#prompt mashup game

[insomnikat-mused]

🐝 title: (kksk) Cats!

Feline, fearless, faithful and true-- that's all Sakura ever wanted to be in Sasuke's eyes. But she knows there's no hope of ever capturing his gaze, much less his attention, without first passing her humble pedigree as show-breed material.

Enter Kakashi, an alley cat who claims to know all she needs to walk the scene, to strut the strut, and to capture the coveted title that even Sasuke seeks: Best in Show.

But how does an alley cat even know anything about the cut-throat world of cat shows? Why, of all cats, help her? Will Sakura finally be seen by Sasuke, or will she fall for the street-wise cat whose tongue is as slick and silver as his coat?

the fake fic ask game

[jamiethebeeart]

(Ref/insp: 8eyestheband on youtube/tiktok - the conversation mashups and the song association game) supplemental info/explanation in the tags

[faeriekit]

Health and Hybrids (XXV)👽👻💚

[I can't remember the original prompt posters  for the life of me but here's a mashup between a cryptid!Danny, presumed-alien!Danny, dp x dc, and the prompt made the one body horror meat grinder fic.]

🖤Chapter navigation can be found here🖤 Click to browse previous updates.

💚 Ao3 Is here for all parts 💚 (now featuring mediocre mouseover translations, only available on a computer)

Where we last left off... Tim pulls a fast one on Batman for their mutual benefit. Everybody giggles. Danny goggles.

Trigger warnings for this story:  body horror | gore | post-dissection fic | dehumanization (probably) |  my nonexistent attempts at following DC canon. On with the show.

💚👻👽👻💚

(Additional TW: I think this counts as a panic attack ngl)

On the one hand. The room Danny’s in has a killer view of the earth from the moon.

The wall is basically just one big window. Danny is also apparently permitted to mash his face into the glass and ogle the Earth from Space for as long as he wants until the stinky dad, whoever he is, finally emerges from the depths of the building.

Diana’s the only one beside him today. She looks nice—nicer than usual, in her armor and bright clothing rather than soft scrubs and hair net. She can push his chair without getting tired—she could probably fly and carry him too, if she had to, so. Danny’s maybe counting on her liking him if this stinky dad tries to be mean.

So. Diana (nice lady) and Danny (half-dead ghost boy) are quietly seated in a dim, peaceful board room, absorbing the early morning (?) space radiation when the door hisses open across the room.

In the doorway is a long, dark, shadow of a man.

…And the green guy!!

Okay, if the stinky dad man brought a friend to this meeting the same way Diana’s meant to supervise him, Danny feels like he’s been lawyered up for the sake of some kind of court trial. This is not fair. Danny wasn’t able to review his case with his legal representation before this.

Well. Danny fumes. Whatever. His lawyer is Diana, the most powerful living being he’s seen ever in his life, and she can totally kick the green guy’s ass. Hell, Danny could probably kick the green guy’s ass.

...You know. If he wasn’t. Sick.

The stinky dad guy looks a lot like the blob his kid drew him as. That’s kind of neat—his suit is all black with little to no variation, which sort of just washes out the colors Danny might have been able to see if his eyes were still good. He’s very quiet, which is nice, and he’s very not-trying-to-read-Danny’s-mind, which is even better.

The two sit. Danny’s already in a wheelchair, so he just lets Diana wheel him to the table. The lady sits beside him in the spinny office chair.

Hello, the green guy opens with, already toying with the edges of Danny’s aura.

Danny sends back an abundance of ass-kicking emotions.

…Alright then, the green man capitulates, the barest hint of bemusement quickly stifled.

Good. Danny is mean. He’s awake enough to be mad about other people touching his aura from any end of his personal bubble.

But then the green guy…says stuff to the dad guy? And it’s very? Quiet?

Explanations, the green guy says. The image of a sign language translator at a baseball game floats over to him, and—

…Oh. He’s translating. For Danny.

That’s…nice? Nicer than Danny expected, honestly? Most of the time, people are perfectly happy to misinterpret him. It was kind of the way of the world at this point. Getting blamed for stuff, getting accused of stuff…

Man. If they turn out to be indoctrinating him for secret war purposes, at least they’re going all in. Danny might actually. You know. Like it here. A little.

He squirms in his chair, and tries not to look at anyone in particular. Diana—the lady who’s been nice to him—makes as if to straighten his hair for him, and remembers at the last second that he doesn’t like to be touched.

And sure. Danny doesn’t want to be touched. By bad guys.

…But Diana’s been really nice to him, so. Maybe. He scratches at the back of his neck, and ducks his head down—and remembers to use his words. “Yes,” he consents verbally. He can’t make eye contact. But he can…let her. Brush his hair back. A little.

Diana asks something long and complicated—and the green guy presses an image of Wonder Woman asking permission, being kind, being gentle­—up against the edges of Danny’s awareness.

Danny nods at the floor instead of at the lady. It’s fine. She’s fine. It’s fine.

And her fingers carefully brush through the front end of his fringe, and Danny. Danny is so normal about it. He doesn’t even cry or anything. Not even in front of his friend’s stinky dad.

And she doesn’t do it like Mom did it. And she doesn’t ruffle his hair like Dad did.

But it’s. Nice. And she doesn’t pull.

…And she doesn’t hit.

Danny eventually leans back into his wheelchair. It’s a little bit embarrassing to be halfway in and halfway out, but. Whatever. The scary-looking-dad with the earsies on his helmet has his own teenager. He should understand what it feels like to get emotionally weird with your teen in a public place. If he doesn’t, well...he wouldn’t be a great dad, then, and his opinion would suck anyway.

Based on what Danny knows about the masked kid, Danny isn’t sure the guy would tolerate a bad dad. The teen seems kinda unhinged.

The man says something, and the green guy presses a number of translated feelings against Danny’s awareness: Greetings. Questions about Danny’s wellbeing. Curiosity, but not demanding.

“…Hello,” Danny says back, and. Waves.

The man waves back. He’s got little claws on his gloves.

…Like a cat? Is it to go with his ears? Danny wonders about the possibilities of the guy being cat themed. It’s possible, presumably.

So…they want to know how Danny’s doing? Danny shrugs, and he glances at Diana, since, you know, she could probably fill them in? She does speak their language. And she’s been here the whole time.

The lady leans in close to him, black hair falling out from behind her ear. “What do you want to say?” she whispers into her ear, hand covering her mouth from their watchers.

Uh. It’s up to…Danny?? Somehow??

Danny winces. “…Good?” he tries, unsure if the word he uses means okay or fine or well. “…Not…hungry?”

“Very good,” Diana agrees, a little louder. She looks proud. Being not hungry must mean a lot to her, then. It means a lot to Danny too—he can remember the sensation of his stomach rubbing against itself, friction pulling raw at his insides as acid ate at him.

It was. Bad.

It was bad.

Danny’s glad he’s not there anymore. Anyway, there’s a guy in the room who reads minds, and Danny doesn’t really want to share that memory with anyone ever; especially someone who could turn it back on him.

The stinky dad says something else, but he uses words too thick and long for Danny to understand. The green guy translates, pure conceptual recall brushing against Danny’s outer aura—Needs? Wants?

…Danny frowns.

Danny looks at Diana, who looks back at him. Wants, needs…? What?

“Do you need aniþing?” Diana whispers to him, which. You know. Mostly makes sense.

Does Danny…need anything? He has medical care, he has food, he has water, he has toys and brain teasers, even…he has people to hang out with, he has people who stretch his legs with him so that he can go back to normal…heck, he doesn’t even have to clean his own waste bag. There’s people who do that for him.

Like. What more could Danny ask for?

Danny shrugs. He just wants to heal up and run away. Maybe…maybe, if Diana is real and not just pretending to like him to keep an eye on him, she’d let him visit her later or something. Danny would do what Dani doe—did. What Dani…did. And he’d just go a bunch of places and come back when he wants to.

But. No. There’s nothing he really needs right now.

The pointy-eared guy and the green guy share a look and a couple quiet words. Danny flares his annoyance into the silence, but all he gets is a silent Apology/Apology, which isn’t answers.

