#so i drew a raptor | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

what-the-dark-has-foretold · 2 months ago

Text

Meetings in Solitude

Shigaraki x fem!reader

Navi.

Warnings: suggestive/spicy, mdni, faerie witch reader, vampire!shigaraki, he briefly picks her up (vampire strength?)

Autumn Festival 2024

Wordcount: 1k+

The earth was warm, yet already smelled like autumn when you passed the trees; carefully, like a ghost gracing the place. The air was calm but for a gentle breeze carrying the smell of mint. You made a mental note to look for the herbs on your way back.

The hem of your dress fluttered around your ankles as you stepped over flowers and tree trunks, humming a quiet little tune under your breath. The sun fell golden unto the earth.

The basket you held closely was already filled to the brim with wildflowers, however, the medicinal plants you had originally set out to collect had still not been added. And yet, with not a single care in the world you skipped through the forest, unaware of the monsters lurking close by.

He noticed you first. Although he wasn´t even trying to conceal his presence, you seemed so deep in your daydream that you had left yourself completely vulnerable. His tongue slowly traced his sharp canines, and his head tilted to the side. Intrigued, he watched you hum to yourself as you picked some forget-me-nots here and plopped a wild strawberry into your mouth there. Oh. His eyes zeroed in on your lips now tinted in pink, fruity gloss. He was certain it would taste just as sweet as you looked.

“I´ve heard fairies were a bit naïve, always with their head in the clouds, but you really are making it easy to hunt you down,” he finally spoke up, but regretted it the moment you looked up, eyes widened in surprise and lips parted. His heart skipped a beat. You looked like one of those deer Dabi loved to play with. “I mean-“

“Ah-“ You both started at the same time. He blushed and fell quiet, so you decided to go first:

“What would I even be afraid of?” You laid your head to the side, watching him with soft, albeit challenging eyes. “A vampire isn´t enough to scare a witch, you know?”

He stared at you. “You´re a witch?” he spluttered. You laughed and set down your basket to walk up to him. He shied away from your gaze, nervously looking around. Soft fingers suddenly brushing his chin made him stop. Gently, you turned his face back towards you.

“Do you not think us faeries have grown used to being underestimated and thus hunted down by wolves or raptors…or vampires?”

He gulped. Thank god the other two weren´t here with him. Touya would have probably taken it as a challenge and Keigo would most likely have to nurse another case of heartbreak for the following weeks. Especially the latter he could really do without; the last time had been bad enough already.

You didn´t even flinch when he suddenly appeared behind you. Shit, he was sure you even bared your neck for him. Your smell – so unbelievably sweet – hit him unexpectedly, he couldn´t prevent the whine breaking from his chest. Only a second later he flinched back. You, however, only chuckled.

“Is it the blood or the spell that enchanted you so?”

He couldn´t tell, but he swore the soft fragrance that came right after the sweet smell of your fruity body wash had ebbed down was what drew him in. You smelt absolutely perfect, he realised with a start. Your hand shot out to hold his sleeve in your grasp and stop him from moving even farther away. Warily, he met your gaze again. His mouth dried when he saw hurt glimmer in your eyes.

“What,” it came out breathily.

“Don´t leave,” you pleaded, quietly. “I´ll stop teasing, I´m sorry.”

Inwardly, he groaned. You would definitely cause some problems for him.

You were far more docile than he had thought you after your original meeting – as faerie-like as he had believed you to be at first sight.

He enjoyed visiting you at night with the metallic smell of blood still clinging to him. Quietly, he would come up behind you and circle your waist with his arms, feeling you flinch against him as he pressed you close to his chest. Only after letting his face fall and rest in the crook of your neck to get a whiff of you, he gently turned you around and pressed a kiss to your lips.

He especially enjoyed it when you deepened the kiss even though remnants of blood still clung unto his tongue. The little moans you let out regardless – or because of? – made him shudder every time. Tonight was such a night.

But far too soon for his liking you ended the kiss, eyes wide yet sinful as you looked up at him, before choosing to nuzzle into his neck. He let out a grunt and let his fingers card through your hair, eliciting a comfortable hum from you. Smiling, you cuddled deeper into his hold, as if trying to merge with him.

Tenko decided to ignore the tightness in his pants at your cute display of affection and picked you up. Apparently, you preferred the position, all but purring and squeezing his body with both arms and legs. He chuckled when you whined as he set you down on your bed.

