#like extra arms mandibles extra eyes

[teslacoils-and-hubris]

Fuck I have such a fun idea for a spidersona but I cannot draw comic style supers to save my life my cartoony guys are easy but supersuits are the fucking devil

Holy shit I just saw the new spiderverse I think it actually changed me on like a biological level. I'm never gonna be normal about these movies

[b1asho]

Sundyne fullbody

2nd to last, the big nasty bug lizards!! (Aka sundyne, if you dont want to get kicked across the room)

Here's the evil exposition dump:

Sundyne are under the Cerest label umbrella with Dorest and Rox, but are genetically distinct enough that they aren’t really the same thing.

It’s a commonly held theory among other species that they’re some kind of artificially created Cerest offshoot that went wrong and overtook their creators, but that’s crazy talk and bringing that up around a trad Sundyne is a great way to get snapped at.

They share some things with their Drecu cousins and I would suggest reading their stuff to get the general vibe, but the gist is that Sundyne also have serviceable but poor temperature regulation, their eyes aren’t spherical and are housed in bony cones in their heads, they can see colors that we can’t, they lay eggs and have a similar life stage development cycle,they have extremely sensitive antennas, and they have a mix of endo and exoskeleton/shell.

Their differences are a lot more distinct (obviously) Sundyne are obligate carnivores, for one, and have a lot harder time processing plant matter than Drecu. Their lower mandibles and beak are very sharp and are used to both tear into and hold prey.

When their mouth is closed, these two are pressed together tightly by internal muscles. Along with their little bit of lip and their other mouthparts that fold closely along their face, it gives the impression of their jaw being more like ours (especially when I stylize it and remove all detail >: ) ).

Those internal grabbies are about as strong as a human thumb, and are used to make speaking noises by vibrating them together along with the apparatus in their throat. Those also help to hold/maneuver food without opening the mouth too much (which they see as a threat)

Another difference in their mouth is their tongue, which is housed in a hole along their lower jaw, and its length retracts down their throat.

They use it to strip meat from bone and lick yummy goop out of shell and bone holes.

Their huge eyes function much better at night, and they usually keep them lidded to avoid sensory overload or looking like theyre upset (again, their eyes aren't full spheres in there, and instead are more like weird cylinders that taper as they go back in the skull.)

Like Dorest, all 6 of their fingers on their main hands are separated, though now they are all much larger and longer (at least on this top pair of arms).

Only the claws on their larger top arms are retractable, operating by sliding in and out of a pocket of endoskeleton in their end knuckle.

The smaller bottom arms have a thumb claw like Rox, and none of the shorter and duller on the other fingers are retractable.

Also like Rox, they have a special claw on their foot for kicking stuff, though theirs is much more pronounced and mobile (their other toes are relatively short and also have retractable claws.)

Male Sundyne also have a third pair of 'limbs' that are actually gonopods that fold on their back that they use to carry eggs, another indicator that their genus as a whole may have once had 8 limbs that have since fused or retracted.

Speaking of male, sundyne are not hermaphroditic, with *adults* being distinctly male or female. It's impossible to tell until the first molt after pupation, though.

Sundyne dimorphism is based on this sex difference and it decides their service role in their familial/ societal clans (rather than with Drecu, whose role in the colony decides their sexual role)

Their family units tend to be single dominant reproductive male and female pair, their children, and nonreproductive members.

Traditionally, that dominant pair is decided by whichever is the strongest female and whichever male catches her attention, but modernly and in higher classes there is a lot more linking of clans and inter/extra political and legislative to consider.

The dominant male and female are monogamously bonded, but often switch their single partners a lot for politics etc (though long-held bonds are seen as better) nonreproductive members can have multiple partners and do, but the privilege of eggs is only for that special pair bond.

The closest thing from earth i can say is they're structured a bit like a lion pride or meerkats, though females are the ones who defend the territory while males hunt and rear children once the eggs have been laid/hatched (which is where Rox and Dorest got their child raising roles from)

In any clan, females outnumber males because at a certain age most males are meant to leave and go join another clan. Because of this, the nonreproductive females often assist with resource gathering/some ither male roles (though they're given their own pronoun for this since males are their own special thing)

Males are smaller in height and sleeker, and have more markings on their face/ body (while they look very flashy to us, it helps break up their shape to their colorblind prey).

They also retain one more set of limbs than females: gonopods like Drecu on their back that also help hold their females eggs in place (once the female is ready to lay them, they give them to the male with an ovipositor) .

Females are much larger and more muscular, with fewer markings but often more impressuve crowns of horns. They also don’t have the same external genitalia structure.

The horn things on a female will drop and regrow more based on hormone signals from their social status and/or their environment. On a male, they will not (but they do keep growing constantly)

I keep saying "things" on their head because they're structured sort of like horns but not quite.

Theyre more or less hollow/spongy bone on the inside with a thin sheath covering , more or less permanent, and sort of vascularized and growing for the whole year. BUT they can branch, don’t have a single living core, and they can drop and regrow if damaged enough by the root (kind of just a spongy thing growing out of a bone shoot idk).

Horn damage on a male is seen as extremely unattractive and disgraceful (the long continually grown unbranched ones are the beauty standard since it exemplifies how precious they are)

Females use them a lot more for combat, territoriality, and social status (whereas males use them for defense and social status) so they get cracked more often. If this happens, theyll regrow with some deformation around the sheath. If they get access to a better food source, they’ll also drop and then regrow better and stronger (but smooth and with no tines). For the few reproductive females, they will shed and regrow bigger/stronger horn things with more branches yearly the longer they’re the dominant female as a status symbol. Any horn branches are looked at very favorably on females, but the crooked/unnatural spurs and bumps caused by damage is looked at as a low status symbol since the only reason they’d still have it is if they aren’t dominant enough to get the signals to drop and regrow them the right way.

As for their life cycle, its a lot like Drecu. Egg, little gloopy grub thing, bigger goopy grub thing, prepupa, chrysalis, juvenile adult stage.

However, during pupation adults can’t ‘choose’ the final form of their offspring like Dorest and Rox can. Males are considerably more favored because they leave their home clan to build ties and status in other clans, ultimately expanding the influence of the family and more freely rising in the ranks (they leave, marry in with a female of equal or greater status, and can move up by taking out other males there. a female doesn’t typically leave their birth clan, and could never become the dominant female of their own clan because incest and patricide taboo, and the only way they’d be able to in another clan is if they enter as a nonreproductive and maybe get lucky enough that the dominant female falls out of favor so you can yake her place)

If they had the chance most clans would cull many of the females in their clutches, but since they can’t tell the difference until the age where their kids are legally considered people, it’s harder to do that.

Succession rites for females follow a matriline from the dominant female, but they have their own internal pecking order established through literal and social pecking. If you’re a better fighter or just smarter/more useful, you’ll have a higher status. But if you were born in that clan, you'll never be the dominant female unless the male gets taken out of the equation too, making an opening for a new leader.

Males get their initial status from their pair with a female upon entry to a new clan, but they can actually move up to the dominant position by killing or otherwise removing the previous male. After this, they can choose a new female.

Their biological roles of hunter/nurturer for male and protector/fighter for female translates to their modern sociopolitical roles pretty literally. Males hold power as lawmakers, media makers, educators, and leaders due to their more 'intellectual' domestic role and ability to bridge clans in alliances.

. Though they are physically superior, females become the males protection once they are paired. They hold power within a clan and often in the military or as lower government officials, but outside of the clan their reach is pretty much carrying out and enforcing the orders of their male.