Ugh. Danny leans over the arm of his wheelchair. This is kind of super boring; it’s more boring than it is frustrating, even.

The stinky dad guy says something else, and Danny feels the push and pull of something double ended tugging on the outer edge of his aura. Additional/information, giving/take?

Danny really wishes he’d brought a fidget toy or something. His nerves are ramping up but all he can do is contort his fingers together, feeling the strain in and the joints click as he pushes them together and twists them apart. They want…to ask him questions? No, they’re already asking him questions. They want Danny to…give them questions??

…Danny doesn’t really want to. Still, he probably…should.

“The…space station,” he says, using the wrong word for their big space building but not knowing the better one; “Is this…where…why is it?”

The black-caped dad grumbles something vaguely approving. A tablet pops out of the table—spooky—and the guy starts drawing on it, explaining all the way. The green guy simplifies more of the verbally complicated concepts for Danny as they go.

Anyway. So they’re in space because it’s their…job? Danny thinks? They do…fighting stuff. Which Danny knew. Because he’d seen them on the news.

But it looks like they do a lot of things—they clean up after storms, and chase regular bad guys and super-bad-guys instead of just big ones. And they stop bad aliens from hurting people on Earth.

The green guy shifts from a green-looking, pointy-headed, red-eyed form to a warm, brown, human skin tone. And even. Like. Human clothing.

Danny stares.

…And the guy immediately takes back his natural form, his body physically shifting and morphing, which, fair, but holy crap. He’s living, on Earth. He passes as normal, on Earth. No one snitches on him. No one’s selling him to the government for parts. No one’s trapping him in a cage and not feeding him.

This guy works here, and everyone lets him.

Danny shifts in his chair. He…he wants that. He wants that. He wants to pass as human and not have to worry about…about anyone getting rid of him. He wants to go back to school. He wants to hide, and never ever not ever be found by anyone or anything when he does.

“I want that,” Danny says. There’s no inflection. He feels dead. He is dead, but usually he doesn’t feel it. “What do I do for…that.”

Help/Searching/Finding? the green—alien—questions, but there’s nothing for Danny to find. He knows exactly where everyone he loves is—and unless they’re already fully formed in the ghost zone…

…Well. Danny has forever to wait and see if he’ll see his friends and sister again. Maybe he’ll find them again one day, in a world purely green and glowing.

He shakes his head.

The next question comes…softer. Gentler. The mental push feels more like a breeze than a gale. Friends…Home/family?

The question comes tinged with all sorts of sensations that Danny’s suppressed—warmth, security, happiness, oxytocin, fondness, pride and being the source thereof, warmth and love, love, love—

Danny’s sweating. He can’t stop. His hands are shaking faster than usual—he kicks the brakes off his chair with the heels of his palms, and jerks the wheels back, pulling away from the desk—

He’s halfway across the room before he hears the noise. It’s just. Noise. It’s Diana, carefully shushing the loud heartbeat churning in his ears, hands on his hand, trying not to cage him but trying to keep skin on skin contact. Her hand is on the back of his hand, and on his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” Diana whispers. Danny’s shaking. His whole body is shaking. “Shhh, sh sh sh. It’s alright, it’s okay.”

It’s not it’s not it’snoit’snotit’sNOT. His sister is dead. His friends are dead. His parents sold his captors the equipment to catch him and they didn’t care if he got hurt doing it and now they’re DEAD. They tore open his hometown down the middle just to catch him, they stole him—they took his dead parent’s things as tools to hurt him—they HURT HIM and there isn’t—he can’t—he can’t—

Something is holding him down, and Danny thrashes. He has arms, but they’re injured—he has legs but he needs a tail and he—and—

He cries into Diana’s arms, sobbing and wailing. It’s a miracle that the building stays together. She holds him tighter, and he cries even harder into her soft under-layers.

He wants to run away. He needs to run away. Someone is holding him, and he can’t even flicker through her the way he wants to; his core is already too strained just from talking.

Danny’s sick. He’s dying. He’s—

“Take a breath,” Diana whispers, calm and sure. She models it for him. Danny gasps in air. “Good. Lete it out slow. As bobbels in a straw.”

He tries to copy her he does and she’ll be so angry if he can’t do it right on the first try but she lets him try, over and over again, until Danny’s able to stop hiccupping and leaking tears and ectoplasm all over her and realize that she’s holding him like a baby. Like. Actually cradling him against his body armor.

…You know what. He’s too tired to even be embarrassed. Screw that. Danny leans all the way over her and goes completely limp. Someone else can deal with his him for a little bit.

She does. Diana just…holds him.

It’s nice. Mom and Dad used to do that for him, when Danny was still…more human, he supposed. More than he is right now.

Something else touches his hand. Danny looks blearily downwards.

The teenager’s dad gets to his knees and takes Danny’s hand—and he doesn’t need the translation to understand.

“I’m sorry,” the man says, over and over again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Danny blinks sleepily. What does his friend’s stinky dad have to be sorry for? He didn’t even do anything to Danny in the first place.

Danny won’t remember, afterwards, being wheeled back to his room for a nap. They must have wheeled him back, though, because the alternative is that Diana tucked him into bed like a baby, and that’s just kind of embarrassing to even think about for too long.

[7grandmel]

Character Archives - [FILE-07]

Grand Dad

"Mario seven, uh, was that the one I played? Oh, let's check it out..."

For Walt Disney, it all began with a mouse. But for SiIvaGunner, it all began with a bootleg game, a streamer, and a pinch of insanity. Many have come after him, and many can claim to be funnier - but Grand Dad will forever hold the title as the first ever figment of imagination to come out of the bubbling mind of SiIvaGunner [FILE-01]. As a result, he has come to be a symbol for the channel in its entirety, the very embodiment of the SiIvaGunner ethos, and something of a dear friend in the eyes of its creator.

In 2014, a certain streamer under the name of Vinesauce Joel was going through the motions of his typical streaming routine - playing games of the oddest variety, and bellylaughing at the absurd results they'd deliver. Even as part of this greater whole, however, Joel's reaction to 7 GRAND DAD immediately became a standout moment, a series of events so perfect that the comedic timing couldn't have been coordinated to be any better. A mumbling Joel clicks on the game bizarrely labeled as "Mario 7", and is to his great shock met with the imagery of a garishly discolored Mario, placed onto an equally garish blue background, as bold letters declare the game's name to be "7 GRAND DAD". Before Joel can even properly process the twist he's been subjected to, only letting out a reading of the game's name, the game twists all expectations once again: An 8-bit rendition of The Flintstones theme, originally from The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy, kicks in - prompting a bewildered reaction of "FLINTSTONES?!" from the thoroughly befuddled streamer.

This is a sequence of events you're all too familiar with if you're a fan of the SiIvaGunner channel, yet nevertheless a necessary one to properly recount to understand just how core Grand Dad is to SiIvaGunner: Through this one 15-second clip of one streamer's reaction to the unpredictable world of bootleg video games, a small subset of internet dwellers on the platform SoundCloud realized that they'd uncovered a whole new genre of derivative audio work. Mashups and arrangements were always alive and well on the internet, yet always delivered with upfront honesty: To play into their derivative nature as part of the reaction, to present these edits as if they were the nostalgic, authentic real-deal video game music that you grew up loving, only to have the edit serve as an unexpected punchline, was the kind of brilliant idea that just had to be capitalized on. Thus, in January 2016, one lone internet dweller by the name Chaze the Chat started the SiIvaGunner (then GiIvaSunner) channel, and uploaded "Wild Pokémon Battle - Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire". The bait-and-switch foundation that laid the groundwork for all of SiIvaGunner, all built upon the concept of a bootleg Flintstones game pretending to be the seventh entry in the Super Mario franchise.

