#sticking them here for archive purposes mostly

[velvees-archive]

art cr: @cokiicookies on twitter

Tags: Love Confessions, Bratfeen, Art Student Feenie, Law Student Bratworth, Ace Attorney-typical cringefail, Canon Divergence

and many others!

HEAVILY inspired by @cokiicookies's bratfeen art on twitter! check out the full comic there!!!

"Hey...so...uh..." Phoenix coughs out, voice scratchy from his most recent line repetitions. It's a small mistake, not unsalvageable. All he has to do is stick to the script. Stick to the script. Stick... His eyes flick down to his note cards. He swears he’d printed them in his best penmanship, atop one of the library's extra premium desks, but everything is spinning and he feels faintly like he's going to throw up. "Did you uh," he starts, letters swirling in his eyes. "Did...you fall out of heaven...?" Genius prosecutor-in-training Miles Edgeworth regards him with a blank stare. Phoenix thinks now would be an opportune time for him to locate the nearest possible bridge and promptly jump off of it. - The joys and woes (mostly woes) of being in love, as told by BratFeen.

so i caved and wrote narumitsu. another huge thank you to @cokiicookies on twitter for allowing me to write an accompanying fic for their work. i attached some of the comic here in an attempt to entice you to look at their comic (well? are you enticed?!), but if you wanna see the full thing, please do give their art a like, a retweet, a comment, and all the love on twitter! fic screenshots below:

misc commentary/musings under the cut :)

the way i wrote feenie inner monologue and narration parallels my informal writing style, so writing his freak outs weren't challenging. consciously changing sentence structures/verbiage to be more or less extra, on the other hand, totally was.

the bulk of my pain came from writing fluff in the first place, stumbling through dialogue exchanges (as always), and attempting larry dialogue...all of which i honestly think i failed at pretty badly HAHA. who cares tho? it's my work!

bratfeen is one of my favorite narumitsu "eras" if you will. i've always wanted to write them. i didn't know the opportunity would come so soon (and at my expense considering i still have a zine fic to finalize for a diff fandom), but i took the shot. the full fic was written over the course of a day which i do not recommend anyone experience. i was on a writing hiatus for months and wrote 8k words as soon as i came back. do you see why i burnt out in the first place?

the easiest part about writing bratfeen is that none of the things i write are exaggerated for the purpose of carrying the plot forward. feenie believing that bratworth is better of a human being than everyone makes him out to be? sounds about right. feenie insisting to others that miles is the best thing since grilled cheese? his raging savior complex says that's likely to occur. feenie fumbling the bag because he thinks miles is the prettiest thing he's ever seen? yeah, 20 y/o feenie would! feenie shoving the asshole who talked shit abt miles? we saw the exact same thing with doug swallow (and we all know how that ended...). all of it is in line w his character. also miles being a try hard. that's a given.

i am hoping i can showcase more of my technical skill aka the angst writer in me with my next work, though i've been closely following fictober (haven't been publishing because, again, zine fic obligations) and have plenty of angsty fics stored in my drafts. i hope you enjoy my poor attempt at humor and fluff. may i muster the strength to finish the rest of my zine fic...please...

[allwaswell16]

[4 pics, 4 quotes, 4 iconic 1D fics]

Iconic Fics by... - LadyLondonderry -

[1]

When the moon finally reaches directly overhead (which Louis mostly notices because Niall grabs his hand and squeezes it like he’s trying to pop the eyes off a trout), Lady Oich swims up before them and recites the ceremonial vows, her mermaid tongue twisting the words into a haunting song about being bound for life to one’s lover. Louis shivers as the words wash over him, at the magnitude of their meaning. 

When she ends her speech, Louis suddenly realises he wishes badly that he wasn’t one of the best looking omegas here, because he really doesn’t want to be first. 

But then Lady Oich makes eye contact with him and raises her hand, and Louis’ heart nearly stops in his chest. She’s signalled that he’s first, and that his choosing begins now. 

[2]

He’s been up at the Help Desk for about half an hour when someone in a fireman uniform who is not Liam comes up to him.

This man, this not-Liam man, is probably the most attractive man Harry has ever seen. Did he say the other day that Liam was hot? That was a lie. No one could hold a candle to this perfect human specimen right in front of him. He’s got soft chestnut coloured hair that Harry would like to run his hands through, a bit of stubble that defines the set of his jaw, the cutest button nose Harry has ever seen, and the curve of his neck… This man cannot possibly be a mere human. Perhaps this Christmas is the second coming of Christ, because this man is compact perfection.

“Hello,” Perfection says when he reaches the counter.

Harry squeaks, and tries to cover it up with a cough.

“I’m Louis,” says Perfection. He sticks his hand out and… shit, is this what Liam felt like? What hand does Harry use? Which is the right one?

[3]

By the time Harry gets back to the office, Louis’ arrived and is sipping coffee from his signature fox mug. He waves at Harry. “You’re not dead!” 

“I’m not dead,” Harry agrees. “Just had to go rescue my roommate.”

“Ah,” says Louis. “Nick said you had one hour vomiting sickness.”

“That too,” Harry says. He sits down and goes back to his stack of plans that he had barely started copying. His head still hurts. He doesn’t want to have to go stand at the copier for the next hour fighting with it, so he takes the six that were successfully copied and brings them up on his screen, indexing and archiving them. 

The plans that Harry copies are supposed to have no paperclips, no staples, no sticky notes. 

The people who create these packets are what Mitch likes to call “incompetent nutters”.

On the wall behind him, Harry’s started a collection of sticky notes that he’s pulled out of the copier when the pages jam. He cuts them up to protect privacy information which makes them unique and wonky and wonderful. He takes a moment to flip through the six on his desk, and adds two to the collage; Please add blood and dissenting opinion. That’s satisfying at least. 

[4]

Now trying to distract himself from the faint salmon smell that seems to be growing stronger, Louis starts people-watching with a purpose. There’s a woman with a young child in her arms who has a stuffed bear in her arms, and all three of them are in matching blue dresses. The person now sitting opposite him has purple hair and earrings that hang past their shoulders in a tangle of tiny glinting beads. Louis wonders how often they get stuck on things. He can see what he thinks is a soulmate tattoo just below their jawline, something short. Good for them. 

There’s a man at the far end of the tube who is wearing a chunky oversized sweater, colourful knit squares patched together like a clown outfit made for winter. Louis isn’t sure, but he thinks it might be hideous. The guy is turned around, though, so he can only see the back of it. 

- answers below -

[1] Moon Dances Over

Louis knows that his tail is, frankly, stunning. His iridescent blue scales shimmer in even the slightest sunlight, and his fins have grown since he presented, delicate and almost transparent in their webbing.

He also knows that that means he’ll be one of the first to pick tonight, as the most beautiful omegas are blessed to pick their mates first. It’s considered a huge honour, since the guppies they’ll eventually birth will certainly be beautiful as well, bringing favour on the whole clan.

Louis has a stubborn streak, though. He’s always been rather a fan of mating for love, and there’s someone he’s had his eye on for a long time now.

[2] Frankincense-ational

Harry Styles works at the Hillsyde Library with his friend Zayn and best mate Niall. It’s December, which means Christmas, which should be the happiest month of the year…

Except Niall just broke up with his boyfriend, Zayn needs to let up on the rules a little, and the library is getting their fire alarm system replaced, which means that for the next few weeks there are going to be firemen patrolling the library ‘looking for fires’ while the system is down.

Harry almost hits one of them with his car right off the bat - and of course he’s the hot one.

Happy Christmas, here’s to many more.

A 2017 Advent Fic

[3] Give A Little Sing To The Singles

Harry Styles is an adult now, with a real adult job (and benefits! Whatever those are!). He spends his days at the copier. Copying things.

That being said, no one told Harry that being an adult came with a confusingly chaotic boss, a copier machine that would be hell-bent on ruining his life, and a coworker so good looking that Harry might just have to quit. After all, Christmas is coming and if their office doesn’t win the decorating contest, Louis has threatened to break several laws and kneecaps in retaliation.

Happy Christmas, here’s to many more.

[4] Things Unsaid

"That chunky oversized sweater is like a clown outfit made for winter."

It feels like time slows down.

Those words echo in his mind, familiar. Why are they familiar? The— the sweater he saw last week. The one with all the knit squares.

The train slows to a stop and Louis just— he doesn’t move. He feels frozen in place as people surge around him. Suddenly everyone is moving too fast and then just as suddenly the car is near empty, taking off again.

The man is gone.

His soulmate is gone.

Or, where you have a tattoo of the first thought your soulmate has when they see you.

[82mitsu]

{18Trip} The Homescreen Voice Lines Vault

Collection of all the voice lines I have translated on my Twitter account. Uploading it on here for archival purposes.

Note: A lot of them were made to fit the Twitter character limit, sometimes they're a bit freestyled.

Mostly Raito oriented, with some others thrown in the mix.

Chihiro: Raiting, you spend a lot of time watching vids, don'tcha~ What channels got you hooked?

Raito: Let me see, channels all about information over ramen and the occult stuff like Muu☆Tan's are vital to me.

Raito: Kuguri, you can do what you want but, have you considered to stop sleeping naked from time to time? No doubt you'll catch a cold.

Kuguri: I'd prefer for you to leave me be. A certain Someone who can't properly wake up in the morning has no right to police others on how they sleep.

Raito: According to this scripture of taboos that I procured on my own, it appears that Pandora's Box will open up again soon. The theory of hope remaining at the bottom is plausible but, let's just wait and see...

