#i only have two characters on there right now because i doodle more than anything and am constantly losing all my papers so thats all i can

[broke-on-books]

Okay so. I have never ever done this before and have NO idea what I'm doing but I was bored at work and made an artfight account. Anyways my name on there is Swishyyellow so like if you're on there. That's me (also tell me what you guyses names are) so um yeah. <3333 peace and love on planet earth etc.

[juststandingthere]

ISTG this game is making me insane, brainrot strong enough for me to make my first analysis post

One thing i love about the narrative is how distorted the characters, relationships and events are from jimmy's pov. Most posts discussing this focus on Anya, and it makes sense bc she's probably the biggest victim of this. She's seen as less than a person, she's an incompetent nurse, she has a meek personality, she'll let anyone(jimmy) step over her and she still follows his orders, despite everything he has done to her. We obviously see, from curly's pov, that she's simply too terrified of her abuser to act any other way, and when she's not with him she's way more confident and competent.

I haven't seen as many people talking about how this "distortion" affects Swansea and Daisuke as well, including the relationship they have with each other.

We see, in the first Curly section, that Swansea is a great mentor to Daisuke (one might even say they have a father-son/uncle-nephew relationship). He takes his time to teach him not just the basics, but also how to do his job as safely as possible. He lets him take notes, he himself writes stuff down for him to remember and even lets him doodle on those notes! Sure he is harsh with him, but he clearly cares about him and wants him to be safe.

And in return Daisuke looks up to him and has great respect for him, as both a mechanic and a man, while he also makes some jokingly offensive comments towards the older man, showing the close bond they have formed.

But that's not what we see when we play as Jimmy.

In his pov we don't see them interacting much, when they do we either see Swansea insulting Daisuke for no apparent reason or, in one occasion, we see him leading the kid down a "bad path" wanting to teach him how to "drink like a man".

When they aren't interacting tho, we do see hints of their actual relationship: Swansea asking where the kid is when he is "partying" in the lounge, confirming that he does not, in fact, hate spending time with him; him looking desperately for something, *anything*, that could help Daisuke with his suffering after he's injured; how whenever Jimmy tries to bring up to Daisuke how "badly" Swansea treats him, or how he "lied" to them about the utility room, Daisuke immediately shuts him down, because he knows what he's saying is completely wrong (i'm pretty sure those are the only times he doubts something Jimmy says), showing once again the trust and respect he has for his mentor.

(this part is kinda speculative but i think it makes sense)

There are two other times where we see them interacting, where we actually see how much Swansea cares for the kid, and coincidentally, neither of them is seen through Jimmy's eyes, but from a third person pov: what Swansea says right before they knock him out with the drink, about how he resents the people that let Daisuke, someone with his whole life ahead of him, with so much optimism and joy, board the ship for a job that would inevitably leave him "mangled" and "smarter in a worse way" (i could make a whole other essay on this part but i won't), and what he says right before mercy killing him. In that scene specifically, as the camera pans out in the corridor as Swansea raises his axe, ready to take the final swing, Jimmy doesn't see the hesitation in his body language, the way his body tenses, the way he comforts the kid, telling him to close his eyes, the heavy breaths (crying?maybe?) right after the act. He only sees the older man as a monster that would take away an innocent life that jimmy would have been able to fix had he been given the time to fucking think.

Hell, now that i think about it, Swansea's final monologue, where we find out that he is in fact a good man who tried his best to better himself, who simply wanted to protect the kid and give him "a chance off this goddamn rock"(implying that the Cryopod was meant for Daisuke all along) is also shown in third person!

A few other things i found interesting:

1-The missing pieces between what happened to Daisuke in the vent and when Swansea started attacking Jimmy. There's a cut from when Daisuke screams to when he's laying on (Swansea's) bed, bloody and in pain; from when Jimmy uses the mouthwash to disinfect him (which only causes him to suffer more) and two hours later; from after the talk the two men have and the moment Jimmy decides to go find the gun, the axe gone from Daisuke's face. What happened in those missing scenes? Was Swansea the one who helped the kid onto his bed, trying to make him as comfortable as possible? Did he try to comfort him, to distract him, and ease his pain as well as he could? What was his reaction when he had to take back the axe off the face of the young man he had started seeing as his own kid, whose life he had hoped he could save but that he ultimately had to take with his own hands?

I personally think those parts are blocked out of Jimmy's mind, as he couldn't fit them in his own narrative, where he was the hero, Swansea the villain and Daisuke the innocent, young man whose life he tried his best to protect from this "monster" that was now going to come after him.

2-Swansea attacking Jimmy with the axe, especially the cemetery scene, and how it can be interpreted in different ways.

We, the viewers, knowing everything that happened, will see it as a desperate man, Swansea, trying to avenge the lives that had been lost on that ship because of Jimmy (wether directly or not), with Daisuke's death being the last straw. But i don't think that's how Jimmy saw it. He saw swansea as a crazed, mad man, a ruthless killer, coming for him after taking an innocent life, Daisuke's photo and mausoleum as a reminder for Jimmy of what the older man had done, and a justification for what he was about to do.

(not to talk about the implication that the fight against swansea was not as intense as we saw it, only confirming the idea that jimmy was looking for a justification for shooting him)

[quibbs126]

And this here is today’s attempts at drawing Transformers, specifically TF One

I had this idea when I started today, since I knew the faces and noses were giving me trouble yesterday, to try this paintbrush style. The logic in my brain was that the movie was made in 3D, so logistically a more lineless style should work better, right?

I do admit, I think that the lineless style works far better in terms of the eyes and noses being the right shape, but I also admit my lines are probably a bit too soft and I may need to darken them. As well as get something good for the actual thin lines, since the paint brush on its own feels too thick, even at the lowest size

And you know what, since we’re here, does anyone have any Procreate brushes they can suggest for this sort of style? Right now I’m just using Flat Brush, but I wonder if I should use something else

Anyways, so this canvas was supposed to be more D-16, but partway through I figured I should try someone else to draw as well, so I decided Orion, so we could have the yaoi

Honestly my big problem with Pax here is that I don’t have a good comprehensive reference for him, while I can get by just fine with D-16. These were about the best I could get, and that last one I only got because these other two weren’t cutting it

I need high quality references of these characters, or at least specifically their faces. And I’m gonna need even more if I plan to draw Megatron and Optimus as well

But yeah, Orion’s here, and I was also having trouble getting the correct colors for him, because I’m stupid and used to flat colors. D was pretty easy considering he’s just greys, and a yellow tinted grey works just fine there as a grey (though I do admit I’m struggling with his eye color), but I feel like blue tinted Orion looks too blue by comparison. But I don’t know how to give him his proper face coloring without it being the same shade as D-16

I feel like my words aren’t making sense. But just get that Orion colors are a struggle. And still are, because I still don’t think that other grey is the right color

Also Orion has a significantly more complicated helmet than D, so that’s fun

I really wasn’t planning on Orion taking up so much of the space, but I needed to actually practice how he looked so that I could draw him easier. I had numerous attempts at D-16 prior, I could sort of understand his look, but I was flailing in the dark on Orion and needed the practice

I think another problem is that I don’t make him wide enough. But sue me, my character designs usually don’t have their bodies that wide/their heads that small. I’m working on it

I capped off this canvas by just deciding to make a small doodle of Orion kissing D, since why not and also I was too lazy to think of anything else to add

Where do we go from here? I have no clue, but hopefully it’ll go good

[suddencolds]

insatiable appetite [1/?]

sooo... this is one of the thirstiest things i have written—and also one of the only times i've written a character with the kink, ever T.T warnings in advance for mess, character getting sneezed on, implied contagion, possible ooc-ness, & me writing this entirely with my d instead of my head

ivan and till are from al//ien sta//ge (a very fun watch which will only take 30 mins out of your life; i really recommend it!!). that said, this fic takes place in a modern au setting, so feel free to read it without any prior context :)

special thanks to @6pmsoup for sending me a very cute alnst doodle of these two which altered my brain chemistry permanently

—

Summary: Till shows up to a dinner outing with a brewing cold. Ivan suffers. (est. relationship, kink!Ivan, ~2k words)

—

For all Till tries to hide it, Ivan can tell immediately.

There’s this: Ivan has been paying attention to Till for most of his life. A full decade before they’d gotten together officially, and some more—this is how long Ivan has had to observe his tells. Always from the sidelines, always with a detached air of indifference that, in reality, was anything but.

All the signs are there the night before. Till, turning up the thermostat a couple degrees higher than he usually keeps it. Spending a little too long in the shower and using up almost all of the hot water. Clearing his throat one too many times in the morning before Ivan leaves for work, his smile distracted, the rasp of his voice nearly indistinguishable—but only nearly.

Now, Till is here for dinner—it’s a dinner they’ve had plans for a couple weeks now, at one of the nicer restaurants downtown, in celebration of Till’s recent promotion. Ivan had booked the reservation a couple weeks in advance.

When Till arrives, stepping out of a taxi cab, he’s wearing a scarf, even though the weather is too warm for it. Ivan steps up to meet him. 

“Sorry I’m late,” Till says. “Traffic here was the worst I’ve ever seen it, swear to god.”

“Was it cold outside today?” Ivan asks, a little pointedly, tilting his head towards his scarf.

Till looks at him, his expression unreadable. Then he nods. “Colder than usual, for this time of year.”

“Strange,” Ivan says, just to be difficult. “But the weather forecast says it’s the same temperature today as yesterday.” 

“It’s probably just windier today,” Till says, readjusting his scarf around his neck. His face is a little flushed.

“Your voice sounds a little off, though.”

Till clears his throat with a scowl. “You must be imagining it,” he says. “It always sounds like this.”

No admission, then. That’s fine. Ivan will get the truth out of him at some point. He lets Till guide him into the restaurant.

It’s a nice restaurant—worth the hassle of the reservation, Ivan thinks. Each table is set with flowers arranged tastefully in long glass vases, empty wine glasses turned on their heads. The server—who leads them to their table in a small, private booth—is wearing a suit.

It’s a shame, really. Ivan has a feeling that he won’t be able to pay attention to any of that tonight.

They sit. Ivan looks down at the menu, picks out something at random in a matter of seconds. Truthfully, he can hardly think of anything less worth his attention right now. He turns his attention to Till instead—Till, who’s seated directly across from him, the scarf still around his neck, obscuring the lower half of his face. 

Till sniffles, reaching down to turn the page, and oh. The sniffle is terribly liquid—has he been sniffling like that all afternoon? Perhaps it’s a good thing that they work at different offices—Till at a law firm, Ivan as a senior manager at a consulting company—because Ivan certainly doesn’t think he’d be able to get any work done with Till sniffling like that. 

It’s not two minutes later that Till is reaching up to wipe his nose against the back of one knuckle. All in all, it’s discreet. Just a quick brush of the fingers against his nose, which is still hidden under the scarf. Though, the look of sheer ticklishness that passes over his features for a brief moment there is...

“What are you thinking of ordering?” Ivan asks.

“I can’t decide,” Till answers. He turns the page again. “It’s between the ribeye steak and the… snf! The pork belly. Is this the kind of place that skimps on the portion sizes?”

“Not from their Yelp reviews,” Ivan says. “You know, if you really can’t decide, I can flip a coin.”

“I’ll pick,” Till says. “Why? Hungry already?”

He looks up, now. His eyes are a little watery. There’s a faint flush over the bridge of his nose. Ivan thinks that if he reached out and touched him, he’d probably be running warm. The thought is almost unbearable.

“Your taxi did take forever to arrive,” Ivan says, by way of explanation. 

“Did you really wait that long?”

He looks uncertain, for a moment. Ivan says, “Not at all. But you know, I’m always impatient when it comes to you.”

Till rolls his eyes, but it’s fond. “There was a meeting that ran late. I wasn’t avoiding you.”

“Is that also a part of your new position?” “I guess so, yeah.”

“I can see why they were eager to promote you, then,” Ivan says. “How productive can late afternoon meetings be, anyways?”

Till snorts. “Not that important. It definitely could have been an email instead. I was about ready to doze off.”

He sniffles again. “Okay. I think I know what I want.” The way he says know betrays the slightest hint of congestion. 

“At long last,” Ivan says, just to be a little bit of an ass. “I’ll call over the waiter.”

He flags their waiter down, waits for Till to order first.

“A spiced apple cider,” Till adds on, at the end, with the slightest of coughs. “Hot, if you can.”

