#new name for that story btw

[gnomeniche]

these guys!! i haven’t posted abt them for a while but was thinking abt my snow queen retelling again so i have been redesigning kain because i didn’t feel like the old design conveyed his personality and general vibe well enough + also this one is more fun to draw and has more visual interest. so ofc i had to add glory because they are besties and i needed to see if they looked good next to each other. i think it’s mostly working! they have strongly contrasting designs on purpose but they have enough similar elements that they don’t feel too alien to each other. and then finishing with mask on + hood up designs for kain because that’s usually how he appears unless he’s more relaxed

[hopefullymobius]

I get so sad every time someone says they couldn't get into TLT because they got lost so I MADE THIS. enjoy. Please let me know if Im missing anything or anything is wrong!

EDIT 3/15: UPDATED SOME INFORMATION IN THE BoE SLIDE

Link to all the artists' websites/blogs below!

Slide 2: ttbret on twitter

Slide 3: decemberiste on twitter

Slide 4: midnightcrows.tumblr.com

Slide 5: exmakina.tumblr.com

Slide 6: haveyoumetmythief.tumblr.com

Slide 8: BriarwickArt

Slide 9: fluffehwuffeh.tumblr.com

Slide 11: mothmanforreal.tumblr.com

Slide 12: ydteus.tumblr.com , sermna.tumblr.com

Slide 13: notedchampagne.tumblr.com, marceline2174.tumblr.com

Slide 14: lulafia.tumblr.com, by melli4uhbees on twitter

Slide 15: melli4uhbees on tumblr , reaandull on tumblr

Slide 16: starcanist on tumblr

Slide 17: cutetanuki-chan on tumblr

[landwriter]

Hi! I hope you feel better soon!

This is a great prompt by @academicblorbo about Hob Gadling being the landlord of the Dead Boys. It has a wonderful fill already by @omgcinnamoncakes but I’d love to see what you come up with for it!

Alternative prompt from me if that doesn’t work for your brain: remember the date between Jenny and Maxine? How about one between Jenny and Esther? Poor Jenny is going to really question her taste in beautiful blonde women 😭

Thank you! I saw ‘landlord’ and ‘decades’ and blacked out. I love Hob having them as tenants. Maybe even before the modern day meeting in Sandman.

The Sandman/Dead Boy Detectives, 2.4k, G Dream/Hob, pre-slash, alternating/outsider POV, found family, a reunion and revelations etc.

---

Hob did not, strictly speaking, have tenants. It was more of a minor haunting. Pun intended.

The small room above the pub and below his flat wasn’t worth charging anyone rent for; when he first bought the building he had put a handsome oak desk in there and some bookshelves before wondering who he was possibly keeping up appearances for. Who was he going to take back upstairs that would stop and say, Wait, can I see your office? So he’d left it as more or less an abandoned room.

When he realized a pair of boys were using it as their clubhouse, he didn’t do anything at first. He saw them quietly coming and going a couple times, disappearing around the corner of the first landing. Brazen things. He meant to call after them, but the shout had died in his throat. He’d been young once. He still remembered the need to get away from it all. It was only when he went to check if they’d been making a mess of the room that he discovered it was still locked.

He’d crouched down and inspected the latch and found no marks at all. Huh, he’d said, and jiggled it again, and been a little more interested in whatever clever way they were getting into it after they disappeared up his stairs. Then he didn’t see them for weeks, and assumed they had gotten bored and stopped.

Until they came back. In the middle of an argument, striding through the pub like they owned it. Hob straightened up as they passed him.

“I cannot believe you broke the mirror.”

“I was in a rush! It’s not my fault you forgot you needed Arcana Incantatum after we arrived at the church. And found the demon.”

“I hardly forgot, I only made the mistake of assuming you would know to pack it by now.”

Hob raised his eyebrows. The boys disappeared into the back hallway. He followed them as they went upstairs, too preoccupied with their drama to notice Hob. They turned onto the landing, still carrying on. Even as they walked through the door. The locked, closed door.

Hob blinked. Then he drew his keys from his pocket and opened the door. The boys were still inside. One of them was pulling a mirror out of a backpack that was several times too small for it. They didn’t even look up, and Hob wondered how he couldn’t possibly have put it together earlier. He cleared his throat.

“Hello, boys.” That caught their attention. Hob grinned. “Seems we’re neighbours.”

