#love writing them

[awkwardgtace]

Self Reflection

hey hey day 11 we have melancholy. This time I went more for the overwhelming feeling of the story rather than my usual methods of taking prompts. Will add this to ao3 once the ddos is over

Kaiju Ash is thinking about their life, both current and former. Unsure what they want if they should let things continue as they are.

TW: Mentions of death, probably other things i'm not realizing please lemme know if I should tag them.

Self Reflection

I stared at the clouds as the water fell over my body. I never stood for storms before, but I wanted to clear the dirt from my skin, or rather scales. Alessia said it, my body was no longer human skin. I was covered in something more like carapace. After a day of begging I did promise the two I would use the next storm to clear the dirt and leaves from me. Of course they had to stay in the small house, one made of my vines. Even with it separated sometimes it let me hear, let me know things I shouldn’t. Now was one of those times.

“We need to go into a town soon,” Alessia said. I frowned, if they left I shouldn’t let them back. It wasn’t safe near me. I closed my eyes as the water continued to pelt my body. I sort of enjoyed the feeling of the rain on my eyes. I knew that wasn’t normal.

“You know if we both go Ash will need convincing to bring us back,” Delphia said. Despite the way their voices traveled, I enjoyed hearing such normal talk between them. I didn’t even know this could happen. I should stop being shocked when the vines become an extension of myself.

“So you stay.” The two sounded happy, it had been too long with me. They should leave. I tried not to react to their words. If I moved it would still bother them despite the security we’d managed to create. 

“No, there’s too much for you to get alone. Too bad Ash can’t just grow everything we need.” The unflinching trust continued to hurt my heart. The willingness to abandon their world, their lives, just everything… I didn’t think I could ever feel worthy of their actions and choices. “Plus I’m a bit better at hiding from people than you are. We can’t have someone following us.”

I wanted to keep listening, but the vines decided I’d heard enough. What would happen if someone followed them? If someone new found me? I had met other humans, ones I helped to get to safety. Those ones might not have discussed my existence, or maybe no one believed them. I shook my head, I couldn’t think about people like that. I wasn’t something else, I was human… wasn’t I?

I walked away from my miniscule loves. My focus was at the edge of the forest. The forest that fit me, that grew around me. Trees tall enough that they hid me even when I stood. This wasn’t natural or normal. I ran my hands, more precisely my claws, over the bark. It was stronger than the trees I faintly remembered from my life before. When they weren’t just a little taller than me. 

It didn’t take long for me to reach my goal. I stood next to the town that I’d turned into a grave. It still hurt to think of what I’d done. Delphia and Alessia were convinced it wasn’t my fault, but it was. I could have listened, I could have gone back to sleep. So many lives would have been saved if I had never woken up. The days I dreamed, the times I woke up to phantom feelings of arms around me, were all ones I wished I got to live more often.

I started to reach out towards the edge of the trees. I could leave, I could reveal myself to the world. It would free Alessia and Delphia. It would change things, explain so much. Possibly even make others be believed. My claws hovered near the edge, my hand was shaking. I couldn’t remember what would leave me scared, but revealing myself was terrifying. My memories before this, ones that didn’t include Alessia and Delphia, were still too hazy. Sometimes it felt like they were fading away, that if the others weren’t with me I would lose everything that explained who I was.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” a small voice said. It wasn’t coming through my vines, it was masculine. Familiar. A shiver ran through my body, water fell from places it had pooled on me. The only thing that reminded me that rain was falling all around me.

“Leave then, I’m not walking away,” a new voice. Also masculine… Also familiar… I was frozen, the strange scales or carapace caught water all over me. That didn’t matter, those voices… Those voices terrified me.

“So you can disappear too?” I was tempted to try and find them. To face the terror in my blood. They were going to be the same size as the others… I couldn’t risk doing anything to them.

“I’m finding them. This is the last place they checked in from.”

“You know how likely it is that they survived out here this long?! Their car isn’t even here! At least wait until the storm is over.”

“You can wait until the storm is over. If my sister is out there I’m finding her. I’m dragging them both home because if she’s there so is Alessia!”

My heart froze. They… these voices wanted Alessia and Delphia. Were they from that life? That time that I can barely remember? I felt it as they entered the forest. My forest. One storming ahead, something in my mind tingled at the knowledge. As though it was something that bubbled with joy and memories.

“Strawberry, we should at least stay together!” I stumbled at those words. A thousand arrows attacked my heart. I knew those words, I knew these people. I knew these humans. “Shit, run!”

