#darnation | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

miraculousdeservesbetter2024 · 6 months

Text

MAJOR Revelation & Collusion salt/vent incoming:

Look, I’m sorry if I’m misunderstanding something here, but I really dislike these episodes.

Why? To me, it seems like that guy is using Gabriel (the main villain and known terrorist of Miraculous) as the main "mouthpiece" for the fans who have the gall to take up for Chloe or call out her bad character portrayal (“You have a wonderful life, power, wife and a daughter”).

It also feels like the exact same thing when it came to Lila in Revelation, using the whole “Chloe is capable of change” speech for her own advantage, similar to what she tried to do with Marinette in Chameleon with the whole "friendship and not fighting over a boy" speech. It’s like he’s using them both as mouthpieces to represent the fans who still think Chloe can change or has potential.

So basically he's saying "Only psychopaths think that. You should listen to Marinette when she says Chloe is incapable of change because she’s the protagonist, and you shouldn’t listen to Lila and Gabriel when they say that Chloe can change because they’re the antagonists!”.

It’s really frustrating because any other time, we are made to feel sorry for Gabriel despite everything that he’s done, now we shouldn’t listen to him??? This is really disappointing to think about because he’s ruining Marinette's character this way. I still like Marinette and I really do think she deserves better, but I’m starting to see why people are starting to dislike her. She's becoming ANOTHER Thomas self-insert (on top of the MANY he already has in the series). The guy loves himself TOO much, don't you think?

I'm going to be completely honest here. As a Marinette fan, I still think the way SOME critics go about describing/criticizing/disliking Marinette and her character isn’t necessarily correct, but I must say that it’s still understandable. This guy is basically making her into his own personal mouthpiece, making S5 Marinette’s portrayal the worst as it has ever been 😓

Which is really a letdown because I love Marinette. It’s Chloe’s “Darnation arc” all over again. He’s ruining characters and development just to push his own morals and fill his own ego to the brim and it’s a shame.

And before anyone says:

“Geez! I swear to god people act like they know Chloe more than her own creator!” 🙄

Maybe your right, but MAYBE it wouldn’t of turned out that way if the show wasn’t so inconsistent and contradicting all the time! This is another reason why I think people have so much animosity towards characters like Andre, because the story portrays him as the victim “this entire time” who only got into politics to please his father and Audrey, pretending that he was never a corrupt politician on his own free will. It’s questionable because…he made his own bed. He choose the life that he has now, to have a child with a despicable woman, choose to spoil Chloe rotten, not to discipline her when she was being rotten to other people, and choose to not be there for her for emotional support.

I’m not saying that Chloe bares no blame at all, but it’s not ENTIRELY her fault just because “she’s her own person”. There is such things as bad parents & bad role models 🙄 You don’t have the right to give up on your daughter, saying things like “you have a terrible/cruel daughter” or “you tried everything in your power to help” when all you really did from the beginning was enable her, let her make everyone’s lives miserable and not be there for her like your should have. Yeah, she’s horrible, but at least she has the excuse that she’s a child. Your not only a grown man, but her father.

This goes for other figures in her life also (Audrey, Bustier, her butler, heck, even Ladybug to a degree). People are right, not everybody is responsible for holding her hand through redemption/reformation (and I agree) and to coddle her every time she does something wrong, but to say that “they’ve tried everything/their best”…just isn’t true. It’s more of an excuse to give up on her. Then JUST SAY THAT instead of trying to convince everybody that you did everything that you could.

Enabling =/= Helping.

64 notes · View notes

peebleswiggins · 9 months

Text

secret bonus level: PEPPINO GOES STRAIGHT TO HELL DARNATION

#peebs' art #pizza tower #peppino spaghetti #pizza tower fanart #fanart #digital art #illustration

91 notes · View notes

bracketsoffear · 23 days

Text

Chicken, Chicken (R.L. Stine) "Everyone in Goshen Falls knows about weird Vanessa. She dresses all in black. Wears black lipstick. And puts spells on people. At least, that's what they say. Crystal and her brother, Cole, know you can't believe everything you hear. But that was before they made Vanessa mad. Before she whispered that strange warning, "Chicken chicken." Because now something really weird has happened. Crystal's lips have turned as hard as a bird's beak. And Cole has started growing ugly white feathers all over his body… "

-People turning into chickens! -Detailed descriptions of how grossly biological chickens are! -A cliffhanger where we think the narrator's mom is going to kill and eat her!"

