#the middle drawings were the most sketchy

[shepspencil]

rodent moments / October-November 2023

I've been meaning to post these for awhile.

A couple months ago, I was shown @kicktwine 's Lalafell designs (check these three posts! i love them very much), and I thought it was a really delightful look.

I love the interpretation, especially given how fun Lalafell lore can be (🤝 the "adaptable desert mammal" spin), and I just had to draw my Boy™ like this.

So here's Anri, looking a lot mousier than usual.

[inbarfink]

After all these years, ‘I Remember You’ is still one of the great highlights of Adventure Time Storytelling. And not just in the basic ‘what???? Silly children’s cartoon does something SAD??? HOLY SHIT MIND BLOWN’ way. But with the execution of that Something Sad. How it manages to pack so many Complex Emotions into just 11-minutes of television. And especially the way it utilizes the basic Adventure Time format for that purpose.

So Adventure Time is a Board-based show. Each episode has an outline pitched and written down by the writer’s room, and then this outline goes to a team of (usually) two Storyboard Artists who develop that simple outline into a full story. And with the show’s art-style deliberately eschewing staying perfectly ‘on-model’ in favor of having the animators take direct reference from how the different storyboarders draw the characters

And the show being generally extremely versatile in terms of themes and tone - AT has allowed a lot of their Storyboarders to really express themselves and their unique artistic vision as part of the Big Collaborative Narrative that is Adventure Time. 

Now, the Boarders who worked on ‘I Remember You’ are Cole Sanchez and Rebecca Sugar. These two were a Storyboarding Duo from the start of S4 and until Sugar left the AT Crew during S5, and they always struck me as a curious combination. I think really from all of the individual boarders working on AT during that time, these two really are the closest to having like… Totally Opposite Artistic Sensibilities as boarders. 

With Sugar favoring a style that is very loose and sketchy and also very rounded. Focusing on expressions and subtle body language and lighting. And being famous for going deep in depth into Big Moments of Emotional Catharsis

And Sanchez having a very clear art style that emphasizes strong silhouettes and clear lines that suggest flatness. Focusing more on major poses and the character’s positions in the space. And having just a really great eye for AT’s brand of silly humor.

Like, I almost kinda suspect these two were paired together so they can each cover for the other’s “weakspots” in writing ‘Adventure Time’. 

And there were a few episodes that did some really interesting stuff with this very contrasting pair - ‘Jake the Dog’ is another example. Giving most of the Farmworld scenes to Sugar and most of the Time Room scenes to Sanchez both plays to their personal strengths as storyboarders and helps to emphasize the strong emotional contrast between these two scenarios. 

And ‘I Remember You’ is actually kinda unique among Adventure Time episodes cause… Most episodes will have the two boarders alternate between working on the episode throughout it. Like you’d have Boarder A draw a bit and then Boarder B and then Boarder A again… But “I Remember You” is divided between Sanchez and Sugar… basically perfectly in the middle.

So the entirety of the first half of the episode was boarded by Sanchez

Until Ice King pushes Marceline and then leaves the room in shame.

And then, Sugar takes over.

And, like, even if you don’t know anything about the Behind the Scenes of Adventure Time or who Cole Sanchez and Rebecca Sugar even are - the Shift is noticeable. The shift in tone, in narrative focus, in the subtleties in which the characters are drawn. 

The entire first half of the episode has this thin veneer of just being a Silly Goofy Ice King Episode. Sanchez’s talent for Adventure Time’s brand of comedy is on full display… but there is also this underlying feeling that Something is Happening just under the surface. And these hints of the Big Emotions of ‘IRY’ expressed via Sanchez’s kinda goofy style really create this balance between putting the audience into a false sense of security that this is just a Very Normal Episode about two characters hanging out and the Tension constantly brewing in the subtext. 

And then it all comes to a blow.

And then the Shift happens. And now we are in Sugar’s court.

And this subtle shift in the artstyle and storytelling also coincide with Marceline finally openly expressing her feelings and the Reveal of Simon and Marcy's shared past. The episode changes focus from Ice King's silly antics to Marceline's feelings. Everything changes, everything in the first part of the episode gets recontextualized and... even on the most basic level, the episode is now Noticeably Different.

I would almost say that Sanchez’s half of the episode has Ice King define the tone, while Sugar’s half of the episode has Marceline define the tone. But more than anything it’s the catharsis. The reveal and release of those emotions that were building up so expertly through the Sanchez half of the episode. All of the Sugar-boarded scenes in this episode are really heartbreaking on their own, just through the tragedy of the story and Sugar’s expert knowledge of howto convey emotion in the visual medium - but it’s so enchanted by what came before it.

“I Remember You” is truly a great testament to how ‘Adventure Time’ could use every aspect of its medium to tell a great story in such a short time.

[deafenedsaltwater]

animaticlock ..

The main focus of this & most of the 19 hours 25 minutes WERE spent on Pen, but I still did a bit. Cameo for one-sided Exclamatic where Exclamation Mark thinks Anim's flirting when they very much aren't.

Did do the middle doodle of just simple affections, I alwayys love some AnimatiClock. But whenever I make new AnimatiClock content, I'll usually edit that one post of mine as a sort of AnimatiClock art master post.

Would recommend to those who haven't seen it yet. Kind of proud of some of those scrimbles

Pen by herself, and the text by itself if anyone wants to read my weird filler. Couldn't choose between a wanted poster to match her vibe and a diagonal newspaper clipping, so I mashed the two ideas together as best I could

Penelope is a redesign of the Bee character I had in ASAOP. Thus, the multiple arms. I was also going to give them multiple eyes, and I even sketched it out, but it didn't look quite right

As to why I changed them,,

1. It didn't make sense to have a Bee (insect) in an object world

2. I was basing them too much off my friend Bee. And I know our relationship won't last forever, so I don't want another oc tied to them

For that same reason, I'll probably be changing Cadell into something else. Suggestions are appreciated for how I can change them/what object they could be if I change that aspect

I could always scrap Cadell as a whole and focus on the others in the cast. I would have to rewrite a lot of the story details, but it would leave room for Penelope to be the main character.

Polls are fun, so I could make another one, but my reach isn't that far, so I don't think I will

Random Animatic doodle from a while back, I already posted but might've deleted. I'm not going to check,, I'm just going to assume I DID delete it because you can't make a draft of an Answer

I just like drawing Animatic because I can keep it sketchy and not worry about cleaning it up at all because that's how I would actually do it if I was an animator in any capacity

[sharpbutsoft]

So I know you do digital art, but The Hanged fireMan looks like a watercolor. Do you work with watercolors as well, or is it the program you use?

(please brag about your art process, basically)

Yeah! So I do all my (fan)art in everyone’s favourite innuendo of an art program, Procreate. (Specifically on a 2019 ipad pro with a 1st gen Apple Pencil, both of which I would tentatively recommend if you can get them 2nd hand for less than 200euro like I did)

I did a lot of painting as a teenager, and still paint often to this day. Though I mostly worked in acrylics, I have been known to use watercolours (like, when I was in college I bought a little 3euro paint set and would use the inside of cardboard cereal boxes as diy watercolour paper and paint wild little Irish landscapes… and Winter Soldier fan art, sometimes. 2017 was a different world)

So in summary - I ‘paint’ digitally using some very traditional techniques I picked up over the years, and I kinda prefer digital art now, which I will elaborate on below the cut as I detail how I created The Hanged fireMan…

I’ll start with my favourite digital art ‘cheat’ which is that I use So Many Layers. Like seriously, pretty much every new colour goes on its own layer because I am a control freak and love being able to tweak them all as needed. So for this relatively simplistic piece, I’ve still got something like 20 layers all together.

I’m also usually better at grouping layers but in this one I gave up at some point and it felt dishonest to group them nicely before showing you guys lol

So yeah layers is my biggest hack, but the other is using specific texture brushes

I spent a while playing around with various brushes before finding this Tarraleah one which has just the most delicious watercolour-y texture and a really fun edge to it (and it’s got pressure sensitivity, so I can really control the amount of colour I want to put down on the page)

This background was painted entirely with the 1 brush & colour, and I think it turned out pretty cool. For this particular piece I did have a reference on screen to work off for the most part, but those clouded were just painted with my heart

Next (or maybe before, it’s a while sinceI drew this and sometimes I mix it up) is the lines, which are always done with my best friend, the Procreate Pencil!! I love her, she’s so fuzzy and textured and also if you tilt the tip on the pencil you get a broader line (like with a real pencil) which is just the coolest thing!

When it comes to lines I just sort of go for bigger shapes 1st and details later, and basically always with some kind of reference. I also use a very old & well known trick of putting the most detail into the object of most importance, and leaving the background more loose and vibey

Artists will tell you that this is to draw focus with details. Artists are lying. It’s cause we got lazy after drawing he fun part & phoned the rest of it in lol (I know this because I am an artist)

Also I love this pencil because I don’t have very steady hands and I actually cannot draw straight/smooth lines to save my life! If you’ve ever seen anything resembling a smooth line in something I’ve drawn, it is almost certainly a whole bunch of lines over each other and then erased at the edges to make it look neater

But who needs straight lines when sketchy sketch lines are so fun!

Next is flat colours (the 3layers in the middle with check marks beside them)

I used the same colours as the background, which you can tell from where they completely blend together right down the bottom, and what I genuinely do is use the Tarraleah brush to generally block out he shape, and then go back in with an eraser and smooth out the lines

Why do I do this? …good question

Next is one of my favourite parts, which is adding the lights! Procreate has some really fun -glowy- layer effects - my favourite is probably Add (A) though Colour Burn (CB) is great too for its vibrancy.

Also those 2 layer 11s are there because I duplicated one and then used the ‘Gaussian Blur’ feature to ‘fuzzify’ it (yes, that’s the technical term) It’s a pretty quick and easy way to add a more diffused light effect around something. (I did the same for the yellow reflective strips on the turnouts too!)

Last step now! So full disclosure - I absolutely traced that writing from a photo of a tarot card lol. I actually always trace writing, as, much like drawing straight lines, I’m bad at handwriting on a screen

I also stumbled upon the Exclusion (E) effect by accident - Originally it was going to be a plain cream boarder like a traditional tarot card had, but I wasn’t fully happy with it, so I just flipped through a few layer effects and as soon as I got to this one, I knew it was the right choice

I love the dreamy contrast of the pinks and purples to the dark navy and grey & how it makes everything looks kinda unreal and outer-spacey

And yeah that’s about it! Everything else comes from my 15+ years of Practical Art Knowledge but these are the specifics of how I utilise it digitally!

This was a lot of fun to write out, and I hope that if you’ve made it all the way here, it was fun to read too!

