#someday i'll do actual posts instead of writing in the tags i promise

[angelofchaos001]

Meet Shale!

Okay I made a proper introductory post for Shale! (Schist will come once I figure out their design) I'll make them a separate post for all the dialogue I came up with.

some spoilers for the game but not a lot, also tagging time: @doodlebug091 @mellow-mooon @sawyer-is-eepy @a-crawling-chaos (Just poking at my followers/moots who I know like Outer Wilds)

Alright! Let's start the bidding at this beauty of a reference. I know it's got some messy colors and no I don't know which layer the two random dots are on to erase them, but I'm proud because I drew this without needing to reference someone else's posing art. I just used my own arms and legs to figure it out and winged it and it looks like a person. I'm proud.

While we're on the topic, I might as well discuss my thought process for their design. This is Shale when they're not busy exploring dangerous ice asteroids. I tried to make the design look comfortable, and that's the main thought behind it. Shale likes scarves. They like fingerless gloves. They like baggier shorts. They despise long pants. They don't like wearing bright colors. They like grays and browns. It's Shale in their peak of comfort.

And then we've got this one! Also done without a pose reference. I actually did draw a whole spacesuit originally, but then covered it up with that big coat they're wearing. Anyway, Shale's suit is designed to be bulky, thick, insulted, everything they'd need to explore space properly. But to add onto that, they brought the scarf and coat for extra warmth on the Interloper. A lot of their patchwork fixes were done by them on the fly, and they even made their viola case all on their own. Shale uses yellow as their bright coloration because they hate the color orange. They have a ton of rope, ice picks, and grippy boots because they knew they were going to an ice place. And that antennae on their helmet is meant to pick up distant signals, so far it has not picked up anything new.

Now it's time for what nobody came here for, the infodump about their history and personality!

Shale developed a fascination with space at a very young age. Extremely young. All it took was young Shale getting one look through a telescope to become completely obsessed with the idea that they, someday, would join the well-known travelers out there and do something legendary. Sometimes, when things lined up right, Shale got to opportunity to talk to the travelers over radio. They loved hearing stories of Feldspar's glory and dreamed to be immortalized like they were.

Once they were allowed to join Outer Wilds Ventures and start learning how to be an astronaut, Shale wasted no time being both a delight to teach and an absolute headache to watch over. Whenever they weren't learning or doing their part in the village (Shale helped keep the observatory clean), they were working on their own little project. With some help from Slate, they attempted to make a jetpack just like the spacesuits had. They got precisely two attempts at this before they were shut down, but the first attempt went off mostly fine. Despite the device not working, Shale landed mostly safely in the water and their only injuries were some scrapes and a sprained ankle.

Shale never stopped writing new ideas, but didn't physically attempt any more jetpacks for a while. Instead, they focused on studying and getting closer to the other trainees they were learning alongside. They did grow close to the protagonist, and another recruit named Tin, though weren't able to click as well with the slightly older hearthians, Schist and Bismuth. Most of their time was still spent with their mentors, but whenever hatchling wasn't working with Hal on the translator, Shale liked to be around them.

When they were a little older and nearing the end of their training, Shale made their second attempt at the jetpack, and came out with a promising result. However, this attempt went far poorer than the previous one. For one, they moved the attempt location to avoid being caught by anyone, sneaking away to some of the further-out geysers with Tin (in case something impossibly went wrong). They even snuck a spacesuit (yoinked from the Zero-G cave), since their plan was to launch from a geyser and leave the planet, just for a moment (They didn't take the jetpack there because the entire point here was testing theirs).

The plan went smoothly, with Shale indeed getting launched from the geyser and coming close to leaving the orbit of the planet, except for the part where their jetpack failed. Catastrophically. It actually exploded on their back, pretty much destroying the "borrowed" suit, but more critically, burning Shale badly. Luckily, they had brought someone else with them, so Tin was able to (try and) catch them so the fall wouldn't kill 'em and then get help for them.

