#<- VAGUELY. because of the doodle on the top left

[cdmodule]

Everyone watch ION 3 RIGHT NOW

[mierulii]

˚*  ੈ✩‧₊ (Translated) Team Galactic Reference Sheets [ 1 / ??? ]

I was able to uncover some extra stuff on Team Galactic! Granted, a lot of them are key art we've already seen, but each one has some additional info in them such as clothing details and their color palettes! Hopefully this could serve as a compilation of reference materials for anyone who might need it. like me.

[Also please keep in mind that this is machine translated and is not professionally done as I am not fluent enough. I also cannot translate handwritten notes. I might add additional info/context for the shakier/vague bits though, those will be in blue.) Please keep reading below to see it! Characters will be arranged according to their rank!

Cyrus

Starting from the top, we have some details regarding the clothes.

アカギ詳細設定 | Akagi Detail Settings 【 上着 】 | Top/Jacket - 袖無しの上着とインナーの重ね着 Sleeveless top and inner layer - 上着前身頃を隙間から見えるパーツで留めています。 The front of the jacket is fastened with parts that are visible through the gaps. - インナーは横締模様のみの長袖。 The innerwear is long-sleeved with a horizontal pattern. This refers to the lines/lining on the sleeves and chest area of the shirt as well as his pants. - 背面は右図の通り。 The back (of the vest) is as shown on the right. 【 靴 】 | Shoes - ラインが 3 本入った靴 。 The shoes are lined/have 3 lines.

Cyrus' official color palette:

(Also I'll be using lenticular brackets for each part just so it's easier to spot!)

Format is: Pantone -> Hex -> RGB

【 Hair 】 Pantone 278 C #8bb8e8 rgb(139,184,232) 【 Team Galactic insignia 】 Pantone 122 C #fed141 rgb(254,209,65) 【 Vest 】 Pantone 428 C #c1c6c8 rgb(193,198,200) 【 Sleeves/Pants 】 Pantone Cool Gray 10 C #63666a rgb(99,102,106) 【 Innerwear 】 White I'm serious, there's no specific kind mentioned. It's just...white.

I thought of including this purely because it had a doodle of Cyrus holding it lovingly on the side.

あかいくさり | Red Chain 横から | From the side 先端が不思議な力で くっついている状態になつている。 接合部品があるわけではない The tips are attached to each other by a mysterious force. There are no joint parts. サビ汚れのような模様が 結晶内部に見られる Rust stain-like patterns can be seen inside the crystal. (断面図) Cross-sectional view.

Saturn

サターン詳細設定 | Saturn Detail Settings 【 頭部 】 | Head - 髪型 (右図参照) Hairstyle (see figure on the right.) 【 上着 】 | Top/Jacket - 育中にGマーク入っています。 It has the G-mark (Team Galactic insignia) on it. Note that the insignia is also present at the back. 【 靴 】 | Shoes - マー ズ と ジュ ピタ ー 同 様 、 つま 先 に ライ ン が 1 本 入っ て いま す 。 ※ ブ ー ツ で は あり ませ ん Like/Same as Mars and Jupiter, the toe has a single line. It is not a boot.

Saturn's official color palette:

Format is: Pantone -> Hex -> RGB

【 Hair 】 Pantone 285 C #0072ce rgb(0,114,206) 【 Team Galactic insignia 】 Pantone 122 C #fed141 rgb(254,209,65) 【 Vest 】 White 【 Innerwear/Pants 】 Pantone Cool Gray 10 C #63666a rgb(99,102,106) You'll notice a lot of these colors will be the same as the others, but I'll include it anyhow.

Jupiter

ジュビター詳細設定 | Jupiter Detail Settings 【 頭部 】 | Head - 頭頂部と後ろに髪留めを付けています。 She has hair clips on the top and back of her head. - 横向き時 (右図参照) Side-view (see figure on the right.) 【 背面 】 | Back/Rear - 腰回りの部分はマーズと同じです。 The waist area is the same as Mars. 【 足 】 | Foot - 左足大腹部に素肌の上からゴムリングのような バーツを巻いています。 A rubber ring-like part is wrapped around the bare skin of the left leg.

Jupiter's official color palette:

Format is: Pantone -> Hex -> RGB

【 Hair 】 Pantone 248 C #a51890 rgb(165,24,144) 【 Team Galactic insignia 】 Pantone 122 C #fed141 rgb(254,209,65) 【 Innerwear/Stockings 】 Pantone Cool Gray 10 C #63666a rgb(99,102,106) 【 Grey Lining 】 Pantone 428 C #c1c6c8 rgb(193,198,200) 【 Boots 】 White

Mars

Interestingly, Mars has two versions of her detail sheet! I'll be translating the bottom one since they're both technically the same.

マーズ詳細設定 | Mars Detail Settings 【 頭部 】 | Head - 正面 (右図参照) Front-view (see figure on the right) 【 正面 】 | Front - ジュピターと同じデザインです。 It has the same design as Jupiter. 【 背面 】 | Back/Rear - 用回りのライン (背中~スカート) は丸くなっています。 The line around the body (back~skirt) is rounded. This most-likely refers to the cutaway of the backside of the skirt, not the hem/rim of the skirt itself.

Mars' official color palette:

Format is: Pantone -> Hex -> RGB

【 Hair 】 Pantone 179 C #e03c31 rgb(224,60,49) 【 Team Galactic insignia 】 Pantone 122 C #fed141 rgb(254,209,65) 【 Innerwear/Stockings 】 Pantone Cool Gray 10 C #63666a rgb(99,102,106) 【 Grey Lining 】 Pantone 428 C #c1c6c8 rgb(193,198,200) 【 Boots 】 White

Charon

Charon...doesn't have a detail nor palette sheet. Unfortunately.

I do have a translated version of his bio which you can check here, though!

That said, I'll include a palette for him where I pick the colors from his Platinum concept art

Format is: Hex -> RGB

【 Hair 】 #cdbdcb rgb(205,189,203) 【 Lab Coat 】 White 【 Glasses 】 #e2544c rgb(226,84,76) 【 Team Galactic insignia 】 #fed141 rgb(254,209,65) 【 Innerwear/Shoes 】 #b7b5b6 rgb(183,181,182) 【 Sleeves/Pants 】 #525454 rgb(82,84,84)

Team Galactic Grunts

Their detail sheets do not have anything of note to translate, but it is interesting how they were intended to have masks in their beta designs! (Along with having Saturn's hair color―).

The grunts' official color palette:

Format is: Pantone -> Hex -> RGB

【 Hair 】 Pantone 7472 C #5cb8b2 rgb(92,184,178) 【 Team Galactic insignia 】 Pantone 122 C #fed141 rgb(254,209,65) 【 Innerwear/Stockings 】 Pantone 428 C #c1c6c8 rgb(193,198,200) 【 Lining/Pants 】 Pantone Cool Gray 10 C #63666a rgb(99,102,106) 【 Boots 】 White

Hello, if you made it this far, thank you for reading! I reached the image limit, so this'll be split into two parts (or more). We've covered all the detail sheets and translation stuff here anyhow, the next parts will focus on the following:

A compilation of concept art and official art (a mix of game + pokeani mostly)

A compilation of concept pitches/bios

References for spin-off/non-mainline members (Sird, Mitsumi, Io, etc.)

I know a couple have been posted elsewhere, but I really wanted to group them up so none of us would have to save hundreds of posts so please look forward to when I publish the next parts!

For now, enjoy this random image I found while digging of a (jp) tcg event where you could apparently challenge Saturn, Mars, and a (bespectacled) Cyrus to a match...?

[dairyfreenugget]

New PK gijinka for a new gijinka AU

Alt text + AU info under read more

- 🌷Patreon🌷- 💜Ko-fi💜 -

ID start: A doodle page depicting the Pale King from Hollow Knight as a human. The first doodle in the top left corner labelled "pre-hibernation" depicts him during this time as a king, with a youthful sharp face, long elf ears, he's looking to the side with a scowl. He wears his hair in a low ponytail, with a black, spiked crown atop his head. The next two doodles depict him after the Hallownest's collapse, as an older man with a large X shaped scar on his face that cuts the left side of his lips, exposing his teeth and gums, and a V shaped notch in his left ear. He wears his hair in a messy bun and wears a hood and a shirt underneath with a popped up collar. He looks down and to the side, looking far more tired and guilty than his younger self. The second of the two doodles depicting his older self has his hood up, casting the majority of his face in a shadow. End ID.

