whispers, the mouthing of words. This creates a mesmerizing atmosphere for the movie. These silences and moments of white-noise do not mean the absence of humans speaking to each other. 

I’m not sure how I feel about the shady, red-eyed community of people on the docks. They looked like they were all on drugs and walked like zombies. And the creepy little girl who trapped Emmett just felt like she belonged to another genre of horror? This isn’t a “creepy children” horror movie, it’s an eldritch monster horror movie! It wasn’t the most believable plot point but I wasn’t super opposed to it, either. I wanted to know more about these shady people. I fully expected them to take Emmett and Regan back to their leader or tribal base, but nope, they were just shady people (the kind not worth saving). 

This isn’t a criticism per say but I was definitely expecting more scenes between Emmett and the entire Abbott family, so I was a little sad they split them up and we didn’t get a reunion. This is a possible tease for a third movie -- as is the expanding world of the island and the lack of a total end to the apocalypse. And, of course, there are hints that Evelyn and Emmett might have a future together -- Evelyn symbolically takes off her wedding ring and Emmett reluctantly but naturally fills the father role for the children. At the same time, we leave off at a point where we can imagine what happens next and don’t need to know more -- it can be up to our interpretation. They can end the movie there, since it is clear that the children have figured out how to defeat the monsters.

And speaking of that, the ending had a very Stranger Things feel to it. Never mind that the monsters from each respective series look almost identical -- the ending takes a surprise turn when it is the two Abbott children who take things into their own hands and kill the monsters while their parental figures literally sit back and watch in awe. I appreciated the message here: that young people are innovative, strong and brave enough to do the right thing. They are capable of great things; it’s all right to trust them and let them take the reins. 

I think the movie’s atmosphere is just lovely. Just because it’s horror doesn’t mean there can’t be scenic shots of a sunset on the beach. That’s what I like about both movies so much -- they don’t feel like most horror movies because they still leave room for beauty and tenderness and hope.

Overall, a very enjoyable film. I would love to see the family reunion if there is a sequel -- and that the potential sequel is helmed by the right writers/director once again! Go, John Krasinski! He killed it.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #201

Welcome to Fate and Phantasms Season 2! With our vacation over, we're gonna hop straight into the queen of beasts and pranks, Anastasia! Since she gets a lot of her power from a fictional character, making her a Silverquill Warlock just makes sense. Kinda. Check out her build breakdown below the cut (but expect Lostbelt 1 Spoilers), or her character sheet over here!

Next up: We're going whole hog!

Race and Background

Viy is... something else entirely, but Anastasia is clearly a Human from a Variant timeline, a.k.a. a lostbelt. This gives her +1 Charisma and +1 Intelligence, proficiency in Sleight of Hand to sneak rocks into snowballs, and the Elemental Adept feat to ignore cold resistance and bump all cold damage dice up so the minimum they can roll is a 2. We get a disappointingly small amount of snow and ice in this build (turns out Demons are mana hogs), but this'll make sure the ice you do get has some bite to it.

Ability Scores

Make your Charisma super high this time, you're good at messing with people and dealing with extraplanar monsters, both of those are charisma for some reason. Dexterity is next for a better chance at playing practical jokes on people. You gotta be sneaky and have fast hands, that's dexterity. Your Intelligence is also pretty high, you have to come up with schemes to act upon them. Wisdom's decent, but it's not like Yaga are good liars anyway. Your Constitution isn't great though, turns out you're weak to bullets, but we're dumping Strength. Nobles typically don't turn to heavy lifting, and you died when you were 17, so that's two strikes against the "buff Ana" theory. Finding out she died at 17 also makes the degree to which a certain part of this fandom gets horny for Anastasia waaaay creepier. Like, they probably don't know she's a kid, and that's FGO's fault, but still.

Class Levels

Aaanyway, let's start leveling! As a 100% Silverquill Warlock build, you'll find the pen is mightier than the sword! And the pen, in this metaphor, is a terrifying demon. The swords are still swords. You get Wisdom and Charisma save proficiency, as well as Arcana and Religion. Your doll's into the former and your boss is super into the latter. Not Kadoc, the guy who's actually in charge. Warlocks get Pact Magic, letting you cast one spell per short rest. You'll get more & stronger spell slots as you get stronger, but they all recharge on short rests. Grab the cantrips Eldritch Blast for casterballs, and Frostbite for ice. You also get first level spells like Armor of Agathys for a protective layer of ice, and Hex, Viy's first attempts at creating weaknesses. You deal an extra 1d6 necrotic damage to the target each attack, and they get disadvantage on one kind of ability check. If they drop to 0 HP, you can even move the spell over to a new sucker for up to an hour. The fun doesn't stop there, though! Your subclass makes you an Eloquent Apprentice, giving you proficiency in Deception and Insight, plus you get the Vicious Mockery cantrip to demoralize enemies. You can also use Viy's eyes to plant Silvery Barbs into enemies, weakening them and strengthening your allies at the same time. You can force a creature to re-roll a successful attack, check, or save, and take the lower roll. If the new roll fails, you can then give another creature effectively advantage on an attack, check, or save within the next minute. You can use this as much as you want, but after succeeding once, you'll have to burn a spell slot to reuse it before the end of a long rest. You... don't have many of those.

Second level warlocks get Eldritch Invocations! Grab Armor of Shadows for not dying, and Lance of Lethargy to make your eldritch blasts extra icy! Now they slow down someone you hit once per turn. You can also cast Unseen Servant so Viy can carry stuff for you!

Third level warlocks get the Pact of the Chain, so you can have your little dolly now. You also get a second level spell, Hold Person! It's not cold damage, but it does frost over a person and make it easier to beat them up!

Fourth level warlocks get their first Ability Score Improvement, so bump up your Charisma for better spells! You can also cast Mind Sliver to mess up people's minds, and Ray of Enfeeblement to weaken them further.

This level you get third level spells like Spirit Shroud! More slowing, and more cold damage! You're also a Sign of Ill Omen, letting you cast Bestow Curse once per long rest.

Sixth level silverquills can summon Viy in his big shadow form thanks to Inky Shroud! You learn the Darkness spell, and you can cast it for free once per long rest! If you cast it for free, you can see through Viy, and he'll deal a bit of psychic damage to creatures that start their turn in him. If you want him to be a bit less smokey, you can Summon Shadowspawn, creating a shadow guy that can beat people up an deal cold damage and scare people!

Fourth level spells! Grab Elemental Bane to make your cold spells even colder once a turn. You get another invocation too, and Devil's Sight will let you see through all sorts of darkness, even if it isn't Viy.

Another ASI! Max out that Charisma for super strong spells! You also get Raulothim's Psychic Lance, which deals a buncha psychic damage if they fail an intelligence save, and it'll incapacitate them too if they fail. That freezes them up just enough that they can't take actions or reactions. They can still move around, but they can't do much to help.

Fifth level spell time. Ice don't care about what it's freezing, so grab Hold Monster. You also get the invocation Ghostly Gaze, which'll let you see through solid objects, up to a minute per short rest!

Tenth level silverquills can add an Infusion of Eloquence to their spells, changing the damage type to Psychic or Radiant. Any creature hurt by the spell takes extra damage, and is also charmed (radiant) or frightened (psychic) of you until your next turn. You can do this proficiency times per long rest. Slap it on a spell that does damage over time like hex and you're in business! It's a shame that it takes the ice out of your spells, but it'll really weaken some enemies! Also, grab Prestidigitation. The only thing better than a rock in a snowball is a rock in a snowball that'll disappear after you throw it!