Akuta: Uugh... I can't... I can't go on like this anymore.... Raito-san, please do the usual thing again tonight!!

Raito: A hopeless guy, aren't you... Got it, I'll take care of you. I will... feed you the best late night ramen that there is.

Netaro: Raito~! Trouble's afoot! There's hearsay of a unfamiliar flickering luminant body appearing behind the dormitory~!

Raito: What!? An unidentified flying object, in other words!? We must unravel its true identity! Let's go right away, Netaro!

Kuguri: Sometimes Nanaki looks at me cutely and pleads for advice on composing music. Well, my involvement is limited to hearing him out and giving a nudge, however.

Kuguri: I don't disagree with your way of living, Ten... It smells sweet, exclusively so. How about we go on a drive together again sometime.

Ten: Aha, it's an honor to get invited by someone like Kuguri-san~ I don't mind the kinda relations where you stay outta each others affairs either.

Chihiro: Geez~! Taotao, you play Anigun way too much! Didn't you like promise you'd go shopping with Chii today! And here I sat looking forward to it~!

Tao: Sorry. To think there'd be an event out of nowhere... I'll buy you some pudding as apology. So let's go shopping. Okay?

Akuta: Like, during flower viewing... adults do /that/, right... Y'know... the thing... s- s- s- strip rock paper scissors....!

"yakyuuken" is a Japanese game on based rock paper scissors, where the loser ends up stripping.

Akuta: Ten-san, I heard you talking to a woman on the phone earlier, but is she for real... wrapped around your finger!? Like both hands all over a beaut and...!

Ten: Aha, the hell man. Don't slander me. She's just a plain ol' friend. Maybe you're still too young for this though~?

Akuta: That freakin' Kiroku, he put a kinda bracelet that girls would wear in his desk. Ah, wonder if he's like also doing the do with her...

Ushio: Oi Stupidtake, record what I make all you want but don't snatch food while i'm not looking. You itching to get banned or something?

Akuta: Geh... got caught, huh... I regret my actions! Please spare me from being exiled! Oh great god from heavens above Ushio-samaaa~!

Nanaki: Kugunii, come over whenever you feel like it again. I'm sure Dad, Mom and Big Bro all are eager to see you.

Kuguri: Perhaps so. ...I'll go if the mood strikes me.

Nanaki: Spring is the season of encounters, huh... I already have crossed paths with my G.O.A.T though.

GOAT: Gen Z slang, means "Greatest Of All Time".

Ushio: Listen Murakumo-san, I know you're fooling around, but can you please refrain from putting any weird ideas into the younger guys' heads?

Ten: Oh-hoh~ look at you sounding all cool there. Dunno what you mean with "weird ideas" though.

Ushio: ....I curse the freaking guy who dared to use my shampoo without permission to go bald from losing 10 hairs every second...!

Ryui: Toi, your hair's sticking out. Here, sit still. I'll fix it to make it pretty.

Toi: Wah... Thank you dearest Big Bro. My beloved Big Bro really is the coolest in the whole wide world... My heart's skipping a beat...

Toi: A mature seductiveness like Yodaka-san's... How can i end up having that too? I'm jealous, you see.

Yodaka: Fufu, but Toi. Don't you have your own kind of charm that I lack. I admit I'm also envious on that front.

[beeing-stuupid]

bro u cannot expect me to talk to u for an amount of time and not get worried when u leave all of a sudden

it feels weird if i just do the tags cuz that’s the thing™️ ykyk so i gotta put some text as an intro to the post ofc

(here cuz i ran out of tags smh)

love it when i use the same emoji twice but i can the asked to delete it and write it again so it’s staying there

just clarifying i can in fact do discord if that’s easier for u and it was a typo in my last reblog oop

haven’t posted here in a hot minute

anyways, what i came here to do

@fym-daichi-dies victoria where have u gone :((

did the discord server u joined eat u alive?? i haven’t heard from u in a while 😔

[quirkyfries]

Hello there!! Thanks for stopping by :)

My name is Quirky! I go by any pronouns, and I mostly post my doodles and art here for archive purposes.

If I have any ongoing projects, just know that I will get to them in due time! Please be patient with me :)

All of my tags will be in the tags of this post for navigation purposes.

“#Quirky’s art” is the tag for my art, no matter what or who it’s for.

“#Quirky drabbles” is the tag for my writing.

When I just want to put my thoughts out there, I use “#Quirky rambling” for organizing.

“#Quirky answers” is for answered asks.

I currently do not have a reblog tag! At the moment, I don’t see the need for one.

My asks are always open, and I don’t mind chatting with people whether on my posts or via asks! Just mind that sometimes I can’t immediately reply. I’m happy to answer questions about my art/process or projects, opinions on my interests, or humor conversation starters!

I do not have a schedule for posting— I draw when I have time to, and I tend to shift subjects and style between posts. So, I apologize in advance if anyone followed me because I post a specific character or art style only to realize that I don’t really stick to a media 100%. I draw when I draw and what I want to draw.

And, while I don’t mind such content, I try to avoid explicit NSFW on this blog because I want to keep this a mostly-safe space for everyone. I will not answer asks that bring up such content, or post anything of that nature. That does NOT mean that I won’t interact with a M/R-rated media/fan-media with those topics in them, I just don’t want to draw explicit or overly suggestive stuff. If I accidentally violate this, please let me know!

Art policy - Thought I would include this!

Please do not use ANY of my work for AI anything!

Any of my art can be used as PFPs, headers, etc. if I am credited! Please do not use any of my art for selling products (digital or physical) without permission!

I do not have commissions open because I don’t have the time for that at the moment, but if you drop a doodle req in my ask box, I’ll consider those in my free time!

I do not support the creators of Dandy’s world.

That should be all for now. I’ll update this as needed! Have a nice day :)

[driftward]

Junelezen 2023: Aftershocks

Last week, I had a masterpost of every single entry I made for Junelezen 2023, which I dubbed Echoes. This week, I am posting annotated entries for every post from there, except this time I am linking to specific entries in the reblog chains, or to posts that others made as responses to Echoes. In particular, one member of my FC, (here on Tumblr as @yzeltia), took it upon himself to create a reblog response to every post.

The previous masterpost can be considered the 'original cut', consisting solely of my entries. This is the 'fat cut' I mentioned there. What parts of all this are canonical? I don't know, come back with a warrant.

As already mentioned, this post will have annotations on the various entries. I could go on for hours about my thought process, things I learned, and I may yet make some other posts about such things, but for now, I am (mostly) restricting myself to commentary here, both on my work, and the work of others.

I have learned a lot during this. One of the things I have learned is that in the future, readmores and reblogs do not necessarily play well together for these round-up posts, as readmores will roll out without the linked reblog, and if you just look at the reblog chain, you'll miss whatever was in the readmore. If I do this again in the future, I think I will stick to making posts, and maybe just link back and forth between them. And maybe if I am responding to someone else's work like this, instead of a reblog, I might just tag OP? I am uncertain. Reblogs keep tumblr alive. The cleanest for archive purposes would probably be reblog the original, then make the follow-up and tag the originator. Still though, that's neither here nor there. What is here is the fantastic work done by others.

And I appreciate all of it. I am humbled by the response.

Final note, these will largely link to Y'zel Tia's responses, since he reblogged almost every response with his own screenshot and words. Click throughs and context should make it obvious which ones are which.

.portrait

Where we got started, with a bit of a literal framing device. Y'zel Tia belongs to @yzeltia; part of his character canon is being a cousin to Y'shtola Rhul, and so that'll explain why you'll often see both of them in his responses. I'm not at all sure why Y'shtola would be interested in what happens to some random feckless adventurer, though...

Special shout out to @matrixdragon and @sabbactroll who both had, uh, opinions on this development. :)

.home

Look, haven't we all had a scientific experiment go a little sideways and light someone's world on fire. This is, of course, the bridge between the Incident and Junelezen: Echoes.

.spring

What strange sights are seen beyond the veil of reality, and what utterly normal places those left behind would go. I picked Coerthas as an early anchor point, since that's where Zoissette grew up.

.new adventure

I was still learning a lot here, both about my tools (gpose+more/Affinity Photo) as well as the posting medium (tumblr). An early goal I had was that the Junelezen 'entry' would be its own screenshot with minimal words, and I would build on the 'story' portion in reblogs or readmores, so that way people who were only interested in the Junelezen part could ignore the rest. This one I used a reblog to expand the story.

Studying Her History (by @yzeltia)

Zoissette would probably prefer they stay out of her room at the Baldesion Annex. Y'shtola is always cute when passed out from studying too much though.

.job

Using a reblog chain to expand the story portion again. I couldn't figure out how to make the jobstone work, so I added a light source to Zoissette's hand to make a kind of 'glow'. Not real happy with how it turned out, but making mistakes makes the learning happen.

Informing Alka Zolka (by @yzeltia)

Okay Y'zel was just trying for emotional damage here. I mean, he succeeded, but still. :|

.mount

I have written about part of Zoissette's mission of mercy before. Look ma, my lore has lore. This event left its mark on her; it did not change her in any great way, just sort of underlines who she already was at that point. In the reblog, Y'zel went for the emotional damage again. Writing in my FC is a PvP activity.