That’s new, too. Till seldom orders hot drinks at restaurants, though he’ll drink tea without complaint if it’s offered. Perhaps his throat hurts, then, from the cold that has clearly started to settle in his system. Subtle, still, but Ivan is familiar with colds like this. He knows it will probably only be a few hours before this deceptively “small” cold turns into…

Ivan orders, too, and thanks the waiter, who leaves with a curt nod. When he looks back over to Till, there’s a… strange something to Till’s expression, a slight distractedness. Irritation.

Ivan swallows hard. He should look away. 

He should, but then, Till’s breath hitches. He pulls the scarf higher over his face preemptively, as if he anticipates having something to have to cover for. The sharp intake of breath that follows is breathy, though Ivan can hear Till’s voice in it. He should really look away.

Instead, he takes the scene in, painstakingly, little by little, as Till’s shoulders jerk forwards. As Till presses a hand to the scarf, presses the fabric closer to his face, to muffle a sneeze into his fingertips:

“hhH-Ih!! hiHH-’IESCHH-eew-!”

God. It sounds utterly miserable, the harsh release of it scraping against his throat, the spray tearing into his scarf. It’s the kind of cold sneeze that is undeniably telling: this is going to be one hell of a cold. It’s not very quiet, either, even muffled into the fabric.

For more reasons than one, Ivan is glad they’re in a private corner of the restaurant, not somewhere more public.

“Bless you,” he offers, once he can trust himself to speak. It’s a good thing that Till is too distracted to look up at him right now. Ivan isn’t sure he can keep what he’s feeling off of his face.

Truthfully, he isn’t sure he’s going to be able to endure a whole night of this.

The problem here is that Till—Till, of all people; Till, who Ivan has been pathetically in love with for almost as long as he can remember—has no idea about Ivan’s… relatively niche interests. That is to say, he has no idea what effect it has on Ivan when he does that.

“Thanks,” Till says, a little stuffily. He sniffles again, lowering his hand. 

Ivan can’t help it. He knows he shouldn’t pursue this line of questioning, but he can feel his self-control dwindling by the second. “Don’t you think it would be better to take off your scarf, now that we’re inside?”

Till freezes. “Y-You know what,” he says evasively. “It’s pretty cold in here.”

Ivan tilts his head in question. “And just how do you plan on eating like that?”

“I’ll take it off when our food comes.”

“I can ask the waiter to turn the temperature up, if it’s a problem,” Ivan says. 

“It’s not a problem.”

Ivan rises from his seat. Till watches him, perplexed, as he heads to the opposite side of the table, where Till is seated.

When he gets there, he stops. Stands, unmoving, so he can study Till from above. 

“What are you—”

Ivan reaches out, settles his palm across Till’s forehead. As expected, it’s warm. Not quite feverish, which is a good sign, but warm enough to be notable. 

“Just how long were you intending to hide this?”

Till stares back at him, wide-eyed. “Hide what?”

Shouldn’t it be obvious? “The fact that you have a cold.”

“I didn’t think it was worth mentioning,” Till says, slowly.

“Hmm.” Ivan drops his hand to his side. He is a little concerned, now. “We could’ve called a rain check.”

This time Till really does roll his eyes. “For the reservation we planned weeks ahead?” he sniffles again. “That just sounds completely and utterly unnecessary. Are you the type of person to call things off just over a little cold?” 

Ivan leans over, tugs down the edge of Till’s scarf. Till bats his hand away just a moment too late, cups his other hand over his face to shield his face from view. For a moment, he looks faintly mortified.

Then his expression settles into something more disgruntled. “What are you doing?” he hisses.

So uncooperative. “Let me see,” Ivan says. Slowly, gently, he pries Till’s hands away from his face, and then—because the restaurant is dimly lit—tilts Till’s face up slightly so that it catches more of the overhead light. 

Till’s nose is redder than usual. He’s probably been rubbing it all afternoon, if the redness that percolates into his cheeks is any indication. There’s  a damp, liquid sheen on the underside of his nose.

“What’s there to see?” Till says, a little crossly.

“Your face, since you’ve been so intent on hiding it under that scarf,” Ivan says, leaning in to get a better look.

Till scowls at him, but there’s no heat to it. “You see my face every day.”

“On the contrary, I don’t see it nearly enough,” Ivan says. “And you hardly ever get sick. Is it so wrong for me to be concerned?”

Without looking, he reaches behind him with one hand to grab a couple cocktail napkins. The other hand he keeps held up to Till’s cheek. 

But then, Till’s breath hitches. “Wait,” he says. Panic flashes through his face. “Ivan, move, I—”

Oh. Well, seeing as there’s no way he’ll be able to get the napkins over in time, it looks like he’ll have to improvise. If Till wants to cover, Ivan can help with that. He moves his hand to cup it loosely over Till’s mouth. Not a second too late, it seems. Till jerks forward unceremoniously, his nose twitching, his eyes squeezing shut.

“hHheh-! HHh’EIITShHh’yYiew!” he gasps sharply. Two? “Hh-! hHiiH’DSSCSSHh-IIew!”  

The jolt of the sneezes is practically electrifying—all of that force, brought to an abrupt halt behind Ivan’s waiting palm. He feels the expulsion of air against his skin, the warmth of Till’s breath, feels the slight dampness behind his hand as the spray mists over his fingertips.

Ivan swallows, hard. Thank god it’s so dark here, otherwise Till might notice what this is doing to him. 

“Bless you,” he says, withdrawing his hand at last to wipe it on one of the cloth napkins. It comes out slightly raspier than he intends it to, though perhaps it’s a miracle that he’s still able to talk at all. “Some cold, hmm?” Belatedly, he hands Till the stack of napkins.

Till practically snatches them from him, turns aside to blow his nose wetly into the top few. The way he sniffles afterwards suggests that his nose is still very much running. 

“Do you have no self preservation? It’s as if you want to catch this,” Till says, drawing back with another sniffle.

Oh, Ivan thinks, fighting back a shiver. That would be far from the worst thing.

[hewkii]

Demystifying Splatband Signatures

Recently I've seen people talking about Acht and Paul's signatures apparently being right next to each other on a Grandfest banner. I really want to believe it bc that's adorable, but after spending entirely too long digging for a source, making spreadsheets, and attempting to identify each signature for myself I've concluded that it's most likely not true :(

full ramble below. get ready for an autism blast

So to start. It's probably decently well known at this point that the signatures outside Hotlantis correspond to every artist that had battle music in Splatoon 1 and 2. However, if you tally up the number of band members (36) vs the apparent number of signatures (37), we wind up with one mystery signature.

After skimming the artbooks and Inkipedia I didn't find anything officially matching any signature to any specific characters (besides the idols), but online I found two fanmade charts attempting to do it themselves. One by @/inaRNP on Twitter in August 2022 (which is missing one signature, and assigns the mystery sig to Karen), and another that circulated on Discord before being reposted to Tumblr in November 2022. This second one seems to be where the idea that the mystery signature belongs to Dedf1sh comes from. It definitely seems more likely than it being Bob Dub or something.

HOWEVER. Acht's lore in Side Order heavily contradicts this theory. In all likelihood they were autopiloting around the Deepsea Metro from the end of OE right up until they got pulled into the Memverse, never coming anywhere close to Hotlantis. It is possible that it was intended to be theirs but plans changed, as technically SO's plot wasn't nailed down at Splatoon 3's launch, but to that I point to Haikara Walker. If they were intended to have escaped the Metro after OE, then they likely wouldn't have opened at the Low Water Party. (page 261 if you don't know what that is)

But with the signature's reappearance on the Grandfest banners, I think I've worked out exactly what happened here.

According to the charts, these are the signatures of Paul and Taichi. Both were noticeably redrawn for their appearance on the Team Past banner, and I think that's the key to solving this whole mystery. Redesigning Paul's makes sense; he was a kid when he did the first one and he's a teen now. Of course his handwriting would change. But why redesign Taichi's?

Or, what if what we thought was Taichi's signature was actually just part of Paul's the whole time?

That would bring the amount of Hotlantis signatures down to 36, meaning there was never an extra signature to begin with, and the mystery signature simply belongs to a member of Sashimori.

Of course, that still doesn't explain why it's so far away from the other Sashimori members. But then again, Paul's is also pretty far away. Maybe there just wasn't enough room to group them together like everyone else ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Plus, it's next to everyone else's on the Grandfest banner. Speaking of which...

Here's my guesses as to whose signatures are whose on the banners, including the new ones. forgive the microsoft paint

Things to note:

I can't actually tell how many new signatures are on the Team Present banner. I just circled all of them and called it Yoko & the Gold Bazookas, but there are only four Y&tGB members that aren't also in Ink Theory and there definitely seem to be more than four signatures there. we might have an actual mystery signature on our hands this time

Front Roe's sigs are different than the ones on Hotlantis, but I'm confident it's them because they all have 00X (as in 003Soss) worked into them.

dot--png pointed out in the comments that one of the signatures I guessed was Riot Act seems to have a doodle of a squid, so that might actually be Beika's

Team Past doesn't have any Splatoon 3 characters on it, which makes sense now that I think about it

i made a whole ass spreadsheet to help me figure this out and i feel like it would be a waste not to link it here

[dailyrmdoodle]

Okay it's about time I made a masterpost!!

Hello!! My name's Leo, I use He/Him pronouns, I like, run this account or something? And there's a good chance you're looking for info on it! Soooo-

First things first, some things you might know me by!

This account, obviously

My main, @leounderseas, where I post more cookie-unrelated stuff!

My instagram

My tiktok (currently inactive)

You don't know me from twitter because I don't use that!!! Twitter is banned in my country, so I do not have a twitter account.

Also some artworks you might recognize!!

Now that introductions are out of the way, here's some more info on me and this account specifically! This a daily doodle account for Royal Margarine Cookie from Cookie Run Kingdom! I am very normal about him. That's pretty much all I post about here, though other cookie related things do pop in every once in awhile!

This account was meant to be daily, but I am still finishing up highschool, and it's been very stressfull, so sadly I don't have the time to actually make that work. The plan is still to post a doodle daily! But maybe I'll only be able to do that once I finish up with school, sadly.

I have two main hashtags in here!

#my art and my stuffff, for any art or similar things I end up making and posting! If you're expecting a daily doodle and haven't seen it, or just wanna browse, you might wanna check the hashtag :)

#questions and rambling and stuff, for askbox questions that I answered or just general rambling about characters or any other topic! If you're interested about my insight on things (or my analysis of a certain cookie, whom this account happens to be about....) it'll be there!

My askbox is open, and anonymous is an option! Feel comfortable to ask me questions, don't be shy! Just, yknow, be civilized? And not mean? Or any kind of -phobic or -ist or anything like that

Projects I currently have in the works are:

My marge shimeji! It is still in production sadly because I haven't had the time to work on it.... but I plan on finishing it and making it downloadable for anybody who wants it once it's done!!

Another related thing is my character playlists! I make those for fun in my freetime :) I have a lot of them, and some of them are longer than others because I am obviously biased (staareeess....) but I still enjoy all of them! Here are the links if anybody is interested!

Royal Margarine Cookie playlist (longest by VEEERY FAR. You need commitment to finish this one. Also lowkey suggestive. Tread carefully.)

Black Pearl Cookie playlist (Second favorite! Nowhere near as long but still very dear to me :])

Butter Roll Cookie playlist

Matcha Cookie playlist (Third favorite,,,,,, ouuugh blorbo....)

Pure Vanilla Cookie playlist (Has purelily undertones fyi, i like purelily)

White Lily Cookie playlist (Fourth favorite, SHE'S JUST LIKE ME FOR REAAAALLL,,,,,)

Golden Cheese Cookie playlist (Fifth favorite! Not really that long, but pleeeaasee recommend me songs for it)

Shadow Milk Cookie playlist

Black Lemonade Cookie playlist (very unfinished...)

Shining Glitter Cookie playlist (very unfinished....)

Snapdragon Cookie playlist (very unfinished, IM SO SORRY BABYYYY,,,,)

I also have non cookie playlists! Though they are few

Furina de Fontaine (Genshin Impact) playlist (Second longest playlist I have. I LOVE HER SO MUUUUCHHH YOU GUYS DONT GET ITTT)

Kieran (Pokemon Scarlet & Violet DLC) playlist (This kid is ill and I care him)

To finalize, I don't take comissions right now, but I do take requests in my askbox! Depending on the request ofc. I plan on taking comissions someday, but that'll probably have to wait until I finish highschool next year! And with all that said.... You're caught up!!! *confetti falls Have any questions? Lmk!! I'll answer them! Have a good day :]

[scribble-brain-aced]

Do you have ocs?

