#including drawing so i can barely force myself to draw anything but drawing is the only way i can get people to like me

[munch-mumbles]

genuinely feel like ive been going crazy the last few nights

[anantaru]

— drunk genshin boys

including heizou, alhaitham, scaramouche, kaveh, pantalone, childe, diluc, cyno x gn! reader

꒰ genre ꒱ — fluff & crack, idk what this is but very cute

drunk! heizou who gets tremendously clingy with you— he doesn‘t have anything but embracing and snuggling up to you in mind. from the beginning, before anything else, you have to help him get to bed, he can barely walk in a straight line and you wonder who he was sharing his drinks with— might be kazuha for all you know. "you‘re so good to me." he slurrs his words, eyes lowered and almost closed but keeping them open, heizou tries to because he can’t keep his eyes off you— even when drunk out of his mind, then the sweet man reaches his arms out for you, "come here come here." it’s a combination of a pitchy whine and a pout displayed before you and archons, how can someone be this adorable without even trying hard? you wonder but ultimately smile at your boyfriend, drawing a fuzzy blanket over his body before leaning into his chest.

drunk! alhaitham who fights with himself, more or less— he can hardly stand. you see, your boyfriend knows he‘s drunk and now he‘s forcing himself to sober up with nothing but pure, strong willpower and a good spirit at hand, but beware, he knows it‘s not possible but he tries to tell himself to sober up regardless, even when aware that that‘s not how it works in the general rule of booze. "i have almost conquered myself." he announces proudly while leaning against your shoulder, his soft hair ruffled and ticking your cheek. "yeah yeah." you playfully roll your eyes, placing your hand on top of his thigh while petting the clothed skin. it‘s when he places his palm on top of your hand to catch you in his embrace before you can notice the faint, soundly snoring sounds of your boyfriend succumbing to a deep slumber against you.

drunk! scaramouche who, much to your own surprise, tends to indicate a few kisses, cuddles and silently thanks you for taking care of him— it‘s especially surprising since this never happens when he‘s not under the influence of alcohol. truthfully, he didn‘t think he was even capable to get drunk and tried a bunch of different beverages around sumeru city. what he didn‘t know was that, alcohol can become a little tricky, especially when it hits you somewhat delayed. you were quick to notice his cheeks changing their color until his entire face was covered in red— the small pants from his parted lips and his larger pupils only proving your point. "nuisance." kuni curses, planting his arm over your shoulder as he makes you stop for a second, keeping your movements to a stand still. "kiss." he leans closer, no words following, ultimately failing to hit your lips and bumping in your nose instead— at this point you’re dying of laughter, you had even attempted to fight your giggles but how could that even be an option when he‘s like that? yet to the best part, you show him how it‘s done and properly melt your lips on his.

drunk! kaveh who— and such fact is known throughout all of sumeru, was a lightweight on the inside, but sometimes had the need to pretend to actually be able to hold his drinks in. you on the other hand knew your boyfriend and his tendencies to drink a little bit too much whenever he‘s meeting up with his friends for a round of tcg or anything really— most of the time it does consist of gossiping. considering this, you always await him late at night, knowing full on well that he‘s going to have a hard time getting out of his shoes or, frankly, find the way to his bedroom. "i‘m not- not drunk!" he proclaims with a pitched, half broken tone, raising his pointer finger in the air, "drunk not i not!" and stammers before dropping into his bed face first. you welcome him with a smile, "you sure aren‘t." and amusingly shake your head but not before placing a bucket next to the bed for— well, who knows what you both will face this entire night.

drunk! pantalone who loves to drink a few glasses of red wine— reveling in the massive flavor of different nuances the beverage had in store after a long day of working himself to frenzied tiredness. believe it or not but he knows the limits of his body quite well, yet even he can overindulge in it from time to time. in which case would he make himself overly noticable the moment he stumbles home. it‘s louder than usual and you wonder if he actually tripped over and fell carelessly or ran against the door. but the man finds you at last as he always did, you long since ready for bed before dropping right next to you, still fully clothed in a perfectly fitted garment and his glasses messily shoved up, "i may have had too many drinks tonight." he admits against his own volition, rubbing his head and the tiny red spot emerging on his forehead— he really did hit the door, "and you may need to help me out of my clothes."

drunk! childe who doesn‘t consider a party being a real event without him in it— surprinsingly was the eleventh harbinger good with keeping his booze in, it‘s rarely for him to get real, drop dead drunk, but when he does— oh boy, you can be sure he won‘t stop talking to you the entire night. "have i told you about that time i dropped a whale on an entire army?" brazen words after arrogant notions, ajax cuddles himself against your back to try to turn you towards him, after all, he thinks you weren‘t listening with your body being turned away like that. after a deep-rooted yawn, you pull yourself to the left to face him, "you did." and cradle his cheek, "you did at last three times this past hour."

drunk! diluc who, much to his own embarrassment, needs to be taken care of. the man loathes alcohol to his very core, but even he needs to occasionally drink a couple glasses with important partners who he had been collaborating and working with. "i can‘t feel my legs." he almost whines at the loss of his senses, numb and tired as you repeatedly dapped a cold washcloth on his forehead while he was continuously pinching his biceps, "that‘s your arm baby." your expression softened slightly as you carried on to clean him up. as it was time to turn in for the night, you felt diluc‘s intense, warm presence closer than on any other day before, "please don‘t leave." his words find your ears with such ease, like a piece of his own soul, a bright, hopeful voice, full of hope but webbed in bristling fear, "i won‘t."

drunk! cyno who— and this really doesn‘t surprise you at this point in time, pompously shows off all his aquired and bundled up jokes, you had, in the beginning of your relationship, thought that what if he would genuinely turn out to be legitimately hilarious when in such wobbly state. "a tighnari and cyno walk into a bar." he pulls his mask off and places it on a drawer that, and don‘t ever tell him that, but there isn‘t a drawer there, he‘s just imagining things, "knock knock, *hiccup* who‘s there?" cyno quickly stops himself as you pick up the mask and put it on a real drawer, sliding into the warm bedsheets beside him afterwards, "wait, that‘s not how the joke goes." the man wrinkles his nose in thought, blinking rapidly while looking at you through puppy eyes, as if you had an actual idea on what he‘s talking about.

©2023 anantaru do not repost, copy, translate, modify

[bloop-bl00p]

In defense of Octavia

TW: Lots of Trauma Dumping, Mention of abuse

She’s been wronged way too many times in this fandom for some reason. Look at her vibing, how can you hate her?

I’m a fan of Helluva Boss, mainly because of its potential but the quality dropped dead in the second season. We’re gonna talk about a character I’ve seen other fans misinterpreting in favor of the so-great Prince Stolass.

I want to talk about her mainly because I do what I want and because after studying her character I just realized that she’s just like me. Especially regarding her relationship with her father, I see myself in my younger years.

All of that to say…

She has all the right to feel abandoned.

Octavia obliviously has a stronger bond with her father, it shows in her behavior and little background details

When she wants to draw her family, she draws her and Stolas, we mostly see her being happy with him which leads me to think that she’s emotionally neglected by Stella. To her, Octavia is just an ‘egg’ that fell off her and she doesn't care about the impact killing Stolas could have on her daughter.

Despite being emotionally absent, Stella has a much more physical presence than Stolas. Most of the time Stolas is alone in his castle which leads me to think that Octavia is somewhere else with Stella. They did mention the two went on a weekend somewhere. This leads us to this question…

How can Octavia feel more close to her father?

Here’s the thing, I see a lot of my family dynamic here. My mom doesn’t pay attention to me at all, she doesn't want me to bother her and she makes it clear. My dad, however, who’s absent like 90% of the time, always tried to spare time with me. He explained to me that he was working and why he was doing all of this (I was like barely ten) but it never prevented him from trying to play with me, sharing his hobbies, going on a walk, and else.

He was there emotionally and, as a kid who was bullied, had no friends at all, and a mother who didn't give a damn, I cherished this relationship.

I believe the exact same thing happened with Octavia, we never see her with friends or even outside the castle, she’s isolated. Stolas has Prince duties, we’ve seen him carry them in the shows, hence why he’s mostly absent leaving her with her mother. But, at least when she was a kid, he tried to do stuff bringing her to Loo-Loo Land or being the one to comfort her. That is why she clings to her father, he’s the only one who actually shows her love and she’s terrified of losing that.

Regarding her mother, Stella obliviously doesn't care about her so the feeling is reciprocated. From a narrative standpoint, Stella is an unpredictable force of nature getting angry for pretty much anything that doesn't go her way. So Octativa learned to not cross her mother's path.

I know this expression, this is the “Oh fuck… they’re at it again?” she’s used to her mother's constant screaming, she's used to her parents fighting.

She did say they were a time when a parent didn't hate each other, which to me refers to the time when Stolas tanked Stella’s abuse. But, that doesn’t mean that Stella wasn't abusing him in front of a younger Octavia, she’s erratic and they did imply that she can get physical in her toxic behavior. Since Stella was passive, it was probably mostly harmful comments.

Putting personal things here, my mom was also very abusive to my older sibling. Since I was extremely young I learned not to ‘be a burden’ to avoid being abused as well, which includes things like not talking to her unless she does it first. Whether Octavia is aware of the physical abuse or not, she must know enough to know that it’s a bad idea to annoy Stella.

This is the only picture where we see her seemingly having a good relationship with Stolas, which to me feels like she’s faking it considering all we know about the family.

She has a pretty shitty household but her relationship with her father make it bearable until Stolas did a 180°

He randomly started to prioritize Blitz and don’t spill me the bullshit of ‘he’s trying’ he stopped trying long ago.

Let’s analyze this episode by episode:

In Loo Loo Land, Stolas seemingly tries to rebuild a visibly strained relationship with his daughter by bringing her to a park she liked when she was a kid. To this, she immediately responds with an “I’m not 5 anymore.” and an “I rather kill myself.” There’s no room for miscommunication, she doesn't want to go there, and she won’t enjoy it as much as she did back then. Still, he decides to go there, showing that he doesn't listen, and, he brings the one the thing that is currently ruining his already horrible marriage because of his own actions. Blitzø.

He’s trying to spend time with his daughter after a long time (this is mentioned in the episode) and he decides to bring in that one guy he’s hooking up with to deliberately make sexual remarks about him in front of her.

She’s uncomfortable the whole time, not just because she allegedly doesn’t like listening to her father's comments but because she doesn't like the park. She said it, yet Stolas doesn't acknowledge it, he doesn't realize the faces she makes which are to me pretty communicative of her annoyance and discomfort.

This is not even subtle body language, yet he only notices it when she runs off. The worst part is that he still finds a way to think about Blitzø when his daughter leaves.

He looked upset that Blitzø didn't follow him! Did he expect that guy to pursue him constantly? He was in the middle of an argument with his daughter, I personally would have stepped away to give them space to talk and reconcile. But no, apparently Blitzø should be at his beck and call all the time.

But you know what, after all of this. He still apologized. That absolutely does not negate everything he did during the day but, at the end of it, he finally listened to her and even brought her to a place she actually wanted to be. Which is good, he acknowledged her discomfort and did something she liked.

Until Seeing Star.

Look I know Stolas was busy with Stella but he clearly doesn't care about her and her stuff.

Don’t tell me he couldn’t pinpoint Stella’s location with magic and teleport all of her belongings to her. Their discussion was barely about the furniture, he could have said that they were gonna be delivered and hung up the second he saw Octavia. Arguing with Stella is pointless, he’s the number one guy that should know that! Why does he continue to insult her, he’s just fuelling the fire!

Moving out her belongings would have been 10 times faster if he just hung up the phone, then he could have had a more mindful talk with Octavia without the constant bickering of his ex-wife.

But he didn't for some reason, fair enough, I guess. The writers do whatever they want. Anyway, Octavia got angry and ran to go see the stars on her own.

So, Stolas’ castle is in Pride but my point still stands, Octavia had the time to run from home and make the way all from her father's place to the city, find the specific building Blitzø held his organization in and Stolas didn't notice a thing.

You cannot tell me Stella managed to get his attention for that long AND you cannot tell me that his castle is close to the shitty disaffected building and the populace. His daughter ran off and he did not notice a thing.

Not only that but he has the nerve of blaming Blitzø for not watching the book. Like, dude! You should have watched your daughter instead!

Then he spills out more bullshit.

I don’t know Stolas, how could you possibly find her when you were shown to have countless abilities to do so?

Like bubbles projecting the image and locations of people.

Or that on time when you possessed corpses and one woman just to go full eldritch monstrosity just for one that one guy you’re cheating your wife with. And don’t whine about “They don’t love each other.” it’s still affecting his family, mainly his daughter so it’s still bad.

Of course, you do all of that without your grimoire without any problem, brushing it off with a…

I guess he forgot his ‘ways’ when it came to Octavia. But honestly, Loona literally found her easily just by looking at her Instagram account, couldn't he just call her or something? The girl had her phone the whole time and he didn't just think of calling her.

Me when I forget that I have teleportation power when I am in an enclosed space with nobody is looking.

You’re certainly not worrying right now. Via literally told him to his face that she was scared and he kept flirting with him even though he once again caused her to run away because of his neglect.

He’s not trying his best, THIS IS NOT TRYING!

No Loona, his daughter communicated very clearly issues related to their relationship, rather than reassuring her and being there for her as much as it’s realistically possible (he still has duties to carry), he gets in an avoidable petty fight with his ex and keeps an unhealthy dynamics with an imp he's been obsessing over. He doesn't focus, his priorities aren’t straight, and now Octavia feels abandoned.

I did mention that I had a good relationship with my father back then, but it stopped abruptly. His focus changed and he went out with friends after work and gradually stopped spending time with me. Until we never spent time together again, (to give you an idea the only moment where I could see him was in the morning for breakfast) now that can sound silly but I was a child, with no friends and a neglectful mom, losing the only good thing I had in life broke me. I knew his schedule, I knew he was spending time with work buddies and that just stung my self-esteem even more leaving me feeling like a burden when I was just a kid who wanted to feel love.

This is why I don’t like the “He’s trying.” I know what a trying struggling parent looks like and I know what happens when they stop. If you keep trying to do something and you’re constantly failing, either your technique isn’t the right one or you’re not and you’re convincing yourself you are.

And then there are people that’ll tell me that “He lived through the abuse of Stella for years for her.”

If you read all of this then I don’t feel like I need to explain how Octavia was at least partially exposed to Stella's toxic behavior and was affected by it.

For those who don’t know how it feels to live with an erratic mood-swinging person, it’s pure constant stress. You have to think constantly before you talk or move because you know that if you fuck up you’re gonna pay the price. And if you still eventually mess up you can never know with these types of people! You can’t defend yourself because the punishment will be far worse. You are ALWAYS in the wrong.

So he lived through the abuse of Stella just so his daughter could get neglected and abused in a less physical way?

The difference between my parents and Octavia is that they love each other. Stolas doesn't give a damn about Stella, he did say he was nice at first because he empathized with her they were in this shitty situation together, and fine, it's reasonable. But she never changed! Stella stayed the same! Why didn’t he leave her when he stopped carrying about her?! There’s no trauma bounding, Stella isn’t guilt-tripping or manipulating him, they got the child he could have divorced her easily without consequences! If anything, she’s the losing part of this divorce she’s lower in the hierarchy! “Andreaphul will get angry.” HE’S A MARQUIS! Hierarchically speaking Stolas is far more important and he mopes the floor with his peacock ass!

Am I supposed to be empathetic with that one dude who willingly let his daughter grow up in a hyper-toxic environment with an emotionally neglectful and unpredictable wife?! Am I supposed to believe he cares when he kept sleeping in his house in his bed with the same guy his daughter clearly is worried he’s going to leave her with?! Really?!

Don’t ever tell me that this is trying.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for ditching a long-term friend?

I (35F) had a friend (S, 33F) for years. We bonded the first night we met. We had ups an downs, and went everywhere together. I helped her kick her bf out after he tried to hit her and helped her through two miscarriages. She helped me through a family member death and a career change. We would speak almost every day, for hours.

