#also i really like my last right design so he may not get a redesign

[mintyfrostyart]

Right being an absolute nervous wreck because he wants to respect personal boundaries when doing anything remotely romantic is now my new favourite thing.

[aphidclan-clangen]

Do you have any tips on how to design a sparklecat, Like any inspiration or ideas for it.

Oh man, hm. I usually just freestyle it so let me think

The thing is, AphidClan designs are like. My least professional designs that I have lol, so I can’t really give you classic Actual Professional Character Design Technique Advice because if you followed the professional advice, you would probably not be producing anything that looks like Aphidclan designs lmao, you’d be making much better shit. But you guys want Aphidclan specifically, you guys want how I do it! So I’m gonna try to give you guys,,,whatever advice I can scrounge up from the shit that I do specifically! And like break down what my thought process is into tips?? Anyway

My biggest tip has gotta be Pick An Aesthetic. You don’t have to do this, but it’ll help narrow things down significantly. An aesthetic, a theme, etc. All my best designs for the comic that I get the most compliments on have specific theming, and all the character designs of mine I personally grew to…strongly dislike, were characters WITHOUT any theming, like Gravel’s old design for example. It was all just purple and more dark purple but slightly desaturated, and there wasn’t any direction to it at all, because that’s what happens sometimes when you make shit up on the spot and go with your first draft lmao. Blisswhistle’s theme is rainbow, Pearlstar had a sort of cotton candy unicorncore vibe, Gravel’s new look has a punk aesthetic, Shadebreak and Goldshine are famously emo, etc. Pick a theme! It’ll help!

Right now I’m trying to create Toyhouse profiles for everyone in Aphidclan, and it is a bit of a nightmare trying to figure out what to do for the members of the cast that don’t have a theme. I really really need to give Firebeetle a theme and redesign him with it in mind to give him a design that actually looks good because it’s driving me BATSHIT how directionless he is rn it’s really pissing me off. I’m thinking vaporwave neon cyberpunk shit…

DETOUR TIP FOR GENERAL COMIC-MAKING: Don’t always stick with just your first draft before jumping into comic production! A character may look real nice, but you don’t know what it’s gonna be like to have to draw that same design over and over and over and over and over and over and over again forever! A good way to test this is to take a sketch sheet and, as quickly as you can, draw that character as many times as you can! Draw them like 20 times, 30 times, just 5 or 10 can be pretty dang enlightening on its own. You’ll find yourself dropping certain details, agonizing over the more complicated markings, wishing to get rid of certain accessories, adding new features that come more naturally to you, and more! Take note of those natural changes and make edits accordingly 👍 ((psst: have you noticed that Gravel’s concept art shows her depicted with golden earrings? when was the last time I drew those motherfuckers. it happens🤷‍♂️))

Narrowing down your aesthetic will also help with picking accessories or pivotal details that are related to the theme you chose. If your character has a strawberry theme, you now can give them like a strawberry marking on their chest, or narrow it down to be based on Strawberry Shortcake specifically for nostalgia points, so you can give them the strawberry hat and green-and-white striped leg markings, or leggings. If they’re scenecore, you can give them scenemo hair, or kandi bracelets—have you noticed that Shadebreak has markings that look like fishnet gloves? This is because I wore those bad bitches all the time throughout my emo era in highschool. It’ll make it easier to decide what your markings will be, basically

~~ peruse my collection of my best designs below ((none of these are Aphidclan characters though sadly)) ~~

(Virus, the third one, is directly based on the You Are An Idiot computer virus!)

I may not be a professional over here, but I still believe one of the main things that’s always super important about character design is intention. Intention makes the best character designs. Ideally, you want to be completely clear about what exactly you want to convey to the audience about a character. The audience should know exactly what to expect from your character at first glance. Their base personality, whether or not you want them to think they’re a villain, or a good guy, or a background character, or somewhere morally gray and conflicted. Their style, their themes, their age, their goal, their hobbies and passions, what they do for a living, what they’ve been through, why they’re here, their culture, the time period they live in, their status in society, anything and everything that is relevant to their character. Are they tough and rugged and been through some real shit? Are they dainty and flowery and feminine? Are they a princess, or are they a peasant? Are they a thief, a rogue, or an enforcer of the law? Could a stranger tell any of this just by looking at them?

Warrior cats isn’t a series where a lot of intention can be utilized, since we’re only working with cats. I have seen some warriors artists really master visual storytelling in their warriors designs alone, but usually you have to get really fuckin cool with dynamic shape language in order to do that, and I’m nowhere near that level yet with my own shape language lol. Instead, I try to utilize intention in other ways.

Berrykit has very round fur tufts. This is to show that she’s soft, she’s approachable, she’s cute and harmless (presently. …mostly.) But Nimblekit’s fur is jagged and sharp, he’s COVERED in sharp angles all the time, to communicate that he’s edgy!! He’s snippy and snarky and reckless and chaotic!! He’ll getcha!! ((Berrykit’s curly fur is also to make her look more similar to Blisswhistle as her half-sister!)) I also use these fur tufts to make heart shapes in her fur, like her heart-shaped ear tufts, to further drive home her lovecore theming! Stormwhisper has round fur tufts to look more like a cloud, Icesheep has sharp tufts to make him look more like an icicle, etc etc list goes on

Virus has devilish horns and tail to communicate he’s impish and gonna get ya, Lemon Wash has scale markings to communicate the sharky oceanic theming, be intentional!! That’s the fun of sparklecats, there’s more room to play with! You can give your strawberry shortcake cat strawberry markings ! You can give your care bear based sparklecat a funny symbol on their big squishy belly! You can still tell a purpose with their markings and accessories! Intention intention intention, drill it in!!

uhh that’s all I have today. tired now. Good luck! and have fun and all that

[dragon8er]

Dragontale Undyne redesign

Hey guys, Dragon8er here!

And it's finally happened.

After nearly a year and a half, I've come up with a Dragontale Undyne design that doesn't suck!

Her final design, in fact!

I'm serious, too.

I've been working on Dragondyne's design on-and-off since last Summer. In fact, this here is technically her 4th design.

As for the others...

Well, if you wanna see her first design, you can check it right here.

The other two I never actually posted publicly because I never finished them. Because they suck.

But, I suppose I may as well talk about them...

This was her first redesign.

It was actually inspired pretty heavily by Prince Sidon from Zelda. Which makes sense, given that he is the perfect being.

Specifically, I actually drew inspiration from how Sidon is in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, with his duel spears.

Good game, by the way, WAY fucking over-hated. Sidon was one of my favorite characters to play as honestly lol. So I drew direct inspiration for this Undyne design. I still think even her current design would use 2 spears if she wanted to lol.

Oh, and this design's boots are basically just a combination of the boots that Undyne and Papyrus from @otherswap wear lol.

Shoutouts to Otherswap by the way, it's peam.

Oh and yeah she had an angler in this design, which is kinda cool, but I honestly only did 'cause I was struggling to get a horn design that I liked.

Honestly, this design isn't the worst thing, buuuuut I hated it, so I scrapped it lol.

This was the next design I came up with months later.

This one was also inspired by Otherswap Undyne, specifically in regards to the chest strap-pauldron and torso.

You can see I actually started to do lineart 'cause I liked this design way more. Buuut I still didn't like it that much. The hair was what really killed it for me. She looked fuckin emo here, which I didn't want her to lol.

And then the other day, I finally decided to buckle the fuckle in and FINALLY redesign her for realsies.

As you can see, her final design is a culmination of all her previous designs. And I'm actually really, genuinely happy with this one. I'm pretty sure this is gonna be her design going forward from here on out.

Fitting thing to end the Year of the Dragon on, huh?

Speaking of which. I got one more thing cooking for New Year's.

So stay tuned! Until tomorrow, this has been Dragon8er, and I will see you all Drago-l8er!

[gattnk]

When the ambitious Miki and the conformist Gas cross paths, it's pretty much an "unstoppable force VS unmovable object" situation.

Last but not least, a couple of fan favorites! My redesign process was very different for each one: I did a quick sketch of Gas on day one, as soon as I was done with Raf and Sulfus, and I pretty much stuck to it. Meanwhile, I couldn't form a clear thought for Miki until my AFapril comic prompted me to do it! Now, about that creative process:

While Miki's canon designs are significantly different, Gas is pretty straightforward. Even then, I decided to work on unifying their respective color palettes first, and then focus on their redesigns proper.

I went with their Prisma Fly colors as their new main colors. To contrast the orange better, I switched Gas' purple for a washed-out blue, and included black and white for variety's sake. In Miki's case I went with three shades of forest green and included key lime green since it's closer to yellow and pops out nicely; I also included desaturated browns and off-whites to visually frame the key lime better.

Since Miki is characterized as somewhat non-conforming in the comics, I doubled down and updated her parka jacket to something more extreme-sports looking (thank you @haloheadhater for helping me figure that one out!), added thick denim jeans to the mix and the toughest pair of timber boots I could come up with.

Gas is the kind of character that tries to look tough (despite being the least intimidating devil ever), so I added a biker's denim vest to crank the Cool Factor™ to the max. There's little difference between his canon designs, so blending them together was easy enough. I tried to preserve his iconic Emo Frog shirt with a minimalist design, all derived from triangles to keep in line with the devil design philosophy I've been keeping so far.

I wanted to reflect Miki's dragonfly mascot in her overall design, so I gave her wings a peculiar shape. While adult angels may have multiple pairs, Miki's wings are a single pair: I took inspiration from pennant-winged nightjars for her wing design.

Officially, Gas has the smallest wing-to-body ratio of the entire cast. He can still fly just fine, no worries, but he took more naturally to phasing walls and floors around the school to get by. My biggest challenge was his horns and wings, specifically finding the right shade of orange so they would not blend with his ginger hair. I didn't want to use red for his hair, nor blue for his horns/wings like his original designs, so I had to put my eyes to the test there.

Mascot placement once again comes with meaning: Gas' tomato frog may have bright and intimidating colors, but it's actually cute, round and inoffensive; it rests right over his heart to represent his true nature. Miki's green darner dragonfly hangs at the end of her braid: braids are often associated with bravery, wisdom, patience or experience in character design, and dragonflies are renowned for their maneuverability; this way, Miki's core traits are in the end held together by her ability to adjust on the fly.