OH BOY DO I

bad quality art, i doodled these in old notebooks from school, so it’s not very good-

i don’t remember what I named most of these OCs, but she’s supposed to be a kind of bratty “everyone loves me” type of character, because she has this superpower where everyone is SUPPOSED to love her. it’s an aura of obsessive, enchanted love. she’s so used to being catering to and fawned over, that she’s genuinely sick of it. she craves hatred, but nobody will give it to her. pretty sure she became a criminal? and honestly, if she were ever hated, she wouldn’t know how to deal with it, and would probably just freak out.

slightly older OC: the COMPLETE opposite of the Aphrodite i just mentioned. she’s incapable of being remembered, no matter how hard she tried. as she grew older, more and more people forgot her, including her own friends and family. she grew bitter, and like most neglected kids, comes to the conclusion that negative attention is better than none, right? she’s also a criminal.. or.. she WOULD be, if law enforcement remembered her. to everyone else, it’s a mystery who set fire to that coffee shop. she does everything she can think of to get attention. that’s also why she’s wearing neon.

…i should bring these two first OCs into a room together and see how they interact.

and the only OC whose name i remember: Dakki!! she started out as a basic experiment because i was curious on how to draw people w/ Treacher Collins Syndrome. except most of the facial differences i noticed, my art style already looks like that so there’s not a big difference-

it’s only obvious in the side profile. she’s a somewhat-sarcastic, but overall polite girl! in middle school, because it’s a breeding ground for insecurity, she tried making a cardboard box head to hide her face, before deciding that she’d feel more awkward wearing it, because NOBODY wears a box on their head, so she never ended up using it. (and she’s absolutely fine w/ her face now!) but she did unlock a passion for making stuff out of cardboard. she started w/ box heads because she could already do that, and eventually became involved in fandom (idk a lot about FF7 but let’s go with that) and started using it to cosplay, mostly armor and wings and stuff. she also really likes ducks, and has made a cardboard duck suit.

aaand that’s all i can remember!

do i love this OCs? with my whole heart

will i ever do anything with them? ..uh. idk. probably not, sadly.

so yeah :)

[skyistheground]

Found here through the one Inscryption animatic!

Could you tell more about that AU?

sure thing! i don't develop it much right now but i am really glad you took interest in an old project!

the au is essentially P03 took his charicatures. ocs. uberbot personality matricies and built them bodies to help out around the factory. it was very self indulgent. i also made an au of an au relating to the old data with them (which was slightly implied in that animatic but not a lot)

(the art is a bit old forgive me)

this is the only image i have of them together that isn't whiteboard doodles. i will go from left to right

curator/the archivist

as the title implies. manages the archives. has a lot of busywork and responsibility. the archives is a big room where everything is represented by a file. it's a computer library in physical form

all the responsibility makes them seem like the most calm/patient and.. kinda? it's more that they are good at hiding when they are frustrated. already has a pretty big managerial role with the librarians so will check in on everyone else's work

nexus/g0lly

collects things from the internet, works closely with curator. the glowy bits are projections, including the arm (where the crank would be... opposies w/ p03. it doesn't work btw). the wheel is optional and she can extend it back to float but doesn't because that's less fun. i forgot exactly where the scratch came from?

she has the vibe of p03's younger teenage sister (it did this to himself) and is very whimsical. she doesn't really bother him that much, more afraid of upsetting him than anything. more often bothers the other bots with random things she finds

kodak/the photographer

manages the factory's security system. all of the cameras are his eyes he can tab between. he is also part furnace and can run on biofuel. likes to leave the factory from time to time to go on walks. he cannot float like the first two but walks around on tripod legs

prefers to keep to himself most of the time. he does his job and then takes his breaks walking around in the projector woods. wants to go to the real woods some day but that requires either crossing an ocean or everyone seeing you and how you're clearly not supposed to be there

sketch/unfinished

robot project that p03 started but never finished. it did have an intended job but i honestly forgot. mute/blind unless given a face by someone else. i remembered wanting to redesign it but as it exists now, the cables attach to the ceiling and there's only designated spots it can run around. body is pretty frail (compared to the other bots. it's still metal) so the others are careful

acts animalistic and strange until given a face. then mirrors the personality of whoever it can follow around. it slowly learns over time and one day will have its own personality

the au with the old data i mentioned has to do with my oc k. who is the old data that got pissed p03 backed out of uploading it to the internet so took him over to do it themselves. took over during the unfinished boss fight (in this au not like the actual uberbots themselves did the game thing. since p03 wanted to do that himself) but the takeover was known and alerted for. the exact details of this version of the au are lost on me but here is k as p03

and k as k once they lost (because they were still stopped) and became a permanent addition to inscryption world because they couldn't lose the consciousness she gave himself after possessing a sentient character (yay newer art)

[da3dm]

In the deep blue sea, there isn't a place for me

—

Yeah I got that title from the same thing sloth sent brick...but I changed it a bit! Here's the result of that mystery poll from before—Sloth kinda half helped with editing this...this is a oneshot with two parts to it bc it'll be super long otherwise and then brick would never read it

It feels rushed to me but maybe not to you guys! Also my askbox is always open

Taglist: @brick-a-doodle-do , @i-am-beckyu , @justarandomsloth , @awkwardgtace , @rosewriting-ao3 (and look rose, gentle giant!!)

If you want tagged you gotta tell me or I can't

TW: Unintentional fearplay, character believing they'll die, begging to die (won't die), blood, mild cursing there's like one curse word bc Irza is Irza, character thinking they might be eaten, mention of suicide. (If there's more please tell me)

Word Count: 4.3k

Part 1/2

Well, this was by far not how he expected his day to go, but...he never did like boring things. But maybe even this was a little too far a stretch to be seen as boredom relief. His time would've been better spent not getting in this situation. Honestly, the last thing he remembered was the pod of mer he lived with outcasting him by using a prank. He was brought out to the middle of nowhere and ditched. With that sort of result he didn't even bother trying to return…he'd had enough and been planning to leave soon anyway. Seeing as he didn't have any possessions, he simply swam away.

Then everything had started to darken. It hadn't been too concerning because looking around…there really wasn't anything there. No predators. So he continued on his way to the shore, hoping to travel through the shallows to find a new home rather than the open ocean. Only a pod could somewhat safely be in the open like this, not a lone mer. It hadn't been too long after until he discovered the water was shoving him around strangely. Lightly, at first. Then it quickly started to increase and his panic rose rapidly. If only he'd noticed that the oncoming darkness was the omen of a storm.

It swept him away helplessly, flailing through the water like a loose piece of kelp. He could faintly recall that it pushed him roughly in the direction of shore, yet another thing only making the water's abuse even worse. It was fully expected that the water's torrent would smash his rather frail body into the rocks lining the edges. Leave him stranded in a tidepool where he'd be picked at by predators. Maybe bury him in the sand where he'd have no hope of escape. It was at that point he'd crashed into something big and smooth, with a lot of clattering sounds all around him. Then it had gone black, the impact too much to withstand.

And that brings him to now. The sun was hot on his exposed skin, the water level steadily getting lower, and hotter. It felt like he was being boiled alive. He was trapped inside something. Something clear, that shifted and crinkled when he moved, and was rather uncomfortable. Sure, it had probably saved him from outright dying, but now he was too far from the water to even attempt tipping the thing over to escape. This was a rather precarious situation to find himself in. After waking up in here it had looked to be sunrise and the container was half full…but now the sun was directly above him, beating down on his vulnerable form while the water was so low he couldn't even fully submerge.

While half his body was in the water, he shifted around to try and rearrange a few more times and only got the same results each time. It was hopeless, so he worked on keeping his tail in the water as much as possible, refusing to believe he'd simply die here. There had to be a way out, even if that meant waiting for night to fall, when the tide would be higher. He might be out of water by then, but…it was likely his only chance of survival. Being out on the sand in the hot sun would both cook him and let his predators see he was there. That would be his end right then and there with how far he was. He may want out, but he wasn't suicidal.

Trying to think of what to do, more time was passing and the water was getting lower. It was maybe an hour or two later of him attempting to figure out freedom when there was a change. He was noticing that it was a little cooler, sparing him of losing all of the water, but that wasn't all. There was a new tremor motion the water reacted to. He blinked at the tiny, extra ripples his body wasn't causing. The ripples stayed that way but soon he realized they were getting bigger. Not long after, it came to his attention that he could feel a vibration traveling from the ground through the rest of his body. A rising dread filled him and he scrambled to try and see, holding himself up.

He couldn't see anything. Well…to be fair it looked like he was in a ditch, it'd be hard to see anywhere from this angle. The vibration stopped and he held his breath. Nothing. Was it gone? In his distraction however, he failed to notice that all his movement had drawn something after him. All of a sudden something crashed into his prison and he barely avoided calling out, biting his tongue and flailing for balance. He looked up in a hurry to face his attacker and froze. A bird. What even was this thing?? It was white but he didn't recognize it from the usual pelicans he'd seen where he used to live. Still, it was eyeing him like a new meal.

Stopping to wonder what it was might not have been his brightest idea as it was now sticking its beak inside the small opening, wings flapping wildly. The webbed feet pushed at the clear walls as he hurriedly pushed himself down, away from the threatening beak. He bared his teeth uselessly, but it made him feel a lot better. Truthfully all the motion was sickening and too chaotic to make right from left. It even made a loud, overbearing sound that made his head ring painfully. The noise echoed in this small space way too much and he slapped his hands over his ears reflexively. This was too much for him. He hadn't even started to escape yet…and he was being attacked.

Then the vibration from earlier came to his attention, much heavier than before. It made him bounce in place and even the bird reacted, looking at the cause and calling out again. Before much else happened, a new sound came to him, sounding like words, but way too loud to be words. It made the space around him shudder and the bird had left. He had to breathe for a moment before he even dared look up, bracing himself against the slick walls and gazing up just as a new shadow fell right before his clear cage. In some ways he'd wished he'd never looked up.

The owner of the massive shadow was just as huge, towering over him in a way he'd never seen before. His mind immediately supplied the word human. He'd been told about them, seen them from a distance…he knew they were bigger, but not like this. Why would he get stuck on the beach and run into one of them?! Did the world really hate him that much?! Unfair! Not to mention, humans were supposed to stay away from the area he'd been heading for. Had he really been swept so far off his intended path?? Anything was possible at his size in a storm that nasty, but going from stormy waters, to a bird, to a human, wasn't even bad luck. That's like an outright curse.

His thoughts were cut short when the giant being took a step closer to him, shaking the entire space and making him scramble to prevent faceplanting. It was coming closer. His dread didn't have time to build up before a hand came rushing towards his trap, one way too big for what seemed natural. Though he clawed at the smooth surface surrounding him, it was hopeless, the hand closing around it. He shuddered at the realization the hand went all the way around the bottle…he could see the fingers nearly connect. That was to say…he forgot what would happen when it's being grabbed.

Not even a second later, he was hoisted off the ground, making his stomach do a wild flip while he forced himself to stay calm. What if it wanted him to be scared? But when the space was tilted and the water began to flow away from him, he gave an involuntary yelp of surprise and looked around frantically. The tilt suddenly stopped and it went back to how it had been before, the water returning. This time when looking at the human, he found bright green, huge eyes that were both locked right on him. He fought back a shiver, meeting that, admittedly, intimidating gaze. The eyes widened and he froze up.

Way too dizzying fast, he was racing skyward, stopping only once level with the way too big face. Out of pure instinct he bared his teeth with a growl, pushing himself back against the opposite side. He pointedly ignored that the hand was on that side of it and that he could feel the warmth it gave off from inside. Except when he growled, he noticed a responding movement from above and his eyes snapped to it, only to go stiff and regret showing aggression. Those weren't the right ears. They were like triangles and kept swiveling around. Listening, he thought. He suppressed another shudder, instead choosing to glare at this giant and those horribly observant eyes.

He knew he was being stared at, his every move kept track of, but he was trying to wrack his brain for why those ears and unnerving eyes were familiar to him. There wasn't much time to think as that loud sound came at him again—the voice. Definitely a voice. He ignored the words. They were too distorted and loud to understand while stuck inside this thing anyway. Besides, he didn't want to hear the taunts or what it might be planning to do to him. He'd rather seem boring and be tossed back to the ground and ignored.

