#indrid writes

[cheers-mdears]

at the "listening to music in search of a fitting title" stage of this fic and I'm so tempted to name it something completely random and irrelevant. currently leaning towards "embroidery"

[ink-wells-and-feathers]

government agents and their cryptid boyfriends is a good ship send post

[dughck]

Plague consumes my mortal flesh

I have once again started my TAZ:Amnesty fixation God I love silly fellas in a motw setting Love twinkified mothmen and cunty magicians that are also kind of space messias. Love it all Miss the podcast ALSO INDRID IS IN DUST??? Anyways, I will be drawing them I will also, probably be writing about them

<333

[noodyl-blasstal]

Baking Ba(n)d

It's the final day of @tazsapphicweek and I'm rounding out with Danbry.

Sometimes Aubrey's mouth moves faster than her brain, and sometimes a cute girl mentions that she likes cake, and sometimes Aubrey offers to bake some to bring to band practice even though she's never made cake before in her life.

Read below or on AO3

--

Aubrey stares hard at the cake-valanche in front of her as if sheer strength of will could fix it.

It can’t, it turns out.

She’s not sure anything could fix this.

But she has to leave in 20 minutes, and she has to take something with her, and she didn’t ask Barclay for help because of her stupid pride and the fact she hadn’t told him about her stupid planet sized crush, and she didn’t think before offering to bake something for Dani because her brain stops working whenever she’s in Dani’s orbit.

Maybe if she just scooches it slowly towards the end of the counter she can shove it into a box without making it worse?

She can’t, it turns out.

There’s a splodgy trail of icing behind the cake like it’s some kind of horrifyingly sugary slug and there’s so many crumbs. Although… at what point is a crumb not a crumb? Maybe they’re just chunks…

It lands in the tub with a worryingly damp thwack. But it's in there. And it's cake. And sprinkles can fix anything! That's what Indrid said anyway, and she has no reason to doubt his wisdom when it comes to sweet things.

–

She's late. She doesn't mean to be, but she had ten minutes so she went to grab her wallet and then applied some extra eyeliner and a few more pin badges and suddenly she had minus 5 minutes somehow?? Time does this to her, it’s slippery and tricksome, and she wishes it would just stay put. She can’t fight the universe right now though, she has to get to band practice.

The apologies are ready on her tongue as she rushes in through the open door, but they fizzle immediately. She doesn’t want to disturb the scene, Dani is noodling on her bass, lost to the world, fingers walking lazily, pooch of her belly sticking out adorably, and tongue poking out of the side of her mouth in concentration. Aubrey wants to take a video so she can look again later, snap a picture so she can frame it, wait patiently until she's done and kiss her so softly so reverently, make sure Dani knows exactly how precious she is, precisely how cherished. Instead, Aubrey stands, feet frozen to the floor, almost definitely gawping.

Dani nods, satisfied, with the tune and the dexterity of her fingers and finally stills. Aubrey ostentatiously doesn’t have any thoughts about how Dani’s bass playing skills might transfer to other dexterity based tasks. Dani lifts her head and starts at the unexpected sight of Aubrey.

“Aubrey! Wow. I didn’t notice you there.”

"Sorry! I was late but here and I didn't want to interrupt you because you looked so beautiful I mean… wait, I said you were playing so beautifully and I thought it might break your concentration if I said anything so I just watched and oh that probably sounds creepy, I watched in a non creepy way, like a band mate way… and cake! I brought cake! Just like I said." Aubrey wills herself to stop talking, it's like switching off a particularly stubborn tap, but she finally clamps her mouth shut.

"Hey!" Dani's shock morphs quickly into a smile as she realises it’s Aubrey and not some terrifying band practice invader. "You remembered? I can't believe you've been a secret baker all this time."

Aubrey can't quite believe it either… "well, you know how it is, I didn't want to encroach on Barclay's thing."

"That's awfully considerate of you." Dani sounds so sincere that a flash of guilt lights her up.

It would definitely be considerate if it were true. It’s not, but it could be. Aubrey smiles, nods, and tries not to say anything else which may later be used against her in court. Instead, she concentrates hard on trying to put down everything she's holding without dropping it all… although maybe if she dropped the cake…

"It's just the two of us today. Duck messaged, said Indrid warned him it would "not be auspicious" to attend practice today."

