#castillon02

we gotta come up with a name for the tadpoles. like how salmon get to be alevins and fry and parr and smolts before they’re salmon. does someone who speaks Polish know what the diminutive of “vodnik” would be?

ok ok ecology. this is a pretty nonspecific question so I’m just gonna start spitballing! lmk if you have a follow-up to something

here are some things we know about adult drowners:

habitat generalists. can be found as far north as Kaer Morhen and as far south as Toussaint or farther. inhabit a range of environments from lakes to shorelines to bogs to rivers to sewers.

amphibious. require water, but is comfortable on land, and hunts in both environments.

diet generalists. carnivorous and technically necrophages, so will scavenge dead bodies, but seen eating fish and known to kill humans and eat them fresh. not picky eaters!

toxin-resistant. this is, according to the bestiaries apparently how they live in sewers. I’ll buy it. it’s also how real ‘necrophages’ (scavengers) handle eating dead flesh.

extremely common. they’re everywhere. implies they breed easily and frequently.

not that dangerous. they’re predators, but relatively easy to avoid and/or kill.

loosely social. never found alone, and known to react strongly when they watch other drowners die.

TWO STORIES

i try not to think too hard about this one because of the guilt 😂 it’s a fandom trumps hate fill, which means that i absolutely WILL write it. someday. the idea is that it’s fake married, but twice over: mi6 assigns a gorgeous wunderkind to provide technical support as bond infiltrates an arms dealer or somesuch, and then years later, after skyfall, bond and the wunderkind (now q) have to go undercover as a married couple again at a couples resort that is a front for some nefarious business.

an excerpt!

“Come in, 007,” Tanner crackled through his earpiece. “Tell her I don’t need micromanaging,” he said bluntly. “Well, you’re getting it regardless,” M’s voice cut in past Tanner’s protestations, as he knew she would. “Initial satellite scans have informed us that Mr. Friedrich’s security systems are far more advanced than we originally anticipated. The reason there are so few guards is that everything is automated—and on a closed system, so we can’t help you from here.” “Shall I just blow a hole in the wall, then?” Bond asked dryly. “Control yourself, Bond. We’ve detailed a specialist to assist you with the technical portions of the job. Try not to get him killed.” “That was once, and he was an FSB plant.” “Regardless,” M said unsympathetically. “Check your phone for the details. We’ll likely lose you once you’re inside the building, which is what the technical assistance is for. And I don’t need to remind you—the German government does not know we’re running this operation, and we’d like to keep it that way.” Tanner muttered something uncomplimentary-sounding from far enough away that the microphone couldn’t pick it up. “Quite,” M said crisply, obviously not caring either whether Bond had heard or hadn’t, and clicked off as abruptly as she’d come on. Bond rolled his eyes and glanced at his phone, taking in the baby-faced features of a tech even greener-looking than the teenager the CIA had running SciOps. Lovely. At least they’d be close enough to speak in person instead of over comms; if he had to tell one more idiot not to touch their ear when speaking into an earpiece he might turn actively homicidal instead of his usual passive lethality.

IT-HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

last year i watched it part 2 and went insane when i realized bill denbrough & steven crain are the same character. 😔 still salty that all the richie/eddie fic means i couldn’t prompt this for yuletide last year. anyway, this is a short-ish relationship study of bill & steven encountering each other in the LA writer’s circuit, sort-of-accidentally falling in love, & discovering that actually each of the horrors they’ve written about are real, and that maybe they’re attracted to the darkness and those who write it.

an excerpt!

Steven has heard of Bill Denbrough, of course. Blurbs with words like “spine-chilling,” blockbusting movies… crappy endings. He’s one of the bigger horror writers in the field, and based in LA, too, but the two of them have to go to Vegas to meet. They’re at CreeperCon, the biggest horror convention in the Western US, and someone has the bright idea of getting Steven to fill in when Joe Hill drops out of the headline panel. Steven’s a big enough name for it, to be sure, but he’s the only nonfiction writer on a panel ostensibly about horror inspiration. He thinks everyone in the audience knows how he gets his inspiration. They shake hands before the panel. Denbrough is distracted, glancing out at the crowd. Searching for someone, maybe, Steven thinks. He knows that ever since… ever since Hill House, he finds himself looking for Nell at the oddest times. Denbrough has a firm handshake, bordering on too-tight, but his hand is cool and dry and Steven has had worse meetings. They take their seats, plush and yet somehow terribly unergonomic red velvet chairs all in a line behind a long table. Ruth Ware is moderating; Steven makes a mental note to tell her how much he loved her latest novel. (He hasn’t read it. He’s not much of a horror fan.) The panel goes well. Steven talks a little about interviewing technique. Denbrough is wry and self-deprecating, in spite of the way his latest film grossed $600 million. Steven doesn’t see Nell. Everything is fine.

actually i quite like both of these. wow, i wish writing didn’t suck. thanks cas 💛

to add onto trcunning's note, "there are 2 beds but there's 3 of us" but it's an OT3 situation and no one wants to be the one who DOESN'T share the bed

*walks into bathroom*

*comes out with a bucket full of water*

*pours bucket of water on the second bed*

  To be back in Q branch is fun with villainy, I am...

there once was a boffin named Grey/Lapsang-and-Earl so they say/she proclaimed she would fight/with poems for the right/to win the Fest’s fierce Poem Day

"As I mentioned in my earlier email, 'copy-pasted quote'. Thanks!"

@led-lite replied to your post: “what’s the professional way to say “please reread my fucking email,...”:

I always pull out the almighty "As I said..."

Haha you are welcome!

Hey! Thank you for the prompt! I’m not sure how closely I stuck to it, but it was a lot of fun to try!

Prompt is from here if anyone would like to send another!

Okay, we’regoing to focus more on the “wilderness” part, as opposed to the “survival”part, because I’ve no idea what to do if a person is stranded in a jungle or ona deserted island and frankly the idea is disturbing, so. Wilderness.

Let’s saythat someone is after Q. Hardcore after him, will stop at nothing, wants Q deadas a doornail, whatever that means. And they’re good at what they do – they arevery good at what they do. No one issure how, but they manage to track Q through three different MI6 safe housesand it’s really getting ridiculous, so they revamp their approach. They narrowdown the amount of people who know where he is and what’s going on to exactlythree people: M, Q himself, and Q’s newest bodyguard – the one and only (thankgod) 007. Then they shuffle Q right off the grid.

Like,really off the grid.

They havesomehow acquired—Q wasn’t particularly keen on the how so much as the why, god,why—a cabin in the woods. Very, very far into the woods. If “nowhere” wasan actual location and that location had a forest, Q thinks they would actuallybe somewhere beyond that forest.