PK is alive or reborn for the 3rd time and after the fall of his kingdom he conceals his identity out of shame

He travels the abandoned ruins of his kingdom and meets survivors, and through this he meets Hollow when he arrives in dirtmouth. Shocked to see them alive and speaking and so clearly *not hollow* he pretty much runs away the first time they see each other. He later stumbles onto them again after having some time to sit on this revelation and decides to walk ul to them to apologise for his previous behaviour. They don't seem to recognise him, which he decides is for the best and doesn't reveal himself

He ends up settling down near dirtmouth and so the two continuously stumble on each other and start bonding and getting to know one another through these sporadic meetings. At some point the topic lands on family and Hollow says their parents never loved them, their mother disappeared and their father used them and never thought anything more of them than a tool. Obviously it stings and PK tries to protest, saying that every parent loves their child, which turns into a small argument until Hollow snaps with tears in their eyes that he doesn't known their parents. They're both self-centred cowards who never loved them. Then adds their father is dead anyway and it's probably for the best. PK backs off and apologises quietly for pressing while Hollow quietly sobs. He then sits down next to them and quietly asks if they have any other family, and they mention their sister who visits them occassionaly but not that often now that they've recovered, she's very busy, but it's okay because the people of dirtmouth are nice and help take care of them. PK can see it's *not* okay but doesn't press it, he already made them upset and he doesn't want to do it again. They ask about his family and he gives some vague answer about an ex-wife and children. Still dunno if Ghost is alive here

Months pass by and ironically enough the two develop a very mentor/student and then father/child kind of relationship (which probably eats at PK and will be such a huge shock for Hollow when they find out his identity)

Hollow kind of sucks at keeping their wounds and bandages clean so when PK smells the infection on them he forces them to sit down as he cleans their wounds, reapplies sterile bandaging and gives them medicine, all the while chastising them for not taking care of themself. Hollow sheepishly admits they don't know how and were too nervous to ask for help, but then also jokingly calls PK dad when he keeps fretting. In a sort of "Okay, okay, I get it, DAD" way. Which makes him freeze and for a one terrifying second he thinks *they know* before realising he's just fucking stupid and it was a joke. But Hollow remembered that one discussion they had and how he brought up having children in the past so they think they made a social blunder and just give him that sheepish look.

"Ah...is- is that a sore spot? I'm sorry—"

"No, no, it's- it's okay, kid. I just...wasn't expecting that."

So they continue to bond over the months and PK becomes a parental figure to Hollow, which he feels so damn guilty about and thinks they'd hate him even more if they ever find out the truth

Any time they bring up how he always wears that hood and covers his face he tries to wiggle out of actually answering it, but knows his time is running out

I'm thinking Hollow finds out in some sort of situation where they end up hurt or in danger. Dunno how it happens but I did imagine the scene after that, where Hollow's in shock and denial and PK tries to free them from the ropes they found themself in but they keep thrashing so he finally yells at them to stop moving or they'll hurt themself, clearly very worried for them. So they do and they allow him to free them and take them to his home where he patches them up, all the while they're in complete shellshock

Hours later when the atmosphere cleared up a little PK gets them something to eat, all the while not being able to look them in the face, and says that he understands if they hate him and want nothing to do with him after this, but to just stay and let him take care of them until they recover. Then they can leave and never see him again.

Hollow just eats in silence until they finally get the courage to ask about that conversation from months ago, asking if this is why he was so insistent on their father loving them.

"I...That...It.....my— my feelings...don't really... matter, if I never showed them anyway, if I...when I hurt you despite them."

OH and obviously Hollow starts opening up more and more to him the more they bond and eventually they just cry to him how they don't understand why they still love their parents despite all the hurt they've caused them, how they want to hate them because it'd be so much easier to, and all PK can do is just hold them and let them cry into his shoulder as guilt just eats him up inside

[solidwater05]

I dreamed that I was in my old school and there was a girl I had a crush on? It was actually kinda cute but there's not much to say about the scene

My mom picked me up and said that we should buy cherries, but there were sheep grazing (... on the street) so we had to take the long way to the produce store. The long way included taking an elevator that was inside a different store, and the store owner was well aware that lots of people needed that elevator to buy food so they charged people for using it. Because of this my mom told me to buy the cherries on my own so she didn't have to go because they charged per person

Despite this, my mom was talking to me in the next scene, but she wasn't physically with me. I assume that she was behind me because she didn't say anything more to me once I kept moving forward

I was in a completely different place, imagine some kind of concrete port or bridge, but it was pretty wide and it was built more like a hall, made for pedestrians. All the structures supporting the roof were also made of concrete, and the gaps between them were too small for a person to go through

I saw people walking on the edges of the bridge outside. I felt like I had to get out too, but I couldn't find any exit

The details here are blurry, but I know that I eventually made it to a place vaguely shaped like the front of a spaceship or Baby's control room in Sister Location. It was partially submerged in the sea (or fully but very close to the surface)

I realized that it was impossible to go back, and that I would be there for eternity. There were many people there, also trapped. Nobody was happy about it, and they didn't really have any sort of organization or anything.

Dunno when but the scene changed to something more open (no roof, still in the middle of the ocean), there were some small concrete rooms that we couldn't enter, and a big chain connecting the area with the (possible to escape but strangely liminal despite the amount of people) port.

[ID: Two rough doodles of the place described above. From a bird's eye view, it has a roughly boat-like shape, with two distinct areas. The area on the left is narrow and has a big chain going off the screen. The area on the right is wide, and it has a smaller structure on top of it, on the very right of the "boat". There is a chain connecting this structure to the ground.

From a side view, it's divided in three sections, each other being taller than the other. The first section has a chain that goes off screen and small stairs leading to the second section. The third section is higher up in proportion and doesn't have any stairs to get up. On the third section is a square shaped structure connected to the ground by a chain.

There is text labeling things in both drawings. The square structure is labeled "This was a room!", the word "room" is underlined in red. The chain connecting the room and the ground is labeled "this chain did nothing, but it allowed you to get to the roof easily". The word "roof" is underlined in red, and there is a dotted arrow going up the chain and onto the roof of the structure. The chain that goes off the screen is labeled "Big chain connecting this place and the real world(?)"

Finally, on the side view drawing, the two lower sections are labeled "everyone stayed here". /End ID]

Everything had grass and there were some trees growing from the highest section (which was like over a meter taller than the previous one, the drawing is not to scale)

I was panicking because, oh shit, I'm trapped here forever and everyone just told me that it's dangerous here and there's nothing we could do. But someone (who was not there physically and only I could hear?) told me to try to collect food from the trees and try to make a farm. The voice said that even if I never get out I could reclaim the place and live well, but that I should be careful because sometimes unspecified bad guys (pirates?) checked on that place and they couldn't know that the people there were thriving.

So I started shaking a tree to get some fruit.

[ID: A rough doodle of a vaguely acorn shaped purple fruit with downward pointing green spikes. /End ID]

Imagine a dragon fruit but the spikes point down and it's also small enough that a newborn could hold a dozen of them with one hand. They were also said to not taste great and not be very nutritious but hey, better than nothing. I remember the tree having huge leaves that reached the floor. Imagine if willow trees had wayyy more vines(?) and were softer. Yes you could hide inside with ease

At some point I walked on the chain until I reached the port and immediately went back, I think I found an exit but it would have been dangerous to try to return? I didn't tell anyone

There was also a scene about owning a Minecraft observatory but I have no idea how it fits with the rest of the plot, even if it was supposedly set in the same area

[raccoonfallsharder]

i need your help!

hey hello, shiny gemstones and spring sunrises thw doodle queue is currently CLOSED

which is to say, ahem if you’re interested in being added to the doodle queue, REBLOG THIS POST with

a picture or detailed description of your OC

their name/pronouns, their story and any cool powers they have or what makes them rad as hell (i might message you to ask more questions!)

i welcome different body types, skin colors, and hair textures, etc. and so does rocket

you can also send me a message but tbh reblogs are easier to keep track of if i fall behind. see below the samples for more info.

in general i prefer to draw vaguely humanoid femmes with a thing for raccoons (you know which fandom im in), so those characters will likely get in the queue first. this ain’t a “first-come, first-served” thing, it’s a “which character does my brain want to gnaw on, with or without my consent” thing.

i got too swamped last time because i just accepted/took on too many requests at once which resulted in some glorious individuals waiting MONTHS for their doodles to be done and while that could still happen, i am hoping to avoid it by keeping the queue shorter and just closing/reopening more frequently

worth noting i’ve only ever drawn three anthro characters (see one of ‘em below) so if you so request that, just know i’m a novice

i may also end up adding a few to the queue as well (i really want to revisit ember, dori, petra, maybe fleuret and rose, always juno — would love a chance to draw jupe of one of @frostedwitch’s other OCs too!). ive also been playing with a new-to-me, semi-lineless style i might use your characters to practice on.

above are just a few of the OCs from the masterlist. you can find them there to learn more about them and their cool-as-hell creators. from top left to right descending: moon, dori, petra quill (dyed version), brita, ken, magril opossum, rose, cherry, mori, and juno ♡♡♡ thanks for letting me doodle these cuties!

to see past works, check out the let me love your OCs masterlist

taglist ✩ @pa1kaa-toto @archangelofzion

[inbetweenhours]

i did more of my esmp parents doodles specifically because of this comment 

[Shrub here | Scott, Sausage, & Seablings here | Roseblings, Pix, & Pearl here]

@thatonehomosexual79​ prompted me to think about Katherine and joeys parents! I have names for them all, but very few of them have actual thought to me.

