#he still has a mostly humanoid face and upper body but with features of the creatures I mentioned above

[fiepige]

Okay guys, hear me out:

Sea Serpent Hobie!!!

Sea Serpent Hobie who sinks any superyachts he comes across!

Sea Serpent Hobie who uses harpoon spears meant to kill him as piercings! And old anchor chains as jewelry!

Sea Serpent Hobie who attacks big commercial fishing boats that are destroying the ecosystem by overfishing

But also benign Sea Serpent Hobie, who aids those lost at sea!

Who helps smaller local fishing buisnesses with sustainable fishing

Who looks out for this small fishing community and in return they warn him whenever hunters show up in the area!

Sea Serpent Hobie who is huge but still manages to hide perfectly in the kelp forests!

Who has bioluminescence and uses it both to terrify enemies and as a way to calm down people in distress, as a way for him to signal goodwill - and to show off when he feels like it!

Who can change his pigmentation similarly to octopi to communicate his mood and feelings! Or just to blend in with his surroundings (also as a nod to the way he changes filters in the movie!)

Sea Serpent Hobie who's frequently seen swimming with whale pods- Orcas being his favourites to hang out with (they sometimes go on yacht sinking trips together)

Sea Serpent Hobie who likes to give people a show and will show off by breaching right next to unsuspecting boats

DO YOU SEE MY VISION?!??

SEA SERPENT HOBIE!!!!!!💙💙💙

[simping-i-guess]

Scars of the Stampede

Characters with scars being self concious about them is a trope I really like so... whatever.

——————————

          Not once in your months of travel with the legendary Vash the Stampede had you ever seen him unclothed. You had begun thinking his flirtatious nature towards you was simply all talk, as any time you made an attempt to push further than just a few kisses or fooling around, he'd quickly change focus to something else. You hardly questioned it, knowing he didn't owe you any form of physical intimacy, despite your craving for him.

It soon became apparent as to why he had never pursued something farther.

"Ah, (y/n)..." Vash looked over his shoulder, meeting your eyes with a sheepish gaze.

"I... just came to make sure you were doing okay." You mumbled on your words as your eyes slowly trailed down Vash's scarred body. All he had on was a pair of pants, allowing his full upper body to be on display. Your eyes flit from the scars on his shoulders down to the large one placed on his right pectoral. Your eyes continued to roam, trailing down his abdomen, looking to have been stitched up rather carelessly, as if the person doing it didn't care how it'd scar. Finally, your eyes landed on the scar wrapping around his side, looking jagged and pink even now that it was fully healed.

You didn't mean to stare or gawk, and perhaps you should have expected this from the Humanoid Typhoon- but you somehow still found yourself awed by the sheer amount of battery Vash's body had clearly sustained over the years. Finally, your eyes met his again, and you felt guilty seeing the somber expression placed on Vash's features.

"...may I come in? Or would you prefer me to leave?" Your question hung heavily in the air for a moment, before Vash gave a single, small nod.

"You can come in."

You stepped through the room's threshold, quietly pushing the door closed behind you. Vash sat himself down on the edge of the mattress, his elbows resting against his knees as he slightly hunched over. With a slow approach, you took a seat beside him, eyes staying locked on Vash's face. The silence permeated, only being broken by a soft chuckle from the man in front of you.

"I didn't want you to see all this." He told you, a familiar goofy smile being plastered on his features. But you knew him well enough to know that his smile was only hiding his true feelings... Shame? Embarrassment? Perhaps it was a mixture of both.

"Why?" You asked, your voice leaving your throat in a reluctant whisper. Vash laughed again, though no humor was present in it.

"Pretty girls shouldn't see beat up bodies like mine." Vash vaguely gestured down at his torso. "It's unsightly."

"I don't think so." You argued, though your voice still came out in a meek tone. Your eyes again dared to wander, and you examined the expansive scars decorating the Stampede's back. Not thinking much, you reached out, your fingers slowly tracing around one of the large, jagged scars. "It's proof of what you've managed to survive. There's nothing unsightly about that."

"Hm..." Vash hummed thoughtfully, his eyes coming to close. "You don't have to lie. I've been told how gross they are before."

"Tsh. By who?" You questioned, aggravation apparent in your tone.

"A few passerby here and there, maybe a woman or two... I've come to expect it."

Vash's answer frustrated you, and you were frustrated on his behalf. How dare they? You thought, brows pinching as you bit your inner cheek. How could they be so harsh to someone so kind?

You shifted, sitting on your knees to be a bit higher. With the delicate touch of a mother cradling a child, you pressed a kiss against Vash's shoulder. You were keenly aware of the rough texture brushing against your lips, but you weren't repulsed. No, not by any stretch of the word. You could only feel the swell of affection within your chest, heart fluttering against your ribs.

Vash didn't miss your action either- he watched you with a surprised expression, eyes staying trained on you as you pressed yet another kiss to his scarred shoulder.

"It's not unsightly, Vash." You repeated, now allowing your fingers to trace the scars on Vash's bicep. "At least, I don't think so, for whatever that's worth."

Vash's expression slowly settled into a very soft smile. With his free hand, he carefully stroked it down the side of your head, being careful not to press to hard with his metal digits. "Your opinion is worth a lot to me, (y/n)."

Despite his more accepting words, you could see behind his expression. He wasn't convinced. He still felt that his body was ugly, and you hated knowing that. You frowned, visible enough for Vash to comment.

"What's wrong?" He asked. You didn't respond verbally, only placing a hand on his chest and giving him an encouraging nudge. Vash slowly settled himself onto his elbows, his eyes staring up at you through his lashes. "Wh-"

"All the way down, Vash." You commanded, though your tone never hardened. You caught the way Vash's cheeks flushed as his back hit the mattress, the soft thud giving way to silence yet again.

Wordlessly, you straddled Vash's hips, keeping yourself above his sensitive areas. This wasn't the first time you had straddled the man, though the way his face flushed could lead you to believe otherwise.

With slow, delicate touches, you pressed the tips of your fingers against Vash's jaw, and slowly began working your way down. Your dragged your fingers against his skin, stopping at each scar along the way. You payed them extra attention, carefully stroking down them with the pads of your fingers. You felt Vash shudder beneath you, and you paused your actions.

"Are you okay?" You asked, trying to find the answer within Vash's complicated expression. "Is it hurting you?"

"N-... No, it's not..." Vash's response was stuttered.

"Does it feel good? Bad?" You allowed your head to tilt slightly with your question.

"Ah, good... definitely good..." Vash paused, his brows knitting slightly. "It's just-"

"No one has ever touched you like this before?" You interrupted him, letting out a disgruntled sound when he confirmed with a nod. "Figures." Your thumbs carefully swiped across one of the scars on Vash's chest. "I'm sure if someone ever had given you this kind of attention, you'd think a lot differently about these." You softly stroked your finger down a long, raised scar on Vash's ribcage.

Vash didn't speak. From his expression, he didn't seem to know what to say, but it was obvious that he didn't want you to stop. He relaxed more and more under your tender touch, his eyes carefully fluttering closed as your hands danced across the scars etched into his hips.

While your hands had come to their destination, you would carry on. Pulling any stray hair away from your face, you leaned down to press a chaste kiss on Vash's chest. You heard his breath hitch, but the way his hand gently rested against your shoulder seemed to invite you to continue.

One by one, you planted soft kisses on each of his accessible scars, peppering multiple little kisses on the larger ones. Down the straight scar sliced down his abdomen you kissed, covering every inch of it with affection. The hand on your shoulder slowly moved up to caress your cheek, and you softly laid your hand against the back of his, turned your head and placed a kiss on his weathered palm. Then, remembering the scar that wrapped around his wrist, you pulled his hand away just enough to get a firm idea on where to plant your next kiss- right against the inside of his wrist, and against the scar that had been put there.

Vash squirmed a bit, letting a soft breath escape from between his previously closed lips. He cracked an eye open to peer at you, only to meet your hooded gaze. Maintaining full eye contact, you pulled his arm up just a few inches, placing an especially long, tender kiss against the scar lining his extensor. Again, Vash shuddered, and a soft noise escaped his throat. He still didn't look away, no- he couldn't take his eyes off of you.

"You're in no way unsightly, Vash." You  allowed your voice to come out a rough whisper, and you offered Vash a quaint smile. "Truly, I think you're very beautiful."

Vash offered you but a single nod. He didn't question you or assert otherwise, nor did he seem embarrassed anymore. If anything, he looked rather sultry, looking up at you with a half lidded gaze and his lips slightly parted.

With a final kiss to his knuckles, you were ready to get off of Vash, not wanting to push him farther. "Are you ready to sleep?" You asked.

"Ah..." Vash seemed... hesitant. His free hand hovered over your hip, but didn't make contact. Your brows raised,  and you wondered... "I... If you'd be up for..." Vash couldn't seem to find the words he wanted.

You let yourself chuckle a little- Vash acted so smooth and flirty when you first met, but now you could plainly see that it was mostly all talk. Still, you wouldn't pass up the chance to show Vash more intimately just how beautiful and wonderful you thought he was.

"I thought you'd never ask."

——————

Full version with smut available here~!

[glaswen]

Biiiiig description post for that one verse. Will most likely delete this post and move it to a doc page when i feel like playing with those. Just wanted to get it out here for someone 👀

Of mangled bodies lie by the rivers edge, masses of skeletal remains on the banks he used to be part of. It shows in the now sharper features of his face, cheeks gaunt with the rebuilding of flesh over time and time again. His appearance remains mostly humanoid with some alterations: of a human soul being consumed with the environment of hell. However, his skin no longer retains hue, and instead has become a dried out sickly ash grey. Cracks can be glimpsed in fleeting spurts of orange and yellow, of fire kept beneath the reformed flesh. Hands no longer have nails as much as claws that crudely protrude from skin in extension, tarnishing ash and soot cling to and stain the lower part of his arms.

A prominent feature is a half ring of stone molded to his head,  reminiscent of basalt rock. It looks to be molded to his head, this ring covers the brow region to the upper cheekbone area. Stray line drips down in the shape of his nasal bone to where his nose once was, which has now been reduced to two slits within his head and ends directly in the middle. The band however does not form a circle; it instead goes past the sides of his head, and ends in two downwardly curved tines. A mockery of horns.  The band covering his face can be broken or pierced by those more powerful. And beneath is only a continuation of flesh, however partially still marred by burns and wrinkled skin. Never been given the chance to heal as the rest of his flesh has done. The eyes beneath are vastly sensitive to any forms of light, and are unnervingly human despite the ink that drowns out any colour. From over the band and the top of his head an endless stream of opaque black smoke curls downwards in a way reminiscent of hair, waves out in strands that style themselves just above his shoulders in memory of another life. 

His upper body and limbs suffer from protruding objects;  sharp jagged pieces of rock,  shards of infernal weapons within it amongst others. Some he will occasionally have to dig into his flesh to rip out as they do cause pain, while others have become a pseudo source of armour.  The entire lower half of his body has been completely covered by collected fragments of material closer to the stone forming the band on his forehead. His left shoulder blade has also been completely engulfed in a pointed edge. The more vulnerable parts of his form are apt to change every time he’s kicked back down, if not threaten to engulf the rest of him. And if the band on his temple is broken, the contents of the river will be poured and molded once more to his shape. 

And outside of hell those many decades after ... centuries even,  he wears his once human face like a mask.  Teeth too sharp behind an ever easygoing smile, as he offers just one more deal to the shit-faced patron bleeding out in a back alley.   So it goes. 

[crazycat-88]

Male Spider Monster Silus x Gender Neutral Reader (SFW)

Note: This is my first piece of writing in a very long time and my first exophilia story. Written for the awesome OkCryptid Collab. Its also the first instalment of a series of stories I’m currently working on.

A huge thanks goes to @thetravelerwrites for proofreading/editing this piece. She’s an absolute star and fantastic writer, who dedicates a lot of her time to this community, supporting other writers and helping readers find exophilia works by maintaining both the OkCryptid Masterlist & the Exophilia Creators Masterlist. So go give her your love and support over on her blog.

Without further ado, here’s 4,124 words of human/monster romance. Hope you enjoy it.

Sitting at your desk, trying to write the newest chapter of your latest novel, you sigh when you her a ping from your mobile. In all honesty, the distraction is welcome; you’ve been suffering from a major case of writer's block and you’d take any excuse to put your work aside.

Checking your notifications, you sigh again when you see it’s from OkCryptid, the monster and cryptid dating app created to help monsters find mates, that you’d downloaded a couple of weeks beforehand. You had hoped it would give you a better chance at finding the one but so far you’d had the same amount of luck that you had with every other app on the market. Which was none.

You hadn’t been on a date in months. Your last relationship was over three years ago and so far things weren’t looking very positive with this new dating app. Since joining, there were very few matches and all the messages you’d received were either from men just looking to hook up for that night or they were dick pics. You couldn’t fathom why anyone thought that sending a picture of their dick would somehow seduce you but they did it anyway.

Taking a deep breath, you check to see what it’s notifying you off and you see that you have a new match and have been sent a new message from a user named Silus. Swearing to yourself that if it’s another unsolicited picture you were deleting the app, you open the message first without bothering to check his profile. No point in getting your hopes up before seeing what he’s sent you.

[Sent: 2:47pm] Silus: Hey, how are you today? I’ve recently just moved to the area and we’ve matched… So I thought I’d just say hi…

Well, that was a good start. It's certainly the nicest message you’ve received so far. Deciding to check his profile, you gasp, seeing that he’s an arachnid, specifically a spider type, which you’d never seen before.