[tanblaque]

Hey question why do you draw Vader eloha with a grunt face from madness combat

I promise I've never seen Madness Combat back then in 2017, and looking at her sprites, it had a sketchy and drawing feel to it.

HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD

I had a headcanon before. In game at The Room level, we'll notice a trend of sketchy child-like drawings, I strongly assumed a lot of these were drawn by Hugo while he was locked up in his room.

It is implied that Hugo associated his father to Ballman from the comic book he was reading, and so he made The Batter how he is. The Queen seems to be a representation of his mother.

At some point in the story she wasn't present in his life and his father was the only one who tended to him.

"Your mother? Don't worry she'll come back soon. She's just off to see the new world." - Dedan

When The Queen finally appears in game, she doesn't have a face. I could only assume that she was gone for a really long period that Hugo doesn't remember how she looks like anymore.

My design choice was Hugo attempting to draw his mother, with a cross in the middle, like how most artists would construct a face, but he would fail to completely finish it, leaving it blank. I also added the cross in the center so that her face would have some depth when I turn her head in animation, just so you can see the volume.

I'm gonna stick to this design choice for now, but I'm not too strict when I draw The Queen or The Batter as they sometimes have faces and not in my art depending on the mood. 😂

[gillie266]

Yeein' On That 'Haw Ch. 1-- Private Property

Remember that old movie from the late 90s about those weird film students who wandered into the woods like idiots looking for a witch? And the two guys totally took advantage of that to kill that girl dead? I think it was ‘the blunt witch project’ or something like that. That’s probably not it. That sounds like a sketchy old lady weed dealer. Blunt Witch. Maybe once I finally retire to the middle of bumfuck nowhere and wind up living in an alley somewhere I should start a weed-dealing business and call it Blunt Witch. Man, local businesses should hire me. 

Well, maybe if I wasn’t in the middle of the goddamn woods like those weird film students I would have had a better chance at getting hired for my clearly genius business ideas. It was kinda gross in the woods. I kept getting bitten by mosquitos. It was wet and sticky everywhere I went! Even the bush I dove into after seeing a grasshopper was moist! 

The mosquitos would probably have been less of a problem if it was fall or winter. But no, of course I had to go bigfoot-hunting at the beginning of spring, when the mosquitos were actively making more mosquitos. Don’t ask why I have an in-depth knowledge of when mosquitos fuck, you pick things up over the years. 

Microscopic mating aside, I was in the middle of the woods and I felt like I was going in circles. I kept seeing the same weirdly pink trees everywhere I went. Now that I think about it, why was the foliage around there pink? Maybe because they hadn’t shed their Valentine’s Day decorations yet. Whatever, not my problem. But yeah, I was absolutely going in circles. I know that because someone carved the word ‘crungus’ into a tree and I kept seeing it. Unless Little Billy was following me and carving the word ‘crungus’ into all of the trees while my back was turned. 

…Now that I think about it, that was definitely a possibility. Pint-sized prick. 

I had hardly noticed what time it was. The sun had just begun to set, casting a golden hue onto my surroundings. Once I did notice the time, I heaved an exasperated sigh. I would have to sleep in the woods again. Last time wasn’t fun. I still have the swan bite scars. I can’t believe they found me all the way out there… vengeful bastards. 

But there was no way I was getting back to town before nightfall at this rate. I had already been lost for hours, and it didn’t seem like I was making any progress. So I chose a different direction other than the one I had been walking in for hours straight to see if I could find a suitable clearing to hunker down for the night in. I probably passed like seven suitable clearings, but I was completely spaced out, if I’m being honest.  

The sun had sunk low in the sky before I finally snapped out of my half-conscious haze. There was a brief flicker of yellow in my vision. Civilization! Or a nuclear power plant. It was one of the two. I’d take anything at this point. 

I charged through the thinning trees, and when I finally breached the treeline, I was immensely disappointed. The yellow I saw was nothing more than a caution sign. Several caution signs, actually. Most bearing threatening warnings such as ‘I shoot on sight’ and ‘stay away.’ One was just a mediocre drawing of a piss-yellow shotgun plastered onto a tree. 

But there, amidst the slew of warning signs, was my saving grace. A shack. Hell yeah. The thing was covered in moss and mold and was probably infested with raccoons. It also had menacing, apocalypse-esque scrawlings along the walls and ceilings. One that stood out to me was ‘many eyes, always watching.’ People didn’t have eyes here– c’mon, mysterious sign-writer, get a grip. We have optical sensors here.

I shrugged. Hey, how bad could it be? This shack had probably been abandoned for decades now. There may have even been pre-dialup relics buried in there! I wasn’t gonna pass that up. 

The warning signs and paranoid writing were completely ignored as I approached the shack. The steps up to the porch creaked under my weight. As I closed the distance between myself and the shack’s front door, I could have sworn I heard panicked footsteps coming from inside the building. It’s probably the raccoons. I tried the handle. Locked. I prepared myself before ramming my shoulder full-force into the door. Dull pain echoed throughout my arm, stemming from my certainly now-bruised shoulder. Despite my relatively wimpy stature, I made a sizable dent in the wood. Okay, two more and I would be golden. And covered in splinters, but some sacrifices must be made. 

It was then that I heard something clattering on the floor from beyond the door. I briefly paused but shook off my confusion before slamming into the wood once more. I made a bit more progress but winced when I felt that pain again, pulling back and using my other hand to gently press down on my shoulder in an attempt to soothe it. 

Just as I was about to break down the door, a rather concerning sound made me freeze. Something that sounded awfully like the cocking of a shotgun. 

Oh, shit. 

I yelped as the door flung open with a force strong enough to crack loudly. The next thing I knew, I was staring down the barrel of a shotgun close enough to see the scratch marks on its frame. 

My adrenaline spiked, and I frantically ducked to the side, narrowly avoiding the bullet that fired from the firearm’s barrel. The motion caused me to stumble and bend my ankle, sending me crashing onto the rotting wood of the porch. On pure instinct, I turned my aching body and rolled about a foot to my left. And thank whoever was watching that I decided to do that, since another bullet fired a hole right in the wood where my head was not a second prior. 

As much as I’d like to say that I handled that situation like a badass and kicked my attacker in the nards… Well, that would be a bold-faced lie. Instead of that, I screamed like a complete and utter puss. My voice was muffled in my own sound-processors, and it was then that I noticed the high-pitched ringing. I should have expected that– there were two bullets fired right next to my sound-processors. And I have phone tinnitus.

I didn’t think I could dodge another bullet, so I defaulted to my second instinct: pleading for my life. My voice sounded foreign. It was terrified– animalistic, even. “Wait! Wait-wait! Hang on a second!” I lifted my hands to cover my head, pulling my knees upward in a desperate attempt to get some sort of protection. 

My attacker must have sympathized with my cowardice because they halted their shooting to listen to me. After a moment, I lowered my hands from my head to get a good look at this probably psychopath. 

He was tall. And I’m not just saying that because I was on the ground and looking up. This guy was probably a good few inches above six feet tall. The best thing I could compare his build to was a stereotypical plumber– he had that staple midlife crisis body. Round torso, beefy arms– all beneath an… astronaut training suit? Where the hell did this guy get an astronaut training suit? 

Not only that, but he had a paper bag over his head. With a sticky note plastered onto it. And the sticky note had a face drawn onto it. A pissed-off-looking face. I couldn’t help but question the logistics behind that. Did he always wear this pissy bag-face, or did he put that on when I showed up? 

And why was he wearing a cowboy hat? What was with this guy’s fashion sense? I really did feel like I was looking at a video game character. And he was pointing a shotgun at my head. Phone-gods, what a nightmare. Not phone-gods. Regular gods. This place was getting to me. 

But I had to take this opportunity. I tried not to let my confusion show in my body language and took a deep breath, swallowing the growing lump in my throat. I didn’t notice how much my hands were shaking. “Okay. Listen. I’m sorry for bashing your door in. But it was locked. I had to get in somehow.”

I sucked in a sharp breath when I felt the shotgun’s barrel press just above my dial. Then a slightly muffled, mildly annoyed voice emitted from beyond the paper bag. “This is private property, pardner. O’course the door would be locked.”

And he had a country accent? This guy checked all the boxes for a stereotypical yeehaw-man. I don’t know what I was expecting. 

I swallowed before responding to his clarification. “...Riiiight. Well, how was I supposed to know this was anything but an abandoned shack?” 

The yeehaw-man reached into his pocket, causing me to flinch instinctively when he took one of his hands off of the shotgun. He retrieved a different sticky note, which he used to replace the one that was already plastered onto the paper bag. This one had a different face drawn onto it– one that was less pissed, more annoyed. He used his hand to gesture widely at our surroundings. At the warning signs. At the huge yellow piece of paper pasted to the wall next to us that said in bright black letters ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY.’

I grimaced. 

He returned his attention to me, pressing the shotgun somehow harder above my dial. “Gimme one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot ya dead right ‘ere.” 

I hesitated. Honestly, I could hardly think of anything myself. If I were in his position, I would shoot me too. But I had to say something. “Uhh… because you would have to clean up my remains? And… it would be a waste of good ammunition?” 

The space cowboy froze, tilting his head slightly to the side as if scrutinizing my appearance. When he spoke again, his tone had softened slightly to something more inquisitive than murderous. “Huh. I suppose yer right.” 

I deflated in relief when he lowered his firearm, lifting it so he could hold it close to his chest. I laid there for a moment, still processing what had just happened, before performing a frustrated gesture with my arms. “Well, aren’t you going to help me up?”

His response was quick and straight to the point. “Absolutely not.”

“Alright, fair enough,” I groaned in discomfort as I pushed myself to my feet. Yep, he was definitely well above six feet tall. Scary bastard. We stood in silence for a moment while I brushed off the dirt-stained knees of my pants.

“Are you gon’ tell me why you decided it was a good idea t’ intrude on my private property?” The man before me broke the silence, inflection flat and… almost bored. 

I narrowed my metaphorical eyes at him, although I doubted he could see it, considering he had a bag on his head. Wait, how did he know where to aim with that gun of his? Did he have slits in the bag that I just hadn’t noticed? I shook off that question so I could effectively answer his. “Uh… well, to be honest, I was bigfoot hunting–”

“Bigfoot huntin’? That thing ain’t real, pardner.” His words were insistent. 

If I could frown, I would have at that moment. “You never know. Where do you think the tracks come from?” 

He swapped out his sticky note again for a more confused one. It was an… awkward pause in the conversation. “...Other animals. Maybe an escaped ape from th’ Dialtown zoo.”

“Animals don’t escape from the Dialtown zoo, man. Not since… the incident.” I shuddered. 

“Alright then, we agree. Bigfoot ain’t real. Continue.” His voice carried an air of finality that I didn’t feel like arguing with at the moment, so I simply sighed and moved on. 