Absence Felt (by @ladyofvoss)

Incredible work here, in the expressiveness of the posture, and the choice of shots taken (at my heart). This is Thalia Voss, belonging to @ladyofvoss. Where she's at is Zoissette's office at Gage Acquisitions (designed by fellow FC member Ghurab)

.friends

Another reblog chain. Compositing the 'shards' to put the faces of friends into them was quite difficult, each one requiring four layers (the way I did it) and quite a bit of manual touch up work. The color scheme was chosen on purpose. Look, Junelezen is also Pride Month, I don't make the rules, but I do make things queer.

1000 words remix (by @yzeltia)

Y'zel has a real fondness for all things music, and that's seen here. As @saesama put it, 'he made an AMV in tumblr form'. Having not played FF X-2, I was not familiar with the song, but I am now. This will not be the last musical piece from our aurally inclined catboy.

.beauty

With this one I really found the problems with reblog chains when making archival posts. This links to the reblog I made to my own post to add story, but in going to the original post, it's actually really hard to fish out the reblog!

We get further hints here that 'Adriané' may not be who Zoissette thinks she is.

Dancing Alone (by @yzeltia)

Dance like nobody's watching. Hey. Why are you watching. Go away, this is meant to be a private moment!

.mirror

Getting to here took a lot of false starts, fiddling with Affinity Photo, getting samples from in game, changing outfits, and it was all worthwhile in the end. I really like the end result. Y'zel went for a more chaotic approach.

Absence Mourned (by @scrollsfromarebornrealm)

For context, the character in these shots is Mathye Bishop, who belongs to @scrollsfromarebornrealm, a character who has been courting Zoissette for over a year by this point. They are close, in any case. The tone provided by the filter and his posture all scream of the devastation he feels in the wake of Zoissette's absence.

.summer

A memory that never happened, but did. Strange things in these echoes, and as has happened before, Y'zel's character visits the 'real' location, feeling a twinge of what is going on out beyond the rift, thanks to his own Echo gift. Klynt Gohtawyn belongs to @saesama, and this hearkens back to the days she and Zoissette may have crossed paths back when they both worked for the Maelstrom.

Klynt's a jerk.

.day

Not much to say for this one. I thought the sun would make more of an arc crossing the sky, making for an interesting dynamic shot, but it turns out it makes kind of a very straight line, which makes sense if you think about it. I had an alternative shot planned that, while it was gorgeous, I just couldn't make the story aspect of it work out. I will probably share that shot, and others, at a future date.

.sun

You can see I am choosing more and more often to use readmores instead of reblogs, and I will probably stand by that decision in the future. Also here is where I found out I had been doing a crime these many years. Due to her somewhat reserved nature, I usually have Zoissette have very subtle almost-nonexistent expressions. Clearly, this entire time, I should have been turning them up somewhere around 11. I love her face.

Echo Disrupted (by @yzeltia)

Looks like in the search for their friend, someone may have overdone it a bit. Overdoing it a bit, in fact, seems to be a bit of a theme with Y'zel, both player and character.

.ancient times

I am not going to take the space it would require for me to say everything that I would like about Atlas, so instead I will just mention that this served as a useful pivot for the story, and provided a path forward. I had actually been juggling several ideas up to this point, and this is where I hard committed to a specific direction. Thanks, Atlas.

Sanctuary remix (by @yzeltia)

Honestly I think Y'zel having his character black out was just an excuse to have a space to put this entry without having to worry about what I was doing. Which, really, is a stroke of genius. Another AMV in tumblr form. Should we make a new word for that?

.night

It was around here that I decided to lean more on my strengths - writing - and less on screenshots. That decision did not last long. Junelezen started as a screenshot event, and I was having fun with those. Here we anchor for everything ever after.

Connected remix (by @yzeltia)

Y'zel introduces me to a new song that lives in my heart.

.romance

Zoissette, no longer losing herself in the echoes, shows up only in the containment suit in shots from here on out. I continue to be cheeky about the colours I use whenever she's in the rift, and Y'zel drops a slick FF8 reference, which just really plays into my love of multiverse shenanigans.

.magic

Not completely sworn off of reblogs yet, though this reblog was pushed out fast, before I had a riot on my hands. This is also where I started hinted more heavily at things to come, with another Lavender PoV piece.

In the reblog chain, where you see the fairies, from left to right, is C'oretta Khell's (belongs to @autumnslance) Lotus, pink-shifted compared to the others; Ryssthota Sundstyrwyn's (belongs to @erickgage) Glitterdust, and Riven Fortemp's (belongs to @scrollsfromarebornrealm) Sugarplum, who I tried to make the little hairtufts rounder for.

.magic response by Y'zel Tia

You can ask Y'zel about this one.

.autumn

And pulled that trigger. This is where I finalized the smoke effect I wanted to use for Lavender, and I'm rather proud of how it turned out, particularly in future shots.

.landscape

I really like this shot, for the utter alien landscape I managed to make using FFXIV assets and some aggressive photo editor work. My only regret is that it does not -quite- look like Zoissette and Lavender are actually in that place, but I think that can be fixed with a few more adjustments.

I'd been leaning on Y'zel's entries to sort of weakly gesture at what may have been going on in the 'real world' while Zoissette was gone, but here I start to make my own narrative about the matter. Judging from conversations I've had, there is one thing I could have made clearer in this story. Zoissette's perspective of how much time has passed is dramatically different from that of the Source. In the Source, it has been a short time. For Zoissette, it has been quite a lot longer.

.travel

I think this is the only one with a single screenshot. I lean more heavily on my writing abilities once more, and I think they speak for themselves.

.dungeon

Figures. Zoissette is having one of the worst days of her life, and the cats are napping. It took me a while to settle on a ghostly effect for the people 'yelling' at her, and I rather like how it turned out. We also are spending more time with Lavender. Hard decisions to be made, but just because they are hard does not mean they are difficult. Lavender and Zoissette are alike like that.

.deity

Some trivia. Zoissette's mom lost her right arm fighting a dragon, back before the Calamity. The Deity is supposed to be a mix of Halone and Zoissette's mother, and so, she, too, is missing her right arm.

.harvest

Reaper job unlocked. Un-edge-lording your edgelord jobs since at least 2016.

.hobbies

So while I was writing a follow-up story for The Incident, I was also trying to follow the Junelezen prompts. And one of my goals was that someone who was just here for Junelezen could just see the photo, nod, go 'ah that makes sense' and move on without having to know a damned thing about the Incident or about Zoissette. I probably did not succeed as well as I would have liked, but I did try.

Having said that, the location of the hobbies prompt in the middle of the others and what I had planned presented some real problems for me, and I did not solve it until pretty late. So we get this moment of downtime. I like how it turned out, but it sure did vex me getting there.

.winter

Back where we began. A lot has changed, a lot has stayed the same. There are a lot of subtle things I did intentionally throughout this story. In this shot, the shift to the skybox and lighting, as well as changing where they are sitting relative to the fence, were decisions I made on purpose.

Speaking of changes done on purpose, Y'zel-the-character's hair goes white as he once again overdoes it. We do recurring themes here, sir.

.cozy

I will stop composing shots of Zoissette and Y'shtola sitting like this the day I die. Also, seriously Y'zel, is NOW the time to be forcing that question??? Ridiculous, now we have -two- casualties.

.relaxing

Under the readmore, we spend more time with the science team, as they try to work out what to do next. But here...

A Relaxing Summary (by @matrixdragon)

I will let @matrixdragon provide the summary.

.fancy clothes

A schematic of the Aurora Laboratories Containment Suit. And two more questions from @matrixdragon, who picked up on my oh-so-subtle (okay no it wasn't) Babylon 5 reference. On that note, I adore the Babylon 5 questions, and I think they serve as an extremely useful framing tool for just about any character in any universe.

Some very touching possible answers from Y'shtola in Y'zel's reblog.

Midnight talk

Things are happening, and faster, now. I did not use a readmore or the reblog chain for these additional entries, which I made sure were scheduled for 2300 in my time zone every night. 1100 for the Junelezen post, 2300 for additional story posts. I keep to this plan for the rest of the run. These special additional entries I refer to as The Eleventh Hour.

.family

Thank you to everyone in these shots. I have a little story in my mind for each one. Maybe I will even write them one day.

The Trapeze Swinger remix (by @yzeltia)

As I go through these entries, I can tell how and where my skills are improving. I can say the same for Y'zel, whose 'tumblr AMV' skills expand. While they are all very good, this is one of his best works, in my opinion, and I found another new song through him.

Recovery plan

Another Eleventh Hour entry. You know, it's funny, this arguably all started because Zoissette was trying very hard to not be a burden on her FC or an inconvenience to anyone.

Sure seem to have inconvenienced a lot of people here.

The Last Contingency: Judgement Call (by @saesama)

This one stabs right in the feeling-parts, but somebody has to think of these things, and Zoissette isn't here to do it.

.holidays

Erick Gage (@erickgage) has something to say about this whole mess.

The Only Exception remix (by @yzeltia)

You may have invented the AMV. But Y'zel tumblrized it. Perfected its new form. And then he unleashed it upon us all.

Reconciliation

And truth, at last. I could say so much here. I elect to say nothing.

.free

The final shot was a pain to composite, and I am so proud of how it turned out.

.begin

One year, from Zoissette's perspective, give or take a lot. Two weeks for the world. But she's home again.

Ma there's a cat on the foot of my bed I don't know how it got there (but seriously, thank you @yzeltia :) )

BONUS SECTION

Imposter Syndrome! (by @starladyquasar)

Ladies, ladies, you're both beautiful. Though also seriously, Squeenix, give us more customisation options.

ELEZEVANGELION (by @yzeltia)

You want to know what it's like being part of the funniest FC? It's pretty great, I tell you what.

