#well i suppose we'll see

[softgrungeprophet]

every day i go "maybe i should kill off xyz character" and then i go "but what if they could live instead"

[shopwitchvamp]

So as gauche as it's gonna be, I'm gonna be back to posting & boosting preorders despite everything :[ Like especially because I have all these amazing guest artists who put their hard work into designing for this set & have entrusted me with their artwork.. I don't want to let them down by having the collection fall flat. I wish I'd chosen different timing for these preorders but unfortunately there wasn't realistically any other time that would work since we'll be moving early next year. I hope you'll all understand that I've gotta keep trying to push forward. Thanks as always for your support, everyone 🖤

[duskerot]

i disappear inside myself / my friends don't know it can't be helped

[Pure You - Nothing But Thieves]

[reineydraws]

wanted: marine hunter takanome mihawk

[nightskylonging]

Installment five

[skitskatdacat63]

"From triumph to failure is but one step."

+ the usual

I love when I can include paper sketches in the process gif. It's very satisfying to see it progress from a very vague imagining of what was in my head to the finished project.

+ version without text

My favorite sketch was definitely the one where I actually put in words what it's supposed to convey. I wouldn't usually write that down, cause it's all in my head, but it was useful to do so when sending it to other people. I'll go into it more but here it is just as a teaser:

Lmao first of all, I like how I was teasing "Spanish GP" art, but as per usual, it's just thinly veiled au art. IM SORRY, I'M NOT INTERESTED IN MAKING GENERAL POSTERS, THAT'S NO FUN! So instead you will get weirdly relevant matador au art. I like it a lot though, I was really shocked I was able to draw 3 different Fernandos, I mean even drawing one figure takes a lot out of me, but this was weirdly easy?? I think it's just the effect of not being burnt out anymore, and actually being able to draw with more ease makes me feel like a god.

Okay, so the text: "Fight or Flight?" I'll be honest, I don't even remember why I chose it, literally came to me in a vision 😭 But I think it's fitting with the narrative of this piece. Is it better to keep going on, keep fighting, or better to finally give up, and flee? Not that I even remotely think he should give up, but I feel like sometimes I can sense him pondering this very question. That was the big fear before he announced that he re-signed. Keep fighting and maybe, just maybe, you'll get the chance to finally go up against the bull again. Or accept it's an uphill battle and the fighting is going to keep getting more and more strenous, and maybe it's time to put down the sword. SORRY THIS IS SO ANGSTY FOR WHAT'S SUPPOSED TO BE "yayyyy home race!!!" Please forgive me <3

I. Renault

At some point, someone pointed out to me that I had drawn all other iterations of matador Fernando with a sword, except for Renault Fernando, and that ended up feeling very poignant to me. In a bull fighting match, they really only pull out the sword at the last minute to deliver the killing blow. So I think it's important to never draw this Fernando with a sword, because it shows the unfailing confidence and stability he has at that point. He only needs to pull out the sword at the end, as a formality almost, there's no reason for him to keep his guard up at all times.

II. Ferrari

Meanwhile this Fernando, he's considering his sword like he hasn't had to in the past. He's checking the sharpness, making sure in advance he can do what needs to be done. He's on guard, he feels like he needs to keep up his defenses at all times because he doesn't have that same amount of trust and stability anymore. He knows though he will be up against the (red) bull, at least that's never in question. At least there's the assurance he'll get the chance to fight.

III. Aston

Oh, Aston Fernando....He doesn't know whether to take up his sword or finally put it down for the last time. While at least Ferrari Fernando knows he's on constant guard against the bull, this Fernando doesn't even have that assurance anymore. He feels like he can never put down the sword, just in case he gets the chance to strike the killing blow on the bull, which feels like it's growing more and more unlikely.

Spanish flag: ? Lmao this was meant to be something to celebrate Fernando's home race and it turned very introspective whoops. Also got the Napoleon quote in there hahaha, can't escape it!! Shame though there is no French gp anymore, if so I'd probably draw an unhinged thing for it :,(

[shinythingsarecool]

NAME DROPPP

Kinda odd that it's specifically them tho - considering that a lot of people have worked there over the years, why them?

[ihamtmus]

.

[quackle]

SIGHHHHHHH i miss judgmental nichaxel ☹️ guys ☹️ i miss them ☹️ nichaxel ☹️☹️☹️

[itsjaywalkers]

guys i got home really late and . kinda drunk . so my friend convinced me to call in sick tomorrow (i've never done it not even when i was actually sick) so i texted my manager, the one who's on shift tomorrow and i'm hoping for the best........... wish me luck?

