#i had no idea the amount of detail and scale though

[innerfare]

A Lucky Injury - Law

Summary: Your Captain, whom you've been crushing on since you joined the Heart Pirates, was injured in a fight, and his wound is in a place he just can't reach, forcing him to ask you for help bandaging it. Features pining (reader is down bad).

Pairing: Trafalgar Law x Gn!Reader

Genre: Angst, Eventual Fluff

CW: SFW // Slight Mention of Blood and Injury (no real gory details though)

Word Count: 643

———

It was a lucky injury. You were a bad person for thinking it, a horrible person for gleaning any amount of pleasure from your Captain’s pain, but it was a lucky injury. Somewhere between mild and moderate on the scale, closer to moderate though Law claimed it was mild, the gash on his shoulder blade was just out of reach. For him, at least. The gash was well within your reach. It was also serious enough to warrant medical attention, but not so serious that you had to worry about his future health. 

It was a lucky injury. 

“Take off your shirt,” you ordered him, doing your utmost to act normal as he sighed and went to pull his hoodie off. To your sick pleasure, he flinched a little when he did, allowing you to step in and pull it the rest of the way off. You caught the lingering scent of his soap and that special laundry detergent he used for his sensitive skin mixed with his sweat, and you had to stop yourself from pulling the garment to your face and inhaling like some sort of lunatic. 

“Y/n-ah, I can do it myself.” His voice sounded lower than usual, similar to when he was tired or battling a cold he insisted he didn’t have. It was gravelly, like it might give out at any moment. 

“Just like you could fight those guys yourself?” You set the hoodie beside him on the exam table and assessed his wound, drying some of the blood from his tanned skin. You took extra care not to look at his bare chest, knowing full well those heart tattoos and lithe muscles would make it too difficult to concentrate on your work. 

“I did fight them myself,” he said. “And I beat them myself, too, so don’t-” He hissed as you dabbed his wound with antiseptic. 

“Yeah, you’re a real tough guy.” 

“I’m a Warlord,” he reminded you. 

“And the most terrifying one, to boot.” You continued cleaning his wound, a little bit too aware of the way his jaw clenched as you worked. Oh, and the sinewy line of his shoulder. You knew your captain was a nerd, but he certainly didn’t have the body of a guy who spent much of his time hunched over a desk. 

It was a lucky injury. 

“Why are you taking so long?” He asked. “It’s clean by now, just bandage me up.” 

“Doctors make the worst patients,” you tutted, giving his wound one more pass with the antiseptic. It was for his own good, not because you wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to touch him. 

“If you’re dragging this out to punish me for going in by myself-” 

“I would never prolong your suffering,” you interrupted, reaching for a bandage. “That would be unethical.” 

“Yeah,” he muttered, “a pirate would never do something unethical.” 

“Is the Warlord going to lecture me now on ethics?” 

“Maybe.” He cleared his throat, and you realized there was a slight pink flush to his cheeks, though you had no idea why. You could only imagine he was embarrassed to be caught in a position where he needed help. 

You considered messing up the bandage so you had to redo it, now not even so enamored by his naked upper half as you were enjoying the way he squirmed, for once not in a position of power, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. Of course, you regretted it as soon as he grabbed his dirty hoodie and tugged it back on. 

“I’ll need to change that in a few hours,” you told him as he stood up. “Come find me after dinner.” 

“Thanks,” was all he said before slipping out, leaving you with the fresh memory of his shirtless form and warm skin. 

It was a lucky injury. 

———

Hope you enjoyed it! If you want more, you can check out my masterlist here!

[karkkidoesartsandcrafts]

I made a doll

After making historical doll clothing, I got this idea that what if I made a doll myself. I was coveting a doll I could sew clothes for and then pose them for the clothing, but I don't really like that much of any of the design of commercial posable dolls and I'm broke so I can't in good conscience buy an artisan ball jointed doll (and I anyway don't like how thin most of them are). So I did the reasonable thing - I bought very cheep air dry clay (I do have "normal" clay but I don't have access to ceramic oven and it takes much longer to dry it and burn it etc, and I was literally just trying this out) and just started making it myself. I didn't plan ahead because it felt very overwhelming since I have never customized dolls beyond making them clothing and repainting their faces nor have I ever even owned a ball jointed doll. I went with the learning through mistakes rather than theory. The route I most often take. So just bear with me (real doll makers I'm sorry for the cringe).

Without further ado, here's Aune, my vampire OC (from my wip Be All My Sins).

I wanted to make her look like a porcelain doll, because I love their aesthetics. I did lean towards more realism than they were historically like though. Here's all her body parts before painting. (Some of the pieces in the picture are not actually fully smoothed and sanded, but it is right before I started painting the face. My brain just works in a way, where I jump around between the working stages. I'm very much incapable of doing anything organized and straight forwardly.) I have been wanting to do clay sculpting for a long time (it was so fun, when I was a kid in afternoon art school), and this was small scale enough to be manageable so it was so much fun. I will be definitely making more.

Here's her face before and after the paint. I'm quite happy on how the face sculpt turned out, but the paint job was a bit messy. As I mentioned I have done couple of repaints of doll faces, but I'm still not very good at it. When I paint traditionally I'm not often this detail oriented and painting on a 3D surface feels very different.

Here she is before and after getting her hair. I made her hair from wool yarn just by unraveling the yarn. It's the first time I made doll hair and I didn't want to buy proper doll hair for this or learn to curl it (I don't even have any curling irons or literally any other hair shaping appliances than a hair dryer, which I don't even use for my hair but for painting with water colors). It doesn't fall down nicely, but it has roughly the look I was going for.

Because I didn't plan at all ahead, the proportions are a little wonky (her arms especially are too thin imo and he legs could have a little more shape too) and the joints are not great. Worst of the joints was the hips, which attach to the torso in a weird way. The biggest issue that I had was not taking into account how much the varnish would add to the size. It's not a visible amount, but enough to make fit of the joints very poor and basically making it very hard for her to stand. (Her index fingers already broke of when she fell from my desk after I had made her stand there djfkjds. I was able to glue them back.)

Here's couple more picture of her!

It's not perfect at all, but I do still love her if only because it's such a cool feeling to be able to just have a lump of clay and two weeks later have a posable doll. It somehow feels magical to be just able to make a real physical thing from scratch.

[missdirection26]

Joel Millers hair was going to be the death of you (Chapter Two)

Summary: After the kiss at the dance, you wonder if anything else would come of it

Word count: 2.5k

Rating: Mature (just for swearing and drinking)

Tags: Jackson!Joel, Fluff, Angst with a happy ending, Romance, First Date

Chapter Two (Chapter One - here)

Also, finished this chapter as I wanted to join in @justagalwhowrites Joel Birthday Celebration, and this is a cutesy Jackson Joel with Friends to Lovers fic. I just want the old man to be happy and content, living out his life in Jackson with his family!

A few days had passed since the Winter Dance, but the memory of Joel’s kiss had haunted you every night. His scent—whiskey and woodsmoke—seemed to cling to your skin long after you'd parted ways. You hadn’t seen him since that night, and despite telling yourself you needed to move on, the yearning gnawed at you. Something had shifted between the two of you, and no amount of distilling could take your mind off it.

You were busy now, though. With the dance over, your operation had scaled back to a more manageable pace, and you were grateful to get back to some semblance of normalcy. Still, you couldn’t help but glance toward the door of your makeshift distillery every time you heard footsteps. Part of you knew it was irrational to expect him to just show up—but deep down, you wanted him to. The idea of Joel standing in your doorway again, maybe with that same look in his eyes from the dance, made your chest ache.

It was nearing dusk when there was a knock at the door. For a second, you hesitated, but before you could convince yourself it was someone else, you swung it open.

And there he was. Joel stood on your threshold, hands in his pockets, looking as if he’d been debating whether or not to knock for a while.

“Hey,” he said, his voice low, rough.

“Hey yourself.” You stepped back, opening the door wider. “Come in.”

Joel hesitated for only a moment before stepping inside. His eyes scanned the distillery, the barrels lined up against the wall, the equipment you’d scavenged over the years. It wasn’t much, but it was yours, and it kept Jackson in good spirits - literally. He seemed to take it all in before his gaze landed back on you.

“I brought you somethin’,” he said, pulling a hand from his pocket. He held out a small wooden carving - a bird this time, wings spread wide as if in mid-flight. You smiled as you took it, turning it over in your hands.

“You spoil me, Miller,” you said, brushing your fingers over the finely carved details. “What’s the occasion?”

Joel’s eyes flickered toward the floor, then back up at you. He seemed to wrestle with his words, and for a moment, the two of you stood in the quiet hum of the distillery.

“Wanted to talk about the other night,” he finally said, his voice steady but cautious. “About… what happened.”

You swallowed, suddenly feeling a knot form in your throat. It wasn’t regret you felt- definitely not. But the uncertainty, the vulnerability that had come with that kiss, it all came rushing back. You hadn’t thought too much beyond the moment itself, hadn’t let yourself consider what it meant. Now, standing here in the soft glow of the distillery’s lights, you realised you couldn’t avoid it any longer.

“Joel…” you started, unsure where to begin. “That night - it was…” You trailed off, not wanting to call it a mistake, but unsure of how to describe it otherwise.

Joel stepped closer, his presence filling the space between you. His eyes softened as he looked at you, like he could see right through the walls you’d spent years building.

“I’m not good at this,” he admitted, his voice a low rasp. “I don’t… I don’t have the right words, but I didn’t want to leave it hangin’ in the air. I ain’t blind - I know we’ve been dancin’ around somethin’ for a while now. And I need to know… if that’s what you want, too.”

You blinked, caught off guard by his directness. For years, you’d thought Joel kept his distance, that he wasn’t interested in anything beyond the whiskey you traded and the occasional conversation. But here he was, laying it out in front of you like a hand of cards, waiting to see if you’d fold or match his bet.

“I don’t know,” you said honestly, your voice barely a whisper. “I didn’t think you… I didn’t think you wanted that kind of thing.”

He chuckled softly, a sound that rumbled low in his chest. “I didn’t think I did either. But with you…” His words trailed off as he took another step closer, his hand reaching up, almost instinctively, to brush a stray hair from your face. His touch was gentle, and it sent a shiver down your spine. “With you, I’m thinkin’ maybe I do.”

Your breath hitched in your throat, and for a long moment, you couldn’t find the words to respond. This was Joel - gruff, hard-edged Joel - standing in your distillery and telling you he wanted more. It was terrifying and exhilarating all at once.

“I didn’t think I could do this again,” you admitted, surprising yourself with the confession. “After Talia, I just… I didn’t think I had it in me.”

Joel’s expression softened, and he took another step forward, until there was barely any space left between the two of you. “I get it,” he murmured. “I thought I’d lost that part of me, too. But you… you’ve been gettin’ under my skin for years now. Maybe it’s time we stop fightin’ it.”

You couldn’t help but let out a short, breathless laugh. “You make it sound so easy.”

His lips twitched into the faintest smile. “Ain’t nothin’ about this easy. But we’ve both survived worse, haven’t we?”

The air between you felt charged, like one wrong move could send the whole thing crashing down. But as Joel stood there, his hand still brushing against your cheek, you realised you didn’t want to back away from this. Not anymore.

“Yeah,” you said quietly, leaning into his touch. “We have.”

For a long moment, neither of you spoke. And then, as if drawn by some invisible force, Joel’s lips found yours again. This kiss wasn’t hesitant like the last - it was certain, slow, like the two of you had all the time in the world. His hand cupped the back of your neck, pulling you closer, and you melted into him, feeling the warmth of his body seep into yours.

When you finally pulled back, breathless, Joel rested his forehead against yours. “We can take this slow,” he murmured. “Figure it out as we go.”

You nodded, feeling something uncoil in your chest - something that had been wound tight for far too long.

“Yeah,” you whispered. “I think I’d like that.”

And for the first time in years, you allowed yourself to feel hopeful.

–

The next few days after your conversation with Joel felt like a dream, a slow, simmering anticipation building in the quiet moments when you were alone. You didn’t know what to expect - Joel Miller wasn’t exactly the “romantic” type. Still, when he suggested you go on a “proper date” after his patrol, you had to suppress the giddy smile threatening to creep across your face. He told you to meet him by the grain store barn at sunset, and though he didn’t say much more, the subtle warmth in his eyes was enough to send your mind racing.

As the day drew closer, you tried not to think too much about it. You told yourself to keep it simple. After all, this was Joel - gruff, practical, no-nonsense Joel. It wasn’t going to be anything elaborate, and that was fine with you. But still, you found yourself lingering a little longer in front of the mirror, brushing your hair with more care than usual.

You made your way to the barn just as the sun began to sink below the horizon, casting the town of Jackson in soft shades of amber and pink. Your heart thrummed in your chest as you neared the building, half-expecting to find Joel leaning against the fence, all casual and unbothered like he usually was. But when you rounded the corner, you saw something entirely different.

Joel was there, all right, but he wasn’t just waiting. He’d set up a small table just outside the barn, far enough from the bustle of town that you’d have privacy, but close enough that the soft sounds of life still carried on the breeze. On the table sat two mismatched plates and a couple of candles - an attempt at elegance despite the rough surroundings. Next to the table was a small firepit he must have made earlier, its flames flickering gently in the dusk.

You blinked, completely taken aback. This was... more effort than you had expected. A lot more.

Joel stood there, rubbing the back of his neck the way he always did when he was nervous. When he saw your expression, he gave you a lopsided, slightly sheepish smile. “It ain’t much,” he said, his voice quieter than usual. “But I figured we deserved somethin’... nice.”

You couldn’t stop the grin that spread across your face. “Joel, this is... this is more than nice. It’s perfect.”

He let out a breath he must’ve been holding, his shoulders relaxing slightly. “Good. I wasn’t sure if you were the candlelight kinda girl.”

You chuckled softly, stepping closer to the table. “Normally, I’m not, but for you? I can make an exception.”

The fire crackled softly in the background as Joel pulled out the chair for you, his hand brushing yours as you sat down. There was a tension in the air - not the kind of tension you’d felt all those years when you were tiptoeing around each other, but something softer, more promising.

Joel sat across from you, and the two of you shared a comfortable silence for a moment, the warmth of the fire keeping the evening chill at bay. The flickering light cast soft shadows on Joel’s face, and you found yourself staring at him longer than you intended, memorising every detail - the lines etched into his skin, the silver threading through his sparse beard, the way his hair curled just above his ears (he still hadn’t cut it, thank whatever deity may be out there). He looked more at ease than you’d ever seen him, and that alone was enough to make your chest tighten.

After a moment, Joel reached into a small cooler at his feet and pulled out two bottles of beer - your beer. He handed you one with a grin. “Figured it’s only right, seein’ as you’re the expert.”

You laughed, accepting the bottle and taking a long sip. “You know how to charm a girl.”

Joel gave a low chuckle, taking a drink from his own bottle. “Wasn’t sure what to cook,” he said, nodding toward a small pot hanging over the fire. “But Ellie swore up and down I couldn’t screw up stew. So… stew it is.”

The mention of Ellie made you smile. You knew how much she meant to him - how the work he did around Jackson was always to keep her safe. The fact that he’d even mentioned this “date” to her was surprising, but it made you feel a little more grounded in whatever this thing between you was becoming.