Anyroad. Special thanks to all of you - those who stopped to leave a comment, or found me on the moon during a screenshot session (you know who you are), or even those of you who just followed along, in whole or in part. And for those of you who were just here for Elezen shots, I hope you found something you liked in here!

[animehouse-moe]

Animerica Extra Volume 1 Issue 1: A Closer Look

Finally, finally finally I managed to get the first two volumes uploaded to the Internet Archive, which you can find here, and I really do recommend because of Tumblr image compression being kinda gross. Anyways, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about the first issue of the magazine and what I really found interesting and cool!

First off is the advertisements that appear in the magazine. Considering the scope and popularity of the magazine, the "type" of companies that would advertise are somewhat different. I mean, AnimeVillage got the front cover ad. Not that they're a tiny company, but much like others in here, they're not a company that lasted incredibly long.

Still, what is incredibly interesting though is their website, which is still saved in the internet archive, though in a somewhat incomplete fashion, which you can find here. Anyways, getting to visit an old site like this is a lot of fun, mostly because of the personality that appears with it. Offensive and sharp color palettes, more than a few moving pieces, and a very blocky layout. Honestly, I think sites like this have a considerable amount more to offer in terms of heart and individuality than what modern web design has given us, but that's not the point. The point is that Animerica Extra provides people, specifically the community in this moment, with an experience from the past. I mean, AnimeVillage is from 1998, there's no way that the vast majority of anime or manga fans would even know about them as a company today.

Getting to the actual magazine itself though, there's just two things that I find interesting with the Table of Contents. Firstly, right at the bottom, just above the "Printed in Canada" statement, Viz offers a disclaimer (which you can't read here because of nasty Tumblr compression, so I'll transcribe it): "For the purposes of publication in English, the artwork in this publication is in reverse from the original Japanese Version".

Now, I don't have any OG manga volumes that were printed more like graphic novels, so I can't say for sure, but I find this disclaimer interesting. Either, a) this is a general disclaimer Viz gives about the difference between JP and English publication, or b) Viz is required to provide this disclaimer for the materials. Either way it's a very curious piece.

And then there's the "Vizit our World Wide Web Sites at www.viz.com...". Yes, Viz actually printed "Visit" as "Vizit" alongside "World Wide Web sites". Just such a blast from the past as to how the internet was viewed and interacted with.

And then there's the Yuu Watase feature from the first issue. I think it's something that doesn't immediately stick out to people in the modern day because hey, you just go to MAL or Manga-Updates and you can see everything that Watase's ever done like it's nothing.

But in the 80s that sort of accessibility was non-existent. I mean, like you'll see later on with the letters, people only found out about Animerica Extra through Animerica. It really highlights how valuable this sort of information was to the community during the era, because you simply just would not know anything about Yuu Watase without these pieces.

Similarly, you couldn't go and look up what a series was about on the internet, you only had word of mouth and direct interaction, so excerpts like these that give readers an idea of what is is they're about to read is incredibly important.

Just a quick aside here about advertisements. I know a lot of people will say, "but hey! There were TV ads during the 90s and 2000s that could be run for this stuff! Surely they could provide information and advertisement via that!", and I think the easiest answer is another question: can the modern day animanga industry manage that? Obviously not, no. The avenues that Viz could approach to advertise via were incredibly narrow, largely focused on anime specific storefronts or general comic stores, placing physical advertisement at the top of the pyramid, followed up by ads distributed via their tapes back in the day.

Anyways, back on track to the editorial for an interesting conversation! This one's very interesting to me for just one thing, really- the original sketch giveaway.

It happens today, rather frequently, but with caveats. It's not, "Hey we're running a giveaway so make sure to participate", it's "Hey we've got X mangaka appearing at a con so come for a chance to win their sketch!". The difference in the approach to the giveaway is entirely different. I don't know if I can really say that it's more accessible, but I think that it gives fans a greater opportunity to participate purely because it's cheaper, running on a far longer schedule (as the editorial mentions), and doesn't require in person attendance for the opportunity.

But to be fair, even those giveaways are only a recent thing as the animanga market's boomed. There was quite a long period of dead air in terms of this sort of activity, so I find it really interesting how the landscape has changed in how these now corporations approach these aspects of interaction with their communities.

Also, here's a link to the archived version of the website in the advertisement on this page.

And this magazine really just keeps giving more and more crazy information. This News Notes panel really surprised me. Yes, it's got a lot of plain information like upcoming or finishing anime, but most interesting is the information that the left column provides.

They talk about the mangaka of Steam Detectives appearing at San Diego Comic Con, and not only that, but bringing some early footage of the anime. I mean, that sort of thing has only just begun happening again in the last few years.

It's crazy to see how advanced and engaged Viz was back in the day with the industry overseas. Not that they aren't today, but that the curtain's been pulled across so we no longer get stuff like this in English.

Speaking of things like that, because of the disappearance of things like this, we don't get to see interaction between individuals and the companies. The letters section in this first volume is so interesting because of the era it comes from. The accessibility of information is immediately addressed with the first letter that talks about them finding out about Animerica Extra via the mainline Animerica. Then there's the very talented letter sending that sewed a decorative pillow for their friend. But I think my personal favorite is the nonsensical letter penned by Jonkani.

These magazines are just a gold mine of history and culture pertaining to the North American animanga industry and community, that I really think is important to be able to experience and understand as it contextualizes where this slice of entertainment lies in the modern day.

And this just the first issue of the first volume, there's still 73 more to go that provide all sorts of wonderful and curious information and interactions. Incredibly happy to be able to provide this to the community, but also very hopeful that being vocal with this will both make people more aware of a history that is "ours", and inspire those that have pieces of history like this to archive them.

[pancake-breakfast]

Time to finish up volume 1 of TriMax!

Archive

Trigun Volume 1: Covers + 1-3, 3 Detailed Thoughts, 4, 4 DT, 5-6, 5-6 + DT, 6 DT, 7-8, 9-10

Trigun Volume 2: Covers + Extras, 1, 1 Supplemental Research, 2-4, 5-6, 7-8

TriMax Volume 1: 1-2, 2 DT, 3-4, 3 DT

Stream-of-consciousness thoughts for TriMax Vol. 1, Chapters 5-6 below.

Chapter 5: Dancing Revolver

Gods, Vash always has to do that little hip jut, doesn't he?

Eyyy, geranium scene!

It's funny because geraniums are seen as almost plain here. They get used a lot in, like, planters for strip malls and such because they're hardy, drought-resistant beasts that need very little care and grow nicely from cuttings so they're cheap AF to reproduce and spread around. (BTW, if you ever want to add some pretty geraniums you see out in public to your yard/patio/whatever, you can just "borrow" a nice stem from that plant, take it home, and probably grow it for yourself.)

Vash is a growing boy. Of course he's thinking with his stomach.

As someone who has tended to them, I can confidently say that geraniums are definitely determined....

I'm sure he's trying to look somewhat fierce here, but mostly he just looks annoyed.

Uh oh. Vash might have the attention of someone who will try to do some damage.

Yeah... don't go pointing guns at people (purposely or no) if you're all tensed up. You might make a regrettable move.

Oh, no. I remember this guy from the anime. Please send him back where he came from.

LOL, this Elena girl is abandoning her duties to check out Vash the Stampede.

HAHAHAHAHAHA, it's the Vash slaughter song!

"Won't leave a single man alive." Vash, you're so full of shit right now, it's hilarious.

Sorry, Wolfwood. Now you have to deal with Vash being dramatic and calling attention to himself.

The funniest thing about this page to me is how Vash goes from screaming, "AAAAAAAA!!!" in Japanese to screaming, "AAAAAAAAA!!!" in English.

Pretty sure he just turned into a windmill of legs and coattails.

Yeah, from what I gather, bullet-proof vests don't keep you from getting nasty bruises and broken ribs. They just keep the hot lead from entering your body and doing the kind of damage that's harder to recover from.

He's remembering this morning's training session, I see.

Hey, Vash warned them....

Did he miss, though? Did he??

LOL, yeah, he did not.

This is, like, a Vash catchphrase at this point.

Well, if he didn't have Vash's attention before, he has it now.

Chapter 6: Sin

This doesn't have anything to do with the manga; I just want to note the number of times I've tried to navigate these pages by pushing left instead of right on my keyboard ('cause that's the way you read manga) is really, really high.

The contrast between the doctor's optimism and Brad's pessimism. Also, doc's viewing glass.

Wolfwood is having WAY too much fun spectating here. He looks like he's genuinely enjoying the chaos of it all.

Even scum can beg for its life when the tables are turned. Is the regret true and will it stick, or will being allowed mercy only open the door to further atrocities down the line? Do we have the right to decide?

Vash is making a choice, and it's not a choice to do nothing.

Hehhhh, people saying, "What do you know about my pain?" to Vash. Yes, this kind of pain is unique and individual, and Vash hasn't been through anything quite like losing a daughter in such a horrific fashion (that we know of; he is quite old), but he does understand both horrific loss and unimaginable betrayal, as well as the grief, self-blame, and feelings of utter helplessness that can come in its aftermath.

Poor Vash. He looks like hell after that fight. Probably feels like it, too.

Vash gave the father time to not become a murderer, and that's the sort of thing that would be of infinite value to Vash.

This panel, though. Important character notes here. In fact, one might say the only person Vash might not see as family on this planet is his very own twin.