There it is! the entire main cast of Angel's Friends, redesigned :D I've also been working on the humans and teachers, but it'll be a while before I finish those. For now my attention is almost entirely on my AF rewrite fic. Shameless self-promotion aside, I'm really proud of my script and characters, and I really appreciate it when I get comments/kudos/hits. So far everyone's been really kind and excited and I definitely share on the enthusiasm!

I'll Fly With You (rewrite fic) Art masterpost

[sirdust]

THOUGHTS ON THE FINALE?? bc it was a lot for suuree

| any thoughts on the last 2 episodes??? i sure do have mine i was like wth throughout the whole thing😭 |

apologies for the radio silence 🫡 i've been busy and also not very enthusiastic about discussing this show, lol. been in the process of packing up my autism and moving it over to transformers.

anyways sure i'll give my thoughts.

as my friend who i was watching the eps with said during ep7, "this version of hazbin hotel where women exist is a lot more interesting"

ep7 was probably the most tolerable character-wise even though it suffered from the same general pacing problems that we saw throughout the rest of the season. charlie felt like an actual character who experienced inner turmoil, and while i didn't like "out for love" very much as a song, the sequence itself was solid. carmilla badly needed more presence in the story for how much they treated her as an important character, though.

i'll also say that i think rosie is the most likable character in the show period. she has a cute design and a charismatic personality, and i wish she had shown up earlier. it was weird that she and alastor acted as if they had just reunited when they saw each other in ep3, though.

the final battle was disappointing all around for both obvious and non-obvious reasons. vaggie badly needed a big heroic moment, but she was fighting lute (who simply does not feel like a real threat) for so much of it that her actions during that part of the episode had very little impact. especially since she was the one to figure out how angels can be killed in ep7 (which was admittedly a plot point that did not need to exist, aside from it facilitating charlie and alastor's deal, but i digress).

i also am pretty miffed that charlie only got one or two good hits in on adam before needing to be saved by lucifer. it was like they couldn't decide whether they wanted to do a team-up or to give lucifer a moment showing off how powerful he is to be able to fight adam one-on-one.

i don't know if there's anything for me to say about what they did to pent that hasn't already been said. i doubt he's going to be relevant in s2, but even if he is, i really don't care. it's baffling incompetent to treat a character death as a comedy beat one moment and then dramatic the next. it winds up not making me feel anything at all. (and on a pettier note, i hate his redesign.)

i've never been huge on adam. his character had potential but was continually wasted in favor of being another shallow commentary on toxic masculinity (which is much too prevalent in spindlehorse shows, i'd argue. the issue isn't with the thematic choice but how vapid the execution is). i'm also hung up on the fact that he's clearly meant to look like alex brightman, but the writers have lucifer make a fat joke about his appearance. fatphobia in these shows has always been an elephant in the room but i feel that this crosses some sort of line.

i don't think i have much else to say? i could go more in-depth of course but i'd have to refresh my memory and i don't have the time or desire to rewatch any part of the season right now. i've gotten pretty much all of my gripes with the show as it stands out of my system.

this blog will likely continue to get some use in the future, but i'll probably be increasingly inactive on here. the silver lining of all this is that hazbin's success may, if nothing else, help pave the way for execs greenlighting more queer animation, but we'll have to wait and see. here's to better shows being made in the future though 🥂

ETA: oh and i've been calling twist villain lilith since 2019 but i have nothing else to say about that.

[crystal-in-nagasaki]

an adventure in kitakyushu: wisteria and toilets

On a rainy day in early May, I drove up to the city of Kitakyushu right at the very top of Kyushu with some friends to go to Costco, see a wisteria garden, and visit the Toto toilet museum. Here's a map of Kitakyushu's location for reference:

We first stopped at the wisteria garden. The flowers were just reaching the end of their bloom and it was raining, so the conditions weren't very ideal for flower viewing, but nevertheless the flowers were still very beautiful and walking beneath them felt magical.

Next we headed to the Toto toilet museum. Toto is a very big company in Japan that sells toilets. They invented the washlet (the height of Japanese luxury) which includes a bidet, seat warmer, and a speaker to cover up any ungodly bathroom noises.

Despite the subject matter, the museum's aesthetic was very classy and there was a lot of information about the history of their company. They had models of various toilets over the years, transparent toilets that show off the machinery behind the flush, and some silly art pieces too like a toilet motorcycle.

There was also a part of the museum where they had smal dioramas of bathrooms in Japan, showing issues of overcrowding by mirrors and lack of child seating in stalls, and how they redesigned not just the toilets themselves, but the entire bathrooms to fix problems like this. I don't know why, but this part really stuck with me. So when I go into Japanese bathrooms now, I notice the designs such as more mirrors away from the sinks and children's seats in the toilet stalls. This was very interesting to me, and it's nice to see Toto making an effort to alleviate social issues around using the bathroom.

After the toilet museum, we shopped out hearts out at Costco. Like the US, you need a membership to get in, so we used my friend's coworker's card. I was excited to find some American foods like bagels, muffins, instant potatoes, and margerita mix. We also stopped at the food court to get hot dogs, and they were so delicious and tasted just like back home. Here's a picture of me buying a giant bag of Costco dinner rolls (which I definitely didn't eat all by myself in two days.)

This was a really fun day. I got to enjoy the last of the spring flowers, learn some interesting information about toilets, and get a little taste of home.

About a week after this day, my dad passed away. The pictures I posted from this day were the last he ever saw of me on social media, and I remember this whenever I recall this day or see the pictures I took. I hope he was even a little bit at ease and happy to see me having fun and being my silly self. I miss him terribly and think of him often. After this, I didn't go out much for a few months, so my next few posts will probably pick up in mid to late summer. Thanks as always for sticking with me. I hope wherever my dad is, he's watching me and I'm making him proud.

[everestgale]

Can I just say, thank you so much for writing up all of this, I really, really appreciate it!!! I like knowing what kinds of things people notice, how you interpret my designs, etc. Very fun to read and very informative!!!

I have a strong urge to ramble about some of your comments + these design in general, but I know it's going to be quite boring. So, uh, if anyone wants to see me ramble like crazy, it's under the cut lol

It makes me so, so happy that Hero's pointy "feathers" were recognizable enough as a crown/helmet! I may or may not have stolen drawn inspiration for that from Corviknight (the Pokemon)

No real notes on Stubborn, he's honestly been surprisingly easy to redesign!

Broken's little "shackle" under the shawl are actually just a mark for bright red feathers in the final design because my Broken is based on a Luzon bleeding-heart :]

Also no real notes on Cold, except for the fact that I gave him emo bangs when I first designed him months ago, and I stand by that decision.

I love my final design for Paranoid (it's the second one I've finished, after Hero!), but his silhouette has honestly been kind of a mess to draw for some reason. I really hope that, in the final design, he will be more easily recognizable. And gloves! When I realized it both nicely fits with my vision of Paranoid as a medic/healer and mirrors Nightmare, I knew I had to give them to him :] Of course I talk about Paranoid the most, who's surprised!

Skeptic's shackle in the final design is actually getting replaced with a much smaller one (I was drawing Skeptic right before I started writing this), so that hopefully it's not as on the nose!

Smitten has just been really difficult to design, for some reason. No real notes, except to briefly complain about how he keeps changing every time I work on him :[

The debris in Opportunist's feathers was a very last-minute decision, but I'm very happy with it, it mirrors Witch quite nicely, and also establishes that Oppy can hide small objects (like stolen jewelry or playing cards) in his feathers.

Hunted should hopefully be much easier to identify with his final design - I didn't draw it in his silhouette, but he's wearing the same bandages Beast does!

Fun fact: my favorite thing about designing Cheated is to see how much of his design I can draw with straight lines alone :]

No real comments on Contrarian, except for the fact that I love him and he's iconic <3

Also, I wanted to reply to the tags!!

I absolutely adore this kind of analysis! Thought to be honest, only about half of these were intentional lol

Starting from Skeptic, I actually started thinking more about their poses and which direction they face: like putting Skeptic & Smitten away from each other like you mentioned, Opportunist & Cheated facing forward (for different reasons), etc. But the first half of the voices didn't really have specific reasons for why they are facing which way.

It is very interesting how Stubborn-Broken & Cold-Paranoid pairs worked out though!

Those are, indeed, some silly birds.

I'm finally giving my voices a proper redesign! These are currently just silhouettes (for figuring out their shapes & just checking out how they look next to each other), and the full designs are still WIP, but I'm actually quite happy with how these are turning out! My favorite part was trying to connect each voice with their respective Princess design-wise in subtle (or not) ways :]

If this image is too small, I have it split into two halves under the cut! There, I also put which voice is which. If you don't mind, please let me know if you could recognize them! I'd really appreciate that kind of feedback :]

[Find my Slay the Princess art here] [Princess art] [TLQ art] [Voices art]

Image 1 (left-to-right): Hero, Stubborn, Broken, Cold, Paranoid, Skeptic

Image 2 (left-to-right): Smitten, Opportunist, Hunted, Cheated, Contrarian

Yes, my Opportunist is a tiny gremlin. I am not sorry about that :]

P.S. He's not actually abnormally short. He just looks tiny compared to the rest of my voices - Smitten next to him is 7 ft or ~213 cm tall. Opportunist is 5'2'' or ~157 cm :]

[zombvibes]

could you draw the weapon equivalents for your au? (like the snow ring, brave axe, etc)

SURE CAN!! Needed to redesign noelle and berdly’s weapons anyways!

Mind you I’m not really good at designing weapons so sorry if they look icky :-(

This is Susie’s weapon : The flame bracelet (left)! Like og Noelle’s weapon, it’s an accessory. tms!Susie’s magic is fire (like how Noelle’s was ice, also og Susie has been associated with fire and fire is the opposite ice yadda yadda). Though it’s only on her left wrist, she can produce fire from her right hand too (among other areas like her maw)! Uhhh don’t really have anything to say. It’s a bracelet that possesses fire magic. Don’t think I need to elaborate.

It originally was supposed to be a ring (shown on the right) but I realized that it would be too similar to the original Noelle’s weapon. So I scrapped it and made it a bracelet instead! The magic didn’t really change so don’t have anything to say about its powers.

This is Noelle’s weapon : The Glacier Spear (left)! It’s a spear that was meant to resemble an icicle. (but…I may I failed that to capture it’s icicle-ness. But I think it looks neat regardless!) The middle of the spear head glows (where the blue gem like thing is) when using spells.