“...But yeah, I got lost, and it eventually got too late to get back to town. So I was gonna look around for a nice little clearing to set up for the night in, and whaddya know! A shack.” I shrugged. “You can’t blame me for feeling relieved and wanting to get up in there, right?”

“Relieved ‘nough t’ ignore the signs tellin’ ya that I shoot on sight?” The yeehaw man asked flatly. I shrugged. “Well, yeah. I didn’t want to spend the night in a bush. You’d do the same thing.”

He sighed, removing one hand from his shotgun to lift it to his head, where he dragged his hand down the length of the paper bag. I furrowed my nonexistent brows at that. Normally people around here don’t do that since, well, they have technology for heads. 

“Well, now ya know that I’m not acceptin’ visitors. Or guests. Go on, git.” He returned both hands to his firearm, using it to gesture away from the area. I turned, appalled. “You can’t just kick me to the curb! Or… forest.” I paused before shaking my phone head in disbelief. “I’m desperate here, man. Let me stay here, just for the night.” 

All of a sudden, I was staring down the barrel of a shotgun once more. My optical sensors widened as my gaze flickered between certain death and the man before me. He spoke once more, his voice louder and more insistent. “I told ya t’ git. ‘Less ya feel like eatin’ some lead.” 

I visibly deflated. I had almost resigned myself to sleeping in a tree for the night. Almost. I slowly turned to leave, watching the man do the same, before pausing and turning back around. “Just one quick question.”

He audibly groaned and frustratedly turned back around to face me. “If I answer this question o’ yers, will ya leave me the hell alone?” 

I frantically nodded. I had to learn more about this guy. Maybe if I figured out a good talking point, I could eventually convince him to let me inside. “What’s with the bag?” 

I must have touched a nerve because he immediately tensed, his grip on the shotgun tightening to the point that his knuckles turned white. “And what in tarnation makes ya think I’d answer that question?” 

“...Because I’ll leave if you do?” My voice was quiet and inquiring. I knew I was toeing the line of being alive… and pumped full of lead. 

The cowboy-hat-wearing menace sighed reluctantly before answering in a low, hesitant voice. “I ‘ave a head. A regular head.”

I tilted my own, red rotary head. “Regular…?” 

He made a frustrated, helpless gesture with his hands. “That’s right, clueless trespasser. A regular head. One with a face. And eyes and ears n’ such.” 

What the fuck was he talking about? I hadn’t seen a real flesh-head since… well… a while ago. I didn’t think they existed anymore. I… can’t even remember her face. 

I fell into confused silence. He must have sensed my confusion, because he sighed heavily. “I answered yer question. Now git.” He pointed firmly over my shoulder. 

“Waaaaait…” I drawled, holding up a finger to shut him up. “You’re a normie? Living all the way out here? What for? I would have thought you would be a celebrity in Dialtown.” I paused, leaning forward curiously. “...You are from Dialtown, right?”

The man before me tentatively folded his arms, tucking the shotgun under his arm. “I was,” he mumbled indignantly. I gave an intrigued hum. “I see, I see, well, why don’t you tell me all about it.” I reached out to pat his arm, which he swiftly pulled away from. But he didn’t aim a firearm at my head this time. 

“C’monnn, you gotta be lonely out here, right? A little human interaction never hurt anyone.” I gestured to my scrawny form. “And if we’re being honest with ourselves, what harm can I do?” 

He stared at me. Okay, now I was getting a little nervous. This guy was a little more than threatening; he had the silhouette of a pear. A guy like that can make someone nervous. 

I heard a resigned sigh emanate from behind the bag. “Fine. Y’don’t talk, y’don’t touch anything, and y’ especially don’t touch me. If y’do, I’ll ensure that yer belly get’s chock full o’ lead.”

An excited squeak left my speaker as he turned to gesture toward the still-open door. I practically skipped inside and was… immediately disappointed. I don’t know what I was expecting from a dingy shack in the middle of the woods. It was cluttered, though not dirty, littered with old cigarette butts and crates full of non-perishables. There was a small shelf– if you could call it that– with a small collection of cowboy hats right next to a small, dust-stained cot. Again, what else could I have been expecting? 

The thing that grabbed my attention the most was the dartboard hung on the wall. Honestly, it was quite hilarious. It had a photo of Mayor Mingus taped to it. There were darts stuck in the board, most right on the photo’s face. 

“Man, someone really doesn’t like democratically elected representatives,” I said this knowing that Mingus was absolutely not elected democratically. It was so obvious that she rigged the ballot. But hey, what do I care?

“It’s not that,” the man said as he shut the door behind us, barring it with a long plank of wood that rested beside it. “She’s a goddamned, xenophobic varmint is what she is.” 

There was something about the pure hate in his voice that gave me pause. I turned to face him, folding my arms across my chest while he propped his shotgun up next to the door. “Xenophobic? I’ve heard a lot of things about Mayor Mingus, but that’s a first.” I tilted my head. “Care to explain, Mr…?” I made a vague gesture with my hand toward the man before me, prompting him to give me his name. 

“Sargent Norman G. Allen, pardner,” he shared his name with me after a brief hesitation. 

“That’s a mouthful. Can I call you Norm?” 

He tensed for a moment but ultimately sighed. “Fine.” He pointed an accusatory finger at me, and I leaned back slightly to counteract the movement. “But don’t get too used t’ it. Yer outta here by dawn.” 

“Hey! Don’t you wanna know my name?” I placed my hands on my hips as I watched Norm move across the room and toward a small counter across from me. 

“Not particularly,” he muttered. 

“(Y/N). Good to meet you, Norm.” I told him my name anyway. He had to refer to me somehow, and the whole ‘pardner’ thing was getting old real fast.

“...Right.” I wasn’t sure he had entirely processed what I had said. 

I shrugged, returning to my previous activity of looking around the room. I noticed the small table resting in the center of the room, and I pointed over my shoulder at it with my thumb. “Two chairs? I thought you didn’t accept guests.” I chuckled lightly. “Weren’t you going to tell me about your grudge toward the mayor?”

“It ain’t a–” Norm sighed before gesturing with an open palm toward the table. “It’s best if y’ take a seat. We’re gon’ be here a while.”

[birbinky]

A Silly Rambling Segment

@sonicranger1 well if you insist >:] (sorry for the @ tho I hope I wasn't disturbing you TvT)

I'll be info dumping about my silly ridonkculous story au thing I made when I was in 5th or 6th grade (a.k.a it's cringy) so read at your own will.

INTRODUCTION :

The story starts out with a human girl named Tiara. She shares her love for art and is a skilled artist. However she was struggling with finding a job she likes. Even though she can make money from her art, it's not like it'll be enough for her living expenses. She didn't want to be stuck with a boring office job, or meet sketchy individuals from behind the 24/7 convenience store cashier, or get a complaint that the pickles were suppose to be on the right side of the bun from a middle aged woman.

However one day she accidentally go transported into another world called Shaydeon (don't ask about the name, I used a name combiner tool on google to get that). The world was filled with anything you can imagine, literally. As long as it has been on paper or any art medium it can exist in this world.

THE HUMANS :

If you've ever made art with your full heart and passion, then in the world of Shaydeon you can be called a creator. They're usually artists like painters, illustrators, sculptors, etc.

THE PEOPLE :

The citizens of Shaydeon are essentially fictional characters and creatures that have been made by humans/creators. Rather than people they're usually called characters. They're born because of the care and love they get from their creators. They say the more attention you give them the more lively they get.

THE HEROES :

In this world there's a specific job that everyone always praised, that is being a Guardian. A character can enroll to a Guardian Academy and train themselves to become the next protectors of Shaydeon. In a way they're kinda like the army or police, just more flexible? However their number one enemy has always been the Corruptors.

THE MONSTERS :

Corruptors can be born in 2 ways (atleast from what I remember). They're either born from drawings that were made with hatred or drawings that were scrapped and thrown away. When they're born into the world of Shaydeon they'd attack any character and then feed off of them, or a saying that's popular in Shaydeon "corrupt them". Reason why is because inside they feel empty and incomplete. Their desire to feel loved urges them to feed on any character with the most love to fill that empty void.

THE MAIN CAST :

Like I said the story had 4 main characters. Originally they were Tiara, Molly, Cuphead and Bendy.

Tiara : The Human Girl

Cheery

Out-going

Curious

She's the golden retriever of the team and also plays the leader role. After finding out about Shaydeon she did not hesitate to explore more and end up training to be a Guardian herself. However at times she can find herself in a sticky situation cause of her lack of self-awareness and overwhelming curiosity.

And I hear you asking "what's up with the cat features then?" There are no lore related explanations for that....it was a phase okay :,D

Molly : The Moon Angel

Studious

Perfectionist

Goal-oriented

The nerd of the team a.k.a Molly. She wears a black dress, a black and white scarf around her shoulders, and a blue pendant around her neck. She also usually does her hair in pigtails.

She's very passionate when talking about her future of being a Guardian, being honored by characters from all around Shaydeon. She trains her agility, strength, and intelligence everyday, wanting to surpass all her peers and be the best. But that's what made her competitive and sometimes even think lowly of others around her.

She also likes baking, so yee :D

Bendy : The Ink Demon

Charming

Talkative

Nonchalant

Inky boy Bendy, as we all know. In this universe he's a popular performer or widely known as a beautiful singer. His outfit changed through time but he always wears his iconic white bow. He's very used to the fancy celebrity life that whenever he goes on a mission to defeat a corruptor he'd be the most scared one out of the four.

Not gonna lie, his motivation on why he wanted to be a Guardian was because he had a crush on Molly. Which at the time really made him look like a simp.

Cuphead : The... The Cup Man

Okay I'm not even gonna bother giving him key traits cause most of the time his story was just sad.

Instead of accidentally killing Mugman like Q!Cuphead, he accidentally killed grandaddy kettle cause of his recklessness, and that made Mugman leave him. News about a character killing his own kind spread and made people hoped he was a corrupter's next victim.

He turned to the Devil's casino cause no one else accepted him, which made his image worst. Because of this he never liked socializing with people and was scared to use his powers. He hated whoever created him and wished he could take everything back.

But after being a Guardian he did became more confident, alongside with Tiara's emotional support. Which lowkey made me liked the ship.

"It's not that I hate you, you're just a good candidate for unnecessary trauma" - Me at the age of 12

What Happened to the Story?

This story filled most of my childhood and has evolved through time. Some of the concepts and lore I've told has actually been scrapped and or rewritten.

I remember I wanted the remastered version to become an animated series one day. So I replaced Cuphead and Bendy with my own OCs.