“Welp! I assume the building’s not going to fall on us or anything?”

“Are you trying to tell me you think Duck is Indrid’s favourite? He punched him in the face and stole his glasses!”

“Fair point. Glad to hear we make it out alive!” Dani doesn’t need to know exactly how glad Aubrey is to know that Indrid hasn’t rang in a panic to warn them that the cake’s secretly radioactive or something. No message has to mean it’s fine. “So what’re we going to practise without our beat?”

“I thought maybe we could mess around, you know.” Dani smiles, wholesome and definitely not thinking anything like what’s running through Aubrey’s mind right now.

“I’d love to mess about with you!” The words are out before she can stop them. “I mean, like, you know, er… guitars!” She forces an overly enthusistic laugh. Jeeze. It was hard enough to make and keep friends as an adult. Accidentally falling hopelessly in love with your band’s new bass player was not the way to do it, and neither was blurting out that you wanted to ‘mess about, wink wink’ with them and immediately trying to fix it by saying more terrible words in a terrible order.

Dani flushes pink, but laughs along with her. No doubt out of pity. Great. Now Aubrey had embarrassed her, what better route to a woman’s heart than making her feel really uncomfortable while trapped in a small space with you?

“Which song would you like to try?”

“Rebel Girl has been in my head a lot lately.” Dani makes firm eye contact as she says it. A lot of eye contact… Maybe this wasn’t as hopeless as it sounded.

“Okay! Sounds good! I’ll just.” Aubrey gestures to her guitar case and begins the long process of wrestling the leads she definitely should have put away properly last time.

“You know, there’s a reason I’ve been thinking about the song a lot.” Dani says mildly.

Aubrey turns to look at her just in time to notice Dani averting her gaze from Aubrey’s butt. Oh… okay. She was going to be so brave, try not to barrel in, but she wants to, she really wants to. She’s jumped to conclusions before though and it has gotten her into plenty of trouble. Maybe just a bit more confirmation that they’re on the same page.

“Really? Want to share?”

“Well, there’s this girl I know.”

When did Dani get so close?

“I really do hear the revolution when she talks, and I was pretty curious about whether I could taste it when I kiss her.”

Aubrey’s already on her tiptoes straining up to kiss Dani when she realises. “Wait… me? Right? Or…?”

Dani laughs, “of course you! Now, can I test my theory?”

Aubrey cuts off the end of her question, pulls her down by the strap of her bass, contorts to avoid squashing it.

“Wait. Fuck. Gimme a second.” Dani wriggles free of the bass and leans it carefully on its stand, then turns, eyes hungry. “Now…” Dani walks slowly towards Aubrey, “I believe we…” backs her up towards the beaten up sofa “... were in the…” Dani pushes Aubrey’s shoulder, she goes willingly “... middle of something.”

Dani straddles Aubrey’s lap, the warmth of her, the earthy tones of the perfume she wears, the solid comfortable weight of her, it’s all perfect. Aubrey’s hands immediately reach to grab the thighs she’s been trying not to stare at for weeks. She pulls Dani closer, strokes and kneads and maps the tattoos that pepper the skin there.

“Is this okay?” Dani asks, pressing a kiss to the side of Aubrey’s face, then nipping gently at her earlobe.

“Yep!” Aubrey says, turning her face and reaching to try and close the distance between their lips. How dare Dani start kissing her and then stop again so soon? She stays just out of range. “I thought you were doing science!” Aubrey strains forward again. This was torture, perfect, beautiful torture.

“Good point.” Dani leans downwards, the curtain of her hair surrounding them. “I’d better be thorough.”

When they finally surface, Aubrey prods at her kiss swollen lips over and over. Laughter bubbles up, wild and joyful, and Dani joins her, folded over Aubrey’s shoulder, heaving in great breaths between laughter.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long.” Dani says.

“Wanna do it again?” Aubrey’s half joking… but also, she needs to know this isn’t just a one time thing. Duck’ll probably be a bit grumpy if they have to hunt for a bass player again, but he won’t mind too much if she explains.

“Every day.” Says Dani quick. “But right now, I believe we deserve a snack to refuel.” She reaches for the box.