I’ll slap my ramblings about each family / parents and my lore under the cut for those interested :] Feel free to ask for more or ask questions! These doodles are easy so i might just do both seasons! I have names for everyone anyways lol

What I do know about Joey’s family though is his siblings I’ve included. To my vague awareness on LE Joey lore, he had other canon members of the monarchy. The Tiger Blood Prince and Princess. I also saw somewhere that the Princess actually went missing and was replaced I presume. Instead of this being a mistake I’ve made it lore. I'm also too far in to retcon it if that actually didn't happen lol. I can’t say much for them as individuals, they’re all very alike. Kinda aggressive and  confident in the way that Joey is. Its very obvious they are related lol. Nickey is the one who breaks the mold most, and is plot relevant to my fanon when she is older. She is actually the ancestor of  esmp2!Lizzie and one of her close descendants is the founder of Animalia :]

Anyways, Joey and his family get along about as well as they can given the turbulent nature of how I imagine LE succession to work. Its not so much a right as it is a challenge. Joey challenged his parents when he found himself old enough to care about the power. They met the challenge, alongside Joeys brother Mickey, and all lost to him. Very tournament style. Joey coming out on top claims him as the victor and he took his title. His brother and he get along well, in a way that has a high frequency of sibling animosity. Tammy is a bit young in the main timline (14 ish i think) and has very little care in leading, she's happy to just be princess. Nickey has ran away from the LE, and generally was the black sheep of the family. Wanting a much gentler and kinder way of life than she was used to. Her as a subsect of the people left to far lands, never to be seen again really as they reestablished themselves far away.

Katherine is where things start getting odd. Because of how my fanon uses fairies I must first clarify that fairies are biologically agender and asexual by nature in my fanon. They are born in a very disney-ified fairytale fashion where any singular or number of parents will nurture a flower bulb and from it blooms a baby fairy. Katherines mother did this alone, and so her and Katherine look extremely similar. Any dissimilarities are entirely stylistic lol. Baby Katherine also doesn’t have her wings yet, I must clarify this wasn’t because I forgot. Young fairies look a lot more “human”, and gain things like their wings during puberty. They have a chrysalis phase and a kind of butterfly physiology for lack of simpler explanation.

Katherine and her mother are very alike in many ways I think. I don't have a lot of thought for Kitty in all honesty. If she isn’t dead in the current timeline I’d be willing to bet she stepped away from responsibility when The Spring chose Katherine to tale over. If anyone has any thoughts about her that’d be cool, because I really have very little. She would have known Scott and Xornoths parents, which is significant. 

Finally Joel!! Also has some weird notes out of the norm. In my fanon Mezalea’s citizens are majorly composed of Clay constructs, with some humans and the occasional merlings around the coasts. Clay constructs are given lie by being laid at the roots of the mother tree, and  are typically gifted life by its after a time. Queen Ariel ruled Mezalea before Joel. The reason “Prince” has an asterix is because it’s questionable if Joel ever was prince of Mezalea. he was created to be king and I havent decided if he was sculpted and lad beneath the Mother Tree before or after Ariels passing. She had a lot of wear and tear after potential dozens of decades, maybe centuries, alive. She had come into a point of disrepair (and a thinning of her life gift) and knew Mezalea would need a replacement for her throne. But I havent decided if she ever actually met Joel. If he was created after she crumbled to take her place, or if she commissioned his creation before her passing and was there to see his gifted life. To help guide him in his duties for a short time. 

For this reason, the art I have drawn is dubiously canon to my own fanon. And Joel and Ariel are not considered family really. They are not mother and son as much as they are at most mentor and apprentice, and at least successor and predecessor. Joel knows who she is, but doesn’t really hold any sturdy connection with her. Ariel herself was a good determined ruler. Confident and brazen in many ways. She likely looked much different throughout her rule, constructs can pass their life between other  vessels- this is how they grow. Like hermit crabs kind of, when they feel they have outgrown the body they have they will likely build or commission a new one to inhabit. Ariel has been around a lot, and many of her  forms have suffered some severe battering. It has thinned her life gift to be passed around so often and in connection to a broken form she knew she was done.

anyways that is all for now, imma go look into who do draw next :]  questions and commentary welcome

[sleepydrabblesart]

Some fun stuff for Into The Stars:

Heights first— Hobi is the tallest, Yoongi is the shortest. Doing this first because it helps contextualize the next two:

Outside view of the pod! The pods are embedded into a concave wall, with a set of ten in the sleeping area (average crew size). The pods are vaguely egg-shaped, with an opaque outer wall for privacy. The door slides into the wall to avoid any mishaps and conserve space, and there’s a scanner programmed to respond to either the owner of the pod or a crew member with captain’s permissions in the event of an emergency. (this is, of course, related to NORMAL emergencies, and assuming protocol is followed.)

The little square in the upper corner is a sketch of the layout: bottom layer from left to right (standing in the doorway) is Namjoon, Yoongi, Jimin, and Jeongguk. The second layer from left to right (standing in the doorway) is Seokjin, Taehyung, and Hoseok. Jimin offered Taehyung his bed but Taehyung refused, for reasons still unknown, and insists on clambering into his space every night by using the other pods as… ladders? Who knows. The top three pods are generally left unused because they’re hard to get to unless you’re incredibly tall (in which case the ship really isn’t built to accommodate you) or you have some sort of wings/other bodily attachment that allows you to get up there.

Hobi is the pilot, so he got the final say on the ship they bought as a crew, but it’s general practice to buy a ship scaled to the largest member of your crew because it’s easier to add the equipment to accommodate the smaller species than to deal with the problems that come about when the space is just too small.

On to the inside!

The inside top of the ‘shell’ doubles as a touchscreen that can be used to access information and entertainment. Across from the door is a specific control panel to control light levels, sound, etc. The thin strip running around the edge of the ‘shell’ is the light strip, which usually imitates the home sleep cycle of the pod’s inhabitant. The lower part of the pod is filled by a mattress-pillow thing that automatically adjusts to support the being(s) on it. As mentioned in-story, the blankets in the humans’ pods are imitations of human blankets, which means they sit kind of weird but otherwise have a pretty soft, fluffy texture. JK has five of them, so his pod is generally an absolute mess, but YG and TH managed to convince the rest of the crew they don’t need more than three each. Other species have different reactions to different textures, so the pod can either regulate heat to facilitate smooth sleep or the crew member usually brings their own blankets/extra pillows/etc.

I lack the cultural awareness of movies that most of my generation seems to just HAVE (damn it!) so I have never seen ALIEN and had to google what those pods look like. Not what I imagined ;w; It’s not absolutely essential to the story to know what they look like (I think?) but hopefully it’s fun to look at. I might do more doodles in the future, these were kinda fun.

[mysticsparklewings]

Obscutober 2024 Day 8: Inflorescence 💐

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Inflorescence (n.)

the flowering part of a plant or arrangement of flowers on a stalk; the time and process of budding and unfolding flowers.

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So begins Week 2 of Inktober! 🖋️

I am pretty pleased with today’s art, but my posting time probably says it all: Not everything was coming up roses in the making-of process. 😅

Click the "Keep Reading" and we'll talk about it! ✨

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

---------- Whew boy Sparklers; If I seem a little "off" or this description comes out a bit short, that's because (to the surprise of absolutely no one) I got a bit of a later start on this mandala than I'd hoped and it also ended up taking longer than I wanted. 😅 Thus I am now very acutely aware that I have much less time to get this description type and everything cross-posted than I'm really comfortable with.

Granted, this isn't the Cinderella-esque race against Midnight that I've very "used to" from Inktobers' past, but in some small ways that almost makes it worse because I know I've technically been doing much better than usual this year and the further I push that "better" envelope, the more anxious I become. 🫠

So let me stop wasting time rambling about that and get to talking about the art!

I think the main reason this one ended up taking so long is because I hyped it up too much—The idea of getting to draw a mandala made of flowers àla Adult Coloring Book-Style was so enticing that I did that thing us artists tend to do sometimes; I got in my head about it being "good enough" and "right" and all that, as if this is somehow the only opportunity I'll ever have to make a flower mandala so it "needed" to be perfect. 🙄

And, in a strange kind of other sense I think I had a little too much confidence going in because I recently spent quite a bit of time drawing intricate flowers in a similar style for a project you Sparklers haven't seen yet but my Ko-fi Members have. [And hopefully you Sparklers will get to see it soon, too, I've just been too busy to squeeze it in yet!] Mostly, I underestimated my own standards for what translating those flower drawing skills into this mandala format would be like. 😅

I also kind of hurt myself in that I decided I really wanted to get roses in here somewhere on top of trying to make sure I got at least one flower that had more obvious stages of blooming (per today's deifnition), rather than all of them being full-bloom. Naturally, I picked the most difficult option of having the roses be said multi-stage flower. 🙃 I'm sure I don't have to tell any of you Sparklers that have attempted to draw them before that roses are among some of the trickier flowers to draw, particularly in a more doodle-y style like this. I have semi-successfully handled roses before, but I think it's been literal years since the last time I drew any. 🫣 [Maybe not, but I don't feel like I have the time to dig through my posts and check to be sure right now!]