Eleventh level warlocks get a sixth level Mystic Arcanum, letting you cast the spell once per long rest. If you want more Anastasia goodies, grab Investiture of Ice to freeze up your foes. If you want more Viy goodies, grab Eyebite to weaken your enemies with just a glance. Either's good.

Now that your charisma's all good, use this ASI to bump up your dexterity for better sneaking and AC! You can also Mire the Mind (tho really you're more miring the body, with ice), casting Slow once per long rest.

You get a seventh level MA now, so pick up Power Word Pain. If a creature has less than 100 HP, it'll be super hurt, with a speed of 10' maximum and disadvantage on all attacks, checks, and saves, other than constitution. If it tries to cast a spell, it also has to make a save or it wastes the slot!

On a completely unrelated note, fourteenth level silverquills learn a Word of Power. (It's actually two words? idk) You can invoke Deadly Despair in an enemy who fails a roll due to your silver barbs, giving them vulnerability to a damage type until the start of your next turn. Alternatively, you can use a Selfless Invocation as a reaction, giving a creature resistance to the damage they're taking, and you take as much psychic damage as the damage that gets through. This one's why Silverquill beat out the undead warlock; now you can take a bullet for the ones you care about!

Fifteenth level warlocks get an eighth level MA, so grab Maddening Darkness for even more spooky smoke. a 60' radius sphere turns into darkness like the other spell, but creatures that start their turn in the sphere make a wisdom save, taking a bunch of psychic damage if they fail. Your eyes get even better thanks to your Witch Sight, letting you see through shapeshifters and people with magical disguises. People tend to keep that stuff hidden for a reason, and now you get to find out!

Use this ASI to bump up your Constitution. A lot of your spells need concentration, so it should probably be a bit better. Also, this gives you 16 HP instead of 1; Hit points get changed retroactively.

Seventeenth level warlocks get their big ninth level spell! Grab Imprisonment to freeze someone away forever! (Okay, not for "forever" ever, but a really long time.) If the target fails a wisdom save they're trapped, and don't need to breathe, eat, drink, or age. It also can't be found with magic. There's a lot of options, but you can probably talk your DM into letting you ice someone over. There are three ways the target can be set free if they fail the save: 1) A ninth level dispel magic, either on the prison or on the material component you used to cast the spell. 2) You try to make another prison using the same material component. That's a no-no. And 3) a special condition you set, accepted by the DM. The condition has to be reasonable, and possible to happen.

Eighteenth level warlocks get one more Invocation, and the Chains of Carceri will make you just a bit icier. Now you can cast Hold Monster at will, if only against celestials, fiends, and elementals. You can only cast it on the same creature once per long rest.

One last ASI, so bump up that Constitution again for more HP! You also get one last spell; it sucks we can't go back and grab the other sixth level spell we want, but you can grab Fear instead. Viy's a pretty creepy dude.

The capstone ability of the warlock class makes you an Eldritch Master. And by that it makes your patron an Eldritch Master, because you have to spend 1 minute begging your Viy to use this feature. It recharges all your spell slots for free, but you can only use this once per long rest.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

While it doesn't have as many spells as fire damage, ice damage is still a pretty solid pick to specialize in, and thanks to Elemental Adept there's only a very small number of creatures that can slow you down. Just don't play this character in Icewind Dale, and you'll be set.

You have plenty of ways to debuff your foes, ranging from slowing them down, freezing them in place, frightening them, charming them, and weakening their attacks and saves. Unlike Abigail, you diversify your status effects, and you can still deal plenty of damage at the same time, with powerful spells and the ability to shove vulnerabilities into people as a reaction. And those debuffs are both effective and flexible! Spells like Vicious Mockery plus your Silvery Barbs let you tank any kind of save the enemy tries to do. Elemental Bane works for all sorts of damage types, not just cold, and Bestow Curse literally just lets you do whatever you want if your DM signs off on it.

Your Eyesight is incredible, with the ability to see in the dark, through walls, and even through magical disguises. You can pull apart mysteries pretty well with those peepers.

Cons:

A lot of your spells require Concentration, which you aren't that good at. It also means you have to pick one and stick with it for the duration.

On a similar note, being a pure warlock build means you only get a maximum of 4 spells per short rest. We took a couple invocations to help with this, but it's still a small number of slots.

While you can be terrifying on your own with Viy's assistance, it's clear a lot of your features work better with teamwork, so fighting on your own can be a little awkward. For example, deadly despair lasts until the start of your next turn, so if you use your silvery barbs to block an attack, you won't get any damage out of it.

[detectivejigsawpines]

Just a Normal Day

A short drabble about sea grunks having an average adventure, written in honor of their birthday.

Even before they got attacked by the Cthulhu beast, it had been a pretty average morning on the sea for the Pines twins.

Wake up at the crack of dawn (Ford) or closer to late morning (Stan); eat breakfast; reset the spell to ward off the vengeful leprechauns who might still be after them for stealing their treasure in case they’d figured out they were chasing a decoy trail by now; do a little late morning fishing, while keeping an eye out for that golden fish Stan was sure he’d seen swimming under their boat last week, and which he was hoping laid golden fish eggs or something; finally notice what time it was (Stan) and head inside to make lunch.

Just another normal day.

Stan was examining their supplies, trying to decide if it was worth breaking out some of the canned hamburger meat and throwing together sloppy Joes instead of making them eat fish again, when he was knocked skiwampus by the boat being yanked to a halt; as he struggled to regain his balance by grabbing onto the table, a vicious, blood-curdling roar came rumbling through the air from outside.

Stan sighed, and wondered if the kraken was back. In one swift motion he grabbed the spare harpoon they had hanging over the door, and stepped out to see if Ford needed help dealing with it.

It wasn’t the kraken.

It still looked like some kinda big octopus monster, though, with a mass of writhing tentacles where its face should be, and a bulbous head in the back just like an octopus body. The rest of it, at least as far as the torso, was kinda like a human’s but a little bigger (about the size of a baby whale), with slimy-looking green-brown skin and a pair of big, wrinkled, wet wings sticking out of its back. Whatever this thing was, it had grabbed onto the back of their boat, and was looming menacingly over Ford as Stan stepped outside.

“...and you are now my prisoners!” he bellowed, as his piercing golden eyes landed on Stan. “Surrender your weapons now, puny mortals, and I might be merciful!!!!”

“Yeesh, did we trespass on his territory or something?” Stan asked, leaning on the harpoon.

Ford shrugged with one shoulder, since he was trying to write in his journal at the same time. “He didn’t really say; he just jumped onboard and started threatening me.”

“Huh.” Stan looked up at the beast. “You the lord of this part of the ocean or whatever?”

The beast blinked-which looked pretty weird, his eyelids went sideways instead of up and down like humans-before nodding vigorously. “Yes! I am the lord of this part of the ocean, and you must surrender to me now, or else suffer my wrath!!!!” He slammed a fist down against the side of the boat, making it rock up and down so hard he had to scrabble to keep his balance. Stan coughed into his fist to hold back a snicker.

Ford tilted his head. “I could have sworn this was still the primary territory of the Manatee-Merfolk Alliance. Are you sure you haven’t made some kind of mistake?”

