#but my day kinda went by fast & then i came home to some enamel pin mail!! i got 2 bllk cuties hehee!! ໒꒰ྀི∩˃ ᵕ ˂∩꒱ྀི১ they’re ADORABLE!!!

[yuukimiyas]

( ∩ˇωˇ∩)♡ your fave sleepy girl is home from work!! i am so ready to melt into my bed & play genshin for a lil bit <33

[antiquechampagne]

Antique Champagne - Chapter 35 - Reaction

The more time she spent in her new room, even with how small it was, the more comfortable and lived in it became. After a while, it started to feel like home.

“It’s still a waste of caps,” growled Fahr.

Payne had shown up for work, right in the middle of an argument between Hancock and Fahr.

“It doesn’t matter, I’ve already given the guy the go ahead.”

Fahrenheit gave a frustrated grunt while running her pointer finger roughly across her temple. Shifting her glare to Payne she pleaded, “Please talk some sense into this ghoul.”

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“You should appreciate this, Payne.” He turned to her with a look that landed somewhere between smug and cheeky. “I found a traveling engineer who says he can install a system that can supply hot water to the State House!” He gave a wide smile. “Then Diamond City won’t have the market cornered on hot showers anymore!”

Payne had a hard time hiding her surprise. Hot water on demand was incredibly rare. It had been such a long time since she even thought about a warm bath on demand or hot shower, she had forgotten how much she missed them.

“Well… if it works here, then maybe it would work at the Rexford too. It might bring some more business in.” Fahr fiery glared leveled itself full force at her. “What? You saying improving the average resident’s hygiene isn’t a good thing for the town?”

“This whole thing is a waste of time and caps!” Fahr nearly growled as she left the room, no doubt to go nurse her bruised ego.

Hancock gave Payne a playful jab on the shoulder. “I knew you’d have my back! Let’s celebrate!” Hancock grabbed a couple of bottles from the bar.

The evening progressed just as Payne had anticipated. She had ‘celebrated’ quite a few of Hancock and Fahr’s disagreements. She found it easier to curb his benders when he stayed in; thankfully, that appeared to be his intention for the night. As the moon was well overhead, Hancock had settled on the couch. Payne had leaned lazily against the bar. He had been talking about his plans for upgrading the neon signs just outside the walls when he circled back around to the day’s previous argument.

“It’s a real maze out there, especially if you’re new to downtown. I think maybe a few more signs could help out with that.” He twirled an empty jet container in his palm. “But that new water tank, I think it could really elevate the town… take some of the stuffing out of the Great Green Jewel.” His words dripped with sarcasm. He let out a little huff. “I do kinda miss them, ya know? I never appreciated that warm and clean feeling until it was just out of reach.” Hancock turned to her. “Anything you miss?”

“Miss? Miss about what?”

“About out west. Maybe something that isn’t around anymore.” He stared absentmindedly at the cracked ceiling. “I dunno.”

Payne leaned back, shuffling through her memories. After a moment, all she could do was shrug. “Guess if I could, I would bring back proper ice cream. I could kill for a half way decent float.”

“Float?”

“Yeah. If you can find some half-decent vanilla ice cream, put a big scoop into a chilled glass. Fill it with an ice-cold Nuka-Cola. A lot of people preferred Sunset Sarsaparilla, but I never liked that stuff. Oh man, on a summer day it just hits the spot…or hit the spot.”

Hancock started tossing the Jet canister idly in the air, repeatedly catching it one handed. “What do you think you’d be doing if the world didn’t go to shit?”

“Easy,” Payne smirked. “I’d be dead.”

“Bah, that’s not what I meant, and you know it.” He playful tossed the canister at her. “I mean… did you have plans for the whole white picket fence, husband, 2.5 kids, apple pies… that pre-apocalypse whole shtick?”

She snorted. “Are you kidding me? No guy in their right mind would try and get hitched to me! I was the daughter of an ex-call girl-turned-independent brothel owner. The only men burning down my door were the ‘get the milk for free’ kind.” She pushed her hair back from her face. “Beside, that whole scene wasn’t really my style. Too much commitment for my taste.” She smiled. “Not that marriage vows meant a whole lot to the people frequenting our establishment. Many were men in loveless marriages trying to relive their glory bachelor days. No thanks.”

Hancock raised an imaginary glass and toasted her. “But you surely must have had your eye on someone!”

What was with this sudden interest in her prewar love life? “I had a few exes over the years, but nothing stuck. I’ve got a pretty open with the whole relationship thing. Most people don’t know how to handle that, even if they say their okay with it.” She shrugged.

