#Smite me down

[themagicfolf]

I just rhymed Steel with Steal

I have commited an unforgivable sin

[transfemmegeddylee]

In honor of me rediscovering prosenna I am writing scat

[obsob]

beloved!!!

[objectumnonsense]

thinking this evening about robots (as usual of course) but specifically those robots who have no genitals, nor desire for them, nor really any way to experience pleasure in a "human" way. maybe they're work bots not made with sex in mind, or building-sized supercomputers with no sense of touch outside of user interface areas.

thinking about intimacy with a body (or bodies) that love in a slightly different language. metal hands holding warm flesh, digging in, with the power to tear away but the care and restraint not to. a comforting voice that surrounds and whispers sweet nothings while rooms of servers and screens hum and pulse with want want want.

will you pry away its chassis and adore its insides the same way it adores yours? tangle your fingers in its wires, pull them a little when you bring your hand away to caress its face? it's the trust it takes for it to let you in so close to its heart that makes you shiver. trace the grooves in its body, so precise and intentional in their placement; find the place where it falls apart and speed up the process.

listen to its voice glitch and skip while it tries to relay what you're doing to it. hear the mechanical keening when you reach its central processing arrays, every brush of your skin on its metal sending its thoughts into a hazy, static-filled loop of touch touch touch.

you're who gets to see it like this. who gets to make it fall apart. it's a thrill like nothing else.

[uselessalexis165]

they are both dorks and i love them 💛🧡

[soudeorabisk]

another redraw EEEEE of my favorite villain of the season and their explosive charms 🥁 BADUM TSSSSS.

[radbrott]

Duke Fishron

[ootah-canadiensis]

STRIIIIIDERRRRR!

I wanted to see how I would interpret the very... very strange anatomy of the Strider. And let me tell you, I had a very tough time figuring out the damned thing.

First of all, You might notice a huge lack of the carapace that covers the Strider's legs and main body, that is because I've figured that the exoskeleton is largely artificial as the other synths seem to have it (with exception of the Hunter,) and that inclined me to believe that the Strider didn't naturally have it, and without it It would largely be that dark green musculature, which of course any living thing would have some form of skin and not exposed muscle. Another point towards the carapace being artificial is how it segments, appears to have bolts and of course, the ventilation on it's back. All of these factors would lead a pretty clear image that the synths originally had other forms of covering, with maybe some exception of the Dropship.

And of course, the mouth and "hand." The mouth is where the particle cannon of the Strider was, as it appears there are vestigial compound eyes next to it, and following the evolutionary advantage of the eyes being close to the mouth, as to know what you're eating... It only makes sense to put the mouth there. One thing that I also noticed in the HL:A model for the strider is that a small piece of musculature seems to "wrap around" where the particle cannon is, which I think might be some form of lip structure?

Next down the line on the head region are the bolts downwards of the giant "bolts" grafted onto the side of the neck, which I believe cover where the ears might've been? In my sketch you can see two frog-like tympanic tissues there. Since the Strider naturally is pretty fuckin' tall, it probably wouldn't need extensive protection for the ears (and also because it was easier for me to draw.)

And the next is... The hanging sack of meat that is the Warp Cannon. God, that was just so challenging to try and rationalise how and why a creature would even have something like it. And yet rationalise I did, as I made it where it is able to grasp things and function as a hand or arm, which inside of it is also it's reproductive organs which are more often than not sealed away like a cloaca or something.

Lastly, the feet of the Strider. I wanted to make sure that it's rounded end was still noticeable, while also resembling like an actual functioning foot. Which I ended up with a soft foot with 5 toes arranged in a star pattern. I had to add that in because it wasn't very clear on my sketch of the foot. I also ended up adding those hairs as sensitive whiskers.

And now for my own personal interpretations for its behaviour pre-combine (as if EVERYTHING wasn't my own personal interpretation beforehand)

In HL:A, you can hear "speech" from the Striders. That is something that caught my attention, and I think that might suggest that the Striders were also just as intelligent as us, just in their own way. As for their culture and society... I'm not sure, if someone wanted to use this as a base for something, be my guest :) At minimum their intelligence could be compared to something like an elephant.

And their feeding habits I imagine are a lot like sauropods of earth, using their rake-like teeth to strip off food such as branches or whatever their native flora might've been like. And speaking of their immense height to reach those glorious foods that most other animals can't get too...

They must have been on a planet with lower gravity, I mean just listen to their walking sounds in-game. Do your legs make creaking sounds just by walking? Their legs are clearly under stress from holding up their weight on Earth's gravity, and because of their new-found body's composition of being made of Combine stuff, their legs won't break! But if you were to place a pre-combine Strider on earth, their legs would- should shatter from their immense scale.

And their ears, I think that the Striders largely communicated through infrasound, largely making noises below our range of hearing which they would have naturally heard with their two sets of ears. With exception from the infrasonic communication being that of the deafening howls and "craggles" as I like to call them. And for their sound design in Half-Life: Alyx? I think those may be sounds that are generated from some kind of Combine tech. Not sure, though.

And I believe that is all I have to say, it was delightful trying to figure out just how the Striders probably would've functioned before the combine came along and mutilated them. And it was so incredibly hard not to have the Strider's warp cannon not be exactly what it looks like. If anything was hard to understand, I apologise since I wrote this all in one sitting and didn't have the time or patience to read it over. This will probably be my last Half-Life post like this unless I still have other ideas for how a lot of the aliens of this lovely franchise live beyond being an obstacle for Gordon to bash with a crowbar

[gingermintpepper]

Hello! I want to know... Besides Hyacinthus, who is your fav Apollo's lover (male or female)? I really love Cyrene 🤭

Oho, thank you so much for the ask!