In our world, Grand Dad's debut to the online world is now over ten years old, his legacy on the SiIvaGunner channel being that of a figurehead mainly representative of the simpler times that the channel has long since grown up from. Yet in the SiIvaGunner universe, to SiIvaGunner himself, Grand Dad is the beating heart of the entire channel, the first spark of imagination which binds his whole universe together. Every figment made since the channel's inception owes its existence to Grand Dad, and with every step SiIvaGunner underwent across his original 2016 run, Grand Dad was right there alongside him, an enduring voice in his head steering the channel onward. And even as his creator fell into a deep slumber, as The Voice Inside Your Head [FILE-03] set his plans into motion to extract SiIvaGunner's figments into the real world, Grand Dad was at the front lines of the resistance fighting in his name - and remains a symbol of hope for all figments caught in The Voice's tyrannical reign.

Across eight years of the channel's life, Grand Dad has gone through so many phases in reception: As a novel joke, as a beacon of hope, as a redundant and played-out bit, looping around into being used ironically, followed by a loop-back-around into being genuinely appreciated. Event after event, album after album, Grand Dad has become a genuine symbol of everything the channel does, and continues to appear to represent it across all of its twists and turns. It's no small feat for a figment to have endured in relevancy for as long as Grand Dad has, and no matter where the channel is headed, you can sure that he's here to stay.

[therobotmonster]

DinoFolk Character Tokens, Part 2 (pt 1 is here)

Another 10 Dinosaur-Folk tokens I made for the D&D game I’m playing in, to fill out the world that Albert Sauros, Noted Spiritualist, comes from. In this case a world of Victorian Dinosaurs. This set of character tokens was made with Midjourney v4.

In your game/head, they can be any fancy reptile-humanoids you like!  Use them for character portraits, game tokens, inspiration for a new PC (or OC) or tag yourself, as you like.

While these are all modified with cleanup and compositing, these are all free to use for anyone who wants to, thus I have not signed these pieces to make things easier.

Prompt format:

a <either dinosaur or specific species>-anthro <profession>, 18th century clothing (or other descriptor), character design, white background, fantasy character art, colored line art, in the style of 1st edition D&D, <artist/style references>

For style references I wound up mostly with a Tony Diterlizzi/Norman Rockwell mashup.

[wisteriagoesvroom]

18 & 63 for the trope mashup please! <3

18. Circus AU and 63. Everybody knows, mistaken for a couple ^from the prompt mash ups game!

This is a Cirque du Soleil AU where Norris and Piastri are two trapeze artists who made huge names for themselves in their individual countries. They get paired up for new show, and it involves a really tricky sequence that people are convinced is not possible and has never been done before, let alone by two guys.

They have a couple of near misses on the attempts to nail the trick, and the whole gang is watching carefully from the safety nets. People are biting their nails, and george is totally double checking the insurance papers and trying not to freak out.

Anyway, Oscar hangs upside down on the bar, totally chill. on the platform, Lando shakes the last of his nerves from his fingers. he slides a firm grip down his own bar, the one place that’s been so familiar for so many years, and he takes a breath. It’s beyond conscious thought, it’s just muscle memory, stepping into the air. With faith that the other man will meet him, in that millisecond between complete connection and the plummet.

Hands. It’s all in the hands. Lando's own fingertips moulding to the floor the first time he nailed a handstand, someone else’s careful hands that taught him his first few balances and tucks. The way his hands bled bloody and blistered, until he worked up the requisite strength.

Now, Lando grips the bar steady with both hands. Now, the steady rhythm in the pit of his stomach. Once, three times, four — the pendulum hits the peak of the apex.

Lando jackknifes through the air, and he’s twisting, house lights blurring in his vision.

Oscar waits, hands outstretched.

Then, a firm clasp from a smaller hand. Callouses pressed against his own. Years of practice, leading up to this point of contact.

His body knows before his mind does. The snap of gravity into the right place, when moving object meets opposing force. It’s Oscar’s counter-rhythm that stops him falling, Oscar’s nimble strength that matches his own. The way they do this in silence, carefully cultivated trust. In that moment, their bodies are a marvel of physics.

Below, the cast erupts in whoops and cheers. Lando wants to run around, wants to scream, but in that moment there’s not really an option - he just clasps Oscar’s forearms, and lets himself be swung.

“Well.” Oscar says, wry. “That was easy.”

Lando looks up. “Yeah. Only took fifty four tries.”

Lando can tell Oscar’s trying not to laugh. Oscar's hands stay steady though.

Someone captures the footage and it takes a while to get going, but then they’re doing numbers on socials. Cirque marketing figures this could get momentum and gradually shares more behind the scenes footage of them both: heads bowed together to talk about the tricks, tightening their wrist wraps, dusting chalk off each other, and laughing as they sip their energy drinks. They even get a portmanteau: landoscar.

The final show is obviously a massive hit. Lando and Oscar’s segment ends up being a lyrical interpretation of the life of a papaya or something. It’s Seb Vettel’s show about the lifespan of plants and bees so they’re just rolling with the vision.

When Pride comes around, the two of them step out to get coffee and a snack at their regular spot. The barista waves at them and says: “a year's free coffee for the happy couple! thank you so much for repping queer excellence in the arts.”

And Oscar’s like, “oh, uh. I mean. I am. But we– we’re not…”

Then Lando turns to him. The morning light looks good on Oscar. Oscar who always lends him sports tape, always lets him order lunch first, and always, always leans forward to catch him. In or out of the ring, he is the partner Lando trusts more than anything in the world.

So Lando tugs on Oscar’s hoodie sleeve, and is like: “actually, I’d meant to ask you…”

[deepdreamnights]

DinoFolk Character Tokens, Part 4 (pt 1, pt 2, pt 3)

the last 10 Dinosaur-Folk tokens I made for the D&D game I’m playing in, to fill out the world that Albert Sauros, Noted Spiritualist, comes from. In this case a world of Victorian Dinosaurs, this set being mostly maid staff and professors from the University. This set of character tokens was made with Midjourney v4.

In your game/head, they can be any fancy reptile-humanoids you like!  Use them for character portraits, game tokens, inspiration for a new PC (or OC) or tag yourself, as you like.

While  these are all modified with cleanup and compositing, these are all free  to use for anyone who wants to, thus I have not signed these pieces to  make things easier.

You can download all 40 here.

Prompt format:

a  <either dinosaur or specific species>-anthro <profession>,  18th century clothing (or other descriptor), character design, white  background, fantasy character art, colored line art, in the style of 1st  edition D&D, <artist/style references>

For style references I wound up mostly with a Tony Diterlizzi/Norman Rockwell mashup.

[magicandpizza]

For the prompt game, #6? Always a sucker for moments like that!

Hello lovely! Thanks for playing! I borrowed heavily from canon for this, so I hope you enjoy this weird show/book mashup. I was also so tempted to end this on a cliffhanger but I thought that was a bit mean 😇

6. “You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you.”

The guards scream and drop their weapons, and Jesper watches on, horrified, as a red haze forms around them.

“It’s their blood,” Jesper says, bile rising in his throat. “The Tidemaker’s draining their blood.”

Wylan tugs at his arm, nodding towards the stairs, but it’s too late. The Tidemaker disappears, and in the next breath is on the stairs right in front of them.

Everything after that feels like it happens in slow motion. The Tidemaker kicks Wylan hard in the chest, sending him flying backwards, landing with a sickening thud on the black stone of the courtyard.

“No!” Jesper shouts. He moves to fire the rifle at the Tidemaker, but his momentary distraction has him at a disadvantage, and the rifle is jerked from his arms and tossed aside. He tries to stand only to get knocked down with a sharp blow to his head, the Tidemaker looming above him as he shuffles back towards Wylan’s limp body. He realises what’s about to happen a fraction too late.

The Tidemaker lifts her hands, and a faint red haze appears over her. She’s going to drain them like the guards had been drained.

Jesper feels his strength start to ebb and, panicked, glances behind him, where the red haze is darkening above Wylan’s still unmoving body. In the back of his mind, fighting its way through the pain, was Wylan’s voice.

I’ve seen you make all those impossible shots. That piano wire didn’t fix itself.

Metal hinges! Jesper!

