#love the character and the character theyre based on together art

[secondary-colorentimy]

THE

[puppyeared]

(guy who has never played cotl) haha au time

[arolesbianism]

Thinking abt the random card au again. Why must it go so crazy hard I miss it sm

[lumohyperfixationhell]

HI HETA NATION

I've recently started developing an AU called Pumpkin Ghost based off the designs from this art hima did!! Its... hehe... ameita tho... so theyre kinda the main characters... teehee infodump time

Alfred - self-renowned ghost hunter!! He became one to get rid of his #1 fear: ghosts!!! He told himself he cant be a true hero if hes afraid of ghosts, so he took on a job that specifically involves getting rid of them! People send him requests to check out houses they think are haunted by ghosts, and with the shitty equipment he has, Alfred makes his way there to chase out the ghosts! It miracilously works because ghosts dont like loud noises and he has everything when it comes to that.

Feliciano - a cheery ghost who died not-so long ago and was an inhabitant of a house Alfred was asked to explore. Feli was so excited that he accidentally jumped out and ended up scaring Alfred so hard he passed out. Panicked, he waited for him to wake up and profusely apologized. Alfred, weirdly touched by the ghosts sillybillyness, offered to leave him be but Feli actually wanted to come with him. Alfred scratched his head amd asked if he could like... shapeshit or smth. To this, Feli turned into the pumpkin pin (thats on Alfreds coat in the art) and they went home together. Hes also amnesiac (as in he has no idea how he died. He makes a deal with Alfred that they'll figure out what happened to him before he passes on.)

Ivan - Alfreds weird neighbour!! Ivan runs a small business with weird amd shady practices, but that doesnt stop Alfred from asking him to find banger ghost equipmemt he could use. Now heres the thing: Ivan loves seeing him fumble with purposefully shitty equipments he provides. Seeing men with a high ego cringefail gives him great joy! This is why hes so surprised when seeing Feli. But hes not the weirdest thing Ivan has seen, so he quickly gets used to it and befriends him.

Extra details:

- Matthew is a detective whos working out of town. He lives together with Alfred tho.... when hes on a vacation. They regularly call eachother

- Alfred can technically touch Feli but Its like his hand is going through a gust of wind...

- Arthur amd Francis are 2 ghosts inhabiting the same house amd they fight over comtrol of the furniture like a married couple

Uhhh theres kinda more but I wamma keep things brief incase people are actually invested in this AU... if yuo have any questions feel free to ask!!!

[nn-ee-zz]

Your designs are pretty sick🔥

What advice would you give to a beginner in character design?

Thank you! My advice is based on my personal experience and thought process. Theyre not rules.

ADVICE FOR CHARACTER DESIGN;

-Stay honest to yourself: Drawing what you believe is popular might be the path to a lot of likes but not to a uniquely recognizable body of work. Draw what you want to see in the world. Draw the character you wish existed but can't find anywhere, because someone else wishes it too. I love what I design and you should love it as well. It also helps with the disappointment lack of likes might bring

-Concept over technique: Get your idea across. I'm around 60% satisfied with my current art technique but I push those insecurities aside because my desire to show my ideas surpasses it. If you have something to show, show it now. I've been drawing for years and I always feel like I'm not ''good enough'' to design what I want to design, but I have to push through. You will never feel fully ready, so might as well do it now.

-Focus: If you have an idea, focus on it and let the rest of the design highlight it. It makes your designs sharp and recognizable.

-Color: Careful! Don't restrict yourself but know that 2-4 colors are more than enough to make a design work. Sometimes it's the simplicity and contrast of your chosen colors that make it stand out

-Patterns: A little cheat to make your designs pop! If they feel too simple, add a pattern to a textile or a flat surface. Anything that fits the themes of the character. Careful! If you have a very detailed area that you wish to be the focus, try to avoid random patterns.

Here's an example.

Honesty: I'm not worried about how it looks nor who it is nor where the inspiration came from. It looks cool therefore it exists

Concept over technique: Scratchy lines, minimal rendering, rough details. As long as it's readable, it's passable

Focus: The concept was a bunch of heads stacked together to make a cowboy. Plus shoes. Everything else (the hair, the jacket, the face) are made to highlight the concept without stealing the attention from it

Color: Black, brown, yellow. Warm colors for a character in an arid enviroment.

Pattern: A pattern in THIS particular case would steal away from the focus of the stacked heads. No pattern needed here

I hope it helps!

Thanks and have fun in your character design journey!

[crushedsweets]

Would you ever consider including nurse ann in more of your art/ stories? She's one of my favorite characters and I think your design for her is amazing lmao- I'd also sort of like to know what her relationship with the others would be like

yes. actually. i would love to . ok i have some vague ideas for how shed fit into the lore so thatll be under the cut !! i also start rambling about lulus lore too cuz i decided theyre friends.

ok so, again, my au is based around slenders forest being like... some sort of magnet for the paranormal. slenderman wants to keep all of these cryptids within the forest.

since its in a fictionalized forest in tuscaloosa, where marble hornets was filmed, i decided to move the abanonded hospital they visited up north of the tuscaloosa lake. she roams there.

SOOOOO nurse ann is just... a demon. slenders forest is sort of like limbo for a lot of the cryptids and kinda puts them in like.. a long daze and loops unless they're consistently leaving or being grounded by humans.

i dont EXACTLY know why/how she's in that specfic hospital, especially since i dont believe she has an official origin? maybe when the hospital shut down, she was let go and wasn't transferred to work in a new hospital, so she lost her shit and preformed some crazy rituals that ended up making her an undead nurse ? now she's forever roaming the hospital. or maybe she was killing patients when she was a human and kept doing weird demon shit with their bodies and the operator/zalgo fed off of her bad vibes. LOL IDK.

now about lulu cuz i drew her too.

i used to be sooo fond of lulu. and i originally said she was just going to be another ghost roaming the forest pointlessly, mourning everything and being incapable of interacting with humans, BUUUUUT. she is 24 and NOT A GHOST?!?!??!?! IDK WHY ALL THIS TIME I THOUGHT SHE WAS JUST A GHOST WHO AGES CUZ YK HOW CHIBIWORKS STUFF WAS BACK THEN LOL... i def am tired of little kids being tortured and all these children ghosts tho so im kinda glad to have smth new to write. anyway. so im thinking lulus just another little demon thing... i'm thinking her story goes.

she was in strict private schools all of k-12, and went to uni on her own in tuscaloosa. she wanted to branch out, have a little rebelious phase, make friends, etc. tried to join a co-ed frat. she experienced an absolutely horrific hazing when she was like 19, the frat fully believed they killed her by accident and in their panic, tried to bury her in slenders forest, and some demonic entity in the forest infected her before she was buried fully. she ends up climbing out of her shallow grave, never having died. perhaps the operator did it, perhaps zalgo like in her og lore ? PERHAPS ANN CUZ SHES A DEMON HERSELF?

anywaaayyyyy :3 l think theyd be cute friends. they just look really cute together and i could see good chemistry so i totally would love to expand on them and make them friends. maybe expand more on the type of species they are, what kind of powers they have(esp if i make ann the demon who infects lulu).

BUUUUT ALSO this made me realize i should totally look into adding zalgo to my lore. cuz it doesnt make sense for the operator to make anyone a demon, thats not really what he does.... and i dont want him to do that i just dont like the vibes. so mmm yes.

anyway in terms of relationships..

lulu and her are cool good besties beautiful they would take selfies and do tiktok dances together.

masky and hoody are incredibly indifferent to her, because they dont have to worry/visit her often. she stays in the hospital thats in the forest, and thats exactly where slenderman wants her, so theyre content. theyre kinda grateful she keeps lulu in the hospital too, cuz lulu actually freaks them out bc she'll be jumping at them and shit talking about their eyes.

tobys EXTREMELY scared of ghosts (bc of his hallucinations of his sisters ghost . . ). he eventually gets over it(kinda?) with sally, but he keeps accusing ann and lulu and the sort of being ghosts cuz they just.. kinda pop in and out. at least jack has to walk into the room to show up. so he doesnt like them

mmm jack wouldnt like her IF he knows that she kinda turned herself into a demon through like, a ritual or smth. he'd be beyond pissed to know someone CHOSE to be what he is. if he doesnt know, he doesnt care for her. he kinda jokes about 'well why dont YOU be their medic' and shes like 'dont fuckin wanna be'.

jane and liu and kate prob dont know her... kate might but wouldnt care.

jeff would prob think shes hot or some bullshit and nina would be beyond pissed. at first ninas like AHHH SHES SO COOL cuz shes a fangirl at heart, but the second she hears a single 'goddamn' from jeff shes livid.

ben prob wouldnt care much for her... hes so uninterested in demons idk why i just feel like he doesnt care.

clockwork would LOVE HER. she'd think she's so fucking cool. she'd try talking to her all the time but ann prob wouldnt be interested in clocky at all...

ofc the proxies purposefully come into contact with the paranormal the most because thats their job, so i wrote the most for them, but that doesn't mean theyre the closest or anything.

ok thank u anon you did smth to my brain that benefitted my mental health cuz i love writing this shit for the creeps thank u sm .