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

the xenogender flag is exactly one pixel off center and i don't know how to fix this

[lunarharp]

you can now buy my little orufrey zine i made!

a 36 page, b&w a5 amateur zine made up of orufrey art i've drawn this year so far. alone is £6 + shipping and they can also come with a mini print add-on, a 4x6 photo print for £8.50 total.

the first 6 orders will come with a free official bromide :)

[skeletoninthemelonland]

I'm putting BTC Ballora and Springtrap in a room and record them while they chat

[we-were-so-beautiful]

3. taxi

oh man, this one FOUGHT me y'all. so much cutting and pasting. I am not even kidding when I say that everything that happens in this chapter was supposed to be part of the last one, and I gave up and cut that one off early because I was sick of trying to finish this part. and now this is my longest chapter yet. you know, out of all three of them. at 1.3k. lol. I am not, how do you say, fast. but I was hoping I'd be able to get a chapter written over christmas, and I'm really proud of myself for finishing it!

Content warnings for this chapter: box boy universe, pet whump, dehumanization, cage mention, rampant classism. As always, please tell me if there's anything else I need to tag.

[masterlist] [chapter two] [chapter four]

“Okay I know they’re supposed to be expensive but what can you possibly be charging this much money for.”

“Adoption fees are to offset the cost of room, board and medical care while at the facility,” the employee parrots, without so much as the decency to look ashamed. 

“He does not look like he has had literally any of those things while he’s been here. Or possibly in his entire life.”

“Ma’am, if you cannot afford the adoption fee, then you cannot adopt a Pet.”

“Oh, I can afford it,” Vanessa growls, handing over a very shiny credit card before her mouth can get her in enough trouble to stop the employee from taking it. She bites her lip until she tastes copper to keep from saying, I’d just rather put it towards something that isn’t blatantly and obviously going right back into Worldwide Rehabilitative Un-fucking-limited’s pockets despite the fact that this is supposed to be a goddamn government facility.

Harm reduction, she reminds herself. Paying extortionate fees to kill shelters is still harm reduction. It’s the unsavory truth, but it doesn’t make the blood in her mouth taste any sweeter.

“Sign here,” the woman says, handing her credit card back along with a digital pad and stylus, and Vanessa cracks her wrist before she takes them. It’s sore and snapping like a glowstick from the mountain of paperwork she’s already been made to sign since the employee unceremoniously hauled the man on the floor behind her down from his double-high-stacked wire crate. She can’t decide whether to consider it an obscenely large amount, or an obscenely little one for all that it represents.

She can’t think about it too hard. Can’t draw too much of her own attention to the fact that she’s really doing this, or she might just run screaming back out into the grey-tinted autumn afternoon, and then where would this guy be? 

She scribbles her name on the touchpad, and just like that… it’s done.

—

“Don’t forget your leash and collar,” the employee reminds her.

“I won’t be using those,” Vanessa says, with all the imperious rich-lady self-assurance she can fake.

“You will if you don’t want to be liable for civil and/or criminal penalties up to and including the permanent forfeiture of your right to Pet ownership,” the woman drones like she’s rattling it off from a handbook, and nobody has the right to own a person but even Vanessa knows better than to argue the system with someone who literally works for it.

She grinds her teeth as she takes the lengths of bulky blue nylon from the woman. She crouches beside the man, who’s bent himself into an odd kneeling fetal position on the cold tile floor. “Sorry,” she whispers as she slides the coarse material around his throat, feeling his pulse beat harsh and rapid underneath. She hopes she’s being quiet enough that the employee won’t hear her talking to him like a person—because he is a person, goddamnit—but she knows better than to trust her own volume. Best if she can get the fuck out of here with him now, before she makes a mistake.

She really doesn’t want to lead this dude crawling down the street like an animal. Doesn’t want to imagine what people will think. But she asks him, “Can you stand?”, and he makes a sound like a choking dog, and so much for both their dignity, she fucking guesses.

“Ugh, fine, whatever, just… come on.”

—

Fuck standing, the guy can barely support himself on all fours. His joints threaten to buckle at every step as Vanessa urges him out onto the chilly sidewalk. Coat of dirt aside, he’s got nothing on him but a pair of boxers as filthy as he is and that godawful blue collar, and when his bare skin meets the frigid pavement his body clenches so hard she can practically hear his teeth slam shut.

