#once you get over it the design is quite varied

[manesvoid]

Canon hotties who will wreck your self esteem spoted in your area.

Was uninspired, made a redraw of the TTG moment that marked me the most ( I don't like the show tho so that don't really say a lot ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) if anyone else want to hop in I'm putting the template bellow

You too can redefine society impossible high standard of beauty !

Also big version

[syn4k]

hi

i have some ideas about halos.

so heres the idea: someone with a strong connection to their god (or demon or whatever it is that theyre worshiping) gets a halo from their affinity with said god. these are granted specifically by the god themself so not everyone has them. depending on their specific relationship with their god, the halo will appear in different places!

here's my expanded ideas for a few, as introduced in the drawing above:

classic halo

its your standard everyday floating above the head halo, nothing special about it

normally granted to priests

collar halo

hovers around neck

for followers who are Really, Really dedicated to their god. i mean really dedicated. "i will do anything even if i don't know what 'anything' actually is" level dedicated. you know how dogs are, right?

some wear it casually, some wear it like a noose, some wear it like a necklace.

basically works like a normal collar but can only be manipulated at the god in question's behest

armband halo

hovers around bicep, which arm it is depends on the follower's dominant (or preferred if they're ambidextrous) hand.

amputee followers are rare but in the case that someone doesn't have an arm the halo hovers at an angle above their shoulder instead

generally reserved for generals and other military leaders within the god's army if they have one

the hand

appears around the follower's dominant wrist

only seen on those who carry out the plans and will of their god down on earth. gods tend to not get involved in messy stuff so they find someone to do the dirty work for them down on the mortal plane. is also a play on the phrase "right hand man"

voice

appears around tongue

i feel like this one speaks for itself, really (HA).

not for proselytizers- only for those who speak directly for their god

the follower in question may be selectively or forcibly mute the rest of the time. it varies depending on the person and the god.

eyes

also quite self-evident. appears as a glowing band around the followers' irises (or iris). if they don't have eyes then the halo settles around the level of their eye sockets instead.

whatever they see, their god can also. this isn't a 24/7 thing unless said god chooses it to be. still, they tend to not get a lot of privacy

there have been a couple of blind followers designated their god's Eyes on Earth, which is pretty damn cool if you ask me (and also more than a little bit fucked up)

ears

halo manifests vertically around an ear

works the same way as the eye halo does but for hearing instead

the exalt

rarest

only seen with gods and possessed followers

appears as a filled-in circle of light behind the god or follower's head- if you're familiar with catholic iconography you'll understand what i mean. if not, just look up the wikipedia page for halos (religious iconography) and scroll the examples of christian art including halos

followers are rarely possessed by their gods because commonly gods have enough power to manifest a form on their own and need no vessel. a god in physical form may hide or obscure their halo at will. however, in the case that the god is too weak to assume a form of their own, they will sometimes take over a follower's body to intervene directly in a situation. the follower's body will assume the halo in this case and it cannot be hidden

shoutout to christianity for giving me the idea for this one. i got my problems with the jesus fandom but their character designs fuckin slap

some notes:

followers of one god can only have one halo at a time. polytheists can have several at once, one for each god, although this is extremely rare

followers with halos can naturally see each other's halos. those without have to look harder and nonbelievers (of any god) often cannot see them at all

i didn't intend the collar halo idea to be interpreted as a sex thing but if you want to do that then you can ig. im not a cop

yes the halos are customized depending on the god! some of them put time and effort into it. most don't though

[dayfalwastaken]

Notable Slenderman designs from over the years

Something Awful: As the users of the original Create Paranormal Images thread took to calling him, "Poo Poo", the first Slendy on this list is sort of a composite variant of his first depictions. After Victor Surge had made "the Slender Man" people started creating their own photos and a couple even drew him. Designs varied, but many featured arms that turned into tentacles or tree branches, and blank faces with either few or very pronounced facial features. These first drawings gave me the impression that Slendy was a creature that attempted to blend in and look human, but if examined its nonhuman aspects would become apparent almost immediately, empty face notwithstanding. As such, while his suit gives the impression of a well-dressed man, if one looks at it from a small distance they'll note the lack of buttons, pockets and other such accessories, so in a way the suit is like a second skin as opposed to actual clothes. Merely a disguise.

Marble Hornets: The Operator! Version that got many people into the Slenderman mythos, the Marble Hornets rendition streamlined the many variations of the Something Awful forum into a simple yet iconic design. This guy is very tall, and makes it clear that he's the furthest thing from human. Proportion-wise, his torso is not even half of his total height, while his arms almost reach the ground. Weirdly enough, his hands don't seem to have fingers? And look to be morphed into the suit, though they could be wearing fingerless gloves. He has a straight upper body and shoulders, and in most entries has barely if any shadows on his face to enunciate human features. As in, most of the time his face is completely blank, although there are entries where you can spot the outlines of a nose, mouth and eye sockets.

TribeTwelve: To me, the Administrator is a more grounded (heh) Slenderman. If you ignore the times he's shown to tower over humans, this guy, while tall, isn't abnormally long. He even has human-looking skin and visible eye sockets! With regular proportions for a Slenderman depiction, he's pretty tame in appearance when he doesn't have his tentacles or spider legs out. So really, he's just a regular man in black with no face, which makes him a bit more believable but still creepy as all hell.

DarkHarvest00: Gorr'rylaehotep! This dude's like a streamlined version of the Marble Hornets Operator, which was himself a streamlined Slendy. He's like an expected evolution of a live action Slenderman, where his body isn't elongated so much as it's scaled up for him to appear larger. That said, he's in no way thick, being quite thin for a big guy in a business suit. Luckily, that doesn't take away from his scare factor, as he's remains an imposing figure throughout the series... In the shots where he doesn't move too much, that is… Having fewer overall appearances in DarkHarvest00, he's also the most consistent Slendy on this list to keep a totally blank face with no features. Neato!

Slender: the Arrival: This guy isn't slender. Like, at all. He's well-built for a Slenderman and, dare I say, kind of muscular-looking. If you shorten his arms, he's just a big human, but I think that strengthens the unease you have when you see him. The others, aside from the TribeTwelve design, don't really hide their uncannyness. Once you’ve spotted them, you know there's something wrong when you look at them. The Arrival Slenderman takes it a step further. He gets all up in your face, not even stalking you all that much. He almost refuses to blend into the background, opting to terrorize you up close. He doesn't obscure the fact that he's an otherworldy entity that shouldn't exist, and I think that's great. His ragged skin and ears melted into his skull offer him an incredibly distinct look, and given how well the game uses him, he's super scary to play against. He's also among the first Slendermen to feature a red tie, which will go on to be a very popular design choice when depicting this character.

The ways people chose to draw/show/model Slendy have always intrigued me, so I made this lil thing to show off the differences in a few designs over the past decade! I hope you've enjoyed reading through this, and I'll see you next time when I'll draw and analyse five more. Have a good day!

[ultrainfinitepit]

When you first started making pins, how did you advertise them? And vs now? I really want to get into making some of my own :]

That's a great question! There's lots of ways to advertise and I'll share what worked for me. But your mileage may vary or you might find ways that work better for you than they did for me.

Here are my first angel pins, by the way, it's been four years since I first started if you can believe it.

Here's what I did at the beginning that I still do now:

Build your following on social media and post about your pins. This is probably the most important thing to do, but also the hardest. Focus on a small number of social media profiles that you can manage comfortably, don't stretch yourself too thin as it is important to engage with your audience to build it. Each site has their own quirks as well. I can go into detail on my favorites and what I've observed for each if anyone is curious, just send a follow-up ask.

Run crowdfunding campaigns to fund your pins and then advertise to backers. Specifically start on Kickstarter if you are a beginner. While I am loving Backerkit it is a lesser-known site and it's harder to get discovered on it. I have gotten comments from artists who worry that they need to be popular before doing crowdfunding. However in my case it was my first campaign that built my audience the most. And in my opinion, it is never a waste of time to try out a campaign. If it fails you still have the artwork ready, you can gauge interest and see which designs are popular, and you will have a starter pool of people interested in your art that you can build off of.

Create a merch newsletter and share monthly updates. Since it is independent of social media it is a lower barrier to entry for customers interested in your art; and doesn't require them to check social media and happen to catch your posts. It takes some time to build a list but you can be assured everyone who signs up is invested in your merch.

There's quite a few things I did at the beginning to get started pin making and then advertise, that I don't do now. Mainly it is an issue of time. I used to spend hours and hours running around on all these sites, as well as reading over posts for research. Nowadays, social media and shop following are enough for me. But I would recommend the following for anyone looking to start out in pin making.

Things I used to do that I would recommend, but don't do much of now:

Join PMR on Facebook and post in their weekly share thread. "Pin Maker Resource" is the best place for beginner pin makers. It is a huge group of dedicated pin makers, all eager to answer questions and provide valuable insights into pin making. Most of all, it has those manufacturer reviews and names that everyone is always asking for! I have personally posted many reviews to this group. It is open for applications once a month. You have to apply because they specifically prohibit pin manufacturers from joining so people can post their reviews freely.

Post in Facebook groups. These communities can be large so your post may get lost in the crowd, but it will be seen by people specifically looking for pins. I like "Pin & Art Collector Marketplace" and "Pin Nation." "Enamel Pin Collectors, Artists, Trades and Kickstarters!" is decent but smaller.

Join a pin Discord server and share your designs in promotion channels. Many pin collectors such as myself join these servers to look for pins to buy. We are also in multiple servers and will crosspost if we like something. I have found these servers mainly by joining pin creators' Patreon clubs.

Post on Reddit. The communities are small but a guaranteed place to find people interested in pins. I like r/EnamelPins and r/pinprojects. If your pins are for a specific audience, you can post to relevant subreddits. For example, I have shared my work on angel art subreddits.

That's just about everything I can recall. I hope this is helpful, good luck on your pin journey!