Oh, how he adored your bed. The sheets were soft, pastel-coloured cotton and had a homely feel to them – nothing like the cold red satin at his parent's house. He sighed, letting himself fall next to you. Immediately, you turned over to partly lay on top of him, pressing your face into the juncture of his neck again. He groaned and flicked your temple, but didn´t make a move to peel you away.

“C´mon, baby, I know you´re tired,” he murmured, patting your head to help you settle, but you kept on nibbling at his soft skin. He sighed and leaned forward to press a chaste kiss to your forehead; a soft whine escaped you when he tugged you away from his neck to do so.

“Kiss me?” you asked, lashes fluttering against his chin. Careful not to hurt you, he lifted you up and set you down to properly lay on his chest, nose to nose. Gently, you rolled your hips against his and he had to force himself not to moan loudly at the feeling. He frowned a little at the giggle you let out and lightly tugged at your hair to chastise you. But you only cradled his cheek with your soft hands and lowered yourself to capture his lips in an all-encompassing kiss. He groaned into your mouth, grasping at your night dress, twitching fingers trying to slip it off.

Maybe you were right, and sleep could wait. After all, he was dying to sink his teeth into you, the sweetest blood slowly filling his mouth and coating his tongue the prettiest shade of red.

#shigaraki tomura smut #shigaraki tomura #shigaraki smut #shigaraki tomura x reader #shigaraki x reader #tomura shigaraki #tomura shigaraki x reader #mha shigaraki #bnha shigaraki #shimura smut #shimura x reader #shimura tenko smut #shimura tenko #tenko shimura #what-the-dark-has-foretold #mdni #smut #thirst

102 notes · View notes

rosanna-writer · 2 months ago

Text

Out of the Woods (1/3)

An AU that diverges from canon after Rhysand leaves a head spiked in the garden. Aware of the unsnapped mating bond and unwilling to get between another High Lord and his mate, Tamlin hands Feyre over to Rhysand. Panicked, shocked, and desperate, Rhys scrambles to gain Feyre’s trust, find her a hiding place, and cover his tracks before returning Under the Mountain. And then learns the hard way that Feyre Archeron can never leave well enough alone.

A huge thank you to @amnevitahwritesstuff for the beta read and encouragement, and to @thesistersarcheron for dropping a casual "huh I wonder what would have happened if Tamlin knew Feyre was Rhys's mate the whole time?" in my comments section like a year ago. And a happy @officialfeysandweek to everyone!

Some text is lifted directly from both A Court of Thorns and Roses and A Court of Mist and Fury, and just a note that I've chosen not to use warnings for this fic.

Read the first chapter Here on AO3 or under the cut.

We'd been speaking of the blight, and Tamlin shot to his feet so quickly that for a moment, I thought I might have summoned it. His claws gleamed in the midday light as he snarled at the open doorway, canines elongating.

The house, usually so full of busy footsteps and servants chattering and so much life had gone silent.

The way the forest did when a raptor passed overhead.

And like a field mouse, I wanted to scurry under the table and tremble until it was safe to emerge. Or just start running and hope for the best. Lucien swore and drew his sword.

“Stand down,” Tamlin growled, all command. The voice of the High Lord. “He’s here to collect what’s his, and we will not stop him.”

“You can’t be serious,” Lucien hissed. “We’re not really going to—”

“No one will ally with us if we try to stop him. You know the laws.”

Lucien sheathed his sword, even as the baldric of long, serrated blades appeared from thin air across Tamlin’s chest. I snatched one of the knives from the table, and neither one of them made any attempt to stop me.

Perhaps because a measly steak knife would do no good against whoever was coming. Someone awful enough to frighten them, even as Tamlin slouched in his seat and picked at his nails in a vain attempt at looking unaffected.

They hadn’t been like this with the Attor. Or the naga or the Suriel or the Bogge. My grip tightened around the knife.

Footsteps sounded from the hall. Even, strolling, casual.

Tamlin continued cleaning his nails, and Lucien sat down, tension radiating off his body. He’d curled his hands into fists and bent his knees like he was ready to fight or flee a moment’s notice.

The footsteps grew louder—the scuff of boots on marble tiles.

And then he appeared.

No mask. He, like the Attor, belonged to something else. Some one else.

