#today is definitely the day

[brainman1987]

??? Colors today love me and I love pyro everyday (idea #99999999999999 of what pyro could look like! Do not!! Make my boy white!!!!)

[swedenis-h]

Idk how they’re getting outta this one (X)

[chloesimaginationthings]

Who do you want FNAF to collab with?..

[willthespy]

HUYS WHY DID THIS DK WELL I HATE IT GET IT OFF MY TOP POSTS THE RVIEVDLBEBDH

a birthday gift from a certain god…

[aeviann]

XENOBLADE X NATION HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE ALIVE AGAIN

[the0verboss]

Gortash Week day 1- Inventor/Criminal

And I thought, why not both?

[froggtogs]

gone fishing

[itsdefinitely]

based on a textpost

[kijeu]

i got no jam? you got no jam? we got no jam?

[screwpinecaprice]

Haha she a Border Connie.

Even before Cat Steven (the cat) I imagined a cat Steven to be a calico with a stubby tail.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

i cant stress how much joy i get from doodling magneto as A Dramatic Comic Book Villain i cannot even lie to you chat

[marlynnofmany]

Not A Pest

I kept a hand on the pallet of boxes on the hoversled, making sure it didn't wobble while Blip and Blop pushed it up the ramp. It was all held in place solidly enough by high-tech netting much fancier than the kind we used, and I didn't need to worry much. So when we reached the cargo bay and Zhee called for my assistance back on the ground, I didn't feel bad about leaving the Frillians to finish loading it. They were strong enough to muscle anything into place if needed anyway. 

“What's up?” I asked as I trotted back down the ramp.

“Thought you might weigh in on their pest problem before we go,” Zhee said with a twitch of his antennae towards the clients whose stuff we were delivering. More Frillians today: not as beefy as Blip and Blop, but with waving frills everywhere that just made Zhee look like a praying mantis among flowers. He also looked smug, but that was nothing new. “I mentioned an animal expert, and they mentioned payment,” he told me.

I came to a stop beside him. “You know I don't know everything, right? Just putting that out there. My vet training was on Earth.” 

“Yes yes, I gave them the disclaimers,” Zhee said. 

The client in front, a tall female with colors like a Siamese Fighting Fish, said, “That’s better than anyone on our ship has. Something's getting into boxes in our cargo hold, and we can't find it. Tore into some food and made a mess of the animal fibers.” 

The shorter male behind her in salmon-peach tones held out a lumpy handful of what looked like brown wool. "My guess is it's making a nest somewhere, but it's being wasteful with the stuff too. Tangled it up something fierce."

My response died on my lips as I got a good look at it. Among the stray fibers was the exact shape of a teddy bear. 

“Can I see that?” I asked. 

He handed it over. I plucked off the extra bits and yes, it was definitely meant to be a teddy bear, made by hand from the wool in the cargo hold. There were even little twists for eyes.

I looked up at them. “You don’t have a pest. You have a stowaway.”

They blustered and pooh-poohed the idea: nonsense, how could there possibly be an intelligent creature onboard without their knowledge?

“We’ve been in space a long time,” said the tall one. “Only stopping at uninhabited locations for resources.”

“And at the—” put in the pink one, then stopped at a sharp look from his teammate.

I wasn’t about to let that go. “The what?” I asked.

The tall one sighed. “We salvaged some fuel from a wreck,” she admitted. “But there was no one on it. We checked. And with the tow ship we saw in the distance, it seemed likely enough that the owner had jetted away in a life preserver rather than sticking around. It was a single-person ship.”

Somebody else piped up from between the many crates in their cargo hold. “It couldn’t be a person! There’s nowhere big enough to hide!”

I held up the teddy bear. “This is a child’s toy from my planet.” I looked up at the maze of pipes on the ceiling. “And my people like to climb.”

Zhee was being smug behind me while I made a quick circuit of the room, looking for likely spots. One corner was particularly dark, and it had a series of crates below the pipes, stacked into a perfect ramp. I flashed back to the time a litter of kittens had found a similar hidey-hole on my own ship. This spaceship was made by a different group of aliens altogether, but they never seemed to expect anyone to pay attention to nooks and crannies in the ceiling.

“Hello?” I called, climbing onto the first crate with the wool bear in hand. “Anybody up there?” I continued in every language I knew greetings in, which included the galaxy’s favorite trade language (which I knew well), several minor trade languages (which I did not), and a smattering of languages from Earth (which I knew not at all), plus English. Despite my efforts, I didn’t hear a thing until I got all the way to the top.