[blaithnne]

Early concept sketches of Midnight Giant Lauren! You can see me figuring out the style, colours, as well as Lauren’s outfits, plus a little Hilda that I wanted to include but gave up on cause I couldn’t get her to look right.

Johanna switches outfits about 3 times in this comic, so I wanted Lauren to do the same. Also, since Johanna’s deerfox outfit in the flashback is based off one of her looks in mountain king, I wanted Lauren’s to as well! So one of these outfits will be repurposed for teenaged Show!Lauren in the deerfox later down the line, which I think is fitting because she’d be around the same age in the flashback as Comic!Lauren is here

I didn’t talk much about my design process in the original post, so I’ll make a couple notes on that under the cut!

Here’s the final product for reference-

Though Johanna changes outfits about 3 times in this comic, one of these outfit changes is just the same outfit but with trousers instead of a skirt. So I wanted one of Lauren’s outfit changes to be more subtle, keeping most of the same items of clothing but only changing the jumper!

In terms of her outfits, I tried to add a little bit of a late 2000s - early 2010s vibe, which I think makes her fit in a lot more

Whilst this style still features quite noodley characters, it allowed me to bulk up Lauren much more than the troll did, so I took advantage of that and started adding in juuuust a little muscle! But she’s still kind of twig looking, so I brought back the same trick I used in the troll and gave her a big ol’ pile of logs and a heavy axe to weild in one of the sketches just to show that she’s a strong girl. I swear I tried to think of something other than an axe but it’s surprisingly hard to think of heavy objects that a character would just be. Carrying around lol

Looking back at this design a few months later, the biggest thing I’d change is I’d make her look a bit younger. It’s a little hard to design a unique character when you only have two points of reference lol, one of which is an adult and the other of which is a child, so I think I made her look a bit too much like an adult, oh well!

One thing I kept though to help her look younger is her freckles, same as Hilda! I love freckles but I swear I never use them in character designs. This design feature disappears from Hilda in the later comics, but I wanna keep them for Lauren for as long as I can tbh…

I mentioned before that I thought it would make sense for Lauren to go through a couple different hairstyles before reaching her final one in these early comics - the designs in the show are based off the ones in stone forest, which was the most recent comic to be released at the time the show came out. The style and characters designs had changed a lot from the early comics, and one of my favourite things about reading through the series is seeing how the designs changed and progressed before reaching those “final” versions, so I’m kinda reverse engineering Lauren’s design process to get that effect here, and I think one way that’d be shown is through her hair. Here her style is getting closer to the final version, her fringe has been lifted so it no longer covers her eye, and she’s got more of a curl! But her strands fall a little differently, so we’re not quite there yet…

I struggled a LOT with colouring this one, and that’s because I got the colour count wrong! One of the most overlooked ways to emulate a style is to count how many different colours appear per character - Hilda The Series generally has 6, 2 for hair and skin, and 4 for outfits, though the number can change. I miscounted here and thought the comics had 4 outfit colours like the show, but they actually only have 3. Once I realised that it made things much easier, though I still sent a little over it with some varying shades of green in her shoes. These kinds of rules generally aren’t firm, and might not even be one’s the original artist is even aware of, but when you’re trying to emulate someone’s work these little things can make all the difference

Show!Lauren probably doesn’t play guitar, I’ve mentioned before that I think she’s decent at piano and I stand by that, but I thought it was fitting for Comic!Lauren lol

That’s everything I can think of right now!

[papermonkeyism]

I want to thank all you peeps who gave me notes on how to properly draw canes a while back, as it's ended up being really helpful advice in having an actual, real cane IRL lately.

Got myself one almost two months ago now, after getting fed up with the plantar fascitis (honestly don't know why I didn't buy one the last time I had the same problem, I just... lived with varying amounts of foot pain for a year. I remember thinking about it back then too, just never actually did it, which in hindsight feels wild) and it's made things so much nicer.

It's a collapsible one, so I can easily pack it with me when I go outside even if the foot isn't hurting, and if I do end up with a tendon getting upset at me, I can easily take it out before the pain becomes a problem and I really really should have gotten one earlier.

Also the way it snaps into cane-mode once you remove the plastic ring holding it folded is So Very Satisfying. (it's honestly kinda borderline short enough for me because I'm of the proportions of a hominid corgi, but luckily I got some good advice from the seller on how to hold myself while using it that it still works, though I do need to be wearing shoes while I do, so it's outdoors only)

I knew I was lopsided, muscle wise, from my years of karate, but I wasn't aware how floppy exactly I was on my left side compared to my right. It took a bit over a week, I think, before my wrist stopped being wobbly, but I can now use it with both hands equally well. (The left is my designated cane hand, because the problem foot is the right one. It's weirdly hard to use it on the same side with the problem foot!)

It's quite the triceps workout! In hind sight an elbow crutch might have been an easier to use option (though, then again, the deployment snap of it unfolding is just that good, and I think it makes up for the sudden need of arm excercise). Honestly I think I've found so many new muscles on the left side of my entire torso that I hadn't known to exist or be connected to the arm, and it's been a learning experience almost equal to martial arts.

Most importantly I am definetely enjoying not being in pain!

[ash-the-ketchup]

Houseki no Kuni/Land of the Lustrous Wig Tutorial: How to Create a Beautiful Gem-like Finish!

(Left photo taken by @/mystes_photo on Instagram)

When I first saw the characters in Houseki no Kuni, I knew right away that I wanted to cosplay Diamond, but to be honest, I did not like any of the commonly used methods to achieve the iridescent effect at the time (cellophane can easily be damaged, glitter doesn’t have the finish I want, resin is difficult to work with, etc.), so I did some research on ways to achieve a more convincing finish.

My main inspiration came from nail artists achieving a smooth iridescent finish similar to what I wanted for my wig (Fun fact, I became a SimplyNailogical fan during this whole process XD). Once I discovered that iridescent nail powder was the key material I needed, from there, I did some trial and error experiments to figure out the best method to apply it onto a wig and came up with this method!

This is not a styling tutorial on how to create a Diamond wig specifically, but rather how to create the unique gem-like finish on any wig! This tutorial can apply to any Houseki no Kuni/Land of the Lustrous character you’d like! :D

(Disclaimer, this method and the Diamond wig pictured above were created in 2021, but the wig featured in this tutorial was styled in 2024)

Skill level: Intermediate

Prerequisite: At least basic wig styling skills, dependent on character

Materials needed:

Wig (style varies based on character, but I recommend using a thick base wig if you can! )

Wig head that’s close to the size of your head to ensure that style conforms properly to your head size

Wig stand

Got2b spray and glue

Flexbond primer (amount needed varies, but for reference, I was able to cover my Diamond wig with about ¾ of a 16 oz bottle)

Mod Podge Gloss waterbase sealer (optional if Flexbond is tacky enough on its own)

Iridescent/holographic nail powder (any can work depending on the finish you want, but I used the Aurora pigment powder from the brand What’s Up Nails. One little 1 gram jar was enough to cover two Diamond wigs with quite a bit left over, a little goes a long way!)

Clear gloss varnish

Spray bottle

Wide decoupage brush and/or any wide paintbrush

Silicone face mask brush (optional, but I find it great for smoothing out thick coats of Flexbond)

Mini scissors to trim stray hairs and/or excess Flexbond

Latex or vinyl gloves to rub on nail powder

Safety requirements:

Wear gloves to protect your hands. The nail powder is safe to touch barehanded, but the rubbing needed to buff the powder onto the wig may cause skin irritation or chafing if done excessively.

The nail powder is very fine, so I suggest wearing a face mask to avoid breathing it in/blowing it away. There are no toxic fumes or substances used in this tutorial, so a basic face mask should suffice.

Keep the floor covered to protect the Flexbond from getting on it and causing a slipping hazard (also great for easy cleanup!) I initially laid out a bunch of old Amazon bags around the wig stand, but I recently picked up a handy device from Assist Wigs in Japan that was originally designed to catch cut wig hair, but it does a pretty good job catching dripping glue and loose nail powder as well!

Step 1:

Style your wig as you would a normal wig. This is highly dependent on the character you choose, but from experience, I have two tips I would highly recommend:

Make your wig about 10-20% fuller than you want the final wig to be. Like how actual hair flattens when it’s wet, depending on how the wig is styled, the same thing may happen once the Flexbond is added.

Try to keep at least the outer layer of hair on your wig as smooth and free of tangles as possible. When you coat the wig with Flexbond, any knots or irregularities in the wig will be emphasized. To avoid this, thoroughly comb through your wig to get rid of tangles and straighten any kinks or irregularities. Teasing your wig can leave the outside looking messy, so try to stick to the crimping method to add volume to wigs if needed, or at least limit teasing to areas that will be hidden with smoother hair later on.

I was quite fortunate that there’s an official 3D model video with the perfect references for Diamond’s hair that I was able to use as reference for my wig!

Step 2:

If you haven't already, protect the floor underneath your wig with any sort of protective covering to catch the Flexbond that will drip down from your wig.

Step 3:

Use Got2B spray and spiking glue to hold the style in place to prepare for the next steps. Apply enough to make the wig relatively stiff, but avoid getting the hair saturated up to the point where the hair looks wet and stringy.

You'll know your wig is ready for Flexbond when your wig is quite stiff on the outside, as shown in the video above.

Step 4:

Take your Flexbond and dilute it with water to make a thin sprayable glue. I recommend about a 1 to 3 ratio of Flexbond to water to create a solution that is thin enough to easily spray yet still strong enough to be an effective glue. I would say the viscosity is similar to milk.

Step 5:

Apply the diluted Flexbond to the wig in a fine mist. If you see any significantly large droplets, use your fingers to carefully smooth them out. Do your best not to press down too hard or oversaturate the wig, as the goal is to create a hard outer shell on your wig rather than to saturate the entire wig in glue.

