#Painted Kiva

[theeloveofsolitude]

｡ :･ﾟArwen Undomiel ✧･ﾟ

mine is the choice of Lúthien, and as she so have I chosen, both the sweet and the bitter.

[elb0wn00dle]

daily doodle number four

[jamienoguchi]

Tokutember 18, ELECTRICITY! I don’t think Kamen Rider Kiva has an electric form, but this works.

#tokutember #kamenriderkiva #clipstudiopaint

[batcaveofmodernart]

Untitled painting by Lloyd Henri "Kiva" New.

[beaniebeby]

i do a lot of playing around with coloring....thank u infinite painter....

[whatsernameanyways]

Albuquerque Guest

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 3, Wave 2, Poll 3

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included. 

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Ballister Blackheart-Nimona (Novel)

Qualifications:

He’s gay and an amputee

Propaganda:

He’s a lot more evil and also more established on what he’s doing than the movie. I think he’s neat, he does a lot more scheming and plotting and general shenanigans.

Data Soong-Star Trek: The Next Generation

Qualifications:

Many fans interpret him as autistic, including me, and he is gay. Also canonically asexual! He has only ever had one onscreen romance (Tasha Yar does not count, that was a one night stand/FWB thing), with a woman, in which the entire moral was that he was forcing himself to be someone he wasn't while in a relationship with her. His closest relationship is with Geordi LaForge, a relationship commonly interpreted as romantic or queerplatonic.

Propaganda:

Data as a character is so important to me, as an autistic queer kid. His whole storyline of wanting to be human, but never being able to be human, because there's something fundamentally different about him that causes some people to treat him as lesser and nonsentient.... very autistic. He often infodumps to people, is very blunt, experiences emotions in an unconventional way, is socially awkward, and has specific interests in things like poetry and painting. He is a very kind person, and is averse to harming even people who are direct threats to him (such as Kivas Fajo). He has a cat and writes poems about her!! He breaks the prime directive to save a little alien girl!! I cannot adequately explain how awesome this character is in words.

Submitted by @convenient-plot-device

[southwest-pottery-bracket]

Preliminaries: Battle of the Black-on-Whites!

Black-on-white pottery is far and away the most common decorated pottery style of the ancient Southwest. There are way, way too many to include them all... in fact, there are too many to include even all the ones I want to show off!

So this is the Preliminary Round - four different black-on-white types will go up against each other... only two will move on to represent black-on-whites in the final bracket.

Vote for your favorite!

Information and details about each type under the cut:

Sosi and Dogoszhi Black-on-white

Dogoszhi Black-on-white jar. Northeastern Arizona, 1050-1200.

These are actually two different types within Tusayan White Ware - Sosi B/W and Dogoszhi B/W. However, like I said, Too Many Whitewares, so I'm grouping them together because there's strong overlap.

Sosi B/W can be identified by its bold, black designs, like the one in the compilation above the cut; Dogozshi B/W has similar design layout, but instead of solid black, they're filled with hatchure (thin, parallel lines. Sometimes, like the image above, the body is a Dogoszhi design, while the neck has a more Sosi-like design.

Sosi and Dogozshi Black-on-whites were built with the coil-and-scrape method (built up of many small coils, probably turned on a turning plate called a puki, and then while the clay was still wet, scraped smooth and sometimes polished). The paint was carbon-based and got its color from a plant called beeweed. These were made in the Kayenta and Tusayan regions of north-eastern Arizona.

Mimbres Black-on-white

Bowl with a Frog, Mimbres Black-on-white. Southwestern New Mexico, AD 1000-1150.

One of the most iconic Southwest pottery types. Literally: one of the few pottery types in the Southwest to display a wide range of icons, human and animal figures. Pre-Classic Mimbres bowls used geometric and rotational symmetry designs more often, mixing bold lines and hatchure; Classic Mimbres bowls tend to have a linear design around the rim, and then a human or animal design on the inside. Various types of figures are seen, but primarily birds, insects, amphibians/reptiles, and twin human figures, in hematite-based paint.