She was always slightly more conservative than me. When 2016 rolled around, she supported Trump. I didn't like that, but it wasn't my place to bitch about it to her, it was her decision.

By 2020, she'd changed. Idk how it happened but she went from slightly conservative Christian who loved school and being a nurse and had friends who were LGBT+ (myself included), to deadnaming trans patients, refusing to do a blood draw on a patient after she said it was a prerequisite for an abortion, forcing patients to pray with her, even when they and their families spoke out against it, and bugging her coworkers to pray with her. She got fired from the hospital and was completely unable to hold down a job after that, and went through about 6 jobs that year, getting fired from them all. She got with a guy (B, 32M) and he is a... Well, he is a damn nut. Flat earther, antivaxxer, anti- Department of Education, anti-cell phone, thought bluetooth was turning kids trans, and that covid is 100% a hoax. Absolutely bonkers. But she was smitten, so I supported her, barely.

It's important to note that I backed away from her a bit after she was fired from the hospital. We were only speaking once every few weeks at that point.

Shortly after she got with B, my nephew was born. My nephew is half Mexican, half white. She called him "cute for a half n*g" because she thought my SIL is black. This blew me away because she's half Mexican. I told her off and distanced myself even further.

In 2021, she was a huge supporter of Jan 6th. She LAUGHED when that one cop killed himself. I stopped talking to her completely after that. Deleted her contact info and forgot she existed for almost 2 years.

Cut to October of this year, and she calls me. I didn't recognize her #. She and B are getting married! And she wants me to be a bridesmaid!!! Yayy! (sarcasm). She told me a long-winded variation of "I know we haven't talked for a bit but I promise I'm not as bonkers as I was, I think I let Facebook suck me in, and I'm sorry."

So, I let her back in. Not emotionally, mind you. She's not the woman I once knew anymore. I don't tell her where our house is (my partner and I moved while S and I weren't speaking), and I didn't tell her what car I drove. I didn't tell her anything about our lives, and kept the conversation solely on her, to try and read her out a bit.

Sure enough, two conversations in she starts ranting about how black people are black because they received the mark of Cain (it's a Christian thing? I guess? Idk I'm not religious) and thus should be avoided because they are inherently "up to no good," and that systemic racism doesn't exist because the US has had a black president.

I roll my eyes, hang up the phone, block her number, and end it, permanently, right there. I received a few odd texts from a number I didn't recognize, probably B's phone, so I just blocked that number and deleted them without reading most of them.

Cue our mutual friends. 🙄

She misses you! People can have differing opinions and still be friends! Why are you being so closed minded? She told us you yelled at her! 😭😭😭

Lol. I didn't say a word, but whatever.

I'd rather adjust my life to her absence than adjust my morality to her ignorance.

My partner is on my side, they saw her change, too. But our mutual friends are still upset. I shared some the racist and sexist text convos between me and S, and it's like they hadn't even considered my side of the situation. One is on my side now, the other two are still questioning how I can throw away a 6 year friendship over "differing politics."

So, Tumblr, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[moonpie016]

Moon goes on a whole talking session.

*Walks in and realizes that this is becoming a frequent thing to post on here. And I'm happy about that, because I get to show what I make all the time. :]*

But now onto the drawings, and will eventually make a list on things I want to do next because that'll help me stay on track.

---

Positive stuff below the drawing.

---

It's the dudes inside my head, yay. Though they're all asleep, well two of em are. I drew this for whatever purpose it would serve, that being that my insides, while still a confused state and overall over reactive response to anything that needs rephrasing. Or just anything that happens, good, bad, whatever, that it has a way of comforting itself. It tries.

It tries to do the bare minimum of existing, even if it is tricky with having to always remember and think of more to do.

How to react appropriately, how to understand things to its full capability. How to understand others and everything more.

It's difficult, not in the way that doing things is difficult, but however that goes. These conceptualized beings of emotion have existed for some time, don't remember when but they have. But they always hadn't looked like this, obviously/lh.

But they all serve the same purpose combined or separate.

---

And, to go completely off topic, to go ramble.

Songs have whatever emotional attachment they can hold, whether important or not, it's just something that sticks. Helps.

And as you can see how much art I make, how many times I've probably listened to most of all the songs on repeat by now, what random pieces of dialogue I'll spew to write.

Chonny's music is comfort. Now it isn't just his, other artists as well. But those aren't important rn. His music in general, not just CCCC. Through whatever emotional moment months ago that made me feel lost and confused on what to do, what do I do now. I needed to find something to latch onto, if not, I'd feel..off. like I wasn't doing anything, because I wasn't doing anything. I tried to get into stuff but it wasn't working, like it needed to naturally happen instead of force myself.

The music has related to my state of mind (no pun) at certain points. And I find that comforting. Concerning? Maybe, but comforting.

Like, getting into what's popular, what new game, but that didn't work. And I'm kinda happy my brain decided to be now fixated on this man's music. Sure every time I'd like to explain or show someone, I need to specify and always show specific songs. Cus. Yeah. But now, I see people's work and stuff, and it's all so cool. And though the inconsistency of this blog is very apparent. I've enjoyed my time on here, very much. Even if I don't always actually speak to someone, because I don't really know what to say or start a conversation. (Seeds/social anxiety). I'm still happy for whatever interaction I get. I'm happy to feel included in this bizarre/pos and silly household. Idk why I'm calling it a household. Just go with it.

Even if I linger around or just post a drawing, I'm enjoying it. Some artwork may be more serious than silly. But yeah.

And to also just say whatever without rethinking is great, now I'm not going to say anything out of word. But just being silly in general with my wording. Y'know? Make odd jokes or talk excessively. (Wow).

Sum it up, I appreciate you all. Though you don't know me or I know you, it means a lot. I didn't think a joke about Heart beating up Mind would be turned into anything else, or that people would actually say anything.

This is just a happy little appreciation thing. I don't know how to end it! I just felt to write this.

So, uh yeah. :3

*Runs back into the hills*

Thanks for reading my ramble/pos.

---

[mod-jazzy]

Probably the dumbest munday question across the land but do you have any advice for creating good oc reference sheets? In terms of stuff like canvas size, % of space given to the character and colors, how much information to include, and background colors.

It's definitely an ocd thing for me but I have a hard time making refs that are both informative and look nice without being too cluttered or bare. Your oc refs are always very helpful so aajhbdsjkbhsd

(( WEEPS THANK YOU FOR THE KIND WORDS?? I didn't answer it before because I.. forgot!

BUT I WILL TRY TO ANSWER TO THE BEST OF MY ABILITY...

DISCLAIMER SONG This is how I personally make my OC references, based on tips I've been given over the years and what I find easiest for me! I make my OC references for ME and based on my own preferences, so they are heavily catered to what I want in a reference image. Also because I will forget how to draw my own character if I do not have it. That's not a joke either I am just that bad at what I do lmaO

Behold my totally professional labelled example of a basic reference, using... Basic!

THE ANATOMY OF A JAZZY REFERENCE

This is basically how I try to make my references look most of the time! Simple but it works for me!

I ELABORATE MORE BELOW THE CUT I just talk so much I am sorry

Number 1: A basic pose

For reference images, I always use a bare basic pose. I do not try to do anything dynamic or special. It is a reference image, it is meant to show the design clean and concise, not to impress anyone. I have a inside joke of "Stand straight, Hand Out" with myself because that is 99% of my reference images lmao The main image is always unshaded. I do not shade my refs. At most I will add effects to the eyes, but that is it. I avoid shading refs because a ref should be the basic plain colors. I know some shade but still add plain color dots.. but a lot of the time with complicated OC designs, adding shading can confuse some people. I know I certainly get confused! So I avoid it at all costs

Number 2: LARGE color dots

Having color dots / some form of palette is obviously extremely important... so people can like.. color pick. BUT I make them LARGE. Taking up around half the ref sometimes. I do this because if you make the dots too small, they will be JPEG crunched when shared across platforms. It creates a pixel crunch that makes the actual color harder to color pick. (Unless you are linking from a HD source, but also depends what device you are using. My phone will crunch images even if they are HD because.. It's a phone.) I have colored so many people's OCs wrong due to their color dots being itty bitty and forced under image crunch. I've had my own OCs colored wrong because of my refs having small color dots that were put in the ImageCrusher5000. Having large color dots doesn't entirely stop image crunch, but it makes it less egregious.

Number 3: Special eye and mouth color dots

Kind of lumped in with Number 2 but important for me to make separate from the normal color dots. For eyes, as I mentioned I sometimes add effects to character eyes in the ref image. So having a blank plain colors is needed for better color picking. It's a apology from me for adding effects from the reference image lmao

For the mouth, I just add that merely because I have a lot of OCs with odd colored mouths! I love making silly mouth colors!! Having a OC whose tongue is just blue for some reason! It's silly and it's fun! So I add a special "mouth" color dot to the image to show it! I also sometimes use it to show the OCs teeth style. (shark teeth.. flat teeth.. etc etc. It's not ALWAYS the case but still!)

Number 4: Bland/Themed color background

For backgrounds on reference images... I try to keep them plain! Because the focus should be on the character, not the background.

So I try to keep the backgrounds simple. I generally try to choose colors that are dull to draw more focus to the actual character. Nothing eye searing or painful, but I also don't want the background to "blend" with the character colors itself. Especially when it comes to color dots, if the background matches or blends too well with the color dots, they can be hard to see! Just easier to pick a dull, yet mildly ""clashing"" (lack of better word) color to make sure the character and the color dots are seen as best as possible. I will sometimes "Theme" a reference based on what blog/story they are from! All Ask-Eden refs are purple with a dark purple stripe! All Ask-Scrafty refs are this weird dull red color with stripes! Etc etc It's not needed for me to do that, I just do it because it's fun for me to have all the references for a specific story ""fit together"" if that makes sense!

Number 5: Name and Pronouns

Self explanatory really. I wouldn't say a ref NEEDS this information per say, depends on the context. But I generally add this information that way when I share the OC to others, the information is there and easy. That way nobody gotta question who they are or what pronouns they use, it's just already right there. Also avoids having your character misgendered and such. Which may not manner to some, but it does to me so I add it!

Number 6: Speech Colors

This only applies to my ask blog characters I do this because I have a lot of characters... who talk a lot! Often at the same time! So having each fella have their own special colors for their speech bubble, helps show who is talking easier. This is my own personal thing however, I know some people literally do not care but I like it.. so I do it! I add the color text there so that way the viewer knows "Black bubble with green text is This Character talking" and that way I myself, can color pick the bubble so the text remains consistent. Although sometimes depending on the lighting, I may tweak the speech colors a bit.... But they generally "stay true". I would rather tweak a speech bubble color slightly in a image than have it be unreadable, yknow?

Number 7: Important Design Tidbits

These are the tiny bits of text I'll add to a reference, ranges from basic info about the character to design info! I try to limit the amount of information on the ref to what is needed or what I deem is "important to know when drawing this character"

Stuff like this:

I try to keep the information short as I can to avoid cluttering text on the image. I also put things that someone might miss or "get wrong" when drawing the character or just mini text blurbs to describe what is happening in the image. If it is important to the characters design, I add it to the ref.

I cannot complain that someone "drew my OC wrong" if the reference image didn't clarify that aspect clearly. It never hurts to clarify even if it seems obvious

Also it is for me to remember! That way I'm not like "wait why does this guy have these weird spots again?" Because again I just.. I just forget constantly.

Number 8: Bonus Info

THIS can range honestly.

In the example doodle I showed a close up of a paw, to show paw pad details/colors

but this can range from showing another hairstyle.. some extra expressions... Or sometimes, if the character wears clothing, I'll include a another image of the character without the clothes on I do this to show body patterns or body types better. As clothing can hide/restrict what is shown. It's useful for me to have, that way when I draw the character again in a different outfit, I can have accurate info on how their body patterns work. Instead of just winging it every time. I try to not include too much of this stuff in the "main reference" I know some people do but I try to keep my refs as minimal as I can

IF A DESIGN WAS MADE BY ANOTHER PERSON, I will often give text credit within the reference image! I just want peeps to receive as much credit as they can for something they designed. So if it is already in the reference image, it just makes it easier! I usually do it in small text somewhere to the side.

I AM SO SORRY I TALKED FOR SO LONG ABOUT THIS

HONESTLY I just try to keep my reference's as simple as possible. Simple and Clean. I used to make REALLY cluttered references in the past and honestly I don't think my character's need a wall of text on a ref page I just draw a guy standing there with his hand out and slap on some color dots and call it a day.

I can't say I have anything on canvas size? Canvas size is something I literally never pay attention to. I'm a fake artist I know I just do not look at those numbers So my canvas sizes range a lot of the time I think. I only just recently started using the same canvas size for Ask Blog Posts, but that's only because I got really lazy and just copy and pasted some panels

ANYWAYS there is a horrifying insight on how I make reference images!! Could I have simplified this? Yeahg,.

but yeah again thANK YOU FOR THE KIND WORDS ANON!!! So sorry for yapping at you for so long !!!!!

[faeratil]

Because I have no one in person that I can rant to about my thoughts on Cinderella and the Four Knights (2016), you guys get to hear my thoughts.

First, I put this show on because I had just finished Tomorrow (2022), and I needed something sappy and full of cliché tropes to help distract me from the emotional trauma. I did my best from episode 1 to try and guess who was endgame for Eun Ha-Won based on all of the stereotypes and the way the interactions between her and the Kang cousins were written, and I feel like my original thoughts would’ve been a better ending.

Also with the way that the characters were written, they really should’ve called it Cinderella and the Three Knights because the fourth “knight” wasn’t even really written to be a Love Interest in spite of him being one of the best characters (until stuff happens with his mother and then it’s like being disappointed by your longtime crush and wanting to smack some sense into them).

My thoughts on the characters, though:

Eun Ha-Won

I love her. She deserves the world. She is an absolute ball of sunshine in spite of all the shit she’s had to deal with and continues to deal with straight through to the final meeting she has with Chairman Kang. I think she’s gorgeous, and I hate that she thinks she’s not pretty just because of how the Kang cousins treat her vs Park Hye-Ji. She honestly could’ve made it through the whole show without a Love Interest and I would’ve liked that more than the actual ending. She’s strong physically, mentally, and emotionally. She’s very smart and wants to use what she knows to teach others. She’s so very devoted to family in spite of how her stepmom and stepsister treat her, and even more so how her dad treated her. I would’ve tried to woo her myself if I had been in the show.

Kang Ji-Woon

The bad boy/bully type, the enemies-to-lovers trope, the stalker’s enabler. This man constantly looks like a crying wet puppy, but not in a cute way. He tries to look so sad and pitiful, and he’s an asshole from the get go. From the very start where he rolls his eyes and tries to give Ha-Won his watch when she asks him to apologize for not buying all the food he asked her to prepare at the convenience store, and then scoffs and immediately assumes she’d do anything for money (without considering the fact that she’s dead broke and needs money to survive). You think maybe there’s a redemption when he gives her a bouquet of white roses on the memorial day (I forget what the actual name of that day is called) of her mom’s death. And then you see him being a whiny puppy stuck to the second female lead, enabling her stalker tendencies and hating everyone who doesn’t immediately make Hye-Ji happy. He hates Hyun-Min so much that he also decides to pursue Ha-Won just to make him miserable when he thinks they’re engaged, not even caring about how it might make Ha-Won feel. He keeps doing sweet and caring things that make you think “oh she’s finally breaking down his tough exterior”, and then he just turns around and is an asshole again. He abandoned both Ha-Won AND Hye-Ji on the side of the road on separate occasions and then thought just saying “oh sorry” would fix it. I get that his backstory is sad, and I get that Chairman Kang fucked him over and basically forced him to accept the fact that he’s family, but it’s no excuse for the way he treats everyone else. Also, man needs to learn how to comb his hair and maybe take some allergy medication so his eyes stop watering and his nose isn’t always red.