“I’m sure it’s great,” you said, leaning back in your chair, feeling the warmth of the fire seep into your skin. “I’m not too picky. Anything cooked over a fire tastes better anyway.”

Joel gave a quiet hum of agreement, stirring the pot with slow, careful movements. He looked content, peaceful in a way that seemed foreign to both of you. You hadn’t seen Joel like this before - not so open, so relaxed. And you liked it.

As the stew simmered and the conversation flowed, you found yourselves slipping into the same comfortable banter that had always been there between you. Joel teased you about the time you accidentally mixed up batches of whiskey and moonshine, and you shot back about his less-than-graceful attempts at fixing the leaky roof on the distillery. It felt easy, natural, like nothing had really changed, even though everything had.

When the stew was ready, Joel served you both, and the two of you ate in the firelight, the sound of the wind rustling through the trees. It was simple, but perfect, exactly what you both needed after years of surviving and making do with whatever scraps of happiness you could find.

After the meal, you leaned back in your chair, staring up at the night sky, the stars just beginning to blink into existence. Joel was quiet beside you, but you could feel the weight of his gaze on you, the intensity of it making your skin warm.

“What’re you thinking about?” you asked, glancing over at him.

Joel hesitated for a moment, then shook his head with a soft, almost embarrassed smile. “Just thinkin’ ‘bout how long I’ve been fightin’ this.”

“Fighting what?”

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, his eyes still fixed on you. “This,” he said, gesturing between the two of you. “You. For years, I told myself I wasn’t ready. That I couldn’t… let anyone in again. But now… now I’m wonderin’ why the hell I waited so long.”

His words settled over you like a blanket, warm and comforting. You’d felt the same way - terrified of opening yourself up, of letting anyone get too close. But here you were, with Joel, on what was undoubtedly the best date you’d had in years. Hell, maybe the best date you’d ever had.

You smiled, reaching across the small table to take his hand in yours. “Maybe we just needed time,” you said softly, your thumb tracing circles on the back of his hand. “We both had a lot of walls to break down.”

Joel’s fingers tightened around yours, his grip firm but gentle. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, but when he finally looked up at you, there was something different in his eyes - something deeper, more vulnerable than you’d ever seen before.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Maybe you’re right.”

You stayed like that for a while, sitting in the quiet, your hands intertwined. It was enough. For the first time in a long time, you weren’t worried about what came next. You weren’t thinking about tomorrow, or the dangers that lurked just beyond the safety of Jackson. All that mattered was the here and now—the firelight, the stars, and the man sitting across from you, his hand warm in yours.

As the night wore on, the fire began to die down, the embers glowing faintly in the dark. Joel stood, offering you his hand to help you up, and when you took it, he didn’t let go. Instead, he pulled you close, his arms wrapping around you in a way that felt both protective and tender.

“You wanna walk me home, cowboy?” you teased, looking up at him with a grin.

Joel chuckled, shaking his head. “You know damn well I’m gonna, my mama would turn in her grave if I let a lady walk home alone.”

And with that, the two of you set off into the night, walking side by side.

[catboybiologist]

Y'all ready for a certified neurodivergent moment?

I had to sit through a thing I absolutely did not need any info from, and typed up a massive outline of the soulsborne pokemon game I just talked about. Massively cringe, yes, but hey it's not just living in my head anymore.

I've had this idea brewing in my head for a while now, pretty much ever since PLA came out (and I found it kinda disappointing tbh). Even though Hoenn has lots of love, it still feels like the most "grand" region in terms of the scale and themes of its lore, so I liked the idea of using it for a legends game that focused on the initial clash of Kyogre and Groudon. I had so many ideas brew in my head, and I guess now I sloppily typed them out.

Obviously this isn't actual game design. This is just me being cringey and detailing my dream pokemon game. At 26 years old. Anyways.

Pokemon Legends: Jirachi

In the times when Hoenn was young, the earth and seas shook. Titans roam the land- powerful individual pokemon that shape their environment to their liking. Humans and pokemon work together to keep them under control, but the earth and sea themselves shake, and Titans only grow more numerous. One day, a human wishes on a shooting star to become a hero and save their land, and something from up there answered.

In this game, Jirachi would be a kind of invisible "questmaster", giving an in-game reason for path markers, quest markers, and points of interest marked in stardust and sparkles. Once the main plot is completed, Jirachi would be able to join your party.

Core combat

The gameplay would be souls-like or Monster Hunter like, but with direct parallels to mainline pokemon mechanics. The six stats would be the same, and the four moves your pokemon can learn would be equivalent to the attack interface of a soulslike game- four trigger buttons. You would take direct control of one "primary" pokemon at a time, and use it as a souls-like character.

HP, Def, and SpDef would be largely the same, with the added benefit that less damage taken means more resistance to trips and staggers.

Atk and SpAtk are also pretty clear cut, scales your damage output per move.

Speed would be analogous to stamina or endurance. Dodging would work as in soulsborne games, and consume stamina. Most pokemon walking, running, attack speed, and dodging speed would be largely equivalent, but high speed pokemon would be able to sustain rapidfire attacking, frequent dodging, and continuous sprinting for longer.

Accuracy would be reworked into lock-on or charge up time- eg, a low accuracy move requires you to stay in one place for a longer amount of time before releasing, to charge up or lock on (imagine how swag ass this would look with focus blast).

PP would correspond to cooldown time. Each move would be infinite use, but have a cool-down after its used. So a move with high accuracy, but low PP, could be used instantly, but not spammed. High PP, weaker moves would then see an increased niche as a "default" light attack that can be spammed.

Attacks could also be ranged, up close, AoE, and have other features that would need to be tweaked and balanced in implementation. They wouldn't one to one map onto their in game counterparts, but this would at least provide a vague guide for how these moves work that builds on players assumed existing knowledge of pokemon games.

Special attributes, like never-miss moves and priority moves, would have features that play into this- eg, priority moves could be spammed with no cooldown, and never-miss moves would be immune to inhibiting effects.

Stat changes could be temporary effects applied to yourself when using the move, like a buffing spell in soulsborne games.

Nonvolatile status effects (paralysis, burn, sleep, etc) would work similar to monster hunter- invisibly accumulating triggers that occur as a side effect to to moves, or in the case of moves that directly trigger status like Spore or Thunder Wave, they would not do direct damage, but instead add massive amounts to the accumulated status trigger.

Field effects (weather, terrain, and special effects like wind, gravity, etc) could be set by regular pokemon moves in small areas, but would also be frequently encountered in the overworld.

Examples: the vibes of potential starter pokemon.

This is all just for the purpose of giving examples of how I envision some of this stuff working. Assume each pokemon would have regional variants that scaled their stats appropriately. This is just to show how different playstyles from the mainline games would translate to this format.

Lucario: example mixed offensive pokemon

Moves like aura sphere could be used with no lock on time, and little to no cooldown, forming the basis of a normal, light, ranged attack.

Moves like Close Combat would have no lock on, but give a temporary debuff and have a long cooldown time before they could be initiated again, making for a quick to use but infrequent heavy attack.

Swords dance and/or nasty plot could be used to provide a temporary buff for a period of time.

Focus blast would take a long time to charge and lock on, making you a sitting duck.

Reuniclus: example tanky pokemon

Light Screen and Barrier could lay down static areas on the ground. When an ally pokemon is located within them, they provide their corresponding defensive buffs. Cooldown for reusing them starts when these floor areas disappear.

Recover could be used to heal, but would have a long cooldown.

Liepard: example technical pokemon

Yawn would inflict direct sleep "buildup", but over time as opposed to instantly.

Fake out would instantly proc a stagger from the enemy, but could only be used in a certain time range upon being sent out.

Moves like taunt and torment function as usual.

The trainer and overworld traversal

Even though the player has direct control over pokemon, the MC is still a trainer, and pokemon are still capture in balls.

The trainer would be on the sidelines, with idle animations ordering the pokemon to do stuff.

Only one "controllable" pokemon could be outside of a pokeball at a time, or all of them could be stowed in pokeballs to directly control the trainer. The trainer can interact with NPCs, gather items, etc.

The trainer would also order "helper" pokemon. One or two "helpers" could be added independent of the party that would follow the trainer around constantly. Each pokemon has a list of field "helper" abilities they're capable of doing, independent of what moves they know. By targeting something that a helper pokemon can interact with in the world, the trainer would order that pokemon to zip out and interact with it. Think Republic commando. This takes the role of HMs and other field moves. For areas that require things like Surf of dive, the helper pokemon would exert a field of influence that essentially allowed the primary pokemon to act normally- eg, a surf helper would cause an area of surging upwards surface chop that lets the primary pokemon walk on water, or a dive helper would create small air bubbles centered around wherever the primary pokemon breathes from.

The trainer can also provide small support in the form of items, but this would be limited to encourage sensible use of stat boosting moves.

Pokemon would still be captured in pokeballs, but after they are fainted by the primary pokemon. Fainted pokemon could either be captured in a pokeball, or "relieved" of unique held items and resources before releasing them.

Pokemon would not gain experience by defeating opponents. Instead, each one would have material requirements to both level up and "customize" them. Like upgrading a weapon in Monster Hunter, every pokemon would have unique material requirements to level up, change nature, upgrade IVs, allocate EVs, or learn and relearn certain moves. This incentivizes a postgame loop, but could be curved to make the main game give you adequate materials to avoid excessive grinding.

The gameplay and story structure

The gameplay loop is basically monster hunter.

There would be a large number of normal-sized pokemon out in the world, that could be easily defeated and either captured and looted. But, frequently, a "Titan" would appear- a large, boss variant of a particular pokemon. Some pokemon can only be captured from their defeated titan forms, even if they appear in their regular forms.

These titan forms would appear semi-randomly, and requests to "quiet" them by defeating them would take the form of quests posted in the hub regions. These quests would then essentially be a monster hunter hunt- going out and fighting a particular titan.

Titan forms could be unique, or vaguely modeled after existing megas.

The world is divided into 8 main regions, and at least one "bonus" region. There would be 4 ocean regions, and 4 land regions. Each region would be seperate, but open to explore within that region (damn you can really see how much I've played MH:W)

Each region would have a drop table of pokemon that could potentially appear as titans.

Each region would also have one, single titan pokemon that gives the region its character. These 9 titans would be new, unique regional variants.

Each region, and by extension, each boss titan, would be directly associated with a different regional effect. So essentially, the boss titan and the field effect of a region would be reflective of its character.

The plot, like monster hunter, would be a gameplay loop of increasingly powerful titans within a region, building to the boss titans of each region. Once the 8 primary titans are defeated, it triggers the endgame main plotline.

The world

As mentioned previously, the bulk of the gameplay loop and storyline would be defeating increasingly more powerful "titan" pokemon, until you encounter a particular individual pokemon that is actively shaping that region and has ultimately caused the other titans along the way to be empowered.

Each region would have a dominant type, several field effects that come and go within certain parts of the area, and a unique boss titan. Each boss titan is about equivalent difficulty, and the player is encouraged to spread their efforts around to proceed through the "tiers" of titans evenly across the world before making it to the boss.

Hubs: Slateport, Lilycove.

Self explanatory, these would be the hub towns. Like in PLA, no other cities would be founded yet. Mt. Pyre would be integrated as part of Lilycove, and important characters and exposition could happen there. It would be an active cathedral. Kyogre and Groudon wouldn't be "known", but vague, amorphous titans of earth, sea, and sky would be referenced.

Land Regions

Meteor Cliffs and the Tranquil Plain

A gentle, grassy plain south of Mt. Chimney gives way to its southern slope. The slope, pockmarked with craters, has not been extensively explored, but is thought to hold deep caverns.

Regional effect: Pyschic Terrain

Regional Titan boss: Metagross (Steel/Pyschic)

Main game route equivalents: Meteor Falls, Rustboro City, Petalburg Woods, Petalburg City, Oldale Town, Littleroot town, 101, 102, 103, 104, 116, 115

Towering Forest

A deep, lush forest, sometimes so dense that you can't see the sky, fed by the crystal clear river cutting through it. The tangle of the canopy shudders under the weight of unseen pokemon above.

Regional effect: Grassy Terrain

Regional Titan boss: Tropius (Grass/Steel)

Main game route equivalents: Fortree city, Safari Zone, 119, 120, 121, 123

Jagged Stones

Deep, rugged canyons hide a basin-like desert, where a raging sandstorm elicits mirage-like visions.

Regional effect: sandstorm

Regional Titan boss: Tyranitar (Rock/Dragon)

Main game route equivalents: Verdanturf town, 117, 111, 112, all desert subregions

Volcanic Slopes

The peaks, caverns, and North slope of Mt. Chimney know no peace from the continuous onslaught of lava.

Regional effect: harsh sunlight

Regional Titan boss: Camerupt (Fire/Ground)

Main game route equivalents: Mt. Chimney, Jagged Pass, Fiery Path, Lavaridge, Fallarbor, 113, 114

Oceanic regions

Thunder Bay

An unrelenting, static haze hovers over the inlets of of Thunder Bay, impeding exploration of its deep subterranean caverns.

Regional effect: electric terrain

Regional Titan boss: Manectric (Electric/Dark)

Main game route equivalents: Mauville, New Mauville (replaced by a cave entrance), Cycling Road, 118, 110, 134, 133

Shifting Floes

A chill falls over the NorthEast seas of Hoenn, a climatic anomaly. Scattered islands and shifting ice platforms are continually coated with a snowstorm.

Regional effect: snowstorm

Regional Titan boss: Froslass (ice/ghost)

Main game region equivalents: Mossdeep, Shoal cave, 124, 125, parts of 126 and 127

Misted islands

A mysterious area of the ocean in which islands seem to shift locations as they phase in and out of sight.

Primary Area effect: Misty Terrain

Regional Titan Boss: Altaria (Dragon/fairy)

Main game route equivalents: Dewford Town, Granite Cave, Southern Island, Mirage Island (location changed), 105, 106, 107, 108, 109

Deep Blue

The open expanse of the ocean, and the islands within it, hold secrets beyond comprehension in their depths and constant storms. It is said that there is as much below as there is above.

Primary Area effect: rain/underwater (same effects as rain)

Regional Titan Boss: Wailord (water)

Main game route equivalents: Sootopolis city, Cave of Origin, Sky Pillar, Ever Grande City, Pacifidlog, Seafloor cavern, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, parts of 126 and 127

Special Area: the Delta Stream

Ripping across Hoenn's skies is an air current known as the Delta Stream, which powerful pokemon use as a causeway between regions and across the world.

Only accessible in the postgame, and with a "helper" pokemon that can fly. This entire region is above the clouds, and the only points that poke up are the peak of Mt. Chimney, Sky Pillar, and an updraft over Mt. Pyre.

Primary area effect: tailwind

Regional Titan Boss: Salamence (Flying/Dragon)

The Endgame Plot: after the titans are quieted

Once every boss has been defeated, the endgame storyline starts. Despite every titan being quieted, the land still quakes, and the seas still swell. The elders of Mt. Pyre urge you to investigate these at their source: the inner lava chamber of Mt. Chimney (subregion of Volcanic Slopes), and the depths of the seafloor (subregion of Deep Blue).

As you can probably guess, this is the introduction to Kyogre and Groudon.