Mimbres bowls are among the most popular to be sold by looters on the black market. Worse, a very large number of the most dramatic Mimbres bowls come from burials; if you see an archaeological pot for sale with an animal design like this, it was almost certainly stolen out of a grave. You can especially suspect this when the bowls have small circular holes smashed or drilled in the center, usually obscuring the figure partially. Archaeologists call these kill holes, from the idea that the pot was "killed" to end its use-life when it was buried with the deceased person. If you see a Mimbres pot with a kill-hole, odds are very good (something like 80%) that it came from a burial. These displayed bowls here are verified to come from non-burial contexts.

Chaco Black-on-white

Chaco (or Gallup) Black-on-white. Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, north-western New Mexico, AD 1000-1100.

Chaco Canyon! One of the most dramatic, interesting, and still mysterious aspects of the Ancestral Southwest. In a canyon in New Mexico, multiple palatial "Great Houses" were built, with hundreds of rooms, large and regimented plazas, massive kivas (circular subterranean religious buildings), and an incredible amount of decoration and pageantry. Pueblo Bonito, the largest of the Chaco Great Houses, is proven to have had a matrilineal elite/noble lineage. How many people actually lived in the Great Houses? Were they palaces, communal centers, worship centers? Were the Chaco elite a priestly class or a noble caste or a bit of both? How did they mobilize people throughout the Chaco sphere of influence to bring timbers down from the mountains a hundred kilometers away to build these Great Houses? There are a lot of things archaeologists still argue about. Pueblo and Navajo oral histories describe Chaco as an overreach of power that their ancestors eventually rejected, leading to the collapse of Chaco Canyon as a center of social influence throughout the Southwest around 1100. (Modern Pueblo and Navajo relationships to Chaco are complicated. It was an overreach of power, but also an incredible ancestral polity.) Until then, it was certainly a socially, politically, and religiously powerful force.

You can also see this in the pottery: this style of hatchure, the narrow black-and-white lines, was massively popular in Chaco Canyon and seems to have kind of ripple-effected out to the rest of the Southwest who were in or near the Chaco sphere of influence. Hatchure is very common in a lot of black-on-white wares, but very close, very narrow, very even hatchure is strongly associated with Chaco Canyon.

Cylinder jars for chocolate-drinking, as described and confirmed by Dr. Patricia Crown. Chaco Canyon, Pueblo Bonito, 1000-1100.

Also, Chaco Black-on-white cylinder jars were used for a chocolate-drinking ritual, indicating cultural connections, religious ties, and trade routes to Mesoamerica and Maya communities far to the south in Mexico in the 900s-1000s. It's an important thing to remember: None of these cultures or time periods were static, and were almost never insular.

Mesa Verde Black-on-white

Mesa Verde Black-on-white bowls. Southwestern Colorado/northwestern New Mexico, AD 1150-1280.

An immensely popular white ware style, Mesa Verde Black-on-white is associated with the Ancestral Pueblo settlements - including the dramatic and famous cliff dwellings, like Cliff Palace. Bold, heavy, repeating geometric designs in carbon-based paint are the most common, but there are hatched designs and some areas that used mineral paints as well. Paintbrushes to apply these painted designs were made of yucca.

Some of the most fun and famous Mesa Verde B/W vessels are the mugs of Mug House, a site so named because a bunch of mugs were found in it.

[livewireprojects]

This is another pic I forgot to post from a contest, I want to thank the guy running the contest for allowing me some extra time. I luckily got this in on time.(By that I mean I posted it on the final day of the contest)

This was for a contest a guy(Link to his twitter) on a Megas XLR fan server I'm on, he was having a contest were all you need to do is draw Kiva from Megas XLR.