“Amen, sister!”

Before she could start needling Hancock over his own proclivities, Fahrenheit appeared in the doorway.

“Turn on the radio,” she ordered.

Perplexed, Payne walked over to the relic sitting on an end table and turned the knob. The sounds of gun shots and a struggle.

“Oh my god, what’s happening?” Kent’s voice shook with fright.

A woman’s voice cut in. “On your knees, dirt bag!”

“Wha..What are you doing?” Kent let out a pained grunt.

“Sinjin, all clear.”

Another voice came over the radio. Sinjin. “This is the Shroud’s headquarters… so you must be the Silver Shroud’s little friend”

Kent stammered a muffled “Yes” in reply.

“If you want to see your friend alive, Shroud, meet me at Milton General Hospital.”

“Don’t do it, Shroud!” Kent yelled. “It’s a trap! Save yourself!”

BANG!

Kent cried out in agony. “Oh my god! Do it, Shroud! Do it! Oh, my knee!”

“Tick tock, Shroud,” Sinjin warned. “don’t keep me waiting. We’ve got business that needs finishing.”

“It just keeps repeating,” Fahr said.

Numb, Payne turned off the radio. The shock hit her like a 2 by 4 to the forehead. “What the fuck?” Payne turned to Hancock, who was now bolted upright.

“That gangster-wannabe asshole. Sinjin is going to pay for this with his blood.”

Recovering Payne asked Hancock, “How did Sinjin get Kent out of town? Did anyone see anything?” She turned to Fahrenheit.

“Irma’s beside herself with regret. She tried to stop them, but there were too many. I’ll find out who let this happen, how they got in.”

“Good. Fahr, send out runners, too.” A deadly kind of determination suffused Hancock’s words. “Find Nate. Make sure he is here as fast as possible.”

Fahr turned on her heels, already barking orders to the Watchmen nearby.

Payne could see dread seep into Hancock’s steely expression as the gravity of the situation hit her as well. Both of them feared for their dear friend’s life.

By early morning, every Watchman had been severely interrogated by not only Fahrenheit, but Hancock as well. The only thing anyone noticed was hearing a commotion in one of the alleys in town. When the guard went to investigate, no one was there.

The trio quickly converged on the alley with a gaggle of haggard looking Watchmen. They combed through the cluttered dirty back street.

They were nearly to the dead end when Hancock stooped down. He picked something up from a pile of rotting rags that had been pushed aside by what had been Bobbi No-Nose’s secret door. He rubbed his fingers over it, cleaning the grime of the small enamel pin.

Payne recognized it immediately. “That’s Kent’s. I gave it to him the first time we met.”

Hancock’s eyes narrowed.

They all turned as the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps echoed off brick walls of the alley. An out of breath runner quickly turned the corner.

“The Shroud…” she huffed, “was about a half an hour north. He’s on his way.”

With a nod and wave, Hancock dismissed her. Turning back to Fahr he issued an order. “Check the warehouse and move all supplies still housed there to the backup storeroom. Brick this whole building up. Look for any other exploitable gaps in the security of our walls. Plug everything.”

Payne followed Hancock out of the alley, leaving Fahr organize the Watch and start securing the town.

Back in the Old State House, Hancock and Payne shoved extra ammo and meds into their pockets and pouches. In her room, she happened upon the veil she had worn the night she danced with Kent dressed as the Mistress of Mystery. Carefully, she pulled her hair back and tied it with securely with the veil’s strings before fitting her helmet over her head. Dread started to build up in the back of Payne’s mind like a backed-up pipe, looming on the edge of her thoughts. As she returned upstairs, Nate burst through the doors followed by a hovering rusted white robot.

“Hancock!” He called.

The mayor motioned him in. “We need to leave now, Nate, and we need to travel fast.” He looked to the Vault Dweller’s new companion. “Find an upgrade while you were out scavving?”

“Hancock, this is Curie. She’s quite the special Miss Nanny robot.”

“This must be Monsieur Hancock, I presume.” The robot wave one of its three arms in his direction. “Monsieur Nate has told me so much about you. It is a pleasure to meet such a fascinating specimen at last.”

Hancock seemed a bit taken by surprise by her flowery speech. “Um, thank you.” He shook his head. “As much as I would love to make your acquaintance, we really need to get going.” He turned to Nate. “I think it might be best if you leave your robot here.”

Curie’s arms whirled in annoyance. “I am the top of the line of RobCo technology. I assure you I am capable of this.”

