#mantis reads

[arse-blathanna]

I feel like Sapkowski just personally reached out of this book and slapped me so I don't forget whose books I'm reading.

This passage is from Light Perpetual, the last book of the Hussite Trilogy but it was also the crux of the Witcher series as well.

[shrimpricebowl]

oh thank god

[bugborgs]

i am once again plugging @fool-for-luv's fanfic via fanart! this is a little moment from early in the second chapter i really liked :>

[wrencatte]

mini fic 8 ! Fallen Order - Bogano First Visit - Cal & Greez & Cere Cal likes to sleep in...interesting places. Greez POV - 1.6k words

ao3 minific link - chapter 7 (beard)

Cal comes back from exploring more of Bogano limping, but in good spirits. Giddy, even!

Greez would almost be suspicious of it, not quite trusting the kid still, if it weren’t for how…young he looks with his cheeks flushed and his hair wild, holding an animated conversation with that droid that’s apparently sticking around. It takes years off him. Makes him look his age and like he wasn’t – like he wasn’t part of what was a genocide of his people.

Oh…great. Now Greez is sad just from looking at him.

He goes back to focusing on sprucing up the Mantis, determined to ignore his growing fondness for a kid who could scrap his ship for credits in a heartbeat. Scrappy describes the kid in more ways than one and Greez is not getting attached, stop. But he is. Because Cal is serious and jaded, but he also listens to Greez when he talks about the upgrades he’s done to the Mantis, asking intelligent questions and actually interested in the answer. He loves all food, never picky even when Cere’s nose wrinkles just a bit. When he laughs, it sounds like he means it despite all the terrible things he’s gone through. And – he’s just a kid. How could Greez dislike a kid who’s gone through such hardships and yet is still trying to do some good in galaxy?

He wonders vaguely if that’s a Jedi thing or a Cal Kestis thing – and decides maybe it’s a little bit of both. Cere’s a good person too. He can see the similarities in the two of them, raised on the same values and lessons, just trying their best in a galaxy that hates them.

Greez is so good at ignoring his own feelings and everything around him that an hour passes before he realizes…Cal isn’t hanging around anymore. The latero briefly considers being worried, but then dismisses the thought. He’s probably back out exploring Bogano. Sometimes the kid disappears for the entire day, gone before the sun rises and not back until it’s well below the horizon. How he can find so much to explore in this backwater swamp, he has no idea, but he’s not about to go out investigating himself.

Satisfied with that logic, it’s back to buffing out the blaster marks off the Mantis’ exterior. Hm, maybe a new paint job? Cal found something out in one of the workshops, didn’t he? Presented it with a grin and a twinkle in his eyes, laughing when Greez opened it and found an eye-watering pink inside. Pink is a little too distinctive, but Cal handed over another tin of an understated swamp green Greez actually likes. Maybe he’ll tag the kid to help.

He’s distracted by his thoughts by a flash of red-white out of the corner of his eye – BD-1, wandering around and scanning insects that he’s probably scanned a dozen times before.

….with no ginger-haired Jedi in tow.

Great.

Where BD is, Cal should also be. It’s a new rule of the galaxy. Never one without the other. The last time that happened, turns out Cal got tangled up in some rope and was hanging over a drop so high Greez couldn’t see the ground.

“Where is he?” he asks the little droid. He gets a simple beep in response which Greez totally understands. Completely. Yeah.

 – Greez stares blankly, not understanding at all. BD does a little head waggle, making a noise that sounds suspiciously like a droid’s version of laughter. That little shit.

“Hey! We can’t all be fluent in fifty billion languages. Give me a break.”

He may be over-estimating that number by a tad, but it’s definitely a high number. The translation matrix in the Mantis isn’t exactly top notch, but it has a pretty decent database and it still glitches when Cal gets worked up and switches to a new language he hadn’t used before.

The question is how does he know so many and the answer gives Greez a headache every time.

He will never understand the Force.

“Just…where is he? If he fell in a hole and broke is leg somewhere Cere’s gonna to kill me.”

Or ran into another, what did he call it? An oggdo? According to Cal, he barely escaped with his life. Still injured from their escape from Bracca and caught by surprise, the kid lost a good chunk of his poncho and had to be hosed down before being let back onto the ship, covered in toad gunk and mud. Now that he’s healed, he’s supposed to be figuring out their next move concerning the Vault, but maybe he’s decided to throw himself into a fight with an oggdo again – and lost, and that’s why BD’s here, looking for help.