Most arachnids chose to avoid the city, mainly due to their size and their preference for solitude. They weren’t known to be the most social of creatures and, despite being known to the general public for a couple of centuries, were one of the few species that shunned modern society, choosing to remain in forests or caves far from civilization. You weren’t sure if this was because of their nature or due to the fact that they were one of the few monsters many humans, and even some other monsters, still feared. Even those who weren’t outright scared of arachnid type monsters were still wary and uncomfortable around them.

You’re not sure how you feel about them, never having actually met one but you’re not exactly a fan of spiders. While you aren’t scared of them, they did make you squeamish. Shuddering thinking of the large spider you had to remove from your flat the day before, you decide to at least check over Silus’s profile and pictures.

His profile bio was short and sweet: he stated his name, age, and sexual orientation before going on to say that he loved plants and flowers, music, poetry and going for walks in the moonlight. He’d also added that he had just moved to the city and was looking to make new friends and hopefully find a mate. He had a gallery full of pictures, which were mostly pictures of various types of flowers, but he had a couple of himself.

Enlarging the first picture of himself, which was a selfie of just his face and torso, you were pleasantly surprised to find that you didn’t mind his spider features. His head and body was humanoid in shape, his skin incredibly pale and his very long, very straight hair was a shiny white. He had four eyes that were completely black with no sclera, those eyes sat in a row, with two larger in the centre and two smaller either side of those. His mouth was wide and in the photo he was grinning, showing that he had nothing but two large fangs in his upper jaw. His shoulders were broad and his torso was well built, with clearly defined muscles though he wasn’t overly muscular.

Swiping through his photos, you find another picture of him, this one being a full body shot which was clearly taken from a small distance. Here you could see his lower body where is torso ended and joined with his spider half, which looked large and bulbous, black in colour but covered in fine white hair which looked fuzzy. Attached to this body were eight long jointed legs which were also covered in fine white hairs. His legs looked as thick as tree trunks and you couldn’t be sure from looking at the photo but he looked huge.

This part of his body did make you apprehensive, and the more you look at it the worse you feel. Flicking between the two pictures you couldn’t decide if you were attracted to him or not. On one hand you found him incredibly beautiful, with his large pitch black eyes that you could easily get lost in and his gorgeous sleek looking hair and toned upper body. He also seemed sweet natured and had a lovely smile despite the fangs.

On the other hand, his spider lower half gave you the shivers and those long legs creeped you out. You cringed looking at them again and even thinking about those legs in motion made you shudder. Chewing on your lip you debated with yourself; you’d matched with him so obviously you had things in common and you didn’t have to jump into a relationship with him. You could always be friends first and see if it went anywhere. You just weren’t sure you could get over those eight legs…

Ping.

Startled, you look back at your phone which had gone to sleep at some point during your mental debate, and you see you have received another message from Silus.

[Sent: 3:16pm] Silus: I like your profile by the way, you’re very beautiful.... We must have a lot in common, I’ve been using this app for over a year now and I’ve never seen such a high percentage match...

Checking you see that he’s right, you’ve matched with him eighty-eight percent which was much higher than any other match you’d had and from everything you’d heard it was really rare to get a match that high. It was just your luck he had to be an arachnid, he seemed really nice too. Deciding to think further on it and make a decision later, you go back to writing, after all your novel wasn’t going to write itself.

A couple of hours later, feeling like you’ve made a lot of progress, you decide it’s time for some food. However a quick search around the kitchen reminds you that you’ve not been shopping in days. Take-away it is then.

Ping!

Frowning you see you’ve gotten another message from Silus, thinking he’s getting a little pushy, you open it to read.

[Sent: 5:30pm] Silus: Hey again, so I was thinking… I would understand if your not interested, many people don’t like arachnids…. I know a lot of people, especially humans are scared of my kind… But I hope you’ll give me a chance and see I’m not scary at all… or maybe your just busy or at work... Sorry...

Crap! You’d forgotten that your settings had been set to send read receipts. He knows you’ve read his messages and now thinks you’re ignoring him. You wonder how often that happens to him, he sounds so dejected and now you feel bad. He’d said in his earlier message that he’d been using the app for over a year so that meant he’d not had much luck finding someone. A bit like me then, thinking to yourself. Looking at his pictures again, you come to a decision.

[Sent: 5:32pm] You: Hi Silus, I’m good thanks and I was working… I am interested but to be honest I’ve never met an arachnid before and I’m unsure how I feel about it.

Silus: Oh my gosh, you replied :-) Thank you! It’s okay that you feel that way, at least you’re willing to give me a chance…

Silus: Lots of people are afraid of spiders and by extension spider monsters but honestly I wouldn’t hurt a fly…

Silus: …Well that’s a lie and probably a bad example, but really I’m not scary in the slightest…

Chuckling, you rather like Silus’s sense of humour though you’re not sure he was aiming to be funny. He was so sweet and seemed really surprised that you’d replied. Makes you wonder again how many people have ignored him just because of what he is.

You: Lol! I’m not scared of spiders exactly but they do make me uncomfortable… I’d like to get to know you though...

You: So… how are liking city life?

*************

You and Silus spent the rest of the evening getting to know each other. You learn that he works as a florist, that he’s renting a flat in the city centre and is flat sharing with a moth monster. Which did surprise you as you thought that their two species have a turbulent history. He asks what you do for work and then about the novel you’re currently writing.

The two of you end up talking long into the night and at some point you fall asleep still mid conversation. As soon as you wake up you're checking your phone for messages from Silus. You have two, the first answering the question you’d asked just before falling asleep and a second twenty minutes later where he says that he assumes you’ve falling asleep and to have sweet dreams.

Smiling to yourself, you send him a message confirming that you did in fact fall asleep and that you’re sorry about that. You then decide to get up and start your day. An hour later Silus is messaging you good morning and telling you not to worry about it. The two of you spend the rest of the morning chatting until he has to go to work. He messages again once he’s home from work and you spend the evening in the same manner as the night before.

The rest of the week followed the same pattern, work, eat and chat to Silus. By this point the two of you had swapped mobile numbers and were now communicating via both text and call. He had the loveliest voice and often during calls you forgot that you had to respond. Meeting in person wasn't a subject brought up until exactly one week after you’d first started chatting.

You were just sitting, eating lunch when you heard the ping of your mobile.

[Sent: 2:13pm] Silus: Afternoon gorgeous, are you free this evening? If you are, would you like to get a drink in town?

Taking a deep breath, you think it over, you really liked Silus and were pretty confident now that the two of you could really have something good together. Him being an arachnid no longer made you uncomfortable, at least in theory, but you were incredibly nervous. What if you saw him in person and you couldn’t see past those eight legs, you didn’t want to hurt him. Or what if when he saw you, he thought you weren’t as attractive in person. A previous date had told you that you looked thinner in your photos after all. You sigh, either way you had to know, for both your sakes.

You: Afternoon, I am free tonight and that would be lovely. Where were you thinking?

Silus: Great! :-D My flatmate works in this bar and restaurant which caters for folks like us, called The Bears Den, does that sound okay to you? It’s in city centre.

You: Yes of course! What time?

Silus: 6pm? Shall I come pick you up or would you rather we meet there?

You: 6 works for me. I’ll just meet you there, no point in you leaving the city centre to come collect me :-) I’ll get the bus, will only take me twenty minutes.

Silus: If you’re sure, I don’t mind the extra journey, I’d travel hours to pick you up ;-)

You: Lol, your so sweet but yes I’m sure. I’ll see you there at 6.

Silus: Alright then, I’ll meet you outside the bar. See you later gorgeous… can’t wait.

You: Me either! See you soon!

Checking the clock, you see that it was already 2:30pm and you had no idea what you were going to wear. Deciding your best bet would be to call your fashion-forward best friend and get her advice, your frustrated when she doesn’t answer. Oh well best go raid your wardrobe.

************

Your shaking with nerves by the time you get there and of course your twenty minutes early. Standing outside the bar feeling like an utter twit, you inspect the building. The outside is painted a glossy black and the name of the bar is painted in gold cursive above the very wide, very tall doors. It looked nice. Through the glass in the doors you could see the place already had a good number of patrons despite the early time.

You’re surprised and jump in shock when you hear your name spoken softly from behind you. Spinning around you come face to face with Silus, well more accurately you came face to stomach with Silus, because he was huge. Your breath catches in your throat and you gaze in astonishment at his form.

His large spider lower body was lowered to just inches off the ground and his long legs were arched upwards, their height reached to his human torso before coming back down to the ground. This close you could see that he had three claws at the end of each of those legs. Shifting your gaze back up, you took notice that he was wearing a smart midnight blue shirt before your attention was brought to his hands, which he was wringing togethering in nervousness. Looking to his face you could see that he looked wary but his mouth was turned up into a tentative smile.

It’s only when he quietly says your name and asks if you're alright that you realise that you’ve stood there just staring at him for the past two minutes. Giving yourself a mental shake you manage to give him a nod.

‘‘Yes! I’m good, thanks! Um... hi...’’ you giggle nervously.

‘‘Hi...’’ he replies, smile widening. ‘You still want to do this?’’

‘‘Yes, of course, sorry! Shall we go in?’’ You stammer.

Holding the door open for you, he shakes his head ‘‘No need to be sorry, I know I’m a lot to process.’’

‘‘Um... just a bit, I wasn’t expecting you to be so... big,’’ you stammer, as you pass under his arm into the bar.

‘‘Does it bother you?’’ He asks, as you make your way to the bar.

Shaking your head and giving him a smile over shoulder, you glance around the bar and see the vast majority of patrons are other non-humans. Behind the bar serving you spot a lizardfolk, who looks like a leopard gecko and a white tiger rakshasa. The rakshasa looks your way and raises a brow when he clocks Silus at your side. Making his way down the bar with a large grin on his face, you hear Silus let out a groan and suddenly he leans down to whisper in your ear, ‘‘He’s a harmless flirt.’’

‘‘What?’’ You stammer, but before he can say anything else the Rakshasa is standing in front of you and leaning over the bar to clasp Silus’s hand.

‘‘Ayaan,’’ Silus nods.

‘‘Silus,’’ rumbles the rakshasa, ‘‘It’s been awhile. Who’s your cute friend?’’ He says looking at you and giving you a wink.

Silus makes the introductions and as you give Ayaan your hand to shake, he leans down to kiss the back of your hand and gives you a cheeky grin. You understand now what Silus meant. Turning to Silus, Ayaan asks ‘‘Does Rowan know you’re out on a date?’’

‘‘Yes, and he’s upset he’s not here to see it’’ Silus replies, laughing. You give him a questioning look, but he just shakes his head at you and mouth’s later.

Turning back to Ayaan and ordering your drinks you head to a table towards the back of the bar where it’s quieter. Whilst you sit on a chair, Silus pushes the chair opposite you towards another table and lowers his spider body to the floor shifting his legs to a comfortable position. As you watch him do this, it occurs to you that your not feeling squeamish like you feared you might. In fact, your itching to lean over and see if those hairs are as fuzzy as they look. Giving Silus a smile, you see that he’s gazing just as intensely at you.

‘‘You’re very beautiful,’’ he says, swallowing nervously.

‘‘Thank you. So are you,’’ you reply, blushing.

‘‘No I’m not,’’ he says sadly, fixing you a look. ‘‘I look monstrous, I know that… but thank you for saying it anyway.”

Shaking your head you reply, ‘‘Yes, you are! You’re gorgeous, Silus…. at least you are to me, anyway,’’ you mumble shyly, reaching over the table to grasp his hand and squeezing it briefly.

Silus blushes prettily, looking at your hands shyly. Turning his hand around to clasp yours in a soft hold. ‘‘Thank you,’’ he says, sounding choked.

Hoping to distract him, you ask ‘‘So.. Is Ayaan a good friend of yours?’’

‘‘Oh yeah,’’ he replies shaking his head as if coming out of a daze, ‘‘I met him through Rowan.’’

‘‘And Rowan is? And why is he upset that he’s not here?’’ You ask raising a brow.

Chucking he replies, ‘‘Sorry, Rowans my flatmate and he’s upset because he thinks I’m probably going to make a fool of myself and he’s not here to see it…’’

‘‘Oh. Well... you haven’t, so he’s not missing anything,’’ you smile. “Is it his night off then?’’ You ask.

Shaking his head, ‘‘Nope, he would usually be working now but he’s gone home to West Oaks to attend one of his sister's wedding.’’

‘‘West Oaks? That’s where your from too right?’’ You ask.

Nodding, ‘‘Yeah... we grew up together, best friends since school. Neighbours too. We were both the youngest of all our many siblings so we spent our childhood bemoaning our lot in life.’’ He had a fond smile on his face.

‘‘You have a lot of siblings?’’ You ask sipping at your drink.

‘‘Yep! I’m one of twenty-six.’’ He grins.

‘‘No. Way.’’ you reply, sputtering.

Laughing, Silus nods ‘‘Arachnids tend to lay a lot of eggs... Moths do too, actually, Rowan is one of thirty.’’

‘‘Oh wow! No wonder the two of you banded together,’’ You say stunned.

‘‘Yeah, so when Ro decided he wanted to move to the city, I told him I was coming with,’’ Silus chuckles.

‘‘And.. do you like it here?’’

‘‘Yeah, it’s nice,’’ he tells you nodding. ‘‘Very different from living rurally, of course, and I miss the forest sometimes, but there’s a lot of good things about living in the city.’’

Before you can reply to that, Ayaan is suddenly at your table with a massive grin on his face, startling you both. Silus jerks so badly four of his legs flick out causing Ayaan to snicker loudly.