Shale got taken to be medically treated, and everyone agrees they're incredibly lucky to have survived as well as they did. In spite of the massive burns, the suit protected them from the worst of it and it was really only their back that got hurt severely. While the smaller burns along their neck and arms healed fine, much of their back burns scarred and took a lot of time and effort to heal.

So. Obviously Shale got in massive trouble.

Such trouble that not only did they move their launch date back (both for recovery reasons and punishment reasons) significantly, but the others considered forcing Shale out of the space program. In the end, Shale was allowed to stay a recruit as long as they 1) Did not try that again 2) Agreed not to sneak around again 3) Helped repair the suit they'd broken and 4) Spent some time after healing not being in the program (think getting suspended). While in this suspension period, Shale got to watch Schist launch off, still fantasizing about that being them.

Shortly after Schist was Bismuth, and as Shale's own launch date approached they were eager. Tin launched a few days before their own, and so Shale spent a lot of time reassuring them that it'd be fine and they'd do great things. Eventually, it was finally Shale's turn. After camping with Slate (and having an amazing conversation about 'Why did you do the stupid thing' - 'Why did you let me do the stupid thing'), they set off for their ambition: The Interloper. They were determined to find out where it came from.

This ambition proved harder than they'd thought, but it didn't deter Shale from their goal. They became an avid studier of ghost matter by extension of their Interloper studies, and theorized a lot about what happened to the core of the asteroid and it's origins. They also spent some time studying how to make ships designed for deep space, hoping that the frozen Nomai ship they found on the asteroid could hold the answer for that.

Some time later, Tin sent everyone frantic radio messages to come back to Timber Hearth and that they'd discovered something new. Tin desperately tried to explain how they'd found a new hidden spinning disk thing, but as time passed with Tin being unable to provide real evidence, Hearthians began dismissing their claims. Shale was one of the last to give up on Tin's ideas, but eventually waved them off as mad like everyone else. They feel bad for Tin and their situation, but don't disagree with their grounding and truly believe their friend went a little crazy.

After that, some time passed, and then we hit the events of the game. They did radio Hatchling plenty of reassuring words before their launch, though!

[galionne-speeding]

Wait body horror? Hurt/Comfort? Yes please explain 👀

Alright so I'll preface this by saying the idea came from this post (and the reactiosn to it).

I have a bad track record of starting projects and never finishing them so I'll just dump the semi-detailled summary under the cut ; maybe someday I'll write the story. Maybe (probably) I won't.

Content warning for robot 'gore'/torture and robot body horror (in a sense, I guess?). Also topics of trauma and depression.

The story was meant to be told in three chapters: Carcass, Limbo and Recovery.

- - -

Carcass begins with Bocoe, alone in a dark room somewhere deep in Eggman's lair, held up by chains hanging from the ceiling. Everything below his chest is gone. Cables and bits of plastic and metal hang loosely out of his torso. He's still conscious as two pairs of robotic arms are slowly and meticulously taking him apart piece by piece.

At some point he, Decoe and Bokkun tried to escape from Eggman's lair- but their boss' Badniks were quick to catch up to them. Realizing they wouldn't be able to flee much longer, Bocoe allowed himself to be captured to buy Deco and Bokkun some time so they could take an escape shuttle. Now as punishment for his act of mutiny (and, Bocoe assumes, to make an example out of him) Eggman is having him dismantled while still powered on, slowly- from the feet up. (This Eggman is uncharacteristically cruel, but I'm not really interested in being canon-compliant here). Bocoe has no idea how long he's been down there- his sense of time is completely gone. Most of his other senses too, actually. His sight is still there but the room is so dark all he can see are occasional sparks and not much else.

Bocoe and Decoe always wanted to run away together and take Bokkun with them, live somewhere peaceful... But as Bo feels something snap in his neck and his head drop backwards, lolling limply as it's only held up by a few thin cables, he knows this life is no longer for him.

