#tried digital painting for for serious this time……

[iamdognow]

You can't be what you were

So you better start being just what you are

[bat-mom-writer]

Little Fever

Reader(mom) x bat boys (Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Damian Wayne)

Summery: You catch a fever one night, all of your sons want to stay by your side.

(I don't own any DC characters)

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She was making herself coffee, the quiet hum of the machine a loud background noise in the otherwise silent penthouse. The digital clock on the microwave blinked 3:14 AM, a time that was both too late for insomnia and too early for the beginnings of a new day. The moon cast a soft, pale glow through the floor-to-ceiling windows, painting the gleaming chrome surfaces with a cool, blue light. She wrapped her hands around the warm mug, the heat seeping through her skin and into her bones, a stark contrast to the chill of the room. Her eyes felt heavy, but she blinked away the fatigue, knowing sleep would be elusive tonight.

The first signs of the fever had appeared just hours earlier, a sudden warmth that spread through her body like a wildfire. She had tried to ignore it, chalking it up to the heat of the city outside, but when the chills began, she knew she couldn't hide from it anymore. The boys, her makeshift family, were all tucked in their beds, oblivious to the battle she was fighting. She took a sip of the steaming drink, letting the caffeine and warmth wash over her, hoping it would be enough to clear the fog in her head.

The door to the kitchen slid open and Dick, the eldest, stepped in, his eyes immediately finding hers. He was dressed in his nightclothes, his hair a mess from sleep. "Oh, it's you," he said with a sigh of relief, probably expecting to find Bruce in his usual nighttime patrol. "What are you doing up so early? And making coffee?"

"Couldn't sleep," she replied, her voice a whisper, not wanting to disturb the silence of the night.

"I bet you couldn't, with the racket this thing makes," he says, gesturing to the coffeemaker with a smirk as he crosses the room to join her. His bare feet make almost no sound on the cool marble floor, a testament to his years of stealth training. He takes the mug from her hand and sets it aside gently. "You know, caffeine isn't exactly the best cure for what ails you." His tone is light, teasing, but there's a thread of concern in his eyes that she can't miss.

"I know," she says, managing a weak smile. "But sometimes a girl needs her vices."

Dick's smile fades as he feels her forehead with the back of his hand. "You're burning up," he says, his voice suddenly serious. "You should be in bed."

"I'm fine," she insists, though her words are met with a skeptical look from Dick. "It's just a little fever."

Dick's eyes narrow, and he crosses his arms. "A little fever can turn into a big problem if you don't take care of yourself. You know Bruce would have a fit if he knew you were up making coffee at this hour."

"Well, let's not tell him, then," she jokes weakly, though she knows he's right. "But really, I'll be okay."

Dick shakes his head, a stubborn set to his jaw that mirrors his father's. "I'll be the judge of that," he says, already turning to a drawer and pulling out a thermometer. The plastic stick reflects the moonlight as he snaps it open. "Open up."

With a sigh, she complies, allowing him to slide the cool tip under her tongue. The digital numbers on the display flicker to life as it reads her temperature. Dick's expression tightens as he looks at the results. "101 degrees," he murmurs. "That's not 'just a little fever'."

"Okay, okay," she concedes, leaning against the counter for support. "Maybe I'll go lie down for a bit."

Dick nods firmly. "That's more like it. You need to rest." He takes her by the elbow and gently guides her towards the staircase that leads to the upper level of the penthouse. "Come on, I'll help you to bed."

As they ascend the stairs, she can feel the heat radiating off her body, each step a small victory against the wave of dizziness that threatens to overwhelm her. She's grateful for Dick's steady presence beside her, his grip tight but reassuring. When they reach the bedroom, he helps her into the cool, crisp sheets, the fabric a heavenly balm against her feverish skin. He pulls the comforter up to her chin, yhe room spins slightly, but she squeezes her eyes shut and focuses on the comfort he's providing.

Jason, the second oldest, appeared in the doorway, his eyes bleary with sleep. "What's going on?" he asked, his gaze immediately finding her.

"Just a little fever," Dick said, his hand on her forehead, checking the temperature once more. "I'll get you some Tylenol and water."

"Thanks," she mumbled, her eyelids drooping as she settled into the pillows.

With a nod, Dick returned out of the room, leaving Jason with a silent promise to return soon. She felt the mattress shift as he flopped down beside her, his body heat adding to the warmth of the bed. He buried his face into the pillow and muttered, "It is too bloody early."

Her smile was faint. "It's okay. Just go back to sleep."

"And leave you in the hands of the nurse?" Jason quipped. He sat up, his gaze never leaving hers. "Not on my watch."

The room was quiet for a moment, filled only with the sound of her shallow breathing. She could feel the warmth from his body and the gentle pressure of his hand on her forehead. "All I'm saying is, did you have to get a fever at three in the morning?"

A faint chuckle escaped her lips, the sound foreign to the stillness. "I'll try to schedule it better next time," she murmured.

Tim, the third oldest, slipped into the room, his eyes scanning the scene. He was dressed in his usual attire, a simple t-shirt and shorts. "Why are you all up so early?" he asked, his voice groggy with sleep as he rubbed his eyes.

Dick passes Tim at the door, a glass of water and a bottle of Tylenol in hand. "Mom's got a fever," he says quietly. Tim's eyes widen with concern, and he quickly moves to the bedside. "How bad is it?"

"It's not too high," Dick reassures him. "But she needs to rest and stay hydrated." He opens the bottle and shakes out two pills, holding the water to her mouth as she swallows them. The cool liquid is a relief to her parched throat. "I've got it," he says to Tim. "You go back to bed."

Tim nods, but instead of leaving, he pulls out the chair from the vanity and sits down, crossing his legs under him. "I'm good," he says, his eyes never leaving hers. "I'll stay."

The concern in Tim's gaze is unmistakable, and she feels a warmth in her chest that has nothing to do with the fever. She tries to protest, but the words die in her throat. These boys, her makeshift sons, had grown into such capable, caring young men. They had all suffered their fair share of pain and loss, yet here they were, in the early hours of the morning, worried about her.

"Jason, we're trying to keep her temperature down, out of the bed," Dick says firmly, his tone a mix of affectionate exasperation.

"Fine," Jason groaned loudly, his voice a mix of amusement and exasperation. He reluctantly climbed off the bed, allowing the cool air to wash over her. She couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness at the loss of his warmth, but she knew it was for the best.

Without another word, Jason had plopped himself down on Tim's lap in the chair, a cheeky grin on his face. "If I can't keep mom warm, "then I'll just warm Tim up instead."

Tim's eyes widened in surprise, and he tried to push Jason off, his legs flailing. "Get off me! Your butt is crushing me!"

Jason just chuckled and tightened his grip. "Feel the warmth young Timmy, let it envelop you like a feverish embrace."

"I can't breathe," he gasped out with a grin.

"Good, then I'm doing my job," Jason said, his voice mischievous. Despite his playfulness, she could see the genuine worry in his eyes as he looked at her.

The door creaked open once more, and Damian, the youngest, peered in, his dark hair sticking up in all directions. "What's with all the noises?" he grumbled, his voice thick with sleep. "It's the middle of the night."

Dick looked up from where he sat on the edge of the bed, his thumb brushing the back of her hand in a silent gesture of comfort. "Mom's not feeling well," he said softly.

Damian's eyes grew round with concern, and he padded over to the bed "What's wrong?" he asked, his voice quieter than she'd ever heard it.

"Just a bit of a fever," she said, trying to keep the weariness from her voice.

Damian looked at Jason and Tim, his expression unreadable. "And those two?" he asked, nodding at the chair.

"Brotherly love," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Despite her fever, she couldn't help the fondness that filled her chest.

Tim's face grew red, his efforts to push Jason off him doubling in intensity. "It doesn't fell like it," he gasped. Dick couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of his brothers.

"Okay, okay," Dick said, standing up and pulling Jason to his feet with ease. "Up you go, you're not exactly the warm compress type."

Jason shot him a look but allowed himself to be removed, stretching dramatically before settling on the edge of the bed. "Fine, but I'm not going anywhere," he said, his eyes still on her.

Tim took a deep, exaggerated breath and let it out with a dramatic sigh. "Ah, the sweet taste of oxygen,"

The room filled with chuckles, the tension easing slightly. Dick handed her the water, and she took a grateful sip, the coolness spreading down her throat.

"Thanks, guys," she said, her voice still weak but filled with affection. "But really, you all should get back to sleep."

"You're right, we should go to sleep." Jason said, his voice filled with mock defeat. But instead of leaving, he flopped back on the bed, his body sprawling out in a way that was both endearing and alarmingly similar to Bruce's when he was trying to be comfortable.

"Jason," she warned, but it was too late. He had already pulled the blankets up to his chin, his eyes closing with feigned innocence. The room was filled with the sound of her own laughter and the boys' smothered giggles.

"Well, if he's staying, so am I," Tim said, his voice a mix of amusement and stubbornness. He lays down at her feet, his body curling up into a ball, his head resting on the edge of the bed. Damian, not to be outdone, slid in beside Jason, .

"Fine," Dick sighed, a small smile playing on his lips despite the early hour and the seriousness of the situation. "But if her fever doesn't break soon, we're all gotta leave, okay?"

Jason mumbled an agreement, his eyes already half-closed, while Tim nodded solemnly. Damian perfectly squeezed between Jason and Dick. For a moment, she felt a pang of sadness that Bruce wasn't here to share in this odd, yet comforting moment, but she quickly pushed it aside. This was their own brand of family, their own way of supporting each other.

[fishsinsareacknowledged]

"Machine? Where in hell have you brought me?"

Gabriel asked, his voice echoing off the hell's elevator as his wings slowed his decent, hearing a loud thud where the machine landed first before he followed slowly. Nails protracting to scratch at the walls of the tunnel as he slid down. The machine was already gone by the time he was done, impatient fucker.

It wasn't hard to find it thought after they dragged him down the damned industrial hole. Godless creations and such. At least now it made sense how the humans were able to transverse hell. He would wonder what the odd yellow box was there for, machinery glaring at him through invisible eyes as he kept his own eyes on it. Whatever it was, it gave him unholy vibes. Especially when the screen blipped as he passed by it, hands already reaching to his weapon before a pressurized boom caught his attention. Bringing him to watch as the machine called him over by forcefully grinding its gears.

"I demand answers machine, this place seems far too peaceful to be a layer of hell", the angel wondered as he looked around the serene environment, it was dawn. Barely even morning, not that angels had a good sense of time especially when they've been ripped of their light. And yet it didn't even look like hell outside of the endless abyss of landscape. It looked almost like..earth.

He has fallen, he knows that now, and yet. He's not a fallen angel. Just somewhere in between unholy and just human. A perfect ratio to the machine's algorithm, recognizable enough to be familiar. Comforting and just inhuman enough to love. Or whatever their equivalent of it was. It wasn't anything and yet it was everything at all. Clear perfection by balance.

The machine offered a fishing pole to him as it dragged the angel by his armor. Pinching the metal hard enough to leave a V1 finger sized dent in its place. Making the angel sit down on a wooden, somehow not rotting log and shoving said pole in his arms when he made no move to grab it. Oh good lord, he didn't know how to fish, he's seen humans do it before but ah. It was just them at the end of creation, he'll suck it up and try.

Even as bad at fishing the angel thought he was V1 managed to surprise him even further. The angel just stared ahead, praying to an extent if his mechanical partner was truly...serious.

"V1.", the angel called, a low baritone in his voice as he watched it return with a bucket of apples and what seemed to be demon replicas. A soft clock of a motor rotating and holding itself into place as V1 simply tilted the gears in their neck. A lopsided stare that asked at him.

"I do not believe we can catch prey with such measly bait", the angel tried to offer only for the mechatronic to shrug at him. Uselessly human just enough for him to understand it with it's lack of voice.

Gabriel feels like he should just sigh, letting an artificial breath escape his non-existent lungs as he mimicked the machine's choice of humanlike behavior. Looking around as V1 somehow indeed catches a fish, funny and oddly colorful looking before a certain mouth shaped flesh cave takes his attention. He stares at it for a beat or two, momentarily watching if it'll make the first move while V1 manages to catch another fish in the same time. 

A hand covering the eye holes of his mask before they cup his cheek and make him look at the camera facing him. Feeling V1's fans run a little wilder as they increase their graphics, as slow as it might be at just 400 frames per second it was worth catching their armored angel.

" A N G E L ? "

The machine tilts again as precise and mechanical digits tap at his helmet in a form of morse. A dink of their helmet and slide of metal against metal as they spell the A to A N G E L as lovely as can be. A fraction of a pause then another tap and slide, the tin creaks as both V1's thumb and Gabriel's mask slide, paint scratched away, a little grey and black where they've talked and felt. A heartbeat's pause though the machine counts it inaccurate phrasing it felt right to call it that. To describe it that way in their database, creating a storage to keep away the memory of his moment. To keep a memory of Gabriel.

One tap as he was everything. Red as the blood that fueled them, the most wonderful hue.  E N R A G E D

A tap, slide, two shots was how they met.  L O V E

The tilt of fate as it asked the A N G E L a silent question. No words ever present except for the one's they can think of.

:ARE YOU ALRIGHT LOVE?:

It would as if it could, use up all the unnecessary words and all the unneeded poetry to woo their dramatic angel. 

They remind him of all the word's he's never used. Lovely, perfection, something that couldn't have been achieved and yet. Unused in their continuous database until now. Used for just the right being of perfection, made by god himself. The machine could never understand religion but it could understand their own existence was due to those who believed. Those who lived on for the cause of god. They'll never truly understand it but they have a memory unsaved of the missing thoughts. The memory of blood that lives on in numbers and words.

"This place is unholy, but I'll accept it."

And he responds, echoed in his own armor and yet it's the clearest audio they've kept in lifetimes. Finding the warmth of a sunlit glow on T H E I R  A N G E L ' S  cheeks while the machine laughs silently. Light dancing in their mechanical eye as the yellow turns into a warm orange, the most color they've captured in their camera and the only one.

:E A T:

They offer the fish to him, a gift that the angel finds a tribute. Their hunger apparent once they've been turned lightless. It was messy, now calm. Satiated for a short while.

"I will eat, but not this."

The machine falls the joints of their shoulders, making them lower as much as they could in a sagging motion as they hear T H E I R  A N G E L  sigh. Spearing the fish on a stick as a single shot from a revolver lights the bonfire. They won't miss the way their A B S O L U T E L Y  N A U S E A T I N G L Y  G L A M O R O U S L Y  E G O C E N T R I C L Y  L O V E  W A S  P E R F E C T . A N D  T H E Y  S P E L L E D  T H A T  I N  P E R F E C T  E N G L I S H  T O O , N O  M A T T E R  W H A T  T H E I R  A. N. G. E. L.  S A I D . T H E Y  A R E N ' T  W R O N G .

[chr0macide]

Break In: The Novelette (Fanfic)

Part 2 is out

BOOM FIRST TUMBLR POST. I am currently normal about the Roblox Break In series so I decided to try and recreate it as a short story. This is my first time writing anything seriously for fun so I'm sure the pacing is all kinds of fucked up but I did enjoy making it lol. I tried to follow the game's storyline as closely as possible but I also took a few creative liberties and tried to give the characters more personality, not sure how well it worked though lol. This is just the first Break In but I might also do this to Break In 2 as well, probably won't happen in the immediate future though. This thing is about 9,500 words. If you have any feedback/notice errors please do comment :)

Chapter I – Silent House

An old coupe trundled down the road of a quaint suburban neighborhood. Four kids were crammed uncomfortably inside it. One of them reached into his bag of chips, elbowing his younger sister next to him as he did so.

“Ugh. Watch it, Hadrian,” she grumbled.

“You watch it,” Hadrian replied as he shoved the chips into his mouth. The girl reached over to steal one out of the bag. Hadrian slapped her hand away.

“You jerk!” she shrieked, swinging her teddy bear into Hadrian’s face. Hadrian grabbed a handful of his sister’s dark hair and pulled. The two older kids in the car groaned as their younger siblings began bickering and jostling everyone else around.