Focusing all his attention on the bits of metal clinging to his clothes, the shavings and tiny particles from the severed link in the gate chain, he thrusts his hands forwards, ignoring the way his entire body is screaming with pain, and sends them flying towards the Tidemaker, burrowing them in deep, into her organs. She crumples to the floor, coughing up blood, and Jesper races to Wylan’s side.

His skin is too pale, almost translucent, his breathing shallow.

“Wake up!” Jesper cries, shaking him roughly. “Come on, Wy.” He knows they’re running out of time.

Wylan does not stir. Tears prick at the corner of Jesper’s eyes as he shakes him again. What if he’s too late? Jesper had promised him so much. That they’d make it back to Ketterdam, that they’d make a life for themselves. It was the only thing that had kept him going, the promise of something better.

“Wy, darling… You need to wake up. I can’t do this without you.”

Slowly, agonisingly, Wylan’s eyes blink open.

[sexhaver]

What is a tangible benefit to any of this? Wow look the computer can make prompted mashups of blurry, uncanny images. What is the fucking point? Yes, it's here, we can't put it back in the box..but why wave it around like it means something?

Fundamentally I think your aphantasia is the only reason you're so obsessed with this. the idea of being able to have an idea made into a picture in front of you, without having to like, learn to draw, or expend any effort, is probably really appealing to someone like you, ie, a manchild obsessed with video games and drugs, defending tooth and nail his ability to have slop printing out for his amusement at only $0.02 per image.

there are a lot of snarky/flippant things i could say here, but i'll leave them as an exercise for the reader. my main concern here is that you've clearly followed me for a while to know about my aphantasia. were you hatefollowing me for months or did you suddenly start hating me this much in response to my takes on AI? if it's the former then stop making yourself angry, and if it's the latter then lol.

[danmei-action]

Danmei Gotcha for Gaza: Day 3 Update!

Attention danmei fans! Our fundraiser (link) has reached $470 USD for Palestine as of 8/3/2024 - thank you so much to all the prompters ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

Notice: We've seen several donations that cover much more than the number of prompts requested! While this is great for our fundraisers, prompters can also use the extra money to request two types of "free" prompts; you can either leave "creator's choice" prompts where the creators are free to make whatever they like (specifying a fandom is optional), or donate prompts for fans who are unable to donate at the moment.

For example, if you want to make a $20 USD donation but only want to request a single SFW prompt for $5 USD, you can specify that you want to donate the other $15 as prompts for the rest of the fandom or let 1-3 SFW contributors pick what to create. You can also consider leaving creator's choice prompts for the fandoms listed below, since they have not received any prompts yet:

Brother | Da Ge (大哥)

Pure White Devil (纯白恶魔)

Drowning Sorrows in Raging Fire (烈火浇愁)

Itinerant Doctor | Youyi (游医)

Jin Se | 锦瑟

Nan Chan (南禅)

The Submissive Emperor | Jun Wei Xia (君为下)

The Wife is First | Qi Wei Shang (妻为上)

Drink, Drank, Drunk! | (千杯)

Global Examinations | 全球高考

Copper Coins | Tong Qian Kan Shi (铜钱龛世)

I Ship My Rival X Me | (我嗑了对家x我)

More under the cut:

City of Angels | (天使之城)

Legend of Exorcism | Tianbao Fuyao Lu (天宝伏妖录)

Dinghai Fusheng Records (定海浮生录)

Seizing Dreams | Duo Meng (夺梦)

Those Years In Quest Of Honour Mine (当年万里觅封侯)

AWM: PUBG | (AWM [绝地求生])

The #1 Pretty Boy of the Immortal Path (仙道第一小白脸)

First-Class Lawyer | Yi Ji Lushi (一级律师)

Judge | Pànguān (判官)

Wildhood Friends | Zhu Mu Lang Ma (竹木狼马)

Run Wild | Sa Ye (撒野)

Qing Kuang | (轻狂)

Antidote | Jie Yao (解药)

Wait for Me after School | 放学等我

PUBG Online Romance of the Century | (PUBG世纪网恋)

I Can Do It | (我行让我来)

Glory [e-sports] | Rong Guang (荣光[电竞])

My Underachieving Seatmate Doesn’t Need Any Comforting | (学渣同桌不需��安慰)

Game Loading | (游戏加载中)

How Did You Guys Become Boyfriends While Gaming | (你們打個遊戲怎麼就交到男朋友了)

Fake Slackers | 伪装学渣

Beyond the Outline | (这题超纲了) *The Guy Inside Me

They All Say I've Met a Ghost | (他们都说我遇到了鬼)

After Marrying the Evil God | (和邪神結婚後)

After Being Forced to Marry the Evil Star General (被迫嫁给煞星将军后)

After Crossdressing and Provoking Long AoTian (女装招惹龙傲天后)

The Demon Venerable’s Wistful Desire | (魔尊他念念不忘)

After Crossing Through Ten Worlds, I Failed To Run Away | 穿越十个世界后我跑路失败了

Swallowing the Seas | Tun Hai (吞海)

Breaking Through the Clouds | Po Yun (破云)

Your Distance | Nĭ Dè Jù Lí (你的距离)

Is the Gentleman Feeling Alright? | jun you ji fou (君有疾否)

Encountering a Snake | Yu She (遇蛇)

You Boys Play Games Very Well | (你们男生打游戏好厉害哦~)

Waiting For You Online | (就等你上线了)

I’m Completely Clueless About Sockpuppet Accounts Being Unmasked [E-sports] | (被扒了马甲我一无所知[电竞])

That One Rich Fan of Mine | (我的那個有錢粉絲)

I Just Want To Be In A Relationship | (我就想谈个恋爱)

Heart has Ling Xi | (心有凌熙)

After Getting Gayified, I Swore Off Parody Mashups | (被gay后再也不敢鬼畜了)

Reborn with an Old Enemy on the Day of our Marriage | (和宿敌结婚当天一起重生了)

Transmigrated into the prince regent's beloved runaway wife | (穿成攝政王的侍愛逃妻)

After transmigrating into the book, I picked up the protagonist-shou | (穿书后我捡到了主角受)

Cold Sands | 漠上寒沙

I Know I'm About to Lose You | 我知道我快失去你了

Fanservice Paradox | 营业悖论

Fantasy Farm | Huanxiang Nongchang (不离)

The Emperor's strategy | (帝���攻略)

The Missing Piece | (貌合神离)

I'm using the interstellar live broadcast to raise cubs | (我在星际直播养崽)

Not in Vain | (不枉)

You use a gun, I use a bow (你们用枪我用弓[电竞])

I’m A Male Mom in a Nightmare Game |

I Like Your Pheromones | (我喜欢你的信息素)

Transmigrating Into The Heartthrob’s Cannon Fodder Childhood Friend | (穿成万人迷的炮灰竹马)

Pixiu Restaurant, No Way Out (貔貅饭馆，只进不出)

Mist [Unlimited] | 薄雾［无限］

[fipindustries]

Hey, you're the first artist I've seen on the defense side of the AI argument, and I would like to hear more of your thoughts on the subject, if that's okay

oh! sure, no problem buddy.

you first have to understand im am a bit of a radical when it comes to "ownership" of art. personally i am of the opinion that all art should be free to share with the world. i dont like the idea of artists hoarding ideas or concepts or gatekeeping their work. i think its pretty miserly to claim ownership of a thought, of an idea, of a concept. it reduces and constricts other peoples capacity for expression.

i think its fair if you want to monetize your work but even that i feel should have a time limit, as in, after a few years your art should be free. otherwise you are just rent seeking.

moreover i think other people should be free to take, transform, remix, reshuffle, cover and alter and build upon the art of others. i think there is something beautiful there in human interaction, in comunication, in the evolution of an idea into new shapes and combinations.

ovbiously copyright tends to put obstacles to these things, but it leaves some space for it in the form of fair use. that if your work is commenting or critiquing or transforming the work of someone else then its fair game. i think that is peachy.

