#meteor words

[voca-song-a-day]

Today's featured song is: "Meteor Words" by HYBRID SENSE feat. Utatane Piko!

(Also, today is the 14th anniversary of Piko's release!)

[fyllophobia]

[givehimthemedicine]

[i-likegamesbut-cant-playthem]

a karkat being punched i made last year.

[thefastestclockintheuniverse]

There was a lot of reluctance towards fate/fighting I noticed in tonight's pages. Rose's seemed motivated by... almost ennui. Dave's by... principal, would you call that? And Jake... okay it's not quite the same thing as the others - but he just wants the adventure to end and to go home.

[trilingualwannabe]

Romance at Midnight Kismet

Meeting you felt 

galactic, cinematic, 

by no means erratic. 

An inky night sky. 

The type to make you cry. 

Aloft a glassy moon, 

the ones you sing

your tunes to. 

Beset a manifold 

of steely stars. 

Asteroids resting on mars. 

A meteor emerges, 

extirpates the dusk, 

leaving a trail of lucent dust.

Hastily soaring,

my eyes stopped ignoring.

In the whole galaxy, 

You fleeted for me. 

Call it, 'celestial intimacy'.

[nevesmose]

Meteor, Trailing Light

Not a request - this one's all on me. Reading Dunmeshi and thinking about how Mithrun has enough vague similarities to Fulgrim that his story arc almost-but-not-quite scratches the itch for a sort of whumpy hurt/comfort style redeemed Fulgrim story. And then, as if by magic... (Title taken from the same poem McNeill used for The Reflection Crack'd because I'm a huge fucking nerd.)

Even now he remains the Phoenician, beloved by all and the star around which his warriors orbit.

Fulgrim found it strange to be dead.

And yet that was what had happened, as far as the galaxy at large knew. The traitor Fulgrim slain in single combat by his own best-loved brother Ferrus Manus. Simply one more dead heretic in a galaxy bursting at the seams with them.

The truth, as was so often the case, differed slightly. At the final moment Ferrus Manus had stayed his hand and settled for capturing Fulgrim instead.

Once he was under observation it hadn't taken the Iron Hands long to deduce the connection between him and the cursed Laer blade and, abhorrent as it was to their rational sensibilities, to begin a process of what a more spiritually-inclined observer might have called exorcism.

When their efficient disassembly of the body failed to root out the infection, they had moved on to his mind instead.

He was grateful that he remembered so little of it, except for the sensation of the perfect white silk of his hair falling away as it was shorn off and the high-pitched squeal of a chirurgical saw biting into his skull.

"He may not survive damage to the brain of this magnitude," the cold, artificial voice of a techpriest had announced.

"He's strong enough," came the reply. His brother's voice, organic but infinitely colder. "Burn it out of him."

"My lord Primarch, even if he lives the neurological effects are beyond our ability to determine. His recall and cognition may be permanently altered."

"Understood," Ferrus had growled. "Do it."

He had relearned how to walk, in the end. How to talk and read and write, to feed and clean and dress himself. The medicae had told him his recovery was vastly quicker and more complete than could be expected of any mortal, or even an Astartes.

His hair had grown back dishwater grey and the physical damage was mitigated as far as possible by whatever therapies and augmetics could be adapted to the body of a Primarch, but the gaps in his memories and mental capabilities still lurked around him like ghosts, eager to drag him down at any moment.

How many Astartes in a legion? How to tie the laces of a boot? Sometimes the shame and humiliation of not knowing, of having to need help with such things, made him weep. He had been the Phoenician once. The guiding star to an army of superhumans.

Ferrus had been a constant presence, sitting at his bedside for what felt like days at a time. They had spoken often of the past, over and over again, Ferrus telling him the stories of his own exploits to try to reconnect the burned-away neurons into something approaching a memory.

There had been a smithing competition between them, apparently. Three months at work beneath Mount Narodnya on Terra itself. Ferrus had brought him what he said was Fulgrim's own creation, the great warhammer Forgebreaker, and although Fulgrim had looked at it and appreciated the skill and effort of his past self it simply did not register with him.

He had apologised to Ferrus for not remembering and been sure that it was the first time he had ever seen the Primarch of the Iron Hands cry.

Ferrus often spoke with him about the war, too. The war was going badly. Fulgrim knew with an instinct that must have been imprinted on him at the moment of his creation that the presence of another Primarch on the battlefield, even one so irreparably damaged, could mean the difference between survival and annihilation.

So, like a distant comet being drawn back to its star, he would return to war. When his recovery was deemed to be as complete as it would ever be, he was presented with a suit of black Iron Hands power armour trimmed in dark purple, accompanied by a newly-forged replica of the lost Fireblade.

When he left his chambers Ferrus was waiting for him, clad in his own black warplate.

"One of us is going to have to change," Fulgrim said flatly.

Ferrus chuckled. "It's good to see you like this again, Fulgrim. Come with me. I have something to show you."

"Am I to be an Iron Hand now?" he asked as they walked together, gesturing to his armour.

"If you want. Nobody will care if my closest general happens to be taller than average or look different to the rest of my Legion. There are far worse things happening in the galaxy right now, brother."

Fulgrim slowed to a halt, prompting Ferrus to stop as well.

"Am I still your brother, Ferrus? Even now?"

Ferrus didn't say anything at first, instead favouring him with one of the monumental metal-handed shoulder pats he seemed to reserve for those closest to him.

"You'll always be my brother," he replied. "You're still the only one of the bastards I can stand."

"A truly great honour," Fulgrim smiled.

They moved out onto a raised dais at one end of a large ceremonial chamber liberally decorated with Iron Hands iconography, in the sense that a certain amount of Iron Hands iconography not strictly required for the room's structural integrity was present.

