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togggaaaaa!!!!!!!!!
interested in writing a second part to a short togachako fic i wrote?
i dont really plan on doing anything with this piece so i think it'd be really fun to see people's takes on how to continue it! like a super low pressure writing game
if you do participate, pls tag me or reblog so i can see your contribution!! even if its just a few lines!
the fic is a loose play on frankenstein with some adam & eve elements thrown in (and the unnamed girl is ochako)
have at it! :)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Toga was a bloodied thing, she knew.
She was born with cold metal kissing her bare skin and electricity shrieking down her spine. Her first breath- a choking, cut-off scream- was not even her own, the memory too tightly braided with the boom of Dr. Garaki's laughter in his small laboratory.
I made you, he had explained, pain still ringing oddly in her skull.
She had been made, not born, and no one loved to remind her of this fact more than Dr. Garaki himself.
Pet, he called her, grinning indulgently in his tall, wingback office chair. The reflection of his glasses shone like fire. Like the spark that had jolted her alive.
I made you, he’d say. I made you.
But what am I? Toga would ask, twin pinpricks of too-sharp teeth digging into her too-wide lips while she fumbled out the words, warmth dribbling from her rosy smile.
Dr. Garaki did not like this image, nor the question.
You are my creation, he’d snap, the floor rumbling with the force of his rise from the wingback chair. Do you not trust me, pet?
Toga would watch the sky flash outside the dark windows of the laboratory and nod, nod, nod because she did not know what she was but she knew punishment well.
All Toga knew was punishment and Inside.
The Inside of the laboratory, which smelled faintly of the coins that slipped between uneven couch cushions, and the Inside of Toga- drawn from her own disordered lips- red as plush velvet and twice as sweet.
Good, Dr. Garaki would say from behind his wide, unbreachable desk. Now behave.
Behave, behave, behave.
This word buzzed around Toga’s head like the constant drone of heavy machinery in the lab. It followed her when she closed her fists around home-smelling coins, retrieved from their hiding places late at night, and when she draped her goose-bumped body in the off-limits, grass-green curtains, and, louder still, when she peered out of small, dirt-smeared windows, asking after the word for grass.
Red had leaked from her cheek, then, bursting forth from the skin by the rings adorning Dr. Garaki’s punishing hand. But the word had slipped out as he’d shouted.
Toga’s tongue had darted to the corner of her mouth and she’d imagined the word blooming over her tongue- swallowed and safe within herself.
Yes, Toga knew of Inside well. She craved the taste of Outside, now.
Outside she saw a girl with red flowers in her hand, picked from the border of Dr. Garaki’s property, and high on her cheeks laid a dusting of soft-petalled blush.
Toga had never known the color red could be so gentle.
Toga longed to be picked from the laboratory like the thorned stems in the girl’s steady hands. To be lifted up. To be held.
“You’re not supposed to be looking through there,” Twice whispered from over Toga’s shoulder. “It’s bad.”
Toga gnawed on her bottom lip, drawing red to the surface until she matched the roses being carried further and further from the laboratory.
“Why?” she asked.
Toga didn’t know who she was asking- Twice, the disappearing girl, or the flowers?
Twice was the only one to respond.
“Because Dr. Garaki said it’s bad,” he reminded her nervously.
Toga watched the girl’s form begin to blur on the horizon.
Twice shook her shoulder and Toga’s gaze slipped to the touch, observing the firm boundary between Toga and Twice. His fingers held the same shape as Dr. Garaki’s- more same than Toga’s- yet held none of the anger. Only urgency.
“How come Dr. Garaki gets to make all the rules?” Toga asked.
Twice’s hand slipped away like the question had bitten him, and, Toga thought to herself, maybe it had. With Twice’s same-enough hands he could cradle lessons from Dr. Garaki on how to name the objects in the laboratory. His scratching fingers could be gently pulled away from his seams. He could hold close the smiling shape of son on Dr. Garaki’s lips.