“Noooooooooooo, don’t eat that!” Aubrey dives forward to pull it out of Dani’s hands. “We should kiss more instead.” There was no need to seduce her, she’d already done that bit. Poisoning Dani now would be exactly her luck. Kissing though, that was the perfect distraction. It was selfless really, she was doing this to save Dani’s life.

Dani sits up higher, thighs tensing around Aubrey’s. Why was this so hot? Cake wrestling shouldn’t be hot… although… actually?

“Hey now, my girlfriend made me this cake, I’m gonna enjoy it.” Girlfriend? Aubrey likes that. She could be Dani’s girlfriend. She could be such a great girlfriend.

Dani cracks the lid, shit, back on task. Aubrey ineffectually twists to try and get enough leverage to reach high enough to save her. Dani rolls with every turn, she must be amazing at the mechanical bull… oh… there’s a thought, wait. Fuck. Concentrate!

“Aubrey… what’s…”

Aubrey smiles up as innocently as she can. “I thought you liked sprinkles?”

“It’s… that’s so many sprinkles.”

“There is cake in there.”

“Is that the wet bit?” Dani’s nose crinkles adorably, distaste plain on her face.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna make out instead?”

Dani shakes her head, sets the cake box to the side, and settles into Aubrey’s arms. “You make a compelling argument, Lady Flame.”

[eldrigeonsss]

Fun water fact, I’ve only seen the Ocean in person once in my life.

I have written thousands, tens of thousands of words about the ocean, about its beauty, about characters who live in or around it, and yet, it was only April of this year, that I actually was able to see it in person.

No amount of words could properly describe just how enormous of a moment it was.

Descriptions can’t prepare you for the water that swirls around your feet, that chases you to shore and beckons you back out to play again. They lack the proper words to describe the flavor of the air, the way it wraps around you like a blanket. And it does nothing to truly put into perspective just how massive this world is.

On a stormy day in April, I met the ocean. I touched sand, and shells, and foliage made to decorate her shores, I jumped over waves, and absolutely drenched every single article of clothing I had on. I spoke to the rush of water, sang it my favorite songs and listened to its melodies in return. It was indescribably beautiful.

On a stormy day in April, I greeted the ocean, in all my ignorance, and she welcomed me back home.

[dalishthunder]

WIP Wednesday

I love doing wip wednesday even if I don't get tagged :3

“I- I think I should… I mean- I have to go-” He found himself tripping over his words.

You turned around to face him, concern evident in your eyes as you looked him over. “You okay, Indrid? You look kind of feverish.”

You took a step towards him, hand outstretched as though to place it upon his face, and he took a step back. “Just- um… peachy. I-” He let out a nervous laugh, “Really I’m f- Oh hey, is that um… is that a bird? Do you know what kind of, uh, bird that is?” He pointed up in the trees.

Cocking your brow, you took a look to where he was pointing, “I don’t see any-”

“You know it just flew away. Anyways I should- I- I have to go. Over there now.” He took a few more hasty steps back only to stumble over a root, unceremoniously landing on his ass, and you rushed over to him.

“Are you okay? Seriously, what’s going on?” You immediately began looking him over as you knelt beside him, placing the back of your hand against his forehead.

Indrid bit his lip, the heat in his cheeks more from embarrassment than the uncomfortable hunger in his gut. “Really, I’m fine, that’s not necessary-” His voice cracked as your fingers closed around his lower leg, pulling the hem of his jeans up to look at his ankle. You applied pressure, and he tried his best to keep his breathing level.

“We’re a mile and a half out, and I want to make sure you’re okay before we do anything else. You’re scrawny as hell, and I’m sure I could do it,” You gave him a playful grin that did nothing to ease the discomfort in his pants,“But I’m not keen on having to fireman carry you out of the woods.”

Inhale.

Exhale.

Your fingers were so warm against his skin, “Looks like your ankles are fine. You still don’t look well though… we should probably get you back.”

“I’m f- I should, uh, I should go… alone.” He scrambled to his feet, brushing himself off.

“Like hell you are.” You gave him a stern look. “Indrid Cold, I am not letting you walk back alone when you’re clearly going through something. That’s not just rude, but also dangerous. If you trip and fall again, there’s no service so if you get hurt…. No, I’m making sure you get back okay, and that’s final.”