Kang Seo-Woo

The unrequited love, the pop-star, the male best friend trope. I love him, and I hate that the writers barely gave him a chance. He tried so hard so many times to tell Ha-Won that he liked her. He did so many things to care for her, wrote love songs about her, used his status as a pop-star to help draw crowds away from Ha-Won when she was getting bullied by the girls who thought she was Chairman Kang’s mistress, was a genuinely kind person to everyone including Ha-Won’s best friend, and tried so many times to confess. I wish the writers would’ve taken just a couple more lines to have him say “no, Ha-Won, I’m not writing a love song right now, I’m telling you how I genuinely feel about you” and actually given her a chance to consider him. He saw how much Ha-Won hated the spotlight she got while everyone thought she was engaged to Hyun-Min, and he let pictures of himself in a girls uniform go viral just to stop more pictures of Ha-Won from leaking to the press. At any moment, he could’ve just done with Hyun-Min did and asked Ha-Won to play along with the rumors of them dating, but he actually considered Ha-Won’s feelings (glaring at you, Ji-Woon) and lied about his own feelings to protect her. If I had to choose between the Kang cousins, I would choose Seo-Woo.

Kang Hyun-Min

The spoiled rich kid, the playboy, the fake fiancé, the one afraid to actually love, the object of the stalker’s affection. I wish he had been endgame. They set it up so well in the beginning for him to be endgame. You could tell from the moment he saw Ha-Won beat up the assholes at the bar/party for not paying for the pizza delivery, he was developing feelings. He could’ve easily gone back on his bet with his friends and asked any other girl to go to Chairman Kang’s wedding with him, but he chose to go after Ha-Won, and even went all the way to the convenience store just to try and get her attention. His shock at hearing about BOGO deals with the ice cream was honestly cute, and he was kind enough to sit down with Ha-Won and enjoy the ice cream in spite of being raised directly under Chairman Kang (who makes it very clear what he thinks of anyone who isn’t rich), and he’s actually nice to her. At the beginning he still has that playboy attitude, but even after offering her money to be his date (and being turned down, good job Ha-Won for holding true to your values), he still tries. He picks her up for the wedding, opens the door for her, treats her the way a gentleman should treat a lady (win for chivalry!), and gives her a chance to feel as beautiful as she is. He also is very up front and adamant with Hye-Ji that he wants nothing to do with her, but she keeps showing up and trying to make him feel guilty for not still liking her after having a crush on her when they were NINE YEARS OLD, and it’s been 10 years (she bugs the hell out of me but we’ll get to her). Hyun-Min also is thinking of Ha-Won when he asks Chairman Kang and Secretary Lee to keep it secret from the other Kang cousins that Ha-Won isn’t his real fiancé, because he trusts that they wouldn’t try to pull anything on someone who was already in a relationship (fuck you Ji-Woon for taking that personally and making Ha-Won uncomfortable and confused). He keeps Ha-Won company so she won’t be alone, he goes along with her missions until his pride gets in the way, he buys her a whole wardrobe of clothes because she keeps wearing the same tracksuit for god knows how many episodes and just genuinely tries to make her feel comfortable and taken care of so she can focus on the things she actually needs to do instead of just surviving. I wish that he had seen Ha-Won when she got dolled up in that black and blue dress, he would’ve fallen for her all over again. Unfortunately, the writers decided that the “childhood lovers/first love” trope was more important for Hyun-Min and Hye-Ji, and they had him go back to her even though she was being a stalker after he repeatedly said no. Also hella power move that the heir to the Haneul group in his early 20s would go stand before a board of directors and his grandpa’s wife to save his grandpa’s company after being a slacker playboy up until he met Ha-Won. I love him. I wish he had ended up with Ha-Won. Fuck the writers for putting him with his stalker.

Lee Yoon-Sung

The “fourth knight”, the secretary to the chairman, the by the book character. They never even gave him a chance to be considered a Love Interest, so it kept bothering me that they called it “…Four Knights” and then only made 3 of them potential LIs. He is the most efficient and down to earth of all the guys, he does his job exceedingly well, he respects the absolute hell out of Ha-Won and tries his best to make the Kang cousins respect her as well, he’s a master of tae-kwon-do, he’s deeply loyal to the chairman until a bigger issue comes up, and he’s a very obvious fan favorite. I was very disappointed that the writers made him side with Madame Ji even for the time that he did because he had been so against treating her as his mother after she abandoned him with an abusive drunk father 12 years prior, but I am glad his loyalty to the chairman won out. Also very happy that they included him in their friend group at the end, my man needs to learn to relax (but not with alcohol… my emetophobia did not appreciate the end of the drunk dinner…).

Park Hye-Ji

The second female lead. I cannot stand her. I hate that the writers even included her past the first couple episodes, and I hate even more than they ended up letting her win with Hyun-Min. She’s a very “woe is me” character who acts like she’s entitled to everyone’s attention, especially Hyun-Min’s, just because he gave her a ring when they were 9 and her family got along with the Kang family before her brother died. This girl spends 10 years pining over Hyun-Min after she has not seen or heard from him AT ALL in those 10 years, shows up at his house unannounced when he returns to Korea from studying abroad, constantly shows up wherever he is in public and just looks at him all sad and pathetic like he belongs to her and is cheating on her, she’s been told by him numerous times in basically every episode that he does not want her around and that she should give up even to the point where Hyun-Min has to threaten to never acknowledge her again, she hates Ha-Won for being close to Hyun-Min and then later Ji-Woon, she jumps from guy to guy after Hyun-Min’s threat starting with Ji-Woon because she knows it’ll piss off Hyun-Min the most, she assumes anyone who is nice to her must be in love with her and feels personally attacked and betrayed when they’re like “no I’m just a nice person, I don’t have feelings for you”, blames Hyun-Min for her being so sad and depressed when she’s the one who can’t just fucking get over him from when THEY WERE CHILDREN, constantly tries to make moves and get close to Hyun-Min on the trip and after she moves into Haneul House, and then turns around and is like “I never want to see you again” when Hyun-Min tries to treat her more kindly and tries to explain why he was being such a dick to her. And yet they end up together. Because “childhood love/first love” was more important to the writers than the fact that they made the second female lead a self absorbed entitled stalker. The only thing that comes to mind that puts her in a good light was when she let Ha-Won spend the night, but even that was reluctant and she only started being nice after Ha-Won admitted that the engagement was fake. She should’ve just taken the fashion scholarship to Paris and finally gotten out of the Kang’s lives. If she was alone in a foreign country she might actually learn to rely on herself instead of always expecting Hyun-Min or Ji-Woon to come running.

Hong Ja-Yeoung

Seo-Woo’s biggest fan, Ha-Won’s best friend, an absolute cupcake of a character. I want her to be my best friend. It did annoy me that at the beginning of the trip, she left Ha-Won to do stuff alone just because Seo-Woo wasn’t joining them, but my girl has Ha-Won’s back in every other situation. She was even willing to support Ha-Won and Seo-Woo when the scandal article was published saying that they were engaged when they weren’t. She also was determined enough to get close to her favorite pop-star that she came up with a plan to help him escape his fan girls by wearing her school uniform, and she managed to sneak some photos of him crossdressing as well that he later used to help Ha-Won. She’s been there for Ha-Won through everything and did whatever she could to help even though she herself didn’t have much. I am so happy for her that she gets to be part of Seo-Woo’s management team in the end.

Chairman Kang

Classist asshole who values highly skilled and charismatic employees, but continues to treat them like trash if they stop acting like employees. For him, money buys everything including people, and he has almost completely forgotten what it’s like to actually care about someone until Ji-Woon is on his knees in tears begging him to give his blessings to him and Ha-Won, bringing up how the chairman made his mom leave his dad to remind him of the horrible mistake he made in the past. Chairman Kang talks all the time about wanting the Kang cousins to act as a family, but doesn’t even act like a grandpa to them. He acts like a dictator by threatening to cut them off from everyone and everything if they don’t do exactly what he says. He has good instinct not to trust Madame Ji towards the end, but you would think after 4 failed marriages he would have some way of blocking any future wives from trying to take over the company. I’m glad he finally gave Ha-Won his blessing, but just the wrong cousin.

That being said! In spite of the endgame love interest and the stalker, the interactions were pretty cute and it was entertaining. It was much needed after watching Tomorrow. I’m going to acknowledge that canon has Ha-Won with Ji-Woon, but in my mind I will always pair Ha-Won with Hyun-Min or Seo-Woo, and believe that Hye-Ji would actually go away (and STAY away) after Hyun-Min rejected her at the wedding.

[cow-legs]

What are some of your favorite videogames? ♡ ♡ ♡

(extremely long post incoming lol turns out i have a lot of things to say on this subject)

usually i have too hard of a time trying to remember anything i like to have answers for questions like these but thankfully for this one i have answers prepared since this is something i try to think about a lot

realistically if i had to pick one single "favorite videogame" above the rest itd probably just, like, ocarina of time & majora's mask (i'm considering them to be one videogame because i said so, it;s a package deal), just on account of how much of an impact they had on me from an early age combined with just how often i Still go back to revisit them in one way or another, but this is just about the most basic boring answer a person can have for this question unfortunately

thankfully you asked for some of my favorites instead of just one so i can unveil my Actual list of favorites instead of the one that only holds the top spot by technicality and not because i actually like it "the most". all of my favorite games have such a range in style and quality it's hard to really compare them in any meaningful way

anyway

crypt worlds, space funeral, and off-peak are all pretty different games made by very different people but i usually group them together when talking about stuff like this since collectively finding them all back in the day at roughly the same time kind of shaped my perception of indie games as a whole which probably gave me a very weird and skewed perception of the media but who gives a shit really it's a perception i hold dear. (they weren't the first indie games i ever saw of course but they were the most personally impactful ones that made me go "holy shit, this is awesome, you can do literally whatever you want")

they've pretty heavily influenced my own games, too. there have been multiple times i've started a project and then days later realized "wait shit this is just space funeral again. i'm just making space funeral again but slightly to the left. fuuuck" which is a pretty good problem to have i think.

anyway,

gadget: invention, travel, and adventure is an old point and click game i found a few years ago that struck me by just how unique feeling its atmosphere is. strange looking people turn to you and say even stranger sounding things, the soundtrack feels like its having a nervous breakdown, the main character is given so few meaningful decisions/actions (read: basically none) by the people around them that it can barely be considered a game at all…it is a very fascinating experience, and one that i think back to a lot

i like Your Turn To Die a lot and am very excited to see how it ends, though i feel like i don't have too much to say on it here. one of those games that has me going "oh man i should draw more fanart for that one of these days" every time i'm reminded of it only to then remember that i Can't Fucking Draw right now lmao

myhouse.wad is something that extremely deserves to go on this list but a large part of my brain is telling me not to just because somewhere along the line i fucked up and became allergic to anything that has ever recently become popular & trendy on youtube because i don't want to look like a poser even though literally no one but me cares about where i hear about these things so i can only bring myself to include it if i also state that i played it BEFORE it was cool &all the streamers started covering it like some kind of shameful hipster. but for real though its awesome, very inspiring stuff. i wish my brain did not force me to want to distance myself from it for literally no good reason. fucking ocarina of time is on this list why is this the thing that makes you afraid of looking like a normie

i have a lot of appreciation for myst in a kind of "i've never played more than 5 minutes of this nor have i even bothered to watch a playthrough of it but i understand what you have done for me and the games i love that came after you" kind of way. i have purchased 3 different copies of it over the years as well as a copy of riven and i don't intend on playing any of them anytime soon. great game, probably. i wouldn't know.

i like a lot of kitty horrorshow's games but i don't really know what my favorite would be. lethargy hill is probably the one i think about most often though.

i like (the steam version of) dwarf fortress a lot and have been trying to play it more often. it is very funny having 80 hours in a game and still not feeling like you understand half the mechanics in it. figuring it out as i go along has been fun though. in a similar vein i also like elden ring a lot and despite being at over 160 hours on that one i still haven't beaten it. i need to get back to it before the dlc comes out but i stopped playing for so long that most of my muscle memory is gone…

for something much more recent than all of the above, absolutely perfect specimen is something really incredible that gave me a lot of stuff to think about, though it can be a little hard to recommend since it's extremely 18+ and has a whole big list of content warnings you definitely need to take heed of. extremely interesting work though, i like it a lot.

i'm running out of things to list off and should probably stop just for the sake of time even if there is more shit that deserves mentioning so i'll just end it off with CLONE ON NET YAROZE BABYYYYYY LET'S FUCKIN GO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 💯💪🙌💥💯💯

[chevvy-yates]

[NC_RES]-31102049-EUR-GER scharfenberg_g_portraits_015_3_KBI-DA_WA.file ///core:_ryder_von_scharfenberg.file\\\

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⚠️ READ: Please do not repost/reupload any of my art here or to any other platform, or I will be forced to do anything to get it annihilated.

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Ryder's theme playlist.

Beware – long text passages behind the cut.

I've tried to shorten it but it's somehow gotten to a character eassy. So maybe save it for later and read it when you got time for it if Ryder really interests you. He is so dear to me and so complex I try to explain him with the help of this song collection for you to underline and understand his character better. I just lack of explaining it in a short way.

Blade Runner His main theme. It is no such wonder I chose a Blade Runner (end) title for him, because when I look at Ryder I always say to myself "You're my one true Cyberpunk 2077 character" — and Blade Runner basically is the foundation of this amazing yet dystopian future noir genre after all. I've always found the music in the original movie tremendously moving and mysterious in a way I've never experienced before. And so is Ryder to me: mysterious and evocative. A book I had and still have to read, to find out who he is. If you do not know him, you can only speculate who and what he is. He's that dark character, that looks frightening and bleak to you, stares at you until you look away. You may want to, but you can't stop looking at his drawing presence. Yet it is a mask he wears or rather is also forced to wear, because behind all this mystery is his true character savely kept for VIP only. The drums in this song represent he might be the dangerous sinister type whilst the synthesizer gives this overall beautiful and mysterious tune surrounding him, that feels somehow more chilling than dangerous. Yet there's still a hint of threat in that song because of its continuous fast paced cadence. If you could see the world through Ryder's eyes, it looks exactly like in Blade Runner, a city full of neon lights but in a mere monotone way — darker, less saturated, even at day because skyscrapers block the sunlight down in the streets. Buildings built onto buildings, lots of (acid) rain pouring down daily. Ryder knows how this world, he was born into, works. It is reigned by corrupt rich Corpos wanting nothing but power absorbing every small independent corporation, reign over people, don't tell what goes on behind the curtains because the lesser folk doesn't need to know (cloning/human meat theory, soul killer program, black wall etc.) — the rich don't care what happens to them. They are only interested in their money and consumption behaviors. At the same time Ryder knows what's going on down in the streets because he walks amongst them voluntarily. He sees the misery that is going on, people are mostly poor and barely can make a living if they don't devote their whole lives to working for the big ones. Humans become more and more synthetic, so much that the rise of cyberpsychosis is getting higher and higher and becoming more problematic than ever as they can not control it anymore while AI reigns the net, controlling an entire population (including himself) in a subtextual way. I don't want to compare Ryder exactly with Blade Runner. His job is not to hunt down bioengineered humanoids. He's a merc who hunts down those bad for this city and the entire world to make it a better place. He knows that the original vision of Night City was something entirely different and he's got hope that it can still be put on the right track. He devotes himself to this, as a merc, fighting that what he once was supposed to be too, but never felt like he belonged into: power-hungry Corpos like his father. Ryder's weapons are blades and he runs them into the flesh of his enemies — therefore: Blade Runner. If you listen closely at the end you'll also hear rain and a breath before it ends. Fits so to Ry.

Mesa Another Blade Runner (2049) song. It is calm, yet still mysterious right from the start, lingering, single piano tunes make it sound threatening but also interesting that you want to listen further. Then it gets bright, and nice, warm even, turning into a beautiful melody. Ryder’s personality is exactly like that melody. He doesn't trust anyone right from the start. But when he feels he can do that and decides to let someone in, he opens up towards you. He's not the mean guy, it is quite the contrary: he's got a heartwarming personality, a lower voice with a certain softness in itself that makes you wish he would read you a good night story. But this takes time, and you should let him decide when that time is. Because yet that song bears a threatening moment towards the end: suddenly it gets awfully loud and sounds even alerting — that is when Ryder's mood suddenly snaps. He gets mean even to a point where anger turns up from zero to hundred — it only takes a stupid commentary at the wrong time. Beware when it happens and choose your further proceeding carefully — because there is something lingering inside him that likes to have him angry.