“What part of prisoners did you not understand?!” the beast demanded, spreading out his wings and shaking them as his tentacles writhed angrily. “Give up your weapons, now-all of them!!!!”

“...You sure you want that? It’s kind of gonna take awhile-”

“NOW, or I crush your boat in my mighty fist!!!!”

Stan glanced at Ford, who rolled his eyes and nodded. With a small sigh, they began disarming themselves.

********

...A minute passed and they were still at it.

Ford’s pile of weapons was almost as tall as he was, mostly consisting of long-range weapons like guns, but with a few vials of poisons and some handcuffs thrown into the mix.

Stan’s pile was more proportionate, but the number of places that weapons were produced from (including a smoke bomb that he’d somehow managed to keep tucked under his beanie) was frighteningly impressive.

The monster watched their progress with increasingly wide eyes; finally, as Stan produced another set of brass knuckles out of a secret pocket sewn onto the inside of his coat, he spluttered, “...Where were you keeping those?”

Stan just grinned shamelessly. “Trust me, sunshine, you don’t wanna know.”

“Okay, I think that’s everything,” Ford said at last, indicating the pile of weaponry.

“Yeah, well, I’m still workin’, gimme a minute.” Stan produced a switchblade, and tossed it onto his pile. Then, in a brief sleight of hand, he snatched another one from the pile and pretended to draw it out of his coat to toss it on next. “Hey, tentacles-face-ya think you could bring us back by Wednesday? We got a Zoom appointment ta keep, and our niece and nephew hate it when we’re late.” Another sleight of hand allowed him to scoop up another weapon.

“That’s not how this-now see here!” The monster drew himself up to his full height, nearly falling backwards off the boat. “You guys-you puny mortals are my prisoners! And as such, you need to understand that this is not a joking matter! I could squash you both like sea slugs if I wished! I’m all-powerful, an eons-old abomination whose very name would send you into madness if spoken aloud! So you better start quaking in fear and begging for mercy like proper captives!!!!”

Stan looked at Ford. “Sounds like we’re his first.” He looked back at the monster. “You’re doin’ great, buddy-good job on the whole threatening schtick.” He offered a thumbs-up, while using the other hand to snag another weapon that he pretended to produce from another hiding spot.

Ford winked at him, and looked back at their ‘captor.’ “Is this some sort of coming-of-age ritual for your species?” He produced his journal again, pen poised. “Very clever move, by the way, threatening our boat to get us to disarm ourselves. In the future, though, I would suggest that you try taking one of us hostage first, in order to create maximum-”

“STOP IT!”

The monster abruptly started pounding his fists against the side of the boat, nearly tipping it over before instead pitching him all the way onto the deck. “YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO-I’M YOUR-IT’S NOT FAIR-!”

It took Stan a moment to realize that the angry noises leaving his mouth (?) were accompanied by the sound of frustrated sobs.

He hissed through his teeth, and shot Ford a guilty look.

“...Oh boy. Looks like we got a little one here.”

********

Stan crossed the boat and crouched down in front of the weeping monster, putting a hand on his back and rubbing the spot right between his wings.

“Deep breaths, in and out. You’re not gonna get anything done like this, so just take a bit ta calm down, okay?”

The monster hiccuped and coughed, shrinking in on himself in a way that was painfully familiar to both of them.

Ford knelt down at his other side. “Maybe if you tell us why this is so important to you, we can provide some assistance?”

The monster shook his head and buried his head in his arms. “I just wanted-hic-to show my friends I could catch the Pines twins all by myself,” he croaked.

The two old men looked at each other in a mixture of surprise and slight alarm. “...You know who we are?”

That was finally enough to get him to sit up, wiping his eyes with his tentacles. “You kidding? Every creature of the seas knows who you are! You’re the guys who beat up krakens and steal gold from leprechauns and then you and your boat vanish without a trace! You’re the coolest cryptids ever!”

It took both of them a moment to digest that. By the time they did, though, they were grinning in equal delight.

“We’re cryptids?!” Ford asked, eyes practically brimming over with overjoyed tears.

“Yeah! And people at school were sayin’ you’re just a myth, but I knew you were real cuz my uncle saw your ship up in the Arctic last winter, and I was gonna capture you and bring you to class to show everyone how wrong they were and then I’d be famous and they’d stop calling me a weird runt all the time!” After a second his wings drooped, and he stared miserably down at the deck. “...Guess it was pretty dumb of me to think I could catch you all by myself.”

Stan put a hand on his shoulder. “...Kid...as much as we wanna help, we can’t just be your prisoners. We got our own lives ta get back to.”

“Plus, neither of us is able to breathe underwater,” Ford added.

The monster sighed, and pulled a strip of kelp from around his neck, turning one of the leaves until it was facing him. He squirted a stream of black ink from one of his tentacles, and dipped the tip of another one into the ink and used it to trace something that looked like a bunch of gobbledygook to Stan onto the leaf. “Humans...don’t...breathe...underwater.”

Awww...he’s a super nerd, just like Ford and Dipper!

That gave Stan an idea.

“Hey.” He nudged the monster. “What about a picture of us instead? Along with genuine proof of a close encounter?”

The monster’s head jerked up. “A picture?! Like with one of those weird magic boxes you humans carry around sometimes?!”

“That’s the one.” Stan grinned. He looked at Ford and jerked his head towards the cabin; his brother took the hint and headed for it, returning with an antique Polaroid camera that Ford had been experimenting on, but still took good pictures.

The monster’s tentacles began writhing around his face like they’d come to life, and he let out a high-pitched squeal of excitement.

“This is the greatest day of my life!!!!”

********

It took a bit of staging and directing and trying out different angles, but eventually they produced a set of photos that appeared to be of an eldritch abomination in training being attacked by, and bravely fighting off, the ferocious monster hunter Pines twins (hopefully nobody would think to ask how and why the monster had managed to get these pictures taken).

Then, while Stan took them into the cabin and soaked them in a special substance Ford had invented that would render them waterproof, Ford sat on the prow next to the young cryptid enthusiast and offered tips on future hunting adventures, comparing notes with him on some of the creatures they’d both seen. He also (with permission) took a few samples from the monster, including a long strip of skin (“Make it look like a wound I got in the fight! Man, this is gonna be so cool, Yog-Sothoth is gonna eat his heart out! Possibly literally!”) and some of the ink from his tentacles.

When Stan came back with the photos, he also handed over one of his spare brass knuckles that had lost a corner. “Have another souvenir, kid.”

The monster’s tentacles lashed out and wrapped around their faces in what felt like a really weird version of a hug before pulling away, leaving them covered in some of the slimy stuff they were coated in.

“Thank you so much! I really really hope the leprechauns don’t catch you-if they come this way I’ll make sure to eat some of them so they won’t!” He waved at them joyfully as he dived back into the ocean and disappeared.

********

After a moment Stan wiped his face on his coat sleeve.

“...Well, that happened.”

He turned away and began gathering up his weapons.

“Such a strange mixture of childlike innocence and barbarity,” Ford mused as he pulled out a jar and gathered the slime into it for yet another sample. “His culture must be fascinating-I almost wish he would have taken us with him so I could have seen it.”

“You would’ve drowned before you could gather any data.”

“...You don’t know that.”

“He literally didn’t know that humans can’t breathe underwater, Sixer. Not gonna happen.”