Their dynamic is like a sword and its wielder, or a speaker and their voice, though it is also referenced in their own culture as a male/female pair being “the sun and its moon.” They also take great pride in this binary, seeing it as something that sets them apart/ male and female completing each other to form the perfect whole.

Straying from this is a one way ticket to being either kicked out of the clan, jailed, or killed depending on where you are and who you’re dealing with.

They will enforce it onto any other species they meet (which is part of why Dorest and Rox are rigidly separated by a gender role along with their biological role in the colony, even though they are both sexes)

Sundyne clans are at the tippy top of Cerest society’s order (wirh Seru being the tippy top of the Sundyne exclusive caste, represented by a circle). They oversee their Drecu colonies and use their resources and manpower to expand their territory. This hierarchy is deeply entrenched, with any Drecu within a trad Sundyne structure believing that the Seru are immaculate and powerful beings.

Another conspiracy theory is that back in the early days of Sundyne development they probably preyed on Drecu and infiltrated their colonies through pheromone manipulation, overtaking that territory for their clan. The pheromone thing allows them to influence the general emotions of Cerest around them and give loose instructions, and to stop the instinctive swarm swarm swarm kill kill kill responses Drecu get when they see them (To Drecu, Sundyne look like creepy elongated nightmare versions of themselves, and though this response has largely been bred out most Dorest and Rox still feel an uncanny effect from looking at them. ) again, that's crazy talk though and never happened.

One more to go, and its the funny parasite worm ones

[razzledazzle-pop]

It’s been literal years but someone said they liked my old Virgil design and I felt compelled to do an updated take on how I would stylize him. Anyways. My design notes r like: “Hair highlights gotta look like little bat wings. Trust.”

Other personal headcanons/design things:

I think he’s the tallest of the sides, but has a slouching problem and loses like half a foot from it. Part of it is he also feels like he comes off as less intimidating sometimes if he makes himself smaller.

Has eight eyes but covers the smaller ones up with eyeshadow. The ones directly under his “main” eyes are too big/uncomfortable to hide. Despite having so many eyes, his eyesight is actually Quite Bad.

Has heterochromia (the other eyes are green but you can’t tell from this because his bangs are covering them 💀).

Back when he first started showing up in videos, it was because Janus and Remus sent him (their source being it couldn’t be them, bc with Roman and Remus it’s on sight, and the other sides don’t trust a word out of Janus’ mouth). Until then, Virgil had never really interacted with the other Sides. They knew Anxiety was lurking around but had no concept of what he looked like and Virgil Liked It That Way.

Janus and Remus are freaky in their own way but Virgil probably looks the most uncanny of the bunch.

He’s not used to holding a different shape for prolonged periods of time so his energy levels are always Ass.

Logan has noticed this and knows something is going on.

Roman, Post Accepting Anxiety: You know…You look surprisingly normal…I mean you have an extra set of eyes but that’s pretty tame.

Virgil, hiding his extra arms and eyes and mandibles and—: yeah. Haha I’m so normal :) It’s kind of crazy how normal I am actually.

[honey-minded-hivemind]

gnarp Gnarp parents!

I imagine Reader's species are kinda genderless in genetic terms(that or they're like snails), so you can interpret the Gnarp Gnarp parents however you want

Big pink is based on Mantis and Moths/butterflies

Green bean is based on Grasshoppers/Lotus' and ants

AAAAAAAHHHHHH! I WANT TO HUG THEM AND GIVE THEM HONEY AND NECTAR AND LITTLE BISCUITS AND COOKIES!!!!

Mama Gnarp is awesome! Her wings, her arms, her fearsome fangs and glowing eyes and generally large, intimidating self- (I wonder what her name should be? Something fierce, or sweet? Would it be a type of bug, or flower, or dangerous plant?)

Papa Gnarp is a dapper fellow! Sharp joints, strong claws, mandibles, amd extra thick chitin, he's a strong boi! (He'd have a strong name or something dorky/sweet, be it bug or flower or dangerous plant)

And together, they made Gnarp Gnarp Reader, the fierce little beetle-looking bby! Reader gets the best of both of them! (So extra strong, super hard chitin/shell/exoskeleton, string mandible and horn and claws, four arms, springy legs, wings, etc.)

(Oooooo... I love them. What are they like? What do Gnarp Gnarps do? Pollinate diffent planets? Bring dead ones back to life? Take over planets amd ads them to to vast colony/hive/brood? Some strange mix of all of those?)

(What did Mama and Papa Gnarp do for a living? Where were they in the hierarchy? And did they have Reader on their own, or are they actually, somehow, Scott or Jean's kid too? Or some other alien villain thing's kid, like the Brood or the Phoenix Force?)

(These two are perfect. Mama Gnarp looks like a moth I have in my bug collection!) (It's a small collection, but so far I have: a honey bee, a bumblebee, a moth, a spider, and a hornet, I think? I did have a spider, but... it didn't preserve well) (it liquefied, which was... bleugh, to clean up) (I'm an amateur at this, I just pick up already dead buggy fellows, then store them in my jars and bags) (I did collect a cicada shell one time) (they're cool)

[marlynnofmany]

What’s a Minor Heart Attack Between Friends?

It’s never a good look to be visibly startled by your coworker’s existence. Especially when you’re the only human on a spaceship, and you’ve surprised more than one shorter alien by turning a corner too quickly. I should have known better after tripping over Mur’s tentacles that one time; blind corners are risky. Anything could come around them. And the rest of that little courier ship’s crew ran the range of appearances. None of them should have given me much of a shock at that point.

But dang, Trrili looked scary. I couldn’t help flinching every time she appeared when I wasn’t expecting it.

Picture this: I was talking to Coals, the burly little Heatseeker with deep red scales and a quiet demeanor. We were outside the office-type room where some of the crew did translation work to bring us extra money. He was telling me about a random poem that someone had broadcast through space; I was thinking about whether his full name fit on paperwork; his name is Glowing Coals (Which Create the Heat We All Love) — that’s not important, but the point is, I didn’t expect Trrili to step out of the doorway, and I jumped.

Shiny black and red, bug eyes and mandibles, taller than me, pincher arms, and far more stealth than should honestly be allowed. Seriously, Zhee was the same species, and he clicked when he walked, but Trrili was a master of stepping silently. And while Zhee was colored in gaudy purples, Trrili just looked evil.

I did not say so out loud. I know better than that. But the flinching was an instinct, and there wasn’t much I could do about it.

Except laugh it off and apologize, of course.

“Woah, didn’t see you there!” I laughed awkwardly. “Sorry. Has anyone ever told you that you’re very quiet?”

“Yesss,” Trrili said with a completely unnecessary hiss. “It has been said.” I was still learning Mesmer facial expressions, but I was pretty sure that her antenna angle meant amusement. She was smirking at me.

“Don’t encourage her,” said Coals, pulling my attention back down to hip height. He was short for a Heatseeker, with stocky proportions that made him look like a lizard-turned-teddy-bear when standing next to the hulking terror that was just another person, dang it, no matter how creepy.

“Encourrrrage?” Trrili purred with an unsettling crackle to her voice, crouching to loom over Coal’s shoulder.

He didn’t bat an eye, still gazing placidly up at me. “Some of us take unseemly pleasure in predatory games.”

Trrili flexed a pincher ominously, sliding back into the shadows. “Sssssome of us are good at it.”

“Like I said,” Coals told me as she disappeared. “Don’t encourage her. She’s very proud of herself.”

“Well, isn’t that Mesmers in a nutshell?” I asked, trying for a smile. “Mesmerizing and magnificent and ready for everyone to acknowledge it?”

Whatever Coals was about to say was lost as Trrili sprang out to land with half her bug legs climbing the wall, filling the corridor with black-and-red nightmares, hissing.