Let Me Out is the song that represents that something inside him he started calling 'Bad Enduring (&) Aggressing Sinister Termination' (program) or in short: 'BEAST'* at a certain point in his and the teams story because it is what it forces him to do: do evil (bad) — in his eyes it definitely is because in a lot of cases he does not want to act this way. It is constantly (enduring) haunting him. It happens in a very assaulting (aggressing) way. And it is scaring (sinister) him as well. It only ends with death (termination) for his opponent while he is lucky to have survived each time. He doesn't know how it looks (it is mostly a distorted shadow with sharp teeth) and where it came from, but it is a daily and constant knock-knock that says: "Time to be angry. Now where is that hunger to kill? I know you want it. Fetch me their souls. Hey! — I'm here, don't you ignore me! Let me out! They harmed you. Kill them. Let me help. Let me out! Let me kill! Let me kill them all!" That song exactly does that: having a constant knocking-like beat. It never stops except for a few seconds accompanied by various other threatening dark and strange sounds making you slowly go crazy. Ryder is dealing with this constant pounding almost daily. It never lets him alone, since it first showed up in 2070 and took a part of control when he had his first rampage damaging his own furniture at home. He noticed that his anger grew as soon as he moved to Night City and it's gotten worse over time. First he thought it was because of the constant violation and degradation he received from his family, but he is sure this plays only a minor part now, since he cut ties with his Corpo life about seven years ago. He assumes the source must be something else or the only explanation left could be he’s close to end up becoming a cyberpsycho. Aware of that he chose to fight it even more. There are times he is able to completely ignore it, and he finds some peace when he is listening to his favorite music, passes out or is sleeping because thankfully he's got a very deep sleep at last. Carrying it always with him, he got used to living with it though, but lately (2078) it seems to have received an update that made it stronger than ever (it also makes him stronger in fights) and it frightens him more than ever. It bears one of his greatest fears: him hurting those around him he loves because he can’t remain in control over it anymore. And he knows he's a threat and a burden to his team as well once it happens. But Vijay insists that Ry stays part of it and promised to help him no matter what. *I want to underline that beast is not my idea. The overall AI idea is part of @nervouswizardcycle's (Void Jester) story, we just happened to work it out so my boys fit better in and named it beast one day. I like the thought for Ryder giving it the name BEAST, all caps, as written above because he will describe it to other people as that but he doesn't know it is an AI program controlling him. Finding out about it is gonna be mindblowing. A fun fact: he could just frigging leave Night City and be free from it because it is only tied to it. Hilarious.

Berlin represents one of the many songs Ryder simply loves: good, (extra) hard, dark and loud techno beats giving him the best thrills with the ability to stimulate his senses so that he falls into a trance only concentrating on moving along to the beat: raving until his stamina completely fails of exhaustion. He can do it for hours — his stamina is incredibly high through years and years of raving almost every night until the sun goes up. He's been on 24h raves many times. There's nothing better than those hard beats for him. Not only can he vent his anger through it, that music lets him forget this mad world for a while, gives him freedom for the time being — it's just him moving along with the beat. All he wants is to rave until he can't anymore. He doesn't even drink beer then, just water to stay hydrated. But there's another important reason why his heart beats for those techno/dark wave beats: it overshadows the BEAST's constant pounding, so he won't hear it for the time being. The BEAT of various songs literally BEATS the BEAST here. You could also say in a way he trained to hear the BEAST as some constant techno song (which also explains why he's constantly fidgety — imagine having a 24/7 techno beat in your head and what you would do). Also the title "Berlin" is chosen because it was in Berlin when Ryder first came into contact with his favorite music. A lot of good memories are tied to it. He's the opinion that Germany makes the best Techno(ise) (it is even mentioned in the CP lore books as well, yup).

Berzerker + Don't You Know Who I Am I certainly wish these two songs could melt into one. I tried to choose only one but for me one can't do it justice without the other. However, they represent Ryder's battle/fight theme. I've already mentioned them in a tag game post a while ago, but here we go again: 'Berzerker' is similar to Let me Out but harder and faster, so it can be seen as when Ryder is fighting yet still remains in control, slicing his Mantis blades through the flesh of his enemies while his Berserk operating system, Zetatech Berserk Mk.5, is activated. It boosts him up with an immense strength and resilience, increases his melee damage and receiving hits only make him stronger and more powerful. The song gets wilder in between when he's going into a killstreak having beast mode activated, dealing a huge amount of damage. Since his blades are standard with no effect they only deal physical damage with a high possibility for bleeding and dismembering. Depending on how hard the enemy ist, how long the fighting takes and how annoying they are to him, the chance to go literally berserk becomes critically high: he will slowly lose control with BEAST now taking over. It literally consumes him for the time being and all he sees is black and white with red shadowy distorted figures that are enemies and friends all together (robots and drones do not appear as distorted shadows at all though). That is when the song 'Don't You Know Who I Am' takes over: Ryder turns into his total unstoppable berserk mode killstreak — you better stay away from him. The raging screams in this song represent his sheer anger as he charges towards his target while the sound of blades can be imagined as he's slicing his sharp blades through everything and everyone in a total blind rage. The song is also very fast paced. Ryder has no Sandevistan but he's fast and versatile when it comes to running and parcouring and even dodging. His reaction reflex is trained constantly for years and he keeps his body agile.

Mörder This is another song I found way later when I've already written all of this post here but these lyrics hit so into the guts because they are so point — they describe how he sees himself concerning his out of control being: that he's a monster and a murderer. The lyrics are in German though: Dann steh ich vor einem Plakat und lese, Was ich getan habe, Und lese und lese: das habe ich getan? Aber ich weiß doch von gar nichts! Aber wer glaubt mir denn, wer weiß denn, Wie's in mir aussieht, wie es schreit Und brüllt da drinnen, Wie ich es tun muss... will nicht Muss... will nicht... muss! Aber ich, kann ich denn, kann ich denn anders? Hab' ich denn nicht dieses Verfluchte in mir, Das Feuer, die Stimme, die Qual? Ich will davon, vor mir selber davonlaufen! Aber ich kann nicht, kann mir nicht entkommen, Muss, muss den Weg gehen, den es mich jagt. Muss rennnen, rennen endlose Straßen... Ich will weg, ich will weg... Und mit mir rennen die Gespenster Müttern und Kindern. Sie gehen nie mehr weg, sie sind immer da, Immer, immer, immer! Nur nicht wenn ich's tue here is a translation via translator. Ryder isn't proud to always leave a mess of pool of blood, organs and dead literally shredded bodies behind. It scares him as well a lot of times as soon as he is coming back to his senses again. He doesn't remember what he's done, all he sees is the mess that's left around him. You could say he has gotten used to it with the years passing by since he learned to live with it, but since it got even worse it frightens him more than ever. He judges himself heavily thinking he's not better than those out there doing bad to harmless people even tho he kills only the bad ones. He also wishes to be more like Vijay (V is more you shall not kill orientented and leaves the badboy for the NCPD). It's Ryder's greatest wish that BEAST vanishes one day the same way it showed up, so that he is able to use his blades with a rather normal behavior instead of tearing everyone apart. He does not enjoy this kind of killing but he's got no choice, being unable to withstand the hunger to kill driven by BEAST turning him into a killer. Even Vijay could not help him, when he started looking into it. The only thing he can help with is to prevent the worst happening by resetting Ryder's Berserk System, so that he stops raging blindly. During this phase he will pass out for an undetermined amount of time and be vulnerable to his enemies. So it can only be activated when Ryder's safety is assured and another team member (also a reason why V wants more team members) can jump in fast to his side because Vijay is often too far away for him (Ryder's personal wish). Ryder gets a lot ofhelp by the team. Arki is dealing with similar to same problems but he remains in control. Arki sees a big threat in Ryder at first but as they get to know each other he understands Ry and offers his help to train how to focus and to stay calm. Thyjs joining in as the last one will do everything to help him. He's mostly back up to protect Ryder when he needs to be knocked out, giving Arki more room to concentrate on their enemy because he doesn't need to protect him anymore since Thyjs takes that role now.

Shake the Disease important mention: I did not choose the song because of the lyrics. I chose it because of its melody, which is why I went for an instrumental version made by someone else instead. So I would prefer you just blend out this is a Depeche Mode song (if you know it). Because if I'd chosen that because of the lyrics, netlords — I'd have to write something entirely different here now. That melody in this song stands for Ryder's good mood. Moments when he feels happy, content and simply has a very good time, completely forgetting about his troubles and worldly problems. Moments he spends with the team in the Afterlife having good talks. Moments of fun that conjure a bright grin on his lips. The melody sounds promising and accentuates that Ryder has already worked a lot on his selfesteem so he can be content with himself and proud of what he has achieved so far. He took his life in his own hands, chose who he wanted to be, that he got further away from having self destructive thoughts. This life of his was not lost, not hopeless. It is promising. He only needed a true friend (Vijay) who opened his eyes to see the world from a different angle – it is also why it sounds so close to Vijay’s themes (both like listening to Depeche Mode). Life is precious and you should enjoy every day while you still can. Ryder doesn’t know what happens to him, his future is unwritten with that raging anger inside him, but he does the best to enjoy it as much as he is able to (and he will get rid of this thing for sure so he don't has to kill anymore). He deserves happiness and does not give up to seek it which can only be achieved with this nesting demon inside him gone for once and all.

Memories of Green A calm song – another Blade Runner score one as well – it is one of those rare moments when everything seems calm for a while, presented by the piano. Yet there's still sounds wanting to distract. It stands for, that Ryder really wishes to concentrate fully on the piano, to take in its soothing melody, but has a bit of a hard time to blend out everything else around him. Some of these noises could also be done by his inner Beast to gain attention again. The piano stands for Thyjs as well, since Thy was taught to play piano. Ryder loves to listen to him playing some tunes a lot, it lets him forget almost everything, it's some balm for his never resting soul. He never thought he would enjoy classical music either — only with Thyjs he discovers it for the first time. So these are moments he tries to enjoy as much and as long as he can. Thyjs is going to mean the world to him. He has a natural gift to calm Ryder down similar to Vijay before but in a different way and Ryder will protect him as much as he protects his best friend all the time. He is more than thankful that Thyjs values him all the way he is, not caring he's murdered more than hundreds of living beings in the most cruel and agitating ways. It's because Thyjs can relate to it in a way since he was turned into being a killing machine trough Militech. He offers his help as well and does anything for him. Ryder never thought that after V he could fall this hard for someone else again. But Thyjs is the one. The calm center of the storm capable to handle the hot-headed angry man Ryder is, seeking peace he will find one day for sure.

heavy-heart.jpg

If you read all through here. I simply cannot give you enough kudos for it! Besten Dank! <3

[r1caner]

is this a safe space to admit that I hate Henry Cheng.

like probably more than I've hated any other fictional character that isn't intentionally an antagonist.

FIRST OF ALL. lets just get it out of the way. ill acknowledge im a freak about bluesey so bluechengsey and it's rampantness makes me want to kill myself.

BUT. I just hate that bitch I don't know he feels like a watered down more dickish version of gansey.

Plus the way he was written im not the biggest fan of but its not his fault. I won't hold it against him but it doesn't mean I love him for it either.

idk I feel like he was introduced sort of late and he was so unnecessary.

Plus I just have such a bone to pick that blue actually likes him. her ass isn't going to the next town over with that bitch much less Venezuela. I feel like she was just written to like him because what? he helped her and the group? because hes sort of like gansey?

the thing about gansey and blue is that gansey is the OPPOSITE of what blue would like, and what she THINKS she would like. that's why the transition from her liking Adam to gansey is so significant. Adam is who she's expected to like because hes like her. because its what she thought, too. but gansey has a way of surprising people, sneaking up on them with his goodness.

actually, genuinely liking gansey happens because of the small things that make him him. and it happens pretty slow. she only really finds things she's fond of or interested in about him most of the way through the first book. halfway through the second she's only acknowledging he has a nice mouth and he's one of her raven boys. in the same way that RONAN is (who she is never romantically involved with and only [at least at that point] barely friends with [which makes me upset more Ronan blue scenes!!!!!]) and of course she's starting to harbor romantic feelings for gansey but like. of Course she is. curse and their mutual understanding of wanting to see more and be more and their connections with magic and each other that they're building.

and you expect me to believe Blue starts liking Henry (now I mean this in the way of liking him enough to be friends with him but it can also be interpreted romantically because its even MORE crazy and extreme [IN A BAD WAY] in that sense) after like two times of meeting him and one of those being at a stupid fucking toga party with a bunch of dickheads? Nah. she only went to that and imo only enjoyed herself because of gansey. because that's his effect.

its the things that make gansey gansey that draws blue to him. its his passion about glendower and doing what's right - his whole fucking quest for glendower came to him because he was told it as he was dead/dying/coming back to life, because he felt there was an injustice that his life was given to him while another was unfairly taken. he has this passion that makes him who he is, which is so probably what sets him apart from the freaks at aglionby.

(sidenote - everything about what gansey has experienced makes him the version of himself that he is which is why it's hard to believe he would be the way he is in any other scenario or universe. the things we go through change us, especially when those things include dying and being met with terrifying forces of energy and magic. Helen turned out okay but also she is older than he is and I hate to say it a woman. Not to be a crazy man hater but lets be real I feel like we would all be worse people had we been obscenely rich teenage boys surrounded by the likes of kavinsky and those people. could easily be terrible.)

gansey is imperfect and he fucks up a lot but it's not out of some insistence to be like the other boys he's around. hes just kind of dumb. so intelligent but so dumb. he's rich and he's 70 in a 17 year old body and he's overly friendly and polite and sounds like old money and doesn't really understand anything else. its the way he is and its so GANSEY like there's no other way to describe it. he is gansey and he is so interesting. because of how he hides himself because of how he is a million things at once at how he can not grasp what exactly to do or say but be so understanding because of his kindness because of his passion. that's why blue likes him, that's why basically everybody likes him. and gansey likes everybody, talks to everybody, so he likes and talks to Henry.

but why would the rest of them, ESPECIALLY blue?

Henry is just that watered down, less interesting version of gansey - intelligent but dumb, rich and overly friendly - but without all of the things that make him interesting or good. hes loud and not in a fun way. hes in your face and hes helpful but it doesn't suddenly make him less annoying or more enjoyable to be around. and especially consider the people he surrounds himself with lol. he didn't have a great upbringing (as far as I remember) BUT REMEMBER WHO RAISED ADAM FUCKING PARRISH LIKE BE FOR REAL.

it makes no sense that blue would like him. Like sure hes not a dirtbag like some other raven boys, like kavinsky or anybody. but hes not one of blue's boys.

idk it really irks me when people include him in gangsey OR WORSE replace Noah with him. Grinds my freaking gears. Noah's my guy my boy

but I don't know im in the process of rereading so maybe ill miraculously like him when im reintroduced ( ijbol🤣!).

[puppiesandnightlock]

Snapping One, Two, Where Are You?

yea yea laugh at the name but haonestly i think i did pretty good with this one-shot!

The wind rustled the grass, drawing attention to the single flower in the field. It was a magnificent shade of royal blue. The breeze shook a few petals loose, carrying them along to a small house with a large garage. 

   “Almost done.” The little fox grunted, pulling off his goggles. He was young, and if not given the circumstances, he should have been asleep. He sorted out his tools, putting them away for the night. Not that he’d sleep anyways. 

“Go to bed, little buddy.” A chuckle rang in his ears. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m….going?“ his lighthearted reply trailed off as he swiveled around, eyes meeting with nothing but empty air. 

“You need sleep.” He mumbled to himself. “You’re delusional and talking to yourself.”

The wind blew in, scattering the photos laying around, seemingly hidden. The teen scrambled to pick them up. His eyes were screwed shut, trying to avoid looking at them. As he picked them up, he was overwhelmed with voices, scenes, the memories, screaming at him.