The first fight with each of them uses your own pokemon, and gives you a "false" win- after you "faint" them in a suspiciously easy battle, they each revive into their primal forms, and head to the mountain island that would become Sootopolis. Hear, they battle on a kaiju-like scale. The MC watches the destruction from Mt. Pyre.

For the second time in the game's story, the MC makes a wish: this is beyond me. I wish a savior would come. Jirachi directly unveils itself for the first time to answer the call, touches the MC, and speeds off into the distance. A cutscene follows Jirachi to Sky Pillar (only a raw, uncarved spike of rock at this point), where Rayquaza is seen coiled around the top. Jirachi leads Rayquaza into the upper atmosphere, where it undergoes a primal/mega evolution. It pivots, shooting down towards earth, building speed.

The player takes control of M-Rayquaza as it slams down to earth, staggering Kyogre and Groudon away from each other, and engages in a special fight where they have to defeat both of them.

After this, Kyogre, Groudon, and Rayquaza may each be found at Seafloor cavern, Mt. Chimney, and sky pillar respectively, and may be defeated and captured. But its highly implied that they only go along with this willingly, and will freely resume their duties as the lords of the land once the MC passes on.

After the plot is completed, steps and murals start being carved into Sky Pillar, allowing access to the Delta Stream.

The post game would allow for infinitely generating Titans, rematches with previously captured Boss Titans as "enrichment" for them, and general gameplay loop grinding for items to train pokemon.

Yay, okay, no ones gonna read this far but uh. Yeah. That's the general idea I had. Hope it made at least some sense LOL

[shadowcaststudio]

So I'm on of those people who enjoys a good "art style challenge" videos. Looking through a lot of different "styles" of art, I've noticed a sort of spectrum that slides between two points.

Stylization and Rendering.

I've made this handy blob to to visualize this spectrum.

Stylization to me is the design of something using shape language, proportions, details vs simplicity, and exaggeration or lack thereof. It slides between Semi Realism: being more based on reality, Semi Abstract : based more on shape and exaggeration, and Stylized: having a basis in reality but takes artistic liberties to emphasize on certain aspects/feelings.

Rendering to me is the application of form or lack of on a design. Lighting (shade, highlights, rim light), textures, patterns, and lines (there or not). Leaning more graphic or more form based.

No or Low Rendering leans into being graphic. Stylized being some lighting to get an idea of form but not too much to clutter the scene or slow down production. Hight Render leaning on form.

Here are some examples of how different visual stories fit on the scale.

Here you can have stylized character designs with different scales of rendering. Stylization is mostly seen in Japanese Anime and those inspired by Disney.

Same with Semi Abstract designs with different rendering styles. Semi Abstract comes from the UPA shorts from the 50s that really pushed into exaggerated shape language.

Semi Realistic designs can change with how you render them. Semi Realism is based more on reality.

Works the other way around with Rendering.

You can have the same amount of rendering but take in a story way different with how a character is designed. Most high rendering is seen in high budget 3D animated features because it would take forever to ask an artist to render this much detail at 24 frames per second. And we already torture animators as is.

Gradient rendering is seen mostly in webcomics, Korean comics, and illustrated books. Though with Klaus we are starting to see it more in animation.

Cel Shading is most common in 2D animated series and movies. Gives it more form and gets the point across.

Low or No Rendering becomes more graphic and emphasizes on color and design.

I will use Donna from my comic Legend Catcher as an example.

Same design, different ways to render.

Same amount of rendering, different ways to stylize.

This was just some things to think about when looking at and creating art.

If you wanna check out the process in how I drew all these, check out my Ko-Fi for the video at https://www.ko-fi.com/tessshadowcast

Just some fun thoughts I had. If there are other points to make, let me know!

[residenthughes]

we have magic mike at home

pairing: leon kennedy x fem!reader

word count: 1.5k

tags/warnings: inspired by magic mike, fluff, pandemic is mentioned briefly, suggestive? (near the end at least)

summary: planning a wedding is never easy, especially under the stresses of the pandemic. leon wants to help you unwind.

notes: so, this is the fic i was meant to post a few days ago (whoopsies!) but i've had a very busy few days, so i'm quite glad to have had the chance to sit down and post this one 😎 not sure when i'll be posting again, but hope it'll be soon! enjoy :)

Early evening settles in, bringing with it a gentle night’s breeze and the aching sensation that burns the back of your eyelids. It’s a mere two nights before your quaint but glamorous wedding and you think the planning you challenged yourself to undertake is finally taking its toll. Needless to say, your husband-to-be, Leon, helped out in any way he possibly could, suggesting from the get-go to hire a wedding planner with the help of the generous salary you both earn. You politely declined however, citing the personal touches you heavily desired sprinkled into the details of your beautiful day to just remain between you and Leon - no one else. While this is mostly true, you couldn’t bring yourself to admit that forfeiting so much control in the hands of another individual wasn’t exactly something you were interested in doing. Especially on such an important day.

So, you start to plan your wedding and it’s so much fun. The freshness of a new project always is, particularly when a select bunch of your closest friends and Leon are the ones you bounce ideas between, creating a picturesque plan that ensures to capture the beauty of your faithful union in all its glory. You arrange and arrange, sifting through countless wedding dresses for the one, consuming cheeky amounts of cake all in the name of cake-tasting - all the bridal things. You find it truly fulfilling, being so booked and busy, particularly when taking into account how your regular life schedule takes a turn due to the pandemic. Though you remain ever the optimist when Leon checks in with things on your end, sometimes you find yourself out of sorts when the thought of how different things would be if there wasn’t a pandemic happening crosses your mind. Despite your initial discomfort, you would have agreed in hiring a wedding planner as the scale of your wedding would have required doing so, and so many of those who’ve not only touched your life but Leon’s too would be in attendance, rejoicing and celebrating the momentous occasion for what it’s worth.

It’s not as if the quaint outdoor wedding attended by a select bunch of those closest to you two didn’t have a special place in your heart, but when days are long and you feel such a disconnect from your norm, you simply cannot help the thought. Today is one of those days.

Immediately, you gaze down at the sparkling diamond encrusted ring that sits perfectly against your skin, a reminder of your sacred love and there’s a lightness in your chest at the prospect of the piece of jewellery accompanying you for the rest of eternity. The thought gives just a bit of comfort, even if you want so much more. You sigh nevertheless, pushing your glasses back onto your face and getting back to the sickening amount of emails that flood your inbox, put at ease knowing the end of your night will come when the email count reaches 0.

As you sit comfortably against the soft material of the couch in your shared apartment, nearby TV murmuring in the background, you don’t question when you hear the sudden loud of music. Leon returned home not long ago, peppering your forehead with smothering kisses and the promise of joining you after his shower. You do question the music though, when it’s unlike the familiar alternative tones of music that usually play as he showers but the sounds of Ginuwine’s ‘Pony.’ You can’t help but chuckle to yourself at the choice in music, shaking your head in amusement as your shoulders absently move in time with the beat. Your fingers pitter patter against the keys of your laptop, feelings of tension lessening before you hear the door of your bedroom open. You’re so engrossed with typing the last bit of your email that you don’t immediately turn to Leon, who exits the bedroom.

“New addition to the shower playlist, I see.” You muse, grinning as you hit the full stop button and turn to face Leon, face draining of its colour.

Now, in all the time you’ve known Leon, you’ve had countless encounters with him nude, the outline of his veins and bulge of his muscles something you can never tear your eyes from, as if you were seeing them for the first time everytime. His bare state is nothing irregular due to the circumstances, but you’re sorely mistaken. Leon, who you assumed would retreat into the living space in an ivory white towel hung loosely around his sculpted midriff, opts for something else, something else you couldn’t even have guessed.

Black leather crosses the expanse of his legs, flared out at the bottom and gripping his large thighs like a lifeline. A tawny brown belt holds the material to his hips, leather trousers hanging so low your line of sight is abundant in deep v-line and his butterscotch blond snail trail. His rock hard torso glistens as he steps out into the light of the room, strutting in with command as his hand secures the midnight black cowboy hat atop his locks, effectively shielding his eyes. You audibly gulp.

Yet again, another assumption in your mind is combatted. You were under the impression that Leon couldn’t dance, over the course of your relationship the man himself joking he’d have to oil his joints before utter destruction would take place on the dancefloor. This is not the case. Again. Albeit sheepish and amateurish, Leon steps towards you with seductive rolls of his gleaming torso, sleeveless vest outlining the flow of his movements as the long sterling silver feather necklace he adorns nestles onto the space of his cleavage.

At this point, you’re barely blinking, afraid you’ll miss a single second of the amazing spectacle, taking in every inch of Leon as he stops before you. In your trance, you must have placed your laptop somewhere, because it is long gone when Leon’s figure looms over you, suddenly making you feel so small yet so terribly flustered. In one swift motion, the cowboy hat Leon sports falls atop your head, half shielding your eyes. You’re quick to move it further upwards, eying Leon as he shimmes the leather vest down his shoulders inch by inch. Regardless of the overflow of lust that dilates your pupils and leaves you with dry mouth, your smile is innocently amused as you notice the rosy tint of Leon’s cheeks against the porcelain of his skin, lips fighting the timidity that very much craves a downturned smile.

The vest is off Leon’s shoulders and he’s shaking his hips in small circles to align with the lyrics. Lifting a toned arm up to the sky, he swings the material in slow motion, highlighting the shadows of his great muscles and overall being an absolute sex-god. You hear a smack off in the distance where the vest lands and Leon’s grabbing your hands, touch warm and sensual as he guides them onto his torso. Beneath your tingling skin, you discern the mould of Leon’s build - solid, lean and every explicit word that comes to mind. He’s so undeniably sexy, ushering you down the expanse of his toned body with heavy-lidded eyes, but so damn endearing. He tries his very best to settle into the serious stripper persona he’s adopted, but his hands are trembling and he’s biting his lips in order not to burst out laughing and you can’t take it anymore. An airy laugh empties out from the bottom of your belly, gazing up at Leon with all the love and happiness you can muster in your eyes. The instantaneous change in atmosphere is one Leon appreciates, chuckling under his breath as he listlessly keeps with his supposed choreography.

“When you said we have Magic Mike at home, I didn’t think you meant this.” you joke, not even attempting to hide how ludicrous this whole scenario is.

Leon snickers, still preoccupied with your hands as they rest on either side of his waist. “Seemed like a shame to not provide entertainment for your bachelorette party.”

He ghosts your hand over his snail trail, brushing past his cock quick enough for inaction but slow enough for you to make out the semi hard-on he’s working with. There’s a disgusting twist in your abdomen. “Channing Tatum can’t beat this real deal, now can he?”

Aided by the calmer sounds of the next song murmuring behind you, you’re simply confronted with the grapple of the literal context of your current situation. Your legs cross over one another, a rush of humidity showering over you as your front teeth sink into your bottom lip. You want Leon in every possible way, and are sure he feels the same, his desire face to face with you. But you can’t ignore the nuances that envelope you. Observing the long hours you spent organising your wedding, with no occasion planned to drunkenly celebrate together with your friends or seemingly reward yourself for your extensive labour, Leon took it upon himself to be there for you. As he always has been, and you honestly can’t thank him enough.

You press a soft kiss against Leon’s knuckles, peering up at the man who couldn’t be a better face to wake up to for the rest of your life. “I love you so much. Thank you - really.”

His lips curve softly and you’re falling in love all over again. “Don’t mention it.”

[territorial-tarot-tahr]

C.o.D smut that won the poll: Freak show

Word count: 10.5k

CW: Some descriptions of gore/violence but in more vague notions. Some psychological distress. There's a small bit of knotting in here but not in much detail. There's sexual content in this.

Summary: That one monster AU that everyone kinda knows and reader is a strigoi because I said so. Another one of y'all getting freaky in the shower except this time it's with a Scottish werewolf.

AFAB reader but no gendered names or terms

If you found my A03 from this, no you didn’t. Shut up.

There are no spoilers for any C.o.D games

🚨Go to my main account “rorschach-retrograding-rotary” for commissions or requests🚨

🚨This was not proof read and I hate reading my work so I have no intention of proof reading it🚨

Feel free to commission me or donate

𝕙𝕥𝕥𝕡𝕤://𝕜𝕠-𝕗𝕚.𝕔𝕠𝕞/𝕤𝕒𝕪_𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕤𝕖

It was quiet. The squeak of the ceiling fan above as well as the dull tune of his breathing provided the only audible ambience that you could hear at the moment. The light of the barracks was practically non-existent during the dead of night, though your senses had been dialed up to an obscene amount since your revival and as such, the room might as well have had the ceiling lights blasting on. Though you knew that the minute someone's turned on that light, you'd find yourself startled and writhing in disgust as the bulb's internal workings practically sparked and popped.

You hadn't been with Task Force 141 for long. You'd really only officially joined them a couple hours prior. Though you'd been in the military for a handful of years prior. In all honesty you'd been one of the antagonists of 141. Childish taunts that you should've outgrown and that you thought you might've, though when you'd initially run into the Task Force, you'd found you hadn't. Looking down your nose at the idea of having "a circus instead of soldiers". You'd left snide comments on a few notes in places you knew they'd be found. Made sure to talk loud enough for any passing member of the squad to hear exactly what kind of breed of freak you thought they were.

And those were the same people you had found yourself standing before as you were reassigned to the squad. All their gazes wandering over you as though scrutinizing every inch of your dull flesh. Each twitch of their eyes might've been a glare cast your way, and each whisper they spoke to one another could've been a remark about you. Retribution for all your time spent mocking them.

You didn't suspect they actually did indulge in spending their free time mocking you in secret, that'd be giving yourself too much credit. Instead, you guessed in reality they couldn't have cared less about "revenge". You figured they believed you being on the same squad was good enough karmic justice. Though you were sure you could find someone glaring at you if you tried hard enough.

It'd felt condescending enough to have Price put his hand on your shoulder when he'd shown you to your new sleeping quarters. A loose gesture with his other hand before he pointed at which bunk he suspected was empty as he suggested you get settled. His skin had been rough, as though his entire had was calloused from years of work. Though you know a quick glance would reveal the small repeating pattern that the tough scales on his flesh as the culprit.

He was warm. Earnestly and physically. Though for the latter, you suspected you'd have the same sentiment about anyone now considering your body no longer made its own heat. Couldn't even be bothered to pump its own blood. You were supposed to be making 2 million new blood cells every second according to a factoid you'd learned in a health class years back, though now you'd be relying on a steady supply from the base. And they had made it clear that this would serve as their collar for you.

"Behave or we starve you. And if you try to quell that gnawing hunger in your belly with a wild animal or another soldier, we will put you down like the monster you are." Or something like that.

In that moment when the medics had first shoved the small bag into your hands, a lot of repulsion twisting their faces into sneers, you'd found a dull shock wash over you. These were the same people you might've found yourself indulging in mockery with. Though they now regarded you with the same attempt at subtle disgust that you'd shared before.

It might've seemed a bigger deal to you later, but at the time you'd been in what you'd consider shock. Having clawed your way out of a coffin and six feet of dirt after sustaining a bullet wound to the head, stumbling your way back to your barracks out of habit and sitting on your bed with dried blood and mud coating your skin, you didn't think anything would've gotten much of a reaction from you at that point.