I jerked in place. “Ngah!”

Trrili’s hissing laughter merged with a long-suffering sigh from Coals.

“Welcome to Trrili’s favorite game,” he said. “The captain made her promise to stop scaring Paint, after one too many breakable things got dropped.”

Trrili gathered her limbs into a more civilized configuration. “Paint is too easy to startle,” she said, without a trace of a hiss. (Ha! Knew she was doing that on purpose.) “Hardly a challenge.”

I tried to pretend that I wasn’t 50% adrenaline at the moment. “How many times have you gotten smacked in the face on reflex?”

Trrili spread her arms. “My trrrrack record is exssssellent.”

I didn’t point out the inconsistent hissing. “Anybody ever try to scare you back?”

“None successsssfully,” she said with a tilt to her head that I chose to interpret as arrogant.

I shifted my weight onto one food, aiming for casual as my heart rate calmed back to nearly normal. “And are you the type to snap somebody’s head off as a startle reflex, or would you take that well?”

Another hissing laugh. “We may never know!”

“She’d just flare at you,” Coals said. When I looked down at him, he raised his arms in a loose approximation of a Mesmer threat display. “‘Oh no, a scary thing! I’d better show it I’m scarier!’”

A frightening face appeared to glare at him from up close, but he ignored it with the ease of long practice.

“Good to know,” I said. “Well, I should get going, to do the things I was going to do. Some things. Right, check the supply list! It’s been nice talking to you!”

I waved and left, nerves still singing that I could get jumped at any moment. Thankfully only goodbyes followed me to a more populated part of the ship. I had a supply list to check, and now also a careful prank to consider.

I found Zhee in the supply room.

“Question for you,” I said by way of greeting. “Well, several. Do you and Trrili come from the same planet, or are there Mesmers everywhere? I don’t actually know.”

He stopped counting soup cans or whatever and quirked one purple antenna in a fair approximation of a raised eyebrow. “Several planets and three dozen moons have been graced with Mesmer populations,” he told me. “I have no idea which population center she hatched in. Somewhere fond of malicious cackling.”

“Ah,” I said. “Yup, she does seem to like that.” Since he was still looking at me (from a reasonable height, which was nice), I continued. “Are you familiar with snakes?”

“That’s an animal from your homeworld, isn’t it?” Zhee asked. “Something with scales?”

I nodded vigorously. “Picture a small Heatseeker without arms or legs, just a long body that wriggles across the ground.” I made vague gestures. “Like a head on top of a tail.”

“Why?” was his only answer.

I shrugged. “They eat little animals that live in holes in the dirt. Being long and narrow makes it easier for them to find prey.”

“Oh, well, obviously,” Zhee said with a wave of one pincher arm. “Can’t argue with that.”

I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. “Some of them are venomous, with a bite that can kill a much bigger animal.”

Zhee rested his pinchers on the box of soup cans, and rotated his head at an uncomfortable angle. “And why are you asking if I’m familiar with them?”

I went for honesty. “I want to startle her back.”

“Ah! Well, then.” Zhee turned away from the box, his many legs tapping quietly as he gave me his full attention. “That I would like to see. What is your plan?”

“Still rough at this point,” I admitted. “But there’s a classic prank where I’m from called a snake-in-a-can…”

* * *

In the end, I went a slightly different route, and had to wait until after our next supply run. That was a long wait. Trrili made two more surprise appearances, laughing at the way I twitched both times. At least I kept in my yelps of surprise. I found myself glad that she was so big, simply because it limited the dark corners she could jump out of.

Finally my chance came. It was a casual mealtime with most of the crew coming and going from the kitchen and lounge, enjoying their favorite foodstuffs after the recent restocking. I’d made a point of getting an over-hyped box of “Earth Foods For Humans,” and sat down at a table right next to the hallway.

Paint came over to eat with me, all splotchy orange scales and a sunny disposition. I showed her some of the many things in the box, just waiting for the inevitable.

A shadow fell over the table. Paint meeped quietly, her mouth full of fish.

I turned to find shiny black mandibles spread wide, mere inches from my face.

“Oh, hi Trrili.”

She closed up her face. “You arrrre becoming no fun,” she hissed.

“Nonsense, I’m lots of fun,” I said, digging through the box. “Hey, while you’re here, I’ve been meaning to ask Zhee: can you guys actually smell ripe fruit? Since you don’t eat it?” I pulled out a bruised orange and removed a chunk of peel, holding it up for her to sniff.

“It smells like a plant,” Trrili replied. “Somewhat sharp and unpleasant.”

“Huh. I guess that’s the citric acid,” I said, setting it down and digging some more. “You’re missing out; it smells delicious to me. Oh hey, look at this!” I pulled out the stiff paper envelope I’d hidden in the box earlier.

Both of them were watching. So was Zhee from the next table over, but he was doing a good job of pretending he wasn’t.

“These are such a delicacy,” I said, flipping the envelope over but not opening it. The front held a picture of a snake. I waved at Zhee. “Hey, remember those venomous animals I was talking about? The ones with the rattle on their tails? I got some of their eggs!”

“You are welcome to them,” Zhee said.

“I think you guys would probably like these,” I said with a glance up at Trrili. “They’re really pretty; they seem like the kind of thing a Mesmer would appreciate. Here, have a look.” I handed her the envelope while I made a show of digging around some more to see what else was in the jumble of potatoes, beef jerky, and triple-bagged stinky cheese.

Trrili took the envelope, gentle with those little wrist fingers that let her manipulate things with pincher arms. I deliberately didn’t watch, instead keeping my eyes on Paint, who was opening her mouth to ask a question.

When I heard the loud rattle, I whipped my head up in time to see Trrili toss the envelope away and flare her pinchers in a hissing threat display that was every bit as dramatic as I’d imagined.

Paint shrieked.

Zhee laughed the hardest I’d ever heard him.

“It’s okay,” I said, grinning to split my face as I picked up the envelope from the floor. Other people were asking questions, though Zhee’s obvious amusement kept them from getting too worried. “It’s not real.”

While Trrili hissed quietly, I upended the envelope over my hand. The contraption that fell out was the most low-tech of pranks: a bent wire, a rubber band, and a metal washer that had rattled against the paper when the envelope was opened, releasing pressure. I’d wound it up just before leaving my quarters. And it had worked beautifully.

“What is that?” Paint asked, still leaning away from the table.

“Karma,” I said, holding it up and spinning the washer, still grinning. “What do you think, Trrili? Mesmer approved?”

Trrili folded her arms tight against her body and angled her antennae into a fierce glare. She left without a word, stomping instead of moving silently.

Zhee was still chuckling. “Mesmer approved,” he declared. “That was excellent.”

“Oh good,” I said.

Paint settled gingerly back into her seat. “Where are the eggs?” she asked.

“There aren’t any,” I said, tucking the gadget away and picking up the orange again to resume peeling. “Rattlesnakes don’t even lay eggs; they have live birth.”

“Oh,” Paint said.

“But Trrili didn’t know that.” I separated a slice of orange and popped it into my mouth. “Think she’ll lay off the startling?”

“Hm. Probably not; she really likes it.”