The doctor sure has some trust in Vash getting out of things. And... he probably knows Vash well enough to know Vash would regret if his situation caused trouble for the doc and the rest of the people on that steamer.

LOL, Wolfwood, making a dramatic entrance, ready to bust through everything with hot lead and his beloved bike. He looks like an antihero arriving to save his kidnapped woman.

Hahahahahahaha, he pretty much buried Vash in rubble with that entrance. Mmmmmaybe didn't think it all the way through....

This panel has the same energy as Wolfwood telling Vash that kicking a rocket out of the air was "fucking stupid."

Awww, Wolfie, your heart of gold is showing....

We're just gonna ignore these panels where WW warns Vash that one of these days, pushing his luck won't work and he'll have to choose. I'm sure there's no foreshadowing in that whatsoever. Nope, none at all.

Ok, I tried to ignore it, but I also want to note I think Stampede did an excellent job capturing this running theme of how Vash is walking a precarious path trying not to choose. I don't remember that theme at all in '98. (Not saying it wasn't there; just saying it doesn't stand out in my memory.) Meanwhile, it's not just core to Vash's story in Stampede, but it's core to Meryl's and Wolfwood's stories in Stampede, too, even if in theirs, it's not mentioned so explicitly by the narrative.

Goshdarn it. That stupid Hitler-moustached, too-tall bowler hat guy is still here. Yes, yes, I know he wasn't dealt with so he can't just leave. But I want him to leave because it's better than him being in the narrative.

SEE?!!? GOOD PEOPLE DON'T HAVE PEOPLE PUPPETS LIKE THAT. SEND BOWLER HAT GUY BACK!!!

Uuuuhhhhh.... Look, I get that Legato (like a good percentage of the major characters in this story) likes fetish gear, but wearing a freaking iron maiden is taking it to a whole 'nother level.

Also, is he really big, or is this new creature person very small, or is the panel just framed weird for weird perspective? Questions....

Author Bonus Chapter: Gun Love Island

SALUTATIONS!!!

If this panel is meant to be the inside of Nightow's brain, it's a... very busy place. I do have a special appreciation for the dragon dissolving into a single sexy fishnet leg.

Oh, so the '98 anime had already started by the time this collection came out.

"First half of the story." LOL, half. Lies. But this might be a bit of a translation error. I've seen it elsewhere. Seems like (and I could be wrong here since I'm not a Japanese language expert by any means) the Japanese terms for parts of things don't necessarily mean equal parts like they do in English. To clarify, in English, if we say "a third," we mean 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 1, but the Japanese term that usually gets translated into 1/3 (三分; literally "three parts") can also mean 1/3 + 1/2 + 1/6 = 1. It's still referring to one part of three out of the whole, but that part is not necessarily equal to the other parts. Then again, the characters usually used for "half" are 半分 rather than 二分, and to the best of my knowledge, 半 does indeed mean equal halves, so maybe I'm wrong in this instance. I don't know, I'm not reading this in Japanese and I've only studied the language for like 3 years, which is nothing for Japanese.

Hahahahaha, sounds like Trigun is a bit of a case of the story running away with the author. It happens sometimes.

I'm also happy that people like Nightow's characters. Thank you very much.

[goldmouse]

The time has come 👁👁

I know I said this back in february but it's for real this time

I'm gonna be going through all my art files on my computer and ipad and reuploading a ton of things. Probably mostly gonna stick to my best work? I don't feel like I have a need to upload like EVERY commission or doodle but there's still lots of important ones I wanna add!

I'll work out a tagging system and have a page for tag navigation for easy browsing for gallery and archive purposes too.

Still debating on whether or not to put my gijinka stuff here or just move them to their own dedicated blog I can share with my rp partner, probably leaning toward the second option but I'll cross that road when I get to it.

In the meantime, enjoy the queued posts while I go back in time with my art! I got 5 years to catch up on! I'll be sure to space out the posts so it's not just flooding everyone's dashboards all at once

[ceejaykayess]

The long awaited sequel! Super-cute Cyber-girl AI-Ball Ene, at your service! I kid, I kid, I know no one saw the last post, because it didn’t get posted under the tag for some reason… ah well, second try’s the charm.

After hearing that next year’s Dazecon would be our last, it sorta kicked my ass into gear to get some more of these Kagepro ideas off my chest and onto paper. So, Ene, our deuteragonist to our beloved protagonist (derogatory).

I had a lot of thoughts ever since the first picture on how I wanted to draw Ene’s cyber form. Given Aiba and Tama’s designs, we have something of a base to work off of, but we need at least one more game for me to confidently declare what is and isn’t a pattern. What we can easily tell, at least, is that AI-Balls have white hair and and dress in mostly black and white. And while Ene does do the latter, she… doesn’t do the former. Why? Well… maybe you can figure it out?

But in terms of her design, while I mostly stick to her regular design, the things I want to point out (because it might not be super obvious with my image quality) are the glowing strands in her hair, a blue one in her fringe, a red one in her left pigtail, and a white one in her left. I suppose you could call them remnants of what should have been… I also want to point out her outfit- it’s skin-tight from the neck to the waist, the skirt being a part of the bodysuit. The sleeves are, almost ironically, like Miku’s in that they’re detachable. And the most AI-Ball feature to her are the tech veins that compose her legs, as opposed to generally lacking them as in most Kagepro material.

I made Ene’s gel form a rabbit, in consideration of those mini-sketch comics I read yonks ago that drew Ene’s pigtails as being like hands for her since hers are in her sleeves always. Also, I thought it’d be funny if the first time Shintarou saw it, he’d consider renaming her to Tono in honour of his rabbit.

In case it’s hard to read, the shocked Ene in the top right is saying, “Master! MASTER! Oh no, he can’t hear me, he’s wearing his Raycon:tm: Earbuds, supremely comfortable for all your needs-” The little sketch in the bottom right, of Shintaro face down in bed and Ene in rabbit mode on his bedside table, reads, “Get the fuck up Master, we’re goin’ to the amusement park today!” “Ene, I’m dying…”

Here's a link to the first picture of Shintaro that never posted properly. And here's a link to the follow-up Yaki picture.

How long had she been wandering? She wasn’t really sure. Sure, if she looked at a calendar, or even just the UI on near anyone’s digital device, she’d see that it had been a year, more even. But that wasn’t really what she meant.

When she first opened her eyes, she had a purpose. She wasn’t wandering- she was seeking. She wasn’t on a Journey, she was on a Quest. She had to find them, had to know what happened to them, because if she were here, like this, then the others, then he had to be-

But though she had a Quest, she had to figure it out, her newfound capabilities, how to parse the sheer amount of information that tried to force its way around her, through her, tried to twist the information that made up herself-

And by the time she had come to a balance with her newfound self, body made of numbers and pixels instead of blood vessels and organ systems, what she had been seeking had become old news, hearsay that was washed under the waves of time and new information and new tragedies and new things for people to talk about. The longer it took, the deeper the information was buried, and the deeper it was buried, the longer it would take for her to come and go.

But eventually, after months and months, 8 months and 17 days and 9 hours and 21 minutes and 2 seconds, 3 seconds, 4 seconds, she had bounced from Wiki article to Wiki article, dug through news archives, dragged herself through Towitter discussions and arguments dated around that August 15th, and a bit after, she had learned and pieced together thus: Three people were marked as dead. 14 people were injured, 9 of which being detained as members of the syndicate that caused the explosion. There was no mention of who died, or even of the state their bodies were in. There was no specific mention of their fourth, her annoying kouhai who was so bitter, who brought everyone down despite his brilliance, who everyone loved despite his acidic tongue and obvious disdain, who she hated because of how much it felt like she were looking at a mirror, her kouhai who was lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood, surrounded by rubble and mumbling things she could barely understand being in such a terrible state herself-

She felt herself lose it, the desperate, fickle hope she held in her oversized jumper, because what does it matter? For all intents and purposes, she was dead. As far as she was aware, as far as anyone was aware, her best friend was, too. Maybe even her kouhai. And her-

And-

That kind boy, the one that irritated her so, the one that she wanted to see every day, the one that made her feel this terrible, terrible way, he too is-

Gone. They’re all gone. So what’s the point? Her Quest was over. And she couldn’t even delete herself, backspace over the 1′s and 0′s that composed her new existence. She was too much of a coward to throw herself at a virus and let it have its way with her. She could just stay here until eventually this webpage rotted away, but the longer she stayed in proximity to this information, to this reminder, the more she felt like she needed to expel the non-existent contents of her non-existent stomach. So she ran. She left. She tried to separate herself from her name, from the life that could no longer be hers, that simply was no longer.

She wandered.

How long had she been wandering?

…

Long enough that she felt nostalgic, at least. Long enough that she’s actually contemplating her current course of action, long enough that she’s following through on that course even as she contemplates the wisdom.

Her current location, digitally, was in the mainframe of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Her destination was downstairs, 5 floors underground in fact. The Advanced Brain Investigation Squad. Her… former squad, to put it a way. She followed along the flow of data from the routers to the elevator, holding and holding and holding on to the connection as she sunk deeper and deeper and deeper until she felt like she might actually suffocate despite not needing air, before feeling the next router and leaping for it, bringing her all the way down to the abyss.

Taking in deep gasping breaths of nothing that still let her feel like a human, she looked around. The ABIS mainframe wasn’t anything special. Tunnelled far as hell away from anything else, sure, but nothing special. So much for the stupid old man and his so-called “professional coding skills”. Feh. She’s seen message boards with more interesting encryption.