And worse…I’d met him before. He’d saved me from those three faeries on Fire Night.

With steps that were too graceful, too feline, he approached the dining table and stopped a few yards from the High Lord. He was exactly as I remembered him, with his fine, rich clothing cloaked in tendrils of night: an ebony tunic brocaded with gold and silver, dark pants, and black boots that went to his knees. I’d never dared to paint him—and now knew I would never have the nerve to.

He stopped in the doorway and stared and stared at me. For a moment, I could’ve sworn pure shock flashed across his features, but the look he leveled at me was pure predator. As if I were nothing more than prey to him.

“I remember you. It seems you ignored my warning to stay out of trouble,” he purred, like a cat playing with its dinner. He turned to Tamlin. “Who’s your guest?”

“Feyre Archeron,” Tamlin said. He said my name with a heavy finality, like a judge delivering a death sentence.

“Did you really just give that— that bastard her name? Lucien cried.

“Names have power. It’s Rhysand’s right,” Tamlin said.

I braced myself for an attack—slashing talons, snarling and growling. But Rhysand just laughed—a lover’s laugh, low and soft and intimate. A shiver skittered down my spine.

“A bastard? Is that really something you ought to call a High Lord of Prythian?” he said.

My heart stopped dead. This High Lord, with darkness rippling from him and violet eyes that burned like stars, could only belong to one place.

The High Lord of the Night Court had come to Spring.

With the hand that wasn’t holding the knife, I gripped the table as my knees threatened to buckle under me. Rhysand’s eyes slid to me, and his perfectly shaped lips twitched for just a moment.

But Lucien was undeterred. “This isn’t the Night Court—you have no power here. So scurry back to Amarantha’s bed where you belong.”

“Enough. If you can’t behave yourself, leave us, Lucien,” Tamlin said.

Lucien moved slowly, as if he were fighting the High Lord every step of the way. I’d never seen such anger smoldering in his expression. Rage and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a hint of betrayal.

But he obeyed. And cast one last apologetic look at me before the dining room door shut behind him. Something told me I’d just lost my only ally.

I tried not to tremble at the thought.

Tamlin turned back to Rhysand. “My apologies, High Lord. The Spring Court wants no quarrel with Night, and we won’t keep you from taking what’s rightfully yours.”

“She’ll be pleased to see the brutal war-band leader finally learned his manners. And just in time for you to join the rest of us.”

“I’m obeying the old laws, nothing more and nothing less,” Tamlin said tightly.

“Now?” Rhysand said, arching elegant, groomed brow. “They’ve been dead for centuries. I don’t see what would cause a change of that stone heart of yours after all this time.”

“What are you talking about? I burned them when— Oh, you wouldn’t know, would you?” Tamlin barked a humorless laugh, the harshest sound I’d ever heard him make.

Rhysand’s face became a mask of calm fury—terrible, fearsome, and heartbreakingly beautiful—as he stalked towards the High Lord of Spring. Tamlin raised his claws but made no other move to attack. I nearly ducked under the table to shield myself from whatever was coming, but I didn’t dare so much as breathe.

“Explain yourself.”

“I hardly believed it myself when Lucien told me he saw the mating bond—a High Lord and a human girl are far from equally matched. The clever magic of his mechanical eye doesn’t lie, but I thought it was a trick nonetheless. You and your mistress, forcing me into a war with the Night Court if I dared attempt to save my lands.”

I’d hoped they’d both forget I was there, but Rhysand turned and stared at me again. Really looked, as if he were searching for answers written in my eyes, my face, my body.

I raised the knife, though I knew he’d kill me long before I could bury it in his chest.

An invisible, talon-tipped hand pressed its way into my mind. I couldn’t move. Against my own volition, my muscles went taut, and the knife dropped from my hand and clattered against the floor.

One swipe of those mental claws and who I was would cease to exist. And I could feel them rooting around in my mind, flipping through my thoughts and memories like the pages of a book. Everything laid bare to him, no matter how private or personal.

I would have vomited if I had enough control over my body to do so.

“Leave, Rhys,” Tamlin said. “You can do this elsewhere.”

It wasn’t—I noted—a plea for Rhysand to release the magic binding me. No, Tamlin hadn’t lifted a finger. Perhaps I meant so little to him that he’d hand me over to appease a monster. Perhaps…he hadn’t cared, after all.

