#but the original composition wasn’t it

[viperbunnies]

A million sparks

Experimenting again with some brushes 🫶

[anuyuri]

doodle

Original under the cut.

[teatimeatthemothmuseum]

An Edgeworth

[art]

Creator Spotlight: @themetalhiro

Hi, I’m Metal! I’m a freelance artist from good ol’ New Jersey. My favorite things to work with are a lot of bright colors, exaggerated poses, and candid scenarios. I try to farm sensible chuckles whenever I can, so I’m also big into comics. I love making them about my life, and the media I’m into, and one day I’d like to publish my own series!  Thank you to everyone who has gotten me this far!!

Check out Metal's interview below!

Did you originally have a background in art? If not, how did you start?

I guess so! It’s funny, I don’t remember a single time in my life that I wasn’t drawing as a hobby… somewhere in middle school (a little late, I know.) I put the pieces together that animated movies were made by artists, and that it wasn’t just for fun, they were paid to do it. The moment I discovered people could be paid to make art, I decided I would do that, too. Now I’m here!

How has your style developed over the years?

I think the best way to answer this would be with an example! Over the last few years, I have made more of an effort to draw more intentionally, which sounds silly. Now, I put more thought into my poses and step out of my comfort zone with shape language and composition. I had a phase where I drew everyone with a huge, perfectly circular head and no nose. That definitely did not lend much variety...

Which 3 famous artists (dead or alive) would you invite to your dinner party?

Ack! I’m so terrible at history! I’d love to give a well-thought-out answer about fine artists of old, but I don't think we’d have much in common… Most artists I admire and who have driven me forward creatively are the people behind comics I’ve read. Andrew Hussie, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Eiichiro Oda... these guys have inspired me greatly and had a heavy influence in developing my art style and sense of humor. I’d love to ask them questions about their processes and upcoming projects. I think it would make for an entertaining night!

Over the years as an artist, what were your biggest inspirations behind your creativity?

Outside of pure aesthetics like searing bright colors, layered clothing, and loud noises…. the best and most inspiring moments in my life were those surrounded by friends and loved ones! I cherish the hell out of memories of hanging around in fun locations, trying weird food together, and impromptu midnight walks... so I try my best to capture that atmosphere and my own memories in my work when I can, even if I’m imposing fictional characters on top of them. That’s always the core of it.

What is a medium that you have always been intrigued by but would never use yourself?

I would never permanently refuse a medium, but every time I pick up clay, I’m like a baby using its hands for the first time. Absolutely dreadful. If one day I could make and paint a figurine like the ones I admire in videos, that would be awesome... But for now, I’m not counting on it.

How do you want to evolve as a creator?

I’ve had an absolute blast drawing fanart over the years, and it’s certainly played a massive role in my growth as an artist. But my dream has always been to publish my own stories for y'all to enjoy! I have lots of worlds I want to introduce to you before I’m old and gray. I want to get faster, work harder, and get better at drawing interesting settings so I can get the wheels turning as soon as possible. I also want to stop avoiding the color blue like a coward.

What do you wish you knew when you first started out creating art that you know now?

Pay your taxes quarterly. Tablets will break at the exact moment you need them most, so have a spare. Wear your blue light glasses. You’re going to need to wear a brace on every joint on the right side of your body. It can be lonely sitting at your desk all day. The car on the side of the road that costs $1000 cash….. don’t trust it!!!

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

@cranity—They use absolutely beautiful colors and weighty line work. Everything looks so sharp and clean! I wanna put it all up on my wall!

@vewn—Their ability to crank out quality short films and illustrations packed with detail is incredible. The off-kilter perspective they use really sells disorientation and catches your attention like nothing else.

@nelnal—They have absolutely banger character designs again and again, I can’t believe one person’s mind can come up with so many creative ideas!

@jinx88kc—They have a beautiful and recognizable style, and the way they incorporate animation into their illustrations sometimes is SO cool!

Thanks for stopping by, Metal! For more of Metal’s work, follow their Tumblr, @themetalhiro! If you haven't seen their Meet the Artist piece, be sure to check it out here!

[nymphomatique]

simulacra

atsv!miguel x fem!reader x comic!miguel

im no geneticist so please forgive me for any incorrect science terms 😁 i have no words for this one i wrote this with my pussy. enjoy! 

cw: bunch of word vomit before we get to the sex, miguelcest? two miguel’s like eachother very much, comic!miguel x fem!reader x atsv!miguel, boys kissing, reader fujoshing out, cunnilingus, ass eating (f receiving), blowjobs, ball sucking, handjob, fingering, squirting, voyeurism/cucking?? idk one watches for a bit, double penetration, anal fingering, unrealistic anal 🫡, nipple sucking (f), cum eating, honestly just vibes all around!

wc: 7.9k. im sorry.

—> so this was originally supposed to go up like several weeks ago with a note that i would be gone for school + summer classes (that i just finished!!!) but turns out i drafted it instead of queuing it like a fucking idiot 😁!!!!!! nonetheless, i’m so sorry for the wait. enjoy. 

“This is ambitious, even for you Miguel.”

“The worse that could happen is there’s no other dimension, then we take our dinner after this experiment.”

“You’re paying.”

“Only if I’m wrong.”

Geneticist by day, interdimensional scienctist by night, Miguel O’Hara proceeds as one of Alchemax’s brightest employees. A ground breaking research paper with a thesis on the future of genetics and their ability to be bioengineered and spliced with those of non-mammals earned him the title of lead geneticist, nothing short of prodigal in comparison to his peers. 

You and Miguel met two years ago during your internship for Alchemax, studying yourself to become a geneticist after reading Miguel’s thesis paper in your freshman year of college. Miguel is a famed alum of Nueva York University,  the science department’s crowning achievement in all its years of standing. When you had heard that the genetic science department had opened internship applications for Alchemax, you had been ecstatic. Not only would you have a chance to intern at the company of your dreams, but also get the chance to meet one of your academic idols. Needless to say, when you had read the words “Congratulations! You have been accepted and offered an internship position to study within Alchemax’s genetic science and engineering department.”, to say you were excited would be an understatement.

In the two years you’ve spent interning at Alchemax, you and Miguel have developed a close relationship to say the least. It had been a divine stroke of luck perhaps when you learned that you would be working along side Miguel as a lab technician, you had felt like you died and gone to heaven. Seeing framed photos of the scientific genius in his earlier years had no comparison to seeing him in person. To be crass, he was fucking sexy. Tall, extremely tall, broad and muscular in stature, and tan all over. Brooding eyes and a seemingly permanent frown of dissatisfaction present on his round lips, it was safe to say you had developed a slight workplace crush. 

Nevertheless, it seemed to be an unrequited infatuation. Miguel never seeming to want to talk to you about things beyond the study of deconstructing cells on an atomic level or changing the structure of somethings molecular composition, he seemed beyond disinterested in you. Still, you enjoyed the stolen glances and the misinterpretations of a touch or a word or a glance. It’s like a secret you have kept to yourself. 

It wasn’t all distaste on Miguel’s part however, after some time with him he began to share some tidbits out his personal life, rather reluctantly however. You caught him one day in the lab after hours, you had decided to stay late to work on a test subject, a spider with more than one type of species’ cells, an epigenetic experiment of yours. You were about to leave the lab when you saw Miguel hunched over his desk in his office fidgeting with a gadget you’ve never seen before. A rather crude looking watch, various types of wiring and exposed circuits coming together to form it. 

It was then he had explained to you his after hours personal project; inter-dimensional travel. To think he was ambitious was the least of your thoughts, you concluded in your head that he was downright stupid to think something like that is feasible on a level of understanding basic science and physics. But after witnessing the messy blueprints and nights of coffee and energy drinks, night after night, seeing how truly dedicated he was at just wanting to believe the idea of inter-dimensional travel, you had no choice but to indulge in him, your bubbling crush gave you no choice to object. 

So nights of him alone hunched over his desk, became late nights of both of you hunched over his desk together, fidgeting with formulas and logistics of opening a window to an entirely different universe. 

Sometimes you brought coffee, and sometimes he brought late night dinner (that he made in his kitchen) for the both of you. Regardless, the both of you had developed a work relationship, platonic of course, in the two years you’ve been present at Alchemax. You had even shared with him a draft of your own personal work for your final thesis before you graduate; the possibility bio engineering spider DNA with human DNA after your successful test of cross species creation of two types of spiders. To your surprise, Miguel had taken great interest in your work, even helping you with your thesis. It made it hard to not develop feelings for him under circumstances like this.

Tonight has been no different than any other. The two of you sat together in his personal office, gearing up to test a new iteration of the dimension opening watch, more sophisticated than one of the prototypes you walked in on Miguel tweaking at all those months ago. 

“Did you set up the tripod?”

“Check.”

“And the-“

“Yes, Miguel,” you drawl out, “the recorder is set as well. Can we get the started now? I’m tired and hungry. I’m counting on that burger.”

Miguel’s face goes stale and you hold in a laugh. You really love how easy it is to piss him off. “Get in position so we can start.” The fluttering thought of you and Miguel setting up and getting in position for a different type of movie crosses your mind and you blush a bit. Focus! You move behind the camera set up, and press record, signaling for Miguel to start the video log.

“Miguel O’Hara. Time is 22 hundred and 27. This is watch prototype 14-B. With this experiment, I hope to be the first person on earth to discover inter-dimensional travel.” 