“Then I may just have to come up with a few more surprises for her,” I said, smiling with all of my human teeth. “My people have an entire industry for things like this, and I have a childhood full of ideas.”

~~~

Further adventures in backstory for this book. More to come!

[wingsoffireexileau]

Weavewings/Widowings

Tis my fan tribe I made out of wanting both curled horns and a spider dragon :D

I'm working on a digital version for the base.

The dragon depicted on the left is named Arachnid, he's an animus, and he has the gift of speaking to the dead, so he enchanted a branch where if anyone blows onto it, either with fire, frost, or just regular breath, it was cause the branch to burn and smoke without the branch actually burning, and then the smoke will manifest into whoever you state you want to speak to if they're deceased. The animus touched object is known as the Soul Speaker. The spirit(s) being spoken to will only be able to be seen, heard, and physically there until someone choose to burn out the flame on the branch, of which the smoke manifestation will dissipate. Thus works for any spirit of the dead if the user knows which one they want to speak to, ie they knew them before death, has seen a painting of them with their name, in other words, a face and name. You can also ask for any nearby spirits who would like to speak to manifest, but that's only if the spirit chooses to.

Anyway in the bottom right of the image we have a dragonet and a clutch of eggs, which Weavewings bundle together with silk if they have multiple eggs. And the dragonets as they grow go through molts similarly to spiders, their first molt gives them an extra pair of limbs that have two talons on them, then the next gives them their first pair of wings, the third they get their extra pair of arms, and then the fourth they get their other pair of wings. They are born with the ability to spin silk however they don't fully master it until they're older.

These dragons have a pair of mandibles on the sides of their mouth with a fang on each that can deliver a toxin that can prevent clotting, and cause partial paralysis, both are temporary, so it's possible to survive if bitten.

They also have quills behind their ears and horns that have venom as well, however it's harmless aside from delivering an unpleasant sting, to protect the base of their neck and head. At hatching they have no quills and begin growing them after their first molt, when each quill first emerges, they are soft and rubbery, and slowly harden, their scales are also like this after they molt until they harden, much like actual spiders. And before their quills or scales harden, they appear pale and grow in color as they harden.

Their extra limbs with two talons are often used to handle and manipulate their silk threads. They also have the ability to recycle their silk back into their system via consuming it, their saliva able to dissolve their silk.

Their ears are large, and can hear very well for nocturnal hunting, their eyes also adept with night vison. Their sclera(white part of the eye) are hardly visible, their irises being large with pupils that can grow rather large or very small, having very good vision. Their sense of smell is average, but is oddly sensitive to the scent of blood, and hence can locate injured prey and follow them till exhaustion. They're often ambush predators, and sometimes use their silk in aiding the hunt, as a trap, or as restraints.

When reproducing, the females while carrying eggs, have to consume blood and meat in larger quantities, and if their needs aren't met, their urges/instincts will cause them to consume anything with flesh near them until satisfied, even against their better judgment and morality, which often causes them to consume their mate/or spouse or other dragons. This gave them a reputation, and were coined the name Widowings by other tribes.

This tribe isn't a naturally occurring one, they were made by an animus during the heat of the scorching. However any traces of them aside from myths, legends, and rumors were gone by the time of Darkstalker, their existence debated.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Since youve drawn your version of driders I want to ask for help in figuring out how pedipalps or mandibles would fit on a humanoid face. How would they attach to the skull and jaw structure?

I have an old post that shows just the outer appearance of how spider mouth parts might look on a drow's face so that's a start. but I did not go into any detail on the underlying structure, so let's tackle that!

spiders, like pretty much all arthropods, have an exoskeleton, while vertebrates have internal skeletons. but, vertebrates are capable of developing something akin to an exoskeleton! like osteoderms on lizards, or the scales of a pangolin, or the armored plates of an armadillo. so we can sorta handwave the combination of exoskeleton and internal skeleton with the arthropod/vertebrate hybridization of driders. I think the attachment of the spider parts would be more internally muscular, possibly with cartilage parts, and externally reinforced with keratin.

it should also be noted that spiders do not have mandibles. they have fangs to inject venom and digestive juices, and then they slurp the digested goop out of their prey. they also have pedipalps, which are like little hand-arms.

here is a more extreme look at how you might alter the skull of a drider to include more spider-like features:

(image description: sketches of a drider skull from the side and front, with extra holes for the smaller spider eyes, no lower jaw, and space for the large round spider fangs and flexible pedipalps. the nose no longer exists, since the fangs are in its place. below the skulls are sketches of a drider with this anatomy. end description)

have fun with your freaky spider-faced driders!

[strawberrykidneystone]

Interspecies Liason

garrus vakarian x female shepard fluff

summary: after being gone on Omega on a solo mission away from the crew to help aria, shepard needed a break. luckily, the 7 foot turian she was thinking about was waiting for her in her cabin.

a/n: i literally tried to romance someone else the second time i played mass effect but i just ended up with garrus again LMAO

tags: fluff, shepard is tired, ooc bc garrus says i love you before the end, cuddling

ao3 version

after dealing with cerberus and resisting shooting petrovsky in the head for the bullshit he was spewing about them someday being friends, shepard needed a distraction before they headed back out to save the galaxy again. she boarded the Normandy again and nodded tiredly to traynor as she hastily made her way into the elevator. she pulled off her headpiece and started peeling off her armor as the lift rose up to her cabin, leaving her in a tank top and armored bottoms as she held the discarded attire in her arms. the elevator dinged and she crossed the small corridor, the weight of her shoulders dropping slightly as the door opened up to the familiar space that she had made her own.

but there was an "intruder" in her room.

fortunately, it was just the turian she wanted to see.

he had his back to her as he was adjusting her bedding, it looked like he had changed her sheets and comforter cover while she was off on her mission. her shoulders relaxed as a warm smile tugged on her lips. garrus wasn't always good with his words, but he knew how to show that he cared for her through other means. he brought extra pillows from his own bed, he rarely slept in his room anymore and shepard was more than happy to have him in her cabin. he wasn't in his usual armor, instead, he was wearing his green and blue loungewear over his plates.

shepard quietly walked up to him from behind and wrapped her arms around his torso, nuzzling her cheek into his soft shirt, "hey there big guy."

her thumbs ran up and down his sides as he chuckled, his chest humming happily. he rested his arms over hers and his blunt talons brushed against her skin, "you're back."

he turned around in her arms to face her and cupped her face with his hands, his eyes quickly darting over her to make sure that she wasn't injured. as his eyes ran over her body, he saw that she was already in the process of getting undressed. his mandibles quirked up with an expression that she had come to know as a teasing one, "couldn't even wait until you were in the room to get undressed for me? how unbecoming of you commander."

shepard groaned and shook her head, leaning her forehead against his chest, "we finally got all the gangs on our side, i know the backstreets of omega a little too well for my liking."

garrus placed his hand on back of her head and petted her hair softly, his other hand rested on her hip. "you did good shepard, now it's time to get some rest."

"but-"

"no buts, the galaxy can wait a bit. even the great commander shepard needs rest."

shepard sighed in defeat and nodded, looking up at him. garrus leaned his head down and pressed his forehead against hers, closing his eyes in contentment. his hand moved from her hip and started rubbing her back, his thumb moving in circles every so often. shepard's posture softened as she hugged his waist, pulling him as close to her as possible while still keeping his forehead against hers, reveling in the turian's traditional kiss.