Repeat Step 5 a few times until your wig feels solid up to the point where the wig hair stays in place even when shaken around (or even turned upside down!) This step is very important because this creates the solid foundation for your wig that will support all the thick Flexbond layers you will be applying later.

Step 6:

Once your wig is solid, coat the outer surface of the wig (you can cover all visible hair if desired, but I like having the hair inside soft against my skin) with a generous coat of Flexbond. You want this first coat to be thick enough to completely cover the outside of the wig’s surface, but not so much that the Flexbond is dripping.

However, if noticeable drips do occur, you can smooth them out with your brush while they’re still wet or trimmed off with scissors if already dried.

Repeat Step 6 for about 2-3 layers or until your wig has a smooth, almost glossy looking appearance, as pictured below.

Below are a few helpful tips to help you with this step!

Remember how if you did Step 5 correctly, you should be able to turn the wig upside down? You can use this to your advantage to help you coat the bottom half of the wig! Just be sure that the top half is completely dry before you place it on a surface. I would also alternate between coating the top half and the bottom half to keep the coats even.

2. You can use the Flexbond to gradually fill gaps between the fibers for a smoother appearance. Also, the more layers, the less emphasized the hair strands will be on the final product.

Step 7:

If you have stray hairs or glue strands that you find distracting, you can trim them off using a sharp pair of scissors. In the example above, you can see how I trimmed the frayed-looking ends of the hair to create nice clean points

Make sure to do this step prior to applying any nail powder to avoid wasting powder that be covering an area that will be cut off.

Step 8 (Possible extra step):

The first time I made my Diamond wig, I was able to rub the nail powder directly onto the Flexbond, which was just tacky enough for the powder to adhere itself to the wig. However, this time around, the Flexbond was not tacky enough and the powder would not adhere properly. I am unsure why this occurred, whether it was the weather/humidity (I created the first wig around Summer 2021 vs. this wig in late winter/early spring 2024) or Rosco tweaking the Flexbond formula sometime in the past few years. Thankfully, I was able to remedy this issue by applying a thin coat of Mod Podge Gloss, which I found stayed temporarily tacky for about 20 minutes after drying.

If you also encounter the same issue, apply a layer of Mod Podge Gloss over your wig. Check it frequently to able to apply the powder as soon as possible once it is dry before the Mod Podge loses its tackiness. Don't be too impatient though, as the Mod Podge will smear if you try to apply the powder before it is dried.

(I’m not sure if using only Mod Podge to create this outer shell would work as opposed to using the Flexbond due to its lower viscosity and lack of flexibility in thicker coats, but I do think it’d be an interesting experiment to try! If it’s successful, it’d be a much more accessible and budget-friendly option!)

*If the Flexbond you applied is tacky enough to apply powder onto directly, you can skip this step and jump ahead to Step 9.

Step 9:

Once your wig is dry, put on your gloves and dip your finger into the nail powder to coat it with a thin layer of powder. Take this powder and buff it onto the surface of your wig, similar to how you would buff nail powder onto your nails. Buff thoroughly until the surface is smooth and looks reflective. It should look almost like metallic/iridescent paint was applied rather than a powdery glitter. Continue this process on the entire wig.

Step 10

If you feel like you need more coverage with the nail powder after applying the first layer, coat the wig with another coat of Flexbond/Mod Podge (depending on what you use to adhere the nail powder), let it dry, then apply another layer of nail powder. You can repeat this process until you satisfied with the coverage. Depending on the powder used, I find that at least 3-4 coats are needed to obtain full coverage and a smooth finish!

Step 11:

Once you are satisfied with the finish, coat the wig in one last layer of Flexbond to protect the finish and add a bit of depth to the glassy finish as opposed to varnish alone.

Step 12:

Add a final coat of gloss varnish to give your wig a beautiful glassy finish! You may notice the Flexbond turning white again underneath the varnish. Do not panic, Flexbond is known to do that when it gets wet! Once everything is dry again, it will return to being clear. :)

You Did it!

Now you have your finished Houseki no Kuni wig with a lovely iridescent finish that is not only beautiful, but also indestructible (seriously, I’ve thrown this thing at a wall and it stayed in perfect condition XD) and super easy to put on (very flexible and goes on like Lego hair XD)!

For my second Diamond wig, I wanted to be experimental and try remaking the wig with a shape more accurate to the show (less visible hair strands and more like solid shapes) and adding subtle stripes of color underneath the Flexbond. I will be honest, I actually ended up liking the first one a tad more ^^; It’s okay though, I still learned a lot, and I feel the mistakes I went through the second time around really helped me perfect the technique for this tutorial :)

Another key thing that I messed up on for the second wig is that due to lack of time, I was unable to apply as many layers of the nail powder as I would've liked. As mentioned in Step 10 above, adding at least 3-4 coats will result in a smooth lovely iridescent finish, as seen here on my first Diamond wig!

As mentioned before, this tutorial can apply to any Houseki no Kuni character! Here’s a little work-in-progress of my Phos wig! :) I actually used body glitter by Nyx Cosmetics instead of nail powder because it gave a similar smooth finish to the nail powder and gave the wig more of a blue-green-gold shift rather than a full iridescent rainbow spectrum.

Bonus tip: for characters who have multiple distinct layers/sections in their hair, like Phos in this example (undercut and top half), I suggest applying the Flexbond and nail powder in sections as opposed to all at once.

Final words

Thank you so much for taking a look at my tutorial! I can’t wait to see all the lovely wigs that can be made using it~ ^_^

I'm not very active on Tumblr these days, so if you have any questions or need any clarifications for this tutorial, feel free to reach out to me on my Instagram account @/ashtheketchup!

(This tutorial is my entry for @/cosplaytutorialchallenge on IG's Online Cosplay Tutorial Challenge 2024)

[lemon-sugarcoats-nothing]

I'm curious mod why is Kodiak's emoji a wolf? if you don't mind me asking unless it's related to some future plot point that's spoilers.

So this isn't a plot spoiler, but more lore about his history as a character in constant development!

I've stated before on this blog that these characters are actually AU versions of an Undertale and anime inspired roleplay chat log that Mocha and I had going for several years. We had over a hundred (either almost 200 or almost 300) characters of varying story importance. They were almost all creatures that were mostly humanoid but had some animal or plant or some kind of other-worldly bits and pieces to them. Humans coexisted with them as well. Almost every single one of our cast of characters came from that roleplay.

Those characters being;

Cinna, Sanori (named sanosuke), Xanaria (named Xania), Elizabeth, Koro and Sankoro, Kira, Luna, Virgil, Nexa, Jaysir (named Jason), Zora and Zayden, Chilli (named Tom)- On Mocha's blog, the other boyfriend characters for Cinna were from a different existing story she had going on with someone else but she can tell you more about that.

And on mine - Lemon (their name changed along with whatever I had been going by at the time, so Lynn/Lemon/Loki were all used at different points.), Lucious, Kai, Kodiak, Sadi(e), Nightshade, For the askable characters. And for the non-askable characters that have appeared, Citron and Midnight are pony versions of Loki's unnamed deadbeat father and Dori.

HOWEVER, we had a separate chat roleplay log that was pony versions of those main characters and so some were created into that roleplay. Once we dropped off of that roleplay, we were still fixated on our pony versions of our characters and so we started the blogs. The story of the roleplay was quite a bit different from these blogs, and Initially Mocha had started hers before we realized that because my characters have always been played by me, this was a two-man-job.

Mocha made Alistor within pony AU roleplay, and was swiftly inserted into the main roleplay where I played him (because balance). he was made a scary lookin human and for reasons, a lot of his story was changed and further developed there and then became his new Pony story when we started the blogs. Because his character changed so much from story changes and from character development from plot on my end, Mocha transferred ownership over lol

This sounds complicated and confusing, but you'd be surprised that this kind of character shifting happened to every character in our cast. We have been working on them for 5+ years lol

Other characters, such as Sagi, the descendants, etc. were created as part of the blog (or if they existed beforehand, were not part of the Pony roleplay we had going on.) or were cannon characters changed for the AU (i.e. Twilight, discord, Sunny, etc.)

All of this context is to say -

In that original roleplay, Kodiak was actually what we called "Werewolf". Which, started more as traditional werewolf but he had ears and tail all the time, and just went full wolf on the full moon - And then later after a few reboots and forgetting our own creature lore, werewolves became more of "they can turn into wolves at will and have some more animalistic habits like growling, fangs and lean more carnivorous". They also then had more social communities designed after the stereotypical and scientifically inaccurate wolf hierarchy. He was also known to be very intimidating naturally, with a dark air around him - as did all of his kids, especially Kai.

As a pony, I still try to draw him kinda wolflike in how his mane is kept but most of it was lost in pony land and instead he's just very small part Umbrum. Still, as a tribute to the character he used to be, I used the wolf emoji when picking what emojis for my different characters.

That was super long winded, so im sorry if that was hard to get through! I just hope that thoroughly answers your question :]

-Mod Bee 🐝

[zahri-melitor]

Newish Comics:

Batman #148: so I read it again and honestly? Still reasonably happy with where this ties things off. It's rushed but Zdarsky manages to use a range of characters (who are the same ones he was focusing on in Gotham War anyway). Excited for the new storyline once we get back on track after Absolute Power.

Birds of Prey #10: I love how much fun they've been having with costume design in this series.

So this is pulling from some interesting and unexpected inspiration places. I'm still trying to get a handle on everything that Kelly Thompson wants to reference, but while Velvet Tiger is a fascinating archive-pull, what more notable to me is I just realised she's framed the Cass and Barda friendship on very similar grounds as the Cass and Basil Karlo friendship. Which is quite a reference to use! It's actually a really neat little marriage up of preboot Cass with Rebirth Cass, hanging onto a nice note.

