#a whole fucking novel just for you

[chronal-anomaly]

@facetedspades asked:

"Hey, hey, deep breaths," His hands were loosely placed on her shoulders, a gentle touch she could move away from if she so needed. The mask was gone for now, blue eyes searching her to check for any other wounds. He wanted to hold her, make it okay by sheer will alone despite knowing that wasn't how this would work. He would stick to the gentle touch, give her space if she needed it.

"My name's Jack. You're Lena Oxton, best pilot in the world, even better friend. You're going to be okay. It might be hell getting there, but there's a lot of people here at Overwatch who want to help you, alright? Just take it slow, we'll take care of you, kiddo." (from Jack) || Memory Loss (accepting, indulge me)

Consciousness came slowly, then all at once. The roaring in her ears, sensation tingling in her fingers that quickly became pain, a dull, thudding ache that spoke of tensed muscles and a battered body. She was still, even as she felt the fading dredges of unconsciousness. There was a nagging sensation in the back of her head that she was missing something, something important, something critical, but the cloud that her brain sat in refused to cooperate.

She tensed, wincing at the pull in her fingers and neck as she clawed her way to a sitting position. What was missing? An unfamiliar taste filled her mouth as she glanced around at the nondescript motel room and her clothes - clothes covered in blood. There was a sound of shock, and she tried to pull away from the dried and tacky cloth to no avail.

What was happening? Where was she? Panic danced along her spine as she rose, looking for the nearest exit. The door opened to a balcony, overlooking a half-full parking lot. A man was smoking on the balcony next to her, and he offered a quizzical-yet-concerned look at her appearance. The world tilted dangerously, and she stumbled her way back inside before she had to answer any unforgiving questions. The foreboding sense of something terribly, horribly wrong grew in the pit of her stomach.

Feet stumbled to the rundown bathroom in the back of the room. In the cracked mirror, she found a face drawn with panic and exhaustion, hair flat and falling in her eyes. She did not recognize the woman in the mirror. Her name, what was her name. Blood along her neck. Hands searched for injuries that weren't there - the only thing that still hurt was the pounding of her head and the stiffness of her joints. Blood matted in her hair, right around the concentration of pain, and conclusions were drawn of the blow that rendered her unconsciouness. But the rest of it? The pounding ache, the uncertain wrongness about everything that was going on, the unfamiliarity of it?? Something was irreparably damaged.

What was she doing here? She had a mission, there was a reason for her being gone. She had family somewhere, maybe, didn't she? Or were they too, gone? Were they looking for her?

The woman bit her tongue as she stumbled back to the phone, fighting the overwhelming rush of vertigo and panic that threatened to pull her under. She doesn't remember the numbers so much as just knows them, dialing a friend, she thinks. Someone who knows her, at least. Someone who she might able to trust with something as powerful as her own name.

"Sunvale Motel." She had echoe'd into the reciever after it was picked up. The voice on the other end had dozens of questions, but she could just finish with the address of the residence printed on a nearby pad of paper. Before he could ask any other questions, she hung up on him and sitting back on the bed with her feet on the floor and face in her hands.

Jack didn't wait for a key, opting to kick the door open instead. The blood immediately had him sweeping the room, searching for whoever, or whatever had caused it. After he determined the scene was safe, he knelt, trying to catch her eyes. Hestiant brown eyes met his, full of confusion and otherwise empty.

Lena.

The name rolled off her tongue decently, something about it tasting familiar against the macabre scene. Lena.

Despite herself, she trusted the man with the blue eyes and soft touch. Exhaustion touched her, and Lena resisted the urge to lean into the soft touch. It felt familiar, just like the Overwatch did, something safe and warm she could sink herself into.

"S'not my blood. I don't - I don't remember how -" She mumbled back, still uncomfortable with associating with the name Lena. Something about it felt like sunshine, like hot asphalt and running shoes and a laugh. Opposite to what she's feeling here and now.

"Okay, Lena, I believe you. We're going to get you checked out, okay? Just hold on a bit longer.