They were running because of me. Something I did, my steps or my vines I didn’t know. I had to stop them, protect them from the truth. From finding the damage I’d done by existing. I heard screams. A part of me wondered if Delphia and Alessia would hear them. If they’d hate me for what was happening now. Another part thought they should and then they would leave.

I heard shouts as my vines grabbed the two humans. I was conscious of the choice to grab them. I focused on keeping the movement of my vines slow even as I crouched. I was still towering over everything. The vines stopped just at my eyes. It was like the day Delphia and Alessia returned to my life. One face of anger and fear, another of something akin to a calm understanding.

“Rhys, do not say a thing, do not ask questions, I will get us out of this,” the angry one said. He had scars on his eyes, the shape of an X on each. They were a pale contrast on his dark skin. Silver hair that had fallen in his face and hung heavily due to the rain. Mismatched eyes like my own, different colors though. A brilliant emerald and striking violet.

“Vincent…” Rhys said it, at least that’s what I could assume was his name. Salmon hair, tan skin, pink eyes that saw through me. I knew this person, I’d spent a lot of time with him. A flash in my mind, someone yelling with the pink eyed man laughing beside me. I pushed him, a smile playing on my own lips.

I brought a hand up to shield them from the rain. Both stared at me, unflinching eyes. I… I shouldn’t have grabbed them. I should have left them to wander, only blocking them from going too far. Instead I took my other hand below them. Another thing I learned I could do, the vines moved over to my skin without a need for me to try. More screams.

I stood, slower than normal to be safe. I looked around the world, these two on my hand a stark reminder of what I’ve lost. I kept my hand low. It was difficult, but I knew raising them too high might cause them to be hurt. I was lucky Alessia and Delphia had been safe. I made the choice to change how my vines held them. Holding them safely together instead of apart. I could hear the mumbles from them, reassurances that they would survive. 

I could speak, I could tell them. Words didn’t occur to me, the ones to fix this. I… I wanted them not to know who I was. More memory flashes made it hurt to imagine them scared of me when they knew it was me. I took the steps I needed to return to Delphia and Alessia. The small women were waiting for me, ignoring the rain still pouring from the sky.

As soon as I brought my hand close the men I held reacted. The words were… not kind. I didn’t want to think about the consequences of how they acted. Directing my vines to set the men down was easy, the two grabbing Alessia and Delphia and trying to hide them from me was not. I still couldn’t make my voice work. When they knew it was me, would they still be scared? Was I not something to be trusted? I wasn’t… I wasn’t a human no matter how much I wanted to believe I was… was I?

“Rhys?” Delphia said. She was trying to pull away, to be in my view. It made me feel happier, warmer, more human. “Let go of me. What are you even doing here?”

“We came to find the two of you. It’s been months with no contact!” Rhys shouted. The shout made me jump. It was louder than I expected, but my jump caused both men to lose their footing.

“Vincent, Rhys calm down. We’re fine.” Alessia looked up at me with a bright smile. Another thing that made me feel human, gifts constantly offered by them. “We found them. We found Ash.”

Both men stared at me. It didn’t take long for Rhys to be on his feet holding Delphia’s shoulders. I wanted to pull him away. To stop him from hurting her. He wouldn’t… Rhys wasn’t that person. I knew that. Vincent was glaring at me on his feet. It… I knew that glare. I knew him too. I hated this terror budding in my heart.

“Del, that-that thing is not Ash!” I closed my eyes. I needed to stay calm, but my tail didn’t agree. The loud thumps of the appendage were already causing the four ant sized humans to stumble. “This is proof! That thing is a monster and we need to escape.”

“No.” Delphia set herself free. She actually came closer to me. I brought my claw near her, she reached for it. Vincent pulled her back, he had a firm grip on Alessia’s wrist too. Something rumbled up deep in my chest, I had never noticed the growls I could make before.

“That is not a human reaction, Strawberry is right. We need to get away from this thing. You two are brainwashed.” Vincent had always been harsh. My brain had so much firing at once. Times with both, pushing Rhys to speak to the glaring man. Vincent unsure how to admit his own feelings. Smiles with both of them, nights where I spent time away from Alessia and Delphia. Where I spent time with another family, my new family.

“Who cares!? This is Ash and we’re not brainwashed. You two shouldn’t even be here. Go home. We’ll be back once we’ve fixed this.” Alessia’s firm voice calmed me. The rumbling in my chest disappeared. The ones most important to me were fine and didn’t see me as a monster.

“It can’t even talk that isn’t Ash! I know you miss them, but they died. Just like everyone else when this forest popped up, please just let us try to figure a way out of this and get home. Everyone’s been worried about you two and this constant searching.” My chest rumbled again, but there was more pain than anger.