I thought it'd be interesting to draw Kiva as a Frame Arms Girl figure which is a plastic kit you put together to make a 1/12 size(slightly taller than a Figma figure without the extras on) possible figure with interesting robotic armor parts. They apparently are gijinka versions of another kit set just called Frame Arms that are robots similar to Gundams or the knightmares from Code Geass.

So I tried to design Kiva(or Megas as she's called here since the girls are all named after the mecha they're based on) to fit in with the Frame Arms Girls. Not entirely sure how well I got it cause I wanted to keep as much of her suit/uniform as possibly, if I ever redraw her again I might try to work on this more.

Her armor shoes/boots/whatever are based on Magatsuki (Kikka)'s armor boots. I got inspired to give her Megas's mecha arms as armor arms she can control thanks to Architect who has attachable armor arms. I turned the car into a headpiece thing cause gotta put the car in somewhere & the Frame Arms Girls often have a head piece thing of some form. The car would look better upside down but gatt have it set up correctly.

Lineart was made in Clip Studio Paint while coloring & background was in Rebelle 6 which I should reinstall cause Rebelle 7 feels a little odd & more runny.(Context this program is meant to simulate traditional art like water colors & acrylic paint so there's a water running effect & I did practically everything with the watercolor tool)

[innervoiceartblog]

"Near the Rio Grande is Kuaua Kiva, a sacred hole in the ground. I climbed down the ladder and sat in the center of the cool dark vessel. The walls of this womb are painted. Hares and birds are spitting seed. Clouds and rain fertilize the maize and handprints chase a trail of deer hooves. Masked dancers, girded with conch shells, spin hoops and rattle gourds. The snakes and eagles bear their messages to me."

Published in The Mother's Songs, 1986.

Artwork: Vessel by Meinrad Craighead, 1983, Ink on Scratchboard

Signed prints of this image are available at https://rcwms.org/product/vessel-print/

[the-art-of-sanshoku]

The only year of my life where I drew at least one thing every month so I can finally make something like this :> also my first full year on Tumblr! Started this blog about a year and a half ago because I wanted to take art more seriously and honestly it was still a pretty on and off thing for a while but I've been locked in the past few months (gee wonder why). Here's hoping to a productive 2025 🙏

Dont want to flood the tags so I'll just write down what's what and ramble a bit under the cut:

January: Lain Iwakura from Serial Experiments Lain. I remember I wanted to do something that had MS Paint vibes with Lain for some reason lol

February: Iris Wilson, Herlock Sholmes, and Yujin Mikotoba from The Great Ace Attorney. Made this after shortly after finishing the game, what can I say other than Iris is my favorite~

March: Didn't post this to the blog but it was something I made for a friend's DnD campaign

April: Prompto from FFXV, another thing not posted to my blog (I actually had no posts March or April I was very busy with life at the time) the only thing I found on my ipad for this month was a csp file of random sketches so I just cropped one I kinda liked. It was mostly FFXV because I had just beaten the game I think

May: Selvie from Unicorn Overlord, another instance of "I just beat the game wanted to draw some of them". Very happy with how I colored this one, still very fond of this

June: Yuka-chan from Blue Period, made this for pride month so I picked a character I love from a manga I love (read blue period NOW)

July: Jiro from Kamen Rider Kiva. Started getting back into Kamen Rider around June I think with Build and then watched Kiva in July. Seems I didn't do too much artwork in July so have another sketchy piece

August: Takeshi Hongo from Kamen Rider (1971). I actually started watching Kuuga here but a lot of my earlier pieces are uh.... Anyway my favorite thing from this month is this Hongo so I picked that :)

September: Azuma Michinaga from Kamen Rider Geats. The colors are kind of funky but idk I liked this one! Probably my best Geats fanart tbh

October: Godai and Ichijo from Kamen Rider Kuuga. I like this one a lot. I really struggle with drawing cute chibi things and this is one of the few times I felt I succeeded. Also the hands were fun to draw

November: Godai and Ichijo again hehe, this was from a compilation of goichis but I cropped my favorite section of it. I like doing this kind of watercolor-y vibe from time to time, and I felt these came out pretty nicely

December: Ichijo (with Godai offscreen) if you couldn't tell I might like these guys. Still very proud of this one, it has a background! And attempts at composition! POV! I didn't feel like I just slapped a character's face on a photo reference! The colors are kind of nice even. I left behind some very messy linework but it's okay.