You give a very subtle clear of your throat behind the camera and Miguel sighs and rolls his eyes. “I’m also accompanied by my lab technician.” You peek your head around the camera and wave with a smile. Unmoved, Miguel prepares to start with the experiment. A nervous glance to the camera and he twists the mechanism of the watch to the on setting. There’s a moment of silence, the room tense with anticipation, the silent clanking of gears filling the room, until its stops. There’s a short pause in hoping, anticipating something would happen but nothing. Miguel breaks the silence. 

“Attempt number 34 is a conclusive failure.”

“Knew you’d be buying me dinner tonight,” you quip, walking away from the camera, ignoring to turn it off. 

Miguel rolls his eyes at your comment shucking off his lab coat for the day. “Hurry up so we can catch the cafeteria before it closes.”

You’re hot on his heels, leaving the lab sauntering behind him.

“Attempt number 34 is a conclusive failure.”

“Knew you’d be buying me dinner tonight.”

Miguel was perplexed. Where are those voices coming from? 

Sat in his apartment, a glass of scotch on the rocks in his hand, with soft jazz lulling in the background. After a long day of hero work, the unwinding was needed, so such a rude interruption calls for investigation.

“Lyla?” He calls out softly, and with flitting of light she appears. Soft features and blonde hair all an illusion of light. 

“Yes?”

“Inspect where those voices are coming from.”

“On it,” and she’s gone once more. 

A sip of scotch luls the bulging nerve beginning to head at Miguel’s temple. With a sigh, and another curt sip, he gets lost in the soft jazz, the saxophone carrying him away just for a moment. Until..

“Miguel?” Lyla rouses him from his reverie, and he’s reminded of where he is. “I’m not sure where the sound is coming from. But I am sensing waves of molecular abnormality and instability, suggesting that someone could be-“

“Dimensional travel,” Miguel cuts. “Shock. Who do you think’s behind this?” 

“I’m not too sure, but I am worried. I’ll look into it further.” Lyla disappears once more within a moment. 

“For shock’s sake,” a sigh and thick fingers come up to pinch his nose bridge. This is the last thing he needs. He stands from the couch and is suddenly taken aback at the intense shaking in his penthouse. “What the sh- Lyla!” he calls out, but as the shaking continues she’s nowhere to be seen. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. A bean of light shoots up from under the ground and blinds Miguel. He’s so fucked if he ends up in the hands of some villain. The floor splits from under him, swallowing him and spitting him out into a void-tunnel-like space, an amalgamation of orange, yellow, red, and pink lights. He feels like he’s everywhere and nowhere, all and nothing at once. He simply closes his eyes and braces himself for wherever this decides to drop him. 

Glass breaking alerts Miguel all the way from the cafeteria. 

“Did you hear that?” He stalls mid conversation. Quiet. Listening. 

You’re confused. “No? How good is your hearing you think you hear things from down here?”

“Sensitive hearing,” he says, still unmoving. There’s another pause, until he starts packing up his food to go. “Stay here. I think someone is in the lab.”

Your eyebrows pull together. “You don’t know me as well as I thought. I’m investigating with you, let’s go.” 

Miguel looks at you and any argument dies with the deadpan look you give him. Silently, he walks back to the lab and you’re just as silent, following behind him.

First, Miguel thinks he’s in a hospital. The white lights and broken vials he landed on making him think he fucked up some poor doctor’s office. Then, he looks around and he knows it’s not a doctor’s lab. The bunsen burners and scribbles upon a rolling chalk board riddled with math. Then, he sees the abandoned lab coat embroidered with the word ALCHEMAX. How did he end up here? That’s when he hears it. Hulking footsteps, followed by a lighter tread. Shit. Shit. Shit. He had no gear on. The footsteps were getting closer. He thinks fast, grabbing a piece of a broken beaker in his hand. 

The lab door swings open and that’s when he sees the both of you. Him and the stranger in front of him look at each other. Perplexed. You’re like me. Different. It’s unspoken. There’s a pause before you emerge from behind the large man and Miguel looks at you up and down, glossing you with his eyes. Cute, he muses silently. You raise a brow at him blatantly checking you out before you speak.

“Care to explain what’s going on here, or should we call security and let them deal with you instead?” A hand rests on your hip as you pose the question. A feisty one, he can tell. 

Miguel sits up and drops the glass. “I.. don’t know how I got here or how. One minute I was in my house and the next..” he shrugs and looks around.

You freeze, looking at the tall man before you both. “You don’t think.. do you?” And he freezes at the question a beat after you ask it.

“It worked.” 

“So, uh,” Miguel clears his throat. “Care to clue a guy in?”

You think you’re losing your mind. You can’t believe it worked. A person, a man, from another dimension is here. In your lab. You and Miguel did this. You want to burst with excitement and vomit in fear at the same time. 

Holy fuck, dimension travel is real. We did it. We fucking did it. 

You introduce yourself and your lab partner to the strange and is face goes staunch.

“What did you say..?”

“This is my- my lab partner Miguel. Miguel O’Hara.”

“No shocking way.. I’m Miguel O’Hara.”

It’s your turn to go staunch next. “You’re- what?”  It’s now you take a moment to look, really 

look at the other Miguel. First thing you notice is he’s drastically shorter that your Miguel, sitting at five foot eleven compared to the staunch six feet and nine inches of your Miguel. Then, you look at his face. Same brown tresses but less wavy, coiffed in a messy side look instead of the slick back you’re used to seeing. Still, you can’t deny his attractiveness looking at him. Some things seem to carry on between dimensions, like the same thick eyebrows, slightly tanned skin, and soft looking lips in a pout. You trail your eyes down his strong nose to his thick shoulders, muscles visible even through a plain white tee shirt. The small of his waist and the thick of his thighs strained against his denim jeans have your mind trailing off for a moment, with very inappropriate thoughts to have about a coworker and a stranger. 

Miguel, your Miguel, has barely said a word, brooding over you and his tether silently. “Yeah. And this is Alchemax, yeah? My father owns this company where I’m from, the piece a’shit. Lyla would lose her head at this.”

Miguel decides to speak finally and it scares you a bit. “Did you say Lyla? As in Lyrate Lifeform-“

“Lifeform Approximation, yeah.” 

“Brother?”

“Gabriel, the pain in the ass he is.”

Miguel’s in disbelief. “No way this is- I did this.” He looks at you for a second and away, like he’s thinking, contemplating.

“Are you.. do you take it too? Rapture?” he chooses his words carefully, and you’re confused. Rapture? 

“Yeah,” he nods. 

You look between the two men, a bit flustered to be honest, and clear your throat, trying not to blush when they look at you. “Sorry to be that guy here gentlemen but uh- how do we get him back?”

“I think the pretty little scientist is right here, my brother. I think you know as well as I do why I can’t stay here for too long.”

He does. A dirty little secret he’s kept from not only you, but all of Nueva York, is that he’s the one and only Spider-Man. Not only does rapture need to be sated, but crime doesn’t allow for vacation time in this line of work. Left to its vices, Nueva York may very well burn itself from inside out.

“Get me the watch,” your Miguel asks you. You twiddle off to the office with broken glass and loose paper rattled all over the floor, picking up the watch in all its fried-wire glory. You grimace, before getting up to leave when you notice the camera from the video logs on the floor tucked away behind a fallen chair. You remember that you forgot to turn it off before you left for lunch. You bring it in jest, hoping maybe there’s something valuable on film. If not, you get to watch Miguel look incredibly handsome in his lab coat again, and you can’t complain about that. 

It’s quiet between the pair when you return. You can’t help but look at them, thinking how ludicrous this whole situation is, truly. “I still can’t believe you guys are the same person,” you muse aloud, dropping the broken watch on the counter along with the camera. “I forgot to stop recording, might be something worthwhile on that thing.”

“Thanks. We’ll clean up and uh, head to my place. S’getting late,” your Miguel says, dropping the watch in his pocket.

In the two weeks the other Miguel has been here, you’ve learned two things: One, Miguel, the both of them, are Spider-Man. Other Miguel had let it slip, and your Miguel confirmed it to you. Following a brief moment of shell shock, your mind began to race. His stamina is probably incredible, and he’s so big and durable, I wonder what he looks like under that suit. Speaking of that suit, you’ve never not noticed the bulge but knowing it’s been Miguel under there the whole time you bite your lip. You’re so fucked. Second, you were beginning to develop a bit of a crush on the other Miguel. You delude yourself into thinking it’s an enamourment that’s returned, the flirty jokes and wandering exchanges shared between the two of you.

This was something that unbeknownst to you didn’t fly under your Miguel’s radar in the slightest. When all three of you are together, you notice the way his muscles in his face pull at the borderline vulgar double entendres his doppelgänger makes towards you. The twist of his lips, the hard swallow in his throat. Is he… jealous? 

“Red or white?” you hear the other Miguel over the couch ask, and the question grounds you. You’re over at Miguel’s place, in attempts to figure out what missing code is needed to finally send Miguel’s other back to his original dimension. You had showed up on time, but Miguel had been running late with Spider-Man duties, so you and his tether found yourself plenty occupied within the wine cabinet, stocked with aged reds and whites. 

“Red,” you reply back. “What bottle is that? If it’s expensive he’ll kill you.”