Twice held the honor of being made same-enough while Toga’s hands and heart and smile were wrong, wrong, wrong.
Pet, Dr. Garaki said, teeth glistening behind a simper. Filthy-
“Mr. Garaki wants what’s best for us,” Twice said, twitching on the last syllable and scratching the ragged line carved down his forehead.
“Does he?” Toga questioned.
How do you know? she wanted to ask. She craved his certainty with a desperation that left her Inside chest pounding hard against the firm line of her Outside body.
Twice twitched.
“I trust him.”
The dull roar of the laboratory seemed loud today, and Toga felt restless.
“Do you trust?” Twice asked.
Toga’s mouth quivered and she turned her gaze back to the small window. The girl was gone now but she would be back tomorrow.
Toga flinched as the door slammed open and Dr. Garaki appeared a moment later.
Pet or-
“Filthy woman,” Dr. Garaki muttered, striding forward to yank the green curtain from Toga’s body. The view of Outside disappeared.
Toga shivered.
“Don’t you know your shame dirties you?” Dr. Garaki continued, staring at the Outside of her body.
Could he see the Inside?
Toga desperately hoped that he couldn’t.
“It’s unbecoming of my creations,” he stated before spinning on his covered foot to stride through his office door, a box of rattling machine parts held in his arms.
Toga’s trust in Dr. Garaki was as brittle as the vase she had tipped over the other day, fascinated by the sound it made when it hit the floor. Left in a puddle of red after Dr. Garaki had found her.
Inside herself, Toga said, I do not trust Dr. Garaki, and shame bloomed hot and heavy in her chest.
She felt like the vase, one breathless moment before it shattered.
“Toga?” Twice whispered, eyes drooping with concern.
“It’s cold,” Toga whispered.
Twice fidgeted for a moment, his nails hesitating a few inches from his sewn-together face. After a furtive glance towards Dr. Garaki’s closed office door, he gave into the urge to scratch, leaving raking, red lines across his Outside.
“I know,” he murmured. “Do I? I…yes. I know.”
Toga blinked away the blurry heat gathering in her eyes and reached out with her not-same-enough hand until it rested on Twice’s knee.
Slowly, she ran her hand up and down one length of his leg. Then faster.
Twice stared.
“See?” she whispered. “It makes warmth.”
“I…” Twice peeked over his shoulder, towards the door Dr. Garaki had disappeared behind. “…see. I see. I do.”
Toga removed her hand and watched Twice repeat the action for himself.
Toga turned back to the green curtain, looking in the place she knew the window lived, and began rubbing warmth back into her arms as she imagined the girl.
I trust her, Toga decided.
And how lovely was it for there to be a her that wasn’t Toga? A her that Toga might be same-enough for.
Dr. Garaki cursed the Outside people but Toga bit her lip and danced with the idea that the girl from Outside might see Toga- red as the roses she always returned to- and pluck her, instead.
And then maybe Toga could live how she wanted to. Cursed or not.
A long time ago i was thinking a lot about himiko as the queen of snakes or as a naga. @marronje even made a very beautiful fanart based on my idea!! (thank u sm again for the drawing 🫶🫶). Well, I was going through pinterest and saw this
It's a 2021 fanart made by @cloudysunflowr !! I loved it so much, so i decided to repost it here, the artist is more active on his twitter
YOU DID NOT ASDFGHAHDGSGSH!!!!!! OH MY GODS! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞
Can you draw Bilbo and Thorin eating something they cooked together?
Or Thorin kind of awkwardly trying to look after Sick Bilbo
Thorin’s doing his best ;-; I sorta combined the prompts with the second image (maybe bilbo helped by telling him the soup recipe ehehe) Thank you for the requests ^_^!!!
All of you are saviours
Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):
“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.
“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.
“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.
“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”
“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”
“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.
Boo
(Comically delayed scream)
Tried to paint Shen in feathers :3
More werewolf au for @giganonyx. Hunter likes his scritches.