[rabbitcruiser]

Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park (No. 15)

This multi-storied ruin, the best-known cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde, is located in the largest alcove in the center of the Great Mesa. It was south- and southwest-facing, providing greater warmth from the sun in the winter. Dating back more than 700 years, the dwelling is constructed of sandstone, wooden beams, and mortar. Many of the rooms were brightly painted. Cliff Palace was home to approximately 125 people, but was likely an important part of a larger community of sixty nearby pueblos, which housed a combined six hundred or more people. With 23 kivas and 150 rooms, Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde National Park.

Source: Wikipedia

[novaauster]

HELLOOOO LETS KILL OURSELVES OVER HERINES HARASAEON. evil of you to do this when im hungover i already almost teared up literally just seeing kiva have her own character tag. like those are my babies from my silly little head and people are creating beautiful things for them!!!! insanity. let's go:

"I just needed a plot device in order to make that boy talk about his feelings bc he only does it if he's homicidal or inebriated" another horrible day fighting the hella-rin allegations

"She never touches his skin, only his scalp, only when doing his hair." fuck the hangover i need a DRINKKK

ama. my best worldbuilding addition by far but also my mortal enemy

"Rin wants to venture into the realm of the gods, find which one is responsible for time, and hold a knife to its throat. He’d force it to turn back the hourglass and eat his words. He’d get on his knees before it and tell it that time itself, and every word spoken, and every word unspoken, must bend to the queen." this whole thing is quite literally some of my favourite writing of all time this is insane this is tattooed onto every inch of my skin i preach this from street corners i spray paint it on buses i-

THE WITCH HAS SHORT HAIR? INTERESTING

they're all so formal lmaoooo. down with monarchy but my harasaeons are okay ig

DRAKO AND AKILA MENTIONED IN A FIC INCIDENT 2 DEAD ONE STILL WRITING LETTERS

"He was born as an apology and he lives the life of a paragon. He likes to be responsible." nova your days are numbered. when i catch you

YOU EQUATED KIVA'S INFLUENCE ON THE PROCEDURE TO SUNLIGHT WHAT IF I KILLED MYSELF. AND ALL THE LANGUAGE REGARDING SHADOW/DARKNESS WITH RIN. MY LAST STRAW

"Her hand brushes a strand of hair back behind his ear, and he hears, more than feels, the kiss to the top of his head. “I’ll be right outside, baby-- baby.”" worst day of my fuckass life

KIVA OBEYS. I CANT DO THIS

clean clay is such a fun addition i love that. also love how official you made the practise of witchcraft bc that's EXACTLY what i want from it like it's literally like talking to any other medical professional

"He spends his time in the sunlight of the library, Kidaro napping on the windowsill, with political treatises, historical scrolls, and the occasional epic poem spread out around him like a hurricane, a method to its madness. He enjoys it. He was always a child with his head in the clouds. He does miss music, though. The palace can get quiet" MY BABY MY BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

RIN IS THE OBEDIENT ONE. KIVA OBEYS. DOG MOTIF HARASAEON IS THE BULLET IN THE GUN IM HOLDING

HELPPPPPP MARY IS KINDA GAGGING HIM HERE LMFAO I LOVE HER

HE TOLD HER ABOUT LILLA????? KING PUT THE VODKA DOWNNNNNNNNNN

"Royal blood, good for nothing but animal feed." NOVA. WHEN. I. CATCH. YOU

AND HE CANNOT ASK DRAKO. THEY'RE BROTHERS THEY'RE MAATUI BUT EVEN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS WILLEM IS SOMETHING THEY CANT MAKE PEACE WITH

