#megalomorpha

[1st-recon-lylith-blog]

Potter Wasp Megalomorpha

I lay on the floor, paralyzed. How long has it been? Days? Hours? Mere hellish minutes? It’s too dark now to tell. I hear my ragged breath in my ears. White hot pain shoots down my spine as I feel whatever is now attached to my back begin to wriggle and writhe.

–?? Months? earlier.

Grandma Maggie needed help after her fall. I was the closest family member to her, so I was the one to make the several hours’ drive to her home in rural north Georgia. The further north I go, the more hilly the roads become. This shouldn’t be an issue, but July’s hurricane season, and the rain, makes the roads slippery and difficult to climb. I should’ve just gotten a motel room when I had the chance, but by now, civilization was too far behind me to stop. I was closer to grandma Maggie than I was to the Best Value Motel I’d seen hours before.

My beater of a Toyota chugs along a steep road when lightning flashes above and thunder reverberates through my car. My foot slips off the gas pedal, causing my car to slide down the road. I pump the brakes, but it was no use as my car hydroplanes into the guardrail. My head lurches forward as my car comes to a sudden halt. The seatbelt keeps my body safe, but the sudden pressure against my sternum as it holds me in place knocks the wind out of me. 

My airbags didn’t deploy, and that perturbs me. Grabbing my umbrella from the backseat, I step out into the rain and inspect the damage. The rear right wheel sticks out at a funny angle. My car is wrecked. I sit back down in the driver’s seat and grab my phone from the glove box. There’s no signal. In vain, I try calling 911, but my phone can’t connect. I’m well and truly stranded. 

Resting my head against the steering wheel, I look out the passenger window. I sit back up as I strain to look farther. Faint light from a structure in the woods fills my hopeful eyes. I grab my umbrella to brave the rain once more. Hopefully, whoever owns this house has a landline, or at the very least, a place to sleep that isn’t the backseat of my car.

My boots squish through soft red mud as I trudge towards the house, walking for what feels like hours. My socks are soaked through. I look behind me towards my car. The house was visible from the road, so I should be able to see the road behind me even if I haven’t made it to the house. 

But when I turn around, all I see is a thick forest. “It must be the rain obscuring my vision,” I try to assure myself, in vain. I whip my head back towards the house, afraid it might disappear if I look away for too long. Thankfully, it’s still there, its warm yellow lights greeting me with cheer.

It doesn’t seem any closer and I worry the car crash knocked a screw loose in my head. I pray I’m not hallucinating as I continue my slog through the downpour. But finally the house appears to get closer as I walk towards it. Dark brown wood siding and white shutters make the house look quaint, or it would if not for the fact that the house is half buried in a hill. 

Was there a landslide? The weather is wet enough, and the area is hilly enough for it, but the house seems undamaged. The hill is red clay with no grass on it or nothing. I try not to look at it. Its strange unnatural lumps make me feel uneasy. 

Ignoring my discomfort, I approach the house. But when I knock on the door and the lights from inside the house vanish. I guess they weren’t expecting guests. Desperate to get out of the rain, I pound on the door. My clothes are soaked and I’m shivering with cold despite the muggy July air. There is no answer. I pound the door harder. Someone’s in there or they wouldn’t’ve turned the lights off when I first knocked. 

I almost think about shouting through the door and begging when the door creaks open. I expected the door to swing open with someone on the other side. Instead, it pushes open as if it had been stuck and my banging dislodged it. 

The inside of the house is dusty and disused. It’s clear no one has inhabited this house for years. I step forward, dripping water onto creaking floorboards. Mud squishes into the faded welcome mat beneath my feet. I turn my phone’s flashlight on.

“Hello?” I call out. Silence greets me back. The hair on the back of my neck stands up as a feeling of wrongness overcomes me. I shouldn’t be here, but as if in a trance, I walk deeper into the house. As my ears adjust from the loud rain to the silent house, I realize it’s not silent. Faint dripping noises from a roof leak above me and a strange gurgling noise ahead of me fill the space. I keep walking forward. 