You can see that I did manage some results I'm decently happy with in the end, of course, but I probably spent about half of the total time I worked on this mandala on the roses specifically. 😵‍💫

And then of what was left, probably about half of that was spent on the "final" swirling vines that have different little pink flowers on them. Which is to say I think that was the second most challenge part to draw, even though it's one of the more simple elements present.

I could have stopped before adding those final swirls and it probably would've been fine, but the outer corners just felt so empty compared to all the flower and leaf stuff going on elsewhere, particularly the center-most ring. (That's what I get for adding lines to look more like a vague suggestion of roots below the big leaves!) I wanted to fill just a little more space badly.

If I hadn't felt timing ticking down so strongly, I would've definitely bothered to figure out something a little more involved for those swirls, but it just wasn't meant to be today. I couldn't stop thinking about the time and it seemed like every other false start I has either wasn't right or tested my patience too much.

I very nearly put some more sunflower-esque flowers in the corners instead, but I didn't like the idea of looking myself into a more specific color palette in that way and I didn't like the idea of not being able to either "attach" them to the rest of the mandala or the fact that I couldn't think of a way to make them more vine-like on their own. Therefore, the sunflowers sat this one out. [And besides, they already had a small cameo last week!]

The leaves, fortunately, didn't give me much trouble. Those largest leaves that I put down first where probably the most difficult, but only because they were made using a criss-cross line method I observed in some mandala techniques on Pinterest, rather than other more typical ways I go about drawing leaves. They really weren't too bad, though. And I think they were the right choice because they kind of set up a shape foundation that directed a lot of the rest of the mandala.

Likewise, this may have been the easiest color scheme to decide apart from Day 1 because of the leaves. I set up with that green foundation, pushed it to be a little more teal/aqua, and then went with most pink flowers since that's complimentary, but then a soft blue for the...They're sort of lilies-of-the-valley but maybe not exactly. I think the blue I picked is a touch too dark for that, but since I was very sold on this off-white/cream background, I went with the deeper blue so the color would be more obvious.

I will admit I originally wanted to avoid pink or red roses, but I made the outermost flowers pink first, dared to touch the roses with a bit of a darker pink, and promptly threw that plan out the window. I did try to mix a little purple int here so they weren't a super-traditional rose pink, but I think I overblended it so that effect was mostly lost. 😅 But I did stand firmly behind no-red roses, though. Against many fibers in my Alice-in-Wonderland-loving being, but it felt too stereotypical and like a bad fit for the more aqua-green leaves, which I really didn't want to change at that point.

Yesterday and Day 2 are still gunning for my favorite, but this one isn't super far behind despite the choices I maybe would've handled a bit differently if I'd felt like I could afford more time to puzzle over them. If anything, I think this will be my favorite as a coloring page, if I do end up making coloring pages out of these. [Which yes, is an idea I've been toying with—I think I mentioned it on Day 1? Maybe?]

You Sparklers will have to tell me if that sounds like something worth bothering with. 😉

Let's see...I think that's everything I wanted to mention for today, so I should probably be getting on with that cross-posting now; I'll see you Sparklers tomorrow, hopefully at least a little earlier in the evening... 😅 🤞

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See the Prompt List

Artwork  © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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[skinscribbles]

I'll say it a million times, but I really like Quincy and wish to learn more about your OC and see them more in the future

blinks at you with my big ol' eyes. well you can learn more about Quincy now! because I am bonkers mcyonkers about em rn so FUN FACT TIME LETS GO

Quincy is..... you! Technically. They're a Y/N (wattpad style) situation. I wanted to have some sort of player character that people can insert themselves into, but of course, one character can't truly encompass everyone - in that case, I created their look and personality off of what would make sense in the environment of Buckshot Roulette. They frequent the nightclub, they're an adrenaline junkie, they're sometimes cocky, and they just don't know how to stay dead - and for the low low price of absolutely free, you too can imagine yourself in their shoes and live out the dream of being servalicious and gambling your life with swag

On the topic of Y/Ns, the name Quincy isn't their real name. Their real name is left unknown (of course allowing for self insert purposes), and the name Quincy comes from the fact that they just frequent the nightclub. Frequent -> -quent -> quint -> Quincy

They know how to skateboard. Why? Because it's cool

Yes, Quincy was developed from the player character in my buckshot top surgery post. Their AGAB is still gonna be vague, though. tits out for everyone godbless

It's currently in the works, but the general backstory as to how they learned about the game is through the staff - specifically, the Bartender (another oc I barely have developed). Why were they chosen to be told the game to? Well, I can't just spill everything yet :]

that's all I got rn! I don't have a lot of energy rn but I'll post Quincy whenever I get a good amount doodled. plus the almost 3.5k word fic that I'm still writing that also gives the reason why they don't have a fucking shirt on but alas I am dragging my feet but I'll say when it's finished

[basilone]

Every so often, I write things that don't make it further than a groupchat. They're often AU try-outs, characterization processes, the genuine meaning of the term 'spaghetti' when it comes to writing stuff and seeing what sticks. Not everything is publication-proof, but some of this stuff definitely is. And because it's that time, because this AU has been stuck in my brain for months, I'm going to haul a little something out of groupchat confinement. Keywords here being: Speirs as an artist, with my OC Tatiana as his rather unruly muse. I hope you'll enjoy it!

She is the best out of a very bad bunch. That’s what Chuck had claimed, at least, and Ron isn’t about to argue with his friend’s patient but brutal process of vetting models. About three hundred women swiped firmly to the left by photo alone, to be more precise. Ron doesn’t even want to know what happened to the lunch hour meetings that had Chuck rambling out a state-of-education-in-this-country-holy-fuck condemnation that had lasted until well into the early morning hours.

The Russian was all he was going to get.

He’d complained about it, sure. Too blonde, too frail-bodied, had been his initial dismissal, eyeing the very few photos Chuck had provided. He’d wrinkled his nose at the tilt to her chin and the wordless challenge she’d dealt the camera. All the air of a spoiled brat.

Then, however, she’d sauntered into his studio and all his complaints had become personal.

Tatiana soaks up space. He doesn’t know if she does it on purpose, or if it’s just a fact of life that her fur coat lands on his table and her chewing gum gets stuck beneath his best table and her high heels leave a dent in his favorite chair. She doesn’t reach past his shoulder, really, but he’d griped a like Godzilla trampling through Tokyo at Chuck after one particularly trying afternoon when she’d stood in the middle of his studio and had attempted to dictate where all his lights and equipment should go.

She can’t hold still for five minutes, either. If he was a lesser painter, dependent on models sitting utterly still, this would be the real issue. He almost wishes he could throw her out over it anyway, citing some sort of irreconcilable artistic differences that would sound vague even to his ears, but then the sunlight crowns her blonde hair with a halo and he sucks in a breath and bears the offense of her gesturing about politics and stupid Ameeeeericans regardless.

He captures her defiance before he paints anything else. There’s a glitter to her eyes that sparks even more of a challenge than her photos did, brought to life by the fact that she can’t shut up about all of the things he doesn’t care about and proceeds to make all those things his problem by leaving books and folders in the strangest places around his studio. He pulls all her gestures into the art he makes – the crossed arms, the dismissive wave of her hand, the impatient tap of her foot – until it’s all motion and a blur of color that she eyes critically and sneers a need more blue at.

Blue is her favorite color, which he realizes only when he leaves her alone in his studio just so he can stock up on coffee and cigarettes and returns to find her doodling on a stray canvas with nothing but blue paint. He watches her for a time, leaning against the doorway, cataloging her lip bite and the certainty of the brush strokes before he slams the door shut too loudly and proceeds to argue even louder about not helping yourself to other people’s stuff without asking, Tatiana, what are you, five years old? that’s got her raising her brows and tossing his new packs of cigarettes back out the window before she takes her leave.

It’s the last he sees of her for a while, though he finds bits of her everywhere. There’s the ugly unicorn mug she’d snort-laughed over having bought, wedged between his own mugs in the kitchen cabinet, and there’s the glitter-spilling tank top that he’d made her change out of when it had looked like his rug was suddenly bright pink and sparkling. There’s the folder about incarceration rates and discrimination that she’d debated for over an hour without realizing once that he was agreeing with every word she said, tucked away in her copy of Du Maurier’s Rebecca that she’d underlined and annotated in scribbled Russian he only knows is not critique because no hated book could ever be this dog-eared and worn.

