#i wanted to draw parts of this differently during editing but for some reason the way i usually crop things mid edit

[todayisafridaynight]

they're trying but their kid's a nerd

[faeriichaii]

hiii i have a request only if you're up for it! a legolas x reader and reader teases legolas and his sensitive ears during an important event and he takes it out on you (spicy? smut if you're up for it :)

love your fics sm <333

Keep Quiet ~ Legolas x F!Elf!Reader

A/N: OMG!! I kinda have been waiting for a smut request haha!! It's just I rarely write any smut so it is always nice to see someone request it cause this also makes me uhh idk get used to writing it?? But yeah I finally finished the request and I really hope you like it <33 I also might edit it later cause rn it is very late and I am very tired but I still wanna publish smth so... ⇢ ˗ˏˋ Warnings: Smut (MDNI), Unprotected sex, Fingering, bj, ass slapping ࿐ྂ ⇢ ˗ˏˋ Words: 2.0 k ࿐ྂ ⇢ ˗ˏˋ Request: Yes (thank you <33) ࿐ྂ ⇢ ˗ˏˋ Meleth Nin ~ My Love ࿐ྂ

Summary: You seem to have teased your husband Legolas a little too long during one important meeting, so he teaches you a lesson.

Bored. You felt utterly bored, as you listened in on Lord Elronds conversation with Legolas father about some trading contract each of them approved. Being Legolas wife has it perks but you definitely despise the lengthy business meetings you have to attend. And your attendance is required regularly. As Thranduil once said, you are not just part of their family now, but also have to shoulder the burden of being the queen at some time in your lengthy life. Back then you smiled at the elven king and nodded. You didn’t expect to become queen anytime soon either. But neither did you expect him to get Legolas to drag you to every official meeting in Mirkwood. “It is good for you to learn all about our relationships with the several leaders of the various different lands.” Thranduil once said to you, after he caught you yawn after several hours of listening about potential war strategies.

A hand on your thigh justled you out of your memories. Legolas gave you a smile, as he leaned closer to you. “We are almost through Meleth Nin. Only an hour more and they should sign the papers.” Another hour? Sighing at his words you gave him a pained smile. Your eyes wandered from the elven king of Mirkwood towards Lord Elrond. You knew this would take even longer than that. How could you sit around and do nothing for another hour or two? “Legolas, would it be alright for your father if I could leave for a few minutes? Just to take a quick breather.” You whispered in his ear. His grip on your leg tightened and he began to shift around in his seat beside you. “Are you alright Meleth Nin?” “Of course I just-“ You raised an eyebrow at him. He definitely did not look quite alright. He looked rather… uncomfortable. “I don’t think my father would approve.”

Tilting your head to the side, you continued to study his side profile. A soft rosy colour dusted the tips of his ears, as well as his cheeks. Suddenly, realization dawned upon you. “Are you sure that is the reason behind you being so… skittish right now?” Your warm breath fanned over his pointy ear and you felt his body shiver, as you let your hand gently rest on his leg. Drawing circles on his thigh, you leaned closer towards him. “I don’t need a break anymore, so don’t worry about it my love.” The elven prince noticed the flirtatious undertone in your voice and gave you a warning glance. “(Y/N) please. You can’t do this to me right now. This is an important meeting and-“ A shuddered sigh left his lips, as your finger traced his ear with a feather light touch. “Hmm? Is everything alright darling?” You asked him sweetly, trying to scoot closer to your husband.

“Lord Elrond and your father are still discussing about the best travel route in order for the goods to arrive safely. The same topic since hours so why don’t you just lean back and let me have some fun hmm?” Legolas face turned towards you, his glare igniting a fire deep inside your core. He was mad. And you just got turned on. His hand grabbed your wrist and pulled it away from his ear. “You don’t want to continue playing this game (Y/N). Trust me.” A smirk graced your lips. “Is this a challenge Meleth Nin?”

Suddenly Legolas jumped up from his place at the table. Both of the lords turned their attention from the map at the table to the elven prince, confusion written upon both their faces. Even you were surprised. “Father, I must apologies, but I just remembered that me and my wife have another important event to attend to.” Thranduil looked his son up and down, before letting his gaze wander over you. You expected him to decline (probably due to the tension between you), but instead he approved. “Both of you shall leave, but make sure this… accident doesn’t happen a second time.” And with those parting words you were dragged out of the room by Legolas.

His grip on your wrist tightened as he sped across the hall towards your shared bedroom. “Legolas slow down I-“ “You want me to slow down? I bet you won’t say that again anytime soon.” Heat kissed your cheeks at the insinuation of his words. God you just wanted to tease him a bit but you definitely did not expect this outcome. Legolas stopped walking, just to open the door, drag you inside and lock it afterwards. His back was turned towards you. Watching his shoulders rise up and down you slowly approached him. “I told you to listen, didn’t I?” “Legolas I-“ Suddenly he spun around. “You didn’t listen though, did you now?” A shiver went down your spine at his deep voice. His gaze travelled from your face all over your body which made heat pool in your lower region. “You acted very poorly and improper for the future queen you know?” You nodded your head at his words. “I apologize my prince.” “You think that is enough to satisfy me?” He said, slowly approaching you. Legolas eyed you like a predator about to devour his pray. Oh, and how you would indulge in him devouring you. You need him. You want him.

“What can I do to make up for my mistakes?” “For one, how about I fill your pretty mouth.” Legolas stood in front of you, his finger grazing along your jaw. The touch alone set you ablaze like oil touching a flame. He tilted your face up towards him. “Does that sound good to you?” You nodded your head once more in approval. “Good.” And with that his mouth was upon yours. His mouth was hot and needy upon your own, tongues dancing with each other. A moan escaped your lips at the sweet relieve of the built-up tension. Legolas hand moved from your face to the back of your head to gather your hair in his fist. Pain spread from your scalp as he yanked your head bag by your strands, his mouth immediately trailing kisses along your exposed neck. Your hands racked over his upper body, unbuttoning his shirts and letting them fall off over his shoulders. Fingers trailing over his exposed skin, you followed every line and ridge of his body, until you stopped at his waistband.

“Get on your knees.” Legolas voice had a needy edge to it, as he began to gently shove you down, his hand never letting loose of your hair. Getting comfortable on the ground, you bit your lip at the obvious tent in his pants. Instantly you grabbed for his belt, loosened it and got rid of his trousers for him. “Open up.” Your mouth did as he ordered you to and in just a mere second his cock was between your lips. Sucking on it you watched his reaction through your eyelashes. His head was thrown back as soft pants escaped him. You let your tongue glide over his veins before pulling back and letting it slide over his slit. A hiss came from Legolas parted lips. His grip around your hair tightened. Suddenly, he pushed his cock deeper into your mouth, making you gag around him. Spit spilled out of the side of your mouth, as you tried to relax your throat in order to deepthroat his cock as much as possible. Your fingers moved from his hips towards your pussy, craving your own relieve. “Don’t you dare touch yourself.” Legolas said in-between pants. He moaned as a whine left your lips and sent a vibrating sensation through his lower region.

Pulling out, he grabbed your arms and lifted you from the ground. His hands found your chin, tilted your face towards his and gave you a kiss. His tongue fought with your own while he began to strip you out of the dress you wore for the meeting. Your nipples hardened under the cold air and he wasted no time in rolling them between his fingers. Your back arched at the pleasant feeling of finally feeling his touch upon you. His mouth moved from your lips down to your left tit. Your hands twisted in his long blonde hair, playing with the braids you did earlier today. Heat radiated from both of your bodies, as he let go of your nipple with a pop and stood up to his full height once more. “Now I want you to keep your mouth shut, okay?” An approval couldn’t even pass your lips, before you found yourself upon your bed, face down and ass up. “Show me how long you can keep your dirty lips sealed.”

A pleasant shiver went down your spine, as you felt his finger glide through your lips. Gripping the bedsheet, you turned your head to the side. “Legolas I need you please.” You whispered while glancing behind you. His finger brushed over your clit, making you bite your lip in order to keep quiet. You tried to scoot towards his hand, but his other hand kept your body down by your neck. “You already failed to keep quiet but you still want to get rewarded?” He slowly entered one of his fingers into your pussy but almost immediately retracted it. A needy whine passed your lips. “So greedy.” Legolas said, before entering two of his fingers and slowly pumping them at a steady pace. Your grip on the sheets tightened, as you tried to wriggle around his fingers. You want more. You need more. But you were in luck, because just after a few pumps, you could already feel the head of his cock at your entrance. “I want to see your pussy suck in my cock exactly how they greedily took in my fingers.”

And with that he pushed inside you. Your mouth opened to let out a silent moan, as you felt the stretch of his cock inside you. His hands gripped your hips harshly, before he began to move in a steady rhythm. It was hard to keep quite while his cock filled you to the brim, but neither would you want to lose his warmth inside of you. Pants mixed with the sound of skin slapping filled the quietness of the room. A moan escaped through your parted lips and was soon replaced with a surprised yelp, as you felt the harsh sting of a slap on your ass. “Your misbehaviour can’t stay unpunished now, can it?” You nodded in agreement with him. God how you loved getting punished by him. Meeting his hips halfway through each thrust, you felt the knot inside of you tighten, as well as the twitch of your husband’s cock inside of you.

“You take it so well Meleth Nin.” A sudden harsh thrust forced another moan out of your mouth, followed by another pleasant sting on your ass cheek. His hand gently traced over the red handprint. “I have a feeling that you almost like getting punished.” He let his finger trail down to your clit and drew gentle circles over it. Heat washed over your entire body, as you felt your climax approach faster and faster. Your walls clenched more tightly around his cock while the pressure of his finger on your clit increased. “Oh my god Legolas I-“ Another slap echoed through the room, followed by a whine from your lips, as the sweet relieve of your climax washed over you. Your walls clenching around his cock was all he needed, before filling you up with his cum. His release was followed by a few sloppy thrusts, before he pulled out, got onto the bed beside you and circled his arms around you in a warm embrace. A few minutes of purse silence passed between the both of you.

“Was it too much?” Legolas suddenly asked you. “No, of course not Meleth Nin. I might even consider teasing you more often during the meetings.” You reassured him, wrapping your own arms around him and falling asleep in his arms.