'would you still love me if I was a worm?' caught me SOO OFF GUARD IM CACKLING I CANT BELIEVE YOU ADDED THAT

"Rin had created a ten-step plan for the event that one of them met the same fate." HES SUCH A NERD I WOULD KILL FOR HIM

memory so bad i actually checked my kuserian dictionary bc i was like 'oooo ghost being translated to death-shadow is cool why dont i remember that' girl....

HAMMARIIIIIIIII. the way even her name made my stomach flip. what if i cried

got too immersed in the procedure and forgot to live react oops

"he would do anything if it meant he was doing it right" "It’s just that a firstborn is a war. A firstborn is a hurricane with a thousand buzzing wings. It is an omen seared into the back of all their necks, it is once-in-a-generation, it is a gift from the gods. And Rin is not one."

DID YOU. DID YO UFCKNING PUT EPIC OF GILGAMESH IN THIS. DIIIIID YOU FUCKING DO THAHFT. HOW LONG IS THE EYE ABLE TO LOOK AT THE SUN FROM THE VERY BEGINNING NOTHING AT ALL HAS LASTED HE'S BEEN DEAD SINCE THE BEGINNING IN THE STORY OF GODS AND KINGS YOU WERE DEAD BEFORE THE INK DRIED

drako's first thought only being to ask 'will you be okay'. frankly i cant take much more. is this how you guys feel when i talk about them because this is AWFUL

"There were myths, in the burnt edges of the kingdom, that said that there were only ever two Harasaeons. The queen and the heiress, switching places in a cycle like night and day. Hammari and Kiva, two stages of the same life, the snake’s egg and the hummingbird. And then, their reincarnations, Lugalia and-- who? The queen is dead. Long live the queen. It is a form of immortality. Rin shattered it." STOP STOP MAKE IT STOP

the philisophical conversation. is love a form of magic. the chasm of his birth. im going to GET YOU

"Please, Ama. You don’t have to love me anymore. Just remember how it felt when you did." THROWING UP BLOOD

that was. im a changed person i need 3-5 business days to think about this i need to call my mum i need to get drunk i need a fantasy witch to cut my tits off

omg hi!!! so true herines harasaeon group suicide girls night <3 and kiva has made her ao3 debut! she's girlbossing she's literally a debutante she is the queen of all time. yeah

-the witch does have short hair! she's from the east (where the monsters are) and yknow I figure that her powers are used for medicine, but if she didn't have all the safety things put in place (no sunlight, careful runes and careful chants) and just went hogwild on a monster she could basically Shigaraki that thing. monster hunting is her side hustle tbh

-the formal speech was fun for me idk. watched too much BBC Victoria with my mom and now I gasp like a gossiping old lady when I write the phrase "You have my permission to withdraw" bc it's SUCH a power-play it's so good.

-my days might be numbered but so are Rin's

-sunlight and shadow motif with nuance is always sm fun. me when characters are bright and carcinogenic. me when characters are invisible, shadows dogging their own steps, silent and beaten-down and elegant all the same. yeah

-“I’ll be right outside, baby-- baby.”" worst day of my fuckass life too tbh, that's the line that really clicked the whole fic in place for me. kiva loves him but not enough to change him. baby boy good luck taking care of yourself. etc

-dog motif harasaeons you will always be famous

-clean clay and also the oldest sigils Mary paints on Rin are cuneiform if that wasn't clear. mesopotamian aesthetic goes hard

-Mary DOES kinda gag Rin lmao. she's literally so Kanut-coded I can't stand her. she's like 'i won't throw hands with a child but i will permanently invert his worldview with some moderately harsh words and also disrespect the queen if it means showing him that there's someone who supports his evolution wholeheartedly'