[cloudbattrolls]

Grey Tidings

This drabble is preceded by Setting the Snare and followed by Fear No More.

Witness it. Our enemy, come back for one final blow.

"The Mob? Testify here!? Just arrest them!" the judge retorts right after the shock hits, jabbing the air with his gavel. Artair shakes his head.

"Nay, they're not that dumb. They've got a representative on teleconference. In 'is hands," he explains, nodding towards the legislacerator. 

The tealblood steps over to the witness stand and places the husktop down, opening it up and waking it from sleep.

An instant messaging platform appears on it, followed by a quick reboot of its teleconference feature. Someone immediately dials in- a figure wreathed in darkness appears on the screen. The only thing that can be made out are their arms, which appear to be covered by a well made suit of some kind.

"Your honorable Tyranny," begins the voice on the husktop. It is immediately obvious that this, too, has been altered, for it sounds extremely and unnaturally deep. Making out the gender of the speaker is impossible. 

"We have been made aware that someone has accused of us targeting a hospital. I am here to reject this accusation publicly. As proof of my representation, would the bailiff next to the window in the rear of the room please move one step to the right?"

The judge looks utterly flummoxed. Then he looks to the bailiff, who uneasily steps to the right. A sniper's bullet blasts through the glass and shatters the ground where his head had been one second prior.

Shouts and exclamations ring through the courtroom at once, until the judge bangs his gavel several more times and roars for order. 

"What is the meaning of this!? Who cares that a criminal organization rejects an accusation?" the judge demands.

"You should care, because that would imply we have a member that would sully our name. We will agree to testify, if only to make clear our lack of involvement in mister Calcit's demise."

Artair rolls his eyes, casually brushing some glass out of his hair. "What a waste of time...The Mob is nay on trial here, I see no reason to bother. But I'm sure the defense will pull something out from their sponge clots to justify asking something."

Ullane displays emotion for the second time during the trial, as she and Friday alike are utterly bewildered.

Indrid looks surprised too for a moment before she recovers.

She ignores Artair's comment and smiles politely as if this is all normal, adjusting her glasses slightly.

"Why yes, I would love to make a few inquiries." She says, with a hint of sweetly-toned venom. "If we can rule them out as culprits, you'll get exactly what you want, Mr. Clonal; I'll have no further avenues of questioning to pursue."

"So..." She muses. "Calcit's investigation of a counterfeit jean ring was unrelated to his death?" She asks politely.

"As was the DNA evidence of someone in your group found in his hive shortly afterward? As was the capture of one of your enforcers, brought in by Mr. Jegder and his partner? I confess, I am quite intrigued to hear your defense."

"We were aware of Calcit's investigations," answers the representative, "As we are aware of the recent arrests of our group. It is only natural that we would take pains to remove any of his work once we were alerted to his death - fighting the man in his hive would have drawn too much attention. His death was no more than a convenient chance to tie up a loose end."

There's a pause.

"It is a shame, you know. The people being forced to purchase those jeans at those inflated prices. You'd think the victim would have focused on real crimes instead of us merely trying to help the poor."

Indrid has to restrain herself from snort-laughing at the idea of the Grey Mob trying to help the poor, but she manages it.

"Is that so." She says, a bit amused.

"Is it also convenient that it happened in the clinic of one of your enemies, whom you would no doubt love to see discredited if not dead? That Jixill Vladim, after his debts were mysteriously paid, simply happened to drag Mr. Interg there after robbing him blind?"

She laughs gently. "Of course fighting him in his hive would have drawn too much attention - so you put that attention somewhere else. Right in the hands of someone who cannot simply threaten a courtroom with a sniper. Someone who fought to get her clinic free of a gang like yours."

"Really." She says, eyebrows raised again. "I am fascinated you turned up, right at this point in the trial. Thank you for that."

"We do not care about miss Wistim, regardless of what opinion she holds herself in," the representative answers calmly. "Her previous work with QPIN, ensuring their continued dominance over the lives of the poor and needy for sweeps to come, will haunt her far longer than we could hope to."

Ullane nods at the accusation. Her expression is one of acknowledgment, not resentment or anger. She is not hateful. She, if anything, merely looks a little disappointed.