“Chateau Cheval Blanc. 1947. Aged to perfection,” Miguel says, walking towards you at the couch with two large rounded glasses in hand accompanied with a rather expensive looking wine bottle. When he rounds the couch you quirk an eye at him. “All the bottles he has are expensive. And technically, they’re my bottles too.”

You roll your eyes and can’t help but smile. With a pop, the champagne bottle opens, and the smooth pour of amber liquid fills your glass. 

At the first sip, it’s tart, a slight edge to the wine. But with each sip, the notes of fruit and full bodied taste of it begins to hit your taste bud. As you sip, conversation between you and Miguel follows. He tells you about his own perils as Spider-Man, his troubled home life, romantic life, and everything in between. 

You laugh. You sip. Your glass empties, and he refills it. You’re warm. Your eyelids become heavier. You’re blinking slower. You’re chewing your lip. You’re nervous.

You’re nervous to be alone with Miguel like this. You’re scared of his charm, his dry humour. His chiseled jaw and rounded lips. You really wanna kiss him.

You realize he’s been talking to you this whole time, sat across the couch, droning on about his own LYLA. You feel the heat in your stare, and you wonder if he can too. You can’t help but look at his lips while he’s talking, his tongue peeking out in a flash of pink to wet his lips after a prolonged sentence. 

Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me. 

Your hand slowly comes up towards Miguel’s face and the words slowly die out of his mouth until he’s silent, staring at you like you’ve been staring it him. 

“S’good wine,” you say, rubbing soft circles into his cheek. 

“Yeah?” he asks, and you nod and bite your lip. “How comes, baby?” You blush. He’s teasing you now. This is exactly what you wanted.

“Makes me feel warm.” 

You’re meek in your speech, and Miguel finds it adorable, building up the all too palpable feeling of attraction. “Just warm?” he prods, his turn to run circles onto your skin. You’re glad you worse a dress, you think, as his hand trails slowly up your thigh until his fingers are just centimetres away from where you really want them. Then he begins to caress your upper thigh with his thick hand. You’re beyond the point of wanting a kiss now.

You shake your head slowly. “Not just warm. Needy,” you sigh out. Your hand leaves his face and falls on top of his hand on your thigh, and you pull it up ever so slightly until he’s touching you where you really want it, his fingers simply resting against the fabric of your panties. “Feel needy here.”

“Oh, baby..” he drawls, and he pulls you in with a kiss with his free hand. You feel yourself melt into him, a little dizzy. Whether it’s the wine or Miguel, you’re unsure, but you savour this feeling, scared for it to end. Your lips exchange taste, his mouth tasting of the wine, mint and cigarettes. You can’t help but grind yourself into his fingers, and he finally gets the hint and rubs against the crotch of your panties, coaxing the wetness out of you. Your lips don’t leave eachother, the moment you’ve been waiting for being fuelled but the weeks worth of desire for this Miguel, and years worth of repressed feelings for the other. Your hands comb through his thick brown hair, holding onto him as if he’ll disappear if you let go. Your lips leave his to whisper your words of desire into his ear. You can’t wait anymore.

“F-fuck me, please.”

He groans, his lips making his way to your neck to suck, and when your field of vision clears up you freeze. Miguel is home. Standing in the doorway to his apartment, watching you suck face with his tether. You feel like a kid whose hand got caught in the cookie jar, the strong look of displeasure, anger, at catching you in the middle of defiling his couch. Other Miguel eases up off of your neck with a satisfied face that falls flat when he sees the expression on yours, eyes fixed over his shoulder. He sits up and turns around and freezes once he sees what you see.

It’s unbelievably tense in the room. Your mind feeling like it’s going a mile a minute, while also feeling like you’re unable to produce a coherent thought, a combination of Miguel’s touches and that damned red wine. 

Your mouth opens and closes over and over, until you blurt out some half-coherent apology for making out with his indimensional counterpart in his home. 

“I’ll um- leave.”

You get up and grab your purse, walking past your Miguel on your way to the door, but you’re met with a strong hand on your shoulder. His strong hand on your shoulder. “Sit.” 

It’s all he says. And you do. 

You slowly stalk back to the couch, sat in the middle trying to keep a respectable distance from the other Miguel, considering the embarrassing position you were caught in. Miguel makes his way over to the couch, looking at the wine bottle and wine glasses on his glass centre table. 

“1947. Good year,” he smirks, and you’re feel your stomach twist. What is he playing at?

Finally, Miguel sits beside you, and you feel your face heat up at your predicament. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

“I’m not upset about what you two did in here,” Miguel states plainly. He runs his eyes down your neck at the drying spit in between the juncture of it and your shoulder. You look down in embarrassment, but his hand lifts your chin up to look at him once more. “I’m just upset he wasn’t going to wait for me,” he says, brushing his fingers across your cheek and down your chin. You barely have a moment to process what the fuck is happening before his lips crash into yours. Your wine-muddled brain is swirling with so many thoughts but the only one you listen to is the one telling you to kiss him back, so you do. You kiss him back softly, letting him lead you into it. His tongue slips between your lips when you let out a soft moan, and the kiss breaks. Miguel chuckles at your face. He looks beyond you and eyes his twin. “You gonna join or what?”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” other Miguel muses, and grabs your chin to kiss you next. The difference between the two kisses has your mind spinning. One soft but dominating, the other hot and heavy. You want to feel them both forever. You feel another pair of lips on your body, your neck specifically, softly kissing up and down the plane of skin there until the soft kisses turn into lingering nips, and the nips turn into bites and sucks that have you writhing against the couch.

Other Miguel breaks the kiss to move his way down to the juncture of your neck, littering it with bites and kisses as well. The stimulation on both sides feels so good, you can’t help but moan and tilt your head back. With lips preoccupied, a set of hands moves to life your shirt, exposing your bra and the swell of your breasts. Palms move through cups of your bra up, freeing your breasts. They’re only free for so long until a palm envelopes one, and a pair of lips from your neck migrates to your unattended nipple. Your eyes have been closed this entire time, the sensation and sheer circumstance throwing you for a loop. You open your eyes and look down, to see your Miguel sucking and pawing at your breasts, while the other continues to lick and bite at you. You feel sharp teeth graze your nipple and you hiss, your hand moving to the back of Miguel’s head and running your fingers through his brown hair, gripping slightly. He peeks up at your face with a smirk, biting one nipple and pinching the other. Your back arches and you inhale shakily and he chuckles. “Naughty fucking girl. Strip.”

It takes you a moment before your brain processes the words you just heard, but after a moment you realize what he said. Strip. You get up, back facing the two, and you undress slowly, and you become privy the sound of them stripping along with you. you sit back down between the two, hands in your palms and nervous. You’ve had sex before but never this intense, or with two guys at once. 

“Can you get on your hands and knees for me, mama? I want your ass this way.” Your Miguel asks.

Ever so pliant, you obey. Ass up, face down in the other Miguel’s lap. You take the time to look at his dick from where you are and your eyes bulge. He’s not the longest but fuck is he thick. He’s well groomed, his curly pubic hair kept primped and cut at his base. In your reverie, you feel something wet lick up at your slit and it sends a chill down your spine. He’s eating your pussy. Miguel is eating your pussy. 

“Taste so good down here too,” he muses from behind you, inhaling you before diving his tongue deep within you. Your lower body feels like it’s been set ablaze, your nerves on edge and Miguel’s prodding and licking and sucking and rubbing. His fingers circle your clit slowly as he eats you out and you feel like you’re in heaven. 

“I see you’re feeling good, huh baby. Make me feel good too, yeah?” Other Miguel says, caressing your hair away from his face. You nod, and grab his thick cock in your hand, beginning to slowly jerk him off. “Yeah, just like that baby,” he sighs, watching you intensely. You jerk him off for another moment before you lift your head up and lick haphazardly at the tip of his penis, twitching and leaking already. You look up at him as you give his tip kitten licks, and then put the tip in your mouth. “Fucking vixen, you are,” he groans, his hand coming to sit at the back of your head. You bob your head up and down slowly, trying your best not to scrape your teeth against his shaft while your Miguel eats you out so feverishly. You’re sucking and licking as best as you can, reaching a hand around to cup and massage Miguel’s balls, and his hips twitch up and push him deeper in the back of your throat. You moan, at both him and the Miguel behind you, and Miguel notices. He holds your head more firmly before he starts to thrust up into your mouth, fucking your face. Your mouth produces obscene noises, leaking spit around the base of his cock and down your lips. You moan as he fucks your face and suddenly you jolt. A thick finger breaches in you and starts thrusting against your walls, and you can’t help but moan, feeling already full from both ends. One finger becomes two, and Miguel finger fucks you to the pace of other Miguel’s hips. “Taking us so fucking well, baby. Good girl. So good. Take it for us.” You don’t know which one says it, but you keen at the praise. You want more. Your throat feels tight, like you’re gonna suffocate on this thick cock, but you hold out, feeling so good and hot inside. “Almost there baby. Swallow it all.” You muster the energy to flit your eyes up and see Miguel’s eyes closed as he fucks your face voraciously. You feel hot, both at the fingers inside you and the face Miguel is making. With each thrust, your nose hits his pubes and it makes him moan increasingly louder until he thrusts one final time and groans. “Take it for me, baby. Don’t swallow yet, fuck. Fuck!” he moans. He pulls his dick out of your mouth until it’s just the tip your lips wrap around. You breathe deeply through your nose, finally. You let Miguel’s potent cum spurt in your mouth until he finishes and pulls out. 