---

Edwin abhorred getting involved with the living. He and Charles got along perfectly well on their own. They were a duo. An intrepid pair. Best mates, like Charles often stressed whenever he was about to ask something particularly ridiculous of Edwin. They were solid together. As solid as two ghost boys could be. The living, though, were messy and unpredictable.

Perhaps the most salient fact at present: Charles invariably became attached to them.

“He’s sad, mate. I can see it in his eyes.”

“You said those exact words in ‘94 about a dog. At least ask Hob himself.”

Before you decide to adopt him too.

Hob Gadling, irritatingly, was unobjectionable on every ground Edwin could think of. He had made no imposition upon them. When he found them, he only asked them their business, and then told them he was usually downstairs, or upstairs, if they needed anything they couldn’t procure themselves. He had an interest in rare and old books, as it happened. In explaining this, he had also hinted at being far older than his looks would suggest, which vexed Edwin twice over. He knew his curiosity would not be slaked until he talked to Hob, but then he would be the one getting involved with the living, and Charles would hardly let him forget it.

“Do you think he’s really immortal? Mate’s far too calm. Last week I saw him stop a fight downstairs by stepping right between these huge blokes. He just said something and smiled and they backed right off.” Charles lit up. “Do you reckon he’d teach me how to do that? Conflict de-escalation, innit? I could show him some moves with the cricket bat, I bet. Oh, do you think he’s a cricket fan?”

It was obviously a hopeless case, and since the Dead Boy Detectives never took on hopeless cases, there was only one course of action that remained. Edwin had long since disabused himself of the notion he needed to breathe. He had no beating heart, yet when he was startled, he would find himself clutching his chest. Now, he exhaled slowly through his nose in an entirely superfluous sigh of resignation. “Well, Charles, shall we go talk to him?”

---

When the millennium came around, Hob found himself celebrating it with his accidental tenants. There was something gloriously satisfying about being able to make a toast to the next one and have it taken seriously. He’d asked them if they had something better to do - spectral trouble to get into et cetera - and they both looked at him with almost identical put-upon and incredulous expressions.

Hob had a terrible suspicion they thought they were taking care of him as much as he thought he was taking care of them.

Edwin, with his insatiable curiosity and, deep underneath it, something Hob thought he recognized from himself: a sharp animal ferocity and a refusal to go until he’s good and done, natural laws be damned. Charles, still brightly, painfully alive for a ghost - who should be alive still, by all rights, but nothing of this life was fair - who joked to cover up hurt in a way Hob knew too, and glowed any time Hob turned so much as a kind word to him.

He wondered what they saw when they looked at him.

The year ticked over, and technology kept working. Charles grinned innocently and said he could probably possess the telly and break it that way if Hob wanted?

Hob’s heart twinged. He knew they weren’t his, not to keep, but it seemed that teenagers didn’t change at all over the centuries, even if the boys were only sort of teenagers in the way Hob was only sort of in his thirties. It didn’t change that they’d been punted from the mortal coil before having a chance to grow up, and figure out the kind of men they were, and make their own choices and fuck up and try to be better than their fathers, and everything everyone deserved. Hob had made more than his share of mistakes. They hadn’t been given the chance to make nearly any at all.

So they made toasts to the new millennium, to the detective agency, to themselves, all stuck out of time in different ways and refusing to move on for different reasons, and Hob allowed himself to think of Robyn and privately pretend that they were his all the same.

---

A week later, Hob was reminded of the other universal traits of teenagers when he mentioned his stranger and both boys began to grill him with terrifying alacrity. Before turning to his dating life, like ravening bloody wolves. When Edwin had asked, in a specifically nineteenth century manner that Hob remembered all too well, if Hob had always been unmarried, he’d nearly put his head in his hands.

“It can be hard for me to associate with the living too, you know. For obvious reasons.”

Charles had turned to Edwin and hissed “See? I told you.”

Right in front of him. Nobody had taught them manners.

“Manners, Charles,” replied Edwin loftily. “We will, of course, respect your privacy. A man is entitled to his secrets.”

“You’ll go upstairs and rifle through my personal things, is what you’ll do,” said Hob.

Charles coughed to hide his laugh. Edwin flushed and looked away. Hob snorted, and told them about Eleanor and Robyn. Properly. It was a strange relief. He’d told the story wrong for plausibility’s sake so many times he had been worried he’d forget the truth of it one day.

They had listened, and been remarkably quiet until Charles piped up and offered to set him up with a ‘really fit’ ghost. Hob had roundly shut that down. Woefully, not all explanations were satisfying enough. Charles cornered him again the next morning while he was cleaning the bar.