[samscartoonsofficial]

Major art Dump incoming

all the MW ocs I have so far plus concept art of future ones in development.

I just want to have all my fav art pieces together in one post to track my progress :]

So of course we got the main trio themselves :]. My pride and joy. The amigos :]

Cephany and Tungston were the very FIRST fellas me and my partner came up with.

CopyKat came later to join the group after basing them on @havockingboo 's mimic species.

The idea just stuck after realizing they are the silliest cat alien in the galaxy. Their character is literally every cat meme rolled into one.

And I love them MWAH!! 🐈

NEXT UP!!

The villains!!!

EVIL EVIL EVIL ‼️💥‼️

Already planning on writing a comic for the trio. So if they would have any major villains it's THESE GUYS!

Brutus and Deoxy were developed by both me and my partner after we realized that if they're gonna fight bad guys. They should have some bad guys!

Took a while to make them and figure out what exact aliens we wanted for these guys!

But orugh the final result for them so far has been good :]

Deoxy still has a long way to go.

But Brutus is perfect.

Tagging @sammysamps 's once again because these are 4 out of theeeee...*counts fingers* 6 ocs I have based on their vampoctarion and Tremoctarion species!

The first two goobers are Oc x canon fanchildren.

The blue rocker lady is Joan

And the peachy Tremoctarion is my little princess Evangeline ✨

Me and my good friend @houseofdoodles love her and a certain crab pirate loves her too teehee :]

Okay let's see who elllllse 🤔

ANOTHER MW SONA STILL IN THE WORKS!

this was made by the help of another friend of mine

@coprolite-moment during a stream/magma doodle sesh! Its a Sona originally made for helluva boss. They really helped me develope and figure out this ladies color pallet/design which STILL amazes me btw HOLY shit 😭

But ALSO you should check out their dead eye comic hehehehe it's reeeeally goooooood :] *wiggles it around like I'm wiggling car keys*

Okay...who else? Uhhhhhhh

I have ONE unicorn fella I still gotta finish..aaaaaand...*counts all these rabbits*

THESE GUYS! again, another species inspired by havoc :] /theyre multiplying send help/

Cutler, Hartman, and...dog guy *squint*

I think I called him Richard but he's a fella I'm either gonna keep or scrap for later. Not sure yet

Same for Cutler!

But Hartman *kisses his head* I need to redesign you baby boy :]

Uhm I THINK that's it so far but honestly I know there's more! Might come back and edit the thread even more with updates!

But I got a pretty good chunk done.

I'll probably make a part 2 explaining concept for some NEW guys I've been thinking of all well.

Buuuuut thats it for now :]

[philtstone]

24. Showing up injured at their friend/mentor’s house: for shawn? :)

[emerges from writing this fic bloody and beaten and on the verge of collapse] ill explore karen vicks character in an overly complicated post-episode missing scene fic or die trying! set immediately post "right turn or left for dead". i genuinely dont know if im happy with this but i also cant figure out how to fix it. actually, it would have probably been easier to write if i was willing to rewatch the episodes its based on. which i am not, because i am a sensitive little soul. so i winged it. i think there are like 10 different ideas that crop up and theyre all equally fascinating as character threads but i have no idea if i tied them together in an even remotely coherent way. also, WOULD she say that??? i had to call my brother twice to ask. this is what yall get for sending me actually interesting prompts, huh

“Oh, it’s no problem,” Henry’s voice said on the phone. “I’ll send Shawn over with them on his way out. He's going in your direction, anyway.”

In her short tenure as the junior detective to Henry Spencer’s lieutenant, Karen Vick observed two things:

First, that he was a far more clever strategist than most people gave him credit for. Despite the ongoing wreckage of his impending divorce and a kid who was slipping through his fingers as everyone looked on, Karen didn’t agree with the other junior detectives’ impression of him as a smash-the-door-down old school hard ass with thinning hair and a worst attitude. The man played four dimensional chess right out of a bonafide Star Trek episode. When he really wanted something done, Henry Spencer could bullshit and bluff and battle plan with the pros, and half the time you’d get too caught up in the blustering misdirect to realize his game was intricately thought out three steps in advance.

It was how they caught the Shorttown Killer, and also how they got that idiot Trembley at the mayor’s office to finally replace their coffee maker. Karen went home to her then-boyfriend, now-husband, and, right before bed, pulled out an old school workbook and took notes.

The second thing was that Henry Spencer loved his son. 

Not a lot has changed since then, Karen thinks, staring down the weirdness that she now faces through her open front door.

“… Oh — Mr. Spencer,” Karen says, because it’s rude not to greet your employees when they show up at your home outside of work hours, and are also your old friend-slash-colleague’s kid. “Hello. Thanks for — bringing these over.”

“Dad said it was urgent,” Shawn says.

Urgent isn’t quite how Karen would describe it, but hearing through the grapevine that your department might be facing an audit sometime in the next quarter does light a fire under the proverbial ass. Karen would rather bend a few rules and make sure the last year’s i’s and t’s are dotted and crossed right than leave her detectives vulnerable to the whims of a mayoral stooge. 

In general, Karen prides herself on caring about the people under her command just enough that it inspires genuine friendship and loyalty. The just is important. Care needs tempering – it’s important to pull back, press pause, keep certain lines uncrossed. It’s especially important if you want to be successful as a woman in an authority position where lives are often on the line. 

What she’s saying is that she tries to make it none of her business what her employees get up to in their spare time. She really genuinely does. She’s shut O’Hara down gently midway through the twelfth sweetly-frazzled attempt to overshare about her dating life (or her efforts to befriend her next-door neighbor, or the endearing personality quirks of her last cat – rest in peace, Triscuit, you will be missed –) enough times to be well-versed in the art of I Won’t Ask, You Won’t Tell, But You’ll Probably Know I Care Anyway.

An invaluable rapport to maintain. In any situation, Karen thinks, but especially when you’re a person who regularly hires and works alongside Shawn Spencer.

She’s not sure whether what she’s looking at right now makes her want to second guess or double down on her usual policy. 

“Special delivery,” Shawn adds, like everything is super normal.

Karen narrows her eyes. She glances behind them into the quiet residential street.

“Shawn,” she says.

“Yes, Chief?”

“You didn’t drive here, did you?”

“Ha,” he says, half rolling his eyes to accompany a weird aborted grin. “No. Even I don’t think riding a motorcycle with a concussion is a good idea. What if someone who wasn’t me got hurt? That’s — that would be no good, then you’d have to arrest me. Wouldn’t that be a huge bummer for the whole team, Chief? Gus would cry. And my dad wouldn’t let me take his truck.”

Karen stares at him. Shawn stares at the ground.

“I got a cab,” he says.

“And you are … taking another cab – home?”

Shawn looks quite suddenly like he’s going to be sick.

“Sure,” he says. 

Shawn looks terrible. Bruised face, bags under his eyes, and a weird frenetic energy twitching in his limbs that doesn’t pair well with his general air of exhaustion. He’s holding his shoulders stiffly and can barely meet her eye. His t-shirt and sweatpants are rumpled, like he slept in them, even though it’s too early in the evening for Henry to have woken him up to send him here, and when he thrusts the promised files out into the air toward her, abrupt and, admittedly, Shawn-like, he only just hides the awkward wince that immediately overtakes his left side.