Similarly to how og susie’s axe glows when she uses a spell, shown below. (This also happens with tms!susie’s bracelet too)

Also the blue gem was meant to look like an eye (like how og!berdly’s weapon has an eye) but again…may have messed that up.

The “weird route” weapon (middle) isn’t official yet! I just wanted to jot down an idea at least (and I did it for funsies too). It was meant to kinda sorta resemble a trident but uh again again….think I failed that too. The weird route weapon can produce, instead of a snow storm, an ice storm! (I’ve also thought about hail but I’m not certain at the moment.) The little spikes is where tms!noelle puts her hands btw. She’ll get used it considering how numb her hands will be because WHOOPS SORRY SPOILERS HAHA LOSERS YOU WON’T KNOOOWWWW. (think the spikes are little too low now that I look back at it…YOU GET IT THOUGH SHUT UP.)

The idea of the older weapon design (right) is pretty much the same. However, its magic was just general ice powers (like it could freeze enemies). But currently, unlike the original Noelle’s weapon, the tms!noelle’s new weapon can only produce ice (mostly icicles) and no snow! She doesn’t really freeze the enemies though. She does something else…(CAN’T SAY BECAUSE OF SPOILERS HAHAHAH ONLY *I* KNOOOWWW)

AAAAAAND last but not least, Berdly’s weapon : uhh…it doesn’t really have a name. Now you can’t really tell because of this drawing, but this sword (both swords actually) is HUGE and HEAVY. Similar to Cloud Strife’s Buster Sword! “Oh wow! Berdly must really be strong then, huh?” NO!!! HE CAN BARELY CARRY IT!!!!! He just kinda…drags it around when using it. He CAN swing it overhead but rarely does it (because well…it’s heavy…). “But zomb why would Berdly have a weapon he can’t carry?” Because he wanted a cool big sword!! Leave my man alone!!

I don’t think I have much to say about Berdly’s weapon either…it’s a big sword. That’s it. Big ol’ sword that he can barely carry.

[whirlybirbs]

FEVER-DREAM    ;    echo/reader 

summary: echo is fine-tuning his new prosthesis. you have experience, you help. unspoken feelings are acted on. adoration blooms. you learn what mesh’la means.

word count: 3k

pairing: echo / f!reader

tags: mutual pining, lots of tender looks, victorian-era hand-touching sluttiness, echo is a gentle soul, reader is head over heels, a touch of ptsd mention, set on ord mantell, mention of our boy fives, in this house we love assistive devices, enough sexual tension to power the death star

a/n: this is me round-house kicking the bad batch writers in the throat because they made echo cosplay a droid — but, also because this man deserves to be treated as more than a means to a mission’s end. majority of you know i am ~bitter~ (understatement of the century) of tbb’s plot/design/writing. but echo has been a favorite from the original days... so have some very soft fic.

i reference character redesigns by @nibeul​ in this piece — please go peep them here, and some updated character spreads here! they’re really beautiful and add a phenomenal layer of storytelling to the existing designs that’s lacking. nibuel’s art and writing is lovely. please give them a follow — i can’t rec their work enough. 

“How does it feel?”

The words are nearly whispered; it’s clear you didn’t want to startle him, and Echo can feel the pinch in his brow soften at your sudden appearence in the doorway. 

His bunk, at the back of the Havoc Marauder, is small — the space itself even more so. There’s a makeshift partition, hooked together with spare parts and meant to offer a bit of privacy on the cramped vessel. Its slate grey color has faded, and the edges have become tattered in the cycles of use. 

When Echo pulls his dark eyes up from his work, you’re leaning against the frame — your expression is earnest.

For a moment, the once-ARC Trooper is quiet. 

He wonders if he’ll ever get used to your attention. Each and every time, it sends him into a spiral; his heart catches as he inhales and tries to push down the warm stir in his gut. The sight of you is enough, nowadays, to melt Echo’s well-maintained irritability. His attention is stolen from his ever-present pain, if only for a bit.

There are plenty of days where he misses the old him — the wide-eyed, eager ARC Trooper who had his brothers by his side. His real brothers. Hevy, Cutup, Droidbait... Fives. 

Fuckin’ hell, Fives was probably staring down at him now laughing. 

No matter what changes, you’re still shit with the ladies, vod’ika. 

In a way he hasn’t fully admitted to himself, you make him feel like himself again. Like... Like some shiny cadet, on leave and distracted by the promises of pretty smiles passing-by. It’s good.

This makes him feel... good. 

He flexes, and his right hand — the new, gunmetal durasteel cyberized-prosthesis — closes into a tight fist. It’s taken him a bit, but the feeling isn’t so foreign now. It’s still... slow. Slower than he’s used to, but you’d mentioned it may take some time. The phantom feelings get better, too. All in all, it’s a good thing.

Your own hand, your left, glimmers back in the same gunmetal color.

(Echo had never pressed you about the missing limb — not until one day, in Cid’s, you’d joined him in a quiet corner. You’d spilled your drink and a complaint about getting the star-cherry syrup out of the joints had slipped out. Echo had laughed; a real laugh, the sort that was so rare coming from him, it had you staring at him as if he’d hung ever star in the sky. 

Can I ask how it happened? he’d said, breaking the heavy silence when your eyes never left his.

The Pykes, you’d said, and that was enough.)

“I haven’t, uh... Haven’t gotten the sensory calibration right yet.”

Then, his prosthesis cramps. His fingers go rigid, and Echo curses sharply as he reaches around his forearm to quickly reboot the appendage. It goes slack, then hums alive once more.

You wince.

You’re slow to move into the room — and you settle atop one of the crates Echo had stolen from the belly of the ship, an old Mantell Mix shipping container. You’re mindful to set his datapad aside, to not disturb his space too much. Before you reach for his hand, however, you lift your chin and open your hands in your lap.

“May I?” you ask, just as soft as before.

Echo feels small under your gaze.

Truth be told, you’re doing more than just... asking. You’re taking him in — appreciating him. It’s a habit that’s grown more and more apparent to not only himself, but the others.

In recent rotations, Echo has let his hair grow out — not long, but the once close buzz he’d kept has begun to curl at the top. Not entirely dissimilair to how it was before the Citadel. The dermal implants, the ones the Techno Union installed in order to parse the nuerological data in his head, stand out against his warm-colored skin. 

His usual AJ^6-inspired headpiece is resting on his bunk.

That damn thing.

A neccesary tool. One that, given the amount of user data Tech had procured when working on modifying the implant, Echo found himself immediately distrusting. It wasn’t as if the AJ^6 cyborg construct had a beautiful track record, and frankly, Echo would like to keep his personality in tact, thank you very much. There were plenty of days he felt machine enough. 

It wasn’t often you saw him without the headset; you knew it made linking in via his scomp easier to handle, it made the visualization of data transfers as easy as breathing. For Echo, it was a part of his vast kit, an important tool. For you, seeing him without it bubbles up a bit of a smile.

Echo catches it.

His eyes narrow playfully.

He looks... well. You — hell, are there words for it? For the way the sight of him makes you feel? It’s like there’s a world full of potential there, a thousand words unsaid, and feelings that have steeped in the warmth of longing gazes and half-there touches.

You’re still looking up at him, knees bent on the crate.

You blink, realizing you’ve been caught staring — not for the first time and certainly not for the last. In the beginning, it had left a sour taste in Echo’s mouth. But, now... Well, it stokes a sort of pride in his chest that he hangs onto. 

It never gets easier to recover from — certainly not when Echo smirks. He moves to allow you to take his prosthesis into your lap. The gesture is gentle; your fingers cradle the firm yet pliable metal.

“What?” he asks. His voice, low and rough and warm, is tinted with amusement.

“Nothing,” you say vaguely with a shrug — as if that’s supposed to explain any part of your enamored stare. Your attention moves to the prosthesis.

“Nothing?” he asks, moving to thumb his left ear with his free hand with a dash of nervousness. A habit. Echo tilts his head as his fingers brush the cochlear implant there. The panel rests neatly against the side of his head, a small rounded-off square. The bite of self-consciousness has dwindled around you — but still, it creeps back up every now and again.

The Corporal’s brows knot playfully as you turn his new hand over in your lap; you’re admiring the upgraded feel, the more seamless panelling in comparison to your own. Echo watches your lashes flutter in silent thought.

Then:

“You’re a terrible liar, you know.”

You blink slowly at the hand, swallow down your sudden sheepishness and ignore his gaze. You bite back the smile digging into your cheeks. “Maybe.”

“Do I have something on my face?” he asks suddenly, and you look up.

A baited trick. He’s smiling. 

The warm sort — the sort reserved for you and for Omega. The two souls that hold a piece of his heart, with all its ticking valves and electric timed pulses. There are machinisms that keep him alive, and then there is you. Your wide-eyed expression melts, giving way to the sort of smile he’s tried to memorize over and over. It’s the same smile that has warded off that reoccuring nightmare of the night on the tarmac at the Citadel, the same smile that has pulled him through the grit of phantom pains.

“What—” a sudden laugh bursts from your chest, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You were staring, mesh’la,” he rumbles out as a reminder, enjoying the fact he’s suddenly become the center of your attention. Echo leans back, his boot toeing yours. You nudge it back. Your face feels hot. You ignore his pointedly teasing look with a roll of your eyes.

The nickname started a few weeks ago. You haven’t asked what it means — no, for now it’s meaning hangs in the balance. Untouched but there. The affection the word carries makes your heart feel heavier and unbelievably full.

“Bad habit,” you chirp back, looking up at him through your lashes.

His laugh is warm.

“Maybe not.”

“No,” you say quietly; your voice is soft as your eyes bounce across his face, tracing the lines of his face with your gaze, “I don’t think it is.”

There’s a silence that slips between you — a comfortable one. It’s heavier than before. That has begun to happen recently, especially with the petal-soft utterance of mesh’la becoming more and more frequent. You hold his gaze. Echo lets out a soft, contented sigh.

Then, you remember the task at hand.

You clear your throat.

“Uh... The access panel I’m looking for,” you say slowly as your raise your finger to point to your own arm, “It’s on your bicep.”

Echo blinks. He clears his own throat before looking down — he hadn’t even noticed that access panel. That could explain the jarring miscommunication stalling the limb. This model had more bells and whistles than he initally realized. 

Better than a fuckin’ scomp link, that’s for sure.

Wordlessly, Echo makes room on his bunk. You move to settle beside him, your bent leg resting aginst his hip as you half-straddle the bed; your other knee brushes his thigh — and Echo tries to sit still. You’re close, now. 