“Show me,” he breathes. 

You open your mouth and stick your tongue out, showing him the white ropes of cum in your mouth and how groans, pulling you up to his lips to kiss him messily. You’re dumbfounded before you can even realize that your Miguel pulls you away and towards him next, pulling you into a kiss too. His tongue swirls in your mouth before he pulls away from you. “I told you I wanted to share,” he says, before kissing you again. Your head is spinning. You’re not even sure this entire thing isn’t some mega fucked up erotic dream you’re having. You can’t find it in you to care if it is or not for another moment when you feel Miguel grab your hand and wrap it around his cock. Your fingernails barely touch around the girth of him so you look down and holy shit. 

Miguel chuckles at your reaction to his size. He must get this often. His cock is definitely proportional to the rest of him, long and thick all over with a trail of curly dark hair at his base. It’s not as groomed as other Miguel’s but you don’t mind. The leaking, uncut cock in front of has you pulsating inside, and you bend down to lick the precum from his dick. “Such a good girl for me. I don’t even have to tell you what to do,” Miguel says, stroking your hair. You hear movement behind you before lips lick from your clit to asshole, and it takes you by surprise. Your lips pop off of Miguel’s cock and you turn around to see the other Miguel, already semi-errect with a smug smile on his lips. “I-I’ve never.. not there,” you stutter. “Just relax baby. M’here to make you feel good,” a says, rubbing his hand across your right ass-cheek. You nod and go back to sucking off Miguel, feeling the wet tickle of Miguel’s tongue against your asshole. You can’t help but tense as him placing kisses back there. He brings his other hand up to your other ass-cheek and spreads you apart. So vulgar, but you can’t help but find a part of you that likes it.

Miguel spit on your asshole, causing a squeak to leave your stuffed lips, before his plunged his tongue in the hole. Your head starts to fly back before Miguel’s hand stops you and pushes you down, two thirds of his dick down your throat.

“Ah ah, baby. Be a good girl and show me how you suck me off,” he says, rubbing the apple of your bulging cheek with his hand. Be a good girl and show him. With Miguel’s thrusting tongue in your ass, you keep forward and try and fit more of Miguel’s dick in your mouth, sucking him and jerking off what can’t fit in your mouth. “Just like that, baby. Yeah. Make your master happy.”

Your stomach contracts at the word master and something flips in you. You suck his cock until you feel like your jaw is about to dislocate, letting yourself get lost in the praise and the pleasure, feeling an orgasm build up from getting your ass ate. You begin your tremble at the constant stimulation, sucking even harder. Your feel Miguel’s dick twitch in your mouth, an almost there slipping from his lips as you suck and lick and jerk him off. Your hips start to shake when you pull off his dick, placing the tip against your tongue and jerking him, wanting to milk him of his seed.

“Fuck, baby, I’m gonna cum.” Miguel pants.

You brace yourself and open your mouth even wider, jerking him as he cums in your mouth. Miguel’s tart cum falls against your tongue, falling down the side of your face as you hold your mouth open for him. He groans above you and curses. “Swallow it.” And you do. Miguel groans before he leans down to meet you in a dirty kiss, and you can’t hold it in anymore before you’re groaning into his mouth and shivering into him from your orgasm. Other Miguel doesn’t stop licking you, licking up the liquid leaking from your pussy with a salacious sounding moan. “Sweet fucking pussy,” he moans between licks, and you’re trembling at the overstimulation, sending you into a second orgasm. This time, you feel your body tense up, and before you know it, you’re squirting into Miguel’s mouth. You gasp, and move your hips from Miguel’s face, feeling your own liquid leak down your leg. 

“Yeah, baby. So fuckin’ sweet,” the words make your clit tremble, the sheer base in Miguel’s voice twisting and turning, prodding and pulling at your nerves. “Don’t run, lemme finish, yeah?”

Your hips buck up and away wildly but to no avail, Miguel proving to be an immovable force to your constant movement. With every suck and lick, you feel your energy depleted as the pleasure crosses the threshold of pain, the overstimulation making your body go both numb and still. You’re engulfed in a haze, your body going limp against the couch save for your pelvis held up by two very large hands.

Distantly, you hear skin slapping and you flit your eyes up for a moment to see your Miguel jerking off at the sight of you, surrendered fully to them both. Your eyes roll towards the back of your head when you feel the wetness of Miguel’s thick tongue lick up from your clit to your ass, prodding the tight rim of muscle lightly with his tongue. Before you can register what’s about to happen, you feel a gush of wetness leave you and you groan, utterly exhausted simply from foreplay. Your ears pick up on the increased speed your Miguel took in jerking himself off, a groan leaving his lips shortly after your own does. You picture him covered in his own cum, white sketched across his tone and tanned abs, and the mental picture is enough to get you excited again, despite the way your muscles protest.

“Such a good girl, taking my mouth like that.”

You suppose you should answer, but your tongue is limp in your mouth, unable to force a sequencing of words out. Instead, you let out a pathetic sounding moan.

“I want a taste too. Holding out on me, baby?”

You half expect the stimulation to start again, tensing up, anticipating a touch to your sensitive clit. After a beat, you finally notice you’re untouched still, and a part of you is graceful for this recovery time, but the shuffling behind you has you finding the strength to lift your head up and—

Oh my fucking god.

Your brain short circuits for a moment, trying to make sense of what you’re seeing above you.

Your eyes flutter open and close a few times, somewhat of a quick blink to make sure you’re not riding off some ecstasy high that has you imagining things, that has you imagining both Miguel’s kissing. 

It’s slow, and messy at the same time. Your fluids are being lapped up and exchanged by the two men, who lap up and exchange their own saliva as well. You’re struggling to make sense of the eroticism of it, and sheer absurdity of two Miguel O’Haras making out, both mouths wet of your pussy’s nectar. The cognitive dissonance starts to kick your ass a bit, rationalizing the logistics of self incest and it being plain out sexy. 

They break apart, both slightly flushed. Your Miguel eyes you with low, brown eyes while your gaze is transfixed at his wet lips, a singular web of saliva connecting both of the men’s lips as they pull apart. Your breath is caught in your throat and you’ve immediately made your decision about the bullshit logistics of this dimensional anomaly. It’s making you so fucking wet. 

You’re sure Miguel notices your face, as a breathy laugh leaves his plump lips, wet with both you and him and another him.

“Knew you’d taste good.” He winks and smiles a smile that has your legs regaining feeling once more. 

You slowly sit up, straddling yourself in Miguel’s lap. “Want you in,” your hands wrap around his strong shoulders and you lay your cheek against his chest, grinding your sensitive wet lips up and against his dick slowly. You have other Miguel in your line of sight, and you see him watching you both, cock straining against his stomach. It has you feeling warm, thinking of how he unwound you from the inside like that earlier with only his mouth. You can only imagine how it would feel with him inside you. “I- I want you in me too. Please..”

Your voice comes out as meek, but the raunchy display of your hips grinding, face flushed, is anything but. 

“Gotta go slowly, mama. You ready?” Miguel asks you, his large hands resting at your hips now, slowly increasing the friction of your wet pussy lips against his thick cock. You moan a bit, and nod in his chest. The thick tip of Miguel’s dick stretches its way inside your pussy, burning slightly despite how wet you are. You wince in pleasure, savouring the burn of the stretch. Other Miguel sits up and makes his way behind you, kissing your back and neck as you sink down onto your Miguel’s cock.

“Fucking tight,” Miguel groans, just as aroused and affected as you are in all the hazy pleasure. Once you’re fully sat, you can’t help but sit up and look down at your lower stomach, a slight bulge in your lower abdomen. “Holy shit,” you moan. You’re pushed back against Miguel’s chest and you squeak at the sudden movement.

“Gonna fuck your tight little ass, baby. Okay?” 

It’s rough the way he spits it out into your ear from behind you. You can hear the arousal and anticipation in Miguel’s voice. He spreads your cheeks, spitting on your taut hole. “Gonna have to relax f’me, baby. Gonna be a real tight squeeze.”

You wince and hold onto your Miguel as the other one enters you from behind. While his size isn’t as big as your Miguel, he’s still insanely thick and long in his own right. It takes a lot out of you to withstand the entrance. Soft kisses to your temple and shoulder, sweet nothings and whisperings of “You’re doing so well”, “Good little girl” tickle your ears. From who, you’re not sure. But the verbal praise makes the pain worth it with the way a concentrated heat builds in the depths of your stomach from their charged words.

“I’m all in baby, tell me when you’re ready.” You blink once, twice, and exhale a curt puff of breath. You can’t wait anymore. 

“M-move, but slow.”

As soon as the words leave your lips, the rocking of hips start, and you feel everything. The pain, the pleasure, the push, the pull, the sheer unnerving hot heat and sensation the two men bounce you between.

After the initial moment of processing the moment you’re having with these two men, these two Miguel’s, you feel your body become both wracked and accepting of the pleasure. The cant of hips get rougher, the spill of moans and breath get louder, and you start to feel yourself get lost in the raunchiness of it all. Your hands roam up a plane of firm musculature and it has you reeling. Miguel is so manly you can’t help but let it turn you on. 