Blimpo (Dale E. Basye) "After his second escape from Bea "Elsa" Bubb, the Principal of Darkness, Milton Fauster makes his way to Blimpo—the circle of the otherworldly reform school, Heck, where he's sure his friend Virgil is sentenced. Virgil's only crime is being, well, plump. Milton has to wonder if that's really enough to justify eternal darnation. And what Milton finds in Blimpo horrifies him. The overweight dead kids spend most of their time running on giant human hamster wheels called DREADmills that detect and exploit their deepest fears. The rest they spend eating Hambone Hank's barbecue—mystery meat that is delicious, but suspiciously (to Milton, anyway) haunting . Every classroom has a huge TV screen showing happy thin people who taunt Blimpo residents with a perfection they will never attain.

Meanwhile, at her new job in the devil's Infernship program, Milton's sister, Marlo, knows all about trying to achieve perfection. And failing miserably. Can Milton get himself and Virgil out of Blimpo in time to rescue Marlo, too? Or is Fauster the next delicacy on Bea "Elsa" Bubb's menu?"

#flesh poll #the flesh #poll #the magnus archives #leitner tournament #Chicken Chicken #goosebumps #R.L. Stine #Blimpo #Heck #Dale E. Basye

4 notes · View notes

endreal · 6 months

Note

A small damnation is too rich for my blood. How about a darnation?

I mean if you're sure that's what you want... [patches your fingers together with colorful yarn]

~Send me anons and asks for TMI Tuesday fun and prophet or domestic curses and small damnations!~

4 notes · View notes

fishwear · 10 months

Text

oh gosh i have a incredibly busy couple weeks ahead of me! i am moving to a new city plus starting a new full time course n part time job! so probably wont have a alot of spare time :( but goshhhh darnation i WILL be thinking about the blorbos even if i dont have time to write or draw anything with them 💔

#BRO!! change is scary but we are going to be okay #this is my first time moving so its a lil scary but we move we grow its okay #i say all this implying ive been using the spare time ive got to do stuff with the blorbos which uhhhhhhhhh ummmmmmmmmm (no)#LISTEN! ive been having a grand old time playing elden ring and dark souls and skyrim and sleeping and eating okay!!!#and petting my cat ofc #murmurings

4 notes · View notes

xtruss · 3 months

Text

What in Tarnation Is ‘Tarnation’? Yosemite Sam —The Fiery-Haired, Fiery-Tempered Scofflaw—Certainly Seems Like He’d Say The W ord.

— By Ellen Gutoskey | February 1, 2024 | MentalFloss.Com

Why in tarnation do we think Yosemite Sam always said "tarnation"?/Edited From Mark Anderson, Flickr // CC BY 2.0 Deed

There are plenty of ways to convey incredulity and confusion in just a few words. What in the world?, What on Earth?, and What the heck? all do the trick, as do a couple other less kid-friendly iterations of the expression. But when it comes to sounding like a pistol-toting, Stetson-wearing outlaw, none of those options can compete with What in tarnation?.

So, what exactly is tarnation?

The Meaning of Tarnation

The phrase What in tarnation? isn’t, as some people assume, a truncation of What in the entire nation?. Tarnation is basically just a gentler version of damnation, much like heck is to hell and darn is to damn. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, tarnation grew out of two terms: darnation, a natural variant of damnation; and tarnal, a pronunciation of eternal that was used as a mild curse. You might say “That tarnal cat!” in the same way that you’d say “That darn cat!” You could even say “That tarnation cat!,” as tarnation also worked as an adjective and adverb.

Though we generally associate tarnation with the Wild West, it wasn’t confined to that era (or region). The earliest reference to the term in writing is from a 1787 play called The Contrast: A Comedy in Five Acts, written by Royall Tyler and set in New York City. The play, often cited as America’s first theatrical comedy, satirized two notable sects of American society: the preening, snooty Europhiles and the hardy, honorable patriots.