Candlewick, which I've shown before

And Peter

I can definitely say they were far more developed. However I haven't finished the story due to burn out and lack of motivation. Which is why I haven't drawn my own OCs for a while.

So yee, have this remastered version of the Shaydeon gang to end this info dump post (Peter is not here cause I haven't gotten around to draw his remastered version yet)

[oddmawd]

The Most Coveted of Thrones (Part 1)

SYNOPSIS: All she wanted was to make a deal with a demon. The assholes at her office needed to pay, you see. But the pink-winged devil she just summoned hardly looks like a demon at all, and with a name like "Joker," it's hard to take little things like supernatural safety precautions seriously.

Alas, Joker is not a demon to be trifled with. Especially if you don't know his true name.

TAGS & CONTENT WARNINGS

PAIRING: Doflamingo x Original Female Character, Doflamingo x Reader (no names or descriptions are given, so reads like a third person reader-insert story)

RATING: This intro is PG-13, but the full fic on AO3 is Explicit, Mature, FOR ADULTS ONLY

WORD COUNT: 16.8k total

GENRE: Smut, Horror

FANDOM: One Piece (Alternate Universe - Modern Day Urban Fantasy)

TAGS: Monster F*cking, Monster P*rn, Demon F*cking, Demon Summoning, Demon Deals, Demon/Human Relationships, POV Third Person, Reader-Insert, Original Character(s)POV, Original Female Character, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Religious Guilt, Inhuman Anatomy, Seven Deadly Sins, Magic, Virginity

WARNINGS: Virginity discussions, implied workplace misogyny, DOFLAMINGO IS HIS OWN WARNING, this first part doesn’t need many warnings beyond “dealing with demons,” find the comprehensive tag list on AO3 (THERE ARE A LOT OF WARNINGS FOR THE FULL STORY, PLEASE BE CAUTIOUS)

NOTES: The second half of this fic is EXTREMELY GRAPHIC. Please heed the tags if you click the AO3 link and read the last half...only the first half/lead-up is posted here on Tumblr because the rest might get me banned LMAO

UNNAMED PROTAGONIST. SHE/HER PRONOUNS. READER (or the OC) has a VAGINA/BREASTS. NO PHYSICAL DESCRIPTIONS OF HER ARE GIVEN, but she works at a marketing firm or something idk

This CAN be enjoyed fandom-blind! 

enjoy, all you Doffy Degenerates out there...

According to the spell book she’d purchased from the sketchy goth dude at the occult supply shop she’d found on Google, the demon’s name was Joker, and he didn’t look anything like a demon at all. Or at least that’s what his summoner decided when the clove-scented smoke cleared and she beheld the creature’s shock of short blond hair, rippling abs gleaming like polished copper, and the cape of pink feathers hanging from his broad shoulders.

But then he flexed that cape and it turned into a pair of enormous, cotton-candy colored wings so huge they brushed basement’s opposing walls many feet apart, and she reevaluated her opinion of his demonic nature...slightly.

 What kind of demon had pink wings, after all?

She imprisoned the demon in the middle of a large summoning circle drawn in silver chains, a bit of blood, and some other fluids she’d had a hell of a time obtaining and didn’t want to remember with any degree of detail, thanks. Instead she focused on the demon. (The demon, the demon, the demon! she reminded herself. Don’t forget you’re dealing with demons.) Hard not to focus on the demon when he rose to his full height, because his head nearly scraped the basement’s dank rafters. The man (demon, demon, demon! she repeated like a mantra) was at least ten feet tall, utterly dwarfing her perfectly human frame. A huge figure, a colossal man, a giant of a guy. No wonder the book had said to draw such an enormous summoning circle. If he sat down on folded legs, his spread knees would probably brush the myriad candles flickering at the circle’s edge.

But honestly, he wasn’t all that intimidating. If it weren’t for the height and the pink wings (or so she told herself in an effort to weaponize logic and bully herself into a placid frame of mind) he’d looked totally human. Nose, lips, sexy abs, eyes (what little she could see of them, anyway) were all in the right places. It further helped that he wore white sunglasses with reflective red lenses, frames shaped liked curving wings cupping his face and hiding his eyes from view. Sunglasses on a demon? Yeah, apart from the wings, he just looked like a human with bad taste. Nothing like a demon at all.

...or so she thought until she spotted the horns, curling and golden, sprouting from his forehead. They caught the candlelight when he dipped his head to look at her, and — yup, that was definitely a demon, all right. The tiny horns curved up and back out of the fringe of his hairline, tiny gilt protrusions no longer than her index fingers curing over his skull like an ibex’s, but once she caught a glimpse, she couldn’t take her eyes off them.

Joker’s wide mouth split into an even wider grin. He bent at the waist to get a better look, and the cavalcade of necklaces on his chest jingled and glinted in the candlelight, slowly swinging in the air. Medallions hung from gilded chains, festooned with arcane symbols undecipherable. Closer up, more tiny horns the size of her fingernails dotted the skin along his hairline. They looked almost like...sequins, maybe. Or like a dusting of glimmering scales in diamond patterns.

“Hello, little human.” He spoke in a deep, rich purr, sound like a gloved hand tracing letters on her shivering nape. “Is it you who dared to summon me?”

She swallowed. “Yup.”

He regarded her for a time, expression somehow inscrutable despite his enormous, many-toothed grin. She fidgeted beneath its weight. Though his glasses were fundamentally ridiculous (and totally unbecoming of a demon) she had to admit they were effective. This was a demon of deal-making, as she understood it. The glasses and smile were a variation of a poker face, she was sure, elaborately over-performed to keep her guessing. She’d need to be on her guard no matter what he looked like, that was for sure.

“Interesting.” His head tilted, muscles in his neck gliding under bronze skin. “You do not cower in fear before me.”

She frowned, but — wow. He was telling the truth. Her knees held steady, her palms remained dry, and the beat of her heart plodded along at a measured pace. But perhaps her lack of panic was to be expected. This wasn't the first time she’d successfully summoned something, after all. While she was not a witch by any means, she’d performed some basic spell-work over the past few months — practice rounds, basically. She’d been shocked when those worked, sure. But the novelty had worn off fast, because the imps cavorting in her summoning ring couldn’t give her what she wanted. They weren’t powerful enough, and the bastards at her workplace had persisted on making her life a living hell.

This demon, though? Calling forth Joker was calling out the big guns...literally. Guy looked like he could bench press a semi-truck. Muscles for days, each abdominal carved from stone, forearms corded with power and strength. Just looking at him, she knew that if anyone could give her what she wanted, it had to be a demon like him. The spell book in her arms had told her so, too. This demon granted desires to the prideful, it said — and at this point, all she had left was her pride.

It was high time to get what she was owed. And fear would not stand in her way. Not anymore.

So maybe that’s why she wasn’t scared. It had been a particularly bad work day, too. She’d been debating summoning Joker for weeks, but the assholes at the office had finally pushed her over the edge. She needed the spell to work after everything they put her through. She was too hungry for triumph to allow herself to fear.

Thus, intent on the goal before her, she shrugged and informed the demon she’d summoned: “You’re just not that scary, I guess.”

Pink feathers rattled like chains. “Not that scary?” he hissed between the blades of his teeth — which now looked a tad sharper than before. “Are you a fool, or merely ignorant? The impertinence.”

One massive hand rose, pressing toward her — but just as fear spiked her blood, a flash of light stopped Joker cold. Sparks fizzled against his skin with the scent of burned sugar, sickly sweet and nauseating. She released a tense breath. The summoning circle did more than merely summon. It also kept Joker locked within, keeping her safe and unafraid without.

And Joker understood this, because he lowered his hand from the barrier, fist clenching. “You should fear me, little witch. I am powerful beyond your wildest dreams. You are incapable of conceptualizing my immense might, my sway over the realms of Hell, my seat on the throne of the Dreaded Seven. You should fear — ”

“You look like an oversized twink who wandered out of a Miami gay bar,” she interjected. “I ain't scared of you.”

A beat of silence — and then Joker threw back his head and laughed. He laughed long and loud and lusty, hand on his horned forehead, chest heaving. It wasn’t a nice laugh. It made her feel small. Although she’d been the one to levy insults, he was laughing at her — she sensed that, felt the truth of his disdain in her bones. But it hardly mattered. So long as he gave her what she wanted, so long as he did as he was told, she could put up with being laughed at.

She’d had practice, after all. Her office was full of demons of a different stripe.

But, just like at work, her pride wouldn’t let her back down without a fight. She crossed her arms and looked him up and down, hip jutting out, feet shifting into a stance of lazy confidence (a posture she knew projected power — they’d told her so at the workshop for young professionals she’d attended last year).

“So. Your name is Joker. Fan of Batman, huh?” she asked.

His laughter faded to a mere chuckle. “Joker...is that the name your spell book gave you?”

“Yes.”

His glasses glittered with mirth. “Interesting.”

“Don’t pretend I got your name wrong,” she spat. “You wouldn’t have shown up if it were wrong.”

“How very logical of you.” He grinned all the harder. “I’m impressed.”

Joker applauded her, then — palm on palm ringing out in the candlelit basement, every slap of flesh a patronizing thunderclap. Bracelets chimed like church bells on his desecrated wrists. She wanted to slap him, wipe that smirk off his handsome face...but he looked rich, damn him, with all those necklaces and that gold skin and that chiseled jaw a model would envy, and the spell book said he could grant boons to those seeking their own fortunes. Joker’s attitude, his pride...it’s why she’d picked him out of all the other demons in the book. His arrogance was as good a sign as the gold on his wrists. It gave her hope — but she didn’t let that hope show on her face, instead scowling up at him, one foot tapping the creaking floor.

“Neither trickery nor flattery will work on me, actually,” she said, tossing her head, “so you can save the ingratiating act.”

He chuckled again. “Noted, little witch.”

“I’m not a witch.”

“Oh, no?” A huge, pink tongue poked from the corner of his mouth, lascivious and indolent. “You look like a witch to me.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m a digital marketing manager.” The title grated like sandpaper on her tongue, as ill-fitting as her boss’s cheap suits. “But that’s not all I want to be. What I know I can be.”

“And that’s where I come in?” Joker said.

“How’d you guess?”

“Why else would you summon a demon? You want something.”

He drawled the world ‘want’ as if savoring its flavor. She suppressed a shudder.

“Yes. I do,” she said. “And I want you to give it to me.”

“You want me to give you what you want...” he said, still drawling that one particular word. “Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“Would you say it for me, pet?” he purred, voice simpering and sweet despite its deep tenor. “I do so love hearing my assignments in plain language.”

It sounded like a simple request — but she didn’t grant it right away. The book had warned her about giving demons even the littlest leeway. But after analyzing the request in her head, she didn’t see any fault in it. There wasn’t any monkey-paw-wish-twisting happening that she could discern. So she shrugged, and squared her shoulders, and took the plunge.