I would have whimpered at the thought if I’d had the freedom to draw breath. But even my heart only beat as Rhysand willed it.

“Tell me who she is,” Rhysand demanded, a slight frantic edge to his voice. The first crack in his cool demeanor.

“Feyre Archeron is your mate.”

The talons in my mind stilled but did not release their hold on me, and Rhysand’s eyes widened in pure shock. Tamlin grinned wolfishly.

Like he’d just delivered devastating news to his worst enemy.

I heard Rhysand’s voice inside my head, far softer and gentler than anything he’d said aloud. If I’d been able to move, the sound would have stopped my trembling.

Has he hurt you at all? You can be honest with me, love.

No. If anything, he’s protected me.

I felt a rush of relief—Rhysand’s relief, not my own. Whether he’d deliberately shared it with me or it had just traveled along some sort of connection between us, I couldn’t say.

Those invisible claws caressed my mind, then pulled out gingerly and vanished. My knees finally gave out, but Rhys moved with inhuman speed and caught me by the shoulders before I could sink all the way to the floor.

He hooked his other arm under my legs, cradling me against his chest. Too overwhelmed to fight, I merely tried not to sob or scream. Rhysand had seen everything—I hadn’t known it was possible to be violated so deeply in my own mind.

And yet, I had the strangest urge to bury my face in the crook of his neck.

“We’re finished here,” Rhysand said coldly. “Needless to say, if you breathe a word about her to Amarantha when we meet again, I’ll reduce your court to ash and skin your pelt for fur-lined mittens.”

He sounded like he’d go to war over me. I could barely understand it—faeries looked down on mortals, and a human girl should have been far below a High Lord’s notice.

But Tamlin had called me Rhysand’s mate. A bond so deep, it made even marriage seem insignificant in comparison, he’d once said. But plenty of husbands considered their wives little more than property—and I had no doubt Rhysand guarded his belongings jealously.

If I was no more than a thing to him, then perhaps I was a valuable one, at least.

“I have no desire to see Feyre harmed, either,” Tamlin said, though he didn’t even get up from his seat. “Take care of her.”

Rhysand inclined his head. “I’ll see you Under the Mountain.”

And with that, he carried me into the void between worlds, like a bride over a threshold.

***

We emerged in a wood. Somewhere I could feel in my bones was older—more aware—than anywhere in the Spring Court. The Night Court, perhaps. But I wondered if we’d left Prythian entirely.

“I’m sorry,” Rhysand said, before I could ask. “Fuck. I am, so so sorry.”

“Put me down. Please,” I said.

I’d almost expected him not to, but he did, moving slowly and bracing an arm behind my shoulders until I was steady on my feet. Then he stepped back and left a healthy distance between us.

His violet eyes had gone wide and wild. Desperate.

And yet…when he spoke again, his tone gentled, as if I were the feral creature that might bolt or lash out at any moment. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I believed him. But nothing else made a lick of sense, and I’d never known a forest as quiet as the one where we stood. No birdsong, no distant breaking branches, no hum of insects. It set my teeth on edge.

“Then what do you want with me?”

“My first priority is keeping you alive. There is quite a lot you don’t understand and very little time to explain. So…may I?”

The invisible talons hovered at the edge of my mind but did not pierce it. Rhysand looked at me expectantly.

The silence between us stretched on and on. But those talons did not encroach any closer. I waited to feel them slashing through the very core of myself, but…they never did.

He was waiting for permission, I realized. It set me at ease just enough to say, “Alright.”

A party, somewhere underground. A throng of fae dripping in finery—jewels, elaborate clothes, displays of wealth and power. The crowd parted, and my eyes landed on a surprisingly plain, redheaded female.

Amarantha. The woman I’d come here to kill tonight.

I gasped, realizing it had been a memory. That he had been the one intent on killing Amarantha.

Gods, hadn’t Lucien said that was the woman whose bed Rhysand warmed?

“It’s a painful memory, but one you need to see,” Rhysand said.

There was a gentle pressure against my palms. Caught up in the vision, I hadn’t realized I’d reached out and clasped his hands, and he’d squeezed back. I didn’t let go; the touch was…grounding.

It was a wonder my hands didn’t shake with rage as I plucked a glass of wine from a try proffered by a passing servant. How unfair—how monstrously unfair—that she sat here tonight in a gown of glittering rubies smiling and surrounded by sycophants, thriving and unpunished after all the lives she’d ended. The human slaves she’d killed, the soldiers she’d tortured in an attempt to break me…they all deserved justice.