A tea party in colonial New England from Howard Pyle's Book of the American Spirit (1880). / Culture Club/GettyImages

The character who uses tarnation—and tarnal and tarnally—is Jonathan, a manservant who functions as a caricature of working-class New England Yankees. Think of him as The Contrast’s Kenneth Parcell (of 30 Rock). Jonathan usually says “Tarnation!” as a solitary exclamation, but once he does ask another character, “What the rattle makes you look so tarnation glum?” He also mentions “a tarnal blaze,” “a tarnal cross,” “a tarnal curse,” and candles that “smelt tarnally of brimstone.”

In short, tarnation and its offshoots evoked a sense of homespun Americana—and that association continued as Americans migrated westward.

Did Yosemite Sam Ever Say “What in Tarnation?”

Many people consider Looney Tunes’ Yosemite Sam—the hot-tempered gunslinger whose mustache is almost as big as his hat, which is even bigger than he is—to be the poster child for the expression What in tarnation?. But the widespread belief that Sam has always been shouting that phrase could arguably be classified as an example of the Mandela effect: a shared false memory.

We couldn’t find a single instance of his saying the word tarnation in any original Looney Tunes cartoon, starting with his debut in 1945’s “Hare Trigger” and ending with 1964’s “Dumb Patrol.” And even if one did happen to slip by us, that’s hardly enough to earn tarnation (or What in tarnation?) the distinction of being an iconic catchphrase of the character. Far more often can you find Sam yelling “Great horny toads!” or leveling insults at Bugs Bunny—especially varmint (a pesky animal) and galoot (“an awkward or uncouth fellow,” per the OED).

youtube

That said, Yosemite Sam did utter the word tarnation on at least a few fairly recent occasions.

In the 1992 cartoon “Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers,” he says, “Tarnation! Some rabbit’s got his footy prints all over my desert.” (The line is similar to one in 1955’s “Sahara Hare,” in which Yosemite Sam says, “Great horny toads, a trespasser! Gettin’ footy prints all over my desert.”)

In “Fish and Visitors,” a 2011 episode of The Looney Tunes Show, he shouts, “What in tarnation is a-goin’ on here?” (Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are throwing a loud house party.)

In the 2012 episode “The Stud, the Nerd, the Average Joe, and the Saint,” he shouts, “What in tarnation are you doin’ here?” (He was sleeping through a house fire, which Bugs came to rescue him from.)

And in the 2013 episode “The Grand Old Duck of York,” Sam shouts “What in tarnation is he doin’ up there?” (Daffy is practicing the piano—loudly and poorly.)

so many people who grew up watching old Looney Tunes cartoons associate Yosemite Sam with the phrase What in tarnation?. As is often the case with the Mandela effect, there might not be a concrete explanation beyond the fallibility of human memory.

“What we know about false memory is that it arises through the reconstruction process,” Gene Brewer, Ph.D., an associate professor in cognitive psychology at Arizona State University, told Mental Floss in 2019. “When you recall an event, you use memories around it, taking elements or pieces of other events and fitting them where they make sense.”

The word tarnation appeared in other popular mid-20th-century TV shows, like Gunsmoke and The Beverly Hillbillies, and it’s possible that we collectively shifted it onto Yosemite Sam because it matched his persona so perfectly.

Moreover, Looney Tunes completionists would’ve heard the term on the program at least once. In 1949’s “Bowery Bugs,” when Bugs Bunny introduces the story of a thrill seeker who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886, an old man says with a chuckle, “What in tarnation did he do that for?”

0 notes

the-final-knight · 5 months

Note

(Darnations… actual help..)

(yep! I can do that sometimes!)