‘‘You two looked liked you were having fun, so I thought I’d offer table service’’ he says putting another two drinks down on the table. ‘‘Drink up,’’ he says and salutes before strolling back to the bar. You see the gecko behind the bar shaking his head at Ayaan’s antics, catching your eye he gives you an apologetic look before turning to serve another customer.

‘He’s a character,’’ You laughingly say, looking back at Silus.

‘‘That’s one word to describe him,’’ he chuckles jokingly.

You and Silus spent the rest of the evening talking and laughing, as he tells you stories from his childhood and teenage years where he and Rowan would get themselves into trouble. You tell him some of your own stories in return, telling him of the shenanigans that you and your best friend regularly got up to.

The two of you are so absorbed in each other that you don’t realise how late it has gotten until you hear a loud bellow from the otherside of the bar. Glancing around you see that the place is now packed full of boisterous patrons and that you have somehow missed the fact there is now a live band on stage. Over by the pool tables there is a large minotaur and a small goblin having a tussle over a pool cue and a very large orc with a dark scowl, who is obviously security is headed their way. Behind the bar both the gecko and Ayaan are looking harried and have been joined by a harpy and some type of avian.

You and Silus come to a mutual agreement that it’s time to call it a night. As Silus leads the way out of the bar, the other patrons quickly shift out of his way and a few of them stare openly, looking wary. Whilst you enjoy the fact that no one is in your personal space and you have room to move, you also feel sad that people look at him like he might turn around and eat them. You glare fiercely at one particular customer that’s standing staring rudely open mouthed, seeing your scowl they suddenly about-turn and run in the opposite direction.

Outside, you take in a deep breath of fresh air, glad to be out in the quiet. Turning to Silus you see that he’s watching you, a soft smile on his face.

‘‘Is it always like that in there?’’ You ask.

Shaking his head in the negative he replies, ‘‘Not really. It only tends to get that busy at weekends.’’

Nodding, you began speaking only to stop suddenly seeing that another orc, who looks like the double of the one inside, working the door watching you both with a sly grin. Smiling awkwardly, you and Silus start walking in a random direction.

‘‘So... what were you going to say?’’ He asks as he looks down at you.

‘‘Oh,’’ you smile, ‘‘Just that I had a really good time tonight.’’

‘‘So did I,’’ Silus blushes. “Perhaps we could do this again sometime?’’

‘‘Definitely,’’ you grin.

‘‘Would you.. like a ride home?’’

‘‘You drive?’’ You ask incredulously, looking at his spider lower half trying to work out the logistics of that.

‘‘No...’’ he chuckles. “I meant would you like to ride me?’’

Looking at him wide eyed, you suddenly break down snorting in laugher. Confused Silus raises a questioning brow.

‘‘What?’’ He asks completely befuddled.

Trying to calm yourself, you breath in deeply and ask, “Ride you? Talk about innuendo...’’ you grin.

Frowning it takes him a second to register. “Oh! I didn’t mean…’’ he groans. ‘I just meant… um… never mind,’’ he says, shaking his head with cheeks flushed red in embarrassment.

‘‘Maybe another time,’’ you smile eyeing his large lower body. ‘I’ll take a taxi tonight.’’ You nod towards the taxi rank across the road.

‘‘Right, well. I guess I have to say goodnight then,’’ he replies, smiling wistfully.

Nodding, you glance between his eyes and mouth, getting the hint he leans down and stops a hair width distance giving you the opportunity to change your mind. You don’t. Closing the distance between you, your eyes close as your lips meet his.

A quick peck leads to another, and then another, before you know it your tongue is in his mouth and you’re carefully exploring his mouth, being mindful with his fangs. One of his hands cradles your head as the other traces patterns on your back. Both your hands start on his shoulders before slowly roaming downwards. As you reach the point where his human torso meets his spider half, you softly stoke him there, feeling his soft hair tickle your hands. Silus suddening pulls away, panting harshly.

‘‘We have to stop,’’ he gasps.

You nod, agreeing and inhaling deeply.

‘‘Text me when you’re home?’’ He asks, searching your face.

Promising him that you would, you wish him goodnight moving quickly and getting in the first taxi. Silus gives a wave as the taxi pulls away and you see him watching you until your no longer in sight. Sitting back in the seat, you touch your fingertips to your lips.

Wow. That was some kiss.

——————————————————————

That’s all folks. If you enjoyed this, please reblog. Comments/likes are always appreciated too. Thanks!

My Masterlist

[bluesunsdusk]

closeup headcanons.   for extremely specific headcanons. send me a body part from the list below and i’ll give you details on it: how it looks, how my muse feels about it, what difference it makes for my muse’s life, is it sensitive, how intimate my muse feels contact with it, if my muse decorates it or takes care of it any particular way, how well it works, has it sustained any injuries, anything of the sort. potentially nsfw ones are marked with *

26.       breast / upper chest area. *

--// Had to move this to a post, because this is going be really long and read more breaks in asks are completely busted. ))

I actually have a reference I use for Turian chests, though that is Dexius Takara(a muse who used to be on the roster)

Now, if we look at Dexius’ chest…

There is a very prominent sternum bone right where the collar ring bone meets the center of the chest. It’s similar to the protrusion of the breastbone in some birds.

[image source]

Turian chest musculature is not structured the same way as with humans, contrary to some fanart. It’s not that way in the finalized turian concept art either, which is what my drawing of Dexius’ body is based on. Not to say Turians cannot have larger muscle, but Dexius, as you can see from the arms is pretty muscular, as is Nihlus. The bone ends up overshadowing most of the muscle mass, and because turians have so little body fat, the layering of their muscle is far more apparent. That, combined with their chitinous protective layering with a leathery skin covering, makes it hard to see their muscle definition in many cases. The abdomen is less plated.

Anyway, some people seem to think an insignia goes over the rest of the body as well. It does not. An insignia is purely located on the turian’s head and face. Like his face, Nihlus’ chest is a ruddy color. He has some body upgrades that make his skin and bone more durable than that of others.

It’s not his favorite part of his body, but it’s good. He wouldn’t exactly consider that the best part of him.

As for Set…

Set, while having plating that covers most of their internal mechanics, has internals like most any omnic with a humanoid upper torso. Set is, after all, mostly humanoid in appearance, especially above the waist. They were not even initially intended for combat.

[Image source]

Just like Zenyatta, their neck and shoulder hydraulics are connected the same way to a center part of the torso.

With Set, however, they are both stronger and more durable, and there are generators. They also have a thick armor plating protecting their body. I made a drawing. I had a different one before going to bed, but I didn’t like it, because it was regular civilian plating and I wanted them to look more like a nulltrooper. (I had not really designed a body for Set, only clothes.)

[Image source]

It is a type of between a more civilian and more military model. More industrial than Mondatta, less blocky than a nulltrooper. (Set had laser cutters made to cut through the thickest sheets of metal built into their arms as weapons, so it fits)

Anyway, like Set’s head, their body is painted in a black, iron, and purple color scheme. The chest is mainly colored in a black coating and dark gray metal. Set’s plating possesses of various scratches and a few nicks at the corners different plating sections. There are small bits where one could note marks of manual repairs as well as noticeable dent repairs performed by an untrained hand. Set’s chest has a sharp curvatura to it.

Furthermore, there is an elevated collar to better protect their neck. The connectors that are usually more golden in color in humanoid units are simply a pale steel color.

They find that simply having a chest different from the more humanoid units causes some difficulty. Since they have a Null Sector symbol painted on, they wear clothes to maintain a cover.

Seeing as Set isn’t that social, they rather people not touch their plating, but it’s not exactly a special thing to do. It’s simply a matter of personal space.

At first, Set wasn’t meant to be made for combat. They were bulkier than some other more civilian omnics, but they still had a slightly less protected and durable build, until they were reworked by the omnium as the Crisis began. Over the years, it has taken various types of damage. It has been shot, cut, burned, bludgeoned. It has been welded back together in places and has been repainted. Holes have been patched over. It’s been through a lot. They wash it from dirt when they can, wish usually a process that doesn’t involve water.

The only real difference in appearance in an AU where Set wouldn’t have founded Null Sector is that they have no Null Sector logo on it. In this verse, Set, called Heqaib in this situation, would not really be a huge fan of their chest, but they don’t wish to change it, because making changes to look more human just for heightened acceptance by human society that already only partially tolerates their people would go against their beliefs.

At most, they would remove some plating, leaving their inner working bare. They might put the plating back on to make a point or if they are forced to have to fight. That, and it would be far better taken care of, though they may have elected to make some of the damage done in the Crisis a permanent feature as a reminder of what was, such as the piercing damage on the left of the chest area, which has been closed but is still visible as a ring with worn edges.

[comedianrobotmaster]

Mercury Design Sketches

Here are some sketches of Mercury (SRN-002)

(Again, sorry if it looks rough; I’ll later re-draw this on my digital drawing pad along with color it for more clarity of small details.)

My interpretation of these re-designs will mainly try to be realistic and practical with some (and in this case Major changes) to the characters; so lets get into more detail with Mercury, the horrific space abomination, and specifics of what he is and can do, along with a character bio. (Basically, these are head-canons with sketches and details of such.)

[But first, a little explanation: Mercury, since he poses the ability to turn into a green slime and have a weapon that saps away energy, I thought it would make more sense if he was the green morphing slime because it seemed more likely, out of the countless galaxies out there, that a living [and horrific] organism would have those characteristics than a robot made as an experiment.]

Mercury is slime-based shapeshifting alien organism that specializes in disguising and assimilating as other alien species, then finding the critical flaws within that alien society for more efficiency when he and the other Stardriods later destroy the civilization inhabiting that planet. (On the Stardroid’s space ship, he is in charge of maintaining order of his other crew members as well as making secondary decisions of what the Stardroid’s should do next) He originated from a dictatorial planet deep in space and is a unique hybrid from two unknown alien species. 

His general appearance is that of a mass of translucent green slime; similar to a man-sized amoeba, he can alter his shape, size, and color to his advantage by condensing and de-condensing, rearranging and modifying himself at the cellular level. Mercury’s true form when he is not using his shapeshifting abilities is quite unsettling, he is a mass of slime -towering at 95 meters- covered mostly with flailing tendrils (which is quite similar to Ra-moon) and prominently features a misshapen crocodilian head with endless rows of moving teeth inside his jaws, along with six dark pupil-less eyes. Mercury does have some key limits with these abilities since he is still an organism; he can only morph his body up to a certain point, any form he takes has to have his six prominent horns( he can only have them retracted for a short amount of time), along with having most his body still retaining his green translucent slime appearance (besides the shape of coarse (some of his slime an mimic the appearance of skin and or hair, but that is a small percentage))- typically, he realizes that he could only change his form to a point, and wears either clothing, armor, or both to still have a viable disguise. Mercury, since he can control his body at the cellular level, has the ability to absorb and breakdown any substance, organic or otherwise(but, typically he prefers organic matter over strange substances). 

Mercury is weak against high voltages of electricity because the energy absorbed into his body scrambles the control of his form as well as his mental-state(temperately); He will subsequently faint and remain unconscious for hours at a time as a result of being exposed to high volts of electricity (and since it scrambled his ability to control his form he’ll reform into a formless pile of liquid-like slime while in this unconscious state). 

Mercury, when he first arrived on earth, quickly analyzed his environment and found a easy form to take that won’t attract too much unwanted attention- a common humanoid construction robot. At first, when trying to capture what a human face looks like, mercury couldn’t quite get get the shape right; so when he destroyed a construction robot to take his place, he removed the robot’s skull and absorbed it to improve the new form he was attempting to make. The suit he has features a large battery with two power-outlets, two mini storage tins on both sides of the torso, and a armored headlamp on the front torso, as well as a electric welding torch that can cut through most metals. 

The upper arms of the construction armor are made of a fire proof ribbed polyester-like fabric; and the forearms feature durable metal welding gloves, a small storage compartment and extra wrist coverage with a metal tube. Since the armor was intended for robots, there are various vents and crevices in most of the suit- Mercury’s slimy form tends to leak through these crevices, which makes it more convenient for him to attack anyone easily and quickly than if he took the effort to retain a humanoid form entirely. He can attack his foes by expanding part of his mass (such as a arm or leg) and slamming foes with the dense slime or grasping them with tendrils; in addition to that, he can also can morph that slime into his head and bite his foes, or even tear them into pieces.

The boots of the armor feature soft knee-pads, extra flexible knee-joints, specialized rubber treads and steel reinforced plates. The tips of the boots are sharpened to a point and can be used in self-defense similarly to Elecman’s boots, but lack the wheel-function entirely and have average heels instead. Mercury, since he just occupies the armor and doesn't use it like a robot, often gets frustrated when the extra-reinforced hydraulics on the boots jam and lock in place due to the boots not receiving any input from a robot and always remaining neutral to any movements he makes (basically, the boots still absorb shock, but always feel stiff). Similarly to the arm pieces of the armor, he can still fit his form through the vents and use it as a method of attack against his foes.

Mercury’s life cycle is quite slow and takes many stages until he reaches adulthood, the stages and the duration of such stages are as follows: Squid-like Egg (lasts 1 year), Newly Hatched stage (lasts 5 years), Observant stage (lasts 11 years), Adolescent stage (lasts 20 years), Adulthood (lasts indefinitely, he doesn't age at this point). Mercury’s form of reproduction is parasitic, and will ‘hijack’ whoever’s normal cells to maximize the number of offspring that is created, essentially killing whoever he encounters slowly and painfully. (tried to keep that part mostly vague for less cringe)

Next I’ll try to finish up those Stardroid Pluto sketches I set aside quite a while ago...