Except those eyes changed and almost looked…worried? He scowled at it, but the voice returned and everything was turning sideways at an agonizingly slow pace. His slow slide felt like torture, especially with how fast the water was already pouring past him, tugging him along faster than it was tipping. At this point all he could do was weakly scratch at it, feeling like he was being played with on his way towards the only opening. The last thing he tried was spreading his arms too wide to fit while trying to turn to keep his tail inside. If it fell out, the weight would just drag him down.

When he hit the opening he stuck, just as intended. A grim, victory smile plastered on his face as he fought to keep himself in this same position while looking to the side at the human. What he found was a look of surprise, but nothing happened. It was held in the same position, not moving even slightly. He thought he'd be shaken or something, but it never came. Instead, the voice came again, still not understandable from his position. It got quiet and motionless, as if the human was just waiting for him to change his mind or something. Not happening! That was when he noticed he was slipping. The giant jerk was waiting him out.

He growled in real anger at being treated this way, noticing those creepy ears moving as he made the sound. All he could see in those big eyes, was patience. A steady, calm, patience. Like this human already knew they'd win this. And they would, which only upset him even more. The problem was that he was still slipping, and steadily feeling like he needed to catch himself. Was he just going to fall to his death or what? Was the human dumping him out of the way? It was hard to say, but he was about to find out for himself. There wasn't even a shred of hope in his mind of holding on for longer than the human could wait…the surface and angle were simply too much and only half his body could be used to prevent it.

With one last squirm in an attempt to stay inside, he finally couldn't stay splayed anymore and fell headfirst out of the thing. His eyes screwed shut, certain he would plummet to his death…only for the result to be much less dramatic. The impact was muted, interrupted maybe only a second later by something soft that smelled heavily of herbs. For a moment all he could do was breathe, his heart racing painfully as his chest heaved from the scare. He didn't waste much time and after only a few breaths, he moved to figure out what exactly happened. Seeing it made him freeze up, his eyes landing on the tan colored, patterned floor beneath him. Skin.

Looking up while already know what would be there, his almost weary gaze trailed up the length of an arm all the way to the human's face. He was in the damn thing's hand. He inwardly groaned and pushed himself up while taking a deep breath, glancing at the fingers towering over him. A threat. It was mostly behind him and he let his head hang so he could simply see past his arms without it knowing where he was looking. It was hard to know what would happen if he was caught staring, and honestly? He'd rather be ended because he fought back, not for looking at something. That would be even worse than having been abandoned by his own pod using a prank. So he held his breath and looked up at that face again.

Then he immediately bit the hand beneath him. Hard. His aim was to draw blood at the very least, and he needed to do it before the human could stop him. The only response he seemed to get was a quiet whine of pain and a harsh flinch that nearly sent him off the hand. What stopped such a fate were the fingers, curling up over him. Without delay, since the other bite was already bleeding, he whipped around and sunk his teeth into one of those massive digits instead, his arms wrapping around it so his claws could dig in as well. He was fully aware that he couldn't win this, but that didn't stop him from trying.

What did make him pause was that finger separating itself from the rest slowly, followed by that much too loud voice ringing out above him. "Uhm…will you please let go…? That…it kinda hurts?" The voice was still too loud for him, but he could for the first time understand the words being spoken, even even what sounded like hesitation in the tone. Of course, his response to this comment was to bite even harder and snarl while he did, moving his head a little to trying twisting and make it worse. The human winced in pain, those ears drawing back as it instead muttered, "Yeah, okay, that's fair." He wanted the human to feel pain, why was it saying this was fair?!

His anger was boiling over and he grabbed onto it, using it to bury all the fear as he snapped his head to the side with an angry hiss, clawing at the finger he'd been biting before it bending forced him to let go. He fell back onto the palm, not really able to support himself with his tail. Wait. The human had a tail too. He narrowed his eyes while keeping his teeth bared as a few things clicked into place. He remembered an animal that had those ears, eyes, and tail. It was also very sharp in his mind that he'd seen it swiping fish out if the water and chasing any mer that got close. He didn't know the name, but this human looked like they were part animal. That animal. That eats fish. And probably mer too.

A very brief look of terror flashed through his eyes and he dug his claws into the palm a whole lot more to hurriedly turn it into anger. He looked this giant in the eye with as much Hate and rage as he could muster, his mind simmering as he ignored how the sun was slowly making his skin itch as it dried him out. With one deep breath, he practically screamed out, "THE HELL ARE YOU EVEN GOING TO DO?! STOP STARING AND JUST DO SOMETHING DAMNIT! YOU'RE TOO LOUD AND TOYING WITH ME! IF YOU'RE GOING TO DO SOMETHING TO ME, JUST DO IT!" His sudden volume was plenty loud enough to make those freaky animal ears go down and it felt like his own personal victory.

Until the hand finally moved. He was going up, being brought right to that face. It was impossible to fully get rid of a shudder as his eyes widened. Was he going to die now? His mouth did usually get everyone mad at him. He'd actually asked for this one though, but…he looked at the closed mouth of the face he was rapidly approaching. Was the giant going to eat him like that animal did that fish? He turned his head away to hide his face while not wanting to see what would happen to him. It was over. He'd purposely yelled at the human and said to get it over with. It was only a moment later that he felt the huge digits behind him start to close in on him. He didn't even flinch.

He was expecting to die somehow, but the human decided to speak again. "What?? You…do you think I want to hurt you? I'm sorry I was too loud…did I really scare you that badly? I wasn't trying really hard not to—" Why was this stupid giant prolonging his death? But they just continued their ramble. "—but I…I messed up? What did I do? How do I fix it? Is there something you want?" The voice was growing increasingly higher pitched and they were talking way too fast. He growled inwardly, despising that he had to listen to such idiotic lies after begging to die. Did it really thing he was that stupid? That he wasn't just some fun creature to toy with and leave to die? Lies.

He raised his head back up to stare his likely killer in the eyes, only to find out they were right in front of him. He had soared past the mouth and even the nose, being held so perfectly level with the eyes that he couldn't avoid noticing their emotions. With a shiver he didn't even try to contain, he scrambled backwards only to realize those fingers were holding him in place. His eyes were rounded at this revelation, merely glad to see his tail was at least still against the palm and not just hanging. If relieved was the right thing to feel, rather, when he was terrified. What else could he feel when staring into eyes each bigger than his head. Happiness??

Finally though, the hand moving snapped him out of it right as the human softly asked, "Hey, are you okay? Can't you speak?" Alright, so now he was going to be seen as some stupid animal that didn't even have intelligence? Like he'd allow that.

With yet another ferocious snarl, he growled, "Get the fuck away from me." His voice felt despairingly weak and he swallowed hard. Having to meet these eyes like this was…so uncomfortable. It frayed his nerves and played with his mind. The eyes looked too guilty. He leaned away. "Just…just leave me alone or kill me already. I don't want to play these games anymore." He was scared, but his tone still came out full of rage.

The huge eyes only got bigger as they widened, full of what looked to borderline horror. "Kill you?! I'm not going to kill you!" The human shouldn't be sounding so scared of his words. They should be getting mad, yelling at him, hurting him. But nothing was happening. Instead, he rapidly found himself tumbling back down into the hand, which now became two, simply cupped together. It wasn't right to be held like he was breakable. He glared at the human. They just wouldn't stop trying to mess with him.

Without thinking it through, he snapped, "Why not?! You're bigger than me, you're a predator, I shouldn't even still be alive except to be a handy little plaything for your own entertainment!" Nothing was said in response, everything going quiet. The human was…silenced? By his worthless and weak voice? This game was getting absurd and the look of pity he was receiving only served to make him retaliate with anger. He bit the hand again, trying as hard as he possibly could to be dropped or finally killed or something.

A wince of pain, but then nothing. He growled and twisted his head, eliciting a gasp and a following whine from right beside him. "Please don't do that…" Not long after, the other hand stopped being a floor for him and tilted up to cover him from above. He stopped and bit a different spot, feeling his eyes burn from tears he refused to allow free. This was it. The human was finally going to end it, by…crushing him. He finally got what he wanted…why did it make him want to escape from it? To never have asked for this? But no pain came. It was darkened, but stopped there, the other hand harmlessly held over him, making it almost reminiscent of a cave…if the walls were made of tanned flesh that kept moving around him. A muffled voice came to him next with, "I'll just put you back in the ocean…"

A spike of fear at the thought of returning, and yet he could already feel the human moving, making him roll slightly while struggling to stay in place. He stopped biting, now more intent on keeping himself still and not being given back to the ocean. Sure he'd been planning to escape there, but if he was for some reason getting free transport he wanted something else. A river or stream, something to make his boring life have some sort of meaning to it. This felt more like he'd be discarded this way than freed into it. He wasn't going to say or do anything, but his racing heart won. "WAIT WAIT WAIT!"

Everything immediately stilled and he had to cling to the skin under him to not go rolling away. He wanted to relax and maybe try to figure out why he'd said to wait, but the human of course had to butt in on it. "Don't you live there? I'll put you back, are you sure?" He inhaled sharply, thinking about being in the exposed shallows with the sheer number of those strange birds from earlier hanging around. He'd seen how many there were already. If he was put back in, not only would he be back in the place he'd grown to hate, he'd become food. Dying by the hand of a giant sounded much better than temporary, fake freedom, followed by being eaten.

He moved a bit, wincing silently at how dry his tail was feeling. "...I don't want to be in the ocean. Do whatever you want with me, just get rid of me already, but not the ocean…" He should've been asking for the ocean, not to stay away from it. This was stupid. Why would the human even listen? All he did was give it a new way to hurt—

"Okay, I won't." He stiffened greatly. Won't what? The voice sounded almost resigned with those words, making his already raised guard bristle with discomfort. Before he could demand an answer though, they spoke again, "I'll just…take you home. You're probably needing some water about now and my skin can't be helping that, not to mention it's really hot out today, huh? And it's not like there's any other water sources around…I don't even know what else you want if you don't want the ocean. Maybe you'll tell me once you're not so dried up?" He blinked at the half darkness as he listened to the disembodied voice from beyond the walls of hand.

The human was…just going to keep him? Probably to be able to toy with him better. Tools and other gadgets at their home to make his fate even worse. With an air of defeat over knowing he couldn't possibly claw his way out of the prison of hands, he hung his head. "...fine." His voice was quiet but with those ears? No doubt the human heard him. Fine. He'd accept this fate, but he'd go down fighting. He could already feel this giant moving again. For now however, he let his eyes drift shut, exhausted from his struggle and not sure if he'd even wake up later. Not without digging his claws in for good measure, smiling in grim satisfaction at the pained response he got.

Words rang out above him, "Alright, then let's go! I'll take and get a good look at you to make sure you're not injured and try to find a good place for you to stay!" That cheery voice was going to be the death of him, in more ways than one. Yet, that was the last thing he heard before his mind shut itself off. Oh well. Time to leave his fate to the mercy of this strange, giant being…even if it meant he'd die.

Maybe he wouldn't.

———

Part 2

[yourlocalabstraction]

your soul design is so yumilicious I need all the details now on my dinner plate

fr tho I want to know all the soul design lore how did you create such a creature /vpos

OKOKOHHHHHHOKOK BUCKLE IN. YOU’RE GONNA GET THE FULL DESIGN PROCESS

I struggled the most with Soul ngl. I couldn’t really think of anything I could add that would differentiate him from the fanon standard. I’m a lil upset I couldn’t think of something more original, but nonetheless he turned out quite lovely !!!

I started with the color picking. I was very insistent on making everyone’s colors proportional to eachother. The main colors should have (about) the same saturation/brightness, contrasting colors that are the exact opposite hue of the main color, respective black/grey/white values (soul’s ‘grey’ color is more teal bc color theory but yea), shit like that i guess. The final palette is on the right, it’s what I use today.

Soul never got fully fleshed out concept sheets like the other two. I guess my brain just filled in the rest of the gaps without having to draw them. (I apologize for never finishing these btw. It’s been months man. I hope the blorbo doodles in the corner make up for it) The second image was done a lot later than the first btw. Idk if that matters but I’m bringing it up anyway.

His fit inspo came mostly from Pinterest. I just compiled a bunch of shit I think he’d wear. Plus a majestic cape because it makes him look plenty more epic.