In front of them stood a contingent of black-armoured Iron Hands, a few companies in total, whose plate bore the same dark purple trim as Fulgrim's along with a variety of hoods and cloaks in the same colour.

Fulgrim knew that before, he would have been able to come up with some witty, cutting remark at a time like this. He had even watched old pict footage of himself doing it until the sight of the beautiful, shining Phoenician he'd once been had become too much to bear.

It was so hard for him to get words out now, or sometimes even just to put his thoughts in sufficient order. He settled for a quizzical look at Ferrus instead, who just raised his eyebrows in an expression that on any other face would have looked downright mischievous.

"Iron Phoenixes!" he called out, striding forward. "Remove your helmets!"

In one smooth, well-drilled motion the ranks of Astartes pulled back their hoods and took off their plain black helmets to reveal a sea of white hair and violet eyes, all fixed on Fulgrim.

He realised with a sharp pang of grief that he didn't recognise any individual faces among them, but the overall resemblance was undeniable.

Tears came unbidden to Fulgrim's remaining eye. His sons. Tired, scarred, and far, far too few in number, but nevertheless his sons.

"They followed me?" he asked.

"Of course they did," Ferrus said quietly. "You're the star they orbit around, brother. They would follow you anywhere."

He recalled, hazily, or perhaps just assumed, that in the past he would have remained above them and made some lengthy declamation, most likely about the perfection of the III Legion and its primarch.

It would be beyond laughable to do that now, and in any case he lacked the breath in his lungs and the fluent command of words for such a performance. The moment called for something else.

Slowly, carefully, Fulgrim descended from the dais to stand at the same level as his Astartes. They watched him intently. Even now, broken and diminished as they all were, they still looked instinctively to him with trust and, one could even say, faith.

The sensation was, of all things, humbling. He was sure he would never have thought of it that way before.

"Welcome home," Fulgrim said, holding out his arms to his sons. As if at some mutually-agreed signal the Astartes broke formation and surged towards him, eager to be close to their Primarch, to affirm his survival and their own despite everything.

After what felt like hours, Fulgrim was finally able to extricate himself from the throng of his sons and return to Ferrus, whose craggy features gave every appearance of satisfaction at the reunion he'd arranged.

"Thank you, Ferrus," he said. "Truly. But I have to ask - the Iron Phoenixes, really?"

Ferrus shrugged. "Well, I thought it was a good name. You're welcome to change it to something more artistic if you like."

Fulgrim looked at his sons contemplatively. The Iron Phoenixes, perhaps.

"Let me think about it," he said. "We might just be stuck with it."

[ask-thearchivists]

Are you skibidi sigma rizzlers perchance.

(I want you to know that you could say things that sound like nonsense but as long as the words spoken have a meaning the spell they use to understand and be understood would translate it and be indistinguishable to them as esoteric slang or other languages. So after making sure I knew what exactly those words mean, here is their responses.)

The Charmer: Yes, that is literally my job.

The Coordinator: No it is not. They did not say the word that means your job. They said a bunch of things and one of those is your job. Your job is not flirting!

The Charmer: Well, maybe not directly, since that isn't allowed, but I can act a specific way with plausible deniability as a means of manipulation. That is perfectly okay.

[flowering-darkness]

things I would like to do:

finalise Antares’ design by putting together a reference model for her

maybe also edit a VS sprite for her(?) - and also subsequently edit Adriana’s once I know more of what her new outfit will be

overhaul my carrd because it’s been stuck in a work-in-progress state for months and I haven’t touched it (but need to)

maybe start to work on a new selfship piece for this month - I did repost the Ides of March Camellia/Telanthera renders, but it would still be nice to also post something that’s new, probably using Clio (either in KHUX or FFXIV)

change my blog header to something that is more directly selfship-related (since right now it isn’t at all)

start designing my IAYS self-insert, including establishing her name - I had an idea for what I’ll name her after (a genus of birds, like Ardea), but I never actually went and looked at the list again

just some assorted nice ideas ^-^

[swordmaid]

made jb and shri’iia/astarion kissing from this piccrew heheheheheh

[sevyyi]

when i pass, i wish to return as a meteor shower, brighter and greater than before, something i could only reach for with outstretched hands on earths damp soil.

their glow guides me to the end of the tunnel, and their luminescent shine gives me hope i can return just as beautiful, forming from nothing but fragments of a comet once destroyed. it is selfish, but i’d like to remind my loved ones of me again on a lone dusk, even if i cause grief—i allow myself to think i will.

as pieces of me fade in and out of the night sky, the whole of me will always be by their side.

[remma-demma]

This is how I’m justifying putting homestuck music on their playlist.

Also:

[elvishdemigod]

It's 2am on my BDay and I'm bored as fuck

If there's no clouds where you are and it's still dark out, go look at the sky for me. There's a meteor shower every year on Aug 12, but it was on the 11th this year around. But due to the damn weather, I couldn't see them.

But anygays, happy birthday to me.

[ask-thearchivists]

Why do you guys answer such stupid questions?

The Charmer: I don't know, why am I answering your question?

[gree-gon]

silly meteor antics to beat artblock

do not corrupt the sunshine child

[analyticallyminded]

don't mind me i'm just thinking abt jemma dancing now thanks to that last post

she very much enjoys dancing, though she hasn't done it in quite some time. when she was very young she did ballet (though she stopped around ~10)

and when she was a teenager, her father made sure she took several ballroom dancing classes so she could properly socialize when he forced her to go to his fancy events.

she hasn't done a lot of dancing for fun, but she would absolutely love it. she isn't great with the improvisational aspect, but work with her and be a good lead and she'll catch on fast (she's always been a quick learner).