0 notes

alannayakish · 2 years

Text

eyes

i tried so hard to be a person i wanted to be. a person without faults and a person without game. when i twisted my words to make sounds come out of pleasure that everybody wanted to hear, i fainted. when i fell too hard for someone not there, awkward. when i told people that i couldn't risk another failure. i meant it. when i twisted my words to make sounds that came out semi backwards, i fell hard. i fainted to thoughts of resin and thoughts of purity. to choose your edge, the edge that could cut you open with only soft thoughts. the thoughts wrecked my brain and told me i was a failure. the failure inside me keeps working, grinding pieces of me that wreck the day. the living is skewed. the skewed is reckoning with the true ones and the true ones only cry. for heaven or for hell. for goddesses and witched. the truth is skewed. they run their fingers against my skin that screams for more water. water, water, they say. i can feed you but not be my own. i scare everybody i know because i am afraid me. what if you did love me? what if i loved myself. the true truth from babes too tired to say no. they tell God at night that they're there. that life is real and that they're going to be okay. to be okay with the darkness, only annoying at night she chooses to move. times that i have felt alone are times I've felt at peace. does that mean I'm alive? does that mean i move? swoon for people that don't exist? trespassing over lies that others have spewed out even to God. to exist is to breathe. and to breathe is to work. every move is a thousand lives, money as tears and blood as fear. only the truly written are things that have it. the words that richness wants to talk about. we don't live there. we live other places. the places that we live are things that move quick. magic is in the air and the black plague kisses the eyes of the sick. it will be okay. we are beings ourselves. the damned, the newly made. the promises made. the only way to survive. survive through the night the crows will take your souls. all the darnation. all the people that i screamed to God screwed me over, no longer being able to do the right thing. the retched screams telling you something. it's not that hard. it's not that easy. it will scream for my diseases. they ring true in who i am. the darkness is upon us. grab your swords, kingdom is cheap. people are expensive. the truth bucks upon the strife.

my lies scream through my eyes. my knuckles are different than yours. my jealousy and rage drips through my fingernails. the true tides scream for you to get out. yet still stay. we need you.

my lips drip acid. my lungs spew fire. my ending is soon. my newborn self. kiss me and love the life you deserve. no more demons. only life and love. beauty inside and life in your lies

i am shaken and alone. breathe through the blackness inside me. these cigarettes kiss my pain. the truly annoying is the truly trying. like me. make me feel good. make my eyes look away. make my eyes wrap around your soul. come with me kiddies it will all make sense soon. trip over my beauty and my head. thought provoking want to provoke your thoughts. lonely barring's lonely moves. away far away fairy tales are real. sadistically emotionally perplexed. love my lies as they whisper to you "you're cute". dye my rebellion to tell you my true color. the laugh of God fills my dreams with rage. kill me and take my body to the ocean. that's where I'm from. my ideal rage fills my fury. my truth is my birth. my birth was sea foam. I was beauty. she was everything else. do tell me I'm better. I tell you she's beautiful. the only rage I've ever felt is from love. the pieces of me that don't make sense. fill my rage with fireflies. my beauty lifts off and dives into the waves. they say that the ocean is made of your memories. my memories are the ocean. why the drug dealer why the questioning. my truth lies below the earth. the worms and flies kiss my face. telling me my damnation is only sweet... some things aren't. don't trust the truth. trust pain. my evil will die and recollect. maintaining my eyes to the lives of people I've known. they speak, you know. eyes do. they scream sometimes but still look and blink. the ending is divine. the beginning is never-ending.

1 note · View note

gingermcl · 2 years

Text

According to an etymology dictionary the word tarnation is an American English alteration of darnation (which is a euphemism for damnation), influenced by tarnal, a mild profanity, clipped from phrase by the Eternal (God.) (this doesn’t resonate as truth - something in this definition is a lie) damnation is “condemnation to Hell by God, fact of being condemned by judicial sentence," from Old French damnation, from Latin damnationem meaning "to doom, condemn"

tarnal does not appear in an etymology dictionary. In a standard dictionary tarnal is defined as

: DAMNED —used as a mild imprecation

paid a tarnal high price for it

— C. G. Loomis

fire is a cruel, tarnal thing

— Conrad Richter

I tried breaking apart the word and a tarn is “a lake or waterhole.” I think about the word tarnish and “what in tarnation?” reminds me of something that has been tarnished. To tarnish is to make dim, dull the luster or brightness of. What in tarnation are those controlling this realm doing? They’re attempting to hide entire worldwide civilizations and systematic, cyclical cataclysmic events that occur in this world from us. Do they really think we’re that stupid and wouldn’t figure this out if they gave us technology? Tartarean civilization definitely that it’s doom or was condemned. There’s something about the name tartare that makes me think we’re in Tartarus as well. We are told that the Titans were chained in Tartarus, doesn’t mean actual chains. They could be chained s in petrified in the rocks.