She looks at the place the bullet breached the wall, silently wondering why it was not meant for her. Why all this pageantry?

But she cannot ask, and there is no point in an answer anymore.

There's a ghost of a smile that seems to come through the voice - no, not a smile. A mocking smirk. Now venomous glares are being directed towards Ullane from the crowd.

"We did note her involvement in operations against us, but given that QPIN abandoned her shortly after, and the fact she ran a hospital for the lower castes, determined a vendetta would be a waste of time. What would we gain from doing any of this? Can you answer that? It seems this death has only brought more attention to us."

The hands on the screen fold themselves together, thumbs clasped tightly. "I cannot speak as to who this Jixill person is. It is a shame when someone finds themselves in debt, but we are heartened to know he has freed himself of it. May we all be freed of the chains of the hemospectrum, as he was of debt."

"You cannot?" She says with amusement. "So you know nothing of Mr. Urtyop, either?"

"Are we to know the names of every person on the planet? I am flattered you think us so omniscient. Mister Urtyop, as far as we are aware, is a simple nurse at the clinic. Evidently one with very bad luck. Fortunately there is word of another with far worse- ah, but that is unrelated," they wave a hand as if to throw the idea away. 

Indrid for one raises her eyebrows.

"You would gain the death of a meddling investigator, and ensuring that - since she took responsibility - only miss Wistim would be removed from the hospital, not that the clinic itself would be harmed. You surely knew she would do so.

Everyone knows miss Wistim covers for her employees, regardless of their origin or mannerisms. Quite the masterstroke, really." She acknowledges.

"Especially when you have been hurt by weapons she made, have you not? She and her current and former employees." She says, raising an eyebrow.

"Perhaps you are quite vindictive, miss Indrid, but we are able to forget, if not forgive, when it would be prudent. Once miss Wistim ceased her association with QPIN, she was no longer a valid target," the representative insists, leaning forward somewhat while still remaining in shadow.

"Let me make this clear for you: We do not target hospitals nor their staff, even if the deaths brought about would be useful to us. Such actions would place innocents at risk. We aren't the empire, we care if our shots miss and obliterate entire towns. We care about the things we release onto the streets. Why do you think we don't deal in biowires?"

"Innocents...to you." Indrid retorts smoothly. "Mr. Interg would not have been, in your eyes. The same can be said of miss Wistim, who you claim to no longer personally resent, yet delight in making her past indiscretions clear to all.

No other trolls were hurt during this tragedy, were they? It was very smooth. The only known case of malfunctioning nanotech the clinic has ever seen...and you make a personal appearance to declare you were not involved almost as soon as you are mentioned."

"Prudent?" She says with amusement. "No one forgets who made the things that cut them down and wounded others, regardless of whether she is still with the same organization or not. It is prudent to remember who did so, and naive to simply disregard them, regardless of any vindictive feelings."

"Bad luck, hm?" She asks, still amused. "Bad luck that he was the best placed person to murder Mr. Interg? Bad luck that his phone simply happened to be able to hack very specific technology that is in use nowhere else in the city? Bad luck for you that he was questioned as being part of your group? How curious that an ex-legislacerator thought so."

"Further bloodshed would not be prudent. Simply stating the facts of your client's dubious history does us no harm," answers the rep. "But it does personally amuse me to note the public's reactions to these details. You will indulge me my levity."

"Will I?" She says, dry.

The speaker shrugs, barely visible in the shadows. "We thought it best to arrive and quash any rumors before they began. Do you simply wait around for people to talk? Quite interesting, for a supposed defense attorney. You'd think you'd want to get ahead of such things."

She raises her eyebrows. "I tend not to give attention to rumors that are beneath me."

Still, they shake their head dimly. "It is indeed quite unfortunate for him. I am sorry to see that your empathy does not fall upon the lower castes. So often are they made the patsies. The scapegoats. It would be convenient for your client if you could blame him instead."

They raise a hand, checking their nails as if bored. "The actions of mister Arigah are hardly relevant. Any legislacerator can accuse anyone of anything. Speak to half the gallery, a number of your past clients. They've been falsely accused too. Or are you going to say we should always trust the police?" There's that slight mockery again.