“No, mate, I still don’t get it.” Hob was about to say he no more wanted to be with someone who couldn’t feel pleasure from his touch than someone who would grow old and be taken from him while he stayed the same, when Charles went on, bafflingly, to ask, “Why don’t you meet your mysterious friend more often than once a century?”

Hob sighed. “Adults are often busy, Charles.” Nevermind that he had begun to wonder the same since the eighteenth century. He’d always just assumed time passed differently for his stranger.

Charles just laughed and perched himself on the bar top. “Ooh, low blow. We’re busy too, you know. Plenty of cases to solve.”

“Really,” said Hob. “You’re busy. Right now.”

Charles waggled his eyebrows.

“Charles, I am not a case,” said Hob, sternly as possible. “I’m not even a ghost. He’s not a ghost. No ghosts.”

“We could investigate. Maybe ghosts are involved. What even is he? Why every hundred years? Is it some sort of Persephone situation?”

Hob bit his lip against shouting I don’t know! I don’t know anything about him! Instead, he tried to smile, and felt it come out as a wince instead. “He’s very private.”

Charles scowled. “Yeah, obviously. You don’t even know his name. He can’t be that good of a friend if he’s too busy to see you more than once a century.”

Hob couldn’t see the expression on his own face, but he saw Charles’ shocked reaction well enough. It was so long ago for him, and still Hob knew at once what Charles saw now: that first time you manage to visibly hurt a grown-up’s feelings, people who seemed too old and too stern to actually feel pain, when you’d been going around kicking at them like a new foal, just to stretch your legs.

“Sorry,” said Charles, instant regret chasing his surprise. He was a good kid.

“It’s alright,” said Hob. He meant it. He looked down at the shining bartop. His hands were restless with the urge to light a cigarette. He gave in. It wasn’t like Charles would be dying of lung cancer any time soon if he decided to follow Hob’s example. “I don’t think he would say he’s very good at being a friend either. Truth is, I’d love to see him more often. But we had an awful fight the last time we met. If he forgives me, I’ll have to ask.”

“Mates always make up,” said Charles earnestly. He was such a good kid.

“I suppose they do.” Charles still looked sorry, and Hob clapped him on the shoulder. “Hey. Thanks for looking out for me, Charles.”

Charles beamed at him. “Always. We’ve got your back, me and Edwin.”

---

Charles couldn’t bloody believe it. Hob’s friend was here. There was nobody else it could be. He and Edwin were watching from a nearby table, pretending to be absorbed in their own conversation. Neither man noticed them. They were too busy looking at each other.

He couldn’t imagine spending more than a century apart from Edwin. The way Hob had talked about him and his stranger over the years, it sometimes seemed like they were best mates too, no matter how little they saw each other. He was dead sure that’s what had Hob looking so gutted when he thought nobody was looking. He had known they would make up, though. Maybe now Hob would be happier.

“Charles, we really ought not eavesdrop,” hissed Edwin. Right as he scooted his chair closer, the cheeky hypocrite. Hob and his friend were talking too quietly to properly hear, their heads bent together. Lots to catch up on, Charles reckoned. A hundred years. He couldn’t stop thinking about the number. It seemed impossible. Funny, he couldn’t imagine that long away from Edwin, but he could imagine spending that long being best mates. There was nobody he’d rather hide from Death with.

Hob’s face was doing something strange as his long-lost friend talked. Then Hob moved and grasped him by the shoulders, so tight that his knuckles stood out in relief. The man said something in low tones and Hob shook his head, and then pulled him in for a hug. The man stiffened and then relaxed, and his arms came up around Hob’s.

Their cheeks both looked wet.

Charles swallowed and it felt suddenly a little like he was choking. He should look away, only he couldn’t.

“They must be great friends,” said Edwin softly.

“Yeah,” he managed to croak. We won’t ever need to have a reunion like this because I’m never going to lose you, mate. I won’t let them take you. It was stuck behind the phantom lump in his phantom throat. His hand, without him telling it to, reached out and grabbed hold of Edwin’s. Edwin squeezed it hard, and Charles knew he didn’t have to make his voice work after all.

Then the man pushed Hob away, but only far enough to grab his face and pull him back again, thumbing over Hob’s cheeks, and beside him, Edwin honest-to-god gasped, and then Charles momentarily forgot how thoughts worked too.

---

It happens thus: in the New Inn, just next door to the White Horse, some 639 years after they first met, Hob Gadling and Dream of the Endless share their first kiss. Neither, if they had bothered to think about it, would have intended to have an audience, but it’s a well-known fact that some kisses cannot wait, and theirs was chief among them, being that it had so much to say, and was so very long overdue.