“Will you stop talking like they aren’t here? Like they can’t understand you!? This is Ash, you're both just being cruel. It’s… how can you treat them like that!? You both were as devastated as we were when the news came and they’re here and you’re treating them like a monster that can’t even speak!”

“It can’t speak! All it’s done is growl. It probably just decided to look like them.”

“I do speak, I.. it is me,” I whispered. Despite the safety my vines promised my voice I was terrified. Now those humans would know who I am. The memories of happy times would be tainted by fearful faces. The men stared at me with a cocktail of pain, shock, and fear.

“They’re really alive, Rhys. It’s them.” Delphia was grabbing Rhys’s arm, trying to make them listen.

All I could do after that was watch them. Words exchanged all while the staring continued. I wanted to do something. Find a way to prove who I was. It was clear they didn’t believe in me. They only saw a monster. The pain I feared came together the longer I watched them. 

“Fine, we’ll get your supplies and come back. We’re staying at least for a few weeks,” Rhys said. 

That would make sense, it would work. There would be room in the house for the two of them. Although… I could almost remember what their home looked like. At least Rhys’s home I couldn’t recall if Vincent lived there. On top of my claws a small square of vines appeared. I pushed the cube off, vines trailing off my claw. I snapped it before the cube settled next to the home I barely remembered.

“Is that our house?” Vincent said. It was always him when there was a strange mixture of shock and suspicion.

I watched Rhys walk in, despite Vincent calling him back. The man walked out and stared up at me with awe. Vincent grabbed his arm, but stopped. I wasn't sure why. It didn’t matter, they were too far in the forest for a human to walk back in a reasonable time. It looked like they were slowly realizing it.

“Well we should go… assuming ‘Ash’ will take us… and pick us up when we get back,” Rhys said. It was clear they didn’t believe it was me. That I was some monster that Alessia and Delphia had trained. Maybe I was.

Regardless I offered my hand. The two didn’t move. I wasn’t sure what to do. I noticed Delphia pointing towards a loose vine. I should grab them? I tilted my head. She nodded, reading the question despite how hard it must be to read my face. So small and delicate. In the back of my mind I knew those words didn’t suit the men my vines were grabbing.

“Woah, easy with the vines godzilla,” Vincent said. The words hurt, but the nickname stuck out. Vincent… he gives people nicknames; it's a part of him. I… calling me something else might be good. I set them down in the center of my palm. Where I knew I could keep them safe. Ant sized humans… How had I started to trick myself into thinking I still was one.

I stood, with my hand at my waist to avoid hurting Rhys and Vincent. Only a few steps to travel what would take them days or weeks. I couldn’t call myself human. Near the edge, not quite outside the trees that towered thousands of feet over humans… over creatures I was starting to struggle to believe I ever was one of. I crouched again, setting my hand down and hoping the two I could faintly remember laughing with wouldn’t show me more fear.

They stumbled off my hand. Stared at me with emotions I couldn’t understand.

“If you really are Ash. Alessia says she’s finding a way to turn you back. If it works well… I’m glad they found you and I’m sorry… for treating you like a monster,” Rhys said. My eyes widened. Vincent pulled Rhys towards what I knew had to be a car. It was so small… I constantly found myself in awe at the trust Delphia and Alessia put in me.

“You’re keeping the nickname whether you’re Ash or not. Godzilla fits you pretty damn well,” Vincent pushed Rhys towards a door as he spoke. I stood up straight as I watched both men climb into the vehicle. It was hard, I could remember riding in one. The danger it posed before. Only now could I crush it like a bug. I… I didn’t like thinking like that. 

I watched it drive off. The distance it covered would be faster for me. I could travel farther than I had ever dreamed. Yet I had to stay within these trees. Where nothing could find me from above and I controlled the ground. I stared at my clawed hand, looked over the scaled body I now existed in. I wasn’t human.

My vines apparently wanted me to know this. They pulled back from my skin, the skin akin to stone. It looked like stone when I focused on it. Other vines pulled my tail forward, even with the rain that continued to pour I could see the red smears that I never cleaned off. Remnants of what I’d done, who I’d hurt. People with names and faces I couldn’t remember or know.

I didn’t know why the building was unharmed that day. Why the people had survived and stayed past the terrifyingly large trees. Maybe I had disrupted them. This monstrous body was covered in sin after sin that I could never escape. I turned to look at where I knew Delphia and Alessia were. Humans that loved me… that loved a me that was dead. 

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I love you and I miss our life, but I don’t think I can go back. After everything I did… Everything that happened because of me. I don’t deserve to live a simple human life again.”