The Boy Wonder #2: it's the Jason issue! I. Hmmm. Don't necessarily agree with all of Juni Ba's characterisation of Jason here, but that's fine, because it's an interesting interpretation. I did have a little snort at giving Jason glowing green eyes, because it's so very imposed by magic, and it's hmmm an interesting fillip in what people could actually do with Post Lazarus Pit Syndrome if they actually cared about anyone else's dip in the pit and the array of side effects it has had. Sadly... (like, a magic user sending Jason back into the state he was in immediately after coming out of the pit, while actual Pit Madness takes him over for a couple of minutes? And Jason fighting as it wears back off? Fascinating idea! Absolutely not how fandom usually approaches it).

Shazam! #12: Finally we get some more Pedro, Eugene and Darla action. Also nobody loves Hoppy like Josie Campbell loves Hoppy, but I am here for the way she writes this rabbit.

So this is actually quite interesting in terms of the posited distance between Billy and the Captain, because how much they are the same person and how much they are separate people varies between runs and universes. This feels like it's leaning into the way Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! treats them as two completely separate personalities who can keep secrets from each other.

I also have an impression, from how Campbell writes about this, that she has some experience or connection with fostering and wards of the state, given the way she keeps characterising it for the kids. It's just...really centred on the children's experiences themselves.

The Warlord #55: This week in Skartaris, Travis, Shakira and Tara come across Aram Al Ashir in the middle of a siege on a neighbouring castle as they travel back to Shamballah.

Ashir has his usual effect on the women of the party.

(Ashir was negotiating an arranged marriage to Tara for political reasons about 15 issues ago, if you forgot)

Travis decides to get involved in Ashir's little war because he's the Warlord.

The decision of how to approach the siege is honestly one of the funniest versions of the Trojan horse I've ever seen. Let me break this down for you:

No way.

The castle gets suspicious:

...it's all a distraction as they attack around the back! This is incredible! I am incredulous it worked!

And then by the end of the issue Shakira wanders off to have other adventures, Travis and Tara get back to Shamballah, and we once again highlight that Joshua is still alive and bopping around the background of the books.

(Look how much he's grown!)

[alexandraisyes]

How are you doing?

Do you want an honest answer or a watered down haha cutesy artist answer?

I could be worse, to put it simply. It’s been a very. . . Excitable week. And month. And life.

I’m dealing with medication withdrawals that will last another month. They have me sicker than a dog right now, physically at least. My mental stamina is fine, it’s definitely been worse in the more recent past. I’m making a pretty good stress recovery from the past three months of harassment from varying sources, but there is no rest for the wicked.

I’m about 95% positive that I’m being actively stalked by someone from the whole August fiasco, someone who I’ve had blocked since the beginning of August. A (former) friend of mine that I had met through the rp blogs I did designs for turned out to be a sexual predator who was grooming the minors in said group, and I recently had to cut them off after confronting them about it. So that’s great. Both of these things are giving me mild stress, especially because neither of these people know when the fuck to quit and have a long history of stalking and harassment.

However, I’m finally writing again. I’m trying to get back on my current projects, as well as the newer project I’m working on. I’ve completed some commissions, I’ve made a couple self indulgent artworks, and even some art for friends. So I’m being productive.

I’m finally back to watching the shows, although this migraine the past few days has put a rather sudden pause on that. Hopefully I can get back on schedule within the next couple of days. I’m once again finding enjoyment in taking them apart too, which is always a good sign. A large part of why I went on a sudden hiatus was due to the harassment the past few months, but I’ve had some sense knocked into me about the matter by my everlasting and ever loving parents that had me seriously questioning why I was letting it affect me to the point I couldn’t function?

I moved back in with my parents last month. I haven’t fully unpacked, my executive function has been lacking when it comes to sorting boxes. Especially since the last time I was here it was only for a month before I had a fight with my folks and had no option but to leave. However we’re reaching that one month mark so fingers crossed that history won’t repeat itself.

In all honesty it’s been going a lot smoother than I expected. I’ve done a lot of yard work while I job hunt, and so I’ve been left relatively alone and to my own devices since I’m sacrificing so much of my time to clean up the property. It’s been a good distraction, and I’ll be honest I needed the vitamin D.

Unfortunately I’m running out of things to do around the property to prepare for winter. No more Vitamin D for me. Probably for the best, I don’t want to burn out.

Speaking of jobs, I have one now. I need to go in tomorrow and turn in the hiring paperwork, and then yippee I will have a steady source of income. It’ll probably only be part-time pay, but that’s okay. A job is a job.

I managed to reach my goal for donations, thanks to my friends and this wonderful community. All of my bills have been secured, with a little excess that I’ll use to buy new pants for work (can’t go in pantless). I cannot be more grateful to this community for handing together to help me reach my goal so I can afford to keep doing things like drive (which is extremely necessary when you live in the middle of rural countryside) and live in a house (as much as my parents love me I do have to pay rent since my dad is disabled and cannot support the family anymore).

My social life is fine. I’ve made a lot of close friends over the past few months, misery loves company and all of that. It’s ironic how we were all more or less strangers to each other, and yet these series of events have made us extremely tight nit as a little online village. I’ve made quite a few new friends too, just by being obnoxious. It is what I do best after all.

There isn’t a really an easy answer to questions like this when you have a busy life. I could just say “oh I’m fine” but that’s not honest. That’s not transparent or real, and I try to be both of those things. I’m not entirely sure what “fine” would look like, and by society’s standards I’m definitely not fine in any fashion. But we all make do with the hands we’ve been dealt.

I’ve become extremely close friends with a malignant narcissist (short term would be narcopath) and I find their presence a comfort. I continue to work on projects with friends, and abstain from creating new ones. I’ve caught up on a few different fanfics while I’ve been sick these past couple of days, and that’s always nice. I’m trying to do my best to give back to the community what was given to me (metaphorically), but being bedridden these past couple days has prevented me from achieving that very well. I’ve grown a fondness for TikTok animations and animatics, and have been considering making a few of my own.

Oh yes, also a month or so ago I bought a graphics tablet for my laptop and am looking into learning 3-D modeling. It would be fun to make my own VRChat avatars, plus it’s always handing to have more skills under your belt.

And my apologies if this runs long, or stops making sense at some point, I’m still fairly delirious and it is late as I write this, even though it will post sometime in the morning long after I’m asleep.

I’m doing well, to put it simply. Nothing in life will ever be just right, and I frankly don’t expect it to, nor do I wish for a perfect life. The only way we learn is through hardship, after all. I could always be better, but I could be much much worse as well. I’m just glad I’ve got plenty of time on my hands to swindle away even between writing, and art, and videos, and work. Due to a fairly rigorous sleep schedule I’ve about 16 hours of the day to spend at my leisure, and that already feels like too much excess time.

To the point I’ve taken to playing mobile games simply to pass it by.

So hopefully getting a job in town, one with a paycheck, will help manage some of that boredom. I’m sure I’ll still have plenty of excess time regardless, I always seem to be swimming in it.

And I’m sure I’ve concluded this post multiple times by now, but I truly am doing well enough. Talking about it helps me figure out and rationalize my mental health. It’s a bit like psychoanalyzing myself, for the word to to witness as if I’m just another one of the silly characters dancing on the screen. It is truly a beneficial experience for myself, however, since I’m able to truly process any emotions that might have been hiding behind triggers.

And here I go on another tangent, so I’ll cut it off here.

[open-hearth-rpg]

Escalation Die: Great RPG Mechanics #RPGMechanics Week Ten (finale)

I’ve talked about a lot of big scale mechanics on these lists: sub-systems and frameworks which have impacted play. But it's interesting to consider how small, discrete mechanics can drastically change the feel of certain modes of play. The Links mechanics from Girl By Moonlight comes close to this, but it has several stages and parts. 13th Age’s Escalation Die is a tight rule that reshapes combats. It may have appeared earlier than 13th Age, but that’s where I encountered it first. 

The escalation die works simply. After the first round of a combat, the GM sets a d6– often the largest one they have at a “1”. All players now add +1 to their attack rolls. Each following turn, the GM clicks this up by another one, up to a maximum value of “6”. This shifts the combat dynamic hugely but without being too obvious. As the combat rolls forward, the odds of a character landing a blow increases slowly and incrementally. 

This obviously affects player engagement over time. The longer a fight goes on, the more likely a player will be able to land that decisive blow. In practical terms it works to accelerate things. But it also helps reduce players' frustration over bad rolls early in the combat. I’ve played a lot of d20 games where the flatness of the resolution has meant that things stretch on– each round the same without changes. With the escalation die, even if you’re still missing, something about the complexion of the conflict changes each time you go. If you’re still whiffing by the time the die gets to “6”, that’s a story in and of itself. 

But the mechanic offers a host of additional, sometimes subtle benefits. First, it’s an obvious clock. You know how long the fight has gone on and can use that as a gauge of threat and success. On the one side, the players know they’ve been at this a while– or can tell they’ve done a great job if they end things before the escalation die gets too high. On the other side, the GM can see how well they’ve built the combat– if the PCs are cutting through or always desperately fighting forever. It exists as a constant and clear yardstick. 

Second, it impacts the design of monster fights. You can make the foes feel tougher right out of the gate. The players ought to struggle in the first couple of rounds but then begin to gather their strength and fight back against the odds. It naturally builds an arc into any combat. I didn’t realize how impactful that would be until I’d run 13th Age quite a bit. 

Third, it provides a minor risk/reward choice for the players. Do they fire off a once-per-combat attack early on or do they wait for a moment when that strike has a better chance of landing? That’s a small factor and one which enters into player calculations without making the resolution process any harder. 

Of course once you have this piece of game tech operating, the system can add in some additional wrinkles and options. Some powerful monsters can use the escalation die themselves; a few can negate the use of the escalation die against them. Monster special powers can be triggered off of the state of the escalation die: happening on odd/even turns or when the die has reached X level. The GM has another power detail to make their encounters more varied. 