“Is it okay if...?” you trail off, fingers tugging on the short sleeve of his blacks; you pause until Echo offers a curt nod. You catch him swallow. You push onward, fingers nimbly rolling the fabric up over his broad bicep. 

Echo steals a glance your way as your fingers pass across a slip of his bare skin. 

In his lap, both his hands twitch.

He’s no small man. Lean and athletic, Echo is built like a soldier. Omega had said once that Echo was an ARC Trooper, one of the best of the best. You believed every bit of it, and you’d hung on her words when she’d rambled on about ARC training, about Kamino, and about who Echo was before you knew him. It was all in the past, though. That Echo is a part of this Echo but... They’re different men. He’s been changed by the things that have happened.

You don’t press him on the details. 

In time, they’re slipped into conversation here and there — between the here and now.  

In the beginning, when you’d found yourself amongst the crew of the Havoc Marauder — be it for a simple job on Cid’s behalf — Echo had hardly paid you a moment of attention, though you admit you’d been curious from the start. It had taken three jobs for you to finally see his face. Then began the slow and gradual bonding over catching joints, grating plates, and hardware updates. His legs, your arm. Two pieces of a pair.

Now, he has this. A beautiful new upgrade — something he’s wanted for a long time. A part of his old self is back, in a way.

You liked that it was more than just a tool. That, in having this piece of his body back, he felt like more than a tool. More than a scomp link. 

After all, he is a man — a... a very handsome man. One whose proximity is sort of distracting you, again, from the task at hand.

“The panel here,” you say as you slowly press on the seam that enables the settings panel to be revealed; you’re mindful to explain, “It controls sensory outputs, as well as synchonized synaptic commands. The panel on my forearm does the same to my hand, yours is just... well, you’ve got the new and improve version.”

Echo ducks his head as you work, watching you from the corner of his eye. “Feeling a bit jealous, mesh’la?”

“Maybe,” you breathe out with a smile. 

Then, you lift your eyes. You intended to see that he was still comfortable, but instead you come face to face with the Corporal. His nose nearly brushes yours when you lift you chin, completely dragged in by the closeness shared.

There’s a beat of tension. Echo’s mouth goes dry.

You fingers pause. You swallow hard. “How... uh, how does it feel?”

Echo tightens his grip, then releases. His breath tickles your cheeks. His eyes, a deep, warm brown, flit from your eyes to your mouth, and then back. His voice is a croak. 

“...Same as before.”

You tinker with a dial, eyes never leaving his; your voice is above a whisper. “And now?”

It’s immediate. Like a rush of cold air up his arm — and on instinct, Echo’s hand twitches. His fingers grip the fabric of his blacks, along his thigh, and... he feels it. The smooth, stretch of the material. It’s... it feels like a lot. His fingertips, metallic and cyberized, tingle. It’s distracting.

He can feel. 

His hand is slow. It moves across to bridge the space between you. His pointer finger settles on the curve of your knee; the feeling of your tactical pants beneath his fingertip is ignored, instead he chases the heat of your body.

Your breath catches at the touch. 

Echo’s face is turned to you, but... his attention has settled on his hand. His palm then sweeps across your thigh. He follows the curve, soaks in the feeling. You’re frozen in place, beating back the desperate sound of appreciation that threatens to be pulled from your throat. The touch is... more than welcomed. 

The closeness itself is making you dizzy.

Then, Echo turns — and the warm, durasteel-plated palm finds your cheek.

Your skin is hot. 

“Is this okay, mesh’la?” he whispers, words riding on a quiet exhale — the sort that make you feel... well, you don’t even have words for the way he makes you feel. Echo is... kind, honest, and loyal. Above all else, he’s gentle. Despite it all, despite every bit of horror he’d been put through, he’d never lost sight of the importance of a gentle hand. Especially now in a moment as intimate as this. It coaxes you closer.

You lean into the cybernetic attachment, cheek resting in his palm. You nod, then, with eyes eager to take in every bit of this moment.

He chuckles at the enthusiasm. Echo’s thumb, deft and smooth, then traces the line of your lower lip.

The feeling is... the gnawing pain that he’s felt for nearly a year has melted. Finally, the itch has been scratched in his brain and the hollow ache of his bones is gone. It’s relief, and comfort, and excitement and all these beautiful things — and you. 

You’re stuck — you don’t want to move, you won’t move. He’s rooted you completely, and when his other hand — the calloused and warm one of flesh and blood — finds it’s spot along your thigh, you swallow a lovesick sigh that would only exaserbate your desperation. 

Your mouth is moving before you realize it. 

“What does it mean?”

Echo’s eyes narrow, only a bit, and he runs his thumb up your cheekbone.

“What does what mean?” 

“Mesh’la,” it sounds foreign on your tongue. It’s not Hutteese or Twi’leki, not like any language you know, “Will you tell me what it means, Echo?”

The corner of his lips quirk. Your eyes jump to it.

You feel like someone’s reached right into your chest and given your heart a squeeze — and it only worsens when he laughs. He laughs, deep and quiet and warm, like a thunderstorm on a summer night. It feels cruel, to string you along like this when you’re here, lips parted, hanging off his every touch and his every word.

“Beautiful,” he says quietly as his other hand touches your jaw — it’s so damn reverent, this little moment in time, that you almost don’t believe it’s real.

It feels like a dream — like someone has come in and stolen your thoughts from you; like the unrequited yearning has finally stoked a fire large enough to burn you up entirely, a fever you never knew you wanted.

His nose brushes yours.

Your fingers wind into the fabric of his chest. You’re clinging, lost to the moment — and you can’t help wonder if this is how it feels when he catches you adoring him. He’s admiring you so tenderly that you nearly break.

You want to kiss him.

He’s thought about nothing but kissing you for the last five days at least. Longer in his dreams. Nowadays, it’s a constant pull, a constant want.

And now, it’s here — a present and current moment where it can happen. Where he can stop being a shiny cadet and he can make a move...

Enter Omega.

“Echo, we’re back—!”

The telltale hammer of a girl’s boots on the floor signals that the party is back from their supply run — but you’re so far off, spinning in a different universe, you don’t even hear her until its too late... Until Echo is yanking himself away and clearing his throat and rolling his wrist to test the prosthesis in a different way, a less intimate way. 

You blink, then rattle yourself back to the present. Omega is in the doorway staring with a quizzical look. Clearly, your state does little to dissuade the assumptions she’s already making and you can see the gears turning in her head. The dark-haired girl then slowly grins.

“Hi.”

You swallow. “Hi, Omega.”

“...Whatcha guys doin’?”

Echo coughs. “Uh, just fine-tuning the new upgrade.”

“...Riiiiiight.” 

You rub your cheeks and laugh — clearly forced and incredibly pained — as you stand up and nearly ram your head right into the top of Echo’s bunk. It’s met with a hiss of warning from the trooper as he jumps up to try and protect you from the impact. 

“Well! Uh, thanks for letting me help, Echo,” you clap, rocking back and forth on your boots, “I, uh... Oh, Cid called. I should... I should get back—”

“Yea,” he says, straining a bit to find the words, “Yea, I’ll... I’ll comm you if it starts to, uh... If it starts to act up?”

Omega watches the exchange, big brown eyes moving from left to right. 

“Good, great — yea, that’s,” you inhale as you rub your thighs and move towards the door, “Perfect. Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Bye!” Omega calls, waving.

You wave back, smiling. “Bye, Omega.”

Then, once it’s only Echo and Omega in the bunk, the tween speaks.

“...What the kriff was that?”

[squeiky]

Finally finished a wip AU!! :D

For context, this is IBT-Tale, and it's a swap au where all the important main characters are swapped with secret/non-plot related characters. (Only their roles are swapped, personalities stay the same.)

For example: this is papyrus is a royal gaurd in this au due to being swapped with lesser dog. Also asriel is alive as well!

These drawings are all redesigns and minor story changes. Enjoy the doodles!; feel free to click and zoom in! (There's a lot of notes haha.)

(Sorry in advance if you can't read my handwriting haha.)

I'm so happy with how these all turned out! They may be sketches but I adore all of them equally.

Full page:

[Side note: papyrus is in the royal garden (aka the goodboy squad) thanks to Mad Mewmew. His territory consists of Snowdin, and Snowdin Town. He's basically top dog (heh), and his puzzles are literally everywhere. His fan base consists of doggo(secretly), asriel and monster kid. Plenty more to come I'm sure.]

[Didn't explain it in the sketch, but Chara is swapped with perseveranc, and perseverance is swapped with frisk. Aka: frisk is the royal human. Chara fought undyne in waterfall, and perseverance is the last fallen human.]

[Note: queen muffet and king grillby! I really hated muffets old design so I'm glad she looks so much better now. Grillby though? Not much changed, but his "gown" looks more bartendery.]

[Itsss GASTER!! Always imagined Gaster as a Hynea skeleton to fit in line with his gaster blasters (like how papyrus has a skeleton flag) He's also their grandpa, but honestly he has more uncle vibes than anything. He's swapped with HotsFlameGuy. Nickname?: Gaster the Disaster. 10/10 would reccomend.]

[Mad MewMew also the 2nd undyne simp. She ended up gaining the mew mew body after seeing alphys's anime club. (Members are sans and mettaton. They play ddr and poker.) The metal ability was given by So sorry the scientist(?) Allowing her to be a trusty companion for undyne. She even became temporary captain when undyne took a training leave. (That's how papyrus got to be a guard!) Technically they're swapped with undyne, but the swap was a natural progression than a complete role swap.]

[Its So sorry the scientist(?) But most just call him Soso or Sorry. The reason for the "(?)" Is beacuse he's technically not a scientist, (Ike how alphys is technically an engineer.) But they call him that anyways.

Obviously, they're swapped with alphys, and their abilities include creating life/objects by drawing them. It's not like they'll get too crazy with their ideas. Right?]

(Heh. Foreshadowing.)

Much more to come! But the stories are basically finished, so ever have a question just ask!