“Hadrian. Stephanie. Cut it out,” warned the older sister. The younger kids quieted down, but only slightly. “I’m serious! Prince, tell them to stop,” she said to the driver.

The car ground to a halt. “Monica, it’s fine. We’re here,” said the older brother. He removed the key from the ignition. The engine made a worrisome rattling sound as it shut off. He grabbed the handle of the car door next to him and jiggled it. The door was stuck. “Damn this old shitbox,” he muttered as he forced it open.

The four kids squeezed out and breathed in the fresh air. “Finally,” said Stephanie. Prince walked around the car and popped the trunk open, removing the family’s only suitcase.

They’d parked in front of a modest two-story house. It was old and the paint was starting to peel, but at least it looked cozy on the inside.

The front door of the neighboring house creaked open. Out stepped an older man with sunglasses. Uncle Pete. After Prince and Monica had managed to get custody of their siblings, they all knew they had to get away from their parents’ house.

Pete was wealthy. He owned more than a few properties. He’d agreed to let them stay here for free. They weren’t sure why he owned two houses right next to each other. Old people were weird sometimes, but they weren’t complaining.

Prince waved at Uncle Pete. “Evening, Pete!” he called out. Pete just smiled and waved back.

“He’s, uh, usually nonverbal,” Monica explained to her younger siblings. “Anyway. Let’s get inside,” she suggested.

Prince stuck his hand under the welcome mat and fished out a keychain. He tried to jam several different keys into the lock before the door opened. Everyone stepped inside.

“It’s musty,” Stephanie complained. Hadrian made a beeline for the couch in the living room as he shoved another handful of chips into his face. He collapsed onto it and proceeded to ignore everyone.

“It’s not that bad,” Monica claimed. Truthfully, there was a slight odor in the house, but that was probably just because no one had aired the place out for a while. “Come on, let’s open these,” she said to Stephanie as she unlatched one of the windows.

Prince inspected the kitchen. They hadn’t had a chance to go grocery shopping yet, so the cupboards were barren. He took out his phone. “Pizza, anyone?” he called out to the others. They yelled their approval from the other rooms.

“Fine!”

“Sure!”

Prince punched a string of digits into the number pad and put the phone to his ear. “Is this Builder Brothers Pizza? OK, we’ll have a large pineapple—”

“NO!” bellowed Hadrian from the living room.

Prince rolled his eyes. “Fine. A large pepperoni as well,” he added.

Monica called out to him from the other room. “Prince! Get over here!” she said. Prince finished up the call and followed her voice until he was standing before a door with a large padlock affixed to it. Monica and Stephanie turned to him.

“This door looks cool. Open it,” Stephanie demanded.

Prince squinted at the padlock. “I don’t know… Pete probably locked it for a reason.”

“What, are you scared?” the girl joked. “You can lock it again if there’s a monster inside.”

The eldest brother pursed his lips. He wasn’t worried about monsters, but he’d heard rumors of growing criminal activity around this neighborhood. Although…

Prince rifled through the pockets of his cargo shorts until he located the keychain. He found the right key and inserted it into the padlock. It clicked open and fell to the ground with a dull thunk. Prince gently opened the door.

There were concrete steps leading down into a basement. They couldn’t see anything through the darkness, but the cold, stagnant air rushed out over them.

“That’s ominous,” Monica remarked.

Stephanie grinned in excitement and took a step inside, but Prince put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “No, Steph. It’s too dark to see anything in there. You’ll get hurt,” Prince told her. Steph stuck out her lower lip and pouted, but she didn’t try to run inside again. Prince shut the door.

The doorbell rang. The pizza was here. At the same time, Hadrian yelled at everyone from the living room again. “Guys! There’s breaking news on the TV!”

“Coming,” Prince yelled back. “You guys go ahead. I’m gonna get the food,” he told the girls.

Prince opened the front door. It was almost dark outside, and starting to rain, too.

“Sup,” said the delivery guy. Prince took a small step backwards. The guy was pretty big. “Two large pizzas?”

“Yeah,” Prince confirmed. He took the pizza boxes and set them aside before he rummaged through his cargo shorts again for his wallet. He opened it. The family had been low on cash ever since they left their parents’ place. He handed a $20 note to the delivery guy, but he continued to look at Prince expectantly. “Uh… no tip this time. Sorry. That’s all I got right now,” Prince admitted, averting his eyes.

The delivery guy threw up his arms in disbelief. “Dude, are you for real?” he questioned.

“Sorry,” Prince apologized again.

The pizza guy shoved the bill into his pocket. He turned around and trudged over to his motorcycle. “This is my livelihood, man,” he muttered. Prince fidgeted with his wallet guiltily as the guy sped off.

Nonetheless, Prince picked up the pizza boxes and brought them into the living room. Right as he set them down on the coffee table, there was a clap of thunder. The lights in the house blinked out abruptly. The TV flickered off.

Monica glanced outside. The streetlights were also off. There was a power outage.

Everyone looked out the window and saw Uncle Pete’s silhouette leave his house through the back door. He ran a cable to a box outside. He ran another one from the box to their own house. The box hummed to life.

“Oh, it’s a generator,” Monica figured. The lights didn’t turn on, but the TV did. Pete noticed everyone staring at him through the window. He waved at them again before running back into his home.

They turned to the TV and started eating their pizza as the news reporter began speaking. The screen showed a gang of mobsters wearing fine suits and tuxedos, their faces obscured by comedy masks. They were dumping a barrel of some unknown liquid into a storm drain. The picture appeared to have been taken through somebody’s broken windowpane.

The Purge has Begun, Villains on the Loose, read the headline. “This is not a drill. Agents of the mafia are roaming the streets,” said the news anchor. The image on the screen shifted. A short video played of a second group of mobsters smashing someone’s car window with his crowbar. They dragged a man out. One of them raised a gun to the civilian’s head, but the video was cut off before anything else happened.

“Goddamn,” muttered Prince.

“Do not engage these fugitives under any circumstances. There have been 19 confirmed deaths and many more confirmed injuries so far. Keep doors locked and windows closed at all times,” the news anchor continued.

Another image appeared on the screen. “Their leader is Larry Clockturn,” said the news anchor.

Monica stifled a laugh at the mob boss’s appearance. A grey beard hid the lower half of his face. He was old, and he definitely dressed like it. Bowler hats were not in fashion. There was a domino mask over his eyes. He wore a violet waistcoat with a rose affixed to the lapel over his black undershirt. A peculiar golden crowbar was in his hand.

The image switched to a mugshot of Larry. Monica stopped laughing. “Wait, that’s not a person,” she said. Now that they were looking at him up close, she realized that his skin was unnaturally shiny. His golden eyes glowed faintly in the dark and his face seemed stiff and lifeless.

“Is he a robot, or something?” asked Stephanie.

“I don’t know… he looks more like an automaton,” Monica replied.

Stephanie looked at her funny. “Is there a difference?”

“Well, yeah,” said Monica. “At least, I think so. Robots use electricity, but automatons have engines or something-”

Hadrian shushed her as the news anchor continued talking. “If you see this entity, run away and hide. Larry Clockturn is considered by authorities to be an extremely dangerous serial murderer. Do not engage him under any circumstances. Special forces have been dispatched to regulate the situation. I repeat, this is not a drill.”

There was static as the program ended. A standby screen appeared on the TV. Nobody spoke at first.

“That shit is wild,” said Hadrian, deadpan. Stephanie peered through the window nervously. “I told you we should have gone to Bloxburg!” she hissed to Prince.

“And I told you, Steph, we don’t have that kind of money.”

“Guys. Be quiet.” Monica was the one staring out the window now, but the streetlights were still off. If there were any mobsters creeping around outside, she couldn’t tell. “Can’t see shit. Maybe they don’t know we’re here, either… let’s just go upstairs.”

Prince grabbed the suitcase he’d left by the front door. He partially unzipped it and felt around inside until he found the flashlight, then switched it on and held it in front of him as he lugged the bag up the stairs. The others followed him from behind until he came to the bedroom. He dropped the bag just inside.

“Phew.” Prince was too tired to unpack, and now probably wasn’t the best time, anyway. He cautiously made his way to the window at the back of the room. It might have been his imagination, but he could almost see moonlight glinting on mobsters’ white purge masks. He drew the curtains. “Let’s just hit the sack,” he said to the other kids.

They were in for a rude awakening.

Chapter II – Broke In

The kids awoke to the sound of shattering glass. Stephanie sat bolt upright and screamed. She fell out of her bed and rolled underneath it, still clutching her teddy.

A mobster had smashed the only window in the room with his crowbar and was now climbing inside. The other three kids jumped up and scrambled away from him. He planted his shiny black shoes on the floor, brushed some glass shards off his tuxedo, and brandished his crowbar at the kids, laughing.

“G’day, cunts,” he greeted them, tipping his fedora at them wryly. He started towards them.

It was only one guy. The kids whirled around, searching for something to defend themselves with. There was nothing except for Prince’s baseball bat… but it was still in the suitcase. Monica ran to the front of the room and shoved the bag flat onto the floor. She started to unzip it.

Meanwhile, the mobster raised his crowbar to bash Prince’s brains in, but Hadrian had skirted around until he was behind the guy. He kicked the back of his leg. The thug folded, eliciting a giggle from the boy, but it was promptly cut short as the mobster shot to his feet and grabbed him around the throat. “Little shit.” He lifted his crowbar again as he throttled Hadrian with one hand.

Monica had the suitcase open. She dug through it, throwing the clothes aside until she found Prince’s chrome baseball bat. She tossed it to him.

Prince caught the bat and turned to the mobster again. “Get away from Hadrian, you asshole!” he yelled as he swung as hard as he could.

There was a sharp ding as the bat connected head-on with the side of the mafioso’s skull. His head was jerked to the side by the impact. He released Hadrian and crumpled to the ground, barely conscious.

Monica rushed towards Hadrian and hugged him. “Are you OK?” she asked, fussing over her younger brother.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine,” Hadrian replied as he pushed her away, but his voice was wavering a little. He rubbed his neck. The mobster’s grip had left a red mark around it.

Stephanie finally crawled out from under her bed. “What do we do now?” she whispered, staring wide-eyed at the insensible mafioso.

Prince walked over to him cautiously. “We should… uh…”

He didn’t want to kill a guy in front of two young kids. Certainly not his own siblings. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to kill anyone at all. His eyes fell upon the broken window.

“We should… just push him back out through the window. Yeah. It’s not that far to the ground. He’ll be fine,” finished Prince hesitantly. He grabbed the mobster’s feet. Monica grabbed him under the arms. They hauled his nearly unconscious body to the window.

They draped the mobster over the windowsill. Prince gave him a little push. He slid out rather gently and grunted in pain as he hit the ground outside. Now he was really knocked out.

Prince and Monica took a peek over the sill. He was already surrounded by a few of his fellow mafiosos. They glanced up at the teenagers, faces unreadable through their masks. They started to drag their unconscious accomplice into the shadows, where Prince spied his own car. The hood was open. The engine was gone. Looked like they wouldn’t be leaving this place anytime soon.

“Shit. We need to do something before they come back,” whispered Prince, pulling away from the window.

Monica squinted as she looked around the bedroom. She opened the door to the walk-in closet. “There’re some wood planks in here. Maybe we can board up the window…?” she suggested.

“We can board up all the windows,” Prince told her… “except for this one,” he added, nodding at the broken pane. “We’ll use that to see outside.” He retrieved some tools from the suitcase. Monica had told him to leave them behind when they’d moved out of their parents’ house—they were heavy—but now she was glad that he’d packed them anyway.

Prince dragged the planks out of the closet and left them in a pile. He picked up a hammer and went to nail one of the boards over a window at the end of the hall. He swore as he hit his thumb. “Fuck.” The sun was peeking over the horizon, but it was still barely light enough to see.

Monica and Hadrian started boarding up the other windows. They spent all day securing the place, and it was dark again before they knew it. They were all making a lot of noise, but there was nothing they could do about that.

Unfortunately for them, the sound attracted some unwanted attention.

“This was a shit idea.” Hadrian glanced through the gaps in the boarded window. There were more than a few eyes glinting in the darkness outside, glaring at them. “Now they know we’re in here,” he told Prince.

“They already knew we were in here, dumbass. A purger broke through the window and tried to kill us, remember?”

“Oh… yeah. I guess you’re right.”

With all the windows boarded up, there was nothing to do except meander around the house. Hadrian went to the living room and thought about turning the TV on, but he wasn’t in the mood.

He looked at the leftover pizza on the coffee table. He was hungry, but it had been sitting out all night. The power was still gone. The refrigerator was useless.

Hadrian sighed. No eating today.

As he reentered the foyer, Hadrian heard a scratching noise coming from the other side of the basement door. He panicked initially, but when he listened closer… was that mewling?

Hadrian stepped closer. He put a hand on the doorknob and opened the basement door, but only a little. An orange tabby cat slunk through the gap.

“Have you been in there the whole time?” Hadrian questioned, staring at the cat in disbelief. He reached down to pet it, but the cat batted his hand away and hissed. It ran past him and darted through the gap between Prince’s legs—he’d been watching from behind.

The cat jumped up onto a cabinet in the foyer and stared at Hadrian disdainfully. “Tch. Cats are lame anyway,” he muttered as he shut the basement door again. “Wait… Prince, do you hear that?”

There was a strange noise outside. Tires screeched along asphalt to a standstill. There was a loud electrical bang as a pair of headlamps were abruptly switched on outside, flooding the living room with a bright light.

A van had pulled in front of the house, facing them and shining its headlights into the room. Six mobsters got out and stared at the house silently. One of them made eye contact with Prince as he peered through the boarded window. The teenager backed away. He beckoned Hadrian to follow him upstairs.

“Prince? What’s happening?” Monica asked when she saw him.

“More gangsters. Six.” Prince paused as he looked outside again. “They’re just standing there…”

Prince’s brow furrowed in thought. It felt like ages before he spoke again. “I’m staying awake tonight. The rest of you sleep,” he told everyone as he picked up his bat and paced around the room. “I’ll wake you up if something happens.”

“Prince, are you sure? We should sleep in shifts,” offered Monica.

“No. It’s fine,” the eldest refused, waving the suggestion away.

Everyone else got into bed, but Prince walked over to the broken bedroom window again. The mobsters were still staring at the house intently. He stared back, determined. It was going to be another long night.

Chapter III – Tick Tock

It was dead silent. Light from the mobster van’s headlamps was still streaming into the house, but they hadn’t tried to get inside. Prince leaned against the wall, nodding off with his baseball bat in hand. He’d been awake for hours. His eyes began to close.

The sound of glass breaking pierced the night once again. Prince snapped to attention. He heard wood splinter and nails clink against the floor as the mafiosos pried the boards off a window downstairs. He opened his mouth, about to shout for the other kids to wake up, but he instead decided to shake them awake instead. They’d lose the element of surprise if the mobsters figured out they weren’t sleeping.

“Monica, wake up,” Prince hissed, shaking Monica in her bed. Her eyes snapped open.

“What? Did they break in?” Monica asked. She rolled out of bed hurriedly and grabbed Stephanie, dragging her off her bed as well. “Steph, we have to get up. There’re more bad guys.”

“They’re downstairs. Maybe we can get the jump on them,” Prince whispered as he shook Hadrian awake as well. He hesitated before pointing to the hammers they’d discarded after fortifying the house. “Grab one,” he said to Monica and Hadrian. He didn’t want to kill anyone… but these mobsters weren’t leaving them with many options.

Prince grimaced as Monica picked up a hammer. “Actually… Monica, you take my bat. I’ll use a hammer,” he decided.

“Huh? Why?” Monica wondered.

Prince shrugged. “I don’t want you to have to kill anyone,” he admitted.

Monica shot him a look. “I’ll be fine, Prince. Worry about yourself.”

There were footsteps below. The mob was inside. Prince motioned for everyone to follow him.

The mafiosos ascended the stairs. They slunk down the hall. The one at the front reached out to push the door open, hoping to attack a few feckless civilians in their sleep… but he saw nobody.