She snorts. "My client is the same caste as the accused, in case you had forgotten. Your insinuations are quite silly." She says, shaking her head in chastisement. "A yellowblood who you seek to make your own patsy, as it is easy to drum up hatred based on her past. Justified hatred, perhaps, but it certainly makes her an ideal target for you."

"Are they?" She muses. "Irrelevant, and yet...here you are. Unable to prove it was not you who did it, merely raising conjecture based on your supposed lenience, when the mob is not known for leaving loose ends, or letting its enemies. - past or present - get away unscathed."

"And yet, you cannot prove that we did anything," they reply, placing their hands back together on the desk. "I have not forgotten that they share the same caste. No, I was not casting aspersions upon your client for that one."

There is a palpable moment of silence, before they continue. "You only prove you do not understand what a loose end truly is. Please, cease this wrigglerish flailing and find real questions to ask of us. I will leave it at this otherwise: We will accept many accusations against us. But we will not accept this one."

Indrid smiles, pressing her hands together. Then her usual smile turns deathly serious and she puts them down on her table in front of her.

"So you truly claim that Halvir Urtyop is not one of yours - that he acted so against your interests, that you do not target places of medical care? Perhaps it would be best to be ignorant, given what happened that night.

Given that regardless of the capabilities of any other technology that may have been present, this phone was the only thing found with the capability to turn nanotech into a killing weapon - how likely is it that there was another with those exact instructions programmed into it by a troll who knew exactly what they were doing? If there was, why was it not used?

Why was Calcit Interg the only troll who died that night, the only troll who has ever died due to malfunctioning nanotech at Crown Clinic? The only patient known to be investigating the Grey Mob’s counterfeiting, and who had recently posted about following a ‘hot tip’?

This phone, discarded by Mr. Urtyop, who claims ignorance of what it could do, yet was the last person to see Mr. Interg alive. A phone discarded only after the death of his patient, once its work had been done.

A patient dragged in by a man in recent debt who robbed him blind, injured to the point where nanotech would naturally be the clinic’s response to save his life as quickly and effectively as possible. A man conveniently unable to speak and give any information about how he came to be in such a state, dead that same night.”

Indrid pauses for a moment, then smiles again.

“It truly would look bad for you, wouldn’t it? No wonder you do not accept it.”

The representative remains silent for a few moments, the feeling of a raised eyebrow somehow managing to pass through the husktop screen. At last, when they speak, they remain as seemingly calm as ever.

"Any phone could have had those instructions put on them," they begin, hands folded in front of themselves. "But, defense attorney, you may have something of a point."

"This is a strange series of coincidences. We will confess: We thought it merely a wonderful happenstance that Calcit turned up dead one night. Whatever you might think of us, we are not bloodthirsty monsters like some gangsters are. The Red Scarves, QPIN, they have no code, no sensibility. We'd rather deal with the Marked, even if they barely have any power at all."

"So that does leave us the question: If we did not do it, but all this evidence points to it being a concerted effort to attack this hospital, then who did?"

There's another pause. They're thinking. The gallery watches in silence.

"Calcit had no small amount of enemies, but very few with the strategic thinking to potentially do all of this. No, this was..."

A phone rings - on the other end of the camera. They answer it, not speaking for a few moments. Then there's a soft click as it hangs up.

"Jixill Vladim, you said? We did not know him. But now we do. His debts had been cleared for a job, and I have just heard from one of our internal affairs as to what that job was."

They lean forward just enough that the lights of their eyes and their brow are now visible. It it set in a deep furrow. "I do not like these coincidences. Because there is no such thing. His debts were cleared to deal with a problem."

There is ice in their voice now. "Mister Urtyop. You paid him to take the blueblood to that hospital?"

"What, no- I'm not a-"

"The hospital you were assigned to observe only, to assist with the running of, to maybe eventually take over following normal promotional procedures?"

"I-"

"We don't attack hospitals. That is the rule. You have broken our rules. You are a loose end."

There's a deep breath, and then the figure leans back. "I apologize on his behalf. This is not our way of operating, and restitution will be made in the future. I knew it would be interesting, stepping in on this trial. Have a good night."

"Oh, and miss Wistim?" They add, a second later. "Do take care about your future business partners."