“Nice work, bud!”

“We got this!” 

“Ok Mister Smarty pants, then you do it!”

“I love ya, little bro.” 

The tears poured down his face as the grief finally released after being held in. 

“SHUT UP!! ITS. NOT. REAL.”  He tried to force it down, console himself after months of agony. 

“HE’S GONE!!” 

A single blue petal landed on a picture. It was simple, similar to all the others. Sonic’s arm around his shoulders, ruffling his bangs.

But it was enough. He ran out, no idea where he was going, all he knew was that he needed to get out. 

At one point he stumbled, sobbing. 

“HE’S DEAD!” the distraught teen shrieked, kneeling over in the field. 

“Sonic’s dead…”

The thing haunting him for months on end had finally escaped. 

He began to run again, the tears flying. He stopped to breathe at a large tree on the cliff side.

His hands hit the ground, painting streaks of green on his grease stained gloves. 

“Why? Why did you go?” He wailed.

The kit, barely fourteen, had lost his big brother, his closest friend, his only family.

His mind flashed to the way he had had to hold it together that day,  to be strong for everyone else. Even though no one was watching, at home he still wouldn’t let himself cry. He threw his grief into his work, bottling the emotions.

The unchecked grief, welling anger, depression, had created a storm inside of him that caterwauled, begging the question, what is there to live for?

    The toes of his shoes hung off the edge. Rock crumbled from underneath. Could he? Was it really worth it? 

Anything, he decided. Anything to see his brother again. Anything to end this horrible pain. He took a deep breath.

And

Stepped-

“HEY! Hey kid, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” A voice caught him from behind, making him step back. 

The fox didn’t turn. 

“Shadow. Why are you here?”

“A better question is why are you?”

“Clearing my head.” was the cold response.

“Last I checked clearing heads did not include purposefully walking off cliffs.”

This struck the teen the wrong way. 

“Go away, Shadow. Stop acting like a saint.”

His fists clenched and Shadow sighed.

“Look kid..I know where you are. I’ve been there plenty myself. But you, you’re young, smart. You got your whole life ahead of you. So much to live for.” 

The teen let out a dry chuckle.

“And that’s where you’re wrong. My reason for living? He’s gone. He raised me. Taught me to be better. Encouraged me, loved me. Sonic gave me a fighting chance. And in the end, that’s what cost him.”

The tears dripped down his muzzle, back turned to the ebony hedgehog. He felt a hand on his shoulder, gripping tightly.

“Faker regretted a few things in his life, he told me so himself. But one thing I know he never regretted was choosing your life over his. He still loves you, Tails. And he wants you to live your life to the fullest.”

“How can I, Shadow?” His voice cracked. 

“How can I, knowing I’m the reason he’s not here right now? Knowing I’m the reason I’ll never see him finally fess up to Amy, that no one will hear his voice again, never watch him and Knux duke it out for fun? No one to come home to, no one to share my ideas with….if he’s not here for me, who will be?”

Shadow turned him around and shook him by the shoulders. 

“Are you serious? You have Rose, and Knuckles, Silver, Blaze, Cream, Rouge, hell, you even have ME. We’re all trying to keep you afloat kid. You’re the only one wanting to drown. And trust me.” 

His voice softened. “If Sonic were here instead of you, I’d still be having this exact same conversation, in the exact same place.”

The tears began to flow again without abandon, the teen sobbing hysterically. Shadow held him, a pang of sadness hitting him as he relived the point in time when a certain blue hedgehog had found him just like this. 

Once the fox had calmed a bit, Shadow began to grin. “Y’know, you were wrong about one thing.”

“W-what’s that?” 

“Before he went in to grab you, he kissed Amy smack on the lips, saying, and I quote, “Sorry I never told you how much I really loved you. When you see me again, remind me that I owe you a date.””

Tails chuckled weakly. “I knew it’d happen one day…” 

“Shadow?” The fox spoke up again.

“Hmm?” 

“How…how do you make the pain go away?”

Shadow exhaled, thinking a bit.

“It never really goes away. You just learn how to cope.”

“I miss him...so much.”

They stayed under the big tree for a bit, taking the minute to think about what they’d lost.

A brother.

A hero.

A friend.

Shadow felt warm weight on his shoulder. The little fox had fallen into the clutches of sleep, the events of the night exhausting him. Shadow sighed, and looked to the sky.

“You picked a real shitty way to go, Faker.”

The blue petals swirled around them in the wind, a few landing on tails. 

‘I know. Thank you for saving him.’ It seemed to say. ‘Please, take care of him. He needs someone.’

Shadow smiled. He could practically see him, hugging tails, brushing his bangs whil he slept.

Picking up the fox, he made his way back to the house. “You always did enjoy making me do your work for you.”

“I suppose if there is a heaven, say hello to Maria for me….”

this was based on a comic titled 'On the Topic of Grief' by @draconicdeityarts

hope u enjoyed if u actually got this far XD

[shallow-wordsalad]

"hello world"

not since the vaunted days of myspace has my old ass ever considered having a blog, much less post anything on it. I think maybe as I've gotten older I just want somewhere to say things and hopefully someone will say something like "I feel that" or generally agree with my vague and unspecified and untargeted ramblings - this included.

it's the early days of 2023, and I've been alive for far longer than I expected to be, and yet I feel like I haven't created or said or imposed any impact on the world around me. aside from a very small group of close friends, I barely communicate anything to anyone, and that makes me feel very transparent and insubstantial. not that I have much of a unique experience to share, I guess. I don't have anything making me exceptional in regards to success or failure; no grand story of triumph or tales of misery based on forces I can't control. I don't know if that says anything about me except that I'm boring, and I don't suffer the problems that warrant having a platform to speak on, but maybe someone someday will also feel like they're boring and relate and I guess that would feel pretty nice. maybe that's ambitious of me to assume.

I want to leave things here that I want written down. I do a lot of creative writing around OCs and tabletop games, and I used to draw a lot so maybe this will motivate me to try picking up a pencil again. for lack of a place to draw, I stopped doing it, so I hope maybe in keeping a blog I can keep myself from losing interest in writing as well. everyday it feels a bit like I'm losing grip on things I used to enjoy - things I still do enjoy - simply because they become troublesome to pursue.

this blog is as much a diary as it is a reminder to myself to do things I like doing, even if they're bothersome. maybe I'll discover something I'm good at in keeping it. maybe not. in either case, here I am - to some measure of "here" and "I".

[tonytylerdraws]

August Newsletter - Artist of Nothing 002

So far this month

Brushes

I’m still in the process of finalizing the design of the image, but I want to share Ibis Paint custom brushes. A lot art tutorials and resources lean heavily into Procreate and Clip Studio Paint; not too many focus on Ibis Paint X, which is the drawing app I use. So, in addition to brushes, I hope I can also share tutorials as well.

Worked on Website

I worked a bit on my website, which has been up and running for awhile now. I am one of those people who can never stick with a single design. I think my old Synaptic Misfiring website went through 5 redesigns, and I barely drew that webcomic for 5 years.

Art I’ve done

I finished pieces of art, all in Ibis Paint. The pixel art was inspired by Pokémon and the work of Brandon James Greer.

July Recap

Took a social media break

About mid-July I was realizing that I wasn’t really spending work on a lot of the stuff I had wanted to. And in fact, most of 2024 I hadn’t spent working on things. I thought it was The Funk (which it was) but I was also spending a lot of time on social media. And with social media being as broken as it is nowadays, I was putting more hours in to get the same sort of enjoyment that I was getting back in 2019.

So I deleted apps off my phone and just…existed. I didn’t try to force myself draw or work on art, or get into a productivity fugue state. I really put a lot of thought into how I was using social media, both in my personal life and with my semi-pro art life.

A lot of my social media use was due to habit; I would go to Tumblr, then Instagram, and then back to Tumblr, etc. None of it was fulfilling. None of it gave me anything of substance. I can’t tell you any of the posts I’ve actually liked. Or why I follow an artist. I just did things.

And this lead me to look how I was using social media for my art. I wasn’t getting engagement, whether it was comments, shares or likes. So why was I making art FOR social media. Why was I making a piece of art specifically for Instagram if it wasn’t going to perform well? Why appease an algorithm that doesn’t care about me.

So I ended up changing my whole approach not to just social media, but also my art life. It’s about making art first, and then making content from that art, rather than making art as content. It’s the difference between recording myself drawing and making a short form video instead of recording myself making art specifically from a short video.

It also means I don’t need to worry about posting 5 days a week in order to get engagement. Social media is broken, so why try and use it as a central part of my workflow

I’m hoping that this will help me feel better not just about making art, but also sharing it through social media.

Rest of August

Exploring other platforms

I’m looking at Cara, Telegram, Snapchat and other non-algorithmic platforms, while at the same time not being platform-dependent. Platforms aren’t safe anymore; look what happened to Patreon in the last few days.

Store

I’m in the process of finalizing my products. All print-on-demand for now, and starting small. I definitely will be trying some digital downloads.

Find me elsewhere on the web, including Substack! See you next month.

[adventures-of-the-creeping-bam]

NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: THE ADVENTURES OF THE CREEPING BAM,  BOOK TWO: ONE COLD TRAIL - CHAPTER 29

If you’re new to the story, please go check out Book 1 first …

Book 2 Chapter 1 is here …

IMPORTANT:  Please note this story includes content that may be considered mature, such as moderate battle violence, some strong language and occasional mild sexual scenes.

If you want to support my writing, feel free to swing by my Patreon or Ko-fi.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:  SHAYLINE

The first hood lunges at me as I’m still dragging my sword from the back of my last kill and I have no chance of parrying, so I just tumble backwards instead. They start to stumble as their momentum takes them clear through where I would have been and they hit nothing, they’re just not quick enough to stop themselves in time.  But the other two are quick in reacting, and now I’m flat on my back, prone on the ground and essentially at their mercy.

Neither of them are willing to give me a chance to recover, but the one advantage I have is that they’re coming at me from in front, so they can’t both attack me at the same time.  The first one comes in to stab me but so does the second, and they’re clearly not coordinating their attack because they immediately get tangled up and it just devolves into a shoving match.  By which point I’m already rolling to the side so I can clear a little distance.

Right, not time for anything fancy here, I just have to get back in the fight before the two other remaining attackers who’ve come for me can get their shit together.  Drawing my knees up fast and snap my feet forward hard as I shove myself up off the ground with my shoulders, a risky movement that I’ll admit I’ve have had fail almost as often as it succeeds.  Thankfully my luck holds out this time and I’m on my feet again in a simple whip-snap, and as I start to straighten one of my original attackers gets their shit together enough to just shove the other one out of their way and come at me.

Just in time to run headlong onto my blade as I thrust it forward.  I catch them just below their throat and there’s barely any resistance at all as the blade severs their spine, and their whole body just goes limp while their eyes are still widening above their simple cloth mask.  I yank the blade free fast and the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, which is enough to warn me I’ve got another attack coming from behind.

Simply sidestepping the lunge as it comes, I turn after planting my backfoot and sweep my sword up, catching them low under their thrusting arm and cutting right up through them, the blade meeting even less resistance from their simple leather armour than with full plate.  The sword whips out just under their shoulder-blades and the top part of their body just seems to slough off while they’re still moving forward, their steps growing clumsy and uncoordinated as they start to come apart. Meanwhile their other arm just falls away separately from just below their shoulder, the long knife in their other hand still caught in a death-grip.  Deep down that rational part of me can’t help wondering if he actually even realised what just happened to him as he started to fall apart …

Keeping my momentum going, I spin to meet the next one as they try to rush me on my side while they think I’m still distracted with the last one, but my brain’s working too quick for them to catch me out.  I batter their longsword aside as they try to swing it at me, then just plant one foot forward before I step right into them, putting my offhand side forward and just barging them full-force with my shoulder.  They’re a good four inches shorter and definitely of slighter build, there’s really no contest in it, and they just go flying.

Two left now, looks like.  The first one charges me while I’m still turning and I prepare to dodge the attack since that’s going to be safer for me than to try and parry it while I’m still adjusting … then a swift-moving lance of white light just seems to smash into them and they’re blown hard to the side, flying a good ten feet and turning a full cartwheel in the air before they crash down in the long grass. Barely the space of a blink later a squat, dark figure races into my vicinity, already winding up the brightly blazing silvered warhammer in his hands as he charges the one remaining hood. Having seen what Krakka’s capable of with the weapon he lovingly calls Bloodmoon before, I just take a big step back and give him all the room I can to let him swing.

The poor bastard doesn’t even know what hits them.  Krakka’s mighty haymaker catches them low in their leading side as they come in before they quite realise the new threat, so they have no opportunity to respond as the hammer just smashes into their side.  They fold, that’s the only way I can describe it – Bloodmoon smashes into them and its glowing white head flares for a moment and their whole body just seems to snap around it as the momentum of Krakka’s swing takes them off their feet.  For a beat or so it’s almost like they’re smeared across the hammer’s head, then they fly off as he finally checks his movement, and the crumpled, broken remnants of what was once a person simply spirals away.

“Thorin …”  I breathe low, a little taken aback by that.

Krakka pauses for a moment, turning to look up at me now as he starts to lower his hammer.  It takes me a beat to realise the blood that’s speckling Bloodmoon’s head seems to be sizzling as the light of Serena burns it off.  The raindrops are hissing too as they hit the silvered steel, which fascinates me in a rather morbid kind of way right now given what I’ve just noticed with the blood.  “Sorry …” he finally responds  “It occurs to me now that you may have already had that handled.”

“Does it?”  I’m a moment catching up with him, I think.  “Oh, right … no, really, the assistance is appreciated.”

Movement on my right catches my attention now, and I turn to see the one I barged to the ground finally getting back up, dragging their longsword up.  I was right, they are smaller than me, but then it’s simply because I’m pretty tall for a half-elf, and by most standards this one could be considered pretty average.  Lean, wiry built, but there’s strength there, it seems.  Must be given how hard I hit them and they’re still getting up so easily.  If I hurt them much at all it’s not showing now.

Then I see they’re wearing a carved, paint-patterned grey wolf mask and I make the connection at last – this is Tog, the young gang leader that the boy mentioned earlier.  He’s the one that Gael tangled with yesterday, I remember.  They one that got away by the skin of his teeth thanks to the wizard.  Still alive, then.  Maybe they haven’t made the connection to Gael getting his blood yet … or maybe they just don’t care.

Tog straightens up a little more as he registers the two of us together now, Krakka starting to heft his hammer again as he steps away from me now so he can start flanking.  The man in the wolf mask simply raises his sword one-handed, slow and easy as he steps onto his backfoot, and there’s no clear worry in him even though he’s effecting a very clear, wary guard against an expected attack.  I remember what Gael said about him before – when they fought, she got the impression he’s good.  Maybe very good.  And now my own competitive side starts clamouring for a chance to find out just how good.

“Do you want assistance with this one, Shay?”  Krakka enquires after a moment, finally remembering himself, I suspect. I chance a quick sidelong glance at him and he’s half watching me too, a little expectant, perhaps.

I try not to smile too wolfishly as I fix my gaze on that mask, but I really can’t help myself.  I think Tog’s gotten an idea of just how good I actually am now from seeing me annihilate his companions.  “No, but thank you all the same, Krakka.  I imagine I should be just fine on my own here.”  I glance up past Tog now, and a great flashing peel of lightning from what might be right outside the building this time, since the thunder cracks at the exact same moment and everything seems to shake with violence around us, lights up the giant hole in the wall. “Maybe you should go find Big Man, though.  Given what’s still going on back there I suspect we may still need him.”

“You’re sure?”  When I chance another little glance Krakka’s fully focused on Tog now, and he’s gripping Bloodmoon with clear, raw intent.  He wants this fight as much as I do.

“Oh yes, quite sure.”  I adjust my own stance now, drawing sideways so I’m now presenting a profile to Tog as I set my backfoot at an angle behind me.  Of course this also puts my back to Krakka.  “This one shouldn’t give me any more trouble than the rest, I’m certain of that.”