“No offense, but if Milton General is like the rest of the hospitals around, there are a lot of tight corridors, dead ends and bottlenecks just screaming for traps full of Psycho-filled raiders. In my experience, your model’s jet engine a bit conspicuous and,” he pointed to the large circular sawblade attached to the end of one of her three arms. “I don’t fancy my coat, or any body part, getting on the wrong arm of that accidentally.”

Nate put a hand on Curie’s floating round chassis. “He has a point, Curie. I think I am going to ask you to stay here while we take care of this.”

Curie’s arms drooped as she sagged a bit closer to the floor in disappointment. “But there is so much left for me to see in this new world…”

“I know.” Nate gave her a little pat. “When I come back, we can head back out on the road. In the meantime, why don’t you see if you and Dr. Amari in the Memory Den have any research you can share. I’m sure the two of you can find some common ground.”

“As you wish.” Her eyestalks focused on Nate. “Please be careful out there, Monsieur. Until we meet again.”

[tessmontyart]

2018 Year In Review

Another year, another review 💕(I actually typed most of this up before 2019 and then got distracted, whoops)

To put things short, 2018 has been AWESOME :D Exhausting and fast, but awesome.

I started it off pretty uncertain how things were going to go, dreading it would be a repeat of 2017′s boring TAFE courses and endless job rejections. But the miracle happened - a 2D animation studio opened up near me, I applied, did an animation test and got the job!

The job was a contract from 1st of April - 21st of December, so I spent the majority of my year going to work to animate characters for a really crazy but hilarious new kids show called Spongo Fuzz and Jalapena, due to air mid 2019 :) 

It was honestly the most fun job I have ever had and I can’t wait for the next project! 🎉 I have never been this exhausted in my life, though. 😅I had already booked a whole bunch of conventions before I got the job, and didn’t want to cancel them so I was working nonstop - Animation during the day and intensive convention prep every night. 

I also had the bright idea of creating a full colour 26 page comic -with a tight deadline - so I was madly working to the point I didn’t even have time for dinner half the time :’) I am sort of happy with the comic, but also kind of wish I never had the idea in the first place. 😅

I tabled at a ton of conventions; Melbourne Supanova, Central Coast ComiCon, Other Worlds Zine Fair, Sydney Supanova, SMASH and Canberra Gamma Con. If next year doesn’t go so well on the job side of things I’m hoping to add a few more conventions to that list - Brisbane Supanova, Oz Comic Con and Animaga to name a few. I’ve already booked Sydney Madman Anime Festival!

2018 was the year my partner and I celebrated our 4th year together, and he never fails to amaze me with his continuous love and support. I was too sick to attend the first day of SMASH, so he set up and ran the whole stall for me while I stayed at home. Same with Sydney Supanova, I was too bogged down in animation work and couldn’t afford to take the Friday off, so he set up and ran the stall for me on Friday, then we ran the stall together on the weekend. He also tended to my every need when I broke my toe, cooked all my meals when I was busy with work and even packaged + posted all my Etsy orders every day because I was always working during post office hours. He listened to all the problems I was having with my stall setup and helped make shelves and decorations to make it look and function better. I was getting stressed because my desk space was too small, BAM he bought me a brand new desk with plenty of storage. I was getting stressed that I had so much on my convention to-do-list and couldn’t keep track of all my project ideas, BAM, he sets up a whiteboard and helps me brainstorm everything so I can keep track of all my thoughts and ideas and what to prioritise for future conventions. I didn’t even ask him to do any of this, he just loves to help me and make me happy and I am forever blissed and happy to be able to spend my life with such a wonderful human! 

(Home made High Tea I made for him on Valentines Day) 

Arsty Highlilghts / accomplishments:

🌸I designed 9 cute Houseki no Kuni acrylic charms which have been doing really well at conventions!

🌸I also drew a cute series of ‘Sleepy Gem’ Houseki no Kuni / Steven Universe holographic prints, which I’m quite proud of 😊

🌸I created my 2nd enamel pin design, which already needed 2 reorders because they were so popular! ;w; I never knew I could make something that so many people love *sob* I’ve already planned to make these into a series! (already designed some deer ones, and thinking of doing foxes next ^_^ )

🌸I also tried getting gold foil prints done for the first time, which was pretty cool! I got the american sizes mixed up though so I might try for the bigger size next time :) (grainy photo cause its a screenshot from a video)

🌸I’ve been taking steps to make my stall look more ‘professional’, and got a really neat wooden sign made for me by my friend as_sweet_as_jasmine!