He almost tells Chuck he’s going to need a different model, because the two last paintings have yet to be made, but then he turns on the radio to find that Tatiana had switched the channels from rock to classical again. Ron thinks he can paint her blind the minute he hears the waltz she used to hum under her breath whenever she claimed he was being really very stupid, dumbest American I ever met, oxygen thief, like drill sergeant in army, and other insults he had only ever shrugged at.

He paints her from memory, in blue.

She shows up the next morning.

I need money, she says, looking small for once in her life.

To buy ice cream? He asks, just to be that asshole, just to have something to say that isn’t happiness at seeing her. You came back for that?

Yes, she says, waving her hand in such clear dismissal that he almost laughs, of course for ice cream.

He lets her walk back into his life like she’s never been gone. Her high-heeled boots land on his best table as she leans back in his favorite chair, lights a cigarette, and starts to gesture about her friend who’s doing ballet and her brother who’s dating a man they grew up with as if he knows and cares about these people in the same way she does. He tries to listen as she downs three coffees in quick succession, but then her hair comes loose from her braid and her favorite jacket slips down from her shoulder and he’s sketching with charcoal before he good and well realizes that was not a part of their artist-model agreement.

He half-expects her to argue that point, but she never does. All he gets is a my mouth does not do that thing and a pat on his head as though he is now the five-year-old stuck with a mother who could do nothing but make him cry.

There’s nothing soft about her. She does kickboxing, or so she’s told him, and he’s pretty certain some of her fights were the illegal kind if the spider’s web of scars on her side is anything to go by. The one time Chuck and friends had come over when she was just leaving had ended with one panicked look at being handed a baby, as if she hadn’t the faintest clue how one is meant to act around such a small and squalling thing. He’d seen her defenses go all the way up before she’d shoved the child at him and disappeared in a cloud of loud stomping footsteps that hadn’t endeared her to anyone.

There’s nothing soft about the way she always gets in his face when she’s arguing and thinks he’s not listening, or about the way she presses against his arm and invades his space with her gestures. There’s nothing soft about the tilt of her chin when she glares up at him. There’s nothing soft about the way she goes utterly quiet one night, listening to a podcast in Russian that he dares not interrupt because the look on her face is terrible and terrifying in equal measure, and proceeds to sob her heart out in loud and keening wails that almost have her throwing up all over his kitchen table until he makes hushing sounds and sits with her until her nails have left permanent imprints in the palms of his hands.

She’s loud and demanding and tough and he doesn’t realize he paints her in sharp lines and sweeping arches until Chuck eyes his recent works and calls her a cathedral that houses all of your fuck-ups and dreams as though that explains why his insides don’t feel right. Ron can barely meet her eyes in the days that follow.

She’s on his doorstep one evening, teetering in heels, loose-haired and wrapped in a black-and-gold dress he doesn’t want to linger on, and he lets her in despite all his misgivings. Tatiana’s small-voiced in a way he hates, now, because her lower lip wobbles when she says she left her fur coat behind in that fancy restaurant uptown. I don’t know where I go so I come here tumbles past her lips and her eyes meet his almost as though she dares him to turn her away.

You can stay, he says instead, sighing and dropping his paint-stained cloth on the stool beside the too-blue and too-much-of-Tatiana painting that he thinks holds a good deal more than he should express out loud.

The look she shoots him is wondering. Open in a way that scares him, if he’s honest, and maybe that’s what makes him cross the gap between them.

Maybe that’s why he kisses her this time.

She tastes like cherries and mulled wine, warm with something of a bite, and the surprised sound that trembles loose from the back of her throat is almost a cat’s purr. Her mouth is gentle, pliant, welcoming in a way that the rest of her has never been. He almost reels back from the touch but then her tongue runs over his bottom lip and her hands land in his hair and he crashes against her whole. Her back’s against the wall and still she escapes confinement by kicking her heels off mid-kiss and running her bare foot up his leg until he presses up against her hips. She muffles a whimper against his mouth that he almost dares smile at.

Ron, she breathes, when his hand tangles with her hair and his other hand’s skimming past the hem of her dress, and it might be the first time she’s ever said his name and certainly the first time it’s not accompanied by a roll of her eyes.

Tatia, he hums, because she’s been Petrova since Chuck showed him her photos and Tatiana since she walked into his life and Tati Tat Tanya in different stories about different people and Tanusha to the brother he’s never met, and he wants to know her in a way that all these people do not. Tatia, Tatia, he murmurs when his hands slip the straps of her dress of her shoulder and she doesn’t stop him but arches into the touch, come here, hm, let me..

She kisses him to drown out the words. Streaks of blue paint are on her cheeks, on her thigh, in her hair. He’s sure he’ll never eat another cherry without tasting her again.

[scoundrels-in-love]

I dream of being the face on your page (I want to hold you forever, I want a taste of the Good Life)

The one where Meryl discovers that bringing her companions to her apartment comes with unexpected dangers, namely: having her journal from the journey to JuLai, filled with embarrassing doodles of her enormous crush on Vash, be discovered. Luckily, those feelings have long since grown into something much deeper and openly mutual, so, perhaps there's hope for recovery still. (At least until Wolfwood sees it, too.) | Vashmeryl & Mashwood | | Established relationship | Meryl is cringe but valid | Gray-aroace Meryl | Just soft and good times for all of them | Home is other people |

The climb to her apartment isn't long - it's neither at the top nor bottom of the run down apartment complex on one of December's edges. Commuting to work had been a pain and paying its bills with almost half of her wage still is, but it is hers and though the pride she felt - still feels - when she thinks about that is dwarfed by the grander scheme of things, it is not insignificant. 

In fact, it's big enough that she has gotten entirely caught up in being able to provide them a place for a couple days. To the point that she realizes she has no idea what state she left it in only by the time she's unlocking the door. Oh God, what if she had left her clothes strewn all over in her hurry to pack, pursuing the lead on Eriks?

It's too late now, the trio of her companions is on her heels and, objectively, they've all seen worse. From her and definitely in general. Even Milly, who she had briefly tried to look all professional and composed for. The good thing is, very little can disappoint Milly, so even Meryl's true self hasn't hasn't managed to earn any disapproving looks from her.

Clinging to that thought, Meryl fumbles with the key and then slips inside in the slightly musty darkness of the apartment. The light bulb flickers before settling on shining.

"Come on in," she says and if it sounds a little impatient - well, Vash is still a wanted man and there is nervousness brushing down her spine that she doesn't know how else to address.

They all pile in then, milling around the small corridor and stepping on each other's toes before Meryl ushers them into the living room. Wolfwood has to leave the Punisher propped against the wall near the door because there is no space for him to maneuver around with it. The sight of the gun in tattered wrappings battered by elements against the simple wallpaper that she had redone herself makes something in her chest tumble, but she isn't sure what it is.

So she focuses on doing a cursory sweep of the place and is relieved to find that everything seems to be in order. She tells them to make themselves at home, notices a slant to Vash's mouth that makes her want to kiss his bittersweet thoughts away, but she settles for giving his hand a squeeze as she moves toward her own room. He returns it, reassuringly, as he always does.

Wolfwood immediately goes to raid her tiny kitchen and she shouts general directions of where she keeps her long lasting snacks for the times she comes home after a work trip and shopping is too much of a chore, before slipping into her bedroom.

It, too, is tidy and Meryl vaguely recalls having an anxious urge to fix everything before she left, as if it would somehow fix the odds of her journey ahead, as if she could work the worry out of her by rearranging her writing supplies and corners of her bedspread. She had been angry at herself, for stalling, after years of looking. (After years of getting her hopes up and then ground to dust. After years of performing miracles to piece it together from nothing again.)

Milly peeks her head in, eyes round and curious, and Meryl waves her in. The realization that she’s barely had anyone over in this apartment and definitely not in her bedroom comes a second later, but she pushes it aside quickly. What is there to hide from Milly, who is the closest to a friend she’s had in years, what is there to hide from her or the boys when they’ve shared rooms (and beds) at inns, the cramped space of the van's backseat? (When she’s shared her pain and hopes, silly little dreams and bone-deep beliefs?)

“I should have a spare blanket and pillow here,” Meryl says, opening her wardrobe, while Milly starts to investigate - she hears the shuffling and various oohs and aahs. She guesses they might be about her full bookshelf or the few photos of her family she has up. There's not a lot more to admire about her living space.

After a bit of struggle, she emerges from the wardrobe with her bounty, just as Milly speaks up: “Oh, Miss! Is this your journal from back when you were traveling with Mr. Vash?”

Meryl glances at it and the neat pile of journals on her desk - she must’ve pulled them out to page through before her trip, maybe taken notes or contemplated bringing them with her, in case Vash - Eriks - needed proof of her words, if the rumors of his missing memory were true. Wait, why hadn’t she taken them-

“Milly, wait!” The blanket and pillows are tossed aside as she leaps toward her curious colleague.

