#scxrytxles

Kalmar almost cringes under the soft (too soft) touch. Makes a disgusted sort of noise, buries his face again, but doesn't snatch himself free.

I don't know, says Lewis. Nothing's wrong -- More low, miserable laughter seeps out of him as he keeps talking, whenever he pauses or stumbles.

The memory is hazy. The feeling is the clearest part. "Ah, shallow focus," He murmurs, mercifully without thinking about it too hard. "Pot boiling over. Then flesh-hooked, then nothing but how badly it wanted to --" His blunt ungulate teeth dig sharp into the bones of his wrist for some moments. He tastes blood, lets go without argument.

Eager, he thinks, but it won't leave his throat. Enthusiastic. A sickly feeling like after forgetting to eat for too long. his brain overrun with imagined images and feelings and tastes he doesn't even like--

"It's," he starts again, and ties himself into an even tighter knot with a strangled whine.

Character inspo asks

🎨 (or “drawing”) + a character name to find out what drawings/paintings inspire receiver’s writing of that character!

Definitely the Yogzarthu from the Harbourmaster webcomic! Which… has much less to do with their appearance and WAY more to do with the kinds of ethical and societal questions the webcomic explores with them. But it’s a drawn story, so it counts, damn it 😝

Probably the Entomorphs from that comic, too, for actual visual inspo? I started reading the comic in my very early tweens, which is also around when I came up with Skitter’s design for the first time, and they are bug aliens. So it’s hard to imagine there wasn’t some inspiration drawn.

Koh from ATLA. Looming centipede dude with a face, hah.

All of those stereotypical Clone Lab depictions with people/creatures floating in Giant Aesthetic Glass Tubes of Liquid with Wires slskdjfhf.

Him Face. Another one where I don’t exactly remember clearly but the common thread is obvious and I know I was reading the comic at around the right age. 😂

All the excellent creature/alien designers on deviantart! I wound up in some fun scifi groups and got to see a lot of work that inspired me. Pieces like this and this come to mind.

For actual current inspo: Teefs, as drawn by guttertongue. I mean look at them. 👀

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EDIT:

Holy shit, how could I forget the most important — just. All of the old mass market paperback scifi and fantasy cover illustrations from my parent’s library! I spent so long looking at the covers of those books as a kid, even the ones I never got around to reading slskdjfhf.

Special mention to this one, because it’s one of the ones I did read. I still have it and pull it out to look at and think about even now:

It's like breathing again, inhaling oxygen with lungs that he didn't know were shuttered. It's like the world has dropped away, every other beating heart in the building blurring into shadow. It's like living again, technicolor bright blinding him to everything except her her her--

(Positivity meme that I've been hoarding for months >_>;)

Yes hello I adore your execution of writing and art alike – lovely prose! Delicious art style! Genuinely inspires me to try to improve some of my own work. :) Your characters’ voices and thoughts and body language all come through so clearly and in really interesting ways. Your characters have such depth and complexity and I’m always 👀 when I get to hear more about their backgrounds and interrelationships.

And while we haven’t talked a ton, I’ve really appreciated the conversations we’ve had! Love all your writing ideas and I’m grateful for the chats about IRL stuff as well <3

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, yeah, Jer, I'll be fine." Xander waved off Jeremy, who lingered and peered in around the bathroom door.

"If you're sure. Call if you need anything."

"I know, I will."

Finally, Jeremy relented, closing the bathroom door, and Xander sagged against the counter he leaned on, holding himself up on both forearms. Unlike his, Jeremy's apartment was blessed with an elevator, but getting from the van to here had still been a trial by fire. All the hiking had caught up to him: every bone and muscle fibre in his legs ached, from the soles of his feet to the meat of his hips. Worse, trying to push through it was impossible: any time he found himself starting to grow breathless, he'd just as quickly grow light-headed; the world would spin; and the whole group would be forced to stop and wait for him. Even Cyrus had given him advice.

And that didn't even account for the injuries Nil hadn't fully healed. Every brush of his tattered clothes against fresh flesh or scab stung; pain ran currents from his soul to his body at the site of each injury. In a couple places, he felt warm dampness seeping onto his skin.

It was important to clean himself. It would protect him from infection. The dried blood stunk, and the mud was hardly better. The dirt itched. Yet, when he gazed into the shower, he felt every part of him cringing away.

He persevered. Limping over to turn on the hot water, he dropped heavy on the toilet as he began to peel off layers of clothes. First, his battle vest. Nil had offered to help repair it, but there was hardly any point: it was in tatters--nothing but the hilt remained of the sword painted on the back--and what little remained was stained a dark ochre.

Is all that mine? The thought made him taste bile, and he threw it away behind him, into the trash. His shirt followed suit without a second look, as well as his pants--as soon as he could get them off.

Screaming that drowned out everything. Hot, salty blood gurgling in his throat and staining his teeth. Warm wetness seeping down his torso--funny, there was something wrong about that. Didn't matter. He had to get up. The monster had Chester. His limbs felt so heavy. He had to get up.

Tears ran down his face as he came back to himself, and he hurriedly wiped them away, smearing the clean lines they had made. "Fuck," he whispered and turned his attention to the tub, as if that would be any sort of distraction.

