Amy kills everyone

Faketober, Day 1 - Paradox Form

This is Umbral Mane, a Past Paradox form of Luxray!

(Edit-put my original picture for her under the cut)

In the Darkside version of Belle's tale, Felipe never makes it back to the village to let Belle know something has happened to Maurice, either he gets lost in the woods, or the wolves find him again. And so Belle waits patiently for him to return. Waits, and waits, and waits…

Finally a month has passed, and Belle is desperate to find out what's happened to her father. With no way to know where along his journey he went missing though, she has no way to know where to start looking. And the town isn’t too worried about chasing after “Crazy Old Maurice”, gone into the blue.

Her own circumstances are getting dire as well, without Maurice there to bring in their little income from helping repair the villages various items, her resources are running low. She's taken in sewing or whatever small work people might give her, but its a small town after all, and the people are used to doing their own labor, and couldn't pay her much besides.

The kinder townsfolk give her what they can, but with winter coming on they've got to look out for themselves and their own families

Of course, there's always Gaston's ready offer of marriage, but Belle isn't that desperate. Yet.

Her refusals don't stop him from coming over and offering nearly every day, and they certainly spur him into making sure the town gets the idea that Belle is "too proud to accept charity, don't bother giving her any supplies"

So the winter closes in, Belle finds herself colder and hungrier, and her firewood is getting low. Finally, she bundles up as warmly as she can, and braves her way into the forest to gather what wood she can.

And in the glamor of the sudden snow, she too becomes lost within the trees.

The cold closes in around her. Deep and biting. The trees seem to twist around her, and finally she trips and falls, losing her axe beneath the snow that's piling higher and higher. She has no idea where she is or where to go, as the darkness deepens

Then suddenly, a light. Just ahead of her in the trees, flickering like a flame. She manages to stumble towards it. Following the dance of the light as it seems to lead her onwards, almost beckoning. Every bit of her is numb, but at last she makes it to the door of a ruined looking old tower. And inside, lounging by a roaring fire, is someone, something, between a man and a beast. It bears the shape of a man, but it's skin is mottled green, like the stuffed crocodile she'd once seen hanging in a church as a girl. It's eyes are black as coal, save for the irises, which shine-- like it's hair--like burning gold.

"Hello there Dearie", the being says, with a smile that glitters like a row of needles in the firelight. "Won't you come in? What is it that brings such a pretty young thing out into these dark and dangerous woods?"

Too numb with cold to feel fear, too desperate for warmth to think with caution, Belle accepts the offer, and lulled by the warmth of the fire and the being's careful coaxing, she begins to tell her tale. Her missing father, her growing desperation as Gaston drove away those who might have helped her, the dwindling food and firewood. And through it all the being listens, sympathizes, and finally, offers it's aid:

"For a price of course"

Belle is not put off by this caveat. She has read enough to know of Les Fées and the bargains they often make. She knows of the tricks and traps they lay. She also knows that at this point, she has little left to lose.

And so she agrees to make a bargain with this strange Imp

“You don’t know it, but there’s a power in you dearie. Flowing in your veins, deep down, like an underground spring. I can teach you to draw it up, so that you’ll never know weakness nor want again. You’ll be able to do all the things you ever dreamed of dearie, fulfill every wish—even finding your father”

The promise of this wished for dream above all lights a fire inside of Belle hotter than the one she sits by, but she asks warily: “And, what is it you get out of this?”

“Let’s just say that I’ll have the opportunity to pay something forward”

So Belle begins her lessons, she has always been a swift student. Drawing out the latent fairy magic that lies sleeping within her, waiting to be called forth. In another life she might have discovered it with the help of a more benign teacher. But that is not this life. And she learns to call forth her power through the lens of her fear, frustration, and anger over the willingness of that small and small minded town to so easily cast her and her father aside.

Time passes differently within the environs of the old stone tower. When Belle finally leaves, for her months have gone by, and yet as she reaches the edge of the forest, clad in a gown of midnight blue, her eyes dark as the winter sky above her, she perceives that less than a day has passed since she entered the woods, seeking wood to keep back the cold.

She has no need of warmth anymore.

She reaches out with the power she has learned to yield, seeking the bonds of blood and love that link her to her father. She sees them, feels them, faintly running through the forest. She follows them through the trees, unafraid of the wolves that once would have stalked her, and now slink away in fear at her approach.