- - -

Limbo begins with Bocoe "waking up". He doesn't remember losing consciousness but somehow, he realizes instantly that something is very wrong with his body. He can't hear. Can't see. Cannot feel anything ; as though floating in a complete void. He tries to move but even something as simple as blinking suddenly seems impossible. Then a single word echoes directly into his head:

"Hello."

He doesn't recognize the voice- because there is nothing to recognize. It's flat. Emotionless. It has no tone or anything that could make it distinct in any way.

"Bocoe."

Bocoe tries to respond and manages to awkwardly string a few letters together, before finally uttering a "hello" in a voice that isn't his- instead it is the exact same one that has been talking to him. There is a long pause and Bocoe briefly wonders if this is some kind of dying hallucination. Then suddenly:

"It's me. It's Decoe."

Bocoe is in shock, but as Decoe continues talking he realizes that he's telling the truth. De goes on to explain that Bocoe was trapped in Eggman's lair for nearly two months, until Sonic and his friends attacked the Eggbase (for reasons unrelated to Bo's predicament). Decoe was allowed to tag along and searched the entire base for Bocoe until he finally found him in the scrap storage room. Or at least, he found what was left of him: a broken motherboard, two processors and a hard disk drive. His entire body, every little piece of him had been stripped and destroyed. For nearly a month now Decoe had been trying to bring his consciousness back and only managed to do so today ; by hooking the surviving parts to a specially modified computer. It's a temporary solution, he promises. He's working on building a new body for Bocoe, just like his old one. For now, Decoe and Bokkun can talk to him by typing...

Bocoe is happy to be back. But being stuck in a simple computer is hell.

Aside from not having any senses of touch, sight, hearing, etc... Even his own feelings are reduced to basically nothing. Unlike his former body that was made specifically so he could be as close to possible as a living being, this machinery is horrifyingly simple. Feelings of joy, sadness, and anger are too complex for binary coding. It cannot process any of it, so even though Bocoe desperately wants to feel those things again he physically cannot experience them and is stuck as an unfeeling block of circuitry. His thoughts, too, are stunted- anything too complex overwhelms his systems immediately. He can only speak in short, basic sentences.

It's hell, but he's pushing through for the sake of Decoe and Bokkun...

- - -

Recovery starts on a beach. Bokkun is drawing in the sand with a large stick. Decoe is sat on a blanket, watching him. Next to him, Bocoe sits quietly. He's been in his new body for two weeks now and, slowly, is re-learning everything it has forgotten over the past year.

Walking. Speaking. Balance. Touch. Hearing. Emotions. He has to learn how to process everything again.

Bright colors make him dizzy ; strong smells and bright lights overwhelm him easily. He still needs Decoe's help to get up and walk. He still has nightmares about being disassembled and being stuck in a computer again. Then there's the unshakeable feeling of loss- a year of his life he will never get back. A year of watching Bokkun grow up that he missed ; a year of Decoe being forced to take his place as the little imp's caretaker. There are days where he can barely get out of bed.

Today, thankfully, is not one of those days.

Today he gets to watch Bokkun play in the sand, enjoy the sun on his face, the sound of the waves, the smell of salty air and Decoe's fingers entangled with his.

After an hour or so, Decoe asks him if he'd like to go home for lunch. Bocoe nods and as he tries to get up, he hears Bokkun drop his stick and immediately run to him to try to help. He slowly stands up and leans on Decoe for support, while taking Bokkun's hand. The three of them set off, talking about what to have for lunch.

[ohmyoverland]

Fic Writer Questions

Thanks for the tag @anything-thats-rock-and-roll :D

1. How many fics do you have on AO3? 26

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 25, 570

3. What fandoms do you write for? Except for a few one-offs and my 3 Anne With An E fics, I write Lockwood & Co. 💚⚔

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

After Chameleon, an unbetad Miraculous Ladybug salt fic written before the actual episode had come out. It accidentally blew up asldkfjhjkl

On My Mind, a Detroit: Become Human rk1k ficlet where Connor can read minds.