She looks at the unwashed man before her, shivering hard enough to rattle his bones in the cold October air. Looks at her thick brown coat. Ugh, she likes this coat, the lining is stitched in in all the right places to keep the texture of the shell from making her want to climb out of her own skin and no amount of dry cleaning in the world is going to convince her to put it on again once it touches… whatever the fuck is all goddamn over this guy. She sighs and shrugs it off.

Fuck fuck fuck it’s cold. She’s shivering herself in just plain blue jeans and her second favorite Cure t-shirt. But a million “if you’re cold, they’re cold!” memes flash through her mind and she grumbles aggrievedly and drapes the wool coat over his massive, gaunt frame. This dude has like a foot on her standing, she remembers when the lapels will barely pull around his shoulders. She’s gonna have to shake Austin down for clothes.

God, it feels beyond fucked up to have a person on a leash, and it doesn’t help that the cheap blue nylon feels plasticky in her hand and she hates the texture. She can’t imagine how much worse it must feel around the throat of the shuddering man before her. She’s taking the damn thing off him as soon as she gets him home, she’ll get him a better one if Roselle can’t find her a loophole and she absolutely fucking has to, but when the fifth or sixth cab passes her by without even slowing down she starts to wonder how the hell she’s going to get him home at all.

—

“You want to go to the corner,” the employee says boredly, not so much as looking up from her newspaper when Vanessa shoulders her way back through the door.

“You what?” Vanessa echoes.

“The corner. Better if you go another block or two, even. Cabs don’t stop in front of the shelter.”

Of course they don’t, Vanessa thinks. 

She hipchecks the door back open and returns to the stupid goddamn hitching post they so conveniently provide along the front wall of the shelter, where she’s awkwardly strung up the loop of the stupid blue leash. “Hey, uh, dude? I’m gonna go up the street a bit, okay, I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

He barely acknowledges that he’s heard her, curled back up under her coat in that same odd position with his forearms tucked into his chest. “...not that you would,” she adds dubiously, before power-walking away to the next block.

Vanessa hisses through her teeth in the bleak grey air and rubs at her goosebump-riddled arms, but true to the employee’s disaffected word it’s only a matter of minutes this time before a cab driver catches her wave and pulls over. “Thanks,” she says as she tumbles in. “I’m going back to the Heights. Need to pick someone up first, though. Just on the next block.”

The driver looks skeptical, but he rolls down the quiet street all the same—until he clocks the shelter just as Vanessa tells him to stop. “No. Nuh uh. No way. I don’t let Pets in my cab.”

“I’ll double your fare. Up front.”

The driver shakes his head, staring revulsed in the direction of the hitching post. “Not worth all that crud on my seats.” Oh. Great. He’s seen him.

“What if I cover the seats. Newspaper.”

The driver sizes her up with a calculating gaze, one elbow propped on the back of his seat, and somewhere in the middle of wanting to punch him for looking at her she finds herself wishing for once that she’d dressed… richer. Finally, he grouses, “Triple fare. And the meter’s runnin’ while ya cover ‘em.”

“Fine,” Vanessa spits, and sprints out with the door wide open before he has time to change his mind.

She barges into the shelter one last time, hopefully the last fucking time in her life if she has any say in it. Leaning over the counter, with a grin that’s probably a little too smug for her to be proud of, she snatches the newspaper directly out of the apathetic employee’s complicit hands.

-

taglist: @maracujatangerine @pigeonwhumps @tragedyinblue @marchtothefuckingsea @octopus-reactivated @briars7

[pushing500]

I am sorry if I am backseating but a lot of people are somewhat confused and don't know enough about ghouls to consider even having them BUT: when the colony has raw meat or corpses easily accessible for example in a freezer the ghouls will eat them automatically without you having to micromanage them (they will even hunt small animals in close proximity), you will get a critical warning if a ghoul is starving and they don't care about moralities of *certain* meats (raiders)

Oh, I didn't know that! I suppose if they can manage themselves well enough, it might be worth getting one or two. Mechi is definitely not built for melee combat, and none of his mechanoids are either. Plus, ghouls are fun to draw, so I'll have to look into it!

Also, don't worry about backseat gaming. I'm always ready to hear advice and tips! <3

[somelazyassartist]

I really do love being outside.