[journeysintowebcomics]

Worm Liveblog #102

UPDATE 102: Working in the PRT Cuts Your Life Expectancy

Last time the Undersiders and the Travelers managed to kidnap Director Piggot in a move that not only attacked the heroes at the Protectorate, but also surely will enrage them further and make them take further action towards the villains. Let’s see what happens now that they have the Director in their clutches!

Or not. It’s an interlude, apparently because he received enough donations for it. I guess...it’s an okay point to do this? It’s not in the middle of the action, after all. I suppose it may have been the best spot if Mr. Wildbow couldn’t wait for the end of the arc.

I already see a couple names I don’t recognize, and the date says this is the past. I’m not sure who is the narrator, and it seems this is far enough in the past the containment foam is still a new invention and only a few parahumans are authorized to use it? Hm.

I’m not entirely certain what’s happening here. From what I’m understanding here, they’re trying to find out where a person is, most likely a villain. Whoever they’re hunting can adjust his body size, body shape and apparent powers. This specific power doesn’t sound familiar to me; it must be someone who hasn’t been introduced yet or is a rather minor character.

“So what happened?”

“Got downsized.  Stayed at home for something like three weeks, then the bills started rolling in and he realized he wouldn’t be able to pay them all. He sent out job applications, dozens by email, but he didn’t have the references.  Faced homelessness, a disruption of his boring, lonely life. We think that was his point-zero.”

“His trigger event,” Lady answered.

Huh. It’s a pretty bad situation, admittedly, but compared to the other trigger events I’m aware of it’s much milder. I suppose the intensity of the trigger events needed vary from person to person. So, this person got the trigger event by an unsurmountable obstacle in his lifestyle, and once he got his powers he turned into crime. That’s where the heroes I’m reading about now come in, they’re trying to stop him. Must be a pretty crafty criminal, if they need all these heroes and helicopters, as well as the foam.

Podunk town? So this likely isn’t Brockton Bay. I also read something about Toronto earlier, I think, this may not even be the same country Brockton Bay is in. Maybe that’s why I had never heard of these heroes before, they’re from another country. Canadian heroes!

I think I may have misunderstood. The people I’m reading about may be normal PRT agents instead of capes, because one of them asks where the capes are. Interesting, reading from the perspective of a normal non-powered person who has to deal with superpowered villains would be really fun. It’s a bit of a shame this is in the past, it won’t feature anyone from the present, most likely.

Nobody evacuated from the town the villain they’re looking for is in, for some reason. Some kind of mind control, perhaps? The squad is going to find out, and I have a feeling that, given what kind of things happen in this world, it won’t be pretty at all.

It’s like a ghost town in here. One of the stores was ransacked, and the thermal sensors aren’t showing anything anywhere. Even if it’s raining a person won’t get so cold they’re not distinguishable from the environment unless they’re dead. There aren’t even any animals or bugs around here. Something really is going on here, and it’s starting to feel very eerie. Nice atmosphere, Mr. Wildbow.

Ah, the found someone. It’s their target, most likely.

Rinke?  As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could make out a figure dressed in a jester’s motley, two contrasting colors predominating, blue-orange or purple-yellow.  The mask a patchwork cloth that covered his face, with only two dark holes for his eyes. But most daunting of all was the man’s size.  He was obese, bloated, ten feet tall and nearly as wide, advancing at a glacial pace as he lurched down the middle of the street.  His arms were drawn behind his back by the weight of the sack and the cloth he carried.

That’s quite grotesque. Ten feet is three meters and half, more or less, no? That’s enormous. Not only that, he’s clad with some god-awful colors in a jester’s costume. It’s like this guy went out of his way to make himself be as horrifying as possible.

Speaking of horrifying, in that sack there’s something that used to be alive, so I suppose that means this guy killed everything in this town. Not only people, he also killed the animals and the bugs. Just what kind of power does he have? No wonder the plan is to contain him with the foam and then incinerate him. Heck, if the Birdcage existed by now, it’s possible he’d be too dangerous to leave there. You know, it’s still pretty amazing this was the result of a trigger event that’s milder than most of the events seen this far.

They don’t try to make contact, all they do is start shooting as soon as Rinke sees them. Rinke didn’t mind the bullets, so the incendiary grenades came afterwards. No effect yet, either he doesn’t feel pain or he has a lot of resistance to this kind of thing. At least the containment foam is effective, and the fire is burning away the cloth. They’ll need as many advantages as they can get.

Ah, there are three squads. They’re all informed Zinke is currently burning and presumably dying. I sure hope so!

The bloated stomach split with the weight of the upper body, tearing across one of the recesses of a roll of fat. A slurry of half-dissolved bodies spilled out around him.

Ew. Ew ew ew ew ew ew. Was that thing eating everything? Pretty nightmarish, that! Not giving it a moment of reprieve, the squad keeps using fire, until it’s completely burnt. That...went easier than I expected, for something that consumed everything in the town.

Ah, there we go, nothing is easy. One of the other squads is being attacked by something. Maybe Zinke wasn’t the only hostile thing around here. I wouldn’t be surprised if Zinke’s attacks caused someone else to have a trigger event, maybe the result of one is what’s attacking another squad now.

I wasn’t entirely wrong. It doesn’t look like it’s another parahuman because there are two that are exactly the same, instead it is...here, this will explain it well.

“He’s not a Changer!”  Evan bellowed, clicking the button of his radio to inform the capes and squad three.  “Master-class cape!”

They’re minions. Zinke’s minions, most likely. Just like Skitter does, I suppose Zinke can control them. Does that mean they’re also made by Zinke? No wonder he’s such a threat. More and more minions come out from everywhere, due to the lack of thermal presence nobody had noticed they were surrounded all the time. Now that the attack is on, all the minions are attacking. It’s a cornucopia of minions.

Retreat! The retreat leads the squad the narrator – still unnamed and with no indication who it is, so my guess is that it’s a normal squad member who is still alive in present day, nobody that’s likely to appear again. This is worldbuilding! – is in to a place with more minions, where they describe what they see.

His team ducked back into a storefront through the shattered display window.  Bursts of fire took down the creatures that had been hidden within, a skinny faceless woman with blades for fingertips, a trio of what looked like babies with spider legs, a half-dozen waist-high people with deformed features and mismatched clothing that they’d clearly scavenged from nearby.

Strange mixture of minions, this one. I can’t seem to find a common element except that they’re humanoids. Not completely human, but mostly human elements. They may be actual people, deformed by Zinke, this possibility causes some conflict into the narrator. Hmmm...what matters here is if they’re still mentally residents of this city, if they really are minions made with residents of this town.

Golly, if I hadn’t already heard about who’s responsible for all this I’d have thought the squads were hunting Bonesaw. This all reminds me a lot of her creations. If this Zinke guy’s power is anything like that, gunning them down is a mercy.

One of the squad members is attacked in what’s most likely a fatal caustic goo attack, forcing another of the squad members to shoot him. Speaking of mercy kills! A flare is fired into the sky, signaling they need to get out, as there just isn’t anyone in this town they can save. Well, Zinke may be around, no? If he’s controlling all these minions then maybe he’s nearby? Someone with this kind of power would be really dangerous, leaving him unchecked would be a pretty bad idea.

I didn’t need to read the sentence “Holler gunned the mother-thing down before she could finish or spew more abominations from between her loins”. Thanks. Really made my day, that line. Also, sarcasm.

Things were clicking into place. It made sense, now, how the situation had gotten out of control so quickly.  How Rinke had seized the city so totally and absolutely.  It wasn’t just that he was a master-class cape who could make monsters with abilities of their own.  He could make monsters that bred, monsters that gave birth to more monsters.

That’s rather messed up. Still, I wonder why there were no remains of anything in this town, human or animal. Did these monsters consume everything that was alive? There’s a pretty good chance Zinke used the people as the base for the monsters, but I find it unlikely he would be able to handle as many people are there are in a town. The most likely scenario I can think is that he messed with a few, then the results went and killed a few, using the remains to make more monsters by themselves.

What the hell do you mean the capes vacated the scene? Did the capes really just leave these squads to handle an extremely dangerous parahuman all by themselves? I mean, these squads are highly trained people, but this threat is horrifying. I suppose everyone underestimated just how dangerous Zinke was, but seriously, what do you mean the capes left?! This is ridiculous!

See? Another one of the squad members is dead and two of the helicopters were destroyed, one must be left since there were three squads. This all went to hell in a handbasket pretty fast. At least they still have the containment foam as support, they’ll need everything they can get their hands of to get out of here alive. I admit part of me is doubting the narrator is even alive in present day.

In middle of the panic and the fight, one of the three remaining squad members hears a laugh coming from not too far away. The person who laughed is a man who’s dressed similar to the first minion they killed. Rinke, there he is. Also, I just realized I had been writing ‘Zinke’ all this time. Oh well. Learn by making mistakes, no?

Shooting Rinke is pretty effective, Rinke falls down and the creatures nearby gather around him immediately, no doubt to help him. Rinke stands up, so...I suppose the shot didn’t hit any fatal points. Goodbye element of surprise.

“You would shoot me!?”  Rinke roared.  If anything, his voice was all the more terrifying because it sounded so small, so human.  “I create life!  I am a god, and this is my garden!”

Evan could see flesh billow into existence in the man’s hands, embryonic sacs with the shadows of something forming within them.  They burst, and two struggling, childlike figures dropped to the ground to disappear in the midst of the stirring crowd.

That’s unspeakably gross. I can imagine it and it’s not a pretty picture at all. That aside, looks like he doesn’t need anything in exchange to being able to make flesh out of nothing but his hands. It doesn’t seem like he requires raw material or use anything in his body to do it, he just...makes weird life out of nothing.

This small demonstration is all the remaining squad members see before they’re attacked further. Not even all the foam they use stop them because the minions are using long-range weapons, so pointy and strong they penetrate even the armor the squad has. Heck, this all ends with the narrator dying. Pretty grim interlude, this one. I wonder what’s the point, though...it feels kind of random so far.

Oh, nevermind, someone survived! The one whose last name – I suppose – was Lady. She wakes up in a hospital and is greeted by someone else who survived the incursion in the town.

“I’m Thomas Calvert,” he introduced himself.  “Squad three. We’re the only ground forces that got out alive.”

Only two people out of three squads. Won’t lie, they’re very lucky to be alive. After all the horrors described I had expected everybody to have died.

Lady here will now find out about the prognosis, it’s not good. Rinke’s monsters ate her legs, crippling her. Looks like they also got her kidneys, she’ll need dialysis for the rest of her life. Calvert must have suffered similar damages too because he’s not going to be part of any squads in the future either. Then again, after these experiences, most people would retire from being in a squad, no? The PRT agents must see a lot of awful stuff and have to endure it, but this particular adventure seemed particularly awful. I for one wouldn’t blame Lady or Calvert for getting out of the job. Oh well. Lady’s injuries leave her with no choice.

“Rinke?”

“You mean Nilbog.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what he called himself. He’s alive and presumably well.  I saw out the window as the chopper pulled us out, Nilbog retreating to hide in some building, his creatures were returning to their hiding places.  I expect the man will be alive for some time.”

Doesn’t sound familiar. This must be the first time Nilbog is mentioned in this story. Once another major threat. With this situation, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Slaughterhouse Nine tries to get in contact with him, they have gotten in contact with people who did much less than Nilbog did. I’m sure Bonesaw would love to study the monsters and how they come to exist.

The reason why Nilbog survived the bullet is that he’s wearing one of his own creations. Ah, is that why he looked a lot like the first minion the squad encountered? Also, he’s making monsters that multiply when they’re set on fire, no doubt something he decided to do after a few of his monsters were incinerated in the attack. Live and adapt, they say. Well here he is doing that. Capturing him just got much more difficult now.

“He may have other countermeasures for other courses of action.  You’ll get your chance to talk to the Chief Director, but last I heard, they’re planning to wall the city off.  They’ll let the motherfucker be the god of his own little town, so long as he doesn’t try to expand any further, which they’re saying he won’t.  I almost envy him.”

So instead of killing or apprehending him they’ll make the cell all around the city. Should I take this to mean somewhere in Canada there’s a walled city, possibly with a dome all over it because no way they’ll risk creations escaping via air? They think Nilbog won’t try to expand any further and what I really want is see what kind of proof they got to conclude such a thing. Nilbog already proved to be extremely dangerous. I’m surprised they’re just letting this go on. Maybe it’d all have been different if the capes hadn’t bailed out at the first chance.

Calvert sighs and wishes he had gained powers during the excursion, while Lady vehemently disagrees. She sure has her reasoning set in stone, no doubt due to what happened:

“They’re monsters.  Freaks.  Lunatics. They fight only because they have the impression that they’re stronger than their opponents, and when they aren’t they run.”  She thought of the squad of capes that had accompanied them. “They abandon the rest of us.”

To be honest she has very good reasons to be royally pissed off. The capes just ran away! Like cowards. Who wouldn’t despise all parahumans, both heroes and villains, after such a stunt? Maybe it’s for the better she won’t have a career in the PRT anymore.

All this amuses Calvert a lot. This man needs better bedside manners. He doesn’t waste any time explaining why this is so funny to him.

“It’s ironic.  When the doctor and the Chief Director were talking to your sister, the Chief Director assured her that you still had a position in the PRT. Some of it is probably to keep you quiet, a cushy desk job and fat paycheck to make up for the fact that they sent you into a deathtrap and killed your teammates.”

“A desk job?”