I wouldn’t tell them now… I wouldn’t end our time yet. I would wait for Rhys and Vincent. Wait for them to leave and when- when supplies were next needed I would tell them. I would send them off and lock my forest away from humans for good. No one would be at risk because of me or anything I might cause.

[so-many-ocs]

[on the verge of having a complete breakdown] i need to make some kind of list or perhaps sort things into categories

[almondpiglet]

ppl were drawing mikus from all over so heres habesha miku and her lil twin sibs rin and len!!

[beepboopappreciation]

Is this anything

[bruciemilf]

Need a teen! Bruce au where he’s exactly like Justice League! Batman and Battinson in one. That mf put the fear of every god in Ra’s Al Ghul.

Everytime he’s in a room with someone over 30 “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance plays in the background.

Despite that, in his own way, he’s as gentle as can be with his league. Give me a young Diana who’s getting spat on and ripped apart by the media in a way not one of her male teammates get.

And she’s Wonder Woman. She shouldn’t be affected by it. And she is, anyway. Bruce relates to that in an uncomfortable degree.

“When I first became Batman, weak men tried standing in my way, too. “

“And what did you do?”

“I stepped over them.”

He has a tiny Robin he occasionally has to keep on a leash.

Give me somewhat teen mom Bruce who struggles to wrangle his unruly six year old who likes flipping from rooftop to rooftop and thinks fighting Bane is a piece of cake.

“If Tati can do it, so can I!”

“Dick,” he paused, before handing him a handfull of candy. “Wonderful emotional manipulation. Good job.”

“:D”

[anna-scribbles]

old doodles from the archives 🫶

[tacticalprincess]

simon and könig being unable to stop bickering for a second, even when they’re balls deep inside of you. they’ve got you in an Eiffel Tower, könig’s cock filling your glossy pussy while simon stuffs your mouth. it took ages of convincing for them to even consider this position, but eventually they decided to put their discrepancies aside for the sake of you, their precious, spoiled little thing. it didn’t last very long though…

“jackhammer much, mate? you’ve got her choking on me over here.” simon points out, his heavy hand stroking your hair soothingly. könig’s using your hips as leverage, bucking into you at a rabid pace, each of his thrusts lurching your body forward and forcing you to take more of simon’s dick down your poor throat. “what happened to treatin’ the princess with care?”

“it’s okay, she likes it. isn’t that right, maus?”

your cheeks warm up as you hum around simon’s dick noncommittally. nothing gets passed the l.t though, and suddenly he’s gripping you by your hair, pulling your mouth off his cock.

“wait, you let him fuck your face?” he asks, sounding genuinely offended.

you wipe the line of spit that trails from your swollen lips all the way to his still hard dick, hovering just out of reach. you huff. “he’s more sadistic than you…” you say sheepishly in response, voice staccato from könig’s thrusts.

“you tellin’ me i’m the soft sex guy? the aftercare fuck?”

“‘s alright, mate.” könig reaches over your naked body to pat his comrade on the shoulder. “youve got boyfriend dick. happens to the best of us.”

[corantus]

butch nonspecific bean bag bears. they should let me design toys for children actually

their names are handy, married, grease, and freak ❤️

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

HOT, SINGLE, UNSTUDIED SPONGES. 3000 NAUTICAL MILES AWAY. Come sail the distance and read Tiger Tiger!

[hinamie]

unconditionally

[lagomorphics]

need to draw the bishops more. especially heket. for lesbian reasons

[the-raindeer-king]

The quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

That's how the saying goes. You never realized just how true it was until you started working as Captain John Price's assistant. It had started off innocently enough, bringing him a tea or coffee when he asked. Maybe scolding him whenever you found out he skipped lunch.

You had been baking brownies, trying out a new recipe, and you just needed someone to taste them (and maybe help you get rid of the batch if need be). So, you brought them to work, left them in a pretty box on Price's desk when you dropped off his coffee.

You certainly hadn't expected the rest of the task force to come around to your desk, begging to know why you didn't bring any for them. Turn out that not only did Price brag out your baking skills, he's refusing to share with the rest of the task force, despite the fact you had brought more than enough for all of them.

Looks like you're going to have to make more.

[ronanlynchbf]

tshirt that says NO LIVE ORGANISM CAN CONTINUE FOR LONG TO EXIST SANELY UNDER CONDITIONS OF ABSOLUTE REALITY

[suddenly-frankenstein]

his guardian angel

[erabu-san]

I enjoyed every second of this quest

[This art has platonic intention. Thank you for not tag ship!]

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.