“Sure,” she said. “I want you to give me what I want.”

He let out another long laugh. “Excellent.”

“As for what I want... well, let me start at the beginning.”

He hadn’t asked, but she figured he’d need to know in order to make good on their soon-to-be-discussed deal, so she explained: Her ungrateful bosses. The two-faced guys at work who sucked their metaphorical dicks to get the best projects. Late nights spent working for no recognition. Ideas sniped from under her by assholes who gave her zero credit. The way her workplace nemesis mocked and belittled her when her back was turned but played nice to her face. The petty minutiae, the annoyances, the burning hatred she felt for that one asshole in particular who did not deserve his success — the success that should be hers, dammit.

She should have been given the office when it opened up. She should have been recognized and promoted. She should be given the high-profile accounts with better bonuses. It should be her, dammit — but instead it was him. The man who treated her like garbage. The man sabotaged her at every turn. The man who didn’t deserve any of it, but the man who got it because he played the right kind of game, and played it dirty besides.

She went on for longer, perhaps, that she should have, but Joker didn’t tell her to stop — not with words, anyway. She’d launched into her fourth (fifth?) anecdote about her supremely shitty coworker by the time he heaved a sigh and rubbed his temple with a fingertip. His other hand prodded the barrier, idly coaxing forth sparks with every flick. She flinched the first time, but she ignored it the second, and the third. The barrier was impenetrable. She wasn’t worried; let the demon sulk. She needed to vent. Luxuriate in her anger before taking her revenge.

And her rage-marinated revenge, when she had it, would no doubt taste sweet.

“So you’re dissatisfied with your occupation,” Joker said when she paused for breath. The demon yawned, smile sleepy and wry. “How very dull. Humans are so tedious.”

“Sorry my problems seem so trivial to you,” she grumbled. “Now, about what I want — ”

Joker raised a finger and wagged it in her face (or as close to it as he could get, anyway). “Ah ah ah, little witch.”

“I told you, I’m not a witch.”

“You are, though. Anyone who can summon me must be a witch. And a clever one, at that.” He tutted, horned head shaking. “Although you seem woefully uneducated. Allow me to rectify this oversight.”

Wait. Was Joker being helpful? Oh, now that was suspicious as hell. She’d be damned if she’d blindly trust him after everything the book had told her. This demon “pulled the strings of the world to make destiny dance,” it said. Joker was a known wish-granted, a known deal-maker, a known bargainer of legend...but all demons hungered for human souls, and demons weren’t exactly known for their senses of fair play. Since her soul was the only price she wouldn’t consider paying to get what she wanted, she’d need to be on her guard through every last word, especially if he was pretending to be helpful. She’d hear him out but not take anything he said at face value lest she accidentally grant him ownership of that which she did not wish to give away.

Yeah. No genie tricks tonight, no sir. Just good ol’ fashioned bargaining. That’s what she was after, and that was all.

“Demons like me can give you what you want, whatever that may be, so long as you can command us,” Joker was saying in the same suspiciously gracious tones as before. “And you command us by knowing our true names.” He gestured at himself — at his powerful jaw, sculpted physique, and brilliant smile. He chuckled when she stared just a little too long; she ripped her eyes away, face flushed. “You summoned me. That is proof enough you know my true name and can command me as you like.”

“I knew all of that already,” she said, unimpressed.

“But I am willing to bet you didn’t know we still require payment for our services.”

She smiled. “Actually, I knew that, too.”

“Clever little witch!” Joker crowed. “Oh, but I am impressed.”

“Remember what I said about flattery?” She shook her head. “I suppose you’re about to ask me for payment. Gonna ask for my mortal soul?”

But Joker surprised her when he heaved a heavy, bored sigh. “Hardly. I have no use for a soul flitting about. Human souls are ever so tedious.” He laughed again, another derisive barrage of mirth that set her teeth on edge. “And besides. The worth of a human soul is hardly as costly as you humans tend to think. You hold yourselves in laughably high regard.” Another laugh, even louder than the one before. “And they call me prideful.”

“We’re not worth much? Really?” she said, not quite believing him.

“Oh, yes.” He grinned like a shark, pink feathers rustling like clinking scales. “Trust me, little witch. Of all the sins, I understand pride most intimately of all.”

And then he was laughing again, condescending and demeaning and mean — second verse, same as the first. By then she was used to feeling like Joker got off on telling jokes he had no intention of explaining; no sense getting offended. She rolled her eyes and tapped her foot, impatient.

“So my soul isn’t worth anything,” she said. “What do you want from me, instead?”

“Nothing you cannot live without.” He gestured vaguely at nothing. “But it must be equal in value to whatever you ask for.”

“I haven’t asked for anything yet.”

“Of course you haven’t.” He hummed. “You must first pay my price.”

“A price you, once again, have not told me,” she reminded him. “Shouldn’t you hear what I want before naming your price, anyway? How can you know how much to charge me without knowing what I’m buying from you?”

He grinned like a waning moon. “What I desire will no doubt pay for whatever petty want you care to name.”

“And what do you desire, Joker?”

“Your virginity.”

Joker said it so bluntly, so confidently, she thought she’d misheard him. But then perception caught up with reality and her face caught fire, shame and shock setting every last nerve ablaze. Even the candles near her felt too hot, all of a sudden, the acrid tang of smoke cloying in her throat.

“H-how — ?” she stammered. “How do know I’m a — ?”

“I can smell it.” His tongue darted out, wetting his lips. “You’re pure. Untouched. Tantalizing. Demons can smell it for miles — that scent ripe for spoil. And virgins are so rare these days. There’s really no mistaking it.”

Both enormous hands lifted. His fingertips raked across the barrier — trying to touch her, but unable. A shower of sparks caught his golden horns where they curved upward, lifting away from his skull toward the heavens he had long been banished from.

“To be summoned by one as beautiful as you, as pure as you, as eager as you...” Joker’s laugh rumbled in his chest, razor sharp and velveteen. “This is a rare opportunity, one I do not intend to squander.”

She coughed into her fist. Virginity — of all the things he could’ve asked for, that particular bauble hadn’t ranked high on her list of payment possibilities. It wasn’t like she cared about her virginity. She’d happily prioritized studying (and then working a thankless job) over finding someone to fuck her. And besides, it wasn’t like virginity was real. It was just a misogynistic social construct meant to keep her from asserting her sexuality in a patriarchal society that feared powerful women. It meant nothing to have sex the first time. In fact, she’d debated many times the merits of finding a random hookup through a dating app just to get her “first time” over with, but she’d never quite found the opportunity to follow through.

Suffice to say, giving up her virginity didn’t mean anything to her...but she’d be damned in she told Joker as much. If he thought her useless virginity was valuable — well, she’d let him think so. She wasn’t about to cheapen what, to her, seemed like the biggest bargain ever.

Speaking of biggest: Would Joker even, y’know...fit? Inside her, that is? Because he was probably ten feet tall, horns scraping the rafters, and that meant he had to be packing, right?

Oh, god. If she hadn’t been praying for mercy before, now felt like a good time to start.

She didn’t let any of her misgivings show on her face, however. She didn’t have glasses, but her poker face was still pretty great after sitting through so many infuriating meetings without flinching. She pretended to mull it over, looking at Joker’s broad shoulders and trim waist as if considering his proposition. Not that thinking of him in such a context was a difficult task. Full lips framed Joker’s endless grin, his broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist with a gorgeously cut Adonis belt, and that washboard stomach...well. She could lose her virginity to a lot worse, at least in the looks department. And at least she’d be losing it by candlelight! According to movies, candles were necessary (even if these candles smelled like outdated incense — a gift from the guy with the weird eyebrows at the occult supply shop, not that it even mattered).

“Virginity...that’s a big ask,” she said eventually.

“Indeed, considering.” He gestured at his hips like he’d read her mind, grin taking on a simmering heat. “But it is my price.”

“Why virginity, anyway?” she said — trying to ignore the way his smile set off fireworks in her belly. “How could that possibly be more valuable than my soul?”

“You have heard of an incubus, haven't you, my little witch? Demons who feed through sex?” he asked. “Sex is a mingling of essence, of energy, of pure power. A perfect conduit for magic.”

“I guess that tracks.” She looked him over with new understanding. “So you’re an incubus, then.”

His smile grew. “Incubus use the energy of intercourse to power themselves.”

To her, it seemed he spoke from a place of authority — which made sense. He was an incubus. Funny the book hadn’t mentioned that, but... “Makes sense.”

“Indeed,” he said with another of his knowing chuckles. “When in the mortal realm, demons such as incubuses are cut off from the fires of Hell, our homeland. We retain certain abilities, but we lack true power here. It is ever so dull.” She got the sense he’d rolled his eyes, though she couldn’t see them. “In order to give you what you want, I must have power. That power must come from the summoner, and that power must be enough to grant the summoner’s request — an exchange, equivalent and equal.”

“Still seems like my soul would be worth more than my virginity.”

“Perhaps — but to take your soul would kill you. How can I grant you what you want if you are dead? I trust you would need to be alive in order to enjoy whatever it is you intend to ask for.” A growl resonated in his chest, heavy and heated. His obscured eyes remained fixed on her. “And the first bite of a virgin is potent magic indeed. More than enough to place you on the most coveted of thrones.”

She frowned. “The most coveted...?”

“That is what you want, isn’t it?” he asked — but before she could reply, he held up a hand, bracelets on it ringing. “You needn’t say. You’re hungry for power. The scent of that ambition is nearly as strong as your virginity.” Again he licked his lips, tongue broad and hot and huge. “Pure and tainted all at once...oh, how delicious you’ll taste.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” His eager stare was doing things to her, thighs pressing together tightly, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Instead she backtracked, picking apart his language to focus on: “The most coveted of thrones...?”

It was a peculiar turn of phrase, but an evocative one. The job title her shitty coworker had usurped from under her, complete with a promotion and a raise and a huge oak desk with a leather top like something straight out of Mad Men over in the vacant corner office...that should’ve been hers. She should’ve had that metaphorical throne, not him. Joker had acted like her story about her workplace had bored him, but clearly he’d been listening well enough. That, or his demonic powers granted him knowledge of her world. Whatever the case, she was (grudgingly) impressed.

“So you know what I’m after,” she said. “I want — ”

But he lifted his finger and tutted again. “Not yet, little witch. Not yet. Payment comes first, fulfilled before services requested and rendered. Only once I have my payment may you tell me what you truly want.”

“I still think it’s weird. Like you’re doing this backward.”

“Perhaps I am.” His nose lifted, haughty as a preening flamingo. “But I wouldn’t expect a pretty little mortal to understand the ways of an infernal demon like me.”