“Director.  You’ll manage the local teams, handle the PR, convince everyone else that they aren’t freaks, monsters, lunatics and bullies.  I suggest you fake it, pretend you really do believe it.  You might start to believe your lies.”

Oh, she still has a career. Now she’s in charge of the kind of people she loathes, dealing with the power of PR. Huh.

...

Is Lady the last name or a codename? Because the strangest thought just crossed my mind but I don’t see anything in the interlude that confirms or denies my thought. Is this Director Piggot? Was it ever commented Director Piggot used to be a normal squad member? I think it was the part about PR what made me think of her. So much has been said in the story – and I have commented about PR so much when it’s about the PRT – I just made that connection and now I really want to know if that’s right or not.

Calvert isn’t getting cushy desk jobs even though his circumstances were similar to Lady’s. He’s going to jail because he shot his captain so he could escape. Well isn’t that a coldhearted move. Was the rope ladder so short both of them didn’t fit, or was their combined weight enough to make the helicopter unable to fly away, or what. Really, what reason was there to shoot the captain? Methinks there may have been personal history there. A crime of passion, if you will.

This confession disgusts Lady and she says she’d have never done such a thing if she had been in his position. Calvert says it’ll be a few years of his life in jail, he’s really calm when with the prospect of being in jail. Doesn’t such a thing usually ruin your life even after you’re out? Maybe after Calvert is free the PRT will try to keep him happy so he won’t talk about what happened. He may not be employed with them anymore, but he’d still be a person of interest. Gotta keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t speak more than he should.

The interlude ends in a sudden manner, with ‘It’s like the world’s gone mad, and I’m the only sane person left.’ being the last line. Kind of jarring, this was. Oh well. What would be a bit of a letdown of an ending is compensated by what’s directly underneath. The tags are usually a good way to remind yourself what characters took part in a chapter, so I went ahead to check.

This entry was posted in 16.x (Donation Bonus) and tagged Piggy by wildbow.

She really is Director Piggot! Most likely. Suddenly, having her hostage is looking like a pretty bad idea. She may not be fit and as trained as she used to be, but she must know a trick or two, no? Goodness gracious, I hope the Undersiders and Travelers’ plan of capturing her doesn’t bite them on the rear later.

Anyway, I think I’ll stop for now.

Next time: in two updates

[boorat]

updated sketch for Dragonball PR by BooRat

I want a picture of PackRat with Angelik , Ella Diabla /PR-R63 , Bradley, Dru-Scylla, Chesh , Scorpia , and Cancer  all together like a movie poster or a team pose like the Ginyu Force did, but not as flamboyant since this team is at least more than 50% made up of females!   The exact position of each character I've not decided on yet. I don't want it to be based on a preexisting one from the show or movies. I do want it to showcase all the characters as much as possible with as little of them being overlapped and hiding parts of one another. Now, on to the new character designs. Since these are my characters set in the DBZ-universe or a variant of it they're designs will be changed somewhat to fit in more with the Akira Toriyama art style. 1.) PackRat, I kind of want 2 different versions of him. In the DBZ universe there are lots of characters with more than 1 form. Normally a base or calm form and then a powered up full strength battle form. Sometimes even 4-5 forms but I'm going to keep it simple of just the 2. Starting form he is lien built a lot like Frieza's Final Form when he 1st transforms into that form or more like Imperfect Cell's build.   He's wearing a full head covering helmet/mask like a mix of Gohan's Great Saiyaman helmet but minus the visor and with a mouth guard/shield something like what Cooler has in his final from and Cunber's.     He is wearing a wrecked up and broken old suit of Saiyan Armor the kind seen on Cooler's Armored Squadron with the single shoulder pad on the left side.  He's got the collar of a God of Destruction uniform around his shoulders. There's a large hole in the middle of the armor exposing PR's chest symbol with his portal generator. He still has his harness with his swords and shield across his chest.   His cyborg left arm is just like Mecha-Frieza's but with PR's signature 6th finger .  Here's the biggest new change to PR is his right arm is based on Perfect Cell's organic armored arm design with the shoulder horn/spike of Porunga, but with only 4 digits on the hand which will be covered in his calm state with Saiyan Armor gloves but in his traditional colors. He is wearing a pair of God of Destruction pants/bottoms with the sash. With the Majin belt buckle! His boots are a lot like the Angel'sbut with PR's colors. Finally for PR's tail it'll be like Frieza's in his 2nd Form but with out the stripe/lines running the length of it. Now for PR's final form design he gains a lot of mass and muscle and he bulks up to be roughly the same build as Broly but his body is hairy now like a Super Saiyan 4 but green and all. Because of his head getting bigger his Helmet is now gone but his humanoid face is gone and is replaced with a more animal like rat face like Quitela. but with whiskers like Shenron's  and lots of piercings. He hair his also a lot like a Super Saiyan 3'ssame color even. He's got an Angel's halo around his neck.   Also because of the transformation his gloves are gone and we see his bare right hand. and his knuckles are spiked like Xicor His boots too are now gone and we see his bare feet are a lot like Frieza's race's feet or a Great Ape's feet but with long talons. PR's wings are still part of his feet as well. 2.) Angelik, she for the most part will remain unchanged just a basic translation into the DBZ art style. Her design will mostly be built on a Saiyan female like Gine with her cat tail wrapped around her waist and the armor on over her Angel uniform. Her angelic wings will be like Angel Goku's. Her face will be like a normal human's but with a small cat nose. She'll also keep her halo even though she isn't dead as per what it means in the anime/manga. She i also wearing her collar and bell. 3.)Ella Diabla/PR-R63,she'll have a slightly more toned build than Angelik with it being based more on Fasha's build. Since her physical form is just a female counter part to PR her features will be reminiscent of his such as his tail, winged ankles, hand-like feet, rodent-like ears, and in this universe both her arms will have the exoskeleton design of Cell's just like PR's right arm. Now she sorta has a 2nd form but it's a shadow/demon form she projects from her body as a mental attack and it looks like Kale with large bat-like wings like those of Tambourine. As for her clothing in her physical form she's dress in a costume similar to Android 21.  Her demon form wears only a body hugging suit a lot like the one Towawares. As for her face both forms have the same facial feature as one another the only difference is her physical form has PR's logo painted/tattoo over it. Her hair style should be the same in both forms and based on Videl'spigtails. 4.) Bradley's a smaller built character with a height and build like Chiaotzu. His skin texture and head should be more like Bibbidi or Bobbidi. He should have horns like Captain Ginyuand the head veins too for good measure. His ears should be like Piccolo's but with earrings. His clothing should be more like Android 19's or Dr. Kyuuas he is PR's science officer/mechanic/doctor. The big thing I want is both his feet are missing with only a tiny bit bone showing out of the stumps like a piece of roasted meat. He gets around by hovering around with his Ki a lot like most smaller characters in DBZ. 5.) Chesh, he is an odd case for this group. His body type is effeminate but he is male so might base his body shape on Bullaas she appeared in GT. Like Angelik he should have ears like or Puar'sor Beerus. His horns should be like Chilled's. As for his goat-like legs Yakon is the only ref. Chesh's 2 tails will be like the Saiyan's tails but he won't wrap them around himself like they do or like Angelik. His costume will be again like Chirai's  Saiyan Armor. His over all though appearance and posing will be based more around Schrodingerfrom Hellsing style. 6 and 7.) Scorpia and Cancer these 2 are going to sort of count as one for this list. They're both cyborgs with their machine parts resembling Cacao's and Mecha-Frieza/Coola's.   Their torsos are compose like Android 16's but of coarse female.   The only differences between the 2 are Scorpia is taller than Cancer (similar to how Goku is taller than Krillin), Scorpia has 4 arms (she ha her 2 normal human arms mounted on her ribs just blow her breast level and mounted where her normal arms should be are 2 larger machine arms like Dr. Wheelo's)  where as Cancer only has 2 (with only her left arm being like Wheelo's ), Scorpia has her normal legs except for her left foot which is mechanical and Cancer's whole left leg is mechanical and looks just like her left arm , Scorpia's color scheme being orange and Cancer's is red, Scorpia has a large tail like Mecha-Frieza's and Cancer doesn't have one at all, Scorpia has short cropped hair like Vegeta in GTand Cancer has longer hair like Bad Launch in DB, and finally Scorpia has a mostly machine face like Meta-Cooler (aka the Big Gete Star Core) while Cancer has a normal head with just an eye patch over her left eye.   8.) Dru-Scylla, The head is a hybrid mixture of a Hammerhead Shark's and Monster Shark. With a mixture of a boat prop and a drill bit on her nose like the character Slash from Street Sharks. 4 catfish-like whiskers; 2 short ones in the front and 2 extremely long ones in the back: Curly hair that resembles a sea anemone! A torso like the female Turtle: Four muscular arms like King Chappa but with fused fingered flipper hands like the Batman Returns Penguin! Fin-like wings on her back between her arms and her tortoise shell. The legs and feet should be like those's of Namekian Frog(Ginyu)! Between the legs are 2 flippers The 2nd torso on her back is that of a teen girl with mermaid themed features: with a cephalopod for the back of her head after her hairline like the Female Boos! They share a long muscular eel-like tail similar to Porunga's that ends in a sting-ray Their costumes should be Fusion uniform , but minus the pants. The 2nd torso's on her back her uniform is more like Jerez Lastly I'd like to compose the stances/setup/whatever. I'm thinking more the poster setup with PR in the middle hovering off the ground in his calm form using his ankle wings for lift instead of using his Ki. Angelik is standing the closest to him on his right hovering/flying off the ground like she just took off using her wings too. Next closest to PR is Bradley who is using his Ki to hover off of PR's left. Chesh is on the ground below the others in a more cat like pose with a long chain leash lead from his neck to either PR or maybe Ella. Ella's physical form is standing on the ground or is hovering just a few inches off the grounds will her wings and she has her energy(Ki) up and is projecting her demon form out and from her self upwards to join the others in the sky. Ella is also off toward PR's left side with her demon form being closer to Bradley than PR himself. with Ella's form demon form appearing. Scorpia and Cancer are both in the same standing poses with their hands to their hips (Scorpia's human hands are on her hips while her large robot arms are resting at her sides) on opposite sides of PR. In movie poster terms they'd be in the bottom corners more in the back ground than the others. Dru-Scylla is to replace my Ex's character in the reference image!  the pose should be more a side angled T&A pose so both torsos are seen! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php… And finally up above them all in the upper sky we see PR's final form in a charging up full on battle stance.I'd like 2 pieces in My Hero Academia(僕のヒーローアカデミア Boku no Hīrō Akademia) art style.   1.) My main OC PackRat. 2.) My Mockmaid sea-creature, Dru-Scylla! Both pieces I want in the style of a character profile sheet!  So 3-4 full-body pictures per-character with a few close up head-shots! 1 Full-body front pose in school uniform, 1 Full-body front-angle pose in gym/swimming uniform, 1 Full-body front-angle pose in hero/villain uniform, 1 Full-body back pose in hero/villain uniform, 1 unmasked head-shot, 1 masked head-shot, and 1 emotional head-shot! I got a list of character references and parts I want for each character that I'd like!   For Dru-Scylla: The head is a hybrid mixture of a Hammerhead Shark's and the 1st Nomu.  with the Nomu's metal lips. With a mixture of a boat prop and a drill bit on her nose like the character Slash from Street Sharks. Sirius's Good Ears: 4 catfish-like whiskers; 2 short ones in the front and 2 extremely long ones in the back that end in earphone jacks: Curly hair that resembles a sea anemone! A torso like the female Ninja Turtle: Four muscular arms like Fourth Kind but with fused fingered flipper hands like the Batman Returns Penguin! Fin-like wings on her back between her arms and her tortoise shell. For this version they should resemble the wings of the High-End Nomu's Shoulder-Mounted Jets: High-End has shoulder-mounted jets which can allow him to hover in the air and fly!   The legs and feet should be like those's of Froppy(Tsuyu Asui)!  Well, when bare footed her feet here should look just like slightly oversized webbed humanoid feet. Between the legs are 2 flippers en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelvic_f… The 2nd torso on her back is that of a Ganguro-style teen girl with mermaid themed features: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganguro with a cephalopod for the back of her head after her hairline like the Innsmouth siblings! They share a long muscular eel-like tail that ends in a sting-ray that ends in a electric plug stinger: Their profession costumes(hero/villain) should have goggles over the shark eyes that looks like Tsu's  a full-body wet-suit like Selkie's , but more revealing like BubbleGirl's with an animal/scaly print pattern like  the leggings/boots being more like Tsu's as for the 2nd torso's on her back her uniform is more like Midnight's but with a breathing helmet that looks like's  Ochako Uraka's !! Now for PR's design! 1st one of them in their school uniform looking like a combo of Tokoyami and Shoji  in that he’s got an animal head and aesthetic with a mouth and nose obscuring mask.  He should also be missing his left arm at half way between the elbow and sholder with the sleeve pinned rolled up. 2nd of in the UA Gym uniform showing off more of his unique physiology like his tail , winged ankles , finger-like toes, reptilian right arm  which is more muscular and larger, his left arm is a cyborg prosthetic, the light of his chest reactor shining through the fabric of his shirt, ect…  Maybe here we can have like his mugshot showing his un-hidden face and he looks like a Nomu mixed with Principal Nezu.3rd one is him in his Hero costume which mostly is his costumes in his reference images above but made to look more like how it’d translate to the BNHA style. His mask is much more stylized like the plague doctors mask worn by Eight Precepts of Death mixed with Toga’s  gas mask, he’s hot his top hat, harness, 3 different types of swords on his back, a war-hammer on his belt, a Spartan-style shield on one arm, pouches, a single knee pad, combat boots, ect… Basically he’d gravitate more towards Snipe or Midnight as a mentors over All Might unlike Izuku! His hero costume would have elements of BDSM gear and military gear.

