50% idk 50% idc

Under construction Multiverse: General fantasy, dragon age, urban fantasy, etc. Sideblog for eanharel Written by: KC

[mineralspine]

Redux

[disfordeath]

mineralspine:

“Definitely trading notes,” Jo replied firmly, wondering what the hell kind of creatures he had been up against. She may not know every creature she had encountered, this thing being a case in point. Over the years, though, more than one creepy monster had felt free to travel across Astoria - right up until the point that she met it in an alley and gave it hell.

She watched him prepare to get in touch with someone and bit back a question about who it was. Two more hands would make four more than she had ever had before. “I’ll get the car.”

It only took her a moment to get back to Mercy. It took a bit longer to toss all the junk that had been accumulating in the passenger seat into the back. Receipts, soda cans, oh, there was the hair tie she had been looking for, a half-read dime store paperback - so sue her, she was busy. She slid in, tossing her backpack in the back as well, and took a centering breath.

The quartz was still there in her mind, bumping along. Devin was up ahead, still almost as much a mystery as he had been a few days ago. A fight was almost certainly brewing. It was time to get going.

Jo pulled even with Devin and hesitated, not knowing what was the considerate thing to do in this situation. She settled for putting it in park and rolling the passenger side window down. “Everything good?”

Devin grumbled into the phone to a fellow Japanese transplant. At least his contact knew how spirits were supposed to act (which stood to reason, since his contact was a spirit) and didn’t bother with small talk. Fortunately, his contact was free to help. Unfortunately, his contact didn’t do anything for free.

He ended the conversation with the grudging assurance that his contact could be there within five minutes just as a car rounded the corner and came to a stop near Devin. Jo identified herself, and Devin nodded the affirmative. It only took a moment for him to make his way over, find the door handle, and slide into the front passenger seat. He collapsed his cane and put on his seatbelt, addressing Jo.

“I owe a fox some liver,” he grumbled, “but he’ll be here in a few minutes.”

The sword he had when Jo left was nowhere in sight. There were no niceties such as, ‘nice car,’ or the like. Devin didn’t care for cars, nor did he know a thing about this one. He did investigate the buttons on the dash, knowing where the radio was was important to be an annoying passenger.

Devin fiddled with the worn handle of his cane. “What’s your plan when we get there? Do you know the layout at all?” He still had a headphone in one ear and searched for the facility to do a little background snooping.

[ancientorigins]

The legend of Heikegani: the Samurai ghost crabs

The Heikegani crab has inspired reverence to ancient legends, as well as scientific investigation into the power of selection. While many believe the angry samurai face in the crab’s shell is simply the result of the psychological phenomenon of pareidolia, others believe that the grimaced faces are the Heike samurai warriors, who were reborn and are still, somehow, watching over them.

Read more…

[mineralspine]

Redux

[disfordeath]

mineralspine:

Jo had forgotten she wasn’t with a normal person, a mundane passerby who had to be shielded from the unknown. The sword that she caught sight of before Devin sheathed it made her mistake very clear. The fact that he had the audacity to lecture her on her home turf highlighted another mistake as well.

“I wasn’t looking for it, I was looking at you.” But her outrage vanished as she rocked back on her heels and swallowed a wash of revulsion. Jo could still feel its presence in her mental landscape. Its scale had expanded to follow the oozing swath of wrongness moving rapidly through buried pipes. Arrogant or not, Devin was right. She had woken this danger up. She had set it running through her town. She would take care of it.

Jo took a breath and looked away. Her gaze snagged on the tree that her quartz crystal was hidden in. “It’s stayed at the bottom of that pond for five years. It’s not going to come back just to wait again,” she said over her shoulder as she walked to the tree and pried the crystal out. It would have to do. “Neither am I. The reason that old industrial section never got cleaned up? Chemical accident. They said it was contained so the public was safe, but if the pollution doomed that thing, it also might make it stronger.”

The quartz warmed in her hands, happy to have done its work. She took that joy and turned it back down a tight channel, pouring energy through as well. Would it pursue the evil thing now? Would it show her where it went? Once the crystal readily agreed she filled it to brimming and lobbed it into the rusted pipe with the ease of long practice. It glittered once in the darkness before vanishing from sight, but not her sense. Now she could drop the nauseating mental landscape and switch to simply tracking the crystal’s location. Jo exhaled slowly. She hadn’t known if it would even work; she’d just needed it to.

She turned back to Devin. “I can’t let that happen. You’re welcome to stay here and dice it up if it doubles back. I’m going to follow it.”

Devin stabbed a finger towards Jo with vehemence. “When this is over, you and me seriously need to trade notes,” he grumbled, “because we have very different notions of what spirits will do.”

His cane tapped thoughtfully, restlessly on the broken asphalt. Did he go or stay? His instincts told him to stay, but they were also very distracted by the bright, gleeful energy coming from whatever earthen thing Jo was working on. The stone clattered against the pipe; Devin’s ears tracked the echoes as it went upstream after the wrong that had left.

Devin wouldn’t admit his reluctance to follow to the industrial area had less to do with distaste for the filth and pollution of industry as a whole and instead that it was unknown and likely not the easiest place to explore or fight in. He was not one who chased. He ambushed, at the time and place of his choosing, if at all possible, controlling every factor of the fight.

He picked his words carefully, trying, for once, to inform and not belittle or assume Jo knew what he was referring to. “In my experience, twisted things stay near the source of their power. They have to, if they’re spirits. That’s a spirit of the pond, not the industrial zone. It can’t keep away for too long. Like a kappa can’t stay out of water or its power dries up completely.”

“I’ll come with you.” Devin couldn’t leave Jo to go off and fight on her own, it went against his battered and bent conscience. “But at least let me call someone to wait here for when it comes back.” He pulled out his phone and made to put an earbud in to listen to the read out of the screen and pick a contact he knew could get across the ‘burbs quickly.