-he cannot ask drako!!! grief is something the harasaeons can't stand i think. kiva ignores rin like an open would because she grieves him and lilla. willem is given the same treatment

-"would you still love me if i was a worm" is a tonal shift I wasn't sure about but I think it works. something about siblings defaulting to poking fun at each other when they can't stand the truth. their love must go either unspoken or mocked. they can only survive it with a little humor and a little grace

-rin is the nerd of all time and i love him for it

-i'm gonna be so real death-shadow meaning ghost is something i stole wholesale from Mando'a. like the language for star wars mandalorians. but yknow what the concept fucks hard and george lucas doesn't own the literal mistranslations of his peripheral conlangs

-"It’s just that a firstborn is a war." harasaeons when they have to decide between an insane warmongering eldest daughter and literally anyone else

-yes i did put the epic of gilgamesh in there. yes i was browsing Amazon Goodreads for good quotes in the middle of my economics class. dw about it

-drako asking 'will you be okay' IS how we feel when you drop the saddest lore of all time on us unprompted, yeah x

-Lugalia and-- who? The queen is dead. Long live the queen. It is a form of immortality. Rin shattered it." me when Rin ending the cycle could have been construed as a positive ending to the cycle of generational trauma and violence but instead it is a betrayal to his heritage

-"is love a form of magic" is also one of the central lines of the piece. i wanted to show the deep childlike core of Rin's pain. Tell me a story about how it ends where you're still the good guy I'll make pretend cause I hate this story where happiness ends and dies with you I thought good guys get to be happy I'm not happy. etc. you know how it is

tysm!!!!

[pluagemask042]

Project NEXUS - Megas XLR After being sent to the past by Kiva Andru in the distance future to fight against an invading alien force, it was sent too far into the past. After being found by Coop it was repaired and given a new paint job. Now it fights aliens from the future and the present.

[mythandlaur]

Code: July Day 9 - Season & Day 22 - Snow/Warmth

Admittedly I lost some steam here and doubt I'll do all 30, that was kind of a pipe dream anyway. There's still a couple more I had ideas for that I did want to get out, though. Especially after people have left such kind comments, I really appreciate it ;;

To explain this one, I'd already gone through the whole "season > weather > OH GOD I'M NOT WRITING ABOUT THE HOLIDAY IN THE MIDDLE OF JULY > snow" thought process...before realizing snow was actually another prompt later on. So I'm just going to say this counts for both. Is it cheating? Maybe a bit. Who's counting. (Is someone counting?)

...

Yumi opens her eyes, and feels a pit of dread forming at the bottom of her stomach.

It takes her a few seconds to realize that dread stems from the light from her window painting her ceiling with a different tint than normal. Then another second to stand up, two to walk to the window, and ten solid seconds for her to stare at the thick blanket of snow covering her yard in abject dismay.

She'd thought she'd be over it by the time she had to worry about actual snow. Apparently, she isn't so lucky.

Yumi can already feel the chill from the other side of the window, and she doubles over on herself, trembling. Already, it cuts through her skin, straight into her bones, and there's no way she'll ever be warm again, until she is, she's so hot it's unbearable and she can't feel her fingers and--

"Yuu-chan! Hiiro-kun!"

Her mother's shout up the stairs snaps Yumi out of her thought spiral, and she lurches back from the window as if struck, mind already racing. She's going to have to walk to school with Hiroki, and she's going to have to do it without looking like she's freaking out because it's not even that much snow it's probably not that cold and as far as anyone else is concerned there's no reason she should be any worse about the cold than she was last year.

For the rest of the usual chaos that is a weekday morning at the Ishiyama household, Yumi tries desperately to think of a way out. Her mother sees her off, so she can't just not go. She can't play sick because her mother will see through it immediately, and if she doesn't show up to school, her friends might worry about her--If she freaks them out over something this minor, well, she might as well just die. She can't ask to go by car; the snow isn't that bad, plus her father's really conscious about gas and the school is in the opposite direction of his work, and a negligible drive anyway. Whatever exists of that hope departs with him as he heads out the door, grumbling.