With no family to send your body to, they'd buried you in the base's cemetery. Just your luck that someone's stray had decided to come meandering along the base that same night. Just your luck that the cat had decided to slink its way into the cemetery and just your luck that the cat had decided to waltz over your grave, dooming you to return as a strigoi.

You'd tossed your duffle bag onto the cot, much to the protest of the springs which squealed like an iron pig in protest. Price had lingered a moment longer, asking again if you needed anything, and again you had shook your head. He'd nodded and walked out, and your eyes had traveled over the expanse of where his second wing should've been, drawing up images in you mind about what gruesome scar must've laid beneath his garments. A twisted show of scar tissue and scales that would never heal. You'd brushed your palm through your hair again as you imagined what kind of eyesore-

And then you found yourself feeling sick. Mouth pulled into a tight line as your hand brushed against your own mark, the bullet wound that would never heal. Your mouth tasted like dirt and you were sure you could smell the cedar of your coffin again. Your nails were bleeding, worn down to nothing and tearing through your skin as you dug frantically at the lid of your coffin. You'd sat there, still as a statue for practically a half hour till another member of the force had walked in and bumped into one of the beds by accident, getting your attention.

Your gaze had quickly snapped to him. The Scotts-man of your group, and who you and many others had degradingly called "the mutt" whenever you were tossing insults around. Despite only seeing him in passing for mere glimpses at a time, you'd always describing him as "a slobbering dog of a human". "A twitching and snarling hound that should've been put down already." He'd been one of the first members of the squad that you heard people talk badly about, with most of the stories about him either painting him like a stupid Chihuahua or a rabid beast that was a threat to anyone on any given day. And despite those polar opposites, you'd begun spreading those stories as well despite never even meeting the guy. You grimaced now as those memories ran like a checklist in your mind.

You locked eyes with the man and in all honesty, he didn't seem like the flea-ridden mutt you'd described and heard him be described as. His posture was a slight slouch and you were almost certain you could smell mud on him, but besides that, you couldn't find anything inherently mutt-like about him.

Well, maybe the shaggy quality his hair had to it. Clumped together in patches but also eager to fall aside string by string in others. Maybe the way he seemed to sporadically tense as he stared at you as though expecting some kind of attack because of the eye contact. Maybe the way he seemed to keep taking small huffs of the air as if trying to catch your scent and catalogue it. You would've expected you smelled like a rotting corpse. A shambling zombie or necrotic flesh and decomposing muscle, but he almost seemed to not care or be unsurprised by your scent as he didn't react.

Maybe you smelled like nothing at all and that was where the small twitch of his brow as he tensed his jaw came from. "Here's someone I can't prepare for if they're coming into a room. I can't wave my hand to hush my friends if we're all shit talking them and they're about to waltz in. I won't be able to pick up their footsteps since for some reason they're quiet as a mouse, and now I can't get a scent to get forewarning on their arrival at any given time. Great, just great."

Or at least that was what you assumed his inner dialogue was. You couldn't be sure. For all you knew, he could've been thinking about the time he bit a kid and was pondering about if he was more pitbull or terrier like because of it.

He was staring back at you too, not particularly wide-eyed but with a face that seemed nonplussed but not disinterested about your appearance in thee barracks. You wouldn't say he was easy on the eyes but it certainly hasn't been a chore to hold his eye contact. He shot you a quick wave, a short moment of his time before rummaging around in his small bedside drawer, fishing something out and then leaving without another word. You weren't even worth a proper hello or goodbye to your new squad. Though you supposed that was fair, you hadn't exactly been subtle with your shit-talking and you didn't imagine anyone on that squad had been jazzed to get the news that a person who spent most of their time spewing mild hate speech would be happy to know they'd be expected to watch that person's back and work with them more. Especially not the member that you had claimed had fleas. While he hadn't been a particularly comforting presence, it had made the taste of dirt leave your mouth, and had given time for you to collect your thoughts.

As you lay in your bed at the moment, you again tasted the dirt in your mouth and felt the ache of your fingers, whittled down to raw muscle and only from a job halfway done. You grunted to yourself before rolling over in your cot, sending the now familiar screech of the springs into a performance which soon found an encore when you rolled back over anyways.

Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.

You acclaimed your new found insomnia to your status as a Strigoi. A seemingly bottomless well of energy and a brain that refused to quiet down. The aforementioned darkness of the room still seemed as though illuminated by an overhead fixture. Though still in shades of blues despite the clarity. The acute awareness that your ears provided also seemed to be a large factor in preventing you from catching a wink of sleep or even relaxing. The shrill chirp of crickets now seemed like the climax of a performance from a string band. The hushed breaths of your companions, dampened by pillows and cloth now sounded as a cacophony of crashing waves that assaulted your senses. The small squeaks of springs from your squadmates rolling over or re-situtating now screeched like a bird.

Rather than focusing on the auditory input you were being overwhelmed with, and since visual wasn't much fun, you began trying to focus on the scents that you were practically swimming in thanks to the strange nature of your barrack's companions.

Sulfur, the rancid smell of rotting eggs that made you scrunch your nose. The soft tone of his breathing made his inhales barely audible, but his exhales still filled your ears as if he'd revved a motorcycle. If not for that, you might've thought him dead, and you supposed there was some truth to that. He wasn't exactly alive either. And it seemed selfish to try and compare yourself to him or say you were in the same boat. But you'd never had a conversation with him or even really knew what he was like, so that was all the kinship you could claim to your new "task force friend". He was a lingering echo of what he must've once been. And while he was away on a mission at the moment, you found it as a true testament to his sheer oddity that the scent was just as pungent as if he had been there.

Feathers. A mildly earthy scent that was almost overwhelmed by the prior one, but still held it's ground and filled your senses. His breathing was far more audible, though he wasn't snoring. Less shrill than a whistle but louder than a pan flute. You'd seen him preening the feathers of his wings before you'd been on the Task Force. Varying sizes and of different speckled patterns that drew your mind the Ship of Theseus. How many times had he plucked broken or bent feathers from his back and watched them pile into a small mountain of tawny keratin at his feet? Did it hurt? Simply being alive meant having to hurt yourself in order to keep yourself in working condition?

Smoke. A deep rumble accompanied it and despite the fact that you knew he was farther away, the smell of charcoal still practically burned your nostrils. The warmth from his hands still seemed to burn on your cold skin and you wished you might feel that kind of scorching heat grace your frozen body again. A walking furnace of man with a body covered in scars. You'd heard people refer to scars as paintings of someone's past before, and it left you to wonder how he could still find it in his heart to give his sympathies and patience to what used to be a smart-mouthed brat, turned crying and skittish monster who he got stuck with. All those years of suffering, and you still felt that the greatest comfort you could ever experience might be a simple hug as you let his warmth warm your weary bones.

A lingering smell of wet fur was the now overwhelming scent that washed over you, all encompassing now that you'd properly noticed it. Wet dog. Moist canine. Damp wolf.

What?

Ew.

Nothing dissimilar to Simon, you supposed. Though Simon had a natural smell that tended to linger. This just seemed overwhelming even considering the encounters with the musk you'd had before.

A childhood friend with a dog, much too eager to show off it's fresh smelling coat after a bath.

With that, you grew sickened and simply held your nose shut, opening your mouth a few moments later before finding that the burn of carbon dioxide in your lungs hadn't appeared. What? Were you breathing just because you wanted to instead of necessity now? Filling your shriveling lungs with oxygen that they didn't need? Another mark of your loss of humanity to sit as some inhuman marking upon your very soul and being?

You shook those thoughts from your mind and attempted to focus on the coarse fabric of your blanket. Though what seemed to stick out to you more, was the sensation of how cold you were despite it. A shiver in your bones and a chill on your flesh no matter how tightly you wrapped the cloth around yourself and a realization that didn't seem eager to go away now that you'd noticed it.

A frostbitten ache in your limbs that refused cure or amputation. A clawing and fighting chill that ate and slashed at your flesh till you felt it's influence in your entire body. Frozen flesh that refused to thaw. You wondered if Price had registered the chill in your flesh when her touched you, feeling as though he was patting a cadaver on the shoulder instead of his new ward. How would this freshly walking corpse get along with his array of other oddities?

You grunted and realized the futility of trying to ignore the ache now that it was at the forefront of your mind. It wasn't as though you could drag yourself to your Captain's quarters, knock on the door and give a sheepish "can I sleep with you tonight?" Before being welcomed in with open arms and a warm body. Not happening. Dishonorable discharge wasn't completely off the table even if you insisted that you hadn't decided to do the "horizontal tango" with your Captain who would presumably be blacklisted.

So what could you do instead?

A warm place or thing that wouldn't disturb others? Locker room or shower. In the shower you at least had the excess steam as well to seep into your weary bones and eat away at some of the fatigue as well. It didn't sound like a half-bad idea, and you didn't suspect you'd find much reprimand for it if you managed to keep quiet enough to avoid disrupting the other's rest.

You sat up and swung your legs over the side of the cot without a second thought. At the very least, even if the plans didn't work, you'd have something to do to occupy yourself till the sun decided to rear it's shiny mug over the cusp of the horizon.

It was much harder for external weather to actually make you feel something now, and you found that fact highlighted as you walked into the embrace of the night, hearing the crunch of frost covered leaves and blades of grass beneath your feet but not feeling the slightest chill on your skin. You had the chill of a corpse, and the chill of the weather couldn't find enough strength to overcome or change your already frigid body. You hadn't noticed it during the days as most of your time was spent walking around in a shell-shocked stupor as they pointed you here and there, signing this and that, but you suspected you had most likely been feeling this aching chill for the entire day and just simply hasn't noticed or hadn't had time to notice. And now that you had spent your couple of minutes with only your thoughts, you found that you were already too cold to freeze further. Great

If the same principle applied during the summer, you didn't think trips to the beach would be worth having anymore.

What would be the point of sitting outside on a warm day and having a picnic or something, either? What about being bundled up on the couch after a chilly walk to the store left you with a chilled face that your partner would warm up with chaste kisses and an hour wrapped up in a blanket together?

Don't be so dramatic and stole moping, you don't even know that yet. The burning warmth that had enveloped the flesh on your shoulder practically crackled as you remembered your Captain's hand.

Alright, so you were "cold-blooded" in terms of your lifestyle then. So not all hope was lost.

Your shoes, sloppily tossed in with lases undone, crunches again against the frosted grass as you stalked forward. You reached forward to grasp the handle and push in the door as you slinked into the building. You were surprised that it was left unlocked, but you certainly weren't disappointed.

You continued on your search, trekking through the base to make your way to the showers and find whoever seemed to be in such distress. The base was practically a maze of concrete walls and smooth hallway floors, and if your time before, you had often found yourself as the victim of a bad sense of direction. Wandering and trudging down the halls with no clear sense of direction or understanding where it was that you were.

Now though, despite the increase in your senses, you still found yourself too confused by the overwhelming twists and turns that if asked to retrace your steps, it'd still take you longer than the average person to get to it. But less time than your prior year. You might actually get to the showers before the sun rose. Good job.

A disgruntled growl left your throat before you registered the sound and you found your brows scrunching together as you continued your walk. Ew. Don't do that again.

With one final turn you were met with the off-white tiles of the locker room floor, and your reflection after you took a few more steps in. The long line of mirrors above the sink to your left sat tantalizing as you gave yourself a quick once over. Your hair wasn't matted with blood-moistened dirt and speckled with wood chips, both from your feverish clawing. Your face was gaunt, discoloured in some areas from bruises that would never clear as well as whatever ugly wounds you'd managed to open on your liberation for the grave. Your wounds were sewed up with medical thread but you were well aware the flesh would never scab and heal.

You watched your face contort as you gritted your teeth and glared at the visage staring back at you in the pristine mirror. Your exhale hit the mirror and you watched the surface neglect to fog. Your corpse breath instead disappearing without a trace as you inhaled and pushed your hair from your face before spinning a 180° and making your way to the flimsy curtains of the showers. Your shirt slipped off first, tossed to the side in a crumpled pile before being followed by your pajama pants and other miscellaneous garments before you pulled the flimsy, opaque plastic of the curtain back as you stepped in. Your nails traced the notch on the turning cog that indicated "heat" before abruptly yanking it on.

For a moment or two you felt nothing more than the brisk chill you had felt before and you wondered if you'd been wrong and your second of heat with Price had been a fluke or some lady spasm of some muscles before they properly bit the dust. A loud cry of "Fuck!" Left your mouth as your buried your hands in your hair and gripped it roughly, your eyes glued to the floor and the trickle of water down your leg.

Though the water then seemed to warm up and you stood in awkward embarrassment, though you couldn't be sure why. It wasn't as though anyone had seen what you could only describe as an outburst. Though you moved your hands to your sides after a shallow cough as you felt the warmth begin to gradually work it's way through your flesh with the promise of further warmth to come as the nozzle began spitting a consistent stream onto your face.

Enveloping. All encompassing. A blanket of warmth that was wrapped tightly around you as you stood. Your spine straightened as you stood to your full height and placed your palms to the tiles and sighed in relief as the ache finally began to cease its assault on your flesh. You wished that you might spy dirt or muck leaving your visage, but instead you saw no grime leaving your form. There was nothing to be washed away and fixed. You felt keen to vomit but your stomach hadn't been filled with anything and as such you couldn't even find it in your body to cough up bile. With a groan, you moved your hands to run through your hair again, attempting to work out nonexistent knots and blocks of dirt, digging feverishly at your warming flesh as you attempted to rid yourself of the muck that seemed to hang on your skin.

You needed to be clean. You wanted desperately to be clean. You needed it. And yet your fingers came away with no grime, no flaws or blemished skin pieces to be fixed by medics or hopeful medics. Your nails dragged harder now. Moving from your hair and scalp to your neck as you felt your throat flutter with your gradually fluttering breaths. Your collar bone was next as your fingers worked harder, dragging your nails though your dead flesh neglected to form bright red streaks across your skin.

Stupid fucking cat. You could've been resting in a grave. You could've had whatever rest you were owed as you rotted and let the maggots and bugs eat away at your coffin till they had free reign of your corpse to consume.

But no. Instead you'd been dragged from whatever peace you'd found. Ripped from the ground in a frantic spit of earth and blood, brought to be puppeteered till your duty was done.

But your job would not be finished soon. The design of whatever cruel fate that demanded you work till your body collapsed as bullets nestled into your skin, stitching threads working through your ruined flesh in a desperate attempt to hold yourself together, wishing and fighting to continue your walks in rotting legs. A member of a traveling circus that for some reason refused to put down their suffering animals.

Your eyes watered, your hands shaking as you gradually slowed your assault on your body as you watched the small strips of flesh begin to fall away in the swirling water of the drain. These wouldn't heal. And if your "tantrum" didn't stop, you would find yourself dragged into some kind of straight jacket or given some stupid mittens in order to ensure you didn't damage yourself. Their "merchandise", their weapon. Their property now in all honesty. And they wouldn't allow you to become damaged goods. If you weren't their weapon, you wouldn't find any other place to call home because of your newly unnatural nature.

This was your reality and you needed to get used to living in it. With a trembling inhale, you seemed to regain your composure even if only externally. The water continued licking its warm tongue across your body like a feverish cat as you allowed it to continue it's work. Relaxation. If you couldn't get it any other way, you didn't care.

