#writing machine broke

[why-bless-your-heart]

Argh.

[iwoulddieforienzo]

Something I really appreciate about TOA that I don’t see get talked about much is that I never get the sense that Apollo finds Lester ugly.

For all that he complains about the body he’s stuck in, I never got the feeling that it came from a distaste for Lester himself. When he sees Lester’s traits reflected in others, like Meg being chunky, he is completely unaffected by it. Finds it charming, even. (In fact, the only times I can remember him having Opinions about how someone looks is when they’ve chosen something about their appearance that he either approves or disapproves of, like a tacky jacket/hair cut or when he finds someone attractive. The only time I can remember him calling anybody ugly was when he pointed out that Dionysus was choosing to look as ugly as possible to piss of Zeus, which is a statement of fact and doesn’t necessarily mean he thinks that Dionysus’ form is actually ugly. He makes no mention of finding it so before or after that line. It’s a statement of fact that Dionysus is choosing a form that either he or Zeus finds ugly to piss of their dad.)

The thing about Lester is that he is so devastatingly mortal. He has flab and acne and no upper body strength and his voice squeaks when he’s nervous and he sweats a lot and he has a silly name and messy, curly hair that’s impossible to tame. He is the Most Teenager To Ever. There is no godly blood running through his veins, no powers he can call upon. If Apollo were to run into him in the street, I don’t think he’d pay him much mind. He’d probably just think, “sweet kid”, and move on. If he got to know him, I think Apollo would adore him because that’s just who rrverse!Apollo is. He loves mortals despite himself, flaws and all. He’d argue against anything bad Lester had to say about his own appearance and mean every word.

The problem is that it’s Apollo in this body. Apollo, The Golden Child, the perfect son, a God. His distaste for this body is because Lester is so devastatingly mortal and imperfect. Apollo has to be perfect, he has to be shiny and pretty and strong because he has nothing else to offer otherwise.

And.. I dunno, there’s something about Apollo hating the things that draw him to others when it’s him. The flaws that he tears apart in himself he finds endlessly charming on others, or he thinks that they have better reasons for why they have them, or he thinks they have enough positive traits to counteract them. The positive things that he hides deep enough that even the reader can’t see right away, like his kindness and genuine desire to understand and connect with everyone around him, that he’s shocked to find directed at him in turn.

That Apollo accepting himself and reclaiming his personhood leads to him being comfortable with being Lester, imperfect and mortal as he is. That he takes that imperfection back with him to Olympus… I dunno man I’m Emotional. Also it’s just plain nice that Lester is never treated as ugly for looking like a normal ass teenager, even by the guy stuck in this body. That’s neat.

Or maybe I’m just rambling and this means nothing at all and I’m reading too far into Blorbo from my books.

[trebuchet151]

This is jumping the queue bc some really cool people reblogged my last post of Corey and they escaped containment.

Updated sidestep design perpetual WIP

Sidestep days vs retribution. They're slowly reacquiring their self expression. Next book will probably be the full return of the scene/punk look

Bonus Corey sans most of their clothing to show off their tattoos under the cut. CW for healed SH scars

Yes that is Ortega's bedroom yes I half assed it. I drew this background in my car at work when it was like 110 degrees idgaf

[babsvibes]

Honey Pie Sugar Pumpkin

Tina’s third word was “knee.”

Amazing moodboard by @jimmypesto!! Fic for Day 3 of @boblinweek 💕

[kingprinceleo]

"Poor meow meow (tortures people)"

Does this mean there's lore for the dessert vampires au 👀👀👀👀👀

theres always been lore ! im still fleshing it out though, theres no overarching plot rn its just setting up the most important base details i have a REALLY clear vision for how i want to introduce the whole au so its pretty unfortunate i cant share anything until i drop the introduction

[ghetsis]

Officially putting this blog on haitus until further notice.

In the meantime, have this picture of the eclipse I took last night:

[randomwriteronline]

The anguish is dull, distant, indistinct. The muscle pulled off the bone by ill-chosen equipment would be so much worse in any other cirumstance, but not now. Not like this.

A door opens. The room freezes over. Fast angry steps crack the ice beneath them as the Kestora tries to pry his frozen feet from the pavement - his mostly organic body is slammed against the operating table, the back of his head comes into view. His chest is held by someone a little too far back to be visible from this angle, with a hiss that condenses the air in a frigid cloud as he squirms.

"Put him back together this instant or I'll freeze your limbs until they fall off."

"Which - which - which one would fall first?"

The sound of frost creaking to life: "Are you so keen to find out?"

The Kestora shakes his head. He is turned around harshly, and he sets to work frantically: he pulls away the stakes, sews back the organic fibers, closes the chest and stomach, reattaches the joints... The second he is done a white hand grabs him and throws him away - his scuttling across the icy floor as he makes his escape goes unnoticed by the white visage that enters the field of vision, focused as it is on what it looks at with some kind of horrified relief in his blue eye, the other hidden under a battered scope. A mask with a broken visor clicks into place on the unmoving face: its power seeps into the laying frame with a faint tingling sensation. Fingers rest gently on the orange brainstalk.