[uriekukistan]

megumi character analysis, fearsome womb arc edition: establishing motivations

as im going through my re-read of jujutsu kaisen, i wanted to share some of my thoughts on characters and topics that im most passionate about, and of course megumi is one of those things. disclaimer, i am only going to be referring to things that occurred during the fearsome womb arc in this post, so the range of material im using to support my points is a bit limited.

my point in doing this is to draw attention to the misconceptions about megumi that lead to the large amount of hate he’s been receiving over the past year. if you keep up with the jjk fandom, you’ve no doubt seen the bumgumi allegations (eye twitches). honestly, i think a lot of this comes from a lack of understanding of megumi’s character, and what pushes him to act, or in some cases, not act. to me, this is absolutely wild, because megumi is one of the characters whose motivations and intentions are stated straight from the beginning, quite possibly some of the clearest stated motivations in the entire series.

i. he was never interested in being a sorcerer and has an established distaste for the system.

i would agree that sometimes megumi is a bit half-assed in his actions, but it’s important to understand why. he isn’t fond of his job. the reasoning behind this is not established until later on, but megumi’s stance is very clear. compared to nobara and yuuji, he’s very focused on getting his job done, rather than saving people.

being a sorcerer is not something he cares particularly about. it's just a task that he has to get done.

there’s also the way he talks about being a jujutsu sorcerer as being a “cog” in a system that he is personally disgusted with, due to the fact that it does nothing to help good people, like tsumiki for example.

sorcerers are one part of a system that completely disgusts him. his decision to save yuuji is another example of this.

his distaste for this system is clearly established early on in the story when he asks gojo to save yuuji because he can’t stand to see a good person like that die just because someone else somewhere said it was “right.” so it makes sense that he’s not going to put his all in all of the time, but it’s not because he’s lazy or a bum or a waste of potential. it’s because of his core sense of justice that has been a part of him and a central theme in jjk since the beginning.

ii. he is interested in saving good people.

i don’t want to spend too much time on this because it’s a pretty discussed and well-recognized aspect of megumi’s character, but this is a pretty fundamental principle behind his actions. for the most part, he is able to buckle down and do what he is “supposed” to do, regardless of if it’s what he personally believes is right, but there’s a visible difference in his effort level when there is someone he believes is good at stake.

when it’s the people he cares about at stake, he can and will push himself beyond his limits. after saving nobara, megumi is completely exhausted.

despite this, he still chooses to stay behind and wait for him, and puts forward the most effort he’d displayed thus far in the series, using his technique and his body more efficiently and more boldly than before, because yuuji is someone he believes is worth saving

he's also ready to let himself die to save yuuji.

in contrast, when fighting against todo, he shows an arguably much lower capacity of both his technique and his physical abilities compared to when he went against sukuna to save yuuji, because what's at stake is "only" himself, not someone he believes is "good," according to his own definition. he's not thinking about how to push his technique to be better or anything like that.

there's far better examples of this in other arcs, so i think i generally spoke about this and how it plays into the megumi hate better here, mostly because i’m restricting my materials for this analysis.

iii. he uses challenges as motivation to push himself beyond his limits.

in a somewhat different direction (aka not fully related to my overall point but i wanted to mention it anyway), megumi uses challenges to his abilities as an opportunity to grow. by challenges, i specifically mean verbal taunts. there’s not quite as many examples of this in just the fearsome womb arc, but probably the best example is when he figures out how to use shadows as an inventory for cursed tools, he remembers what sukuna said to him at the detention center, and it’s what motivates him to grow.

additionally, when he’s fighting against todo, he’s pushed to put more into the fight by todo taunting him and challenging his strength. if only inumaki hadn't stopped them, i would have loved to see what he pulled out...when megumi gets that crazy look, you know it's gonna be good.

this is interesting to me, because megumi is someone who carries a lot of self doubt, but the second someone else starts to doubt him, he pushes himself harder. he doesn’t want others to doubt him, despite constantly doubting himself.

anyway, i hope this was a useful look at why megumi acts the way he does. i think it’s very interesting how much he gets misinterpreted, despite how clearly his characteristics are laid out for the reader.

[miniwheat77]

Sweet. (Captain Price x Reader)

!NSFW, Smut, Fingering, Roofies, Oral Sex (fem recieving), unprotected p in v sex !MINORS DNI! Edited!

*added p in v sex part*

When you were recommended for 141, nobody really seen why.

Captain Price didn't think you were all that special, none of the others did either. But nonetheless, he decided to give you a chance. He was a little hard on you for awhile, pushing you during training, being a little rough when it came to talking to you, and his punishments were even worse. He was very difficult and you didn’t understand why he seemed so passive to everyone except for you.

You hated being apart of 141, it was the worst thing Laswell had ever recommended. You thought maybe Captain Price hated you because you were young. He seemed to have the mentality that the military wasn't meant for young adults. Which, truth be told. It probably wasn't. But it was the only means of escape you had.

"This mission is different." Captain Price makes his way inside the conference room. Stacks of papers in his hands. "And I think this is the perfect time, we see what Y/N's got." he smirks. This clearly wasn't an important mission. Otherwise he wouldn't have you on it. Because for some reason, he hated you. "This is a capture only mission. Y/N will lead the way." He smiles.

—

A sigh falls from your lips. "You know. I'm a little annoyed that I got roped into this. I had intentions of someone else doing it." You complain. Captain Price chuckles. Sitting next to you in the limousine. "Well, sweetheart. You happen to be the only female around. Besides, you never said how you'll get him to tell you anything or how you'll capture him." He smirks. "I have a plan. Just trust me." He nods his head. He's wearing a suit and you have on the tightest black dress known to man. Tall black heels and your hair and makeup is done to the best of your ability. Something Captain Price hadn't ever seen before.

"Follow my lead." You mutter. He follows you up through the front doors of the penthouse, very similar to the one you'd captured Valeria in. It's full of people dressed to perfection. There's a huge dance floor surrounded by tables. The both of you make your way inside, sitting at the bar.

For the next hour, it's the both of you trying to blend into this party, even going as far to dance with one another on the dance floor.

"I have eyes." You whisper to John on the dance floor. He spins you around, your back pressed up against him, his mouth right next to your ear. "I see him too, you ready for this ah?" he smirks. "Oh yeah." His hips brush up against yours and he closes his eyes for a second.

It doesn't take much for you to get your targets attention. Sitting a few stools down from him at the bar. "Whatever you do, do not let me be in a room alone with him for too long. No more than 5 minutes if you have no eyes." You mumble into the radio.

"Copy." John says, he's a little confused by how crucial you've made it sound. The man sits down in the stool next to you and begins talking to you. It doesn't take long until he's wanting to get into a room upstairs with you. You sweet talk him the entire time. You get into the elevator with him, nervous the entire time. "Eyes." Ghost says into the radio, a sense of relief going over John. He had seen you enter the elevator.

Once he has you alone upstairs. He puts a hand on your side. "I know who you are. American Military ah?" He whispers, the hair on your body stands up. "Yes." He wraps a hand around your throat and Ghost lines up a shot. "I came here to warn you. They planned to attack tonight. I'm on your side, I want to join you." You plead with him.

John narrows his eyes, he's still sitting at a bar on the first floor. The radio is oddly silent. "Look now!" you plead, just as soon as Soap makes his way up the stairs, the man draws his weapon. Soap lets out a yell as the man shoots at him. "Falling back Captain!" Your radio goes off.

The man narrows his eyes at you. "Why should I trust you?" he asks. "She knew he was going to shoot and didn't tell me. We need to leave, regroup, and find a new plan." Soap says into the radio. "The hell?" John shakes his head. "I'll tell you anything you wanna hear." You breathe out. He nods his head. He grasps your wrist, dragging you along. "Is she working for him?" Soap asks. "Don't know. Whatever you do Ghost, do not lose sight of her." John says into the radio, attempting to make his way up the elevator but it was taking forever. "Yes sir."

"That cheeky little minx!" Ghost exclaims into the radio. "What? What's going on?"

"She's just roofied him!" He laughs. "What? How?" Soap asks. "She must've convinced him it was acid. Put it on her tongue and than swapped it to him." He laughs. "Gross, like... she kissed him?" Ghost rolls his eyes as soap says it. "Shit, he's pulling her into a room. Get to her now, I have no eyes." Ghost says frantically.

Price hears it and gives up on the elevator, trying to make his way up the stairs.

He pushes passed everyone, reaching the second floor where you were.

He opens the front door. Seeing there’s nothing but random stuff laying around the room. He quickly moves to look through the rooms, opening a door to a bathroom. The other must be the bedroom. He kicks it open.

The man is on top of you, he's delirious but he's pulling your dress up. You're trying to fight him off, but he's got your hands pinned with his knees. John pulls him off of you and he passes out as soon as he hits the floor.

"Y/N?" He asks. You look far more scared than he’s ever seen you. "Captain." You hug him quickly. "What happened darling? Are you hurt?" He pulls away, looking you up and down. "He.. He tried to.." John shakes his head. "Did he?" He asks. You shake your head. "It's alright. You did amazing Y/N." He breathes. Pulling you into his side. Soap pushes into the door, seeing the room is a little messy and the man is on the floor. "Why were you so adamant on 5 minutes?" Soap asks.

"She's a virgin." Ghost says, he's on the windowsill. He startles all of you. He'd used a tool to get across to the building. "What?" Soap asks.

He laughs. "You wouldn't notice at first glance. But around him she was a little awkward. Maybe a bad idea to throw her out there as bait." Ghost starts to tie up the man. "I had no idea." John says. You look at the ground, cheeks lighting up. "I... Yeah." John nods his head. "Come on, lets get him back to HQ."

—

"Hey." John says, tapping on your door that was already open just a crack. "Hey." You say back, turning toward the mirror. You were pulling all of the bobby pins from your hair. He closes your door behind himself.

He pulls his hat off, sitting down next to you on the edge of your cot. "I owe you an apology." He says, grasping your hand in his to get your attention. You turn to look at him, your eyes were stunning to him, complimented perfectly by the eyeshadow you had put on.

"I should not have sent you in there like that. I know how bad people like him could be to women and I didn't think about your well being. For that, I'm very sorry."

You smile, looking down. "I should have been up front. I should have told you I was uncomfortable. I let him intimidate me in there. I didn't like it at all." You look down at your free hand, the other pulling out the final bobby pin. You almost take Johns breath away when your hair falls out around your face, something he hadn't ever seen before. "I just.. you're kinda hard on me. I wanted to prove to you that I could handle it, but having him stare me down like he did. Touch me like that. Just made my skin crawl." You mumble.

He places his hand on your bare thigh. "I know love. I am a little rough on you, but I have to be. I want you to understand that if you let your guard down even just a little, you'll die. I care about you and I don't wanna see you hurt. Ever. If something happened to you, I'd never forgive myself." He sighs. "You really proved yourself today, you did great. And by the way, you're a great dancer." He smiles. "You had me fooled, ya did. I would've never guessed you were a virgin." Your cheeks heat up. You laugh.

"How the hell did you convince him to take the roofie ah?" You smile, looking down. "I'm very sneaky and manipulative, Captain. It was easy." He laughs. "Try it on me." he turns. "Okay." You look forward, taking a deep breath. "You know, this dress is a little tight." You spin around, pretending to be uncomfortable, moving closer to him. “You mind helping me?” You mumble. He thinks it’s bait, unraveling the back of it where it’s tied. Once he’s got it taken off, you pull it down slightly. Revealing your cleavage.

You turn to look at him. Staring into his eyes. You swallow hard feigning innocence.

You lean into him, pressing your lips to his.

He's got a tight grip on the blanket, and you keep his interest for quite some time. Even going as far to wrap your arms around his neck.

When you finally pull away, his eyes are closed and when he opens them again, you look at him, a smile on your face. "Okay. I don't see how that's manipulative in any way." He looks confused. You tilt your head. "Maybe not manipulative but sneaky.” You smirk. "Check your pockets."

He narrows his eyes, feeling around his pockets, but they're all empty.