The moment he set foot in there, this venture would well and truly be over. No more second chances. No last minute turnarounds. No more magic, or monsters, or Alice. He clawed at his throat, feeling the lump growing. He would go back to his normal life, back to before he found his Honeybee, back to being just Nadia Xander. He had given it everything. He was willing to let her hate him. And it hadn't been enough. It wasn't enough. Alice was gone, and that thing was still out there.

Gasping sobs choked out through gritted teeth. "Dammit," he whispered, voice shaking. Slamming his fist on the wall, his voice caught on a shout, "DAMMIT!"

He clutched himself as he cried, trying to hold it back even as it came pouring out. "Dammit, dammit, dammit," he gasped out. He was such a failure.

He gave up, letting the rushing emotions take him. Not good enough for Alice, not good enough for his friends, not good enough for those who he'd dared to give hope, and most of all, not remotely good enough for himself. No more strange little stories, no more soft songs, no more peculiar questions or trinkets left after a lesson. She was gone. There was no going back.

After a time, the tears abated. He stood up. He glanced back, and he wondered dully if Jeremy had heard and now hovered just outside the door. (He hiccuped.) It didn't matter. He had procrastinated long enough.

scxrytxles:

Alice listens. And she watches. And she tries, again, to imagine what the many lives the child has lived might have looked like. How they might have tasted to pucker his mouth and curdle his soft, sweet little face. Her expression mirrors his, only a bit and only for a moment before her cheer returns. A viciously bright sort of optimism that swings like a heavy pendulum. “That’s perfect!” She points at him, so hard and fierce and quick that the penz flies from her fingers and whizzes past his head. Whoops! She can’t stop, now, though, this is important. Alice springs to her feet, notebook loosely clutched between her fingers as she trots across the floor. Her shadow creeps across Diamond’s little form as she peers over him, searching for the purple sheen of her pen. Ooh, there it is. She drops to her knees, reaches past him and pats the ground until her fingers close around the cool metal and she brings it back to herself. Alice glances over her shoulder, considers going back to her place, but decides No. She’d rather sit here. Alice plops onto the floor, scoots close so that she can feel the warmth of a Person beside her, and Diamond can see her paper. Well. Almost. Her hair is… it’s kind of in the way. Alice quickly brushes it to the side, fingers raking through it to force it to stop, sit, STAY- “I, Alice Riddle-Tongue,” She begins, curled and looping letters blooming from the nib in a smooth line of glittery ink. It takes a moment for her letters to catch up with her mouth, of course, because it is important that it be legible. The recipe won’t do Diamond much good if he can’t read it, hm? “Daughter Life who was born of Mother Death, Sister to the Cicadas and Keeper of Creations great and small charge Diamond thus-” A pause. She gathers her words like river stones, looking for the smoothest and shiniest and prettiest - “Every seven days, he will follow his mother and father to my temple with an offering, be it drawn or written or cooked in the hearth, and he will leave it-” She pauses, flow interrupted. A soft, conspiratorial whisper. “Diamond? Can you describe the temple for me?”

Diamond hesitates as Alice settles beside him. She’s a god. But he’s tired, and she picked him up earlier with none of the wariness his parents fail to hide from him, and…

His fragile will cracks when Alice brushes her hair out of the way, and he cautiously leans against her side, head resting on her upper arm. Her skin is cool. It soothes the edges of the headache that’s been starting to build as he tries to answer her questions. 

He stays there, if Alice lets him; watches her write, skilled dark hands crafting glittering lines, and listens to the smooth, poetic rhythm of her voice. 

A rhythm that falters, coaxing out a fond smile and a silent breath of a laugh. Alice’s whisper has the air of a hushed conversation in a theater—a furtive attempt to avoid interrupting her own performance. It feels almost like an invitation behind the curtain, intentional or not.

“Sure. Ah…” Diamond straightens, fluffy brows furrowing with soft concentration as he calls the layout to mind.

“The temple looks like a cottage, with a garden in front. Inside, the middle part is this big room for, ah… groups. Meetings. Mostly the chairs are set up in lines, but sometimes there are tables or pillows. People hang things on the walls — quilts, and art, and news, and feathers and things they’ve found. It changes. There are some shelves where kids can put things they find or make, too.”

He lifts his hands to frame the air, describing a central building with two offshoots. “The chapel’s its own… wing? On one side. It has a — hm.” Atrium. He knows this, but only as a ghost-word; the wrong language. Diamond grimaces and flaps that hand. “An open part, in the roof, and a pool below.” Diamond’s expression softens as he looks around Alice’s room. “Kind of like here… less stuff, but with a fountain, and altar, and plants. It’s peaceful.”

He points to the other imaginary wing on the opposite side of the temple. “The other part is the ob—ob-serv-atory, and greenhouse. I haven’t been in it, but I’ve seen bugs in the greenhouse through the glass. And then… behind the temple, between the wings, there’s another garden. It has—”

        She’s not supposed to be out at the merch table.  Doesn’t wanna cause a riot or anything.  At least, not yet.

        But sometimes she likes to scope the crowd.  Crucify her. Tonight it’s paying off, though.  She likes the redhead on the edge of the crowd, all snarls and shoulders.  She leans in.