The last couple days have been a bit of a whirlwind, so Karen can’t say she necessarily blames herself for not looking more closely. 

Even so.

Slowly, Karen reaches forward and divests him of the case files. They slip a little bit, because Karen can’t seem to stop peering shrewdly at Shawn’s face while she does it, and on instinct he reaches forward to stop the stack from toppling. 

It does help, but the autopilot he moves on makes it harder to mask what is to Karen’s eyes a very obvious flinch. 

“Alright,” is all he says. “Well, good to see you. Time to head back to the old hay stack.”

Like a needle in a haystack and time to hit the hay, Karen supplies needlessly in her own head. Aloud, she says, in many ways against her better judgment, 

“Mr. Spencer, are you okay?”

Shawn sways on the spot for a second, one fist clenched, mouth half open. For a strange moment, Karen gets the impression that he’s trying really hard not to say the wrong thing.

“... As rain,” he finally manages, then nods to himself like he achieved some great feat. “Okay. Well –”

“Did something happen to your shoulder?” 

“What? No!” Shawn’s eyes flutter closed and he shakes his head, “I’m – fine, Chief. It’s not – I mean, I’m – normal, fine. Fine in a normal way.”

“That’s not something an individual who’s fine in a normal way would say,” Karen says. 

“Uh, is it not! It is. I would know, because I am that individual. It’s – I was – there’s just mild – pfft … stab wound – or something, who would even …”

Is Shawn broken? is the unhelpful thought that pops into Karen’s head. She’s never heard an attempt to bullshit collapse so quickly into pathetic nothingness before – certainly not from Shawn.

Perhaps even more than his father, the kid’s a pro.

And then the rest of the sentence catches up with her.

“A mild stab wound?”

Oh boy. She watches Shawn’s eyes widen with the panic that proceeds an unquestionable blunder.

“Chief –” 

“In.”

“Chief, I really, really don’t think –”

“Inside my house. Now.”

He’s certainly uncoordinated enough that he doesn’t put up much of a fight. Karen herds him  through the door as firmly as possible and leads them in a beeline past Richard’s office toward the bathroom, ignoring the reedy stream of consciousness that spills out of Shawn’s mouth as they go.

“Oh, hey, woah, it’s been like forever since I was in here. Did you redecorate? I swear that lamp wasn’t there the last time we visited. It could be the tacos I had earlier, but I’m sensing a distinct neo-modern Chinese aesthetic going on here, Chief, which calls to mind the merits of cultural appreciation in suburban home decor – hey, is that your husband’s office? Can I meet him? Is he home? That man is a true enigma to us, Chief, and it’s leading me to believe that he must possess all the facial and personality qualities of the pop superstar Mr. Pitbull Worldwide –”

Richard is home, actually, and Karen needs to alert him to the fact that they have an unexpected house guest, so, ignoring Shawn completely, she calls out,

“Honey? Shawn Spencer’s here for a couple minutes about a work thing! I’ll go up to put Iris to bed in a second!” in the finely-honed There Are Many Layers Of Complicated To This secret married tone that Richard should probably be able to catch through the closed office door. 

“Alright,” floats out her husband’s pleasant voice. “Tell him hi from me.”

Perfect. There’s about a ninety-three percent chance he understood.

They make it to the bathroom, only stumbling slightly. Shawn says,

“-- or The Rock. Does your husband look like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson? I really think that would make so many things about the Chief Vick family make sense –”

Karen closes the bathroom door with a snap and crosses her arms.

“Sit,” she says, in a voice that even he knows brooks no argument.

Shawn does. He looks – well, beyond uncomfortable, and more than a little bit miserable, and probably closer to completely dissociating than either of them are prepared for. Karen wonders belatedly if he's gotten any sleep at all in the last forty-eight hours.

“I’m assuming you have not been to the hospital.”

He gives her a baleful look, like he really expected better of her. She only just stops herself from rolling her eyes in response. And there’s that huge goose egg on his forehead, too. What, exactly, he got up to in between Carlton’s wedding reception and oh-eight-hundred hours this morning Karen has no idea, but he looks like someone’s run him through the world’s most aggressive industrial tumble dry cycle and spat him mercilessly back out. 

Or maybe over with a truck.

Sending a silent prayer to the universe that Iris never hit puberty and remains a sweet-tempered six-year-old forever, Karen gets to business.

“Well, I had to at least ask. Shawn. Does it need stitches?” He mumbles the answer the first time, and then looks beyond startled when she grabs him under the chin so he’ll look her in the eye. “Listen. I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. But you’re going to tell me the truth. Got it?”

Shawn grimaces so hard at her words it’s almost a flinch. 

“No,” he says finally, clearly enough that she hears him. Karen raises an eyebrow. “No, I don’t think it needs stitches,” he articulates, but doesn’t meet her eye.

“Hm. Alright. I have gauze and tape in the medicine cabinet. Can I … is it alright if I pull up the sleeve of your t-shirt?”

Released from her hold, he groans and presses his face into one palm. “Chief –”

“I don’t really know what you expected, coming here! It’s not like I’m any less of a hardass than your father.”

“Yeah, but I can bitch back at my dad,” Shawn says, sounding like he’s finally realizing the magnitude of his mistake. Karen smiles grimly.

“Tough. Now pull your shirt up while I get the first aid kit.”

While Shawn proceeds to wrestle awkwardly with his t-shirt in a muted shuffle against the toilet seat, Karen rummages efficiently through the cabinet and eyes him through the bathroom mirror. He seems oddly reluctant to expose himself. In fact, in a stark contrast to his usual insistence on making his presence and contributions as obtrusively obvious as possible, Shawn seems intent on shrinking into the aforementioned Asian-flavored floral wallpaper (which does need an update, unfortunately) with all the equanimity of an anxious chameleon. Karen feels her eyebrows crease. Taking the first aid kit in hand, she brings it over and deposits it into his arms, ignoring his small startle.

“How about you hold that,” Karen says. Shawn does, against his chest, like a pillow. She walks around him and surveys the damage, antiseptic gauze in hand.

He wasn’t lying about the severity, at least. It’s a shallow thing, already mostly congealed, and has only stained his shirt in a small smattering spot of crusty brown blood.

Karen swabs at it with the alcohol using light careful fingers.

“Ow, ow ow ah –”

“Don’t be such a baby. It’s hardly a life-threatening injury.”

“Super insightful, Chief,” Shawn snaps, as genuinely sarcastic as he’s probably ever been with her, “never thought of that myself. Totally the reason why I just had to go to the hospital.”

He doesn’t pull away, but she can feel the tension radiating through his back. She blinks, one eyebrow crawling up her forehead. 

Alright then. So that’s how it’s going to be. 

“I’m assuming your father doesn’t know about this,” she says.

Shawn grunts, noncommittal. Huh. Maybe he does know, then, and has just been disallowed from doing anything about it right now.

She tosses the first used antiseptic wipe into the trash.

Goddamn four dimensional chess.

She supposes she’s never been bad at the game. She may as well work her way backwards through the moves: Guster, the most obvious node in Shawn’s turn-to-in-a-crisis-system, would never voluntarily abandon his friend in a time of need, so Karen assumes that whatever this is has either already included his support or not been made known to Gus at all yet. Henry’s likely exhausted his own usefulness in the situation, and Detective O’Hara is …

Karen has to work very hard for her hands not to pause in a way that gives away her hard-earned mental sleuthing. A bad feeling wholly unrelated to her ill-advised hangover of the day before begins to bloom at the back of her gut.

“You have really small hands, Chief.”

Shawn’s voice is notably more subdued than before.

“Do I?” 

“They’re like … little kangaroo hands. Like the mom kangaroo from Whinnie the Pooh.”

“Didn’t you know?” Karen says, not unkindly. “They’re given out at the hospital when all first-time moms leave with their baby.”

He lets out a tired little laugh, more boyish than he probably means it to be, and in spite of herself Karen feels her heart clench. She isn’t blind. In all her last seven years as the leader of their chaotic little precinct, she has never seen Juliet O’Hara look as ill as she did yesterday morning. The usually sweet-faced young woman had all the pallor of a Victorian ghost, and stood so far away from Shawn in any given room that to an unassuming observer he might have had the plague.