I couldn’t wait to see her brain leaking out her nose.

But her mental shields were damned difficult to tunnel through. I slunk to a corner of the room, grateful for once that no one wanted to come make small talk with the High Lord of the Night Court. Breaking her defenses would take all of my mental concentration.

I didn’t bother listening to the speech as a toast. It was probably some utter bullshit about ushering in a new era of peace. No, I just kept digging, desperate for a way in. But to avoid arousing suspicion, I lifted my glass along with everyone else.

I sipped my wine and realized my mistake the second the bitter taste hit my tongue. Poison. The well of power I drew from, a vast sea of magic, began to drain away.

In the last few seconds my power was wholly my own, I wiped memories, flung out shields, and cried desperate mental warnings to my friends to stay away. And then it was done. I’d become her slave.

The memory faded, and when I came back to myself, I realized my nails were digging into Rhysand’s hands. He didn’t seem to notice or mind—his violet eyes bored into mine with single-minded intensity. “She intends to help the King of Hybern tear down the Wall and invade the mortal realm. Now do you realize the danger you’re in?”

I nodded weakly. “She’ll kill my family.”

“It gets worse,” he said, and the next memory sucked me under like a riptide.

Another party, a masquerade this time. I sat at Amarantha’s right side, and the lingering scent of what we’d done together in bed still clung to me. She hadn’t let me bathe—had wanted the smell clinging to me, marking me like a brand.

I might as well have attended the revel with a sign around my neck declaring me her whore. And if it continued to keep my court and my family safe, I’d endure a thousand more humiliations.

But I wasn’t the one she was most interested in that night. Tamlin had been foolish enough to slap her hand away when she’d tried to touch him. He should have known how badly that would enrage her.

“I’d sooner touch a human—sooner marry a human—than ever touch you,” he said, the fool. “Even your own sister preferred Jurian’s company to yours.”

The crowd tittered at that—some in shock, others in excited anticipation of the coming bloodshed. By bringing up Clythia, Tamlin might as well have been digging his own grave.

“You’re lucky I'm in a generous mood,” Amarantha drawled. Dangerous words. “I’ll give you a chance to break the spell that binds your power to me.”

Tamlin, the idiot, spat in her face. She laughed.

“I’ll give you seven times seven years before you join the rest of us Under the Mountain, my dear Tamlin. If you want to break the spell before then, you’ll have to find a human girl to marry you. And not just any girl, one with ice in her heart, willing to kill a faerie. Maybe after sending your sentries across the wall like lambs to slaughter, you’ll learn your lesson. Your courtship can only begin after she’s murdered one of your men in an unprovoked attack, killing for hatred alone. Perhaps then, you’ll understand my grief for my sister, and you’ll change your mind.”

This time, as the memory faded, another one pulled me in immediately.

In the dream, I saw a hand. A beautiful, human hand painting flowers on a table. Such a simple thing, but whoever she was, she was living in relative safety if she was painting something entirely ornamental. Something beautiful.

There was still hope.

I tried pushing back an image—the night sky. Stars and the moon. It had been so long since I’d seen an open sky, but the thought of it had kept me going for nearly fifty years. I wasn’t sure the human would receive it, but…I had to try.

“There’s more,” Rhysand said aloud, as the talons in my mind retreated again, “but that’s the gist of it. There isn’t time for me to explain the details right now.”

I just gaped at him as I tried to process all of it. The girl with ice in her heart had been me. But so had the painter from his dreams. His mate.

No wonder Tamlin had thought it was a trick—he’d known I was another male’s mate. Winning me would save his lands…only to earn the ire of the wicked Night Court.

Lucien’s words came back to me. The Night Court, of course, manages to remain unscathed.

But that was all due to Rhysand’s sacrifices. I didn’t quite understand what it meant to be mates, but I had his loyalty. That might be enough to keep me alive. And I needed to get a warning to my family, a message to flee to the Continent before Amarantha made it below the Wall.

I straightened my spine. “What are you planning?”

“To fake your death. Enough people have seen you that I’m sure word of your existence will get to her eventually. When I go back Under the Mountain, I’ll say you fled for the Wall and were eaten by some creature before you could make it home.”