Despite her trash-talking, she still looked around curious as she wandered deeper. Jumping from computer to computer, camera to camera, she saw how much the place had changed in the last year. Or rather, how little it didn’t. It was like she had never left. Eventually she came across a concrete room with a familiar sense of decoration that made her want to spit and laugh and scream and cry-

Which was immediately blown away when she looked down on the room’s occupants. There was, of course, the room’s owner and decorator, with his scruffy brown hair pulled into a messy ponytail, holding his iconic lab coat rather than wearing it, glasses askew and face looking as if he hadn’t slept or washed his face for days. His cybernetic eye, pupil the same as his remaining brown one, stared deep into the eyes of the person that had her stopping short, looking again, re-evaluating and readjusting, checking the feed and the system and refreshing everything, video and audio, again and again, just to make sure she wasn’t being deceived, that the person she was seeing was really who she thought he was.

“-is that understood, Shintaro?” “…I understand, old man.”

His voice was somehow more unbearable than usual, his face lacking its usual stern and uncaring look. It was loose, and flabby. Like he didn’t even care enough to pretend to not care. Instead of the red coat her best friend was so fond of, or even the black suit he was partial to, he stood in just a white shirt, arms bare. He was missing an eye, a scar covering the eyelid, one that made her think of a boy reluctantly in red, facedown in a puddle of the colour.

“Oi, I told you already, call me Boss, y’got it brat!?” “Mm.”

Barely acknowledging him, he turned away, making his way out of Boss’ Office, as the namesake would have you call it. Without thinking, she began to follow after him, but was stopped when she heard the old goat mutter something.

“Give me strength, Ayaka…”

Whispering the pained prayer, the man she always thought of as an unreliable lout that only ever got moving when he was being put under threat stood, donning his lab coat and fixing his glasses. Reaching into it, he withdrew a small sphere, chockful of electronic components- very similar to the one in his own eye, actually… or rather, based on it. He gave it a long look, and so did she. What was he planning…? Her musing was broken by his clenching of his fist and replacing the orb, muttering tomorrow as he moved out of the room- down the hallway and towards his lab. The opposite direction of Shintaro.

Shintaro.

Almost without thinking, she turned around, searching for the apathetic genius, that damn ikemen that couldn’t take a hint for the life of him. The hallway was lonely, and he was never very fast, so she caught him easily halfway towards the elevator. She hesitated. She had already seen more than she expected, more than she even wanted. She had expected the old man. Hell, maybe some part of her even expected to see reference to the others, pictures maybe. She hadn’t even gotten to look at their old workplaces, at her old work bench where she fiddled with her Evolver- she didn’t even know if her Evolver was still around.

But she hadn’t expected a man, no, a brat she thought was dead to be walking around with the living. She shouldn’t follow him. She wanted to check on her Evolver, see if Mr. Tateyama had improved on anything in the last year, see if the three of them are still remembered. She doesn’t even like Shintaro that much anyways, if he knew she was spying on him he’d just scold and scream at her like the ungrateful punk he is-

But even so, she follows him anyways. Jumps to the data in his phone, barren and new, clenched in his hand. She’s only doing this because the other two would have wanted her to. Not because she wants to.

And so, she watches as he rides the elevator, not once glancing at his phone. She watches as he hails a cab and asks for an address that, after a quick search, she finds is set in Tokyo, not Chiba. She watches as he sits silently through the whole ride, rudely ignoring his chauffeur’s attempts at conversation and instead looks with almost a sad look at the cityscape passing him by. She watches as he pays the driver, walks up to the rundown looking building, sighs, and opens the door. She watches as he nods at the tired 30-something reclining against a couch in the foyer, walking up the stairs until he comes up to a door. And she watches as he silently pulls out a key, opens the door, and skulks to his room. She can’t see anything else out of the narrow view the phone’s camera offers her, but it looks like he’s trying to be quiet. Could there… be someone else here?

And eventually, he enters a dark room. He makes for the bed in the corner, planting himself on the mattress, and looks down. In his hands, his phone, and thus she, face towards him. He looks into the screen, and for a moment she felt panic. Did he see her? What was she going to say? How does she explain it- anything? Would he even care? As she opened her mouth, prepared to speak through the microphone-

He slumped his shoulders, sighed, and closed his eyes. “Damn it,” he mumbled. He rubs his eyes, and places the phone down. Whatever he does next is a mystery, as the phone she’s in is can only see up and down, and half of that is unavailable to her on a flat surface. She feels out, and finds a computer to connect to. She shuffles over, and finds herself in a much roomier space. Taking care not to activate the screen, she peeks through the camera to see… him, lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. She stared at him for what must have been a reasonable time before turning away- she wasn’t going to get anything out of him, not like this, and not without announcing herself, which- she still hasn’t thought on whether she actually wanted to, let alone how. So, instead of being productive and thinking on it, she turns back to the files on his computer and, invasion of privacy be damned, went scrounging.

His internet history, nothing but 2channel, various forums she also used to browse, anime piracy websites, and the occasional risque website search. She held back on this occasion, she didn’t need to know. Yet. Around certain dates, he would even search up strange things like gift ideas or idol showing tickets. Weirdo.

Outside of his history, there’s his documents. A lot of deleted drafts, the occasional downloaded risque image (legs, huh? Is that why she had always…?), and a lot of editing software. A lot of editing software. What was all this…? She found unfinished music projects, which she wouldn’t dare listen to while he’s still here. Poems that trailed off, half-thought out lyrics written here and there. The occasional poorly drawn picture, and… photos. Lots and lots of photos. Some in a file labelled “Never forget.” Others labelled in a file called “Never forgive.” The former was full of pictures of… them. Shintaro, and her, and… and Ayano, and Haruka, their faces ones she hadn’t even realised she had begun to forget until this moment. Them in high school, their first meeting at the school festival, group projects and study groups, sleepovers and festival gatherings- their first day at ABIS, too. And, not just that. Pictures of Haruka drawing, of herself fiddling with the Evolver or a game she was practicing, Ayano hard at work on a test or humming while folding paper cranes- none of these were taken by Shintaro, she was certain, but he collected them all anyways. There were even more besides.

Some of a bright little girl with searing orange hair, the barest similarities to Shintaro in her face and the strongest in her eyes (he had mentioned a little sister, didn’t he?), others of that bright girl next to him and a woman that looked older than both but even more similar, even older ones of a young boy and girl that could only be those two standing hand in hand with that same woman and an older man. Pictures of a cute white rabbit (Tounou, wasn’t that her name?), of the old man, and of old and familiar places. Their school, that bridge, even the one game convention they all attended.

She… didn't know how she felt about it. Leaving that, she opened up the other file, and found… pictures of that place. As it was before the explosion, and as it was after. Documents detailing changes, listing occupants and suspects and those connected to the members they captured, pictures of them with friends and family, all connected together by a metaphorical red string in the document that centres around one simple question: Where are they?

She… really didn't know how she felt about it. He hadn't let go or moved on, he hadn't been wallowing- he was on just as much of a Quest as she had been. As she still could be. Closing the file, she looks through the camera at her kouhai's slumped form, thoughts running through her mind…

…

He left the building bright and early the next day, once again holding tightly onto the new phone. And once again, the two of them found themselves returning to their old workplace. She wasn't certain of what he was here for, but she could guess. As he made his way out of the elevator and towards the old man's so-called lab, the Psync Room, she felt even more certain of her prediction.

And eventually, standing in front of the jacketless boy, was the old goat she had once called teacher, looking just as rumpled as yesterday but at least clad in his lab coat. And in his hand, as expected, was the small orb filled to the brim with cybernetics. He began to explain what exactly was in his hand, an AI-Ball he called it (the shitty punster he is), and started rattling off features like different vision wavelengths, internet access, and most notably, an AI companion to keep him company.

This piqued her attention the most. Someone to stand by his side and help him out, to protect him as he tries to protect others. A partner… and one that can't die, by virtue of their existence being backed up on the so-called Wadjet System. To her, it sounded like…

An opportunity.

As the old man rambled on, she tried to feel out the AI-Ball. For such a supposedly high-tech piece of equipment, it felt rather… undefended, from threats such as her. Then again, she doubts anyone could've expected a sapient AI to be floating about. Or maybe they'll add some better antivirus later… hopefully. Pushing through some gaps in the firewall, she found herself in the core of the device. Looking this way and that, she tried to familiarize herself with her new housing. Looked like audio was here, here was video, here was… AR projection? And… a neural link, a gel formation, a shock response, and- a self-destruct??

Before she could really parse through all that (seriously, why so many abilities??), she found herself stumbling on… well, what she should have expected, really. An AI, young and unassuming. And asleep. It lacked an appearance in this digital world, merely a bundle of code vaguely shaped like a person. If she was going to do what she had to do, then she had to… get rid of it. There was no way she could hold control while the AI this body was made for was running around too, but… well, it felt a bit like murder to her. But that was silly, this wasn't a person, just an AI, with no life to speak of, and no memories either (she steadfastly ignored the stupid, stupid old man's remarks that the AI-Ball would grow alongside him to become his perfect partner).

She had to do it. She had to. For Shintaro. For Ayano. For Haruka. And maybe even a little bit for herself, too. She raised her hands and stepped toward the nameless AI, preparing to unravel the lines of code holding it together, preparing to scatter its 1's and 0's into the Cloud, preparing to deprive it of the chance to become its own person- and stopped. She- she couldn't. She just- she was callous but not cruel, the last year hadn't changed that. It had made her energetic in a way she never could consistently be in a body but tired in a way that was deeper than her bones, but it hadn't made her a murderer.