She follows them to the gates of a vast and terrible castle, echoing with dying magic, a curse reaching completion she thinks, with the new arcane knowledge she holds. But she does not think on that, but on following the call. Through the door, along empty passages,up the winding stairs, to a jail cell atop a tower. Where lies the frozen body of her father, long gone.

Belle’s grief consumes her, feeding the cold flames of her power. She stalks through the halls, seeking the one who locked her father away, who left him to his fate.

She finds him at last, a snarling beast, crouched around a bell jar that holds a rose, with but one petal left upon it. Magic swirls about it, the center of the web that binds this place. Once Belle might have been curious, wished to learn the secrets of this place, and it’s strange enchanted inhabitants.

Now, she wishes only for revenge

The beast is strong and fierce, savage, the last vestiges of human thought quickly fading away as the curse nears completion, for he has never learned to love, nor earn love in return. But for all his brute strength, he is still only a mortal, and once more finds himself overpowered by a sorceress’s magic

When Belle leaves the castle, crumbling into smoking ruins behind her, she holds in her hands a staff, grown from the dying stem of a rose; once the blushing pink of hopeful love, hope that withered as its petals fell, now burst forth into bloom, the deep dark blue of a winters sky, of a heart gone dark and cold.

She walks steadfastly, resolutely towards the small town she had once called home. There are more scores to settle. Somewhere on the wind, she thinks she hears the echo of the Imp’s laughter…

Guys, I'm so sorry I meant to write out a whole thing for Tiana too cuz I love her (heck yeah, Lousiana gals) but Real Life threw another wrench my way and atm I'm too tired to do writing, so this also might be the last Darkside Disney Princess :(

But my basic idea was that instead of Charlotte taking her aside when she trips at the party after hearing she doesn't get the restaurant after all, Charlotte is distracted by the faux Prince Naveeen and so Dr. Facilier, seeing a desperate soul and never one to pass up an opportunity for a deal, swoops in, takes Tiana aside and starts laying out his whole sales pitch.

And Tiana is angry and tired and feeling humilated enough to make a deal. Hard work hasn't seemed to get her anything but emptiness and disappointed in the end, maybe it is ok for her to use an easy out. Just once.

She doesn't outright wish for the other buyer to die of course, she doesn't want that. She just wants them to be unable to outbide her on the property.

But voodoo dolls are just so convenient for the good doctor.

And so then, of course, she's in his pocket. The guilt over inadvertently causing a man's death and then benefiting from it, is ripe stuff for blackmail, plus once you make one deal, it's so easy to make another amd another whenever things start to look prickly. Plenty of people in Louisiana arn't happy about a black woman running a major business, and are willing to cause trouble in all sorts of ways.

And having some untraceable trouble come back their way is just so much faster--and satisfying--then trying to fight back clean.

Of course its not all bumping off bigots and bad critics. The good doctor knows so many well connected clients who'd be willing to help the restaurant out in less magical but equally prosperous ways--in exchange for some favors here and there, some permanent table seats shall we say? Use of a backroom or account book here or there.

After a while, it just becomes more expident to have the good doctor on the premises, a permanent background fixture at the increasingly high-end restaurant, with its increasingly shady bunch of wealthysharing his skills with so many of Tiana's willing patrons.

Between his front there and his puppet prince Laurence splashing his now orphaned wife's cash towards him whenever he needs, Dr Facilier's doing more than alright for himself. At this rate, with all the souls he's collecting, he'll be paying off his debts in no time. What Lousiana (and Tiana herself) looks like with all this voodoo and increased shady dealings...well, thankfully, that's just the Darkside verse's problem...

Scientists, historians and Pokemon experts in the Simru region have finally finished their study of Bronzor and Bronzawdd, and are ready to present their explanation of the Ancient Type!

He is finished 😊😊

Red and Blue

Hide!

Here's a look at new Sonic Channel calendar artwork for November 2023, featuring Knuckles the Echidna and Sonic the Hedgehog.

“But if you forget to reblog Madame Zeroni, you and your family will be cursed for always and eternity.”

A tale of two frozen Hans

Some Hiro x Violet gifs

ｓｌｅｅｐｉｎｇ　ｕｎｄｅｒ　ｔｈｅ　ｓｔａｒｓ　サせ詠バ

o hi here’s a sonic aesthetic for ya

Open Zone Concept Artwork #SonicFrontiers

Big Loops Seaside Hill ‘Sonic Heroes’

polygrigus aka convergent fakemon. more in depth explanation about its ability + the signature move below art

Convergent Fakemon: Burglebadge

Follow up to some other convergent fakemon I drew a while back.