On the player side, their abilities can be tied to this as well. Some powers get stronger the higher the escalation die is. The most common one is an Elvish ancestry feat. At the start of a round, that player rolls a d4 and if the result is equal or below the escalation die, they may take an additional standard action. After the first time they succeed with this, the die goes up a step. The Commander class has several talents and feats interacting with the escalation die. One increases the escalation die the first time the GM rolls a critical against the party. That echoes the escalation die’s intent to represent the rising stakes of a fight. 

I’ll be honest when I first played 13th Age, I thought the escalation die was a cute, throwaway gimmick. The GM didn’t emphasize it. But over time and play, I began to see just how impactful it could be. It’s such a simple thing– but one you can really lean into. For our home group, I bought a massive foam d6 and put that on a stand. It creates a super-clear visualization of how the fight’s playing out. 

Importantly when I don’t have the escalation die present in a d20 game I notice it. Playing Godbound or similar systems, I feel the absence. Even if we’re narrating our misses– giving them color and texture– there’s still a bad feeling if you keep burning your turn hopelessly with wasted blows. The escalation die begins to counteract that. The incremental increase offers hope that the next round might be better than this one. When I’ve added that mechanic into play for d20 or OSR games, it has definitely increased the enjoyment of big fights.  

[slavic-roots-western-mind]

Backpack must-haves: College edition

Pens, laptop, notebooks, water, some cash and a charger with the odd mint or tictac chilling somewhere at the bottom of your bag.

Scrambling around, trying to find your ratty notebook, and then asking your impeccable, super organized neighbor for a pen 6 minutes after class has started only to be shushed by the person in front of you and having 10 heads swivel back and glare at you for interrupting their flow.

Sounds familiar? That was the state of my learning and my bag during my first week of uni, after which my itinerary was promptly overhauled and reorganized.

Question: If your backpack is messy and disorganized, how will that reflect on your studies in the long-run? Not great, so let's go through my back pack must-have's so that you have one less thing to stress about.

1. A pencil case with: 4x pens, 2x pencils, 1x sharpener, 1x eraser, 3x highlighters, 1x scissors, 1x small glue.

The amount and items vary, depending on your major and personal use, but an actual pencil case is a must have. It doesn't need to be flashy, or designer.

Even a plastic ziplock bag will do!

You just need a bag or a container to store your pens so that instead of scrambling at the bottom of your bag and hopelessly trying to find a working pen, you know exactly where everything is.

2. Electronics: 1x phone charger, 1x laptop with charger, headphones

One of the worst things that can happen is low batter, so come prepared! Bring along your phone and laptop charger (if you need your lapop that day) just in case.

3. Your beauty & health case

If you wear makeup regularly, you probably already have a small makeup bag with your products.

Other people, myself included should also have a smaller bag, but not just for makeup or makeup at all.

This case should have tampons, pads, a spare set of underwear and socks (you never know when the rain decides to go apocolyptic, and going back home in wet socks is unpleasant), gum, painkillers, any meds that you may need, deodorant, body spray, hand sanitizer, tissues, some emergency cash, lipbalm etc.

Once again, the actual contents may vary, but the point stands. Get a separate case or bag for your health products, so that instead of trying to juggle several items when going to the bathroom, you can just remove your case and go do your business quickly and easily.

When possible, streamline the process.

4. A full water bottle

Staying hydrated is a must, especially during the start of the school year. All the running around the campus, trying to remember in which buliding your classes are require enough liquids.

Early autumn tends to be quite hot in my region, and only starts to cool off in mid November, so my water bottle requires constant re-filling.

Your studies will thank you, as an over-heated, dehydrated student with a raging headache is rarely a productive student.

(Source: me and a few other uni students who chose coffee over water one time too many, and lived to tell the tale. Oh the regret. Anyway. Live and learn.)

5. Food

Who has time to wake up in the morning, cook a proper lunch, pack it neatly into your lunchbox, shower, get dressed, and make it in time for your morning class bright-eyed and energized?

Not many students, especially uni students commuting to class for 1-2hrs each day.

I should probably make a separate post about meal prep on a money and time budget (lmk if that'll be useful!), but the bottom line is this:

You need to eat, and the on campus cafe's usually charge an arm and a leg, so there are a few options available.

A. Cook overnight and bring leftovers and some snacks to tide you over with you. Snacks may include fruit, sandwiches, some chips etc. Small and light.

B. Live solely on pre-bought snacks. Works for some people, not so much for others. A good option, as long as the snacks have some substance (cheetos don't count! Think more like a fruit cup, or a chicken sandwhich).

C. Depending on your location, some campuses are located in a city, so a quick 10 min bus ride to a grocery store is likely to offer more variety and better lunch options. I

've certainly done that, and guess what? The daily bus ticket and my shawarma cost less than a fancy sandwhich so there's always that!

6. The stationary: Notebooks, textbooks, a planner

Your course may require you to use just one notebook, whereas you may go through 10 notebooks per term in a different class.

Look up the syllabus and email your lecturer in advance to know what material you will need.

Don't forget to include some extra notebooks for your own out-of-class studying. Using the same notebook can have varying results.

Personally, I don't need anyone else seeing my notebook filled with what appears to be incomprehensible scribblings and ramblings, when it's just me annotating my answers to practise questions.

You may like many people use an online planner, but nothing beats having an on paper entry. Besides, it's more convenient to use in those weak or no signal buildings, with wifi so weak that they shouldn't have bothered wiring the building.

7. The wallet

Campus ID, personal ID, card, cash, driver's license, health card, maybe a business card or two.

You never know when you might need any of these things, as things happen, especially on college campuses, so always carry around some cash and an ID of some sort.

[ahsoka-in-a-hood]

There was some post about the enraging purposelessness of mowing lawns and someone commented about using a scythe instead and somehow this got me thinking. What if someone decided to make hay by themselves on their lawn?

Hay is food for herbivores, with different animals having different preferences. It's also good as bedding or mulch for a garden even if the food quality isn't great. So there's a reason for hay.

While I would assume that american prairie is traditionally maintained just by grazing? I know that in europe hay meadows have become part of a specific flower and insect ecosystem that has suffered by evolutions in maintenance. Traditionally you would cut that grass just once, maybe twice, in a year. exactly when depends on where you are and what the weather is like- it could even be as early as may, it could be june, it could be july. (a second haying might be in septemberish.) What you need is a hot week without rain. The quality of the hay as food tends to be better the earlier you catch it, but it's better for the flowers and insects to wait. (and you can still use that hay as bedding or mulch, but even then, there's usually still some good food in there.) There can be ecological benefits to removing the sheer bulk of the spring grass, depending on where you are I guess.

It being an annual task makes it feel less sisyphean, to me, but the trade off is that it's a lot all at once and you do it when it's hot. One must make hay while the sun shines, to quote a historical porn fic that was definitely using that metaphor to talk about taking advantage of a boner.

Anyway, I would not underestimate the humble scythe. I have an old one I use sometimes for places I can't get with a tractor and while it depends on your technique and how sharp you've made the blade, it can be very satisfying the way it sweeps a large swathe. If you're dealing with just a little lawn, you'd probably cut it quite quickly- though probably not very tidily.

The next step is usually turning or tedding the hay- basically it just needs to be turned over. .... a hay fork might do it? I'm sorry, I have a really good mechanical tedder and have never needed to do it by hand.

How long you dry hay for varies on conditions. I sometimes bale hay at 48(ish) hours, sometimes 4 or even 5 days. Occasionally I get lightly rained on and have to wait for it to dry again. It's better if it's fresh, but if it's not dry it will just go moldy.

Hay rakes are a great design. It's a simple thing made of wood, but the angle is just right and it can move a lot of hay. Obviously you don't want to be raking a whole field by hand, but a lawn? You'd be done in like half an hour.

I can't really help you with the manual alternative to baling. I have no idea how people used to make haystacks, but I would guess it involved rolling it kind of like you do a snow ball. (that's... sort of how round balers work, anyway). I imagine that hand rolled hay would not keep as long as hay compressed by a machine, but it probably doesn't need to. You don't need hay that will still be good in two years time. You can give it to a rabbit or something. And put it around your tomatoes.

You would need to store it somewhere dry though.

IDK. I personally find making hay once a year way more satisfying than mowing a lawn every few weeks. But I have also never actually tried to do it all by hand. I just have shitty old machinery and have occasionally had to pick up the slack. (I want a new rake)

[fabrizioart-shatterkin]

Shatterkin Evolution- Civil Path split: Gladiator and Magi

Sorry for not updating here in a LOT, I was focusing on Twitter bc there has been growth there.

After the first split between Civil and Feral, Shatterkin can evolve again, reaching the final form of vertical evolution.

All Civil Shatterkin can evolve into a Gladiator or Magi Form, with the specific characteristics varying depending on Shatterkin type, element, and the traits picked by each individual Shatterkin upon evolution.

These designs explore two possible alternative final forms for Candlewick, the ant mantis-like Yx (Insect Shatterkin).

Myrmix (Gladiator type Yx) get a glaive weapon and a set of alchemical tool.

In the instance drawn here, Candlewick probably picked Spiked Armor and one between Chainhook Stinger, Infiltration Tools (if some of his vials are for example stun, sleep or jamming grenades), or possibly a write-in trait (say Elemental Weapon Infusion, perhaps?)

Gladiator type Civil evolutions maximize physical prowess (whether strenght, agility or both) and martial arms.

Lampyryx (Magi type Yx) get a multi-purpose bioluminescence (magic enhancement? Hypnosis? Signaling? Intimidation/distraction?) and a Summoner's Orb, used to call forth their swarm or even other spiritual forces.

In this version, Candlewick Picked the Elegant Wing Pattern and Mystic Lantern traits, seemingly losing the stinger for this instance of evolution.

Magi Shatterkin maximize their proficiency in arcane and mystical capacities, as well as their mastery and control over their elemental powers.

As a reminder-

Evolution path stays fixed. Once your Civil type takes the Magi or Gladiator form upon their first Power 3 evolution, they will always take that form every time they evolve into their Power 3 stage.