"come on, lets get you to bed sweetheart," garrus leaned down and pressed his lip plates against shepard's soft lips. she smiled into the kiss and pulled away, stripping down her armored pants which left her in her tank top and underwear.

garrus pulled her to their shared bed by her hand, falling back and pulling her on top of him. she quickly clung to him and closed her eyes, letting herself relax. shepard tried to forget about the reapers, the galaxy relying on her, the alliances she still needed to make, and all the lives lost, god it was all just too much sometimes.

but then, she looked up at garrus and it all seemed to melt away. he was here with her at this moment and that was enough. he was her world, everything else didn't matter while she was safe in his arms.

"i love you vakarian."

"i love you too shepard."

[lazymonth]

TSSM Fantasy AU ✧

( I used Peter, Beck, Cham and Tink as a example because I love them )

This AU have references concept from movie Onward about fantasy creatures living they live like a modern now day but in this AU also have magic in they blood and using it in normal life

And other then fantasy creatures this AU also have a cryptid, ghost and some classic monsters

Little info about them :

Peter Park || Spider-man : Bug monster is a specie I made up for him. He have a humanoid look with some parts of his body covered by insect exoskeleton, he’s also have extra eyes but when being spider-man he can grow six arms and a mandibles for represent being spider.. sound like man spider actually 🤔

Quentin Beck || Mysterio : Beck being magicless is a very special case in this world. Magic it’s just like swimming, everyone can do it even if you good or bad at it you can training to make it stronger but Quentin, he’s borne with completely magicless how hard he try but still hopeless,, Beck got a very low respect from other people and even more in elf community because elf is one of the powerful specie with magic, so he became Mysterio a very strong sorcerer to get a respect he deserves

Dmitri Smerdyakov || Chameleon : We are gonna ignore the fact that Noppera-Bō is actually Japan's yōkai some of the iconic species in one country can be found on other country too in this world. Anyway back to Chameleon, he's actually faceless just like other Noppera-Bō but for hiding his identity even his true specie so Dmitri using his shape shifting power to create his own face to look like other monsters

Phineas Mason || Tinkerer : doesn't have my thing for Tink but I play a little about his have similar name to Tinker bell, LOL. Tink is very small around 14 cm. like other fairy but because he's small that make him really fast too, hard to catch and work fast even need to build a big stuff, but because he's old now and flying around take a lot of energy so he usually just sit on someone shoulder

[athena-gunpla]

HGBD:R 1/144 Alus Planets System AGP-X1 "Alus Core Gundam" + Alus Planets System Armour Unit AGP-X1/E3 "Alus Earthree Gundam"

My third Core System set!!! I really have to get around to watching Re: Rise now. Compared to the previous Marsfour and Earthree kits I built, the Alus Earthree has a notably more menacing design language. It shares many of the same parts, including the entire Core Gundam sprue that was common between Marsfour and Earthree, however introduces several new and unique parts for the arms, legs, and body.

I really liked how the Alus Core Gundam differentiates itself. The longer arms, spindly fingers, and clawed feet make this suit look menacing, and the head design looks really cool. The foil stickers go on nicely and the main eye is super reflective behind the purple hood. You can choose between a red sticker for Alus or a purple one for Eldora. I went with red to add some contrast with the darker purple color scheme of the kit.

Just like the other two Core Gundams there's an impressive level of articulation baked into the little model. A neat bonus was the inclusion of actual hand options, with two open, two closed, and a beam effect handpiece in trans-purple. Unfortunately, there weren't extra hand back pieces. You need to juggle the two the kit comes with between all the hand options.

Like the other two kits, this one includes a small beam spray gun. There's no colored part to compete the shield, unfortunately, nor are there any beam sabers (instead of saber racks, this suit has two thin stabilizers on its backpack). Instead, there's a hand option piece depicting a beam effect coming directly out of the suit's fingers, which looks really cool. One minor nitpick is that the hand backing for this piece is a sticker rather than a separate part.

Just like the normal Earthree Gundam, this kit includes a full set of armour-up parts including extensions to the beam spray gun to turn it into a really cool looking beam cannon. The parts attach to the core unit in the same way as the base Earthree parts, but have interesting design variations, including more claw-like feet, a large set of four wings for the back, and some really nice purple details done using the foil sticker sheet. Due to the longer arms, there are no arm extension parts. There's also a new unique head for the Alus Earthree Gundam mode, with a crown-like v-fin design over the red foil eye sticker.

Unlike the other two kits, the Alus Earthree Armour isn't stored on a flight platform. Rather, there's a rather odd separate piece that you can attach all the extra option parts to, including the spare heads, extra hands, and Alus Earthree Armour bits. I don't think this is an in-universe delivery method, but it's a cool little extra to hold all the parts together when they're not on the kit.

The beam cannon is one of my favorite parts of the kit. It's a set of five parts that clip over the beam spray gun piece. The front two mandibles can open to deliver a less focused, larger area of effect shot, and a side part pops open to reveal a handle for two handed poses.

I ended up doing quite a lot of detail work on this kit. There's some Citadel Necron compound drybrushing on the light gray frame parts, as well as gunmetal and silver pigment powder (Tamiya weathering set C) over all the darker parts, and some soot and blueing effects on the gun (Tamiya weathering set D).

I ended up enjoying the Alus Earthree Gundam a lot more than I thought I would. It's a really fun build without too many small parts or complex techniques, and the metallic foil stickers are really well chosen and help the kit pop. I definitely recommend it for anyone looking to get into HG gunpla, or who wants a kit with decent color separation, good design, and fantastic panel lines out of the box - I don't think there's anywhere you'd have to scribe to add detail!

I still don't know who Alus is though...

[couchtaro]

Do you get together with your friends once a week to imagine best friends you made up holding and getting held in desperation and terror as one of them rapidly turns to stone, the other flooding her with his literal life force, which manifests as a visceral compulsion to survive, in the hopes that it will somehow help her resist, offering “the closest thing to a prayer he has” as he begs his warlock patron to do anything at all, telling said patron “you don’t know her, but she’s everything” and pleading for her to live while watching her literal actual light gradually extinguish as the petrification overtakes her, all the while she is using what little mobility she still has to hurl lasers at the monsters attacking their friends who are defending them so he can focus his energy on saving her. Or are you normal

@justabitscrewy used every single one of her turns in a session-long combat to hold Phaela and RP her guts out and like. My word. I have to lay down. Let them hug. They’re goin thru it

ID and slightly more context below the cut

Image 1: a roughly sketched digital drawing of two D&D characters. Izen, a drider, is shown in his form of dread, a defensive state designed to frighten off attackers. In this form his face is bare skull, with four pairs of hollow eye sockets and purple mandibles on either side of his jaw. Tears run down the stark bone of his face. He is wearing the bracers that Phaela decorated for him by wrapping them in ribbon. With both hands, he holds Phaela’s face. She is a tiefling woman who looks up at him with wide eyes. Izen’s prized possession, a talisman secured by a ring of straps, is wrapped around her shoulders. Her chin is tilted up as if the stone spreading up her body is a rising tide she is trying to stay afloat in. She is petrified up to her neck with only her head and extended left arm free. Both are suffused by a starry blue glow, which is no longer present in the dull stone overtaking her. She holds starlight in her free hand that she has been trying to defend them with. Her expression is a mixture of desperation, determination, fear, and guilt.