There are only a handful of things, Karen thinks, that could have invited that particular evolution in their dynamic. She rips the surgical tape from its canister a little bit more harshly than is strictly necessary and fights the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose between her fingers.

“So,” she says conversationally, laying the tape down in neat, gentle little strips, trying not to pinch the wound too tightly. “Any fun plans for the evening?”

Shawn sniffs. She can see him gripping his hands together over his knee from where she stands above him.

“Um, yeah, uh –” he clears his throat, “you know me, Chief. We’re working our way through a Robert Guillame marathon, which means some good old fashioned Benson, running commentary on the quality of that child acting, naturally.”

“Naturally.” 

“Then Gus and I were gonna hit up the new, the new chili cheese joint up by Hermosa, you know – they’re doing sliders –”

“Chili cheese sliders?” Karen hums, contemplative.

“Buy ‘em by the pound,” Shawn agrees. “Then I was thinking of getting a tattoo, maybe a belly button piercing, I’ve been really – really needing a change – would you let Iris get one, if she asked?”

“A tattoo?” Karen clarifies, cutting off the next piece of tape. The skin around the cut is warm to her touch but Shawn’s arms have goosepimpled. The hair at the back of his head sticks up unstyled, like he slept weirdly and couldn’t be bothered to fix it come morning.

“Of a marmoset. That’s what I’m thinking. With distinctly effeminate vibes.”

“Well, Dick hates marmosets. So I’d probably encourage her toward something else. Perhaps a sea lion.”

“Like Shabby.” The nervous note has bled into his legs again, and his earlier subdued tone has gone back to sounding strained. “Yeah, that’ll – that could be it.”

“All in one night, huh?” Karen says.

“I –” Shawn doesn’t even hiss when she presses down with a cotton gauze to cover the last of the thickened blood. His legs are properly jittering again. “I was – yeah, y-you know me, Chief, total night owl.”

“Shawn?”

“Yeah?”

“What about going home?”

Silence. Shawn doesn’t answer for a moment long and pregnant enough that Karen wonders if her question will be ignored entirely. 

Then,

“Chief,” he says finally, in an awful, tiny little voice, “I really, really fucked up.”

Finally, her hands do falter in their ministrations; as emotionally exuberant as Shawn often is, she doesn’t think she’s ever actually heard him close to tears. For a horrible moment she wonders if Shawn Spencer will suddenly start crying atop her toilet seat for reasons neither of them are capable of discussing honestly. Then she wonders if her horror makes her a terrible boss.

Boss – mother – person.

Oh, dear.

She sets down the surgical tape and lays a ginger palm over the newly-bandaged gouge in his shoulder. It’ll probably scar, but not at all badly. She doesn’t like to think about the far more obvious one just below, puckering in a violent yet unassuming divot. Another narrow miss for Henry’s boy. 

At this point there are so many of them to count, Karen has to question the statistical likelihood of the whole thing. Becoming a mathematical anomaly is, Karen can attest with confidence, not exactly the future the Lieutenant Spencer she knew dreamed of for his increasingly unmanageable teenager. 

Doing what he loved, on the other hand – absolutely. Being with a person he loved, even more so. Karen grits her teeth at the irritating web she’s spent the last six years constructing around herself and wonders if this evening right here is some kind of cosmic karma for leaving Iris in the care of nannies for the first three years of her life.

That sounds like the kind of thing those horrible parenting magazines and Karen’s mother-in-law would claim, anyway.

“Shawn,” she says slowly, because she has to at least knock this possibility off the list before risking her career in an attempt to mediate her detectives’ love lives, “did you … you weren’t – unfaithful, were you?”

“What?!” 

Shawn yanks his shoulder away and whirls around to face her with such a look of horrified betrayal on his face that it’s almost comical. 

“No!” 

Thank fucking God, Karen thinks. Aloud, she says,

“Well, I’m sorry, I had to at least ask!”

“No! No! What the hell, Chief!”

“Oh would you be quiet! I’m gathering my evidence here!”

“How could I – I would never – you’d even think that I could –”

“I know! Shawn, for God’s sake –” He’s scrambled to his feet in the cramped bathroom space, glaring, and has probably messed up all that surgical tape in the process. The half open first aid kit and his crumpled shirt press lopsided against his front and her garbage can is now full of oxidizing bits of cotton. Karen officially gives in to the urge to press her palms against her forehead. “I had to ask!” she repeats finally. “You and I both know you’re not gonna give me much else to work with, and you sounded so – so sad!” 

Shawn barks out a hysterical little laugh. Karen almost growls in frustration. 

“I am not going to risk all the very hard-earned rules I have in place without knowing for sure that my instincts aren’t wrong. Is that so hard to appreciate?”

Does it count as sound police work when the framework for your investigation is an unacknowledged lie? Karen doesn’t really know. Probably there’s another math metaphor to be made in there (you screwed your proof from the very beginning, maybe, Richard the professor would definitely have thoughts), or just a straight up joke. How to solve a case that’s cold before it ever has the chance to go live; a cover-up if she ever saw one. Unlikely that O’Hara will peep a word, and things will be a true mess for a few weeks, if she can’t make an educated guess about it. And no one will be explaining anything to Carlton, either …

Right before their goddamn audit, Karen thinks, aggrieved. She wonders if Henry considered this in his calculus. Send Shawn over, have her deal with him. Offer a huge unspoken you’re gonna be walking into a shitstorm tomorrow canary for her perennially chaotic mess of a coal mine. 

She can’t help but feel begrudgingly grateful, but that doesn’t mean she and he won’t be having words about this later.   

“Jesus, Karen,” Shawn mutters, pressing his face back into his free hand. Karen shakes her head and squares her shoulders.

“Well then! Back to the issue. You fucked up.”

“You know what? I can’t talk about this with you.”

“Oh, Mr. Spencer, I assure you I am more than well aware.”

Shawn blinks at her between his fingers, looking genuinely confused for the first time since he showed up at her door. 

Karen does not bother to clear up his confusion; it’s better this way, anyhow.

“Will you be sleeping at Gus’s place or your father’s?” she asks, crossing her arms.

“I’m – I don’t –” Shawn doesn’t meet her eye. The earlier thread of anxiety is back. “I wasn’t …”

So, neither. 

“Put your shirt back on,” she says. “We’re relocating to the living room.”

“Chief –”

“That was an order, Mr. Spencer.”

The living room is as quiet and mundane as it was an hour ago. It’s past Iris’s bedtime – she’ll have to go up, and soon at that. Karen seats her guest, retrieves a mug and a bag of chamomile from the kitchen, and removes the fluffy throw blanket from the basket behind the couch on her way back in. He’s deflated completely by the time the tea and blanket are set in front of him. Small and exhausted. Caught. It’s a horrible way to think about it. But she can’t avoid the hundred yard stare – Karen has seen it one too many times in people only just realizing they’re about to go away for life.

“Shawn,” she says, firm as she can make it. “Drink the tea. You’re dehydrated.”

“I’m … what?”

“Your lips are dry. You shouldn’t be dehydrated with a concussion.”

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, and Karen suddenly wonders if he’s going to get up and leave. She has experience with these things – she knows a runner when she sees one.

“I might as well have,” Shawn finally whispers.

She doesn’t catch it the first time. “What?”

“I – I might as well ha – Chief, I …” Deep shuddering breaths. He’s finally shutting down, she realizes. She can’t send him back out like this; Henry would give her the stink eye for a month.

Goddamn Spencers and their goddamn irritating overcomplicated lives.

Karen pushes the tea directly into his hands and tilts her chin so she can meet Shawn’s eye. He’s still lucid enough that she doesn’t think he’ll start hyperventilating, but now that the outrage and adrenaline has worn off, the symptoms of shock are pretty hard to miss. “Shawn,” she says again, and wills for him to understand.

“What if she – what if I never –” He can’t get the full sentence out. He looks at her, eyes wide and terrified.

Life sentence, Karen thinks again. The messy stack of files Shawn brought over sits almost unimportantly on the coffee table between them and a memory comes to her, unbidden, of words penned carefully in the corner of a modified police report that she pulled the minute the door closed on the McCallum case seven years ago. 