[exquisite-face-claims]

★ ·.·´¯`·.·★ [ Nils Kuiper ] ★·.·´¯`·.·★

[confusedbutthead]

@radikatt

[isei-silva]

Gorgeous @forever-afk

[thatwriternamedvolk-deactivated]

@barbex look! 

[mineralspine]

Redux

[disfordeath]

mineralspine:

If people were as smart as strays, Jo would have half her work done for her. She could only be so lucky. She tapped into the earth reflexively as she prepared to tell Devin that, once again, nothing felt wrong. That thought was cut off before it started, however, as the landscape lit up around her and Devin became a gleaming presence. What the hell? First not there at all, then normal, and now this? And yet Jo couldn’t see any outward differences as she stared at him. She narrowed her focus,  drilling her attention down into only the tiny stretch of land immediately around her.

Under that intense scrutiny something scraped against the edges of the pond.

Chime.

She moved entirely on reflex, whirling to put herself half in front of Devin as she pulled a handful of cheap souvenir stones from the side pocket of her backpack. They hummed in her hand, barely able to contain the little energy she had granted them, but they sang to her senses like a song as she cast them in a wide arc at the pond - and whatever had begun to stir there.

Magic pulsed when they hit the surface of the water. The burst of force that each stone emanated made easy passage to Jo and Devin impossible. Routed, the entity turned, vanishing and reappearing along the faint edges of her senses. But she saw it when it oozed heaved a duckweed and algae-covered mass with surprising quickness into the drainage pipe that fed the pond. The same pipe that led to the long-abandoned industrial section.

Devin felt Jo focus, and reacted instinctively, reaching for the sheathed knife at his back, pulling out a sword instead of the smaller blade as Kuso took on a less socially acceptable form. It was a simple looking katana with a very light colored steel. He stepped back, away from the land that hummed to his senses with Jo’s magic. He had to step quickly again as Jo moved in front of him, and he scowled at he tossed his cane aside to hold the katana with both hands. Idiot mage, she should know better than to stand in front of someone with a sword.

She should also know to not poke things she didn’t understand. The burst of force made him flinch; Devin’s sword coming up in guard before he noticed that it wasn’t aimed at him. He smelled rot, the sickly greenish yellow of anaerobic algae, and a metallic tang of pollution and the metal pipe that clanged hollowly and wetly as the thing fled.

Devin scowled and sheathed his sword, though he held the simple leather sheath in one hand instead of stowing it. “What the fuck was that?” he demanded, flinging his hand towards the pond. “You can just go poking at something, especially without warning, especially when you don’t know what you’re doing.

He glared towards the pond, shuffled towards the cane he’d discarded, and scooped it up without much difficulty. The sheath hung from his belt so he could clean the rubber handle and white surface of the dirt and muck of the area with the edge of his shirt.

The real question, his frustration aside, was what had leapt from the water. “Runoffs like this shouldn’t have native inhabitants, but you said it’s been here for years. That might be long enough to develop a real presence. But, with the pollution, it was doomed from the start.”

Devin sighed and tapped his cane on the ground. “So, now what? You managed to scare it off, but it’ll be back to its source eventually.”

[mineralspine]

Redux

[disfordeath]

mineralspine:

Devin might be surprised to hear it, but Jo agreed with him about magic vs. more mundane means of getting rid of monsters. She had learned better than to exhaust her well of energy early on and to never trust that dust and rocks would be enough to solve her problems. Plus, there were only so many times you could rip up pavement on accident before you started guilty about potholes.

Jo grinned wryly. “Somehow I’m always picturing a sly wink when you start talking.” She stuffed her hands into her pockets, hunching her shoulders. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know much. It’s been this way ever since I got around to this part of Astoria a few years back. But what you said kept bugging me, so I got in touch with a few people.” Being careful was the name of her game, most of the time, and she didn’t like to poke or prod in case someone took notice at exactly the wrong time. Fortunately she’d had a cookie tin or two to return, and some convenient encounters on the sidewalk. “‘Tonia claims it’s been a terrible place for at least the last six or seven years.” She affected a heavy Russian accent. “'Oh, Jo, I shudder to even think of that place! It is a blight upon our street, and foul things grow there.’ Which, she’s clearly not wrong. But she did say that she remembers, years ago, a day when the pond was covered in enough oil to be 'bright like the sun.’ And Bone Bob brought up the fact that strays never last long around here. I always blamed it on the cockatrice. He thought it was from drinking water with runoff from the old industrial section that’s farther up the way. The kind of place that got shut down but never cleaned out.”

She finished eyeing the cesspool with its company of overgrown weeds and glanced at Devin. “Does that help at all?”

Devin was pleasantly surprised by the depth of knowledge and research Jo did on the subject. Mages were territorial, especially among their element, if they tended towards that talent, and though Muck Pond was water and, well, mud, but he supposed it was surrounded by enough concrete and dirt to count for Jo. On that same note, the pond wouldn’t have pinged her radar until it started to bleed into the surrounding earth.

“Your accent needs work,” Devin remarked absently as he mulled over the information. A blight upon the street. He’d met a surprising amount of Russians sensitive to what went bump in the night. As a society, they had their own fair share of monsters they had not left in the old country and still believed.

“Bone Bob… does that make you Mojo Jo? Watch out for little girls who come in color coded trios,” he teased. He clicked his tongue and continued before Jo could do more than glare back. “Poor strays. They know what’s up. A few go missing and most of them have the smarts to get out of dodge. It’s usually a good sign that something is up.” That was definitely the only reason he fed the feral cat colony near his apartment. Not because twenty cats was considered hoarding.

He rolled the rubber grip of his cane between his palms as he thought. “What about you? What do you feel? I know you were poking around here before.” Devin wrinkled his nose, his own senses bringing a sickly smell and a not-sound of slurping, sucking. His skin crawled as he let his ki flow a little more through his body, loosening up instinctively as if something dangerous was nearby. He hoped the crawling, sticky feeling was the humidity, but since when was his life that simple?