He looks confused.

You bring your hand from behind your back, holding a cigar and a dog tag in your hand.

His eyes widen, a grin covering his lips. "You are a cheeky little thing aren't you?" He laughs. "That kiss even felt real." He laughs. Your smile falters a little bit. His eyes widening. "Oh, because it was, wasn't it?" He laughs. You blush at his teasing and turn away from him. He smiles, grasping your chin and pulling your face to look at him. "Look at me, lass.”

He presses his lips to yours again and you smile into his lips when you feel him reaching for his cigar. You push his hand away, sliding it into his pocket, not taking your lips away from his for even a second.

He starts to lean back and he pulls you with him, lifting your hips up so you could straddle him as he lays back on your bed. Your lips stay on his and he needs to stop you, but he can't. "Y/N, you gotta stop me sweetheart. I can't stop myself." He pants.

"I.. I don't want to stop you." You’re breathless. He pushes you back slightly and he stares into your eyes. They glimmer in the light from your small lamp and he needs to stop. Before he goes too far and gets you both into trouble.

In a way, he feels like he's taking advantage of you. But he can't stop himself. "Lay on your back." He mumbles. Once you do, he pushes himself between your legs. He leans down, kissing you again. This time with a little more desperation than the last. He pulls away, planting a kiss right onto your chin, than again on your neck. He trails them down, tugging your dress down along with him. Sucking love bites into your chest where your breasts were nearly exposed to him.

"Do you want me to stop?" He pulls away for a second, hands gripping the top of your dress. You shake your head. “No..” you whine.

He pulls the top down, revealing your breasts to him entirely. You suck in a sharp breath. How someone could go from hating you to touching you like this so quickly was beyond you.

He plants a kiss to your nipple, maintaining eye contact as he does so, parting his lips just slightly to run his tongue along it. Sucking it between his lips gently. A whimper falls from your lips, you start to squirm underneath him. His facial hair scratches your skin perfectly, creating a burn that feels so good, you couldn't quite describe it.

He moves to the other side, doing it once again to your other nipple until you're starting to whimper a little too loud. You were waiting in anticipation, wanting nothing more than to feel that burn between your legs from his facial hair. The thought alone making arousal pool between your legs. He kisses down your stomach, tongue running along your skin as he moves, lower and lower. He pushes your dress up and over your hips, fingers wrapping around your panties and pulling them off. Your dress bunches up over your stomach. Revealing you to him completely. He looks up at you again, eyes meeting yours. As he lowers himself into you, he keeps eye contact.

Licking the first stripe up your slit, swirling his tongue around your clit, having to hold back a grin when your eyes screw shut. Watching you fall apart beneath him. He's gentle, flicking his tongue against you, gripping your hands tight in his. He draws one of them back, gathering up the wetness from you and his saliva, pulling away for just a second to rub his finger up against your opening, gathering the wetness on his finger.

You whine out, bucking your hips into him. Clutching a handful of his hair.

He lines his finger up with your entrance, you take a deep breath as he slides it in.

You feel full immediately.

He flicks his tongue slow and steady over your clit, pumping his finger inside of you until he could get you wet enough to handle 2. Once he slides the second finger in, you practically melt beneath him.

You cover your mouth with both of your hands, trying so hard to stay quiet. He wants nothing more than to hear you call out for him. Moan his name. He’d put money on it that ‘John’ would roll perfectly off that sweet tongue of yours.

He starts to flick his tongue a little faster, sucking lightly on your clit when his tongue would get tired and you couldn’t help but buck your hips into him. He tries to hold you steady with his one hand, but you’re struggling. Moaning and whimpering but it’s muffled by your hand. Squirming and bucking your hips into him. At this point, he wonders if you’ve ever even been touched at all. He circles over your clit, the wet sounds he makes is lewd as it fills the room.

“John… I- I’m gonna cum.” You whimper. It’s so low it’s almost inaudible. He almost misses it. But he doesn’t, he pumps his fingers into you, scissoring them and curling them up into you, watching the way your body reacts so perfect to him, flicking his tongue against your clit. It’s so much for you, and finally.

Your hips buck into him, a whimper escapes you as you reach your climax. John keeps flicking his tongue and pumping his fingers to ride out your high until you close your thighs around his head, whimpering as you grasp his hand to keep him still. He smiles up at you, lips and beard glossy with your juices. Your face is flushed, you’ve got love bites all over you Mr skin, artwork. Your hair is a little messy now. He takes a deep breath, sitting up as he palms himself through his jeans.

“You taste fuckin sweet darling.”

Your cheeks burn.

It was intense, but you can’t help but want more.

“We��ll get you used to me. We’ll move slow, yeah?” He nibbles at his lip. You nod your head at him.

“Good girl.” He breathes. “Maybe we should wait to go any further-“ he goes to stand up. You reach out for his hand, stopping him. “Wait-“ You breathe. “I.. I want more.” You bite your lip. He looks confused. “Please-“

He sits down. “You.. you want me to-“ he freezes up. You sit up, taking the lead and pressing your lips to his. You move yourself on top of him, hearing him sigh into your lips. You pull away for just a second to unzip his pants, tugging his cock from his boxers and pulling them through the zipper in his pants. You line him up with your entrance, sinking down onto him. Between his saliva, your arousal, and his fingers stretching you out. You’re ready for him.

His fat tip parts your folds, you shake slightly. He’s big. Stretching you.

You slide down onto him, mewling out as he reaches depths nobody has ever before. Your thighs give out when he bottoms out. “Fuck!” He gasps. He looks between the both of you. Watching you raise yourself up and slide back down onto him. Starting to bounce your hips on him. Riding him.

He hisses out, lifting his shirt up and pulling it over his head. You soak the jeans that wrap around his shaft. Reaching down to unbutton them. You’re whining out. The soreness of losing your virginity has subsided. Now, you just rock into him. He reaches up, taking your nipples between his thumbs and pointer fingers, rolling them between his fingers. You cry out, tipping your head back. Rocking into him back and forth until you can feel something building in your stomach. “John-“ you mewl. Hearing his name come from you in such a filthy way has him desperate. “Can’t take it baby.” He groans. He forces you over, flipping you until he’s on top of you.

He’s rough, the cot creaks beneath you as he fucks you hard. Hips hammering into you as he approaches his high. He’s sweaty and horny. Desperate for his high. You’re tight around him, the sound of him sliding into you eggs him on further. He’s trying hard to keep himself from cumming so soon, but it’s been so long. You pull him into you, kissing him to silence the both of you. He keeps his steady pace, hard, deep thrusts. He pulls away to attack your neck with his mouth. Not caring if he leaves marks on you.

“I’m gonna cum baby.” He gasps.

You look up at him. Moaning out. “Me too.” You breathe. “Cum with me sweetheart.” He breathes. “Look at me.”

He keeps your eye contact, hips moving with yours.

When you reach your climax, feeling him twitch inside of you. It’s pure bliss. Something you’ve never felt.

Something you can already tell you’ll be desperate to feel again.

He whines when he cums, riding out his high and sliding out of you. Moving to lay next to you.

It’s silent aside from the both of you panting. Coming down from your highs.

It’s him who finally breaks the silence. “I’m sorry I’ve been such an ass to you.” He mumbles. “It’s alright.” You giggle. “It’s not. I’ll be nicer I swear.” He laughs. He trails his fingers over your bare stomach. “I hope this isn’t the only time I see you like this.” He mumbles.

“I was hoping for the same thing, Captain.”

[linkyu]

tell me about your defense contract pleage

Oh boy!

To be fair, it's nothing grandiose, like, it wasn't about "a new missile blueprint" or whatever, but, just thinking about what it could have become? yeesh.

So, let's go.

For context, this is taking place in the early 2010s, where I was working as a dev and manager for a company that mostly did space stuff, but they had some defence and security contracts too.

One day we got a new contract though, which was... a weird one. It was state-auctioned, meaning that this was basically a homeland contract, but the main sponsor was Philip Morris. Yeah. The American cigarette company.

Why? Because the contract was essentially a crackdown on "illegal cigarette sales", but it was sold as a more general "war on drugs" contract.

For those unaware (because chances are, like me, you are a non-smoker), cigarette contraband is very much a thing. At the time, ~15% of cigarettes were sold illegally here (read: they were smuggled in and sold on the street).

And Phillip Morris wanted to stop that. After all, they're only a small company worth uhhh... oh JFC. Just a paltry 150 billion dollars. They need those extra dollars, you understand?

Anyway. So they sponsored a contract to the state, promising that "the technology used for this can be used to stop drug deals too". Also that "the state would benefit from the cigarettes part as well because smaller black market means more official sales means a higher tax revenue" (that has actually been proven true during the 2020 quarantine).

Anyway, here was the plan:

Phase 1 was to train a neural network and plug it in directly to the city's video-surveillance system, in order to detect illegal transactions as soon as they occur. Big brother who?

Phase 2 was to then track the people involved in said transaction throughout the city, based on their appearance and gait. You ever seen the Plainsight sheep counting video? Imagine something like this but with people. That data would then be relayed to police officers in the area.

So yeah, an automated CCTV-based tracking system. Because that's not setting a scary precedent.

So what do you do when you're in that position? Let me tell you. If you're thrust unknowingly, or against your will, into a project like this,

Note. The following is not a legal advice. In fact it's not even good advice. Do not attempt any of this unless you know you can't get caught, or that even if you are caught, the consequences are acceptable. Above all else, always have a backup plan if and when it backfires. Also don't do anything that can get you sued. Be reasonable.

Let me introduce you to the world of Corporate Sabotage! It's a funny form of striking, very effective in office environments.

Here's what I did:

First of all was the training data. We had extensive footage, but it needed to be marked manually for the training. Basically, just cropping the clips around the "transaction" and drawing some boxes on top of the "criminals". I was in charge of several batches of those. It helped that I was fast at it since I had video editing experience already. Well, let's just say that a good deal of those markings were... not very accurate.

Also, did you know that some video encodings are very slow to process by OpenCV, to the point of sometimes crashing? I'm sure the software is better at it nowadays though. So I did that to another portion of the data.

Unfortunately the training model itself was handled by a different company, so I couldn't do more about this.

Or could I?

I was the main person communicating with them, after all.

Enter: Miscommunication Master

In short (because this is already way too long), I became the most rigid person in the project. Like insisting on sharing the training data only on our own secure shared drive, which they didn't have access to yet. Or tracking down every single bug in the program and making weekly reports on those, which bogged down progress. Or asking for things to be done but without pointing at anyone in particular, so that no one actually did the thing. You know, classic manager incompetence. Except I couldn't be faulted, because after all, I was just "really serious about the security aspect of this project. And you don't want the state to learn that we've mishandled the data security of the project, do you, Jeff?"

A thousand little jabs like this, to slow down and delay the project.

At the end of it, after a full year on this project, we had.... a neural network full of false positives and a semi-working visualizer.

They said the project needed to be wrapped up in the next three months.

I said "damn, good luck with that! By the way my contract is up next month and I'm not renewing."