In the living room I walk past moth-eaten couches and a dusty overturned bookshelf. Mildewed books strewn across the floor, filling the house with the heady scent of rotting paper. I keep walking forward. I approach the kitchen, unable to see much of it beyond a toppled fridge from my angle of approach. The gurgling sound grows louder. 

“Is anyone there?” I whisper, fearful that someone might answer. When I reach the kitchen, I look for where the gurgling sound might be coming from. Did the landslide damage the house after all? Is muddy water bubbling through the siding? I step around the fallen fridge. I aim my camera light ahead of me and see strange lumpy masses on the floor. The light is too weak for me to see more than the vague shape of things, but the lumps don’t look like kitchen furniture. 

I look closer and my heart and breathing stop. The lumps are people, but their bodies are wrong. Twisted and bumpy. Strange long pods seem to grow from their backs. Are those mushrooms? What is growing out of them? The growths seem too organized to be natural, going straight down their twisted spines. With horror I realize these… people are the sources of the gurgling sound. Their eyes are rolled back and they do not seem aware of my presence. Their chests rise and fall, showing they are still barely alive somehow.

I take a step back, but my foot catches onto the fridge behind me and I fall. Above me, I hear a menacing buzz. I look up and the fear washes out of me. Everything is okay. Everything is beautiful. 

Warmth embraces me, and pleasure tingles down my spine. When did I end up on the floor? Not that it matters. At some point my camera’s light dies, but that doesn’t matter either. All that matters is this beautiful, pleasurable warmth. I try to smile, but I can’t feel my face.

FANNIN COUNTY, Ga. — Detectives in Fannin County are hosting an event in hopes of getting closer to identifying the remains of 7 people found in an abandoned house that was destroyed in a landslide, according to a release from the district attorney and medical examiner’s office.

People are invited to the Fannin County Public Library on West Main Street to attend a missing persons event and DNA drive. It’s free to the public and being held on May 20 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Families of missing persons are asked to come together at the event to share any information about their loved ones, as well as to open or add to any missing persons’ reports. Officials encourage attendees to consider donating DNA samples, which can assist with identification efforts.

Criticisms of the Fannin County Police Department are mounting as the FCPD deny allegations of covering up a serial killer.

[valdevia]

@queenghostieart made this great Megalomorpha quiz! Give it a go and let me know what you got!

I got Stag Beetle!

(Also if you wanna catch up with the series or you're confused, read Megalomorpha here)

[secret-bug-pain-blog]

Some sketches I don't think I've posted here yet - Bau, who is an OC that I haven't yet posted, Riz, Kali, Carmina, and a handful of Scarlets. If you're wondering who's who, then alt text should be helpful - I'm still working on my image descriptions, so be warned that they may be a bit rough.

[talefoundryshow]

WE'RE LIVE - The Megalomorpha Incident

Bugs. Aliens? Alien bugs.

[queenghostieart]

@valdevia is on tumblr quick post Lady Annetellione

I did this a month or so back for Val’s cursed files challenge, based off of his megalomorpha series and referenced from a EVLB painting. Love her <3

[dxsole]

ALSO, I have to mention that Lyssa’s story/lore was heavily influenced by the artwork of Eduardo Valdés-Hevia, specifically this post! He has a whole series of art based on these large insects called Megalomorpha that you can learn more about on his website! :3

[infestedguest]

Today on wack-ass fic ideas: Robin Buckley of Stranger Things is somehow related to Nigel Buckley of Megalomorpha. Hijinks ensue.

[valdevia]

Why did the huge moth critter showing people stuff in church pick a church

Megalomorphae can twist your preexisting belief system to make you do what they want. So religion is very useful to them! On second though, maybe they actually are angels?