The feed is cut. Then, a few moments later, some sparks shoot from the husktop and it begins emitting smoke. A cursing bailiff runs over to take the shaking machine to throw it outside.

Once more, it falls dead silent in the courtroom as Halvir visibly sweats deeply.

Artair watches him with eyes set in a glare, arms folded as he glares the culprit down. 

A final blow. To cut their own loose end.

[midnight-scrivener]

🖊

Hello! Sorry this took me a few days, I Could Not Decide who I wanted to infodump about 😭

Indrid Caldwell

Is a human accountant who lives in Coulton, Kentucky. He doesn't have any friends, he doesn't like nut brittles, and he owns every season of classic courtroom drama The Good Wife on special edition DVDs.

He's also. Fucking Dead.

In his place is a shape shifting alien from Outer Space who's continuing to live Indrid's life as a Perfect, Flawless Facsimile of a Normal Human Man.

Alien Indrid (who I'm just gonna call Indrid from now on) is here on Earth looking for three of his friends that vanished around what we humans would call 1967. He has to get them back to his home planet before an asteroid belt intersects with their world's orbital path.

He hasn't found them yet.

What he has done is memorize every episode of classic courtroom drama The Good Wife (on special edition DVD), befriend a coworker named Hank from New York City that he likes enough to grab a beer with every once in a while, and get Super Into Birdwatching.

Indrid's the kind of guy that will order the same thing every time he goes to a restaurant, always has a script ready for any social situation, and can talk at length about his favorite topics (native Kentucky birds and classic courtroom drama The Good Wife).

(he's the kind of guy that would be diagnosed with Autism if it ever occurred to him to talk to anyone about it. But he's Very Normal. So why would he?)

Indrid's alien brethren are a species literally lab designed to be hardy and adaptable to any environment. Called Explorers, they're built to fulfill the niche of mapping their world, studying its ecology, traveling in deep space, and undertaking long term transit and delivery work. They're laborers, scientists and genetically engineered Discoverers Of New Things. Indrid is part of a special contingent of Explorers trained to operate off-world as well as on it, blending into the population of alien planets using a special piece of shapeshifting technology to perfectly copy the genetic codes of the indigenous population. Because all explorers are artificially created, they're naturally sexless and genderless, but Indrid has decided he actually likes being a dude, so that's how he rolls now.

Explorer's mouths are in their chests. They have three hearts and two stomachs, and communicate telepathically, using a special resonance chamber in their skulls. They stand about eight feet tall and can get up to 20 feet long (including their tails).

But most of the time indrid just kind of looks like some guy.

Explorers need to consume high levels of mercury to survive, so to avoid arousing suspicions for buying a bunch of poisonous metal in bulk, he's become an impromptu collector of vintage thermometers, and has Strong Opinions on Brands and Quality.

He eats onions like apples and has memorized the names of all your bones. :)

[parad0xm0th]

I’m dreadfully conflicted bc I’ve got a Danny Phantom x DC (batfam lmao) fic living in my brain, and while I want to just go and write it I also wanna do invisobang this year :/

I’ve never actually written any dp fic b4 BUT I’ve been inhaling fics of it every once in a while over the last like 5 years, and it’s (dp x dc) been dope as hell from what I’ve read so far (see: got really fucking into it in late December)

And while yes, I should be working on my OtGW fic and not let it sit and rot like some OTHER fics of mine (I’ll-I’ll come back to the UTxDR thing,,,, eventually) I’m pretty solid on the fact that I prob won’t work on it again until after summer since OtGW is like… a Seasonal Fandom thing to me, but I do have full intent to finish it before the end of the year.

BUT that means I’m once again in between writing projects and idk it might be fun to just make it to make it idfk

[shmothman]

late to work today bc i dreamt about indrid so i had to go read my very first indrid fic before i got out of bed. good god i miss him so much

[cheers-mdears]

what if I say (aziracrow, 1/?)