now, so far i think a lot of people would agree with me and the place where we split is wether a human is doing these transformations or a computer program, they argue the fact that a computer is doing it makes it illegitimate, it makes it so that its not an action of human agency, it is not an expression of human thought or creativity and thus it cant be true critique or transformation.

now there are two angles we can tackle this. we can argue wether it matter if a human does it or a computer does it, or we can argue wether we can actually say that humans had no bearing on the process. i will focus on the second one.

given that the AI is a product of human endeavor, made by humans, trained by humans on human work to conform to human precerences and then it is activated and (depending on how involved the process is) guided and regulated by human prompting and human curation. i think there is enough human agency and discernement on every step of the process to say that the result is one of human creativity. that the AI is merely a tool being used by humans to make things.

now i have made references to transformative works and that brings to mind things like collages and remixes and reshuffles and mashups, which may lead to the wrong impression that the AI works by grabbing a thousand pieces of work that it has stored in some huge database and then it picks and collates it all together. that is not how it works at all, i could go on a huge tangent on how the AI actually does what it does but rest assured it does not copy and paste portions of art stored somewhere inside it.

finally i want to conclude on the idea of wether its theft to use the art people put online to train an AI. like i already explained it clearly does not violate copyright since any sane interpretation of the process has to be transformative enough to count as fair use. but on a more fundamental level, is it right to "use" other people's art without their consent for whatever purpose, regardless of wether you are breaking copyright or not?

i think yes.

now let me be clear, if you are putting your work behind a paywall, like in your patreon or whatever, where the only way to access it is by paying the artist. then i think it can meaningfully be said that to access that art without paying the artist is theft. its piracy after all. and as we all know piracy is wrong (wink wink nudge nudge).

but now that is not the case with most art online, right? most art online is completly free to view and download. in fact the only way to view it is by downloading it, the browser has to store the image in the cache memory of your pc in order to show it through your monitor. so to download the copy and keep it in your disk has to be fine, it is not a scarce resource, its a digital image, it can be copied infinity times without ever depriving the creator of the image itself, and its free! so the artist is not being deprived of some revenue that should have been rightfully theirs.

now lets say i want to count how many pixels in that image are green, so i take pen and paper and start counting. surely that has to be right.

how about if i do that with every image in their gallery. that has to be fine as well. what if i count how often every color appears on every pixel on every image, so that i have this giant database with a statistical distribution of color across all the works of the artist, and in order to do the whole thing faster i have a machine do that for me? does an artist have the right to say i cant do this? could a painter forbid an art historian from analizing their artistic evolution because it would be "using their art in a way they didnt consent"? could a sculptor stop someone from measuring how tall their statues tend to be? can miyazaki come and say that he is forbidding me from using his movies as animation reference because that is not how he wants people to interact with his art? i mean maybe. maybe society decides that yes, that is a right artists should have. but personally i think that would be a bad thing because it would constrain the capacity of humans to learn, to study and to express themselves and that is anathema to my principles.

on a more fundamental level, i, as an artist who has made art and who understands how the sausage gets made, dont hold ART or the creation of ART as some kind of sacred cow. i dont think there is this contamination or desecration because we use a machine to do it. i do think there is virtue in doing art on your own with your own hands. its certainly impressive, it takes time and effort and talent and skill and all of that are things that i personally find valuable. much like running a marathon or doing your dishes. but there is no shame in driving a car or using a washing machine either, sometimes we want things to be easier and convenient and that is perfectly fine and valid.

then there is a whole other argument about AI outcompeeting artists in the marketplace and driving them out of their jobs, much like many other industries in the past were automated by the progress of technology leaving people without jobs. i can sympathize a lot more with this argument but this post has gotten too long already so ill leave it at that

[lotsofsq]

Hey there! I know it's a little late for the Human Touch Ask Game, but I figured I'd send you a few anyways in case you want some drawing ideas! No worries if it's too late :D Any mashup/combination of SQ, Mr. curtain, Mr. Benedict, and/or the Ten Men for 8, 17, 20, or 43!

you are not late at all!! i love getting these no matter how long ago i did the game! also you are speaking to my heart rn with those character choices i love you so much 💖💖

8: shielding with their body

show versions but i think about nathaniel shielding sq literally all the time so this was such a good prompt for me thank you 🙏

[ID copied in alt text: a drawing of nathaniel holding sq to his chest and looking behind himself angrily and protectively. sq is shaking and clinging to his sleeve. sq’s eyes are wide and frightened.]

[noonaishere]

Music of the Heart [J.YH] - seventy-eight | misc

HOW were you supposed to know that the person who edited your videos was a streamer? And one who had a lot of fans?

You’d never watched a video game stream before, you were normally busy working on some mashup or another so you thought they were a waste of time. Maybe you could watch one of y/n’s, just to see what the hullabaloo was about?

You navigated to her page and, as it turned out, she was currently streaming. You clicked on the stream, not really knowing what to expect. A prompt told you that you had to make an account if you wanted to use the chat, so you opened another window and did so.

You refreshed the stream page and now it showed that you could use the chat and had a name: NEROmusic

“Alright ladies, germs, and Other.”

You had no idea who anyone was. You looked at the grid of people on the screen, some showing their faces and others just represented as their user icons. Oh, the frame around their icon lit up green when they said something. This was… MickTheMacken talking. Okay, you were getting the hang of this.

“Am I a ‘germ’ or ‘Other’?” MorningStar asked. MorningStar sounded like San, so you figured that was him.

“You can be Miscellaneous, if you like.”

“I want to be ‘Misc’,” Jageun Gomen Goyangi said, the frame lighting up. You knew who she was now, so you knew it was y/n. It was still funny to you to think about how you were working together all this time, and yet didn’t know you were working with a - by what you saw - kind of famous streamer, all because it was never something you would ask.

“‘Misc’?” Mick asked.

“‘Misc.’” She repeated.

“I adore it. I am enraptured.”

“You’d better be. I worked for all of five seconds on it.”

“Forceful.” Mick looked into the camera flirtatiously. 

The rim around BrickTheBracken’s screen lit up. “Stop stealing my man.”

“Ummm, excuse me? I don’t need to steal a man? I already have one?”

“Mhm.” San said emphatically.

“I desire not your man!” Y/n yelled. “Make haste, wench! Say your piece.”

Mick laughed. “Are you all watching my stream?”

Ryujin lit up. “I’m sniping so hard right now.”

“We’re all cheating crazy hard.” Keeho said-- wait, that was the idol from JUPiTER you had met! Keeho was a streamer? No wait, you had seen that video thumbnail where he was laughing or something… what a small world. Absolutely tiny.

“GOOD.” Mick continued. “Anyway, for the people out there in Radio Land: welcome to our third annual… what did we call it last time?”

“I don’t remember.” Yeji said.

“‘Secret Non-Santa’?” Ryujin guessed.

“With Cat here? We’d never come up with something so obvious. It has to be obtuse.” Keeho added.

“Secret Satan.” Y/n said.

“Round Robin Russian Roulette.”

“Hell.”

Mick laughed. “ANYgay, we’re doing That Fucking Thing We Do when we all find the worst games we can possibly find, throw them into the hat,” he lifted up a tophat, “and we each pick a shitty game and play it for the rest of us to yell at.”

“And everyone watching gives us money for charity!” Yeji said quickly.

“Yes, sorry Yeji, I’m always so preoccupied with our suffering that I forget we’re also trying to make other people’s lives better.”

“You’re welcome,” Yeji said pleasantly.

“How are you picking which of us are going?” San asked.

“Bracken made a wheel.”

“Oh?”

BrickTheBracken appeared in the frame as he wheeled a small game show-style wheel into view behind Mick and presented it to the viewers like a beautiful game show lady.

“Our beautiful Bracken,” Yeji said.

“Wowwww, we’re really coming up in the world.” Y/n said.

“We’re bougie.” Keeho added.

“Mhm.”

“Okay, take your seats, start your engines, keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times, because here we go!” Mick spun the wheel. “Cat!”

“Ahhhhhhhh shit.”

Everyone laughed. You laughed too.

Keeho laughed. “Couldn’t’ve happened to a worse person.”