[lubdubsworld]

Better Man.

~~~~~~~~~~~~`Just to see you smile, I’d do anything. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taehyung x Oc

Rated 18 +

Post Divorce, Getting Back Together, Second chances, Angst.

Chapter 1    Chapter 2   Chapter 3   Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Do you ever truly know what someone is feeling?

You could spend decades , breathing the same air, hands held , your fingers brushing ....connected physically and even mentally but a person’s emotions, they’re hidden away. 

You only ever know what they’re willing to show .

And yet, 

all of us build relationships, convinced that we know exactly what the other person will feel when we act a certain way. Buying her flowers will make happy....visiting him at work will take away that little bit of stress.

But sometimes, what we think someone feels, may not be what they truly feel.

And that’s when your actions, well intended actions..... end up with disastrous consequences. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So....last night...” Jungkook’s teasing voice did nothing to ease the pounding in my head.

“I do believe you promised not to tease me about it if I drank two glasses of water, which I did by the way.” I told him firmly, trying to bring the words on my planner into focus as i squinted. Three meeting. Each two hours long. 

kill me now. 

“I wanted to ask HR to give you the day off but you have quite a schedule today. “ He said casually,  leaning over me to peer into the planner . I glanced at his wrist resting on the table, the expensive rolex showing that it was a little past 9. 

“ We’re planning out the Christmas campaign first and I have a meeting with Taehyung’s team in the afternoon so we can go over the contract see if they have any requirements and then the social media team in the evening at four to discuss promos and revamping the website.” I glanced up at him. 

He gave me a smile before casually leaning down, lightly gripping my chin and tilting my face up. I felt the brush of his lips against mine, fleeting and gentle. 

‘You’re beautiful.” He smiled. 

I blinked.

And then took a deep breath.

“Your wife...” I said softly. “ I saw her today.” 

Jungkook went completely still at that. 

“She was waiting in the lobby on my way up. I didn’t know who you were married to and I was a little shocked and also little upset because....” I glanced at him. “ She was my best friend in college. “

Jungkook swore. 

“Fuck.. I told her to stay the fuck away from my company. Did she say something to you?” 

i shook my head.

“I didn’t greet her because I wasn’t sure if she remembered me. And I wasn’t sure if i was remembering her right. i didn’t know she was your wife till i heard someone mention it in the elevator on my way up. Did you know that she and i knew each other?” 

Jungkook looked just a little guilty.

“When you first joined the company, she saw your resume on my cvomputer. told me a lot about you. She remembers you. Fondly. She wanted to come meet you but...things happened.  “ He shrugged.

Things like infidelity and divorces . 

“Ahh...” I smiled. “ Tell me i wasn’t another way to get back at your ex wife, Jeon Jungkook ssi...” 

He made a noise of protest.

“no... No of course not Christ...it’s just...I’ll admit she made me curious about you. She spoke of you being spontaneous and fun and wild and I’d seen you as this demure, elegant woman in the office. i was curious. I wanted to know which one was the real you. “

“Were you curious before she cheated....or after?”

“ Jang Mi...this isn’t what it looks like .. I’m done with her. She fucked my best buddy and ruined my fucking life...” He sounded pained. 

I frowned. 

“It’s hard to believe she would do something like that. The Aera i remember had a very strong moral compass.” 

“Yeah well, apparently, you can live whole entire lives with someone and never really know the person. Listen, do we really have to talk about my ex wife?” He asked, eyes shining with discomfort. 

I shrugged.

“I’m not fond of drama. I won’t tangle myself in a relationship that risks hurting a lot of people Jungkook. That’s just not the kind of person I am. I’m sorry.” 

He made a noise of impatience, shaking his head. 

“We won’t be hurting anyone... We have fun together. We like each other. We’re attracted to each other...that’s all that matters....” He said sharply.

“ If we were in our twenties , without kids ....maybe. But that's not how it is now. I have a son, you have a daughter and I think I’m not completely over my marriage yet.” I said softly. 

He froze.

“And i don’t think you’re completely over your wife either.” I smiled.

He glared at me. 

“Ex-wife.” He snarled.

“She makes you feel things, Jungkook. You need to sort that out before you start something new with someone else. I’m only saying this because we’re old enough not to 

He growled and punched the desk. 

“God, how can she keep ruining my life even when she’s out of it.” He muttered, stepping away from me and moving to the door. 

I watched him storm out of my office and bit my lip. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the time evening rolled around, I was exhausted. But the day had been productive and I was happy because the contract had been finalized, the theme had been decided and we’d also spent an amazing three hours redesigning the website. Although it wasn’t in my job description I had studied web design in college and the creative department always welcomed my inputs. 

“You’re in a good mood...” Taehyung’s voice was a complete surprise and I turned to him, shocked. He was dressed in a black t shirt and blue jeans and sneakers and looked a whole decade younger. 

I felt affection rise up my throat so fast I nearly choked. 

“What are you doing here?”

“My agent told me you guys were incredibly cooperative today. She also told me you were quite possibly the loveliest woman she’s ever met and that I’m an idiot to have let you go.” He smiled. 

I laughed, shaking my head and my gaze shifted to the small bunch of tiger lilies in his hand. 

I felt warmth bloom in my chest. 

“You remembered.” I said softly, pleased. 

“Thirteen years since our first date.  The lily to my tiger. ” He held the flowers to me and I grinned, pressing the flowers to my chest. 

“Man I feel old.” I muttered.

“You are old.” Tae grinned and i grimaced, before tossing him a glare. . 

“You’re supposed to say I still look as beautiful as i did thirteen years ago.” I said. 

“But you don.t” He grinned impishly. “ You look a billion times  more  beautiful.” 

I felt the atmosphere shift, the air charged with something dangerous and i looked away. Usually, this was when I would laugh and throw my arms around him. Pull him close and press my lips against his , slip my fingers into his t shirt and trace the skin of his back. Feel his hands on my waist as he lifted me up to twirl me around and kiss me just like that. 

How often had we kissed that way? Thirteen years is a long time to count the number of kisses we’d shared. 

We both stayed quiet, looking anywhere but at each other.

“I...there’s a reason I came.” He said finally.

I glanced at him.

“Oh?”

“The lawyer. Ms. Lee she ... recommended a relationship counselor”

I blinked, my breath catching in my throat. 

“Taehyung we’re-”

“Just hear me out. Its not mandatory and it won’t affect the divorce in anyway. its just something the court offers all couples going through a divorce and we’re free to refuse it. “

“Did you?” I asked. 

“Did I what?”

“Refuse it. Did you tell her no?” 

He stared at me. 

“No.” He said finally.

I exhaled sharply.

“Wow.” I whispered, feeling jittery and unbalanced. He sighed and came closer, reaching out to lightly grip my wrists. I let him tug me closer into a hug and held him tight, my heart pounding with anxiety.

“Mia.... I just... I’m not saying we should try to fix this.... relationship.” He said softly, eyes gentle and pleading, “  I just think this whole thing has taken a toll on both of us and maybe we can heal better if we get the help of a professional. Come out of this with closure. Instead of battling guilt and regrets everyday. Just ....it could help us move on. Don’t you think?”

You could never really tell what the other person is feeling. 

I couldn’t tell what Taehyung was feeling right now? 

Hope ?

Hope that we would fix our marriage....

or maybe hope that he would finally move on from me.. Maybe this whole thing was his final attempt to end things with me for good. So he could walk out of my life forever without any lingering guilt or regret. 

I would never know. 

I clung to him harder and somehow the pain of the entire two years we’d been apart, rammed into me at once. 

I choked on a sob. Breathing became difficult and I felt myself gasping for air. 

“Mia?” Taehyung’s panicked voice was the last sane thought that registered. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay? I can stay the night if you want. I’ll sleep in the spare bedroom . ” Taehyung whispered,  seated on the warm fluffy blanket that he’d managed to dig out of the closet in the spare bedroom. i was already tucked into the bed, fingers clutching the satin lined edges . 

i shook my head.

“I know how much you need your gazillion pillows. Go on... I’ll be fine.”

“i feel terrible. i pushed you into a panic attack.”

I waved off the guilty words. 

“You didn’t . i was already a little frayed and i guess i haven’t really been processing all the stuff between us the way i should have. i just got a little overwhelmed.” 

A panic attack. At the age of 32. The last time i had one I was twenty four. I wanted to crawl into the bed and never resurface. 

Taehyung’s gentle fingers , stroking my cheek brought me out of my own head. 

“I was so scared.” He said softly and my heart ached.

“I’m sorry i scared you.” I said apologetically, gripping his wrists lightly and stroking the skin there with my thumb. 

“I really want to stay. i don’t think I’ll be able to sleep if I go home right now.” He whispered. 

I bit my lips. 

“Okay... but... You need to hug something. To sleep. “ 

He grinned at that. 

“I’m old enough to survive one night without a pillow, Mia .” he chuckled. 

I flushed, sinking deeper into the covers.

“Okay.” 

“You don’t have to worry about the counselor thing. I’ll tell Lee we don’t want to do any-”

“No!!” I said quickly, a lot  louder than I’d intended. 

Taehyung blinked.

“I just... I realized that I haven’t been dealing with any of this...the right way. I’m so confused and disoriented all the time and I .. I don’t mind getting some help. To sort things out. Just for myself you know...without the pressure of trying to fix...well us.” I finished .

Taehyung gave me a wide smile before bending down and kissing my forehead.

“ Okay, Mia mine. Sleep well, and I’ll see you in the morning.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

[solarsel]

I need to consume the way you draw X and Zero may I get a tutorial cause your shapes are awesome

Thanks for your compliments Noeggets, I'm glad you liked the work

• Answering your question...

Although I am a fan of that style, the truth is that I am not used to using it; in fact that drawing of X and Zero was my second time using it, so I wouldn't consider myself an expert on it.

I wouldn't know how to give you a professional tutorial, but I can give you some tips that I considered important points when doing the work so that the TV Cartoon style would come out the way I wanted (Oh god, this will be a bit long😅)

1 - First of all, define the style that you are going to use (is it like Gravity Falls? Is it like Dexter's?) Each of these styles has design traits and character layouts that (among other things) differentiate one caricature of the other. For example, in the Dexter-type style (which was the one I used) The general layout of the character is governed by a thick line, while most of the details are made with a fine line.

2 - Then look for all the references you can about that style. Yes, they can be mini-guides where the ways to build the character are shown according to his shape and personality, then better

3-Identifies well the traits, both physical and personality, of that character (if he is skinny or fat, if he is conceited, if he is a child or an adult)

4 - Then experiment (I did it) Find out what kind of traits in your cartoon references you can apply to your character redesign, taking into account the traits that originally define it (remember step 2) Then start drawing