There are a couple candidates that immediately come to mind tbh. I'm not the sort that has a strict OTP sense when it comes to Apollo because I imagine there's importance in each of the affairs of the gods that are written about - there must be some reason that we remember their names and stories even now, y'know?

Ultimately, I have a brief selection of the lovers of Apollo whose stories I have personal and vested interest in with no particular preference except maybe for Evadne who, if I were forced to give only one additional favourite besides Hyacinthus, I would probably say it's her.

As for why I prefer Evadne over all the great and powerful romances Apollo has had; maybe it's just because I'm a sucker for the ooey-gooey romances but there's something so sweet about Evadne and Apollo's relationship and the consequent relationship Apollo has with Iamus, his and Evadne's son. I also love the subtle politics of such a relationship - from Evadne's side, yes she's a princess but more importantly, she's one of Poseidon's inhuman daughters - a child between Poseidon and a nymph - and the child between her and Apollo - a son of Zeus - goes on to become the father of a long line of famous prophets for the King of the Gods himself. That makes Iamus one of those rare children of a major god who is not divine but certainly not human either, something that is further exacerbated by the fact that for the first five days of his life, Iamus is cared for by his father who ensures that the baby is fed not milk but honey from the fangs of a snake.

All in all, it's not a very remarkable story in the grand scheme of things. There's no big drama like with Admetus and there's no great tragedy like with Coronis or Melia. Apollo doesn't act particularly noteworthy in either Pindar or Hyginus' account of the tale like he does for Cyrene or Branchus and the end result is a line of prophets sacred to Zeus and the Olympia oracle - a classic example of Apollo in his role as father to the great prophets and wisemen and yet something about the gentleness of Apollo in his affair with Evadne has always captivated me.

Evadne, who so feared her father that she would abandon her newborn child just to spare herself his anger, was able to trust and love Apollo. Likewise, Apollo did not once abandon her, sending the most blessed of attendants to help in her birthing and automatically stepping in to make sure Iamus was fed, clothed and warm until his mother returned for him. It's something about a young Iamus going into the River Alpheus - an ancient stream - and calling out for his purpose from his father and grandfather. It's something about Apollo's immediate and calm response and the way he leads the youth to the temple that will be his destiny and personally educates him in the ways of divination.

It's just one of those stories that always sticks out to me for the portrait of a father and lover it sketches of Apollo, even in a seemingly innocuous myth such as this one.

[frnkiebby]

20 days in a row i’ve been in jail. i think that’s impressive lmao

frankkkk (extra today as i forgot yesterdays cause i was freaking out over mcr again)

yeah that’s pretty impressive and also mildly concerning. tumblr needs to relax its sentencing. or do a slowdown period or smth….like less than 24hrs or whatever~🎃

[moregraceful]

max and i are closing in on launching [redacted sports rpf charity fest] and i am once again pondering how do i write "experience with writing form emails and manipulating google forms in ways no one has dreamed of" in a cover letter without saying "i did it for the rpf grind"...like there's no way unless everyone in this microsoft teams meeting gets really cool about a bunch of stuff really quickly. you know

[ratatatastic]

florida panthers @ boston bruins game 6 | 5.17.24 (x)

[obbystars]

SIGH one day i’ll actually finish these two pieces and actually draw them being little haters

sebastian is honestly kinda fun to draw but i cannot for the life of me draw the mouth the way i want to and it’s pissing me off

meanwhile idk how tf im gonna draw my avatar’s clothes, let alone the coat hanging from their shoulders

[full-of-malice]

i sometimes feel like the community can give allos the wrong idea of what it is and feels like to be asexual or aromantic, and especially both.

like i feel when searching for perspectives you either find that being aroace is the greatest thing that ever happened it's so cool and swag or that's it's utterly miserable. when it's more then often both. it's a big package of good and bad.

it's part of you which means it's something so beautiful and powerful and right and wonderful and that's something to be proud of.

on the flip side as a romance favorable aroace person, it hurts like shit. i know that i won't feel like other people. i want to seek out a relationship but i know i'll never love them the way that they deserve and the way that any other person could love them because i will never feel romantically attracted to them. i feel the need to disclose this to people because i don't want to hurt them. i don't want to be a shitty person just for trying to find a relationship.

i've seen allos online claim how Easy it would be to be aroace. oh how they wish they were aroace no more crushes no more problems.

they don't realize that society is so romance and sex focused that you are forgotten and left to the side. and that even your own community might not support you if you aren't perfect. they fail to realize that people around you won't believe you or care. that society tricks you so you feel like you're missing out on things. being queer means that conservatives hates you and even if you don't feel attraction to anyone they still want you dead. like it is not all sunshine dragons and rainbows i swear to god.

also a completely different gripe but i will Kill the asexual extra free time jokes with my bare hands goodness gracious

[detectiveneve]

sniffling and crying downloading 10 pdfs of dnd lore books so I can read about the universe so I can accurately write about it. start crying even more when I have a lore question and the reddit conversation reads like "you fucking idiot this was contradicted 15 years ago!" "idk ask your DM you can do what you want" "ACTUALLY you cannot do what you want. read THIS book--" "okay well larian plays fast and loose with the lore anyways." "kill yourself." "okay."

[extraaa-30]

broke: crowley tempted the senate to stab caesar

woke: crowley tempted the senate to stab caesar because aziraphale was upset about the library of alexandria

bespoke: aziraphale was in rome as part of the arrangement. he's the one who tempted the senate to stab caesar (and ten billion burned books cried out for vengeance) 😇📚😌🔪

---

*yes i know this was pre-arrangement but for the sake of unhinged delight no it wasn't

post inspired by this art