Last I heard, that city still doesn't have anything installed on their CCTV.

tl;dr: I used corporate sabotage to prevent automated surveillance to be implemented in a city--

hey hold on

wait

what

HEY ACTUALLY I DID SOME EXTRA RESEARCH TO SEE IF PHILLIP MORRIS TRIED THIS SHIT WITH ANOTHER COMPANY SINCE THEN AND WHAT THE FUCK

HUH??????

well what the fuck was all that even about then if they already own most of the black market???

[f1amboyant]

↻ pick a fic and a different ship and I’ll tell you how I’d rewrite it for: The Worst Alpha and carcar:)

✄ what’s your editing process? (i loooove hearing about people's writing and editing processes)

✦ what was your easiest fic to write & your hardest?

💕💕

Hiiii, thank you for the ask 💕

-> ask me more

✄ what’s your editing process?

Interesting question! I'm gonna answer with my writing process a bit, because both are intertwined (and you said you love hearing about writing process, too 🫣)

So for short fics (under 2k I would say), I mostly write the whole thing in one or 2 sittings, with no plan, just an idea in my head. And when it's done I edit multiple times. A first reread to adjust some details here and there, make a few sentences flow better. And then I do a spelling check, with 2 different softwares because English is not my first language so I want to get it covered.

For longer fics, I plan the whole story, I plan the chapters, I plan the scenes. Then I write scene by scene, usually in order. For each scene, I first write it very badly. I write the scene, fast and bad, not caring about beautiful sentences. The idea is just to put words on the page and to block the scene (like in movies). When this part is done, I go back and I edit a first time, going over all this poorly written scene to write beautiful sentences (or as beautiful as I can do), to make it readable, basically. Then, since it's a long fic and that some ideas might have pop up in the middle of nothing, I do one or 2 full reread, to adjust everything, make sure everything is coherent, make sure the character doesn't realise he is in love 3 times in 3 different chapters, go back to foreshadow an idea that popped in a later chapter, things like that. And then I can do a spell check on each chapter and that's it! ✨

✦ what was your easiest fic to write & your hardest?

Easiest: Corset ~ The words just flew out of me, and it greatly helped that @moossings worked on their drawing at the same time as I wrote, so I just had to put their sketches into words and that was so much fun.

Hardest: Steal your art (and your heart) ~ The first chapters were so much fun and so easy to write, I wasn't prepared for the enormous block that fell on me halfway through it. Writing the last chapters was so so hard, for no particular reason. I was lucky I had my dear @drspleenmeister writing with me 🫶

↻ pick a fic and a different ship and I’ll tell you how I’d rewrite it for: The Worst Alpha and carcar:)

Oooooooh, that's an interesting one. The Worst Alpha is omagaverse charlos, with alpha Charles experiencing omega Carlos' heat for the first time and having a whole crisis about if he is or not a good alpha. And truly, I think Oscar would fit that role pretty well too.

Oscar is an Alpha who grew with omega sisters. He knows what it is to be an omega. In theory. But he's never been with an omega. So it's all pretty new. And also, he has this massive crush on Carlos, because damn, have you seen that man?? Oscar was doomed from the start. But he's trying to act like a good alpha and not get overbearing with the omega he fancies, so he stays mostly away.

Then Lando shenanigans, probably. Maybe Lando does it on purpose or maybe not, but it makes Carlos and Oscar meet. Maybe, Carlos is in heat, and he usually goes to omega Lando for comfort during his heat but Lando isn't answering. And when Carlos goes to Lando's room, he finds Oscar there because Oscar is waiting for Lando to return too (maybe Lando asked him over and then forgot, or something like that).

It hits Oscar. The smell. Powerful. And so so sweet. Mouthwatering. Oscar is losing his fucking mind.

"Oh sorry, I thought this was Lando's room."

"You're in heat."

"Pff, this guy," Carlos huffs. "I know, that's why I'm looking for Lando."

"He's not here," Oscar answers unhelpfully, but his brain is completely fried. There's Carlos in the room with him. Carlos in heat. Oscar is gonna die.

"Well, tell him to call me if you see him."

Carlos starts to leave but Oscar stops him.

"Do you need help? With your heat? Until Lando comes back," Oscar offers.

"Sure." Carlos has never been with an Alpha before but this one smells pretty nice and also, he is tired of waiting for Lando, so why not? He's not afraid of a little Alpha rookie.

So they spend a little time together, in Lando's room. It's awkward as fuck. Carlos borrows a hoodie from Lando and sits on the couch, to play some game. Oscar stays with him and offers to help, getting him heat supplies that he steals from Lando (he doesn't care). He doesn't really know what to do, how to feel. It's never been like that in his family. Oscar is a pretty decent Alpha, but he never had to fight the urge to bend this Omega in half and fuck him senseless. But yeah, that's what's happening now. He is losing his mind.

He keeps his wit enough to half ass taking care of Carlos until Lando comes back and saves them from the awkwardness. Except after that Oscar can't stop thinking about it, can't stop thinking about Carlos. If he had a crush before, this gets to another level entirely because now, he knows what Carlos in heat smells like and it's too much for him. Too much to stay away. So he tries to get close, to court him very awkwardly (and never saying officially it is courting). And maybe in his quest to get closer to Carlos, he also crashes with him on track a little too much (oops 🤭).

They're not exactly becoming friends but they're getting closer. And Carlos isn't entirely immune to this awkward Alpha who's courting him, without courting him. It's cute. And he likes him more and more.

So his next heat, he doesn't go to Lando, he goes to see Oscar (Oscar once again losing his fucking mind as he refrains all instincts to fuck/mate/breed with the beautiful Omega). And again and again. They spend more time together, spending heats together. But nothing happens. They just cuddle a little, play games. They talk too, getting to know each other.

Until Carlos says he would like to try spending his heat having sex, because it can be fun and a very good time (Oscar definitely loses his mind at that). They almost kiss already, just talking about it, grinding against each other (Oscar is losing his mind, definitely). They agree to have sex next heat.

Next heat comes. Oscar is beyond excited, he cannot wait to be with Carlos again. But he sees Carlos with another Alpha (Charles, or Max, maybe). And the two are not flirting exactly, but they are not keeping their distance either. And with Carlos being in pre-heat, this could really be courting.

Oscar is devastated. He thought he was a good Alpha, but apparently he's the worst because Carlos is choosing someone else, and why wouldn't he choose someone else. So Oscar spirals out of him mind, while Carlos' heat hits and it's way stronger than before and without Oscar there to help him, Carlos is losing his mind too but for a whole other reason.

So a little bit of misunderstanding, and an intervention from Lando before they finally get together and it's all better, it's all okay. And their first time is awkward as fuck but so hot and Oscar is the worst Alpha but he doesn't care because apparently, Carlos loves it (him).

[vertical-sekai]

Last up for the groups formations! It won’t be the last of me though :)

How did day.light form?

Formanon💫

Yay! Glad you're sticking around a bit, Formanon!

As for day.light well...

I feel like I should preface this with the fact that it has major spoilers for a certain Vivid BAD SQUAD plot line that peaks in An4/Light Up The Fire. If you know, you know.

(I know most people already know of said twist, especially because of how spoiler-happy people are in this fandom [which always ends up at my expense], but I'd rather put this warning here if there is Anyone who DOESN'T know the horrors of An Shiraishi lore)

Inspired by national idol Haruka Kiritani, Minori worked hard every day to become an idol that could spread hope— just like how Haruka gave her hope, too. Accruing countless failed auditions, only one obscure talent she had to learn for her auditions caught her eye even after failing; Art.

Minori started drawing fanart of Haruka after realizing how much fun it was, occasionally getting swept up in daydreams about Haruka finding her art, recognizing her talent, and making her a member of ASRUN. She posts her fanart to PicShare, under the username Harurin.

She's worried about how Haruka hasn't been able to show up in that much ASRUN content as much as the other members recently, but has hope that Haruka will pull through whatever is holding her back. Mai's absence concerns her, as well...

One day, while looking at an official music video for ASRUN on Smile Video, Minori accidentally clicks on a different song.

This song intrigues Minori in an unsettling way. The song is very different from the peppy vibe of ASRUN's music, and is a lot more melancholic... listening to it, Minori can't help but relate to the song's feelings of trying your best and not succeeding, and admires the hopeful message at the end, even if the song makes her a bit sad.

Minori, after a bit of digging, finds out that this song is by a producer called n○ne, with the vocals and lyrics being done by someone called RAN. While the video has no illustrations, it does have animated subtitles and effects done by a person known as Amia.

After listening to more of their music, Minori decides to post some fanart of their songs, portraying her own experiences in context of them.

Shortly after, Minori receives a very excited DM from RAN herself, asking if she wants to join their group...

And that's how day.light forms.

......

So let's go back.

Nene, unable to conquer her trauma by herself, eventually has her anxiety heightened to the point where she starts struggling to attend school. As a consequence, she begins online school in her first year of high school. During middle school, Nene started composing out of neccesity— a part of her screams that she still needs to do something related to musicals or music, at least, even if she can't bring herself to sing anymore. This led to Nene posting music online as n○ne.

An, finding nobody in Vivid Street with the same passion to surpass RAD WEEKEND as her gives up on finding a partner, and tries to pursue her dream alone.

While struggling all by herself, Ken decides to tell her the truth about Nagi's death, not wanting to hurt her any further than he already has by continuing to lie to her.

An, after learning this, doesn't know if she can surpass RAD WEEKEND, but with Nagi's dream in mind, she doesn't want to give up, either. She realizes now that her dream is unobtainable by herself and goes online to find a partner or teammate, realizing she can't ever compromise on her dream. This ends up with her finding Nene and making music with her.

While Nene is unable to perform onstage with An for various reasons, Nene gives An permission to use their music to fulfill her dreams... supporting her the best she can.

Mizuki makes an edit using one of their songs later on, leading to An recruiting them as well... (An is very fond of recruiting people, lol)

So this stuff all leads to day.light forming!

[crabbng]

i actually got some in process shots for this #WebcomicDay ! they are of an episode 12 page, so this doubles as a sneak peek 🤣 you can see i forgot to take a pic of the finished lines before i started on coloring (whoops)

there are a few secret steps after finishing up backgrounds etc. (scanning, cleaning up) but since this is a sneak peek, i didn't want to put the Final Product out there.

I guess I'll ramble a little bit about The Process below the cut.

SKETCH: I don't plan out my pages as much as I should other artists do. I think about the next couple shots I want, what I can probably fit on the page, and then decide how tall the panel should be. after that I draw a big line across the page 🤣 sometimes the panel gets bisected, usually not trisected. I love it when people consider the whole of the page and make the paneling choices that elevate the art. I just don't do it lmao

luckily for me, I don't have a requirement to make every piece of my comic pages The Best. So, I focus on what I enjoy: expressions and conversations.

LINE DIALOGUE AND PANELS: For inking/lining, I ABSOLUTELY have to put in my dialogue/dialogue balloons first. Since I'm doing everything on the same page of physical paper, I can't really shift things around partway through to make the dialogue and art fit better together. I also have to make sure it all fits within the panel lines I have planned. I've gotten into situations where the WORDS fit in, but in order to make a word balloon with decent space around the words, I cross over a line. Sometimes it works, but for me.. it doesn't work most of the time. So, gotta plan ahead.