[mineralspine]

Redux

[mineralspine]

disfordeath:

Muck Pond. Such a quaint name, Devin thought to himself, his nose curling at the smell of stagnant water and all sorts of bacteria growing in it. He felt like his nose needed a tetanus shot and was glad he’d worn his shitty scuffed boots. He was dressed down overall, from the band shirt worn almost to holey goodness, skinny jeans faded and with little holes in it from when he fought what was basically a homicidal sparkler, and the motorcycle jacked that looked like he’d fallen off one more than a few times. He’d left the gym to head over to Astoria, figuring he would shower afterwards if Jo decided to throw him around again.

Devin was alone this time, like the night he’d met Jo. Shishi got to stay in his apartment enjoying her dinner and her twentieth time watching Secret Life of Pets. His steps were sure on the old sidewalks with his cane leading the way and the GPS dictating turns into one earbud. He took a minute to pocket his headphones and phone before he went the last few blocks he had memorized. As he stored the electronics, Devin felt the sidewalk underneath his feet shiver without moving, and smirked to himself. The little earth mage was already there and up to some tricks, he figured. Now that he extended his senses outwards, he could feel the concentrated energy of the mage searching through the ground.

Devin tamped down on his own ki, keeping quiet in every sense, and quickly traversed the last few blocks.

“Come here often?” he said when he was some yards away. “Fancy meeting you here. Again. One might even think you missed me.” Devin grinned and waved. He stopped a few feet from Jo, leaning on the chest-high cane as if surveying her behind his sunglasses. “You started without me.”

Jo didn’t jump. At least, that’s what she told herself. Her body told a different story, bouncing onto the balls of her feet in the split second before she recognized his voice. It took her a second to collect herself with a breath and reel her focus back in. In that time only long years of practice at refraining from insulting managers kept her snapping out the incredulous question on her mind. What was he?

“Don’t tell me you can teleport,” she drawled as she turned to face him, shoulders rolling to settle herself. Gievn that she’d startled him with the rooster recording, turnabout was fair play and all. Then she caught sight of his outfit and grinned. “Jeans and band shirts must be the go-to for people in our line of work. If there are any other people. I know I said Astoria was rough and all, but did you have to physically fight the bus system to get here?”

Beside them the pond bubbled and gurgled quietly to itself. It had been built as an overflow basin, as far as Jo knew. The only times she’d seen it come close to being full were during torrential rains. If it ever escaped its borders she shuddered to think of the contaminants it would spread across the street.

“As for beginning early,” and here the prim tone she affected dropped into an audible smirk, “a lady likes to be able to finish, and men tend to get things over with quickly. So. What’ve you got?”

[disfordeath]

Devin’s grin widened as he heard the tap tap as Jo jumped. Was she so focused in her magic? That was not a very good survival technique. Kids these days.

“I can’t. Magic’s overrated where good steel can do the job,” he remarked knowing full well he was talking to a mage.

He plucked at his shirt. “I was working out, so you get samurai-casual,” he remarked. “It’s far from a line of work, Jo McDonald. It’s a calling. My day job is so much more hazardous to my health.” As was hers, he was sure. He’d been in enough McDonalds to have respect for the workers.

Devin grimaced. “Felt like it. I thought I was five minutes early for the bus, but I was two minutes late for the prior hour’s bus.” Uber was one of the best creations for city rides, but out in the burbs he wasn’t nearly so lucky to have that level of flexibility.

But, down to business. Devin ignored the dig and faced the pond. “I got a feeling. Imagine a sly wink here.” Devin tilted his head towards Jo. “What do you know about this place? Have there been any changes or rumors recently? Any words at all.” Working with a local actually made his job that much easier.

[mineralspine]

Redux

disfordeath

Third time at Muck Pond in a week. This was a new record. Jo stretched as she got out of the car, grateful to be breathing something other than chemicals and overcooked fries. Even if that something was the gooey, swampy stench that gave the area its name. A few minutes to change in the newly-cleaned McDs bathroom meant she was in her ‘combat’ clothes: reinforced jeans, an old punk band t-shirt, and a pair of sports sandals in lieu of her stomping boots. There shouldn’t be any fighting, not in daylight and with no warnings from the alarm quartz, but if she had to go wading into Muck Pond she didn’t want to be doing it in her work uniform.

That might actually improve it, all things considered.

Things seemed quiet on the western front. She must have made it here before Devin. Well, she’d take small miracles. Grabbing her faithful backpack and locking the car, she headed towards the cluster of scraggly trees marking the trouble spot. There was the spot she’d cracked her cheek on the brick stoop; there was the spot Devin had nearly gone into a rose bush. Hopefully today would go better… Whatever was happening today. Time for a quick check.

Jo pushed her awareness into the ground, sounding out the area. No differences from a few days ago, or even their spectacular dust up before that. Which… Maybe that was the problem. If the ‘wrongness’ had always been here, maybe she couldn’t sense it because it never changed. How did Devin feel out these kinds of things?

Poor choice of words.

[disfordeath]

Muck Pond. Such a quaint name, Devin thought to himself, his nose curling at the smell of stagnant water and all sorts of bacteria growing in it. He felt like his nose needed a tetanus shot and was glad he’d worn his shitty scuffed boots. He was dressed down overall, from the band shirt worn almost to holey goodness, skinny jeans faded and with little holes in it from when he fought what was basically a homicidal sparkler, and the motorcycle jacked that looked like he’d fallen off one more than a few times. He’d left the gym to head over to Astoria, figuring he would shower afterwards if Jo decided to throw him around again.