There’s a long pause, and I wonder if I might’ve hurt his feelings a little, but when he finally speaks he mostly just sounds concerned for my well-being. “Just be careful.”  Then I see him breaking off through the corner of my eye, rushing in a wide arc around Tog to get to the entrance.  Going to find our downed golem, just like I suggested.  I’m a little surprised to realise I’m actually very concerned about whether Driver 8’s all right, given that after he was hurled through the wall so unceremoniously he hasn’t come back yet.

But I’ve got a fight ahead of me now, and I need to be cautious now, so I cram it down hard as soon as it makes itself know.  I give Ashsong’s sword a quick little whip off to the side and the water that’s been accumulating on the blade sprays away from it, and I think I see Tog’s eyes, behind the mask, watching it all happen.

Well that is interesting, isn’t it?  Some of the ones I’ve been fighting tonight have been very comfortable in these very low-lit conditions, able to see exactly what’s been going on around them the whole time.  Others have fared less well, I suspect some of the easier kills have come about because they’ve not actually been able to actually see everything in the gloom and rain, so they’ve likely been as human as Kesla.  At least she has her fancy goggles so she can see what she’s doing. But now, seeing how comfortably aware Tog is, I suspect this one has some elf blood in him like me, so his nightvision’s as strong as mine.  Of course, that also explains why he’s so sprightly.  This really is going to be an interesting match.

“I’m sorry, d’you mind if I cut in?”

Thel’s stood a few feet away on my right, I don’t even really need to look her way to spot her through the corner of my eye while keeping my attention focused on Tog.  He looks her way as well, a little more blatantly, but her presence is enough of a distraction that I don’t just attack him right now while his attention’s divided. So I just turn enough I can take her in properly while still being able to keep an eye on him too.  “I’m sorry?”

“Wolf Mask an’ me have had this dance going on for most o’ the week now, where we keep almost getting into a fight but then it always gets cut off before we get the chance.”  She cocks her head as she gives him a particularly contemptuous glare. “Interestingly, both times he ended up running away.  Don’t say much for your character, boy.”

Tog’s eyes might narrow at that, I can’t be sure with the mask. “You can shove your opinions up your arse for all I care.  I’ll be happy to oblige you now, if you’d like.  Unfortunately I seem to have a prior engagement, as I’m sure you can see.”

I see Thel’s jaw tighten a fraction, her fingers curling a little closer around the grips of the handaxes held down by her sides, but otherwise she seems as much in control of her temper as I am.  She looks sidelong at me now, catching my eye, and I see her own narrow just a little.  “If young Mistress Swift-Kill would be so kind as to oblige me, I’d be awful grateful if she wouldn’t mind backin’ off so I got me a chance to finish what we never got to start.”

Thinking for a moment, I admit she’s got a point.  This is more than just pride for her, it’s a genuine matter of honour for her now, she’s clearly been foiled one too many times to let it go now.  Gods know I’d be feeling exactly the same if our roles were reversed.  So I lower my sword and take a step back, turning her way as I wave to Tog.  “By all means, help yourself, Mistress Frostforge.”

Thel gives me a look as I take a second step back, then a third, still keeping part of my awareness focused on the man in the wolf mask as I withdraw. I know she’s trying to work out if I’m being serious, clearly Tog is the way his eyes seem to be flickering back and forth between us, but I just shrug as I start to back off with more purpose once I’ve gained distance.  Finally I give her my full attention as I say:  “Just watch yourself.”

She frowns a touch at that, but doesn’t reply.  Tog chooses that moment’s slight distraction to make a quick charge on her, moving fast as he prepares a lunge, but he’s not yet close enough, and I think she catches my reaction to the movement.  Both seem to be enough for her to react in time to turn his attack aside, and if he were less quick on his feet she could just cut him down right there before he can recover.  Instead he dances back, but his movements are tight, careful, definitely wary now he’s clearly been disabused of any notion that he’s superior in this fight.  He backs up and starts to circle, and Thel reacts in kind, adjusting her grips on her axes as she watches him with the slightest smile touching her lips now …

Turning back the way Thel must have come, I get a fresh look at the substantial skirmish that’s been unfolding while I’ve been busy.  Of course my eye’s immediately drawn to the flashy explosive duel that’s being waged at surprisingly close quarters between Gael and the enemy wizard, who I just about recognise from the brief glance I caught of her before she vanished yesterday.  As I watch she throws a bolt of something bright blue at my friend, crackling and violent and seemingly most unstable as it arcs through the air, but before it can hit them it just seems to burst apart over a previously unseen dome of some invisible magic.  Gael’s quick in their response, setting their feet and squaring their jaw as they just mouth something and jab their staff forward.  I don’t see any bright flashing lights or sparks this time, but I think I see something happen all the same – the rain that’s falling through that space suddenly seems to splash out in an expanding wave in front of Gael, seeming to spread and expand as it rushes towards the woman.  She puts up her arms, staff still clutched in one hand, and when that wave seems to hit it’s like she’s being buffeted by powerful winds, and she’s even forced back a few feet across the wet turf.  She keeps her feet though, and when Gael relents she seems no worse for wear than before, just a little windswept.  Whatever that spell was, she clearly weathered it well enough.

Closer to me, I see Art locked in a much more desperate fight with the massive orc from yesterday, but he’s not alone, Brung, Darwyn and Zuldrad are backing him up.  As one gets turns back dodging an attack another jumps in and tries to inflict damage with one of their blades, although I’ll admit this looks like one tough nut to crack.  And he’s swinging some very big weapons, from what I can see.

Between me and them, however, are what seem to be another newly arrived group of attackers, although presently Tulen seems to be setting about them with both her sword and flashes of her own magic too.  It’s impressive to watch, seeing her cut one of them down and then as another tries to blindside her they strike one of those invisible shields while she’s still turning, their own sword sparking brightly with the impact. The blade doesn’t break, which surprises me given what looked like an impressively concentrated amount of fireworks, but it still visibly warps as it’s battered away with significant force, even if it does ultimately still spring back to true.  I suspect if it had been a cheater weapon and not one of the Guild’s impressively well-made blades it might have fared much worse in that exchange.

As she turns to face them properly, Tulen doesn’t try anything fancy, she simply mutters something under her breath and then whips her free hand sideways across the group with a particularly savage jerk.  In the same instant the hood is bowled clean off their feet and hurled bodily in the same direction, ploughing two of the other would-be attackers down while a third manages to throw themselves aside in time. Finally they go sprawling through the grass, and they don’t seem too keen on trying to get up.

Even so, there’s a fair few still around her, and they’re no less enthusiastic in their attack despite what they’ve just seen.  Then I see some more movement in the corner of my eye and I tense for a moment as I turn that way, ready to react to a potential attack that might be coming in as I ready my sword … but I realise it’s coming from above, as I see something flitting about on the balcony.  There’s another moment where I start to worry I’m about to take an arrow or crossbow bolt or whatever in the throat, then a body tumbles with significant force over the rail before plummeting at a surprisingly oblique angle across the yard before smashing down on the far left. I spot the long black arrow run right through the body as it cartwheels for a moment before finally settling, and the odd flight path finally makes sense.

Looking back, I’m just in time to see Yeslee take a run straight at the balcony rail itself and she leaps right up onto it with one foot as she lets another arrow fly while she’s still twisted so she can fire behind her.  I don’t see where the arrow hits, my angle’s awful, but I hear a crash behind her as she just pushes herself off and takes a leap right out into the open air.  She arcs high, but she’s moving all the same as I watch her path, although she’s moving with such impressive momentum I barely manage to catch what she’s doing as she flies almost directly over my head.  Specifically she must nock and loose twice as she’s still flying, because two of Tulen’s would-be attackers are effectively pinned to the ground when her arrows jam hard down through them, one caught on the charge so he goes down in a splayed mess, limbs in a tangle.  I can’t quite believe what I’ve just seen, even though I’ve seen enough of her shooting now to know what she’s truly capable of.

Then I hear a crash on my left and I look up in time to see that her momentum was strong enough to take her right over the courtyard itself, although when she landed she clearly ploughed through the divider rail instead of clearing it. All I can make out is shattered wood around a rough hole in the balustrades and a billowing cloud of dust slowly eroding in the rain, and I wonder if she might’ve just done herself a mischief on her landing.  Only for three arrows to streak out overhead with their distinctive thin shrieking sound as the front row of hoods who were chasing her to the balcony are plucked out of sight in quick succession.  I don’t catch sight of her again after that, but she must be moving because the next arrows to streak across come from progressive spots further down the line. Lethally preying on more of those who were previously hunting her.

The hairs on the back of my neck prickle again as I hear charging wet footfalls draw close and dodge aside so the axe-stroke that was intended to chop me down whistles harmlessly past me.  I swing my sword round as I move and it catches my intended attacker square across their midsection, cutting deep before I let my stroke rest, and for a beat they’re just stuck there on my tilted blade.  I shoot them a glance, just quick enough to see wide amber eyes struggling to focus on me under the hood, and they cough, most of the blood they spit out stopped by their cloth mask but a few spots spraying free. Gritting my teeth, I take hold of the hilt with both hands now and drag the blade hard out of them, and they fold slowly, dropping to their knees as their suddenly weak, shaky hands try to keep their guts from spilling out.  I turn away from them fast, having trouble feeling good about this particular kill, it's a nasty one …

Another one’s coming for me as I give my sword a little whip to clear away the excess blood and … whatever else might be stuck to it after that, and I just go right for them, my now troubled mood feeding me as I batter their sword aside and step round them as they try to recover, countering fast as I cut through the back of their hood and sever their head.  I don’t even bother watching the body fall as I keep moving, watching Tulen put two more down while one of the ones she knocked down gets to their feet in front of me.  I manage to check myself in time to keep myself from just murdering them before they realise I’m here, instead knocking the sword right out of their hand and charging them while they’re still registering what just happened.  I put my full force behind my offhand fist and when I connect with their jaw they go down hard and don’t move again.

The next one sees me coming but I think when they get a look at my face they must think twice before attacking.  Maybe they saw what I did to that poor bastard back there, whatever condition they’re in now, but they just drop the axe and shortsword in their hands and hold their hands up in surrender before starting to circle around me, clearly heading for an exit now.  My nerves itch a little letting them go without turning to make sure they don’t try anything after all, but by this point I’ve reached Tulen and the three remaining hoods who are left trying to kill her, so I have more pressing concerns.

Tulen cuts one down but another’s rushing her from behind, and I’m not confident that whatever that fancy shield thing she does is, she can necessarily make it work if isn’t aware of the attack, so I move too.  I don’t bother lunging, instead just rushing right up behind them and ramming the full length of Ashsong’s sword clean through their back, and I stop dead the moment they’re stuck fast, almost instantly checking their forward momentum too.  I wait for a few beats, waiting for the wound to sink into their awareness, then they drop their sword and start to follow it and I finally pull the blade free, letting them fall forward so I won’t have to look in their face, even if it is covered up. By this point Tulen’s already turning to check the sounds at her back, and our eyes meet even as I catch more movement to her left.

I’m the first to turn, but Tulen’s sharp enough too, it seems, so we’re already both preparing to counter whatever attack’s coming as the one remaining hood starts to realise what they’re about to charge into.  Then something smashes hard into them from the side and they fold with very little grace indeed as their leading arm snaps like a twig and their body starts to follow.  I’m a moment seeing what happened, by which point the body’s already landing several feet away in a broken tangle and Dumoli’s skidding to a halt at the end of his swing, once again momentarily off balance as he fights to bring his huge hammer back under control.  Ultimately he winds up skidding in a little circle on the wet turf underfoot, but finally reins it in again and pauses for a moment after, letting the hand drop to the ground and then leaning into the shaft so he can get his breath back. Then he finally looks up.

“Sorry about that … just thought it might be prudent.  We really don’t have time for any more playing around.” He looks to me for a moment, then back the way I’ve come, and must be taking in Thel’s fight for the first time. “What the hell is she doing?”

Finally turning back, I watch as Thel dances back with both her axes held wide and her little smile grown into a self-satisfied grin now as she dodges Tog’s savage backswing.  He presses forward almost instantly, whipping up two blinding swift strokes, and while she bats the first aside with ease his second almost catches her in the face, and she has to duck away from it as she starts to circle the other way.  He pulls back too, more watchful, but there’s a certain spring in his step that makes me wonder if he might not be enjoying this somewhat too.

“Making a point.”  I sigh after a moment, turning back to her companion.

“For Thorin’s sake …”  Dumoli hefts the hammer again, and he does it with a somewhat more winded grunt than I would’ve expected from someone who’s clearly so powerful, suggesting he’s starting to tire now just like the rest of us.  This definitely is turning out to be a hard fight.  He starts to head towards his friend, clearly intending to back her up.

Reaching out, I lay my hand on his shoulder as gently as I can while still exerting enough grip to at least check his progress.  I almost let him go – Thel’s clearly a very good fighter indeed, but so’s this young Tog, who definitely managed to find some talented warrior to teach him how to handle a sword with that kind of skill, and I’m really not sure who’s actually going to win that match. I’ve only known Thel for a day but I like her, I don’t want to see her get herself killed in some pointless duel over her honour.  And yet … “Du, please … she can handle herself, and she wanted this.  She won’t appreciate you jumping in like that. Besides, we have to finish this now.  We need you.”

He gives me a long, hard look, frowning deeper than I’ve ever seen a dwarf do before outside of anger, and I know he’s absolutely champing at the bit to help his friend, whether she wants him to or not.  But then he turns away and looks back down the line of the courtyard, taking in the rest of the violence, and in particular the insane fireworks show that’s erupting between the two wizards as they try to find any advantage against each other.  “Shit … shit!”  He throws his offhand up in the air, although his other arm gives a little jerk like he almost does the same with his hammer, he’s so frustrated.  “For fuck’s … damn it, you’re right.  And yeah, she’s good, but … she can get herself into a lot of trouble sometimes if I let her.  I don’t like this.”  He growls as he watches Thel fighting for a moment longer, then finally looks up at me again.  “What’s the plan?”

“I need you to go help Yeslee.  I don’t know how many of them are still up there, and I think there might be more coming, so …”  I shrug. “I don’t know.  But if any of them start sniping down at us, well, that can’t be good.  You need to make sure she doesn’t get cut down while she’s trying to protect us, and maybe take some of them out yourself as well.”

Cocking a brow, he looks up at the balcony, looking unconvinced.  “Where is she?”

Shit, I didn’t think of that.  “I don’t know … last time I saw her she was up there somewhere.”  As I point my sword in the proper direction, I brush my hand up over my hair, then instantly regret it when I realise I’ve been getting rained on for however long and it’s completely soaked now.  “Gah … look, it’s all connected up there, far as I can tell. Just …”  I look over him for a moment, my gaze particularly lingering on his massive, metal-reinforced boots, very much like Thel’s.  I’ve never understood dwarven footwear.  “Watch where you’re stepping.  That wood’s pretty old.”

Frowning again, Dumoli gives me another look.  “You’re not filling me with a lot of confidence here, lass.  Don’t worry about it, I’ll either help out or fall through the floor and probably break my neck.  Either way it’s in Thorin’s hands.  But you’re right, it needs to be done.”  He shoots Tulen a look, then gives Thel one last lingering glance, before peeling off for the nearest access to the upstairs.

“What about me?”  Tulen’s watching me more nervously than I’d like.

“Just come with me.”  I don’t bother beckoning her after or anything else, I trust her to follow me as I just turn and start running at an oblique, skirting angle around the side of the skirmish, heading for the other end of the courtyard.

As we start to move around them, Granzun shrugs Brung off his back, sending the goblin sprawling as he starts swinging both of his massive weapons in wild haymakers, seemingly intended more to just ward off would-be attacks than actually trying to hit anything.  Brung scrambles up almost immediately, only keeping down long enough to avoid getting beaten to a pulp by that big mace, and he’s already bouncing on the balls of his feet as he’s obviously looking for his next opening to spring.  Darwyn’s hanging back, muddy and dishevelled now but otherwise not looking any the worse for wear, small but wickedly keen-looking knives clutched in both hands as she seems to be re-evaluating her own plan.