With your mind now slowing less from the speedy sprint they'd managed to work themselves into, you began to acknowledge the push of your senses as your awareness began to seep back into the environment. The huff of the ac and ventilation farther in the locker room, the sound of water dripping down the drain and churning in the pipes below.

Using your hand to shield your face from the water, you turned to the side and placed your back against the condensation slicked tiles as you sat down on the floor. When had it been cleaned later? Who knows, but you didn't think you could find it in your heart to care. While you weren't sure if it was actual sleep or not, a rush of fatigue seemed to finally settle over you, encouraging you to lay your head on your crossed arms and sit till someone comes along. The shower was snug. It was warm and the sounds you could hear all seemed to fit together in a way that allowed you to slip the back of your mind as unimportant in the moment.

Sitting with your arms on your bent knees and your face bruised in their warming flesh, you couldn't be sure how long you'd stayed there. But every peaceful second was practically a god-sent as you allowed yourself to fall away from the real world and all it's incessant nagging for attention. You were almost certain you'd get used to it eventually, learn to tune out all the extra noise. But for now this was what you wanted. This floating away into an empty mind, not asleep, but not well aware of your surroundings. The sound of impact from the water on the ground wormed it's way into your mind and blanketed the other chitters and chirps as you began to focus on solely it.

~

You weren't sure how long your peace lasted, but when you opened your wet eyelids and blinked away the droplets that hung frantically off your lashes in an attempt to save themselves from the drain, you realized you weren't alone anymore.

The sound of someone walking filled your ears as it grew gradually in volume. Someone approaching. They weren't going at a particularly leisurely pace either. They were walking like they had somewhere to be, alright. You wagered that they were simply going to pass the locker and shower room, maybe move to the next hallway and settle some late night grievance with a higher up. Whatever it was, you expected to slip back into your dull state after the few seconds of interruption, but instead you heard the door to the locker room swing open, slamming into the wall. The crack and splinter of tile alongside the door screamed in your ears and you scrambled to your feet, practically slipping on the well-soaked floor.

You'd snapped the handle for the water as the dying echoes of the door faded, quickly jamming it into the position that choked the water from its pipes and made the coiled snake of metal fall quiet as you waited with baited breath to see what the newly arrived individual might want.

Had some hearing been made to put you down? That's why the brute-force creature had appeared here? Had you missed your chance to plead for your own life and defend your right to take up "3 hots and a cot" on the base? You weren't the first one misfortunate enough to end up with your undead fate, infact, base had even given you a briefing on the ways you could find yourself falling and not getting back up. An uncomfortable creeping silence and pricking along the back of your neck as you heard the thudding heartbeats of the guards who had been positioned to ensure you couldn't escape the room easily. As though you were already a threat. A silver stake through the heart was the main one that had gone to your mind. Direct sunlight could be worked around with the use of different full body garb. Decapitation and burning carried over though as deaths. But considering those were things you were used to trying to avoid, you hadn't seen it as a big change.

So what? They'd sent someone into the shower's with a silver stake to drive through your heart? There wouldn't be much to clean up considering your lack of blood, but the shower still did seem like the natural decision for a murder. Here you were, exposed and vulnerable with no real source of traction considering the puddle at your feet.

You had little intention of going down without a fight if they were, and the sound of the footsteps picking up again as solid thuds with determination didn't inspire confidence, but it did invite challenge. A snark bubbled at the back of your throat, but before you could vocalize it, you grew embarrassed of the sound and quickly quieted yourself preemptively.

You watched the blurry figure of the person through the opaque shower curtain as they paused in their movements before stilling completely and you watched with baited breath for what they would do. They had yet to actually move against you. Their interest didn't seem to be with you.

Were you being paranoid?

Gross.

Maybe?

You turn into a freak and all of a sudden you think the world revolves around you.

What?

Nothing.

With a cautious step forward, you gripped the edge of the curtain and sheepishly tugged it back a few inches to see who had entered the room. The curtain rings glided quietly against the bar and you gnawed on your lip in anticipation as you tried to keep your knees from locking.

A shaggy stripe of brown hair on what was otherwise a buzz cut, baggy sweatpants and a sweat-soaked tank top. Tanned skin coated with discolored scars rippling and heaving as he you watched him lean forward and press his forehead to the presumably cold mirror. His back which was to you, was heaving and you heard the forceful gale of each exhale that slapped against the reflective surface of the mirror.

Oh. What's the Scotts-man doing?

You furrowed your brows and thought back to the glimpses of moonlight you'd seen through the clouds. It hadn't been full from what you could remember and despite your little interaction with him, you didn't wager he was about to inadvertently show off his "Jacob Black" impression.

Don't say that again.

Sorry.

Benefit of the doubt: Maybe he just had to piss and he'd somehow managed to catch you at your most paranoid so now here you were villainizing him when his only crime was like, drinking too much water.

Dumbass.

Maybe if he hadn't-

The overwhelming smell returned. Wet fur and warm breath, a mixture of fresh-out-of-the-shower smell and sweat tied together with a bow of dog's breath. His heartbeat slammed and echoed in your ears like a set of taiko drummers who'd decided you needed a private performance. There was a sickly scent you didn't recognize interlaced with the other pungent smells. Like he'd lathered himself in perfume or cologne of some kind and now he stood red-faced in the mirror as he choked on his own smell.

The sweat on the back had soaked through his shirt and you watched the wet fabric cling to him like a second skin as he swiped his hand over his face to try and clear some of his sweat which he promptly wiped across his sweatpants. Though as the fabric shifted, you watched his face contort in anguish as if about to start crying to add more salt to the already slicked canvas of his visage. His muscles tensed again, pulling tight the cover of his skin and you wondered if he was about to spasm and vomit.

Your fingers found the curtain again and you prepared to pull it shut, though the shriek of the rings now seemed eager to speak up as it became stupidly obvious that you were in the room with him too. Your gaze had been locked onto the rings, as if glaring at them might somehow make them revoke their sound and let you continue going unnoticed. Though when you turned your gaze back to him, you found that your chances of that weren't looking all too friendly at the moment.

Honestly he looked near the point of being blackout drunk, but the alertness in his dull-y bloodshot eyes gave too much evidence to something else. His chest was heaving, and each breath was enough to spark your mind's cruel humor and summon up images of the three pigs and the Big Bad Wolf giving his assault on their homes.

You let go of the curtain and were ready to give a shallow wave out of curtsey, but were cut off by his commanding, if not a bit fatigued voice.

"Sorry, didn't realize anyone else was n 'ere." He forced a friendly smirk to his lips, but his weary eyes broke the illusion of a chipper attitude despite his best tries. You stood still as a statue, your mouth pulled into a fine line as you watched him await a response, fingers tensed against the rim of the basin, and the veins across his body pressed to a visible position as if he was flexing. Your tongue felt dry, but after another beat you seemed to remembered you hadn't spoken yet so you forced the same cautious smirk and responded.

"Are you," Vomiting? In need of assistance? About to drop dead? "alright?"

The sound of your own voice felt pathetic and you became acutely aware that really all that was helping you retain your modesty at the moment was a shower curtain. But your clothes were clothes to him that you, so your options were to either burden the clearly already ailed teammate with a favor, wait for him to leave, or waltz over to the bench and act like you weren't practically airdrying yourself on the walk over.

He wiped his mouth again in a style that brought to mind and alcoholic wiping his lips from habit. His fingertips came away wet with sweat again and you watched him swipe it now against his side, as he kept his hips angled to keep the majority of his front out of your view.

"Yeah, right as rain. 'ealthy as a 'orse." His smile was forced, a lopsided grin now as he overcompensated in spite of whatever was ailing him.

Pretend that you believed his fairly pathetic performance or push harder and try to help with whatever it was?

"What abou't yerself? Most peopl' ain't jumpin' to try and go shower right at the arse crack of dawn."

Deflecting probably. Get his mind off of whatever was bothering him in the first place by listening to your troubles instead? You wouldn't bet your life on it but it seemed like something you'd probably have done a couple times in your life. Some small part of you screamed to be embarrassed about your reasoning and cited it's stupidity.

Shut up and lie. Say something cool. Turn it back to him.

"I was cold."

Lame.

"Cold?" He repeated. His eyebrow was raised and you watched the sweat drip down the curve of his scrunched temple as he fidgeted where he stood. You seemed to forget you were expected to respond now, too enveloped in his skittish behavior now as you watched his hands begin to rub lines around the ring of his wrist. You blinked like a dumbfounded kitten before noticing his half-way expectant expression seemed to get you out of your stupor as you nodded.

"Yeah. I just- I don't think I make my own body heat anymore. So I was just-" You trailed off as you watched him twitch again, a half-hearted gesture as though twisting the handle of the shower properly ended your response.

"What about you? You said you're 'healthy as a horse', so why're you up and sweating like a sinner in church?" You sounded snarky, more so than you'd meant to. And in all honesty you supposed it was as if you'd forgotten who you were for a moment. You were no longer the person who spread gossip, rumors or nasty remarks about the 141. You didn't have any right to claim the squad as being freaks while ignoring the oversized canines in your mouth. And yet here you were, starting up an accusatory attempt at embarrassing him, choking information he wasn't keen on giving, even though you were standing stark naked behind a shower curtain and starting to tremble like a leaf.

Despite the obviously flushed nature of his face, you could've sworn he blanched at your question, as though he already expected you'd have somehow forgotten. You watched his lip pull back in an uneasy sneer, allowing you to see his own set of gnarled and oversized teeth. His pink gums were overcrowded with the pale white curves of his "maw" and it sunk in for a moment, how genuinely screwed you would've been if he had bitten you when you were alive. He could've taken a chunk from your shoulder, nearly half your neck, whatever he wanted.

You'd mocked him before in rumor for doglike qualities without even having seen these, and you were sure he could hear some of the comments considering you said then in front of him the majority of the time. One flash of his teeth and you'd have snapped your mouth shut, and you were sure he knew it. And yet he'd only ever met your remarks with apathy or a sarcastic smirk. As much as you wanted to believe that it had been out of politeness and control of his temper (and you wouldn't pretend some amount hadn't been) you were now aware some of the restrictions placed on 141. You were too be detained or reprimanded if you showed violent tendencies or behavior, and you'd already been issues a warning when you'd accidentally spaced out, your gaze happening to linger on a nurse and her neck. You could only imagine what kind of reprimand he'd had been given for snarling or simply acting aggressive. And you knew in your heart-of-hearts that if he had, you'd have been the first one scampering off to your higher up to demand he be taken off his squad and put down like a mutt.

You'd grimaced at the thought at the prior actions you wished you could distance yourself from, yet this was still in fairly recent memory. This was still who you were wasn't it?

You seemed to be fished out from your wandering mind as he began to speak, and while he had ceased touching his own wrists and flesh, either out of wishful appearances of having everything under control, or a rush of embarrassment at the habit, it was still clear that he wished he hadn't. He started the statement with an almost sarcastic laugh.

"Figure yer about the only one on the squad who doesn' know, so better yuh hear 't straight from the horses mouth 'nstead of from one of those gossipin' lassies yuh always hang around. Don't need that pretty face of yours sneerin' at me anymore than it has already, 'specially if it's over somethin' untrue or blown out 'f proportion."

Used to hang around with. Don't think they'd much like to even be in the same room as me now. But you couldn't find any courage to even speak the rebuttal. You didn't have to right to separate yourself from that life yet. It'd be done for you in time if you really did clean up your act.

Now it was his time to be overtly embarrassed, though it was clear he was trying to be cordial. Considering you were the one naked in the shower, you weren't sure how embarrassing this would have to be.

"Canines as a whole got their matin' seasons, yeah? I ain't a full blown dog or nothin' but every now 'nd then-" He trailed off and made a gesture with his hand that you couldn't decipher the nature of.

"'nitially, they jus' tossed some meds my way 'nd called 't a day. But the meds toned everythin' down. Made me sluggish. Delayed reactions 'nd all that. So rather than riskin' my capacity as a soldier 'n case I ever needed to be deployed while drugged, I started-" His face was practically beet red now, you were about to say he didn't need to explain further if it was too embarrassing but he opened his mouth first.

"-gettin' that extra energy 'ut with someone else. That worked better. Ain't an air tight system but it seemed a good alternative. As 'pposed to a full week of bein' drugged up and loopey, it's jus' losing me and my.....helper for 24 hours, and then check up after the time's up. 'm usually fine after that. Maybe a bit headstrong or- I don't know, I guess protective 's a good word for 't? 'm a bit protective 'f my helper but it's nothin' too bad."

He rubbed his eyes, and though you suspected he didn't have anything wrong with his ocular region, he still continued rubbing while he spoke.

"I got one designated 'elper cause with 'im it's a guarantee that there ain't any threat of actually concevin' somethin'. He's out doin' something for this week. Normally it ain't an issue 'cause they're pretty good on 'nsurin' he's never out when it's 'round my time. But they needed him, so I got the short end of the stick. Yuh happened to catch me killin' time before meds happened to scamper over to shove some pills in my face."

The silence that filled the room left an uncomfortable prickle along your spine as you stared at him. The smell of wet dog was still pungent in the room, and though it was nearly overwhelming, you could detect the slightest hint of sulfur mixed in with it.

Sulfur?

Oh.

Now that you looked him over, under a scrutinizing stare, his pants did seem a big bigger around the hips than what fit him, the drawstring tied tightly to ensure they stayed up. You'd have bet your dignity and what life you had, that those weren't his.

Alright. It made sense you guessed. A literal dead dude wasn't exactly prime breeding material so it stood to reason that the base wouldn't be waiting with baited breath and terror about it.

You nodded in cautious acknowledgment, unsure of what else to do. You didn't really have any secrets or burdens to share with him in return. And although you did care about his opinion of you, you cared more about staying warm. So with a cautious gesture behind you, you motioned as if turning the spigot, and you watched him cycle through confusion, disappointment and acceptance in a split second before waving a thumbs up at you and turning around as though about to wash his hands.

As you snapped the water back on and felt the flood of warm water splash over you again, you attempted to drown out the scent of him. What else were you supposed to do? It wasn't like you could make Ghost magically pop over here. And for a few minutes, you stood in the water stream trying to ignore the information he'd just tossed your way. He really was a dog, huh? Just some mutt in heat that needed another stray dog to whimper and bark as-

Stop. That's not who you are anymore. Cut it out. He didn't chose that life anymore than you chose to be shivering and trembling under a stream of water because you're too pathetic to make your own body heat.

You heard the hiss of the shower curtain beside you snap open and the howl of water as he bathed himself in the embrace of the stream. You slumped down again, your back against the tile as you stared at the adjacent wall with dull eyes as you attempted to fall back into the half-sleep you'd found yourself in earlier.

And for a while, that's what you got. Though instead of continued peace, you were met with the smell of sweat. The sound of coughing breaths and grunts that led you to understand almost immediately what your shower companion was up to.

Leave. Give him privacy.

And yet after you pushed yourself to your feet, standing in the puddle of splashing water, you realized you didn't really want to. So instead you stood for a few minutes, listening to the sound of his choked breathing as he attempted to keep himself quiet and drown out his sounds with the chorus of the water.

"Do you want me to help?"

What? Why the hell did you say that? What's wrong with you? Okay so take the statement back. Cover it up with a cough.

"What?"

Say nothing, say you sneezed, say something else. Back out.