The door behind them opened instead. Monica buried her hammer in the nearest mobster’s cranium, then wrenched it out. Blood spattered against the wall next to his head, and then he fell onto the carpet with a soft thump, dead. The other mafiosos whipped around at the noise.

Five left.

Monica was clutching the hammer to her chest now, wide-eyed and shaking a little bit at what she had just done, so Hadrian pushed his way past her before the mobsters figured out what was happening. He swung his own hammer at the closest one. The mafioso had no time to raise his crowbar as Hadrian struck him in the forehead, cracking his purge mask. He slumped to the ground as well, knocked out.

Four.

Prince jumped out of the wardrobe and rushed out of the bedroom while the mobsters were facing away from it. One of them bashed his crowbar into Hadrian’s chest, who stumbled backwards, wheezing. Prince managed to strike the side of the aggressor’s head. It bounced off the wall next to him. He heard something break. Maybe the drywall. Maybe his skull.

Three.

Another mobster rushed Prince. He swiftly retreated into the bedroom until he was standing at the broken window. The mobster followed. As he lunged with his crowbar, Prince sidestepped and took the chance to grab the mafioso, hurling him through the window. He landed on the concrete with a sickening crunch and didn’t get up.

Two.

Monica came to her senses. It was just in time, too, because Hadrian was about to be ganged up on by the remaining invaders. Prince came out of the bedroom. “You go left. I go right,” he whispered to Monica. She nodded.

One of the mafiosos lashed out at Hadrian with his crowbar. He raised his weapon to defend himself, but the hammer was too small to block anything. Hadrian yelped as his forearm took the hit. He dropped his weapon as Monica brained the offending mobster.

One.

Prince raised his bat high above his head at the same time and brought it down on top of the other mafioso’s head.

Zero.

The kids stood in silence for a while, breathing heavily. They didn’t hear anyone else in the house. After a minute, Monica spoke.

“Steph, you can come out now,” she said. Stephanie emerged from the guest bedroom wordlessly and clung to her sister’s leg. Monica took Hadrian’s wounded forearm and prodded at the injury. He winced.

“I don’t feel a break. Maybe it’s just cracked. I left my first aid kit in the car,” Monica admitted nervously. She knew it wasn’t safe to go outside right now.

Prince pondered. “We can check the basement first. Maybe Pete left something useful in there,” he advised. He retrieved the flashlight from the bedside table and switched it on as the kids moved down to the first floor. They walked past the window that the mobsters had entered through. Wooden planks and shards of glass lay on the carpet. It crunched under their shoes as they stepped over it.

“Didn’t you leave this closed?” Prince asked Hadrian as he came to the basement, shining his light inside. The door was ajar. He quickly realized what a stupid idea it was to point the flashlight into it. There was a chance someone was lurking there. He turned it off.

Hadrian started backing away. “Yeah, I did… I think?” he whispered.

There were footsteps again. Loud ones.

“Shit,” said Prince.

Hadrian hesitated. “Wait, I think it’s just one guy. We could take him.” Indeed, only one pair of feet could be heard, and yet, the floor shook as the basement dweller began to climb the stairs.

“No! That guy sounds huge! Hide!” Prince whispered harshly, pulling Hadrian—who winced again as his forearm was jostled—along with him. They and the girls ran away from the basement door as silently as they could.

Prince put his hand on the sill of the broken window, about to jump outside, but he saw too many masked men in the shadows. He doubled back and whirled around, searching for somewhere to hide. There was only the storage cabinet in the kitchen. All four of them squeezed in. It was a tight fit. They almost couldn’t breathe, but they all froze as the trespasser reached the top of the basement stairs. Prince peered through the thin gap between the cabinet doors. The guy was so tall that he needed to duck underneath the doorframe. There was a faint ticking noise emanating from him.

The ground quaked with every step Larry Clockturn took. His golden LED eyes lit up in the dark. The glow glinted off of the violet mask on his eyes. He was far more daunting in person. As he walked near the shattered window, the moonlight illuminated his tarnished metal face and the steel wires that served as his beard.

He passed the open kitchen door. Monica saw a large wind-up key affixed to his back. I told you he was an automaton, she wanted to whisper, but this wasn’t a good time.

The mob boss walked past the kitchen and out of sight, but the kids heard his footsteps move to the stairwell. The first stair, decayed with age, splintered and caved under his weight. Larry cursed and swung his crowbar at the wall in anger, annihilating the plasterboard. He tried the second step. It groaned under his mass, but it held this time. He made his way to the second floor.

Prince hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath, but now he was almost gasping for air as he pushed the cabinet doors open and darted towards the basement. The other kids ran after him.

He swore internally as he almost tripped on the first step. It was still dark in there. He turned on the flashlight just long enough to make it to the bottom.

It was chilly. The kids huddled together in the darkness.

“H-he knows we’re still in the house,” stammered Monica, voice shaking. “He was here when you shined the flashlight in the first time. He had to have seen it. What are we going to do?”

Prince said nothing. He was out of ideas. All they could do was shut up and hope Larry didn’t think to come back here.

But the mechanical ticking returned. Larry did come back.

The automaton’s silhouette appeared at the top of the stairwell. The light from his eyes, still glowing golden in the dark, faintly illuminated his face.

There was a tinny creak as Larry tilted his head, staring into the basement. It was pitch black inside. Maybe he couldn’t see them, the kids thought.

Larry’s lips parted into a malicious grin. Prince flinched in surprise. He hadn’t realized the mob boss could emote with his metal features… but he didn’t come inside. Instead, he turned from the basement door and walked away, his steel exterior clanking as he moved.

There was a loud crack as Larry forced the front door open instead of leaving through the window he’d broken.

“What an asshole,” Prince grumbled.

Monica touched Prince’s arm. “Why didn’t he come inside?” she wondered.

Prince shrugged. He didn’t know either.

“Maybe he’s playing with us.”

It wasn’t a comforting idea, but they didn’t hear Larry’s footsteps anymore, so…

“Turn the flashlight on. We have to search this place,” Monica told Prince. He did.

The shelves were cluttered with supplies and knickknacks Uncle Pete had left behind. Pete, Prince suddenly remembered. He hoped the guy was alright, but there was nothing he could do for his uncle right now.

A good portion of the items were littered across the floor as well. Larry and his mobsters had trashed the place. Prince swept the flashlight across the ground.

“There.”

He pointed to a discarded first aid kit.

Monica picked it up. “Thought we’d never catch a break.” she took a broken piece of shelf as well and assembled a makeshift splint for Hadrian’s forearm. It wasn’t pretty, but it would hold until they figured out how to get to a hospital.

In the meantime, Prince perched the flashlight on a shelf to rummage through some carboard boxes. “Oh my god. Finally,” he exclaimed as he pulled out a bag of cheese puffs from one of them. The box was full of junk food, but it felt like the kids had struck gold after having nothing to eat for a day and a half. They gorged themselves, but once they were full, they were unsure of what to do next.

Prince looked pensive. “We can’t stay down here,” he eventually said. They had no clue how long the purge was going to last, and they couldn’t subsist on their meager supply of junk food for long.

Monica didn’t say anything at first. Prince was right, but the streets were still teeming with every kind of criminal.

She had an idea.

Chapter IV – Delivery

“This is dumb as hell.”

“Just put it on,” urged Monica.

Prince finished buttoning up the tuxedo. He pulled the purge mask over his face.

They’d swiped the disguise off of a dead purger they’d left upstairs. Monica reached for the second mask that they’d looted, but Prince stopped her.

“Nope. You’re staying here,” he told her.

“You serious? You can’t go out there alone.”

“Yes the fuck I can. Besides, someone needs to stay with those two.” Prince motioned to Stephanie’s tiny form and Hadrian with his arm in a splint.

Monica sighed. “Fine… be careful.”

Prince picked up one of the dead mobsters’ crowbars. Monica took a step back and looked him up and down. “I think it’ll work. Just act casual,” she said.

 After peering outside, Prince grabbed the windowsill and vaulted over it. The mobsters lurking nearby didn’t even glance at him twice.

 The nearest convenience store was just up the road. Prince could see it from here, but as he started walking, his shoe slid on the ice beneath him. He almost fell. The wet asphalt had frozen overnight.

There was a loud guffaw from a group of mafiosos passing him by, but then one of them slipped on the ice as well and fell on his face. The other gangsters laughed even louder. “Man, shut y’all’s asses!” he hollered at them.

Prince had frozen in place for a few seconds, almost thinking he’d blown his cover, but he quickly regained his bearings. He left the gangsters to bicker amongst themselves. They seemed a lot less menacing when they weren’t trying to kill him.

As he continued towards the convenience store, Prince passed by the house of one of his neighbors. Of course, he hadn’t had a chance to meet them yet, but he still wondered if they were doing alright.

There was an earsplitting scream from inside the house, then a gunshot. The distant voice of a mobster reached Prince’s ears. “Aww, come on! I was gonna play with her first!”

Prince scrunched his face up in disgust under his mask. Nevermind. Fuck these guys.

He made it to the convenience store. The place had been nearly bled dry, but there was some fruit left in the produce crates. Prince opened the sack that he’d taken with him. He reached for an apple.

There were two mobsters sitting on the counter nearby. They turned their heads towards Prince. They were masked, but he could feel them giving him an odd look. He faltered, then grabbed the edge of the fruit crate, tipping the entirety of its contents into his sack. The mobsters looked away, losing interest.

Phew. Prince threw the sack over his shoulder and almost ran back to the house.

Monica met him at the basement door. Panic flashed through her mind until she realized it was Prince. “What did you get?” she asked as they returned to the basement.

“Fruit.”

“Lame,” said Stephanie.

Prince took his mask off and shoved an apple into her tiny hands. “No, it isn’t. You need it after eating all that junk food.” He didn’t notice the sound of a motorcycle pulling up to the front of the house.

There was commotion in the kitchen upstairs. Utensils and cookware clattered against the floor tiles.

Prince foisted his crowbar over his shoulder as he turned to the stairs. “I gotta say, I’m getting real tired of this shit,” he muttered to Monica before he returned to the ground floor.

As he reached the top of the staircase, he hesitated. This dude was kinda big, he thought as he scrutinized the person wrecking his kitchen. There was no time for Prince to change his mind, though—the mobster saw him.

“There you are.”

He sounded vaguely familiar, but Prince had no time to muse as the guy charged at him.

Prince responded in kind. He rushed at the mobster and raised his own crowbar to block the blow. There was a sharp clang as their weapons met.

It was almost like a sword duel, though not nearly as graceful. Prince was no trained fighter, but neither was the mafioso, apparently. He accidentally hooked a vase with his crowbar, sending it shattering against the floor. The opponents staggered around the foyer, neither of them gaining the upper hand at first

The mobster couldn’t get a hit in. He grew impatient and lunged forward. He swung too wide. Prince backpedaled away from the strike, and now, for an instant, his foe was wide open.

Prince delivered an uppercut to the mafioso’s face with his crowbar. The force of the strike knocked his mask askew.

The mafioso collapsed to the ground heavily, dazed and confused. “Ugh…”

Alright, Prince had absolutely met this guy before. He reached down and pulled the guy’s mask all the way off.

Prince stared.

“Dude, are you fucking kidding me?”

It was the pizza guy from a couple days ago. He sat up gingerly, rubbing his chin, and spat a glob of blood onto the carpet. “Shouldn’t have fuckin’ stiffed me, you asshole!”

Prince threw his arms up in exasperation, still gripping his crowbar. “I told you I didn’t have any more money! And you come into my house and trash the place over it? What is your problem?”

The delivery guy eyed Prince’s crowbar. He straightened his bowtie as he spoke. “OK, don’t be like that, man. A guy paid me to do it. You’re not the only one hurting for cash,” he said, pointing his finger at the boy. “The big metal dude,” he continued. “I’ve been running with the mafia for a while now, but this morning he shoved a crisp hundred into my hand and told me to come in here. Take you guys out. And, uh, he looked like he was gonna kill my ass if I said no, so… here I am, I guess.”

Prince glared at him for a moment. “Man, just get the hell out,” he said, pointing his crowbar at the open door.

The pizza guy looked outside. “Uh… actually, I think I’m gonna chill in here for a while.”

“Excuse me? No, you are not. You just tried to kill me,” Prince snapped.

The guy held up his hands in surrender. “The big guy is gonna fillet me like a fish when he finds out I didn’t get rid of you guys! I’m not going back out there,” he said. “Besides, he paid me in advance, man. I ain’t gotta do shit no more.”

Prince mulled it over. This guy wouldn’t get out of his house, but Prince definitely didn’t want to kill him, either.

“Whatever. Fine. What should I call you?” he asked.

The pizza guy stood up unsteadily. “Isaiah.”

 “OK, Isaiah, you said you’ve been running with the mob for a while. Any clue how we might get away from here without dying?” Prince asked.

Isaiah deliberated for a moment.

“The sewers. The mafia normally uses it to move around the city, but It’s empty now that they’re on the streets…” He paused again as he formulated a plan. “I overheard a li’l bit of intel. The national guard made it to 5th Street. We head in that direction. Get behind their lines, where it’s safe. Then we can exit the sewer. No sweat.”

Prince didn’t have any better ideas. “Fine. Get in here, man. Leave the crowbar,” he warned Isaiah as the ruffian reached for his fallen weapon. “No funny shit.”

“I wasn’t going to do shit,” he muttered as they descended into the basement.

The other three kids drew back suspiciously as they saw Isaiah. “Prince? Who is that?”

“He’s the pizza delivery guy,” Prince replied. “From the day we moved in, I mean. He’s…”

Prince gave Isaiah the side-eye.

“He’s chill,” he decided. “And he told me how we can get out of here. We’ll walk through the sewers until we meet the national guard.”

The other kids glanced at each other. “Unless you guys would rather stay here…?” Prince added. They all heard a bout of submachine gunfire in the house across the street.

“Nope. Let’s get out of here,” Monica said. “Tomorrow morning?”

Isaiah raised an eyebrow. “Why are we waiting?”

“It’s midnight. We gotta get some sleep,” Prince said.

Isaiah’s eyebrows crept even higher. “You guys have been sleeping at night this whole time? You can’t be doing that shit during the killing purge! How are you people still alive?”

The kids murmured inaudibly. They didn’t really know, either.

Isaiah shook his head incredulously. “Whatever. I don’t know where you got that disguise, Prince, but there had better be more. Your buddies will get jumped in no time if they go out looking like that,” he said.

Prince retrieved some more suits and a couple of crowbars from the dead mobsters upstairs. The second floor was starting to smell really bad. He was glad they were leaving soon.

The disguises were a little ill-fitting on Monica and Hadrian, but Stephanie wasn’t going to be able to wear one at all.

“What are you going to do about her?” Isaiah asked.

Prince scratched his head as he thought. “I saw a manhole cover real close by. We’ll just have her walk in the middle of us ‘til we make it into the sewer.”

“If you say so.”

The group stepped out. Stephanie stood in the middle of the bunch, hopefully obscuring her from the mobsters’ sight.

They had almost made it to the manhole cover when they heard a crash in the distance. A shrill alarm pierced their ears. Someone had smashed one of the convenience store’s windows open and set it off. The group turned to see who was responsible.

They saw a shape with glowing eyes through the glass door of the store as he strode into view. Larry downed a can of cola before crushing it in his hand and throwing it aside. He turned to look at the street.

The automaton looked blasé as he surveyed the darkened neighborhood, but his expression shifted to one of suspicion as his eyes fell on the group. Then he looked furious.

Their disguises hadn’t fooled him. Larry kicked the door open and started towards the group.

“God fucking damn it!” roared Isaiah as he hauled the manhole cover off the ground and thrust it aside.

“Get in!”

Chapter V – Clockturn

Everyone clambered down the ladder and into the sewer.

Stephanie held her nose. “It smells really bad in here.”

Something heavy tumbled into the manhole after them, landing on Prince’s head. “Ow! What the hell?�� he exclaimed.

It was the same cat that had come out of the basement earlier, and it started yowling as Prince pried it off his scalp.