My first Good Omens fic!! 💖

Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley

Summary:

Crowley, of course, thought this was the worst idea they'd ever had. Heaven had previously tried to execute Aziraphale. Crowley, as a demon, was automatically on the entire Host's shit list. And Aziraphale wanted them to try to change Heaven from the inside. Terrible, awful idea. Absolutely doomed from the start. Turns out they're actually good at something for once, though. Who'd've thought? (Alternatively titled "Aziraphale and Crowley's Summer Reading Programme for Angels Great and Small")

Tags: Fix-It (no ineffable divorce), Fixing Heaven, Plotty, Fluff and Angst, Crowley Stays a Demon, Original Angel Characters

Rating: T

Word Count: 2725

Come check it out on ao3!

[ink-wells-and-feathers]

My love mine all mine by mitski is both an indruck and sternclay song but not a government agents and their cryptid boyfriends song in this essay i will-

[pastelgalaxiez]

Why Havent we been talking?

Indrid and Juniper have a little chat by the fire Dialogue inspired by lines from Alice Oseman's "Solitaire"

[pleb-the-original]

Day 23: Demon

(Now this one was fun, I mean my initial problem was having too much opportunities. Then I was listening to Red Moon by Will Wood again and I got my idea. I’ve had the premise in my head for a long time that the Grinning Man was just a collective identity the high demons use for fun, so why not have one of them explain how it started? It works especially well since I’ve had an ongoing project where I take goetic and adjacent demons and interpret them my own way, so I had a nice catalogue to reference. Organim is original however. Also just to clarify, the one telling the story is Flauros) Oh great summoner, what is it that you wish to ask of me? I am in your control and cannot tell you anything untruthful. Who is the Grinning Man? Oh that’s an easy question! Ok so it all started a while ago. Andras was getting up to his usual antics by causing a brawl to break out back home, you know how he is. Then he got bored of that and decided to turn his attention to the mortal plane. Now, technically humans aren't supposed to know about this but us Elders cause a lot of the sightings that end up becoming cryptids. I’ve personally had my hand in a lot of Alien Big Cat sightings, not gonna tell you which ones though. Why ruin the fun? But anyways, Andras wanted to try his hand at one of these. He actually put a lot of thought into this, which is rare for him. I mean most of the time he sees something and just does it. We’re just lucky he didn’t decide to release Jangle onto the world again. His idea was to pull off an alien kinda hoax. Now aliens unnerve even us so it was a perfect idea for him. He managed to get Organim to create a disguise spell for him that fit the alien idea and he got Vapula to create a spacecraft for him. Although I think Vapula was forced into it. We could all see Clash at his throat. Anyways, to flash forward to when everything was complete. He did his thing to a few people and suddenly everyone was talking about old Indrid Cold. I know you asked about Grinning Man, I’ll get there. So anyways, Indrid was a success, a story to be told for years to come, yada yada. So like all of Andras’ plans, he hung up the disguise and moved on to something else. But we all saw how easily the disguise fooled people and we wanted in on that so we started using the disguise and sharing it around. The craft was destroyed though, Vapula had the dragons melt it into slag for usage later. Now we used to just take the disguise out to cool off steam and monitor the outside world away from human view. Yes, even Elders like us need breaks sometimes. Besides, what kind of ruler doesn’t keep a good eye on their subjects. But then one day Amdusias took it out for a spin. He was out late at night, dancing to a song that was apparently stuck in his head. Then he met a normal person on the road and just danced towards them, still keeping up that big smile. Once the guy ran away, Amdusias had his fun and decided to head back home. Then we found out the human had actually posted about the encounter to the internet and we smelled an opportunity. The Grinning Man had been born. Now we take the disguise out all the time and just see who we might run into. We’ve had a ton of fun just seeing how you all react to our antics. And yes, it is all of us that have done it, almost every Elder. I’ve even seen some of the big leaguers take it out for a spin, although we almost lost the original disguise when Asmodeus tried using it to flirt with an undercover Lilith. Luckily Organim made it truly hellfire proof after that incident. I think that covers it. Now then, great summoner, what else do you require of my services? Wait, that was it. Really? You brute force your way into finding my true sigil and only ask one question? Oh well, this is probably just your trial run. You’ll come back to me for more substantial services. I just know it. 

[mexican-cryptdez]

I wrote a Mothman romance fic..... still very much working on it but i think it's pretty great so far.

it's a no-smut fic sorry not sorry. and if any mutuals see this no you didn't.

[eldrigeonsss]

Another thing I rly rly wanna write out: Indrid’s first experience being on earth!!