Date: May 4th, 1995. Reporting Officer, Spencer, Lt. H. Perpetrator a caucasian male, brown hair, five foot nine, insists on wearing those stupid earrings just to spite me. What the hell do you want me to write here, Chief? Spent two hours in the fucking principal’s office convincing them not to expel him one month off from graduation. All that effort, and I still booked the kid. It’s gonna follow him for life, and it’s gonna be me that did it to him. For life. You think he’ll ever forgive me? He’s the greatest thing in my pathetic little world and he keeps breaking my heart, and I can’t even properly accept that it’s my fault. 

How’s that for a fucking crime.

She needs to go put her daughter to bed. It’s the thought that keeps running through her head, oddly enough, like a strange antidote to the impotent anger and heartbreak and frustration she’s feeling for the people under her care.

With all the notes she took in that little workbook, she still let herself become complicit in the painstaking, convoluted resolution of Henry’s mistakes without accounting for all the variables.  

Richard’s footsteps sound muffled in the next room; he’s made his way upstairs in Karen’s absence. She needs to go. She wants to hear the soft and sleepy love you Mama that with her unpredictable hours and regular long nights isn’t nearly routine enough.

“Shawn,” she says evenly. “Do you love her?”

It’s hard to reconcile the smarmy kid who tried to barter with her for twelve hundred a day with the devastated young man sitting on the couch in front of her.

“Chief …” he starts, barely above a whisper.

“Good. Then she’ll see that. Detective O’Hara is a smart and observant woman. What she chooses to do next is her decision, but … you might be – well, comforted by the fact that she’ll know that – truth.”

Shawn stares at her. The tea steams in front of him, cooling in increments. She takes a deep breath and gets to her feet, patting his uninjured shoulder brusquely. 

“I have to go check on Iris. When I come back down, I can drive you to the Psych office.”

Iris is fast asleep when she gets there. A library book lays open face down over her stomach, and her soft brown hair fans out against the pillow, silhouetted by the soft glow of the unicorn nightlight in the wall above her. Karen turns off the bedside lamp, tucks her daughter in, and kisses her forehead. Just before she leaves, she hears it: murmured, half-awake.

“Love you, Mama.”

“I love you too, baby.”

Karen goes back to her living room, car keys in hand. She’s planned her next move in the driver’s seat enough times throughout her career that it shouldn’t be too hard. 

[xfohvsummerschool]

Anything about Five in this au?? Or Twelve if theyre in it :33

BANGER TIMING USER STARRYSALGEBRALIENDUMP!!!!!!!!

I have been thinking lately of making more Five content bc I lobe. Them sm!!!!!!!!!💜💜💜💜

Hrrrmmmrrrmm let's see :3c....

(Using He/they/she on Five)

▪︎Five is one of the first ever algebraliens who joined in the Equation Playground since it's first creation among our cast!! (First X, then Eight, then Five),

yet this allows the other algebraliens to BULLY them and call them OLD and AINCENT ARTIFACT.

▪︎Despite being disrespected a lot, Five is seen as some sort of a leader around in the Equation Playground.

They are very cautious about its residents and properties. Even set up an annul renovation for the algebraliens to get together and refresh the place.

They aren't very admitting of it, but he deeply value his homeland and friends to the bottom of their heart, they built so many memories here.

▪︎Five loves all forms of literature, notably novels :D, novels of any genre. She also reads some of Three's poems from time to time.

▪︎Five loves miniature art, practises making tiny ships inside of glasses :3

▪︎Speaking of ships, Five loves the ocean!! Five sailed through it themselves. Was once the Captain of a cruise ship!! ^v^

▪︎As a child, He used to give his favourite objects titles [like their lucky charm pen, or their comfy muggy :3),

They stopped doing this as they grew up, but slowly started to unconsciously do it again.. (some effects from watching BFB + TPOT)

▪︎another ""childish"" trait Five doesn't that completely contrasts their mature personality, is that she loooooves to snitch. Especially with Three, they loves it when Three says a "fact" about themselves and then five jumps into the conversation to spill that Three is lying as they [3] told them [5] otherwise the other day.

▪︎ I mentioned this before, but 510 (fiveten) is canon in this AU, though Five has a crush on Ten but has no idea to how to talk to them

they just go like. Hi.

Ten is a little oblivious to the whole matter.

Eight has some friendly acquaintance with Five, and since they are able to contact Ten regularly, they usually use it as an indirect opportunity to make Ten talk to Five ^w^

▪︎FUN FACT!!!!! In the upcoming comic, Five gets 2 episodes where they are the lead (one focusing on themselves, focusing on their relationship with Four), bc THEY DESERVE IT!!!¡¡¡¡¡!!!!

Drawing of Five in their summer clothes I made earlier today!! >_<

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

▪︎Five knew Four through X, Their relationship was very positive and wholesome. Four relied on Five when it came to teaching him advanced maths.

▪︎Four looked up to Five in so many ways, especially her leadership skills.

▪︎Five loved Four's company alot, They liked his very hyperactive personality and found him more enjoyable to be around than most of the other numbers.

Concept sketch of Five's younger design, based on their XFOHV design.

▪︎Unfortunately, both grew up with their personality changing in bad ways, Five finds Four unbearable most of the time now,

And ever since what happened in the 34 incident Five can't really interact with Four without feeling some sort of inner conflict.

(this is because they are on Three’s side, even if They know that Three was truthfully in the wrong, Five feels in some way more empathetic for Three, probably because they are close, best friends.)

▪︎Four dislikes Five's current behaviour with him, Four feels a little betrayed by it, They feel like Five sees them as something little or useless and therefore, Four competes with Five in taking the leader role in the Equation Playground.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Quick sketches of initial ideas for 15 and 14s designs. very early stages tho, might need a lot of changes and refining.

Fifteen does appear in this AU with Fourteen! But they are considered side characters in the story.

Our main cast is from 1 to 10 only :broken_heart: (it's because I can't write so much episodes focusing on so many characters X0)

I don't have much info on them yet, Fifteen and Fourteen used to be local bullies in the Equation Playground in their childhood, they used to bond over them just being jerks, throwing insults at the other integers, and doing unhinged stuff that puts their lives and others' at risk.

Fifteen "matured" out of this, by matured, they just locked themselves away from everyone to take care of themselves without having to hold responsibility of others, They are still in contact with Fourteen, Fourteen urges them to go back, though.

Fourteen still goes on messing with the other numbers, though their pranks aren't as nearly as dangerous or "exciting" as it used to be when they were with Fifteen.

[triglycercule]

what do you think of murder time trio poly

i thought someone would never ask.

murder time trio poly is like the sun is to a plant. me being the plant of course. without it i simply could not live a satisfactory life and would die out. i have so much to say about them

see now WHY is the ship so damn good?? because they're practically made for each other without even knowing it like hello why are these three characters with the same origin point so perfect for eachother despite having different backstories and personalities. the creators were all across the world yet these three fit so well together you might as well think that SAS rahafwabas and askdusttale communicated telepathically to place all these parallels and dynamics into theri aus. they have so much chemistry together even when theyre not being shipped it's unreal. you will never see them apart in art because they're the mtt. they literally have their own trio name that's how iconic they are together (they mightve stolen it from the bad time trio but its ok its ok they deserve it). you don't see any other characters beings referred to those names aside from the bad sanses and star sanses so that just shows how awesome they are together

they don't even have to be in love to be good with eachother like hello. even in their duos theyre so good for eachother but it feels incomplete without all three. and the best part is that they don't even know eachother canonically so it's completely up to personal interpretation how you think they would be together. like canon is already juicy enough already but theres still so many other interpretations based on aus or headcanons or literally just who is thinking about them (i love seeing other people's interpretations of the mtt because its always so different. you will never find two versions of them that are the same from two different people)