“Feeling good, hm?” Miguel’s full lips are pulled into a smirk as he fucks up into your pussy and you simply grip onto his biceps as he drives into you harder. One particular thrust has you sitting up and leaving back into the other Miguel, head tucked away into the juncture of his neck as he fucks your ass from behind. “I think- fuck- we broke her, man. Can barely speak.” You can hear the smirk in Miguel’s voice as he says that, but you can’t be bothered to protest, because you feel like if you let them fuck you any longer you’ll enter comatose. 

Hands from behind you roam up from your hips to your breasts, squeezing at the expanse of your chest tenderly. Simultaneously, thick hands plant themselves on your hips, squeezing as they bring you down in time to the upwards thrusts of hips. “Oh my god- I’m gonna c-cum,” you breathe out, feeling your body wind itself up, preparing for another explosive release. The hands at your breasts start to squeeze your nipples, pinching and pulling the sensitive and erect buds, and you squeal. 

“So fucking sensitive, baby.” You know that’s the other Miguel, his lips are directly next to your ear. You turn your face towards his and plant your lips against his, desperate for a kiss. Your lips tingle as he kisses you back and you moan in his mouth, your hands running through his thick brown hair and gripping gentle for support. You’re sure that if you were to let go you’d fall face first into your Miguel’s chest, which wouldn’t be all bad now that you’re thinking about it. 

Your kiss with Miguel breaks when you feel something warm and wet wrap around your nipple- Miguel’s mouth. You gasp, feeling yourself tighten around him inside of your pussy as you watch him suckle at your breast. Lips trail up against your neck and they suck and Oh my god- he bites your nipple and you moan so loud it almost startles you. That signature smirk doesn’t cease to appear on Miguel’s face even with your nipple between his lips, and you’d smack him if he wasn’t fucking you oh so well.

The lips sucking hickeys into your neck stop and the cold air drying the spit there makes you shiver. Miguel chuckles behind you and you feel the reverberation of the sound in his chest up against your back and it makes you feel warm inside. You can’t hold on for much longer if the two keep teasing you like this. “P-please let me cum, I can’t anymore,” you heave out, both exhausted and inexplicably excited.

“What do you say, Miguel. Should we let her finish?” A voice behind you. Your eyes squeeze close at a particularly intense thrust to your ass.

“Mmm, I don’t think she wants it enough.” A gravelly voice from your front says. He unlatches from your nipples. Thick fingers tease at your clit and you keen forward. 

“P- please oh my gosh please let me come I want it so bad-“ You feel like you’re on your knees, begging to two unmerciful gods to turn your punishment into something considerably comparable to a torturing pleasure. 

“Hold on for juuust a little, baby. We’ll make you feel real good, real soon.” 

The thick fingers teasing your clit, which you’ve deduced belong to the Miguel behind you, move on from their teasing to rubbing strong circles into your clit and you feel your legs begin to tremble. The feeling of your body getting ready to unwind feels closer and closer and you feel your ass and your pussy get fucked harder and harder until- 

When it happens you feel disjointed from your body, watching from third person. You can see yourself, squirming and twitching and shaking and squirting again all over Miguel’s couch and lap and they’re still fucking you because they haven’t cum yet. Your body begins to go slack and you fall against your Miguel’s chest, lips grazing his nipple as he continues to fuck up into you fervently. 

“Looks like we fucked you numb, baby,” he laughs and you hear it- feel it in his chest, and you moan lazily. “Oh baby, I know. I’m almost ready to cum. Just a little more.”

“F-fuck, I’m gonna burst back here,” Other Miguel grunts above you. His hips pound roughly for two- three- four more thrusts before his stills into you and you can feel his cum spurt into you and you shiver. Right behind him your Miguel follows fucking his cum into your pussy with a deep and heavy groan. 

“S-So deep…” you breathe out, relishing in the stillness between all three of you. Heavy breathing weighs in the air for few moments before you feel Miguel slowly begin to pull out of your ass, his cum leaking out of you lewdly. You inhale a sharp breath as he moves to sit down on the couch, and that’s when your Miguel lifts you off of his semi-softened cock and onto your back on his lush sofa. 

Your chest rises up and down and your eyes flutter closed as you struggle to catch your breath and wrap your head around what happened, but you barely get a moment’s rest before your knees are pushed up to the side of your head and you’re basically balancing yourself on your shoulders. Your eyes shoot open and you see two heads above you.

“Gotta taste our work, don’t we?”

One mouth against your creampied pussy, one mouth against your cum filled ass. You’re not too concerned about who mouth is where- but them sucking at your holes, licking up their cum and yours too is sending your body into overdrive with the overstimulation.

You focus on the image up above you and your eyes bulge in your head at what you see, with each lick up your mounds, the tongues between the two Miguel’s touch. With each lick their tongues touch longer, and longer, until they kiss once more, exchanging each other’s cum with your in their mouths and you’re sure you’ve begun to witness an orgasm induced hallucination. They finish kissing, lips and mouths wet and messy, and your legs come back down from your head to the soft couch cushions. 

Your mind is absolutely reeling, processing the last few hours up until moments ago, feeling warm in the face already. 

You’re so fucked going back to work.

[purplealmonds]

Finished this just in time for the new trailer drop! This is my Mononoke illustration featuring assorted merch from the anime, movie, and stage play! How many can you recognize? ⚖️👹

(Yes, please send answers in the replies! Answers, progress pics, artist commentary will be drafted on a separate post when I'm less tired) ⭐️ UPDATE 04/03/24: Abridged artist commentary is now available under the cut! For the full version, please see the Google Doc linked in the replies.

👁️Overview 

Late last year, I rather belatedly discovered Mononoke’s 15th anniversary came and went, and with it, an entire swath of new content to manically pore over. This is an illustration of the various Mononoke merchandise, props, and set dressing I discovered.

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🔎Scope

Some fun facts regarding the work that went into this illustration!

Not including research time, this project ran for roughly two months, consuming much of my waking hours outside of my full time and freelance jobs.

While the illustration does not depict all of my findings, it does feature over 120 unique props and set dressings!

The majority of the props and set dressing were modeled to varying degrees of detail in SketchUp.

To model prep, I often put together schematics on Photoshop or Illustrators. Some were created from scratch. Others were created with the liberal usage of the Photoshop transform and perspective warp function. 

The master file is 1.5GB. The dimensions are 6400x3600 at 300 dpi, and contains over 2,200 layers. 

Near the end of production, the master file became so unwieldy I created a separate working file. This way, I could create assets lag-free then import the layers into the master file. 

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Past this point is where most of the commentary cuts were made for the sake of brevity. Again, look in the replies for the Google Doc link containing the full version with a table of contents for easier navigation!

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🗳️3D Layout

As you can see, the backbone of this illustration is the 3D model. I spent perhaps 30-40% of my production time on this stage.

And this is the lit version. The lighting ultimately got downplayed in favor of showcasing the vibrant colors. I like how simple it looks though!

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🎬Production-Based Set Dressing

In addition to merchandise, I wanted to insert set dressing and props from the various Mononoke productions. 

🦊Kusuriuri

It’s odd to have a section dedicated just to him, but his unique appearance warrants it. His garb and overall appearance is an amalgam of the anime and movie. The original intent was ambiguity– kind of like the blue/black vs. yellow/white dress phenomena a few years back. But after doing the color flats, I rather liked how the rich, unaltered colored fit with the overall composition so it became more blatant. I’m surprised that nobody has commented on this since I published the illustration. Maybe because I didn’t feature him in a close-up?

🐈 kai ~Ayakashi~Bake Neko (2006)

Finding props iconic to this story arc (outside of the Kusuriuri’s tools of trade, of course) was somewhat difficult. While the environment was richly decorated, it mainly consisted of 2D artwork which I wasn’t keen on retracing. I opted to paint objects that characters interacted with or featured heavily in the show.

Salt Jar

Candlestick

Rat Trap

🦋Mononoke (2007)

The props fall into three distinct categories here: Kusuriuri’s tools and trinkets; things featured in the opening and ending credits; and objects iconic to each of the five story arcs in the series. I tried to keep most of them clustered on the tatami, but as space grew scarce some props trickled up onto the deck as well.

Medicine Box

Exorcism Sword

Tenbin

Paper Talisman

Mirror

Ring

Geta Sandal

Necklace

Paper Umbrella (Zashikiwarashi)

Daruma Dolls ( Zashikiwarashi)

Gunpowder Ball (Umi Bozu)

Smoking Pipe (Nopperabou)

Genjiko Blocks (Nue)

Train Ticket (Bake Neko)

Lantern (Anime OP)

Butterflies (Anime EP)

☂️Mononoke: Karakasa (2024)

Pretty slim pickings for the new movie since I only had the teaser, first trailer, and movie poster to reference from. Kusuriuri’s tools of trade were a given, but finding memorable and narratively significant objects was a tad troublesome.

Thankfully, the set dressing ended up (however subconsciously) strikingly similar to the movie’s environment design, down to the green tatami and multicolor shoji screen. I suppose at this point I was so immersed in Mononoke content that its aesthetics subconsciously informed my design choices! 

Exorcism Sword

Tenbin

Paper Talisman

Comb

Movie Poster

Butterfly (Custom design)

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🪭Official Merchandise

Goods related to canonical narratives and/or productions.