He ignored Ford’s sulking and kept cleaning, while musing to himself over the possible monetary opportunities being a couple of cryptids could bring...

[maxwell-grant]

The crossover fic + learning he's a favorite of yours has me curious: do you think it would be possible to tell a satisfactory Shadow vs. Mr. Mxyzptlk story? I think he'd fit surprisingly well in that milieu as a credible threat: he's something of an older, mistier, shadowy world, kin to fairies and elves and imps, pixies and sprites and genies, bound by old laws and dressed like a parody of 20s/30s class, beyond The Shadow's usual powers and yet...THAT. There a thematic in to this throwdown?

I had never actually thought of Mxy in that light, even though it's very much in line with what he is, because Mxy is one of those characters I don't tend to think about much. He's one of those ready-made perfect villains who pretty much guarantees a fun and creative time whenever he pops up uninvented. Like The Ventriloquist for Batman, he is so uniquely a product of how Superman works and what his stories allow for, that I can't say I ever thought of taking him for a spin outside of them. But there's definitely stuff to work with in putting him and The Shadow together.

Come to think of it, if there's a Superman villain I think Walter Gibson would have liked to play around with, it would be Mxyzptlk. Mxy stories are fundamentally about Superman being thrust into a position where his only way out is to solve puzzles and turn the tables using nothing but his wits, and Gibson spent the majority of his career before and after The Shadow as a writer of books on magic and puzzles, both of which show up a lot in The Shadow stories. You see it even in several covers which contained clues for the stories within.

To an extent, you could argue that The Shadow might figure out quicker a way to trick Mxy, because The Shadow's already has to utilize a constant amount of trickery and deceit and puzzle-solving in his daily adventures, it comprises almost the majority of what his stories are about under Gibson. The usual Mxyzptlk narrative is one that's well within The Shadow's domain.

But on the other hand, it's definitely some extremely unusual territory for The Shadow, villain-wise. A villain who eclipses his powers and scope to such an extent is completely unheard of. The one time I can think of where he fought a villain this weird and who he was completely powerless against was when he met Suven The Clown King of Venus (who's definitely a character that could show up in this meeting), and even then Suven was just a weird alien who looked gigantic next to the shrunken Shadow. Even on the few occasions where The Shadow encountered other aliens or eldritch monsters, he was able to find a way to stop the threat for the moment or even kill it, which is definitely not happening here, because Mxy is a whole other level.

Superman has the strength and endurance and superpowers to roll with whatever mayhem Mxy throws his way. If Mxy decides that The Shadow’s looking too pale so he's gonna give him a tan by throwing him in the sun, what the hell is he gonna do to stop him? I imagine that Mxy would likely take a different approach to messing with The Shadow, since he can't tank nukes like Supes and he's not really a good sport about the game. 

Fine, whatever, Mxy's a creative sort, he's got a couple of ideas for messing around with Mr Grim-n-Serious over there, show him what an Eldritch Monster looks like past the squid monsters and dragons he may have met.

The idea I'm getting here is, on one hand, Mxy attacking The Shadow with the usual goofiness he brings with him. And on the other, him realizing that messing with The Shadow's dignity isn't as fun as he thought he'd be, so he instead goes full SCP Foundation/Awful Hospital/Ice Cream Man on The Shadow until he's stopped, trapping him in amusing and horrifying eldritch nightmares and situations that he has absolutely no way to escape until he solves the puzzle. 

I mean, he's not fighting Superman here, he can kill this guy with a blink, even just stopping his heart with a thought. No fun in that. He's gotta beat the "Master of Darkness" at his own game. He's got a point to prove.

I imagine that much of the story would play out of The Shadow having to piece together what exactly has gone topsy-turvy in his reality, whether it's Commissioner Weston eating spiders for breakfest or the entirety of Manhattan sans him going blind and all lights going out across the country. And when Mxy comes out with that shrill SURPROISE!!!, assuming The Shadow already knows what he needs to do, then he falls for whatever gambit The Shadow's had to cook up to trick him. 

At the end, Mxy is an arrogant bully who lords power over those that can't fight back, and The Shadow's a master of beating those by turning their arrogance against them. It's Duck Amuck, except Bugs is a mind-breaking sadist and Daffy has to fight back.

I imagine something akin to a particularly funny scene from a story called Face of Doom, where a gangster traps The Shadow in a room surrounded by armed henchman so he can enlist him into taking down the city's leading criminal, The Face. The Shadow unmasks himself as Cranston to gain his trust, and the two proceed to talk plans. I'll post the sequence below

Calmly, The Shadow was removing his slouch hat. His arms spread, the black cloak began to drop from his shoulders. Clipper's nervousness changed to elation. If ever a criminal fooled himself, Clipper did so at that moment.

Though The Shadow voiced no agreement to Clipper's offer, the crook was confident that it was sealed. The Shadow was taking a step that no other criminal had ever witnessed.

When Clipper's squinty eyes saw the hawkish features of Lamont Cranston, the crook displayed another of his downward grins. There wasn't any question about the prisoner really being The Shadow.

"A ritzy mug, ain't you?" voiced Clipper. "Well, that makes you the real McCoy. One thing we'd all figured, Shadow — we guessed you was a high-hat guy.

"'You don't get out of here until The Face is croaked! Say, though — maybe one of your ritzy friends could put up a good front with The Face."

"There are others, who might serve. I have agents, you know."

A shrewd gleam brought new ugliness to Clipper's eyes. He had heard of The Shadow's agents. It would be smart stuff—using them to get The Face, then disposing of them afterward. Clipper couldn't hide the eagerness that betrayed his new scheme.

"Good stuff," agreed Clipper. "But how am I going to reach those guys and get them to work with me? They only take orders from you, don't they?"

In reply, Clipper saw Cranston pick up the black cloak and hat. He handed the garments to the crook. For the moment, Clipper was puzzled; then he saw Cranston's hand extend the discarded gloves.

"I get it," chuckled Clipper. "You want me to rig up like I was you. Then the guys that work for you will listen to me. How do you handle them—with some password?"

"Usually," replied The Shadow. "Try on the cloak and hat first, Clipper. I must study the appearance that you make."

It seemed like a give-away of The Shadow's game. Any one could stage this Shadow stuff. All he had to do was masquerade in black, spring a shivery laugh, and shoot quick with his guns. If Cranston could pull it, Clipper could.

The Shadow spends a couple of paragraphs calmly walking Clipper through the steps necessary to pull off a convincing Shadow performance, almost like he's directing him. And then this happens:

The back of Clipper's neck was exposed. Though The Shadow's voice was still the leisurely tone of Cranston, his left hand had lost its laziness. Behind Clipper's back, that fist whipped an automatic from a shoulder holster. Clipper didn't scent the move until the muzzle of the .45 iced his neck.

"It won't work, Shadow," rasped Clipper. "You know it as well as I do! One pop from that gat of yours, the mob will pile in and croak you! There's a wicket in that door; they'll use it!"

The Shadow had shifted low behind Clipper's back. The crook could no longer observe the reflection of Cranston's face. He could still feel the pressure of the gun muzzle on his flesh. "Climb off my neck, Shadow," warned Clipper. "It ain't getting you nowhere!"

It was getting The Shadow further than Clipper guessed. The gun muzzle was actually gone from Clipper's neck. His impression that it rested there was merely an after effect, from former pressure.