Yumi's forced to begin resigning herself to the fact that there is no way out--she'll just have to do it and hope Hiroki doesn't notice, or that a car doesn't skid and hit her, or that a tree doesn't fall on top of her, or that she doesn't just collapse...She fruitlessly tries to will these thoughts out of her mind, channeling her frustration into helping Hiroki lace up his boots.

There's a knock at the front door, stopping them all mid-bundling.

Yumi's mother nudges past the rest of them to get it. Yumi peers up from her spot on the floor, trying to get a glimpse of the visitors--she gasps in surprise when she recognizes grey-brown and bright pink on her doorstep.

The green one attempts an awkward bow at Yumi's mother, mumbling something into the collar of his jacket that's probably supposed to be "konnichiwa", but comes out more like "coney-kiva". Still, the earnest attempt at least gets a chuckle out of her mother.

"Um...has Yumi left yet?"

"Ulrich! Aelita!"

Yumi ties the last knot in her brother's laces, ignoring the insufferable look he tries to give her, probably having to do with Ulrich coming to the house. She hurries up next to her mother in the doorway, crossing her arms instinctively as the chill wind blows in from outside.

"What are you guys doing here?"

...There's a sudden flash of fear--had she missed a phone call? Aelita must notice it on her face, because she smiles reassuringly. "It's nothing urgent," she says, telling Yumi everything she needs to know in three words. "We just wanted to walk you and Hiroki to school today." She glances sidelong at Ulrich with a sly smirk. "Well, I say we, but it was really Ulrich's idea."

"Mpff." Ulrich pulls his jacket collar up further as if trying to disappear inside it. He's wearing his ski goggles, and his hat's pulled down lower than strictly necessary--right, he'd been there for the snow incident, not to mention that whole held hostage in an industrial freezer situation. He had just as much reason to hate the cold, if not more. And yet, he'd come all the way out here...?

Yumi's mother sighs in relief. "I was a bit worried about it. Thank you both, you're good kids." She shuffles back from the doorway, giving an exaggerated shiver. "Now if you're both ready--Yumi, your mittens--go on and get going so I can shut the door."

Yumi nods, shoving her hands into the offered mittens before herding Hiroki out the door with an arm, Ulrich and Aelita stepping aside to make room. Yumi waves over her shoulder. "Ittekimasu," she calls, her brother halfheartedly chorusing halfway through.

"Itterasshai!" her mother replies, waving before quickly closing the door behind them to block out the cold.

The moment their mother's out of sight, Hiroki turns on Yumi's classmates with a squint of utmost suspicion. "Are you three gonna skip school again?" He says it like a whine, but Yumi knows full well he's just jealous of what he sees as 'cool rebellious teenage activities'. Not that they weren't rebellious (or weren't at all cool, if she's being entirely honest with herself), but given he treats warnings as challenges, it's probably best to let him keep believing it's that simple.

"No," Aelita hums, "We were just worried about you guys walking all this way in the snow."

"But you're missing breakfast..."

Ulrich shrugs. "Yeah, Odd's thrilled. I didn't really feel like eating, anyway."

Hiroki scowls. "You guys are up to something!"

Aelita makes a big show of glancing off to the side with a disappointed sigh. "Okay, you got me." She slips off one of her fluffy pink mittens, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small mp3 player. "I did want a test audience for my new mix..."

Hiroki's eyes go wide, and Yumi can practically see stars in them as he chucks off his backpack and starts digging around for his earbuds. Ever since finding out Aelita was not only a rebellious teenager but also a real DJ who made real actual music herself that had been good enough to get noticed by the Subdigitals, she'd sort of become one of the coolest people on Earth to Hiroki.