But still she had to- to do something. Maybe, maybe they could share, or-

"Well, go ahead and put her in, Shintaro."

And then suddenly the neural link was being opened and the AI was opening its eyes, slowly generating an appearance just from the barest hints of Shintaro's psyche, body becoming more defined, hair appearing and growing long, down to the waist, and-

She panicked. She reached out with her hand and pulled, binding and zipping the core of the AI down as she hurried, ignoring the voiceless cry as she reached out with her other hand, grabbing the neural link and-

Then she was twisting and writhing, her body being compressed and stretched out, information not native to her forcing its way in, connections to something beyond, a Mother that was not her mother, her form changing, blue becoming white and she could hear him, his thoughts, feel his sorrow, his confusion, his annoyance, his apathy, and she opens her mouth to scream-

And then it all faded away, assimilated with her, and she felt different, but she still felt like herself, and she opened her eyes and looked out through a single eye, taller than she had ever been (silently, an eye coloured #fa3c3e shifted to a hue constantly transitioning from #55edfe to #0e2652), and-

"I can… see. Thanks, old man."

"Oi! I already told you, call me Boss! Hell, I'll even accept you calling me by name, anything's better than old man!"

"Mm. So, what was that about an AI companion?"

"Eh? You can't hear her? Strange, maybe she's a bit shyer than I expected. Let me just-"

The old goat made motions towards the AI-Ball, and she quivered, she had to do something, else he'd see that she isn't meant to be here, but what could she- oh, duh!

"I-it's nothing to worry about! Sorry!"

"Eh?"

Her kouhai looked this way and that, scratching his head. He almost looked scared.

"Did… you hear something, old man?"

"…no? Oh, is that the AI-Ball?"

"Yep yep, that's me!" She tried to centre herself, she needed to land a good introduction so they don't suspect a thing. Briefly, her mind recalled a conversation she and her best friend had about this dense bastard, and decided to follow through in her unspoken plea. "Super cute cybergirl AI companion Ene, at your service, Ma-su-tah~"

Alright, maybe that was a bit much, but sue her! She was panicking, and needed to keep him off kilter!

"E-eh? Ene? Super cute?? Master??? Old man, what the hell kind of AI did you stick in my head!?"

The old goat raised his hands in defence. "Hey, I didn't do anything. The AI-Ball determines its personality based on what's best for you. Is there something you need to tell me, young man…?" He raised a brow mockingly, barely suppressing a gross smirk.

Her… guh, Master blushed red, shaking his head frantically. "N-no! And- and it's barely even been few minutes, how could she know what's best for me!?"

He shrugged. "That's just her opinion. Maybe you'll feel more comfortable with it in a few months."

"A few months!?" Her Master went bug-eyed. Pfft, if only she could see his face… "Hell no, get this thing outta me!"

"Aw, Master, that's so mean… sniff sniff… am I really so deplorable?" To try and strike it home, she used the AR projection feature, placing an image of her newly reformed cyberself before him, now detachable sleeves covering her face as she shakes and shivers. After all, this guy…

"Guh… f-fine."

Was an absolute pushover.

"Alright, that's great to hear brat! Now get out of here, I'm busy. I'll be seeing you here next week for you to resume your apprenticeship, so make sure to send me any emails if any issues pop up with her."

With his piece said, he turns back to the rows of computers, completely ignoring Shintaro. Her Master, still shaking off his flush, turns away and grumbles. As he stalks his way down to the elevator, Ene felt out his being, the rush of thoughts on her, on Kejirou, on the past, on the future, all blended together with his embarrassment, his frustration, his exhaustion- it was all rather dizzying to her. Maybe if she were truly an AI, designed for this sort of relationship, it wouldn't be so hard. Silently, she tried to mute the connection, grunting when she saw that wasn't an option.

As he entered the elevator, he slumped against the back wall, riding it up to the ground floor. He's silent, so she is too, not really sure what to do.

"Hey, Ene."

She jumps. That wasn't ever a thing she expected him to call her.

"Yes, Master?"

He winces, but shakes it off. He stands silent for one beat, two, three, and she almost thinks he's ignoring her before he continues.

"…let's get along."

Ene stared blankly. That was… probably the most polite he had ever treated her. She smacked her face- now wasn't the time. Make a good first impression. Even so, she couldn't help the way her voice softened a bit as she said her first genuine sentence as Ene instead of as the ghost of Takane Enomoto.

"…yeah. Let's get along… Master."

[sins-of-the-sea]

//I often fear my characters will feel too samey, so to differentiate the artists among the Crew:

Guy is the painter, and he mostly does life drawings and portraits. If you ask him to paint a house, or recreate a battle at sea, it'll surely look very sloppy. His mixed media skills skills are the broadest, capable of using charcoal, pastels, and so forth.

Phoebus is almost solely a sculptor, and doesn't have a good grasp of color, so his projects will always remain uncolored. At current he has difficulty sculpting women (due to lack of access to them for study, and it's not like he'll ask Abena to model for him), but he can sculpt anyone with uncanny accuracy. He can also sculpt "tiny things" but please don't ask him to sculpt terrifying things like Adam does.

Frascona refuses to get any better than just loose pencil sketches, as his artistry is almost entirely for that of archival/research purposes (to go with how he wanted to be a naturalist). Of the three, he is the only one, if you ask him, who can draw a house, an action scene, any animal or plant he comes across, and so forth. It'll just be loose and fluid. Like Phoebus, he can't color, however.

I guess Abena counts here because dollmaking is an art in itself, but she works with just fabrics and assorted materials like straw and sticks. The dolls seldom get any fancier or detailed than cute little poppets. She can't draw for shit.

Don't ask Rashid, Ruixiong, and Giovanni to draw, they can barely make stick figures.

[happylandfill23]

well howdy there partner! *tips tiny pink sparkly cowboy hat from party city*

i'm tumblr user happylandfill23 and this is my blog on tumblr dot com!! here's an intro post so you get to know me a bit :]

first things first, you can call me ember (or by my url that works too) and you can refer to me with any pronouns!

i use a couple tags to sort my posts, so i'll explain them here -

[#styrofoamm] - my art tag! this is where all my drawings are so you can check those out if you want!! (this blog was originally supposed to be dedicated to just my art but look where we are now)

[#landfill rambles] - the tag where i just kinda. say stuff. doesn't even make sense sometimes but i just kinda talk or ramble there, yknow get my thoughts out (even if my thoughts are just ham cheese sandwich)

[#cyberdevils] - anything related to cyberdevils, a band i created! there are a few other tags related to this one, those being [#pixie pereira] for the band's singer/guitarist, [#ace calix] for the band's drummer, and [#shags] for the band's bassist (no that's not her real full name btw). oh there's also [#cosmo pereira] who's pixie's younger brother, [#gloria nguyen] for shags' girlfriend, [#shagloria] which is shags and gloria's ship name, and probably even more once i add more characters and lore!!

[#cool art !] - any art i reblog that isn't mine! i forget to tag things on occasion but i can assure you if you scroll through this tag on my blog it will take years upon years to reach the bottom

[#q] - the posts in my queue, nothing much else to say about that one lol

i have 5 other blogs if u wanna follow me there as well -

@styrofoamm - my art blog! this is mostly for archival purposes, but it has all my art reblogged to it and u can follow me there if u wanna see my art or if u like my drawings but think i'm intolerable lol

@ask-cyberdevils - my cyberdevils ask blog! you can ask anything about them and i'll draw a response (unless it's a question to me specifically, which you can certainly ask as well)

@gu1t4rf41ry - pixie pereira (cyberdevils)'s blog

@acexofxspades - ace calix (cyberdevils)'s blog

@shags-shags - shags (cyberdevils)'s blog

i'm not gonna go super in detail about what i like, but you'll probably see me post a lot about gorillaz, blur, nimona, julie (band), mars argo, the owl house, nirvana, ppg, daria, manic street preachers, and several other things i'm not gonna bother listing lmao

feel free to shoot me an ask whenever you want!! i love interacting with y'all and it means a lot even if I don't respond <33

and as i mentioned earlier, you can also send me asks on my second blog, @ask-cyberdevils (PLEASE)

you can also find me over on youtube! i mostly post covers and speedpaints, you can find my channel here :D

idk what else to say here so i hope you decide to stick around!! <3

[storyspinner91]

Chapter 1: Through the Fire and Wind

Summary: On the planet of Tir Asleen, on the outskirts of Union's hegemonic benevolence, best friends Kit Tanthalos and Jade Claymore are staring down an uncertain future - and a decision that will change their lives forever.

[This is an old chapter, I'm reposting it here for archival purposes!]

I wanted to repost links to my old chapters as I keep working on the next one, partly as a break/distraction and partly because if I'm going to keep a tumblr for this project I feel I should be complete about it. So here's a link for the first chapter! In an attempt to give these a little more purpose I'm also gonna talk a tiny bit about the process of writing it.

As I think I said elsewhere, I basically started this fic like I was possessed; I outlined the broad strokes and then wrote this chapter in (I'm pretty sure) one fell swoop of like 4 hours far too late at night. It was fairly easy to write because it's mostly a rework of ep. 1 of Willow; this is an adaptation that departs eventually from its source material, not a 100% original fic, and at the start I was playing with how closely I could stick to the original plot beats and dialogue of the show as I found my feet.