BD-1 would be more frantic if that was the case, right?

“Where’s Cal?”

Ah, speak and she shall appear. The galaxy really is just out to get him.

Greez face-palms as he turns to see Cere standing on the Mantis’ ramp, looking a little sleep ruffled but getting more and more awake as her gaze bounces from Greez to BD-1 and never to Cal because Call isn’t here. The fact that she’s stopped long enough to fall asleep, let alone actually slept, is a kriffin’ miracle. She’s been non-stop ever since they picked up Imperial communications of a Jedi on Bracca and said Jedi turned out to be a teenager who decided to immediately pass out from his injuries once they entered hyperspace.

And that was nearly three weeks ago.

“Heeyy, Cere. Have a nice nap?”

She raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “I did, actually. Now, where’s Cal?”

Greez waves a hand. “Oh, you know him. He’s probably getting distracted by some new thing to explore.”

Cere crosses his arms, eyes flickering down to where BD-1 is watching them. “And I’m sure he made a conscious decision to do that without BD-1, didn’t he?”

“Maybe. You never know.” Greez feels oddly defensive, and he wonders if that’s a Jedi Master ability, making him feel like a kid who stole from the sweets jar when it reality it was his brother.

BD bwoops, it almost sounds like he’s laughing, hopping from foot to foot before he takes off, disappearing behind the ship’s ramp quick as a blink. Greez and Cere exchange bewildered looks. All they can do is follow. Where BD is, Cal will also be. And in turn, where Cal is, BD will be there. This they’ve learned – Cere when she nearly tripped over the droid sitting patiently as Cal meditated. Greez when he went to the second level of the Mantis for storage and found BD standing guard as Cal quietly had some sort of panic attack.

Kindred spirits, Cere had called them with a sad sort of smile on her face.

When they make their way under the Mantis – Cere having to duck – what greets them is, quite frankly, an adorable sight.

Cal is curled up in the shadows, poncho pulled tight around him, head cradled on his arm.

Deeply asleep. He’s not even talking like he sometimes does. His expression is relaxed, content even. A few of the brown, bouncing critters that dig burrow – boglings? – are piled up around him like a lump of dozing akk dogs. Ears twitch. Legs kick out as they dream. They’re snoring. These little sounds that Greez will never admit out loud he finds cute. If he listens closely enough, he can hear a deeper snore from beneath the pile – Cal.

BD beeps quietly, a job well done in letting them know where Cal is, then skitters over to the kid, picking carefully around various limbs until he can tuck himself under Cal’s arm and snuggle against his chest like he’s a bogling himself. Cal makes a soft sound and curls around the droid, holding him close.

“Would you look at that,” Cere says softly, expression aching.

Cal sleeping -- actually sleeping without nightmares or pain – is something neither of them are familiar with at all. And who can blame him? Greez can’t imagine that the kid’s been through. He’ll be having nightmares himself for a long while thanks to Bracca.

“Do we leave him here?” Greez asks, torn between wanting him to sleep and cringing at the amount of mud that’s gotta be soaking into his clothes.

BD whirls in quiet warning, daring them to try and wake Cal. Cere laughs, shaking her head.

“Do you want to be the one who wakes him up?” she asks, her tone amused. Greez grimaces. No thank you. “I thought so. It’s better if we let him sleep, especially if he’s sleeping so well. It’ll be easier to connect to the Force if he’s well rested.”

“So, we just…walk away? Leave him alone?” Sleeping outside isn’t exactly his idea of a good time.

“Are you planning on going any further from the ship?”

“Well, no.”

Cere gestures to the boglings that have, surprisingly, not run away yet. A couple are looking at the two of them with wide, wary eyes, but they seem too comfortable to move. “He has plenty of guards. We’re not going anywhere. You’re more than welcomed to hose him down before he boards.”

“Oh. Yeah. Good point.” Greez is absolutely hosing him down. Bogano mud stinks.

They leave him there, sleeping soundly with BD on guard, but they don’t go far. Cere disappears for only a couple minutes before she comes back out with a holonovel, a drink, and a chair, setting up right where she can juusstt see a peek of Cal under the ramp. Greez picks up the buffer again, pauses in thought, then hurries to grab the swamp green paint tin – after a nanosecond of hesitation, he scoops up the pink paint as well.

He’s sure there’s a non-obtrusive thing he can paint pink. Maybe it’ll get that one bright, looks-his-age smile from Cal again.