“Guys, he’s coming! Fucking run!” Isaiah shouted at the group. He’d broken into a sprint as soon as his feet touched the floor. “And shut that cat up! It’s gonna give our location away.”

Prince set the cat on the ground. Thankfully, it stopped screeching, but it did follow them.

The kids raced after Isaiah. “Do you know where you’re going?” Prince panted.

“Yeah, I’ve been down here before. Just stay behind me,” Isaiah assured him. “Take this right!”

As they rounded the corner, Monica risked a glimpse behind her. The concrete ground fractured beneath Larry as he jumped into the manhole after them.

The corridors twisted and turned as Isaiah led everyone further into the sewers. He barreled through iron gates in their path. Some of the paths had collapsed and been replaced by flimsy timber.

Hadrian stumbled. A board slipped out from under him. He was about to fall into the fetid sewage, but Prince reached to fish him out.

Isaiah got there before him. Hadrian’s shoe had just touched the water when the mafioso forcefully pulled him back onto the walkway.

“Hey, be careful! His arm is hurt!” scolded Monica. Isaiah simply jabbed his finger at Hadrian’s foot.

Hadrian wiggled his toes. The tip of his shoe was gone.

“I forgot to let you guys know. I saw some other mobsters pouring something into the storm drains,” Isaiah explained as he continued to run. “Whatever it was, it was corrosive as hell, ‘cause the drain stared melting. Don’t fall in there,” he finished, pointing at the water channel.

Isaiah veered left into a round clearing in the sewer. He came face to face with another gate, but he almost bashed his head into it as it refused to open. The kids skidded to a stop as he grabbed the bars and rattled the door. “This wasn’t locked before!” he shouted in frustration.

The mobster wedged his crowbar through the edge of the gate and tried to pry it open, but it wouldn’t budge. The kids glanced at each other anxiously. “Maybe Larry doesn’t know where we went,” Monica whispered.

No such luck.

They heard the ticking of his cogs before they saw him.

Larry rounded the corner. He was moving at a leisurely pace, but his footsteps were still fairly thunderous as he strolled across the improvised wooden bridge.

The automaton came to a halt as he reached the other side of the walkway. The kids could only stare at him. He was blocking their only escape.

Larry put a hand on his crowbar, leaning on it like a cane. He ran a hand through his wiry beard. His LED eyes swiveled as he looked the group over.

A lanky delivery boy, down on his luck.

Some high school dropout with a hero complex and his doormat of a sister.

A kid with a broken arm. His youngest sibling, hugging her teddy bear to her chest.

Larry laughed to himself and booted the wooden board behind him. There was a low sizzle as it fell into the waterway and began to disintegrate. The kids were trapped. His gaze shifted back to the group.

“What do you think you’re doing, Isaiah?” said Larry in his metallic peal.

His voice sent a chill up the kids’ spines. It was sonorous and hollow, filling the entire corridor.

Isaiah didn’t reply. He only yanked his crowbar out of the still-locked gate. It was futile. He walked to the front of the group.

If Isaiah wouldn’t talk, Larry would. “It’s not too late for you to follow orders, young man. Get rid of them.”

Isaiah didn’t move.

The crime lord raised an eyebrow. “Interesting decision.” Larry lifted his crowbar with one hand and rested it over his shoulder as he advanced on Isaiah.

“Hold on, boss, I-”

Isaiah cut himself off as Larry swung his crowbar. The mobster managed to duck under the blow so that it connected with the wall instead. The stone bricks cracked under Larry’s strength.

There was no reasoning with this guy.

No one knew how they were going to take Larry down, but he couldn’t go after all of them at once. Everyone scattered across the room, but the littlest was too slow.

Larry grinned as he reached down and snatched Stephanie by her tiny arm.

“No!” cried Prince. He rushed towards the automaton.

The cat was quicker. Prince had almost forgotten it was there, but it leapt onto Larry’s face, scratching and hissing. He cursed and released Stephanie. Prince pulled her away and swept her into his arms as the mob boss reached for the feline instead.

Its claws did nothing except piss Larry off. He ripped the cat off his face and flung it aside as he straightened his tie. It hit the wall before sliding to the floor and going limp, still mewling pitifully.

Stephanie normally would have begun crying by now, but she must have known it was no use this time. She gazed down at the teddy bear in her hands. It was the only toy she’d been able to take with her when the siblings had left their parents. Its voice box didn’t work anymore, but she turned it over and looked at the pull-string attached to it. She looked up at the golden wind-up key on Larry’s back. Still in Prince’s arms, she reached for it.

Stephanie twisted the wind-up key counterclockwise with all her diminutive might while Larry’s back was still turned. A steely bang sounded from inside him, followed closely by the jarring noise of an engine backfiring. The automaton flinched violently. He nearly toppled over, but he caught himself and whirled around, lunging with his crowbar furiously as he did. Prince backpedaled hurriedly, but the very edge of the crowbar just barely caught Stephanie’s cheek, ripping off a layer of skin.

“Bastard!” roared Prince. He set Stephanie down behind him. She ran into her sister’s arms. Monica steered her over to Hadrian before she went to confront their aggressor.

The group had figured out Larry’s weak point, and now he was a lot more wary. Prince, Isaiah, and Monica circled around him, but he’d turn and lunge again whenever one of them took so much as a step towards him. The three comrades glanced at each other. They all knew one of them had to engage the automaton while another tried to reach his key, but none of them particularly wanted to be stomped into red paste.

Before anyone grew audacious enough to rush Larry, the kids heard yet another odd noise. There was a resonant clang as the automaton’s steel plates snapped apart along the seams. A deafening mechanical whirr filled the sewer. All of a sudden, there was a cyclone of buzzsaws where he’d been standing a second ago.

Larry charged at Prince, who had to dive out of the way to avoid being sliced to gory ribbons.

Blood sprayed against the stone brick wall. Prince cried out as he hit the cold floor. He’d been too slow. The blades had caught him anyway. Fortunately, his arm was still attached, but there were several deep lacerations. Larry had sliced him all the way to the bone.

A pool of red bloomed under Prince as he collapsed. Monica rushed over to where she’d dropped her first aid kit. With wounds like that, he was going to bleed to death if she didn’t do something, but she couldn’t get near Prince while Larry was standing between them.

The automaton’s buzzsaws ground to a stop and clicked back into his casing. His plates snapped shut again as he stood above Prince.

Larry had his back to Hadrian now. He was so close. He had to do something. Hadrian ripped the splint off his own arm. He knew he was probably about to make his injury worse, but that was far better than dying here.

As Larry raised his crowbar to finish Prince off, he felt a pair of hands on his wind-up key.

Hadrian turned the key counterclockwise. Larry grunted in pain again as even more of his gears jammed, but he swung his weapon behind himself immediately this time.

Hadrian reeled as the crowbar struck his torso. He gasped for breath as he hit the concrete. Great. Now he had both a cracked forearm and a cracked rib cage. Larry turned away from Prince, heading for Hadrian instead.

Monica bolted to Prince’s side and started tying a torniquet around his bleeding arm. As she tended to him, Isaiah stepped in between Larry and Hadrian.

Larry narrowed his eyes. “Get the fuck outta the way, kid.”

Isaiah didn’t.

Larry scoffed and brought his crowbar down upon Isaiah with one hand. Isaiah gripped his own weapon as hard as he could with both hands and held it up to shield himself.

Their weapons clashed. Isaiah staggered, but he managed to remain on his feet. His crowbar vibrated in his hands with the aftershock of Larry’s blow, but he maintained his grip on it.

Larry raised his eyebrows, mildly surprised. Perhaps Isaiah wasn’t as lanky as he’d thought. He shook his head at the mobster.

“Little shit. I gave you a job when you were about to be homeless, and this is how you repay me?”

Larry attacked again, grasping his crowbar with both hands now. Isaiah did lose his weapon this time. It skittered across the concrete and into the corrosive water.

Monica sprang for Larry’s wind-up key. He swung his crowbar into her face without looking at her. She flew back and hit the ground, unconscious. Prince dragged himself towards her. He was starting to become lightheaded from the blood loss.

Larry swung again. With nothing to guard himself with, Isaiah took the hit squarely in the chest. He crumpled to the floor, winded.

The automaton circled him. He gave the mafioso a kick in the ribs with his steel-toed shoe.

“Come on. Is that all you can take?”

Isaiah choked out a couple of choice words. “Fuck… yourself…”

Larry scowled and opened his mouth to speak, but the cat hauled itself from the stone floor and launched itself at his face again, caterwauling and clawing with renewed fervor.

That was all Prince needed. He scrambled to his feet and leapt at Larry’s key. He grabbed it with his uninjured arm and wrenched it counterclockwise one more time.

Something rattled inside the automaton. His gears shuddered to a halt. There was a hiss as steam escaped from the vents on his face. His glowing golden eyes blinked off.

Larry lurched forwards and hit the ground with a crash, deactivated.

Epilogue

Prince opened his eyes blearily. He instantly shut them again. The lights were unpleasantly bright. He tried to shield his face, but the ensuing jolt of pain jarred him fully awake. Oh, right. He’d taken a buzzsaw to the arm.

He used his other arm to cover his eyes as he opened them. Prince was lying in a hospital bed.

“How’s it going, man?” said a voice from the left.

The boy turned his head. Isaiah was in the next bed.

“Is everyone else alright?” Prince rasped.

“Yeah, looks like it. Hadrian and Monica are right over there,” Isaiah told him, gesturing with his head to his left. “And there’s the li’l one,” he added.

Prince looked at the bed across from him. Stephanie was clambering down. She ran over to Prince and grabbed his hand, bouncing excitedly. “You’re OK!” she exclaimed.

“Hey, Steph. Ow. Don’t do that,” Prince croaked as Stephanie jostled his bandaged arm, but he was smiling. “How did we get here?”

Isaiah let his head fall back onto his pillow, brow furrowed in thought. “Uh. You beat the big dude. Or disabled him, at least. I don’t know. You passed out right after, and then… I think I heard Stephanie crying for a while. Someone above us heard it, too. They lowered a ladder into the sewer. Yeah, there was another manhole above us, apparently, but no ladder attached. Hah,” Isaiah laughed shortly. “They thought we were mafiosos at first, but I guess they figured out we weren’t when they saw Larry on the ground. And then they brought us here.”

The hinges on the hospital door squealed as a nurse walked in. “Oh! Some of you are awake,” she observed. “Don’t disturb your big bro right now, young lady. He’s going to need a lot of rest,” the nurse told Stephanie as she carried her back over to her own hospital bed.

“As for you…” the nurse examined her clipboard. “Prince Aguilar? Emancipated minor…” she read. “I’ve been told that you got into a fight with Larry Clockturn. You’re all lucky to be alive.”

“You ain’t lying,” Isaiah muttered. The nurse shot him a look.

“You should all be fine once we’re done patching you up,” the nurse continued. “But…” She checked her clipboard again. “Monica Aguilar appears to have taken quite the blow to the head. We’re monitoring her, but we aren’t going to be able to assess if there’s any brain damage until she wakes up.”

Prince sat up. “Brain damage?”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry. We would be able to tell by now if it was serious,” the nurse assured Prince, urging him back down onto the bed. “At most, she has a concussion. She’ll be alright.”

Prince lay down again gingerly. “OK… I guess.” He was silent for a moment… but he was also curious.

“What happened to Larry?”

“Larry Clockturn? The police are handling that. They haven’t given me many details, I’m afraid,” the nurse told Prince. “All I know is that they haven’t moved his body yet. And the so-called ‘purge’ is over, by the way. Most of the mafia turned tail and ran after they figured out Clockturn was gone,” she laughed. “National guard didn’t encounter much resistance after that.”

Prince didn’t ask anything else. It was the nurse’s turn, now.

“It says here that four of you are siblings. Prince, Monica, Hadrian, and Stephanie Aguilar. And Isaiah… Smith,” she said, walking over to Isaiah’s bed. “It is to my understanding that you are affiliated with the mafia.”

Isaiah’s eyes widened. “Uh, I mean, like-“

The nurse held up her hand to stop him. “I’m not a police officer, but don’t be surprised if they come in here to question you guys at some point. I just wanted to warn you about it, so you aren’t blindsided,” she explained.

“Yeah… yeah, OK. Cool,” said Isaiah, even though it was not at all cool.

The nurse nodded. “Well, that’s it for now,” she said as she turned to leave. “Just sit tight. The doctor will be along soon.”

Prince took a deep breath. Larry was deactivated. They were out of the sewers. The purge was over. They were in a hospital at last. Everything was fine again.

In the sewers, however, things were not so fine. Police tape lined the walls of the room Larry had collapsed in, cold and unmoving. Officers surrounded him.

One of them looked up at the manhole high above them. “We could airlift him…?”

“Through that tiny opening? I’m not so sure,” his Lieutenant responded. No one was certain about how they were going to get this colossus out of the sewer and into police custody.

“We might have to move him all the way through the tunnel. Into the nearest water-”

The officer was cut off and his head jerked back as a bullet pierced the middle of his forehead.

The other cops drew their service weapons. The round had come from the other side of the locked iron gate. They returned fire. So did their assailants.

There was no cover in the room. More officers dropped dead. One of them tried to speak into his radio. “Shots fired. All units to the 5th-”

He was shot dead as well before he could finish.

The Lieutenant glimpsed something through the metal bars of the gate. Something green and glowing. He fired reflexively. The round ricocheted off metal. He stared into the darkness, confused, but there was no time to ponder as bullets continued to whizz past his ears.

“We’re taking too many casualties! Fall back!” yelled the Lieutenant.

The remaining officers ran from the gate and disappeared around the bend of the tunnel, leaving Larry’s body behind.

The mobsters lowered their guns. Their leader, who had been watching from the back of the troupe, made her way to the iron gate. Her high heels clicked against the concrete. The sound echoed through the now-quiet passageway.

She towered above her cohorts. The lock on the gate broke easily as she raised her slender arm and forced it open with one hand.

The lady reached the felled automaton. She walked around his inert figure and clicked her tongue in disapproval.

“Take him,” she ordered.

The mobsters, with some difficulty, lifted him up and carried him into the small speedboat they’d used to traverse the sewer’s water channels. The motor roared to life.

As the helmsman steered them back to the river outside, he glanced at his boss. “We’re not gonna reactivate him, Miss Gearwise?”

“No,” she answered shortly.

“Then… what are you going to do with him?”

The lady’s icy gaze fell on Larry. The corners of her metallic green lips curved up into a small smirk.

“I have a few ideas.”

[angelicyouth]

Youth ; Chapter 8

⇢ pairing: kenny mccormick x marsh!reader x craig tucker

⇢ synopsis: ❝Growing up with the boys as the sole girl of the group, it was only natural for them to grow protective over their pseudo-little sister as the years went by.❞

⇢ warning: recreational drug use

⇢ [AO3 link] ; [series masterlist] ; [previous] ; [next]

The pungent smell of acetone permeates the surrounding air of the living room, music a sharp contrast as it softly plays in the background. Intense concentration causes me to slowly blink as I focus on neatly creating streaks of black. My hand is as still as I can make it while I hold onto longer digits, meticulously painting my brother’s nails.

He sits in front of me with his raven locks pinned away from his face with overly cute clips and his other hand holding his phone. Soft taps resound from time to time when he types against hard glass and the occasional sharper sound from his ring adorned fingers.

Something lightly touches my lips as Stan handfeeds me a chip, my mouth automatically opening but my eyes never looking away from its current task. Loud crunching erupts between the two of us before my brother gently starts to  chuckle under his breath. Turning his phone, he shows me a social media post with a lengthy amount of text.

“Yeah, no. Sorry, but I am most definitely not reading all of that. Especially for you.” I declare to which he rolls his eyes in irritation at, our makeshift table beginning to move. Our family dog, Sparky, lays between the two of us as a place for my brother to place his elbow onto.

“Man, it’d be sick if we can go away with the guys somewhere for winter break.” My brother says wistfully, forlornly staring at his phone.

“Hmm?”

“I’d kill to rent a log cabin or something, one with a jacuzzi and everything. Maybe we can plan something this year and have Tolkien pay for it.”