🎊15th Anniversary

Mononoke Shu - A light novel by Hideyui Niki & illustrated by 2964_KO

Whiskey Glass & Box

📖 Key Frame Art Books by Hashimoto Takashi

Ayakashi Key Art Frame Book (2010)

Key Frame Art Book vol.9 (2017)

📚Manga by Yaeko Ninagawa

Kai Ayakashi: Bake Neko Vol. 1-2

Kai Ayakashi: Mononoke Prequel

Mononoke Vol. 1-10

🎭Butai Mononoke

Bakeneko Pamphlet 

Zashikiwarashi Pamphlet

Zashikiwarashi Acrylic Standees

Zashikiwarashi Manegi

💿Physical Media

Official OST CD

DVD Box Set

Yokai Pattern Fabric

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Common Collab Merchandise

This category consists of goods that are generally more affordable and feature graphics from the source material with minimal alterations.

Amnibus

Wall Scrolls

Tenugui Fabric 

Shot Glasses

Minoyaki Bean Plates

ANIGA-TER

Stickers

Can Badges

Canvas Prints

Anique

Diorama Acrylic Stand

Acrylic Blocks

Challenge Kuji

Kusuriuri & Hyper Clocks

eeo Store Online

Folding Fan

Keychains

Can Badges

gj character G

Cushion

Acrylic Charms

Neo Gate

Satchels

Mini Badges

Mini Badges by Mame Shinoda

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High-End Collab Merchandise

Goods which derive motifs from the characters, props, and patterns from the production and transform them in an elevated manner through abstraction or usage of precious materials.

gj character G

Exorcism Sword Ring

Goodsmile

Kusuriuri Nendoroid Figurine

Folding Screen

Kusuriuri & Hyper Plush

Tote Bag

Kaya

Umbrella

Tenbin Kanzashi

Tabi Socks

Dress

Kotobukiya

Figurine

Mayla

Pump Heels

Kusuriuri & Hyper Hairpins

Tenbin Earrings

Hyper Earrings

Noitamina Apparel

Perfume

Tenbin Necklace

Folding Fan

Super Groupies

Purse

Wallet

Watch

Tsumuji Design

Exorcism Sword Necklace

Ofuda Bracelet

Useless Use Lab

Fragrance Set

Air Purifier

Three-Sided Mirror

[purpurkatart]

Hello! After having some time to get over my loss for the Pokemon TCG Illustration contest, I decided to write up a small blog entry about the process and include some WIP pictures. Feel free to look below if you want to read my ramblings on the process.

Idea Generarion-

So coming into this contest, I knew I wanted to make a mixed media piece. In terms of theming I chose something that not only reflected a “magical moment” for a Pokemon (in this case meeting a legendary Pokemon), but also a moment when playing the games myself. In fact this piece was inspired by my awe when I first encountered a box legendary in game, as before I thought my teacher was lying to me when he said you can catch the legendary on the box!

This is the concept sketch that started it all! At the time my main concern was getting ideas down and seeing how they looked. Thinking about things like how would the composition would look, how would the colours look. So on and so forth.

I didn’t want to focus too much on the sketch and wanted to start making the physical object, so out of some cheap paper I started making a set up testing out size, scale, composition. I didn’t want to get too attached to the original sketches only to realise I couldn’t make it in real life… I went though a few drafts trying to get things right, slowly adding in aspects such as background objects and higher quality drawings.

After completing the draft I bought the images back into procreate to experiment with colours. This is the point where I made the mistake of thinking I had plenty of colours to choose from, not realising I would be limited by what I could buy from various yarn shops. That or hope I could find the right colour online, but that was always a gamble. If I don’t stop talking about this now I’ll get sidetracked talking about how much I miss yarn shops…

Anyways, I cut out the individual pieces that I would make within the background and used them as a guide for crochet assets. For this part I wanted to use different stitches to create textures such as the ripple stitch, bobble stich and some cable stitches, I feel bad as I never took any work in progress photo so of them. Let’s pretend you’re looking at a photo of a half finished crochet abstract shape.

Finally onto the main event, the Pikachu (and Suicune). The decision to make Pikachu a plush was based on what I would have liked to make for the 2022 illustration contest (if I wasn’t geographically challenged!!) Despite being British I decided it would be fun to make anyways, so I could experiment. I never got around to that but decided it would be fun to try for this edition.

Making the pattern was HARD! As I wanted Pikachu to have a unique pose, I had to work out different methods to plush i’ve made in the past which have been somewhat relaxed in their posing. I ultimately ended up making each part individually, pinning it together and then making adjustments as needed. It didn’t start out great however I ended up with this weird Pikachu shaped thing that did the job. Throughout this process I would regularly photograph it in the background to try and catch any issues early on. For example if the ground needed to be a different shape.

Photographing the final price was interesting. I felt bad for my partner as I essentially turned my dining table into a mini photography studio! I spent several days waiting for different lighting opportunities and experimenting with different light. Marking down different camera angles to ensure I have all of my bases covered. I easily took over 100 photos to get the perfect shot! In the below photo you can see washi tape being used to rest out different positions for the sculptures.

And that leads me to the peice! Even though i’m sad I didn’t make the top 300, I am pleased with the work I did for this piece (and my flygon entry too!). I’m glad I decided to experiment with ts peice and look forward to refining my methods in the near future!

[glass--beach]

(Forever????????) has such a hold on me. How did it come to be?

started when i stumbled upon this video on youtube

it’s a very pretty song but the cloyingly sweet americana of it all made it ripe for ironic decontextualization. i took a little loop of the song and used it as an outro for bedroom community, overlaid with an audio recording of my therapist from college leading me through hypnosis to attempt to calm me while i was suffering a very intense manic episode. (this man might have been a bit of a quack but i have yet to meet a therapist who is not on SOME kind of bullshit). it’s meant as a tragic ending to bedroom community, the return to status quo, stepping over the bodybags and going back to regular american suburban life. it’s the moment of panic that god it really is gonna be like this forever and then it’s the repression. the moment of submission to the cissexist culture…

now of course i didn’t even end up using that version, i was a little wary of both any copyright issues that might come from so prominently featuring a well known sample and also sharing what was meant to be a very private audio recording and so i ended up taking the chord progression & melody of the song and using it as a jumping off point for what was basically a new composition. (the old version is in the demos that we released though). the final one is just two guitars playing slightly different arpeggios of the song’s chords and some synths doing the melody. to me i think much of the intended meaning still comes through but being an instrumental with its reference points pretty obfuscated i think most just take it as a very pretty but melancholy song.

i’m fascinated by the near universal nostalgic feeling people seem to get from it. our youtube upload and many unofficial ones are loaded with comments of people mourning deceased loved ones or old relationships. i get it and find that all very sweet and beautiful but i can’t help but feel conflicted as someone who, despite often feeling obsessed with the past as much as anyone, would consider myself politically anti-nostalgia. bedroom community makes that a little more overt with its criticism of the anachronistic suburban “middle class” order being upheld through implicit (sometimes explicit) violence - the “son of a soldier…” verse especially. forever is in conversation with the same idea but has ironically been so decontextualized as to now seemingly take on the meaning of the original song i had sampled. i think its success on streaming through sleep/study playlists contributed to my complete rejection of “vibe” based playlists & passive music listening in general that led to the intentionally obtuse aesthetic & writing of plastic death.

umm anyway i’m glad you like the song!! i like it a lot too. it was one of those rare instances in music making where i truly felt i was channeling the divine. i didn’t struggle with it at all, it’s just, one day it wasn’t and the next day it was. i’ve not really talked about it at length much and last time i did i don’t think i could properly get across what it meant to me or why i did it the way i did. i understand my then 23 year old self more than ever now though lol

[arlenianchronicles]

More from my dark!Mae AU, this time featuring both twins! Originally it was just going to be Maedros and Elros (right), but then I found that the composition worked with Elrond in it too, so I added him on the left! I’m really glad I did XDD

I wasn’t able to get the twins as glowy as I was hoping, but I’m overall happy with how it turned out! Elros, as the one who mainly plots and plans in this AU, is holding two daggers to symbolize that. I imagine one of them is for Elrond, but Elrond isn’t quite ready for that yet ^^;; He’s more often the face of the twins in public, so to speak -- acting as the obedient son who is very sweet and doesn’t get in trouble, which helps to put Maedros at ease.

[rotzaprachim]

this is going to amaze some of you but the Hebrew language is older than the state of Israel. Older than theordor Herzl, in fact. And before you go off about how it’s just the modern Hebrew that is evil - Hebrew has had a long history of post exilic use and original composition. “Dror yikra” wasn’t written until 860 c.e. “Lecha Dodi” was composed in the 1500s. Hebrew vocabulary has an important place at the core of diasporic languages like Yiddish. It’s not as simple as “disappearing” at the time of the exile and being “awakened” by Eliezer Ben-yehuda. Plus it’s a generally bad look to paint any middle eastern language as evil, no?

[dontcallthedoctor]

TEMP CHARACTER THEMES!!!

HIYA, FELLAS!!! This is gonna be a loooong post, so strap in!!! (I've srsly been writing this post for four days end me)

Yesterday, I announced that Kinger had won the music poll and that he shall be next to get his own theme. Sadly, yesterday was also the day I realized I've been hit with musical writer's block, so it might be a short while before I come up with anything good—I REALLY wanna get something out for Halloween tho!!