OK MOVING ON. I decided that his main gimmick would be my take on his shaded side. The idea was to make it represent dissonance, and how it affects Soul. The shadow is basically just this fuckin void. It has no physical form, and you can just stick your hand in there if you’d like (he sometimes stores the trident there). However I wouldn’t recommend it. The feeling is indescribable, but very uncomfortable. The void has a life of it’s own in a way. It does not stay confined within the Soul’s physical form (or in my case, his lineart). When conflict is at a high, like, tridential regicide level high, the void will get very close to fully overtaking him. It only fully disappears once true concord is reached, and starts reforming when the next cycle starts.

Also, the mask !!!!! Throughout cacophony, Soul is having a huge fucking identity crisis and shit. He doesn’t really have a physical organ like the other two. He doesn’t know why he’s here, or what he did to deserve this, or why nothing he’s trying works, and just. What is he if he’s failing at his main purpose???? I think because of this, he doesn’t like showing his face around the other two. He needs to assert is power, and thinks that showing his face will make him come of softer and less of someone to obey, if that makes sense. He only really takes it off when he’s alone in his room or pocket dimension (still trying to decide if they have a mock ‘apartment’, or ever did at one point). But once he has the character arc in Two Wuv, it permanently comes off !!! Wahoo!!!!!!! If only the next cycle weren’t to start, resetting his newfound self image to its previous state !!!!!!!!!!

Ok this is getting long im putting a read more thing

This image was very helpful for designing the tine shapes!! Guess which one is Soul’s !!!!!! (Spoiler alert, im pretty sure its either the 2nd or 6th ones in the 2nd row. However i genuinely dont remember. This may not even be the right image)

Soul also has a strange tie with eyes. If the halves have pissed him off to the point of no return, he does this fuckin analog horror stare that freaks the shit out of them (although heart cant see he remembers it very well. Plus, he just k n o w s that extra eye is there). I haven’t really played around with this, but I like the idea of a freakishly absurd amount of eyes hidden within the shadow. I should maybe like. Draw that sometime.

Also, expect a Soil patch update in the future!! I’d like to make his fangs more deranged, and maybe add an earth pattern to the cape. Right now, he has no symbols on him that represent him in the astronomy metaphor.

Uhhhh i hoped this helped??? If i missed anything you were hoping to know about, do let me know !!!!!!!

[the-writer-nerd-ro]

From the second I heard about You Awaken In A Strange Place, created by Jacob and debuted on Drawfee Extra, I knew I wanted to do a game night fic.

Jacob has the instructions for this game at pay what you want prices, so I recommend not trying to learn how to play from my little (extremely long) fic.

Shout out to @feeling--pink and @thestrangecarrotcake and my real life partner for providing suggestions to make this a little bit more improvised. I couldn't have done this without y'all.

You Awaken In A Strange Place

“It’s called You Awaken In A Strange Place, a totally improvised TTRPG. All you need is a game master, a few players, some paper, and some six-sided dice.” Marian gestured at the game of Yahtzee, which they’d raided for the game.

“How does it work?” Morgan asked, the most excited to roleplay. She ran a home game with her roommates and had been trying to get The Candy Bowl to play D&D with her for years, so it was surprising that her brother had been the one to bring a TTRPG to the table.

“There are five of us, so not everyone is going to get to pick a category, but everyone go ahead and roll two dice, add up the numbers, and tell me.”

“Eleven,” Morgan said.

“Four,” Hunter said.

“Seven,” Maddox said, smug that she’d beaten Hunter.

“Snake eyes,” Sara said with glee, not caring that she got last place.

“Okay, Morgan, pick a genre, write it down so you guys don’t influence each other, Maddox you’ll pick a location, and Hunter gets to pick a random adjective.”

Once everyone had written it down he collected the slips of paper.

“Okay, our game will be a Rusty Western, set in a town where it’s always winter. This is actually incredibly cohesive.”

“Western?” Maddox was surprised, “I didn’t know you liked Westerns.”

“I took a class on Western short fiction in college, it’s a fun genre.”

“Huh. Neat.”

“Okay, now, in the same order as your first rolls, everyone will say one true thing about the world. Anything you say is true and we will adapt to it, once we start playing you can make up new things about the world, but you’ll have to roll to see if it’s true or if it’s true in a way that’s bad for you.”

“Ooh, fun,” Sara’s eyes gleamed. Nothing was more fun than negative consequences in a low stakes game.

“Morgan, you’re first.”

“Right, since it’s always winter and it’s a western, instead of gun fights people have figure skating duels.”

Marian grinned and wrote that down.

“Maddox?”

“Uhhhh… This is hard.”

“It can be anything at all, big or small,” Marian encouraged.

“Instead of livestock like cows and horses, people have domesticated reindeer and polar bears,” Maddox said after a minute.

“Hell yeah,” Hunter said, surprised by her own excitement.

“Alright, Hunter, what do you think? And Sara, I’ll let you add two things because you didn’t get to pick any of the categories.”

Sara flashed a thumbs up.

“Okay, there’s a nearby town where it’s always summer and we hate those guys.”

“That’s a good one. Sara?”

“Okay, my two ideas are, some people in town are robots and this town is really invested in Christmas.”

“That’s a good way to bring in our adjective,” Marian said appreciatively.

“Okay, now everyone roll again and we’ll see who gets to create their character first.”

“Eleven,” Maddox said, gloating.

“Six,” Sara said.

Morgan held up four fingers.

“I got a twelve,” Hunter said, bursting Maddox’s bubble.

“Alright, Hunter goes first. You have to come up with your character and four skills. Everyone, including me, will come up with four skills and those will be the only skills we can roll on for the whole session. One skill you’ll be great at and get a + 2, another you’ll get a +1, then the next two you’re bad at and you’ll get a -1 and -2 respectively.” Marian took a deep breath.

“Is that all?” Hunter teased.

“If you would prefer, I can let Maddox go first.”

“No, I’m ready, give me a second.” Hunter grabbed her pad of paper and began to doodle.

“Okay, his name is Frost McClane, he’s an outlaw, and he rides a polar bear.”

“What’s the polar bear’s name?” Sara asked.

“Hmm… Noel.”

“Yayyyyy!” Sara was very pleased.

“Skills?” Marian asked, wanting to make sure the ball kept rolling.

“Okay, +2 to figure skating, +1 to mechanics, -1 to stealing, and -2 to singing.”

“Why’s he an outlaw if he’s bad at stealing?” Maddox asked.

“Because it’s funny.”

Sara peered over at Hunter’s sketchpad.

“Oh, you’re drawing him? That’s so cute! Can you put a cowboy hat on Noel?”

“Nobody can draw a cowboy hat, Sara, but I’ll try.”

“Alright, Maddox, your turn.”

“Okay, my character’s name is Nick North, he hates Christmas, he rides a reindeer, and he’s a bounty hunter. The reindeer’s name is Killer. +2 to riding, +1 to figure skating-”

“You have to pick a different skill from Hunter,” Marian interrupted.

“How are we supposed to duel if I don’t have figure skating as a skill?”

“You would just roll flat, with nothing added or subtracted.”

“Did you just invent this guy to duel me?” Hunter asked.

“Duh. Okay, +1 to lassoing, -1 to forgiveness and -2 to Christmas cheer.”

“He sounds charming,” Hunter snarked.

“I like him,” Morgan said, having a bit of a big brain moment.

“Okay, great start, Sara, your turn.”

“Okay, I’m playing a robot who works at the saloon, they’re kind of dilapidated but they’re trying their best. Morgan, maybe you can help me come up with a name. For skills, I think +2 to bartending, +1 to flirting, -1 to business management, and -2 to conflict resolution.”

Marian snorted, clearly delighted by how this character creation was going.

“Alright, Morgan, bring us home.”

“I’m playing Santa Claus, +2 to omniscience, +1 flying, -1 to square dancing, -2 to holding grudges.”

“So Nick can’t forgive and Santa can’t hold grudges. And anybody can square dance,” Sara said excitedly, glad that dancing was on the table.

“Has anyone here actually square danced?” Hunter asked.

“I have,” Sara said, “I bet my robot has. Does anyone have a name suggestion?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry, I was thinking about Santa skills. You should be named after a drink since you’re a bartender. How about Screwdriver?”

Sara nodded thoughtfully. “First name Screw, last name Driver.”

Hunter couldn’t hold back a laugh at that.

“Alright, I’m going to add four skills everyone can roll flat on. Let’s add animal handling, kissing, we’ll add a general perception check and…” Marian hummed, deciding whether or not to add an actual method of violence to the game or leaving it up to figure skating. “Snowball throwing.”

“Sounds great,” Morgan said.

“I’m not kissing anybody,” Maddox said.

“You don’t have to. Okay! Five minute break so I can come up with a plot, you can talk amongst yourselves or get more snacks or whatever, I’ll be in my bedroom.”

Maddox got up to get more charcuterie and Hunter kept working on her drawing.

“Where’s Petunia?” Maddox asked from the kitchen.

“She said she had to work, they got a big order or something?” Hunter said.

“They’re doing the flowers for a quinceañera,” Sara said.

��Oh, cool.”

“Are you guys excited for your trip?” Morgan asked.

“Oh, yeah, it’s going to be so fun,” Sara said with a grin.

“I can’t believe you’re driving that whole way,” Maddox commented.

“It’s going to be so fun,” Sara said again.

“You’ll have to send us pictures,” Morgan said.

“Have you seen the “I eat at every Margaritaville in the country” video?” Sara asked.

Maddox scrunched up her face, “That sounds vaguely familiar. Is it by the guys who did the Rainforest Cafe one?”

“Yeah! Hunter said we couldn’t stop at one.”

“Buzzkill,” Maddox said.

“No, I said we couldn’t stop at one and stop at the Rainforest Cafe.”

“So we chose Rainforest Cafe.”

“Good choice. Get me something with Tracy the Tree’s creepy face on it,” Maddox requested.

“No promises,” Hunter said, stealing a piece of cheese off of Maddox’s plate.

“We’ll get souvenirs for everyone,” Sara said.

Hunter was concerned about who was included in everyone, since they were on a budget.

“I just want a seashell,” Morgan requested.

“We’re going to Lake Tahoe,” Hunter said.

“A lake shell, then.”

Marian interrupted the conversation then, stepping back into the dining room with a conspiratorial look in his eyes.

“Alright, guys, you awaken in a strange place.”

Instantly, their attention was rapt.

“Screw, you’re the most familiar with this place, it’s your saloon, but you’ve never seen your saloon in such a disarray. There’s broken glass everywhere, and three strangers passed out at the bar. We’ll resolve who wakes up first of the others in a second, but what do you do right now?”

“Can I clean up a little?”

“What skill do you use for cleaning? If you make a convincing argument I’ll let you roll for it.”

“Bartending. I’m literally tending to my bar.”

“Fair enough. Don’t forget to add your +2.”

Sara beamed and rolled. “Nine- wait, eleven.”

“Great! That’s a success so… You clean up no problem, and you find a broken key.”

“Do I know what it’s for?”

“Not yet. Everybody else, roll your two dice and we’ll decide who wakes up first.”

“Five,” Morgan said.

“Seven,” Hunter and Maddox said in unison.

“This could not have worked out better. Nick, Frost, you awaken at the same time, right next to each other.”

“I lasso Frost,” Maddox blurted.

“You don’t need to, because Frost is handcuffed to you, though you don’t remember how that happened.”

“Shit,” Maddox said, fully embodying Nick. “Can I do a perception roll to try to figure out what’s going on?”

“Of course, give me a roll.”

“Okay, okay, I’ve got this… Ten.”

“Great, everyone has succeeded on their rolls so far. You get the lay of the land pretty quickly. You’re in a bar, you followed an outlaw in here and now you’re handcuffed to him, you still don’t remember how that happened but you know in your cold little heart that you were not just chasing someone, you were running from something else. Then you look to your left and see Santa Claus. Frost, you have an action before Santa wakes up.”

“I’d like to do a mechanics roll to wriggle out of the cuffs.”

“Alright, add your +1.”

“Oh… That’s a 4.”

Marian held back a laugh.

“Sorry, Hunter. You tighten the cuff on your hand and it cuts into your wrist a little. You all start with 10 points of health. So mark down that you’re at nine now.”

“Damn,” Hunter muttered. “Do I remember how I got in this predicament?”

“Give me a flat perception roll.”

“Eight.”

“Okay, that’s a partial success. Also I should mention, whenever you completely fail a roll you get a +1 that you can use to bump up a roll in the future, it wouldn’t do you any good here, though. Let’s see… On an eight, you also notice Santa. You’ve never much cared about being on the naughty list before, but maybe it’s becoming a pressing issue now. Morgan, you wake up.”