My nose scrunches in disgust before I scoff, “Fuck no. I don’t want to sit in cum infested water. Knowing you, you’d probably get off on sitting near a water jet.”

“Oh fuck off, asshole! That happened once and you know it! I was fucking ten!” I gag, obnoxiously pretending to vomit as he indignantly tries to protect whatever dignity he thinks he still has.

“You really need to get your shit together, Stanley. I’d like to at least see you get into a serious relationship once before I die.”

“Yeah? Well I’d like to see you shut the fuck up for once in your goddamn life but you’re living proof that not everyone can get what they want.”

I’m unamused as I blink up at my brother, wondering for perhaps the millionth time why the higher powers decided to make Stan Marsh. A shame, truly.

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

TEXT MESSAGE (CLYDE DONOVAN)

Clydey: emergency

Clydey: like actually

Clydey: can u send me $3 pls

Y/N MARSH has sent $3 to CLYDE DONOVAN.

N/N: (rolling eyes emoji)

Clydey: ty ily <3

Clydey: (screenshot of his avatar in an app on his phone)

Clydey: they call me ranch cause i be dressing (sunglasses emoji)

N/N: did you just waste my money on an in-app purchase.

Clydey: respect the drip, babe

Clydey: god.

Tap!

My head shoots up from its prior position looking down, my body stilling to see if I can hear whatever disturbed Clyde wasting both my time and money. When I don’t hear anything after a few seconds, I dismiss it as an anomaly and look back at the screen in front of me.

Tap! Tap!

I take off my headphones and listen again, my eyebrows furrowing until I hear the disturbance another time. I locate the source and walk over to my window, watching as a rock hits the glass panel before I fully push aside my curtains and heft it open.

The cold air immediately hits me and I giggle at the scene before me: Craig perched onto a branch of an adjacent tree outside of my bedroom, his hand filled with rocks to pelt at my window. “What’re you doing? We have a front door, you know.”

Being friends with everyone for years, we’ve all naturally grown up to be honorary members of each other's families. This meant that it wasn’t unnatural for any of us to visit someone’s house even if their respective owners weren’t home. None of our parents would ever bat an eye if they were to go down to the kitchen to see that Cartman let himself in and was rummaging through our fridge, for example, even if Stan and I were both out. Formalities were a thing of a past so long ago and all of our parents learned that it was better to not question it.

“I know, I just thought that this would be more romantic.” I’m rewarded with Craig’s boyish grin and I mentally swoon at the handsome boy in front of me, giggling out loud.

He extends a large, tan hand and smirks down at me. “Come on, beautiful. Let’s get out of here.”

The moonlight hits the visage of the attractive boy in front of me, accentuating his sharp features. I feel like I’m in a daze as I slowly nod, a blush quickly spreading on my cheeks when I catch myself. After quickly throwing on a jacket, I take his proffered hand as he helps me climb down the tree.

Crossing the short distance to the front of the house, I’m surprised to see the Tucker’s family car parked out in the front. The taller teen’s longer strides allows him to reach the door on the passenger side first, to which he chivalrously opens for me.

He ducks his head a little lower, a playful grin wide on his face as he sweeps the length of his unoccupied arm in front of his body. I laugh into the night as the hand he has on my lower back gently nudges me forward to guide me into the vehicle.

I watch as the scenery idly passes by us when I look out of the window, trying to see if I can figure out where the teen is taking me. He refused to tell me our destination, citing it as a surprise and evoking further excitement on my part at the already spontaneous outing. It’s harder to discern our surroundings so late into the night due to the darkness but despite it all, the moon eagerly follows us.

Music gently accompanies us as I soon find myself casting Craig several lingering glances while he drives, the attractive teen a sight to behold. He has one hand on the steering wheel, his thumb tapping a beat onto the leather in time to the surrounding melody and quietly mouthing along with the lyrics. Silver rings adorn his longer fingers, further accentuating the veins running along his hands to his arms. I thought he wouldn’t catch me since his eyes are focused on the road but he surprises me when he makes quick eye contact with me, smirking, before placing a large hand onto the side of my inner thigh.

I blush at the sensation, the weight of him evoking a faster pace on my beating heart. When he sees the red hues steadily painting my cheeks, his hand gently grips at the area before releasing the slight pressure and smoothing his thumb over my pants. I feel mesmerized by the repetitive motion of his finger, if only willing him to move just a tiny bit—to do something about the bundle of nerves slowly building up.

I quickly find myself becoming hyper aware of every action of the boy next to me and I intently watch as his tongue darts out to lick at his lips, making them appear even more enticing and plump. His eyes are half-lidded and when I involuntarily clench my thighs, I see the exact moment that his gaze on the road shifts from playful to something many shades darker. He deeply chuckles under his breath and oh Lord, it makes my legs go weak.

All too soon, the car slows to a stop and Craig looks at me again, flashing me a knowing smile. It’s smug and I can feel my face heat up even further, reaching the back of my neck before I break eye contact to stare out of the window again in a desperate effort to calm myself down. Something soft gets placed onto my head and I look at Craig to see that the teen next to me is missing his beloved chullo.

“Can’t ruin the surprise, can we?” A mischievous grin sits on his face before he pulls the hat further down, completely obstructing my view.

I hear him exit the car before getting to my side, grabbing one of my hands and interlocking our fingers together. When he begins to carefully guide me out of the car, I giggle every time I slightly stumble, the adrenaline of what awaits me makes me overexcited and impatient.

“I love surprises.” I speak out into the air.

“I know.” He hums.

After a few steps, he has me wait in one spot before I hear him open his trunk. Two hands place themselves onto my hips before he softly commands me to jump and I blindly obey, feeling myself getting placed onto a cold, hard structure.

When Craig grants me my vision back, I’m rewarded with a view overlooking what seems to be all of South Park. From this far, even the shitty town looks beautiful as the distance distorts the view, forcing whoever is looking to take in the colorful lights and buildings.

I look around to see that we’re both seated on the hood of his car, my favorite food spread out in front of me in an assortment of take-out containers. His windows are rolled down as his car continues to softly play music from the inside.

“So what do you think?” His voice is shy, containing slight hints of insecurity and nervousness at my possible reaction. My inner thoughts are filled with the sounds of me absolutely squealing for having evoked an expression like that from the notoriously uncaring teen.

“How’d you find this place?” I’m in awe of the scenery, never once seeing a view like this despite living in South Park all of my life.

“Took me a fuck-ton of driving to find something that I was finally satisfied with bringing you to.” He says, opening all the containers and setting everything up for us to eat.

“Your dad let you take out the car?” I quirk an eyebrow.

“Fuck no. I got home around 4:30AM yesterday for sneaking out so late.”

My heart stutters in my chest at the answer when I think about how well he hid his sleep deprivation at school. I feel overwhelmed at the consideration, watching as he bundles up the plastic bag the take-out came in to stuff into his pocket. Not only did he get my favorite food, but he also got my order down to perfection.

“You got my favorite food.” I say so softly that it’s almost a whisper. I feel like I’m going to cry of happiness from the thoughtfulness and care of this boy. Moments like these make me feel so undeserving, so lacking for how much unconditional love I receive.

“For you, I’d do anything.” Craig gently says, a smile so fond on his face as he reaches out for my hand. His azure eyes shine in happiness so tender, it’s almost as if they’re part of the stars above us.

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

“And you see how that star connects to that one? That constellation is your astrological sign, your zodiac.” Craig's deep voice lightly says near my ear, his arm extending forward to patiently point out the star for me.

We’re both lying on the hood of the car now, my head nestled onto one of his shoulders as his unoccupied arm snuggly curls around my waist. He lays on his back while I lay on my side, pressing our bodies together to combine our warmth with an arm of my own thrown over his taut stomach.

I’m in awe at everything he says, the usually monotonous boy’s voice filled with a passion so rarely seen from him. I drink in every bit of information that leaves his mouth, mesmerized by every cadence and intonation of his words. It’s hypnotic—he could tell me that Cartman weighs only 50 pounds and I’d believe it.

“Sorry, am I talking too much..?”

“No! No. I love hearing you talk like this. I could honestly listen to you for hours. Don’t let anyone, even me, tell you otherwise.” I turn my head to face him as I quickly reassure the ravenette, a gentle smile on my face.

My arm relinquishes its hold over his frame to blindly reach out to hold onto the hand at my waist. I intertwine our fingers together and give it a small squeeze in reassurance. He blushes and I can feel my insides melt at the utterly fond expression on his face knowing that it's for me.

His embarrassment causes him to continue to stubbornly stare up at the sky, refusing to look over at me. The blush adorning his cheeks develop into a darker hue after my words, so deep that I can see the vivid shade of red despite the dark night.

“… I brought you out to see the stars because they’re more visible today. A few days after a new Moon means that the moonlight isn’t as bright.” His voice is so low between us, as if he was sharing a secret.

“Craig…” My cheeks begin to hurt at the amount of smiling this boy causes me. He finally looks over at me, our faces so close together.

“I confessed to you under the stars so I wanted to have the stars as our audience again for when I took you out on our first date.” He brings his hand over to caress my cheek and his fingers are so cold against my flushed skin, but it grounds me to the moment.

He softly continues, gently smoothing a thumb over my face. “Because of that, whenever I look at the stars, I see you. And sometimes, when I can't sleep… I’ll look up at the stars and thank them for bringing you into my life.”

He brings his forehead closer until it lightly touches my own. “I love you, Y/N. More than all the stars in the sky. And as long as there’s one star up there, I’ll always love you.”

I can only nod, dazed, not trusting that this is not just a dream, afraid that speaking will ruin the moment. Before I know it, my eyes softly close as I feel his lips against mine. And I feel like crying because Craig kisses me just the way he loves me—soft and sure, like I’m the only thing that matters in the world. In his world.

The way he slots our lips together has no ounce of hesitation, it’s gentle and patient. He lightly pulls back and nips at my lips as a small parting gift. When the distance between our faces grows, I find myself whining, letting go of his hand and pulling at his jacket.

He laughs at my eagerness, endeared at my reaction. “Come on, beautiful. Use your words for me. What do you want?”

“Craig.”

“Hm?” A smile lazily lays on his face, smug and all too knowing.

“Please.”

I tug harder so he relents and brings his upper body over mine, propping himself up with his forearm against the car as our lips connect again. It makes me dizzy with how wanted he makes me feel, the sensations I feel beginning to get overloaded. My arms reach out to thread my fingers through his hair, slightly tugging and using them as leverage to bring him even closer.

He’s a passionate but patient kisser, drawing out the movements for as long as possible, biting and licking at my lips. When I allow him entry into my mouth, his tongue slides against mine and before I can even attempt to fight for dominance, he pulls back, smiling smugly and lazily at me.

Scratch that, he’s a goddamn tease and before I can call him out on it, a large hand grabs onto the side of my face to pull me back in. It’s slow. It’s sensual. His scent fills my nostrils before the hand on my cheek slides back, gripping onto my hair. Angling my face up, he lightly begins to trail his kisses down my jaw and onto my neck.

The wet sounds that invades my ears are lewd as I feel his lips touch my skin, lighting a fire in its wake. Every kiss lights my body up, heating it up and charging it. His fingers grip onto my hair just a little tighter, smirking at the skin underneath my collarbone when I gasp.

He leaves a trail of saliva as he works his way back up my neck, the light wind of the night lightly touches the wet spots and elicits goosebumps at the heightened sensation. He works painstakingly slow, kissing every space inch by inch.

I sigh out into the night, leaning my head back to grant him better access. He drags his lips across the sensitive skin of my throat, a barely there touch, not enough. I’m so needy that I almost moan right there, when he finally presses a searing kiss under my jaw.

He kisses across the expanse of skin as he goes back down, humming in approval at the sound of harsh breathing that his actions evoke. The vibration causes me to part my lips ever so slightly, desperate breaths of air spilling between us. I relish in the slight suction of his mouth, his teeth grazing against overly sensitive skin, and his hot tongue soothing itself over the abused area.

His other hand makes quick work at reaching underneath my shirt, cold fingers lightly trailing themselves at the skin of my waist. Long digits softly run along up my stomach, the cool rings making me shiver in anticipation. When he grazes the underwire of my bra, a loud ringing cuts through the air.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

The hold on my hair relinquishes as Craig reaches under me to retrieve my vibrating cellphone from the back pocket of my pants. I mope as I answer, mood extremely sour at the interruption.

“What.”

“Dude, where the fuck are you? It’s past 3AM. I’m not covering for you if mom or dad notice.” Comes my annoying brother’s distorted voice.

I sigh before hanging up in irritation, not deeming the conversation worthy of a response. I close my eyes in silent defeat before soft lips caress mine. Craig smiles down at me with a backdrop of shining stars over his figure. The moonlight glows brightly from behind him, as if casting a halo over the teen above me. Seeing such ethereal beauty before me is all I need before I find myself happy and content all over again.

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

Thick wisps of white smoke slowly blend up into the clouds and I watch them disappear into the cold morning air, a pervasive smell filling the parking lot. I’m sitting on top of my skateboard, idly rolling it from side to side as Craig sits next to me on the asphalt with his back against the school wall. One of his longer legs is pulled up towards his torso, his forearm lazily resting against the top of the elevated knee before he lifts it up to take a drag from the cigarette lit before him.  

My eyes languidly watch as Kenny skates on his own board, a blunt hanging from his mouth as his shoe hits the ground to gain momentum. An exhilarated grin forms around the object in his mouth as his body lifts off from the pavement, the board gracefully flipping in the air. I bring my hands together to encouragingly clap at the stunt in front of me, the blonde shooting me a wide smile at the kickflip he successfully performed.

He stops in front of me and offers me the blunt in his possession but I gently shake my head in response, satisfied with the current high I have going on right now. Kenny nods his head and with one last hit, he stubs the ember hues before putting it away in the plastic container it came in to smoke for later. Craig gets up and dusts the back of his pants off before offering me a hand, helping me up and taking my board off the ground for me. An arm wraps around my shoulders as we begin to make our way back to school, the ravenette stomping his cancer stick out.

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

“So… Do I get any context on why you two have sunglasses on when we’re indoors, or do I just accept it…?” Kyle’s eyebrows furrow as he warily watches Kenny and I giggle to each other, the whole group gathered in front of Tweek’s locker as he puts his extra thermal filled with coffee away for after lunch.

Craig knowingly snorts as the blonde and I exchange mischievous grins, fighting to keep our smiles from growing any wider. On our faces sits oversized, flashy shades that threaten to swallow up our whole face.

“Ugh, you guys reek.” Clyde brings his face close to the two of us, wrinkling his nose as he invades our space to sniff at our jackets. We playfully lower our glasses to the bridges of our noses, showing visual confirmation of his observation when the boys spot our blood-shot, half-lidded eyes.

“Dude. It’s only 8AM. School hasn’t even started yet.” My brother side eyes us, most definitely judging us for making the smart decision of getting absolutely zooted before class.

“My bad, man. Want a hit? We didn’t finish.” Kenny offers, his hand reaching into his pocket to lift up the plastic containing our unfinished blunt. It peeks through the orange material of his parka as Stan takes the moment to seriously contemplate if he should.

He resolutely shakes his head, the elder Marsh finally making a smart decision for once in his life. “Nah. We have that test in math, remember? If I fail, my parents are going to beat my ass. Maybe after school.”

My head shoots up from where it was laying against Butters’ shoulder, the blonde rubbing soothing circles into my back as he offers me a pack of snacky cakes for my weed induced hunger. Kenny stops sipping at Tweek’s coffee to sooth his sudden cotton mouth as he and I frantically begin to search for the other’s eyes in panic.

“Oh, shit!”

“Bunch of fucking crackheads, I fucking swear.” Cartman rolls his eyes, mumbling as he rudely snatches the offered snack from Butters’ hands for himself.

“Shut the fuck up, fatass! As if you’re one to talk. An addiction is still an addiction, even if it is food.”

”Yeah, dude. At least we’re not built like an improper fraction.”

“Aye!”