[quillpatrol]

NOBODY FUCKING SPEAK TO ME I AM EMOTIONAL

[arborescentarecaceae]

petition for marvel to make Gamora public domain so someone can actually do her justice. also maybe Mantis while they're at it

[mantisgodsart]

so very small Worm (Wildbow), Bug Fables Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Skitter | Weaver | Taylor Hebert, Post-GM, Transmigration, Spiders, Bugs & Insects, Canon-Typical Violence

Taylor Hebert wakes up in the middle of a grassy field with an aching head, a massive blank in her memory, and approximately four more limbs than she remembers having. Approximately, of course, because one of her original four limbs appeared to be gone, and she wasn't sure how to qualify an entire abdomen suddenly spawning off of her backside. Something ingrained deeply into her skull told her she should be blaming someone, but she couldn't quite remember who.

Author's Note: Bugtober, Day 19 - Mimic. We think that Taylor would be a mimic spider if we swapped her over to BF. We have no major justification for this, but we are open to suggestions if anyone has a better idea, seeing as it's been nearly three years (we think) since we've read Worm and there are likely people on this website who are not operating on three years of character drift.

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[what-is-it-to-be-pk-esque]

Noticed his fascination with decapitation and made a video

Bonus: Astarion's underwear note saying "if you're reading this, you managed to bed or behead me. Either way, you got lucky."

[arse-blathanna]

I am very tired bc I stayed up all night reading and I CANNOT recommend Stephen Graham Jones' My Heart is a Chainsaw enough if you're someone who loves horror as a genre with specific interest towards horror films and their language. It's so good. It's going to live in my head forever.

[djevelbl]

Babygirl Bendy ilu but p l e a s e stfu she's a professional — bite ur hand if you have to man, it's gonna be fine

[aaeeart]

I seen your latest art piece and am I seeing a bode non betrayal?

[wrencatte]

mini-fic 3! Cere POV. linguist!Cal, Mantis Crew as Family, Merrin & Cal bonding 1.2k words

“This one?”

Cal squints at it for half a second, says “yes,” then looks back down.

“What about this one?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t even look!”

“Greez, that’s the third time you’ve shown me that one.”

“No, it – oh, wait, haha, yeah it is. Okay. Let me see….”

Cere watches in fond amusement as Greez goes back to the shelves. Merrin comes over with a tome from deeper within the city library and angles it in a way Cal can look at it without straining his neck. His expression brightens and he takes it, running his fingers over the edges and corners.

There’s a slight twist in the Force that Cere’s beginning to learn means he found an echo. She has to focus pretty hard to feel it so she only pays it enough attention to be sure Cal’s not about to fall into anything nasty – not that she can do anything about it if he does, but she likes to be prepared – and tunes back into the softly murmured conversation between Merrin and Cal.

The Nightsister looks absolutely delighted at having found something in a language Cal doesn’t recognize, all quiet pride and subtle preening. Cere hides a smile behind her hand. Adorable. Cal flips the tome open and the two of them duck heads, Cal underlining a few words with his finger and saying something that Merrin repeats. He shakes his head and says it again. Her face twists in thought as she sounds it out before giving it voice and he nods rapidly, grinning. She smiles back, one of those small soft ones that pops up whenever it’s just her and Cal.

Cere is just about to go back to her own readings when Greez arrives, BD-1 whirling on his shoulder, a book held over his head in triumph.

“Ha! Try this on for size!”

Cal takes the book carefully. “I know this one,” he tells Greez, who groans in disappointment. “But, oh wow.” He flips through a few pages, lips moving as he reads the text silently to himself. “I can’t believe they have a book written in pre-Reformation Gwyrdd’tafodi. Do you know how rare that is? When they switched over, they deliberately destroyed all they could! An archivist hid this away for a hundred years in order to get it safely off the planet. It kept getting passed down the family line until one of them got passage on a ship.”

Greez crosses one set of arms, his free hands on his hips. He watches Cal fondly as the young Jedi’s excitement grows with every page flip. “You know, I would’ve never pegged you as such a gigantic nerd.”

“Jedi were scholars and peacekeepers before they were soldiers,” Cere says quietly. A hush falls on the group. Cal ducks down, shoulders hunching, eyes kept resolutely on the page though it’s obvious he’s not reading a single word. She smiles and adds lightly, “We’re all nerds.”

Cal laughs first, tinged with grief and legitimate delight. He tucks the book Greez brought under the one Merrin showed him, which makes Merrin throw Greez a smirk and for the latero to throw his crossed arms up in the air in a huff. Cere rolls her eyes fondly and catches Cal’s gaze. He grins, unrepentant, enjoying whatever contest is going on between their friends. It gets Cal more books without him getting up, so he’s not going to stop them.