As sound a strategy as any, I supposed. He’d need evidence if it was going to work. My blood, perhaps. Locks of my hair, torn up clothes with my scent still clinging to them. Anything to fake a struggle.

“I don’t know what happened to the body that belonged to the head you left in the garden,” I said, reaching for the buttons at my collar, “but if you’re in need of a mangled corpse, a faerie bled out in the manor after Amarantha took his wings. Tamlin buried him nearby.”

I slipped off my tunic, leaving me in just my pants and the thin undershirt I wore beneath it. And despite the gruesome turn the conversation had taken, I watched Rhysand’s eyes trail down towards my chest, then very quickly back up to my face.

Pig.

Rhys laughed—a real one, I realized, not the affected one meant to intimidate that I’d heard in the dining room. It might have been the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. “Oh, most definitely. But you didn’t have to think it quite so loudly.”

I tossed the tunic at his face, and he caught it handily. In an elegant movement that spoke to refined manners, he folded it over his arm like a dinner jacket.

“If we’re faking my death, where am I to hide in the meantime?”

“Here, in the forest to the east of the sacred mountain Amarantha claimed as the seat of her court. Neutral territory. In this wood, there is no High Lord, and the law is made by who is strongest, meanest, most cunning. She does not dare touch these creatures or disturb this wood.”

If Amarantha wouldn’t set foot here, I shuddered to think what monsters lurked among these trees. Something far worse than the Bogge or the naga or even the Attor.

So much for thinking Rhysand wouldn’t throw me to the wolves.

“You won’t be entirely without help,” he said, sounding almost…affronted. If he had wings, they would have rustled. But he’d clearly been listening to my thoughts again, so I couldn’t help but scowl.

A tang of magic stung my nose. I shivered at the way the spell skittered along my skin, though there was something oddly familiar about it. Like I knew Rhys’s power.

I glanced down at my arm, which had become a blur of color, like I was made of half-mixed paint. When I tried to focus on a specific part—my fingers, my elbow—my attention merely bounced elsewhere. I’d seen something similar before.

“A glamour?” I guessed.

“The scraps of power at my disposal aren’t enough to completely glamour you, but you’re…camouflaged. Not entirely invisible, but the creatures here will pass you by as long as you don’t draw attention to yourself.”

I’d manage. Out of habit, I moved quietly through the woods anyway, intent on not scaring away any game. I knew how to keep myself hidden.

A pack appeared at my feet, laden with supplies. A small tent, some rope, a flint, a bedroll, a bandana, another set of clothes. The sort of things I would have killed for when I was hunting in the woods.

“There’s no knife—she limited my magic so I’m unable to summon weapons. And I can’t give you food, either. But this should be a start,” he said.

I picked up the pack and slung it over my shoulder. “Will I see you again?”

“I don’t know,” he said, face darkening. “She rarely lets any of us out from Under the Mountain. And give it a wide berth—get too close, and her sentries guarding the entrances will spot you.”

I’d be alone in the woods—besides the more fearsome creatures, it wasn’t all that different from my life below the Wall. And at least this time, there was only one mouth to feed.

“So is this…goodbye?” I said, hating the way my voice wavered.

“For now. If you stay in the forest, you’ll be close enough that I’ll be able to reach your mind. We can speak that way when I’m not…” He trailed off, but his wince and the memories he’d just shown me spoke volumes about whatever duties he carried out in Amarantha’s hellish court.

“And you’ll answer my questions?” There was so much I needed to know.

“I won’t keep secrets from you, especially not after rifling through your mind earlier. I’m sorry for the harm it caused.”

Something told me Rhysand didn’t apologize very often. That he’d bothered, with time running so short…

“Thank you,” I said with a nod. “You should go.”

My jacket was still folded over his arm. He lifted his other hand and started to reach towards me, then dropped it as if he’d thought better of it. His fingers curled into a fist at his side.

“I’ll find you again as soon as I can,” he said. It sounded like a vow.

His violet eyes held mine until he faded completely into mist. It was just me and the moss and gnarled trees and lichen. And somewhere…the unholy creatures that called this place home.

Day after day, I’d survived and kept my family alive by stepping into the trees and putting my feelings aside. Without even a sigh, I set off to find somewhere to camp.