Crouched low, The Shadow had now reached the door. Before Clipper guessed what was up, The Shadow twisted the door knob. Wrenching the door inward, he pulled himself behind it.

At the same moment, The Shadow snapped a quick command, in a rasp that resembled Clipper's own harsh tone:

"The Shadow's yours, gang! Croak him!"

It ends for Clipper about as well as you'd expect.

One of the things I like most about Mxy is that you can't take shortcuts with him. It's not like how it is with Riddler stories, where you can half-ass the riddles because you know Batman's gonna win once he touches Riddler and the story's gonna end in a punch-up, Mxyzptlk is completely invincible unless you solve the puzzle he presents, and you'd think of course that, surely, he can't fall for it this time.

He's a wise guy, see, he's seen all of Superman's tricks by now, and what's that dumb old Shadow gonna do that he can't see a mile away? This is almost too easy.

It's so easy, in fact, that The Shadow even agrees, he's lost it completely, and the way he could possibly beat Mxyzptlk is by calling one of his agents to save him, and he's prepared a list of some of his smartest, cleverest agents for this moment. But, no, he wouldn't dare put them in such danger against this invincible, immortal genius, someone has to take this list from him and run, but ZOINKS, Mxy's taken the list. So he's gonna start seeing who is it that the Shadda thinks is smart enough to take him.

Clyde BurKe? Like some dimestore journalist's gonna have a shot, just cause he solves crossword puzzles. Lamont Cranston, yeah, more like, LAMEONT CRANSTON. Harry VincenT, who, the dumb kid who tried jumping off a bridge once? Come on, you gotta give me a hand here, Shadda! Let's see, Pietro, what, some cook? Ya kidding? Moe ShrevnitZ...actually, Shrevy's allright, scratch that one. ShrevY, hey, come on, that's cheating, ya just put Shrevnitz's name again, ya dum-dum. Mr Xanadu, hmm, catchy name but probably not a real guy. And Margo Lane. Yeah, smart dame that one, she could probably figger something out. And ya keep writing everyone's name's weird - WAIT

I KNOW WHAT YER TRYING TO DO HERE.

I KNOW YOU GOT SOME CLEVER SCHEME HERE, I'D SEEN THIS BEFORE, IT'S AN OLD TRICK.

YOU EMPHASIZED THE LETTERS SO THE REAL SMARTEST GUY YOU KNOW WOULD BE HIDDEN WITHIN THEM, SO THAT SOMEONE ELSE COULD FIND HIM.

HAH, THAT'S RICH. THAT'S KID'S PLAY. WHAT, YOU THINK I CAN'T FIND THIS

KLTPZYXM

BY MYSELF?

.

.

.

aw crickets...

[saanphoenix]

“Why do so many old-school FFVII fans think that Cloud took Zack’s memories?”

Alright, so first things first. We gotta start from the beginning. We gotta start with Jenova.

Jenova is the name given to the alien entity known as the Calamity. “Heaven’s dark harbinger.” This being, assumed to be female because of the body she was in at the Crater, was basically godlike in her natural abilities. Historically, she was able to shapeshift. She was telepathic. She had a nigh indomitable will. And she used her abilities to infect the race of human(oid)s that happened upon her crash site--the Cetra.

Now, Ifalna, within the English translation of the OG, states that Jenova turned the Cetra into monsters, nearly wiping them all out, and that the wee few that remained basically had to be sacrificed to seal Jenova away before she could do anymore damage to all life on the planet. The notes Sephiroth finds within the Shinra Mansion seem to corroborate this version of events, as he tells Zack that the Cetra chose to fight the Calamity while the other humans “hid”, thus being spared Jenova’s shenanigans, allowing them to become the dominant race on the planet, but ultimately being cowards unworthy to be the shepherds of any star, to quote Emet-Selch from FFXIV. Stay with me now.

We also know that the notes Sephiroth reads within the Shinra Mansion do not, in any way, call Jenova the Calamity. They still refer to her as a Cetra. Meaning that those notes are outdated, before the discovery of a living Cetra, a Cetra who is 2000 years removed from her own people’s history. Right? So.

(’Ah, but what about Genesis point-blank telling Sephiroth the truth? He knew what was up!’ Yes, because Hollander and Hojo found out from Gast’s recordings, and Ifalna herself, what Jenova actually was, and then Hollander told Genesis, who then said some stupid ass shit to trigger Sephiroth into looking into the wrong information, and now Nibelheim is not Nibelheim anymore and Cloud is missing one more family member than he was when he joined Shinra. Also, fuck Genesis. Anyway.)

HOJO, yeah? Hojo, in two separate novels written by Nojima himself, states to Aerith and Tseng separately that Jenova 1) will inevitably infect all life on the planet with her “cells” because of the very nature of the Lifestream and 2) turned the Cetra against each other via subtle manipulation and illusions of their loved ones, dead or alive, conceived from their own memories. She didn’t show up looking like the Eldritch horror with the eyeball nipple, she showed up looking like a run-of-the-mill Cetra. And she would further disguise herself as people a Cetra knew in order to gain their trust. And then, after she had gained that trust, she would say shit like, “Hey. Your friend over there hates you,” or, “Hey. Your friend over there wants to kill you.” And thus the Cetra, at the very least morally but probably also physically, became monsters and tore themselves apart.

You ever wonder why everything the Cetra had was booby-trapped and hidden behind riddles and self-sacrificial bullshit like their Temple? My guess is because Jenova made it so they couldn’t trust anyone, even themselves.

“Why did I read all that? What does that have to do with Cloud voring Zack’s memories?”

Because we gotta understand the mechanics of this bitch first so that we know what to look out for.

Now, we have an alien in stasis--presumed dead but definitely not--and a buncha scientists who really want a coveted spot sucking President Shinra’s dick as head of the Science Dept. who all think that taking the genetic material of a Cetra and splicing it into a modern-day human’s DNA will give them a Geiger counter to the Promised Land. Which they want to use as fuel because only some of them really understand what mako is and the others are just fucking stupid. Anyway, my guess is that they archeology their way to Jenova’s still-kinda-alive corpse and do some DNA testing and go, “Ah! We’ve found a Cetra. It has to be one! She’s by the crater, after all, and that’s where some of them were nuked by a Meteor! :) We’re geniuses!” And Jenova, in the Lifestream, went, “GOTCHA, BITCH!”

And through the power of dino DNA, out pops a lot of nonviable lifeforms, some monsters, and, eventually, a relatively normal kid with a flare for the dramatic who will become wholly obsessed with apples and very boring literature that he will insist on repeating every five goddamn seconds. As he was no Geiger counter to the Promised Land, out pops another relatively normal kid who will grow up to have dreams, and honor, and steal food from his neighbors because he was so damn honorable that he just could not ask for a handout.

With Hollander and Gillian’s experiments not producing anything of note other than children that need love and support, Hojo and Lucrecia decide to take a slightly different sample of Jenova’s cells and just start sticking them everywhere. They’re in Lucrecia. They’re in Lucrecia’s fetus. And...something strange starts to happen.

Lucrecia starts to feel the effects of Jenova. Lucrecia’s mind and body start to kind of deteriorate. Not the way that Genesis’ and Angeal’s do later on, but she is plagued by shit like severe depression and fatigue. She falls out on the floor multiple times. Her bodyguard is a little late on pulling the trigger of the gun aimed at her husband and, instead of doing anything productive about her husband proving he’s an amoral murderous fuckhead, she just decides to play doll with her kinda undead bodyguard, get even sicker, and then, finally, pops out a very strange looking baby. In fact, he looks a little alien.