“Jambo?” I tried, peering into the dark crevice. “Uh, sprechen sie deutsch?” I held out the wool bear. “Is this yours?”

A quiet gasp echoed off the pipes, then two small arms reached out to grab the bear. With further coaxing, the girl clambered forward to where I could see her: dark skin, wide eyes, artfully braided hair, and clothes that looked fancy, if very dusty. I’m not great at kid ages, but she was young. Old enough to push buttons on her parents’ spaceship maybe, not old enough to steer.

I still didn’t know what language she spoke, but it was hard to go wrong with body language. I held out my arms for a hug. “Want to go home?”

She sniffled and climbed forward into the embrace, clinging tight. That made it a bit of a challenge to get back down to floor level, but I managed. A crowd of Frillians and one smug Mesmer waited there.

“See?” Zhee said to the tall Frillian. “Exactly the animal expert you needed.”

I shook my head in amusement. “For all the wrong reasons, you’re exactly right.” The girl didn’t want to be put down, so I hoisted her onto one hip and stood carefully. “How far away was that crash site? Can you send a message to the planet or station the tow ship came from?”

“Yeah, we’re on it,” the tall Frillian said, her frills flattened in what might have been shame. She directed a couple of the others to do that, and also to gather the fuel they’d scavenged.

Zhee cheered her up with talk of a probable finder’s fee. “Humans get very attached to their offspring,” he said. “There is a strong chance this one’s parents are already advertising a reward.”

While they talked money (and Zhee got our ship that promised fee for pest control), someone with sense arrived with a bottle of water and questions about what food would be suitable.

The girl drank the water eagerly, not letting go of her bear, and didn’t answer any of my questions about food allergies. She accepted some protein cubes and chewed them with determination.

By then, a reply had already come from the nearest space station, and a ship was on the way. Full of authority figures and very anxious parents, by the sounds of it.

While the Frillians discussed that and the little kid quietly refused to be put down, Zhee held up his communicator so I could talk to Captain Sunlight back on our ship. Zhee had already explained the situation.

The captain asked me, “How long do they expect until arrival?”

“I think they said about half an hour,” I said. “Hopefully that won’t put us behind schedule.”

“No, we’ll be fine,” she said. “Given that the young one is so taken with you, we might as well stay to make sure everything gets resolved. Does she need to visit the medical bay?”

“I don’t think so. She hasn’t said anything yet, but she doesn’t look injured. Couldn’t hurt to give her a once-over with the hand scanner just in case. We’ve got time.” I looked down at her thoughtfully, then had a bright idea. “And I bet she’d love to meet Telly. After we check her for allergies, of course.”

The captain agreed that was a fine idea. Zhee took over the conversation while I asked the girl, in a mix of Earth languages and pantomime, if she wanted to see my cat.

Her eyes lit up and she started talking in a spill of words that I didn’t catch in the slightest. Spanish, maybe French? Portuguese? Ah, it didn’t matter. The language of kitty ears and “meow meow” is almost as universally recognized as hugs. We walked from one ship to another, and waited for her parents in the company of a medical scanner, human food, and a very friendly cat.

~~~

These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.

Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.

The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[jeff-guy]

First 2 inktobers!

I'm using @silksongeveryday prompts so Day one is Hornet forgoring to take care of herself in school (Im projecting.)

Day two is me going insane about women with big needles.

[tei-to-tei]

December 2 - Story Time

[felassan]

Article: 'Dragon Age: The Veilguard took "so long" as BioWare "wanted to make sure we got this one right" - that, and "it takes a long time to record 700 characters" and 140,000 lines'

The Veilguard is "the best version" of itself that it could be

Excerpt:

"BioWare reveals why Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been in the works for a long, long time - and it sounds like the upcoming RPG is downright massive, from dialogue to voice acting. The 10-year wait for a new Dragon Age is coming to a close as the fall season approaches, meaning that excitement for the game is at an all-time high. Why did The Veilguard take "so long" to come to fruition, though? Speaking in an interview with GamesRadar+, creative director John Epler and creative performance director Ashley Barlow explain why work on the beloved RPG series' soon-to-come entry was seemingly slower. "We had other projects going on at BioWare as well," Epler says. "We wanted to make sure we got this one right." The developer continues, calling The Veilguard "the best version" that the new Dragon Age "could possibly be." Barlow then chimes in, describing how she's been working on the game for five years now alongside its cast of actors: "We started casting five years ago. The team, the talent has been on for five years." And, according to Barlow, five years isn't that long considering the amount of work the cast had to do: "It takes a long time to record 700 characters, you know - 80,000 lines or 140,000 lines with all the Rooks. It just takes time to make good."

[source]