Could the word tarnation actually be a play on Tartarian nation? Does tarnish and Tarantino reference Tartaria? The etymology didn’t answer the question.

0 notes

somethingusefulfromflorida · 3 years

Text

It’s not “gosh dang,” it’s “gosh darn” and “got dang.” Very important distinction.

#southernism #southern #gosh darn #got dang #dang #dang it #darn it #darn #dadgum #dang it bobby #gosh #gosh dang #darnation #what in darnation #what in tarnation #damn

30 notes · View notes

kitkatwinchester · 11 months

Text

UMMMM

So...my hand has not left my mouth for the last ten minutes.

WHAT THE F*CK WHAT THE F*CK WHAT THE F*CK?!

I kind of can't believe Scott took the money.

Like, I know you guys are having money problems (...poor Melissa :( ), but I don't feel like stealing dead pool money is the solution to that...

Also OBVIOUSLY THAT WOULD END BADLY, SCOTT!

But, ya know, this is why you should never do anything without Stiles.

Actually I take that back. I feel like Stiles would've 100% encouraged taking the money. XD

So never mind. Either way, this would've ended badly.

Actually frankly, regardless, this probably would've ended badly, because Garrett wants Violet back, so, money or not, he probably still would've taken Liam.

THAT SAID.

I 100% did not see Garrett coming, like, at all. I legitimately jumped when Garrett slammed Liam with his car. That jump scare totally got me. They don't always, but that one definitely did.

Also WHY WOULD YOU THROW HIM IN A WELL?!

I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT!

*SCREAMS*

F*CK!

FIND HIM SCOTT!

FIND HIM!!!

And then there's Derek, and his delayed healing, and whatever-the-f*ck is up with Peter, because he seems particularly unhinged right now and I don't like that at all because an unhinged Peter is pretty much disastrous for everyone. That said, I'm glad we saved Brett, and I'm glad Deaton was there to help point us in the right direction with the pack.

Anyways...

Positives.

I absolutely loved the Rafael and Scott scene. That was actually so soft, and Rafael really is hitting that redemption arc full force, and Scott can see it, and the fact that he's trying so hard to support his son now is honestly amazing and I'll happily take it. "Well you're here now." <3

Stydia team ups are always the best, and I loved everything about their scene with Parrish. Literally everything. The way that Stiles and Lydia keep exchanging looks, the way Parrish reacts to being on the hit list, the way Stiles reacts to Parrish complaining about it only being five dollars, and then the way Parrish reacts to it being five MILLION dollars. "Maybe I should kill myself." XD

Parrish is honestly so adorable. That said, he obviously has NO idea that he IS something supernatural (Lydia (and Kira, actually) vibes...kinda makes me ship Parrish and Lydia even more lol), which is almost MORE concerning, but DOES make me feel like the nice guy personality is not an act, so that's comforting. I just hope that whenever his supernaturalness does come out, it doesn't totally make him evil and change said personality, 'cause THAT would suck.

And last, but certainly not least, I'm looking forward to a Malia and Derek team-up. I feel like this'll be fun, and it will also potentially confirm my theory that Malia is just in love with everyone in the pack and vice versa, 'cause Derek is the only one left right now. XD

ANYWAYS.

SAVE LIAM PLEASE!!

(Best one I could find but I'll take it. "Ooookay, that's kind of terrifying." I love him. XD <3)

Update: THE WAY LIAM IS CALLING FOR SCOTT I'M LITERALLY GONNA CRY AHHHHH!!! :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(

4 notes · View notes

shipburner · 6 years

Photo

For the past week (or perceived week, she had only her watch to go by), Iris Henson had been using the ［ＬＯＮＥＳＴＡＲ］ as a base of operations. The room was easily refindable, the food was edible, the beds were safe, and the staff wasn't inimical to human life.

Iris just wished that it wasn't so aggressively Texan.

Her partner, Stheno, lacked the cultural context, and treated it as just another one of the Memory Palace's cavalcade of oddities. And to be fair, it was plenty odd, since none of the animal or plant life implied by the ［ＬＯＮＥＳＴＡＲ］ was native to Texas, or, in most cases, Earth. But the name – the intent of the food – the overall aesthetics – made Iris cringe harder than anything she'd seen yet.