It’s too late, of course it is, and she can see the open pages of her journal, edges adorned in heart-pattern lace doodles and Vash’s portrait in the center, in profile looking off into the distance and smiling softly. It’d not be half as damning if the other page wasn’t littered with more hearts, some of which she’d doodled their initials in, a stick figure doodle of Vash carrying her princess-style (mostly distinguishable by his coat and her hat) and some line stolen from a love poem.

She can feel her face heat completely within seconds.

"I can explain, I-"

"Oh, you've got a talent for drawing! That looks exactly like Mr. Vash!" Milly exclaims and it's definitely not what Meryl expected, but it's not exactly easing her mortification, either.

At the same time, Vash barrels into the room: "I heard yelling, is everything okay?"

She would feel touched by his concern, if her mind wasn't racing to find how to prevent what was going to happen in the next few seconds.

"Mr. Vash! Have you seen this? She's so good!"

Meryl lunges for the notebook in one last desperate attempt to save face, but Vash is faster and plucks it from Milly's hands, holding it above Meryl's head as he looks at the pages and starts flipping through the rest of it quickly.

(There really is something profoundly cursed about being of her stature among three giants. If she had even a couple inches more, they'd all see hell.)

To avoid looking even more foolish as she jumps after her journal, Meryl just grabs the blanket and pillow from where she had dropped them and shoves them in Milly's arms. The other woman beams at her, gives another compliment on her drawing skills and then leaves.

She still feels red in the face when she looks at Vash, who has lowered the notebook and is looking at her instead, head tilted to the side and eyes careful. “I didn’t mean to pry, I can give it back if you’re really uncomfortable,” he offers. 

“I just got caught up in the reminder you cared for me, even through the time on the Sandsteamer, through it all, really.”

It’s that admission that really makes her choice for her and Meryl shakes her head. Her embarrassment will be short lived compared to the comfort this might bring to him. 

“It’s okay, I don’t mind, really.” She emphasizes the last word, before Vash talks himself out of doing what he really wants to do. She moves to stand next to him and flips the notebook to the start, nudges him to continue, which he does. 

Meryl doesn’t hold the illusion that he’s the perfect man, but even so, it is easy to fall in love with Vash - in some ways, it had been even easier back then, when there had been fewer shadows haunting the depth of his bright eyes, when his earnest smiles were rare, but not a luxury like they had been after JuLai (she takes pride in the fact she can coax them out more frequently these days). When his heart did not yet bring a ghost of a city with him wherever he went. 

And it had started as a study of him, really - she would do rough sketches of his prosthetic, his gun, the Project Seeds patch or do an expression study all for purposes of her article as he wasn't always very forthcoming with information, but the more attention she paid to him and the little nuances, the more her heart lingered on them.

Her professional, concise notes of their days started to stretch out, pausing to describe the way he'd lit up eating a fresh doughnut or playing with the local children, the way he'd saved her (again, and he'd used his body to shield her), the silence that consumed him after a conflict. She'd spend the quiet hours of her watch by the fire, doodling out these scenes and trying to capture him, with growing awareness that he was much more like a logic puzzle where every next layer shifted the moment you touched the first.

But it had not yet been sharp and cutting enough to pierce the growing infatuation, where she started to picture his smiles all for her or how his hand would engulf hers, the way he'd rest his head against her shoulder as they watched the sunset and she'd get to hear the entirety of the melody he sometimes hummed when content.

It is not that she only wrote about Vash, only drew him (even considering that most other things she could openly take photos of), but there is no denying the increasingly romantic tint Vash's content takes, until it is nothing but girlish fantasies poured onto page with all the intensity of a first crush.

Because that's what he had been. Through her school years, even university, she had been too busy escaping into studies and books to fall for anyone. The few times she'd been asked out had been met with flustered rejection based on rationale. Too busy with this project, the finals are coming up - I wouldn’t have the time. They deserve better than that. (Better than her lack of interest in this stranger.)

The notebook's romance arc culminates by Ship Three, where the last drawing is a detailed rendition of the two of them holding hands as they rest beneath a tree in the artificial gardens. And in the corner, a rougher sketch of her pressing a kiss to Vash's cheek.

Meryl recalls that by then, she had imagined that once Millions Knives was dealt with (how, exactly, had been vague and largely unimportant in her fantasies), Vash would announce that he was a free man to follow his heart finally and sweep her off her feet. Or that she'd clear his name with articles in every newspaper and he'd dip her in a kiss on top of a December skyscraper just as the sun was setting. Either way, it'd be Vash and Meryl 💖 from there on out. 

Though the  memories come back as she watches Vash experience this journey through her notes, it all feels like a lifetime ago and in some ways, it is. That Meryl Stryfe had melted away in the heat and light which had razed JuLai. Maybe even before that - disintegrated under Roberto's bloody hands as he pressed the derringer in hers. Either way, she knows the death date to put on that headstone. It's a death date shared by many things.

That day has a drawing in her journal, too. It's crumpled with the force she had applied pencil to it, depicting the darkness through which Vash had plummeted through, like a falling star. The only wish she had had when watching it was please be safe please don't die please don't leave me please come back to me please live please-

Some of it is scribbled at the bottom of the page, the writing smudged and stained from splatters of tears.

Vash's fingers brush over the words and she clasps his hand, bringing it to her lips. "You did," she reminds him before he can start sinking in his guilt over causing her pain.

In one fluid motion, Vash pulls her in his embrace. She feels the spine of her journal press into her shoulder as he clings to them both like a lifeline and she wraps her arms around him, digs her fingers into his coat. 

"I kept you waiting for so long," he murmurs into her hair. And he had, he had kept her chasing across the world and years for him, and yet-

Meryl pulls away just enough to look into his face, his eyes that are clouded with the kind of bottomless sadness that she's always afraid will take him away from her one day. 

"I love you, I have you now and every day has been worth it."

She has to rise on her tiptoe and he has to meet her halfway, but Meryl wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him, with all the emotion she can muster. Her own and the ones from Meryl of the past.

That Meryl who drew those doodles would be so happy for her, though she could never imagine just how vast and deep her feelings would grow to be. How utterly world changing it would be to be loved by Vash in return.

His prosthetic holds her to him tightly, while his other hand comes to cradle her face, thumb brushing tenderly over the apple of her cheek. It's so easy to melt into his touch - and in the emotions that drip into her consciousness. It is almost like her skin has gained another sense, brushing against the ridges and grooves and even planes of Vash's feelings. It doesn't startle Meryl anymore, she welcomes the insight into his heart, no matter how lonely it might sometimes be.

Now, what she feels is an overwhelmed marvel that he is loved - has been loved for so long. Gratitude and sense of being undeserving. That holding her, having this tenderness and love is something he can have, that she believes he is allowed to. Even when she knows, even when she has seen so much. That something like him can inspire something as sweet and pure as the feelings she had poured on the pages, that something like him can have her in this moment even when clarity of what he is and what follows in his wake has long since descended upon them.

There is an ache in her chest and she can't tell if it is his or hers - maybe it is simply theirs. When they part just so, Vash's face is a little blurry to her and she could swear there's a shine to his eyes, too.

"I love you," she repeats, pressing soft little kisses to his mouth and cheeks. It's a victory in itself that in his heart of hearts, he believes those words now. The war to love some kindness and faith for himself into Vash is going to be a long one, so she will take every win. 

Vash captures her mouth in a sweet kiss and lifts her up, carefully setting her on the desk. She used to squeak every time he would shift her like this, as if she weighed nothing, but now she only clings to him tighter - not for fear he would drop her, but it's easier with the more evened out height difference. He settles between her legs, one hand coming to rest at her hip and the other tangling in her hair as he cradles her head, now that he's put the journal down next to them.

The slide of his lips against hers is familiar and still intoxicating, so much more than she could have ever imagined all those years ago. Vash moves to kiss soft  I love yous and thank yous into her skin, from the corner of her mouth over to her cheek, across the bridge of her nose and down her other cheek. It tickles lightly and she sputters a soft laugh, which he reflects, presses his forehead against hers. Meryl treads her fingers through his hair and holds him there, tries to keep pouring the sincerity and depth of her feelings through the waning connection to Vash's feelings. It never stays long, just while his heart is the most overwhelmed.

"Milly's going out to buy some food, y'all coming or at least got some requests or somethin'?" Meryl has to peer around Vash's arm to see Wolfwood as he pokes his head in the room in a fashion that implies he meant to leave a second later, but then his eyebrow quirks at the sight of them wrapped up in each other and he swaggers in, which promises nothing but trouble.

And even so, she gets so distracted by how Vash beams at the mention of food and spinning her favorite nearby places in her mind that she misses Nicholas coming in the danger zone - eyeline on the journals.

"Oh, is this what Milly was ravin' about?" He asks and makes a grab for it, too fast for her to stop, especially with her limited mobility still being held by Vash. Because of that, Wolfwood has danced away from the desk long before she manages to disentangle herself and get her feet on the ground. (Vash is helping none and she kicks his shin lightly on her way down for that.)