5 -Try not to make the design too complex. The best thing is to define the character in the simplest and most effective way, both in the strokes and in the details. If you look closely, in my X and Zero work, I left out a lot of details and just kept the ones that I thought would be the most relevant for people to identify; I also kept a simple layout. Think about it and you will see that this last step is something that the animators of the Cartoons take into account, so that when it comes to animating the work process it is easier and faster.

I hope my recommendations serve you and sorry for the length of the text. And don't kid yourself! I'm really no expert😅; I'm just very observant and that helps me a lot.

Good luck with your jobs; I already checked your Tumblr and I see that you draw very well, so I'm sure you'll get it. Don't worry if you don't get it right the first time, I suffered several times doing X and Zero's work (especially with Zero's face) Greetings ✌️

[gingermintpepper]

After thinking it over for a bit, I've decided that I might as well do a proper underrated 3DS game rec list. I'm a bit of an ATLUS junkie and that's gonna be pretty disgustingly apparent in this list, but it's not my fault that they released hit after hit and all of them were duly ignored.

Due to tumblr's 10 image limit (and my struggle to keep motivated to do one thing for more than three hours) I'm definitely gonna have to break this up into parts and I'm fairly certain one of these lists is just gonna be MegaTen games lmao but I'd like to let people know about these excellent titles and see if I can't at least get people interested in them so they can get more traction.

So, without further ado:

Some 3DS Games that were criminally slept on (part 1)

Monster Hunter Stories

God, where do I begin with this game. Well, the basics: It's a JRPG spinoff title of the now widely successful and popular Monster Hunter series featuring a different take on interacting with the varied and intricate monsters populating the world: Riders.

Yep, instead of hunting the beasties, you play as a young rider who's completed their intiation ritual and can now bond with 'Monsties' as they've cutely labelled the usually ferocious monsters of the wilds. The great thing is that you still fight Monsters--tons of them in fact but this isn't a paid review and in my humble opinion, the most impressive thing about this game is the visual style. The landscapes, the armour, the way they redesigned and 3DS-ified the classically hyper realistic and monstrous beasts to not only be absolutely adorable but still capable of being intimidating when the time calls for it, the stellar animation of special moves and combination attacks--it's delicious, nutritious, stupendous, I can and will consume it like it's part of my recommended caloric intake.

It's very akin to Pokemon in the way its basic gameplay premise is set up, however, instead of catching--or even indeed befriending--the Monsties in the game, you rummage through their nests and steal their eggs, later hatching them and getting yourself a brand new lightly kidnapped monster pal!

Other general things about the game:

Pros:

The armour and weapon sets for both male and female characters slap along with the general character customisation options. They're incredibly diverse (though limited in body type) and you can switch around traits and features whenever you want from your house.

The POGS--these porkers are everywhere and they serve as tiny little achievements for exploring every odd and end of the world. Also they have little outfits. They're so cute. 🥺🥺

You can actually ride the Monsties. All of em. Or, at least the ones that you have available to be your buddies. They all have exploration skills and traits that not only make exploring much more interesting but encourage you to swap out your active Monstie and play around with your options a bit.

Y'all breeding Monsties is complicated and I live for just how intense and ridiculous you can get with optimal builds for these things.

The story is really competently put together! The characters, character designs and even the internal conflict with your starting trio of characters is really compelling along with the mystery of the blight that's infecting Monsters across the world. It's not anything worth awards but it's compelling and it makes you care about the characters if that's what you're in the market for.

Amazing sound design, expansive world, everything about the presentation of this game oozes that Monster Hunter charm even if the art is cutesier than usual. You'll never get bored of its stellar visual presentation!

Available for around twenty quid on the Google Play store, so if you want, you could actually get the full game on your smartphone or tablet. Note though that it would be a battery nuker.

Cons:

If you're on a regular 3DS, frame rate drops are a given. This game kinda pushes the visual capabilities of the 3DS to its absolute limit--a lot like Okamiden did back on the DS.

One save file :( It's pretty much for the same reason as above but still.

If you're playing as the girl, you can't get male armour and vice versa. Since there's only one save file, you'll never be able to have all of the armour sets in a single playthrough and that's criminal because both of the sets for the genders are absolutely breath-taking, thank you.

I 👏can't 👏make👏my👏 own 👏Palico👏

Multi-player for this game is pretty dead seeing as it's almost five years old by now and never got much press or traction. Usually this wouldn't be an issue - this game is 99% singleplayer and you don't really need to fuss about with multi-player to have fun, but if you want to collect all the Monsties, you'll need it since the only way to get Glavenus is through pvp achievements. :/

Final thoughts: Play it if you find yourself getting tired or disappointed with 3DS Pokemon games but still want something that feels as fantastical as Pokemon. It outshines the 3DS Pokemon games at every turn and I will never be over just how thoughtfully put together and fully realised these games are. Of course, if you've ever played Monster Hunter, then you know just how intensive these games are with the lore, biology, cultures and world of their Monsters but seeing that translated into JRPG format was just very sobering and it's a game that, to this day, continues to awe me with just how much love and attention went into it.

Last note: If you're still unsure about it, there's a demo available on the e-shop of the 3DS that allows you to play through the entire initial area of the game. Your data does carry through to the full release and to give you an idea of how much I've been able to squeeze out of it - my playtime for that demo is currently sitting at 22 hours. Make sure to get a hold of that Cyan-Kut-Ku!

7th Dragon III Code: VFD

The title may sound intimidating but the premise is not! A mysterious disease called Dragon Sickness spread by the Dragonsbane flowers that have cropped up all around the world. You and your team are recruited by the Nodens game company after you display extraordinary prowess in their hit virtual reality game 7th Encount. As you go through the adventure, you are tasked with finding out the truth behind the Dragon Sickness and asked to stop both it and the Dragons that are destroying the world.

This game is fun. It's another turn-based JRPG however, in this game you create all of your characters yourself from the myriad of classes available to you from the jump. Different classes of course have very different specialisations - Samurai focus on high powered cutting damage with their swords, Duelists are summoners who can influence the element of the battlefield as well as summon monsters from each element, Agents can hack into your enemies and inflict a barrage of nasty ailments, just to name a few - and you are given three teams of three characters each to experiment with different team comps and find the balance that works for you. There's also a wide variety of Dragons to hunt and kill in the game, which directly affects how infected your world is with the Dragon Sickness causing Dragonsbane. Along the way you will also come into contact with many interesting characters, concepts and confrontations that will make the task of saving the world all the more imperative.

Pros

1. The character creator and differing classes give way for tons of experimenting and playing around with your own unique approach to combat and carrying out your missions. Granted, 'character creation' is generous, it's little more than palatte swaps but the classes are really where VFD shines. Eight main classes may not sound like a lot, but the expaniveness of the character skills, their synergy with their fellow classes and the uniqueness of some of the classes in and of itself allows for so much flexibility and creativity in approaches to even tougher bosses. It also encourages the switching about of your party members to really finagle with the options available to you.

2. God this game is pretty. The locations, the character art, the creature design - all of it is gorgeous and this game capitalises on every bit of the 3DS's presentation limitations as it can.

3. You can romance anything and everyone - yes, you can even be gay/lesbian/poly in this game. In fact, one of the main characters - Julietta - is gnc and he's a constant source of joy as well one of my personal favourite characters, right behind Yuma.

4. Exploration is very very forgiving as the game has healing spots and teleport nodes all over the world to allow for quick, seamless travel between quest points without feeling like anything is too much of a hassle. There are also special enemies that allow for quick grinding as well as quick farming of money. In general, the game does a really good job of making sure that the grind is never unbearable or inconsiderate of your time.

Cons:

1. This is the fourth game in a series the West has never seen any other title for, and from the looks of it, will probably never see any other titles for. Because of that, there are some elements that may seem confusing or revelations in the plot that may seem to come out of nowhere.

2. While the visuals are great, the OST of this one is pretty short making for a lot of reused soundtracks that can get really annoying if you're like me and need your audio to be interesting or consistent so it doesn't distract you too much.

3. This one isn't really a con but it is divisive: This game gets pretty difficult at times. A few of the main dragon enemies including and especially the final boss can give you a serious run for your money in the annoy-o-meter in terms of the kind of absolute JRPG fuckery they can pull out of their magic bag of bullshit movesets and while I generally enjoy that kind of thing, I know it's not for everyone. Most regular combat shouldn't be too tricky once you have a team comp that works well together but you also need to pay attention since the same team that carries you to victory one time might be worth beans against another dragon.

Final thoughts: This is... a really good game. Interesting story, really interesting characters, pretty world and a battle system that really makes you sit down and think. There's also a demo for this available in the e-shop and while your data doesn't carry over - you do receive multiple perks for carrying over your demo data including some exclusive items that, while not game breaking, do help a ton in the early stages of the game.

This isn't a final list by any stretch of the word; I only have the energy to do these two right now, but the next games up for coverage are Ever Oasis and Stella Glow! If you're interested in my full plan of games I want to cover here then my current lineup includes: Theatrhythm: Curtain Call, Project Mirai: Deluxe, Culdecept Revolt, Alliance Alive, Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, Etrian Odyssey V, Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse.

Finally, if anyone has played any of the games I mention, cover or plan to cover PLEASE REACH OUT TO ME, I AM SO LONELY IN MY FORTRESS OF SAND. On a serious note, I'd love to hear what other people who've played these games think!

Thanks for reading,

-Ginger

PS: @feralpeacock Because a million years ago, on my first underrated games post, you asked that I remember you. :D

[osir-ethria]

My head canon for Atlas/Mantle if Team RWBY wins the fight against Salem. Maybe others have said this but maybe I’m the first, I’d have to check but I tend to just write what comes to mind and I like the ideas I come up with. You may not agree with me and that’s fine.