“Great! Do I remember what happened?”

“You tell me, what do you roll to remember?” Marian trusted Morgan’s TTRPG background.

“Omniscience.”

Marian grinned. “Go ahead, add your +2.”

“How does a 12 sound?”

“You rolled a 10 and got a 12? Incredible. Yeah, okay, you remember pretty much everything. You came to this town looking for Nick, who you found chasing Frost, and you were able to corner them both in this saloon. You handcuffed them together but before you could teach them some moral lesson, there was a blast of warm, powerful magic that put the three of you asleep and temporarily shut down Screw.”

The wheels in Sara’s head were turning.

“So Santa was after Nick… Wait! Is Nick Santa’s son?’

“That’s up to Maddox and Morgan.”

“Yeah, sure,” Maddox said.

“Absolutely! This is so fun,” Morgan said, clapping her hands.

“Did you plan this?” Hunter accused.

“No, but I did set up my character to be Santa Claus adjacent, I didn’t know Morgan was going to be Santa Claus.”

“I wanted to be Santa Claus from the second Sara said the town was super invested in Christmas, but when Maddox created Nick I did consider the possibility that our characters could be related.”

“Why didn’t you mention that to me during the break?” Maddox said.

“Because it’s all supposed to be improvised, I didn’t want to meta-game.”

“Alright,” Maddox said with a shrug.

“Okay, I'm gonna turn it over to you guys for a bit, try not to talk over each other I want to make sure everyone gets a turn, what would you like to do?”

“Can I make a perception check specifically to notice the key?” Hunter asked.

“Go for it.”

“9. Wait, I'm gonna use my point to bump it up to a 10.”

“Alright, full success. You see that Screw is holding a key that you're sure goes with your handcuffs. You could probably try to steal it with your other hand if you wanted to.”

“No, actually, I'd like to try to flirt to get the key.”

“Okay, roll and tell me what you say.”

“Seven.”

“Partial success. What do you say?”

“Is it just me, or do you hold the key to my heart?”

Marian sat back and waited for Sara to respond, fully giving them the scene.

Sara understood the assignment.

“If this is the key to your heart, I'm afraid it's broken. Uh, Screw hands over the broken key.”

“Shit.”

“But, and if you'll allow me to also roll flirting, I say, ‘I'd be happy to help you fix it.’”

“Roll to flirt. +1.”

“Oh, eleven.”

“I think North is probably completely enamored with you,” Marian said.

“Yeah,” Hunter said, completely enamored with Sara.

“That's cheating, they're real life dating they can't date in the game too.”

“If you're not gonna kiss anybody Madds then we gotta get our classic Western romance somewhere,” Marian said.

“Whatever. Can I try to break these handcuffs by force?”

“What would you roll to do that?”

“Uhhhhhhhh…”

“So that's a no.”

“Okay, then I want to yell at my dad.”

“No roll required to yell at your dad.”

“Why did you do this to us?!? You broke the fucking key!”

“Language,” Morgan said, fully embodying Santa Claus.

“Oh, because of your list? I don't care about your stupid list. Either get us out of these handcuffs or get out of here.”

“I don't think you can talk to Santa like that,” Hunter said.

“Oh, what do you know? I know you're on the naughty list too. That's how I've been tracking you filthy scum outlaws.”

“That feels like world building, roll to see if the naughty list actually has tracking abilities.”

“Uh… Five.” Maddox screwed up their face at the failed roll and marked down the +1 for later.

“Okay, that's a failure so. .. It totally does and you've been using the copy you stole from your dad to track bad guys, but you realize all of a sudden that you don't have your copy anymore.”

“Son,” Morgan said, “I understand why you're upset but it seems like someone is sabotaging us, we need to focus on that before we focus on our interpersonal issues.”

“Someone ruined my saloon,” Sara said, “it's usually not like this Mr. Santa Claus it's usually much nicer.”

“I know, I know everything.”

“Everything except who's sabotaging us,” Maddox muttered.

“Can I roll omniscience again to see if I can figure out who's sabotaging us?”

“Yeah, but eventually you're going to need to roll other skills.”

“Got it. That's a six.”

“Can I help him?” Hunter asked.

“How do you help?”

“Well, everyone can roll omniscience, can't they?”

“Huh, I guess you’re right. Give me a roll and if you succeed then it bumps up Morgan's roll to a partial success, if it fails then you share the consequence. And we'll say that a partial success does nothing in this instance.”

“Seven. Sorry, Morgan.”

“It's okay, thanks for trying.”

“Okay, Frost, you do not achieve omniscience. Santa, you're met with a barrier, as hot and uncomfortable as the magic blast that put you to sleep and tore through the saloon. This barrier keeps you from being able to attain more information, and you take one point of… I think it's called psychic damage?”

“Cool,” Morgan said, unphased by the damage and excited about the unfolding mystery.

“Maybe we should get out of the bar and investigate. I think Nick is probably pretty stressed now that he knows his list is missing and he really, really wants to find it.”

“Alright, does everyone want to leave the bar?”

“If he goes I go so that I'm not being dragged,” Hunter said.

“I follow Frost, but I lock up the saloon.”

Morgan shrugged. “I guess I'll leave too.”

“Marian, is my polar bear nearby?”

“Uh, sure, what do you want to do with it?”

“We don't have a brute force mechanic but I was thinking maybe if I roll well on animal handling then Noel can break the cuffs.”

“Okay, but if you roll badly you'll take more damage.”

“Got it.”

“I got a… Nine.”

“Okay, he's able to break it enough for you to wriggle out, but you deepen the scrape from before and take an additional point of damage.”

"But I'm not attached to Nick anymore?”

“Correct.”

“Okay, now I roll to lasso Frost.”

“Okay, add your +1.”

“5.”

“Okay, you slip on a puddle and land in the dirt. Normally this would be a soft landing, because of all the snow, but there's no snow. One point of damage.”

“Am I the only one who hasn't taken any damage?” Sara asked.

“Don't jinx yourself,” Morgan said.

“Jinxes aren't real,” Hunter and Maddox said simultaneously. One of them could have been owed a soda, if jinxes were real.

“What happened to the snow?” Morgan asked. “I’m pretty sure that there was snow when we got here.”

“I’m not gonna make you roll for perception or omniscience, there was definitely snow when you got there.”

“I bet it was those summer people,” Sara said.

“Was that in character?” Marian asked.

“It can be.”

“Right, okay, good guess, Sara has solved like, both of the mysteries so far.”

Hunter squeezed Sara’s hand under the table, very proud of her girlfriend.

“Of course… Those people have always hated me,” Morgan said. “Ever since I told them Christmas in July was not a real holiday.”

Marian cracked up at that and it took a minute before the game could continue.

“I bet they have my list…”

“You mean my list,” Morgan said. “Wait, you lost the list?”

“I didn’t lose it! It was taken from me when you did your stupid handcuff trick. If you hadn’t handcuffed us then I wouldn’t have lost the list.”

“You wouldn’t have lost the list if you hadn’t stolen the list.”

“Is that why you followed me here? Because of your stupid list?”

“No! I came because I care about you, and I miss you.”

Hunter leaned over to Marian while Morgan and Maddox staged some family drama, “Can me and Screw get on my polar bear and ride away while they’re distracted.”

“Screw, do you want to sneak away with Frost?”

“Yeah, but I also want to figure out what’s going on…”

“I want to go find those summer people, I’m not just trying to escape,” Hunter said, as the Santa and Nick fight continued in the background.

“Oh, then, yes!”

“Alright, Hunter roll for riding, and Sara if Hunter fails the roll you can roll to help.”

Sara flashed a thumbs up. They weren’t being particularly quiet, but neither Morgan or Maddox noticed, since they were so into their little argument, which really fed into Maddox’s debate background and Morgan’s roleplay background.

Hunter rolled quietly and then held up ten fingers.

Marian nodded.

“Sara, roll perception to see if you can figure out the correct direction to go.”

“Eight,” Sara said in a low voice.

“Okay, you see some tracks but you’re not entirely sure which way they’re going, so just pick a direction, left or right.”

“Right.”

Marian rolled a dice to see how well Sara’s luck was gonna hold, but he didn’t say anything to confirm or deny whether or not they were correct.

“Yo, Nick, roll me a perception check.”

“12.”

“Yeah, Screw and Frost are completely gone. But you do see polar bear tracks leading to the right.”

“I get on Killer and follow them.”

“Roll for riding, +2, Santa what do you do?”

“I'd like to fly up and try to catch up to them sooner so that it doesn't turn into a fight.”

“Okay, +1 to flying, and if you succeed I'm gonna have you roll for conflict resolution.”

“I rolled a four.”

“The heat magic is too strong and you're unable to get off the ground, I'm not going to make you take damage for that.”

“Nick, let me ride with you.”

“Hell no.”

“Roll me a flat holding a grudge roll,” Marian said.

“What about my riding roll? I got a nine and I'd like to bump it up to a 10.”

“Hold onto that and roll for holding grudges.”

“Shit. I got a 2.”

“Okay, so you haven't forgiven your father but you realize it's silly to harbor this grudge when there is a more pressing matter, so, despite your best wishes, you allow Santa to ride on Killer with you.”

“Okay, fine.”

“Alright, you guys take off and make good time but it's only fair to allow Screw and Frost a surprise round. What do you two do?”

“Do I see the punk from Summertown?” Hunter asked.

“Perception.”

“That's a five.”

“You do not.”

“Then I roll to flirt with Screw.”

“Useless,” Maddox muttered.

“What did you roll?”

“12.”

“Why do you only roll well for unimportant rolls?” Maddox asked.

“This is important, as far as we know we're alone so I'd like to enjoy my time with the cute robot bartender.”

“What do you say?”

“I'm not much of a thief, but I hope to steal your heart.”

“I roll to kiss Frost.”

“I'm so glad I added kissing,” Marian said with a chuckle.

“Uh, seven.”

“You share a lovely kiss but because you're a robot you do shock Frost a little, Hunter-”

“I know, one more point of damage. Why am I the one taking damage? Sara is the one who rolled badly.”

“Because it's much harder to hurt a robot. While you're kissing, two other things happen. The first is that Santa and Nick catch up to you, the second is that you are suddenly pelted with snowballs. No additional damage from the snowballs.”

“I thought there was no snow,” Hunter said.

“The four of you look over and see, standing on top of the last snowbank, a man wearing sunglasses, a Hawaiian shirt, and a black cowboy hat. He says, “You idiots, I've lured you all here, and once I destroy the last of the snow and ice, your town will become a ghost town and Summer will reign supreme.”

“That's some heavy handed exposition,” Maddox said.

“Was that in character?” Marian asked.

“Yes, and I try to lasso him.”

“Roll.”

“Seven.”

“He dodges out of the way but you somehow manage to lasso the naughty list, which is now back in your possession.”

“I immediately take it from him,” Morgan said.

“Roll to steal.”

“9, but I bump it up to a 10.”

“Okay, yeah, you steal it from Nick.”

Maddox glowered at Morgan for a second before remembering this was a game and that nothing had been physically stolen from her.

“You said there was ice left?” Hunter asked.

“Yes, there's a frozen lake nearby that this man intends to melt.”

“I challenge you to a figure skating duel. Nick, will you be my second in the duel?”

“Uh…”

“Roll forgiveness to see if you trust Frost enough to be his second in the duel.”

“I rolled a 10 that becomes a 9.”

“Okay, you agree to be his second but because you don't fully trust him you can't use your rolls to help each other. But, since he’s a summer guy I think it’s only fair if he has a -1 to figure skating.”

“Thanks for throwing us a bone,” Hunter said.

“Should be -2,” Maddox muttered.

“Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and roll. Hunter, add your +2. You just both have to beat my… One.”

“You rolled a two and got a one?” Maddox snorted.

“Yes. So, you’re guaranteed to win, but let’s see how well you do.”

“I got an eleven,” Hunter said, looking proud.

“I got a four,” Maddox said sheepishly.

“Okay, well, you both do very well against the summer outlaw, but, at the very end, the ice begins to crack and both Nick and the outlaw go under.”

“Roll to lasso Nick,” Hunter said immediately. Even when their characters were enemies, Hunter wasn’t going to let anything happen to her cousin.

“Go ahead.”

“Shit, I only got an eight.”

“Can I give the help action to save my son?” Morgan asked.

“Of course.”

“I got a 12.”

“Okay, together, you save Nick. Maddox, you take one point of damage and I think I’d like you to roll forgiveness to forgive your father and Frost.”