#feysandweek2024 #feysand #feyre archeron #how many different ways can we divert canon???? NOT ENOUGH APPARENTLY #out of the woods

57 notes · View notes

copperbezel · 3 months ago

Text

Zephyr Slip

At the end of last year, before I'd begun working on Bit Cobalt, I ran into some paleoart of Austroraptor, a dromaeosaur (raptor) from Argentina. Austroraptor is one of the largest dromaeosaurs, with a long, narrow, Big Bird snoot, conical teeth that probably point to fishing, and small forelimbs, as well as leg proportions that hint at a runner. Much of the paleoart I saw depicted Austroraptor in waterbird colors, which gave it a soft and friendly appearance, immediately my new favorite dinosaur.

So I drew an Austroraptor and then a robotic one, adding a quail topknot or ahoge feather, and started to think about making a transforming figure that would change from this animal into a humanoid robot. But a transformation from cute robot girl to cute robot girl, except one of them is a dinosaur, seemed a bit redundant, and there would be compromises in both directions that would detract rather than add.

But a couple of months later, I saw a particular motor scooter and something clicked, and the game was on. I love motor scooters, and they're a fantastic accessory for other figures on the shelf. I went through two foamcore prototypes to nail down the transformation, making it as simple and sturdy as I could manage and making sure both modes would scale well with other 1/12 scale figures.

I also started collecting some reference images for details I could nab and integrate, and to nail down the scaling of the scooter.

After I had something that worked, I drew up some concept art for both modes and started modeling. I was able to streamline the design a couple of steps further in the 3D model, and then it was all carving up shapes, fine tuning, etc. Probably the longest phase of modeling was after I had my model roughed out into shape, but needed to build the joints, firm up the edges, define all the contact surfaces, and apply subdivision surfaces. I found it useful to rig the model and set a couple of animation steps in Blender for the two modes so I could simply page back and forth between them.

I had to set the design on the back burner while I worked out the kinks with my 3D printer and built my last couple of projects. Then I made a test print to identify any trouble spots, and after a couple of tweaks to get the feel right, it was time to print and finish the real thing. Zephyr Slip is the first thing I've printed in "color", and thanks to some dyes I need to experiment with more, she won't be the last. That means a much more durable finish for parts that have to slide against one another or clip into place. I did add a gloss coat to some surfaces of the black elements, but it shouldn't show chipping much. (Unlike the kickstand, thanks to my terrible decision to paint its feet.)

Like my previous figures, Zephyr's eyes (and console) are just printed gloss paper under a coat of gloss varnish, and her headlights and taillights have some clear resin poured in over the paint and cured into place for lenses. Cutting plastic windows like the ones on my Vertigo GT for the lower headlights didn't have the same effect, so they got the same clear resin treatment. The decal designs themselves were made in Blender, because I've given up on Inkscape's interface, but I think they came out okay.

The joints are almost exclusively 3mm ABS rods, although her hip joints are Kotobukiya Hexa Gear joints, which gave me a sturdy pin and hinge in a compact package and without visible pegs. I'm looking into options to make the pegs show less while being easy to remove for the construction and painting process. Despite some care with the tolerances, I did have to widen some peg holes and mush some pegs during assembly to get her pose well and snap together tight into either mode. But everything does clip solidly into place, resulting in a really playable figure.

As my first fully transforming figure and also my largest, Zephyr Slip is definitely the biggest figure project I've tackled so far, and I'm extremely happy with the results. Posability is probably her weakest area, but she can pounce and emote, and with her solid handfeel and satisfyingly snappy transformation, I'm happy with the design.

Paleontologically, I've followed most of the proportions of the real animal, although her torso should be a little bit longer, and her tail half again as long. She should also have visible first fingers, and I'm playing into the paleoart meme of bare snouts on dromaeosaurs that shouldn't have them. The proportion of thigh to shin is exaggerated, and the tail should have some left-right sway even if it's inflexible in the vertical axis. But it pleases me that she is both a roughly accurately scaled Austroraptor, and also a fairly realistically scaled scooter (if a bit chunky).

As always, due credit to @aprilpowered and Workbenchmaniac for support and feedback along the way, as well as Nemocyte (Tumblr | Twitter), whose feedback helped me to work out (among other things) the articulation needs of a theropod figure, something I'd never had to think about before.

#3d printing #3d modeling #action figures #transformers #robot girl #dinosaurs #austroraptor #dromaeosaur #1:12 scale #motor scooter

82 notes · View notes