Devin was alone this time, like the night he’d met Jo. Shishi got to stay in his apartment enjoying her dinner and her twentieth time watching Secret Life of Pets. His steps were sure on the old sidewalks with his cane leading the way and the GPS dictating turns into one earbud. He took a minute to pocket his headphones and phone before he went the last few blocks he had memorized. As he stored the electronics, Devin felt the sidewalk underneath his feet shiver without moving, and smirked to himself. The little earth mage was already there and up to some tricks, he figured. Now that he extended his senses outwards, he could feel the concentrated energy of the mage searching through the ground.

Devin tamped down on his own ki, keeping quiet in every sense, and quickly traversed the last few blocks.

“Come here often?” he said when he was some yards away. “Fancy meeting you here. Again. One might even think you missed me.” Devin grinned and waved. He stopped a few feet from Jo, leaning on the chest-high cane as if surveying her behind his sunglasses. “You started without me.”

[rubyhellneon]

video game scenery: [7/∞] ↳ mountain top ◁ dragon age: origins

“According to writings discovered in Haven, the Disciples of Andraste showed reverence to the dragon, believing it to be the Prophet reborn. The egg clutches and dragonlings of the dragon were afforded great honor, for being "Andraste’s” offspring, and were cared for by the cult. The dragon never attacked the cult, being cunning enough to recognize how this arrangement benefited it". — From Before Andrastianism: the Forgotten Faiths by Sister Rondwyn of Tantervale

[disfordeath]

One night stand

[disfordeath]

mineralspine:

“Uh huh. Thanks for your gallantry, sir knight, but I really don’t need your protection. And I’d like to avoid a repeat of last night, so please stick to New Mossley? I’m sure they’ve got plenty of things for you to stab.”

Jo checked the time. Three minutes were already up and regardless of what Becky had said, Sandra would ride her back if she appeared to be lollygagging. No idea why she wasn’t firing Garrett for just such a thing but hey, the world wasn’t fair. She’d learned that lesson early on.

“Oh, and just for the record. My co-workers already think I’m kinky. It helps explain half the stuff I carry around with me. Like the baseball bat I use in case my phone dies or a mirror breaks.” She paused, amused by a thought. “Odds are now they’ll think you’re into that kind of thing too.” She didn’t sound at all regretful.

Sir Knight’s guide dog was valiantly licking the last traces of the pup cone from around her mouth. Jo smiled at her and tapped her phone on the table as she grabbed it to put it away and stand. She still didn’t know how he knew about the things that went bump in the night, or why he killed them, but she didn’t have time. As amusing as this conversation had been it didn’t change the fact that some days - like today - she was barely holding everything together by the tips of her fingers. “I want to say thanks for last night, but let’s be honest, it wasn’t good for either of us. So. One last question - how did you know it was there?”

“Ah,” Devin pursed his lips and quoted a tv show that was funnier if it stopped after the first four seasons, “no can dosville. I take care of things when I find them.” There had to be some reason he was born in North America instead of Japan as he had the last seventy or so times, so he would go where he felt necessary.

Devin huffed and squished a fry before popping it into his mouth, then wiped his greasy fingers on a napkin he found on the tray. “Like a baseball bat works on most of these things. Use your magic. It’s strong enough,” he pointed out. He didn’t comment on the kinks, just gave her a grin. Maybe it meant he liked those kinks. Maybe he was just an ass.

Shishi whined when the lady who had given her ice cream stood up to go. “Oh shush,” Devin grumbled, “no begging. You’re still on duty.” He didn’t help his case by giving her a fry as he said that.

Devin looked up in her direction as she asked one more question. “Dude, I’m basically Daredevil,” he tapped his temple and pushed the sunglasses higher on his nose, wishing he wore the mirrored ones so they would flash in the sunlight hot on his shoulders. “Seriously, I can sense when shit goes wrong. That wasn’t just a cockatrice, it went wrong, somehow. I gotta make sure it doesn’t make more things go wrong.” It was a really poor explanation for what he did, but he didn’t have time or owe her a longer one.

“Hey, hang on a second,” Devin grabbed for a clean napkin, and dug around in his bag in search of the pen he really had no use for. He hoped it wrote as he scribbled his first name and his cell number on the napkin. ‘Sir Devin - ##,’ it said in slanted, unpracticed, cramped print. “Call me if you need back up, any time.” He flashed her a grin and held out the napkin, “you can tell your coworkers I gave you my number.”

[idiopathicsmile]

regional differences

“oh hey,” she said, “it’s a really touristy area, but since you’re gonna be passing through anyway, you might as well stop by pier 29, see the dragons. also, there’s a—”

“hold on,” i said. “i knew your city had mountains, but. dragons? uh, actual living dragons?”

“dude, it’s not a big deal. they’re there all the time. of course they’re majestic and everything, but they’re loud and cranky and mostly they lie around eating garbage. now and then the city council will talk about trying to make them roost somewhere else, but—”

“dragons,” i repeated. i knew it was making me sound like a rube, but it was a lot to take in. “you live in a city that has dragons.”

“no, it’s cool, we used to go see them when i was a little kid. it’s worth doing. but that whole area is mostly dragon-themed gift shops, and the commercialization is kind of a bummer. also, sometimes a dragon will melt somebody’s car and it’s a whole problem.”

“fairytale-style, giant scaly fire-breathing dragons.”

“honestly, i forget other cities don’t have them?” she said. “there’s a few other sites on the west coast where they gather. portland calls them wyverns, but that’s a portland thing.”

“chicago’s got, like, bunnies and songbirds,” i told her, “but otherwise it’s just your typical vermin. pigeons, rats, sphinxes—”

“sphinxes? what the hell.”

“oh, yeah, they nest in the el tunnels. sometimes a fucking sphinx will flap down out of nowhere, bring the whole train to a halt until the front car answers a riddle.”

“that sounds exciting,” she said.

“it’s the worst. your train winds up being twenty minutes late, and you just have to hang out hoping somebody up there read their mythology. there’s supposed to be a program where the conductors get trained in riddling, but i don’t know. rahm emmanuel keeps saying it’s not a budget priority.”