Greez’s frustration is amusing to watch, especially when he snatches BD from scanning the book Cal has open so he can co-opt the droid’s database to help find a language Cal doesn’t know. It’s not helping. BD-1’s database might be filled with years and years of history and culture but knowing the intimate details of a language instead of just a simple dictionary is completely different.

Merrin listens to Cal read out loud for a few minutes, humming at all the right moments, but obviously thinking hard about something. Cere gives up on reading her book and focuses on the two of them, curious as to what’s going to happen next.

“How many languages do you know?”

Cal’s teeth click he stops talking so fast. “I don’t know,” he admits with a shrug. “Sometimes I don’t even realize I know a language until I see or hear it again. Sometimes not even then! It doesn’t always register it as a different language. It’s just…words I understand.”

She tilts her head, expression intense. “Could you learn Dathomiri?”

He grins and quips something in the smokey, gritty sounding language of Dathomir. Merrin’s eyes widen, and then, suddenly, they glimmer with a wetness both Cere and Cal pretend they don’t see.

Knuckles pressed to her lips, she breathes a very quiet, “oh,” before clearing her throat and adding roughly, “Your accent is terrible.”

“Is it though?” Cal asks smugly.

Merrin scowls. “I will teach you more…if you want to learn.”

Cal’s expression softens. “I would love to. Thank you for sharing it with me.” He adds something in Dathomiri at the end that has Merrin abruptly turning back to their shared book, expression pained and grieving.

Cere nudges the Nightsister with a tendril of the Force and gets a small smile in response. They don’t share the same bond as Jedi do, but theirs is enough for Cere to believe her. She settles back in her chair, musing on what her life has become, sharing a bond with a Nightsister, before she shrugs it off and fully intends on finally going back to her reading with Merrin and Cal’s back-and-forth as a background noise.

Except Greez comes back again, the book he carries is much thinner than any of the ones stacked around Cal like a barrier. BD-1 clicks excitedly and Greez is grinning smugly as he waves the book in the air.

“Did you know this place has an unknown language section? Guess who found it!” he all but brags. Merrin frowns, nose wrinkling while Cal laughs brightly and holds out a hand for the book.

Greez slaps it in his hand, earning a scandalized look from one of the librarians. Merrin and Cere laugh as he hunches down with quick apologies. Cal inspects the book carefully. If there are any echoes, they’re soft and quick. He grins.

“Congratulations, Greez, I don’t know this one.”

The latero cheers silently, all four arms thrown up in victory.

Merrin rolls her eyes. “You still lost. I found one first.”

Cal hums. “Best two out of three? This place is open for another five hours.”

The two of them exchange looks for a full second before Merrin jumps out of her chair and rushes into the depths of the library. Greez yelps and follows her as fast as he can without running. Cere hides her face, as though that will keep people from realizing they’re with her. Cal laughs, covering his mouth with his book. His eyes peek over, glittering in mirth. He pulls the book away, and holds it to his cheek, leaning in like he has a secret. Cere can’t help but lean in to hear it.

“I already know the language,” he admits.

Cere blinks at him then laughs loudly – nearly getting them kicked out of the library.

[wanderingmind867]

Mantis finally gets hitched! The double wedding of Mantis and Swordsman and Vision and Scarlet Witch! Plus: Mantis finally becomes an Avenger just in time to turn into space dust and begin her cosmic adventures travelling the galaxies. Next stop for her: DC comics in 1977 as Willow! (Giant-Size Avengers #4):

[sillyfriendssharingablog]

uncle's influence

[mantisgodsart]

The ground creaked, a horrible, grating noise rattling through the air as something pulled its way out of the water, something massive, nearly half a dozen times her size. It smelled like a corpse – a bug’s corpse that had been left to decay for days, or weeks, where spores had settled deep enough that fungi were starting to sprout from their shell, ant and beetle and a horrible mishmash of species she didn’t know. It wasn’t shaped like any kind of macrovolute she knew, and it definitely didn’t move like one, slowly and steadily pulling itself along with four limbs and dragging a massive abdomen that bent like it lacked a shell entirely. It spread wings soddened with water that clung to its body like a slow-flowing solid and looked down on her, nearly five times her size, something oozing from its abdomen as it spoke, a horrific tangle of moth and ant and beetle and something else, twisted and distorted as if mimicked by a fungal console. <query><id>