“Keeho, I would like to be the first, to wish you a very Die.”

“Seven years of friendship and this is how she treats me?” Keeho pretended to cry.

“I’m calling your mother.”

Everyone laughed again.

“And to pick the game of our very aggressive contestant--” Mack fished around in the hat for a slip of paper “--Scary Granny! Please click link number five.”

There was a pause as - you guessed - y/n clicked the link and it opened. “...Oh god.”

Mick laughed as he read the description. “Look for evidence against granny in this dark and eeeevil game!”

“Is the game evil or is the granny?”

“I think it’s the game.”

“Before I play this, I would like to try and argue against it.” Y/n said.

“I won’t allow it, but go ahead.” Mack replied.

“I should not have to play this for two reasons: the first being that: …I’m hot. And the second being that: I hate this.”

“I’ve never seen you so I can’t account for the first one, and we all hate this but we do it for the yucks so: start the game, Cat.”

“I’ve seen her, I can vouch for her hotness,” San said.

“But we’ve never seen you either, so how do we know you know what you’re talking about?” Ryujin asked.

“Uhhhh…”

“Morn is hot,” y/n came to his defense.

“But you see how that still means nothing?”

“Circular hotness,” Ryujin said.

You chuckled.

“Keeho can solve this,” Braken started. “You’ve seen Cat, is she hot?”

Keeho’s eyes widened in the kind of shock someone’s face has when someone asks if their sibling is hot. “Um, I don’t want the ‘Keeho and Cat are dating’ rumors to start again so I’ll unfortunately have to decline.”

“You traitor!” Cat yelled. “Coward!”

You couldn’t tell if she was fake mad or actually mad. Everyone laughed, regardless.

“Cat, start the game,” Mick commanded.

She sighed loudly and the game replaced her icon on her screen. In a few seconds, hers was made the main screen so the viewers could watch.

“Oh my god,” y/n said, as the game loaded.

You hadn’t played any video games in your childhood on account of it not being allowed, but you could easily tell that the opening screen… what’s it called?

“The home screen looks like shit…” y/n devolved into rueful laughter.

Ah, yes: the home screen.

“This looks like a PS1 game threw up on itself. Do I really have to play this?”

“Yes, Cat. This is for charity. You have to do the thing.”

“Just tell me if all the games are this bad.”

“They are.”

“Fine.”

You chuckled to yourself.

She started the game and groaned. 

You may not have played a video game ever, but you’d seen ads for them before and this one looked like the most unfinished, garbage things you’d ever seen. It was ugly, and all the controls looked bigger than they needed to be.

You must steal from the old woman! was the text that came up on the screen.

“So I’m a burglar?” She asked.

The group laughed.

“Girl help, I’m knocking over an old woman.”

She started running around the level attempting to complete any of the missions the game gave her, but was having a hard time. The granny meant to chase the player got stuck in a wall, got stuck in the middle of the room for a bit, got stuck in the ceiling, and when she fell through the floor and then rapidly went flying vertically through the room a dozen times before shooting off into the stratosphere, Cat went silent.

She sighed. “God damnit.”

Goddamnit it, indeed.

“You have to make it funny, Cat,” Mick said.

She sighed and seemed to think for a moment as the old lady killed her and the level started over.

“You know those scam marriages where people get married to try and become an immigrant in another country?”

Mick laughed a little, seeming to know that this question was leading him. “Yeah.”

“Who are you really scamming if you scam marry someone to move to a place?”

“The government.” Yeji answered.

“You say that like no government has ever scammed its people, ever.”

“...That’s true.”

“I just think that the idea of a marriage being a scam because it doesn’t involve love totally negates asexual and aromantic people. You don’t need to be in romantic love to be married.”

“What about people who might be friends who want to get married for the benefits?” Ryujin chuckled.

“Are you seriously trying to tell me that every straight married couple on the planet loves or even just likes each other? My parents might still be awesomely in love, but I had friends with shitty parents so I KNOW that’s not true. And just look at all of the ‘I hate my spouse’ memes that boomers share; why would they share them if they actually love their spouse?”

“Oh my god.” Keeho said.

“How are you so smart, Cat?” Bracken asked, half-joking.

“I’m just really cute and sexy and good at thinking.”

San chuckled. “So humble too.”

“Mhm…” Granny got stuck again and she restarted the level. “But back to my point, not every marriage is a loving or even a liking one and those people should just get divorced, so the whole point of a marriage - supposing to be about two people who love each other who want to stay together forever - doesn’t make sense anyway.”

The granny killed her again and the level started over. She sighed.

“What about the argument that it’s to have kids?” Keeho asked.

“What about hetero couples who can’t get pregnant? What about couples who adopt, whether they’re gay or straight? Or women and men who are past the child bearing age? Should they get divorced then?”

Mick sighed. “Cat, I said make it funny, not get on a soapbox--” 

“You’ve put a lot of thought into this.” San observed.

“Only about five minutes. But my brain is very big and sexy and--”

“Don’t say it.” Keeho said.

“Wrinkly.”

“Ew.”

“So it was easy.”

Mick laughed as Keeho continued to make a disgusted face. 

“How do you propose we treat marriage instead?” Mick asked, trying to find the punchline.

“A business venture. And I don’t mean that in like a right wing, small government, libertarian-because-I’ve-never-left-my-small-town-or-even-encountered-a-woman way. I mean that, pre-feudalism, most families produced some sort of good with both members of the marriage contributing to the creation of that product or products, and either one or both participated in the selling of said products: I think that we should just treat marriages as long term business ventures.”

“I’m… I feel like that makes sense? But I’m not sure?” Yeji said, a little confused.

“And we should treat kids like ponzi schemes.”

Keeho sighed. “And there’s the joke.”

You laughed loudly with the group.

“Was that WHOLE FUCKING THING, just for that joke?” He yelled.

“No, I thought of the joke right at the end.”

She cleared the level but somehow the granny killed her despite the game having gone to the ‘Level Over’ screen.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She yelled.

Everyone laughed.

The level started over, but this time, none of the buttons were anywhere to be seen.

“Um… there’s no controls.”

“What?” San asked.

“There’s no controls. I’m moving the mouse and nothing’s happening.”

“What? How?” Keeho asked.

“I have no idea… I think I’m done, guys. Oh my god I can’t even exit the game.” She laughed. “I have to close the program, hold on.”

You decided to comment in the chat.

NEROmusic: Nice job, Cat

“Hey! The person who made my intro is here! Everyone go check out NEROmusic! They make awesome mashups and they’re so so so good.”

“She’s in your chat?” San asked.

“Mhm. She just said ‘good job’. I’m not sure if she’s being sarcastic or not.”

NEROmusic: I’m being serious. That game looked like shit lol

“It was shit, NERO, thank you for commiserating.”

The group went to the next game: Ryujin had to play something called Papa Simulator and had to try to take care of children while making a pizza. Somehow, everything ended up on fire.

Your phone buzzed.

  previous | main cast | masterlist | next

Send an ask or leave a comment if you want to be added to the tag list! 🎵

@luvvvx • @iamthehotdemon • @hrts4hanniehae • @rachs-words • @stayatinykatsy •

[faeriekit]

Health and Hybrids (XXIV)👽👻💚

[I can't remember the original prompt posters  for the life of me but here's a mashup between a cryptid!Danny, presumed-alien!Danny, dp x dc, and the prompt made the one body horror meat grinder fic.]

🖤Chapter navigation can be found here🖤 Click to browse previous updates.

💚 Ao3 Is here for all parts 💚 (now featuring mediocre mouseover translations, only available on a computer)

Where we last left off... PHYSICAL!! THERAPY!! LET'S GET TO IT!! *80s aerobics music is piped in from nowhere* Also Flash numbero two was there.

Trigger warnings for this story:  body horror | gore | post-dissection fic | dehumanization (probably) |  my nonexistent attempts at following DC canon. On with the show.

💚👻👽👻💚

“Green one,” the quickfast one says. The masked teenager groans.