"I mean, I know I'm not a wraith, but I am dead. So- I mean I don't think the base would have any reason to worry about- y'know conceiving something."

....I hate you.

"I ain't looking to force you, and I didn't tell yuh all that stuff to get yuh to pity me enough to offer-"

"You're not. You didn't. I'm- look I'm genuinely offering. If you don't want to, that's alright. I'm just putting it out there."

You swallowed hard as you waited for his response. Silence hung like a heavy cloud, the splash of water on the tiles provided the only audible stimulation, and you were sure he'd stopped breathing considering you couldn't hear the slightest peep on his end. Great job. You screwed up and now your squad mate thought you were a weirdo who was so desperate to get fucked that they were exploiting their suffering teammate. Might as well try to resign, though you doubted they'd even let-

"Alright." He sounded less reluctant, and instead more cautious. He began breathing again, shallow pin pricks of air as you heard him grunt and resituate, then the sound of skin on tile as he presumably leaned against the wall, giving you room to squeeze into the shower stall with him. You tugged your curtain to the side, the familiar hiss sounding out as you walked the few steps to his, watching his fidgeting silhouette through the opaque curtain before you eventually stepping into his.

It wasn't that he was particularly tall, but now as he turned his head to the side to avoid meeting what he assumed would be an accusatory gaze, his craned neck made him appear as though he might've easily dwarfed you in size. That and his squared shoulders and well-kept physique. He'd seemed embarrassed in your conversation but now his lack of eye contact seemed more as his attempt at giving you time to rethink your decision without the pressure of his eyes boring into your skull.

The water that he had spraying out was noticably colder than the water of your choice. But then again, you could feels the heat practically radiating off him, and you suspected he was similar to Price in that regard. Though from a different root cause.

You felt yourself resisting the urge to begin squirming in discomfort, though you were insistent on not making a fool of yourself. Your gaze traveled over him as though sizing up a foe, though you stopped changing your focus after your eyes landed on his groin. You'd been watching his chest rise and fall with each uncertain breath, that had drawn your attention to the thin trail of hair down his chest all the way to the thatch of hair below his navel, where your gaze had landed on his cock.

You didn't consider yourself promiscuous by nature, but you weren't a virgin, it wasn't as though this was your first time seeing a dick, but you would say this was the first time you'd felt intimidated. You wouldn't have been caught raving about the size, but you did feel your mouth go dry. There were a few veins visible even from where you stood now, and the flushed red tip did not go unnoticed either. But the swollen knot at the base drew your attention as you furrowed your brows. Even if you did help with some, you weren't sure that would ever fit. It was already practically coated in pre-cum and you could only imagine how long he'd spent fussing in his cot with his face buried in Simon's slacks as he attempted to pretend that the garment signaled Simon's actual presence.

You saw him cast a quick glance over your face as though attempting to gauge your reaction without seeming too obvious or without seeming like he was demanding one.

Here goes nothing?

Your movements were sluggish, now giving him plenty of time to back out of your deal if he so chose, but seeing as he remained almost statuesque in movement level and pose, you assumed he was alright with your opening. Without thinking too deeply, you brought your palm forward to lay against the underside of his cock as it stood erect.

"Yer colder than I was expectin'." He finished his statement with a chuckle as though he somehow hadn't understood the extent of what you meant when you'd been claiming to need the water to warm you up.

You gave a hum of acknowledgement before closing your fingers around the length of his shaft, your thumb pressed against his leaking cock-head as you watched him twitch. Unwilling to seem any more discomforted than he already had, and yet he was fighting a losing battle as you watched his Adam's apple bob before rubbing his eyes as he had before.

You watched him reach to his side and turn the nozzle to turn the water warmer, for his own enjoyment as much as yours as he watched your muscles relax in the welcoming embrace of the heated spray. He swallowed again as your fingers squeezed gently, sliding them down to the base where you proceeded to hear him give a hiss of an inhale as he gritted his teeth at the agitation of the sensitive spot. With a few moments pause, you trace your thumb along his cock-head again before standing up straight and kissing the side of his neck. Leaving a small bite mark on the tendon-pulled skin.

What you hadn't been expecting was his hands to suddenly find your shoulders and push you against the tiled wall behind you, dipping out of your bite before roughly pressing his lips to yours. You would bruise, you were sure of it. And just like the other few ones, you wouldn't heal. Some others you figured would be reminders of fights or blunt trauma but a bruise from being manhandled during sex? A permanent mark?

Fuck, it was too late to do anything about it now. You met his force with the same intensity, slamming yourself against him and yanking your hand along his cock in one swift jerk that made him whine into your mouth. His hands wandered, grabbing roughly at anything and everything he could sink his nails into, though he at least had the sense to not puncture your skin.

He pressed you tight against the wall and it surprised you that you hadn't heard the crack of tile or cement yet from how he kept amping up the force as he repeated the motion of pulling you closer to him before shoving you back against the wall. If he had a tail, you were sure it'd have been wagging and that certainly would've been a funny sight, though you would have to make due with the needy groans that he kept making anytime he removed his lips from yours to bite or lick at your neck.

One of his hands left the meat of your hip and moved to the back of your head, pushing you tight against his burning flesh, his heat leaving you in a similar bliss as Price's had. Though the moment of solace with your face pressed against his neck was lost as he shoved you against the wall again, this time the pressure hitting his own hand as though he'd realized that he shouldn't have been handling you so roughly. Though your theory was debunked as he used his other hand to flip you around so your back was to him and your chest was against the tile now.

The height difference ensured you felt his warm cock against the base of your back. Your breath left your mouth in short spurts as you felt him bite at your neck from behind now, before looking over the damage he'd already caused in terms of the scattered flecks of discolored skin. Though if he cared, he had a funny way of showing it seeing as how he promptly grabbed at your ass and hips and squeezed the flesh till you were sure he'd have drawn blood if you had any to shed.

You felt him still for a moment longer and waited switch baited breath for his next move, only to be flipped around again, though this time without the luxury of his hand blocking the shock. You felt him hoist you up with a grunt but little effort as though you weighed nothing, and you had little time to ask what he was doing before he slammed you down onto his cock with no warning.

It leaves you screaming wordlessly as you feel tears threaten the corners of your eyes as he grunts into your chest. You might've tried to pull yourself off if you'd found the strength to, but seeing as his grip was holding you in place, it seems fruitless anyways. Instead, you snapped your mouth shut and dug your nails into his shoulders as you leaned your head back against the tile and felt him begin pulling out and then ramming back into you as though he fancied himself to be a violent piston.

You grit your teeth and do your best to ignore the pain that tears through your body and leaves you gasping for breaths you don't need to take. You hook your legs over his hips and he greets that movement with tossing you up a few extra inches to leave himself barely in you before letting you drop back fully down on his cock as he moves his face to resume biting and licking at your chest and neck with vigor as he continued working you like an oversized fleshlight. The distinct shape of the knot occasionally bumping against you when he snapped his hips up to meet your jostling bobbing that you'd begun doing to avoid being completely man-handled.

You suspected Simon probably had an easier time with this shit considering you weren't even sure if he could bruise or feel pain. But you were his cheap replacement for the night, a chew toy for him to make due on. And fair, you'd offered yourself, and while a part of you wanted to recede your offer now, you found you couldn't will your lips to move nor your mouth to articulate anything besides a stifled moan, and you weren't sure you wanted more. Only around 24 hours right? You could bear to miss a day of P.T.

~

By the time you're done, everything hurts and you're left with a hormonal Scotts-man passed out beside you, snoring quietly as he holds you tightly. As the time began to come to an end, he'd seemed more fatigued than anything else, and his finale climax had been done with a whine. The next thing you remembered was waking up in his bunk in the barracks with him holding close against him as though he were a skittish child clinging desperately to a security blanket. The smell of wet fur and dog breath was all enveloping, but you found it didn't bother you as much this time, though you wouldn't soon be singing it's praise as a perfume.

The bunks are quiet and you don't suspect anyone is oblivious to the reason of your absence the day prior. And even if they were, the very obvious bruising in very, choice areas, were enough of a dead giveaway to any glance of scrutiny. But that was tomorrow's problem. At the moment, you focus on the sound of his breathing instead. The feeling of his chest rising and falling against your side and his occasional twitch as he dreams whatever his fucked out brain can think of. His breath is warm on your neck and the small bruises he left along your shoulders during his activities, and you wonder if you ever would've experienced this had you not dropped dead and been reborn.

You don't sing praise for your predicament or your death, but you raise a good question. If not for the bullet to your brain, you would've died only thinking about him as a slobbering mutt. A dog with violence and sex as the only thoughts that it's mind could possibly have the capacity to think of. You hadn't thought that honestly, but it wasn't far off. You'd thought him an unpredictable, liability who was crude in the best of circumstances and who pissed you off simply by being in the same room as you at the worst. What did you think of him now?

....in all honesty you weren't sure. But you now had a gnawing in your heart that left you eager to learn more about him. A sensation that left you trying to memorize the way his fingertips were drawing lazy circle around your hips despite his lack of consciousness. A sensation that left you turning on your side to play your back against his chest and try to mimic his breathing. A sensation that left you wanting to follow him around and simply watch his day to day behavior, asking questions about him and his habits as he went along. Now that he'd already fucked you senseless once, you could get to know him. Ironic.

The warmth radiating off him is what draws your attention more. As though cuddled in the arms of your lover on a cold winter day next to a roaring fire after a frostbitten walk. And though you knew in a few days he'd be back hanging around Simon and spending his tussling with the wraith, you found comfort in this night. And though you couldn't find sleep despite your fatigue, you also found you didn't mind laying awake, held gently in the arms of a teammate. Even if they did have dog breath.

[mantisgodsart]

[Tonight I dreamed of teeth and claws and what felt like a million grasping hands chasing me through an endless field. The air smelled of sulphur and acid, and I could tell something was watching me, far beneath the moss and earth.

I woke to find I had been shedding wing scales in my sleep, and that apparently one of my primary containment chambers was registering a foreign presence within it. The only thing there when I checked, however, was Mal, who is supposed to be there - and certainly not supposed to be registering as an intruder.

I hope I don't have to update containment over this. Rescribing every little knot in the weave every time I need to strengthen or add to it gets tiring, when you have to do it multiple times a month. Maybe I should start looking for an apprentice again, if only so I don't have to maintain the entire laboratory myself.

There's an old joke about this sort of thing, charmsmiths only getting an apprentice when they need to make sure someone's take down notes about the experiment that kills them. I'd like to think it's more simply making sure that my knowledge doesn't die with me...]

One of the two left over from @bug-oc Round 1, Mal from @sushiikando gets a post all to their own, just like a Round 2 contestant! This is both because zey're a big/complicated design and because we... really aren't gonna be done Pola any time soon. Which is probably what we get for making a comic, even a short comic, while in the time of summer where we actively struggle to think. Oh, well. We'll get it done eventually.

More details under cut, as usual - despite our enthusiasm for walls of text, we don't particularly want to completely obliterate your dashboard. We're getting kicked in the dick by fatigue right now, so further ones might take a bit - we've got Maria sketched out, and Pola's comic only really needs painting and accompanying story, so all fates willing, it shouldn't be too too much of a holdup. There's an abundance of things that we would LOVE to be doing right now, but heat does awful things to our brain, we're still feeling off from being sick, and with tourism season in swing to boot even with our current medication it's an uphill battle to get ourself to do anything at the moment. Hopefully, this clears up soon. For now, we're still very much alive.

First things first - wow, this one took a few drafts. Although not really an originally anticipated difficulty, the lack of reference of just what Mal looks like under that coat made a lot of our original ideas fall a bit flat unless we wanted to make something up from whole cloth. Marigold's transmutations don't include clothes by default, since actively incorporating inanimate objects into an animate body is both difficult and much, much fussier than usual when you're using Marigold's particular methods.

We tried a few initial designs that stopped at that point, then tried at incorporating the coat into the design more properly a la the more "abstract" brews, but after a few fell flat, we sort of... just started throwing spaghetti at the wall, so to speak, and spaghetti stuck. The body patterns here are, for the most part, entirely made up. Maybe the patterns distorted, maybe they didn't - we don't know what's under the coat and we will likely never learn. It's probably fine.

Our primary inspiration here is eastern dragons, particularly the mythos of the koi who climbed the waterfall - the colors and patterns of Mal's design reminded us of koi patterns on first glance, and after a few drafts, we started running with the concept, using both Mal's wings and the shape of the lab coat for "fins". Runaway To The Stars's Bug Ferrets also provided some inspiration (particularly in the face - if you click the link, those mandibles might start looking very familiar).

We also took some amount of inspiration from theveryworstthing's REMwolf series, particularly Laika and The Morriss Dragon, though a lot of the particularly body-horror-y and sillhouette-breaking effects we might have wanted to include in a more detailed piece got nixed by a lack of time. We cannot take the duration of the entire tournament to draw one Round 1 contestant, unfortunately. Even if we wish we could've gotten a bit more detailed, and we very much would've liked to tinker with working in some design elements akin to Sea Legs or Guard Dog or Biology Lab, we're very nearly a full month overdue by now. We have other contestants to paint, and so we must move on.

...fuck, this took a while. Thank you for being patient with us while our brain's scaffolding falls to pieces! We dearly appreciate it. Hope you have an excellent summer!

[animehouse-moe]

Blade of The Moon Princess Volume 1: An Incredible Look Into Endou's Vision

Rather imprudent of me to title this after the artist rather than the art itself, but it's very hard not to. When your most recent work is your greatest hit, and one of the largest out of nowhere successes in a good while, it's hard to relate everything to that feat.

Regardless, what we have here is Endou's last serialized work before Spy x Family. There's a trio of one-shots bridging the gap, but all three (I Spy in particular, of course) contribute a significant amount to what it is that Endou distills into Spy x Family. Of course, you get borrowings from Tista, and most certainly from Blade of The Moon Princess. Because of those ties, I'd love to explain the connections (and quality) of Blade of The Moon Princess in relation to Endou's Magnum Opus.

Let's get the story out of the way: there are people living on the moon. All Feudal Japan-like but with fancy technology and unimaginable power. Kaguya, the young girl on the cover, is the next-in-line princess to succeed her mother and rise from princess to empress of the moon. Of course, not everyone likes that, as the branch family that was disgraced by the actions of the prior empress that originated from their family has stained their history. Desperate to claw back the power they had lost, they attempt to murder Kaguya's mother and steal away the symbol of her power, a sword passed down from empress to empress that's meant to protect the people of the moon. The coup-meets-assassination fails, and Kaguya is able to flee to the tainted planet (Earth) with the sword and evade the branch family, if only briefly.

Surprisingly well put together, yeah? I thought so too. Where Tista lacks a clear cut vision as to the reason behind Tista's story, Endou rectifies that hole here by providing viewers with the idea that Kaguya's goal is to return to the moon as its empress and usurp the branch family that has wrestled control away from her.

Moving on though, there's quite a few pieces that will catch the attention of readers. The moon, Kaguya, bamboo and Japan. It's Endou's version of The Story of Princess Kaguya. And I think that's really cool. They stretch the fabric of the original story so thin that you can shine a light through it, and Endou uses that light to illuminate the details that he's added. Kaguya does not appear to an old man in a stalk of bamboo. Rather, she appears in a space ship shaped like bamboo.