[unstable-reality]

Static in the Signal: Chapter One

After a couple months of IRL doom...I’ve finally gotten this going!

The Alliance has been infiltrated. On Hoth, able to trust only one another, Jyn and Cassian race to uncover the mole. Sequel to The Space Between Echoes.

[AO3] 

The corridors of Echo Base were busy and cramped, more so than those of Yavin 4. It wasn’t that there were more personnel, or that the passages were more narrow; on the contrary, the opposite was true. Echo was a work in progress. Half-built, half-ready. The Alliance had pushed itself. Divisions had blurred; sentients had undertaken tasks normally designated to droids. Cassian had spent more hours than he cared to scraping out tunnels, and still, there was more to be done. The base was functional, and as secure as could currently be hoped for, but it was nowhere near proper headquarter status.

He hated it. He hated the hand he’d had in creating it.

Snowflakes, riding on gusts in the hangar, clung to his beard and eyelashes. His lower back ached. It had been fine, mostly, when he’d been on his ship, but now it was a pulsing throb, heightened by the cold. There was a sensation, to the left of his spine, as if something were clicking, sliding. He felt it often. His entire hip was not quite right. He tried not to think about it. He’d try not to for as long he could manage.

He passed a contingent of droids, threading wires through a length of pipe, easing them through a hole in the wall. Sparks fanned outward, struck metal, burned hot and bright before vanishing. His nose stung. A humanoid model with a black chassis spared him a glance. It wasn’t the same face, or the same body, and it hadn’t been manufactured for the same purpose, but still, there was a closing in, a pressure on his lungs, a thickness in his throat. He shoved it back into the same place he put his pain.

A group of pilots walked toward him, on the opposite side of the corridor. They were animated, chatting, smiling. The one on the outside struck his shoulder. She looked back. Her cheeks and forehead were framed by stray curls.

“Sorry.”

He was pretty sure she didn’t know him, but he knew her. He knew everyone. Shara Bey. He gave her a nod. She blinked, nodded back. His fingers twitched toward his coat pockets. It was an old reflex.

CIC, when he reached it, was a cold, noisy mess. Divisions were on top of one another. The lighting was utilitarian. He walked past clusters of operators, past soldiers and commanders conferring; past screens, transparent save for the glowing outlines of maps. He was used to debriefing in confined spaces -- or, at least, in mostly private ones. Having to meet the General out here made the back of his neck itch. But there wasn’t much to be done for it, unless everyone in Intelligence started meeting in special quarters, and that would telecast more than they were willing.

Draven sat at a desk in a corner. He was leaning back, frowning at a datapad. The space around him was dark.

He looked up. His eyes shifted, taking Cassian in. He straightened. “Captain.”

Cassian saluted.

“At ease.” Draven folded his hands over his lap. “Report.”

Cassian’s stance widened. “I abandoned the objective. Imperials had already established a presence.”

Draven frowned. “It took you five standard days to come to that conclusion?”

“No, sir.” He felt a familiar prickle, where his neck joined to his skull. He breathed. His features held still. “I delayed to ensure I hadn’t been followed.”

“You had no opportunity to send a message?”

The prickling spread, over his shoulders and upper back. “It didn’t seem prudent, sir, no.” He was used to lying. He did it all the time. But he had only once before lied to the man sitting in front of him. It was necessary. It was right. Habit made it feel wrong, and experience made it feel dangerous, in a way that few of his gambits had.

Draven regarded him for a long moment, then sighed, planted his elbow on the arm of his chair, ran his forefinger along the skin between his upper lip and nose. “You’re certain there’s nothing that could be done? No way to dislodge them?”

“Not without drawing undue attention.”

There was a pause. The air was filled with the chatter of nearby operators, hushed and indistinct; with indicators beeping, their songs overlapping and bleeding into one another. Cassian was good at what he did -- brilliant, if he was to take the word of a certain woman in his life -- and he took precautions, and in twenty years, and even as a child, and even when his fear had all but run him and his heart had beat so loud that he’d been sure everyone could hear, he’d never been caught, apart from on Jedha.

He’d barely begun to play this game, and already he felt the whisper of a noose.

Draven rose. “Walk with me.”

They moved toward the rear of CIC. Draven led them down a small passage. Their shoulders brushed. “You know why you’re being given these assignments.”

He gritted his teeth. Of course he knew. He knew why he was no longer being sent to recruit, why other agents were landing undercover missions, why he was spending his time scouting and acquiring supplies. The things he was doing were important things, useful things, but they were also, to a certain extent, unsuited to him. He’d said it to Jyn, in so many words: punishment, fancied up in accolades. “Sir.”

“Your saving grace is that you’ve continued to get results. But make no mistake: we’re in no position to tolerate sloppiness or insubordination.” He stopped. His gaze swept back and forth, along the passage. It was clear, save for the two of them, but he stepped closer, nonetheless. “This isn’t the first instance lately where the Empire has been ahead of us. If there’s a reason for the pattern, then we need to find it.”

Cassian looked up. His hands were behind his back, resting at the spot where the soreness began, the thumb and forefinger of one hand wrapped around the wrist of the other. His heart fluttered. He waited.

“I want you to look into it. No one else is to know.”

Well, that was going to be a problem.

“Consider this the next step in regaining our full trust. If it goes well, we’ll look at returning Albarrio to you.” Draven tilted his head back. He was tall enough to look down at Cassian naturally; the gesture heightened the effect. “You’ve been one of our better agents, Andor. Don’t disappoint me.”

Cassian replied with a single, tight nod, lips drawn downward, brow relaxed. Draven’s eyes ran up and down his face. His lips thinned.

“Dismissed,” he muttered, and turned and headed off, back toward CIC.

Cassian stared after him. His mind ran laps. His heart wasn’t racing, not exactly, but it was beating faster, and a thread of nervous heat was working its way through his core. Alliance Intelligence wasn’t stupid; it wasn’t surprising that they’d noticed something, or that they’d started to suspect what he already knew. But he hadn’t expected to be made aware of that suspicion, at least not so soon. It might be a good thing. It might also be very, very bad.

At least a full minute passed before he moved, walking in the opposite direction of the General, following the passage to its end. It emptied into a lesser-used corridor. Darker than the others, colder, walls and floor left rough. It took him a moment to orient himself. He wondered if they knew something. He wondered if someone had seen, or heard. He could be more open, now, if he wanted, and that would give him access to more channels, but part of why he hadn’t sought them in the first place was because he couldn’t be sure about them. And then, of course, there was Jyn. It would make things harder for her, if they were monitoring him on this.

Shit.

His quarters were on the edge of the South Passage. Despite the marks against him, he was still a Captain, and that entitled him to a private room. It was small -- four meters long and two and a half wide -- and the heating was as unreliable as on the rest of the base, but he needed it, these days, and was grateful for it. He took off his coat. Sat on the edge of his bunk, ran his hands over his face, settled his thumbs under his chin, his forefingers on either side of his nose. He needed a shave. He needed to talk to his contact. He needed to know whether he could still trust him. The thought came, speeding along tracks laid a lifetime ago, that he might have to neutralize him.

Call it what it is, Andor: killing.

He forced it away.

There was a rap at the door. His hands fell, wrists landing on his knees, fingers dangling between them. He flooded with irritation. He didn’t want to be bothered. He wanted to sift through his thoughts, pick at this new assignment, this new potential problem, until sleep rolled over him and dragged him under. The rap came again. He squeezed his eyes shut, took a long breath, and rose.

He leaned against the door. His voice was pitched low. “Who’s there?”

“Sergeant Erso,” the visitor said, the rank sounding strange and forced.

He felt a jolt in his gut. The irritation fled. He straightened and palmed the panel beside the door, movements jerky with urgency. She was standing with her arms folded across her chest, shifting from one foot to the other. Radiating with that constant, hair-trigger energy, that livewire buzz that made her mere presence loud. Her cheeks were pink from the cold. Her hair was crusted and shiny with frost. She didn’t smile when they made eye contact, but her features softened.

“Captain.” There were other people moving about. “I heard you were back.”

Of course she had. He’d have known the exact moment she returned, were their positions reversed.

“There’s something I’d like to ask you. One of the scouts said you’d probably know.” She jutted her chin toward his quarters. “Do you mind?”

“No.” He wondered if they were really fooling anyone. He suspected that they weren’t. The calculating part of him thought it might be useful: sleeping together as a cover for conspiring. Then again, they already had a reputation for the latter. What am I going to do? “Please.” He stepped to the side, allowing her to pass. They didn’t touch. The door closed, and still, they didn’t touch. For a long moment, they didn’t even speak.

He hadn’t seen her in five standard days. He was aching from it, powerfully, all over, and yet he just stood there, looking at her. He felt awkward. He couldn’t imagine why; there was no reason for him to, after everything that had passed between them. But it was all so new, and he wasn’t sure what normal was, and he had a feeling that she didn’t know, either. They were making it up as they went.

Were they watching her? Had they spoken to her, too?

“So,” she said, at last. There was a ledge carved into the wall above the foot of his bunk. She placed her blaster and truncheon there, beside his own weapons. “How’d it go?”

He opened his mouth, closed it, breathed through his nose. Walked past her. He couldn’t be near the door when he started talking. Neither of them could. He leaned against the desk opposite his bunk, curling his fingers under the lip and crossing his legs at the ankles. “I’m not sure if ‘well’ is the right word.” He’d wanted to avoid being followed, it was true. It made sense to take the long way home. But it hadn’t been the only reason. He’d made a stop, along the way, off the record. “I was able to find out how Telara had been turned.” He paused. “They took his family. They told him they’d kill them, one by one, and record it.”

He let the implication sink in. Her jaw and shoulders tightened. Her eyes dropped.

“Wish I could say that was surprising.” She said it softly. “Did they not know who he was, until recently?”

“I don’t think that they did, no.”

“But all those years...”

He nodded. She was so close to him. He could tap her leg, if he moved his foot a hair. He could take her hand, if he pushed himself forward and reached out. His thoughts skittered back and forth. They had to talk about this, about all of it. There were things that needed doing. The mission didn’t stop being the mission just because he’d missed her. “I know. It might have been that his luck ran out; that’s the way it is with informants. He might also have been deliberately compromised.” It would fit. It would make sense. He was almost certain it was what had happened. “But I wasn’t able to determine that. There wasn’t the time.”

Her hands moved to to her lower back; her shoulders tugged at her snow-colored thermal coat. It was ill-fitting. He wanted her to take it off. “So that’s it.”

“For that, yes. For now.”

He could tell she was gritting her teeth. “It’s not a whole lot.”

“No,” he admitted. He’d have liked to have gotten more out of it, himself. He might have, if he’d thought he could get away with a longer delay. But the speculation, the direction of it -- that was a piece. There’d been times when he’d unraveled entire plots from less. “But it’s something more than we had before.”

Silence fell for a moment. There was a rumble beneath their feet, followed by a long, low groan. The shield doors were closing. She took a few steps toward him. “How, uh.” Her throat worked. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.” She was trying to change the subject. “There’s something else.” Would she expect it? Did she already know? He wanted to grab her waist and pull her to him.

Her gaze roved over his face. “What?”

“Draven,” he said. “He knows something’s off. He’s asked me to look into it.”

“Are we in trouble, then?”

“More so than usual, you mean?” He found himself uncrossing his ankles, standing up, moving to meet her. His hip popped. He grimaced. “I don’t know yet.” I don’t know if I can keep you safe. And he wanted to. He’d been wanting to since before he’d even realized that that was what was driving him. There was hardly any space left between them. Her fingers brushed against his. The air was cold. He ran hot. “What about you? Anything?” He touched her hair, her face, her neck. His blood was rushing, pooling.

“Nothing new.” She took his hand. Her fingers wove between his and flared outwards. “Cassian, I’m serious.”

He sighed. “What do you want me to say?” He ran his thumb along her jawline. “I really don’t know.” Thoughts of duty were fading.

She clicked her tongue and shook her head. Her lips, however, were curving upwards. She placed her hand on his hip, passed it around to his back. Pressed her fingers into his flesh. “You should get this checked out, you know.”

She’d noticed. It wouldn’t have been her if she hadn’t. “No need,” he said.

“Hypocrite.”

He smiled at her. He couldn’t reach her knee, but he wrapped an arm around her waist, and drew her to where it touched his own. “That was different.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Her voice had gotten very quiet. Her words were captured by his breath. “You’re being stubborn.”

He sniffed. Their foreheads touched. He splayed his hands over the small of her back; she wrapped one of hers around the back of his neck. His chest was swelling. “How have you been? Really?”

“Bored.” It was half a chuckle. She tilted her head upwards. Her nose brushed his.

“That’s a shame,” he murmured against her lips. In truth, he was relieved. It meant nothing had happened, at least not to her. She leaned up and into him, whispered something he couldn’t make out, and then kissed him. Her lips were cold, at first; an artifact of Hoth, and all its unpleasantness. Friction warmed them. He held her fast. He kneaded her hip, her rear, and slipped one hand up, behind her head, under her bun, through her hair. She gripped his neck. Cupped his cheek. Hooked a thumb under his belt. Their movements were slow, languid. Their kiss was at once deep and raw and delicate.