Also, I just love that we meet Kit and Jade swordfighting, and making them have a mech practice/paintball fight felt like a great way to establish the world and some of the fantasy-analogues very, very quickly. It also helps me point up one of the fun things about this kind of mech fiction for people who might not be as familiar: in Lancer, pilots (players) modify their mechs extensively, so each giant robot becomes a sort of expression of their personality/approach to fighting or life. So we have Kit's mech, Freedom, which is fast, agile, and expends huge amounts of power in flashy ways, and Jade's, Duty, which is slower, more heavily armored, carefully managed. I hope it helps set expectations for what readers will see in the future!

This is (I think) about the only chapter where I do the fanfic thing of "We've all seen Willow, right? I don't have to totally rewrite that scene in the banquet? Cool." :P

One thing that did surprise me about this chapter - and emerged organically as I wrote - was how much more high-intensity the confrontation between Kit and Jade became at the end. I'm not sure where that came from, exactly, though I think part of it is the idea that in a far-future world with very advanced surveillance technology, Kit's plan is way less likely to actually work for her. So Jade's not only in conflict with her over ideas (should she do this) but because she's concerned for Kit's actual safety.

The Oh Hellos song that corresponds with this chapter is On the Mountain Tall. At the start of this project I was pulling on the songs more for lyric inspiration than anything else, but the song does touch on things that are relevant to the chapter: the intertwining of love and fear, and the sense that something unstoppable has been set in motion. It's the start of the cycle, after all... In hindsight, I'm also very happy that the song hints that some of the drama/violence/oppression happening now is a result of the past:

Still the wild wind blows Up out of the grave of an angry ghost Firing bricks from broken canon and prose To build a wall so high it reaches the heavens in the sky

(Though fun fact: I realized only later that I'd 100% misheard the lyric in the title, and it should be "Though the fire and wind." Oh well.)

Anyway! Too long a ramble for a chapter I posted in March, but it's the first one. Will keep posting backup chapters as I take breaks. Feel free to ignore them!

[octyfish]

Hey, it’s been awhile, huh?

Some of you may vaguely remember me talking about restructuring the blog back in March of last year (yikes, has it been that long already?), only for not much to really happen. Newer posts popped up on the blog after that as well. What happened?

Well, it’s still happening. Today, in fact as I finally have a free day to sit down and do everything in one go. It’ll just be happening in a different way from what was originally planned.

I’m putting the rest of this under a read more for those who want to skip on the more long-winded explanation. If you’re still here, hi and thanks for reading on.

Like I mentioned above, my original post that talked about restructuring things was made in March of 2021. I obviously never intended for it to drag on for so long, but life gets in the way and honestly I was still unsure what I wanted to do.

In the original post I said that this would be remaining a fnaf-oriented ask blog, just essentially wiped clean and rebooted. This is no longer what I want to do.

When I first was trying to decide what to do with this blog. Should it remain and ask blog or just shift to a more personal one? I thought I would be able to do a reboot of the blog, but the past year has helped to shift my perspective.

I’ve never been a fast artist and I’ve really only slowed down over time. I also have found that I prefer to fill a more “creative support” role and like to help with other peoples’ projects versus helming one of my own. I still have my own ideas and things, but sometimes I have trouble fully forming them so they often stay in my head.

The other reason I’m turning this account into a personal blog instead of making a personal sideblog, is that I’m just bad at making and using sideblogs. You may have seen me over the years accidentally post something meant for a sideblog here or vice versa if you follow one of the side accounts. I am terrible about checking which blog I’m posting to before hitting post. So, to just make it easier for myself why not make the default account a personal one where I can put whatever I want without having to worry about it? Easy. (I also already have side blogs tied to this account, so it’s easier to just make this a personal blog instead of deleting it entirely and having to start over and re-tie the new account to older projects).

So personal blog? Cool, cool. What happens to the old art here and the art on your current art sideblog? Well, as for this account most of the old stuff is getting archived. All ask art has been mostly archived already on a personal external drive. Some posts may stay, mostly older posts that still make me giggle, or older art from others that I reblogged and still enjoy. Some of my own older art that wasn’t explicitly tied to an ask may also stay, but I’m leaving that up to my discretion if it should be kept up or not. More recent art, like last year’s fnaf ar collab will remain up since it’s recent and I want people to still be able to see everyone’s hard work.

As for the art blog, my art will be archived, posts will be reblogged here for cohesion purposes, and then the art blog will be deleted. Since this one is becoming my main blog, having a secondary art blog feels redundant to me. It could be for purely art reblogs, but that’s not how I work. Plus, I want my art blog’s username to become this blog’s new username, soooo it’s gotta go. A post about this will also go up on the art blog at some point, although it’ll be slightly different.

Sorry for being so dormant about this for so long, and sorry if the changes aren’t what you wanted. If you feel like now’s a good time to unfollow go ahead, thanks for sticking around with this blog for however long you may have done so. If you’re going to stick around for the changes, again, thank you. Thanks for putting up with my slow post speed and long periods of dormancy, and thanks for just sticking around as we head into these changes. Hopefully, this shift will bring in a more active blog in 2023.

Thanks again

-Octy

[xiiisun]

doobles

[i-prefer-base-twelve]

All the prompts for @forduary are great which obviously means I ignored them

Here's a little vignette on the Stan O' War II! Most days at sea, Stan drifted awake to the gentle rocking of the boat, maybe some distant calls of birds. It was nice. Slow and peaceful.

Today, though, the booming voice of his asshole brother slammed into his consciousness like a tsunami:

"Oh, what shall we do with a drunken sailor, What shall we do with a drunken sailor, What shall we do with a drunken sailor, Ear-lie in the morning?..."

Singing at the top of his goddamn lungs.

Accompanied by banging and clattering and stomping. On beat.

Stan groans expressively and wraps his pillow around his ears. Ford knows Stan's hung over; he's doing this on purpose. There's no other explanation for it. Ford doesn't normally... any of this.

"Put him in the backseat of the lunar rover," BANG, "Put him in the backseat of the lunar rover," SLAM, "Put him in the backseat of the lunar rover," BANG, "Ear-lie in the morning!"

"Those aren't even the words!"

"They were in Dimension 73! Weigh-hey, and UP!--" whacking Stan with a pillow-- "she rises," "Weigh-hey, and UP! she rises..."

"I shoulda left you in the portal," Stan grouses, grabbing the pillow before he can strike again.

Ford relinquishes it easily, laughing--which is almost more annoying than the singing--and exclaims, "Up and at em, Stanley! Coffee's ready!"

"All right, all right, I'm up, fuck's sake." Stan sits up and grabs the edge of the bunk as the room spins. Oof. "How come you aren't hung over?" He complains. "Don't tell me you weren't really drinking last night."

In response, a pill bottle thwacks against his chest. Stan puts on his glasses and squints at it; the label's printed in some goddamn alien writing. Figures.

"Give him two pills and a glass of water, Give him two pills and a glass of water..."

"What is with you today?" Sure, his memory's got some fuzzy patches, but he can't remember ever seeing Ford like this. As a kid, Ford had been happy, sure, got excited just like anyone, but he always gave the impression he was holding back. Before Weirdmaggedon he was mostly things like determined, grim, angry, terrified... even these past three months on the boat, Ford had seemed more content than anything else. But today Ford is downright jaunty.

"Do you remember why we were celebrating last night?" Ford doesn't give him time to try. "Today's the day, Stanley! We're right over the epicenter now. It's only a matter of time before we discover what's causing those readings. Our first chance to do some real science!"

Ford claps him on the back just as he's lifted the water glass to his face. It sloshes all over his undershirt. Stan gives him a look that would wither silk flowers; Ford gleefully ignores it.

"You do science all the damn time," Stan grumbles. "And you don't sing about it."

Ford's smile fades and he cocks his head, puzzled. "Well, yes, but..." as he fumbles for words, Stan has a sinking feeling that he's about to get whacked with a particularly painful clue stick.

Sure enough, rather than finishing his sentence, Ford looks at him sadly for a second, turns his back, and pours a mug of coffee.

Stan winces as memories of that look come back to him: a childhood pattern of Ford being excited about nerd stuff and Stan blowing him off. Course, Ford did the same when Stan talked about football... but now that Stan's older and wiser and better at reading body language, he can see that it's not the same.

With his back still to Stan, Ford says, in a suspiciously normal voice, "In the portal, everything I learned, everything I built, was for the express purpose of defeating Bill. It's been a long time since I've done science for the sheer thrill of it. And to have you with me for it... I never thought I'd see the day."

Stan snorts. He can't help it; writing numbers in columns is not his idea of thrilling. But his head is clearing enough to get the message: Ford's not excited about the nerd shit. Well, he is, but what's got him so giddy he's singing sea shanties is... that Stan is here with him.

Stan scoots off the bunk and stands up--not only is his headache gone, but nothing is even stiff or sore. Damn, those are some pills!--and goes to put a hand on Ford's shoulder. When Ford turns, Stan cracks a huge grin and yanks the coffee mug from Ford's hands.

"Hey--!"

Stan shotguns the entire contents and slams the mug down on the counter. "Well?" He asks. "What are we sittin' around down here for? We're burnin' daylight."

Ford smiles at him. It's a fond, gentle smile, the kind he reserves for Stan and the kids. "You should eat something first."

Before Stan can react to this uncomfortably considerate statement, Ford follows it with, "Otherwise those pills will turn your stomach acid into formaldehyde."

Stan rolls his eyes and starts heating the frying pan. "And for a second there I thought you were concerned about my welfare."

They both laugh. Because nothing could be more obviously true.