Since people may be curious abt what's in store for the other characters, I thought it'd be fun to present my ideas to you all, and give u all a little insight as to how my dumb little music brain works lol

Obviously, I haven't written much of anything original for anyone but Pomni yet, so in the meantime, I've picked out some temporary themes for each respective character that I feel fit them well, and hopefully they'll give you all an idea what I wanna achieve with them musically! A lot of thought went into figuring out each character's respective musical identities, so I hope these example pieces resonate with you as much as they did with me!

That said, if you have other ideas as to how these characters' themes might sound, I'd definitely love to hear about them! Feel free to comment em below or DM me if you wish! Feedback is greatly appreciated!!!

Just as a disclaimer, barring ofc Pomni's Theme, NONE OF THESE ARE MINE, NOR DO I CLAIM AUTHERSHIP OF THEM! That out of the way, let's begin with...

Pomni: I briefly explained my process behind this one in the original post, so I'll elaborate a little more here for those unaware, alongside this slightly extended version of it (a whole twenty seconds YIPPEE)

Pomni’s Theme kinda ended up being a homage to the music of Danny Elfman. I came up with the melody one night just by playing around on my piano. It was this weird, off-kilter, sorta sad-sounding tune that really resonated with me, and thought it sounded perfect for Pomni, so it became her motif. My friend @pasta-yy worded it perfectly when they said it sounded like "Pomni-flavored despair" lol

It wasn’t until I decided to make it a full song that I realized “WAIT THIS MAKES ME THINK OF DANNY ELFMAN”, who I’ve always admired, so I took to his early work for inspiration. I’ll cite Simone’s Theme from Peewee’s Big Adventure as the main influence in terms of "musical flavor" for this one. It helped me find / flesh out the circus-y style I was aiming for!

This composition isn’t quite finished yet, but I plan to post updates on it the whole way! I’m really excited for you all to see where this one goes!

Someone said that Pomni’s Theme sounds like the opening theme from Laimin! Anmin! Suya Rhys Seikatsu (Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle), an anime I haven’t seen, but I kinda hear it in some parts, at least in terms of chord progression!

Ragatha: For the rag dolly, I envision a sweet, somewhat-haunting tune. Imagine if a music box melody was arranged for orchestra. Very lush, very beautiful, very mature first and foremost, but with an undercurrent of sadness. Like Ragatha herself, the pathos is well-camouflaged beneath the happiness and the optimism, but is still undeniably there and perfectly in line with what we know about her character so far.

This particular track is led by accordion, which I'm not entirely sure fits Ragatha, but everything else is a pretty good representation of what I hope to achieve with her!

Jax: Prolly my favorite thing about Jax is how differently he carries himself in relation to everyone else. He's maliciously annoying, self-aware, and ironically more of a jester than the character who's avatar is a literal jester. He embraces being stuck in the circus like it's his first choice, instead of something he's settling for. He's an intriguing character and i'm curious to see how he'll evolve (or de-volve if Goose's comments are anything to go by)

In writing this, I'm struggling to put into words how exactly I want his theme to sound, but this track is a pretty good encapsulation of it! There's a sort-of confidence in it it and a jaunty forward-momentum that carries through the whole piece. I think that vibe really suits Jax. There's also an air of non-chalance that parallels how lackadaisical he is with everything. I feel that, since Jax doesn't take much of anything seriously, neither should his music lol

It almost reminds me of the music Vince Guaraldi composed for the Peanuts specials. His character themes always had this hip, carefree vibe to them, especially tracks like Peppermint Patty, which will also be an inspiration on Jax's tune.

Gangle: In case anybody hasn’t caught on, Gangle is my faaavorite character from the show, and I really want to do her justice, so it took me a good while to figure out just what I wanted to do for her.

That being said, the genre I'm gravitating towards most for her (at least while writing this) is gypsy jazz. For those who may not know, gypsy jazz (or jazz manouche) is a French style of jazz that uses solely string instruments; mainly violin, guitar, and double bass. It's a beautiful genre of music, and I think it's a perfect fit for Gangle <3

I imagine something playful, gentle, unassuming, and a tad saucy, at least when she's wearing her comedy mask. For her tragedy mask, I think it'd be fun for the tone to turn dramatically sad, and have the music structure fall apart, much like her mask. I'd really like to integrate piano in some way to highlight her sensitivity.

If anyone has any other ideas, please lemme know in the comments or DM me if u wish! Gods know I could use some inspiration ^^

Kinger: And now we come to Mr. Poll Winner himself! I'm honestly really glad that Kinger won, because I have more confidence in the ideas i've come up with for him than I am for a great majority of the others.

Knowing what we know now, I see Kinger as a very sweet, sentimental, yet ultimately tragic figure, so like with Ragatha, that's definitely something that's going to influence how his theme will sound.

This is probably my favorite of the temp themes, and definitely the one I want to stick closest to when I start writing for him. Everything about it just screams "Kinger" to me and I think is a near-perfect musical summarization of his character; the plodding simplicity, the almost-dreamlike surrealistic quality to the melody, the subtle melancholia, the chord progression, all of it. I think it gels with Kinger exceptionally well, which is why I've included two versions; one light, one dark.

The question is: do u all agree? ovo

Zooble: In searching for the right genre for Zooble, I've settled on what I call “Motown lofi”. Something that gives off swanky 90s “cool” vibes. Funky, mellow, bluesy, with a lil extra punch. Zooble is mostly low-energy but very much a plain-speaker, so I think this kinda music of music pairs nicely with them!

Amon Tobin’s Like Regular Chickens is another good example of what I'm going for. This one's very strange, kinda abstract, and prolly not most people's cup of tea, but I think it's neat and a pretty fitting sound for Zooble (maybe a little less intense in parts lol)

Caine: The logic behind Caine's theme is that it should be "annoying to everyone else, but he would love it". Something that he'd have no problem listening to every day on repeat, but nobody else can stand.

My first idea was really garish, campy carnival attraction music (more generally, Hammond organ music), represented in the first half. That stuck for awhile, but then I thought abt doing a pastiche of 80/90s sitcom intro type music, represented in the second half, which I think also works.

I feel like both could work, maybe even together, but I'm still undecided. I think wacky obnoxious organ music is PERFECTLY in line with Caine as a character, but the 90s route might be the more appropriate way to go, since it would to share some continuity with Digital Days from the credits (one of my fav songs from the soundtrack along with Not Alone and Somebody Real) We'll see what happens LMAO

Bubble: I’d always jokingly entertained the notion of making a theme for Bubble, but never put much serious thought into it until @mikiib asked for it, so here he is on this list.

The idea I settled on was “underwater Mario level?”, and the more I thought about it, i’ve decided that’s the direction i’ll probably go with Bubble’s tune. I imagine it being very "spacey" and floaty. Very peaceful and relaxing, but still rich with untamed weirdness, which is what makes Bubble fun :3

Mik also had the idea of using bubbly noises as percussion, which I DEF want to try! I've never really been experimental with percussion before so this'll be a fun opportunity to branch out!!

Other Characters: Last month I wrote a sweet militaristic-y march song for the Princess and the Candy Canyon Kingdom, but as far as other characters, I can't think of many I'd like to dedicate entire fully-fledged arrangements to, at least not presently. Maybe little ditties tho, that'd be fun!

I kinda wanna write something in tribute to Gummigoo since I really like him and think he deserves it. Something very ethnic and full of fun tribal instruments.

I have one for Baron Mildenhall that I haven't posted yet, and I've got a spooky lullaby I wrote for Ghostly (as well as for @mikiib) that I'll probably post tmrw for Halloween. Martha might get one too, she seems fun :3

[moralesmilesanhour]

mad props! 02

summary: Miles catches onto your antics. wc: ~800 a/n: some advanced haterism going on here. this has gotten increasingly fun to write as the plot ramps up! pls don't be scared 2 leave any reactions or thoughts in the comments + tags :) 01 02 03

From then on, you made it a point to ignore Miles during partner work and punctuate it with an eye roll. He tucked his head back in surprise the first time you did it, and you felt like you’d just won a prize.

…That is, until he ignored you back. 

Eventually, Miles just turned to the person in the next column to ask for a pen instead, seeming perfectly content with working on his own.

It should've been a relief.

Today, Mr. Sanchez handed out worksheets to write a short composition on, and you struggled to recall the correct word for ‘kitchen’. All of your attempts to remember the pictures at the back of your flashcards came to nothing, finally forcing you to turn around and ask with a heavy sigh.

"Um, hey," you began, wincing at the softness of your voice. "What’s ‘kitchen’ in Spanish? You remember?"

Miles looked at you with only his eyes. " ‘Cocina’."

No puns, no off-hand comment. Not even an offer to help further. He just quietly returned to his work. 

Your plan was already falling apart now that he no longer initiated conversations for you to brush off, so you went with the next best thing: competing with him.

“Who was able to solve for the trajectory of–oh!”

The AP Physics instructor pushed back a strand of red hair as she glanced between you and Miles, whose hands had shot up at the same time.

“Let’s go with someone who hasn’t spoken yet. Ms. L/N?”

You smiled as you answered, “24.7 meters per second.”

“Excellent job, Y/N, and thank you for participating today. Now, would anyone else…”

As the woman called on other students, a strategy began to take shape. 