“No, seriously, what does this have to do with anything?”

Genetics. How Jenova cells work. Whatever clump of cells they injected into Lucrecia, clearly different from those used in Project G, seemed to focus more on the mental fuckery aspect of Jenova than the physical, shapeshifting aspect of Jenova. I would also argue that one of the reasons Lucrecia was so adversely affected by the cells and Gillian was not is their mental well-being. Gillian, even when we meet her, seems very upbeat and doing pretty okay despite her husband having died from exhaustion a coupla years back. Lucrecia was depressed and very subservient even before she married Hojo. Losing her mentor--Vincent’s father--probably exacerbated that. And, later in Advent Children, that sort of mentality--hopelessness and despair--is what Sephiroth’s Geostigma feeds off of. That and thoughts of death/dying. But that is more speculation than anything.

So, Sephiroth’s cells are different from Genesis’ and Angeal’s, and they were all three bred differently, but they’re all kinda chimeras of Jenova’s. And once Genesis learns about his origins, it’s like the lightbulb goes off. This guy’s creating clones by infecting his 2nd and 3rd Class SOLDIERs with his own cells. And when he does that, their physical appearance becomes his own. As does their will. Whatever Genesis wants, the clones also want. And then he just grows a wing for shits and giggles. Once he tells his BFF Angeal the sitch, behold! He’s got monster clones--maybe because he realizes how fucked up overwriting a human being with yourself is--and wings, too. ...Why?

The power to do all of this shit was always there. It was genetically always there. They just had to be made aware of it, to have the puzzle piece put into place. When Sephiroth dies, that puzzle piece is put into place. And then he starts fuckin’ with shit. And turns into monstrous angels. And then dies again. And then comes back and finally grows himself his own wing. He did it, fellas. He’s a big boy now.

But we’re not here to talk about Sephiroth--ignore how much I talked about Sephiroth and his mommies previously--we’re here to talk about ZACK and CLOUD.

“What’s up with Zack and Cloud?”

First, what we must realize is that even though Hojo says that both Zack and Cloud are failed clones because they 1) didn’t take on any physical characteristics of Sephiroth, 2) didn’t seem controlled by Jenova (or Sephiroth) and, 3) didn’t exhibit the other signs of a Reunion impulse like the other clones in Nibelheim that does not mean that Sephiroth’s cells, Jenova’s cells, are not working on them.

As we’ve observed in other 1sts, abilities do not always manifest immediately or even noticeably. Clearly, Sephiroth’s physical appearance is a bit of a hint, but Genesis and Angeal look pretty damn normal and, if it weren’t for their mako injections, they probably wouldn’t be showing that much of an increase in physical capabilities. Theoretically. Maybe 10-year-old Angeal had biceps the size of a man’s head. I mean. Pff.

Zack’s tolerance to Jenova was strong due to his previous exposure in the SOLDIER program. Cloud’s mind broke pretty early on. Neither of these results matter to the fact that they both now have Sephiroth’s cells within them--just as Genesis’ and Angeal’s clones had theirs--and that their very wills are now going to be affected by Sephiroth’s. But they are also going to be a little bit like him in terms of power.

Zack’s hair, when ingested by a Genesis clone, a clone of a Type-G SOLDIER, transforms that clone into a monster. Zack doesn’t even have to do anything. The Jenova/Sephiroth cells within his body can just Do That, cause that change in another life form, of their own accord. I’m honestly shocked that, whenever they gave Zack these S-cells, HE didn’t turn into a monster. But that’s neither here nor there. I wanna talk about Cloud.

Cloud has mako poisoning, which the Remake describes as his spirit/soul being stuck between his body and the Lifestream. Weird. Anyway, he’s not fully aware of his surroundings at all times, and he clearly can’t control his body that much. He somehow has the ability to kinda get his feet shuffling, and I’m going to go on a limb and say he can chew whatever food Zack gives him, but most of the time, he’s a puppet with cut strings.

But he is also still recovering from a mind break caused by Jenova cells. The same cells that are just chilling in his body, like they are in Zack’s. And all the months Zack is dragging his ass across a continent, an ocean, and another continent, they and Cloud are listening to whatever the fuck Zack is saying. Cloud is also constantly in physical contact with Zack.

In The Kids Are Alright: A Turks Side Story, Kadaj has the power to not only read surface thoughts and memories just by being near someone, but he can also read deeper ones by making physical contact with someone. Because Jenova. And Sephiroth, whose cells Cloud and Zack have, in the OG demonstrates that he, too, can glean thoughts and memories from others. Because Jenova.

If this power is a genetic trait, as it is with Genesis and Angeal, then, sitting pretty underneath their skin, Zack and Cloud have this ability. Dormant. Snoozing. Kinda like the 1st Class Trio’s wings.

But Zack has a high tolerance and a high ignorance to Jenova and just what he might be capable of. Cloud’s mind is floating in and out at best. He’s not in control of himself. And when you have a situation like that, it is very, very easy to come to the conclusion that Cloud’s Jenova cells are passively absorbing the memories of Zack’s time in Nibelheim. That they are knitting these memories together with what little remain in Cloud’s head. That when Tifa comes across Cloud at the train station and calls him by name and remembers who he is that Cloud’s Jenova cells latch onto those memories in Tifa--as Sephiroth tells them they did--and they knit those memories with Zack’s and Cloud’s and the end result is the man we get at the beginning of the OG.

Because Cloud has visual memory of shit he never saw. It’s not just a visual medium telling a visual story. You wanna know how I know that for a fact? Because, in the Remake, Cloud remembers Sephiroth walking up to Jenova’s tank in the reactor from Sephiroth’s perspective. He is looking through Sephiroth’s eyes, through his memory, up at “Mother.” In that moment in the Remake, Cloud is Sephiroth. He’s not Cloud anymore.

Cloud sees Sephiroth delivering the speech of being an Ancient. Cloud wasn’t there. Cloud didn’t see that. Zack did. That is Zack’s memory.

The man writing the Remake is the same man who’s been at the head of MOST FFVII writing. He was on the OG, he wrote Advent Children, he wrote the novels, he wrote Crisis Core, he’s writing the Remake. He knows what these cells can do because he’s crafted this world-building for decades.

Cloud didn’t take all of Zack’s memories. He didn’t need to. Kadaj, in the novel, doesn’t glean everything from someone right off the bat. Because he doesn’t need to. Only when he needs to learn something else does he go digging. The same is probably true for what Cloud’s cells most likely did to be able to know what he knows. Hell! Kadaj gets punched in the novel and he ACCIDENTALLY picks up the emotions and memories of the guy who punched him. He didn’t want ‘em but he got ‘em!”

There is evidence within the OG, and even more within the Compilation, that lend weight to the theory that Cloud unintentionally read Zack’s mind when it came to the events of Nibelheim.

For years, people have wondered, “How the hell does Cloud know that if he wasn’t there?” For years, people have wondered, “How can he use the Buster Sword if he was just a little grunt that used a gun all the time?” The logical answer is, “Because of his Jenova cells. They can just do that shit.”

[egglands-worst]

blaidd’s list of (my own) undertale continuities/stories/aus!!

because i have so many even i have a hard time keeping track of them. help.

under the cut because Long and that way i can continue to change it if need be haha.

also this has stuff i haven’t talked much about, or at All, on tumblr! not that I don’t wanna, I just forget.