You can also see down in the final section, I handwrite my dialogue! So, if I mess up, I sometimes have to add in a few letter that I can substitute in during editing.

FINISH LINES & ERASING: All I have to say about finishing lines/erasing, is that erasing can be such a challenge lmao. JUST YESTERDAY... when I was erasing.. I tore a page a little bit. And I often accidentally crinkle a corner while erasing. The obvious solution, and what I know people do, is to sketch on one page, and then use a light table (or equivalent) to do a cleaner, lighter sketch on a new page, and then do lining on that. Which is a good idea, maybe someday I'll try it lol.

COLOR FIGURES: There's really no good reason I start with the figures, besides that I like watching them come to life with the colors. It feels weird when they're blank on the page. They're also generally the most important part of the page for me, and seeing them colored helps me decide on which panels I want to do flat color backgrounds for.

But! This means I can't go back and edit skin tones etc. to be in different lighting after the fact, unless it's to make them darker! So that's something I have to be cognizant of and plan for in advance.

I use Copics for most part of the figures, except when I know there's going to be several large areas to color, like Aoife's hair or her sweater and pants. I have character's hair planned in Copics, but I have several browns from other brands (Prismacolor, Blick, Winsor and Newton, Artist's Loft) that get pretty close to her hair color. Clothing that has large areas that need to be colored are planned as being from one of those other brands from the start. I don't want to use up all my Copic juice on them!!

Also don't you just love seeing the texture of the paper through the marker? I love it. I love the natural variation you get.

BACKGROUNDS & OTHER DETAILS: Color everything else! Backgrounds and shadows generally. For backgrounds I'm once again using my alternative brands. I've got a lot of space to cover, and those markers, along with being cheaper, are generally larger than my Copics. So it works out.

Sometimes I tend to go a bit wild with the single color backgrounds, to the point where I think it can get distracting. So I have to rein it in and leave some panels with white backgrounds, so the reader isn't just blasted with colors from every angle. My rule of thumb is to try and only have color on one panel in each of my lines of panels, and to alternate sides, if possible. I feel like that guides the eye easier.

Doing things traditionally means I don't really get any shortcuts when it comes to backgrounds, including just flat color backgrounds. Every square millimeter has gotta be colored purposefully by me. And maybe that seems like a pointless use of time and effort! But man, I love the end result. I'm all for shortcuts, it's just a lot of the ones I see floating around don't apply to me 🤣

I'll talk about my other steps here too, might as well.

SCANNING: After colors and everything, I scan the pages. They're too big to fit in my scanner, so I scan the top and bottom halves separately, and stitch them together (I use PhotoStitcher).

From there, I rotate it to (more or less) make it straight on my canvas, make a .clip version, and send it off to my iPad!

I got my iPad in a workplace raffle, and though there's a lot about the UI I don't love, it's been really convenient!

EDITING: Editing consists of: cleaning up things that should be white (like eyes, teeth, and word balloons), and then cleaning up marker that's bled over into areas it doesn't belong, and is distracting. I try not to overdo it on marker cleanup, because 1) it takes a while, 2) it can stress me out if I decide I need it all to be PERFECT, and 3) it feels slightly disingenuous, just TO ME, about my OWN work. I don't think 3) is valid, so I try to ignore that part, but sometimes in my head I'm like 'mm but Jacki can you say its traditional if you have to do so much work in post to make it presentable??' (said in a very snobby voice). I went from not really caring -> REALLY caring -> hopefully I'll get to caring a reasonable amount.

FINISHING: Last steps are to send it BACK to my computer, where I have two auto actions to size the page and to export it as a .png in a large and a small size. I should be rightfully criticized for how I size the pages lmao, it's 2647x3560 pixels. Why that number specifically? That's 1) how I've done it since the beginning, so they are all this very strange size, and 2) it's about the maximum area of scanned page I can consistently get.

I think that's it? I don't know why you would, but if you have any questions, feel free to hit me up and I'll answer them to the best of my ability. Hope someone finds this interesting or helpful LOL

bye 💕 happy webcomic day!

[pi-creates]

Finding Files using Telltale Inspector

Some people who have had success with swapping may have noticed the trend where you have all the files with your swap character’s name on it – but there are clearly some files not there. Maybe they don’t have any ptables, or maybe you’ve done your swap and parts of your character are just missing. You can’t find any files you missed and you’re wondering where they must be if you don’t have them already.

And the reason this happens is because your swap character normally uses reused assets. They don’t have their own ptables because they are using someone else’s, or they don’t have unique textures for their eyes because they share a file with other characters.

You can trial and error your way into finding which assets they are using, or you could try using the Telltale Inspector Tool created by Lucas in the Telltale Modding Group. (massive brain on this bloke – if you want to donate to him for his major efforts, it would definitely be appreciated) The readme and information on the tools can be found >>here<< and the most current release can be found >>here<<.

At the time of making this mini-tutorial, the most current version is ALPHA 1.0.2 – the information I’m presenting here and the screenshots used relate to this release, things may look or work differently in future.

The tool itself is capable of a lot more than I’m making note of here, and can be used to edit the information within the files if you know what you’re doing… I’m only giving a very layman’s explanation of one use of it to look at file information. Below you will find a very simple set of directions on using the Inspector tool to open props to find a character’s ptables, and then opening a character mesh to find the associated textures.

=====

Ptables and Animations

For example, let’s say we want to figure out what ptables Carley uses in season 1, and we notice that she doesn’t have any ptables in any of the data archives. We therefore have to find out whose ptables she is using if we want her to have an animated face during swaps.

First of all, we want to use Telltale Explorer to export out her prop file (save it somewhere handy so you can find it again later), and from there we can use Lucas’ Telltale Inspector to look at it properly.

1. Run the TelltaleInspector.exe, and click the [Open] drop down menu and select [Open Prop]

2. There will be another drop down menu that says [Select], we want to select the game where this prop file came from – in this case we need to select [The Walking Dead: Definitive Series]

3. Press the [Select] button to confirm you have selected the correct game

4. You should now have the interface for prop files from that game, but to look at the specific file we have previously exported using the Telltale Explorer, we need to click on [Import Property Set]

This should open up an explorer window where you need to direct the Inspector to the prop file you want to open.

5. Once you have successfully loaded the prop file, you need to click on the [>Properties] sub menu to expand the information shown at the bottom of the window. The information about phonemes is right near the bottom of the list as shown here when hovered over:

Click on the [Modify Handle Value] on the right column next to where the phoneme information was shown. A new window should open, and here we can see the name of the phoneme file that her default state is drawing from. In this case, we can see Carley is using Lilly’s ptables.

However, I will note that in other seasons of the game, this same information can be seen in a different location but with the same 5 steps leading up to it… for example, in A New Frontier, if you wanted to know which ptables and animation files are used on Javier’s father when he appears in flashbacks near the end of the game, you could look into the sk61_salvador305.prop.

Here we can see that his “Skeleton Face” is wd300GM – this means he uses the ptables and animations with this name. I assume the name implies “Walking Dead, Season 3, Generic Male”, I don’t know if that’s accurate, but what matters is that you now know it’s these generic files that he uses.

And if you want to look for a minor character in The Final Season, like the rancher who was taking care of baby AJ, the same situation applies here.

Her skeleton face is the same as Lilly’s in season 4, and therefore when Rancher Helen doesn’t have her own files to load, she is loading Lilly’s ptables and animations.

=====

Meshes and Textures

Let’s say we have tried to do a swap, but for some reason part of the swapped character isn’t loading. A common one that can happen is characters having missing eyes, but it could be something like missing hands or missing hair if it turns out we are swapping a character who uses a texture that is not named in the same manner as their mesh.

Since it has been a problem I’ve seen a few times, let’s use Kenny in season 2 as an example. If you try swapping him into another season without knowing what files he uses which are not named with “kenny202” at the start, he won’t have eyes or hands. And since Kenny in season 2 is one mesh called “sk54_kenny202.d3dmesh”, we can use the Telltale Inspector tool to see what textures we are missing.

1. Run the TelltaleInspector.exe, and click the [Open] drop down menu and select [Open D3DMesh]

2. There will be another drop down menu that says [Select], we want to select the game where this prop file came from – in this case we need to select [The Walking Dead: Definitive Series]

3. From here we need to click on [Open File] and an explorer window will open – we need to direct it to the mesh we want to look at.

4. And now we should have all the relevant information about the selected mesh.

What we are particularly interested in is the list of “Mesh Textures” shown at the bottom. Here we can clearly see the texture files that aren’t named consistently, and what we likely would miss without prior experience or knowledge of the character files. Aaaaand because I have the opportunity to share this little titbit, if you have tried editing textures, or simply swapping textures to see the results – you may encounter some instances where you simply wonder “I thought this would have changed? Why didn’t it?”, or alternatively “I changed this, why did this also change?” Here’s my contribution to fun trivia that I found myself quite some time ago, but now I can show it with the Inspector.

Aasim and Violet share a hair texture.

[bosskie]

Practicing Molluck

Last night, I had an urge to draw Molluck with traditional art supplies since I have felt like drawing some traditional art for some days. This is basically a sketch practice thing again. I felt like drawing him from an 'unusual' perspective for practice reasons.

Last time I drew a pencil portrait of Molluck like this was about 2½ years ago:

I'm kinda just getting tired of drawing with a computer mouse and I feel like I enjoy doing traditional art the most, even I have done it rarely during the recent years. The main reason why I haven't done more traditional art is my self-hatred since I have felt like I'm just gonna waste those art supplies for drawing/painting some trash.

Man, I got so many art supplies to try out and it would be nice to have a challenge where I draw the same thing with different art supplies; I did such a thing in high school with five different supplies for the art course. Oh, and I really wanna do a Molluck statue to myself, like a lil golden bust, like the one on his blimp!

This is just such a nice little detail we can barely even see. I mean, I would love to take a much closer look at that bust!

But yeah, my point was that after all, I feel like I don't enjoy doing digital art so much. I used to like drawing with the mouse and that's the main reason why I have kept drawing with it but over the time I have just seen better and better how it restricts me and that's why I feel like I do draw better traditionally than digitally even I have drawn mainly digital stuff for a decade. Maybe one day I try out some proper digital art supplies but I don't know if it's truly my thing. I just feel like I can also draw more precisely when I do traditional stuff.

But yes, both medias have their own pros and cons but I do enjoy doing traditional art more. Man, sometimes I think about painting a huge portrait about Molluck... I bet that Molluck would love it too! I just kinda love it that Gluks love their own faces so much. And I also just would find it fun to paint a portrait and frame it like it was something that Molluck would have hanging on his wall. I just agree with him that he is such a beautiful Gluk and I just cannot get enough of him...

I have started yet another digital practice thing but not sure if I finish it, or I more like might redo it. It's quite a WIP to me but I can show an edited one:

I guess that you can get it why I chose those colours (It's the logo!). I know that some spots don't look right but it feels like it would be easier to draw this traditionally, so this is what I mean with redoing this. I also haven't used reference to this one like to the those pencil sketches since I kinda wanted to practice building 'a mental 3D model' of Molluck. Yeah, practicing drawing Molluck over and over again feels like precising my mental image of him. Drawing him both without and with a reference is a part of that.