All the Words I Don't Have, pure grade A Locklyle fluff

are we out of touch, are we out of time? AWAE Season 3 speculative fic that is actually an expanded version of a tumblr post I wrote after the penultimate episode of the series premiered.

wavering, my cot3 pining + character study fic. I'm really proud of it and I promise chapter 3 is coming eventually lmao

5. Do you respond to comments? I don't 😭 I want to but I never know what to say and before I know it, the comment is 2 years old oops. I reread comments all the time ❤

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? That's tough to say for sure but I think every lessons forms a new scar ending with an off-screen character death is probably the most angst I've ended with so far.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? That would have to be All the Words I Don't Have again. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. And Lockwood writes some really bad poetry.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not so far.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I do sometimes, and it's not published yet.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Another Change of Plans is the most tumblr WIP I have lol. It dares to start asking the question, "What if the Old Guard adopted Adam Young, the antichrist from Good Omens?"

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Sort of? There was one collab fic I wrote a scene for but it never got finished. Someday I might post my part, because ngl I'm pretty proud of the Skull/Lucy banter in it.

13. What’s your all time favorite ship? How could I ever choose??? By bookmark stats, it would be Marinette and Adrien from Miraculous Ladybug. But cot3 (Lockwood & Co) and Superbat (DC) are up there too.

14. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? A better question is what isn't a WIP I'll never finish??? I have dozens 😭 Though one that stands out is an old Frozen fic I outlined in I think 2018(?). The premise is a canon divergence where Anna's death is faked when they're children and she's raised in the village instead of in the castle. There are two full acts that are just set up for a The Prince And Me/Princess Diaries-esque rom-com between suddenly-a-princess Anna and just-a-normal-guy Kristoff.

The outline on its own is about 8k words, and frankly I've considered editing and posting the outline itself before because it's detailed enough. This fic is actually a drabble I wrote to take place within my AU, but it reads canon compliant enough of its own so I posted it.

15. What are your writing strengths? Ideas. I am always getting new plot bunnies, always getting excited about the next great idea, always thinking about new aspects of these worlds and characters I want to explore.

16. What are your writing weaknesses? Dialogue and volume. That's why I write so many descriptive, very short fics XD

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I'd only do it in a language I've studied for a couple years, and even then I would want a native speaker to read over it for me. But it hasn't come up yet?

I do really like Superbat or Star Trek fics where the author sparingly includes Kryptonian / Klingon / Vulcan with a translation at the end.

18. First fandom you wrote for? My Little Pony, or maybe Percy Jackson?? I'm too scared to check my old accounts to see which came first, if I ever even posted the fics I remember writing then at all.

19. Favorite fic you’ve written? building glass castles for sure!!! I love the atmosphere in it, and the monologue from Skull. That monologue came to me in the middle of the night once, so I had to type it up immediately and build the fic around it later.

No pressure tags @sabetha @synestheticwanderings @abumperprize @lenacarstairspotterstewart @woahpip @flythesail @shizuoi

[wish-i-were-heather]

what's your favorite conan gray song?

soo this is my 100 follower event? wow okay 100 is a big number (well actually 180 now wtf stop following me im not that funny). im lowkey shocked because its been 15 days... i accidentally deleted my blog and then remade this new one 15 days ago. thats like barely 2 weeks? so, uh, thats a lot very fast. i love every single one of you thank you so much for caring about the stupid things i have to say and my silly little fics <33 ~ [INTRO POST HERE]

followers...

LOOKALIKE~ i'll assign you a fictional character that you/your blog reminds me of and explain why!!

"i know in your head you see me instead, cause he looks a lot like i did back then. baby don't lie, it's just a lookalike"

LONELY DANCERS~ i'll give you a song based on the aesthetic of you/your blog!!