"Pohatu," the Toa of Ice calls, "Pohatu, please, get up."

The body sits up in complete silence. The Toa looks it over without talking, awfully antsy, checking if the repairs have been done correctly, if there is anything that could cause it pain when it will inevitably stand up and walk; his own armor bears signs of extensive modifications after what probably was a terrifying fight. At last he carefully holds one of the limp hands in his own and pulls towards himself: no reaction.

"Get up," the Toa insists, "I'm taking you home."

The body stands up.

There is a Matoran in the room. Black body, purple Mask of Strength, dim eyes: revived Onu-Matoran. He looks at the figure standing still with a dull expression: "What are you doing?"

"He is my brother," the Toa replies: "I'm taking him with us. I'm taking him home."

The Matoran stares at the silent being and says nothing.

They walk through the winding labyrinthine corridors, through the swarms of Matoran wailing to be allowed to work, the Turaga struggling to herd them in spare rooms, the Toa roaming restlessly through the halls, the Skakdi attacking everything they cannot recognize, the beings crawling along the floors still half mangled as they struggle to function even in such a sorry state for they cannot work otherwise and to work is all they were ever made for, the Kestora chasing anything that moves in a frenzied need to vivisect. Nothing has a mind of its own, not anymore, not so far from the quiet whispered riddles of a god: still the Toa of Ice perseveres deeper into the dedalus curling around him, holding the Matoran in his arms and gripping the mostly limp hand like a lifeline as he drags the silent body behind himself.

The Turaga without a mask, roped into following along, looks at it with a dull expression: "There is no need for that."

"He is my brother," the Toa replies: "I'm taking him home."

The Turaga stares at the silent being and says nothing.

The halls are longer, longer, numbingly long. The Matoran are antsy. They need to work. They need to work. They need to work. They were made to work, and they were repaired to work, but they cannot reach work, so what must they do? The Turaga herd the together, crush them against one another, but they are antsy too. They were made to supervise, they were made to guide, they were made to coordinate, but they cannot do any of it like this. The Turaga tell the Matoran to work: the Matoran, with no other option, dismantle to create.

They dismantle themselves to make Toa. They dismantle Toa to make Turaga. They dismantle Turaga to make themselves. They dismantle Skakdi to make fish. They dismantle Vortixx to make snakes. They dismantle Kestora to make horrors left undescribable. They pick up pieces of broken bretheren to create tools, anything, anything, to busy themselves with work, for there is nothing else they were ever made for except work. They do not fight when they are struck by the Kestora's disabling tools - they go down pliantly, trembling from the shock, allowing themselves to be dragged away to be torn open without any of their siblings to notice or care as the work absorbs their every thought. The only way to escape from the torture awaiting is to be found by a Toa, but Toa are seldom fighting. Most often they are seen standing idly, or laying limp, or wandering aimlessly, devoid of purpose and community and objective: their work was interrupted and their own existence is now incomprehensible to them, and they do not know or feel the prongs stabbing through them or the blades opening their bodies. They retaliate to violence distractedly, without intention behind their automatic movements, strike down to their hearts' content. Nothing is ever dead for long anyways; death left this place long ago anyways.

The sharp-toothed beast that struggles to pull himself upright, let alone teleport successfully, looks at the body dragging its feet numbly while it is pulled along with such impossible affection with a dull expression: "A diversion?"

"He is my brother," the Toa replies: "I'm taking him home."

The sharp-toothed beast stares at the silent being and says nothing.

There are so many he wants to bring along. If he could, he would drag the whole thing down, so they could all breathe in the open air again, learn to be people again: but he can't, and so he brings along only those he can - those he, so desperately selfishly, wants to bring along. The weight in his palm is comforting, it is a promise he has made, an apology, a remedy to something that would have been final, a thread he so desperately wants to collect and spin back into its spool, unraveled and clean and perfect: a good ending, a proper ending, the ending that should have been. He will bring his brother back home and things will be fine. Now that things are a little easier, now that Teridax is gone, he will bring his brother back home and he will understand. They will help him and he will be fine. He will be with them again. Things will be fine again. Like they should have always been, if only he'd spoken a little better, explained a little better, been a little gentler, been a little clearer. He failed his brother twice and he will not fail him again. He will not fail him again. He will save him, this time. He will. He will. He has to. He will. He has to.

The room is crimson, pulsing, buried deep within the structure like a horrifying heart, and the exit is there, right there, just not working, just not working yet. The Toa stands side by side with the dull figure whose hand he refuses to part from, guarding the door, as the smaller beings work on the commands and the large one forces the teleporter wide enough for the four of them through his mere brute force, while the howling shrieks of the Kestora come closer and closer to the only entrance. The bright ends of their tools spark with electricity, crackling madly as they come closer, closer, closer -

A loud buzzing sputter fills the room as the barely functional machine wheezes awake, its intermittent glow slowly picking up the pace. The Matoran jumps into it, the sharp-toothed beast approaches it; the Turaga turns to the remaining two beings, settling his eyes on the quieter warrior.