Oh, and I remember loving drawing on a black paper with colour pencils, so I would like to draw something like this traditionally. I'm still not stopping digital stuff and I got some digital WIPs to finish but I would just like to focus more on traditional art. Just screw this self-hatred; I'm gonna use those art supplies!

I do hope that this 'art year' is gonna be better than the previous one. I really need to draw more to improve and get these ideas out of my head... Yeah, even I have been drawing mainly Molluck for 2½ years, I feel like I still have a lot to learn about drawing him.

[mysticsparklewings]

Three Cheers for Harmonic Revenge (+ Time Lapse!)

________ This is what happens when you're a fan of both Winx Club and My Chemical Romance, apparently! 😂 Truly a labor of love—I started on this for an MCR album anniversary on June 8th. I so missed the date, but I had to see it through!

⭐️ AND I've got a Time Lapse of the art coming together, featuring my very rough attempt at a matchup of MCR's Helena and the Winx Club Harmonix song as backing music! It's a wild ride! ⭐️ (...There's also an unlisted version with "normal" music just in case my less-than-amateur audio editing skills are too much for anyone. 😅)

Anyway, to make a very long story a little bit shorter, a few weeks ago I ended up down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to identify likely sources of inspiration for the thing to come out of Winx Club Season 5 that the fandom at large actually kind of loves: Harmonix. I went in thinking Ballet, and despite my best efforts came out with that opinion pretty much unchanged. 

Not long after, but for the entirely unrelated reason of Being An MCR Fan on The Internet, I ended up looking at some screenshots from their Helena music video. [I think this was prompted by a Reddit post asking about the dress for cosplay purposes, I'm not sure.] 

It was then I had the thought, so simple and off-handed: "I don't see how you can look at a ballet outfit like this and not think Harmonix was ballet-inspired." 

If you've ever seen a TV show or cartoon where a character says something, and then only after the words leave their mouth do they realize the implications/meaning of what they just said, that was me in that moment. 😱

On the one hand, I want to say "I can't believe I didn't see the similarities before," but on the other...Well, I can believe it, actually. Comparing Winx and MCR in almost any capacity is not a natural thing to do, even with a Ballet connection in each. The fact that I finally did notice came largely down to the serendipity of being a fan of both and just happening upon the Helena pictures not long after spending an abnormal amount of time looking for clothes that look like Harmonix. I think there are many points leading up to that moment where if just a couple of things had gone differently, I still wouldn't have noticed. 

Either way, once the connection was made in my brain it took all of about 10 seconds for "Helena as a Harmonix Fairy" to follow. 🤩

At the time, I didn't have immediate plans to act on it. It was just an idea to be filed away on the little shelf in my brain where I keep "Things that would be fun to draw eventually." [That shelf is super full and in danger of collapse, for what it's worth. 😉]

Earlier this month, that changed when I remembered June 8th is the Anniversary for Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, the album that Helena comes from, and I had yet to come up with any other plans or ideas to commemorate it this year. 

Now, clearly I ended up missing that deadline, and two others I set for myself afterward. Things have just been very chaotic around my house for last 3-ish months or so, and June has been no different. Other IRL things just had to take priority. 😔

In my defense, the art itself was finished on June 12th. This description here and the Time Lapse Video (mostly the video) were what really set me back, even aside from household chaos. But it was really important to me to get a video done for this piece, so getting that done vs. getting the art out faster was the trade I made. 

But part of the reason I bring this up to underline that originally, I thought I was on a fairly tight deadline. As a result, during the planning stage I didn't really have time to tinker with refining the base design or debating details like I normally would. So I drew from the Winx's own Harmonix designs as much as possible—picking out pieces that naturally resembled the structure of Helena's dress. 

If I'd had more time to noodle around...the structure probably would've been largely the same, but the details most likely would have changed to help it feel more original, and I may have gotten crazy enough to try and find a happy [lighter] grey medium between Harmonix's pastel palettes and Helena's stark black and red. 

As it stands though, I'm not unhappy with how that all turned out, I just think it's worth noting how the visual concept may have changed if I'd had more time to toy with it. [Especially for when Future Me ends up referring back to this description; Hi there Future Mystic 👋]

Since my process for making the art can both be seen in the Time Lapse and is something you've all seen/heard me describe before by now [I think I have finally nailed down a fairly standard "Winx Art Process" over the last few months in large part thanks to Winxsona Winter—which yes, I do still intend to eventually finish], instead of taking you through the general stuff again, I'm going to do a bullet-point list similar to one I did for Sirenix. 

The main difference is this time, it's more focused my observations for what similarities exist between Harmonix and Helena's costume, as opposed to just a list of Harmonix traits and how I handled them. [Though there will still some of that too, naturally.]

Most notably, both feature "fluffy" layered skirts. Harmonix skirts don't really look like the same fabric texture, but that could be either a stylistic/animation choice or could be chalked up to there also probably being some Wedding Dress inspiration in the designs alongside the Ballet elements.  Also, at first I didn't think the train on the Harmonix skirts was a similarity, but upon a closer look at the Helena music video...Helena's skirt is definitely longer and train-like in the back, so...Cool, I was wrong! 😄 And: As it turns out, Bloom's Harmonix skirt actually does have a small section that's ruffled a bit differently from the rest—It's just really hard to tell because on her, it's all the same pastel blue color. But as you can see, referencing that part of her skirt here to incorporate the Red underlayer that peaks through on Helena's skirt worked a treat! 😊 P.S. Wow I really hated drawing a lot of really tightly-confined ruffles like this. 😤 And trying to shade them was even worse! 🙃

Both feature form-fitting tops with minimal or no straps. I more specifically saw Helena similarities in Stella's Harmonix top [with the frills over the bust and structure lines below], and later I realized the top-most portion of Musa's has an even more similar kind of frill.  To that end, Helena's is once again definitely supposed to be something transparent like tulle, but since there really aren't any transparent fabric portions of Harmonix, I chose instead to use a slightly lighter near-black to give it a similar effect without breaking that Harmonix "rule." Also, the bodice portion is a true jet black with no shading. I tried the more typical near-black grey that could be shaded at first, but it just wasn't doing it for me. I tried this on a whim and decided it looked good enough to keep.

Most of the Harmonix designs have a kind of "belt" that connects the bodice to the skirt; Perfect match for Helena's red one!  Similarly, most of those same Harmonix designs have a "belt"/ribbon just under the bust as well. Helena does not, as far as I can tell. But I chose to add a read one here for a little extra variety and helping break up all that black.

The Harmonix shoes are almost entirely ribbons winding up the legs; Helena wears black ballet slippers with, you guessed it, black strings/ribbons that wind around her feet and ankles.  Now, maybe I could have gotten away with all-black ribbons and black for the heel portion of the shoes, but 1. The Harmonix designs all use 2 colors for the ribbons and the heel is usually in the "contrasting" color. 2. I knew from the beginning that the skirt train [a mandatory aspect of Harmonix] was going to either be black or a very dark grey, and even during the Concept phase before I had a specific pose in mind, I had a feeling the ribbon tails were going to overlap with said train. So I used a dark red. Originally, it was about as bright as her sash and belt, but then I realized Bloom and Musa's pink ribbons were darker than the pink used in the bodices, a darker red would be closer to the original black anyway, and that would yet again add just a tiny bit more visual variety.  One last note about the shoes: I did my best to match the original winding of Helena's shoe ribbon, except for the very first ribbon across where the toes connect to the rest of the foot. That strap was specifically added as a nod to how Helena's proper ballet slippers outright cover the toe. 

About the train: Similar to the bodice, I started out with the train in one color, the color you currently see for the skirt itself and the very top of the train. It was fine but I was itching for some more variety, so after reassuring myself "Layla/Aisha's train has a few different shades of green instead of being solid so it's fine," I used the different tiers [taken from Flora's train] to create a little bit of a gradient from the black to a charcoal grey. It kinda works as a hint toward Harmonix's more pastel palette. Sort of. 

Aside from Tecna, all the girls' hair is at least partially pulled back in Harmonix. This sorta works out because it appears the front "bang" sections of Helena's hair are pulled back. [In my brain I call this "Doll Hair" because I personally have seen that kind of look way more often on dolls than on real people.] It's similar to the front of Bloom's Enchantix hair.  The rest of Helena's hair appears pretty thick and a little wild, so I tried to incorporate a bit of that here, but I couldn't push it too far without "breaking" the Winx Style.  And while I'm here: I did choose to make Helena's hair a very dark brown. In the video, most of the time it does just look plain black, but there are moments where my eyes pick up on a "warmth" to the color, which makes me think maybe it really is that super-dark brown hair that just looks black. Even if it isn't, I stand by my choice as slightly more fitting for the Winx style, since Winx almost never does truly black hair anyway. 

All of the Harmonix designs feature some sort of small head accessory, usually a tiara. Helena's costume very prominently features netting over the face...And there appears to be something going on towards the back of her head, presumably whatever is holding the netting in place.  I've seen fan interpretations of whatever that is being flowers [usually black roses], and since Tecna has a few flower-ish pieces as part of her Harmonix tiara, that seemed like a fair choice here.  As for the netting...You'll see very briefly in the Time Lapse that during the concept phase, I really did want to include that, but it was too hard to ignore how out of place it felt. Winx rarely does anything with netting in the first place [though a couple of rare examples do exist], and considering certain parts of Harmonix feel like it was designed to be fairly simple [but look complex at first glance, which it does]...I just couldn't do it. So instead, I...Well, it ended up being almost a copy of Layla's Harmonix tiara, but I really truly did not realize how similar what I was doing was to hers until after the full-color version was pretty much done. 😅 I thought I was doing more of an upside-down version of Musa's, and my entire goal was to just do something that came down over the forehead like the netting did. 

Speaking of Musa, if those wings look familiar, they kinda should. Remember before that I mentioned I was originally working on a pretty tight timeline for this piece? 

One of the things that has proven to take me the longest with original Winx designs since I picked up making them semi-regularly again is undoubtedly the wings. I got to really learn that the hard way with Believix at the beginning of this year. 

Because of the very limited time I thought I had and my sluggish pace with wings, when while collecting Harmonix screenshots for reference I noticed "Hey, Musa's wings would still work pretty well if they were flipped upside down..." A little bit of a lightbulb went off. 

I don't even know why exactly that thought occurred to me before I'd even really considered the wings. The best I can figure is a little hangover in my subconscious—At one point I remember reading one of the Winx's Sirenix wings are apparently upside down at the end of her transformation sequence. That stuck out to me at the time because I don't really understand how you could tell if Sirenix wings are upside down or not because of how they're shaped. 🤨

Anyway. So I found a screenshot with a fairly clear shot of one of Musa's wings, flipped it around, and really just traced right over it. 

I did make a few small tweaks, and most notably I added some..."Lines of Tears?" like Layla and Flora's have, but at the end of the day they are still really Musa's wings. 