dust and killer have their beef with eachother where they hate the other for what theyve done but it's onesided mostly from dust. dust doesn't like him but he tries to avoid him (canonically. ya i read the dusttale blog and you should too) and yeah killer has a grudge against him because dust is an asshole but he just keeps bothering him and getting up into his business because hes curious and needs entertainment to distract himself and slowly but surely they start warming up to eachother and become frienemies. they will NEVER truly become full friends because they simply are too traumatized to do so. dust will always resent killer for teaming up with the human and killer will never be able to get dust to forgive him because he is permanently stuck as killer sans but they can try. they can try to be friends even if they fucking hate eachothers guts. they can stab eachother and then go patch themselves up. they won't help the other tend to their wounds but they will offer some offhand comments here and there if killer misses a gash or dust forgets about a bone he needs to fix. this is as healthy as they get but it's okay. the mutual rage is what makes kist work

like kist horror and dust don't like eachother either. it's a mutual thing for all three of them that they fucking hate eachother. but unlike kist (or horrorkiller aswell) horrordust are the "nicest" to each other. dust pities horror. he feels bad that horror had to go through something terrible all at the hands of a human just like he did. he knows that horror did some questionable things (why in horror's not so right mind did he think feeding papyrus HUMAN FLESH was a good idea. he understands why and all but it still upsets him) but it's not like dust will comment on it. dust doesn't have the right to after all the bullshit he did. but horror hates this he hates that dust pities him. he KNOWS what he did was wrong and he absolutely resents being reminded of what he did, or even getting the slightest bit of pity for himself (because nobody should feel bad for him especially after all he did. he doomed the underground and ruined his papyrus and changed everyone for the worse out of rage). horror and dust mutually avoid eachother (dust out of respect and horror out of disrespect 💀💀) but they eventually have a few interactions. they get along FINE. they have some passive aggressive bickering mostly started by horror and dust fires back but overall their relationship is courteous. they do get into fights but unless both of them are in a REALLY bad mood theyll likely just leave the other before it gets physical. they would get along fine if they could just fucking trust eachother but they don't. that tension will always be there where they judge eachother

horrorkiller is similar to kist. except not. like with dust, horror probably really doesn't like killer for similar reasons and killer probably bothers horror out of curiosity too. except the way they react is different from kist/horrordust. horror doesn't explode like dust does when killer riles him up. instead he just insults him back passive aggressively with no fire behind it because he knows that killer's just looking for entertainment (he also thinks killer's below him. probably.) killer is ngl intrigued by this. he wants to know what will make horror snap just like dust does at him. so he tries to make his insults more and more mean, but horror can actually spit back without getting mad and it bothers killer. he tries sabotage (pranks) but it turns out that horror likes pranks. what will it take for killer to piss him off??? (it's insulting actions like killing a papyrus literally infront of horror and making it a mockery it's disrespecting food in front of horror with intent to piss him off etc etc) but it takes killer a long ass time to figure this out and by then hes kinda become somewhat decent friends with horror (friendsISH. a canonesque murder time trio will never truly become friends with eachother)

"okay but triglycercule you fiend. none of this is about murder time trio POLY. this is about them as friends and you should never speak again." i hear you disembodied voice in my head but let me tell you this: mttpoly is literally just them as friends. and you wannanknow why its because of qprs. yaaaa personally i don't think that a canonesque mtt would be anything more than a qpr. dust wouldnt be interested in romantic partners (i think dusttale blog said that. dusttale blog i love you.) horror would rather die and have bis corspe fed to undyne than even think of doing anything non plstonic with either of those losers and killer just does not give a damn about the specifics of their relationship (because he's cool like that) and ya sure there are versions of them out there who might be more than a QPR and i wholeheartedly love those idas because i love these three but my personal canon(ish. nothing is truly canon unless it comes out of the holy mtt trinity of creators) interpretations. also none of this even considers the whole boatload of aus and personal hcs and other stuff that other contexts and people who can take these templates of characters that have never met and make them into something amazing with their interactions

but yeah. i just think theyre neat

[artisticmenace]

Hii!! I keep forgetting but I always wanted to ask! On your intro page(?) it mentioned a project of yours called ‘those days’?

I’m REEEEAAALLY interested on learning more about it!!! Lore drop?

IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS DAY FOR CENTURIES

so basically Those Days is a comic that i am currently making. its about two guys, Scott and Rodney who are both 58 and live in the midwest(because i do). Scotts sister Deb has just passed away so his great nephew, Danny comes down. The story is them telling him(and this chick named Candy, which im still figuring out how to introduce) about their life and how they met. I have over fifty issues written, but none released because after a while, it was kind of a chore, and i wasn't sure if anyone was interested! so THANK YOU SOOOOO MMUCH for asking about it!

Scott is based off of those "bad" kids that are actually really nice and are sort of vigilantes. Rodney is an easy bullying victim and even though he could totally do something about it, he doesnt.

this is very much a story about people and what they are and how your initial judgment is not always the correct assumption. its also very much how the key word in the last part of that is ALWAYS. its about life.

ill leave some character intros under the cut i case you want those too bc i could blab all day about them. scott and rodney may or may not be my sons. my boys. there will be art too. probably silly art. mostly the main group of characters. not their families though because i have barely drawn them(character design is tricky)

if you want to see all my silly drawings, they'll be tagged #those days comic or with the characters full name. but yeah THANK YOU FOR ASKING ABOUT THAT!!! I HAVE MOTIVATION NOW!!!! ok character rant under the more heeeheee

This is Scott

Scott has quite possibly the worst rbf ever and he looks like a scary mean guy. he steals his moms makeup because he can and he wears black eyeshadow 24/7. in reality, hes very nice and also has depression. hes a male MANIPULATED and has 6 semi terrible ex gfs. he is sort of homophobic at the beginning which is important to his lore. but even being a sad son of a bitch he can still beat the hell out of someone with a baseball bat. which leads to my next point. hes an adrenaline junkie. another design thing im slowly figuring out is simplifying his tattoos. theyre all on his torso and theyre all flowers. he loves flowers.

ROOOODNEYYYYY!!!!!

a lot of the time im trying to figure out how to draw him better tbh. Rodney has a prey animal stare. and he behaves much the same. hes pretty chubby but hes also fairly strong. he is very much a victim of child abuse but instead of becoming a bully, he just kinda gives up. he doesnt really have motivations outside of survival and hes not sure why. in fact, the primary reason he stuck around scott after meeting him was because scott believed him immediately after he said he didnt do something and made him feel safe. under the surface of being a prey animal, hes also incredibly angry. angry about a lot.

LUCY CAMPBELL EVERYBODY!!!

i dont draw her a lot...

Lucy is scotts lesbian ex gf and best friend ever. she kind of pushes them together because she knows too much. shes incredibly easy to talk to and people would confess to basically anything to her. design wise she also has a terrible rbf and DONT BE FOOLED!!! SCOTT STOLE HER LOOK WITH THE EYESHADOW!!! she also has lots of tattoos and actually gave scott all of his.

JORDAN AND DIANE (theyre kind of a set)

again. barely draw them and diane has had a few revisions.

diane and jordan are very much gay and in love. diane's family is like. the only immigrant family for miles. shes very nice but fairly cynical. shes very used to the notion that she has to find her way in the world and that if she doesnt fight, she wont survive. jordan is anxious as hell and dianes sister HATES her because she knows that jordan is a lesbian and is in love with diane. jordan also doesnt know why or how shes alive.

edward! ive only drawn him once.

eddie is lucys adopted brother. hes brilliant and silly. also gay as hell. idk if youve realized but almost none of these people are straight. edward isnt a very developed character because he is very much a supporting static character.

clyde and parker

clyde and parker are the two main members of scotts gang. its not really a gang but it might as well be. they dont really become important until the whole 1992 thing. youll find out. clyde was scotts best friend for a long time before he started hanging out with rodney. they have some very complicated history. diversity win! clyde finds out that he, too, is bisexual and gets with eddie! i dont know if ill wver bring that up in comic.

so thats basically the main cast of characters youll see in the comic. THANK YOU FOR ASKING!!! SORRY I YAPPED SO MUCH HAHA.

the comic will be release on a separate blog called @thosedayscomic there isnt really much on there except a mini comic that takes place around 1996, scott and rodneys thirties. its just scott getting home from work and going to sleep haha.