She smiled at that and lets him manipulate, lets him guide her to the transport outside.

[lloydfrontera]

'lloyd is very weak now and needs to marry so he'll have someone to protect him'- lloyd has the only grandmaster on the world following him around like a puppy. he has the most terrifying motherfucker on the world wrapped around his little finger. he has the one person in the world who can hit an absolute in the head and get away with it swearing in his heart to protect him no matter the cost over and over again.

lloyd made javier watch him die twice right in front of him just to keep him alive. there is no power on existence that could make javier allow anyone or anything to even think about harming lloyd again.

lloyd is fine

[ahalliance]

just finished Nimona… DAMN does it feel good to watch such an openly queer movie man

[corviiids]

For the one word prompt: Ghost

<3 went with lawlight. this takes place in an "L change the world" continuity (where L writes his own name in the death note for 23 days later in order to defeat light, light dies first, and L wears his broken watch).

--

Lately it's just been jingling. A bit of clanging. It tends to ease a bit when L closes his eyes, but somehow the quiet is disquieting still.

His wrist tugs to the right again. The chains jingle.

It does seem to get more persistent the higher the moon creeps. Next time he needs cuffs like this, he's going to find the padded ones, stop the bruising on his ulnar head and the cold feel of the metal on... well, actually, it's a bit of a moot point, now.

"I want to go to sleep," Light says plaintively. "Hurry up."

Look to two timekeepers:

Down: it's still just a broken watch.

Up: 8 days to go.

L touches the shattered glass on the watch's face. It's of a fine make. Stainless steel resting gently, snugly, against the bones of his wrist. The band is warm to the touch, or warm-ish, warm enough, as warm as it can get from his dubiously low body temperature.

L shakes his arm. The watch doesn't move. He looks away and shakes it again. The cuff jangles against his wrist, chilled and ill-fitting. The chain jingles. Someone breathes behind him.

"L," says Light. "Hurry up. I want to sleep."

The chain tugs him again.

Look to two out of time: 8 days to go and there's no light in the room. The moon crawls a little higher, petulant.

"I'll come soon," says L.

--

(send me a one word prompt)

[fellamarsh]

another thing i've been trying to do recently is read more self-published stuff. "but fell," you say, "you're a self-published author. surely you've been reading self-published stuff all along" and then i laugh for so long in response we both become uncomfortable.

see, the fear (which has for a long time been killing my mind) that i'll read other self-published stuff and find out that it's so much better than mine that i might as well stop writing forever kept me from doing that basically ever. i have a hard time not unfavorably comparing my work to others and had convinced myself i was being smart by withholding an avenue of de-motivation (reader: i was not being smart). it also doesn't help that i'm pretty low income and have a hard time spending money on books i haven't already read, and that self-published stuff isn't always available at the library---but really a lot of it was just me being a coward. which i'm working on. i could talk about how this particular cowardice is Very Silly, but i think enough has been said about it on writeblr and in the Writing Space in general that i don't feel the need to (though i will if anyone wants me to).

instead, i wanna talk about the self-published things i have read in the past few months and ask about the self-published things you love!

so: what happened was i got real sick, and while i was real sick i (naturally) read over 200,000 words of ace attorney fan fiction in the span of a few days. eventually i got bored of it (and also maybe annoyed at how people were characterizing some of my guys), but i still wanted to read something gay and romantic and nice, something i knew was gonna end happily, which isn't my typical fare.

now you may be saying (having gotten over all the uncomfortable laughter from earlier) "fell, you write gay romance. what do you mean that's not your typical fare?" listen. until a couple months ago i hadn't read a cut and dry romance novel since before i finished college. for context: i graduated in 2015. i know it doesn't make sense. i'm a guy who doesn't make sense.

but in this case it worked to my advantage. not the not making sense thing, but the not having read Published Romance in 1000 years thing. I didn't know where to start. I was very skeptical of everything the library had Available Now in the Gay Fantasy Romance category. what if it was all bad and also not good?