“huh,” she said. “guess the grass is always greener and all that. but on some level, it’s nice to remember that even with all these big box stores, the country still has some variety left in it.”

“yeah, did you know that in rhode island they call water fountains ‘bubblers’?” i said.

“whoa, seriously?”

“i read it somewhere. crazy, right?”

“crazy.”

[adramofpoison]

i am here for urbanized mythological creatures

Switzerland has a lot of dragons, but dragons have long since moved on from collecting gold. There’s a purply-scaley one that roosts behind the Mad Mex that refuses to stop hoarding signposts. The city uses banners for the main roads and sells a lot of maps.

Golems love cities–with their stone buildings and sidewalks. There are strict laws about what one is allowed to say to them, because golems tend to be rather literal and very obedient. There’s always one kid who thinks he knows better. He doesn’t. 

[vulgarweed]

OH MY GOD THE CHICAGO SPHINXES, DON’T GET ME STARTED. Here’s the thing. When you buy your Ventra card at the machine - which is another one of Rahm’s scams, leasing that out to a private company, wtf was he thinking - it’s supposed to have the answer to the riddle on it, right? The sphinx is supposed to scan the bar code and let the train through.

that never fucking happens. Especially on the Blue Line which is down for maintenance all the time and constantly switching tracks and running shuttles, which means half the time you’ve got a sphinx that came over from the fucking Orange Line or some shit and is full of riddles that only the Irish mooks from Bridgeport understand. Or it’s in Polish only. Or it’s got a glitch that makes it stutter and if you interrupt it, it’ll get snippy and bite your head off. LITERALLY. They hush it up but it happens. Businesses lose millions from sphinx-related tardiness every year.

And then there’s a case back in ‘96 when it was proven after the fact that the “wrong” answer the Red Line Sphinx got was actually A PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE REGIONAL VARIATION but by then, the Sphinx had already eaten half a car full of drunken Cubs fans. I know, not much of value was lost there, BUT STILL.

[pfdiva]

You think SPHINXES are bad?  Detroit has imps, thousands of them, and you know what they love?  Buses.  You know the major form of public transit in Detroit is?  BUSES.  So the drivers have to literally shoo away imps at every fucking stop, making them 30 minutes late, an HOUR late, and it’s not like there’s anything you can DO, because they’re all leftover from when the car companies were big, and ALL OF THOSE FUCKERS CLOSED.

So of course there were hundreds of orphaned imps, and they kept SAYING they were going to reopen the factories, or at least get some good junkyards, but nooooooooo, they never did, so the imps just bred and bred, and now they’re all over every bus and it’s not like you can ever count on getting anywhere on time and long story short, I’d take a sphinx over imps ANY day.

[idiopathicsmile]

yeah as someone who did high school and college in michigan and now lives in chicago, i have to say that as far as the age-old sphinxes vs imps debate goes, they’re both terrible in different ways. the imps are way more common and they probably have a wider total reach, and oh my god nothing like trying to board a bus already covered in those little suckers when said bus is already forty minutes late—

(sidenote: ugh people from bloomfield hills saying stuff like “well if i lived in detroit, i’d have the sense to carry around a nice heavy club or walking stick—” yeah dude good luck with your walking stick against two dozen imps)

but the sphinxes. let’s not, uh, sugar coat this: the sphinxes don’t just slow commuters, they kill people. and yes, if you know the riddle, you’re fine. but what if someone else offers their answer first? what if you get some overly cocky freshman philosophy major who takes it upon himself to answer for the whole car?

i think in the back of our minds, all chicagoans know that rahm emmanuel’s administration isn’t gonna lift a finger until one of the sphinxes goes after a wealthy tourist and it makes national news. and even then, we’ll get, like, flashy riddle-solving software installed in all the red line trains, and maybe the brown line, but no way is it gonna cover the whole infrastructure.

basically if you ever need to take the green line or the pink line, you wanna start studying your classical mythology and folklore fucking yesterday.

[hyvetyrant]

@copperbadge do puns work on Sphinxes as well as riddles?

[copperbadge]

You bet your sphinxter they do. 

(Sphinxes hate that one but they’re obliged to honor it.)

[cluegrrl]

I heard they sometimes get bad Selkie problems in Monterey Bay…

[bemusedlybespectacled]

It was so weird moving to the South and then to the Midwest after growing up in New England because apparently everywhere else unicorns are a big joke to people? I get it, New Hampshire has the lowest teenage pregnancy rate because we’re all a bunch of virgins, ha ha like I’ve never heard THAT one before, but seriously, you try growing perennials when every year the goddamn unicorn herd comes through and eats all your bulbs. MY BACK YARD IS NOT YOUR PERSONAL TULIP BUFFET, LIGHTFOOT.

[tielan]

The Bunyips have a fondness for the sewers. Which is really something when you’re down at Bondi for an early-morning dip and find that the damn beach is closed because another Bunyip has gone for a swim in the sewerage outlet and then waded back in to shore. Oh, sure, the outlets are supposed to be distant enough that the effluent doesn’t come back to shore, but the damned council who proposed it didn’t think about what was going to happen to all those Bunyips who were missing the swamps that got drained when they built Kingsford Smith Airport in Botany Bay. Sure, a population of nearly 10,000 bunyips is going to make do with a couple of waterways that mostly reek of industrial waste. Not. BRILLIANT TOWN PLANNING, Sydney Council. FUCKING BRILLIANT.

On the other hand, for something really spine-crawling, I suggest you look up “Rio Tinto Mining vs. The Quinkins (Imjim). Cape York, 1985.” That was a clusterfuck and a half - the extra half-clusterfuck got added when they tried to bring the military in to ‘solve the problem’. Fourteen of the children have never been recovered, the roads up into the property are impassable, and the closest you can get is within five klicks by air, land, or sea before all the instrumentation goes haywire. The last chopper to try a landing got a mayday out before readings said it plummeted like a stone.