Danny looks down at his cards. He’s got a green eight. He drops the card onto the pile, and waits, perfectly aware that the girl is only down to her last two cards. The card flutters vaguely toward the pile on Danny’s bed cot.

He’s sitting with his legs crossed now, he admires. Holy crap. This is what dreams are made of.

“Bruce two,” the teen in the leather jacket demands, slapping down a—Oh, it’s a green 2+ card. It’s take two. Right.

The blonde girl scoffs, but her two cards bloat back up to four. Quickly though, with a little shuffling, the four become three with a green three slapped down on top of the deck.

Everyone is down to only a three or four cards. Danny is sweating through his medical issue tee and shorts.

Danny has not won a single game yet.

Danny really wants to win.

The masked teen (why is he wearing a face mask?? Like…over his eyes?? Not even his mouth??) opens with a new complication: a red three.

The red-haired quick-kid flicks a wild card plus four down with a smirk, pleased to make this Danny’s problem. “Blue, cnytte four!”

Okay, so what is cnytte?? Danny just got used to ‘take’. What is this new synonym. Why is everyone determined to hurt him like this. Why couldn’t these people just use Esperanto.

Whatever. Danny bites his lip and pulls the trigger: wild card plus four. He quickly points to the leather-jacket teen. “R-red. Br-take eight.”

The kid splutters. “Hey! That’s not the riht!!”

That is for sure how he and Jazz used to play it in after-school. The other kids never complained. “Is.”

“No, it’s not??”

Danny sticks his tongue out. The leather-jacket wearer squawks theatrically; it takes the mask-wearing kid thirty seconds to find the official pdf of the rules of UNO, and a new argument is off to the races.

“Atredde!!” the teen demands, snatching the phone out of the masked teen’s hands to show Danny the screen. “Þær, there!!”

“I can’t read,” Danny points out cheerfully. He can read some things, sure, but not when he refuses to look at the phone.

The phone gets closer and closer to Danny’s face, and Danny looks anywhere else—at the ceiling, the floor, and his bed, all without letting the guy point it out to him.

“Atredde,” the guy demands, the glass of his screen mashed against Danny’s cheek. Danny struggles not to laugh. “Atredde, atreddeatreddelooklooklook, you wearg—“

“No aðs, no aðs!!” the only girl of the group yelps, grabbing the spare pillow from underneath herself to start beating him with. Danny’s assailant shrieks. “Do you want to get in trouble with Wonder Woman?!”

“Wonder Woman wolde take my sid!” the teen hollers. Danny ponders if biting him would solve anything for all of two seconds before the doors smack open.

Everyone looks at Diana. Diana looks at everyone.

“I win!” Danny cheerfully announces, and sets off more yelling.

Danny does not, in fact, win anything other than a late lunch. Still, it is enough that he won, even if he has to sit through a gentle, brow-raised scolding as the nurse cleans his port and replaces his stomach-hole bag.

Lunch is a smoothie with powered vitamins and some pain medication mixed in. Life goes on.

For the first time, though, Danny doesn’t eat lunch alone; since he can, like, keep his bed relatively clean now that he isn’t constantly leaking ectoplasm everywhere, there are four teenagers crammed onto his bed with sandwiches, wraps, and sodas of their own. Danny can phonetically pronounce the brands on the side of the can, he notices. He has no idea what they mean, but sometimes the girl in the blonde bob and the too-fast teen will ask him to pronounce them, and they only snicker sometimes.

The teen in the mask makes a noise. “I want a lið. Wha want anything?”

“Nah,” No,” “Na þancs,” all echo.

Danny sucks on his smoothie straw. It tastes like bananas today. Ew; potassium. “What is… lið?”

The teen holds up a can of soda in his ungloved hand. Danny makes a face. He’d love a Mountainous Dunk right now, but gas in his bag…eugh. More trouble than it’s worth.

“No.”

The teen shoots him a pair of finger guns and darts out the door, leaving the rest of them behind to argue over UNO rules in at least two languages and without any expectation of resolving the issue.

Danny peaceably polishes off his smoothie. He’ll have to get the back done again, but eh. As long as no one’s directly looking at the process while it’s going on, he doesn’t super care whether or not anyone’s in the room, per se? Is that weird? Is this weird??

It’s probably weird. But also. Danny has fuzzy memories of roaming the building and leaking goo the entire time he was out and about, so… Suck it, he can do what he wants! He’s sick!! And maybe even dying??

“What is þæt andwlita??” the blonde girl asks, only for the quick-fast teen to poke Danny in what can be assumed to be a grumpy expression. Danny feigns a bite just to be mean. The other teens don’t even pretend to think it’s a threat—the blonde even laughs.

The teenager comes back and sits on Danny’s bed again, mattress barely bouncing as he makes himself comfy. It takes Danny a second to realize that he didn’t come back empty-handed, though—but instead of sodas, the guy brought back a tablet and a weird expression under his mask.

“…Look,” the teen finally says, and flips the tablet onto his lap so that the screen is visible. The teen clicks on a browser, and types in a word Danny isn’t familiar with, and pulls up a stock photo straight out of a photo frame Danny could buy at the craft store. He points to the smiling woman, the man, and the kid in the picture. “Moder. Fæder. Dohtor.”

Danny glances at the photo, and then at the teen. …Okay…?

The teenager bites his lip, and picks a new photo. This one has two men and a child, but it was basically the same. He points to each person as he named them: “Fæder and fæder, and sunu.”

Danny looks at the photo. He looks at the teenager. He looks at the photo again, and the masked teen backs out of the photo he onscreen to pick another one—with a woman and a man crouched around three kids and a dog.

“Moder. Father. Daughter. Daughter. Son.”

Realization breaks over Danny—oh. These are supposed to be families. These are family titles. Huh.

Danny scrutinizes the image. They…you know. They look happy. Danny used to…

…Mom, and…

It hurts too much to look at the photo for long. He knows that it’s fake, and he knows that models just get hired for show, but even the imaginary families hurt. Happy, loving people exist out there in the world.

Danny was in a box. Danny was in a box.

Danny—

The teen makes another noise, and Danny drags his focus out of his melancholy doom spiral with every tooth and claw. He manages. Barely. The masked teenager switches over to a drawing app and pops a tablet pen out of—nowhere, actually? Where did that come from??

The teen hems and he haws and he fills out a stick figure with some red and black clothing details—and a mask, and a bowl cut, which is how Danny figures out it’s a scrappy little self-portrait. It doesn’t look at all like the oversized tee tucked into the teen’s short shorts, but you know, whatever.

Next to him, the dude draws a giant, brick-wall-broad, no-eyed, man-shaped blob with upright pointed ears.

It’s. Uh. It’s sure…something.

“Son,” the teen labels himself, and then draws an arrow to the giant, colorless blob. “Father.”

…Danny squints. Is that normal? To have a huge hulking entity-dad, and then have a short, shrimpy-looking teen waif?

Like you, imaginary Jazz interrupts, since he was thinking about her.

He carefully bats the thought away before it can make him cry.

“My father,” the teenager adds, since Danny probably looks like he’s mostly paying attention. “Stincende.” And then the guy draws a bunch of stink lines coming off of him, just to prove a point.

Danny chokes more than he laughs. The teen’s friends laugh outright, teasing with words that are a little too quick for Danny to parse and snickering under their breath. The masked teen smiles quietly.

“So mean,” the teen in the leather jacket declares, cackling mercilessly. The orange-haired teenager wheezes breathlessly.

“Stincende hlaford of the trask,” the teenager adds mildly, cheerfully without mercy. “Very boring. Very stif. Very grimm.”

Okay, so some of those words were definitely straight-up cognates. Mr. Lancer gave Danny a C in English last semester, but Danny’s going to guess that, based on how their language is pretty much entirely similar, that the stink lines are more of a metaphor than anything.

“Gross,” Danny decides. He’s not sure if the word actually means gross or if it’s more of a medical-trash-and-waste-disposal sort of word, but his audience of four snicker and bump his shoulder and that’s good enough.