Images 2 and 3: a roughly sketched comic. 1) Izen faces us. Phaela wraps her arms around him with her back to us, her head pressed into his chest and shoulders hunched. His hands rest on her back. 2) Izen bends down to hug Phaela properly, wrapping his arms around her and resting his head on her shoulder. His pedipalps also wrap around her for extra huggage. 3) Izen straightens and lifts Phaela up off the ground, his pedipalps forming a sort of platform that she sits on. 4) Phaela curls into Izen like a child, tail hanging limply down. One of his hands securely circles her back, the other rests on the back of her neck. He rests his head on her shoulder and one of his spider legs comes forward to hold her as well. Maximizing points of contact here. 5) Phaela wildshapes into a cat just to get super extra held. She is nestled in his arms, tucked under his chin, being gently stroked. Her face is still not visible.

End image ID.

[jupiterswasphouse]

WASP REVIEW - CHARMY BEE (SONIC THE HEDGEHOG)

[Image IDs: A piece of official Charmy Bee artwork and an official 3D render of the same character /End IDs.]

Apologies in advance to fans of Charmy Bee. I will preface this review with this: I really love the designs in the Sonic franchise, and I'm perfectly fine with Charmy as a character (apart from some weird things that are supposedly in the comics), Chaotix wouldn't be the same without him! but uh... Yeah, of the characters in the main Sonic games, this is probably one of the Least Good designs. The designers of Sonic Team already don't have a perfect history of making their anthro animal designs as accurate as they could be to the real thing, which usually turns out fine, but how do they fare when making an insect in their trademark style?

Well, let's get straight to it, with this bee's physical appearance. When it comes to the aspects that are fairly acceptable to me, we got only four limbs, and the lower pair appear to technically be misplaced on the body, but that's perfectly ok, given this is an anthropomorphic design. I'm not gonna get mad over a bug with human hands either, given the fact I've done that myself, quite a bit, although I do think it would be fun if they gave him an extra set of arms just to add to the bee aspects of the design. Furthermore, I'm fine with an arthropod mouth being simplified or altered into a more cartoony and/or mammalian mouth, although they could have given him big ol' mandibles and had him be just as cute!

[Image Source: PBS, Nebraska Public Media | Image ID: An illustration of a honey bee (female, worker) showing its body parts as labelled. Mandibles, antennae, eyes, thorax, abdomen, stinger, foreleg, middle leg, forewing, hind wing, and hind leg (with labelled pollen basket) /End IDs.]

Moving on to the rest, though, it's unclear whether or not his mesosoma/thorax and metasoma/abdomen are properly segmented with the shirt on, but it appears as though they might be fused into one segment? His body doesn't seem to have much in the way of segmentation in general, which is strange. The antennae are striped all the way down, which, they should be one solid color. He has only two wings, as opposed to the four on a real bee. He also shouldn't have a stinger, only females such as the queen and the worker bee have these, as the stinger is a modified ovipositor, built to inject venom, as well as for its primary purpose, that being, to lay eggs. Oh, and his helmet would be covering up his ocelli as well!

But then, we get to the most egregious aspects, and... I mean, do I have to say it? Take away the tacked on stinger, antennae, and wings, and this is just another hedgehog. Little guy is about 80% mammal. His arms and mouth area are colored like human skin, and seem to be just as smooth, no chitin nor setae to be found. He has a nose, which, he really shouldn't! He already has antennae with which to smell things!! And the only thing about his eyes that can be called "compound" is the classic Sonic character feature of having gigantic mammalian eyes that are fused straight down the middle like a visor.

[Image Sources: Jupiter's Wasp House, ie Myself, and photomacrography.net forums, Charles Krebs | Image IDs: Two photos, one of a black, yellow, orange, and white feeding from a pink and white flower, followed by a closeup of a honey bee's head /End IDs.]

It's unfortunate, because I think they could've done something really unique, especially considering how uniquely shaped his fellow Chaotix member, Vector The Crocodile is!

Another thing I have to question is, how exactly does he age? Barring the comic canon here, and the weird and insulting brain damage storyline within, he's canonically very young in the games, roughly 16 in Chaotix according to the English manual, though in Heroes he's instead seemingly portrayed as being about 6. Which brings up the question of if he was ever a larva. My assumption, if he was more like a real bee, would be yes! If we're scaling things up, then probably from birth through toddler age. But he's not quite like a real bee, is he? Maybe he was just, essentially, a smaller version of his current self, as is the case with many other types of animal.

[Image Source: Wikimedia Commons, Waugsberg | Image ID: A photo showing eight bee larvae arranged in order of age as they mature and harden into their pupae /End IDs.]

Small side note, apparently, in the comics, he was a prince, which I suppose it's fair enough if we're translating the many social structures of other animals to something more recognizable to us humans, but if every child of the queen became a prince or princess, then every bee in the colony would be a royal, as all honey bees are the young of a queen. Also, the colony wouldn't have a king! A honey bee hive is a matriarchy through and through! If you want an insect king and queen pairing, you'll have to turn to the termites of Blattodea, as Hymenoptera tends to be a bit of a girl's club. Yet again, this is Ken Penders lore we're talking about here, so it matters not.

So, what can be said about his abilities and behaviors? We already covered that he, strangely, has a stinger, which he uses to attack as most stinging bees do, though he's not very aggressive, which is about accurate. I don't think he's ever shown making honey (like a worker bee) nor feeding on honey, or nectar, nor directly from flowers, but do correct me if I'm wrong! He has, at least, been shown to be able to mysteriously warp between flowers, which is quite odd, yet also quite cool, I would say.

He is also, or at least was originally, quite a fast flier! As the Japanese manual of Chaotix supposedly states "He was the first insect to cross the speed of sound", or alternatively that he was the first to break the sound barrier, depending on which translation you read, although this is clearly not quite the case later on. He's still fast, but not enough to break the sound barrier. Honey bees are, in fact, quite fast for their size, reaching a top flight speed of about 20mph (~32kmh), and this is a series where the fastest thing alive is a damn hedgehog, so I can let this one slide. Though, it does seem like a bit of a missed opportunity to make seemingly the fastest insect in this universe a honey bee rather than, say, a dragonfly, the fastest of which, reach about 35mph (56kmh).

All in all, though, Charmy Bee, while a charming fellow, isn't quite up to snuff when compared directly to the real thing. Understandably enough for the Sonic universe, but still kind of disappointing, taking all things into consideration, and the near complete departure from arthropodal anatomy is enough to dock a significant amount of points. So, sadly, I'll have to give him...

-

Overall: 3.5/10

-

Leave your wasp review suggestion in the replies, tags, or askbox!

[mushroommanchanterelle]

Part 2 of the Shakarian fic I'm playing around with

The sound of whirring gears floods the vehicle bay as the elevator makes its slow descent. The door opens to reveal Garrus Vakarian, mandibles slacked to the sides of his face. He holds a warm thermos in his hand, and staggers out of the vehicle bay. The former detective takes up his usual position beside the Mako and slumps onto the ground, taking a long sip of whatever fluid resided within the insulated walls of his metallic cup. Across the room from him, Urdnot Wrex chuckles to himself.

“You look more like shit than usual, Garrus.”

The turian groans and looks up from his drink, locking eyes with the krogan warrior.

“Not now, Wrex. I’ve got enough to think about already. I don’t need extra commentary.”

“Suit yourself. Haven’t seen you this bent out of shape since we recruited your sorry ass.”

Garrus props himself up against the Mako’s tire, sitting up straight instead of slumping over.

“Wrex, if I wanted your opinion, I would have asked. Besides, it’s not something you’d know a damn thing about anyways.”

As Wrex opens his mouth to speak, the door to the engineering bay opens. Tali’Zorah hurriedly steps out of the room, looking between the two disgruntled men.

“Are you two fighting again? Why is it that the moment I turn my back, you’re at odds? Doesn’t Shepard take you along with her enough to form… I don’t know, some sort of combat bond?”