“...I suppose that’s true.”

For a time, she sat in thought. He watched in silence, patient. Was that a predatory glint she spied behind his shades? Did the glasses hide the eyes of a hawk circling prey, perhaps? But no, that couldn’t be right. She knew Joker’s name. She had the power here, and she had been careful.

She was in control. Not him. And that meant she was safe.

Thus, confident in herself, she steeled her spine, breathed deeply of the smokey air, and asked: “Well, Joker. How would this work?”

One blond brow lifted. “Hmm?”

“You’re trapped in that circle. How could you even touch me?” She glared, daring him to contradict her as his smile grew and grew and grew until she feared his face might crack. “And before you tell me to let you out, I’m not stupid. I’m not about to loose a demon on the mortal realm.”

“Read your spell-book carefully, my dear. I am sure there is a solution to our dilemma within. I will hardly be the first demon to attend to his summoner’s sexual appetites.” His voice had adopted a simpering tone, low and cajoling, sticky and slick. “Does this mean you have accepted the terms of my bargain?”

“My virginity in exchange for the most coveted of thrones...I’m thinking on it.” She plopped down on the floor and opened her spell book on her lap. “Let’s see about this spell, first.”

Slowly, the demon named Joker lowered himself to the floor, too. And as predicted, the spread of his folded knees brushed the edges of the summoning circle, the barrier there humming with proximity-fueled power that hummed in her molars. Gosh, Joker was absolutely enormous — but the weight of his stare intimidated her far more than the size of his body. The shades obscured everything but the smile that told her nothing at all. What kind of demons wears shades? she found herself wondering again. Such a weird dude, this Joker. And he had a weird name, too. What kind of dude was named Joker, anyway?

No. Not a dude. A demon, a demon — never forget that. Especially not when he was acting almost docile.

Errant thoughts like those wouldn’t help her solve her problems, though. She focused instead on flipping through her book and reading the section on summoning circles all over again — and soon, in the footnotes and by the light of her many candles, she found something.

“‘If the demon need interact in corporeal fashion with the mortal realm but not be loosed upon it with infernal agency intact,’” she read aloud to herself, “‘the summoner need only add another layer to the barrier of...’” She flipped a page. “So I just need to...?”

She wouldn’t need to do much, it turned out. It would take only a few minutes to follow the book’s guidance and draw a second, larger circle outside the first, one the book claimed both parties would be able to enter freely — but one it claimed only the summoner could leave. The current circle kept the summoner out as much as it kept the demon within, it said, to ensure the summoner’s safety. The new circle would not allow the demon to escape, but the summoner could physically access the demon at will without worry of being dragged to the underworld.

In short, it seemed...safe. Suspiciously safe, in fact.

“This new circle is like a one-way barrier that won’t fully release you, but it allows me entry if I want,” she said aloud, mostly to herself. “It would still keep you trapped.”

“A pity,” Joker told her. “I do so long to be free.”

“Fat chance.” She glanced at the book again. “It would keep you trapped, but I could enter it without fear. And you wouldn’t be able to pull me into the inner circle and hurt me, either. Or pull me down to Hell through the portal that brought you here.”

“Drag a human to Hell?” he asked with a scoffing laugh. “How archaic! What would I even do with a human, anyway?”

His annoyance at the very idea of dragging her to Hell was oddly reassuring. “Plus it says you can’t drag anyone to Hell without their consent, so I’m safe,” she went on. “And if you hurt me, it says you’d be banished at once. And there’s a dispelling word I can say, or even think, at any time to send you back inside the main circle, where you’ll be trapped again.” Was she trying to convince Joker or herself that this was a good idea? In a show of fake-it-till-you-make-it confidence, she declared: “Looks pretty foolproof to me.”

“A foolproof annoyance,” he returned with a grumble. “But it serves our shared desires well enough.” That smoldering look from earlier returned; Joker rolled to his knees, sitting back on his heels with thighs spread wide. He ran his palms up and down them in slow pulses, from groin to knee and back again. “Does this mean you have accepted — ?”

She yanked her gaze away. “Still thinking on it.”

And she did think on it — long and hard, which was probably a pun considering what she was about to (potentially) do with the demon before her. Virginity was such a small price to pay to make her dreams come true, wasn’t it? And she’d definitely ask for revenge on those who’d wronged her as part of her rise to the throne she coveted most...

What were a few minutes of sex in the grand scheme of things?

What was virginity in the face of her future?

Not daring to look Joker in the eye, she stood. She moved the candles back a few feet from the first summoning circle. She went to the bucket of paint in the corner (the one mixed with those fluids she didn’t want to think about) and grabbed the brush resting beside it on a painting tray. Still not looking at Joker, she went to the edge of the circle and began to draw.

But she needn’t speak for Joker to understand. “So you have accepted,” he said, watching her work with a simmering intensity she felt blazing against her skin. “I knew you’d see it my way, little witch. Soon I will give you what you want.”

Again, he drawled the word. Again, she shivered. Again, he laughed at her expense and at an unspoken joke only he understood.

“Yeah, yeah...” she grumbled. “Hold on, just let me concentrate...”

She painted the circle in what felt like both hours and seconds, both long and short, both infinite and finite time at once. Joker watched mostly in silence, though occasionally he chuckled to himself. He only moved once she finished painting and stood back to admire her work, which he tested by pressing a hand to the barrier of the inner circle. It sparked briefly against his palm...but then it gave way like a membrane under pressure, admitting him into the outer circle with a fizzle and a pop of deflated pressure.

She expected him to step into the outer circle at once, which afforded him at least a few more feet of space, but he surprised her. He stood without moving in the center of the inner summoning ring, grinning, rotating his head atop his neck as though preparing for some physical feat. The new circle gave him more room to maneuver, but although his wings rustled in anticipation, they did not stretch wide just yet.

“The time of our bargain is upon us, pet,” he said.

“Pet, again...” She rolled her eyes at the name.

“You know better than to tell me your real name, so my terms of endearment you will have to endure.” He licked his lips. “So...”

“So,” she repeated.

“Let us forge the pact.” He drew himself up, voice deepening. “You give yourself — ”

“Not myself. My virginity,” she said, on guard against the Monkey’s Paw he’d so clearly tried to instigate.

And he didn’t argue the distinction. “You give your virginity to me,” he readily amended, “in exchange for what you want — a prize to be named upon completion of payment rendered.” His head cocked to one side. “Do you agree to these terms?”

Again, she thought about it. Turned the wording over in her head. Analyzed and picked it apart until semantics blurred into loose sounds and unrecognizable shapes. But she could find no loopholes, and so she nodded.

“Yes,” she told the demon she called Joker. “I agree to the terms.”

Something passed between them. A solidity, a pressure, a connection — it snapped into place like magnets crashing, like a key entering a lock, like gravity snatching an apple from the air as it fell from some forbidden primordial tree. She shivered. A sharp crack of laughter boomed from Joker’s long throat, zealous and full of promise.

“Wonderful!” he said — and that booming laugh dropped low, like fire dwindling to coals burning beneath heap of satin ash. “Then let us begin.”

Part 1 - END. Continued on AO3.

THE FULL FANFIC IS AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY ON AO3

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY

(It is filthy. PLEASE HEED THE TAGS!)

[tophattrio]

TOP HAT TRIO ARCHIVES: Part 1

Warden: Look at all this lovely art of us! We could fill a museum! Professor: There's so much it seems like we can't keep up... Once-ler: ..... Y'kno what guys? I'm gonna take a break...

((A small fraction of my old old old trio art, most of which has never seen the light of tumblr (under the cut)! None of this is colored. Some of this is pre-blog or just... REALLY early-era Trio art, so some of it is... dated. Also, as indicated by the top, this is part 1. Meaning there will probably be more, LOL...))

((I hope it's okay if I ramble some fun facts in the middle of this!))

We're gonna start off with this silly lil doodle of the lads! This was drawn during the era where I did my silly crossover drawings, before I mustered the courage to turn them into an askblog.

Based on the date, I must've drawn this next one while I was in the process of actually making the blog... potentially their original "profile" images? Or just a doodle I did to get me hyped...

As you can see, all the drawings so far are pencil and ink... that's because (if I remember correctly) this is when I was VERY new to computer tablets! I felt more confident in my traditional art so I would slap quick colors onto the back of a bunch of ink-drawn replies and make minor adjustments with the tablet. I remember being hesitant to switch to a fully digital style since I felt the sketchiness was almost part of the style of trio? But I've come to accept change is good! Everything post-Greed M!A is all (or mostly) digitally lined (with the occasional trad sketch), but if you look closely at the trio in this (and many other) early-day responses, you can definitely see the pencil marks!

Unposted Thneedville High Trio!!! I was SO obsessed with the Once-ler Askblog AU's back in the Once-ler Fandom's hayday... they were a lot of fun to observe on the side and I wanted to be part of that in my small way, but unfortunately, I was a coward so I never did LOL... I'm thinking this was drawn in February or March 2013...

And, something I drew on the same page, Truffula Flu Trio!!!! I think I briefly thought about making it (and thneedville high) a sideblog but I felt like I couldn't commit for multiple reasons: (1) AU hype was dying down a little, (2) It was a bit too serious a concept for Trio; I wanted to keep them lighthearted and silly (covers bad end with a hand). And (3) I was still doubting whether or not my blog counted as a Once-ler blog (being only 1/3 once-ler) and whether I was valid to participate in events. Eventually I got over that fear when I joined Camp Weehawken and participated in the fandom revival of 2015, but the fear was definitely there at the very beginning and I hesitated to jump in on some stuff because of it!!

These were some of my earliest (unanswered) asks! I think for a while I thought I accidentally deleted the Pinkie Pie one, but it mysteriously came back one day?? I don't plan to finish these but might as well get some closure since I already drew them. I had to look up which troll typing was the one being used here so I might be wrong, I know nothing about homestuck except chapter 1 and 2 and whatever I osmosis from my mutuals LOL...

Peacock was drawn before I knew anything about Skullgirls...... within the past few years I recently watched her gameplay/storyline! She's defs a fun character. Trio are probs neutral about her. I'm not confident enough to do anything major with her, but I would love to cameo her more!

I got a few asks / M!A's about genderbent versions of the trio back in early 2013 and these were my doodles for that. The designs were based off of different designs floating around tumblr at the time that I liked. I'm not interested in doing this M!A anymore, but the dresses are cute!

Some glasses shenanigans I never posted for some reason?? (For reference: (1) (2) (3) (4).) It's silly stuff like this that make me realize Trio!Professor is a little bit like "Cheerful Mystery" Professor but like... waaaaay more tame HAHA (I never read the manga back then because I was upset they made Layton OOC, but from what I've seen he's... a lot more chaotic there). Which, ykno, good chance explains why Trio!Professor stays sane around Once-ler and Warden and their wacky selves.