"Oy, Shortstacks, I knew ya had it bad fo' Spikey since the start, but I didn't know it was this bad."

"Give it back, that's private!" she demands, but to no avail. Her attempts to snag it from him have no success either.

"Says it's yer work journal," he wiggles it above her head as he flips through it. "Did ya show this to your superiors too? Did they commend the angle of the kissin' doodles? Hope they did, it ain't too shabby."

The thought alone heats her face another shade redder. It had actually been quite a bit of work, sifting through it all in the aftermath to create an objective narrative and depiction of events and Meryl had missed Roberto's insight sharply, though she would have never showed him what was actually in her original journal. (She suspects he had had a pretty good idea, nonetheless.)

Suddenly, Wolfwood stops and actually lowers the journal some, to look through it more efficiently.

"Hol' up a damn minute, where's my page?" he asks. "Ooh, did I get a notebook all for myself, hm? Princess, fess up."

"This is exactly why you didn't get one!" Meryl jumps and manages to get a hold of her notebook and despite all his teasing, Nicholas lets it go because he’d never want to rip her things in their back and forth. She hugs it tight to her chest and sizes him up, ready to continue the banter, but something in his expression quiets the urge.

She knows that shuttered look, the one where he withdraws for a while before leaving for a long smoke break. For all his cockiness, for all the ways he speaks as little as Vash about things that matter and she never has a chance to experience his feelings as she does with Vash, Meryl knows he has his fears and insecurities. Of not being good enough - for her, for Vash, for happiness. That they would close the space easily if he took a step back. There are nights when self-loathing envelopes him like smoke and she can barely find his hand to hold through it all.

So Meryl links her arm through his now and smiles up at him. "I got a lot of photos of you, I will show you the album later," she reassures.

It had been an investment, getting them developed, but even as she had paid the hefty sum, she hadn't regretted it one bit. Meryl had spent several nights filling up albums and rearranging them. Group photos, silly moments and earnest fireside conversations, landscapes both marred by battles and untouched by seemingly anything but the rising sun. Roberto, Wolfwood, Vash too, and even her when one of the men had snatched the camera away from her, putting their life in danger. In a way, it had helped her to come to terms with what had been and could never be again, like her own personal memorial thousands of iles away from the one they had put together for Roberto.

(Perhaps it had been then, that she had truly realized how her flight of fancy had gained weight and gravitas as Vash had plunged toward the ground, how much she had grown to rely on Nicholas and care for him in return, how empty the space beside her had been once they had separated for their search for the blond outlaw. How her heart was torn in two but both halves led in the same direction. 

She didn’t doodle Meryl Stampede or Meryl Wolfwood in her notebooks after, but she did do everything in her power to hold their hands again, this time with the intention of truly never letting go. And of making sure they knew why. 

She was done dreaming of fairytale endings, she was ready to live through the uncertain future, loving them still rough from loneliness and pain, until all three of them would tear out space big enough in this chaotic world for content, happy peace to settle in it.)

The tightness around his eyes doesn't go away, but it eases enough for him to give a half hearted grin. She lightly tosses the journal on the bed and brings her free hand to rest over his, squeezes it. "I got all your best angles, I promise. Most of the time, anyway."

That gets a chuckle out of both men and that is how they head back to the living room, Vash a step behind them. Milly beams at them from the corridor and Meryl thinks that the apartment has never felt so much like home as it does at this moment. Not that the word has meant a place for her for a long time, now. She’s lucky enough to always have her home packed in the van with her, squabbling in the backseat.

[sapienthouse]

[ID: several drawings of a young girl, Hillbeth Montgomery. The first is a picrew by Olibuki, then there are three portraits, ending in a full body drawing; between all of which, are red arrows guiding the chronology of her redesign.

Text next to the full body has her name, as well as bullet points reading, "12 years old, she/her, the most middle schooler ever, doesn't realize she's lesbian yet, protag of a children's novel (that's in my head)." She is smiling in every iteration; in the fullbody she stands holding an undrawn backpack in one hand, and crossing her fingers in the other.

Appearance: Hillbeth is a dark skinned Black girl, chubby with symmetrical fake eyebrow piercings, fake vampire fangs, black lipstick, and heavy eyeliner around medium brown eyes.

In her original design, she has her hair braided into cornrows except the back, which is loose in a ponytail. Her nails are unpainted, and she has black make-up designs of lines and triangles on her nose.

In her redesign, the extra make-up is gone, she has acne, and her nails are painted black, all short except on her middle fingers. Her hair is braided into cornrows only on the sides, giving a false undercut. The top of her hair is largely unstyled, shaped vaguely like a V, and braided from the cornrows, she has a thin braid hanging on each side of her face, the ends each having 3 red beads. Next to her is a doodle showing a hair cuff behind her left ear, where a red heart-shaped charm hangs off it.

Her left ear is a pointed prosthetic, where her right ear is natural, with only a prosthetic tip for matching points. Hillbeth wears a fictional Emo band T-shirt in charcoal, a black hoodie over it, black knee-length shorts over ripped sheer tights, and shin-height black platform boots with hand painted red soles. She wears a chain and red strap on the belt loops of the shorts, several rings, and rubber bracelets with fictional band names, "Wallow" and (cut-off) "OT". end ID]

-

OC-tober day 4: redesign❣️❣️❣️ Hillbeth is part of my collection of OCs inspired by stuffed animals I've collected; she was a gift from my friend @littlegreenfags — a little black kitten who she repaired before sending! Hillbeth (the real one) had a damaged ear, and Bobby sewed her up with red thread and added a little heart on the back of it, which I kept with the charm 🫀🫀🫀

Hillbeth is a testament to middle school edginess, she's nicknamed "Hillbeth the Godslayer" which goes along with another stuffie-OC of mine, Susan Destroyer of Kings (we can and WILL get silly here). She has massive amounts of fun DIYing her clothes, ruling over the neighborhood playground, and writing fanfiction in her extra school notebook. Her parents don't understand her, but try their best, and she has friends to go to when they falter.

Even more friends, when she discovers she can reality shift. All my OCs inspired by stuffed animals are all apart of a connected story, where they come from different realities they can move between, probably battling some evils together, too! More Hillbeth trivia:

her prosthetic ear is because she was born with microtia (missing or incomplete ear, and in her case also without an ear canal). because of this, she's also hard of hearing! the custom elven ear was made by her father, who makes silicone medical prosthetics for work.

she's big into theatre, she always auditions for the school plays, and tries to do community productions when her parents have the time to help.

she did axe throwing at a summer camp once, and has been obsessed with it ever since

loves her dog more than anything. if she had to choose between saving the entire world or her dog. well, say goodbye world!

Hillbeth is hellaaa superstitious. it took a lot of convincing from her parents before she stopped throwing salt, but she carries a small wooden block in case she needs to knock on it. these are only a couple examples.

That's my little girl! I'm very unpracticed at drawing children so hopefully she looks about her age 🙏 i tried my very best lol

[theothersarshi]

I don't want to derail @theshitpostcalligrapher's post, so I'll make my own. Anyway, they were really nice to @theworseshitpostcalligrapher on this post, where the latter rewrote the same three words in a similar style in a reblog. (So it's really nice all around - there's acknowledgement of what's going on, there's approval, there's building up.)

And I wanted to share a story.

Back when I was in primary & middle school (grades 1-8 over here in Romania), I was a very, very earnest kid, a bit naive, but when I loved people or things, I really loved them. Keep that in mind for what happens next.

We had 1 hour of Art class/week all throughout middle school, but our middle school Art teacher Did. Not. Teach. I can't emphasize how much teaching didn't happen. We had to have watercolors/tempera and a paint brush, and he'd tell us things like, "Paint something Olympics-themed" or "Draw something for the local theater festival". Then we'd get grades based on how nice our paintings/drawings were. That was it. That was all.

...I found out things like the human body having proportions only when I was already a student, while talking to my future bff. I found out tempera isn't "watercolors, but in a tube" even later. But never mind that.

My middle school best friend had talent, though. She was naturally Good At Art and she came up with this amazing style (well, amazing to us 12 yos) where she made up big drawings out of tiny pencil doodles - asterisks and spirals were among her favorites, I think. It was not quite like typewriter art, because her doodles didn't overlap, but typewriter art + Pointilism + doodles is the best way I can describe it. The rest of us hadn't even thought about using a pencil.

I was in love. And I could sort of understand how she did it, so I started... copying that. I wanted to try it out for myself, do the thing. I changed the basic doodle shapes, but I kept the general idea. (I would have preferred something realistic and colorful, but I had no idea how to do any of that; see: teaching, not happening)

My colleagues called me a copycat (understandable). My mother called me a copycat (*sigh*). Even my teacher called me a copycat (I'm wondering vaguely if that's why he never taught anything, so we'd never end up copying a style we saw, *le gasp*). One must never, ever do what someone else is doing! ORIGINALITY!!!ONE! Figure it out yourself, in your own way!