Garrus twinges at the sound of Shepard’s name, looking back down at his thermos. Wrex, taking note, gives a hearty belly laugh.

“Ahh that’s what’s bothering you. What did Shepard do this time? You mad she took Kaiden and Tali out instead of us?”

“It’s not that it’s… It’s…”

Beneath the mask, Tali’s face lights up.

“I know that look. I’ve seen enough vids to know where this is going. You’ve got feelings about her, don’t you?”

The quarian mechanic walks over to Garrus and sits beside him, offering a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Come on, Garrus, out with it. You know you can talk to us. Or…at least me.”

Wrex crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the wall.

“What, don’t trust me, turian?”

Garrus sighs, lowering his mandibles. He looks down, then between Tali and Wrex.

“It’s just… I heard Shepard talking with Kaiden this morning.”

Tali gently pats his shoulder.

“I take it you didn’t like what you heard? I didn’t think Kaiden was the sort to go after a woman like Shepard…they always seemed more like siblings to me.”

“No, it’s not like that. They were talking about ME.”

Wrex stretches his neck. “So they were gossiping. Hardly enough to warrant a reaction like this.”

Tali shoots him a look that permeates through the thick shielding of her helmet, then returns her gaze to Garrus. Immediately, Wrex puts his hands up and leans back against the wall.

“What were they saying, Garrus?”

“It was a little hard to make out from the elevator, but it sounded like Kaiden was teasing Shepard. I think I heard him say that she was up late thinking about me, but she pulled rank to shut him down. I… I think Shepard might have some feelings that I’m not sure I know how to handle.”

Wrex sighs and shakes his head. “I don’t know what’s so difficult about it. Just send a breeding request and be done with it.”

Tali shakes her head and retorts with fire in her voice, “Quiet Wrex. This is a delicate matter! Romance is an art form and needs to be handled with tact.” She returns to Garrus once again, having silenced their krogan counterpart. “Garrus, if you don’t want any advances, you don’t have to take them. You don’t need to entertain Shepard if you don’t feel the same way.”

“That’s the thing, Tali. I DO feel the same way. It’s…complicated. I’ve had relations before, but never a true relationship. I don’t even know how compatible turians and humans are. Tensions are still fairly high between our peoples and…”

Tali gently cups Garrus’s cheek, offering a reassuring smile just barely visible through the purple glass. “Garrus, love always finds a way. If you really feel that way, why not talk to her about it?”

Wrex lets out a disgruntled huff, looking off to the side indignantly. 

“I don’t see the fuss about it. You like her, she likes you. It sounds to me like a done deal. Quit your whining and get it over with already.”

“As much as I’d love to, I don’t even know that much about Shepard. I don’t know if we have the same interests, or hobbies… I don’t even really have any hobbies. I think this requires some careful research…”

Tali chuckles and relaxes beside him.

“If anyone can figure it out, it’s you. Don’t think too hard about it. The best way to get to know someone is to talk to them. Maybe get her a present. Every woman I know loves getting presents.”

“Alright, that sounds like a good place to start. But…what sort of gift do I even get? And where? Shepard doesn’t seem like the chocolate kind of person, and we hardly go anywhere pleasant enough to pick up something soft and cuddly.”

Wrex thinks a minute, remembering a conversation he had with their illustrious commander. At the same time, in near perfect unison, Tali joins in. 

“Shotguns,” the two say at the same time.

Wrex chuckles softly to himself.

“Shepard loves big shotguns. The bigger the better. Get her something with some kick to it.”

“Shotguns? Really? You’d think something like that would topple her over. She’s barely above five foot! Well…if you say so. I’ll keep my eyes open. Thanks, the both of you.”

Tali looks over to the elevator and nods her head.

“We’re your friends, Garrus. Of course we’ll help you through things.”

“Yeah yeah whatever,” Wrex shoots back, “whatever quiets your bellyaching.”

The elevator ascends, a clear indicator that someone was planning on coming down to the cargo bay. Garrus stands up again, patting himself off, then turns to the Mako to begin maintenance. He had a lot to think about.

[themissingnumbers]

Hi, Starry! Remember that observation I said I wanted to do of that "A Boy Named Red" art piece? I finally got around to that. I don't mean to clutter your inbox or blog, but I don't know where else to put it, so I'll just put it here- This probably won't have any sort of theory in it, but I dunno yet. We'll see-

1. Where do I start- Uhhh, did anybody else see that one half of Fire's face is just... missing? Like, it's decomposed or something. You have to change the brightness of the image to see it, but you can see his bones—the mandible/jaw, the zygomatic bone, and the maxilla. Looks like his eye is missing, too, or is just empty/milky white. Freaky. (Also, those gold dots are looking right at us you cannot convince me otherwise.)

2. Might be grasping at straws here, but for whatever reason my brain focused on the fact that there are no words near Fire's head when it's perfectly fine overlapping everything and everyone else. The inner circle of the halo closest to his head is empty. Is that symbolism? Like, showing that he has no ability to think for himself? That the only words he's influenced by are the words of "God" (In air quotes because fuck Arceus, that thing is no god to me-) and nobody else's input matters so long as he does what he's told?

3. The Strings. Those strings bug me in a way I can't really explain. It's not just the stitches that are holding him together, but it's that fact that they're like... pretty. They're wrapped around him in such an intricate manner, like a work of art or the bow on an expensive present. They feel possessive. Evil. They're restrictive. One is connected to his eye, the other to the corner of his mouth, the others are wrapped around his arms and legs, and there are more wrapped around each individual finger. They're not quite chains, but they may as well be. They give me the vibes of "Oh, your pet finally learned to behave, so it deserves a nicer collar." It looks nicer, and it's more comfortable, but the core meaning behind it is still the same. Someone else owns you and you have no freedom. It gives me an oddly icky feeling.

4. Can I focus in on the sword for a second? Okay, thanks- That thing is so cool. Younger me was a bit of a weapon nut and that came out a little bit the more I looked at it, so enjoy this little ramble. The sword itself, as in the blade, at first glance reminded me of a Xiphos but looked like more of a Gladius upon closer inspection due to the shape of the blade. Xiphos swords have a Leaf-shaped blade that sort of gets wider in the middle and a reinforced mid-rib, while Gladius blades are completely straight with a uniform width and a pointed top, along with a diamond cross-section. (It's probably not a short sword, but from the angle I'm looking at, it looks like a short sword.) [Hold up: I went back and refreshed my knowledge, and I swear this blade looks like a Cinquedea, at least in shape.] Now, I can't really see what specifics the blade has got, but based on the blood spatter I'm gonna assume it's got a diamond cross-section. (But this is also fantasy so who really cares?) I also can't really see the hilt of the blade either, but with the angle we're looking at it seems like it's curved, which is freaking awesome. A curved hilt gives you more leverage for cutting and is good for thrusting attacks due to its more pistol-like grip, so it's effective. It's a powerful weapon when placed in the right hands. What I'm really focused on though is that based on the blade's appearance, it looks like a double-edged sword... which would be bad for a blade with a curved hilt because now you can't use it in the opposite direction, but there's also an extra meaning in a more figurative sense—like the power is a burden. Take that as you will :)

5. The Bodies. There are SO many bodies, some of which I spent too long trying to identify with no clues, but I'll just point out who I see. You've got (shirtless!) Red on the left with his ribs exposed and his guts spilling out, still smiling. You've got Blue not too far away from him with a knife in his neck. And then a little bit behind Blue but closer to fire there's just a pile of bones hidden by the darkness. I don't know who those belong to, but they're there. Over to the right, we can see who I'm pretty sure is Leaf going off of the dress, the shackles and the bloody hands. You can see Miki's head right by Fire's foot all wrapped up in red string. A little bit behind who I'm assuming is Leaf, I'm assuming is another Blue with bleeding ears or an injured face? They've got the FRLG high-collared shirt that Blue seems to wear, but the shoes don't really match up so I'm not really sure. I also don't know who's in the chest or who's facing Suicune, but all the way in the bottom right corner is Gold (ouch-) I couldn't tell at first, but after brightening up the image, you can see his hood, the detail of his pockets, and that little band on the sleeve of the arm laying nearby. (Poor Gold, but also Poor Fire-)