Some wardlers and layclaires!! Also a few super old things I doodled out for Lovestruck M!A part 2 (including warden being a perv and oncie being flustered and confused, LMAO) but... idk if I have the energy to commit to it at the moment... partially bc thinking about getting an influx of shippy-type asks gets me overwhelmed and idk if I can commit to another magic anon all my magic anons manage to kill the blog somehow 😭, but ykno... saving the anons in my inbox in case I change my mind... Love these guys dearly regardless,,, <3

Some doodles of Layton and his rivals!! I think someone sent a small "Descole takes over the blog" M!A (hence the itty bitty chibi head LMAOO) but (again) I don't have the energy to commit to anything but vanilla THT right now. I still thought the idea was fun enough to draw out and anticipate in advance! If I change my mind y'all will know about it...

My first drawing of Wilson from Don't Starve!! I didn't even play Don't Starve at the time, but I wanted to do research if I was going to properly execute the magic anon and I fell in love with him immediately. Unfortunately he (and his game) became my new brainrot and I still feel really bad about that LAUGHS, but hey! Was worth it! Maybe someday I'll redo trio mods for DST...

I may have him cameo again, but potentially after his character update in Don't Starve Together eventually drops, of course, :3 chants give us lore lore loRE LORE-

Aaaaaand that's all I'm gonna show for now... until next time everyone!

PART 1 (you are here!) || PART 2 (TBA) || PART 3 (TBA) || …

[apieters]

“Pirates” vs. Pirates

So I’m currently reading The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard and it’s a fascinating history about the very small world of the Golden Age of Piracy. Apparently, all the famous pirates of the age—Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy, Charles Vane, Henry Jennings, Benjamin Hornigold, and Edward “Blackbeard” Teach/Thatch—all knew each other. Their real-life stories are fascinating, truly worthy of a series all their own (Yes, I know Black Sails exists. No, its portrayals of these real historical figures according to its wiki are not historically accurate in the slightest—you don’t need to change anything to make their stories interesting).

We all “know,” cognitively, that real piracy is very different from the movies, but I started thinking of how exactly it was different, and trying to identify what my childhood fantasies of “piracy” actually were. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I never actually wanted to be a pirate—I wanted to be Jim Hawkins from Treasure Island.

I’ll explain (because that’s what we do on Tumblr).

Real piracy, from Woodard’s description, was basically getting mugged on a boat. The pirates would show up, maybe fire a cannon or two, but usually not even that—they’d sail up to you or find you gathering fresh water and fruit on a tropical beach, be bristling with weapons, point them at you and say, “Empty your pockets ships holds.” And the poor merchant vessels (disproportionately Spanish for historical geopolitical reasons) being targeted usually did what you’re supposed to do in a mugging—give up their wallet cargo and get away with their lives, and like most muggers the pirates were more than willing to let those people go, taking the money and running.

And whatever I had in mind when I thought of pirates, I wasn’t thinking about the nautical equivalent of a guy in a black leather jacket and beanie hiding in an alley and then drawing a knife saying, “Give me your wallet!” (Yes, that’s my image of a mugger—thankfully, I’ve never been mugged).

The most pirate-y pirate I’ve seen on-screen is Captain Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribbean fame—he is actually portrayed doing sketchy things like picking pockets and stealing boats, and lying to/manipulating people for his own personal gain. But here’s the thing—he never mugs anyone. In fact, he only steals from an “innocent” person’s pocket once, when he steals the bribable dockmaster’s purse off his desk in the first movie. What Jack Sparrow actually does—what all the pirates spend most of their screen time doing in the PotC franchise—is hunting for Maguffins magic treasures. They’re not pirates—they’re treasure hunters. And according to the PotC wiki, this is true in the prequel books, too—all the stories are about treasure hunting, not mugging merchant vessels. Jack Sparrow was never a real pirate—he was and is an edgier, funnier Jim Hawkins, the 12-year-old main character of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

We shouldn’t be too surprised—Treasure Island is the Trope Codifier for pirate stories, and it’s all about, well, looking for treasure on a tropical island. No merchant vessels were harmed in the making of that story. In fact, there is only one ship—the Hispaniola—that appears in the story at all. So of course the big “pirate” movie franchise is going to portray “pirates” doing what “pirates” do in stories—looking for treasure.

Yeah, it’s sanitized and romaticized, but comparing the fiction to Woodard’s more historical book, an early-18th century treasure-hunting story really does have all the benefits of real piracy without the drawbacks: real piracy really was lucrative, and if a pirate wanted to quit while they were ahead and make some wise spending choices they could go from being a literal beggar to being upper middle-class literally overnight. Treasure-hunting gets you, as a character, the same rags-to-riches prize to drives the story, but without the inconvenience of, you know, shoving a flintlock pistol in anyone’s face (sometimes you have to for self-defense, but never to get the treasure itself). Plus, in a treasure-hunting story you get to be on a boat, wear cool/funny cloths, say “Arrrgh!” And hang out in the Bahamas, without the messiness of scurvy, weevil-infested ship’s biscuits, hurricanes, and the threat of getting arrested by the local governor and executed (unless the author decides to make any of those things a plot point. Authors are just mean like that). Also, the original owners of the treasure are never looking for it, unlike the historical European powers who considered the loss of a treasure galleon a Really Big Deal. And if you ever get into a fight, it’s always because someone else who wants the treasure too is saying “I’ll fight you for it”—in a certain twisted way, the violence in “pirate” stories is more like a sporting event than anything else, a competition between teams for a common prize. Even the “bad guys” of “pirate” stories aren’t thieves.

So do I fancy being a mugger and intimidating people to give up their wealth, even if I don’t actually kill anyone (many real pirates were surprisingly merciful to their victims)? Not really. I realize that as a kid (and, let’s be honest, we still dream of this every so often as an adult) I really just wanted to go on a pleasure cruise in the Bahamas in funny clothes, dig in the sand, and find a whole bunch of gold, silver, and jewels in a wooden chest. That’s the premise of Treasure Island and Pirates of the Caribbean. I don’t like imagining myself as Blackbeard or Sam Bellamy. I want to just be Jim Hawkins.

Thanks for reading—here’s a picture of my character Chris Carnovo, who started off both in-universe and in my imagination as a “pirate.”

[hawper]

7 and/or 8? :D

7- Who are some artists who have inspired you?

Ooh I love this one. I think I share a common experience with a lot of people in that SAD-ist's animations were most of what initially inspired me to pick up a pen and learn how to animate. I basically learned how to animate by picking through everything that she made frame-by-frame.

After that, Public Spam Account (if u see this go away bestie <3), who I had the privilege of working with and becoming friends with really early into my animation journey, was another huge inspo. Their colors, energy, and posing had SUCH an impact on me and my style, and I'm forever grateful for how much they helped me along when I was but a wee baby artist.

@/najsigt and @/shandzii are my two biggest inspirations for storyboarding in particular. They both just have such a great control of composition, acting, and staying on model LOL

Also honorable mention to Lonely Man's Lazarus. I aspire to have that amount of complex character acting and just flat out WILD shit going on in the things that I make someday. :)

There are so many more, but I think those are the biggest ones who I've looked up to for years <3 Otherwise I'd be here all day hehe

8- How would you describe your art style

Hm. . . Yes. I have no idea how to describe it lol.

I feel like my art style changes so much all the time. I'm neither semi-realistic, nor cartoony (probably just floating somewhere in the middle there?). I usually color my lineart (rarely finished, usually more on the sketchy side), though sometimes I go a lot more painterly. Generally more on the cell-shaded side. I like to animate spins and moving backgrounds/perspectives, and I've gotten pretty good at run cycles. But sometimes I just take a break from that and draw a nice landscape or somethin, ya know?

Basically I don't know LOL.

[jumpscaregoose]

my art summary 2023!

these are the pieces that stood out to me the most from each month of 2023! long ramblings about each of them under the cut

january

hororen! this might have been a prompt for the hororen bingo event but I legit forget and the original post was not helpful

february

this was art for an lmk fic by writing god @/pittdpeaches (not gonna be annoying with a tag). it has the most notes of any piece I've ever posted and that's unfortunate because I Do Not Like It That Much.

march

this was the only thing I posted in march. it exists

april

hororen but as that soukoku art everyone loves. this piece is hilarious to me because it showed up in google image search results while I was trying to get someone into bsd and they then tried to find it themselves when I wouldn't show them by googling my full actual name. that was fun

may

I really like how the colours turned out on this one. which is good because I submitted it as one of my art finals 👍

june

and here we see the start of my pressure opacity lineart thing. with my boy lyserg. the line through his hair was probably just a guideline I left in by mistake but I like how it kinda looks like a halo. because the xlaws are just like that

july

magical girl anna! those beads were so annoying oh my god. it's a good thing I never decided to draw anything with detailed repeating links again :) ever :) who would ever subject themselves to that :)

august

this was again the only thing I drew that month, but this time I actually like it! tamajeanne is really underrated they should get more love (still hasn't written that fic)

september

and here my drama and pressure opacity begins in earnest. this is one of my favourite pieces out of everything I made this year it's great. this was also the start of my detailed hair obsession

october

*something shifts in the fabric of the universe* so this is when I got into paralive. if you weren't aware. there's a companion piece to this one but I liked it a lot less so here we are

november

I made a lot of art I liked this month but I chose this one because. it was my favourite. the Other cozmez reflection piece I did got a lot more unhinged tags but I thought the anatomy was wack so it didn't get the spot. this one was fun though I did it in one sitting in the middle of the night

december

this year really saved the best for last because I am. absolutely obsessed with this piece. it's my phone lockscreen right now. and everyone else really liked it too which makes me very very happy

overall trends I noticed in my art from this year:

SHOUJO SPARKLES but mostly in the first half

sketchy pressure opacity lineart (my favourite thing now)

bright colours fuck yeah

glowy circle particles (have been replacing the sparkles lately)

more finished compositions than last year

[a-wild-things-rambles]

[click for better quality and full size]

so, this collection of pieces are all heavily inspired by @finalgirljasontodd 's amazing fic red shift abut the cosmic mistakes trio. these pieces are most heavily inspired by the third paragraph:

"In the bathroom, Kyle is hunched over the sink. A red line of saliva is drawn between his lip and the porcelain. He spits. Blood splats into the basin. He cups his hand under the faucet and drinks until he can't taste metal anymore."