Also, have you seen the sheer idiocy of a government trying to prosecute local spirits who aren’t going to turn up in court for one and wouldn’t recognise your white man’s law even if they did? Not one of the better periods of Australian government.

[seekingwillow]

I suppose Baltimore has it easy, somewhat? Maybe? Cause the people who get in trouble the most with the mermaids are well, tourists. And there’s SIGNS up. All over. Heck, there’s signs in BRAILLE!

But of course you’ll get the drunk, handsy college boys going down to the Inner Harbour cause some older one wants to initiate a freshman, and some freshman thinks it’ll be cheaper than a strip club to see ‘free’ bare boobs.

It’s like none of them read anything to know that above those boobs, behind those lips are a whole bunch of sharp pointed teeth the better to eat them with.

But mostly it’s the tourists who do read the signs, and don’t go hanging over into the water, or trailing fingers from the water-taxi into the water; But who refuse to wear proper sanctioned ear plugs. Some of them just bring their own which aren’t strong enough to block out the sirens. But others just…. don’t believe for some reason?

I don’t know. But it’s in the news a lot when it happens and some tourists will inevitably say they didn’t think the earplugs were important, cause mermaids are beautiful and nice.

Disney has a lot to make up for - not that it’ll ever do it. But. A lot.

And then there’s the other thing. All the jokes about how they ‘thought the city with mermaids would be Seattle’, nudgenudge, wink wink.

And someone has to smack them down with; how many lost women tossed overboard by the slave trade did Seattle get drifting into their harbours in the under-currents? If there’s no proper bodies for mermaids to lay their eggs, there’s no mermaids.

I used to live in Canton, and there’s lovely apartments there. It’s just a touch expensive for the soundproof glass, y'know? But still, early Saturday morning, watching the mermaids float and sun themselves can actually be pretty, if you’re three stories up, a hundred or more yards from the water and with good soundproofing; all the brown and bronze  and I saw a red tail once. She was gorgeous, dark skin, red tail, upper body all muscled like a dancer.

[aprilwitching-deactivated201808]

so having grown up in pennsylvania and north carolina, i thought i was prepared when i moved to florida for school last year. “after all,” i thought, “how different can a skunk ape really be from a bigfoot?”

well, i still don’t know the answer to that question, because it turns out florida is a really big state, and the particular area i moved to hasn’t seen a skunk ape in over twenty years (though, thanks to breeding programs and conservation efforts, i hear they’re thriving elsewhere). 

what i have encountered is basilisks.

they are everywhere in central florida, apparently, and nobody even thought to mention them to me before i moved.

“i’m sorry,” my floridian roommate apologized a few weeks into our cohabitation. “they’re just such a standard part of the background for me. they don’t seem worth freaking out over, to be honest.”

now, i was freaking out, but it turns out the greater basilisks we all know and fear from legends, campfire stories, and the occasional sensationalistic news report only live deep in the swamps. they rarely bother humans. the slithery little guys i’d been seeing out of the corner of my eye on my morning walks– vivid red or gold scales, about the size of a pigeon– are comparatively harmless. yes, if you make direct eye contact with one, it causes an unpleasant pins-and-needles sensation in your arms and legs that can last all day, plus a transient feeling of dizziness and nausea. but it’s not going to paralyze you, let alone turn you to stone. and it’s pretty hard to accidentally make eye contact with a lesser basilisk, anyway. they aren’t confrontational animals; they’ll only try to meet your gaze and stare if they think you’re attacking them or something. (i do worry a little about my second roommate’s dog– she’s been zapped a couple times trying to chase and catch the poor things and, well, she’s a dog, they don’t learn from that kind of experience.)

anyway, turns out most people around here kinda like the lesser basilisks. unlike their large and lethal cousins, they’re mainly insectivores, and they love to eat mosquitoes and roaches. good for pest control!

[asokkalypsenow]

Ah yeah I’ve heard y'all have problems with basilisk on your side of the state! Hope your roommate’s dog can be kept away from them.

I know the skunk ape population has been on the rise again especially in the national forest in the middle of the state. Who knows, they might migrate back into your area soon!

But as for my area we’ve been having real trouble with the sea serpents lately. They hang around the waterways and rivers during breeding season.

Not that they themselves are the problem I think it’s more people not respecting their habitat. It’s at least once a year some jackass is speeding with a boat in a no wake zone and they’ll cut up their backs pretty bad, even with all the scales. It’s a real shame, especially the juveniles. There’s programs to rescue and rehabilitate them here but it’s hard to get every one, and that’s just the ones that get spotted.

Though I gotta say I’m proud of the legislation we have protecting their nests. People get arrested if they disturb them and we gotta cover the lights on the beach during the hatching season so they can wriggle down to the ocean okay.

All the tourists around here are scared of them and I gotta admit we do have a high attack frequency. My sister’s friend has a friend who got bit by one last year. But I still think it’s cause there’s more tourists in the oceans and the poor things mistaking them for fish or a shark or something. They’re predators and they’re hungry but they’re not man eaters or anything. And they sure are pretty if you catch a glimpse of them, their scales are mostly blues and greens but they’re also always a little iridescent! All those documentaries pretending they’re stone cold killers make me sad

[aprilwitching-deactivated201808]

oh, i know! it’s like that shark week baloney– even the discovery channel likes to pretend they’re these vicious, unstoppably bloodthirsty things, like the Terminators of the natural world or something. sure, i guess that makes some people more interested in them, but it also makes a lot of people way more scared of sea monsters than they need to be. most attacks on humans aren’t even fatal, if i’m remembering the statistics right.

 mermaids are actually way more dangerous than sea monsters– as someone mentioned upthread– but are there 6-volume cult classic horror movie franchises about killer mermaids with a taste for human flesh? pretty sure there aren’t! (i’m talking about those Behemoth From Butcher’s Bay flicks from the 80s and 90s, of course. i mean, they’re pretty entertaining! but they’re also not what you would call scientifically accurate. at all.)

yeah, i get worked up about this stuff, sorry. where i’m from, bigfoots get a similar bad rap– and they aren’t even predators! there have been all of four confirmed bigfoot attack deaths in the state of pennsylvania, ever, out of like nine attacks total, and all of them involved someone hunting or otherwise antagonizing the bigfoot. well, except for one that might have had rabies, back like a hundred years ago. i think people are just creeped out because, well, they are big– and they kinda look human? like, they’re too close to the uncanny valley to be charismatic megafauna. or whatever.