“Mmhmm,” the masked teen agrees. He clicks on an eraser tool, enlarges it, and wipes himself clean off the image. In his place, he puts a little white-haired figure in a white medical gown.

…Oh.

Between them, the artist puts speech bubbles, giving both the drawn Danny equal part in the imaginary conversation.

“Talking,” the teenager says without looking at Danny. Eventually, when the speech bubbles are done, he lifts his head. “Yes? No?”

…Is this a request? Is this a demand? Danny fists the sheets between shaking fingers. Nowadays, they always shake at least a little. There are no perfectly still days.

“Have to?” Danny asks, hesitant. It’s a common enough clarifier to use when he doesn’t want to do something. They try to explain what they can to him here, but the language barrier is thick and impenetrable in many places.

“No. He just wants to.”

“…Why?”

The masked teen frowns. He takes the tablet back from his lap and begins to draw something way more complex.

Everyone else slowly works on their food, but the masked teen doesn’t return until he has, from what Danny can tell, a thickly complicated organizational tree chart.

He recognizes a few headshot photos in the middle. The green guy. The human-looking guy in red that Danny does PT with sometimes.

Towards the bottom are the teenagers—both ones Danny does and doesn’t recognize, and some of the teens around him are photographed in different hats and outfits and masks. The quick-fast-red-haired teenager Danny’s come to recognize used to have shorter hair, apparently? Now it’s down to the teen’s neck. Meanwhile, the blonde girl’s got a haircut; her new look has a shaved undercut and a body too short to prop back up into her photographed pigtails.

The guy in the leather jacket looks the same.

…Danny holds up the tablet to compare to the teenager himself, who kindly poses the same way as he does in the picture in the same way: suns out, guns out. Yep. That’s him alright.

At the top of the organizational tree are three people—a dark-haired guy who Danny’s seen in passing, Diana, who is both a superhero and a super-minder, and some scary lookin’ dude who looks exactly like the doodle Danny just saw absolutely smothered in stink lines.

The tablet falls out of Danny’s hands. He’s not mad or anything, but he tends to drop stuff when holding it becomes too much of a burden.

So.

The masked teen’s dad, is, like…one of several bosses. One boss is the person watching Danny at all times, which is…weird. Danny isn’t sure he warrants, like, constant security from a high-ranking super-someone. He mostly just sits around all day. Sometimes he gets his stretches in. Sometimes he gets wheeled out to look at the stars, and then he just…sits some more.

Danny shifts in his seat. So maybe he. Maybe…

…Okay, so even if talking isn’t good, per se, at least maybe he’ll figure something out? Maybe?

Like. Maybe he’ll be able to figure out, like…why he’s here. Why he’s in space. Why they’re taking care of him.

Danny doesn’t look forward to talking. But it’s. Fine.

Probably.

He nods.

“…Yes?” the teen asks again, double confirming that this is what Danny wants. Danny doesn’t want this, but he wants answers, so he nods again, more firmly. But still. Staring. At the sheets underneath him.

“Okay.” The teen opens up a messaging app, and types something into the address bar. “Now? Or later?”

“Later.” Danny’s got to rest and digest lunch first.

“Okay.” The teen types into the tablet with the little pencil. Danny sees verbatim what the masked teen wrote when he turns it around: very literally, “Yes,” and “Later.”

There’s a little spot for Danny to sign his name. The teenager gives Danny his pen.

…Danny just hits the send button and is done with it.

[ashwithapen]

⚠️ this post is edited and updated regularly! last edited: 5 july 2024

⚠️ note: this blog is the parent blog of the sideblogs @wolfdogmisty and @ourstarsys, so if you're confused as to why this blog would interact with you, check the sideblogs! :)

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ᯓ☆ strawpage!

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

hi, my name is ash! here are some things about me...

⤷ 18 | they/star pronouns ⤷ autistic, adhd, hsd, osdd-1b (system sideblog) ⤷ agender, greyromantic, bisexual, & queerplatonic ⤷ intp, aquarius, hufflepuff, 5w4, etc.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

some things i do...

⤷ write! i'm an author :) (prose, poetry, plays...) ⤷ compose music (i use musescore) ⤷ film & edit videos (check out my youtube channel) ⤷ play guitar and write songs

im SUPER into soundtracking & symbolism in music as well as abnormal psychology!!

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

recently: i wrote an original soundtrack for a book

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

i hope you enjoy :)

— ⭑

below the cut: tags, WIPs, fandoms & interests, and more!

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ᯓ☆ tags!

#drabbles: shorts

#poetry: poetry

#life writing: life writing

#creative non-fiction: creative non-fiction

#fiction: fiction

#get wipped lmao: anything about my WIPs

#ash writes (as well as any of the above tags): original work

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#ash.txt: for when i have stuff to say

#ash answers: where i answer asks take a wild guess

#don't give me ideas: writing ideas & prompts

#write that down: things to come back to/reference

#oo shiny: stuff i liked a lot

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#composing: i write music scores sometimes

#insane mashups: sometimes i combine songs and create monstrosities and that's okay

#music!!: where i yell about songs/artists i like & other music stuff

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ᯓ☆ WIPs!

heart beats fast; colours and promises

Viva La Ávila

tales, second edition

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ᯓ☆ fandoms & interests!

ranges from obsessed, to involved, to generally liking. listed alphabetically. i will probably post/reblog about mainly the ones in bold as they are my current 'favourite' interests, but anything is free game.

13 reasons why (show, haven't read book)

abnormal psychology (neurodiversity)

avengers + avengers adjacent (mcu, haven't read comics)

avpm, avps, avpsy (musicals)

bo burnham (musician + comedian)

c418 (composer)

circe (book)

cream crew (content creator group)

crywank (musician)

dream smp (livestream series; i don't support dream/dream team)

e7i (musician)

epic (musical)

generation loss (interactive livestream + adjacent media)

good will hunting (movie)

greek mythology

hamilton (musical)

harry potter (fuck jkr)

hazbin hotel (tv show; i don't support the creator)

heartstopper (show, haven't gotten to read the graphic novels yet)

heathers (musical and movie)

heroes of olympus/percy jackson (books, still watching series)

how to train your dragon (movies + show)

how to train your dragon soundtrack

hozier (musician)

jacob collier (musician)

james marriott (musician + streamer)

john powell (film composer)

magnus chase and the gods of asgard (books)

modern baseball (band)

mom jeans. (band)

my hero academia (show, haven't read manga)

nimona (movie, haven't read graphic novel/web-series)

origami angel (band)

rainbow kitten surprise (band)

sherlock (bbc show)

sleepy bois inc. (content creator group; fuck wilbur soot)

song of achilles (book)

soundtracking & symbolism in music

star wars

studio ghibli (movies by the animation company)

the 1975 (band)

the star and the sun (book; still reading)

the oh hellos (band)

toby fox (music, haven't played his games yet)

qsmp (livestreamed minecraft server)

why don't we (band; old fan)

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ᯓ☆ extras!

⤷ as mentioned, i'm the host of an osdd-1b system @ourstarsys ⤷ my co-host, Misty, also has a side blog @wolfdogmisty ⤷ i also own @jesterjac (agere)

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[therobotmonster]

DinoFolk Character Tokens, Part 3 (pt 1, pt 2)

Another 10 Dinosaur-Folk tokens I made for the D&D game I’m playing in, to fill out the world that Albert Sauros, Noted Spiritualist, comes from. In this case a world of Victorian Dinosaurs, this set being mostly professors from the University. This set of character tokens was made with Midjourney v4.

In your game/head, they can be any fancy reptile-humanoids you like!  Use them for character portraits, game tokens, inspiration for a new PC (or OC) or tag yourself, as you like.

While  these are all modified with cleanup and compositing, these are all free  to use for anyone who wants to, thus I have not signed these pieces to  make things easier.

Prompt format:

a  <either dinosaur or specific species>-anthro <profession>,  18th century clothing (or other descriptor), character design, white  background, fantasy character art, colored line art, in the style of 1st  edition D&D, <artist/style references>

For style references I wound up mostly with a Tony Diterlizzi/Norman Rockwell mashup.