However, free traits can be changed every time, and you can even use write-in ones, so the same Shatterkin is still quite flexible and might evolve differently within its type if the need should arise.

[soulmate-game]

I guess I have to make up for AO3’s crash by dipping into my google docs and uploading every chapter of The Heroes’ Game on here for you guys. Once I run out of reruns of The Heroes’ Game, I’ll just have to start cranking out new chapters/fics/one shots.

Sigh. Look what I do for my your boredom.

—*—*—*—*—*

Chapter 1

Soulmates. That gooey, gushy, over-sentimentalized, overly relied-upon concept that was unfortunately (or fortunately, for romantics) very real. But unlike stories or movies, it was not uniform. There was not one universal soulmark or set type of soul bond. There were romantic soulmates, platonic soulmates, even familial soulmates (a subdivision of the above platonic, more specific yet stronger due to the distinction). But not only were the types of soul bonds broken into three separate categories, but the variety of types of soulmarks that a pair (or triad, in some rare cases) could end up with was still being discovered. Already, there were almost a hundred different catalogued forms that a soul bond could come in. All of them studied and confirmed by both science and magic as being valid. Even the timing that a soul bond chose to reveal itself could vary individual to individual.

Which led to the current dilemma.

A certain half-Asian girl with her blue-black hair up in pigtails was forced to watch as a blond boy and Japanese girl gaped at one another. As everyone present watched, bright spiraling designs that seemed to be made of light itself etched themselves on one arm of both teens, starting from where their hands gripped one another. The blond had tripped down the stairs, only for his hand to be caught by the smaller Asian girl and bright light to erupt from their palms.

The half-Asian, half-French girl at the bottom of the stairs could only observe in mute dismay as a swirling foil of pulsing maroon light sank itself into the right arm of Adrian Agreste, bright neon green markings adding detail to the stylized weapon. A matching symbol, orientation flipped and colors inverted, etched itself in glowing light on the right arm of Kagami Tsurugi.

They were soulmates.

The only person in Marinette’s class other than herself without a visible soul mark or completed bond (until now), the only person Marinette had believed herself capable of being with, had a soul mate. And by the way they stared into each other’s eyes even as Adrien continued to dangle perilously over the concrete steps, it wasn’t platonic.

Marinette felt cold, as if someone had stuffed a funnel down her throat just to dump ice directly into her stomach.

When Chat Noir immediately stopped hitting on Ladybug only to apologize in private and reveal he had met his soulmate, Marinette connected the dots. The magic of the Miraculous helped protect the identities of the wielders, but could not hold up against significant hard proof. That, and Marinette was getting more and more immune to the lesser Miraculous magic as she trained to become the next Guardian.

On the rooftops, Chat was still her partner. Despite showing up less often during Akuma attacks or nightly patrols due to having dates, he was still reliable whenever he showed up. But as Adrien Agreste, he and Marinette had never been further apart.

—*—*—*—*—*

“Still sulking?” The all-too-familiar voice of Chloe Bourgeois cut through Marinette’s intrusive thoughts, the usually haughty tone surprisingly gentle. After quite a bit of time, introspection, and character development, Chloe had become a good friend of Marinette’s. Still incredibly hard to tolerate at times, but dependable.

The black haired girl just groaned, dropping her face into her hands. “He was my first real crush, Chloe,” the girl complained, clearly still hurt. “I loved him. Or I thought I did, anyway. You can’t expect me to heal from it all that quickly.”

“Of course not,” The blond heiress agreed easily, shrugging even as she put a forkful of food in her mouth. Maybe trying to have girl talk with Marinette on the fourth floor of a five-star hotel wasn’t the best idea, her short friend being incredibly uncomfortable in the atmosphere despite her personally made clothing being more than acceptable for the environment. “But it’s been two months, Mari. It’s time to straighten your spine, and get out there looking again! You don’t need Adrien, just like you don’t need Alya or sausage-hair or any of the idiots that flock with them in our class,” the girl reasoned. “Adri-kins is sweet, but he has the entirely wrong approach to Lila, you know. Convincing you to stay quiet was the worst advice he could have given. Staying quiet would never have allowed me to change or see that what I was doing was wrong,” Chloe pointed out. “Why would it work for her?”

“Adrien is just being careful,” Marinette defended weakly, pushing her salad around her plate disinterestedly. Knowing he was Chat just made her sympathize with his motives even more. He didn’t know Ladybug was in his class to back him up instantly, after all. But still, Marinette knew Chloe was right. Adrien might have good intentions, but his execution of them left a lot to be desired. “He doesn’t want another Akuma.”

“We get Akumas every week, he should just suck it up. We get even more Akumas from her lies than we would if everyone knew what she was doing,” the blond girl continued easily, not giving in to her friend’s weak excuses. “Besides, telling you to be quiet just puts you at the most risk of Akumatization. He should know that. It’s a miracle it hasn’t happened to you yet,” Chloe’s perfect babydoll-pink lips thinned as she stabbed a piece of chicken on her plate. “Lucky for all of us, not that he knows that.”

Marinette just sighed in agreement. “Can we just, you know, stop talking about this?” The meeker of the two asked gently, finally managing a mouthful of greens. “This is supposed to be our girl time. Ever since you transferred schools, we’ve had less and less time to just hang out.”

Chloe frowned, but gave in with a nod. “Sure, sure. Oh! Daddy told me about how you won that Wayne Enterprises competition for your class!” Chloé suddenly perked up, leaning over the table in newfound enthusiasm, her suddenly exclamation making the rich crowd around them side-eye the two teenage girls. Marinette flailed her arms in an attempt to get her friend to calm down and be quiet, an attempt that she should have known would be futile. All Chloe did was lean slightly back towards her own chair. “Well?! Are you excited to be going to Gotham?”

“Of course I am,” Marinette finally stopped trying to calm down her excitable friend. “Being able to travel to America, study the fashion of Gotham City, be inspired by the foreign landscape—“ Marinette sighed dreamily, not unlike the way she used to sigh over Adrien. Her hands even cradled her cheeks as she lost herself momentarily to her daydreams. Her hands dropped as the illusion was ruined by the memory that— “The whole class is going though, so it’s going to be an uphill battle to avoid Liar Rossi spoiling the whole trip.”

“Nope, you said you didn’t want to talk about her. This conversation will be sausage-hair free until dinner is over, at the least,” Chloe chided lightly. “I heard Bruce Wayne himself is inviting your class to a charity gala at the end of the trip, and that you will be presenting a speech as an honored guest and owner of the winning submission!” Chloé gasped suddenly, dropping her fork onto her plate with a cacophonous clatter. “Oh. Em. Gee. You’re designing your own dress, aren’t you? Who am I kidding, of course you are!” Chloé squealed in delight. “MDC, strutting her skills overseas, it’s glorious!”

“Shh, Chloe!” Marinette went right back to flailing her arms uselessly. “There’s a reason I haven’t publicly come out as MDC yet! Someone will hear you!” The short blue-eyed girl was looking around the room frantically. The waiters wouldn’t dare kick out the mayor’s daughter, but other patrons were already leaving early or requesting a different floor in order to escape the infamous Chloe Bourgeois Chaos. On the bright side, none of them seemed to be paying any attention to what the young rich girl had actually said.

“Oooh,” Chloe leaned over the table again with a wide, mischievous grin. “What if you finally meet your soulmate?” Her smile widened impossibly. “Of course you’d have an American soulmate. Someone blunt, maybe, to combat your constant worrying. He’d have to always tell you upfront exactly how he feels or else you’d constantly be worried about misinterpreting them,” the girl mused, completely ignoring Marinette’s groaning and moaning about how embarrassing she was being. “And everyone knows that nobody does Blunt quite as well as Americans. Ooh, I wonder what your mark is gonna be!”

“Hopefully something invisible,” Marinette finally spoke up, her remark a mere grumble as her nose scrunched up. “It would kind of ruin the whole secret identity thing if it was noticeable, right? Do soul bonds even care about secret identities? Oh no,” Marinette blanched, spiraling in true Marinette Dupain-Cheng fashion. “What if it’s on my face? The magic can’t hide something that identifiable! Everyone will know who I am, and then Hawk Moth will attack my family and isolate me and attack me out of costume or akumatize me, and then he’ll make his wish, and then world war three will actually happen, and—“ The ramble was thankfully stopped by perfectly manicured hands slapping over Marinette’s mouth, one blond eyebrow raised at her as Chloe kept the word vomit from continuing stubbornly.

“No. Stop catastrophizing, the worst-case scenario doesn’t always happen, girl. La—“ Chloe glances around the suddenly half-empty room and lowered her voice. “You know who is such a deep part of you that there’s no way your soul bond will ignore that. I seriously doubt it will cause your identity to come out.”

Marinette’s shoulders slumped in relief. She waited until Chloe removed her hands and sat back down before saying softly; “I just wish you could come with me. Then it would be bearable.”

Chloé gave one of her oh-so-rare soft smiles to the smaller girl, nodding. “I know. I wish I could go too, but I can’t miss a whole month of school. But you’ll have Alix with you, which is better than nothing. And besides, everyone in Paris knows I’m Queen Bee,” Chloe flipped her hair haughtily, making Marinette grin. “I wouldn’t want to intimidate Gotham’s heroes.”

“In other words,” Marinette started slyly, a teasing grin overtaking her lips as she avoided Chloe’s gaze playfully. “You don’t want to risk attracting the attention of Gotham’s rogues because you couldn’t handle them, right?”

Chloe spluttered in denial, tossing her napkin at Marinette in false anger. “How dare you! The Queen Bee can handle any villain!” Chloe became serious again. “Be careful while you’re over there, yeah? Me, Ryuuko, and Viperion can keep Paris safe while you’re gone but you will only have Alix.”

And Chat, Marinette thought to herself, but Chloe doesn’t need to know that.

“It’s better if Ladybug doesn’t appear in Gotham at all,” Marinette agreed, “So I’ll be as careful as possible. The less evidence anyone has to connect me and Ladybug, the better.”