FASN / Far Away Standing Near / @wings-dingus 

Canon undertale with an absurd amount of headcanons and I Can Do What I Want. follows events from before the events of the game all the way to post-pacifist stuff. Currently an Askblog, canon-divergent slightly.

the Gaster from that i call “Wings”. The askblog is located @wings-dingus , and I’ve written a few side stories on my ao3 that can be found here. My longest-going project and main focus of my creative energy right now

Extra Characters - Entypo and Dave: fan-parents of Gaster. and oh there’s gonna be So Many other extra characters once they get to the surface y’all.

Velvet Bones

AU. Revolves around Gaster, Sans, and Papyrus for the most part. Underfell-ish plus Gaster Blaster AU plus Dadster. essentially an evil Gaster that loves his sons dearly and treats them well and they all happen to be able to turn into blaster creatures.

Gaster is a paranoid mess and keeps his sons hidden away for the majority of their childhood. He does inform them of how the world works, or at least his own view of how the world works, and prepares them for the day that he’s no longer there. Ends up getting voided when the boys are in their teens. they quickly realize that their father’s view of the world was very much skewed.

papyrus eventually ends up becoming second-in-command of the royal guard, undyne’s best friend and right hand man.

The gaster of this AU i have nicknamed Kitty, and papyrus and sans are Serval and Lynx respectively.

(i say underfell-ish because its similar to underfell in aesthetic but nowhere near as dark or edgy in tone.)

[Velvet Bones Variant]

variant where grillster is a thing and also instead of gaster getting voided, he fakes his death and poses as just a regular ole riverperson ferrying monsters around. also grillby convinces gaster to freakin. let his kids out every once in a while at Least, jeeze.

extra characters - pyrobats; grillster fankid. she shows up post-pacifist.

Eldritch Gaster AU

AU where its similar to canon undertale but Gaster is a horrifying eldritch entity that got shoved into a mortal form. He’s terrifying, spooky, creepy, you name it, but is actually a big huge softie underneath. Dadster as well. Inspired by the song “When He Died” by Lemon Demon.

(The gaster of this AU is nicknamed Richard)

Extra characters - Luminari, gaster’s wife and mother of sans and papyrus.

Void Squad

AU centered around Papyrus and Undyne (and Gaster but not quite as much as those two). Undyne and Papyrus both end up voided like Gaster. Canon undertale world where the timeline is incredibly unstable, and every time it gets reset it gets corrupted more and more. Eventually leading to papyrus and undyne getting ejected from the timeline. They have to figure out a way back and a way to fix the timeline before its too late.

(Gaster nicknamed Prof, Undyne nicknamed Entropy, still working on a nickname for Papyrus)

Gaster is sans and papyrus’s uncle, and took them in when they were kids after their parents died.

Extra characters: doctors W. D. Gaster and W. D. Gaster. Attaira. Doctors W. D. Gaster (AKA Webdings Gaster, MD) and W. D. Gaster (aka Swingdancer Gaster, PsyD) are Doctor W. D. Gaster’s (aka Wingdings Gaster, PhD) siblings. Swingdancer omits the S in her name because she thinks its hilarious. Webdings is Sans and Papyrus’s father, and Attaira is their Other parent.

Deltarune/UT AU

a very Much AU version of Deltarune. Gaster created a very intricate and involved simulation of monsterkind on the surface, with different backgrounds and histories to fit that world. something hacks his simulation, however, and he has to go Into the simulation (a la Tron) to identify and remove the hacker (who is Not chara). poses as just a regular ole math teacher in the local school, shenanigans with Kris, Susie, and a senior year Asriel ensue. Gaster had no idea the dark world existed in the simulated world prior to entering it.

(the gaster of This au is nicknamed Sepia)

Star Trek Au

au where. star trek. undertale cast in Space. setting is regular undertale, except that when they get freed from the underground, it’s in the ‘future’ and in the star trek time. Various monsters get invited to join starfleet and an accelerated education as a show of good faith that humankind no longer hates monsterkind. so now they’re undertale monsters in space!

more info on roles here because i don’t wanna type that all out

(the gaster of this au doesn’t have a nickname, is sans and papyrus’s brother)

not super high on my priority list but holds a very special place in my heart. There’s probably gonna be quite a Few extra characters if i do end up focusing on it more, tho, haha :’)

Papyrus-Is-Gaster

I dunno whether to call this an AU or a theory ‘cause its kinda both but neither. but. Papyrus is Gaster.

he and sans are still brothers. papyrus/gaster is the classic unhinged/mad scientist. causes So many explosions. sans is a notorious con artist in the capital.

original post where i talk about them Here

after All That, papyrus and sans end up forgetting everything. Papyrus lost All of his memories save for basic basic stuff, and sans only lost Most of his memories. all of them to do with papyrus. they end up hiding out in snowdin, though they don’t know exactly why they wanna lay low.

(papyrus/gaster nicknamed Orvo)

Mad Scientist Chara

mad scientist chara. Au where they never, uh, kicked the bucket when they were a kid. peepaw gaster. they for whatever reason grew really attached to gaster. ended up becoming a scientist and later The royal scientist once gaster retired. it’s terrible. they’re living their best life.

KEU

currently on hold. crossover crackship-turned-oh-no-wait-we-actually-ship-them-now

[ask-spider-man-61610]

So I think you’ve talked about your Doc Ock a bit on here... but have you ever encountered any other Ocks in other dimensions? How do they match up to yours?

Yes, I have. Doctor Octopus might not be exactly a universal constant, but it's certainly a common enough title that I've crossed paths with a fair number of them. I'm going to give a short little rundown of each of them, and why they should go to hell. This is gonna be a salty list. If you didn't want that, you should've come to someone else.

The Otto Octavius of Earth-1512 was the first alternate Ock I ever encountered. Unlike most of the Ocks on this list, I don't know or care what his deal is--I just spent an hour in my first ever alternate universe before I saw a man in armored green and yellow throwing cars around with mechanical tentacles. He was also working with the Green Goblin and holding civilians hostage at the time, which in my opinion is reason enough to put him in the ICU like I did. I've never been back to this universe and never will, but presumably he's just doing the same shit every month or so.

The Otto Octavius of Earth-8363, colloquially called God Ock because I guess we can't fucking help but stroke his ego, was the Ock I met during my first outing with what'd eventually be the Cluster. He's a weird edge case. First we fought a robotic duplicate of him, then his actual self after he'd done the dumbest thing I've ever seen an Ock do and integrated an extradimensional energy source into his fucking body in a bid for omnipotence. I suspect he was already basically dead when Gwen ripped the Shard out, but he had a backup personality on a secret hard drive and so we've met his AI self. He agrees it wasn't his smartest move. Still, fuck this guy. He apparently stabbed my alternate self in the back so he deserves what he got.

Oliver Octavius, of Earth-42711a, isn't a doctor. I refuse to call him Doctor Octopus, but he's calling himself that because he claims to be the son of Otto Octavius. Knowing Otto, I'm more than a little skeptical of that claim, but that doesn't change the fact that in a bid to be just like Daddy he dropped out of college to become a supervillain. When Melly noted that this plan was less than stellar he interpreted that as a personal betrayal and has sworn revenge on her. He's temperamental, idolizing of a man he's never met, and has an ego more fragile than sugar glass--and he's not even good at villainy. I walked into his lair, kicked his ass, and walked out again in less than five minutes. Oliver's pathetic. And he knows it, because he's scrambling to compensate with a desperation that anyone with half a brain can see is going to kill him very, very soon.