“Okay, it’s only fair… I have a -1 but if I use the failure I just did I roll flat… Ten!”

“Great, it seems like you forgive them, but you tell me how it happens.”

“Frost, you’re free to go, try to get on the right list.”

“If I can interject,” Hunter said, “Frost looks at Screw and nods and says, ‘I think I have a reason to go straight.’”

“Roll to kiss,” Sara said, happy to have sat it out for a minute but eager to join in now.

Maddox rolled her eyes as Sara rolled the dice, getting a very cinematic 12.

“Okay, those two have their movie magic kiss while the sun sets, what does Nick say to Santa?”

“Hey.”

Morgan held back a laugh, sobering up so she could add to the scene.

“You can have the list back, if you would like. I know being a bounty hunter is important to you.”

“It is, but… I think I want to use the list for the right reasons. If you’ll let me come back.”

“Santa scoops Nick up in a hug. ‘I have wanted you to come home for a long time.’”

“I roll to have Christmas cheer but it’s unlikely.”

“I think you have an extra +1,” Marian said, unsure if that was true but throwing Maddox another bone.

“Okay… Then I got a nine.”

“Can I start singing a Christmas carol to give the help action?” Morgan asked, while Sara and Hunter kissed in real life to signify the fact that their characters were still making out.

“Yeah, no one has rolled singing yet I would love if you rolled singing. If you get a partial or complete success Nick can be bumped up to a ten and feel the spirit of Christmas in his heart again.”

“Big money, big money… Seven! That’s a partial success!”

Maddox high-fived her sister. “Nick’s heart grows three sizes and he doesn’t even mind the fact that a robot and an outlaw are making out in the background. Also that other guy is dead right?”

“Yeah, super dead,” Marian said.

“Well,” Sara said, pulling away from Hunter, “should we celebrate at the saloon?”

“Yeah,” Hunter said, “Let’s have a square dance.”

[telomeke-bbs]

bad buddy fandom getting-to-know-you-meme!

Got tagged by @tiistirtipii at this post here and @inventedfangirling at this post here. Thanks for tagging me! 🥰 (And sorry I've taken so long to respond. 🤦‍♂️)

name and whatever you want to share about yourself

You can call me Tel. I love writing, languages, linguistics, and learning about different cuisines and cultures. I live right in the middle of Southeast Asia.

when did you watch bad buddy/join the fandom?

I started watching Bad Buddy almost from the start, after a friend told me Ohm had a new series out. I went into it pretty blind, not knowing anything at all about its history or genesis. I'd liked Ohm's work in He's Coming to Me and was open to more from him, not thinking the series would be anything more than your run-of-the-mill BL. And was I ever wrong! I think BBS sort of grew slowly on me for the first few episodes, but it really took hold after Nanon's single tear at the end of Ep.4. And I lost it after The Kiss at the end of Ep.5, of course. The no-holds barred obsession really set in after I realized this wasn't any ordinary BL; it works on so many levels and the intelligence with which it was crafted is formidable.

Favourite ship/s

PatPran does it for me.

Favourite character/s

Love them all, but introvert Pran with his protective walls, defensive rituals and surreptitious signposting of his emotional state with doodles and symbols really struck a chord. Pre-Ep.10 Pran was like an extreme version of younger me, I sometimes think.

Favourite episode/s

Episode 11 – I love everything about the beach, and the two of them alone by the sea was like my idea of paradise. But I nodded sagely along when BBS gently pointed out that their beachside idyll was just a temporary respite and that paradise doesn't exist on Earth.

Favourite scene/s

Oof. So many. My all-time favorite is the opening scene of Episode 5 (see this link here for why) because it was layered so deep with meaning and messaging, beneath the happy surface theatrics. I sometimes think of BBS as one giant and intricate puzzle, and if you find and fit together the right puzzle pieces it reveals so much more to you. The amazing thing is that it kept doing this over and over again. Like how many themes and allegories can this one series have? But if you want to disregard all of that and just enjoy it as a well-crafted BL with stellar acting, you can too. And that is also part of its magic.

Some other scenes that still give me the chills:

Deeply-pining Pran looking on at an oblivious Pat sleeping peacefully in Ep.4 [4/4]; I've been there and I know exactly how his heart must have been rent in two at that moment.

The Kiss in Ep.5 of course.

Pat finding out in Ep.10 that Ming wasn't the unimpeachable hero that he thought he was.

Pran missing Dissaya in Ep.11 (this is because I still miss my late mom with all my heart; the grief is going to be a forever guest there I fear – you just learn to pack it away in a box and put it away in a quiet room in your heart, but it breaks free every now and then, just to stare at me silently with its unknowable face).

When Our Song plays in Ep.11 (especially when Uncle Tong does his voiceover and the soaring guitar solo kicks in, and then we see Pat and Pran back in front of their houses, bracing themselves to face their families again).

Ah that award-winning scene on the balconies in Ep.12, when Pat and Pran indulge in a joyful, all-smiles tin-can conversation for old times' sake, play-acting at being strangers, and then dastardly Director Aof toys with our hearts once again and has the music crescendo as he morphs them back into their kiddie selves dressed in the same clothes to show us that the bond between the two scamps had always been there, forged since childhood, and that they were never really enemies throughout it all. And amidst the nostalgia we're suddenly engulfed in a wave of bittersweet emotions imagining all the what-ifs and if-onlys and what-might-have-beens had those poor little tykes not been forced into that meaningless rivalry by their warring parents. But as the camera pans away we hear their young voices piping in the night, still innocent and so full of hope, reminding us that when those two little boys grew up they still managed to find a way to triumph over all the pitiless hurt imposed on them. And how privileged we were to have been able to share in the story of their journey.

One thing you would change about the show if you could

I've thought so much about this show, it's not just one thing. And don't get me wrong; I'm not tearing it down or hurling brickbats at this series I love so much. It just irks the Perfectionist Pran side of me that something so beautiful, deep, intelligent and heartfelt also has its little flaws here and there.

I think they could have done a better job helping us understand how and why PatPran's competitive dynamic launched them so suddenly into the madcap bet in Ep.7. The cinematography was inconsistent in a lot of parts. The English subtitling (especially of Ep.5) could have clarified some things, but instead made them more confusing. And Pat getting shot may have been necessary on an intellectual level, to nod at some trope, theme or other literary preoccupation perhaps. But the narrative didn't really need that moment of conflict and I felt BBS tipped over into unnecessary melodrama at that point.

what are your some of your favorite fanworks made by other people?

I adore the analysis, meta and backgrounding of BBS that you can find on Tumblr. So many intelligent, creative people looking at this show, but those that spring to mind:

@airenyah @bengiyo @chickenstrangers @dribs-and-drabbles @dudeyuri @grapejuicegay @inventedfangirling @kenmakaashi @lovelyghostv @lurkingshan @lurkingteapot @miscellar @neuroticbookworm @pandasmagorica @ranchthoughts @recentadultburnout @waitmyturtles

Fan art also by @hereforlou and @kit-teung. 😍

I've probably forgotten so many others, please forgive me if I have; if I've liked and reblogged your work it means that you've touched me with your intelligence and output and I'm automatically a fan.

What are your favourite fanworks you've made?

I mostly post observations and findings from research about the show, so they're not works of fiction or visual art, just essays really. They're all special to me in different ways, but I lean most to the one that talks about the etymology of Pat and Pran's chue lens, what they mean semantically and what they mean for the series (write-up linked here):

My post about the Ep.1 scene in front of Khun Noppharnach's Pharmacy (linked here) was another one where the pieces of the BBS logic puzzle fell into place in a way that satisfied my gameplaying side:

I'm also chuffed about my location posts (linked here; have identified almost all of them, such is the power of the Internet), finding out that the jeep in khanom jeep dumplings also means to court (linked here), and tracking down Baseball Mom (linked here).

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A song that makes you think of BBS (not in the show)

My obsessive mind can't let go of this song (I've written about it several times now) but Never (ไม่เคย) by 25Hours devastatingly captures the quiet grief over losing that special someone in your life (and tells us what Pat must have been going through post-separation from Pran in high school). Pat mentions it at Ep.5 [3I4] 0.35 but it isn't played in the show. I've got it on repeat now, and am well on my way to memorizing the lyrics.

Onward tagging:

@airenyah @bengiyo @chickenstrangers @dribs-and-drabbles @dudeyuri @grapejuicegay @hereforlou @inventedfangirling @kenmakaashi @kit-teung @lovelyghostv @lurkingshan @lurkingteapot @miscellar @neuroticbookworm @pandasmagorica @ranchthoughts @recentadultburnout @waitmyturtles

No pressure to play if you don't want to, or have already done it. But do tag and let the rest of the BBS fandom know if you have responses for us to read! 😍

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[buttqvack]

BOOK 6 PART ONE SPOILERS

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I feel like talking about book 6, so here are my thoughts

(Including some screenshots)

TW: Swearing and a little bit of violent language

I apologize in advance for the lack of organization, it skips around a lot and it isn't really proofread either.

Book six low key feels like a fan fic. Idk if it's because I read it all at one and my brain isn't registering it yet or if I've just been anticipating it for too long.

Not saying it's bad or anything, I actually really like it so far, it's just different from the rest of the books.

Omfg it's halarious, it's pretty much Idia babysitting the overbloted students meanwhile everyone (including Idia) is complaining about everything.

Ortho's voice in the beginning sounded weird to me. I've been spoiled on book six before it came out in En, and if what I saw was right or if I remember correctly it might be relevant? Not sure though, but to not spoil anything not out in En yet, I won't elaborate.

Speaking of Ortho though:

Yes Ortho, the target has to be alive. I love you but if you kill my cat I swear to whatever deities you believe in the consequences won't be pretty.

Also Crowley's voiced response is so funny to me, he just screeches.

M/c's house is even more ramshackle now, and has a giant cauldron in the floor (thanks Deuce).

Speaking of Ramshackle, Vil pays each VDC member either 50,000 marks or their share of 50,000 marks (before STYX comes btw), but most of them end up donating it to fixing up Ramshackle and refurbishing it.

Although most of that money is probably going to go to rebuilding it now...

I love how one of the dialogue options in that chapter was referencing the huge cauldron in the middle of the lounge.

Epel speaks a lot more country like in this book and I love it, yes king yee haw.

Who was going to tell me Rook has 5 siblings?? Who?? And he's the third oldest of like 6??

(I can only imagine what the rest of them are like lol)

His family also has magic teleportation pads across Twisted Wonderland, because his ancestors liked to travel??

"The more I learn about you the more mysterious you become." - Epel's reaction to those Rook bombshells.

We also learn Rooks unique magic, although like Trey and Jamil it's diffrent in English than in Japanese.

But Arrow Afar sounds kinda cool though, I like it better than I See You. Unlike Trey and Jamil I think it's an upgrade. (Doodle Suit and Snake Whisper are so much better than Paint the Roses and Snake Charmer smh)

Arrow Afar lets Rook track the location of what or whoever he casts it on which is really fitting for his character. I thought his unique magic would explain the uncanny amount he knows about literally everyone, but apparently not.

Rook also magics the M/c a Pomefiore dorm uniform and one of the player dialogue options are "I can feel my posture straighten just from wearing this"

We also find out why Rook wanted to go to STYX, and it was to make sure Vil got his skincare products. That's it. Epel followed him because he was pissy. And M/c just wanted to talk to Grim.

Tbh I love the Epel Rook bonding time we got out of book 6 so far, I love the dynamic they have.

When they breached STYX and told Idia why they were there, Idia really said "Me and the boys at three am looking for B̵̳̫͇͈̞̝͖͒̅Ę̸̡͇̹̻̙͉̮̪͕̱͖̏̂A̶̺̤͓͑̇́̂N̸͖̟̺̤̣̱̣̠̊͐̔́́̒̾̐̕͘ͅS̵̢͎̳̳͓̤̜̓͜͜"

Idia made Grim cry. I don't care if it was indirectly, I'm going to break his kneecaps /j.

His robots also knocked Ace and Deuce unconscious and I just want to make sure they're ok, we left before they woke up. I wanna make sure they're ok??

Crewel also referred to them their actions as "phenomenally stupid".

When the Charon bots abducted Azul it was kinda funny seeing Idia just casually chatting to them. Like everyone was fighting for their lives for all they knew and Idia is just like "You gotta chill out a bit, someone's gonna sue you..."