It wasn’t hard to tell when Miles was about to raise his hand. His eyes would go wide, with a tiny smile that said he was certain that no one else could get this question right but him. His hand went up so fast that you had to answer before the teacher could even finish their question, but it worked. And it got you a few extra points for participation.

“Now, who can tell me what makes the film ‘Romeo + Juliet’ so unique?” asked the English professor.

Miles raised his hand. “It takes the original play and reinterprets aspects of the original plot for modern audiences.”

As soon as he answered, his eyes flickered towards you almost as if on cue. Sure enough, your hand flew up.

“Y/N, what a surprise! Care to add on?”

“Of course. The director, Baz Luhrmann,” you met Miles’ gaze as you specified the name, “used his over-the-top cinematic style of directing to bring the drama of the original play to life in a contemporary context. He replaced the swords with guns and balls for parties, but kept the dialogue the same so that audiences could better understand Shakespeare without needing to grapple with the work of translating Shakespearean English into modern English. He found a way to make the play accessible without compromising on the text.”

Miles narrowed his eyes at you while the stocky teacher made a noise of approval.

“Very succinct explanations, you two. I’m very impressed with you especially, Miss L/N. I hope to hear your voice more often in class.”

You noticed Miles still glaring, and rested your chin in the palm of your hand.

In a sickly-sweet tone, you whispered, “What?” 

He shook his head and turned away.

-

“Alright, make sure you go home and memorize those formulas! See you Wednesday!”

You neatly stacked your papers and slid them carefully into one of your labeled folders as the bell rang, marking the end of your last class.

The hallway bustled with students rushing like bees to their lockers. On the way to your own, a pop of color catches your eye. 

It’s a bulletin board filled with sign-ups for a number of clubs, from cheerleading to student government to debate. Remembering your college counselor’s comment about your extracurriculars “looking a bit empty”, you drew closer. Might as well, right?

You didn’t have the stamina for cheerleading, but speech and debate looked promising. Just as you took out a pen to sign your name, though, you stopped short and frowned.

At the very bottom of the list read the name ‘Miles Morales’ written with a neon highlighter. 

Then again on the art club’s flier. And anime club. And music engineering. 

‘Miles Morales’.

‘Miles Morales’.

‘Miles Morales’.

Guess you weren’t the only one who needed to beef up their transcript.

“Show-off,” you muttered to yourself. 

Just as you were about to lose hope, there was one other club that Miles hadn’t signed up for, hanging precariously off of the edge of the board from a single thumbtack:

Theater. 

And auditions were the very next day.

[mysticstronomy]

A GALAXY THAT HAS NO STARS??

Blog#381

Wednesday, March 6th, 2024.

Welcome back,

There’s a galaxy out there without apparent stars but largely chock full of dark matter. What’s that you say? A galaxy without stars? Isn’t that an impossibility? Not necessarily, according to the astronomers who found it and are trying to explain why it appears starless. “What we do know is that it’s an incredibly gas-rich galaxy,” said Green Bank Observatory’s Karen O’Neil, an astronomer studying this primordial galactic object. “It’s not demonstrating star formation like we’d expect, probably because its gas is too diffuse.”

O’Neil and a team of colleagues found this odd, seemingly starless object called J0613+52, while they were doing a sky survey. Their target was a set of so-called “Low Surface Brightness” galaxies (LSBG) They used the Green Bank Telescope, the Arecibo Telescope (before its untimely end), and the Nançay Radio Telescope to look at 350 of these dim, diffuse objects. The idea was to survey them and determine their gas content and dynamic masses.

J0613+52 wasn’t one of the team’s original targets. Instead, they stumbled across it while trying to figure out why some of the data from Green Bank and Nançay didn’t match, according to O’Neil. “The GBT was accidentally pointed to the wrong coordinates and found this object,” she explained, noting that this galaxy was new and unknown. There are no galaxies within 112 parsecs, making it a pretty isolated target.

Interestingly, based on their observations, the team found that J0613+52 has about the same characteristics of mass and gas content as a normal spiral. Yet, it has no stars. That poses a mystery they’d like to solve.

The type of galaxy represented by J0613+52 is an odd one when you compare it to the more familiar types such as the star-filled spirals and ellipticals. For one thing, it’s a dwarf galaxy with an irregular shape. Without any obvious stars, it’s quite dim. The most unusual thing about objects like this one is that dark matter appears to dominate their compositions.

If J0613+52 is like others, it could have up to 95 percent dark matter constraining the neutral gaseous hydrogen that we can detect.

So, why no stars in J0613+52? O’Neil describes it as an “unevolved” dwarf. That’s because the neutral hydrogen gas component is too diffuse, and too spread out. LSBG generally have less gravity and that makes it tough to form stars on their own. So, they evolve very gradually. If they do start to convert gas to stars, it takes a long time for that to happen.

Some astronomers suggest that LSBG are late-forming objects in cosmic time. That might explain the presence of this one in relatively “modern” times.

In addition, J0613+52 lies too far from any neighboring galaxies to interact with them gravitationally. That means they can’t trigger star formation through any possible mergers or collisions. “J0613+52 appears to be both undisturbed and underdeveloped,” she said. “This could be our first discovery of a nearby galaxy made up of primordial gas.” That means its gas content is largely unchanged over time.

Originally published www.universetoday.com

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, March 9th, 2024)

"WHAT MAKES A BLACK HOLE GROW NEW STARS FROM??"

[in-the-multiverse]

Something something the clones can look as close to the original as possible, have subtle or more noticeable tells, but there’s no hiding how different their subconscious is

Which is especially reflected in their wooden carvings

Original Ruby would shape his carvings very gently, among a cozy spot to sit for hours, absorbed in tiny projects the same way you get lost in reading a good book. Made in a cartoonish style, each one looked fun and gleamed with animated life. She usually included cute details- patterns of cherry flowers, hearts, gemstones, silly references to inside jokes. If it made her smile, they carved it in

Their clone seeks quiet spots for this outlet of creativity. The work is quicker, analytical. His motions are very precise. Mechanical, almost. Same stroke, over and over and over. These lean towards realism- a wooden sculpture captured mid-sentence, still life, a photographic memory. The eyes end up with more careful detail than anything else. And hidden eyes are carved at every angle

Original Trog loved to make their carvings sharp and warped. A style similar to cubism, with exaggerated angles and funky shapes. Sometimes going as far as carving out thorns, like those on acacia branches. They worked meticulously, slicing away into the hours of the night. Often, between the twirling of their projects, they’d notice an odd piece. It wasn’t planned in, but it made for a more interesting composition and they eagerly worked with it. No mistakes, only happy accidents

Their clone takes a little longer making the carvings smooth. Soft and round features, a lot more… holdable. They carve in swirls and wavy lines, beautifully so, almost hypnotizing. The bases are half spherical, and placed on a solid surface to make sure it stands upright. As they finish the details, it’s double and triple checked. If there’s one that won’t stop tilting over, they’ll chop it in half and restart. Steadiness completes the carvings and they won’t have it any other way

Both clones are very secretive about this. To look at their art would be to look into their minds

[just--space]

Tau Herculids Meteors over Kitt Peak Telescopes : It wasn't the storm of the century -- but it was a night to remember. Last night was the peak of the Tau Herculids meteor shower, a usually modest dribble of occasional meteors originating from the disintegrating Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. This year, calculations showed that the Earth might be passing through a particularly dense stream of comet debris -- at best creating a storm of bright meteors streaking out from the constellation of Hercules. What actually happened fell short of a meteor storm, but could be called a decent meteor shower. Featured here is a composite image taken at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, USA accumulated over 2.5 hours very late on May 30. Over that time, 19 Tau Herculids meteors were captured, along with 4 unrelated meteors. (Can you find them?) In the near foreground is the Bok 2.3-meter Telescope with the 4.0-meter Mayall Telescope just behind it. Next year, the annual Tau Herculids are expected to return to its normal low rate, with the next active night forecast for 2049. via NASA

[rwrbmovie]

BTS of #RWRBMovie: soundtrack

From Billboard:

Another cover that prominently features in the film is a fresh reimagining of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel classic “If I Loved You” performed by Vagabon. “I knew her voice and her sound, married to that classical music theater, was going to be the right match,” says Lopez, who describes himself as “a huge musical theater nerd.” When he approached Vagabon (Laetitia Tamko) with the idea, she wasn’t familiar with the song, which made him doubly sure of the decision. “It was great, because she had no associations,” he reasons. “It’s a new way of looking at it.” Having familiar songs with new voices was important to Lopez for this queer romcom. “This movie was always about, for me, new ways of doing old things — that was the ethos of the film, so I wanted to try and get a couple covers in there.” Another example of putting a new twist on something familiar came via Oliver Sim. The filmmakers asked the solo artist and The xx member for an original composition, but after he watched an early cut of the film, he told Lopez, “I think I’ve already written the song for the movie.” “It was his idea to take the song ‘Fruit’ from his most recent album and completely re-orchestrate it,” Lopez explains. “He said, ‘I made the acoustic version; now I want to make the cinematic version.’ He took something very delicate and blew it up to these epic proportions. It sounds so swoon-y and hopeful. That was a big win, for me, to get him to do that — I have my own bespoke version of an Oliver Sim song,” he adds with a smirk.

>> post about 'Can't Help Falling in Love'