"we're lonely dancers, join me for the night. we're lonely dancers baby, dance with me so we don't cry"

GENERATION WHY~ ask me any question and i'll answer truthfully!! (within reason ofc, i'm not giving out my address)

"we get into trouble and loose our minds, something that i've heard a million times in my life, generation why"

MOVIES~ i'll ship you with a fictional character and make a moodboard for you two (pls give gender/any other preferences)

"in my head we're dancing in the dark, in my head we kiss under the stars. but we know that's not what we're doing, cause baby this ain't like the movies"

BOYS AND GIRLS~ i'll make an edit of pretty much anyone/anything (fictional or not, but this is a very vague so pls pls pls give details)

"i want you, i want you, i want you to need me. i need you, i need you, i need you to love me. i want you, i want you, like everyone else here tonight"

PEOPLE WATCHING~ i'll write a short oneshot (under 1k words) about any character x reader or ship

"i wanna feel all that love and emotion, be that attached to the person i'm holding. someday i'll be falling without caution, but for now i'm only people watching"

HEATHER~ i'll give you an outfit specifically with a sweater i think you'd wear, hence the song

"you gave her your sweater, it's just polyester but you like her better, i wish i were heather"

moots only...

BEST FRIEND~ where we'd go/what we'd do if we hung out together + moodboard

"that's my fucking lifeline, thats my ride or die like, thats my fucking hate you but you know that that's a damn lie. baby you're my best friend, best friend"

(CAN WE BE FRIENDS?)~ i'll tell you my first impression of you (none are negative i promise)

"could you be my best friend? let's hang out every weekend. go driving every night, stare at people that we like"

rules/extra

1~ please give any specific details you want for any (like trope of the fic or song for the edit, etc) 2~ i'm not very organized so idk how many i'll do per day 😭 but you send however many you want just one per day per person pls 3~ i don't have a date for how long it's just until i say it's done because im indecisive...

tagging <3

@maybxlle

@lauffey

@myhyperfixationisbooks

@never-enough-novels

@apollosmusee

@xoxonxo

@sweetnnaivete

@whatsamongus

@pinkwinesupernovas

@letmeliveinelfhame

@two-braincells-in-total

@tornqdowarnings

@littlemissmentallyunstable

@nqds

@ramblings-of-lola

@lxvebelle

@alwaysthefangirl

@just-tough-love

@riordanness

@reyreadersblog

im tagging some of my moots but any of you can request the moots only stuff even if ur not tagged- and if ur not tagged then omg i wanna get to know u more!! <3

THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE I LOVE U AHH

[araekniarchive]

Do you remember who all those tags belong to? On your poetry-in-the-tags post

Oh boy. Here we go.

The only tag I remember-remember is @searchingforserendipity25's, because she's the loml and I was super psyched to include her and hype her up as she's always doing the same for me. Her tag was:

Whilst I don't know any of the others off the top of my head, I am juuust nuts enough to go back and find them all again (which isn't quite as huge an undertaking as it sounds, as they're all tags from a) the last month, and b) in posts reblogged from this blog) so if you get tagged/are just curious, look under the read more for the rest.

I didn't put the tags in chronological order in the post itself, just mixed them up until they felt right, but in the interests of my not going insane, the following tags are in the chronological order (most recent to oldest), not the order they're in on the post. I'll put the tag/reblog I used first, and then tag the person who wrote it afterward in brackets - if anybody would prefer their name not be listed here/connected to the tags (which I totally get, as usually they're v anonymous and limited only to your followers and the op of whatever you reblog) then let me know and I'll remove you from the list <3 If a person has more than one tag on the list, I will put then all in the same bullet point, but seperate them out with an and in italics.

Final note: as the original post has moved so far beyond my immediate followers, a lot of the reblogs I get on it are saying 'actually this isn't original poetry, sorry to tell you this is ____' - and I promise you're not telling me something I don't already know. I'm a quotes blog; part of the beauty of words is that they can be reused, and that somebody in my tags is quoting something is really not news to me. Poetry is poetry is poetry; this is about appreciation of that, first and foremost, and how lovely it is to find in the tags of something you've made.