It's pretty much cannon now that if you lock two or more NRC students in a room together, they will without a doubt pick a fight with each other /hj.

I can't add anymore images to this post but trust me when I tell you Idia shipped the students in a cargo crate together like they just came out of the movie Madagascar.

Riddle was on top of Leona during shipping and when Leona told him he was squishing him Riddle replied with "I was wondering what that muscley pillow was."

"Yeah, tell that to they guy whose lap you've been snoring on for three hours." - Leona

After discussing what they knew about the situation and Idias involvement, Azul comments that if he had known, he would have tried harder to get Idia indebted to him. And then I believe it was Jamil or Riddle who commented about his one track mindedness.

What happened to Crowley?? Charon took him as well, but he's only mentioned like once after and no one confirms that he is or isn't at STYX.

We learn about the Shroud curse, and that it eats the any blot that accumulates in them but without a constant blot production, it would start to eat their magic. We also learn that that's why Idia and Orthos hair is fire.

Idia also mentions the blue flame of Grims ears and that Grim is cursed too, but he can't figure out what the effects are, who casted it, or why. But he says that it's a very old curse.

We learn more about how blot works and about the phantoms (the monsters that appear behind the overbloted students).

The amount of cryptic likely foreshadowy comments were astronomical.

That's all I can remember off the top of my head and from any screenshots I took, so let me know if I forgot anything worth mentioning and I'll try and add it in.

[myuni-moon]

#Growing Pains

—Synopsis: There are many things that will remain unspoken, but maybe someday, you'll find it in yourself to love again. For now, you mourn.

—Pairing(s)/Character(s): Past!Tighnari x Reader

—Genre: Scenario, modern!au

—Word Count: 762

—Warnings: Angst, mentions of unrequited love, pining

—Note: Something to heal me. Sometimes, I miss who I was and the people in the past who I couldn't imagine not having in my life. Also, I'm alive, just busy!

No one taught you the mourning that came from growing out of someone. No one told you that at any point in time, it'll unexpectedly occur to you the role that someone once occupied had been barren or, perhaps, even replaced. It was like a case of those sequels where the once main characters of the series were now supporting roles in the background that now served as minor plot devices and were used to draw in older fans, knowing they'd cling to something familiar and reject the prospect of something new because of their lingering emotional attachment.

The realization came to you on one autumn afternoon as you sat outside your favorite café. Gone was the usual bustle of the world, now replaced with the peaceful silence of golden hour. You quietly sipped on your drink and sneakily peeked at the people passing by on the other side of street. If you got too bored, you'd count the number of red cars passing within the hour-- perhaps you'd end up doodling on a napkin with a pen.

The chilly air nipped at your nose, and the sun had begun to set. Somewhere in the background, you could hear a child laugh from far away. It warmed your heart, made you feel as if something deep within you was healing. But from what? What were you healing from?

Then in the deep recesses of your heart, mind, and soul, an image is conjured up. Tighnari, the name felt foreign as it danced in your head-- even though you knew it wouldn't have four years ago. Honestly speaking, the very notion of him had become foreign to you. You were familiar with who he was, what he was to you, and just how important he had been. But that's all it was now, familiar. Well-acquainted but uncertainly so.

Your mind was thrust back in time, one completely different to now. It was a time that you could only say was an era given to Tighnari. After all, you characterized it as such due to him. He lived in it as much as you did. Though hazy, you could remember how your chest swelled with love, joy, and the universe. He used to take the train with you, his figure standing parallel to your own as you gripped the handle grip as tightly as you could lest you ended up tripping the moment the vehicle started moving-- but he'd always stand behind you, waiting to catch you if your grip ever loosened accidentally. You'd laugh softly as he whispered to you funny hypotheticals of other people on the ride. Afterwards, he'd walk with you to the Akademiya before you two split into your own schedules. When everything was finished, you'd head home, with him right behind you, and talk about how your day went.

You were never lovers, even if you wanted to be-- more than anything in the world. But you knew that life wasn't always how you wanted it to be because even after more than half a decade of friendship, everything would eventually change. People live their lives and start matching the pace of the world. Before you knew it, your present had long become the past.

How long had it been since you were in love? Did you even still have it in you to? And even then, why did the thought of growing up and loving someone else as much as you loved him scare you? Why did it feel like it made your heart falter? You weren't even in love with him anymore, but why did the thought of moving on from something that used to be so wonderful seem so frightening?

But just when the pain settled in your chest, threatening to constrict your ribcage and leave you feeling out of breath, it dissipated as if it were never there in the first place. Still, it sent you reeling. It took you a few minutes to settle your world that had been shaken up. As you glanced back onto the scene in front of you, you took a deep breath. You silently whispered your goodbyes, watching the sun set in the horizon. You stuffed all your lingering regrets and attachments in the last rays of sunshine, watching the sun sink and taking everything with it. You wonder if what you just felt would ever come back to remind you like how morning always came after the night. If it did, you don't know if you could handle the devastation another time.

And just like that, you mourned.

[arospecbandgeek]

I'm baaacccckkkk with a doodle and questions.

Doodle-

Teehehe I gift my silly drawings to people

1- What's her Music taste?

2- Is she only scared of Bonnie because shes a juvie convict? Or is she scared of all convicts in general?

3- Do you think that the cheerleaders, and Color Guard would have sleepovers after the performances/games? And if so, would the two be separate? Or would both teams be together?

4- Favorite animal and food?

5- Is she scared of cops? Like she knows she's a banzai blaster, so when she sees a cop or Percy (or even someone related to Percy *cough* Parker *cough*) does she get anxious like Carcrash does?

6- Any info on Blaries family? Any siblings? Is she close to anyone in particular?

7- Have you been hit by the square anon yet?

Again, I lurk and I love OC development so I'm gonna be here. Feel free to like, not answer. And don't be afraid to like ask me abt my characters. Again, I like talking Abt them and hearing ppl talk abt theirs.

thanks for the doodle! length warning again.

BLAIRE KATCHADORIAN (EE OC)

1- What's her Music taste?

Mainstream rap (90s - Now) and alternative pop (Basically the in-universe equivalents to Lana Del Ray and Florence and The Machine).

2- Is she only scared of Bonnie because shes a juvie convict? Or is she scared of all convicts in general?

Yes and no. She’s afraid of Bonnie because she could be a threat, her being an ex-convict is the main part of her reasoning, though. She knows that people go to jail for many different reasons, even if they aren’t violent, it’s just that Bonnie is a mix of both which makes her worried.

3- Do you think that the cheerleaders, and Color Guard would have sleepovers after the performances/games? And if so, would the two be separate? Or would both teams be together?

Yes. Note that I plan on showing other OCs that are cheerleaders later (I’m working on Monica, the head cheerleader, but I draw slow as hell so I’ll probably be done days from now), and I feel like they would have sleepovers. I can’t speak too well for the color guard, since they’re not my OCs, but I think they would too.

I don’t know if they’d mix sleepovers, but it would honestly be funny if they did. Like going from bickering over a practice field on Friday to watching a movie and eating ice cream the immediate day after.

4- Favorite animal and food?

Unicorns and vanilla ice cream. Unicorns because she’s an avid MLP (or equivalent) fan. She keeps that a secret though because it would be “lame to like a kids show”. She likes vanilla ice cream because it’s sweet but simple.

5- Is she scared of cops? Like she knows she's a banzai blaster, so when she sees a cop or Percy (or even someone related to Percy *cough* Parker *cough*) does she get anxious like Carcrash does?

If this AU takes place before the redwood run arc, then no. If it takes place after, then only Percy. She also wouldn’t be afraid around Parker after finding out who her relatives are, but just makes sure not to do anything illegal around her.

6- Any info on Blaries family? Any siblings? Is she close to anyone in particular?

She’s an only child with two parents named Isabella and Daniel who are (un)happily married. Blaire isn’t that close with either of them, with Isabella being a borderline neglectful wine mother who cares about business more than her kid, and Daniel being an enabler.

7- Have you been hit by the square anon yet?

The who? /gen

Again, I lurk and I love OC development so I'm gonna be here. Feel free to like, not answer. And don't be afraid to like ask me abt my characters. Again, like talking Abt them and hearing ppl talk abt theirs.

No, you’re fine. If anything I actually kinda appreciate these asks. I genuinely have nothing better to do right now. 😭 By the time the weekend’s over I’m obviously not gonna respond this quickly, but I still probably will.

I’ll ask about your OCs too, I’m just idea bankrupt right now.

thanks for the ask! 💞

[gendervapor14]

~ temptation, torment, and tangerines ~

♥ story sample and details below the cut ♥

Sora kept her jaw shut because she was positive no matter what she said, Bell-mère would find a way to use it against her. Instead, she reached into her pockets for her keys. Groped at a half-empty box of cigarettes and a lighter in the right pocket. A folded-up page of one of Rosinante’s stupid boardroom doodles in the other. 

But no keys. Because she wasn’t expecting to go to her office at midnight, and she probably left them on the fucking dresser.

“Don’t tell me.”

Sora lowered her head. Pinched her cigarette between her thumb and index finger. Ran her tongue over her molars. There were boardroom halls around, but she was positive they were all locked by now. Custodians had already swept by and cleaned them for the morning meetings. Tsuru’s office was up another floor, probably open. But that meant having this conversation in front of Tsuru. It’d be a power move if Bell-mère wouldn’t prattle off a list of Sora’s less-than-typical authority measures, and sink her career for good. 

“We have two options.” She decided, straightening her shoulders and meeting Bell-mère’s dubious eye. “We could call this off until tomorrow morning.”

“Or…?”

The cigarette rested between her teeth again. She needed a support system. A feeble attempt. “I think we should call it off until tomorrow morning.”

Bell-mère leaned in. “I’ve got drills tomorrow morning. Unless you’re telling me it’s okay to skip them…?”

Sora didn’t have the mental fortitude to recall Bell-mère’s schedule. Chances were, she was bluffing. She wanted that other option. Just talk. Just talk. Just talk. “Well, then my only other suggestion is taking this to my room, because this isn’t an appropriate conversation to hold in a hallway.”

Bell-mère lit up like a goddamn bonfire. “That so, Commodore? Gonna teach me another lesson…?” She cut the distance between them, tracing a finger under Sora’s jaw. Sora did her best to remain stone-cold and professional. “Filed my nails for ya.”

“You are, unbelievable.”

“Yeah, funny enough, you’re not the only one who’s said that.”

it's everyone's favorite former marine! uh. yeah, rosinante's in this story too, yes, fine. but bell-mere doesn't get nearly enough love!!

in my journey to bring her justice, i've started writing a myriad of stories about her. so first, i bring you this E-rated, bell-mere x fem OC, 4 chaptered little thing. focuses on bell-mere and her time in the navy, and takes place in the 01746 universe, but i think it can be read and enjoyed standalone! i've got some corabelle in the works as well, so keep your eyes peeled!

before i continue, i will reiterate: this piece is rated E, so minors, please do not interact.

title: temptation, torment, and tangerines rating: E category: F/F, F/M content warnings: none! status: complete!, 4 chapters, 23,522 words relationships: bell-mere/original character, rosinante/original character (only at the very tail end of chapter 4) rosinante & oc, bell-mere & rosinante characters: original character (sora), bell-mere, donquixote rosinante, tsuru additional tags: canon plausible, enemies to lovers, but uh it's more enemies to lovers to friends, sexual tension, angst and hurt/comfort, feminist themes, misandry, sora needs therapy, bell-mere does her best, okay here come the porn tags lmao, smut, shower sex, masturbation in shower, wow there's a tag for that, vaginal fingering, inappropriate use of devil fruit powers, rough sex, oral sex, vaginal fisting, gags, wow these two have fun huh, undertones of sorazon throughout the fic, but main pairing is bell-mere and sora, no infidelity this is pre-sorazon, exhibitionism, light masochism, some humor, conflict of interests, moral dilemmas, hate sex, arguing, size difference, referenced domestic abuse, referenced human trafficking summary: “I’m not, we’re not doing anything. I’ll let you go, for now, but you need to get serious. If I hear of any other misdemeanors after this conversation, I will report you.” Bell-mère sauntered towards the door with her hands out in an exaggerated shrug. “You owe me a tangerine, by the way.” Sora scoffed and folded her arms. “You’re supposed to salute your superiors upon entry and exiting.” “I’ll salute ya as soon as I respect ya, toots.”

~ takes place in the 01746 universe, but can be read standalone ~

special thanks to @gali-la for beta reading this demon!! <3

until next time o7