He’d missed her. He couldn’t believe how much he’d missed her. He trembled from the force of it. He broke away and buried his face in her neck and shoulder. “Jyn.”

“What?”

She kissed his jaw, his neck. One of her hands moved over his abdomen and slid upward. He pressed his lips and tongue to her neck. Her body rolled against his. He planted his palm between her shoulder blades, and let himself roll back.

“You’re staying?”

Her fingers dug into his shirt. Her thumbs moved downward, then back up, bunching the fabric. It was coming out from his trousers. It would be cold, but it would be worth it, as it had been, for the past month.

“Of course,” she replied, tone heavy and rough.

He walked her backwards, toward his bunk. He fumbled for the buttons on her coat. Her hands covered his, helped him. She caught his bottom lip between her teeth and tugged, and he let her pull him, increased the pressure on the back of her head, sucked on her tongue, and pulled her right back. A gasp, sharp and sweet, rose out of her and landed in his mouth. Fire lapped at his spine.

Would they see? Would they try to take her from him? She already knew things that, as it turned out, she wasn’t supposed to know. He'd just been told that no one could be a part of it. She was already a part of it. He couldn’t not have her be a part of it. Strange, how his loyalty had shifted.

He’d never done this before.

She grabbed him, and moved in some way, and he was on his back. Her thighs were around his midsection. He squeezed them.

It was hard to think.

He wished he couldn't think at all.

[technato]

Elektro the Moto-Man Had the Biggest Brain at the 1939 World’s Fair

This voice-controlled robot could walk, talk, and smoke, and it captivated crowds

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Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be very glad to tell my story. I am a smart fellow as I have a very fine brain of 48 electrical relays.” This is how Elektro the robot introduced itself to crowds at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Standing 2.1 meters tall and weighing 118 kilograms, Elektro performed 26 different tricks, including walking, talking, counting, and singing. It had a vocabulary of approximately 700 words, although its responses were all prerecorded and played back from 33⅓-rpm records. One of Elektro’s pet lines was, “My brain is bigger than yours.” At 25 kg, it certainly was.

Elektro was one of a family of robots that evolved out of Westinghouse’s switchgear business. By the early 1920s, the company had succeeded in developing fully automatic electrical substations, and its engineers were looking for ways to improve them. One operator requested a way to call the substation system remotely and initiate a change in the normal operating routine. Thus was born Televox, a set of control units that started Westinghouse down the path to developing robots.

Roy J. Wensley designed Televox to change switches in a substation in response to sounds it detected. One half of the Televox unit sat on the desk of a dispatcher at a central power station and the other at the substation. The Televox at the central station used tuning-fork oscillators to create different frequencies, which formed a code that the receiving Televox could interpret. The operator would send the code to the substation over an existing phone line. The receiver unit had to raise the telephone receiver, process the incoming codes, and then respond with the appropriate action, such as opening or closing a particular switch.

Wensley saw plenty of potential uses for the device in the public utility field. He asked the advertising department to help with publicity but was turned down. He did, however, have enough in his discretionary project budget to build a portable demonstration model of the Televox. A 1928 advertisement promoted the Televox as “a new instrument which is to become the servant of the future.” But Wensley had the intuition of a salesman and knew his box of relays and wires wouldn’t appeal to nontechnical audiences, and so he decided to dress it up a bit.

On 21 February 1928, Herbert Televox made its debut at the Level Club in New York City. This “robot” was simply a crude humanoid form (head, articulated arms, and legs) made out of wallboard with the Televox control unit forming the body. Herbert Televox’s great trick: unveiling a portrait of George Washington in honor of Washington’s Birthday. Giving a name, face, and personality to a control unit turned out to be a stroke of genius, capturing the popular imagination for the possibilities of robotics.

Photo: Mansfield Memorial Museum

Robot Family: Herbert Televox [left] was Westinghouse’s first human-form robot. The more famous member of the Westinghouse robot family was Elektro; a copy is shown in the middle, while the original is on the right.

Enthusiastic reporters exaggerated Herbert’s skills, claiming it could manage an entire home by remote control. Wensley spent a great deal of effort correcting the record about Televox’s actual abilities. Nevertheless, the publicity spurred further research. The U.S. military, for instance, investigated using Televox to fire guns remotely. Rural airports that didn’t maintain staff around the clock considered using it to automatically light up runways when planes approached at night.

In 1929, Wensley was serendipitously assigned to coordinate the engineering and marketing of refrigerators. This led him to the Westinghouse Appliance Division, in Mansfield, Ohio, where he met several likeminded engineers. They soon rolled out Katrina van Televox, Rastus, and a few other robots. With each iteration, the engineers worked to refine the machines’ movement, sound, control, and skill set.

Elektro was their ultimate creation. Built by J.M. Barnett, Jack Weeks Sr., Harold Gorsuch, and other engineers at the Mansfield plant, the robot had a torso, arms, and legs made from aluminum sheeting. Its head and hands were cast aluminum. Other parts were pilfered from the factory—power cords from irons, coffee pots, and waffle makers, wheels from vacuum cleaners.

Elektro wowed audiences, first at the World’s Fair and then on tour across the country, and it hawked appliances for Westinghouse. But you’d be wrong to dismiss it as simply a publicity stunt. The engineers who developed Elektro were pioneers, attempting to turn science fiction into reality by developing a voice-activated robot.

Everybody Loves Robots

Gif: IEEE Spectrum

Robots continue to captivate crowds, but they have changed a lot since Elektro. Check out the latest, most advanced designs in our new Robots website.

An operator gave voice commands to Elektro through a microphone, but the robot didn’t actually understand the words. According to an article in the August 1939 issue of Radio-Craft magazine, the voice commands were carefully timed syllabic codes, which were turned into electrical pulses by a grid-glow tube [PDF]. The pulse opened a shutter in front of a lightbulb, sending a flash signal across the room to a photoelectric tube in the robot’s control unit, located offstage. This “electric eye” translated the signal into an electric current and transmitted it through telephone relays to start Elektro’s gears whirring.

According to C. Bruce Hardy, who toured with Elektro in 1942–43, all of the commands that started or ended a trick followed a 3-1-2 syllable pattern, with pauses between the phrasing. For example, “Will you come / down / front please?” would start Elektro moving forward. “You have come / far / enough” would make the robot stop. Operators could vary the wording as long as they kept to the pattern. “Tell us how / old / you are” and “Count your age / with / fingers” both could trigger the same trick. But operators stuck to an orchestrated script; they didn’t jump around in the program.

Although walking was one of Elektro’s trumpeted tricks, the robot didn’t really walk. Its left knee bent, with the right leg dragging behind, as it moved on wheels along a track in the stage.

Like the other Westinghouse humanoids, Elektro smoked cigarettes. An assistant would helpfully place a cigarette in a hole in the robot’s upper lip and light it. Elektro would take a few drags, exhaling the smoke in short puffs before the assistant extinguished it. After each performance, operators had to clean the tar out of the smoking mechanism’s tubing. Cigarette-smoking robots still exist today, but instead of casually lighting up, they puff away in laboratories to aid research on lung disease.

Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images

Robot’s Best Friend: Westinghouse introduced Sparko the dog as a companion for Elektro.

In 1941 a second hole was added to Elektro’s upper lip, but this one was for a more innocuous party trick. Elektro liked to challenge audience members to balloon-blowing competitions, seeing who could burst the balloon first. Equipped with an air hose and compressor, the robot almost always won.

Elektro’s dog, Sparko, was added to the World’s Fair show in 1940. Sparko could move forward and back, sit down, turn its head, wag its tail, and bark. Don Lee Hadley designed Sparko based on his own Scottish terrier, Bonnie. Westinghouse commissioned three dogs (the prototype plus a companion each for Elektro and another Westinghouse robot, Willie Vocalite), but none are known to survive today.

Recently, I created a biography page for Elektro on IMDb, where it now joins other robot movie stars like Alexa, Siri, and Robby the Robot. Elektro starred in The Middleton Family at the New York World’s Fair, a 1939 film produced by Westinghouse to help promote the company’s appliances.

https://spectrum.ieee.org//www.youtube.com/embed/Q6TQEoDS-fQ

It also appeared on the television show You Asked for It hosted by Art Baker in 1951, returning the following year as a finalist for the most popular episode of the previous year. And for several years after the World’s Fair and again after World War II, Elektro toured the country doing live performances, mostly in the housewares sections of department stores.

In 1958, a talent agent spotted the aging robot in a Westinghouse exhibit at Pacific Ocean Park, near Los Angeles, where it was playing second fiddle to a one-third-scale model of the nuclear-powered Nautilus submarine. That sighting earned Elektro a role as S.A.M. Thinko in 1960’s Sex Kittens Go to College. The Sequential Auxiliary Modulator blew a few fuses when confronted by the brilliant mind of Mamie van Doren’s Dr. Mathilda West, or possibly it was some of her other features. I suppose there’s humor in the blatant sexism of this B movie, if only the reality didn’t exist to this day in so many academic settings.

After its brief time in Hollywood, Elektro was packed into crates, sent back to its birthplace, and all but forgotten. The robot managed to survive the scrap heap and found a home at the Mansfield Memorial Museum, in Ohio, where it is now on permanent display. The museum’s director, Scott Schaut, has accumulated a tremendous archive of material related to the development of robotics at Westinghouse. He’s always on the lookout for more, although he says it saddens him to know how much history has already been destroyed. “Every day, historical artifacts are discarded or thrown in the trash without any regard to their significance to the community and the posterity of history,” Schaut writes in his book Robots of Westinghouse, 1924–Today, which reproduces numerous photos and promotional materials documenting Elektro’s history.

The book concludes with an intriguing scenario: What if Elektro had a female companion? Schaut knows of six sketches of women robots, created by Westinghouse’s robot team. They have some of Elektro’s features, such as the circular light in the chest, but they differ in hairstyle, facial expression, and bust and hip measurements. Plus, all of the lady robots are wearing dresses. Sadly, an Elektra never seems to have been built.

An abridged version of this article appears in the October 2018 print issue as “Elektro the Moto-Man.”

Part of a continuing series looking at photographs of historical artifacts that embrace the boundless potential of technology.

About the Author

Allison Marsh is an associate professor of history at the University of South Carolina and codirector of the university’s Ann Johnson Institute for Science, Technology & Society.

Elektro the Moto-Man Had the Biggest Brain at the 1939 World’s Fair syndicated from https://jiohowweb.blogspot.com

[comedianrobotmaster]

PSA for future Megaman design sketches

[Sorry for being inactive on here for quite a while, college got busy, but I’m managing to stay on top of it for now.] So, up until this point the re-designs I’ve been drawing and formulating have stayed relatively close to the source material [ and Ariga’s wonderful designs/style], the next batch including the star-droids from megaman V, robot-masters from megaman 3, and a select few others will have different distinct styles due to some differences of interpretation [I guess it could be called ‘headcannons’ as well]. Some of it could be considered too weird, so below I’ll type a brief warning for the major differences of some design points for each re-design. [P.S. I finished the re-design sketches for Mercury, I chose to post this first because it’s a PSA and it would defeat the purpose because its one of the re-designs included on here- it will be posted shortly.]

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Since the Stardriods are from outer space and technically ‘aliens’, I decided to go the horror/deeply unsettling theme with their designs mainly because anything from outer space is probably going to appear otherworldly and unsettling anyways; they will still be from outer space, they will still look ‘alien’ like, but still retain some aspects of their original designs.

The Stardroids, as a whole, is a intergalactic gang headed by Ra-Moon, who are ruthlessly set out to destroy any inhabited planet in their path- the group is diverse with some being organic organisms, cybernetic beings, heavily modified cyborgs, and highly advanced alien robots [each of them also serves a role on the space ship they travel in, I don’t want to spoil too much here so I’ll leave those details in their re-design descriptions.]

Mercury, since he poses the ability to turn into a green slime and have a weapon that saps away energy, I thought it would make more sense if he was the green morphing slime because it seemed more likely, out of the countless galaxies out there, that a living [and horrific] organism would have those characteristics than a robot made as an experiment. 

Venus is a unsettling man-sized alien lobster/crustacean that wears a weaponized robotic suit of armor that features orbs that emit a high intensity of electric bolts in nearly every direction. [It seemed logical that a group of aliens from various different galaxies/planets wouldn't necessarily be all humanoid in shape and appearance.]

Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus are Cyborgs; Neptune is an intelligent eel-like alien connected into a robotic combat suit/life-support system- Jupiter was once mostly an organic alien, but overtime dedicated almost the rest of his body as a specialized weapon system, only his brain remains inside of his weaponized shell. Uranus was once organic, but made the decision to replace his entire body [except his brain] body with cybernetic enhancements after he started to degrade with age. [I figured some diversity was a good thing here with their own individual reasons for being cyborgs.]

Pluto was formerly a cyborg, but eventually uploaded his mind into a digital format to become completely robotic with some help from Terra. [Since Pluto is associated with being a god of the underworld, I went to various lengths into making his re-design show that aspect by making it look as unsettling and alien as I possibly could while also retaining Pluto’s cat-like nature/traits.]His overall appearance could be best described as terrifying since he has four spider-like arms with retractable swards, a absurdly tall and thin body, a long flexible neck covered in translucent fur, [actually based this part off of cats because my cat at home appears to have a vary short fluffy neck one moment, the next moment she spots something on the ceiling and extends her neck to full length; its quite funny looking, but also has the potential to be somewhat unsettling when this same kind of characteristic is seen in something less cute/fluffy and more unfamiliar.] and a horizontal helmet with a smooth digital screen instead of a face [The screen has a simplistic tamagotchi-cat face/emojis on it to show emotions].