Winter: General, Winter Maiden, and she’d take on the Schnee name proudly if she’d survive. Gather the rest of the military that she can and along with hunters (gender-neutral term for them) plus the Happy Huntresses and go reclaim the lost land.

Weiss would tag along. Not in the military but a leading power, and maybe since after that and having a direct hand in helping stop Salem the refugees would vote for her to be one of the leaders leading the expedition. Like councilwoman level and would be joined by Robin and Winter as Atlas’s new leaders.

Whitley: I’m sure they would make sure Vale and Beacon is up and running again so once that is done I’d like him to go there. If he is too young still then go to Signal academy to catch up. I’d also like to say he’d get trained by the entire team:

Willow would help him with aura control,

Weiss and Winter would individually help with sword skills and Weiss would help a bit more with understanding the family semblance,

Jaune would help out with sword training as well, Klein can help with changing his diet to befit a huntsman,

Blake teach him how to shoot a gun,

Yang and Winter would teach him the basics of hand-to-hand combat,

Yang would also teach him how to cook along with Ren,

Ren would help him control his emotions in Grimm attack situations and let them be free in safer environments,

Nora would try to counter that with teach him to be free with emotions, Mercury (I want him to become a good guy okay.), Emerald, and Neo would give him an experience to different fighting styles,

Qrow, Tai, and maybe Raven (IDK) would help him understand with a longer lasting expertise in their profession, Oscar would be with him as they train and learn together,

Ruby would teach him how to bake and would help him with weapon design and gear design as in how things work and what would be best to include. She’ll let him do the looks design.

And here is something for me personally because I’m a heavy Whiterose shipper and want it for endgame, but maybe there is something you’ll agree with so you don’t need to take it into account because of Whiterose and rather a nice head canon.

Once everything settles down Ruby is finally able to play video games again and Whitley sees her play them from time to time again. Jacques never allowed him to ‘indulge himself in something so useless’ and he’s rather interested with it. He finally starts hanging around the couch more and Ruby offers him to play, he accepts and he sucks at it. Gets Ruby’s character killed multiple times but he’s rather happy to try it out.

(More Ruby specific) Ruby, Pietro, and some other scientists (I head canon Ruby to be really smart and dumb at the same time, she can go from some new scientific discovery to “Hey Weiss, how long do I microwave mayonnaise for?”) get to work on redesigning the CTC towers so they can link up with other kingdoms even if one falls but it isn’t the best way to do so, and Ruby specifically gets assigned with Pietro to design a satellite. Pietro had his scroll which I’m sure had Amity’s satellite blueprints on it or he knows how it worked so they can get to work right away. Everyone has seen the blueprints and they’d say they’re very impressed, the Schnees, are absolutely in awe at the blueprints. Not because they were designed by ‘a child’ but rather the complexity.

All Schnees are nerds change my mind.

Ruby teaches Whitley, Weiss, and maybe Winter, Summer’s cookie recipe and her favorite variant of it so they can make it for Willow. Weiss likes to make them for Ruby and her team, she adds them to her coffee/tea, and Whitley baked them once for Ruby as an appreciation.

Whitley goes to Ruby whenever he gets into a fight with his sisters as she can relate more being the youngest, Weiss goes to Ruby a lot so she normally hears both of their sides, and gets Winter’s side either from directly talking to her for a different standpoint or from Yang. Winter goes to Yang because she’s the only other older sibling.

Whitley grows to view Weiss more like the way Weiss did with Winter during Beacon but he doesn’t hold back. He is following her around like a puppy at times and would rather stay close, and if he is in Beacon by that time or Weiss leaves to reclaim said lost land and she visits you bet that he will just outright tackle her. And, as guilty as he feels about this, Ruby is his third favorite. Above Winter and Willow. Who’s second you may ask? Klein, need I explain more?

I have a little bit on Weiss and Winter, should I continue another post with them individually? Probably. Need to let the ideas out.

[multiverseforger]

Edit

In November 2013, Marvel Comics announced that Kamala Khan, a teenage American Muslim from Jersey City, New Jersey, would take over the comic book series Ms. Marvel beginning in February 2014. The series, written by G. Willow Wilson and drawn by Adrian Alphona, marked the first time a Muslim character headlined a book at Marvel Comics.[2] However, Noelene Clark of the Los Angeles Times noted that Khan is not the first Muslim character in comic books, which include Simon Baz, Dust and M.[3] The conception of Kamala Khan came about during a conversation between Marvel editors Sana Amanat and Stephen Wacker. Amanat said, "I was telling him [Wacker] some crazy anecdote about my childhood, growing up as a Muslim American. He found it hilarious." The pair then told Wilson about the concept and Wilson became eager to jump aboard the project.[4] Amanat said that the series came from a "desire to explore the Muslim-American diaspora from an authentic perspective."[5]

Artist Jamie McKelvie based Khan's design on his redesign of Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel and on Dave Cockrum's design of the original Ms. Marvel.[6] Amanat requested that the design "reflected the Captain Marvel legacy, and also her story and her background."[7] Amanat stated that Khan's costume was influenced by the shalwar kameez. They wanted the costume to represent her cultural identity, but did not want her to wear a hijab,[8] because the majority of teenage Pakistani-American girls do not wear one.[9] Amanat also stated that they wanted the character to look "less like a sex siren" to appeal to a more vocal female readership.[8]

Marvel knew that they wanted a young Muslim girl, but stated that she could be from any place of origin and have any background. Wilson initially considered making her an Arab girl from Dearborn, Michigan but ultimately chose to create a Desi girl from Jersey City.[10] Jersey City, which sits across the Hudson River from Manhattan, has been referred to as New York City's "Sixth borough".[11][12][13] It therefore forms an important part of Khan's identity and the narrative journey of her character since most of Marvel Comics' stories are set in Manhattan. Wilson explains, "A huge aspect of Ms. Marvel is being a 'second string hero' in the 'second string city' and having to struggle out of the pathos and emotion that can give a person."[14]

The series not only explores Khan's conflicts with supervillains but also explores conflicts with Khan's home and religious duties. Wilson, a convert to Islam, said "This is not evangelism. It was really important for me to portray Kamala as someone who is struggling with her faith." Wilson continued, "Her brother is extremely conservative, her mom is paranoid that she's going to touch a boy and get pregnant, and her father wants her to concentrate on her studies and become a doctor."[4] Amanat added,

As much as Islam is a part of Kamala's identity, this book isn't preaching about religion or the Islamic faith in particular. It's about what happens when you struggle with the labels imposed on you, and how that forms your sense of self. It's a struggle we've all faced in one form or another, and isn't just particular to Kamala because she's Muslim. Her religion is just one aspect of the many ways she defines herself.[2]



First appearance of Kamala Khan from Captain Marvel #14 (August 2013) by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Scott Hepburn

In the series, Khan takes the name Ms. Marvel from Carol Danvers, who now goes by the alias Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel writer Kelly Sue DeConnick revealed that Khan actually made a brief appearance in Captain Marvel #14 (August 2013) saying, "Kamala is in the background of a scene in Captain Marvel 14 ... She is very deliberately placed in a position where she sees Carol protecting civilians from Yon-Rogg."[15] According to Wilson, Khan idolizes Carol so when Khan acquires superhuman abilities, she emulates Danvers.[14] "Captain Marvel represents an ideal that Kamala pines for. She's strong, beautiful and doesn't have any of the baggage of being Pakistani and 'different,'"[4] Wilson explained. "Khan is a big comic book fan and after she discovers her superhuman power – being a polymorph and able to lengthen her arms and legs and change her shape – she takes on the name of Ms. Marvel," Amanat elaborated.[16] Khan is one of several characters who discover that they have Inhuman heritage following the "Inhumanity" storyline, in which the Terrigen Mists are released throughout the world and activate dormant Inhuman cells.[17]

In the series' first story arc, Khan faces off against Mr. Edison / the Inventor, an amalgam of man and bird. Wilson created the Inventor to be Khan's first arch rival in order to mirror Khan's own complexity. Wilson characterizes the Inventor, and the overall visual look of the opening story arc as "kooky and almost Miyazaki-esque at times", owing to the art style of illustrator Adrian Alphona, which balances the drama of the threats which Khan faces with the humor of Alphona's "tongue in cheek sight gags." During the storyline, Khan also teams-up with the X-Man Wolverine against the Inventor. Because Wolverine is dealing with the loss of his healing factor during this time, Khan is placed in the position of having to shoulder much of the responsibilities, as Wilson felt this was a role reversal that would subvert reader expectations that Wolverine would take the lead in such a team-up.[18]

At the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con International, writer Dan Slott announced that Khan would team-up with Spider-Man beginning in The Amazing Spider-Man #7 (October 2014) during the "Spider-Verse" storyline. Slott characterized Khan "the closest character to classic Peter Parker,"[19] explaining, "She's a teenage superhero, juggling her life, making mistakes, trying to do everything right."[20]

Beginning in June 2015, Ms. Marvel tied into the "Secret Wars" crossover event with the "Last Days" storyline, which details Khan's account of the end of the Marvel Universe. Wilson explained, "In the 'Last Days' story arc, Kamala has to grapple with the end of everything she knows, and discover what it means to be a hero when your whole world is on the line."[21] In the storyline, Khan rushes to deal with the threat in Manhattan. However, Wilson revealed, "She will face a very personal enemy as the chaos in Manhattan spills over into Jersey City, and she will be forced to make some very difficult choices. There will also be a very special guest appearance by a superhero Kamala—and the fans—have been waiting to meet for a long time."[22]

In March 2015, Marvel announced that Khan will join the Avengers in All-New All-Different Avengers FCBD (May 2015) by writer Mark Waid and artists Adam Kubert and Mahmud Asrar, which takes place in the aftermath of "Secret Wars".[23] A second volume of Ms. Marvel starring Khan by Wilson, Alphona and Takeshi Miyazawa is also debuted following "Secret Wars" as part of Marvel's All-New, All-Different Marvel initiative.[24] Amanat said,

By the time this new launch comes around, it will have been almost two years since the premiere of Ms. Marvel—and boy, has Kamala Khan been through a lot since then. She's been slowly coming into her own, dealing with the challenges of navigating adulthood and being a super hero. But her training is over now and it's time for the big leagues; the question is can she handle it? ... As much as Kamala has a right to be there—it's still a bit of a culture shock. Dreaming of being an Avenger and then suddenly being one is a lot to take on for someone of her age. So, she'll be a little awestruck, a little overly ambitious.[25]