[hellspawnmotel]

What’s going on in project sekai. You make it looks so interesting!

oh uhhhh well. before you get your hopes up some of the stuff i drew is just edgy aus i made with a friend theres no blood or magical girl stuff its mostly just teenager drama. but anyway heres the deal

(disclaimer it is a mobile gacha game and those are predatory and addictive etc so yknow uh. use caution. imo though its extremely playable without having to pay any extra money)

project sekai/colorful stage is a vocaloid rhythm game where you unlock visual novel style stories about five different teen music groups who work through various problems and issues.... and also hatsune miku and her friends are there to mentor them. its got tons of vocaloid songs to play through, most with covers by the voice actors of the cast if you so choose, as well as a lot of songs made for the game, and even if you dont read the story stuff its just a really fun rhythm game. i play it basically every day lol

the groups are as follows:

-leo/need is four estranged childhood friends who desperately want to be together again but have to work through their highschool drama first, through starting a rock band

-(i havent actually read through more more jump or vivid bad squad so i cant give a good summary but theyre an idol group and street musicians respectively)

-wonderlandsxshowtime is a ragtag little group of clowns attempting to revive an old themepark stage and become famous as a theater troupe, with lots of goofs and hijinks

(suicide tw incoming)

-nightcord at 25:00 is my favorite group and the one ive done the most art for, theyre the only ones who are already an established band at the beginning of their story and theyre actually doing pretty well in terms of making music and gaining popularity, the issue is theyre all suicidal and have massive psychological problems. the main story focuses mostly on when one of the girls decides to, yknow, "disappear", and the others have to come together to try and save her. as you can probably tell theyre the group with the darkest story by far but also the best in my opinion. theyre so fucked up and i love them. also one of the members is (canonically) transfem nb so thats cool

so if any of that sounds interesting, give it a shot i guess?? i feel weird encouraging my follower base to play a gacha game lol so just be mindful. i started playing it just bc its a vocaloid rhythm game and im not good at project diva and i didnt really expect to get invested in the new characters but here i am. its also introduced me to a lot of voca songs i didnt know before which is always a plus!

[noctlas332]

here is that rumoured leon x kaito art,,,

why leon x kaito ?? well for one (and i hate to say this) i never really liked gakukai, like i can see the appeal and i wont bash it but its just not for me,, i could say kaimei is kind of cute and that whole "being literally made for eachother" thing is also quite nice but i break out in a rash when i try to draw straight couples (slahs jay i have nothing against the heteors), BUT ALSO, leon x kaito is good, not just because i dont like other popular kaito ships, but also because its just good,, theyre the first 2 male vocaloids, part of the original 4 daisy project vocals, a couple of the only 5 v1loids, so they have like old married couple vibes to me, like theyve been together for so long that it would be weird for them to be apart, theyve just always been together yk,, also i like how they were NOT "made" for eachother, like how leon and lola were a pair, and kaito and meiko were one, so kaito x leon goes against that,, its like those queer fantasy stories/ oc universes i somtimes come across like "this PRINCE was in an ARRANGED MARRAGE with this PRINCESS, but hes GAY and shes GAY IN THE OTHER WAY", like they werent supposed ot be gasp, but they are anyway gasp. like theres no forces opposing leon x kaito but it just kind of like wasnt intended when they were created, and i just like the comfort in their queerness that they have

you might now be thinking htough, "dont the exact same things apply to lola x meiko ??" and the answer is yes i will be drawing them too. i might have drawn meiluka in the past but that was peer pressure and that ship also just kind of never was it for me, so lola x meiko it shall be.

i love the idea of the 4 daisy project vocaloids just all hanging out, like theyre all good friends, maybe they all live together slendermans creppypasta mansion style, and theyre just very mlm wlw solidarity,, or hostility either would work. they are basically all parents to the younger loids an di grergerhhhhhhhhh,,,

in otherwords leon x kaito real, as well as lola x meiko

oh also this is my own leon design, i dont have a ref drawn up but feel free to draw it this design yourself if you want to,, i think that that whitewashed leon character mascot probably has a place within the fandom, seeing as its the most commonly accepted mascot for the first ever vocaloid, but it just does not work as a protrayl of leons voice. he can be a fanloid or smthing, but actual leon is voiced by slahs modeled on a black person, same with lola, so they are both black too. my design is a bit plain and heavily based on cfm character vocal series, so ill probably work on it more in the future

sorry for all this writing but i need to make leon x kaito propaganda, as i dont think ive ever seen anyone ship them outside of "kaito x fucking everyone as long as it passes as yaoi", and i need them to be real they have been on my mind a lot recently

ALTS (NOT GREEN) (NOT CLICKBAIT) VV

[rinayeas]

Played the ib remake heres some food 4 thot

Garry has transmasc swag. But i am open to other interpretations

I almost felt sorry for Mary but on my 2nd run i did all the endings and the together forever ending still makes me feel all the rage and discontempt as it made me feel 10 yrs ago

THE FACT THAT WHEN YOU FIRST MEET HER SHE SAYS THAT RED IS HER FAVORITE AND BLUE IS OKAY AND THEN SHE SUDDENLY HAS BLUE AS HER FAVORITE JUST TO GET GARRY'S ROSE GRRRRR

When i got to the true gallery it clicked that Garry vs Mary was supposed to be a difficult choice for the player so now im a bit dissappointed abt the fact that Mary is such a cunt in her ending and that garry is 100x more favoured by the narrative and i wish it could have gone further w the concept

In the 2012 game when something important happened or there was a cutscene the caracter party would separate to show their individual sprites and the remake doesnt do that??? Which is very weird honestly why wouldnt they do that

I still love u garry. My first anime crush....

Ib's dad is not hot anymore 💔

Honestly?? Beyond the direct support for the team + graphics overhaul, you're good playing the 2012 version honestly. If you want a diff experience with the puzzles and the chance for a whole lot more garry dialogue then play this one. But i have to say im a bit dissappointed

Not a lot bc the base game is still awesome and i love it but with the other remakes it felt very different??? Like witchs house is fun and i always love to replay it and adds a bit more lore from the ellen novels and the Sen games are the best remakes so far with better graphics, fun gameplay and completely new puzzles + the death counter for Misao so this one left me a bit empty

I hope more rpg maker remakes come soon!! I love replaying these and the more the merrier

Side note bc im never touching the topic again: the mermaid swamp remake is cool bc ooo shiny new graphics but im not a fan of the characters not having portraits (i feel like thats intentional for the atmosphere but i also really wanted some new art for rin and seitaro) and also??? The ending Cg???? Theyre better but they lack the grainyness of the og, except for the rin crying one that one was such a downgrade

ALSO URI WHY WOULD YOU POST THE SEITARO DEATH CG AND SAY YOU REGRET NOT PUTTING IT IN THE GAME BC YOU FORGOT AND THEN NOT PUT IT IN THE REMAKE AAAAA

[doomsdaydicecascader]

hey, could you go into more detail with what you mean with ‘being precious’ with characters. im curious and i like your writing a lot <3

i think it's difficult to express without it reading as just "mary sue" critique, you know. tvtropes bullshit. but it is kind of a thing that occupies the same space. and atop that, it's a thing that's a little bit difficult to express without context but i think there are three pretty meaningful examples of a character being made worse by the author from which you are smart enough to discern what i mean

the thing which ties them together is this: you are meant to come out of their story with an affection for the character that rivals the author's care for them - the author wants you to feel as much for this character as they do, but is afraid of portraying the character in flawed or even grounded ways, when the character's flaws or ways in which they are a grounded character tend to be what makes them relateable or worth caring about.

example number one is albus dumbledore. the end of harry potter is genuinely one of the worst things i've ever read, even before the terf shit, and this is best expressed through the way characters around him act - he is always right, except when he's wrong, but the ways in which he's wrong are okay because the character archetype that he turns out to be in the last book before he dies is "guy who makes the hard decisions because nobody else will", winston churchill guy. and naturally, jk rowling adores him so much that she made him the protagonist of her flop three-movie pentology even though there was a better protagonist right there with newt. he is a character who is thoroughly adored by the author in a way that ruins the story.