To be fair, it wasn't all bad – the most requested jukebox tune was a passionate ballad of a truck's love for his man by a singer with a voice like a glass guitar, followed by a lot of mooing that allegedly translated to a song about rustlers having stolen all the singer's trucks. The staff appeared to understand human gender better than most humans did, and the Daisy-Dukes-and-close-tied-flannel uniform showed off a full spectrum of cheesecake, beefcake, cheeseburger, yeast block, singing mouth, and chassis. In fact, Iris couldn't remember ever having heard a mean word said in the place.

The biggest problem, flagrant Texaninity aside, was the floor show.

Stheno held a clear plastic umbrella in two arms, sporadically wiped it clean in a third, and held Iris' chocolate mousse behind them in a fourth, shielding Iris and her sketchpad from the spurts of blood and gore as the showpeople tore each other to bits. Iris was busy recording the anatomy of the most human-approximant staff members – glass skeletons intricately whorled to support their hydraulic muscles, nine cervical vertebrate clearly revealed whenever one got their skull pulled out, four stomachs in a familiarly ruminant arrangement … "Ooh!" remarked Stheno as something bounced off the umbrella; Iris shot out another arm and grabbed it before it fell to the sawdust floor. She turned it around and examined it. "Their hearts are wasps' nests? Huh. Not what I was expecting." "Just wood pulp," Stheno corrected, pulling it down to Iris' chest so she could see. "I'll be damned if wasps were involved in this." "Hm. Ooh, Nutella!" A hazelnut eye had ricocheted off a neighboring table and landed in the glass, shattering into fragments as it hit the adamantine pole of the tiny fancy umbrella. Iris handed her sketchpad to Stheno and stirred the fragments into her dessert, spooning it into her mouth. "I don't know how you have the stomach to eat this." "Like you know what it's like to have a stomach, Stheno." "Get fucked."

"YEEEEEEEE-ALLLLLLLL-RIIIIIIIIGHT, PARDNERS!" blared the sound system. "THAT'S A DE-CI-SIVE – AN' IN-CI-SIVE – WIN FOR MX. OPHELTEK! LET'S GIVE EM ALL A BIIIIIIIIG HAND! OOPS, LOOKS LIKE E'S ALREADY GOT ONE, AHAHAHAHA!" Mx. Opheltek held up the severed hoof-hand of eir last opponent over eir head. "WE'LL BE BACK AFTER THE BREAK! GET UP, GET ANOTHER DRINK, GO POWDER YOUR –" the last word sounded like "NOSE!", "MUZZLE!", and "GRILLE!" layered on top of each other. Stheno folded the umbrella gingerly as Iris got up to head over to the bar. "Jes' water fer the li'l misses, 'sright?" squawked the bartender. They were perhaps the least aesthetically consistent person in the place, being a swarm of parakeets inhabiting an articulated wire cage that Iris thought looked a little like Jimmy Buffett. "Mhm." Iris nodded, rubbing under her glasses. It had been a long day, especially when they'd had to brachiate through the ribcage of a Spearmint Hound carrying an unconscious lumberjack. Stheno squeezed her hand supportively and accepted the drink. "Heeeeeeeey y'all!" There was a heavy thump as someone slid onto the bar next to Iris, along with the squishy sound of body parts pushing themselves back together. "Whoof, I got splattered out there! Top me up, thank y'kindly …" A quiet snick noise accompanied the retraction of six glass claws as their owner held out a glass skull to be topped up with bloodwine. Iris turned to see a showgirl sitting on the bar, tall, tan, young, handsome -- Iris quelled the rising strains of "Girl from Ipanema" along with some unhelpful gay thoughts. The woman's hazelnut eyes took in the mutualistic partnership, flicking between meeting Iris' gaze and Stheno's. "Hey, how y'all doin'?" she said. "Saw the host here doin' some sketchin'; we puttin' on a good enough show y'wanna capture it?" She downed the bloodwine and wiped her lips, which Iris could now see were just lipstick painted around her mouth. Iris swallowed, voice suddenly ragged. "More … scientific interest. We're not … not from around here." "Ooh, you a bio nerd? I'm psych, myself. Workin' this job t' put myself through college." She took another long gulp and held out her hand. Iris shook it cautiously; Stheno circled a arm around them. "Annie-Mae, pardner; what're y'all's monikers?" Annie-Mae probably didn't notice the bit of Iris that died inside when Iris put together what her name sounded like. "Iris Henson." "Stheno." Iris reflected belatedly on the lack of differentiation between their voices -- clear enough to her and Stheno, but since they both had to use Iris' vocal chords, she wondered if Annie-Mae could tell who was which. "Nice t'meetcha! Am I gettin' y'all's grammar right?" Iris looked down at Stheno, who shrugged a pair of arms; Iris said, "… No, we think you've gotten the right take on our partnership." "Sweet! So what brings y'all around here?" "Stumbled through the wrong hole in space, both of us," said Stheno. "Now we're both stuck on this crazy-train of a castle." "Whoof! Sorry t' hear that, but y'seem like y'all're enjoyin' the show here." "I am," said Iris. "More … energetic than I'm used to, but I am interested." "Personally, I'm disgusted," said Stheno. "Well, ne gustibus te disputandum'n'all that!" Annie-Mae kicked a leg high in the air, which probably meant something like nonchalance in whatever body language her species had, but which caused Iris to suddenly become very interested in her water. "Y'all hangin' around here for the night?" "Think so, why?" said Iris. "Wonderin' if we can continue this conversation or if I'm keepin' y'all! Y'all're becomin' a regular; figure it's worth meetin' y'all, proper-like." She slithered down off the bar onto a stool besides Iris, resting her angular chin in her broad hands. "You two an item?" she asked, suddenly, voice sugary. Stheno's arms coiled, half under her own power and half under Iris', who stammered, "We're … uh …" "As romantically entangled as two people this physically entangled have to be, I guess," filled in Stheno. "We're a … package deal, at any rate." "Is this a deal y'all're offering?" Annie-Mae licked one of her eyes, grin glassy. Iris' throat stalled for several seconds.