Chloe nodded. “Of course. Now, did you see Clara’s last music video?” The blond heiress/superhero was turned into a common teenager again as she squealed in delight. “It. Was. Fabulous. And the dress you made her for it? I want one.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Of course this would happen. Marinette stood in the lobby of the hotel where her and her class were staying while in Gotham, with no classmates or teachers in sight and the bus she was supposed to board already gone. At least I’m fluent in English, or else I’d be screwed, she thought to herself. Resigned to the fact that she wouldn’t be able to catch up to the bus, Marinette instead went over to the hotel information desk and asked for directions to the Gotham Museum of History, where her class had left to visit.

At least she had money for a cab.

A cab that apparently decided to kick her out two blocks from her destination in favor of picking up a couple that were positively dripping in expensive jewelry. Marinette dusted herself off, adjusting her purse on her shoulder with a frown. She couldn’t blame him for looking after his own finances, but he didn’t have to chase after tips that blatantly. The girl didn’t even bother arguing with the man, simply handing over the cash she owed him before turning in what she thought was the right direction, if she was reading the map on her phone correctly. It was already dark out, not surprising considering how their plane had arrived in the afternoon and they only got a few hours to rest before visiting the museum as their first activity of the trip.

Quickly memorizing what she thought was the right route, Marinette tucked her phone back into her purse and smiled at Tikki, who hid inside it. “Alright,” Marinette whispered to her Kwami. “I hope I haven’t missed too much!”

Quickly closing her bag, the girl started off towards her destination.

And promptly got lost.

“I thought I saw it this way…” she groaned to herself when she realized she didn’t recognize anything around her, and it had only gotten darker in the past half hour she had been walking. At least being Ladybug keeps me in shape.

Marinette straightened her shoulders, resigning herself to retracing her steps for the twentieth time. She turned on her heel, walking forward as her bright blue eyes scanned her surroundings for anything that might lead her to the museum.

Until she realized the street was oddly empty, and a soft crunch of glass sounded from behind her. Marinette had prepared for this, at least. I’m being followed. Careful to remain calm and keep on walking as if nothing was wrong, Marinette strained her ears and eyes. She managed to catch a glimpse of her tail in a window— tall, broad shouldered, biceps like hams. The girl frowned. She could easily outmaneuver someone twice her size, but it would draw a lot of attention.

Firmly in Ladybug Mode, Marinette slowed down just enough to let the guy come a bit closer, before she veered sharply into an alley. Risky? Yeah, but it would be much less likely to make a spectacle of herself when she handed the guy his ass.

Sure enough, it didn’t take long for the guy to attempt to grab her. As soon as she felt his hand reaching for her though, Marinette easily clamped onto his wrist and used her momentum to hurl the assailant over her shoulder. The large body hit the gravel roughly on his back, letting out a moan that was half pain and half anger. Marinette backed up just enough to stay out of the man’s immediate range, her eyes continuing to dart around.

He hadn’t been alone.

His boots are good quality, so are his cargo pants. No gun, but several knives on his belt. Professional, not out to kill. Capture? As soon as Marinette saw two other guys dressed identically to the man now pulling himself back up to a standing position come out to surround her in the alley, she put it all together. Each newcomer had a tranq gun trained on her. Traffickers.

Ever the improviser, Marinette quickly rolled out of the way of the first few darts shot at her and grabbed a misshapen hunk of wood from the ground to block the next two projectiles like a warped shield. Lunging to her feet, she whipped the chunk of wood at one man with deadly precision, the plank hitting him square across the forehead hard and fast enough to knock him out.

One down. The guy she had initially thrown over her shoulder took advantage of her distraction to wrap his large arms around her, trapping her own against her torso. Not one to be trapped for long, Marinette jumped up and flipped herself upside down so that her legs wrapped around the guy’s neck, and twisted so that her body weight unbalanced him. Combined with his sudden lack of oxygen and field of view, the guy stumbled just enough for Marinette to get one arm free and slam her elbow into his most sensitive area. The guy released her with a howl, and Marinette twisted into a three-point landing. She paused only long enough to slam the side of her arm into a pressure point on howling man’s neck that knocked him out before springing up to face the—

Marinette paused. The last attacker was already tied up, a much different muscular form holding the cursing man a few inches above the ground.

Batman.

“You know, you shouldn’t walk around Gotham at night,” a casual voice sounded from behind her, making Marinette swing around to face Nightwing. The blue vigilante was leaned against the wall, with the first guy Marinette had knocked out already tied up at his feet. “But that was pretty good fighting. You made a few unnecessary moves, but overall not half bad.”

A third figure dropped down from a nearby roof, making Marinette whip her head to the side for a third time. Ugh, I’ll get whiplash at this rate. How are they able to move so noiselessly? The last figure was Robin, who made short work of tying up the last guy before standing and staring straight at Marinette. He crossed his arms, and the French girl suddenly had the feeling she was about to be scolded.

“What were you thinking, leading them into an alley? Are you an idiot?” Were the first words Robin said, instantly making Marinette puff her cheeks out in indignation. How dare he?!

“Robin,” Batman interrupted whatever retort Marinette had been about to make. “Ducking into the alley made it less likely that anyone else would be caught in the fight. It was not necessarily bad a move. That being said,” the most experienced hero in the alley turned to the girl in pigtails. Marinette gulped. It was really intimidating, having Batman’s state focused solely on her. She forced herself to stand as straight as possible. “It was still incredibly reckless. You had no idea how many people were following you, or what their skill level was. I highly suggest you act with much more caution next time. Or better yet, don’t travel Gotham alone even during the day.”

“I’ll be careful,” Marinette agreed, the three heroes instantly picking up on her French accent. “This wasn’t exactly my choice. First, my class left the hotel without me even though I’m the one who applied for the contest that even allowed us to come here in the first place. Then, my cab driver kicks me out a few blocks from where I asked him to take me, and then I got lost. Merde!” Marinette threw her hands up. “It’s not my fault I have bad luck. And you,” she turned and pointed to Robin, about to give him her two cents about his critique of her. That is, until when fingertip actually made contact with his chest and both teens visibly jumped.

It was like static the moment they made contact, but nothing visual happened. Marinette was about to shrug it off as nothing when—

Her vision split in half, like a TV screen when someone was playing a two-player game. Suddenly she could see her normal perspective, with Batman to her left, Nightwing to her right, and her finger straight ahead pushing into Robin’s chest, but she could also see a second perspective.

A perspective where she stared straight at herself.

She watched as her own blue eyes widened in disbelief. She watched as she stumbled back a few shocked steps, and as Robin did the same in front of her.

“Mon dieu,” Marinette cursed breathily, unable to move her eyes from Robin or acknowledge the frantic questions being posed to both of them from Batman and Nightwing. The teens just stared at one another. “Of course my soulmate would be a vigilante.”

“Shit,” Marinette had no idea which of the three heroes said that, but they all seemed to share the sentiment. Shit, indeed.

Nightwing shifted and said; “At least all the traffickers are knocked out.”

—*—*—*—*—*

[littlelightbolt]

Finding Prowl - Chapter 6: To kill a Mockingbird

Jazz's first steps was to do a perimeter check around the island he was duty bound too that served as one of five entry ways down to Cybertron. Internally, he cursed. With 5 cycles down the drain, any biological traces of Prowl's whereabouts were all but gone with the currents. Despite the odds, it didn't take long for him to find his first clue.

Just 10 miles off the coast, there were bodies in the water. Dead Humans, five in total bloated with varying degrees of decay all submerged around a large pool of oil. If the smell didn't indicate that the event had happened quite a while ago, the flock of seagulls living and dead trapped in the oily black said it all.

All that filth in the water. Disgusting.

Feeling lucky, Jazz dived. Mabye he should turn that luck into misfortune. What Jazz found only concerned him more. There was a sunken dinghy sitting wedged between two large rocks. A large gash opened the left air sac, the decisive cause of the sinking. Jazz reached to flip the boat over, and uncovered the damning logo engraved into the nylon: MECH.

A growl escaped his throat. Frag, Jazz’s fears only grew. Prowl was in more danger than he thought.

MECH was a known mer-hunting organisation responsible for kidnapping many of their kind. They were a thorn in the Autobot's and less so the Decepticon's side. Both factions have only been made aware of MECH's presence 5 years ago, before that the organisation having only been targeting neutral pods who had no real connection to the two major factions. This meant that both factions had been late to the party. Only learning about any kidnapping occurrences through the traumatic tales of Nails seeking aid and recovery.

The Autobots were quickly set on the case, with Prowl having worked with the search and rescue teams before he was kicked from his seat behind Bumblebee. It was also how the island guard that Jazz had joined was set up. But even when he was around, most cases had been slow in progress, the events having been too long ago to trace back too. For now it seemed, once caught no one had really had any progress in finding their kin again.

Until Jazz!

The boat was relatively intact and just his luck! the dinghy was registered! Jazz had his lead. Taking the registry plate off of the wreck, Jazz made swift work of getting back to shore. He hacked Red Alert's comm in the process.

‘Ay Red my mech, got a situation ya might wanna know bout.’

‘JAZZ, fragging pit. HOW DID YOU GET MY COMM. I SWEAR to Primus, when I see you….’

‘Chill mech, this was bad, MECH has managed to come so close to one of our groundbridges. Da pacific one. It’s a miracle the humans had missed the site completely.’

The comm was silent, Jazz could just imagine the sparks coming off of that mech's helm.

Jazz hesitated a moment before adding on, 'MECH has Prowl.' This time a fizzle came through the comm.

Needing to snap Red out of it, Jazz pushed on. 'RED I need ya with meh mech! I need ya ta check the proximity alarms around the island, why had none of 'em raised da alarm.' Those alarms were designed to hone in on the biological signatures unique to only humans 500 miles offshore. Them not working was a HUGE issue. No one had known of the MECH's presence.