6. Other items. There are a lot of little things just lying around in this picture that I'm not really sure about, but I'll give them my best guesses here. There's something to the right of Fire, just below the hand holding the sword, that kinda looks like... coins? A flower? I'm not really sure, but it looks like it's on top of something else, which I unfortunately cannot see. There's a classic brick Game Boy off to the right as well. Don't know why it's there along with the box that person was shoved in. There's also like... some fuzz?- or some shit right up by Fire's wrist, which I also don't know why it's there or who it belongs to. I'm just assuming it's fluff/fur based on how I've seen Starry draw fur and Eevee. There are some crystals on the left, which kinda look like those crazy crystals jutting out of Dark Mewtwo. And there's also this weird ball thing in the bottom left that I genuinely cannot identify. It looks like it's being held together by green string, but I'm not sure. (Almost forgot to mention the Pomeg Berry at Fire's feet-)

7. The Others. I don't have too much to say about them, but there are two other characters in the background. A Suicune who's wearing a muzzle, and a Hisuain Zoroark with a golden collar around its neck. I'm assuming that the Zoroark is the character that got teased a while back, the one that was "Collared by the Narrative" I believe. Now, I'm also not sure why Suicune is wearing a muzzle, but I'm going to take it at face value and assume it's a form of control because the idea of Arceus having other gods in its back pocket just makes sense to me.

Okay, I think that's all I got for now. Sorry if it's too long. I just wanted to write this stuff down while I had the energy. Hope you like it though :)

Death comes in many forms; Slaughtered, Poisoned, Enshrined. Not every body is how it was, scraps and fragments left behind.

Remember the thirds, all that went wrong. The Youngest is the Eldest, strange beasts who don't belong.

Copies are valuable, for the imperfections they hold. Truth lies in scripture, held together with gold.

[genderfluid-ashfur]

More school doodles! This time of Ashfur in my AU where StarClan cats take on bird-like features (feathered wings, feathers around the neck, feet, and tail, etc. They're all also based on different kinds of birds) And DF cats take on bug-like features (clear wings, antennae, multiple eyes, multiple legs, longer fangs, venom, etc.)

This design is of Ashfur at the very end of the arc, from after he dragged Squirrelflight down the moonpool and into the DF. His white, feathered wings began to shed, revealing clear wings instead. The wings on the side of his face morphed into long mandibles, like a weird mix of an ant's mandibles and a mantis's arms. He gains two extra pairs of eyes, although they're smaller and scarcely help his vision. Although you can't really see it in the image, his legs are a lot more long and thin, almost spindly, and his claws are longer. His "hair" (head fur but whatever) is long and unkempt. I also imagine that he has faded red hair dye but that's not rlly canon to the design lol

[wjbs-bonkle-au]

Random Human-AU character-design notes, some of which probably won't make sense to anyone else since I haven't actually properly designed them yet.

Whenua is bald, even before becoming a Turaga.

Vezon looks basically the same as Vezok but thinner and younger. The Ignika is fused to his mechanical skeleton (since the MU inhabitants are actually extremely humanlike robots).

Masks are replaced with geometric, "artificial"-looking face markings that roughly resemble the canon mask designs, sometimes supplemented with other things (e.g Onua has a series of horizontal lines on his cheeks, along with two beads threaded into his beard that match up with the small circular holes on the Pakari's chin); the markings glow when the characters use their mask powers. The Inika's are smoother and more natural-looking.

Nidhiki, the Hordika, the Rahaga, the Barraki and the Mistika Makuta are all animal-human hybrids with varying degrees of (semi-technological) body-horror. Pre-mutation they just look like the rest of the MU's highly-humanlike beings. The eel-mode Piraka also look more fishlike rather than just being disembodied heads and spines. Since the Magnans are actual humans, the Vorox and Zesk are fully organic and have some actual body-horror going on, with insectoid mandibles made of bone, arm-like tails, and extra eyes with uneven sockets and distorted pupils.

Spinax looks like a wolf made out of crustacean parts.

The VNRT have stitched together, decayed "skin" that leaves their endoskeletons partially exposed, with outsized limb-sockets visibly attached with crude weld-trails and irregularly-placed rivets. Their weapons are attached to their wrist-sockets. Also their eyes are pitch-black, as a reference to their set-forms' lack of eyestalks and also partially due to author-appeal.

The Inika have glowing lines extending back from their fingertips, all the way up to their wrists; the lines' shapes match with their respective elements (Jaller's are curved like flames; Hahli's flow like waves, with bubble-like circles mixed in; Nuparu's resemble crystalline facets; Kongu's look like stylised clouds, with lots of swirls and spirals; Hewkii's resemble cracked stone; Matoro's are long and jagged, with small points that branch off). Upon becoming the Mahri, the lines stop glowing, becoming markings that are slightly lighter than their regular skin tone.

While wearing the Adaptive Armour, the Toa Nuva look like more solid versions of their 2008 set forms, with different proportions.

The Vahki look like their LOMN designs; the Maxilos robots look like their set-forms, but slightly more "filled in" and with extra details like a glowing mouth-grille in their "mouth", and bioluminescent barnacles growing on parts of them.

Roodaka wears the Makuta-stone fragment as a necklace.

Tuyet's hair is based on Galva's original Mask of Intangibility design. Her Toa Empire counterpart has it tied back.

Av-Matoran (and, by extension, Shadow Matoran) have exotic hair-colours, as opposed to everyone else whose hair is more realistically-coloured (with a few exceptions who explicitly have dyed hair, e.g Dalu). Shadow Matoran have darker hair that fades to dark-grey towards the tips. Takua's hair changes from teal to literally-golden when he becomes Takanuva.

Toa Tools that "replace" the arm/hand of a character (e.g Hewkii's Cordak Blaster, Pohatu's propeller things) are either just handheld or take the form of gauntlets (in terms of the examples, the former is handheld and the latter become gauntlets).

Toa Ignika looks a lot more artificial than everyone else, with a wood-like texture on his body and frame, visible joints on his hands and limbs, and no face underneath his mask.

Mata Nui's form while on Spherus Magna looks like an animate sandstone statue with faded paint.

Shapeshifted Makuta retain some element of their main form (e.g Antroz's vehicle-piloting form (which, in this AU, is his default form) looks like his main '08 form but smaller and without the additional vampire-y bits; Miserix has feathers resembling his main form's hair).

Hydraxon's helmet covers his entire head and face, and has opaque lenses. Dekar!Hydraxon looks exactly the same underneath the helmet, but without a beard and with red eyes instead of green.

After being possessed by a Krana, Lewa has a marking on his face where it was; this vanishes when he becomes a Toa Nuva.

Annona is still a horrifying eldritch monstrosity.

Marendar looks like a heavily mutated human with mechanical parts sticking out of its body.

Prior to going to Karzahni, Velika's Matoran form looked almost exactly like he did as a Great Being, but shorter.

Helryx's "skin" has mostly disintegrated, with her face and some of her torso being the most intact parts; her upper arms and thighs have their exposed endoskeletons wrapped in cloth and leather, and strange hoses connect from her abdomen into her face. Her hair is mostly missing.

Pohatu's sideburns turn into a full beard when he becomes a Toa Nuva.

While Onua is technically one of the tallest Toa Nuva, he's hunched over so he looks a lot shorter.

Scopes are attached like eyepatches; when Nuju becomes a Hordika, his scope fuses into his head. Instead of losing the scope when he becomes a Turaga, he accidentally drops it in the ocean while taking the Matoran Spheres to Mata Nui and doesn't notice until he gets there.

Sidorak is balding and has a large beard.

Keetongu is a big bug.

Krakua is old.

This isn't a design note, but love is canon and Axonn X Brutaka not only happened, but they're also canonically divorced.