[valdevia]

What do those giant cocoons you draw hatch into 👀

The pipeline :)

[valdevia]

any megalomorpha facts we havent learned yet? its one of my favorite projects you have (and just in general), id love to hear more about the lore there!

The real metamorphosis was the friends we made along the way :)

Jokes aside, Megalomorpha is the one place where I like to keep a lot of the deeper lore secret! It's more fun with a little bit of ambiguity. I'd rather ask you, what do you think they are?

[valdevia]

Hi! I found your blog a while ago by stumbling across a short horror story you wrote that I loved! It was about a person who got into a car accident and stumbled around in the woods until they found a house inhabited by a parasitic wasp. Do you know where I could find the story again? Tumblr's search is not helping me at all.

Hey there! :) That wasn't mine, that was some fanfic of my Megalomorpha series by @1st-recon-lylith-blog! Here's the post:

[valdevia]

Want this medieval Megalomorpha art as a print? This month on Patreon, everyone signing up at Pen Pal tier or above will get this design as a postcard!

In case you didn't know, every month I do a new postcard design that's only obtainable through Patreon! After that month, it's gone forever. Here are some designs from past months! If you sign up for longer than a month, this is the type of postcards you can expect in the future!

And there are many other rewards you can get! Check the page for more info. Your support is invaluable to me!

[valdevia]

Do you have a name for your body of work? Eduardo Valdés-Hevia Mythos maybe? The Valdevia Canon?

Never really gave it a name! I don't stress a lot about my stories all happening in the same world. It can definitely be interpreted that way, with some exceptions (Fractal series and Xipe Totec being apocalyptic in nature clash with the rest). I also like to separate the Megalomorpha series into its own thing, though it could technically be compatible with others!

I think someone dedicated enough could probably separate it out into 2 or 3 compatible timelines, with specific points where they diverge from each other (the ship capsizing in 2006 for Fractal, or Xipe Totec appearing in 2021).

I've heard people call it the Valdevia Universe jokingly, but I don't think there's been any serious attempts at putting it all into a single canon. What would you guys call it?

[valdevia]

For the ask game, you seem like the type to get a kick out of the Mystery Flesh Pit. (If you’ve never seen it I would highly recommend!)

I love it! A while back, I had Trevor (creator of the flesh pit) on for a podcast stream! I did a mock brochure for the Flesh Pit for it!

Trevor did this one based on Megalomorpha:

It was a really fun collab!

For those that don't know about it: check out Mystery Flesh Pit!

And the stream is archived here!

[valdevia]

hello, I have a question that I don't know if I can explain it, but I'll try anyway hahah. I remember you said that your creatures are based on the Catholic religion since you grew up with it. So do these creatures, in particular, work on Christian logic or is it just based? I ask this because I started making my own creatures for fun and got stuck. You see I was also raised in the Catholic religion and wanted to use Inspirations of angels for examples for creatures that are not. But I don't want the world I'm creating to have heaven or hell and such things, even if there is a bit of the supernatural (alchemist, "surreal", forces from beyond, ghost, etc.). To make matters worse I kind of made other creatures that were very sci fi, so it was kind of a mess and I don't know if that's the right way to make a world right. Sorry if it got too confusing, but that's it, I'm having a consistency problem with world creation and I wanted to know your opinion. Anyway, I really like your art. You are a very big inspiration to me

Thank you! I do use catholic inspirations often, but my creatures and stories tend to be quite grounded!

I prefer the concept of a creature that *appears* like an angel, but whose motivations and origins are never known. So, someone would see an "angel", then create a whole religion around it with concepts like heaven and hell. But the only real thing in this equation is the thing they called an angel, the rest is pure speculation.

Some of the things I do fall more into that category, like Megalomorpha often "fitting" themselves into many religions. Others are more directly lifted from religious texts, like Googliel (which is never meant to be a serious character with lore)

[valdevia]

Megalomorpha Frog?

y-you know it's bugs right?