"Fight them!" he orders.

The body lurches thoughtlessly forward towards its doom. The Toa loses his grasp on the until now unresponsive hand.

He tries to follow in a desperate attempt to pull the figure back, to drag it to the teleporter and leave with him, with him - but a strong arm yanks him away harshly, securing him in the sharp-toothed beast's grasp as he crawls into the pod; the Toa screams, screams, squirming to escape, as he watches powerless his brother seize when a burst of electricity passes through the orange armor and the stocky build falls onto the floor shaking slightly from the charge as though struck by rigor mortis, and he screams and screams and reaches out with both hands, to grasp him, calling, calling, calling desperately: "POHATU!"

He wishes he could see anything in his brother's gaze, he wishes he could hear anything said with his voice; he wishes he would move, reach back, respond, show him anything, any hint of his mind's state, any hint of feeling.

His wailing sob is met by empty eyes like a slaughtered animal.

Then Kopaka disappears, teleported away with the living corpses who followed him away in the last voyage back to life before the machine completely gives in, turning unusable beyond repair; Pohatu's body lays perfectly still, without thoughts nor will, as the Kestora grasp it in their small hands and drag it once more into the horrors of the Star to again break apart the vacuous shell his brother so vainly hoped would have still held even just a bit of the broken soul that had drowned in its own poison.

[netherese-blorb]

I’m tired of writing but I want to read a fic about Gale and my Tav first falling in love and so I have to write it but I don’t want to write but if I don’t write it I can’t read it but I don’t want to write but if I don’t write it I can’t read it but I don’t want to wr

[disengaged]

I just wanted to say that I love your writing! Been a long time lurker, but I always find that I eventually come back to your fics.

hey, thank you so much !! that’s so sweet of you to say, and i really appreciate you taking the time to send me a message! ♥️♥️♥️

i’ve really been struggling with writing for the past uh … 2 years … but i miss it a lot, so it’s really encouraging to know there are people out there who still like reading my shit LOL

[swordbisexual]

Maybe today… today I will actually draw canon characters.

[nat-20s]

Alright everybody give me prompts for just somethin. REAL dumb to write

[thefactsofthematter]

guess who started another new wip

[pleb-the-original]

guess who just singlehandedly overhauled and updated bendy's page on the tumblr sexyman wiki out of spite towards the fact that it never got updated after dark revival? god I'm so tired https://sexypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Bendy

[catilinas]

sallust, bellum catilinae 34.2 trans. rolfe

wild to me that ‘i did nothing wrong but am going into exile anyway so that we don’t accidentally have a civil war about it’ is cicero’s exact line in his own post-exile speeches

[incorrectskyrimquotes]

I may end up doing some ~experimental~ writing to tell Eryn's full story

[tigirl-and-co]

Colours and Light Pt. 2

(brain melted, sorry. Just barely proofread it. Anyway, here’s more Chroma and Luxa goodness! I need to focus more on Chroma, let her develop a bit more on her own. I think next time I sit down to write, I’ll probably do something about what she was actually DOING during the takeover)

REFRACTION

It was easy to tell when Luxa was asleep, and Chroma found she liked it that way.

It had been weird at first, she had to admit. But she loved her girlfriend, so she got over it. Now, looking over to Luxa, she found the beauty in the dull seafoam metal of Luxa's body, and moved to grasp Luxa's robotic servos in her own calloused hand. Chroma gently rubbed her thumb over the back of Luxa's hand, knowing that it wouldn't wake her up, and smiled.

How could I be so lucky? she wondered. About a year ago, it felt like the world was ending. There was no hope, no better future. Only living day-to-day and hoping to get out alive. And then suddenly, things started changing. A group of rebels -- a group of heroes -- was fighting back -- and winning. Now, here was Chroma, lying in bed with the brave wolf who had struck the final blow to save them all.

Of course, Luxa would never call herself brave.

Brave was for people like Sonic, who didn't cringe and shy away from every personal conflict, real or imagined. For people like Rouge, who would willingly sneak into danger for personal profit and not just because there was no other choice.

Brave was a word she used for Chroma, who faced the world head on, who actively chose to be something different than the world thought she should be, and who couldn't be happier for it.

Looking at the twin blue optic sensors on her girlfriend's face, Chroma couldn't help but fall a little bit more in love.

Luxa couldn't understand how strong she was. She had been through more than almost anybody on the planet, and she didn't think it mattered. The horrors she suffered in the lab, the atrocities of war she actively fought against despite her fear, baring her truest self to the people she cared for most despite their ability (and in some cases, inclination) to destroy her out of reflex... despite all that, she refused to call herself brave.

In time, Chroma hoped to fix that. She wanted to help Luxa believe in herself, to see what Chroma saw in her. For now, She just scooted in close and gently kissed the unpainted faceplate that formed Luxa's snout, and cuddled close to fall asleep.

She couldn't wait to wake up and see her girlfriend in the morning light.