As I watch Art springs at the orc while his back’s turned and grabs hold of his left-shoulder pauldron, using Granzun’s momentum against him as he swings himself up onto the other shoulder with his knife cocked in the other hand, ready to stab.  Except the orc’s clearly ahead of him, shrugging at just the right moment and throwing the smaller fighter off-balance, and as Art loses his grip and starts to slip he throws him off.  Art tumbles away as Granzun takes a big step aside, but at the same moment he’s swinging that huge mace around to catch him.  Art twists in the air as he drops, clearly intending to right himself to land well, but that attack’s already coming.

Seeing it, I start to scramble forward before I realise I’ve got no chance of making it in time to do anything.  Then Art touches down and the mace is racing at him, but he’s already moving, ducking hard to the side as he throws himself into a roll that fouls the orc’s aim, and the mace mostly misses him.

Mostly. The spiked head misses his crown by no more than an inch, I see the wind of it whip at the shaggy hairs between his ears, but the shaft clips him in the side as he tumbles.  I hear the cracking above the driving hiss of rain and all the other sounds rattling and booming around us, and I know that’s his ribs splintering as he’s bowled hard off course as the weapon swats him into a sprawling tumble.

“Shit!”  I let it out before I can stop myself, changing course to intercept him as he lands with the utmost lack of grace at my feet and I almost trip over him before I can make myself stop.  Dropping the sword, I fall to my knees at his side as he grunts and growls and tries very hard not to touch his wounded side.  “Gods … Art, are you …”

“Oh fuck …”  He can barely wheeze the words, the pain clearly very bad.  “That proper smarts.”

“You think?”  I force him down onto his back as he starts trying to get up, and he doesn’t resist me as it just makes him wince in clear fresh pain.  “Just stay down, you bloody idiot.”

“I think I can fix it, but it’ll take a while.”  Tulen’s dropped to one knee at my side, her sword, still gripped tight in her right hand, held off to the side at the safest angle she can find.  “It’s not one of Krakka’s healing spells, but I can still mend the ribs.  It will hurt very much indeed, though.”

“No!” Art snarls, gritting his teeth tightly now.  “No, save it, you’re gonna need it.  There’s no time anyway, you gotta back Gael up.”  He looks to me through narrowed eyes that I can see are nonetheless full of pain right now.  “You’re gonna help Kesla, right?”

“That’s the plan, yeah.”  I squint up at the flickering, crackling bright blaze of the dome that I think is Gael’s shield as they ward off another of the enemy wizard’s lightning bolts. “Art’s right.  Tulen, you need to help Gael, that’s why I brought you. Go now.”

“But Art needs –”

“I ain’t dyin’,”  he snarls through his teeth  “Just fucked up.  I can hold on for Krakka, I reckon.  Won’t enjoy it none, but …”  He focuses on her the best he can.  “I’ll live. Just help Gael.”

Tulen looks at him for a long moment, and there’s so much going on in her wide, frightened eyes now.  She clearly doesn’t want to leave him, and she’s also pretty rattled, which surprises me given how impressively capable she seemed just minutes ago when she was fighting for her own life.  But she can see the sense in what we’re both saying, a slow determination finally starting to harden through the doubt and uncertainty now.  Looking down at the now mostly clean sword in her hand for a long moment, she gives it a quick whip off to the side before sheathing it, then reaches under her cloak to slip something out of the holster under her left arm.

I’ve seen Gael’s wand, so I recognise this.  It’s of a similar design, a little thicker and longer, almost more of a short wooden rod really, but has a similar carven spiral motif to its top half. This one, however, has a small pale gemstone set into the tip, and it starts glowing almost as soon as she’s produced it.  “As long as you’re sure.”

“Help ‘em.”  Art growls the words with as much determined certainty as he can likely muster, reaching up for a moment with his left hand.  Tulen takes it immediately, giving it a good, reassuring squeeze.

“Okay.  I’ll do my best.”  She lets go and gets to her feet quickly, but pauses once she’s up as she looks at the fight unfolding in front of her.  Her apprehension’s coming back now, I can see, and it occurs to me now that this is likely to be the first time she’s ever had to engage in a real magic battle. I really can’t blame her for being scared now.

Then she just sets her jaw and charges forward, rushing to Gael’s side as I see her starting to summon up a sigil.  Gods … I hope she’ll be all right, I really do.

Art offers his paw to me now, and I grab it tight.  “Go on, give that creepy bitch a good kickin’.”

“You’re sure you’re going to be –”

“Just go!”  He growls it low, but I think it’s less pain that just insistence.  His eyes are fixed on mine.  “Finish it quick.”

Nodding, I give his paw one last squeeze before slipping free too and snatching up my sword, already moving away as I’m rising.  I continue to follow an arcing path around the outside of the wizard fight, but even so as Tulen whips her wand around as she sets her feet and tosses something bright and surprisingly loud at their opponent I feel the pressure of that hit buffet me hard.  There’s a great cracking sound, loud as thunder, enough that I actually go deaf for a moment and when it comes back there’s a subtle ringing in my ears, and as the spell shatters over the responding shield the shockwave’s almost enough to knock me off my feet.

Somehow I manage to keep moving forward as I fight to keep my footing, but I still weave like a drunkard for several feet before I’m finally clear. Then I’m past the worst of it, and it’s almost like a great powerful wind just dropping all at once, and this time I really am unbalanced and I drop to the turf without ceremony.  I sprawl onto my back and just lie there for a few moments, breathing heavy as I wait for my hearing to come back properly.

The rain starts to splash in my eyes now and it’s partly the discomfort that has me forcing myself up again as I blink the water away, but now I’m starting to hear the clatter of steel on steel close by and I remember why I’ve come this far.  I sit up fast, shaking my head as much to clear it as get rid of the rain in my eyes, and when I blink I can finally see Kesla and that weird bitch, Vandryss, wheeling around each other, their swords flashing bright as they try to cut each other down.

Vandryss swipes a blurring cut at Kesla’s face and she ducks away from it just in time, spinning on her heels as she wheels about, and she swings her bastard sword in a savage underarm stroke that’s so swift she should cut the woman in half and end the fight right here.  Except the pale woman parries at the last and batters the blade away, and as Kesla stumbles back she looks a little more unbalanced than I would’ve expected.  No, she’s worn out, that’s what it is.  As far as I can tell this fight’s been raging since it all first kicked off, and if they’ve been going at it this hard the whole time it’s no wonder Kesla’s starting to tire.  She’s tough as hell, I know that, and she’s got impressive stamina, but this woman is strong, clearly powerful despite of being much smaller, and obviously ferociously capable with her own blade.  And if she’s tiring too, it doesn’t show.

Seeming to sense an advantage, Vandryss lunges as Kesla stumbles away, aiming to skewer her through her side.  Except Kesla’s still no easy target, swatting the sword aside while still reeling, and it unbalances her opponent long enough for her to get her feet back under her.  They back off from each other now, starting to slowly circle again, clearly biding their time looking for an opening for the next round.

Forcing myself up to one knee, I’m a moment realising I’ve lost my sword, and I waste precious moments searching the grass, increasingly fearful I’ve managed to lose it in the tall, dark undergrowth.  Then I spot it lying in a jumble of sheared glass that was clearly cut down in its passage, and crawl to it as fast as I can, clawing it up as I struggle to my feet.  My head swims for a moment and I almost go down again, but then I collect myself again and a fresh twinge in my back helps me focus as I turns back to the task in hand.

Kesla charges with an ill-tempered grunt and starts to chop at Vandryss’ side, but when her opponent starts to react she switches into an impressively sneaky feint and instead tries to bring Hefdred down in a weighty slash instead. Vandryss back-peddles with surprising agility as she realises her mistake, though, and brings her sword up just in time to block.  Even so, the force of the blow is enough to knock her off balance again, and instead of being forced down she chooses to disengage, ducking aside and risking Kesla cutting her shoulder as she retreats.  Hefdred scores a line across her back as she stumbles away, cutting a substantial gouge through that fancy leather coat she’s wearing.

I start to move behind her as she takes several big, athletic steps back to open some fresh distance between them, and despite the hit she doesn’t seem to have been hurt at all, still moving with the lithe grace of a dancer. Once she’s finally planted her feet Vandryss looks to her shoulder just long enough to inspect the damage, the sleeve starting to slip away from her arm already as the ruined collar sags loose. She frowns as she looks it over, then turns back to Kesla.  Her eyes flash with strange, bright emerald fire now, and her somewhat lupine face starts to crease as her expression darkens.  “You gigantic bitch.  This was vintage.  I’ve had this coat for decades.”

Spitting to the side, Kesla rolls her shoulders as she takes a step forward, moving with slow but steady deliberation now.  What exhaustion she may now be feeling still isn’t crippling her yet, she’s not done yet.  Or maybe she’s got her second wind.  She fixes Vandryss with one of her characteristically stoic glares and speaks with a matter-of-fact level tone I’m sure is intentionally pitched to irritate. “Any real fighter knows you should never wear your best to a battle.”

Narrowing her eyes, Vandryss starts to smile, sly as a fox as she passes her sword to her other hand and starts to shrug the coat off.  Underneath I see she’s wearing similar leather armour to the rest, but like the orc’s it’s of a finer quality, and in her case also much more streamlined.  It’s quite eye-catching actually, especially what’s already been slicked by the rain, the rest following suit now.  It’s an interesting mix of sleek black patent and rougher rawhide, and while the plate is clearly well-made boiled leather it’s very much been crafted to fit her form. She’s definitely as lithe and sensual as I would’ve expected from the way she’s been moving, although she’s also more slender than I am, largely devoid of any prominent muscle tone, at least from what I can tell.  She’s also carrying more blades, two long knives strapped to her hips while there’s a similarly expansive selection of smaller blades secreted about her to Art’s impressive collection.

Letting the coat drop behind her and kicking it aside, she flicks the sword into the air and lets it spin once in a lazy arc before catching it in her right hand again, and now she turns to look my way.  “Well hello there.  Looking to join us, are we?”

“Being prudent is how I’d put it.”  I give Ashsong’s sword another little whip, splashing more water aside, then give it a deft flourish of my own.  “Might be best if you just dropped your sword and surrendered, to be honest.”

“You don’t think I can beat both of you?”  There’s laughter in her voice now, and it could almost be pretty if she was a little less creepy.  Really, there’s just something so very not right about her, beyond just the fact that her smile is much too sharp.

“Well you’re welcome to try, but …”  I look to Kesla.

“Dare say neither of us gonna make it easy on you.  Make me fight you, I’ll make it hurt ‘fore I cut you down.” She raises Hedred now, taking up a ready two-handed grip.

Vandryss does laugh this time, and it’s quite musical, but also a little off-key.  It gives me chills, I can’t help shuddering.  Then she’s coming at me while I’m still shivering …

Thorin, she’s fast.  I concentrate on her sword as she whips it towards me, leaning onto my backfoot as I twist and knock her blade aside, but I’m aware enough that she’s drawing one of her long knives with her offhand too.  Obviously mindful of the fact she’s fighting two of us now.  I skip backwards as she recovers, still coming for me and not leaving me any opportunity to catch her out, and as I backpedal I chance a couple of cuts, trying to catch her low in her side before swiping for her face.  She batters the first aside with ease and simply ducks the second, her smile never shifting from her face.

Her sword’s a long, light blade like mine, the blade curving subtly before the hilt twists a little the other way again, although hers is fitted with a wider, more solid guard and the blade appears to be made of normal spring steel. Her knife shares this design sensibility, but there’s a subtle jagging to the edge of this blade that makes me a little uncomfortable to think of what it might do if she caught me with it. That thing looks to be capable of particularly ragged wounds, and I’m suddenly uncomfortably aware of the fact I’m not wearing any armour right now.

Then Kesla comes in on her blindside fast and silent, fully expecting to catch her out while she’s busy with me.  I try my best not to visibly register her approach, but Vandryss is clearly just too sharp for us, suddenly spinning her sword in her fingers in a particularly wild flourish which is a little too alarming for me in the moment. I’m forced to jump back out of the way to keep from catching the flying edge wrong, a little astounded she’d risk such a reckless move before I realise she did it on purpose, but by this point I’m already disengaged.  She’s already ducking aside as Kesla aims a hard slash at her back, hitting nothing but air.

As she’s unbalanced and stumbling by as she fights for balance without leaving herself open to attack, Kesla’s suddenly between me and our opponent, forcing me to dart back another big step so she doesn’t charge right into me. Vandryss doesn’t take advantage of the momentary jumble, however, instead skipping back with another sinister musical giggle as she opens a little space between us again.

Grabbing hold of Kesla’s offhand arm, I pull her to a stop and yank her back around, giving her a little slap on the arm once she’s got her shit together again. She gives me a little sidelong look, then nods as she silently acknowledges my assistance.  I return it.  “Okay, so … that didn’t work.  Any fresh ideas?”

“Maybe we go in together this time?”  she ventures, then gives a little shrug.  “I tend to just do this shit on the fly.”

Frowning, I turn back to Vandryss, who’s not even bothering to set her feet or take up a defensive stance yet.  She’s just standing there casually, grinning with her sharp teeth flashing in the wet as she waits for us to make up our minds.  Gods, I hate her already.  I really want to carve that smug grin right off her face.

“Okay, then …”  I pull myself down into a low stance and hold my sword low at my side, ready to charge. “Go!”  I surge forward, trusting Kesla to move with me but focusing entirely on Vandryss as I rush her.

I feint fast towards her right side as I come in, then as she brings her sword up to block it I’m already swinging under her arm to cut into her side. Kesla’s already coming in from her other side, nothing fancy on her end, she’s just powering a two-handed thrust up right for her middle.  By rights we should both catch her right here and end the fight between us.

Instead, somehow she just twists out of the way of both of our blades and batters them aside with two deft moves.  I plant my feet tight as I can in an effort to keep myself from stumbling with my momentum, but Kesla’s not so lucky, Vandryss’ parry seeming to strike her sword with sufficient strength to unbalanace her entirely and she just slips up arse over head.  For a split I’ve lost my opponent, then I catch a glimpse of her coming quick on my left, and I don’t even bother trying to counter whatever’s coming.  Instead I just throw myself forward and roll away as I feel her sword pass so close I feel the wind of her blade’s passing on my soaked back.

Turning fast the moment I’m up, I find she’s already coming right at me, spinning her blade again in another flourish but this one seems a good deal more deliberate as she hacks right for me on the downturn.  I twist away from the stroke, swinging my blade round over my head as I shift aside from her attack, then hack at her on my backhand swing, only for her to whip her own sword up from under at the last to catch it. We lock for a moment and I push forward, almost off balance for a moment before I get my other foot solid under me again, bringing my other hand up to grip the hilt two-handed again.  She gives me a two foot lead before stopping me again, and then we’re locked tight.

“Oooh … that was nice, I liked that.  You have some talent of your own, I see.  Much like your friend, but different.”  Her expression really hasn’t changed at all this whole time, she’s still smiling at me like a demon from the other side of our grinding blades. “Elven taught, perhaps?  I see you’re half one yourself.”

“Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a fight that involved this much talking.”  I grit my jaw as I try to force her back a little more but now it’s like trying to shove a boulder.  Her arm feels like it’s made of iron, how can she be this strong when she’s so small compared to me?  “Do you take anything seriously?”

“Apart from my ruined coat?”  She cocks her head, smile narrowing some but not going away as a look more like curiosity crosses her face.  “Only about where my next meal’s coming from.  That an offer?”

“What do you –”  I’m a little thrown by her words there, I’m trying to work out what the hell she might mean, so I’m not quick enough remembering the fact that I’ve essentially only got her right arm locked up right now.  So when she rams the knife in her offhand just above my belt I don’t even realise what’s just happened until I feel the force of her stab start to twist me aside and then the warmth of my own blood soaking into my clothes along with the cold rain.  That’s when the pain hits.