Adult!Me thinks our teacher could have used this as a Teachable Moment to talk about why her drawings worked and to point us in the direction of similar artists or whatever. Or maybe he could have realized I wanted to learn something and pointed me in the direction of, I don't know, a book about how to draw, maybe. If he didn't want to teach his class himself. But I digress.

I was left feeling bad and like a complete loser. My best friend at the time mocked me, too, because of course she did. As far as I know, when we got to high school she never drew again (we were no longer friends by then, due to unrelated reasons).

It feels particularly wonderful to me to come across people actively encouraging and helping each other to learn, even if they're walking paths others have walked before. I never learned how to draw, but I did learn how to write stories, and there's a lot of fumbling around and imitating others to see what works and why before you become good. It takes so much practice. It's hard.

And sometimes maybe you just want to do The Thing for yourself, and that's also fine. Who the heck cares if you decide to have your own Van Gogh-style painting of your own bedroom on the wall of your bedroom?

Anyway, it makes me so happy when I see creatives being creative and sharing things with others. It's probably very flattering to be the only one at the lonely top, but when you have a community and you can learn from others, everyone wins more.

[nat-seal-well]

I’ve been on hold trying to call the bank (again) for the better part of an hour so while I wait, you get a snippet from chapter 2 of stay close to me.

(All the same TWs apply—warnings for descriptions of blood and injury)

When Elena was a teenager, she had a health class that spent most of the time drilling the idea of abstinence into her head, as if it was going to do any good telling a bunch of horny teenagers to not be horny. She let most of the teacher’s lecturing go in one ear and out the other, and doodled bad flowers and stick-figure cats in the margins of her notebook. It’s safe to say the class was a waste, for the most part.

But there was one day where the teacher stood up at the front of the room, and he drew a huge triangle on the white board in blue dry-erase marker. Above the top point, he labeled it Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and divided the triangle up into layers.

The bottom layer was also the biggest and that one, he said, were the basics people need to survive: water, food, shelter. That sort of thing. All the other layers shrank the further up you went, and they were different requirements—safety, belonging, love, and whatnot. But the basics were the essentials to keeping the body alive.

Water, food, shelter. All the big things always come in sets of three. It makes them easier to remember, like a sort of magic trinity.

Water, food, shelter.

Right now they don’t have any of those.

“Okay,” Elena says, a little frantic. “Okay. Um…”

What do you do when you don’t know what to do? Panic is probably the answer most people would give, but Elena doesn’t have time to panic. Ava is injured, and she is still hurting, and if she panics she’ll lose time she really can’t afford to lose. It’s already slipping through her fingers like water. They spent hours sprawled out on the forest floor, unaware, and now they’re left with less daylight before night comes around again.

You gotta get your shit together, she thinks, because it sounds like something Mason would say and he always gives the best advice. To the point and straight-up, and usually around a cigarette between his lips.

She doesn’t have anything else going for her, so that’s what she does. Elena gets her shit together. Or tries to, anyway.

First things first.

“We’re lost,” Elena says aloud, mostly to herself. “In the woods. Um. I-I don’t know where we are.”

It could be the same woods, but it very easily—and more likely—could not be. The portal means they could be anywhere. There are lots of forests in the world, and to anyone who isn’t a master woodsman, they all kind of look the same. She loves her forest but is by no means an expert at anything that has to do with how one works.

And by lost, Elena means about as lost as you can be. It isn’t even the “wandered from the trail and oh no now I don’t know where I am” kind of lost. At least when you’re that kind, you still know vaguely where you are, and everyone else back home also knows, and they’re able to contact emergency services and get help. They’re the forest equivalent of a plane going AWOL and disappearing over the ocean, and the only people to have washed up on some little island.

Ava hasn’t moved since Elena made her keep still. It’s nice to know that she actually listens sometimes. Elena just hates the circumstances leading up to it. If they make it out of here—when they make it out of here—she’ll do anything Ava says for the rest of forever, and only complain a little bit sometimes. But they gotta get out first.

Elena still has her hands on Ava, so when she speaks she can feel the rumble of her voice. “Yes.”

Her eyes are closed though, and Elena doesn’t like the way she looks. Wait, no. That sounds rude. Does that sort of thing matter when you’re lost? Probably not, but still. Ava is as lovely as she ever is, but right now there’s no color in her face and there’s still blood on her and in her hair and—and it’s just… scary.

Scary makes Elena feel like a child. But it is scary. She only had minimal training on first aid situations like this, and has rarely ever had to deal with blood that isn’t her own. There’s a gash above Ava’s hairline that looks bad and is the source of all the bleeding. What a wonderful time for Elena to discover that she does not like the way blood and hair mix, all matted and gory. Also, head wounds are scary all on their own. Brains are scary. It’s too easy for something to happen to them, and they’re important.

(In the back of her mind, she makes note of the way her own feels. She’s still nauseous and the blood isn’t helping and the sunlight is too bright, but she isn’t the one bleeding on the forest floor. So suck it up, buttercup. Tina likes to say that.)

[mostspecialgirl]

the doctor has ordered more OC rambling

feeling guilty for giving Kane so much trauma that I keep making more people immortal so he doesn’t have to suffer so much and in turn realizing I left behind my only character who was initially supposed to survive in the first draft (so sorry, stitches) so now I have to go write about that whole mess

pictured: ancient first drawing of stitches and more recent mspaint redesign

i think itd be really fun to do a little doodle of everyone in island isolation to pair up with a 300* years later version where there’s only 5 of them left

*(unofficial timeframe)

How the fuck does time even work in the relicverse like obviously ive vaguely worked it out but the demiurge just being able to pluck people from the stream of time as he pleases and characters who persist through multiple series due to immortality really fucks with everything in a way where i have to sit down sometime and properly hash out an ultimately meaningless timeline because i’m not sure any of the relicverse is ever going to get released (bar i am gary. bar alejandro. bar in shadows. bar the insiders youtube shorts. Okay. Maybe some of it will)

i just kind of feel like my cute little universe has turned into something so monstrous it’s impossible to think about anyone else wrangling it so i just keep feeding it more and more to be self indulgent because literally no one is hearing about these stories or characters aside from myself. tell me why the fuck mona and abraxas are working for ninestrike as planewalkers after in shadows with cronus as a provisionary shade attending the savant’s grove ball racing to steal the same relic qiyama and alejandro are after. Isn’t in shadows about some weird kid and a death god. isn’t alejandro a shitpost webtoon about trying to draw funny faces. you aren’t even supposed to know planeswalkers exist until the end of devil’s manner with Father. Until the last act of alejandro’s qiyama arc with Voxel. and why do i have the time to write about Father and his role within hundred nights who aren’t even relevant to any massive story i’ve planned out unless you want to count insiders and heavenless circulation in which they’re pretty much still just glorified set dressing

pictured: old material of father and voxel, and the latest one i have of them together

eventually at some point I’m sure I’ll be able to meet the right person to infodump about the relicverse to over the series of multiple nights and pray they will be so invested in it that we may share in its beauty eternal. that somehow sounds more feasible than actually getting all of this released in a timely manner. i’m only one girl and i’ve somehow made something fit for an entire platoon of staff

trying to focus back up on specifics here i’ve been focusing more on hundred nights lately, which i’m glad about because despite the fact I always come back around to getting super fixated on something i promised myself i eventually would, each time i’m always a little afraid i’ll never get super invested in it and have to force myself to work it out. but thankfully i’ve written enough super interesting (to me) characters into the top positions (bogdana, judge, father, prawn, chacha, etc) and their relation to their opposition who i’m invested in as well who are also fun (agenor and the 6 monsters)

however, i feel like now in contrast the planeswalker association (their main opponent) have started to seem much less exciting and i haven’t gotten around to fleshing them out as much as id like. i really have to tuck in sometime and give one or two of them really traumatic backstories or make their powers cooler. as much as i love characters like ging, metal and indus, i feel like together as a unit they haven’t truly come together enough as i would like. i’ve been thinking about throwing a member of the berezaiti clan in with them or focusing on guan liang and the greater planeswalker society to try and stir up my interest but i’m not ready to try when i’ve got my current opportunity to work on the hundred nights guild.

pictured: the time i tried to doodle chacha and judge and got so wrapped up in trying to manifest a great design for chacha i ended up forgetting the fact i was doodling, and the planeswalker association heads from the Relationship Chart

It’s kind of funny how little i’ve been drawing the insiders despite my undying passion and love for them, but i’ve become really satisfied with where they are right now and can just rotate them in my mind doing their daily shenanigans forever now. but in general, i’ve just been writing so so so so much shit instead of drawing lately. sorry about that. i’m a drawing account, aren’t i? thank you to the one person who reads this shitty indecipherable ramble to the end. i’m sorry you chose to read all of this!!!

pictured: the famous Ist Floating Head i should finish and my favorite doodle of mona and cronus