Terra is cybernetic, meaning he [and the super advanced world he came from] was born robotic with all of the perks of being a robot. His appearance is alien-like, but still humanoid; and instead of having a large mane of green hair, he has abstract shapes in the general shape of glowing neon green hair being projected by a holographic grid-like system along his head [I tried to shy away from hair when it came to aliens (with the exception being Pluto) because I felt it was too specific to be found on another planet with nearly the same characteristics/placement].

Saturn and Mars are advanced robots built by Terra; they have individual personalities and Advanced A.I.- Saturn's design is specialized in that his entire torso could spin independently from his lower waist to maximize his disk throwing [Seemed like a interesting design choice that also served a function]; Mars’ design features a vary heavy build with nearly every part of him doubling as weapon of some sort [He is going to appear slightly chubby, but chubby with weapons].

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Since Megaman 3 took place in outer space on eight different planets with the Energy Elements on said planets; the re-designs of the robot-masters are going to be space themed with some characteristics based on real spacesuits [don’t worry, they'll still look like Megaman robot-masters]. I won’t list all eight on here, but here are a key few:

Topman’s re-design features multiple industrial cutting lasers on his upper torso- so when he spins to attack, everything around him is sliced up by the lasers. [I figured that was way more efficient then just the spinning for an attack]

Snakeman’s re-design, since he was built to explore tight areas on foreign planets/ruins, features flexible, air pump-based joints and frame to allow him to crawl into any crevice so long as his helmet could fit [basically, he has no solid joints and framework to limit his flexibility in his limbs and body].

Shadowman’s re-design, since he was found in ruins and is hinted at having an alien origins, is mainly going to appear similar to a stardriod because of the alien aspect, however he will still be humanoid with a human-like face like an average robot-master.

[P.S. I’m not tagging this as a official ‘PSA’ mainly because it only has to do with my re-designs and nothing too major (and also I don’t wan’t an angry digital mob to swarm upon me on here)]

[boorat]

I want a picture of PackRatwith Angelik , Ella Diabla /PR-R63 , Bradley, Dru-Scylla, Chesh , Scorpia , and Cancer  all together like a movie poster or a team pose like the Ginyu Force did, but not as flamboyant since this team is at least more than 50% made up of females!   The exact position of each character I've not decided on yet. I don't want it to be based on a preexisting one from the show or movies. I do want it to showcase all the characters as much as possible with as little of them being overlapped and hiding parts of one another. Now, on to the new character designs. Since these are my characters set in the DBZ-universe or a variant of it they're designs will be changed somewhat to fit in more with the Akira Toriyama art style. 1.) PackRat, I kind of want 2 different versions of him. In the DBZ universe there are lots of characters with more than 1 form. Normally a base or calm form and then a powered up full strength battle form. Sometimes even 4-5 forms but I'm going to keep it simple of just the 2. Starting form he is lien built a lot like Frieza's Final Form when he 1st transforms into that form or more like Imperfect Cell's build.   He's wearing a full head covering helmet/mask like a mix of Gohan's Great Saiyaman helmet but minus the visor and with a mouth guard/shield something like what Cooler has in his final from and Cunber's.     He is wearing a wrecked up and broken old suit of Saiyan Armor the kind seen on Cooler's Armored Squadron with the single shoulder pad on the left side.  He's got the collar of a God of Destruction uniform around his shoulders. There's a large hole in the middle of the armor exposing PR's chest symbol with his portal generator. He still has his harness with his swords and shield across his chest.   His cyborg left arm is just like Mecha-Frieza's but with PR's signature 6th finger .  Here's the biggest new change to PR is his right arm is based on Perfect Cell's organic armored arm design with the shoulder horn/spike of Porunga, but with only 4 digits on the hand which will be covered in his calm state with Saiyan Armor gloves but in his traditional colors. He is wearing a pair of God of Destruction pants/bottoms with the sash. With the Majin belt buckle! His boots are a lot like the Angel'sbut with PR's colors. Finally for PR's tail it'll be like Frieza's in his 2nd Form but with out the stripe/lines running the length of it. Now for PR's final form design he gains a lot of mass and muscle and he bulks up to be roughly the same build as Broly but his body is hairy now like a Super Saiyan 4 but green and all. Because of his head getting bigger his Helmet is now gone but his humanoid face is gone and is replaced with a more animal like rat face like Quitela. but with whiskers like Shenron's  and lots of piercings. He hair his also a lot like a Super Saiyan 3'ssame color even. He's got an Angel's halo around his neck.   Also because of the transformation his gloves are gone and we see his bare right hand. and his knuckles are spiked like Xicor His boots too are now gone and we see his bare feet are a lot like Frieza's race's feet or a Great Ape's feet but with long talons. PR's wings are still part of his feet as well. 2.) Angelik, she for the most part will remain unchanged just a basic translation into the DBZ art style. Her design will mostly be built on a Saiyan female like Gine with her cat tail wrapped around her waist and the armor on over her Angel uniform. Her angelic wings will be like Angel Goku's. Her face will be like a normal human's but with a small cat nose. She'll also keep her halo even though she isn't dead as per what it means in the anime/manga. She i also wearing her collar and bell. 3.)Ella Diabla/PR-R63,she'll have a slightly more toned build than Angelik with it being based more on Fasha's build. Since her physical form is just a female counter part to PR her features will be reminiscent of his such as his tail, winged ankles, hand-like feet, rodent-like ears, and in this universe both her arms will have the exoskeleton design of Cell's just like PR's right arm. Now she sorta has a 2nd form but it's a shadow/demon form she projects from her body as a mental attack and it looks like Kale with large bat-like wings like those of Tambourine. As for her clothing in her physical form she's dress in a costume similar to Android 21.  Her demon form wears only a body hugging suit a lot like the one Towawares. As for her face both forms have the same facial feature as one another the only difference is her physical form has PR's logo painted/tattoo over it. Her hair style should be the same in both forms and based on Videl'spigtails. 4.) Bradley's a smaller built character with a height and build like Chiaotzu. His skin texture and head should be more like Bibbidi or Bobbidi. He should have horns like Captain Ginyuand the head veins too for good measure. His ears should be like Piccolo's but with earrings. His clothing should be more like Android 19's or Dr. Kyuuas he is PR's science officer/mechanic/doctor. The big thing I want is both his feet are missing with only a tiny bit bone showing out of the stumps like a piece of roasted meat. He gets around by hovering around with his Ki a lot like most smaller characters in DBZ. 5.) Chesh, he is an odd case for this group. His body type is effeminate but he is male so might base his body shape on Bullaas she appeared in GT. Like Angelik he should have ears like or Puar'sor Beerus. His horns should be like Chilled's. As for his goat-like legs Yakon is the only ref. Chesh's 2 tails will be like the Saiyan's tails but he won't wrap them around himself like they do or like Angelik. His costume will be again like Chirai's  Saiyan Armor. His over all though appearance and posing will be based more around Schrodingerfrom Hellsing style. 6 and 7.) Scorpia and Cancer these 2 are going to sort of count as one for this list. They're both cyborgs with their machine parts resembling Cacao's and Mecha-Frieza/Coola's.   Their torsos are compose like Android 16's but of coarse female.   The only differences between the 2 are Scorpia is taller than Cancer (similar to how Goku is taller than Krillin), Scorpia has 4 arms (she ha her 2 normal human arms mounted on her ribs just blow her breast level and mounted where her normal arms should be are 2 larger machine arms like Dr. Wheelo's)  where as Cancer only has 2 (with only her left arm being like Wheelo's ), Scorpia has her normal legs except for her left foot which is mechanical and Cancer's whole left leg is mechanical and looks just like her left arm , Scorpia's color scheme being orange and Cancer's is red, Scorpia has a large tail like Mecha-Frieza's and Cancer doesn't have one at all, Scorpia has short cropped hair like Vegeta in GTand Cancer has longer hair like Bad Launch in DB, and finally Scorpia has a mostly machine face like Meta-Cooler (aka the Big Gete Star Core) while Cancer has a normal head with just an eye patch over her left eye.   8.) Dru-Scylla, The head is a hybrid mixture of a Hammerhead Shark's and Monster Shark. With a mixture of a boat prop and a drill bit on her nose like the character Slash from Street Sharks. 4 catfish-like whiskers; 2 short ones in the front and 2 extremely long ones in the back: Curly hair that resembles a sea anemone! A torso like the female Turtle: Four muscular arms like King Chappa but with fused fingered flipper hands like the Batman Returns Penguin! Fin-like wings on her back between her arms and her tortoise shell. The legs and feet should be like those's of Namekian Frog(Ginyu)! Between the legs are 2 flippers The 2nd torso on her back is that of a teen girl with mermaid themed features: with a cephalopod for the back of her head after her hairline like the Female Boos! They share a long muscular eel-like tail similar to Porunga's that ends in a sting-ray Their costumes should be Fusion uniform , but minus the pants. The 2nd torso's on her back her uniform is more like Jerez Lastly I'd like to compose the stances/setup/whatever. I'm thinking more the poster setup with PR in the middle hovering off the ground in his calm form using his ankle wings for lift instead of using his Ki. Angelik is standing the closest to him on his right hovering/flying off the ground like she just took off using her wings too. Next closest to PR is Bradley who is using his Ki to hover off of PR's left. Chesh is on the ground below the others in a more cat like pose with a long chain leash lead from his neck to either PR or maybe Ella. Ella's physical form is standing on the ground or is hovering just a few inches off the grounds will her wings and she has her energy(Ki) up and is projecting her demon form out and from her self upwards to join the others in the sky. Ella is also off toward PR's left side with her demon form being closer to Bradley than PR himself. with Ella's form demon form appearing. Scorpia and Cancer are both in the same standing poses with their hands to their hips (Scorpia's human hands are on her hips while her large robot arms are resting at her sides) on opposite sides of PR. In movie poster terms they'd be in the bottom corners more in the back ground than the others. Dru-Scylla is to replace my Ex's character in the reference image!  the pose should be more a side angled T&A pose so both torsos are seen! https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BoobsAndButtPose?from=Main.OverTheShoulderPose And finally up above them all in the upper sky we see PR's final form in a charging up full on battle stance.I'd like 2 pieces in My Hero Academia(僕のヒーローアカデミア Boku no Hīrō Akademia) art style.   1.) My main OC PackRat. 2.) My Mockmaid sea-creature, Dru-Scylla! Both pieces I want in the style of a character profile sheet!  So 3-4 full-body pictures per-character with a few close up head-shots! 1 Full-body front pose in school uniform, 1 Full-body front-angle pose in gym/swimming uniform, 1 Full-body front-angle pose in hero/villain uniform, 1 Full-body back pose in hero/villain uniform, 1 unmasked head-shot, 1 masked head-shot, and 1 emotional head-shot! I got a list of character references and parts I want for each character that I'd like!   For Dru-Scylla: The head is a hybrid mixture of a Hammerhead Shark's and the 1st Nomu.  with the Nomu's metal lips. With a mixture of a boat prop and a drill bit on her nose like the character Slash from Street Sharks. Sirius's Good Ears: 4 catfish-like whiskers; 2 short ones in the front and 2 extremely long ones in the back that end in earphone jacks: Curly hair that resembles a sea anemone! A torso like the female Ninja Turtle: Four muscular arms like Fourth Kind but with fused fingered flipper hands like the Batman Returns Penguin! Fin-like wings on her back between her arms and her tortoise shell. For this version they should resemble the wings of the High-End Nomu's Shoulder-Mounted Jets: High-End has shoulder-mounted jets which can allow him to hover in the air and fly!   The legs and feet should be like those's of Froppy(Tsuyu Asui)!  Well, when bare footed her feet here should look just like slightly oversized webbed humanoid feet. Between the legs are 2 flippers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelvic_fin The 2nd torso on her back is that of a Ganguro-style teen girl with mermaid themed features: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganguro with a cephalopod for the back of her head after her hairline like the Innsmouth siblings! They share a long muscular eel-like tail that ends in a sting-ray that ends in a electric plug stinger: Their profession costumes(hero/villain) should have goggles over the shark eyes that looks like Tsu's  a full-body wet-suit like Selkie's , but more revealing like BubbleGirl's with an animal/scaly print pattern like  the leggings/boots being more like Tsu's as for the 2nd torso's on her back her uniform is more like Midnight's but with a breathing helmet that looks like's  Ochako Uraka's !! Now for PR's design! 1st one of them in their school uniform looking like a combo of Tokoyami and Shoji  in that he’s got an animal head and aesthetic with a mouth and nose obscuring mask.  He should also be missing his left arm at half way between the elbow and sholder with the sleeve pinned rolled up. 2nd of in the UA Gym uniform showing off more of his unique physiology like his tail , winged ankles , finger-like toes, reptilian right arm  which is more muscular and larger, his left arm is a cyborg prosthetic, the light of his chest reactor shining through the fabric of his shirt, ect…  Maybe here we can have like his mugshot showing his un-hidden face and he looks like a Nomu mixed with Principal Nezu.3rd one is him in his Hero costume which mostly is his costumes in his reference images above but made to look more like how it’d translate to the BNHA style. His mask is much more stylized like the plague doctors mask worn by Eight Precepts of Death mixed with Toga’s  gas mask, he’s hot his top hat, harness, 3 different types of swords on his back, a war-hammer on his belt, a Spartan-style shield on one arm, pouches, a single knee pad, combat boots, ect… Basically he’d gravitate more towards Snipe or Midnight as a mentors over All Might unlike Izuku! His hero costume would have elements of BDSM gear and military gear.