・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑

Dull thuds surround the practice room as the cheer squad practices their tumbling. I sit against the cool glass of the floor to ceiling mirrors that cover the walls, wiping the sweat that has begun to slightly bead at my hairline. Bebe tiredly leans against me and passes me her water bottle when she’s done sipping at it, my hands blindly reaching out until I feel cool metal against my fingers and muttering a small thanks. I drink the ice cold liquid before Wendy calls all of the team up to rehearse the new cheer we just learned, one final time before practice ends.

“We’re back, we’re better. We have no fear! Nothing can stop us, this is our year!” In synchronization we go through the motions of our choreography, making sure our chants are both clear and loud.

“The cows are here; in green, black, and white. We can’t be defeated, so prepare for a fight!” We ruffle our pompoms, before our co-captain is satisfied enough to dismiss us for the day.

Heidi throws an arm around my shoulders, playfully leaning her weight against me in exaggerated tiredness. I fondly laugh as I lightly skim my fingers onto her side, tickling her to force the touch-sensitive girl upright. She begins to pout at her failed mission to get me to carry her exhausted form before Red grabs one of my arms, hugging it to her chest as we make our way to the girl’s locker room.

“Hey, Marsh. You’re close with the guys, right?” I quirk an eyebrow at the redundant question as I stuff my cheer shoes into my gym locker.

Jenny Simons continues despite my lack of a reply. “You think you can bring me up to Craig? Like, put in a good word for me or something?”

She giggles as one of her friends playfully elbows her for her unabashedness and I exchange looks with Bebe, surprised at the girl’s interest.

“Uh.”

“Ooo, Craig Tucker?” Another one of her friends teases as she changes out of her practice shirt.

“Uh, yeah! Have you seen how he is with girls? It’s hot how he ignores them. Imagine someone as cold and unbothered as him giving you the time of the day. I’d die.” The ravenette continues in a dazed voice, fanning her blushing face. The other girls in the locker room exchange mischievous grins at the confession of her crush and they giggle in delight at the lovesick girl.  

No one but Kyle knows about Kenny and Craig confessing to me and our feelings being reciprocated. I’m not quite sure what to say in this awkward situation and before I can even attempt to try to pull something out of my ass, I get a text from Tweek saying that football practice is almost finished.

I let out a sigh in relief at the timing of the message as I excuse myself and head down to the school’s field, thinking about Jenny’s words. When would we tell everyone? It’s still new so I don’t think I’d be comfortable with announcing it until we all found our footing. The boys are still testing out the waters and I don’t want to rush what could potentially be a perfectly good thing, especially if it ends up not working out. And it hurts me to say it, but I’m absolutely terrified of people finding out I’m with two different boys at the same time.

Oh god, how will the boys even react when they find out? What will I do when my brother finds out?

All too soon, I see the back of the bleachers coming up and forcibly stop my thoughts before it can get out of hand. I circle around the structure to take a peek at the practice taking place, not wanting to distract the boys. A shrill blow of a whistle can be heard when I step onto the white-marked grass, the coach barking out directions. From my position, I can see Cartman lazily sprawled out on the floor, his chest rapidly heaving up and down in quick succession.

Typical fatass.

From across the green expanse, I can see Jimmy and Clyde arguing with each other. Tolkien plays devil’s advocate from his position on the floor, smirking up at the bickering in blatant amusement and instigating a fight. Kyle rolls his eyes when the coach yells at them to run a lap in punishment, Clyde fake crying in indignation.

“Y/N!”

Tolkien is the first to spot me, his delighted voice distracts everyone from their laughter at the running boys. All heads turn to my direction and I shyly wave at getting caught, stepping out of my hiding spot.

“Princess!”

Kenny’s yell echoes across the entire field in excitement, the upper half of his blonde hair is tied up and I take a moment to appreciate the sight. If he had been exhausted and depleted of his energy from practice a few seconds earlier, it’s gone now as he begins to sprint to close the distance between us. He hollers as if he hadn’t seen me a few hours prior, a wide grin overtaking his handsome face.

“Ken! Be caref- OOF!” I get cut off as his body roughly collides with mine, his arms immediately wrapping me up and hefting my body into his arms.

I automatically lock my legs around his waist, quickly reaching out to lay my arms around his shoulders. He’s sweaty and grass-stained but I sigh in fondness as he smiles into my neck, slightly squeezing me. He softly coos at my blushing face as he makes a debacle out of the both of us in front of the entire team, my brother rolling his eyes as Clyde sobs my name in the distance.

The amount of happiness in the blonde’s reaction threatens to make me combust on the spot, so filled with love for someone like me. He gently places a large hand on the back of my head, lightly stroking his thumb in my hair in tenderness. The coach takes the loss of interest as his cue to dismiss practice for the day and the boys begin to walk over in our direction.

“Did you see that throw I made?” He eagerly asks me.

Despite being fresh out of practice and unshowered, I deeply inhale his scent. He doesn’t smell like shampoo or clean laundry, but it’s still a scent that makes me feel so close to him. It's a boyish, musky scent that makes him feel like home, so warm in its protective embrace. It’s just so Kenny that makes it so addicting.

“No,” I giggle. “I just got here. But I’m sure it was amazing!”

At my words, I’m rewarded with a searing kiss pressed onto my cheeks. And even when the boys catch up to us, the blonde still doesn’t put me down as they start to make their way back to the boy’s locker room. I feel his fingers start to drum along my side and I start to bite my lips in a futile attempt to prevent my smile from getting even wider than it is now. I shyly wave over the blonde’s shoulder as the boy’s other teammates wave in greeting to me.

“Did you see that, N/N? Jimmy started bullying me but I still got into trouble!” Clyde fake sobs as he makes grabby hands at me. Kenny just rolls his eyes and reaches out a hand to push at the brunette’s sniveling face.

“It’s because you weren’t listening, Jesus!” Tweek tattles from the side.

The barista doesn’t play on the football team like the rest of the boys, instead choosing to pursue boxing from when Stan got our Uncle Jimbo to teach him how to fight when we were younger. On the days he doesn’t have to work at the coffee shop, he’ll sit on the bleachers with Butters to do his homework while the other boys practice.

“It’s okay, Clydey. I’ll buy you dessert, okay?” I soothe the dramatic boy, his theatrics making the rest of the guys push at his body to further “bully” him even more for being a crybaby.

And when we choose our after-practice food spot for the day, I keep my word and buy the brunette an ice cream cone in a flavor to his choosing. I shake my head when he tries to feed me a fry in exchange, bringing my hand up to ruffle his brown locks in thanks for his kindness. In his distraction, Craig takes a lick at his soft serve and I roll my eyes as the brunette whines again, batting the taller teen on the arm.

We sit along the curb of the sidewalk, fast food scattered around us as we talk about our day at school. My brother lights up the joint Kenny and I didn’t finish and I watch the fleeting smoke escape from his parted lips, disappearing into the night sky. When I see the bright stars twinkling overhead in vivid contrast to the darkness around us, I smile.

[for-the-writing-artist]

It's a strange thing. To realize what God wants you to do.

Now, I know what I'll do to support myself (and the options are growing ever more to the horizon), and I know what I want to do. To draw and paint, in any medium existing, from nail art to cake decorations ─ in digital or traditional ─ to build a mosaic or paint a mural; it doesn't matter to me. In a sense, stories a simply another medium to dabble with. I know what I want to do.

But what does God want from me? What could I give to glorify Him in this earth? And if I didn't see it before, well today a hammer struck me upside the head, and I can't find a way to deny it.

It's too simple ─ bordering on ridiculous. And probably the thing that causes most problems in churches.

In life, there are things you love, things the worlds demands you do, and a generally neglected part of your life; which either completes you or is never explored at all. Your vocation, your calling ─ calling, I would only use in a spiritual sense ─ that which is your purpose in life.

And mine is to teach.

So yeah. Pray for me. (I tried doing it myself, with very little effect) By the time this emerges from the queue, I will have completed a total of one serious lesson, so wish me luck!

[immemorymag]

Manfred Moncken was born in Bamberg/Bavaria, studied sculpture at Dresden University of Fine Arts, currently lives and works in Dresden. After graduation from the university Moncken concentrated more on photography. On his solitary journeys and mountain trips, he mostly captured the rough, raw and impenetrable nature. He wanted to feel estranged, isolated, cut by nature and transporting these alienated feelings into his art. Moncken photographed himself with long exposures technique and secluded to the darkest corners of nature by experimenting with capturing his body under low light conditions in plein air by illuminating himself with the weakest possible lighting. Moncken wanted to express the flickering shine of the bodily presence, the momentary transitory existence of human life. Existential philosophers and writers such as Albert Camus, Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett have been influencing Moncken on his artistic path, Alberto Giacometti, Berlinde de Bruyckere,Egon Schiele, Francis Bacon, Dieter Appelt in visual were deemed as role models in the artist's life. Howeverever Moncken launches time to time new projects in sculptural art as well and his images viscerally attaches to textures, forms, details which are emphatic and essential elements of the sculptural language; on a daily basis he is working with camera, his chosen medium for artistic expression is photography. Moncken is an analytic and existentialist artist who creates images mostly resonating with the psychological inner fight of a man who has to cope with the chaos, the moral and physical disintegration of the world, the isolation, estrangement and anxiety of the XI Century man. His art mingled between the abstract flesh art of Francis Bacon, the brutal corporeal truth of viennese actionism and the sophisticated aesthetic of renaissance and baroque paintings. Moncken not just analyses and examines the human body in connection and correlation with nature and trackless forms of landscapes, he is experimenting with his own corpus by pushing and transgressing the physiological and metaphysical limits of the body.The visual display of the body subverted in space, opened, skinned, distorted, mutilated, threw into the void, put under metamorphosis or decay; the body as an endurer of physical violence, holder, bearer, carrier of endless pain and suffering of a humanity provokes and arises serious questions in the recipient's heads on life, death, universe and humankind.

In his series "Beyond the Flesh" the artist tries to connect and interfere with the human body with eternal vastness of landscapes and limitless voids which are distant, secluded and unreachable for human powers by delineating the elusiveness and insurmountable dimensions of the natural world. Moncken is constantly seeking the form to trustworthily and perceivable express the inextricable correlation and the massive contrast, both between the human living organism and his natural environment. According to Moncken, in our modern, digitized and technologically over manipulated world people are largely estranged from their innate naturalenvironment, meanwhile nature is positioned in a transcendental, impervious and unfathomable level. His artistic aim is to endlessly searching the possible connecting thread, the visual interface between the two poles: body and nature, nature and body, and depicting this complex, sometimes paradoxical interrelation by pushing both, the boundaries of the human body and the limits of tactible, cognizable nature by extruding the interpretation the furthest possible with aesthetic and visual expression. He would like to shed the light on the vulnerability and ephemeral existence of humanity, the transient and terminate nature of life.

text by Katalin Pusztaszeri

[dragonsarecool]

June of Doom Day 24 - Bandages

A/N: Sequel to Day 4 Fracture. After awakening on November 13th 1955, Doc tends to Marty's injuries.

Doc had experienced his fair share of horror accidents. Sewing his fingernail into his mother's sewing machine, having his eyebrows singed off, receiving a concussion from wet porcelain; as unusual as they were, most had not been serious or life-threatening, and so he'd persevered with his scientific duties.

One look at Marty's hand was enough to make him nauseous.

If you could call it a hand at this point, that is. The skin of the appendage was so stretched and swollen that it resembled a water balloon more than flesh; most of it had been painted black and blue by an intricate web of bruises, with the deep red hue of burst vessels snaking along where veins had once sat. While the fingertips appeared to be unscathed, the base of each digit had swollen by at least an inch.

"Do I even want to know how this happened?"

Although he wasn't a medical doctor, it had taken approximately three seconds, two loud curses and one attempt to force the hand into a fist to determine it was broken. Marty could barely move his fingertips without complaining of them tingling as he did so, though he claimed it was still an improvement. "Last night I couldn't move them at all."

That's an improvement?! Doc bit back another sigh and tried to keep his voice level. "What happened, Marty?"

The young man stared glumly at the tiled floor of Doc's bathroom. "…Strickland," He admitted quietly. "And a chair." He gingerly placed the damaged extremity on a mostly-defrosted bag of vegetables across his knee and rubbed his suspiciously-red eyes.

"How exactly did you get me home last night? With one usable arm and no pain relief?"

Marty lifted his gaze slightly, the bathroom light doing nothing to improve the obvious lethargy and discomfort in his face. "…I dunno, Doc. A-Adrenaline, I guess?"

"Marty, you shouldn't have gone lifting hundred-pound men with a broken hand-"

"Well, what else was I supposed to do, Doc?! Leave you out on the street? The cops would've thought you were pissed off your face!" Marty suddenly snapped, rising from the edge of the bath that he'd been perched on. "I don't care it had fallen off trying to get you home, it wa-"

Marty trailed off as his legs buckled, being saved from a collision with the porcelain sink by Doc's quick reaction time. His eyes flickered, obviously delirious with pain and exhaustion. "S'rry…I-I need-"

"You don't need to apologise for anything, Marty," Doc struggled to hoist the teenager's dead weight from the awkward position he'd caught him in, wrapping Marty's good arm around his shoulders. "But I do think you need some rest."

"Nuhhh, Doc," Marty slurred. "Y-You're stuck…in the…stuck-"

"My future isn't going anywhere soon, Marty. You are going to have some tylenol and sleep as long as you need to."

Too drowsy to snap back, Marty let out a low groan as he succumbed to the blissful state of unconsciousness. The scientist's heart panged as he delicately carried his best friend upstairs, arranging his limbs carefully on the bed to avoid any chance of him rolling onto the injury and aggravating it. Now is probably a good time to wrap it up without him swearing enough to fill up a jar…

Satisfied that Marty was soundly asleep, Doc sprinted downstairs to acquire supplies, returning to the bedside armed with scissors, a fresh ice pack and half a roll of bandages. WIth a surgeon's precision, he slid the end of the bandage into Marty's palm before beginning the tedious process of wrapping the appendage. Maybe my new nickname should be 'Nurse' after all this…

[spamtonsmakemehappyyy]

So a while later, Copic finally found the KEYGEN.... but it was in a large, foreboding wide cave at the peak of it. One would have to fly..... Due to him defrosting a while ago, he was too weak to reach the very top.... he had to let Bluebell do it. Rushing out of Copic's suit, Bluebell leaped up as high as he could and retrieved the elusive KEYGEN.....before plummeting back down until he landed in Copic's hands... Safely, Copic landed back down onto the ground and let Bluebell nestle into his suit another time, KEYGEN in his hand. It was now time for the basement..... The basement. It was dark, eerie.....ominous as it was lit with a dim light. Multiple tea cups and Queen statues scattered about, emptiness.... Neither of the men knew where to look, that was until they checked one of the digital poles beside a Queen statue.... and a hidden switch made itself known. They heard something opening, walked back out into the mellow red carpet of the castle......and used the KEYGEN. A long and hard trip took place and finally, they were in front of the armor.... but then Copic realized something. He couldn't use the Empty Disk on himself! He had to transfer.... He did feel quite a bit weaker due to the trip, so he looked at Bluebell with a very serious expression.... "WE WILL TRANSFER. MY [[HYPERLINK BLOCKED]]....." "THEN. BLUEBELL. AFTER. THIS IS VERY, VERY IMPORTANT." "PUT. THE DISK. BACK. WHERE YOU GOT IT." *TRANSFER "BLUEBELL!!! HERE I GO!!! BEGIN THE [[Transfer]]" *There's a slot for a disk here. *Insert the LoadedDisk? Bluebell inserted the LoadedDisk without hesitation. He knew how long Copic was waiting to be free, how much emotional and mental trouble, pain and conflict he had been going through even as a Addispam[His emotional breakdown took place even in early years.... when he couldn't get as many sales and never did in the first place he felt useless, like scrap metal.... as if nobody cared. This took place at 19 when all of the Addison crew tried their hand at running a shop.] *You put the disk into the broken down mechanism. *... *Nothing happened. Until Kris walked back into the main hall and was greeted with The Fountain and a hyper aggressive Copic.... No words were spoken. Face to face with his pet tasque's murderer, Copic immediately chose to Fight. He chose violence. These Talking Heads disappeared much later and had sharper fangs, resembling Copic's face. Instead of the phones for hands attack, he thrashed his head back and forth to spray burning, corrosive paint out of his hair.... his hair highlights, once white in color, began to glow in rainbow colors constantly. His fangs showed the whole time and he used his large, powerful wings to push Kris back a bit... just so he could make it even more dangerous for them. This was so aggressive that Kris nearly couldn't call for help and at one point became desperate to escape.... Bloodied, Copic still fought and he fought hard. He sent paint brushes with brush tips as sharp as steel out to attack the lightner. Thinking of his lost tasque, he couldn't stop himself from aggressing....the situation becoming dire for Kris.