All except Prowl, and it seemed he paid the price. Jazz bristled at the thought.

'A weak 'On it.' was heared through the comm. It seemed that Red was still with the him.

Shaking the residue water off his frame as he reached the shoreline, Jazz gave Red his second task, 'I also need ya ta run this plate for me, on the human's boat registry system.' He sent the snapshot of the plate he took over the commline. 'Received' was all Red Alert replied. All there was left to do was await a response.

The trek to the groundbrigde was but a quick 5 minute hike up a steep cliff. The machine itself disguised as a old tree. Jazz placed his hand onto the thick bark of the plant, a flash of spark energy later, the bark began splitting open to reveal the relatively small portal. Jazz stepped through, entering into Cybertron's Pacific transport hub built 5000 meters under the island. As the portal sealed shut behind him, Jazz navigated the relatively crowded hub towards a Bay B. His private (long stolen) shuttle awaited.

Jazz stopped just short of entering the vehicle. Though the docking bay itself was empty, the air around the entrance was warm. Someone was HERE. A shift in airflow. There! Without hesitation, Jazz whipped out his blade, feeling the sensation of pinning someone into the wall of his ship.

Jazz smiled big. 'Now, I would love ta stay and have a good ole fashion brawl but I'm in a bit of a rush ta get somewhere, so I suggest yall scram before I decide to kill y'all.', he threatened, field bristled and harsh with murderous intent. Spanning out his field, he brushed across five different ones, each with different amounts of anxiousness and suppressed fear in them. It didn't take a genius to figure who had crashed Jazz's party.

A snarky voice rang out of thin air, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa! Who said anything about fighting?' Various voices rose up with mumurs of placating agreements as the once empty looking docking bay shimmered with distorted light, revealing five green and purple octopus mers cramped into his hanger bay. The Constructicons were standing shoulder to shoulder within the cramped space. Jazz had Scavenger held at knifepoint, the edge of the blade placed threateningly close to the mers throat cables. Scavenger had his servos raised in surrender. The group were stuck frozen in place, a level of fear teeking into their fields. Jazz smirked, GOOD, they should fear him, after all the harm they done to Prowl.

'What's ya lot of drunk slagtards doing in my ship? Ain't yall got some building to demolish somewhere?', Jazz spoke, hints of annoyance sinking through. He had better things to do than corral drunk mers off to the medbay.

Hook never the one to take insults lying down was first to speak up, 'HEY, we ain't drunk! We only had 3 cubes at Maccadams last night cycle.' Scavenger and Long haul nodded along. Bonecrusher seemed to have other ideas though, field revved with jittery energy, he glowered at Jazz. 'Well what's it to you short stuff? Let Scavenger go! We found this ship fair and square. If it's a fight you want, it's a fight y'all get.' Jazz smile turned strained, steeling himself for a fight he flexed the knife into scavenger throat cables, said mer squirmed. A drop of energon was forming. Bonecrusher's scowl deepened and flexed his fists, he was about to step towards Jazz with dumb violent intent, Hook, Scavenger and Long haul all telling him to stop when suddenly Mixmaster who had been quiet the entire time put out his arm to stop Bonecrusher's advance. The other three mers held their breath.

Behind his visor, Jazz raised a brow. Bonecrusher whipped back at Mixmaster in disbelieved anger, 'What the frag mech?! Let me at em!' Mixmaster only stared at Bonecrusher more intently. Jazz silently wondered if the mer was high on circuit boosters, the mer was leveling Bonecrusher the heaviest of poker faces. It was very un-Mixmaster like. Bonecrusher shouted out in disbelief looking between Jazz and Mixmaster, 'What do you mean he can help us?'

Ah, Jazz released the breathe he was holding, so bond-speak was in play. Mixmaster only gave his brethren a slight nod before facing Jazz again. He spoke with a clarify that shooked Jazz. 'We apologise. We didn't know this ship was yours, none of the ship vendors were willing to rent a shuttle to ex- decepticons. We are simply trying to find Prowl.' The other Constructicons looked at him as if Mixmaster had grown a second helm but nodded along to his statement.

All the anxiety he lost came back to Jazz. 'What makes ya think Prowl is in danger, let alone if he would want to be found by the likes of ya?', Jazz grounded out. The Constructicons spelt trouble, they also knew that Prowl was missing when even Prowl's Autobot brethren were in the dark about it. Why were they seeking Prowl out? Too hurt him? Drag him back into their fold back to the decepticons? The image of Prowl injured that night came back to him.

Mixmaster only moved to put his servo on his spark casing. 'When we first formed Devastator with Prowl, his spark merged with ours. While still small, he formed a bond with us.' Mixmaster paused. 'We felt his pain five cycles ago, but he wouldn't allow us to do anything to help him.' His gaze turned somber. 'The bond weakens with distance. We know he has been taken. Now, all we can feel is that he is alive somewhere in the vast.' Mixmaster turned to eye Jazz's knife hand.

'We know that he went to you that night. That he hates us. That he doesn't want anything to do with us.' Mixmaster reached out to gentle grip Jazz's knife hand. Scavenger let out the tiniest meep as the pressure was relieved from his vital systems.

Mer's got some ball bearing on 'em, Jazz thought growing steadily unsure of the Constructicon's no Mixmaster's motives.

Mixmaster's gaze became smouldering. 'But I think you and I both know that Prowl needs help. Gestalt is gestalt, we stick together no matter what. You're going to find Prowl am I right? I propose a truce. You might have a lead we don't, and we might have a link you need.' Jazz's smile was gone, replaced with a deep frown. The air was thick then with anticipation, the Constructicons silent looked to Jazz awaiting his response.

Jazz's mind was racing with possibilities. It would definitely help to have a living beacon and extra manpower. But, he wasn't so naive to think they didn't have other reasons to seek out Prowl. Jazz couldn't risk it. Not with this. Just as he was about to deny their help, his comm broke the tense silence. Jazz put two digits to his helm to answer it. Red Alert's voice welcomed him on the other side, 'Jazz I've found MECH's flagship. Designation: The Whispering Ghost. I've tracked their movements from the last several days. Last known dock was in Southampton the United kingdom 4 cycles ago at 03:57 BST. They are currently on course back to the Atlantic.' Red Alert voiced quieted with concern. 'Judging by their trajectory, they heading straight for our waters.' 'Our island.'

Jazz could here the sparks fizzle, 'THIS IS BAD! I think we're compromised Jazz we have to tell Optimus!' Red Alert said. Jazz had come to the same conclusion. His gaze turned resolutely towards the mers that gave him so much grief.

Looks like these fraggers might be of some use to him after all. 'Do it,' Jazz said. Jazz lowered the his knife from Scavengers throat, flicking the energon off in disgust before subspacing it. Jazz then stormed pass the Constructicons further into the ship raising his servo to motion them to follow. Scavenger squeaked out a sign of relief, nearly tripping over himself running to Hook to have his throat looked at. Mixmaster was smiling like the cat that got the cream. It irked Jazz, he curtly replied into his comms, 'Tell OP ta start prepping for a potential groundbridge breach.'

He reached the cockpit and began fiddling with the controls prepping the vessel for take off. As the ship was slowly onlining for their flight, outside in the bay hanger a portal was opening, leading straight to the open sky above their island. Jazz addressed Red through the comm, 'Y'all need ta assign a new guard for this site.'

'What?! Why? Where are you going?', Red Alert asked.

'To kill a Mockingbird,' was Jazz smooth reply. Confused mumbles turned to dissuading shouts from Red's end of the line. Jazz got comfy in his seat, checking through his peripheral to see if the slaggers he brought on board were settling yet.

Scavenger's neck was patched, with him seated next to Hook in the ship's narrow hanger. Long Haul and Bonecrusher must be elsewhere on the ship. Hopefully those slaggers ain't messing with his energon stores. Mixmaster being the biggest of the gang didn't quite fit into a seat and had chosen to sit on the floor of the ship.

Mixmaster's optics never left Jazz's.

'I have to bring him home Red', Jazz said. Breaking optics contact to focus on steering the ship. Engine primed, he raised the ship to a hover aligning it with the growing portal. A clear view of the sky thought it.

It was a red dawn, the faintest light of day arriving to their hemisphere.

It reminded him of a certain red Chevron in the morning light. 'If I don't make it back in an orn's time, lock down the island. Ya copy Red?'

'Crystal, may Primus light your path Jazz.' Red replied. Quietly, he added, 'Bring him home alive.'

'Ya know me Red, I always will. Over and Out.'

'Over and Out.', the line clicked shut signalling the end of the call. Jazz steered the ship forward through and out of the portal, charting a course for the United kingdom.

Once at a high enough altitude, Jazz turned the cloaking device on and set the ship to Autopilot. Some point during the climb, all the constructicons had gathered once again into the small hanger bay. Jazz smile curled in annoyance. There was a cube in Bonecrushers servo.

Itchy servos that one had.

Addressing them all, Jazz said. 'I'm gon be honest, I don 't even trust yall as far as I can throw ya. But, for Prowl's sake I'll accept ya Lil truce but we gon be playing things my way.'

Hook opened his intake to retort, as Jazz showed off his fangs. He quickly adding, 'Careful, one wrong move and I'll end ya sorry afts.' Hook closed his intake

Jazz's visor flashed with manic glee, 'Now, onto more exciting plans. First agenda on the Finding Prowl objective. What da y'all say ta some good ole revenge on MECH?' reaching out his hand in a beginnings of a handshake.

The Constructicons didn't even hesitate, smiles going deviously wide and fields revved with malice. Mixmaster rose and clasped hands with Jazz, mirth and malice intoxicatingly entwined.

'We think it would be a devastatingly good time.'

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Previous

Yay! You have found: the Constructicons!

Hopefully Jazz doesn't rip em a new one.

Next chapter will focus more on Prowl and Blue.

I also realised I haven't disclosed Jazz's Alt mode yet. Would anyone like to guess what it is?