Annie-Mae recoiled quickly, face falling. "Sorry, I can never judge how fast is too fast with visitants. I made y'all uncomfortable an' that ain't the ［ＬＯＮＥＳＴＡＲ］ way." Iris shrugged. "I think we're both filing it under cultural relativity, and I gotta say -- the 'Lone Star way' where I come from is a lot less courteous than it is here." "I ain't rightly sure if I should feel good about that." Stheno rolled her eyes. "Trust me, you'll need a lot more of that bloodwine if we're discussing Iris' homeworld. Or mine, really, but we already went through the section of the castle that's got my cultural baggage attached. All the evil in this place is dramatic. Overt." Annie-Mae hung her head. "I ain't no damn good with y'all plausibly evolved folks." Iris patted her shoulder. "Better than we are, ma'am." Annie-Mae laughed. Well, let loose a horrifying screech, but Iris had heard enough of her species laugh before. She took another swig of her bloodwine. "So! How's bio life?" "Art life, actually," said Iris. "Anatomy studies, y'know? I mean. I hope it's art life. I don't know how 'getting sucked into a memed-up Borges novel gone metastatic' is gonna affect my major." "I'm just a tech," said Stheno. "Biological, but I went into trade." "Oh, ain't that jus' a zmood. Time's a fluid; y' should get back fine, if I remember anythin' from physics when I was a scrap." "Thanks, that's … comforting." "May I offer a restrained yet supportive 'yeehaw'?" "You may not," said Stheno, the joke clear enough in her tone, and bumped Annie-Mae's proferred fist. "Yee haw!" Annie-Mae said, the bisection of the word groaningly obvious to Iris' ears. "Thanks," said Iris, "I hate it." Annie-Mae sprayed bloodwine out of her mouth, Stheno opening the umbrella just in time to deflect it humorously. Iris couldn't help laughing too as Annie-Mae contorted, dislocating several joints with the force of her screeches. "Your – your deliv'ry – ho-leee fuck, Iris – hoooooooo dawg-geez, I needed that." Two minds trying to speak in unison through one set of vocal chords tended to produce a fairly good Voice of the Legion. "What can we say, except, you're welcome …" The reference didn't appear to land with Annie-Mae, but that was par for the course; frankly, Iris (and Stheno, in the case of her references) was more surprised when one did. Annie-Mae wiped her face and leaned back. "So, how's the art and/or trade life, funnybones?"