[lirependragon]

I see most of this is about America but let me tell you about what its like over here in England.

So I live in Manchester and we have a real problem with urban hellhounds or Gytrash as their known up here. Like most of the time they stay out of the way and its pretty cool to catch a glimpse of them, though I must say the first time you see those burning eyes at night is terrifying!! Also my mum works in the woods with primary school children and she saw two of them mating! Let me tell you I’m glad I was not there to see that, you know?

Anyway a few knocked other bins isn’t too much trouble its when they get on the tram tracks that they cause a problem. The other day I was on the tram coming back from comic con; I’m looking out the front window and there it is a devil dog – black fur, burning coal eyes the full monty – prowling across the tracks. Of course the tram driver slows down and sounds the horn luckily the hellhound got out of the way in time but it sure was a close one. In the end you’d have to stop anyway, I for one do not want to see what happens when you kill an omen of death. And yeah there’s also all the tourists that take one look at a hound and die but its not like you can blame the dogs its just what they do! No one ever mentions the fact that they also help lost travellers find the right roads.

Its not only Gytrash: we’ve got selkies hanging round mersea island; the witches are always casting spells (do not go near Pendle hill on a full moon) and Boggarts. Let me say one thing I will never forget to put out milk again. It took me weeks to get on they’re good side again and I do not appreciate the mess an angry Boggart can make!!

[piraterey-deactivated20170723]

Okay so I can’t speak for the rest of the east cost but in Rhode Island - and a lot of costal Massachusetts - we’ve got hydra problems. Which is bullshit because they shouldn’t even be on this side of the world. They prefer warmer weather which is why there were so many sightings of them in Greece, but back when the Smallest State in America was called Rogue’s Island and pirates basically ran things, some peg legged jackass decided to bring a hydra home. As a pet!

The hydra guarded his stash of treasure, and when one of its heads was cut off that grew into a whole new hydra (kind of like those “growing succulents” posts I keep seeing) and boom you’re on your way to a full blown infestation. In a state that is basically 70% water and tiny islands and inlets.

I mean they’re not all bad. They’re kind of cute when they’re little, if a little sharp and bitey, and they’re great guard-creatures if you’re not afraid of dismemberment. Also they imprint. Oh boy do they imprint. I know a girl who’s mom raises clutches of hydra because a baby imprinted in her in the 70s. Which is badass but also terrifying.

Also in Rhode Island we call water fountains bubblers. Not sure which is weirder.

[disfordeath]

One night stand

[disfordeath]

mineralspine:

He hadn’t.

“Ha. Ha. The only walks of shame last night came after you attempted to carve a cockatrice up without bothering to pluck and roast it first.” Jo stopped, realization dawning. “Wait, you didn’t even know what it was?”

No wonder it had all gone to hell.

“Okay. Wow. Look, cockatrices can a problem around there because of Muck Pond and the toads. But they’re got a pretty big weakness.” She fished her phone out of a back pocket and set it on the table, tapping for a second. The high, shrill sound of a rooster crowing noisely burst from its speakers. She waited until it finished.

“They croak the moment they hear this. That, or sometimes seeing a mirror, if it’s during the day and you don’t want to attract attention. Doesn’t matter which. All you have to do is stand out of its breath range, play the sound, and voila. Dead bird. Instead I show up to see what I think is some poor shmuck about to get jumped - my mistake - and it turns out to be a recipe for disaster instead.”

Jo had even managed to convince Wallace to get a rooster to keep in his highly illegal rooftop chicken coop, just to take care of any cocktrices that hatched and were wandering about when she couldn’t get there. The area had always a bad rep with the drifter community, probably because of the infestation, so it was normally only a matter of sweeping up the odd stray or two. She had a system, damn it.

“I know what it was,” Devin scowled and pointed at her with a fry, “possessed chicken sounds better.” He was surprised by the depth of her knowledge and tried to keep that surprise off his face. Nerd. He didn’t have to know all of those details to stab it.

The piercing rooster crow startled him; fries almost went everywhere but he was too controlled for that. Devin scowled in her direction. American creatures were so weird. “Fucking rude. Your coworkers are going to think you’ve got quite the set of kinks with that cock crowing,” he snapped with more heat than strictly necessary.

He started on the McFlurry to regain his composure, and added, “I haven’t met anything my sword can’t take care of. Phones can lose battery, or maybe the possessed chicken doesn’t let you go home and soundhound a rooster before it tries to kill you or someone else.” Cockatrices couldn’t be that common, though he filed away a mental note to investigate in case something was causing them.

“I had it entirely under control before you showed up. I had to change up everything to protect you,” Devin pointed out.

[disfordeath]

One night stand

[disfordeath]

mineralspine:

The dog was cute. Very cute. Very fluffy, too, with big brown eyes and the most adorable attitude, as if she was trying to make up for her owner. Speaking of which.

Jo switched her focus to the Swordsman, thumping down onto the opposite bench so she wouldn’t feel like she was looming over him. As much as she might enjoy feeling like she’d have the upper hand, it wouldn’t do any good; he could probably take her on as easily from a sitting position as any other, given what little she’d seen of him last night. On the bright side, the big chunks of granite to prevent parking on the grass would be excellent sources of stone, if worse came to worse.

She really hoped it wouldn’t come down to that. She needed to keep this job.