Much like Endou's marriage of sci-fi and fantasy with Blade of The Moon Princess, they form a transitional period in their storytelling between Tista and Spy x Family. Not quite as humorous as Spy x Family, and not quite as dark as Tista, Kaguya helms a story that straddles the middle of Endou's mind through this first volume. And I think that's something that will be immediately apparent to readers throughout the whole volume.

Though I say 'whole volume', there's two things that will immediately clue readers in: Anya and perspective. Now no, Anya does not appear in this first volume really. But I mean, just look at Kaguya's expressions, they exude the simplicity and laziness of Anya. While Ashe from the referentially titled Rengoku No Ashe might have been the inspiration for Anya's design, Kaguya represents a good portion of her soul.

Similarly, though in the opposite direction, is Endou's use of perspective. While it still exists in Spy x Family, it's to a far lesser degree than something like Tista. In his early days, he very much so had a penchant for blown perspective and the depiction of characters with small and narrow frames. Blade of The Moon Princess continues this trend, though perhaps on a lesser scale than before. The latter example in particular feels like it was pulled directly from Tista.

Anyways, let's refocus on the story to close things out. We know what Endou wants to do, we know where we're going and where it wants to end. It's a very confident series in that regard, which in turns provides me with confidence that it'll be a solid ride through its five volume run. It won't rush to fit it into two volumes, and it won't barely make it a story through one, it'll take its ideals about Kaguya's character, and take the time Endou needs to probably mold and shape it. It's the most promising exercise in Endou's storytelling prior to Spy x Family, and that has me very intrigued. A hot headed girl, stranded so far away from home, stuck with feelings of inadequacy and rage. But a girl that must nonetheless learn how to harness those feelings for the better, and use them to protect the people that form her kingdom. It's a well put and traditional approach with all the right twists and turns inserted by Endou. I'm very curious to see where it goes.

[ships-bynoa]

"is he still him?" Nat asked with his dying breath.

poor baby Mich is confused and angry in this episode, while Rick is desperate and afraid for her.

first, can we get into her poor imitation of a b as Dana Bethune? cause she didn't even try, looooool. she could not be arsed to pretend, especially after the desperate attempt Rick made to send her away on that boat. after that, of course, she's acting up but at the same time, i was like, babe, look at her where you areeeee. even when Pearl questions her, she's giving snark. now in hindsight, it's hilarious how boss she is that she can't hide it, but in the moment i was screaming at the tv "stooooop it!!" this was such a tense episode. knowing she wouldn't die did not change that. cause if Rick had to blow Pearl's head off for reaching for that knife, all hell woulda broken loose for them both. not being fully prepared for the worst proved a grave mistake when facing Negan.

i get it. she's confused and she was expecting a different energy from him, but at the same time, she's seeing the scale of the place. she could've tried even a little even though things escalated pretty quickly after Jadis. she has no idea all the shit he had to do just to protect her in that one episode. he had no time to get into the details.

it's not that she can't play a b either. she was able to play a b to Rick's a a few times when she got to the prison and went to his home town with Carl to gain his trust. she toed the line between a and b when she needed to.

but for a good minute she's scared with him telling her to go that the man she came for and loves is gone. he has no idea what she went through to find him, to get this far. she left their babies. she almost died and she lost her friends who helped her get as far as she did only for rick to tell her to go? her heart is breaking and she doesn't even know the half of it yet when it comes to rick's ordeal nor does he know her scars. but to her, if he's sending her away then why did she do all of this? if he isn't rick anymore, who did she do all of this for?

love the themes of, who are they now and how do they navigate this new dynamic? living vs surviving and the theme of knowing when to go and when to stay. which i'm sure will be half the battle of episode 4. do they stay or do they go?

i mean Rick would not have survived had he not surrendered to some extent. he had to adapt and she didn't. she still had her freedom. her anger is justified because what has the crm done to her man? but the more time she spent there, hopefully, she could see exactly what he must have had to endure to even entertain staying while she went. Rick is right when he says they have to be afraid - there should be a healthy amount of fear so they don't make the same mistakes they did when they handled Negan and the saviours.

i'll say character-wise, i would have loved seeing Danai play into Dana a bit more just for fun.

Pearl's attempt on her life made him frantic and he made the mistake of telling 'chonne they were done and has a lot of making up to do for that even though it was a desperate attempt to save her. her rage is justified but needs to be directed at the crm because what have they done to him? hopefully she comes to see in 4 exactly what he must have had to endure and vice versa.

gosh, they're both hurting so much and i need Rick to hold Michonne and reassure her it wasn't all for nothing. what she went through. and for her to tell him she understands he did what he had to to survive but that they don't surrender. they fight because they're fighters. and then sexy time and RJ reveal and next steps. together. go back with a plan or run.

outside of Richonne, the actual plot is asking for much. Okafor and Nat both impressed upon our heroes that the crm can't be left to do as it's been doing.

[hmshermitcraft]

I haven't watched Limited Life as much as the other life series (was getting more into Rain World), but I have seen stuff about Mean Gills so here's some Gill boys for the theme

Martin was having a shit week.

In the early hours of the morning, the ship and crew had been attacked and sunk, leaving him all alone in the ocean, clinging onto a wood scrap. It took all day for him to get washed up on a island, forcing him to hide from and cold night in the rocky cliffs. The next day was equally bad: the few trees that he could cut were terrible for building - he found that out when it collapsed on him the next night. He now resides back in the cliffs, away from the tides and with firewood for days.

Beneath his grumbles about his bad luck and the start of a smoke signal, he does have some curiosity about the wildlife

mainly, what was leaving fish? And why?

On the small outcrops he can reach without swimming, freshly killed fish and pearls get washed up. He sometimes sees a flash of large scales just out of his peripheral vision, but its gone when he swivels to get a clearer look. While he's happy for the fish (at least he won't starve), it's still a mystery to him.

____________

Scott hasn't seen any life on land

Sure, he had seen lots of squawking air things and the greenery above the currents, but other than that, he had little belief in the idea that anything could live solely on land.

Until he met a strange sight.

They were wrapped in wet browns and loose whites, with specks of green wrapped within the details. Their equally hidden tail seemed split and flat, and their blond hair glistened between the rays as they scurried along the greens without even a glance at the ocean.

Scott was perplexed. What were they? Had they been cursed? Are they a mer? Were they ok? Way were they upright on their tail? What was that shinny claw against their waist? He had been leaving fish and sometimes pearls to see if it sparked a recognition, but nothing...

They did sound grateful for the fish however - maybe he could try again next sunrise and see if that did anything.

~🪶

It takes another day for Martyn to construct a rudimentary lean-to, and of course after that it starts raining. The think layer of leaves does nothing to keep the rain out. He's miserable, he's wet, and he has no idea how he'll be able to start a fire in this weather. So not only is he cold, soon he's going to be hungry. This sucks.

Scott's continued observing the strange land creature each day. They appear to be the same as him besides the missing tail. It's curious to watch how they survive without it. Their split tail seems useful in some ways. They're able to climb over rocks, reaching spots Scott couldn't dream of. Mostly because Scott doesn't need to - everything he needs is in the water.

One day, a storm is passing through. The surface of the ocean is covered in ripples from the raindrops. It's always mesmerising to watch, Scott loves lying in the shallows and spending the storm there. He doesn't today, though. Because the creature hasn't taken his fish.

Scott knows the creature needs to eat. They eat strangely too, Scott's been watching! Instead of running away from the hot amber air, they create it on purpose. And then they put the fish over it until it changes colour. Then they eat it.

But today they haven't taken any fish. Scott is fond enough of his creature that he refuses to let that slide. With the creature being so high up, there's very little Scott can do to reach them.

So he starts throwing fish.

Martyn gets hit by the third one. He jumps to his feet, completely destroying his lean-to and banging his head in the process. After an adequate amount of moaning (whatever attacked could've just finished him off at that point and he would've been grateful) he starts trying to figure out what happened.

He finds a fish. In land, not washed up on the shore. Then he finds another one. And another.

And to top it all off, a fourth lands two steps away from him. Maybe he's started hallucinating? But the fish feel real. Maybe, if he's able to get a fire close enough to a cliff face, he could at least try and smoke them? He's not sure how that works, actually.

He looks out at the water to find the source of the fish. There's a face. There's a face in the water. With bright, inhuman eyes and hair that blends with the water around him. Then that face sprouts an arm that waves at him. And when he grins, Martyn sees rows of sharp teeth.

Then the face is gone.

Martyn is definitely hallucinating. Otherwise, he's fucked.

[sirsovata]

PART 1 BTS Of My Artworks (August-November)

Hi guys, here are some WIP, Behind the scenes, and scrapped screenshots of artwork I made between August-November 2024. Enjoy!

August

Artwork Link

I had lots of files which showed Undutied Hubert in different stages of WIP but most of them are gone. This is the only WIP image of the artwork I still have which does not have his cap or the surrounding leaves. I remember starting this on August 20th and it was very relaxing to make.

September

September was a really weird month art-wise since I was transitioning away from the early simpler "one character" portraits into the A Very Sovatic Holiday Album planning.

The screenshot above was meant to be a parody of "Telephone" by Lady Gaga and Beyonce. My idea was that the Toppat Clan has just killed the government base, triple threat, and the police force in a small diner and decided to break out into a dance number over their cartoon corpses as like a victory dance or something. I entrained this thought for about 2 weeks before it became too complicated to make and was scrapped in mid September.

Artwork Link

The "He Was Captured" Artwork was a mess to make but even though the artstyle hasn't aged too well and is a bit amateurish, is something I am still very proud of as it was a big jump in ambition and scale (literally) which helped establish the A Very Sovatic Holiday Album later on. This was very hard to transport into Tumblr as the file size even as a PNG was enormous, roughly 400 MB. This got condensed an enormous amount when posted, so I made a separate post for close ups to appreciate the smaller details more.

This artwork was meant to be a much larger project, almost comic-book like. I don't want to spoil it since I'm still thinking about remaking this later on.

October

At Last I See The Light

Artwork Link

WIP Link

The "At Last I See The Light" artpiece was the only major thing made around this time and is still one of my favorite artworks I've made last year. I based it off a scene in the Disney movie Tangled, where Eugene and Rapunzel are alone in a wooden boat romantically spectating a lantern ceremony. I thought it would've been great for Ellie and Henry as Toppat leaders. This was also the first artpiece I made with a drawing tablet, which is why it's artstyle is a little different compared to the ones in September and August.

More about the artstyle... my main inspiration around August-October was Lazydeer/Mars who had a certain way of shading and shadowing spheres (heads) of THSC characters where it'd be sharp color lines instead of the gradients I'd do nowadays. At Last I See The Light is one of my last artworks to have this "blocky" style of shading, you can see it on the heads of Henry and Ellie.

Early on I imagined that there was a white stone bridge in the background similar to a scene in Mulan 2 with rose bushes off to the right side, but this never really materialized.

There aren't any significant differences in early sketches and this. Ellie's dress is a fair bit different and she was initially meant to wear a tophat, but this got changed. The artwork was initially meant to be posted on September 25th as a late Summer/early Autumn kickstart but it got delayed to early October.

I already made a post about this the WIP of this artpiece in October in much greater detail, link is above!

November

Midnight (Originally called "Candy")

Artwork Link

The Midnight artwork was the messiest installment to plan and create in the A Very Sovatic Holiday Album as although I had a clear image of the theme ever since early September, it was hard to pinpoint exact details in the composition and environment. Because of this, at least 4 different versions were made until around October 20th when the final design was chosen. The delay and complication of Midnights led to the delay and cancellation of the Lead Single and Thanksgiving Single (see later on).

All images above are posted in order of creation.

The first sketch was meant to be Hubert Galeforce giving out candy to Charles on a porch at night. In this sketch I had Dave Panpa and Rupert Price in mind. At this point it was called "Candy".

The second sketch had Hubert watching helplessly as triple threat horse played in the streets after dark during Halloween. Ellie was dressed as a stop sign, Charles was driving the cart, and Henry had a diamond while riding on the cart.

The third version had Henry steal a whole bowl of candy while Hubert was intentionally distracted by Charles and Ellie on a person's porch. I had this sketch digitalized 2 weeks before Halloween before deciding that it wasn't good. This sketch was where Henry's diamond custom came from.

The FINAL version had Hubert covering Triple Threat from the rain in the streets of New York during a very late night Halloween trip. Initially many more details were meant to be included such as a fire escape ladder and a large sign saying "Fredrickson's Candy" in reference to the mayor, Gene Fredrickson, but time constraints cut them out last time. I was initially going to post this at 4 PM October 31st but it got pushed to November 1st.

The artstyle here is much more "matured" compared to previous ones such as At Last I See The Light and He Was Captured, being more finely blended and pillow-like compared to the harsher lines I used earlier on. I do find it funny that I found out that the way I did art digitally was kind of weird, as I would never use solid outlines for my art expect for when sketching.

Autumn 🍂🍁(Originally called "Orange")

Artwork Link

The Autumn artwork was much simpler to think through. I had it's composition and early sketches figured out since late September/October. The main changes were that Rupert and Dave are supposed to be on a road that curves to the left side of the image and the background is supposed to be orange hills with a blue river running at the right side of the image. Time constraints led to a simplification of the background. I used to have a paper full of sketches of the first 4 artworks in the album but I can't find where it is.

Orange (Not to be confused with Autumn 🍂🍁)

This was a cancelled artpiece where Hubert and (teenage) Quentin Alablaster was operating a helicopter with Charles looking out a side door to view the blue sky and orange/red trees below in Autumn. Cancelled because of Midnight/Lead Single/Thanksgiving single situation. This artpiece was originally meant to be in mid-November in place of Autumn 🍂🍁, but it was replaced by Autumn 🍂🍁 as I wanted to have more characters represented in the album at this point than just Charles and Hubert. Although I had a clear concept and image of this, it was never started so no sketches or digitalized painting exist.

A Very Sovatic Holiday's Lead Single (Firewood, Campfire, Cabin, etc)

Similarly to Midnights, the lead single's composition and subject matter was also very hard to pinpoint and think through. I made many sketches trying to get a good idea of what the artwork might look like but none stuck expect for the finalized concept (see above)

Here are 2 screenshots of the scrapped lead single of the album which I haven't named yet (though I've thought of names such as Cabin, Me and Dad, Campfire, etc. ). This was originally meant to be released on November 4th but the Midnights artwork became a huge mess to deal with that this got pushed back to late November. It eventually became completely scrapped as I ran out of motivation to finish this from schoolwork and the campfire lighting was too complicated to figure out so yeah. I really like this artwork still though so I might remake this along with Autumn later on.

Thanksgiving Single: Gold, Champagne & Glory (Originally called "Wine & Turkey")

The Thanksgiving single also was a huge headache to make (titled "Gold, Champagne, and Glory") as it had the opposite problem of Midnights and the lead single. The concept and image of the final product was very clear for months ever since August (yes AUGUST) but when it came time to start sketching and digitally painting it, it was a nightmare as the perspective and colors never seemed right.

The artwork was meant to be from a worm's eye perspective looking up to see RHM and Reg enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner with the toppat elites. Thomas Chestershire was meant to be a waiter in the far left delivering more wine.