and then i scrolled past the familiar cover of our very own @ashen-crest's A Rival Most Vial.

now this was comfortable territory! this was a novel by a very nice writeblr person whose posts i enjoy! i already loosely knew the plot, i was familiar with the characters, i knew the names of things like rosemond street and the griffin's claw and that ambrose had blue hair and that at the end of it all there would definitely be Boyfriends. i didn't have to worry that this would be bad! i only had to worry that it would be really good!

but i wasn't worried about that, because i was officially Not Writing at the time, and because why the hell hadn't i read this book yet Ash literally emailed me some very kind words last year when my cat died??

Y'all, I devoured ARMV. If you haven't read it yet---especially if cozy fantasy is more your thing than it is mine---you should check it out Immediately. It was fun! It was heartwarming! It was sweet and earnest and confident! I was delighted to find it was occasionally hot! Ambrose and Eli snuggled up into my sick exhausted heart and found a permanent little place there. (Especially Ambrose. I have such a thing for Stiff Guys who Kind of Suck for Tragic Backstory Reasons and are So So Lonely They Don't Even Realize It. gawd)

(And a very small part of my brain spent the whole time wondering why I had been so afraid to really engage with the work my community is doing. The community that I'm in. The one I'm a part of. Why?! Maybe more on that later.)

But from there the curse was broken! I immediately devoured @stjohnstarling's What Manner of Man in a similar sort of frenzy (and hooooly shit guys am I excited for the expanded, finalized version to come out at the end of next month!) and started digging into @lurinatftbn's The Flower that Bloomed Nowhere (which I can already tell is going to be an All Time Favorite).

And now I want to ask you what your favorite self-published books are so that I can read them, too, but I think I will in another post that doesn't dedicate so much space to talking about my various and sundry Issues and isn't Terminally Long

[adh-d2]

It's not so much that I needed Tech to be alive.

I wanted Tech to live, but I grieved his character when he died.

Then the hints started coming. The narrative focus shifted to this mysterious new character and signaled that he was important somehow. The theories started spreading. Week after week the 'camera' lingered on long, slow shots of a helmet that wouldn't come off.

So yeah, I stopped grieving. The longer it went on the more convinced I became that this must be Tech, because clearly it was someone important. Otherwise it would just be poor writing. This show isn't written poorly.

Case-in-point, what a beautiful finale. My heart was in my throat the entire time. I cried. I loved it. Taken on its own, I'd go so far as to say it was perfect.

-

Except for the fact that the CX plotline came to nothing. Seriously. We've followed it all season, and it came to nothing? I'm not even clear on what happened. There were more of them. They were kind of an anti-Bad-Batch? Except not really? There was a big one that pulled Wrecker's signature move. There was one with knives. They were regs? I think? One lost its helmet in a background shot so I guess we can conclude they were all regs. With different builds. And different accents. I suppose it doesn't matter, since they all died after a few minutes of screentime having meant nothing to the protagonists. They were a boss fight. The plot marches on.

-

It's entirely possible I got too caught up in the speculation. Maybe when I look back on all the posts I wrote and liked and reblogged it will be obvious that we were reaching. But right now from here in the thick of it, I swear there's so much to see! Do you mean to tell me they really didn't notice it in the writers room? That it was all a complete coincidence?

Would it have been better if someone on the creative team had just come out and confirmed that Tech wasn't coming back? I don't know. I don't think they were obligated to. But when a good 50% of the discourse about your show ending is speculation on this particular CX character, and the answer isn't even a different plot twist, but that the character means nothing at all...well, you can see how the team could have avoided some disappointment.

Maybe this is a bad take. I don't know how I feel. I wish I could have enjoyed the finale without having to grieve again for a character we'd already lost.