under the cut are non yellow versions and some notes as well as a bonus drawing

so i understand the yellow is off putting and was artistic license on my part, i used the yellow as i wanted to show how kyle is still haunted by the after math of his time as paralax, but he is turned away from it [he is always facing away from the yellow light] he is also tuned towards the green [the dark green shadows] but he is still in the middle [gray/white for ion] affected by both. his linework is sketchy- especially compared to the water, sink, tap or tiles- he is unsure of himself. but he is a green lantern at core- the neon green linework.

also bonus from the line "His notebook’s still on the kitchen counter—as he collects a pair of bowls and opens up the cereal box, he notices the broken pencil’s still sitting on top of it. Only now someone has taken a knife and shaved the splintered edge to a gentle, neat point."

yes i sharpened one of my pencils w a knife to a nice point to use for a reference in a piece that you cant really tell if its knife sharpened.

my tags which i think are important- its strange to be on the other side of analysis, with the ability to know what the intentions of the piece were, so when using my analysts eye i can pick up on meanings i dint mean to happen, whether they go against or with the intentions. also how different perspectives can read different ideas- leading to different conclusions. idk this shit is cool and i love hearing ppls interpretations of my work so leave it in the tags! [you win my undying gratitude]

#i have just realized i could have don the highlights red. cause red-shift#and it would contrast better w the green#but it would make the blood stand out less#the blood is an important part#especially with it contrasting the gods not bleeding idea#something something expression of mortality#also the yellow green are ajasent not contrasting#so it shows how it can be easy to slip between the two#especialy given the amount of gl who have become yl and vice versa#not especially happy with the fact i colured the water yellow#it makes sense- yellow lighting#but makes it look like hes accepting the yellow[parallax]#i feel it gives of the wrong connotations#but you could say the worry he has about god/his place means he is feeling fear#but it can be hard to have prefect ideas#we are human and our minds will always find patterns that were not intended#some of wich may go against the original idea#but are valid and interesting interpretations that are not wrong#just different from intended

ok i swaer im gonna stop adding to this but i went in more depth[and sense] in a post i just wrote here

[bjornolf-bjarki]

Hewwo. I come bearing fanfic writer questions for whenever u have a moment to answer uwu

Do you daydream a lot before you write, or go for it as soon as the ideas strike?

Post a snippet from a wip.

What is your favorite world that you’ve created for a fic?

What genre/trope do you tend to write the most?

Are there any fics that influenced you to write the way you do?

Thank you again @nuclearforest!

I did daydream a lot when I was writing before my hiatus but I'm getting back into it. I think daydreaming about some ideas are good but some things have to be written down right away.

ok I'll give a crack at the wip: The marble floors of the Vatican Palace were almost distracting to Sigurd, not to mention all the chattering from the older well-suited spectators judging his worth as a mercenary after being challenged by Paladin Anderson to cross swords... er bayonets with him. That wasn't what made him really feel the weight of the staring on his shoulders, it was that Hellsing lady lightly sneering across the way with her creepy vampire, her sketchy butler, and strangely bubbly vampire fledgling.

Did they know it was him? Did they know who he was? Could they know that he's up to something? Damn... what if they do know something, what if- "Are ye ready ta fight me yet?" Sigurd looked up to father Andersons' expectant gaze, his smirk evident as his two bayonets fell into his hands from his sleeves. Sigurd cocked his head, popping his vertebrae as he did so.

"Yeah, sure." He answered, drawing his sword from its scabbard. Then a crusader knight tapped his shoulder, making Sigurd turn his head. "You might want this..." The knight clearly had a Danish accent as he spoke through his chainmail coif and handed an elaborately decorated kite shield with a bright yellow knotted style of the cross painted at the top. Sigurd silently spread his hand open to accept it and gripped the parallel center straps like how he'd give a handshape grip a sword or his usual center grip roundshield in a duel. "Be'er not make it too easy then!" Anderson said, getting in a battle stance, ready for it to begin. Sigurd took one in response, placing his sword over his right shoulder, then covering his centerline with his kite shield.

"I promise I won't, Father Anderson." Sigurd smiled after he said that, knowing one day he'd make these catholic bastards pay for what they did...

Anderson rushed forward, Sigurd stepped closer to meet him in the middle, knowing what may follow next.

Integra watched closely as the two began this dance of steel, knowing that it would draw more than sparks.

_____________________ end of conceptsnippet

My favorite world is the one I'm trying to write about right now.

IDK about tropes that I'd like to write but maybe one day I'll know.

I think some Hellsing fics have influenced my writing a bit, though it's hard to name them right now.

[flame-shadow]

8. What do you like most about your own work?

10. What’s that one thing that inspired you to make drawing your consistant hobby?

8. What do you like most about your own work?

Hmmm. I like a decent amount of things about my art, but probably what I like most is that I can draw quickly and generally capture or quickly discover what I'm intending to draw. The sooner I can get an idea or the impression of a shape out of my head, the sooner I am freed from the burden of trying to remember something I can't visualize.

I think I've mentioned it before, but I don't have a strong ability to visualize things in my head (aphantasia), so when I have something in mind that I want to draw, it manifests as an impression - usually the abstract feeling of an expression or the flow of a pose - that I have to translate onto the paper. And when I don't get what I'm after the first time, then I can usually quickly figure it out with some sketchy lines and a few adjustments.

I've figured out a way to describe the experience of 'seeing' what's in my head, but it's kinda irrelevant here. Anyway, drawing quickly and ridding myself of intangible idea-demons.

10. What’s that one thing that inspired you to make drawing your consistent hobby?

I don't think there's a single identifiable thing. I have always been drawing; I'm one of those "since I could hold a crayon and push it around on a paper" people. I think it's more that.. there are some things which helped me out, and there are some things which were less fun but which ensured that I didn't actually STOP drawing as a hobby.

Before I list the factors, I want to set the stage. I was Not Good At Drawing Things for a long time. I have always been slow at developing my artistic skills and figuring out how to do things. Among my artistically inclined peers, I was almost always on the lower skilled, less creative end of the spectrum of artists, especially before my early-to-mid-twenties (this is a very subjective spectrum and it's not that great to compare yourself to others in this way, but tolerate my usage of it here please). I don't say this to put myself down, but I want to emphasize that not only was I not one of the ~ooh wow you're so talented~ artists, but I used to accept the quiet fact that I'd probably never be Great at art, that I'd mostly just be someone who had decent skills and could entertain people with my doodles. (And to be clear, I filled this niche for many years and was happy doing it! But I wanted to keep getting better, so I did.)

Things which helped me continue drawing: - support/encouragement from my family and friends, especially my mom who would buy me art supplies and paid for me to attend some after-school art classes during my elementary school years. those classes taught me some foundational techniques that I still think about and use today. - related, that art teacher from those classes. seriously, she was the one art teacher i have had who i actually genuinely always enjoyed interacting with (the other art teachers were a mixed bag, but what can you expect when they had to deal with middle and high schoolers all the damn time) - joy! i enjoyed and still enjoy the physical experience of drawing and expressing myself in a different way. there is a tactile pleasure to drawing on paper that cannot be experienced from drawing on a screen, and i think that helped engage me, and i often return to it when i need to feel more from drawing - spite. yeah, cycling back to those unfun art teachers, i absolutely have been motivated by spite to keep drawing. sometimes i think about going up to my middle school art teacher and giving evidence for the fact that i can paint now and i know how to draw contours and my dragons don't look like weird dog-lizards. and i think about going up to my high school art teacher and shoving so many pieces in her face and saying that i can too compose a drawing and use color well and my anatomy is loads better and also just because you don't understand the appeal of dragons doesn't mean i'll ever stop drawing them also fuck you for making me cry when i was trying my best for those entire two years i had your class im better now and also ive stolen what you taught me about critiques and turned it into something that people actually come to me for help with because unlike you, I can give a critique without making the artist shrivel up inside -dragons. dragons are super fun to draw and they have often been the only thing i had any desire to draw

That got long, whoops. I don't have simple answers for questions like these XD

Artist question list

[r0d30-brqt]

Hello!! I just wanted to pop in real quick and say I absolutely love your art!! You have such a fun and cool style!!! Your line work is just so nice, it’s got this nice like semi sketchy style to it while also being clean and super readable and it’s just so good!!! This is probably a weird thing to point out but I specifically really like how you draw legs and jeans, like they just look so good!!! Your coloring is also super nice, and the expressions you draw are just incredible.

I love the Twst art you make, I find myself enjoying every new post. General character drawings are always super nice, I really love your specific designs for certain characters, you draw everyone so well and whenever you change something or add something it always looks super nice! I also love the memes you like draw over they’re hilarious!! Also that little series you did of the like characters dorms being swapped was so cool!! It was so interesting to see the new dynamics between characters that would happen if they were in different dorms. Like Savanaclaw Trey and his dream to be ‘most average normal guy alive’ dying as he is surrounded by Malleus and Jade haha. And the like dynamic between Riddle and Leona with Riddle wanting the housewarden seat was so neat!! The designs for everyone are super cool, and again the new dynamics popping up is just so fantastic.

I also really like your oc Mirror!! She has such a cool design, I really love the school uniform design you have specifically, that long shirt under the vest just has such a cool silhouette! Also the pink color you chose is just so stunning it looks fantastic. Mirrors also just super fun to see art of as a character, I love when you make the little comics of her misadventures. Sometimes she does appear to be going through it tho, rip to Mirror for that.

Also I know they both like just got posted but I already love your Idia cousin and Leech sibling oc too haha. Mori has such a nice design, I really like the hair and that little flame at the top!! Maybe it’s the middle like shading but it’s just so satisfying to look at. And Sigal also has cool hair!! I like how you inverted the colors of it and have it in the ponytail style like you draw Floyd and Jade. I also really like the purple earring, it matches so nicely with the hair. And the backstory is great because it could so easily happen. I wonder how Sigal would interact with Floyd and Jade. I know they’re there in the lil last drawing, but I’d love to see more of their dynamic beyond that initial like “huh?” reaction. It would definitely be interesting to see I bet. Honestly I love Leech sibling ocs because they’re all so creative. Not that other character sibling ocs aren’t creative, I’ve seen some and they’re also very cool, but something about the leech family just results in the most interesting of characters. I’ve seen everything from them being calm to them being more intense than Jade or Floyd haha. Sorry this part went a bit long, I also have a leech sibling Oc so whenever I see someone else’s I’m always like “ayyy they get it!!!” Haha, and Sigals design is so neat I couldn’t help but ramble.

oops this is a bit of a block of text, sorry for rambling lol. Anyways, TLDR you have wonderful art and wonderful ocs, and I can’t wait to see what you make next!!! Keep up the great work and have a great day!!! :D

UEUEUEUE ANOOOOONNNNNN THIS IS SO SWEEET THA K YOU SM

dont be sorry for rambling at all, i really enjoyed hearing your thoughts on the stuff i make! it means alot to know that someone likes the stuff i make along with my ocs :3