Burglebadge (Dark): A Pokémon that superficially resembles Delibird, Burglebadge is actually a badger that has evolved a sort of aggressive mimicry. They follow Delibirds around on their gift giving travels to steal their presents. Despite a different coloration, they resemble Delibirds enough in the dark to take advantage of the tolerance others have towards the altruistic birds to steal from nests, dens, and human homes under cover of darkness. They store their hauls in their bushy tails which they deposit back at their lairs.

Inkanyamba

The Inkanyamba is a legend in South African mythology, where it is believed that a large serpent with a horse head lives in a lake near Pietermaritzburg. The local tribes believe it to be a terrifying creature which is particularly active in the summer months. The legend of the Inkanyamba originated from cave paintings that were found in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. These animals have been referred to as rain animals due to their appearance during storms.

Inkanyamba : The Giant Eel

The Abayifo [Ashanti mythology; Ghanaian mythology]

Witchcraft was feared and hated among the Ashanti people, who live in Ghana. An Abayifo is a kind of witch who practises black magic. They were always female but male sorcerers also existed, these were called Bonsam and they were far less common than Abayifos. An Abayifo looks like a regular woman but often has at least some hair on her face. They have the ability to shapeshift into a large variety of animals, including owls, parrots, fireflies, lions, hyenas, vultures, flies, elephants, snakes and so on. Sometimes they wore a belt made from snakes around their waist. Witches are associated with Sasabonsam, a mythical creature who became associated with the devil after Christianization of the local folktales.

They are known to attack people and suck blood and because of this, they are often associated with vampires in modern retellings. But they are not undead. All witches knew one another and were in league with each other. They had their own society with separate functions such as executioners and court officials. In fact, if you are an Abayifo you could recognize other witches by the red smoke that rises from their heads, which is invisible to normal people. 

Abayifos were feared and had the ability to curse a woman so that she could never have a child again. At night, these people would walk around the village naked, carrying a magical talisman called an atufa. During the night, their skin would glow and you could see a humanoid figure of light in the darkness. When they came upon the house of a suitable victim, they would turn around and press their buttocks against the wall of the house. Their talisman would then connect to the body of the victim. I am uncertain whether this is a magically warped connection, or the object would physically elongate to connect the victim to the witch, but the Abayifo would then suck blood through their talisman. The next morning, the victim would be ill and would die soon, usually on the same day. Before doing this, however, the witch would try to obtain a small part of their chosen victim. This was usually a tuft of hair or a fingernail, but it could also be an inorganic object such as a bead.

When walking around at night, Abayifos have some sort of connection with the spider webs around the village, which are spun around the doors of houses. When a door opens, the witch can feel the vibration through the webs and is immediately alarmed. This way, they can avoid detection.

A child cannot become an Abayifo, they have to be adults. There is also a significant restriction on the powers of an Abayifo: their magic only works on people of their own clan. In addition, there is a saying among the Ashanti people that an Abayifo, no matter how fierce she is, eats on her side of a river but cannot cross the stream. I am uncertain whether this is a metaphor or intended to be taken literally, meaning that a witch is unable to cross running water.

An Abayifo usually owns a large pot, called a bayi kukuo, and owning such an item was often enough to prove that somebody was a witch. For this reason, witches would hide these pots, often in enchanted hollow rocks that opened when the Abayifo spoke the words “take this pot and keep it safe for me”.

It is forbidden to shed the blood of an Abayifo. If it was necessary to kill one, she should be strangled rather than stabbed or cut. But it didn’t always come to a lethal struggle: there are stories of women who admitted to being an Abayifo and were marked on the palm of their hand with a firebrand. They were allowed to live but were banished from their village. In addition, the people would send a message to neighbouring settlements that a witch has been marked and that she should not be allowed entry into a village. In practice, this was usually a death sentence. Another method of execution was to force the accused witch to drink a special poison. If she managed to recover after swallowing the poison and throw it back up, she was free of suspicion. When this happened, the one who accused her of being a witch had to pay a huge fine, which was often enough to ruin their family.

Source: Rattray, R. S., Religion and Art in Ashanti, 1929. (image: an illustration of a vampire by Avery Sky Williams)