“Yeah, it’s a small world. What are you doing in Astoria?” Jo demanded, folding her arms and trying to keep her voice down. There would be time for small talk after she found out why he was in her tiny, rundown corner of the world. “And why the hell did you get in my way last night?”

Oh, shit. That’s what the niggling thought at the back of her mind was. She’d forgotten any condiments. She eyed the tray, noting he didn’t seem to have an issue with plain fries. Still.

“And do you want ketchup for that?”

“I live here,” Devin responded with a frown, “well, on the New Mossley side of things.” He named the next town over, a slightly more reputable part but not by much. “Better buses,” he confided around a few fries.

Ignoring the other question for the moment, he shook his head. “I’m fine. They’re hot, which is more than I can say for most places. You make good food, frygirl.” Flippant and casual, Devin was having fun needling this mage and maybe getting a bit of revenge for the chaos she’d brought the night before.

“Do you live here? Is that why you got in my way last night? You were up pretty late. Was that a walk of shame the murder-chicken interrupted?” Devin idly referred to the shrieking monster of a possessed chicken that gave him a headache that had only gone away just before he’d left home. He certainly hadn’t gotten in this Stone-girl’s way. “I saw it first, you know.”

[astyrra]

chicken beast

commission info

[disfordeath]

One night stand

[disfordeath]

mineralspine:

That did it. Jo didn’t know if he had deliberately sought her out, or if her life was just continuing to be a comic series of mishaps, but she was going to find out. In the name of excellent customer service, to boot.

Ducking around the fryer she slid into Becky’s personal space so she could keep her voice down. “I’m going to help our latest customer and then take a smoke break.”

The assistant manager glanced up from the order display and raised her eyebrows, glancing back to give the mystery man a once-over. “Taking up some bad habits, I see?”

Jo ignored her curious tone. “I’ll be back in five.”

“Uh huh. Take your time.”

Ugh. This day really couldn’t get worse. What could she say? “Yes, he and I had an awkward run in, but it didn’t involve the kind of cock you’re thinking about.”

Yeah, no.

She snagged fries and a handful of napkins before plunking the McFlurry and pup cone onto the tray. Fortunately no new customers were coming in so she could swing out from behind the counter and pass right by Swordsman, standing so conveniently by an exit.

“Order number 42. Would you like me to take it to an outside table for you?” Jo asked, already leaning into the door to open it.

Devin frowned as Earth Girl moved away (did she deserve to be called Toph? Maybe Terra instead). He was messing with her, sure, but he needed his food. Shishi was definitely on board with following the less-cool Terra outside, and practically dragged Devin to the door and outside. “I don’t really have a choice,” he muttered at the woman as he pushed the door open. “You have my fries hostage.”

He slid his leg around the bench until he found the edge and took a seat, slinging his messenger bag onto the ground to lean on his calf. Shishi hopped up on the bench next to him without waiting for an invitation. She wasn’t the most well behaved guide dog when food was involved. Devin could imagine the pleading look she was giving the keeper of their food.

Speaking of, Devin slid his hands across the slightly pollen covered tabletop until he felt the edge of the tray and tugged it carefully towards him. The pollen now on his hands got dusted off on his pants and he very carefully found the pup cone, added a few fries to the ice cream like a chef adding the final flourish to a meal, and held the cone out to the very patient, fluffy black dog at his side. His free hand found the fries again so he could munch while finally acknowledging the Terra-mage.

“So. Fancy seeing you here again,” Devin commented dryly. “Did you have something to talk about? Or are you actually on a smoke break. I have a light if you need it.”

[disfordeath]

One night stand

[disfordeath]

mineralspine:

Five minutes ago Jo had thought this day couldn’t get worse. First waking up late thanks to the throbbing headache from the cocktrice breath, then having to baby Mercy’s starter to get her going, and even being left shorthanded during the lunch rush (fuck you, Garrett). She had been forced to waste five precious minutes and too much foundation to cover the bruise that ached against her cheekbone so Sandra wouldn’t ask too many questions. Fortunately her jeans had taken the worst of the asphalt burn and like hell was she ever going to wear shorts in this place. But if last night had gone more smoothly, she would have been fine.

And now the entire reason last night turned into a clusterfuck was waving at her from across the counter.

At least, she thought it was him. He was the right height for her shadow idiot and moved with the same lightness. On the other hand the sword that had been so highly conspicuous in the darkness was missing. In its place was an adorable guide dog because, apparently, he was blind.

She’d figure that one out later.

“One Oreo McFlurry? Anything else?” She filled in, running on instinct and years of customer service. Her furious attempt to sound out the substrate was coming back sluggish and indistinct; there was simply too much concrete and rubber beneath her for anything less than a full on imp invasion to get her attention. Whatever he was, he couldn’t be that bad.

Right?

Devin affected a cocky stance, his weight on one leg, hands in his pockets with Shishi’s leash over his wrist. He would have leaned against the counter, but who knew how clean they kept it. “Yeah,” he grinned at the voice, “that’s it. Don’t forget the pup cone. She gets jealous if she doesn’t get a snack.” He still wasn’t quite sure if he was recognized, and really should have just left things. Most people didn’t want to be called out, especially not at work. Yet, this girl, working at McDonalds, causing such trouble to him… he couldn’t help but mess with her, just a little.

“I would not have guessed you work here,” he said, handing over a few folded bills instead of his card at the last second. Devin didn’t have a good grasp on this person’s motivations, and knew exactly how much a magic user could do with a name. He hadn’t made it this long by being careless.

He nudged Shishi to the side to wait for his food, the sunglasses over his eyes staring in her direction. “Fancy that,” he muttered to himself. From the feeling he got from her magic, he’d have expected to find her, well, in nature, in the dirt, not among fryers and dubiously cleaned soft serve machines.

[victoriansword]

From Instructions for the Exercise of Small Arms, Field Pieces, etc., for the Use of Her Majesty’s Ships, 1859.