The digitalized artwork above only shows Right Hand Man and the left half of Reginald Copperbottom's head but Thomas Chestershire and all the other elite toppat members were also meant to be there. The sketch screenshot was the top half of Reg's tophat and Thomas Chestershire delivering Champagne.

The delay and eventual cancelling of both the lead single and the thanksgiving single tanked my motivation for the album and made me want to give up, which caused a month long absence between November and December.

That's all for August-November. There is much more I'm not able to cover as much of the sketches and plans were lost.

Part 2!

Edits: Adding more details, added a new entry that I forgot about, and fixed a couple mistakes.

[centrally-unplanned]

I wanted to respond to this post from a bit ago, because I thought it was a good challenge. Certainly Japan is a wildly different country from the US, so the way it can be used sometimes as a "YIMBY model" can often be naïve. It is not YIMBY in many ways, for sure. Cowen sets out a list of ways Japan either isn't YIMBY or would have other reasons for its lower rents; as he puts it:

Yet the more I think about it, the more I tend to believe a very different proposition: Japan is in key ways a very NIMBY country, and its brand of NIMBYism has keeps real estate prices down. A corollary is this: YIMBYism gets much less credit for low Tokyo real estate prices, and furthermore the low real estate prices are a sign of something having gone wrong on the productivity side, in large part due to regulation.

So lets see how it holds up:

1. Japan has had very tough immigration restrictions.  This has eased considerably, but a) the stock matters not just the flow, and b) current Japanese migrants often are from countries such as Thailand and the Philippines, which fills in for some mid-level jobs, but does not massively boost rents.

Meh - True, though its more cultural then legal imo. But we aren't talking about Japan, we are talking about Tokyo. Tokyo has has large amounts of internal migration from the rest of Japan; meanwhile its not like NYC's net population has increased dramatically in the past 20 years from immigration. Unless immigrations have magic rent soil I'm not seeing this.

2. It is extremely difficult to learn written Japanese.  Among its other effects, this discourages high-value immigrants from settling into very high productivity service jobs in Tokyo or in Japan more generally.

Meh - definitely true! Japan needs language reform lol. But like above, immigration isn't magic rent soil, its about net people.

3. Various regulatory and legal decisions have prevented Tokyo from developing into the financial capital of Asia (haven’t you wondered  about this?).  I won’t go into all the detail here, this is the modern world so just ask ChatGPT.  I’m sure you all know that major financial centers usually lead to exorbitant rents, due to the opportunity cost of the land.

Boo - so I literally asked ChatGPT, since I was curious, and I got absolutely nothing - just vague platitudes and literally some of the other reasons from this list, like "It lacks immigration". I don't doubt some of this is true, but I don't think its a load bearing reason it isn't a financial center. Or at least don't be lazy and tell us what they are.

Which I think is relevant, to be clear - but I think might be a bit more endogenous than the article is letting on. The inability to financialize rents in Tokyo might in fact be a reason its less of a financial center!

4. So, so much of Japanese regulatory policy and culture is geared toward maintaining small retail businesses, super small in scale, and low in productivity.  They do not place much upward pressure on rents.  By the way, this is one reason why tourists find Tokyo so wonderful, but those enterprises lower productivity considerably relative to say Walmarts.  It is no accident that so many Japanese examples populate “Markets in Everything,” that they have cat and furry cafes, and so on.

Probably True - I think he is exaggerating, and like "culture" is doing a lot of work here, but its definitely true that Japan has large small business orgs that work hand-in-hand with government to shape the urban ecology for them. The big companies are doing their own thing of course, but I am open this idea for sure. Japan's business-political complex is very vast.

But of course it might all just be downstream of the rents; if rent is low, you can build whatever.

Overall, I think meh? But I think a better argument could be made - we do need more detailed understandings of how Japan's real estate market functions in relation to its urban planning. I see one or the other in a box a lot, but the interaction I think should be dug into more.

[twothpaste]

you are no longer waiting for flights but i just thought of a question so i'm going to ask you anyway lol. what inspires you to write as much as you do? i'm one of those people where inspiration strikes extremely rarely so i'm always curious about the process, if there IS one, i know ideas come randomly really. do you write every idea you develop or do some things fall through?

aw man i hope it's not too disappointing to hear, but honestly all the ideas i get for fics really are just random strokes of inspiration. i don't really ever itch like "i want to write but idk what about," or sit down to brainstorm and force a story idea into existence. (though i've heard some folks do that and it works for them!) either i have an exciting idea so i wanna write, or i don't so i don't, hhahaa. but usually my writing pace is slower than the pace at which i get lightning bolted by new inspiration, so it works out.

i tend to get ideas on walks, or in the shower, or during in-depth conversations. admittedly i spend a colossal amount of my spare time (and my not-so-spare time) thinking about characters & their internal crises & big narrative themes & so on, so it happens sorrttt of often? idk. it's hard to quantify cuz sometimes i'll get like 3 in a month and sometimes i'll go 6 months with nothing new, it is what it is. whenever a story concept strikes, i jot it down in a big messy idea bin document i keep on my pc. usually typing it out while it's still fresh on my mind helps, cuz my brain eagerly fills in a bunch of blanks & fleshes things out as i'm trying to put it into words. i might add to it later if more details come to mind while i'm working on other things. but a story concept may sit in that doc for months or years before i actually write anything about it. or it may never get written. i've kinda got a "queue" in the back of my head, where i loosely plan the order i'll get around to writing each story (never with deadlines or time-frames, just the order). i often skip or abandon an idea if i stop feeling interested in it though, or if it just wasn't that good an idea to begin with. so there are a bunch of really mid & boring ideas sitting untouched in the dust 😅

oh!! and also i like to combine ideas whenever possible. it feels efficient, and can rehabilitate two half-baked concepts into one full package. intermission (the original fic) was like this… i'd wanted to write about mother characters playing d&d, but had no theme or plot in mind. and i'd wanted to write about modern au masked man & porky as an abusive friendship, but i had no other conflict or setting in mind. mashing them together ended up working really well, lol.

i think for me personally, it kinda helps that most of my stuff is small in scale. i've yet to write anything over 100k, and i try to wrangle everything down to a manageable size, to keep myself from biting off more than i can chew. i've always been scared of running outta steam on big projects, getting bored or overwhelmed, writing myself into a corner, not being able to finish something i committed a lot of time & energy to 😖… and i also get scared of having a really cool idea, but completely losing interest in it (and therefore all motivation to work on it) before i get around to doing anything with it 😭. but since i like to write small-ish fanfics, i can always sorta see the finish line with whatever i'm working on. motivates me to chip away at it, since i knowww it's a task i'm capable of completing. and then i get excited to share it & move on to the next thing 🤸‍♂️💨

[eyes-inthe-dark]

Hi Hello I actually make things sometimes

I don't know if anyone who follows me is interested in this stuff bc I very rarely post things from my own life, but I decided to be a little more active on here besides reblogging funny shit regarding my current hyperfixation.

So, here is the (incomplete) crafting diary of a neurodivergent trans person surviving christmas with the family and the dark and dreadful times (winter) in general by making shit! with my hands!

First: fiber stuff

I picked up tablet weaving over the last few months of 2023 and made my first pair of somewhat mistake-free shoelaces over the holidays! Only got the pattern completely right on the second try with the red but both laces now get to add a fun little detail to my shoes.

Next I tried a more complicated pattern and experimented a lot, hence the irregular pattern and troubleshooting at the start of the band. I'm now repurposing it as a camera strap and I learned a lot from it tho.

My current setup is basic cardboard tablets (I had to make extra ones so I had enough for the last band with 30 cards), tying the warp to something sturdy like a bookshelf, and sitting down with a backstrap belt on the other side of the room. I used thin wool yarn for this, which stuck to itself quite a lot, but not too much to be unmanagable, and I really like how the finished product feels.

If anyone's interested, I could make a longer post on how I made the shoelaces, I think it's a very beginner friendly project.

I managed to get my hands on a drop spindle and gave that a try, but I ran out of wool after making a very small amount of very chunky yarn and am currently working out where to best get sth local. It was fun tho!

I also finally finished the knitted scarf that has been in my wip pile for... approximately three years? I started it when I was still in school, feels like an eternity ago. It's just a simple (although very long) red wool scarf, but it keeps me nice and warm in this cold, harsh- *checks weather* ...5°C and neverending rain.

Next up: woodworking!

Noodled around with my grandpa's old dremel that we still had lying around, which resulted in this truly terrifying weapon:

Behold! I named it Toothling. It's great for poking friends and family when they least expect it.

This was more of a test run to see if it all still works and to try out doing small scale work with wood, now I gotta think of something fun to make. (I say, as if I didn't already have 50 different ideas)

Before that fuckery, I made this magnetic dice box/rolling tray for my lovely partner's birthday.

Though I don't feel like I can take credit for working the CNC magic on this, I did all the hands-on work with the sanding, assembling the magnets, shellac coating, and whatnot. I'm pretty sure wood is some sort of fruit tree, since it smells strongly of what I suspect might be plum or cherry.

Last but sure as fuck not least: embroidery

This I actually get professional instruction for at uni. I've kinda lost patience for it atm, but mostly because I cannot resist making unnecessarily complicated pieces with tiny little stitches and then am forced to finish it because I do actually kinda need to pass this class. My lecturer keeps telling me not to go so detailed, yet I have proven resistant to her good advice. But, I figured if I have to make two full pieces of embroidery to be graded on and put hours of work into, I might as well choose designs that I can turn into patches for my jacket:

Catha and Ruidus! I love me some big moon little moon imagery. The prompt was to incorporate most of the techniques/stitches we've learned so far. Added the little gold chain stitch around ruidus for the arcane latticework. It came out a little wonky shape wise, but I love it nonetheless.

And my most recent wip, a stained glass window design with the Ninth House skull and Gideon's sword behind it, to feed my current Locked Tomb obsession.

And that's it!

[artheresy]

Part One (Astral Express

Random post ideas I got, but I'm just listing my opinions on aspects of the HSR designs, including things I may dislike or would at least change about certain playable HSR design, because I am currently planning some of my own designs/redesigns to use for future art

Disclaimer!! I am not a professional character designer, I am not saying any of my ideas for them are objectively better, and I am not bashing any of these designs. I actually like most if not literally all of the playable designs so far! This is just my lil opinions of how I would change them

The List part 1:

Stelle: I actually like the turquoise band around her thigh, I just don't like how they didn't take the opportunity to sprinkle in some more of that color into her design. She had a lot of little details in her outfit, especially the back of her coat, so there's a lot of places where a few splashes of turquoise could be added whether in those little details or in some of her other adornments just so that the band stands out less . I think I would change more than just that ofc, but that's one of the things about her that stood out the most to me. Also honestly? Maybe I would scale down the sheer amount of detail she has on her back (which as someone who has tried to draw her from the back view o h my g o d), and add some more detail on her sides like her arms and her legs maybe? I dunno, I think her design is really really nice, but there are places the amount of details could be more evenly spread to.

March 7th: While I don't mind her design that is especially center around her top half, March definitely has a clutter design particularly around her waist when you look at her full body in detail. Clutter that manages to mix in some odd color choices too/ I'd probably clean it up, or better place the little bits of clutter to feel like it matches more and change up the colors in order to at least go with the rest of her outfit. Like the gold makes sense, not only with her details of golden buttons throughout her design but also the golden ticket she holds showing she is passenger of the Astral Express, but why the black fabric? How is it supposed to work in terms of construction with the rest of her outfit, I'd keep her black to only the little accented bands on her thigh and neck rather than anything big on her waist. Why is the thing holding her camera orange, why does she have this random bright green button, why does she have seemingly two different belts?? I think March would have a better sense of what goes together than that. Overall, still an adorable design.

Dan Heng: He is very nicely designed, and I think a lot of his personality comes through in it, way better than any alternative for him. I feel like I can get a better sense of his nature and overall how he feels and who he is in it. The one unfortunate aspect of his design for me though is that it feels a bit... bland? for a lack of better word. Not that he's devoid of details or anything, very nice to see him not having a particularly busy design, but a lot of those meaningful details tend to be pushed to his back or his arms. I would probably bring a few more of the details that can be to the front or maybe add more? It just feels as though there is something lacking in the design, maybe more on a coloration front than construction. Speaking of coloration, I'd likely change the way the details around his waist are colored, all the same hue and yet different shades also getting an ombre? It's a little messy, but not a big issue to be honest. That's just my view of it though, still love his design for how much it really lets his character shine through unlike Another One which I will eventually get into and explain my thoughts on in the Luofu post.

Himeko: Listen, she's beautiful, she's gorgeous. I absolutely adore her and her color palette especially, it's such a nice blend of elements with the gold all mixed in. However, her silhouette is awful like it's so messy, and I really dislike how weighed down she feels. I wish she looked just a bit different, wish her clothes looked a bit lighter. She's a Nameless, she's their navigator, she's the one who repaired the Astral Express herself!! I wish she had more details to reflect all of that, and I already have ideas for how it could be done that would end up alleviating some of the weight placed on her with all of those heavy, layered fabrics. Additionally, I think there's a better way to highlight those elements while still making her look elegant, gorgeous, and ornate. Yeah, I love Himeko, I do like her currently design a lot, but I think more could be done to show off more sides of her. She's the one I probably have the clearest image for so far. Like I can imagine her in a nice set of slacks, a deep brown tone that goes well with her coat, and either on the sides or the front of the bottom, they have slits revealing these ruffles showing through similar to the ruffles of her coat sleeves. They have golden adornments along them, very sleek and fitting her figure well to keep with a very elegant appearance. Perhaps she has suspenders as well, maybe only one side to fit with their habit of asymmetrical designs. All with a nice white blouse or even some kind of button up, buttons popped open and collar folded in a more fashionable style. Even more hammering on the asymmetry, maybe for side where she actually wears her coat, the sleeve is much shorter to not interfere with the jacket's ruffles. I don't know, that's just a little idea of changing up the construction of her outfit that I had, but I'll see how it looks on paper when I draw it.

Welt: Okay listen, I need to look up more about his lore before I can truly say anything about him. Looking at his design, and with what I do know about him, I do adore it. His color palette here with the grey tones making up the majority of it for his upper body with the accents of an almost like cool toned brown and the darker shades of grey and black coming in. It's so nicely balanced, I don't feel like he had too many elements or too many overlapping fabrics that complicate the shape. It's a competent design, and while I think someone with more knowledge on him could find more places to add details, with what I know about him, I do really like the way he looks. If I were to change one thing... I would give him more wrinkles. I know why his physical appearance doesn't match what his true age is, but I still think he deserves a few more wrinkles PLEASE that's the only way I can think to truly elevate him at the moment, give him a few more wrinkles he'd look so good with them. Whenever I see art of people giving him more wrinkles I ascend... Okay well, I can think of something I would do color wise, but I'm still on the fence about it.

I think I'll leave things there for now. I don't have as much to say on these designs in particular. I think generally they're pretty solid, and even with the ones I can think of more changes for like Himeko's, I still greatly adore a lot of elements from it. The Astral Express' base designs definitely aren't the ones I have a lot of gripes with or things to say aside from suggestions for Himeko, we'll get to those eventually (those ones in particular are Serval and DH IL, both for primarily character reasons rather than aesthetic reasons like some other opinions I have.) But yeah, the next post will be for the Stellaron Hunters since I couldn't fit them into this so look out for that!