I missed you, it said, and I came back, it said, and Please don’t go away from me again, and I could not.

And atop them, like blankets, were laid invisible the daydreams of those who saw them, including two long-dead boys, whose dreams were woven from the fresh and unaccounted-for possibilities of Hob kissing his mysterious stranger. Another man, thought Edwin. His best friend, thought Charles. Dream was the only one who could have heeded this, but he did not, because Hob Gadling was holding him tight and daydreaming loudly of this kiss and more, of this today and tonight and tomorrow, ever greedy and ever easily pleased, and Dream could hear nothing at all over their clamouring and comingled joy; the bright gold daydream between the scant space of their bodies that sounded so much like at last.

[fumifooms]

Kaka compilation

Because everyone is sleeping on him. Witness his greatness!! First two Kaka colored icons were colored by me, lineart by Ryoko Kui though!

Kaka & Kiki are kinda like Laios & Falin… Kaka being stoic and giving repressed energy like early Laios, Kiki being cryptic and always smiling and kinda soft-looking. Autism siblings 2, ostracized and othered as kids and have a deep bond due to sticking together through it all, though unlike with Laios their parents are very loving so Kaka developed family as a big value more than Laios (bc asides for Falin Laios doesn’t care much about it).

In the gnome festival comic you can see Kaka is more emotive than he seems! Full with a :3 face, and he’s the one crying at the end. He’s insecure about his legs and being tall… It really got to him. Conceal don’t feel. In the gnome festival comic you also see him sensing others’ gaze on him and that something is off unlike Kiki, again Laios-like in the way that judgement from others gets to him more than her.

[boarloved-art]

your Lan wangji ghost girl look alike should have a Wei Wuxian ghost girl look alike for herself :(

im on a bus for the next few hours so i CANNOT put the sketch i was working on of them the other day, but. Anon, u and i are on the SAME wavelength trust and believe 🙏🙏

[mammoth-clangen]

Hi! In your answer to another anon's question about clangen comic tips (all those resources were amazing btw, tysm!), you said picking a unique name really helped. I'm considering starting a clangen tumblr for a New Years project (yay!). And it will need a good name!

Any tips/preferences on naming conventions? Do you prefer longer names, descriptive adjectives, just main character names, etc? Any names that are particularly better/worse for you as a reader?

And of course, happy holiday season! Much love to our fluffy prehistoric family!! 🦣🦁

Referring to this ask

I'm glad the resources were helpful! That doc is really good because it helps summarise a lot of things I've absorbed through osmosis reading so many comics and listening to what the authors have to say cx

On naming conventions, I'm once again gonna give a disclaimer that this is all just my opinion! If you have chosen/want to choose a name that would be "wrong" by these standards, don't let me stop you!

That being said, if I can't remember your comic name and/or I see the name and can't remember which comic it belongs to, it really messes with my ability to get invested in the story/characters :'o

DeviantArt was super renowned for having comics with long unwieldy names that had to be shortened to acronyms, to the point readers would forget the name entirely. T.W.O.R.R. page 34 is easier to forget than It Cascades Down page 34 (these are both my own examples, the latter may come back to life after Kindred of the Mammoth).

Now clangens are different than other comics in that most are just called __clan. Which is fine + it makes it clear that this is a clangen and, at least to me, means I'm less critical on the plot because "sometimes crazy stuff may happen bc RNG said so" cx

My personal issue is that there are so many clangens and a lot of the time their name has little relevance to the clan as a whole. ((Briefly ignoring that "Mammothclan" doesn't exist because they don't call themselves a clan.))

I like to think Mammoth-Clangen is pretty distinct because mammoths are often seen as synonymous with the ice age. Most will instantly know after reading 1 moon that mammoth= iceage= sabertooth cat clangen. If I named them Fleetclan or Glacierclan or slightly more plot relevant Remnantclan, it might not immediately bring up that connection. I also pedantically refuse to use "Saber" in anything because that's a sword and cats don't Have swords XD

Some memorable examples off the top of my head would be

Circusclan and Jungleclan= it's the setting, simple as that cx

Ashpaw is Alone/Lionpaw's Diary- both have a titular character that's easy to remember

Goofyclan- just silly guys, haha unless

Loudclan and Splinterclan also have names I remember for the lore tied to them- Loudclan have a loud train running through their territory, and Splinterclan have splintered off a larger clan!