In March 2016, Marvel announced that Ms. Marvel would tie into the "Civil War II" storyline by releasing a promotional image illustrating a rift between Khan and Danvers.[26] "While "Civil War II" may have initiated this rift, we've known for some time that Kamala would eventually need to separate herself from her idols. Her journey centers around self-discovery and identity, and a part of that exploration includes separating yourself from those you put on pedestals. The rift between Carol and Kamala doesn't really have to do with right and wrong. It has to do with growing up and realizing that you perceive the world differently from even the ones you love," Amanat elaborated.[27]

In July, Marvel announced that Khan will join the Champions, a team of teenage superheroes who split off from the Avengers following the conclusion of "Civil War II". The team, featured in a series by writer Mark Waid and artist Humberto Ramos, consists of Khan, Spider-Man (Miles Morales), Nova (Sam Alexander), Hulk (Amadeus Cho), Viv Vision, and a teenage version of Cyclops. Waid said, "The first three are the kids who quit the Avengers proper. That was an easy get. Those three, in and of themselves, form a nice little subteam. Their dynamic is great. They all show up in each other's books, and even though they have their arguments and stress points, clearly they're good together."[28]

In August, Khan made an appearance in Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #10 by writers Amy Reeder and Brandon Montclare. In the issue, Khan acts as a mentor to Moon Girl (Lunella Lafayette) who is also a young Inhuman that suddenly came into her powers. Amanat stated that Khan sees much of herself in Lafayette and by teaching her, Khan learns much about herself.[27]

In November, Marvel announced that Khan will join a new incarnation of the Secret Warriors in a series by writer Matthew Rosenberg and artist Javier Garron that debuted in May 2017. The team, formed in the wake of the "Inhumans vs X-Men" storyline, also includes Quake, Karnak, Moon Girl, and Devil Dinosaur. Rosenberg stated that there is some conflict and friction amongst the team members explaining, "Ms. Marvel and Quake are really fighting for the soul of the team in a lot of ways, while Moon Girl will continue to really do her own thing. They will all be tested and challenged, they are superheroes after all, but they are going to do things their way."[29]

In March 2017, Marvel announced that Khan would team-up with Danvers in a one-shot issue of the limited anthology series, Generations by Wilson and Paolo Villanelle. Wilson stated that the issue would explore Danvers' and Khan's mentor–student relationship, but "at its heart, [it] is about growing up, and a big part of growing up is discovering that your idols have feet of clay – and forgiving them for their flaws as you gain an adult understanding of your own."[30]

In December, Ms. Marvel began the "Teenage Wasteland" story arc, as part of the Marvel Legacy relaunch. Wilson said, "Since the events of 'Civil War II', there's been friction between Kamala and her mentor, Captain Marvel. In this arc, we're exploring how complicated legacies can be when they're passed from generation to generation ... She's questioning a lot about herself and her mission. Her friends end up stepping into some very important—and unexpected—roles. So in a sense, the arc is really about a bunch of chronically under-estimated teenagers who pull together to fight evil."[31]

Ms. Marvel #31, the 50th issue of Ms. Marvel featuring Khan was released in June 2018. To mark the occasion, Marvel brought in additional collaborators for the issue including writers: G. Willow Wilson, Saladin Ahmed, Rainbow Rowell, and Hasan Minhaj; and artists: Nico Leon, Bob Quinn, Gustavo Duarte, and Elmo Bondoc.[32]

Beginning in March 2019, Khan headlined a new series titled, The Magnificent Ms. Marvel, written by Ahmed and illustrated by Minkyu Jung. Wilson stated that she had been planning her departure from the series for over a year, stating that she originally anticipated that the series would only last for ten issues and was excited by the fact that she had written 60 issues. Ahmed said the new series will have much wider scope, "while still maintaining that intimate tone that people have loved about it."[33]

In July 2020, Marvel announced that Khan would star in an original graphic novel, published in conjunction with Scholastic and aimed at younger readers. The book will be written by author Nadia Shammas. An illustrator has not yet been named.[34

[scattergraph]

Fluff #4:  Back Rubs

It had been five days since the invasion of the dreaded flu that had rendered Scott Tracy off rescues and detained to the couch for the foreseeable future, or until the weekend at the very least.  All in all, he had been taking it pretty well.  That was, until this morning, when a close call on a rescue had left the remaining brothers demanding more training on each other’s equipment. There were physical restrictions, of course, which prevented this to some extent.  Watching Alan trying to pad himself out enough to fit into Virgil’s Exosuit had been incredibly entertaining for all, but less than useful for rescue scenarios in the grand scheme of things.  There were some bits of kit, however, that could have easily been shared, if it weren’t for the fact that Scott just didn’t want to share them.  Thunderbird One and the jetpack, for example.  

The Commander had managed to kick up enough of a fuss to keep them all away from Thunderbird One, for the time being anyway.  His argument that One could be flown remotely by any of them if needed and that they were stressing him out while he was sick was enough to keep everyone away from his beloved ‘bird, for now.  He would have to come up with a more long-term plan asap though as he knew full well this wouldn’t be the last he was going to hear of it.  Sure, Gordon and Virgil weren’t all that fussed, but Alan was another matter.  That kid was desperate to get behind the controls and had been for a long time.

The jetpack, on the other hand, was a battle he had lost pretty quickly and to be fair to his brothers, they were right.  Each and every one of them needed to know how to operate it just in case of emergencies and despite Scott’s concerns, the training had been going well for the first hour-or-so.  Then Virgil had gone and asked the one question Scott had been dreading all along.

“What does this button do?” the brother in the green sash asked as he explored the pack that was currently strapped firmly to his torso.  It had been no problem to adjust the straps to Virgil’s frame as the jetpack was a lot more adaptable than some of their other kit and to be fair to the man, he had picked up the controls much faster than Scott had ever expected him to.  In fact, he was picking up on a lot more than he was ever supposed to.

“Nothing,” Scott replied, far too casually, “it was put in as a fallback in case we needed it but it’s not actually programmed to do anything.”

Virgil frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.  For one thing it’s just bad engineering.”

“What can I say, Brains wanted options.”

“Errrm…Brains doesn’t operate that way.” Gordon was in the mix now, fabulous, they were all against him.  “If anything, Brains is super careful not to put in redundant stuff.  I smell a rat.”

Time to pull out the big guns.  Hugging his blanket closer and attempting to look as pathetic and sickly as possible, a move Scott Tracy would under normal circumstances absolutely never use, he weakly coughed out: “Guys, can we please call it a day.  I don’t have the energy for this and you’ve already practiced enough to be able to use the jetpack if you need it.”  That part, at least, was true.  He would never selfishly put an end to their training if he thought that wasn’t the case.  He had seen how close things had been this morning without them having use of it.

“It’s not even listed in the manual,” Virgil replied from where he was now closely scrutinising the instructions Brains had worked up for them and blindly ignoring his Commander’s pitiful attempt at a distraction.  “That’s it, I’m pushing it.”

“No!” Scott replied, suddenly forgetting his debilitating illness and springing to his feet.

“Why not?”

“I told you, it doesn’t do anything.”

“Then what does it matter if I push it?”

“Well, we don’t know if it might have been accidentally connected or something.  It’s never been tested.  Better to let Brains have a look at it first.”  Scott was clutching at straws now and he knew it.

“I call BS.  Push it Virg.”  Gordon piped in.

“Agreed, do it.” Alan joined, eyes narrowed on Scott.

“John, any input?” Virgil asked their currently holographic brother who was also watching the exchange with interest.

“I’m all for exploration.  If Brains says it’s safe, go for it.”

Ganging up on the sick one, huh?  Not cool, guys.  There would be much revenge for this later when he was back to full power, that was for sure.

“Virgil, please trust me on this,” Scott tried one last attempt, “don’t push the button.”

“Brains?” Virgil called up their resident equipment expert, “is there any safety reason why I shouldn’t push the little red button on the jetpack?”

“No reason at all, Virgil.  I can assure you my designs are all of the highest quality and one hundred percent safe.”

“That’s what I thought. Thanks Brains.”  The connection was cut.  “I’m pushing the button now.”  Virgil replied.

“Virgil, don’t.”

“Pushing the red button.”

“Do not push the red button.”

“Pushing it in Five…”

“Don’t do it.”

“Four.”

“Virg – “

“Three.”

“Come on…”

“Two.”

“Don’t!”

And just like that, the button was pushed…and…nothing happened.  Just like Scott had said.  Nothing that anyone other than Scott, who had requested the button, and Virgil, who was now wearing the jetpack, would know about, anyway.  Thankfully the incredulous widening of Virgil’s eyes as the button was pushed and the power kicked in was not noticed by the other brothers who were still busily watching Scott at the time, giving the second eldest time to quickly shelve any reaction he may have wanted to make.

“So, Virg, what is it? What did it do?”  Alan asked as silence filled the room.

“Nothing,” Virgil choked out, before clearing his throat and trying again a bit more convincingly.  “I guess Scott was right, it isn’t linked up to anything.  I think maybe you and I should have a bit of a chat with Brains about that later, huh Scott?  You know, to check if there are any more little buttons like this that could be hiding away in any of our other equipment.”

“Yeah, sure Virgil,” Scott agreed grumpily from where he had fallen back to the couch, nervous and exhausted.

“Wait, I don’t get it. If it really did do nothing, then why all the fuss?”  Gordon asked.

“It’s probably the flu,” Virgil replied, coming to Scott’s rescue.  “You know how the meds can make him delirious sometimes.  We should probably do what he says and end the session after all.  It’s been a long day.”

Neither John nor the younger two seemed to buy it entirely, but whatever it was the elders were hiding, they would find out in due course.  They had their ways, they always did.  All said and done, they waved their goodbyes to John and off they went. All except Virgil, who began the process of extricating himself from the jetpack, and Scott, who sat sheepishly to one side studying his own feet far too hard while refusing to look Virgil in the eye.  Even when said brother came and took a seat right beside him.

“So…” Virgil began. “A BACK MASSAGER?!”

“Would you believe me if I said it was there for therapeutic purposes?”

“Not a chance.”

“And how much will it cost me to keep this one quiet?  You know, just between you and me?”

“Well, that depends. Firstly, there’s the cost of my time to redesign this thing and hide the button better so that the others will never find out.  Then there’s the additional time and cost to have one fitted into Thunderbird Two. Oh, and the Exosuit, of course.”

“Of course,” Scott replied, with a huff.

“And I’m guessing there’s a similar system already built into Thunderbird One somewhere, which we’ll also need to hide?”

“Maybe…” Scott trailed.

“In that case, I’ll think about it and let you know.  Until then, you’re still grounded.  And if you even think about defying my rules and trying to break out again like you did yesterday, you know what’s going to happen.”

And with a smirk and a “see you later, big brother”, Virgil was gone, off to talk to Brains about a few little ‘improvement’ ideas of his own and leaving Scott to sulk all alone.

So much for Commander’s privileges.  Sometimes little brothers were the worst.  At least he could be thankful that Virgil hadn’t discovered the code to activate the heated shoulder straps for Winter flying.  If he had to build those into the Exosuit as well, they’d never get Virgil out of it.