🌸I’ve started revamping my favourite series of posters - the Eevee Gijinka girls :) I plan to have them all done and ready for 2019s conventions! 

🌸This was the year I got an iPad, so I could do digital art on-the-go. Honestly its helped me so much, and I can’t wait to be able to use it more (sorta didn’t get a chance to touch it while i was working!)

🌸I got Copic Markers for my birthday so I had a whole new medium to play with! These mixed with using a brush pen for inking really make my inktobers pop and I’m eager to draw more with them  :) 

🌸Speaking of Inktober, it was a huge accomplishment for me to put effort into a decent artwork every day this year! Usually theres a few dud ones when I lacked inspiration, but I somehow managed to make it work ;w; So when it came time to printing the books, theres 31 illustrations rather than 25 like the others :) Also the whole rainbow theme idea came from how cool I think it would look flipping through a rainbow book - so I managed to make that happen and couldn’t be happier!

🌸I passed 1000 sales on Etsy!! 😱As well as 1000 followers on instagram! Crazy right??

General 2018 highlights

🌸2018 was the year one of my best friends got married! I made cute little clay wedding cake toppers for her :)

🌸The year Owl City’s 7th album Cinematic came out!! All the tracks are so GOOD and exactly the sound all us hootowls were longing for. Also Be Brave is a tearjerker, in a good way. What an amazing human Abbey is to Adam <3 

🌸The year Spyro Reignited Trilogy came out!! It’s absolutely amazing, and I love every second of it. Every time I play it I just can’t help but stand there looking around at every detail because everything is just so gorgeous *_* And the nostalgia is so real.

🌸Not exactly a highlight but the year Tumblr went NSFW free, and lost hundreds of thousands of users 😂I’m still here though. Got a dumb tradition to keep up ya know.

🌸The year my work had a hilarious Christmas party where we had to dress up as a character from Spongo Fuzz and Jalapena. It was the first time I actually put effort into a cosplay by myself 😂(possibly the last) (wont put a photo up for embarrassing reasons)

🌸the year I broke my toe for the first time xD;; definitely not a highlight but a first! I couldn’t walk for weeks! it sucked!!! T__T

🌸The year my friend successfully funded his kickstarter for his own cartoon ‘Nurry Brothers Adventure World’ :D So proud of him. I’m gonna help him animate!

🌸The year Lano and Woodley reunited with their amazing show ‘Fly’!! I loved it so much I saw it twice :D 

🌸The year I tried doing Halloween for the first time - I bought a bunch of lollies and chocolates and decorations on my letterbox/door to let people know I was participating. I got 2 different groups of people at the door, 5 people all up 😂More than I expected tbh!

🌸I tried Ruby chocolate for the first time! It was ok .. just kinda tasted like berry yoghurt flavoured white chocolate though ;w; 

SO! What’s coming for 2019?

I’m not really sure at the moment, but I have high hopes for Cheeky Little Studios (the animation company I worked for) - so I guess I’ll just have to wait and see if any of their next projects get concrete start dates :) I’m not as terrified of the year as I usually am when its just one big question mark. I know I can make decent money through conventions and commissions in the meant time so I’ll just continue doing what I love! 

LAST YEAR I SAID:

“I am crossing my fingers for an animation job I applied for a while ago” - I GOT IT! :D

“I plan to do even more conventions. Hopefully I can get into Oz Comic Con!" - didn’t end up applying because I was busy with the job, but keen to try for 2019 :)

"I’m keen to apply for like Animaga in Melbourne, as well as Madman Anime Fest in Brisbane and Melbourne.” - didn’t end up doing so for the same reason above, but that might change this year :)

“I also want to make a lot more non-fandom things for market stalls, as well as a comic and zines!” - I made the comic, as well as 3 inktober zines and a cute ‘if I fits I sits’ cat zine! As well as a bunch of cute original enamel pin ideas and my whole inktober was original art :D 

“Hopefully I’ll hit 1k followers on fb/ig? :D that will make me feel important lol” - I hit 1k on instagram!! I felt very important xD

“I’m also hoping to go on a holiday this year." - I didn’t, for job reasons ... buuut I’m booked in for a cruise in Italy / Greece this September that I’m extremely excited for!

“PLEASE BE KIND 2018, I’M BEGGING YOU 😱” - You were very very kind to me, 2018. 2019, please follow suit! 

(man this is the 7th year of review I’ve done. Can’t believe I’ve been on tumblr this long 😅)

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