Again, if you want to name your clangen blog Ravenclan, Stoneclan, Cloudclan, Vulcanclan, Humuhumunukunukuapua'aClan purely because it sounds cool, go for it! I'm not your dad and ngl I think making art and comics should be fun first and serious only when you want it to be uvu

[harbingersecho]

Lasombra fashion show?

Now how did you know I've been meaning to draw fashion 'shows' for all the clans…?

But! Here's some Lasombra fashion stuff for you!

+ bonus because I love bullying Lasombra abt their tech issues (:

[animaterrena]

Are any of the guardians allowed to call mother nature by her first name?

FIRST NAME BASIS ;

The short answer is - not all of them! While all of the known Guardians inadvertently know Mother Nature's real name thanks to Sandman's retelling of her backstory (from fragmented dreams picked up from her own recollection of it, so there ARE gaps and omissions - more on that later), she does not look kindly at being addressed by it save for select exceptions. The first exception is Sandman himself, the only star captain of the Golden Age who managed to tame the wild shooting star that contained the raging Seraphina Emily Jane as she aimlessly traveled the cosmos. For all intents and purposes, after the selfish possessiveness of Typhan's "care" and years of loneliness and unresolved trauma, he was the first friendly, comforting presence in her life. He is, therefore, the only Guardian allowed to call her by any of her first names, which is not even done in speech but in thought. The other, more recent exception, is E. Aster Bunnymund; the Guardian of Hope, and her steward of Spring. Aster and Seraphina have known each other for time immemorial, though not always directly. For countless eons, it was a strictly working relationship of an ancient nature entity and the personification of the planet which he's chosen to inhabit (and originally helped build). For all that time, he had only known her as Mother Nature, Mother Earth, Gaia, and her many other names told in folklore. It is only in the last century or two that they've transitioned to a first name basis on select occasions. The next candidate to get the name pass is likely Jack Frost, if he continues staying on her good side. For how long does she stay stingy with the rest is hard to tell, but is subject to change! Chemistry and rapport are key. These are just the default exceptions.

[masquerade-v]

Long time no see, Kathrine. And Cassidy too!

[Closeups!]

[regretefic]

//Concept for gradie's other brother- now sister. Mono//

[herrscherofmagic]

So, I just finished the new Trailblaze Continuance mission (no spoilers here), and I'd like to share my thoughts. Although I haven't done the event that follows, so no spoilers for that please x-x

All i have to say is... what the f***!??!

/pos btw, this is a "WTF" in all the right ways

Out of all the crazy things that happened throughout the game's story so far... I don't know how Mihoyo managed to go even further off the rails.

and still write a beautiful story with a shockingly deep message.

and also weave in the iconic Trauma(tm) here and there.

I'm still processing what the in the name of the Aeons I just witnessed

Anyways, on a totally unrelated note, I hereby declare myself a ninja initiate!

[johanna-swann]

I totally forgot to post anything here, but I've been working on some more Bucktommy stories. Actually made it a collection on ao3. They all take place in the same continuity and are sorted chronologically, but each story can be read independently.

I had already posted the link to "But in this life I met you", it's about Tommy who, some months into his relationship with Buck, starts questioning his and and Eddie's respective places in Buck's life (3.6k, Bucktommy endgame).

"Tommy meets Evan" is a very short story about the first couple of times Tommy runs into Buck from Tommy's pov (1.3k).

Right now I'm working on "Love and Lack thereof" which is basically a "Tommy begins" type of story. Covers his childhood, his time in the army, his coming back to LA and finding a place for himself. (2/4 chapters are online, will have about 8-10k once it's finished)

I was also working on a story where Tommy and Karen bond and have a conversation about kids, but I got sidetracked and am working on that other fic right now.

Also possibly gonna do a "Tommy realises he's in capital L Love with Evan, but it's way to early and he promised to take it slow, what is he supposed to do?" story. (Would also feature Henren.)

[rubber-glovs]

Oooohhh the urge to yap about my ocs and the world they live in......

[chromiollies]

Sendoff

[valerieality]

I want shiftblr friends but I dont post on shiftblr. because i dont have shiftblr friends 😭

[arttsuka]

post oc lore king/queen !!

😭 I don't really have lore tbh, mostly vibes. Everything is too underdeveloped for lore

I have vague ideas of what I want my ocs to be.

For example, I want to put these guys in a 'time travel' kinda situation, where a murder takes place (that phone guy, who was the only one who knew how to help them get back in their time).

The only thing worse than their designs are the names