For now I'll end by saying that I loved this show and I can't wait to rewatch it someday on its own merit, without the spectre of 'is-it-could-it-be-no-please-let-it-be' clouding my judgement.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

what is your favorite thing about charles and your favorite thing about erik? separately, as in what you like most about their characters :]

a devious question this one is, my friend!!! it's hard enough for me to explain my thoughts cohesively, but having to pick ONE thing i particularly love is difficult. with characters like charles and erik, theres been so much done with their characters over the decades and so they have so many components to them that make them so interesting and fun to observe. BUT I TRY FOR YOU TODAY. under the cut i kinda ramble and the size of this text box makin me anxious

i think if i were to be simple and broad, what i enjoy most about charles is his determination to help others, even if he isn't really thanked and/or if people don't even like him. ofc, this isn't to say he hasn't done wrong- to be honest, the fact he does wrong/questionable things at times is another aspect of him i really enjoy, maybe because- broadly speaking- he's meant to be altruistic (intent vs outcome and all that). i don't know if that's super exciting to most people, but it is for me

as for erik, my reason for liking him is easier to explain tbh. To Be Simple And Broad, his progression from villain to antihero over the decades has been fun to observe (as much as i have so far anyhow) and analyze. i think to be a bit more specific, him using his rage and pain as justifications for his villainous actions is definitely what compels me the most: hurt people hurt and the sort, an idea i've always found interesting (something something vicious cycles and the like). yet now, he recognizes this wasn't really. A Just Thing To Do and is beginning to change that, which i enjoy

[parkitaco]

for once in my goddamn life i would love to feel secure abt a relationship

[immunetoneurotoxin]

“Not a soul assigned to their case at the Bureau could make sense of their existence. There wasn’t a single scientist, parapsychologist, doctor, or specialist with over a dozen PHD’s under the sun that could figure them out. Pyrokinesis in a human? They defy every law of nature, yet they exist amongst humanity regardless. How do you explain that?” “The truth is that there are a lot of unknown things out there in the world that mankind hasn't even begun to scratch the surface of. Everyone flocked to this case trying to find rational answers, but there aren’t any. Look at the files in your hands. By the eyes of science, Pyro should not exist. Don’t you know what happens to things mankind doesn’t understand? The Bureau has done sickening things to them in the name of research.” “That’s why I helped them escape, Conagher.”

Excerpt from the novel INCENDIARY; A TF2 Pyro origin story Read the latest chapter of 'Incendiary' on AO3 here! Artwork created by the incredible @narklos ♡ 

[alxastrx]

When you're one of the most selfish mc who only saves people because it's part of a job you never wanted and did not get to chose or you would've died, who took your co-workers' morals and ideals because you didn't have any and desperately wanted to fit in somewhere, be it with the heroes or the villains, who's activelly haunted by one the most tragic past to have been created and suffer from a psychosis so bad (dare I say schizophrenia) that even your enemies acknowledged that you are mentally ill and objectively flawed in your judgement, never hesitated to try to kill anyone and has the most egoistic reason to be a good person but the fandom still thinks you're just a kind crybaby "I don't know what a gun is" homosexual twink.

[skrunksthatwunk]

not gonna elaborate for now but why did none of y'all tell me the no.6 light novels were Like That (/pos in like a mildly baffled and mostly enthralled kinda way)

[lesbworth]

web weaving for the buddhist and taoist monks from dream of the red chamber by cao xueqin ✨

[sixpossumsinaclownsuit]

[soukeyed]

not quite redraw from mgs2 graphic novel.. emma mightve only been alive for like 15 seconds but she slayed <3

original panel(s) under the cut

[toddtakefive]

btw todd’s reluctance to join the dps because he doesn’t want to read (which is then accommodated for) and is scared to put himself out there (which is also worked through) being read as todd not wanting to go AT ALL, and thus neil making the proper accommodations (“todd anderson, who prefers not to read, will keep the minutes of the meetings”) and encouraging him to step out of the box that stifles him being seen as ‘forceful’ or like he can’t take no for an answer makes me insane with rage

[coloursofaparadox]

i just want more media and literature where the protagonist gets like. dehumanized. or demonized or possessed or changed into something that's not quite human one day and then they just have existential crises about it. and they suffer. is that too much to ask