[mikasa-imadebiscults]

hiii i'm wondering if i could request a jjk matchup when you have the time! (no rush!! and thank you in advance)

jjk / male (adult) preference / villian types okay as long as they're humanoid

personality traits: introverted (distant, disinterested in getting close to many people, does not get lonely), extremely independent (often refuses to rely on others, hates when people step in to help without me asking), confident (arrogant, a bit prideful), straightforward (blunt, sometimes tactless), even-tempered (somewhat apathetic, rarely has strong emotional reactions, but is baseline content almost always), good sense of humor, playful, teasing, mischievous, realist that leans optimistic, curious (nosey, loves gossip), a bit of a troublemaker/rulebreaker, does not shy away from conflict (a bit combative with authority and people who don’t know what they’re doing), not sentimental, does not hold onto regrets, good at self-reflection, cold and a little mean when upset with someone.

hobbies: video games, watching anime, drawing (digital), painting (watercolor, acrylic), baking, cosplay, reading, taking care of plants, thrill-seeking activities.

likes: cats, sweets, good food, lattes, aromatic candles, cool weather, traveling, piercings, tattoos, puns, lazy days, learning foreign languages, cleaning, new experiences, people with a good sense of humor (quite subjective), when people banter back with me, people who let me tease them, people who develop their own opinions but are still willing to listen to other perspectives.

dislikes: bitter foods, strong scents, pessimism, hot weather, feeling restricted, possessiveness, conformity, having to be responsible for others, when people don’t stand up for themselves (i tend to look down on/clash with people who are overly insecure), overly anxious people, people-pleasers, when people act condescending towards me, people who try to force conversation with me.

types: intj-a ; 7w8 ; love languages: physical touch, quality time.

misc.: clumsy ; accidentally misuses slang or phrases ; able to pick up new skills relatively quickly ; studied french, korean, and latin in uni (also studied abroad) ; majors in international cultures/languages + minors in psychology and medieval history ; prone to being a bit directionless in life ; prone to bad luck but tries to find the humor in most situations ; life approach: to live a life of varied experiences, to not take life too seriously, to not dwell too much on the past

(Hey hey! Thank you so much for being patient! I hope you enjoy this and have a chaotic-ly fun day)

I match you with..

Gojo Satoru

- He likes how independent and confident you are.

- You two will pull mischievous pranks together on the others.

- He thinks it’s hilarious when you misuse slang and will teasingly correct you (while laughing)

- You guys will spend quality time together in a variety of ways such as: playing games together, watching shows together on a lazy-feeling day, going out together (some days he’ll take you somewhere the both of you never been before and other days he’ll take you someplace THRILLING)

- Sometimes he likes to cosplay with you and act like the character he’s cosplaying as.

- When you guys are serious serious in the relationship the both of you will get tattoos together (it could be matching tattoos or not, it’s depends on what you and him wants)

- Puns make him laugh and often times he will try to one-up you to see which person can make the best pun.

- If you want to draw him he will gladly pose for you with the biggest smile on his face (he will be in the most goofiest poses too) but he’ll most likely get bored quickly-

Masterlist

[starsaviour48]

For a request how about Arcee and June hanging out with each other?

Two girl bosses coming right up.

The space bridge opened and a clearly upset and muddy Arcee stepped through it.

"Wow soooo the scouting didn't went well." said Wheeljack while jumping out off Arcee's way.

The blue femme turned around slowly and looked at her team with a murderous glare.

"You think?!? I had had enough doing you guys dirty work!" said Arcee and pointed to Bulkhead and Bumblebee who were the original team that should have done the mission.

"I'm also tired of your remarks like do you always feel the need to point out the obvious?"

It was Ratchet's and Wheeljack turn to be the target off Arcee's rage.

"And you..." Arcee turned to Smokescreen but realised that this time she has nothing on the rookie.

Smokescreen just lifted his servos in defence.

"I will just cross something off the list "Why Arcee is angry at me this time""

"Good."

Optimus turned to Arcee to offer her an olive branch as the human saying goes.

"You should take this day off. You deserve it."

"Damn right I do."

Having the day off is one thing, doing something with it is another. After a good oil bath provided by Bee and Bulk as apology for their overworked teammate she had no idea what to do. She tried to go to the training room but Smokescreen stopped her saying that she has the day off and training isn't the way to spend such a rare opportunity. On one hand she agreed with him but still...

"I heard of a human activity that you should try!"

"You having an idea? You scare me Smokescreen."

"Ha ha ha. I'm starting to think you enjoy bickering with me."

"Believe me I have a better way to spend my time than being in your company."

"Yeah? Like how?"

Arcee opened her intake to answer her teammate but closed it the moment she realised that she had nothing worthy to mention. Still she tried because she was stubborn after all.

"Watching cartoons with Bee, you and the kids. Have you forgotten?"

"No but you must have forgotten that me and Bee literally dragged you with us to watch anything. So no that doesn't count."

Arcee sighed.

"Fine. You win this time. What is that activity you mentioned."

Smokescreen smiled before explaining Arcee the beauty of slumber parties.

"I will...think about it." is all Arcee said before waving goodbye to the younger bot.

June was looking at Arcee who seemed to be out off it. The nurse thought that although Arcee was Jack's guardian they didn't really spoke a lot. Maybe it was time to change that.

"Everything's okay Arcee? You look...lost."

Arcee stopped walking in circles and looked at June.

"Yes of course Miss-"

"Call me June."

"June. Everything's fine. It's just... This will sound weird but do you know how to have a slumber party?"

June blinked up at the femme. Yeah something is definitely up with the serious bot.

"Do you know what a slumber party is Arcee?"

"If I can trust in Smokescreen than yes I know. He said it would be a great way to relax."

June weighted the pros and cons of having a slumber party with a giant alien robot before answering.

"I think I can help with that!"

Arcee looked a little bit confused. At that June raised a brow.

"I was young once too you know."

The Darby house wasn't really unknown for Arcee especially their garage. However all this colorful and eye catching human things made a place look somewhat foreign.

"What colour do you want for your nails?"

"Let's go with pastel pink." hummed Arcee after a little thinking.

June carefully started painting her digits. Arcee didn't really have nails but she said it was okay to paint the end off her digits.

"Sooo do you have a bot you like?"

That question took Arcee off guard. Although Smokescreen told her that human girls mostly talk during this custom but she didn't expected June to ask something like that out off the blue.

"Not really. I mean I had a little crush on Cliff, nothing serious. And you?"

June chuckled at that.

"Well to be honest Mr. FBI agent is quite the looker but I don't think Jack would approve."

"Just give him time. He will accept it."

"You think?"

"He will understand. He loves you more than you can imagine. If you are happy he won't stand in the way of that happiness." smiled Arcee softly.

It was a rare moment they shared and the femme has to admit it was nice. Really nice.

"What do you think off your teammates? You can tell me anything. My lips are sealed." smiled mischievously the nurse.

"Good question."

"Who's your favourite?"

"I have to say Bumblebee. He is like a little brother to me. He has quite the temper and can be childish from time to time but he is a great bot with endless potential."

"Who would you spend a week with?"

"Hmm... Bulkhead I think. He is a good travelling partner and he has a lot of stories. I have to admit that he isn't the sharpest tool in the shed but he means well."

"Who would be your shopping partner."

"Definitely Ratchet. He knows what he needs and he will do it swiftly. He is a really grumpy and straight forward bot but he puts life above all else and I respect him a lot."

"Who is your bff?"

"You wouldn't believe it but after the whole you aren't fit to be an autobot fiasco I would say Smokescreen."

"Really? I thought you guys are... you know...have bad blood between you two."

"Not really. After a long talk provided by Optimus we came to terms with eachother. Since than we like to goship, you wouldn't believe how much info the kid has it's honestly entertaining to listen to all the "beef" in the elite guard. He can be annoying sometimes but he is just a kid after all."

"Who would you live with?"

"Can I say humans too?"

"Sure."

"Than Jack. It's kinda obvious why."

"I'm glad my son has such a great friend like you." smiled June.

"I'm also happy that I met him."

"Next question. Who would you go on a vacation with."

"Wheeljack. He knows how to party and relax. He is also fun to be around. We are the lone wolf companions. Also he has a spaceship so we could visit some interesting planets too."

"What about Optimus and Ultra Magnus?"

"Well they are like the bosses of me so I wouldn't be that comfortable with them as I'm with the others. Although I would definitely go to a museum with Optimus. He has great knowledge on Cybertron after all. But I think I would drink the Cybertronian equivalent of coffee with Magnus."

The rest of the night went with decorating Arcee with various colorful items and chatting. If Arcee showed up tomorrow with a flower crown on her helm and pink digits nobody said a thing.

Bonus:

"Pink is soooo your colour. Have you ever thought on a new paint job?"

"I would paint myself pink but than I would have to constantly explain myself to Ratchet and Optimus as to why I have so much energon on me."

"So you have been walking around the base coverd in energon but because of your base colour we could see it?"

Arcee nodded and Smokescreen chuckled.

"Savage."

[liyazaki]

MOR! My beloved. I can always expect the truth from you. Overall thoughts on Between Us? I know the final ep was not your fave but how about the series? What would you want to keep? What would you want to change?

Eboni, my darling- hoo, boy. you're about to get way more than you bargained for, but I got some Thoughts™️ & some Things™️ to say.

disclaimer: Between Us was a sweet, serviceable, inoffensive show. I mostly enjoyed watching it & I loved being back in the UWMA universe, however tangentially.

speaking to the collective “you” here: if you loved the show from start to finish, I'm sincerely happy for you! if it'll lessen your BU fandom experience to read critiques- which is valid & completely understandable- click away. I swear I'm not trying to rain on your parade (or argue with anyone, which I won't be- period).

also, let's check ourselves: this is a show. it's not that serious- it couldn't be less serious, actually. sometimes I just like to go off the analytical deep end...it's a good time for a nerd like me. this is my house (my blog) & I'm just having fun, throwing digital paint around.

with all that out of the way, let's jump into it.

UWMA set an extremely high narrative standard. we knew from scene one the writers weren't messing around. that opening is burned into my memory forever.

from compelling flashbacks, to multiple couples that had something for everyone, to little plot details weaved in from the beginning that only made sense later- they knew exactly what story they were trying to tell & they told it in a big way. it was tightly constructed, cleanly delivered and hit all the right notes for me personally.

UWMA is a tough act to follow. in the end, it felt like Between Us barely tried. to quote an MDL reviewer (before the finale even aired): in with a bang, out with a whimper.

step one of any good story is solid character development. it's what draws us in, making & keeping us emotionally invested. we have to like these characters- and know enough about them- in order to care. that- and a good, solid plot- is what sustains our attention.

in a pretty atypical way, Between Us had serious emotional fan investment long before it had basically any character development (thanks to BounPrem's chemistry, IMO).

Win and Team had roughly 31 minutes of total screentime in UWMA, but you'd have never known it from the fever-pitch fandom support years before its release. we didn't have much real character knowledge or depth to go off of, but many of us came into this show ravenous for more of their story (raises hand).

the show's over now and, disappointingly, I don't feel like I learned much about either Win or Team that I didn't already know. we did see them struggle- Team with his guilt and insecurities; Win with his vague intimacy aversion and self worth issues.

Team and Win had plenty of things between (heh) the two of them to overcome- so what went wrong?

for me, Between Us suffered from a tragic case of barely-scratching-the-surface character development (there was so much there to play with narratively & yet- sigh), paired with serious flaws in the rising action.

every single story in existence uses rising action. to quote Henry of The Closer Look, a media analyst I like: "rising action is basically narrative tension. it's the way the conflict builds as the story goes along."

when a story utilizes rising action effectively, the audience ends up feeling almost elated by the end. it's almost like we actually went on the same journey as the characters, and we now get to bask alongside them in just how far they've come. we want to see characters we care for improve, persevere. overcome, conquer.

when rising action is handled correctly, the plot progression looks something like this.

via Henry's excellent analysis on why TLOU2 divided its fandom so thoroughly

Between Us had tension, it had conflict- but it looked something like this (I'd add way more hills, personally).

"what you're seeing here is an abomination of story structure." hey- Henry said it; not me.

the conflicts went up and down throughout the story. Team internally spirals; Win does something sweet and pulls him out of it. everything seems fine; Win pulls back.

rinse, wash, repeat in an endless cycle, made worse by the fact that they struggled with- and apparently overcame- the same. exact. issues, over and over, the entire time.

conflicts that seemed to be resolved came back exactly as they were, sometimes multiple times in a single episode. by episode 7 or so, it was getting tedious. by the end, I was just bummed.

for me, watching Between Us was going around in circles, hoping we were working towards some actually-important climax that never came. and I wanted to believe we were going somewhere, right up until the bitter beige-on-beige end.

there were no scenes that actually made me hold my breath, ala Bad Buddy’s confession-of-legends on the rooftop. no repeating themes, masterfully culminating in the finale (running up the cape in ITSAY). Between Us left me with an itch for depth and impact that only fan fics can scratch at this point (bless you writers).

yeah, Win and Team ended up together- of course they did. I don't think anyone had any doubts they would eventually. but standing at the finish line, do I care that they ended up together?

I hate to say it, but- not really. they didn't give me enough to make it feel meaningful- like it actually meant something. it just- is. yay? I guess?

this post was brutal enough, but to answer your question about what I'd keep & what I'd change? it's hard to pick when the whole thing just felt like special episodes (filled with lots of cute, sweet moments, to be fair) with an enormous dash of missed opportunity.

all in all, I don't regret watching but it's a universe I'll only be returning to via fan fic fixes- and UWMA, my forever top 3 BL beloved.

[hihimihwa]

Did Love2DrawMaga's Pause OC Challenge! Usually I pause on them and then don't go through with drawing, but I really liked what I ended up with!

FJDKSLF:DSJ this was supposed to come last week but uh uhhh I HAD FUN DRAWING THIS!! I barely have any excuse to draw characters with more animal like features- LIke I'm not gonna settle for just catgirls and catboys, it said the species is CAT. I tried for a hybrid, but it kept choosing Human the other two times and.. oh I guess I could just draw a cat boy. oh well.

He was kinda tricky to really express masculinity to. Soft eyes and long majestic hair, how was I supposed to work with that qwq

Anyway- Special announcement, I got my website set up! I'm gonna put up digital prints of old illustrations I like too, but while waiting for that, what scenes from my video would you want available in my store? Someone said they were willing to buy a high quality print of a scene in my Meteor Shower amv, and I happened to be working on selling my art.

$1 - Original(Not fully rendered)(all 10 scenes)

$2 - Fully Rendered(1kp)(1 scene)

$5 - Remastered and Fully Rendered(4kp)

$10 - Frame Animated(Looped vid, 1kp)

$15 - Tween Animated(Looped vid, 4kp)

$20 - Bundle of all 5(of the scene of your choosing)

I'll only choose around like, 10 scenes to sell? I don't want to milk this too much, I know I've said I spent half a year, but in the end, this video was free for all to see and I'm gonna upload content(albeit slowly) that could satisfy you just as much as the people paying. Also, Cavetown's song carried half of the video, i don't wanna get in trouble 😭

If you're really serious about supporting me though, I'm free to sell scenes that aren't in store! Adjustments will cost similarly to commissions since they're personal,(except org, the prices are 2x the list above)

As per the OMORI fan-work policy, I'll only be selling the raw projects to 10 buyers, not by demand.