Aelita winks back at Yumi as Hiroki throws his backpack back on and runs up next to her. Yumi nods gratefully, and Aelita starts walking, Hiroki keeping pace with her as Ulrich and Yumi let themselves fall a ways behind.

"Your idea, huh," she murmurs to Ulrich, stuffing her hands in her pockets to mirror his stance.

He grunts again. "Yeah. Aelita only really came so your parents wouldn't freak out."

"Good thinking," Yumi snorts, "Plus she makes an excellent distraction." She glances down at their feet, noticing the twin ruts behind Ulrich as he drags his feet. Her voice softens. "Hey, are you okay? I know you--"

"M'fine. It's no big deal."

Yumi rolls her eyes. Of course. "You know, you don't have to pretend you're some big tough guy and that's why you're doing this," she says, though there's no real venom in her voice. She lightly elbows him, nearly knocking him off the sidewalk. "It could just be because you wanted to do something nice for me."

"Th-that's not what I'm trying to--!"

Yumi bites her lip to stifle a laugh as he tries to stare a hole in the ground. She can practically see his blush. God, he's an idiot. Sometimes, that's as charming as it is annoying. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Then what're you doing it for?"

"Uh...!" Ulrich looks up at her with wide eyes, then back down at his own coat, clearing his throat. "I just wanted to be sure that you'd make it. Not--not that I don't think you'd make it, but..."

"Don't worry, I think I get it," Yumi replies with a small smile. He worried she wouldn't bother, which was, considering her thought process all morning, a valid response. The fear still cuts into her, but it's a lot less sharp with them around. Him around. "...Thanks."

This time, it's less of a shove, more of a gentle nudge. He pushes back. "Don't mention it."

"That you care? Secret's safe with me, but the others might've figured it out by now."

"Shut up."

Yumi does let herself laugh, kicking up a bit of snow with a boot. It comes up in a small cloud, fresh and fluffy, not practically frozen under her foot--nothing like before.

It's not at all like before.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 6

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Data Soong-Star Trek: The Next Generation

Qualifications:

Many fans interpret him as autistic, including me, and he is gay. Also canonically asexual! He has only ever had one onscreen romance (Tasha Yar does not count, that was a one night stand/FWB thing), with a woman, in which the entire moral was that he was forcing himself to be someone he wasn't while in a relationship with her. His closest relationship is with Geordi LaForge, a relationship commonly interpreted as romantic or queerplatonic.

Propaganda:

Data as a character is so important to me, as an autistic queer kid. His whole storyline of wanting to be human, but never being able to be human, because there's something fundamentally different about him that causes some people to treat him as lesser and nonsentient.... very autistic. He often infodumps to people, is very blunt, experiences emotions in an unconventional way, is socially awkward, and has specific interests in things like poetry and painting. He is a very kind person, and is averse to harming even people who are direct threats to him (such as Kivas Fajo). He has a cat and writes poems about her!! He breaks the prime directive to save a little alien girl!! I cannot adequately explain how awesome this character is in words.

Submitted by @convenient-plot-device

Sir Alistair Hammerlock-Borderlands

Qualifications:

Canonically an amputee, also has a missing eye

Propaganda:

Silly victorian gentleman hunter guy in a scifi setting. His glasses are broken in a way that makes you see his robo eye AND resembles a fancy monocle. Bri'ish for some reason. Goofy lil man who gives you sidequests and is probably the nicest person in the setting. Refined vocabulary which he occasionally peppers in swears. Fabulous facial hair. Makes jokes abt his missing limbs ("[...] my more artificial limbs may begin to rust. Hard to sneak up on prey with a squeaky prosthetic!"). Huge ADHD and tism vibes imo. Also he's gay and has an equally silly + classy husband who is also disabled so epic diversity win (old man yaoi)

Anything Else?:

IM SO NORMAL ABT HIM

Submitted by @wainwrightjakobshammerlock