They ended up chatting far longer than any of them had in truth expected. Iris and Stheno described their own consistently-weird homeworlds and attempts to break into the art world/museum scene, respectively, and as the subjective night wore on, pipe dreams, like unseating Mike Mearls and claiming his skull-throne, or winning the Abomination Foundry Ceremonial Brisket for excellence in species design. Annie-Mae described her inconsistently-weird homeworld – the ［ＬＯＮＥＳＴＡＲ］ and related rooms, and her efforts slowly working towards a psychology degree, and, later, her own pipe-dreams, about wandering through the mind of a long-dead god she'd found a few floors greenward and healing its hurts, or maybe just getting to rip her back off on Hellevision. The parakeethead behind the bar eventually had to shoo them upstairs, citing concerns about them turning the mops all "Sorcerer's Apprentice snuff film".

They told more stories, upstairs, of the time Iris and Stheno had faced the Xenomorph version of Billy Bob Brockali in rock-combat, of the time Annie-Mae had gotten a glimpse into what turned out to be an erotic baking show from Stheno's homeworld, and of loves lost and dreams deferred and huge old things seen when the viewers should have been asleep.

It would be nice to draw a curtain over the room, and praise darkness and creation unfinished. For indeed, Iris and Stheno had foes to face, friends to find, and, eventually, a way home, although for now we should perhaps send our well-wishes to Iris and Stheno not for homefinding but for overcoming the dour tentpole ghouls of Barthes' Necropolis, and for the assistance of the Warden Sueish, the only author who enacted his own narrative death. But before we send Iris and Stheno to go out deconstructing and to deconstruct, well-fed, well-rested, well-comforted, we have one stumbling block to place in their way.

Annie-Mae's hat hung on the bedpost atop Iris' pea coat; cowboy boots and sneakers lay jumbled together on the rug that might be called cowhide by someone who had never actually seen a cow. The room was dark, the air warm with breath and things that worked like breath. Stheno began to speak –

A squat, humanoid skeleton-creature poked eir cumberously-hatted head out of some fourth-dimensional space, hissing, "Niiiiiiiice…….." The words "CORPSE-GRADE QUICKLIME" flashed into Iris' eyes from eir shirt. Stheno lifted her bodily off the bed with all ten arms and sent Iris' feet plowing right into eir face. E made a noise like an EDM opossum and vanished with a puff of sand. "What'n tarnation was that?" Annie-Mae said, dazedly. Iris groaned. "That's … not far off. Eir name's Darnation, with a D. E's a skook. Skooks are the … Dante's Vergils of the Palace ecosystem, at least in our experience. E is a horrible little neman and we're probably being taught a really heavy-handed lesson by eir presence." "Yeesh. I can recommend a de-curser, if y'all think that'd help." Iris and Stheno turned all four eyes to her. "We don't." "Well, I can help y'all forget em." "We'd like that."

[This is my overwrought birthday present for @titleknown, inspired by the anon message posted above. What character, after all, is more a character than the fantastical Memory Palace?]

[Also, in the spirit of the thing, Annie-Mae, Iris Henson, Stheno, and Darnation are all free to use under a CC-BY 4.0 Vanilla License as you see fit as long as I, Nausicaä Harris, am credited as their creators when you do so. The Memory Palace, and the species I call skooks, are under the same license, as long as Thomas F. Johnson is credited as their creator. ETA: The anon on whose ask I built her character graciously gifted me with credit, and open-sourceness, for Annie-Mae.]

[And, while I don’t have designs for Iris or Stheno worked out yet, I do have a design for Darnation. Eir cheap trick is pocket sand; eir hat is meant to represent that e was born on a mountain, raised in a cave, and craves nothing but truckin’ and fuckin’.]

#nausicaa writes #weird fiction #open source characters #the memory palace #others' ocs #to some extent #nausicaa draws #my ocs #annie-mae #iris henson #stheno #darnation

8 notes · View notes