The Otto Octavius of Earth-22701 needs to fucking leave Morgan alone. The Peter Parker of that universe died like a century ago, and that Otto's engineered a way to stop aging so he doesn't even need to fight superheroes anymore. But no, he reads about a kid in New Orleans with my powers and decides that that's obviously his dead enemy having, I dunno, reincarnated or something. Instead of being the result of the spider-related experiments that he funded. I don't have a lot of respect for this Otto's intelligence. I've only met him in-person once, when I was going on the warpath and beating up everyone who's ever tried to kill Morgan, but for some reason having an actual Peter Parker knock two of his teeth out wasn't enough to deter him from his theory about Morgan being me. I'll try again as soon as I get a chance.

Odyssia Octavius, the Ock of Earth-777, is probably the least scientist and most mad of all the mad scientists here. Also the one who leans the hardest into the Octopus aesthetic, because alone among the Ocks she's a marine biologist. Now, unlike certain counterparts of mine I could mention, I actually don't give a fuck about her decision to serve an eldritch sea monster for power. Nor am I opposed to her overall goal--obviously we gotta save the environment, and obviously we're gonna have to fuck up some industries to make that happen. That's fine. My problems with her are more related to her habit of painfully twisting people she's got a grudge on into horrific monsters and then siccing said monsters on the populace. Even if that wasn't fucking abominable and evil beyond all recompense, it doesn't exactly convey the green message she's trying to go for. Maybe the Writhing One is modifying her logic to suit its own ends, using her as a puppet to get what it wants. Maybe she just fucking sucks. I've only ever spoken to her through the Internet, but if we ever meet face to face I'll be sure to ask which one it is right after I kick her ass and rip off big handfuls of that magic tattoo.

October Otto, the Doctor Octopus of Earth-2, is the only person in this list who I'm not inclined to attack on sight. It took me a little while to get to that point--when the me of Earth-2, Pax, introduced us I was pretty suspicious. But out of all the Ocks I've ever met, this is the only one who's not...nefarious. They're a little eccentric, more than a little shy, but overall a very well-meaning and selfless biologist. I'm glad I met them, even if their tentacles make me a little nauseous to think about. They and I still communicate occasionally, and after what happened to Pax I've been checking in with them to ask about their progress on a cure. This is one of the few people with whom I've ever felt the need to share my files on the Oz virus. I hope it does them good.

With the exception of October, all of these people are fucking awful. But none of them are as dangerous or as detestable as the Otto Octavius of Earth-61610.

The Otto I know is an unrivalled genius. His entire existence is devoted to biorobotics, and over the years he's integrated man and machine on a level that makes the Iron Man armor look like a remote-controlled action figure. He's modified his tentacles to counter my super speed, he's designed and redesigned a zillion different personal helpers, he's made himself the center of a technological superpower controlled solely by his mind. And unlike a lot of Ocks, he's not being manipulated by his tentacles. Nor was he driven insane by the accident that fused them to his body. No, this is a perfectly sane, rational prosthesis engineer who got so frustrated with the bounds of the law that he decided he had the right to start snapping necks.

He's a futurist, is the thing. A man with a grand vision of the technological utopia he could turn the world into, who thinks without a shadow of doubt that he knows what's best for the world and everyone in it, and who's decided that if you try to stop him from realizing that vision that the best thing to do is Remove you from the equation. Worse, he's written off massive swaths of the human race off as expendable--as little people whose lives are a perfectly acceptable sacrifice to bring about his future, who maybe even should be thanking him for the chance to finally mean something.

Every Octobot contains at least a few pieces of human brain. He kidnaps people, lobotomizes them, and integrates parts of their central nervous system into his systems to make his robots more adaptable and independent than purely mechanical systems could be. He's seeded mass-produced medicine with nanotech that hijacked the nervous system of the people who took it and turned them into unconscious parts of a worldwide neural network. On more than one occasion, he's tried to turn entire cities into his own personal laboratories, and everyone inside into lab rats.

Otto Octavius is a monster. No other Ock I've ever met even comes close.

[onecanonlife]

made up fic titles (if u can't/don't wanna do them all pick your favorite!!!)

"three hellos (and five goodbyes)"

"the chariot, inverted"

"no snowflake ever falls out of place"

"in the gallows, in the ghetto"

i really like all of these, but i read “no snowflake ever falls out of place” and my mind immediately went snow... snowchester.... bee duo time.... so here we are

michael is absolutely certain that he had two parents, once. he is not absolutely certain of a lot of things, because he is five, and he doesn’t get to go outside very much, but five is old enough to know somethings. and he loves his dad a lot, but he knows that he had a papa too. whenever he asks dad where papa went, though, dad gets very sad, so he doesn’t do it a lot.

he misses papa. he’s scared of forgetting what papa was like. he remembers that papa was very tall, and that he had very pretty eyes, and that he made rumbly noises in his chest that michael liked very much. and he remembers that papa loved him. he wishes papa would come back.

he thinks that papa will come back, someday. because he knows that papa loved them too.

in the meantime, however, he’s feeling a bit restless. five is a small number, he knows, but it’s a bigger of number of years than he has ever been before, so he thinks that maybe he’s old enough to go outside some more now. but dad doesn’t think so, he can tell, so he decides that maybe sneaking out is the best thing to do. because if he sneaks out, then dad will see that he is a big kid now and that he can do it.

so he does. and then he gets lost. the forest is a bit bigger than he expected.

so there he is, lost and alone, night quickly approaching, and he doesn’t know how to get home, and he’s getting very cold. he thinks that this was a very bad idea, and he very much wants dad to come get him, even if dad will be mad at him for breaking the rules. he wants to go home.

instead, he stumbles into a cave. well hidden, dark and cold, and inside is a monster, and at first, he is very scared, because this monster is not like any other monster that he’s seen before. it’s like an enderman, a little bit, because it’s tall and has a very big mouth and makes sounds like endermen make. but it’s also not entirely like an enderman, because it has patches of white skin, and it’s not teleporting like he knows endermen can do, and it’s just---different. in a way he can’t put a finger on.

at first, he is very scared. but the monster picks him up in large, clawed hands, and it doesn’t hurt him. just holds him to its chest, making purring noises and helping him get warm again, and---oh! it’s papa!

he’s not sure why papa looks like this now, or why he’s not talking to him, but once he figures it out, he’s sure of it. this is papa. he’s found him, and now he has to bring him home.

the trouble is getting dad and uncle tommy to believe him. but he’ll find a way. papa went away once, and he’s going to make sure that it never happens again. because michael is very tired of his family being sad.

(alternatively, c!ranboo’s experiments get a bit out of hand, and he accidentally turns himself into a bit of an eldritch monstrosity, a state halfway between the enderwalk and... something else entirely. his memories are fuzzy, practically nonexistent, but he knows he’s scared of... something, so he spends a couple of years hiding, lingering around the edges of a settlement that calls to him for reasons he can’t explain, a settlement that he’s too afraid to approach.

and then, one day, a small piglin child stumbles into his cave. and he’s not sure why, but he immediately knows that he would give the world to see him safe.)