Normally, I wouldn't have done that and instead would've just taken heavy inspiration from Musa's wings, but again, I thought I had a lot less time than I really did. And to be fair, plenty of other Winx fans re-color or otherwise re-purpose the Canon Girls' wings for their OCs and/or Fan Transformations on a regular basis anyway, so it's not like this is a totally unheard-of idea or anything. 🤷‍♀️

Much later, I also figured in a way it fits; Musa is a fairy of Music, this artwork is largely based around a specific piece of music/the band that made it; I even opted to add music note shapes like Musa's wings produce [all the Harmonix wings produce specific shapes in that way] when they move to deepen that connection after I thought of it. 

Other things worth noting [and this is again a • bullet point list because, frankly, at the moment I'm just too lazy to make this all flow together in more story-like paragraphs]:

I did my best to match Helena's skin and eyes, but her lips and eye makeup were a little trickier. Her lips ended up a bit pinker and not as close to her skin tone in the spirit of Winx, and I had to compromise and use greyish reds shaped like the Trix's eyeshadow to get a similar effect. The eyeshadow still really isn't perfect for Helena or Winx, but I was short on other ideas so, "close enough is good enough."

The shape of the mouth isn't quite what I wanted, either. You'll see in the time-lapse that I already changed it pretty drastically from the first sketch I had. I definitely wanted something open, because while Helena's mouth is not open for the entire music video or anything, it is more open at certain points and this shot in particular is pretty iconic.  But I also didn't want anything too crazy because, y'know, Winx Club.  The bared teeth and lack of upturn for a smile was my compromise. Either the mouth itself needed some more tweaking, or the eyebrows did. The whole expression is okay, I just don't think I pushed it far enough. 🤷‍♀️

There isn't really one specific pose that represents Helena more than the others [...at least not standing up/dancing], so I picked mostly from a general feeling from the music video. I did reference some official stock arts of the Winx in Ballet attire [mostly this one of Flora], but the feet had to be changed pretty notably to fit the shoes, and overall I had to make some tweaks in the anatomy where the stock art and show style differ. [These differences seem to increase from Season 5 onward, too.] 

The background was mostly inspired by Layla's Harmonix, and it might be my favorite part of the whole piece, actually!  Upon closer studying for this project, I was surprised by how much "junk" is in some of the Harmonix backgrounds. There's tons of texture in all of them and a fair bit of color variation in most...It's pretty interesting compared to past transformations and even Harmonix itself. The backgrounds end up being a lot more intense than the solid and gentle pastel dresses. [Wouldn't surprise me if that was intentional!] I had a little more work cut out for me since I couldn't just slap bright colors all over the place. I did consider just sticking with blacks/greys/white and maybe some red, but I thought it might help my version of Helena here pop a little better if I was able to change up the palette just a bit. And, of course, the warmth of the background helps add more variety and liven the whole image up.  Much more to my delight though, I was able to create the background without having to download any new Procreate brushes! 🥳 Between a couple of default ones, the ocean-themed brushes I already had from previous projects, and a couple I just happened to pick up along the way [mostly as monthly freebies from brush makers who normally charge for their work], I had all the brushes I needed already right there, it just took a little experimenting. 

I will reiterate that while it still took time, making the art itself really wasn't so bad or difficult. And it helps that this ridiculous crossover idea was something I really wanted to make—Because if I didn't, who else would, right? 🤪

It's not perfect, sure. But it's here and it still came out pretty good overall, I think. So I'm happy. 😊

Now I would also like to take a moment to explain part of why putting the Time Lapse together for this piece ended up taking longer than it probably should have, because I really didn't have room to talk about it in the video itself...though it does sorta get a mention right at the beginning: The audio. 

To once again make a very long story short(er):

I, in my infinite wisdom, decided instead of the usual royalty-free music stock, to try and create a mash-up of Helena and the Harmonix song for this video. That was more or less the visual premise for the art, so why not go all-out with the theming?

For once, I cannot take you through the full nitty-gritty because, at least to my inexperienced brain, audio editing is a pretty nebulous process. But I can tell you that aside from inexperience, the other thing that probably held me back was my choice of program to handle the task. 

I did not have the patience nor motivation to try and teach myself how to use an audio program for this one silly project, and I semi-accidentally learned at the beginning of last year that DaVinci Resolve has an entire section dedicated to just editing the audio for videos. Since I was able to fumble my way around in there for the light audio editing I wanted to do at that time, I figured that was a slightly safer bet here. It may not have saved me a ton of time, but it was at least vaguely familiar, and for me, familiarity goes a long way in making me comfortable with a program even if I still don't really know what the heck I'm doing. 

This isn't really what DaVinci is supposed to be for—as far as I can tell it doesn't even have an "audio only" export option, which did complicate things a bit—and even if it was, I'm sure any true audiophile will still probably cringe a lot at what I managed to create.😅 I did my best to make it "tolerable" for a listen or two, but I know my ears are inherently biased since I know and enjoy both songs quite a bit already. But I did manage to get feedback from two persons that know notably more about audio than I do, and they weren't horrifically appalled, so I don't feel like I'm committing a crime against music by putting it out there, at least. 

Aside from that, the video did also have to wait on me to finish this description [to a certain extent, anyway]. For smaller projects, I can usually write the on-screen notes for the video first and worry about the description later, but most of the time for a big project like this, I need the bulk of this written description done first so I have a baseline of all the things I want to mention and can pare down from there. 

I can do a fair bit of the video editing up until the point I need those notes, but once I hit that wall there's really no way around it. And in this case, I did actually use all that other video editing as a form of procrastinating on the description. 😅

Most likely because I knew there was going to be a lot to cover, I really put off like 70% of this description as long as possible. 🫣 The other 30% I actually did relatively soon after the art was ready. The plan was to go ahead and get most of it out of the way, but clearly I lost my writing mojo partway through and had to come back to it later...and I was still a little lazy with certain aspects. 

But hey, the description isn't the art, it's just meant to describe the art, so whatever works, yeah?

In any case, I think that's everything I wanted to mention about this particular process. It's been quite a ride, and I'm glad it's over. Mostly so I can go back to working on some other projects I already had cooking before this one came up, but also...I am just glad this is one of those ideas that, as I said much earlier, originally got put on an "eventually" shelf in my brain and actually got to come to fruition fairly quickly after the fact. 

Kinda gives me more hope than I previously had for some of those other "eventually" projects, which is nice. 🙂

Similarly: I don't know if I'll find a way to revisit Winx Club x MCR ever again, but I'm thrilled I I found a way to do it at least once! Doubly so that I'm happy with how it turned out! 😊 With that in mind, you never know. It's possible I'll figure out another way to do it again someday. 

In the meantime, I leave you Sparklers to enjoy this one and the time lapse [whether you're brave enough for the mash-up version or opt for the "easy listening" one instead]. 😉 s usual, I'm off to those other projects I mentioned shortly ago...

_______

Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings Winx Club © Rainbow S.p.A.

Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and associated concepts © My Chemical Romance

[writers4life]

Advice For New Writers

Writing is the long game. I've been passionate about writing for around ten years and I'm still a beginner, but I have some useful tips I've picked up that ACTUALLY help you write. So in no particular order...

1. Stop thinking your writing is fragile.

You might have the best idea of your life and jump in full steam ahead, when suddenly you see someone online criticising a genre, or your friend says "sci fi isn't my thing" or you decide that no one will like your book, that it's too tropey, or something like that, so you completely ditch the idea and move on to something new. This isn't going to help you write! You can never write something that everyone likes, so focus on writing something that you want to write for whatever your reasons are. There are some people who like romance, some people like historical fiction, etc. You can't listen to everyone. If you decide you don't like something about your story, CHANGE IT. You're the author, you get to make decision, and change and edit things, and that's fine. Just keep working on it.

2. Write from life doesn't mean write your autobiography.

Most writers will have had people tell them "write what you know," or "draw from your own experiences," and this can be really annoying. When you want to write an epic high fantasy and your relative tells you to "write what you know" it's not very encouraging. But I have a different take on the advice. Rather than writing a play-by-play of your real life, or writing about something mundane that happened to you, take the metaphorical and abstract instead of the literal. If writing about your real life isn't working, instead write a fictional version of something. Example: instead of writing about the event you went to where you hung out with one person because neither of you liked it, write about a character finding friendship when another character is also struggling during a fantasy apocalypse. Change the setting to fit your novel, then take the bones of the thought, the feelings or the interactions, and put it in your story. This will help you make it more real and human, or elf if that's your jam.

3. Keep a journal.

Planning your novel with a word doc dedicated to it and specific plot points can often be stressful because of the pressure to get it right. So instead, keep a journal in which you can write about anything, including your novel or story. This way you can explore ideas and write anything related to them, and get in a creative state where you're more free to brainstorm. You can also write about your life here and use this to feed your writing, by taking bits of your life that you wrote down and translating them to your novel.

4. Break it down to small tasks.

It can be hard to beat procrastination, and sometimes the best way is to break it down into simple tasks. People tell you this all the time, like "break it down to small tasks, just write a chapter and then you'll have one more chapter," but that's not helpful when you're a grade A procrastinator like myself. I mean REALLY SMALL tasks. Just think of a sentence in your head for the next part of your novel, and write it down. Just write at least one word.

That's all folks. Happy writing!!

[teal-skull]

for the artist ask: 3, 13, 20 <3

Thank you for the ask <3 <3 <3

3. Your favorite piece(s)?

Funnily enough, I have never posted my favorite drawing, and I finished it in autum 2022. It's a digital painting I worked in for months. The reason is that first I wanted to do an edit where the camera slowly descends along the painting but I can't edit for the life of me, and the second reason is that I do not want the scavenging AI eyes to see my piece. It is highly personal depiction of the pain I was in during the time and that will not be part of some noisy tech bro's fucking dataset. Now that there is Glaze and nightshade, maybe I should look if I an get it glazed and then post it. It would give me enough security to post it. I relaly do want to post it.

The painting is also very long and a little bit surrealistic. It depicts a woman who is drowning slowly and it probably has one of the best backgrounds I have ever made, plus the rendering in it is one of my best work. This is very personal piece for me because it was inspired by a very specific piece of soundtrack I listened while in one id my darkest mental spaces I've been to and got inspired. The sketch was made already in the winter of 2021. It is about my struggle of having so many interests and how it leaves me aimless and no idea what I want to do, no time to truly focus on anything and develop it into an actual skill.

13. Talk about a wip you like!

I'm making Gankutsuou fanart of the count of Monte Cristo and I already posted a whip of this. I'm excited because I get to play with the anime's unique art style and maybe I can avoid doing much rendering. The bit that I am miat excited about is that I'm gonna make his hair merge with the space in the background because he has been in space for so long and it probably changed and twisted him. And uurghhgg he's just gonna stand there being all cool.

I also have so many idea's for Käärijä drawings. I atrted skwtching Ruoska MV!Käärijä as an angel, inspired by stamina's song "Enkeleiden murskain".

20. Is your workspace, digital or not, organized?

Nope. I have different folders for wips and finished drawings, but definitely not organized. Thins are just wherever. That applies to my traditional drawing tools as well.