example number two is johnny, from the room. tommy wiseau is by no means a great artist, but i think a lot of people resent analyzing the room as art because it is so obviously bad and i think that takes away from its most compelling fact. johnny is characterized as too good for this world, as though the world itself was closing in on him, ready to take him out. his future wife is cheating with his best friend, lying about him being an abuser to her friends, his boss doesnt give him his promotion for no reason, his mother in law would put aside her cancer diagnosis to further tear apart her daughters marriage, and through this, johnny does nothing wrong. he was always too good for this sinful world. he is a character who is thoroughly adored by the author in a way that ruins the story.

example number three, as mentioned in that last ask, is lin manuel miranda's portrayal of alexander hamilton, which kind of combines the both of the previous examples. throughout hamilton, alexander hamilton is repeatedly portrayed as a tortured artist, a guy who writes like he's running out of time, a guy whose writing is so powerful that he could have meaningfully changed the world, if he were not also, a dipshit idiot who got shot in a duel. and hamilton is interesting, because the story itself bends over backwards to imagine new outs for him. when his wife, who is so upset by his actions that she exempts herself from being in the writings from which hamilton was based, something i am to believe is made up whole cloth for hamilton, the story itself goes out of its way to say "what if the stuff that his wife destroyed would have redeemed him" when the answer is, probably not, he was a shithead, but lin manuel miranda can't help but ask, "what if hamilton was actually just like me fr, a misunderstood dude who just wanted to make great art", he is a character who is thoroughly adored by the author in a way that ruins the story.

i dont really want to use the term "mary sue" or whatever because it is pretty loaded, and honestly, if the story you're telling justifies this feeling, i tend to really enjoy characters who really are just flawless, characters who the authors love and want you to love too. but theyre character studies - half blood prince and deathly hallows are almost entirely about dumbledore and his relationship to the cast, and it's the worst shit i've ever read. the room would be so unbelievably forgettable without johnny. and hamilton is hamilton.

and its the kind of thing i found myself prone to doing too - that kind of feverish, "he would not fucking say that" behavior about a character who would definitely, absolutely do that. i felt this way for a while about jane in post-canon, and i still kind of think post-canon jane deserved a better arc, to make a tragedy out of her existence, but that is a desire i have because i care a lot about jane crocker, you know?

[petrichoraline]

We Are Ep.2 thoughts in chronological order

what peem did in the car trying to convince phum to part their ways is what the youth calls ✨a yap sesh✨ (he tried ig) (this is what this post is as well)

we're probably never seeing phum use those things he bought ever, he'll just keep hanging around in his engineer shirt

peem has so many ppl ready to square up for him including his auntie and he is recognised by tan as someone who loves his friends very much (which makes the fact tan has sold him away for time with his crush TWICE even worse lmao)

i don't really get phum's insistence on not telling anyone about being phum's "slave", not even tan who got him into the mess or his best friend but it's just his ego ig (aside from plot reasons)

i find pun more relatable now - tags along for the funsies and gets happy around fire

not convinced the beans and pork scene wasn't an ad but im not sure how cause i didn't clock any labels

the scene where peem brings in food and laughs with q feels like improv or breaking left in lol

fai missing cause of upset stomach might be some sort of foreshadowing and i'm a bit worried bout her

the professor is handsome <3 and could pas off as chimon's sibling in a show

q absorbing those noodles was very satisfying idek why lol

peem and q's friendship is in the background but the show still constantly makes it a point that they are really good and loyal best friends

i thought "oh theyre gonna make the sharing food a thing in the future" so when boys showed up i was like "ah, we're doing it immediately? bit boring" but then he didn't share!! joey never shares food!! i think he will in the future though, him being a foodie is a constant thing so i'm guessing we're using it as a sign of compromise in the name of love or smth

satang playing this type of character felt a bit much in the first episode but i think he's getting more comfortable with the role as the show progresses and it look more natural; i'm glad his character isn't the googly eyed mentee and he actually teases a lot and snaps back but knows when to stop playing because q isn't the most patient person. (matt having to jump in like "bro he's serious" was so funny cause i hadn't clocked that either hahah)

the way we can see q flustered at certain points but seemingly unbothered at others is fun because his reactions aren't entirely predictable at this stage as we're still getting to know him. also it's mad cute when he clearly doesn't know what to do with himself

idk how he hasn't asked toey bout why he's in art yet, ig they're just now starting to properly get to know each other

toey took one look at q's back and decided "that's a cool ass aura to base my entire future around!" and tbh that's very young adult of him

q regularly asking about peem's work being submitted, he's honestyly worried <3

the way i cheered for peem burping in phum's face and then went "oh he came back :(" bahah

phum is definitely already planning his day and schedule around peem, i don't think he'd ever tell his friends because he wants to actually keep it going so one of the reasons is to not run into his faculty friends including tan and the second is to have lunch with his unconscious crush AND I AM VERY HAPPY WITH THIS STUPIDITY

thought peem could overhear the convo behind the car and realise what he was exchanged for but nope, he just dipped; i think that might be a plot point for later

phum not knowing tan has a crush on fang is so weird cause he genuinely acted like he knew while taunting tan, i don't have an explanation for that

fang is their p'!! i was so conviced he was the little brother, ig because of his big round eyes and the way phum acted all protective (that just makes phum cuter tbh)

what is the age difference between bar owner and prof cause i ship it

it took me a bit to realise the nongs were there instead of the full arts gang and i was glad to see toey and q together (also the green sweater is beautiful on toey, hope it makes a comeback)

i was ready to believe fang had some sort of falling out with tan with the way he treated him but tan beaming and enjoying a dreadful setting (no talking, awkward sitting around in a bar with mid music and alcohol) shows that man is glowing just from being in fang's presence (i hope he reaches ridiculous levels of lame for him)

i was screeching when i realised where things were going with wasted peem and seeing him n the bench outside had me exctaticcc (ofc he didnt book a taxi. and ofc they cant just order one for him noww could they)

phum cockblocks but he kinda has to cause there's no reason for fang to be there otherwise; once the ridiculous proposition of him taking peem home comes up he doesn't really fight it at all - he wants to be with peem, sure, but i think he's also pretty okay with tan and fang being a thing

the way i was screaming "just buy the flowers rich boy!!! he wants to go home" and then the kid went to get more lol

ofc he couldnt just leave the flowers in the backseat, peem just has to have them in his lap.. and the seatbelt scene was so predictable but it's too much of a classic with all "figuring things out" parts of a romance that i can't complain

it makes absolutely zero sense aside from people liking people (cause fang knows what he's doing too) that phum would drive peem to his house - a place where tan has sleepovers at all the time and phum hasn't been to before. fang is his brother and they can sleep at the same place as well even if they don't live together but nope. also THAT CAR HAS EMPTY BACKSEATS, if phum wanted to he would've forced them to ride with him to keep an eye on tan

fang is probably planning to launch a big revenge attack on peem and that'd be so funny, those four can get way too entangled, i could get DRAMA out of their plans and schemes (this show is more hidden agenda than hidden agenda was)

tan's energy with fang reminds me of the duracell bunny lmao it's late at night and they've had a few drinks but his mind and body are all focusedon wooing fang (who is playing nonchalant but has probably had a crush on tan as well)

also no way he was just gonna leave tan on the street lol

toey and q aleady work so well together, toey knows his effect on q more or less and q doesn't shy away from being at least a bit vulnerable as of rn; i think they can be one of the best if not the best couple if they have a proper storyline; im certainly enjoying it the more than i thought i would

the fake blush on both toey and peem is ridiculous esp up close but ig they're cartoonishly drnk anyways

auntie took note and now doesn't do facemasks at night, otherwise it would've been an amazing first meeting

"he likes to whine" and she's the one who can't leave the room from complaining sm lol auntie is so cute

ahh, the mandatory "a look around the room shows me you're truly passionate about what you do and you're deeper than i thought" scene..thankfully he didn't mutter "you like painting this much, huh" to nobody cause i was ready to yell HES AN ARTS MAJOR like he kicked you in the balls for a reason doofus

theyre giving us so many closeups of these two and i keep thinking "this is so drama/y im embarrassed" but i have no shame, if it's fun it's fun (and it's pondphuwin, youre not gonna hear me complain about looking at pond's face for too long or from too close)

reaching out to touch his face was a bold choice thoughh i lost it

man down badd man down baddd he was called an asshole and started gleaming like a light bulb