I'm so sorry, my love. I deserve this destruction (@ladygrinnxngsoul)

#we fell apart like two branches from the same tree; your name overlaps my orchard; do you remember me? and #ill write my own happy ending // i beg for this not to end in tragedy (@pari-prince)

#wasting years chasing ghosts (@ciaran)

#no better love that ever has loved me (@wangjjs)

#last one is me listening to almost the entirety of 'we have always lived in the castle' and not remembering a single thing #because me and ***** were listening together and i couldn't not think of him instead (@felfeslik)

#i want a love that falls as fast as a body from a balcony (@iiiphigenia)

#somedays i take my memories and play pretend // not reliving pasts // just dream that it only existed in my head // perhaps it did (@aflowerherself)

#this hunger cannot be sated (@amaratayakul)

#oh my madness and #more on my cruelty and strange wishes #and mortified were my desires (@wigilda)

#so cold no fire can warm me (@hurricane-in-a-teacup)

#oh lover loveless take me take me by my hair take me to your lair (@hornbachers)

#'I would have died for you but I never had the luck' (@captain-lovelace)

#if you're hurting so am i (@lyriumrain)

look at the clouds in the sky they mean nothing and yet they are there and they are pretty. isn't that nice? (@strangewomanwithanefariousagenda)

#tenderness sharper than any razor (@bookwyrmbran)

#i have no other homeland but you and #i want to be a body for you (@immoralsofties)

#if you be the one to cut me i'll bleed forever (@lokahjarta)

#thinking abt the time my mom tried to explain the love she had for her children to me and my sister #n she told us abt how when she was a kid and living in korea n how a lot of the time they couldn't afford food. just basic shit. and how #when her mom my 할머니 would always take the head of the fish when she cooked #and she said that it was the best part and the most flavorful #and my mom learned years later that it was bc the fish head has the least amount of meat. and she had always left the majority of the food #for her kids #and my mom used to do the same exact thing when she was raising us #and then she said i didn't get it back then i didn't get it when she told me about it #but when i had u guys i got it then!! (@solipsism-lemonade)

#it squeezes and writhes (and we call it love) (@zoanzon)

#as certain dark things are to be loved (@pierremichelofavignon)

#we are all just trying to be holy (@sleepysunshines)

#'it starts with a lamb and ends with the murder of the very person you should love most' and 'i pity thee who lovest what must perish' // 'and i thee who lov'st nothing' (@evakant)

#when the world does not leave you room for love it doesn't simply disappear #it reshapes itself #into something cruel and monstrous and greedy and desperate and terrible and still. #there is love. (@danielederossi)

i loved you as icarus loved the sun. too close, too much. (@dearestdeaths)

#this whole cursed love #and i will wage wars in your name (@kikidiesunddas)

#i am desperate for a language to hold me (@parallelwebs)

#i call you and you don't come. i love you and you don't come (@ashineintheblue)

#you are not obligated to finish it; you are not free to abandon it #you cannot stop spring from coming (@dialux)

#yesterday i thought and went. I think I already lost the person who was the light and the person who understood and maybe it cripples me (@iammissingautumn)

#[ no matter how long we hold it in our trembling hands ] (@letisnotonfire)

#you wanted to burn (@meradorm)

#i am your echo. i would rather break the world than lose you (@clacing)

#we call up our angels to cut us down (@thegreyunderstanding)

#our hands dirtied by the other's desire; i will declare my love with a slaughter (@horrifically)

#our hands empty except for our hands (@youngestdaughtersyndrome)

#hmm. #this again. this always maybe (@trulydarling)

#some day i want to write letters like this to the girl i love (@zhouxus)

#the colour of anger and love is red (@jaamun)

#what if we traded hands? (@touyaz)

#what you touch touches you back (@wantingbuthopingitnot)

you were the brightest shade of sun i had ever seen. (@mcginnis)

you die like angels sing (@cloudheaded)

I know I haven't included all of them - I probably missed them, I got quite tired toward the end - but it's not an intentional snub or anything - if you think one of the unclaimed tags is yours, lmk and I'll check it/you out to see :)