Now for the most expensive thing to mention on this post. How much do you think the raw files of my Meteor Shower video are worth? I set the ceiling price of the whole thing as $1k, but would you want the raw files of separate sections?

Ibis Paint X - (654 files + raw files(haven't counted them yet)

Krita - (41 files)

Filmora - (26 files)

Bundle - (725 files)

[dramatisperscnae]

Headcanon - Kyle Rayner

Age and Appearance

Kyle is somewhere in his mid-20s

He stands at 5’11”, weighing in at 175lbs; his build is slender and reasonably toned, but nowhere near the extent of most other superheroes.

He keeps his black hair mostly short, if a bit shaggy on top. His eyes are a dark greenish brown.

Kyle generally favors comfortable clothing, and generally things that won’t be hurt too badly by things like pastels and graphite smudges. The only thing that fits him like a glove is his Green Lantern uniform; everything else fits, but usually looks like he bought it at a thrift store. Which he probably did.

Personality

Through most of his life Kyle has generally had his head in the clouds, taking a largely lackadaisical, carefree approach to life. Since being given the Green Lantern ring his irresponsibility has eased up quite a bit, but he still has a tendency to slack off or put off things that he really probably shouldn’t. Outside of his work as a Lantern Kyle still has a little more difficulty than he’d care to admit with actually getting – and keeping – his priorities in the right order.

Due to the circumstances behind his receiving his ring, and the rather long shadow cast by his predecessor Hal Jordan, Kyle still occasionally struggles with insecurity. He’s sure of his position and his right to bear the ring and the title, he’s just not sure he can actually live up to the reputation Hal left behind.

Kyle is a stubborn son of a bitch who refuses to back down when he’s sure he’s in the right. This can – and has – resulted in serious trouble, but it’s also saved his bacon more than once, considering his ring draws its power from its bearer’s will.

As an artist, Kyle often sees beauty in places others might not. When not actively on duty it’s not uncommon for him to have a sketchbook and pencil on-hand in the event of sudden inspiration or if he sees something he really wants to draw.

He’s an absolute pop culture nerd. Movies, comics, books, anime, video games; when he has spare time that’s not being used for creative pursuits he’s probably busy enjoying something geeky.

Abilities [taken from the Fandom wiki page; I know, I know, they’re shitty, work with me here]

Green Lantern Ring Mastery: Kyle's constructs are among the most powerful ever recorded for a Green Lantern. They are also much more elaborate, often fading into view like a sketch refined into an illustration, and tend to be far more imaginative as well. Most notably, Kyle’s ring is unaffected by the color yellow, and does not need to be recharged daily. It also does not work for anyone else, even former Lanterns; Kyle is the only one able to wield his ring.

Master Artist: Kyle is a skilled and creative artist. He has been an artist since he was born and has an equally long history of creativity. He has drawn, painted, sculptured, photographed, inked, colored, designed, and created thousands of works of art with or without his ring.

Indomitable Will: Like many Green Lanterns, he possesses an incredibly strong will. He has been able to resist Queen Bee's hypnotic pollen (through some coaxing from Huntress) which no one has been able to resist in the past. In addition, Mageddon tried to disable his ring but the Ultimate Warbringer was no match for Kyle's will.

Miscellaneous

Kyle’s favorite art style is Art Deco

He continues to work as a freelance artist and graphic designer.

Kyle can work with digital tools, but he will always prefer physical media for his artwork. It's just more satisfying for him.

He is an absolute hopeless romantic

One of his favorite video game characters is Kitagawa Yusuke from Persona 5. It’s an artist thing.

Kyle is fluent in Gaeilge, thanks to his mother's upbringing and insistence. He keeps it up out of habit more than anything else.

[kamipyre]

The newspaper is pleasant in Patrick's hands: always a fan of analog over digital - but never in a way that would paint him as anything but a relaxed nostalgic, as opposed to a fanatic. No, he just likes to feel things.

He flicks at the corners, scans the front and barely frowns at all the lovely murder news that make out most of what people speak of today. Bare bones interest fades into curiosity and when Patrick hands the newspaper back to the forensic scientist, he accompanies it with the question: "True crime. Yes or no?"

And an attentive gaze.

"What do you think of it?"

((i wanted to send Patrick in bc i needed EVERY excuse to throw more at Suki but why is he so LOW ENERGY ALWAYS, have an interesting conversation topic i would have otherwise asked as hc question for Suki at one point HEHEHE~))

that doesn't sound like a boston accent... ( ft. unprompted w/ @mythvoiced )

IT’S THAT PERSON AGAIN. The one that dropped by the precinct on a whim. She almost doesn’t recognize him from the previous time even if he is once more in a suit…he can’t be from around here; most people in LA don’t bother dressing up. Or if they do, it’s never just a plain old suit­– Suki would know; Los Angeles is supposed to be the city of celebrities and influencers. How the New Yorkers at Wall Street do it, even in the summer, is beyond her.

Anyways. This guy must be from the Northeast, Boston, maybe. It would explain the clipped tone. And the self-assurance, too, as if he’s asking a very serious question…and she ought to know about it too.

( She doesn’t, by the way. She doesn’t even know his name…so far she’s been calling him the ‘Wolf Suit Man’, not to be mixed up with Detective Lang. )

But she takes the newspaper­– the LAPD gets them for free anyways– back and deciding he’s a much more interesting subject than headlines for today, tilts her head. Odd question to ask someone in law enforcement.  And then she shrugs. “I’ve never tried it– I already see it in my job every day. Why would I want to bring it home?” She looks him in the eye– icy blue, as if they are from the glaciers of the Ice Age itself– “If it’s a matter of learning self-defense, I already have people I can ask. Why? Do you like true crime? I thought you weren't a fan of crime or of law enforcement!”

[christophercant]

AI doesn’t have to be the enemy: Future-Proofing your Art Career Part 3

AI art, very appropriately named “Conversation with the Demon”

This is part 3 of my AI art series, originally posted on Christophercant.com.  If you aren’t caught up, here’s Part 1: AI is coming, and here’s Part 2: How to Compete against AI.

For the past few months, if you only sat in certain parts of the twittersphere, you might be led to believe that AI is an aberration, come to rob us of our jobs and our meaning, and slowly replace all of human creativity with homogenous grey sludge. 

And if you've read my previous articles about AI art, you might think I share that opinion.

But I can see some ways that AI might actually be able to help us artists - and not in a painful compromise, but in a liberating way.

No, I'm not talking about generating AI artwork and painting over it. If that's what you want to do, knock yourself out.

I’m talking to the people who want to paint for a living, who want to spend their day drawing, and feel like their dream has just dissolved in front of their eyes.

Because I want to paint, and I have dreams, and I’m not ready to drop them.

“Just paint over AI art”

Alright, I‘m going to have to address this straight away.  Perhaps it’s a serious suggestion to learn how to write good prompts for AI art generators, correct the mistakes, and sell the results to clients.

So let’s look at what I think painting over AI art for a living would look like:

Many projects utilising AI art will only require a single human artist, so you are a one-person department.  You meet with the other departments to discuss what art is required for the project.

You write a little description of the content you want to generate, and feed that into the AI. The AI spits out some images and then you tell it what it misunderstood, got wrong, or should adjust.  The AI tries again with these new parameters; repeat this until you decide that the AI can’t get closer to what you want, and you take the best version of the art into Photoshop or whatever software you diddle about with.

Saving loads of time by generating some AI art and painting over it! Weeeeee!

You present the finished art to the rest of the team, and help it get integrated into the project properly.

For many projects the art will be complete within just a few months, so your part in the project ends and you hop to another project, and do it all again.

Did you spot the part where the artist gets to make art?  The AI makes 90% of the artistic compositional choices, and you only actually put on your artist hat when the AI fucked something up - which will be less and less often, as the AI improves and you get better at ordering it about.

The rest is management - you’re not an artist, you’re a manager.  You’re outsourcing the art to a robotic freelancer.  The closest you might be able to call yourself is an Art Director.

There will be very little of you in generated art, very little of your perspective, of your personality and your narrative, of the stories you tell with your art.

If you want to do that, knock yourself out - but my dreams don’t look like this.

But how else can artists benefit from AI then?

Since AI is great at doing a single task very efficiently, it’s specialists that are the ones threatened by it - if you perform like a robot, you’ll get replaced by one - and that includes digital artists.

In truth, we are all probably going to have to shift toward the manager role and outsource tasks to AI to stay employed, but you don't have to outsource your art.

Outsource the rest.

If you’re employed as an artist then your art is part of a product pipeline, and there are multiple other components required to create the finished product besides your art. Use AI to handle those other parts.  If you own and run the whole product pipeline, you’re no longer dependent on getting hired.

Don't replace yourself with AI; replace your employers with AI.

AI doesn’t only create digital art; it researches, writes, makes music, voice narration and sound effects, animates, codes, creates video, among a myriad more things yet to be revealed.

By leveraging AI, you’ll be able to build much larger projects than just the individual pieces of visual media you can create as a lone artist.  Animations, comic books, card games and illustrated novels all become much easier with some AI employees. Feature-length films and massive videogames made by a single creator will become commonplace.

Dust: An Elysian Tail, made by 1 developer, Dean Dodrill, in 2012.  Expect to see projects like this happen a lot more with AI on the scene.

The necessary tools are appearing already

We already know about the AI art tools, and I’m sure all of us are familiar with ChatGPT by now and the sorts of things it can do - basically, if you want to write anything, it’ll help you get it done.

There are other tools showing up that can simplify the majority of the product pipeline - from concept, to production, to marketing, to customer support.

Here’s a recent video by entrepreneur Alex Hormozi, talking about AI tools he may be able to integrate into his business, reducing workload or offering new angles for content production:

His video is a little gimmicky, and I'm not convinced he plans on actually adopting any of those particular tools into his business, but it does demonstrate the potential use cases of AI when running a business.

From making art to making complete products

As an example closer to home, let’s ponder fantasy and science fiction artists and how AI might be able to help them.  If they are being employed by a company to make art, usually their art is some part of a film, video game, pen and paper game, board games, card game, illustrated book, or a book cover.

AI will probably be able to reduce your workload in every phase of making each of those products.

Need to expand and polish your product’s concept?  ChatGPT is actually alright for bouncing ideas off and doing basic research, and a similar AI called Jasper.ai is really, really good at riffing off of your inputs and going in wacky, unexpected directions.  I bet all text AIs are decent at it.

Need to produce a hell of a lot of writing or coding for your product?  ChatGPT can handle that too.

If you haven't tried out chatGPT yet, it's actually interesting to play with and find its limits, and there are ways it can help you that don't feel like you're secretly just ripping plagiarised content from some poor writer struggling to make ends meet.

Need to create animated characters from your artwork?  Here's a video of someone quickly mapping a 2d portrait onto a fully rigged 3D model and using their phone’s camera to animate it:

If you’re open to the idea, and I get it if you aren’t, you could train an image AI on your art, to produce more work in your style you can utilise in your project.  I’m not sure where I sit with that particular use case, but it will be possible.

I've not tried it yet, but I expect you'll be able to use AI to test out game mechanics very efficiently, much more efficiently than playtesting every idea.

And of course there are AI to generate sound effects, music and other audio.

Marketing

If being a professional artist was a pie, then making art would be one half of that pie, with a tasty fruit filling.  Apple and cinnamon or something.  Marketing would be the other half, filled with shit.  Currently if you want to be a successful artist you have to eat that whole pie, shit and all, but with AI we might be able to get it to handle a lot of marketing for us, reducing the amount of shit left on our plate.

Creating articles and YouTube videos is a great way to generate long term passive traffic for your projects, and ChatGPT is also great at helping with those, whether it's helping you do research, plan a script, or provide alternative ways to phrase something.

It’s also great at covering its ass!

It's also a dab hand at writing good copy to accompany your products and help you get sales, and can easily shorten whole ideas into short, snappy tweets.  And if English isn't your first language, it's really good at translating and fixing mistakes.

QuillBot is also fantastic at helping you rephrase your writing, and I’ve used it to summarise things I’ve written, expand my notes into fuller paragraphs, simplify the language, and to add creative flair to the fictional stories I’ve been writing now and then (no, nothings public yet).

I came across MeetEdgar a couple of years ago, a social media scheduler that parses through blog posts on your site, pulls out snippets of text and images, and schedules them to be posted to your social media accounts at the times your account gets the most engagement.  All you need to do is confirm you are happy with its plan.

I only tested it out briefly when I found it, but I’ve dug it out again recently with the intent of using it properly, now that I’m relying on articles a lot more than I was at the time.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I'm going to be searching for more of these tools and compiling a portfolio of similar software, and sharing my findings with you guys.

Using apps like these, and the ones yet to be created, you'll be a one-man creative force.  You'll just need a vision, a passion for making art, and the willingness to manage your AI workforce.

The possibilities for a single entrepreneurial mind will go exponential - sat by yourself in your bedroom, you’ll have the creative potential of a whole studio.

The rise of the solo-preneur

As far as I can tell, the ‘solo-preneur’ is going to be the future of many creative professions.  In many ways it’ll be the best avenue for digital artists, as being employed as an artist becomes less and less viable.

In the wider world, many artists already are solo-preneurs; oil painters selling their work in galleries, YouTubers and streamers sharing their expertise and insights, T-shirt illustrators, Skillshare teachers, Patreon…

Freelancers and employed artists are probably going to have to go join them.  Hopefully AI will be able to help us get there, without it poisoning the very markets we are trying to enter.

Of course, you'll have to learn a little about many disciplines - enough to be able to spot shortcomings in the various AI outputs and improve them, but if you really want to make this career work it'll be a small price to pay.

At the risk of coming across venomous, even with the potential of AI at people's fingertips, most won't make anything with it.  Most people just want to seek comfort and consume media; only the few are driven to create, even when it’s made extremely easy for the many.

So while I’ve made fun of AI art a little bit during this post, I would advise you not to ignore AI completely and to keep an eye on the tools that appear.  They may help you stay competitive, and even ahead of the curve, moving forward.

If you combine your genuine passion and enthusiasm for creating art, with AI tools to handle other parts of your business, you may end up living that dream you wanted for yourself.

Perhaps the AI future isn’t as scary as it might seem

I can’t really give you a spot-on plan to prepare for what’s coming.

It's hard to predict exactly how AI will be applied in the future and what it will be capable of, as we are probably near the beginning of this thing.  It's simply too hard, and I’m not informed enough, to guess what tools might appear.

But I’m pretty sure that now is the time to think big.  AI is going to simplify many tasks, and drastically reduce the manpower required to make large scale products.  If you aren’t thinking big by then, you’re going to be left behind.

You’re going to have to generalise your skills a bit and learn to plan larger projects, but you’ll still be able to concentrate on your art and make it the unique centrepiece of the things you make.  Think something like 80% art, 20% other crap.

If that sounds a bit like a shitty deal, I can tell you that I’ve purposely generalised my skills a bit in the last few years, and I actually enjoy myself more now.

I used to just paint fantasy and mythology imagery.  I chose to generalise by learning to write and web design, but as it turned out I use both of those new skills to celebrate my love of art, fantasy and mythology even further by building complete websites and products.

My love for art and fantasy now feels even deeper, and my expertise in them much more rounded - much fuller.

I feel like I’m working on more important things now, because of their scale and ambition, and their potential impact - and this was recently made much more plausible with AI assistance.  I might have to pivot a few times as things develop, but I think there's a viable path forward.

I get it if you're feeling cynical about all of this.  If you feel like the career you were looking forward to has been snatched away from you, I empathise with you. I’ve felt the same way a few times in the last 6 months.  

I genuinely wish you the best of luck and I hope you don’t give up - there will always be a way to live as a full-time artist, and I hope you continue to pursue that dream, no matter the obstacles that appear in front of you.

Your humanity will act as a beacon to draw people in, and your perseverance will keep them inspired and invested.

This was going to be the last article in this little AI series, but I’ve realised I need to write one last article after this, and perhaps the most important - “Dont give up”, coming soon.

This article was originally posted on Christophercant.com