[abeinginsand]

Can we have 🫂💤 for Taylor? :3

Heya Cereal and definitely!! Thanks for the ask and sorry for the delay. Just got back in from work! Spinning him around in my mind, such a silly little guy :]

---

Friendship Headcanon

As a nephew cousin uncle pseudo sibling duo, Hermie and Taylor are constantly antagonizing each other haha. Teasing each other about their crushes, arguing about some show they both watch, and other stuff. Giving each other random titles while also alternating who gets called "uncle" or "nephew".

On the softer side, they try to look out for each other. Taylor staying behind in the cat bus to keep watch/guard things while he's having a flare up day. Hermie coincidentally having a sudden stomach ache and staying behind to keep him company. The sound of cat purring and the great debate of the top ten anime and play betrayals is a fun distraction.

Hermie having some shape-shifting issues in public place and Taylor doing an intense series of anime poses and jokes to draw attention away. When Hermie calms, he musters enough energy to give a playful critique of the performance. Taylor ends up surprised because it's the nicest critique he's heard him give to anyone. "Well if you're so surprised, I can easily take such words back? 🤨" to which Taylor says no take backs haha.

And since we're getting into the sleep part next... Taylor is very affectionate with his friends. Usually in the form of high fives, fist bumps, a hand on the shoulder, and leaning against them if sitting together. Sometimes he'll end up falling asleep if it's during a movie night, game, or car ride.

---

Sleeping headcanon

Taylor has an easy time falling asleep while sometimes struggling to stay asleep for long, especially if he's alone or feels alone. He tends to sleep with a pile of pillows and his childhood toy, a Santa Snoopy. Having something to hold onto is comfy, often holds Hermie's or Lincoln's hands when they have sleepovers. Unfortunately, Taylor usually ends up moving a lot in his sleep so watch out--ending upside down or half way off the bed at times. If napping, he likes leaning on people like his mom if having a little movie night on the couch or always falling asleep in his dads arms as a baby. Nicky coming late to hq and everyone thinks it's because he thinks it's cool 😎. Real reason being not wanting to wake up his baby boy who looks like a little angel in his sleep.

When he adopts Zoro (gray cat I've drawn a few times), the cat likes to sleep curled around his head on a pillow. The purring is soothing and tends to help him fall back asleep. Though he is not immune to scrolling social media on his phone at 3 am instead.

In dreamland, Taylor tends to dream of a mix of shows or manga that he's looked at recently. He is always in the protagonist spot and no matter the plot there is always a mom character that is basically a dream Cassandra. It's a version of her that let's him break more rules and have more weapons though. In a nightmare scenario, he tends to still be in a plot except no mom and no sidekicks. Lonely and lost protagonist traveling through an ever-changing and dimly lit cavern. The little flame torches are his only comfort there.

On a sillier side, he has attempted lucid dreaming a few times. One of those times was a dream version of the school and he explored each classroom, spotting different characters hidden amongst the students. He spent most of the dream in band class with Miku! The teen was on keyboard and she sang one of many one piece opening songs. For some reason, it was a hard rock cover and her pitch was shifted down. Next song was a Rick roll and as soon as he dramatically gasped about the betrayal...

He woke up and realized he was snoozing on his keyboard with his music editing software stuff open on his computer.

[mdzsartreblogs]

hey! i'm so glad i found your blog, its like a blessing to me! not exaggerating! i wanted to ask, do you have all official art from mdzs in your collection in your blog? like from the donghua, novel, game, and novel and all? i'm looking to make my own private mdzs art collection, so a reply would help!

also what would you suggest as the best sources for collecting mdzs official art? any twitter acc or zerochan?

Hi! Thanks for getting in touch!

I don't have all the official art, because there's just so darn MUCH of it, and because it's actually much more complicated to curate than most other art.

See, I try not to post duplicates, and usually I can easily ensure that by just searching for the artist and checking what of theirs I've posted, and/or by looking at the notes and just seeing if mdzsartreblogs is already in the "reblogged with tags" part of the notes.

But official art mucks that system all up because multiple people post it! I might have reblogged that piece, but not from that OP, and not in that post version. So if something isn't brand new, I'll often toss it in my likes for a later date when I can check if I've reblogged a different version of it, but I've been so busy recently that said later date really hasn't been coming, oops.

I also haven't been super consistent about reblogging art that's only on merchandise - sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, without much rhyme or reason. *sweatdrop*

There's also the complication, from the curation point of view, of where to draw the line on what counts as "art." So like...the donghua is composed of cels of drawn art, so should I count every screen cap I see of it as "official art" and reblog it? Or what about the manhua, the entire manhua is "official art," so should I try to collect every single panel? I've decided to draw the line on "no" for treating donghua screen caps as art for this blog, and I don't (usually) count comic pages from the manhua (though I've definitely made exceptions) but I'll reblog more "arty" stuff, like promo posters for the donghua, or chapter lead-ins for the manhua (or the incredibly sexy stuff that the manhua artist has been posting on Twitter of late, coughcough). But you may choose to draw the line in a different place, so what I have may not include whole categories that you'd want to collect.

That said, I've reblogged approximately 500 posts with official art over the almost three years I've run this account (three years this September!). And I can probably help a little with your question!

Resources from Me:

#official art on mdzsartreblogs: https://mdzsartreblogs.tumblr.com/tagged/official%20art

My (six months out of date) organization spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nrSuFDL12MZ4O9_LFcbm7Tq47z_aiOl6I-xj8BNHs-c/edit?usp=sharing

This is the sheet I've used to organize these blogs and to keep the tags organized, though during 2023 I've had no time to maintain it. The reason I'm sharing it now is because the last sheet is a list of official artists (now a couple years out of date) with examples of their work and select links for finding them, so that might help.

Other Resources:

I don't really use twitter and have only vaguely heard of Zerochan, so I'm no help with those. Tumblr is my primary social media account, though I did recently make a Lofter account and I'm gonna try to find some official accounts there to follow directly. I can report back on that if people want, my Chinese isn't great tho so it's slow going and, as I've mentioned, I'm stupidly busy rn so it's hard to find the time.

For other Tumblr blogs that have a lot of official art, here's a few I know of that post it often:

@hanguangjunn - especially active recently, has done a lot of compilation posts that I don't always reblog because I often have some or all of the pieces as solo posts already

@t110n - posts a decent amount of MDZS, and posts official art for a huge range of danmei fandoms. One of my favorite blogs for that kind of thing; I super appreciate how much work they've put into sharing manhua art from a huge range of danmei fandoms.

@fluff-crt - also doesn't post everything, but is still active and has been active since before I joined the fandom; they also have posted some scanalations/translations and reposts with permission, though not as much recently.

@shandian-go - this is a Group Order account (the one I use personally, in fact, highly recommend) but from an art standpoint they're also a great resource for finding official merchandise art, as Mel always posts about the new merch with pictures and doesn't delete the posts advertising closed GOs.

@mdzs-equine-archive - posts official art that includes any equine (Apple, Lan Wangji's horse, etc.)

@minmoyu - in general, Minmoyu is one of the most incredible, helpful people I've found running a danmei account, and I've used resources they've written to help me buy print books, to find new danmei to read, and more. They also fairly regularly post official art, and have done so since the early days of danmei fandoms on Tumblr.

@p-h03n1-x - not active anymore, but used to post a lot of official art.

@zam81 - not super active, but basically all their posts are official art and/or photos for MXTX fandoms.

Those are the ones that spring to mind; if you scroll back through the tag on mdzsartreblogs and see who I've reblogged from, you'll spot some more; if you go back to waaaay in the beginning you'd probably be able to spot some folks who were more active once upon a time and are less around now (@aliceindanmeiland springs to mind, they haven't posted official MDZS art in a long time as far as I know, but were very active in the period when MDZS first hit Tumblr as a fandom, around the summer of 2018. Note that I personally joined the fandom in the fall of 2019.)

Hope this helps! Happy collection building!

-unforth

[allthecreepsofthecosmos]

Meet Meteor!

Hello again! Today I want to talk about another character from the demo (which you can try out here!). This time, let’s talk about Sally’s friend Meteor!

Here she is! Meteor’s the first character you encounter after Salamander. Her and Starlight contact Sally early on, but you don’t really meet her until part-way through Chapter 1, where she rescues our red-headed heroine from an early demise. I mentioned this when talking about Salamander, but Meteor’s a lot more put together than her. Meteor is precise, experienced, and fully confident in her abilities. In other words, she’s the perfect team leader! Though she doesn’t like being called that, for some reason…

When you first meet Meteor, she seems quite serious. She doesn’t appreciate Sally’s carefree attitude during the mission, and she ESPECIALLY doesn’t appreciate Sally’s nickname for her. “Sally” and “Starry” are cute, but “Metey” doesn’t come off the same way, does it? But that doesn’t mean she’s all business all the time! You get quite a different look at her in the second chapter, where she’s more casual with the other two. She even messes with Sally a bit! You’ll get to see plenty more of this side of Meteor in other parts of the game. I wrote in plenty of downtime to accompany the more dramatic parts, because I feel that it’s such a great chance for you to see these other sides of the cast shine! Meteor may not like all of Sally’s antics, but she’ll stand by her when it comes down to it. Tgirls gotta stick together!

Meteor’s ability is incredibly strong, making things she touches heavier or lighter on the fly! She swings that mace like it’s made of paper one moment, and has it smash down like, well, a meteor the next! She must be really good at keeping her balance. By the way, her name was the last we thought of for the main cast! Originally we had penciled in the name “Mace” for her, but obviously we couldn’t keep it as something so plain. It took Sadie and I a long time to think of something that suited her, and I think it worked out pretty well! The fact that Meteor’s so calm and composed in the heat of battle, combined with her sheer power, makes her a real force to be reckoned with. She’s a real stabilizing force for the team between Salamander’s unpredictability and Starlight’s focus on defense.

Her outfit’s rather eclectic, isn’t it? We wanted clothing that was a combination of something that gave off an air of authority, but also unusual enough to tie into her more playful side. 

And now, here’s a word from our character designer and sprite artist, @alexidv, on Meteor’s design!

"Hi again, this is Alexandra speaking! Last time I talked about working with Crystal and Sadie on designing Salamander and creating a look for the game. With the groundwork thus already laid, along with the excellent reference materials provided by Crystal and Sadie, Meteor was in many ways an easier character to work on. I tried to channel some Revolutionary Girl Utena into her fancy-yet-practical outfit and beautiful hair, making her look dignified, refined, and in control of the situation, compared to the more impulsive Sally and the more deferent Starlight.

Similarly to Salamander, the design did not have to go through many revisions. One change introduced early on compared to the original concept was making her mace look ornate and regal, almost like a scepter, befitting of her image - rather than the initial idea of a spike-ball type of mace.

Meteor was a lot of fun to work on, and she remains one of my favorites to draw when the characters are receiving new sprites. Her often confident and no-nonsense attitude means a different mindset when going into a set of new sprites and figuring out the posing and expression, compared to working on the other Side Future characters, and also makes her fun to read."

That's all for now! Remember you can give the free demo a try here if you're interested. Next time will be another edition of Two Tokyo Tgirls Talk, where we'll be talking about more of what inspired our project! See you!