“Oof …”  It’s all I can get out as I stumble back, breaking contact now as I drop my sword arm and stagger away from her, and she holds onto her knife so as I back off I essentially let her drag her blade out of me again.  Oh fuck … I’ve been stabbed before, I’ve got a pretty decent collection of my own scars even though from what I’ve seen of Kesla’s she could put me to shame with her back alone, but this is just … different.  Deeper, more painful, like something’s really torn up inside me.  I know the blade’s out of me now but I’d almost swear it was still there, and now it’s white hot.

Vandryss doesn’t attack me again as I stumble away from her, she’s just watching me with her amused little smile, head still cocked in quizzical fashion, blazing bright green eyes slowly turning from me to look down at her knife as she raises it in front of her.  The blade slick with my blood.  A lot of my blood, I can see.

I keep my sword up even as I transfer it to my other hand, determined to have it ready to ward her off if she does decide to come after all, then use my right hand to reach for the wound, going as gently as I can.  Even so it hurts like a bastard when I touch it, and as I let a winded snarl go I have to force myself to press my fingers hard to the wound, probing carefully to check just how bad it is.

Fuck … it’s really bad.  I’m lucky she didn’t just stab up under my arm and sever the artery there, much like I’ve seen Art do when he’s fighting big opponents he wants to put down fast, but she definitely hasn’t gone easy on me.  She’s still gone for a kill, but she clearly wanted it to be the slow one, she’s rammed her blade low and punctured me deep in my guts.  Even if I don’t just bleed out right here, I’m as likely to die from a massive infection over the course of a few days. And it’s going to hurt, every burning minute of it.

“You … fucking bitch …”  Ashsong’s sword finally slips from my fingers at about the same time my legs finally give out under me, and I drop onto my backside in the sopping wet grass, a low, keening moan escaping my mouth entirely unbidden.

“Fuck … Shay!”  Kesla skids to her knees at my side, clearly showing her priorities now as she ignores her opponent and just comes straight to my rescue, such as it is.  The look on her face is genuinely shocking to me, it’s like she’s looking into the face of death herself and finds it terrifying, she’s taking this development very personally.  I mean … okay, we’ve known each other for a few weeks now and it’s clear enough to me we’re becoming friends, but still, this level of a reaction takes me very much by surprise.  She drops Hefdred at her side and starts to reach for my wound, but stops short as she looks at the blood still gushing from the ragged tear in my abdomen.  It’s so dark … that’s really not a good sign at all.  “Oh gods … what did you … oh fuck … I can’t –”

“Thorin’s sake, Kesla …”  I pretty much snarl the oath into her face.  “I’m not dead yet, you have to finish this.  Deal with this fucking bitch already.”

Her wide eyes snap to mine, and I see there’s so much panic in them all of a sudden, it’s truly startling seeing that in her eyes.  I didn’t think she was even capable of that. I mean … all right, I saw how she reacted seeing Gael dead after Ashsong, but …  “What … what are you saying, I have to –"

I slap her across the face as hard as I can, and it takes her so much by surprise she falls on her own arse beside me.  She looks as shocked as I’ve been feeling about her reaction, shaken too, but … no, there’s a little indignation in there now, I think.  I might actually have provoked the right emotion out of her, there’s a little anger rising in her now.  Her eyes start to narrow, and for a split I genuinely regret what I’ve just done as she starts looking at me with real venom … but then she turns to Vandryss again and that expression doesn’t change, instead she just reaches over and grabs her sword in tight fingers while she gets her feet under her.  Bloody hell … now she looks fit to murder someone …

Astonishingly, Vandryss doesn’t seem to have taken any advantage of the situation at all, she’s just standing there watching it all, still as cool and casual as before, still smiling her nasty little smile.  The rain’s already largely washed my blood clean off her knife now, but there are still a few stubborn dark streaks there which make me deeply uncomfortable to see, and as my gaze lingers on that edge I feel another heightened stab of pain amongst the rest of it.  She sees me wince as my hand goes to the wound again, pressing as hard as I can to try and stem that awful flow even though I know it’s pointless, and her smile starts to grow again.

Then Kesla’s on her feet and as she raises her sword one-handed, just pointing at her now as if marking her for death, those bright green eyes turning to take her in. Kesla’s voice is a deep rumble of pure, rageful threat now.  “You just fucked up spectacularly, you evil little bitch.”

TO BE CONTINUED ...

[minefield-of-a-ninja]

Summary: A hot tip turns into a hot night. 

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V

Characters: William Butcher x unnamed female x Soldier Boy

Tags/warnings: explicit, mfm threesome, Dom/sub, rough sex, slapping, name calling, sex with murderous misogynists

Words: 1700

Author's notes: for @glassjacket and @brrose-apothecary​ Thanks for the read-through and green light, Bri. <3

Gonzo journalism is an energetic first-person participatory writing style of journalism that is written without claims of objectivity, often including the reporter as part of the story using the first-person narrative, and it draws its power from a combination of social critique and self-satire. The word gonzo is believed to have been first used in 1970 to describe an article about the Kentucky Derby by Hunter S. Thompson, who popularized the style.

Three days ago, I received a tip that former British special forces member, CIA agent, and now, vigilante, William Butcher, traveled to Russia to obtain a secret weapon to take down the megalomaniac superhero Homelander. Within an hour, I was on a plane to JFK. Just as the A320 touched the ground, an explosion rocked Midtown, killing 19 people. My source wasted no time looping me in with video footage of the cause of the explosion.

...and I didn’t believe my eyes.

“Holy-” I breathed, weaving through the other passengers to quicken my steps toward ground transportation. I ordered an Uber then watched the footage on a loop until it arrived. As my driver pulled up, I received a text message from my source.

“Weapon’s not so much a what but a who, love.”

“So I see.”

“You here?”

“On my way to ground zero, got anything else for me?”

“Will have after tonight.”

“What’s tonight?”

“I’ll let you know when I do.”

He kept his word — called me mere moments after America’s first hero incinerated the woman he claimed to have once loved in a flash of radioactivity.

Now, these two hypermasculine assholes are half in the bag and toe-to-toe in the middle of a cheap ass motel room, arguing about who can make me come faster/harder/longer. How I got into this particular situation is simple; waiting for intel in a non-air-conditioned room, got bored, hair up, whiskey, poker, sweat, partial nudity.

What’re you gonna do?

“Show me, then, you limey cock. She’s right fucking there.” Soldier Boy motions to me before pausing his challenge to an x-rated duel long enough to drag his hot gaze across my damp, salty skin and down over my semi-clothed form. “Or do you need me to show you what a real man can do.”

Each of their gazes are dark in their own way. Butcher’s is nothing but devilish chaos backed by a dramatic, velvet curtain hiding the truth, and Soldier Boy’s is full of secrets, barely repressed rage, and hunger.

“She already knows I’m good fer it. Don’tcha, love?” Butcher smirks.

I draw a deep breath then casually shrug my shoulders. I happen to know from experience that Butcher is very good for it and judging by the non-V-generated power rolling off the superhero, I could be making this much harder on myself than I need to.

That said, I have an unfortunate weakness for big, shit-talking, beautiful men. It’s even better when they’re absolute pricks and no danger of taking them home to mama.  

Butcher looks slightly crestfallen until I toss him a mock-pout and a wink. This is always what we do, anyway. We stay on the outside and keep our distance. Come to think of it, I probably have an equally dramatic curtain behind my own eyes. I suppose I should examine that sometime. After the mind-blowing fuck session I’m about to have.

The supe chuckles as he turns to saunter toward me. “We can take turns, give her a little score card,” he says, coming to a stop in front of me.

I’m sitting on the foot of the bed, leaning back on my elbows, legs crossed like I’m fucking demure. He smirks down at me with hard, dark eyes as he slides a hand between his legs to cup himself over the stiff material of his suit pants.

“You look a little mean,” I tell him, and his smirk spreads to a grin that doesn’t meet his eyes.

“You like that.” He licks his teeth before pulling his bottom lip between them. “Wet as a whore on payday sittin’ in this filthy motel room with me and him, huh.”

Butcher appears behind him, looming, his thin, damp beater clings to his skin in a pleasing way.

I suppose I should be concerned for my well-being, but mostly, I’m wet just like Soldier Boy said. So I let myself go until I’m on my back, uncross my legs and drop my bare feet to either side of his boots.

When Butcher moves from beyond him, Soldier Boy extends an arm to halt him. “Rules,” he grunts. “I’m in charge. Anything goes unless someone safewords. Crimson is the word.”

Butcher chuckles at that. “We’re not looking to be deep-fried in here if that name sets you off.”

“Fuck you. Get her panties off.” The supe crosses the room, removing his undershirt and boots.

Butcher kneels at my feet and lifts them to the mattress, so I follow his lead and cant my hips to give him access to my underwear. He looks up at me. “Y’sure ‘bout this?” he asks warily, as he drags the ruined cotton over my hips and knees, and I nod.

Butcher can actually be thoughtful on occasion. But we had an agreement.

“Safeword. Did you not hear that part?” Soldier Boy struts back to the bed, stroking his already hard cock.

“Jesus,” I breathe, and the fucker smirks again.

America’s first hero, for all his terribly deep and disturbing flaws, is easily the most gorgeous man I have ever seen naked. My mouth waters at the sight of his thick, heavy-looking cock, slipping through his meaty hand.

“USDA prime, sugar, and you got the best seat in the house.” He nudges Butcher out of the way much more gently than I would have expected. “So sit up and open your fucking mouth.”

Butcher peels his shirt off and shucks his pants to the floor before moving onto the bed as I obey the soldier’s uncompromising order. “She does like suckin’ cock, mouth like a fucken whirlpool.” Butcher settles behind me and brushes his lips across my exposed neck.

I swallow the drool in my mouth and reach for the beautiful bounty in front of me, and Soldier Boy shakes his head.

“Get her arms,” he tells Butcher, holding my eyes with his.

Butcher obliges, looping one forearm through my elbows behind my back and pressing me forward as his free hand works its way between my legs. “So wet already, love.”

“You know how long it’s been since I’ve had access to a warm, wet mouth?” The recently escaped man’s brow is furrowed, and his eyes lose their sharp focus as he slides his fingers into the twisted mess of a bun at the back of my head, angling my face the way he wants it. “And this mouth.”

He grips my chin with his other hand, and I let my jaw drop open. “This fucking mouth,” he mutters.

I close my eyes as his hot, salty cock slides over my tongue. He slides his hand from my chin to the other side of my head to mirror his other, holding me in place as he sets a rhythm.

“Good?” Butcher whispers, and I hum an affirmation. He’s sliding one long, thick finger around my clit so gently and thoroughly that I’m right at the edge of falling.

“Relax,” Soldier Boy grunts, swiping his thumbs over my hollowed cheeks. “I don’t need you choking out so soon.”

It’s hard to relax when I’ve got the fat cock of a superhero bumping against my uvula, and the thick knuckles of a thug slipping around my cunt. I’m hot and overstimulated and I’m about to come undone.

“‘Member that night in Chelsea? At your sister’s flat?” Butcher murmurs in my ear, sliding his slippery hand up under my tank top as he looks up at the other man. “Let’s get ‘er on ‘er back, mate.”

“Making it easy on her,” Soldier Boy scoffs as he pulls out of my mouth to spin and drag me to the side of the bed. He dips in for a punishing kiss with teeth and tongue before pushing me down to hang my head over the side of the bed. “She doesn’t get to come ‘til I do, and neither do you.”

Butcher nods with that edged grin as he slowly works his way between my thighs. “Well, ain’t that shite, sweetheart?” He settles his bare chest to the bed and shoves my legs open wide. “We got us a multiple-orgasmer ‘ere, wif little to no self-control.”

Soldier Boy chuckles as he straddles my face and reaches to tear my top in half.

“Fucker,” I swear at Butcher.

“Well, you better get some control quick because I don’t like to be disappointed.” He grips one of my breasts tight and mouths at the other, mumbling orders around my flesh. “Put me back in your mouth.”

I relax my throat and take a deep breath as I wrap one hand around his hard cock. My heart pounds in my chest and I moan, tasting him again. He’s so heavy and smooth. Did he get waxed between international imprisonment and mass murder?

Whatever.

He doesn’t waste a second working his way down my open throat. Butcher’s doing that thing he does with his tongue that makes me come every time within seconds. It takes me three deep inhales through my nose and concentrating on the feel of the gorgeous dick snaking my esophagus to realize that Butcher, a classic switch, wants to see how a man like Soldier Boy handles being defied.

Butcher also knows that I love being punished.

So I let go. I throw my arms wide and arch into Soldier Boy’s teeth and rough fingers on my nipples. I grind into Butcher’s face and feel his chuckle rumbling in my core.

Butcher grips my hips and bears down.

“You son of a bitch...” the supe breathes a lush sneer, his breath over my wet flesh making me shiver as his fucking into my throat makes me gag. “You want her to come, don’t you? Want the slut to get what she deserves?”

I cup his balls and push my face up into his groin, making him rasp and pin both my wrists to the bed. He takes one nipple between his plump lips again and tongues the tip as he slows his drive into my mouth and swirls his tongue around that nipple then the other.

“Hmm, changed my mind,” he says thoughtfully as he stands and pulls out of my mouth. “Let’s make her come. Over and over. Make her come ‘til she’s fucking unconscious.”

His grin is dark and cruel as he strokes himself with one hand and reaches for my already sensitive breasts with the other.

Butcher lifts his face from between my legs, his beard shiny with my slick, and grins wide as he hooks two fingers up inside me and drops a heavy hand over my mound. “Sounds like a deal, mate.”

Part II

More Soldier Boy and/or Butcher

IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU'VE READ, PLEASE REBLOG AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!

[the-swift-tricker]

Milo Murphy's Law as a metaphor for disabilities

i know it may seem like a weird interpretation but whenever i watch milo murphy's law i can't help but see it as a metaphor for life with a disability. obviously this is by no means a perfect interpretation and i really don't believe that it was the original intention behind the show's creation but bear with me.

milo murphy's law follows the titular character milo, who is a descendant of the original namesake of the famous "murphy's law". murphy's law states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong and because of this milo's everyday life is plagued by disaster after disaster, most comical, some serious. milo has been forced to learn to adapt to all the dangers and inconveniences of his life, usually with the aid of his backpack, which he tries to pack everyday with whatever equipment may prove most useful. milo leads a fairly average life, aside from the intermittent aforementioned disasters that crop up at random times, and attends school, hangs out with friends, and pursues his interests. the "murphy curse" is well known in the town they live and generally accepted. most people are courteous and kind to milo, being extremely understanding when murphy's law goes into affect and generally not acting like jerks. even the school he attends goes out of it's way to accommodate his specific needs, from installing bullet proof glass to procuring over the top insurance policies. however most people still keep their distance from milo, as they find his life to be too difficult and cumbersome to deal with. the exceptions to this are his two best friends, melissa and zack, who stand by him through thick and thin. the show makes it very clear that they don't love milo despite his "curse" but instead love him as a whole, never begrudging him the inconveniences they may experience from hanging out with him. they always are there for him, assisting when they can and simply offering support when there's nothing else to do. they are also very protective of milo, specifically when it comes to people that treat him poorly. in one specific instance a crossing guard named elliot complains about how difficult his job is because of milo and how milo's entire existence is unsafe, going so far as to say that the world would be better of without him. zack and melissa (along with several other kids) angrily call him out on this. it's a pretty distinct interaction because of how it mirrors the real world sentiment a lot of people hold towards disabled people. fortunately elliot learns his lesson by the end of the episode, after experiencing a world without milo and realizing how empty it would be.

everything about the show, from the effects murphy's law has on milo, to his backpack acting as a type of mobility aid, to the accommodations he requires, draw very stark parallels to the experiences of many disabled people irl, myself included.

what i find especially encouraging though is how it portrays milo's life continuing on even with the "curse" always looming over him. there are some things milo just can't do because of murphy's law and that's okay, because he enjoys the things he can to their fullest extent. milo attends school and they accommodate his needs. milo joins a band and they accommodate his needs. all of this is done by the people who love him because they love him, but also by people who barely know him but do it anyways because they respect him as a person.

all of this comes together to paint what i consider to be a mostly positive, if not somewhat layered, take on disabilities in general.